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I dedicated a good chunk of time to the boyz of Babycakes' highschool - and it was right to do so. You can't spout 'fast cars, loose women and all the things that really matter in life' and not have it come back to haunt you in the blogosphere like duct-taped boobs at a school dance. OK, so it's only going to haunt them to the extent of about 20 people.
The guys were far easier targets than the girls who were wiser in their wording and usually chose NOT to declare Black Sabbath #1. The worst was a chick whose life goal was a Monte Carlo Super Sport.
Where the girls ran into trouble was HAIRSTYLING. I'm not saying my own classmates weren't affected by the 80's and Dippity-Do, but at least we looked like we were still in high school. Babycakes' yearbook is filled with chicks that were 18 going on 38 with a lifetime of organizing files at a dentist's office ahead of them.
I give you - The Hair Helmet.
Good grief - even my Mom's hair helmet wasn't that tight, and she had three kids and a station wagon. Lighten up Carol & Barb and get the girdle out of your ass - Derek and the Buzzed Crew are lookin' for action!
Marci is sporting the girl mullet or gullet as I like to call it. For more mullet action than I can give, I will refer the reader to Eggsalady.
Holy Viking Batman! DeeDee scares me and not just because of the platinum flip.
 (entirely possible scenario for DeeDee)___________________________________DeeDee: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?Mirror: BarbDeeDee: Exqueeze me?!Mirror: Barb. You know... of Barb & Carol.(DeeDee exits and eats Barb's heart)___________________________________
I want to mock Staci's poof, but she looks like she could take me down with the brass knuckles hidden in her hair. It's the best 'bang' shot from the school but not even close to some of the high and isolated bangs I've seen down south.  Feel free to submit your local name for 'big, teased up bangs' such as my personal favorite - the 'Kennesaw Claw' from Kennesaw, GA. (When you say this, you must make a claw with your hand and smack it on your forehead.)Donna is representing wings, although she doesn't have the biggest or fanciest wings at the school. She does, however, have the horizontal-est eyebrows. Honey, they're called tweezers, and with them you can create arches.
(Babycakes quote after first looking at this post: "Those look like goblin teeth.") ------------------------------------------------ Click on Humor-Blogs if you loved or hated or were indifferent to the '80s.
After staring at Tenty and the leaves festering under the shower cap for several days too long, I decided to liberate whatever might remain in GirlChild's Cup of Death. You'll imagine my surprise when I found out that not only had Tenty survived, but THRIVED. Tenty was bigger, nastier and sprouting longer hair. I threw Tenty, a testatment to natural selection, into the grass and was faced with Tenty droppings in the COD. I guess I subconsciously assume that bugs don't crap because they're so small...but guess again. That's a lot of turd for such a small guy and I was forced to throw the cup out, because there's no way I'm eating out of a tent-worm caterpillar turd cup.
We've had a few very hot days so I took the kids down to the river to poke around. Hot weather does not translate into hot water but GirlChild and BoyChild sucked it up and got in anyway - into water that definitely smelled like low tide. WOW! Power punch to the nose.
This is the picture of - "I just stepped on something - GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY."
BoyChild felt the need to pee while we were down there. Who takes off a bathing suit to pee in a river? And you know those funky wet trunks weren't getting pulled back up all on their own. Should have bought some tongs along.
GirlChild and BoyChild shower off the river fish and crab goo. No - don't quit yet - you've got another five minutes under that shower, kid.
 I took garbage bags for litter pick-up along the shoreline and the price for being all earthy and caring and touching things grosser than Tenty would be poison ivy. What's worse than funky - funky AND itchy. Screw you Earth Day!
(*Serious Note* I fully endorse ZANFEL for poison ivy.)
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Click on Humor-Blogs - it's less funky than the river water.
What's funnier than going back through your yearbook?
Going back through your husband's yearbook.
 This is not Babycakes, but a guy we'll call Steve who ended up doing a little woodwork for Chevy.
Babycake's yearbook is a regular Who's Who of people with the expectation of becoming millionaires while admitting in a public forum that keg parties and 'making out with Tina' were principle activities during highschool.To be completely fair - I will admit that, through some retarded paper that I filled out in high-school that I SWEAR I DIDN'T KNOW WAS BEING USED FOR THE YEARBOOK, it will be forever known to all who gaze upon my achievements....(drumroll)...that I was Employee of the Month at Arby's. I present Arby's star worker and the poor sap who married her. Here are a few schmoes that Babycakes graduated with. While I can hide their real names with MS Paint, there are things that can't be covered with a black line.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tragically, only Richard submitted his 'Thoughful' GlamourShot.
George was Amish. OK, forget Amish - you don't see fat Amish kids. Sporting a full-on beard, George was just barely tolerated by the cool kids and only because he kept the senior class knee-high in Pabst since he was never carded. Matt is going to be "making mega bucks" and "shooting for the stars." I had previously thought that statement was strictly reserved for elementary teachers trying to motivate 1st - 3rd graders in spelling, but you go make those mega bucks, Matt! When you're done 'fooling around with Tina' that is.
 Ted's mom plastered his hair into the comb-over right before the photo shoot and yet it still failed to draw attention away from the fact that Ted was lipless. I think the slight skew of his glasses is saying, "I'm destined for failure with girls." Ted is going to "work on puzzle" after high school. If only we all had such lofty goals.
 Men...fill me in. How do you know if you want to be a gynecologist while still in high school?
 Derek's ambition is "to become incredibly rich...with a touch of class." I'm sorry Derek, but with a nickname like Bubba Jay and declaring Skynyrd #1 - a touch of class is a touch out of reach. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------Arby's Employee of the Month (June) would like you to click on Humor-Blogs.
The weather has been uncooperative for yard work so I took advantage of a sunny day yesterday to mow half the yard. I also wanted to take advantage of the sun to bronze the bod, so you know I was lookin’ smokin’ hot when I shoved my t-shirt arms up under my bra straps.
When I think I look bad on the mower, I cheer myself up by recalling the image of a neighbor with her old, yellowing puppy shirt tucked into her shorts and then pulled up to her ample bosom so that half the puppy was hidden in her pants. “Hey! I look like a freakin’ supermodel next to that!”
 My artistic rendering is not able to convey her boobs warping the puppy’s head.
Pushing the shirt under my straps makes for something that can’t quite be classified as “farmer tan”. If I had been able to get the shirt symmetrical on my shoulders, then maybe. This is how I look now:  I can say with authority that my forearms look fantastic. (The brown indicates ‘tan’ and not ‘hairy’.) There’s also a killer white ‘U’ on my neck where my chin was blocking the rays. Other outdoor news: A bird trying to fly away with some kite string from our patio kept getting yanked back in high comedy fashion since the string was wrapped around a table leg. He only did it about 50 times before we stopped laughing and felt sorry enough for him to cut the string up. I realize that by writing that little blurb, I have indicated that we leave old kite string trashing up the patio. --------------------------------------------------------Click for Humor-Blogs Lawn Service
Jenn of Cabbages-n-Kings tagged me for this meme right on the heels of my first tag. And then The Bloggess leaves me a comment! Holy Shit - I'm gonna go ahead and call this a popularity spike. Three makes a spike, right?
8 RANDOM FACTS OR HABITS
1. You might know it as the Devil’s Nad or Satan’s Oval. I sometimes refer to them as eggs. I don’t like them, can’t stand the smell and haven’t tasted one since my Mom forced me to eat scrambled eggs under her egg dictatorship. And the only way those sulfurous blobs were going down was slathered in ketchup and swallowed whole with an OJ chaser. Sort of like this:
2. I can stare down a streak of Ragu on the side of my fridge for three months, but if I go to someone else’s house and see something like that, I think, “What a slob – it would take, like, 3 seconds to wipe that off.” I’m a hypocritical judger.
3. I’m guessing that most of you shop for shoes by admiring the style and design of a shoe and then look for one in your size. That would be nice and I hate you. I shop for shoes by looking for boxes that say 11. If I get lucky and find one – I quickly offer a sacrifice to Nike and hope what’s inside doesn’t look like this:
Bearing kids did this to me – don’t let pregnancy happen to you!
4. It is impossible for me to go to bed if dresser drawers are open. This troubles Babycakes but he can tell his own damn stories.
5. I love just about anything that has to do with being IN the water – snorkeling, scuba diving, swimming…but put me in a boat and I’ll turn green before you can say Dramamine. I got sea sick on the Staten Island Ferry if this clues you in. Fortunately, I know my limitations and dope myself up before excursions now. This has given me many happy hours watching other folks yakking over the handrail.
My in-laws very kindly took us on a cruise once and I was uber-worried that I’d spend a week looking at the toilet plumbing so I got THE PATCH. Day 1 – Fine. Day 2 – What am I, fifteen? I’ve got zit constellations on my forehead. Day 3 – Neck breaks out in a rash and I call the on-board Dr.
Dr.: “You’re allergic to the patch. Take it off.”
Me: “Umm…yeah…I can deal with a rash, but I can’t deal with puking up my lunch.”
Dr.: “Take it off.”
Me: “Could we maybe…”
Dr.: “Do it. Do it now.”
Anyways – the cruise turned out fine, even without the patch so I guess cruise ships get a big thumbs up from my inner ear.
6. I only fly with famous black politicians. I’ve been on planes with Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan and the best part was BoyChild pushing past Farrakhan’s entourage of mongo-huge bodyguards at Reagan National. That’s as cool and tough as BoyChild will ever get since he hides his eyes during “Little Bear.”
7. Here’s a fact – I don’t like it when your nasty dog licks me. It’s not cute. It’s foul and the dog probably just licked his own crotch. I don’t want your dog OR my cats OR my kids OR Babycakes licking me. He may lick me.
8. I majored in math because I'm lazy. Majoring in math means you get assigned 5 problems and when they're done, they're done. All those other majors make you do fool things like writing papers. Then you've got to walk ALL the way to the libary, you need to read stuff, compare and contrast, know what a participle is, come up with 10 pages of BS on a poem I never read (which I really did once - and was justly rewarded when the teacher handed back my paper with the comment - "Did you actually read this?" - WICKED!)
So now you know me a little more and maybe you wish you didn't.
Signing off so Babycakes can play World of WarCraft now.
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Please click on Humor-Blogs so I can move on up in the rankings and prevent sea-sickness.
 At this point in my relationship with my house, I should have known that the former owners and/or builders/crackheads would have left some half-assed handiwork as a testament to their construction prowess. I go off to Lowe’s all Pollyanna to get me a gallon of latex for the bathroom and slowly morph into Medusa by Monday. The Medusa part was mainly because I couldn’t find my hairbrush during the painting period, not like the turning-men-into-stone part. Although I could totally have fun with a power like that. With Comcast.
I spent day one of this adventure with a tub of spackle in my hand. There were the small nail holes that were to be expected and then there was the BLOBULA next to our medicine cabinet which I had never really studied too closely. Our monster medicine cabinet which has been inset into the wall as far from the sink as possible, had a lumpy spackle-y area at its corner. I figured they had attempted to repair the wall at one point and never sanded it smooth.
*sand* *sand* WHOMP!
Blobula disappeared behind the sheetrock leaving a hole as big as my fist. Grrr…and that would be a repair that involved mesh tape and multiple layers of compound and me trying to speed things along with a hair dryer and an extension cord.
My deep thoughts as I sat on a stool and blow dried the wall – How much spackle ended up inside the wall before they got a blob that stayed put? What exactly is supporting this medicine cabinet inside the wall? How many studs did they cut to fit it in? Is this a load-bearing wall? How many times can I get this extension cord to wrap around my arm? Ozzy on Survivor is really cute. Why does Dr. Pepper make me burp so much?
The previous crackheads also had a penchant for silicone caulk – and not just for areas around water. My best guess is that they got a deal on a 5 gallon bucket, bathed in it, then used the leftovers on every bit of woodwork in the house. Miscalculated with your miter saw? Fill in the gap with silicone caulk! Floorboards not quite flush with the wall? Fill it in with silicone caulk!  Gappy teeth giving you problems? Fill it in with silicone caulk! And I’ll tell you why this really pisses me off – paint beads up on it and it flakes off in scales if you rub it. A good chunk of time was dedicated to rubbing this caulk off the baseboards so I could actually paint them. My finger has a new affliction called Caulk Scraper which also happens to be great for getting into your nose.
The other repercussion of doing the bathroom is that we were forced to use the kid’s bathroom for showers. I discovered that a few of their towels smell like cat pee right after I wrapped my wet hair up in one of them. And I was too tired to care. I also found out that once the hot water has been coming out of the shower head for about 30 seconds, the whole system starts to whistle. I’ve been listening to Babycakes whistle in the mornings and my showers are lacking a little in the relaxation department. I just want to get out and wrap myself in a cat pee towel.
After the massive prep, the actual painting was pretty easy. I took this respite to replace the light fixture in our dark closet and the one over the shower. If there is a hell – hell will be replacing light fixtures. More specifically, replacing light fixtures in areas prepped by the pre-Alice construction team. Our crack construction team made sure nothing was quite lined up and things were wobbly so that when you tried to aim the hole in the light fixture (that’s covered with an inch of insulation) onto a screw that moves – you have more deep thoughts like “could I just Super Glue this fixture to the ceiling?” Repurcussions of light fixture replacement include a severe depletion of rations:
 And since I'm in a rant-y mood, take a good, hard look at my lawn in the background and tell me if you think it's in "winter dormancy" like the crackhead from Chem-Lawn wrote on my invoice. MEDUSA POWERS ACTIVATE!!!
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I was going to write about painting, but the fumes have smacked me upside the head and given me a nosebleed. I'm gonna go the easier, less think-y route since Gizmorox has tagged me with the "5 Sites You Like" meme. I realize some folks piss & moan about these but I'm secretly thrilled since it's my first one. Most of the sites I really like are already listed on the sidebar but here are a few others I hit:
1. Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - geeky stuff to try out - the kids and I highly recommend the Bristlebots. OK..ours may have looked more like epileptic mayflys but they were mighty cool.
2. Awful Plastic Surgery - Look people - I love the National Enquirer. I love making fun of people. With this site - I can do both.
3. The Rasterbator - not what it sounds like. Take a picture and turn it into BIG art!
4. Analysis of Kent Hovind - Young Earth Creationists are a personal pet peeve so I get a kick out of this site and all the crazy wackiness that comes out of this guy's mouth!
 5. Las Vegas on 25 Cents A Day - If you like Vegas like I like Vegas, then this is the site for you! Click on the "Trip Reports" and you'll read some of the funniest stuff you've ever seen. I'll personally recommend this one - 4 days / 40 bucks.
Meme rules:
1. Must be clean, no R rated material.
2. Tell 5 people.
3. Only 5 links allowed.
4. Link back to person who tagged you.You can link to business, favorite, affiliate sites, etc.
I guess the only person I know who might be up for this is Robin (tag) but that hosebag is overseas and eating pastries so send her some Cialis spam until she gets back.
My apologies to the very few of you who follow my bloggy life but I'm painting my bathroom and you'll have to wait just a tad longer for the painting update. It's impossible to spackle, sand, prime, paint and blog (although if I had that third arm that Babycakes and I were discussing as we tried to get  the rear tires back onto JD it might be possible.) I told him that if we had evolved from starfish instead of something like Tiktaalik, maybe we could have gotten that third arm, but I wouldn't be as attracted to him.
Babycakes and I said our goodbyes to the Mummies of the Insane and worked our way westward over the Appalachians to attend the wedding of some college friends. It was one of those events where you know very few other people, but it didn’t matter – most weddings that Babycakes and I attend turn out to have great comic value.
We spent the evening before the wedding on lawn chairs outside of the bride’s home. This is a great first sign because it screams “casual” instead of “wear pantyhose”. It also indicates that it was freakin’ hot. It was one of those sluggishly humid evenings where you're molded to the chair and try to con others into bringing you a drink if they're heading to the cooler anyway. Getting married in 95 degree weather is wrong on so many levels unless you're on the beach.
We drank. We fanned. We learned that our new best friend, Charity, had cruised around the back roads of West Virginia for an hour following signs for ‘Log Jam’ looking to buy preserves, only to find a concert by the river. We laughed at her (not with her) for a good twenty minutes and polished off the cooler before heading to our room at the golf club.
The next morning, we hooked up with another couple from school and attended the wedding ceremony without much fanfare. It was good and short – just like I like’em. Oh...and it was hot there too. Nothing like a good bead of sweat rolling down a bridesmaid's temple. You know what else I find classy about bridesmaids? When they're sporting tattoos on their biceps.
 After that, it was physically impossible to drive directly to the reception without a pit stop at the air-conditioned Arches. We all got Happy Meals which came with these really cool Tarzan straws that would make animal sounds when you drank through them. We took our new toys to the reception with us because we’re classy like that. Like the bridesmaids.
The reception began with the usual wedding reception-y things, they passed out some champagne and the best man ( aka 'The Big Smooth' - best nickname EVER) began his speech. The four of us stuck our Tarzan straws into our champagne flutes. About 10 seconds into the speech we hear noises.
“Oh. My. God."
"That is SOOO f***ing rude."
" Who is making THAT noise?”
That rude noise would be four flutes of bubbly forcing air back up through the Tarzan straws that are now bellowing like Tantor the Elephant.
Since we had firmly established our presence at that point, we took command of the bar and dance floor. One of Babycakes great talents is moving on the dance floor and I would have included a picture of an extremely sweaty Babycakes doing the Booty Call, but it would most likely stop any sort of advancement at work. It was so hot at this reception that people disappeared and reappeared later in cooler clothing. My pictures start out with Babycakes in khakis and a blue oxford and end with a grey t-shirt, shorts and no shoes. It was that kind of a reception.
After a night of drinking, dodging some sketchy locals and sweaty hard dancing , it’s hard just to walk away. Dammit – we’re hot and sweaty…we're in the middle of a golf course...and there’s the water hazard…
Yeah, it was impossible for us to ignore it. We finished off the evening with a midnight swim at the 7th hole. Shouldn't all weddings have a magical ending like that?
(My apologies to the man in charge of the green.)
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We have a creepy, new, furry pet we’ll call Tenty - Tenty the tent worm caterpillar. Tenty was taken from 100 of his closest relatives in a process that should have been captured for YouTube. The picture only shows one of four ‘tents’ on this little tree in our back yard. It's very X-Files and GirlChild would like one.
Most of the tent worms convene close by or in their tents (which incidentally look like they’re filled with caterpillar shit), but some are venturing further out along the branches too high for me to reach. I'll need to approach a lower tent. Calling upon my laziness, I grabbed the first pokey thing I came across that I could use to tear a hole in the tent and snag a bug for GirlChild’s Cup of Death (COD).
GirlChild has taken a custard cup and filled it with everything a tent worm could want - leaves, flowers, and thorns. Seriously. It’s got everything but the leaves they are actually eating but I’m not too concerned since they’re pretty damned disgusting and I hope it dies quickly. I can’t decide if the nest of tent worms is more or less disgusting than BoyChild’s plantar wart. The particular tent in the photo was too high for a good poke so I had to make a stab at a lower tent in which all the caterpillars were still nestled inside.
I pull back a few branches to reach the tent and silently swear that if I see a tent worm crawling up my arm I’m going scream like a girl and flail. I make quick stabs at the tent with the pointy end of the comb and then jump back quickly. It's tricky dodging a smack in the head from possibly tent worm infested branches as you leap backwards - but I was that good. I repeat this a few times to minimize my actual contact with the tree and get ‘lucky’ on the fourth stab when a worm comes back with me on the end of the comb.
This tent material is pretty much like a spider web and it takes more than a few shakes to get Tenty off the comb and into the COD. I’m hoping he suffered shaken-baby syndrome before I scraped him off the comb with a weed. GirlChild immediately engulfs the COD in a plastic shower cap.
There will be no airholes for Tenty as I don’t really want him squeezing through and dying in an unknown location. My best guess is that Tenty won’t make it through the night since GirlChild’s got that I’ll-pet-him-and-love-him-and-squeeze-him-and-hug-him mentality. She lost her fish Fred that way. Fred had issues breathing straight oxygen for extended periods of time.
*UPDATE* Tenty is looking pretty sedate this morning, even when prodded with a pencil. Yay!
Click Humor-Blogs to save Tenty the Tent Worm Caterpillar!
Babycakes and I made the leap from middle class to obscure Georgia county yesterday evening. I’ve already had to take the two front tires of my lawn tractor to the shop because the valve stems had rotted and were snapping off. A more clever person might have thought to inspect the back tires at that time too. I would not be that clever.
And so I discovered more tire flatness when I went out to mow yesterday and this is the very sad solution for having to remove the back tires for repair.
There’s nothing like scrambling around the garage for scraps so the beast doesn’t fall onto your foot. I think the artistic balance we've achieved with cinder blocks and old shelving puts Cirque du Soleil to shame. We can at least take comfort in the fact that this isn’t on our front lawn beside a La-Z-Boy and a bloodhound named General Lee. The worst part of all this is that the counter person at the shop is starting to recognize me. *sigh*
“Hey honey pie…weren’t you just here?” “Yesssssss… (inward roar) … now could you just fix my tires… and give me one of those Slim Jims.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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I had a real, live job interview this morning. GirlChild is starting kindergarten in the fall so I figured I should do something to help cover the cost of my addiction to slot machines. Those twenties don’t just magically appear by themselves. I actually have to root through Babycake’s wallet for those bad boys.
And so I approached THE closet – that would be the closet that hasn’t had a working light fixture for a week and a half and has a 12-foot ladder in it that both Babycakes and I  have decided to leave in there as it would take less energy than moving it. It was tough working around the ladder in the dark trying to locate a shirt that didn’t say “Hanes” and a pair of pants that didn’t have elastic around the waist. I’m apparently having shoe issues too since I almost gave up and wore a pair of Chaco’s. They were a step-up from my flip flops.
My teaching gig in Kenya was a lot easier – I had exactly three dresses that I cycled through and one pair of shoes that I wore until there were holes in the bottom. When they exploded, I wore Tevas for the remainder of my time. Here is one of my teaching sacks:
This was an interview for a teaching position and the highlight (of an otherwise pleasant interviewing process) was the presentation of a sheet of math problems. Apparently they wanted to see if I actually knew math (crazy I know!) and the paper was a snap. I guess it was too much of a snap, because they decided to smack a second paper on the table with some higher math and I could feel the blood starting to pound at my temples. *gulp* (Can they look inside my mind and know that I haven't seen this stuff in over 10 years?) I managed to pull the word “hyperbola” out of my ass and ALMOST remembered how to find the derivative of the sin function. I also had to admit that I didn’t know what in the hell a “SmartBoard” was and that I’m really more comfortable with a pocket of chalk. I’m also more comfortable teaching in a room with lots of fresh air and the threat of corporal punishment looming over the heads of my students.
We’ll see if I’m employed come August or scooping poop at the PetCo.
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...(brain not firing properly for writing yet…)
Kid Party: Attended a birthday party with GirlChild
Why it was good: A five year-old girl chose Batman as her theme
Why it was bad: I went to the party un-Xanax-ed and couldn’t handle 10 kids fighting over the battery-powered cars.
Poker: Home game with friends
Why it was good: Cheaper than a regular tournament, free beer stolen from other people’s coolers and conversation that only got better after 1 am
Why it was bad: I had to leave.
 Pokemon: League play with BoyChild at Aardvark’s
Why it was good: I achieved one sweeter-than-honey victory over black-t-shirted guy, Nick. Viva Exploud!
Why it was bad: I was playing with a banned card that Nick was nice enough to let me keep in my deck. ARRGHH!! Why are these Pokemon people so damned nice?!?!?! I’ve seen more sportsmanship, kindness and maturity at Aardvark’s than I’ve ever at a poker tournament. I’ll never be able to write my expose on the seamy underbelly of Pokemon.
Laundry: Folded laundry
Why it was good: I can see the sofa now.
Why it was bad: There was a lot of it and I think one batch stayed in the washer a few hours too long and had washer funk.
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 Babycakes and I don’t travel anywhere without the help of Roadside America. We like to cram fiberglass into our lives and offer votives to Clark Griswold in our personal at-home shrine. Growing up, my family went so far as to get a vanity license plate that read “WALLY” for the succession of wood-paneled station wagons my Dad went through. As if I weren’t cool enough at school already with my wicked musical routines.
A friend was getting hitched in West Virginia, so Roadside America directed us to Phillipi, WV. No need for travel to Egypt - there are mummies in America for God’s sake. Mummies in West Virginia. In a bathroom. Think about it. Click on the link if you want the background, otherwise I’ll just fill you in on our experience.
The Mummies of the Insane are actually housed in the County Historical Museum and we arrived before they opened. Killing time in Phillipi took a little work - it’s not like there’s a 7-11 where you can purchase Fun-Dip, so we loitered until a little old lady pulled up to open shop. Now this is a nice, if smallish, museum with some Civil War items and old farming equipment. We were too ashamed to admit that we were only there for the mummies when the lady asked us if we’d like to look around - which is about the ONLY reason we know what the rest of the place looks like. I gritted my teeth studying the rusty plows and then sheepishly went back up to the counter to fork over the extra dollar to see the mummies. The dollar goes to a college fund so you’d be a real bastard NOT to see the mummies, right?
 The mummies get their own personal room in what used to be a bathroom. All the bathroom stuff is still in there with a couple mummies crammed on top. Freaking Awesome! And only ONE DOLLAR! Where else can you have that much fun for ONE DOLLAR anymore? Besides the giant sombrero at South of the Border.
Babycakes and I eased on in to the mummy bathroom where we started snapping pictures and briefly considered making out.
There’s not so much to do with the mummies after the pictures are taken and you’ve nixed the whole making-out thing, so we said our goodbyes and found a few fiberglass folks on the road to the wedding.
  (to be continued…)
(Mom, I'm sorry for grabbing the mountain man's crotch.) (and capturing it on film) (and putting it on this blog for all your friends to see)
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Babycakes cut my iPod off this morning and I actually said the following sentence:
Maybe I wanted to listen to 'Mmm Bop'!
That’s admitting that I was listening to 'Mmm Bop' before Babycakes intervened. That’s admitting that I have 'Mmm Bop' on the grouping of songs that are so precious to me that they exist on my iPod – little black rectangle of all that is right in this world. I can barely answer my cell phone but found a way to bottle a little Hanson. So sue me…it’s a catchy tune.
 I’ll never be a music snob because my early years were spent dancing around the living room to ‘Paint Your Wagon’. My brother and I had moves for ‘Hand me down that can o' beans’ and it’s pretty much impossible to be cool at school with moves like that. We existed in a rock music void replete with Roger Whittaker and Johnny Horton. I think I knew there was a band called KISS, but Mom would cringe at the mention so we didn’t mention and made up a routine to “The Battle of New Orleans” instead. My brother and I cracked ourselves up the other day because we had both downloaded Marty Robbins “El Paso.”
It wasn’t until I hit middle-school that I was smacked in the face with my lack of knowledge of current musical trends. Someone said ‘John Cougar’ and I was just able to cover up that fact that I didn’t know this was a singer and not an animal. Fleeing in panic, I parked it in front of the TV and watched videos, etching the names of bands, albums and songs into my brain. I can remember vividly that the first band committed to grey matter was Hall & Oates. I wasn’t choosy – I was just trying to gather and cram information. Good music, bad music…any music…get into brain…must be current or fill void…must not stand out at new school. No more musicals or Civil War tunes. Thank allah for Friday Night Videos and MTV – a gift for someone like me.
So when you look at my profile, and under MUSIC it says I like a little bit of everything - that is the honest truth. I can sit back with a beer and relax listening to Glenn Miller just as easily as Metallica.
And as much as I like a good Mmm Bop – these were the original and much cooler Hanson Brothers.
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If you are kid-less, consider yourself lucky. Not because you don’t have to sand plantar warts, but because kid-lit and cartoons are boring. Sanding the plantar wart actually ranks higher because it has an element of gruesomeness and potential for Keystone Cops excitement if dead wart skin touches my leg directly.
It’s been a while since the days when getting smacked in the head was funny and a cat could take a knife to the eye and walk away from it. Cartoons aren’t funny like that anymore. All this sharing and caring and learning and saving the animals stuff… dammit, I learned cool quarter-staff techniques from Daffy and all GirlChild can do is speak Spanish. She will literally be riding the bus next year with no offensive moves. And two words for you…NATURAL SELECTION. If the Albino Hedgehog is getting wiped out – then it wasn’t tough enough and even Diego can’t save it. Should have bred for those poisonous projectile quills (that you could shoot into a cat’s eye) (and make the children laugh again).
I buckled and let GirlChild pick out a Care Bears book from the library once. Took it back the next day. Let’s see if I can remember the dialogue:
And then Share Bear said to Lovey Bear, “You make me bear-y happy.” Lovey Bear
gave Share Bear a bear-y big hug and they rode the Care-A-Lot-Bear-mobile back
to… ARGGHHHHH!!!! I recall that every other word was ‘bear’. After the first page I started this maniacal laughter every time I got to the word ‘bear’. GirlChild would sort of cut her eyes to me then scooted away.
“Grumpy BEAR ate Happy BEAR’s strawBEARy…”
“Mom…why are you breathing like that?”
“...and so Happy BEAR…”
“Momma?”
“...summoned the Emperor who said, ‘You will pay the price for your lack of vision.’
I briefly considered just taking the book to the dump, but the Dark Side told me that some other sap needed to read it out loud.
 I’m gonna let you in on a gem in this world of cotton-candy-assed cartoons and books. There’s an animated movie you may have missed called “Hoodwinked”. The animation is not Pixar, but the script is excellent. You should at least smile during the Schnitzel Song.
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“And then Humor-BlogBear shot a poisonous bear quill at Emperor Bear's eye…”
Inquiring-reader Nancy has asked some important questions concerning my blog – I’m here to answer. Or create lies.
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Q: So what’s the backside of a blog look like anyway?
A: The backside of this blogger could use a Stridex pad. Oh…you said ‘blog’…awkward…
Q: Can you tell how many people are on at a given time?
A: Being the technologically-challenged individual that I am, I have still managed to push the correct buttons on SiteMeter to show how many people are reading. You know what they say about enough time, monkeys and typewriters. I can also both make AND receive calls on my cell phone now! I have not mastered turning off speaker-phone.
Q: Do you know who we are?
A: I can make an educated guess based on location. I try not to make educated guesses about the folks who were doing searches on ‘nude UNO’. Or maybe I am. It all really depends on whether my Mom is reading this right now.
Q: How many times a day do you check it?
 A: When Alice finds something new and entertaining, Alice prefers to overdose at the beginning. Like when ‘Top Gun’ came out and Alice saw it six times at the movie theater and then bought the soundtrack and played ‘Take My Breath Away’ on continuous loop and then bought the VHS tape so she could watch the volleyball scene every waking minute not occupied by school or sleep. But as the newness wears off, I’m sure it will be less than the continual checking I’m doing currently. For instance, I only listen to ‘Danger Zone’ every OTHER day now. Q: Can you see me right now?
A: No. Staring at the screen has burnt out my retinas.
 __________________________________________________ Click on Humor-Blogs if you think Iceman was cooler than Maverick.
Back in the 8th grade we were fortunate enough to be a three-minute walk from the neighborhood swimming pool. My brother, sister, and I would spend all day there during the summer - pushing each other in, cheating at Marco Polo, and going home in the evening with red chlorine eyes. You actually couldn’t see anything on the walk home because the world was fuzzy at that point. Sunblock? Your shoulders don’t peel if you wear sunblock fool.
(This is a few years early, but my Mom apparently has any and all pool photos.)
The lifeguard nazi wasn’t too keen on us and was forever making us sit on the concrete for 10 minute stretches. But it was worth it when you accomplished an especially good double-bounce on the diving board and the guy’s legs buckled before falling off. If a body part hit the board on the way in – BONUS!
Anyhow, we were generally sitting in the corner concrete square for some infraction that most likely didn’t hurt anybody, except maybe that they couldn’t breathe for a bit. We’d sit there thinking of how we could get even with that stupid teenager who thought she was SOOO POWERFUL, sitting up there on her perch like she was Lord of us Flies. All perfect in that red bathing suit with a cool whistle and all the kids fawning at the pedestal of her throne. I secretly wanted that power.
As we brain-stormed, we figured we really couldn’t do anything too nuts because that would only get us banned from the pool for the summer and the alternative was worse… hanging around at home within earshot of Mom. If you were fool enough to be within earshot of your Mom during the day, then you deserved to be carrying those pavers to the backyard or edging the driveway. You got the hell out of Dodge right after “Diff’rent Strokes” and didn’t reappear until dinner.
The best idea we could come up with as payback was to PEE ON THE CONCRETE while we sat there. In retrospect, I’m not sure who we thought we were “getting” by doing this, but we were the ones having to maneuver around the spreading urine for the remaining 7 minutes. And yet we reveled in that fact that we “got ‘em good” as we sauntered back to the pool. Ha ha! Take that you dumb (and yet so cool) lifeguard! Take my pee spot that’s going to evaporate in 5 minutes and know that I WON!
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In the past, I’ve had the great fortune to flaunt almost god-like power in the form of a university statistics teacher in return for reduced tuition and money enough for all the beer you could drink in a weekend. I also got an office that I shared with a normal girl and an uber-PhD candidate who was so brilliant I just knew he’d come in with an assault rifle one day and kill us all for being so  stupid. We didn’t talk to him much because he’d turn a conversation about Krispy Kreme into a set theory exhortation.
Hey M…just needed to know if you wanted the sprinkle doughnut.
Statistics turned out to be a required class for kids majoring in Physical Education which is filled with kids who play on the school’s various teams. I’m not knocking PE as a major, but it also seemed to attract a caliber of student more suited to occupations with paper hats.
The sports folk were VERY conscientious of their grades because anything less than a ‘C’ meant they couldn’t play. My two most charming football players cornered me before the final:
Big Football Guy: “Ms. Thing …I gotta get a
‘C’…I can get you tickets to the Carolina/Clemson game.”
Me: (thinking seriously about how much money I
could get for those tickets) “How about you just study for the final?”
As part of the class, there were labs where the kids did experiments and then used statistics to analyze and write up a report.
BoyChild could have written a better report than the garbage I used to grade. GirlChild could have done a better job rearranging Scrabble tiles. Sentence fragments were popular. Spelling and subject/verb agreement… HAHAHAHAAA… I give myself leeway on this blog, but you can bet your sweet ass, that if I’m writing up a report it will be flawless. (OK…mostly flawless)
Because all grad students taught the same material, we were all given a grading rubric for a big statistics report the undergrads were writing. And yes, I handed back a paper with a 47 on it. 47 was generous.
Doofus: “Ms. Thing…I don’t think I deserve a 47.”
Me: “Here is a paper that I gave a 99. Why don’t you
compare your paper to this one.”
Doofus: “Ms. Thing…I still think I deserve something
higher.”
Me: “In this section, you wrote the following “sentence” –
the averige devtion wing span 4.2 kilmeters. Your report is half a page long.
It’s hand-written with a corner missing from the top on a piece of paper that’s
been ripped out of a note book and there’s a coffee circle on it.
Doofus: (silence)
Me: “Tell you what…I’ll give your paper to another student
to grade.”
Other student grades paper using rubric and gives it a 42.
Me: “So…you wanna keep my 47 or take the 42?”
My other favorite doofus was the guy who showed up for three classes never to be seen again. I gave him an "F". AND THEN HE SHOWED UP TO DISPUTE THE FREAKIN' "F" !! WHAT IN THE HELL!?!?!?!I actually had to take time out from my busy schedule of walking to the vending machines for a meeting between myself, the student and the head of the department for the grade dispute.
And soooo….the head of the department and I are sitting in his office watching the minutes tick by on the clock BECAUSE THIS LITTLE SHIT HASN’T COME TO THE DISPUTE. I almost wanted to punch something when the professor asked ME where the kid was. Like I know or care. We finally came up with a phone number for him and when we called, his roommate answered and said he was still in bed asleep. HAHAHAHA….. Prof: “Do you still want to give him an “F”?
Me: (Are you serious?) “Yes”
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