We drank a toast to now

December 29th 30th  31st is as good a time as any to make some New Years Resolutions and I'm going to try something new. I'm making resolutions I can keep.

1. I will begin and end several fitness regimes including walking when it's convenient and buying a grocery cart full of produce and unprocessed groceries on Sunday, eating healthy on Monday and Tuesday, and consuming mostly candy, pastries and fast food the remainder of the week.

2. I resolve to always find a way to make matters worse. Why deny my gift?

3. I will watch movies and forget the details 20 minutes after the closing credits thus driving The Electrician a little insane.

4. I will fret about money because my personal economy isn't growing so much.

5.  I will let my gas tank run down to fumes on I75 and wait until the last minute to stop for a pee because 2015 can't be all about a calm and balanced life.

6. I will continue my struggle with not using the Oxford comma and not having two spaces after a period because that was what I was taught all those years ago. One did not defy our typing teacher Mr. Neaman and live to tell about it.

7.  I resolve to Google everything except when I'm driving and then I will give Siri the task of Googling everything for me. And what Google can't answer, I'll turn to IMDB. Oh, I've learned. I've learned.

8. I will think about writing. Thinking is almost like doing, right?

9. I will watch the same episodes of British murder mysteries repeatedly to put myself to sleep because the squirrels in my brain won't quiet down without assistance so they must be drowned out.

10. I will procrastinate. Obviously.

Your turn. Resolutions?

Airing of Grievances 2014 - A LOT of Problems

Festivus:  A holiday invented by Frank Costanza, a character on the hit 1990s sitcom Seinfeld. Its symbol is the aluminium pole. Traditional Festivus activities include the Feats of Strength (typically ending with someone in tears) and the Airing of Grievances (also often ending in tears).

While I have erected a Christmas tree and shopped for things people don't need and participated in the Baruch Atah Adoni-ing and lighting of Hanukkah candles, I haven't an aluminium pole. This year has felt like a Feat of Strength so there's that.  All I have left to accomplish is the Airing of Grievances. Buckle up.

Facebook posting of disgusting images. Bugs unearthed from human bodies. Dead deer posed to appear as if they were delighted to have been slaughtered. Recipes involving Velveeta. Abused animals. Taylor Swift's eyebrows. Where the fuck is the decency?

Buzzfeed quizzes. One was entertaining. Two were silly, but okay. Three or more means you don't understand how the internet works. You don't have to punish us all by posting all of your results on Facebook? Lord. It's like pooping or masturbation. Everyone does it sometimes, but we don't need to read about it every single time.

Life hacks. Life is supposed to be complicated, weird, and difficult. And sometimes a toilet paper roll is just a toilet paper roll.

Denying injustice. If you're doing this, you need to experience a little yourself. That usually brings people around.

Politicizing everything. I heard a guy at Kroger accuse a woman of being a crunchy, tree-hugging Jesus hating liberal because she had the temerity to ask where the Greek yogurt was.  "What?!" he screamed. "Isn't American yogurt good enough for you?" I rushed to her aid, tossing her the Black Cherry Chobani, hitting him with my bag of organic apples and informing him that Jesus was a liberal.

The Marshmallow World. Thanks, Target. Way to ruin a song.  Also, you're not helping my desire to cut the demon sugar from my diet because just the word marshmallow turns me into Homer Simpson.

Shaming of today's youth because they spend too much time indoors staring at screens.  Oh sure, you played with sticks and ran around barefoot and got spanked and you turned out just fine. And today's kids are horrible because they have iPhones and tablets and video games and never suffer any punishment? Spare us. Ten year olds aren't issued AmEx cards. They don't ride their bikes to the Verizon store to purchase their expensive, sunshine and fresh air-depriving toys. Their parents won't let them ride their bikes out of the neighborhood for fear of strangers snatching them.

If today's kids are a mess, it's our fault. We've failed them not the other way around.

Corporate media.  We broke up a couple of years ago, but that hasn't lessened your influence on the world and hence me, damn it. Stop frightening people. You're making us impossible to live with. We fear each other, hate each other and believe that corporations want what's best for all of us. We're dumber, poorer, sicker, and more hateful. Congratulations. You have a wretched audience. That must feel awesome.

Faux country music. Did you just sing Hey, girl again? Put down that Bud and climb on down from that tailgate.  Dolly Parton wants to deliver a nice, ring-encrusted punch to your nutsack, bro.

Posting items to social media without vetting them or even reading them.  This is so simple. Read the article you're linking. Check its date. Google can provide an assist in not looking like a moron. So can Snopes.com. So says the woman who repeated the Jay Cutler fired hoax article, but hey, I didn't post it for all the world to see so I can still wrap myself in this swell fur of sanctimony.

Pharmaceuticals. I listened to the book STATION ELEVEN and one scene contained a description of a young woman going cold turkey off Effexor, the anti-depressant I took for over two years. I flashbacked to achy joints, brain blasts and the frustration of counting out capsule granules to wean myself off that poison. It comforted me to know that my experience wasn't just my imagination. If that author could so accurately describe those reactions, it must be true. We're pumping these chemicals into our children's bodies (guilty as charged) without much thought about how it will all end.

Oversimplification.

Pumpkin, pretzel, and other food fads.  No more pumpkin spice toothpaste, pretzel bread waffles, or kale. Shut up and let me eat my two tablespoons of coconut oil in peace.

Taking umbrage at the wishing of seasons greetings and happy holidays. As long as no one is tacking on you asshole, you really should just get some perspective. The person wishing you happy holidays or seasons greetings is being inclusive not insulting. I wished someone a Merry Christmas and he thanked me for "saying it right."  I repeated myself with a huge grin. "Merry Christmas, you asshole."

Bad Grammar. Spoken is bad enough, but if you are lazily reposting shit on Facebook that has grammatical and punctuation errors, it is time to reevaluate your life.

Death. You've shown up too many times this year. We're giving you 2015 off.

Pictures of your cat on the internet. This is said while standing in front of a mirror. Also, this is not a euphemism. Although it could be.

Potato chips. What are they putting in them now? Meth? I spent my first 48 years jonesing almost exclusively for sugary treats and now I've become a craver of the salt and grease? Life is so unfair. And while I'm at it - Wheat Belly, Wheat Brain, and this horrible Wheat Cellulite. I'm paunchy, stupid and dimply.  Hawt.

Dystopian anything. Please stop. You've got me considering the benefits of becoming a Prepper and I doubt I could last a day without my Roku. I consider my pour-over coffee pot roughing it. The best place for me at the end of the world will be ground zero.

Social media in general. Clearly, I need to walk away, but then what? Talk to my family, my boyfriend, my co-workers? Sit for 45 seconds at a stoplight without being entertained? And what about seeing things simply for what they are instead of imagining them with a Lo-Fi filter and tilt shift? I'm getting hives.

Jerks who want to dictate what should and should not be on social media. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Lisa.

Me. I'm the biggest problem I have. I'm in my 50th year and can't pull it together. I hope to spend the next 50 years not crashing about like a mental and emotional ox and instead do some good, let go of ridiculous expectations, be less insecure and judgmental, more direct, and relaxed.

The truth is I'll settle for becoming less bothered by grammatical errors and year end lists.

Your turn. Let loose.

Don't forget you come from nothing

It's been very busy at the office since, well, since the beginning of the new year. This is good busy. The kind that keeps me off the streets and the internet.

The projects are rolling in and I'm all...

We have a new leadership team and there are new faces and personalities in the office. It's changed the dynamic and, truth be told, it's livelier. There's more give and take. More moments of levity.

Worry not. We're all business when we have to be.

Surprisingly, even I am coming out of my shell, making friends, eating lunch in the break room with my coworkers instead of alone at my desk watching Netflix (and surfing the internet).

But then, who can be an introverted so and so when you've got a boss who declares a new office policy that should prove interesting and calorie-burning. From this point forward, all office conflicts will be resolved by Dance Off.

Which explains why I haven't been here very much. A lack of cogent things to say combined with a compression of free time leave me bereft of words, but not in a sad way. I'm more hell, yeah, I'm going to be a taker instead of a maker. Watching TV,  goofing around on Tumblr and Pinterest, taking naps. So much entertainment, so little time.

Of courses, the commute is still a lot like this -

And

But that doesn't stop me from being the consummate professional I so naturally am.

This post inspired by this.

It feels more like an epiPHONY

For the last several months, writing has become something so difficult that I retreat instead of trying. Following my return to paid work, it's harder to keep up - with writing, reading, eating things that aren't scientifically engineered to make us grow a third nipple, exchanging a few words with my family, with everything. I spend in the neighborhood of twelve hours a day involved in work or getting to or from there so it's hardly a surprise that my online life has evolved. Devolved?

Even though I can't be online as much as I once was (that's what I get for finding a job without an office where I could fool around online without anyone seeing), doesn't mean I can't write. Right? Someone back me up here.

But where to start? I feel rusty, stiff, at a loss for subjects, voiceless. The  horror!

Enter the 3A.M. Epiphany - Uncommon Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction by Brian Kitely. This book was a gift from Kirie back when I had all the time in the world to do nothing but write and of course, genius that I am, set it aside for a day when I felt I could dedicate myself to improving my craft.

I believe delusional is the appropriate word here.

So. I'm using the exercises in this book to get the wheels turning. Let me tell you, those brain squirrels are out of shape. Tubby from excess, wheezing with the smallest exertions..

Hard cheese. I'm flogging those lazy, lardy crybabies, insisting they pump their fat little legs until I my fingers move across the keys and produce the 500 words or more required to complete each exercise in Professor Kitely's book.

In other words, I'm doing things differently and expecting different results. Better results? Maybe. The point is, I'm going to use my writing muscle until I can crack nuts with it. Which is more than I can say for most of my other muscles. Okaaaaay, all of my other muscles.

Kitely has a list of the exercises here. If you're interested in joining me in this exercise, please let me know. I'm only on Exercise 2 and will do Exercise 3 on January 4th since I chose to write this post on the third instead of doing my book work If enough people are interested, perhaps we could do this as a sort of online writing group. Not being a natural joiner, I'm hesitant to suggest this, but one of the writing resolutions I've made for this month is to be more active in a writing community. Bob help me. Change is hard.

What are you doing differently?

Adventures in Real Parenting: I feel stupid and contagious

"This is a rotting cesspool of social anxieties with an overwhelming smell of adolescence."

This comes from a text I recently received from my precious 13 year old. I'm applying the adjective precious loosely.

She's in the throes of adolescence so I'm surprised, quite frankly, that she can detect the smell of it. Some days it's easier to like her than other days. She's smart and stubborn. A loner who doesn't want to be alone. Unconventional, but sensitive to the reaction of others. A Jew without any religious training frustrated that her school holds its Meet Me at the Pole religious service every year on Yom Kippur, but refuses to speak to her class about Hanukkah when given the opportunity.

My hugs could easily metamorphose into throttles for the ways this child stretches my patience well beyond where it's been pulled before.

I remember telling my mother that I hated her, but loved my boyfriend. Testing my limits with alcohol and cigarettes and hungering to be recognized as the grown up I thought I was.

And yet, there I was, lip-syncing I Will Survive into a hairbrush alone in my bedroom while Andy Gibb peered down, shirtless and tan from my wall when I was home alone.

Oh yes. That.

Suddenly, a little teen angst doesn't seem so annoying. She's on the swim team not choosing between menthol or regular Virginia Slims. She's learning how to make a rag rug out of old t-shirts, not acquiring a taste for beer. She's not hating me with the fury of a thousand Justin Beiber fans.

It could be so much worse.

In that instant, Blanche Dubois

Source

Saturday's baseball game was more than just a game.

89 degrees and sunny. The only saving grace was a slight breeze that came and went. When it went, we got a muggy reminder of just how hot it was.

Our job was to watch the game and cheer for our team. Our voices hung heavy in the air thick with moisture as we made polite conversation before the game began.

Here's how it works: We arrive about an hour before game time. Another game is in progress. Their fans occupy the best viewing spots. After the game, they vacate quickly and we take their spots or move our chairs into position so we can get a good view without blocking anyone.

To position your chair before the earlier game is over constitutes a punishable offense. Please refrain or face the wrath of enthusiastic and over-scheduled team parents. You know what they do to subversives, don't you?

As sweat trickled down my back, I regretted insisting that Sophie come with me to the game. She'd made it clear on many occasions that she has no interest in watching baseball, not even (or maybe especially) when her brother plays.

She fanned herself with a card she was using as a bookmark. Her face turned pink under the fuming sun. My skin prickled from the heat and I looked longingly at the University of Georgia canopy shading some of the parents on the bleachers.

"We should have brought parasols," I whined.

"We're not really Southern. We don't have parasols. We have umbrellas," Sophie snapped.

This was going to be a fun afternoon for sure.

The current game ended right on time. The fans stood and stretched.

One of our team mamas joked that they could leave the canopy for us.

"You can have it for five dollars," one of the guys joked back.

That seemed more than reasonable to me.

The joking went back and forth. The price rose to ten dollars. Still reasonable!

"Actually, it's not even mine to sell," the man finally admitted. "It's his." He pointed to another man who was returning from the restroom.

"I just sold your tent to these gals for ten dollars," he said to the owner.

The owner paused for a second and considered us.

"Hey, you can use it. If you can get it to us by five o'clock at East Paulding High School, you're welcome to borrow it."

"Really?" East Paulding is on our way home.

"Sure. Why not?" He smiled.

Why not indeed? I know people (maybe I'm one) who could give you twenty-three reasons why you don't leave expensive equipment with a bunch of strangers you might never see again, except he sees us all the time at these games.

We thanked him profusely as he told us how to take the canopy down, pointed out the collapsible wagon for transporting it and exchanged phone numbers with me.

Many times throughout the game, those of us enjoying the shade remarked at his kindness and generosity. It was easily ten degrees cooler under the canopy.

Even Sophie had a good time.

Our game ended early and we got the tent back to its owner well before he needed it at 5:00. I thanked him again and he acted like it was nothing. His act of kindness was no big deal.

It was a very big deal to those of us who would have been puddling in the sun.

When is the last time you were the giver or receiver of some act of kindness?

You make me wanna get up and scream

Source

The vixen nudges the kits to the back of the den. The three survivors yip and jostle for the best spot. From her spot near the mouth of the burrow, she opens her jaws and snaps them shut quickly. The kits quiet and tuck their pointed noses into folds of downy fox fur, ears twitching. The smallest one yawns then closes his eyes.

With a last glance over her shoulder at the sleeping pups, the vixen scrambles out of the hole into the mossy damp of the late May evening. The air tastes of the fresh earth of the plowed field and the honeysuckle climbing over the fence. The vixen skims under the fence on her trek into the woods where she's had luck lately catching mice.

Beyond the great rotting body of the ancient white oak, the grass moves. The vixen freezes, her eyes keen, her ears trained forward until she picks up the telltale sounds of rustling. Faster than the human eye can process it, her muscles contract pulling her close to the ground and she launches high into the air.

Once in the air, she sees her target. A small snake. Too late to halt her landing, the vixen sees the glint of metal reflecting the glowering red of sunset. The snap is quick and fierce, the teeth grind into her hind leg.

*************************************

"Are you ready?" The young woman smiles. Wearing a lavender uniform, she stands next to the tray.

Sinopa nods. The tip of her tongue traces her lips and she tastes the Chanel Kensington she applied before she left the office. He crosses her mind. What was it he'd said about that shade of lip color? Oh, yes.

She blushes.

The young woman steps closer to the table as she tugs on a pair of latex gloves and Sinopa settles back onto the futon-like chaise. She notes the young woman's name in a clean, simple font on the white name tag. Diana.

Diana moves the sheet covering Sinopa's lower body. "This is maintenance?" She asks.

Sinopa lets her eyes rest on the smooth eggshell wall and concentrates on her breathing. "Yes. And one of those - oh, what are they called?"

Diana cranes her slender neck to look at the form the receptionist handed her in the lobby. "Ah, yes. The Foxy Bikini. Have you chosen a color?" She lifts the lid off a jar and begins stirring the contents with a wooden tongue depressor.

"I'm hoping to get something that will match my lip color." Sinopa props herself up on her elbows.

Diana pauses mid-stir and furrows her brow. The two women regard each other in confusion until Sinopa lets out a sharp laugh.

"I mean my lipstick!"

Diana exhales. Her breath smells of the cinnamon gum she has tucked between her cheek and teeth. "Oh my god, I thought - " she places the jar on the tray suppressing her embarrassed laughter. "I'm sure we can find something close to that." She moves to the end of the bed. "Okay, please pull your knees to your chest."

Sinopa concentrates once again on her breathing as Diana silently spreads the wax. She bites her lip and winces as Diana pulls the strip of fabric away from her body. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, thinks of him. He raved about the Swarovski jewels. He's going to love the Foxy Bikini.

"Are they really made of fur?" she asks spying a chip in her French manicure that's wrapped around her knee.

Diana's gloved fingers pull her open so she can a closer look at her work. "Mmmmhmmmm. Fox fur."


Inspiration

Blackout

No, not another story about my early twenties. This is serious. I'm making my serious face as I type this.

What's all the fuss about SOPA aka the Stop Online Piracy Act? And that PIPA which, as I had it explained to me last night, is not the sister of Prince William's wife Kate. Well, I'm glad we cleared that up because the Queen gets snippy when I text her in the middle of the night. The phone vibrates, the Corgis start barking. It's a mess.

Bob Lefsetz states the case. (I'll be deleting the quote tomorrow morning and replacing it with a link to Bob's blog. Today the blog is blacked out as part of the strike. You can also subscribe to his email by clicking the link below. He's prolific and I've learned so much about where money, creativity, business and innovation meet by reading his emails.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go see if my favorite porn high concept websites are working.

The Gentle Hum of Anxiety

The last couple of days were an involuntary internet blackout. Round about noon on Friday, there was a din of WTFs, Sonofabitches, Goddamnits, Dagnabbits, Mommy! and Fuck me's! coming from West end of Cartersville, Georgia, as thousands of AT&T customers tried to surf the web and got stiff-armed by the Broadband Not Available message.

I, myself, had just performed several happy pirouettes around the deck after having just posted for the first time in two years at PoliTits navigating Blogger's new format while my heart pounded at the possibility of being reunited with my stupidly deleted blog. I returned to my seat to post my elation at having my old blog back, I saw that a couple of friends emailed me about something called Google+ and when I tried to open the first email.....nothing. Loading, loading, loading. I tried another tab. Statcounter. Nothing. Another. Nothing. Another. Broadband link error.

About that same time, MathMan threw open the bedroom window and hollered "What's up with the internet?" I could hear commotion coming from the living room. Grumbling, I went inside, remembering to reach up and snag the leaping cat who desperately wants to return to her feral roots or at least track down the squirrel who licks the deck every morning to ask him why in the hell he does that. She started to claw me, but saw the expression on my face and thought better of it, jumping with one swift motion to the floor and disappearing behind the sofa.

Nathan charged up the basement stairs, his XBox controller in his hand. "What's wrong with the internet? I was in the middle of a game!"

Sophie, who was awake during the day so that she could attend a party at 1pm, shook her iPod Touch. "I was watching Roseanne, but Netflix just went out. Did you cancel Netflix?"

Chloe was alternately packing for a camping trip and checking her email for an important message. "What the hell?" And then more words I won't repeat here because she shouldn't be using those words in front of her parents.

A sound from outside drew my attention. I tugged open the humidity-sticky front door and was met with a wailing sound made up of the collective epithets, oaths, threats and smart remarks from all those disappointed ATandT customers who couldn't check their bank statements, water their Farmville farms or upload photos of their privates. One neighbor wearing two oven mitts and a pair of her kid's swim goggles, wielded a pair of kitchen sheers on the metal stump housing the Comcast cable hub.

"What are you doing?"

"I was in the middle of searching for a recipe when the stupid internet pooped out! I'm dumping AT&T for Comcast. Right now," she said, blowing her hair out of her face. "Listen, watch for the cops. They patrol around the neighborhood at about this time every day." We stay at home parents and involuntarily and voluntarily retired people know things like this. I looked over my shoulder checking for the Black and White.

Another neighbor was squirting lighter fluid on a pile of kindling on his front lawn. "Jerry, are you going to send smoke signals?"

"Yeah, right. Smoke signals. No, this is for lighting our torches so we can make a show of force." Assorted other neighbors assembled on his lawn, scuffing their feet in the gravel along the curb, trying not to trample the impatiens or tip his bird bath. They carried iPhones, Androids, and pitchforks. The neighbor one house over was dismantling his ratty old picket fence while his wife stood next to him tearing sheets.

"We can use these for torches, Jer! I'm sick of painting it anyway," he shouted over the crowd.

Oh, sure now they're ready to take to the streets. I wasn't going to waste this opportunity. If people were whipped up enough to protest, let them at least spend their on things that would help the greater good. "Listen, while you're at it, would you mind protesting Georgia's disgusting new immigration law, the Republicans who never mention the deficit when they're running it up, two and a half wars, our corrupt governor, and corporate welfare in a time of high unemployment and record profits?"

My neighbor shook his can of lighter fluid at me. "You're one of those commie pinkos, aren't you? I told Sue to keep an eye on you when you started hanging your laundry out to dry and you guys replaced your lawn mower with one of those push mowers. Real Americans ride their lawnmowers!"

Yeah, this was going nowhere. "Enjoy your mob, Jerry, and don't forget that AT&T doesn't support net neutrality. Add that to your protest, okay?"

"Net what?"

"Nevermind." I slammed the front door, glad to block out the racket.

"Well, the TV still works," MathMan said holding out the dvd of Social Network we'd gotten in the mail from Netflix. "Want to watch a movie after we take Sophie to her party?"

Later MathMan, Nate and I ate popcorn, drank root beer and watched the movie about how Facebook came about. Occasionally, one of us would reach into a vibrating pocket and pull out our phone to read a text.

"I know there's some message here about modern life," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, while we're sitting here watching a movie about how Facebook was invented, most of my texts are from Facebook."

Full circle.

**************************

Just for laughs: First World Problems.

Unemployment Diary: My Pledge to You

Dear Potential Employers:

It's been brought to my attention by the counselor at the Department of Labor that my resume may be a problem for you because it contains titles such as Executive Director and Vice President and the things I've listed under accomplishments and duties make you itch with anxiety and your eyes cross with boredom. Contrary to what those liars in the college employment placement office told me in 1989, you are not dazzled by my transferable skills and upward career trajectory as illustrated by the job titles beginning with secretary (1989) and ending with Vice President, Programs and Services (2009). In other words, my resume intimidates you or causes you assume that I'm only applying for your job because I am desperate.

Now that's a pity because I am desperate. As in you can smell it on me if you get too close.

Because life is full of paradoxes, people who will counsel me to sanitize my resume of high falutin' words and dastardly deeds like creating budgets, managing volunteers and staff, developing marketing plans or serving as the chief staff of a small organization (read: guide the Board of Directors to do what you want, but make them think it's their idea) think that I'm not smart enough to know that I should have multiple versions of my resume, each targeted for specific industries, fields, and levels of employment, I've been advised to once again revisit my self-promotional material to see if perhaps it can be whittled and reworked in order to make you think that I didn't work for nearly twenty years to get promotions, better pay and better titles.

Well now that leaves me with some interesting choices, doesn't it? The last time I held a secretarial job was in 1995 and even then it had the fancy title of Administrative Coordinator or some such nonsense and paid more than most of the jobs I see listed today. Plus it had killer benefits. So how do I explain what I've been doing for the last sixteen years?  Okay, the last year is easy - job hunting, bitching about job hunting, cleaning, living on the dole, writing things to shove into a pile under my bed, taking pictures of birdies and pussy cats, reading and more recently couponing which I now like to call Hunting and Gathering. But what about the years 1996 - 2009? How do I rework the pain and pleasure of those jobs which ultimately led me to Georgia, the running of a small organization and the path to ruin also known as my last job?

Oh, hang on. Potential employers don't appreciate negativity, do they? Fine. Let me worry about how to fix my absurd problem of having played by the rules, climbed the ladder and achieved some career success. I'll just take out my magic Sharpie et voila! I've always been a secretary/administrative assistant/customer service associate/waitress/barista/sales associate/other duties as assigned doer.

Because in reality, I was. Not just as a mother and wife, but in my former paid jobs, not only did I do the big, important, if you fuck this up, we're going to have expensive problems kinds of things, but I also cleared the table of food debris after Board meetings, ordered lunches, planned meetings and parties, wrestled with the copier, crawled around on the floor hooking up technology, packed and lugged boxes, made love to the postage meter, cleaned out storerooms, answered phones with a smile in my voice, created and maintained hardcopy and database files, kept multiple calendars, made travel arrangements for myself and others, submitted expenses, stuffed envelopes, designed newsletters, drove my boss to the airport, and ruined many a manicure inputting reams of data entry. Because when you work in an office of two or three or five people, you pretty much have to do it all at some point. We didn't have People for that. We were the People.

As for other duties as assigned, I've even written about how I'm willing to go above and beyond. You can expect topnotch effort and creativity from me and that includes Breaking and Entering on Your Behalf and Teaching You How to Use Urban Dictionary and Other Swell Things to Make You Appear Hip. If you will only give me a chance, that is.

After careful consideration, I've decided that all future resumes and pleas applications for employment will contain the following pledge (places hand on stack of books made up of a Gregg Shorthand Manual, The American Heritage College dic-tion-ar-ry, three manila folders, a generic employee handbook and a daily planner circa 2003 that came free from a marketing firm):

I, Lisa Golden, do solemnly swear to be an honest and faithful employee, willing to carry out the simplest and most complex duties assigned by you, The Employer, with a professionally cheerful demeanor, a minimum of supervision, a maximum of customer satisfaction, no questions about work conditions or rules, no sniping about salary or benefits or lack thereof, no comment about your tie choices, shoes or taste in movies, no eye rolling or heavy sighs, no passive aggressive references to your lack of intelligence, no use of sarcasm, humor - ill or otherwise, or large words. I vow to never utter the words "Well, in my last position" nor to ever mention that I once made more money or held a higher position than my current one or yours for that matter. 


I pledge complete loyalty to you and the organization for which you stand or sit in that fine leather manager's chair and to complete all tasks to the best of my ability without dragging with me into the workplace any personal issues and needs, any reminders that I might have ideas of getting up in the world or any need for vacation, sick or family leave days. I will not litter my workspace with personal items or reminders that I have a life outside of work. I will never make a suggestion about how to do things better unless expressly asked by you or your superior, at which point I will offer the most obsequious (sorry about that big word, it means boot-licking) answer, repeating the phrase "Well, as (your name here) suggested" first.When it is just you and me, I will make you feel comfortable in taking my ideas as your own because, as any employee worth her White Out knows, your success is my success and any and all good things coming to you will eventually trickle down to me.


Finally, you have my assurances that even though I've had better paying jobs with fancier titles, I will not bail out on you at the first sign of an economic recovery. I've learned my lesson about changing jobs for better opportunities. I am here for the duration. You own me. I know how lucky I am to have this job. And if you find that you must, at some point, let me go due to economic factors outside your control or because you must slash payroll to make a larger bonus, you can be confident that I will not leave in a blaze of poo smeared file folders and angry emails to vendors and customers. I will stay as long as you need me and create as smooth a transition as I can for the person who will be doing my job after I'm gone.


So help me, Todd. I do. Amen?

And now that I've made my pledge, please allow me to address some things that might be obstacles to my employment as far as you're concerned.

1. The credit check. While I understand that it's important for people like bank tellers and bookkeepers to have clean credit and no reason to embezzle to pay off their debts, I find this new wrinkle in employment requirements unnecessary. It is a new day. It's not bankruptcy, it's a government bailout trickling down. We gave taxpayer money to the banks to cover their bad debts. I paid my Chapter 13 bad debts as long as I had a job. After that, it became impossible to pay the monthly bill. Ergo, the banks got most of the money owed to them plus the car and the house which was how the deal worked. That's called a secured loan because it has collateral that can be repossessed by the lender. Neato, huh?

Understanding this weakness in my personal financial history, I've shown the good sense to not apply for jobs in finance, banking and bookkeeping. Now you show the good sense to stop using credit checks to weed out good potential employees who've been swept aside in this mess of an economy.

2. Those advertising that Unemployed Need Not Apply. This isn't unemployed. This is learning new skills. With my new stockpiling skills, just think what I can do for your office supplies line item. Hand me that Staples catalog and watch me make magic happen. Phone bill too high? I've got tin cans and string. You can save money and go green at the same time. What are you paying for that water cooler?  Your staff can have that some sharing time carrying buckets of water up from the industrial park's retention pond as they get from standing around the Crystal Springs bubbler.

Hey, maybe I should become a consultant and charge three times as much as you would pay me!``

3. My former salary. As I told the woman at the Department of Labor, of course I'm willing to work for ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars less than I used to make. Who wouldn't want a deal like that? It's exactly why I went to college, worked my ass off for almost twenty years, left my kids in the care of others, took on extra duties to earn promotions, traded off salary for title, worked for no insurance benefits and no pension or 401K because my former employers were cheapskates and wanted to pay me about 1/4 less than a man would make for the same job and tried to make me feel guilty for asking for more money.

This is me dangling over the barrel. Do I look like I'm in a position to negotiate?

4. Moving to where the jobs are. While the kids would be delighted to be uprooted again and MathMan can afford to leave his megabucks generating scam as a math teacher, this isn't really a viable option. Employers understand this economy all too well. Just try finding a position that offers moving expenses these days. Besides, we got rid of our snow shovels when we moved to Georgia. Not only would I have to pay to move us and our stuff, I'd have to buy snow shovels and Snow Melt again.

5. Isn't it time for you to retrain to be something else? Oh sure, I like to think about how my future in auto or diesel would be sweet like crude oil, but we've been over this. As I like to say to the cats in my best Jewish Mother voice "And why do I need another job title that isn't doctor or lawyer? So I can make minimum wage cheering people on as they pass kidney stones?" Cheering them? I'd be more likely to rush them.  Are you done yet? How about now? Oh, please, I've had three kids with no drugs, so just stop with all that grimacing and noisemaking. You're fine. And wipe that up. I'm your nurse, not your maid.

Seriously, you do not want me in the medical field. It would be a setback to humanity of epic proportions. But since I mentioned maids, now there's something I've been training to do all my life, but I digress.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you soon about the open position.  I am available for an interview at your convenience, but don't think that I'm without time commitments because I'm not currently working. Today is Mystery Coupon Day at Publix, after all.

The season rubs me wrong

I can't explain it. It's just been on our fridge for 22 years.

More good news. I now weigh less than I have have in years. YEARS!

Possible side effects include a mood that makes me unfit for human consumption. All non-fat Greek yogurt and no pie makes Lisa a dull girl. Cranky, too.

My complaints are first world and if I had a lick of sense, I'd be embarrassed to release them like rancid toots into the blogosphere, but that's the thing - I've reached that place where I don't much care. Like how I said toots instead of farts? My mother passed gas. MathMan's mother let out air. I toot. Like there's a horn up my ass or something. Were anyone around, they'd say I had something up my ass, but since I'm alone, let's just declare it a bad metaphor and get on with the bitching, shall we? (Language warning. Unfiltered, uncensored, unedited.)

AT&T. If the calls aren't sketchy, they drop. And that business with the Broadband Link Error when I'm surfing ****? Buzzkill. Way to ruin a moment.

Assholes. In general. And there's really no nice way to tell someone to fuck off, is there?

Long sleeves. My hands are in water a lot. Water inevitably runs up my sleeves. Wet sleeves? I could live without them. The other day Sophie came into the kitchen where I was scrubbing the hell out of some pots and pans who hadn't done anything wrong.  "Where's your shirt?" she wanted to know. She's at that age where parental nudity is anathema. To her, we are Never Nudes. In answer to her question, I explained preventative stripping.

The cats. The staring must stop. They cannot be hungry all the time.

Time. Too scarce. Too easily wasted on things that don't matter.

My skin. Am I fourteen or eighty?

How the people I live with don't seem to recognize that when my butt is in my chair and my fingers are tapping away, it's a bad idea to just start talking to me. And umbrage that I wasn't paying attention? Blow me.

Guilt. I'm sick of dragging you around, you useless trunk of horrors.

Memory. I love you. I hate you. I need you. You're a curse.

Information about publishing. I love you. I hate you. I need you. You're a curse. And this bullshit about the gender imbalance in publishing? Fuck that.

When the media grabs a phrase they think is clever or hip and they proceed to pound the ever living shit out of it until you want to do an Elvis on your television and then take a bite of a peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwich.

The fact that there aren't any new Foyle's War episodes to watch.

The fact that I forgot to listen to the Decemberists live in studio tonight on The Spectrum. Yeah, it'll be rerun, but I'm still annoyed.

Me. Myself. And I. My own worst enemy, critic, obstacle, excuse and enabler.

That's it for me. I'm going to have some ice cream and then whine about being cold.

Your turn. What's up your ass?
(Good catch, Holly!)

I've Seen You Live So Many Lives

Despite what you might have heard, I have not died in a snowboarding accident. I'm not that famous. Outside my mind anyway.

Have you seen the fake news reports of celebrity deaths via snowboarding accident in Switzerland?  Earlier this week, a friend posted them on Facebook.  I saw one about Charlie Sheen and MathMan saw one about Adam Sandler.  Both allegedly died from slamming into a tree while snowboarding in Switzerland.  No drugs or alcohol were believed to be involved, but damn if that isn't some coincidence!  If Sonny Bono can die while skiing then it seems perfectly plausible that Charlie Sheen might die in a snowboarding accident.  Or at the hands of an angry prostitute.  But no prostitutes were mentioned in this particular online news story.

I asked MathMan to vet it for me because I had really important things to do.  Like read or watch a movie or eat something.  Or maybe I didn't trust myself to use Google because things seems so complicated lately. MathMan found nothing.  Even a couple of hours later, after he checked again, he found nothing.

It's not like we're huge Charlie Sheen fans or anything. We're not anti-Charlie Sheen either.  We just don't talk about him much around here.  We don't watch that show he's in with that other guy...who is it?  Ducky?  Jon Cryer?  Or is it Neil Patrick Harris?  I can't keep track anymore.

After all that ambiguity about whether I should be sad about Charlie Sheen, I decided to go to the great arbiter of who's in and out when it comes to celebrities kicking it.  No not TMZ.  I don't even know their url.  I mean Facebook and Twitter.  Seriously, people.  Even the most minor celebrity-ish person (read: anyone with an IMB page) can't be issued a death certificate until at least 10,000 fan-strangers have posted an R.I.P on their Facebook status.  In some counties in California and New York, famous folks aren't declared dead until an additional 5,000 fan-strangers have posted accompanying video links of the celebrity on their Wall.  It's a law.  Look it up.

Tweets, while effective in starting death rumors, don't count toward official death declarations because they zip by so fast no county employee could be convinced to try to count them, but the celebrity's families are surely grateful that @buffbabe1977 managed to tap out R.I.P. (fill in minor, obscure celebrity name here) with her newly manicured French tips.

If you haven't been memorialized on social networking sites, you're not dead. It's that simple.

Which reminds me - when Charlie Sheen or that girl with the new face, what's her name?  Oh yeah, Jennifer Grey, when either of them do finally pass on to the great John Hughes film in the sky, I want to post my favorite scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off along with their R.I.P.s on my Facebook. (minute 1:10)

As for Adam Sandler, well, maybe this.

Now that I have those three sorted out, I might just spend the remainder of 2010 developing my list of potential R.I.P. video links for the coming year.  It would help if I knew ahead of time who might die in 2011, but damned if I can find a list of people.  Too morbid?

That has to be more entertaining than coming up with my top ten list of anything for 2010.  All I have so far are a top ten list of places to hide chocolate from my children, my top ten list of movies I meant to see, a list of ten candle fragrances no one should ever purchase, and my top ten list of things I should never suck up with the vacuum again.

How do you plan to finish off 2010?  Celebrity death predictions for 2011 to help me get a head start?

Adventures in Real Parenting: Who's Stalking Our Kids Online? Why - It's Us!

My friend Carole sent me a link yesterday that made me laugh and cringe simultaneously Oh, Crap, My Parents Joined Facebook is a delightful website highlighting the online faux pas of parents and relatives. Can you believe some poor kids have to deal with not only mom and dad, but Nana and Papa, too?  Yikes.

Anyway, the link was quite apropos to a Facebook status I posted this week.

Lisa Golden parents by text these days.

It's true.  Just ask anyone with kids, phones and thumbs.

Some days it feels like I communicate more with my kids via texts, facebook statuses and tweets than via the traditional methods of hollering across the house or having serious conversations across the kitchen table while avoiding eye contact.  Okay, "some days" is a boldfaced lie.  It's every day.  But I think we all prefer it that way.  We're mostly a bunch of socially awkward eccentrics so limited face to face contact is less painful physically and mentally.  Except for MathMan.  He's the least socially awkward of us and even he has some trouble in the eye contact department.  So when your most socially adept person is the math whiz in the family?  Doomed.  Is it any wonder my best friends are dead British detectives?

That was like matheism or something wasn't it?  Or am I a Mathist?  What has America come to when the only people you can safely mock are the smarty pants elitists who know how to operate a graphing calculator?

I'm still traumatized by him showing me his Parabola the other night, but I digress.  I'm supposed to be telling you how I found out via a modern day version of the telephone game that one of my kids is "in a relationship."

"So did you see?"  Sophie's eyes were glued to the computer screen.

"See what?"  I stopped cleaning whatever it was that required scrubbing to look her direction.

"It says here that Chloe Golden is in a relationship with (name redacted)."  This pleases her.  She likes Chloe's gentleman friend and just happens to be friends with his younger sister now.  Very cozy.

Today you learn about your child's love life via relationship status changes marked by that heart emoticon.  If you're lucky, this is followed up by a change in the profile picture which now shows the happy couple.  You can at least see what the other half of the relationship looks like. (And you can, of course, stalk their page, if they don't have the privacy controls on too tightly.) 

Gone are the days when parents knew when you were "going steady" by the clunky guy's class ring wrapped in yarn to make it fit your teenage finger so that you could wave it around for everyone to see without accidentally casting it off and blackening some poor bystander's eye.  That class ring business was when our parents knew to step up the flicking of the porchlight as we sat in our boyfriend's car parked in the driveway.  The more they flicked that light, the more we wondered if he was, in fact, The One.

Our parents weren't stupid.  They knew that the good stuff, if there was good stuff, had already happened down Dam Lane or parked behind the Baptist church on the lower end of town.  They just flicked those lights to remind us that they were paying attention.

It's pretty much the same thing now with the likes of Facebook, Twitter and texting.  Although this "paying attention" requires a bit more nuance.  A text, direct message or email usually requires a response or some follow up action.  A Facebook status or tweet is less defined.  The safest thing to do is not respond.  Don't be too conspicuous.  Trust me on this.

And if you can't help yourself, at least have the good sense to respond privately and not where all their friends can see. (See below for more specific tips.)

All this technology extends the ease of meddling a parent can do far into the ages when most of us were already fairly independent.  We're able to peer into our children's lives, delving into the details in ways we might later regret.

For example, I'm sure my parents did not want to know how many times I woke up in strange places, wondering where some missing piece of clothing had gotten to and what was that guy's name again?  Even now, they don't want to know (so if you're from Rising Sun and reading this and you happen to run into my parents, just know that NEVER happened.)  Just like they didn't want to see pictures of me in a bikini wagging my tongue at the camera or putting my mouth right on the beer tap.

"So are you going to do anything?"  Sophie was trying to gauge my reaction to this relationship news.

"What do you mean?"  I stood behind her and looked at the screen showing the photo of my beautiful Chloe in the arms of a very tall, very nice young man.

"Are you going to 'like' the relationship status or are you going to comment?"  Her eager eyes gave her away.

"No, m'am.  I believe that's called 'creeping' and I hate to be accused of that."  I went back to my cleaning as I considered these new unwritten rules for engaging electronically with one's offspring.  What's considered cool, what's completely cringe-worthy, what will cause them to defriend you forever and ever and ever.

I try not to cross the creeper line, but I don't always succeed.  Nevertheless, I feel qualified from a time tested combination of trial and error to offer some tips for how to effectively communicate with your children in today's world without making them wish they and you had never been born.

1.  Do not write terms of endearment on their Facebook walls.  No sweeties, baby girls, honeys, sugars, precious poo poo pants or darlings.  Those belong in a private message, a direct message on Twitter or an old-fashioned email.  Frankly, most kids don't ever want to see that in writing.

2.  Do not comment on photos unless you are 100% goon free.  This is not the typical parent's forte. On second thought - just do NOT comment on photos. 
2.a.  If you cannot resist the urge to comment, be sure to neutralize the creeping accusation by beginning your comment with "Sorry for creeping, but....."  and make damn sure your comment is either spot on, crazy positive without being cloying (a tough, tough balance) or super funny.  And yeah, kids don't find parents funny, much less super funny, so stick with quick and positive (no cliches!) and get the heck out of there fast!
2. b.  Resist the urge to interact with their friends on Facebook.  If you've been allowed into the secret club of being friends with your kids' friends, don't abuse the privilege.  Control your impulses to comment, like, post songs or send links.
2. c.  If you are posting about your kids in your own status, tread softly.  Using their names with a link can be done, but you must be careful with this.  If you're simply referring to them, just be aware that they might see it or, worse, one of their friends might see it.  Teenage boys do not like being called their mother's babies, I assure you.  And when you refer to yourself?  No third person.  No ....and now Mommy has to.... or anything remotely like that.  Resist the urge.  Martyrdom is a delicate business, you know.

3.  Use the "Like" button judiciously.  They're happy that it's Friday?  Fine.  "Like" that.  They're pissed at their English professor?  Finger off the "like" button.  You do not want your thumbs up there.

4.  Some kids post their mood swings like I used to change my hair color.  Do not overreact.  If you're really worried, pick up the phone.  Do not, I repeat, do not post frantic messages to their wall unless you intend to escalate things and blow up Facebook for all of us.

5.  Twitter is a bit trickier.  For Twitter, it's best to look and not touch.  Although being able to offer advice, solace, or the occasional bit of tenderness using 140 characters or less is a gift.  Use your best judgment, but know that the consequences of being blocked are legion and many.

6.  Yes, yes, we all think it's funny to embarrass our kids to a certain degree, but remember what it felt like to have your dad laugh out loud at that school banquet and that food went flying out of his mouth and you wanted to die right there in your chair?  Or how about the time your mom asked you out loud in the grocery store aisle if you needed any sanitary napkins?  Oh, you remember. 

7.  Finally, as a gift to yourself, you might consider setting up a separate email account just for your kids.   This is especially handy for people with children living away from home.  The beauty of this is that on days when you don't want to deal with the drama, trauma or little hiccups of parenting, you can simply create an auto response email that reads "I'm off duty.  If this is an emergency, involves money, technology, a ride somewhere or favors, please call your father.  In case you still haven't added him to your contacts, his number is xxx-xxx-xxxx and he still answers to Dad, Daddy or (fill in name here)."


I should stop here.  I already sound like a complete know it all and even though I've secured her permission to write this post, there's no telling if Chloe would actually approve or agree with my Helpful Tips.  I suspect she'd offer this short, helpful directive.  "Just don't."

Until she needs her papers proof read, of course.

Please feel free to add to the list.  What have you learned about communicating with family, friends, coworkers in this new dynamic?

Looking for That Magic Number

So what is the magic number?  No, seriously - what is it?

Maybe it's just me and maybe it's because I've been spending time on websites offering expert advice on things like writing, getting published, changing your life and losing weight, but there seems to be an extraordinarily high rate of numbered lists ricocheting all over our beloved internets.

It seems to me that experts love numbered lists.  I bet it all started with an article telling writers how to write good blog copy. Picture it:

Ten Great Ways to Make Your Blog Better!
1.  Use numbered  lists
2.  Use a number in your title

You see what I mean, right?

So here's a sampling just from my rss feed reader today:

5 Money Lessons from the Third World

Top Five Methods of Procrastination 

Okay, so maybe five is today's the magic number.

Anyway, this got me to thinking - what numbered lists could I write?  I'm lazy and don't want to do a lot of research so I must draw from my strengths.  Let's see...

Eight Ways to Camouflage Cat Vomit Stains on Your Carpet!
This one would be super easy for me to do.  I've been practicing for this one since we got Phoebe the Boy Cat back in 1990.

Three Never Fail Methods for Losing and Gaining The Same Four Pounds in One Week!
I could speak to this with authority even with one vocal cord tied behind my back.  Although that title may need some polishing.  There may be too many numbers....

How To Make Those Seven Deadly Sins Less Deadly in Six Easy Steps

• 3.1 Extravagance
• 3.2 Lust
• 3.3 Gluttony
• 3.4 Greed
• 3.5 Acedia
• 3.6 Despair
• 3.7 Sloth
• 3.8 Wrath
• 3.9 Envy
• 3.10 Pride
• 3.11 Vainglory

Okay, this one might take more "research."

Oh and deadly sins - no matter how many there are - don't get an exclamation point.  That would just seem to scream bad taste.

What else?  What else?

Four Moves Any Great Lover Should Use.  Every time!
Now that gets an exclamation point.
P.S.  I will not divulge whether I am the great lover or if I've been on the receiving end of a great lover.  Rest assured there's no knuckle involved.

Three Ways You'll Wish You'd Embarrassed Your Children
Yes, Facebook will be mentioned. Of course!

Wine and Chocolate, Porn and QVC Shopping:  Twenty-three Ways to Multitask Your Vices
Okay, you see through the lie on this one, don't you?  I don't have money to shop.

Stunning Simplified - Ten Tips for Rocking The Sweatpants and Flip Flop Look
I admit I don't own sweatpants anymore, but yoga pants are a useful substitute.  And my memory is intact.

So what is it about numbers?  Does it make the writer of the article sound more authoritative?  Does it lend some some air of expertise to the information?

How is Ten Great Ways to Make Your Blog Better! more appealing than an article titled Make Your Blog Better! (question mark.)  Is it the finite quality of the number?  Does that make it seem more manageable?

I know one way to find an answer.  I'll ask our resident numbers expert Mathman when he gets home.   Goodness knows that man needs yet another reason to roll his eyes at me.  It's been days since I inadvertently set anything on fire.

Meanwhile, I think I will do some "research."  I'm thinking about an article entitled "Five Ways to Make Piles of Cash While Napping."


What expert advice do you have to offer? Number or don't.  We're not picky.  Although, anyone suggesting I don't take any wooden nickels gets a karate chop.  Oh, and be sure to check out the sidebar where I've finally added links to my favorite blogs.  There are new friends and old there.  Go visit!

  

My beacon's been moved under moon and star

Something weird is going on around here. It's a new something weird.  Perhaps it's sunspots or some electromagnetic field emanating from all the back to school ions.  I've considered and dismissed any supernatural interference.  I'm not  interesting enough to have my own poltergeist.

It started this morning when I turned on the TV to see the weather. I noticed immediately that something was wrong with our DishNetwork because the channel that normally houses Turner Classic Movies showed something decidedly not classic, nor terribly theatrical.  The woman in the lab coat spoke Spanish while an 800 number crawled the bottom of the screen.

I investigated.

Food Network was now Pakastani TV resplendent with waving flags and echoing commercials.  HGTV appeared to be something from China.  Maybe Korea.  C-SPAN was, we assumed, coming from Japan.  The newsreaders bowed to one another.

"This is odd."

MathMan had to get himself and Nate out on time so he showed barely a passing interest. He must have forgotten that I'm banned from tinkering with the electronics.

Sophia and I watched a few minutes of something that looked suspiciously like Full House except it was in Russian. Possibly Greek.  And Uncle Jesse was some punk girl with a head full of long, dark hair.

Slowly, channels came back on line.  When Fox News returned and MSNBC continued to be some sort of French news broadcast, I considered the possibility of a right wing conspiracy.  My ability to understand the channels is usually the other way around - it's Fox News that doesn't make sense to me.  But then MSNBC, HGTV, and whatever channel it is that's obsessed with Little People came back.  Not that there's anything wrong with Little People, but how many shows following around Little People while they live their lives do we need?

Anyway, I breathed a sigh of relief and pulled out my phone to post a Facebook status.

"Have TV again, breakfast is made, hubby and teen on their way to school, tween in the shower, the sun is shining and laundry is going.  Life is good."

Mid-crisis, shame and practical issues prevented me from contacting DishNetwork.  If I reach out to them now, they're just going to demand I pay my bill already.  They'll get paid what we owe, of course, but since we've been considering letting Dish become the latest casualty of our fiscal revamping, it might just do to let the service run out.  A natural death of sorts.  My main concern is for all those programs tied up on the DVR.  Poirots, Sherlock Holmes, a whole mess of Miss Marples, several Alfred Hitchcock movies.  I never remember to ask MathMan to show me how to record them onto dvds until it's too late, he's too tired or someone is watching something else on TV.

Still - in the grand scheme, losing a bunch of programs is nothing.  Nada. Rien.  Diddlysquat.

Later, other things started going wrong.  First, the DVD player became uncooperative.  The menu wouldn't come up.  The fast forward and reverse buttons revolted.  I changed the batteries to no avail.  If a change of batteries doesn't fix the problem, what next?  Sledgehammer?  Elephant gun?

Throwing the thing across the room is largely frowned upon in this household.  Being a good example is such a drag.

Adding to the electronic curiosities was the fact that when I pushed the remote's volume button, it would shift the sound up to 100 without stopping.  When I pushed it to decrease, it scrolled all the way to 0.  The only way to get it to stop at a somewhat decent volume was to play a sort of game - push the increase volume button and then quickly push it again where it would stop and stay on say level 16.

The final straw was a visit to the upper channels - the Island of Misfit Toys of the movie channels.  Not the premium channels.

Oh, that movie may have been British.  It was made in the 1990s or 2000s.  It was set on a country estate.  But that movie was not Howard's End.  There was no Helena Bonham Carter, no Emma Thompson, no Sir Anthony Hopkins.  I did recognize one of the male leads.  Matthew Goode.  He played  Patrick Simmons in Agatha Christie's A Murder is Announced and was most recently in A Single Man, but I only know that from IMB.  I haven't seen the movie.  Dang it.  A little research tells me what was being passed off as Howard's End was actually Brideshead Revisited.

"Do you suppose all of this electronic humbuggery is due to some cloud around me?  I have been rather difficult, putting off bad vibes and all."  The cat to whom I directed my question yawned and tucked her head under her paw.  "I don't suppose Dish Network would give us a month of free service in exchange for having messed with my head."  The cat remained indifferent.

I realize this is more of the same - modern day complaints.  Back when a person like me would have been out feeding the chickens in a blizzard or poisoning herself with bluing while laundering the Lord's and Lady's bloomers, the notion that pushing a button would cause so much fretting and consternation would have made us peasants laugh with our toothless mouths wide open. But I live now and I have certain expectations and when I turn on the television and can understand Fox and Friends better than I can understand anything else on TV, I think I'm entitled to a little modern day groaning.

I mean, a person can only take so much, right?


What buttons are you pushing today?

Make Mine a Triple

The rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated. No, as much as it would be considered justifiable homicide, MathMan has not finally moidered me. I know this is the longest I've gone between postings in, like, forever, but I've been busy with the usual:

1. Recovering from losing my flash drive. Thankfully, most of lost items were recovered from the home desk computer and a couple of other sources.

2. Shopping at the farmers market for healthy food. MathMan and I have gotten the word from our doctors about our vital statistics. Heredity is gaining on us and we can't outrun it with cholesterol clogging our veins and flub weighing us down.

3. Doing crossword puzzles with Garbo, bidding a fond farewell to The Dancer who is vacationing on the coast with friends this week, and enjoying some downtime with The Actor who seems to be ever so slowly coming out of his seventh-gradeness. Thank goodness.

4. Continuing the gaslighting of The Actor/Ninja and Garbo. This time, I enlisted the help of my boss J who filled out the envelope I used to mail the flying blue monkey to the Royal Pains. They were pleased to report, however, that they knew immediately that it was me because of the postmark. They further reported, looking all smug, that they've dispatched the monkey forever. He is now separated from his head and hidden where I'm never supposed to find him. Killjoys.

5. Demonstrating at work just how much being a blogger has made me a really, really valuable asset. How funny is that? Blogging as a skill set? Who knew?

6. Coping with the fact that not only is The Dancer shimmying away from us toward full-fledged adulthood, but Garbo, the baby of the family, is really growing up. She's shaving her legs and thinking about - gasp! - bras.

And speaking of bras, I've spent a good part of today doing something that didn't kill me. It just made me wish I were dead.....I shopped for bras and a swimsuit. Holy cats, people of the internets, what a painful experience.

I finally went online and read about how a bra should properly fit, applied that knowledge and discovered that I've been buying the wrong brassiere size for, well, most of my adult life.

+ one letter - one size = bra that fits

I was so excited that I forgot myself and went running around the Kohl's Department store still wearing just the bra. I was telling anyone who would listen about my new discovery, parading up and down the aisles so that they could admire the perfect fit of my new Bali, shaking hands with little old men, high-fiving their wives and I think I even kissed a few babies.

After the emotional high of that, I don't even want to tell you about the swimsuit except to say that when I put it on and stood, lip quivering, in front of the mirror, I said to MathMan, "Dear lord, I look like someone's mother ......mine."

Woman wearing the right-sized bra out.

Oh, I've been hearing this song in my head. A lot.

Wonder what Johnny Cash would have done with it......

Drowning Here in Summer's Cauldron

And it's not even Summer yet. Officially.....

So I went for my Mother's Day massage on Friday. It was so relaxing that I fell asleep. With snoring.

Delicate flower, that's me.

Anyway, that delightful relaxed state of being set the tone for the whole weekend. Since then, I:

(1) Consumed my weight in mini devil's food cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (a relaxed attitude toward food if ever there was one);
(2) Ate a scrumptious lunch of chunky chicken salad at the Village Porch Cafe with the The Dancer and Garbo (Garbo had ice cream because that's how she rolls, apparently, and her mama was in an indulgent mood);
(3) Bought a stack of used books at the Friends of the Library book sale, including One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez which I purchased not so much because I was itching to finally read this book (books about Central and South America always make me crave Mexican and South American food - what is that all about?), but because it had a letter stuck in between the pages. I'd have felt like a rat if I'd just swiped the letter and not bought the book for less than a quarter. Now I feel like I have to read the book which will result in all kinds of cravings like guacamole, arroz con pollo and lots and lots of tortilla chips. Great.
(4) Cruised the local shops and purchased my first typically female Vera Bradley doo-dad to control the contents of my abyss of a purse while the female Royal Pains danced around me singing songs of wonder and praise that I'd finally seen the righteousness of purchasing over-priced quilted accessessories. Look, if the dang thing keeps me from cursing as I root through my hemp, low-slung hippy bag, it was worth the sixteen dollars on sale;
(5) Went to a car show with the family, and...when not in a short-burst cleaning frenzy with appropriate music, and
(6) Pretty much sat on my behind and read this book.


Which I'm loving so much that I want to finish it already and see how it ends.

And I admit it. The short burst "cleaning" frenzy included ten minutes of hot make up sex with the neglected vacuum cleaner and wiping away bathroom dust with a washcloth I'd just finished using on my face. You know, hygienic to the max!

The car show was fun except The Royal Pains get kind of twitchy after a while. Maybe it was the exhaust fumes from the muscle car guys revving their engines or the live music or all those people! walking around, but after about twenty minutes, two of The Royal Pains started making sounds about wanting to "do something." "Do something is code for electronic activity. Them apples didn't fall far from the tree.

But see, I'm really trying to unplug, stay unplugged and like being unplugged. I realized a few weeks back that I had gotten so addicted to being online that I wasn't enjoying the "real" life I had happening all around me. Mind you, there's plenty to want to escape from on any given day, but the point is - I needed to find some balance. And in doing so, I hope that I can set a better example for The Royal Pains.

As for Saturday evening, MathMan and I endured the intermittent griping and grousing as long as we could, then headed home. The Royal Pains didn't seem to mind riding in the trunk where we didn't have to hear them. At least they preferred that to their other option - walk home the 15 or so miles. In the dark.

So that's why you might not be seeing me among the internets like you're used to seeing me. Why, just this morning, MathMan and I got out into the fresh air and took advantage of the morning light to take photos. We headed out Chulio Road, not far from our house, toward Rome, Georgia and stopped in this little old farming community to take some photos. Since moving to Georgia, I've gained whole new appreciation for abandoned buildings. Where city structures are often torn down to make room for new development, old structures in rural areas are most often left standing, becoming part of the landscape. I like that because you have history standing there before you. Anyway, meet my new obsession.....


This stone structure looks like it was once a home and commercial establishment. Or two. I'm anxious to do some research and find out what it was. It's got all these funky stone structures including a well, benches, an armchair, planters shaped like baskets, a moat (I'm not kidding), footbridges and a patio with built-in benches.

This place now tops the list of things I must own when I win the lottery.

I could cut out a lot of research time and just call the people who are trying to sell it, I suppose, but then I'll be all awkward because there's no way we could dream of buying the place and how goofy would it be to phone them up, ask a bunch of questions about the place and then be all "Well, thanks so much, gotta go?"

Of course, considering how unique the place is, that probably wouldn't be the first or last time they get that call.......I wonder if they'd hold it for me until we win the MegaMillions.....?

As we drove home from our photo-taking frenzy - which is much more fun than a cleaning frenzy - I mentioned to MathMan that the stone structure would make a great setting for a story......

Anyway, my apologies for being a lousy blogfriend and not being the loyal reader I once was. I'll be back to it when the beautiful weather and interesting books aren't tugging at me so.

Until then........