Auntie's Hideaway

I just had to say that, because I will be baking myself into oblivion today. Mom has taken over the reins for Thanksgiving this year, because the Salt-Encrusted Ham of Doom convinced her that the Flaky Sister just... should not cook for Thanksgiving. I mean, it wasn't just the ham, it was many, many other things, mostly... it's because after cooking since she was old enough to stand at the stove and stir a pot for our mom... the Flaky Sister just... can't cook. Mom and I were chatting about it a few weeks ago, and reliving last Thanksgiving, and then went on to talking about other meals we've had at the Flaky Sister's, and... *shakes head*
( Cut because of length and pictures, omg! )

You ever have one of those moments when you're wholly absorbed in something, and then something happens that reminds you of why you have come to this particular place in your life?

We were at the library. The Husbandly One and the Impossible Son had gone off into the children's section to look for books, and the Impertinent Daughter and I had gone to look for manga. The manga and graphic novel section is right across from the yarn crafts section, so when I didn't find what I wanted in manga, I walked over to look at books on knitting, since I'm trying to learn. And I found what looked like a fascinating book, No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting by Anne L. Macdonald (no, that's not a typo, that's the way it's spelled on the cover of the book), so I slipped it off the shelf, opened it, and started reading. You'd think a book about knitting, especially the history of knitting, would be boring, but I was wholly and completely absorbed within seconds. How could I not be, reading about how Boy Scout troops during World War I spent hours knitting squares to be sewn together to make blankets for soldiers heading to France? Or when the township of Andover, Massachusetts, decreed in 1642: </i>"The court doe hereupon order and decree that in every towne then chosen men are to take care of such as are sent to keep cattle that they are sett to some other employment withall as spinning upon the rock, knitting & weaving tape &c that boyes and girls will be not suffered to converse together..."</i>

Oh, I was lost! I was standing there, head bent, book open, completely and totally absorbed and then, I don't know how to describe it adequately. There I was, one moment lost in the book, the next, suddenly aware of a presence, breath against the back of my neck, and then lips on my skin. I gasped and turned... to see bright blue eyes looking into mine, and the Husbandly One smiling at me with mischief.

Normally, any one sneaking up behind me and taking the liberty of kissing me on the neck like that would end up with a bloody nose, because Auntie is a little tightly wired, if you know what I mean! But... somehow, even though I never heard him coming up, even though I wasn't even aware of him until half a second before he did it... I just knew. Somehow, I just knew. And that was just... mind-blowing. After nearly 19 years, you'd think I'd be used to this kind of thing, to just having this... awareness of my husband... but it's constantly a surprise, and it makes me ridiculously happy. Totally ridiculously happy.

*contented sigh*

Miss Priss had a soccer game both on Saturday and on Sunday. And her team lost both of them. *sigh* After yesterday's game, we had a party for the kids, they got their trophies, and had a "Parents VS Kids" game afterwards, which was a HUGE amount of fun. And yes, the Husbandly One played, and so did I! And even more important, I did NOT end up, splayed on the ground, doing a face-plant. Y'all should be immensely proud of me! It was exhausting, and I coughed my lungs up last night, but it was entirely worth seeing the look of delight on the Impertinent One's face when she spotted me playing defense across the field from her. Totally!

Mom, in cleats, running down a forward and keeping him from scoring. Mom, blocking the ball and passing it to midfield. Mom, not dying and not falling. Mom is awesome!

I've won enough awesome points to last me through Christmas!!

Yes, as a matter of fact, I am a Star Wars nerd... why do you ask?






My kids found this, and dragged me to the computer to watch it. They've been singing it for days!! And I can't tell you how funny it is to walk in on my son, dancing in his room and singing, "Kiss a Wookeeeeeeeee, kick a drooooooid, drive the Falcooooooooon through an as-terrrrrroooooooooid, till the Princeeesss gets annnooooooyed....."

*dies*

Dear Former Assistant Principal At My Son's School,

You should know, better than anyone, that the speed limit around the school is 20 mph. Therefore, getting on my rear bumper is not going to make me go faster! You were so close, I could see the crumbs from your breakfast still on your upper lip!!

And you also should know by now that the speed limit in the neighborhood is 30 mph, and that our town's cops like to sit partially hidden down the side street we have to pass to catch and ticket anyone going any faster... and there's always two of them! Riding my bumper is not going to speed me up. Sorry, I'm not willing to get a ticket so you can go faster. Besides, I gave you two opportunities to pass, which you ignored for the glory of scowling at me and gunning your motor.

So, yes, I laughed myself silly when I turned left, and looked in my rear view mirror in time to see you put on a burst of speed... only to get pulled over by one of the cops who had been hiding behind a parked van. You so totally deserved it! Yes, sometimes, there is cosmic justice in the universe!!

Just thought you ought to know.

Smugly,

Auntie

So, the Asthma Monster arrived with the ragweed pollen, and I'm ... not doing as badly as say... last year, but I'm still not a happy camper. After I got the kids off to school, I took my meds and pretty much passed out in bed till 1, then got up and groggily decided lunch wasn't happening for me and stared at the computer for a bit. Then I thought shower might help matters, and was in the process of getting in when... the phone rang. And at first, I was going to ignore it, thinking, "Oh, if it's important, they'll call back..."

But you know, there's this thing called "Mom Radar," and I just knew...

So, I answered it and... it's the nurse from the Impossible Son's school. And my first thought was, "Dammit, he's got a fever... I knew I should have kept him home when he said his throat was sore!"

But nooooo... now, y'all just know it's not going to be that simple for Auntie... right?

"Auntie? Yes, I have Mr. Impossible here in my office, and it seems he's been stuffing erasers up his nose."

O_o... wtf???

"Erasers? Up his nose?" I said intelligently.

"Yes. I got most of it out, but his little nose is so swollen, I can't be sure there isn't more still in there..."

"Erasers?? Up his nose??" I said, apparently still stuck in first gear.

"Yes. You're going to have to take him to the doctor or the clinic..."

"Erasers?? Up his nose??"

Gobsmacked does not even come close to covering it.

So, I got dressed (yes, shocolate, I talked to the school nurse on the phone NAKED) and called the family doctor. "No, we don't have any openings today, we're full up," the nurse said. Great, I thought. That means the so-called "urgent care clinic," in our town, which closes at 5 p.m. It's less an urgent care clinic, though, and more of a... well... let's put it this way... if your problem is urgent... you're better off going to the emergency room, because you aren't getting in to see so much as a nurse for at least two hours. So, I called the Husbandly One to let him know what was going on... and went straight to voice mail. I waited a couple of minutes, called again... and straight to voice mail. Fuck this, I thought, and called the office landline.

It was disconnected.

Wonderful, I thought, greatly frustrated. And decided to move on.

I went to pick up the little miscreant fezart eraser-up-the-nose-stuffing poor little guy, and found a rather embarrassed son standing in the nurse's office. The nurse pulled out a small bag with crumbled bits of eraser in it, and my stomach dropped. Now, when the nurse had said "eraser" (I think that's rubber for you Brits, right?), I thought she meant either the ubiquitous big pink eraser that has haunted primary school since time immemorial or those funny wedge shaped ones you put on top of the pencil when the built in eraser wears out.

But no, not even close.

It was... an art gum eraser!! The suckiest eraser known to mankind. The eraser that crumbles into bits the moment you touch it to paper. Yeah, THAT one.

Could he have picked a worse type of eraser to stuff up his nose or what?

"Where did you get this?" I asked, staring at it. "I didn't give you art gum erasers!"

"From the teacher," he said, shrugging.

I checked him out, and of course, I could not help asking The Question. You know the one I mean. The one parents have asked every time one of their kids does something so ridiculous and just plain weird, and just want to understand why??

"Why did you stuff eraser bits up your nose?"

He blinked and gave The Answer kids have always given their parents when they do something ridiculous and just plain weird. Shrug. "I don't know."

Because really, he doesn't. He has no idea, none at all. It just... seemed like the thing to do. He borrowed the eraser from the teacher, tried to use it, watched it crumble and suddenly thought, "Hey, you know, those are just the right size to fit up my nose." Or maybe he thought, "You know, those crumbly bits look just like nasty, dried up boogers. Hey, I'll stuff them up my nose and see if I can gross people out!!" Who knows??

Well... the clinic was stuffed to bursting. Literally. The parking lot was packed, there were cars parked up and down the street and there were people waiting outside. People who stood in little groups, hunched in misery, eyes streaming, sneezing and coughing, dabbing at eyes and noses with crumpled tissues...

I took one look at that and thought, "Oh, no, not today." Yeah, THAT'S what we need. The FLU!! I don't think so!

I took my stinker home and made one more call to my doctor. "Is there any way y'all can fit me in? The clinic is stuffed to the gills. Look, I'll sit and wait for the first available second..."

"Let me talk to the doctor," said the receptionist, and then came back with, "I talked to Dr. R, and the PA, and they both said that they don't have the equipment to deal with this, since you said the erasers are up in both nostrils. They said you should take him to the emergency room."

I looked at the Impossible Son, who was dancing to New Found Glory on his iPod. Our E.R. co-pay went up, and I really wasn't looking forward to taking him someplace else where there would be MORE flu-stricken people. The closest urgent care centers to us are in Austin, New Braunfels, and Wimberly. I was not going to drive into Austin at 3:25 p.m.... not unless he was bleeding out his eyeballs. New Braunfels and Wimberly were out, too. And I still couldn't contact THO.

Thinking of THO reminded me that he had surgery three years ago in San Marcos... with an ear, nose, and throat guy who sees all ages. I googled him, called their office, and yes, yes, no problem, bring him on in.

YAY!! So, knowing that the Tall Blonde would pick up the Impertinent One, I took Mr. Manzie in to San Marcos to see Dr. T. who Mr. Manzie just LOVED, and after sticking a tube up that little nose that let him look into Mr. Manzie's sinuses, was able to tell me that the Impossible Son either sneezed the eraser crumbs out, or swallowed them, because his sinuses were clean.

Oh, happy day!!

He then gave Mr. Impossible the "Don't stick anything up your nose or in your ear that's smaller than your elbow," speech, which still cracks me up, because wow, kids always react the same way. The first thing they do is... try to stick their elbows in their ears!! I think doctors do that on purpose, just to see if a kid will do it!

Much relieved, we made our way back home, and then to the Tall Blonde's house to pick up the daughter.

The Husbandly One called not long after I'd arrived. "Where are you?" he asked, sounding frantic.

Turns out, he turned his phone off, because it needed to be charged and he was saving it in case he needed it while driving. And his company changed their phone numbers, but he never worried about it since he carries his mobile with him all the time. He'll be giving me that new number pretty quick, I think!

All in all, a more adventurous day than I'd anticipated. Ah, the adventure that is parenthood. It's not for sissies, or the faint of heart. And I still haven't gotten my shower!!

Every once in a while, the pathway between Auntie's brain and her mouth short-circuits, and gives her family fuel for entertainment for months, possibly years to come.

There was an open house at the Impossible Son's school this evening, and afterwards, we went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. It was on the way home from the grocery store that the discussion turned to Halloween and costumes. The Impossible Son asked me if I was going to dress up this year. "I dunno," I said tiredly, because I've got the Migraine of Doom. "What do you want me to go as?"

"I don't know," he said. "What do you want to go as?"

I wasn't in the mood to ride on that particular merry-go-round, so I sighed and said, "Maybe I'll just go as a hippie."

"No, I don't like that," he said and you could just hear the frown in his voice. "I don't want you to go as a hippy, Mom."

Great. "Okay, how 'bout I go as Molly Weasley?" I said. That shouldn't be too hard, right? I mean, she's a mom, I'm a mom, I just have to dress eccentrically and carry a wooden spoon and look harried. In other words, just... dress and look normal, and maybe a poofy red wig or something. And add a British accent.

"That would be AWESOME!!" said Mr. Impossible. "Do it! Do it! And Papa can be Mr. Weasley!"

I looked over at my husband and his tattoos and said, "Um, no, maybe he should be Charlie..."

"No!" said the Impossible Son. "I'm going to be Charlie Weasley!"

The Impertinent Daughter snorted at this, but didn't say anything.

"Okay," I said, willing to go along with this, and thinking about what pens I could use to draw "tattoos" on his arms. "You can carry your toy dragon under your arm to, and when you go up to people's porches, you can say, look! I'm handling my dragon!"

The moment that popped out of my mouth, I knew, instinctively, that I had Dropped A Brick. There was shocked silence in the van for about... oh... I'd say about maybe 9 nano-seconds that lasted approximately two thousand years... and then they all died laughing.

"MOM!!!" said my daughter, trying to sound outraged while nearly suffocating herself laughing. "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT!!!"

"Wow, honey," said the Husbandly One, snorting and guffawing, "that's... wow! That's way beyond your usual!"

"What?" said the Impossible Son, lost for about ten seconds, and then, "OOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!! MOM!!! GEEZ!!! That's just... WRONG!!!"

See? Even with a migraine, I'm pretty damn entertaining... most especially when I don't mean to be!!

I'm sure my face will stop burning at some point. And I hope they will let me live it down sometime before I'm eighty!

*goes to hide*

OMG, have you guys seen THIS???

Lunch Bag Art!!

He's a dad, at home, he makes his kids' their lunches... and decorates the bags, just regular, brown paper bags, and he does it elaborately, with Sharpie markers, crayons, pencils, etc....

I'm stunned. And yet, I don't know if I could do that much work on something my kids were just going to crumple and toss!

My favorite? It's far down in the queue, but it's the Calvin and Hobbes one, where Calvin is throwing a hissy-fit and declaring he doesn't want to go to school. It got sent back home with a note from his son's teacher saying it was cool, but the comments on it weren't!!

Go look! Go look!! *pushes y'all*

Shamelessly stolen from shocolate

Have you seen Translation Party?

You paste in text in English, and it flips it back and forth, Japanese to English, until the translation stabilizes on both sides, or it concludes it's going in circles.

The meme is to paste in the first line of your last ten fics, then post them.

( The fun starts here! )

Some of you may remember THIS little adventure of mine from three years ago.

Well... yesterday, I had a lot of errands to run, and finished up with another visit to the grocery store to pick up things I had forgotten on Tuesday. I was hot, tired, I just wanted to go home, and I was also thinking of things I needed to do when I got there. So, I was again on autopilot. I went to my van, unlocked the back, and started stowing my groceries. Vaguely, at the back of my mind, there was a transient thought of Something's missing, but I rather irritably chalked it up to having forgotten something at the store, and I wasn't about to go back and get it! No, I just wanted to go HOME. It was 102, I was soaked in sweat, and my flip flops were melting to the asphalt. I just wanted out and back into the cool, you know?

So, I close the back of the van and put the basket away, then hop in my car, thinking vaguely, Didn't I put up the sun shade? Oh, well, guess I forgot again and then wondered why the car was still so cool despite sitting in full sun for at least 30 minutes. Then I thought, "Wait... where are the Soot Sprites I hung on the mirror? And when did my car get so clean??"

At that moment, I just happened to look at the car parked on my right... and saw my Soot Sprites hanging from the mirror, in front of a silver sun shade. I wasn't sitting in my car!!

I had done it... AGAIN!!

You know what the worst part was? I had to unload the groceries, then put them in MY car!!!

*dies*

That brief thought I had about something being missing? Yeah, that was the myriad bumper stickers the Husbandly One has thoughtfully put all over the back door of my van!!!

I can say this, the owner of the mirror van no longer has a Virgin Mary on the dashboard or a pink flamingo hanging from the mirror. But her car is still insanely clean!!

After I got over my frustration, I laughed pretty damn hard at myself. And you can imagine that Auntie will very carefully check EVERYTHING before she so much as pokes her key in the door again!!

The Husbandly One and I are both... well... geeks. Science fiction, fantasy, we read, we grew up on Star Trek, </i> Star Wars</i>, and all the stuff that childhood in the late sixties, early seventies entails. And there are certain phrases that we will bandy back and forth that make us laugh uproariously, but leave the Impertinent Daughter frowning and saying, "Er... what?? I don't get it..."

One that has really thrown her is when THO or I pop out with, "Brain, brain, what is brain?" at highly appropriate moments, and then fall apart laughing. "What's so funny about that?" she says, looking at us like we're nuts. Well, we are nuts, but that's neither here nor there.

So today, while the Impossible Son was playing at a friend's house, I got on Veoh.com and found the notoriously and infamously worst written episode of Star Trek ever put into production... "Spock's Brain."

Even the title sucks.

It is so awful, it's hilarious, in an entirely unintentionally funny way.

What gets me about that episode? If that's the script that actually made it to the point of being made... what the hell were the scripts they turned down like???

Anyway, she watched it with an air of disbelief, and burst out laughing at times. By the end, though, she got it. And will most likely die laughing with us when either THO or I quip, "Brain, brain, what is brain??"

It's a wonderful life...

Because I can't resist Shatner, especially in this case....



Truly... I have no words...

*dies laughing*

Yes, yes, I know I'm spamming you with my creativity lately. Miss Priss and I did another round of scribbling the other night, and this is the result! (gosh, I hope you guys are liking this, because aside from about two comments... I've had no feedback on it!)

( Under the Bed, Part 3!! )

An addendum at the end of softly_sweetly's post this morning made me laugh somewhat ruefully and think of something that is an everyday irritation around here.

Whenever I need a pen... I have no problem finding one. Seriously, there are pens and pencils all over the place here. What I have a problem with is finding one that works!

The bottom shelf of one of our kitchen cabinets has several jars filled with pencils and pens. Whenever I'm presented with a permission slip, or some form or other that needs to be signed, I open the cabinet and begin the process of finding some sort of writing implement that works or isn't broken. I kid you not, there have been times I have ended up signing a health form in crayon.

That's not even including the two drawers with pens and pencils, and the majority of those pens don't work, and the pencils are all broken. And yes, I have tried to throw the non-working pens out, but I have to be very sneaky about it. If I do it where the Husbandly One can see it, he immediately grabs it, frowns at it, scribbles on some paper with it, and throws it back in the drawer with a "I can get it to work, I just need a few minutes with it. I'll work on it later." And I'll go back a few days later to grab that same pen and it still doesn't work!!

Meaning I have to toss them when he isn't home.

One of these days, I'm going to get a wild hair and sharpen all the damn pencils, too. I mean, it's sad to want to sketch something, or write something down... and all the pencils have broken leads!! And even the mechanical pencils are... empty!!

Happens most often when I'm on the phone. If someone calls me, say from the soccer board, I have to write whatever they are telling me down or... I'll forget it. See, if I hear something, I tend to forget it, but if I read it, I'll remember it because... I remember everything I read.

Sad, isn't it?

So there I am, with plenty of paper, mind you, scrambling for a pen, pencil, anything to write down what I'm hearing, asking the caller to please wait a minute while I find something to write with because... nothing works. I have actually had to resort to carrying a little zippered pouch in my purse of working pens and pencils. And believe me, I guard my little pouch with a ferocity usually attributed to mother wolves protecting their cubs. I know the pens and pencils in my pouch work, and I am not parting with any of them, so get your dirty mitts OFF!!

Sad, sad, sad.

Of course, I have sharpened all the pencils before. Want to know what happened? I went back ten minutes later to grab a pencil, confident that I would find a fully sharpened, unbroken pencil lead... and pulled out a broken one. Why? Because my daughter had come in, taken all the sharpened pencils, and replaced them with all the broken ones that were in her room.

Then she wondered why I was sitting at the table with a handful of broken pencils, chin quivering and tears running down my face!!

Hmmmm... maybe today I'll go through all the pens and winnow out all the ones that aren't working. Tomorrow is trash day. If I bag 'em all up and toss them in the bin outside and put a few bags on top of it, THO will never know!! Unless the kids rat me out.

Guess that means I'll be baking cookies today.

Who, me? Bribe my kids??

You bet your bippy!!

*sigh* The things I do for a working pen!!

It's extremely flattering to tell someone that's known you for a while that you're 45, and have them literally fall over in shock, because they didn't think you were any older than 32, at the most!!

Okay, so the Impertinent Daughter and I have been busy. Actually, she drags me out of the bedroom after I read to the Impossible Son, and gets me to scribble with her until I'm so sleepy, I can't stay awake. The result of this is, of course, more Phil and Lucius. Lucius is the cat, by the way, and he has a boy, whom you will meet in this episode.

Watch out, dial-up users, there's going to be a lot of images, and they're large. I'm sorry, but you wouldn't be able to read the dialogue if they weren't large. And for those of you who are not manga-proficient, I have put again put numbers on the pictures so you can follow them in order. For future reference, though, manga are read from right to left, instead of left to right. Just think of it as... reading backward, and you'll be fine.

Anyhow, on to Phil!

( Under the Bed... )

You know you're a music geek when you're watching a movie with your family, and then a passage like this comes up...

Zoe: "So, how did it go today?"

Poppy: "What, with our flying flock of little feathered friends?"

Zoe: "Yeah."

Poppy: "It was good, they loved it, flap-flap-flappin' away they were!"

Zoe: "Were they?"

Poppy: "Yeah, bless 'em!"

Zoe: "Had to nip it in the bud with my lot before they went nuts and flew out the window."

Poppy: "It's okay, then, was it?"

Zoe: "Oh, yeah, played 'em Stravinsky after lunch just to calm 'em down."

Poppy: "What'd you play?"

Zoe: "Rites of Spring."


I laughed hysterically at that. The Husbandly One blinked and looked at me as if I had suddenly lost my mind, and the Impertinent Daughter frowned and said, "Okay, Mum gets it, but evidently, the rest of us are just totally lost on this." And the Impossible Son said, "I don't get it."

And in case you're wondering, the characters weren't talking about birds, they were talking about their primary school students, who had just finished a project to turn paper bags into bird masks/helmets, whatever. It's from the movie "Happy-Go-Lucky," which wasn't quite as good as the movie trailer makes you think it will be. That was pretty much the only moment where I laughed hard enough to get breathless. Never thought I would say this, but... some exposition would have been nice. It was kind of... plotless, like a movie in search of a story, or something. Or a theme. Or a plot. A plot would have been good, yeah.

I'm glad "Knowing" and "Happy-Go-Lucky" were free rentals. Sure would have hated to blow six bucks on 'em!!

And as for yesterday... well... you know, it's been what... five weeks? And I'm still sick? I was having a momentary pity party for myself, but I'm better now. Basically what had made me so unhappy was realizing that I'm not going to be able to go watch the Impossible Son play in the 3v3 Live tournament tomorrow, or go to the Austin Aztex/Portland Timbers game afterwards, which I was really looking forward to. I don't miss my kids' games willingly, let's put it that way, and I was really looking forward to watching Mr. Manzie's team play. But it's going to be 104 tomorrow, and Auntie would melt, apparently, so... Auntie will stay home. *pout*

I've got other worries on my mind, but... not ready to share them yet.

Can't wait for the new Harry Potter. And Ponyo in August!

Oh, shocolate, the Impertinent Daughter said the only thing that makes the fact that you've seen the new HP movie already bearable is that you SHARE all the goodies with the rest of us!! *merry laughter*

I did not sleep well last night. The poor Husbandly One tossed and turned most of the night, and therefore, I spent a lot of it curled up against his side with my chin digging a hole in his chest, chatting and making him laugh. I know, sounds an odd way of spending a night when someone is restless, but THO needed distraction in a big way, and for once, sex wasn't going to do it.

Why, you ask? Well, he got his hair cut yesterday, very short, and afterwards, he got progressively grumpier, and grumpier, and shorter, until it was bedtime, and I thought he was just tired and cranky, he'll just pass out and wake up tomorrow in a much better mood, right?

Nope. He was... upset about his hair!!

Even though he complained constantly that it felt like a wet mop on his head, it was heavy, and it's been so damn hot that it was like wearing a blanket on his head, he was more attached to it than he realized. He liked having it, and realized that it made him different, and he liked that, too. It made him rather a standout in this town, and he'd rather enjoyed that. And he liked our little ritual in the mornings of my getting up to put his hair in a ponytail before work.

I told him if I had known that, I would never have encouraged him to go ahead and get it cut. Yes, you read that right, I did. He was so miserable and hot and uncomfortable, well... what would y'all have done?

So... I made the appointment, and he thought he would be happy with it, but he said it didn't sink in how much he had liked it and just enjoyed having long hair until it was gone, and so I hugged him and said, "Well, now you understand how I feel sometimes when I get my hair cut and realized it was the Wrong Thing To Do."

"Yeah," he said sadly.

"Well," I said finally, "we already know your hair grows incredibly fast. In fact, I'm jealous of how fast your hair grows! So, by this time next year, your hair will be where it was today. And what will you be doing?"

"Just getting the dead ends trimmed off!" he said firmly.

*does a happy dance at the thought of long hair on THO again*

In the meantime, I'm getting mine trimmed and evened out today. Yes, I'm going to go ahead and let it grow out. He quivered his chin at me and did the tear-filled eyes thing, saying, "Please don't cut your hair! If I had not cut mine, I could bear you cutting yours short but right now, please don't cut it all off! I'll help you take care of it!"

*pause*

Okay, I'm back from getting my hair cut. Wanna see it? Do you? Do you really? Okay, here's a really bad Photobooth photo of me...




Yep, pretty much just look the same. Same ol' hair, same ol' freckles, same ol' purple shirt... I really need to get some new clothes, seriously.

In other news, got the results of Monday's blood tests back, and I don't have... mono. Okaaaaay....

Apparently, I just have a pissy little virus that doesn't want to let go, and I just have to let it... run its course.

And don't y'all know I'm just thrilled about that! So, I'm going to curl up in bed and spend some time with Lord Peter Wimsey. Actually, I started Murder Must Advertise at about 3 a.m. I'll probably finish it today and start on Gaudy Night.

Oh, and we rented "Knowing" yesterday. All I can say is... I'm glad we didn't pay full price to see it in the theater!! As it was, we enjoyed making fun of it as we watched it. I am sure the flaming moose is going to make itself a part of family jokes for years to come!!

Okay, off to bed for me!!

Nicked from shocolate...



... y'all have NO idea how fitting this is!!!

Top Ten Good Things About How Hard Albuterol Makes Auntie Shake

10. I don't need a battery powered toothbrush, because I shake so hard when I'm brushing my teeth, it's practically like having one!

9. I don't have to work that hard making cinnamon toast, because shaking the cinnamon/sugar mix on is a breeze! I don't even have to shake the bottle!!

8. I can do the shimmy without even trying!!

7. Need to draw squiggly lines? Auntie's your gal!!

6. Vibrator. Don't need.

5. No need for a motorized tiller in the garden. Just give Auntie a gardening fork, and and let her rip!!

4. Give her a cranky baby, and she'll jiggle that sucker to sleep in no time!

3. Don't need a sprinkler. Just hand Auntie the water hose and let her go!!

2. One word. Maracas!!

... and the number one good thing about how hard Albuterol makes Auntie shake?

"Watch her wiggle
See her jiggle
Bouncing ta-ta's
Auntie's got the shakes again!!!" **



And just for an extra bonus laugh, I took the kids to Dairy Queen yesterday after my doctor's appointment to get us all some Artic Blasts, which are really just slushies. Anyhow, I went to the drive-thru, because no way did I feel like getting out of the car and walking in! So, I drove up to the intercom thingie, place my order, and wait for the gal to tell me how much it is. But she can't do that, no, she has to offer me something more, right?

This is where Auntie's hearing glitch kicks in. It's hard for me to understand the drive thru intercoms anyway, but most of the time, I figure it out. However, yesterday, my glitch decided to give me an extra entertaining session in the drive-thru.

"Would you like to knit me some argyle socks?"

Blink. Blink. "Er... what was that again?" I said, knowing there was no way in hell she even remotely could have said that!

"Would you like... to knit me... some argyle socks?" she says more slowly.

Blink. Blink. Okay, I KNOW she didn't actually say that. There is simply no way she could have said that. And really, I just... didn't want to ask her again, because I knew I'd hear the same thing again, so I decided to err on the side of caution and said, "Um... no."

"Okay, your total is $5.81, please drive up to the window to pay."

I turned to look at the Impertinent Daughter, who was riding shotgun, and said, "Could you understand what she was saying?"

"No, not really," she said, then grinned knowingly at me, recognizing the signs. "Okay, Mom, what did you hear?"

I told her and she burst out laughing, and we spent a good few minutes trying to decipher it with out any real success. Thus, by the time we drove up to the window, we were semi-hysterical. When the server came to the window, I managed to wheeze out, "What the heck were you asking me over the intercom after I placed my order?"

She blinked and said, "Um, I wasn't taking the orders, Ma'am. But... I can ask." She looked over at the blonde teenager wearing the headset dubiously, then said, "Might not do any good, though."

"That's okay, it's more fun for us to try to figure out anyway," I said, paying her and accepting our slushies.

"Why, what'd you think she said?"

I told her, and she nearly dropped my cup. I have a feeling Miss Ditzy Blonde is going to have a hard time living that one down.

When I told the Husbandly One about it later, he laughed, but as I thought about it, I realized she was probably asking something like, "Would you like to order any more with that?" or "Would you like some extra snacks?" But it doesn't quite fit.

Oh well, I may never know!! File that one away with the man in the grocery store that I could have sworn said, "Beat me, Daddy, I slobbed the knob." And no, he didn't really say that, because (1) he was saying it to his wife while holding his little daughter on his hip, and (2) I was reading his lips, and his mouth didn't match his words, but I was so stunned by what it sounded like, that I just... couldn't get past it!!

** For those of you who don't know, back in the 80's, Jello brand gelatin had a commercial jingle with the lyrics, "Watch it wiggle/See it jiggle/Cool and fruity/Jello Brand Gelatin..."

Okay, so... I finally got in to see the doctor today. Seems I'm not the only allergy suffering patient he has who is absolutely miserable right now. And vicki_sine, the antibiotics I was on was a 5 day Z-pack that was finished by Monday, the 15th, so that wasn't what was causing my itching. It was something I had gotten into in the backyard, methinks, because once I got a shower, it got better.

Anyhow, I went in to see the doc and... I now have a rattle in, you guessed it, the left lung. It's always that damn left lung. I'm telling you guys, if that left lung would just get with the program, I'd be fine!! But no, it keeps getting suspicious rattles, and clicks and squeaks... personally, I think a family of gerbils has taken up residence in there, but the X-rays don't bear me out, so... *shrugs*

The end result is, I have a nice little case of bronchitis going, so the doc threatened me with Levaquin, which is a big, scary antibiotic where I'm concerned because, while it tends to work and clear out my lungs, it also happens to knock me flat and make me as week as a two day old kitten. Think... Noodle Auntie. So, when I acted appropriately cowed, the doctor instead put me on another Z-pack for five days, as well as adding an extremely low dose of oral prednisone for five days (because the five day Medrol pack actually ends up making me feel worse) and putting me back on an asthma medication that I had taken back when we lived in a house full of toxic mold (though we knew it not).

And at a larger dosage.

In other words, she's throwing all the big guns at me, probably because that rattle sounds worse than she's letting on. I also had some bloodwork done, which was ... not fun. But that's another story.

However, I did get a clue as to why I'm feeling so crummy when I went in to the pharmacy to get my prescriptions filled. Mr. B, the pharmacist, said, "Well, to tell you the truth, Auntie, ever since I noticed the farmers plowing their corn under, I've been expecting you to come in for new meds. And you're not the only one."

Yeah. The local farmers are plowing under the corn and the milo, because it is just completely burned up. Most of the corn didn't even get a chance to set ears before they started burning up. It ain't nothin' but stalks. Even the cotton, which loves hot weather, is showing the effects. Normally, it doesn't bloom till it's about hip high. It's barely knee high... and it's blooming now. And not as many blooms as you'd like to see, too.

Did I mention it was 105 F here today? That's 40.5 to those of you who measure by Celsius. In other words, hotter'n a skillet in a bonfire!

So, with the plowing under, there's dust, mold, and goodness knows what else in the air. Which means one unhappy Auntie. And also an unhappy Impertinent Daughter and Impossible Son, because Auntie pretty much has to stay put, though the doctor didn't put me on bed rest this time, per se... she just said, "Get as much rest as you can," but she didn't specify WHERE.

Think I can get off on a technicality?

*flinches from the massive collective glare from her f-list*

Okay, okay, you win, you win!!

Auntie will behave!!

*sigh*

Hey, anybody watching "I Survived a Japanese Gameshow"? OMG, that show is AWESOME!!! And hilarious!! In tonight's episode, I particularly enjoyed when a female contestant, after having been soaked in lotion and oil, had to slither across the half naked bodies of several sumo wrestlers all laying on their backs in order to place a torch in a stand and put on a medal, then slither back over them and finish an obstacle course. OMG!! And when she grabbed one of the sumo wrestlers' very apparent bulge as a handle to help herself along, then realized what she had grabbed?? *dies laughing* I wonder if he's managed to get his eyes back into his head yet?

*dies laughing all over again*