Dead Ted Head

Twice today while walking down the street where I work, I passed a teddy bear head lying at the side of the road. And it just made me sad. So after I picked up my car from the muffler place, I went by again and did a surreptitious Swoop of the Head. And while I was picking it up and praying that no one in the nearby offices were watching, I noticed the torso and one leg of the teddy lying a couple of feet away. Hmm ... dilemma .... take all the parts or just the head?

In the end, I just took the head. Why? I have no idea. I will take home Dead Ted Head and soak him in a bucket of water (Oh! The poor thing's troubles never end!) and I think I may put him on the back porch or possibly on my wall, depending on how well he cleans up. Because I'm weird.

Wait ... It Shields What?

For the past week, I had been hearing a rattling sound from the back of my car. It sounded like a loose exhaust pipe. I took a quick look under the car, saw nothing dragging on the ground, and made a note to take the car in and have the noise checked out.

Yesterday, I was up at State Park, where the roads are not the best, and the rattling was pretty noticeable. So when I got home yesterday (ok, ok, after I got home, did a little painting, listened to the radio, drank a couple beers, etc., etc.) I got down on the ground underneath the car and really looked at it. And there was this big piece of aluminum shielding under there that had come completely unbolted and was just kind of ... hanging there, supported by other car parts. Ooops!

I took the Parkway into work this morning, so as not to have this big piece of metal come flying out of the back of my car while going 70 on Route 17, and dropped the car off at the muffler place around the corner.

The guy at the muffler place called about an hour later (Miracle #1. The first rule of mechanics is you never, never call the customer. Let them sweat it out and call you.). He said that the piece of aluminum was the rear heat shield, that it was too deteriorated to re-bolt, and that I really didn't need it anyway, so they had removed it, my car was ready to be picked up, and there would be no charge. (Miracle #2. Hallelujah!)

So as soon as I got off the phone, I started wondering. Because God forbid I ever take somebody's word for something and just let it drop. Oh, no. So I wondered, if I didn't need the heat shield, why was it there in the first place?

Now, I am not totally ignorant when it comes to cars. Just almost totally ignorant. I do know how to check the oil, the radiator fluid, and the windshield wiper fluid, and I do check the air in the tires. I know more about replacement parts than I ever wanted to know (crankshaft positioning sensor, anyone?) I had always assumed that the heat shields were there to protect certain parts of the car from the heat that other parts of the car produced. So, logically, if a certain heat shield was to be, say, removed and not replaced, another part of my car could potentially burst into flames. I know, I KNOW, but that's the way my little hamster wheel of a mind works. Don't trust the guy who does this for a living! Worry yourself endlessly about something that is not going to happen!

So I asked the guys at work, who were kind enough not to laugh out loud (at least to my face), and they explained that this particular heat shield was meant to shield the ground beneath the car from the heat of the exhaust pipe. And that I should probably not park in any fields, so as not to inadvertently start a brush fire, but otherwise I was ok.

So the car is fine, my mind can now rest (mental note: don't park in fields), and best of all, it was free! Yay!

Uh oh. Here goes the hamster wheel. The guys at the muffler place have been known to, let's say, loosen up stuff while they're working. Which means that a week or two after you get your car back, something else goes wrong.

But for now, all is well! Relax.

Best Paragraph I Have Read Recently

This is from "Anywhere But Here", by Mona Simpson. I saw the movie and didn't like it, and assumed I had read the book, because I usually read the books before I see the movies, but I picked up the book at the library the other day and realized I hadn't read it, so I'm reading it now. (Phew! Could I get anymore wordy?! Somebody stop me!)

Anyway, here we go:

The wind was still blowing when we finally went to bed. At the very northern edge of the land, where it was dark and late and storming, sleep seemed the easiest state to exist in. I went to sleep there fully trusting the world not to harm me. I don't know if I ever felt that safe, before or again. My hands lay softly on the bed that night, my ear to the pillow as if that was where the comforting sound of rain came from. We were far away. I liked going to sleep knowing it was cold and no one was outside and we were so far away from anywhere else where the sky might be clear and other people might be living other lives.

I just love that.

My Idols

America voted, and .......... wait a minute? Melinda? They think Blake is a better singer than Melinda???? Snif. Thanks, America.

So anyway, the blogs are saying that Blake beat Melinda because of all the teenage girls who are clogging up the phone lines voting for him, convinced that if they vote enough times, Blake will somehow magically find out and show up at their house and whisk them back to Hollywood, declare his undying love for them on live national tv, and then marry them.

Sigh. Remember what it felt like to be that age? My teen idol was David Cassidy. Or wait, was it his younger brother, Shaun? No, I'm pretty sure that it was David. Remember Tiger Beat magazine? Do they still publish that?

Oh, and I had an odd (REALLY ODD) attraction to Marjoe Gortner. I read his biography when I was a kid and he just fascinated me. Because I was an odd, odd kid.

Now, if you click on "Marjoe Gortner", above, it should link to his Wikipedia entry. Hopefully. I thought a learning a new skill would be appropriate, seeing as how this is my 200th post and all. Thanks, Marjoe!







Gosh, I was a weird kid.

Product Review - Coffee-Mate Blueberry Cobbler Coffee Creamer

Yuck.

Boy oh Boy, Can I Botch Up A Song Lyric

Mom and I went up to Greenwood Park on Sunday. Every time I think about Greenwood Park, that song, "Lakeside Park" by Rush, pops into my head. I only know about half the words, and the words that I know include something about catfish, which I KNOW can't be right, and so I decided to google the lyrics this morning.

When I googled "Lakeside Park", the lyrics which popped up had absolutely nothing in common with the lyrics as I knew them. I kept running the song (as I knew it) through my head, and finally realized: What I was actually thinking of was "Fly By Night", another Rush song, to which I had somehow melded the words "Lakeside Park".

Here are the lyrics to "Fly by Night":

Fly by night, away from here
Change my life again
Fly by night, goodbye my dear
My ship isn't coming and I just can't pretend.

Now, keeping in mind that this will be much, MUCH funnier if you know how the melody for "Fly by Night" goes, here, for your viewing amusement, are the lyrics I somehow came up with for "Fly by Night":

LAKEside Park, doo doo doo doo doo
LAKEside Park, again
LAKEside Park, doo doo doo doo
Catfish are coming (!?!) and I just can't pretend.

Ha ha ha ha ha! I'm an idiot!! Oh my goodness, I don't know what to do with myself sometimes.

Go Ahead, Make My Day

I was standing in line at the grocery store at lunchtime today, when the woman in line behind me said, "Excuse me, but could I ask where you bought your purse? I just love it!"
I explained that I had bought a basic black purse, then bought some fabric and glued it to the purse. She said, "Oh, what a great idea! I just love that purse!"

And that made me very happy. Because I'm easy.

Oh yeah, and to the girl two people ahead of me in line? Yeah, you, the teenage mom who was putting her bags of groceries on top of her baby in the stroller? The one who held us all up an additional five minutes because you couldn't remember the pin number to your welfare card, which you of course thought was just the funniest thing ever? The one with the VBS problem? (Visible Bra Straps - folks, if you want to try this at home, it's just fine, but please - especially if your bra is all ratty and dirty - nobody wants to see your straps.) Yeah, you ..... I don't like you. Just sayin'.

On another Make My Day note, when I went out on the back deck to get the paper this morning, there was an opossum in my garden! A great big one! And when he heard me on the deck, he just ambled through the backyard and went under the neighbor's shed. That's the shed that the woodchuck lives under. And Rocky likes to hang out under there too. I wonder if they play cards?

The Stress Diet

I went to the doctor's today, and while I was there I got weighed. I had lost eleven pounds since my last visit 12 weeks ago, which wouldn't be that big of a deal except:

1. Eleven pounds represents about 10% of my current body weight, and
2. I'm not on a diet.

The doctor was concerned, until I explained The Stress Diet to her. Also known as The Ex-Husband Diet, and The Dental Diet. When I am under a great deal of stress, such as currently, I magically lose weight. Even though, when the stress first starts up, I try to remind myself that I can go ahead and eat whatever I want to, because, Hey! Here comes stress!

My body's reaction to stress is to go on High Alert. I swear, it's like being a mouse in a roomful of cats or something. I get all "ramped up", for lack of a better term, and I just can't relax. At all. Even when I am supposedly relaxing, the hamsters in my mind just keep running, running, running. My theory is that at times like this, when my body is constantly ready for "fight or flight", it burns up calories at a higher rate.

Now I just have to write a book, "The Stress Diet", and I'll be rich! rich! rich! Although I'm not sure how many people would be willing to place themselves under massive amounts of stress in order to lose weight.

Hidden Things

My brother-in-law, TIB's husband, told me "the story of the missing litterbox" on Sunday. My mom lives with him and TIB, and my mom has a cat. The cat likes to go down in the unfinished basement, so they keep a litterbox down there, in addition to the litterbox in my mom's room. It seems that my brother-in-law came home from work the other day, and mom asked him where he'd put the basement litterbox. He told her it was right where it always was, as far as he knew, but when he went to the basement it was gone. Mom was all upset about the missing litterbox, so my brother-in-law searched the house from top to bottom. No litterbox. He searched the garage. No litterbox. He searched the pool shed. No litterbox. Mom was convinced that for some reason, he had hidden the basement litterbox, which of course he hadn't. But he went and bought another litterbox for the basement.

A few days later, he went down to the basement to get something, and there was the missing litterbox. Right next to the new litterbox.

My mom hides things. She hides money, she hides clothes, a couple of years ago she hid Christmas presents she had bought. And once she hides stuff, it stays missing. We have no idea where this stuff goes; I have to think that some of it she buries in the garbage can, because it simply never appears again. The litterbox is the one thing to make the return from the missing; we are all dying to know where she had it stashed!


Mom and I went for a nice long walk at Greenwood Park on Sunday, and then we went to lunch. I got her a live orchid for Mother's Day:



















Mom made out like a bandit, flower-wise: Rose, lilies, mixed bouquets, and a hanging basket. Having six kids has its advantages!

Big News

I talked to a real estate agent for quite a while last night, and we have been e-mailing potential listings back and forth today. I called the bank today to get pre-qualified for a mortgage.

This whole thing makes me really nervous (big changes always do), but the situation with Jabba downstairs has deteriorated to the point where I really feel that it's better to leave than to spend the rest of my life in prison for murdering the bastard. And if I'm ever going to buy a home, now is the time (I'm not getting any younger, you know!)

So I will hang in there at the apartment for the time being, and hopefully a house in my price range (believe it or not, they are out there) will come along soon(er or later). I am being realistic, and I know it will take a while, and I know I'm not going to get a "dream home" due to my financial limitations. But if I don't at least try, I'm never going to get anywhere.

It will be funny to look back at this post in a few years and see how things panned out. Probably something along the lines of, "Oh my God, I was such an idiot!"

Gosh, I Wish He'd Lay Off The Sauce .......

Poor Rocky. He just can't hold his vodka like he used to.

T-Shirt

So I was at work yesterday, just working away, and it was about 3 in the afternoon, and I finally got around to noticing the t-shirt that Hack-em-up Ed had worn to work. It had an illustration of a squirrel on the front of the shirt, and underneath that, the words "I'd like to put my nuts in your mouth".

Yeah.

He wore it to work. Where there are other people. And clients. There is one client in particular who is very very, um, uptight, and I'm pretty sure that this client would pull his account if he saw this t-shirt. And frankly, I thought it was disgusting. Hack-em-up Ed has a twelve year old daughter. I wonder what she thinks of this t-shirt?

Folks, please tell me. Am I just being a prude here? To tell you the truth, I think that that t-shirt would be inappropriate to wear to WalMart, let alone to work. And yet I am seeing more and more of this type of t-shirt out and about. Is there anybody out there who actually thinks that this t-shirt is funny? Let me know!

New camera!

This is the camera I bought this weekend. It's a Fujifilm S700. It has 10x optical zoom and 7.1 megapixels. Now I just have to figure out how to use it! It's pretty big and clunky compared to some of the digital cameras I looked at, but I actually prefer that, because if I had one of those little teeny ones, I just know I'd lose it (the camera, not my mind).

Here's some pics I took with my old camera:

This is my rhododendron:





This is my neighbor's forsythia bush:

Besides buying the camera, I didn't do a whole heck of a lot this past weekend. I went to the laundromat and did three weeks' worth of laundry (ugh!), went to the library, and did some walking. Sunday morning I went to the SUNY nature preserve and hoofed it up the Oak Trail (waaay too steep). The underbrush is greening up, but the trees are still mostly brown.

Number of times I had to call Jabba and tell him to turn his TV down - 2. Number of times I contemplated just calling the cops instead - about a million.

Sunday afternoon I did some weeding in the garden and discovered that my Bleeding Heart is sending out little satellite Bleeding Hearts. I moved one of them to the back fence and put a little fence around it to keep Evil Lawnmower Man from mowing it over. I wonder if Evil Lawnmower Man is the same guy who plows (or rather, doesn't plow) the driveway in the winter. Because the lawn is getting pretty shaggy, and nobody's shown up to mow it yet.

You May Have My User Guide

We bought a new fax machine for the office the other day. When we went to set it up, there was a "quick start-up guide", but no actual instructions. After doing a little on-line research, I discovered that this particular fax was supposed to come with a 286-page "User Guide". I called Staples, where we bought the fax, and the guy at the store told me to "just come in and pull the guide out of another box". Thank you Staples! I guess I know what happened to the guide that was supposed to be in our box! The trickle-down theory of user guides.

I am not having such a good week at work.

Update: I went to Staples last night, they opened up another box, and guess what? That box didn't have a user guide either! At which point the assistant manager tried to tell me that "this fax doesn't come with a user guide". I had been e-mailing back and forth with HP (the maker of the fax) regarding this, and assured the assistant manager at Staples that yes, indeed, there was a user guide. As a matter of fact, HP even e-mailed me a downloadable version, all 286 pages. I even pulled the packing slip out of the box he had just opened and showed him the picture of the user guide on the slip. God bless him, he just repeated that "it doesn't come with a guide". Interesting. He suggested that I print out the downloadable version, I explained that I didn't particurlarly feel like printing out 300 pages of something that was supposed to be in the box, and he offered to print it out for me if I brought it in on a flash drive. I explained that the user guide was also on HP's main web site and that he could pull it up there at the store and print it out, and he said "we're not allowed to go online". Oh really?

So after a few more e-mails with HP, they are going to send me a real, printed out, honest-to-goodness user guide. HP has been nothing but prompt and professional throughout all this. Staples? Bleecccch.

The Telemarketer

Long story short: A telemarketer called the office this morning and asked to talk to the owner. I told her "We're not interested" and hung up the phone. She called right back, I told her "We're not interested", and she said, "Are YOU the owner? I need to talk to the owner". I hung up again.

She has called back at least ten times today. Now I recognize the number on the Caller ID and either pick up the handset and place the call on hold or pick up the handset and hang right back up.

So she evidently contacted some of her telemarketer friends and told them to call me. I have dealt with approximately 40 telemarketer calls today.

If I could, I would gladly hop in my car, drive to this woman's place of business, and throttle her with my bare hands.

Mom Strikes Again

My Mom called me on Saturday to ask if she could spend the night. She said that my sister TIB, with whom she lives, was having a "big party" Saturday night, with lots and lots of people, and they were all staying overnight, so there would be no room for Mom. Oh, and the cat had to come along, too, because there wouldn't be room for the cat, either.

I knew what was going on. Mom has Alzheimer's Disease. Mom had had a dream the night before about a big party, about having to find a place to spend the night, about having to take the cat along, and when she woke up, she thought it was real.

I talked to TIB. TIB said Mom had told her a different version of the same story, that TIB's daughter was having a party at TIB's house, that she needed to find a place to stay, that she would have to take the cat, etc.

The first few times this happened, it was alternately scary/confusing/sad. Now it just irritates the hell out of me. "No, Mom, nobody is going to take the cottage away from you." "No, Mom, TIB didn't tell you that you had to give away the cat". "No, Mom, the dentist didn't tell you that she had to pull all your teeth." Oh yeah, the dentist - I have to take Mom to the dentist and go in and speak with the dentist after she sees Mom, because otherwise, Mom will walk out of that treatment room telling the most amazing stories you've ever heard.

And five minutes after you've reassured Mom about whatever she is obsessing over, she starts right in all over again. And then gets mad because you are telling her the opposite of whatever she has convinced herself is true.

Alzheimer's Disease is a snot.

I Am Easily Swayed

I went to the mall this weekend, but only for the Orchid Show. I was just going to pop in the mall, look at all the orchids, swing by Sears to check out their digital camera prices, and then head right back out again.

Um ......... yeah. In between Sears and the Orchid Show was a store that had put a 20% off coupon in the paper that morning. And so began the torture of the sneakers.

I love shoes. I really have a thing for shoes. Especially funky, original-looking shoes. Right now I am gluing flower fabric onto a boring pair of shoes to make them cooler. So, I stopped at the store with the 20% off coupon, and discovered this really, really cute pair of slip-on sneakers with a kind of pink patchwork fabric. Words cannot describe how cute these sneaks were. But, even with the coupon, they would still be over ten bucks. Ten bucks?! For a pair of shoes?! Never! (I buy most of my shoes at thrift stores. Which may be why I got that funny foot infection, but anyway .....)

So I am in the store trying on the sneaks and agonizing over spending ten bucks for a pair of sneaks that, technically speaking, I did not need, when another shopper (or possibly, now that I think of it, an employee who was not wearing a name tag) walked by, stopped, and said, "Oh, those are so cute on you! And the color matches your jacket! Oh, you are going to buy them, aren't you? They're so cute!"

Yep. I bought the sneaks. But they really are cute.

Birds

Is there anything more ugly than a newly hatched baby bird? They just look like ..... mutant ..... things ...... bleeeccccchh.

I've been thinking about birds because I was in my living room the other night and I kept hearing a skritch .. skritch ... skritch noise coming from the vicinity of my air conditioner, which was not on at the time. I looked out one of the windows and there was a bird, with a twig in its mouth (um - beak?), who kept flying from a nearby tree to the back (outside) of my air conditioner. He/she was trying to build a nest in the outside fins.

Well, I couldn't remember how far apart those fins were spaced, and I had no idea if the bird could actually fit between them, and at that point I was mildly alarmed (freaked out) at the prospect that a bird could possibly build a nest inside my air conditioner, and then baby birds would hatch, and then my cat would be trying to take the air conditioner apart from the inside to get at the birds, and what if one of the birds died inside the air conditioner and then it would smell like crazy inside my apartment, and I live on the second floor so I wouldn't even be able to get to the outside of the air conditioner to get the mess out, and wait, maybe I could call the building super and she could send one of the guys over and ........... well, you get the picture.

So I went outside and took a look, and those fins are so closely spaced the bird would have to flatten itself to the width (depth?) of a sheet of newspaper to fit in between. I don't know what that bird was thinking.

Birds will nest in some pretty weird places. They used to nest up under the eaves of one corner of my building, but there weren't any real close trees for the babies to hop to while they were learning to fly, so every spring I would come home from work one day to find the Carnage of the Birds. The babies would try to fly, fail, fall to the driveway below, and pretty soon every cat in the neighborhood would be feasting. Yuck. Finally the landlord covered up the bottom of the eaves, so that got solved.

Up at the lake, birds nested one year in somebody's old charcoal grill. They flew in and out through the air holes on the side. So you could walk up to the grill, open the lid, and ..... voila! Baby birds!

Back when I lived in the trailer park (I know, I know), birds nested up under the awning over the front porch of trailer (gah! I know!) I lived in. I could go into the hallway, get up on a chair, look out this weird funky little window that was way up on the wall, and look directly into the nest. That was pretty cool.

Well, I guess I've gone on long enough about that. Anybody else have any weird-bird-nest-location stories?

American Idol Gives Back (Or, Oh Dear God Jesus, Please Make It Stop)

Last night was American Idol Gives Back, a fundraising show for poor people in Africa and the U.S. I was anticipating a snoozefest, and oh boy was I right. What I want to know is, how much money did the Fox network make in advertising revenue for this show? I'm betting that it is as much, if not more, than was raised for charity, because it seemed like there was 10 minutes of commercials for every two minutes of show.

And oh dear Lord, did that show stink. About an hour in, I started calling my friends to see if I was the only one who thought it was a total suckfest, and it turned out I was not alone. The last 45 minutes of the show I spent shooting the breeze with my sister Texas, with the TV on mute. I un-muted only long enough to discover that ........ no one's going home. WTF? I wasted two hours of my life only to find out that they're all safe? Grrrr.

Oh, and thank you very much Ellen Degeneres, for letting us know you are donating 100G. Why not take out some billboards too, in case somebody missed the show? And Jack Black - Get this man the fuck out of my eyesight. If I never see Jack Black again it will be too soon. Ben Stiller? Ditto.

Here is what annoys me the most about these fundraising shows. After 9/11, there were all kinds of fundraisers, and Americans donated millions for the victims (well, ok, the widows/survivors of the victims). Where did that money go? I know the federal government compensated these people, but where did all the donated money go? And again, after Katrina, more fundraisers, more money raised, and the money went ..... where? I don't know. On the Idol show last night, they were showing people still displaced by Katrina two years later - why? Where did the donated money go? I want to know exactly where it went. I want to know that $45,495.33 went to Case #125786, who is a woman with three children, so she could rebuild her home. I want to know that $395.68 went to Case #245981, a twenty-three year old man, so he could take the bus back and forth from his temporary housing to his job. Is this information out there, and I am just not finding it? Because until I do, until I know exactly where the money is going, I am not donating one stinking red cent to another one of these fundraisers.

There. Whew! I feel better now.

The Shriners

I just fielded a telemarketing call here at work from the Shriners. The Shriners - aren't they the ones who ride those little, teeny motorbikes in parades? And do the figure eights? And wear those weird hats (fezzes, I think they are called) with the tassels on the top?

Yeah. Those guys creep me right the hell out. I mean, why the teeny motorbikes? Do the clowns ride them in the Shrine Circus? Are they supposed to be funny, like ha-ha funny? The sight of grown men squatting over teeny, tiny motorbikes is somehow disturbing to me. I mean, why? What's the point?

I know they are a charity, and I'm sure they do lots and lots of good work, but seriously? Ewww.

My Dad

When I was a kid, I fell on the playground at school and split my chin open. (Coordination is not my middle name.) The school nurse called my Mom, but she wasn't home. (Gasp! Mom not home? How could that be?) So she called my Dad at work to tell him to come pick me up and take me to the emergency room.

First, my Dad asked, "Which daughter?" (He had five, plus a son.)

Then, Dad asked, "Which school?" Not being entirely sure which school I attended.

Then he had to ask for directions. To the school. Because he didn't know where it was. The school that I had been attending for six years.

For some reason, that just cracks me up every time I think about it.

Weekend Update Part Deux

So, after I got Mr. Z set up Saturday, I spent some time weeding the garden. There is this weird, low-ground-cover weedy plant that would gladly take over my garden if I let it, so I pulled a bunch of that up. Then I spent some quality time with some beer on the back deck.

Sunday morning I went up to Chenango Valley State Park and walked the towpath to the old canal lock and back. (I know, I know, this is all just terribly exciting, isn't it?) And it was Turtle Day! Every spring, the first warm couple of days, all the turtles come up out of the mud and climb up on logs and stuff to bask in the sun. And if I am out walking on one of those days, it becomes Turtle Day! Because I love turtles. And I'm so original. I mean, Turtle Day! Who'd a thunk it?

So. Lots of Turtles! Which I love! I also saw a pileated woodpecker, and I heard it call, and another one called back. So there's at least two. Cool! I also saw a deer carcass. All that remained was the skull, spine, ribcage, and lots and lots of deer fur. (Do deer have hair or fur?) A guy walking by said coyotes probably got it. So Saturday I met up with Cujo, and Sunday I was in coyote country. Yay!

The weather was so nice I actually sunburned the back of my neck. Which got me wondering. All the moles I have had removed, they have almost all been on my back or my stomach, areas which see very little or no sun. And the areas that get sun all the time - arms, legs, face? No bad moles. Hmm.

I've had to call Jabba twice in the last few days to tell him to TURN DOWN THE TV. This thing just keeps dragging on and on.

Sunday afternoon I was once again enjoying quality time with some beer on the back deck when I grabbed my watercolors and did a pic of the neighbor's pine tree. And it was lots of fun to paint outside. I kinda figured it would be, but around here, you know, here where it can go six months between hitting 70, I had to wait to find out.

Oh yeah, does anybody have any splinter removal advice? That does not involve needles or knives? I've got a lulu in the palm of my hand. Good times!

Weekend Update

Looking at the post title, "Weekend Update", makes me think of Saturday Night Live. Does anyone besides me remember when that show was actually funny? Now, you could take a whole season, condense it down to funny, and it would maybe equal one hour.

Also not funny? I just spent like fifteen minutes typing a post, and then something happened, and then the whole thing just ...... disappeared. So what we have here is a totally re-created, not-quite-fresh post!

I did a lot of walking this weekend. Saturday I picked up Mom and we went up to Jones Park, where there was still snow on the ground from Monday's storm.

So we were walking down a trail, and we heard what sounded like turkeys gobbling up ahead, so we were all like "sneaky, sneaky walking" to get closer and see the turkeys. And we came across a shallow pool of water, and there were no turkeys, but we heard some "ploink, ploink" noises into the pool, and then silence. Gobbling frogs? Frog gobblers? Ya got me.

And we were walking along, and I saw a deer running through the woods, and it looked like it was going to cross the trail ahead of us, so I pointed it out to Mom, and sure enough, it crossed right in front of us, and we were all "ooh, pretty", and then came the dog that was chasing the deer. It came charging up out of the creek, saw us, skidded to a halt, and started barking its head off, and it was all crouched down in attack position, and the hackles on the back of its neck were raised, and it was barking so hard drool was flinging out of its mouth, and did I mention I was scared? Oh my God. It was a black Lab, which are usually nice dogs, and it had tags on, but I swear all I could think of was Cujo. As in, rabid dog. I looked away from the dog, said to Mom, "keep walking", and kept walking. And I was so sure that one of us was going to get chomped on at any minute. Wah! Mom was cool about it, but I was scared to death. Cause I'm a baby.

Saturday afternoon I took the charcoal grill off Mr. Z and set him in the garden. Here is a picture of Mr. Z.

Oops! Here comes my boss! Gotta run!

If I Had a Million Dollars

If I had a million dollars, I'd move someplace warmer. Not hot hot, like Florida, just someplace warmer where it only snows a couple of times a year, as opposed to here, where snow season starts in October and ends in May.

I'd buy a couple hundred acres of land, and plop my house right in the middle (well, okay, maybe closer to the road). No noisy neighbors. The property would have a stream on it where I could splash around on hot days. I'd also have an in-ground pool, just because I could. Lots of yard around the house to put in gardens. A big wrap-around covered porch where I could sit and read on rainy days. I'd leave most of the property wooded, so I could walk around in the woods when I wanted to.

I'd keep working, of course, because I think I just spent the million bucks, and plus, I'd go crazy if I didn't have something to do every day.

Sigh.

"Copper", My Ass!

As previously noted, I had planned to dye my hair copper-color this past weekend. I had a package of the temporary color that washes out after 8 - 10 shampoos. So, boring Saturday night + box of hair color = certain disaster, at least at my place. (I admit it! I have no life!) My hair is now orange. Bright orange. I actually kind of like it (because I'm weird), but I am getting tired of the stares. I guess that technically I would have to be about twenty(-five) years younger to pull off this look. Oh well! Live and learn!

I saw the woodchuck in the backyard for the first time this spring this past weekend. He lives under the neighbor's shed. Nothing says "spring" like woodchucks, at least around here.

The male goldfinches are starting to turn yellow again. When they first show up in the spring, they're dull and olive-colored, just like the gals, but in a few weeks they turn yellow (Well, not all over. Just the parts of them that are supposed to be yellow, turn yellow). Which reminds me, I use one of those mesh finch feeders. The ones that look like a hanging tube sock? Well, I had put up the one I had from last year, and the finches were going to town on it, but it looked kind of ratty, so I went and bought a nice bright clean new one and hung it up. And the finches won't go near it. WTF?

The lilac, in addition to the buds, is now getting leaves! Wa-hoo!

I went for a quick walk down by the creek last weekend, because I was desperate to get outside even though the weather sucked, and I heard my first red-winged blackbird of the season. Didn't see it, but I heard it! And lest you think I'm some weird bird fanatic who can identify birds by their calls, um ......... no. But some bird songs are so distinctive, you know right away what they are. For me, they are: Blue Jay. Cardinal. Dove. Red-Winged Blackbird. Give me a few days and I might think of a couple more, but that's about it!

Stuck In My Head

"I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats:

And the silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload
And nobody's gonna go to school today
She's gonna make them stay at home
And Daddy doesn't understand it
He always said she was good as gold
And he can see no reasons
Cause there are no reasons
What reasons do you need to be shown

Tell me why
I don't like Mondays
Tell me why
I don't like Mondays
Tell me why
I don't like Mondays
I wanna shoot the whole day down.

Screw the Snow, I Want My MTV

The snow is not as bad as expected - only about 6" so far. However, I had to run home this afternoon to meet the phone guy (my phone service was not working), only to discover that I have no power! And might not have until some time tomorrow. Heavy snow + tree limbs + power lines = not good.

So technically the phone service is fixed, but I still have no phone, because it's a cordless and did I mention that I have no power? Last June, after the floods, I had no power for five days. And it sucked. So I sure hope that this is a short-term thing, because reading by flashlight gets old real quick.

Update: I just called home and my answering maching picked up, which means ..... I HAVE POWER! Thank you NYSEG!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

Or not.

It's snowing right now. We got a couple of inches last night, and it started really coming down around 7:45 this morning, during my drive to work. I'd say we've got about 5" right now here in town, and it's supposed to snow all day. Two of the guys called to say they wouldn't be in; one drives a pick-up truck, and the other drives an SUV. Hello? If you're afraid to drive in the snow, why spend the extra money that an SUV costs? You might as well buy a Chevy Malibu and save yourself several thousand dollars, not to mention get a hell of a lot better gas mileage.
Just my opinion.

My Boy Toy

Back when I was 30, I started seeing a guy who was nine years younger than I. Whoo-hoo! What an ego boost! We met through mutual friends, and I was flattered when I learned that he was interested in me, because he was funny, young, and ..... drop-dead gorgeous. I swear, this guy could be Brad Pitts' twin, except with darker hair. Really. If you put a picture of the guy up next to a picture of Brad Pitt, they looked exactly alike. Ok, ok, you get the picture.

So! Cue "Rock Me" by Liz Phair. We started seeing each other. Not really dating, because I was not interested in any kind of commitment at that point. Let's just call it "friends with benefits", to be blunt. And then we started spending more and more time together, and then he started, well, irritating me. It seemed like he was always at my house, always hanging around, and even for his young age, he was pretty immature. So eventually we had some kind of big fight, I stopped returning his calls, and that was that. Until about a year or so later, when we started hanging out again, he started irritating me, and the pattern would repeat. This went on for about four or five years.

So! My point, and I do have one. Looking back, when the guy was at the "irritating me" stage, I could be pretty rude to him. Pretty blunt, and pretty impatient. I didn't really care to hear what he had to say, and I wouldn't return his calls, and blah blah blah. And it struck me that I never would have been that rude to someone I actually cared about. Someone I had feelings for. So if there is someone in your life who is treating you poorly, who doesn't seem to really care about you ..... they probably don't. Care about you, that is. And you can justify their actions any way you choose, by saying, "Oh, he's just really busy", "Oh, she's going through a bad time right now", etc., but trust me, if he/she really cared about you? They wouldn't treat you like that.

That's my little diatribe for today, and I think it would be a good idea if I re-read this post from time to time, because this little cautionary tale is mostly directed at me. I tend to excuse people's poor treatment of me, and I'm going to try not to do that anymore. Because life is too short to have assholes for friends! And if someone is irritating the crap out of me, I will let them down gently and sever the ties kindly instead of being a jerk.

I think I'm going to dye my hair copper-color this weekend. And I'm definitely going to make a rum cake because I'm jonesing for one. And the weather's gonna suck again this weekend (hellooo, Sunday snowstorm), so I'll have to invent some other indoor activities to keep me occupied.

Have a good weekend!

P.S. When I was seeing this guy, I used to immensely enjoy skeeving myself out by doing the arithmetic in my head, as in, "Let see, when I was eighteen, he was ....... nine. (shiver)".

Not for the Faint of Heart

Rocky's fine. Whew. I took him to the vet last night about that weird goo thing under his eyelid, and ..... fibrous conjectival mass, anyone? Grrrroooss. The vet conjectured (because Rocky's not talkin') that he (Rocky, not the vet) was duking it out with another cat, and that cat snagged one of his claws up under Rocky's eyelid (yikes) causing a laceration. The laceration healed, but there was a small flap of skin left over (gross) which was still attached to the eyelid, but just barely. So the vet gets a clampy thing and some scissors, and with me and the vet tech holding onto Rocky, the vet clamped onto the goo, pulled it away from the eye area (shiver), and was fumbling for the scissors when Rocky jerked his head back. And ..... the goo thing stttrrreettched from Rocky's eye to the clamps, which were now about 6" away from Rocky's head. At this point (sorry folks, the post title shoulda warned you) I had to look away, so I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but about two seconds later the goo thing was resting comfortably in the vet's scissors and Rocky was all, La La LAA! This is fun!

So Rocky's all better. Whew. But I think I may be having nightmares about eyes and stretchy goo masses for a long time to come.

Update: P.S.: I love this vet's office - shout out to Day Hollow Animal Hospital! They're out in the sticks, so they do horses, cows, dogs, cats, the whole nine yards. If I had taken Rocky to some fancy-shmancy vet office in town, they would have been all, "well, we'll have to keep him overnight for observation, then we'll have to anesthetize him, then we'll operate, blah, blah, blah ...." My vet? Grabs the clamps and scissors and goes to town.

My First Date

My first date was with John .... um ...... Oppenheimer? Schmittenheimer? Something like that. (Ha ha! What a great memory I have!) I was in seventh grade, and we double dated with Janet Holst (that bitch) and John's best friend, whose name escapes me (what a surprise!). I think we went to a movie or something, and then back to someone's house, where we, of course, played a kissing game (nope, I don't remember the game exactly, just that it involved going into a closet and kissing your date).

Anyway, all I really remember was getting back home, and one of my sisters commenting something along the lines of, "Oh my God! Look at her hair! Look at her clothes! She's all disheveled!" I swear, I distinctly remember the word "disheveled". We read a lot at my house. I remember my mom telling my sister to stop picking on me.

SO, I violently denied that anything untoward happened on my first date, and sat down to watch some TV. A while later, I went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and .... ooops. Mussed up hair, "disheveled" clothing, the whole nine yards.

And I still have no idea to this day why mom didn't raise holy hell when I walked through the door that night. Maybe the fact that she raised four other girls before I came along had something to do with it?

No More Stitches!

So the dermatologist's office called me up this morning just to let me know that the biopsy results came back benign. What a surprise! Just like the biopsies from the nine million other moles that have been burned/sliced from me!

I've reached a decision. No more "cut first, biopsy later". From now on, if Dr. Happy Knife wants to take a chunk out of me, he's got to do a biopsy first. Unless a particular mole is changing color/bleeding/scampering around my torso, it's biopsy first. Fair? I think so. And my apologies to anyone who is reading this right now while suffering through truly major medical problems, while I whine about my stitches.

Rocky has to go to the vet's tonight. Last week, I noticed that he has a weird piece of goo up underneath his upper eyelid. (Grossed out yet? I thought so.) I thought it was just normal eye goo, but it won't brush off and it doesn't go away. So of course I did just enough Googling regarding feline eye disease to scare the shit out of myself, and all I can do is wait until we get to the vet's, and the vet tells me "it's just a silly little whatever, hah hah hah, we see this all the time! I just took a q-tip and look! It's all gone!". Whew.

Dreamz

Ok, I confess, I have been known to watch Survivor. Also any other piece of crap on TV that catches my eye. So, last week I was watching Survivor, and there's this guy on there whose name is Dreamz. WTF? I think Lisi had it right when she said something along the lines of, "What kind of a grown man calls himself Dreamz?" Ha ha ha! Of course, "Lisi" is not exactly a standard name either.

SO, I had a dream the other night that Richard Gere divorced his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, so that he could hook up with me. (I KNOW they're not married, I KNOW Richard Gere is gay, it was a dream, Ok?) And I don't even like Richard Gere particularly, but that was a pretty good dream. Ahem.

I got to thinking about how, in Hollywood, if you reach a certain age, and you're not married, and you don't have any kids (Richard Gere, George Clooney, etc.), the assumption is that you're gay. And I was totally buying into that, until I realized, hey, I'm not married, I've reached a certain age, I don't have any kids ................ Ooooops. NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH BEING GAY. But now I have to wonder ......... do people think I'm gay? Oh Lord.

Les Miserables

Please, don't be misled by the post title - this is not about Jabba the Hutt, I promise!

Right now I am reading Les Miserables during my lunchtime at work, and I'm really enjoying it, even though it's about 5,000 pages long and will take me about a million lunchtimes to finish. I have nothing against great big fat books; in fact, I really enjoy them, as long as they're interesting. War and Peace? Snore. The main problem I have with War and Peace was everybody had those Russian last names which were about 25 letters long, plus everybody had two or three nicknames, so I never knew who the hell the author was talking about. I should have used a cheat sheet. You know: Victor Nabidovakomkov = Victor Nastaiasa = Vick Blasidonokova. It might have helped.

I got some watercolors done over the weekend. Easter Sunday it was too cold/windy to go for a walk (hello, snow on Easter!), and all of the stores were closed, and I'm not religious = big fat snore. So I did some watercolors of hyacinths and sunflowers (now you're snoring), and finished up a tulip picture for my mom so I could take it to her when I went up to my sister's for Easter dinner. Which was yummy.

So, that's my boring life right now. Did anybody do anything interesting/alarming/worthy of the six o'clock news over the weekend?

Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow OWWW!

OWWW! Dam it! Why do I let them do this to me? Ow! Ow! And the frickin' incision is right square in the middle of my back, which means much hilarity will ensue when I have to contort my arms into previously unattainable positions tonight to try to clean the stitches.

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow OW! OW! OW! OW!

Chunk

I'm going to the dermatologist in a couple of hours to have a chunk taken out of my back. My mole removals are funding this guy's kids' college educations, I'm quite sure. The last time I had this done, it left a scar on my stomach so big that people think I've had laparoscopic surgery. Not attractive. And my back looks like someone's been putting out lit cigarettes on it, from where I've had moles burned off. So I'm gonna go do it again!

And I really do not like my dermatologist's office. The front desk gals are a constantly-changing, ever-surly bunch. I called this morning to confirm the appointment, as it had been rescheduled from a few months back, and the girl was like, "Yeah, yeah, one o'clock, yeah that's right" - click. Surly at its finest!

And I'd find a new dermatologist, but you know what? I'm just too lazy to bother with it. Yes, that's right, I am so lazy that I'd rather deal with surly people and unsightly scars than have to go through the hassle with my insurance company to find a new dermatologist. Sigh.

I Could Afford This House.

I have got to get out of my apartment building. Vinnie's TV is going to drive me flat-out, batshit insane (I know, I know, some people would say I'm already there). Click on the title above to see what I could afford!

Hey! I don't need a palace. I just need someplace to live that does not have other people living in it.

Color

While I was washing the dishes last night, I was watching two male cardinals having some sort of territorial squabble in the neighbor's backyard. It was startling to see those bright flashes of red, when everything else is still blah brown. And it reminded me, pretty soon my garden will have actual flowers in it! Colored flowers! All different colors! Gosh, I can't wait.

That's one of the problems with winter. Everything is so blah and muted. Of course, the sky can be a brilliant blue in winter; unfortunately, that usually happens on the days when it's zero degrees out.

My day lilies are poking out of the ground, along with the daffodils, hyacinths, bleeding heart, etc. The lilac has lots of buds, as well as the rhododendron. I'm hoping the hydrangeas do well this year, 'cause they're my absolute favorites. Oh, and the honeysuckle. Two of the azaleas look good, and I'm really pulling for the third one, 'cause it tries so hard.

I'll put out the hummingbird feeder this weekend. The earliest I've ever seen one (a hummingbird, not a feeder) is the third week in April, but I put the feeder up early just in case some are passing through. I put up the finch feeder last weekend, and moved the suet feeder to a tree downstairs. I've found that I can't put out any bird food that the squirrels have any interest in whatsoever, because they'll clean out a bird feeder in about 20 minutes, no problem. Ya gotta hand it to the little bastards, they can figure out any "squirrel-proof" feeder ever made within a day or two.

It looks up something may have dug up my little peony bush over the winter. If so, I'll have to get another one, 'cause I'm just determined to have a peony bush. The Rose of Sharons (Roses of Sharon?) that I put in last summer are looking good (i.e., still there). And I can't wait to see if the hollyhocks self-seeded. If not, I saved some seeds, and I'll start them again. I don't know if I'm going to monkey with the gladioli this year; I planted a crapload last year, and only got a few blossoms. Oh well.

So that's the garden update. Pretty soon I'll be down in the garden, farting around, wanting to plant some annuals, although I know darn well that it's not safe (frost-wise) to put in annuals around here until after Memorial Day. Which makes for a short season! Time to move south.

Ha Ha Ha Ha HA!

I got home last night, and I could hear the TV on downstairs, but it was at a reasonable level. I was wondering about Paulie and Jim, who live in the other downstairs apartment. If I was hearing the TV at a reasonable level through 12" of new insulation, that meant Jabba had to be cranking it again downstairs, and it had to be driving Paulie and Jim crazy. Unfortunately, they can't complain, because Jim used to rent the apartment they live in now, then he skipped out owing a bunch of back rent. Paulie then took over the rent, but Joe the former building supervisor, who Jim skipped out on, has no idea that Jim is back living down there. And Jim would probably end up in jail if Joe found out. Make sense? Sorry, I can't figure out a way to make it less convoluted. Anyway, Paulie and Jim can't complain. And the noise has to be driving them nuts. And last night, I was watching TV, and I could hear Jabba's TV but not loud, which meant it must have been really loud downstairs, when all of a sudden I hear:

FUUUCCCKKK! BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM! FUUUCCCKK! BAM BAM BAM!

Evidently, either Jim or Paulie finally lost their shit and started pounding on the wall. Classic! And it was nice and quiet for the rest of the night.

Jabba Part ........ Oh, Whatever

I got home last night to REALLY LOUD NOISE. If you think you're sick of reading about it, think how sick I am of living it. I called Jabba and told him to turn the TV down. "Oh, is it too loud?" he said. This guy is either: (a) deaf, or (b) an asshole. Five minutes later, Vinnie called me back, and I told him he needed to turn it down more, because it was just as loud as it was before. No luck. So I called his son Joe and left a message on his machine, and about half an hour later Jabba turned the tv down.

The guys are supposed to come install the insulation today, but as I told Joe in my message last night, unless they use some kind of sound-proofing, insulation is not gonna do a heck of a lot of good at the volume Jabbas got that TV.

I am about to go all Rambo about this. I'm so sick of it. And what is starting to piss me off is that this jerk knows his TV is too loud, and he doesn't give a good goddamn.

Jabba Part III

The last time I posted, it was Thursday morning, and all had been quiet downstairs for a few days. I got home Thursday night to the REALLY LOUD NOISE, and woke up Friday morning to REALLY LOUD NOISE. So I called Jabba's son Joe Friday morning and left a message, when I had been at work for an hour and a half and my ears were still ringing.

When it was almost noon and the ringing hadn't stopped, I got worried and called my doctor's office ('cause I'm a wuss). They said they could see me that day (miracle!) and I went to the doctor's. It turned out that my left ear is infected, and my right ear is almost totally blocked with ear wax (I know, I know, how gross is THAT?). So they tried to pressure wash my ears, at which point I got so dizzy I almost passed out. Oops! Now I am on antibiotics (which make me violently, gut-grabbing sick about an hour after I take them) and ear drops.

So, I get home Friday night to REALLY LOUD NOISE. I was just about to go downstairs and kill Jabba when his son Joe called. Joe said he would call his dad right then and tell him to TURN DOWN THE TV, DAMMIT, and Joe said he would be over Saturday to try to work out the situation.

Oh, and to add to the joy, I had to work Saturday. But you know what? At this point, being at work beats being at home by a long way.

Joe came over Saturday and moved/did something to the oxygen machine so I don't have to listen to that anymore. And he said someone would be over today (Monday) or tomorrow to install super-duper, 12" thick insulation in his dad's ceiling. And it was quiet all weekend.

But wait! On Saturday night, Stephen from the apartment next door came over. He said that he played electric guitar, and had been playing it unplugged when I was home, but wanted to know if he could plug it in and play it, and see if it bothered me - if so, he would keep it unplugged while I was home. Sure, Stephen! Go right ahead! Plug in that guitar! At this point, why not! So he went over to his place, presumably plugged in his guitar and started playing, and I heard ......... nothing. Whew!

So that's the update. If I can just get Jabba to TURN DOWN THAT GODDAM TV, all will be well. Wish me luck! I am trying to think of something I can write right now so that I don't somehow jinx myself ......... abracadabra? Oh please oh please oh please.

Jabba Part II

OK, so Jabba's still alive. His TV has been quiet since my Monday meltdown. Unfortunately, he evidently has some piece of medical equipment or something down there that emits a low, steady droning sound (like that of a generator), because now that he's turned down his TV, I can hear that low, steady droning sound ALL THE TIME. Much better than the TV, but still. Sigh. Oh well, with his habit of smoking while on oxygen, he should be shuffling off this mortal coil real soon. Hopefully, he won't take the rest of us in the building with him.

Jabba the Hutt

The new guy moved in downstairs on Friday while I was at work. When I got home from work, all I could hear in my apartment was REALLY LOUD NOISE from downstairs. I figured the new guy probably had some friends over helping him move, they were probably having a few beers and playing some CDs, and I let it go.

I woke up Saturday around 2 a.m. to REALLY LOUD NOISE from downstairs. It wasn't music playing; although there was occasionally music, there were voices and other noise. It sounded like someone was playing a video game with the volume set really high.

I woke up again on Saturday, around 7 a.m., to REALLY LOUD NOISE. I got up, took a shower, read the paper, made the bed, all to REALLY LOUD NOISE. Finally, around 10 a.m., I went downstairs to see what was up. I knocked on the new neighbor's door, he opened it up, and I was face to face with

JABBA THE HUTT. I swear, this guy looks like Jabba the Hutt. Around 5'5", around 400 lbs., wearing a pair of sweatpants that were just about falling off his butt, with oxygen tank thingies in his nose, smoking a cigarette. Oh Dear Lord.

And the noise? It's his tv. Tuned to CNN, cranked to ear-bleeding volume. I introduced myself, and told his he needed to turn down his TV. "Oh!" he said. "Is it too loud? It doesn't sound too loud to me!" Here we go again. I went through the usual spiel for too-loud tenants, that it was so loud it was giving me a headache, that he would need to get headphones or turn it down, blah blah blah. And I went and did my usual Saturday errands, came back in the afternoon, walked into my apartment, and heard the REALLY LOUD NOISE all over again. Now this guy is the old building superintendent's father (not the landlord's uncle, as I had been told). So I called the old building superintendent, Joe, and left a message on his machine about the REALLY LOUD NOISE coming from his dad's apartment. Then I went back downstairs and told Jabba that he needed to turn it down. "Oh!" he said. "Is it too loud?" But he did turn it down, and Saturday night and Sunday it was blessedly quiet. Joe, his son, called around 5 p.m. Sunday and I explained the situation. "I was afraid of this", Joe said. "Dad really likes to crank his TV. Everybody was loud in his old apartment building, so nobody cared. But I really wanted to get Dad out of that environment, away from the riff-raff. Looks like it's Dad who's the riff-raff, huh?" Yeah. That's right. So anyway, we discussed headphones, etc., and I said that all had been quiet since yesterday, and I was so glad, blah blah blah.

And about five minutes after I got off the phone with Joe, the REALLY LOUD NOISE came back. And stayed until about 10 last night. And started up around 7:20 this morning. So I called Joe and left a message on his machine and I sure hope I hear from him today and this problem gets fixed. Because? If I get home from work tonight and hear REALLY LOUD NOISE, there is going to be one dead Jabba the Hutt downstairs. I am going to lose my mind if I have to listen to that noise one more time.

So if you don't see any more posts here, it's because I'm in prison. For the murder of Jabba the Hutt.

Two Words: Torchiere Lamp

One good thing that did come out of my horrible excursion to WalMart last weekend is a new torchiere lamp. Torchiere lamps are the ones that sit on the floor and have a tall, skinny pole with a lamp on the top (like a torch!).

Anyhow, a while back when my eyesight started to go (because I am, like, 80 years old (not really) (almost)), I was looking for a torchiere to put next to my reading chair, because the two lamps already in the room were no longer cutting it. So I went all over the place, looking for a reasonably priced torchiere, and the cheapest one I found was, like, fifty bucks, which if you read this blog regularly you know is about forty bucks over my budget. Then I went to WalMart and found a torchiere with an extra bendy reading lamp attached for twelve bucks! Shopping heaven! So it's been next to my chair ever since.

I was in the bedroom painting last weekend and folks, it was pretty gloomy in there. Even with two lamps on, the bedroom was still all shadowy, which I never really noticed before because normally when I am in the bedroom I'm asleep. So I picked up another torchiere (without the extra bendy reading lamp, $8.97, thank you evil WalMart), and now my bedroom is lit up like a runway at O'Hare! yay light!

Next up, the kitchen. Because especially at this time of year, and especially since my eyes starting getting older along with the rest of me, the more light the better. And if a plane accidentally lands in my backyard because the pilot thought he saw landing lights? Oops!

Sauder Furniture

I was going to write about The Incredible Torchiere, but I starting thinking about my tv stand (don't ask), so I'll write about that instead.

A while ago, I decided it would be a good idea to get a wooden tv stand sort of thing that I could put in an empty space in my living room and store stuff (junk) in. Of course I hit the thrift stores first, but everything was banged up/tilty/covered with Hello Kitty stickers/not right. I happened to be in Big Lots (shout out to Big Lots! Home of lots of incredibly cheaply produced crap!) and saw a "microwave stand" that looked just about right. (What's the difference between a microwave stand and a tv stand? The amount of weight they can bear! Put a tv on a microwave stand and watch the stand explode/collapse from the weight! How do I know? Don't ask. No, really, I've never actually tried it, but it totally seems like something I would try, with disastrous results.)

So, the microwave stand in Big Lots was Sauder brand. For those of you not familiar, Sauder sells microwave stands/bookshelves/plant stands/computer desks/etc., which come unassembled. As in, I dare you to put this together. So this stand was only $20.00, and it actually looked like real wood, although we all know that Sauder stands for Particle Board with Wood Veneer approximately 1/98" thick. I figured, what the heck, brought it home, and got ready to put it together.

I opened the box, pulled out all the wood pieces, pulled out the baggies full of screws/nuts/washers/God Only Knows, pulled out the instructions (which called for a cordless screwdriver - Ooops! Sorry! Don't have one of those!), got out my old fashioned prehistoric screwdrivers, and got to work.

And it was fun! I had a blast! The instructions were actually written in English and understandable, and I enjoyed it so much that I actually dragged out the assembly process over several days, because I am Screwdriver Woman! Putting together actual furniture (ok, ok, microwave stand)! Having fun!

A few months after that, my mom needed a tv stand for her bedroom, so I went back to Big Lots, picked up a unassembled Sauder tv stand, which was only very, very slightly different from the microwave stand (as in, it was a little bigger and sturdier to carry more weight (see above)), and took it up to TIB's house where mom lives to put it together.

And it was a nightmare. The instructions read as if they had been written in English, translated into Japanese on one of those web sites, and translated back into English again (I guess the instruction manual writers were bored that day!). The pre-drilled screwholes were off-kilter, there were too many of some screws and not enough of others, etc., etc. etc. I finally managed to get the thing together, but it was not pretty.

A few months after that, because I am stupid, I bought an unassembled plant stand, and after several attempts of trying to put the damn thing together, I had a great idea! Ha, ha, look out! I took the thing into work and proudly announced the First Ever Office Engineering Challenge! Luckily, I work for engineers! And they pounced on that bad boy, and put it together for me. Of course, there's lots of gouges in the wood, and there were some extra screws left over, and the whole thing is kind of ...... tippy. And it doesn't really look a whole lot like the picture on the box. That's engineers for you!

The moral of the story? Got me. The results of my furniture building experiences were varied. But now I've got it out of my system. Now I'm painting my apartment.

Apartment Living

We are having a tenant shuffle in my building. The apartment next to mine has been vacant since last fall, when Bill moved out. Now Stephen, who currently lives below me, is moving up next to me. This is the guy I have had to talk to several times about the level of the bass on his stereo. Picture it, if you will: I am hanging out in my apartment on a Saturday, minding my own business, and from downstairs all I can hear is "boomp boomp, boomp boomp boomp, boomp boomp" from the bass on Stephen's stereo. After five hours of this, I finally lose my shit and go downstairs and knock on Stephen's door. And when he opens his door, I hear "BOOMP, BOOMP, BOOMP BOOMP BOOMP", so loud that my hair is practically blowing back from my head from the decibels. And I ask him to please turn down the bass on his stereo, and he says "Oh! Is it too loud? Really?! Because I can hardly hear it!" Oh, Pleeease. Give me a break.

So we have had this particular conversation a few times since then, the last time a few days before Christmas, when things took a nasty turn. After a few hours of "boomp, boomp, boomp boomp boomp", I knocked on his door, and he basically told me to shove it. That he had a "right" to listen to his stereo as loud as he wanted to, blah blah blah. This is kind of a scary (creepy) dude, and I wasn't about to get into a pissing match with him, so I just said, "I'm sorry you feel that way", and walked away, planning on calling the landlord the next day. Note to Stephen: It's not a good idea to tell the building manager (me) to shove it when she asks you to turn down your (way too loud) music. Especially when music levels are specifically addressed in the Building Policy that you signed before you moved in.

SO, the next day, before I could call the landlord, Stephen came to me and apologized, said he had been having a really bad day the day before, and he would no longer be playing his stereo at a loud level. I accepted his apology (because I am nothing if not gracious (!)), and advised him to buy headphones if he wanted to crank his stereo. I have had no stereo volume problems with Stephen since then.

But, now he is going to be living next to me, and let's just say I'm a little (very) wary. NOTE TO APARTMENT DWELLERS: None of your fellow tenants, and that means NONE, wants to hear your loud music. Nobody appreciates it. Nobody is sitting in their apartment going "Gee, it's so nice of him to share his Young Jeezy at ear-splitting volume with me!" Just so you know.

It turns out that the reason Stephen is moving upstairs is because the landlord has a disabled uncle who is moving into Stephen's old first floor apartment (I am assuming he is physically disabled and can't handle stairs). You know what my first thought was? "Great, he's disabled, he'll be nice and quiet!" HOW BAD IS THAT? Why on earth would I assume that since he is disabled, he doesn't like to crank his stereo?

So the new guy moves in on Friday. Lord help me.

Chapter 14, Wherein I Lose My Shit at WalMart

OK, so I went to Walmart yesterday afternoon after putting a coat of semi-gloss on top of the Primer Paint of Death. BTW, do not use cheap disposable paint rollers - I used them for the Primer Paint of Death, and when I was putting on the semi-gloss yesterday, I noticed all these little teeny bits of roller stuck to the wall like bugs on a windshield. Time to break out the sandpaper!

So anyway, I went to Walmart. On a Sunday afternoon. Big mistake. Because, apparently, every yahoo in the free world goes to Walmart on Sunday afternoon. I do not enjoy shopping at Walmart when the store is not busy (say, Tuesday at 3 a.m.), and I certainly will not be going back on Sunday afternoon anytime soon.

It starts with the parking lot, with people cutting across the parking lot every which way - just like bumper cars! Except my bumper car cost over $11,000.00 used! So please don't hit me! I actually once saw two people, in two different cars, go all demolition derby over a handicapped parking space at Walmart.

Next you have to watch out for the thugs in the parking lot. I know, this sounds ridiculous! Why aren't they hanging out downtown or something! Instead, the parking lot at Walmart has become gang-banger city. I don't know why - given the amount of traffic in the parking lot, any crime would have at least 15 witnesses. Maybe they just enjoy the Walmart parking lot ambiance. Somehow guys with do-rags and hanging-down jeans and big parkas just look funny at Walmart. Out of their environment, like penguins at the symphony or something.

OK, now we're in the store. And those people? Driving the bumper cars? They are also now in the store, steering their shopping carts the exact same way. Cutting across aisles, careening around corners, like those old TV shows where you could win as many groceries as you could stuff into your cart in thirty seconds. And my favorite maneuver? The middle-of-the-aisle dead stop. Because why pull your cart over to the edge of the aisle so people could get by, when you can park right in the middle? And then peruse (shampoo, dust mop, whatever) while standing between your cart and one side of the aisle, thus ensuring that absolutely no one can get past. And if someone says, "excuse me", make sure to shoot them a dirty look before moving your cart approximately 1", so that, theoretically, people could get by, if they have an advanced degree in physics and can properly figure out the warps in the space-time continuum they will need to negotiate to fit their cart past yours.

So there I was in Walmart, trying not to Lose My Shit, because I know someone (my niece) who knows someone (her friend) who got punched out at Walmart for commenting on another shopper. For real! But I could feel myself getting tenser by the minute, so I grabbed what I needed and got out of there. And guess what? I saw some really cute sneakers? With ribbons? That would be totally cool this summer? And they were $8.97? And I was too cheap to buy them! Because I already have nine million pairs of sandals, sneakers, etc. What does it say about me that I am too cheap to buy Walmart sneakers?

OK, so I'm not going back to Walmart on Sunday afternoon anytime soon. The yahoos can have it. And, I totally forgot to mention the screaming children! Two per cart!

Asphyxiation, Asphyxiaaaa-aaaa-tion

The apartment painting project continues - I've been working on the bedroom. The previous tenants, Kim and Kevin, were the last ones to paint the bedroom. Kim and Kevin, thank you soooo much! They got a bunch of paint from Kevin's uncle, mixed it all together, and painted the bedroom a dark olive green. Thanks guys!

So I decided I wanted the walls to be white, and off I went, starting with the west wall. Two coats of primer, one coat of flat paint, and two coats of semi-gloss later, the wall was ..... not white. Almost white. White with a green tint. Kinda a puke-white. At which point I discovered that the paint they used, courtesy of Kevin's uncle, was evidently oil-based. And would need to be covered with an oil-based primer, not the latex-based stuff that I used.

Down but not defeated, I decided to paint the other walls, starting with oil-based primer, and then possibly get back to the wall I had already put 5(!) coats of paint on, at some point in the future when I wasn't so depressed.

So! Last weekend, I went and picked up a gallon of oil-based primer, disposable roller pan liners, turpentine for cleaning up splatters, etc. And I started painted the north wall. And stopped breathing.

I can't believe it is legal to sell oil-based primer! I must have lost most of my remaining brain cells from the fumes that were coming off that stuff! Stink?? Oh, My God. I did the first coat, went to run some errands so that I could breathe again, and when I got back to the building, I could smell the paint outside on the back deck! With all the doors and windows closed! So I bit the bullet and did the second coat, this time with windows open in 20 degree weather, and the apartment still stunk for two days after that. I'm talking eyes running, headache-inducing stink.

I will never use that stuff again. Because, you know what? After two primer coats of the Paint of Death, the green still shows through. So this weekend, I will put on a coat of latex semi-gloss and live with the result. Because I like breathing.

Thanks again, Kim and Kevin!

Lost

1. Way to cover, Kate! Sayeed's ten feet into the clearing when he takes a bullet in the shoulder.

2. Submarines?! Paging Captain Nemo!

3. Did Sayeed really torture that woman, or did he just "confess" once he found out that the result for doing so would not be (a) death, but (b) forgiveness.

4. What did the black woman say to eye patch to make him shoot her?

5. Best Sawyer nickname: "Grimace", for Hurley. Does anyone besides me remember Grimace from McDonald's?

6. Best way to blow up a building - enter 77 and let them know that the building has been overrun.

7. We know the cat made it, but what about the poor horse?

Francis the Talking Mule

I've heard about The Mars Volta but never listened to any of their stuff. So I was browsing the CDs at the library the other day, and they had Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta, except the library had cataloged it as "Francis the Mule"! Ha ha ha ha ha! Does anybody else remember those old "Francis the Talking Mule" movies?

So I did a google search for "Francis the Mule", and discovered that The Mars Volta had evidently used that as inspiration for the CD title "Frances the Mute". So the library was not so far off after all.

Anyway, right now I'm listening to the CD, which I alternately like and find annoying. The music is a crazy mash-up of all different kinds of styles. I tend to like the idea of far-out music better than the execution. "Songs in the Key of Z", anyone? There is no denying that the musicians in The Mars Volta are very talented, I just don't know if I like their stuff.

I was watching a documentary the other night about some crazy (as in, mentally ill) guy out in LA who has been making music his whole life. At one point, he was collaborating with Frank Zappa, and some other music people helped him put out an album of his songs. He was hailed as a genius, etc., but I thought his music pretty much sucked, and I couldn't help but thinking that those music people might be better off getting him some mental health help instead of encouraging his "genius". I wasn't watching that closely, to be honest, so maybe they did try to help and I missed it. But at the end of the documentary, he had to go into assisted living, and he started taking medication for his mental problems, and they presented it as sad that the medication made him lose his "pep", or his musical genius. I know that lots of artists kind of tend to be on the fringes of sanity - is that a prerequisite? And if you can only create good stuff when you're nuts, is it "you" doing the creating, or the "nuts" part? I don't know where I'm going with this - just thought I'd throw it out there.

Tax Returns

Yay! I just finished my tax returns! And they're in their little envelopes with stamps on them, all ready to go in the mail!

And I got thinking about my mom's tax returns. In the past, the accountant who handled the taxes for my dad's business did my mom's tax returns (poorly, in my humble opinion, with much filing of extensions, etc.) after dad died (sorry, I know that doesn't make much sense, but I don't know how to make it clearer.) (I would insert "My Bad" here, but if there is a phrase that I hate worse than "My Bad", I can't think of it right now.) So anyway, the business got sold, and we needed to find someone to do mom's taxes last year. I do my own taxes, but they are pathetically simple, and mom has all kinds of trust income, etc., which I have no idea how to do. I asked my sister T.I.B., who mom lives with, if her accountant could do it. And T.I.B. was all, "Oh, he does our taxes for us, but he's not really an accountant, and he's really busy, and I think he's sick and blah blah blah" T.I.B. was not touching this with a 10-ft. pole. So I e-mailed the guy at the bank who handles mom's accounts to see if they would do it, or recommend someone, and sent a copy of the e-mail to my sister Alabama (or Florida, or wherever the hell she is right now), because I copy her on all mom's stuff.

So my sister Alabama e-mails back and says, "I'll do mom's taxes! I have Quickbooks! It'll take two minutes!" After which followed weeks of "I can't find this form", and "I don't have a copy of her blah-blah-blah", and "I'm going out of town, but I'll do it when I get back", followed by weeks of deadly silence. Because I am kind, I am going under the assumption that the taxes got filed.

So! Now it's time to start thinking about mom's tax returns! But I'm not! I refuse! That particular rat is going right back in the cage and staying there! BTW, my sister Texas does volunteer work helping senior citizens fill out their tax returns. Complicated, mind-bending returns with all sorts of trust income, etc. When I asked if she would do mom's taxes, the reply was dead silence, followed by a Changing of the Subject.

So! If everyone else in the family is refusing to deal with this particular subject, why should I? Right? Right? Tax returns? What tax returns?

P.S. I know what you're thinking - "Hello, H & R Block!" I repeat, tax returns? What tax returns?

All Killer No Filler

My favorite mix CD:
1. Stone in Love - Journey
2. Do Ya - ELO
3. Good Times Roll - The Cars
4. You're All I've Got Tonight - The Cars
5. Bye Bye Love - The Cars
6. Don't Cha Stop - The Cars
7. Ah! Leah! - Donnie Iris
8. Ready to Go - Republica
9. Banditos - The Refreshments
10.Birdhouse in Your Soul - They Might Be Giants
11. Carpet of the Sun - Renaissance
12.Head over Heels - The Go-Gos
13.Don't Want to Wait Anymore - The Tubes
14.Heart and Soul - T'Pau
15.Surrender - Cheap Trick
16.Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters
17.Harder to Breathe - Maroon 5
18.And She Was - Talking Heads
19.Out of My Head - Fastball
20.It's the End of the World as We Know It - R.E.M.

Girls suspended for v-word use

A high school suspended three girls for saying the word "vagina". (Click on the link above for the news story.)

In the headline, they use "v-word". "V-word"? Oh, please. Since when is "vagina" a dirty word? They should have used "vah-jay-jay" - at least it would have made me laugh.

Update: OK, it's the next day, and I'm still thinking about this. The other "initial-dash-word" words that I can think of off the top of my head are the F-word, the N-word, and the C-word. Does that mean that "vagina" is on the same playing field as "fuck", "nigger" and "cunt"? I don't know why I can't let this drop - it just doesn't seem to me that "vagina" is an offensive word.

Crazy Cat Lady

Oh no! Exador read my previous post re Rocky and sent me a link to a Crazy Cat Lady action figure (click on title above - Thanks, Exador!)! Please, you must understand! I'm not a crazy cat lady!

1. I have only one cat. Just the one.

2. I love my cat, but I do not love all cats. Really, Rocky is the only cat I know that I even like.

3. I don't think I love Rocky any more than anybody else loves their pets. I mean, if you don't love them, what's the point of keeping them around?

Whew. Is everybody convinced? Please? The absolute last thing I want anybody to think is that I'm a crazy cat lady.

And you know what? I'm totally ready to buy the Crazy Cat Lady action figure - I think it's hysterical. Thanks for the heads up, Exador!

Happy Birthday, Rocky!

Today is my cat Rocky's 15th birthday. Here's some things that are great about Rocky:

He goes on vacation with me to the lake every summer. He spends most of his time underneath the cottage, but he comes out at night to sleep on the bed with me.

When I am sick, he is very patient about not getting fed on time. He's also very good about bringing me mice when I'm sick (maybe he's eating more of them than he's bringing to me, and that's why he's so patient about the late food).

He forgave me for the accidental, absolutely horrific "lion cut" a sadistic groomer gave him (it was my idea that he get a haircut - matted fur, you know). He has also forgiven me for having to board him when I've gone out of town, even though I know that has got to be the worst possible experience for a pet.

When confronted with the neighbor's dalmatian, instead of running away, he jumped onto the dog's back and dug in.

So Happy Birthday, Rocky!

Life is Good

Today is a good day. My health is good, I have a roof over my head and food to eat and a car to drive and hobbies that I enjoy, and the cat is doing fine (Rocky turns 15 on Monday!).

There have been times when I didn't think my life would ever be good again. Everything was going wrong, and I didn't know if things would ever get better.

But now life is good, and I'm afraid that I don't appreciate that enough. So today I am reminding myself.

Square Pegs, Square Pegs, Square, Square Pegs!

(I'd like it if they liked us, but I don't think they like us) - theme song to Square Pegs

Back in the mists of time, there was a TV sitcom called "Square Pegs". At the time it was on, I thought it was a great show. Please keep in mind that I was much younger then.

Well, a while back, one of the cable channels was showing "Square Pegs", and I just had to check it out, because I remembered the show as being so good. So I eagerly started watching, and .......

It was terrible. I mean, a truly awful sitcom. I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that at one point in time, I liked this show. What was wrong with me? And twenty years from now, will I look back at the shows I enjoy now, and think, this is absolute crap?

How could I have liked that show?!

A Massive Dose of Guilt Can Be Highly Profitable

So, last Friday was my twentieth anniversary at work. Did I get flowers? An office luncheon? A bonus? I got ............ nothing. No acknowledgement whatsoever. Needless to say, I was pissed off. Twenty years, and I get ........ nothing? Granted, I work with all guys, and we all know how clueless guys are when it comes to that stuff, often intentionally (What? Me? Remember an anniversay, a birthday, a (fill in the blank here)? But I'm just a clueless guy! Men don't remember that stuff!)(Men don't remember that stuff because the women in their lives don't ream their asses sufficiently when they forget). And the boss was out sick for most of last week. But ......... nothing?

Long story short, I came into work Monday morning and did some quiet venting to a co-worker who had been out of the office last week. Then I got:
1. Flowers.
2. Apologies.
3. An extra week of paid vacation.
4. The company is going to pay the rent on my apartment for the next six months.

Squeaky wheel, indeed.

Harmony

I heard "Monday, Monday" by the Mommas & the Poppas on the radio the other day. It got me thinking that you really don't hear any great vocal groups anymore. The Roches and the Burns Sisters do harmony really, really well, but the Roches are pretty much broken up and the Burns Sisters haven't put out anything new lately (as far as I know).

So - anybody know where I can get a harmony fix?

Joke

Q: How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?

A: We don't know - they've never tried.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Twenty years ago today, I started working at my current job. Uplifting? Depressing? You be the judge!

Funny moments: My boss, on his way to the airport and realizing he's not going to make the flight, calling me on his cell phone and telling me to call the airline and ask them to hold the plane.

Ernie coming in with his wig on crooked, and nobody telling him for the entire day because he was an a-hole.

The boss's full length badger fur coat, which the guys on the construction sites just love.

The time the boss's dog chewed a huge hole in the bottom of said coat, so now it's more three-quarter length.

There's lots more, and I'll post them when I get a chance.

Fame

All the celebrity crash-and-burns lately have got me thinking. If I had made a pile of money at a young age, it seems to me I would've wanted to keep myself very good shape, the better to enjoy the money for as long as possible. I mean, money isn't everything, but it sure helps. So if you had a huge pile of money handed to you, wouldn't it make more sense to keep yourself in shape (exercise, diet, etc.), so you could really enjoy spending all that cash for years to come? I can't imagine looking at a huge bank balance and thinking, "Gee, I can buy a ton of coke with that money", or, "Gee, I think I'll go out and get really, really wasted tonight, and every night". I'd be more like, "Gee, I can buy a small island with that money and lie on the beach for the rest of my life", or, "Gee, I can really make a difference in the world with that much money (after I buy the small island, of course)" (ha!).

I guess I'll never have this particular problem, unless Bill Gates is my long-lost uncle, but it really fries me to see people who have more money than they will ever need turn into total burn-0ut losers. Give me the money! I'll spend it right! I promise!

Digital Cameras

OK, so I'm thinking about getting a digital camera. Actually, I've been thinking about it for months. A local store has a great price ($212.00) on an Olympus SP500 (6.0 mps, 10x optical zoom), but I am concerned because it uses regular batteries, not rechargeable ones. Does anybody know how long batteries last in one of these things? Another local store has a great price ($299.00) on a Kodak EasyShare Z612/printer dock bundle, but I am a little worried because (a) Kodak is very proprietary with their software (EasyShare, sure, as long as you're doing it with a fellow EasyShare-er), and (b) I heard that Kodak cameras are pieces of crap these days.

Any thoughts?

B.S. stands for Building Supervisor

It took a day and a half and three calls to the Building Supervisor (B.S., ha ha ha!), but around 9 this morning I finally realized that the snowplower who is supposed to plow our driveway was probably not going to show up. I contemplated shoveling out the four foot high mountain of packed snow at the end of the driveway and trying to bull my car out, but I was afraid I'd get stuck halfway down and be in a worse jam than I already was.

Then Jim, who lives downstairs, came up and asked if I wanted him to start shoveling. I explained the situation, and Jim said that since he had the day off, he might as well give it a go. Unfortunately, Jim didn't have a shovel (!), so it was the two of us and just one shovel (mine). I went across the street to Hans' house to ask if I could borrow a shovel, and Hans, bless him, came over with his son and a snowblower to help us out! Between all of us, we got the driveway done in about 45 minutes, and now, thankfully, I'm back at work! Yay! Because I was about to go stir crazy at home. Although I did get a couple of watercolor pictures painted, along with one wall of the kitchen.

So I'd like to give a big shout-out to the B.S.: You don't know it yet, but I have the phone number of the building's owner. And after you hung up on me last night, I left a message on the building owner's answering machine. So you may be getting a call today asking why you are hanging up on tenants, and why the driveway never got plowed. Just so you know.

Hanging Up

I just hung up on a client, and I feel fine!

This guy has been trying to get ahold of my boss, and my boss, for whatever reason, has not been returning his calls. So this guy has been calling me and unloading on me, and this morning, I had had enough. I was patient with him for several minutes, as he ranted and raved about how inconsiderate my boss was, etc. But when he insinuated that I was somehow part of the problem, and started saying rude things about my competence, I said, "You know what? I don't get paid enough to listen to this", and I hung up the phone.

Will my boss hear about this one? Oh, absolutely, because if the client doesn't tell him, I will. Because if my boss won't stand behind me on this one, I wouldn't want to work here.

Jokes

Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the deer how it's done.

How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb? Ten: One to change the bulb, and nine to form a "Survive the Darkness" support group.

How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb? Three: One to change the bulb, and two to write a song about it.

Dialogue

Direct transcript of dialogue from yesterday's "The Young and the Restless":

"..... so after Sheila blew up the yacht, we all thought that Lauren was dead, when the truth was, they were trapped in a bomb shelter outside of town, and then Sheila escaped, once again, and apparently went to South America, where she got plastic surgery to make her look exactly like Phyllis Newman ...... "

Wouldn't it be fun to be a writer on one of the soaps?

Art Class

Last night was my first art class. I signed up for a four-session class at the Art School. The class was Drawing and Painting - Students' Choice. So here's what happened:

1. I pulled into the parking lot & headed toward the building. There was a guy who was bringing his dog into the building. I thought, that's pretty rude. Oops - the guy was my teacher.

2. I don't like dogs. Not afraid - just don't like. So of course this dirty, mangy old dog latched right onto me like I was a steak. Teacher said he would remove the dog if anyone there had a problem, and one guy obviously did, because he would freak out anytime the dog went near him, but dog stayed for the entire 90-minute class. Whining the entire time.

3. Teacher spent the first thirty minutes showing off his art (sketches of bare-breasted women, not that I have a problem with that, but it made me wonder if this guy's a lech, seeing as how that was all he showed), talking about where his art can be seen, discussing his Native American heritage, and talking about his tumultuous home life. Then he sketched a few basic shapes, pointed us toward some pencils, crayons, colored pencils, paper, and some basic objects (cubes, squares) to sketch, and told us to have at it.

4. Guy afraid of dog asks several times if the class will continue to be this basic. Teacher explains that it is basically self-directed, that we can work on whatever we want and he will give guidance. Guy afraid of dog goes to great pains to make sure we all know that he went to art class at his high school (oooohhh), and therefore needs more than a basic class. Teacher explains again the concept of self-directed learning.

5. This approach is going to work well for me, since I already paint (badly) and know in which areas I need to improve (all of them, but some more than others).

6. I wanted to improve my painting, but no paints were provided, just drawing supplies. So next week I'm going to drag in a bag of my watercolors and acrylics, brushes, etc., and have at it. Hopefully we can right to work next week - I can get a lot done in 90 minutes when I'm not distracted!

7. The whole thing was just entertaining in a bizarre way, and it least it got me out of the house on a 6 degree night.

Prince at the Super Bowl

OK, So Prince actually made it to the Super Bowl and actually performed some songs without going batshit crazy. Good for Prince. But what was up with the marching band? I mean, can you imagine Prince as a young man, when he was really innovative and exciting, saying, "One day, maybe I can do the Super Bowl halftime show, with a marching band backing me up!"

Or, who knows, maybe he really did say that. I mean, when you're that strange, anything could seem logical.

My apologies if Super Bowl is one word instead of two. And yes, I did watch the game. Yay Colts! I can't stand the Bears. Actually, once my beloved Bills are out of the picture (i.e., as soon as the regular season ends, lately), I kind of lose interest.

Telephone Tax Refund

OK, What's the deal with the telephone tax refund? The IRS instructions talk about a refund of the "federal excise tax". I looked through some old phone bills, and while I paid plenty of "federal tax", nowhere can I find a "federal excise tax". My sister Texas says "hey, don't worry about it, everybody who had phone service paid this tax, just take the standard refund amount", but if everybody paid it, why can't I find it on my old phone bills? Or are "federal tax" and "federal excise tax" one and the same?

Please help.