* * *
Today’s earworm:
So I waited with high hopes, then she walked in the place.
I knew her smile in an instant, I knew the curve of her face.
It was my own lovely lady, and she said, Oh, it’s you.
And we laughed for a moment, and I said, I never knew..
That you liked Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
(Escape (The Pina Colada Song), Rupert Holmes)
The “easy listening” station I occasionally listen to (easily) has played this song at least three times in the past two days. Every time I hear it, I hope that THIS TIME it’ll go more like It was my own lovely lady, and she said “Oh, it’s you.”/ and she punched me in the face and the blood how it flew/ And she kicked my ass and I cried like the annoying motherfucker I am/ Because any man who refers to his wife as “my lady” isn’t worth a good goddamn.
Or something like that. It hasn’t happened yet, but I live in hope.
* * *
Someone asked in my comments how on earth I read so many books in such a short amount of time. First of all, it helps a lot that I don’t work, so if I wanted to just sit and read all day long – as long as I didn’t have any errands to run or appointments to attend to – I could do that. I don’t, though – in fact, I hardly ever read during the day except for half an hour or so in the morning after I shower. Sometimes I read longer in the morning, but more often I only read for 15 – 20 minutes, because I have something I want or need to do. The bulk of my reading is done after Fred goes to bed. These days he’s off to his room around 9:45, and I read for one to two hours (sometimes more, depending on how hard it is to put the book down).
Plus, I’m a fairly fast reader. I don’t read as fast as Fred does – he reads so fast he can barely turn the pages fast enough, I swear – but I read pretty fast.
And that’s how I manage to get all that reading done!
Speaking of reading, I’m currently
reading Better Than Chocolate, by Susan Waggoner.
Finished recently:
Puppet, by Joy Fielding. I liked the book, and the twist near the end really took me completely by surprise (though I did get it a bit before the main character did, which made me feel special). I don’t think I’ve ever not liked anything I’ve read byJoy Fielding.
* * *
I got up after Fred went to bed last night and cleaned the bathroom – which I’ve been trying to force myself to do for days, now – and dusted all the furniture in the upstairs part of the house. It took me a little more than an hour, and I think I might start cleaning at night a little more often. I’m not always in the mood to lay in bed and read when Fred goes to bed, so why not clean?
The downside of cleaning at night, of course, is that I can’t run the vacuum cleaner. Well, I could, but I imagine Fred would get pretty pissy about it.
* * *
I sold both the cameras yesterday to readers (Hi K! Hi J!), which means that Fred gets a to buy a camera like mine, now.
He’s such a copycat.
* * *
Our T-Mobile contract was up a few days ago, and so yesterday afternoon Fred and I talked about going to Verizon and signing up with them. But then he started looking around and decided that going with Verizon was a bad idea because the monthly fee was going to cost more, we’d have to pay for the phones, and… something else, I don’t remember what. We talked about it for a while, then decided that T-Mobile doesn’t COMPLETELY suck. I mean, sure, our phones like to cut out when we’re right in the middle of civilization, but we’ve never been in an emergency and not been able to use them.
So yesterday afternoon he took our phones and the spud over to the T-Mobile store (my only instruction to him: “Bring me back a cool phone!”), and when he came home, he and the spud had cool flip phones, and I had a Nokia camera phone. I’ve been talking about getting a camera phone for ages now, because it seems like I’m always in a situation where I’d like to be able to take a picture, but didn’t have a camera with me.
HOWEVER, a few hours before he went to T-Mobile, I was talking about getting a camera phone, and then he said “But your new camera is so tiny, you could lug it around in your purse with no problem!”, and I said “You’re right. I don’t need a camera phone, don’t get me one.”
Where would I get the idea that whatever I say goes in one ear and out the other sometimes, I WONDER.
Anyway, I thought it was cool and I snapped a few pictures, and then I played around with the ringtones, and that’s when things rapidly went downhill. Because I liked the fact that with my old phone I could download snippets of songs to play on my phone, but apparently with the Nokia, you didn’t have that option. You had to get the dorky Muzaak ringtones, and I hate those.
Well, I don’t
hate them, I just wanted to be able to have the HiFi ringtones, not the Muzaak ringtones. Also, after fiddle-farting around with the damn thing for an hour – YES, I looked at the manual – I couldn’t figure out how to assign a certain ringtone to a certain contact, and I really wanted to be able to do that. I was able to do it on the crappy phone I had before my last phone, and that was years ago!
So tomorrow Fred’s going to take the camera phone back and get me a cool flip phone like the one he and the spud have.
I imagine that when all three of our phones are in the same vicinity, we’ll get them confused and hijinx will ensue.
I can hardly wait!
* * *
Such an expressive little face.
If someone’s in the kitchen, they must always be accompanied by Sheriff Sugarbutt. It’s the law. What if food dropped on the floor and Sheriff Sugarbutt wasn’t around to take care of it? Anarchy would ensue!
All of today’s uploaded pictures (there are some cute snuggly brudder pictures) are
here.
* * *
Previously
2004: Reader questions, answered.
2003: “Um, no,” I told Fred when he asked. “And not only no, but HELL no, and I’ll be out of the house whenever they come to interview you and tape you exercising and all that goofy-ass shit.”
2002: No entry.
2001: I guess he defines “tension” as “getting drunk and pawing every female in sight.”
2000: I practically woke up screaming, I tell you.
1999: Suddenly, it occurs to me that nestled next to my underwear is not the best place to put a bag of very potent catnip.]]>
Those camera phones are too damn hard for me to learn to use. I’ll take my old old old flip phone any day. I love your journal, and I think it’s cool that I am FIRST to comment. Hey you slackers…git off your butt and give Robyn a comment. Merry Christmas Happy Holidays to all….Nanamama
It’s not the Pina Colada song. The title is actually “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)”
I realize that he only says “Escape” a couple of times in the song but it is the name.
T-Mobile *claimed* we were getting dropped because of sucky phones, not sucky coverage.
Verizon (who definitely has the best coverage) wanted:
1. $25 more per month
2. $35 per phone activation
3. Us to pay for our phones
T-Mobile waived the activation, dropped $2/month off our current rate, and gave us free phones.
I have Verizon and I *heart* them! Yes, they try to make you pay for all of your activations and phones, but if you can haggle even a little bit, you can get those things for free. My hubby got us 2 Motorola camera flip phones for free from Verizon. Activation was free with the 2 year contract. They will absolutely screw you dry if you try to get out of your contract though…
Thought you might get a laugh out of this if you haven’t seen it before.
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/flash/burgerking.html
Happy Holidays!
My bff and her partner have the same phone. When time came for me to get a phone, I got the same one. We spend many hours working on her house and our phones are usually lined up next to each other. We’ve never confused them once. We all had different ringtones and we have our phone’s named and it’s displayed in the LCD on the phone.
Odds are your phones were sucky. I have US Cellular (only cuz they have the best coverage in WI) and I had pretty good coverae except I dropped between BFF and my house. When I got my new phone, I was talking to my mom the entire way home and never dropped or even noticed I was in the dead zone. New phone – awesome. I do have a camera phone – only cuz my friends recommended it because it worked great and had cool features. I’m able to “record” a voice note and make that a ring tone so my friends do that for cheap ring tones (They record from the CD or even radio – it took them a little while to perfect it, but you cannot tell they recorded the tones).
Sorry to change the flow of your comments, but OMGOMGOMG! Did you watch NIP/TUCK last night?!!!!!…..aaaiieeeaaaarrrrrggghhhh at who the carver was. Just in case you didn’t watch it, I won’t be a shit and tell. It was all good though. Well, except for SOME things.
I have Verizon and must say that I like it. We switched from Cingular to them around this time last year. My camera phone has lots of extras I don’t use, but it does work in a pinch when I leave my other camera at home.
I have been happy with Verizon, too. I like, and use, the extensive coverage in several different states. I do the Free-Up/Re-Up or pay as you go plan (the name probably changed since I started). I bought a 20 dollar phone at Circuit City, then I buy 30 bucks worth of minutes every 60 days. So long as I renew in those 60 days (I always wait till the last possible moment on day 59) I get to keep the minutes I had built up if I didn’t use the 30 bucks worth.
I know I pay a higher per minute fee doing it this way, but for as little as I use the phone, it’s been completely worth it to me. I’m fairly sure I haven’t had to pay activation fees though – those may be new since I last bought a phone in 2004. And I’m SURE I have the crappiest phone imaginable, but for my purposes, it’s fine. 15 bucks a month for cell phone service makes me giddy.
Robyn, I’m the reason behind the Jeffrey Christmas searches on your website. That toy you bought him sounds perfect for my best friend’s little girl.
Get different covers for the phones. Less possibility of confusion.
That whole “record a ringtone” idea is a good one. I’m WAY too cheap to buy them. Might try that out.
Hey Robyn! Here is a little Christmas fun for you and your readers:
http://www.reuters.hu/card_dom/index_content.html
Love ya!
Amy
Because any man who refers to his wife as “my lady” isn’t worth a good goddamn.
Ha! Too right. For further proof see: Send Me Down to Tuscon – Mel Tillis
Exceptions: For My Lady – Moody Blues; My Sweet Lady – John Denver
Re: Verizon – They were supposed to put some sort of running discount on my parents’ plan, but so far as I know, they’ve not done it yet. And for some reason, the phone number I’m using has gotten switched back to being a Manhattan, KS number, so calls to it from the town I’m living in are long distance when they’re not supposed to be. Need to look into that.
Hi Robyn – You can add bling to your phone to distinguish it from Fred’s and the Spuds. Well, the Spud might like to do that too. I put a pink sparkly “skin” on my phone and my daughter bought some crystals and glued those on her phone in a cute pattern (and my husband left his plain). So now there’s no problem in grabbing the right phone.
That’s what I get for speed reading your journal. I missed the part about it being a dream. Hey! I just thought I’d doozed off during this segment 🙂 Did you catch Nip N Tuck last night? WOW!! who ever thinks up these scripts has some imagination. What a 2 hour edge of your seat, it was last night. Will miss this show. It is coming back on again isnt’ it?
I fucking HATE that song. It’s about two people who want to cheat on their lover, and don’t have the balls to break up before looking for someone better! What, are they in HIGH SCHOOL? Yeah, they realized they both liked “gettin’ caught in the rain,” but they also found out neither one could be trusted to be faithful! Argh!! …..Yet I know all the words and am now I’m singing it in my head. Thanks a bunch. heh.
I want to buy a kitty calendar and I don’t know the link. **whine**
When are you going out of town?
Thank you for the Christmas card. It is adorable.
Happy Holidays!