Month: August 2002

Smiley-face stickers! And a VW Beetle model to put together. Woohoo! Also thanks to Stephanie, who sent me: A smiley-face headband! My readers are cooler than anyone else’s readers. You KNOW it’s true! Thanks, Erin and Stephanie! That second picture was cropped so you can’t see the huge zit on my cheek. I developed that huge zit because we’re going to a family reunion tomorrow, where there will be 35 people, if not more, from Fred’s father’s side of the family, none of whom I’ve ever met. I think that having a huge, bright, raging red zit says “Glad to be part of the family!”, don’t you? At least this family reunion will be taking place at a good restaurant (I’ve never been there, but Fred has), and is taking place around noon. Hopefully we’ll be home by 2. It’s not that I don’t want to meet his relatives specifically, it’s just that I’m a freak about meeting new people, and especially being overwhelmed by 35 new people. And eating in front of new people. Basically, I’m just a freak. But you knew that. * * * 1. What’s your favorite piece of clothing that you currently own? My nightgown. I would wear my nightgown 24 hours a day if I wasn’t afraid of getting looks in the grocery store. 2. What piece of clothing do you most want to acquire? You know, I’m not really much of a clothes horse. I would like to fit decently into a pair of jeans, and that’s about it. 3. What piece of clothing can you not bring yourself to get rid of? Why? I have a Dilbert t-shirt that’s really way too big for me, but I keep wearing it. Probably because when I bought it, it was too small for me (that was when I was at my highest weight), and now it’s way too big for me. It’s kind of a reminder, I guess. 4. What piece of clothing do you look your best in? I have no clue. I like the way this shirt makes me look smaller than I am. Does that count? 5. What has been your biggest fashion accident? Probably most anything I wore in the ’80s. My fluorescent pink shirt paired with fluorescent pink socks comes to mind. Also, I had a pair of gumby-colored rubber high-heels that I wore the hell out of. I think my picture is probably next to the phrase “Fashion victim” in the dictionary.]]>

Poo hair Slurp water through long straw. Chew furiously on tiny piece of Trident White gum until it loses its flavor. Pet Poo with left hand while working mouse with right. Get mouthful of Poo hair in mouth. Swear, try to spit it out, and gulp down some water. Feel Poo hairs clinging to the back of your throat. Try to ignore. Successfully ignore until Poo sneezes in your face. Wonder if it’s almost time for lunch. Lunch: Get out the fixin’s for your favorite lunch. Pita pocket? Check. Pizza Quick sauce? Check. Mushrooms? Check. Fat-free shredded mozzarella? Mozzarella? Where is the mozzarella? Pick up phone. Dial husband at work. When he picks up, ask “Upon penalty of death, where is the shredded mozzarella I needed for my pita pizza?” Long pause. Long, long pause. Hear husband say “Boy, it’s hot in here, isn’t it?” Discover that husband is a rat bastard who STOLE your last little serving of fat-free shredded mozzarella for his own rat-bastard purposes. Threaten death. Call him names. Threaten painful death. Whine about the lack of mozzarella. When he offers that you could use the cheddar, whine that it wouldn’t be the same, and he’s a bastard and you hate him. Hang up the phone and seethe with hatred. Put the backup lunch plan into motion. Homemade French Fries 1 potato Olive Oil Pam Slice potato into french-fry-sized pieces (if you are very anal and counting calories, recall that 5 1/4 oz. of potato = 100 calories, and weigh it on your handy-dandy food scale). If you prefer thin fries, cut ’em thin, if you prefer thick ones, cut ’em thick. Place on baking sheet. Spray with Olive Oil Pam. Put in 475� oven. Set timer for 20 minutes (you can check the color and consistency of the fries during those 20 minutes if you want, but 20 minutes seems to work out pretty well for medium-thickness fries). When fries are done cooking, place on plate. Cover with 45 cups of ketchup, and tell yourself that that looks like it’s about 2 Tablespoons (which equals 30 calories). Make rest of lunch. Ham and Cheese Sandwich 2 slices whole wheat bread 2 slices cooked ham 1 slice nonfat american cheese 1 leaf of romaine lettuce dab of reduced-fat mayo slightly larger dab of spicy Boar’s Head mustard Line one piece of bread with mayo, the other with mustard. On mayo’d bread layer one slice of ham, the piece of cheese, other slice of ham, and then romaine lettuce leaf. Top with mustard’d bread, mustard-side down. Place sandwich on plate next to french fries (steal a french fry to eat, to tide you over until lunch is ready). Place a paper towel on the plate next to the sandwich. Dig three slices of Claussen Bread and Butter pickle out of jar, and lay on the paper towel (this makes it so that no pickle juice soaks into the bread of your sandwich). Take cereal bowl out of cupboard. Take prepared bag of salad out of the refrigerator. Be struck anew at the horror of having your mozzarella stolen by that rat-bastard. Allow yourself a small sob before moving on. Fill cereal bowl with baby romaine leaves. Drizzle approximately 1 T. Kraft Light Done Right 3-Cheese Ranch dressing on top of salad. Set bowl to one side. Try to decide what the fruit for the meal will be. Eye bowl full of lovely, plump black grapes. Eye not-quite-ripe peach sitting on the counter. Grab 1/2-cup measuring cup and measure out 1/2 cup of grapes (57 calories). Put in small glass bowl. Carry all dishes over to the table. Grab can of Diet Coke out of the refrigerator, pour into cup. Add 2 ice cubes. Carry over to table. Look for book. Find book. Set book on table. Look for hair clip. Find hair clip. Clip hair back. Sit down and eat while reading in this order: Salad, grapes, put salad and grape dishes in the sink, rinse grape goo off hands (one of the grapes was overripe). Eat sandwich, pickles, and french fries together (bite of sandwich, chew, swallow, bite of pickle, chew, swallow, french fry, chew, swallow, slurp of Diet Coke, etc.). When done eating, put dishes in dishwasher. Pour second Diet Coke. Record list of food eaten, along with calorie counts. Start dishwasher, grab Fudgesicle (60 calories) out of freezer, and head for the computer. Eat Fudgesicle and drink Diet Coke. Dinner Mini Meat Loaves 2/3 c. ketchup, divided 1/3 c. chopped scallions 1/4 c. egg beaters or 1 whole egg 1/2 t. salt 1/2 t. minced garlic 1 1/4 lb. ground round 1/2 c. quick cooking oats Line a pan with foil. Mix all ingredients; put 1/3 c. ketchup to the side. Mix well. Shape 4 equal loaves in pan. Brush loaves with remaining ketchup. Bake 25 – 30 minutes at 400. (454 calories per loaf) Except, instead of cooking two of those loaves, freeze them before they’re cooked. The spud doesn’t like meat loaf, so she’ll be eating a hamburger. While meat loaves are cooking, wash 2 large potatoes; cut into several large pieces (yes, leave the peel on. Those peels are a good source of fiber). Place in pot; fill with water. Put on stove, turn eye on high until water comes to a boil. Turn to medium. Peel 9 large carrots. Cut into 1″ pieces. Place in pot, fill with water. Cut medium-sized onion into small pieces; add to pot with carrots. Put pot on stove, turn eye on high and leave there. Five minutes before the mini meat loaves are done, put small pan on stove; add spud’s hamburger. Fry, occasionally flipping, until done. When mini meat loaves are done, take out of the oven to cool. Burn hand on cookie sheet. Swear loudly. Call husband (that damn mozzarella eater. Damn him!) names, because he deserves it. Bastard. Drain potatoes. Add to large mixing bowl, start mixer. Drain carrots and leave in drainer. Note that mixer stopped moving because the beaters are clogged up with potatoes. Add skim milk, salt, and pepper until the potatoes are whipped to a mashed-potato-like consistency. Call family to dinner. Listen to husband fart. Watch daughter laugh. Roll eyes and feel certain that YOUR mozzarella is what’s making him fart like that. Snack 1 box of Publix Bran Flakes 1 large container of raisins 1 carton of skim milk 3 packets of splenda 1 cereal bowl Measure out 2 cups of Bran Flakes; place in bowl. Measure out 1/8 cup of raisins; place atop Bran Flakes. Measure out 1 cup skim milk, pour atop Bran Flakes and raisins. Tear open packets of splenda and sprinkle over Bran Flakes, raisins, and milk. Grab large spoon out of drawer, and eat snack in front of the television. Yum. Finish bowl of cereal, and sit back, certain that you can feel those bran flakes moving through your digestive tract like little plows, pushing all previously-eaten food ahead of it. Gotta love the fiber. Even though none of the food it’s pushing along is mozzarella. Damn him.]]>

In Search of a Grownup. My favorite line in the entire article is the ultra-prissy Damon made out with one of his wife�s friends until Brenda told him that it was rude to do so because they had guests downstairs, a rule of etiquette with which I was not familiar. You know, I don’t believe that once you become a parent, every bit of you has to be absorbed into that role. Because if you define yourself for the rest of your life as PARENT, what happens when the kids have moved on and created a life of their own? What are you when you’re no longer PARENT? Is there anything left? If you feel the need to put a lock on the garage to keep your kids from walking in while you smoke marijuana, it may be nature’s way of telling you the time to drop the bong is when you put up the crib. Actually, I think that if you’re putting a lock on the garage to keep your kids from walking in while you smoke marijuana, that would be an example of keeping your kids out while you’re smoking marijuana, because you don’t want them to know what you’re doing, any more than you’d leave your bedroom door wide open with the lights blaring while you’re in there with your husband having sex. See, having sex is another thing that you don’t particularly want your kids to see you doing (no child should be subjected to seeing the sex face), so you lock the bedroom door. Having locked doors can be a good and necessary thing sometimes. Maybe Anna Quindlen would never dream of shutting a door between herself and her children, but I sure would, and the worst example you could give your child (when they get older, I mean – I’m not talking about you mothers of infants and toddlers, because you really do have to be attached at the hip an awful lot of the time, and I understand that) is to show them that there’s nothing else to who you are, that you live and die to be PARENT, and you have no other desire than to let your life revolve around them. I guess what really gets me is the implication that if you’re not living life Anna Quindlen’s way, it’s just flat-out wrong and you’re an awful, evil parent. I don’t have a problem with disagreeing how someone lives their life* – one of the downfalls of existing is that someone out there is going to think you’re a complete lunatic and the worst parent on Earth – but I do have a problem with the fact that Anna Quindlen saw that a facet of the van Dams’ life was one she disliked, and she jumped off that to insinuate that they were bad, lazy, evil, awful parents and really that’s the entire reason their 7 year-old daughter was murdered. Did she say that? Of course not. She lamely said Counsel never succeeded in making this relevant, as if she wished that they HAD made it relevant. She never once intimated that such a line of thought is idiocy. Which it is. Thus, the ladder fund. Want to contribute? *of course, just for the record, I DO have a problem with someone who disagrees with how I live my life emailing to tell me so, as if I should give a shit. In case there was any question.]]>

here.) * * * I’m looking for a picture of Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones, in the bunny suit, to use as a temporary graphic for the Zany Chick page. If anyone could point me to that particular picture so that I don’t have to put the movie in and snap a picture of the screen, I’d appreciate it. (Got it! Thanks, you guys. You rock, you know that?) * * * We watched the crapfest known as The Sweetest Thing on Saturday night, and while there were a few laughs, overall it was crap. I don’t dislike Cameron Diaz, but I’m not sure I understand why she has an acting career. And I’ve seen far too much of her in her underwear. Time to stop that particular gimmick, thanks. Fred and I both noticed that Christina Applegate looks a lot like Jennifer Aniston sometimes. Also, there’s something I don’t quite understand. Why would you go home with a guy only to give him a blowjob and get nothin’ for yourself? I’m just curious, because honestly I don’t get it, not at all. Maybe it’s because I’m all old and repressed, you think? * * * This is from the giveaway page, and I thought I’d cut and paste in case some of you – horrors! – aren’t interested in the crap I find in the closets and under beds and offer up for free: This candle – from White Candle Barn – is frosted rose leaf scented. And it really does smell like roses. But I’m apparently quite odd, and sometimes something that smells like one thing to me also smells like another thing. This candle smells JUST like beer to me. I have no idea why. I’m a freak. And I can’t stand to have a beer-scented candle burning in the house, because if I wanted my house to smell like beer, I’d go on a week-long bender, wherein I spilled beer all over the house until the floors were so sticky they were like flypaper and the cats would get trapped halfway across the kitchen floor, meowing pitifully. And for the record, beer sometimes smells like apple wine to me. Yeah, I don’t know folks. I don’t make this stuff up, I just report it. And it’s not just candles, y’all. Wendy’s has a grilled chicken sandwich that I used to just adore. A year or so ago I used to eat it twice a week every week, sometimes more, and then I had to stop eating it because one day I went and picked up my usual lunch, and the sandwich smelled like bologna to me. And I’m not a bologna fan, so I swore off for almost a year, and now they don’t smell like bologna to me. Just so you know, I had to sing the “My bologna has a first name, O-S-C-A-R, my bologna has a second name, M-A-Y-E-R. Oh, I love to eat it every day, and if you ask me why, I’ll sayyyyyyyyy, Oscar Mayer has a WAY with B-O-L-O-G-N-A!” song to remember how to spell “bologna” in the above paragraph. * * * Mouse number three made it into our house last night after Fred went to bed, but unfortunately, this one didn’t make it out alive. I was sitting in my chair reading when I heard the elephantine sounds of the cats on the loose. I glanced up at the doorway and saw Spanky run by, and since he’s the house whipping boy for the other cats, I was sure they’d taken it into their heads to kick his ass for no particular reason. Half an hour later, Spot ran into the door, and I glanced up. He had a mouse hanging out of his mouth. “Spot!” I yelled. I was out of the chair in an instant and headed toward him. Spot did an end run around me and ran for his favorite place in the whole wide world – under the bed. “SPOT!” I bellowed. He made it under the bed, and I went for reinforcements. When Fred had been advised of the situation, I went back into the bedroom and slammed my hand on the bed. “Drop it!” I said loudly, sounding like a Drill Instructor. I was assuming Spot was torturing the poor little mouse, and I hoped that being ordered to drop it would startle him. I got down on the floor to see what was going on, hoping that the mouse wasn’t going to run at my face, because I would surely scream myself hoarse if that were to happen. The mouse was laying under one corner of the bed, unmoving. Spot was laying in the opposite corner, purring quietly. I stood up. “Is it under there?” Fred asked. “It’s dead,” I said. “Can you reach it?” Fred asked. “Yeah, but I’m not GONNA,” I told him. “You are. This is your job.” I got him a wad of paper towels, and he grabbed the mouse and looked closely to make sure that it really was dead. It was. Poor thing. Damnit. (That story would have been a lot funnier if the mouse came back to life and leapt at Fred when he had his face a few inches away, checking it for breathing. Alas, it didn’t happen. Poor mousie.)]]>

This picture is for Theme Thursday (yes, I know it’s Friday. Shaddup). The topic is Dog Days of Summer. See? I used a picture of a cat. Hee! Oh, I slay me… I would have used a picture of a cat flopped in the grass, but they weren’t interested in going outside yesterday. Speaking of Miz Poo, right now she’s laying under the desk and licking the top of my foot and purring to beat the band. * * * This morning, the spud came and knocked on my bedroom door to let me know that she was leaving to go wait for the bus. Fred stood in the middle of the room as I said goodbye to her, and then I remembered something and called her back to the doorway. “Please be careful to shut the door hard when you go out,” I said. “The past two mornings, it wasn’t shut all the way, and it blew open.” Luckily, I was right there when it blew open. It would surely have sucked to get up and go downstairs to see the door standing wide open and cats scattered all over the front yard. Fred smiled. “Okay,” the spud said, and we said our goodbyes again. When Fred was sure she was out of the house, he turned to me. “Actually, I’m the last one to go out the front door in the morning,” he confessed. “But you let her take the fall for you!” I said. He smiled. “I know.” Evil. * * * Someone recently asked me why I don’t have a page of links for the online journals that I read. My answer is that I am too lazy to keep up a list of links. This was proven by the fact that I had a list of links up when I first started the journal, and for the next year and a half I never once updated it. So I took it down, and I’m much happier without having that hanging over my head. I’ve thought about making a list of the journals I read as an entry, but the problem with that is that I’d forget someone – there are people who update very infrequently, and the only reason I know that they’ve updated is because I receive their notify email – and probably hurt their feelings, and they would say rude, snide (but probably true) things about me, and it would just be a big, bad fuckarow, and I just don’t need that. Also, if I stopped reading a journal – it happens, you know, and not because I particularly stop liking the person, but rather because I find that I’m skimming all of their entries or not looking forward to their entries – I would feel REALLY bad about taking it off the list, because that seems malicious. One of the reasons I have my notify lists set up so that I can only see who’s joining and not who’s leaving is because I don’t want to know if someone leaves and/or stops reading me. I mean, why would I? “Oh shit, so-and-so took themselves off my notify list, I guess they didn’t like my entry about blah-blah-blah!” Speaking of notify lists, if you have a journal and don’t have a notify list, get your ass in gear and start up a notify list. Y’see, I have so damn many things in my “Favorites” folder in IE that I hate adding things to it. I hate going to a journal and trying to figure out which was the last entry I read. I hate going to a journal and finding out that there’s been no update. That’s why I like notify lists, preferably notify lists that include a direct link to the entry for which the notify is being sent. Because all I have to do is click, and I’m there. No clicking from the front page to the most recent entry, reading the first paragraph, and realizing that I’ve already read the entry. So, to reiterate: go start up a notify list now, damnit! Yes, it’s a pain in the ass to send out a notify email when you’ve updated, but I’m worth it, aren’t I? * * * 1. What is your current occupation? Is this what you chose to be doing at this point in your life? Why or why not? Uh. I’m a domestic engineer, I guess. I did, in fact, choose to be doing this, and I’m lucky that Fred supports my lazy ass. 2. If time/talent/money were no object, what would your dream occupation be? I’d be a writer. No wait, I’d be a singer! Oh, or a veterinarian who specialized in cats. One of those. 3. What did/do your parents do for a living? Has this had any influence on your career choices? My father’s a quality assurance specialist at a ship-building plant. While I was growing up, he was an outside machinist (I have no idea what that is). My mother’s always worked at medical offices – when I was growing up, she worked the front desk (I think), and now she does billing. She hates working in the medical field, I think, but it’s what she’s most qualified to do, and her attempts to go into other fields were never very successful. This had no influence whatsoever on my career choices, mostly because my career choices have consisted of “Who will hire me?” 4. Have you ever had to choose between having a career and having a family? Nope. Heh. My illustrious career. 5. In your opinion, what is the easiest job in the world? What is the hardest? Why? Oh, this is an easy one. The easiest job in the world is the one you love, and the hardest is the one you hate. The easiest job for me is taking pictures of the cats and writing journal entries. The hardest is cleaning. Some domestic engineer, huh?]]>

Also, our rose bushes are responding well to the incredibly stifling heat and putting out blooms like nobody’s business. A gorgeous yellow butterfly has been flitting around in the front flowerbed for the past several days. He’s always out there, and if I want to see him, all I have to do is look out the window, and sooner or later he flits by. It’s kind of like a sign, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t know what that particular sign would mean, but it seems very sign-like. * * * The recipe for the poppy seed cake (hee! I originally typed “poopy seed cake”!) the spud made in Maine that was so scrump-dilly-icious is here. Also, the recipe for the blueberry muffins my mother made while I was in Maine is here. * * * Currently reading: Speaking with the Angel. A bunch of popular writers – Melissa Banks, Dave Eggers, Helen Fielding, Colin Firth (the actor, yes), Nick Hornby – each wrote a short story and contributed it to this book. It’s good so far – I’m on the story by Colin Firth at the moment, and enjoying it. * * * Something on the floor? I think you know what to do… Miz Poo would like you to know that her Momma is being very annoying with that friggity-ass camera.]]>

We really couldn’t get a good picture of it, but they shaved her poor little chin. From the right angle, it looks like her lower jaw was removed or something – I hadn’t realized just how thick her fur is. Not only did they shave her chin and give her a shot, but we also have to give her oral medication, wash her chin twice a day, and put medicine on it. It’s going surprisingly well, probably because there are two of us doing it. I said to Fred last night “You’re not allowed to die before me, because there’s just no way in hell I could give the cats their medicine without you to help me.” How do people do it without help? I mean, if you’ll recall, I wasn’t even able to get a pill down the throat of Tubby while Fred was recovering from surgery and he had to do it. I’m useless when it comes to certain things, I’ll admit it. When Fred got back from the vet, Miz Poo got out of the box, her eyes big and dark and her ears held out to the sides, as if there was something not right, but she just couldn’t put her paw on it. She followed me around from room to room and then sat and stared at me, as though I held the answer. My poor baby! Fred and I compared this vet’s bill to the one we got when he took Fancypants a few months ago, and saw that the new vet charges less for almost everything – including a single charge of $30 for the office visit and examination. The old vet charged $17 for the office visit, and another $20 for the examination. PLUS, they gave Fred the name of someone who’ll come feed the cats while we’re in Gatlinburg in October, so we don’t have to impose on his father to do it. Too cool. * * * Currently reading: Mother of Pearl, and likin’ it, to my surprise. I’ve been eyeballing it as I drew closer and closer to it (y’know I’m still trying to finish off the shelf of books I started a few months ago), thinking “Oh maaaan. I don’t REALLY want to read that, do I?” I mean, it’s one of the Oprah’s book club books. But I’m really liking it more than I thought possible. I guess there’s more to life than Zany Chick books. Not that Zany Chick books don’t have their place, but you can’t live on a steady diet of Zany Chick books any more than you can survive on a diet of Ring Dings and whoopie pies. Well. Maybe you could, and you’d probably die happy… Okay. Shut up, Robyn.]]>

a frog a few weeks ago. Who am I to judge? As we rounded the corner, she pointed to another yard. “I was scared of those dogs, too, until I saw that they wouldn’t leave the yard.” I nodded my understanding, and as we walked a bit further, she told me that she was going to go home and get an umbrella to defend herself in case she needed it, and finish her walk. She pointed out that just opening the umbrella would scare off any marauding pups, and if that didn’t work, she could stab them – using both her arms, she lunged forward in a violent stabbing motion – and then run away. We approached the corner of her street, and a tiny dog came running at us. I watched her carefully to see if this dog – who was the size of my foot and a miniature something-or-other, something with a lot of hair and a bow on it’s head – was going to freak her out. It turned out that she knew this dog, whose name was Gizmo, and after I petted him on the top of his head and waved in her direction, I went on my way. Heh. You thought I was going to say that I’d thrown myself in the path of an attacking dog, didn’t you? Silly readers.]]>

Fred’s entry Saturday. I’m just as glad I had no idea it was going on. Later Saturday morning, Fred and the spud went off to Wal-Mart, and I settled my lazy ass down in the chair in my bedroom to read. After about an hour, I heard the distinctive thumping of a cat running his fat ass as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. It didn’t sound like he was running for the sheer joy of running, or like he was chasing another cat. No, it sounded like he was CHASING something, probably something scary that would cause me to scream and run around in circles. I saw a big white blur as he pounded into the bedroom and was hidden from my view on the other side of the bed. “Oh, fuck,” I muttered and got up to investigate. A large dark blur – something frog sized – was running under the bedside table. Tubby blocked it’s passage on one side, whereupon it ran in the other direction, only to be blocked again, and then it disappeared under the bed. “TUBBY!” I bellowed, and he turned to look up at me. He meowed bitchily. I stomped my foot at him. He meowed bitchily again. “TUBBY GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!” I ordered, and grudgingly he did. My heart in my throat, I reluctantly got on my stomach and peered under the bed. There was a lot of cat hair, several earplugs, a Puffkins magnet, and on the far side sat Spot, who blinked sleepily at me. No frog. No nothing. I sat up and puzzled over it. Maybe the dark thing I’d seen had been Spot’s hindquarters? I could have sworn that Tubby had been the only cat running, but Spot is fairly light and maybe the pounding sound of Tubby’s stubby legs hitting the floor drowned out any sound Spot had made. It was possible, maybe. I looked under the bed again, searching for anything frog-shaped. I looked at Tubby, who was sitting right outside the bedroom door. I looked at Miz Poo, who was sniffing wildly along the path from the door to the bed. I looked under the bedside table, the other bedside table, the chair, in the bathroom, made Spot move so I could look where he was sitting, and nothing. Not a thing. I shrugged and determined that Tubby had been chasing Spot. I decided to go eat lunch, keeping an ear cocked for the sounds of running cats. When Fred and the spud got home, I told her to go upstairs and see what the cats were doing. She reported back that they were just laying around (I don’t know what I was expecting her to tell me – that they were rehearsing for their rendition of Cabaret?), so I decided there was nothing to worry about, and forgot about it. We spent the afternoon watching Clockstoppers. Actually, Fred put the movie in and I asked him to turn on the light (it’s closer to where he sits), because I was going to check out a magazine while the movie was on, and he got a disappointed look on his face. “You’re not going to watch the movie?” he said sadly. I felt so bad that I put my magazine down. TEN FUCKING MINUTES into the movie, he disappeared into the computer room and came back out exactly twice during the main part of the movie, for maybe two minutes each time, and then watched the last five minutes of the movie with us. “I was flooping the flibberty-flap,” he said, throwing technical terms at me so I wouldn’t suspect he’d been downloading porn. After dinner, we went upstairs to lay down and talk for a few minutes, and I walked into the bedroom to see Tubby laying and staring at the stuffed animals I have gathered on the floor next to the cedar chest sitting under the window next to the bathroom. Follow? “Tubby’s trying to seduce my stuffed animals again,” I said. Fred went over and patted Tubby. “I wonder if there’s a frog amongst your animals,” he said jokingly. A second later he said “These kind of look like droppings…” And yet another second later, he said “Hey. There’s a mouse behind the trunk!” Sure enough, there was a cute little brown mouse sitting there. We blocked off one side of the trunk, Fred held a Steak-Out cup on the other side, and I used a stick to push the mouse into the cup. He very much did NOT want to go in that cup, either, but he was no match for the stick. Fred covered the cup with a book, and we took him out back to let him free. Fred pushed him through a hole in the fence, and I’m hoping like hell he doesn’t get dragged back into the house again. He sure was cute, though. It was a very productive day for the hunters in the house, apparently. I just hope like hell they don’t bring a skunk into the damn house, because I really WILL ship Tubby’s ass off to you, Nance! * * * Recently, Fred was checking the stats for his site, and followed a link to someone’s links page. They had me listed first, and said something along the lines of “Robyn is hilarious.” They had Fred listed second, and said something like “Fred is Robyn’s husband. He’s just as funny if not funnier than she is!” Fred reported this to me with a self-satisfied gleam in his eye. I just smiled and went about my business. Because I know that Fred thinks he’s funnier than I am. He thinks he’s not only funnier than I am, but WAY funnier than I am. He’s wrong, of course, but it’s always nice to let him have his delusions. * * * I was watching Sex and the City last night, and – this was during Carrie’s party – a man came on the screen next to Candice Bergen. “Hey,” I muttered out loud, since there was no one else around. “That’s Isaac Mizrahi.” A second later, someone mentioned him by name. My question to you is this: Why the fuck do I know Isaac Mizrahi’s name? I know he’s a designer, but since I only buy from my own personal designer – Cheap ‘n Crappy Clothing Iz Us – why would I know the name of Isaac Mizrahi? What does he design, and WHY DO I KNOW WHAT HE LOOKS LIKE? Why is his name and face taking up valuable brain space that could be better served by retaining something useful, like math stuff (of course, let’s not be silly – my brain ain’t made to retain math stuff)? What the chances that I’ll ever ever buy anything from him? I’ll tell you what the chances are – zip, nada, zilch. If I were to win 45 million dollars in the lottery, I MIGHT go from shopping at Wal-Mart to shopping at JC Penney’s for my clothes, but Isaac Mizrahi? I don’t think so. Other designer names that are taking up brain space: Dolce and Gabbana. Vera Wang (probably because every Hollywood starlet who gets married has her do their wedding gown. Plus, I wear Vera Wang perfume sometimes). Donna Karan. Todd Oldham. There are more, but those are the main ones who come to mind. I wish I could go through my brain files and delete willy-nilly the way I do with files on my computer. Of course with my luck, I wouldn’t be paying attention and would accidentally delete something important, like my name, or those pesky “Fred” files. * * * Poor Miz Poo. It appears that she may have developed herself some chin acne. If it’s not one thing – her eyes – it’s another, ain’t it? Fred’s taking her to the vet tomorrow. I hope it’s acne, and not something nasty and highly infectious that she’s passed on to me. Poor Miz Poo. Poor portly, evil Miz Poo. ]]>