Vigorous Jazz Hands for Humanity

An avid Addiverse fan wrote in to alert me it had been one week and five days since my last blog. Okay, okay--my mother emailed me and inquired about my silence.

Um, I've been busy. Very busy. Well, I THINK I've been busy. Have I been busy? This is a question to ponder. What HAVE I been doing for the past 12 days?

Well, since it is the third snowiest winter of this town's recorded weather history, I've been shoveling. Like everyone in northern Illinois (and like I've whined about in a couple of blogs just a few entries ago), I've been shoveling and I've been shoveling. Did I mention I've been shoveling? Heck, right before coming in to write this blog, I was....

.....that's right: shoveling.

Doesn't Mother Nature know it's March 1st and it's not supposed to snowing like this? That it shouldn't be below zero AGAIN? That those little crocus should be peeking out?

I've spent a lot of time wondering where to put all the snow--it's gotta go somewhere and I've run out of places to put it. I spend a lot of time trying to keep the dogs' potty area suitable for use.

Yes, that is a photo of Freckles pooping. If you zoom in, you can see the poop just about to exit the building. Dropping the kids off at the pool.

I've made it a priority to practice "safe walking" as part of this end of winter snow show:

Dang. My yaks de tracks are nothing in comparison to a certain sister warrior princess:

If I were you, I would NOT mess with her or her shoes. 

Of course, I just posted a photo of her foot without asking, so I guess I'm messing with her. Perhaps I should think twice. I don't think my yak tracks can outrun her spikes of doom. Argo, your spikes are blog worthy. I couldn't help myself.

I have to admit that I have been doing a lot more than shoveling...for instance, I just learned about birthday-cake-flavored Oreos:

 Someone should win a Nobel prize for inventing those things. Genius. Terrible for you, chemically-laden but genius. I had to step away from the bag lest I consume the entire package in one sitting. I think I now have a shelf life of 20 years.

I've been keeping an eye on the gay marriage saga in Illinois. Gay marriage is legal as of June 1, 2014 yet that "wait until June 1st" thing has now been challenged in Cook County. Those sassy Chicagoans are already getting gay-ly married. This means that the wife and I could at this very moment go to Cook County and get gay-ly married, June 1st be damned. Doing so would dissolve our civil union right on the spot--BAM!--which is kind of mind boggling in itself. Of course, I'm not sure this "get married before the law goes into effect" is a good idea and I'm not sure dissolving a civil union is wise--after all, as of June 1st, we can "upgrade" our civil union--for free--to a marriage and the date of the marriage is retroactive to the civil union date. How 'bout them apples? Our marriage date, as secured in 2014, will be in 2011.

You think that hurts your head? I'm sure it really hurts the noggin of the director of human resources at my place of employment. I mean, if you have to alert Human Resources of a qualifying date--which a marriage most certainly is--within a specific time frame (usually 30 days), how do you do that if the qualifying date is actually in 2011, even though it's 2014? Think about that. What a great technicality for all those HR directors! "I'm sorry, you missed the window of opportunity for the qualifying event." Or, how about if we go get married in Cook County before the June 1st deadline--couldn't HR say that the marriage isn't technically legal and thus no qualifying event has transpired?

Don't even get started with the whole federal level thing. HR could come back and argue that gay marriage really isn't legal in the eye of the Federal government and thus they do not have to offer my spouse coverage even though they would provide a straight employee's spouse coverage with no questions asked. Think I'm kidding? I'm not. Insurance is an evil game.

I'm thinking the best option might be to get a civil union divorce and then get married after June 1st. How bizarre would that be? I'm not sure HR could argue against that but they most assuredly will. I see an argument or five in my future about all this. And, I see some emails flying from the wife's computer. She is understandably not a happy camper. Who can blame her? My peers get insurance with no question asked and we have to fight and claw and still get denied. Someone pass me an Oreo. STAT!

I learned a new party game: Cards Against Humanity. It is absolutely, positively the most politically incorrect game I've played in a long time....inhumane to the nth degree....yet, I've never laughed so hard while playing a game. I don't think it's a game you'd bring out to play unless you were sure of your audience--I mean, there are times it's even hard to read aloud what the card says. Let me give you a peek into the cards I was holding in my hand:

Told you.

Best news since I've been away? Between shoveling, watching all 13 episodes of "Orange is the New Black" in a week, pinning stupid pins of this or that, stewing about insurance and playing a sophomoric card game most assuredly created by some drunk guys in college....The best news is that....

I found Jesus.

I didn't even know he was missing.

And THAT is what I've been doing. 
'Nuf said.
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