Fond Childhood Memory: Christmas

Since we don't have kids and the dogs can't read calendars (they think every day they get a cookie is Christmas), its kinda hard to get into the Christmas spirit.  I truly do think that Christmas and Disney World are for kids, and that Disney World as an adult is inhumane and should be outlawed, or they include "adult land" where its nothing but alcohol and strippers.

Anyhoo, I just happened to find some black and white pics of one of my childhood Christmas times, so I thought I'd share the wonder that was "A Very Robinson Christmas"... and yes, for those of you that know my first name is Penny, I was Penny Robinson and NO I wasn't named after the stupid "Lost In Space" family (although I had an Uncle Don and my father was Jon, I did not have a little brother or a freakin robot so STFU I was named after a dog!).

See, you keep trying to ruin Christmas for me, so just be quiet and enjoy "A Very Robinson Christmas" and no, we weren't a Swiss Family either OMG will you just be quiet and enjoy the stupid pictures!

Here is our tree:

Yes, it looks like quite the motherlode of gifts under the tree, but be advised, we got socks and clothes and to make things look bountiful, my parents use to wrap everything separate... so it was "ooooh, a sock", then "oooh the other sock".

The tree was snagged from one of the local tree sellers and decorated with about 5,000 lbs of ornaments, popcorn strings, and tinsel.  We would invariable find popcorn and tinsel laden poo or cat puke around the house for weeks after, and there was always the lovely walking through the house and having your foot impaled with a brittle, splinter-like tree spike.

The "thing" in our house was that my mom would take my sister out "shopping".  Then she would take me out "shopping".  I can only vouch for my shopping, but it went something like this:
Mom - "Your sister would really like that doll"
Me - "euw, lets get her a GI Joe"
Mom - "no, I think we should get her THIS doll"
Me - "whatever"

Then, when we would unwrap our gifts, we would each get the same doll, and the same GI Joe... whatever one got, the other got.  The mindset behind that insanity was that we would never fight over gifts, because we both got the same thing.  We figured that out quickly, and just traded dolls for GI Joes and finger paints for guns, then we both had two of what we wanted.

The household tradition would be that on Christmas Eve Dad would trudge upstairs with Mom and read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" where we would both burst out laughing when the guy "threw up" the sash.  Then we were told that we had to fall asleep or santa wouldn't come.  Of course we were too keyed up to sleep and heard Santa downstairs rustling around and cursing in a voice that sounded like dad.

Around 3am we'd get up and creep downstairs and ask if it was too early, then run back upstairs when threatened with bodily harm and continue to ask each hour until finally they'd have enough and decide to get up.  Then we had to wait for the coffee to brew and they each had their first cup before we started the whole opening gift process.  We'd get each parent a gift, then get to open one, etc.

Here I am near the tree, and from the carnage it looks as though we are in mid-unwrapping.  The lovely little pajama number was sewn by my mom, who ran out of the patterned material before she made the sleeves.

Yes, that is a cow skull hanging from a beam in the ceiling, and yes, that is the sun god Rah on the wall.  Behind me is a rotary phone too.

Here is a bigger picture of the homemade pajama monstrosity.  Please note: I have the exact same hairstyle now.  Also note that the last time I was home, my mom still had the same Encyclopedia Brittanicas that we bought from some door to door salesperson dirt cheap because even by the time we bought them, they were incredibly outdated. I'm pretty sure there's an entry in them about the world being flat.

Here is my dysfunctional sister with her bounty.  Love the saddle shoes (and yes, I got the same exact freaking things).

Every year one of us would get the "big" gift.  Actually if it was for us kids, we'd each get the "big" gift, like bicycles or something.  But this year it was mom that got the big gift... a new sewing machine.  She cried over the sewing machine... seriously?  We cried over the sewing machine too, because that meant that she could sew unmatching, one sleeve too long fashions for us for school.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the fact that my mom tried to put us into the latest fashion, but as with all home-made clothes, its just... not right and all of the kids KNOW its not store bought, especially when your mother can't match fabric colors to save her soul (a trait she passed on to me).

Later she would take up crocheting and I had quite a collection of mutant stuffed crocheted animals.

There you have a "Very Special Robinson Christmas".

Merry Christmas to everyone out there!

Stupid Sayings

This morning, as I blew about 5lbs of crap out of my nose, I thought "great, I'm catching something".

Then I thought about how stupid that saying was.  Typically when you "catch" something, its a conscious decision to grab and hold onto something that is thrown to you.  While nobody bats an eye when you say: "I caught a cold", they would probably avoid you and label you a nutcase if you said "I caught a pile of poop".

Although germs can be "thrown" at you, typically by an inconsiderate co-worker that comes to work sick and then hacks and sneezes all over you in a meeting that you didn't want to attend in the first place, I'm pretty sure you have no choice in whether or not to "catch" those germs as they are sprayed on you at a rate of 40 mph.  Its like trying to outrun a speeding car.  So you should just say: "some inconsiderate bastard sprayed me with their cold and contaminated me."  Of course, that's a really long sentence but if you just said "I have a cold" then people will label you a plague carrier and blame you for everything as if you spontaneously contaminated yourself with a cold virus.

So, I guess having a cold is all about blaming someone else for your illness, and that you couldn't possibly be sick for no reason, but that someone threw a cold at you, and like a dumbass, you caught it without thinking.

I'm going to start a new trend:

I was attacked by a ninja cold virus.

This Old Foreclosed House - WTF Edition

In our last episode of This Old Foreclosed House, we discussed the joys of trees and the futile attempt of the bank to sell a house that was mold filled, had a whole dead tree cluttering up the front yard, and a mosquito-laden decrepit in-ground pool in the back yard.  Yep, a true "fixer-upper".

Despite numerous phone calls to the bank about this eyesore, and damage to our property, This Old Foreclosed House sat around for another few months until... yes... movement once again!

This movement was signaled by the delivery of a huge dumpster late at night and parked in the driveway.  A few days later, workmen arrived and loud banging was heard from inside the house, and pretty soon the dumpster was filling with the guts of the house.  About a week later, the dumpster disappeared and we thought that excitement was over for at least another few months, but lo and behold, there was a major development on the dance floor.

We weren't exactly sure if the pulling back of the tarp was a wind-driven event, or done on purpose.  We have had pretty high winds in the area, and since the tarp had been "secured" with bits of brick and other debris, it could have been nature's force, but apparently not because the next day, we started seeing this:

Yep, after all that work to clean the garbage out of the pool, then erect no less than three different covers for the pool (including the elaborate dance floor that succumbed to a bit of rain), workmen were, once again, using it as a giant dumpster and throwing the guts of the house in there.  LOVELY!
I was about to get on the phone with my friend the County Health Inspector when this started happening:

Holy crap!  They're ripping the whole back part of the house off!  Of course, this is perfectly logical, you see the old couple that lived there had that edition added onto their house, and I'm pretty sure they had their third cousin from a fourth marriage who owed some guy a favor who knew a guy that once worked at a home improvement store and owned his own hammer do the work.  I'm also pretty sure that right after the new edition was added, their basement flooding problems started because instead of putting up adequate gutters and downspouts, they saved money by ending a gutter in the middle of the new edition and snaking a garden hose from the gutter to the side of the house.

The only problem I have with this whole new work flow (being a logical and thoughtful person) is that it would make more sense (and make the job easier) to have a dumpster parked close by so you can throw the debris into the dumpster, rather than duplicating effort by ripping the place to shreds and THEN having to go pick up the debris... which leads me to believe that perhaps the intent is to fill up the pool with house debris, then covering it up again.  Nobody is that stupid... yeah, right.

So, as the work progressed, and please note that the work crew consists of three guys, a hammer, a crow bar and a pack of cigarettes, we've now revealed the lovely platform and the tipsy deck.  When they finished on Wednesday, here is what's left:

I haven't seen them back today, and because it is the eve before Christmas eve, they may be taking the day off.  This means they won't be back until Monday (I hope they plan on coming back to at least finish the destruction) and we're suppose to either get a blizzard, or not... yeah... fun!

Perspective

Recently on a news channel (which surprisingly had actual news on it) Lobsterman and I saw a report about vandals spray painting graffiti over ancient rock art.

Ok, so we're all suppose to be disgusted by this blatant disregard for history and wanton destruction of ancient pictographs... until Lobsterman put it into better perspective:

Prehistoric times:

Modern times:

Yep, its all perspective.

Shopping With Lobster Man

Before Thanksgiving I had to run to the store and pick up a few things so we could survive 5 whole days without leaving the house.  Nothing says holidays like stocking up on supplies and pretending the whole world has ended and your whole existence is the inside of your house... which is pretty much how we see the "holidays" between November and January.

Ok, so its not like the whole world has ended, its more like the whole world has lost its mind and in the spirit of giving and love, will shoot you for a parking spot at the mall.

I will spare you the usual whining and complaining of going to Costco, then Bed Bath & Beyond, and that's just what I was saying, you have no idea what Lobsterman was keening and screaming about, and frankly I won't put you through it.

Needless to say, the highlight of our trip was standing in line at BB&B with an arm full of k-cup boxes.  BB&B always tries to sucker you into buying some strange item or another by filling their checkout counters with so much crap, that invariably you'll knock something over and be forced to buy it when it breaks.  You barely have enough room to slap up that gargantuan comforter or pillows for scanning without buying half the "as seen on tv" crap they're trying to get rid of.

This time, I actually saw something that looked promising and pointed it out to Loberster Man:

"look, there's something you need! Its a Lotion Applicator Back Brush!"

Lobster Man is always complaining about having itchy dry back skin so I figured that would be the solution to all of his problems and one less thing to complain about.

He looked at it carefully and then said:
"But that's what you're for".

AWWWW!  Nothing says love like realizing that I'm only around to slather lotion on his dry scaly back!  He knows just the right things to say to win over a woman. 

In my head:

The Comfort Zone, Explained

I'm a Hoosier.  I grew up thinking that the rest of the world operated with an arm's length comfort zone, and only hugged very close family members, and typically we only hugged at funerals, when someone was moving away, or to perform the Heimlich Maneuver.  Even the Heimlich Maneuver required a lot of thought and imminent death before the comfort zone was breached for strangers.

Color me surprised when I went through Air Force basic training in Texas and found a whole new culture of people that hugged perfect strangers for no reason whatsoever, and thought nothing of standing mere inches away as they talked to you.  The typical response was to take a step back, but they would take a step toward you, step back, step forward.  Sometimes I would be trapped against a wall with no way to flee.  At desperate times, I'd push out my arm and physically move them away from me, which always brought on the whole discussion of "comfort zone" and how silly it was and then some kind of hugging attempt and then violence.

Seriously, I'll just flail at you if you penetrate my comfort zone boundary.  I can't help it.  Its in the DNA, hard wired, no control whatsoever, so there have been incidences.

This whole blog post is to explain my recent Facebook status of: Dear Old Lady at the Grocery store: Get the F out of my way.

I like old ladies.  I like old guys as well, especially because most old guys are WWII vets and deserve respect and an easy life... but I draw the line at old ladies who:
1.) toddle down the middle of a supermarket aisle, stop in the middle of the supermarket aisle, block the entire aisle while trying to figure out what brand of bread crumbs to pick up.
2.) wander right in front of you, stop suddenly, back up without looking, then sneer at you because you are in their way
3.) Stop in the middle of the beginning of an aisle and won't let anyone pass until they figure out if that's the aisle they need to go down, then walk slowly in front of you
and the most important one:
4.) appear suddenly behind you without any warning (or waft of too much perfume) and are so close you could share a jacket.... then follow closely behind you as if any moment she would jump on your back for a ride down the aisle.


No matter where I fled, no matter which aisle I turned down, that old lady was riding my ass every step of the way.  It was like being stalked by... an old lady.  I managed to lose her in the canned vegetable aisle and didn't see her for the rest of my visit, but I'll be damned if she didn't toddle out of the store, walk slowly behind my truck, left her cart behind my truck as she freaking parked right next to me and sloooooowly took each bag out of the cart and carried it over to her trunk.

So... I'm sure that justifies my Facebook status, and I do think that I should get some credit for not posting the follow up:

Dear Old Lady in the parking lot of the grocery store: sorry about running you over.

My Work Day Exercise Plan

Some people have asked how I manage to keep my stick-like figure all these years.

Simple, I go to work where my exercise routine consists of:

1. Crawling out from under the bus that somebody throws me under, and

 

2. Dodging bullets

That's just a typical Monday. 

At the Airport

Last night I was at the airport waiting to pick up Lobsterman.

I'm standing at Gate C.

A guy walks up to me and says "Do you know what gate this is?"

I say "C"

He says "Oh my gosh, do you speak english?"

It was then that I realized I was in a Jack Benny skit

Another Threat to Mankind

Just when I thought it was bad enough that I had to fight my way through roving gangs of feral Girl Scouts hawking their crack-laced cookies at supermarkets.

There came a knock on my door... a tiny little Boy Scout, looking very optimistic and eager... until I opened the door.  For some reason he took a few steps back and looked toward the street (where I'm sure his enforcer mom was waiting in a idling car, ready to flee the scene if trouble ensued... or mace me).  Sensing his fear, I tried to put on my nicest "kid" voice, which sounds similar to my "give me the dead squirrel" voice I use on the dogs (typically neither get the desired effect).

"Can I help you?"

The little kid (who was clearly puntable in case he came at me with his clipboard) asked if I wanted to buy a tin of popcorn... for TEN DOLLARS.

Ok, I was thinking those gargantuan-sized Costco tins that can fit one or two little boy scouts, so I figured, what the hey and marked myself down for one... then clearly by the look of utter expectation, I surmised that he needed the money up front, then I would have to wait months for the carmelly goodness, no doubt mass produced by children his age in some foreign country sweat shop.  FINE, I go get my wallet and discover I only have a freakin 20.  Guessing that the future Bill Gates of carmel corn doesn't have change, I decide to be all nice and put myself down for two of the stupid buckets of popcorn.  He grabbed the money and ran.

It was only after I got back inside that I realized that I was in full "weekend mode"

Corrupting Boy Scouts, one scout at a time with my stylish Meeshka Justice system t-shirt (available on cafe press), and insane hair.

A few days go by and there's another tap on the door... its the scout, out of uniform, holding two of the tiniest little tins of carmel corn I had ever seen.  We're talking TINY, itty bitty.  Not nearly $20 bucks worth of anything in those tins... not even GOLD and we all know how much that is now.  He literally throws the tins at me (even though I'm wearing normal public clothes because I just got home from work).

The next day I take one of the ridiculously tiny tins to work to snack on.  Just as I suspected, its loaded with crack, and now I'm cruising the neighborhood looking for the little brat with my entire life's savings for another fix.

Bored

Lobsterman is taking another trip, so I'm left at home catching up on episodes of "Hoarders" with a large supply of contractor bags... what to do, what to do?

This weekend was actually boring.  Normally I've got a huge list of things I need to do (that hardly ever get done), and the compelling need to do things, but this weekend I lost all will to do anything, so I did nothing... and you know... that can get contagious.

Oh sure, I did THINGS.  I had a dermatologist appointment to inspect my skin.  Being a redhead prior to the invention of SPF anything, chances of my fair, easily cooked skin to generate all sorts of nasty big "C" things is pretty astronomical, and since I had something pre-nasty frozen off my nose (oh how I wish I had one of those freezy container things... that fun I could have at work), the doctor felt it necessary to inspect every epi of my derm... is.

Never having gone through one of them, I could only imagine that you stood on a giant lazy susan and spun around while the doctor peered at your through a gigantic magnifying glass.  Apparently not, although that would have been faster than the guy trying to peer meekly at skin around the crinkly paper gown from hell.  Please someone explain to me why paper gowns are large enough to fit 4 of me, but the little plastic tie wrap thing barely goes all the way around to tie? 

Also, for those of you that go have the derm inspection: wear a bra... even if you are a guy.  You can keep your bra and underwear on (they encourage it) therefore I've noodled it through and have come to the conclusion that bras and underwear keep you from developing skin cancer in those areas because if you can keep them on, then they aren't going to look under there, therefore there's no reason to look under there, therefore bra and underwear material must ward off the big "C".  Where's my Nobel Peace Prize?

As I write this, Lobsterman is texting me pictures of his lobster and prime rib meal that he claims he was forced to eat because Dallas only has lobster and prime rib places... apparently no McDonalds or anything cheaper... how odd...

Which reminds me of the wonderful box I got via Fedex on Friday... Lobersterman's dirty clothes from his last trip.  In case you are wondering, its cheaper to Fedex your clothes to your trip destination than pay the baggage fees the airlines charge you, plus Fedex usually doesn't steal your possessions and try on your underwear and take pictures of it and post it on facebook... not that this has happened... that I'm aware of, but...


Anyhoo, Saturday was spent making stew.  Ok, I threw a bunch of stuff in a crock pot, plugge it in and turned it on (which can be challenging... completing all steps in the proper order) and then sat on my ass all day watching tv.

Sunday I washed all of Lobersterman's dirty clothes and threw them into another suitcase, which leads me to my next topic:  Denny's: the Activia Alternative.

I'll save that for another blog post, as I'm sure that's another Nobel Peace Prize in the making and I don't want to seem selfish getting two awards in one day... and now Lobsterman is telling me that I need to just go eat at this place he's at and order a Venti Au Jus... lovely.  I'd better go up and eat my peanut butter sandwich before that's spoiled by all of the Au Jus drool.

I was going to write about how boring it is here without Lobsterman, but now all I want is a cup of Au Jus.

The Most Amazing Pots and Pans!!!!

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night for some reason or another (I'm sure it had nothing to do with a Siberian Husky butt in my face), and saw an infomercial for the MOST AMAZING PAN IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD HOLY GAH!!!

Even though the sound was off, I could see that the "hosts" of this "show" really, truly love these pans and felt that the entire world needed to buy them (for the low, low price they never revealed while I was watching) because of the following wonderful and amazing things:

1. Other pans gave off a toxic smoke that will kill you and the ENTIRE WORLD!!!
2. The EPA says that it doesn't contain something bad that will kill you AND THE ENTIRE WORLD (it could have been CO2, I don't know, as the sound was off, and I was exhaling)
3. The FDA says that using these pans will make you healthier and unhealthy people WILL KILL YOU AND THE ENTIRE WORLD
4. It was a very strong pan... at least that's what I'm guessing when they beat it into the shape of a fortune cookie... I really have no idea why they did that.
5. Because nothing sticks to the pan (not even burnt plastic) it was much healthier for you because 1 tiny bit of oil contains 500 GAZILLION POUNDS OF FAT and will ... yeah, yeah, kill everything
6. You will absolutely lose a gazillion pounds of fat because you aren't cooking with the gazillion pounds of fat and they showed a before and after picture of some woman who I totally thought looked exactly the same, except maybe a little sadder because her food tasted like bland shit.  But at least she wasn't KILLING HERSELF AND THE ENTIRE WORLD!

So, everyone needs to buy these wonderful "green" green pans because if you don't, you're a total butthead that wants the world to die.

Unfortunately, there's one thing these pans won't do for you...

spell check your commercial

Where Was I?

I was at work, less than a mile from the Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) airport.

I was on chat with Icky, who wrote "A plane just flew into the World Trade Center".

I typed back: "LOL"  I thought she was joking.  How can a plan hit a building that big?

I turned on my radio and found WTOP and listened with horror as a second plane hit, then reports came from the Pentagon, and there were rumors that a car bomb exploded at the State Department, then Shanksville. 

I called my husband, who was on vacation with his parents, who were staying with us and were scheduled to fly home that afternoon.  "Turn on the tv!"  He told me they were watching a movie.  "Turn on the news right now!"  He did and we hung up.

Co-workers ran into my office crying, their loved ones at the Pentagon, or at day care in DC, or family in New York.  They didn't know what to do.  I told them the obvious; go to them.  A co-worker came in and sat down and wanted to discuss some work.  I looked at her and said "Are you serious?  What with everything going on now?"  She looked up and said "I don't know anyone in those places, I guess it just doesn't affect me."  I told her to leave, because I was leaving, going home to my family, and I pitied her for not having a soul.

As I walked out through the lobby, the television someone had set up with a coat hanger for antenna, showed the 2nd tower falling.  I wasn't even aware that people had jumped until I got home and my husband told me.  The airport was quiet, the police guarding a government facility on my way home didn't seem to care that I sped by the facility quickly... I just didn't want to be near it... in case.

That night, the familiar glow of BWI was gone, replaced by darkness and silence.  For once we could see the millions of stars usually blotted out by the airport's lighting.  We felt so vulnerable.

We both lost several co-workers in the attack, none were close, but it didn't matter.  It turned out that we lost more people through friends, and friends of friends, and friends of family.  We ran out of condolence cards and went to the local drugstore for more... but they were sold out.  It took us several stores to find more. 

Never forget.

BRILLIANT!

The other night I was laying in bed with my container of ice cream watching the First 48 (Raspberry chocolate chunk goes best with homicides) and there was the most brilliant commercial in the world!  Usually I fast forward through commercials, but after catching this one, I may actually start watching live tv again, because I would have so totally missed this most brilliant and absolutely commercial for Tresemme Fresh Start!!!!!

Oh yeah, the dry shampoo for those times when you wake up really late and don't have time for a shower and need to get to work fast and not reek from dog ass (because I know I'm not the only one that has a Siberian Husky that insists on sleeping with his head on your nightstand with his butt rubbing in your hair all night... nope, I'm sure everyone has that issue)

I mean, this product is pure genius!  It claims not only to get rid of the funk smell of dirty hair, but also make it look JUST LIKE you got up, washed it and styled it!  Seriously, I may not ever bathe again!  Why should I?  Some baby wipes and this stuff, who needs to ever step in a shower again?

Er, then I looked at the price.  A bit steep for laziness sake.  Hmmm, it would be convenient if it did what it said.  I could save so much time and energy with this stuff.  Then I remembered seeing something like it at the pet store when Sam had his surgery.  We couldn't bathe him if he messed on himself, but they had this really cool waterless shampoo stuff like this:

Look, its even "Pet Head" so its made by the same people that do that "Bed Head" stuff for humans!  It even smells like (seriously) BLUEBERRY MUFFINS!!!  Well, that was the clincher for me.  Not only would I never have to bathe again, but my hair would be all stylish, clean, and smell like blueberry muffins.

Since I had to buy tooth cookies for the dogs, I cruised through the dog shampoo section and nabbed a bottle of it.  I have no idea why I was trying to be all sneaky about it.  Its not like I had a sign on my forehead that said "I'm actually going to use this on myself and not my dogs".  Its not like anyone would know.  I mean I was also buying dog cookies, but then I figured that if someone where to buy this for their own use, wouldn't they also buy dog cookies to further the lie?  Of course they would, so I also bought a 40 lb bag of dog food because nobody in their right mind would buy a 40lb bag of dog food just so they would look convincing about buying waterless shampoo stuff for their own hair.  Then again, someone with three dogs buying half the store just so she wouldn't look suspiciously like she was planning to use waterless dog shampoo probably isn't in their right mind either, but hey, I still can't get Xanax, therefore I'm totally normal... right?  Plus, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be the first one to try a dog product on themself... shut up!  Besides, I'm pretty sure the entire store staff would be on to me when I walked in next time reeking of blueberry muffin.

So, I'm here to say that the waterless dog shampoo is JUST as good as the human version, and a lot cheaper in the long run.  I do have to say that it totally brings out a new sheen to my hair as well.

Extreme Napping: The Handbook

It has come to my attention (and lack of google results) that there doesn't seem to be a handbook on Extreme Napping.

Quickly growing into one of the biggest sports out there, Extreme Nappers all over the U.S. are practicing and hope to travel to London to participate in the 2012 Olympics if their sport is considered for inclusion.  Lobbyists feel that the Extreme Napping event would best be a winter sport, and held in conjunction with Curling, as most viewers of a sport that includes a broom and big stone thing are familiar with napping.

Not for the amateur, Extreme Napping takes years of conditioning, preparation, and plenty of free time, something a lot of Americans have in this troubled economy, therefore coaches feel that the U.S. will most probably win all three medals, although Greece is said to have a very strong team as well.

Extreme Napping isn't just napping.  It takes practice, skill, and a lot of preparation in order to perform it well, and avoid injury. 

Stretching

Participants need to make sure that their limbs are limber to avoid injury and interruption of napping. By staying limber, you will be able to assume the sleep position for long periods of time, and keep your muscles from atrophy or cramping, which is a big issue with Extreme Napping.  One of the disqualifiers in competition is getting out of bed, so its vital to ensure that muscles are stretched when: shifting positions, turning over, and plumping the pillow.  Extra points are given during competition for fluid movements from one position to the next, so transitional stretching must be natural and lead to the next nap position.

Cramping

 As mentioned earlier, getting out of bed means points are taken off your score, and you may also be disqualified, especially if getting out of bed is for anything other than going to the bathroom.  Some hard core nappers even use depends to allow for more bed time and extra points.  If a cramp occurs, make sure you take care of it in the bed, and not by leaping out of bed and standing on the offending foot or massaging the calf.  Water intake needs to be carefully monitored, as it is essential for avoiding cramps, but too many bathroom runs will mean demerits on your point score.

Free Style

 Unlike Professional Cat Napping, another potential Olympic sport, Extreme Napping does include a Free Style sub-category, but instead of lolling off and getting a 15 minute nap, the Extreme Napper will spend hours in the contorted position.  Drool amounts are much more advanced, and there is no head bobbing while nodding off.  The Extreme Napper will assume their position and fall asleep without lolling, jerking, or bobbing, which is a common point earner for Cat Napping.  Cat Nappers are known to suffer from more injuries for their sport, to include; broken noses, imprints of keyboards on their foreheads, and broken arms from falling out of chairs.

Another difference between Cat Napping, and Extreme Napping is the amount of time: Cat Napping is considered a "sprint" while Extreme Napping is a "marathon"  Typical Cat Nappers are unable to go back to sleep after their session, whereas Extreme Nappers can drink a cup of coffee during one of their waking periods, and then go right back to sleep.  People who suffer from narcolepsy are typically disqualified in professional Cat Napping competitions because they have an unfair advantage.

Regardless of what sport you train for, remember: stretching, water intake, and cramp preparedness will help you train for that professional career in napping.

This Old Foreclosed House - Tree Edition

In this episode, we'll show you the wonderful front yard of this lovely little "fixer upper" next to us.  While the back yard now has a quaint little tarp covered dance floor over the partially mud filled mosquito lair, it also sports this lovely maple tree invading the back porch.  In the front yard, bordering our house, there's a MUCH larger maple tree that seemed pretty sturdy throughout its life, except for a time or two where it would deposit a big branch into the neighboring yard.  Our neighbors, being inventive people, would drag the huge branch into our yard... like we wouldn't notice, and expected us to take care of it.  Um, its your tree.  Initially I just dealt with it, but toward the end of our neighborly relationship, the branch would miraculously appear in their driveway when they came home from work (or wherever they went during the day).




So, it came as some surprise during a storm when I happened to hear a really loud noise coming from out front.  It wasn't THAT bad of a storm, but apparently there were some pretty strong wind gusts, and...  tree in their yard... and blocking the entire street.  GREAT!  Of course, in a normal situation the owners of said tree would do something about it, but as there are no owners of said tree, that left me to call the county street department and report it.  A few hours later, when there was no sign of the county street department, and I would have to lay in bed and listen to people run into the tree, my neighbors and I revved up the chainsaws and hacked off the parts sticking in the street and dragged the remains into the foreclosed home's yard.

Pretty, ain't it?  That's after a few days, of course, but still impressive.  The next day I called the bank and told them they had a lovely surprise on the front lawn of their house, and by the way, the tree took out some of my property too.  To their credit, they were out the next day... to take pictures of it, then they left.  Helpful.

It took a full month for someone to do something about it.  I expected a decent tree service would come out and get rid of the tree properly, fix the fence it uprooted and my property damage while they were at it.  You know, a bunch of workers that knew about trees and could get the root of the tree out without damaging the fiber optic cable that's buried RIGHT UNDER the tree.  So here is what they did initially:
Yep, they cleared a tiny little spot in the front yard to plop down a "for sale" sign.  WOW!  Its amazing just how well that sign hid all of the branches.  You can barely notice them, and what person in their right mind would pass up a house with a freakin dead tree in the front yard?

You'll note that I blocked out the phone numbers and name of the realtor because I know my audience... they'll be dialing the phone and listening to the handy recording, but one thing that I didn't realize when I was listening to how much they were trying to sell this craptastic house (thus making our house barely tread water) is that they KNOW what phone you called from, and like me, you will get a realtor calling you back almost the moment you hang up the phone, slathering about the fact that SOMEONE called and may be interested in the potential crack den from hell.

"Hi, did you just call the number for XXXX street name?  Are you interested in the property?"

Whoa there frantic realtor, I'm the neighbor, and although I'd love to buy the lot just to bulldoze the crappy house into the crappy pool and build a huge garage, I'm just curious to know how much damage you're causing my neighborhood by dumping this craphole for any amount you can get.

I'm pretty sure I heard the realtor's spirit break over the phone.  "Oh, well, if you know anyone..."

Holy crap dude, do you think I'd actually tell someone I knew to move into that mold-fest with built in West Nile virus incubator?  Tell ya what though, I'll keep bugging the bank about the dead tree, the damage to my property, and the health hazard that thing is, and I'll even try to refrain myself from screaming "FOR THE LOVE OF GAWD RUN, RUN AWAY FROM THAT MONEY PIT" whenever you bring someone to look at it.

The next day I got another call from the other realtor's associate asking if I was interested in the house (see above), and the next day called the bank again to complain about my damaged property.  Apparently the first person I spoke to neglected to tell me that I had to "file a claim" so I asked to "file a claim" and the woman told me that someone would promptly contact me... I'm still waiting.

A few days later, I came home to find some guy in a ratty pickup truck piling it full of branches.  By the time I came home from work, I found this:

I'm guessing that guy with pickup truck wasn't too sure how to handle the very expensive fiber optic cables entwined in the tree's roots and just below the surface (don't blame him), so here it sits while people come and look at the house... and there have been people coming to look at the house.

It takes every fiber of my being to not scream at them from our deck "HEY!  Take a look under that fancy tarp covered dance floor" or as they walk into the house "Where's your OSHA approved respirators for all of that black mold?"  If the bank doesn't fix my property, I'll be sure to add: "... and if you buy it, you have to fix my property too!"

Grocery Shopping with Lobsterman

As usual, after Lobsterman goes on his vroomy ride, we meet at Starbucks and chat with each other via Facebook.

I told him that he was all out of lemonade drink so we needed to go to the grocery store for more.  He HATES the grocery store, but since I claimed that I didn't know which exact special brand of lemonade drink he liked, he begrudgingly agreed to follow me to make sure I got the right stuff.  Its a hard name to remember:

I mean seriously, how can he expect me to remember THAT! 

We walk in, and he immediately realizes that it isn't the store across town where he knows EXACTLY where the stuff is, this store is different.  He's thrown off by the juice section that is "natural" juices, and claims that "Simply Lemonade" is simply lemonade, so it should be in the "natural" juice section because how much more natural can something called "simply lemonade" be? 

Apparently its not "natural" enough for the natural food section (although Starbucks mocha frappucino is there, and THAT'S hardly natural), so we begin to wander toward the back dairy section where the other unnatural juices are kept.

I spy the new apple/cinnamon Cheerios, which sounded uber tasty right then.  I wondered (aloud) whether they would have the same razor sharp knobs on them like Apple Jacks.  I LOVE Apple Jacks, but they somehow bind cinnamon-apple shards of glass on them that rip your mouth to shreds.  Very tasty until your mouth fills with blood and that's all you can taste.  Lobsterman ignores my Apple Jacks rant, as usual and we get to the juice section and find his tasty beverage.  I tell him to get two (because I'm NOT going back to the store for more this week), then announce that we must walk all the way back to the other side of the store because now I must have the apple/cinnamon Cheerios or else I shall die... but manage to grab a dozen eggs along the Bataan death march for Cheerios.

"OHMYGAWD, don't get eggs, they're dangerous!" Lobersterman tells me.  "They've killed people."

"You make it sound like people are asleep in their homes and eggs come out of the fridge and stab them." Since Lobsterman is going on a long vroomy ride during the week, I have major plans for a gigantic gooey egg salad sandwich for dinner, which will involve hosing myself off afterward.  As Lobsterman can't stand the smell of egg salad, its my only opportunity to indulge in some messy comfort food.  I'll wash it all down with some apple/cinnamon Cheerios for dessert.


"I can't believe you're getting killer eggs"

"These are pasturized!" I inform him

"Oh, even worse, they're free-range killer eggs, and you're buying cereal, which means they're free-range cereal killer eggs!"

"I seriously have no idea why I keep bringing you to the store" I grab the Cheerios and head for the check-out line to see if there's a new grotesque picture of the dying Mouseketeer Annette... I'm not disappointed.  I also know he says these things hoping that I will stop bringing him to the store... I'm not stupid.

This Old Foreclosed House - Home Improvement Addition

In our last installment of "This Old Foreclosed House", we saw just how much fun it is living right next door to the world's largest mosquito breeding ground (aka: partially filled in with crap in ground swimming pool).

After complaints to the Health Department (too numerous to count) about the swarms of (probably) disease carrying mosquitoes attacking us from the ghastly quicksand of muck and stagnant water next door, the bank sent someone over jiffy quick (if jiffy means months and months, and quick means a year) to take care of the problem... by covering it with a tarp.  Seriously.  Stop laughing.

See, I told you they covered it with a tarp.  You thought I was totally joking.  Can't you see just how much better that looks by having a tarp thrown over the gaping hole filled with muck and garbage!  I'm pretty sure my house price leaped up by several thousand dollars just by stretching the tarp over it!

Of course, what the tarp people didn't take into account was that when you stretch a tarp over a hole, and loosely secure it with various and sundry semi heavy piece of readily available debris... when you get a storm with any sort of breeze and rain, you get this:

Which made my house price plummet once again.  A few weeks later, some different work people showed up and at this point I thought they had learned their lesson and were going to fill it up or whatever you do with craptastic in ground swimming pools, but no... they would not let the tarp idea go, and instead of fixing the problem:

They built a new house over the pool.  Ok, they didn't, but I thought they were, what with the extensive platform they built, the three days they put into building the extensive platform, and then the heavy gauge wiring they nailed to the platform (seriously, for a while there I thought they had relocated the Ground Zero Mosque), but then... they dutifully stretched and secured the tarp.  So there we have it.  A back yard that any new homeowner would want:

Its almost good enough for a dance party! 

If you'd like to blow up the picture a bit bigger, you can see that on the pickup truck parked in the other neighbor's yard (the one that use to have the chickens, but now only has some man and woman who scream and curse at each other nightly, while slamming doors and threatening to kill each other) they've put a computer and monitor.  I guess they are really into mobile computing.

In our next episode of "This Old Foreclosed House" we'll show you the "for sale" sign up in the front yard... in the small path of fallen tree that someone cleared so they would have room to put up a "for sale" sign.

The Zombies Got Me

My employer has an emergency contact site. You log in and add your emergency contact information and if something drastic happens, they can contact you (I have no idea what they expect me to do, other than cower and hide until the emergency is over, cuz I'm so NOT going into work during an emergency... of any sort).

Once a quarter, they send out reminders for you to update your emergency contact information. Typically I don't change any of my numbers, so its been quite a while since I've had to log in, but I did get a google voice number and I figured I'd add that in there instead of the 40 other phone numbers. I'm being nice, saving them some time and money by just calling one number to ring the 40 phone numbers I could possibly be at. Besides, if there is an emergency like my work place getting shut down, I want to be notified of that as quickly as humanly possible so I can go back to bed.

So, following the quarterly reminder instructions, I tried to log into the site... except I had no idea what my username or password were. I took a few guesses, but didn't get in, so I opted to answer the "forgot your password question", except it wasn't an answer they wanted, they wanted me to type in the question for the answer I had provided. Holy crap, seriously? I had no clue. So I clicked the button for "need password reset" and it opened up my mail program, where I guessed I needed to ask someone to reset my password. So I did... like this:

Subject: No clue
Body: I have absolutely no idea what my username and password are, and no clue what question goes with my answer. I'm a bit disturbed that a site that is for the express purpose of contacting me in case of emergency and guiding me through emergency steps is so hard to access. The contact information on this site can easily be found doing a Google search on my name, and not only will it reveal every phone number I've ever had, every address I've ever lived, but will also allow you to zoom so close to an actual satellite photo of my home that you can see me walking out to my mailbox in sleepy pants and robe picking my nose.

I highly doubt that during an emergency I'll have the wherewithal or the time to send an e-mail to someone asking them to reset my password. During the time I wait for someone to get back from lunch or a long meeting to reset it, an alert could have been sent out telling me that brain eating zombies are roaming the streets near my building and I need to hide in a closet or at least lock my office door. I won't have received this notice, and therefore, be the first victim of their nefarious brain eating deeds.

Isn't there a better way, and oh yeah, please reset my password.

Regards,

Four hours later I (and about 14 other morons) received an e-mail stating our passwords were reset and we were free to access the site, after changing our passwords and security question.

I sent back the following response:

Subject: Out of Office Reply
Body: If you have received this message, then the brain eating zombies have broken through my office door and eaten my brain as I was unable to update my emergency contact information.

There was no response, which leads me to believe that I work for people with absolutely no sense of humor.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

SHUT UP!

Ok, so how many new lightbulbs do you put into a light before you decide that the switch is messed up and you'll need an electrician to fix it? (and before all of you "do it yourselfers" leap in and tell me how easy it is, you do realize that I managed to zap myself on the head with a bug zapper, right?  Also, I want someone I can sue if my house burns down, I don't want to end up in some stupid youtube video of idiots who burn their own houses down, thank you).

Ok, so about a year ago, I flipped the light switch to the back room where the washer and dryer was and the light blew out.  FINE, get a new bulb and replace it, switch.... nothing.  CRAP!  Get another bulb, screw it in, switch... NOTHING.  SONOFA... FINE!

I go tell Lobsterman, who immediately says "well, just put a new bulb in".  This started a 15 minute rant about just how stupid do you think I am of course I already put TWO bulbs in, so any moron can see that its the stupid light switch and now I'll have to call an electrician and blah, blah, seriously, really, I mean am I that stupid, good gawd!

Today the other back room light blew.  We didn't have bulbs, so I thought... well, there's a perfectly new stupid lightbulb in the socket where the switch is bad, I'll just use that.

I'll pause a minute while you realize that THE FREAKIN BULB DIDN'T WORK!!!

Yep, for a whole freakin year it was the lightbulbs.  Went out to buy new ones (note to self: never go to Target the day before school starts), walked into Target, then straight back out of Target because people were fighting over notepads.  Went to the grocery store (because I was out of ice cream anyway) and apparently Armageddon or a major snow storm was approaching, as there were no less than 500 people standing in line while my ice cream melted.

Got home, and sure enough... stupid light works back there.  I should be happy... but there's this distant nagging voice in the back of my head that a lightbulb made me look really stupid.

So, the lesson here is to try at least 400 lightbulbs before you call an electrician.  On the bright side, at least I didn't call an electrician who would have said "duh, all you have to do is put in a new lightbulb" at which point I'd be in jail for shoving the electrician's body in the sump pump hole.

You've Got To Be Kidding Me!

Warning: this post will probably contain TMI, will contain discussions of bodily functions, and will mock a product.

I want to thank my friend (as usual, I won’t mention her name, but will give her the usual alias) Leather for sending me this link. It was actually a topic that I had been meaning to blog about for some time, but the abject stupidity of this product caused me to immediately rush to my computer (by way of the coffee pot, then I grabbed some miniature chocolate bars out of the freezer, got distracted by the laundry that had been sitting in the dryer for at least a day, then remembered what I was so irate about) to blog about this very topic:

Pooping

We all do it. We all know that sometimes it involves a bit of noise and most likely a bit of stink (despite some people’s insistence that theirs don’t), but this is why toilets are in their own little rooms, with their own little stalls for privacy and anonymity, and why toilets aren’t right in your office or in an open hallway.

Bathrooms were invented to allow people the ability to go stink and make noise with minimum disruption to the general workplace. NOBODY should be embarrassed to do whatever it is they do in a bathroom even if their shoes are recognizable under the stall door. That’s what a bathroom is for! Frankly when I walk into a bathroom and hear all manner of commotion and stink, I’m thankful that the person doing it isn’t in my freakin office doing it!

But apparently bathrooms are now places of shame for doing what comes naturally, or so some company thinks or wants you to believe because they’ve come out with a product called “Eco-Otome Toilet Sound Blocker”. Go read the stupid write up.

Now, if you read that and thought “Holy Crap! (no pun intended) that’s a fantastic idea and I need about 4 of them”, then I want you to leave this blog, delete the link, stop following me, and don’t even think about leaving a comment telling me how wrong I am about this product before you leave.

Let’s break down this whole ad (as seen on CNN... why doesn’t THAT surprise me):

“You are sitting on the toilet and know that people right outside can hear your every noise”. DUH! Most bathrooms are made of tile and metal, which not only allows people right outside to hear your every noise, but also manages to create a gigantic amplifying affect. Its that way because its easier to spray off all sorts of nasty muck from tile and metal than sound proofing material. Would you rather have a crap covered sound-proof toilet or a clean one?

“Small and clipping easily to your mobile phone...” I will ignore the poor english and shoot straight to... you’re embarrassed to have someone hear you fart and drop some kids off at the pool, but you’ll bring your cell phone into the toilet with you and chat with your friends while you take a dump?

“... makes the noise of a toilet flushing to hide the other noises you might be making.” Oh, so you don’t want people to hear you fart and splash, but you’d rather have them think that you are crapping so much that you must constantly flush the toilet to keep up with the mass of spew? Frankly I’m a bit leery of people who flush while still sitting because seriously... what is so foul going on that you feel compelled to flush while you’re still doing your business? Its a toilet, not a bidet.

“... white has a green slogan - after all, this little device means you won’t have to flush for real and thus saves water.” OH NO YOU DON’T! Don’t you even think about using a public toilet and not flushing when you’re done for me to find when I have to go! I walk into that nasty stall and find that, I’m turning right around and beating you with the decorative soap dispenser or whatever happens to be handy (most likely fake, dust covered plastic flowers).

So, frankly, about the only use I can see for this is for when you’re in a boring meeting, or maybe walking into the office kitchen, hitting the button, then walking out buckling up your pants.

This Old Foreclosed House - The History

As I may have complained bitterly and sarcastically in earlier blogs, we live next door to a foreclosed house.

I'm not going to get into the whole socioeconomic reasoning behind why someone would foreclose, or whose fault it was, or all of that stuff (if you'd like to take the easy way out: blame Bush), but in the case of our neighbors... I have no idea.  We're the "quiet people who keep to themselves" type who have yet to appear in a major news flash broadcast about some unspeakable horror (as all "quiet people who keep to themselves" are portrayed by the media), so I don't know what kind of woe or misfortune they had that caused them to foreclose... I just know that there were signs it was coming.

Now, before I get into the signs, you are probably thinking "gee, why didn't you reach out to help them if you saw signs, why didn't you offer your support and help to them?"  Well, my, aren't we judgmental and all pompous, like you would do that, and you know you wouldn't, but to be fair, when they initially moved in, we did the neighborly thing and was all nice and offered to loan them lawn care tools and all that... and they were buttheads.  So, screw em.

Now, on to the signs.  They had a great pool.  The old lady that lived there took such good care of that pool that it was beautiful, always clean.  The lawn was well taken care of, and because of that, we overlooked the fact that her fat poodle would waddle into our front yard and take a crap.  Plus she grew tomatoes and always gave us some, so it was a give and take neighbor-relationship. 

When the new people moved in, they initially took ok care of the house, but you could tell the pool wasn't a major deal to them and slowly but surely, it went to hell after a few years.  At one point they brought in dump trucks full of cheap fill dirt and seemed to try to fill it in... until the fill dirt company realized why they needed the fill dirt, and that just filling in an in ground swimming pool was illegal in the county and refused to bring more fill dirt.  With a crappy in ground swimming pool now only 1/3 filled, they covered it with a tarp to hide the dirt... then proceeded to throw stuff they didn't want into the pool. 

Then they stopped mowing and cutting back trees and bushes, which encroached into our yard.  It was at that point that I told Lobsterman that they were foreclosing.  He didn't think so, I did. 

Then the POD appeared in the driveway and I told Lobersterman that they were foreclosing.  He thought that maybe they were doing some major renovations that required them to remove bits and pieces of their belonging a little at a time on the weekends.  The POD stayed for a year and then they stopped coming by every weekend to get stuff, only showing up randomly.  Lobsterman said that they weren't foreclosing because they left all of the windows up in the house... I laughed, especially when I saw them dragging out parts of the house that should be considered permanent... like copper plumbing.

Through blizzards, torrential downpours, heat, cold, and in between, the windows stayed up, finally the electricity got cut (because their motion sensor light wouldn't come on as the feral cats hunted in their back yard), and finally after two years, a sign appeared on the door and padlocks were put on all the doors... foreclosed.

In the next installment of "This Old Foreclosed House", we'll explain the joys of living next to a potential crack den.

Bats in your hair

So, I'm sitting outside enjoying the ear piercing shrieks of cicadas when I see our 2 usual bats doing their supersonic moves through the air in our yard, hopefully sucking up all of the mosquitos from Malaria Pool next door... and it totally weirds me out.

In my head, I hear my grandmother warning me: "watch out for the bats because they'll swoop down and get tangled in your hair". Yes, this from the woman that thinks pregnancy comes from toilet seats, but still... why risk it?

I KNOW after a gazillion years of watching Discovery Channel, and National Geographic channel and every channel but lamestream media, that bats don't swoop down and get tangled in hair. I think that even lamestream media would have a story about that, along with a video where the news puppet would laugh at the poor person with a bat stuck in their hair... but no, nothing.

Even though I KNOW for a fact that a bat won't swoop down and intentionally tangle itself in my hair... I'm still weirded out by them. They're fast. They zoom around all erratic. What if they made a silly mistake and jinked instead of twisted and BAM... bat in the hair? Then where would I be? I'd be apologizing to my long dead grandmother and also explaining to all of my former facebook friends who would post that video of me getting a bat cut out of my hair by EMTs that all I was doing was sitting on my deck listening to annoying cicadas and they all should DIE!

So, if you are a parent... tell your kids that a bat will swoop down and get caught in their hair, and they'll get pregnant if they sit on a public toilet seat, and make them pull your finger, and that chewing gum will stay in your stomach until you die, and you'll get worms if you eat cookie dough raw... because I shouldn't be the only one with mental problems in this world.

... and I still can't get any Xanax.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Pants Rant

I strongly believe that captured terrorists should be forced to wear Vera Wang pants.

So, there I am at work, working... no really, I was working... seriously, stop laughing. I'm wearing my comfy pair of black Vera Wang pants that collect ridiculous amounts of dog hair, but as usual, I don't care, they're comfy and stylish.

I'm pretty sure that Vera (since I wear her pants I feel that I can be on a first name basis with her) designs her pants for people who have no hip bones, such as herself. While most pants have a fly and button, Vera goes for a very secure closure that includes a zipper, two gigantic hook things, a flap and a button, all craftily hid inside the waist band and nearly impossible to manipulate. I'm pretty sure that when I purchased the pants, they weren't in the modern chastity belt section, just the average women who have hip bones but want to look as though they've had their hip bones removed so they can be just like Vera section. The only thing missing is a combination lock.

Having successfully navigated the bathroom on several occasions throughout the day with minimal difficulty, I thought nothing of taking an afternoon bathroom break stroll after 3 cups of coffee and a venti iced latte, 4 packets of sugar. Stroll probably isn't a good word, more like hurried walk. As usual, once one enters the bathroom, their bladder has a certain expectation that shortly upon entering the stall, blessed relief will begin. This is where the trouble started.

For some odd reason, the secure gigantic hook things had somehow become welded together. This seemed problematic, especially because my bladder was tapping impatiently waiting for the "go" signal. I pulled and manipulated some more... to no avail. I then began frantically pulling, twisting, and tearing at the hook things.

This was getting serious! Its not like I could just give up and go back to my desk, my bladder clearly knew where we were, I had to go, but I couldn't get my pants off. I dimly recall seeing the shoes of a co-worker/friend in another stall when I came in. As I respect the privacy of those I blog, we'll call her Sylvania. For a fleeting moment I thought of yelling out to Sylvania for help, but then I thought... well, what the heck would she do? Do I leave the stall while trying to tear open my pants and perhaps have Sylvania take a go at them, and what happens when another co-worker comes into the bathroom and sees two women trying to rip one's pants off? I mean I doubt we'd even get the pants open before security came, tasered us, and dragged us (me with peed pants) to jail or signed us up for a Cinemax at night gig.

There wasn't any guarantee that Sylvania would take one look at me, call security and have my pee stained self dragged from the building, and what would happen if those WEREN'T Sylvania's shoes in that stall, what would that person think of me screaming for them to rip my pants off. Just thinking about that made me laugh, which made things even worse because now I was thinking about the other people in the bathroom who could probably see my feet pivoting around as I tried to rip my pants off and now I was laughing, so it was only a matter of time before the security tasers came to get me... but then I got the hooks undone and I could pee, so life was good again.

And captured terrorists should wear Vera Wang pants.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Tuna Rant

All right everyone, pull up your pants and get ready for a "when I was a kid" rant about tuna.

When I was a kid, canned tuna was chock full of big meaty tuna pieces with a little bit of water (or oil, if you were one of those that preferred the oil).  You would plop out a huge glop of tuna meat, add half a container of mayo (Helmans... none of that Miracle Whip crap), and make the entire family a freakin tuna sandwich.  Half the time there was enough left to feed some homeless feral cats and most of a high school football team.

Hard to believe that such a tiny little can of tuna could provide that much tuna, but it did, and the tuna was delicious, and it was chunky, and it was plentiful.  I'm pretty sure you could feed a whole impoverished country with one can of tuna back then, it was just that good.

Now look at it!  You open up a can of tuna and its nothing but a bunch of glop in water (or oil if they even make it in oil, since oil is probably the major cause of obesity or death or something), its the consistency of the hair that gets stuck in your bathtub drain and sits there for about 6 months because you are either too lazy or didn't even realize you had 6 pounds of congealed hair in your drain until the water wouldn't drain and then you are left with a handful of slimey nasty crap that you could just as well slop onto a slice of bread and have a much better sandwich than the gooey crap in that tuna can... it doesn't even smell fishy anymore (the tuna, not the hair). 

Its so gooey and nasty and chunkless that adding ANY mayo into the goop makes it even goopier and nastier, and then try spreading that crap on bread, it just sucks the goo right up!  You can barely even make one sandwich out of that mess, and even then its like eating two slices of bread that have been soaked in a neglected aquarium.

What the hell happened to canned tuna?  I vaguely remember some sort of hoopla over the whole catching dolphins in the nets by mistake and since dolphins are cute and apparently as smart as humans (but apparently not so smart that they can't swim around a fricken tuna net, or have the wherewithal to carry a pocket knife to free themselves if they found themselves in a stupid net and before you point out that dolphins don't have pockets, I'll trump that with "oh yeah, what about that stupid blow hole thing?") and shortly after that, tuna started to suck, which leads me to this horrific thought:

What if all of this time we weren't eating tuna, we were actually eating FLIPPER!!!!

Um, frankly, I say we need to start Flipper farming because this real tuna stuff totally sucks.

Fond Childhood Memory

One winter, when I was in Elementary school, I wanted to wear shorts to school.  My mother, of course, thought this was incredibly silly.

Mom: You can't wear shorts to school, its winter!
Me: why not?
Mom: Because its winter, you don't wear shorts in winter, your legs will freeze.
Me: but its ok to wear skirts and dresses to school and freeze your legs?
Mom: Well... but you wear tights or pantyhose and those keeps your legs warm.
Me: Pffft, are you kidding me?
Mom: Don't mouth off, you just can't wear shorts to school in winter.
Dad: oh let her wear shorts to school in winter if she wants

Gosh I loved my dad!  So, off I went to Chandler Elementary School in shorts.  As the normal routine, all of the kids played in the school yard until the bell rang and then we'd line up and walk into the school and into our classrooms.  None of the other kids seemed to have noticed that I was wearing shorts in winter, but as soon as the bell rang and we lined up, one of the teachers pulled me out of the line.

Teacher: What are you wearing?
Me: shorts
Teacher: Does your mother know you're wearing shorts to school in winter?
Me: yes
Teacher: (speechless for a few seconds) You're Jon's daughter, aren't you?
Me: yes
Teacher: get inside

One winter I asked for iced tea instead of milk.  Everyone thought I was insane.  You simply don't drink ice tea in winter, it was against the law.. or something.  My argument was that people drank sodas in the winter, and they drank other juices in the winter, what's the difference between that and drinking ice tea.  Its as if it was physically impossible to make ice tea during the winter or something, it was a "seasonal" drink.  I would like to think that I had something to do with the fact that you can get iced tea any time of the year now. 

The beauty of living in a small town is that most of my teachers also taught my father, so they pretty much knew what they were getting into.



Like the time I got a little magnet in a book, and for show and tell I talked about how magnets worked.  My teacher asked me to demonstrate, and since she was wearing a metal watch on a necklace, I plopped that sucker right on the watch... I didn't realize that putting magnets on watches was a bad thing.  Apparently it was an heirloom passed down from a few zillion generations.  She just looked at me and said "Yep, you're Jon's daughter".

I loved that.