Author: Robyn

Finally, last night he said, “It’s not being away from home I don’t like. It’s being away from you.” from the entry on the 9th brought that on), and so I’ve been racking my brain for smack talk about Himself. The only things I’ve been able to come up with are: 1. He can’t close a drawer all the way to save his life. I spend half my life walking around the house completely shutting drawers and sometimes doors. And when he gets out of his Jeep and I’m staying in the Jeep waiting for him, he doesn’t close the door all the way, but just kind of half-heartedly pushes it so that it stays open, letting in the heat and flies. 2. He leaves his clothes all over the place. Okay, that’s not true. He leaves clothes that he thinks he might wear again in a pile on the table in the master bedroom and on the shelf in the closet, so that when it’s time to do laundry, I have to go around and pick up the piles to wash. Inevitably, he says “Have you seen my red pants with Hershey’s Kisses all over them? I was going to wear them.”, and I have to tell him that they’re being washed. 3. He loves Tubby. No, he LUHRVS Tubby. He also loves Fancypants, and I suspect that if Fancypants were a human, he and Fred would spend all their time singing show tunes to each other, if you know what I’m saying. 4. He is inordinately interested in our lawn. He cuts the grass before it needs it, and neatly bags the grass clippings. He also edges and sometimes sweeps the walk to the front door, clips the roses, and checks the Japanese Beetle traps daily. But that’s a good thing, because if it were left up to me, our yard would probably look like the crappy, never-mowed, overgrown yard of our neighbors up the street, the ones who are trying to sell their house (and good luck to them, with a yard like that!). What a lame list. I’d love to provide some juicy gossip for y’all (he netsexes Nance every day at noon!), but there’s just nothing. I’m frightened to think of what he could come up for smack talk about me, though! When we were at the Gulfarium in Florida, we saw this bird, and I said “Is that a stork?”, and Fred said “Yeah, I think so…” I said, “Oh, I’ve GOT to get a picture of it, so I can make a joke about how I talked to the stork, who told me that he’d be visiting Athena on July 9th!” Unfortunately, it’s not a stork. It’s a pelican. But it would have been funny, no? Y’all think good birthing thoughts for Athena. She’s ready to get this show on the road! Something on the floor? Climb up on it and wash yourself, of course! We’re going to Fred’s mom and stepfather’s house this afternoon. They just adopted a 6 week old kitten, and I’m dying to get my hands on it. I don’t think I’ve played with a kitten since Miz Poo was one, so I’m looking forward to it. I like cats, have I mentioned?]]>

With a pile of pillows on the floor, where else would a portly princess settle her ass? While we were on vacation in Florida, I finished reading Me Talk Pretty One Day, which I highly recommend. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, since I wasn’t crazy about Naked, but I was so amused by Pretty that when I was ordering stuff off of Amazon last weekend, I went ahead and ordered Holidays on Ice. That’s right, I cleared a bunch of stuff off my Amazon wish list over the weekend. We didn’t spend all our vacation money in Florida, so we split what was left over and went to work on our wish lists. Fred’s is down to something ridiculous like three items, and mine has been reduced from two pages to one. That won’t last long, I’m sure. Speaking of books, I highly HIGHLY recommend Kiss My Tiara. I happened to catch a recommendation for the book from one of those crazy kids over at Fractious Times, and put it on my wish list. And then, when I had some extra money laying around (not literally – we don’t let our extra money just lay around. We bury it in big pickle jars in the back yard) I bought it, it sat on the bookcase for god knows how long, and finally I read it. And loved it so much I’m keeping it, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned previously is unusual. So go forth and buy it for yourself. Because I said so.]]>

Goopy Toe, and I have a confession to make. As I read the entry, I thought all petulantly to myself, “Why can’t I have a Goopy Toe?!” Because, my friends, I am a squeezer. There’s nothing on god’s green earth that gives me more of a sense of accomplishment than squeezing something angry and red looking and having a big pile of goop shoot out. (Insert mandatory penis joke here) I am a total zit-popper. If there’s a zit anywhere within reach on my body, I’m messing with it and squeezing it until it pops. I’m RELENTLESS in the search for zits upon my bod. If I see a little bump that doesn’t quite look like a zit? I squeeze the hell out of it. Sometimes I get a lovely surprise and it pops. Sometimes it just hurts. It’s always worth a try, in my opinion. When I was training for the 3Day last year? I loved it when I got one of those big, bubbly blisters, because I would pop the hell out of it when the walk was over. My favorite zits are the ones that POP, not the ones that just kind of ooze out. If it pops halfway across the room, I’m a happy gal. If it oozes, I’m still happy, just not so much as when I get a geyser. I suspect my love of popping zits probably comes from the fact that I didn’t have much of an acne problem when I was a teenager, so I didn’t get my fill of popping back then. I’m a freak – I fully admit it. So Fred’s been a little unhappy recently, because he was told he needed to go on a 2-day business trip to Washington, DC. He doesn’t like being away from home, and I was going to suggest that I go with him, but it seemed like a lot of money, what with tickets costing $500 apiece (I checked). Finally, last night he said, “It’s not being away from home I don’t like. It’s being away from you.” That’s right, awwwww. He’s mine, ladies, and don’t you forget it. Don’t be making moves on my man, or I’ll kick you in the throat. Unless you’re freakishly tall, in which case I’ll kick you in the shin. And it will HURT. I said “Well, it would be kind of neat if I could go with you”, whereupon he jumped up off the bed and said “Let’s check ticket prices!” After a lot of looking around and dithering with different airports, we found round-trip tickets for less than $200 each. And since his ticket and the hotel room will be paid for by the company he’s making the trip for for which he’s making the trip, all we’ll have to pay for is my ticket and meals. He got really excited knowing that I would be going with him, and went from down in the dumps to perky and happy. This morning, he found out that the meetings aren’t in DC – they’re in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He was worried I wouldn’t want to go, but hell – I am ALWAYS up for a trip, even if it’s to Gaithersburg. We’ll be there a couple of days, and will hopefully hit some of the sights in DC. I could venture into DC on my own while Fred’s in his meetings, but I’m too chickenshit to do so. We’ll be there July 23rd – 25th, and then I leave for Maine on the 30th. I’m a happenin’, travellin’ chick, is what I am. The spud is safely back from California – I talked to her last night, and then talked to my mother. During the course of the conversation, my mother casually said “They’re engaged.” We had just been talking about the spud and California and how many new clothes the spud had, so I drew a blank. For several long seconds, I sat there, my mind a blank. Finally, I realized she was talking about the ex and his girlfriend. I was wondering when he’d get around to proposing to her. They haven’t set a date yet, so I’m wondering if they’re going to have a wedding the spud can attend, or if they’re going to go the elopement route. See something on the floor? Sit on it. Actually, lay on it and cover as much of it as possible. On our way home from Florida, I did about half the driving – which is unusual and showed me that Fred was really tired of driving, because I could probably count the number of times he’s ridden in the passenger seat on one hand. I was reminded anew how much I suck as a driver – at least when I’m driving a Jeep. I have absolutely no speed consistency. One minute I’m going 75 miles per hour, two minutes later I’m going 90, without realizing I was speeding up. Thank god for cruise control. I also get really annoyed by those people who are driving the same speed as you are, if you speed up, they speed up, you slow down and they do the same, all for the apparent purpose of staying juuuuust outside your blind spot. I usually get annoyed after about five minutes of that, and stomp on the gas, blow them away, and then resume my very careful 5-miles-over-the-speed-limit speed. Fred is SUCH a backseat driver, by the way. I usually ending up bellowing “SHUT THE FUCK UP, I’M DRIVING!” at least a couple of times, because he bitches about how slow I’m going, or I’m taking too long to pass someone, or blah-de-blah. Hey, at least I stay out of the left lane if I’m not passing someone. It’s a start, right?]]>

That’s Kiwi snuggling with my husband. She’s in luhrv. We spent plenty of time on the beach and in the water – until we got bored watching the people and fighting the bits of seaweed, that is. We managed to come away from the vacation without burning ourselves to a crisp (to crisps?), which is amazing, considering how god-awful hot that sun was, and how much I was sweating. I got a tiny burn around my hairline, and on my shoulder, but it was nothing to cry about. The water was awesome and warm, but there were bits of seaweed everywhere, and each time we got back to the hotel room and undress to shower, I found about three pounds of shredded seaweed in my bra and underwear. What? You thought I was going to wear a bathing suit on the beach. Um, not in THIS life. I wore shorts and a t-shirt, with underwear and a sports bra, and it was fine, except when the water was rough and would push my shorts up my butt and fling my t-shirt over my head. Luckily, with all the shredded seaweed around, no one could really see anything. Every time Fred saw a fish jump out of the water, he was positive it was jumping to get away from a shark, who was surely headed directly toward us. Despite my plans to eat every raw oyster Florida had to offer, the first dozen that I had – for lunch Thursday at Gilligan’s – were not very good, and I wasn’t interested in eating any more for the rest of the trip. Hell, I didn’t even finish that dozen, and that’s unusual for me. I didn’t have a single strawberry daiquiri – but I did have a couple of strawberry smoothies, and they rocked. Did you know that if you go over the recommended daily dose of aspirin, you might develop temporary tinnitus? Yes indeedy. The day we went to the Gulfarium – Friday – so that Fred could cavort with his One True Love (see picture above), I sweated so much that I soaked through my underwear and bra in the five-minute walk between our hotel and the Gulfarium. While we walked around the Gulfarium, I continued to sweat so much that even Fred noticed, and I had to go into the bathroom several times to mop the sweat from my face, neck, and chest. By the time the Dolphin Encounter was over, I was starting to soak through my shirt, and ready to sit my ass down in a cool place, eat lunch, and then perhaps go back to the hotel for a nap. Fred had other ideas. Fred can be similar to a drill instructor sometimes, and he wanted to walk down the road to see if there was anywhere decent to eat lunch, and though we walked by a bar and grill, he was intent on reaching this particular restaurant that he had his eye on, and when we got there, we found that it wasn’t open. “Well,” he said, “Let’s walk a FEW MORE MILES down this hot, humid, sandy, heavily-trafficked road, where many vehicles will be driven by rednecks who will yell nasty things about your fat ass, and maybe we’ll see a restaurant! And after, say, FIVE MILES, if we haven’t found anything we like, we can turn around and walk back the other way, and maybe there will be a restaurant a few miles that way! Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?!” He had a sadistic gleam in his eye. “What about that little place we passed on the other side of this building?” I suggested. The headache I’d had when I woke up that morning was back, and I didn’t have any aspirin on me. Obviously, being FRED, which according to my book of baby names translates to “oblivious male”, he hadn’t seen the bar and grill I’d stared longingly at as we walked by, and so he assumed I was wrong, wrong, WRONG, and had no clue what I was talking about, and thus he did this shuck-and-jive about how that building was closed, there was nothing there, nothing to see, move along, let’s GO. “There IS a little bar and grill there!” I insisted, my head pounding. “Okay, fine,” he said. “There is NO bar and grill, but if you HAVE to be a BIG PAIN IN THE ASS, let’s go look, shall we? For I cannot WAIT to do the dance of I am right and you are wrong!” Of course, he’s never actually perfected that dance, seeing as how he’s so rarely right. We walked back from whence we’d come, and SURE AS FUCKING SHIT, there it was. The Angler’s Beachside Grill. Which we’d walked directly by. And it wasn’t a small building, either, seeing as how it can seat 200 people. It was a large building, it had a boardwalk behind it, jutting half a mile out into the ocean, and it all but had neon lights with big arrows pointing to it. “BY GOD, YOU’RE RIGHT!” I bellowed. “THERE’S NOTHING THERE!” “Do you want to eat there?” Fred asked, ignoring my obnoxious ways. “Yes,” I said. As we headed for the door, he smiled and said “You sure do get grouchy when you’re hungry.” Which is when I killed him and fed him to the dolphins. If Tubby were sealife, he would look like this: Speaking of Tubby, he was so happy to have us home that he showed his joy by laying on his back in the middle of the floor all day yesterday and doing his bitchy “Meh. Meh. MEH!” until I yelled “Shut UP, Tubby!”, to which he responded “Meh.” and then shut up. Do any of you Floridians know what this is? I’m just curious, because Fred passed a bush like that when he was out jogging and said it smelled really good. (Note: I’ve since learned that it’s an Oleander and comes in many different colors) So, our last night in Florida, after spending a couple of hours on the beach – Fred made sure to point out every man who walked by with an abdominal six-pack, and I made sure to point out every girl who walked by wearing a yellow bathing suit – we showered and got ready to go out to dinner. We thought we would eat at a Mexican restaurant in Fort Walton, not far from the hotel, but as we pulled out of the hotel parking lot, we saw that the traffic going left – which is where we’d have had to go – was at a standstill as far as the eye could see. “Let’s just go into Destin,” Fred said. Destin is maybe a 10-minute drive, and has plenty of restaurants and stores (including a Super Wal-Mart – obviously a town after my own heart). We turned right and drove toward Destin, and were dismayed to find that the traffic going from Destin to Fort Walton was backed up for miles and miles – and soon enough, the traffic going into Destin came to a standstill as well. “Maybe it’s just rush hour,” I suggested. “And it’ll clear out by the time we’ve finished eating.” It took us perhaps 40 minutes to make it into Destin instead of the 10 minutes we’d expected, and we stopped for dinner at The Lucky Snapper. I highly recommend the cheese bread at The Lucky Snapper, though the shrimp po’boy was a little dry. An hour later we finished eating and stood up to leave. A few tables away, a guy who slightly resembled Mark McGwire stared at me. He continued to stare at me until we were past him, and I suppressed the urge to say “Take a picture, dude!” The traffic coming from Fort Walton into Destin was, if anything, worse than it had been. Fred dug out the map and looked for another way to get back to Fort Walton. We had come from Fort Walton into Destin via route 98, and after studying the map, Fred decided that we could drive through the rest of Destin, take a left on that green road – I don’t recall the name of the road – hit highway 20, then meet up with highway 85, all the way back into Fort Walton. It took us an HOUR to get through Destin. An hour. And the entire way, I could feel Fred’s blood pressure rising. I sat happily and stared at the people in the cars around us, the condos, the beach, and hoped that the top of Fred’s head wouldn’t pop completely off before we got back to the hotel. An hour and fourty-five minutes later, we were arriving back at Fort Walton. We’d left the hotel shortly before 5, and it was 8 when we got back. As we drove across the bridge into Fort Walton, I said to Fred “Take a right onto Santa Rosa Boulevard. I want to see the houses down there.” Fred had jogged down that road and told me there were some crappy houses down that way, as well as a little family of cats in one of the yards. Since I’m a sucker for cats (I know that shocks you), I wanted to check them out. We didn’t see any cats, but we saw some crappy houses as well as some nice ones, and several hotels, including the cruddy one we stayed in when we were in Florida 5 years ago. We came to the end of the road and turned around. Ahead of us was a car that was driven by someone who apparently didn’t know where exactly they were going. I wasn’t really paying attention, as I was checking out the hotels we were driving by, so when Fred stomped on his brakes, I reacted as I usually do when taken by surprise – I flailed my hands around like a spaz. “Nice JOB, buttfuck!” he snarled at the idiot ahead of us, who had stood up on his brakes to make a turn into a hotel parking lot. As we continued driving, Fred started laughing really, really hard. “What?” I asked, sure that he was laughing at my previous spazzy flailing. “I couldn’t think of anything horrible to call him,” Fred gasped, wiping tears from his eyes. “So I called him a….hee hee hee… I called him…heh… I called him a fuckfuck.” Naturally, we’ve spent the last three days calling each other “You fuckfuck” and giggling our asses off.]]>

Diarist Awards. Open nominations through the 15th, journallers, so get to nominatin’! These are in no particular order – just the order Internet Explorer decided to put them in. Also, I’m sure there are about 25,000 other entries I meant to bookmark for nomination, but didn’t. Because I am an airhead AND a dumbass, which is a potent combination, y’all. There are no rules against nominating your spouse, so I’m going to nominate this one by Fred, because it just cracks me the fuck up every time I read it. Also this one, purely because the picture of Fred making a mental note is what he actually looks like when he’s thinking hard about something. Except for an occasional bout of the blues, I have never really been depressed, not seriously depressed, a day in my life. This entry of Rob’s gave me some insight into what real depression is like. Man, Eliza sure can make me cry. And I could completely relate to every word of this entry. If you’re not a regular Eliza reader, you should be. Don’t make me come over there and kick your ass. Speaking of making me cry, Jessamyn does it regularly, like in this entry. Jessamyn’s probably also about to hire a bodyguard because I link to her all the time, like a big freaky stalker type, but honestly. If you’re not reading her regularly, you’re missing out. Hell. O. Dolly. If you forward a lot of emails, you need to read this doozy by Atara. I like it when she gets pissed off, because the results are always spot-on. This isn’t the first time I’ve linked to Nicole, and it sure as shit won’t be the last. As always, Nicole manages to say what I’m feeling, only she says it far more eloquently than I ever hope to. I liked this entry of Atara’s, because personally, I think that anyone who wants to take down their website should have to run it by me, with full detail of why they’re doing so. Because when something’s happened to cause someone to take down their site, it drives me NUTS that I don’t know what happened. I am about the nosiest damn person you will ever in your life meet, but I am also too polite to say “Dude. Why’d you take down the site?”, because I am secretly afraid that the answer will be “BECAUSE OF YOU, ROBYN! IT’S ALL YOUR DAMN FAULT, WITH YOUR NOSEY, WONDERING WAYS, AND I COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!” Yes, I am a tad paranoid. If I’ve ever traded one single email with you, even if it was only “Could you change my email address on the notify list?” “Sure!”, and you, YEARS down the road, say something cryptic in your journal, I will sit and feel horrified that I drove you to that, and I will burn with mortification that I could possibly be responsible for such a thing. The world? It revolves around me. I think you know that. (And as an aside, by the time I read that entry of Atara’s, Heather’s site (thankyajeezus) was back up. Whew! She won’t admit it, but I’m sure it was all my fault.) This entry of Marcia’s reminded me of when, shortly after my great-grandmother died, my mother showed me a letter that had been in her (my great-grandmother’s) belongings from a gentlemen who had been courting her 70 years ago. I wonder sometimes what belongings my own grandchildren will sift through, trying to find a spark of the person I was. Another tear-inducer from Eliza. I watched Hedwig once, sometime last winter, and I liked it, but didn’t love it, yet as I read Eliza’s entry about the movie, I started appreciating it, remembering the parts she wrote about, and wanting to rent and watch it again. I did go download The Origin of Love and Wicked Little Town, and listen to them over and over again. Reading of Eliza’s passion for Hedwig made me love it too, if that makes any sense. It’s like I didn’t really see it until I saw how she saw it, and then I couldn’t not love it. I don’t know. It’s way past my bedtime, and I’m still not completely packed for Florida, so I think I’m going to stop trying to explain any further and just let it stand as it is. See you on the flip side, unless a dolphin falls in luhrv with Fred and mauls him, and then I’ll see you when I see you.]]>

someone blows in my ear. Rwowr. And then one day I took a film-ridden cup out of the cupboard and poured a Diet Coke in it and added three ice cubes, and settled down in front of the computer. I slurped my Diet Coke joyfully, because I am a joyful sort of person, and I enjoyed my Diet Coke, because I always do. And when the Diet Coke was mostly gone and I was reading a journal entry – or perhaps an email, I don’t actually remember which – I noticed that my tongue felt odd. Really odd. As if it were going a little numb, but also as if it were growing a thick coat of fur. Not a happy, joyful feeling, as you can imagine. I decided to avoid the filmy cups from there on out, and I hoped that the damn Jet Dry dispenser would soon be empty, and I vowed to never – NEVER! – use the damn stuff again, and I tossed the half bottle that was left over, and I promised myself that I would write an entry detailing the horrors of Jet Dry, the devil’s tool. I mean, really. Just how shiny and spot-free do my freakin’ dishes need to be, anyway?! Who sees the fucking things besides us? It’s not like we’re going to have the president and Laura over to dine, and Laura will gaze down at the spotty plates and shoot me a look full of disapproval. I wouldn’t know what to feed them, anyway. And would I be responsible for feeding the secret service guys, or do they take care of themselves? But most importantly, could I talk one of the secret service into shooting Fancypants? All accidental-like? It would certainly be worth a try, because it’s not like those Bushes are cat people. They’re not, are they? I seem to recall a lot of dogs, but no cats. But I could be wrong. I also digress. So I decided to avoid the filmy cups and just drink directly out of the cans, and for a few days all was well. “Bessie,” Fred said one evening while he was finishing his dinner and I was loading the dishwasher – when he cooks, I clean up, when I cook, he does. I get the better end of the bargain, though, because I use WAY more dishes when I cook than he does. Heh. – “Bessie, what’s up with this nasty, squeaky film we’ve got going on?” “I think it’s that FUCKING Jet Dry,” I said, continuing to load the dishwasher. “I think it’s double-coating the dishes or something, and I don’t think there’s anything we can do until the dispenser is empty.” “What do we do when the dispenser is empty?” “We don’t add more Jet Dry.” Honestly. Do I have to spell everything out? “I wonder if the rinse agent is reacting badly with the powder I use?” Fred said, finishing his dinner. “You use the powder?” I said. We use Electrasol tabs in the dishwasher, but I also keep a box of Cascade under the counter for emergencies, on the rare occasion when we run out of the Electrasol. “Yeah,” he said. I picked up the container the Electrasol tabs were contained in, and I looked at the back. “Hey, look,” I said. “Those little white balls imbedded in the Electrasol tabs are actually JetDry balls. It’s my fault! I’ve been double-rinse-agenting the dishes!” So I flicked the white ball out of the Electrasol tab so there’d be no double-rinse-agenting, and started the dishwasher. The next day, no film. Oh, you can only IMAGINE the joy in BitchyVille, the jubilation, the ecstasy, the thrills and chills. I did a little dance through the kitchen, freaking out the cats, who danced away from me with big, dark eyes and fluffed-out tails. And yet. The next day, film. You can IMAGINE the abject horror. I stared at the filmy dishes with dismay, and I thought about it. The night before, I had cooked, so it was Fred’s turn to do the dishes. And for some reason, he’d decided to use up the powder, he’d told me, and therefore the problem had to lie in some sort of reaction between the JetDry and the Cascade. I looked under the sink for the box of Cascade so I could read the back and see if, perhaps, there was a warning along the lines of “Danger! Do not use with JetDry Rinse Agent!” But, odd. No Cascade. Had he used up the box? I looked in the trash. No Cascade. I looked under the sink again to see if, perhaps, it was hiding behind something else. It was nowhere to be seen. I called him at work. “Where’s the powder you’ve been using in the dishwasher?” I asked. “It’s on top of the container of the tabs,” he said. I looked under the sink once again, wondering how I could possibly have missed seeing a big-ass bright green box of Cascade perched on the container of Electrasol tabs. I saw this: “YOU USED THE POWDER ON TOP OF THE CONTAINER OF ELECTRASOL TABS IN THE DISHWASHER?!” I shrieked. “Yeah,” he said, obviously paying attention to something else. “Is that why we’re having the film on the dishes?” “Yes,” I said. “Possibly the big dose of poison you’re washing the dishes with every time you do them is causing a FUCKING FILM on the dishes.” Of course, this ends up being my fault, because the Oxi-Clean container is very similar to the Electrasol container, thus the small container is obviously the powdered version of what’s in the larger container. Silly me. I thought he could READ. Possibly we’re lucky to still be alive. Also possibly, we’re dying (no, not seriously – it’s been a few weeks, and we feel fine. Apparently the Oxi-Clean (AVOID CONTACT WITH EYES AND MUCUS MEMBRANES OR PROLONGED CONTACT WITH SKIN. DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, INGEST!) was diluted enough to not kill us. Because I’m thinking that if the spud went to Maine for the summer and Fred or I died in a freak poisoning accident, she’d probably never want to go to Maine ever again in her life.]]>

Absolutely awesome-smelling candles from Aly, who is currently training for the Atlanta 3-Day, which takes place in October. Anyway, the yellow candles are chamomile-scented, and there’s a layer of coral passion-flower-scented candles underneath. They smell SO good, and I keep going back to sniff them until I’m lightheaded. Mmmmm. From Egg, smiley-face glasses. They are SO awesome – when you look at any point of light, you see 3-D smiley faces. I am SO taking these to Florida with us to wear while we’re watching the fireworks! And from reader Donna in Canada, magnets! They go perfectly with my smiley magnet collection, and the evil smiley up there on the right just cracks me up. Man. Do I have the best damn readers in the whole wide world, or what?! I have been amusing myself all day long by singing the lines What a cruel trick of nature/ Landed me with such a louse in the manner of one Ethel Merman, complete with big, goofy arm movements. It really takes very little to amuse me. The GiveAway page has been changed – this week I’m giving away perfumes. I was looking at descriptions of the various perfumes online, and was amused to see that each was recommended for “romantic wear”, “casual wear”, or “evening wear.” I had no idea perfumes were supposed to match how you were dressed. I guess I’d better check and see whether the Vera Wang I’m wearing all the time now is recommended for cotton pants and t-shirts, because I’d hate to be screwing that up. With its modern floral bouquet, the Vera Wang fragrance is a sensual and intimate fragrance of desire. Whew! Luckily, it doesn’t say what I should be wearing, so I guess as long as I’m looking all desirable and sensual (and you can see that picture of me in the smiley sunglasses as proof), I’ll be okay. Speaking of the GiveAway page, I am officially no longer looking at the body of every email I get, because it takes too long – 103 people wanted the Evanovich book last week – so if you have a comment or question, you’ll have to email it separately from the entry, because unless you’ve won, I won’t see what you had to say. Know what chaps my ass (speaking of sensual and desirable….)? When I get fucking SPAM, and the return address is mine. Like I spammed myself. That just pisses me off, because when I go to bounce the spam through MailWasher, all it does is bounce back to me, like I’m the one who sent it. Fuckers. Some Eminem lookalike just drove by and put a flyer on my mailbox. I’m sure he’s starting up a lawn-mowing service. It almost makes me want to hire him just so I can take his picture and put the caption Eminem mows my lawn during his down time underneath. Fred and I have spent the last couple of days on the verge of deciding not to go to Florida. It’s a 5-hour (if not more) drive, and while we want to BE there, we don’t want to do the drive. It’s really too late to cancel without losing money anyway, and there’s NO way I’m spending the next several days sitting around the house. So it looks like we’re going! At least, as of this very moment we are. Hey, look! More hijinks in the box! Fancypants laying in the box playing dead, while Miz Poo sniffs around to determine whether she needs to put a smackdown on his fancy ass. Miz Poo’s turn in the box. She’s wondering who the hell put that volleyball in there, and how the hell is she supposed to fit her portly ass around it? And now, Spot’s turn. Spot is not comfortable in the box for periods of time any longer than 3 – 4 seconds at a time. Miz Poo, snoozing on the love seat in a weird position. Miz Poo giving looks of annoyed hatred to me because I couldn’t resist petting her, which woke her up.]]>

I used to dream That I would meet a prince But God Almighty, Have you seen what’s happened since? “Master of the house”? Isn’t worth me spit “Comforter, philosopher” And lifelong shit Cunning little brain Regular Voltaire Thinks he’s quite a lover But there’s not much there What a cruel trick of nature Landed me with such a louse God knows how I’ve lasted Living with this bastard in the house! I’ve probably watched the Les Mis tape with Fred 5 or more times, and every time we watch it, I reiterate that I really REALLY want to see it on the stage, but that hasn’t happened yet. I swear to god, if I could sing worth a shit, Fred and I would be the best Thénardiers ever. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hold a tune with a bucket, so I’ll have to continue being Mme Thénardier only in my dreams. When I wasn’t dreaming about that, I was dreaming that I was attending Jessamyn‘s bachelorette party, and I was freaked out that I hadn’t remembered to bring the Krispy Kremes with me. Apparently bachelorette party = Krispy Kremes in my mind. Of course, ANY occasion is a Krispy Kreme occasion, innit? Here’s another sign that Fred and I are perfect for each other. We are in complete agreement that we should spend as little as possible in Florida, so that when we get home, we can spend whatever’s left of our vacation fund on our wish lists. Heh. We’re such dorks. We went to see Minority Report on Saturday, and though I really liked it, I did NOT enjoy sitting next to Billy Bob ShutTheFuckUp, who was compelled, when not clearing his throat loudly and phlegmily, to remark upon each and every plot point. “HAWHAWHAW, it’s all over NOW!” he would say to his wife in a loud and carrying voice. And every time he made a comment, I could feel my blood pressure rising. I’m amazed, given the length of the movie, that I didn’t have a stroke before it was over. I’m even more amazed that I didn’t dump my super-huge-ass Diet Coke over his big stupid head. Grrr. The big excitement for Friday – aside from the chocolate-pecan brownies Fred made – was that we received something in the mail that was contained in a big box. So the box was opened, the item was removed, and the hijinks, they did begin. Fancypants hops in the box, not ten seconds after it’s been emptied, and settles in for a long nap. Miz Poo says snide things about Fancypants to herself, while waiting for her turn in the box. Spanky patiently waits his turn in the box, and in the meantime wonders how he’d look in that blue bra I hung on the end of the banister. Miz Poo finally takes her turn in the box, and gives me a smug look, because she’s not moving her ass out of the box anytime soon, damnit. Fancypants, all excited about his time in the box, runs into the living room and up onto the back of the couch behind Fred, where he kicks up both of his back legs and indulges in a little self-love licking. Not cat related, but see these purty flowers Fred bought me for no reason? He’s mine, ladies. Hands off! ]]>

Go see! I’ll apologize in advance for the winners whose shirts arrive in big-ass padded envelopes. I was missing a few brain cells when I went to Staples earlier this week and thought that 8 medium-sized padded envelopes would be enough to mail 12 t-shirts. Duhr. Speaking of Staples, after my visit there yesterday, I know now why I prefer to shop at Wal-Mart or Target. At Wal-Mart, when you’re checking out, they don’t ask if you needed to buy some packing tape while you’re at it, did you need some paper, and oh yeah – would you like to sign up for their Business Rewards program, wouldya, huh? Or would you like to apply for a Staples card, or maybe buy a computer? At Wal-Mart, they’re just as happy to ring up your shit and see your ass headed out the door where they don’t have to deal with you anymore. I think I’d rather pay an extra dollar for a pack of envelopes at Wal-Mart than have to fend off the obnoxious sales attempts from the people at Staples. We bought a couple of cantaloupes yesterday at a farmer’s market in Hartselle, after we went and picked up our chickens, and now the entire house smells like rotting garbage. I like cantaloupe, but I just can’t stand the fucking smell of them. It could be worse, I suppose. I could be driving from Alabama to Maine with several of the stinky things in the back seat, reeking up the car for 1500 miles. Which reminds me – the spud called last night, and it appears that she’s having a really good time. They’ve been keeping her busy, it sounds like, with trips to Disneyland and Ripley’s and other places. They bought her a pair of cowboy boots and some clothes, and are just generally spoiling her rotten, as I’d predicted. So yesterday morning, I was sitting in front of the computer, when someone carrying a clipboard ran through my front yard, coming from the house on the right-hand side of ours. He looked official, with the clipboard and all, not at ALL like someone trying to SELL something, and so I answered the door when he rang the bell. Actually, I thought he might be one of our neighbors – I swear to god, I don’t remember what any of them look like from one minute to the next – and thought it would be rude not to answer. So I did. And instantly regretted it. Because it took him five minutes of nonstop blathering for me to understand that he was trying to sell a study guide for kids, for $100. Now, if I’d been on my toes, when I opened the door and he smiled and said “Are you the mom?”, I would have said “No, I’m the babysitter, and I’m not supposed to open the door to people I don’t know. Bye!” Regrettably, I did not, and I withstood a long speech from him wherein he invoked the name of every parent and kid in my subdivision, as if he was searching for the magic combination that would make me say “Oh, you know Mr. and Mrs. Smith and little Billy Bob?! WELL COME RIGHT IN AND LET ME GIVE YOU SOME MONEY!” But I only have a half-assed awareness of my neighbors and their names – brought about by the FUCKING mailman and his habit of giving me someone else’s mail twice a month or so – and I don’t know ANY of their kids’ names, so I just smiled blankly at him while he went through his three-mile-long list. Finally, to shut him the hell up, I said “We’ve only lived here for a few months, so I don’t really know anyone outside the cul-de-sac.” See, what I should have done was smile and slam the door shut when I realized he wanted to SELL me something, but he was so NICE and chatty, and I’m such a big freaking wimp that I just stood and listened. And listened and listened and listened. When he appeared to think that he had me on his hook, he said “Is there somewhere that we can sit down?” This, I will remind you dear readers, is probably similar to the tactics Ted Bundy (man, I had to rack my brain for his name, because I just watched the Love Boat special a few days ago, and the only name I could come up with was Fred Grandy – also known as Your Yeoman Purser Burl “Gopher” Smith) used to get into the houses of his poor, unsuspecting victims. Okay, I did read The Stranger Beside Me, and I don’t remember reading that Ted Bundy impersonated door-to-door salesmen to gain access to his victims, but I’m sure it’s only because he didn’t think of it. Readers, if you love me, you will never, NEVER allow someone you don’t know who isn’t a cop (ask for identification, and LOOK at it, don’t just glance at it) inside your home when you’re alone. Even if they think you should let them in, even if they seem like perfectly nice people, please please please don’t do it. Be rude and slam the door shut if you have to, because who gives a shit if somone you don’t know thinks you’re a bitch? For me, please? Anyway. So when he asked if there was somewhere we could sit down, I told him I was about to leave for a hair appointment, and I don’t think it was a particularly believable lie since I’d actually already had my hair done, but he pretended to believe me, asked me a few questions about some other neighbors (to which I said, mostly, “I don’t know.”), and asked if he could stop by that afternoon. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll be home after four.” I had forgotten that we were to drive to Hartselle to pick up our chickens, but I knew that Fred would be home by four, and Fred has NO problem being rude to perfectly nice boys, and even slamming the door in their face if need be. But, as I mentioned, we weren’t home after four, and in fact we weren’t home until well after six, and I didn’t know whether the saleskiller had come and gone or hadn’t bothered coming back, but I hoped that that would be the last I’d have to worry about him. Come 10:30 this morning, as I was sitting in front of the computer, about to start getting the free stuff ready for shipping, I glanced up and saw him pulling up in front of the house. I grabbed my Big-Ass cup of Diet Coke and ran into the living room, where I sat and read while he knocked on the door, rang the doorbell, and knocked on the door again. Hopefully THAT will be the last I’ll see of him. Today at the post office? Another good mail day! I won a knitted purse thingy from a certain miz Say (and big thanks to the rockin’ Dante, who chose my number), and can I just say I love it? It’s so SOFT, and I just love the color. I think I shall put it in my purse and keep my treasures in it. Now all I need are some treasures. When was the last time you… 1. …sent a handwritten letter? I probably haven’t sent a handwritten letter since Fred and I were “courting”, and we would send handwritten letters as well as email 45,000 times a day. Before that, it was probably a few years, because I sent letters to my sister, but always typed them up on the word processor. I do always write out my thank-you cards by hand, and I did one of those just yesterday, but that probably doesn’t count, does it? 2. …baked something from scratch or made something by hand? The last time I made something from scratch is when I sent Joanna cookies for the TMS Secret Pal giveaway thingy in March or April. Well, wait. I make dinner from scratch at least 5 nights a week, does that count? I just finished a cross-stitch Christmas ornament last night, too. 3. …camped in a tent? God, I think I was probably 15 the last time I went camping. I was supposed to spend the night in a tent for the 3-Day last October, but I twisted my ankle before that could happen. 4. …volunteered your time to church, school, or community? Uh. I haven’t got a clue. 5. …helped a stranger? Again, I don’t know. If I were to see a stranger who needed help, I’d help out and think nothing of it. We give stuff to the Downtown Rescue Mission regularly, and contribute to various charities, does that count? ]]>