Vacation Should Never End

I can't believe it's Friday already. I love being on vacation. Sleeping late, plus I've actually managed to be mildly productive and get rid of a ton of junk in my house. De-cluttering feels so amazingly good. However I've been careful not to go around the bend and turn into my mother who lines up her remote controls with razor precision on the coffee table.

On a sad note, a friend's mother lost her battle with breast cancer right before Christmas. My friend's been so amazing and strong through it all. It really makes me admire her more, and it brings home the fact that life is too short to keep saying "oh I'll get in touch with so-and-so sometime - I don't have time today." So one of my new resolutions will be to stay in better touch with my friends. Friends are too valuable to be put on the back burners of my life.

Tonight I'll be seeing my best friend and one of our other friends for dinner. Knowing us, we will eat way too much. So be it, that's what vacation's about. I have a feeling I'll lose my appetite in January while looking forward to both the Bears flubbing the playoffs and my 11-day trip for work at the end of the month. Sigh.

Toodles!

Kibbles and Bits

I cannot WAIT for vacation!!! I'm off starting the 21st through end of year. Twelve glorious blissful days off. Apart from the requisite get-togethers with family and friends, my main mission for this time is to have a serious junk-ditching festival. It is amazing the amount of junk I have amassed since moving into this house 3 years ago. I will start the New Year with a clean junk-free house. I anticipate the feeling of accomplishment will be much like that of taking a good dump.

The Bears, much to my surprise and pleasure, performed quite well on Monday night. Wonders will never cease. Now, if Grossman goes back to his usual crazy next week, I will have to cut a bitch.

What the hell is with Sylvester Stallone? I guess I gotta give the man kudos for giving Rocky and Rambo another shot but that's not even what bothers me. I can't find a good recent picture of his face right now, but it looks like he fell out the Botox tree and hit every single branch on the way down. His plastic surgeon should be beaten to within an inch of his/her soulless life.

My office Christmas party was last weekend and largely uneventful. Of course, since there was no one to impress, my hair and makeup turned out fantastic. I'm afraid about wearing that shirt out in public again - the whole night I felt like my breasts were about to take a header. Effective for some situations perhaps, but none of those situations would happen at an office Christmas party.

My Twee!!!

Why Do I Hate My Cat?

In the grand tradition of pet owners who love to annoy their pets, and stuffonmycat.com...


"What the -- bitch, you have got to be kidding me."


"I have had JUST about enough of this shit."

When Did Family Guy Start to Suck???

I just sat through an episode that didn't even get one tiny smile out of me. I just stuck around to the end to see if Tom Brady was really the voice. He's got kind of a weird voice.

Musin' on a Sunday Afternoon

I've heard a good amount of grumbling in the last week that the Chicago Bears have to be the most reviled 9-2 (10-2 as of today) team in the NFL. And it's true. But it's true for a good reason. The Bears don't play like a 10-2 team. The defense plays like a 12-0 team. The offense plays like they got stuck in the movie Groundhog Day - every single week they forget they have a running game that actually works and instead dial up stupid big bomb passes. Rex Grossman makes bad decisions on the field. Ron Turner makes bad decisions in the booth. And Lovie Smith should have reeled all their stupid asses in a long time ago. The defense deserves an offense that will do something productive and give them the time they need to rest in between possessions. But instead they're stuck with...Groundhog Day.

I'm nearly done with holiday shopping. Yesterday I made a small road trip to procure some gifts that I hope people will really like - can't discuss details here in case one or three of my giftees is reading. I was coming back down 94 on my way to another mall and saw a car consumed in flames. Horrible. I'm hoping the passengers got out before it caught fire. The mall was filled with the normal crazy of the holidays, compounded by the fact that the parking lots were kind of a mess thanks to the snowquake on Friday. I really don't understand how these teenage girls stay so thin when they walk SO SLOWLY - unless they burn all their calories talking "OMG did you hear what he said about her? And then she went and told him off and you would NOT believe what he went and did..." Ugh. I know I'm getting old but I really cannot remember acting like such a self-centered ass at that age.

Yesterday I also managed to put up my tree! I haven't put on the ornaments yet, but the pre-lit glory is up and operational, so that's progress for me. Along with a puddle of puke containing artifical pine needles since my cat Guinness INSISTED on sampling the branches - no matter how often those branches have made him puke in the past.

I have the requisite office holiday party this coming Saturday and it doesn't look as though the weather will give me an out like it did last year. Oh well, at least we're having it at a Brazilian churrascaria type restaurant so the food should be good.

Three Dreams

Well, last night's REM activity was one for the record books.

In my first dream, I was in a house, looking out the back door. I saw these lumps on the ground and didn't know what they were. Turns out they were dead baby hippos. I looked further out and there were a bunch of dead adult hippos lying all over the lawn. Then the house was under siege by some law enforcement agency (police/FBI/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I don't know) because they thought a man in the house had been poisoning all the local hippos. You know, since hippos are local to.....anywhere near me.


(Hippos. From somewhere else)

Next up was a dream where I was having Mad Monkey Love with Brian Urlacher of the Bears. Now anyone who knows me knows that Urlacher is not really my type


(Brian Urlacher. Not my type.)

However, he is a fantastic football player which I suppose has some kind of redeeming qualities to my psyche.

Or it could have something to do with the fact that in my next dream I was on a tour bus with Jim from The Office.

Who totally IS my type except for I never got to ask him if he would like to pokey my hokey because I woke up.


(Jim. Apparently my type but inaccessible.)

So it might all mean that I'm never going to get a guy I consider to be "my type" but will have to settle for Mad Monkey Love with someone who has other redeeming characteristics? Or that I will have to move closer to where hippos are. I really don't know, I'm not good at this kind of thing.

Of Smells and Men

Well, I officially fell way too far behind in National Novel Writing Month. I had about 32,000 words but it's so awful, I have ditched it and am going to revisit it in the new year. I picked a really difficult way to tell the story (1st person from many different people) and it's just flushing itself down the toilet hard. So be it, I had a good - well, ok - time trying.

I'm watching the Bears get kicked lightly by the Patriots. Put it this way - Fox Sports just replayed a montage of the Bears oopsies to the Benny Hill theme music. And Tom Brady broke a Brian Urlacher tackle - which is pretty much like being able to escape an oncoming speeding building. Well, it's not over yet I guess. I didn't have much hope for this one anyway.

So I had a pretty good Thanksgiving - the usual eating to the point of gastrointestinal distress, hanging out with friends and family, sleeping in late (I am NOT one of those jackalopes willing to set foot near a retail establishment on Black Friday) I got to see my quasinephew Alex and heard the new funniest thing a 2.5 yr old kid has ever said. Evidently his dad came home from work one day and Alex ran to hug him, and after a moment pulled back and said "You smell, Daddy." I can't believe he's speaking in complete, totally truthful sentences.

I have the vast majority of my holiday shopping done. Woohoo! Plus about halfway through the handmade projects I've planned. However, I haven't gotten my tree up yet, and my house is a disaster area. I might need to wrap this up and go clean right now actually. I think that's what I will do. Check all yer asses later.

Of National Novel Writing Month and Other Paltry Excuses for Not Blogging

Yes I've been gone for MONTHS. Eons, if you will. All 4 of my fans have bitched me out over this. Maybe there's 6 of you. It shouldn't be that hard to lose count with such a teeny number, but there you go, I never said I was good with math. Or with fingers.

I can't really explain just what drained the blogging spirit from me. It could have something to do with that spoiled brat of a cousin that I referred to before, whom I welcomed into my house and whom my parents did everything they could for, only to discover that she was the It Girl of the Ungrateful Entitlement Generation. And I had to spend 7 days carting her ass around Disney World. Earth-shattering trauma, no. Festering thorn in my side, yes. Thankfully she has left my household for good.

Maybe I had an unconscious desire not to jinx the flow of politics in this country, that flow consisting of a heretofore undreamed-of deluge of GOP good old boys shooting themselves in both feet. No, my Karl Rove voodoo doll didn't QUITE produce a "Money's on the dresser, Chocolate" moment but a veritable Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade of page diddling, mistress beating, and Jack Abramoff-ing was satisfying nonetheless.

Currently, I find myself buried in swill of my own making, brought on by National Novel Writing Month (see link in title) A crazy-ass, unrealistic, psychotic exercise, whose main goal is to produce a 50,000 word rough draft of a novel in 30 days. It is particularly good for "one day" novel writers like myself (as in "one day I'll write a novel") as a means of getting the lead out of my ass and just writing. Quantity is the goal, not quality. My evil Inner Editor has been beaten soundly and taken to the hospital, although the dumb twat still calls me from there with the occasional admonition and snorts of scorn and ridicule.

It has been interesting and sometimes even mildly gratifying to see how I can make myself move a story along if I try hard enough (granted, it moves in sporadic, brief, ugly bursts - rather like an unpredictable case of diarrhea). Conversely, it has been humbling to see what quantities and what depths of utter shit I have been able to produce so far. I have been able to keep pace for the most part (1,667 words per day in order to have 50,000 in 30 days) - you can see my progress in the little icon off to the right in the sidebar. To make things worse, I have stuck myself with a problematic, dark and mostly somber plot, which doesn't really suit my deadpan humor skillz at all. Although last night I DID manage to get in a dig about Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock movies.

So I still may not be around much in the next month or so, with noveling and then holidaying right on the heels of that. But I do really really appreciate all six of you tuning in and giving me your support.

Toodles,
D

Just When I Thought I Saw All the Stupid in the World

So I'm leaving Target, and I see this woman park her pickup truck. She gets out of the truck and she's yarping on her cell phone as her daughters get out the other side. Great, so she was talking on her cell and driving with young children in the car. THEN, she starts to waltz toward the store - without even bothering to shut the door of the truck since she was STILL yapping on the phone. Her daughters had to call her back to shut her door. I'm so tired of all the dumbass in the world.

What Dreams May Come

So last night I dreamt that I was going to be deported. How that is possible and to where I would be deported, I don't know, seeing as how I was born in this country, but in the regime of George W. Bush my subconscious probably figured anything was possible. So I'm being deported, and a guy I haven't seen since I graduated college agreed to marry me to keep INS off my ass. He then proceeds to get pissy at me for taking him for granted. This is a marriage of convenience, I say, there IS NOTHING to take for granted. He sulks and indicates he wants the marriage to be a real marriage. I wake up. I don't know why these dreams happen to me.

Teddy Bears and Dick Cheney: The Evils of Stuffed Soulless Objects

So, Dick Cheney shot someone.

Other than that, things haven't been too exciting with me. Took my cousin shopping on Saturday and then over to meet my good Indian friends for dinner. Their kids are getting so big - makes me feel all the older.

I was in Target on Friday buying toys for said kiddies, and pondering which Pocket Polly sets to get for the little girls, when I hear a woman and her daughter behind me, apparently looking for a gift for another child. The little girl suggested a stuffed animal, and her mom positively SNAPPED something along the lines of "Don't be ridiculous. What if (the kid) has some kind of allergies? I don't know any mother that would appreciate that kind of present."

Am I seriously that behind the times that I just don't know about stuffed animals being considered as weapons of mass inflammation? What happened to getting nice squishy teddy bears as a gift? I freaking loved those things. When did stuffed animals become sinister and harmful? (And Teddy Ruxpin doesn't count.) Am I the only one who is horrified by the woman's reaction? I think what further rubbed me the wrong way is that, ok maybe stuffed animals are the work of Satan, but you don't have to respond to your child like s/he is a mentally impaired menace to society. I wish I weren't reminded so often that people suck.

My Super Bowl Commentary

This won't be lengthy as I have no stake in Super Bowl XL, just a few comments.

I don't really care who wins, but I do like Jerome Bettis, and Matt Hasselbeck is the brother-in-law of Elizabeth Hasselbeck, one of those vapid biddies who hosts The View on ABC. Not only can I not tolerate anyone who will work with Star Jones, but this particular vapid biddy spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention. So I'm going to lean towards the Steelers.

What was with people booing Tom Brady for the coin toss? Sure I'm glad that for once in a bozillion years that the Patriots aren't in the Super Bowl, but come on, there's no need to boo the guy. It's not like he's Randy Moss.

Al Michaels = cheesedick.

Rolling Stones for the halftime show = safe choice, somewhat boring, better than Britney Spears wearing a sock on her arm or Janet Jackson Boobgate every single day of the year. I guess you gotta credit them dried-up pieces of leather for their sheer stamina to keep on keepin' on.

September 24, 2006 - the New Orleans Saints will be back in the Superdome!!! Whoohoooo!!!

My Weekend - Sushi, Chatty Cathies, and Getting Molested by a 2 yr old

So, the summary for this weekend.

My cousin has been itching to see the sights in downtown Chicago, so I finally had a weekend with enough time to devote the day to take her down there. We got on the train and hopped over to the Sears Tower. I don't think I'd been to the Skydeck in at least 20 years if not more. My cousin was properly shocked and awed by the view from there. It was a bit too cloudy to see really far, but we got to see enough. We're peering out at the Hancock and Navy Pier, when I feel tiny fingers on my inner thigh. Whaaa??? I look down for the owner of the fingers, get a little 2 yr old girl by the hand and say "I'm not your mom, hon!" She looks up at me, completely unfazed, lets go of my hand and goes to burrow in the correct set of legs ( I assume.) I wasn't even wearing the same color pants as her mother.

Skygaping done, we went over to have lunch at Cheesecake Factory at the bottom of the Hancock, which my cousin also loved, and then did some shopping at Water Tower. My cousin actually ran into a girl there who was her best friend during kindergarten in Korea. The girl's living in Chicago now studying English. How crazy is that? Cuzz nearly had a heart attack.

Then, my aunt insisted that my cousin buy my mom a birthday present, which is no easy task. Mom is the worst person in the world to buy presents for. Anyone who thinks I'm the worst person to buy for should meet my freaking mom. Not only do clothes and jewelry not work for her, but she is one of 7 women in the world who has no interest in bath and body stuff or candles. Knitting or crocheting stuff for her in the last year has been my saving grace. We ended up not getting anything for her at WT, but came back home and checked out the local mall, where we got a bamboo plant in a ceramic dragon dish, and this (Japanese?) teeny tiny wooden scene thing encased in glass. Or something.

On the way back home on the Metra, my cousin and I were seized with private giggling and sympathy at the plight of a woman across the aisle, who had gotten caught in the throes of an Overly Friendly Talker. This poor little woman had gotten stuck in the same seats as a gentleman who would. not. shut. up. The beleaguered woman had to get on her cell phone to get a break from him. And when her call regrettably ended, of course the man just started talking again. I informed cousin that this is why she can't come to Chicago alone on the train. She was properly put off the idea for good. Evidently in Korea, Overly Friendly Talkers are non-existent, so she's quite startled when strangers talk to her at all.

Sunday was Mom's birthday, so I took my cousin and the p's over to Todai Seafood Buffet in Schaumburg which means all you can eat sushi. Gooooooood stuff. Sushi is really just an excuse for me to eat wasabi. Mom loved the lace scarf that I made her and the gifts from my cousin, plus the carrot cake that we made for her turned out pretty freaking yum. I'm getting old as I am just freaking exhausted right now. Trying to stay awake and knit and peek alternately at the Super Bowl and the 2nd Annual Animal Planet Puppy Bowl. I don't really get the purpose of the Puppy Bowl - it seems to be 3 straight hours of watching puppies play. But I can think of a lot worse ways to spend my time than watching puppies.

I'm putting paid to this post and inviting one of my kitties to sit on my lap instead of this machine. Toodles.

And You Thought America Was Repressed

So, I've been learning a few things about life in Korea from my new roomie, my cousin. One of the major things is that Koreans are VERY appearance-conscious. LK may make fun of me for having seen me in sneakers only once, but I'm a Price Mart piece of trash compared to the importance that Koreans seem to place on their images.

Women are extremely conscious of their weight - fat women are very rare in Korea. Men are also conscious of their weight although maybe not to the exact same extent. Plastic surgery is more common in Korea than in America. (although if the average American could afford it I'd be interested to see where the rates would skyrocket to - Pluto, or only Uranus. Hee hee, Uranus.) And Koreans LOVE their designer brand names. Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, if it's an overpaid American designer, they want to wear it and wear them logos LARGE.

So this leads into tonight, when my cousin and I were watching Project Runway on Bravo, which we both love. It's really interesting to see what kinds of designs the contestants come up with, and of course any reality tv is a fine study in train wreck sociology. I made the comment that I would marry one of the men working for the show (he seems to be the majordomo of the show, Tim Gunn, for those of you who watch.) even though he may be gay. My cousin was quite surprised to find out that a large percentage of the men on the show were in fact gay. She's also been exposed to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which seems to have given her the impression that there are a LOT of gay men in America. She commented that she didn't think there were many gay men at all in Korea. I said "or maybe there are, but they just haven't told anyone." Because let's face it, where there are people, there are heterosexuals and homosexuals. Whether or not they can speak about it, and consequently how much their presence is recognized, is largely defined by their culture and environment. And I think it's likely that in Korea, people just don't speak about homosexuality much. Granted, my cousin is only 20, and I had encountered a lot less gay people at 20 than I have by the ripe old age of 34. But I very much doubt that she will encounter too many openly gay Korean men, just because it seems like the appearance-conscious culture over there is not amenable to them.

But honestly, where do they think they are getting all their beloved designer brand name clothes from? Straight men??? Have they SEEN the way straight men dress????

I LIVE

It's true. I do live. I did not off myself or drive off a cliff or elope with Puff the Magic Dragon. (wouldn't that be cool, though?) Things just got uber nuts with the holidays and me getting a new roomie that there hasn't been time or energy to blog. So what are the highlights for all you sports fans?

For you literal sports fans, I bet my dad $20 that Rex Grossman would hurt himself during the playoffs. There was that one play at the end of the game when he ran and slid where I was sure I would win me some cash money. But no money for me and no win for the Bears.

My cousin arrived at the end of December, right before Christmas. We have pretty much gotten used to each other, and luckily for me she is very nice. Hopefully she thinks the same of me but hey - I'm the landlady, she don't got no other choice. She has started school at the local community college and has oodleloads of homework. There's of course still lots of gaps in communication but after all she is here to learn English better so that's to be expected. So far she's in awe of many things in America, namely what we show on tv (South Korean tv is VERY restricted evidently), the shopping outlet prices, and the concept of making baked goods at home. Oh, and how frigging much we eat. Her living here has made a positive impact on my waistline, as I think more about how much I am really eating, and we have also become workout buddies, doing yoga and/or Pilates nearly every day.

And that's a good thing because I'm going to be a bridesmaid for my best friend's brother's fiancee. We went to look at wedding dresses for her yesterday and the lucky girl ended up buying the first one she tried on. It's truly one of the more unique gowns I have seen and it is gorgeous on her. I got to flashback to 2001 and try on some bridesmaid dresses. Some things never change, and how I look in pink satin is one of them. Thankfully, she does NOT want pink dresses for us. The couple is a bit overwhelmed with wedding planning so I am glad to pitch in with any remaining bridesmaid powers I retained from 2001.

My new favorite quote (and it is perhaps hubris to quote myself but it's my frigging blog, so deal with it) was in response to playing the game "Who Would You Do?" with my friends John and LK, and being presented with the choice between two disgusting nasty ex-co-workers:

(Me) "That's like choosing between shit and shit with corn."

My other new favorite quote is from Brokeback Mountain, which I saw with John and LK.
(Jack) "This is one goddamned bitch of an unsatisfactory situation."
I need to use that all the time. The movie was pretty good by the way. Not the best movie I ever saw in my whole life, but really pretty good. Though the 1970's portion of the movie DID make me fall out of love with Jake Gyllenhaal. DAMN YOU, NED FLANDERS.

I went to San Francisco for a work conference. I happened to be on the same flight out there with John who was also going out there for work, so we hit a fried chicken place for dinner when we got there. That was basically the highlight of the trip for me. The conference was dead boring. We sat and listened to so many presentations that my ass nearly collapsed in on itself. I had to actively pray that I would not experience an Ass Supernova, or worse yet an Ass Black Hole that would suck in all the boring around me and create a new Boring Galaxy. When you think that perhaps a presentation by a motivational speaker (3-time Olympic luge medalist. You heard me. Luge.) was perhaps the high point of the conference, you know that things were bad. Real bad. But seeing the Europeans that I used to work with was really nice.

Next week is Mom's birthday, and my cousin and I are planning to make her favorite, carrot cake for the occasion. My cousin is totally excited at a) the prospect of making more baked goods at home and b) she really likes carrot cake.

My mother on the other hand, is not such a whiz at baking (it's really just not done in Korea at home, so she never had to learn.) although she's a super fantastic cook. To illustrate the sheer depth and breadth of her baking don't-know-how, I bring you the following story.

My mom buys stuff on sale. She'll just about buy any type of food if it's buy one get one at the Jewel. I once told her that I really think she'd buy George Bush if he was on sale. She assured me that she wouldn't but I don't really believe her. So around Christmastime, she purchased two tins of fudge because they were $2.50 apiece.

Now, I hate fudge. The texture squicks me out nearly as bad as heavy cheesecake. My cousin had just tried fudge at my friend's house and really disliked it. So Mom brings out two tins of fudge, and none of us can really eat it as it turns out that she and my pops didn't end up liking it either. So she's stuck with a boatload of fudge.

At this point, you'd think the logical thing to do was to melt the fudge down and mix it with instant grits. What? That's not the logical thing to do? Well it's what Mom ended up doing in an attempt to salvage the fudge. Not only did she mix it with instant grits she mixed it with UNCOOKED instant grits. Not only did she mix it with UNCOOKED INSTANT GRITS but one of the fudge flavors happened to be strawberry cheesecake, which rendered the entire mess a sickly pinkish-brown. This resulted in the effect that once the mess was cooled and cut into squares, it looked EXACTLY. LIKE. SPAM. That's right, my mom got a chocolate product to resemble POTTED PORK SHOULDER AND HAM. We tasted it out of curiousity - I had to wipe off my tongue and drink water and eat something else. The texture was even worse than you'd expect. My only regret is not getting pictures of the pseudoSpam.

Well, I think that's some of the high points anyway, and hopefully I will be much better this year about keeping up the blog. Thanks for any fans (all 3 of you) who may have stuck around this long. Mooches smooches.