It's what the in-crowd does

I had a couple thousand dollars worth of car work done this week. So what did I do to make myself feel better? I went shopping on Amazon. I blame it ALL on my sister, since she found it and sent me the link. It was on sale for $25 with free shipping. She knew I wouldn't be able to resist. I love being blameless in my shopping habits! So, instead of buying Christmas presents this week, I bought myself.... I am too cool for words. I mean, all the popular people can their own food. If there were meters for determining how hip you are, a canning set would spike you up to the top. I'm sure Angelina cans in her spare time. And then sends the food to Africa. Which makes her only SLIGHTLY cooler than I am. Which is why she has Brad and I don't. Not that I want Brad. I'm holding out for George. Or Pierce. Until then, I should go find something to feed The Professor. I don't want to lose him just yet.

Who needs Thanksgiving anyway?

I case you were unaware, today is Oct 20. For those of us who keep track of such things, this translates into two months and 5 days til Christmas. I have 10 nieces and nephews to buy presents for. I'm up to purchasing for number 8. And I know what I'm getting for the rest, it's just a matter of getting it. God bless Amazon. Wal-Mart is trying to convince me that I should be purchasing new ornaments and wreaths. I've heard at least two local radio stations playing Christmas music. I've received 3 catalogs in the mail with all their Christmas glory on the front page. Can I PLEASE celebrate Halloween first? I haven't purchased a pumpkin yet! I haven't even thought about candy for the 5,000+ kids that descend on our neighborhood. I DO NOT want to hear Christmas music until after Thanksgiving. And I'm already getting so sick of Christmas that I'm thinking of not putting up a tree. God knows I have enough other decorations to more than cover my home and 2 others. But there is one thing from the Christmas season that I wish would last all year long. It's even good enough to make me agree that the radio stations can play Christmas music if I can get it any time I want. After all, I pretty much only listen to NPR. So those other stations can do whatever the hell they want, if I can get this: I've been through a Pumpkin Spice and one Gingerbread already. This is my second. Big Sis told me she went to crazy and got sick of the flavored stuff. So I made myself take half and half all week, saving the good stuff for the weekend. This is my equivalent of crack-cocaine. I would probably shoot this stuff like heroin if I weren't deathly afraid of needles. Although that would completely defeat the purpose, because it's the taste I'm going for. Hell. I'm going to go drink another cup of coffee and work on my metaphors.

When the Moon is in the Seventh House and the wind blows East by slightly Northeast, miracles happen

StepSon just asked if we could play "Family Trivial Pursuit" tonight. Let's rephrase this so that you can grasp the whole meaning: My 16 year old stepson just asked to spend time together as a family in a way that guarantees actual interaction. First the drivers license. The dates. Now this. Oh my god, he's growing up. I'm going to store this memory up and give him a free pass the next time he leaves the toothpaste open and dripping on the sink.

Maturity Required

There are certain things that I have learned in my years on this planet. Chocolate is the work of a benevolent god. Wine is what the ancient ones meant by "ambrosia". 4 inch heels add an exponential amount of sexiness to my legs. Math - especially in the incarnation of tax forms - are the work of the devil. But, unfortunately, there are also things that I have not yet mastered. More than that, they are things that I think should have been on my "list of things I could competently handle before I moved out on my own." Things like shaving without getting out of the shower and wondering A) how the vampire hid from me in that very small space, and B) if I am a failure as a woman for not being able to shave without blood as an end result. Things like being able to watch The Hunt For Red October - which is not in any way a horror movie - without getting so claustrophobic that for DAYS my husband needs rope to keep him on the bed because I am clinging to him in case our house spontaneously morphs into a sinking submarine while I am being less than vigilant due to the need for sleep. /sigh Maybe these are abilities that occur during the fourth decade of life?

Frustration: A few definitions in the order that they invaded my world this morning

knowing as you pull out of your driveway that even though rush hour is an hour away, so is your place of employment, and you are on a collision course;

the sound that your thermos makes as you drink the last of your FULL POT of coffee a mere hour and a half after getting to work;

Knowing that you won't get any more caffeine til you get home;

Realizing that you won't be home for another TEN hours;

Listening to your boss pour more of HIS coffee into HIS coffee cup because this morning HE didn't become a caffeine-whore who couldn't get the liquid in her body fast enough;

Realizing that in addition to the fact that you basically just said "whore" to your mother, the pronouns in your last sentence were probably more confusing to every one else in the world than they were to you;

finding out that your StepSon, who was diagnosed with pleurisy four days ago, is right at this moment at the doctor because his temperature spiked up and his symptoms haven't gone away - and then realizing that you will be the very last person to know ANYthing about the situation and you just have to pray that information is sent down the pipeline faster than usual.

Masters of My Universe

Sultan likes to be the center of attention by spreading out on the floor in front of the TV and stretching all over the place. Usually in a completely graceless way that involves being on his back with his legs spread. I think he might have worked in a brothel in a previous life. Lucius likes to sleep. And he knows if he does it in a place we walk by often (on the way from the couch to the beer, and vice versa), we will be unable to stop our fingers from petting his fluffiness. And he is illegally fluffy.

Now looking for wrinkles and liver spots

Let’s get the main fact out there in front: I turn 30 in a couple of months. My best friend faced this important milestone with slightly more dread than she felt when she ran out of alcohol and went to the liquor store only to realize that she had to parallel park in a stick shift to get to said alcohol, but that this time I was nowhere near close enough for her to call me and make me come do it for her. When one of my sisters turned 30, I called and left her a compassionate message on her answering machine something along the lines of “ha-ha-ha-ha-ha you’re turning 30 and staying home with your gajillion kids and I’m only turning 20 and I’m going out drinking and dancing and partying with young good looking men all night ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” The next year when my other sister turned 30, I had been 21 for about two weeks. In other words, in order to recover from the massive hangover, I was going out drinking and dancing and partying with good looking men all night long. Translation: I just now realized that I probably never wished her a Happy Birthday that year. I’m sure I dedicated at least a drink and maybe even a close dance with a good looking man to her. Not that dance with that Really Hot Guy that one night that was so awesome- I don’t want to think of her then – but maybe that other dance a few weeks later with the Not-So-Hot Guy who slobbered on my neck right before I kneed him. Somehow, that seems like a more appropriate time to think of that sister. ANYway, now it’s my turn. And I’ve been pretty good with the whole thing. 30, 20, 40 – I’ll always have sisters that are older and brothers that are younger. But now Fate’s trying to make me regret my decision to never care about my age. I FOUND A GRAY HAIR THIS MONTH. Now, to be fair, I’ve been dying my hair for about 10 years, so it’s more than likely that the gray has been there for some time. My mom and sisters both had gray hair at my age. But they were crazy enough to have children. I wasn’t. Therefore, I do NOT deserve gray hair. Luckily, Clairol’s Natural Instincts can still beat the ass out of the gray hairs on my head, as it proved when I rushed my next dye job. This is not living in denial. It’s called being a woman. Still, it could be worse. My husband now has gray hairs on his chest. If I degenerate that far and sprout gray hairs on my chest, just load my Oxygen canister with some good dope and put me in a diaper. Because life will not be worth living. And as if the Deadly Showdown taking place on my head wasn’t enough, Stepson went and got his driver’s license this week. Someone decided he’s allowed to take control of a car. I’m convinced that if the driving examiner had to live with 16 year olds and see the decisions they make on a day-to-day basis, then no one under the age of 25 would be able to operate anything more complicated than a toaster oven. And not one of those fancy ones with the bagel settings either. Still, Stepson is a very careful driver. To keep myself from having nightmares, I tell myself that surely – surely – he will not make stupid teenage decisions, that he has benefited from the close proximity he’s had to my wisdom for the past several years. And that maybe this will somehow spill over into the rest of his life and he will finally understand that it’s NEVER acceptable to eat ice cream over my favorite chenille throw?

Best headline of the day

Cannabis Ingredient May Prevent Mad Cow Disease Who do I have to pay off to come back as a cow in my next life?

It's like I live in a show on Animal Planet. Also, proof that I'm not a good photographer.

Thursday night, I went outside for my daily dose of watching the birds do their thing in the backyard. They refuse to eat the stale bread crumbs that I throw out for them. Those slowly deteriorate until they've melted into the ground. The suet cake that I hung for them in April showed no sign of being reduced in size until it halfway melted in our August heatwave. I don't know what they're eating, but they LOVE anything that I haven't touched. I've thought about a bird house, but - besides the fact that it would be tainted by me, and therefore unusable to them - one of my neighbors has three outdoor cats, one of which prowls around our house like we're his vacation destination of choice, and somehow I think luring the birds to his vacation spot would just be cruel. He's a beautiful Siamese, and he likes to walk around the outside of our house, causing my two indoor cats to run frantically from window to window, determined to howl the house down if necessary in order to protect it from this threat. The Siamese will occasionally jump our privacy fence and walk around our backyard, probably just to show our cats that he's the boss of the neighborhood and his person loves him enough to let him roam free and be king of the jungle, while their person is obviously a heartless idiot who only keeps them around for her own amusement. The funny moment came when the Siamese jumped over our fence, and found a full grown German Shepherd unexpectedly napping about 20 feet away. And then ran, in full berserk mode, screeching the entire time, straight back up the fence and over the top. I laughed so hard that I may or may not have peed in my pants a little. Anyway, Thursday night I went outside and got my own surprise... He was sitting on the window sill when I went out, but I had to run back and get the camera. The flash scared him more than a little, and he jumped around the corner to hide in our drain spout: Because - as the Siamese established above - I am mean and heartless, I kept taking his picture with a flash in a vain attempt to get a better picture of him. For some unknown reason, this caused him to try to hide even more, and I was only able to get a shot of his butt as he disappeared: I named him Prince. I already have my own personal prince, so I didn't do anything like kiss him. But it'd be nice if he stuck around in case I ever needed a spare. I thought calling him Prince might make him feel important. Some people might call that bribery. I call it prudence. So,the next time you think I don't lead an exciting life, just remember - I practically live in the jungle here in my little garden spot of Alabama. Any day now I could go outside and meet a lion. I just hope he waits for me to blog about him before he eats me for lunch.

Bag of Crap!

There's this website called Woot! And they do this thing where they sell Bags of Crap. Yes, Bags of Crap. And if you're really lucky and waiting for it, you can get one before their servers crash. Because their servers always crash. Two weeks ago, I got lucky. I was able to order a bag of crap with three items. This means that I get one bag of some type, with at least three random things in it. It could be a letter telling me I got a 32" HDTV. It could be an empty bag of cheetos. Or anything in between. My Bag of Crap arrived today: I got: A red and black back pack; a Dancing Monkey Woot! Tshirt; a Bluetooth hands-free car kit (which may or may not have all the pieces included - I got the manual, but the pieces weren't in a box, they were just all thrown around; 2 face masks, one of which is messed up on the side and neither of which has string to tie them on with. For my first bag of crap, I'm pretty happy.