Photo Friday

This is $600 worth of pipe, valve, and chrome.

For sixteen years my bathtub has had a slow drip.

The cats liked it because it was always a source of fresh water when daddy was drunk and forgot to refill their water bowl. I have finally got around to getting it repaired, and now I will have to be more attentive to the cats needs.

Video Thursday

I was watching the news and saw this on the local NBC channel here in Miami. Stupid me didn't think to TiVo it, so I had to find the video for my blog from another source. Here is the WGN Television video of it. Basically it is about the top places to raise children in the United States. The number one location made me pee in my pants.


Now it's not that I don't agree with their findings, it's just that I'm amazed that my home town where I grew up is number one. Fifty years ago, when the population was just around 5000, it was a kids paradise, but now? Every time I return it just looks like another cookie cutter suburb, with too many strip malls, and lot's of chain restaurants. Other than the quaint old center of the town, it is boring. Also, the cool, scary woods that we used to play in have been subdivided into homes, and what is left is just a sterile park.

Bonnie Hunt x 7

Some people eat meatloaf, and call it comfort food. Others like to try and re-create life as they knew it fifty years ago to make themselves feel all warm and fuzzy. I like to watch the Bonnie Hunt Show. I had never considered why Bonnie Hunt made me feel good before. I just assumed that I was being entertained during one of the most starkly bad programming periods of the day, and just about anything would be amusing. It took Mark to point out exactly why I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame, "She sounds just like your sisters!" he squeaked. It's true, she is all my seven sisters rolled up into one woman. She is loud, and my sisters are loud, she's funny, and my sisters are funny, but most of all she sounds like my sisters. It is the unmistakable nasal tone of the Midwest, and the Chicago area in particular that I hear every day on the television. Creepy isn't it.

So every day I get reminded of Christmas and other holiday's past. Those raucous times, when my sisters all get together and start talking and laughing at the same time, kind of like the View on steroids, except without the obnoxious View hosts. I'm telling you, a family party wouldn't be the same without that shrill, twang of Midwestern female voices filling the house, at decibels well beyond the comfort level. And what of the brothers, husbands, and other various men-folk? Well, that's what basements, rec-rooms, and garages are for. Especially if there is a working TV with a football game on it. My only problem at these gatherings, is that I could never decide which room I'm supposed to be in.

Visions of Sugar Plums...... and Ants

Merry Christmas everybody. Isn't this a wonderful time of year? Disney's 'A Christmas Carol' is showing at the theaters, Christmas shows are popping up all over television, and the Sunday newspaper, and our mailbox are stuffed with fliers filled with Christmas gift ideas. The only problem is that Christmas is six goddamned weeks away. All the horror that is Christmas, is still to come.

In two weeks Mark will start nagging me to pull the musty old tree out of the shed. If things are the same as they have been in the past, I will have to go armed with a can of Raid to fight off the hoards of ants that tend to make their home in the thing. After I drag that vermin infested tree into the house, and erect it in the living room, Mark will start whining about stringing lights outside. In the past, I have tried leaving the lights up all year round, but I got quite a bit of crap about that from Mark and the tenants. Besides all the extra work decorating and rearranging things, I also have to figure out what to get Mark for Christmas. It's not bad enough that I have to buy him Christmas gifts, his birthday is December 23rd, and for some reason he thinks that he also deserves something for that. Luckily, Mark has registered with Amazon.com, and all I have to do is look up what he wants. It's so easy, they have all my information, and all I have to do is pick out what I need, and click, it's purchased, and shipped. I'm sure Amazon.com dreamt that up to get guys like me to purchase things on a whim after we've been out drinking. It worked, I use it often late on Friday nights.

I really wish people would not push Christmas so early, and so hard. The only part about the holiday that I really do like, is around six in the evening on December 25th. That's when Mark puts a fantastic meal in front of me, and I eat until it hurts.

Help Me! Help Me!

Right now at this very moment, Mark is being a gigantic flaming asshole. He is calling me names, and throwing crap around in the kitchen. His rant today is being caused by a fly that he claims I purposely let in the back door. "I can't cook with a goddamned fly in the kitchen!! Every goddamned day you let a goddamned fly in! You dumb, jackass, goddamned, sonofabitch!!!", and that's the cleaned up version. He uses even more despicable language than I have the nerve to put in a story my mom will probably read.

It seems that there are a species of fly who have an intelligence above and beyond the average fly. They apparently know exactly what days Mark cooks dinner, and the exact time that I will be opening the door to throw out the garbage, and they are able to coordinate their being outside the door with those times. It is quite amazing, I open the door for five seconds to throw the bag of garbage in the can, and bzzzzzzzt, in a fat hungry fly comes. It happens every time, and I don't know how to stop it. The problem is that Mark has no tolerance for bugs in the kitchen, and for that I am happy, but how the hell is it my fault that these flies have figured out how to get in on eating Mark's cooking? I don't think I'm going to be able to outsmart these flies, but I did just get an idea of what to get Mark for his birthday.

Photo Friday

June 2008

Yesterday

Video Thursday

Often, in the middle of the night, Chandler will be snuggled up in the bed between Mark and me. Unfortunately, if one of the cats walks through the room, he will jump up and stomp all over me on his way to chase the offending cat. I don't know how he hears them, they are not audible to the human ear, but I think I have found the answer to the problem in the video below.

I hope the video is still here when you see this, because it is taken off the television (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), and You Tube often deletes those.