Month: September 2000

US Magazine? The one with Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones on the cover. God, I can’t stand those two, and US did a huge spread on them, asking inane questions like "Does Michael ever change diapers?" "Oh, yes he does, and I’m so grateful!" Gah. Only US Magazine would consider it newsworthy that Michael Douglas is changing diapers he hasn’t been wearing. I looked at the pictures of the two of them with their kid, and had a knee-jerk "ick" reaction. I’m not sure why – I almost like Michael Douglas when he’s by himself or in a movie, and I think Catherine Z-J is very pretty, but put the two of them together, and it makes me want to gag. Probably because of those ultra-smug smirks on both their faces. "Look at us! We’re so FAAAAABULOUS!" Look at the pictures of a barely made-up, mostly naked Catherine Z-J and a heavily made-up Michael D.! Oh, it’s just too horrid for words, people. Leave the US on the shelf this week, for the sake of your sanity. How the heck did I ever have time to write journal entries when I was working full-time?? I’m only working about five hours a day this week, and I’m having some difficulty finding time to write. Last night, I had to come home, make dinner, do some cleaning, and spend two hours – TWO HOURS – paying bills (personal bills, these are). Actually, I do know how I found time to write – I used to write the majority of my journal entries at work, because it wasn’t like I was ever doing anything like WORKING, fer gawdsakes. This week, though, I’m actually pretty damn busy at work, trying to figure out what’s going on and get what needs to be done, done. I need to go start dinner and then veg in front of the TV for the evening, since I took time out from my busy schedule to stop at the movie store and pick up High Fidelity and 28 Days. I leave you with this great picture of a field of Alabama snow: ]]>

Tubster… The one-room-a-day cleaning schedule is just not working out. I was supposed to do Fred’s room and the spud’s room and bathroom Tuesday, but I could NOT force myself to get my ass off the loveseat and go do my cleaning. Yesterday, I was supposed to clean my bedroom and bathroom, but again I couldn’t get my ass in gear. It’s not like the house is looking like a pigsty or anything – I’m managing to get the most necessary stuff done, like vacuuming the tons of cat hair off the carpet upstairs, and swiffering the cathair bunnies off the stairs, but still. Why am I so lazy this week? Must be because my period’s due in a week, since as you know, the world revolves around my menstrual cycle. Fred and I went swimming last night for the first time in, like, a week. All last week, it was overcast and crappy looking outside, which did not encourage pool activities. I hate overcast days with a passion – I prefer all or nothing when it comes to the weather. Either give me a stormy, rainy day or a bright, sunny day. Not that crappy overcast "will it rain or won’t it" stuff. Anyway, we went swimming last night, and the pool was 86 degrees and downright blissful. I’d teased him before the spud and I left for the Open House last night that he was probably going to sit in front of his computer and download porn while we were gone. Instead, he took the cover off the pool and cleaned it so it’d be sparkling clean when I got home. Is he a sweetheart or what? —–]]>

When Harry Met Sally, all in the space of an hour and fifteen minutes. Man, I love that movie. That was back in the days when Meg Ryan was still cute, instead of running around with hair that looks like it’s been cut with fingernail clippers. Speaking of movies, since it’s Movie Rental Tuesday, I of course ran to the movie store this morning, and rented Mission to Mars. I also rented Indian Summer, He Said She Said, and one other movie I can’t recall. 28 Days and High Fidelity come out next week! Woohoo! (Please don’t email me and tell me they suck, thereby bursting my bubble. Kindly leave my bubble intact. Thankyou.) I was up until almost midnight last night, reading Eleven Hours. Surprisingly, I was sucked in almost immediately and had to finally force myself to put the book down, or I would have been up for another couple of hours finishing it. First thing I did after I showered this morning was finish the book. I don’t know how long I’ve had it – two years or longer, I’d guess, since it’s a Literary Guild book, and I haven’t belonged to any book clubs in quite a while. Anyway, I recommend the book with two thumbs up. Man, I don’t want to go to this PTA meeting tonight. They always have the Open House on PTA night, so you have to go to the freakin’ PTA meeting before you can wander around the school to meet your kid’s teachers. I’d much prefer getting a PTA newsletter to sitting in the gym with a zillion other parents, while one nitwit asks a hundred idiotic questions, one right after the other. Grrr. I’m cranky today because the spud woke me while I was in a deep, deep sleep this morning, and I’ve been lethargic and out of sorts ever since, so I’ll not inflict myself upon y’all any longer. Have a good day!]]>

check it out if that sort of thing interests you. Today is laundry day. I don’t know where the Laundry Day graphic went, and I don’t feel like looking for it, so just imagine it’s here. I’m not sure how Laundry Day ended up on a Monday. It was Friday once upon a time, wasn’t it? Oh, I know. It was Friday, and then it was Saturday for a couple of weeks, and then because Himself has decided he’s Crocodile Dundee and must hike through woods and wrestle alligators in his spare time, there was no time to do laundry on the weekend. Therefore, Monday is Laundry Day. At least this week it is. The spud had to go to a classmate’s house Saturday afternoon, because a bunch from her history (I assume it’s history, but I’m not sure, to tell the truth) had to get together to write a play about immigrants, and this morning they had to perform it. Let me show y’all a bit from the play they wrote: Laura: I’m hungry.
Erin: Me, too.
Mother sees Jennifer.
Mother: Can we please trade you money for some food? Jennifer: Sure. (They trade.)
Erin: Ouuoo What is this food?
Laura: Would you like to go to my church?
Mother: No thank you. We have already found a church.
Erin: We are looking for a house. Do you know of one that we can stay at?
Jennifer: You may stay at ours for a while until you find a house. Mother: O.K. ‘ (Mother will ask Jennifer for a newspaper)
Jennifer: Sure – here you go. (Pick one up off floor.) A few minutes later . . . .
Mother: Girls! I think I’ve found a job!!
Daughters: Yeah!
Erin: Now we can look for a house!!
Immigration Family will say together: I think we’ll have a good life here! That’s about half the play, right there. I don’t know about y’all, but I had no idea our immigrants had such an easy time of it. They got an A on the play, though, according to the spud. Tonight, Fred has the pleasure of accompanying the spud to her school, because there’s a meeting for all the band parents. Tomorrow, I get to attend the PTA/ Open House deal. Fun, fun! Okay, I’m off to do the laundry. I can hardly stand the excitement! Y’all have a good day.
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Monte Sano State Park, where I’d never been, and where Fred hadn’t been in years. Warning: tons of pictures ahead! This is the view from the picnic area of the state park. Looks an awful lot like Gatlinburg. Some people left their dog tied up and went for a hike. Poor doggie! I bet he would have liked to go hiking, too… That’s the picnic table we used in the foreground, and the spud (the flash of red in the background) throwing some trash away. After lunch, Fred and the spud went for a walk, while I sat on my ass at the picnic table and guarded our stuff, and read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, which is absolutely hilarious. Monte Sano Tavern ruins. More ruins. Look! It’s nay-chuh! Part of the trail Fred and the spud hiked. They were gone about an hour. A local radio station is having a Survivor-type contest, wherein 9 people are to live in a Toyota Tundra for 14 days; whoever’s left at the end of 14 days wins the truck. Big fuckin’ woop, huh? If I’m going to live in a truck for two weeks, I sure as shit want MORE than the truck by the end, knowwhatImean? We drove by the dealership on our way home, but I didn’t get a very good pic. —–]]>

Think I’ll go pick up a stripper and show her the wonder that is Fred, my mind finished. "How about we go out to dinner?" he finished. I’m not sure what happened next. I believe I blacked out. When I came to some time later, Miz Poo was sniffing in a semi-concerned manner at my eyeballs, and Spanky was rubbing his ears on my feet. Fred glared down at me from his computer chair. "Har har," he said. "Verrrry funny." You have to understand, people; this is the man whom I have not been able to drag to a restaurant more than, maybe, twice a year in the last four years. And every one of those times, it was my suggestion, my insistence, and my getting on my knees and begging that led us to actually leave the house and eat somewhere other than our own kitchen table. Since it was so early yet, he wanted to do something and then go out to eat. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, and I didn’t have a clue, we went upstairs to loll about on the bed and discuss our options. We spent so long discussing them that by the time we decided to haul our asses out of bed and get ready to go, it was almost dinnertime. "So, are you going to get all gussied up?" he asked with a smile. I shrugged and nodded. "Really?" he said with an even bigger smile. "You’re going to wear makeup?" I nodded again. "Really?" "YES," I said, a tad irritated. "What’s up with the makeup obsession?" "I don’t know," he said. "You just look prettier with makeup on." The instant the last word was out of his mouth, he got a stricken holy god in heaven, what the fuck have I said??? look on his face. I gave him a hard time, so y’all don’t need to email him and tell him what an ass he is; I’ve got it covered. So he hopped into the shower, and I went into the closet and stared at my thirty-five oversized t-shirts, and tried to decide what, exactly, "gussied up" might entail. Since my usual method of dressing up consists of putting on underwear and a bra underneath my sweatpants and t-shirt before leaving the house, I was a tad stymied. With a little help, I decided on a sweater and black pants. I put on some makeup – mascara, liner, blush – and tried to tame my hair, failing miserably. Maybe fifteen minutes after beginning to get ready to go, we were out the door. The spud was more dressed up than either of us, as she was wearing a long red cotton dress. We had no idea where we were going for dinner. What we did know is that we didn’t want to eat anywhere in Huntsville, so we headed for Decatur and points beyond, figuring we’d stop when we saw a decent-looking restaurant. An hour later, after having passed every possible fast food restaurant and sixteen chinese restaurants, we turned around and headed back into Decatur. Fred used the cellphone to make a quick call to his mother, who lives in Decatur, and asked for suggestions. She suggested a restaurant, and then went on to tell Fred about all the chicken dishes they served. When he hung up, we made a joke out of it, imitating Bubba from Forrest Gump: "Blackened chicken, marinated chicken, barbequed chicken, chicken and rice, chicken and beans…" Another ten or fifteen minutes of driving – Fred loathes Applebees, Ruby Tuesday’s, and O’Charley’s, so those weren’t options, just so you know – we turned around again and stopped at a little Mexican place we’d passed at one point or another. La Cabana, it was called, and it had a couple of Survivor-type torches by the front entrance. The inside did not scream of elegance, but we were so starved we didn’t much notice. Between the three of us, we polished off the basket of chips and salsa, and they were goooood. I almost immediately baptised my sweater with a big chipful of salsa, which I dribbled clumsily down the front. I ordered a frozen margarita and then realized I like sweeter frozen drinks, like dacquiris or pina coladas. This did not stop me from sucking down the margarita, until the alcohol went to work on me (I’m a bit of a lightweight, believe it or not), and my face turned a glowing red and my eyes glazed over. The food was excellent. We took a detour on the way home so that Fred could show me a dead armadillo by the side of the road (he was surprised that there would be one this far north). We stopped by the movie store, and more than three hours after we left the house we were home again, home again, jiggity jig. I sent out feelers on the way home (get your mind out of the gutter, people): "So, will we be doing this every Friday, going out to eat? Kind of like a date night, only the spud along?" He was non-committal, shrugging and smiling and telling me we’d have to see next Friday. It was a lovely evening out, and very enjoyable. I can only hope it happens again (hint, hint, Fred). —–]]>

Night at the Roxbury) Quarterback Princess. Lordy, it was odd to see Helen Hunt all cute and young, before she perfected the head-on-a-stick look she currently favors. It’s apparently working well for her, since according to IMDB, she’s got 4 movies in the making this year alone. Speaking of movies, we watched American Psycho the other night. As Fred pointed out, Christian Bale does that asshole look very, very well. I’ll say this for the movie: it didn’t suck as badly as the book, if only because it didn’t last as long. Can I tell you how much I loathe Bret Easton Ellis? He and Jay McInerney were just the toast of the 80s, weren’t they? Oh, they’re so YOUNG, oh, they’re such brilliant writers! Anyone heard from Bret or Jay recently? I didn’t think so. So, I’m thinking about starting a separate diet journal, and it would probably look a lot like, oh, maybe this. I haven’t decided whether it’s something I really want to do; I’ll probably decide one way or the other this weekend. Man, I wish the sun would come out. It’s been crappy, overcast, and in the 70s all week. I think Fred’s going to drag the spud and I to Lynchburg this weekend, and make us take the tour of the Jack Daniel’s plant. Which will be cool, and I’ll be able to take lots of pictures – especially since the battery is charged and everything. Miz Poo has learned a new trick. She discovered that she could jump from the floor to the counter, from the counter to the top of the refrigerator, and from the refrigerator to the top of the cupboards, and therefore she would be at the very highest spot in the house. She was pretty amazed at herself when she did it yesterday, and I managed to get a shot of her up there with the regular camera, since the digital cam was downstairs. It was pretty cute. I’m going to end this for today, folks, but not before I tell you that if you have a lot of hardwood or vinyl floors, you know how quickly dust bunnies of cat fur and litter can accumulate. Well, I have a solution for you, and it’s the Bissell EasyVac Plus. This is far and away the best stick vac I’ve ever owned, and it blows away any of those Dirt Devil products. I use it on the kitchen floor, our hardwood stairs, and around the litter box, and it picks up each and every teeny piece of litter. I can’t recommend it highly enough! And hell, Bissell isn’t even paying me to say that! —–]]>