I Can Explain the Velveeta Shortage!

January 10, 2014Tonya Lanthron 5 Comments

Apparently it’s not just Marion County that has a run on Velveeta cheese (I’m not so sure on the Marlboros, maybe it’s just that there are a lot of smokers in Marion County) when there are rumors of impending White Death.

It must be a universal redneck thing.

Impending White Death Apocalypse=Must Have Velveeta Cheese!

Who would have thought?

The good news is that I do have most of a (loaf? brick? box?) of Velveeta cheese left over from holiday scalloped potato adventures. If you wrap it up so it doesn’t dry out, and keep it in the fridge, it has a 3 bazillion year shelf life. It should outlive the cockroaches should there be a real apocalypse- unless the cockroaches get to it and eat it first.

I also have plenty of Wolf Brand Chili, sausage, and green peppers to go with the Velveeta cheese for nacho dip should I choose to make it. I don’t really give a rat’s ass about the Super Bowl, so I will have nachos when I feel like having nachos.

SSDD, and If You Have to Ask, I Don’t Have Time to Explain

January 6, 2014Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Depression sucks.

Same shit, different day.

I could of course, attribute my unshakable malaise by chalking it up to the horrible weather or the interminable dark that pervades this time of year. Usually my mood improves when the holidays are over, at least a little bit, and then goes back in the toilet around mid-February until about May.

Maybe it’s because my life is pretty much lived stuffing ten pounds of shit into a five pound bag. The worst part of that is that it’s usually ten pounds of other people’s shit that I allow to be unloaded on me.

The sucky part of that is that one of my closest friends (who I really need to have a nice, long conversation with again, and sometime soon) once told me that life boils down to what you cause and what you allow. I allow other people’s dumb shit to go on and on without telling them to piss off, and that’s my own damned fault. I hear a lot of bitching through the course of a day, and a lot of it is in regard to things that either I can’t control or can’t change. Hearing all that day in and day out tends to make me feel pretty discouraged and hopeless.

Then I go home and get to hear Jerry bitch about things that he should just deal with himself if they bother him that much. This is the same guy who has no problem spotting shit or puke or some unfortunate object that Lucy has reduced to smithereens- but who does have nine kinds of excuses for why he can’t clean it up.

Really? I so need this amazing shit-shoveling gnome in my house!

That, and my left arm is killing me right around the place where I broke it. I think that might be because of the cold (it’s a balmy 1°F out there today) and low barometer, but it hurts something fierce today. I dug out the big black brace I had to use for awhile after they took my cast off, and put it on, which seems to help. Then there’s always the gift that keeps on giving- all my joints are rather creaky and stiff today- thanks to the lingering repercussions of rheumatic fever. The good news is that I was one of about three people in the pool this morning. I’d be much worse off today, at least as far as mobility goes, had I not gone to the pool. The pool, opposed to the outside world, is usually somewhere around 80°, which is quite nice.

If money were no object, this would be my personal indoor pool.

And here would be a suitable personal pool boy.

Maybe not so blond, but the bod is right on. Nice pecs.

It would be a total blast to lounge about in a lovely pool surrounded by buff young dudes, if I had the means, but as the old saying goes, “Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.”

Of course the fantasy would only be complete if I could have a big screen TV in my pool room showing Journey’s Greatest Hits Live 1981:

Play ALL. All night long.

Believe it or not, I’ve actually done a fairly decent job of cheering myself up. For now.

Please, Lord, don’t let me come home to a massive debris field left in the wake of the “Mouth of the South” (aka Lucy) because Jerry was too lazy to put the dogs back in their crates after lunch…

Or to a to-do list of Jerry’s errands to be ran (outside of course,) in sub-zero temperatures…

Give a poor white woman a break for a change, eh? A quiet night with maybe a few military documentaries, or even a showing of Hot Fuzz or Super Troopers? It doesn’t even have to be a cop-themed movie- Borat would do just fine… something funny, something light?

Norman Rockwell, We Ain’t, and a Most Pragmatic Christmas

December 26, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I actually thought that when the POMC’s male DNA contributor signed off his rights that I would be done with the snarky, vindictive antics that always seem to go down with “broken” families when children and holidays are involved. Yeah, right. I had no idea just how vindictive and snarky my granddaughter’s baby mama can get. Far be it from her that her child’s dad just might want to spend time with his daughter on Christmas too, eh?

Of course she can’t know his plans, or work with him for a compromise acceptable to both sides- if she turns off her phone and ignores all his calls and texts, right?

I’m trying really hard to avoid the very natural Mother of the POMC tendency to unsheathe the claws and protect the Precious Cub at all costs. After all, the POMC’s male DNA contributor was only good for his small contribution of biological material, and that’s the nicest thing I can say about the male DNA contributor. I don’t want to think that my granddaughter’s mother is being spiteful and vindictive without cause…but…Steve-o actually does care about his little girl and actually is involved in her life (unlike his male DNA contributor) so I figure, what the hell’s her problem? Lack of maturity, desire to get her own way, and the Opportunity to Make a Scene, are all things one does at age twelve to get attention, but when a 20 year old woman’s doing it, it just looks stupid and sad.

It’s a shame when they carry over into adulthood.

I can understand that mother’s desire to have one’s child all to herself. I can understand the instinct to protect one’s child from psychos (my ex in-laws, for example) or even from the indifference of the other parent -should the other parent be apathetic and simply consign the offspring to the caprice of said psycho in-laws, but Steve-o is anything but indifferent, and I might be wired a bit differently than most, but I’m not a psycho. Yet.

I think what was truly at work here was a vindictive, spoiled brat trying to inflict pain on someone who didn’t go along with her fantasy.

Guess what happens when you let your kid have everything he/she wants!

Now if I had known I would have spent most of Christmas Day between trying to calm down my son, traipsing in and out of Walgreen’s, Speedway and McDonald’s, and had I known Christmas dinner would have been a cheeseburger and McNuggets (thankfully they did not forget the hot mustard sauce or I probably would have lost what little bit of sanity I thought I had left,) I’d have stayed home with Tipsy McNumbnuts and saved the gasoline.

I normally don’t eat this kind of stuff but when it’s all there is other than Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and beef jerky, I guess- any port in a storm.

We were supposed to leave for my sister’s house at 12 noon. It was 3 PM before we were able to pick up the Precious One’s offspring and get going. Other than the insanely (stupid) late start, the day was lovely for the kids. Lots and lots of presents and toys and candy and food.

It was a more dismal picture for the adults. Mom somehow got it in her head that I and my illustrious siblings would just love, love, love these fugly scarves that some lady who lives next to the retirement home makes in her spare time. So we had to pretend that we were going to just adore the fugly scarf that (to me) looks like something Lucy mutilated, shredded, and then crapped out. But Mom doesn’t know any better. One year she got Jerry these:

With nice, slick vinyl soles!

Mom’s intentions are always good. She doesn’t see anything malicious or funny or even dimly inappropriate in stuff like this. So it’s best to just play along. Why hurt her feelings by telling her Jerry’s going to break his neck wandering around shitfaced wearing extra-slick soled slippers, or that if I wore that scarf in public people might think I started believing it fashionable to run around wearing trash bags and roadkill?

At least Mom doesn’t have any friends who know how to make those creepy doll-head faux fur Kleenex box holders. Grandma eventually got tired of making them and moved on to more sensible kitsch, such as crocheted afghans and toaster cozies.

She’d twerk- if she had a butt, that is.

Dark and Pensive, Infomercial Madness, and Outside of the Sphere

December 18, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Winter can be beautiful as well as dark and lonely.

I can’t say that I’m sad or even melancholy. I’m more in a sort of dark and pensive mode, which for me is a familiar, almost comfortable place to be. My deep preference for solitude and quiet might be hard to explain to those with an extraverted personality, but for me it’s the mental equivalent of a warm fire and a relaxing easy chair. The gardens of memory, like real gardens this time of year, are subdued and don’t appear to be as active on the surface. Dormant, maybe, but not dead.

Of course it’s not as easy to turn off the world as it probably should be. I am better at it than most, but I still have to deal with the practicalities of living and communicating with other people. It would be nice to be able to tell a few people to go hang (or to just plain get bent) but I can’t shut down completely. I’m afraid if I do that I won’t be able (nor will I want) to turn back on.

For me, every day is an act of the will to choose to interact with the world beyond my very restrictive sphere. I don’t want to most of the time. Today I would much rather prefer to take a trip to the Main Library in downtown Columbus and peruse and read and think in the quiet. Unfortunately I don’t see a day coming where I can do that, unless I stop off there for a bit on my way to the Paper Nightie Appointment tomorrow. I scheduled tomorrow and Friday off (I will pay for that one, but I need a little time away and I have the vacation time) so tomorrow I don’t have to scramble about and then have to endure the Paper Nightie Appointment. I dread it enough as it is. Friday I hope to finish getting Steve-o whatever Christmas gifts I want to get him- or better yet, meet him somewhere so he can pick out what he wants.

Dad’s getting Angry Birds jammies.

Most of my relatives have way too much crap to begin with, so I have to be creative. Dad is quite enamored of the Angry Birds game, and he likes those men’s lounge pants that geezers wear around the house. It should work. What else can you buy for the man with the taxidermied squirrel on a skateboard?

Yes, Dad really does have a taxidermied squirrel on a skateboard.

I learned a new word from the infomercials that pollute the airwaves from 2-4 AM. Insomnia must have some advantages, if only to enlighten me to the wonderful world of such invaluable products such as the Pos-T-Vac, the Nu Wave, and the No-No.

I always thought that area that’s not your neck, not your tits and not your shoulders was simply the not-neck-not-tits-not-shoulders area. Then I discovered the French actually have a word for the not-neck-not-tits-not-shoulders area. It’s always good for me to expand my vocabulary. They call it the décolletage or décolleté- meaning “sort of around the neck area,” and you’re supposed to slather expensive cream on it so it doesn’t end up looking all wrinkled and birdy. One infomercial suggests you should blast this area with a radio frequency device you can also use on your face to ward away the birdy wrinkles. ‘Kay….

All I could think of when I came upon this device was Oh. Holy. Shit.

If I feel the need to hook my face up to this, I have deeper issues than a few birdy wrinkles.

I can just imagine if I’d found this when I was five years old and had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night at Grandma’s. Seeing Grandma’s and Grandpa’s dentures sitting next to the sink, glaring out at me from their soaking cups of Polident as I was taking a midnight whiz was enough to give me nightmares for a month. It was bad enough that Grandma could remove her teeth at night. I could just imagine the insane terror my five year old mind would have gone through if I thought Grandma took her face off at night.

At first glance I thought the above alien face mask was some kind of device intended to turn someone into Lieutenant Commander Data from Star Trek:

You never know.

Of course women have been doing bizarre things to themselves to attempt to stem the inevitable tide of aging since the beginning of time. The truth is that entropy is always going to win. Live long enough and your tits will bounce off your knees.

At least most women don’t still wear these awful things:

I bet they itched, too.

I have discovered many interesting things online that I can’t imagine anyone would have any sort of real practical use for, but people will buy anything on Amazon. Even this: It’s a model to practice doing prostate exams. And you can have it in time for Christmas if you order it by December 23!

I have an idea for a new party game based on this: “Pin the Prostate on Bob”?

A Change In Trajectory, and Don’t Mess With the Almighty Matrix

December 9, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Try as I might, my free throw attempts usually ended up somewhere in the next county.

I can aim a pistol reasonably well (within 15 yards,) a shotgun moderately well, but a basketball, not at all.

When the weather in beautiful central Ohio bites (so I can’t take a road trip) and (when he’s not screaming at the dogs for their loud breathing) Tipsy Mc NumbNuts is sleeping off his hangover, I have time to read. I finally had time to read 11/22/63. I almost didn’t buy it because I thought I’d heard all the JFK conspiracy theories, and I’m not much of a fiction reader to begin with. I did buy it because it was written by Stephen King, and, as is the case with most of his books, (liberal political bent aside) it was worth reading.

If anything it was sort of a sad story, and in a perverse way it shared the same moral of the story as Pet Sematary. For those who have yet to experience that particular tome, it ends on an interesting (if not deliciously macabre) note and reflects a pervasive theme in a number of King’s books.

Dead is better. At least if you’re supposed to be dead, that is.

Not “dead is better” in the serial killer sense or in the jilted lover sense, (or even in the John Hinckley Jr. sense) but in the sense that screwing around with the natural circle of life can have unintended repercussions. As much as I miss my grandparents, for instance, I wouldn’t wish any of them to be alive today. All of them were ill and had lived out long lives before they died natural deaths. Wishing people to live beyond the time of natural death seems a bit sadistic, especially considering that if my grandfather had lived (he died in 2006) he would be 99 this year. He had heart failure and kidney failure, neuropathy from diabetes (couldn’t feel his feet) and was almost completely deaf when he died.

Being healthy and active at 99 would be another matter, as we humans will cling tenaciously to life when we can, but today it seems as our longer lifespans bring more illness, infirmity and misery than anything else. The technology can keep one alive, but most of the time it doesn’t do much for your quality of life. Sometimes the disease- and the end it brings- is better than prolonging the inevitable.

Science can keep people alive that should have long since been dead (and yes, I belong in that category at least three times over) and in the case of the young that might be a good thing, but it’s a mixed bag. Science can keep your vital signs going on, but at what cost?

What ends up being missing? When do we break the boundary of the matrix and then really start screwing things up? How far can we screw up before the process necessarily leads to an end or a reset?

I wonder what this thing does?

A big part of me believes it’s the hubris of humanity that believes that every little popcorn fart can change the world. I mean, you have the global warming crowd going off about cow farts. I can imagine a cow can put off quite a bit of methane, but in the grand scheme of things? A cow is big, and it farts a lot, but really? How much authority and how much leeway do we have to screw things up when we really try? And how long have cattle been domesticated and processed into tasty meat?

If cows fart like that, then why aren’t they powering our cars?

The Butterfly Effect is an intriguing concept in physics in which it is implied that every slight change of trajectory- even the gentle flap of a butterfly’s wings- can change the course of the weather or otherwise alter events to come in the future. There’s no mistaking me for a physicist, but I can see how it can work. How can anyone know ahead of time what the consequence of just a slight change in trajectory might be? It seems sort of rogue.

Perhaps a better question is (and I am assuming that the universe has an order, that it was created, and necessarily has a Creator) what exactly is within our power to change?

What do we risk when we try?

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like (Tacky) Christmas, and a License for Bad Behavior

November 29, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I knew my pink skeleton from Halloween could become a year-round decoration!

I adore tacky Christmas decorations. I like the nice ones too, but I can identify with “decorate with what you can find.” A discarded Bud Light bikini bimbo cardboard display from last summer’s beer promotion at the drive thru can be made festive, if that’s all you have. Some rednecks up in the west side of Marion did that one year and I’m still kicking myself in the ass for not having a camera handy to capture that moment.

Just hang some tinsel and beer cans off of her (like pasties) and you’re all set!

Dad absolutely loathed the holidays when we were growing up, and because we were poor, he waited until the last minute to begrudgingly allow us to put up anything. One year I stuffed a left over live Christmas tree from one of those tree lot sales after it had ended (on December 23rd, because there were no decorations in the house) in my ’72 Super Beetle and brought it home and set it up. Dad didn’t like it, but I think he let me go ahead and do it just because it was so much fun for him to watch me unload this nice, crooked, sappy, spiky tree out of the passenger’s seat of said Super Beetle in the middle of an ice storm. He has a sick sense of humor too. The tree ended up a bit less than five feet tall and resembled a Charlie Brown tree- but it was free.

Now I have an artificial tree, and it’s pink. Jerry is afraid that a real Christmas tree is a fire hazard (coming from Mr. Let’s-Drink-a-Fifth-of-Wild-Turkey-Then-Start-a-Fire-in-the-Fireplace-with-Gasoline) so I decided to humor him.

Tastefully tacky?

Jerry can be quite the asshole with absolutely no provocation or logical explanation at all, but any kind of holiday is a sort of license for bad behavior for him. If he can show his ass, get me upset, or otherwise make a Drama Queen Scene, that’s when he will do it. Every holiday. Especially Christmas. I’m better off to go to 12 Noon Christmas Eve service at church, and then get out of town for the next 36-48 hours. Guaranteed.

He wonders why on every holiday I beat feet and go somewhere else to wait it out. Holidays are the few times a year where going to my oldest sister’s actually is a more attractive option than staying home. This is even taking into consideration her obnoxious in-laws (and I thought mine were raised by wolves) and the fact that she beat the hell out of me every day for the first thirteen years of my life.

Yesterday (Thanksgiving) was no exception to his holiday angst. I figured if I was out of the house by 8 AM I would be OK. He had gotten really shitfaced Wednesday night so I figured he would still be sleeping good when I took off. Unfortunately he had set his alarm (?) for 6:30 (he doesn’t get up that early when he has to work) so I got the full “Where’s my breakfast?” and “What did you do with my pills/smokes/underwear/any other item that I normally never touch?” rant. I was in no mood for his little tirade, and I basically told him he could shove his smokes up his ass and eat shit for all I care.

56, going on 2.

I’m still waiting to see if he has the locks changed today and/or if he throws my shit out on the lawn. That wouldn’t surprise me, because Jerry is the poster child for conditional “love” if that’s what you call it. I stopped believing in the concept of romantic “love” many, many years ago. As long as I run and fetch and kiss his ass, he claims to “love” me. But the minute I assert any type of resistance to his constant shit-slinging, he goes on and on about how I don’t do anything for him, ya-da, ya-da, just like a brat child who doesn’t get his way. I put up with his shit mostly because I’m old, and for the sake of the dogs.

I don’t understand why this brat child in a geezer’s body, who would have absolutely no clue how to do more to maintain himself than the most basic of personal hygiene, wants to threaten me. That’s not very smart on his part. Before you tell me to get out, be careful what you wish for. You might just get it- and when I am done, I am done. Just ask my ex. Only this time I won’t show nearly as much mercy, and I will get a better attorney. You don’t want me to channel my inner ruthless bitch. Trust me on that.

I guess I just have to forgive stupid, because I can’t fix it.

Sometimes I wish I could just go from Halloween and skip to about May 1. I am not a terribly big fan of the holidays, mostly because of Jerry’s bad behavior. I know I need to sincerely examine why I put up with it because my tolerance of it defies logic. On one level I’m smarter than that, but on another level, I am letting my emotions govern my behavior. “Following my heart” and showing mercy have always gotten me into trouble.

I’ll see how he behaves tonight.

Suicide: I Sort of Understand- But- The Dirt Nap Awaits Us All

November 25, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

“And I usually drink my dinner!”

I really enjoyed Burgess Meredith’s performances in the “Grumpy Old Men” movies. I especially enjoyed the death reference from the movie “Grumpier Old Men”:

Grandpa:   What the… what the hell is this?
John:   That’s lite beer.
Grandpa:   Gee, I weigh ninety goddamn pounds, and you bring me this sloppin’ foam?
John:   Ariel’s got me on a diet because the doc said my cholesterol’s a little too high.
Grandpa:   Well let me tell you something now, Johnny. Last Thursday, I turned 95 years old. And I never exercised a day in my life. Every morning, I wake up, and I smoke a cigarette. And then I eat five strips of bacon. And for lunch, I eat a bacon sandwich. And for a midday snack?
John:   Bacon.
Grandpa:   Bacon! A whole damn plate! And I usually drink my dinner. Now according to all of them flat-belly experts, I should’ve took a dirt nap like thirty years ago. But each year comes and goes, and I’m still here. Ha! And they keep dyin’. You know? Sometimes I wonder if God forgot about me. Just goes to show you, huh?

Suicide isn’t a joke, even though I sort of understand the mentality behind wanting to just plain blot out. There have been times in my life when I’ve thought about it, and then the old Catholic teaching that suicide is a mortal sin sticks in my head. In old school Catholic thought, killing yourself is more or less similar to drawing the “go to jail” card in Monopoly, but with a twist:

I don’t know why, but this was always my visual for “Mortal Sin.”

The older I get, the more I realize that what seems like the end of the world really isn’t the end of the world. It might hurt like hell. It might be physical pain, or even chronic pain that never really goes away. It might be that nameless void in which there are no words or even tears, but only a sharp and consuming bolt of terror and sadness and longing that knocks your breath away. Even that is not the end of the world.

The older I get, the more tenaciously I cling to life- if only because experience has taught me that there is life (and good life to be had) even beyond the unspeakable, nameless void of grief, beyond the burning pain of rejection, beyond the uncertainty of worldly trappings, and even in the endurance of chronic physical pain.

Hell? Or is it just Detroit?

I know it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, especially when you’re a fifteen year old kid and all you’ve ever known is deprivation and loss and a sad sense of being unworthy of sucking up valuable oxygen. I’ve been there.

I don’t know exactly what kind of despair was behind the recent teen suicides here in central Ohio. I know I wouldn’t want to be a high school kid today, but things sucked back in my world too. We faced an uncertain future. There were people like me with thick glasses and bad clothes and geeky habits who were just about as popular as stepping in dog shit on a hot day, but we survived. Some of us went on to thrive, although in my case I wouldn’t claim any kind of stellar, charmed life- but it’s life. I’ll take what I can get and give what I can give and at the end of the day, that’s all.

I don’t have the answers. I’m not God, which is a good thing, because if I controlled the world it would be pretty much unrecognizable. There would be a lot of buff dudes in Spandex, and no such thing as rap music. That much I could guarantee, but then again I am not the one in control.

There is a certain amount of peace in accepting that there are some questions that will never be answered and some concepts that I was never designed to understand. I don’t have much comfort or solace for those who survive after a loved one commits suicide except to say that there is life beyond the breathless void, and that some day there will be good life beyond that void. I will also say that God is big enough to take whatever anger and frustration and pain that you are willing to surrender to Him.

Our time is short. That doesn’t necessarily disturb me too much. I’ve been close to death, and I’m not afraid to die. I don’t like the prospect of suffering and pain and I understand that there are times when death would be a relief and a comfort. As far as I can tell, as of right now, I’m not there yet.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls…

An Argument for Psycho Control- and Workouts for Kids

November 22, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

One (very rare, may I add) positive to come out of the Obama administration was that his ineptitude and usurpation of Americans’ rights made me very much more aware of my both my first and second amendment rights. I never dreamed five years ago that I would ever want to own a gun, let alone apply for concealed carry.

Times have changed.

I don’t feel safe going anywhere after dark. That’s not necessarily Obama’s fault, because the neighborhood where I work has been going downhill for years, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt on that one. I don’t feel safe going out after dark because there are crazy people out there. If the crazy people have guns, then why do I want to be unarmed? Doesn’t it make more sense not only for me to be armed, but also for me to know how to use a firearm correctly?

This morning there was a shootout just down the road– in the WalMart I’m afraid to set foot in, no less. The shooter shot a little kid, a woman while she was sitting in the dentist’s chair, (?) and a cop. Shooting the cop got him killed- and saved the taxpayers some money- at any rate. I don’t like to see people get killed, but shooting a cop is just plain asking for it.

I don’t blame the firearm, or even the fact that this guy had access to one. I blame him and him alone. Triggers don’t pull themselves.

Gun control is holding on with both hands. Psycho control is what we need in this world, and unfortunately in the trees of civilization, there are more than a few fruits and nuts.

Really? Where’s your mother? In the rhino cage? That explains it!

When I was growing up (in a rural, poor area…) there were no fat kids, except one. That was Scottie-Scottie Two By Four. You know the rest of the rhyme- “couldn’t get through the bathroom door/so he did it on the floor/licked it up and did some more/Fatty-Fatty two-by-four” In middle school he was well over 200#. This poor kid was harassed so relentlessly that the summer between seventh and eighth grade he went to football camp, as well as he went on a crash diet and lost well near 7o#. By the beginning of eighth grade he was still big, but it wasn’t fat any more. The coaches had ran it all off of him. His parents were lard asses, which probably explains how he got so large- Daddy was about 400# and Mommy wasn’t far behind. Yes, the kids made some serious jokes about Scottie’s Mom and Dad having to do the wild thing on a steel reinforced mattress. There was also much speculation that they had to go out in the garage to do it because the floors in their house couldn’t take it. I don’t know if that was true or not. Some things are just not worth finding out.

The apple usually doesn’t fall far from the tree.

But most of us kids were thin according to today’s standards. Even though I was never allowed to play organized sports after I had rheumatic fever, (and nobody wanted me to before, because I sucked,) I still got lots of exercise. Self preservation is a good workout motivator.

My Mom liked to lock us outside and turn up the TV when she’d had enough, or just when she was spaz, which was a good deal of the time. Although I was never a fast runner, I was good at hiding. I had to work to avoid getting my ass kicked.

One of my favorite hiding places was with the Rottweiler down the street. I wasn’t afraid of him, even though he wasn’t always terribly clean, and his fleas had no problem biting me too. The other kids were terrified of him. Ass kicking or flea bites? Most of the time I took my chances with the unauthorized insect life. Mom really didn’t like it when I came home eaten to death with flea bites, and smelling like dog shit, but at least it wasn’t blood and broken bones. I did manage to get through childhood without breaking anything. I did get blood poisoning from scrapes, cuts, splinters and so forth, a few times though.

You put it together with whatever pieces you could scrounge.

Your bike was your transportation. Mom didn’t get a driver’s license until I was 12 years old, and even though the state of Ohio thinks she’s cool to drive, I’ll beg to differ. Riding a bike was safer on many levels than riding with Mom, even though there is a good deal of comic relief to be gleaned from her chronic road rage.

It’s sad but true- my son learned how to fly the one finger salute (age 5) by watching my mother road rage.

Thanks, Mom!

Now people don’t let kids ride their bikes unless they have so much protective gear on that they look like the freaking Transformers. And then they can only ride their bikes on the designated bike path, never on makeshift BMX trails in the woods or back along where the railroad tracks used to be.

Welcome to the Thunderdome! Oh, I was just riding my bike down to the carry out? Really?

I think part of the reason why kids of my generation got plenty of exercise is that we were pretty much left outside to fend for ourselves most of the time. Most of our families were poor. Most of our families had two or more kids, so if one went missing, it’s one less mouth to feed. Oh, well. Now people treat their kids in much the same way as some of the poor dogs I see in the vet’s office. They mollycoddle, indulge and literally “love” them to death.

It is cruel to let a dog get this fat.

Science is on my side here: obesity kills dogs. It’s a proven fact, and since a dog lives about 15 years give or take, it’s easy to see what happens when dogs are allowed to be hugely fat. But there are people out there who just can’t see the correlation, that overfeeding and under-exercising their dogs takes years off their dogs’ lives. Every time I take one of my girls to the vet’s office, I see obese dogs suffering from preventable health problems. The vet sees it too and it has to really bother her.

Perhaps people are viewing their kids not as liabilities or money pits, but as pampered pets. I don’t know which mindset is worse- leaving kids to their own devices and out to the wolves, or mollycoddling and indulging them.

Kids have to get out and get dirty. Kids have to have limits. One Klondike bar once a week is fine. Three after dinner is way too much.

Maybe if we could worry less about the psychos in our midst, we could let kids go out and play and be kids and not feel as if we have to indulge their every whim.

A Few of My Favorite Things, and Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

November 21, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Most of my favorite things, I’ve found, are in the absence of nasty things.

I like quiet as opposed to blather and noise.

I like being left alone. (usually)

I like it when my head is free of being clogged with snot. (this doesn’t happen often)

I like it when I am not drowning in the snot that constantly drains down the back of my throat. (also doesn’t happen often)

I must be a really simple person when a good day consists of being relatively quiet and snot-free.

Why is there no cure for snot?

Today’s sort of good news is that I don’t have a fever (opposed to the last two days) but I still feel shitty and, as usual for me, am plagued by gallons of draining snot. At least my throat is no longer on fire, which is a plus. I could, however, do without the distinct sensation that someone is driving a rusty spike through my right eye-hole. Even so, I was well enough to drag my sorry carcass back to work, even though another day of swilling hot tea and attempting to sleep probably would have been better for me.

Bailey’s and coffee would be even better, except I know how that would wreak havoc on my sugar.

I wish I could….have a few of these!

I could also do without the pompous ass-pilots of the world, but if they were to suddenly disappear from the face of the earth, about half the population of the planet would be missing.

What would happen to all the Corvettes?

Corvette owners have a reputation for being, uh, not-so-nice. I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule.

I’ve never been a huge Corvette fan (I’d rather have a ’69 Karmann Ghia, or a ’69 FJ40 if I could afford collectible cars) but one has to admit, the new one is interesting to look at. I wouldn’t want the car payment or the insurance premium, but I’m not evil enough to have the that kind of scratch, either.

Perhaps the week would be more interesting if we had “motivational days” that looked like this:

Overall, I’m thankful to be alive and vertical. Sometimes I don’t sound like it, but overall, I am. Even considering dealing with ass-pilots and endless snots and everything else annoying.

A Road Trip for Miz Izz, The Gene Pool Needs Chlorine, and Entropy Can Be Entertaining

November 19, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

15 is ancient, if you’re a cat.

I had to take poor Miz Izz to the vet on Saturday. I did so with a bit of trepidation, because when a cat’s 15, anything can be the prelude to the dirt nap. She has a funky condition on the pads of her front paws called plasma cell pododermatitis or what is commonly called “pillow foot.” The paw pads swell up and sometimes even crack and bleed (this was the reason I took her to the vet.) Weirdly enough, it’s not a particularly dangerous condition, but given Miz Izz’s age, it can’t be surgically corrected. The risk of surgery on a 5#, elderly cat is not worth the potential benefit, because it’s neither painful nor life threatening according to the vet. It can be managed with occasional steroid/antibiotic injections and scuttlebutt has it that essential oils and Vitamin E can be helpful as well. So she’s back on the fish oil and Vitamin E supplement which I probably should not have stopped giving her. It does make her coat nice and shiny, and she doesn’t object to the taste, so if anything I don’t see where it would do any harm.

Most cats go ballistic in the car and have meltdowns in the vet’s office. Not Miz Izz. She will sit on the exam table quietly and let the vet do her thing. Isabel was cooperative even when she was very young. I can just zip her up in my hoodie and carry her around with no problem. Jezebel also lets me just put her in my hoodie, and is just as laid back about the vet and riding in the car as Isabel is. Fanny freaks out. She is well near impossible to transport and has to be in a carrier. I’ve not had to attempt transport with F.B. F.B. is usually quite sanguine, but she does put up a wicked struggle over getting her flea treatment.

Some people are very easily entertained.

The photo above is further evidence of the devolution of mankind. Fifty years ago these people’s grandparents would have been engaging in the fine pastime of ballroom dancing:

All I can think of is how bad those skirts have got to ITCH!

Every time I go to WalMart, I am reminded of how badly the gene pool needs chlorine. Either that, or it might help to provide more full-length mirrors in public places so people can see how bloody ridiculous they look. When your ass is the size of a Toyota Corolla, Spandex pants and a halter top are not sensible wardrobe choices.

It also doesn’t help to try to put camo pants over rhinoceros size butt cheeks. The camo effect is lost when you’re working with that much surface area.

I ended up having to go home this afternoon with a nasty sore throat. Yes, I went and had a strep test because it came on rather suddenly (the preliminary test was negative) so I am in bed swilling tea and wishing Jerry would shut up about not being able to find anything in the kitchen. I’m not fetching anything for him. I’m trying to get this shit to go away because I really don’t want to call off work tomorrow. I have the vacation time, and the thought of a whole day of drinking tea and watching History Channel could be interesting, but I really hate taking days off (especially unplanned) because I end up having to fix nine kinds of disasters when I get back.

I have, but dammit, I’m sick!

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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assorted rants