Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Ipods, Disco Balls & Belly Button Lint

I've been busy these days fighting with my iPOD Shuffle and making a Madonna-popping-out-of-a-disco-ball for MJagger's birthday. In addition, I've been trying to get this little crusty out of my belly button piercing hole, but I am not having much success. Let's take these in orders so I can whine appropriately...

My shuffle no longer shuffles, which is traumatic for me because I LOVE my iPOD. I've spent like 50 hours trying to fix it--everything from downloading crap off the Apple website to swearing at it. Nothing works. I miss my little white ear buds in the morning. How the hell am I supposed to work without music? (No, I do not listen to my iPOD when I am doing counseling--only when doing paperwork, you silly beasts.) I can't exactly buy a new one--that budget thing again--but I am going to have to do something or I will soon break into tears. Thankfully, making the disco ball took my mind off of my misery for an hour or two. I'll take some pictures of the finished product it and post them for your viewing pleasure. MJagger seemed pleased enough. I mean, how can you NOT love a Madonna disco ball for your birthday?

As for my belly button, I'm not kidding about this. See, when I got my appendix out, they made me take out my belly button ring. Since then, there is this hole (actually, two holes) that serve no purpose (in my belly button region, that is--I like to think my other holes serve purpose). Anyway, I noticed this little crusty thing in the lower piercing hole and I'm hear to tell you it's like impossible to get out (due to the angle, need of trifocals to see, bad lighting). I'm afraid I may have to get help to address this. Here's a photo of a hairy belly button (not mine, sillies):

When I look at that damn belly button piercing hole with no purpose, I get bad flashbacks of the actual belly button piercing. I let myself believe these two teenagers tell me it didn't hurt to get it done. They both had pierced belly buttons and it looked good; I figured, why not me? They accompanied me to the tattoo parlor to get this done and stood by my side as the procedure occured. I watched in horror as this pierced specimen of a man held up this chunk of rusty metal the size of a railroad tie stake and the POUND it through my abdomen skin, muscle and fat. YYYYYEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWW! Those rat bastards LIED to me! It hurt like a bitch! They laughed and told me I was purple. I choked out the only two words I could get out, "YOU LIED." The teens laughed and admitted yes, they did indeed lie to me. I swore I would die with that thing pierced. (My appendix had another idea. Sigh.) It took TWO YEARS for that belly button piercing to truly heal. Two years!! Anything that takes that long to heal cannot be goof for you. (I thought it looked good, tho. Ah, the price of beauty.) So, I'll keep working on that little fuzzy or crusty or whatever it is. ( Don't worry--it's just probably part of my guts oozing out. Blech.) Perhaps tweezers and a flashlight would help.

Anyone wanna buy a used iPOD?

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

JACKIE, STEP AWAY FROM THE MIMI!

Now that I've stopped the 17 hour workaholic tendencies, I've found myself staring at the Idiot Box more than I really want to admit. I love shows like "House," "Rock Star: Supernova" and "Pardon the Interruption." But, my latest and shallowest TV lusting focuses on "WORKOUT," a show on Bravo (the same station that brings us "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy--how can you not love them?). Anyway, "Workout" is about this lady named Jackie who lives in LA, sports really fun hair and killer abs. Unfortunately for Jackie, she has a girlfriend from hell (my diagnosis: Borderline Personality Disorder, Terminal Type) who basically poops all over Jackie and any fun she might have. For those of you who have never seen the show, Bravo's website tells us "Jackie Warner, owner of Sky Sport & Spa, is determined to be the best in the competitive fitness industry in Los Angeles. Jackie has pulled together an elite team of trainers to attract an A-list clientele to her exclusive gym. But tough bodies and strong personalities lead to conflict among the staff. And Jackie, already under pressure trying to run a successful business, gets more pressure from her tempestuous girlfriend, Mimi. "

To the left: Jackie striking a pose, just for you.

The season ended last night, complete with Mimi biting Jackie. Tempestuous? Come on, you don't need a therapist to tell you that it isn't a good sign when your girlfriend bites you when angered. Jackie, for god's sake, step away from the Mimi!

Mimi even threw a glass at Jackie during last night's episode, just missing Jackie's beautiful head of hair. As your therapist, Jackie, I am here to tell you: RUN! DO NOT WALK! RUN AWAY FROM THE VIOLENT FREAK! RUN!!! RUN! RUN! No amount of therapy will help this woman! Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Okay, okay, so the show is full of eye candy. What's wrong with that? I'm profound all day--shouldn't I have a little fun in the evening? It's fake reality TV at its finest. I don't want to think when I'm watching TV. I want to stare and be comatose. If I wanted to think, I'd turn on CNN or PBS or I'd read some heavy-duty history book. Why think about World War III or Bird Flu or Global Warming or cancer or Jon Bonet when I can have eye candy?

Mindless babble, that's what I want.

I know you want to know who my favorite character on this show is--how can you sleep without knowing this information?--well, it's Zen (pictured for your viewing pleasure--pictures all stolen from the Bravo TV website,by the way). Um, I hope her name really isn't Zen, but if it is, more power to her. She's from the Chicago suburbs--if she were from L.A., I'd be more inclined to believe Zen was her given name. She's probably like 12 years old or something. She's funny, she's sassy, she adds a lot of normalicy & positive goofiness to this zany cast of characters. I hope she doesn't turn out to be a crazed-Mimi-bitch-stalker in the next season. I'll be crushed.

Does the show increase my need to work out? Hell no. It makes me want to eat a Chocolate Extreme Dairy Queen Blizzard. Do I think I will EVER look like these people? Hell no. I'm still trying to look like Lisa Rinna. Besides, I don't think 15 minutes of McYoga a day is going to rip those muscles I'm dragging around.....

Monday, August 21, 2006

Tasty Tidbits on a Monday

I haven't yet pooped today, so I'm probably a little more crabby than usual. Pray for me. Picture me sitting on the potty, as illustrated to the left. Gotta keep working, ya know...

I'm happy to announce that my gal Sara Evans is going to be on the upcoming season of "Dancing with the Stars." You know I have a sick addiction to that show. The only thing better than Sara being on the show is if they made Terri Clark do the dancing thang. Sara is such a down-to-earth-country-singing-kind of gal. The wife and I saw her in concert last winter and we just adore her. (It was a bit strange, as Sara was wearing the exact same shirt that MJagger wears. MJagger kind of sort of looks like Sara--more like Sara than that cross-eyed Dixie Chick everyone is always saying MJagger looks like.)


Speaking of Dancing with the Stars, NO, I do not yet look like Lisa Rinna. Damn.


I bought a new pair of shoes and I am in love with them. You're thinking to yourself, "hey, I thought she was on a budget and cut up her credit cards." So true, so true. It was all so innocent. I was an hour early to going out to dinner with that "friend from 19 years ago" (as described a blog or two ago), so I went into the mall, found myself inexplicably in Nordstroms, HAD to go to the shoe department as Nordstroms is known for their shoes and shoe service, and the next thing I know these shoes are on my feet and I'm paying for them with the cash I have in my wallet and I'm leaving the store with a box of new shoes. Go figure. I swear I don't know how it happened. (The wife did not buy this explanation.) I love shoes. I love them almost as much as chocolate and Madonna. The more shoes, the merrier. You can never have too many shoes. I love the smell of a new pair of shoes as you pull them out of the box. Tasty! This time, I purchased the "Nike Free" shoes--you know, the ones that are supposed to feel as free as having bare feet. That IS a picture of a Nike Free shoe, only mine are puke pea soup green. Oh, I want to wear them to bed, I want to wear them to work, I want to wear them while eating chocolate and dancing to Madonna songs. No, I really didn't need another pair of shoes, but who's talking about need when it comes to shoes? You use your feet every day, so you might as well put comfortable, new, beautiful shoes on 'em....

Speaking of feet, poor Freckles has to go back to the vet to get her deformed dew claw clipped. It grows in a circle and digs into her paw. The groomer missed it last time they went in, so now it'll cost me $38.00 to have one toenail clipped. (No, they don't do it for free because the groomer missed it. The vet doesn't care why it needs to be cut. They just want the money to cover the cost of doing it.) I went out and bought a pair of dog clippers this weekend, but can't get at the curled end of the toenail. As you can imagine, Freckles is NOT amused by the curled nail or my attempts to remove it. Maybe I should take her to Nordstroms and they could cut the nail while I get another pair of new shoes. I'd love another pair of Nike Free....perhaps in a different color to match my outfits....







Thursday, August 17, 2006

Back to the Future

Tonight, I am going out to dinner with someone I haven’t had contact with in 19 years. Where the hell do you start when it’s been that long? For Pete’s sake, I’ve had eight cars, 43 different hairdos and developed a terminal fixation on Xena Warrior Princess since the last time we crossed paths. Last time this person saw me I had no tattoos, weighed 30 more pounds, didn’t live in a house, didn’t have a master’s degree, didn’t have any nieces or nephews, was still sucking down cheeseburgers, was still buying albums and had never attended a Madonna concert yet. In that time, I have had short hair, really long hair, dyed hair, long hair again, back to short hair. I’ve been a long-distance runner, tripped over my own two feet and become a non-runner. My parents have lived in California, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, North Carolina during that timeframe. I gained a master’s degree, a house, two dogs, a pack of nieces and nephews, several new diagnoses and more tattoos than I care to count. I was an orthodontic assistant the last time this lady saw me….and, that was about twenty jobs ago! She has no idea I’m an art therapist, a vegetarian, a Dairy-Queen Blizzard and Starbucks Frappaccino addict or a computer nerd….

(Photo of Angelina getting a tattoo--do I tell this long-lost dinner lady I lust after Angelina? After Angelina's tattoos? ABout Tattoos in general?)

…The only consistent in this whole time period is the wife. (Here’s a big shout out to the wife--What a woman to hang in through all this nonsense.)

Do I bring photos? Do I bring a resume? Do I bring the wife? Do I show her my appendix scar? Do I tell her I have a spirit guide named Grover???

The last thing I knew, she lived in California, had few nieces and nephews, was getting braces and was doing some top secret work (literally). I’m pretty sure a few things have happened since then.

Who will have time to eat when we have all this nonsense to talk about? I’ll let you know how it goes and how much history I can pack in to one dinner…

....and you KNOW I'll show her my appendix scar and talk about poop. Some things are just a given....

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Dog Slurrpy-ing, Madonna Birthday, Body-part Xeroxing

It was a rough morning. Early this morning--late night, actually—1:30 AM and the dogs are lick, lick, licking their paws (and, at times, their parts). Why? Because they are allergic to grass and I took them for a walk yesterday and it involved some walking on grass. Sigh. It sucks to have dogs that are allergic to grass. It’s not like they can pee in a toilet. All you can hear is slurp! Slurp! Slurp! It is kinda gross to hear. So, early in the wee hours, the wife gets REALLY pissed off because she’s not feeling well (getting a cold), is anxious about work (back to work for those teachers after the summer break) and the licking is driving her BONKERS. Why she hears it and I don’t is a mystery of the Lord, but she makes sure I hear it by waking me up to tell me the dogs are licking. We whack them, medicate them, bathe them, beg them, bribe them but to no avail. (Don’t ask why we don’t put them in another room—that’s a whole ‘nother blog entry.) So, the wife storms out of the room and goes to another non-licking-dogs-room. I’m stuck with the slurping dogs. Of course, the minute she leaves, the dogs stop licking and go to sleep.

Once awake as scheduled, I drag the dogs for a walk but being that I am not paying attention and as the wife is not along for the walk (she is in bed, feeling very ill), I fail to notice some leftover poop on Freckles’ butt and of course she drags her butt all over the bedroom carpeting, leaving nice brown skid marks for us to find. As you can imagine, this almost puts the wife right over the edge she is barely teetering on. I grab the shampoo and start scrubbing while the wife gives Freckles a butt-scrubbing. Tasty. I am so tired I’m not sure I can stay awake to watch Rock Star: Supernova tonight. (I’m bitter because “House” is on at the same time as the Supernova diddy. We are not a TiVo home, so I’ll have to choose. We lead such a primitive life.)

I’ve got to get some sleep tonight, as tomorrow--August 16--is Madonna’s birthday. Let’s party! I’ll be sporting one of my best Madonna t-shirts in her honor. She’ll be 48, the rat bastard, older than me, spit out two kiddies and still looking way better than me. No dog-slurping will distract me from enjoying this lady’s birthday. I think I’ll go out and buy a present for me and MJagger for the Boy Toy’s birthday. We deserve it after all the money spent on those concerts.

The search for the next tattoo continues. I have visions of grandeur but haven’t been able to capture it on paper just quite yet and I certainly haven’t saved the money to pay for one. I DID, however, use the Xerox machine at work to copy the back of my left shoulder so I can “see” how much space I have between the two tattoos already back there. It is VERY difficult to Xerox your back on a copy machine with a feeder that is not removable. Thanks to Rudolph for the assistance in this endeavor (she knows why she is called this, so don’t ask any questions--after all, she didn't ask any questions when I asked for her copying assistance). At least I wasn’t copying my butt or anything….

P.S. read about Planet Xena:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/16/new.planets.ap/index.html

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Take me out to the ball game

Aren't I the naughty non-blogger these days? Face it, I'm too pooped to pop these days. Besides, I've been stunned into silence after seeing my butt last weekend. I'm whiny and broke and I'm in perirmenopause and I still don't look like Lisa Rinna and I'm pooped.

Man, I haven't even talked about poop or Madonna for weeks. I must be in a bad way.

I do have a funny work story, so that's good. The wife and I joined 40 of our closest chronically mentally ill friends and hopped a bus to Top Cheese Town Milwaukee to see a Brewers-Cubs Game. Being that the wife is a cheesehead by birth and I'm a Chicago Cubby, this made for good, clean fun. After a short tailgate (designed soley for the meat eating picinicer--the pickins were slim for this vegetarian--I had some Oreos & a bottle of water), we entered the ballpark to stake our claim in our nose-bleed seats on the first base line. At least I THINK it was the first base line--we were so high up there, I'm not sure we were even watching the Cubs and Brewers playing the game. It was rather disorienting (or, it might have been that I was so hungry that I was just dizzy with hunger). Once we got the clients settled, I wandered off to find some food products more to my palate. I purchased a million dollar pizza and a half million dollar pretzel. The bottle of water was only several hundred dollars. (Sheesh, it is mighty pricy to eat at a ballpark these days. I pine for the days I used to eat Wrigley Field hotdogs from the wandering vendors.) I walked carefully back to my seat and sat down to enjoy this culinary delight of a lunch. I ate half the pizza, half the pretzel and then decided to take a break. I put my food into the pizza box, put it on my seat and hopped down a few rows to visit with a few other clients. I was literally gone for five minutes. I decided to return to my seat and finish my lunch. I hop over the seats (why go to the aisle when you can hop the chairs?), get to my assigned space and....

.....look at the client to my left and see him shoving a piece of a pretzel in his mouth. I look to the client on my right....


......and see him wiping some pizza sauce off his face. I look at my pizza box on my chair and see that it is EMPTY. These two guys ate my lunch!!! They ATE MY LUNCH! Only a few crumbs of salt from the pretzel are left.

This puts me into a tail spin. I can't exactly yell at them--after all, they are chronically mentally ill and I DID leave the food behind without specific instructions not to eat it. Still, I am BITTER. The only answer was to go buy a chocolate sundae. Screw the game, I am here to eat!

The Cubs lost, the wife was happy, the clients were full of my food, I was out of money but happy to have sucked down more ice cream in my life.

One of my peers felt bad about the whole meat-filled-no-vegetarian-choices-tailgate and thus purchased me a giant vat of cheese fries.

Guess who ate that?

Let's just say it wasn't me wiping cheese sauce off my face.

Friday, August 04, 2006

If it's brown, flush it down....


Another weekend, another trip to the Land of Cheese. Get your bikini ready!

We are headed north--AGAIN--to hang out with members of the LLL. Seems I just can’t stay away from the construction-zone-nightmare-of-a-tollway. Why stay home when you can sit in your car, idling along with five miles worth of traveling companions? It's almost an integral part of the summertime to be stuck in construction traffic....  


The traffic wasn't too unbearable but I did have to stop and have a Frappaccino --it's stressful to weave in and out of all those people from Wisconsin who don't EVER move out of the left lane. HEY! GET A CLUE! Learn to drive! Get out of the damn left lane. It's a PASSING lane and the only thing passing are the cars on your right! The wife is a cheesehead, so she's used to my Wisconsin-drivers-need-to-get-out-of-the left-lane-so-us-flatlanders-can-blow-by" whining. RIGHT LANE! RIGHT LANE! MOVE OVER INTO THE GODDAMNED RIGHT LANE, YOU CHEESEHEAD! 

(Apologies to persons of Wisconsin origin. I get crazed over this thing and do not mean to stereotype all Wisconsin drivers. Just the morons in the left lane.) 

Let's not even get me started about the gas prices these days. How do the LLL members get back and forth from the lake on a regular basis without taking a second mortgage?

Only part of our illustrious LLL group was present, as it’s a busy time of year and choices must be made. We went a day late…why? Because Freckles has eye boogers the size of Alaska and because I just can’t bring myself to put the grrrlz back in the kennel only four days after they got out. (The boogers, I am hoping, are allergy-related. Freckles also has developed red spots on her belly, probably from slithering around the front lawn like a G.I. Joe-snake. At least she doesn’t eat her eye boogers. I can’t say the same for two of my clients.) 


The theme of the weekend was, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” I’m not kidding. There is only so much room in that septic tank of theirs, so we only flush when it’s absolutely necessary. It’s all good—we’re friends. I can take a little pee-pee peeking. Except…

my ovaries heard the word “PONTOON” and went into overdrive. “Let’s shoot that egg out there so we can complicate the toilet situation at the cottage!” There is NO WAY I was able to follow the yellow-mellow rule during such troubling conditions. I mean, you can't drop a clot the size of Cuba and not do something about that. Ugh! I probably took up all the spare room in the septic tank, everything will overflow and Lake Velveeta will be contaminated by LLL e. coli. 

I spent part of the weekend in a fetal ball due to cramps from hell. I also went over my legal limits of "flushes per weekend," but it seemed the only proper thing to do. I left no blobs of liver for any of my pals. They understand my pain--almost all of them are older than me and can relate to the joys of peri-menopause. They were NOT helpful, though--they told tales of horror and woe. I wanted to rip my ovaries out with my teeth by the time they were done with their stories....

The other theme of the weekend will be, “Eat ‘til you barf.” That’s what so’s good about all our friends: they love food and they love to cook and they love to eat and they love to talk about food and about eating. Of course, all this eating and sitting like a blob on a pontoon does not a bikini body make. We are all okay with added more cheesy wiblets to the existing ones, as long as it’s tasty along the way. 


Okay, so one of the participants took a photo of my butt. (Don't ask.) You should NEVER look see your own butt. It's just wrong on so many levels. It is back there for a reason: so you don't have to see it. I'm in no way a cheesy wiblet-covered heffer, but let me tell you, that photo of my butt showed more dimples and wiblets than I EVER want to think about again. I'm going to start walking 30 miles a day and give up once-a-day Blizzards. I'm also going to need therapy after that photo shoot.

When we are not eating or peeing and not flushing, we’ll be riding the waves of Lake Velveeta. Einsteina Vagina and Pee Pee Peeker, our lovely hostesses, have lots of toys besides the pontoon to keep us feeling sporty. Being that we are getting old, we will fight for the shade under the canopy on the pontoon. Is life good or what? 


Pee Pee Peeker has a new nickname: Rot de la Crotch. She got this horrific rash on the inside of her thighs. Those poor things were puffing up like puffer fish on steroids. They were red and swollen and awful-looking. She went to the ER--I would have, too, if my inner thighs looked like that--the doctor was little help..."it's hives. Take some Benadryl." Duh. She could have known that without paying him a zillion dollars. Anyway, she took Benadryl and slept through the remainder of the weekend...but, at least her legs got less red and puffy by the end of the event.

VE and PPP generously offered to let us bring the dogs, but that sounded like a disaster in the making. Can’t you just see Lucy falling off the side of the pontoon and Freckles biting the hostesses’ dog? I’m gaseous just thinking about it. And, I don't want to spend my free weekend staring at eye boogers. Instead, they will be staying home with a dog sitter and I'll pay her to stare at Freckles eye boogers. Lucy's bitter, because she's got her bikini all ready to go, but she'll get over it, as I've left word for the dog sitter to feed them unlimited treats....I figure it's only fair, as I'll be eating unlimited amounts of treats. I just hope Lucy doesn't ruin that girlish figure she's so fond of...


 The poor dog sitter, Kenny Chesney, ended up locking herself out of the house, with dogs standing at her side. We have our house keys scattered all over the universe but Kenny was unable to access any of the three million keys because her cell phone was INSIDE the house...the phone had the contact numbers. Isn't that how life always goes? Thankfully, I recently taught my neighbor how to break in to her own house using a credit card. (That is one use of credit cards the wife does not mind.) She thus helped the Kenny break into our house. Boy, do you feel safe with that locked door? I'd like to add that the eye boogers are much better, so don't throw up thinking about it. By the way, did you know that the official word for eye booger is MAGMUS? Indeed! Those of you LLL ladies not in attendance: we missed you. Pout. Pout. Pout.

And so went our final trip north for the season. Next stop: LLL in Lake Geneva. I feel a new tattoo in my future. All aboard! Now, if I could only get that picture of my cheesy butt out of my head...