Bob/Eggs

I'm reading Bob Newhart's I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This. Good so far.

We had many thunderstorms today but a beautiful sunset so I guess it evened out.

BP will be out of town, so LP and I are going over to my youngest sister's for Easter this Sunday. I'm bringing a roasted shrimp and orzo salad that The Barefoot Contessa made. And Connie wants me to bring the deviled eggs. Bah. I haven't made those in ages. Anyone have anything special she adds to the yolk mixture besides mayo and mustard and paprika?

And is it true that if you put the eggs into cold water, bring them to a boil, cover the pan and let them sit for 15 minutes, you'll get perfect hard boiled eggs? How about shelling them? Run them under cold water? I hate when the shells don't come off in a nice neat pretty way.

I suppose I'll have to go grocery shopping either Friday or Saturday.

Of blue-veined tits and amusement parks

Do people really have fun at amusement parks?
When I was down in Florida the person I went to the conference with and I took one day off and went to Universal Studios.
We went on The Cat in the Hat ride (wait was five minutes), another Suess ride (wait was 10 minutes) then we had lunch at Emeril’s restaurant where the woman at the next table whipped out her big blue-veined tit and nursed her baby. Am I offended by breastfeeding? No. Not discreet public breastfeeding. This woman made a display of whipping out her milky tit. Instead of sitting towards the wall where no other diner could have known what she was doing, she sat facing the entire restaurant and whipped it out. The manager was too much of a pussy to say anything to her. To his defense, she was probably one of those idiots who would have accused him of being “anti-motherhood.” I am not anti-motherhood. I’m anti- having to see a big blue-veined tit and a kid sucking on it when I’m trying to enjoy an overpriced lunch at Emeril’s.
Anyway, I digress. After lunch we waited sixty minutes to ride the Back to the Future ride which sucked and wasn’t worth 60 minutes of my life. My friend then wanted to wait another hour to ride this Earthquake ride, so I said I’d wait by this fake-warehouse building on a comfortable wooden bench while she rode on it. I enjoyed watching people’s faces and hearing snippets on their conversations. Their faces told me that they weren’t having fun. Even the kids were whining and snarling and so I figured out that Disney and Universal and Six Flags and King’s Island and all those other amusement parks are perpetuating a BIG LIE on the American Public. Their commercials promise smiling faces and grandparents having fun with bright-eyed children. But, in fact, it’s a BIG LIE.
I must be cursed because years and years ago when my sisters and I were at DisneyWorld waiting in the long ass line for It’s a Small World ride, another big, big woman a few people in front of us whipped out her tit and breastfed. Any man who is a “breast man” shouldn’t watch when a Big, big woman, or a woman with big blue-veined tits breastfeed their offspring.

The First of April

I won last night's Powerball jacket and will send each of you ten thousand dollars to do with what you wish. Email me at EmmaWrites@aol.com if you want money. You must post here in my comment section what you would do with the money I send.

I'm off to a secuded South Pacific isle to bask in the sun's warmth while a dark and swarthy canaba boy leisurely applies oil over my body.

My only worry now is whether to order the pina colada or the margarita.

Have fun and I'll see you on my return.

Larry Bud/Mowing/Prechopped garlic

If you’re a fan of the old David Letterman show on NBC, you’ll be sad to hear that Larry “Bud” Melman aka Calvert DeForest died a few days ago. He was very funny and I read that he really enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame on the Letterman show.

I cleaned and rearranged the living room and my computer desk yesterday. Today it’s on to my bill paying desk. It’s a mess.

It’s getting ready to pour here today. Today and tomorrow in fact. My neighbors on either side, and the ones across the street have already mowed their lawns! I refuse to mow in MARCH. In fact, I was out on the porch yesterday when I saw the nice neighbor, Bill, mowing. I waved my arms and he stopped. “IT’S TOO EARLY TO MOW!!! IT’S MARCH!!”
He laughed, “But it’s supposed to rain all weekend! I want to get it done.”
Me: “Phewtttttt!”

I didn’t make any coffee this morning, and I could really use some caffeine.

My daffodils and hyacinths look spectacular, I must say.

When I was cleaning my computer area I found a five bucks Starbucks card. I put it in my wallet but I don’t really care for their coffee, it’s too strong and bitter.

Schell, have you ever seen Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller? She looks like you. I don’t like her show, because she uses PRECHOPPED, JARRED GARLIC! No matter how pressed for time someone is, there is always time to chop a freaking clove of garlic! That prechopped stuff is crap and tastes like chemicals.

Same thing with that know-nothing, big-breasted Barbie doll Sandra Lee. I hate her. She uses lemon juice from a bottle! Good God . . is nothing scared? If you have a cooking show . . . . squeeze a real fucking lemon!
Anyway, while I deplore her methods, Robin Miller reminds me of Schell.

Dirty House/Insurance/Lost

When I got back from Orlando, BP, LP and my brother had replaced the ugly green carpet in the living room and front room with Cherry Sienna laminate wood flooring and I love it! They had a helluva time getting the carpet’s backing up—it had pretty much turned to cement. That carpet must have been there since the 70’s. Yuck.

Anyway, they did a wonderful job on the flooring but the rest of the house was a mess! The bathroom. The kitchen. So I took today off and I’m going to rearrange furniture and throw shitloads of trash away, clean my computer area, clean my bill-paying desk and do laundry and clean the bathroom. How’s that for a fun Friday.

We also got some refinancing on our house and the house I owned prior marriage to BP, so I have to visit my friendly insurance agent (he’s really a nice guy—for an insurance agent) and get insurance since the home insurance isn’t going to escrow/mortgage company route anymore.

What else? Oh, if I have time I’m going to watch my Grissom sometime since I taped CSI last night.

A shout out to Spidey since she emailed me info on Elliot Yamin’s new CD. I loved him last year on American Idol and he’s the only Idol whose CD I’d ever consider buying. I’ll get it soon.

LP has Spring Break next week and I guess he’s going to be hanging around the house.

WTF was that with Nikki and Paulo on Lost on Wednesday? (I love the way Sawyer always asked “Who are you??”---my sentiments exactly) How are they advancing the storyline? Are they going to crawl out of their graves? Note to people who find my “dead” body: Wait at least 8 hours before embalming and/or burying me.

Back from Flo

Here are some Headlines:

--Weather was beautiful.

--Rosen Shingle Creek is a beautiful facility. They have a cool 1.25 mile Nature Trail and we saw heron and egrets and snakes, oh my. I felt just like Toohot hiking the Applachian (sp) Trail!

--My room had a whirlpool spa tub. It would have helped Schell's back.

--I heard/met/saw Frank McCourt!! He's bright, witty and funny. He spoke about his 26 years teaching in the NYC school system. We all received copies of his Teacher Man book. He has a children's book coming out in October. "My publisher suggested that I write a children's book. I said why not. It can't be that hard. (he rolls his eyes) Even Madonna's written a children's book, by God."

--During my five day stay I consumed 2 glasses of red wine, one glass of white wine, one cosmopolitan and one bloody Mary, which is more alcohol than I've had in all of 2006 combined. While I got the wine for free, the cost of the last two drinks cost more than the GNP of several small countries.

--I do NOT want to go to work today and do travel reimbursement papers. It's a bunch of tedious shit.

--I was not on or near a computer for five days, and I enjoyed it.

--Clanky is a two faced British Ho. On my blog she said she'd miss me more that Meme, and on Meme's blog she said the opposite. Mean, mean, mean!!

Gone for five days

I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Orlando so this will be my last blog entry for about a week. I checked on weather.com to see the 10-day conditions in Orlando and it's supposed to be in the 80's and partly sunny (or partly cloudy if you're Eeyore.)

We applied for our passports yesterday. Awful, awful pictures. "We" meaning BP and me. LP refused to go because "I don't want to go to England! What's there for me to do in London?!" (I even told him that, based on Meme and Clanky, English girls are loose and whorish and he maybe get lucky over there.) Sigh. After about 30 minutes of this I refused to argue anymore and we left. So, Spidey, when I decide to go to England with my husband, I'm dropping LP off at your door for the duration! Or maybe I'll give him to Schell. Or to the Nagual.

I watched the first episode of the new Dancing With the Stars. That was two hours I'll never get back, and Heather McCartney's leg didn't even fly off! What a disappointment!

I finished The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and really enjoyed it. I want Schell and Spidey to read it. There have been many books like this before: A You Can Have It All type book, but it's done with fresh eyes. The premise is basically this: The Universe is boundless and anything you can imagine can be yours. It's the Power of Positive Thinking meets the book Now. It's not for those analytical thinkers, it's more of a feeling book, and naysayers are not welcomed. After applying the principals in the book, you can attract wealth, health, a mate, love . . whatever. Couldn't hurt. I want LP to read it. Whether or not he does, remains to be seen.

Have a good week. See you soon.

Why did I take off a few days from work? I come back and the work's still piled on my desk.

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!/Dream

Top ‘o the morning to you and Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Yesterday I dug out two overgrown lavender plants and today I have to cut back my ornamental grasses and that should be the end of my clean up.
------------------------------

I had a strange dream last night. It was not exactly cohesive, more like little vignettes strung together:

--There was a huge barn, almost empty. Apparently people had to move. Huge wooden beams exposed in the ceiling and there was a shiny brass lock on the door. I was fiddling with the lock and it came apart in my hands and I remember thinking, “Oh crap, I broke it.” But on the air appeared a map to follow to fix it. I usually hate reading directions, but I did, and repaired the lock.

--I was outside and glanced up in the air and saw this beautiful big Black woman standing up in an open chariot. I remember she was wearing a flowing red and yellow, sort of Asian-looking, gown. She was the most stunning thing I had ever seen. Two other people were with her: One was driving the chariot and the other was holding onto her legs. When they landed she was screaming excitedly that she had won the Miss America pageant. She hugged me so hard and asked if I wanted to work for her.

--I was inside of my house, in the backroom and two gigantic men came through the back door and the cat jumped up on one and they were both so interested in her, they had never seen a cat before and I said, “You need to give her back to me. She not used to you. And you need to leave my house. You don’t have permission to be here.” They smiled and handed back Miss Kiks and left.


--BP and I were riding bicycles down this very winding lane and came upon this really beautiful house. Except for grass, it was totally devoid of plantings and I said to him, “That house would be perfect with some trees, shrubs and other landscaping.” And he said, “And it needs a water feature and some bicycles or a few children’s toys out in front to show some signs of life. And all those things suddenly appeared before our eyes, and this place looked magnificent.

"Where are you Kiki Marie?!!"

Yesterday we had a violent lightning/thunderstorm which lasted from about 6pm into the night. I swear we got 2 to 3 inches of rain. Anyway around 8 LP asked me where the cat was. I didn't know so, we started looking for her. We looked EVERYWHERE. She wouldn't come when we called. She wouldn't come when I shook her food dish. She wouldn't come when BP open and shut the baseement door (she loves to go exploring down there when he goes down there to smoke.) She wouldn'e come when I sprayed room deodorizer (she always comes out from wherever she is when an aerosol can is sprayed.)
I got the sinking feeling she may have run past LP when he opened the front door when he came home at 7. She's done that before but she always just jumps up on the bench to get a good view of my birdfeeders. I looked outside on the porch. No cat. I called. No cat. I looked around the house (as far as I could without getting wet.) No cat.
Then BP called out that he found her. We had looked under every piece of furniture in the house except the green chair in the living room. BP lifted the chair and there she was looking scared as hell. She slunk slow and low away until I scooped her up. That thunder must have scared the bejezus out out of her. Poor lil Kiki Marie.

-----

After being in the 70s yesterday, this morning it's COLD outside! But the rain's supposed to stop sometime this afternoon. Good!

I'm taking today and tomorrow off of work. Next week I'm leaving for a business trip to Orlando and I'll be gone for five days.

Weather/Clean Up Work

It was absolutely beautiful weather here today! I left work at noon and worked in my yard most of the afternoon.
I dug up a five year old hyssop bush.
I dug up a five foot wide patch of catmint. I saved a bit to maybe transplant elsewhere later.
I dug up some Sedum Autumn Joy to transplant elsewhere.
I cut back coneflowers and my seven foot tall Buddelia.
I raked some fall leaves from the beds.
I raked smooth all bare areas. Planting time, I'll put in some red daylilies (I don't care for them, but BP likes them so I'll make a space.) A few weeks ago I also bought some elephant ears and some cannas (for the hummers) that I have no idea where I'll put but I 'll work them in somewhere.
I'll probably feel all that digging in my legs, butt and back tomorrow.

List of things to buy before May:
I need at least one new lavender plant.
Several bags of potting/top soil.
Several bags of pine bark mulch.
Herbs: lots of flat leaf parsley, rosemary, thyme, and two or three different basils (not the ball less English Basil we all know and love!) pineapple sage and some mint.
Lots of container/bedding plants.

BP has also (reluctantly) agreed to put in a paver path for me from the backdoor out to the shed. LP doesn't know it yet but he'll be happy to assist with the digging and hauling.

An Homage to Dead Comics (Part 1)

Mitch Hedberg:

--When you go to a restaurant on the weekends and it's busy so they start a waiting list, they say, "Dufrenes, party of two, table ready for Dufrenes, party of two." And if no one answers they'll say the name again: "Dufrenes, party of two." But then if no one answers, they'll move on to the next name. "Bush, party of three." Yeah, but what happened to the Dufrenes? No one seems to care. Who can eat at a time like this? People are missing. You people are selfish. The Dufrenes are in someone's trunk right now, with duct tape over their mouths. And they're hungry. That's a double whammy. We need help. "Bush, search party of three. You can eat once you find the Dufrenes."

--I hate turkeys. If you stand in the meat section at the grocery store long enough, you start to get mad at turkeys. There's turkey ham, turkey bologna, turkey pastromi. Some one needs to tell the turkey, "Man, just be yourself." I used to draw you.

--Every book is a children's book if the kid can read!


--I hate turtlenecks. Wearing a turtleneck is like being strangled by a really weak guy. All day. Like, if you wear a turtleneck and a backpack, it's like a weak midget trying to bring you down.

--If carrots got you drunk rabbits would be fucked up.

--I bought a doughnut, and they gave me a receipt. There is no need for that, man. I'll just give you the money, you give me the doughnut. End of transaction. We do not need to bring ink and paper into this. I cannot imagine a situation in which I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut. Some skeptical friend: "Hey man! Don't even act like I didn't buy that doughnut! I got the documentation right here...damn...I forgot it at home... it's in the filing cabinet...under D...for doughnut."



Richard Jeni:

“I think that's how Chicago got started. A bunch of people in New York said, 'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't cold enough, let's go west.'”



Sam Kinison:

--There's no happy ending to cocaine. You either die, you go to jail, or else you run out.

--Jesus had a tough life. I read about that guy. Jesus is the only guy that ever came back from the dead that didn't scare the Fuck out of everybody!



Lenny Bruce:

--A lot of people say to me, "Why did you kill Christ?" "I dunno... it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know." "We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him."

--I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing else to do.

--If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.

Spring Forward/Blogger/Early Digging

Daylight Savings Time. Blech. I've changed four clocks, have several more to do plus my VCR. Please. Someone remind me to do this before I want to tape something.

After many many months on Blogger, I finally figured out how to put my own links on the page. Applaude me. My tip would be: If you 're going to do a lot of links, periodically save the template, because sooner or later you'll forget and nagivate away from that page and OOPS your changes and hard work will disappear.

It looks absolutely gorgeous ouside today. Here's my problem: I want to dig up a butt load of catmint and a ratty overgrown hyssop plant/bush and replace them with some other stuff. I want to do the digging now because the grounds been so wet that I figure they'll come out easier. But I don't know if I want to go through the hassle just yet. Really, I have to go to Menard's first and get some big bags of soil. So there's my problem.

Oh! Yesterday I bought a 2007 Farmer's Almanac Seasonal Gardening Guide and it has some good articles: Luther Burbank and His Passion for Plants, Global Warming and Your Garden, The Enchanted--and Enchanting-World of GARDEN GNOMES, The Queen of Herbs (I'll let you guess what it is. Hint: It's one of my favorites.) It was $4.99 well spent.

333 is Attractive

I’ve had my snack of stick pretzels and water. My hair is dirty (I’ll wash it tomorrow.) I’m wearing an orange t-shirt and black shorts to bed (very Halloween colors.)

I placed a BN order, among other things, I ordered the hot new Rhonda Byrne book The Secret. I ordered it and didn’t even see her on Oprah. So there. Supposedly The Secret is based of the principle of attraction. People who put out good thoughts, receive back from the Universe. Something like that. I’ll let you know more after it arrives and I’ve read it.
I looked it up on the Internet and apparently some people are calling this thing “cultish.” It doesn’t sound like the definition of a cult. What’s wrong with putting out positive energy? Seeing the glass half full. Looking on the bright side of life. Being happy with the green grass on your own side of the fence. Letting a smile be your umbrella.
I guess I’d rather pay for a book like that, than pay money to a TV preacher who threatens that God will call him home if he doesn’t raise X number of dollars by such-and-such a date. Don’t the evangelicals preach that if you give them, say, one thousand dollars that the Lord will repay you sevenfold? Or is it seven times seventy? I get my sevens mixed up.

Isn’t seven a magical number? Asians think the number eight is lucky.

We discussed this awhile back:

Daniel Paul Tammet is a British autistic savant gifted with a facility for mathematics problems, sequence memory, and natural language learning. He was born with congenital childhood epilepsy.
Experiencing numbers as colors or sensations is a well-documented form of synesthesia, but Tammet is unique in how specific and detailed his mental imagery of numbers is. He claims that in his mind each number, up to 10,000, has its own unique shape and feel, and he can "sense" whether a number is prime or composite and "see" results of calculations as landscapes in his mind. He has described his visual image of 289 as particularly ugly, 333 as particularly attractive, and pi as beautiful.
Tammet holds the European record for memorizing and recounting pi to 22,514 digits in just over five hours. This sponsored charity challenge was held in aid of the National Society for Epilepsy (NSE) on “Pi Day,” 14 March 2004 at the Museum of the History of Science,Oxford, UK. The NSE was chosen to benefit from this event because of Daniel's experience with epilepsy as a young child. Professor Allan Snyder at the Australian National University said of Tammet: “Savants can't usually tell us how they do what they do. It just comes to them. Daniel can. He describes what he sees in his head. That's why he's exciting. He could be the ‘Rosetta Stone.’”

False Prophet and John Paul

Pope Benny calls Dylan a false prophet. I hate Pope Benny. He's an ultra conservative in-a world-of-Conservatives Catholic. At least Pope John Paul met with all kinds of people . . Jews, Muslims, Hindus. He didn't proselytze (sp?) He was kind of a Live and Let Live Pope (especially fetuses--rofl)--not like this boy Benny. Blech. Aint no one gonna diss Bob to me! He doesn't make himself out as anything other than a singer-poet-songwriter . . what others think of him doesn't concern him. A good example to follow.

I tried to embed "The Cost of War" statistics in my blog again. I wanted it to show up under my profile to the right of the screen, but I could only get it to show up at the very bottom of my blog. Oh, well.

Doc/Vet

Yesterday was a busy one.

I worked until noon, then took LP to the doctor's office. He's been having sinus headaches and I wanted to make sure he didn't have an infection. He doesn't. The doctor said I could give him a Sinutab or a over-the-counter Claritin every day. I don't/won't do this. He doesn't have trouble every day, so why medicate him every day? I should have saved the 50 bucks.

Then I took Nesta (who I call Miss Kiki Marie more than I call her Nesta) to the vet's to get her annual rabies shot. She HATES that carrier and wails all the way to the doc's office. I talked and cooed to her. This cat never meows/wails unless she's in that carrier. Poor kitty. Doc says she's healthy and fully grown at seven pounds. He said "Some cats are fat; some are skinny." Hm. Words of wisdom. It was the fastest vet visit ever. We were in and out of there in under ten minutes--and that includes the time it took me to write a check! Miss Kiki Marie was glad when we returned home, and promptly ran into LP's room and up on his bed.

Rats/Hunger/ and Robins

Random thoughts:


1. I saw this headline on cnn.com: “Rats chew off baby’s nose”
Who wants to read that crap? Not me.

2. Is there a bigger turd on TV than Tucker Carlson?

3. I had an 11 am meeting with my boss. He talked and talked and talked some more. It was noon. I was hungry. I tend to get mean when I’m hungry (shocker, I know.) I wanted him to shut up so I could go & have lunch. He said something I’m sure he thought was quite insightful, and then looked at me for affirmation, or something, and I gave him that Jim from The Office Look—you know that head tilt and semi shoulder shrug. So he shut up and I went to lunch. I ate a hamburger with jalapenos and banana peppers, half order of fat crinkle fries, and a Dasani water. When I partake of bottled water I hear Verb whisper to me that “bottled water is the biggest con perpetrated on the American public,” but I enjoyed it anyway. I also had a Reese’s Peanut butter cup, and felt better.

4. After all this horrible weather—the snow, ice, salt and rain—I finally ran the car through the car wash and, boy, does it look spiffy.

5. For dinner we had homemade tacos, then I drove LP to the video store and he rented Flyboys and that Robin Williams’ Man of the Year. What was Robin Williams’ last good movie? I can’t think of any I’ve enjoyed since Dead Poet’s Society. Most of his stuff is true crap. Sorry, Robin.

6. I know a real life man named Robin. I always thought of Robin as a girl’s name. I wonder if boy-Robins feel emasculated. My Mom said that Meredith used to be a man’s name, but in this day and age Merediths are women. Wonder when that switch happened. I know a man Gale, and a woman Gail.
I know a man Gene and a woman Jean.
I know a man Lou and a woman Lulu (besides you, Lubbbbbbbbbbeeeeeeeeeee)

Turbo Scratcher

This is a Turbo Scratcher cat toy. My cat LOVES it! Nesta's never been one for cat toys. She'd rather chase/fetch a tossed straw or a red dot from the laser pointer, but I bought this yesterday and she LOVES it. It has a golf ball embeded into the ring so it rolls around, and corrugated cardboard in the middle for scratching. It came with a packet of catnip to spread around the cardboard, but she's never been one for catnip so I didn't use it. She lays on it and bats at the ball, then she'll scratch the cardboard, then she'll jump on it, then she'll crouch down beside it and leap on the ball. Now she's just sitting atop it like she's the Queen of the World.

Admit it . . this picture is MUCH better than the Ball-less Basil on Meme's blog!

LP and I visited my Mom yesterday. All's well there. It snowed a little bit, but the drive home was gorgeous. The sun finally came out and the skies were actually blue. I can't remember when the last time I saw a blue sky was.