Author: Robyn

2/21/07

Liz, who suggested it. I think it fits pretty well! Thanks also for the case suggestions – I’m going to look them over and see what I like before I actually order anything. And because I am a boor, I slapped BobPod’s cold dead corpse up on eBay. I’m curious to see if anyone will actually bid on it. Other things are up for sale on eBay too, if you’re interested in bras or camcorders that don’t work.

* * *
This is not an entry, but it’s going to have to suffice as one. I’m about to head out to Smallville to spend the day painting and doing other things around the house (I’m hoping to get some sunshine this afternoon so I can see well enough to switch out outlets and switches (yeah, that entry will be coming one of these days!)). I’ll be back tomorrow with a real entry – promise!
* * *
“She keeps abandoning us for that other house and those other cats. Let’s pee in her bed, Suggie!”
* * *
Previously 2006: Holy hot dog! That’s a good freakin’ show! 2005: Questions answered. 2004: No entry. 2003: “Why, god? Whyyyyy?” 2002: He was in the room with me for less than 90 seconds. Was I happy? Oh, yes. Thrilled. 2001: I don’t know about that man… 2000: New vehicle.

]]>

2/20/07

(In case you were wanting to find a good place to send some of that tax refund money!)
* * *
So let’s see… where did I leave off? Oh yeah, my whining and moaning about BobPod and his state of brain-deadness. Several people recommended that I try taking BobPod to the Apple store and see if they could fix him up, and since there’s one in Huntsville, I decided to do just that. On my way, I stopped at a different T-M0bile store – one that was on the way to the Apple store – to see if they could figure out why I could take pictures, but not send them to anyone. Fred had called T-M0bile customer service the night before to add me to the account so that I could do things like ask T-M0bile store employees for help and not get the “Sorry, it’s NOT your account!” bullshit. The guy at T-M0bile messed with my phone for a few minutes then told me that since it was a European model, he couldn’t figure out what was going on, and I’d have to call the tech support number. He said it in a helpful way, even writing down what to tell them he’d already done so they wouldn’t have me try to do it again. I called Fred to let him know what they’d said at T-M0bile, because I was certain he was on the edge of his seat with the sheer excitement of my cell phone issues. “Have they called about Joe Bob?” he asked. “No, I don’t expect them to unless there’s a problem,” I said. “Call and see how he’s doing!” “Okay. Then I’m going to Apple and see if they can fix BobPod.” “Okay. Good luck with that.” I headed straight to the Apple store, walked in, and told the guy working at the… something or other desk (I don’t remember what the hell it said, but he was using a screwdriver to open a laptop, so I figured he worked there and might know what he was doing) that I thought I’d killed my iPod. He tried resetting it and I hoped he’d have better luck than I did. He didn’t. He took it over and hooked it up to a computer and tried to reset it from there, but had no luck with that, either. He kept shaking the iPod and holding it up to his ear. (I think it was the iPod Doctor way of listening for sounds of breathing.) Finally, he handed it back to me, and shook his head. “Yeah, it’s dead,” he said. “WHY? WHY? WHYYYYYYYYY? OH BOBPOD COME BACK TO ME!” I screamed falling to my knees in the middle of the store. (Just kidding.) “Well, damn,” I said ruefully. “Thanks for trying.” “The hard drive’s not even (doing whatever the fuck hard drives are supposed to do. I guess no one ever told this guy that iPods run by MAGIC, not HARD DRIVES, for god’s sake.),” he said. “It’s pretty dead.” He went on to mention that the newer iPods didn’t have hard drives (because they gave up the pretense that iPods run on something other than MAGIC) and I thanked him again and headed out to my car. I called Fred. “Hey,” I said despondently. “He’s dead.” Fred gasped sharply. Wow, I thought. He’s really taking this to heart! I didn’t think he cared about BobPod! “Oh my god!” he said, sounding like he might cry. Wow, I thought. He’s REALLY taking this seriously! “Joe Bob is DEAD?” he said. “What?” I said in horror. “NO! NOT JOE BOB! BobPod!” “Jesus Christ, don’t do that to me!” he said, and I could just imagine him reeling around clutching at his chest. After I’d apologized a hundred times, I told him again that BobPod was dead. “You know,” I said. “If we sign up for another two years with T-M0bile, I could get a Razr that plays mp3s for a hundred bucks!” We talked about it for a few minutes, and then I headed for T-M0bile again. In short order, I had a brand-spankin’ new Razr V3i in my purse and was heading home. Once home I fiddled around with the phone for a while, then started uploading a couple of Keith and the Girl podcasts onto the phone. Which is when I hit my first problem – I could only get one podcast onto the phone before I ran out of space. Considering I can go through six or seven podcasts on the weekends when we’re working on the house, this wasn’t good. Then I listened to the podcast I’d uploaded, and we ran into problem #2. The sound quality sucked. I called Fred and told him I was returning the phone and he sighed and rolled his eyes and said “Whateverrrrrrrrr.” I went to the store in Madison – since it was closer – and exchanged the phone for a Razr v3 (the non-European model). I’m possibly having too much fun snapping pictures of the cats and setting them as wallpaper. From there I headed out to Smallville to work on the house, and it was sad and quiet and very lonely, working without a podcast to keep me entertained. When I got home a few hours later, (after I picked Joe Bob up at the pet store – and he was just fine, not a crystal to be seen in his urine, and instructions to finish out his medication and keep him on the prescription food), I found evidence sitting on my desk that someone loves me very, very much. Meet the new Bawb, same as the old Bob (only much, much better). I’m calling him BawbPod for the time being until I come up with something I like more (suggestions welcome!). He’s a generation 5.5 80GB video iPod ( ::Tim Allen grunt here :: ), and though you can’t tell from the picture I’ve taken, due to the flash, the picture quality is outstanding. I’m terrified I’m going to drop him, so I’ve been carrying him around in my pocket until I get around to buying a case for him. Thank you, someone who really, really loves me. I really, really loves you too.
* * *
Hey, between the new phone and the new iPod, I don’t guess I’ll be needing one of those iPhones after all, will I?
* * *
Some women get candy and flowers. I get romantic notes in the dust on the floor. Awwww. Maxi through the front door. Not ten minutes after Fred complained about the cats not appreciating the house he’d built for them, Newt was hanging out in it. It’s like he heard! Hate.
* * *
Previously 2006: But I’m afraid that now it’s tasted human blood, it’s going to require a periodic human sacrifice. 2005: No entry. 2004: The Bean appeared before me, eyes wide and dark, a sad little I’m a poor kitty who has lost his way look on his face. 2003: They freaked out. 2002: Um. In yesterday’s entry, I MEANT to link to Fred with the words “nice butt”, not MYSELF. 2001: We got proof today that we, in fact, do not have two gay hamsters. 2000: No entry.]]>

2/16/07

peritoneal lavage*, I got very confused. Turns out I was mixing up theperitoneum and the perineum and couldn’t figure out why they’d need to do THAT. (I did know what “lavage” was, though – washing something out. Just call me Robyn And3rson, GMD**.) 3. That little speech Izzy gave? I’m sorry, no. It was self-serving crap and I think George should have slapped the fuck out of her. The attitude she has toward Callie just annoys the motherfucking fuck out of me and makes her look like a spoiled bitchy bitch and it drives me nuts. NUTS, I SAY. 4. You think after this year lightbulbs are going to pop on over everyone’s head and people are going to start avoiding Meredith in February (see last year re: bomb killing the very hot hot hottie Kyle Chandler (whom I will always think of as the very hot hot hottie Jeff from Homefront, hmmm. Kyle Chandler playing two hot hot hotties. What are the chances? He’s typecast!) bomb guy)? Or will it take one more year? *Upon reading about what exactly a peritoneal lavage entails, I do not believe it was indicated in this instance, and was just Addison throwing around big words trying to impress us. I love Addison, but NOT IMPRESSED, Dr. Montgomery. Step aside and let Dr. Robyn slap some life back into that milquetoast annoyance they call Meredith Grey in this strange TV land of apparently blind men who cannot stop drooling over her for some (“Rescue me! I’m a sad little practically-orphaned waif, adrift in this cold, cruel world, wahhh! Save me! Pity me!”) reason. **Google MD, of course.

* * *
Remember when I was going to make a .wav for y’all of me imitating what Myrtle sounded like when she went into Hellbeast mode? Well, I taped myself imitating her, but I can’t get the camera to let me download what I taped (I need to download drivers or something), so in the meantime, here’s pretty much what she sounded like, courtesy of reader Debbie, who sent me the link. Myrtle maybe didn’t do it for quite so long, but the ferocity and the creepiness (imagine sitting at your desk in a silent house and hearing something like that!) are strikingly similar.
* * *
BobPod continues to hang on, kind of. I tried all the stuff y’all suggested (except for the banging it against something, which I’m saving for the very last thing to try) and nada. When I hook BobPod to the computer, iPod doesn’t “see” him and BobPod just sits there with the Apple logo staring sadly up at me. I think he might be brain dead. I keep hoping he might come back to life on his own, but I don’t see that happening. I guess I’m going to see about taking him to the Apple store and see if they can fix his sorry little ass. Come back to me, BobPod. I NEEEEEEED YOU!
* * *
I left the house a few minutes after 8 yesterday morning and didn’t get back home until almost noon. First I had to drive out almost to the Tennessee border to drop Joe Bob off at the vet. Joe Bob wasn’t thrilled with that, but he did give me the Love Eyes when I stuck my finger in the carrier (more on how I got him INTO the carrier in a minute), so hopefully he’ll forgive me. Then I drove back to Madison to hit the T-Mobile store, because although my cell phone has a camera in it and I can take pictures with it, if I try to email or send the pictures anywhere, I get an error message. I didn’t get the phone from T-Mobile, so I guess there’s something they have to do to make it work? I don’t know. Anyway, I walked in and had to wait and wait and wait until the two salespeople were done doing whatever they were doing, and I gave the one saleswoman my cell phone number, and then she told me they couldn’t do anything without Fred’s authorization, since the account is in his name. And we will be rectifying THAT little situation tout-de-fucking-suite, believe you me. So I left there and went over to Lowe’s to look at their cleaning stuff, because I had hoped there’d be something in the cleaning aisle that would take paint off windows and mirrors with no elbow grease from me. I didn’t find anything that fit the bill, but I did find other things I desperately needed, so I bought ’em. From there, I went to the post office to drop off some packages and pick up the mail, then over to Wal-Mart to do a little looking around. The clothes I’ve been wearing out at the new house to paint and clean in have gotten absolutely coated with paint, and there are holes in the ass of the pants, so I wanted to buy some cheap clothes to replace them. A bunch of winter clothes were on sale for $5, so I ended up with a pair of pants, a snarky t-shirt (“I’ll be nicer if you’ll be smarter”) and a flannel shirt to wear over it for less than $20. Woot! From there I went home, chilled out, and spent most of the rest of the day surfing the web and looking sadly at BobPod. A day well spent, I say.
* * *
So before Joe Bob and I left the house, I naturally needed to get him into the carrier. Joe Bob has himself a very strong go-limp instinct when you grab him by the scruff of the neck, so I knew all I needed to do was grab him and lower him into the carrier. I got up from my desk and went to see where he was. He happened to be walking down the hallway where the cat carrier was sitting (the goddamn things are laying everywhere in this house), so I opened the top of the carrier and turned around to grab him. No fool he, Joe Bob went flying into the living room and hid behind the TV. I used a feather toy to try to coax him out, with no luck, and I tried to lure him out with a laser pointer, and he was not to be lured. Finally, I decided to pull out the big guns, and reeled around the house screeching “Snack Time! Who’s ready for the Snack Time! Snack Time, Boogie!” The cats, who are accustomed to Fred handing out Snack Time, ran in fear from the screeching and were only brought back into the kitchen by the smell of the pouch of treats opening and being dumped onto a plate. The other cats settled in to Snackin’ Time, but Joe Bob was no fool, and he stayed behind the TV until I realized that my hovering above the Snackin’ Time plate was far too obvious, and so I wandered off to get a few tasks done. When I walked back into the kitchen, Joe Bob was bellied up to the Snackin’ Time plate and just starting to eat. I grabbed him up, carried him into the hallway, and put him into the carrier with nary a fight. “But I don’t wanna be in the carrier!” Joe Bob protested, and I lifted up the carrier, speaking soothingly to him as I did so. And then he darted out the front door of the carrier. Because why would it occur to me to check to be sure that the front door was closed? THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE, STUPID. Joe Bob went hauling ass up the stairs, and I stomped and cursed, and then went up after him. Conveniently, he’d run into the master bedroom, so I closed the door and chased him around the room for a few minutes before he went flying into the bathroom to hide in the tub. I shut the bathroom door and chased him back and forth a few times (not easy in a fairly small bathroom, yet somehow we managed it) before he huddled behind the toilet, believing I couldn’t see him, and I grabbed him up and carried him to the carrier. He made one feeble attempt at getting away – he pushed at the carrier with one of his big rabbit-like back feet – but since I had him by the scruff of the neck, I got him in there carrier pretty easily. He didn’t utter a peep on the way to the vet’s office. I guess he didn’t get the Hellbeast gene his sister got.
* * *
I tried to convince Fred that we should flip this house, but he thinks it’s too small. Hmph.
* * *
Smackdown! Spot and the Eyes of Lurve. He’s IN the basket, but he’s not HAPPY about it. Hatin’ you.
* * *
Previously 2006: So, in summary, if we are to judge all female cats by Miz Poo, then male cats are nicer, but female cats are clingier. 2005: Don’t you wish I was responsible for your books? 2004: I WANT TO FUCKING KNOW WHAT HE SAID. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001.: And almost wet my pants in terror. 2000: So, the nausea continues.]]>

2/15/07

Help Save Rhys From Dying Of Boredom On The PCT!!! Y’all are readers, I know you are. What better to do with your paperbacks than pass them along to a crazy hiking woman? If you want to help, check it out!

* * *
I am a murderer. I HAVE KILLED. BobPod, may you rest in peace. I dropped my goddamn iPod while I was at the house yesterday (a sign that the house does not appreciate Keith and the Girl, obviously), and it froze up, and it’s still frozen and nothing I try will get it unfrozen, it’s all frozen up with my KATG goodness locked inside, and I am panicked at the idea of (1) working on the house or (2) exercising without my BobPod. Why, BobPod? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? Why have you left me, forlorn and battered, to face this dark world without you? Was it something I did? (“Yes, you stupid bitch, you DROPPED ME, and it wasn’t the first time!”) Please come back to me, BobPod. PLEEEEEEEASE! Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. I cannot spend another 10-hour day at the house without podcasts to listen to, for I will be driven mad without something to take my mind off the tedium of the cleaning and painting and painting and painting and painting some more. HELP ME.
* * *
So I spent a total of 11 hours at the house yesterday. I got there at 7:30, hoping to get the upper half of the upstairs bathroom painted before the insulation guys arrived (not that I expected they would actually ever really show up), but I realized that I had to do something to protect the lower half of the bathroom from the paint I’d be slinging around as I painted the upper half (note to self: when painting a room two different colors, paint the upper half first next time, dummy), so I took the roll of contractor paper we bought at Lowe’s over the weekend, pulled off thick strips of it, and taped it over the lower half of the bathroom where I’d already painted, and over the freshly tiled shower. I was almost done with the bathroom when the insulation guys showed up. After I was done reeling around the house in shock that the guys had shown up, I showed them where the attic accesses were, and then went downstairs to stay out of the way. I did some painting (and I’d show you what I painted, because it’s too hard to explain, but I am a dumbass who forgot to take her camera with her OF COURSE on a day when there were many things to take pictures of, DAMNIT) and when I was done with my painting an hour later, the insulation guys had come to the conclusion that the “broken” truck was still broken (the truck itself was working, but the part that blows insulation through the big tubes was busted), and that “the boss” had another truck in the area doing other jobs and would try to get them out to the house at some point during the day. I said goodbye to the insulation guys, then went off to eat breakfast and then call my parents, who are in Florida this week, and then went upstairs to start painting the bathroom. Painting the bathroom was a humongous pain in the motherfucking ass. The lower part of the bathroom is composed of beadboard with the lines going vertically, and it wasn’t too much of a pain to paint. The upper half, however, is beadboard with the lines going horizontally, and it was a humongous pain to get the paint in the lines. I had to push really hard on the roller to get the paint to go in the lines, and once I was done doing that with the roller I had to go back over the walls with a brush and get all the spots I had missed. By lunchtime, though, I had gotten two coats of paint on the wall, and decided it looked good enough to leave for the time being. I figured once Fred had the lights installed in that room (I did the whole freakin’ paint job with just the light coming in through the window) I’d go back over the wall with a paint brush and touch up what I’d missed. I decided to hit Sonic for a salad for lunch, grabbed my purse, and headed out the front door. When I walked out the front door, I got a lovely, lovely surprise. Actually, I got a couple of lovely surprises. The first lovely surprise was that there was a fucking DRIFT of insulation across the front and side yards. Apparently what the insulation guys (part one) had done to determine that their truck wasn’t operating properly was to blow fucking insulation all over the yard, then leave without cleaning it the fuck up. I called Fred and bitched at him about it, and he told me he was going to go raise some hell. The second lovely, lovely surprise – after I talked to Fred – was that Maxi was slinking back and forth on the front porch, howling, and when I walked out the door, she excitedly led me to the rocking chair I usually sit in (when it’s not so goddamn cold), underneath which lay a dead mole. And in front of the rocking chair? A mouse head. Just the head, no other body parts. Maxi must REALLY love me, that’s all I have to say about that. Cold-blooded murderer. Just like ME. I went to Sonic, got my salad, got home, ate my salad, did a little reading (What? I don’t deserve a damn break? YES I DO.) and was about to go back upstairs to tape off the bathroom and paint the trim when Fred called to let me know that the insulation guys were on the way. I went upstairs to pull down the contractor paper I’d left taped to the wall, and was just about done with that when the tile guy showed up. I got out of his way and went downstairs to putty the holes in the shoe molding (ie, quarter-round) Fred had put down on Tuesday. I hadn’t been doing that for long when the insulation guys (part two) showed up. Apparently they hadn’t been informed by the insulation guys (part one) that there was a drift of insulation in the front yard, and they were appropriately aghast that anyone would leave something like that behind. And for the first time in my life when someone profusely apologized, I didn’t say “No, it’s okay!”, because I was rawwwwther ticked off about the whole damn thing. I did, however, graciously say “I appreciate that” when they promised they’d clean up the mess. So I was puttying more shoe molding when one of the insulation guys – I told my sister he looked like Jay from Clerks, but on second look, he really bore more of a resemblance to Tommy Lee (just the face, pervs. I didn’t get a chance – or have the desire – to inquire after further resemblance.) – asked if there was a restroom he could use. I pointed him to it, and he said “Is there tissue in there?” Oh boy. “There sure is,” I said with a smile, then beat it out of there and went to the kitchen (ie, far away from the bathroom) to text my sister that a workman was stankin’ up the joint. See, this is how nice I am. I was working in the computer room, and the bathroom is right off the computer room. I didn’t want Tommy Lee to feel all SELF-CONSCIOUS about stankin’ up my bathroom, so I went a few rooms away so as to make the experience more pleasing for him. And then when I went into the computer room and was about knocked over from the ROTTING STENCH OF A THOUSAND DEAD PEOPLE coming from the bathroom, I wanted to go get a box of matches and light them ALL, but I didn’t want to make him FEEL BAD about the stench he’d left behind, so I covered my nose with my shirt and tried my best to ignore the smell. Until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and went and got the matches, and lit about a hundred of them. (A hundred, or three. One or the other. WHATEVER.) Finally, Fred showed up and I could relax, because when he’d called to tell me that the insulation guys (part two) were on the way, he’d also told me to not pay them until they’d talked to the salesguy, who’d promised that either the guys would clean up the mess, or we’d get a discount on the service. This way, he could deal with the whole messy paying-the-guys stuff, and I could wander off and do mind-numbing tasks that desperately needed doing. Though the insulation guys did an admirable job of attempting to clean up the mess left behind by the first set of guys, they weren’t able to really clean it all up (I think they would have needed some sort of vacuum for that), and so Fred gave the salesguy a call and let him know how very unhappy he was with the whole experience. Fred, who is a genius, has learned that if you express your displeasure with a service, and then keep silent while the man in charge babbles nervously, in the end they’ll generally offer something you want. In this case, we got a 25% discount on the cost of the insulation installation. Happy Valentine’s Day to me!!! Once the insulation guys left, we put up the crown molding in the downstairs bathroom, then Fred went around and measured and cut shoe molding for the front room and kitchen. We ate dinner in there somewhere, and finally left around 6:30. I am NOT going out to the house today, but do have to run Joe Bob to the vet because he’s still straining to pee (though I don’t think he’s blocked, because he’s not distressed, plus he’s actually peeing a tiny bit every time he tries) and after five days of being on Clavam0x and the special food, he should be doing better. I’m dropping him off at the vet for observation and so they can figure out what the hell is going on, and will get him back tomorrow evening.
* * *
It’s pretty much looking like we’re very close to being done with the renovations, and will be moving me and the cats out to Smallville the first weekend in March, or thereabouts. Can you believe it? FINALLY.
* * *
My Valentine’s Day was… well, it was pretty much like any other day, because we don’t really go all out for the occasion. I picked up a card and some Dove chocolates for him (dark chocolate, because he loves dark chocolate and I hate it and thus won’t eat it). He gave me a card and a single-serving bag of peanut M&Ms (I ate a few and tossed the rest). Maybe next year we’ll go out to eat or have a date night for Valentine’s Day, but I kinda doubt it – and I’m okay with that. He spoils me rotten 365.25 days a year; I don’t need to be extra spoiled on this particular day.
* * *
Warning: Cat cannot hold his licker. (Several more Booger pics, here)
* * *
Previously 2006: I suspect the latter, personally. Fuckers. 2005: Collab 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: William Fichtner is a hottie. 2001: I hope I’m not doing serious damage to myself, but if you saw how clean the showers get, you’d know how much it’s worth it. 2000: I highly recommend a warm, purring kitten laying against you when you’re feeling nauseous.]]>

2/14/07

* * * What I love about this whole house-renovating experience is how Fred and I, despite being beaten over the head with evidence to the contrary, are stupidly, naively trusting that workmen will show up when they say they will. Needless to say (though I will, of course SAY IT), the insulation guys never showed up yesterday morning. I got to the house at 7:45 and stood there looking out at the rain thinking “Jesus GOD IN HEAVEN all I want to do is go back to bed!” I called Fred and told him I didn’t know what I wanted to do while I was waiting for the insulation guys to show up, and he presented me with several thousand things that needed to be done, none of which I WANTED to do, and I hemmed and hawed and thought about just sitting on my ass reading while waiting for the guys to show up. In the end, I started prepping the upstairs bathroom to be painted. Said prepping included: removing screws and nails from the wall, removing the coves and quarter-round from the bottom trim, removing outlet and switch plates, taking down the shower rod, taking down the mini blinds, and last (but certainly not least) ripping the coves from around the ceiling. This last was the hardest part of the whole job, and I wasn’t terribly thrilled to find myself teetering on a ladder that was propped half in the tub and half on the floor, using a pry bar, screwdriver, and hammer to pull down this fucking trim that had six-foot nails every inch and a half the entire way around the GODDAMN ROOM. I took a picture of the trim I ripped down, along with the nails sticking out, but the picture didn’t do it justice, and I deleted it in a fit of pique. I was just trying to figure out how to take down the medicine cabinet (and kind of excited about doing so, because it’s the original medicine cabinet from the 50s, and it has one of those slits in the back where men would put their straight razors when they were used up because apparently throwing razors in a wall to rust and be found by people in 50 years who are klutzes and will slice the holy shit out of their arms and die in a bloody puddle on an ugly linoleum floor was considered A Good Idea and More Convenient Than Hauling Ones Ass to the Trash Can, and I wanted to see how many razors were there. DON’T JUDGE ME.) when I heard a door slam in the driveway, and looked out to see the tile guy walking toward the house. Did I mention that we’ve got a tile guy doing the tiling around the showers? The more Fred read up on tiling, the more worried he got that he might mess it up, so he had several people come out to the house to give estimates, and ended up going with the guy who was (1) cheapest (2) least likely to blow smoke up our asses (3) with good references and (4) a good attitude and a willingness to start work soonish. I won’t share a picture with you just yet, but I really like the job the tile guy is doing and the tile Fred picked out. Anyway, the tile guy showed up to work on the upstairs bathroom, and so I stopped doing anything in there so I wouldn’t be in his way. He endeared himself to me – once he heard I was clearing stuff out of the bathroom – by offering to disconnect the toilet for me. And not only did he disconnect the toilet, he brought it downstairs and put it on the porch for me. I should have asked him to be my valentine, no? While he worked, I ended up doing a lot of small things, like taking nails out of the trim I’d removed from the bathroom so it can all go on the burn pile and… well, fuck if I can even remember what the hell I spent the rest of the morning doing. I painted chair rail and quarter-round and crown moulding, I know that. I couldn’t turn off the power to replace plugs and switches because it was too dark out, and the tile guy needed light to see what he was doing. After the tile guy left I went upstairs, admired his tiling job, and tried to remove the medicine cabinet. I had no luck with that, because there’s a wire running through the medicine cabinet to the lights on either side, and so I left the medicine cabinet in place and finished removing screws from the wall. Then I did what I really didn’t want to do, and that is paint with a paint roller. New things scare me, so I’d been avoiding painting with the roller and only painted with a brush, since brush painting is how you (I) paint trim, and trim is mostly what I’d been spending all my time painting. The painting with a roller thing ended up not being too terribly difficult, and I got the lower half of the upstairs bathroom painted before Fred arrived in Smallville. In fact, I got a second coat of paint done before we left for the evening. And today? What are my plans for today, you might ask? Well, lovely readers, I get to haul my ass out to Smallville again to meet the GODDAMN insulation guys who will “definitely” show up today and didn’t show up yesterday because their “truck broke down”, according to the guy Fred spoke to who was “just about to call” Fred at 9:30 yesterday morning. Hopefully I’ll get there early enough to get an initial coat of paint put on the upper half of the upstairs bathroom before the insulation guys arrive (or should I say “arrive”, since I’m not sure they even truly exist as more than a figment of the imagination of the “salesman” who keeps assuring Fred they’ll be there “on time”), then I need to do touchup painting on the quarter-rounds Fred nailed down yesterday, and then I’ll put a second coat of paint on the upper half of the bathroom, do the trim around the bottom of the bathroom, paint some more quarter-round and crown molding, and if I’m feeling froggy I JUST MIGHT GODDAMN START PAINTING MY GODDAMN BEDROOM CLOSET. I can hardly breathe from the sheer goddamn excitement of it all.

* * *
This is a small cove in the upstairs bathroom where we’ll either put some sort of storage furniture, or Fred will build shelves, or something. I was removing chair rail from the wall, when I saw the gap on the right side of the picture. I peered through it, wondering if there was anything back there, and the thought “What if I saw two eyes peering back at me?” came to my mind, and I got so creeped out that I had to go call Fred to talk me down from the ledge. I’m replacing all the floor heat/ air registers with new ones that look like these. I thought these, at more than $10 apiece, were expensive until I looked online and found that you could buy heat/ air registers for upwards of $100. ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR A DECORATIVE PIECE OF METAL YOU PUT IN THE FLOOR. No thanks! I sure do love Chickadees.
* * *
Naturally, I’ve been blaming Joe Bob for the near death of my chewed-upon plant, only to find out that Tommy’s the culprit. Or one of the culprits, anyway.
* * *
Previously 2006: “Stop following me,” Sugarbutt said. “Or I shall call the gendarmes and they shall kick your ass all the way back to Paree.” 2005: “I wasn’t worried,” Fred said to me. “Because any party where the invitation suggests bringing Dance Dance Revolution pads is not one that’s going to get out of hand.” 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: Be our valentine, bitch! 2001: Could this get any more exciting, talking about the weather? 2000: Is it wrong that hearing about that incident gives me a whole new respect for Maria?]]>

2/13/07

this entry the other day, and laughed so hard I cried. I can guarantee you that these days, Fred REALLY wishes I’d politely excuse myself and go into another room to pass gas. Damn those carbs!

* * *
I watched Lady in the Water the other day, and I have to say – I know a lot of people thought it sucked, but I didn’t really think it was bad at all. Of course, I should add that I was cross-stitching while I was watching it and I’ll put up with a lot from a movie when I’m distracted by cross-stitching that I wouldn’t put up with if I was just sitting there watching it, so take my “not bad” with a grain of salt.
* * *
I “discovered” Pacer via Michelle (who is back posting regularly, yay!) last week, and I have been reading the archives ever since, one or two posts at a time. Currently, I’m in late 2005. I can only imagine what THAT Sitemeter stat looks like, since I’ve had a page open to her site for close to a week and have read 70bazillion posts. Not that I needed another damn blog to read, but this one is so funny and addictive that I have no choice but to start reading it, too. I am helpless in the face of funniness and cat pictures (does this picture of Rocky remind you a tad of this picture of former foster kitten Jack Frost, or is it just me?) (Also, AMEN to this entry, especially this line: Sure, a person might molest a child or dance on a table after drinking, but it’s because an inclination toward those behaviors were inside that person already.) (Also, I think this is my favorite dog and cat picture EVER, down at the bottom of the post) . Besides, maybe if I send enough traffic her way, she’ll send me some yummy cookies or toffee. A girl can dream!
* * *
You who searched on “100 Things” in a site search (don’t feel all weird, I don’t know who did the search, it’s completely anonymous, I’m not going to come knock on your door or anything. OR AM I?), I have never done the 100 things list, solely because the idea of coming up with 100 even slightly interesting factoids about myself makes me want to go take a nap. Unless you were looking for the “100 Things to do before I’m (insert age here)” list. Which I have also never done, because the only thing such a list would ensure is that I wouldn’t do a single of those 100 things, because the very existence of the list would make me feel very put-upon, and I’d be all “Fuck you, you stupid list! I’m not gonna do ANY OF THOSE!” I bet I could come up with a list of 100 things people think I should be doing before I’m (insert age here). Or 100 things I’d never do. Or something. I need a nap.
* * *
Received recently from readers: (Thanks, Kara!) (Thanks, Sandy!) My readers RAWK.
* * *
Over the weekend, I did a lot of painting. Upon looking closely at the trim in most of the rooms, I determined that most of the trim in the entire house could use at least one more good coat of paint. So after I put the first coat of paint on the trim in the downstairs bathroom, I taped around the windows in the master bedroom, took down the old blinds, and slapped on a couple of coats of paint before we left for the day. I also put a second coat on the trim in the bathroom, and stood out in the garage in freezing-ass temperatures and put a coat of paint on the quarter-round Fred will be installing over the next few days. Considering how much I hate painting, I’m certainly taking it upon myself to do a lot more than strictly NEEDS to be done. Actually, what I’d like to do is strip the trim around every single doorway in this house down to the wood and repaint them. But there’s just no way I could do that with chemicals without fucking up the floor, and to sand down to the wood on all that trim would make a huge mess. I am going to strip the hell out of all the doors in the house, though, once I’m moved in. I AM. I swear I am. One at a time, in the workshed, I’ll strip them, repaint them, and replace the hardware (which isn’t original to the house, so don’t be telling me I should be keeping it). I will. Really I will! I WILL. Shut up.
* * *
This entry would be longer, but I have to meet the insulation guys at the Smallville house at 8, and since I have to go out there anyway, I might as well just stay out there and get some painting and some plug-switching and switch-switching done (pictures are taken for the “how-to-switch-out-a-switch/ plug” posts, but I have to actually go through the pictures and put them in order, so maybe later this week). So off I go – y’all have a good day.
* * *
Upon waking from a nap, Sugarbutt likes to sit around with one eye closed. He doesn’t seem to have any problems with that eye, just likes to sit with it closed for a few minutes. We call him Popeye when he does this. Photographic evidence that Sugarbutt was the victim of a horrifying drive-by licking. Thomas J. Cullen is currently serving hard time for that crime.
* * *
Previously 2006: Mystery solved. Just call me Nancy Drew. 2005: No entry. 2004: Molasses runs in her veins, I swear to god. 2003: No entry. 2002: My life? Complete again. 2001: Do I want to go sit through an eternal PTA meeting, listen to endless amounts of people babble endlessly? Um, no. 2000: No entry. ]]>

2/12/07

funny. That one wasn’t easy to write.

* * *
Found in my bookmarks: Hee!
* * *
Someone did a site search on “Spanky lips”. Is it just me, or would that make an excellent (1) Band name, (2) Album name, or (3) Novel name? Actually, it sounds a little porny. Maybe it would be a good porn actress name. If anyone’s planning on going into porn, feel free to use Spanky Lips – no, Spanky Lipps would be better – as your name. A gift from me to you.
* * *
Friday Sugarbutt was dancing around on the table in the foyer, chirruping and grunting and just generally acting like he was Disturbed. I got up from the computer and stood in the doorway looking at him. Then I happened to glance down and saw that Joe Bob was sitting in front of the window. He’s a goofy guy – Fred said the other day “I think Joe Bob might be the epitome of a gaum”, and he SO is – and he was sitting oddly, and I looked at him with affection and then with dawning horror as I realized he was squatting there PEEING in the cat bed he was sitting in. “JOE! NO!” I bellowed, and he hopped up and hauled ass away from me as fast as he could, leaving little droplets of pee in various places along the way. (How do I know where the droplets of pee were? Why, because nothing fascinates a cat more than smelling the pee of another cat. All I had to do was look and see where Sugarbutt, Tommy, Spot, and Miz Poo were sniffing, spray that area with some cleaning solution and wipe it up. They’re little cat detectives!) Thursday I had removed the litter box from the guest bedroom so that there was only one litter box, so I thought for sure that Joe Bob was making a statement about the availability – or NONavailability, I guess – of litter boxes in the house. Since I had no desire to find Joe peeing anywhere else (like, say, the couch), I went upstairs as fast as my stubby legs could carry me, put litter in a litter box, and put it back in the guest bedroom, thereby making it a 2 1/2-bathroom house for the people and a 2-bathroom house for the cats. Friday night I was cleaning out the big litter box in the laundry room when Joe came sniffing around, saw that I was cleaning the box, and ran off. I told Fred to grab him and put him in the litter box, because I didn’t want him deciding “Oh! No litter box available! Time to pee on someone’s bed!” Fred put him in the litter box and Joe squatted… and squatted… and squatted. “Oh NO,” I said. “I hope he doesn’t have a urinary tract infection.” I do NOT know why I’m such an idiot. Except for Tubby, the only time we’ve ever had an issue with cats peeing outside the litter box, it’s been because they’ve developed a urinary tract infection. Spanky’s had that problem a few times and Spot has once. And they NEVER pee outside the litter box otherwise. Yet anytime I find a cat who has previously never peed outside the litter box doing so, it never EVER dawns on me that it could be a UTI. Joe Bob left behind a small wet spot in the litter box so I thought maybe he was just nervous because we were hovering over him, only Fred went downstairs and I wandered off to fold some laundry, and I realized that Joe was back in the litter box in about two minutes. And this time, he left nothin’ behind. I said to Fred, “He’s got a UTI!” I called the shelter manager, and she said that if I could possibly take him to the vet on Saturday so they could check him for crystals, that would be the best way to go. Also, I should keep an eye on him, and if he started acting like he was in distress, I should take him to the emergency vet. Not so much with the “in distress.” I kept an eye on him, but he very much did not appear to be in any kind of distress, unless looking like a big dork, scampering around the living room, and keeping an eye on Fred in case Fred might suddenly feel the need to hand out food is his way of acting distressed. Saturday morning Fred went and got groceries, then headed out to Smallville to meet up with a guy delivering lumber. I stayed in Madison until about 10 minutes before 9, then popped Joe Bob into the cat carrier and carried him to the vet. They were only taking drop-offs, so I dropped him off and left my cell phone number to call when he was ready to go. I went home until about 10, then decided to go on out to Smallville, figuring that even if they called in the next hour or so, I’d just tell them I’d pick him up before they closed at 5. Well. They didn’t call and didn’t call, so finally after Fred and I made a trip to Lowe’s to return a thousand different things we needed to return, and bought a thousand items we needed to buy, I called them on the way back to the house. At this point it was 3:30, and the receptionist said that he wouldn’t be ready ’til 4:30 and I could just show up at 4:30 and he’d be ready to go. We went back to the house and did a few things, and I decided to go ahead and head out to the vet. I got in the car, and just as I was about to put the car in gear, my cell phone rang. The vet’s assistant had some more questions about Joe Bob, and kept asking if he’d been outside in the last few days. Finally I told her we’d had him a month and he had never been outside, and then she asked me to hold on, because the vet wanted to talk to me. The vet told me that they’d put Joe Bob in a cage with a litter box and water, and wanted to see if he’d pee so she wouldn’t have to get a urine sample direct from the source. He didn’t pee and didn’t pee, so she used a needle to the abdomen – (go ahead and scream and run around in sympathy. I sure did.) and his bladder was very very small and the urine was dark brown with blood in it. What concerned her was that pretty much every time a cat gets a needle to the bladder they immediately have to pee afterward. When they put Joe Bob back in the cage, he didn’t even think about peeing. Which, to the vet, indicated that there was a blockage. “And I’ve never ever seen a cat with a blockage whose bladder is this tiny,” she said. I was opening my mouth to say “And this means.. what?” when there was an excited voice in the background, and the vet said “Oh! He just peed! Yay!” She said she hadn’t had a chance to spin down the urine sample, but she’d do it and call me back, but since I was on my way out there anyway, I told her I’d be there in a little while and would talk to her then. When I got to the vet’s, forty minutes later, she was just then looking at Joe’s urine via a microscope, so I waited and watched dogs being groomed. It turns out that ol’ Joe is loaded up with crystals in his urine and needed medicine and a new special diet. Also, I needed to keep an eye on him to make sure he’s not acting distressed, and still using the litter box. When we got home, I took all the old cat food away from the cats and put them all on the special prescription cat food I’d gotten for Joe (I got a nifty “prescription” card so that I can buy more when I need it; the pet store won’t sell the prescription food to you without the doofy special card, either. I feel so special.). I figure it’s a matter of locking Joe away in a room by himself where he only has access to the one kind of food, or switch the diet for all of them, and I opted for switching all of them, because he has a pretty good time playing with Sugarbutt and Tom Cullen. (Y’all just SHUT UP. No, we’re not adopting him!) So it seems that he’ll be with us for at least two more weeks ’til he finishes his medication. Sunday morning Fred woke me up to let me know that he’d gone downstairs to find that someone (we suspect either Joe Bob or Spot) had pulled a chicken bone out of the garbage can and chewed part of it up. Which means, no doubt, that splinters of chicken bone are working their way through SOMEONE’s intestinal tract and in two days one or the other of them will die from chicken bone splinters poking through their intestines. Or whatever it is that happens when cats eat chicken bones. According to something Fred found online, it takes two days for symptoms to start, so we get another day of eyeballing Spot and Joe and making sure there’s no vomiting and/ or bloody diarrhea. Also, we need to make sure Joe’s getting enough water in (I made Fred squirt a couple of syringes of water down Joe’s throat last night just to be sure) and is using the litter box. You know, KIDS aren’t this much work. Maybe we should jettison the cats and have a couple of kids. God knows that even if he lived that long, Mister Boogers wouldn’t even consider taking care of me in my old age.
* * *
Sunday morning after Fred told me that someone had dragged a chicken bone out of the trash, he said “We need to remember to keep the closet (where we keep the trash) door shut.” “Yeah, we do,” I agreed. When I got downstairs 45 minutes later, the closet door was open. I shut it. “We need to remember to keep the closet door shut,” I said when I walked into the computer room. “Yeah,” Fred agreed absentmindedly. He got up a few minutes later and got coffee or something. When I was done eating my breakfast, I went into the kitchen to put my plate in the dishwasher. The closet door was open, and I shut it. “We need to keep the closet door shut,” I said when I went back into the computer room. “Yeah, I know,” Fred said. I stood and stared at him. “What?” he said. “Oh. Did I leave the closet door open?” “Yes,” I said. “Sorry.” Five minutes later, Fred said “Are you about ready to go?” I allowed that I would be, in a few minutes, and he went into the kitchen to grab a lunch to take to Smallville with him. I finished the email I was typing, sent it, and went out into the kitchen. The closet door was standing open. I stood and stared at him until he looked over and said “What?” and then I ostentatiously walked over to the closet door and firmly pushed it close. “Oh,” he said with a grin. “Sorry!” I put on my jacket, grabbed my purse, and headed for the garage door. Fred picked up his lunch, threw away a piece of paper towel, and headed for the door as well. The closet door stood open. “OH MY GOD!” I yelled, and he jumped. “What?!” he said, panicked, looking around. I stomped over to the closet door, slammed it shut, gave him a dirty look, and flounced out the door. If Joe Bob dies from chicken splinters I THINK WE ALL KNOW WHO TO BLAME.
* * *
Apparently something was going on out there. Previously 2006: No entry. 2005: No entry. 2004: Sounds like corporate logic, to me – cable guys having to service DVRs when they don’t know anything at all about them. 2003: Uninspired. 2002: Dude, what the fuck? They don’t have mirrors on Boston Public? 2001: My husband, Narcissus. 2000: No entry.]]>

Beach Roses

Last summer the beach roses grew wild the way they did that summer we couldn’t walk two feet down the beach without running into thicket after thicket of them. Last night I slept with the window cracked barely open and though the roses should be dried up and long blown out to sea by now, somehow my room filled with their scent, mingled with the brine of the ocean. I dreamed of you again, and I woke so filled with longing that I could hardly catch my breath. It seems stupid to miss you. Though it’s been longer since your death than you were even alive, you’re as much a part of me now as you ever were. I ran so hard from your memory that it seems all I did was embrace it harder. Times went by when I swore to myself that I was moving on, I was forgetting you, I was getting over and around and past your memory. There were sometimes days when I hardly thought of you, followed by days when you were all I could think of. I’m back, after spending more than half my life trying to get the hell away. So many times I settled in the middle of the country, the wastelands, thousands of miles from this goddamned state and that goddamned ocean, running with all my heart, until I had to give up. I’m back here, not two hundred yards from the beach where we spent the happiest days of my life. And how pathetic is it that I’m forty-two and the happiest days of my life happened when I was seventeen? I almost married a man because he smelled like you. He smelled like you, and he was as damaged as me and when we looked at each other there was a jolt of recognition because we saw the damage in each other, and somehow we thought we could build a life together. The smartest, bravest thing I ever did was to leave that man. We would have done nothing but destroy each other.

I don’t know how to stop missing you. You’d think after so long I’d be an expert at dealing with the loss, and for the most part I deal with it pretty well. But every now and again when I’m least expecting it, I’m struck anew, the pain as fresh as it was the moment I found out you were gone, and I spend days flailing to the surface of my sorrow. I would think the passage of time would dull the grief, but instead it seems sharper every time it returns. The last time I spoke to my mother, she told me that the grief only had such power over me because I allowed it. I thought then that she was speaking the truth – don’t we always believe that the dying possess some kind of wisdom we undying don’t? – because what she said made me so incredibly furious. The truth invariably pisses me off. I’ve been to counselors and grief groups and psychics and I’ve begged them to help me move on, and not one of them helped worth a good goddamn. Because to move on and let you go, the first step would be to want to let you go, and I can’t make myself want that. I don’t know how to want to let you go. It would feel like such a betrayal. It’s a hard grief etched on my soul, as much a part of me as my hair or name. I wonder sometimes if I welcome it, need it, use it to define myself. If I do, I’m not aware of it – there are a lot of things about myself that mystify me. Sometimes I think I know myself no better than any stranger on the street. I have to believe in some sort of afterlife, because the idea that you might no longer exist in any way, that I might never touch you again somehow, breaks my heart. A TV hack might tell me that my grief is self-involvement to the extreme, more about me than you, my way of wallowing and refusing to do something with my life. He might be right, or a thousand miles from right; I don’t know. What hurts the most – well, no. I can’t really make a neat list of everything that hurts, in order of intensity. Everything hurts in its own way, and what breaks my heart the most one day is at the bottom of the list the next. What hurts the most at this moment is that neither of us was allowed to become who we were meant to be. We were babies with our lives ahead of us, and a world of possibilities. We had so many plans, never allowed to come to fruition. You weren’t supposed to die before you could turn into the man you promised to be. I wasn’t supposed to be a broken shell, drifting across the country with no direction and no purpose except to forever mourn her childhood love.
“It’s bad,” she said. “It’s bad.” And she said it a hundred times again, the words running into each other, becoming a chant, and by the time she’d said it ten or twenty times, she didn’t have to say anything else, because I knew. “Itsbaditsbaditsbaditsbad.” There was the longest silence, one where I couldn’t hear anything or feel anything or say anything, then her voice rose in a wordless, keening wail, and my fingers – my entire body – went numb. I dropped the phone to the floor and my heart shattered. My world turned gray and stayed so for years. I remember every detail of the small table I looked at while I was on the phone with her, the way a crescent of dust my mother had missed peeked out from under the lamp. I can close my eyes and see it so clearly; sometimes I dream of that table, of just standing and staring down at it while my world fell apart. Every moment of that time stands out in sharp relief to me, from the moment she told me to the second I drove out of town. Stepping into the funeral parlor and seeing you there, seeing you sit up and smile at me in dream-sequence slow-motion. You winked at me and then I fainted. Laying in my bed for days, your shirt pressed to my face. Every minute was an eternity, my body throbbing with every heartbeat, wanting to believe they were wrong, that you were still alive, but knowing – feeling – you were truly gone. They call it heartbreak, but every cell in my body ached. The memories I have of before then seem to me to be saturated in light and color, and after then they’re mostly monochromatic, even though I know that there have been moments of joy and laughter and light in the years since. I fled this place so many times, only to find myself back here, again and again. Once, after you’d been gone several long years, I left Kentucky in a vanload of people – not friends, not really strangers, but people somewhere in between – headed for Arizona. I went with them since I had nothing to hold me in Kentucky. I’ve lived so many places in all these years, and none of them meant a goddamn thing to me. Maybe I was biding my time until I could get back here. We left Kentucky, headed for Arizona and I was snorting and smoking and shooting and drinking every goddamn thing I could get my hands on. The next thing I knew I was waking up on your sister’s front lawn. She was standing over me, and I looked up into her face, and I saw that the woman who’d once loved me as if I were her own blood hated me. She hated me so much, David. There was no love left for me in her eyes. “How many times am I going to find you here and wonder if you’re dead?” she said, her voice thick with loathing and tears. Grief had aged her twenty years in the space of five. “I can’t do this anymore, Della. I can’t watch you die. I can’t be your salvation. Either kill yourself or figure out how to live with the loss. But stop showing up face-down on my lawn.” Her face softened for an instant, then she turned and began to walk away. She paused and looked down at me again, her eyes glittering. “He’d be so ashamed at what you’ve done with your life.” Then she walked into her house, shutting the door firmly and gently behind her. I didn’t see her again until yesterday at Prevost’s Market. She flinched and looked at me as though I were a ghost, and then she walked away again without looking back. Too much water under the bridge, I guess. She’s all I had left of you, and she was never really mine. Sometimes at night when I can’t sleep, I remember that summer and her certainty that global warming was responsible for the way the beach roses were growing wild, and the crazy-eyed way she’d rant about how we were killing our planet, and how we’d have to bite our lips and sink down in the couch, carefully composing our faces in blank masks so as not to laugh in her face. The night we made love on the beach, surrounded by the roses, the scent so thick we could taste it, and you looked down at me and shrieked “Goddamn global warming! We’re going to be floating to hell on an iceberg, you mark my words!” in her voice, and I laughed so hard I cried. I’m afraid this is sounding too woe-is-me for words. I make it sound like I’ve spent all these years wallowing in grief, every instant of it. And though my gray days – months, years – the times when I feel like I’m walking through glue have maybe claimed the majority of my life, I’ve had moments of joy and laughter, I promise you that. If I hadn’t broken the gray with flashes of color, I don’t doubt that by now I would have gathered the courage – or maybe cowardice – to find out for myself whether there’s a life after this. I’ve come so close, so many times, but every time I step up to that precipice, something pulls me back. I don’t know if it’s that I am, underneath the pain and grief and longing for you, an optimist or that I believe there’s maybe something in this life I’m meant to do. All I know is that I’m here in Maine, in the house where there are so many memories of you – of us – and I’m here to stay until I figure it all out. I wish like hell you were here.
Previously 2006: Giggling like that is EXACTLY something Fred would do. 2005: Taking the day off. 2004: I don’t believe I mentioned that the Bean has tapeworms. 2003: No entry. 2002: No entry. 2001: And I yelled “Any fucking thing else?!”, addressing, I guess, God. 2000: Okay, so I don’t have much to say today.]]>

2/8/07

Rhys has a request: I want to ask you a special favor. Can you imagine spending six months traversing some of the most gorgeous, and treacherous, wilderness in the world? How about spending six months walking through wildly varied landscapes including the scorching desert where the average temperature is 122 degrees? Or through the most rattlesnake-infested portions of America? Or down icy mountains so slippery, an ice axe is required to avoid plunging to certain death? I will be doing just that. In March 2007, I will begin my six month hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, the second longest hiking trail in America. Winding its way from Mexico to Canada, the Pacific Crest Trail is nearly 2700 miles of extreme diversity, passing through six ecozones and offering amazing scenery and adventure, including multiple encounters with wildlife. Is it any wonder that less people have completed this journey than have climbed Mount Everest? As a woman especially, I think it is critical to test ourselves until we find our hidden reserves of determination and strength, and this is the perfect opportunity for me to do that, and perhaps inspire others to do the same. Boredom is the biggest enemy on the trail, and sometimes you just need to distract yourself. With no TV, radio, or Internet connection, books are the only respite. I am a voracious reader and can’t sleep without reading for a few hours first, so…I’ll need lots of books for this journey. Would you be willing to lend any paperbacks to me? Old books, dusty books, your 6th grade diary…whatever you can spare! I love thriller/mystery/horror/woman detective/medical examiner/etc. type fiction, but will gladly accept anything you think may entertain me. Thank you!!! She also said I will mail the books back in good condition, or donate them to the local library in their name when through reading them, whatever the person prefers. I’m writing a book about the hike, and will be giving presentations and motivational speeches afterwards. I’m planning on donating all proceeds from these to my local Humane Society, so there will be a benefit beyond just providing me entertainment. I think this is SO COOL, and I know that y’all can help out here and keep Rhys in enough reading material for six months. You can reach Rhys via her website, or by email: rhysalexander (AT) gmail (DOT) com

* * *
If I wanted to buy something that made it possible for me to listen to my iPod in the car, what would y’all recommend? I bought a cheap thing at Target last month and tried it out, but couldn’t get it to work without being static-y, which I suppose is the price you pay for buying the cheap thing, so I returned it. I don’t like to listen to my iPod via headphones in the car, so now I need your help. Recommendations, please!
* * *
A few months ago, when we had first made the offer on the house but hadn’t yet closed on it, I was doing some looking around online, and I found a recipe for homemade sauerkraut. I like sauerkraut, so I was all “Hey! I should make sauerkraut with the cabbage we grow in our garden!”, and then I said “Oh, but my food processor is kind of a piece of crap. I should look for a new food processor!” So I moseyed on over to Amazon and looked at the food processors, and as I often do when I’m looking at things and find one that I like and want to remember which one I wanted, I added it to my wish list. Then I realized that making your own sauerkraut is a long process that involves fermenting it and shit like that, and I shrugged and said “Oh THAT sounds like a pain in the ass” and I went along my merry way. When Fred’s father and stepmother were looking for ideas for me for my birthday, Fred told them anything from my wish list would be fine. Which is how I ended up with a 7-cup Kitchenaid food processor in black sitting on the floor of the dining area of the kitchen for the last month or so. I kind of didn’t really need the food processor, and in fact had I gotten the receipt with the food processor, I would have sent it back to Amazon, but I didn’t have the receipt so I shrugged and figured it would come in handy at some point in the future, and after all we were going to have plenty of room for it in the kitchen in Smallville, so there you go. Yesterday I made CORE Salsa Meatloaf for dinner, which involves much shredding, and so I finally took the food processor out of the box and set it up. Oh my GOD. I love the holy hell out of this food processor! It’s quiet and it does the job like nobody’s business, and it shreds like a motherfucker and IT FUCKING ROCKS. I am realizing belatedly that it’s an AWESOME gift – I think the best gifts are the ones you really didn’t want all that much, but once you’ve got ’em, you realize you TOTALLY wanted ’em and will love and use them forever – and now I am struck with the urge to shred, chop, and dice everything I get my hands on.
* * *
Because I am a stupidhead, when I realized we were running out of checks, I ordered another box of them with our Madison address on them, which will probably take us a year to go through because we don’t write checks all that often. I got another set of personalized picture checks, only instead of using this picture of Sugarbutt (still one of my favorites) like I did on the last batch of checks, I used this picture of Jack Frost. I thought it was an appropriate picture to use, considering how much I hate writing checks. And it cracks me up every time I look at my checkbook. (I order my checks from American Bank Checks.)
* * *
Last week, the spud’s tire went flat, necessitating a call to AAA because Fred is not a man couldn’t figure out where to put the jack. The spud drove around on her spare tire for a day, then went to the oil change place to see about getting her tire patched. They don’t do tire patching at the oil change place, it appears, so she went to Wal-Mart, where she cooled her heels for a good hour or so to find out that (1) They couldn’t patch the tire, there was too much damage and (2) They didn’t carry the tire that would fit her car. Fred told her to just give it up for the day and that the next day she could run over to Firestone and see about getting a new tire. He told her we’d pay for half of it, because he’s nice that way. The next day she went over to Firestone, and told the guy she needed a new tire. The guy looked it up and told the spud that the tire was going to cost $200. Then he lectured her, saying “This is what people don’t think about! They buy those little cheap cars, and don’t think about the fact that the tires are very expensive!” The spud called Fred to tell him what the guy had said, then said that the guy was going to look at the tire and see if it could be patched. Meanwhile, Fred called Suzuki to see how much it would cost for a new tire. $100 at Suzuki, though they had to order it. “If they can’t patch the tire, just thank him and come home,” Fred said. When the spud was on her way home, Fred and I sat and talked about how it was utterly ridiculous that the guy would quote her a price like $200 for a tire. Because MY ASS does a tire cost $200. I’ve never paid much more than $100 for a tire in my entire life, and before you’re all “That’s why you have to keep buying tires, because you buy the cheap ones!”, let me tell you that if I’ve bought more than eight tires in 23 years, I’d be amazed. Fred got an idea, and called the Firestone on the other side of Huntsville. “Could you tell me how much it would cost for a tire for a 2004 Suzuki Aerio SX?” he asked, listened for a few moments, then thanked the guy and hung up. “106.23, installed.” I am telling you, I was so pissed I could barely see straight. I was thisclose to grabbing the spud, driving back to Firestone and finding the asshole she’d spoken to so I could say “Is it because my poor sweet baby girl is young, or because she’s female, that you are under the impression that she’s your stupid little bitch and you can FUCK WITH HER?” and then castrate him. Only before I could do that (’cause I was GONNA) Fred called Firestone and said “Can you tell me why it is that I can get a tire for…” etc. The guy spluttered and then said he didn’t see on their system that they had any such tire, and Fred said, with the supreme self-assurance that only comes with the complete and utter knowledge that you are in the RIGHT and the other motherfucking fuckheaded asshole is in the WRONG, “Well, his name is (whatever) and you can surely call him at (wherever) and I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you about the less expensive tire!” And the guy spluttered some more and said he’d call the other guy and hung up. Fred went off to take a bath and the spud went off to hang out with her friends and I sat on my ass in front of the computer (which is shocking, really, ’cause I never do THAT) and a while later the phone rang. Caller ID told me it was Firestone, so I answered the call. “Is this Miss And3rson?” the man on the other end said. “It is,” I said, icicles dripping off each word. I judiciously left off the “You fucking motherfucking asshole.” part. “I guess I talked to your father earlier?” he said. “You spoke to my husband,” I said. My entire life, people seem to think I’m like 10 years old when I talk to them on the phone. I DO NOT SOUND LIKE A LITTLE KID, FUCKERS. “Oh, your husband. Could I speak to him, please?” he said. Now, I ask you. Why was it necessary to determine my relationship to Fred before he asked to speak to him? How is it his business? This is the sort of thing that drives me fucking nuts, just like when telemarketers call and ask if he’s home, and when I say “He’s at work. Can I take a message?” and they start to leave a message, then stop and say “And who’s this?” Well, IT’S THE GODDAMN PERSON WHO ANSWERED THE GODDAMN PHONE YOU FUCKING GODDAMN FUCKERS. IN OTHER WORDS IT’S NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS, IS WHO IT IS, GOT THAT? I think I have perhaps never mentioned this, but moi does not love the phone. So I carried the phone up to Fred in the bathtub (note to self: we need a phone by the bathtub) and then couldn’t stand around and make “I call bullshit!” faces at him while the guy spun a web of bullshit because… I don’t know why. Was I cooking something? Was I cleaning something? I don’t remember. Eventually Fred came downstairs and told me that the guy claimed that the $200 price quoted to the spud was for the high-performance tire, and the lower price was for a tire that wasn’t available on the system to the Firestone guy who had condescended all over the spud. Which is when I got to make my “I call bullshit” face at Fred, and then I said “I call BULLSHIT!”, and Fred agreed. So Firestone? Kiss my fucking ass, ’cause you will NEVER get any business from the And3rson family so long as I goddamn live. And y’all should boycott those fuckers, too. ‘Cause I said so.
* * *
“Howyadoin’, Shweetheart?” “Bahahahahah! Oh, I crack me UP!”
* * *
Previously 2006: And then the spud said “Is he trying to go to Narnia?” 2005: I’ll take my anonymous life, thank you. 2004: No entry. 2003: No entry. 2002: “What?” he said. “I WASN’T geeky!” 2001: No entry. 2000: Tomorrow, I’m going to go see Dr. Judy for my ear, out of which I still cannot hear anything but constant white noise. ]]>