THANKS FOR NOTHIN'!!

I have a beautiful, precious baby girl who's now eight (I have another beautiful, precious baby girl who's six, but this story isn't about her). When she was little, Cinderella was the QUEEN of the Universe. We practically wore out the VCR tape that my friend loaned me. Since my kids don't really watch t.v. (I have a thing about t.v. - not an over-the-top thing, but a thing nonetheless), we spent a fair bit of time with the Disney classics.

I scoured the Earth looking for a copy that I could buy so that I could give our borrowed copy back. I checked all the usual places; the evil empire of Wal-Mart, all the bookstores, every online outlet that was up and running seven years ago and right back to the Disney Store itself. It was there that I was told that Cinderella was "in the vault" and wouldn't be released until some undisclosed date. It's a BRILLIANT, but frustrating, marketing ploy that Disney uses - they keep their best stuff "in the vault" and only dole them out at undetermined intervals to keep interest high. It feels oddly like a drug dealer who regulates his junkies' fixes. I figured that, given my luck, Cinderella would be released WAY too late to do me any good.

Yeah, I was right. Here we are, almost nine years later, Cinderella is just NOW getting released on DVD. Punkin is SO over Cinderella. PUH-LEESE! She's gone through two other princess by this point and is now into those horrid Bratz dolls (which, mean old parents that we are, we refuse to buy for her on principle. Barbies are bad enough - "big head" dolls are too much for me to take). I'm still considering buying the DVD anyway, though, so if Punkin grows up to have a daughter, she, too, can worship Cinderella (and her Mommy won't have to make herself crazy looking for a copy). That's worth the twenty bucks the DVD will cost, don't you think?

What IF?!?

I saw this



and it cracked me up. What IF God turns out to be a giant chicken? I suppose I'll have some explaining to do for all that KFC, huh?

Tenth Annual

Feast of the Autumnal Equinox.

This is a picture from 2001, but you get the idea. I'll give you a recap of today's events later this weekend....

Walking a Mile....

Okay. So we're in the midst of a HUGE addition project on our home. HUGE. Like, DOUBLING the original floor space. There's dust and dirt and big ole man-footprints everywhere (and when I say "everywhere," I'm not engaging in hyperbole, either. There's a big ole man-footprint on the kitchen counter, I swear to God). Food is stored in boxes in random places throughout the house because, well, I don't have a kitchen (see below, and keep in mind that this is NEAT because, well, the dry wall people haven't been in to add their particular talent to this party...)



I'm beginning to understand, even if only just a TEENY, TINY bit, how some people end up living in squalor. I mean, seriously, people; what POSSIBLE good is vacuuming going to do me at this point in my life? WHO CARES if I tidy the shoes in the back hall?! Neat shoes all in a row are not going to make up for the fact that almost NONE of our stuff is where it's SUPPOSED to be ("have you seen the bread?! Does anyone know where the BREAD IS?!?"). At this point? FlyLady can KISS MY WHITE YANKEE ASS because there is NO comfort to be found in a shiny sink from where I'm looking at life. There's not enough plastic in the WORLD to cover the stuff laying around the house to sufficiently protect it from having to be thoroughly dusted and/or sanitized when the dry wall guys are through with me. And WHAT'S the deal with construction-type workers and stairs?!? EVERY...SINGLE...ONE of my stair treads has black scuff marks on it where the insulation guy kicked on his way up and down this afternoon. And that's not counting the neat, size eleven footprints made of PERFECT bits of mud that caked in, and then fell out of, the treads of someone's boots.

Now I ask you, in the face of all this, what's a Type-A kinda gal to do? I'll TELL you what THIS Type-A gal does. She takes her laptop and hides in the only room in the house that still has walls and isn't being used as a storage facility, and posts a whiney little entry about freaking out over the condition of her house. Thank Sweet Jesus for wireless internet!

I started this whole process looking at it in much the same way I approached labor (both times). I knew it was coming and there was nothing I could do about it. I knew it was going to hurt - a lot - and for a whole hell of a lot longer than I wanted it to. I also knew, though, that when it was all over, I'd be glad I'd done it.

I still believe that, but right about now, I could REALLY use an epidural...

We Can Put a Man on the Moon....

...but we can't figure out how to cure - or for that matter, avoid - the common cold.

I am currently stumbling through my life with a remarkable pressure behind my face and a throat that feels as though it's been stuffed with wool threads (that occaisonally catch fire, by the way). I'm congested and drippy (which one would think would be contradictory conditions but, alas, so not..) and I have to pee about every twenty minutes because I'm trying to drown myself in an effort to stay hydrated and flush this bug out of my system as quickly as possible. Though I know my body really needs to sleep right now, the aforementioned internal conditions are making that an unlikely proposition. I also know that I need to eat, but nothing - not even chicken soup - seems the least bit appealing.

Blah...

Cruise Control is a Magic Decoder Ring...

...that reveals morons on the highway.

Seriously.

I have a fifty minute commute from my home to my work. Most of that commute happens on a hilly, two-lane highway with a 65 mile an hour speed limit. Usually, I ramp up my little car to about seventy-five and set the cruise control. Yeah, I know, I'm breaking the law (and admiting to it to the entire world), but the speed I set is not unreasonable for the road and I figure this way I'll know for sure how fast I'm going when I DO get pulled over (and it WILL happen, rest assured. "Ma'am, do you know why I've pulled you over?" "Why YES, officer, as a matter of fact I DO! I had my cruise control set at exactly 75 miles an hour!!").

So, picture this. I'm set at a consistent speed. "Consistent" is an important adjective here. So I'm in my little car, zipping along, when "FFFOOOOM!!" I'm passed like I'm standing still. Again and again. Now, remember that I'm ten miles over the speed limit as it is, so these guys have to be doing at LEAST ninety. That's the first job of the Cruise Control Decoder Ring; it gives us some perspective on the speed of those with whom we're sharing the road.

Then there are the folks who play leap-frog. You know, the car you'll pass, only to be passed by that car four miles later, only to pass it again six miles after that? My personal favorite is the guy who's happily zoning along, grooving to his music or whatever, who suddenly becomes very interested in driving after I pass him. Until he's passed by a chick in a little hatch-back, he was perfectly happy all in his own little world. Now, though, he's got something to prove, so he'll gun his engine and blow my doors off. Fine, whatever, I'm still on cruise control. What's funny is that, a few miles later, he'll have gotten over his little ego boost and slipped back into his happy place when I, STILL on cruise control, will pass him again. This can go on for miles and miles and miles.

I checked this afternoon. I was passed nine times. NINE. And I played leap-frog with three other cars - a white Ford Explorer, a maroon Nissan Altima, and a beat-up, piece-of-crap Honda. I'm going to keep an informal account to see what the record will be...

When You Put It THAT Way...

...it looks so pretty. This:



is my name in Elvish. I was goofing around on the computer the other day whilst Clyde watched the baseball game, and came upon a site that promised to teach me how to write my name in Elvish in ten minutes or less (wow. People have a LOT of time on their hands, huh?). Anyway, while I was cruising the internet, I was also IMing with Casablanca, and he decided to put it into his computer, added the dragonfly (which, if you don't already know, is my totem), and emailed the image to me the next day. I'm in love with it - I may have it made into a stamp.