Sometimes after a hard day, I like to relax and enjoy a cocktail or ten...uh i mean two. Today has been one of those hard days. Don't you dare judge me for drinking in the middle of the week! I'm sure it's Friday night somewhere. Besides, it's purely medicinal. My boobs hurt! Well actually, the area where my boobs used to be hurts. I'm 4 weeks out from having breast reduction surgery and even though my back feels GREAT, this here front part is still pretty darn sore. The plastic surgeon removed four and a half pounds FROM EACH SIDE! But I'll be OK.
Verily I say unto you: yeah tho I dwell in the valley of the small-breasted woman I shall fear no cleavage for mine is still with me... at least until all the swelling goes down.
Uh, yeah what was I saying?
Oh right, this is where I go to bitch about things. Well, first of all, when all the neighborhood kids are gathered in my living room eating MY Fritos and playing video games, the word "Dude" is grossly overused. Don't you just hate that? And how is it that  that one little word can mean so many different things? "Dude!" "Dude?"  "Duuuuude."  Did I miss something? I mean was there a class on hipster-speak or what? How am I--being the mild mannered mom that I am-- supposed to know what the hell these kids are talking about?
There's so much else I could bitch about but my favorite wiener dog needs help. ( don't ask)

Armadillos and other stuff...

Armadillos have been digging holes all over my yard for a while now. I can tell it's armadillos because of the shape of the hole. We had moles a couple of years ago, they don't dig holes, they burrow. The wiener divas flushed them out and killed them. So I was pretty darn sure it was armadillos. But since they're nocturnal I never actually saw one of the dirty little bastards in my yard.

Then the other night, the wiener divas started barking by the back door to let me know they needed to go outside for a late night pee. So I stood on the patio while the girls did their business like I always do. Then all of a sudden it was like a wiener dog melee. Barking, and growling, and jumping around, probably waking every neighbor in earshot. Definitely waking all the dogs in the neighborhood, and of course they all joined in.

Hoping to shut those dogs up before any neighbors had a chance to complain, I ran out in the yard in my bear feet and PJs to see exactly what was causing all the ruckus. And there he was. My arch nemesis, the armadillo! Just sitting there pretty as you please, scaring the hell out of my precious wiener divas, like he was King Shit of Turd Mountain. Well you know I could not stand for that.

How's a wiener dog supposed to take on an armadillo? Even 3 to one it's still not a fair fight. After all, what is an armadillo but a wiener dog...WITH ARMOR!! So I grabbed the nearest weapon at hand-- a garden rake--and proceeded to protect my precious wieners with blatant disregard for my own safety.

I won't say I saw fear in his beady little eyes. It was so dark I could hardly see anything. But I raised that rake like it was some weapon of medieval torture, summoned up all the warrior princess power inside me, and smote the beast with every ounce of strength in my very un-Xena-like body.

Instead of wails of agony I expected to hear, all I heard was THUNK. The little bastard had rolled up into his shell! My vicious death blow thwarted by this freak of nature, this possum on a half-shell.

"Dammit! You! Little! Shit! Die! Damn you! Die!" I yelled punctuating every word with a swing of the garden rake, each hit inevitably ending with "THUNK" And not even a crack to show for my hard work.

So there I am at 1:30 in the morning, in my PJs surrounded by wildly barking dogs, madder than a bulldog chewing on a bumble bee, just blindly beating the hell out of an armadillo. In hindsight its really no wonder my neighbors think I'm crazy. I surely earned the title that night.

After a moment I did manage to calm myself, and the divas, down. But that armadillo was no fool. He stayed right there safely enclosed in his shell, probably laughing his little armadillo ass off at me.

"Well, I'll show you!" I thought, " you want to live in that shell, well you can just die in that shell,too!"

So I started using the rake golf-club-style, knocking the foul beast, bit by bit, towards the pond. If I hadn't been fueled by adrenaline and armadillo-induced rage, I probably would have noticed that the ground was getting more and more squooshy the nearer I got to the pond.

I finally got close enough to the pond to know that one more good whack would mean a watery grave for my adversary. I didn't hesitate. I swung back the rake in my best imitation of Tiger Woods. And with a rebel yell, the likes of which, have probably not been heard since Custer's Last Stand, I swung that rake with all my might. SWACK! It was the sound I imagine Babe Ruth heard every time he hit one into the stands. Sadly my elation was short-lived.

Id swung the rake so hard I'd swung myself right into the pond. Lucky for me, (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it) I did not end up in a watery grave. Instead, I ended up covered head to toe, in muddy, gross, disgusting, pond sludge! Good thing I still had that rake in my hand because I had to use it to pull myself outta there.What a mess! I really do hope my neighbors slept through the whole armadillo incident. What in the world would I tell them? I was rehearsing for Swamp Thing-The Musical!?

So far none of my neighbors have mentioned anything about it. But when they see me, they do notice an extra gleam in my eye, the gleam that comes from knowing I made the world a safer place for wiener dogs.

"What's the point of having a blog if you never write anything'', I ask myself.
"Then write something, already.'' I reply to myself.
"Fine. I will."
"Fine."
This schizophrenic interlude was brought to you the makers of psychotropic drugs. They're not just for breakfast any more.
Anyhoo....
I don't really consider myself a 'funny' person. But funny, apparently, is in the eye of the beholder. Not everyone gets my sense of humor. To the pop-culture-challanged among us, the things I say are probably more confusing than witty.
For example,the other day in the health food store the clerk was giving out samples of fruit- flavored protein shakes. When he offered me one, he asked ''Do you like pina coladas?" So of course I replied "yeah, but getting caught in the rain really sucks." *blank stare,blank stare, cricket noises* "Uh...we don't sell umbrellas."
So maybe the guy was too young to recognize the reference. But c'mon really? Who doesn't know The Pina Colada song?
Even my own children (the loves of my life) don't always get my humor.
The other day, Zakk was doing some yard work which involved using an ax ( could have been a hatchet, who knows. potato potahto) Anyway when I arrived home with Nikk and Joey and saw the ax, I immediately grabbed it up, made the crazy face and said "Heeeeere's Johnny!" Instead of an outburst of laughter at my spot-on impression of Jack Nicholson, here's what I got:
"Who's Johnny?"
"Do you mean Uncle John?"
"No, stupid. He doesn't use an ax. He fixes air conditioners.''
"He could use an ax if he wanted to. You're the one who's stupid!"
"You're so dumb. You don't know anything."
"MOOOOOOM!!!!!
Why do I even bother.
Is my humor just too vague? Every time I make what I think is a witty comment around my husband, I have to explain it to him. My least favorite phrase in the world has to be "It's funny because....''
For instance when my kids were watching Sponge Bob, I wondered aloud if Mr Crabs ever had a case of the humans. *cricket sounds, eye roll, and the ever popular she's-not-right-in the-head head shake* I tried to explain it to him but by doing so, it made even less sense. I guess if you have to explain it it wasn't that funny in the first place.
Could it be that my humor is just too high brow for some people? Nah, that couldn't be it. Just yesterday I made a comment about a race horse being named Anal Sex. I said he'd never win because he's always coming up the rear. That's pretty damn low brow humor. But in my defense, horse racing was on TV at the time and they do use the phrase "coming up the rear" a lot.

I just read a book!

I don't usually write about books I've read. I'm not a reviever by any means. But I just have to say something about the book I just finished and enjoyed so much. It was called Horror Show. Not too surprising if you know me at all. I've been reading horror fiction since elementary school and my horror fiction book collection currently has over 160 titles. If I keep buying books I'll have to have a room addition built. I guess that's another argument in favor of E-books. I'm just not ready to give up my old school paper books yet. But that's another story for another time.
As I was saying... Horror Show, by Greg Kihn. If that name sounds vaguely familiar to you , it's because it's the same guy who was a one-hit-wonder on the 80's pop/dance music scene. I know he must have been a pretty big deal back in the day, because every singer knows they've "arrived '' when Weird Al parodys them. AAAAHHH, memories!
So we've established that the author's first career was in the music industry. This didn't really score him any points with me. I'm familiar with the concept of musicians trying to break into other careers. Maybe this is a gross generalization but it just never seems to work out quite right for them. (Think Mariah Carey in Glitter, Britney Spears in Crossroads, Maddonna in anything, you get the idea) I usually prefer musicians who stick to music.
I never would have looked for this title if it weren't for me stumbling across A Guide to Horror Fiction at the library. This handy-dandy, not-so-little book listed and categorized horror fiction books and authors, cross-referenced them by style, location, subject matter etc, and gave author bios and brief summaries of the various books. Pretty darn cool in my opinion.
What it said about Horror Show was that it was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. To the uninitiated, that's a very prestigious award for horror fiction authors. To be nominated for the very first book you publish is pretty impressive. That's what prompted me to actually seek out Horror Show and read it. And I'm so glad I did.
The book is written in a style called "splatter punk" which basically means it's very graphic (which I loved). You would think that since it's a book, not a movie, you could just use your imagination and imagine as much or as little gore as you'd like. But the author painted such a vivid picture with words, that every gross, disgusting, detail came alive and slithered off the page keeping me wrapped in goosebumps, even within the confines of my beloved Snuggie.
I know a review is really just one person's opinion and one opinion may not matter all that much but nonetheless, I offer up my own review off Horror Show by Greg Kihn. I give it 5 out of 5 severed heads and definitely two disembodied thumbs up.

How to recognize a teenager

Today is my youngest son's 12th birthday. I can hardly believe it. One more year and my baby will be a TEENAGER!
Since Joey is small for his age people always assume that he's way younger than he actually is. So in honor of Joey on his special day I made up a list (Not unlike Jeff Foxworthy's You Might Be a Redneck Schtick) to help people recognize a teenager when they see one:

- If you have more earrings in your face than in your ears, you might be a teenager.

- If you always dress in black from head to toe (and you're not Johhny Cash) you might be a teenager.

- If you're now asking your self "Who is Johnny Cash?" you might be a teenager.

-If you know every Jonas Brothers song, but don't know who the vice president is, you might be a teenager.

- If instead of having your jeans hemmed, you prefer to just walk-off that extra three inches of denim, you might be a teenager.

- If you've ever watched The Osbournes and understood what Ozzy was saying, without subtitles, you might be a teenager.

- If you would rather wear your bike chain around your neck than on your bike, you might be a teenager.

-If the only way you mom can talk to you is by text message, you might be a teenager.

- If you have a Miley Cyrus song on your ipod and swear you don't know how it got there, you might be a teenager.

- If you can use the f-word as a noun, a verb and an adjective in one sentence, you might be a teenager.

- If you think Red Bull should be included in the food pyramid, you might be a teenager.

- If Jersey Shore is your idea of a "documentary", you might be a teenager.

- If your mom thinks you're "at the movies'', you might be a teenager.

Everyone complains about the weather but no one ever does anything about it. I've heard this quote about a million times and it's just not true. I don't complain about the weather. My only complaint is about the weather forecasters. And it's not what you might think.
Some people get mad if the forecast is off a bit. My problem is that I prefer the forecast the old school way. There I said it. I miss the days of Margie Ison drawing clouds on her dry-erase map of the United States. I may be dating myself by mentioning Margie Ison but as far as I'm concerned, Margie is to weather forecasting what Dolly Parton is to country music. I'm not ashamed to admit that I miss the way she used to give the weather forecast back in the days before technology reigned supreme.
Today there are "meteorologists" instead of "weather girls". And these guys (and girls) are real-deal scientists! They all have something called Super-Duper-Doppler (or something like that) that is more accurate than even the Psychic Friends Network.(there I go again dating myself.) They don't just tell us what the weather is going to be, they explain in great detail why it's going to be that way. It's almost like they're speaking in a foreign language when they start talking about arctic fronts, barometric pressure, humidity factors and so forth.
Then there are the weather maps. Oh, they are a far cry from Margie's dry-erase boards that's for sure. Today's weather maps are computerized monstrosities that use color variations to represent variations in the weather. ie "As you can see from the 72 colors on our Super-Duper-Doppler-Radar-Map, temperatures are rising in the East due to a bi-polar shift on the low pressure front of the barometric chill factor." Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out what temperature chartreuse represents and whether or not aubergine indicates rain.
Give me a break!! It's the weather report. I just want to know if I need a sweater! Why does everything have to be so complicated?
It's almost as if the meteorologist's mission is to make people feel dumb as a box of rocks. Well, I'm here to tell you mission NOT accomplished! At least not with me. You see, there is a theory called Occum's Razor, (that's a physics term, you know) that suggests that the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. Being one who enjoys simplicity, I take that a step further by theorizing that the simplest way to find something out is the best way. Therefore instead of turning on the TV weather report and struggling through a labyrinth of incomprehensible meteorological terms, I find out about the weather a much simpler way. I go outside.

But I saw it on TV...

Part of the reason I started this blog was to bitch about stuff. (the other part of the reason was that I was drunk, but that's a story for another day) Well, here I am again with something to bitch about. Everyone has their guilty pleasures. I personally have several, some more guilty than others. But my best /worst guilty pleasure is As-seen-on-TV items. I am apparently so simple minded that any infomercial for any product--no matter how asinine--can lure me in like a hemp-head to a Jimmy Buffet concert.
These obscure gadgets and gizmos just seem to call my name, and now that they are "available at fine retailers everywhere" it's even worse. When I actually see the item up close and personal, touch it with my very own hands, rationalize to myself that it's so much cheaper since I'm not paying postage, that's the moment that I know the item HAS to be mine! The problem is that these products rarely live up to the infomercial hype. I should know. I've tried plenty of them.
For example, the ShamWOW. It's a shammie cloth that is supposed to soak up water by the gallon. Pretty cool- in theory. But don't be taken in! You CAN NOT dry a dog with a ShamWOW! In fact I would venture to say that a ShamWOW can't do anything that can't be done by a Brawney paper towel. And the paper towel guy isn't nearly as creepy as the ShamWOW guy either.
Then there's my old friend The Ab-Zapper 2000. It's a big silver belt thing that looks like something you might win from the World Wrestling Federation. They say wearing it for 15 minutes a day is the equivalent to doing 200 sit-ups. Easy, cheezy, lemon squeezy! What they don't explain fully in the informercial is that this damn thing is electrocuting you for 15 minutes a day. It sends electric shocks to your stomach-- the kind a dog might get when wearing an invisible fence collar--causing you to "flex" your stomach muscles repeatedly for 15 minutes. Now, my labrador is no fool. After getting shocked a couple of times he learned to stay in the yard. Me, on the other hand...I was stupid enough to let that thing shock me for a week-- with no visible results, by the way-- before I said "To hell with this! I'd rather just keep my belly fat just like it is ... and why do I smell like bacon all of a sudden?''
I've tried so many As-seen-on-TV items I can't begin to talk about all of the disappointments. So I will just tell you the plain ole truth. Most of this crap sucks. Yep, that sums it up pretty well.
But to be sure, I said MOST, not ALL. For there is one As-seen-on-TV item that stands above all others as the apex of ridiculously clever but completely unnecessary inventions, my favorite As-seen-on-TV item ever, THE SNUGGIE!
I feel like I'm in the commercial every time I wear it. I actually do all of those things that you can do in a Snuggie. Read, watch TV, answer the door, what ever! And what with me being an ordained minister now (see previous blog) my Snuggie can do double duty as my Ministerial Robe, should the need for one ever arise. I would look quite dashing performing a marriage ceremony in my pink Snuggie. Provided the paticipants had no objections to being married by someone who looks like a short blond wizard headed for a Gay Pride Parade.