Category: Life

Who Wants to be a Millionaire? went seven minutes over last night? I was hugely peeved; enraged, even. We intended to go to bed as soon as it was over, and tape ER. Only we couldn’t tape ER, because ER was on channel 5, and Millionaire was on channel 12, and the tv had to be tuned in to channel 5 to tape channel 5. Finally, I grabbed the tape out of the VCR in the living room and ran into the bedroom and threw it in the VCR there, and got it taping. Oh, I was so furious. It’s just so fucking rude and presumptuous to assume "Oh, we can go a few minutes over, it’s not like there’s anything else they want to watch!" Like they couldn’t have cut 7 minutes worth of Regis’ yammering, or Ray Romano making smartass comments? I think they could have if they’d wanted. I told Fred that I am never, NEVER watching that fucking show again. He doesn’t believe me, but I’m dead serious. Grrrrr. I have taken up shaving my legs in the shower. Until now, I’ve always sat on the edge of the bathtub upstairs and shaved my legs, but it’s such a pain in the ass that I decided I’d just do it in the shower from now on. This morning, I failed to put my contacts in before I took my shower, so that was fun, standing there squinting down at my leg trying to figure where I’d left off. I also cut the fuck out of my leg. And not on the delicate, difficult ankle portion, but the flat, straight just below my knee portion. It bled like a motherfucker after I got out of the shower, and when I’d decided it had stopped, I used a damp tissue to wipe up the dried blood, which only pissed off the cut, it appears, because there’s another big dry patch of blood there now. Spanky is howling his fool head off, and I’m afraid I may have to throw something at him. Oh, now he’s in the bathroom, telling his woes to the toilet seat. He’s the biggest damn howling-for-no-reason momma’s boy I’ve ever seen. When I was but a wee child, I asked my mother if the people in soap operas were really kissing each other, or if they used trick photography to make it look like they were kissing. She informed me that they were really kissing ("For god’s sake, how would they do TRICK PHOTOGRAPHY?") and I was less than pleased. It freaked me out that people who weren’t involved with each other were kissing each other like that. I don’t know why that memory popped into my mind; maybe because I spent a good part of the morning watching the last two week’s worth of The Bold and the Beautiful, and they really go at it on that show. The TV is now on MTV, and Christina Aguilera and some of her bimbo friends are talking about her favorite videos. God, please tell me when I was 19 I didn’t sound that much like an airhead… Okay, enough rambling from me. Happy Cinco de Mayo! ]]>

cat because they are nice and fat. 5. If I were a cat, I would be fancy because I like to be fancy. I bet her teacher was wondering about that "fancy" part. (We refer to Mr. Fancypants as "being fancy" when he prances across the room with his long hairs blowing in the breeze. He’s also "fancy" when he rolls onto his back and curls his front paws under his chin, asking for a belly rub.) God. Remind me to never go to Wal-Mart after 8 am ever EVER again. I had a list of stuff to pick up for the spud’s trip to DC, and I figured since it was 10 in the morning there wouldn’t be many people there, ’cause HEY it’s a WORK day, right? Wrooooooong. The place was packed, and I couldn’t go two feet without having to stop and wait for someone to get the hell out of my way. While I was looking at the shampoo, a lady and her four year old son were nearby. The kid was asking questions incessantly, and she diligently answered every one of his questions. Finally, she snapped. "BECAUSE YOU’RE HOLDING THE COUPONS UNTIL I NEED THEM!" she snarled in his surprised little face. Then she realized there were people nearby, and she added a hasty, honey-covered "Sweet pea!" to the end of her sentence. I wanted to smirk and say nice try, lady, but I remember those days only too well. Last week, I think they were… I was just getting out of the shower when the cleaning lady showed up this morning – it wasn’t even 8:00, so she startled the hell out of me. No, she didn’t walk in on me or anything. I could hear her calling "Helloooooo" from upstairs when I was drying myself off, so I peeked out the door and yelled "Hi!" I put my nightgown on (I usually go back upstairs to get dressed, since that’s where my clothes are) and settled in at the computer while she cleaned. The kitten was all over me, meowing and purring and rubbing her head on me, so I think she noticed it’s unusual for me to be here while the cleaning lady is here. I guess I can call her "Carolyn" instead of "the cleaning lady", since that’s her name. Every time Carolyn would come down the stairs, the kitten, who was napping on the pillow on my desk, would flatten herself down as far as she could, and peer over the edge of her pillow, her pupils getting all big and dark, as if she were about to attack. She never actually did attack, but she sure put on a show – it was adorable. We were flipping channels last night – I guess I should say FRED was flipping channels – and came across a news show about Mary Kay Letourneau. As usual when it comes to this sort of thing, I knew far more about the case than Fred (can you believe he has no recollection whatsoever of the Pam Smart case?) and so I was hitting the highlights of it for him. The spud was sitting right there listening to my entire explanation, and when Fred went to answer the door a few minutes later, she started asking questions. I think her main problem was in understanding that women can be sexual predators, a concept she had to really wrestle with. It wasn’t until I said "I think she’s messed up in the head" that something clicked for her. Later in bed, Fred asked me if I thought it impossible that Mary Kay could have really fallen in love with Vili Fualaau; they said on TV that she still wants to marry him someday. I’m sure in her own way, she really does love him, but does that negate the fact that it’s wrong? She’s a woman in her thirties, and he was a 12 year-old boy. How fucked up do you have to be, to be in your thirties and be sexually attracted to a child? You really have to have something wired wrong for that to happen, I think. Fred went on to point out that there was a time when it wouldn’t have been uncommon for a man his age to marry a 12 or 13 year old. "Not that I’m saying it’s right," he went on to say. I think people have an unfortunate tendency to think that old ways were simpler, and therefore right. But we’re evolving, at least I hope we are, not devolving, and just because that’s the way things used to be doesn’t mean that that’s the way they should be. While I was looking for a Mary Kay Letourneau link, I came across someone who said, in essence, "People fall in love. It’s beyond the mind." No, I’m sorry, that’s bullshit. It’s not "beyond the mind", and along those lines it’s not a defense to say "The heart wants what it wants" (where did I read that, anyone know? I can’t seem to pin it down). Sleeping with a child is wrong, and if your heart leads you to do so, your heart is wrong. It’s wrong. Can I say it plainer than that?
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happened? Why all of a sudden is her big scary clown face all over the place talking about it? She was on the cover of Redbook or some other magazine of it’s ilk (they all blend together; maybe it was Ladies’ Home Journal) with the quote "Sometimes when you can’t forgive your husband, you have to forgive your children’s father" under the picture of her and her two funny-looking kids (I’m sorry, it’s true. Cody’d never get any kind of acting job if his mother weren’t Kathie Lee. You know it and I know it). Now she and Frank are going to be on Dateline 20 Minutes or one of those newsmagazine shows, and whatcha s’pose they’re going to be talking about? Why, Frank’s infidelity and how much pain it caused Kathie Lee, of course. Get over it, Kathie Lee; we sure have. And don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way to obscurity. Buh-bye. Do you suppose it’s her way of getting her revenge? Just keep bringing it up, like her goal is to talk about it and "We can help other couples who are going through this very thing, Frank! Of course, other husbands might choose someone other than a not-very-good-looking bleached blonde bimbo ho to fuck, but – what? I’m just saying…" So Fred and I watched most of Dogma last night, and the rest of it this afternoon. I liked it a lot – that Jay is one rude motherfucker – but then, I don’t carry all that Catholic angst around with me, either. Matt Damon was surprisingly funny, and it was good to see the actors who played Dante and Randall in Clerks again. Today, my errand-running consisted of going to Bruno’s Pharmacy to pick up my birth control refill, and then taking the pictures I gave to Fred as presents for his birthday last year to be framed. The framing of those pictures is his birthday present this year. I intended to go to a framing store across from Bruno’s, but I arrived in the little strip mall to find that where it had previously been is now a martial arts center. I drove around Madison, searching in vain at all the strip malls on Highway 72 for frame stores, and finally called Fred and asked him to look in the phone book to see if there were any frame stores anywhere in Madison. We finally located one, and I headed there. Once there, I discovered that I’d only brought three of the five pictures with me, so after I picked frames for the ones I’d brought, I ran home (figuratively speaking) and got the other two and brought them back to the framing store. Just like yesterday, it was almost 1:30 before I got around to eating anything, and by then I was STARVED. As I was settling down with a cheeseburger and fries from Burger King (yes, VERY BAD Robyn, buying junky fast food instead of eating something homemade!) the kitten walked through my little bowl of ketchup with her big fat back foot, leaving litter pieces behind, which made me gag, the very thought of it, and I couldn’t finish my meal. Anyway. The spud is going to Washington, DC with a bunch of other 5th graders, some 5th grade teachers, and parent-chaperones next week. They leave at 4:30 am Sunday morning, and will be back Friday morning at 8 am. I kind of wish I’d known I wouldn’t be working anymore last Fall, when I signed her up to go, ’cause I wouldn’t mind going to DC myself. I was there once with Fred – the weekend we met, as a matter of fact – but it’s all a sleep-deprived blur, except for the incredible lemonade in Union Station (is that right, Union Station? I think it is) and the fact that I walked around for a good ten minutes with crumbs all over the front of my blouse from the pizza I had with that lemonade before I realized they were there and brushed them off. To this day, I give Fred hell for not telling me they were there. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that we go to Destin later this month. Fred doesn’t like to talk every detail to death like I do, damn him, so I haven’t been bringing up the subject. He said the other day "What I’d like to do is not think about it, and then just do it when the time comes." So I’ve been VERY good about not bringing it up compulsively like I WANT to. Of course, this whole paragraph is completely passive-aggressive, because he reads my journal every day or every few days, so this way I’m making sure he knows I still want to go. Hey, at least I admit it. —–]]>

Dogma with Fred, and then watch Millionaire with Fred and the spud. I know y’all are jealous of my life of excitement! (Every entry won’t be a laundry list of my day, I promise. This not-working thing is still new to me!)
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tour, Spanky was taking his turn, sticking his nose under the bag and trying to crawl under there. "How cute," I thought to myself. "Maybe I’ll take a picture of him doing that when I come back down." So I was upstairs in the bedroom taking pictures, when I heard a pounding sound, and then a rustling sound. I looked up to see a plastic bag come tumbling through the door and then head for the bathroom. Assuming, for some reason, that Fred had thrown a bag at me, I stood there and watched the bag go by, thinking to myself "How did he get it to keep going like that?" The bag flew through the bathroom and into the closet, and turned around, and only then could I tell that it was the bag from downstairs, with Spanky’s neck stuck through one of the carry-holes. When Spanky realized there was no sanctuary from the plastic bag in the closet, he flew back out through the bathroom, towards me, with his ears laid flat back against his head and an insane gleam in his eye. Naturally, I screamed in terror (hey, he ran across my face once when he was scared, and it’s scarred me mentally for life) not once, but twice. Who knew what sort of insane kitty-running-from-the-bag thing he would do? Well, what he did is run under the bed, which was the only safe place his freaked-out kitty mind could come up with. Fred came into the room and shut the door so Spanky couldn’t continue to run pell-mell through the house. As I danced around, laughing so hard I could barely stand, he reached under the bed and took the bag off of Spanky. Spanky stayed under the bed, despite our coaxing, from then until about 8:00 this morning, and he only stayed out from under the bed for about two hours before taking refuge again. Obviously it’s safer under the bed, amongst the tons and tons of cat hair and hundreds of stray earplugs. The pool temp hit close enough to 75 yesterday that I finally went swimming. Well, Fred claimed it was 73 1/2, but I found out later that he’d only been lying to get me in the pool, and it was only 73. The bastard! He came up with the greatest idea, though. While he was at Toys R Us, he passed the sale rack, and saw a 5-foot inflatable child’s swimming pool, so he brought it home, blew it up, and we put it IN the big pool, and took turns floating around the pool in it! I could easily imagine taking a nap while floating around in it sometime. It was great! We all went swimming when the spud got home from school today, and though the pool temp was 74, the sun wasn’t out, so it didn’t feel as warm as yesterday. It’s only a matter of time before it’s warm enough that we can go skinny-dipping at night after the spud’s gone to bed…
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Oh, that’s right, I said to myself. Yesterday was the 28th, so today’s the 29th. April 29th. Hm. April 29th, yep, it sure is. 29th of April… (long pause) HOLY GOD IN HEAVEN, IT’S MOM’S BIRTHDAY TODAY! I probably don’t need to tell you that I completely forgot that her birthday was coming up. I don’t think it’s so much as crossed my mind for an instant since sometime in March, when I said to myself, Mom’s birthday is next, on April 29th. Oh, I’ve got ages and ages yet before I need to worry about that! Thank god for FTD. Once I got home, I sat right down at the computer and sent her a rather large arrangement of flowers. I made the deadline, so they should get there today. I hope. I also sent her an online card from the three of us, so that should do it. Over the past few years, I’ve gotten to the point where I just send her flowers and maybe chocolates for her birthday, because I can’t think of anything else she’d like. Debbie, on the other hand, I could buy something for every day and never run out of things to buy. She’s the easiest person in the world to buy for, aside from the spud, but when it comes to anyone else, there’s just a big question mark over my head. Even Fred is hard to buy for sometimes. I’m sure when the flowers arrive this afternoon, Mom will roll her eyes and say "Oh, how original. FLOWERS." So Fred and I are thinking about taking a 3-day weekend trip to Destin, Florida the weekend after the spud is done with school (her last day of school is May 18th, can you believe that???) He and I went to the Destin area three summers ago, and it was great except for the fact that we went on the 4th of July weekend. Could we have been any dumber? I don’t think so! There were a bunch of rowdy college boys staying in our hotel, and the day we left, I went down to the beach to get a jar of ocean water and a jar of sand, and while I was on the beach about ten of them crowded around the boardwalk you had to walk up to get back to the hotel, and just sat there and shot the shit. I waited and waited for them to leave, but after about half an hour, I sucked it up and walked past them. They didn’t say anything, but I could feel them looking at me, and I wanted to smack them upside their tanned, toned heads. Even now, Fred and I talk about that, and we refer to it as my "Walking the gauntlet." I know, we’re total drama queens, aren’t we? I hope we do end up going to Florida, instead of just talking about it and deciding not to go, the way we usually do. I’m feeling a craving for shrimp and raw oysters… —–]]>

teevee.org? It’s usually pretty humorous, but this week is "TV Turn-off Week," and so they’re writing about anything but TV. James Collier is particularly funny this week. Go read this one, this one, and this one. Go on, now, I’ll wait here. Okay, that was kind of a gyp because you’re probably expecting more of an entry, but I’m going to duck out of here and go watch Fred flip channels while I finish reading last month’s Cosmo. Have a good weekend! —–]]>

oooh and ahhhh. Hey, what can I say? I live to please you, my beloved readers. —–]]>

are incredibly scintillating and fascinating, why do you ask?). I mentioned that every morning, if I’m laying on my stomach when the kitten is wanting some Mommy love, she takes her ice-cold paw and pats my side until I wake up and turn over onto my side. "What does she do then?" Fred asked, trying to sound interested. "She flops down so I’ll rub her tummy," I said. "She used to climb up on me and lay like a muffler, but she doesn’t do that anymore." There was a long, long silence while he thought about it. "Um… you mean, she lies on your butt to muffle your farts?" he ventured. Aghast, I partially sat up and stared at him. "NO," I half-yelled. "Like a MUFFLER, a SCARF." "OH!" he said, laughing. "That’s a YANKEE word." He always blames it on my being a Yankee if he misunderstands something I say. I tried to get the kitten to come with me to run errands this morning – hey, other people take their dogs with them, why not take a cat? – but I couldn’t get her into the garage come hell or high water. I guess she remembers that every time I carry her into the garage (though it’s always been in a carrier) someone ends up sticking something up her butt. I guess I wouldn’t be a big fan of the garage in that case, either. —–]]>