Coffee & Zombie Movies.

Sometimes I will Open the Freezer Door...

2012-01-19T12:12:00.002-05:00

Only to find a grisly scene such as this:

Two things:

1. We are not buying any more paper dolls
2. I'm not ruling out foul play.

Got a Dog: Cue Anxiety Attack.

2012-01-10T20:55:00.002-05:00

We sold the house.

We celebrated by rescuing a dog: Oliver. Of COURSE we did! Moving isn't nearly stressful enough!! I still have a strand or two of hair left, after all.

It just happened. It just... happened.

I mean, we wanted a dog, we said.

Pros: Kids will have to spend more time outside and less trying to get into the televisions; empathy; they want one; we have a really big yard now; I've managed to put it off for about 8 years.

Cons: We are in the process of actually moving; it's a dog. Wait, we're at the Humane Society?

Oliver is a duck tolling retriever and he was rescued from a high kill shelter. Pretty much we're going directly to heaven, and the swearword I said about my chairs? Cancelled out. You know it.

He follows me like I'm some kind of genius mentor. Dogs never follow ME. They usually know that I think they smell and they are dumb and only the mentally deranged would purchase a dog. Dogs need baths, and walking, and licenses, and dog sitters and attention and training- these are things I'm generally morally opposed to giving extra creatures outside of my gaggle of offspring. (Except that I don't need a license for the kids... seems..... probably fine. )

But Oliver is here and is gentle and quiet and housebroken and friendly and atrocious on a leash. Atrocious, Readers: so incredibly bad... Basically like putting a cat on a leash and expecting it to go in a straight line.

And the kids love him and Neil loves him and I am having a minor meltdown because he's decided to be MY dog. Me. The one who is having an anxiety siezure every time I look at him. I did not have this much anxiety when they handed me a baby at age 18 and said, "You got a carseat to take him home with?"

So what is the deal with me here? Is it so terrible that I can't just run off for a carefee weekend of reckless abandon now? Because like.... I don't think I've ever run off for a weekend of carefree abandon in my life. Getting a dog just kind of seals the deal, I guess. It's official.

At least I could sell it by agreeing that I will rarely, if ever, have to pick up his poop. Kid job! *high five self*

I picked up his poop twice today. *sad trombone*

He's pretty much adorable.... and horrendous on a leash. Did I mention that? Horrendous. The worst.

But he's underweight. My heart broke into 40 zillion pieces. UNDERWEIGHT? *bites fist*

I'm not ready for my life to change again, but obviously, it's too late. Oliver has arrived. I guess we might as well jump in with two feet if we're going to change our lives, right?

Good thing about the vodka I have in my cupboard. I'll pack that last. Because we are, after all, moving in the middle of winter. Why the hell WOULDN'T we rescue a dog?

And the kicker? Oliver speaks French and sneaks onto the sofa and then looks at me like he has no idea how he got there. Oh he's sly.

Cute little French Bastard.

New Years Resolutions. Anyone?

2012-01-06T22:36:00.001-05:00

Sell this dump

Forgive some jerks

Stop calling them jerks

Maybe one more time:

Jerks. *snicker*

Be more brave.

Yes. That sounds so lame.

Stop sounding lame.

Stop worrying about sounding lame.

Stop confusing the issue.

Keep confusing the issue if it's funny.

It probably is.

Ha.
Ha.
ha.

Finish reading the heap of books before buying new ones; even if there are some boring ones in there.

Stop kidding yourself about finishing the boring ones.

Buy an article of clothing that is pink. Pale pale pink. Not black. To hell with slimming.

My chairs look like assholes.

2011-12-30T23:54:00.005-05:00

That's another nickle in the old swear barrel for me.

Well they do. I bought a pair of super awesome 1950s chartreuse dining chairs for five bucks at a roadside flea market last spring. I love them so much.

Chartreuse floral vinyl and Chrome? Yes please.

We're selling the house.

My real estate agent told me to hide them because they might "turn off buyers". PSH. Buyers don't know what's hip like I do. Readers, they don't know.

So I had to put these stupid dresses on them. My breakfast nook looks like a lesbian wedding now. I mean, don't get me wrong, Readers, these chairs are 60 years old and certainly capable of making a decision together, but where do we draw the line? Before we know it, chairs will want to marry the garage or my luscious crane mobile. What then, Canada? WHAT. THEN? It's chairs and the table, not chairs and the stable. I'm making a sign straight away. People need to wake up.

And then? Pretend the computer on the table is a kindly priest.

Actually, I don't know what I'm still talking about. My point is that my chairs looked better when they were being themselves but I got totally sidetracked pretending to be a furniture bigot.

Whassat? Oooh! Beer! Gotta jet.

Update On my Past Two Days

2011-11-18T13:48:00.000-05:00

So I had some books to return to Chapters the other day that I accidentally ordered in duplicate. So I packed them up and off I went to return them.

Me: I need to return these books because I already HAVE them, so I don't need them. I mean they're great books and everything, Lord knows I've read them to simply pieces, but I just don't need extra copies, you know? Like I don't know what I was thinking when I double ordered. They must have been in my online cart and I didn't notice or something. I should totally be more careful, eh?

Chapters Cashier: These were ordered from Amazon.com. I'm afraid that you can't return them to Chapters.

Me: Uh. Right. Chapters. *expletives*. Heh... this store isn't Amazon.com.

Chapters Cashier: *stares blankly*

Me: *strokes beard contemplatively* So I'm going to have to... mail them back to Amazon.com? Like.. I have to go to the post office??

CC: That would be correct.

Me: Riiiight... riiight for sure, for sure... but couldn't you just... take them and give me my money back?

CC: This is the wrong store, I'm afraid not.

Me: Yes of course it is. I know that. But couldn't you just, you know.... take the books and give me a return anyway?

CC: No. We can't. It's policy. And ridiculous.

Me: Oh I see. It's policy. But aren't policies more like just general behavioral guidelines? I mean you could just take these books and give me a return.... I'm sure you just explain it all to your boss. Hilarious right? Returning Books to the wrong store? So how about that return now? Easy Peasy. Amiright?

CC. No, you are not right.

Me: Eh? *eyebrow waggle*

CC: .

Me: *chest shimmy plus eyebrow waggle* Eh? A Return for me from you?

CC: ~Security to the cashier please~

Me: *does the Charleston with jazzhands down the cashier line and out the door with toddler who is also doing the Charleston with jazzhands for effect, although obviously not as well because she does not have the same amount of experience as I do at this.*

So i guess I'm going to the post office. Ugh.

But then today, my kid's teacher told me that not only is he doing really well but that I, Readers, that I look like I'm 22. Maybe she was a little sweet on me, who knows? All I know is that I had to come straight home and take pictures of myself for fifteen minutes. That school rocks. I totally look 10 years younger than I am. Shut up I do too. Just check these puppies out:

Right? Amazing.

Now go here and read my review of Twilight. Yeah. That's right. TWILIGHT.

My New Happy Place.

2011-11-13T21:29:00.000-05:00

Everyone? I have a new happy place. My new happy place? Is this photo of my beautiful friends enjoying an evening out. The longer you look at it, the more you see. The more you see, the funnier it gets. I am going to frame it and put it beside my bed. No, really. I am. No that's not creepy, you guys. It's not. I love it. I love it so much, Readers. It's like one of those where's Waldo puzzles of hilarity. Thanks Shar & Kels.

***Also, please don't steal this photo. They were kind enough to give me permission to post it for the world to enjoy, already. Shanks.

Bento Santa Sneeze. Yeah.

2011-11-12T10:39:00.000-05:00

I just sneezed so hard that the guitars hanging on the wall beside me started ringing. Neil was pretty amazed, but not amazed enough; which is why I'm here telling you people about it.

Now I have to think of something better to justify writing that as my blog entry.

....

Um. I'm thinking about making donuts with the brioche dough that is currently taking it's sweet assed time to raise.... and I wish I could crochet. Also, I've become enamored with the idea of making bento lunches for the kids. I want to make everything miniature. Well I want to... but I don't want to- you know? Like.. I wish I wanted to.. or maybe I wish I already had made everything miniature and it would already be done and then somebody else would arrange their lunches in adorable ways. For free, though.

D'awwww

I did cut their cheese into triangles, though which pretty much makes me mother of the year. At least I thought so until I learned that many a Japanese mother spends upwards of 45 minutes making each of her children's school lunches. Arranging and sculpting rice into adorableness for her beloved children. What showoffs. Now what, Japanese Bento Moms? Budget rainbow chip mini cookies wrapped in tinfoil aren't' good enough for you? Eh? Well. Fine. Fine, Imaginary Japanese Bento Moms. Be amazing. You'll see... my ham sausage and triangle shaped cheeses will overcome your rice sculpting skills. You'll see.

Maybe I could sculpt the cookies into pandadogs if I wet them first. Delish.

Also, we are going to see Santa today. Yeah. Already. The idea is that we'll go early before the malls turn into the seventh circle of hell. I wish my girl, Jami lived in this city. She showed up at my house one year dressed as Santa to surprise my kids. My son, who was 4 at the time, was completely convinced that her four foot tall, slight little frame was definitely Santa. Imagine his shock when Santa took off his beard and drank a beer. And he was a girl. "NORA'S MOM IS SANTA CLAUS???" Maybe she shouldn't pursue a career as a professional Santa, but it sure beats going to the mall. Aw! I miss my friend. :(

Ghoulies, Pee and Blueberry Daddy.

2011-11-10T08:56:00.002-05:00

I woke up this morning soaked in pee.

Not my pee, thank you very much. Elly's. Not Elly, the blogger, either (who, if she has not been peed on, will be soon). Elly, my 3 year old.

There are monsters in our toilets now, you know. This is the worst thing that could possibly happen because I know the terror of a toilet phobia. I am finally over mine (unless we are talking about snakes in high-rise apartment toilets here, but that hardly counts because we're not talking about that. Obviously that is different).

None of us can be helped. None of us.

It took me until an embarrassing age to get over my fear of ghoulies in the terlets because when I was a kid, and we went to Frontier Video to rent movies, the Ghoulies movie case was always on display there. I anticipated seeing that movie case while riding in the back seat of the car on our way there. Like an attractive enemy, I would seek it out in the horror section; casually so that my Mom wouldn't see me doing it because for some reason she found it annoying. But I was drawn to it, as if to confirm my fear of evil in the toilet- and I would look at it, hard, for as long as I could manage. Then I would walk past and build up my courage to saunter by it again, pretending I totally wasn't scared. Again and again, I would casually sidle by, staring at the movie cover, eyes narrowing and steady lest the ghoulie with the tiny, wet, black, empty gaze and flashing grin jump from the photo. I needed to see that movie cover. I hated that movie cover. That movie cover was a thorn wedged deep into my 8 year old side.

So I was afraid of the toilet and now it has come full circle and my child is afraid of the toilet. Hers is thanks to Ghosbusters 2, which she saw at a friend's house. I'm wracking my brain to figure out a way to help her get over it, but if this child is anything like me (Which she is. Pretty much exactly), this is going to be a loooooong haul for her.

How do you explain reality to a child who believes wholeheartedly that she has an extra, imaginary friend called "Blueberry Daddy"? It's weird, right? I have to explain that Blueberry Daddy doesn't exist to all of her caregivers to ward off concern that her actual father might really let her drive the car and babysit infants, use sharp knives and that she never ever is really allowed to sleep in the dog cages at the pet store and that he has died about 1000 horrible deaths according to Elly. Car accidents, House fires, diseases, choking, falling off the world. It's all happened to poor, unlucky Blueberry Daddy.

In the mean time, I have the worst alarm clock in the world. Will the toilet ever stop ruining my life?

Hey Mickey! HEY MICKEY! WOO!

2011-11-09T22:10:00.005-05:00

Hey Blarg.

Seriously, Self? Who says that? Blarg. Sick.

Anyhow, here is an update on me. Whee! I haven't been blogging lately. You know why? I feel like.. I feel like I'm not sharing my bits of life here because Facebook sucks it all up into its facey book of suck-void. I made that word up, "suck-void".    So you know what? Facebook is getting less of me. Take that, Mark Suck-Void-erberg (too much? What?)

Besides, Facebook is broken now. I can't do my morning scan of status updates, "like" all of them with a clickity-clickity, say "OoooH.. I wish there was a dislike button" a gagillion times for the people with updates about their colds and then carry on with my day. You know? Now I have to LOOK for them and go to people's actual pages and see every individual photo that people put up and what their bingo farm score is and wade through all of their high-larious internet travel souvenirs? Nothanks. No offense, it's just worky. It already takes all of my time to put up MY photos and internet souvenirs, you see? And for what? ..... Exactly.

Besides, stalking people got less fun when they started ratting you out on their new little minifeed. I don't want everyone to know when I feel like constantly writing "High five" or "Woo!" on everything Mickey Desadist says on Facebook, thankyouverymoosh.    That is between Mickey and I as strange facebook ~~best~~ friends to deal with.

It's funny because he thinks I've known him for a long time but he just forgot (I'm sure that's what he thinks, since that's what I told him and he didn't like.. argue.)

See? It's not even fun to stalk eccentric Canadian punk rockers from the 70s anymore. (What? We have stuff to be outraged about too.   Like how outraged I currently am that I can't think of anything to be mad about.)

BOOooOOOOoo

Don't worry, Mickey. I'll still pretend I know you. Woo!

But I did get a new macbook PRO. Because I'm a pro, basically and I needed a pro computer to help me look smart at starbucks when I'm googling things and making amazing photoshops like this:

You know what? I don't judge what kinds of professional things YOU do all day and I would expect the same courtesy, Judgy MacGoo.

Hallo.

2011-10-29T21:01:00.000-04:00

Dese is de Pumpkins

Dese is de costumes. And yes, I know we are tactless. Wheeee!

The raisins are fizzing. This is a nightmare. And a song.

2011-10-15T22:14:00.001-04:00

I know that you are all pretty concerned with the state of my raisin experiment. I just want you to know that they are in fact fizzing; and fizzing two days early to boot. So now what do I do? The lady who doesn't speak English on the youtube didn't specify what to do if you were TOO successful. My timeline is all whacked now. So I made an executive decision about these raisins and I strained them. Now the gassy raisin juice has to further deteriorate for another week until the day I make them into real and true raisin yeast and ideally... bread. For Neil (who..um... didn't actually ask for this). Why am I doing this again? Oh yeah, ~~stir crazy~~ ~~science~~ love. Now it's gotten out of control.

They Fizzed.

Strained fizzy raisins.

Strained fizzy raisins in the trash... because yuck. I just needed their yeasty hooch water. (No really, this is going to be awesome.)

I blame the colossal success all on the song I that have been singing to them, which is "Fizzy Raisins" to the tune of "Tiny Bubbles". I'm not going to say that I'm proud of this, I'm just going to say that I couldn't help it. The youtube lady said to love your raisins, probably. The translator in the video said she said that... so... I'm sure fermenting raisins enjoy being sung to about hooch even more than being talked to. It's like the gospel for them. They will one day be hooch yeast water, almost like beer. Wouldn't you like that if you were a raisin with a higher calling such as these fermenting raisins? Don't answer that or leave yet. I'm not finished talking to you about this.

Anyhow, what this means is that I'm going to have to figure out how to make bread with natural yeast two days ahead of schedule. This doesn't actually mess with anything, because I'm not actually ON a schedule... but if I was- things would be all kinds of messed up. *sips hard cider*. I'm adaptable though.

The raisin saga is nearly over. I promise. Soon I'll have a new hobby-for-a-week.

And then I made allLLLLllllLL of this:

2011-10-13T19:44:00.003-04:00

Apple Pie Bread

Left: Boule Right: Rye with sesame. Open Rye. Good with Coke. IDK.

This? Is the most evil bread IN THE WORLD. Pumpkin Pie spiced caramel brioche monkeybread.

I will die from this.


This is what Michael Moore turned into. It's a little Isopodish, it's a little brainish, it's a lot awesome.

BwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAaaahhhhh (Why yes, Reader, that is the sound effect I chose).

I am going to stop soon. I just need to finish this bread thing. The thing is? I got a new cookbook all about artisan bread. This weekend I want to tackle bagels. All I know is that it's a good thing I've got a 13 year old boy to eat it all. No complaints so far.

Fizzy Raisin Hooch Yeast. You know you want to look.

2011-10-11T20:47:00.002-04:00

I am up to some bread hijinks. That's what passes for excitement for me right now. Bread. Hijinks. For Science.

So I've been watching some youtubes about baking. I'll tell you, Readers, you get some fancy ideas when you go on a late night youtube trip that begins with stupid Michele Bachmann montages; carrying through to Jon Stewart arguing with Glenn Beck; then onward-ho to evolution arguments and talented dogs with a finish, obviously on bread recipes (with a little of this and a little of that thrown in for good viewing measure). Youtube is a strange animal. It placates me and puts me into a hypnotic, vapid state; for youtube hath charms to soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. Or something.

In any case, one youtube video resulted in me making THIS:

Raisin Experiment Day 1

Day 2. OMG.

This, everyone, is future natural bread yeast- from raisins. RAISINS. Shut up, you guys. Let's all just accept that I know it looks like a jar of something digested and that raisins are gross to begin with. That is beside the point here. Anyhow, I didn't know it would get that sick looking. The point is that they are raisins and they've begun to float; which is apparently a crucial sign of success in the process of turning raisins into bread yeast according to the lady on youtube (who doesn't speak English but whatevs).

I am so excited that the raisins are floating. Aren't you?

And you know, you guys, if this works, I'll never have to pay $3 for a year's worth of store-bought yeast again!! The savings! Plus it's a little bit sciency and I am about 8000% sure it will result in some remarkably ugly bread. Until then, I have to wait for the raisins to fizz which I guess takes 7-10 days. Then just 7 more days of letting it ferment into raisin hooch yeast. Let the good times roll.

So anyway, that isn't all, you guys. I am ALSO trying out a new bread recipe (also found via a weird youtube/google blend), which you may be stunned to find out, calls for neither oil nor sugar. If you are some kind of kitchen genius with mad bread skillz like me, you will understand why this is baffling. Firstly, I've never made bread without these 2 ingredients and Secondly (and mostly), why would anyone make anything without oil and/or sugar? Like seriously. I am finding out. So far it IS raising and it does look like Michael Moore which, in the world of bread dough, is good I guess.

Actual photo.

I don't know why I need to photoshop celebrities onto my bread, you guys. It is not something that has been diagnosed yet. You just enjoy it and stop asking questions.

And then I met James Randi.

2011-09-29T00:20:00.000-04:00

I met him. Whee! Science Author High! He even signed in my porta-art journal, because I didn't have anything else for him to sign... He is adorable. He even made an adorable mistake:

He wrote "Oops" in my art journal thingy. D'awwwWWw!
Just like when David Sedaris drew a dead dog in my book.

I only had to elbow 6 mega nerds outta my way to get this signature. Super nerds with sword-umbrellas. Yeah. And the guy who was mad about James Randi not calling him back 5 years ago when he wanted to prove that he was psychic or something. Yes, that guy had to wait. Be mean to James Randi, and you have to go to the back of the line.

His lecture was witty, informative and very entertaining. He did magic, too. Yeah, Readers, inconceievable magic and when he said he was just doing a trick, I looked at him suspiciously. Skeptically, you could say. That was no trick, James "Grampy" Randi. I am convinced that he has lightning speed. Like Santa.... In fact he is just like the Santa from "Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus", except that he would tell Virgina to get proof; catch a flying reindeer; go for the prize. Hm.

He's got the moves.

D'aww!!!!

He is so passionate about science, so gracious about what he believes, he calls himself cute and handsome and he worries so much about people. I am immediately adding him to my collection of adorable old genius men to keep forever. The list also includes Victor Borge, BB King, Peter Faulk and Einsteiny. You just never mind with your judgy face.

And then I told him that I want a bike and a dowsing rod.

Wait... not a dousing rod (because they are fake).

It took every ounce of will power not to raise my hand during the Q&A part and ask him if I could fold him up into a little square and keep him in my purse so that I could take him home and feed him cookies and make him be my new fill-in Grand Dad. *ahem*

Is that so weird? Honestly, I am trying to write a serious review, but I can't get past the adorable part.

Go seem him, but remember: I called fake grandpa dibs.

The Face of EVIL.. is in my freezer.

2011-09-24T23:02:00.001-04:00

The carnage.

Yesterday, while perusing the wares at my local grocery, I came across a really awesome deal. Bell Peppers. A bushel of them for... get ready.... Two Bucks. *fans self* That's right, of course I needed a bushel of bell peppers. Who doesn't?

So that meant that I had to wash, chop and freeze them in fancy little individual cooking portions. A bushel of peppers... or was it a peck? I don't know.. Nobody actually cares. Anyhow, there were a good amount of peppers to process. Enough to cause me to turn "*lights start flashing, camera moves in for a close up*.... delirious...... Yes. I know there is no camera. Sigh.

Ok, so on with it. What I discovered is that pumpkins are NOT the most evil produce. Bell Peppers... Bell Peppers represent the most evil. They are beautiful on the outside: Shiny, wholesome, hearty, crisp... the list just goes on in the positive column for bell peppers. But on the inside? Oh their beauty is indeed skin deep. Look at what their virtuous skins belie:

Evil.

E.V.I.L.

Fruit of the Devil.

This one is more like... an evil sidekick. Like Simon & Hecubus...

Get behind me, Peppers!

FYI, I also made this.

2011-09-23T23:39:00.001-04:00

It seemed important.

Listening to The Heartless Bastards, Drinking a nice Lemon-Tea Beer...

2011-09-23T22:56:00.001-04:00

...And sewing mittens for my kid :) That's my wild Friday night, Baby!

Fleece, lined with flannel. All scraps. No pattern. It took about an hour and half to make the first mitten and ten minutes to make the second... Not including the first mitten I made which turned out ridiculously small. Hilariously small, in fact.

Ta. Da.

The difference between "you're" and "your" with JFK, Stalin, and Strippers.

2011-09-20T11:59:00.001-04:00

This is a special request from Miss Elly. She challenged me to make a graphic depicting the difference between "you're" and "your", using strippers. I happened to need something to do for the past 30 minutes... soo...... here you go, Elly.

PS. This instructional graphic is in response to this instructional graphic.

In which I review CoNtAgIon

2011-09-19T11:09:00.002-04:00

Yes. I went to the movies by myself again. If you wanted to, you could read about it over at Sprocket, which is where I write very professional articles about the news and science and movies.

If you wanted to read that kind of garbage? Go HERE! There is talk there of lobotomies and montages! And Dolly Parton!

Tarantula Panties.

2011-09-18T23:08:00.002-04:00

There. Now whoever is finding my blog by googling that term can find what they are looking for. I hadn't previously considered underdrawers for arachnids, but hey- I've never HAD a tarantula either. So I don't know anything concrete about their basic hygienic needs. I am just trying to provide a public service, you see.

But what are tarantula panties? What do they look like? One can only speculate because one is not willing to put a lot of googling effort into searching for tarantulas nor panties and certainly not together. Only enough effort to squeak by with some very scientific photoshops will suffice.... All I know is that this blog is officially going to be the go-to place for all of your speculative tarantula pantying needs.

Fig. 1

Fig.2

What is weird about photoshopping novelty panties onto tarantulas, Readers? Nothing, I assure you. It's a perfectly appropriate way to spend a Sunday night. You know it and I know it.

Hay Tarantula!!! Whatcha gonna do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk?
Spin a web so you can catch me and eat my face off? Oh.

This Vacuum Love You Longtime.

2011-09-15T10:31:00.001-04:00

They told me I can't vacuum for six weeks. This is killing me.

Ok, so most people would be like, "Yay! I can't vacuum!"

But I have a new dyson *imagine beautiful, twinkling xylophone music* I got it just before we left for summer vacation. Neil talked me into it. My old vacuum bit the dust and I was ready to drop $70 max on a new one. Then he just seemed so excited about a dyson (I know. We don't get out a lot, alright? We had oysters that one night, but otherwise we've been watching HBO reruns and downloading internet books for our exclusive entertainment). So I hummed and hawed and thouuuuuught about it and worrrrrrrried about it and then I found myself in the passenger seat of the car, falling in and out of consciousness, then a yellow dyson ball type of vacuum was being loaded into the back of the car, everything was spinning and then suddenly I was at home, unloading the vacuum and vacuuming with it.

And it was like... some kind of vacuuming miracle. Shut up, it IS. It's not even vacuuming, you guys... it's dysoning. I dyson now. I'm a really obnoxious vacuum snob now. I'm like a mac AND dyson person now. Don't get me wrong, I'm still incredibly awesome..... I swear. I'm not just like a stepford, Readers. I still never do laundry on time and I drink beer and play poker and throw my wet towel on the bed sometimes....so... that counters my Stepfordwife-syndome. Stop it. You love my vacuuming story. Look me in the eye: YOU. LOVE. IT.

Okay, so I love love love the dyson in a totally platonic-ish way. It's like an alien vacuum. It's like... a sci-fi vacuum that sucks the life out of my rugs/furniture/mattresses/cats/kids' hair... anything is fair game. I have seriously weighed the pros and cons of vacuuming people who come to my door. Just to... you know... see how much dirt comes out of them. Plus, I'm usually desperate to find something else to vacuum once I've dysoned the bejeezus out of everything we own. Everyone just has to understand.

See? Even Ro-Mon knows.

Anyhow, I am not allowed to vacuum until I have recovered fully from my surgeries. That's right. SurgerIES. Plural. I had three. I also had a hernia in my stupid bellybutton and another one that I don't care to discuss here on the internet *wide serious eyes* YES... That bad. Nevermind, YOU. This is my blog and I can talk about my gross surgeries and awesome vacuum all I want. Anyhow, the point is that now I don't get to dyson anything until mid October because the surgeon was very very clear on the fact that I am not to vacuum for six whole weeks. Not even in high heels (I asked. It might have made a difference. You just stop judging me).

This is my latest pair of vacuuming shoes.

So we got a maid until then... a weekly one... and I forbade the maid from using my dyson. IS THAT WRONG? Aren't I worried about them getting the floor really extra clean with the dyson?? No I am not. You know why? Now this is extra pathetic: Because I want extra dust to build up from them using their crappy maid-vacuums so that I can vacuum in October and see how much better my dyson is than theirs.

OMG, I am the lamest person EVER. Ever.

Hurry up, October!!!!

Appendexcited: Episode 2, "Good Night Irene"

2011-09-12T21:12:00.000-04:00

I don't know... was it wrong of me to make a movie of my awesome hospital room mate, Irene? Irene, oh Irene... Irene who spent her three days and nights in the hospital hacking up her lungs. Like literally. Irene who, when she isn't hacking up her lungs is shaving with her electric razor. Irene who has it in for nurses and their incessant anti-smoking attitude. Irene who has been smoking for 69 years and isn't going to stop just because she weighs 78 pounds and is on an oxygen tank. She hasn't blown up her face yet, so screw everyone. You tell 'em Irene!! You tell them all night and freaking day and night in your shared hospital room. Just don't get me.

Here is my depiction of what it was like deep in the heart of the night in that hospital room with Irene....

Thinking about Irene who is across the room, angrily hacking and shaking and mumbling and shaving.....


Seeing Irene pop out from behind my curtained off area.	..

The End.

Click Here to Read "Appendexcited: Episode Ungh".

Appendexcited. Part UNGH.

2011-09-12T11:25:00.001-04:00

So remember how I have the worst airplane luck out of anyone in the universe? Well... the Universe does not like to disappoint. Well, maybe it does usually, but not in the case of making traveling by aircraft as hard as possible for me. There was no trip in the rift so to speak this time, because THIS time, friends, I got for real and true sick while driving the eleventy hundred hour drive to the airport from FarFarAway, Northern Canada so that I could go home to Nicehome Cityland, where I live, Canada. (I know, I told you where I live. Now you're going to steal my identity. Well you can have it because my identity comes with surgeries, an unreasonable ex and a healthy amount of debt. Yeah. Think twice, identity stealers. Maybe we could trade identities, though. All reasonable offers will be considered. )

So off I went, to end my summer long visit, get on an airplane and go home- when I started to get a wee tummy ache. Then a worse tummy ache. Then a stabby sort of pain that made me yell "GETITOUTGETITOUTGETITOUT" before I even knew what was wrong and made my mother drive through a road construction crew to get to the hospital.

That's right. A HOSPITAL. This is something that I am not good with. I generally do not go to the doctor as a general life rule, unless I am in actual labor or unconscious and someone puts me in the scary, time consuming, BORING doctory place against my will because my legs are broken and I can't kick them away and insist that I'm fine.

Anyhow, it turns out that my appendix was ruptured. I was supposed to be on an airplane home the following day, but instead I was in a hospital across from West Edmonton Mall, drinking a gallon of radioactive fluid so that I could get CT scans, enduring a deep pelvic ultrasound while the ever so charming ultrasound technician expertly flirted with his student and impressed her to pieces. Also? Just for the record, the same ultrasound tech picked up MY undies from the base of the table and put them under my head. I just want to put that out there because I'm pretty sure the sleazy ultrasound tech was not supposed to touch my undies... however I was busy willing the morphine in my system to reproduce itself like a virus and attach itself on an atomic level to every single brain cell I've got left. So I let it slide until later when I was having an emotional breakdown at the moron nurse who dug holes under my skin because she was sure she would be the magician who could make veins appear in my arms and refused to put my IV in my hand (where it ended up having to go after SEVEN attempts). I have small, collapsible veins. They're like teeeeeeeny tiiiiiny soaker hoses.

Anyhow, I was wheeled into surgery and the last thing I remember telling the surgeon was that I was actually there for a tummy tuck when they were confirming with me that I knew why I was getting surgery.

Surgeon: What is your name?
Me: Michelle
Surgeon: do you know why you're here?
Me: For a tummy tuck *wink wink wink*
Surgeon: Guess again.
Me: *sigh* Appendi*mumblemumble*
Surgeon: Pardon?
Me: GAWD, if you you don't know why I'm here, I should at least get to tell you the surgeries I really want.
Surgeon: Time to start the sedation
Me: Wait! I'm not finished! I also want the girls picked up a little if you know what I mean. *eyebrow waggle*
Surgeon: I'm not a plastic surgeon and your appendix is about to hit the ceiling...
Me: Well I'll take what I can get. Can you do that booby thing with your laproscope? I trust you doc.
Surgeon: Count backwards from ten
Me: Nope, I put the sexy in dyslex..... *ZONK*

Then I woke up sans appendix. This was a great blog.

The next installment will be about my crazy 500 year old hospital roommate, Irene and her adventures in smoking while using an oxygen tank.

ATTENTION DBS: IS THIS A NEW ENOUGH DAY FOR YA?

2011-08-02T19:23:00.001-04:00

DBS,

LOoKinG foR SomEtHing? WE aRe HolDInG YoUR PlAnT HoStAGe at An UndiScloSeD LoCAtIOn outSiDe oF toWn. We WiLl rEtURn It SAfeLy iN exChangE foR scotCh/coffee aNd plEnty Of cOoKiES or a million dollars. Do NoT iNvOlve ThE PolIce oR the FloWeR wiLL Get It.

We WiLL Be In ConTaCT. DOn’t tRy To bE a HErO. We ARe SeRioUs!!!1! VeRy Serious. *serious expression* We WiLL dO ThiNgS tO IT iF YoU dO nOt COmpLy.... GaRdeNy THinGs.

-The PlAntKnapPers

PS. We have KiLleX.
PpS. I'Ve deAdhEaded iT and waTerEd it a bIt toO.
PppS. It loOkS niCe By mY cAMpeR.

"Help me!"

"Just do what they say!"

"Cough Cough.. Hurrrrryyyyyy........"

Last one, I swear.

2011-08-01T23:20:00.000-04:00

I made more cake. I didn't mean to. It's kind of like my last hurrah of the summer cake-a-thon I've been participating in. I make it sound like that is a real event that I've been involved in; not so much an "event" as just involved. Cake and I are heavily involved and I might need to take a break. A cake sabbatical of sorts.

The rest of the summer will have to be about beets greens and water if I value my arteries. Which I barely do.

I made it because I was feeling sorry for myself, but now it's all ~~butter~~ better.

Ok, I have to go for a walk now.

PS, my screen just now developed a new rainbow stripe down the middle of it. Oh laptop, please don't be sick. I am far from home and I need you, do you hear me? HOLD ON, LITTLE MACBOOK! I don't want to borrow my Mom's icky microsofty HP one all summer.

It's probably fine that I've just broken into a cold sweat over this. I have to go pace around and ring my hands now. *dry heave*

Not so perfect perfect day.

2011-08-01T02:24:00.001-04:00

I ran out of steam yesterday and didn't blog. I am bummed out/feeling dread creep down the back of my throat right now. My kids are leaving tomorrow morning for their summer visit with their Dad for the rest of the summer. I hate this time of year. It's like anti-christmas.... Or something. I worry and worry for an entire month.

We went geocaching today, found our cache, too. Yay us! Pretty view. We also went to visit my Grandpa's grave, I wish we hadn't because it amplified my emotional wreckage by a billion. The awful thing about the graveyards in small towns that you grew up in is that you know most of the tragic stories behind the stones. So I've been faking not being a snotty, weepy disaster all day long so as not to freak out the kids, but they always see through it, the little detectives.

Later we went to visit at my sisters and i put about 89347923847293 new books onto my son's ereader. I spent all of my book budget on him.

I need a hug or 20.

I had to add this one because I have a thing for scenic photos with a thumb in the top corner. Dumb, eh? It's the view from our geocache.

Hot Rollers for the Stir Crazy.

2011-07-29T23:19:00.000-04:00

What was today about, you might ask? Going to Walmart to buy ~~a birthday gift for niece~~ hot rollers for my hair. Life in the camper is great and stuff but maybe I'm a little stir crazy.... I don't know. However, we all know that stir crazy purchases are usually the most interesting and best kind. Even better than impulse purchases. Impulse purchases are things like chocolate bars and tide pens. Stir Crazy purchases are the things you see when you are at the store for no good reason at all and you buy something you don't need based on it's ability to entertain you for more than 10 minutes. Like a pressure washer or a giant cigar that you can't really smoke but you might. Don't judge me.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling a bit cooped up, I head out to the store for this or that, I get what I need but I don't want to go home just yet- but I don't necessarily "need" anything else. Walmart is particularly dangerous ground for the Stir Crazy individual. They have a lot of stuff that goes Whiiiirrrrr and ping! This time it was hot rollers because my kid was taking too long picking out a flavour of chap stick and they were in the general vicinity and I just, well I got weak.

I saw them, I imagined myself putting them in my hair in the camper when I got home, then I imagined waiting for them to cool down so that I could take them out and reveal my new ravishing Marilyn Monroe camper hairstyle; so I bought them. WHAT? Like you wouldn't do the same if you were at Walmart with your Mom who used to be a hairdresser. She told me it was okay to buy them even though I have no room to get them home. I guess they'll go in with the puffed wheat.

So I unpackaged them, plugged them in, rolled them up and waited while bugging Neil as he tried really hard to read his book. Then I made him take this photo with me:

Then I unrolled them for the big Marilyn reveal-to-Neil...

Me: Hmm... maybe I haven't perfected my technique yet, Neil. It's a little less Marilyn Monroe and a bit more... hmmm.... not Liz Taylor..... no no no... maybe it's...

Neil: Phyllis Diller?

AND IT WAS. It was Phyllis Diller's exact hairstyle; It looked exactly like Phyllis Diller.

The End.

I Made This Evil Today.

2011-07-28T23:58:00.017-04:00

It's a four layer vanilla cake with lemon butter-cream and home made coconut rum custard filling, topped with toasted coconut for my Mom's birthday. I was sad that there were no raspberry preserves for it. Be jealous.

In other news, while going through my Mom's cupboard, I found a 13 year old can of coconut milk. It expired in 1998, before my first child was born. I thought about opening it, just to see what 13 year old coconut milk looks/smells like, but I think that's how Dawn of the Dead started.

Or something. IDK.

Today was a Dreamcometrue.

2011-07-27T23:58:00.053-04:00

My Dad bought me this:

It is number three in my collection of gramophones. This is my first one with a real live speaker cone thing. That is for sure the technical name for it. My other two are sort of like gramophone ghetto blasters. Portable. For parties. The ipods of the thirties. I'll show you photos of the others when I go home.

Anyway, I have to get it home somehow on an airplane with luggage and a bunch of kids. I’m thinking of packing it in puffed wheat.

What.

I can’t get puffed wheat in Ontario. Apparently it is some kind of controlled substance there. That’s my theory anyway. I’ve been trying to make puffed wheat squares for two years and it is thus far impossible to find puffed wheat for them. It’s kind of a crucial ingredient, but come to Alberta and there is puffed wheat galore. The stores here are all practically bursting at their seams with puffed wheat. You can’t move for all the puffed wheat crammed into every aisle of every store, even the car dealerships. I might be exaggerating, but only slightly. I will get some home, though, even if I have to smuggle it in under the guise of being packing styrofoam. Maybe I could fill some teddy bears and ceramic Holy Virgin statues with it too. I will come up with something.

The other news is that tonight I went to see the Green Lantern, and apart from Ryan Reynolds taking off his shirt a lot, it was basically exactly like Megamind. Also a small exaggeration. It was dumb, though. It surely was.

The good news is that I got to run into the very lovely wife of DBS at the theatre and will soonly be going to their home for coffee and cake. I hope they are prepared. DBS and Neil are both Scottish and we may have to swap coffee for scotch. I am looking forward to testing the theory that copper wire was invented by two Scotsmen fighting over a penny. I have a wallet full of them, because I have some art projects in mind that will require lots copper wire, you see.

I don’t know where I’m going with this.

Anyhow, on the way home from the theatre, we dropped the popcorn, spilling it all over my Dad’s jeep... so we decided to pick it up and throw handfuls of the dirty popcorn out of the window, (for the wildlife, it was obviously not littering) but the force of the air in the vehicle from the window being opened caused the popcorn to fly all over inside the vehicle in a big, greasy flurry. My dream of one day finding out what it would be like to be inside a popcorn machine was realized tonight, is what I’m saying.

PS. I am actually going to be holding my laptop at arms length over my head in one minute in hopes that there will be enough wireless service in my camper to publish this awesome blog entry. Not an exaggeration.

Jitterbug Perfume

2011-07-26T22:26:00.002-04:00

Summer Vacation Date Two-Six.Oh-Seven.Two-Oh-One-One.

Today I wore my mother’s bathing suit because I realized that I did not bring my own. It was her, and I quoth unto thee, “Hot tub bathing suit”. It’s a sizzler. She keeps it on hanging on her bathroom doorknob so that it’s more handy. Yes- This is true. I am now trying not to imagine my own bathing suit laying in the middle of my stairs back at home, the control hose portion of it peeking out at Neil’s Dad every time he comes to our house to check on the cat litter and plants. Neil’s Dad carefully stepping around it so as not to disturb it lest it jump forth and wrap itself around his head, strangling him and leaving him for dead amongst the many bags of cat food that now inhabit my kitchen. Gone too soon.

No really, I’m fine. I’m just a little stressed. Today I put the finishing touches on the incredibly straight forward, yet made complicated summer child exchange agreement with my ex. I think I finally convinced him that I indeed do not have a sinister plot to bamboozle him and hide the children from him. My main argument being that I have never done that before. Sure, I thought about swapping them out for some other kids I saw down at the river; you know... put some mud on them and be like, “yeah they need to have a bath when they get to your house” and then run away, laughing devilishly at my evil brilliance and uncover the real children from the pile of branches I put on them. But I changed my mind at the last second.

Here is another panorama of my old ‘hood:

PS? Camper internet service is slow. I am writing this part here because I am still waiting for my photo to upload and it hasn't. Alright photo..... hurry it up, I have books to read. PPS, I got an ereader. A kobo to be exact. Feel free to send me gift certificates for it. I bought it because there is a fancier one out and it was cheap. I KNOW. I was never going to buy one, but there is no bookstore here in smalltownsville Northern Alberta and that makes me sad, so now I can get books. Books and books. (.....still not uploaded). Right now I'm reading Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. Loving it. I'm on the last few pages. You should read it too.... Ok, photo's uploaded. I will le shut le up.

Coffee & Pixie Stix

2011-07-25T13:48:00.001-04:00

I'M GOING TO PUSH MYSELF OVER A CLIFF. A cliff of writing to the internet every day for the next week. Yeah, I got your hopes up, huh, ex husband? *snicker*

Blogging every day again, that's what I want to do, provided I can get te internet to work at my Mom's. So I will give you an update of my life in point form just to get you all caught up in case you were wondering what kinds of things I've been up to since I burnt that chicken last week:

-I am in Alberta Canada right now, on vacation. Don't rob my house while I'm gone. People are watching it. Carefully. Right, Neil's Dad? Right.

-Nobody barfed on the plane, but they DID barf when we landed.

-I won a bunch of jewelery. Silver stuff. I'm going to wear it all at once.

- I am currently trying my hardest to eat a pixie stix, but I can't because it's jammed or something. I won't give up though. Maybe if I stir it into my coffee....

Sorry about this photo. I wanted to illustrate pixie stix and coffee and this is as far as I was willing to go with it. Wow. Ugly self portraits on the internet... yikes Please notice the Mr Peanut cookie jar behind me. Cool eh?

-I was in a parade. A RODEO parade. I am still not sure how that happened. All I know is that all of the sudden, I was driving my Dad's yellow '64 Galaxy behind a flatbed truck with flowers and kids stuck to it, driving over horse poop and behind a marching band, listening to "Sweet Home Alabama" and I was throwing candy at my ex husband's extended family. It was like a really weird nightmare. But it was real. Photos of that:

I blame Neil. He'd never beeEEEeeEn in a PArAAAaaadE! So we went in it. For the record, we do not live in this town.

-This is our summer home. Well not OURS, but we're squatting in it. I had to take a panoramic photo of it. Well not really, but it seemed more dramatic if I said that. Tadaaaaaa!

Yes. That is all.

And Then I Made some Nice Chicken

2011-07-16T01:31:00.002-04:00

And then I became a vegetarian.

Because now whenever I look at it, all I can think about is George Hamilton: the most tanned man in Hollywood.

Was it wrong of me to make this photo? Nobody knows. Time will tell.

Airplane Time.

2011-07-12T21:25:00.001-04:00

Seriously, I have about 6 blog posts started. Epic sorts of ones, I just haven't had/made the time to sit down and finish them. No YOU suck.... no you don't, I didn't mean it. Stay? Stay. STAY.

I am currently in the middle of packing my stuff for our grand summer vacation. Summer vacation to my Mom's. They bought a trailer for us to stay in. A SUPER trailer, though. This ties in nicely with the end of this blog post, so keep my summer trailer in mind as you read about my shopping day.

PS, Neil is going to strangle me when he comes downstairs and see that I am blogging instead of finally putting this heap of clothing into the giant suitcase I insisted on bringing.

Headbands... underwear... camo blouse. Check check check. All ready for my trip west.

Neil: What are you doing?
Me: Um... Errrr *minimizes window* checking us in to our flights....
Neil: You already did that. See? boarding passes. Are you blogging?
Me: What? Hmmm???
Neil: Your blog...
Me: What blog? I haven't blogged in weeks... Blog? Ha... What a collosal mismanagement of time THAT would be! Whats that stand for anyway, amiright? BLOG. Blogblogblog. Who ever thought of that and why did it catch on? Psh...
Neil: Uh huh..
Me: Like B-L-O-G... Blabbering Little O-SOME Girl? Get it? Awesome with an O... It's Internetty.
Neil: Yep. Short for Weblog *kills me with his eyes*
Me: I know that. What burns so much?
*burning*
Me: GEEZ, this packing thing is taking foreeeeevvvvvvverrrr......... Glaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhgh
Neil: Whatever Darlin, but we're leaving at 5 am, don't forget.
Me: Don't you worry, Neily, I got it all locked up right here *makes locking action at forehead WITH sound effects*

So I guess I should get to packing. I just wanted to tell you that today I went to Walmart in jogging shorts with a do-rag tied around my head and bought extra strength multi-cat clumping cat litter, a hugenormous bag of cheap-o-happycat-cat-style-food and a box of size (and I quote) GIANT cat pan liners. Then I told the stringy haired teenager in at the cash register not to be alarmed, that I was not a crazy cat lady and he actually rolled his eyes at me. So I told him that I hate my cats just for proof and that Walmart employees are supposed to rollback their prices not their eyeballs. He was all "that'll be $30" and I was like, "THIRTY DOLLARS??? FOR A CAT????" and I felt Tom Hanks pain like when he was in Turner and Hooch and he bought all the dog stuff at the pharmacy and it was $90. Outrageous.

PS, I watched Turner and Hooch last week. It still holds up as far as I'm concerned. That Hooch.

Ok. Time to dump the underwear into the rectangular zippered box.

Laterrrrr. (help meeeeee)

I Just Made Duct Tape Into a Purse... Everybody Sing!

2011-06-24T00:40:00.001-04:00

You know, maybe the weather is off. You know? The atmospheric pressure is getting to me or something. Maybe it's the new glasses... but I gotta tell you- tonight I was feeling creative. Also, I've been reading intructables.com for maybe too long today. The point here, Readers is that what I learned is that you can make anything out of anything. An imitation coach purse out of duct tape for example.

Coach bags are expensive. Sure, I jones for them. I'm not sure why I feel like I should have a $500 purse in which to store my ipod, lady supplies and loose cheerios, but I do. There is, however, enough rebel in me to reject excessive spending like that and be more practical. Creative. People have been making their own purses for centuries and there is no reason why I couldn't also figure it out.

The only problem tonight, you guys, is that i didn't have the stuff to make a real coach bag. All i had was a coloring sheet that my kid left out, featuring an antelope, some twine, a zip tie and some duct tape. Luckily I went on that button making binge for a while there too, because I had, available to me: one super sculpey button. It totally looks like bone.

So of course I made a purse and some instructions so that you can make one too at home.... I also wrote a song about it and have added that to the end of this post. Those are some of the things I did with my time today. *sobs*

Ok. Here it is:

Supplies I had on hand.

First I had some beer.

Folded the paper into a "purse shape" and taped the back.

Made creases in the new duct tape fabric.

Cut little tabs in sides of the "bottom"... not sure why, it seemed like a great idea.

I found my science fiction novel the perfect size to mold the inside of the purse. Just the right thickness.

I wrapped the "purse" around the book. Before I taped it together though, I covered the other side of the paper with tape. We want our duct tape purses to be fully covered inside and out. No coloring pages sticking through. That would be humiliating.

Secured the edges with tape, inside and out and folded the sides in like a little duct tape accordion.

Folded the flap over the top...

Made a nice duct tape strap by folding a long piece of tape over itself in 3.

Strap's almost on...

secured the strap.

made a button hole and and attached the zip tie.

Attached the awesome button I was telling you about..


TADA. Just needs some decorative touches with a sharpie..

The back...

The front.


It's basically exactly like a real coach purse as you can tell from this grainy photo. AH.MAZING, amiright, Ladies?

But enough of that, here is the song. PS, Neil helped me with the artistic direction:

We belong together.

Crayzay

2011-06-13T23:30:00.001-04:00

This weekend I found out that I have ulcers on my corneas. Neat. That was neat to hear. Good stuff. Happy times. However, it could have been much worse news, because I was totally convinced that I was having a 3 day long stroke. Turns out my contact lenses are assholes. Now I have to wear glasses. Booooooooo. Here are five awesome photos of me in my new glasses:

I hope you've had your fill, if not, rest assured that there are more of these babies right on my desktop.

Anyhow, the good news is that my friends, The Watkins, bought me a ukadelic tiki ukulele. I've named him Pele and here I am playing a wicked cool song on it (you can hear hockey in the background. Vancouver lost. Boo):

That is all.

CZM HEADER CONTEST WINNER- Round Mustachio- And a vlog about me showing you moustaches.

2011-06-08T21:39:00.006-04:00

I made this VLOG because i think it was the best way to display the new moustaches.

KEV D'S ENTRY:

I love this multimedia entry from Kev. Clearly a lot of thought went into it and I might actually use this in the future. I like the use of the coffee stained bland-face napkin on the right. It's subtle and really relates the message the artist wished to convey about the meeting he was attending, which was that it was the worst meeting ever but he was at least supplied with sustenance. Much like this blog, if I send you candy. The ripped up post it note outlining the purpose of this website is clean and to the point, however has become whimsical with the rock and roll sign hand sticking up from behind it. Some might mistake it for a flower, but they need to look a little more closely. The seemingly random man wearing "Geordy Laforge" glasses on the top right ties together nicely with the walking skeleton, the mysterious fellow in a hat and the sitting, chubby alien. Finally, the piece is balanced off with Death pointing at whomever was sitting to the right of Kev when he created this. Superb. The one takes second and Kev will be receiving a package of Nestle Smarties to keep you sustained through your next meeting.

TARA'S ENTRIES:

Tara, owner of one of the funniest blogs of all time (I'm sorry, Tara... it's The hot Mess Chronicles... not "cake betch" as I said in my awesome vlog.. but know this: I say "Catch Betch" repeatedly sometimes. It's like I have tourette's. It's my favourite phrase.) Anyhow, Tara has put together these two entries. The first depicts a mug full of coffee, symbolizing the fullness of life, starkly contrasted with a series of zombies in casual wear. I have named the Zombies from left to right: Penny Parrot-head, Hospital Sally, Buxom Betty, Charlie Gottapeepee, Mrs Soblemeyer and Zombie Barry Obama.

The second entry once again shows Parrothead, Sally, Betty, Charlie, Mrs Soblemeyer and Barry, this time slowing approaching upon us all with their assorted coffee beverages. Note: Charlie might pee in his cup and Mrs Sobelmeyer is rebelling and having tea. Truly enjoyable.

Kjbikakis ENTRY

Kjbikakis , who claims that she is a poor little 17 year old in her email has put together this little number. There is a lot going on in this entry. The #1 Mom part? Made me feel awesome. Like mothers day x 29837429347. The use of the term 'holy shart' in combination with being a number one Mom pretty much says everything about me.

CALEB'S ENTRY

Caleb's in which he displays his amazing talent. His empathy for the human spirit... his penchant for the color red. His rejection of proportioned elbows with just one bend in them.. How much I love wearing pink skirts with brown and chartreuse turtlenecks. It's all there. It's alllll there.

But the winner, everyone? Tim. It's the fanciness I crave. Also? It's PERCEPTION is not always reality... I think I said "perspective" in the vlog. OH YES. I SUCK. Here at Tea and Propaganda Movies, I try to always be considerate and remember things. Aye. I need to maybe wear the Einstein mustache a little more when I'm trying to think.

HAND MADE. MUSTACHES. Come get, em TIM. By that I mean send me your address.

OMG, I am scared to death that I missed one. As far as I could tell, there were a whopping five entries... so..... If I missed you , let me know!!!!

STOP

2011-05-28T23:08:00.000-04:00

Signs I saw today:

That's my finger! Good job, Self.

Someone poked me in my creative spot. Not with a squid. This sounds bad. Origami.

2011-05-27T21:36:00.002-04:00

I'm manic creative again. I have these creative dry spells for months and then all of the sudden, it all just kind of trips up the rest of my life and I make 2938742938742 things in the span of a week. Then nuthin'.

I am dining room light shopping. Sort of.. well I got one of those round Ikea rice paper lanterns to replace the Wall-E Villain Canadian Tire Special light that currently hangs over my table. Anyhow, since I can never leave well enough alone AND Ikea rice paper lampshades are $6 each, I've decided to cover one with origami somethings to make it more interesting/completely weird/probably hideous. Can't have a plain old normal light, right, self? I'm torn between doing that and making a homemade 60s style string lamp. Like this:

Like wasps nests, but with more glue.


Paper Crane Lamp: seemed like a good idea yesterday.

Um... All of the sudden, plain rice paper is sounding REEEEL nice.

Right, so I got distracted on the making of paper cranes anyway, because I haven't made one. Not one. But I did make these:

Archie comic throwing stars

Archie comic origami butterflies

Origami Dragon

Origami cave squid.

Origami gift box.

Archie Comic bird (my favorite)

It was crazy complicated for me.

And then, while Neil was watching the Elvis Costello show, I painted me a typewriter. I want to do one on an enormous canvas... also I want to work on it for more than 15 minutes.

Wheeeeeeeee.

I probably have some kind of horrible brain affliction. Also, toast would be delicious right about now.

PS. I have not forgotten, and I will be announcing a winner for the great header moustache contest of last week! YES! I've chosen, but I'm too tired to change my header right now.

PSS. I dropped my book in the toilet when I fell asleep in the bathtub today. I thought I was setting it on the nice closed lid. Not so much. Nice. Now I have to buy a new one, because it was in there for like 15 minutes. So I tossed it. I hate tossing books; I hate reading books from in the toilet more, though.

PPPSSSS.... (ETA) LEARN THE PROPER WAY TO EAT A CUPCAKE HERE.

The end.

THE CZM MUSTACHE MAKEOVER HEADER CONTEST

2011-05-27T19:21:00.000-04:00

So I need a new header for my blog. I'm sick of the whole mess of a header up there, so I want you to make me a new'n. I even have a prize for you. The prize, Creative Readers, is one package of emergency facial hair. Stick on. You know you want it.

The package features: The Western, The Copstache, The Fumanchu and an optional Soul Patch. Have a gander:

That's three mustaches and a soul patch. This could be the ~~cheapest~~ most stylish & practical prize ever.

This contest is open to everyone in the world; THE WORLD. I am willing to mail these moustaches anywhere.

So hop to it. It has to really show the essence of this blog. My only rule is that the blog title has to be in it somewhere. There do not have to be mustaches in it, but there can be.

The winner also gets a big old feature thank you and showcase blog about their entry. I will also post the runners up. ~~Some~~ HOARDS OF blog traffic could be headed your way.

Entries can be emailed to: coffee.and.zombie.movies@gmail.com with the subject line: "I want some mustaches" or posted on your blog with a linkback if you like. Let me know you've entered with a comment here linking me to your post if you choose that method.

The whole shebang ends on Friday, May 20th. I'll pick my favourite and mail the lucky, lucky, lucky winner one lovely set of mustaches (and a soul patch)!

UPDATE: Contest deadline is Friday May 27

Recap:
1. Create a header for Coffee & Zombie Movies.
2. Email it to me OR post it in your blog and link back letting me know.
3. Do it before Friday, May 20th/2011. Be impressive. Or funny. I mean really, look at the header I currently have. You don't have to be a graphic genius.
4. Don't hurt yourself.

PS. I bought these shoes yesterday:


I can't wait to go break my ankle in them at the grocery store.

Air Hockey is Turning me into a DEMON.

2011-05-24T22:38:00.003-04:00

So the other day, we decided to break up our long weekend activity of melting into the furniture by taking the kids out to burn off some energy. We've been in flu hell and it was time to step outside and breathe some non recycled air.

Me: We should take the kids out of the house.
Neil: Kay. *wheeze* *cough* What are they up to?
Me: Uuumm... they're just playing outside... Yeah... we need to take them out somwhere ASAP.... I think this weekend has been kind of long for them...
Neil: *cough cough* Indoor playground? *sniffle wheeze*
Me: um... honey.... we need to mow the lawn too.
Neil: Hmmm...

So off we went to drop $68.00 so that the kids could go down some slides, nag us for video game and candy money and we could drink coffee and pretend that we were not in a room that looks like a crayola enema caddy. Like a date. You know the place, parents:

*Breathing into a liquor store bag*

But Readers, Hell's 1/2 acre has a redeeming factor you know- and that redeeming factor is that Hell's 1/2 Acre has one crooked little, unleveled, inaccurate with the scores, but intact nonetheless air hockey table. *eyes begin to look in different directions* *competitiveness begins to bubble up inside of me* *froth forms in the corners of my mouth* *heart rate increases* *fingers and toes begin to twitch*

If you keep up with my blog, you'll know that I have a thang for air hockey.... Ah fayncies a playin' it from tahm ta tahm. I'm starting to wind up just thinking about it.

So anyway, Neil thought he was going to get some work done while the kids ran themselves into a coma, however I had $20 in change in my pocket. Not that I was planning any MAJOR air hockey or anything. Just... Just a bit. I didn't want to interrupt his work or anything.. Just a quick game is ALL, heheh....So I sat myself next to Neily.

Humm hum work work

Whatcha doin? Workin?

Ohhhhhh Neeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiilyyyyyyy...... Put down that old work...

heave... heave..

I dumped my loonie* into the machine. The air began to rise up out of the little holes. I practically resisted laying on the table. The puck was released...

WheeEEeeeeE!

Alright, so the puck went backy forthy, we broke a sweat. The zone was entered. The air hockey ZONE. Loonies were dumped into the table, a system of scoring was established because the table wasn't counting all the goals.... We laughed, we cheered, we said, AWWwwWWW simultaneously. We were in our stride, man, our STRIDE. I was even getting to know the imperfections of the table when all of the sudden this:

GASP!!!!!!!!!!!1!

The... the horrible red headed.... er... portly.. freckled *wheeze* child stole the air hockey *wheeze* puck. HE DID.

So I reached out my hand and said, "Alright, very funny, kid. Now give it back"

The kid clutched it into his fat little hand and held it to his chest and glared at me. HE GLARED AT ME. I totally glared back. I have a well practiced glare. It freezes the spines of my own kids. But this kid? UNPHASED. I felt like I'd be kryptonited. omgomgomgomg......

I looked around for his parents. Nonexistent. Panic rose in my throat... but the... but my.... *flashbacks to elementary school bullies*. I was being bullied by a seven year old, red headed fat kid again! *wheeze* *wheeze*

"Aright, kid... I mean it. Give it back. You can't take that." I began to break a sweat, imagining the table run out of money... and NEIL WAS WINNING... I needed that puck.... *wheeze*

The kid was further resolved not to give it up and put it behind his back. The ultimate no takesies backsies. H'oh no he DIDN'T.

I very nearly pried it out of his hands myself, Readers, but I regained my senses when I imagined his doubtlessly stupid parents coming around the corner, only to see me twisting the little red puck from their child's arm. I am better than this. This is not my kid... Why is this child causing my uterus to shrink into an angry raisin? Air Hockey is making me into a MONSTER.

(Shhhh... Uterus... they'll hear you!)

I gave him the sternest look I could possibly make. Useless. I leaned in close and asked him nicely. He clutched it even further into the rolls of his tshirt, when his younger sister, who was about 4, waltzed up, deftly twisted it out of his chubby hands like a graceful martial artist and plopped it down on the table and dragged him off. I was stunned, you guys. I nearly stuck my tongue out at the kid. I almost did. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?? I changed my perspective for a minute... laughed it off and then for a little while I felt endeared to these kids.. I mean, he was so bad that it was funny and his sister totally bossed him! HA! Cute kid. Little hooligan.

But then when my son was in the line up to buy some juice, the same kid tried to wrestle his money out of my son's hands. Then my uterus went back to giving me advice.

ShhHHHhhhh, Uterus..... you're not right in your mind.... you need counseling.

Anyway, at least MY kid is awesome. This photo pretty much depicts exactly why I like my kids better than anyone else's.


Just like his Ma heart heart heart

So anyway, I can cross "Elementary Teacher" or any kind of "Early childhood development" off of my little giant list of prospective future careers, because other people's kids are way less fun. Um... except yours. I'm sure YOURS are totally great.

*shifty eyes* *pulls collar*

*Loonie= One Dollar Coin here in Canada World.

Nevermind the Bollocks.

2011-05-23T20:53:00.001-04:00

YEAH when I draw squids, they look like peeners. I tried to avoid it, my circumspect READERS. But it was so eloquently pointed out *snicker..pointed* when I'd hoped that nobody would notice.

"NooOOooo... they won't say your cave squid looks penisy, Self. It's barely noticeable. They know you'd never try and draw penii and put them on the internet. Your readers know you, Self. They know you have a very sharp and pristine mind. You were raised better than that."

JUST NEVER MIND, SICKOS. It's nature.

I guess I'm just like Walt Disney, sneaking phalluses into all of my drawings. Look it up, you guys. It's the truth that Disney Studios put peeners in almost all of their movies. I live with an animator, he confirmed this truth. It's because I'm practically in the Freemasons now. I'm verging on becoming Becky. Totally by accident.

Anyhow, I'm right now trying to get out of my house, but everyone keeps migrating back to their screens of choice. I wanted to go pick up some magnetic discs and stuff and a glue gun so that we could make robots but apparently I'M the only one who thinks that would be an awesome idea. Mine would probably look like a big tin can of a tallywhacker anyway.

Here is a quick story: I went to my friend's birthday party on Saturday and she made me have too much scotch. She made me. What a bad friend. I came home with a fancy shoebox full of the following things: A turkey baster (shaped like a turkey), some books, a bluray of Alice in Wonderland & my ukulele. I hope I didn't steal any of those things. Well not my ukulele, obviously. The shoe box was noticably missing shoes. I also remember making a mental note to add all of the people I met at the party on facebook, but come morning, it seemed less of an excellent idea. Also, I didn't feel very good on Sunday. Scottish Flu or something. Here is the only photo I took.

Basically I'm doing everything wrong, but everyone seems to have gathered at the front door, so I will have to continue this epic blog entry later. In the mean time, enjoy these arsty photos that I took:


I took this photo earlier this winter. Snowy. Snow on the hood of my car that day.

At a local sweets shop.

A wicked lightning shot I took when I was visiting Alberta last summer.

At the pier.

Amazing mast.

A beautiful sunny morning at a campsite we stayed in.

Ok, I have to stop this now. My reputation is going to be ruined.

Cave Squids can't see. Just like me.

2011-05-21T00:09:00.002-04:00

So I've had the flu for a month and I am just finally getting over it. I didn't want to bore you to death with my daily updates on the status of my grossness. All I know is that I went for round two of the eyeball disinfectant yesterday at ye olde clinic. This time, it's creamed bleach that I am to "slide" under my eyelid for my resistant strain of eyeball-itis.

Yeah. I barf whenever I think about it too. When the doctor told me to "slide it into your eye" I cried, but you couldn't tell because I looked like this to begin with.

So anyway, I've been contact lens-less for a month now and that means that I'm blinder than a cave squid, if there is such a thing. I'm just going to eat this piece of an aero mint bar and imagine that there is such a thing. If there is, I'll bet it's blind. Come to think of it, all cave squids are probably blind. And do you know why? Cave Squids are Satan-Powered. You know how I know? ~~I read it.~~

My Scientific Depiction of an actual Eyeless Cave-Squid.

Oh all right. I'll stop with the cave squids. Mainly, I got distracted drawing a cave squid. I have a new drawing tablet if you must know. PS. Cave squids only have 6 legs... I mean tentacle thingies.

The point to all of this is that this is currently how I see the world:

In my living room right this second.


In my doctor's office.

Um... Pretend you didn't see this.

They say that blind people become strangely brilliant. So much to think about, so little to visually process. Obviously this is true.

(And guess what else? I have to get my thyroid ultrasounded. I'll definitely tell you how THAT goes. This is what I get for going to the doctor).

So also in my blind, clutsy stupor, I killed my fish. I was going to clean his bowl when he bounced out onto the drain. I tried to carefully pick him back up so that I could return him to the water, but I accidentally popped him down the drain hole with my finger. He just disappeared. I ran some water after him because obviously that will help him get to the ocean and find his family.

Appx 10 minutes later, I smashed a hole in the fish bowl when I knocked it against a bowl of fruit. I am not sadistic and it wasn't on purpose. Just ask my 13 year old who witnessed they whole fish murder. I am just blind right now and should stop trying to do things.

Me and Blue before his untimely demise.

So that is my update on being sick, cave squids and the death of Blue. I'm hoping the cream that I have to slide into my EYEBALL will work soon. I also need to go glasses shopping, but I can't get a new prescription until my virus clears up. My glasses sort of fell onto the floor of my vehicle when I was driving and I sort of stepped on them like they were some kind of brake that you have to rip the arms off of with your shoes.

But I've lost ten pounds. So there is that.

PS.

(Pretend you didn't see this either)

Big News

2011-05-20T12:54:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I am extending my header contest for another week for the following 2 reasons:

1. Blogger was down (the HoRRor) and I didn't get to pimp it out as much as I wanted.

2. Then I got lazy about pimping it out.

4. Crazy times with my family happened in my life over the past week and it got forgotten.

3. I am unpopular now. I want more entries, not that I don't love Caleb's entry. If no more entries come in, it will be my new blog header and Caleb will win. Hell, he might win anyway because look at THIS:

It speaks to me.

Secondly, I worked pretty hard on this post for Sprocket Ink. I delved into the artistic world of Filmmaking, Cartoons AND captioning things, plus serious issues like Hitler's reputation at Cannes. The only think I didn't do is perform a ukulele song about it, but only because I just now thought of it. BLAST!!

http://sprocketink.com/lars-von-trier-swallows-leg-at-cannes-film-festival/
CLICK HERE to read it. Leave me comments. Tell your friends. Sweep your kitchen. Pay a bill or two. Comb your hair. (My mom was just here visiting).

I'll be back now that I think/hope/pray that life has stopped being weird. Plus I got a new stoOoOoove. OohhhHH. Ugly bread? Is on it's way. Rejoice.

So enter my header contest outlined in the previous post.

The End.

Happy Belated Birthday Self, You Tiger, You.

2011-05-03T10:38:00.000-04:00

It was muh birthday yesterday. Wee-oooo! I'm 92 32 now, Readers. Ugh. Anyhow, I have an upper respiratory infection and have had to cancel 2 birthday parties now. One Poker-Ukulele party that I am particularly bummed over, but I decided not to get my gross germs all over playing cards and pass on this plague all around the table to my friends AND win all of their money. *sigh* I really tried to will myself better so that I wouldn't have to cancel, but I keep coughing up these:

And I'm running out of places to hide them. I think my friends would notice, they have wee beady eyes for stuff like that.

So I cancelled.

Then I was supposed to go to a family dinner and had to cancel that too. Boooo... But I did get to go out for a fancy lunch with my 7 year old. We had fries. We made angry french fry-brows, frylashes, Fry-mpires with bloody ketchup teeth, butter-fries, fryangles, frystaches, got fry-tened and then decided that we were pretty good fry-ends. We also arm wrestled and I lost. All in all a pretty good birthday lunch.

But the good news is that maybe I'm feeling better finally today? There might still be a little fur in my sinuses, but no full blown gremlin-cats like all week. When I feel better, I'll ukulele something up for you. I haven't had a voice for a few days so I can't sing, unless you like gagging-hack-coughs coupled with peppy ukulele music. It could work?

Dueling AWESOME. That's what it is.

2011-04-23T23:17:00.002-04:00

Lookit me, I got a damned ukulele for a head!

Look, Readers, there is nothing wrong or painfully nerdy or socially awkward about trying desperately to learn Dueling Banjos on the ukulele. A person needs to have goals in life. Things that make you want to get out of bed in the morning when you're on a diet and can't get up and eat an ice cream pail full of froot loops and coffee with half of the cream carton dumped into it, you have to find things to busy your mind, okay? And GUESS WHAT? Practicing it in an acid washed, American Apparel sweatshirt just makes it that much more.. um.. ethnic so just stop clamoring all over yourselves to judge me.

I am nowhere near mastering it yet... But look how awesome THIS guy is:

Pretty amazing, if not kind of scary seeming, right? But that is beside the point, I mean how cool would I be at parties if I could just like, casually whip out my ukulele and blow everyone away with a two part hillbilly anthem?

Don't answer that, please. Tut tut... shhhhhh... shhh you... be silent. SHoooOOsh. Shh now.

Neil seems pretty excited about the whole idea too, because he posted this on facebook about it.


Tsk, you spelled 'ukuleles' wrong, NEIL.

SIX of Neil's facebook friends *like* this, Readers. So there's that. (PS. I replaced their profile photos to maintain their privacy.)

Ummm... so Easter, eh? It's gonna be wild.

I have a sore throat. :(

I Am Fishbelly Shakira.

2011-04-20T21:48:00.001-04:00

So, the other day during a Hellmart run, I spotted a wii game on the back shelf of the exercisey games area. Readers, I rarely play video games but this one caught my attention. Sure, I had a brief emotional affair with Plants vs Zombies, but who didn't experiment once or twice? Okay, and Angry Birds, but that was for science. I called it "Chicken Launcher" but that was last summer and my mother kept stealing it and laughing as she tried to play it and usually wouldn't give it back, insisting that she was only looking. So there is that going in my favour. Ok so maybe I dabbled in a touch of The Sims here and there, but only about once a year...

Mainly I liked to make the Sims look like certain people who I hate. I gave them nasty, lazy personalities (dirty, lazy whores who won't get jobs) and gave them really depressing Sim lives. Then I made them have too many babies and die. Stop looking at me like that again. There is nothing wrong with self expression via the medium of animated graphic art every now and again. WHAT? I'm healthy.

PS, I ran into a large Walmart lady's hind quarters while texting and driving my cart at Walmart. Oops.

Anyhow, this is not about The Sims and wreaking havoc on my CGI enemies. The game I spotted is called Zumba Wii. I know, I know... everyone has heard of Zumba. Everyone. In fact, I'd heard about it years ago but have always been too afraid of injuring someone to take a class. Really. You don't know, Readers... you don't know. Want to know what kinds of things I'm not good at? Watch me try to follow latin dance steps to a beat that I didn't make up and only I can hear it.

Oh sure, I can cut a rug in style at an interpretive seizure party if I've had a couple of refreshments to really loosen me up, and I can actually two-step a little *flashes a shrewd smile*, but only because I had to learn how if I wanted to participate in my small town's social scene. I don't have to like it, but I can repeat slow-slow-quickquick to myself and look at my feet as I tromp around a dance floor to The Lone Ranger with my cousins at a wedding if I must. I've also been known to invent a dance or two as well... take, for example, "Microwaving the Dinner" or "The Runaway Wheelchair" Or even the "Rolling Sherpa". Those caught on like gangbusters. I'm sure you do them all the time and had no idea that I started them *casually checks manicure*.

Please don't unfollow me, Readers. It's just a part of my past. Come on, I was isolated in the remote North of Canada. I even took two-step lessons once with my brother and his girlfriend. (H'oh man... This is sounding even worse. I need to crank up the awesome... 3....2......1...) And guess what else I can do?

Polka! (tack on 54 zillion cool points now). I speak truth.

PS? In Northern Alberta Canada, the polka is danced to AC/DC's Shook Me All Night Long at weddings sometimes. You make your own fun. Pretty much EXACTLY like this:

Their practice paid off in dividends.

But this is about Zumba. Zumba for my Wii. (Can you imagine if I'd have said, "I got Zumba for my Wii and I'm putting it in my Blog tonight" ten years ago? My mother would have slapped me!). Anyhow, Zumba is like aerobic Latin Dancing or some shit. All I know is that it is hard, you guys. Super duper hard. It's all Shakira-y and guess what? Shakira's job is harder than I thought. Yeah, I thought she just had to drink some red bulls and make out with Michael J Fox for an hour or so to get those moves. I just thought her fan belt was loose or somthing. Turns out she is in incredibly good shape. That hussy.

You know what else? Zumba wii is way harder than stupid dance dance revolution. Well, it's easier to win, but you sweat buckets. What you're supposed to do, Everyone, is mirror the dancer on the screen and it measures your hip movements and you fill the 'dance meter' as you correctly mimic the rainbow people. I did my very best. I shook my hips around and tried to copy the moves.

I found that the key is to keep your hips going in a sexy, rhythmic Latin way at all times and to pay close attention.

Really close attention. Let your surroundings disappear so that you can concentrate on just the moves.

Work it. Be Zen.

Soon, I'll be the fishbelly white version of Shakira... who still wears the grey jogging pants that she accidentally stole from her Dad four summers ago.

So that's how my exercise regimen is going.

An Open Letter to Yogurt.

2011-04-18T22:17:00.004-04:00

Dear Yogurt,

Stop sitting in my freezer acting all smug. You're not ice cream, YOGURT. You're not made of 18% real cream and salt and sugar and vanilla and chocolate, so just quit looking all condescendingly at me because you work out sometimes. Just because you're frozen, doesn't mean you're better than everyone. "Oh look at me! I'm all frozen! Like Gelato! *giggle*" Yeah. I'm not fooled. You're not Italian. You were made in QUEBEC. Yeah. French Canadian Yogurt is not the same as Italian Gelato. I'm not fooled.

And Ben and Jerry HATE you. You don't have any skor bits OR a streak of fudge. You're just slimy, frigid bacteria cultured dairy. Yeah, I said it. Frigid and not fun at all. You're the IRS of frozen treats. Can I pour brandied peaches on you, frozen yogurt?? No. Because brandied peaches are too much work to go on yogurt. Yogurt would be all, "Oh Em GEE, I don't drink!", where as ice cream, ICE cream would be like, "Is that all you GOT? Hit me again, Lover!" Ice cream knows how to have a good time. Ice cream is spontaneous, okay? Fun to be around; it is there for pleasure and awesomeness.

But you, Yogurt? You will always be planned. You'll always be the third choice after real ice cream, and gelato (and ice cream sandwiches.. so 4th). You will always be the reluctant decision. Like choosing the cheaper, more practical rain boots over those awesome high heeled, fur lined, zippered in 9 places expensive ones that everyone would call you a whore for buying but you know they wish they had them. Because you wish you had them, Yogurt. I know you do.

You will always have real chunks of slimy fruit in you, and not even fermented fruit. Just old wet fruit. Just sittin' there being healthy. Sittin' around telling me that I need to eat you because probiotics. Crazy Jamie Lee Curtis endorses you. You know who endorses ice cream? DAIRY QUEEN. Yeah. Practically Buckingham Palace. Also my Granny. WELL. I'll tell you right now, YOGURT. Any time I have to be convinced to eat something by Jamie Lee Curtis, it's because it's not as good; telling me about her digestive health and stuff? Yeah. Now you sound about as appetizing as a barium enema, so stop pretending you're something you're not.

But my pants are tight, so get your gear, Yogurt. Let's do this thing and get it over with while ice cream is away.

Kind Regards,
Michelle.

Also Readers? If you want to read my article about Helena Bonham Carter from this morning over at Sprocket Ink, go here: HERE.

I Believe in Mr Grieves.

2011-04-17T20:06:00.002-04:00

Black Francis

So I saw the Pixies last night. I barely know how to approach this in order to describe it, Readers. I'll try. Seeing The Pixies is kind of a bucket list type of item for me; so this was a pretty big deal for me. The surprise bonus? Imaginary Cities opened. I discovered them a few months ago and dig them, so yay for me! Go ahead and high five your monitor.

So my friend, Janna picked me up and we drove down to the venue. It was raining, hailing, snowing and really generally atrocious out. My feet were soaked up to my knees all night, but I sucked it up because Readers: The Pixies. We took our vouchers to the ticket pick up window, where we encountered the angriest booth operator of all time. We made the mistake of saying something along the lines of "This system of getting tickets is a pain in the *expletive*". She didn't want us to say that. Not at ALL. I tried to get a look at her manicure while she was bobbing her head around and waving her nails at us. I think they had flames against black polish and the words, "CONCERT GOERS CAN GO STRAIGHT TO HELL" were written on them. Something like that. tsk. We canadian people are not used to rude service. Not used to it AT ALL. I am still indignant.

I turned around as the woman was still frothing at us to inform the people behind us that if they wanted to get their tickets this century, it would be advisable not to try and relate to the ticket booth operator in any way. No eye contact, don't speak.

Imaginary Cities

We eventually exchanged the vouchers for tix and made our way into the arena and found some sweet seats right behind the sound booth. We only might have stolen those seats. We didn't 100% steal them, because nobody made us move.. but we kind of were supposed to be in the general standing area- but ever so accidentally ended up in row A in the center. Stop looking at me like that, Readers; it was the PIXIES. I couldn't have taken such brilliant photos if I didn't steal someone's seats. GAWD.

Imaginary Cities opened and they were marvelous. Their lead singer is some kind of brilliant. She's like punk rock 60s gogo with clever lyrics. Janis Joplin meets the Ronettes. Recommend. Very unique.

Eventually, it was time for the Pixies. Huh huhuhuhh... The lights went out... Huhuhhuhuhuhuh... I was excited but my feet were very wet, so I took off my shoes hoping that they would magically dry out (which they did not). I considered ringing out my socks into the sound booth because hey- those guys were probably too busy to notice. But I didn't, just to clarify. I just stood there with wet socked feet. 5 minutes later, I smelled my wet feet and discreetly decided to put my shoes back on. I don't think the two superhigh guys beside us noticed... Because they were super high. I'd even developed a plan to steal their ticket stubs in case someone wanted to take ~~their~~ our seats ~~back~~: I'd ask to check the superhigh guys' tickets and then switch them with OUR tickets and be all "Yeah guys, you're in the general standing area I guess... move along."

Well that was just a plan. I wouldn't have been brave enough to DO it. STOP JUDGING ME. I'm on a diet, remember??? It's not like I really wrung my socks out into the sound booth and stole those high guys' ticket stubs.

Anyhow, the show started with clips of a particularly gross Salvidor Dali art film and a smoke machine. This made me nervous.. like what if the Pixies were now art-house performance artists?? I had flashbacks to a scene from Spaced involving a drag-clown, a disgruntled nerd and a Vacuum cleaner. Once my heart restarted and I stood back up from the razor scene, the show began in all it's greatness- And it was great. Visually as well as their performance. They did every song from Doolittle; my favourite Pixies album. They did it seamlessly and were fun to watch.

Readers, I haven't been to a concert where I knew ALL of the lyrics in a very long time. I wasn't the only one, either. All of the other Gen X people were singing too, grey thinning hair covered by funky hats, edgy-ish tshirts pulled over hairy, middle aged bellies. It was kind of like the PTA showed up in disguise. Actually, the crowd was pretty well mixed. I saw teenagers, I saw seniors. I saw a girl wearing so much mascara that I wanted to wash her face with my wet socks.

I think that means I'm curmudgeonly. I can't tell.

More pics:

I have a sickness.

2011-04-15T17:49:00.000-04:00

And the only cure for it is.. probably electroshock therapy and a good round of antibiotics.

Okay, I will stop bombarding you with home made ukulele videos soon, I swear, but you guys- Neil surprised me with a new ukulele for my birthday. He can't keep surprises. My birthday isn't for a few more weeks. I swooned all day long.

It matches my guitar, you guys. My guitar is named Miju (Michelle-Junior). So... this ukulele is called Minimiju. It's okay with me if you want to name your future babies after it. It's a pretty great name, after all.

Anyhow, a little seed of obsession has been planted in me. Right beside the little seed of guitar obsession... I didn't expect to suddenly be the owner of 2 ukuleles in as many weeks. I am getting used to it, though- like... maybe I should get a new one every week or something.

Also, I have an eye infection. Nice eh? Not pink eye. I'm not like... contagious. I just look like I got smacked around, but trust me... if anyone is going to be doing any smacking around around here it's going to be me.

I don't know why I said that, probably because I'm on a diet.

So anyhow, see? Minimiju. And don't worry, I still love Archie. I love all of my guitars equally, except for the Takamine. I'll probably trade that one for another Ukulele... because you know what? I don't have a banjolele. That's pretty sad, I think.

The good news is that the eye drops are starting to work and the world no longer looks like a haunted house everywhere I go.. all watery and foggy and spotty and full of ghosts and pop out teenagers in scary masks.

You will TELL me what's in that box.

2011-04-13T22:21:00.001-04:00

Ok so I weighed myself, Readers. I weighed myself. I'm not in a place where I will be sharing any numbers, but let's just say that it's time. It's time time time. It's time to go back to my roots of yestertime days, when I had a reasonable regimen of what I did and did not eat and went to the gym regularly. Back before I had miss Elly McMakemomfat. It was not hard for me to be a normal weighted size nine, though... and I could be a size 3 again, but that's much too worky. I am happy at size nine where I still get cookies sometimes. Not all the time such as now, but enough. I am not a size nine right now is the thing. I like size nine. I like it. I'm 5'7 and I think it's just right.

My current health regimen includes eating everything I like plus beer instead of water and lots of not exercising when I should be. SELF! Augh. So, after getting off the scale today, I hauled my fatness directly over to the wii and dance dance revolutioned for 60 minutes. My fat was ticked off. Take that, fat. I hate every single song on dance dance revolution, by the way. Every single one. So I got angry. That helped.

Now, I am not that upset about the number part. I'm not falling to pieces over the number that I saw. I just need to get myself back to healthy again. I'm not used to being overweight. I just never ever dumped my baby weight from 3 years ago. I let it get comfy and settled. I'm not even really FAT fat. But I'm.. I think I'm getting jolly, Everyone. Jolly. If anyone calls me jolly, PS, they are getting a swift kick in the throat. I feel like we can talk about this. We're bonding now. It's bonding time for us.

So anyhow, what happened is that I talked to my fat after having my baby 3 1/2 years ago. I told it that it could stay for a while longer and that it looked comfortable in sweatshirts. My fat liked hearing that and had a couple of cookies as it happily hummed to itself. I said that if I ate 2 cookies, then 3 would probably not make much of a difference. My fat agreed and had another cookie. I decided to rename my fat, 'curves'.

"OOoOoh Pretty! I like that! CURVES!", said Fat "Let's watch a movie! I'll put my arm around you"....

I like watching movies.

I told my fat that we should go for a saunter on the treadmill one time and it was all, "Oooooh.. yeah about that... hmmmm... So I hear that book you bought is preeeeetty weird!"

And then I was like, "Weird how? Like weird weird?"

And my fat looked me in the eye and said "Ya-huh". It was nodding and nudging me with a smirk while guiding me to my chair. So I read... and got a beer. I really like weird books, Readers. I really like them.

So anyhow. Back to eating like a reasonable human being and you know... moving around etc. I keep envisioning myself in 20 years on a TLC special, hitting people with a cane because they refuse to bring me pizza anymore, and then the side of my house is chainsawed off and they get a crane and a flatbed truck to haul me to an experimental hospital in Mexico where they make me clap my hands for 45 minutes at a time and I can hardly handle it, but eventually I lose enough weight to walk again and you know where I walk to? Pizza Hut, a-holes.

We don't want that to happen. So. Fat has to go before it invites its friends over. Fat needs to move to it's own apartment now.

That is all. I won't bore you with daily diet or tell you how many calories I ddr'd. I'll tell you when I go for a jog and see someone letting their dog crap on the neighbor's driveway without picking it up though. Oh Readers, I will tell you THAT. Yeah, when their little white pupae of an isopodish dog on a leash is curled on its back legs into a little squat, right on the neighbor's driveway- I'll come here and let you know. That happened a couple of months ago, you know. I watched as the dog owner just walked the dog back to his house, leaving that dog turd at the end of the other neighbor's driveway. Like it never happened. Oh I was shocked. I was SHOCKED to my core. I wanted to take my cat over to his driveway and squeeze her until she pooped.

But I didn't.

The End.

I want Uke (get it? Like Elly does with her titles!)

2011-04-12T18:48:00.002-04:00

I have pink eye and a cold and just learned to play this thing.. but there you go. Now I'm saving up to buy at least 3 more ukuleles because where have they been all my life? You know what is weird? Switching back and forth from guitar to ukulele. Other things are also weird. Like Gaddafi's hair. Anyhow, go visit Elly. It was thanks to her that I even got Archie here. Plus she's a ukulele wizard.

:D

Cocquaid. Lindsay Locaine. I don't know.

2011-04-11T11:10:00.000-04:00

While you wait for my regular scheduled programming (which is coming, by the way.... with ukuleles and everything) you could read this:

COCAINE COCAINE COCAINE COCAINE

(imagine a picture)

It's my article over at Sprocket Ink. All based in fact, too. Check the sources.

Um.. I think it's all non sequiters.

2011-04-07T22:58:00.001-04:00

I made banana bread. It’s pretty incredibly ugly and I don’t think it cooked all the way through. It is currently resting on my stove. It’s a quivering mass of cakey slime. Maybe I put in too many chocolate chips. I don’t know, is that possible? Readers? Is that possible? Is it possible to put so many chocolate chips in the batter that the cake refuses to bake? The answer is no. The problem is that my oven is being a wench. AGAIN. I’ve had it.

It looks like Jeff Goldblum's lips and spray tan.

I’m growing a zit between my eyes that is making me look and feel like I’ve been hit in the face with a baseball bat. No actual zit is evident, I just look like a Klingon from 1992. Ok, face, what is with the zit thing going on lately? Am I 31 or am I 13 (please say 13. . I have some things I need to fix. Some people not to marry. Etc. Not that I was married when I was 13 or anything dumb like that. No.. I waited until I was a genius 18 year old for THAT good idea). Anyhow, the chin zit of 2011 just went away like yesterday. Oh I thought it went away. What it did was dig through my face to between my eyes and picked up friends along the way. Like a big popular amoeba.

My lawyer called me today. That was wicked fun, speaking of getting married when you’re still an idiot.

My kid needs a retainer because his front right adult tooth grew in behind his baby tooth. Like a shark. 2nd row of teeth, which he thinks is the height of cool and all I see when I look at his teeth are little dollar signs, dancing toward the dentist in a conga line. He had the ubiquitous baby tooth pulled yesteray while under the influence of nitrous oxide. While he was high, he accidentally picked a sparkly ring from the prize box. He didn't remember where the ring came from when he snapped out of it. That's happened to me before. PS. His Dentist has Gandalf's prop-staff from the Lord of the Rings in his office. That's how I know it's a good dental practice: he has a good staff. OMG. I am so sorry for that joke. I am sorry sorry sorry. I have a cold. Cold medicine =puns. Oh God. Please don't unsubscribe now.

Archie the Ukulele arrived yesterday! It took me about 15 minutes to master the chording... so... there will be a performance at some point this week when I figure out what song I want to play. I’ve also started a sock-o-money in my bedside table, because I’ve been drooling over a certain ukulele that MATCHES my ovation guitar. The guitar is named Miju (michelle + junior). So I will need to have Archie and Minimiju together at some point in my life. It’s so cute I could barf. Winning the ukulele has given me a taste for ukuleles like when an animal tastes human flesh, only instead of me tasting human flesh, I got a ukulele. See? I don't eat people, Readers. Not even a taste.

I am going to watch the Sopranos from beginning to end. Every season of it. I’ve never seen it, however I read the book, “Everything Bad is Good for You” yesterday and now I feel like my brain is never going to function at a genius level if I don’t watch the Sopranos from start to finish. I'll be missing the key to scoring high enough on the IQ tests to get into Mensa and hang around with Geena Davis, talking about how dumb Watson the computer really is compared to me. Plus I might finally be able to convince Neil to have a Klingon themed wedding one day. Then I won't have to worry about this zit any more!

Seems reasonable enough.

I'll let you know how it goes.

The White Tiger

2011-04-05T15:59:00.002-04:00

I just finished reading The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (literally 10 minutes ago). Man. I can't say enough good things about it. It might be a perfect novel. It doesn't shove itself in your face- but it politely intrudes into your life and leads you through the dark thought process of a man desperate to break away from himself and his fate. You justify his actions as he justifies them. As you read it, you can't help but celebrate his victories and root for him to have courage. It's dark, it's hilarious, it's real and it's just so terribly satisfying.

It hooked me immediately. I am so glad it caught my eye in the book store the other day because it is easily one of my most favourite books now. I might actually read it again and I never read a book twice; this might be the first time I want to revisit a character just because he was so strangely likable and cunning and hilarious without directly trying to be (and he's a murderer).

Just brilliant. I accidentally read it with an Indian accent in my mind. It can't be helped. You'll see.

Szzzzizzle

2011-04-03T09:51:00.000-04:00

Readers! I forgot to tell you something about Tuesday.

So Neil and I went to get a bite to eat before we went to the David Sedaris show. We settled on a pub that we like which was conveniently located near the venue. It's a pretty busy place, being directly across from parliament and all. It was so busy that we had to sit at the bar until a table was available. Fine. Drank beer. Avoided the weird stare-y regular who was sitting beside us. You know.. the guy who doesn't sit with his knees to the bar; he sits with his knees toward you and just kind of slouches and half drunk smiles at everything you do with heavy eyelids. He says intermittent franglazed (half french/half english/halfdrunk/mostly french) things to you- And the bar owner calls him Gaston. By name. This is their best customer.

And then the damned Gaston song from Disney's Beauty & the Beast song ran through my head for the rest of the night, except I don't know the real words so my brain took it upon itself to sub in ones that seemed probably right.

♫♪♫ Noooooo Ooooooone ♫♫ ♪

drinks-like-Gaston

No-one-thinks-like-Gaston

♫ ♫♪ In a farting match nobody stinks-like-Gaston..... ♪♫♪♪

I think that's how it goes. Anyhow, we finally got offered a table.

Waitress: We have a table... it's a little high

Us simultaneously: We want it
Waitress: Are you sure? It's THAT one.. *points* The old Johnson's table.. some say it's haunted..
*suspensful flamenco guitar music*

Us: We'll take it. We've been waiting for ever.... *zoom in* ....and ever ... *zoom out* ...and ever.... *zoom in again** shake the camera a little*... *this is getting out of hand*

Waitress: Seat yourselves.

Ok, so the table was appx 7 feet high with chairs that were roughly 4 feet high. So basically you sat at them like you were 3 years old with the edge of the table at about chin level. I wanted to ask for a phone book to sit on but APPARENTLY nobody makes phone books anymore. So I sat on my blackberry; didn't do me any good (didn't do me any harm).

Whatever. We only had about 45 minutes to eat before the show so we just dealt with it. We are flexible. No really- physically flexible; we had to be in order to accomplish the acrobatics required to sit there and drink beer from pint glasses without the aid of bendy straws.

I ordered a nice steak and mushroom boxty, Neil had fish and chips. Both excellent (although mine was quite substantially better than Neils). I drank Keith's on tap and Neil had Guinness (again, mine was better).

So as I mentioned in my previous blog entry about the evening, I'd decided to wear clown-red lipstick in order to procure a spot in David Sedaris's memory. Eating dinner at a precarious table, wearing waxy red lipstick and drinking beer is a commitment unto itself and I knew I'd smeared a lip or two worth of it during my dancefight with Alexander Keith's pale ale. So I finished wolfing down my super awesome dinner, chugged the rest of my beer, stood up, arranged my pants and headed to the ladies salle d'eau (past a man with one eye, by the way. I just felt like I should tell you about that. Not that I stared. Gaston says staring is caring. Stop judging me so much all the time, Geez. He had one eye but two eyebrows... and he was wearing a suit.).

I just threw this together. It's not like I remember very many details. I didn't like.. trip because I was staring or anything.

I wonder if he can read braille with his good eye. It's a valid question.

Anyhow, I made it to the ladies room which is where the heart of this story lies. I went to the mirror to survey the damage from eating boxty & drinking beer at the funhouse table. Not terrible... not great. Lipstick was off and it left a hot pinkish residue everywhere. GRrr... So I reapplied my lipstick and was checking for smudges when something caught my eye on the wall: it was a big pink machine, Readers. "Ehhh?" I got closer. There was a coin slot labeled "$2" . And on the right hand side, there was a holster- and in that holster there was a big black... flat iron; a ghostly cameo portrait on the wall behind it of a women with a big, blond, floppy coif- her eyes looking off into the distance in 2 different directions; a siren calling you to her heaty wares. I took some photos:

"Hither thou cometh unto me to transform thine locks upon these heated plates... Toonie coin in hand, thou cannot resist to mimic my flopping, lusty follicles .... Come closer, child of vanity and kinkethed tendrils; stumble forth. Bestow upon thyself my smooth pay-styles... Hush now... be still... be calm.... Do no resist... Do not close your eyes... Come unto me with thy coin... Gentle lady pray, let me take it from thee."

Whoa.

Right. So there was a vending flatiron in there and near the bottom of the pink machine there was an informative label: High temperatures ensure plates remain sterile. Excellent.

WELL. Isn't that a good idea!? My goodness, what a marvel technol..... Wait a minute, isn't this a drinking establishment? An IRISH drinking establishment? Full of hopeful cougars and Franglazed people called Gaston and cyclops politicians? Err... Isn't anyone concerned about drunk women waving searing hot plates around in the bathroom? Because contrary to what you might currently think, Fellows, all sophistication leaves once you enter a ladies pub bathroom. They can't be trusted with this kind of technology.

AND I'm beginning to have my suspicions about how that guy lost his eye in the first place.

It's a lawsuit begging to happen. Hell, I was tempted to just kinda... you know.. give my face a little singe so that I could be the one who gets to sue them.. I mean for Pete's sake- the place is almost directly across from the Supreme Court of Canada. I wouldn't even have to go far to get the ball rolling on my millions of dollars in compensation. However, the grossness won out and I didn't touch it because I don't care how hot the plates get, I don't want anybody's fried, sterilized bar lice on me. Not even if I would look effin' fantastic with a large, floppy blonde disco hairdo.

I don't know, maybe the bar owner was just upping the anti for post drunken bathroom makeovers. Because if that's the case, I get it.

The End.

Archie is Coming Home (and the Mayor punked me)

2011-04-01T16:50:00.006-04:00

Yes. I knew that the Universe would approve of me naming my new handpainted-by-elly ukulele ARCHIE. So it made me win. I have that kind of power... I know people... In the Universe.. like you! Well I don't know you.. unless YOU are my brother or someone who knows me and reads this crap. In that case I know you. But the rest of you... Nevermind. I don't know where I'm going with this.

Ok. The point is that Elly over at Bugginword took time out of her life and schedule and doctor's appointments and general celebrity um.. situation.. to paint up a little orange ukulele. And I squealed at its little circles... And then since it was her blogiversary, she decided to GIVE it AWAY. *breathe* For the fee of some entries. I can do entries. Oh yes. I can do entries..... Here is Elly:

I am posting this one because I like it. I sing this song to my kids all the time. The song is sentimental.

Well I entered and tweeted and facebooked and made a youtube video response and did everything I could to ensure that ~~nobody else had a chance~~ I could maybe win it. Because guess what everyone? I've been jonesing for a ukulele for like.. two years. And especially since my friend Weldon starting showing off by playing his ukuleles all the time and I'm like WHAT!?! You know how I said that, right? Like WHHHAAAAT!? BTW, I've been having some espresso.

Yep. Don't bother doing your hair or anything, Self. Just show it allll to the world. PS, I had to whip it together while dinner was cooking.. so. I just seem nuts. A LOT was going on, Readers. Okay. I'm going to stop apologizing now. Because I won. Heheheh.

So then I started dropping hints among friends & family members and people and strangers and those guys at the music shop that I deserve and need one or six of them but nobody is taking the hint and my kids have to go to the dentist so I can't BUY one. Not that any of those people are off the hook, because you know what they say! "Michelle needs more stringed instruments around the house!" and also my birthday is on May 2. But ukuleles are little. So. I could fit lots of them in between my guitars is what I'm saying.

And then I won. ME. I did. Making an arse of myself on youtubez was totally worth every single hit. Worth trolls finding me and shredding my outfit (Neil's UFC hoodie, BTW. Really flattering).

And now I'm an expert on ukulele chording just from memorizing ukulele charts this afternoon, okay? And I think I accidentally promised Jerrod that I would perform my first ukulele solo wearing a fake beard in some kind of weird fit of guilt. I don't know... things are a little blurry all of the sudden.... Can't.. feel... my legs.... Getting so sleepy... heading toward the light.....


(Psst.. dont' tell him his glasses are crooked.)

PS. This morning when I woke up, I heard the Mayor on the news talking about how he was going to regift the Royal City Swans to Prince William & Kate Middleton for their Wedding presents. The swans that were a gift to us from Buckingham Palace. I like our Royal Swans, okay, Readers?? They are OUR Royal Swans, dammit. So I got in a big huff and sent a strongly worded letter to him, telling him that it was tacky and horrible and the swans would die while being shipped to England and that they might as well just give them the feral cats of Parliament Hill while they're at it. Because nobody likes those cats (but I'll be damned if I don't get excited when I see one). No really, Readers. On Canada's Parliament hill, there is an enclosure of government protected feral cats. Anyway, so then the MAYOR tweeted me and told me to check the date. Yeah. April 1st, Readers. That dirty old.... ooooh.... grrrr.......nobody punks me and gets away with it. So the Mayor of Ottawa is on my to-punk list now. Actually I like Mayor Watson. I even voted for him. Even if he's a punk.

Yes. I still think lolcatz are funny and YES I made this one myself and yes I lose because it saved with the spellcheck alert line under 'haz'. I'm a mockery, okay!? I'm a MOCKERY.

But the Mayor tweeted me! And I won a ukulele! And I found enough change in my vehicle to buy some espresso! So.... All in all a good day.

Author High!! I met David Sedaris Tonight!

2011-03-29T23:17:00.004-04:00

As anyone who knows me might be aware, Neil surprised me with David Sedaris tickets. He's starting a new tour and this was his first stop. It was 7 flavours of delicious... except the part where he talked about a bird pooping down his friend's throat as she was laughing. I gagged at that part. Then there was the part where he talked about eating duck tongues and rooster blood patties... but the rest was delicious. Except the part where he talked about people coughing up phlegm and spitting it on the floors of Chinese restaurants... the rest though was perfectly edible. Well also, he talked about people poop a couple of times. Other than that... Well then he talked about the time his friend in the Peace Corps had to eat a dog face in Thailand.... When he talked about other things, I was drooling onto the head of the person in front of me.

So anyway, I was the first person in line to meet him. I know, right? I didn't even have to trample anyone to death. I left the auditorium at the precise perfect moment. I was the first person in line to get my book signed on the first day of his new tour. That automatically makes us best friends. I even made Neil take a covert blurry photo of him despite the "no photos" sign. David won't mind. We're friends now. He just doesn't realize it yet. Besides, then I could throw Neil under the bus if we got in trouble.

Sure it's grainy enough that you can't tell if it's David Sedaris or a Sasquatch... but still. It was covert alright?

I have 3 rules for meeting superstars: Never gush directly to the superstar, try to confuse them at least once and wear something memorable. I chose to wear scandalously red lipstick instead of the coconut bra I had been considering. Neil is like my Jiminy Cricket of not overdoing it. Thanks for keeping me so well grounded, Neil. To confuse Mr Sedaris, I cleverly pretended that he spelled my name wrong by not adding the correct accents to all of the vowels (there aren't any accents in my name).... OMG SELF, that is thinking on your toes alright. Hilarious stuff. Rules: adhered to. Don't question the rules. Stop judging me. This is important.

I was all ready with a joke to tell him, because I read on my facebook from seasoned David Sedaris meeters that he might ask for one. I went over the joke in my mind all evening. I didn't get to tell it though, because Mr Sedaris was preoccupied with the color of my lipstick. He asked what color it was. I told him it was red. He insisted it couldn't just be "red" but I assured him that it was. He said it must have to be like "ravishing red" so I took it out of my purse and checked the label. Turns out it's "Revival Red". Huh. I did't even know that. I already learned something about myself from talking to David Sedaris in person.

All I know is that the lipstick trick worked. I'll probably be featured in his next book, "The Mysterious Canadian Temptress in Revival Red" (or "red" as I like to call it. )

Anyhow, how I know we bonded is that he drew a severed dog's head in my book. A severed dog's head, readers. He took extra time to use the red sharpie to make blood coming out of its neck. "I drew the blood to show that the dog is dead." He said. It's like he read my mind about what kinds of pictures I want to look at when I open my copy of Barrel Fever.

I was totally drunk on meeting David Sedaris and drinking scotch with Neil before the show.

Neil and I drinking scotch "the romantic way"

Here is the joke I didn't get to tell him:

Me: Knock Knock, David Sedaris
David Sedaris: Who's there?
Me: I just threw up in my purse from excitement.

I might still be drunk. Did I make very many typos?

Shakes on a Plane.

2011-03-27T17:02:00.001-04:00

My parents took my sister and I to Hawaii when I was 18. My brothers didn't get to go. (They never got to go because they were basically used up, as far as kids go by then- but that's beside the point.) So we went to Hawaii for a week, had a good old time and then it was time to fly home to Canada.

Readers, I have this thing... this seating curse if you will, where if there is a weird person on the airplane (and there is always a weird person on the airplane), they have to be seated next me. I am weirdo magnetic. I never just get to sit beside some regular person who is traveling. Never ever. Not even when I'm sitting next to Neil. (BAAAAHAHAHAHA, it's funny because Neil reads my blog). Let me give you some examples:

-There was the 80 year old lady who told me all of her secrets like how she took a ladies tour to Tijuana and stayed drunk the whole time, stole her friend's husband who was the bus driver, threw someone's suitcase under the bus and other horrible things:

She also insisted that I should wear Lululemon sweaters just like her granddaughter. Never met this person. So I promised to look into when I landed. (Lululemon?? More like EwEw-lemon if you ask ME.)

Do you like Lululemon, Sweetheart? Do you? Do you... like it?

- There was the woman who told me all about her breast implant procedure between my trips to the bathroom to throw up when I was coming home from Las Vegas. PS, I had the flu. Not even a hangover.

-There was the guy who insisted on keeping his seat beside my barfing 5 year old. Even though there were lots of other available seats. He also had a long, blonde beard. Unacceptable.

-There was the woman who told me how she took on foster children only to get paid and that her daughter was a famous news anchor but I shouldn't ask who. I didn't. I still regret it.

-And then there is always this person:

Not that I'm judging, Readers.

But, the friendliest of all was the guy I got to sit next to on our family's plane trip home from Honolulu:

He and his wife were struggling with their customs paperwork, so I helped them fill it out. I'm a nice person, you know. It's true. They barely spoke English and I don't know how much they read in English so I helped them decipher their shiz to pass the time. Going. to. heaven.

They were so nice to me in return. They thaaaaanked me so many times. Just really nice. Especially the husband.

So so friendly.....

But then he got sleepy. You know how that goes, eh? Just super, super sleepy.

So sleepy that he accidentally put his hand on my thigh while he was sleeping. Ok... shocking... Maybe he really did fall asleep or something... so I moved his hand. Probably jet lagged. Tired guy. THAT'S all it is. Yep. We can wrap this story up now.

Then 5 minutes later I look down:

ALright. ALLLRIGHT, GUY..... Fun time is officially over now. So I shoved his hand off, gave him an elbow and a really nasty look along with the "NOT ON YOUR LIFE" head wag. He didn't speak English, right?

He nodded at me like he was sorry.

I gave him an extra glare and a pointy finger.

All was calm again... Simmering down.... Ok, no need to make a huge deal. He gets it. He's back to leaning on his wife, who seems very disinterested in the whole scenario. Been there, done that, is what she's thinking. Yeah, this guy pulls shenanigans like this all the time. She's used to this.

A good 20 minutes pass. No events. Guy is snoring. Everything was back to normal. I was chatting with my sister who was sitting on the other side of me (we were in the middle row of seats on the 747).

Then, the guy's hand starts doing the flop around thing (in his sleep OF COURSE). Arm is flopping thisaway, arm is flopping thataway... but it was mostly flopping thisaway. I knew exactly what was coming, so I showed my sister who decided to discreetly switch seats with my Dad who was sitting across the aisle.

My very big, very tough, take no crap, very scary, used to be a bullrider Dad. The guy who dislocates his shoulder, walks over to a fence and pops it in then continues to chop wood, okay? The guy who punched a bear in the face (which is a story I will share with you another time). A Bear. In the Face. No lie, ask my Mom. It was trying to get his barbecue cover. Completely insufferable.

Anyhow, the guy's arm was getting terribly restless when all of the sudden, I guess that he just had to make himself more comfortable, so his head started to flop in my direction..... slowly creeping down toward me like I wouldn't notice him leaning on me if he went slowly enough. My Dad and I were watching the whole process silently. 30 seconds into his seamless act (which has no doubt worked for him countless other times), his head flops onto my shoulder and his hand accidentally flopped onto my boob. Accidentally.

So I nudged Dad and pointed at the hand boob dilemma. This guy is thinking that he's gotten away with something. He didn't notice the seat switcheroo. He didn't notice my Dad leaning over watching.

Dad's gorilla sized hand discreetly reached over and took hold of the man's hand. I think the guy thought it was me gently taking his hand for a split second because when he opened up his eyes, they said, "This is really happening for me!" Then my Dad said, "Let me shake your hand there, Partner".

There was a notable rolling crunch as Dad shook the man's hand and I watched the blood drain out of the man's face, sweat bead up on his forehead and he shriveled into the back of his seat like a wet cheese puff. He actually shriveled.

The hand slipped back over to his own side, cradled under his chin. He was definitely awake now. Dad and I then switched seats so that he would get to sit beside my Dad for the rest of the way. Wouldn't you know it, he didn't even nod off one time? I enjoyed watching Captain Romance sweat and stare into the back of the seat in front of him. Eyes forward. Silent. His wife perked up a bit too. I think this was pretty fun for her.

I worry about her.

Now, Readers, I know that there are more mature ways to deal with this kind of scenario... but this is my favourite way. It's just a little teeeeeeeny bit of violence, okay? Plus, I think the guy was cured of his pesky Narco-Feeleritis, too.

True story and Happy Birthday to my Dad.

And then I went to hell for making fun of an old lady.

2011-03-25T11:19:00.000-04:00

click----> Oh Zsa Zsa <---click

I'm pretty sure that if there is karma, I'm going to get audited and then H1N1 and then my free health care is going to be taken away and then the geese are going to fly back south and we'll just have an extra winter and it'll all be my fault. It's my post for the day over at Sprocket Ink. You could read my other posts that I forgot to pimp out over here too by clicking my name and pouring over the list, thus gaining so much knowledge that you'll probably get pretty popular and be invited to a lot of parties. ALL AT MY EXPENSE.

It's not my fault that I'm a terrible person. You'd understand if you knew the deplorable conditions in which I was raised (no cellphones).

Angel of the Morning Part Deux

2011-03-24T09:45:00.005-04:00

TADAA! I got my hair all cut and colored yesterday. I am pretty happy with it.

I even put on some lipstick yesterday. Red. In memory of Liz Taylor.

I got a smidge carried away with that while using photobooth for a mirror. It happens.

I'm not the only one who gets pretty excited about photobooth, by the way.

Yes. Such a complex beauty I'm told

Me: Yes, Self that is some pretty great hair & make up. You're a real complex beauty.

Me: Thanks, Me!

Me: The red is basically perfect.... And that Liz Taylor thing? Very moving *single tear*

Me: Stop it Self! You're embarrassing me now!

Me: Oh Self, you are too modest.

Me: Yes, Mind, it's one of my weaknesses. Whenever I'm at a job interview (which is pretty often compared to some people), it's what I tell them when they ask me if I even have any flaws. I say, "Why yes, of course I have flaws. I'm part of Humanity and Humanity is flawed. Also, I'm too humble". Then I crumple my eyebrows and look out of their window, far into the distance.

Me: Oh Self, you are a deep thinker. A deep thinker.

Me: It can be a curse, Me. It can be such a curse sometimes.

*cough*

And then....

This morning, I surpassed my record for amazing morning hair. Here it is in all its natural majesty. I even grew my zit out a little more and slept in my contact lenses so that my eyes would swell shut. I immediately emailed my sister in law Joyce to show her because SHE thinks HER morning hair is better than everyone else's, according to her facebook profile:

PS. I almost felt guilty for posting this picture of her on the internet until I remembered that she hired a clown to show up at my 30th birthday party. Jellybeans, the 4 foot tall smoking clown who barged into my house and played 3 kazoo songs for me in my living room in front of all my new friends (we had just moved here). And she thinks I would forget something like that. She is wrong, internet. WRONG. She thinks she's safe because she lives in a clown free area of Canada. Wrong again.

Anyhow, she's going to be really jealous of me now. I'm pretty excited about it.

Here is "Angel of the Morning" Part One.

I Loved a Cat Once....

2011-03-21T22:15:00.003-04:00

..... A cat called, George.

Me & George in the 80s before he was REALLY old.

George lived to be 22 years old. Have we all seen a 22 year old, orange, overweight cat? I hope so. If not, here is an artistic depiction because apparently, nobody took photos in the nineties:

George was in my life for 16 years before passing into the nethercat regions of Heaven. The special place reserved for cats that nobody could bear to let go of. George was one of us. We called him George L. As far as awesome cats go, he was the mayor.

In the beginning, George was a wonderful kitty. He was cranky, he looked great in a tie, he had a little heart shaped patch of fur on his front, right foot which meant he loved us. Yes it did. He was fat, he ate spaghetti and peanut butter. All of these things make for an awesome example to all cats of how to behave.

Since George left us, there has been a hole in my life that has so far not been entirely filled by the string of cats I've owned since.

There has been:
Finster: Who might have had some awesome cat qualities, but someone stole him. I knew he was stolen because he kept leaving and coming home a few days later smelling of old lady house. Finster was PINK. Naturally Pink. He was a creamy greyish pink color. He had potential.
MacGoo- A runt kitten with buggy eyes who died under my staircase
Molly- Ate bits of metal. Also died. From eating metal. Mainly tinfoil.
Elmo- Was very attacky with the men in the house. Elmo hated male anyone. Elmo stalked my toddler and got rehomed. If my brothers stopped in, he would relentlessly fly at them.
Squirt- Got pregnant and ran away, but she could open the fridge freezer by jumping at it. No, really. She could. She was after me rum.

Stop looking at me like that. I'm not addicted to getting cats. I can quit any time I want. What if there was an apocalypse and subsequent major cat shortage? Yeah, you'd be coming to ME for you cat needs.

Just kidding. All those other cats are dead or live somewhere else or something. Whew, eh? Currently we have: Fluffy Sparkles (who is the only cat I like and looks great in a shirt) and Smarties the whore cat who is in heat 24/7 which makes it impossible to get her to the vet and have her spayed. She knows the routine of when we have enough money to spay her and when to inch herself down the hallway, calling out the men with her ass high in the sky, eventually settling down with which ever stuffed toy the kids left out, pawing it and wrapping her little cat legs around it as she croons a soft love serenade to it. I threw a pillow at her the other night to get her to stop writhing in ecstasy in my door jam. The pillow did not deter her. I think she liked it.

That's why I hate Smarties the Cat

George would never have done that. Sure, he pissed in the corner of the storage room sometimes, but who doesn't? Am I right? Right.

Poor taste nuthin.

Sure, he went deaf and then couldn't hear how loud he was meowing, much like when you try and talk to teenagers who haven't turned their ipods off. It was kind of a wailing banshee meow that he reserved for late at night and when we had company.

Company: Um... I'm having trouble sleeping
Cat: MARRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW*highpitched wail*OOOOOROROWWW
Us: Oh? Is your bed not warm enough? Let me get you a blanket.
Company: No... Please kill your pet.

Sure he was blind and sat on top of the heat register, meowing into the cupboard door all day.

Sure, once he got old, his fat started to sag into a sack of cat fat dangling to the floor, the weight pulling on his spine as he waddled along, waiting for you to put peanut butter in his cat food bowl, only eventually finding his way there because you put his face in it.

Sure, my friends would come home with me from school wielding sticks to poke at him, because they wanted to make sure he wasn't dead.

Sure, handfuls of fur came off of him in your hand when you tried to pat him.

Sure, all of our company couldn't stop themselves from suggesting we take him for a trip to the vet for his forever nap when confronted with the sagging, drooling, screeching, crypt keeper of an animal.

Put GEORGE to sleep? Are you mad? That's like suggesting we shoot poor Grammy.

The day came when George did not come home. We had a family meeting about it. We cried, we knew it was going to happen, he was, after all 22 years old. We were glad he'd had such a good life with us.

But then we found out later that my Dad made my sister's new boyfriend take him to the vet and put him down for us and swore him to secrecy. She later married that boyfriend. He lived with this guilt for 6 years. Every time we would have a family memorial conversation about how much we loved George, my poor brother in law had to silently endure the pangs of guilt as though there was some kind of telltale kitty-heart pumping in our floorboards until he couldn't take it any more and admitted it to my sister.

Barry killed George. We allll know the truth now.

We still have to be practical.

2011-03-19T20:55:00.003-04:00

Only in Canada would you see people driving around in a convertible with the top down while wearing their toques.

Nothing like refreshing feeling of wind in your toque.

It was a suffocating 4°C out today. I can see why they needed to roll down the old roof-rag.

Rihanna, Stoves, Zombie Ants & Charlie Sheen. All in one neat little news package.

2011-03-18T11:01:00.004-04:00

I put together a pretty convincing scientific/medical article regarding what is happening to Charlie Sheen at my big timey gig writing for Sprocket Ink. I know, I can't believe his doctors have dropped the ball so hard, either. Thankfully, entomologist, David Hughes can help us explain.

I worked pretty hard on it and not to be vainglorious or anything, but I think the Science Wizard Community is going to start sending me letters about what a fascinating mind I have and begging me to give interviews. I should probably find a science article writing agent now. You can read it here :

Of Zombie Ants Tiger Blood.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other News,

I spent last night moping over my tax return being sucked into bills. I had big ideas for that tax return you guys. BIG ideas. Well.. My biggest idea was to get a stove that doesn't cry and throw a tantrum every time I try to get it to do its job. My stove suffers from bipolar disorder. I try and be supportive, obviously Stove can't help it. Sometimes it bakes things manically in no time at all, sometimes it is depressed just doesn't feel like giving 100%. But it's deteriorating.

"I'm sorry I burned a hole in your ceramic top with that wok, Stove"
"What does it even MATTER? I am hideous. I'm never going outside again."
"Maybe we could like.. just put a nice doily over the hole or something. Nobody will notice."
"The coffee maker keeps spitting grounds at it"
"There there, Stove, what if I told you that I got us some tickets to RHIANNNAAAAA"
"You don't like Rhianna"
"Well they are not for me, Stove. They're for YOU"
"Fine, I'll make your stupid cookies"
"That's a good stovey"
"You'd better make good on those tickets"
"Uuum.... yeah, about that..."

The truth is, I'm running out of money to bribe it with, so I had a secret plan to send it off to the stove retirement facility and get a new one. Boy am I glad I decided not to talk to my stove about that because the tax return/new stove money has been sucked into credit card land. That would be awkward. No amount of coaxing would have brought my stove out of its depression after THAT.

I hope it isn't reading this...

Stupid tax season.

The time I did Nature.

2011-03-15T21:18:00.005-04:00

The snow is melting and it is a nice, sunny day for once. I packed up the toddler and off we went to the greenbelt for a nature walk to shake off a bit of the Canadian cabin fever (which is almost as bad as Siberian cabin fever. It lost a rank when we got televisions). This will be an ironic post because the category I'm putting it in is called, "Nature Got on Me". But none did. *ominous synthesizer droning*

There is a park nearby that features a walking trail practically boiling over with birdies, or so says everyone else. You bring birdseed and hold it out at various times for the birds and then they land on your hand and it's like a freaking scene in Snow White, except nobody is hunting you so that they can cut out your heart. I don't think.. there was that one sketchy guy who by no rights belonged on a nature trail, but I held my keys in such a way that if he tried to attack me, I could stab him a thousand times before he even knew what had happened.

Get it? He LEAFS nature. LEAFS. Don't steal my tshirt idea.

Um. Anyhow, first we went to the bulk foods store in order to procure some bird seed. At first glance, all I saw were giant sacks of bird seed. Like giant. Enough bird seed to take care of an entire feed lot of chickadees for a month. I decided againt purchasing the megaload wild bird seed and asked if they sold it in a more "loose and less ridiculous amount". The disinterested teenager chewed on her ~~cud~~ gum and pointed at the back of the store. Since I have no filter, I made a hilarious joke about buying giant amounts of birdseed for a nature walk.

Me: Right? Like, as IF I need a 30,000kg bag of birdseed? *guffaw*

Teenager- *one eye looks at me and the other sort of wanders back to her magazine*

Me: Can you IMAGINE? Maybe I'll get the toddler to carry it. Imagine THAT scene, right? Those bags are bigger than HER.

Teenager: *points toward the back of the store*

Me: Like who even BUYS birdseed in bulk like that? Chickadee farmers? HA! GET IT? Because why would anyone farm chickadees?? That would be so hilarious.

Teenager: *wipes face with arm and resumes reading her magazine*

Me: Back of the store, right? That's the hardest place for the birds to get to. Get it? Alfred Hitchcock?

Teenager: *her stare burns me*

Me: THE BIRDS? Scary?? So... Back of the store...

So off I went to the back of the store to peruse the varieties of wild bird seed that they carried. After careful consideration, I chose the regular wild bird seed instead of the premium bird seed. Chickadees are cute and everything, but they certainly don't deserve to be called premium. It's not like they're parrots. What are they, like the size of a lemon? Yeah. Exactly.

I filled my baggie with about 2 cups of seeds and went back to the till after stopping to be mesmerized by their vast array of cake sprinkles which had been displayed in clear cases by color range. It was like a wall of rainbow cake sprinkles, okay? I haven't been out of the house much lately and it was NEAT, if you have to know.

So I was back at the till.

Me: Yeah, that's MUCH better than buying a freakin' SACK of birdseed, right? Like it'd probably dump out in my vehicle on the way. THEN WHAT? A MESS is the answer, *looks at name tag* Katrina.

Katrina: Uh huh. Is this everything?

Me: Um.. no, I also want this pixie stick.

Katrina: *weighs items* That'll be Forty....

Me: FORTY DOLLARS? W H A T??

Katrina: Forty seven cents.

Me: Oh. My. God. I think I nearly had a heart attack and died. I totally thought you were going to say forty dollars.

Katrina: Nope. Just forty seven cents.

Me: I hate it when stuff is way more than you expected when you get to the till. Am I right? Like.. what is IN this birdseed? COCAINE or something? Eh? *nudge* Is there cocaine in it? Are you trafficking cocaine in the bird seed in here? I'd say this bird seed is wild alright.

Katrina: Cash or debit?

Me: Debit! Just kidding. Here is forty seven cents. Man I haven't bought anything for only forty seven cents in like.. 20 years. Can you imagine how much birdseed I could get for forty dollars?

Katrina: a lot?

Me: Here is the change. Make sure and count it so you know you got all of it!

Katrina: *dumps change into till without looking at it*

Me: Well... off I go to FEED SOME BIRDS! I hope they don't peck my eyes out, right?

Katrina [inaudible]

I think I really connected with her.

So anyway, off we went to the bird trail with our seeds. Wheee. We parked and then started walking. No birds. We walked a little further, nothing. Then we turned the corner and there they all were. chickadees. They were landing in people's hands, eating bird seeds. My heart grew ten sizes. This is what I like to call exciting. We got our bird seed all settled into our hands, stood niiiice and still and waited for the little birdies to land on our hands and eat the birdseed.

Well I guess they knew I'd cheaped out on the bird seed. Those ungrateful little slugs. APPARENTLY all of the other people on the trail knew to bring in the good bird seed because theirs had sunflower seeds in it and the chickidees were going apeshit over it. Well, eventually a bird will land on me, I'm sure of it, I thought. How smart can they be? Their brains are like, the size of a grape nut. About 10 minutes passed and the toddler had dumped her birdseed into her rubber boot and was stomping around a tree. I was still trying to talk a bird into landing on me, dammit.

Me: Alright you a-hole birds. Just eat a seed so I can go home and go pee.

Bird: *half looks at my bird seed with one eye as one eye wanders over to the old woman with cashews. CASHEWS, you guys. Lands on her hand again*

Me: Oh COME ON. you can't eat a $%# cashew. Your beak looks like like a pencil lead.

Bird: *glares at me*

And the little bastard did. It took the cashew and flew off.

Then some voices behind me say in a high, gravely voice: WE'LL EAT YOUR BIRDSEED.

And then I died.

Announcement! I'm Cheating on You.

2011-03-14T13:04:00.001-04:00

Well not really cheating. Let's say that I'm enhancing our relationship by writing EXTRA blogs! Well 2 extra ones per week. See? That's all. I'm a Monday & Friday writer over at Sprocket Ink now, which is a sparkly new news based conblogeration. Get it? Con-BLOG-eration? Instead of con-GLOM-eration? Because what's a glom anyway? Exactly. I'll be the judge of good etymology.

So anyway, my first post is up! I fumbled my way through word press and did it (with major help from people who know the difference between html and a sea sponge.. not like me). The post is a really sketchy review of the film, Battle: Los Angeles. Come read it! Leave me a comment! Then go read the other articles there! Then high five everyone because Holy!

A Smattering of Phobias. Barracudas vs Skeletor etc

2011-03-13T00:50:00.020-05:00

I wish my seven year old's problems would never grow larger than being afraid that a barracuda might come into his room while he's sleeping.   I forget how little and vulnerable he still is sometimes.

I was terrified of the dark when I was little/a teenager/an adult. Other things too, but especially the dark. Actually, it wasn't until I separated from my ex husband that I got over it. After he moved out, many of my phobias left with him. Weird? Maybe it was because I couldn't project my sense of safety onto another person? No, that can't be it, because I am not alone now and the fear has not come back. I think maybe it was a build up of stress from that relationship that needed relief. And how I felt relief the evening he left. I cleaned up my kitchen that night. I watched TV. I smiled. I felt like I'd shed a heavy nightmare. I felt buoyant. So probably, it's that. My marriage was constipating my phobias and not allowing them to resolve themselves.   I'm glad I sorted that. I'm practically Dr Phil.   I wax my moustache off, though, TYVM.

I think having a prolonged immature array of phobias left me with a really solid understanding of the fears that kids have, though. I can easily put myself into the mind of a 7 year old who is afraid of a barracuda in his room in the dark. I can relate to the complete nonsensical part of it. He was a little embarrassed to tell me what was bothering him. He knows a barracuda can't get in the house or survive out of water.. but the phobia transcends that. Poor guy. We can relate with each other on our isopod/barracuda ocean animal hating level... I still worry that there might be an isopod in my hair from time to time, like when I'm driving.

So I told him what I thought would have made me feel better when I was 7. I told him that cats eat barracudas and we have 2 cats. Vicious, barracuda devouring cats. ( I didn't mention the declawed part about the vicious cats). So if a barracuda flopped all the way into our house from the ocean, it wouldn't stand a chance against Fluffy Sparkles & Smarties. He seemed to think that was pretty reasonable. Phew. Countering ridiculous information with even more ridiculous information is sometimes what you have to do.   It's what I've always done, anyway. For example:

1. I refused to get into a pool if there was nobody else in it when I was a kid/teenager/adult.   To me, if there was nobody in the pool, then there could definitely be a shark. It made weird sense to me. I could be just missing it every time I surveyed a different area of the pool.   Like I had a shark blind spot.   Other people in the pool would see the shark and scream, so it would be like having an extra set of eyes, making sure any and all sharks in the swimming pool had been spotted.

Never be the first person in.

2. There might have been gremlins in the toilet if I didn't put the lid down as fast as possible after using it. There is no way those gremlins could lift that heavy toilet lid so putting it down ensured total safety.

Get out fast.

3. There might have been skeletons in the closet if the door to it was closed. Not metaphorical ones... real ones. Skeletons were the some of the worst people I could imagine for a very, very long time. If the door was open, that meant no skeletons. If it was closed, it meant THEY closed it so that they could jump out as soon as my parents went to sleep.

4. A balloon might pop and fly into my throat and then I might choke to death. So I never, ever put balloons near my face of have them around the dinner table. The temptation is too much.

I'm not going to lie. I drew this one while laying down. You try drawing on a tablet while laying down.

5. There might have been a black slug that crawled down the throats of my friends at school, taken over their brains and made them attack me. There was no way to counter this from happening. I just avoided my friends when they were dressed unusually. I blame Christopher Pike novels.

I'm not even kidding.

6. Every night, walking from the bus to the house on days when the sun was down before I got home from school, I was sure was the night that aliens were finally going to abduct me and make me live in a slimy pod and I would never see my family or friends again.

7. There might have been earwigs in my pillows if the pillowcases were not freshly laundered.

8. There could have been a ghost in the bathroom mirror if the light was off when I went in there. Solution: Turn the light on super fast and jump away from the door. Wait for there to be no noises and enter when the coast is clear. Simple, you guys.

9. There might have been a timber wolf in the carport at night, waiting for me to get firewood for the house. Timber wolves are never there in the day, so I did my best to get all the wood out of the carport during daylight hours only.


My Dad may have been the one who told me there was a timber wolf in the carport. I also want everyone to appreciate my vast array of hairstyles. This one is the bang-wave of seventh grade.

After a while, I discovered (I think by watching a really crappy Geena Davis and/or Julia Roberts movie, I can't really tell the difference) that you can not physically panic and sing at the same time. Yep- and it works like a drug. Cue my adoration of music.

It was hard for me to deal with knowing my fears were irrational. I didn't want people telling me that I was stupid to have them. Maybe we concoct these silly fears to counter the stress of real things that have happened to us? I don't know. Maybe I need to go pick up a book on the theory behind why we have dumb phobias and stop asking myself questions. Maybe I need to go eat some toast and bug Neil. The best part if it all is that this is the internet and I no longer live in fear that my phobias were the weirdest. So that's another phobia all wrapped up.

The good that came out of being crazy as a child/teenager/adult is that I know every trick to ward off scary things in the night from my kids' rooms. So far, I have been able to fend them all off for everyone. *parenting based on ~~your psychosis~~ science high five*

I'm still not watching paranormal activity, though. Those dutch oven ghosts are more than I can handle.