Author: Robyn

Sometimes I miss Maine with a visceral pain and I wonder whether Alabama will ever truly feel like home the way Maine does. Sometimes I wonder how on earth I ended up living so far from the ocean. Sometimes I am saddened knowing that I can never move back to Maine. Sometimes I wonder why I’m so resistant to change. Sometimes I can’t wait until Fred gets home from work, and I practically sit at the front window with my tongue hanging out, panting happily like a puppy. Sometimes I wonder if I could sneak something into Fred’s food to cut down on the gas factor. But I think he’d be seriously depressed if he didn’t have the Joy of Farting in his life. Sometimes I wish I could adopt every kitten I see, and let them live long, happy, healthy lives in comfort and peace. Sometimes I wish I could spay and neuter enough cats in the world so that there would never be another unwanted kitten. Sometimes I think people who are cruel to animals should be strung up by their toes and left there to slowly, painfully die. No, strike that. I always think that. Sometimes it amazes me that people who shit (figuratively speaking) on those around them can be surprised when no one wants to be near them. Sometimes I want to get pregnant IMMEDIATELY and give birth to triplets and spend the next 20 years raising them. (But mostly, I do not) Sometimes I wonder when I’m going to get my ass in gear and write down the stories which have been bouncing around in my mind for years. Sometimes I wish I could shave all the cats so I’d never have to see another dust bunny compiled of nothing but cat hair go sailing across the floor. Sometimes I wish I was someone who found cleaning the house fulfilling or soothing, or even something I could force myself to do on a daily basis. Sometimes I think about heading to Canada, swinging by to pick up Nance, visiting Mo, and dog-napping Vince. (But I know that the argument over who gets to be Thelma and who gets to be Louise would probably degenerate into a slapfight somewhere before we hit the Canadian border) Sometimes I think I’d like to live in Canada, then I remember it gets all cold and shit up there, and I consider Florida instead. Sometimes I lay in bed at night and think about my cottage, and it seems so real that I can almost touch it. And sometimes I end up dreaming about my cottage, and I wake with a smile on my face. Sometimes I lay in bed at night and dream about what I’d do if I won the lottery, and I come up with very elaborate ways to give money to friends anonymously so we wouldn’t have to do the “Take this money!”, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly!”, “TAKE IT!” dance. Sometimes I think I’m evil, because I laugh so hard I cry every time one of the cats gets startled and jumps three feet into the air. Sometimes I wonder how I lucked out in this life and ended up with such a great husband, kid, and life. Sometimes I’m just a great big sap.]]>

Go Fuck Yourself“, after all.

* * * I forgot to mention this yesterday – that big picture I bought in Maine is here. After I got several inquiries about it, I knew I had to go looking for it, and after a half hour search on art.com, I found it. I also like this one by the same artist, but I really really LOVE this one. I love that last one so much, because that’s exactly how I envision the bedroom in my cottage. Except that the bedroom in my cottage has long sheer white curtains that blow in the breeze. * * * I also forgot to mention yesterday that pet store pics are up here. * * * I see a little silhouetto of a Poo, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, are you going to bite your Mama? Little teeth and paws are very, very fright’ning. (Little Poo.) Little Poo. (Little Poo.) Little Poo, Little Poo figaro Yeah. I hate it when songs keep bouncing around in your head and you have to make up your own words to them to stop the bouncing. * * * So I only caught a few minutes of the Video Music Awards on MTV last night and missed the Madonna/ Britney slurpfest, but I’ve certainly seen enough pictures today to make up for having missed it. Does this mean that next year there’ll be two guys with their tongues in each others’ mouths? I nominate Viggo Mortensen and Olivier Martinez! Won’t happen, since neither of them has anything to do with MTV or videos. I can’t think of any male singers I want to see trading spit, though. Except maybe Snoop Doggie Dog and Eminem. Oh, god. That’s not even funny. * * * 1. Are you going to school this year? No, and I thank god for that every day. 2. If yes, where are you going (high school, college, etc.)? If no, when did you graduate? I graduated from high school in 1986, and took some college courses in the late 80s and early 90s. 3. What are/were your favorite school subjects? I liked English and Psychology. 4. What are/were your least favorite school subjects? Any kind of math beyond the basic adding/ subtracting/ multiplying/ dividing gave me fits. I was also not terribly fond of Gym. Shocking, no? 5. Have you ever had a favorite teacher? Why was he/she a favorite? Mr. Hall, because he was funny and he didn’t take himself too seriously. * * * Tubby is laying on the living room floor, so I flop down onto my stomach to get some pictures. Before I can take a single picture, he’s up and on the move. He walks over to me and headbutts me in the side. He lays down beside me and peers at the camera. He gives me a Look O’ Love. He peers at the camera again, and this time we see that the Evil Poo has appeared. Miz Poo saunters over and sniffs around to determine what’s going on. She shoots an evil look at Tubby, who is laying far FAR too close to Her Mama. She walks over and sniffs at Tubby, then smacks him upside the head. Tubby retreats to a safe place.]]>

Allison said in her journal that she was hooked on Newlyweds (the MTV show with Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson), I looked to see when it was on, and voila! It was on yesterday afternoon, so I made a special point of checking it out. And I’m embarrassed to admit that I think I’m hooked, too. That Jessica, though, I don’t know about her. On the first show, they were eating something with tuna in it for dinner, and they’re sitting on the couch eating, and she says “Is this fish or chicken that I’m eating here?” And Nick gives her the “Please, babe. I’M TRYING TO WATCH THE GAME!” look and says “It’s tuna fish. We’ve had this before.” And she says “Well, why does it say “Chicken of the sea” on the can?” Oh my lord. And then they interviewed a maid to come organize their messy-ass house, and they were sitting and talking to her and Nick says “So, how much would you charge?” And the maid doesn’t come out and say “Oh, I charge blah-blah per hour”, she just kind of shrugs and stares at them, and birds chirp in the distance, and then finally Nick says “Well, let us show you around, then maybe you’ll have a better idea” and they show her around, and then she’s about to leave, and he says again, “So how much will you charge?” and the woman SHRUGS AND MUMBLES SOMETHING, and he finally says “Well, we can discuss it Wednesday when you come…” So she comes Wednesday and spends, like, 6 hours folding and putting away clothes and maybe cleaning the kitchen, and when she’s done for the day, he’s all “Okay, how much do I owe you?” AND SHE STILL WON’T COME OUT AND GIVE HIM A NUMBER. She shows him a check with a number on it or something, and he’s like “120? 140?”, and they finally decide on 120, so he goes and gets some cash and pays her, and then he’s talking to his friend (or maybe his brother) about whether $20 an hour was too much, and I’m thinking: Kids? Should you have not settled the money issue BEFORE she left the first day? These kids need someone to come organize their lives is what they need. And I think Jessica Simpson’s parents must have been about 10 years old when they had her, they’re so young looking. Nick was auditioning dancers for his video and Jessica was dealing with the jealousy of it all, and I thought “You know, I’m sure glad Fred’s not a singer who has to make videos with girls rubbing their booties all over him”, and then I remembered how Fred reacts when someone flirts with him, and I decided I’d kind of like to see strange girls try to rub their booties on him, just to watch him run screaming from the room. Any volunteers?

* * * Yesterday afternoon I had just finished making my dinner (we were having sandwiches for dinner, which translates to “Get your own damn dinner, I’m not cooking”) and was about to head for my desk (yes, I eat in front of the computer sometimes) when I suddenly heard the sound of a cat coming through the cat door, and then some frantic squeaking. “Tubby!” Fred said scoldingly, and so I put my plate down and went to see what was going on. Tubby was hunkered down, and in his mouth was not the mouse I expected to see, but a small bird. A cardinal, to be exact. Ironically, just half an hour earlier I had called Fred to the window and pointed out a bird. “I think that might be a baby cardinal,” I said, coming to that conclusion because he not only looked like a cardinal, but also was squawking at the adult male cardinal to be fed, and the male cardinal would pick up some bird seed and drop it in the smaller cardinal’s mouth. Fred had to pretty much pry Tubby’s jaws open to get him to drop the bird, and I went to grab a box and some paper towels to put the bird in. He was bright-eyed and loudly squawking, but wasn’t moving much. We put him in the box, and then put the box in the garage for a while to see what would happen. About half an hour later, when it was time to run to the post office for our nightly drop-off-the-book-orders run, we went to open the box and see what the bird was doing. As we opened the box, the bird jumped several inches into the air, squawking loudly. I ran screaming to the other side of the garage, because I have a secret (not so secret now!) fear of birds, because I just know that some day I’ll be minding my own business, and a bird will swoop out of nowhere and attach itself to my face and peck out my eyes, and my won’t that suck. When I ventured back to the other side of the garage to peer into the box, the bird had gotten himself over on his back, and was squealing exactly like a baby pig – weeweewee! – and kicking his legs furiously. After some debate we decided to put him in the back yard so his mother and father could keep an eye on him, and shut the cat door so the cats couldn’t go after him, and one way or another nature would take its course. Fred gently placed him in the grass and the bird hopped a few hops, and then fell over onto his back, squealed like a piglet and kicked his legs furiously. Fred set him upright again, and finally he hopped under the shed, and stayed there. I wandered over to the bird feeders, where Tubby had caught his prey and decided that perhaps the reason the bird was having some difficulty staying upright was because most of his tailfeathers were gone. Tail feathers, and some Tubby hair. I checked outside a few times through the evening but neither saw nor heard him again. The cats were a tad freaked out that the window was closed, and Spot walked around meowing his squeaky meow for a good part of the night, but this morning the little bird was nowhere to be seen. After we went and fed the cats at the pet store, we came home and Fred sat down to his computer and his coffee, while I headed upstairs to take a nap, because I hadn’t slept very well last night. I’d been asleep about half an hour when I was startled awake. I took out an ear plug and heard a squeaking noise. I sat straight up and saw Fred running through the door. “Where did he go? Where is he?” he asked. “I don’t know,” I said, and there was another immediate squeak. Fred dropped to his knees and looked under the bed, then began scolding Tubby. Eventually Tubby dropped the bird, and Fred held him up so I could see him. He was certainly bright-eyed and pissed off, squeaking and squawking and looking around. Fred grabbed a box and put him in it, and after thinking about it, decided to run him over to the vet’s office. This afternoon Fred called the vet’s office to check on the bird, and unfortunately it had died before the vet could get to it. Poor damn bird. * * * Miz Poo loves to jump up on my desk and lay down between me and the keyboard, so that I may scratch her belly and her ears, and other various parts that need scratching. Sometimes, if I’m busy, I shoot compressed air at her, and she lays her ears back and runs away. But sometimes, if I’m just surfing, I’ll scratch and scratch and scratch and kiss and hug and scratch, and she will purr her ass off. And then, after a while, she reaches overload, and instead of laying and being petted, she starts biting and kicking and growling at me. This morning, I got a picture. Evil looking, isn’t she?]]>

cute little kiiiiiiiitties! I need a baby kitty! Wah!” and then half a second later you’re like “If I don’t shove 43,000 calories of pure milk chocolate with some kind of creamy nougaty filling in my face RIGHT FUCKING NOW, I’m going to kill you all!” and then you’re all “GodDAMN shut UP, I just want to curl up in a ball and sob into the pillow AND I CANNOT DO THAT IF YOU’RE LOOKING ALL CONCERNED AND ASKING ME WHAT’S WRONG AND YOU DON’T LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE ME!”, and before you drift off to sleep, you’re all “Damn these boobs, DAMN THEM TO HELL, WHY must I gain 15 pounds of water in each boob EVERY damn month!”, that kind of PMS? Yeah, it sucks.

* * * Oh man, this is so cool. You can enter a url and your email address and this site will monitor the url you provide for changes, and when there’s a change it’ll send you an email. Kind of like a notify list for those awful people who don’t have one, or the bloggers who don’t update every day. It’s a godsend is what it is. Of course, it won’t work on sites that are passworded or require membership to read, but it sure helped me clear out my nibelung ring. There must be other sites out there that do this as well; if you know of one you really like, feel free to leave a comment about it! * * * Did I mention that the PMS Fairy came and made my boobs the size of Pamela And3rson’s head? It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t also HURT. Damn PMS Fairy. * * * In case you don’t read my comments (and why not? We had a perfectly good butts3x discussion going on in there the other day!), you can find the cat print, which is entitled “Fat Cat Capsizing” (thanks Christy!) here, for one, though a search on “Fat Cat Capsizing” would probably bring up other places to buy it. And the egg-shaped cats (at least some of them) can be found here. Now pull the por-shuh around, Muffy, and let’s run to the Tar-zhay. * * * That Elizalou, such a copycat with linking to the old entries. Of course, did I mention that I copied the idea from Shelley, who copied the idea from Beth? Copycats, the lot of us. * * * Embarrassing confession: It wasn’t until this past weekend that I realized that Joyce Maynard and Jacquelyn Mitchard were two completely separate people. Apparently I had them blended into one person in my mind. I did think it was odd that Twelve Times Blessed and The Usual Rules came out at pretty much the same time. * * * What is wrong with me? (Don’t answer that!) I have this horrid habit of knowing that something is going to suck and yet, I still buy it and read it or watch it anyway. My friend Skip told me that the Carni3 Wils0n book sucked in a big way, and I totally believed her, and yet I still bought it and read it for myself. And that’s an hour and a half that I’ll never get back. I’ve read the reviews and I know – just KNOW – that Solaris is going to suck in a big way, and yet? I rented it yesterday. I guess sometimes you just have to see the suckage for yourself to realize the depth and breadth of it. * * * I sure do love that kitty. Soon, I’ll just give up and cover the entire people bed with kitty beds, and sleep on the floor in the corner. At least the kitty hair is being contained to the kitty beds instead of being spread all over the (too-dark) bedspread! Sweet-looking, ain’t he? Who’d ever think… …he could be so bitchy?]]>

Good Morning America this morning, chances are good you saw our very own Erin, looking sassy and making some excellent points. Too cool, that.

* * * Here’s a shout-out to fellow dork One Dollah and her friend Twenty Cent. * * * Jesus Christ. A motorcycle just went zooming by at the speed of light on the very busy road behind our house, and I about fell off my chair and curled up into a fetal position, the sound scared me so badly. * * * When I think of Judge Roy Moore, the phrase “Getting too big for his britches” comes to mind. The current news is that they can’t get anyone to remove the 10 Commandments monument because they’re all skeered of the backlash from the loonies (I say that with love) who’re rabidly anti-removal. I sure am sick of hearing about it. * * * So when I was in Maine, I went to Deck The Halls in the Maine Mall, and I picked out some pictures to be framed and sent to me. For the last few days I’ve had a vague “Hasn’t it been a REALLY long time since I was in Maine, and shouldn’t those pictures BE HERE by now?”, and when Fred and I got home from the post office yesterday, voila! These two huge packages were waiting in the garage, and much swearing and ten tons of foam packing peanuts later, we had them unwrapped. This one’s going over the mantel. I love it so much I keep walking into the living room to stare at it. And this picture cracks me up so much that I keep going to look at it. It’s hanging in the hall by the front door, and every time I look at the picture in the middle, with the hilarious expression of surprise, I laugh my ass off. If only I could get a series of pictures of Tubby like that. While I was taking pictures of stuff I bought in Maine, I took a picture of these: I already had the orange one in the middle, but I decided we needed the calico to represent Miz Poo and the all-black one to represent Mr. Fancypants. Sadly, there were no black and white cats to represent Spot and Tubby. Or rather, there was one, but it was a lot bigger than these, and I wanted one that was the same size. Could I be more of a spoiled rotten yuppie bitch? “Look at what I bought! I have nothing better to spend my money on than pictures and tchotchkes! Next I think we’re going to grill steaks on a pile of $100 bills! Muffy, pull the Por-shuh around and let’s take a run to the Tar-zhay!” Did I mention we’re saving up for a new camera? * * * I stayed up late to finish The Dogs of Babel last night and it made me weep into my pillow (which alarmed Miz Poo), so I had to rate it 4 Poos on the reading list. The question, though, is whether the book actually rated 4 Poos, or whether my brain was so thrilled to read something well-written after I subjected it to that horrible book written by Carni3 Wils0n that I overreacted. Seriously, y’all, don’t waste your time with the Carni3 Wils0n book. The spud, who is 14, could have done a better job. Of course, nothing could be as bad as that fucking Mulvaney book. (Speaking of that damn Mulvaneys book, we were in a used book store over the weekend, and I saw three copies of that book. I turned to Fred and said “I feel like I should buy those books and burn them just to remove their offensive presence from the face of the earth.” Fred said “What’s funny is that I bet ten bucks there’s at least one person in existence who claims that book as their favorite.” True. No accounting for taste, I guess.) * * * Miz Poo poses for PlayPussy. ]]>

* * * Did you notice the huge article all about ME in the New York Times today? Okay, so the only part about me was the part that said Not everyone who indulges in weight loss blogs is unequivocally supportive. Robyn And3rson, 35, a homemaker in Huntsville, Ala., wrote about “naysayers” � people who, after she had lost 100 pounds, sent messages telling her that she would soon realize how much harder it was to keep it off. “The unspoken, `I can’t wait until you put it all back on and more,’ is there,” she wrote. Heh. Homemaker. You’d think with a job title like that, there wouldn’t be so many dust bunnies running rampant through the house, wouldn’t you? Good article, though, and a great picture of our adorable Erin.

* * * I don’t know about y’all, but I had one HELL of a time getting anything done online this weekend because that FUCKING virus (or one of them, anyway) gummed up the works at our ISP, and I shut down my computer and stalked away in exasperation not once, not twice, but THREE times, which is pretty much an all-time record for me. The third time, after dinner, I shut down the computer, yelled “I GIVE UP!”, grabbed my cup of water and magazine (last one! I’m now completely caught up on my magazines, and there’ll be a big-ass box headed your way in the next day or two, Say!) and began stomping up the stairs, stomping as hard as I could with every step. I was about 2/3 of the way up the stairs when Fred stopped me and asked if I wanted to go for a drive. We did, and by the time we got home I was calmed down and less likely to put my foot through the monitor. Goddamn internet. * * * Pet store pictures are hither. * * * Saturday we had our very own Jeff Corwin experience, did you read? And then Sunday I spent a good part of the day (when not having temper tantrums about the GODDAMN INTERNET) getting our business accounts caught up, with which Fred helped me by going to buy me a calculator that prints out, because I cannot for the life of me add up a column of numbers without fucking it up somehow. Math is haaaaaaaard! * * * Did I mention that we’ve started watching Oz? It cracked me up big time when Fred discovered that this guy: Tobias Beecher, from Oz was played by the same actor who played this guy: Terry, from Wayne’s World (on the right). And I’m sorry, but how freaky was it to see Woodman from Thirtysomething getting it on with Carmella from The Sopranos? Pretty damn freaky indeed. * * * There are definitely at least two hummingbirds visiting the feeder all day long every day. One flits up, sits on the rest and drinks and drinks and drinks, then flits off. The other flits up and drinks while flitting around, stops every few seconds to look around to be sure he’s not about to be attacked, and drinks out of every hole in the feeder. They’re damn cute, but I think I need to take the screen out of the window to get a decent picture. FlitFlitFlit. I can’t swear to whether they have legs, but they definitely have feet, Fran! 🙂 * * * Small cat, big bed. Big cat, small bed. What’s up with that? And there was a perfectly good big cat bed going unused over on the other side of the bed. If that makes any sense. Meh. ]]>

* * * Can I just take a moment to say that credit unions ROCK? Our personal checking and savings accounts are at a local credit union where Fred’s had an account since he was a wee one, and our business account is at a local bank. If we go out and use our credit union debit card to buy something at a local store, we can immediately come home, go online, bring up our account, and the transaction is already there. If we use our business debit card, it takes days for it to show up online. The credit union has started something new, too. If a check has cleared, you can click on a button next to the check number, and SEE THE SCANNED CHECK, front and back. That fucking ROCKS. On the other hand, last week we transferred money from PayPal to our business bank account (we were woefully unprepared for just how many padded envelopes we’d need during the first week), and although the money was shown on our account as available, it didn’t actually go into the account until midnight, and so when we bought envelopes at Staples, our bank charged us a THIRTY DOLLAR NSF fee. Which they reversed when Fred called to complain. Fuckers. I would say as a general rule, credit unions rock and banks suck. If we could switch our business account over to the credit union, we’d do it without hesitation.

* * * I’m FAR too excited by the fact that I just saw TWO hummingbirds at the hummingbird feeder. We’ve had one visiting the feeder all week long, sucking down the sugar water so often that I swear he’s developed a little pot belly, but today is the first time I’ve seen two of them. Unfortunately I’m not having any luck getting a picture of the little guy because he likes the side of the feeder that I can’t see from my desk, and if I get up to get a picture, the movement startles him and he flies off. I think I’m going to get Fred to move the pole a bit further away from the window, and maybe I’ll have more luck. It’s so funny to see one not in flight, isn’t it? I finally ran out of the red commercial hummingbird mix and made my own yesterday – boiling sugar and water together – and they seem to like the homemade stuff even more. Yes, I am a dork. And proud of it! * * * I was walking through the library – the windows of which look out onto the bird feeders – and I saw that our squirrel was back dining at the And3rson buffet. “Miz Poo!” I said. She was sitting on my desk, waiting impatiently for me to get my damn water and get my ass back to her for some belly-rubbing. She looked at me with interest. I gestured toward the library window. “Squirrel! Go get the squirrel!” I’m trying to train her to understand what the word “squirrel” means, because when my parents’ dog Benji hears the word, he loses his mind and hauls ass into the back yard, yapping his fool head off whether there’s actually a squirrel or not. Miz Poo looked at me, her eyes darkened, and she looked out the front window rather than the back window where the squirrel actually was. “Miz Poo! Squirrel!” I said, waving my arms in the air. “Squirrel!” Her tail began whipping around, and she made a chattering noise, all the while staring out the front window. “Get the squirrel, Poo Pie! Go get the squirrel!” I encouraged, and she jumped onto the floor, ran to the front window, and stared out at the front lawn. I finally had to go pick her up and show her out the library window where the squirrel was before it all clicked in her mind. And sadly she’s one of the smarter cats. * * * We were watching The Amazing Race last night (no spoilers here, because once the clowns were gone, I didn’t really much care who won), and when they landed in Hawaii, I started having a yen to visit Hawaii. “We could go in a few years. Hey! We could go for our 10th anniversary!” I said. “That would give us plenty of time to save up!” I think Fred got the impression I wasn’t serious, but won’t he be surprised in 5 years when I tell him to pack, we’re leaving for Hawaii for a week? * * * 1. When was the last time you laughed? When Fred had his nightly snack – a bowl of popcorn – and stuck his face in the bowl because he had a glass of tea in his other hand. He was so damn cute I had to go over and hug him ’til his guts shot out his mouth. 2. Who was the last person you had an argument with? Fred, I’m sure. Can’t have been too important, though, ’cause I don’t remember when or what it was about. 3. Who was the last person you emailed? My sister-in-law, who comments as Kate. She sent me pictures of her DAMN adorable cat Dulcinea. I had to go find Miz Poo for a belly rub. 4. When was the last time you bathed? 8:30 this morning. I shower every morning, although Wednesday I didn’t shower or take a bath, and felt grungy all day. That’s probably the first time I’ve skipped a shower in 10 years. 5. What was the last thing you ate? A Grilled California Cobb salad from McDonald’s with homemade honey-mustard dressing. And a super-size Diet Coke! * * * Y’all have a relaxing weekend!]]>

* * * In my comments yesterday, Kay mentioned that she’d recently seen a really good bumper sticker. When I read what it said, I laughed my ass off, and read it to Fred, who also laughed pretty hard. And then I googled the phrase. You can get a bumper sticker here or here. You can get t-shirts here and here. You can even get a keychain! I’d buy the t-shirt if I didn’t live in the FUCKING BIBLE BELT. I’d probably be hung from the nearest tree if I wore something like that in public. Fuckers.

* * * Several days ago, after I had to vacuum the Tubby hair off our bedspread for the third day in a row (godDAMN that cat sheds a lot), I told Fred I was going to buy a cat bed to place on our bed, in hopes that Tubby would lay in it, and all the cat hair would be contained in the bed instead of on our bedspread. I went, I bought, I placed, and Tubby seemed to like it. Only a problem developed, because not only did Tubby like it, but so did someone else. Tubby’s waiting his turn.]]>

* * * Folks, Sydney has slipped to #2. Go vote! Go on, I’ll wait here. And don’t forget, you can vote once a day!

* * * I have a confession. On Sunday nights at 8:00 Central Time, when Sex and the City comes on, if no one else is in the room, I do a little dance to the theme song. And if no one else is in the room I do it again at the end of the show while I’m waiting to see what next week’s show will be about. It’s kind of like a samba. * * * And like Nance, I really like The Sopranos theme song. Fred always fast forwards through it, though, because he’s a bastard. * * * Speaking of Sunday night’s episode of Sex and the City (Sex AND the City, folks, not Sex IN the City), I have things to say. *I am simultaneously drawn to and repelled by Evan Handler. And I’ve seen WAY too much of his ass. I never wanted to see his ass, but he showed it so often that it’s burned into my memory and that’s not something I really want to have to think about. *Tatum O’Neal looks unfortunately EXACTLY like her father, poor thing. Between her and John McEnroe, their kids don’t have a chance in hell of growing up good-looking. *I know I’ve said it before, but to pay $485 for shoes is just insanity. I could never pay that much for strappy little heels, not ever. Of course, let me loose in a book store, and I could easily spend twice that. I guess it all depends on what interests you, eh? *I could relate to Miranda saying “I don’t like any kids who aren’t mine.” I’ve always said that I wasn’t interested in any kids that weren’t related to me. Of course, once I started thinking about it, I realized that I love reading when journalers tell stories about their kids, and that if I’m in a restaurant and a kid takes an interest in me, I’ll do the peekabo thing ’til the cows come home, so I guess I like other peoples’ kids more than I realized. Although when I was sitting in the waiting room with the spud last week waiting for her to have her thyroid ultrasounded, I could have done without the 1 year-old who toddled over and started going through my purse. (Yes her mother was horrified when she realized what was happening, and yes I smiled and said “That’s okay!” when she apologized profusely.) * * * And speaking of television, we watched The Restaurant the other night, and the whole thing where the three cooks (chefs? Kitchen staff? What was their fucking job, anyway?) pretended that one of them had been in the hospital and the three of them didn’t show up for work left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Now, I KNOW that those three were wrong for doing what they did, and I would think that it would have been enough for Rocco to know that they were going to come across as childish idiots when the show aired. But, no. First he had them separately tell their story, and when they thought they were home free and going to leave on good terms, he felt the need to confront them and let them know that he knew no one had ever been admitted to the hospital. To me, that was childish. Why not let them leave and then see that they weren’t fooling anyone when the show aired? Did I mention that DAMN I love that show, fake reenactments and all? * * * We rented and watched Chicago last night. I liked it, and I really liked Catherine Z-J. I thought that Renee Zellweiger’s voice was going to get on my nerves, but I adjusted quickly enough. And now I have a new song to sing to Miz Poo. “All that Poo!”, of course. * * * A couple of pictures from Maine: We saw this bumper sticker in Portland when we were shopping, and it cracked me up. If you can’t read it, it says “For a small town, this one sure has a lot of assholes.” This is the building that housed (houses?) the first apartment I ever had. 16 years ago, that was. You can’t even see the tiny-ass windows to the apartment that was mine, because it was on the top floor. It was a crappy, crappy apartment, with a hole in the kitchen floor that let me see into the apartment below (which belonged to a guy in the Navy, who was hardly ever home). Rumor was that the city had been trying to condemn the building for years and years. The water pressure sucked so badly that it took half an hour to fill up the bathtub. I only lived there for about 3 months before I fled back home where the water pressure was decent. The landbitch and her husband lived in the building. Her name was Alexis something, and she was a money-grubbing bitch who held back $100 from my security deposit because she “suspected” a friend of mine had messed with her husband’s bike, which was tied to the sign in front of the building. This building is located on Main Street in Brunswick, a fairly busy road, and the dumbass leaves his bike tied to a sign, and he’s surprised that someone messes with it? Yeah. Let’s blame it on the 19 year-old in the building! She was a lawyer, by the way, and I hope she’s lost every single case since 1987. 220 Maine Street, Brunswick, Maine, in case you were wondering. * * * Such a happy, happy boy. ]]>

* * * I forgot to mention that Friday morning, as I was making the bed and waiting for the shower water to warm up, I glanced behind the chair, which sits next to the side table, which in turn sits next to the bed. “Well, damn,” I said calmly, and then called to Fred, “Could you come here?” Fred came, peered at the spot where I was pointing and said “Yep. It’s a frog.” “Well, DO something about it!” I said. “Let me finish brushing my teeth first!” he said irritably, and wandered back into the bathroom. I stood and stared down at the frog – which was nothing near as ugly and meaty-looking as the one from last summer – and wondered if it was dead. I reached down and scratched the carpet near him to see if he’d move or blink or something. Nothing. His eyes glittered deadly. (Hee! “Glittered deadly.” Oh, I crack me up, I really do.) So I reached out and poked at his dry-looking side. ::Sproing!:: he went, leaping at least a foot in the air, and I watched, impressed that he’d contained that much energy in his dry and dead-looking little body. And then he hit the wall and landed on one of those arm-protector things that belongs on the chair but is always knocked onto the floor by the cats, and lay there again without moving. When Fred was done brushing his teeth, he carried the frog into the back yard and placed him amongst the tomato plants. Hopefully the cats didn’t bring his dead carcass back into the house to stink up the joint with death and decay.

* * * I dreamed last night that I was standing in the bank with my mother, and the bank teller said something – I don’t remember what – that tipped me off to the fact that we were being Punk’d. “We’re being Punk’d!” I hissed at my mother. “We’re being Punk’d!” Finally, she turned to me and said “We are NOT being ‘punked’!” the way old people do when they don’t know how to pronounce something right and suspect they’re not cool enough to understand what it is. (Which reminds me of the time I said something about Nick Lachey from 98 Degrees, only I pronounced it “Lackey”, and the spud looked at me as if I were the stupidest thing alive and said “La Shay.”) But we were, and when Ashton Kutcher showed up at the end of the punk’ng, I did a little dance and said “I knew I was being Punk’d! I knew I was being Punk’d!”, and he was impressed by my intuitive skills. * * * Speaking of the spud, when we were in Mississippi, we were watching TV, and a Cheez-Its commercial came on. It was a woman (I don’t know her name, but I know she was on The State, which also brought us Michael Ian Black) sitting in front of a television set watching a (football?) game and eating Cheez-Its. When her husband’s car pulled into the driveway, she hid her Cheez-Its under a pillow and switched the channel to some sad, sappy movie, pulled out a tissue, and pretended to sob along with the movie. The husband, seeing how into the movie the woman was, said he’d go watch the game in the bedroom. When he was out of the sight, the woman smiled, grabbed her Cheez-Its, and turned back to the game. “Well, isn’t that NICE,” Fred said disapprovingly when the commercial was over. “I guess she doesn’t want to spend time with her husband. Good role model for the little girls!” “Yeah,” I said, only half paying attention. “It’s a horrible, horrible thing.” The spud looked at us as if we were the stupidest things alive. “No!” she said, “She didn’t want to share her Cheez-Its!” Ohhhhhhh. Well, that makes a whole lot more sense! * * * 1. How much time do you spend online each day? Oh, I’d say that 6 hours is a conservative estimate. More since the book became available, and I’m about 3 weeks behind in most of my journal reading. 2. What is your browser homepage set to? Google, because I visit it at least 10 times a day. 3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)? I used to have – what’s it called? The one from AOL? – but I uninstalled it at some point and never reinstalled. 4. Where was your first webpage located? http://bitchypoo.com/bitchypoo.html. If you go there now, you just get the 404 page. 5. How long have you had your current website? It’ll be 4 years on October 10th. Woot! ]]>