Valuable lesson of the Day

Today's lesson is this:

Grocery shopping before 8am is the way to go. You avoid these pitfalls:
lines at the checkout;
children;
crowds in the aisles or at the fruit bins;
children;
running out of the item you came in specifically to buy; and finally
children

The only drawback is that the storekeepers are sometimes re-stocking, but that means your vegetables are fresh, your meat freshly packaged and the cereal boxes are not crushed from the aforementioned children carrying them around the store, whining for mom to buy it, or something else equally not on her shopping list, and then, finally, in a fit of frustration and rage, mom throws the box on the ground and rolls over it with her cart.

Yeah, that happens in the afternoon.

I'm Sure I'm Adopted Chapter 2

Yesterday baby sister sent out a lame poem about friendship and missed opportunities, and then at the end, posted this promise:

> You must send this on in 3 hours after reading the letter
> to 10 other people.
>
> If you do this, you will receive unbelievably good luck in love.
>
> The person that you are most attracted to will soon return to you.
>
> If you do not, bad luck will rear its ugly head at you.
>
> THIS IS NOT A JOKE!

I have to tell you how much I HATE this kind of mail, as I always delete it, in the process flipping off bad luck (and ducking at the same time.) But I (almost) never respond to the sender, unless truly offended (seeI'm sure I'm adopted, Chapter 1).

Well, someone did respond to baby sister, and apparently, beat baby sister into contrition. and admittedly, she wrote back to everyone and apologized, saying insteac, "I apologize if the last email struck a cord with anyone or sent the wrong message that I truly wanted to wish poor luck on people I don't think this stuff works anyway......"

OK, then why send it? Just say yo!

Oy.

Valuable lesson of the weekend

NEVER, I repeat, never go shopping at Costco during dinner hour unless you are hungry, and even then, you'd better not have a cart with you, or you'll never make it through the mass amount of moochers who are trying to feed their kids a free dinner.

A little diversion from reality

The Countdown Survey

Apparently, now you are tagged if you READ someone's survey. Oy.


Here we go:


10 of your top friends
{ NOT IN ORDER OF PREFERENCE }


10.Gwen
9.Stennie
8.Gail
7.Nancy
6.Lisette
5.Gregory
4.Flipsy
3.Mish
2.Teri
1.Ken


9 of your favorite foods

9. Spicy anything
8. French fries
7. watermelon
6. mango
5. Hamburgers from Boomers
4. Brent's corned beef sandwich
3. Chicken Soup
2. BBQ Pork Ribs (I know, can you believe it?)
1. Mallard's cocoanut almond chocolate chip ice cream

8 of your favorite movies

8. Ishtar
7. Three Faces of Eve
6. When Harry met Sally
5. Don Juan De Marco
4. Finding Neverland
3. Beaches (sorry)
2. Unconditional Love
1. The Incredibles

7 of your favorite shows of all time


6. M*A*S*H*
5. Cheers
4. LA Law
3. St. Elsewhere
2. Dark Shadows
1. Tales from the City

6 of your favorite songs

6. Here comes the sun -beatles
5. Friends - elton john
4. Dream a little dream of me - mama's and the papas
3. In My Life beatles
2. You're only human -billy joel
1. Unconditional love - Cyndi Lauper

5 stores you shop at

5. Lane Giant (see favorite food...)
4. The Body Shop
3. Mervyn's
2. Target
1. Old Navy

4 things you're afraid of

4. Bats
3. Breaking a bone
2. Losing one of my kids
1. Bats

3 of your favorite bands/artists

3. Caryn Simmons
2. Scott Huckabay
1. Gina Sala

2 of your most prized possesions

2. My New Car!!
1. My children.

1 wish you've always dreamed of coming true


Being interviewed on a late night talk show.

The Rabbit Died

Well, the Bat tested positive for Rabies!! We are on our way to the hospital for the first of 5 shots...thankfully not deep in the belly like the old days. More later.

Bats in the belfry?

You never know how much you truly love your child until your daughter wakes you up at 1 in the morning because something is making noise in her bedroom and it turns out to be a BAT! She thought it was a big moth. The Dad went in first, and came back a second later saying "It's a Bat!"

So I had to save the day. The Dad hates things that flap around his head. That's why we don't own birds. (Also, because I killed a pet bird I owned once, but that's another blog.) I got up, put on my bathrobe (Baby brother was sleeping soundly) and went to check it out. As I went in, I closed the door behind me and said commandingly, "Don't come in here!" Yep, that was a bat. I grabbed a little garbage pail, I was going to catch it the same way I catch bees an spiders, (but way way bigger) and went in... I was ok until I got about 4 feet from the thing, and saw its face, hairy body and clearly pointy bat-wings...I came out and closed the door behind me and said commandingly "Don't go in there!"

I also love 911. I called 911 and they helped me. They are always there in the middle of the night, aren't they? I should send them cookies.

They told me to call the county health department, which I did, and at 1:30 in the morning I had a nice conversation with my new best friend. At this point, Daughter and The Dad were downstairs with me listening to my side of the conversation. He basically told me that I needed to catch the bat and send it in for testing for rabies, because if I didn't catch it and send it in and test it for rabies, my little girl would have to be treated for rabies anyway...I saw visions of long large needles sticking into her belly, and closed my eyes. Of course, since Daughter and The Dad were sitting right there, I couldn't very well become hysterical, and so I was very calm, which my new best friend acknowledged. Thanks. I'm good under pressure...He told me to call back when I caught it (or not) and let him know, and then he'd tell me what to do next.

OK, so I sucked as the uber-mom last night, I couldn't find it when I went back upstairs. I looked in the closet, in the bedding, in the pile of dirty clothe. I had a flashlight, Daughter has the cleanest under-the-bed of any teen I have ever known or been, and still, no sign of Baby Bat. I closed the door behind me and said commandingly "Don't go in there!"

Daughter slept with me, and we left her light on to make the bat mad.

This morning, we all had a lovely breakfast of waffles, which, considering how little I slept was not so lovely. Baby brother was in rare form, and thought it was funny how tired I was. He can be truly evil in comparison to his looks.

So, after half a cup of coffee, I was determined to at least find out where the thing went. I tore that room apart. I moved her chair, emptied her closet drawer, climbed on top of her bed, removed all the "curtains" and found nothing.

On trip three, I went in to move the desk. Before I did that, I had to relocate three posters that were beside the desk. There on the floor was what looked like a crumpled piece of brown paper. Have I mentioned how neat Daughter is? I took the tupperware I no longer had to have and covered the "paper" at which point it started clicking and whining. As did I. All of a sudden, all the adrenaline that had been coursing through my body since one in the AM needed a new home. I haven't been that close to losing my lunch (before lunch) in a while.

So I called my new best friend, and he was REALLY HAPPY I did such a good job. He may refer me out to others who need bat catchers in the middle of the night.

Now we are getting the exterminators in for a thorough review of the secret entry to the house. We don't want any bat friends looking for a new home.

I love my cell phone but....

My cell phone has that ability to assign individual rings to specific callers. This means I can choose to ignore my sisters when I am at work and I know my mom is OK, or decide to not pick up the phone when it's a call coming from home and I am 1 minute away.

Or today, when I was meeting my friend for lunch, and she was late and I thought maybe I was early or she forgot or got stuck at a job or something, and then just as I was dialing she walked in.

Those are good reasons to have cell phones.

Then, there was the MORON at the restaurant who INSISTED that all of those around him needed to listen to his phone conversation.

I wanted to walk over and tell him to SHUT UP but I was afraid I'd wear my lunch back to my office, or even worse, that I'd be wearing his.

I am such a chicken!!

The Seven Deadly Sins

Anger

1. Who did you last get angry with? Ken, of course.
2. What is your weapon of choice? Words baby, words
3. Would you hit a member of the opposite sex? Um, in fun only, never for power or to injure.
4. How about of the same sex? See #3
5. Who was the last person who got really angry at you? Duh, Zoe.
6. What is your pet peeve? Stupid people
7. Do you keep grudges, or can you let them go easily? I tend to hang on for dear life.

Sloth

1. What is one thing you're supposed to do daily that you haven't done in a while? Exercise.
2. What is the latest you've ever woken up? 9:30, but it was a few days after my surgery, and I was medicated.
3. Name a person you've been meaning to contact, but haven't? Gwen, and I feel REALLY bad about it, but life has been crazy busy.
4. What is the last lame excuse you made? Life has been crazy busy.
5. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through (one of the long ones?) Yep, all about orthotics.
6. When was the last time you got a good workout in? Too long ago to remember. Ugh!
7. How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock today? Once, I had Ken do it.

Gluttony

1. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice? (non alcoholic) Non-fat mocha shake. (alcoholic) Blue Whale
2. Meat eaters: white meat or dark meat? Both
3. What is the greatest amount of alcohol you've had in one sitting/outing/event? 1/2 bottle of Jack Daniels. Jack won.
4. Have you ever used a professional diet company? Many times. Most recently was LA Weight loss, and I lost $200 in three weeks.
5. Do you have an issue with your weight? Have we met?
6. Do you prefer sweets, salty foods, or spicy foods? SPICY!!
7. Have you ever looked at a small house pet or child and thought "LUNCH"? Yuck, no.

Lust

1. How many people have you seen naked (not counting movies/family)? Less than ten.
2. How many people have seen YOU naked (not counting physicians/family)? One less than that. (some guy took off his clothes on a date, and I made him put them back on.)
3. Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of a member of your gender of choice during a normal conversation? Well, a normal conversation with someone else, not the person I was talking to.
4. Have you "done it?" Have we met?
5. What is your favorite body part on a person of your gender of choice? Face.
6. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute? I'm not sure. I may have, but he told me he didn't do it for money. I don't believe him.
7. Have you ever had to get tested for an STD or pregnancy? No and yes.

Greed

1. How many credit cards do you own? Own about 15. Use, one, it's attached to miles.
2. What's your guilty pleasure store? Clinique
3. If you had 1 million dollars, what would you do with it? Pay bills, buy a beach house, create two college funds, get my mom up here.
4. Would you rather be rich, or famous? I live in a small town. I need money.
5. Would you accept a boring job if it meant you would make megabucks? Yes. As long as I didn't HATE the job. My life is crazy busy, I could use a little boring.
6. Have you ever stolen anything? Yeah, I stole this from here because no one tagged me....

Pride

1. What's one thing you have done that you're most proud of? Besides Zoe and Caleb, the video of "Schoolyard"
2. What's one thing you have done that your parents are most proud of? Zoe and Caleb.
3. What's one thing you would like to accomplish in your life? Having a book published.
4. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place? Only if there is a lot of $$ attached to first place.
5. Have you ever entered a contest of skill knowing you were of much higher skill than the other competitors? That's usually why I feel qualified to enter!
6. Have you ever cheated on something to get a higher score? Yes, when I was young.
7. What did you do today that you're proud of? I took someone out to lunch who helped me with a big project at work.

Envy

1. What item (or person) of your friend's would you most want to have for your own? The beach house at Davenport.
2. Who would you want to go on "Trading Spaces" with? I don't have cable. What does this question mean?
3. If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be? Halle Berry.
4. Have you ever been cheated on? Oh yeah, it felt REALLY bad.
5. Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own? You mean like a small waist, butt and normal sized boobs?
6. What inborn trait do you see in others that you wish you had for yourself? A fast metabolism.
7. Do you wish you'd come up with this survey? yes.

And finally, what is your favorite deadly sin? Gluttony. At least I'll die happy!!

I'm sure I'm adopted

Today in the mail, I received one of my Aunt's famous and frequent chain letters of idiocy. This time, she was ranting about the Muslim Stamp, and how the post office is so rediculous to be selling it because, of course, the Muslims, AND ALL OF THEM Bombed PanAm Flight 103; the World Trade Center in 1993; the Marine barracks in Lebanon; the military barracks in Saudi Arabia; the American Embassies in Africa; the USS COLE; and attacked on 9/11/2001! I sent her (and everyone she sent her e-mail this with these words, which my beautiful, brilliant, tolerant children helped me write...

Do you hate all Germans too? Russians? Japanese? What about all black sport’s legends? Homosexuals? Wouldn’t it be a sad day if all of the American tourists overseas were treated the way we treat people who look and think differently from us. Let’s not blame an entire country of people because of the actions of militants. This is not how I teach tolerance to my children. I suggest you forward this link

http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/muslimstamp.html and not forward the e-mail


One of my Aunt's friends actually wrote back, and while I read her letter while shading my eyes, lest I be burned by her words, she acutally APPRECIATED my response..

There is hope friends...Just one monkey at a time.