Author: Robyn

reading: The 37th Hour. Finished reading yesterday: Never Threaten to Eat Your Co-Workers. Not a bad book, though I did find myself skipping some of the chapters (or whatever you want to term them). Far and away my favorite chapters were those done by Dooce, Ali Davis, Mrs. Kennedy, and Wil Wheaton.

* * * Fred apparently had an epiphany yesterday. I got an email consisting of the following and nothing else: To: Robyn From: Fred Subject: I’ve figured it out. You know why Christians are always persecuted? Because they’re so goddamn annoying. * * * From my comments: Hey Robyn…totally off the subject but what kind of Dyson do you have. I’m interested in getting one and I’ve been checking them out online, but there’s a bunch of different ones. Also what do you use it for? Carpet or floors? I think I would use it mostly for carpet. I have the Dyson Animal – DC07. I still LOVE IT, by the way. There’s just nothing like vacuuming a room and watching the canister fill up with cat hair and dust and crap. I use it for both carpet and floors. There’s a switch so that you can turn the beater bar thingy (?) off while you’re vacuuming floors and then back on when you do carpets. My only gripe about the Dyson is that it doesn’t really reach all the way under my kitchen cabinets and so I have to get out the attachment (because dirt and crap likes to collect under there), but other than that? Love it! * * * A year and a day after she took and passed her learner’s permit test, the spud is now officially licensed: It took about an hour of waiting around at the Department of Motor Vehicles in a jam-packed waiting room before they called her back, filled out a thousand forms, took five dollars, made me sign something, and then snapped her picture. Last night I took my life in my hands and had her drive me to the post office to drop off some boxes. This was the first time I’d ever been in a vehicle with her behind the wheel, and I was a little worried, because Fred has told me some very scary stories about the spud behind the wheel. But you know what? It was fine. She’s maybe a little hesitant to pull out when she should, and she has the tendency to slow down wayyy before she needs to, but those are things she’ll overcome in time. The streets of Madison have a lot of traffic and it can be a little scary sometimes – when I was learning to drive, I had the luxury of a lot of country roads to drive down with very little traffic. There’s really nothing like that here; there are plenty of country roads, but a lot of traffic going down them. She’ll be fine. * * * Okay, this Terry Schiavo thing got me freaked out enough that I located an Advance Directive form online, printed it out, and have started filling it out. What startles me is that people are skeptical about Michael Schiavo’s claim that he and Terry had talked about it years ago, and she’d never want to be kept alive in a persistent vegetative state. “Yeah, right,” people are saying. “I’m sure they talked about it alllll the time.” Well, I hate to be a party pooper, but Fred and I have discussed that very thing many, many times. The first time was before we were even married, and we discuss it again every now and then. We’re both fully aware of each other’s wishes and prepared to carry them out should the occasion arise. Which always leads to me joking that at some point in the future I’ll be in the hospital, and the nurse will say “Your wife is resting comfortably, Mr. And3rson” and Fred will bellow “Unplug her! Unplug her!” and the nurse will say “No, she’s just sleeping, Mr. And3rson!” and Fred will say “Unplug her! She’d never want to live like that!” Okay, maybe it’s only funny to us. My goal before next Friday is to get the Advance Directive form filled out, signed, and witnessed. I’m appointing Fred my health care proxy, and my sister the backup health care proxy (in case Fred and I are in a fiery car accident, or a safe falls on both our heads), because I know without a doubt that I can trust both of them to make the right decision and that they love me enough to make sure my wishes are carried out. And now, because jokes can be made about ANYTHING (“Where did Krista McAuliffe go on vacation?” “All over Florida!”), there are jokes being made. Some of them are FUCKING funny. Fred sent me an email yesterday, saying: Someone on Fark just commented that Terri Schiavo is like Michigan J. Frog in that she can sit up, speak, and react when her parents are there, but does absolutely nothing when anyone else is around. Bless Terry Schiavo’s heart, but that is funny. And then today he wrote this entry and I laughed so hard I almost shot Diet Coke out my nose. I’m surprised he didn’t try to unplug me. * * * ]]>

“I’ll get on that right now,” said Salesguy. “I’ll call you back when I’ve found one.” (By the way, that would be the day those of you on the notify list got the link to the current day’s entry along with a cryptic note about wanting to kick someone’s teeth in. Or something along those lines, I don’t really remember anymore exactly what I said.) And then two weeks pass. At one point, Salesguy claims that he’s located a vehicle in Birmingham, and he’s sent a guy to go down to pick it up. A few days pass with no word. I harass Fred to call Salesguy. Salesguy says Oh! Right, the car! Well, I sent a guy down to get it, only somehow when he got there to pick it up, the dealer had sold it. I’ll keep looking. By now I’m getting worried, because the first payment is due on the silver (which was supposed to be yellow by now, only – whoops! Salesguy claimed that we could get a professional paint job for $800 – $1000, but it appears that he was lying through his teeth to make the sale. Gosh, I wonder how it is that car salesmen get a bad reputation? It’s a mystery.) Aerio, and what the hell am I supposed to do? Do I send in the first payment, or wait until I get my blue car, or what? Salesguy says to just wait. When the blue car gets here, they’ll cancel the loan for the silver car, and write a whole new loan for the blue one. So I tear up the check and sit back to wait. Some more. Because I haven’t done enough waiting. At ALL. Days pass. Fred begins calling Salesguy every single day to see what the fuck is going on. Every day it’s a new story, and finally Salesguy says that he’s pretty sure they’re just going to have to get one right “off the boat”, because he’s having a hell of a time finding any in the area. Friday, Salesguy calls. “We’ve got one coming off the boat,” he says. “In Florida. It’ll be here this weekend, I think.” The weekend passes. Monday morning, salesguy says “Oh, the car will be here tonight. I think we can get this done and the paperwork signed tomorrow!” Fred tells me this. I am thrilled. Tuesday morning comes. Fred’s phone rings. It’s Salesguy. “Golly,” says the Lying Sack of Shit Salesguy who cannot possibly tell one complete truth to save his goddamn fucking life. Oh hey, that bible in the corner of your office? Nice touch. “It seems that because of the transfer of title (from the paperwork Fred signed), the silver car is now viewed as used. We can still get you the blue car, but the monthly payment will increase by $61.” Um, no. FUCK NO. Fred doesn’t even have to call and check with me – it is NOT ACCEPTABLE and we all know it. “Lying Sack of Shit Salesguy,” Fred says. “You need to figure out how to make this right. You’ve been dicking us around for weeks now, and if you fuck me on this, I’m never going to buy another car from you ever again.” Lying Sack of Shit Salesguy continues the fucking shuck-and-jive he’s been performing for weeks and weeks now. He has to talk to his sales manager! He’s on our side! He’s going to do everything he can! The sales manager calls Fred and basically acts like an asshole. “This is the first I’ve heard of this!” he says. Like this is somehow our fault? Do buyers usually make a practice of being sure that the sales manager has a fucking clue what’s going on directly under his nose? Would he like us to stop by and wipe his ass twice a day as well? “So, what? You just want this whole thing (the sale of the silver car) to go away like it never happened?” he says accusingly. “I’d like Salesguy to stand up to the promise he made,” Fred says. “He promised me that we could get a blue car instead of the silver, and that the payment would be the same.” Sales manager hems and haws. He has to check with someone else. He’ll call back. “You tell that fucking piece of shit that he has until 5:00 and then we’re done,” I said. Fred relayed the message. At some point Lying Sack of Shit Salesguy called to say that they were moving up the chain of command to “see” if there was “anything” they could do. “I think I own a goddamn silver car,” I said to Fred at 3:00. “I own a goddamn silver car,” I said to Fred when 5:00 had come and gone and neither Asshole Sales Manager nor Lying Sack of Shit Salesguy had bothered to call. “Take your phone with you,” I said when Fred was getting ready to take a nice relaxing bath after dinner. Around 5:45 I could hear from downstairs when Fred turned the jets off. I knew without a doubt that it was Asshole Sales Manager and when Fred didn’t use his cell phone to call my cell phone to let me know otherwise (we r so hi-t3ch. Also, l33t), I knew I was stuck with a FUCKING SILVER CAR. No. We are not suing. Don’t even suggest it, because we’re not suing. I have a silver car. I’ve never, in my entire life, wanted a silver car. I’ve wanted a yellow car for-fucking-EVER, and failing that I’d take a blue car. Even a red one! But no. I have silver. Despite the color (and don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty. But I don’t want to own a silver car) I do like the car. I love driving a little car instead of the huge behemoth I was driving. I love that it has a 6-CD changer, I love that it has adjustable cup holders, it drives like a fucking dream. It’s an awesome little car, and I love it. The color? I don’t so much love it. (I’m not insulting you silver car owners, am I? Because I love yellow cars, but I understand that some of you hate yellow cars, and I know it’s nothing personal, it’s just a matter of personal preference. Y’know?) So, no. Not going to sue. But I did get a survey from JD Power and Associates. A “Suzuki Sales Satisfaction Survey”, to be exact. And not only is there an entire section entitled “Working with your salesperson”, there’s also this question: “How likely are you to purchase/ lease another Suzuki from the same dealership.” as well as “How likely are you to recommend the dealership from which you purchased/ leased your Suzuki to a friend or relative.” Also, a comment section on the back of the form. You can bet your ass I’ll be filling that survey out completely. Edited to add: Also, Fred will be contacting the CEO of Suzuki in the next few days. I will, of course, let you know what happens! I’ll be kind – I won’t even tell you the name of the dealership or Lying Sack of Shit Salesguy. But I will tell you that if you’re in this area and looking to buy a Suzuki? Don’t buy it in Huntsville or Madison. Buy it anywhere BUT Huntsville or Decatur. I understand there aren’t as many Lying Sack of Shit Salesguys in other dealerships. Before you bring it up, yes. Perhaps we ARE the very epitome of naive for stupidly thinking that a car salesman would (gasp!) tell us the truth, and continuing to believe him when he told us, time after time, that he was “working” on getting that blue car. But we’ve learned our lesson, and if you are a car salesman reading this? You can thank Lying Sack of Shit Salesguy for the fact that we have learned that car salesman are big fat fucking liars. “Can I kill him, Mom, can I, can I, huh?”]]>

reading: Hating Valentine’s Day.

* * * So, we weren’t seriously discussing opening a used book store the other day; we were just talking about how cool it would be. Besides, we’re going to be moving out of Madison in a few years – once the spud has graduated – and wherever we end up, I doubt I’ll want to be driving back to Madison every day to run the store. Also, there’s that whole pesky “dealing with people” thing, and I don’t like that sort of thing at ALL. * * * From reader Lisa: I read that you don’t have any pet store kitty photos for this week, so here’s a pic of ours. I wrote in several weeks ago, asking for advice on picking out a cat from a shelter. Thanks for the great suggestions from you and your readers! We brought home a 1 year old female and named her Lavender. She is SO SWEET! Her favorite place to sit is on the dining room table — shown here in the photo — where she has a full view of the backyard to watch the birds and squirrels. The absolute best, though, is the way she interacts with our 9-month old daughter. Lavender thinks she’s her mommy. When our daughter naps, Lavender licks her and sits next to her with a paw on her back. When she cries, Lavender comes running to check up on the situation. It’s so sweet I could almost cry! Everyone out there should go rescue a shelter cat!!! They have so much love to give! I love the way she looks like she’s wearing eyeliner. Adorable, isn’t she? * * * Hey, look! Corelle makes yellow dishes! And we… are in the market for new dishes. And we like Corelle! I believe it’s kismet, is what it is. * * * Would someone take a look around my site and tell me why the holy hell anyone would think this is a BUSINESS site? A few months ago I started getting sales calls from Paypal. They wanted to offer some new program or another, and I was willing to listen, because I thought they were calling me regarding the (now defunct) chunktohunk.com site, which sold (the now almost out-of-print) Fred’s book. But then I realized they were talking about this site, and I stopped the guy in the middle of his sales pitch and I said “It’s a personal site. I have an online journal. I don’t SELL ANYTHING. What use would this program be to me?” And he stammered and hemmed and hawed and acted like I was the idiot because I had the nerve to own a site – a PERSONAL site – that doesn’t sell anything. Fucker. And then last week I got an email from Google. Google wanted me to know that SOMEHOW – surely it was an ACCIDENT – robots.txt was blocking Google from crawling my site, and they wanted to make it easy for customers to find my site. CUSTOMERS. So I deleted the email, thinking it was a one-time thing, but nay. Yesterday, I got yet another email from Google. A FOLLOW-UP email. I just wanted to follow up with you to confirm that you had received my previous email. If you are not the right person for this, perhaps you could forward it to the appropriate person within your firm. Thanks. I look forward to hearing from you. So, they did hear from me. I emailed them and said “This is a personal site, not a business site. I deliberately inserted robots.txt so that people searching on random terms would not end up on my site, since I HAVE NOTHING TO SELL THEM. Please, for the love of god, remove me from your mailing list.” And they did. But I ask you – what about the name “Bitchypoo” screams “professional business site”? It would take, perhaps, a ten-second look at the main page to see that there’s no business – except, perhaps for FUNNY business! Har! – going on here. Fuckers. * * * Miz Poo’s upper lip has swollen up so that it sticks out three inches from her face. For a while we thought we’d solved the problem when Fred took her to another vet for a second opinion. Fred started giving her a steroid pill every night, the lip de-puffed, and we thought we were all set. Except that in the last month or so, her lip has puffed back up. Fred took her to the vet yesterday, and the vet is absolutely adamant that the puffy lip is behavioral, caused by her licking her lips a lot. Except that she doesn’t groom any more than any of our other cats, unless she knows enough to hide from us while she’s doing it. Seeing as how we’re talking about a cat who doesn’t get the message even if you push her off your lap 23 times in a row, I have the feeling that hiding so that she can lick herself to her heart’s content without one of us making her stop is something that hasn’t occurred to her. (Spot’s our incessant groomer – we know what an overgroomer looks and acts like, and Miz Poo ain’t it.) So anyway, the vet gave her a steroid shot, prescribed an antibiotic for the infection (her lip is apparently infected), and decreed that she needs to have a 12-shot course of Immunoregulin – two shots this week, two shots next, and one shot a week for eight weeks. Fred also thought that perhaps Miz Poo is allergic to the cat food we’ve been giving the cats, so he picked up a bag of Science Diet Adult Lite. He filled the food bowl last night, and the cats bellied up to the trough as though he’d poured fresh flaky salmon in there. The Science Diet was a hit, I guess you could say. With her going off the steroids and eating lite cat food, I’m hoping Miz Poo will lose a little weight. At her low a few years ago she got down to about 9 pounds – which seemed a bit skinny to me – and now she weighs around 12 pounds, which is really too high. I’m afraid that jumping down from the bed to the floor, her front legs will snap under the pressure of that much weight. Ah, well. We’ll see, won’t we? Ya gotta love the Poo, no matter what she weighs. “Does this cat bed make me look fat?”]]>

reading: Hating Valentine’s Day. I finished The Catcher in the Rye last night (I read it at some point in high school, by the way; this wasn’t my first reading). That Holden Caulfield sure does say “old” a lot. Old Phoebe. Old Jane. Old this, old that. It’d be almost charming if he wasn’t such a whiny little bitch.

* * * Hey, I made a favicon using some site I wandered across, and now if you look up in the address bar next to the site address, you should see it. You might not, though – it doesn’t always show up, and I’m not sure why. I think it depends on what browser you’re using – it won’t show up in Internet Explorer for me, but it does in Firefox (which is what I usually use – I just keep Internet Explorer around for emergencies). I used my badass picture, if you can’t tell. And looking up there and seeing that itty bitty version of the badass picture just cracks me UP. Oh, shut up. I’m easily amused, I’ll admit it. * * * So, if you search this site regularly (using that “search this site” link over there in the sidebar), you might have noticed that I’ve switched from PicoSearch to Freefind; PicoSearch has a 1500-document limit for their free search engine, which I was rapidly approaching, and Freefind doesn’t seem to have a limit. Sure, there are some ads at the top of the result page, but they’re not overwhelming, so I think I’ll stick with Freefind for now. I suggested to Fred that, with his big brain and his ability to whip out software without thinking twice, he could write me a search engine for my site. He agreed that he could – but I don’t think he particularly wants to. Besides, even if he did there are so many other things on the list of “Things to do for Robyn, computerly speaking” that writing me a search engine is pretty far down the list. I’ve noticed, since I get to see what people are using the search engine to look for (but don’t worry, I don’t know who’s doing the searching) that there have been a ton of searches for “chick peas” and “pita”. Your best bet, if you’re looking for a recipe, is to click on the “recipes” link over there on the sidebar under Other. The pita pizza recipe is listed under The Red Auerbach Pizza (in entrees) and the roasted chickpeas recipe is in the sides section. Also, the carpet cleaner so many of you search for? It’s called Axi-dent, and it does an excellent job of killing the smell of cat pee on contact. So many people search for that that I think I’m just going to link to it in the sidebar so it’ll be easier to find. I’ll get around to that this week, hopefully. * * * Last night, Fred and I spent a good half hour talking about opening a used book store. There’s space for rent within walking distance of our house, and really – running a used book store would be absolutely perfect for me. The problem is that I’m sure the space we were talking about is pretty expensive – everything in this town is getting to be pretty expensive – and I’m not sure Madison can support a used book store. There was one a few years ago that went out of business pretty quickly. And I’m not willing to gamble our savings like that, you know? At one point I said “We could make it a used book store and a used movie store, and name it ‘Couch Potato’!” And then I said “And we could get a store cat!” Fred said “We couldn’t get a store cat!” “Why?” “Because what would we do with it if the store went out of business?” Damn. He saw through my wily scheme! Man. If we’d saved every book we’ve read instead of giving them away, we’d for sure have enough stock to open a used book store. * * * What better way to spend a rainy, crappy day than snuggled up on The Momma’s bed?]]>

reading: The Catcher in the Rye. Read over the weekend: Bundle of Joy?

* * * There are no pet store kitty pics this week, because I’m a dumbass and forgot to take the camera with me. Even though I LOOKED at the camera and was going to put it in my purse, I got sidetracked by the need to clean out my purse, and ended up forgetting the camera. It’s too bad, too, because there were a couple of 7 month-old kittens, one a very fluffy longhair gray-and-white boy and one a gorgeous buff tabby. They were both friendly and had that peanut-head smell that all kittens seem to have. Hopefully I’ll remember the camera next week and they might still be around (the shelter is requesting that they be adopted together, and it generally takes a little longer for two kittens to be adopted together than one kitten alone). * * * The spud is doing just fine. She woke up Saturday in some pain, took a pain pill, and slept ’til noon. Since then, she’s pretty much been her usual self, though she’s been walking kind of stiff-legged (which, to her great amusement, Fred mocked) and has to sit on pillows when she’s sitting at the dinner table, but other than that? Just fine. Thanks for your well-wishes! * * * My sister turned 35 on Saturday – HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEB!!!! – and among the presents I sent her was a gift certificate to Joann’s Fabrics. Deb’s into scrapbooking and cross-stitching and is generally just a crafty kinda gal. I bought the gift certificate when I was in Maine after Christmas, and Debbie was with me when I bought it, but she was on the other side of the store, and so I was paying for it and she popped her head around the end of an aisle to show me something… and, well, here’s the letter I enclosed with the gift card: I’m SURE you don’t remember this, but remember when we went into JoAnn Fabrics one evening to check out their clearance stuff when I was up there after Christmas? And you wandered off down an aisle and I went to the cash register to pay? And then you popped your head around the corner and then thought I was shushing you? Well, I wasn’t shushing YOU, I was shushing the cashier, because I’d thought it would be a good idea to get you a gift certificate, and I thought you were on the other side of the store, then you popped up and were trying to show me something, and she was telling me AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS something or other about the gift certificate and I was trying to get her to shut the FUCK up, and so I was shushing her but she didn’t GET IT. So you thought I was shushing you and you were all “Oh, am I being loud?” and I was all “Um, yeah, kinda!”, ’cause I didn’t know what to say and I just wanted you to go back around the corner so you wouldn’t guess what I was doing. And THEN in the car on the way to Mom and Dad’s, I was thinking “Well, THAT was rude, to tell her she was being too loud! I don’t want her to think I was shushing her!”, so I made up some STUPID FUCKING story about how I’d jammed my finger and was actually WINCING in PAIN, not shushing you. I’m such a fucking dork. Anyway. I was not shushing you! You were not being too loud! And happy birthday! It turns out she figured out what I was doing, anyway, BECAUSE OF THE BIG-MOUTHED CASHIER. Heh. * * * We watched Pauly Shore is Dead last night. It was surprisingly not bad at all, despite the fact that Pauly Shore annoys the shit out of me. Any movie where a bunch of Hollywood B-listers make cameos has to be pretty good. The Michael Madsen/ Tom Sizemore thing was hilarious. We watched The Incredibles Saturday night, and that was pretty damn good, too. * * * Mister Boogers models the latest in Bad Kitty-wear.]]>

reading: The Second Assistant. Yes, STILL.

* * * I didn’t wear any green at all yesterday, and not one single person pinched my ass. Hmph. * * * I swear, y’all, I’m not ignoring those of you who’ve asked whether I’ve gotten a new car yet. It’s a long story and won’t be told ’til there’s an end to it, which should be by the middle of next week. Hopefully. (And it’s not nearly as exciting as it sounds, believe you me.) * * * Anyone watch Wife Swap the other night? Anyone else think that Nancy Cedarquist’s “The man is the head of the household; the man goes out and works, the woman stays in and takes care of the house” attitude was a very obvious cover for the fact that she’s a control freak who wants to control every instant of her family’s life? Anyone else think that Nancy Cedarquist came across as extremely unlikeable? (Oh, for god’s sake. According to this, she doesn’t “believe” women should have the right to vote or work outside the home. What an idiot.) Anyone else think that Michael Oeth was a dead ringer for John Kerry? * * * The spud is, right now, laying on her bed, looped on some pretty good pain medication, nursing a sore backside. She had a pilonidal cyst removed from her tailbone area about three hours ago. She first told me last Spring that her behind was hurting, and I didn’t want to look at it, because when you were 15, did YOU want your mother examining your ass? I don’t think you did. So I took her to the doctor who checked it out (I stayed in the waiting room, thank you), and she decreed that it was an infection and prescribed antibiotics and said that she wanted to see the spud again in 10 days. Except that 10 days after her doctor appointment she was in California, so she never did see the doctor for a follow-up visit. But before she left for California, she did assure (ASSure me! Ha!) that it was feeling better and life went on as normal. Then in January she told me that she was having the same pain again, and I made an appointment with her doctor, who again put her on antibiotics and wanted to see her in 10 days. I took her back in 10 days, the doctor proclaimed that it was better, and then referred her to a surgeon. It seems that, for the most part, surgery is the only way to get rid of a pilonidal cyst. The surgeon checked it out (I was sitting across the room and kindly averted my gaze to spare the spud some embarrassment. The same way I’m spreading (spreading! Ha!) stories about her butt all over the internet. That’s not embarrassing at ALL. Luckily, she’s not easily embarrassed and if you all send her get-well cards and large amounts of money, she might forgive me.) and said he wanted to remove it, went through the options – basically, some surgeons prefer to remove the cyst and then sew the opening, uh, open so that it heals. This surgeon preferred to remove the cyst and sew the opening closed so that it would heal closed and the chances that another cyst would develop would be slim. The surgeon, by the way, was very personable. I’ve always heard that surgeons are assholes with god complexes (complexii?), but every surgeon I’ve ever had to deal with has had pretty good people skills and been not only funny, but nice. So I asked some questions, and once those were answered I asked the big one. “How long will she have to stay out of school?” I asked. “About a week,” he said. “Just because it would be uncomfortable for her to be sitting in those school seats all day long.” The spud? Out of school for a week? Missing all that school? Oh, I don’t think so. Because she’s a weirdo who doesn’t LIKE to miss school (I’m sure the social aspect of it has nothing to do with that). “Does it need to be done right away, or can it be put off until Spring Break?” I asked. “Well, I’m going to be gone for Spring Break, but we could do it the Thursday or Friday beforehand.” Good enough for me. Even better, there’s a fairly new Surgery Center in Madison where he has operating privileges, and it’s located about ten minutes from our house. So this morning we left the house at 6:10 and almost right on the dot they took her back to be operated on. The doctor came out to talk to me around 8:30 – everything went fine, there’ll be some draining, he prescribed strong pain medication for her – and we were headed home by 9:30. They had a hard time getting an IV started, because her vein rolled and then blew (doesn’t that sound scary?) and the nurse had to do some poking around. The spud was pretty stoic during it, but I wanted to scream like a little girl and run around in circles in sympathy. So I brought her home, gave her some breakfast, and sent her upstairs. I went and got her pain medication prescription filled, gave her some of it, and she’s upstairs snoozing in front of the TV. I plan to keep her doped up all weekend long, which should get her through the worst of the pain. By the way, both my mother and sister had pilonidal cysts removed when they were in their early 20s (my sister could tell you some real horror stories, because she ended up waiting so long to have her done), but I never had a problem. Lucky me! I don’t envy the spud right now at ALL. I talked to my sister earlier, who said “Now make sure you baby her!” and I said “I’m doing her laundry for her this weekend, what more do you want?” Heh. Actually, I’m not usually much of a hoverer, but I’ve been up to check on her several times already, and it’s probably starting to freak her out. No doubt she wishes I’d leave her the hell alone and just let her SLEEP, GODDAMNIT. * * * “Is it EVER going to warm up? Ever? Because I think we need to move to the fucking Bahamas if this shit keeps up.”]]>

reading: The Second Assistant, still.

* * * It’s 11:40 and I have to run to Target because I have a huge list of stuff I need to buy, but it is SO COLD (40�) out and I am already SO COLD that I don’t want to leave the house. Possibly if I stopped drinking this big-ass cup of Diet Coke, I might warm up a little, ya think? I do need to get my butt in gear and go, though. I bought some new cordless phones a few weeks ago to replace the ones I had – which were starting to work only sporadically, and it was getting to the point where if the phone rang and we were in the living room, we’d pick up the phone, find it wouldn’t work, and have to go running around searching desperately for a phone that WOULD work. Anyway, I bought the new cordless phones and they work fine except for the fact that even with the volume turned all the way up, you can barely hear the person on the other line. So for the past few weeks when Fred calls from work our conversations have been like so: Fred: mumble mumble mumble Me: Are you talking to me? I can’t HEAR YOU. Fred: (marginally louder)MUMBLE MUMBLE MUMBLE Me: I CANNOT HEAR YOU. YOU NEED TO SPEAK UP. Fred: MUMBLE. MUMBLE. MUMBLE. Me: Oh, fuck it. Email me if it’s that important. Of course, in the best of times Fred is a mumbler and I have to say “Eh? What? WHAT’S THAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” until I get so annoyed I want to smack him. The funny thing is that when he talks to his father on the phone, he’s always saying “What? I can’t hear you, Dad…” Guess it must run in the family. * * * Another thing I’m going to pick up at Target is a teakettle, because I’ve really gotten into drinking a couple of cups of peppermint tea a day and I’m tired of boiling cups of water in the microwave. Also, Lisa the Awesome sent me a gift certificate for Adagio Teas a few days ago. I’ve been eyeballing a bunch of different things at Adagio for a while now – ever since Aimee (I think) linked to this – and trying to decide whether I wanted to buy that (in the 16-ounce size) and some different flavored teas, and the gift certificate was enough to get me off my butt and order some stuff. I ordered the ingenuiTEA teapot (linked above), two ounces of the peppermint tea, and samples of the vanilla, cocomint green, dewy cherry, and pina colada. My order should be here Saturday – I’m looking forward to it in a big way! Now’s your chance to recommend your favorite tea. Keep in mind that I don’t like bitter teas at ALL and I prefer flavored teas but am willing to try non-flavored; leave me a comment and tell me what I should try! * * * Someone asked in my comments a few days where people are redirected when they’re banned from my site. THIS IS NOT A WORK-SAFE SITE, and it’s kind of loud – this is where they’re being redirected right now. We used to have them redirected to a nasty porn site that I won’t link to; I haven’t actually looked at the page, but Fred tells me that I don’t want to, so it’s got to be pretty nasty. After a while I felt bad and wanted to redirect The Banned to a less offensive (yet still slightly offensive) site, so now they’re going to the page linked above. And now you know. 🙂 * * * To those of you who weren’t able to watch the Scrubs clip from last week: Fred says that you probably need to download Codecs. He doesn’t know which one, though. Helpful, no? * * * The seductive look. ]]>

reading: The Second Assistant. This book is seeming really familiar to me. Either I’ve already read it, or I skimmed the first chapter before I bought it. Since it’s not in my reading list for 2004 or 2003 and the book came out in 2004, I’m going to guess that it’s the latter.

* * * Pet store kitty pics from last Monday are up. I didn’t get any pictures this Monday, but that’s okay – there were no new kitties this week, either. Good news: Wolfgang and Mrs. Landingham have been adopted! Yay! I was starting to worry about those two, because no one seemed to realize what awesome kitties they are. Well, apparently someone (a couple of someones, I guess) did. Now all I really want is for Penda and Makenna to be adopted. * * * Okay, okay! I know y’all want to see what the bumper stickers on the back of my first car said, so I found the picture and scanned it. Here’s a bigger shot: And to see the full-sized version (which I’ll take down at the end of the month) go here. If you’re visiting after I took down the full-sized picture, here’s what the bumper stickers say: I’m in no hurry, I’m on my way to work. I’m stubborn only when I don’t get my way! Don’t tell me what kind of day to have. (Ironic, considering that I sign all my emails “Have a great day!”, isn’t it?) Party Animal! I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go. If you get any closer introduce yourself! As a matter of fact I DO own the road! I’m the one your mother warned you about. Just visiting this planet. If you don’t like the way I drive, STAY OFF THE SIDEWALK. Don’t follow me, I’m lost too! So many pedestrians, so little time. Beam me up Scotty! Here’s to all the Verns in the world! And the banner across the back window? That’s a picture of Oliver North and “OLLIE FOR PRESIDENT.” I didn’t particularly want Oliver North to be President; I hardly knew who he WAS. I just wanted to get a reaction. I never did, though. Lucky for y’all I spent a LONG FREAKIN’ TIME going through old pictures while I was looking for that picture of my car, and thus I have many embarrassing pictures of yours truly. In no particular order. > I’m not in this picture, actually. Here we see John and Denise, ready for the Marine Ball. John, as you might have guessed, was a Marine. He asked Denise to go to the Ball with him, and she agreed, just because she wanted to go. He had SUCH a crush on her and she was SO mean to him because she was not interested at all. Now, look at that adorable face. How could she possibly resist it? He was one of the sweetest guys I knew. If I hadn’t been pregnant and married, I would have had SUCH a crush on him. Oh, hell – I DID. So cute! I think that Patrick resembles John a bit. Throughout my life, I have never quite perfected the lovely picture-taking smile that other people have. I seem to have two picture-taking smiles: the first, as seen above, is more of a grimace, and I am clearly thinking “Take the goddamn picture, before I grab that camera and shove it down your throat, bitch.” (December of 87) The second kind of smile is illustrated above: “If I bare all my teeth, it will pass as a natural smile.” This is from Halloween of 86. That’s not my real hair – I was wearing a black and white wig to which I’d added red paint. Someone pointed out at the party that I looked like I had a bleeding skunk on my head. The sultry look. Same party. Halloween of 87. I put on a pink and white striped nightgown, a lot of makeup, and glitter in my hair. I’m not sure what I thought I was going as. My god, I had big hair. Why didn’t anyone stop me from perming? I’m 15 (I think) here. June of ’83, and my brother Randy was graduating from high school. I ask you – what the holy hell was up with my hair? My bangs are hanging down, yet brushed sideways. I look like I have a combover! I was 16 in this picture. My friend Tammie and I were on our way to the Rick Springfield/ Corey Hart (shaddup) concert and she took my picture in the girl’s bathroom at school. Such a dork. Look! I had the big ’80s glasses! I went through a phase where I wore rolled-up bandannas around my neck; somehow I felt as though it hid my HUGE GUT. I would like to travel back in time and slap the shit out of me for feeling so hugely, grossly fat. My Dad and I. This had to be in 86. He looks so YOUNG and my hair is so BIG. He would have been… around 44, I think. So young! (Note the “Take the goddamn picture!” smile) Me, in my SASSY McDonald’s uniform. At McDonald’s, even. Note that the front of my uniform was gapping like a motherfucker. This would have been sometime in ’85. Liz and I on the crappy couch of my extremely crappy first apartment in Brunswick. 220 Main Street, if you live in the area. Make sure, if you’re driving by in the middle of the night, you honk really loudly so that my asshole of an ex-landlady is awakened. In fact, if you do it every night at 3 am, I’ll give you a dollar. (Not really) Note the huge hair. STILL. This was in May of 87. I’m sure I’ve shared this picture before – it’s one of my favorite pictures of myself from back then. This was Christmas night of ’84, and I was hanging out with my friends. It’s one of the few naturally-smiling pictures of me that exists in the entire world. * * * For dinner last night, we had little pizzas from a recipe Fred found in Men’s Health. My GOD were they good – I think we’re going to have them again as soon as humanly possible. I don’t know why they’re called Red Auerbach Pizzas – I’m sure there was an explanation on the page, but I didn’t read it. Anyway, the recipe is here if you want to try it for yourself. It was a big hit with all three of us. Also, I’ve discovered a balsamic vinaigrette recipe; I tried it out and liked it a lot. It’s excellent for those days when I’m not in the mood for honey-mustard salad dressing. That recipe is here. We’re trying another Men’s Health recipe tonight; if it’s good, I’ll share. * * * With a name like that, you know it’s going to be an interesting blog! Heh. * * * By the way, I have truly not been ignoring those of you who wanted to know how Fred was doing after his vasectomy last week. I wasn’t ALLOWED to write about it until after His Majesty had. But now you can go read all about it. * * * Not the best picture, but the LOOK Mister Boogers is giving Miz Poo absolutely cracks me up.]]>

Currently reading: Islands. Oh, and to the person who asked about the book about women driving alone – could it be The Bad Girl’s Guide to the Open Road? I know I’ve never written about that book – because I’ve never heard of it – but maybe you read about it somewhere else and thought you’d read about it here?

* * * I’m sitting here waiting for the cable guy to show up, and freezing my toes off. The lawn was covered with sleet when I woke up this morning. This after it was in the 70s on Saturday. I take it back about Spring being my favorite season – I much prefer summer, when I am not freezing to death every moment of my life. GAH. Hey, did you know that the 27th is not only Easter Sunday, it’s the day we turn our clocks ahead an hour? I love it when we do that – I hate the “lost” hour, but I love that we have more daylight at the end of the day. Now all I want is a nice string of sunny 70-degree days, and I’ll be happy. (Edited to add: Er, nevermind. We actually turn the clocks ahead on April 3rd. All I saw on my calendar was “Daylight Savings Time” and didn’t take the time to look closer to see that it’s only for Australia. Duhr.) Naturally, weather.com says it’s going to be rainy and overcast for the next 10 days. * * * I had to write a check to the spud’s school yesterday for lunch money. Now, when you write a check to her school these days, you are required to write all kinds of shit on the front of the check. Name, address, phone number, work number, driver’s license number. Everything has to be there or they won’t accept the check and the spud wouldn’t get her crappy school lunch. (Mmmm… tater tots…) Last night as I was scribbling down all the information, I realized that I’ve been writing down the driver’s license number I had when I had a Maine driver’s license. I’ve had an Alabama license for about 8 years now, but never got around to memorizing the number. Oh, wait. You know what? I think it’s actually the license plate number from my first CAR that I memorized. Because I had a Chevron credit card when I was 17 (I know! Horrifying that they’d give credit to a 17 year-old.)and when I used it, I had to write down my license plate number. Yep, I just went and looked at a picture of my first car. I’ve been writing down the license plate number of a car I owned (or rather, my parents owned) 20 years ago. Is it any wonder I have a fondness for small cars? I actually think it’s funny as hell that places like the spud’s school and Pizza Inn require you to put your license number on the front of your check. I mean, they don’t check what you write down against your actual license, they just take it on faith that you’ve written down the correct number. Here’s a thought: If I’m about to write a hot check, do you REALLY think I’m going to write down my real driver’s license number and phone number? I DON’T THINK SO. * * * Portly Poo in the box, tra-la-la-la-la! Portly Poo in the box, tra-la-la-la-la!… She looks like a sugar in a plum. “I will just lay here and roll around in the sun until you are so annoyed by my presence that you vacate that box. Bitch.” “Juuuuust laying and stretching. Yep, that’s all I’m doing!” “Go away, Boogie. This is MY BOX!” “Moooom, she won’t let me lay in the BOOOOOX!” (Pretend there’s a picture here of Miz Poo becoming so disgusted she can barely stand it, and stomping off.) “Myyyyy box! Is a very, very, very fine box! With a Booger sittin’ inside, and life used to be so hard! But now everything is easy… ’cause of MY BOX!”]]>

the solomon sisters wise up.

* * * Damn – is anyone NOT pregnant these days? Sundry, Aimee, Demi, not to mention just about every blogger in existence. It’s a veritable baby boom! Congrats, ladies. I’m looking forward to reading about it all! * * * The Go Fuck Yourself ‘burb no longer exists. Saturday, after a – shall we say – less than intelligent person left an ALL CAPS comment saying YOU NEED TO BE CAREFUL WHO YOU TRY TO UPSET! THERE ARE MORE OF US THAN THERE ARE OF YOU….PERVERTED BITCH., I checked my stats and found that someone had hotlinked one of the GFY images in someone’s tagboard and some of the readers of that tagboard weren’t smart enough to understand that if someone’s hotlinking an image, chances are good that it’s not the person hosting that image, and one of them left the above comment (the person who left the comment, by the way, will be redirected should she try to visit this site again. I know she simply isn’t intelligent enough to understand that I have better things to do than hotlink MY OWN IMAGES in the tagboard of some site I’ve never heard of, but lack of intelligence is not an excuse). I thought “Oh, I need to tell the person who owns that tagboard that it wasn’t me, that someone was hotlinking!”, and the owner of said tagboard still wasn’t quite smart enough to get it, and I checked my stats and found several more hotlinkers, and I said to myself, I said “Self? Life is too fucking short. Fuck that noise. Buh-bye, GFY ‘burb.” and I deleted the ‘burb and the images, and the ‘burb no longer exists. Feel free to start up a GFY ‘burb yourself, though, and I’ll happily link to it. Hell, I’ll even send you the GFY images if you want. Edited to add: The awesome Heather is going to be taking over the GFY page. Yay!!! I know for sure it’s going to be in good hands because Heather is (did I mention?) awesome! Edited to add (3/14/06): Or not. * * * So, I’ve changed a few things around on the site. I took down the FAQ page because, to be honest, I don’t think anyone was looking at it. I did a new bio page and answered a few of the most pressing questions (“Why do you and Fred sleep in separate beds”, “Are you ever going to have another kid?”, all that) at the bottom of the bio. I took down the links in the sidebar to Couch Potato and the GFY page, since neither of them exists any longer. I took down all the sidebar graphics, because they were slowing the loading of the page. I took down the “Currently reading” link at the top of the sidebar, because I was running that via Blogrolling and sometimes Blogrolling is down, and that meant that the sidebar wouldn’t load at all, which is annoying. I added a few pictures to the cast page. I have no idea how on god’s green earth I did it, but somehow the RDF feed and XML feed are working again. I’ll add links to both of those in the sidebar at some point this week – and if I haven’t done it by Friday, feel free to email and harass me about it. Oh, and if you have a livejournal, you can add me to your friends list – here for the XML feed. (Do I have that right? I think I do…) So that’s what’s going on with the site. In case you were wondering. And you know you were! * * * From my comments: i know you have probably told us a million times, but what is that box thing around Mr Boog’s neck?? That’s his collar that works with the electric fence so that when he goes out into the back yard and gets too close to the fence, it first beeps and if he doesn’t back away from the fence, he gets zapped. I know it looks heavy and bulky, but it’s really quite light, and he hardly seems to know he’s got it on. When I call for him so that I can put his collar on and open the cat door, he stands willingly while I put it on and doesn’t fight me at all. Oh, and he doesn’t have to wear it all the time – only when we have the cat door open, which is usually (depending on the weather) from about 6:30 in the morning to 6 or 7 at night. If it’s extremely cold or rainy, we shut the door and take the collar off. Some time back you mentioned a book about women traveling alone by car. I did a search on your site but couldn’t find it. Can you please give me the name of that book! For the life of me, I have NO clue which book this might be. Anyone out there know what book it might be? If so, leave a comment – I’m dying to know! I just checked and “The Shield” is starting on March 15th. Yeah!!! Woohoo! I can’t wait ’til it starts – Glenn Close is going to kick ass on that show. We just finished watching Season 3 of The Shield over the weekend and I had forgotten how badly it ended for Shane (also known around here as “The only member of The Strike Team I would not have sex with”) and Vic. I tried to talk Fred into staying up late to watch the season premiere tomorrow night, but he won’t go for it. Hmph. What is a meme? The dictionary definition: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. The Bitchypoo definition: One of those things you see in someone else’s blog or journal that looks like fun (usually a survey), so you steal it and do it in your journal or blog. Awww, Robyn – you should totally get the Botox!It’s just the best! Well, you know, at 37 I’m saying “Hell, NO”, but like anything else in life, that could change. You never know! I could get Botox in my face, and then I could be like Fred. Fred will say “I’m so fucking pissed off right now”, and it’s the exact same facial expression he has when he says “Do we have any ham?” Er, not to say that Fred has had Botox injections, just that he’s naturally expressionless. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong … I tried just playing the Scrubs clip, and I also tried downloading it to my computer and then playing it. It won’t play in the RealPlayer OR in QuickTime. Any inkling as to what I might be doing wrong? Any other complaints about this problem? Honestly, I have no idea. Did anyone else have problems seeing the Scrubs clip? I can email it to you directly, if you’d like, that might work. Just email me and request it, and I’ll send it to you. Hey, whoever it was that commented about living in rural East Texas and wanting a kitten, could you email me? I live not so far from you and I volunteer for the Humane Society – I might be able to help you out! Thanks! (Just in case not everyone reads the comments) That comment was from Julie – I’m not going to put her email address in here, but you can get it from her site. Also, if you adopt a kitten, you’re required to send me pictures. It’s the law! I’m sure you’ve been asked this before, but, having grown up in Bangor, Maine, did you ever see or meet Stephen King? If so, what was he like? I didn’t actually grow up in Bangor – I was born there, when there was an Air Force base there, but only lived there for a few years, if that. I did once see Stephen King; he was signing books at a movie theater when Christine (I think) was made into a movie, and I went and stood in line for ages with my mother. I was so in awe of him that when he asked my name I said “Robyn”, and then didn’t say anything else, but my mother stepped forward and said “With a ‘y’!”, so he spelled my name right. I remember only that he looked kind of bored, but he seemed nice enough. I’m sure he still remembers me. Heh! He once came through the drive-thru when I was working at McDonald’s, but I wasn’t working the drive-thru that day. Oh, and I saw the Rock Bottom Remainders in concert at the State Theater in Portland, and after the concert he walked across the street to the hotel where he and Tabitha were spending the night, and someone up the street yelled “Mr. King! Could I get an autograph??”, and he didn’t even look at the guy – he said “Sorry, I don’t do that!” and kept on walking. Just wanted to know, how is it that your cats will sleep in those beds??? I don’t know – they just love ’em to death, and sleep in them all the time. Maybe you should bribe your cats with catnip. 🙂 I have a question. Why do cat beds cost more than dog beds of the same size? For this reason, my cats sleep in beds with pictures of dogs on them. That’s a GOOD question – I have no idea! They’re made of the same material and everything, aren’t they? Maybe they charge more for the cat beds ’cause they know cat owners will spend more than dog owners? I don’t know, that doesn’t sound right. It’s strange, isn’t it? oh my god Robyn, do you think that mouse is still in your house??? UGH… the thought of mice makes my skin crawl… I have two cats (looking for a third) and I did have a mouse come in once. that mouse didn’t stand a chance, I saw him come in, and the cats had him cornered in the about an hour… I’m sure it’s not, or The Mighty Booger Hunter would have tracked it down and eaten it for lunch. I’m not that freaked out by mice, though, so I’d probably be okay with it if it was still wandering around the house. Okay, wait – let me amend that statement: I’m not that freaked out by mice unless they’re running directly at me, in which case I scream and run around in circles. * * * Da Boog contemplates what sort of trouble he wants to get into next. ]]>