Author: Robyn

Miz Jenna, who makes blog templates, used a picture I took from our hike in Gatlinburg (with my permission) to make this set. Like I told her when I emailed her on Sunday, she took a pretty good picture and made it just awesome. I keep going back to look at it, thinking “Did I take that picture?!” Heh. * * * Yesterday, I finished the book I was reading – L.A. Woman – and when I closed the book, I noticed that the publisher was Red Dress Ink. I had never heard of that particular publisher before, so I looked them up online and found that I’d read one of their other titles – Confessions of an Ex-Girlfriend – which I enjoyed, and I also own Milkrun and See Jane Date, which I haven’t read yet. And here’s what I find particularly funny – Red Dress Ink is a Harlequin offshoot! According to the articles in USA Today and Newsweek, which are linked from the front page at Red Dress Ink, Harlequin launched Red Dress Ink to attract younger readers (the average age of a Harlequin reader is 44), those interested in what they’re calling “chick lit.” You know, the kind of books I named “Zany chick” books. It cracks me up, because I’ve always whined about how Harlequin heroines never have hot, steamy sex and how much more interesting they’d be if they did, and it’s like someone was listening! * * * After being together for six years, Fred and I are going to fly together for the very first time tomorrow. Considering how often I’ve flown since I moved to Alabama, it’s amazing that Fred’s never flown with me – but then, he hates flying, and has actually only flown once since I’ve moved here, and that was for business. The most recent People has an excerpt from a book about September 11th’s Flight 93, which is probably something I shouldn’t be reading directly before flying. I’m not really nervous about flying, but it does seem like I’m rather tempting fate by flying four times in the space of a few weeks. When I started reading the excerpt from the book, I turned to Fred and said “Huh. According to this, there were many people on Flight 93. I didn’t know that.” My tone was ironic, and Fred smiled at me. “You mean Todd Beamer wasn’t the only one on that flight?” He knows how pissed I am that the media holds up Todd Beamer as the only hero on that flight – there were many heroes on that flight, but I didn’t see Jeremy Glick’s wife sitting next to Laura Bush days after September 11th, when the President addressed Congress, did you? Though I guess it’s entirely possible that she was invited – I don’t claim to know the details. Anyway.]]>

Oh mother of all that is holy, Angelina heard my plea, my whining “I wish we knew for sure whyyyyyyyyyy they broke up, in Angelina’s own words!”, and she said “That fat chick is right. She SHOULD know why we broke up!” and she contacted US and gave them an exclusive interview. All for ME. I’m torturing myself, though. I’m going to finish this entry and then go fold laundry before I’ll allow myself to sit down and read every single word of the Angelina interview. I can’t wait! * * * So, I’m actually writing this on July 22nd, because we’re leaving the house at 5 am on July 23rd to go to the airport and fly to Baltimore. There will probably be an entry up on Friday, but so you don’t die from the horror of having no Bitchypoo for four full days, I’m going to toss up a bunch of pictures and call it an entry. I seem to be doing that a lot lately, don’t I? This is Fancypants’ favorite place to lay while outside. He can be found there most mornings, just hanging out and watching for birds. Tubby, on the other hand, prefers to lay under a chair. Doesn’t he look annoyed and disturbed? The face o’ evil. The cats have recently taken to sleeping on this particular shelf, I have no idea why. Sunday morning I walked out of my bedroom to see a cat orgy going on. Every cat except Miz Poo was present. Miz Poo has morals, you know. That Fancypants just loooooves to snuggle up to Spanky. Miz Poo takes over her daddy’s chair. A newly-bloomed rose in the garden. I love the way the color is darker on the outside than the inside. Just gorgeous! I love this rose, too. In fact, I like most roses, as long as they aren’t the boring red ones. For some reason, the cats don’t like to walk across the bath mat. Spanky just got done drinking out of the toilet, and if you look closely, you can see a drop of water on his nose. You can’t really see it, but Tubby was sprawled out of the floor rubbing his face all over the sock o’ love (ie, stuffed with catnip and tied close), and Miz Poo and Spanky were looking on with faint disgust. See something on the floor? Sit on it. Sit on it. Sit on it. If you see us wandering around Washington in the next few days, please come up and say hi! I’ll see you on the flip side.]]>

I took a picture, the flash blinded the frog, Miz Poo came running toward me, I scooped her up, ran out the door to safety, and slammed the door shut. Hopefully the frog is too short to reach the doorknob. But the cats are keeping watch, just in case. ]]>

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant – and picked up Blonde, by Joyce Carol Oates. Now, Joyce Carol Oates, you may recall, wrote the book I loathe above all others, That Damn Mulvaney Book. I don’t know how it is that I happened to buy a book by the author who wrote the book I hate so much, but I suspect it had something to do with the fact that there was a miniseries based on it, and I didn’t realize that it was the same author. Or possibly I bought Blonde before I read Die Mulvaneys, Die. OR I may have thought to myself, well, every author is entitled to a horrid piece of excrement or two. Some might say that Stephen King built a career on horrid pieces of crap. They would be wrong and should be stoned for such blasphemy, but they can certainly think it quietly to themselves and not to me. I think I’ll give this other one a try. Just because I didn’t like the one doesn’t mean I will loathe the other! I probably thought to myself. Believe it or not, I’m an optimist. In any case, a couple of months ago when I was standing in front of the bookcase trying to decide what I wanted to read next, and dithering between something I’d had for a while or something new, I said sternly to myself, you always get all dithery and indecisive when it’s time to pick a new book! So here’s what we’re going to do from here on out. See that third shelf from the top? We’re going to start with the book on the left-hand side, and read each book in turn until every book on that shelf has been read! And so, with a few side-trips (I was NOT going to wait to read the new Evanovich, for example), I have been doing so for the last several weeks. I’m more than halfway through that shelf, but it’s not empty, no no no. With the vacation money left over from our Florida trip, we made a dent in our respective wish lists. (Of course, mine still has about 45,000 items on it, and Fred’s has something like 3) So last night, it was time to start Blonde. I wasn’t really looking forward to it – it’s not only written by that Mulvaney lover, but also 700 pages long – but I tried to get myself excited about it. Marilyn Monroe! I like Marilyn Monroe! Joyce Carol Oates? Never heard of her! She was certainly never a Mulvaney, nope nope nope! I decided I would read at least three chapters of the book to give it a fair shot, and if it hadn’t drawn me in by then, off to the giveaway pile it went, because life’s just too damn short. Halfway through the first chapter, I was whinily making deals with myself – let’s just stop now and pretend that we read all three chapters! – but still I soldiered on. Crap, crap, utter crap. I know that there are going to be those who disagree with me, it was a bestseller, after all, and that’s fine. Y’all can just happily go about your lives reading books by Joyce Carol Oates, but I’m not gonna. She’s obviously just not my cup o’ tea. Whoever wins it in the giveaway certainly has my condolences. 1. Where were you born? Bangor, Maine (home of Stephen King!). There used to be an air force base there (I’m fairly certain they closed it down), where my father was stationed. 2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don’t live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not? I don’t live there, and I wouldn’t particularly want to move back to Bangor – I only lived there a short time as a baby before my father was transferred, so it doesn’t really mean anything to me. I would love, love, love to move back to Maine, or at least own a summer cottage on the ocean. Maybe some day. 3. Where in the world do you feel the safest? In Fred’s arms. Y’all quit making those gagging motions! 4. Do you feel you are well-traveled? Not really. There are so many places in this country alone that I’d love to visit, plus I’ve never spent any time in Canada, let alone Europe, that if I were independently wealthy I’d love to spend all my time travelling. 5. Where is the most interesting place you’ve been? I think Gatlinburg is mighty interesting – it’s a very touristy town, and I could probably spend all my time sitting on a bench and watching the people walk by. Plus, it’s so beautiful that I never get tired of taking pictures of the scenery. Fancypants, Miz Poo, and Spanky all hope that you have a great weekend! Well, Miz Poo and Spanky do – Fancypants doesn’t care one way or the other.]]>

Fred bought these bags that come with bait and attract the damn things, and then they drop into the bags and roast to death (far too kind a death for them, in my opinion). Fred put up pictures toward the end of his entry here about how full the damn bags were when we got back from Florida – and the bags had only been out for 5 days, I believe. Just looking at those pictures make me want to gag. A few weeks ago, I went out to get the mail, and about fifteen minutes after I came back inside my scalp started itching. When I went to scratch it, I was horrified to find that there was a Japanese Beetle hanging out in my hair. I screamed, threw it to the floor, and stomped on it. Grrr. I hate Japanese Beetles. HATE THEM, I say! Since I was out taking pictures, I got a few garden pics: This rose is my favorite, because not only is it gorgeous, but it smells awesome (don’t ask me what kind o’ rose it is – I have no clue). I really like this one, too. The picture’s a little blurry, but I just love the color of this rose. Remember a few weeks ago when I asked for advice on trimming back petunias, and many of you emailed me to tell me that I could, indeed, trim them back? Well, the very next day I went out with the garden shears and began trimming. At first, I was careful to do as instructed – cut above the “y”, be sure to leave some leaves – but patience (at least when gardening) is so very much not my strong suit, so I started just kind of hacking away at random and when I was done, I had a pile of petunias beside the pot, and the plants inside the pot didn’t even reach the top. “I think I went too far,” I told Fred. “I just got bored and carried away and chopped the hell out of them. I guess it’s a good thing they weren’t expensive, huh?” Three weeks later, this is what they look like: Apparently Petunias aren’t all that delicate. Yay for Petunias! And inside the house, my begonia is doing a lot better than I expected. From what I’ve read, begonias are picky, delicate little plants, but this one is thriving and blooming like hell. I love the color, but after I bought this one, I saw some yellow ones and wish I’d bought one of those. I could actually have two begonias in the house, I suppose, but I try to keep the plants kind of up and away from the cats so they won’t chew on the leaves, and we’re rapidly running out of places to put plants. Miz Poo shows her portly side (and if you look closely, you’ll see she’s sticking her tongue out at y’all).]]>

“I’m an excellent back scratcher…” It is, by the way, a fallacy that you have to have long nails to give a good scratch of the back. When I was 18, someone at a party asked me to scratch his back (what kind of girl did he think I was!), and when I was done, he sighed happily (I always have the effect on men, har de har) and said “You must have really long nails!”, and was amazed to see that they were as short as they are now. It’s all in the technique, y’see. * * * Fred sent me this link, and when I was done reading it, I had a mental image of a very large nekkid fat man laying on the road in the rain, covered by a very small rain coat. It reminded me of the interview I read several years ago with Chris Farley and David Spade, where David Spade said that Chris Farley – who was standing behind David – would start giggling and tell David to look because Chris was going to show him the funniest thing ever. David Spade would say “It better not be fat man in little jacket!”, and Chris would say “No seriously, turn around! You’ll laugh your ass off!”, and when David finally turned around, there would be Chris Farley standing there, having crammed himself into David’s jacket. That’s an approximation of the interview, anyway. ]]>

memorial for Nicole and Bill’s Cleo. * * * Y’know, there’s just not a whole lot going on around here today, so what I’m going to do is toss up a bunch of cat pictures I’ve taken lately, and call it an entry. There aren’t any pictures of Spanky or Fancypants, for some reason, but there are plenty of that fashion model we like to refer to as Tubelle. It’s a Poo! Inna box! A Poo inna box! What more could you possibly hope for? Spot’s putting his foot (er, paw) down and taking over the pillow on my desk. Actually, Miz Poo has rather abandoned it – lately, whenever she’s on the desk, she prefers to be laying directly between the keyboard and me, so that I can’t type and can only pet her, pet her, pet her, the whole livelong day. If this ain’t a guilty lookin’ Tubelle, I don’t know what is. Actually, I think I caught him in mid “march”, because he will sit and knead for hours and hours before settling down to sleep. Exhausted from all that damn kneading. A Poo! Inna bag! A Poo inna bag! How handy. How do YOU carry YOUR Poo around, after all? Spot and Tubelle were having themselves a bit of a lovefest before they heard me coming upstairs. Tubby’s getting ready to flee the premises. There’s nothing a fashion model like Tubelle likes to do more than sprawl out on his back and stare off into space. Notice the incredibly dirty back feet. Tubelle cannot reach his feet, poor boy. Oh, goodness. Time for a stretch. After wearing himself out sprawling and stretching, Tubelle will surely need a nap!]]>

Amanda‘s (who is updating again, and about damn time!) brought back a memory about the second time Fred and I met in person. For the record, the first time we met in person was over Memorial Day weekend in Pennsylvania. The second time was a couple of weekends later in Virginia. (The third was in Rhode Island (he flew up for the 4th of July weekend), and the fourth was sometime in July when I flew to Alabama. The fifth was when the spud and I moved here. Amazing it’s worked out so well, isn’t it?) Anyway, at this hotel – like at many hotels, I’ve noticed – the headboard, rather than being attached to the bedframe, was actually hanging from the wall. One might assume that it was bolted to the wall, in fact. Later, during…. a discussion, let’s say, I got rather, er, excited about making a certain point. So I reached up and grabbed the bottom of the headboard, which was hanging over my head. Suddenly, the freakin’ thing pulled OFF of the wall and hit Fred in the head. You can imagine I was pretty freaked out thinking that I had a) killed Fred, and b) ripped a headboard off the wall with my superhuman strength, probably leaving behind large, gaping holes in the wall. To my relief, the headboard wasn’t that heavy and left no indentations in Fred’s head, and it turned out that it (the headboard, not Fred’s head) had grooves in the back that rested on bolts, so it was easy to put back together, lucky for me. * * * Fred and I were sitting in front of our computers one day last week – Thursday, maybe? – and suddenly the wind outside picked up. I glanced up out the front window to see that it was a little overcast. Out the back window, though, it looked like a twister could drop out of the sky at any moment: Note Miz Poo’s little head looking out the cat door. Luckily, there was no twister that evening, but it did rain pretty hard. Speaking of the cat door, it’s working out pretty well for us. Spot, who was the most nervous about going out through the door at first seems to now be the one who uses it the most. I don’t know if Fancypants spends all night out there or not, but he hasn’t poo’d on the floor even once since we installed the cat door (and we actually left it open while we were in Florida), so I’m happy about that. The cats are so funny-looking when they go through the cat door, because they have to sniff around the edges for half an hour first, and then carefully push the door open and slowly walk through. They seem to come in faster than they go out, for some reason. * * * So, I was reading People over the weekend, and read a blurb saying that Alanis Morrissette is suing the guy who owns alanis.net because the guy had the audacity to register alanis.net, and according to the letter he received from her lawyers, his actions constitute, among other offenses, a wrongful use and misappropriation of our client’s name in violation of her federal and state common law and statutory rights, including, without limitation, rights of publicity, rights under the Lanham Act and certain rights under the Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act. Of course, the guy’s site only presents his side of the story, but if half of what he says is true, Alanis might think of getting over herself. The guy has owned alanis.net for three years and never used her likeness, name, or even referred to her, from what I can tell. I guess I’d better be watching my ass if the notorious girl who shares my name gets a bug up her butt. I’m still kicking myself for not having bought robyn.com back when it was still available, though if I had, I’d be inundated with visits from fans of that singer chick. I see that r0byn.com (that’s a zero, not a letter o) is still available. But it kind of defeats the purpose if you have to say “That’s a zero, not an o” when you give someone your url, I think. King Tubby, snoozing on the pillows. Putting those pillows on the floor is about the smartest thing I’ve done lately. I only pulled them out of the wardrobe to look for stuff for the last giveaway and left them there, and in the week since, there’s always a cat on the pile of pillows, and usually another one waiting for their turn. Our kitties, spoiled? Nah.]]>

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” he added hastily.) Perv. So, last night we watched the new news show on Fox, The Pulse, which is good, because it’s got all the cool kids from Fox News on it. Well, the cool kids and Geraldo Rivera, anyway. It just astounds me that that man still has a career – he’s got to have some serious dirt on one of the muckety-mucks somewhere, is all I can guess. Anyway, Geraldo was doing a bit where he walks across a dirt driveway or yard – I wasn’t paying attention, because I don’t care for him – and Fred said “Geraldo is walking like he thinks he’s some kind of stud.” I looked up from my book and saw Geraldo walking all bow-legged, with his ass stuck out, and said “He walks like Tex.” Longtime readers will remember Tex. For the rest of you, let’s just suffice it to say that he’s someone we know and dislike. After a moment, Fred said “He looks like him, too. They’ve got the same kind of ugly.” Whereupon I almost choked to death on my Diet Coke. Because, yes. Tex and Geraldo certainly DO have the same kind of ugly going on. Hee! I’d do a side-by-side picture comparison of Tex and Geraldo, but it wouldn’t be prudent. Is it just me, or do the previews for the new Harrison Ford movie – K19: The Widowmaker – make it look like the most boring piece of shit ever filmed, or what? I mean, fuckin’ yawnsville on that one. I’ll be avoiding it like the plague, believe you me. And I like Harrison Ford. On the other hand, I’ll be hauling my ass to see The Good Girl in the theater, because it looks REALLY good, and I like everyone who’s in it. I watched a movie after Fred went to bed last night. A Walk to Remember, I watched, god knows why. Want to know what it’s about? Sweet girl with strong christian faith turns bad boy around, makes him fall in love with her, but – gasp! – she’s dying of leukemia! Which was so very obvious by those barely-there circles under her eyes! So they get married and she dies, and although we don’t see the scene where she dies, I am certain that if we had, it would have been very similar to the scene on The Bold and the Beautiful years ago where one moment Taylor was happy and healthy and dancing with her husband, and LITERALLY the very next moment she had collapsed and died in his arms. Because god KNOWS there’s no suffering when one dies of leukemia. One looks gorgeous right up to the very end, except for some occasional weakness – evidenced when the sick person swoons prettily – and the occasional slightly dark circles under the eyes. My god, talk about your dreck. What’s sad is that I watched the EXACT SAME crap not two years ago, in the form of Here On Earth, wherein Leelee Sobieski played the Mandy Moore role and Chris Klein played the Shane West role (and if Shane West was actually born with that name, I’ll eat my hat – and a check of the Internet Movie Database proves me correct. He was born with the name Shannon Bruce. I can see why he’d change it). Hell, I think we all know why I rented the movie. I rented it because I like that cute little Shane West, despite the fact that he has no clue when choosing his movie roles, apparently (I offer the painful Whatever It Takes, which should have worked – cute actors, cute (if overdone) premise, gets the girl in the end – but very much did not). Anyway. Avoid A Walk to Remember unless you’re having trouble sleeping. And all that said? You KNOW I teared up when they got married, because I’m the sappiest sap on the whole damn earth. 1. Where are you right now? In the shower. Hee! No, I’m in front of the computer, which is on my (messy, nasty, needs-to-be-cleaned) desk in the computer room. To my left are two sleeping kitties, and to my right is a Fancypants, who is swishing around and trying to decide whether he wants to go outside. 2. What have you lost recently? Well, I didn’t lose it, I’m pretty sure it was STOLEN, but the smiley-face ball that was on the antenna on my Jeep is gone. That pisses me off, because I had to actually order the damn thing from Wal-Mart online, since our local Wal-Mart didn’t have one, and I had to pay more for shipping than the damn thing cost. And now it’s gone, damnit, gone! 3. What was the first CD you ever purchased? Does that embarrass you now? I’m fairly certain it was probably Wilson Phillips’ self-titled album. And no, I’m not embarrassed. If my love for Olivia Newton-John won’t embarrass me, nothin’ will! 4. What is your favorite kind of writing pen? Skilcraft pens are absolutely the best pens ever. Other than that, I have a pile of doctor’s office pens (pens that drug reps and such drop off at doctor’s offices) that Mary Ellen’s cool momma sent me, because she rocks. Sometimes, when I need a pen, it’s quite the dilemma for me when I try to decide which pen I want to use! 5. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? I prefer french vanilla, actually. I’m also enjoying McDonald’s frozen yogurt these days, too – it’s surprisingly good, and I just had an ice cream cone from there last night.]]>