Family Cooties

My daddy turned 18 last Saturday. 

Well, that's what he told ME when I asked how old he was. Eighteen, dad? Did you invent time travel in delusion land?

He sat there grinning and said, "Just hold it up to a mirror." Great. My dad thinks he is Leonardo da Vinci now. Yeah, that makes me 25 again~! Which, when you think about it, still makes me older than he is. Stupid mirror. No wonder Alice had a heck of a time in wonderland. 

We were in Old Town San Diego for his birthday at Cafe Coyote. A HUGE Mexican restaurant. My sister and her boys were there, my brother, his wife and sons were there, my baby brother and JuJuBeez, my daughter and Mr. Guitar Player, and, of course, my mom. My parents have been married for 53 years and they crack me up. 

My brother took all the boys to the haunted Whaley House and cemetery and all the other girls went shopping. It was an absolutely beautiful day in San Diego and there were lots of people walking and shopping and browsing. Because my dad's lungs are shot and he has a hard time with his git up and go, we sat in the bar. Large windows were open and you could watch everyone walk by or watch TV. 



We ordered drinks. My mom ordered a coke because I think in her entire life she has had maybe ten drinks. My dad gets a beer and, of course, I order Jack and diet. My mom's soda turns out to be a small Olympic swimming pool. Bubbly carbonated dog paddle heaven. 

I whined for guacamole which turned out to be delicious. Okay, I try not to double dip. My mom is Ms. Fastidious and I have friends who are champion germaphobes, so I was being good. Honest. My dad is using his fork to load up his chips with guacamole. I have been watching though and he never put the fork in his mouth. It was just a convenient shovel for guac goodness. My mom sees him put the fork in the guacamole and has a cow. 

"Don't put your fork in there! You have cooties."

He looks at her with a slightly owlish expression. I can see his brain churning out just the perfect response to make her go crazy.

"But, Rosie, these are FAMILY cooties, so they don't count." 

I wish I could convey the sound my mom makes when someone says something she considers ridiculous or makes an argument she can't refute. We all do it to tease her because it is so uniquely hers. Usually she says it to the kids, "Ack, mijo." But the ack is not really an ack. Okay, just put a slight accent on it and you've got it. 

She acks his argument and won't touch the guacamole which suits me just fine. Until Teddy Bear shows up and then proceeds to demolish the rest of the dip. Dang. She is grandpa's favorite. Totally not fair. She can do no wrong in his eyes which is one reason he is a wonderful grandpa.


So, Happy Birthday, Dad~! I love you.

Doo Dah Band and Death Cab for Cutie

Dang. You can teach an old dog new tricks. 

I was in the car with Teddy Bear and Mr. Guitar Player (who really plays the guitar well) driving home from dinner. The song "I Will Possess Your Heart" came on by Death Cab for Cutie. 

Okay, what kind of name is Death Cab for Cutie and how on earth did they come up with that. Mr Guitar Player knew exactly where the name came from....The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band from the 1960s. They did a song called "Death Cab for Cutie" produced by Paul McCartney no less. 

Hoocoodanode? 

I swear I think I was sleepwalking through the 1960s and 1970s. Teddy Bear knows the music from that era better than I do. Well, she knows the bands and who's who, but the songs bring back vivid memories. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon...well, I'm sure the memories are good but I was either drunk or stoned and so they are rather vague. 



Tomorrow is my dad's birthday, so I will be down in San Diego playing with the family. Maybe we will hear the Mexican version of the doo-dah band...

G'ma Fail

I am the oldest of five...with three younger brothers. You would think I would know how to rough house with the best of them. But, apparently, I don't.

When I was young watching my brothers "play" together, I thought they were the biggest dopes. They would roll around the floor hollering and carrying on like they were taking each others head off. Strangling, screaming, yelling, punching. Yeah, I thought they were a strange species of human being that my poor mother was inflicted with and was too nice to send them back. They would fight and play and then...inevitably...one would get hurt. Like, duh. But what I thought was unbelievably moronic was they would go running to mom to seek retribution. 

Even back then I thought to myself, if they were my kids, I would have hit their heads together to render them unconscious. Did they really think my mom was stupid? Like she hadn't just been listening to their mayhem and nonsense and no way was she picking a side? She would yell at both of them and they would sniffle and get bent out of shape at the total unfairness of moms...and then go back to playing. 

I truly thought boys were the most irrational things in the world for years. 

Now, it is coming back to haunt me. I babysat my grandson today, two year old Z, and I realize being a girl is definitely a strike against me. His dad is one of seven...five of them boys, so little Z has tons of uncles who love to play rough. And my ex totally is the love of his life. Papa has a hangar for his plane and I guess he takes Z there and they run around and play like crazy.  I always used to call it the play house for big boys. 

We walked to the park. Well, he got spooked by some girls and made me carry him and push his little car at the same time. Man, those mom muscles are atrophied. He ran up the steps, hung from the top of the slide, and I thought he was going to pitch himself off the top. I was having a coronary. Do you stay at the bottom to catch him? Do you stay on the top to stop them? Do you have any idea how long it has been since I went down a slide? I am positive I have slide burn. 

But I was boring...so he marched off to his little car and proceeded to push it all over the neighborhood. Did you know two year olds will throw themselves to the sidewalk just to check out what's underneath a car? He had to point to every tire we went by and tell me to "Look at dat." 

We made it to his house, I made him lunch, he pretended to eat it. Then a smell started to waft around me. A stench of suspicious origin. Uh oh. I should probably tell you that the older I get the worse my gag reflex gets and, oh no, it was starting to kick in. 

"Z, I need to change your diaper." 

He ran away and hid in the living room. I finally managed to corral him and pretended he was a rocket and he let me carry him into the family room but he was not all that pleased with me. 

Until I started to change his diaper. 

Oh my, he was belly laughing. I thought for sure he was going to pee in my face he was laughing so hard. Why? Because G'ma was gagging and coughing and her eyes were running. He thought that was absolutely the funniest thing ever. And that's when it hit me....


Oh my god, he has been taken over by an alien species.

New Patient History and Physical

Patient Name: Happy Hour...Somewhere
#1234

Date: April 9, 2010

Chief Complaint: Ennui. 

History of Present Illness: The patient is a slightly overweight 52-year-old female who appears somewhat jittery and tends to perseverate on what is wrong. Tended to go off on wild tangents and ramble. She said she has been bored for the last several months. When pressed on the issue, she claims she has to be bored because she is starting to know more reality TV people than real people. RuPaul's Drag Race is the bomb. The Real Housewives of New York drive her crazy but she cannot stop watching. Will Jill pull her head out of her arse? Will Bethenny ever shut up? Will LuAnn shed her skin? Will Ramona finally have her head spin off? Will Alex realize Simon is gay? (I will have to investigate this further.) At this point, I had to bring the patient back to reality (ha, ha) and continue with the evaluation. 

Past medical history: Usual childhood illnesses. History of breaking a windshield with her head, which may explain a lot. 

Past surgical history: Something about tubes and baby factory closed down...probable tubal ligation. 

Medications: None but badly in need of something. 

Allergies: No known drug allergies but totally seems allergic to keeping her story straight. 

Social history: No smoking history but I smelled cigarettes on her. She said she just snuck a puff from her friend's son. Claim to drink alcohol rarely but wears a Jack Daniels t-shirt. I would say she is a moderate drinker. 

Review of systems: Patient checked off no to everything....whatever. 

Physical Examination: 
General: A slightly overweight, somewhat anxious, 52-year-old female who appears her stated age. (The patient was a little huffy with this assessment.)

Vital signs: Weight: Patient refused to get on scale and got quite belligerent with the staff. Claims we always lie and step on the scale when she is not looking so she weighs more. (Possible paranoia?) Height: Short. Blood pressure: Through the roof. Pulse: Whoa boy! 

HEENT:
Head: Small, slightly pointy. Old bump on forehead. 
Eyes: Check thyroid as eyes are slightly buggy. Pupils dilated. (Perform random urine drug screen.)
Ears: Possible hearing loss as her kids claim she never listens. 
Nose: Pollybeak deformity.
Throat: Turkey wattle deformity. 

Skin: Pasty. Vampire like. 

Genitourinary: She said the next man that got a gander at her happy place better not be slapping a speculum there. 

Rectal: The patient said "as if." 

Musculoskeletal: Moved all 4 extremities well but a little spastic. Reflexes slightly hyperreflexic. 

Neurologic: Cranial nerves II-XII are intact except for hearing. Failed memory test. Had no idea of the date. Wanted to know if it was 2012 yet and something about the end of the world. 

Radiographic studies: MRI of the head showed nothing. Ditto a CT scan. 

Diagnosis:   Ennui.

Assessment and plan: 
1.   Boring people are bored. 
2.   Get out. Do Happy Hour at least once a week. 
3.   Sit at the coffee shop with your friends once a week. 
4.   Get outside. Told the patient she would not sparkle or turn into dust.
5.   Take the dang dog for a walk. 


Signed by Dr. Know It All

See, this is why I never go to the doctor. They write fiction. 

Sometimes It Pays to Look Stupid

Do you ever look back and wonder how you made to the age you are now? How on earth can someone that dumb have made it? No?

Sigh.

Have you ever been stuck on the side of a freeway? When you suddenly realize just how fast 80 mph is and you hope you don't end up like the bugs on your front bumper?

I was listening to the radio and the guy was talking about the goings at Griffith Park. Some sort of shenanigans in the bushes. Now, I'm sure his shenanigans were different than the ones I experienced. 

Picture it. Around Mother's Day...sometime in the early '80s. (My frontal lobes refuse to cough up the date.) We are taking my mom to a play in Los Angeles. I am following the crew in my 1984 Honda Accord, affectionately known as Suzie the Squirrel Killer. Headed east on the 134 getting ready to transition to the 5 southbound. Right there near Forest Lawn, the Los Angeles Zoo, Griffith Park. It is Sunday morning so it is quiet. Hardly any traffic. 

And Suzie decides to drop her nut basket. She just coughs and dies. I firmly believe that I have an overworked and underpaid guardian angel because I coast into a big dirt turn out with a Call Box phone right in front of me. It is almost comical to think how antiquated those seem now in the era of cell phones. I try to restart Suzie but she will have none of that and my family is oblivious to the fact that I am no longer behind them. 


I am dressed in nice cream colored slacks and silky shirt and really nice shoes....totally different than my usual jeans and sneakers. I feel so stupid. I walk to the Call Box and try to figure out how it works. The nice lady who answers is pretty emphatic. Are you on the freeway or pulled over to the side? I tell her I am in a turn out and she sounds relieved. I am told to get back in my car and put on my seat belt and someone will be on their way. 


Thank heaven it is a nice day. I get back in the car, put on my seat belt, roll down the windows and start to turn on the radio. D'oh! Car broken. Probably for the first time in my life my car is not littered with at least 5 books. (I used to think of my car as a giant purse back then.) This is going to be soooooooo borrrriiiinnnngggg. 


As I sit there feeling sorry for myself, a car pulls into the turn out. It is a big area and the car is at least 100 feet away. Do you remember when cars were the size of aircraft carriers? With trunks that could easily fit a Mini Cooper? Well, that's what pulls in behind me. A big man gets out of his car. Hollywood could not have picked a more cheesy stereotype of scary guy. 


Gulp. Trying not to look like I just had the shit scared out of me, I try to ever so casually roll up my windows. You know, I mean really ROLL up the windows, like in the olden days. I manage to do it and lock my doors and I start sweating like mad. I look in my rear view mirror. He is looking at me and smirking. He reaches back into his car, picks something up, and then closes his door. 


Gulp. 


He is putting on a pair of work gloves. ohmygod. ohmygod. ohmygod. I'm going to die and no one will ever know what happened to me!


Mr. Goon puts on his gloves, walks to the ginormous trunk and opens it up. Probably looking for rope and duct tape. He fiddles around a little while. 


I on the other hand look like I have been hypnotized by a snake. I'm sure my mouth is hanging open but I can't move a muscle. When it comes to fight or flight, I chose the third option....pretend you're a statue. 


He walks out from behind his car and walks toward the bushes. What??? He is digging around in there for a while. What is he doing? He walks back to his trunk carrying wrapped packages of something. He goes back and forth. Back and forth. Did UPS drop a load of his in the bushes? What is he doing and what are those packages? 




He finishes his groping in the bushes and shuts the trunk. He takes off his gloves. Okay, maybe I'm going to live after all. He doesn't want fingerprints on my throat, right?


He gets in his car, starts his engine, adjusts his mirror to check himself out, and starts to drive away. As he passes me, he looks over at me. That sonofabitch actually looks like he is trying not to laugh. 


Do you know how many years later did I realize just what the heck he was up to? Little packages of cocaine or heroin. (I don't think it was weed.) Can you imagine if I had had to take a whizz and went into the bushes and tinkled on their stuff? Light tan bricks of urine flavored coke? I still have a heart attack thinking about it.


I can only guess that I must have looked clueless, gullible, and oblivious enough to reality so he figured he had nothing to worry about. 

Like I said, sometimes it pays to at least look stupid.

Yummy! Spam is Delicious...No, really...Come Back

Actually, I don't remember the last time I ate Spam. 

Unfortunately, I think a truckload backed up to my bloggy house lately. Full of goo and yuck. Went into almost every room in my bloggy house. Left nasty pictures...or bragged about a gambling problem...even spoke in languages I am not sure are human. (Maybe the aliens from District 9 escaped and instead of cat food, they are enjoying Spam.)

For the next week or so, I will have word verification on my comments so Anonymous will hopefully leave me alone for a while.  The little pecker. One guy is super relentless in invading my bloggy house. Here is a sample of the goo he leaves behind.


I know you and your friends are memebers on this site Erica... Well guess what? Now they get to see you slutty naked ass! HAHAHAH. Just go to gf4free.com/members/surferdude23/ Enjoy!

gf4free.com/members/surferdude23/][img]http://www.gf4free.com/members/surferdude23/uploads/9.  

Does anybody in their right minds click on any of these links? It is like answering the Nigerian e-mail scam. Even if all you have is two brain cells karooming around your brain like the Los Angeles Thunderbirds jamming around a rink, at some point they make contact, and you realize some things are just too stupid to believe. 




The rest of you can spam me all you want as usual.

I Have Greeeeeeeeen Pee Pee

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

I wish you could have seen it. Who was this girl? Wild hair. Kinda braggy attitude. Flying out of the bathroom to announce to one and all, and this must be said in a sing song voice: 

" I have greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen pee pee!"

Being the slightly oddball person that I am, I had to investigate. 

"Did you flush?"

"No."

I cross the room and take a peek in the potty. Well, looky there. Green pee pee. I flush the toilet. (Practicing my manners.)

Oh, look. Blue water. 

Being the highly intelligent proto scientist, I ponder this. Blue water. Yellow pee. 


Blue + Yellow = Green


Elementary, my dear, Watson. 


Teddy Bear was quite proud of herself. How many five-year-olds can manufacture greeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen pee pee?


I told her that was her Irish coming out. 


What? 


You have to be Irish to kiss the Blarney Stone? (Perhaps we need to invent Mexican Malarkey.)

A Picture is Worth....Ah, Heck.

Dang. And I thought it would be safe to go on chemistry.com or even e-harmony.

It gave me some good ideas...you know, highlight the good bits and downplay the bad bits. Does anybody have an x-ray machine so I can display my awesome pancreas? Also, I think my olecranon rocks. 

In a flagrant pilfering of ideas, I was clicking through blog land and saw Bill at Just a Moment of Miscellany's post on Fractals and just had to pop in. The whole mathematical backdrop for fractals is interesting to me...and then I remembered an old post of mine on fractals. So I decided to re-post it. Because Fractals and Fonts make a good combo....like Jack Daniels and almost anything.

Wow. Pilfering and laziness in one blog post. 

Font Conference by collegehumor.com.

Just thinking out loud. Finding your first gray hair will do that for you. That, and a bottle of Jack Daniels to drown your sorrows. My sister-in-law plucked out the gray hair for me. I know. You're not supposed to do that because it will bring all its little buddies with it, but somehow I just could not stand to know it was there. As if being 51 didn't suck enough.

Anyways, I was reading an article, which for the life of me I cannot find on Yahoo, about people getting their panties in a bunch about Comic Sans and wanting to ban it. Yeah, banning a font. A FONT. Did you know there is a documentary out there about the Helvetica font? It looks fascinating and I really want to see it now. But what got me thinking was no matter how much you look into a subject, you can still go deeper into it. People were waxing poetic on fonts and typography and I totally get it. The love and fascination for graphic design and typography. I started doing what always gets me into trouble, jumping from link to link to learn more about a subject, and the more I looked the deeper the subject went and finding out how much there is out there which I have no clue about.

It got me thinking about fractals. You start with a formula, create an image, and when you zoom in on that image, it continues to stay complex and interesting no matter, it seems, how much you zoom in. (My understanding of fractals is strictly an amateur's fascination. I may be totally full of shit here, but this is what I know...so far.) What is a fractal? Ah, this video might help.



Well, I'm off to go play with Times New Roman. Well, one doc likes his transcription in Arial. Maybe I should invoice in Comic Sans....nah, the docs already think I rob them blind and will not appreciate the comical light-hearted touch I think. I should make it something tough and bossy. Helvetica sounds bossy but I'm not sure.

Any ideas? 





 

If You Have a Bucket, I Have a Tune

I truly cannot carry a tune. I hum off key. The shower runs in terror when I hop in. 

But I love these guys. Just belting out this song. 

I live in trepidation for the day I get snockered enough to do karaoke...I know it will end up on YouTube. I will end up like this lady. 




Yes, yes, I know I will. 


I went looking for a nice sweet video on YouTube about grandmas and grandsons so I could prattle on about my grandson turning 2 on March 1st.


Look, it's hard enough to BE a grandma when I look in the mirror and I don't SEE a grandma. I don't have gray hair. I don't wear house dresses all day. (Shut up. Sweats don't count.) My hair is not in a bun. You might starve to death in my house because I hardly ever cook.

This is me as the mother of the bride. Okay, so I look like I'm already out to lunch and the wedding had not even started. My oldest daughter, the Hot Tamale, is the bride, and Teddy Bear, my youngest is third from the left. 

But HT made me a grandma...and she is due again in June. I am on a hunt for a name still. My mom is Grandma, so it gets confusing when we are all together. 


Well, I get to baby-sit tonight. Little Z doesn't really talk yet, so I have a chance to pick a name for myself and persuade him to call me that.  


I won't be singing Little Z to sleep tonight because I'm sure then he would think up a good name to call me. 


I could be Granny Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........

Flukes and Spouts

I wonder if whales have a sense of humor? Do you think that they ponder our existence at all? Or are we like squawking seagulls dropping doo doo over their heads? You know--loud, obnoxious, bossy, pushy, messy.

Yes, we went out whaling again and this time we got us some whales. One hundred ninety people shooting at them like mad. It was a mess. I thought we would capsize every time they would say, "Whale at 3 o'clock!" and everyone would stampede to the keelhaul side, which is nautical speak for the right side of the boat. The left side is the peg leg side, the front of the boat is aye matey, and the back of the boat is the poopdeck side. I am so educated on those terms now. (There is some fancy measurement on when a boat becomes a ship, something like if it is longer than 150 yellow rubber duckies it is a ship.)

I felt kinda of bad for the little kids on board. (Yes, yes. There were little kids on the boat. No, I didn't heave any of them overboard. I was the model of restraint.) I mean, they totally don't get the o'clock stuff. We are going to have to invent a whole new way to do that. They have no idea how to tell time. My Teddy Bear got a fancy new watch for Christmas and she loves wearing it because it's pretty, but do not ask what time it is. She will pull out her cell phone. She says the watch is just a fashion accessory, it's not really meant to tell you the time. How could it be she tells me...there are no numbers on it, only little lines. Whatever. Sesame Street needs to get cracking on this problem.

Anywho, whales, dolphins, and sea lions were out in force...and so were the looky loos. Not us, of course. We motored out past buoy SD-1. Sailboats were far out on the horizon. The San Diego skyline was off to our left looking beautiful. I had a Bloody Mary in hand. Sunlight sparkling off the water. Life was beautiful. Except for all the people on the boat. If you remember, the last time we went whaling, it was raining and there was maybe 30 people on that excursion. This time it was sunny but not hot and we were packed like sardines with 190 people. And thank heavens the little kids stayed on the middle deck for the most part. When I did become such a curmudgeon? I used to be able to tolerate decibel levels that would make a Children of Bodom concert seem quiet by comparison. I was the mom that let the kids leave the cool fort they made in my living room up for days because they weren't done with their adventure.


Back to point. 


You could see other boats wayyyyy out there. Until we started seeing whales. Then it was like a crash on the 405 freeway. The other boats start racing toward us going right over where we had seen a whale. That is OUR whale, go away! There we are floating with our engines trying to be as quiet as possible and here comes the gawkers (not us, of course). It was a traffic jam. Gridlock. 

I think the whales are going to need a car pool lane. 

And the whales were everywhere~! Flukes and spouts. One at a time. Two at a time, sometimes even four at a time. There we were running back and forth trying to see them all. I finally just stayed put in the perfect spot. 

I don't think my mailman will be amused. But like I have said before, he can bite me. He only brings me letters from the tax man and junk mail. 

So, is everybody ready to float around and drink rum and yo ho ho on the Pacific Ocean? I'm sure that a whale spout enema doesn't hurt too much.

If You Waive Good By, Is It Really Hello?

Aisle be missing you...what? Did I say something wrong? Know, it looks write two me. 

I was in the shopping isle at my local market. What a splash! Serial and crackers all over the place. 

What??!!

Gosh, quit interrupting. So rude. 

Fine. I guess I better get back to work  since you can't seem to contain yourself. (Do you know in medical transcription you can't use contractions? No, you can't, not at all.) 

How much does grammar matter? Spelling? Do you judge? And, by the weigh, is it judgment or judgement? Traveling or travelling? Must be proper, you know. 

For all you righters out there, how many times do you write and rewrite a post? Lots? Nun at all? Some of you are so eloquent. Your posts have a point, they follow a path, they get to some conclusion. Some of you are snarky and sarcastic. Born storytellers. I wait with baited breath for the next line. 

Or are you like me? Start typing, let it fly, hope it makes cents, and then off it goes? (And spend more time looking for the proper video to go with your post?) I can never be a real author, it takes too much time. I have Blog Attention Deficit Disorder. BADD. This format suits me fine...short, hopefully, pithy, and if you make mistakes, you hope people will forgive you for egregious errors and lack of loquaciousness. Nobody wants to be thought of as a diminutive dimwit. 

Can you tell it's Monday and I want the week to end already? It's Presidents' Day for goodness sake. Nobody is in school, the mailman is taking the day off, the bank is holding my money hostage, so why are my docs in the box...I mean, office? 

Sigh. 

Why Do They Call It a T-Shirt?

L at Tampons and Chocolate is very bad...she sent me an e-mail asking if I had seen this video. No, I say and off I go to YouTube land to take a peek. That's like telling a crack addict, "Just one line." 


I play in my playlists. I link to other videos they suggest. 


I need help. 


I was in the middle of transcribing a pain report. Wait, that sounds wrong. A doc was dictating a report on a pain patient. That still sounds wrong. Oh, well. Do you know how many times a day I transcribe, "There was no gross bleeding."? Sheesh. I would think all bleeding is pretty gross. I guess that's better than typing "The patient had no frank symptoms." Poor Frank. He gets picked on a lot in medical dictation. 


They call this kind of video stop action. That's almost as funny as gross bleeding. 


Gotta go...
 

FCINO or Baa Baa Demon Sheep

I am a political junkie. I love economics and following the financial shenanigans going down now. At age 13, I was clipping newspaper articles on Watergate. I was in college when California passed Proposition 13. I came within a semester or two of a degree in Economics but then got married and had kids. (Can you get a Ph.D in kids?) 

I kept waiting for John Cleese to pop up somewhere and start singing a song. What's next? The Knights who go nee? Or is neep? 

I am taking no position here on any candidate (let me be perfectly clear) but this ad is too good for anyone to miss who doesn't live in California. This should be our state video, an emblem of the nuttiness that is California. 

Enjoy the demon sheep~!

I Plan On Keeping My Marbles

I love Chinese checkers.

I bite the big one at chess. 

I know. Chess is for the super smart among us. Those who memorize a chess board and plot and strategize like a mad Napoleon. They ponder. They extrapolate. They freaking drive me crazy. I know how all the pieces move. I'm not a total dunderhead but I don't play with a strategy, which is why I always get my butt kicked. I like sliding that old Bishop in a diagonal dash across the board. Move my pawns so they can be taken like the peons they are. I like the quirky Knight and like to jump him all over the board just to move him. 

And is there anything more humiliating than getting your King or Queen bumped off by a pawn? I don't play the right way so a real chess player will never play with me. Thank god. They get mad when you win because you just wanted to move the castle near your knight because in my mind I am re-enacting the scene from Monty Python, The Holy Grail, and thinking of coconuts and swallows or some such folly. 

No, I am definitely not a chess person.

I like Chinese checkers. So egalitarian. All the marbles are the same size, just different colors, and they all have the same chances. None have super powers. They can't jump up one and across two. One marble does not get to say "Off with your head!" I would also say that unlike regular ol' checkers and chess, you don't lose your marbles. Isn't that a great metaphor for life? Nobody assassinates your King or Queen, or kings you and takes your chips. 

The goal is to jump all your marbles to the other side before the other guy does and you keep your marbles. 

I also like games that move fast. Jump, jump, jump. None of this head hurting planning. Jump. Jump.   

But I like to kick butt and win, too.  (So much for egalitarian!)

Does anybody want to play? You can keep your marbles, too.

Puke and Possum

Why?

I mean really, why?

Minding my own business typing away in my home office trying not to be distracted by YouTube and keep working and then this happens. Teddy Bear came running into my office to tell me a dead possum was on our front porch. I actually laughed. 


"Ha, ha, sure. It's probably playing possum."


I thought I was so funny and witty. I mean, my Christmas tree is still on my front porch because I missed trash day this week. You would think I have a car on blocks on my front lawn and blackened out teeth and drive a pick up truck with a gun rack or something. But I live in a nice suburban neighborhood in Temecula. With a homeowner's association who frown on brown lawns and send snitty messags to you if such a calamity occurs. 


But there I am. Dead Christmas tree. Dead possum. It is blowing rain, cold and windy here. It has rained for days and the temperatures are down in the 30s at night. 

Teddy Bear's friend, Mr. Guitar Player, even poked it with a stick. Yep, rigor mortis. Even the tail was stiff. A possum popsicle. The only thing moving on it was one ear that kept gently flapping in the wind which made Teddy and I jump. I am tempted to leave him there and hopefully a coyote will decide to come along and help himself. I can get a sign pointing to it and everything. Like Wile E. Coyote and the roadrunner. Anybody know the number for Acme? 


The last time I saw a possum was in my mother's backyard. The whole family was over with all the dogs. Big ol' Tank, fat bo, clueless Cabo (who is huge!). They are going insane barking at something. There it is. A possum. On the lawn. Just lying there. The dogs jump at it, then jump back like they got electrocuted. They look positively stupid. Like they have some sort of doggie neurologic disorder. They are trying to channel their ancestral wolf genes but they end up looking like city slickers on a dude ranch. The possum continues to lie there. We finally round up the dogs and bring them inside and, lo and behold, the possum is gone the next time we look. 


So now I have to run to the hardware store and get a shovel to shovel him into a box. I will have to do this at night because I am quite sure I will be gagging and trying not to puke while I do this. 


For heaven's sake. I just got myself all out of my funk. You all are such good therapy. I even watched Pollyanna. 


Anybody want to play the Glad Game? 


We can be glad I have a dead possum on my porch because...because...I got it!! It will keep the holy rollers from knocking on my door and making me read the Watch Tower! (I know, I know. I'm going straight to hell. Is there a Heathen's Anonymous?) 


Maybe I should turn it into a door stop or something with a note pinned to it: No Solicitors Allowed. Do you think it would work?

Time for My Stoutness Exercises, or Tut Tut, It Looks Like Rain

Yes, I am good at my stoutness exercises. I am stout, round, and I have found I improve my appetite when I exercise. That Winnie the Pooh was a genius. 

My diet is going as well as Pooh's disguise at being a little black rain cloud. I have only walked the dog ONCE since the first. 

Today is Monday, so I am going to pretend this is the first of the year because there is just no way it is already the 18th. January is more than half way done. Kaput. Done. I only took my tree down a few days ago because in my mind it is only January 5th or so. 


What do you do when you get the blues? I am thinking I am due for a mid-life crisis. Not that I think I am going to live to 104. (Fancy math, huh?) Nor has the Grim Reaper paid a call to fill me in on my day of reckoning. Of course, if HE did show up, I might have a coronary and that would be all she wrote. 


I have been blue. In a funk. Not cranky but definitely not myself. I feel like not only is the glass half empty but someone is drinking my half. 


I have absented myself from company because I believe that going around in a bad mood is like going around with body odor or bad breath. (My favorite talk show host actually says that...I am totally stealing his line.) I don't want my friends and family to go sniffing around me saying, "Ewwww, bad mood...get a life!" Like people who smell their own armpits. 





I am trying to invent a bad mood deodorant. Puppies, kitten, stuffed animals? My personal Teddy Bear, my lovely annoying daughter, has lately made me want to run off to Build-a-Bear and get a new model. 


So I have been thinking what I could do to show everyone I have finally lost it, slipped into mid-life decrepitude. Men go out and buy sports cars, which would be my number one fantasy. I love to drive fast. But somehow you just look lame zooming along in a minivan. No cool factor there. I'm too old to run away and be an astronaut and there is no way I'm ready to wear adult diapers. 


I think jumping out of a plane and parachuting might be taking it to an extreme and bungee jumping would only make the blood rush to my head and give me a headache. Not to mention I'm a chicken and afraid of heights. I would love to do that squirrel flying with those funny suits. You know, you jump off a cliff wearing a suit that makes you look like a flying squirrel and haul ass down the mountain. But the fear factor strikes again. 



I would go on a pilgrimage seeking answers but I also believe in the saying, "Where ever you go, there you are." 


I will be exercising this week and trying to see that glass as half full. I just hope whoever was drinking from it didn't backwash. 

Eff. Ewe. Sea. Kay

I was going to use this video as a grammar lesson...transitive vs. intransitive. You know, things I don't really get at all, but....

I got a nastygram comment and I just thought this would be appropriate. So if you see Happy Hour...Somewhere in a human spiral, you know that Chris did it. Either that or the PETA police will be at my door knocking it down and putting me out of my misery. 


I do look good in orange though.

A Soldier's Embrace

Happy Hour: What are you wearing? 

Muse: *not so very nice look* Why don't you tell me what I'm wearing. 

HH: Me? Why would I know? 

Muse: Because this is your fantasy. You started fantasizing after reading this book and then the next thing you know, I'm dressed like the next member of The Village People. 

HH: Hey, that's Clint Eastwood! You take that back. That man melts my butter. 

Muse: You do know that he is now a geezer? 

HH: You are totally going to be eating that cigar in a minute.

Muse: This wool thing is itchy. Can I take it off? 

HH: Yeah, that look doesn't do you justice. You are more the white toga, hemlock sucking kind of guy.

Muse: I can leave you know. 

HH: Whatever. 

Muse: It was kinda of funny. Like Miss Piggy.

HH: What!! You are comparing me to Miss Piggy? 

Muse: *skipping away* Tut, tut. I'm your muse...you know you can't hurt me. Don't you watch TV?

 

Muse: Do all women do this? 

HH: Do what? Stick a cigar up their muse's butt?

Muse: Fantasize about a character they have read about?

HH: Oh, but Lt. Ryan is so hot. Cavalry, tall, handsome...It is called "A Soldier's Embrace", so I was just taking it to its logical conclusion. *sigh*

Muse: *gagging noise*

HH: The book is so good. You start and before you know it, it is chapters and chapters past the time to make dinner.

Muse: You are so jealous.

HH: I know. I am a baby writer, a wannabe. 

Muse: You should see her muse. 

HH: Really? Tell me, tell me.

Muse:  Sorry, no can do. Muse union rules. I'd have to kill you.

HH: Well, I'm just going to call her and ask.

Muse: That's cheating. 

HH: I just think you should read her book. 

Muse: I have read it. Very good, very good. But that is what they do with good stuff....they publish it. 

HH: Can I fantasize about being J.K. Rowling and being worth a billion bucks?

Muse: You just want to hang around Hogwarts. 

HH: I just want everyone I know to run out and read my sister-in-law's book. 

Muse: Shameless plug. *tut, tut*

HH: I know...but her book is sooooooooo good and I know they will like it.

Thank you all for listening in and my marvelous, funny, charming, red-headed sister-in-law has written an awesome book and I just want to shout it to the whole world.

Muse: Man, you need a soapbox or something.