Claustrophobic

I'm staying up late because HA! I'm on vacation. I'm watching Fatal Attraction on tv and I forgot how incredibly annoying this movie is. I mean, the plot's good I guess, but the Glenn Close and Michael Douglas characters make me suffocate. I'm practically breaking out in hives from her cloying psychotic dependency, and his encouraging it makes it worse. In fact, I consider him the bigger annoyance since she's obviously got the extenuating circumstance of severe mental issues. Sure, they're only movie characters, but you know there are real people out there like this. Maybe it's not their fault, maybe it is, but whatever the case, clingy people make me NUTS. I might have to take some benadryl to get through to the bathtub scene.

Couple of Things

My friend's husband's surgery is tomorrow, if anyone has extra good thoughts to spare for him, he could really use them. Thanks.

The horrors of Katrina keep piling up. It's really humbling and makes me appreciate what I have - family and friends and a roof over my head and dry ground under my feet.

I generally like the people around me but man do the asshats have a way of ruining things for the rest of us.

Asshats aside, I am starting vacation in one hour and for that, I am grateful.

You're Just Jealous Because the Voices Only Talk to Me

Katrina is a bitch. The misbegotten weather nightmare, not any specific person, so don't reply to this in outrage if you know and love a Katrina. I did know one Katrina once who was a bitch but I assume she's not indicative of all Katrinas. Anyhow, if you have been or know someone who has been affected by Katrina, I'm really sorry. What a farking mess. Horrible.

I came up with a new moniker for the pustulent evil scag in my office - Bizarro Visa - she's everywhere you don't want her to be.

I'm taking Thursday and Friday off, for which, thanks be to God and vacation accrual. Work sucks.

My latest get-rich novelty idea is knitted penis cozies. They would come in a limited size selection, since they would stretch. So far I have designs for candy cane, ,Rudolph the Red-Nosed Johnson, and Ribbed for YOUR Pleasure. (Candy cane could easily be adapted to sports teams and school colors) They will be knit from a soft acrylic yarn probably (ease of washing) unless you piss me off during the ordering process in which case yours will be knit from steel wool. No, I will not be taking custom measurements. Small sizes can be accomodated, and no one will laugh at them I promise. Even teeny weenies deserve to stay warm.

What's the Good Word?

Why is Scotch Blue Painter's Tape trying to convince me that painting my house is a kicky and flirty activity best done with my significant other? And why is painting your bathroom to resemble a pink jail cell at all sexy?

Here are the mittens and scarf that I recently completed for a birthday present. They don't look really good where the thumb meets the palm, but otherwise I am quite pleased with them.





Turns out my cousin is majoring in economics, not political science. She emailed me with some pictures - she is cute like button. I hope we don't scare her too much.

Last week I found out a friend's husband has cancer. I'm not sure what the details are (The word "cancer" tends to blur the details) but he is scheduled for surgery next week. If you could spare a prayer or a positive thought for him, it would sure be appreciated.

Last week at work I experienced an unusual concurrence of events in my appearance - good hair, cute outfit, shaved legs - all wasted on the people I work with. If for no other reason than that I need a new job.

Lucky Sevens (damn you LK, you know I can't resist these things)

7 Things you plan to do before you die.
1. Go to London, France, Germany, and Japan's Kansai Airport before it sinks
2. Write a book
3. Buy a hybrid car
4. Learn how to play the saxophone
5. Make a will
6. Attend a taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart
7. Make an asshole suffer

7 Things you can do.
1. Know when to hold em
2. Know when to fold em
3. Know when to walk away and
4. Know when to run

Just kidding.

1. Conduct minor surgery using only my razor wit
2. Knit
3. Clasp my hands behind my back so it looks like my back is praying
4. Assemble IKEA furniture with a minimum of swearing and leftover parts
5. Recall completely useless information like 80's music lyrics and why the anterior cruciate ligament and the medial collateral ligament are usually the ones affected in sports injuries
6. Make a Chicken Saltimboca that will kick your arse
7. Pick small items up with my toes

7 Things you can't do.
1. Tolerate assholes
2. Play the piano
3. The five point palm exploding heart technique
4. Code for the rest of my life
5. Spend any amount of time in Pat Robertson's immediate vicinity
6. Get my Karl Rove voodoo doll to work
7. Watch the Bears this season

7 Things that attract you to the opposite sex.
1. Sense of Humor
2. Honesty
3. Compassion
4. Intelligence
5. Face
6. Lack of mullet
7. Lack of Body Odor

7 Things you say most.
1. Dude
2. No
3. Sure why not?
4. Damn
5. Who's a stupid pooper?
6. Shut it.
7. It's all good.

7 Celebrity crushes.
1. Jon Stewart
2. Edward Norton
3. George Clooney
4. Ralph Fiennes
5. Don Cheadle
6. Jimmy Stewart (Hall of Fame)
7. Sean Connery (Hall of Fame)

7 People you want to take this quiz. Like 7 people even read this farking blog.

Nuts

I am going nuts. NUTS I TELL YOU. I need a vacation so bad. I really hope I can take some time off in September. Maybe at least I can take a couple of days off and make it an extra long Labor Day wkend. I need a break something fierce.

NOW I have seen everything

I just saw another Lee Iacocca Chrysler commercial. A Lee Iacocca Chrysler commercial with Snoop Dogg. SNOOP DOGG AND LEE IACOCCA. PLAYING GOLF. This is worse than Ice T producing David Hasselhoff's rap album.

What's Going On

I don't have much hope for this year's Bears. I need to start watching the games to see what this new guy Orton looks like, but with Rex Grossman injuring himself out of most of the season - again - I just don't know. I've seen no indication when he did play that he's a good enough quarterback to wait for while he recovers - again. Maybe I'll start watching IHL hockey again - I can only deal with so much sports misery in one year.

It turns out that I may have a houseguest around Christmas. One of my cousins, (my mom's youngest brother's daughter) who lives in South Korea, wants to come to the States for a year as kind of an English language immersion. From what I gather (Mom and Dad weren't positive on this one), she's studying political science/foreign affairs over there right now (she's a sophomore in college) Dad found out there's a program at College of Lake County where she can take some classes to work on English speaking and presentation. The point of her coming here wouldn't be to go to a prestigious school (obviously) but to really get immersed and get the hang of English conversation. So if it works out, she'll be staying with me, and since Mom and Dad are both retired they can drive her wherever she needs to go if I have to go to work or whatever. I think it should be interesting and just hope she doesn't think it'd be boring to live with an old fuddy-duddy like me. If she really is a poli sci major, it'd be interesting to hear her views on Korean government and society. And she could hang out and watch CNN in her free time ha ha. I'm seriously tempted to delete Fox News from my tv lineup if she is interested in keeping up with the news though.

A kind of odd thing happened this weekend. One of my friends im'ed me late Friday at work and said she wanted me to meet this guy she works with. She gave me a few details and I said sure, even if we don't hit it off, he sounds like he'd be a good friend and I love my guy friends. So she gave him my yahoo im. Saturday he im'ed me while I was out, and I replied when I got home. We spent 2 hrs on im, and then he asked if he could call me so we spent 3 more hrs on the phone at the end of which he asked if he could call me again. He thinks I'm really funny, which, duh. He seemed pretty nice and we have similar senses of humor. My friend said he's cute but I haven't seen for myself yet, and he evidently saw a really old unflattering picture of me, so we may not dig each other in person still. But it looks like I at least have me a new friend!

I'm working on the 2nd mitten for my quasifuture sister-in-law Kelly. I showed the first mitten to my mom and she said I did a REALLY good job which is really effusive praise coming from my mom. So that was a nice feeling. I hope she likes them - she's the type of person who's so nice she'd wear them even if she hated them, but it'd be nice if she actually liked them too.

Well that's all for me today, catch yous all later...

The Word You're Looking for is "....ANYWAY...."

Oh the weirdness.

The other night I had a dream that I was on a scavenger hunt with John Kerry. When I found the item we were looking for (I think it was a Wonder Woman picture), he hugged me. I was really uncomfortable, as most of you know I don't like being hugged and John Kerry doesn't exactly evoke warm fuzzy huggy feelings.

The next night I had a dream that I was helping federal agents capture Lindsay Lohan so she could be committed to a mental institution. Again, whaaaa????

My cat Guinness loves water. He loves eating grass and licking fruits that are really juicy, like watermelon. The other day I put a piece of watermelon in a dish for him to lick on. His delighted mewing immediately brought my other cat Molly on the scene, expecting delicious treats like, well, meat. I let her sniff a piece of the watermelon and she physically recoiled, hopping back a few steps and glaring at me with her "Bitch, what in the holy name of FOUL was that???"

Anaconda is on tv right now. I remember nothing about this movie except Jon Voight getting eaten and subsequently puked back up by an anaconda. Wow did JLo look bad in this movie. Her eyebrows are nearly plucked bald. Funny what a kojillion dollars will do for your look. It obviously gets you better eyebrows.

I was hoping to take a week off in Sept or Oct and just veg but it's possible that won't happen depending on what lands on my plate at work. I'm thinking about just leaving at Thanksgiving and coming back to work in 2006.

There was just a commercial on for Crayola Erasable markers and crayons. Personally I thought it was a good learning experience to have to try and incorporate a crayon oopsie into your drawings and have it make sense. Now kids won't have to learn to live with the consequences of oopsies, they just get to erase them. I'm probably overly paranoid thinking that this has something to do with the seeming decline of personal accountability in the younger generations, but maybe I'm not. Then again, if parents have to leave it to Crayola to teach their children about living with mistakes, things probably weren't going to turn out well anyway.

If the Cubs were Native Americans...

I have decided their name would be Sucks at Relief Pitching, or Strands Men on Base. What a terrible, ugly game. At least our seats were really good - 1st row of the upper deck, I think that's the best view I've ever had...the best view with which to view the carnage. Oh the carnage.

A Day of Crushes

I really am sad about Peter Jennings passing away. I had a crush on him in jr high or high school - maybe both. And I can't believe CNN has already dumped the story from its homepage - in favor of Man forgets wife at gas station. Horrible. I wonder if Fox News carried the story for more than 30 minutes. I do not want to bother finding out.

Today I also got to hear the 1st runner-up for my Lifetime Sweet Baboo title, but I kind of think that one is wearing off, maybe because he lives on another continent. My still-undisputed Champion Sweet Baboo at least lives in Texas. (For those of you reading this thinking "WTF kind of pills is she ON."..."Sweet Baboo" is a title I hand out to men I really like and respect who, for at least one reason (such as being married), I would never consider trying to get with. And no, not every married/otherwise unsuitable man gets this title, you need a little something special to get crowned "Sweet Baboo." Don't bother working for it, you are either born a sweet baboo or you aren't.

I just got done watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which today included THREE of my major crushes - Ed Helms (shut up, LK), Jon Stewart, and the actor Paul Rudd. So much geeky snuggly pale white humor all in 22 minutes - the best 22 minutes of the day. Except for the 10 seconds of Bill Frist talking to Elmo. That was just weird.

Good Night, Peter

There goes the last of the decent news anchors. Sigh.

Where Do Horses Go When They Die?

I was having dinner with one of my best friends (my two best friends are sisters), and she was telling me she had talked to her sister Debbie (my other best friend).

Debbie apparently called Meeyun and put her on speakerphone. She then asked "Where do horses go when they die?"

Meeyun: "Is this a trick question?"

Debbie: "No. Where do horses go when they die?"

(As Meeyun is telling me this, I think "Heaven. After a stop at the glue factory")

Meeyun: "The glue factory???"

Sounds of Debbie's triumph and gloating at her husband issue forth over the phone line.

Evidently Debbie and her husband had been in the car, behind a horse trailer, and Eric was feeling bad about the horses being stuck in the trailer, when Deb said "It's better than heading for the glue factory," Eric had never heard of this before, so he and Deb had a brisk discussion over her statement's validity. (And yes, all of us do think Alpo in addition to glue factory)

So far the replies to my earlier post have dog food in first place, followed by glue factory (John also told me glue factory earlier) and then heaven. In any case, I hope that eventually horses do end up in heaven. I know a particularly annoying whore who loves horses and any horses she's had contact with certainly must deserve to go to heaven at the very least. And horses in general just seem to be cool and non-judgemental.

I Remember...

...when Grape-Nuts used to be harder (you were right, John). When I was little I lost a baby tooth on Grape-Nuts. I don't know why as a kid I even asked my mom for Grape-Nuts instead of the sugary goodness of Frosted Flakes or Captain Crunch. Probably because I was used to Nature Valley granola bars being my only source of "candy". Anyhoo, I had the tooth when I started the bowl and didn't have it when I finished it. Meaning I also ate the tooth. I know, ew. My mom recently bought some Grape-Nuts for herself and Pops, but they thought they were too hard and gave them to me. They are kind of tasty. But they are softer than they were back in the day.

Golden Palace

Did anyone else know that there was a spinoff of The Golden Girls sitcom called The Golden Palace? My tivo said it's from 1992. And did you further know that this Golden Palace sitcom co-starred Don Cheadle and Cheech Marin? I feel dirty now.

Lightning Round Blog

I'm wearing a tank top and forgot to shave the underarms this morning. I have a shrug/shawl on over it, but I am still very self-conscious.

Yesterday I woke up to Molly licking my butt. I don't know what her reasoning was.

I was so disappointed to come to the office today and hear the voices of people I dislike. A lot.

Why do people think it's ok to have loud discussions in a small shared area?

I'm going to the Cubs game next Tuesday - schweeeeeeet.

Where do horses go when they die? Post the first thing you think of in the comments.

I seriously need to clean the house.

Mean people suck.

Inconsiderate people suck.

I'm in the middle of knitting mittens for my quasi-future-sister-in-law and I don't think they will look good with her winter coat. LK tells me I'm crazy, but what does she know, her feet smell like provolone cheese. And the despair of the masses.

I really wish I had stayed home today.

Or that I had a big bagel with a schmear. I saw a show on food network about bagels and realized I haven't had one in ages.

I just poked my festively plump tummy and realized it does not need a big bagel with a schmear. Theoretically I should be able to live off my tummy insulation for months.

Moochies smoochies to everyone.
D

On Cats: Observations and Musings

I have had Guinness for over 4 years now, Molly for almost 2. These are the first pets I ever had (when your mother insists on keeping her house looking like no one has ever lived there, pets are never part of the equation)

In the beginning, I did not know what the hell I was doing with Guinness. I was going to go with Johnny and LK to look for a kitten to adopt. I went to Petsmart to pick up the necessary supplies that I'd need for when a kitty came home with me. That's when I saw the ARF (Animal Rescue Foundation) kitties that were for adoption there. I went in the cage room and nearly every cat got up and presented their butts to me and lay back down. I thought - "man, I KNEW cats were assholes!!!" I got to the end of the row, and this cat came to the front of the cage. Hmm. He let me pet his paw. HMM.

I left the room, thinking, well I need to take some time off to get a kitty used to me and I can't do that now. I looked back. Maybe I will just spend another minute with him. This happened two more times. The last time, I was stroking his paw, and he lay down in the cage and lay his head on top of my finger. DOH!!! I couldn't let him stay there. I put a hold on him and came back to get him the next day.

Well, the first day he was with me I spent lots of time yelling at him to get off things and squirting him with a water gun when he hopped on countertops. I seriously did not think this was going to work out at ALL. I sat on the couch watching him explore, when he jumped on the couch, put his paws on my shoulder and started purring. HMM??? No one told me that cats purring would be so cute. All right my good man, you may stay another day.

I bugged John and LK with a LOT of cat questions since I did not know dick when it came to taking care of them. It ranged from "He eats food, now what do I do?" all the way to "Can you believe the frigging beast ate a RUBBER BAND??? And it was hanging out his ASS???"

I picked up Molly in October 2003 from the Save-a-Pet shelter in Grayslake. They think she was about 7 months old. I thought maybe Guinness needed a pal. Hmph. To this day they oscillate between mad crazy wrestling to Iamgoingtolickyoutodeathbeeyotch. They mostly tolerate each other and spend their days in equal but separate worship of me.

If you told me 10 yrs ago I would have two cats and love them to death I would have laughed in your face. I was always more of a dog person but because of the apartments I lived in and my schedule, dogs were not an option. In my 4+ years of cat ownership, I have collected many observations and stories on cats, a few of which I share with you now.

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It is damn near impossible for a cat to look dignified wearing a white plastic bag for a skirt. (For those of you about to bring the ASPCA on my ass, Guinness likes to burrow in plastic bags and then walk through the handle, where he gets stuck with a white plastic skirt.)

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Don't let your cats near rubber bands. Seriously. No, seriously. Guinness loves chewing rubber bands and dumb me left one out one time - a nice thick juicy one. I'm sitting in the living room and smell - GAAAAAAAAH!!! What IS that SMELL?????? Then it goes away. Comes back. I check the littermaid - nope, clean. Smell comes back again. I eventually connect that the smell is coinciding with the peregrinations of Guinness in and out of the living room. I take a close look at him - whatWHATWHAT????

A thick juicy rubber band is hanging out my cat's ASS. I scream and run in circles till I bump into a roll of paper towels. I grab about six and make myself a Bounty baseball mitt, with which I grab rubber band and yank out. Guinness yelped. Now I'm envisioning internal mayhem caused by the rubber band so call my vet. I hear loud laughter in the background, then vet comes to the phone "SO kitty ate a rubber band huh?" Guinness turned out to be fine, but you better believe I have never left out a rubber band after that.

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This morning my little girl cat was wailing downstairs. I called to her and she eventually trotted on up and hopped on the bed, where she proceeded to lick my hand and noodge me wanting me to scratch her head. Then I farted on her. Then I felt a cold wet little nose in my butt crack and then a tiny claw in my butt. And here I thought she was dumb. She knew exactly where that nastiness was coming from.

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Cats will not bring you cold medicine or Tylenol. No matter how much you cajole, threaten, beg, or cry.

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You can have a vast expense of comfortable (ok maybe not luxurious, but still comfortable) carpet, and one tiny cash register receipt on the carpet, and the cat will invariably cozy up on the receipt.

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Unless you are lying down reading a book, in which case, the cat will ignore the expanse of carpet or sofa or bed around you, and come lie down directly on your book. It's their way of letting you know you are their bitch.

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Cats know the sound of a can's seal being broken. If you are opening a can and it is not full of Fancy Feast Seafood Feast, you better have a damn good excuse to give to the yowling at your feet.

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Cats love it when you put a sticker off something (like a CD seal or a sticker off a banana) and stick it on their backs right above their tails. Well, they don't actually LOVE it, they kind of hate it but I love seeing the paroxysms they go through to get the demon sticker off them.

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A purring cat is a remarkable antidote to a sucky day.

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"Kitty flapjack" is played using a bed, a cat, and a sheet or a comforter that the cat is lying on. Yank the sheet or comforter straight out from under the cat and let the good times roll.

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For those of you rotten bastards who thought I was going to propose "kitty flapjack" as an actual food item, FOR SHAME.

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The highest you think your young cat can jump is half the actual distance they can jump. So when you don't look on top of the cabinets or the fridge for them, that is just your own stupidity.

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John HAS said "oochie goo" to their cat Penny, but he won't admit it.

Well my computer is done backing up, so it's back to the grind for me
Moochie smoochie,
D