And none contented

Things I've learned/rediscovered during my pseudo vacation from the internet. And other things I'm just dying to tell you.

1. My "spare" time is easily filled up by the people I love. I've never been in such demand, not even when I had one hanging off my leg and another hanging off my breast.

2. What "spare" time isn't devoted to staring meaningfully at my children as gems drop from their lips is quickly eaten up by my need to keep things just so.

3. Upon attempting to not give a flying fig about the squalor that doubles as the children's bedrooms, I think I may have pulled something. Or lost something. They'd say my sense of humor is missing. I'd say (in descending order) you're on your own now so no more money, get a job, and how does military school sound?

4.  Nate is like me when it comes to emotional films. He, Sophie and I watched Of Mice and Men with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich, but then Nate refused to watch the end because he's read the book.

I get this. I once became furious with MathMan for renting Jack the Bear from Blockbuster. A kid so traumatized by the death of his mother that he goes mute! Fantastic! Areyououtofyoureverlovingmind? Whatwereyouthinking? !!!

If I'm alone, fine. I snivel. Sob. Wipe snot on my sleeve. Dab at the corner of my eyes with a tissue.

But when I'm with the family, none of whom seem moved by the same things that move me? They can't help themselves. They have to look at me to see if I'm getting misty-eyed. They know it embarrasses me and they make a joke of it to cover their own embarrassment.

Also - Sophie loves the movie Harold and Maude. When did you watch Harold and Maude? I wanted to know.

One night when I couldn't sleep. I watched it on Netflix.

Interesting. When I had seventh grade insomnia, I watched the numbers flip over on my sister's clock/radio while counting to sixty. The trick was to time it just right so I got to sixty as the number flipped.

How times have changed.




5. MathMan's sister sent him some information about the family's last name (Golden is the assimilated name).  Suddenly his family's history has a name. A place. Birthdays. Immigration dates. A million thanks to his cousin who tracked this information down.

I only wish we'd had this information sooner because I can guarantee you that one of Nate's middle names would be Leyzer.

6. People surf the internet more during the traditional working hours than at any other time of the day. Not that it's particularly significant. I'm just glad they do.

7. I've been online off and on, most especially looking at classic car websites. If I had the resources, I could become a gearhead pretty easily. More on that is coming. I know - you're thrilled.

7.a. The Chick Fil A mess was enough to drive me offline. What a disturbing clustertug. Some of my coworkers chipped in and had CFA for lunch last Wednesday. Not surprisingly, I didn't participate. I maintain personal, petty reasons for not eating that dreck (caveat - I'd climb over dead bodies to get at one of their chocolate milkshakes), predating this current fight. For the record, I no longer drink their milkshakes either. Great for my waistline and my conscience.

Knowing my coworkers went out of their way to support that company for any number of reasons made me feel a little less sparkly happy about my job. I'd gotten a bit too comfy pretending that this could be a tiny liberal haven because it's a labor union. I'm so tired of being an ideological minority. I've bitten my tongue so many times that it's mostly numb.

8.  I'm listening to the audiobook of In One Person by John Irving. I haven't read any of his work since Garp. I wasn't sure I'd like this novel, but I do. Very much. I've laughed out loud alone in my car several times. That's a bit awkward at stoplights, but I'd rather a stranger see me laugh than my family see me cry.

9.  The In-Betweeners. It's just another example of how I'm really a 12 year old boy trapped in a pair of Fanx (faux Spanx).

10. Your turn. Epiphanies, random bits of knowledge, book reviews, disappointments, pet peeves, potential hobbies and/or name changes?

In Search of the Giant Pink Sea Snail. And a Clean Kitchen Floor

I think I actually made the grrrr sound this morning as I crawled around scrubbing the kitchen floor. Yes, we own a mop, but the mop is neither as useful in actually cleaning the floor nor does it give off the same Cinderella-esque air of poor pitiful me for which I seemed to be aiming.

Of course, being like that on my hands and knees also made me a most tempting target. I commend MathMan for not delivering the kick I so richly deserved.

I was in a mood. And I really couldn't explain it except that maybe it was a combination of mini-hangover, chronic Hell I'm Fat! back pain, and a spike in my blood sugar courtesy of a bowl and a half of stale Yucky Charms.

Decent, healthful food is in short supply at the moment.

Perhaps I should blame the media. I mean, heck, we could blame the media for damn near everything these days. Did you see that silliness surrounding that golf player yesterday? I didn't, but I watched some humorless twit from ABC giving her opinion of what it all meant to the guy on PBS. Wow, PBS, is that the best you could do? I was just sitting there eating my gourmet dinner of a hotdog with mustard waiting for Rick Steve's Europe to come on and I had to suffer through a second hand account of the golf player's apology via a woman who was quite pleased that she wasn't invited in the first place because the inability to ask questions was such an affront to her standards as a journalist? Wasn't it bad enough that I had to eat a hot dog because of the slim picken's around here? Renew my membership, indeed.

Lord, where was I? Too many nitrates or is it sulfates these days? ... Oh yes, I was doing a Sarah Palin. Blaming the media. Oh, I don't mean the media as in the paparazzi that I'm always having to ask Sean Penn to come and put in its place. I'm referring to the media that I quite willingly invite into our bedroom on lazy weekend mornings.

I woke up entirely too early this morning. Since it isn't Bed In Day yet I didn't suggest that we go back to the mystery DVD we fell asleep to last night. No. We save those for Sunday. Instead I turned on the Turner Movie Classics, my go-to channel these days.

We watched the movie version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Well, we got as far as (SPOILER ALERT!) Caesar being stabbed and Marlon Brando, I mean Marc Antony, carrying him out for the Romans to see and then.......zzzzzz.

That showoff MathMan noted that in the half of the movie we watched, he caught at least five quotes that people still use today. I told him to shut the hell up. He's the math guy and I'm the words person and I'd only caught the stars* quote and something about the eyes of March. I won't have him upsetting the balance of talents that make this household run like the well-oiled machine it is. He gets Pythagoras. I get Billy S.

Matching wits wasn't going to make for nice stuff this morning. We were already having issues with keeping the blankets in order. And I was struggling to stay awake long enough to hear the Render Unto Caesar line, which I'm only 67% 47% sure is a line from that play. Besides which I was terribly distracted in my own muddled ways. When I wasn't staring at James Mason's sexy sexy forearms with that delicious wrist cuff, I was dang near swooning over Greer Garson's and Deborah Kerr's fabulously long and lustrous locks.

And then I had to ask the question that was burning in my mind. "Did the Romans really run around in tablecloths and can we bring that style back?"

Well, we missed the end of the movie because we fell asleep again. A bit later, we woke up and
had a quick breakfast in bed with Rex Harrison and Anthony Newley starring in Doctor Dolittle. I remember thinking, even as a young'un that if Rex Harrison had just taken the damn dress and bonnet off the seal, you could have cut that movie by about ten minutes. Not to mention canning most of the music. Anyway, as we were watching and I was consuming a great deal of sugary cereal, I had a flashback to my childhood. I think we had the Little Golden book of Dr. Dolittle or maybe a child's record of Talk to the Animals. Whatever it was, grown up considerations and obligations crowded out the memory and the moment was gone.

Lately, that's happening more and more. I can't complete a sentence or a thought before something comes swooping in to crowd it out. MathMan would tell me that it's a numbers thing again. The longer you live, the more memories you accumulate and the harder it is to maintain your tenuous grasp on your thoughts. He's a helpful devil, isn't he?

Anyway, I started to tell you about how the media affected me. Honestly, I don't remember where that thought was going (nowhere), but I'm happy to tell you that the kitchen floor remained clean for approximately one hour seven minutes and forty-eight seconds. Sadly, that's just because I so frightened the children when they first attempted to cross the kitchen threshold that they stayed well clear of it until I was gone.

Effective though it may be, it's a mighty traumatic thing to behold a mother, wildhaired, bra straps showing under the ill-fitting black tank and the lavender pajama pants four sizes too big crawling around quoting Shakespeare to herself. It was probably overkill to bare my teeth and growl, but I wasn't taking any chances. I wanted that floor to remain clean at least until I could haul myself to a stand and survey it for a second or two.

Simple pleasures, people. It's all I ask.....

*"Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings". - (Quote Act I, Scene II).