Well, this is strange

We have a Burger King on base, and awhile back one of my coworkers was going to grab lunch. So we pulled up the menu online to play with their little interactive "have it your way" fun thingy. And we discovered a strange thing. Coworker originally said she'd get a grilled chicken salad, because obviously that's the healthy choice. Choosing the fat-free dressing, this is what the nutritional value of the salad is projected to be: We decided to compare that to her number one menu choice at BK: The stacker. Two meat patties, two slices of cheese, two slices of bacon. Yum. (Well, yum until she adds mustard, because mustard is one of the fastest ways to ruin a hamburger.) Anyway, naturally, she would get the meal - fries and a drink. And that's when things got surprising: The Stacker meal (she did remove the stacker sauce in favor of the mustard) had the same amount of Calories and fat as the salad - but it also had far less sodium, and a little less sugar and cholesterol. The meaning she took from this: A bacon double cheeseburger is obviously God's way of telling you that you've had enough salad in your life lately.

Why November is the BEST Month of the Year

1. It's not August.
2. I have a birthday at the end of it.
3. The food...all the glorious food...
4. Two national holidays = two free days off of work. That's probably not why I'm supposed to like Veterans' Day, though.
5. The high temperature is consistently under 90.
6. I get presents. Usually in the form of food.
7. Christmas is right around the corner. Which means more presents.

Sometimes, November is all about me and the food. Actually, that's pretty much my life.

"A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"

I'm not one to try and hurry seasons along. When the seasons change, I always think of what I like about the new one. I like all of them, even summer, as odd as that sounds coming from someone living in Alabama. I love that it stays light so long, I love that I am was growing tomatoes in my backyard, I love that it's light when I drive to work in the morning, I love that I can sleep with a fan on, and I love the excuse to drink as many pina coladas as my brain can manage to wrap itself around. Mostly the last one. But this year ... y'all, the heat has turned people into what I can only call Crazy Zombie People Who Are Trying To Destroy My Brain With Their Crazy. And it's close to working. Because the Crazy has reached epic proportions and no amount of rum is curing this. Maybe the problem is that I'm the only one drinking it? Solution: The government needs to change all of our water fountains at work to rum fountains. Fall needs to get here. Soon. The Summer Crazies are making me insane.

Stream-Of-Consciousness Vacation Thoughts That Would Have Been a Weekend-Long Live Blog If I Wanted The Criminals to Know I Was Away From Home

Thursday, 6 AM: The only reason to get up before noon on the first day of vacation is because my sister, the pool and the adult beverages are 8 hours away and not in my backyard.

10 AM: This whole "travelling with a broken CD player and malfunctioning Zune" means that The Professor and I have two options: babble for hours (that would be me) or listen to stupid morning radio shows. HOW do these people get paid for that job? I'm way funnier (in that they are about as fun as watching paint dry) and I have much better taste in music. I just can't play any of it right now.

11 AM: Solution: Stopped to buy a converter so I can plug my laptop into the car. Peace and harmony are restored. This means it's nap time.

4:30 PM: Sister hugged, beverage in hand, pool in sight. We're making Big Plans for the evening that involve a trivia show, more beverages, beach walking, a meteor shower, and midnight swimming. People, we are serious Partiers. BE WARNED.

1:00 AM: We won the Trivia game, but The Meteor Shower That Wasn't has won in life, in that it is apparently an invisible meteor shower? But all's good, because my brother-in-law has taken over making my drinks. I probably should only have 1 of these if I plan to be able to walk tomorrow.

3:30 AM: Do I think I'm still 21 or something?

Friday, Noon: Yeah. Should've stopped the brother-in-law after one drink (where "one" equals "the first one *he* made for me, not the first of the evening). Life Lesson for us all: Just because you have a Master's Degree does not mean you possess a whole lot of intelligence.

3 PM: My niece put in season 1 of The Simpsons and then - OH DEAR LORD - informed me they have the first 10 seasons on DVD.

6 PM Cooking dinner, almost finished and Sis realized we have no wine chilling for dinner. How will we survive? Either push dinner back by 10 minutes or switch to Rum & Cokes earlier than planned.

8 PM: We will live dangerously and go to a LATE movie. Dear Inception: I hope I still have the brain power at 10:30 PM to understand what the hell you are about. I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

1 AM: Holy Dreamworld, Batman. I may never sleep again. Or maybe I never want to wake up? Either choice seems equally dangerous at the moment.

Saturday, 12:30 PM: The Simpsons is officially the stupidest show ever. Thank god for the Internet. The Professor is loving this, though. Wonder what that says about us?

3 PM: We only had the equivalent of 10 bottles of wine in the house. Obviously I needed to buy more while we were out scouring the area for seafood to make bouillabaisse. No crustacean will be safe from our big pot; no Red safe from our glasses. Red Crustaceans are doubly cursed.

7 PM: Sis just decided we've got this bouillabaisse making thing down, maybe could do it in our sleep. We won't, since we're drinking with candles burning and all. But she's right.

11 PM: If you pour the wine into a beautiful pitcher, it will taste better.

Sunday, 10 AM: We're going to race mother nature and take a trip to the beach as soon as we can all get ready. Who do you think is going to win this?

1 PM: We won - the beach was awesome. Then we came home and lunch has now defeated me. Vacations are for naps, right?

4 PM: Sis and I are making a quick trip out to buy something on sale, and as we're leaving she says gleefully: "By the time we get back, it'll be time for a drink". I love the way this woman thinks. PS: The Simpsons live on.

6:30 PM: Even The Professor has reached his limits on watching The Simpsons. I honestly didn't know this was possible. He has also resorted to rum & juice. Light on the juice, I believe.

6:45 PM: While cleaning the beautiful wine pitcher from the night before - preparing to refill it - Sis finds the warning on the bottom that says "for decorative purposes only; do not use to serve food or drink". Plus side of this: if we grow a third eye anytime soon, we'll know what to tell the doctors!

11 PM: Dr Horrible + Rocky Horror + bottle of red = Best Way to End a Vacation Ever.

Monday, 4 PM: Back home. The cats - oddly - didn't seem to notice we even left. I'm glad no one tried to rob us. The cats would've been useless on the defense front. At least they were smart enough to stay out of my rum.

Discovered:

A restaurant in town that has "Crab Cake BLTs", which are made of crab cake, melted cheddar, lettuce, fried green tomato, smoked bacon on grilled Texas toast. If they replaced the Creole Remoulade with a Thai sweet chili sauce, I would probably kill myself eating these sandwiches.

Property Improvement Tour Part IV

So, let's go through the run-down of what I've already spelled out:

1. Replace Lawnmower.
2. Repair Harley.
3. Replace Dishwasher.
4. Repair A/C.

Around the time that the lawn mower died -but before the dishwasher died - The Professor began talking to a Neighbor who who happens to have been a boss for a concrete company for some many years, and happens to do some work on the side. Also for lo these many years, The Professor and I have wanted to expand and screen in our back patio. It's not really big enough for everything we have crammed out there. And I want a June Bug free June. Old June-Bug Infested Back Patio: One night, The Professor came home early from his evening walk and tells me he's been talking to Concrete Dude, who as we speak is going around the house to our back yard. An hour later, we had a plan that included a six gajillion metric tons of concrete and my backyard. The Professor was giddy. All he could think of was the 300+ square feet that he would no longer be required to mow. Yes, please go read that again: Over 300 square feet. 3/4 the size of my living/dining room combined. Our total patio now clocks in at 425 square feet. Ok, I may have been a little giddy too. Fast-forward two weeks, to the evening that Concrete Dude is supposed to come out and start tearing up the ground to prep it for this glorious Outdoor Escape we will build. That just happened to be the same night that Friend J got electrocuted because *someone* <> flipped a switch the wrong way while he was hooking up our latest new dishwasher. I briefly thought of cancelling - we seem to be bleeding money this summer - but The Professor got all rational with the "We're fixing things out of that Emergency Fund you made up build, it's not a crime to use 5% of it!" followed by the "We have the money saved for the concrete already, too!" and finally toppled me over with a round of "Let me pour you a(nother) glass of wine". So. We have a Mass of Concrete in our back yard. And it is a thing of beauty...or as much as a Mass of Concrete can be, anyway.

Appliance Tour 2010 Part III

I really should have led the whole “We-are-nincompoops-when-it-comes-to-home-ownership” stories with the facts that in the two weeks before the dishwasher died: A) We had to replace our lawn mower, and B) The Professor had to take his Harley into the shop because it wouldn’t start. If I remember correctly – don’t hold your breath here – it was something to do with a spark plug or a fuse or maybe a spark fuse? Whatever it was, it was constantly firing and draining the battery, and even I know a drained battery does not a motorcycle ride make. Basically, the problem was something that plenty of people could do on their own. We took it to the shop and paid 5 times too much to have it diagnosed and fixed. Aside: The Professor minus the Harley for 4 days = one very sad husband. So…about a week after the Dishwasher Fiasco was finally over and done with (did I just jinx myself? It will probably devolve into a nuclear weapon in about 20 minutes), I got a phone call from The Professor. It was about 4 PM and I was still at work. I could practically hear the soundtrack of doom playing when the phone rang. He wanted to let me know that it was 84 degrees in the house. And seeing as how the thermostat was set to 78 degrees… Can I even tell you how hard and fast my stomach sank? I know even less about air conditioners than I know about Harleys and dishwashers, but what I do know is this: THEY ARE EXPENSIVE AND SCARY. Mostly scary with a scattering of expensive. Because when it comes to expensive, a smattering is more than enough. So he called up Friend J. And Y’all, when The Prof told me he had called good ole reliable Friend J, I assumed we would just have to start paying that man for allowing me to call him our Friend. I don’t think all the home cooked meals and bottles of liquor are going to cut it for much longer. And dude’s a vegan so I can’t even bake him cookies. Anyway, unbeknownst to us, Friend J’s brother in law is in the A/C business. As in “has his own A/C business with a logo’d truck and an assistant and everything”. So the next evening, A/C Dude & A/C Dude’s Assistant come over and do a few things to the outside unit and then head up into the attic to check out whatever’s up there. All I know is that’s where we go to change the filter, and really we don’t do that as often as we should, because Holy Mary have you BEEN in an attic in July in Alabama? No? Do you know why you haven’t? Because you’re not SUICIDAL. Anyway, Dude’s Assistant comes back down with a piece of paper and says “Here’s your problem” before showing it to me. So I look down and there is a tiny little fried baby mouse on that piece of paper that he had found inside the unit in the attic. A mouse electrocuted himself by chewing on the wiring in my air conditioner. You want to know why? Because he was suicidal from being in an attic in Alabama in July.

The Dishwasher Fiasco, Part II

So, last I left you in this marvelous tale, I was getting a new dishwasher and we all thought the drama was over. You know I didn’t make the process of getting a new dishwasher easy on anyone, right? My first bright idea was to go up the Habitat for Humanity Restore and check out what they had. A friend of mine in Nashville had great luck getting one last year, so I told The Professor we’d head that way. Of course it’s almost an hour away. And when we arrived…the look on The Professor’s face was priceless. “Honey,” says he, says my love, “I’m glad I got a lunch date out of this, because we are not buying anything here”. Well, I got a little huffy and made him at least walk over to the appliances, at which point he said “I’ll wait in the truck”. OK, fine, we go to my second choice. Mazers, which sells scratch/dent/show-room models. It’s where he bought his washer, dryer and refrigerator 7 years ago. And our fridge keeps the beer cold, which is all I need. So, we set off for discount appliance land. An hour later – and after more incompetence & disorder in a sales department than I ever want to see again – oh yes, Mazers, you broke my heart and I’m calling you out BY NAME – I had a dishwasher. It was so disorganized, I almost went up to the loading dock and asked them if they had changed their mind and wanted to keep my little GE for themselves. The next day, trusty old Friend J comes over to install it for us. And things…well, things did not go so well. First off, I headed to the gym, leaving the Professor in charge of handing over tools and stuff. I was done with dishwashers for the day. I figured if I paid for it, The Prof could watch over the installation. So, problem #1: There was no “junction box”, which Friend J assured us was necessary although who knows why. Luckily, we still had the old broken machine – sitting in our kitchen, because we’re classy like that – so he just reached over and took it off and put it on the new sucker. There was also a trip to Lowes involved – although I have no idea what for – because some other $2 part wasn’t included. But finally – finally! – the thing was put together, pushed in and hooked up. At which point it refused to take in water from our pipes. This dishwasher was not out to make friends with ANYONE. The reason was long and detailed, and involved a switch of some kind that Friend J discovered was broken. I understood exactly one word: broken. Guess who spent an afternoon taking the dishwasher back? Our second trip to Mazers took twice as long and – as incomprehensible as it seems – was even more disorganized than the first. First these people who hadn’t wanted to get rid of such a prime piece of kitchen equipment now couldn’t figure out the process to take it back. By this point, The Professor had had it with me and my money saving ways. And when I say he’d “had it”, I mean “almost didn’t allow me to have any input on where we went next” and no amount of kissing and sweet talk was going to get me in this conversation. That’s when I pointed out that I had the credit card. So we ended up at Lowes’, chose a model and had it delivered. Installation was not free – it cost $100+ - they said because they had to get a licensed electrician to install it, and they don’t keep those on staff. I guess that’s true? Doesn’t matter, because Friend J – unbelievably – had promised to help install the new one when it came. So, 2 days later, the boys are back on the kitchen floor and discover that – Surprise! – there was a different part not included with this model. Off The Professor went to the hardware store, instruction manual in hand to ensure he purchased the right thing... Where he was promptly told that the instruction manual was wrong and sold a different part. When he got home Friend J laughed, sighed, and said “let’s go”, taking them to a different hardware store to get the correct part. Back they came, full of confidence that they would get this thing DONE and finally eat dinner. I was given 2 jobs: Cook said dinner, and turn off the circuit at the breaker box. I can handle that! It was only after I ELECTROCUTED Friend J while he was helping with my THIRD dishwasher in 2 weeks that I realized I had flipped the circuit without really looking – and it had never been flipped back on after the last fiasco. It all worked out in the end, leaving 3 important facts: Dinner was damn good, the dishwasher washed the dishes, and Friend J is still a friend. But…I’m thinking that from now on, The Professor and I should just leave the country when we need something repaired or replaced.

It's been awhile since you've seen Layla

So, here she is, taking in what the cats call "A Good Morning Sun-Nap".

She loves to sleep on tote bags (our last Bengal loved to pee on them, so I don't argue with her).

That bag was hanging off the back of the chair until she pulled it around and down onto the seat to make a proper bed for her.

“Wishes Won't Wash Dishes"

It took me five years, 4 book cases, 2 entertainment centers, 1 motorcycle gas tank, 2 flat tires and 1 gas grill to learn it, but I eventually got the message: The Professor and I should not work together on any kind of home improvement/maintenance/upgrade project. The problem is that neither one of us has much skill in fixing/replacing/assembling. I want to study a picture, look at what I’m working on and move slowly, scared that screwing in the wrong bolt will cause my home to spontaneously combust. H e wants to get the entire horrid process over as quickly as possible, so he just starts assembling and/or disassembling – sometimes simultaneously – at will*. And we never seem to find a way to meld these…styles…without a lot of cussing. * I will note at this point that this “ignore the directions and screw everything together” philosophy could be the reason we had to completely take the grill apart half way through assembly so that we could start over. But I won’t. All of this is to say that when I got back from a quick 4 day trip to Florida and found my dishwasher was full of water that had failed to drain – 4 days ago – I was kinda glad The Professor was going to be out of town for a week. If he had been home, he would have been yanking things apart before I could even get to Google to ask its opinion on fixing dishwashers. I did call him and ask if he knew where the owner’s manual could be found, since he moved into the house a year before I did. He laughed at me and said “How the hell do I know? Anyway, we’ll just buy a new dishwasher”. I asked him how the hell he went from “clogged drain” to “replace the whole damn thing!” in 1.2 seconds, because I was determined to fix it. I am woman, here me roar! Surely I could just take off the drain cover, pull out whatever was clogging it, and move on to my wine and my evening. But first? I had to empty the water. Did I mention that there was so much water that when I opened the door, some of it ran onto the floor? And I figured that since it was going to require a lot of bending over and standing back up, I should probably wait to open the bottle of red my sister had sent home with me. Suddenly, just replacing the dishwasher sounded like a good idea. It sounded even better when I got the drain cover off and discovered the things growing in the Deep Dark Places of my Dishwasher. Needless to say, my little “pull off the drain cover and fix it in five minutes” plan did not work. It took me 45 minutes to get the water out. And then I had to figure out how the hell the drain cover came off, because those suckers needed something more complex than a Phillips head screwdriver, damn them. So it took me ten minutes of looking at my tool kit to figure out which unknown Thingy-With-A-Handle would remove those Weird Thingies holding the drain cover down. I was informed later (not by The Professor) that those are bolt screws. Whatever –I felt like a freaking goddess when I finally got them off. Do I even need to tell you that I could not, in fact, clear the problem? It was clearly time for me, Google, and the Wine to have a nice ménage a trios while we figured things out together. By the end of the evening, I convinced myself that I was NOT going to get into any kind of plumbing situation; that I was done, finished, we’d call a repair guy so I could drink my wine in peace without worrying that I’d accidentally jack up all my kitchen plumbing. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of telling that to a friend at work the next day, who has a very big “don’t ever call a professional without spending entirely too much time trying to fix it yourself” mentality. And he convinced me to get into the plumbing. My Friday night was shaping up to be a real treat. Ok, fine, I could do this. It’s just unhooking one little hose from one big pipe. How hard could this be? And he promised to be online to walk me through it when the panic attack hit. So I cleaned out under the kitchen sink, got a big bowl to catch water, and went to it, if by "went to it" you mean "stare at the pipes for 30 minutes before realizing that I actually had to touch the pipe if I wanted to get anything productive done". 30 minutes later – full of furious IM’ing and handholding – I had some things taken a apart, a little more water drained – and nothing fixed. "Don’t worry", Friend typed. "On Monday I’ll bring you something to slide in the hose and loosen up whatever’s stuck." So I ignored the dishwasher for the weekend, which was easy because I pretty much ingore the dishwasher all the time anyway. Guess what? The snake-claw-grabber thing didn’t work either. By now, The Professor was home from his trip and I was finished, done, over it. I turned it over to him and said “I’m NOT pulling this monster out of the cabinets. Call someone, I’m through”. And then I grabbed the rum and the pina colada mix and went outside and pretended I was back in Florida, with the delusion that I had functional kitchen appliances. So, The Professor calls Friend J, who lives down the street. Friend J is a handy guy to have around, if you happen to be as clueless with tools as The Professor and I happen to be. (True Story: Friend J had to use a hammer at our house once and when I handed it to him he laughed and called it a “Baby Hammer”). Friend J comes over the next morning (yesterday) and starts taking things apart –in the correct order, no less. And after much handyman-work-that-I-am-in-awe-of, he figured out the problem. A teeny tiny screw had come loose from the teeny tiny blade that chops up any food that gets past the drain cover. And he found it in the motor. Where it had done Considerable Damage. Guess who’s getting a new dishwasher? PS – they also found the owner’s manual! When they pulled the dishwasher out of the cabinet, they discovered that the people that installed it had left the manual taped to the top of the dishwasher. Brilliance!

Public Service Announcement

This was a big topic recently in our library and I meant to write it up, but completely forgot about it. You're about to see the wonderful things we discuss in the break room. One of our technicians recently started collecting plastic bottles to recycle (I think she's donating them somewhere). And I happened to notice that everyone was throwing their bottles in the bin with the lid attached, which is pretty much a no-no. That's a different kind of plastic than the bottle, and enough of them in a batch of melting plastic can change the chemistry enough that the entire batch has to be thrown away. Bottom line: Those bottles saved from the landfill? Probably ended up there anyway. And of course, I wasn't believed, so I had to do research. Yay for research! And because I firmly believe in getting as much mileage as possible out of my paltry skills (Seriously: Googleing "bottle recycling remove caps" doesn't take much of a feat of intelligence skills), I present to you the evidence I collected: From Mother Nature Network:

"Bottles and caps are made from different types of plastic, so even if they are both recycled, they generally most be separated first...You can probably improve the chances of the bottle—and possibly the cap, but at least the bottle—getting recycled if you take off the cap. This also allows the bottle to dry out ome."

From Eco-cycle:

Q. Do I need to take the caps and lids off plastic containers before I recycle them? Can the caps be recycled as well? A. Remove the caps and lids from all plastic bottles and jugs (and tubs) before recycling the containers. Plastic caps have a different melting point than other recyclable plastics and will contaminate the load. Throw away or find a creative way to reuse plastic caps—they make great paint or glue holders for small projects. Q. Do I need to remove the plastic ring that is left around the neck of a plastic bottle when I remove the cap? A. No, you do not need to remove it. The recycling center is allowed a minimal amount of “contamination” in our materials to account for things like the plastic ring and the label on the product.

And Earth 911 has 2 helpful things here: 1) How to recycle those lids, and 2) a handy list of which lids are included in that program, which will also pretty much tell you what lids to keep out of your recycling bin. So. My good deed for the day is finished. I need a librarian cape or something.

Identity Crisis

I’m a big fan of Secret, but they're trying to destroy my psyche. I’m not talking about that new-age/self-help/the-world-is-full-of-rainbows-and-unicorns book, but Secret – the stuff you put under your arms* to hopefully make you stink less.

*I absolutely loathe the word “armpit”. Arm Pit. It sounds like a dirty place that sludge would ooze out of. Which, fine, maybe you ooze sludge. Conveniently enough, I glisten and don’t ooze. Mostly. And one of my favorite blogs has a re-occurring phrase of “gushing arm pits” that makes me feel like I’ve just been showered in some else’s under-arm sludge, which makes me want to bathe in lemon scented bleach, because straight bleach stinks. And this is really too long for an italicized note, but I’m not going back and tweaking that now.

So, deodorant. For me, that's Secret. Been using it (Secret) for more than half of my life. I especially like the Soft Solid. The roll-on makes me feel like I’ve added Sludge under my arms instead of preventing whatever Glistening might naturally occur, which kind of defeats the purpose of buying those products in the first place. The dry solids are not really worth having an opinion one way or another. And Aerosol makes me want to scream, but that’s a different rant.

Also, on my deodorant specifications list, is that it should be unscented. If I wanted to smell like baby powder – the smell of which makes me want to lose my breakfast – I would damn well put baby powder under my arms. If I wanted to smell like an odd combination of roses and violets, I’d buy some perfume from the Age 80+ counter at Macy’s. And what the hell is “Spring Fresh” even supposed to mean? Thunderstorms? Because around here, Spring=Tornado Season, not a vaguely-slightly-floral, highly-unnatural scent that one wants to spread on unseen parts of their body.

Thus, for 16 years, it’s been Me + Unscented Soft Solid Secret. We have lived in harmony.

Until this past March, when I inexplicably stopped finding unscented Secret of any variety other than Roll On. A couple of years ago it disappeared from my CVS shelves, and I almost sobbed in the Walgreens deodorant aisle when I found it there. Walmart is always hit or miss. But it’s always been somewhere. But about 3 months ago, someone hit a secret switch that made all of my Unscented Soft Solid Secret disappear from the state. And I panicked – I needed something to freshen my Glistening soon. And unscented had apparently been banned from even being a scent anymore, because – and trust me, I shopped around – there was nothing scent-free to be found on the shelves. So, being a frugal person, I started buying random deodorants when the sales and coupons aligned, which they do quite frequently. The problem?

Apparently, everyone wants to spread “Spring Fresh” or “Green Euphoria”** under their arms, so now I have to smell like something besides, you know – ME - and picking out a new scent for yourself is a LOT of pressure. I now see why Jennifer Lopez has a gazillion “signature scents” in her perfume line.

**What the HELL is “Green Euphoria”? The only things I’ve seen that are naturally body-related and green are: A) vomit and B) snot. Neither of which would I slather in my Glistening Places.

So. I went through a trial and error phase for a couple of months. I’d try a new deodorant scent for a couple of weeks. And every time I moved my arms at work (I move around a lot of books and binders on to and off of shelves), I would notice my deodorant. Which is not something I want to do, especially since I couldn’t find a scent that I liked. So, even though I smelled like products that are supposed to make you smell better, I was always fairly confident that my Glistening smelled better than their Glisten-Preventing-Substances. In any case, I didn’t smell like me anymore, and I couldn’t figure out who I was supposed to smell like. And you know how you smell a shirt to see if you can wear it again (Oh come ON, yes you do)? Well, I didn’t know anymore. I couldn’t figure out what it smelled like, and so suddenly I was doing more laundry (meaning, of course, that The Professor was doing more laundry, but it counts - we’re married – one mind, heart, soul and all of that) all because I couldn’t tell who I was anymore. And it's hard to live with yourself when you don't even know what your shirts are supposed to smell like, so I'd just have another glass of wine.

I’m happy to report that I have discovered the right meds had a breakthrough and am on week 3 of one scent, and I don’t hate it. It’s simply called “Fresh”, which means that it’s an uncomplicated scent that no one else is going to buy because “FRESH” is not quite descriptive enough of what kind of “Fresh”. Is it “Spring Fresh” or “Powder Fresh” or “Mountain Fresh”? Why would anyone buy something as uncomplex as “Fresh”? And in about 3 years it, too, will disappear, which means I should start the stockpile this weekend. Ironically enough, I had a huge stockpile of it last year that I had gotten practically free at CVS …and I sold them for a buck a piece in a yard sale making like 1 million percent profit, but leaving me in a lurch when my Secret disappeared. But at least I'm coming back to the knowledge of Who I Smell Like.

And speaking of deodorant stockpiles (surely a topic that should come up once in everyone’s lifetime)…let’s move on to The Professor. He has also been a big fan of one particular brand and scent since time began. And guess what? About a month after my Crisis hit, his did too. Same. Exact. Story. Although it was a different brand, because - Surprise! - The Professor does not use Secret. And he uses a scented one, which is ok with me because he’s been using that scent since before I met him – so that’s HIS smell, not Speed Stick’s.

To shorten the story, he had to try something new as well. And then I’d walk in the door after not knowing who the hell *I* smelled like all day, and he’d hug me and kiss me, and I’d be like “Hey, who are you, you smell funny” and then I’d just want to cry. Not that he bathes in it or anything, but it was just part of Who He Is - part of his scent was Speed Stick Musk, but suddenty it wasn't, and I couldn't handle it. Because really, A)You should know who you are, and b) you shouldn’t be disturbed by your husband’s “Sports Fresh” scent. Oh yes. The menfolk, they get the Freshness, too. And “Sports Fresh” sounds suspiciously like SWEAT to me.

The Professor got a much happier ending. He discovered that our local Walmart carries his preferred varietal. Which means we have about 10 sticks of it in the cabinet, because he’s buys one every time he passes Walmart, but I’m not laughing. No…I’m jealous. At least he’s found a way to fight back against the identity crisis. Which, to be honest, I did too, I just upped my wine budget and moved on.*

*Because in the end, all roads lead to Wine. Not Rome. Not Hell. Wine. But today, my lovelies, I discovered the perfect solution on the wonderfulness that we call The Internetz. Behold: An Unscented Deodorant Patch! I do believe it will solve all of my problems. I’ll have to attach an explanation card to every piece of clothing I send to Goodwill for the rest of my life, but that might just be worth it. At least I’ll always know who I am. There’s only so much wine I can drink to help with that, and I’m not on the Really Good Meds.

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

Or should that be "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words"? I happened to glance in the mirror this morning - something I generally avoid until about 11 AM - and got a nice glimpse of TweedleDum & TweedleDee. And there was no turning back. These babies have to preserved for all time. And then I tried to actually get a picture of the damn things. After three angles and 10 pictures - and, let's face it, my sense of modesty kicked in - I decided not to tempt you with a shot of the outside of my thigh. I'm going to just save TweedleDum for the grandkids to marvel over in 20 years or so (Did you hear that Dearly Beloved Stepson? TWENTY YEARS.)

TweedleDum

So there you go. No need to rent your horror movie tonight, just picture my (incredibly toned) bruise chasing you around the house. The damn thing is growing by leaps and bounds and may need to be fed on a regular basis.

The cats are going to either get me killed or The Professor arrested

Sunday, in the early evening, all was quiet. The kitchen was (mostly) cleaned up from a big Family Lunch and I had spent a lovely hour communing with my laptop at the dining room table. The Professor went out for his evening stroll around the neighborhood (I think he’s part of a secret neighborhood surveillance, but then he thinks I secretly work for the FBI, so maybe we should both tone down the conspiracy voices in our respective heads?), and I decided it was the perfect time for a glass of wine. Granted, there aren’t many times that aren’t the perfect time for a glass of wine, and those are mostly restricted to the hours immediately after you wake up in the morning*, which is why God made Mimosas. *If you wake up after noon, you can skip those mimosa drinking hours, because it’s lunch time, and wine is perfectly acceptable at lunch. I should really write a rule book or something. I also decided it was the perfect time to sit outside, which necessitated moving the laptop. Which is when my cat made his move. It was the only move he made that hour, and I guess he decided to make it worth his while. I removed the power cord from the back of the laptop, stood up with my Precious Darling (the laptop, not the cat) in my hands and turned around to head towards the back door, only to discover that in the 5 seconds I had not been moving, my dear cat had chosen to move from his perch to sprawl on the floor behind my feet. Unfortunately, I only noticed after my foot was coming down on top of him, and then I tried to move my foot, but it was too late, and I ended up falling – with the laptop still in my arms, mind you – towards one of the chairs. I did not manage to stop my fall, but I did manage to slam my arm into the back of the chair, and somehow twisted enough that my thigh smacked into the side, all while clinging on to my laptop for dear life with my other hand. We had just bought the Stepson a new laptop the day before. A new one for me is NOT in the budget. This dance was short and it was not graceful, but it probably would have made a hell of a YouTube video. Aside: MS Word recognizes “YouTube” as a word. The laptop made it through our Dance of Life just fine. I, however, am sporting a bruise 2 inches long by 1.5 inches wide on my arm (yes, I measured just for you so that you could have an accurate description). There’s a similar one on my thigh, but it’s covered by clothing. And they’re getting prettier by the day. I didn’t know some of these shades of blue existed, and I can hardly wait to discover the new yellows that will surely appear. I actually thought about documenting them in pictures, day by day, but that would be like a job or something, and I can barely remember that I have a blog as it is. Maybe I’ll just name them. TweedleDum and TweedleDee sound like good candidates. Another Aside: Please note that TweedleDum and TweedleDee are NOT recognized by Word, even though they’ve been around for more than 100 years longer. Anyway, this is not – by a long shot – the first time I’ve come to work with bruises. I am one of the clumsiest people I know, and I bruise very easily. If you stare at me hard enough, my blood vessels burst. And apparently Some People are starting to notice. Today, when I gave my “I’m-the-clumsiest-person-in-the-world-and-bruise-easily” excuse to someone who asked, I got a new response. A pause, a deep look and “Are you sure?”. So now I have to somehow become more graceful, because I do not want people thinking vile things of The Professor, who would no more harm me than he would voluntarily eat a vegetable that is not deep fried. Am I too old for finishing school? I hope so, because I have a feeling that they would try to take away my rum.

It's the little things

Charter, we've had our issues. Since I canceled the TV service, they've gotten fewer, although sometimes your internet speeds Need HELP. But it's the little things. Like, when I go to login to my account. And it says "Welcome New Account". 1) I am not a new account. Been with you for 10+ years now. 2) The sentence hurts my heart. Do you mean "Welcome to your new account"? Do you think my name is "New Account?" Really, we know each other better than that by now.

Dear Hollywood

Dear Hollywood, I don’t know what’s up with you lately. It seems that every other movie I watch – which, granted, is about 1 in 100 that you put out – that have scenes where people either are or have the potential to drown. It doesn’t even matter if they actually do, it’s enough that the potential is there. They’re underwater, sometimes trying not to gasp in water, sometimes not succeeding. DO YOU KNOW THAT I’M SCARED OF DROWNING? Last weekend, we took the Stepson to see Clash of the Titans. It wasn’t just a reshoot of the original movie – it had almost a totally new plot. Which may explain why I wasn’t expecting an underwater scene. DO YOU KNOW THAT I HAD NIGHTMARES AFTER WATCHING CASINO ROYALE? And then, I went to see Quantum of Solace, thinking, they’ve done the underwater thing. I’m safe. I was so not safe, because apparently the flashbacks were a necessary plot point. So. This is me kindly asking you to Knock It Out. There are millions of ways to try to kill people. Please try a few hundred thousand of them before going back underwater. Love, Me

I've either lost it or found it, I don't know which

The gym is not the place I prefer to be on a Saturday morning, but I've learned that if I don't go first thing, it doesn't get done. Because I will turn on HGTV for "just one show" and then 6 hours later I'm cooking dinner and drinking wine. Yes, I do that at 4 PM on a Saturday. DON'T JUDGE ME. Anyway, so the gym is made marginally better because of the TVs in front of the treadmills that can keep my mind busy while I sweat through a 5k. Is it ironic that "Don't Sweat It" is usually the show I sweat to? Because by the time I'm done, I'm pretty much just a big pile of sweat. Lovely visual, I know. The end of my boring little routine involved doing the Arm Machines. I hate them slightly more than I hate the leg machines, although I do kind of feel all "Look at ME" when I notice sore muscles a few hours later. It's proof that I'm doing something. ANYway - I have really rambled off topic, again - this Serious Weight Lifting Guy came in about halfway through my Arm Torture . He's probably a personal trainer or something, because he was charting his weight routine. Every time he did something, he wrote it down. And he kept staring at me. I HATE it when strangers stare. I'm always convinced I've got spinach hanging out of my nose or something. In this case, I figured I was abusing the machines, and he was going to march over and give me a lecture on how to properly change the weights. He did say "Bless you" when I sneezed, so his Mama taught him some manners but I was just sure that meant he'd be nice when he told me I was doing stuff all wrong. Hello, I know I'm doing something wrong: I'm sweating on a Saturday, for the love of baby Jesus. So I finish up and go to leave and he walks by and asks how long I've been a member of the gym. And how often I work out. And what's my name again? And some other little trivia that I've completely forgotten. And me - the whole time I'm thinking "Gotta go to J's to get those border stones. Going to the garden store with the Best Friend. Think I'll grill out burgers tonight. Should pick up some beer." And when I get in my car, it slams into my dreams of Dos Equis: Dude was hitting on me. Trying to flirt, fairly blatantly, while I was a steaming pile of sweat - and all I can think of is what kind of meat and alcohol to consume later. The Professor has officially declared me an "Old Married Lady". And promised me a beer.

Bless My Toes

Last week, a lady walked up to me on base – I was sitting outside on my break, enjoying one of the 6 hours of Spring we’ll get before summer hits – and told me, with no apparent sarcasm, how brave I was for wearing open-toed sandals with no toe polish.

A couple of my friends are probably staging a toe-nail intervention as they read this; to you I say: Don’t worry. Now that I’ve made this public knowledge, The Best Friend will wrangle my mismanaged peds into shape soon, I’m sure.

Anyway, as this Mystery Lady walked away, I could only stare at her. I couldn’t formulate a reply, and honestly, she didn’t seem to want one. She’s like a fairy, only instead of dropping happy pixie dust on everyone she meets, she must drop these random and totally unwanted opinions on complete strangers, maybe even feeling like she’s done a good deed for the day by complimenting my bravery – I’m so courageous, y’all! An unemployed Pedicurist could happen upon my feet at any minute and take revenge on my negligence, but I still dare to brave the world in my flip-flops! Someone give me a Medal of Honor!

I mean honestly, what do you say to that? I just stared at her dumbfounded, wondering why she thought that was necessary.

Then I woke up and remembered that I’m in the Deep South; merely breathing in this part of the country gives total strangers carte blanche to say whatever they hell they want on any and all parts of your public/private lives. It’s a State’s Rights issue that was passed along with Reconstruction, and no one is going to give it up.

Well, this got embarrassingly long and loud, but we’re just going to hit publish without even proof-reading at this point

There are some things that I think every Midwife/OBGYN/Birth-Assisting-Person should be required to teach parents: Some people in this world are not going to have kids, and – steady now – that is ok. The world will not end, the Anti-Christ has not come to suck the life out of the precious babies’ lungs, and no one is going to take away the baby aisle at the grocery store. Some of us even *like* other peoples’ babies. In a few cases, we like the children those babies turn into, although that’s a slippery slope, because all of a sudden, BOOM, you’ve known this kid for 17 years and you loved the baby, tolerated the child and now have to figure out if you’re going to like the adult. That’s a lot of pressure – I mean, 17 years have been invested at this point, and you’d hate to think you’ve wasted their whole life making this decision. And you’re probably related to them anyway, so just make it easy on yourself and like them already. That last paragraph was completely off my point, which is, I do *not* want to have children and that is not the first half of a mathematical proof that ends with “therefore I hate all the babies”. It’s a simple statement of intention. So, Lady-that-is-convinced-that-I-am-(apparently)-a-“baby-hating-narcissist”**: Thanks for naming me “soul-less” baby haters. I like babies just fine, but I guess the only way to prove it would be to have a baby, and y’all: there is not enough rum in the world. Also, I don’t think I’m a narcissist, but do narcissists every really admit that about themselves? Wouldn’t they be too self-involved to be aware of their narcissism? I think that’s kind of a pre-requisite. I mean, there are there social groups like The United Narcissists of America getting together for Bingo and Bourbon on the third Thursday of the month? I might be able to get into that, come to think about it, but really: I think if you say you’re a narcissist you are either A) lying or B) in rehab. **She was involved in a loud conversation behind me in a (long) line, about the evil people who do not have children. I wish I had a transcript of this woman’s opinions, because they were many and they were LOUD. The loudest was “There’s something wrong with people who don’t want kids. They’re baby-hating narcissists.” And also on the baby front: (Strap yourself in because apparently I’ve needed therapy for this and things could get bumpy): choosing not to procreate does not make my life *less than*, it just makes it different. I cannot tell you the number of times that I've been told something along those lines in the last 10 years. You want to tell me you’re more complete as a person (were you missing an organ or a limb before the conception??),then I will absolutely help you celebrate your NewFound Wholeness and buy you wine and chocolate. I’ll probably bake you cookies, because hell, I bake cookies for everyone. You know why? Because I like celebrations, especially if they involve wine, chocolate and cookies. And if I'm baking you cookies, there's a good chance I'm going to like your baby enough to keep you in cookies for awhile. And this one Lady years ago … oh this one cracks me up, almost five years after the conversation happened. This lady tells me, upon hearing I wasn’t planning on having children – at the end of a long list of reasons why Children Are Important If You Want To Be An Adult, she adds: “You really should just try it once”. Please go back and re-read that, because I cannot even describe the brain-exploding that happened in my skull. Babies are not a new flavor of potato chip, Lady! You don’t “just try them out”, because can you even get a refund at that point? Do you see why I stay home with my wine bottles every night? If my OBGYN were reading this, she’d come out of retirement and sterilize me for FREE.

A Short Rant with an Easter Finish

Google, you have disappointed me. For months now, when I pull up Google Maps and you think you’re showing me where I live…you aren’t. Oh sure, the address is right. But you’re little pointer is pointing halfway down the street and on the other side of a cul-de-sac. And in Satellite View? Your street labels are off in my little corner of the world. Downtown in the big city is perfect. Looking at the maps of my county? Crazy. And don’t judge me for spending time looking at maps of my county in Google Maps Satellite View. It’s cheap entertainment. It’s been years since I’ve done anything “Easter-y” on Easter Sunday. I haven’t bought Easter candy in years, and although I usually do make an effort to cook something Nicer Than Usual, it’s such a “get together with the family” day that The Professor and I kind of just stay home and watch movies. Of course, I’m usually watching Easter Parade, and he’s watching something that involves a lot of blood and dismemberment, so we’re watching movies in separate rooms. But we’re doing it in separate rooms TOGETHER. Anyway, all of this is to say that this year, we have Easter Plans! Some friends who are similarly far from their families invited us over for a big ole Easter Dinner. I’ve got the perfect cute Spring-Time skirt and if I’m feeling plucky I might even pull my old Easter Bonnet out of storage, which will cause me to sing “In my Easter Bonnet…with all the frills upon it…” all day, which will in turn drive The Professor nuts. Meaning that this would be the only year we participate in any kind of Easter Festivities, but it will totally be worth it.

Alabama? Ireland? Where the Hell am I Again?

And we're home. Home to a couple of (surprisingly) unstressed cats, thanks to the Bestest Friend. Home after a week of more fun than should be allowed, interspersed with many pints of beer, lot of food and very little sleep. I took over 500 pictures (that's all???), and getting them off of my memory card seems like almost more than my mind can handle. We got up 20 hours ago, and I'm determined to stay up til at least 11 tonight (2 more hours) to try and yank my body into the correct time zone. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if my brain follows my body back into the Central Time Zone.

Another year, another AWSOFTC(SFBIGTNABO)

Go here for 2008. Go here for 2009. So, snow is becoming an annual occurrence round these parts. I can live with that. Especially since it FINALLY happened on a work day, and work got cancelled*. Especially since Monday is already a federal holiday, making this a 4 day weekend. Especially especially since I stocked the wine rack and the beer fridge. Well, the wine rack is already showing some holes because we started on that last night. But that's OK. I have some rum and whiskey left. But enough about my alcohol collection! You want to see snow! Let's see how fierce and mighty this new Alabama Winter Storm of the Century is going to be. *Dear Firefox: "Cancelled" CAN be spelled with two 'l's, not just one as you think. Please update your dictionary, and thank you for making me doubt my spelling abilities, forcing me to look it up in 3 different places to be sure I was correct, even if I been using the British spelling forever and never knew it. Now I'll have to randomly insert 'u's after 'o's, too. Love, Me.

Heartbreaker

Dear sweet Deity, I cannot put enough disclaimers on this post. I've always loved R.E.M.'s song "Everybody Hurts". It's a heartbreaker of a song, that's for sure. And now, it's a tear jerker for sure. Simon Cowell, of American Idol fame - of whom and for which I have absolutely no love, in any way - has put together a tribute song to the Haiti earthquake victims, recording multiple artists singing Everybody Hurts. He's releasing it to raise money for the relief effort. NPR had a few clips of it on the radio one day this week, and I put off looking for it online. I've given, multiple times, to a few charities. Done what I can do, and all that jazz. But I'm sheltered. Privileged. I didn't want to see too much of what's happened. Because there's nothing much more that I can do. So tonight I looked on youtube for a video of the song, because it sounded beautiful. And I found this. Giving to relief causes tends to slack off after the first horror has passed. The first horror is quickly passing. I hope that this video always makes me cry.

I haven't worked this hard for a relationship since I was 16

So. Layla. I've left you wondering too long. First of all, she's a cat, so she's a little nuts. Second of all, she's a cat with an unhappy childhood, so she's a lot nuts. After a couple of weeks, I started letting her have free roam of the house 24/7. And the first night that I was Oh So Benevolent as to unlock her from her jail... She scared the pee out of me in the morning when she jumped off of the tippiest toppiest of my kitchen cabinets and ran under the dining room table. This is where she spends some alone time. On top of the cabinets I have not dusted in 5+ years of marriage. She's still cleaning my house for me. Go, Layla! She's roaming the house a lot more, and Lucius has finally acknowledged her existence, but I don't think he's too crazy about all the butt sniffing she does (nice visual, heh?). He sits down every time she sniffs at his rear, and then she backs her rear up into his face, and he gets a "really? Again?" look before he walks away. At which point she follows him and repeats the entire thing. Then they chase each other around for 3o minutes, until he conveys the point that "no, really, I'm lazy and don't exercise". Then they both sleep for hours. But last night she got in bed with us for a couple of hours...so I continue to hold out hope that one day I'll be able to touch this fiesty, shy, adorable cat.

Go Read This

Fed Up: School Lunch Project First, go back and read the archives.* Add it to your Google Reader or Bloglines or whatever. It's a very short post each day, and it blows my mind. I was a Private School Kid, but didn't have access to a cafeteria until half way through 7th grade - and then the food was very decent. So I was mostly a brown bagger, but my bologna sandwiches and apples were infinitely better than what this (courageous) woman is eating. The peanut butter and jelly "sandwich" made me lose my appetite. * I hate reading blogs in reverse chronological order, so I added it to Reader, then went for the "sort by oldest" option and hit "view all". She's only 18 days in, so there's not a whole lot to catch up on.

Then the Sun Came Out and the Angels Sang

If there's one thing in the world I hate to shop for - and there is, otherwise this post would be wasted time for both you and me (assuming it's not already) - it's jeans. It's like they're made to fit broom handles, and then, so that they don't have to go to the expense of actually fitting around my stomach, the ingenious makers decide to stop the material about 6 inches below what will keep me modest if I happen to bend over. And, due to the fact that I can't hold anything for longer than 30 seconds without dropping it, I have to be careful whom I bend over in front of. That is way more stress than I should have from my jeans. And they frown on me taking a bottle of wine in the fitting room, so I have to do it sober. So. I dread jean-shopping. When I walked into Walmart today, I was hit with an urge to check out the jeans, and I hadn't been drinking yet, so I have no idea what came over me. Maybe 12 hours of sobriety? Anyway, ignoring my better instincts, I slunk over to the clothing department. I was cursing before I even arrived, and I just don't think that's healthy. But the jeans I was wearing - my only pair - are stretched out and don't fit right anymore (no complaining here, goodbye 20 pounds, I'm toasting your disappearance as I type!), leading to a threat of exposure greater than what I'm comfortable with. So, I shopped. For jeans. Sober. I only took 2 in the fitting room, because I figured after that point I would be frustrated enough to leave without buying the necessities we need around here. And, tolerant though he may be, The Professor wouldn't take "the jeans didn't fit" as a suitable explanation for the lack of toilet paper in the house. The first pair fit. Perfectly. Flawlessly. Comfortably. And with no threat of indecent exposure from my rear side. After I picked my jaw up off the dressing room floor (gross), I carefully checked the mirrors, because I was pretty sure they were some kind of fun-house-deception. I almost asked the attendant to let me try another fitting room, to make sure they fit if I wore them in a different location. But as I hadn't bought the wine yet, I was afraid that giving the impression of a total loon would flag me from being able to check out with any. So here I am, wearing jeans I'm not scared of. And terribly afraid that if I wear them in public, the whole backside is going to randomly fall off the first time I sit down. Is there a phobia for jeans? More importantly, is there medication for it?

You've Got Me on My Knees, Layla

[Warning: Very Long Cat Lady Post Ahead] I think we may have picked the most appropriate name ever for a cat. Yesterday, we got a new cat. A Bengal. A Bengal who has not been loved and properly worshiped. She's 2 years old, and grew up in a breeder-turned-cat-hoarder's house. The neglect has clearly made her what she is - under-sized for a Bengal and afraid of everyone. (technical details: she's an F3 marbled Bengal, gorgeous - but about half the size she should be).

Riding Home, it took an hour for her to come out from underneath her towel.

She's breaking my heart already. I have not heard the first sound - cry, purr, growl or hiss - since we picked her up. She does not react at all to anyone, unless you touch her. Then she darts from whatever place you've crawled under to find her to an even more inaccessible place. Well, that's what happened the one time I touched her side. I inched my hand ever closer to her face and she didn't move. I wanted her to sniff me, but she didn't do anything. No facial changes. It's like she didn't know my hand was there, and my finger tips were eventually less than an inch from her face. The second time I tried, I actually petted the tip of her tail - and got no response. It was like she didn't even know I was there.

Behind the dryer. On top of the dryer hose. To-do list now includes replacing the dryer hose.

She's had me on my knees a lot. After she moved out from behind the dryer, she found her way under my bed. So The Bestest Friend & I went in a few times over about 3 hours and laid down on the floor looking at her. One time she was in the bathtub, but we didn't try to get in there with her. Overnight she moved behind my dresser. That's a point in her favor: she's going into all of the dark corners I don't dust often enough and probably pulling out half the dust on her fur. So the other half of the equation: Lucius. Of course you're dying to know how he's handling all of this. He was locked up in the bedroom when we got home, and when I opened Layla's carrier she went immediately behind the dryer. When I let Lucius out, he found her carrier and crawled all in/over it, sniffing. Then he sniffed her out behind the dryer, but he can't get back there (too big to slide by the wall, to lazy to go over the top). So he went out in front of the fireplace and took a nap. Seriously, that was his response. He got up a couple of times and investigated anything that smelled like her, then went to the couch for another nap. I kept Layla in the bedroom with us last night and locked Lucius out of it. This morning he came in and sniffed out her location behind the dresser (another place he's too big to get behind). Looked at her for a second. Then followed me out to the living room to - wait for it - take a nap. I'm convinced there's a sweet, lonely cat in that beautiful little body. I don't know if we'll ever be able to reach it. But we've got all the time in the world.

Behind the dresser, cleaning out my dust problems.

What'll you do when you get lonely And nobody's waiting by your side? You've been running and hiding much too long. You know it's just your foolish pride. Layla, you've got me on my knees. Layla, I'm begging, darling please. Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind. I tried to give you consolation When your old man had let you down. Like a fool, I fell in love with you, Turned my whole world upside down. Chorus Let's make the best of the situation Before I finally go insane. Please don't say we'll never find a way And tell me all my love's in vain.

BECAUSE THE SNOW IT IS COMING AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE

It’s just about time to play one of my favorite little games in this whole wide world. It’s a little something special I call “Go to the milk section of Wal-Mart and watch the local citizenry freak the frak out BECAUSE THE SNOW IS COMING”. I’m pretty sure the employees at Wal-Mart must play this game too, because they stuck the wine section next door to the milk cartons, so I can just pretend I’m trying to make up my mind between bottles of wine, and luckily no one has ever asked what I’m seeing in the glass that makes me giggle hysterically for moments at a time, because seriously, y’all, these people are flying around the last gallons of dairy products like someone has told them every cow on the planet is going to stop milk production all at one time and that time is in FIVE MINUTES. One time, a lady was holding up one of those HUGE half gallon cartons of French Vanilla Coffeemate and asked her companion how it would taste on cereal “if it comes to that”. IF IT COMES TO THAT you will be glad to have cereal, lady, cream or no cream. Anyway, my alcohol supply is down to 2 bottles of wine, a half bottle of rum and a half bottle of bourbon. The Professor is down to a 6 pack of beer, a half bottle of gin and the other half of the bourbon. IF IT COMES TO THAT I supposed I could mix the bottle of peach schnapps that’s been unopened on my shelf for over a year with some of the Mojito mix that’s been sitting there open for even longer, because that’s just the kind of alcohol martyr that I might become IF IT COMES TO THAT, but I’m not really into dying at the moment, so I think I’ll just buy some more wine. After all, Wal-Mart has gone to the trouble of putting the entertainment so close to the wine aisle, how could I resist a double feature?