Sonically Screwed

I got a ticket. A big fat speeding ticket, and I blame it all on the sonic screwdriver. Last night was the magical night of Dr. Who in 3D on the big screen. (The doctor informed us all that he thought we should all have been watching it in 12D by this point, but sadly, we have not advanced that far.) I opted not to see it – in select theaters – on the 23^rd as getting to one of those few theaters would have required boarding a plane, or possibly a TARDIS, neither of which was handy. I did drive two hours last night though, to Bristol, VA with my son and his girlfriend to a giant movie complex where we paid fifteen dollars for popcorn and almost four dollars for Twizzlers.

We drove Robin's car, which appropriately has a WHOVIAN license plate. We got in and turned up the radio to just under window-breaking level so that Robin and his friend could sit in the backseat and feel the giant speaker that lives in the trunk vibrate and BOOM BABABOOM BA BOOM BOOM against their bodies. I can assure you, they didn't need to restrict themselves to the backseat to feel the vibrations of that speaker, I think they could have been anywhere within fifty feet of that car and had the same experience. But we plugged in his downloads of rap, dub-step, club music, and Tenacious D and headed out to see the great Doctor. Just a note: if you ever have the chance to listen to Tenacious D, Jack Black's parody heavy metal band, my recommendation is you set yourself on fire instead.

Somewhere along interstate 81 we ascended a steep hill causing me to really have to push the gas pedal as this car has no cruise control. Also, I would like to add, I was wearing new boots (which are really, fabulously cute!) and I wasn't aware how heavy my foot would be in these new, cute boots. Then we began to go downhill and I had Usher in the speakers forcing me to seat-dance because “the DJ was making us fall in love again” and all these forces combined so that when I got to the bottom of the hill, I basically blew the doors off of the state trooper's car that was parked in the middle of the interstate waiting on some moron like me to come sailing through there at a gillion miles an hour. He immediately flipped on those dreaded blue flashy lights and I slowed down enough to be able to see the shoulder of the road and pulled over. Several minutes later, he caught up with me and pulled in behind me. He walked up and I only slightly rolled down the window because, to my satisfaction, it was freezing cold outside in preparation for the upcoming ice storm. He asked for my license and whatever those papers are they ask for (I can't remember, I've only ever had two other tickets in my life). I had to ask Robin where they were and dug around for a while until I found them. I didn't bother to hurry as I was hoping to freeze Super Trooper into a fish-stick so I could make a clean getaway. I finally found what he needed and slipped them through the slit in the window. He then informed me the reason he pulled me over was that I was doing 86 in a 70 mile per hour speed zone and anything over 80 was considered reckless driving. Did I have any reason for going so fast? I scrunched up my face and pooched out my cheeks, which I have noticed is a face I make when I'm thinking really hard, and I tried desperately to think of some reason that I could have legitimately been driving nearly 90 miles per hour. Dead grandmother? No, she's already dead, I wouldn't need to get to her in any particular hurry. I quickly realized I had lost too much weight to fake being in labor and both of the kids looked entriely too healthy to say I was taking them to the hospital. I thought about the truth for just a split second “I was bonding with my son over Dr. Who and we are just really happy about it?” No. Then I remembered while we were at Burger King earlier I had taken Robin's sonic screwdriver, pointed it at the steering wheel and buzzed it for a good five seconds. I told Robin if his screwdriver had been any good whatsoever, it would enhance the car and we would be there already. That damn sonic screwdriver did it! I blew all the air out of my cheeks, looked up at the officer and said “No, I didn't really have a reason for speeding at all”. After all, I wasn't about to let him confiscate my sonic screwdriver.

He spent what seemed like the next hundred years, writing my ticket and checking out who knows what about me in his little car. Robin's friend was slightly upset in the backseat and whispered that she could see his gun right there in her face (it's a short car). She said she started to panic when she saw the blue lights and I asked – just to make sure – if she was hiding any cocaine I needed to know about or anything. She assured me she wasn't and I was able to calm her down. At one point Robin asked if he could get out of the car and go knock on the guy's window and ask him to hurry up because we had stuff to do. I advised him against this and told him he'd probably get shot. This seemed to quench his desire to jump out of the car and confront a man with a loaded gun, which I thought was a testament to my stellar parenting skills.

Finally, Mr. Policeman came back to the car carrying a flashlight which he shined directly into my eyeballs ensuring I wouldn't be able to see clearly enough to drive over thirty miles per hour for the next several days and had me sign that nasty little paper that says I got caught and he sent us on our way. He told me how to accelerate in the shoulder and pull onto the interstate, but I didn't hear him and he had to repeat himself, which he did with robot-like accuracy, including his goodbye salutation. I had never been pulled over on an interstate before, so I legitimately didn't know how I was supposed to go from zero to seventy in a matter of seconds before being plowed over by a semi. We still got to the theater in plenty of time to find the perfect seats for the 50^th anniversary of Dr. Who and all in all, it was a wonderful night! Also, I have until February 5^th to ignore the ticket and save up the money to pay what I am sure will be a terrific fine. And please feel free to send donations!

Family Values

I really was not going to write about this topic. I wanted to avoid it, but that doesn't seem possible. I am talking about the 25 year old ding-bat who is going to marry Charles Manson. After reading about this I made a decision not to write about it because I didn't want to give this couple any more attention than what they were already getting. Then two things happened. First, I realized I am not famous and in no way is my silly little blog going to make a dent in the world of crazy psychotic people; and second, I cannot get away from this article. It is everywhere. I can't even really site a source because it's been on everything I've looked at today from Google news to the Huffington Post to random posts on Facebook.

This strange relationship began in prison, where Manson was incarcerated for jay walking. He's been there for about 40 years and according to this woman, who goes by the name Star, he is a political prisoner. Poor guy must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Could have happened to anyone. (Yes, I realize the significance of that quote). This “fan” of Manson's started writing to him when she was 19 years old, according to The Huffington Post, and then in 2007, moved to California to be closer to his prison. Already she shows a willingness to put her life on hold and follow him; to go that extra mile for another person. I mean she has left all of her family and friends behind and followed her man to California so that he can continue his career. It's a great example of a giving heart. She also gives most of her time to running a website called Release Charles Manson Now – which is a title and a mission statement all in one – in which she protests his imprisonment and demands his release... now. This lady works for her man. “Stand by your man” could be her motto, and she means it. Really, she is standing next to him in a few pictures, arms draped over him in a loving embrace. Well, by all means, take photos. The memories will last a life time.

It turns out however, that this poor woman may be somewhat misguided or even possibly delusional, though I can't imagine her being delusional. She seems like such a level headed, sane individual. Anyway, Charles denies the whole thing. Uh oh! Looks like trouble in paradise. In fact, he stated to Rolling Stone “That's a bunch of garbage... That's trash. We're just playing that for public consumption.” I think they may want to consider couples counseling until they can figure out exactly where their relationship is headed. After all, if there is a communication problem between couples regarding their ultimate goal, it can stress the relationship and doom it. I think she needs to consider that Manson is now 79 years old and has a swastika in the middle of his forehead and she may be at a different place, emotionally, than he is. It would be a May / December romance anyway, and those can be challenging. You have society and inmates judging your age gap and sometimes people are not as supportive as they could be.

I don't know though; I think these two crazy kids could make it work. After all, she knows where he is every night, so she doesn't have to worry about him roaming the streets, you know, jay walking, or even possibly, planning anyone's death were he inclined to escalate to that. He knows she's a faithful wife who is willing to stay next to him and will move to follow him. She is able to write letters, so that is probably a useful wife skill that he could appreciate in her, and he would be secure in the knowledge that she has seen his worst side and loves him anyway. I hope for her sake this all works out. I'd hate to think I had put my whole life's happiness, given my heart away to one man, to Charles Manson and later found out he had no intentions at all in marrying me. After all, if you can't trust Charles Manson, who are you going to trust? Also, it would be a shame to see him lie in prison, old and alone. Despite the fact that he snuffed out the lives of several people – by jaywalking – he should be happy, right?

I think I'll send them a fondue set. I know most people give out blenders anymore, but I don't know that he's allowed to have sharp objects, and I don't think I'd want her to have any either. I do think though if they had some of the more important inmates over for game night and cocktails and they had a cheese fountain running so everyone could dip their prison bread into it, that might be nice. So, you go for it guys. I am sure this union will last... at least until one of you is left unsupervised and you get hold of a sharp object. Mazel tov.

The Blogs Must Be Crazy

I have totally lost my mind. This month I signed up for both National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) and National Novel Writing Month (NaNo). Essentially this means I am an idiot. During NaBloPoMo I am supposed to write a blog post every day during the month except weekends. There is a huge possibility that I made up the rule excepting weekends, but I can do that because I'm a grown up now. During NaNo, I am supposed to get 50,000 words written in a single month (November) of a novel. Ideally this would have finished the novel I have been randomly working on for a year or so. The result of combining these two activities is that I have managed to not accomplish either one. I am a study in How to Not Get Things Done. I have only managed a little over 37,000 words on my novel and I have written maybe half of the blog posts that I should have by now.

My nightstand is covered in empty Diet Coke cans – the ones that haven't fallen on the floor – and I think I have mainly been living on bananas when I remember to eat at all. I will get really sick at night after taking my medicine and then it will occur to me that I can't recall eating at all that day. I'll get up and eat a banana and grab another Diet Coke and run back to stare at the computer screen. I think I've cooked for my family about three times... I'm not sure they live here anymore, come to think of it. I'm only vaguely aware of the dog when he has to go out and then I forget he's out there until night when he sends me an angry text message saying he's cold and is planning on biting me if I don't let him in soon. This morning I was hugging my children goodbye before school and called them the wrong names.

I haven't walked or exercised all month, and at this point it would probably be too much of a shock to my system to attempt it. The last time I was outside it was decently warm and walking was nice. Now then it is colder than a witch's titty in a brass bra (thank you Grandma) and I'm certain my body would get so cold that every pore and orifice I have would seal itself shut against the cold and I'd never be able to pee again. Not only that, I'm almost positive that I am part vampire at this point and were I to saunter off into the sunlight I would spontaneously combust and disintegrate into a pile of ashes. Either that or I would start to madly sparkle and I would be heartily disappointed. Neither seems worth the risk. I have managed to brush my teeth most days and I have showered at least twice this month, so I know hygiene is covered.

I have been social two times this month. I went to a friend's house and saw The Hobbit and went to a different friend's house so she could have a thyroid biopsy done. The procedure, which I chronicled in A Pain in the Neck, no doubt scarred me for life as I ended up watching the whole thing, but watching The Hobbit was a lot of fun. I seriously had to make myself leave my laptop at home though when I went out for fun. I kept thinking, “Oh, I can write for just a little while. No one will mind”. I firmly told myself I was being a workaholic pain in the butt and left the laptop at home, but I did take it with me when I went with my friend for her “surgery” and instead found myself hugging my poor computer tightly to my body as I watched helplessly from a chair while a person dressed like a doctor poked around inside my friend's neck. There was no writing to be done that day. I mostly watched TV shows from the 80's and tried to un-see what had been seen.

I haven't called my mother or my best friends. I just wished my brother a happy birthday one day too late because I have lost a day somewhere. I am madly trying to schedule some time to catch up on the Dr. Who seasons because I am only part of the way through season six and my son will actually kill me if I haven't caught up on it before I take him and his girlfriend to see it in the theater on the 25^th (This gives me 4 days to watch one and a half seasons of an hour long TV show). I had entirely forgotten about Thanksgiving because – true story – many of the bloggers that I follow live in Canada. They have already had Thanksgiving there and I somehow managed to make myself think that since they had celebrated it, that was one less thing I had to do (or something like that). I think I just saw everyone's posts and pictures and somewhere in the back of my head was thinking “Wow, Thanksgiving this year was great! It seemed kind of short, but I had such a good time. I wonder why I don't have any leftovers?” Also, I went to put on deodorant the other day and stuck a water bottle in my armpit.

So, if you have any sense at all you should never ever sign up for both NaBloPoMo and NaNo at the same time. It is the most bang-your-head-against-the-wall, nerve wracking, what-was-I-thinking thing you can ever do to yourself. Other people can inflict pain and frustration on you and you can hate them and blame them until you die, but when you do do it to yourself, you can only blame yourself – unless you can blame your mother. It is absolutely maddening and I promise you, swear on a stack of bibles, that I will do it again next year! Blogher November NaBloPoMo

 

The best part of me

Today's blog post is a little story and a massive shout out to some people who are entirely over qualified to be my friends. I will use initials or nicknames in case you don't want the general public to know that you know me.

About a week ago, my mom called me. (Shout out number 1)! She was at the home of some people she knew that used to be neighbors of hers. They had moved and the place they had moved to was burning to the ground. I do not know how she stood there and comforted those people and had the presence of mind to start making calls to have their things replaced, but she did. I could hear the house growling and blazing in the background and I could hear the woman shakily answering questions and the children crying in the background. One of the worst noises were the clipped quiet one-word answers that the dad was giving. But mom was able to get clothing size information and the ages of the children out so that collections could start coming in.

The post went up on Facebook and my friends immediately responded. None of my friends have ever met these people, but they stepped up and helped out. My other “Lady T” (Shout out number 2)! started a cash collection at work and went through her basement to see if she might have any clothes left over from when her son was the age of the little boy. Before she gave me the donation envelope, she opened up her own wallet and put her own money into the envelope too. She took the time to send out a work-wide e-mail to gather donations! I don't know the people she works with but they all donated and I am so grateful for their thoughtfulness. She also contacted her sister in Oklahoma and I understand she is also sending out a box! (Shout out number 3)! Then I went to PeeWee's house (Shout out number 4)! this past week because she was having surgery. However before she had her procedure done, she took the time to go through her closet and get out things that she had bought and never worn. She is the same size as the mother from the house fire and she collected everything she had that still had a tag on it. That was a big help. I was given this lady's measurements, and not many people I know are that small, but Ms. PeeWee answered perfectly to the size!

I called my cute Sexy Face friend in town (Shout out number 5)! and she went through boxes of things that her daughters had worn. She has an older daughter and two very young ones who's sizes are almost perfect for the little girl who lost her home. She even offered to bring them to me, but she was already doing plenty. I know she dug through several boxes to find clothes to fit this little girl and she also found a coat for her and some other things that I just take for granted, but Sexy Face knew they would be needed. Then my friend from Tennessee who has put up with me for 20 years called me, (Shout out number 6)! This woman didn't stop with clothes, she has collected small appliances and house wares for these people! I couldn't believe it when she said she had a microwave, coffee maker and toaster oven for them. (I believe they are moving back into my mother's neighborhood, so yes, they will have a place to keep this stuff). She has clothes for both of the children and toys! I was so relieved over the toys, because kids don't understand why they don't have their toys anymore and why toys aren't up on mom and dad's top priority list. She has basically gone through and found just about everything she could think of that this family might need. If she had a double of it, it was given away to this family!

I have rarely run across this kind of widespread generosity. To think that I know these wonderful, giving people is truly a humbling experience. Some of us have plenty, some of us have very little, but everyone gave what they could and that is huge. To know that my friends took the time and initiative to go through boxes and basements, to collect donations, to comfort people when that had to be the one time I would want to run away... to know this about the people I love is life altering. I knew I had a habit of making friends with good people, but I never imagined such wonderful people would allow me to be a part of their lives. I am truly grateful to all of you and I am proud to know every single one of you.

Disco Inferno

Today I have managed another narrow escape. I have acquired the unparallelled ability to set my house on fire with almost any small appliance. It has taken precisely 34 years for me to figure out how to do it with a unattended heating pad. I recently bought some fairly ugly sheets because they were on clearance and I am down one set of sheets for my bed. I had this lovely green set of bamboo sheets that feel like you are laying in a field of daisies in Unicorn Meadow and I seriously love those sheets. Alas, for the second time in a row, the fitted sheet has ripped at the corner seam. My very clever and handy mother was able to sew the sheets back together the first time they ripped, but they have ripped again and I am afraid to take them to her. I am afraid she will give me a terminal diagnoses for them and then I would have to throw them out, whereas if I don't let anyone see the rip, I can continue to hang onto these sheets forever and tell myself that eventually I will have them repaired.

I like to have at least four sheet sets for each bed in the house and the fact that I was down to three for my bed was aggravating me, so I bought these new ugly sheets and called it a day. The sheets were labeled as microfiber, and I love trying different textures of sheets. I have Egyptian cotton sheets which were made by the gods, I have t-shirt sheets, I have regular sheets, so I decided microfiber sheets were something I needed to try out. As an aside, does anyone know if all microfiber sheets are sold without a thread count? I am a minimum 500 thread count kind of person and these weren't labeled at all. Anyway, I washed them and made my bed in them today and snuggled down in them during a mild headache to relax and read. I turned my heating pad on and put it on my feet which are always the temperature of Inuit Hell and dozed off. When I heard Dan coming home I got up to make dinner and carefully covered my heating pad up inside my sheets so that they would be nice and toasty when I got back. I cooked dinner and ate it and cleaned up and then came back to my room. I could smell this burning plastic smell, like scorched hair or something. I lifted the sheet off of my heating pad and smoke rose a little. A very little, but it was there. Apparently, microfiber is a Stupid-Consumer term meaning polyester. It never occurred to me that I had never heard of any microfibers being sheered or a wild microfiber providing a nice pelt. I had never read anywhere that the microfiber plant will grow only in region five climates or that the microfiber tree is beautiful in the spring. I bought sheets made out of plastic bottles and used tires and then was surprised when it almost caught on fire. Darwin was wrong. Survival can be achieved by sheer luck.

A couple of winters ago I managed to set fire to a perfectly harmless vacuum cleaner. I had worked myself into freakishly-clean-house mode and was cleaning things like the pledge bottle and dusting the broom. At one point I decided that the wood stove not only needed to be cleaned on the outside, it needed to be clean on the inside, because, you know, you want your ashes to be clean. So I grabbed the vacuum cleaner – which I had already wiped and vacuumed down – and opened the wood-stove door and plunged the sucker hose in there all the way to the back. I sucked ashes from the 1920's. I cleaned and cleaned. The inside of that thing was beautiful when I got done with it. I set the vacuum aside in the living room and continued to clean with a vengeance. After a while, I got to smelling something. Something burning possibly? I knew it wasn't the wood stove, so I looked around the house and found nothing. At one point the vacuum cleaner caught my eye and well, it looked like it was smoking a cigar, which is unusual behavior for my particular vacuum. I opened the little door where the bag went and there was a huge hole in the bag and it had begun to melt the inside of the vacuum! I was shocked! What happened? Turns out while vacuuming the wood-stove I sucked up a cinder from that morning's fire and it was bright red and merrily burning a hole right through my vacuum and working it's way outward. I flung the bag on the porch and it proceeded to grow with the wind and became a raging ball of dust, paper and fire on my wooden deck in approximately three seconds. Fortunately I smoked at the time and had a huge ceramic flower pot for an ash try which I scooped the bag into and managed to stomp out. Oddly, Dan was not really amused with me, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

I have also managed to set a microwave on fire, have such a huge oven fire from a pizza that the fire trucks had to come and run these big fans through my house, I set a friend's microwave on fire in high school and my daughter nearly set our new microwave on fire a few weeks ago with a gold metal unicorn cup. I'm so glad she's decided to follow in my footsteps. It makes me feel like I'm leaving something behind me in this world. A big burnt path in my wake.

Bad Breaking

I am writing this pitiful post on my phone. I broke my computer and I am certain the universe is out to get me. So, if you didn't get a chance to, read yesterdays post and if you already did, then re-read it. I have to fix my poor computer tomorrow (I hope). I'll leave you with this sage advise from George Carlin: If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, set them on fire.
Keep your fingers crossed for my computer! -hugs!

A pain in the neck

I have been scarred for life.

I didn't write yesterday because I was in Roanoke helping one of my best friends while she had a surgery. She had to have a biopsy of her thyroid done and I was to be the wing-man. Not a problem at all. I was actually happy that I could spend a day and night with her and we made plans with another friend to have dinner last night. All in all I was planning on enjoying myself. I packed my Kindle and my laptop so that I could write my blog while she was in surgery and then I planned on finishing the book I was reading.

I set my alarm as loud as it would go for 4 a.m. I put it on Moo. If you have never put your phone on a Moo ringtone, you really should. At four in the morning I had just slipped into a REM cycle and was peacefully dreaming that Shemar Moore was in his FBI outfit and had saved my life and then... Well, he wasn't in his FBI outfit anymore and were – MOOOO – It's like waking up to the sudden realization that you are about to be trampled to death by a rogue wild cow and it has moo-ed at you as a gesture of fair play but now you are going to be stomped into a mud hole. I fell out of bed to avoid the rabid bull that I knew was after me and once I hit the floor, I woke up; which is the point of setting an alarm anyway. I got dressed and packed some overnight clothes and (true story) seven pair of panties and four pair of socks. I am always afraid that something will happen – I don't have a clear idea of what this incident would be – where I need spare underwear and socks and there just won't be any. Anytime I pack for anything at all to go any place on earth, I pack one extra week's worth of panties and four extra pair of socks. Don't judge me, you know you have a weird thing you do. Anyway, I got to Roanoke by staring straight ahead out of the windshield and not blinking for fear I'd fall asleep again. I am assuming I didn't run over anyone as no one has arrested me, but to be perfectly honest, I really couldn't tell you.

I picked up my friend and two large Diet Cokes and we drove onward to the hospital so they could gash my dear friend open while I would sit in a comfortable waiting room. We checked in and sat and then they called us to another area where we sat and then they called us and filled out forms and put us in another area and we sat and then they called us... Finally a nurse took us to a room with some very medical looking equipment and a bed. I figured this was pre-op. I'd help my friend take off her regular, everyday clothes and put on one of those fetching numbers that the hospital provides – you know, the gown made by sadist perverts – and then I would kiss her on the head, gently reassure her and wander off to the cafeteria where I could get a stale cinnamon roll and more caffeine and I could write. Our hostess walked back out of the room without handing out any gowns or anything, so I figured she needed to go hunt one up. About five minutes later a doctor and two nurses walk into the room and shut the door. A nurse turned on a machine attached to a little TV, which I instantly recognized as an ultrasound machine. Cool. The doctor is laying my friend back on the bed and says he is going to numb her throat. “Well,” I think, “that's good. Surgery would suck if it wasn't numb”. The nurse hands him a syringe full of a numbing agent and my friend does well with that. They go over some more paperwork and at one point ask her to sign the form that says that it is okay to have the procedure done while being observed. She agrees and signs and I'm looking around wondering if I can possibly nap after I write. The second nurse flips on her little TV and squirts a big wad of that warm petrolium jelly on my dear friend's neck and plunges the little ultrasound thingy against her neck and suddenly I am looking at the inside of my dear friend's throat. I can see her swallow. I love my friends with all my heart, but I am not accustomed to viewing their insides. I think some things should be kept private. Then, I see on the little TV screen something long and straight and absolutely huge come sliding into the picture and this thing begins poking on a lump of something shown on the little screen. I look over at my friend and suddenly reality crashes into my face... THIS is “surgery”, only it isn't surgery at all, it is a procedure and the thing that came sliding into the picture is a huge needle and I am watching this needle poke poke poke poke my friend's insides. I know my eyes got big because I could feel them in my hairline and I'm almost certain I lost the ability to blink. He pulled that needle out and got another, because, you know, why not? They stuck several needles in her which I could not stop watching on the little TV screen, the doctor stuck a little round Band-aid on her neck and that was that. He helped her sit up and asked how she was. She sweetly said she was fine, that she had expected there would be more to it than that and how nice and quick that was. The doctor checked his watch and said yes, it had taken six minutes. I was still staring at the, now blank, TV screen and a nurse turned and looked at me and said “Ma'am, are you okay? You have a death grip going there”. That's when I looked down at my hands and realized that I had them firmly clasped together to the point where all of my knuckles were startlingly white and my fingertips were a purple-y red color. I tried to make my hands let go of each other and when I finally pried them apart they stayed molded in the position of clasped hands. I couldn't even wiggle my fingers. I think I even managed to exhale here at some point. I assured the doctor and nurses that I was just dandy. Never been better. I was fantastic. After all, I had been looking for a reason to see a psychiatrist and now I had one!

Watch your mouth

Attention squeamish people. This blog today uses dirty words like sperm and cephalopods and tongue. If you are under age, go away, you stand a very real chance of learning something from this.

Today's blog is inspired by a horrifying bit of food news which I ran across while goofing around on the internet. According to www.dailymail.co.uk “a 63 year old woman became 'pregnant' with 12 baby squid after eating calamari”. No, she did not become pregnant in the standard way, she became “pregnant in the mouth”. That's right folks! This woman was from South Korea and was eating a whole squid, though in her defense it had been cooked when “she felt a sharp pain in her mouth”. The article states “The lady told doctors that she could feel something in her mouth which they described as 'bug-like organisms'”. The doctors examined her and found baby cephalopods attached to the inside of her mouth, on her gums and tongue and cheek. Apparently, over in the east, they don't bother taking the internal organs out of their eight legged seafood, or any other food for that matter. I mean, honestly, who has time for all that, right? Well, if you happen to get one of these little squids and it is a guy-squid, and you chomp the still intact sperm bag, that little man will impregnate you! I'm telling you, guys will get it on even if they are dead and have been cooked! There is no stopping the male species from sowing their oats. And this little guys oats come with a cement like substance on them, the spermatangium, and this stuff will deeply embed itself in soft tissue. The article states – oh dear god – “Inside the pods is an 'ejaculatory apparatus' and sperm – with the apparatus expelling the sperm quite forcefully”. In other words, this poor woman bit down on a veritable squid sperm filled bag of dynamite and those things implanted themselves on every available surface in her mouth. Fortunately it hurt so bad that she immediately spat this fun piece of food out and avoided swallowing any of it. I am not even going to make a joke about that, it's entirely too easy. She took it to the doctor and they were fortunately able to determine who the daddy was.

My very favorite part of this article reads thus: “Danna Staaf, a squid enthusiast from Science 2.0, said 'The skin on your hands, and most of the rest of your body is much too thick to get stuck. I've probably had hundreds of spermatophores ejaculate on my fingers and never felt a sting”. Well, well, well, have you really? What does this woman do for a living? I cannot imagine any time period in my life where I have casually mentioned that I have hundreds of squid ejaculations on my fingers, whether it stung or not. I can think of no reason I would have my hand or any other body part in the direct line of fire of a squid or any other animal... and I live in the Appalachian Mountains! I realize some people really, REALLY get into their job, but this seems extreme to me.

The really good part of this story is that this is not a singular incident. Nope, “a similar case was reported in December last year when a woman in Japan suffered severe pains in her mouth after eating raw squid. She took the remaining piece – I'm thinking this means she swallowed the part she was chewing – with her to the Tosei General Hospital, the NCBI reports, and the sperm bags were removed”. These people have to have surgery to remove these things! “Twelve small, white spindle-shaped bug-like organisms stuck in the mucous membrane of the tongue, cheek, and gingiva (gums) were completely removed, along with the affected mucosa”. I think I would ask them to simply remove the entire lower half of my face and replace it with a wooden jaw and mouth, like the one on Howdy Doody. It seemed to work just fine for him.

So, dear friends, I suppose the moral of the story is don't eat calamari. Ever. It just isn't a good idea and it was a bad enough idea before this delightful piece of information found it's way onto my computer screen. Though if you absolutely must eat calamari, perhaps the world has run out of grasshoppers or something, then for heaven's sake, make sure it is a girl calamari and not a guy calamari. At least the women aren't out to impregnate anything within range of their... firing apparatus.

A star in my own mind

Aaaaand we're back! I have been away from my computer for several days and have not written because life happens and although it never much happens to me, the cosmos has decided that I must somehow be involved... Moving on!

So, I did the fashion show last night, and yes, I had a very good time! I get there and there are already 13 girls and women there so I figure that I'm the good-luck number because I like superstitions and if I can at all incorporate them into my daily life, I will do so. There were people there to do hair and makeup, which bothered me a bit. Not that they were doing it, but how they were doing it. There were no fresh disposable mascara wands in between people, no fresh makeup sponges, not even single use lipstick brushes. I shared facial germs with twenty-something women last night. As I am a little anal-retentive about germs, it felt like having someone do my eye makeup with a tissue found on the streets of New York City after three thousand sick people made a protest against restaurant workers having to wash their hands after urinating... It basically freaked me out, but I lived through it and as yet have not discovered a patch of eyelash fungus or any communicable diseases nor have my lips blistered and fallen off, so I am probably okay.

As the night progressed, I discovered one of the models had a newborn baby. I mean a new newborn baby. It still had that weird white crusty stuff where his eyebrows will eventually be. I thought, well good for you, lady, I've never had a baby and done a fashion show in the same week! You are one hell of a woman. I'm still not entirely sure which woman was the mother as two women came in with the baby and neither particularly looked like they had been recently vacated. I think they were just friends though, but I really think one must have been the mom. Either way, this kid didn't have what you might call an actual babysitter, so as we were all changing, whoever was already dressed just held the kid. I ended up with it at one point and for about five seconds my heart went (actual quote) “Awwwww”. Then it smiled at me and I melted. Turned out that wasn't a smile. It was a poopie. My heart instantly rewound it's previous sentimental comment and thought “that is a stinky baby and I am so glad I never have to do that again”. I gagged a little then passed it on to some other woman who may or may not have been a part of the show and I went for my turn down the walk.

The group I was with were staged in the mens bathroom for changing, thankfully the hotel had cleaned it well, and we all changed in there and threw clothes around like crazy people and made sure each other looked great... and I got to take a picture with a urinal! I was so excited. I don't get many photo ops with a urinal, so we had a good time taking stupid pictures of ourselves trying to imitate men. I told my daughter and son about it afterward and my daughter wanted a picture, because we bond that way, so she and I and my son all headed off into the mens room after the show to take more pictures. The bathroom was still closed off as staging, so it was fine. So we go in and I'm laughing and talking and my daughter is laughing and my son is standing next to me and get over the urinal and turn and smile for the camera and my son looks at me and says “WHAT are you doing?” I looked at him blankly for asking such a ridiculous question and said “I told you, I'm taking a picture with the urinal”. He said yes, he could see that much, but I was using it wrong. Apparently there is no need to straddle a urinal. I had gotten up close to it and stretched my legs around it and was standing there over the urinal. That's not how it's done at all. Those men stand somewhere in the back of the room, so I've been told, and pee. They can write words! One guy told me if you are bored, you try to pee a hole into the bowl cleaner tablet. I mean, I knew guys peed standing up, I just wasn't aware that you could trust yourself so far away from your intended target and that you could write a couplet if the mood hit you and you'd had enough beer! I'm actually kind of impressed. I've never been to do anything like that creative with my waste fluids. I just thought you got rid of them and moved on; I have been lied to.

After the show, my darling family who came out and supported me took me to an Italian restaurant and I made the waiter think something was wrong with me. Not on purpose of course, I'm never funny when I want to be funny. I'm funny when I'm relaxed and minding my own business. For those who don't know and don't care, I am a vegetarian. I am not happy about this, so I will never moo at you while you eat a burger, I just can't eat meat. I seem to be okay though with fish about twice a month though. So I ordered this grilled salmon cannelloni with grilled vegetables on linguine pasta and I finally finished the marathon round of questions at the end; the ones you have to answer for the waiter: “What kind of pasta would you like with that? What kind of dressing on your salad? Would you like our house wine? Do you know where my keys are? Who did you vote for?” So by this time my brain was on auto pilot and I was mechanically answering questions. When he came to the end, I mechanically asked my question which is “There isn't any meat in this, is there?” He stopped and looked at me and said “Is – is there meat? In your salmon?” Quickly I tried to make some excuse about how everything has bacon tossed in it anymore and then my son looked him straight in the eye and made the Cthulu sound.

The end.

If you don't know what the Cthulu sounds like you should Google it. I was horrified.

Feelin' Slizzard in my G6?

Tonight as my daughter and I were riding to the mall for my fitting and her chance to see her boyfriend, we of course got in the car and cranked the radio up to the local Top 40 station and seat danced to Usher, crushed on Adam Levine, changed the station when Nikki Manage came on and belted out Just Give Me A Reason by Pink and Nate from Fun. During this radio hilarity and, I must say, Grammy winning singing marathon, a song came on the radio that frankly, we could not understand. I was afraid it was because I am 34 years old and must have reached the point in my life where I still adore Alanis Morrisette and have no use for the music of youngsters these days, but it turns out my 16 year old daughter was just as confused as I was. This song is titled G6 by Far East Movement. To be fair, it has a decent dance beat, but I think that was where the song writers decided they would take a coffee break and possibly a hyper-caffinated janitor broke into the studio and filled in the lyrics from a Mad-Libs travel book. I will not inflict the entire song on you, but I must write the chorus as it prompted a discussion between my daughter and I. The chorus is as follows:

Poppin bottles in the ice, like a blizzard

When we drink we do it right getting slizzard

Sippin sizzurp in my ride, like Three 6

Now I'm feelin so fly like a G6

Like a G6, Like a G6

Now I'm feelin so fly like a G6

Pardon me, apparently this stanza is called a Hook, not a chorus. My bad. Anyway, my daughter and I looked at each other the first time we heard the word “slizzard” and said “what the hell is slizzard?” Now, I have been several kinds of drunk. I have been tipsy, woozy and giddy. I have been To'e up from the Flo' up. I have been smashed, hammered, and wasted. I have been three sheets to the wind and even 40 sheets to the wind. I have been stumbling drunk and Why-am-I-wearing-a-Snow-White-Costume drunk. I have never been Slizzard. I'm not sure I would even recognize being slizzard if I managed to get there. After all, what constitutes slizzardness? I have a picture in my head of someone who is so drunk that they can no longer walk, but they desperately want to continue dancing, so they sort of fall over and slizzer around on the floor in a rhythmical manner to the background music. I imagine it looks something like a seizure and the Inch Worm combined. Of course this person would have a red Solo cup sitting wedged in a corner somewhere with a bendy straw in it so they could occasionally slizzer over and refresh themselves with a hard beverage to maintain their state of slizzardness.

The next thing I had to wonder about was “feeling fly like a G6”. I don't know what a G6 is. I'm not sure if I had one I would know what I was expected to do with it. My clever daughter pointed out that since they were talking about flying, maybe it was some type of airplane. Well, that's just stupid. I mean if I were going to feel like an airplane, I would want to feel like an F-14. That's a badass airplane. I definitely would want to feel fly like an F-14. I told my daughter this, but she pointed out that maybe when you are so inebriated that you have become slizzard, you aren't to be trusted with an F-14 and your best hope is a G6. I thought that was a pretty good point. On the other hand, if a G6 does not refer to aircraft, what would I do with such a thing? I'll tell you what I would do with it. I have watched my kids play Pokemon for so long that I know I would train my G6 until it evolved into a G7 and could take out a Squirtle with one move. If I decided I liked my evolved G6, I might even go so far as to take it to some kind of training center and evolve it into a G8, which I am sure would be the baddest G number around. I have to wonder though, if you are feeling fly like a G6, which would indicate something to do with areal transportation, then possibly, you could feel sunk like a G4 and grounded like a G5. I guess if you were feeling stellar, you would have to upgrade to feeling stellar like a G7.

They have totally thrown me in the song with their reference to sipping sizzurp in their ride, like Three 6. I have no idea what this number is in reference to, though I have realized Three 6can be looked at as a fraction which would equal one half. Perhaps they are sipping some sticky beverage in their car that is one half syrup and one half whatever it is that will get one slizzard. Possibly they are drinking pancake syrup and rum. I don't know about slizzard, but it would certainly get you sick!

The scariest holiday ever

I have been away from my blog for a few days due to the Hallowe'en holiday, a travesty of a tea party and a faulty immune system. The end of October crashed in a spectacular show of dismay and misery the likes of which haven't been seen since the volcano exploded over Pompeii covering the earth with poison air, ash and death.

Hallowe'en promised to be a good night. For the first time in many years I had no party to attend, was not dressing up and had no small children to tote around hitting the neighbors up for sweets. I know to some of you, the idea of not having a party to attend sounds like a complete social failure, but I have a son who's birthday is October 29^th. As a result I usually have a Hallowe'en party to go to, clean up after and costumes to deal with all while planning a birthday party that must top last year's birthday party and arranging everyone's schedule around haunted houses, social gatherings, parties and plans. It can be a bit overwhelming. This year however, my daughter and I had a huge bowl full of good chocolate candy bars and Golden Girls on DVD. We put a blanket over us and settled in for a relaxing evening of snappy one-liners and sweaters with shoulder pads.

Then Friday came and it was time to do the shopping for this year's birthday party. My son has recently become enamored of all things British. Dr. Who and Sherlock are his two favorite shows on “the tele” and he faults his father on a daily basis for having made him with a woman who is Korean rather than a woman who is British. He eats special British “biscuits” called Jaffa Cakes and spends most of his morning trying desperately to make his hair look exactly like Matt Smith's hair. Needless to say, once this kid gets hooked on an idea, he immerses himself in it to the point of losing his own identity. So, to amuse him, I went to the world food market and bought $90 worth of weird British finger foods including blood sausage, Royal (something) biscuits, ginger crisps, and the particular chocolate truffles recommended to me by a fellow blogger – they were made of these shaved bits of chocolate, like a big bundle of chipped chocolate – and English tea that you make with the loose leaves and crème and everything I could think of to make a birthday tea a smashing success. Fortunately I adore nineteenth century British literature and have read a billion novels wherein people have tea and the meal is described. I actually probably served him a relic of bygone tea instead of a modern tea, but I'm American and generally have no idea what I'm doing, so give me a break. The glitch came in when he showed up to the table dressed in a black hoodie pulled down over his eyes, his dark grey wool coat buttoned up and his black hair combed down over the top half of his head. He slumped down in the seat and glared at his cell phone which he refused to put down. He was offered biscotti and marzipan and sparkling lemonade in a fancy bottle and anything I could think of and he wouldn't even look up. He either glared at the opposite wall or at his phone in his lap. I have attended more cheerful funerals. I have attended funerals where the corpse was in a better mood than the birthday boy. I even had a 3-D cake made in the shape of the Tardis. He didn't care. After the other four of us small talked our way through a tea thrown for someone else, we all got up and dispersed around the house. I lay down for a nap due to a slight headache which I assumed had been brought on by the strain of not killing my own child then bringing him back to life just so I could have the fun of killing him all over again and burying his body parts throughout the county. I needed to be well rested as I was due to go to The Rocky Horror Picture Show that evening with my friend.

I woke up at the appointed time ready to don my Magenta maid's costume and flare my ridiculously curly, frizzy hair out exactly the way it wants to be everyday anyway and put on my best gaudy make up. However when I woke up I realized that my headache had not gotten better, but in fact had gotten much worse. I called my friend, who was in her bathroom at the time, I am assuming getting ready and said something really very lame like “are you still planning on going tonight? Like do you still have plans to go?” Well, of course she had plans. That was the plan. Go to Rocky Horror Picture and throw things at the stage, see naked adult audience members run around and squirt water guns at people. I think I was somehow hoping she would be the one to wimp out of the plans at the last minute so that I, being the generous person that I am, could lovingly forgive her and tell her we'd do it another time. However, being the perceptive person she is, she said “do you need to cancel tonight?” Well, yeah, actually I did. Because the more awake I became, the more aware I became that I didn't simply have a headache. My throat was exceedingly sore and felt swollen and I was shivering even though I was lying under a sheet, my warm-fuzzy, a quilt and a down comforter. My skin was hot and achy. Oh crap! I was sick! I had not planned on that! Yes, in fact, I had a fever. Well that was just peachy. The last thing I remember thinking was that while I had been running late to pick up the special cake for the dismal day I had thrown on a sweater I had been holding on to to take back to the store because I bought it too big. Now then I couldn't take my sweater back because I had worn it to pick up a cake that got thrown away on a birthday that was a disaster just before an outing with a friend that didn't happen to a show I didn't get to see on a day that I got sick.

For the next several days I was an unwashed sickly lump in the wadded up covers of my bed; my only signs of life were occasional fits of violent shivering.

It turned out the moody teenager was highly upset over something that validly cracked his world. I did explain that he needed to say “Hey, I'm not up for this because such and such happened” or he needed to put on a fake smile and be grateful and pretend the world was okay. His adamant refusal to participate in life or talk to anyone or do anything but hurt the four people who loved him more than anything in the world with no explanation was not acceptable behavior. He understood and now I understand him... but this holiday would have been much improved if vampires, werewolves and zombies actually existed and had even decided to invade my town. I would have never put that sweater on to hunt monsters and now I'd be able to return it.