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If you have a Blogger blog that requires commenters to prove they’re not robots by having them enter the characters in the little box before posting their comments, and you’re wondering why I haven’t been commenting on your blog lately, it’s because I have not been able to enter the characters in the box in a satisfactory manner, no matter how many times I try. The robot-detector is never satisfied! It remains unconvinced that I am not a robot! It’s a shame, too, because the comments I tried to leave you were so brilliant. I put a lot of thought into each and every one of them, and to have them rejected again and again, well–it’s been hard, emotionally. I won’t lie to you. I’ve been having this problem for a couple weeks now. Before that I was having issues with the Open ID login, so if it’s been months since I’ve commented on your blog, that is why. It’s not because I don’t love you.
Now, if you have a WordPress blog or some other type of blog that doesn’t require me to prove I’m not a robot and I haven’t commented on your blog for months, it might be because I don’t love you, or it might be because I’m just freaking lazy. I prefer to think I’m just freaking lazy. Either way, you can totally blame me. But those of you with the Blogger blogs have to give me the benefit of the doubt!
The only internet access is via my Kindle. If you have browsed the web on a Kindle, you know how heroic this post is and why I’m giving up now. See you kids in a couple weeks.
Or something like that.
My father, technically, is a veteran. He was drafted during the Vietnam War, but he spent his stint in the army in Dugway, Utah, doing…I don’t really know. I think he had a master’s degree in chemistry by this time and I seem to recall him telling stories about how he’d work in a lab or something most of the time, but because he was an enlisted man, every so often they’d make him go outside and pick up trash. He hated the army. My father is an impressive man in many ways, but his is not a very inspiring Veterans Day story.
I don’t actually have any inspiring Veterans Day stories. Nevertheless, I am grateful for all the people who have served my country in the armed services, especially during times of war. I think about our folks in uniform a lot, and their families, too. God bless them.
One of my favorite charities is the Semper Fi Fund, which provides financial support for injured members of the armed forces and their families. If you are looking for a place to give this holiday season, I couldn’t recommend a better organization.
I will tell you about a friend of ours who recently came home from Iraq. He is in the Army National Guard. He was my husband’s mission companion, lo those many years ago, and they have stayed in touch. He and his family (wife and eight kids) live on the other side of the country, but they visited our home a few years ago (back when they only had, like, four children). When he was a young Mormon missionary, his ambition was to become a pro wrestler. That didn’t actually pan out, unfortunately. Instead he works for Coca-Cola, which is almost as glamorous. A couple years ago he won a competitive eating contest. He may have won others, too. He seems to enter a lot of them. He is hilarious and a good man. A very good man.
If you would like to pay tribute to someone who has served or is currently serving in the armed services, please do so here. Well, not only here, but you know what I mean. Tell me about them. I want to know.
Loyal reader slo_mo_do has informed me that the font size for my blog is too small. Actually, I agree. I’ve just never given any thought to my font size. I write the blogs, and I post them, and they come out the size they come out, which is this size (the one you’re reading right now–or failing to read, if you have not yet gotten yourself some glasses).
What can I say? I have been inconsiderate. But all that is about to change, gentle readers. Now that I have a whole eight* hours a week KID-FREE, there is simply no excuse for not taking the time to change the font size of my posts. The only question is how big do I want to go.
This is the next size up. How do you like it? Is it easier to read than the other? Well, of course it is–it’s bigger! But how much easier is it to read? Significantly easier? Easier enough?
How about this? Is this good? I imagine that it is exponentially comfier on your eyeballs–even I can read it without my glasses–but what does it say to you? “Easy Reader, that’s my name”? Or “Dude, this is a first-grader’s blog”? Is there such a thing as Too Big?
Well, is there?
Is there?
* I had originally calculated ten kid-free hours, but that was before I remembered that I have to pick up Mister Bubby from school a half-hour before Girlfriend gets out of school. P.S. I made this part of the blog small on purpose.
Up until this morning, everything I knew about Lady Gaga I learned from reading Go Fug Yourself. I wasn’t even sure what it was she supposedly did for a living besides walk around in crazy outfits. She seemed to be one of those people who everyone knows about but nobody actually likes. But recently I started seeing comments on blogs from people who were actual Lady Gaga fans. So this morning when I happened across a link to her Christmas song, I thought, “What the hey, I’ll just see what this Lady Gaga thing is all about.”
AUGH! MY EARS! MY EARS!
::shudder::
That’s the last time I do anything like that.
I took Girlfriend to McDonald’s for lunch yesterday while the housekeepers were here. (Doorbell rings. Girlfriend: “Mommy! It’s the housekeepers! They’re here to help us!”) McDonald’s had Christmas music piped into the play area. Not Lady Gaga’s Christmas song, THANK GOD, but other Christmas music. I happen to love Christmas music, actually. Correction: I love GOOD Christmas music. I am not a fan of bad Christmas music, for sure, but I have a pronounced antipathy toward mediocre Christmas music as well. Why listen to mediocre Christmas music when there’s so much good Christmas music to listen to? Why listen to mediocre Christmas music when there’s ANY good Christmas music to listen to? More specifically, why must I personally be forced to listen to mediocre Christmas music? It makes me feel all Grinchy.
I’m a little old-fashioned about Christmas music. It annoys me when people with recording contracts think that automatically entitles them to record Christmas songs. They are mistaken. But what’s more annoying is when people think that just because they’ve written some hit songs, they should try their hand(s) at writing Christmas songs. BIG MISTAKE. Not everyone can write a good Christmas song. I’M TALKING TO YOU, BRYAN ADAMS. (No offense to you. You’re a very special person in other respects.) Free advice to any songwriter who wonders if he or she has a good Christmas song in him or her: PROBABLY NOT. P.S. You’re welcome.
Anyone else remember the old Saturday Night Live Weekend Update when Norm McDonald reported on Kenny G’s Christmas album? (“Happy Birthday, Jesus! Hope you like crap!”)
That might have been a little unfair. Not to mention sacrilegious. It was kind of funny, though.
I’ve been having a mid-life crisis of sorts lately. Some would say I’m too young to have a mid-life crisis, but that’s assuming that I live to be, like, 100. My mother lived to be 53, so technically she should have had a mid-life crisis at 27. From that perspective I’m way overdue.
The only thing I don’t like about getting older, aside from my mind going, is that I suddenly have all this anxiety about losing my looks. Until recently I didn’t realize I had any looks to lose. I thought I’d come to terms with the fact that I’m an average-looking girl who has to get by on her wits in this world. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m losing my wits that feeds my desperation regarding the other. I don’t know. Well, I wouldn’t, would I, because I’m getting stupider as we speak. It’s not fair, in any respect.
Yesterday I was taking Elvis to speech therapy, and I forgot how to get there. I got off at the right exit, but I failed to immediately turn left, and a few moments later I was completely lost. I had no idea what I’d done wrong. I thought I’d taken the right exit, but maybe I hadn’t. Maybe I went one too far. It was kind of hard to believe because I drive him there every Monday, and moreover, I had just been to the dentist that morning, which is right next door to his speech therapy, and I didn’t have any trouble doing that. I figured if I could just remember how to get to the dentist’s, I would automatically remember how to get to speech therapy, but unfortunately I couldn’t remember how to get to the dentist’s anymore, either. I knew that I could get there taking the same street that the rec center was on–the rec center where Princess Zurg took her ballet classes when she was seven years old–but I didn’t find that working for me either, because what street was that again? Was it this one? Did I really take the wrong exit? I didn’t think so, but I must have, so I turned back and tried to retrace my steps–which, incidentally, is not something you want to do at 4 p.m., just in case you were wondering–but that wasn’t working for me either. Under ordinary PMS circumstances, I would have been screaming and cursing at this point, but I wasn’t doing either of those things. I was trying hard not to cry because, seriously, I have been driving this route every week since Elvis was three, and I’ve never had any trouble with it before, and now I literally did not know anymore where speech therapy was in relation to…anything.
The good news is that it only took six minutes, total, for it all to come back to me, but it was the longest six minutes of my life.
It was like that time I got down on the floor to change Girlfriend’s diaper and forgot how to do it. Usually I get down on the floor to change Girlfriend’s diaper and forget that’s why I got down on the floor. This time I knew why I was there, but I couldn’t figure out how to begin. “So I’m here to change a diaper,” I thought to myself, diaper in hand and wipes at the ready. “What comes first, again?”
That only lasted about thirty seconds, tops, but it was still disconcerting. Perhaps even you are disconcerted. Or perhaps you yourself experience this about twenty times a day, in which case I’m sorry I brought it up because you’re much worse off than I am. I’ve only had these two incidents in, like, a year. Twenty times a day I forget what stuff is called or why I walked from one end of the room to the other or why I turned around or what my husband’s name is, but this business of forgetting how to change a diaper or how to drive my son to speech therapy–stuff that ought to be muscle memory by now–has only happened twice. So it’s not time for assisted living yet, but clearly that’s where I’m headed, so I ask you: If I lose my wits, exactly what am I supposed to fall back on then?
It doesn’t seem like this should be related to me dying my hair, and maybe it isn’t, but all I know is that when my mind was young and spry, I didn’t worry about gray hair or those permanent creases in my forehead that I got from furrowing my brow fourteen hours a day. Do you realize that as I type this, I am attempting to ward off the signs of aging by raising my eyebrows as high as I can get them, i.e. in the opposite of the furrowed position? Do you think that will help?
I am already dying my hair. I own three tubes of lipstick, which is more than I’ve ever had at one time, and I might go through all of them in fewer than six years. I am back to wearing eye make-up on special occasions, even though it makes me cry, which is kind of a counter-productive beauty regimen, if you think about it, but what does my brain know anymore? I am still sort of planning to get braces. A couple weeks ago I was thinking about getting my ears pierced, and for the last 48 hours I have seriously considered getting my boobs done. I mean, why not? I’m all done breast-feeding, and it would be nice to have some body parts that a bra could support. Rephrase: it would be nice to have body parts that a bra could fit. You know, just for a change.
I’m not going to get my boobs done, of course. I’m probably not even going to get braces. Do you know what I was thinking on my way to the dentist yesterday? I was thinking about how long it takes to do my hair in the morning. Answer: about two minutes. Five minutes if I want to get fancy. How improved is my appearance by combing my hair? About ten times, minimum. So why don’t I comb my hair every day? It is a mystery.
That is why I know I’m not getting braces. I can’t handle the pressure of spending two-to-five minutes on my hair everyday–I can barely manage to color my hair ever six to eight weeks–so how am I going to handle the responsibility of the detailed dental hygiene and orthodontal maintenance required by braces? Even thinking about getting my boobs done–I’m just going to have to get them done again in ten years, so what’s the point? You see the extent of my problem.
Another problem with getting my boobs done is that every time I look at my fabulous new breasts, I will feel guilty about the fact that the money I put into them could have fed x number of families starving in another part of the world for x number of months. (I don’t have the math on me–I haven’t researched the boob job that thoroughly yet.)
Of course, another potential problem that I haven’t really explored is that I’ll be so pleased with my fabulous new breasts that I’ll want to show them to everybody I meet, which will introduce a host of issues I don’t wish to discuss right now.
In a perfect world, women would be rewarded for their part in continuing the species by being allowed to keep either their bodies or their minds for the 30-50 years they have left on earth. They shouldn’t have to lose both.
Girlfriend was watching Charlotte’s Web and informed me that she wants a pig. Not any fool stuffed pig, either, but a real pig.
Has anyone figured out a reasonable solution for storing cookie sheets, wire racks, muffin tins, etc.? Or does everyone just shove them into a cupboard and slam the door and hope to never need one again?
My mother-in-law is visiting, which is why I have limited time to blog. No mother-in-law jokes, please. Also, I don’t have anything to talk about.
Sugar Daddy got free tickets to the Fright Town haunted house thingamajig at the Memorial Coliseum, so we went there last night. The usual stuff happened. I screamed, he laughed. (At me.) That’s why we go to these things. It’s not for my benefit, that’s for darn sure. To his credit, SD always thanks me for “indulging” him. I wonder if he notices that I don’t ever say, “You’re welcome.” Just doing my wifely duty, sir. (And he didn’t even buy me dinner–apparently, we’ve been married far too long.)
When we were coming out of Fright Town, we met a homeless guy who wanted a cigarette. We didn’t have any cigarettes on us, so he asked if we had any change. He wanted to get something to eat, and also a beer. I’ve noticed that homeless people are being very upfront lately about their intentions to buy beer. I think they think we appreciate their honesty. I actually couldn’t care less. The cat’s homeless–who am I to micromanage his beverage choices? So we gave him some money, and then he said, “How about a hug?” Uh…okay, then. So he hugged both of us. Then he asked us to pray for him. You can pray for him, too. His name is Todd.
That’s about all I have for today. I wish there were more, but there isn’t. Happy Wednesday, amigos.
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