And In BULLY CAT and NEVERENDING WINTER News...

• Cat, 4; Taiko, 0. Two matches resulted in blood drawn.

• 4 inches of snow with more on the way; 19 degrees.

Things I've Seen While Commuting Lately

A black bear
...that turned out to be a really fluffy cow.

A blue horse
...that turned out to be a horse with a blue blanket.

A barn roof
...no barn, just a roof. And half-a-roof at that. I drive past this phenomenon at least 3 times a week and for the life of me can't figure out how this happened. I do have a theory: The side walls of the barn rotted and it collapsed. Then the people were too poor to buy firewood so for the last 5 years, they've just been going out to the barn and pulling board after board out so now, all that's left is the half-a-roof. I am so not making this up. I'll take a photo one of these days.

Half-a-house
...Honestly. Same story as the roof. Except that the house is brick and I seriously doubt that anyone burned it.

A TEENY-TINY chapel
...in someone's side yard. Perfect for a TEENY-TINY wedding.

A pancaked black cat
...at least I think it was a cat... Hey, don't shoot the messenger, I just report the facts.

A hawk stomping on something in a roadside ditch
...he was deadly, but beautiful.

A river
...turned into a lake.

An unopened bag of Doritos in the median
...Cool Ranch.

A grandma on a moped
...DUI, do you think?

Six deer
...conferring in a cornfield.

A haunted house
...I have no proof that it was actually haunted, but if I were a ghost, I would totally move in.

Winnie-the-pooh
...no explanation. It is what it is.

Oliver

This is Oliver.

He belongs to Mackenzie. She adopted him from the local Petsmart. He is a "young adult" kitty and the sweetest of the sweetest of all the cats she held. There was the hissing one, and the one with the twitchy tail; there was the one who had been "treated for tapeworms", and the big giant calico one who rubbed his head against her hand, but then sunk his claws into her shoulder. Oliver was the first kitty she held and the one she went back to in the end. They were meant for each other.

Dear God: Please Give Me a Break. (And by a "break" I don't mean make more of my shit break.)

End of the month reports and billing kicked me in the ass - I have yet to recover.

Dillon's car got totaled (he's ok but a very, very sad boy).

My basement has sprung 2 leaks - there's actually a 1-inch hole under the stairs with a tiny little river running out of it. If it were in my living room, the sound would be very Zen.

Taiko has many symptoms of this: Syringomyelia - he has slowly been degenerating and he had a seizure last night.

Turns out that I (barely) make too much money to qualify for Mac to get 4 years paid tuition at an Indiana University - FYI: I make an absurdly meager salary - Dillon's salary puts the household over, even though his paycheck is irrelevant to me and Mac and goes towards fast food, cigarettes, gas, and insurance.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, those Sundays that I've been working since September and was so excited to have free starting this week have just gone bye-bye with the incredibly bonehead move of One Selfish Person. And because I anticipated having Sundays off, I have taken on a new client and scheduled them for Friday Afternoons. I'm back to one day off a week again. But it was awesome to have 2 days off each week (Friday and Saturday) for the past 2 weeks. Like a mini-vacation to Hawaii... albeit with snow... and bills... and dustbunnies.

And I have to take Lucy in for a check-up on Friday. I suspect they will inform me that I need 4 new tires - I despise buying tires.

I very much would like to go to bed and sleep for a Very Long Time.

I Spent Today On The Receiving End of These Comments

"Hey, Mom... What do you know about Engineering?"

"I wish she was more careful with her teeth."

"How much did Dr. Oz say we fart every day?"

"Maybe you should read something lighter....like comics."

And my personal favorite...

"So. I heard your client's in the pokey."

And I Had Always Heard That Hell Was Hot

Today's high was 55. The wind chill is currently -20. Sandwiched in between this bi-polar weather was a period of high winds, thunderstorms, hail, and a tornado watch.

Currently, there is a layer of snow outside covering up a layer of ice.

Dillon went to class tonight at 6pm with his sun roof open. After class at 8pm, he went outside and opened his car door to find his car apparently sopping wet. Guess who left his sunroof open during the thunderstorm...

Adding insult to injury, the temperature plummeted and it froze before he got out of class. He had to drive home sitting on a layer of ice.

Geography ala Grandma Hazel

I spent almost 3 hours of my day today killing time at a McDonalds in Attica, IN. (I have a very important job* that requires me, on occasion, to go somewhere, pop in, then make myself scarce for a couple hours before I re-pop. And as the library in Attica is closed on a Sunday (actually, I just assumed that it was closed because the other libraries in this particular county and a couple of surrounding counties are closed on Sundays... huh. I should check on that.))

Anyway, while at aforementioned McDonalds, the church crowd (or to be exact, two different waves of church crowds (talk about some racy clothes there - deep in the midwest, low-income city, churchy folk - yikes)) flowed through while yours truly sat and wrote reports alone at a table-for-two. When I arrived, there was already an older couple sitting across the aisle from me, on the same side of the table, facing everything that was behind me. And I hear the woman say, "They're from Asia."

And the husband said, "Mexico, I think."

And the woman replied, "Nooo, Asia. That's where China and Korea and Hong Kong and all those little island-places are."

And I listened to them debate for a couple of minutes more where Asia was and what countries were involved until I just couldn't stand it anymore and turned around to see the Asians who had started such controversy in a small, historical, river town.

And they were Latino. Which led me to wonder what they were doing in Asia...

@@@@@

I'm not really done talking about the phenomenon I witnessed today - let's recap: a city which shares a name with a dangerous prison, a church crowd, bad clothes, midwest hair, and the freakiest thing of all - the entire patonage (each wave considered separately, of course) of McDonalds knew each other well enough to stop at tables to inquire about Aunt Milly, or to switch seats thereby mixing up the mingling, to scoot a baby, still in it's highchair, across two rows of tables so as to situate it closer to grandma (?). There was even hollering (yes, there was 'hollering') across the restaurant. There was kissing goodbye and harried moms. It was all very Felliniesque and it creeped my shit out.

*On re-read, this sounds pompous - I was going for sarcastic...

Proof That You Can't Believe Everything You Read On the Internet

If you search "your sexy mom with big fat boobs" on AOL search, moi comes up Numero Uno out of 82,600:


Sorry to disappoint, Ft. Worth.

File Under: Fun with StatCounter

Overheard In the Kitchen

Dillon: "Did you know I haven't been sleeping?"

Me: "What? No! Why aren't you sleeping?"

"I don't know."

"Have you been drinking energy drinks late in the day?"

"No."

(As I walk away, into the living room.) "Have you been taking naps during the day?"

Dillon and Mac: "WHAT?"

Me: "HAVE YOU BEEN TAKING NAPS DURING THE DAY?"

Mac: "Dude. I thought she said, 'Have you been masturbating during the day.'"

Dillon: "Me too. And, hey! I'll masturbate whenever I want!"

Need I Whine Further?

One of Those "Huh" Moments...

So I was driving home from work today minding my own business, singing Fergie on the radio, when just as I approached a downtown intersection, I heard sirens. I slowed down though the light had just turned green and we were barely driving at a snail's pace anyway, and looked 360-degrees around me. To my left, just arriving at the intersection, was an ambulance in full alert status - lights, siren, AND weird-emergency-vehicle-horn. So I put on my brakes and slowed down further.

And at precisely that moment a horn directly behind me blared! I looked in my rearview mirror to see who the inattentive asshole was. It was a blue-haired, barely-see-over-the-steering-wheel, walker-jockey who was driving her doddering husband (or lover - who am I to judge) around in their gold Impala.

And I drove the rest of the way home wondering: since when did Grandmas get so bitchy? I SOOOOO wanted to put Lucy in park, walk back to her driver's side window and ask her if the nasty-horn- sounding was really necessary and if that was how her mother raised her to behave. But I didn't. I just came home instead, chuckling at how crummy her life must be if she has to honk at those going slower than what she considers optimal intersection traversing velocity.

Paige & Mackenzie Play With the Camera

We thought it was time for us to take a new "Girls Photo." It had been a while.

So we took one... two... and then what you can't see is that just before the shutter clicked in the third photo, Taiko jumped right in front of the camera. It was hi-lar-i-ous.

Especially since you can't see the dog at all!

Best Google Search Ever From My Statcounter

"pics of grils in brole and panes"

Verbatim.

I come up #5 in this Google Search. I can only assume this poor, horny, illiterate bastard from Washington, DC was actually wanting to see "pictures of girls in bra and panties". Instead he found me.

...And I never wear bra and panties.

I Can't Make This Stuff Up

Apparently, while 2008 is the Year of Paige, January is the Month of Misfortune for Paige. I'm assuming this will mean that the rest of the year will finally start looking up.

First, there was the Week of Broken Glass (door, fishbowl, almost door, almost window...),

Then, there was the Week of Household Breakage (curling iron, basement drain, humidifier, dishwasher, garage door*...),

And now we are looking at the the Week of Bathroom Incidents:

Tuesday. I woke up at 6am, jumped in the shower, and began my normal routine... wash and condition hair. Shave under arms. Rinse razor.

(And this is where things got dicey...)

When I swiped the razor (with new blades) behind me to catch some shower water, I got all 3 blades dangerously close to my right buttocks, and sliced myself from hip to mid-bootie. An 8-inch swath of stinging flesh. I checked to see if I was bleeding. Nope. But it stung! Check again. Nope! Finish showering and shaving the legs while periodically checking the bootie for a blood trail.

It wasn't until I got out that the extent of damage was obvious. All over my white towels.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to bandage your own butt? It's a logistical nightmare - not only the contortionism required, but also the practical problems involved here - do you use 1 huge bandage? Do you use several small band-aids? I decided on covering only the deepest areas cut and used 4 band-aids in the process. The rest of my day consisted of sitting and listening to clients for 7 1/2 hours, and driving for almost 3 hours. All while trying to ignore the sting on my right butt cheek.

Did I forget to tell you that after I got my butt bandaged that my hairdryer caught on fire? It did. The only good news here is that I was almost done drying my hair so it didn't look too heinous. I threw it away and am now using my travel hairdryer.

Late Night Edit: Holy cow! I almost forgot to tell you the part where insult was added to injury. Literally. The Neosporin I used to treat the Butt Cut gave me a rash. Now there is a swath of healing flesh under a layer of itchy-inflamed flesh. Sexy.

*Which actually wasn't broken. I was an idiot and set the snow shovel in front of the sensor. My dad had to come all the way (4 miles!) over here to figure it out for me. It's amazing I raised two children to teen-hood.

New Shoes to Stunt Your Growth For

Chinese Laundry, Devote in Red and Teal...
I couldn't decide...



Franco Sarto, (unbelieveably also called) Devote. In black.