electric mist

'tater launch prep day

Tomorrow will be our 5th Annual 'Tater Launch party, where we gather everyone we can (whoever is sober enough after a big NY's night out) and they come to our house for lunch and sometime during the afternoon, they will all go outside to the backyard where they will put a potato into a PVC pipe "gun" and will -- through various mechanical means, some hair-spray as propellant, and a flint -- ignite said 'tater and shoot it out of the gun.

Yes, we are all about class 'round here, let me tell you.

The first year started innocently enough, I suppose. Friends were visiting from D.C., and they'd never been here. I wanted to minimize their perception of southerners as "hicks" and so had planned a couple of minor events to showcase Louisiana and our culture. The very first night, though, Carl and the wife of my friend started riffing at the restaurant on potatoes and ways to serve them. They hadn't even been drinking, and somehow, launching 'taters at people in a drive-through was suggested and before I knew what had happened, Carl was explaining shooting 'taters from a 'tater gun. The wife said she'd never heard or seen such a thing and Carl promised her that she'd get to shoot a 'tater before she left. So much for not being hicks. I don't know what I was expecting.

Anyway, the next day or so went well, and I thought everyone had forgotten about the 'tater gun, but then on the first, when our families and a few friends came over for lunch and to meet my visiting friends, the next thing I knew is that Carl and Luke and Jake had broken out the 'tater gun and were outside with my visiting friends and they were shooting 'taters. We live in a nice neighborhood, people. And my family was outside, shooting 'taters over the neighbor's yards at first, until they realized that maybe that wasn't such a bright idea. I was fairly mortified until I looked out there and realized the wife had ahold of the 'tater gun and was so excited about shooting one, she was jumping with glee.

So that's how it began. And everyone leaving there that day said, "See you next year for the next 'tater launch" and the tradition was born.

Now we have lots and lots of food, I get a spacewalk for the little kids (which just arrived as I write this) and there are TVs on everywhere with whatever big game is on. Meanwhile, everyone pigs out and shoots 'taters (now we build a big target so we don't littler the neighbors' yards) and general silliness prevails.

(There has been only one emergency room visit. I am strangely proud of that.)

Photos tomorrow...

friends, mayhem and madness

I had a wonderful visit with Jette today when she was able to stop in for a couple of hours on her way through Baton Rouge back to Austin. It was an absolute blast talking with her and the time flew (helped along probably by my asking her a zillion questions and subject hopping like mad). We traded food (a natural thing to do here) and I loved the Kinky Friedman's black-eyed pea dip sauce she left me. (I'm going to have to order more!) Hopefully, we'll get to visit a lot sooner next time. I think it's been six or so years (or maybe... eight?) since we last met when I was in Austin.

Daisy did a terrific thing -- she did a 24-entry Blogging for Aid, which I thought was just superb. I donated for every entry to the American Red Cross.

I cannot wrap my head around that devastation. I've since watched some amateur footage and stills which are so shocking, it's hard to believe it's not real and those aren't movie extras running on a beach and then in the next shot, lying under debris, lifeless. I am stunned at the losses. And amazed at so many people who have said, "I will go," and are on their way there, or are already there, in terrible conditions trying to make the disaster somehow manageable. I know I will keep looking for ways to give, even in the coming months; I hope you will, too.

the aviator

Spoilers (somewhat), so don't read if that matters to you.

Late yesterday, we went to see The Aviator, the story about Howard Hughes. This was one of those moments when Carl was really sure he was going to enjoy the film (he's big on historical stuff) and I was willing to humor him for all of the times I've dragged him to films he wasn't all that keen on seeing.

Let me just put it like this: save yourselves.

I really really really want the six years I spent in that theater back.

I knew it wasn't going to be good within the first few minutes. Carl agreed with me by minute seven when I looked at him and he said, "I am sooooo sorry."

The thing is, it's hard to say what's actually bad about the film, other than I just didn't care, and no one ever ever made me care. Leonardo DiCaprio is kinda on my "eh, whatever" list. I will grant you that he may be a first class actor, but he's so baby faced that to me, he just doesn't have the gravitas to pull off some of the story, though he gives it an admirable shot. But all through the entire film, I was always thinking, "Yeah, there's Leo doing an admirable job acting," and "Wow, I'll be he's hoping that's his Oscar shot." Meanwhile, Cate Blanchette also does a fine job, particularly the first time we see her, of being Kate Hepburn. So much so, I had this eerie sense of seeing Kate up there on the screen. But later in the film, she seems to lose Kate Heburn's edge. Now, maybe that's how the real Kate Hepburn was in real life -- bigger, edgier in public, softer in private, but it felt like we were watching a digression. And the story itself had enough big moments and overcoming-the-odds sorts of stakes / tension, but everything about Howard Hughes still felt exterior, like they had assembled good visuals about why he was the way he was without really understanding them, and so they were just presenting this and hoping it would be enough. But it never felt like enough. I always felt like I was watching vignettes on Hughes, not a fully thought-out story, and certainly I never felt pulled into the experience. There was no suspension of disbelief because there was nothing really there to believe in.

And this one will probably get a bunch of Oscar nominations. I would imagine Scorscese, who hasn't won an Oscar (is that right?) will win, unless someone else totally comes out of left field. (But I can't think of anything this year that was all that great, so he stands a fair chance of walking away with it, plus the Academy wants to give him something for his longterm career achievements.)

At any rate, we left the theater wishing we'd done almost anything else, including braved the mall for some gift-exchanging we ought to have done.

conversations with the dead

Well, it felt like it was with the dead, for all the interaction I was getting.

Me: Hi. I called in yesterday for the refill on the prescription for my husband. They said your office had to call it in, and no one's called in yet.

Dr.'s Office Woman (DOW): Well, you should have left a message.

Me: I did. Three of them. I spoke to you, first. And then left two on the voice mail when you forwarded me when you told me you were going to get me a nurse.

DOW: Oh. Let me get the nurse for you now.

Me: Oh, no you don't. I know that trick. I want to talk to you. When is your office going to call in the refill?

DOW: I don't do that, Ma'am. So I don't know. You'll have to talk to the nurse.

Me: Is she there?

DOW: Certainly, if you'll leave her a message, she'll call you right--

Me: No, I mean, is she standing right there next to your elbow?

DOW: Um, no....

Me: Well, then nope, I don't want to talk to her, I want to talk to you. I want you to shout to her -- I've seen your office, I know her little desk is in a corner three feet away from you. So you just shout on over to her and find out when she's going to call in that refill, because I'm not buying this whole "gonna call ya back" scheme.

DOW: (haughtily) This is not a scheme, Ma'am. We have certain procedures we must follow and--

Me: Okay, see. I have a procedure, too. Here's how my procedure works. I start off nice and polite and I try to follow the rules, but then you people don't do what you're supposed to do. So then I get creative. Really very very creative. And you want to know how creative I can get? I figured out that instead of waiting here by the phone to find out when you've refilled the prescription so that I can go run my errands and pick it up, especially after you've toyed with me for the whole day yesterday and teased me that somebody over there was actually going to refill the damned thing, I realized I would have PLENTY of time to drive on over to your office and stand in front of your desk. That way, as soon as you saw the nurse, you could grab her and get her to sit her scrawny little ass down and make the phone call to the pharmacy. Or you could fax them from the fax machine that is two inches to your left. See, if I'm going to spend ALL THAT TIME WAITING, I'm going to do it where I can at least get some entertainment. And if you think I'm chatty right now, just IMAGINE me standing in your office, not two feet in front of you, striking up conversations with everyone all of those hours and you know what? I've got a WHOLE LOT OF ENERGY right now, seeing how I have all this built-up-- what's that? Oh, there's the nurse. Really. And she's what?

(she holds the phone so I can hear the nurse telling the pharmacy to refill the presecription... then she returns to the line)

DOW: Ma'am? Your refill's going to be ready in about five minutes.

Me: Thank you. And you might want to put a note down next to my name that says "Crazy stalker person" so that the next time I call, we don't have to do this, okay?

DOW: Um, yes ma'am.

Me: Good. Now you have a nice day.

hmph.

top cluck

Christmas morning, and gift carnage, and so much strewn wrapping paper, we may never find the cat again, and all is good. And you know how it is that the majority of the time, the kids like the boxes as much as the gifts, or they'll like the cheapest thing you get much much more than the big deal present? Well, to continue that tradition, both the boys loved, coveted, and drooled over their brand spanking new "super balls" -- the mega bouncy take-out-every-knick-knack ball for a dollar at the dollar store that I bought at the last minute to put in their stockings. Which Luke, 22, managed to bounce into the fire in the fireplace after I repeatedly told him NOT TO BOUNCE IT IN THE HOUSE, TO WAIT 'TIL HE GOT TO HIS OWN HOUSE. He snatched it out of the fire, and it's now got little flame-ish swoopy changes in the color. Or their favorite may have been the toy (plastic, 1 foot long) bow and arrows their dad gave them WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE OR PERMISSION, PEOPLE. The package in which Carl had placed: cotton balls, vaseline and a lighter. To make flaming arrows, you see. Which, of course, they did immediately but at least shot them out onto the patio area so they couldn't catch the house on fire. (The vaseline makes the cotton balls burn longer.)(Oh, the joy.)

And Carl's favorite? Well, it's probably a tie between the DVD of all of the Road Runner and other Looney Tunes or the:

Rubber chickens. Five, because he must have asked me a million times for the last two years if anyone was getting him one. (The little ones are key chains, because everyone really needs a rubber chicken key chain. Right?)

Carl had loaned his original rubber chicken to his sister (he's 45, she's 43, I do not make these things up, people), and she wouldn't give it back. She also has one of those invisible dog walking leash things that belongs to him, the kind you get from Disney? That she's strapped his chicken into so it looks like she's walking the rubber chicken. So I figured after hearing about that chicken for two years, I would get him FIVE, because really, that would be WAY MORE THAN NECESSARY to shut him up about the chicken. And did that work? Of course not. He immediately got a kick out of them and then decided, wow, he really wants FIFTY of them now because he wants to make a RUBBER CHICKEN CHANDELIER. And dress them all up in little aviator caps and goggles and parachutes. And maybe even wire them and hook up the mechanics so that they could dance to music. Or fly in some sort of synchronized pattern. He's going to have them all be "Top Cluck" fliers, the top 10% recruited to fly for their country. Or something.

I'd call the men with the funny little white coats, but he'd probably recruit them into making the damned thing.

puddy-the-red-nosed-cat

So, I wake up on Christmas Eve, groggy as all hell because I'd stayed up until three a.m. to wrap the rest of the presents. (And because my dad was having to hide my mom's presents at our house, I was wrapping those, too.) I stumble semi-blindly into the office and plop in front of the computer to check e-mail, and the cat rises up out of her basket to greet me and something seemed odd... and I squinted, and then I realized it wasn't bad enough that Carl had tried to wrap the cat, now he had given her a bright red nose:

That's red ink. (It's washing off.) Thank God I got there before he had figured out how to wire little antlers on her head.

(And she's so dumb, if given a choice, she'll go love on him first. She has no idea of the amount of times I have saved her so far.)

overheard at the mall

One of the crazy-but-fun things about a crowded mall is that people just stop thinking about the fact that other people are inches away (as in a very crowded food court) and can hear everything being said (particularly when it's not exactly being whispered.)

We went around the mall the rest of the evening saying "Vortex of impossibility" for everything we didn't like. And giggling like kids. To that older couple.... thank you.

hurdling the reindeer

Just so I'm not only abusing the oldest son...

When Jake was three (and Luke, seven), it was time for the Christmas shopping expedition. There really is nothing more pleasant than bundling up two little kids, doubling their size with the warm outfits (which takes two hours and several bathroom breaks and there will be parts of the outfits which they will shed in various places and you'll never ever ever see the match to that sock so don't even hope for it), buckling them into the car seats (which takes another two hours and they've already grown by that point, so you have to re-dress them again) and then finally making your way to the mall which is so crowded, you have to park in the next state and walk three billion miles with two little kids, (one in the stroller) and then fight a mass of people just to get inisde. Luckily on that outing, I was meeting my mom (or else everyone would have had IOU notes for Christmas at that point)(just call me Grinch).

The part that had me nervous was that Jake was sort of decently potty trained... as long as we were home. But he was the world's worst about waiting until the very last minute to tell us he had to go to the bathroom. Put him in front of a crowd, and he'd clam up and we wouldn't realize the problem until the problem had already happened. He insisted on wearing his new underwear (and was absolutely heart-broken and destroyed that I might not let him because he was a BIG BOY). So I emphasized for the entire ride to the mall that he MUST tell me when he needed to go to the bathroom and as soon as he knew. Not to wait. I'd say, "You're going to tell Mama, right?" to which he'd say, "Nope." "Oh, sure you are, you're going to tell Mama early enough, right?" "Nope." He'd laugh, but I wasn't entirely sure if he was joking (I mean, he was three. Did three year olds know blackmail that early? Or was he just joking?)

When we were in the mall, I must have asked him a trillion times if he needed to go, and he kept saying no. All I was praying for was at least a little tug on my sleeve or a pained expression -- any small clue, but he was laughing and happy and busy toppling displays whenever I'd so much as look for a micro-second in another direction....

[an aside... when he was the same age, about a month earlier, we were at the park watching Luke play t-ball. Jake ran up to me and said, "Mama, I go push tree down?" I looked over where he was pointing at these -- and I'm not exaggerating -- thirty-foot trees about ten feet behind me and I said, "Sure." Because hey, it would keep him busy and what could he hurt? Well, a little while later, one of the other kids tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Ms. Toni? I think you better look." And I turned around and the child had pushed one of those staked trees to a 45 degree angle. Blew my mind. I still don't know how he did it and the other kids swear they didn't help.]

So, anyway, Jake was mutilating Christmas displays, Mom and I were trying to watch both Jake and Luke (who probably was over somewhere conning some man out of his wristwatch). We had finally made all of our selections and had been waiting in a very long line at the check-out. Very long line. I had two birthdays while I was waiting and I filled out retirement forms. Long. Line.

Finally, I was up next to be checked out, when I suddenly realized Jake wasn't right by my side. I looked over and there he was in the aisle and he was squatting down with a big grin on his face. And he shouted, "Mommy, I HAVE TO POOO POOOOOOOOO." The kid I couldn't get to whisper the word "bathroom" was shouting "Poooo Poooooh." Over. And. Over. I swear, he was so loud, LSU called and he'd registered on the Richter scale in the geology department. And then he started turning red-faced with the effort.

I looked down at my three thousand selections that I was just about to purchase and the VERY long line that had taken me now six years to navigate just to get up to the cash register and then over at that kid turning bright red and I swear, for this brief moment, I wondered which level of hell I'd be sent to if I checked out first.

The entire store froze with horror and every single person there looked at me like they were personally going to write to God and have me thrown out of the human race because I hadn't planned better and my child was about to poo in the middle of the department store with his little Christmas gift. I caved and threw down my purchases and grabbed the diaper bag from my mom and scooped him up. People were parting like the Red Sea and clerks were guiding me through the masses in the store like I was a 747 landing with toxic wastes. I ran, people. Ran. Took out customers, knocked a display of Christmas ornaments all over the floor and slid through a display of gloves. At some point, I hurdled a reindeer display to get to the bathroom and the whole way there, I'm begging him to wait just one more second, we'll be there! We'll make it! And we rushed into the bathroom and just in the nick of time...

For him to giggle. And say, "I no have to poo pooo, Mama."

Somewhere between my wheezing for breath and my tears, I said, "Kid. You are going to poo or else we're never leaving this room. Ever."

Of course, he giggled again.

To be had, by a three-year-old. He was perfectly fine the entire rest of the trip. No poo, no potty, no nothing but giggles. I probably should have frisked him for wallets or watches or deeds to old people's houses.

(And one day, when he has a kid of his own? I am so teaching that kid all sorts of bad tricks.)

sneaky

When the boys were dropping in last night, I knew at least one of them would "wander" into our master bedroom and casually sneak a peek to see if there were any presents unwrapped. I hoped that since they were, you know, actually GROWN MEN now, they would refrain from such silliness, but on the off chance that either of them was tempted, I hid the presents and set a little trap.

Luke walked back into the kitchen, and looked at me with such disappointment.

"Way to lose your edge there, Mom."

"What do you mean?"

"What'd you do, think, 'Oh, I'll hide these presents. I'll throw a sheet over them, no one will suspect a thing!' Man, that's not even a challenge! You used to be so creative. Remember the duct taped closet door and the secret patterns so you'd know when we moved anything? Or the time you put the voice-activated tape recorder in your bedroom so you'd know if we went in there? Or the time you booby-trapped the whole attic?"

"But I set a trap! I would know if you went in if you tripped it."

"Kinda defeats the purpose if I've already found the presents."

"YOU'RE 22! Do you know this?"

Toni asked in the comments just how my throwing the sheet over them was a trap (well, that's paraphrased, she asked it better). I had put pennies on the tops of the closet doors because what the boys usually did was go try to look for something and then DENY DENY DENY that they ever even had an impure thought about finding their Christmas presents. So the only way I thought I'd know if they peeked was if the pennies fell from the exact location I'd placed them. (I learned long ago not to use tape or anything they could see because they'd put it back in the right spot. But they can't see exactly where the pennies are and once they've fallen, they have to guess where to put them back and it's rare that they're right. So then I know they've been in the closet.) They've gotten so good at denying and playing "innocent" that I figured the dropped pennies would rat them out. I didn't bargain for the fact that he would brazenly open the door and make fun of me for only putting sheets over the presents. I think he's right -- I'm definitely losing my edge.

(He says he didn't look -- that the challenge just wasn't there. Man, if that was the secret all along? Damn.)

leading cause of penguin death

This totally cracked me up.

smack me with the stupid stick

My oldest son was here a little while ago with his girlfriend. He'd been waiting until after finals to do his Christmas shopping and now that they're over and he's survived (sort of), he was going to go pick out her present tonight. He wanted to ask my advice, so he made an excuse to go to the back of the house and a few minutes later, I followed. (I have yet to actually see him "fold some clothes to bring back to [his] house" so I knew that was complete bollocks and an obvious ruse.) His plan was to drop her off at a friend's house and pick up her present, then meet them out.

In the process of talking about the gift, which type to purchase, what accessories he was going to need, he mentioned which store he was going to. A few minutes later, and right before we went back into the other room where his girldfriend was, he said, "Now, don't mention the store. Whatever you do, she's already suspicious."

I could not believe he had the nerve to warn me. ME. Who is such an old pro at hiding what people have for Christmas, I could give lessons. The person who was so convincing when not letting someone figure out what they'd had for a present, they went and bought another damned one of them for themselves, which meant me returning the original. The person who sat with someone for THREE HOURS and fixed some things on their old computer, even though I knew they had a new one about to show up in two days, but I knew that they knew I would know what they were getting and I didn't want them to figure it out, so I fixed a junk computer for THREE HOURS that I'll never get back because they ended up not ever using that old computer again. I am a PRO at this, baby. A pro. The CIA should hire me. I am that good.

So what did I do when I walked back out there where my son was now standing not far from his girlfriend? Did I strike up the witty, diverting banter? Did I talk about the weather, the holiday lights, the traffic, the way that my neighbor's 16-year-old son had shown up at my back door clad only in his boxers because he'd gotten his car stuck in the mud when he wasn't where he was supposed to be and he was trying to keep his clothes clean so his mom wouldn't find out and wanted my youngest son to help him get out of the mud? (Didn't work.) No, of all of the three quibillion things I could have said right then, what did I, the professional present-hiderer, supreme secret keeper do?

I looked at the shirt he had on, noticed a hole in the front and said, "You're not really going to wear that to Best Buy, are you?"

Yes, just smack me with the stupid stick. Man.

He turned (where she couldn't see him) and gave me that long, slow death glare he's perfected (I don't know where he could have possibly learned that one from). And I tried to cover.

"Well, I mean, seriously, it's a crap shirt and you've got to pick up that present for your dad for me and you'll have my check to pay them. I don't want them to think you're some sort of bum who mugged me in the parking lot."

"Gee, Mom. Thanks."

"Hey, I'm just here to help." (If looks could kill, I'd be sizzling right now.)

Something tells me the CIA isn't going to be calling anytime soon.

and then there's always the bow

Carl (husband) decided to wrap a few presents. Whenver Carl has possession of anything like scissors and tape, certain animals in our house should know to be afraid. Unfortunately, the cat is as dumb as a bag of sticks, and I think that's probably an insult to sticks everywhere. So a little while later, I find Carl, by himself, in the living room, chuckling. Not a good sign.

Me: What are you doing?
Carl (a little too innocently): Wrapping.
Me: Where are the presents you've wrapped?
Carl: Um, over there.

He points to a sort of oblong present which is wiggling and has a cat paw sticking out of it.

Me: You wrapped the cat?
Carl: She kept sitting in the middle of the paper. So I figured she wanted to participate.
Me: And exactly how did she seem to take it?
Carl: Well, she rolled off the table, and she's got two paws out, so I'm thinking she's not entirely in the Christmas spirit.

A half hour later, she was out of the paper and attacking it, running away and then sneaking up on it again. Now he wants to tape a bow to her head. I'm not sure we're going to survive Christmas. She already hides in the tree and leaps out and pounces on anyone walking past. Which makes the tree wobble. I just know one day I'm going to walk in there and the entire tree is going to be on the floor with one very happy cat sitting to the side. All she'll need are the little bubble words over her head, saying, "Wrap that, you sucker."

overheard at the party

A husband and wife were talking about their sons at the party last night.

Wife: Yeah, the oldest is kinda an old soul. I think he was born an old man and he'll always be an old man.

Guest: That must be nice. He probably doesn't do all of the impetuous things other kids his age do.

Husband: No, but just so you know, we have raised the perfect child because apparently, he knows everything.

Second guest: And the second son?

Wife: Oh, he's a brand spanking new soul. Still has the sticker on him.

Husband: And after his last wreck, we're in sticker shock.

Guest: Ow.

barbie's dream skirt

I loathe shopping. I know that one sentence bans me from all of the girly traditions and the cooing over beautiful clothes or designer nail polishes or whatever it is that some grown women coo over (and they do). I love beautiful clothes, I just hate to shop. When I was a teenager, I was worse. Much worse. I would walk to the entrance of a store, scan it, and know immediately that there was nothing in there I wanted. Drove my mother completely around the bend. And she would insist I couldn't possibly know everything in the store from the displays / close racks, so she'd drag me in there and force me to go through each and every possibility. Which never worked, and not just because I was being stubborn. She'd never find anything in those stores, either. Of course, what really burned her cookies was when I would stand in a doorway, scan a room, see exactly what I wanted, walk over to it, check the size and that was it, I was ready to go. There were no such a thing as bonding over shopping for us. It was combat warfare from the moment we entered the mall until I agreed to buy something, damnit, and I don't think we generally spoke to each other on the trip home.

So you can imagine my delight in online shopping. I would buy everything online, if I could. Unfortunately, there is a party I must attend, and I very literally had nothing appropriate to wear and was having no luck last week with the online gig, so I thought I'd brave the mall.

There are not enough numbers in the heavens to count the ways I hate the mall.

I expected complete disaster. I cannot remember, and I'm searching all of the way back to pre-giving-birth days, when I went into a store and found something on the first try and it fit and worked for the occasion and didn't require me selling my first born to purchase it. But it happened today, which fried my brain. Totally fried it, which is the only explanation I can find for my deciding that, "Hey, that was cool, I wonder what's in the next store?"

I plead insanity.

I wandered through the mall and came to the conclusion that most of the rest of the stores had stocked their shelves and hangers according to this general breakdown:

1) Cheap slut
2) Expensive slut
3) Matronly crone

Why is there nothing fun, sexy, that isn't all about being see-through (hello, it's going to be in the 30s, I don't believe I'll be wearing see-through to a group party where my mom and dad will be, thank you). I am all about wearing stuff that looks sexy, but I really don't want to look like I charge by the hour, especially not a cheap hour. (Hey, I have standards.)

I did, however, wander into a larger store that had gorgeous things. And I found a flirty leather skirt there with a ruffle, and when I touched the leather, it was buttery soft and flouncy in just the right way and I was already imagining the cute little top I could pair with it and then I looked at the price and it was $350.00. For a skirt. And even though we make decent money, my brain instantly parsed that into a car payment and I didn't even think about taking it back to the dressing room.

That is just more depressing than not finding anything. I think I liked shopping better back when I hated it and refused to go. Because now, I keep thinking about that Barbie dream skirt.

he got the memo

One of our clients has a pretty good sense of humor, and we're always razzing each other. Recently, I had to send him a bid, and I forgot to sign it. He called, yammering that it wasn't worth the paper it was printed on without my "official" signature. So I signed it and sent it back with my "official" signature:

Toni C_____, Supreme High Commander of the Universe

So now when I send him a bid with my "regular" signature, he calls and says he can't accept it because my official one isn't on there. Of course, now when he calls, he always asks for the Supreme High Commander. As if she has the time for piddly little phone calls.

(I can dream, at least.)(Hey, why does the Supreme High Commander still have to change the cat litter? I need to see the handbook.)

updated, mostly...

Just realized that I hadn't been categorizing all of the humor entries -- updated them through about half of my archives. Will try to catch the other half soon. So if you're looking for something posted here you thought was funny and you don't see it immediately on the front page, check out the humor category on the right hand side and it may be there.

And everyone give a sad wave to my poor pitiful left side, who has been completely neglected for months. It threatened to pack up its knickers and runaway and I just caught it making PB&J sandwiches for a knapsack. I really need to pay it some attention. Er, soon.

time traveling again...

Carl's been invited to exhibit his Time Machine with a traveling Smithsonian exhibit. It's for kids (who tend to love the crazy thing he made) and the "installation" is in January. I'm not sure how long the exhibit runs, but woo! Smithsonian. He's over the moon.

Carl's Time Travel Machine was featured again a few weeks ago at a local Gallery, which ended up having several hundred people moving through the art exhibition that night. The first night he'd been invited last may, we took these photos. I've got a bunch more from that night and from this new night that I need to get up on that site in thumbnails, but if you haven't seen them, they're funny.

on the cooking...

You know, on the entry below, a couple of you were saying to enjoy him cooking, which I do, but I have to tell about the epiphany.

See, I loathe cooking. Hate it, hate it, hate it, and just in case there's any doubt, I really hate it. I get bored, wander off to the office to just jot a note about something and forty minutes later, there's billowing smoke from the kitchen and we're heading for take-out. (My oldest son had a standing rule that whenever I'd call him to bring home a loaf of bread or hamburger buns, he'd buy two of whatever I'd asked for. Because he knew I was going to get distracted and burn the first round. And I'd bristle and feel kinda like I should be offended, except that I would generally forget what was going on in the kitchen, wander off and damned if I didn't burn the first round.)

But. When Carl and I were first married and the boys were young, it seemed like it ought to be up to me to cook. You know, those pesky kids actually expected to eat. And while Carl and I owned the construction business right from the start, I was the one able to be home, (doing the bids / calls / bookkeeping), but he was the one out, keeping long hours, so shouldering the cooking burden seemed only fair.

Except.

Every single time he'd walk in and whatever was cooking, he'd start messing with it. He'd add a little this, stir a little that, reconfigure a little something else and he was quite good at it. Whatever he cooked was five star. The man could walk in and I was making plain old ham sandwiches, and the next thing I know, he's taken out the mushrooms, the green onions, the butter, and he's sautéing them with god-knows-what-else, then adding two or three kinds of meats, then toasting the bread in the grill with a little butter, then layering it all into a sandwich with four kinds of cheese and tomatoes and an hour later (of course, after the kids had gnawed off their elbows, they were so hungry), we'd have mouth-watering sandwiches that tasted better than anything from a restaurant. I'm not kidding, if we had been able to figure out how to run a restaurant, it would have been his dream job, he loves it so much. Only, every time he'd pull that stunt, it was when I had been trying to cook, and not doing too badly at it, and he was moving me out of the way, or nudging the spoon out of my hands and generally taking over the kitchen, which really annoyed the hell out of me. I mean, how dare he! Take over the cooking! And be all annoyingly happy doing it! He's not even miserable like me! He's not suffering! He's enjoying it!

And then an epiphany struck me like a pot upside the head.

It was like, "Hey, stupid. He's having fun. You love to eat. Let him cook!"

I think it only took me five or six years to have that epiphany. (I never claimed to be smart.) At any rate, we made a deal early on... he would cook as much as he wanted and I would eat it.

I want you to know I even held a straight face when we made that deal. I didn't dance around with a victory lap or anything.

Oh, I generally do all of the cleaning, which can be a disaster sometimes (but apparently not quite as bad as whatever it was he'd done in the previous entry), and I don't mind. No, really, I don't. Because man, we're talking amazing food, always available, in the fridge or freezer for extras.

And believe me, he knows that he is greatly appreciated.

some things you just don't want to know

My husband came into the bedroom early this morning when my alarm went off. (As usual, he'd gotten up a couple of hours before me and let me sleep in.) I could instantly smell the wonderful, rich aroma of shrimp and corn soup, one of my favorites. But he looked a little... orange. I rubbed my eyes, squinting (I wear contacts), trying to focus on his blurry form and decide just why he looked so... yeah, orange... and he said, "Um. You're not going to be going into the kitchen any time soon, right?" Usually I'm already groggily stumbling towards the refrigerator to get that first diet Coke of the day to start trying to put consonants and vowels together. "Because it's a little messy, and I didn't want it to scare you."

Now those are words you want to wake up to on a Sunday morning.

"Are you... covered in carrots?"

"Um, maybe. How well can you see?"

"I see shredded carrots all over your shirt."

"Oh. Yeah. Well. I decided to make a double batch of the soup, you know, so we could freeze some, and wrap some up for Christmas presents (which I would have interrupted to find out just how in the hell did he think he was going to do that, but he's scary in that he probably would have had some sort of idea, but he kept talking)... and so I needed more shredded carrots for the soup. And the food processor and I had a little struggle. There was this mound of carrot parts that wouldn't come out and I didn't realize they weren't coming out because there were already a bunch of them in the bowl and the processor was sort of shooting them over the bowl and over the island and I was holding my hand over there to keep it from shooting them too far and the next thing I know, a bunch of the carrots I was shoving in with the other hand had gone in, but they hadn't come out and it turns out that if you put in way more than what's coming out, good things do not happen. It also turns out that if carrots stay in a processor too long while it's going that you get carrot juice. And I was sticking my fingers in the one end thinking I'd nudge the wad of shredded carrots stuck in there on out, and I realized that was sort of stupid, because hey, food processor, and the next thing I know, it sort of exploded. I've cleaned up a bunch of it, but I'm not really finished. So don't come in the kitchen for a little while, okay?"

And that, folks, is when you say, "Okay," and quit asking questions. Because I saw a lot of green on that shirt and really, I didn't want to know.

does workman's comp cover this?

So. I'm trying to figure out exactly how to fill out the workman's comp claim. You know, where it says, "Explain incident." (True story.)

1) Client, who we shall describe as "colorful" and "eccentric" had a pet squirrel.

2) Please notice the past tense above.

3) Said squirrel, named Lucy, is a very lively, rambunctious "rescue" pet.

4) Lucy lived in a large bird cage with lots of things to do, but Lucy is a very clever, smart squirrel.

5) Lucy could open the cage at will, when Client wasn't looking.

6) Client didn't know and therefore couldn't explain this to our employees.

7) Lucy, being a squirrel, likes to climb. And is rather playful.

8) Lucy luuuuuuuuuuvvvvvvvvvves our carpenter, Brian. Luuuuuuuuuuuuuves him because he gave her treats.

9) When Brian was on the other side of the house, Lucy decided to go visit Brian.

10) Lucy opened her cage, sped through the house, climbed up a wall behind Brian and landed on Brian's head.

11) We think she may have been trying to kiss him. Or dig in his cheeks for treats. We're not sure.

12) Brian was a little surprised.

13) We're replacing the broken mirror, the broken sink, and the large hole in the wall is being repaired.

14) Lucy can apparently jump quite far when whatever she's standing on moves abruptly.

15) She jumped more than six feet across the room and landed on the next best target.

16) Our other employee's face.

17) Who hadn't seen any of this unfold because he'd just walked into the room to see what the commotion was about.

18) The stitches to the employee's face, tetanus shot, and follow-up doctor's visit are responsible for this claim.

19) Does workman's comp cover therapy? Both employees are a little twitchy now.

20) (Lucy, however, is currently happily living in the trees in the back yard. She's the one wearing the blue bandana. No, I don't know how she ended up with it on either.)

writerly stuff

For some truly inspiring writing, which happens to be about a trip to the US, go read Notes from a Darkened Room. Michael has a way with description which captures the image as crisply as a photo and yet, with the depth and texture of emotion and living that a mere photo couldn't conjure. (He writes so well, I simultaneously admire the hell out of him and hate him. Higher praise does not exist for me.) I believe the trip story starts here.

my short list

Dear Santa:

I was relatively good this year, okay? I should get extra points for all of the times the very large males who live here let the dog eat grass outside even when they know it makes her sick and then they walk over or past the doggie puke, gagging and acting like they're going to pass out if they have to even look at it, much less clean it up and leave it for me to do. Extra points there, bud. When that purple stain showed up on the new sofa, I didn't kill or maim anyone. I didn't even yell. I get bonus points for not yelling, right? When the back bumper of my car mysteriously had new scratches in it, I was practically Zen. My head didn't spin around even once. Okay, I know I wanted to kick things, and I know those things were technically alive and maybe it was even one of the critters I gave birth to, but I didn't actually do it, you know, so that counts as good. (Um, I don't get points off for language, do I?)

So, Santa. Here's what I want for Christmas:

1) To be taller. Just a little taller would do, I'm not greedy, I'm not expecting a whole six inches taller which would make me willowy and lean instead of... well, not. Because I'm really tired of having to find the step stool just to reach the middle shelf. And that top shelf is mocking me. I can hear it. You could shave a few inches off Shaq. He's not using them and really, who would notice?

2) I want to understand the laws of physics and relativity that explain how one boy can enter a clean house and walk through for five minutes only and when he leaves, six rooms are completely cluttered.

3) I want to understand how he got the peanut butter on the ceiling fan. Seriously. He was here five minutes. Five.

4) If the above is too much trouble, think chocolate.

5) No, really. Chocolate.

on being a night owl

I'm a night owl. Born, hardcore, don't give me any of that glorious sunrise, birds singing, coffee on the porch crap. And especially don't do it before ten a.m., unless you're prepared to dodge hard objects flying at your head. When I have to get up for work (we're in construction... people are bitchy if you start after noon... the bastards), I spend the morning siphoning down diet Coke to try to be coherent. (I've tried to find a way just to do a caffeine I.V., but so far, no go.)

My college roommate was a freakish idiot who daily loved to put an incredibly loud clock which TICKED like thunder in a barrel right next to my bed and then the damned sucker worked and the alarm rang at an ungodly hour (i.e., before noon). I would warn her not to put it near me, since I wasn't terribly trustworthy when loud noises shrieked in my ears and every time she'd promise me that she wouldn't and then she'd wake up in the middle of the night (to go to the bathroom) and then move her clock over to my side of the room, set to the time she had to wake up. At which point, the clock would scream like the hounds of hell and I would spring up out of bed, my head spinning around, and in that same nanosecond, before I was truly even conscious, my good pitching arm would snag that alarm and heave it across the room onto the cinderblock dorm walls, and all its little pieces would slide down to the floor in a heap. She would snore through the whole thing and I'd threaten her life, which, she explained later, always helped jump her adrenaline in the mornings and prepare for her first class. I told her being dead was a really bad way to prepare, but she kept doing it until I found her secret alarm clock stash and started setting them to two a.m. When I was nice and awake. After a couple of weeks of sleep deprivation, she caved. It was a good thing, because I was fast about to move on to blackmail. She slept heavily and was exceptionally pose-able. Photography was my hobby.

Do not mess with a night owl.

A long time ago, I used to get a lot of people trying to reform me. There were all sorts of suggestions about how if I just got into the habit of going to sleep early and getting up early, I'd re-train my body's clock. Or they would offer ideas as to what to eat, how to sleep, what to drink or not to drink and when, as if by the very fact that I operated differently from them, I was somehow wrong. And when I was younger, I'd feel... chastised. Awkward, like I had something to apologize for to society as a whole because I wasn't little miss perky-ass alert first thing at dawn. (I've met people like that. When I'm Surpreme High Commander of the Universe, they are sooooooooo gonna be first in line for some serious smiting.)(Unless they bring chocolate.)

Some time ago, there were tons of studies on biological rhythms and how some people are just born to be night owls and others, morning people. There was a study (hell, there may have been thousands, but I only read one) which talked about a certain genetic marker in the iris of the eye. If you had it, you were a night person. If not, you weren't. Apparently the study's results were pretty much 100% correct down the line.

HAH!

My parents are dedicated morning people. (Sleeping "in" until five a.m. was slacking.) I was barely going to sleep by five a.m. When I was in high school, my Dad had to get up at 2:30 a.m. to go to work. I would read at night when it was quiet and I wasn't as likely to be interrupted by my little brother, and I'd hear Dad's alarm ring. I'd turn off my lamp, wait impatiently while he dressed, left, and then I'd listen carefully until I heard the sound of his truck turning from our street onto the main road out. I'd have to give it a couple more beats because he could see my window from that main road (as experience taught me) and if I turned on my light too soon, I'd hear about it later. Then I'd read until about four, get up at six to go to school, stay all day, do dance team after school (two to three hours of practice), drive home, do homework or talk on the phone and then, along about eleven in the evening, wake right-the-hell up. You'd think I'd have been exhausted, but even if I was feeling completely worn out at nine, by eleven, I was wide awake.

My mom said I was the same as an infant. She'd wake me up at five or so in the morning, keep me awake and busy all day, refuse to let me nap because she wanted me to sleep at night, which meant putting up with a supremely cranky infant during the late afternoon, and then at ten, bang, I was wired, happy, and playful. Raring to go. She finally gave up and just let me sleep in my own rhythms and voila, happy baby.

There aren't quite as many people trying to reform me, now. Probably that fear of me drop-kicking them across the room when they're asleep at midnight and I'm wired slows them down. Part of it may be that I've really embraced being a night owl. I love it, I love the quiet time after dark when so much of the world is asleep, I love how awake and alert I am, how the writing is always better then. I love the sense of possibility I feel, the creativity. And a thousand other things. I still have a tendancy to toss the alarm clock across the room, smashing it into pieces, but I'm getting better -- I'm down to two clocks a week now.

holidailies

Thanks to everyone for the fun comments on the Santa from Hell entry below -- so glad everyone's laughing. (Hey, some good had to come out of it.)

And welcome to the Holidailies bunch surfing through. It's a great set of writers / journaler / bloggers, so if you're surfing in and looking for some great reads, try this portal:

i am not sam

I remember wanting desperately to have been a twin when I was growing up, and I kept looking for secret evidence that maybe I was adopted and there was a sister out there somewhere, someone who was just as weird as I was and just as different from the rest of my family. It probably didn't help that I was born in June, a Gemini, and one of my aunts told me on my fourth birthday that Gemini meant "twins" and I misunderstood her to say that I actually was a twin. I was so very very disappointed when Mom showed me my birth certificate.

When I was a freshman at college, though, I started having a strange set of people coming up to me with, "Hi, Sam! Are you going to English?" or "Hey, Sam -- you going to the party at the Deke's tonight?" The first few times it happened, I thought it was some sort of freshman hazing joke and I generally looked at the speaker like they were a loon and went back to whatever I was doing. One guy followed me all the way across the Quad one time because he'd apparently asked Sam (Samantha) out and she'd said to check with her the next day. He wasn't buying that I wasn't Sam until I showed him my driver's license. He was more than a little shocked and proclaimed we had to be twins.

I figured he'd had waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much to drink at whatever party he'd met this poor girl and anyone with brunette hair would have looked familiar to him. Then my friends started getting annoyed with me, saying, "Hey, I shouted at you in the bookstore and you just kept walking!" or "Hey, what was wrong with you yesterday? I tried to wave you over to join us and you just kept on going." Etc. I explained to them that it wasn't me they'd seen and most of them probably thought I was just having a bitchy day and didn't want to own up to it.

About a week or so later, I was flipping through The Reveille (LSU's newspaper) and there was an ad for a hair salon and in it, was me. Moi. Same hair, same color, same cut, same face, same eyes, same body. Me. Mirror image. Except I hadn't taken the photo. I studied that photo for a couple of minutes, wondering if someone had taken a candid when I wasn't looking and just used it for the ad, but there were a couple of subtle differences. Then a guy standing near me saw the ad, saw me and said, "Hey, so you're a model?" He didn't believe me when I said that it wasn't me and called me a stuck-up bitch because obviously, being a model had gone to my head and if I didn't want to give him my number, I could have just said so.

Sam was starting to give me a headache.

It happened often enough through the rest of the semester that anytime someone strange approached me and just started talking as if we knew each other, I'd interrupt quickly with, "I am not Sam." I was very curious about her, and yet... she had to have known about me, too, because they surely went back and told her... and neither of us did anything to contact the other. It probably boiled down to not having anything to say, really, except, "Hey, give me back my face," but I wasn't overly fond of it anyway, so it didn't matter.

The next semester, a couple of people came up to me saying, "Sam! I thought you'd moved!" and I'd have to explain again that I wasn't Sam. I had started regretting not actively looking for her, just to satisfy my curiosity, but by then, I figured it was too late. I would tell people who greeted me as "Sam" to please tell Sam that Toni said hello.

Every once-in-a-while when I go into a local business, I'll get greeted like a long lost friend, with people exclaiming, "Sam! You moved back!" and I'd have to explain again. I have no idea where she went or why, or anything about her, and I now wish I'd found out. I know everyone is said to have a doppelganger, but it started to seem like I really was related to this girl. It happened again this weekend, some hmmmmmufflemufflehmmm years after college.

I just laughed and said, "I am not Sam. But if you see her, tell her Toni said hello."

What would you do if you heard someone looked just like you? Would you want to contact them? Get to know them? Or not care?

the damned synopsis

Finished it.

Am certain it's terrible.

And apparently, "short" doesn't exist in my universe. It's twice as long as it's supposed to be.

But it's done. Well... written. Now I am editing it because my friend-with-the-agent wants it soon to send to her agent.

At least I won't have to have "and I'm still working on the damned synopsis" on my tombstone. grrrr.

er, help?

Got it! Garrison was my hero -- saving me countless hours of frustration trying to learn this weird program. Garrison rocks.

Can someone tell me if there is a way to force two or three text boxes to work in tandem in Word? I have a basic logo like this (click link):

Toni's business logo

I made this in Word. It's got to go on documents for the other producer of the romantic comedy. I had a slightly different one before which I had created in Photoshop back when I had a partner, but I need to change it and now can't. (No photoshop on this computer.)

I want to be able to enlarge, reduce or turn the image and I don't want the white space around the ouside of the image (the margins) to automatically be included, but the boxes all work independently right now and I can't "cut out" just the logo and move it around. Is there a way to force them to work in tandem? Or is there a kind soul out there who could slap this into Photoshop for me?

Thanks much.

feeling good

There are some days, like today, that are such a gift. Nothing earth shattering, nothing movie-of-the-week. Just wonderful moments, time spent with Carl, curled up in bed or laughing at something together. There has been more and more of that lately, and I am in awe.

I never really thought I'd get here, in this place, at this time. And it was one of those rare moments when I wasn't thinking, "I'd be happy if _____" where that blank might be "my novel sells" or "the movie gets made" or "I lost another ten pounds" or "the kids were completely settled" or any of a thousand things that flow around us daily, rushing me toward some goal or other. There will always be one more goal, one more thing to do. But I never thought I'd be here. Capable of real happiness, contentment.

Are there things to stress over? Thousands. I still haven't finished that damned synopsis. (A sentence which I just told Diane will probably be on my tombstone.) There are always things to be done with the construction business. Always things the kids need.

I have no doubt the pod person which has taken over my body will leave abruptly and the grumpy curmudgeon will resurface, but I'm enjoying the pod life for today. It's been good and I wanted to remember that there really are days like this.