Sloooooow Saturday

If I were moving any slower, I'd be going backward.
I have now discovered that I can make at least fifty-eight different sounds when I yawn.
I do believe that candle burning at both ends just flamed out with a fingersnap and a whoosh!
The fact that the skies over Georgia are a hazy, taupey, gauzy melange of cloud and more cloud isn't helping.
Fifty-nine. That last yawn was in the key of C, I believe.
The Actor, Garbo and I discussed some pretty edgy plans for filling up our day since MathMan and The Dancer are on their way back from the Land of Hoosiers and Other Delights. We were going to go shop for a dress for Garbo and a pair of much-needed shoes for The Actor, make a trip to the library, the dump, Target and maybe the grocery store.
We are all so meh.
The trip has been whittled down to me going alone to the library to drop off dvds, pick up a couple of new ones and then stopping for an order of Mongolian Beef we'll split three ways.
This life rocks out loud. Oh, yes it does.
Sixty. Same key, but that yawn came in two notes. Aaaah. Ah.
There should be a blog rule that when lack of sleep reduces one to writing posts about yawns (which has become a bit of a running gag - paging Jack Benny, Oh, Mr. Benny!) and about how the gray skies have put a damper on errand running - well, I guess the rule should suggest strongly that one reconsider posting at all. Or maybe strolling over to YouTube to look for a video of the Jackass morons on yet another spin-off show called Wild Boyz, approaching a wild black rhino for the express purpose of giving it a massage. That would be good for a laugh.
And I guess that is what I like about blog rules. They are fluid. They aren't hard and fast and rigid. Open to interpretation, they suggest, support, guide and direct. They never order.
Like the rule that says I should link to the blog where I found this lovely and rib-tickling quote today.

nearly everything improves for being encased in pastry

The blog rule says I shouldn't be a prickish, selfish ass and hoard her to myself. I should link to her so you can go see for yourself just how funny Jawyalker of Belgian Waffle is. So there. I did what the rule says I should do. This time.

And while I'm at it, I'd like to suggest that you check out the bloggers in my sidebar. What a far ranging set of people are there now. Old friends, why not check out the new finds and X-Chromosome bloggers? New friends, check out the people I know, the people I feel like I know and the blogs I read a couple of days a week because if I read them all everyday, my ass would have fused to my black swivel chair by now. Imagine the mutant creature that would spawn from a mingling of my DNA and that of the cheap Office Depot Managers Chair I occupy much too frequently. It's not a pretty sight at all.

And dang it, while I'm thinking about it, I bet I need to clean up my blogrolls as I've collected more rss feeds. I'm sure some of those feeds need to be added. I'm like an old lady at a buffet. I grab rss feeds like they're yeast rolls and I jam them in my big old pocketbook of a Google Reader. And I forget that last step of redoing my feed/blogroll thing. Dang, dang, dang. So much to remember.

I need a secretary for the blog. A nanny for The Spawn, a cook, a chauffeur, a personal trainer, a masseuse, a laundress, an upstairs maid, a pussy groomer, a gardner and someone to finance all of it. Note: I don't require a downstairs maid. Don't want to appear too greedy and helpless.

Oh, hang on. I just realized that I was sleeping in front of my monitor with my eyes open again. My fingers are so well trained on the QWERTY that they can tap out whatever nonsense is passing through my head in the form of dreams.

Anyway, I suggest you check out some of these folks. There's Anita at A Wife, a woman, a mom - Hi, Anita! I hope you're having a great weekend!; Braja at LOST and FOUND in india,whom I plan to hang out with in India, even if I have to prostitute myself as a hausfrau to the messiest people in town or as a sex kitten to the oldest man east of the Mississippi; Miss Healthypants - who was one of MathMan's blogpals long before I had to stick my pointy nose in and see what all the laughing was about.

Okay. The Actor just stopped by my desk/napping cubby to tell me that I'm missing a Wild Boyz marathon. And I still have to haul my carcass to the library. And that Mongolian Beef that we were going to split? I suspect it will have its cousin fried (hey, look! the male bluebird is sitting on top of the birdhouse!) rice with it now that we've all gotten that much more hungry and I'm even less inclined to cook.........

Sixty-one. That yawn almost made me wet my pants, it was so powerful.

See you when I wake up!

(And the real horror is that it took me nearly an hour to write this nonsense. Good thing I don't put my inefficiencies to work for good instead of evil.....)

A Mild Warning Because I'm NOT Willing to Stop Showing Off

Too busy with work today, blah, blah, blah........MathMan and The Dancer are away for a very cool audition/trip back to the Midwest. I'm home playing catch up for work and playing Rock Band with The Actor and Garbo.

I might even have more videos for you shortly. Dang, though, that camera doesn't add ten pounds, it adds thirty. If I didn't have a ton of work to do today, I'd be fiddling around with video editing, trying to keep things at this angle or that so you don't catch a glimpse of an extra chin or that oh-so-delightfully squishy muffin top of mine. Oh well. Work calls.

Oh - and before I forget (willis, I got your email, thank you, you're right - I do need to careful and aware) I have a warning for anyone who might consider using any information I give about myself for buggering purposes (if you want to locate me to hand me stacks of unmarked twenty dollar bills, well, okay then). I know how to use a gun. I can fart at will - and my farts smell hellaciously bad. I have raging cases of several diagnosed and undiagnosed venereal diseases. If I'm raped, I just kinda lie there like I've been drugged or something. I have the worst halitosis you've ever smelled in your life. Five out of five dentists agree - I could use some Dentyne. Imagine, if you will, you take an egg, put it in an old shoe, and bury it under a chicken coop......

You get my point. It would be folly to bother me or my family. Don't forget the attack cats. The scary hillbilly neighbors who are just itchin for a fight. Wanna squeal like a pig? Then there's the guy who lives in the trailer across the way. He is the neighborhood watch. That's what he uses his good eye for. The missing one? Well, that's an interesting story. We also have the electronic security system and the low tech, too - Garbo is posted at random times to kabonk you on the head with golf clubs from her upstairs window and, if I feel threatened, I will unleash The Actor, who is actually a feral child, but I've kept that off the blog because of pending lawsuits.

Of course, if anyone would ever fuck with my kids? Well, you know how you read this stuff and wonder if I am, in fact, certifiably insane? Well, we'd have that well and truly confirmed, I tell you what. And dudes? I'm not even this side of crazy compared to MathMan. He just plays a sane person on this blog. I mean, seriously. What sane person would (a) stay tethered to a lunatic like me and (b) voluntarily work with teenagers?

Enough said. That work isn't going to get itself done, the uncooperative bastard......here's a happy song for this rather gloomy Friday.

Have Camera, Will Be Goofy

Some people should not be turned loose with a camera because they do things like this:

They take pictures of impractical houses to rent.
(Do not call landlords, this house is not right for you, Lisa, you know that. No one cares that it's a historical home.
It's probably infested with termites and does it even have indoor plumbing? Yeah, but look at those double doors! Painted RED, no less...)

They take pictures of cat or rather ask their kids to take pictures of stealth cat dookie.

They take pictures of body parts.

Sometimes not their own.









Give them software and they do crazy things like photo editing and.....

.....they make videos.

Of silly and mundane things, that have no business being videotaped.
(Note you can hear a truly typical exchange between MathMan and me.)

P.S. And when they go through Federal Court security, they remember to wear their ratty-ass non-wired white cotton bra that is falling apart and has a hole just to the left of their right nipple, but who cares?

And they would never dream of using the word shitter in front of the American flag.
The very idea.....shocking, People of the Internets, shocking.....

Of Trapped Yawns and Sweater Sets

I've got a bit of writer's cramp in my brain. I have three posts started and still - nothing. I can't finish them.

It's like having a sneeze caught. Or a yawn. You know that feeling when you need to yawn and you just can't get the whole yawn to come out? Then you start to obsess about it and that just makes matters worse.

Now if you don't yawn soon, you're going to stop breathing because that jammed up yawn is clogging your respiratory system and you can feel it in the back of your throat and your lungs feel like they are being squeezed and you're dying and will someone please yawn at you because yawns are contagious right?

I'm not quite writhing on the floor, gasping for air, trying to get my lung constricting bra off with one hand while dialing 9-1-1- with the other. But I'm getting close.

The fact that I'm blogging live from the living room at Golden Manor while sharing space with The Actor isn't helping matters at all. He's got the remote and is toggling between Forest Gump and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Now Garbo has joined us - she'd been sleeping off a school drunk draped across the trough I share with MathMan. And there she goes again, picking a wedgie from her ass, looking like she might topple over if she doesn't get some raw spaghetti down her yawning maw immediately.

Oh hell. Back to the yawn.

So maybe I just need to force it. I regret what I am doing to you here and what I am about to do to you. My new favorite word unfortunate would be most apropos because, you see, as I am halfway through this post and there's a nagging in my brain about the dryer alarm that I ignored fifteen minutes ago and I'm afraid to get up and lose my train of thought.

Which might actually be an improvement, don't ya think?

MathMan and I spent the day together. We had a confirmation hearing for our bankruptcy. I'd love to regale with the wickedly funny details, but the truth is, as soon as we got there, our lawyer sent us away again. Everything is under control. We forgot to call yesterday to see if we had to show up and since we'd already taken the day off anyway, well, it was that kind of a thing.

After a long, arduous discussion about appropriate court attire, we headed up to the Federal Court Building in Rome (Georgia, not Italy, duh)

As an aside, perhaps TLC could do a program about what one wears to a bankruptcy hearing. I mean, do you wear your nicest business attire? If so, will the judge look at you and insist that you must have some kind of financial means and thus, should, in fact, pay back all those debts and happily accept ever sky-rocketing interest rates, fees that multiply like octo-bunnies and abusive collections calls until you've divested of all that fabulous clothing?

Because, you know me - I'm the Queen of Fabulous Clothing. If by Fabulous Clothing, you mean momstretch polyesterish pants and a swinging sweater set. All bought second hand, but who's keeping track?

So anyway, we took the windy-curvy route to Rome because driving to a court hearing isn't fun until you've achieved Motion Sickness Mach 4. We turned onto the cleverly named First Street and MathMan announced that he thought the big building with the gigantic American Flag must be the place. MathMan is wicked smart like that.

We locked everything we had except our Official File, our drivers' licenses and Social Security cards in the car's trunk (because if you want to see shiftless and shifty, take a peek at the people hanging around smoking outside a Federal Court building) and made our way through security. The nice octogenarian who wanded me twice was only slightly amused when I finally, with much exasperation, just reached up under my matronly sweater set (with faux pearl buttons, no less) and unhooked the offending metal under wire bra, pulled it through my sleeve and handed it to him.

"Make sure you don't lose this. I'd like it back when I leave," I smiled demurely at him.

Finally, we got upstairs to our appointed room, with almost half an hour to spare. We decided to look for our fifteen year old attorney. Well, heck fire! There he sat, coolly texting away on his iPhone with his telltale white earbuds jammed into his ears. I was glad to see he was still going with the gelled hair look. Nothing says legal authority like Bed Head's Got 2 B Glued.

MathMan tapped him on the shoulder and he smiled a greeting. As they discussed our case for all of thirty seconds, I surveyed the room. It was full of other financial losers just like us. The room was steadily filling up with couples in all manner of dress, including a critical mass of Koret matching separates. I felt an odd sense of relief to be neither over nor under dressed. Perhaps if I'd not ditched my bra downstairs, all eyes wouldn't be on me.

MathMan returned to my side and told me what the attorney had said. We were free to go, Mr. Fifteen had us covered. Well, that was a relief. I took one more look around and stepped toward the door. Something was bothering me, though. Then it came to me. I stopped and turned to face the crowd that had now gone back to their own thoughts and conversations.

"Um, excuse me!" I had to raise my voice a little, "Excuse me! Hi. Um. Sorry to bother you, but I thought you should know something. You. Um. All you people here seeking bankruptcy protection and debt relief! It's important that you know that you are ruining America with your greed! Our economy is in the shitter because of you and your clutching greedy ways! How dare you use those bank-issued credit cards! How dare you take out those supposedly regulated mortgages that you knew you couldn't afford! For shame! For shame! For shame!!!!!"

It was at that point, my octogenarian bra-keeper and some other fascist thug dragged me from the courtroom.

I guess they didn't take kindly to my use of the word shitter in front of the American flag.

MathMan was soooo mad at me. It took him twenty precious minutes to convince security that I wasn't really dangerous. They let me go with him after he agreed to let the old dude keep my bra. Dammit. That was my favorite black bra, too.

When we finally escaped that ordeal, we discussed the day that yawned before us. We didn't have any solid plans, but MathMan had some dirty ideas. Listen up, People of the Internets, we've been married twenty years. We have three kids underfoot most of the time. We have the house, two jobs and our fair share of stress. What else would we do to release a little of that angst and anxiety?

We ran errands, course! Got the oil changed on MathMan's car, paid the extra three bucks to get it washed, too, deposited a check from my side job, blah, blah, blah. Then we came home and got busy. In front of our computers. Really.

I even made a video, which I'll share with you later.

Yawn............ah, that's better.

Tea and Sympathy

Pictured here: The Barn. Home of Bee. It's exactly the kind of home I inhabit in my fantasies of life in the English countryside.

Well, who would have guessed that carrying on the way I do would lead to this.....

So I'm going to bed to watch British programs with a nice pot of tea. See, yesterday we received a package from Bee all the way from lovely Britain. Tea and sympathy, she said on the funny card.

I chuckled as the inhabitants of Golden Manor danced about begging for treats from across the pond. What's this? What's that?

You know I grew up in a small Ohio River town, the product of working class and poor yokels mostly from the Kentucky hills. Well yesterday with all the skitter and racket, I can tell you, Good People of the Internets, the hillbilly* doesn't fall far from the tree. You'd think The Spawn had never seen a delivery before. And the fact that the box said "Royal Mail" was almost too much to handle. British accents broke out like fancy hives.

Thank you, Bee, for the candies, biscuits and tea.
And for your words and your friendship. I am so grateful to know you.

Tea, biscuits, candies.
Oh, dear. I'm home alone with these treats today.
Whatever shall I do?

The biggest kid in the house enjoys the piglet candies.
Can you believe he set up elaborate math strategies and arm wrestling contests
to see who got to eat the Piglets?
He is a cruel man who must be stopped.
Um. I think that's the sick talking.
Sorry, MathMan.

My head is pounding. I'm ever so tired.
And the kettle is singing.
I must go.

Tea?

*Although someone might want to do a anthropological study on Jewish-hillbilly hybrids. I don't think there are too many of them around.

Adventures in Real Parenting: About That Little Jack Russell Terrier

Seems like for one reason or another I've been hanging out with The Actor a lot lately. MathMan and I have imposed some new television rules and that might be part of the reason. That might also explain why the sibling squabbling has reached a crescendo. I'm hoping that that whole mess has peaked because we can't keep cleaning up broken crockery and I'm in no mood to pay lawyers more than I'm already paying them right now.

So anyway, The Actor, who is working toward a new blog name - Nathan Taylorsville - for reasons that will become apparent shortly, and I have been chillaxing, drinking root beer and practicing obnoxiously loud burping, stuffing our faces with Fritos and generally guffawing at Nitro Circus and reruns of Jackass.

The other day, we watched the following segment over and over, thanks to the wonders of DVR. Then we repeated the lines until no one wanted to be around us. Finally, we looked it up on YouTube so I could put it up on the blog. So here it is. I hope you like it.

We're headed outside now where we plan to light our pants on fire and beat the living shit out of each other with hockey sticks.

See you when we're back from the emergency room....

Because sometimes, the 12 year old boy trapped inside me has to be let out, that's why!

I Was All Set to Get Some Things Done Today

And then the phone rang.

I was busted by another stage mother for not attending the high school musical version of Aida currently being performed at the Dancer's school.

Guess I better get in the shower and scoot on out the door......

Dang. It was a rough morning around here. A very yelly and cranky and pick on your younger sister and get your face ripped off for it kind of morning. A parents turn on each other because the kids are out of control kind of morning. The kind of morning that makes me wish that I'd had more perspective about being raped in Brooklyn - figured it was just part of the Welcome Wagon activities - and stayed the hell in New York with the job that paid more and the children left far behind.

Did you know moms think that kind of thing? They do. I'm sure my mom did.

And yeah, I just made a joke about being raped. We all process things in our way, right?

So we ended up with a conversation like this:

Me: I have a solution to our problem with the kids and it doesn't involve ebay, duct tape or incendiary material.
MathMan: Lay it on me.
Me: You and I will get divorced and live in separate places and each of us will take one kid.
MathMan: (stares at me, eyebrows raised)
Me: Oh, yeah, I almost forgot the most important part.
MathMan: I'm waiting.
Me: We would still get together for sex three times a week.
MathMan: We'd have more sex that way.
Me: Exactly.

Okay, y'all. I've gotta roll. I may not get all the housework done that I'd planned, but maybe I'll be able to catch a nap in between intermissions!

Penalty Box

First. Thanks to all who have responded positively to removing word verification. It makes commenting so much easier, I really appreciate it. There will be more on this later. (Also - D, the commenter, can you tell me the name of your blog? I can't find it on your blogger profile. Thanks!)

Of course, nothing is perfect. In no time flat, one of my blogpals got an spam comment from that hideous football character who's been hitting a bunch of blogs in this corner of the blogosphere. Sorry about that DED.

Second. No, I'm not dead. MathMan hasn't finally smothered me in my sleep, though many of you understand if he did. Sadly, I've been busy moving offices and wiping out computer files to make a switch to another laptop and that's just the paid work stuff.

I'm still not-so-cleverly waging the war against filth and clutter. I considered writing a whole post about what I found wedged between the sofa cushions today, but decided that it would be best to save that for another day when the only answer is empty Gogurt tubes and pretzel sticks. Goodness knows The Spawn can do better than that.

Anyway, I was telling you about my busyness. With the changes at work, there are a lot of details to be dealt with before I can get to the real work. Our tech guy came in to add some software to my laptop, but there were a few snags. It looks like I'm going to have to swap out computers after all. As a result, part of Thursday and much of Friday were spent moving files to the shared server, cleaning up things to put on my flash drive and generally weeding out crap like multiple versions of the same document.

I have some pretty bad computer file maintenance and usage habits.

My boss J was out all of last week and returned yesterday. As is his wont, we played catch up on work and life in general. I mentioned that I'd decided to swap computers and was taking the steps necessary to remove all the files from the laptop I've been using. There followed a question and answer period:

J: Okay. Good. Did you remove all the porn, too?
Me: Yes. I deleted most of it, but I moved the clown and midget porn to the shared drive because I know those are a couple of your fetish faves.
J: Okay. Don't forget the large lady porn or that already gone?
Me: I didn't realize you were into that, too.

So where else was I? Well, last night we discovered that we had no internet service at Golden Manor because Hughes Net put us in the penalty box. Again.

We have a limited amount of bandwidth we're allowed to use each twenty-four hour period. If we exceed that amount, we are essentially cut off from service. Oh sure, the provider's website says that you can still do some things, if you're willing to suffer some serious slowing down of the connection, but last night we were completely booted off.

When this happens, the recriminations and finger pointing start. Nevermind that we pay $69.99 per month for this shitty, limited service. Forget the fact that we had to pay $700 for the satellite to bring in the "high speed" service in the first place. Instead of being angry at the poor excuse for broadband access in this country or Hughes Net who knows they've got us most unpleasantly by the short hairs, we find it far more convenient and gratifying to blame the other members of the household.

Was it MathMan looking at Bugs Bunny cartoons on YouTube? Did The Actor surreptitiously use XBox Live? Who knows? All I do know is that I couldn't get online to save my life last night. You'd have thought someone told me that I was dreaming last November and Republicans had actually won the elections, hoodies had gone out of fashion, and the world's supply of chocolate had been filched by aliens from outer space.

I was despondent. I'd watched all day as my number of unread rss feeds grew more obscene by the hour and I could nothing about it. I ranted. I raved. I threatened to cut MathMan off from foot rubs and back hair waxes if he didn't make it better now. It was for naught.

So I got busy writing a piece of fiction that's been swirling around in my head. I actually finished the first part - the opening. It felt so good that I went to bed happy and satisfied with having accomplished that one little thing. Now I'm going to have to keep pushing through on this writing because I'm determined to finish it. I want this story to be complete.

And now, in addition to this fiction piece, my boss J is urging me to get off my butt and write an outline for a sort of humor/autobiographical piece about what our family is going through with moving, foreclosure, bankruptcy, job changes, sending a kid off to college, trying to keep the other two from flying off into the ether and holding together a marriage that has had its rough patches lately.

And J doesn't even know the half of it.

"Are you trying to get rid of me?" I asked him, trying to decide if I should be worried. He'd already had to tell one staff person that it was time to look. Was he now pushing me out the door?

He shook his head. He knew what I was thinking. "No. I just know that this is the time for you to write that book. You've got it in you."

I thought this over for a minute. Maybe he really was urging me to find a new job. Maybe he was mad at me for what I'd said earlier. I'd mentioned to him that I thought he should consider titty twisters and noogies as viable volunteer management tools. Kind of like mooning as a childrearing method. "I wish I were as sure as you," I huffed. I'm not so confident that I have the attention span to write anything longer than a blog post. "You're trying to get rid of me, I think."

"Seriously, I'm not. I think you're very Rosanne-ish, but not so blue collar. You could really go places with this thing and, if you do, please make sure my character on the t.v. pilot is reasonably good looking." He stood up to go.

Rosanne-ish? But I want to be a female Philip Roth!!!

"Will you provide me with a good reference?" I pushed harder.

He stopped and turned around. "Look. Stop it. I don't want you to go. I want you to be successful here and wherever things take you," he paused, thought for a minute and shook his head. He started to walk away and then stopped again. "Besides who else can I employ who would search out clown and midget porn like you do?"

Good point. There just are some things that make you indespensible, I guess.

I Bought a Ticket to the World, But I've Come Back Again

Things I've learned or been reminded of lately......

Threatening to moon The Spawn and getting my pants halfway down is an effective parenting tool. They'll comply immediately with any request if it means I keep my pants up.

Sometimes being wanted has a down side. It can feel like a threat or an obligation.

It is generally frowned upon when a mom expresses aloud that she's ready to quit the "whole parenting thing."

There is a lot of crap on my iPod that I didn't put there.

A cat will commit angry, furtive pooping to prove a point. You may never figure out what that point is, but you'd better find that stealth dookie or the smell of it will drive you slowly insane.

I can make very unpleasant jokes about Germans that I would never dream of making about any other ethnic group.

I like the word unfortunate. A lot.

Sprite makes me burp more than it used to and old Coke - not Coke Classic, but Coke that's been sitting in a closet at work for two years, doesn't age like a fine wine. Out of desperation yesterday, I drank one (our tap water is brownish and our water cooler has been empty for three weeks). Shortly after I drank that old Coca Cola, I noticed that my vision was blurry and I kept referring to the guest chair next to my desk Harold.

The Actor would prefer that I not sing the worst of Journey's songs during the ride to school. He's even less fond when my singing involves the shutting of my eyes so I can really feel the music and corresponding hand gestures.

Truck drivers can see me adjusting my boobs in my bra when I have the cover over my sunroof open.

Semi truck horns are very loud when blasted right next to you.

At certain times in my monthly cycle (that's different from my bi-cycle), I prefer softer porn.

My coworkers think I shouldn't answer the phone when I'm brushing my teeth to rid myself of nasty coffee breath.

I crave quiet.

Just because I agree to stop singing falsetto with Steve Perry doesn't mean The Actor will reward me by joining me in a snappy rendition of Spandau Ballet's True. What a stick in the mud. He won't even do the ah-ah-ah-ahhh-ahhhhh-ah-I-know-this-much-is-true chorus for me.

I can take a picture of my boobies with my phone and send them off to my loyal subscribers from behind the wheel of my car. It's not smart, but in this age of massive job cuts and layoffs, I believe that anything I can add to my resume goes in the personal PLUS column.

I can live on very little sleep, but is it really living or am I just another zombie?

I don't read poetry unless it thrust into my face. Then? I like it very much and I'm grateful that someone has taken the time to show it to me.

I like MathMan's yellow shirt.

I get pony-tail headache much sooner than I used to. Maybe that's because I'm pulling it so tight in a lame attempt to give myself a cheap face lift.

MathMan wouldn't mind those periodic episodes where I jump up from my chair and clog to the music in my head if only I would limit it to clogging only. "Yodel or clog. Don't do both," he says. "It's impossible to do them well simultaneously."

Garbo's hormones are kicking in and I'm not sure I'm ready for that wild ride.

Cats sniff things with great determination and concentration.

Green M&Ms do not make me horny. They do, however, make me crave more M&Ms.

A Post Like PBS Fundraiser

I typically don't share with you viral emails, but I got this one from a coworker and watched it because I knew I'd be quizzed on it at some point during the day. So I watched.

After viewing this, all I could think was (1) I need an aspirin with a mojito chaser and, (2) Quite selfishly, I might add, and I still can't get decent broadband internet out at the corner of noplace and nowhere?

Which brings me to my next harangue. People, I am begging you, please consider removing Word Verification from your blogs. Maybe you don't realize that you have it on? Maybe you aren't stuck with the dismal, but expensive and limited internet we have in our lovely, pastoral setting. But please, for the love of all things bloggable, kill your word verification. It's not just that it slows your commenters down, it does, but sometimes we can't leave comments because the gibberish word jumble won't load. Last night I invented new curses and oaths as a result of a battle with word verification. Even The Spawn noted that I was crossing the line from a string of fucks, shits, hells and damns into the worst kind of off-color language they'd heard yet. I was cursing in French with a combination midwestern/southern accent that made light bulbs burst and paint peel from the walls.

I know some of you have to do comment modification because of stalkers, trolls, and commenters who throw fits about your other commenters (me), but I'm talking to all the rest of you who have word verification, knowingly or unknowingly, those who use it to cut down on the occasional spammer. Consider dumping it, please and thank you. Really, thank you.

(If you use Blogger, you can find the word verification under Settings, Comments, Word Verification.)

Begging over.

THIS This

Oh, this one is in the bag. It's a meme. An easy one. And I have Bob to thank for it. He is its creator, you know. Here goes with the rules, etc.:

1. Grab the nearest book - no matter what it is. Textbook, novel, pop-up book, building code study guide, whatever.
   
2. Turn to page 25.
3. Read the 10th word on that page, or the following if that one is blank.
4. Type that word into Google Image search.
5. Post the third image.
6. Tag 4 people and tell them.
7. Link back to this post.

So the book I grabbed was It Is Folly to Assume My Awesome Lies Dormant by The Mincing Mockingbird, a gift from CDP.. It's a hilarious book with fabulous paintings of birds, each with a caption or saying that leaves me wishing I could be that clever.

So the tenth word on the twenty-fifth page? THIS. This? THIS. Okey dokey. I google image searched it and in a circular little event that nearly made me snore with excitement, I found the following as the third picture in the vast collection of bore.........


"Oh, what the hell?" I say aloud, rousing MathMan from his Facebook-induced lethargy. He shoots me a look of disdain (he can talk to me anytime, but he can only chat with his friends from grade school between the hours of 8pm and 11pm, apparently).

I blink slowly at him because he loves when I do that and then go back to this post, sucking my teeth and wondering what I can do to salvage it. I reach for the book once more and am comforted to know that the actual page I was instructed by the evil taskmaster Bob to select actually contains one of my favorite little ditties in the whole book...

"One more filthy sea chanty out of you and this trip is over."

I decide to halve the required number of ten and google image search the word chanty. Oh bother. I'd forgotten that I had my safe search off and was treated to the squishy bared buttocks of some young lovely named Chanty.

I give up.

Tags? If your blogger name ends with an r or a silent e, you are tagged. I would say if your name is Chanty, you are tagged, but then you'll want to show us your bottom and all hell will likely break loose, the police will be called, you'll stain your new white linen dress when you're getting fingerprinted, someone will spill a Diet Coke in the backseat of the cab as you come home from the police station, you'll drop your keys down a storm drain as you fumble around trying to get into your apartment, there will be a clap of thunder and a dramatic flash of lightening and then you'll wake up from the bad dream that is this paragraph and wonder why you are bare-assed on this blog and not on one where you might get seen by someone who can get you a job in the porn industry.

So see? We'll stick with this. THIS.

Wheeeeee! It's been that kind of a day.....

I'd love to provide an interpretive dance edition to show you the fun and games of this day, alas, I am out of time.

So here's this:

See you soon. I've gotta fly to pick up Garbo from jail or something.

Adventures in Real Parenting: Smart Kids Doing Dumb Things

And videotaping themselves while they do them.......

Sometimes I think The Spawn are determined to finally push me over the edge of the precipice where I normally pirouette. The Actor has now decided that right before baseball season would be a really good time to break a limb.

Because life around here isn't exciting enough, I guess......

His first attempts at auditioning for Jackass?
I don't even want to know.

What If I Do One Political Post Per Week

I'm working from home and it's the calm before the storm (read: The Spawn are still sleeping). I've got Morning Joe on because I'm on autopilot. It's just as ass-chapping irritating as ever. Seriously, people, I think it's time to let go of my masochistic viewing tendencies. I say that a lot, don't I?

Anyway, I'm reminded of a post I started last week, but never finished because I got busy with have-to things or distracted by something sparkly. I want to go back to it quickly and briefly:

Dear Joe Scarborough,

I tuned in to Morning Joe the other day for my masochistic fix. It's just what I do. You should be glad for the viewership, even if I am slightly off balance. On this particular day, you and Mike Barnacle were chewing over the testimony of the bank CEOs before Congress. You decided that your tactic of the day would be to hammer home the notion that our financial mess is the fault of Democrats in Congress (you cited Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, by name).

"Let's talk about how we got here......Congress forced banks to give loans to people who couldn't afford to pay them back."

That was your mantra. You repeated it so many times I lost count. Barnacle agreed and jumped in to bang the drum with you.

I'd like to point out to you that this is exactly the reason why perhaps it is time to bring back The Fairness Doctrine. See, as you and your guests "discuss" the really important issues of our day, you oversimplify things to the point where watching you actually makes people dumber, less informed. You say we're in this mess because Freddie and Fannie forced banks to make bad loans and that is the fault of Barney Frank. Here's what you don't say:

-The banks made their profit on those predatory loans up front and weren't all that concerned about the long-term accountability of collections
-Credit default swaps, a product of gross deregulation, played a huge part in our current financial mess
-High gas prices played another big role in this mess. The more money people had to devote to the purchase of fuel, the less money they had for both discretionary and non-discretionary spending. Can't pay your bills if you can't get to work, can't get to work if you don't buy gas, etc.
-High oil prices caused a price increase in many other goods, including groceries, another essential
-Jobs were cut, both as a result of outsourcing that is rewarded by our current tax system and because Wall Street loves job cuts in every sector but its own.

I hope you see what I mean now about how you are dumbing down the conversation with your oversimplification. I know it's a convenient political tool and that you are not, after all, a journalist, but an opinionist and a former Republican Congressman. You have three hours, Monday through Friday, to hold court and pump out your propaganda. Unfortunately, because your cable station MSNBC is considered a news channel, many people assume that what you say is reportage, factual, researched. It's packaged as news, but it's really opinion.

The danger here is that there isn't anyone on your panel to counter your opinion or to expand the conversation. So maybe The Fairness Doctrine is just what we need in this time of infotainment. And, to be fair, I would say this for either side. Debate and a free press are vital to our representative government. We are not served by the ability of anyone to seize the airwaves and pump out propaganda of any kind.

I've watched you on programs when Rachel Maddow, an avowed liberal, says something that simply drives you insane. You want to muzzle her. Well, guess what. That's how I feel when I listen to you. Neither reaction is helpful or appropriate.

Now, a program where the two of you have equal billing and equal time to make your points and it's labeled as opinion? That would make more sense. At least then your viewers would know what they are watching.

Of course, each side is confident that the truth is on their side. Most Americans would tell you that it's somewhere in the middle. I think it's all over the place and often contains elements of both sides.

The reality, though, cannot be denied. It's obvious that deregulation has been a mess. It's obvious that having scads of money in our political system is a disaster. It's obvious that big business has been catered to for far too long, to the detriment of both small businesses and individuals.

Those are the messages that should be discussed, but won't be as long as we allow the imbalance of corporate interests to guide and own the political discourse in this great nation of ours.

This is where you look at your GE paycheck and try to find a graceful way to deny that.

In the meantime, I'm going to listen to some music.

Best regards,

Lisa

Proof

Usually, MathMan and I are way too cool to do anything for Valentine's Day. The day comes and goes and typically reflects two things:

(1) The general state of our relationship.
(2) The general state of our bank account.

So now that you know that, here are my PG-13 thoughts on this day of commercialized L-u-u-u-u-u-u-V. (R Rated thoughts are being sent subliminally - just keep an open mind.)

Dear Diary,

MathMan really does love me! His purchase of goods in my honor is all the proof I need. He may have gotten bupkis-plus* for his Valentine's gift, but he was smart enough to take me seriously the other day when , mid-meltdown (I'll regale with that tale later), I whined "No one treats me like I'm anything special!!!!" Because whining and melting down and pointing out just how special I am is so special.

So MathMan heeded that clarion call of for the love of god, she's going to lose it and run away from home again and did something incredibly sweet. He put together a gift bag stuffed with goodies and placed it next to my side of the bed last night. When I finally woke up in my desk chair in front of the computer around midnight and crawled down the hall and into bed, I saw that loving (if slightly frightened) gesture and squealed with delight.

People, it takes so little. Why do I not let someone who loves me be nice to me? I wonder if my childhood hobby of stuffing loose buttons and baby aspirin up my nose has anything to do with my dysfunctions.

I reached into the beautiful gift bag (Miss Healthypants - please don't tell Iwanski!) and pulled out the following items:

-A lovely card that said something really sweet that I'll just keep to myself.
-A tube of Watkins Lemon Cream Body Cream. It's amazing. I love the non-greasy feel, but the best thing is that it smells like the Lemon Girl Scout cookies taste. I put some on my hands before going to bed last night and I woke up from a dream about eating cookies to find that I was licking my hand.
-A small bottle of Watkins Lemon Body Oil. Perhaps I could use the body oil to give MathMan his non-commercial gift later. And if it leaves him smelling like lemon cookies.....
-A bag of plain M&Ms. This man knows me so well. Oh, sure fancy chocolates are an unrivaled delight, but when it comes to cravings, plain M&Ms almost always top the list.
-A universal camera tripod. What an awesome gift! But how am I supposed to use it as I drive about 75 miles per hour shooting photos?
-Raisin colored nail polish. MathMan has some definite ideas about what he likes, you know. That color will look smashing with the stripper dress that I can now fit in again.
- A tube of raisin colored Revlon Cream lipstick. And this is one of the brands without detectable levels of lead, so I suppose MathMan doesn't really want to kill me through slow poisoning, after all. I've wondered. You can't just dismiss that smell of almonds as nothing. And then there's his whole obsession with pushing peanut butter on me lately......

Here I am testing out my new gifts.

Hey, you two! Get a room!

And in case you think I've gone completely around the Oprah bend, I would like to point you toward something that made me laugh out loud in the library when I read it. In fact, I laughed loudly enough to get the stink eye from the guy sitting next to me who was wearing robin's egg blue nail polish. I mean, I think he was glaring all cockeyed because I was being noisy. Maybe he was just jealous of my hot new nail color......

Anyway, Comrade Kevin has some twisted ideas for how you might celebrate your Valentine's Day. I know it's too late now, but there's always next February 14th when it's likely that MathMan and I won't be speaking to each other, much less engaging in sweaty bupkis-plus.

Un Garcon

This is my "Oh, shit, the boss is in early this morning and blogging will have to wait" place holder.

Oh, yes, guess who's been listening to L'Air Musique (XM satellite)
and carseat dancing on I75.

Because I'm still resenting the fact that I have to actually work for a living, That's Why.

Look at This!

Oh, dear lord, you think. What is she doing now?

Well, remember that whole gotta get some work done now that I'm taking on new duties at the paid job thing?

That. That's what I'm up to. So instead of attempting to pound out a few meaningful words that will ultimately fall short of their mark and leave us all wishing we had those eighty seconds back, I will do to you the same thing I do to MathMan when he seems to want to engage on some meaningful level and all I want to do is just stare out the window and breathe through my mouth while thinking of absolutely nothing.

I show him my pussy.

This one just complies because the kibble is worth it.

This one would prefer that we just go away. For good. But leave food. The good stuff.

I know, the joke's getting old, isn't it? Oh, well, come back later and I'll show you pictures of shaved beaver.

See you in a bit.............

Ear Worm Warning

This song will get stuck in your head. I sang it for the first time last week while playing Rock Band with someone embarrassingly alone and I've been humming it ever sense.

But I really like the lyrics to this one....

What's with that hair?

Yesterday Was TWOSday

Yesterday was a day of twos.
I drank two cups of coffee in the morning.
In a rush out the door,
I grabbed two strawberry PopTarts
And ate them, cold, for lunch
With a piercing bitterness in my heart
And an angry face.
(Screw you, Kellogg's, and your idiotic hypocrisy!)

The day flew by
As if the minutes were leapfrogging over each other.
TickTick Tock, TickTick Tock
Instead of Tick Tock, Tick Tock.

We arrived at the magic hour
And sat in the shrink's office
A cocoon of calm, lowlighting, quiet voices.
A comforting, unidentifiable scent on the perfectly-regulated air.
When, without warning, a start of low grumblings
Growing into growls of hunger
Emanated from my mid-section.
Breaking the mood with its insistence.
FEED ME.

(Can this marriage be saved?
Not if I don't eat.
Therapy is hard enough, but with low blood sugar?
Impossible.)

We took to our two cars
For the long drive home
I made a stop for takeout
Acquiescing to the whims of two children
Left home to fend for themselves
While we dialogued in measured tones
And considered what it must be like
To be in the other person's skin.

McDonalds it was.
Out of sheer hunger, nearing desperation
My unfortunate food choices would later haunt me
The fries, taken in great clumps
Were consumed so quickly
Nary a grease spot was left
On my clutching fingertips
The milkshake, an alleged flavor, sucked dry noisily
Gone in near record time,
Gifting me with the pleasure of a white-hot streak of
Unrelenting ice cream headache
The double cheeseburger, ordered plain, no condiments, thank you
Left much to be desired
After two unceremonious and unenjoyed bites,
I mentally composed the following letter of critique For McDonalds.

Dear McDonalds,

You are doing it wrong.
There is too much pepper in the double cheeseburger.
And not enough chocolate in the chocolate milkshake.

It's important that you know.

Unsatisfied,

Lisa

Love in the Afternoon

Update on the possessed Kia:

The driver's side door still won't open. I guess we'll get that fixed or at least have a hearty laugh when the repo men come for the damnable vehicle.

Speaking of lemons, I was reading this post from Lisa at Lemon Gloria (there sure are a lot of us Lisas, aren't there?) and it occurred to me that I may be missing an opportunity for a Love Connection...As Lisa explains:

Because it's about this small group of people - all women - who fall in love with objects. Like fences. And the Eiffel Tower. And the Golden Gate bridge.

And when I say they fall in love with them - they fall in love. They imbue them with personalities. They assign gender to these objects. They have sex with them.

"So," I think out loud, rousing my co-worker from her afternoon nap, "perhaps I should change the way I'm viewing the maneuvers I go through each time I enter the car from the passenger's side and climb across the seat and console, trying desperately not to impale myself on the gear shift......"

Maybe from now on, I'll make sure the Sade cd is ready to play when I make the move from one side of the car to the next. A little seductive music, the right attitude and who knows? A little inanimate object love as I'm leaving the office might be just the thing to help me "shift gears" between work and home.

(Insert "balance" joke here.)

Magpie Brain

Things grab my attention
And won't let go
Even as I flit to the next thing
They hang on.
Other things just get stuck in my craw.
And then there's all the crazy shit that goes on around me.

One.
I listen to NPR and think in the shower. Yesterday as I shaved my legs, I fretted about the people we know in Australia. Were they near those devastating wildfires? FranIAm has the update. Thank you, Fran. Now I can go back to fretting about Jessica Simpson's unfortunate wardrobe choices and practicing singing Red Hot Chili Pepper songs in the shower so I can ace them on Rock Band at the expert.

Two.
A few days ago, Kay posted about her miscarriage. A commenter, anonymous, of course, made some hideous statements about hoping that Kay had learned her lesson about "sleeping around." I was so stunned by the callousness of this commenter who clearly thought he/she was doing some god's work by making such inhumane remarks. I want to make a deal with my religious friends - I will continue to tell my atheist friends to not call you a bunch of superstitious loons if you promise to smack "religious" people around when you see this kind of thing sullying your faith. It's going to take all of us calling bullshit on this kind of intolerance to get past our differences. Thank you.

Three.
Of course Kellogg's would go all priggish on us and cancel Michael Phelps' endorsement because he was caught smoking weed. This comes at a very inconvenient time for Golden Manor. You see, we just stocked up on Kellogg's products because we had coupon build-up. And Kellogg's products were on sale at Publix. So here's the thing - we want to participate in the protest/boycott of Kellogg's. But what do you expect me to do? Leave the boxes of cereal to go to waste? Take them back to Publix? Can you really see me standing in line at the customer service to return Apple Jacks and Pop Tarts?

Don't count us out, though. We're going to boycott from here on. And I've instructed The Spawn that when they do eat the Kelloggs' products, they are NOT to enjoy them and they are to do it with bitterness in their hearts and a very angry face.

I'm doing what I can here, people. And I don't even smoke weed. You read this blog - you get peeks inside my hamster infested brain. I ask you - how would weed enhance this?

Four.
I was fully prepared to shout at the television tomorrow morning when I got my masochistic freak on watching Morning Joe. But this time I had some perspective. The shouting, though ineffective as usual, was oh so much more gratifying.

Five.
Willis blogs. Oh yes he does.

Six.
I found some old journals. Hoo boy, can't wait to see what kind of revelations can be found amongst the whining about old jobs and the perceived horror of being a twenty-something married chick before children. I'm afraid if I really go back and delve into them, I might owe some people big,fat apologies for long forgotten slights and misdeeds.

Seven.
Cupcake has a new name again. We're going to call her Garbo here on the blog. Along with hating school and making herself throw up, now she's got a thing about wanting to be alone. Alone, of course, means in the master bedroom with the good television and crumbly foodstuffs that leave nasty gifties in the bordello bed.

If she keeps this crazy up, we're going to call her Sybil.

She spent all Sunday rotting her brain watching America's Next Top Model. When MathMan sent her to bed, she protested with the kind of vigor reserved exclusively for television-related tantrums. MathMan held firm and directed her to bed. A bit later, his cell phone rang. I watched him across the desk as he answered, a bemused look on his face.

"Daddy...." I could hear Garbo's sweetest, most cloyingly precious voice from where I sat. He smiled as he listened briefly to her pleas. When they reached a crescendo of television withdrawal screechings, he said calmly into the phone, "Listen to my answer...." and then he clicked his hang up button.

I roared with laughter. I'm sure Garbo could hear it from down the hallway where she was probably standing at her door, waiting for her daddy to cave in and say 'Of course you can go watch that stupid program just so I can have some peace and quiet.'

It's always worked before. This new resolve is not sitting well with Garbo. A few seconds later, MathMan's phone rang again. He rejected the call. This time, a text message came through. Turns out, it wasn't a text. It was a picture.....

Her mother ought to tell her that her face is going to freeze like that.