Tuesday, September 29, 2009

flu-b-gone

Look, I don't know if what I had was swine flu.  Or H1N1.  Or whatever the cool kids are calling it these days.  But it was the flu.  And it was a motherfucker.  I decided not to visit the doctor for a few reasons.  For one thing, I was too sick to drive my sick ass there.  I live alone and who wants to be trapped in the car with someone that clearly has cooties.  Also?  There are sick people at the doctor's office.  I had enough on my plate without being exposed to strange germs just to have a nurse shove a q-tip up my nose to see if I have the flu.  Dude.  I had the flu.  Luckily, I also had a prescription of Tamiflu in my medicine cabinet.  I admit it, I hoard shit.  Not like get your guns ready for the Armageddon kind of hoarding, but I like to keep a stocked pantry and medicine cabinet kind of hoarding.

But it wasn't until I started getting better that I realized how bad off I was.  For one thing, I took some extra doses of Tamiflu along the way and finished early.  Oops.  I also made a double batch of jell-o that I don't remember making at all.  I walked into the kitchen to get a ginger ale and there were two open jello boxes on the counter and a pan of jell-o in the fridge.  Don't get me wrong, I was glad it was there.   But really? Jell-o?  There were some things that got moved around in my house.  I guess I'm lucky I didn't rearrange the furniture in my fevered state.

I also got very bored.  I cleared out my DVR.  I didn't have any books I wanted to read.  And how much time can you really stand to spend on Twitter haranguing people for their complete inability to fact-check a story before publishing it?  Frankly, I found out more than the local newspaper or that hip wannabe website ever did in five minutes sitting on my couch with a raging fever.  But that jell-o turned out to be one of the most interesting things going on at my house.  It wiggles and jiggles, after all.  But your standards for what constitutes entertainment hit a new low when you are holed up like a fugitive in your home for a week.  Technically, I'm better now.  I'm still worn out and all I want to do is stay home and sleep.  Hopefully this will pass because I don't think I can handle another weekend of staring at my wall that really need to be painted.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

why dogs don't make you feel better

As I wallow in my misery, I realized that the love my dogs have for me doesn't always make me feel better.  Mostly because they do things like:

1. Steal the blankets.  When I dragged my flu suffering ass home from work and on to the couch yesterday, the first thing that Laverne did was steal my blanket.  So I got another one.  And she stole that one too.  How many blankets does this dog need to get under?  And how can a not-so-swift dog get the better of me over and over?  I'm the one with the thumbs!  Pathetic.

2.  Wake you up in the middle of the night because they want to be talked to and patted on the head.  Seriously.  I woke up because Shirley was staring at me.  Four inches away from my face.  Creepy much? When I opened my eyes her tail started furiously thumping on the bed.  I thought she needed to out so I got up out of bed.  But she just sat there looking at me like I was the crazy one.  I muttered an obscenity under my breath and her tail started going crazy again.  This is when I realized she woke me up so I could talk to her.  I thought I had two dogs so they could keep one another company.

3.  Wake you up at 6:30 in the morning demanding to be let out and fed.  Frankly, I expected more from Laverne because she is notorious for wanting to sleep in.  But not today.  I woke up to her howling at the back door.  Howling.  The dog has never howled.  Ever.  Until 6:30 this morning.

4.  Panic when it starts raining.  I feel like I've been hit by a ton of bricks.  I'm hot.  I'm cold. I hurt all over.  I do not want 100 plus pounds of dog on my lap and in my face.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

pineapple plants a pumpkin patch

You may recall that in July I claimed to become a pumpkin farmer. Well, a few weeks into the pumpkin growing, I took my sweet little plants outside for a good soak.  And then I forgot to bring them back in.  They died a tragic, heat related death.  So, I planted a new batch-o-pumpkins.  After weeks of tending to my plants and a week of acclimating them to the outdoors, today was the big day.

When I started, I have a weedy, unruly patch of yard that I blocked off last year.  I never got around to building beds for a garden.



First I need to back up the story.  There once was a HUGE tree in my backyard.  It was probably one of the oldest elm trees in the neighborhood.  However, we have been in a drought for the past two years and had extreme heat this summer.  This lovely tree dropped a huge limb on my roof and slowly began to die.  I had the tree taken down.



And then I had the tree guys turn it into mulch and leave it in the front yard.  Much to my neighbor's dismay, it has been sitting in that huge pile for over a month.  Come on!  It has been too hot to do anything with it.



My original plan was to dump so dirt piles in my weedy patch and see who would win - the pumpkins or the weeds.  But I just couldn't do it.  So I went back to my original plan that never came to fruition.  So I started by using the old newspapers to act as a weed barrier.



And then I put a whole bunch of mulch around the beds to cover up the pretty, pretty newspaper.



And then I put a whole bunch of dirt and compost in the beds and mixed it up.  And I built some mounds for the plants and covered that with even more mulch.



Bring in the pumpkins...



And then I put 'em in the dirt and watered them real good, like.



Now I just have to finish the other half of my garden to put in some other veggies I picked up at the garden center when I went to get more dirt.  Tomorrow I take the rest of the pumpkin plants to the Pineapple Parents for their pumpkin patch.  I am a gardening fool.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Do You Know How Much I Love My Dogs?

So much that when I accidentally bought salmon dog food, I still fed it to them.  Besides wondering how much I spoil my dogs, you may wonder why this is a sign of my love?  First, I freely admit that my dogs eat much better than I do.  Hell, no one puts a spoonful of yummy canned dog food on my kibble every night.  Or a dollop of yogurt on my morning kibble.  Not that I'd want that, but I think of it as like if someone gave you a salad and then put a whole bunch of ranch dressing on it.  I'd like the salad much better.  So here's where the love comes in.  I am violently allergic to salmon and the smell of it makes me want to hurl.  When I was putting the cans in the pantry and I saw that I grabbed a can of nasty salmon, I considered just throwing it away.  Then I thought that was wasteful and decided to exchange it for something not so gross.  Then I got lazy.  But today I got brave.  And while I didn't hurl, I'm not hungry for dinner anymore.  Maybe this is a new diet plan because you could offer me all the ranch, mayonnaise, butter, bacon, and fried whatever and I'd still turn it down.  

Monday, September 14, 2009

Nobody Puts Baby In the Corner

RIP Patrick Swayze. You made some of the best crappy movies ever made.


RIP Jim Carroll

I didn't know you, but I have friends who did. I know it is a little late, but I had a send off for you today. I cranked up "People Who Died" and danced while the dogs barked wildly (they aren't fans of my dancing). Hope you liked it.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

I had no idea!

Did you know that the Ford Pinto hit the American market on September 11, 1970? I had no idea until I was watching Countdown last night (yes, how lame of me to sit at home alone on a Friday night watching a newsertainment show). Frankly, I'd rather remember that on September 11th. Much less depressing, no? I mean, check out this ad:



After all, it was the little carefree car (with just a little case of fire and explosion).

Friday, September 11, 2009

Do They Really Think We Will Forget?

I'm not trying to make light about what happened on 9/11. I am certainly not going to get into whether it was an act of terrorism or an inside job (does it matter? the end result is that a lot of people died.). And I would never start a debate on how a certain administration took advantage of the situation to start a really unnecessary war (at this point, it should not be a question). But here's the thing. Ain't nobody forgetting. And, frankly, I'm sick of people telling me not to forget. I'm not interested in your stupid status updates about never forgetting, I don't want your cheesy or depressing emails about what happened to those poor people that day, and I don't care how much it upset you to see that shit go down on the TV from the safety of your own home (I promise it was much worse for the people that were there or had friends and family that were there).

Because here's the other part that we really shouldn't forget:
1. The way our president sat in that classroom after he was told what happened and didn't move his sorry ass into action for like 15 minutes. And then he made ridiculous speeches about wanting people "dead or alive". I blame that yankee from Connecticut for making my home state look like a fucking joke (please note, I know there are others that now carry his torch).
2. The way the government told us we should buy duct tape to protect ourselves from terrorist attacks (are you fucking kidding me? I needed to buy some duct tape for a valid reason and couldn't find any. What bullshit. And MREs? No thanks.).
3. The way the media ran stories about how scared we should be and that people in Middle-of-fucking-nowhere, USA were in imminent danger of terrorism attacks. (Yes, because terrorists have heard all about your shitty community and hate you personally.).
4. The way ready.gov explained what I should do when the dirty bomb hit Austin (There were maps and everything. Way to tell the bad guys EXACTLY where to go!).
5. The way that now when you disagree with the government, you are now labeled un-American, not exercising your rights as an American citizen.

This last point lives strong today. And frankly I blame this intolerance as the start of why we, as a country, can no longer have a meaningful debates about anything. The townhall meetings are evidence of that. Biting someone's finger because you disagree is just not right.

So, if you don't like what I have to say, you can call me un-American. Whatever. All I can do is paraphrase the Loco Gringos and say, "Fuck you, I'm from Texas."

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Grow up!

My DOGS paid better attention to the President than some people (hello! Eric Cantor I could see you texting and fooling around on your phone the whole time Obama was speaking. Maybe if you paid attention you would learn something). And my dogs did not yell out inappropriate or regrettable things during his speech (Joe Wilson, you should not call the President a liar when he clearly is not. Show some respect, asshat). In fact, they sat on the couch a listened the whole time. Often times they politely wagged their tails (of course, they have always loved Obama). And they probably understood more than Charles Boustany as evidenced by his rebuttal (how many times were you sued for malpractice anyway? three?).

At this point, I am going to insist that the Republicans take some lessons in manners from my unruly dogs. That may be the only way we will get healthcare reform.

09.09.09

Really? What does this mean? Satan is standing on his head? That we all live in a yellow submarine? Seriously. What is the deal??? I guess it is cool that the date is all matchy and The Beatles are on the radio all day. Number 9. Number 9. Number 9. Other than that, today has been kinda funky. For thing, mad hung it up today. No more drunken haikus! This makes me sad. All good things really do come to an end.

And then at the grocery store, I think my soulmate was in line in front of me. I didn't talk to him though. We had almost the same things in our carts. I'm not sure I would have picked some of the yogurt flavors I saw, but I'd be willing to give some of them a shot. Especially for my soulmate. Even the overworked, underpaid checker noticed that our carts were full of the same stuff. Here's the rub. My soulmate? Apparently is an old gay guy. Otherwise, I might have asked him over for some organic, hormone free yogurt. I'm not much of one for dating gay men. It doesn't really lead anywhere.

The long and short of it is that I discovered my dog, Laverne, gets a little wiggy over certain Beatles songs (especially songs from the album Abbey Road) and I have a fridge full of yogurt.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Ugh!

It has been a long month since my last post. I've been semi-posting tweets because most days 140 characters is about all I can handle. But now that I have a new bad ass MacBook Pro and a clean desk in a functional home office, I find myself almost inspired. Please note that I said almost. Yesterday, I hit some sort of twitter wall because I couldn't keep it under 140 characters. And I tried. And tried. And tried some more. I thought about logging into the blog yesterday, but my thoughts were still too scattered. Also? I thought it was much more important to get all of my photos transfered from my old computer. And there were a lot of them. I also thought I should change all of the music on my iPods (how did I end up with two? and why do I think I need to use both of them?). Some of the redundancy in my life boggles the mind. But here I am.

By about 7:02 this morning, I decided that four day work weeks are just a crap idea. This was about the time I checked my work email this morning and saw that my most favorite complainant wanted another go 'round. Next I had to explain to someone that just because you build a little shelf and put your full sized dryer on a rack in a closet over a top loading washing machine (the lid doesn't fully open), that doesn't mean you have a stackable washer dryer unit. Seriously, the picture looks like it came from one of those "you know you are redneck when" emails. Maybe I should scan the picture and start an internet sensation. And why is this part of my job anyway? I have no idea. This all occurred within my first two hours of work (one lunatic per hour???). The day did not improve (the one lunatic per hour quota continued and was often exceed). The rest of it is either too boring or just too shitty to repeat. In short, four day work weeks just mean you have more shitty things packed into less time. All crap. No waiting.

And I'm mad at the Republicans. Since when is it "indoctrination" to tell children to work hard in school? Sturdy so you can ne a socialist, too??? One of my friends said she listened to President Obama's speech backwards and heard the Communist Manifesto. I just wonder if after posting that on Facebook, if people are taking her seriously and seeing if it is really true. Bask in the sarcasm, people!

And I'm also mad that people think it is OK to tell people that you hate the president and that he should die like a slug (check out the video on youtube of the pastor from Arizona). What is up with that? I think it was pretty clear that I hate what Cheney, McCain, Palin, and Rick Perry (especially him right now), and other like them stand for, but I don't ever recall suggesting that they die like slugs (or any other way for that matter). Mostly I just wish they would shut up an go away.

But one piece of enjoyment of late? The Gonzales Cantata! You should totally listen to it. The dude won't go away either. First he is for an investigation of allegations of CIA torture of prisoners. And then against it the very next day. It is always shocking that anyone cares what he thinks, but there is no accounting for what Fox "News" will air. I also wonder if his teaching style is like that. Today you have an A, but then the next day he decides you got a D.

Well, that certainly wouldn't fit in one tweet.
And coming soon: more pumpkin news. I bet you thought I forgot!!!