AARRRRR Ye Ready Fer Halloween?

The Spawn and I especially love the holidays. Halloween is a time for us to get out there and annoy those we love with lots of tricks now that we no longer go house to house for treats. There are many a thing you can do to “show your love” this evening as we celebrate Mischief Night. (For those living in Detroit, grab a pack of matches and hit the streets.) There’s toilet papering, soaping, and corning to name but a few. Weird enough, though, the local-yokels down here have never heard of such a thing. WWHHAAAAATT???? Never heard of Mischief Night? Well come along, friends, and let us introduce you to a tradition that will surely be marked on next year’s calendar.

There’s soaping. This is the rubbing of bars of soap on people’s windows making them opaque. Ivory is great but shaving cream is fun, too. However, we reserve the shaving cream for those neighbors that allow their dogs to poop in our yards because it’s a little more difficult to clean up.

Then we have “corning”. This is where you get field corn and shuck it into little brown lunch bags so that you can hurl it at passing cars or neighbor’s windows. It makes a TREMENDOUS noise when it hits a big bay window. I won’t allow the spawn to throw corn at cars like I did as a kid because way back when I didn’t realize the danger, Will Robinson, that this could cause.

And finally we have the much-loved…. toilet papering. No explanation needed because why? It’s cheap, it’s fun, and it’s a picture perfect moment.

Many a mischief maker throw eggs, however, I have not incorporated this into the family night of fun. If you’ve ever had to clean dried egg from your car you will remind your offspring that eggs are for eating, not for throwing.

This year’s fun will begin with the initiation of the spawns' first attempt at TPing. I figure we’ll hit an unsuspecting victim outside of our neighborhood then take some pictures to show my blogging family. Call me kookie but I have this fear my vehicle will be recognized if we hit a good friend.



Any suggestions who to toilet paper? It can’t be my brother because he reads my blog AND he and his wife would get P-I-S-S-E-D PISSED!

Just Breathe

I'm too damn freaked out and panicky to think of anything funny right now because cleaning ones house out in a matter of days IS NOT FUNNY PEOPLE!!!!

(art by Gottfried Helnwein)

Enough About The Purge....For Now

I know you guys are tired of hearing me complain about the purging of my household items so I thought I would share with you an e-mail response to King Dork's sister. I received a note from The Beanster this weekend wishing me luck and asking if I was truly ready to have her brother move in with me; this is what I told her:

After much consideration and a few moments of dread, my mind and heart have been set. Yes, I'm ready for this. At first a bit of trepidation arose as I have not lived with a man in fourteen years (I don't think my kids remember living with their dad.) But the fear and anxiety were easily nullified by the fact that my chosen path of study in college has prepared me for this better than life itself. Chapter 8, page 209, of the very first text book I purchased toward a "proper education" covers the removal of bloodstains so that they may not be traced. In addition, Chapter 7 covers all trace evidence and how it is collected and Chapter 16 discusses all aspects of a homicide investigation. I highly recommend Barry A. J. Fisher's Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation for any wife or girlfriend that foresees complications or disagreements in their romantic relationships. (You can find the book used on-line, if need be.) Mr. Fisher has kindly covered all areas of crime scenes and what a technician looks for in order to "catch the bad guy." What we can take from this is to learn what NOT to do when eliminating those things from our lives that trouble us.

That being said, the only thing I’m dealing with right now is panic. I’ve lived in the same house for almost nineteen years. Do you KNOW how much stuff a woman can collect in a nineteen year period? Where in heaven’s name am I going to put all that stuff? I asked Bill if he thought he would need more than a drawer for his clothes. He said if he did I could purchase him a cardboard dresser. What a guy, huh?

My sugar-plum, candy-coated, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate bar dreams were shattered long ago. I, too, have a brother. LOL Nah, just kidding, my brother is actually one of my favorite people. Speaking of family, the only thing I see changing in your future are more trips to Florida. Our home is your home; my family is your family……really, they’re yours, take ‘em. I look forward to you and your clan heading down south to thaw out once or twice this winter so we look forward to seeing you guys soon.

I promise to take care of King Dork so don’t worry……Chapter 16 covers a lot. As for the Luck O’ The Irish, let us bow our heads and pray I can hold my liquor.

Love you guys and hope to see ALL of you soon,
Marn

p.s. We’ll have to compare stories of our childhood one of these days and see which ones are worse.

Think she got the picture?

Reality Mode

If you stopped by yesterday you found me in “panic mode”.

This is why…..

Explains a lot, doesn’t it? I told you I had too much shit to go through in a two week period. Purge my ass; more like “just bulldoze the house and start over” mode should have been considered.

This does not include the eight large yard bags that I'd already "disposed" of. I have many happy friends that have inherited all of my shit who will be moaning and complaining about me this weekend when they try and find room to put all of their "new" stuff.

Panic Mode

As most of you may already know, my man and I have been dating for three and a half years. We had a “brief sabbatical” for two months earlier this year but through good communication a key in any relationship we were able to determine our differences were a cumulation of my stubbornness and his temper tantrums. Those days have been exorcised from our lives…..at least for the rest of this year.

For those three and a half years we have lived in the same city for the grand total of thirty five days. Yup, for three and a half years we have lived eight hundred and fifty miles apart. Now for some of you this would be a good distance to keep between you and your loved one. For us, not so much. It puts wear and tear on the car, and wear and tear on our old and decrepit bodies: too much travel.




Yesterday, The Emperor, “King Dork”, turned in his resignation as he found a new job. A new job here in The Armpit of Florida. A job in the same town I live.




Simple mathematics results in the following equation: subtract one emperor from Cow-lubus, add one integration broker to The Armpit, multiply that by a single mom and her teenaged spawn with the sporadic introduction of the multivariable of three older offspring and you get the equivalency of one house full of people at my address.




Enter panic.




I have lived in the same house for almost nineteen years. Fifteen of these years with just the kids. Do you people UNDERSTAND how much SHIT I have accumulated over the past nineteen years?!?!? My house was built in the early fifties. There is no closet or storage space. I have shit stuff, crammed, shoved, and poked into every available crevice and hole. There is absolutely no room for his stuff. HOLY SHIT….I have two weeks to clean out a drawer or two for him to throw his underwear and socks when he MOVES IN WITH US.




IN TWO WEEKS!!!!!



UGH!!!!!!



Needless to say I have been a bit busy purging all of the useless and meaningless crap that I have pilfered, saved, accumulated, or inherited over the last few years.



Few……huh, whatever!

I thought I’d share in my humiliating experience of the twelve-step program called “Packrats Anonymous”.

Step thirteen: RELAX!

Chew On This…..

My best buddy, Leelabelle Magillicutty, was sitting at her sewing machine putting the finishing touches on a quirky little throw pillow for her daughter when all of the sudden her son, Seraphim, came into the room and just stood there. She glanced towards him and noticed that his eyes were a bit puffy and watery and his nose looked swollen and red.

She swung her chair around and asked “You okay buddy? What happened?”

“You’re gonna be mad,” he replied while staring at his feet.

“Honey, what happened? Mommy won’t get mad if you tell the truth.”

“Welllllll, I had this reeeeally awesome piece of gum and and it tasted really, reeeeeally good and and I wanted to smell it because it tasted so good and so I took it out of my mouth and I smelled it and and now I can’t get reach it,” he frantically rambled while shuffling his feet.

“Tell Mommy where it is and I’ll get it for you.”

He glanced up and pointed to his left nostril. “I can’t reach it.”

She gently pulled her son to her lap and to take a look-see up Seraphin’s nose.

No gum.

She set off for the laundry room to grab her handy-dandy flashlight, shined it up Seraphim’s nose and saw a T-I-N-Y little corner of a chewed piece of gum lodged so far up the kid’s nose that she was afraid not even a pair of surgical gloves, a chisel, a suction cup and tweezers would be able to retrieve the damn thing.

A panic attack, visions of a bill from the ambulance service that had to come pick the two of them up because the tweezers became lodged in Seriphim’s brain, a bloody nose, and an hour later….success. Look how BIG that piece of gum was!

God I love that kid!

Just One Of The Guys

I know you've heard me tell you that many of my buddies are guys. Due to the fact I love football, beer, and raunchy jokes that's just the way the wind blows. So for my birthday, Mr. Hottie and Mr. Psycho-Scary-Tattooed-Guy showed up at the house with a MOST fabulous birthday gift.

Yes folks, that's two cases of beer and a party ball. Are these guys the bomb or WHAT?

Apologies for the blurry picture; as you can see, one of those cases is opened.

Any suggestions on how to best keep the party ball chilled until it's empty? It doesn't fit in my refrigerator and the whole "big tub filled with ice in the middle of my kitchen floor" is going to be old by Thursday.

Football party at my house all weekend, come on over!

The Best Birthday Gift

I just hung up the phone and had to share this little tid-bit.

While eating lunch at Jimmy John’s a message was left on my phone. As I don’t like to be interrupted while partaking in a Big John sandwich, I left the phone in my car for a peaceful and enjoyable meal. As my lunch buddy, Will-I-Am, and I jumped back into my gas-guzzling SUV “Gawaine”, I see my phone blinking and realize I have a voicemail message. Flipping open the bane of my existence I see that Spawnette has called…..or so I think. I figured that she called to wish me a Happy Birthday because she failed to do so over our morning cup of coffee and the hour it takes for her to get ready for school each morning.

Nope, not a call from Spawnette.

It’s a message from her history teacher.

From Spawnette’s phone.

History is currently her lowest GPA so this solidifies my thoughts and visions of Spawnette sitting in class texting instead of paying attention to the rise and fall of Sparta.

Again…..I am wrong.

I return the call as requested and this is what I am told.

“Hi Ally’s Mom, This is Mrs. World History Teacher.”

“What’d she do? Is she in trouble?” I quickly ask with the hopes of getting the humiliation over as fast as possible.

“Oh no, no, no, she’s not in trouble at all. In fact I wanted to thank you.” She responds.

lift of the right eyebrow “Thank me?”

“Yes”, she continues, “I had to leave the room for a moment to use the lady’s room and right before I left I put on he overhead what I thought were questions for the class to copy down and answer. Instead, I had unknowingly put the answers up and then left the room. Everyone noticed however, Spawnette was the only student to do anything. She went up to the front of the class and removed the answers from the overhead and replaced them with the questions. The other students proceeded to give her quite a bit of slack but she reminded them that they were there to learn, not cheat. I just wanted to take a moment thank you for instilling the integrity and honesty in your daughter that I am constantly preaching about in class. I wish I were able to make twenty more of these calls but I can’t. So thank you.”

Wow…..is that a cool call to get from a teacher or what.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!



(That’s a meat cake, YUM!)

When Angels Weep

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o’er fraught heart and bids it break.
~ William Shakespeare


There are no words of comfort.

A dear friend lost her eldest son two weeks ago today in a horrible car accident that was a genuine accident.

This morning, on his way to work, her husband died of a heart attack.

What can I say to this beautiful woman who has lost so much?

I Work With A Bunch of Clowns

Meetings, meetings, meetings. If they’d just let us go do our work without having to discuss it with a room full of clowns I bet we could get our work done on time!

So the boss walks in loaded for bear

followed by the lead developer who OBVIOUSLY knows how to program the only way known to man.

Also included are the business analyst,

her protégé,

and two guys from applications and development.

Sitting across from me I’m thrilled to see the office jokester

until a young gun walks into the meeting room and states……“I hear ya got an Appalachian you need to kill.”

“No, Funny Man, but could you kill the application?” I sweetly reply.

Black Dog Syndrome

WAIT! Before you guys start pounding and slamming me about not blogging here in the past month or two, I need to speak up on my own behalf…..because no one else will. Work has been a total and complete nightmare. Okay, not as bad as IV but bad nonetheless. That dude’s work life S-U-C-K-S!

I work in a government IT department and we are currently preparing for three….count them three new applications that will be going live in two and a half months. What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, no one up until now has decided how they want these systems to work. No big deal you think? Imagine yourself going to, say, a website and every time you need to click on a button for more information or a link or a picture or an order form or whatever, imagine that link not working. You click and nothing happens. Each one of these pages has a gazillion options available to you and no one…NO ONE has decided how they are going to work. Not only that, the current systems (of which there are three) have to be “killed off”. That means they will no longer will be available for use. This means training employees to use the new systems. This means informing employees they will receive training for the new systems. OH WAIT! This means the development of training for employee training. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GUYS HAVEN’T GOTTEN STARTED ON THIS YET!!!

So, needless to say I have had early mornings and late nights FILLED with idiots and morons.

I love government work! YES!

I feel like one of those black dogs people have been talking about lately. This leads to my intro into…

The kids and I have been discussing the adoption of another dog to keep our “Pooper” company.

Of course none of us agree on what breed of dog we want; I want an Irish Wolfhound, Spawn wants a boxer, and Spawnette wants something she can carry around and bling-out (that is SO not happenin’.)

Anywho, in doing a bit of research because that what we mommies do, I ran across information about a phenomenon called “Black Dog Syndrome”. Has anyone ever heard of this? My brother mentioned it years ago but I had totally forgotten about it. It’s so prevalent that some local animal shelters even advertise it in order to inform the public.

I’m not one to stand on a really talk soapbox but one less “dead dog walking” is awesome in my book.

I think the effort to educate the public is great. So great, in fact, that I’ve included not only stories from reliable sources but links for those of you that have recently considered bringing into their homes a new member of the family.

Articles of Interest:
Time
MSNBC

Resource for available dogs near you!

Thanks for listening, I'll get down off my cardboard box now and get back to work.