Thursday, July 31, 2008

Bootilicious

Since the wife is on her 14th leg of her annual Tour of Wisconsin, I am on my own to survive the perils of suburbia. Read: I am washing clothes, taking the garbage out, killing the bugs, feeding the dogs, defragmenting the computer, dragging the lawn clippings to the curb, paying the cell phone bill, taking care of the newly-sealed driveway, bringing in the mail, sorting the recycling, vacuuming the rugs.....

....you know......doing what the wife does on a daily basis.

Please let her come home soon!!!

Since I haven't talked much about Jillian or my Jillian workouts lately, I thought I'd post of photo of what I look like since doing her "30 day Shred" DVD for a few weeks now:









I put a wig on for the photo shoot.
I've also had a boob job since my last blog entry. How do they look? POW POW! I didn't think the DVDs were working but looking at the photo, I think things are going swimmingly. I have three words for you:
ROCK.
HARD.
ABS.

That's what I am ALL about.

I did the Level 3 work out for the first time yesterday and then did it again today. I am here to tell you that if you decide to do the Jillian 30 day shred work outs, YOU SHOULD STICK TO THE FIRST TWO LEVELS! DO NOT PROCEED unless you want BLOOD SPURTING OUT YOUR EYES! Okay, I admit it: It was fun in a sick way. I especially loved doing the traveling push ups. The only place I traveled was AWAY from the TV.

Traveling push ups, my ass.

Speaking of my ass........

........I have experienced an unexpected, rather upsetting result of doing the Jillian tapes. The other day, I put on a pair of dress pants. They fit fine enough but I noticed that there was one major difference....something that I have experienced in the past ten or so years....

.....those damn tapes led to the return of the bubble butt, the juicy booty!!

Some people are all about the bubble butt. Some people are famous for their juicy booties--think JLo or Beyonce. I, on the other hand, am NOT about any butt expansion of any kind, in style or not. I am pre-dispositioned to the explosion of hip and thighs as I age, thanks to my DNA, so I get nervous when things get "bigger" back there.

Okay, we're not saying that I have developed a shelf or anything back there. It's just that my pants are much tighter in the butt right now than they have been and this does not make me happy. I know, I know--I am going to get all sorts of grief about saying anything about my new glutes. People are going to find this ridiculous. Well, that's because they have never had a juicy booty and they don't have a family history of pending juicy bootiness.

I'm telling you that there is a chance my butt will take over the world.

This leaves me in a quandary: give up all the leg work (think: squats) or embrace my bootiliciousness. I am not sure how one can do a 20 minute work out and leave anything out but if I want my bootiness to stop getting bootier, I'm thinking I am going to have to do something (like going back to sitting on the couch and watching Jillian on TV instead of doing her tapes).

You know that the next time you see me, you are SO going to be staring at my ass. You'll be thinking things like, "I don't see any difference" or "Whoa! She wasn't exaggerating for a change" or "Beyonce ain't got nothin' on her." No matter what you are thinking, you are going to be staring at my butt. This alone makes me think twice about publishing this blog entry, but I am dedicated to telling the truth, beloved blog reader, and thus I cannot edit out my fear of growing glutes.

There is only one solution at this time and that is to load the dogs in the car and go to Dairy Queen. Well, I have to take the garbage out first. And, I have to put the wash in the dryer. And I have to change the dog's water in their water dish. But after all that, I am drowning my sorrows in a big ass Blizzard.

Empahsis on the ass.

Monday, July 28, 2008

What's Buggin' You?

Look closely. The Japanese Beetles have moved on from the flowering cherry tree and birch trees to the ferns. These photos don't do justice to the volume of bugs on the leaves, but it gives you an idea how we are swimming in these bugs right now.They are ubiquitous. They are even on the petunias:
I don't know where they came from but I want them to go back. These shiny little insects are destroying our landscaping faster than we're clearing out the Amazon Rainforest.

On a side note, BIG shout out to Eldest Niece for bowling a 267. Wow!!! If you aren't a bowler, you might foolishly be saying, "so what?" Well, that's a mighty impressive score--very close to a perfect game. Most of us will come closer to weighing 267 than we will ever come to bowling a 267. Congrats. You go, bowler grrrrl!

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Can You Hear me Now?

If you read about a woman going postal in a Horizon store, don't worry--it was just me, chivalrously standing up for the wife and her crappy new Horizon Phone.

The wife's cell phone traumas continued through the week. Combine this with Brett Favre's antics, it's enough to make her cry.

I am sorry to say that the wife got a zillion dollar phone bill from her previous carrier, US Hell-u-lar....as she unfortunately made a HUGE mistake and was thus charged for early termination of her service. She didn't realize that when she purchased that brand new Hell-u-lar phone (of which she truly loved but couldn't use with Horizon, as described in a previous blog), it meant she was automatically renewing her contract and thus had a year to go. Ouch.

To add insult to injury, her new Horizon Cell phone had horrific reception and no one could understand her when she called them. So, now she had a cell phone carrier she didn't like, a phone that didn't work, a phone she loved but couldn't use and a bill she now had to pay.....

Worse, she took her new phone to the Horizon store and complained about the new phone. What do you think they did?

One associate called the other associate using the phone and both pronounced it "crystal clear." The wife left in tears.

Enter the uber-bitch: me. I have had ENOUGH of Horizon and decided to take things into my own hands. As a means of testing the reception, I took the wife's phone outside, stood in the front yard and called some friends who are also on the Horizon plan. They couldn't really understand me and they sounded like shit to me. Then, I called them from my new cell phone-- they could hear me with no problem and I could hear them.

Experiment over.

I went into the house and told the wife to give me EVERYTHING she had about her phone--from the box to the receipts. I loaded myself and her phone paraphenalia into the Mold Mobile and zipped off to Horizon.

I wasn't nice. I wasn't assertive. I was aggressive. I marched right up to that Customer Service desk and knocked people out of my way as I stormed toward it. I cut people off. I didn't care. I held up her shitty phone and in a very loud voice announced what a piece of shit it was. I then held up my phone and curtly explained how my phone works and her phone didn't. People turned and looked at me. GOOD! I wanted to yell, "RUN WHILE YOU CAN!" but I had a little composure left, so I kept that one comment to myself. Barely.

The poor Customer Service lady was now my hostage. She didn't have a prayer. When the salesman who had screwed over the wife approached, I proclaimed, "And, I want NOTHING to do with him!" He backed off and went back to the sales floor. I made it quite clear I didn't want to hear about testing the reception or about how the box didn't have the UPS code or how this or that....I was DEMANDING a new phone. A phone that worked.

I barked out my angry story of how I had talked the wife into this stupid service, that her previous service was a billion times better, that her previous phone was better, that Horizon had spent more time lying to us than helping us, that she brought her phone in and was basically patronizing to her but of no help. I growled out about the problems with the billing. I once again held the phone up in the lady's face.....

She was stupid enough to ask, "did your friend transfer phone numbers?"

"Yes," I answered, quizzical--what the hell could this have to do with anything?

She continued, "and, did you get a new Horizon number?"

Where is she going with this? "Yes," I coldly replied.

She was DUMB ENOUGH to start to say, "Well, maybe your friend is having trouble with her phone because of the phone number being from a different carrier---"

I tell you what. I cut that lady off so fast and so loudly she will probably need therapy for three years to get over it.

I made it clear I DID NOT want to hear any stupid theories taught in Horizon-screw-the- customer school. I almost jumped over the counter and shoved that phone right up her ASS.

It was at this point she went and got a new phone.

You better believe I watched that lady like a hawk. I made sure she wasn't shoving the old phone in a new box. I made sure she had a new phone out of a sealed box. I made sure she wasn't screwing me one more time. It was all going well until.....

....she couldn't get the wife's contact list out of the old phone into the new phone. Seems are phones really are so new no one knows how to do anything with them. Three people were working on this project. I made it clear I would not be leaving without a transfer of the contact list, all the while watching the phone to make sure there was no switch back to the old phone.

With much sweating, the lady finally figured out a way to get the numbers on the phone. I warned her that I best not be charged for this action via the Internet; she assured me I wouldn't be. I held a piece of paper in her face and roared, "THEN WHY DOES IT SAY I HAVE TO ACCEPT THE $1.99 CHARGE RIGHT HERE ON THIS PAPER?" She swallowed and promised it wouldn't be on the bill but if it were, it would be credited.

This is where I went POSTAL. Insane. I think the veins were popping out of my head. "I AM SICK AND TIRED OF BEING TOLD THAT THIS MIGHT SHOW UP ON MY BILL AND IT WILL BE CREDITED. THIS BETTER NOT SHOW UP ON MY BILL. THAT STUPID $14.95 BILL BETTER NOT SHOW UP ON MY BILL, EITHER!"

I think she piddled on herself.

She handed me the new phone and meekly asked me to make some calls so I could test it out. She suggested I go outside but I assured her that the phone would work right where I was standing or I'd be handing it right back. I called the wife.

"Can you hear me now?"

Thankfully, she really could hear me and I could hear her, so I smiled, hung up and thanked the woman for the new phone. I then grabbed all the wife's belongings and left, new phone in hand.

I am happy to report the wife is much happier with the new phone, which is a very good thing for me and for Horizon. Tell you what, tho--if that damned bill comes and there are charges that are wrong--after we've called them FOUR times and I've talked to them face-to-face--I WILL drive my car right through their show room. Call it "duty to warn," call it what you will. Just don't call me on Horizon.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The Antidote: Mama Mia!

I have found the absolutely perfect antidote for anything that ails you this summer: MAMA MIA!

The wife and I joined Ms. UCONN and Ms. I-Lust-Pat-Summit (ILPS) last night for a viewing of Mama Mia, the movie musical. I am here to tell you that I smiled through the entire movie. I'm serious--the entire movie. From the opening number to the corny ending dance performance, I was smiling.

The wife was in her glory. ABBA is one of her all time favorite bands--she even saw them in concert when she in ninth grade. This movie was the perfect antidote for her Brett Favre woes. She was too busy singing and tapping her toes to worry about His Selfishness.

It is an amazing thing, this writing a story based on ABBA lyrics. Genius! I think the most amazing part is when you are sitting there in the movie theater thinking about "Geez, I didn't know that's what the lyrics were." You think you know a song and then you see someone singing the actual lyrics in the context of a movie and it's like you never had listened to the song before. I'm not kidding when I say I wanted to go home and steal the wife's ABBA CD's so I could listen closely to the words I now know I there.

This movie is better and cheaper than an anti-depressant, so if you are feeling a little yucky, you should just suspend your need for an in-depth plot with a deep, complex story line and go get some free rays of sunshine. Make sure to bring an ABBA CD with you in the car so you can listen to it on the way home. (I suggest an actual ABBA album, not the soundtrack, as the real ABBA is much more delightful than any singing actors.)

Now, there are some rules to this antidote, so don't say I didn't warn you.

First, you must suspend your need of a specific timeline. Just go with it. For god sakes, the movie is based entirely on ABBA songs. Who cares that the time lines don't seem to make much sense?

Secondly, you must not be allergic to ABBA songs. I didn't say you have to like ABBA songs; it just helps if you don't hate them--although I am not sure how anyone could hate ABBA songs. ABBA songs are fun and corny--what's not to love? If nothing else, the movie will give you a deeper appreciation of these 70's iconic hits. And, I guarantee you will be amazed by the actual lyrics. If you aren't surprised at least once during the movie about the lyrics, you must be out getting popcorn and not listening.

Third, you must stay for the ending of the movie. When Meryl and the gang do their "Dancing Queen" encore, you want to clap along. Cheesy, cheesy, cheesy but delightful. Over the top delightful. How can you not smile when Meryl Streep is singing ABBA songs while wearing platform metallic platform shoes from the 70's?

I am not one to see movies twice, especially at the theater....but, I'd go see this again. Not because it was profound or Academy-award-winning fodder--but, because it really IS the antidote for whatever ails you. It was fun to smile for two hours. Why not go do it again? It's cheap, it's legal and it's calorie-free (well, unless you eat a bucket of popcorn--then, you are on your own).

For you true ABBA fans, watch for cameos of the band members. For you who don't even know who ABBA is (persons who were raised watching "High School Musical"), respect your elders and go enjoy "their" music. That kid Zach Efron's got nothing on this musical. If you want dark and serious and amazing, go see "The Dark Knight." If you want fun and smiles and laughter, go see "Mama Mia." But, don't say I didn't warn you that you'll be humming ABBA songs for the next few weeks.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Dear Brett Favre,

STOP IT!

STOP. IT.

SHUT UP

SHUT UP
SHUT UP!
STOP.

TALKING.

STOP IT!

See that photo above? That's a photo of the wife turning her back on you. She is SO disappointed. She's still walking around saying things like, "I thought he was different." But, you are not. You are just like every other athlete. Out for yourself and blaming everyone else. YOU ARE A SELFISH PIG!

SHE IS TURNING HER BACK ON YOU!

The wife is sick and tired of listening to you on TV. She just turns the channel now. If I didn't know better, I'd think that was your jersey she was spitting on last night.........

And now, for something completely different, disgusting in an entirely different manner.....

As avid readers know, I recently completed my 16 hour food sanitation class.
(Side note: If you were wondering, I was the first one done with the test. I hate being first. It's always been like that. I either know the answer or I don't--no sense in wasting any time fretting about it. It's embarrassing to be the first one up to leave. I'm sure everyone else is mortified when I am done so fast. Sorry.)

I learned all sorts of disgusting things that make me never want to go out to eat again. I will never again open a cardboard box in the house--I'll open them outside so the cockroaches and eggs can stay outside instead of in my house; I will never again step on a cockroach, lest I bring cockroach eggs in on my shoe; I will never open a can again without wiping it off, lest I ingest mouse poop remnants; I'll never be able to eat the bread in the basket at a restaurant. I probably will never eat a restaurant-made baked potato again.

I'm thinking of eating only Twinkies and Dove Dark Chocolate for the rest of my life.

Then came the houseflies.

The teacher had much to say about flies, none of which I REALLY wanted to know....which means I am COMPELLED to share the information with YOU.

I suppose if you've seen the movie "The Fly," none of this will come as a surprise to you. (I liked the original movie instead of the Jeff Goldblum remake. No offense to Jeff--I'm just old school.)

Here are some tasty tidbits to think about the next time you see a fly flitting around the potato salad at your next picnic:
  • Flies have to vomit on your food before they can eat it. The teacher called it "regurgitated liquid and salivary juice," but what it really means is that they puke on your food so they can eat it.
  • Worse, flies defecate while eating....meaning, they poop on your food as well as puke on it.
  • Flies can lay 150 eggs in a day.
  • That means 150 maggots.
  • Maggots don't like light, so if they are hanging around your food, they burrow into it.
  • Maggots can travel 5o YARDS. That's half a football field for you ex-Brett Favre fans. Can you even imagine seeing a maggot traveling down the sidewalk or down your slice of watermelon???!!!
She didn't have anything to say about Japanese Beetles, but I'm sure they aren't good to have in or on your food, either.

Now that I'm done with class, I am a wealth of knowledge. The wife asked me last night, "Are you going to keep talking about food like this?" I guess it is a bit aggravating when trying to find something to eat and I'm spewing data about the possible food-borne illnesses lurking everywhere. I'm sure I'll get over it but until then I'll be making comments regarding the danger of foods and the wife will be making comments about the dangers of Brett Favre stepping in to the State of Wisconsin.

No doubt, one day I'll reach into the restaurant's bread basket, accidentally eating a piece of the surely-recycled bread and the wife will cheer when Brett makes a good play, accidentally showing a surprise spurt of support....and all will be good in the world.....

....Until then it's fly puke and Packer angst. God help you all.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Turning Japanese 2008

The wife is on the second leg of her annual "Tour of Wisconsin;" thus, I am left to my own devices to survive while she is away.

This is always an interesting time, this "when she is gone" time every year, as one never knows what actually might happen while the wife is in Cheddar Heaven.

Allow me to show you a beautiful rainbow that was seen shining over our neighbor's home. (This part of my blog entry is my attempt to procrastinate from studying for my food sanitation test that is just around the corner. Who wants to study about food-borne illnesses when there are rainbows to be had?) I couldn't resist running out and taking these photos the other night....I also wanted an excuse to go outside and look for that fabled pot of gold. I did get some nice photos but nary a gold coin was found. I hate that photos never do justice to the actual beauty found in nature but the photos do make me smile and do make me contemplate the meaning of life.

Really.

A double rainbow, at that. And, it was a full rainbow--you could see end to end. Beautiful!

FYI.....Right before the wife went traipsing north, we went and joined a family cell phone plan with a company sounding like Horizon. This was very traumatic for the wife as she already had a phone she loved and a plan she was quite satisfied with. Me, being the last person on the planet to not have a cell phone, had no such issue and thus I wanted to join the Horizon family as like 95% of my friends have this service and thus I can talk to them for free. I had originally planned on getting my own plan with Horizon instead of US Hell-u-lar as I really wanted to text the piss out of my friends and that would have cost way too much with Hellular. The wife suddenly jumped on the Horizon bandwagon and the rest was.....

....like buying a car!

The salesman lied, he used the ol' "bait and switch," he contradicted himself. I shouldn't even compare him to a car salesman because that's an insult to the car person.

Talk about a scam--they've got it all figured out. You can't "transfer" your own pricey cell phone from Hellular to Horizon--you have to get a new phone. What a racket! Here the wife has this perfectly good, relatively new, very expensive cell phone (with the words Hellular on the back of it) and she can't use it if she transfers to a new company. Who thought that up? Obviously someone with good business sense for profit. (If it's not true and you technically could transfer plans on the same phone, then piss on all cell phone companies for lying.)

Here's a picture of Lucy. She has nothing to do with buying a phone or with rainbows or food sanitation or even bugs. She just makes me smile and that in turn lowers my blood pressure when thinking about buying cell phones.

We are now proud owners of two new "Chocolate 3" (third generation) phones (which are not brown nor do they smell like chocolate) that do indeed display the Horizon symbol. The third generation Chocolate supposedly "just came out today" but who really knows. They're fine but nothing as nice as what the wife had. Sigh. Now, if I could only get a cover for the thing ("Oh, those won't be out for a few weeks because this is a brand new product") because I KNOW I will drop my phone like every day.

As long as Horizon doesn't drop the calls as much as I drop my phone.....

On to bugs. The Japanese Beetles are back and are in rare form. In fact, they are so vociferous that they filled the bug bag to the point it was overflowing within 24 hours. That's right--less than one day and that bag was so full it was sagging. You can see how full it is in the picture on the left--that bag is FULL! (You can see how the bugs are trying to escape. Yuck.) Of course, without the wife's presence at home, it meant I had to change the bag.....

.....Can I say this was a gross, gross, gross procedure? Bugs swarming my head, bugs falling out of the bag, bugs buzzing in the trees, bugs everywhere. Those Japanese Beetles know how to party.

It was disgusting--and complex. It's not like I could just grab the bag and plop it anywhere. It was too full to do that. So, I had to get creative. I put a large kitchen garbage bag in a large bucket. I then gathered two plastic bags from Wally world and put them in the garbage bag in the bucket. I then put soapy water into the bags (so when the bugs fell out they would drowned a soapy death). I armed myself with a baseball hat (for bugs falling out of the tree) and a pair of scissors (to cut the bag down from the tree).

By the way, do you know what kind of damage these things do? Look carefully at this photo. You can see how the bugs have eaten the leaves of our tree to the point only skeletons of the leaves are left. Naughty Bugs! This poor tree didn't have a chance; that's why we put the bag in the tree. You are NOT supposed to do that--you are supposed to put the bag far away from everything so the bugs fly away. I am here to tell you those bugs weren't going anywhere. The tree was so infested you could hear it buzzing from across the yard. Did they bother to fly over to the neighbor's bag? Heck no. They were enjoying these tasty leaves.

Changing the bag was a difficult operation and I was very queazy during the whole ordeal. I was terrified I'd drop the bag and bugs would fall all over my feet. I would have passed out. It had to be done and it's not like the dogs could help me so I had to do it. Alone.

I am pleased to say that it was a successful mission and that I did not drop one single bug. I was even able to rescue the yellow plastic part of the bag and hang an empty bag on the tree. Let me tell you, by the time I hung it up, the bugs were already crawling all over it, as evidenced in the photo below:


I am sure the bag will be filled once again tomorrow, but by then the wife will be home and I will have someone to help me change the bag. I wish there were something creative to do with the bugs as we sure have collected a lot of them. Maybe they are a delicacy somewhere and we could sell them. Maybe we could export them back to Japan. Maybe we could make an art project out of them....

....or, maybe I can save them and dump them on the Horizon salesperson's head.....

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Dear Brett Favre,

Thanks.

For.

Nothing.





NOTHING!

Just when the wife and the entire state of had Wisconsin stopped crying about your retirement and just when the despondent doom-and-gloom depression of the entire state was lifting, you HAD go and toy with these poor Cheeseheads and try to unretire.

They had just started to heal! They were just starting to get distracted from their pain by the Brewer Season.....

Not only that, you have the gall to ask to be released by the Packers and would most definitely play for another team like the BEARS.

The Bears!

You might as well stab the wife through the heart with a giant hot poker.
You might as well spit on the face of Vince Lombardi. You might as well just set Lambeau Field on fire. You might as well say you don't like cheese or brats.

How can this be? How could you do this to all those loyal fans? Those green-and-gold all-weather fans are beside themselves about the whole un-retire thing and then you add the pain of saying you'll play somewhere else.

Is there no team loyalty ANYWHERE in the Universe? I say not.

The wife is angry. Bitter. Conflicted. Disgusted. Morose. Angry. Sullen. She has announced she will not watch football this year if you go play for someone else, especially if it's for the Bears or Vikings.

NOT.

ONE.

MINUTE.

She thought you were the real deal, a class act. She was so impressed by your team loyalty. Now? She's a ruined woman. She walks around muttering about you. She needs therapy. The whole state of Wisconsin is going to need therapy. How can you kick these people in the gut with this selfish playing-for-the-Bears-or- something- like-that- pitiful-thing? Talk about tears in beers!

I wouldn't mess with Cheeseheads. You DO know the Bears play the Packers, don't you? You'd have to come back to Lambeau Field and those Cheeseheads will not be nice to you. They are usually very, very nice people but this--this will lead to things we dare not even imagine lest they come true. They are hunters. They wear camouflage. They have guns and bow & arrows and rifles! They do not mess around. They don't like the Bears. Heck, they don't even like people from Illinois.

You selfish, selfish pig. Who do you think you are, Michael Jordon? Johnny Unitas? Junior Seau? Joe Montana? Jerry Rice? Marcus Allen? JOHNNY DAMON?

I hear the wife screaming, "IF YOU GO TO THE BEARS OR VIKINGS, YOU WILL BE THE JOHNNY DAMON OF FOOTBALL!"

True that all those athletes (and coach) listed did the exact same thing that you are going to do. They all left the team they had been with all those glory years and they SOILED their reputation and memories by selfishly stomping on fan loyalty and went and played that last season or two somewhere other than where they claimed their fame and glory. That doesn't make it right. Who wants to think of Joe Montana in a Chief's uniform? Or Jerry Rice in Oakland uniform? It's just wrong. Who wants to think of you in a Bears uniform?

They won't retire your jersey in Green Bay--they'll burn it.

So, thanks for nothing, Brett Favre. Now it's going to be a long, painful, conflicted summer, full of Cheeseheads in agony. The state of Wisconsin has enough problems right now. They didn't need this. They needed a hero and that hero was you. Go ahead and un-retire but don't expect Cheeseheads to understand. They were loyal to you.

So, go ahead. Un-retire and leave. Just remember, they wear camouflage so you won't see them coming......

......I am SO sending you the wife's therapy bill. Thanks for nothing.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

How Now, Brown Cow?

For my new job, I am required to take a food safety sanitation course. Mind you, I have no experience with food sanitation and I certainly did not get my masters of science degree in art therapy so I could go do something requiring food sanitation certification and I had no idea that my new job would require such a talent, so this is all news to me. After careful consideration, I decided that since I love food and since I go out to eat all the time and as my new job does indeed include assigned staff doling out food products, I am all good with this.

It's a two-day class, eight hours each day. One class was today; the second class is next week. While it was hard to sit there for so long (we started at 7:45 AM and didn't get lunch until after 1 PM), it was very interesting and all news to me.....but, by the time we got to the end of today.....

...Let me be the first to say I may NEVER go out to eat again,
I will NEVER eat in anything called a "family restaurant" again,

I will ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS remain a vegetarian,
I will relish drinking out of water-spotted glasses,
I don't know how ANY of us is still alive after hearing all this food safety dribble, and
I might ACTUALLY invest in a nail brush.

I learned to check the armpit of a raw chicken for a visual hint to see if it is going "bad" (in case I ever come upon an unsuspecting raw chicken who is waiting to be rescued/cooked/tossed/eaten), I was educated on the possible problems with drinking apple cider (do NOT offer me a glass of that) and I gathered info on how to wash a raspberry (try putting it in Club Soda, then rinse).

Who the hell rinses a raspberry? Don't you just pop it into your mouth and call it a day?

All the facts and details and rules and regulations were a bit much but I grasp the importance of it all, so that really wasn't that difficult to pay attention. Actually, a lot of it was fascinating in a nerdy way.

And, there was A LOT of talk of poop, so you know I loved that.

No, the most difficult part of the class was listening to the instructor talk about the butchering/slaughtering/killing/murdering of a cow. Dear god, I almost passed out by the time she was done.

Food Rules Grrrl starts talking about the slaughtering of cows. I don't remember exactly how this came about but suffice it to say she grew up on a farm and she sees animals for what they are-- animals. None of this "animals as part of the family" shit. She scans the room and asks if there are any animal rights activists in the room. Trust me when I say I did NOT raise my hand to point out my vegetarianism, cuz I could tell this lady was all about eating a slab of beef.

Food Rules Grrrl begins by saying that the way cows are slaughtered in America is VERY humane, that there is no pain or stress for the animal during the slaughtering process and that animals are treated well. (Obviously she hasn't been watching the PETA films of cows without working legs, but that's a story for another day.) She then, for some unknown reason, tells the tale of how a cow is slaughtered. For some reason, I sit there and listen. Why I didn't dissociate or doodle or put my iPod on or run screaming out of the room, I do not know. (Maybe it's because I have to pass the class to get my food certification so I can keep my job.) Oh no. I stayed and listened. (For the record, I do not consider myself an Animal Rights activist but I do admit my dogs are treated better than most children in the world.)

According to Food Rules Grrl (and trust me, I make no claim to getting any of this correct--I'm still having traumatic stress from all this), the unsuspecting cow is dropped off into a staging area, all alone in his new steel cell. While standing there--probably thinking "what the hell is THIS PLACE all about?" some guy slaps some hooks onto (into?) the cow's back legs. The stall door is closed, the cow is REALLY wondering what the hell is going on, the cow gets SHOT in the head with some shoot-in-the-head device (supposedly rendering the cow brain dead but very much alive), the cow is raised up by the back legs (remember those hooks? Well ol' Brown Cow is hanging by its back legs now, looking down at the floor) and the thing is pulley-ed along to the "kill floor." Alive.

Okay, is there anything even remotely soothing about something being called a "kill floor?"

It does not soothe me to hear they slaughter the cow this way--alive but brain dead--so persons who follow Jewish or other religious beliefs can eat the meat (something about bleeding and being alive at the same time--no offense to anyone's faith for my very uninformed take on this event).

Ol' Brown Cow is hanging there by its back legs and is brain dead and is in a kill room and some guy comes along and lops that old neck right open. Out pours the blood. Of course, thinking about a hanging cow bleeding from a slit neck does not make my day, but worse is when the lady goes on and on about how they use the blood. Nothing goes to waste, she notes. So, now I'm having a visual of the cow blood in my dogs' food. Great.

At this point, the room is spinning.

I remember hearing something about "blood sausage" and "blood and tongue soup" and what "meat by-products" really means but I cannot recall much beyond that. Of course, it does not end there. She goes on, in a very cavalier-I'm-from-the-farm type manner, to explain even more of the slaughtering process.

In the back recesses of my mind, I hear about how the next guy in line hacks a big slit down the belly of the cow as part of the butchering process. Hopefully, this is a really skilled guy, because if he accidentally cuts part of the bowel, poop will run down the animal and that's where problems begin. Who wants poopy meat? Not me. Not you. Hello, E.Coli!

Wait--this takes me on a tangent. I have bad news for Father Taco Juan. You know how we've been freaked about having TWO FEET of intestines removed? Well, the wife and I just remembered that Brett Favre had thirty inches of his intestines removed after a car accident when he was a college kid and thirty inches is more than 24 inches and so we are sad to say to Taco Juan that he is second on our "that's-a-lot-of-intestines-to-lose" list. (But, we are still very impressed. Besides, who actually measured to see if it really was 30 inches?)

But, back to the dead cow and food sanitation. I learned all about the various parts of the butchered cow and how this and that relates to my food sanitation way of being, but I don't remember how or why or when she stopped talking about the cow thing but I do remember she then started talking about the chicken-laying-eggs thing.

How the hell will I ever be able to eat an egg again?

Of course, what I can't see won't theoretically kill me and knowing there are eggs in ice cream is really not knowing anything because I never see the eggs in said ice cream unless I actually make my own ice cream or I read the ingredients on the carton of ice cream I am consuming...... although, what I can't see really COULD kill me, so maybe I should worry about those damn eggs and go vegan....

....but, if I didn't rinse my raspberries in Club soda, some funky fungus or bacteria or virus could be lurking there and I'd eat it and get sick and be right back to where I would have been with tainted-egg ice cream....

....so, I am going to eat the ice cream and put raspberries on top of the ice cream and then I'm going to pray to the gods of food sanitation that my odds of avoiding food poisoning are in my favor......

.....and I am not gonna wash my hands before eating that bowl of ice cream but I will be eating it at home and not at some restaurant where the cook just sneezed into his hands after scratching his head and then wiped his snot on his pants and then continued to cook my boca burger.

Maybe being a vegan wouldn't be so bad, after all.....do vegans eat ice cream?

Next week, I'm focusing on all the talk about poop. Nothing else.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Buttcracks and Tin Foil

I can't believe I forgot to post these photos and the tin foil information before this very moment! I guess I've had a lot on my mind....

For my going away part at my "old" job, the clients got me a present:















Now, you may asking yourself
(1) what the hell is an official butt crack inspector; (2) why would clients give me a shirt identifying me as a butt crack inspector; and (3) why does that butt look more like balls? It's all because of my "Clean your buttcrack!" speeches given over the years.

Yes, there are times one must give a "clean your buttcrack" speech. Some of my clients--those identified as chronically mentally ill--spend most of their day just trying to cope with all those mental illness symptoms. Do you think they have time to think about changing their undies or practicing good bodily hygiene? Sometimes not. Do you think clean undies or a good hygiene is even on their radar when they have auditory hallucinations telling them all sorts of awful things? No, not at all. So, at times there are REALLY STINKY buttcracks inthe world and this is not acceptable.

Dirty buttcracks on a hot, steamy summer day can be a real problem. If you have not had the pleasure of this odoriferous issue, you cannot possibly understand what I am talking about.

Enter me and my butt crack cleanliness speeches, complete with detailed directions for how one washes their buttcracks. Actually, I had a partner in crime with the clean buttcrack campaign and thus can't take ALL the credit--Mama Goat (Queen of Clean)--was one good butt crack inspector in her own right. Without her, this would not have been a successful endeavor. She was ALL OVER those with dirty cracks. I mean ALL OVER. NO one had a prayer when we were on the prowl. We even had a handout with my cartoons on it to illustrate this very important practice. (Thank you Mama Goat, you rock! I miss you!)

To all of you other staff that were instrumental in helping with the cleanliness of buttcracks and underwear, god love you. Ciabatta bread, MJagger, Blessed Grandma, we pay homage to you.

Thus, this t-shirt really touched my heart. It was like the best thing they could have EVER given me and I'm serious about that. Not only does it show they have a great sense of humor, it shows they were actually listening all those years. The world can thank us for all those clean buttcracks. The world is a better place.

If any of you would like to hear the butt crack lecture, I will gladly give it to you.

TIN FOIL TIDBIT: I got this in an email and thus I was really skeptical, but I did check it out and it's true. Promise me you, too will go check your tinfoil and saran wrap boxes. You won't be sorry:

"Whoever looks at the end of your aluminum foil box? What a fantastic idea. I've been using aluminum foil for years. Great stuff, but sometimes it can be a pain. You know, like when you are in the middle of doing something and you try to pull some foil out and the roll comes out of the box.

Then you have to put the roll back in the box and start over. The darn roll always comes out at the wrong time.

...For some reason I turned it and looked at the end of the box. And written on the end it said, "Press here to lock end".

Right there on the end of the box is a tab to lock the roll in place. How long has this little locking tab been there? I then looked at a generic brand of
aluminum foil and it had one, too. I then looked at a box of Saran Wrap and it had one too! I can't count the number of times the Saran Wrap roll has jumped out when I was trying to cover something up. I'm sharing this with my friends that did not know this. I know I'm not the only person that didn't know about this."


















Finally, now that you have looked at your boxes of tin foil and saran wrap and see that this is actually true
(I even showed the wife this AM--it is a miracle of the Lord!), here are two photos of Lucy and Freckles as I am grooming them. I decided to make Freckles Warrior Princess look like a sheep dog before giving her bangs a cut. You can see the grooming products behind Freckles. Lucy, as you can see, is quite miserable looking as she knows what is coming. You can see I'm outside on the deck, as the wife does not appreciate dog hair floating through the house. And, you can see (in the photo of Lucy) that I have gated them on to the deck so they cannot escape (and trust me, they WANT to escape)....

.....thankfully, dogs do NOT really have buttcracks, so they were spared that lecture....but, they do need what groomers call a "sanitary" (meaning, their butts are parts are cleaned and shaved so they don't get poop stuck in their hair), which is kind of like getting your buttcrack cleaned....

No wonder they look so miserable. You do NOT want me shaving your butt hole, do you?

Friday, July 04, 2008

Four Things on The Fourth

Happy July 4th, Fourth of July, Independence day, whatever you call it. I thought I'd talk about four things today in honor of the Fourth: gifts, scars, Madonna, dogs (in that order). Here I am wearing my patriotic "Life is Good" shirt (as opposed to a "Life is Crap" shirt, which would not be very patriotic). God Bless You, America!

Before you go further, I want you to vote on what cell phone company I should use (see poll in upper right corner). I am going to break down and get a cell phone, seeing as I am like the last person on the planet without a cell phone. Most of my friends have Verizon, my family uses AT&T and the wife has US Cellular. A dilemma, indeed!

Dress Clothes. My mama taught me to always send a thank you card for gifts. In relation to the money collected by co-worked for my going away, I have indeed sent both a hand written and email thank you cards...however, I wanted to illustrate exactly what I spent my money on (which is usually part of a beginner's level thank you card but was not included in my cards as I had yet to purchase my clothes), lest someone think I went out and purchased a Madonna ticket with the money. (Well, okay, so I used some of the money to pay off the debt accrued with the MJagger Madonna Ticket, but who's counting?).
Here is a photo of the clothes I now own for my new job:
three bras,
five pair of undies (not that you needed to know or see that),
two dress T shirt (for under things or so the wife tells me),
two blouses,
one suit,
one dress coat,
two pair of sandals,
six pair of trouser socks,
three sets of foot thingies for my shoes (cuz those stupid trouser socks make my feet sweat and I hate that).

I've also included a photo of me trying to fix the broken heel with Krazy Glue. I have to try. I only wore those things twice and that is definitely not getting my money's worth.

I now have enough clothes to fake it for awhile, although I really need to find something other than trouser socks because I really. do. hate. them.

Bonus news: Fridays are "Business Casual Day," so that will make me a happy camper. Khakis and polos, here I come!

Next, the scar, not that you need a photo of that but I'm in a sharing mood. Today is the FIFTH anniversary of having my appendix out of July 4, 2003. I'm sure my father's scars are much more exciting than my scar but mine has sentimental value, being that it was removed on a holiday and as it basically ended up blowing like a firework. If you would like to touch my scar, just let me know. Don't ask to touch my father's scars, though. He bites.


Then, there is poor Madonna (now THERE'S a relative term!). I went shopping for groceries this AM (not such a great idea on the morning of July 4th) and saw US magazine, complete with Madge & Hubby on the cover (as illustrated in my photo). Oh dear, Alex Rodriguez? Actually, I don't really care as long as I end up getting tickets for her concert. I guess I was right in my first interpretation of her songs on Sticky and Sweet. (Go back and check my original thoughts on her new album. I did end up loving the album so I was wrong about that but I was right about my first thoughts regarding the lyrics. Outch. Sucks to be Guy Richie.) Just listen to "Miles Away" and it all becomes crystal clear. Well, at least Guy will get a zillion dollars out of this mess, eh?

Finally, the dogs. Nothing much or new going on with them, just thought I'd include a photo of both on this holiday. I love that Freckles tongue is sticking out and her eyes are ALMOST open, so that's a bonus. They both need professional grooming, but I'm still practicing, the poor things. They, too wish you a happy, safe Fourth of July. With that, we are all going outside to garden on this trouser sock-free day. Kiss kiss!

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Sit. Stay. Heel.

(How about that "Life is Crap" t-shirt? Makes me laugh, since almost all my shirts feature "Life is Good" logos. I gotta get me one of these! Check out http://www.lifeiscrap.com/)


Today at work, I uttered a sentence I never thought I would utter in my entire life:

"Oh no, I broke my heel."

I'm serious here. I looked down toward the floor and there it was. A broken heel.

As a novice heel breaker, I didn't know what to do. I suppose many a business woman would know immediately what to do. I, on the other hand, was frozen in fear.

There was only thing to do: limp out to the parking lot and get the gym shoes out of the car.

In an effort to make sure staff didn't think I was inappropriately foot-wared (after all, gym shoes with dress pants are not the things business women are made of, unless it's the mid 80's during lunch hour), I carried around my shoe with the broken heel and repeatedly said, "I broke my heel."

Please know that I tried to glue the thing together, but I only had Elmer's glue and thus it didn't fix the problem. I must admit that I was kind of happy it didn't work because it gave me an excuse to wear my gym shoes all day and I have to say that was a very comfortable way to go through the work day.

I think this is a sign from god that I am not supposed to wear heels.