Yellow

****WARNING for Helen: immediately below this warning is a picture of my foot. It probably won't traumatize you as much as this one, but you are likely to suffer moderate discomfort. Please click here for Hilarity in Shoes, which I think you will like much better than feet****

Well, I guess the Easter bunny can live to terrify small children for another year. I caved in and bought the yellow coat this morning, so there will be no need to skin his yellow fur off for a cape. Wait, if you didn't read yesterday's post, you will probably have NO IDEA what I'm talking about, even though it makes PERFECT SENSE. So, let me explain. No, there is no time. Let me sum up. See, I had this brilliant plan to..... Oh, NEVER MIND. It's a long story, and trust me, the scheme was genius beyond words. In any case, it ends like this: I have a beautiful new yellow coat. So beautiful that I painted my toenails to match it. I do like sandal season but sadly, it appears that boot season may be behind me. Bittersweet, I know, and as a result I have been thinking ALL DAY about my motorcycle boots that I lost in the great Osan mold epidemic of '08. Oh, those would have been SO AWESOME with my new yellow coat.

Also, I noticed another problem caused by the fantastic new coat: it's sort of like when you put in a new kitchen floor, and then you realize how ratty your cabinets and countertops are. Then you replace those, and start noticing the chips in your china and how your pans are all scratched up and how you don't have NEARLY enough wine. No? Maybe it's just me. In the case of the coat, I decided it would look stunning with navy, and I don't have any navy. And maybe some blue and green toned scarves. And a crisp white shirt, and DEFINITELY some new purses. And probably a lot of new open-toed shoes. So you know what happens next, right? Yep, I am for sure taking that sucker back tomorrow. Okay, fine, I am totally just kidding. Wanna go thrifting with me? I will be there every day for AT LEAST the next three weeks. Maybe I will even find some new motorcycle boots!

Well, that's all for now, I have to go rest up for all that shopping. Have a good week, my friends, wherever you are!

Easter

Happy Easter! Oh, I know Easter is not actually until tomorrow. I have just never felt especially bound by convention, and besides, my sister did all the work and she said we were having Easter today. If she hadn't done all the work, we wouldn't have even HAD Easter. I told that to some people in the office the other day and they looked at me as if I had two heads, both with horns. I didn't realize not wanting to tell lies to your kids about some giant imaginary rabbit and then bust your ass to hide eggs full of sugar and chemicals for them to ingest was so controversial. But I guess it is.

So, we went to Grandpa's house, he cooked a ham, Jennifer made all the kids lovely baskets, Stefan hid about 4,372 eggs and a great time was had by all. Even the dogs and the garden statues were all decked out for the occasion. You'll note Ranger has a yellow Easter bunny attached to his collar. Do you guys think the Easter bunny really is yellow? I'm not a huge fan of holidays in general, especially ones that create work for me, and I've been coveting that snappy lemon-colored coat, you know. But I could go with a fur cape, too. The ears could attach around the front in a jaunty bow, what do you think? I've seen pink and green Easter bunnies, too, though, and those aren't really my colors so much. At least this season. Oooh, that gives me an idea for winter, too: can't you just see me in a deep red velvet? With white trim!

The kids especially enjoyed playing in the dirt pile in the driveway- they got out bowls and dumped in some pond water to make concrete. Something about the Easter bunny sleeping with the fishes, I dunno. You don't think my cape will be ruined if he gets waterlogged, do you? One thing I really require in a garment is that it can be easily laundered. I suppose he has to shower, what with all that hopping and egg-delivering, so you'd think it could go in the wash. In any event, all four of the kids got all muddy, marked up the garbage bins with dirty handprints to trick Grandpa into thinking there were aliens there, dug holes in the lawn, made piles to look like poop and threw dirt clods at each other. Then Jennifer came out and gave me the stinkeye for letting them get so dirty. I keep thinking she'll stop letting me watch them one of these days but no luck so far. It was BARELY questionable activity, anyway, not like they were chasing each other with sharp tools. At least not for very long. Then Stefan finally got sick of the mess and gave them an involuntary hosing down; they threw fits and we all went home. About the usual holiday outing, all things considered.

On the brown sweater front, I have been shopping multiple times with very limited success. I went to Goodwill today and while THE sweater continues to elude me, I did see two things that I dropped off the week before, which always amuses me. I'm not sure why, except that I am apparently very easily entertained.

And that's the Easter report from here; I hope you all have a great weekend!

April

Haha, fooled you! This isn't a real post. I WOULD write a real post but ***insert whiny excuse here***. Also, I can't find a brown sweater that suits my exacting specifications and I can think of little else. I keep expecting the universe to drop one in my lap as reparations for the scarf episode but no such luck so far. In fact, the desired sweater has so thoroughly crowded everything else out of my head that I successfully resisted purchasing multiple cunning coats while sweater shopping, if you can believe such a crazy thing. Even a delicious-looking lemon-yellow one with front pockets and..... soft, smooth, mahogany-colored....wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, instead of an actual post, the latest and greatest:

-Shane has decided he is going to be both a jet pilot AND a swordfighter. Thanks a lot, LLOYD.

-The boys are working on a secret club called hmmmm hmmmm doodle. Oops, I hope I didn't blow their cover. I would make a terrible secret agent. I'm not really clear on the full scope of this effort but there is going to be fish. I'm a little scared, because these big bowls of water with rocks and small dishes in them are appearing all over the house.

-Jennifer has some beautiful spring pictures up at her blog, check them out. I WOULD have put up some beautiful spring pictures only insert whiny excuse here I am lazy as hell I am too obsessed with my imaginary super soft, rich chocolaty-brown sweater to even consider taking pictures or doing anything else productive in any way I don't have any.

And, that's all the news from here for today; let me know if the universe accidentally gives you my sweater! I'll take that yellow coat, too, if you don't want it. Have a good week!

Returned

Remember when my scarf disappeared? And I was super pissed off at the universe? I am not kidding, I looked EVERYWHERE for that thing. I looked especially hard in my closet, because I figured that was the most likely place for it to be, unless it was purloined to construct a robot kitty army or similar (also fairly likely). I looked on the shelves, under my purses, in all the corners. I even crawled around with a flashlight in case it slipped down behind the shoes or under my possibly-too-large collection of coats. So you can imagine my surprise this morning when I found it folded on a shelf IN MY CLOSET, almost in plain sight. I took a picture of it in case the universe decides to yank my chain again and I need to put up flyers. Notice how the back and front are different? I love that about it because I can dial down the orange if I want. I tried to take a picture of myself wearing it so you know what it looks like on. You know, so if it disappears again and you see someone wearing it you can kick some scarf-stealing ass. Unfortunately, I am not very good at taking pictures of myself, apparently, as I made approximately eight thousand attempts and ended up with not one publishable photo for my trouble. So you will just have to use your imagination when you are trying to decide whether you should attack someone to get my scarf back for me.

Anyway, you might surmise that the scarf was in my closet all along and I just didn't see it, but you would be dead wrong. The scarf was not in the closet. It disappeared and then it came back. I don't know why, and I don't especially care. My friend Sarah thinks I earned some karma points after the poker chips yesterday and the spaghetti mess this morning. See, I dropped a giant steaming plate of pasta and sauce as I was heating up leftovers for breakfast. It landed all over the microwave, the stove, the floor and me. The clean-up was pretty daunting; I was thinking of just moving out. To a clothing-free community. So maybe she's right, because that WAS pretty bad and definitely deserving of some redistribution of spiritual wealth.

The scarf is back, and that's good, but I like to plan ahead a little. Just a little, mind you, mostly I'm a flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl. At least until my pants rip and I crash and burn in a bloody heap, but that almost never happens. Right now, though, I'm thinking I should stock up on scarves so I always have a couple of spares for the next time the universe gets all smart with me. This one came from Qatar, so if you know someone at The Deid that wants to go can tolerate scarf shopping for me, let me know!

And on an unrelated note, I have a minor correction and also a comment about yesterday's post. I have been informed that what I described as a hole to China in the lawn is actually a hole to Africa. Presumably it makes a sharp turn down there somewhere, perhaps around the Mohorovicic Discontinuity. And finally, I feel I was unfairly accused of whining in the comments, when in fact I was not whining at all, but merely stating facts.

That's all, my friends; catch you next week! If you have time, check out Doraville for some new entries from my mother's book. My beloved Helen has been working like crazy posting them; isn't she the best?!?!?!!? Of course, if you know Helen, you already know that. But a reminder doesn't hurt- love you, Helen!

SCARFU

I am pretty sure I have had a tragic SNAFU with my favorite scarf, making, naturally, a SCARFU. I'm not totally positive because I haven't finished tossing the boys' room but it appears that I might have accidentally given the best scarf ever to the Goodwill. Somewhat surprisingly, this has never happened to me before, at least as far as I can recall. Perhaps the universe has decided it's time for the scarf to have a new home, and I'm not sure how I feel about this. I'm picky about scarves, so it can't be easily replaced, but I've often heard that the universe knows what it's doing even if it doesn't meet with my approval. I don't believe this, of course, but the fact remains that my scarf is gone and I can either stomp my feet and cry, or go Goodwilling for a new one. I guess we all know the right answer to that one. And if YOU are out thrifting and it looks like the universe has decided that a super soft black, brown and orange leaf/paisley patterned pashmina needs to go home with you, you can just bring it right back to me, got it? Because I'm not done with it, and I don't give a rat's ass what the universe says.

Moving on, because more scarf talk is just going to vex me, I got a couple of interesting comments on my post about the first aid kit/dangerous unicorn of the other day that I would like to address. First, I was forced to choose a fierce animal persona at work, not at home. Apparently that wasn't quite clear, but if it had happened at home it wouldn't even have merited a mention. Sadly, I can't post the majority of the conversation, though I would dearly love to. It was highly amusing and enlightening but has high potential for getting me outed.

And, secondly, someone who shall remain nameless thinks I should have just shut up about the first aid kit because.... oh, never mind, I'm not going to try to paraphrase. Here is the direct quote: "if you can make such a commotion about one band-aid--how busy are you really?? Either that or you have totally gone over the edge with too much work/stress in your life. Or, maybe that is just how things work there and you are certain you weren't aggravating the situation. I am just saying...... Maybe this is a time when you should have used the mantra "...don't sweat the small stuff..."" Well, nameless commenter, as it happens, it really wasn't about one band-aid, but more about preventing a multitude of toe stabbings. Although, perhaps, there might be the tiniest kernel of truth in the part where I should just shut my gob at work. But then I wouldn't have so much to post about, now would I?

Remember when I got my tiara? I do, that was such an awesome day. So awesome that I bought myself a magic wand to go with it. Well, gotta go, I'm going to go see if I can whomp myself up a new scarf.

***updated to add: I have finished my search of the boys' room. No scarf, but I did find a life-sized glow-in-the-dark skeleton, three apple cores, a pair of pliers and fourteen stuffed cats.

Jennifer

You guys all know my sister, Jennifer, right? No? Oh, you definitely should. You can get to know her a little over on her blog, but I have to say she's been a little lazy about posting lately. She should post a lot more, because she is chockfull of excellent counsel. She's also a little bit bossy. Somehow, it never surprises people when I tell them that. I don't know why. If you ask her, she will tell you that she's not bossy, she just always knows what you should do and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. You probably need to decide for yourself, though.

Just today, for example, I told her I was going to go to the new Goodwill in Edmonds. It's new, you know. I haven't been there yet. It's kind of a trek from my house but I need some new flowered coats. And possibly some boots. Also, I have had a strange craving for a denim skirt lately, but most of them are way too prairie and I think I might be too old for a short one. But I have high hopes for the new Goodwill having just the exact right denim skirt for me. Or at least I did until I got some sage advice from Jennifer. See, she has a theory about the Edmonds Goodwill: Rick Steves is from Edmonds, and he is ummm, less than fashionable. In fact, he wears fanny packs, so therefore Edmonds Goodwill must be full of nothing but mom jeans, pleated khaki shorts and stirrup pants.

I didn't actually know who Rick Steves was, because I find travel writing very boring and I don't have any cable, until she mentioned his efforts to decriminalize marijuana. Then it started to ring a bell, because I am a fan of that. Not because I have any interest in smoking pot myself, but if you want to, I don't think it's any of my beeswax any more than it's any of yours how many bottles of wine I suck down. Wait, did that sentence make sense? I hope so, as I am neither drunk nor stoned and so should be perfectly capable at fashioning a coherent sentence.

Well! That was a tangent; I'm not sure how that happened. It was like my keyboard was working itself! Anyway, she likened Rick Steves to Mr. Rogers, except for the pot part, but you know what? I think Mr. Rogers liked his doobies. No one could be that mellow without assistance. I mean, think about it. Not once in all those years in the hood did he let loose on those annoying whiny puppets. That's superhuman, man. She's right about one thing, though, all that pot smoking didn't improve his taste in clothes. I bet if he'd gone to the new Goodwill he could have found some stuff that was a lot more snappy than those ugly cardigans and slippers. If he was still alive I would totally invite him to go with me, because what could be more awesome than Goodwill with a baked Mr. Rogers? Since he can't go, though, I guess I'm on my own with my birthday Goodwill gift card and my optimistic nature. I'll keep you posted, Jennifer!

The Past Comes Back to Haunt me, and a Turkey in a Dress

Yes, that is a turkey in a dress. No, I do not know why, thank you for asking. I could try to explain it but I would probably not be successful, so I will just say that in my family, we do things like put dresses on turkeys. Seriously, I don't know why. But I do think that particular shade of blue is not that turkey's color and next time we should go for more of a forest green or some other jewel tone. Or a plaid, perhaps- that red and blue and green one. Come on, you know what I'm talking about, admit it.

There is, however, a reason for the turkey itself. The boys and I went to my dad's house today to have dinner with the cousins and the aunts. My dad has been sorting through pictures and other assorted items and there is always a bag or box (or both!) with my name on it. Sometimes I just set the whole thing on fire but once in a while there is some good stuff in there. Today I hit the jackpot with some letters I wrote to my parents from college in 1988. I scanned one of them so you could see the art work. I'm not going to transcribe them, but here are my favorite excerpts:

Letter 1: ....it's really boring here. I even cleaned my whole apartment. I made my bed this morning too WOW!!!!!!!..... it should be another fun weekend. Somebody put a toilet in the middle of the fountain and it wasn't me, and I don't know who it was. Aren't you impressed?

Letter 2: Susannah is going to stay with us over Memorial Day, ok? Her family moved to Alaska and she has no home. Can I have some money? I need to eat. All I have is condiments.

That is some classic literature right there, people... And speaking of classic literature, also in the box today were two college texts on cat anatomy. Interestingly enough, when we got home Shane asked, 'What's the inside of a cat look like?' I'm not sure if he knew about the books in advance or if it was just a freakish coincidence, but either way it worked out well for Shane. The cats, not so much.

Overall, it was an excellent day. The kids played outside for hours- it was freezing cold and they wouldn't even put coats on. They had some awesomely questionable game about grizzlies, guns and dinosaurs. Here, you can see a snippet for yourself:

Then Jennifer and the aunts and I had an argument about the advisability of small children peeing outside. Strangely, I found myself in alone in a minority of one but I PREFER that they pee outside. The bathroom stays way cleaner that way. Who can argue with logic like that? Plus it saves valuable playing time. And even if you don't have a preference, why would you care? I WOULD rather they not pee in parking lots, or at least not when I'm with them, but what are you going to do, right? I will not back down on this one, my friends. Who's with me?

I also got in a good thrifting trip. Good thing, too, because I really needed some wine glasses. I break about one a week; that's probably how I'll tell time after the earthquake. I found six new ones for 69 cents each, but I broke one on the kitchen floor when I got home. It was still wrapped in the paper, though, so the cleanup was super easy.

So that was my day; I hope you are having a fantastic weekend!

Skirt Report

I know you've all been waiting breathlessly for the skirt report. It appears that the skirt is neither a good luck nor a bad luck item of apparel. I did get several compliments on its sassiness, so that makes it a win. I know you want a picture, Helen, but I am pretty lazy and didn't get it done. As much as I would appreciate some extra good luck, I guess I can't complain about clothes that are neutral in the providence department.

The chili is done. It's called 'Deer Me, it's Delicious! chili, and it's a surefire winner. I did get an unusual and unsolicited cooking tip- I was advised to liven it up with a can of Copenhagen. I was intrigued, but managed to resist. Also, doesn't a can of chew cost like four thousand dollars these days? I can't afford that, because I already spent the $867 per pound for the free venison. It does have several of my own top secret ingredients, though. I'm willing to spill if you promise not to tell anyone: chicory coffee, cocoa powder, and bloody mary mix. I also considered some actual coffee grounds, for texture, but decided to skip it this time.

Right now, the chili is resting comfortably in the car. Don't worry, it's going to be COLD tonight, so the chances of food poisoning are low. It takes some serious salmonella to overcome the kidney bean toxins, anyway. I'm going to tote it back and forth to the cook-off venue in my Osan shopping cart. I hauled that thing out of the garage and it still had a commissary receipt crumpled up in the bottom. I will admit to a tiny pang. But just one. The cart is the perfect size for my two giant vats of chili stacked on top of each other, and the purse basket is just right for the pancake cooking griddle. I'm not sure people in my office will have the proper appreciation for the hard-working cart, though. If someone mocks the cart I will probably have to punch him in the face, and then force feed him some kidney beans with salmonella sauce.

So that's it for today! I'll let you know how the cook-off goes! I'm going to wear a cowboy hat and everything, how can I possibly lose?

Stop the Presses

Stop the presses, people! I am going to wear a skirt to work tomorrow. 'WHAT??' I'm sure I can hear you gasping. Yes, it's true and I'll tell you why. Mostly because I have been stuffing my face and my pants are pinchy and I couldn't find anything good at the Goodwill today, so I had to go closet shopping. I found a flippy skirt that I hadn't worn since the day I got shafted at Osan and tried it on. Luckily, it still fit so I twirled it around and asked Shane what he thought. He said, 'Mama, you look FABULOUS! Like a diarrhea!' I think he meant 'ballerina' so that's what I'm going with, because it's much better than the alternative. I hope it's not a bad luck skirt, after the shafting and the diarrhea thing. I guess I'll give it one more chance, and if my phone explodes or something tomorrow I'm definitely taking it to the thrift store for someone else to enjoy. I totally believe in bad luck clothes, and so naturally, I also believe in good luck clothes. I just don't have any. Maybe that will change after I win the chili cook-off!

I've been working on my chili; it's a multi-day process. So far I have a giant vat of beans and a container of seasoned meat, and I invented a way to keep the pots hot using just a pancake griddle. So that's a pretty good start, don't you think? I don't have a recipe or anything, because those are for candyasses. I'll just toss some other junk in there tomorrow and call it good- what could possibly go wrong? It will be just in time for good chili weather, too: it is going to get wintery soon. I say BRING IT ON, winter! I have new boots, so suck on that! The boys and I jumped on the trampoline tonight and my feet were FREEZING. At least I'm not in Alaska like some of my work friends. Boy, do I feel sorry for them. The zombie sewer robots will probably be covered up with snow and they won't even get any chili. TOTAL BUMMER.

I guess that's all for now; send my skirt some good luck vibes! I'll give you a full report if anything out of the ordinary happens.

Laundromat

Remember how my refrigerator was broken last week? I think maybe my appliances have some kind of virus because now the washer is leaking all over the hall. It's been wet in the hallway for a couple of weeks now, but I have two little boys and a pilot, so that's pretty much business as usual. Tonight, though, the sound of water gushing out of the soap well onto the floor was unmistakable and there was no denying something needed to be done. Desperate times call for desperate measures, my friends. Lloyd got out his utility multi-tool and headed for the laundry room. He's super handy, don't get me wrong, it's just that he scares me a little.

'I'm just going to unscrew this and see what happens,' Lloyd said, right before I took the picture. I was thinking, 'Ten bucks says I know what's going to happen; we're going to be spending the next month at the laundromat.' Turns out we had the soap holder set for powder instead of liquid, and somehow the detergent clogged the tube that funnels water and soap into the... what the hell is that round part where the clothes get all tossed around called? The tumbler? The barrel? Whatever, you know what I mean. Anyway, we started thinking about how strange it was that the clothes had been pretty dry after the wash cycle was complete lately. Say! Maybe it was because the water that was supposed to be washing clothes was instead making a puddle in the hall, you think? We then realized that the clean pile had been a little stinkier than usual, too.

He had the absolute gall to blame my homemade laundry detergent, simply because sometimes it has lumps, while I'm entirely certain his bad laundry habits are at fault. Seriously, you should see him. Oh, it gets done fast, but he cram-jams that thing so full that you can almost hear my crisp white button downs crying for mercy as they get crushed by filthy towels and jeans covered in fish guts. Dry clean only? Gentle cycle with like colors? Dry flat? Might as well be written in cuneiform. I don't complain, though. Not to his face. Because then I'd have to do it myself. NO THANKS. I just toss the things that get ruined and then hit the thrift store for more disposable clothes.

So, what to do? Generally speaking, which one of us is more brilliant is pretty much a toss-up. My ideas were to dump boiling water or vinegar and baking soda or Drano down the clogged line. Lloyd thought we should Shop-vac it or snake a wire down it. Since he was the one wielding the multi-tool, he got to choose, and he hauled the Shop-vac in from the garage. A few minutes later, voila! The washer was running good as new and I was feeling a little sheepish about my lack of faith in his plumbing skills.

Until I grabbed the Shop-vac to suck the water out of the carpet in the hall, that is. To my surprise and dismay, the hose ended abruptly with a ragged edge. The attachment that is supposed to be on the end was laying forlornly a few feet away. As it happens, the attachment wouldn't fit down in the well where the clog was, so he just sliced it off, leaving the ragged stump. 'Oh well', I shrugged, 'at least it worked, right?' 'Yes', he replied, 'but it might have been the boiling water; I poured that down there first.' All's well that ends well, that's what Ma Ingalls always says, and she's right. Lloyd can get right back to ruining my clothes and we can all live happily ever after. As soon as we get the Shop-vac fixed.

Saturday

I have had a busy week, my friends! I spent three days at a geek conference, and it was more than a little painful. Don't get me wrong, now: I LOVE geeks. They are very useful in many, many ways. I just don't want to listen to them yabber all day about boring ass equations and user defined functions. Especially when they are ALL WRONG. They should ask me; I would tell them. I don't know why my opinion is not more frequently solicited. Oh well, a mystery for another day.

In other news, I have been feeling a definite hint of fall in the air here in the Pacific Northwest. This is also ALL WRONG, because it is the second week of August and summer just started 23 seconds ago. Seriously, I had to go coat shopping. You guys are not going to believe this, but I went TO THE MALL. They have this store? Called Macy's? And there are racks upon rack of clothes that ARE ALL THE SAME, ONLY IN DIFFERENT SIZES. It was very strange, and it took me a while to acclimate, but once my head stopped spinning I found the most awesome black trench coat with white piping on super clearance for $29.98. It had been marked down from $199, which makes me wonder how much profit, exactly, they make on regularly priced items. Oh yeah, A LOT, and all because of outsourcing to countries with super cheap child labor in their slavery-like SWEATSHOPS. Too bad, so sad, score for me, right? To assuage my conscience, I went to Goodwill on the way home and picked up an tan Old Navy trench (also sweat-shopped, natch, but the damage was already done WAY before the coat got into my hot little hands, so yay, me!) and a Cabbage Patch Kid for the boys.

Let's see, what else? Hmmmm..... We have been harvesting garden goodness left and right. We have this crappy apple tree in our back yard, and the apples have been falling off with reckless abandon. I have been snatching them up before the compost rats can get them and slicing them up for the freezer. I feel very Little House on the Prairie, let me tell you. We have also been digging potatoes and performing various other productive chores. The kids LOVE this, which is funny, because they were not nearly so keen on hoeing and watering for the last two months.

If you saw the beach pictures, you will know we just came back from a trip to the coast. SUPER FUN. Also, we had a memorial service for my mother and grandmother/burial service for my grandmother on the way to the beach, followed by a burial service for my mother on the way home from the beach. Confused? WELCOME TO MY WORLD.

Wow, you know what? I think I might be done here for tonight. Oh, I have plenty more to say, believe you me! For example, I am, once again, reading a book about a book, which always makes Lloyd mock me severely, but really, it's quite fascinating and I intend to tell you about it. Just not today. Someday I hope to read a book about a book about a book, just to really blow his mind. That's all for now; have a FANTASTIC weekend!

On coats

Look at my living room! Doesn’t it totally look like the brown coat section at Goodwill exploded in here? But no, those are all Lloyd’s coats. For real. He took the boys to visit his parents for a few days, and you know me! I took full advantage of the opportunity clean and organize. Well, okay, FINE, really I laid on the couch in my underwear and drank beer. Of course, I went to Goodwill, too, but they kicked me out. Something about no beer allowed, blah blah blah blah. WHATEVER. So when I got home I decided to clean out the ‘walk-in’ closet in our bedroom. I say ‘walk-in’ instead of walk-in, because I suppose it’s theoretically possible to walk in there, if you were a midget. Or a Pomeranian. Or maybe a medium-sized goat, if it's skinny, but not one of those freaky jumping ones because it would hit its head on the shelf right off, and I definitely don't want another dead goat in my closet.

It has never been easy to get in there but it’s been getting progressively more difficult, what with the three feet of crap on the floor and junk piled willy-nilly on the shelves and draped over the hanger rods. But I was determined, because I deeply love a tidy closet. Also, I thought I might have stashed some extra beers in there, but unfortunately that turned out not to be the case.

I figured out the problem right away- it was the overly ample supply of brown coats. You might think I have something against brown coats, but you would be mistaken. I LOVE brown coats. My brown coats, that is. Lloyd’s, not so much. It would be okay if they were all different; I could understand that. But the brown coats in question fall into two categories: leather and hunting/outdoorsy. Boring, am I right? I’m really tired of boring, so I took them all out, along with approximately 43 helmet bags and 217 backpacks (tan, olive, and camouflage in varying sizes and configurations) and heaped them into a pile that the entire population of Cairo, Illinois could stand on to keep dry no matter how high the Mighty Mississippi gets. If you don't believe me, look at the picture again and this time, note the tiger for scale. It's not a full grown tiger, of course. I wouldn't want to exaggerate or anything.

At the present time, a smallish golden retriever could walk in and maybe even turn around, so that’s a big improvement, but I am not quite sure what to do with the enormous mound of coats in the middle of the living room. Let me know if you have any ideas! I’ll be on the couch in my underwear, drinking beer.

Morning Madness

I know Helen is eagerly awaiting my upcoming post about why I love Public Works and diesel powered equipment, but that will have to wait for a while longer. Sorry, Helen, but here's a tantalizing hint: it's the closest you will ever get to pure, raw, unadulterated power, baby. The heavy rumble as the engines fire up, the...

Wait, where was I? Oh yeah: morning madness. As you might know, or guess, it's been quite an adjustment for all of us for me to get up and go to work every. single. day. But it's been going pretty well. The boys get up VERY early. They come in our room and shuffle around the bed for a while, and then we all get up. All except Lloyd, I mean- he is so super efficient that he doesn't need the entire morning to accomplish his chores so he stays in bed until I leave for work. The boys watch Underdog, I throw some toast at them and get ready to go, pretty much peacefully.

Today, though, we had a little snafu. The boys came into our room around 4:30, and then WENT BACK TO SLEEP. I don't know why they came in- I'm not home during the day so for all I know Lloyd puts them in hockey masks and makes them have chainsaw fights to entertain the neighbors in exchange for a little extra cash, giving them early morning nightmares. Not that the reason for this aberration matters one tiny bit, of course. I got up and killed a little time, made my lunch and had some extra coffee. That was nice and all, but eventually I had to get showered and dressed, and they STILL WEREN'T UP. This was pretty much unprecedented, and I had no idea what to do.

Decision time, people: do I go in, turn the lights on, shower and get dressed like normal, taking the risk that they'll wake up all grumpy and cross and I'll be late? Or do I creep in there quietly to get my clothes and then suffer the agony of getting ready without all my required supplies and equipment and have to get dressed in the kitchen? I went with the stealth route, hoping they would at least stay asleep until I slammed the door behind me and accidentally set off the alarm.

I took a shower in their grimy, toy-infested tub, and washed my hair with Target brand baby wash. I dried off with a pre-dampened Buzz Lightyear towel and brushed my teeth with a Hello Kitty toothbrush and Little Bear toothpaste. After that, nothing was left to do but get dressed.

Now, don't be too shocked, but I am actually pretty organized when it comes to work clothes. On Sunday afternoon, I pick out four or five outfits so I can just grab a pile each morning and not have to think about it any more. Unfortunately, when I snuck into the closet in the dark, narrowly avoiding getting beaned by a trash bag full of Christmas presents and my manual 35 mm camera with the broken flash shoe, I could not find the dark wash boot cut denims that went with the week's last pre-arranged set. I carefully backed out to pillage the clothes pile, only to be thwarted once again by Lloyd's laundry prowess. There was zilch, and I mean NOTHING, either dirty or clean.

I did the only thing I could do. I posted about it on Facebook. Then I belly crawled back into the dark, peril-ridden closet, grabbed the only pair of pants I could readily and quietly find, a slim cut black velveteen pair, and bolted out the door. Problem solved, you might think, right? That's what I thought, anyway, until I got a good look in the enormous, brightly illuminated full-length mirror in the office bathroom. The thing is, there are few outfits, if any, where a pair of denims can be appropriately replaced with velveteens. At least in my closet. To make matters worse, the replacement pants seemed to have some sort of static issue. They stuck to my boots and the absurdly mismatched jacket clung to the pants. As a result, both the pants and the jacket spent all day inching upwards, and I looked like I raided the closet of a fashion-challenged dwarf. Dopey, perhaps. Only dumpier, and without that snappy hat. I considered tucking the pants into the boots, but feared I would look like a badly-dressed dwarf on the way to ill-advised riding lessons.

And let's not even talk my face and hair and all the rest, okay? I've pretty much given up on makeup improving my appearance in any appreciable way, but let me just say that a comb and some deodorant would have been warmly welcomed, not only by me, but by everyone in my office, and perhaps some passersby on the sidewalk outside my window. I did feel a little better when I saw someone from another division wearing athletic socks with black pumps. I didn't even want to ask what his morning was like.

I don't think I've EVER been so happy to get home from work. I've spent all afternoon problem solving so this doesn't happen to me again. I have a solution involving drop caches, but it's going to require some fairly intensive shopping and there will probably be some logistical issues. Now, here's a couple of little things to cleanse your palate. For a REALLY funny and excellent story about missing pants, click here.

And, I have been in a class all week. Today one of the exercises included filling in an organizational chart for an incident response. Here are my entries:

Chief- Ben Derr

Safety Officer- Izzy Dedgette, assisted by I.C. Blood

Shelter Manager- Bill DeShack

Heavy Equipment Supervisor- Anita Phillip

And that's all I have to say about that.

Smooth

I'm pretty sure most of you guys know my policy on ironing: just say NO. In fact, I don't even own an iron. You can read some of my previous thoughts on ironing here and here, intermingled with general ridiculousness. Truly, I can't remember the last time I ironed something, or why. I have always been unbearably pretentious about it, too: Iron, me? Oh, no, certainly not. I don't iron, whoever would do that? So bourgeois! I have MUCH more valuable things to spend MY time on, but you just go ahead and do whatever suits you, you poor unenlightened thing.

Like all the other times I've been smug, it has come back to bite me on my wrinked ass. You know I have this new job thingy, right? And it was quite the trial acquiring a suitable work wardrobe after spending six years, one month and seven days lounging around eating bon-bons and sucking down wine being lovingly devoted to providing domestic bliss for my charming family for such a long glorious time. Different outfits are required, as you might imagine. Anyway, I just ran out of new and new-to-me clothes that didn't have to be washed first. Yeah, yeah, I know all about how you're supposed to wash the clothes first, but come on! You should all know by now that I'm lazy as hell so just shut up.

And, dammit if some of my clothes didn't come out of the dryer looking like they are in need of a good smoothing, even by my sub-standards. Now what do I do? Seriously, how do people LIVE like this?!?!? And really, it's not even my fault. Lloyd is ruthlessly efficient and he churns through the laundry like the tasmanian devil on speed. Trouble is, Taz seems to be a little color blind and unable to read labels, so the silk shell goes in with the Transformer underwear and the filthy jeans with nails in the pockets.

Oh, SWEET! I feel an epiphany coming on. It feels sort of like a piercing, stabbing pain in my temple, so it's definitely either another flash of brilliance or a brain tumor. You know how steam will get the wrinkles out? They even make little steaming gadgets just for that purpose, but you can also hang stuff in the bathroom with the shower on, which gave me my great idea for wrinkle removal AND time savings in the morning: I'm going to get dressed BEFORE I get in the shower! That way, I get a few extra minutes of sleep, I'm all fresh and perky for a day at the office, and the wrinkles in my clothes are steamed into submission. I'll let you know how it goes. I hope this one's a winner because otherwise I'm going to have to rescind Lloyd's laundry privileges and I definitely don't want to do that, because I've seen enough dirty Transformer underwear to last me a lifetime.

Work

Today, for the first time in six years, one month and seven days, I left the house to go to work. Pretty zany, huh? I brushed my hair, put on shiny shoes and mascara and teetered out the door at O'dark thirty with a briefcase. Aren't I such a FANCYPANTS?!?!?!?!?!? I felt all smart and PROFESSIONAL, and it was FANTASTIC!

Well, until I got there. I will actually be working in a smallish office very near my house, but had to go into the main office first to fill out reams of paperwork, get my equipment issued and attend a Senior Staff meeting to meet all the muckety-mucks. I'll just skip the part about how the phone box to get through to security to get through the gate is like one of those japanese puzzle boxes with no visible means of opening it and the security guards laughed at me, shall I?

After I finally weaseled my way into the place, which is literally a huge maze-like bunker two floors deep, I was presented with a pile of paper taller than my head and a ratty ballpoint made by blind people in Wisconsin. Or somewhere like that; how the hell would they know?

Then it was time for the meeting. A little backstory might come in handy here: you might recall my recent involuntary diet, during which I dropped a significant bit of weight. This, as you might guess, caused me a significant pants problem, as in, I had none that I could wear, so for the past two weeks I have been frantically shopping for office-appropriate legwear. Desperation does not make shopping fun, friends. Finally, just this past weekend, I cobbled together some suitable attire, or so I thought. Really, you should test drive new office clothes, but pressed for time, I went with the new pants. Which are FINE, don't get me wrong, but they have one of those flat metal tab things that slides into a little catch for a fastener. This is not a secure arrangement, as it can just slide right back out, so there is also a button on the inside. Not being a fan of extraneous fastenings, I went commando on the button and paid the ultimate price while making my way to the cluster of bosspeople. Too bad I wasn't in the pen factory. Note to self: no such thing as extraneous fastenings.

After that smashingly successful meet and greet, I gathered up my equipment, including a mobile device that I'm pretty sure could simultaneously program a missile guidance system and break the Vernam Cipher. Naturally, I can't even turn it on, but I cannot possibly admit this, and am therefore now forced to capitulate and learn to.... do whatever the hell that stupid thing does. I went to the smaller office where I will be working, and got my cube. It's nice and clean, or WAS, until I spilled tea all over my desk. Normally, I would have SOMETHING to sop up spills in my office- gym clothes, paper towels, kleenex, SOMETHING, but since I had just moved in, I had nothing. Nada. Zip. Now that I'm sitting here after the fact with some wine, I realize I should have used the fancy contraption because that totally would have solved two problems at once, but since I wasn't thinking clearly, I wiped it up with my ivory colored coat. It wasn't especially absorbent, and so I just sat on the desk and squirmed around in the offending pants to soak up the excess, and to teach them a lesson. After all, I didn't want to make my new cubicle neighbors think I was WEIRD because I spilled tea, right?

With that accomplished, I set out to send emails to all my friends, find the coffee pot, and do all the other REALLY important stuff. It was going great, until I started smelling something very, very foul in my cube. I sniffed around like some demented little dog until I figured out that it was the floor. I think it's rotten tuna fish juice, and it was fine until I started spilling tea on it and rolling my chair around and walking on it. Lucky for me, I was assigned an office 'sponsor' whose duty it is to help me out. This poor sucker had no clue what he was in for, but he gamely helped me spritz the floor with some carpet cleaner and scrub it with paper towels. Then we started questioning all the folks in the cuberhood about who was there before me and what the stench might be. A little information was gleaned: the previous occupant might or might not have been named 'Don' and he may have left a few months ago to work for the state, but no one knows why. It's BECAUSE OF THE SMELL, fools!

So that's the day one report. I'll keep you posted, but right now I have to find my febreeze, and some super glue for my pants.

There is such a thing as a free lunch

Wow, you guys. I had the freakiest nightmare. You will totally pee your pants when you hear this. I dreamt that I drank the Kool-Aid and fell for the old 'Government and Corporate America is looking out for you' trick and gave away all my best ideas to them. For FREE! I mean, how crazy is that? I don't even want to talk about it anymore; it gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. If I didn't know better I'd think they might have planted a chip in my head while I was sleeping or something. I do know better, though, because to find me they would have to scan my ID and I'm too smart to fall for THAT scam. Hold on, I have to adjust my tinfoil hat; the mind control rays are coming closer.



Okay, that's better. I hope your shield is on good; the enemy is strong today. Anyway, my sister and I were out with the kids the other day, and we went to the gym at local community center. It was getting on to lunchtime and we were just about to go fill them up with organic tofu, quinoa and broccoli nuggets and fries, when we were informed by the community center staff that they were serving free lunch! SCORE! At first we thought it was some kind of special day, but no! They do it every weekday from 12-1, AND they serve breakfast from 8-9.



The lunches were weird, no doubt about it. They came in a plastic shell, like a Lunchables box, or what I've heard Lunchables boxes might look like from someone who once bought one. You know, with little compartments and a sheet of cellophane sealed over the top. They had milk AND juice, and there were several different meals, handed out randomly. One of ours had breaded chicken balls, shaped like little drumlets, a brown roll and a pack of gummy candy. And by chicken balls, I mean round pieces of chicken, not rooster testicles, in case you were wondering. The other ones had stips of breaded chicken over a salad of lettuce, pod peas and shredded cheese along with crackers, and someone at a table next to ours had a wrap of some sort and strawberries. Oh, and each one had a strange metal colored little wafer, about the size of a rice grain, right on top. They weren't half bad, but everything was cold, and the kids didn't care for it except for the gummies and the crackers. Weston even stated fairly loudly for the record, and for the staff and the other lunchers, that 'The food here isn't very good.' The whole thing was quite puzzling, until we found out that these were Government funded meals, and they have them all summer, when school isn't in session. So I guess that's good, right? It's win-win. We get free food and the grocery outlets and animal hospitals get rid of their leftovers. We're definitely going to breakfast next time.

Huh, that's weird. I'm feeling this irresistible urge to drink some high fructose corn syrup sprinkled with MSG in a clear plastic cup and watch some network tv, then head to the mall. I'm going to need a new hat for sure. Damn you, Government wafers!

Genius, Free to Good Home

Corporate America, never bothered by grinding the downtrodden consumer deeper into the ground, or hosing over an innovator slaving away in the trenches, has done it again. Check out Pampers' latest offering: Designer Disposable Diapers. You may recall that just the other day I introduced my own DeadCatLine, which features disposables in a variety of high fashion styles. Can you believe this blatant thievery? Seriously, they didn't even try to be sneaky. Next thing you know turban helmets will be flying off the shelves at Wal-Mart and every prego in town will be wearing a DCL rip-off and they'll all be thinking how great those big box chain 'designers' are while true brilliance goes unrewarded, once again.

If you've been reading here for a while, or if you used to read Stories from Korea, you may also recall my frequent objections to many of the most disgusting practices of big business and the assistance they get from our government and legal system, or as they call it, 'business as usual'. But no more. This latest affront to my intellectual property rights has pushed me over the edge. You win, soul-sucking bastards. I hope you're happy, Supreme Court: I get it. Corporations ARE more important than people. Okay, elected representatives: It's not just okay for the laws of the land to be written by hacks funded by the very industries that require oversight; it's BETTER! Enjoy the swag! You deserve it! Thanks for doing such a great job. I don't know what I was thinking before.

I've been assimilated; what's good for the Board of Directors and the House of Representatives IS good for America! AND for the rest of the world, hallelujah! So with that in mind, I offer up all my best products and schemes , free to a good corporate home. This includes such gems as the ninja flight attendant airline commercial, the mini-beers, the fully automatic funnelator, the fully completed childrens' story/screenplay set in the near future about how the Canadians have bombed the US to smithereens, my various housekeeping breakthroughs, and my newest brainstorm: Coke with the Excedrin already in it. This one would work for Pepsi, Gatorade and coffee, too. Surefire winners, every one of them. Gold mines, I tell you. Well, except for maybe the story with those dastardly neighbors to the north. It might be a little too apocalyptic for the grade school set. It does have a stellar vomiting scene, though- it would light up the big screen. Where are you now, Disney? Dreamworks? Probably busy setting up some more of those nifty product placement deals, all for the greater good.

Take heed, food giants, pharmaceutical barons,entertainment behemoths and HFCS peddlers to us unwashed masses! It's all there for the taking. If you would do just one thing, though. Maybe you could throw a few extra bucks to those lobbyists of ya'alls to clear up that pesky labeling issue. We consumers don't need to know all that complicated chemical stuff about what's in all that stuff you make. We know you're just looking out for our best interests. Thanks, you're the best. But you knew that. And so do I.

DCL Update, and a Totally Irrelevant Aside

So, apparently, not all of you have seen these hideous new Huggies. If you REALLY want to, you can see the commercial here, or just read about them here. But don't say I didn't warn you!

And, just in case you didn't believe me about the clothies, you can look here to see just a small selection of the diaper fashion that's readily available.

I know you're really just waiting for the irrelevant aside, so here goes: C Mike's comment about the straw in the bra idea not being all that original reminded me of the first time I went to one of those dumb flying squadron parties where you're supposed to dress up in a flight suit. The unadorned, standard Air Force flight suit can be seen here, if you are unfamiliar with them. Having never been to one of these soirees before, I didn't realize the idea was to create some slu.tty get-up out of the flight suit. Instead, I racked my brain to come up with a clever 'pilot' costume, and the only thing I could think of was a pilot whale. I stuffed pillows down the suit and put an aluminum funnel on my head with a silver stocking over it. For a spout, you know. Then I put a ziploc bag filled with water in the side pocket and ran some tubing up the inside of the stocking and up the funnel. I kept my hand in my pocket and squeezed the bag to squirt water up the tube and out the spout. It was a neat party trick and everyone liked it. Then it was time for the judging and I squeezed the bag too hard and it broke in the pocket and the spout didn't work and everyone just thought I was a weird girl in a fat flight suit that wet her pants and some tan little twinkie in a revealing Hello Kitty themed flightsuit won. After that I put beer in the bag and rerouted the tubing to my mouth. I hate Hello Kitty.

Introducing the DCL

You know how I've been all dull and uninspired because my life is a living hell lately? Well, no more, my friends! I have found my muse, and it is.... ugly diapers! You guys have all seen those ridiculous disposable diapers that are supposed to look like daisy dukes, right? I was at a birthday party yesterday and got to talking about them with some brilliant friends, and we thought, why stop there? Where are the khakis? The floral capris? I know what you're thinking: JUST USE CLOTH DIAPERS, MORONS! But the sad truth is that clothies aren't for everyone. At least until all those nasty chemicals they put in disposables melt the machinery in the factories, but that will probably take YEARS.



So in the meantime, I present to you the Dead Cat Line, DCL for short. The logo will be a line drawn silhouette of a smushed cat; I'm still working the bugs out. Disposable diaper-included fashions for babies and toddlers for all occasions! Wedding finery, loungewear, athletic apparel, you name it! DCL will have it all.



And DCL is not just for babies! I've noticed a few other fashion needs around here. For just one example, we have a lot of people from India and Pakistan here and I often see large and elaborate turbans on men. The other day, I saw a turbaned guy on a bike, without a helmet and I thought, someone should make a bike helmet that looks like a turban! Well, turbaned biker, you no longer have to sacrifice safety for cultural expression; DCL is here to help you out!



The possibilities are endless! Know how when you're gigantically pregnant and you're dying for a drink but you can't have one because everyone will glare at you like you're viciously beating an adorable kitten in the street? How about a maternity dress with a discreet chest pocket with a sturdy waterproff pouch and straw system for your beer, wine, diet coke or red bull? DCL can even custom make a thermal pocket so you can drink coffee to your heart's content without suffering from society's disapproval! See what I mean? DCL is a surefire hit! Contact me at womanwithadeadcat@gmail.com to contribute your own ideas and/or start up capital! No amount too large or too small; contact me today!