What IS a meme, anyway?

Of course, Wiki has the answer...meme.

This one is from Sherri, and leaves me without five people to tag, but I'm doing it anyway.

Standard disclaimer of "What the heck do you mean, one book?" applies.

1. One book that changed your life? Grapes of Wrath

I was thirteen when I read it and fell in love with Steinbeck's writing, plotting and characters.

2. One book you have read more than once? Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. Queries about religion, philosophy, eagles and villainy, all wrapped up in Pratchett's inimitable humor.

3. One book you would want on a desert island? Sisters in Crime, Vol. I. This was a really tough choice, but this one wins both from the number of stories, the fact that it's a mystery anthology, and the fact that there are a number of authors in here whose works I went on to read more of and very much enjoy.

4. One book that made you laugh? Smoke and Mirrors by Tanya Huff. A horror novel that scared me to death and yet made me laugh aloud on almost every page.

5. One book that made you cry? Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. Heartbreaking. I hate it when doggies die.

6. One book you wish had been written? I wish H. Beam Piper had lived long enough to write a few more Fuzzy books. :(

7. One book you wish had never been written? Anthem by Ayn Rand.

8. One book you are currently reading?
Guards, Guards! by Terry Pratchett. His usual humor overlaying standard fantasy plot and subplots.

9. One book you have been meaning to read? Dance of Death by P.N. Elrod. I've loved the rest of the series, just haven't been able to buy this one yet.

10. Now tag five people:

Snicker and Jay and Basil if he ever gets a blog

Somebody needs to get off her lazy butt!

Laundry: check.

Clean bathroom: check.

Dishwasher unloaded and reloaded: check.

Sheets changed: check.

Breakfast: check.

E-mail read & responded to as necessary: check.

Unfinished stories, 8: Erm.

Stories to edit for a friend, 2: Double erm.

I should not be dinking around playing Mah-Jongg, addictive thing that it is, I should be writing & editing. Bad, evil, horrible procrastinatrix.

Snobservations III

Mister, if you keep tailgating me in your little midlifecrisismobile, you're going to smash it all to heck on my back bumper. There's a reason I'm driving the speed limit here--I happen to know these twisty downhill S-curves like my tongue knows my teeth, and I know people have driven off the road and died here. So back off before you wind up inside a heap of crumpled metal, you brainless twit.

Lucinda Basset, I find you utterly despicable. Your syrupy, Mama-knows-best voice has always irritated me, but I figured maybe you could help a few folks, so what did I know? But now you've got new radio commercials, and you're talking as if nobody ever needs to take any kind of anti-depressant or anti-psychotic medication, so I went looking for your website. The first thing I noticed is that there's no address, so I don't know which state you're in. That means it wouldn't be easy to check with the Better Business Bureau to see if there are complaints. The second thing I noticed was that your "helpline" phone number is identical to your "order it now" phone number. That clinches it--you're in this for the money. L. Ron Hubbard started by preying on people afraid of psychiatry, you're preying on people who are afraid of medications. Vampire. I hope someone stuffs a bulb of garlic in your mouth before you hurt someone.

Oh, and Match.Com? Yeah, I'm sorry, but Dr. Phil ain't a selling point. If I ever die behind the wheel, it's a tossup whether it will be a stroke from anger (see next paragraph) or laughing so hard I drive off the road. I'm not going to take relationship advice from someone who believes "Don't dream, do" is profound. I'm especially not going to pay for meeting someone dumb enough to have been lured in by your celebrity hayseed, thanks.

On the subject of stroking out while driving, if it happens, it will be because a certain Cleveland store hasn't gone out of business soon enough. I don't care if you have to sell all your inventory because you're bankrupt. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who uses the word "semi-antiques" deserves to go bankrupt, and it can't happen fast enough. "Antique" is a word with a specific meaning. A chair can't be "semi-antique" any more than a person can be semi-pregnant. Oh, and if you extend your "final three days" one more time, I may have to drive up there and beat you with the first volume of the unabridged OED.

More laughter while driving--the commercial for the vocabulary program. It doesn't sell your product to say things like, "In business and in social, people judge you on the words you use." Right now, I'm judging you don't know as much about words as you'd like me to believe. *snort*

Further snobservations as events warrant. Or not. Who knows?

Soothing stuff

Taking these pics helped almost as much as talking to Snick:





And I took the Heather's advice and had a Lush bath with a Happy Pill. I can't say that I'm particularly happy, but at least I'm relaxed and rested and I have pretty things to look at.

Must be Monday somewhere

Well, Mom, I'm really sorry that I told you how it made me feel to have you ask me to run your personal errands while you're up at the lake and I'm working. Next time, I'll just swallow the anger and let it fester until it explodes.

*tears of hurt, rage and frustration*

Update as of 9:00 p.m.:

Mom must have vented to Dad, because I called the lake house and he was extremely snotty. I was almost in tears when I called Snicker.

Thank you, beautiful. *non-lesbian love and hugs*

POFPRN

Home, sweet home

The weekend at the lake was lovely. The kids are all adorable little Visigoths, raiding and rampaging (except the baby, and she'll be one next year, I'm sure). I had a chance to tell everybody about the surgery, which is now scheduled for August 30th. Middle little brother told me he's hiring a payroll service, which means I won't have to do his payroll taxes any more, perfectly timed for me being gone for the surgery.

Best quote of the weekend: six-year old Chip announcing to me, "Actually, Auntie Jammies, I'm not much of a morning person."

Cutest moment of the weekend: Princess Niece playing 'Cinderella Goes To The Ball' with four Matchbox cars and a big plastic pickup truck.'

Worst thing about the weekend: my aunt's Calvinist mattress, which feels as if someone put a mattress pad over a foam block, and from which I am still aching.

Saturday & Sunday with the family went too fast. I did get two golf cart rides, a chance to see Dip & Princess Niece holding hands when we went to get the donuts, and my cousin came down from Defiance for a visit Sunday afternoon and stayed for dinner. It was great to see everyone.

Monday started at 3 a.m. with some lovely vomiting & diarrhea, which I blamed on injudicious food intake over the weekend. Then I had to drive home, pick up my pre-surgical diet and answer needy client phone calls, by which time I had a nice low blood sugar/no caffeine headache going on. Around 4 Tuesday morning, that headache had turned into a migraine, so I got up, forced down some ibuprofen and got my lavender, chamomile & rosemary rice bag out of the freezer and slept until six, when I found out my period had started. From that point of view, I'm glad I didn't stay at the lake, and sort of amazed I hadn't been more sensitive due to PMS.

Amy picked me up at 6:30 for my endoscopy, and whatever drugs they gave me got rid of the migraine and made Amy tell me repeatedly that I was funny. We stopped at work to pick up the mail, since I wasn't allowed to go back to work, and Amy walked me in so I wouldn't run into walls. *blush* I hope I didn't make too big an idiot of myself in front of Susan & Marcia.

Lots more cramps today, oh joy, but at least I can go into work and huddle in my big giant chair with a Thermacare patch on my tummy.

Minus 31 hours!

Around two p.m. on Saturday, I will be seeing my brother, sister-in-law and three year old niece for the first time since Christmas and my eight-month old niece for the first time ever!

Usually, this time of year is 9 or 10 days up at the lake house with the entire family. Middle liddle brother and his wife and kids come up from Columbus, liddle liddle brother and his wife and kids come in from Dallas, and we all meet at Lakeside. Unfortunately, all of my vacation time is booked up this year, so I get a long weekend. I'll follow Mom & Dad up tomorrow afternoon, and then go straight to the office on Monday morning. It's a two-plus hour drive, but that's not what drives me crazy. I hate driving, so I'd really rather just do the mandatory 5-7 mph over the speed limit and get it over with. Dad, on the other hand, drives at 60 to save gas. No wonder my toenails itch when we start off on these journeys.

I've neatened up the house for Amy, who is dogsitting, and started the laundry. I still need to pack and then load the car, but since I've only got to pack for three days, that shouldn't take long. Two pairs of shorts, two t-shirts, undies, toothpaste and toothbrush, jammies and my meds, and I'm good to go.

I can't wait!

Was it really only ninety minutes?

At approximately 6:45 this evening, I was perusing my favorite message board, preparatory to answering the question, "What exactly IS a cucumber sandwich?" when, with alarums and excursions, I lost the interwebbienet, the computer, the A/C, the water pump and the washer and dryer.

In short, the power went out.

As I live directly across the street from the substation, I knew I didn't need to call and complain--I'm always among the first to have power after a one of Cuyahoga Falls' rare outages. I whiled away the time yakking on the phone to Mallie and ABG. One of the things that struck me was how the three of us could have a perfectly reasonable discussion about inheritance taxes when the 5 page thread on that subject on the AH has become a SRCOC* thread for me.

Fortunately, just before the power went off, the temperature dropped and there was a bit of a breeze, so while I got sweaty, it wasn't the total drenchedness it would have been had I been outside when it was 87ºF. I am pretty dependent on electricity, not just for the computer, but because my well pump is electric. Fortunately, I've got two pre-Prohibition 3.5 gallon toilets and usually between one and four five-gallon bottles of water in the house. It probably wouldn't hurt to fill one of the empties with tap water, though, and dump it on a regular basis...

At any rate, the power came back on at 8:25, and thank dog for battery-operated clocks and my cell phone, as I had to run around re-setting clocks. The VCR gets to blink until I have a chance to sit down and change it, but it's all the way in the living room, so who cares? *grin*

*SRCOC: Sacred Rubber Chicken of Chastisement, which I use to whack people who swear they are going to stay out of particular threads or types of threads and then violate their promises to themselves. I shall use it on myself if I go back in that thread. *serious nod*

Greetings from Lazyville

Last night, I got seduced into a long, luxurious late-night chat with a new friend, and wound up going to bed after two. It's difficult to tear yourself away from a cute guy who cooks, likes the same music & movies you do, and thinks your writing is phenomenal. *blush* Eventually, I did shamble off to bed, and then woke at 7:30 to let the dogs out. As soon as they were relieved and fed, I went back to bed, and slept until 1:37. I'm so bonelessly relaxed right now I can't even find it in me to feel guilty about that. I'm just going to chalk it up to a week full of short nights, enjoy my morning coffee in the afternoon, and probably get dressed around 3:00.

Speaking of coffee, I wonder if I give off a "pink person" vibe without even knowing it. I have only two pink items in my warddrobe, and none in my home décor, but people still know to give me pink things. For my birthday, I got lovely pink bath stuff and two pink coffee mugs. The one from our law clerk is white with pink roses, in a tapered shape with a silvered rim, and the one from Sherri is pink with a white cartoon panel on the front, where a weird little being says, "I know I live in my own world. It's okay, they know me there." That one holds two full cups of coffee, and being that it's capacious, cute, and reminds me that I am lurved, it is reserved for Monday mornings, always the low point of my week.

Yet one more thought about laziness--I am a completely lazy scribbler, which is why I do not edit my "works." I do not think about interesting exposition, or character research or plot vs. characterizations, I just sit down and scribble out whatever's in my head, spell-check it and call it done. If a story takes me an entire day, I tend to feel over-worked. So it is really unusual for me to go back and re-write a story, but since both Mallie and S-Des, whose opinions I respect, told me that the ending to my most recent story needs work, I shall actually, ugh, work on it. Not today, though. Today is reserved for laziness.

Beauty on the wing

So the deer chomp gladiolus, the bunnies eat the lamium, Rooter snarfles up apples and veggies and the squirrels raid the birdfeeders and scatter seed. Every now and then, I get a chance to see something that stops me dead in my tracks, makes ever nerve in my body sing with delight, and reminds me that THIS is why I garden.






This little beauty was hanging on in the wind, which is why the last two pictures are fuzzier than I like.

That just absolutely made my night!

Further snobservations

To the woman ahead of me at the drive-through: If you don't know what the name of the iced tea you like is, do what everyone else does and park your car, walk into the store, and stand in front of the cooler like an idiot. Please do not make the young man bring bottle after bottle to your car to present to you. It is 87 degrees, we are in an un-air-conditioned semi-enclosed space full of car fumes and he is a minimum-wage store clerk, not a sommelier.

To the man behind me at the drive-through: Dude, you can fluff your hair all you like. You can look in the rear view mirror with your sunglasses on and with your sunglasses off. Nothing is going to change the fact that you look like Prince Charles crossed with the banjo-playing albino kid from "Deliverance." Deal.

To the couple gathering plants at the side of the road: You two look like an ad for Alzheimer's awareness, what with her giant sun hat, bent back and ankle-length red dress and him with NO shirt, NO shoes, and what I am hoping was a pair of gym shorts and not, as it appeared, boxers. Ya'll scared me to the point where I wanted to stop and grill you to see if you knew where you lived and what you were doing.

To our law clerk: It is irritating enough that you have earned yourself the nickname "Snoopy" at work. It's not that we think you're a lovable beagle, it's that we think you are nosy. Did you really have to stop at my house just because you saw me taking the compost out? I hope that you weren't TOO insulted when despite all the hints, I didn't invite you in for a tour and/or to meet the dogs. When I am home, wearing my off-duty outfit of shorts & t-shirt without underwear, I am not prepared for guests. I am NEVER prepared for the kind of guests who pick things up, ask what they are, ask what windows I have open on my computer, ask what I'm eating for lunch and so on until I feel an overwhelming need to throttle you. You will never know how thrilled I was to see you leave.

And finally, to my father: I do love you. If I didn't, I wouldn't have sung Happy Birthday to you over the phone yesterday. But I'm middle-aged, Dad--it wasn't "so cute you had to put me on speakerphone" while you were at the register! I'm fairly sure that performance art is not a staple at most hardware stores.

"What the World Needs Now"

Is socks, more socks...

Or perhaps,

"Some people wanna fill the world with silly sock stories
What's wrong with that? I'd like to know,
'cause here I go agaaaaaaaaaaain."

22 yes votes, 2 maybes and 2 who cares when I polled the AH regarding my latest venture into sockrotica. I went ahead and wrote it, since it was rattling around in the empty real estate laughingly known as my brain. Because the Heather wrote the second line of the story, there is a character named after her. And because the Sherri is so cuddly-cute, there is one named after her as well. I've not yet met the sock strong enough to be named after Snicker, but I'm keeping my eyes open.

This is sock horror, the longest, darkest sock story yet. I am saving it for the Halloween contest (I can post it for the contest on October 1st). Right now, it's sitting on my hard drive, blandly named "HalloweenSockStory." Current contenders for the name are:

"Live and Let Dye"
"Sock Hell"
"Night of the Darned"
"Solemates"
"Twisted Yarn"
"Nightmare on Lint Street" *NEW

Any other suggestions will be appreciated and considered. TIA.

Glad I've got gladiolus!

Okay, that's really dreadfully punny. Too bad. This is an incredible year for my glads--I've spent all of $18 on bulbs, and netted a big armful for Mom, two big vasefuls for the office, and 4 big armfuls for inside my house. Twice now, I have seen a humming bird dipping into them, and despite the numbers I've clipped and brought in, I still have an amazing amount of blooms left. This bodes well for JammiesFest 2007, as at least I'll have one perfect flowerbed to show off.

Sun, Buffett, Rooter & Coffee

What else is needed for a perfect Sunday morning? I woke up at 6:30, rolled over and went back to sleep until 8:12, then got up and let the dogs out and started my morning. So far I've finished one load of laundry, got one in the dryer and one in the washer, weeded along the front sidewalk and watched my resident groundhog ambling through the back yard. Breakfast is in the oven, the coffee is strong and flavored with cinnamon, the sun is shining, Jimmy's singing "Stars on the Water," and I'm so ready for today! It's all otters and kittens this morning.

The first line for a new sock story came to me this morning, "It is a little-known fact that white cotton ankle socks are polyamorous." I'm still not sure if I didn't wear out my sock welcome with three sock stories, but if this one plays out the way I think it will, I'll be able to sit on it until the Halloween contest, at which time I'll decide whether or not to post it. The plot's all there in my head, I just don't know the characters yet.

Today's peeves

Not pet peeves, because two pets is enough. Just the things that are bugging me today.

Deer: Nasty hooved pests ate most of two gladiolus plants, flowers and leaves.

The cute young lady in the waiting room at my doctor's office: It's one thing to vocalize your anger about having to wait more than thirty minutes. It's less classy to do so while your three year old and your five year old are listening to you. It's downright trashy to do so while your kids are listening to you use the F word as every other word.

Headaches: 'nuff said.

A certain poster on a certain message board: Your girlfriend and your best friend are both drama queens who want you all to themselves. They're never going to like each other, and either you're going to go on between the two of them, or it's going to flare into open war again, and one of them is going to pin you to a metaphorical wall and demand that you choose. But that's okay--you love drama yourself, don't you? Oh, and while I'm at it, nobody who makes a big production of being "an Empath" ever really is one, so shut up.

Clients: All of you can take your teeny IQs and your huge egos and just drown them before I do it for you, okay?

Attorney Clueless: You followed your usual pattern of dinking around and having to re-learn things you were told six months ago, and so the court cited you. That happened last month, and now you call on a Thursday afternoon and pout because my boss can't return your call until late Friday afternoon? Where did you get your degree, someplace that advertises on matchboxes? And exactly how many times did you have to take the Florida Bar before you passed? You make my fingers itch for your throat, you really do.

I've got more, but damn, my head hurts.

Sixteen tons

9 bags of cheap topsoil
9 bags of premium topsoil from Ace Hardware
5 bags of Ohio hardwood mulch
4 mini-roses
2 carpet phlox
3 white daisies
3 white balloonflowers
3 pink Canterbury bells
2 self-watering garden edging strips
1 flat hose
Approximately sixteen tons of sweat equity.

End result?





A flowerbed just waiting for 16 white grape hyacinths and 30 pink and white daffodils, plus, if I can find bulbs next spring, white gladiolus. I'm also planning to edge around it with bricks, and create a round pathway of pea gravel and stepping stones. Meanwhile, the new flowerbed in the back needs at least two bags of limestone gravel to soak up the overflow from heavy rain, and this fall it will get its quota of 87 bulbs in varying shades of blue and white. I've also got 100 daff bulbs coming in the fall for naturalizing along the sides of the back yard, and just this minute, I thought, "I've got 233 bulbs on their way this fall--what the HECK have I done to myself?" Eep!

Amy and Josh were just here--Amy did the lawn today instead of Josh, and she ran over the hose leading to the flowerbed above. She insisted on buying me a replacement and bringing it over, so they did. Then I had to hook it up and demonstrate the self-watering, which Amy was sweet enough to at least pretend was as cool to her as it is to me. And I finally got off my butt and put up the tree face Mom gave me for Christmas, and Amy loved that, too. One of the many things I adore about Amy is her enthusiasm--it's infectious and adorable.

I'm going to regret my greed when I start getting bulb shipments, I think, but for now I'm glad I spent the money on something that might well cheer me up later on. It's like sending a present to a future me. The present me is off for a chilled bath!

To paraphrase Berke Breathed,

L. R. Jammies, signing off and heading for the tub!

JammiesFest 2006

I believe that this marked my longest-running birthday yet. It started two weeks ago, when my much-adored Snicker sent me a gift box full of Lushie things. Then last week, the FontSlut did the same--those arrived on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I got earrings from the bro & sis-in-law in Dallas, and on Friday, I awoke to see a birthday thread on the AH, which grew to three pages long! At work, there was the office lunch. We had pizza and Sun Chips and vegan chocolate cake, and I received a hosta, a wax melt thingie which is just beautiful, and a lovely arrangement of pink carnations and white mums in a pink-and-white-flowered oversized coffee cup. When I got home that night, a friend called and his six-year-old daughter sang "Happy Birthday" to me. *melt*

Today, I headed out to the ancestral homestead (aka the ancestral Colonial in the suburbs, but hey) for brunch with Mom, Dad, the nephews and the brother and sister-in-law from Ohio. I am having the BEST season for glads this year, and to say 'thank you for 16 hours of unmedicated labor 41 years ago,' I took Mom an entire armful of blazing magenta gladiolus. She was really pleased and surprised, but being Mom, she worried about whether I'd denuded my flowerbed (I hadn't). We had a wonderful meal of sausage/egg/Brie strata, Caesar salad, and for dessert, lemon pound cake with strawberries, raspberries and blueberries to pour on top. This is my favorite summer dessert, and Mom gave me all the berries and a slice of cake to take home. Then my brother & sister-in-law apologized profusely for not getting me a present. Gosh, guys, yes, while you're trying to sell one house, buy another and move two kids and a housefull of stuff, you should worry about my birthday. *rolleyes*

Mom and Dad already bought me grownup bookshelves as my present, but Mom had a few more for me. Theoretically, they were from both parents, but unless there's technology involved, it's from Mom. *grin* I got a beautiful plum-colored silk shirt, a crystal necklace and earring set, a bunny stepping stone for the garden, and a really silly pin that declares I am the "Compost Queen." This is not, btw, a title I want anyone using for me, got it? Anybody who calls me that is fair game for the froggies.

All of the above birthday festish stuff would have been enough, but I have been informed that there are yet more pressies on the way, from Mallie & ABG, and from S-Des. I don't deserve all of this love and thoughtfulness, but I am warmly grateful for every little bit of it!

*big mooshy huggy hearts*

Lions and tigers and bears (and OTTERS)!

Today was wonderful, but it's going to take a year before I'm willing to do that again. Which is good, because Mom wants to take the boys to the zoo again next year. My nephews are currently calling themselves Chip and Dip, or sometimes George and Alabaster. Chip/George is 6 and a quarter, and Dip/Alabaster is 3 and a half. The fractions are very important, as are the self-selected names. They both did very well at the zoo. There were no meltdowns, no tantrums, both of the boys stayed close, as Gramma requested, and there was only limited begging from Chip starting with "I want..." And after Gramma repeated that at the end of the day he could choose one thing, he quit asking. Smart kid!

We started with the zoo's summer exhibit, Touch. Alabaster got either bored or nervous, I'm not sure which, and went outside with Gramma. Chip, however, stayed for ages, hand palm up in the water the way the docents told everyone, letting what seemed like dozens of curious stingrays rub against his hand. I had no idea stingrays were so cute and so curious and friendly. Hopefully, I got a few good pics, since I took dozens.



In the five hours we were there, the only area we missed was the monkey house/big cat house area. We did see a lion, two tigers, a leopard, lots of bears, lots of reindeer, camels, wolves, a bald eagle, sharks, rays, a beaver, flamingos, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, porcupines, colobus monkeys, orangutans, and, the very last animal we saw on the entire tour of the zoo... *drumroll* OTTERS!

Thank goodness Chip and Dip are cooperative with photographs. I know the ones they're in are going to come out. Some of the other pics I took are in doubt. At the wolf exhibit, we were watching one of the wolves sleeping up on a hillside when the other one came over, and the two exchanged nuzzles and licks and head butts for about five minutes. Of course, while that was going on, I was well back from the glass and letting my nephews and other kidlets look, so I couldn't get a pic. A few minutes later, when I went back, there was only one wolf there, and he had one leg up and was engaged in some industrious personal grooming. I do not need pictures of that, I can see it ten to twelve times a day at home. *rolls eyes*

The otters, cute as they were, were difficult as all get out to photograph. I was having trouble with my camera batteries dying, and I swear the otters were taunting me by climbing out of the pool and posing cutely on the banks, then diving into the water just as the camera finally snapped the pics. Aggravating otters, just like all my Otterbuckets friends often are. :-p



The best part of the day was when we were driving home, with two sleepy and sticky kids in the back, and Mom gave me all the credit for having the idea to go to the Cleveland Zoo and for coming with them and "making it possible." I don't need praise for spending time with my nephews, but the two little voices from the back saying, "Thank you, Auntie Jammies" was priceless.

*Insert clever title here*

Around noon yesterday, I sincerely thought that Tuesday not only sucked, it clawed, scratched and bit as well. The day started with a dead animal in the road right at the end of my driveway, and since all I saw as I grabbed the first opportunity to peel out was brown fur, I was afraid it was Rooter. I got to work just in time to deal with incredibly rude clients, a boss who didn't have her cell phone on when she swore she would, and then followed all of that stress up with a warddrobe malfunction.

I came home early, and after parking the car, walked up to the mailbox. Because I was worried about my resident groundhog, I looked more closely at the corpse in the road than I would have. The good news was that it wasn't Rooter, but the bad news was both that it was a kitty-cat and that I saw more gross bits than I ever wanted to. There was a reason that I never applied for the position of veterinary technician, thanks. *blurg*

After I'd walked back to the house and into the breezeway, I looked into the backyard, and there was Rooter, pretending to be a tree stump. So now I had kitty inside pictures in my head, and I didn't even need to look. I noticed that the handle on the breezeway door was turned, as if someone had tried to open it and stopped when he or she realized it was locked. I knew it wasn't Amy, because she has a key, but I also know that the mail carrier usually at least tries to get packages under cover before she leaves them on the steps. I opened the door, and sure enough, there was a small brown box out there.

Once I had unwrapped the oversized plastic bag the box was swathed in, I saw that it was from my Canadian angel, she who is known as The Heather. Despite only having known me for a month or so, The Heather sent me a birthday package comprised of Lush goodies, including a Rainbow Worrier, which isn't even available online any more! The goodies made my day, and I didn't even need last night's indulgent, luxurious bath experience to perk me up. I still enjoyed said experience, though. *grin* The Heather is a lovely, wonderful, amazing person who truly understands the need for fabulous bath products. She is firmly on my smit list.

Today didn't start out quite as badly as yesterday, but it had its own ups and downs. Work wasn't so bad, but when I got home, I got a phone call from a former co-worker, a young woman in her early 30s. She has two little girls under the age of three, a husband working full time and trying to start his own business, and she's got symptoms which could be MS. We talked for a long time about how I was diagnosed, what MS is, what the treatment is, things like that. She's had a brain MRI, which showed no lesions, but hasn't had a spinal MRI. One thing a nurse did tell me when I was diagnosed is that if there are spinal lesions, you have active MS symptoms. I hope I walked the line between being hopeful and encouraging and sympathetic and not being too optimistic and Pollyannaish. I also hope she listened when I said that I am NOT a doctor, and while I read all the articles in the MS newsletter & magazine, I don't speak with any authority on anything but my own experience. I gave her my cell number, and told her to call me anytime--I do remember how scary it is just to not know. It is tremendously weird that in the first half of this year, someone else who works at the same place started showing MS-like symptoms. She had a clear MRI too, so she's still waiting while the doctors try to figure out what's going on. My heart goes out to both of them, and to their families.

I was a little down about that, and in a reflective mood when I took the trash out to the curb. I grabbed the mail, and there was a package from my brother and sister-in-law in Dallas. Inside was one of the cutest cards I've seen in ages, and two pairs of earrings my sister-in-law made, one sterling & freshwater pearls, and one sterling & round amethyst beads. They are absolutely gorgeous, and I'm looking forward to wearing them! Then, in a moment of silliness, I wrote a little scenario for one of my smittees, and he thought I should post it for everyone to see. Three other people at Lit thought I should submit "Ode to a Cucumber Sandwich" to the poetry section, so after a quick editing, I did so.

Lots of ups and downs this past half-week. I'm looking forward to the zoo tomorrow with Mom & my nephews, but not looking forward all that much to Friday. It's possible, though, that I will get lucky and slide my birthday under the radar this year. *crosses fingers* I don't mind online attention, but I get all pink and flustered when it happens offline.

Snobservations

Inner soliloquy from my drive home:

Young lady, you've got the legs for that denim mini-skirt. Not even at my goal weight will I have anything other than short legs--I shall never approach those long, slender, strong ones you're walking around on. And the rope-covered wedgies are cute. The sort of avant-garde hairstyle must make you happy, or you wouldn't wear it. But if you have any illusions that the leopard-print halter doesn't scream "HOOKER" at the top of its little Dacron lungs, you will lose them when the first big ol' Buick pulls up next to you and the nice man behind the wheel flashes a twenty.

Not-so-young lady: No. Just NO. Not the bright burgundy hair, not the skin-tight sleeveless polyester purple paisley print blouse, not the unshaved pits in same, not the cigarette held in the multiply-beringed hand, not the flip-flops with little shells glued on them and especially not the sequined jeans stretching over a butt that looks like two cats fighting in a sack, NONE of that is one-tenth as appalling as the fact that you just SPIT on the sidewalk while you were walking with your kids. Gak.

Hey, mister. Wow. Oh wow. Yes, you are incredibly buff. I suspect you can do things with your pecs that would give my mother a heart attack, a stroke and a pulmonary embolism all at once. That doesn't mean that you should stroll into the employment agency wearing a pair of tennis shoes, a baggy pair of camouflage cargo pants and nothing else. Unless it's an escort agency. Look for women wearing leopard-print halter tops.

Thank you for joining us for today's Snobservations.

Ode to a Cucumber Sandwich

Mondays
Please me not.
But on Sundays,
As I savor the last moments
Of the wild and savage weekend,
I tame it.

My good knife slices
Chewy, crusty ciabatta.
A blunter knife slathers
Cream cheese.
Dill and pepper
Fall like green and black snow.

Again, a sharp knife
To razor the cucumber
Into translucency.
And my weekend flees
As lunch
Is packed.

Perfect bathrooms, fluffy pink baths, fluffy pink people

Last night, in a reversion to my high school years, I started a convo with Canuck Girl about a dream house in Canada with Canadian toilets, lots of land, a central area of the house with a huge kitchen, giant rooms for entertaining and communal lounging areas. Off the main area would be three wings, one for Canuck Girl and Runs with Beer, one for Sherri and Jay and one for me. That way, everyone has privacy and room for pets, but room to get together and have fun, too. As we were talking, I was perusing the Kohler website, and if you want to see something amusing, go to Kohler.com and look at the "Traditional" bathroom gallery. A strong stomach is a requirement, though. CG and I both agreed we could live with this one, which is contemporary, but this one just screams for the prisoners to riot. My personal favorite is this one, as it's in soft colors, the sink faucets spout from mirrored boxes and the overflow jacuzzi (a must!) fills from the ceiling. That is just so intensely cool. I'd need a giant addition on the back of my house to do that, so anybody interested in giving me $20K can drop me a line.

After that, it was a bit of a letdown to take a bath in my rust-stained, blue, too-small bathtub, but I managed to make do with very hot water, an Amandopondo bubble bar, a Chelsea Garden bath bomb and the attitude of a pink fluffy person to go with my pink fluffy bath. There was a lot of rose scent on and around me, and giant fluffy bubbles, and really, although I dream of giant extravagant bathtubs that fill from the ceiling, I wind up being happy with what I have. The bathroom looks much better now than it did when I moved in, I know that! I was browsing Lush's site, and they have some new bubble bars. I fell instantly in lust with the Sunny Side bubble bar. I shall be sending out a Lush wishlist to my entire family before the holidays. *grin* And yes, Snicker, you're part of the family.

This morning at the grocery store, I spotted the Chief Wahoo chocolate bars Mike's been dying for and can't get his paws on in Eerie. So I snagged five (and forgot the milk, how very me of me) and will mail them out on Monday. It made me wish I had pots and pots of money, so I could send things to friends whenever I wanted. *sigh* Hi, my name is Jammies, and I have a spending problem. I want to spend money both on myself and on my friends. I also found the cutest pair of terry flip-flops for my sister in law. They're orange and have monkey faces on the bit that joins the straps to the base. I'll have to take a pic and upload it. All in all, I have a very good start on my weekend of not doing anything.

Ugh

The slugs are in,
The slugs crawl out.
They're only there
To make you shout.

Frogs of Hell (tm and patent pending)

All day, I have been restraining myself from getting into a contest of wills. To reward moi-self for being all grown up, here is some of the stuff I didn't say:

Your bunnies are clearly lame copies of my Frogs of Hell! I have the first and only flame-spitting, fireproof, poisonous, mauve-and-orange Frogs of Hell, custom bio-engineered at the personal behest of Satan herself, Supreme Commandress of the Underworld and Dictatrix for Time Eternal. The best you could do was change some words in my description. Ha! As far as cleverness, imagination, and yes, restraint goes, I WIN!



*neener, neener, neener*

Wow, I feel better now!

Nothin' to Say

Chris Isaak: Nothin' to Say

Days can be lonely
Night lets you down
Wonder and wander
There's no one around
Nothing to say now, nothing to do
I can feel my heart breaking
And it's all 'cause of you

Granted, the last two lines don't apply, because I haven't gone and gotten my heart broken recently. Still, I am mega-unamused by this interwebinet thingie right now. The AH is a yawn, nobody I am dying to chat with is on YIM or MSN, the 'paca only said hi and bye, and I'm boredish, so I'm blue.

Perhaps I shall, odd concept, go read something in print. Mom gave me about a year's worth of Vanity Fair, most of them so thick they make my wrist hurt after the first half hour of holding them. Hmmm. That does sound like a reasonable thing to do.

From fuzzy to philosophical

Fuzzy: Rooter, my resident (quite large) groundhog, has a friend. Friday night when I let the dogs out, I looked at the wayback section of the yard and saw two groundhogs. I even managed to figure out that the one on the left was Rooter, because that's the one who, when unknown things are nearby, stands up and pretends to be a tree stump. "Go away. I'm not a groundhog, honest!" The other one took off gallumphing away. I'd post pictures, but all I ever manage to get are pics of my back yard with fuzzy brown lumps in it. "Hey, look! A tree stump!" "Grrr. Damn camera-shy groundhog."

Philosophical: Is my current calmness about matters sexual a matter of me becoming less prudish, or more vulgar? A good thing, or a bad thing? The first time I went to an XXX rated bookstore, I turned bright red, glued myself to the side of the friend who drug me, and hardly looked anywhere other than her face. In the ensuing years, I have: used the "F" word from time to time, taken naughty pictures of myself, written for a porn site, contributed toy reviews, and confessed a combination of the above to various friends. A member of my mother's generation would definitely tell me I had become coarser, more vulgar and less acceptable to society, where I'm sure that most of my friends would say I am more open, more honest and less of a prude. It seems odd to me, after the amounts of therapy I've had, that I can pinpoint precisely what has changed about me, but I can't decide if it's positive or negative.

Maybe I'll just go look for the groundhogs again...

50% cotton/50% polyester NASCAR-print sheets

Let me say that my beloved friend Snicker, by whom I am forbidden to get mushy, is nonetheless the sister of my heart, the older sister who spoils me with birthday pressies from Lush to feed my jones for bath products, and who does things like change her MSN status to read "Hoping it was at minimum a 400 thread count date."

Unfortunately, it was more of a poly/cotton, NASCAR-print, 0 thread-count date. When your date walks towards your house and pauses to spit, that's really not a good sign. When he has a "spit bottle" in his car, that's an even worse sign. Chewing tobacco aside, we had a good time at dinner with Amy and Josh. Part of that was just eating at my favorite Mexican restaurant, which has incredible food for a decent price, but part of it was the company. I did manage to spill a small amount of salsa on my shirt and a drop of white chile con queso on my skin just above my neckline, but I otherwise managed to convey the food from my plate to my mouth without incident. I had to let a lot of the conversation swirl past me, not being a NASCAR fan, but I managed to get most of the jokes.

After dinner, Amy wanted to go to the XXX bookstore, so we did. Unfortunately, twice within the ten minute drive, my date used the "N" word, immediately followed by the excuse that he's not really a racist. Right. Non-racists use that word all the time. We did have fun at the bookstore. We were wandering around looking at everything, and of course one of the guys had to pick up and wave around the NWS!!! Great American Challenge. Thankfully, it was Amy and not one of the sleazies heading for the peep show in back who noticed the dried white flakes on my chest and handed me a tissue. Then, while we were looking at flavored oral sex gels, I made Amy almost collapse to the floor laughing. She was looking reading the flavors off and commenting, and when she got to "bubble gum" I answered, "Put that back, it's for Michael Jackson" The very best line of the night, though, came as I was standing at the counter looking at the glass dildos. I pointed to an absolutely beautiful one with bluish iridescent swirls and a rose in the knobbed handle end and asked the price, unaware Josh had come up behind me. Almost as soon as the words were out of the cashier's mouth, an outraged bass voice behind me bellowed, "One hundred and nine dollars for a GLASS WIENIE?" *snort*

After examining pretty much the entire inventory of the store, we headed back to my house, where we sat around and read the book of X-rated shots Sherri sent me, making sure to add "with MR. DICK" to the end of each drink name. I did notice that my date flirted with Amy and not with me, so perhaps the non-attraction was mutual. I do know that everyone, myself included, had fun, and sometimes, that's enough.

On being a snob

Accusations of snobbery have been hurled my way in the past, and yes, they are frequently justified. I have come to truly appreciate the slither of 330 thread count sateen-finished sheets against my skin; the taste of reverse-osmosis filtered water instead of iron-laden dreck from the well; the whisper of lavender teasing my nose during a bath instead of chemical scents overwhelming it; so yes, I am undoubtedly to some extent a snob.

This is never clearer to me than when I listen to wine advertisements on the radio. First of all, if the wine's that great, the waiter will recommend it in the restaurant or the clerk will recommend it in the store. Second, to the ad agency behind the ads for Frontera wine: those background singers intoning "Frontera" just makes me think of the Simpsons' episode with the rolling, exploding SUV, where the background singers chant "Canyonero" while it goes *BLAM* (not exactly a stellar association for a wine). Frankly, any wine with singers makes me think of the radio ads in my high school years for Canei wine. "Canei? Yes, you can!" Possibly even sweeter than Boone's Farm, Canei white was a staple of high school parties, screw top convenience and all.

Equally irritating are the radio commercials for the Ohio winery which claims, "We bottle perfect days." Evidently you also bottle Hallmark cards, then drink them and spew them out at the public. Granted, there are a few spots on the shores of Lake Erie where someone can enjoy the summer sunshine, but it's easier to do that if you haven't got ninety-gazillion clichés romping around in your brain.

If given a choice, I will stick with my fancy sheets, my fancy bath products, my bottled water and my unadvertised Ohio wines. Sometimes, it's okay to be a snob.

I'm only happy when it rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrains

Not really. I'm generally a happy person with a couple of short circuits in my brain that lead to depression, so I'm not "only happy" when it's raining. It sure does help, though. There's a special staccato rhythm to a hard rain, and a lot of excitement in thunder and lightning. Plus I love thinking that all my plants are getting a good soaking, and I always remember mid-August of 1995.

I had moved into the house on Curtis in April of that year, and as happy as I was to finally have a house of my own, around June I started discovering that it's difficult to sleep in the converted attic of an un-air-conditioned house during an Ohio summer. My bedroom had only one window, so there wasn't much air circulation, and even with a fan, the heat in there would build up and pretty much remain through the night. I tried sleeping in the living room, which didn't work, because I couldn't sleep on a loveseat, and the floor was a concrete slab under the carpet. I tried putting my mattress on the floor of the bedroom and putting the box fan at the foot of the mattress, but that just got me sore eyes from having dust and whatnot blown in my face all night. I'd gotten in the habit of lying in bed, crying slightly from being so uncomfortable, counting off the days until autumn and waiting for exhaustion to claim me.

One night in August, I was going through my usual desolate counting routine when there was a huge CRACK of thunder and then the sound of rain hitting the roof. I threw on a minidress, ran downstairs, flung open the door and danced out into the storm. I played in the rain until close to one in the morning, and finally slept a full eight hours, blessedly cool and slightly exhausted. A day or so later, we were back to no rain and high heat, but I could hold on because I knew that the misery was finite. The next year, my dad got me a window A/C for the bedroom, and I never had to go through that again.

So now, even when my garage floods because the driveway drain is full (and let me tell you, unclogging whateveritis that's washed onto the driveway drain while it's pounding down rain and you don't know what you're grabbing is GROSS), I still smile, and think of that wonderful August storm that saved my sanity. And then I peel my Chow/Shepherd mix off my leg and make him take his fraidy-cat butt into the other room before I kill him. *grin*

Blatant plug--if you're at a computer where you can access an erotic stories website, click on the link for my NWS stories and read "Tail of a Summer Thunderstorm." Then read everything else, and vote, and comment. Thanks.

Today's Gardening Lessons

#1: Lamium is deer-resistant, but not bunny-resistant. The six plants I put in the wayback are gone as if I'd never planted them. At $2/plant, it's neither the most expensive nor the least expensive plant mistake I've ever made. We'll see how the toad lilies do back there--the astilbe have thus far survived. If worst comes to worst, I'll just fill the whole area with lily-of-the-valley.

#2: If necessary, have "cheap dirt is worthless" tattooed on yourself somewhere. The $1.07/40 lbs stuff I bought at Home Depot is awful. Sometime this week I'll have to swing by Ace and buy a carful of good topsoil. I basically wasted $11 at Home Depot. The front bed progresses, but needs more dirt, and I won't be starting another bed in the back until I have about twice the amount of topsoil I need ON HAND, BEFOREHAND. I'll put the new hydrangea in where the blue flowers from Spring Hill failed to come up.

#3: I've been gardening like mad since April, and I still want more money for more dirt, plants, mulch (and maybe some labor for the stuff that's killing my back). If pressed, I would have to say that it's a fairly benign addiction, since it does at least improve the landscape as well as my own state of mind.

#4: Gardens will always surprise you. In addition to the things that didn't come up, some of the things which have sprouted have done so in odd colors. I bought pink-and-white gladiolus bulbs, and they're blooming peach. Either the package was wrong, or last year's plants have morphed (which happens sometimes with glads, I don't know why). At any rate, the peach is a pretty color, and if it will spoil the overall effect, I'll just cut all the blooms and take 'em in to the office. It sure does have me scratching my head, though.

I'll try to remember to post some pictures in a month or so, when things are blooming. Right now, there's a lot more mulch and dirt than flowers, and I still have stuff to weed and mulch (the not-fun part of gardening).

Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On

Or at least the chorus of same:

girl put your records on
tell me your favourite song
you go ahead let your hair down
sapphire and faded jeans
I hope you get your dreams
just go ahead let your hair down
you're gonna find yourself somewhere..somehow

This song is just so much fun to listen to, to sing along with, to think about. It's a cheery little number that makes me think of stacks of 45s on a turntable, and sleepovers and makeovers and giggles. I'm not going to romanticize junior high--there was as much hell there for me as there was fun, but I'm not going to wallow in the pain, either. I'll just say that most of the best times were caught up with silly fun music, and be glad that every now and then a song pops up that helps me remember that.

I'd love to host a musical sleepover for a lot of my friends, just without the sleeping on the floor part (age does make that more difficult!). In fact, I'm working on getting people from my favorite message board to visit me. I'm a pretty good hostess, even if I do say it as shouldn't. *blush* I can't think of anything more fun than late nights just talking and listening to music. I think I'll go put some fun music on...

Rains on the plains and pains in the brains

At five a.m., I awoke mid-migraine. When that happens, the only question is if I'll be able to get pills down before my stomach won't accept any input. Today, I couldn't. I hate barfing, I really really really hate it. And migraines scare me, because in the last year, two people I know of have said "This is the worst headache I've ever had" while having a brain aneurism. The first one, a slim, fit, sixty-something year-old, died. The second, a heavyset thirty-something, is in ICU. So every time I get a migraine, I freak until it's down to just being a bad headache. I guess that's my last vestige of dramania lurking. *blush*

Since I couldn't manage meds, I took a shower with oodles of lavender bath gel, and then drowsed in the recliner with my HeavenScent draped over my head. Eventually, my body calmed down enough to accept a smidgen of water and three pills, and then it was off to nap, at least until Bosstopus called worrying about the unattended office (that's a shout-out to Sherri, who inspired me with "Bosszilla"). There were no crises on the voice mail, just a very bad thing which happened to one client, and something which I am not going to tell Bosstopus about since it is frustrating and anger-inducing, but not something she can do anything about, and there is no point in ruining her weekend along with mine.

After that, I took advantage of the short non-raining moment to let the dogs out, and then Littlefoot and I saw the Large Economy-Sized Chipmunk. I swear, this one was the size of a kitten! I even thought it was a frog at first, until it waddled off, tail held straight up the way they do. I'm not sure what he's been eating, but dayummm, that is one BEEG chippie! Must be something in the water around here, though--my lawn guy says Rooter is the biggest groundhog he's ever seen, although not as big as the ones his grandpa used to tell him tales of. Maybe it's due to the electrical substation across the street? Anyway, I'm keeping an eye out for more oversized critters...

The non-rain portion of the day didn't last very long. In fact, Littlefoot's time outside was cut short because *gasp* water started falling from the sky again and he just doesn't deal well with that. Meanwhile, I'm chortling over the fact that a gal on one of the message boards where I post said there was "psycho, almost unnatural" weather in Ohio when she drove through. There's nothing unnatural about psychotic weather in Ohio, it's always been crazy! Last night we had flash flood warnings and tornado warnings, and I drove out to my folks' house to find they'd had gumball-sized hail followed by rain. My nephews had a wonderful time romping in the rain and kicking hail around on the deck. *grin* The six-year old tried to tell Gramma that he didn't need a bath because he got wet all over playing in the rain. I'm pretty sure he knew that wasn't going to work, but it was a good try! I drove home watching the rush and tumble of water in the roadside drainage ditches, and thinking that if I had a ton of money, fully half of my garden would be water features. I'd have ponds and streams and fountains all over the place. Man, I hope my buddy Snicker wins the lottery. :-p

Agendas

I'm sorry, folks. If someone has a temper tantrum because he didn't find out about a contest after it started and he feels he doesn't have enough time to do his own contest entry, then yes, you have to take that into account when he's reviewing contest entries!

He's not "brave," he's not "honest," he's already accused other people of getting "special treatment" and "head start"(s). He's having a tantrum, cloaking it in objective-seeming language and taking his anger out on the contestants. Please STOP praising him for doing so.

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

TechnoFamily

*waving*

My brother stopped at the office today in between two hearings, one in Canton and one in Ravenna. While he was hanging around the office, I gave him the url for this blog. I don't know if he'll read it, or if he'll read it more than once, but just in case, I'm going to issue this warning: This is my place. I'm honest about a number of things here, family included. However, kidlets are off limits. There will be NO pictures of any family member under the age of 18. Stories, yes, particularly when I am in adoring aunt mode. Pictures and/or details, no.

That said, I'm having one of those head-shaking moments about the modern family. I'm sitting at home, staring at my blog and wondering if my brother's actually going to read it, and my phone rings. Two years ago, the caller would have gotten a busy signal because I couldn't afford DSL or cable. Four years ago the caller, my mother, wouldn't have had a cell phone. And not even a year ago would she have thought to call me and say, "The house phone's busy, e-mail your father, I'm worried!" I did, he didn't see it, called me and I told him to call Mom. *grin* It's amazing that all this technology actually makes us more worried about each other instead of less. The reason for the busy phone line? More technology--Dad was playing with the caller ID function on his new cordless phone and pushed the wrong button.

Spam--new and improved! Now more irritating than ever!

Dear Friend,

We never thought the Ohio Restaurant Association would stoop this low.

The Ohio Restaurant Association has partnered with Big Tobacco (and other special interest groups) in a dirty tricks campaign to amend our state Constitution to guarantee the right to pollute indoor air with tobacco smoke.

And, they have the nerve to call it "reasonable" policy. They actually think that forcing customers, children, workers and senior citizens to breathe dangerous smoke-filled air is reasonable. No way!

Click here now to tell the Ohio Restaurant Association to take tobacco off the menu in Ohio!

The Ohio Restaurant Association seems convinced by some myths about smoke-free initiatives. We need to set them straight on these and other important points:

Smoke-free workplace laws have no negative impact on the hospitality industry. In fact, 90% of Ohioans polled said that, with a smoking ban, they would eat out more often or as frequently as they do now!
Secondhand smoke poses a serious public health risk to workers, children, customers, and everyone in between, increasing the risk for developing serious health problems like heart disease, cancer, and asthma.
Ohioans support SmokeFreeOhio! Nearly 3 of every 4 Ohioans support clean indoor air laws, including almost half of the state's smokers!

When 91% of Ohioans agree about the danger of secondhand smoke, it's no wonder our support is so strong!

We need to clear the air for the Ohio Restaurant Association. Let's show them the facts and let them know how powerful and passionate this movement for a SmokeFreeOhio really is!

Click here to tell the Ohio Restaurant Association that smoke-free consumers will not be ignored!

Thank you for your help! Please forward this email to your friends and family so they can help clear the air for the Ohio Restaurant Association.

Best,

Tracy Sabetta, SmokeFreeOhio

Dear Anti-Tobacco Fascists:

Your tactic of using bulk e-mails is irritating in and of itself, but the message contained in said e-mails is reprehensible and repugnant.

How dare you tell American business owners how to run their businesses? Just as non-smokers (including myself) have the right to avoid businesses which allow smoking, so the businesses themselves have the right to make their OWN decisions about running THEIR businesses.

Funny how Ohio is so fucking Republican in terms of the winning candidates, but when it comes to issues like telling fellow citizens who they can't marry and/or what they can allow in their own businesses, Buckeyes are actually slobbering for more and bigger legislation.

You people need to get lives of your own and stop interfering in the lives and livelihood of others.

*rolls eyes back so far they hurt*

Floor potato

*wandering through living room*
Anything good on?



Oooh! Lady and the Tramp! I love this movie!



*sniff* *sniffle* *sniff*
This is my favorite scene!

It's Father's Day, and I have the BEST Dad

First of all, a story I'd been meaning to post here anyway:

The Milkshake Story

I've never actually bought a computer in my life. Dad upgrades, I get a new hand-me-down computer. Some of them have been pretty Frankensteinish machines, like the Tandy laptop hooked up to an exterior keyboard and monitor, with a loud old Epson dot-matrix printer and an Atari power supply cord, but hey, they've all worked better and faster than they're supposed to, which is what my dad excels at.

In April of 2000, I think as a reward (unspoken, of course) for tossing Jim the abusive out of my house and my life, Dad gave me TRex. TRex was a 486 with a 14.4 modem, the first computer I ever had capable of surfing the web. TRex was slow and ponderous, but I'd never been online before, so I was happy just to surf, and have the world open to me in a new way, I didn't care much about speed.

In January of 2003, when I knew that there were programs I couldn't run, websites that timed out, games I couldn't play, I got a phone call from my dad. He was at his favorite computer store, and he'd just found a stack of IBM boxes from a company that had traded in to trade up--$100 each. "You want a new computer for $100?" Dad asked me.

Well, duh, of course I did!

And of course, by the time I had the computer (a Pentium this time), the new monitor, the keyboard, the CD burner, the snazzy Epson PhotoStylus 825 printer, the extra RAM, the 20 and 10 G hard drives and all, it added up to over $300. Still, it was a damn nice computer (still is!), especially for that price, and for being built by my dad. Dad built the new computer in the garage and named him "Tank."
It could have been worse--he could have named it "Paulenstein's Monster."

Dad loaded Tank to the gills with software and came over and set him up for me in early April of 2003. My exSO's birthday is in May, and I'd been scrabbling around for gift ideas. I knew he was trying to convert his video collection to DVDs, so I'd gotten him the miniseries of The Stand on DVD, but wanted to get him something else, since I felt as if I was giving him something he already had (which I was). He's nuts about soundtracks, so I looked around, found the one for The Stand, which was instrumental, and noticed that there isn't one with the pop music which is in the book and the miniseries. So I found a website listing all the pop music from the book and the miniseries, ventured into downloading mp3s, and converted them to .wav files. Finally, I burned my very first CD.

It was a Saturday afternoon--I set the program up, hit the burn button, went off and made a coffee milkshake and washed the dishes. The software Dad gave me, Nero, sounds a trumpet flourish when a CD is done burning. I heard it, and came running in to check. In my excitement, I set the big plastic milkshake cup down on the desk in front of the CD drawer. I hit "close" on the software and to my horror, the drawer popped out, hit the milkshake cup, which rocked forward, then back, slopping the contents right into the drawer!

I grabbed the cup and the disc, rushed both to the kitchen sink, snagged a dish towel, and was doing a fair job of swabbing out the drawer when I inadvertantly pressed the front of it and it slid back into the computer. No amount of pounding on the button would get it to come back out. I shut the computer down and called the exSO, whimpering, not explaining precisely what I was doing, but that I had killed Tank and that Dad was going to kill me. He told me I had to tell Dad, and he was right, so I sadly said goodbye, told him I wanted red roses at the funeral, and made the call I dreaded.

Dad hates it when I start a phone call crying, it scares him, so I tried to keep my voice even when he answered. He asked what was wrong, and trying not to sob, I 'fessed up. Then and there, with no hesitation, my father said something I haven't heard since I was three or four.

"Daddy fix."

He did, too--gave me the CD burner Mom had never used for $30, put a plain CD reader in her computer and did it within a week. I will never forget hearing the forgiveness in his tone in those two words when I expected an outburst.

Secondly, a mini-story from last week. I was having problems hooking my hose reel up to the spigot on the house, mostly because the spigot is all of 2" above the ground, and my knees don't like it when I get down that far. If I can, I reserve kneeling for actual gardening instead of maintenance. I asked Dad if he had anything that would allow me to hook the connector hose up more easily, and despite the fact that I did not explain myself very well, Dad came up with this:

Not only had he bought it for me, he attached it to a hose remnant and called to make sure I could figure it out and it worked. When I said that it was perfect, he told me he'd bought two, and would I like the other one for my back faucet? I said of course I did, and so now I can hook two hoses up to both the front and back spigots. Dad also threatened me with disinheriting if I let either one freeze next winter. *giggle* I'm not ignoring him today, it's just that my brother and his family have custody of the parents this weekend, so I am not going to get to see Dad today, but will probably have dinner with him and Mom tomorrow night. We'll see how he likes his 500 cable ties, his chocolate-drizzled caramel corn and his copy of Patrick McManus' A Fine and Pleasant Misery.

An Exciting Friday Evening

Last night, after a week of banging his head into things, rubbing it on other things, clawing and pawing at it, all to no avail, Bigfoot decided to try to force me to take the e-collar off of him. For upwards of thirty minutes, he lay in the hallway, emitting a noise which closely resembled the Emergency Broadcast System Tests, a high-pitched "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" designed to get a human's attention and put her totally on edge. Bribing, cuddling, consoling, even yelling failed to still the canine transmitter, and I swear he only stopped because his ears finally hurt. I went to bed with my ears on fire.

Yay for Dr. Mark, who removed the Collar of Shame and the Vet Tape of Doom and then removed Bigfoot's stitches. Double yay for tech Adam, who cleaned said ear and the other one as well, both of them being absolutely disgusting after having been taped up for a week. Yay for Bigfoot for not growling or snapping at anybody, but not so yay for leaving presents on the vet hospital carpet runner. *turns the flaming red of a humiliated pet owner*

Yay for Laurel, for getting my check to me so quickly. Yay for me for writing a winning story. Yay for my Snicker for giving me carte blanche for my birthingday present. Yay for my fuzzy bud for writing a story that made me cry at work. Yay for the 9 or so people who all decided to message me on Yahoo at the same time--I feel so popular! *more blushing*

Anyway, the dog is fine, he's being an angel about not attacking his ear, I've had a nice dinner and now, in between chats, am going to fulfill my promise to write down three true shaving stories.

#1: When I was in high school, I had a conversation with my paternal aunt about the family tendency to dark hair, long dark eyelashes and pronounced eyebrows. While I agreed with her that it was nice not to wear mascara, I bemoaned the concept of plucking my eyebrows, particularly the hairs which, if left unchecked, would lead to a unibrow. My aunt confided in me that she simply shaved between her eyebrows. A few days later, I decided to try shaving instead of plucking. Mom had given me one of those old time, very heavy metal razors, where as you unscrew the handle, the top opens to allow you to drop in a double-sided blade, and then you screw it closed again. I put a fresh blade in, applied a teeny dab of shaving cream between my eyebrows, and whisked the razor down between my eyes, promptly removing approximately twelve to fifteen eyebrow hairs and the end of my nose. I told everyone I walked into a door.

#2: When I was living in my first house and my hours had been cut to part-time, I was doing my usual Sunday girlfest and shaving my legs in the shower. I turned slightly to rinse shaving cream off the razor and my foot slipped. As I tried frantically to regain my balance, knowing I was going to fall, only one thought went through my head. Not, "How badly am I going to hurt myself?" nor "Am I going to hurt myself?" but "SHIT! I can't afford to fall on the shower curtain and break the rod, I can't buy new ones!" I managed to hurl myself into a wall and escaped with a slight concussion and an intact bathroom.

#3: Same shower, a few years later, also on a Sunday. At some point during the shaving of the legs and armpits, I managed somehow to drag the blade side of the razor across my left breast. I did not notice this until I was bleeding profusely on a white bath towel. The SO of the moment, a pharmacy tech, was sweeter and more considerate of the injury to my left boob than he was to any other injury or illness I suffered. In fact, he supervised my use of an antibiotic analgesic cream like a true professional. :-p

These days, I try to avoid combining sharp blade-y things with hot water and soap. Thank heavens for Nair.

Jammies to the rescue!

10 a.m. EST.

A law office in Akron.

At the second desk from the front, our heroine, the charming (if trollish) Jammies, fetchingly attired in her new turquoise slacks & tank, with turquoise tye-dye duster.

The phone rings:

Jammies: "Good morning, law offices."

Attractive, charming, smart, older attorney, henceforth known as K: "Hi, Jammies, it's K. I need a favor. Do you have a set of Stark County Guardianship forms?"

Jammies: "They're available online."

K: "I know. I tried that and something is wrong with my computer. I download the [PDF] form, fill it out, and print it, but all I get is a blank sheet of paper."

Jammies: "Sorry, we just use the PDF forms. Have you updated Adobe Acrobat recently?"

K: "I think so. I'm just going to drive to Canton and get a packet and I'll get you guys one too."

Jammies: "K, Canton is a one-hour drive! Gas is $2.70 a gallon right now. Just give me a second before you go charging off to the courthouse."

K: "Hmmm, all right."

Jammies, after downloading, completing and printing a form: "K, it worked perfectly for me. Hey, what kind of printer do you have, inkjet or laser?"

K: "I don't know, it's got a cartridge thingie."

Jammies, glad nobody can see the eye-rolling: "Inkjet, then. How long since you used it last?"

K: "A long time. My secretary prints everything at her desk."

Jammies: "Ink cartridges can dry up and the nozzles clog. Go to "Start," "Printers and Faxes," right-click on the printer you're using, then left-click on "Print Test Page."

K: "Oh look, it says my ink is low. I've got spare cartridges, I will try one of those."

Jammies: "Better than driving to Canton!"

K: "Thanks! Have a good one!"

Proof once again that a post-graduate degree doesn't necessarily mean practical smarts. *snerk*

Captain Conehead and Jiffy Pop Butt

Bigfoot, aka Captain Conehead, has beat the heck out of the Collar of Shame. Last night, I had to grab him and shake him slightly to stop a full-on puppyfit of running, rolling and slamming into things as he tried to rid himself of the collar. Flannel Jammies, aka "Mom," got upset with me for calling it the Collar of Shame. She says I will give Bigfoot a complex, and I should call it the Collar of Healing. No matter how much I explained that only *deepen voice* baaaad dogs */end deepening* pester their ears until they have to wear the Collar of Shame, Mom refused to believe that Bigfoot brought this on himself. Next vet appointment is tomorrow night at 5:15, if anyone wants to cross their toesies for us.

Meanwhile, Littlefoot is blowing coat and leaving giant tufts of fur everywhere, earning his nickname of "Jiffy Pop Butt" (thanks, FSO), and reminding me to never, EVER again get a long-haired, double-coated dog. If I were cleverer, I would write a comic book about how Captain Conehead and Jiffy Pop Butt save the world from evil squirrels or something. Since I'm not, I'll just vacuum some more. *sigh*

Gardenwise, I've got all but the last nine plants in the ground. This weekend, I'll edge the new round bed in the front yard, and put in the white and pink plants I'm planning to fill that bed with. The phlox, canterbury bells, white balloonflowers and daisies are here, then this fall, I'm going to save up and buy a bagful of pink and white daffodil bulbs from Breck's to fill in, along with achillea, daylilies, carnations and hollyhocks. I'm thinking it will be very pretty when I'm done.

NastyGram Du Jour

Dear Mr. Downey,

Today, for the second time, I asked to be removed from your company's mailing list. Is it not enough that you charge $1,440 for a ONE MONTH supply of Copaxone? Is it not enough that a year's cost ($17,280) exceeds the U.S. minimum wage? Must you also taunt me by flinging my hard-earned money away on cheesy bulk mailings? I may have multiple sclerosis and lesions on my brain, but I am not STUPID.

When you send me a greeting card to mark my second anniversary of taking copaxone, are you actually thinking this is a happy day for me? Are you under the utterly idiotic impression that I will have cake, balloons, presents and a party? Do you not understand that I, and others, are a captive market? I need your drug in order to do things other people take for granted, and you want me to celebrate that fact?

I'm a writer, and I lack words blistering enough to convey to you the abysmal stupidity your marketing department displays by sending out Copaxone anniversary cards. I already know you spend twice as much on advertising as you do on research and development, and you expect me to be sanguine about the way you are frivolling away my money?

Send me one more thing, Mr. Downey, and you will be out $17,280 per year, because I will stroke out and die from sheer rage. Of course, then you will just raise the price, won't you?

Fucktards.

Third place and "woo!"

My "How To" contest entry won third place in the Literotica.com How To contest. Unlike the end-of-year contests, this one was a cash prize of $75.00. I still think there were better stories entered, but I'm not going to turn down the money.

And yes, I like having the little symbol next to the story indicating it's a contest winner.

*blush*

*stifles ego and shoves it under the bed with the carnivorous dustbunnies*

Monday morning rant

Nothing like being screamingly angry first thing Monday.

You know what, John? You didn't need to bring up an old issue just to say "nyah, nyah, nyah." And that horse hockey about thinking people might be interested is ridiculous. What really got me was your fake sig line. You're lucky there is a country between us, asshole, because I am not a person for physical violence, but you merited a slap for that comment.

You're lucky either Bill or Nicole deleted your little ass-flash. I wanted it left up so people could see what a nasty little spawn you really are.

Gardening is worth it

Right now, I hurt. I'm pretty sure I also stink. That's okay, though, because there are two new flower beds filled with balloonflowers, campanula, astilbe, lamium, geraniums, clematis, delphiniums and other good stuff. I've planted 30 of the 57 plants from Spring Hill, and will probably get the rest done in dribs and drabs evenings this week. I'm just too sore to finish the job today. I sat down here intending just to catch my breath and then go shower before I go get dog food, but I think instead I will change my clothes, throw a baseball cap on my disgusto hair, and run out and get the dog food.

Then, when I come home, I will have the longest, hottest shower on record, and collapse in a puddle in whatever piece of furniture I reach first.

This was supposed to be a profound essay on gardening and the peace it brings me, but tellwiddit. I can't manage profundity when my body is screeching at me.

The Big Giant Head and The Collar of Shame

My schedule lies in ruins, alas. The Big Giant Head, aka Bigfoot, aka that rotten little shit who won't quit shaking his head, had to go to the vet this morning, theoretically to have his sutures from the hematoma surgery removed. Five minute visit, no charge, in and out.

HA!

Because there was still fluid built up in the ear (the same stuff I've been squooshing out all week), Dr. Mark had to drain it with a needle. Then he taped the ear down, and we finished off with an e-collar (Elizabethan, because it's a giant plastic ruff). I made the appointment early, so I could garden the minute it was over, and skipped breakfast to get there on time. Then, of course, we were there longer than I'd planned, when I stopped at BK to grab some OJ I found my last $5 missing, and now not only is it past my comfort level as far as being warm outside, I've got a pulsing low blood sugar headache. All of this because the dog I adore can't keep from shaking his big fat head.



Bleah. Sometimes life just bites you in your big fat ass and you have to deal.

They're HERE.

My little green babies have arrived! 30-odd plants from Spring Hill were waiting for me when I got home tonight. It's supposed to be fairly civilized tomorrow, weather-wise (which just means the high is supposed to be 66º, not 96º). I've laid out the beds for the blue-flowering plants, and the foxglove and pink campanula are going along the streetside edge of the front yard. Two of the three butterfly beesh are going in the bed along the sidewalk, and the third in the bed running alongside the driveway. The astilbe, lamium, toad lilies and lilies-of-the-valley are all going in the wayback, around the various old trees back there. I've double checked my list of plants that can survive around a nasty, cranky old American black walnut, and all of those plants should do well. The bastard's killed a number of potential new neighbors, though, so we'll see.

Tomorrow, after I've gotten myself all muddy-pawed and sweaty planting things, I shall take a break and sit out on the front step assembling one-third of my new plant stand. The other two pieces are back-ordered until the end of the month, but I should be able to get most of my houseplants outside and get the basil started in the long flowerbox. Then I shall come inside and treat myself to a bath with Something Wicked and a Black Pearl. Then I shall get online, read smut, whine to my friends about how sore I am, then nap. On Sunday, I will do much the same, but with the addition of laundry.

It's a wonder my friends don't just shoot me out of sheer jealousy over my glam lifestyle!

More on being a masochist

or maybe "being a moron masochist," I just don't know. So, the place where I'm getting into BS literary arguments--did I mention that this is also the forum that reinforces my low self-esteem about my writing? I didn't mention that? It is.

In 2002, the owner of this forum asked me and three others to write weekly essays for the home page. Every single little think piece I wrote was ignored. Even a short story written from the POV of one of my dogs was ignored. At the same time, another member wrote huge post, starting with things like "The life you live. The life you own. The life you left bundled on a randomly chosen doorstep. Abandoned. A tangential resting place. From the sidewalk. Hidden beneath the eaves. Sheltered and soaked. Mortgaged. Taken in and raised by wolves. Sinister eyes staring into the depths of a forming soul. Claiming territory. Picking away at the wide-eyed ambitions dancing along the freshly cut blades of an expansive front lawn. With strangers for neighbors. And friends far away. The sounds from outside amounting to nothing more than the limits of a tattered imagination." His pieces were slobbered over and he was acclaimed as being an amazing writer, a gifted artist, etc.

I gave up after six months. I told the site owner I quit and stood firm when he tried to persuade me to keep going. I gave up writing for almost two years, convinced that I was incapable of producing anything worth reading. In December of '04, I found Literotica and started writing there. Despite quite a bit of good feedback and support, I still don't believe I'm a real writer. I don't write stuff like I quoted above, I just sit down and let the story in my brain dribble out through my fingers. I don't revise and agonize and reflect and struggle. Slowly, I have come to be okay with that. I'm too thin-skinned to try to get published, so I'll continue to scribble and dribble and share my blitherings with anyone who wants to look.

I do need to STOP hanging around arguing with people who respected my writing so little that they wouldn't even comment on it and who fawned on someone whose most striking characteristic as a writer (imnsho) was a calculatedly befuddling effect on his audience. But then, I tell myself that and still hold myself to some artistic standard of "real writing" and spiral into hatred of my own silly pieces again.

*sigh*

Masochistic behaviors

Honestly, pissing contests over literary meanings are one of the things I don't miss about grad school. So why the heck did I get involved in one on a message board? Either I did miss such contests and wasn't aware of it, or I'm a masochist. Given my potentially fatal weakness for cinnamon bears, I'm voting for the latter. If it's bad for me, I want to do it or eat it or buy it or whatever it.

'scuse me, I'm just angry with myself this morning. I'll live.

Swimmyhead day

It's not quite dizziness, not quite vertigo, just a gentle out-of-whackness feeling centering on my temples. It's not a heat thing, as the A/C has been on in the office since before I got here. I don't think it's a sick thing, as I've got no other symptoms. It could easily be a MS thing, and if so, may that be the only one. I've got a lovely track record on the remission and I plan to keep it that way.

Yesterday was supposedly the Day of The Beast and all, and while there were a few inconveniences in my life, I certainly didn't feel as if I'd fallen victim to Satanic forces. I feel that when there are squirrels around, because they are in fact Satan's fuzzy little crazed tree rat minions. I also strongly feel that the so-called Satanists are posers, and the real forces of evil are resident and working here in nice, quiet, oh-so-Christian/Midwestern/Republican Ohio. What are said forces doing? Taking nice, boring popcorn and turning it into the Devil's Temptation.

That's right. Things like chocolate-drenched caramel corn from KellBran Candies here in Akron, or cinnamon-glazed or bacon-cheddar flavored popcorn from Al's Popcorn in Columbus. Not only are both KellBran & Al's local, family-owned businesses, their products are freaking addictive. I always imagine Al (who looks rather gnome-like on his website ) tenderly stirring the giant vats of popcorn as he ladles on the cinnamon glaze and then dusts the resultant sticky goodness with a light layer of crack.

Woe is me, sucked into a remorseless addiction which has me haunting Al's website, calculator steaming as I try to figure out what bag is the best value. Of course, I always pretend to myself that there is such a thing as "that bag's too big--I'd never eat all that before it went stale." As if. Dreamer. You'd eat the stale stuff when it comes to Al's cinnamon-glazed popcorn.

Self-congratulatory blithering

Posted this on one of the message boards where I hang my hat, and was rather proud of it:

Jammies, you will embarrass yourself if you do that.

More than I would by talking to myself in front of everyone at the AH?

Yes, more than that.

I don't think that's possible.

You really underestimate our capacity for self-humiliation, don't you?

Oh shut up and go eat a cinnamon bear.

Mmmmrf!

Blithering, smittenhood, relief

The brat is fine, and the vet didn't charge me for squeezing the gross stuff out of the ear. Next time, though, I get to do it myself. Lovely. More grossness follows: I didn't speak with Dr. Bob, because he was busy doing a penectomy on a cat with severe blockage. It's apparently a new, life-saving treatment for cats, but dayummm--I know some male humans who'd rather die.

I'm feeling like Aqualung this afternoon. The plumber my dad sent over to fix the toilet was a built blonde hottie who liked dogs, called me "Miss" instead of "Ma'am" and was apparently just eighteen. :-P I just sat in the computer room and thought quietly lecherous thoughts.

All in all, though, not a horrible day of the beast, but not a great one. I did get into a political pissing contest on one message board, got into a literary pissing contest on another, panicked over Bigfoot's swollen ear and my leaky toilet, but I've had worse days. Of course, I can say that now, 'cos I'm home and not going anywhere else today. *grin*

Not AGAIN!

Great. The dog's ear is swollen up again. The last vet visit was $207, I can just imagine what this one will be. I also have to drive to Hudson and back right at rush hour. *says a lot of unladylike words* I could scream from frustration.

Self-indulgent blithering

That's the only possible reason for three entries in one day, unless you have a much more exciting life than I do. Still, I forgot to mention that Rooter (my resident groundhog) is back or awake or whatever, and digging herself a new den in the wayback part of the yard, and that Josh refused to mow the circle in the wayback because there were three bunnybabies playing in it. Still haven't made up my mind about him--lovely husband for Amy, soft as a kitten about animals, but a flaming bigot who looks like a total skinhead. Weird.

Oh, and just to completely date myself, my yard is shaped like a station wagon, long and narrow. The front yard is the hood, the house is the front seat, and the back yard has the back and the wayback, that last being a term from my childhood. Ahhh, riding in the wayback of a station wagon, either in a seat facing behind the car or in the flat space created by folding down the seats. That would never happen in our safety-first times.

Thanks

To the Malliementorperson for helping me set this up. *otterhugs*

*sigh*

This morning, I went to Play Four, and there was a banner ad for a Discovery Channel special on the first tomb found in 84 years. I'm not that interested in Egyptology, but if I had cable, I'd watch it, both because my alma mater and one of my former profs were instrumental in the discovery, and also for Ken.

Ken was an online acquaintance, and I say that advisedly because he never let anyone in close except his daughters. He was a very complicated man, and I'm not going to say only good things about him just because he's dead. I'll just skip saying anything except that he was passionate about Egyptology, and I can't help thinking that it's a bit unfair for them to be finding a new tomb a year and a half after his death. *sigh*

Thinking about Ken and about Bill, another online friend, reminds me that smoking is a Bad Thing. Unlike Ken, Bill survived his cancer, but it wasn't a pretty process, and he showed much more grace and guts than I think I have in me. It does irritate the heck out of me when non-smokers say things like, "I forgot even some smart people do that [smoke]." Clearly, MissPriss, you've never struggled with an addiction in your life. All I can think when I read something like that is "I wish you a sudden infatuation with baklava and hips that grow like sunflowers." :-p

The garden languishes, owing to a week-long attack of swollen feet. I have no idea what I walked through last Monday, but it was toxic as hell, evidently. Nonetheless, the garden awaits the arrival of my plants from Spring Hill, and I shall get out there and plant them the minute they arrive. I'm also looking at Spring Hill and Brecks catalogs for fall bulbs, as both of them have coupons for $25 off a $50 purchase. Me being me, that is going to lead to spending $100, but I haven't bought a single annual this year, so I'm investing in my future landscape. That's right, I'm investing. *grin*

Oh my dog, what ARE the odds?

*gasping for breath*

What are the odds?One of my college crushes was a guy I used to see during my free period between two classes in the same building. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we spent an hour playing Hangman and talking. Turns out that about the time he and I were in school together, my boss was drawing up his parents' wills. His mom just called, wanting to refer him to my boss for a will. I wonder if he will remember me? I wonder if he's still hot? I wonder if he's married?

*palpitations*

Much cuteness

Otters! http://www.mbayaq.org/efc/efc_otter/otter_cam.asp

Damn, they are CUTE. And watching them makes me EMPHATIC. They just pulled their fake kelp into the water, and it was a cooperative effort and it was ADORABLE. I want otters of my very own!

Smile of the day: when I woke up this morning, my How-To contest entry was NUMBER ONE on the Literotica top list for the HT category. I'm tied with Colleen Thomas, She Who Has Been At Lit Forever & Has El Huge-O Fan Base-O! I'm grinning so big my face hurts! And feeling EMPHATIC. I don't even care if the trolls come and trash the story, I have a SCREEN SHOT!