Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter

There isn't much to report but today I'm compelled to write a blog post anyway so what you're probably going to get is a rambler. I'm just going to keep typing and see what shakes out. I'm pretty sure that bullet points and blurting out whatever comes to your stupid mind are how Byron and Tennyson and did it.

Let's see... it's kind of late for all the happy new year well wishing stuff (consider yourselves well wished) and I wouldn't share with you my list of resolutions because I don't make new year's resolutions. I'm patently opposed to them, although for some reason I seem to come up with all of my brightest ideas to incorporate big changes and/or improvements to my life in early January. I keep these to myself until mid-February or so... just so they are not mistaken for new year's resolutions.

One of my bright ideas for life style improvements that I will not be implementing officially until mid-February, and is most certainly not a new years resolution, is the need to incorporate more exercise into my daily routine. I have recently been toying with the idea of rejoining my old gym and I just can't bring myself to do it. Not in January. What is more pathetic than a middle aged fat chick joining a gym in January? I guess maybe a fat chick never joining a gym at all, but still. Or now that I think of it, more pathetic than that is the fat chick who joins the gym in January and then stops going in early February and yet continues to pay for that shit well into the next year. Especially more pathetic when said fat chick already owns enough gym equipment to train the US Olympic.... um what? I was going to say women's basketball team or something like that just to be silly, but after taking a quick mental inventory I've realized that I probably realistically could train the curling team right here in my very own home. Have you seen those guys? What could they possibly need that I don't have in my basement this very minute. I'm pretty sure I have all the necessary equipment, which is to say a treadmill, two stationary bikes, a set of 3 pound weights (pink ones) and an industrial size push broom. Something to think about...

But enough about my semi-real plans to coach Olympic curling...

What else is new? Did I ever tell you about my best friend Amy's stalker? It's her ex-boyfriend from forever ago, blah, blah, blah. It's kind of old news. He's deranged and he lives in Los Angeles and for some reason is still upset about the fact that she broke up with him well over 15 years ago. Now that's a grudge. Anyhoo... he's just your average psycho ex-boyfriend stalker sending threatening emails and such. Amy has a restraining order and followed all the proper channels. Yawns all round. But what is very interesting and exciting news is that Amy's stalker must have gotten bored of her ignoring him and has recently been stalking and making prank phone calls and sending threatening emails to her ex-husband Assface. Saying all kinds of lovely, obscene things about Amy to him. It's delicious and not just because it makes Assface so very angry, but also because Assface doesn't have the same amount of common sense that God gave to hamsters and refuses to hang up the phone or put the stalker on his block-senders list. He listens and reads and sets himself up for a right huge hissy fit every time. Funny.

I think there is no better way to end a shitty rambling post like this one than with bullet points detailing the highlights of our trip to Columbus to celebrate New Year's Eve:

• Dinner at the swanky restaurant was a bust. It was a four course prix-fixe menu which at $45 per person seems very reasonable, but the food kind of sucked. We would have been better off to rent a room at Claddaugh and doused ourselves in beer and corned beef.
  
  
• Alas before Frenchie had the chance to get drunk enough to pass out while sitting up she and Nature Boy got a call from the sitter that their son young Jimmy Neutron was sick and they had to leave the festivities early. Bummer.
  
  
• The rest of us were able to rally until midnight and watch the ball drop with what remains of Dick Clark. Guilty laughter filled the room as Amy dared to say what we were all thinking - he looks a bit like Cha-ka from Land of the Lost. I'm not saying that he should be hidden away. Why should he? You go Dick! I admire his bravery and fuck it - he owns the goddamn show and he can host if he wants. More power to him. But how about some fucking subtitles? Nobody could understand a goddamn thing he was saying. I take that back. Seacrest and Clark were like psychic friends, simpatico, slurred speech and drowned out by a crowd of thousands cheering in the background, Seacrest seemed to understand every word:
  
  Clark: Aahhh mahh gah heeba Ryah!
  Seacrest: That's right Dick.
  
  
• I might be a terrible person.
  
  
• Fuck it. Dick Clark had a stroke and his face looks funny and it's hard to understand him. Big deal. Host the show my old friend, but maybe have someone smarter than Ryan Seacrest translate for us.
  
  
• I spent New Year's Day with 2 of my very best friends in the world, Amy and Dan. We went to see Avatar, but not in 3D for fear that I would get motion sickness and throw up as I have been known to do when I get caught up too tightly in the action.
  
  In the middle of the movie I had a full on, nearly peed my pants, silent laughing jag when Dan came back from his second trip to the bathroom during the film and whispered to me, "I've been to the bathroom twice during this film and just now realized that both times I was in the women's bathroom."
  
  Apparently he just thought it was one of those really nice, all stall men's restrooms. Sure.
  
  
• My new favorite breakfast food in the whole wide world is pho and my favorite place to get it is here. We stopped by on our way out of town where I quickly slurped it down and then grabbed a bahn-mi to go for my lunch later on. Who knew that the girl who never even tried canned tuna fish until she was 20 would love Vietnamese?

That's all I've got. You still there? Thanks for sticking with me.

Calendar Girl

This past Christmas money was a little tight so MDH and I agreed not to exchange gifts. We also made the same agreement with my parents. Of course I sent presents to my mother in law because I'm the only person who ever does and if I didn't she wouldn't get a goddamn thing from any of her 5 sons.

I was fine with the 2007 no gifts policy, but realized this week that something was missing. A void that is normally filled at Christmas time - new calendars. I usually get two every year, one from MDH and one from my mom.

I didn't even notice until I started my new job last week. My cubicle is empty but I'm not planning to decorate it with hoo-haws and doo-dads like my Troll Doll collection, clipped Cathy and Dilbert cartoons, and framed family portraits because I don't have any of those things and also because I'm a temp, so that would be a little ridiculous. However, I do like to keep a nice big wall calendar at my desk because the one that comes with Windows is useless as far as holidays and such. Plus I'm old fashioned and like to write shit down with a pen.

No Christmas gifts - no calendars, so this weekend I perused Amazon.com to see what kind of personal cubicle statement I'd like to make.

The selection was as endless as people have hobbies and quirks and as I shopped I couldn't help but be fascinated by the fact that there are enough people out there who like some of this crap to make it profitable to compile a calendar about it. Animals are popular I guess. There is a calendar for every breed of dog, kittens, puppies, pigs, horses, and pairings of smaller animals with horses with titles like "Barn Buddies".

Here are some of my favorites:

Who wouldn't love a year's worth of color photographs of smirking, red-eyed rodents?

Sexy Vatican Alter Boys - disturbing on many levels.

World traveling Marshmallow Peeps. Good thing it wasn't raining.

Pictures of ganja for your viewing pleasure with tips for growing your own crops. It would be cool if it were printed on rolling paper.

Does somebody actually come up with new photo ideas each year and audition roosters and hens for this? I kind of hope so.

What did I finally end up with? This one:

I have fond memories of Toronto and the Bada Shoe Museum.

PS - I wrongly assumed that Blogger would have gotten their shit together by now and fixed the fucking spell checker and loaded all of the pictures before I realized that they still have their head up thier collective ass. So sorry for any moronic-ness, but I'm not going to paste this thing into Word. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Sad & Grumpy, Down In the Dumpy

Sometimes MDH and I use the word "nap" as code for "meet me under the sheets for that leisurely kind of afternoon lovin'." No sleeping is ever involved, which works out good for me because my sleep patterns get all goofed up when I partake of any extra kind of restful shuteye.

This post is about the other kind of nap. A real nap, but not a real nap, as I have never been able to master the art of napping. When I nap it's usually by accident and I wake up and stay up all friggin' night long regretting it.

Here's how it started:

Sometimes we have computer use and TV watching scheduling conflicts. This is way more likely to happen during football/basketball season, AKA fall, winter and spring, AKA three quarters of the goddamn fucking year.

Most of the time MDH is either watching his sports on (hogging) the main TV in our den, leaving the computer in the office available for me to use, or watching/listening to his sports in the office on (bogarting) the computer, leaving the TV in the den available for me to watch. It usually works out OK and I don't mind having either space to myself. Sometimes I've got other stuff to do that doesn't involve being in either room anyway.

But sometimes I do mind and I mind very much indeed.

So when he announced last night that he was going to spend the evening watching college basketball, I really needed a clarification. Where, when and for how long will I be relegated to a different part of the house?

I didn't like his answer.

He said he would start watching sports at 7:10PM, but planned on surfing the net in the office in the meantime. It was 5:30. I was already in the office using the computer doing a little research and backing up some files in preparation for reformatting our hard drive (coming up this weekend most likely). Then he said, "You've got the den until then." So he essentially kicked me out of the office. And what's worse? I let him.

Because of my passive aggression I gave no direct verbal protest. Instead I stormed about for a bit, pouting and muttering to him under my breath.

Well sir, thank you so much for that generous offer... maybe I don't want to go to the den and maybe there is nothing on television worth watching during the allotted hour and 50 minutes you've so generously given to me. Maybe I'm a bit premenstrual, and maybe I'm a bit more likely to get miffed at your lording over both rooms all the time like you own the place. Well, you don't own me... Maybe I just won't be cooking your dinner tonight mister ...

and so on...

After sputtering around for awhile my final solution to was to say screw it to both den and office, go to our bedroom and slam the door, hop into our bed and start reading. That'll fix his wagon.

I never said I was rational.

After a few minutes I was enjoying my lovely novel and no longer miffed, but I was awfully darn cold, so I tucked in under the covers. Before too long I was face planted in the book, and sacked out for the next 5 hours, fully clothed.

When I woke up at around 10:30 I was completely refreshed and wide awake, but my nose and lungs were choked with the smell something left on the stove for too long. This can only mean that MDH cooked his own dinner. I knew he had cooked spaghetti before I even got out of bed. Not only because that is the only thing he knows how to cook, but I could smell the burnt pot. Apparently his recipe for making pasta includes leaving a huge pot of water to boil dry and burn until it starts stinking up the whole house and then boiling more water and starting the whole process all over again.

So I woke up infuriated.

Infuriated and wide awake at 10:30 at night and I continue to be wide awake this very moment. I'm not infuriated anymore.

I started off bitching that there was nothing on TV from 5:30 to 7:10PM, well I'll tell you there is really nothing on TV from 10:30PM til 7:30AM. So I read a lot, ate the last piece of pumpkin pie, cleaned up his filthy mess in the kitchen, watched Project Runway on my DVR and an edited version of Silence of the Lambs on TBS, did 2 loads of laundry. I finally gave in and started brewing coffee at 5AM. It was delicious.

Real naps are just not my thing. I don't even know the last time I took one. Whenever I have intentionally tried to nap, I set the alarm, so as not to sleep for too long as happened last night, and then lie awake waiting for the alarm to go off. My naps are usually not intentional and therefore end up lasting nearly as long as a full night's sleep.

My point is that unless it's the wink-wink sexy time kind of nap that's not really a nap, naps are pointless. Much like this post.

Since you made it all the way through this pointless post here is a video I hope you will enjoy. It made me fell better:

Rosey Grier sings "It's Alright to Cry" from Free To Be You & Me