Couldn’t Keep it to Myself. Finished this morning, sitting in the waiting room (see the next section): One Coffee With. Love that Margaret Maron, but I have to say that so far (this is only the first book in the Sigrid Harald series) I prefer her Deborah Knott books.
* * *
So, Fred has now been officially neutered. And who would bring a camera to a vasectomy? That’s right, MY HUSBAND. He did an entry about it, even –
read it at your own risk. There’s one picture that made me scream and run around in circles (skip his entry if you have a weak stomach, or are eating), but if you scroll to the bottom you get to see… well, his bottom. For a while when we were sitting in the waiting room there were several other men sitting in the waiting room with us, and I said to Fred, “I imagine this is how a man sitting in a gynecologist’s waiting room must feel.”
He’s upstairs taking a nap right now; hopefully he’ll recover quickly (he always does) and will be fine come Monday morning.
* * *
I don’t think I mentioned the fact that I bought tickets to Maine this summer for the spud and I. Independence Air was having a kick-ass sale – tickets were $79 one-way – so I got round-trip tickets from here to Maine for myself, AND a one-way ticket for the spud from Maine to here (she’s flying to California at the end of May, spending three weeks there, and then flying to Rhode Island to spend a few weeks with her father, then going up to Maine for a while before I fly up there, and then she’s flying back with me) for less than $300 altogether.
That’s pretty damn good, if you ask me.
When she goes out to California, she’s flying… United? Continental? One of those, because Independence Air doesn’t fly to the
O.C. They fly to L.A, but the amount of money we’d have saved on the tickets would have been negated by her grandparents having to make a longer trip to a bigger airport.
This will be the first year the spud is required to get herself from one gate to another during a layover in… Ohio? Atlanta? I don’t remember where the layover is, and I’m too lazy to go look at the itinerary. So the idea of her getting from one gate to the other has me a little worried, but luckily she has a two-hour layover, and I’ll drill it into her head that if she can’t find where she needs to go, she should ask a FEMALE in a uniform for help.
(That’s right, males. I just dissed your entire gender! I’m going to teach my child that you cannot be trusted to help a cute 16 year-old girl find her gate BECAUSE IT’S BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY.)
And if nothing else, she’ll have her cell phone with her, and she can call me, and I can scream and run around in circles and overreact, before I look up a map of the airport online and tell her where to go.
On the up side, she has a nonstop flight from California to Rhode Island, so I won’t have to worry quite so much when she takes that flight.
* * *
Hey, look! It’s Badass Southpark Robyn!
Make your own,
here.
* * *
Hey. Has anyone read anything by Ayelet Waldman? I watched the Oprah show she was on the other day, and she seemed really likeable, and defended
her essay pretty well, I thought.
I know this is absolute blasphemy and I’ll probably get strung from the nearest tree, but I tried reading
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by her husband – Michael Chabon – and got about thirty pages in before I was so incredibly bored that I gave myself the gift of putting it in the library box instead of trying to get through the entire book.
Fred really enjoyed it, though. Clearly he’s the one with taste.
* * *
Today’s my mother’s birthday. I had to sit and think a good long time before I could figure out how old she is. For a good two or three minutes, I actually thought she was 87. I seriously sat here and thought “She’s 87, right? That’s right, isn’t it…?”
Well, NO, that’s not right, dumbass. My mother’s only 25 years older than I am; my
grandmother‘s the one who was 50 years older. The day I figured out that my mother had me when she was 25, and HER mother had HER when she was 25 was a great day, because I could stop trying to remember the years of their birth.
I remember most everyone’s age by knowing how much older or younger than me they are. My oldest brother’s 6 years older (well, 5 1/2, but I always add 6 to my age, and subtract a year depending on whether he’s had his birthday or not), my other older brother is 4 years older (3 1/2, depending on the time of year), Debbie’s 2 years younger, my mother’s 25 years older, and my father is… two years older than her. I think? For some reason, I can remember that my father was born in 1941, but I don’t remember anyone else’s birth year.
Except for the spud, of course. I know how old she is, but sometimes I have to do some mental gymnastics to figure out how old Brian is. “The spud was almost three when we moved to Rhode Island, which was just after Brian was born, so that makes him almost three years younger, and she’s 16, so that makes him… add the six, carry the one, subtract the 7, divide by 5… thirteen? And a half? When the hell did he GET TO BE A TEENAGER?”
Some people would write down things like the year important relatives were born, but not ME, baby. I prefer to live life on the edge, yes indeedy.
On the other hand, almost nine years after our divorce, I can still remember my ex-husband’s social security number and date of birth. Funny how the memory works, huh?
* * *
*WARNING: POSSIBLE AMAZING RACE SPOILERS; SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE YET*
From my comments:
Complete change of subject – are you still watching the Amazing Race? Was it just me or would you have pushed The Beauty Queen out of the car when she said her fiance became a POW to get out of the army??!!!
I actually said to Fred that if we were that couple (me a beauty queen! Ha! I don’t own nearly enough lip gloss!), I could imagine saying something like that to him, just to be funny. Because that’s the sort of stuff we’d joke about. But she certainly appeared to be serious there, didn’t she?
I have to say – and this might get me hung for treason – I find Ron and Kelly to be completely unlikeable, and I’d hate it if they won the race. At this point I’m hoping like hell that Uchenna and Joyce or Rob and Amber win, because I’m not crazy about Meredith and Gretchen either. He’s okay, but her voice is like nails on a chalkboard to me, and I feel like they’ve bumbled their way through the race so far. I have no idea on earth how they managed to get this far.
It’s funny that I’m kinda-sorta rooting for Rob and Amber since they annoyed me so much on Survivor. I really hope Uchenna and Joyce win, though.
* * *
*WARNING: SURVIVOR SPOILER AHEAD; SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THIS WEEK’S EPISODE YET*
So they voted off the only non-annoying girl left on Survivor. NICE. Every one of those girls left annoy the holy shit out of me, and if Jennifer, the blandly boring blonde wins this season, I’m going to have to rethink my devotion to this show.
(And I’m sure my decision will be “Oh, I’ll give it one more season!”)
I’m pulling for Tom or Ian to win, but I’m not holding my breath.
* * *
Slap fight.
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Those kitty bellies look like they need to be ruffled!
I LOVE how they are too lazy to actually stand up — or even sit up — to fight.
I recently finished Ayelet Waldman’s Nursery Crimes and thought it was pretty good. It’s the first of several books with the same main character. I think they’re called the Mommy-Track Mystery series. I’ll probably pick up the next one too.
Regarding Jen on Survivor. Every time I see her, I think she looks a lot like Heather Armstrong of dooce.com.
I’m sure Ayelet Waldman is a nice woman, but she is extremely fascinated with her own navel and seems pretty sure the universe revolves around her. Check out her column in salon.com to see some other pieces by her. There’s a couple doozies in there.
I’ve read nothing else by her except for those, and that’s what made me detrain off the Ayelet Express. But to each his own. Her fiction might be more entertaining, or at least less nauseating :), than her essays are.
Just my opinion folks! worth as much as my asshole. Salud!
The photo of the slap fight made me laugh. It’s so funny because they are both lying down. They can’t be bothered to get up and slap each other around like God intended, but instead it appears as if they are saying, *yawn*, “well guess, since you are there, I must slap you…but I really don’t wanna.” Hee. And I agree that kitty bellies must be ruffled.
On an altogether unrelated note, I forgot to say that I am enjoying Eyes AND Grey’s Anatomy this season.
Of course, I just HAD to look. Like a car wreck, you gotta just see, right? Strangely, I wasn’t grossed out at all. In fact, it was kind of fascinating. Huh. Maybe I coulda been a doctor after all.
Well, I actually liked Waldman’s essays on Salon.com…but that’s just me. On another subject… Damn, Robyn, that man of yours has some seriously fine laigs.
Bozoette Mary: He does, doesn’t he? 🙂
I agree with you on Amazing Race. I really hope Uchenna and Joyce win – she deserves it for shaving her head! (Though I really liked the boyfriends too and was sorry to see them get booted out of the race). Does it annoy you that the two times Uchenna and Joyce came in first and when the boyfriends came in first, they didn’t win an extra prize? But Rob & Amber won like elevnty-million extra trips when they were first – it just doesn’t seem fair.
Tina: Yes, I hate that Uchenna and Joyce didn’t win an extra prize! I love that she didn’t even hesitate when it came to shaving her head. She’s just awesome – and they seem like genuinely nice people, you know?
Robyn, I’ll never forgive you for posting that link to Fred’s journal! I knew, even before I clicked, that I shouldn’t click that link. But I couldn’t not click, now could I? I hope to never see bloody balls again in my life. Ever.
And Bozoette Mary is right. He does have some nice legs!
I usually just lurk, but I had to chime in and agree with you about Survivor. I’ll leave it at that, so as not to spoil it for those who haven’t watched yet – but geez, I’m right there with you!
Marcia,
If it helps, that’s not blood. It’s Betadine. There were only a few drops of blood spilled in the whole procedure. Matter of fact, the hole he made was so small it didn’t even need a stitch to close. 🙂
Had to look at Fred’s ah, site. Are those… am I really seeing…? God love ya Fred!
WARNING! DON’T READ THE FOLLOWING IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN SURVIVOR!!!
Feel the same way about Survivor. Stephanie will make more than a million on ads and stuff after the show, I bet. Twas nice to see a SMART woman instead of just tits and blonde hair.
What’s the tale behind Boogs tail, anyway? Did he come so equiped?
(another) Susan: Yeah, he came with the little stump of a tail – they said at the shelter that they thought he was probably born like that.
**AMAZING RACE SPOILERS**
Robyn,
say it ain’t so – Rob and Amber are EVIL! They didn’t have the courtesy to stop when the camerman had an accident. I agree Gretchen is annoying. However, she totally climbed that castle wall…She gets major cool points for that
AnnaMarie
**AMAZING RACE SPOILERS**
AnnaMarie: I know they didn’t stop, but I can’t help liking them – Rob is so gleefully devious that he cracks me up.
Someone said on a forum that Gretchen likes to bitch and whine about how she can’t do this, she’s too old, this is too hard… and then she goes right ahead and kicks ass and does it anyway! Heh.
I love Ayelet Waldman. Very humourous, very light, and very sarcastic 🙂 She is the former lawyer-turned-very-overwhelmed-Mom/Private Detective in her Mommy Track mysteries. Darn that I missed her on tv!
**AMAZING RACE SPOILERS**
I’m totally with you on Uchenna & Joyce – I really like them. Or Rob & Amber – who I just admire for their creativity and the balls to do things I don’t think I could do without feeling horribly guilty. I swear, if I hear Gretchen screetch “Oh my god” one more time, I will pierce my eardrums with sharp objects. Do the Beauty Queen & the POW even like each other? I wondered after they won the $20k travel prize whether or not they’d be splitting the money so they wouldn’t have to travel again together.
** AMAZING RACE SPOILERS**
Shelly – no kidding! I don’t think the Beauty Queen & POW relationship is very long for this world. Though the way things go with couples on this show, that probably means they’ll end up engaged when the show is over!!!
Fred should be over it pretty quickly, my husband had it done. He was over it in 2 days, probably would have been a little better if the dog hadn’t jumped on him right where it was done, a few hours after it was done! I can’t imagine my husband having taken a camera with him, which he was so drugged up right after that he barely even knew me. I thought it was funny that he said the doc and the nurse guy were talking sports and real manly type things while doing the procedure!
I’m a nurse, but that didn’t stop me from screaming (mostly in humorous delight, partly from shock that it was there!) at the one photo in Fred’s journal. HYSTERICAL. You are lucky to be married to that guy, I think.
Hey, nice gams on your man!! Ooooh la la!
Was actually fascinated by his post. All I got when hubby got snipped was “It was ok”.
Okay, I am a dummy, please tell me how to save the southpark creation. I for the life of me can not figure it out. On how to save it to my computer.
I haven’t read this entire entry yet for reasons which would take me too long to explain, but I felt the need to comment on this point: I wouldn’t worry too much about the spud in the airport. When I was 16 I flew unassisted a couple of times with layovers. It was a tiny bit scary being all alone, but finding the gate was no problem at all. Airports are so clearly marked that as long as she’s able to read signs it would take serious effort to get lost.