Category: Life

here. It’s funny that I said I was going to give only a few things a week away, and this week I’m giving away 12 items. Heh. In honor of it being the first day of summer, it’s going to go up to 92º today. Whee! Of course, I can only say “Whee!” because I live in an air-conditioned house, I drive an air-conditioned vehicle, and every store I might think of to visit is air-conditioned. Therefore, I can afford the “Whee!” It amazes me that when I moved to Alabama I drove a car for two years that had no air-conditioning. Which reminds me of when my friend Liz was shopping for a new car many years ago. We both lived in Maine at the time – which means it was probably about 11 years ago – and we stopped to look at a red Geo Metro. She decided to buy it, and I sat in while she answered the questions the saleslady asked. “Do I want an air-conditioner?” Liz asked me when the saleslady posed the question to her. “Nah!” I said, shaking my head. “You don’t need one in Maine. It doesn’t stay hot long enough to call for it, and you’ll save money if you don’t get one.” A few years later she moved to North Carolina and then to Florida, and I’m sure she cursed my name every time she drove anywhere in her sweltering car. So, Fred? Oh my GOD. He’s going to a picnic this afternoon for work (Yes, I could go. But why would I want to?), and he volunteered to make a dessert to bring. He looked in one of his cookbooks (I think it’s called Death by Chocolate) and decided to make chocolate macadamia brownies. When he realized how expensive macadamias are (“I’m not spending that much on THOSE people!”), he decided to substitute pecans and he made them last night. We split one brownie, and it was incredible. He also set a few aside for us to have today, it being Friday, which means it’s our Free Day, eatingwise. After I exercised this morning, I circled around the plate of brownies for a little while before putting a couple on a plate and pouring a glass of Diet Coke (hee!). Hell. O. Dolly. God in heaven, they were SO DAMN GOOD. They’re very, very chocolatey and they have big chunks of chocolate in them, and they’re amazing. This is one of those times I thank god that the man can bake. This is also one of those times I thank god that the man doesn’t bake more often, or I’d be staring at 400 on the scale and wondering how that happened. So today? Another good mail day! I hit the post office and opened my box to find a little box sitting in there smiling up at me. I tugged and pulled and swore (under my breath) and tugged some more, and I could NOT get the box out. Apparently it was just the right size so that they could slide it in on the other side, but it wouldn’t come out on my side. Finally, I went and asked for help, and someone got it out for me. It was a box o’ love from Nance! It was addressed to both Fred and I, but do you really think I’m going to share? I think not! Nance rocks, if I haven’t mentioned recently. 1. Do you live in a house, an apartment or a condo? A house. 2. Do you rent or own? We own. Well, the bank owns for now, but in 100 years we should have it paid off, and watch OUT, baby! 3. Does anyone else live with you? Himself, the spud (though she’s in Maine at the moment, and soon will be in California), and five cats – Spot, Spanky, Tubby, Fancypants, and Miz Poo. 4. How many times have you moved in your life? Let’s see… I was born in Bangor, Maine, moved to Goosebay, Labrador, Canada (1), to an air force base in Indiana (the name escapes me) (2), to Kinchloe AFB, Michigan (3), to Guam (4), to Loring AFB, Michigan (5), to Lisbon Falls, Maine (6), to Durham, Maine when I was 18 (7), back to Lisbon Falls (8), to Brunswick, Maine when I was 19 (9), back to Lisbon Falls (10), to Bath, Maine after I got married (11), to another apartment in Bath when I got pregnant (12), to base housing in Brunswick about a year later (13), to Lisbon Falls while waiting to get into housing in Newport, RI (14), into housing in Newport, RI (15), to Goddard St in Lisbon Falls while the ex (before he was the ex) was stationed in SC (16), back to Newport when the ex got stationed there (17), to the apartment the spud and I shared with Fred in Huntsville (18), from the apartment to the first house we bought (19), and from there to where we are now (20). I probably either forgot one of the places we lived when I was little, or messed up the order – for instance, I’m not positive that Indiana came after Goosebay, but I think it did. Still, I’ve moved 20 times. Impressive, eh? 5. What are your plans for this weekend? I haven’t got a clue. We were talking about going to see Minority Report (which I want to see, despite the fact that it stars Tom Cruise), but might wait until next week. I definitely want to visit a nursery and pick up another flat of petunias, because the ones I have potted out front are driving me nuts. I planted way too many plants in that pot, and I’m going to yank them out and replace them. Other than that, I don’t know what-all we’re going to do. ]]>

Fancypants. We’ve noticed for a little while – a couple of weeks, I think – that he had a little bald-type spot on his side. There wasn’t anything wrong that we could see, but the hair wasn’t growing back or anything, either, so finally Fred took him to the vet yesterday. According to the vet, Fancypants had two cysts that had ruptured and were infected. They had to shave the area (I told Fred that he should have told them to shave the rest of him while they were at it!) and put medicine on it, then gave Fred a little bottle of amoxycillin to give him every day. When Fred got home with Fancypants, he pointed out that Fancypants’ collar was missing, and we figured that he’d gotten hung on something and the collar – being a breakaway collar – had done it’s job and broken. I made a mental note to order another nametag, and we closed the cat door so that Fancypants couldn’t go outside and get himself in more trouble. And he promptly registered his displeasure by shitting on the floor. Twice. He’s SUCH an asshole. How sad am I that seeing the UPS truck stop in front of my house makes me want to do a little dance? And further, how pathetic am I that I want to sob wildly when I see that he’s going next door? Even though I know that I haven’t ordered anything and thus shouldn’t be getting a delivery from UPS. Sad, pathetic Robyn. Anyway. Fancypants. So I was sitting at the computer after we’d discussed that his collar was missing, and I glanced up and saw our next-door neighbor walking across the lawn in front of the windows in the computer room, a red collar dangling from her hand. When I answered the door – after an argument with Fred about how he should answer the door, but he was wearing his underwear and claimed he couldn’t (the underwear look JUST like shorts, by the way) – she held out the collar and said “It looks like Mr. Fancypants lost his collar!” I could hear Fred snickering from the kitchen, because he thought it was just the funniest damn thing that I had “Mr. Fancypants” printed on the nametag, instead of his “real” name. I thanked her and we talked for a minute, wherein she told me that Fancypants killed a bird in her yard and left his collar in a pile of feathers. Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t know if she knows that he killed a bird, or just assumes it because of the pile of feathers. Anyway, I told her the story about the murder at the end of my bed and then thanked her. At least I don’t have to order a new nametag now. I finished reading A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius last night. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but I also think it could have used some heavy editing – believe it or not, unstinting snark gets old if it’s left unchecked. I ended up skimming a lot of the last few chapters, but there was a lot that had me grinning like a fool, so overall I’d recommend it. I wouldn’t recommend it to the point that you go out and buy it, but it’s worth checking out from the library. Once I finished that, I started the new Evanovich, and I’m about three-quarters of the way done with it. I shot a large amount of Diet Coke out my nose during lunch, due to a scene involving a lawyer and a dryer. I’ll say no more – I wouldn’t want to ruin it for y’all. Speaking of Hard Eight, though, I notice that the Amazon price is $18.17. I got it at Sam’s for less than $15 – and I didn’t have to pay shipping. I love Sam’s.]]>

Edited 9/10/05 to add: to join the notify list, see the “Notify list” link in the sidebar) I was an errand-running fool today. I managed to get my ass out the door by 10:45, and went to Target (Nivea for Men exfoliant for His Majesty), PetCo (I’m looking for an inexpensive cat food that comes in large bags and “promotes urinary tract health. To my surprise, Hill’s Science doesn’t seem to have one like that, and the Iam’s was $35 for a big bag. Not in this lifetime, if we can possibly help it. We tried Friskie’s, but it gave them all diarrhea (you’re welcome), so for now we’re feeding them Purina Special Urinary Tract Health, which only comes in small bags, but it’s not terribly expensive and it doesn’t give them diarrhea, so I guess we’ll stick with that for now), the mall (to get Fred’s Father’s Day presents – I had to wander all through Dillard’s to find the counter where they sell men’s cologne, and I ALMOST bought the frog that goes with the pig on our front steps, but refrained. You should be proud of me. Yes, I’m awful for giving Fred his Father’s Day presents late, but he was late with my Mother’s Day present, so it all works out in my opinion), and Sam’s (where I purchased Hard Eight, shrimp, gum, paper towels, water (for the vacation to Florida), and garbage bags). I managed to do all that in two hours and fifteen minutes. You know how some people can’t get out of Target or Wal-Mart without spending $100? I can’t go out to do errands and take less than an hour, and this was a super-errand day. So, the reporter and photographer came yesterday to interview Fred. I sat and listened to the interview – and even contributed a few things – and then came time for the photographer to do her thing. She had Fred sit behind the table, behind his food pile, and Fred made like Fabio, preening and smiling and sending sultry looks of love toward the camera. Then she took pictures of him standing in his fat jeans, with the waist held out – I have to admit, that’s going to be a damn good picture, I hope they use it for the article – and the photographer was putting her equipment away, ready to go, when Fred got a crazy gleam in his eye. “Wait!” he said. “You could take pictures of me lifting weights!” “Well -” the photographer began doubtfully. “I can put my gym shorts on!” Fred said excitedly. “Wait just a minute!” The photographer and I smiled awkwardly at each other, and made half-hearted small-talk about how she was going to go to the gym when she left. Moments later, Fred was downstairs in the shortest, tightest shorts I’ve ever seen on him, and a skin-tight shirt. “Let’s go in the garage!” he commanded, and we followed him out there. While the photographer checked the light, Fred loaded up a couple of dumbbells with some ungodly amount of weight. And then he strutted back and forth, trying to look as though the weight he was lifting wasn’t taking any effort. “Okay, I think we’ve gotten enough – ” the photographer said after she’d snapped 50 or 60 pictures. “Take a picture of this!” Fred demanded, flexing his bicep. “And this!” he flexed both his biceps and his calf muscles, sucking in his stomach. “And this!” he turned his back to the camera, stuck his butt out, and smiled beguilingly over his right shoulder, the tip of his index finger to his pursed lips. Two hours later, when the photographer actually started crying and begging him to let her leave, he did. Of course, I’m sure Fred’s version of this story will be completely different. No doubt he’ll claim he had to be asked to put on his gym shorts and lift weight, but between us, dear readers? He’s a big liar. You know what? You know what you need? You know what you need right NOW? I think you need to see some pictures of Tuberella, right this very second. Just for the hell of it. “Can they see me? They can’t see me, can they? I can’t see them, so they must not be able to see me!” When he was just a svelte young thing and could actually jump up there, where he’d sit and meow his bitchy meow at us. In the master bedroom at the old house. Where he would sit and meow bitchily at anyone who walked by. I found those pictures of Tubby when I was looking for some pictures of Fred, and thought I’d share. I may have shared them before, because at this point I don’t remember what I’ve put in the journal and what I haven’t. In a perfect world, I’d have all the cat pictures that I’ve posted on a single page – well, one page for each cat – but don’t hold your breath on that. Maybe someday. A couple of people recently emailed and asked if I was still going to have the giveaway. I am, but it’s going to be different than before. I have SO much stuff to give away, that I think I’m going to create a page just for that, and put a few items up each week. Hopefully the first few items will go up this week, on Friday, but it all depends on how busy I am over the next few days. Of course I’ll link to it when I get it up and running. And with that, I’m off to start dinner (red beans and rice – yum!) and clean up the kitchen.]]>

But it ALSO has a bubble thingy in the top of the pencil so that you can blow bubbles and annoy and harass your cats! You can imagine we’ve been having a great deal of fun with that. 2. Reader Ellen, who saw a little smiley face pin, thought of me, and bought it and sent it to me! Every time I look at it, it makes me grin. The picture didn’t come out very well, because for some reason my camera wouldn’t focus on the pin, no matter what I did. But you get the idea: 3. Reader Jo, who swears she is NOT a stalker, who sent a wonderful cat card and smiley face stickers. I’m searching for the perfect place on my monitor to stick one of those stickers: 4. And lastly, but certainly not least, reader Tara, who was browsing my wish list one day and realized that she had one of the books on my list. She emailed and offered to send it to me, I accepted, and in the post office box this morning, there it was! It looks great, and I can’t wait to start it! I think it fucking rocks (rawks!) that so many people can’t see a smiley face without thinking of me. My brainwashing is going as planned, and soon I will have world domination! A world where smiley faces and “fuckity fuck-fuck-fuck!”s will abound. I can hardly wait! Speaking of books (see #4), the new Evanovich – Hard Eight – is out today, y’all. Go! Run! Buy! Read! I had planned to hit Sam’s today, since we’re in need of paper towels and gum, among other things, and I’m pretty sure that Sam’s will have Hard Eight, which I was looking forward to buying, but by the time I hauled my ass out of bed, exercised, showered, and went to pick up a few groceries and hit the post office, I wouldn’t have had time to go to Sam’s before the newspaper lady was due to be here, so I put it off until tomorrow. And since I’m dying of starvation, I’m going to cut this entry short and go make me some dinner. See ya!]]>

* * * I see that Melissa Rivers’ husband has filed for divorce. What a shame – she seemed like such a nice girl, really. ::snort::

* * * I had a freaky moment last Friday when I couldn’t remember what grade the spud was going into. I mean, totally could not remember at ALL. Sixth? Seventh? Fourth? After a few minutes I remembered that she’d just finished seventh and will be going into eighth. It sucks to get old and have your brain jettisoning memory cells like that, believe me. * * * So, we have in several rooms of our house a tray ceiling, like such: And yesterday, Fred was pacing around the house picking up the junk – letters, books, magazines – that we are wont to leave all over the place, being slobs and all, and he glanced up at the tray ceiling in the living room. “Man,” he said. “That’s nasty. That needs to be cleaned.” Because on the bottom of the tray part of the ceiling, there’s a bit of a lip where 63 pounds of dust and cobwebs have been collecting ever since we moved in last August. “We need to clean that,” he said, and then went on to tell me nothing I didn’t already know, “And by “we”, I mean “you”, of course.” So later, while waiting for my lunch to finish, I got out the Swiffer, hoping against hope that it would work. Because I did very much NOT want to have to get up on a chair with a feather duster, wildly dust the part I could reach, get down, move the chair, get back up on the chair, dust wildly, and so on. But the Swiffer came through for me. It Swiffed the hell out of that tray ceiling, and once I was done with that, I did the tray ceiling in the computer room, and when I was done with THAT, I went around and Swifferized the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling in every room, and then I got the cobwebs behind the doors, exclaiming with pretend disgust at how much dust and cobwebs had collected in our house, a house that is vacuumed at least twice a week and mopped at least twice a year. It was fucking cool. But going back to the beginning, Fred was getting spazzy at the state of our house because a newspaper reporter and photographer will be coming to our house tomorrow to marvel at the wonder that is Fred, and stare in adoration at him, and write a newspaper article about him and his habits of posing in his underwear in front of the mirror for 24 hours a day (he’s going for an entry in the Guiness Book O’ World Records), and I think that we all know that we don’t need an article starting out like such: I walked into the home of Fred and Robyn, and was blown away by the huge amount of dust and cobwebs on their tray ceiling. For the love of god – you’re not fat anymore, people! Dust your tray ceiling thoroughly and often! I was so disgusted by the nastiness staring down at me from the ceiling that I couldn’t concentrate, and soon went running out, screaming in horror, with Randolph the photographer directly behind me. And thanks to my beloved Swiffer, it won’t. It will probably start out more like: Getting Fred to stop staring at his reflection in any nearby shiny surface is like asking Robert Downey, Jr. to stop scoring Coke. When I asked a tentative question about Subway’s Jared, Fred went into a screaming tizzy. “Jared?!” he bellowed. “I’m no stinkin’ Jared! Jared starved himself! I didn’t starve myself! Look at my fine body! Do I LOOK like I starve myself?!” Oh, yeah. This is gonna be fun! ]]>

The Flo Control Project. You’ve gotta check it out – it’s hilarious! So, I have an buttload of pictures to share with y’all, which I’ve been meaning to do and haven’t gotten around to until now, when I can’t think of anything else to write about. Here ya go – and click on the small picture to see the full-sized version, as usual. One morning while my parents were here, before anyone was up, Fred walked past the downstairs hallway and found Fancypants with a baby bird. The bird was unharmed (this was before Fancypants learned to bring them upstairs and kill them at the end of the bed, apparently), so Fred made all the cats come inside, and then he put the baby bird outside under the tree and shut the door so no cats could go out there. Later, he called a vet’s office to be sure that’s what he should have done, and the woman at the vet’s office said to leave the bird alone, and that the mother and father birds would feed and protect it until it learned to fly. I had to go out later that day and run errands, and when I got home, I saw that the bird had wandered across the yard, so naturally I got a picture of the cute little thing. Later, my father decided to create a small nest for the bird and put it back up into the tree, because the one ladder we had fell far short of the nest it had come from. He cut the bottom from a bottle of ginger ale, put some batting and grass in the makeshift nest, tied it to a branch, and placed the baby in the nest. Several times it fell out of the nest, and each time my father put it back in. That evening, we went out to take a look – just before it started pouring rain – and the baby bird had decided it didn’t like the nest, and preferred to stand on the branch, like so: We did let the cats out later while we were sitting out on the patio talking, and Miz Poo thought that perhaps directly under the tree would be the best place to wait and hope for the baby bird to fall out again. The next morning, the baby bird was gone. But five or six days later, I glanced out the front window and saw yet another baby bird (or maybe it was the same one – who knows?). I went out to see if he’d fly away, and he didn’t, although he also didn’t let me get too close. I just stood there for a few minutes talking to him (yes, I’m a freak, I know), and he started scolding me. Well, he’d scold me for a few minutes, and then open his mouth wide as if he hoped I’d feed him. As the day wore on, he moved away from the house and down the street through other yards, and each time I went out I could hear the ever-fainter sound of scoldscoldscoldfeedme!feedme!scoldscoldscold. I hope he learned to fly before one of the neighborhood cats got ahold of him. My mom, the spud, and I went to the mall one day while my parents were here, and I saw this little pig in Dillard’s or Parisian and had to have it. He’s adorable, isn’t he? Miz Poo just loves to lay on the empty shelf on the bookcase and look out the window, and it always cracks me up, I don’t know why. One of our rose bushes bloomed in a big way, so rather than leaving the blooms out for everyone to enjoy, I snipped them and brought them inside so that only we could enjoy them. I don’t think I showed off the smiley-face vase I got from eBay. Very me, no? I actually thought I had more pictures than that, but apparently not. 1. How often do you do laundry? About twice a week – more often if I’m feeling ambitious, but I usually don’t think about the laundry until the laundry basket is full. Actually, I think I only did laundry once this week. I don’t have to do the spud’s laundry – she does her own during the weekend – so it’s just mine and Fred’s I have to worry about. 2. What’s in a typical wash load? Whatever’s dirty – usually pants, shirts, shorts, and underwear. I only have three bras (look, they’re expensive and when I don’t have to leave the house, I don’t wear one, so hush), so I wash them on the gentle cycle whenever I feel they need to be washed. I only wash the towels about once every other week (shut up, no one’s asking YOU to use them, and besides – we’re clean when we get out of the shower or bathtub, so it’s not like the towels get really dirty or anything!), and the sheets about the same. 3. Front or top loader? Powder or liquid detergent? Top loader, liquid Tide. I’ve used other detergents before, but always go back to Tide. 4. Do you use fabric softener in the rinse cycle? Nope – I use fabric softener dryer sheets. 5. Dryer or clothesline? Dryer. I’d like to have a clothesline to at least dry our sheets – I love that outdoors smell – but it’s against the neighborhood rules. One of the downsides of living in a subdivision, don’tchaknow. ]]>

Black Hawk Down. That night after Fred went to bed, I watched Vanilla Sky (and freakily, Nance was watching it that very same night! I didn’t hate the movie as much as she did, though. Possibly because I dozed through part of it. Heh.), and last night I watched Kate and Leopold. Tonight, I’ll be watching Monster’s Ball. Y’all, don’t email me and tell me if it sucks, because I’m going to watch it anyway. I mean, I get to see Billy Bob having hot monkey sex! Does it get any better? That was a joke. I actually find Billy Bob a tad creepy. Okay, a lot creepy. And he and Angelina Jolie together is just something I can’t bear to think about. Meg Ryan, if you didn’t know, is in Kate and Leopold, and while it was a cute enough movie – entertaining, yet doesn’t tax the brain – I have to ask one little question. What the FUCK is going on with Meg Ryan’s hair?! After When Harry Met Sally, her hairstyle choices have just gone to shit, and I don’t get it. Who is advising the woman on how to do her hair, and how is it that they still have a job? Does Meg not have eyeballs? Can she not see how hideous she looks? Her ‘do in Kate and Leopold made her look ten years older, and it makes me want to track her down and shake some sense into her. Of course, with Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber on the screen, who the hell was looking at Meg Ryan?

* * * A survey: 1. What time do you wake up in the morning? I try to be up before 8, but the last two mornings I’ve slept until after 8:30, probably because I stayed up late the night before watching movies. 2. If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Stephen King, probably, although I’d be an idiot and would just stare adoringly at him and say stupid things like “You write good books.” 3. Gold or silver? I’m not much of a jewelry person, but most of what I have is gold. 4. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? I saw 20 minutes of Attack of the Clones last weekend before the suckiness drove us out of the theater. Before that, I went to see Panic Room with my mother and the spud, which I really liked. 5. Favourite tv show? Friends. It will always be my favorite, no matter how much everyone else think it sucks. 6. What do you have for breakfast? I don’t usually eat breakfast (although I did several times while my parents were here), but if I’m really hungry I’ll make eggs and toast. 7. What would you hate to be left in a room with? A skunk. Or Fred after he’s had beans. 8. Can you touch your nose with your tongue? No, but I can wiggle my ears, roll my tongue, and raise my left eyebrow. 9. Who inspires you? I’m sure there are tons of people who inspire me, but no one comes to mind at the moment. 10. What’s your middle name? Leslie. 11. Beach or city? Beach! 12. Summer or winter? Summer, as long as we have air conditioning. 13. Favourite ice cream? Applebees has a great vanilla bean ice cream that I really like. 14. Buttered, plain or salted popcorn? Popcorn (like coffee) is one of those things that always smells better than it tastes, but if I had to choose, I’d say salted popcorn is the best. Well, except for cheese popcorn, and then you’re moving into a whole new realm. 15. Favourite color? Yellow, of course. You knew that. 16. Favourite car? A yellow Volkswagen Beetle. 17. Favourite sandwich? This reminds me of the Friends episode where the answer to “What is Joey’s favorite food?” was “Sandwiches.” I would say that my favorite home made sandwich is egg salad, and my favorite Subway sandwich (a sub is a sandwich, in my opinion) is the BMT. 18. True love? Well, duh. 19. What characteristics do you despise? Condescension and people who think they’re smarter than they are. 20. Favourite flower? Daffodils or gladiolus. I also like carnations and roses. 21. If you had a big win on the lottery, how long before you told people? I’d wait until right after I claimed it, because I’d be afraid someone would clonk me upside the head and steal my ticket. 22. Fizzy or still water as a drink? Still. A gallon a day, by the way. 23. What color is your bathroom? The walls are a warm cream color – like the rest of the house – and the towels and rug are a smoky gray. 24. How many keys on your key ring? Two – one for the Jeep, one for the post office box. The key to the house is somewhere at the bottom of my purse. 25. Where would you retire to? A cottage on the coast of Maine, but I doubt I could ever convince Fred. 26. Can you juggle, if yes how many? Nope, I’m not that coordinated. 27. Favourite day of the week? Friday. 28. Red or white wine? Gag. Wine’s another of those things I don’t understand. I can’t stand the taste of it. 29. What did you do for your last birthday? Not a lot – but the rest of the world celebrated. 30. Do you hold a donor card? What kind of donor card? Yes, an organ donor card. ]]>

Fred has his own version of this event) ]]>

Go hither and make your own. Link stolen from… well, everyone’s doing it! And while we’re talking about cartoons, I have to say that Hawthorne from the Sherman’s Lagoon strip is the cartoon character I’m most like.

The look he gets on his little crab face right before he pinches someone never fails to crack me up. Reader Dawn became my Favorite Person o’ the Moment on Friday, when she sent me the (now defunct) link to disable the Comet Cursor download prompt. Have I mentioned that I hate those damn things? I thought so. Thanks, Dawn! Is it goofy that I’m concerned about Coleen Rowley‘s career in the long run? That I’m afraid that once the brouhaha has calmed down and everyone’s forgotten her name except in passing, that it may have negative consequences for her career, and very probably will? Go read Dana’s Rules O’ Driving. Go on, now. Unlike Dana, I’m not an excellent driver. I’m an okay driver, sometimes I’m a little too slow and careful, but usually the knowledge that I’m just a so-so driver makes me more vigilant, more aware of my surroundings, and so being aware that I’m not an excellent driver is probably the best thing for us all. And I’d never turn from a non-turn lane. I’d probably be a better driver if I was driving a car, though. Speaking of driving slow and careful – when my parents were here, my father drove through our subdivision at 12 miles per hour. Every time. It was like watching hair grow, riding with the man. And every time I said “You need to get in the right lane, Dad.”, he would respond with “No I don’t. It’s on the left.”, and I would say “No, it ISN’T, it’s on the right”, and I would always be proven right. Who’s going to know where the International House of Pancakes is located, I ask you? Someone who LIVES here and drives by it at least twice a week, or someone who hasn’t been in the area for three years, which is before it was built? That’s what I thought. So, a couple of weeks ago someone somewhere fucked up badly – personally, I blame my former webhosts, hispeed – and people would search on and find the site bulpyong.com, only when they hit bulpyong.com, they would see my site. The fine, useless people at hispeed hemmed and hawed and then determined it was a “dns crossover” that would “propogate out” over time, but here, two weeks later, I’m still getting hits from the Korean google site. You see, bulpyong.com is a Korean site. So Koreans were searching on something that bulpyong offers, and instead of seeing what they wanted, they were seeing the journal of a fat white chick. And when they couldn’t figure out WHAT the hell was going on, they were emailing me. And emailing me. And emailing the motherloving shit out of me. And trying to send me viruses. And emailing me. It was, you can imagine, quite a thrill. And what the hell was I supposed to do? I don’t speak Korean, so they could have been proposing to me, excoriating me, or just asking “What the fuck is going on?” Who knows? It’s a mystery. Now that my ip address has changed because I’ve switched hosts, hopefully that will stop, because nothing chaps my ass faster than getting a bunch of email, getting all excited (“I just got a bunch of email! Whee!”), and then finding you can’t read it or it’s a bunch of attempted virii. Grrrr. ]]>

So, yesterday morning, I awoke before 6 am. Not to get up and get going or anything – ha ha! silly readers! To think hat I would get up and get going before 6 am! – but to pee, because I drink a lot of water in the course of the day and therefore am a peeing fool. As I rounded the end of the bed on my way to the bathroom, I looked down and saw a dark shape. “Oh, that fucking bastard Fancypants!” I growled to myself. “It’s not bad enough that he has to poo on the floor outside the laundry room (where the litter box is kept), but to poo in my room! At the end of my very own bed! I’m going to kick his fancy little bastard ass from one end of the house to the other!”, and then I stopped and peered closer at the small dark shape. “What,” I wondered aloud. “Has he been EATING?” For while it was a relatively small dark shape, it was far larger than an average cat poo. And I clean out the litter box every day, so I know whereof I speak when it comes to cat poo. Unfortunately. Not wearing either my glasses or my contacts, and so fairly blind – and the room still being pretty dark – I held my breath so as not to inhale any of the assumed poo stink, and leaned down to get a closer look at the dark shape. It was a bird. A dead bird. A dead bird laying on the floor at the end of my bed. You can imagine how pleased I was. I am NOT picking that up, I thought definitely. “Freeeeeeeeeeeed!” I yelled down the stairs, certain it was late enough for him to be awake and either on his computer or snoozing on the couch. When he came upstairs at my bidding (“What?” he said. “Did Fancypants shit on the floor?” “Oh, better than that,” I replied. “Just come see.”), he was surprised. Miz Poo and Tubby were the only cats in the room, and they were fascinated not only by the dead bird, but also by the large spray of feathers across the bedroom floor. It appeared rather obvious that not only had someone caught a bird, but the bird had been at least half alive when brought into MY FUCKING BEDROOM, and had tried to run for it’s poor little life before being killed and laid on the floor at the end of my bed as an expression of deep and abiding love. While Fred picked up the bird and took it downstairs – after pointing out to me that it was a robin – I got out the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed up the trail of feathers. After sticking the vacuum cleaner in the hallway, I got back into bed and Miz Poo settled down beside me, wanting belly rubs and to purr wildly at me after all the excitement. I dozed off again, and at some point, Fred came back upstairs to take a bath. He was cold from running around in his underwear in an air-conditioned house and was taking a bath to warm up. And because he’s a froufy girly-man. Sometime after 7, he stepped out of the tub, dried off, and headed for the stairs. “Bessie,” he called, stopping before he went downstairs. “Come here.” I groaned, rolled over, grabbed my glasses, and put my nightgown on. At the landing at the top of the stairs lay another dead robin, with another violent spray of feathers. Apparently while Fred bathed and I snoozed, Fancypants (let’s be honest – Fancypants is one aggressive bastard, and none of the other cats has the nerve to actually go after a bird, so it had to be him) captured another robin, carried it inside, killed it, and left it for Fred and I to find. So once again Fred disposed of the bird and I vacuumed up the feathers. “I think Fancypants is sending me a message,” I said. “What?” Fred laughed. “That you’re next?” “Well,” I pointed out. “They ARE dead ROBINS.” If I disappear, I think you’ll know who to blame. Exhausted, after a hard day of murdering small animals.]]>