Category: Life

now’s your chance. The price isn’t going any lower, and once the book is sold out, it’s gone for good – there’ll be no reprint. Also, you can have it sent via Priority Mail ($6, 2 – 3 days) or Media Mail ($2, slow boat to China (can take up to 30 days, but doesn’t usually)). We’re a full-service company, yes we are. That, or we just want to get rid of the rest of the damn things. The loan we took out to pay for the publication of the book is now paid off, and all we want to do is get our house back, with no stacks of books taking up place in the library. The cats will probably be pretty pissed that they’ll no longer be able to get up on top of the bookcase, though. Perhaps I can convince Fred to build them a little staircase… (Probably not)

* * * So, I had my annual visit to the gynecologist yesterday. I had actually been looking forward to this instead of dreading it as I usually do, because Seasonale became available in October (November?), and ever since I started seeing blurbs about it in magazines a few years ago, I’ve been seriously looking forward to getting me some o’ that. I mean, having your period four times a year instead of twelve – does that rock, or what? I asked my gynecologist about it, and she was happy to prescribe it (which is a dumb thing to say, I guess – what’s she going to do, refuse? Oh, wait. We’re in Alabama. I wouldn’t be surprised if gynecologists regularly refused to prescribe birth control). PLUS, she had a free sample for me! And not ONLY did I get a free sample: (That’s three months of birth control right there!) But the sample came in the cutest little canvas bag! (That information about Seasonale on the side is a sticker that peels off) Cute, no? I love it! I was so excited that I actually called Fred and squealed excitedly in his ear about it. He suggested that I get a life. Bastard. * * * So. I have something a wee bit embarrassing to admit. I’ll just say it straight out, and then if you are horrified you can shake your head and then quietly delete me from your bookmarks folder and unsubscribe from my notify list. But don’t send me an email telling me what a lame old lady I am and make me cry, okay? Because then surely the only thing that would ease the pain of being so very lame would be to adopt another cat, and then Fred would divorce me, and then I’d be homeless with six cats (make that five; I’ll leave Tubby with Fred) and I’d have to come live with you, and none of us want that, because you really don’t want to see me first thing in the morning. Mm’kay? Okay, here goes. Now I’m going to tell you: I bought the CD by Bob “Bachelor Bob” Guiney. And I like it. A lot. Especially “Girlfriend”. Let us go forth and speak of this no more. * * * Oh! New The Bachelorette premieres Wednesday, starring the woman I hoped Bob (I understand he has a CD out. Of course, I’d know nothing about that…) would end up with, Meredith! Meredith’s nothing at all like Trista (whom I love, but MAN the baby-talk has got to go), and it’s going to be fun seeing her with her pick of guys. It’s interesting, is it not, that there have been four Bachelors and none of them ended up in marriage, whereas there’s been (so far) one Bachelorette and that did result in a marriage? I’m so disappointed that Andrew and Jen broke up, though. Maybe if we all hope really hard, they’ll get back together… (Yep. Working real hard on getting that life.) * * * I got these baskets when I was in Maine. The idea is for me to put my cross-stitch stuff in them and put the smaller one on the bigger one. But you know how Miz Poo is when you put something on the floor… Also, the Bean is rather fond of meowing at the bigger basket until we open it. Then he climbs in and waits for us to close the lid. Then he lays in there for five minutes or so, at which point he begins meowing for someone to let him out. He’s such a goof. ]]>

The Gender Genie. I decided to give it a try, and cut and pasted my entry from the 7th. Results? I’m male. Wouldn’t it be funny if the Gender Genie said that Fred was female? I thought to myself. I went to a random entry of his, pasted the text in the little box, and hit “submit.” Male. I called Fred and told him that according to The Gender Genie, I’m male. “I knew I was gay!” Fred said. Later, he called me back. “I put four different entries from your journal in The Gender Genie, and it always comes back male. Then I did four of mine, and it said I was male, too. So I put four of Nance‘s in, and it came back female. Same with Jane.” I need to go crack open a beer, watch the game, scratch my balls, and think about what this means.

* * * Nance emailed me a head’s up at the end of last week regarding something in US Magazine, and when I got the latest issue on Saturday, I looked, and sure enough, there it was. Don’t see the offending body part? Go here for a closeup. Apparently they’re having a fit over at US – this is what Nance forwarded to me: January 8, 2004 — LOOK closely on page 72 of Us Weekly and you’ll see a body part that isn’t supposed to be showing. A story about the second season of “Top Model,” a reality show hosted by Tyra Banks, is illustrated with a photo of a redhead in body paint accompanied by a blond male model on one knee. His raised leg is supposed to conceal his nether regions, but something is dangling into view. The Us editors are furious with UPN, which provided the photo. A network rep said, “It’s been busy around here and apparently someone took their eye off the ball.” “Eye off the ball”! Hee! * * * Did I mention that when I was in Maine, we went to the movies FIVE different times? It rocked, because Fred isn’t a big fan of going to the movies, so I got to see all the ones I’ve been wanting to see: Cheaper By the Dozen – predictable, but any movie with the ultra-adorable Tom Welling in it is worth the price of admission. Elf – the perfect role for Will Ferrell, and some really funny scenes. Something’s Gotta Give – some funny scenes, but it dragged a lot; I think my mother slept through the first half of it. I was pretty disappointed, because I wanted to see that more than anything, and it wasn’t nearly as funny as I’d hoped. Cold Mountain – this is the movie I wanted to see least, and I loved it more than any of the others. Who could have known that Renee Zellweiger could be so funny? We were in a crappy little theater, every seat was taken, it’s a 2 1/2 hour movie, and still I loved it. That says something, right there. Mona Lisa Smile – which I liked more than I expected. I’m not a big Julia Roberts fan, but she’s definitely got charm. I did want to slap the hell out of Kirsten Dunst, though. And that Maggie Gyllenhaal is the coolest chick ever, ain’t she? * * * I know I mentioned that I was getting a Dyson vaccum due to an unexpected bonus that Fred got around Christmas. I ordered it through Amazon (free shipping!), and it arrived while I was still in Maine. At first I told Fred he wasn’t allowed to touch it, because he wouldn’t let me bring the new camera to Maine with me, but then I relented and asked him to take it out of the box and put it together before I got home. Sunday, he vacuumed the entire house with our old vacuum cleaner. Monday, he took the Dyson out of the box, put it together, and vacuumed the house again. He actually saved what he vacuumed up to show me, because he was so impressed with how much there was. There was a huge amount of stuff – mostly cat hair – and when I vacuumed on Tuesday, I got a huge amount of dust and cat hair, too. I cannot say it enough – I LOVE this vacuum! LOVE IT. Love the color, love the great suction, love the way you can see what’s whirling around in the canister, love the attachments, love the long hose (I can just barely reach the top of the stairs, with the body of the vacuum at the bottom). LOVE IT. I went out into the garage and vacuumed the rugs out there, which were coated with pieces of dried-up leaves the wind blows into the garage every time we open the door. The Dyson sucked those up without even blinking. Two thumbs up to the Dyson, at least so far! I also went into the spud’s room, which rarely gets vacuumed (the spud appears to be as careful and conscientious a housekeeper as her momma), and filled up the canister. I was both impressed and icked out, because the spud’s room is very small. Clearly I need to yell at her to vacuum her room more than once every six months. * * * This year, my sister made her Christmas present to me, and I LOVE it. It took her some ungodly amount of time to finish and it’s beautiful, and did I mention that I LOVE it? My sister sure does rock. * * * Da Bean sure does love his daddy. Have you ever seen a more content kitty? (This picture was taken using the “night vision” setting on our new camera) ]]>

Woman objects to carrying coffin photo of crash victim. Tough shit, is what I say. Maybe she should have thought twice before drinking and driving, thus causing the death of an innocent man and putting his pregnant wife in a coma. If I were that judge, she’d sure as shit be serving more than 30 days in jail. Grrrr. (Fred said, “They should have provided a picture of him at the scene of the accident for her to carry.” Amen.)

* * * So, I did a lot of shopping while I was in Maine, did I mention? I got lots of cool stuff (love those sales!), and since I took pictures or scanned a lot of it, guess what the rest of this entry is going to be about? You lucky readers! Debbie bought this for me in Spencer’s. Can’t IMAGINE why she thought it would be perfect for me… There’s this very cool store in Freeport called Cool as a Moose. They have funny t-shirts, funny magnets, and lots of funny postcards. I got to looking at the magnets, saw one with my astrological sign, read what it had to say, and laughed my ass off. I bought not only the one with my sign on it, but Fred’s and the spud’s as well. I’m a Capricorn. Fred’s a Gemini. The spud’s a Scorpio. Also, I had to pick this one up. I’m not sure why I think it’s so funny, but I do. Happy Bunny! This is a reusable window cling. It cracks me up. Another reusable window cling. A mint container. Hee! I dumped out the crappy peppermint mints and refilled it with cinnamon altoids. A notebook for my purse. Another window cling. I don’t know, y’all. I went a little crazy with the Happy Bunny stuff. Magnet. Magnet. One of my favorites. By the way, you can get Happy Bunny magnets and tons of other Happy Bunny stuff at Blackjackinc.com. I think I need an air freshener for my Jeep. So, in Bath there is a store called Reny’s. It’s a little discount store, and you never know what you’ll find there – my mother found a huge basket for something like six bucks, and she jumped on it and carried it around, worried that someone would try to take it from her. I was looking around, and I thought I saw some cat paraphernalia, so I went closer. “Oh,” I said. “this looks like it will be kind of cute…” And then I turned it and looked at its eyes. Eeek! FUCKING creepy! Ick! Ew! ::scream::! And then I looked to my left, and almost screamed. Creepiest fucking thing EVER. So naturally I bought them. I’ll probably to have to give them away, though. They creep me out, just being in the house. ::shudder::]]>

I got some absolutely gorgeous roses from Fred. He called the local florist and ordered yellow roses, but the florist talked him into ordering Confetti Roses instead. They’re gorgeous, aren’t they? Fred picked up some General Tso’s and egg rolls for dinner, and then we had a cake from P3ggy Ann’s Bak3ry for dessert, so all was good. Two thumbs up to my 36th birthday!

* * * My parents really go all out for Christmas every year. They have tons of decorations – ornaments that have been around for longer than I have – and I took a bunch of pictures while I was up there. My mother collects Santas, and last year (maybe the year before) I sent her a Thomas Kinkade Santa to add to her collection. I remember these little elves from when I was small. I loved, for some reason, to tuck their legs under their arms, it was always a high point of decorating for Christmas for me. My mother has a whole light-up village on her mantel. It’s much cooler in person. There are electric candles in all the windows in the front of the house. This ceramic tree lights up. I came thisclose to buying a tree like this when we were in Gatlinburg last Fall. I wish I had. More Santas, on the built-in bookcase. And even more Santas. The village on the mantel, again. The tree. Which looked much prettier in person. I didn’t even come close to getting pictures of all their decorations. Not only do they decorate the inside of their house, they also put lights on the bushes in the front, and a tree as well. Putting up and taking down the decorations is a multi-day affair for them – when the spud and I left on Tuesday, they’d finally gotten all the decorations put away, and only the tree was left to de-ornament and put away.]]>

Happy birthday to me!

* * * Lord god a’mighty. I read 170 books in 2003. 170! That’s, like, .465753424 books a day! I am the reading champeen, I am. If you take into account all the magazines I read, along with the fact that I very rarely read during the day, well, the mind just boggles! I’m a reading fool, is what I am. * * * Can you think of anything that sucks more than being let go over the phone? Someone give Jane a job that pays a million dollars a year so she doesn’t have to do any of that pesky and stressful interviewing. And one where she’s required to do nothing but chat online, and make one phone call a week. Maybe two during busy times. Hey. Give me one of those, too, while you’re at it. * * * While in Maine, I got to scan a bunch of pictures from my mom’s photo albums, and since today is The Day of My Birth, I’ll share the pictures that are of me. Debbie, too, since she was always horning in on my photo opportunities and looking all cute and everything. Brat. Not a clue how old we are here. 3 and 1? Surely right around there, anyway. That’s me on the left, Deb on the right. Again, no idea how old I was. Do I look like a happy kid, or what? I’m not sure what’s going on here. If we were looking at the camera I’d say this was a professional portrait, but since we’re looking off to the side and beaming, who knows? Me on the left, Deb on the right. Let’s see. I have braces and I’m pretty sure we were stationed in Guam so I would have been, oh, 7 or 8? Thereabouts? And Deb (on the left) would have been 5 or 6. My 7th or 8th birthday. I’m holding my favorite birthday gift that year, Suzy. Suzy got pregnant later that year and gave birth to my favorite cat ever, Charlie. Then she went to live on a farm. Or so my parents claimed… Didn’t know I was trained in the martial arts, did you? (I took judo lessons for MAYBE a month) Didn’t know I was a cheerleader either, did you? The team we cheered for, the Saints, sucked. I don’t think they ever won a game. That’s Deb on the left, me on the right. Me at the age of 10. I read in one of the many magazines I read even back then that when you wrote to a star, they liked it if you enclosed a picture. Somehow I doubt that this is the kind of picture they were hoping for. I loved that shirt I was wearing, because it had bird names all over it, and somewhere it said “Robin”. I was the shiznit in my home-made t-shirt, yes I was. There goes Debbie, stealing the show with her cute self. Bitch. We popped into a photo booth-type-thing at the movie theater one night and had our picture taken. It was kinda fun, actually. * * * Okay, it’s my birthday, so I’m going to slap that up and call it an entry. Don’t forget to leave a comment letting me know how you celebrated! I think I’m going to go crawl back into bed with a book for a few hours. Unless the bathroom (which hasn’t been cleaned in WAY too long) calls too loudly, in which case I might break out the cleaning supplies. Don’t count on it, though. (Bonnie‘s already changed her journal. Hee!) Have a good one, folks! A year ago: Happy, happy birthday to me! Two: Oh… is it my birthday? Why, I had completely forgotten… Three: Happy birthday to me! Four: Incredibly enough, it was my birthday!]]>

How to celebrate Robyn’s birthday (which is tomorrow, so get crackin’) (This idea totally stolen from Mopie) 1. Rename your journal “Bitchypoo” (just for the day). 2. Call your child – or husband, if you don’t have a child – “Spud” all day long. Or call your favorite pet (doesn’t have to be a cat) Miz Poo for the day. Follow your pet around and croon “Mizzzz Poooooo” until it gets annoyed and runs away with its ears laid back. 3. During a semi-important meeting or phone call say “I don’t know. What does Robyn think of that?” 4. Wear something yellow (that being my favorite color). 5. When your husband/ significant other/ cat farts for the 53rd time in 10 minutes, narrow your eyes at him/ her/ it and say “You’repissin’meoff.” 6. Change your computer wallpaper to a picture of me. I highly recommend this one, unless it would frighten other family members. You could also use a picture of one of our cats. 7. Call your significant other “Ya fuckin’ idiot” out of the blue, for no particular reason. 8. Postpone cleaning the house for another week. 9. Eat a whoopie pie. 10. Take a bath using bath melts, bath fizzies, or bubble bath, and spend the rest of the day making people smell you. 11. Perform a random act of kindness. 12. Adopt a cat. 13. Apropos of nothing, tell someone (a perfect stranger, coworker, spouse, child, anyone!) “It’s Robyn’s birthday today. She’s 36, but she doesn’t look a day over 19!” (A harmless little birthday lie never hurt no one.) And don’t forget to leave a comment telling me what you did! * * * Hey, Kat has started up a cool new forum. All the cool kids are posting there, check it out! 🙂 * * * Stories from my visit to Maine: Story 1: My grandmother, as I may or may not have mentioned, is in an assisted living home. She’s down to skin and bones, 91 pounds, and has stomach cancer (which is slowed by medication), broke her hip last year (which still causes her pain), and has a sore on her tailbone that just doesn’t want to heal. She’s not comfortable staying in one position for long periods of time, and needs help moving from a prone position to sitting, and sometimes she just wants to get up and walk around with her walker. Sometimes she seems to understand what’s going on, and sometimes she doesn’t. She’s 85 years old. My grandmother and I were never particularly close. She’s a very stoic New England type, and although she’s not terribly demonstrative, I’ve always known that she loves us. She’s also always been proud, and it’s difficult to see that she needs help to and in the bathroom (though she’s also pragmatic – if it embarrassed her in the past to have to ask for help, she seems to realize that you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do and gotten over it). In the past, it’s been hard to come up with topics of conversation with her, and as she’s gotten older, it hasn’t become any easier. Unlike Christopher, I can “do” small-talk, but when the person you’re trying to small-talk with may or may not understand what you’re trying to say, it can be hard. My mother and I spent a couple of hours with my grandmother on Sunday, sitting and talking to her, sitting with her while she ate lunch. After I commented on the bird feeders outside her window and asked if she got many birds at the feeders (and she looked at me as if I were an idiot and said “Yes, we get birds year-round.”) and commented on the HUGE gray squirrel sitting under one of the feeders (I swear to god, it was the size of the Bean), I was having a hard time coming up with something to talk about. My mother pretty much filled in the (long, lingering) gaps. Monday, we decided to go back for another visit, bringing the spud with us. This time as we were sitting around not saying much, my mother decided to go down the hallway and get a cup of ginger ale for my grandmother. She invited the spud to go with her. My grandmother turned from her position on the bed and looked at me. I cast desperately around in my mind for something to say. “Did you hear they landed on Mars?” I asked, since I’d been hearing about it all day. “Mars?” she said, and she sounded as though she wasn’t quite sure where Mars might be located. “Yeah,” I went on, glancing at the TV, which was tuned to CNN. “They landed on Mars, and they’re taking pictures of the planet. Just think, maybe the spud’s great-great grandchildren will LIVE on Mars!” I turned expectantly to see her reaction. Laying on her bed, my grandmother was PRETENDING TO BE ASLEEP. PRETENDING TO BE ASLEEP SO I’D SHUT THE FUCK UP. So I shut the fuck up. Our family, Christmas. I’m not sure what year this is, maybe ’81 or ’82? That’s Gram, with the white hair standing between her two hunky grandsons and their frightening 80s hair. (Kate, hee! Tracy’s hair! Randy’s hair too, for that matter. And my GLASSES. How was I able to hold my head up with those huge fuckers weighing down my face?) The spud, my mother (a particularly good picture of her, I think. The spud always looks good), and Gram. Story 2: Liz turned 36 at the end of December. Since I was in town and it was her birthday, I told her I’d take her out to dinner. She had to work that day, so she called me on her way home from work to let me know she’d be ready to leave around 6:00. Then she asked if it would be okay to visit her mother, who is in a nursing home, on the way. The nursing home is in Lewiston and we were going to Portland for dinner, so it’s not really “on the way”, and also her mother has never ever liked me, but what am I going to say? Of course I said it was fine. So we went into Lewiston to see her mom, who is blind and not doing well. She fell a few weeks ago and bruised her ribs and she’s now in a temporary nursing home until a permanent one can be found for her (at least, I think that’s how it works). “Hi!” I said brightly after Liz told her I was there. “How are you feeling?” Liz’s mom told us she wasn’t doing well, wasn’t feeling well, was expecting the doctor to stop by. “Well,” I said. “You LOOK good!”, which she liked hearing. We stayed about ten minutes and then headed out to dinner. As we were on the turnpike heading for Maine, Liz said “I’ve lined up a couple of hot dates for us!” and laughed. It turns out that she’d invited a couple of friends she knows through work to meet us for dinner because one of them was going to do some “psychic healing” on her legs. (She’s been having very painful leg pains and tingling for the past few weeks. It worsens and lessens, but hasn’t gone away completely, and the doctors haven’t figured it out yet.) What was I going to say? Whine “Oh, Liiiiiiiiiz, I don’t want a couple of STRANGERS to eat dinner with us, I thought it would be just US, hanging out and talking about old times!”? Of course I said “Okay, that’s fine.” A few minutes later, she said “When are we going to England, Rob? We’ve gotta go!” She went to London a few years ago, getting a great deal through the college she was attending, and has been saying ever since that she wanted to go back, and me with her. I should say that I have no burning desire to visit England (sorry, those of you from England – nothing against you, but when I think of places I really want to go, Scotland and Australia and New Zealand top the list), but it would be cool, and she really wanted to go, so why not? “We should just set a date and start saving!” I said. “When do you want to go? Spring of 2005?” We decided that that was a good time to plan for and talked about looking online when the time was closer to see what kind of package deals we could get. We got to the restaurant – South of the Border (by the way, when I told Fred we went to eat at South of the Border, he assumed we meant south of the Canadian border. Hee!), were seated, and then Liz’s friends showed up. They were nice, one of them gay as the day was long and funny as hell, eyeing up all the cute guys who walked by. The other was a 23 (24?) year-old computer geek who gave Liz the puppydog eyes a couple of times through dinner. “So Mike,” she said to the computer geek. “Are we still going to England next year?” “Yeah!” he said. Liz pointed at me. “Robyn’s going with us, too!” The fuck? I DON’T WANT TO TRAVEL TO ENGLAND AND HAVE TO HANG OUT WITH SOME (perfectly nice, but still!) STRANGE BOY! Grrr. * * * Look! It’s the one light in Lisbon Falls! (If you go straight and follow the road around and go across the bridge, then go right, you’ll be in Durham, where Stephen King grew up!) While shopping at the Maine Mall in Portland, I glanced over at the calendars, which were on sale, 50% off. Bachelor Lobstermen of Maine 2004 caught my eye, and I picked the calendar up, expecting to see some shirtless hunks. When I flipped to January and saw a 16 year-old and 12 year-old, I knew I had to buy it. So I did. Go read more about this calendar (and there’s one featuring women, too!) here. * * * “Brian, get on the ride and act like you’re scared!” “Like you’re going to cry, Brian!” “Act like that snow is REALLY heavy, Brian!” (God, please let this child never get sick of hamming it up for the camera!)]]>

Go Fuck Yourself ‘burb page and you’re not listed, you’ll need to send again. If you emailed me and I haven’t replied, send again. If you have a journal that I read, please send me an email summarizing everything that happened in your life in the last ten days. (I’m kidding on that last one.) A normal person would download a different email client. Of course, I’m not normal, and so I’ve downloaded Eudora yet again. When I’m whining about losing my email yet again in the future, you have my full permission to call me a dumbass. So, the spud and I left Portland yesterday at 9:35. We almost didn’t make it to the plane, because we were sitting by gate number 5, since it said over the gate that the flight leaving at 9:35 would be leaving from that gate. After getting a blueberry scone and orange juice from the Starbucks stand (did you know that Starbucks doesn’t serve soda? What the hell is up with that??), the spud and I sat and ate and read, and then I looked at the clock on my phone and realized that it was 9:20. “Hm,” I said. “Odd that they haven’t begun boarding yet. Wait here, spud. I’m going to go to the bathroom before we have to board.” I walked to the bathroom, did my business, and on my way out I happened to glance at Gate 6. Where they were boarding. Over Gate 6 was a board with our flight number. “Is this flight (whatever) to Cincinnati?” I asked the agent at the gate. “It sure is, we’re doing final boarding. Are you on this flight?” “Yeah. Hold on, let me get my daughter and my stuff!” I said, ran over to where the spud was playing on her gameboy, grabbed her, gave our tickets to the gate agent, and headed down the jetway. We were the last ones on the plane, and we’d barely gotten to our seats when they shut the door and we were on our way. What I hate most about flying is how incredibly fucking boring it is. It’s especially boring when you’re trapped on a plane for two and half hours and don’t have anything to drink other than what the flight attendant provides. (Note to self: Bring a bottle of water next time) We ended up landing in Cincinnati (I swear that doesn’t look like it’s spelled right) about fifteen minutes late due to some headwinds (I think) which caused the plane to fly slower or something. I don’t know, I can hardly understand the damn pilot when he mumbles over the loudspeaker, all I know is we landed 15 minutes late. Oh, I thought. That’s okay, because we had a 45 minute layover, anyway. We won’t have a chance to look around in the gift shops or anything, but we still have half an hour to get to our gate. Shouldn’t be too bad, our flight doesn’t leave ’til 12:53. Hm. Maybe I should double-check that. Yeah, I’m mighty fucking glad that I double-checked, because my flight wasn’t leaving at 12:53. It was leaving at 12:35. And we had to get from the B terminal to the C terminal. AND we were way back in row 30, and the plane was fucking PACKED. So I stood and sighed and rolled my eyes and just generally acted like a big asshole, waiting for the people in rows 1 – 29 to get their carry-on luggage (have I mentioned how much I hate the fuckers with their carry-on luggage? Except for you, my dear sweet readers. I love you despite the carry-on luggage. Unless you’re in my way, in which case I hate you.) and get their asses moving and out of my way. We hauled ass down terminal B (naturally, we were at the far end), waited impatiently to get on the bus to terminal C, and almost knocked everyone over on our way to our gate. We were almost there when three STUPID-ASS BITCHES who worked in Starbucks and were walking across the hallway (for lack of a better word) stopped dead in their tracks, making us veer around them. “Omigod!” one of them exclaimed. “Do you think so??” “OMIGOD!” I said to the spud in my best Valley Girl voice. “Do you think we could stand RIGHT in the way and make people miss their flight? Because that would be so RAD! That would be the ultimate in cool! We could make them miss their flight, and then they’d have to spend another three hours in this shitty fucking airport!” Yes, I’m an asshole. But the spud thought it was funny as hell. As we ran up to our gate, the gate agent looked expectantly at us. “Huntsville, Alabama?” she asked. “Yes!” I handed our tickets to her. “They’ve already shut the door, but I’ll call out to them to reopen it. Hurry!” She pointed the way. We walked up the steps (it was one of those tiny planes) and the flight attendant said “Please be sure your cell phone is turned off, blahblah whatever-flight-attendants-say!” We sat and caught our breath. “There’s no WAY our luggage made it onto the plane,” I said conversationally to the spud. And I was right. It didn’t make it onto the plane, and Fred had to circle around the airport several times while we discussed with the baggage claim chick where our luggage might be (on the 3:35 flight, being the answer) and where we wanted the luggage delivered. So while I hate you damn people with all the carry-on luggage, I’m certainly starting to understand. Next time I’m going to carry a bag that contains all my contact stuff, my glasses, my thyroid medication (and the spud’s), and my birth control pill. Oh, and a change of underwear. And I’ll be sure to store my bag in the overhead bin and take my time getting it out, yes indeedy. Oh, and our luggage was here before 7 last night with no problem. Yay, delivery people!

* * * It was a little disconcerting to see members of the National Guard (at least, I think that’s who they were) walking around the Huntsville airport with rifles slung over their shoulders. They were everywhere, and when they glanced our way, I actually felt guilty, as if I were a terrorist-in-training. Heh. * * * I thought I was getting a cold while I was in Maine – I had a sore throat and was a little congested, but after a day I felt better (my mother swore it was due to the vitamin C she ordered me to take; could be, I suppose). But this morning I woke up feeling like crap, and sounding (and feeling) like I had a frog in my throat. Either it’ll go away tonight while I’m sleeping, or it’ll turn into something nasty. I can HARDLY WAIT to find out which it is. We did an incredible amount of shopping while I was in Maine. Debbie, the spud and I wandered into Deb in the Maine Mall, and found some truly hilarious stuff with that obnoxious little bunny on it. I bought some magnets, and this morning I scanned one and put it up on my front page. Cracks me up every time I look at it. * * * I have no pictures of our kitties today – I haven’t had a chance, between trying to restore some kind of order to the house, and processing book orders – but I do have some kitty pics, anyway. My sister’s friend Christine cut my mother’s hair and cut the spud’s hair and put highlights in (it looks great – I’ll have to get a picture) at her house Saturday night. She has two cats, and I got a couple of pictures. This is me, holding one of them. Just call me the cat whisperer. Their names are Cleo and Porsche, but I have no idea which is which. They’re only 6 months old, and I think they’re going to be big cats. ]]>

* * * And now I really am going to take time off – I’ll see y’all next Wednesday! ]]>

My year in review. So, we’re almost into 2004. It seems like 2003 went both really really incredibly slow and amazingly fast at the same time. I would call my 2003 neither good nor bad – I’d mostly call it a wash. Bad things happened, mostly cat-related things. Miz Poo had some seriously major surgery, and I thought that we were going to lose her. She did recover and she’s back to her old self, fat and sassy and taking no shit from that interloper, thank god. Spanky had a urinary tract infection, didn’t he? I seem to recall that, though at my advanced age the years do tend to blend into one another. Fancypants disappeared at the beginning of the summer and hasn’t been seen since. We hope that he found another family, one that thinks he’s absolutely the bee’s knees and doesn’t spank him for pooping outside the litter box. The hardest part of the whole thing is just not knowing one way or the other. If he was hit by a car or attacked by an animal and died as a result, I can handle it – I’d just really like to know. If he is dead (and I know it’s a possibility), I pray that it happened so fast that he didn’t have time to feel pain or to be scared. The thought of his being scared and suffering is what makes me want to cry. But if Fancypants hadn’t disappeared, we’d never have known the Bean, who has brought so much laughter into our lives. He’s the craziest little thing and he brought the older cats together in a way I never would have expected. They banded together to hate him, but after a while they didn’t hate him quite so much. I would say that they almost like him, even. I almost expect that in another year, he and Miz Poo will be snuggling on a daily basis. Or not. But a Momma can dream, right? Good things happened, too. Fred got and then fired an agent who considered him to be a stupid-ass bumpkin. He waffled for a while, and then decided to self-publish. We took out a big loan to pay for said self-publication, and at this point, we are thisclose to paying off said loan. He did publicity in hopes of selling the book. He was on the local news, in the local newspaper, on a radio station in Michigan, and he did an interview for a segment on The E@rly Show. Oh yeah, and he’s in Men’s He@lth this month, too. Once the loan is paid off and half of our current stock is sold, the next question will be whether or not to print another run. We waffle on that – sometimes yes, sometimes no. I took down my weight loss journal, and felt like a huge weight (no pun intended) had been lifted from my shoulders. I’m continuing with the eating right and exercising (though less so these past few weeks – ’tis the season, dontchaknow). I changed the front page where my weight loss journal had been. The stupid-ass bitches who whined and moaned about the fact that I had the temerity to express my own opinion (Dr. Phil has his face on supplements. That sucks.) and advertise the fact that I think everyone should buy a copy of my husband’s book so we can pay off that loan will probably whine and moan even louder when they see that page. Ask me if I think they should go fuck themselves. Did I mention that Fred wrote a book? And that I think you should all buy it? I have to say, I’m glad to see the ass-end of 0neFatBitchypoo. I met a lot of great people through that site, but I sure met a lot of assholes, too. Way more assholes than I’ve ever come across due to this site. Also, a fucking lunatic or two back in the spring, after someone stole a picture of me from that site and posted on a popular weight-loss forum pretending to be me. Good lord. One of the coolest things that happened is that I met my sister-in-law, who posts in the comments as Kate. Having no idea what to expect, I found someone who’s cool and funny and fits with my brother better than I could ever have imagined. (Do I sound like a total brown-noser, or what?) I got to see my brother for the first time in a few years, my nephew for the first time since he was three, and I got to meet my niece, whom I’d never met before. Very cool. The more I write, the more I start to think that this was a pretty good year, rather than just so-so. So as we head into 2004, I’m expecting great things. Not specific great things, just great things in general. My life is pretty damn good, so if everything just stays on an even keel, I’ll be happy with that.

* * * Hee! Fred took this picture of the spud, and that’s right – I’m posting it. I’m sure the spud would be horrified. The Bean gives y’all that sexy, smoldering look. ]]>

NANCE DON’T READ THAT, IT’S A SEXUAL INNUENDO!) I understand that Michael Jackson didn’t have much of a childhood, that he was the performing seal who brought in the money that let mommy and daddy live in the manner to which they wanted to become accustomed, but the man is in his 40s now. At what point do you cease wailing and moaning the absence of a part of your life that didn’t go the way you wanted, and just move the fuck on? Despite his creepiness, when he says “I don’t see sexual beings when I look at children”, I kind of believe him. But maybe I’m just naive.

* * * So our flights went just fine yesterday – on time and everything. Our flight from Huntsville to Cincinnati (I have the hardest time spelling that city name) was only about half full, but our flight from Cincinnati to Maine was packed. There was a woman who looked like, I swear to you, a model – perfect figure, perfect hair, perfectly stylish dressed (or so she appeared to my admittedly non-stylish eyes). They had four kids, all under the age of four. None of them were twins. They cracked me up because the father was wandering along with the second-youngest child (an adorable blond boy) in a stroller, and the mother had the baby in a front carrier, had a second stroller piled high with coats and bags, and herding the two little girls along. But she did it as easily as if she’d been doing it all her life, and she was completely calm the entire time. She did have crazy eyes, though. Who could blame her? The Portland airport drives me fucking nuts, because it’s way too small, at least the baggage claim area, for the kind of traffic that goes through there. The spud and I were standing as close to the carousel as we could, but the crowd was packed about ten people deep all the damn way around, when I heard them page my last name and the spud’s. Despite a more than one-hour layover in Cincinnati, our luggage did not make the flight to Portland. The guy took down descriptions of our bags (even though they knew exactly where they were) and gave me a claim number. “If you don’t hear from us by late afternoon, call this number.” The problem was that when I DID try calling, the fucking number was BUSY. Fuckers. I finally got through and got the not-so-illuminating message that our bags were in transit to Portland and if I didn’t hear from them within four hours, to call back. But when I didn’t hear from them in four hours and tried calling back, I couldn’t get through, despite redialing about 45 times. I realized there was a url on the “Baggage Information” ticket the baggage claim guy (and THERE is a job I wouldn’t want, believe you me!) gave me. I went online, entered the claim number and my last name, and found that my luggage had been turned over to the bag delivery service. And that it would be delivered between 10 pm and 2 am. You can imagine the language that spewed forth. I’d been a dumbass and packed both my and the spud’s thyroid medication along with my contact stuff and glasses, and basically every stitch of winter-type clothing that I own. At 11, the baggage delivery place called. “Do you want me to deliver late tonight,” the woman asked. “Or early tomorrow morning?” Fuck tomorrow morning – I wanted my stuff as soon as possible! She told me she had some bags to deliver in Biddeford and then she’d head this way, so it would probably be about 1:30. Erg. I said that was fine and then settled down on the couch to flip channels. I flipped between Ellen, Sleepless in Seattle, and Runaway Bride. I heard a car door slam at 12:30, and when I looked out into the driveway, there was a small woman struggling with my big-ass bags. I slept like a rock last night, believe you me. Brian made breakfast for the spud and I. He’s quite a little chef – we had turkey bacon, scrambled eggs, and waffles. I think he’s cleaning up the kitchen now. He’ll make some woman a wonderful husband some day if he keeps THAT up. We’re going to the movies today and going to visit my grandmother, who is down to 91 pounds. Basically, the poor woman is just fading away. She’s made it clear to various and sundry family members that she’s ready to go, but the pacemaker in her heart keeps going and going and dragging her along for the ride. Maine in the winter is cold, have I mentioned? * * * I sent an email to Nance and Jane last night: Hi from Maine! My parents bought themselves a karaoke machine for Christmas. Right now my mother is singing “My Eyes Adored You”. Earlier, she sang “You Light up My Life.” Naturally I immediately thought of you two. I haven’t sung anything yet, since my voice should not be unleashed upon an innocent world, but I don’t know how long I can resist the siren call of “Man, I Feel Like a Woman.” I hope your new year brings you less pain than mine is sure to bring me. Happy New Year! 🙂 * * * My god, dial-up sucks. I’m also not fond of Netscape. It’s trips to Maine where I’m stuck with both that makes me really appreciate my own computer and cable access, yes indeedy. * * * (Just so you know, these pictures were taken with the new camera while I was still in Alabama. I believe they were all taken by Fred, photographer extraordinaire.) Tubby leaps for the camera. Tubby. Cute, yet bitchy. Tubby, begging. I’m sure he thought Fred had food or something.]]>