misanthropy

my disdain of stupid people, intelligence is a constant, the population is growing

I Love My Dogs (In a Totally Non-Creepy Way)

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It’s probably more stressful for me to take my dogs to the Vet than it is for them to go.  Clara doesn’t even notice when she gets shots.  Lilo can be fidgety but usually isn’t too weird about it as long as I hold her head against my chest so she can’t get snippy.  Both of the girls (Sheena is on a different schedule than the other two) were as good as dogs can be last night.

Granted both Clara and Lilo are edging up into “senior” territory which is a difficult reality for me to get through my head.  Clara is 9, Lilo is 8, almost 9.  I have had dogs live almost 16 years- Kayla would probably have lived even longer had we not decided to put her down when her DM (Degenerative Myelopathy) got so bad she was having trouble controlling her bowels and bladder.  That really sucked, especially for a dog whose healthy weight was about 90#.  I couldn’t carry her out, and eventually it got to the point where she didn’t know when she needed to go and then she’d  just let fly which was humiliating to her and difficult for us.  Kayla was otherwise healthy- except for the damned DM keeping her from being able to control her bathroom functions and use her rear legs.  Unfortunately dogs don’t die from DM- but if they are left to die a “natural death,” they die from the pneumonia and heart failure brought on by inactivity.

Because Clara and Lilo both are crossbreeds and not purebred GSDs, it’s unlikely they will get DM like Kayla and Heidi both did.  I am generally not a believer in “hybrid vigor,” but the likelihood of genetic disease is lower in mixed breed dogs.  Heidi had other issues besides DM, though nine years of very poor care before we got her didn’t help.  I doubt if I will ever have another purebred GSD for that reason- the American bloodlines are repositories for every wicked genetic disease under the sun- but who knows.  I love the protection breeds.

In this pic, Clara (top) was a thin and lanky two year old- Kayla (bottom) was a healthy and active 14 year old.   Kayla did wonders developing Clara’s confidence.

Lilo I know has hip dysplasia, but hers is mild, which is a workable condition for most dogs.  Lilo and Clara both have allergies that seem to get worse as they age. Lilo has seborrhea,  and Clara is prone to lick granulomas which are generally not life-threatening but are aesthetically unpleasant.    Sheena has severe hip dysplasia and she has completely destroyed her canine teeth and incisors from cage biting.  Both of these conditions  will probably cause issues as she ages.

Sheena does have issues, but she’s a sweet dog.

The sad truth of having dogs is that they age a lot faster than we do.  I love senior dogs as they are usually a lot more laid back than their younger counterparts and they are confident in their routines.  I was thrilled to take Heidi in at the age of 9- partially because we had just lost Kayla, but also because I enjoy senior dogs and their mellowness.  I was thankful that Heidi had a good three years with us, but it broke my heart to see her go at the relatively young age of  12.

Heidi was always grateful for everything.

I can take Clara anywhere.  She and I have an understanding which is hard to describe, but I know I have a deeper appreciation for her and her gentle, intuitive nature, especially after she was hit by a truck and almost killed two and a half years ago.

When Clara had the stitches- and the seroma- after she was hit by a truck, she had to wear t-shirts to keep from messing with it.  She was not amused.

Lilo is also very mellow and easy to handle, especially for a dreaded “Chow mix,” but that mellowness has taken years to cultivate.  Sheena (about 4 years old now) is not as confident or as obedient as the other two are now.  But Clara had a lot of “puppiness” to her when I got her as a thin and somewhat spooked two year old, and Lilo had her special little “Chowtude” and didn’t want to trust anyone when she first came to us.  Kayla scared her, and Clara just wanted to kick her ass.

Lilo is strange in one regard- she actually enjoys wearing clothes.

Perhaps it’s a bit twisted that I hold my dogs in higher esteem than most people, but at the end of the day- there they are.

Humor Me, Breathing is Fundamental, and Anytime is Naptime

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I love it.  My granddaughter is already learning the art of the stink-eye.

I think gradually, ever so painfully slowly, my sorry carcass is beginning to get the picture that drowning me in snot is rather counterproductive.  I’ve been on the Allegras for a little over a week and they do seem to help- that along with the saline rinses (now there’s a really fun activity- spraying salt water up your nose to rinse out your sinuses) and the homeopathic nasal spray made from capsaicin (capsaicin is what makes hot peppers hot) that burns like hell right after you spray it-  but it is effective, and at $11 a bottle, I can afford that. So far it’s working better than the steroid sprays that cost $100 + per script and as an added bonus, can give you glaucoma.  I’ve used the steroid sprays before, and they are effective, but I can’t afford them, and since I’m already at risk for glaucoma, I think I’ll steer clear.

Of course, as always, I have a sick sense of humor, even though it has been temporarily stifled by misery and fatigue.  I hate being so tired, but the word “tired” does not capture the depth of the sloggingly slow, painfully apathetic state I’ve been in.  The snots have subsided enough to allow me at least some sleep- but no matter how much sleep I manage to get I feel like I can always use more.  I hate dragging my ass through life.  I would love to wake up hyper- in a good way- with something fun to do that I actually have the energy for.  Maybe I’ve just been sleep deprived for so long that there’s no possible way for me to catch up. 

I do have to go next week and get my blood drawn for labs.  I wonder if yet again something is out of line with my funky-assed body chemistry. In the past I’ve had fatigue caused by low iron (that shouldn’t be an issue since the hysterectomy,) and low potassium (I have to take a supplement for that.)  I’ve had my thyroid stuff checked in the past and it’s been normal, but Grandpa had low thyroid, and he was virtually narcoleptic over it until the Drs found it and started medicating him for it.  Maybe my thyroid has gone south.  It would not surprise me.  I am the repository for most of my family’s genetically transmitted diseases after all.  I can only hope that if that is what’s making me want to sleep 24/7 that they actually run a thyroid test on my blood.  I have no idea which blood panels my new Dr. is going to run.  If I were him I would run everything known to man, because Murphy’s Law would indicate that I have a greater chance than most of having obscure and bizarre anomalies and diseases, especially if they are inherited. 

As a kid it always pissed me off that the world “wastes” so much time sleeping.  Back in the day I could run on four or five hours’ sleep and be wide awake and ready to go.  Now I can sleep on and off for 10-12 hours and still be dead tired.   Perhaps it is a bit of cosmic justice for being so wired as a kid, or punishment for all those years of chugging coffee, chain-smoking and taking all that mail order speed.  Pseudoephedrine and caffeine pills were easily obtained back in the 80’s and 90’s.  I could stay awake for days. Now I wish I could sleep for days, but even then I’d still wake up dead tired.

Maybe I don’t have enough excitement in my life.  Maybe I had too much excitement earlier on, and I’m so jaded I can’t get enthused about very much.  Then again, the odds of waking up with a hot young stud in my bed are next to none.  I wake up with dogs in my bed, but that’s not quite the same.

Clara manages to get herself in the smallest of spaces to sleep- while the other two dogs like to take up as much surface area as possible.

Here’s Lilo- all stretched out as usual.

Sheena doesn’t even try to get into the beds with her bad hips- but she can sleep on the couch- and just about anywhere else.

I force myself to exercise- 30 minutes a day of strenuous cardio most days- and supposedly that’s supposed to make one more energetic.  It’s done wonders for my upper and lower body strength- but not a damned thing for my energy level.  I can go through a workout and then turn right around and go back to sleep.  I don’t think it’s supposed to work that way but it does for me, and some days it takes everything I have to get through 30 minutes.

I think someone could make a killing if they could find a way for people to workout while they sleep.  Just hook me up to the marathon running machine while I’m sleeping.  If I could sleep and run a marathon at the same time, then I would be well on my way to a buff bod.

I’ve always liked the idea of stealth exercise.  Swimming is the closest I’ve ever gotten to it.  You feel great while you’re swimming laps, but don’t realize how much energy you’ve burned up until you get out of the pool.  Unfortunately I don’t have easy access to an indoor pool.  It was nice when I had the “Y” membership but Jerry whined and cried about it every time I went to the “Y,” because every minute I was at the pool was a minute I wasn’t available to fetch beer or otherwise cater to His Nibs. 

To hear him talk about it, I think somewhere back in the reptilian part of his brain he might have thought that other guys were “looking at” me in a bathing suit.  I think it’s funny he assumes that because I’m female that my partially clad body would cause other males to lust, (??? I’m not really lustworthy material by any standard????!!!!) but he fails to realize two very important truths- 1.) I purchase swim attire that affords me the most coverage I can get,  because 2.) there are laws in this country against cruel and unusual punishment.  Subjecting others to the visual of my incredibly pale, scarred skin is just plain nasty- nobody wants to see my stretch marks, surgical scars, varicose veins, burn marks, etc.  If I could find a swim top with sleeves I’d wear that too, so nobody would have to get an eyeful of my meaty arms.  As far as I can see, the visual of me in a bathing suit would motivate projectile vomiting rather than provide fodder for a hand party.

 

 

Any Color (As Long As It’s Black,) Medical Curiosities, and Dark Despondency

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I’m not sure if  “Any color as long as it’s black” is a direct quote of Henry Ford’s, but I mention Henry Ford because I can sort of identify with him.  He was the type of person who thought outside the box- to a degree- and then defined the box according to his own personal boundaries.  All Model T Fords came from the factory in one color- black- because that was the most economical color of paint available at that time.   I dye my hair black for pretty similar reasons- I don’t end up with dark ends from trying to match the original mousy brown, nor do I end up looking completely ridiculous with platinum blonde hair- and dark roots.  Black is black and that is easy to match.  It prevents me from having to go to a salon twice a month for color, which I can’t afford.  Then again I wonder what I can afford.  Not very damned much.  I can’t even afford the farking nasal spray to treat my incorrigible sinus problems that costs $120, but in theory would prevent me from choking to death on snot.  So if I drown in my own snot, the world knows why.

Yesterday I got to see my new primary care Dr. (after going to the same one for 17 years it really sucks to have to switch) and as far as I can see, he’s OK.  I will discern more as time goes by, and I know that he will probably want to play around with my meds once he gets my labs back.  Joy and rapture- and I’m already bracing for the medication-induced narcolepsy, because that’s often what happens when my blood pressure meds are changed.  There is nothing like an involuntary nap at 2PM to make one realize just how befuggered their internal clockwork really is.    I feel sorry for the guy.  I did notice a bit of bewilderment as he perused my current scripts.  Yes, I know the combinations and dosages of just my blood pressure meds alone are enough to kill a normal person.  It’s been that way for years.  In dog years I’m dead, and I often wonder exactly why I’ve been left on this earth to consume valuable oxygen, but it’s not my question to ask.   Maybe I should just stop taking all that shit and see how long it takes for me to drop dead.  The only problem with that is knowing me, I wouldn’t just drop dead.  Something else would fail or go wrong- enough to make me deadly ill, but not enough to kill me. It would be just enough to keep contributing to my suffering. 

It seems the snots have been around for a long, long time.  Catarrh is the old time word for “hacking cough.” Apparently that shit didn’t work either.

I feel sorry for any medical professional who has to deal with me given my funky assed history.  I don’t fit- not even remotely- into anyone’s definition of normal.  Science can provide few clues as to what to do with my sorry carcass except to comment when there are medical students nearby to observe, and to make sure I get billed for everything they can possibly bill me for.  I can only imagine, but they should be paying me for getting to enjoy the freak show.

If anyone could be the poster child for medical anomalies it would be me.  I think it would be cool if I could observe my own autopsy and see just how bizarre my physical body really is.  That’s what I get for watching too many episodes of Dr. G.  I may be twisted, but Dr. G is the shizzle.  I bet she would have fun with my autopsy.

I know what it is!  I’m WHITE!  I need a cure for being WHITE!

As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty or to abolish special privilege we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow. – Henry Ford, from his autobiography, My Life and Work.

I’ve said the same thing myself only in a slightly different way: You get more of whatever you subsidize.  Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” has actually become subsidized poverty.   Why are people going to bother to work to provide for themselves when the government takes what they earn away from them so that other people can have what working people can’t afford- for free?   Socialism doesn’t work.  Eventually those of us who do have some sort of work ethic will get demoralized and just say, “aw, screw it,” like the rest of the denizens of the trailer park.   Then no one will get anything for free, because the ones who used to pay for their freebies decided it wasn’t worth it anymore.

I sincerely wish that the entitlement crowd would take a good hard look at the people like me who are driven into the ground as we are forced to finance their pork projects.  I’m sure they are, as they’re laughing their asses off, enjoying free health care and government cheese on my dime.  I can’t even afford my own scripts. 

Admittedly I’ve not been this depressed in a long time.  I think it might have to do with whatever this interminable head cold? allergy hell? chronic sinus drainage? is.  I always have some degree of snot and drainage from my sinuses, but ever since a week ago Monday the back of my throat has been a snot Niagara Falls.  I choke on it sitting up. I’ve gotten maybe three hours of sleep since a week ago Monday between the snotting and the hacking and there is no medication out there so far (antihistamines, Nyquil, cough syrup, be it OTC or scripts, etc.) that will touch it.  Both the urgent care joint and the new Dr. I saw yesterday claim that this noise is all allergies and is nothing I can spread to others, but that is cold comfort.  I can suffer, but buck up- no matter how miserable I am, at least I’m not going to spread the joy?  As if hawking up a gallon of snot won’t clear a room?

Then to add some icing to the cake I can’t find my damned debit card.   I am hoping like hell that I left it in my pants pocket and I don’t have to report it lost and go through that noise again of getting it replaced.

Some Enchanted Dingleberry, Confessions of the Mildly Neurotic, and Everyone Needs a Hobby

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Ah, dandelion season.  I don’t mind them (unless they are adding to my current allergic-to-all-those-things-out-in-nature that I can neither eliminate nor control nightmare hell), at least not from an aesthetic viewpoint.  I think they’re nature’s way of giving the big old one finger salute to the guys out there who are completely obsessed with the lawn.  You know who you are.  Golfers too.  I can relate to George Carlin’s opinion of golfers and golf courses. 

Three years of being a manager at an Infiniti dealership taught me all I ever wanted to know about golfers.  (Columbus, OH- Muirfield- the damned Memorial Tournament…every farking year…) By and large, the golfers I’ve had the bad luck to encounter were pompous bastards who spend a shitload of money on their golf stuff, but can’t seem to come off of the cash to maintain their luxury car, AND who also have the stones to whine and bitch and demand free shit from the dealer when said luxury car breaks down due to lack of maintenance.   I have absolutely no sympathy for some tool who buys a high dollar car and then has the audacity to throw a fit when they discover that the maintenance and repair of said luxury car costs three times as much as it did for the Corolla he traded in.  Dipshit.  Research it before you buy the high faluting ride with the V8 turbo, the tires that cost $1500 each, and the very sensitive electronic systems, you dingleberry. Drive like a sport, pay like a sport (wonder why I drive a Yaris?) and shut up.  Junior might have to skip a lacrosse lesson or two, or you might just have to suck it up and drink Natties instead of Anchor Steam for awhile.  Or just forget about the luxury ride altogether and save yourself both the prestige- and the expense.  Here’s how this ‘po woman spells Lexus- T-O-Y-O-T-A.  Just as reliable at less than half the cost, although I do forgo the V8 turbo, and the ass warmers in the seats. 

I guess golf keeps aging, balding, wanna-be-somebody yuppie types out of the brothels.  Or maybe not, if you’re talking about Tiger Woods.  I’m glad Jerry can’t afford to golf.  Gambling and drinking are bad enough.  Let’s not add social diseases or fashion violations.  

Everyone needs a hobby.  I like to do cross stitch and play games on the DS when I get a chance.  I’m low maintenance.  Jerry is very high maintenance, and he’s hyper and paranoid to boot.   He needs a hobby that tires him out and involves some sweating and getting dirty.  I don’t mind if he goes fishing (as long as I am not dragged along) or if he gets into picking dandelions out of the yard by hand.   I am grateful he can’t dress bad enough to be a golfer, and he’s too much of a redneck to give up his truck.

I know it’s not nice but every time I see Jerry traipsing about out front with that chemical sprayer hoochie spraying each and every visible dandelion I visualize a few different scenarios and none of them are pretty.  The first visual that comes to mind is Dale from King of the Hill.

Jerry shares more in common with the fictional Dale Gribble than I would like to admit.

I mean, Jerry drinks a lot of beer and smokes a lot of smokes.  He likes to spray chemicals at weeds.  He’s also paranoid like that too- thinking that the government has cameras on him and such.  I know the cops like to camp out in the Wonder outlet across the street and sit and watch Jerry when he’s crushing cans and drinking beer in the garage.  Apparently, local law enforcement is easily entertained.  I’m sure they’ve observed his mowing-while-somewhat-inebriated with a certain degree of…probably not concern…amusement, more likely.  I don’t think the state of Ohio has come up with any sort of statute concerning the legality of drunken mowing on a push mower- yet.  I would think “public intoxication” would cover it, but I’d have to assume that since the cops only observe from afar (and get some priceless video on the dash cam for later enjoyment no doubt,) that drunken mowing must still be OK as long as you’re not on a rider mower.

 

Observations of the Great Unwashed, and The Mind is the First Thing to Go

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I’ve always been a bit scatterbrained.  My brain does not generally work like a flow chart.  Somehow I go from point A to point F and it usually ends up making sense in the end, but where I got the idea to skip all the points in between I don’t know.   I make some really strange connections that are logical to me but to no one else.  I wouldn’t call it ADHD, because I can truly focus and be detailed- perhaps too much so- when necessity calls for a high level of detail.   I get lost in details very easily if I’m not careful.  But in the normal course of life I have my own personal scribbled mental shorthand that serves as a sort of guide to daily activity. 

This tendency to skip ahead in the logical progression of things sometimes leads to forgetting and/or misplacing things.  I know I should probably slow down or write things down or something like that, but I am not a very good planner by nature.  I always have way too much to do and I wonder how I get any of it done.  I know how easily plans get screwed up and then you end up having to improvise anyway.  For good or for ill, most days I’m winging it.  I think Steve-o has inherited the same characteristic- forgetting those little details, like socks.  Few things are funnier than an adult male (with birdy narrow feet) in purple Hello Kitty socks:

At least someone had a spare pair of socks that didn’t smell like fermented cow shit like the ones he had worn the previous two days.

I’m sort of pissed off that I lost my Skullcandy headphones that I’ve had for about 3 years (a record for me and headphones, as I lose them often) and I had to buy a new set.  The new ones are nice- but I have no freaking clue where in the hell my other set ended up. 

Then there’s the Fanny incident.  I know Fanny tries to get out, and I usually have no problem keeping her in because she’s both big and slow.   Yes, I was sleep-deprived in a bad way and just plain crispy Thursday night, but it’s no excuse.  My ineptitude and oversight  is not worth a dead cat. I know the next time I go to the pet food joint (probably tomorrow) that I am going to have to get her a collar and tag- with a bell- and she will wear it even though I know she hates collars and I will get several weeks’ worth of stink-eye over it.  Cats are vindictive creatures, and Fanny is no exception.  If she were like the other two cats who have absolutely no interest in the World Beyond the Door, then I wouldn’t need to do it.  Perhaps with a bell on I will be able to hear as well as see her.

Sometimes I go digging either in my room or in my purse and I find stuff I didn’t realize I had.  That’s just plain wrong.  I don’t know if I am becoming forgetful simply because I have been  chronically sleep-deprived and constantly running at full bore for such a long time, or because senility is setting in.  I don’t sleep well and haven’t for years because my sinuses drain 24/7.  I have to sleep on a 45° angle (picture a large wedge pillow, because this is what I have to use) to keep from choking to death on my own snot.  It’s better to live with the constant drainage, because if they don’t drain, they get infected and inflamed and I can’t breathe at all. 

NNo one should ever have to worry about choking to death on snot, but I have to.

I guess choking on snot would be a better way to go than ODing and croaking on the crapper like Elvis, or ODing on dog anesthetic like Michael Jackson (Propofol is actually one of the better dog anesthetics because it is metabolized quickly, and can be used on dogs that are sensitive to other anesthetic agents, BUT, even in dogs respiration has to be strictly monitored because one of Propofol’s side effects is that it can stop breathing) or ODing and drowning in the bathwater like Whitney Houston, but I really don’t want to go that way.   I don’t think I’ll be ODing on anything voluntarily, but one of my deepest and most primal fears is being suffocated to death.  I blame my sadistic oldest sister for that one, as well as for my inability to eat or drink after other people- especially blood relatives.  No I will not take a bite off the fork that you stuck in your filthy mouth and slobbered all over.  Not until it has been duly sanitized.   To this day if you take a swig off of my pop bottle, you own it.  I don’t  want it back.  Ever.  Even if you swear you don’t backwash.  I refuse to consciously swap saliva (and whatever else is in the backwash you leave behind) with anyone.  Not the old man, not my son, and probably not even Steve Perry, should he ever have the opportunity to hijack my Diet Dr. Pepper. 

At least I am not as OCD as Mom.  She is one of those people who refuses to touch the inside door handle in a public bathroom, and she still believes you can get VD from a toilet seat.

Maybe not so much VD, but let’s hope that is some sturdy plastic going on there.

I had to take a picture of this sign the other day. It was sort of depressing though, because as I thought about it, no I can’t remember when the last time was, and I am not talking about flowers.  I’m not sure if Clinton or Bush II was President.   I am a pathetic specimen for sure.

I Have My Fanny Back!, Transcendental Redneck Moments, and a Beer (in a tree…)

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I love double entendre, but no, I’ve not managed to misplace my ass.  Yet.

Fanny, for the occasional reader, is my 15# silver tabby and white cat.  I named her whilst listening to a classic song by Queen: “Fat Bottomed Girls.”  Fanny was only a 12 week old kitten when I rescued her from the side of the road in rural Fairfield County, (way out in BFE)  and I didn’t think her to be terribly large at that time, but the name took on a life of its own as Fanny grew.  It seems rural barn cat type cats grow really well on premium cat food and relaxed, climate-controlled indoor living.  By the time she was old enough to be spayed, even the Vet commented, “This is going to be a BIG cat.” 

One of the reasons I like our Vet is that she is very seldom wrong.  She was not at all wrong about Fanny being a behemoth.  I wish she were wrong about how difficult it is to treat Lilo’s (our crosseyed and bowlegged GSD/Chow mix) allergies.  Lilo absolutely hates the baths in the special shampoo, but it does help keep her skin from getting all nasty and crusty.  Seborrhea really sucks.  It is manageable with good diet and frequent baths (and occasional cycles of Prednisone) but I wouldn’t wish it on any poor dog.  Especially Lilo, because she is very sweet.

I’ve seen larger cats- somehow our Vet ends up with the same sturdy barn cat types like Fanny, and she’s had some males that have been over 20#, but female cats tend to be smaller than males.  Fanny is probably in the 90th percentile of cat size.  She is large-framed, but she does have some big meat on those big bones too. 

One thing Fanny likes to do from time to time is to sneak out the door when the dogs go out.  Usually I catch her- she’s not a fast runner by any stretch- but if I don’t see her slip out I can’t catch her.  Thursday night I have to admit I was not at my most aware.  Between camping out at Children’s Hospital with the kids and a very sick baby girl, and trying to keep up with the end of the month rush at work, I was pretty strung out at 11PM.  I’d been up and running since 4AM.  I remember letting the dogs out.  Friday morning I realized Fanny must have sneaked out with them as she wasn’t readily available to suck down her morning portion of wet food.   Fanny does not normally miss out any sort of feeding opportunity, and has been known to shove dogs out of the way to get what she has coming.  Fanny backs down to no dog.

I was so preoccupied with my granddaughter that I really didn’t get too worked up about poor Fanny.  By the time the baby was released from the hospital Saturday I was an exhausted mess, and such a sorry sack of shit that I didn’t even go out to try to find Fanny.  I did make some excursions out back Sunday but was unsuccessful.  By yesterday (Monday) I was really getting frantic that she hadn’t appeared at the back door acting as if she were starving to death, so I made yet another foray into the back lot behind the fence under the junk truck and in the middle of the burr bushes.  Finally I heard a weak little mew (for a large cat Fanny has a very tiny voice) and saw her pointy little head peek out from under the truck.   She simply hunched down and let me scoop her up.  So I am delighted to get her back even though I was covered with those damned burrs.

I think I’m going to have to collar and microchip that cat even though she despises a collar. I don’t know where her head is at getting out- there’s no food, the ferals absolutely hate her, and they chase her off before she can even get to the food scraps we throw out for them. 

Just a transient thought- I hate pompous assholes who think they know it all and their shit doesn’t stink, but who go to great lengths to rub other people’s noses in their mistakes.  Never mind that the person who is getting ripped on is the one who actually does something other than fart off and run their mouth about sports and other stupid shit.  The only reason people like that don’t appear to screw up is because the only things they bother to do is showboat, nitpick those who are doing their jobs for them (because they’re either too lazy or  too stupid to do their own work) and bitch about what other people are doing and nosing about in their business.  These same people who seem to be first to make a mountain out of a molehill are always willing to let me do their work as well as my own while they fart off and get into some stupid assed discussion about sports or gambling or other stupid shit.  I really, really, really hate that- although I won’t mention any names.  I would like to engage in some passive-aggressive revenge, but even that’s not worth it.  Those sorts of people are just not worth the effort or the aggravation. 

I know, I know, the best thing I can do is ignore such commentary, and usually I do.  I can take criticism a lot better from those who aren’t lazy snobs who are obsessed with sports, and who admit that from time to time they screw up too.  Dad always said if you never screw up it’s because you aren’t doing anything.  No shit.  Maybe it’s my own fault because I never got interested in sports, but I don’t have the attention span for such bullshit. It’s just too much of a waste of time.  I do really want to throttle the pompous asshole who I am being kind enough not to name….must…think…of…something….else.

On a brighter note, The Bob and Doug McKenzie version of the 12 Days of Christmas has got to be one of my favorite holiday themed songs.  And a beer in a tree indeed.   I love the visual:

Must…not…strangle…pompous….assholes….

The Cold Comforts of Cougardom, and a Kingdom for a Jug of Pennzoil

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I love being “middle-aged,”  or as I put it, in my cougardom.  There.  I said it.  Why am I so excited about life, knowing that at least half of it is over? In a lot of things I am one of those people who see the glass as being half-empty, but as far as the rest of my life goes, the glass is half-full.  I’m not getting my ass kicked on a daily basis, I’m not driving a shitty car,  and nobody calls me to locate my sisters.  I can look at hot younger men with impunity, and without fear of having some uncouth redneck wench spit Skoal in my hair.  Cougar life is good.

The number one advantage of being in the cougar set is that no one really cares what you wear as long as you cover the important stuff.  I don’t have a problem with coverage, because we have laws in this country against cruel and unusual punishment (yes, I have actually read the Constitution, unlike some of those currently holding elected offices.)   It would be cruel and unusual punishment to make anyone observe me in: a bikini, a mini-skirt, the nude, or in any other state of not-so-decent dress.  So I make sure all the important (i.e. stuff nobody wants to see) stuff is well-covered.  I can accept my frumpiness and run with it, with the delicious knowledge that many of the “beautiful people” I went to school with are twice my weight, with tanning-bed leathery skin.  I don’t look good and never did, but I look better than some people who used to look good.  Why that appeals to my sorry sense of vanity I will never know, but it does.  Shame on me.  My mother would drag me to Confession- were I still Catholic- for such an egregious sin.

There were a few girls I went to school with who managed to remain “beautiful people,” such as the Hall Twins, who are painfully identical (with identical bleach-blonde hair and usually identical clothes too) and have not changed one bit in appearance since 1984.  I have to wonder if they are either wax models or if they have been freeze dried or something.   There were a few really fugly people who managed to either lose weight or get their teeth fixed or have plastic surgery who are now “beautiful people,” but most of us are at right about the same level of “definitely not beautiful, but not exactly fugly.”  Entropy eventually wins out.  Gravity does too, which I am reminded of every time I take off my bra.

Now I know why Grandma preferred the long-line bras.  Unfortunately, I am unable to breathe while wearing one of these.

The other advantage of cougardom is one I noted many years ago whilst observing my grandmother and great-grandmother.  Not only did they wear bright colors and bold patterns, they also spoke their minds- loudly, consistently, and with no regard for political correctness.  I loved taking them shopping if only to see just how mortified Mom was at their commentary.  I learned that descriptives such as, “whore,” “floozy,” and “lard ass” must have been around a long time- and that according to both my grandmother and great-grandmother, such individuals can be found everywhere. 

It’s shocking when a twenty something is caught drooling over some fine young stud, but it’s somehow charming- or at least funny- when some old bitty does the very same thing.  I’m not dead and I’m not blind- so I’m going to look.  I may not comment like they did (and both of them seemed to enjoy the 80’s trend in tight jeans for men, which I wish would come back in style) but I’m still looking.

Some things in life are constant, such as my disdain for the local Walmart. It’s not so much a dislike of the store itself but of its Team Members, who are anything but a team.  Any place that calls its employees team members, associates, etc. rather than employees, is almost always a shitty place to work.  It seems to me that when an organization has to come up with fancy titles for its employees that they are trying to make them feel good about working a shitty job in an abysmal place.  Any place that makes its employees wear name tags is also almost always a really shitty place to work.  Walmart- at least the one I’m talking about down the road- is either a really shitty place to work, and/or they just can’t seem to come up with the hazard pay that sentient humans would require to work amongst the unwashed, illiterate and uncivilized masses that frequent this place.   The Team Members I’ve encountered in this particular Walmart are surly, largely unable to speak or understand the English language, and seem to resent my very presence.  

I did, however, need to find myself a jug of Pennzoil so I can get my oil changed.  Yes, I know brand loyalty is largely folly, but there are two brands I don’t waver on- Toyota is one, and Pennzoil is the other.  I’ve used Pennzoil in all of my vehicles, and have never in over a million miles driven in them have I had engine failure of any kind in any of them.   So I continue to use it, whether it really makes a difference or not. I think in the grand scheme of things changing the oil regularly matters more than what kind you use, but I’m not taking any chances.

Target isn’t open at 6AM, and I didn’t want to have to go into any store after work, so I figured I’d venture in to the Walmart before the crackheads and serial killers wake up.  I forgot that the employees Team Members at Walmart are every bit as deranged as their usual clientele. 

All I can say is, if you’re going to have the doors open 24/7, you’d better have at least one farking register open, even if it is 6AM.  When someone finally did locate a cashier (once I located someone who could understand rudimentary English,) I had been wandering around the Walmart for 20 minutes.  The cashier seemed to be quite pissed off about having to get off her ass and deal with me, but I smiled and kept my commentary to myself.  The only mitigating factor in this transaction is I paid $15.99 for a five quart jug of Pennzoil 5W30 that I normally pay $22.99 for, so I guess I get the shitty service discount.

The pisser is it costs me more to buy 4 quarts in quart bottles than it does to buy 5 quarts in the 5 quart jug.  I only need 4 quarts.  It’s a freaking Yaris, OK?

Laugh if you must, but 40MPG on the highway (NOT a hybrid) is nothing to scoff at!

Too Much Effing Basketball, Reflections on “That Special Time,” and Misandry Revisited

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Why, oh, why are they putting that damned basketball tournament on TruTV again? It pissed me off enough last year.  That’s why there are channels like TruTV on cable, so that those of us who don’t care for sports have interesting shit to watch.  Why not take over the Oprah Channel for all the people who are regular TruTV watchers who don’t give a rat’s ass who’s playing who and sure as shit don’t want to watch the games?   Almost $200 a month for premium cable and I’m still buried in farking sports. It pisses me off royally.  I think Time Warner should have to refund me for the entire month of March.  I am having withdrawal from Smoking Gun:World’s Dumbest.  I actually ended up watching a documentary on bugs on NatGeo because most of the channels were either sports or pecker pump infomercials, or the Bigfoot special, so the bug show was the most interesting thing on TV the other night.   Either bugs or the endless speculation over the existence of Bigfoot.  I don’t believe in Bigfoot- someone would have found a body or at the very least, scat, by now- but I have evidence for the existence of bugs, so I went with the bugs.  Might as well learn about the various nasty little arthropods that inhabit the planet.   The bug shows made for some rather interesting dreams.  Now I know why as a kid I used to fry ants with a magnifying glass.  Pesky little bastards.  Must…not…let…the…queen….live—

Now I would be interested in both Bigfoot and basketball if they could find Bigfoot and get him to play basketball.  That might be interesting, given that Bigfoot is (theoretically) over 7′ tall.  If I were to make up a mythical man-beast I’d like him to be tall too, but I could do without the massive hair.  I’m not a fan of excessive body hair.  If I were to make up a mythical man-beast he would look a lot like Antonio Banderas.  He would also have a lot of money, and an insatiable fetish for older women with troll-like proportions.

The bad thing is, the really hot ones are either gay, married (to a good looking woman) or hopelessly stupid.

The various History Channels seem to be caught up in the doomsday stuff that I’ve already watched, and for the most part discounted.  I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: What makes people think that an ancient culture who practiced blood sacrifice and cannibalism is some kind of authority on doomsday?  Granted, the Mayans were really, really good at astronomy and math.   So was Ted Kaczynski, at least the math part.  What did that get him?  Harold Camping could probably recite the entire KJV Bible from memory, but all of his doomsday predictions (supposedly based on Scripture) were wrong.  Here we still are. 

I’ve said it before, but I really don’t want to know the exact date and time when the world will end.  It’s sort of irrelevant anyway because everyone is going to die.  If the world doesn’t end you still die.  The rest of the world goes on, but you don’t care because you’re dead.  If the world ends, you and everyone else die at the same time.  What’s the diff?  The scenario I don’t want to experience is one of those cataclysmic disaster type events that doesn’t annihilate everything outright but causes mass extinctions and lots of slow, lingering death.  I know people build shelters and stock up on everything from canned peas to condoms, but is that any way to live?  The survival mentality is nothing new- back in the 1950’s everyone thought the USSR was going to nuke us so people built bomb shelters and stocked up on food and supplies and so forth.  The bad thing about the doomsday shelter is,” How long can you last? ”  Would it be better to just be in the line of fire and be suddenly disintegrated- instant death- or to linger about underground in a shelter counting the days and rationing stale decades-old food?  I don’t think it would be terribly enjoyable.

100% vegetarian.  No meat.  How lovely.  About as appetizing as pool chemicals, which come in the same type barrels.  On the plus side, it does have the shelf life of a Twinkie, which means it will be fresh long after I’m dead.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was thankful for the benefits of menopause.  Believe me, camping out in the frozen food section of Kroger’s to get cooled off is infinitely better than the alternative.  I can deal with hot flashes. I can also wear white pants any day I want.   It’s creepy that the manufacturers of certain feminine items try to make “that special time” of the month sound like a freaking vacation in Jamaica.  There should be some truth in advertising when you’re talking about that particular bodily process.  I can’t speak for every other woman out there, but I had specific anatomical anomalies and surgical scars, etc. that made Aunt Flo’s visit a huge nightmare every month.  I went through years of torment with it. 

Rather than visions of flowers and butterflies and kittens, why not skulls and crossbones?  Bloody daggers would be another extremely appropriate theme.  If I were to develop feminine hygiene items, I’d go with a pirate theme. 

Imagine a box of extra-absorbent adult diapers (because “overnight” is  a lot longer than fifteen minutes, and that’s about how long the “overnight” maxis lasted me) with a colorful skull and crossbones motif.  That would at least reflect some truth in advertising. 

I’ve always been a bit of a misanthrope, but contrary to my postings of late I do find men attractive.  Vexing, yes- complicated, always, but oddly endearing, sort of like Sheena when she flops over and lands on my feet.  Sheena’s a hopeless clutzy ditz.  Jerry is worse, at least as far as the beer drinking and stupid behavior that accompanies that-(instant asshole, just add alcohol) but he has his charm.  I’ll have to remember that when I’m scraping man-face-fur shavings out of the sink again.  I need to remember to get the drain cleaner tonight.

 

 

 

Beauty Tips for the Bar Fly, Better Thee Than Me, and Double Entendre

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I am by no means anything to look at.  I try not to leave the house without makeup lest I traumatize small children and dogs, but I’ve not been shitfaced drunk since that fateful morning sometime in 1993 when I woke up submerged in a bathtub full of cold water next to a half-eaten Domino’s pizza.  Blood pressure meds and rotgut liquor don’t mix too well.   More than a half a glass of wine and I pass out these days.  So, it sort of shocked me when I got e-mails with these subject lines today:

Top  10 Bar Hopping Hairstyles

How to Get Bar Stink Out of Your Hair

and my favorite- How to Look Good Hungover.

I don’t look good stone sober.  If I would look better with a hangover, perhaps I should try it out.

I also wonder what kind of hairstyles are kind to the bar fly?  Sinead O’Connor’s? 

It’s low maintenance, there’s nothing there to absorb the bar stink,  and if someone pukes on your head, it just wipes off.  I do sort of wonder about her, though.  She shaves her head, but lets man-fur grow on her arms?  Ewww.  Let a little bit of hair grow on your head, but shave your arms!

There are a number of things in my life I am quite thankful for.  Saying goodbye forever to the purveyors of certain feminine products comes to mind.  I don’t miss one minute of Aunt Flo and the curse, believe that.  

Why do they try to make the packages seem to be so damned cheery?  Should the Naproxen bottles have stoned people and flowers on them too?

Maybe they just didn’t give me good enough drugs to enjoy all the swimming, horseback riding, kitten-cuddling, butterfly-and-unicorn watching, and lacrosse playing (???) that everyone else seemed to be doing during that “special time” of the month.  It seemed no matter how many Midols or Naproxens I managed to down that I was 1.) sitting in a sticky glob of my own stinky coagulated blood that always seemed to defy containment in those lovely feminine hygiene devices, and 2.) using every ounce of restraint (whilst inwardly writhing in pain) to keep from throttling Jerry and/or everyone else who happened to piss me off.   I don’t miss that shit one bit.  In this regard, menopause, surgical or otherwise, rules.

I love my granddaughter, don’t get me wrong, but I am quite thankful that I’m not the one dealing with car seats and diapers and so forth all the time.  Then again in a way I can sort of appreciate her more because I’m not doing the Mom thing 24-7.   I watched her for a few hours yesterday while the kids ran some errands which was very nice, but it was also very nice to go home to sleep in my own bed and only having to worry about the dogs.  Getting up and having to get Sheena out at 4AM is bad enough.   I have to wonder how Steve-o survived being an infant as insane as my schedule was, but I also admit I really regret not being able to spend much time with him other than getting the necessary things done.  I am reminded so much of how much I missed with him, but there’s nothing I can do to change it now.  I can be grateful that he’s not a serial killer, he is a straight man, and he seems to have a decent head on his shoulders -at least once you get past those nasty earrings.

I think double entendre is one of the highest forms of humor, especially when I always seem to be around people who don’t quite get it.  Mom is notorious for letting such innuendo go right over her head.  I can only hope that Steve-o does not try what he was joking about last night for a variety of reasons.  Just because it’s a pump and it generates suction does not mean it’s suitable for a certain part of the male anatomy, so leave the breast pump alone.  Ewww.  I don’t think he would do it.  Mom never even got the hint which was probably a good thing.  Catholics regard oral sex as a sin, so I am pretty sure her mind didn’t go there.   They don’t even condone masturbation the old fashioned way, so I’m pretty that any hanky-panky involving a machine of any kind would be a sin too.  Sex is only OK if you’re procreating and not enjoying it. I bet Mom would freak if she knew that (long, long ago) I actually had sex with a man, with the lights on, not in the standard missionary position, AND, I liked it. 

Now I know why I’m not Catholic.   If the opportunity for sex ever arises again (unlikely, but who knows?) at least I will be free to enjoy it.  (sans critters, of course!)

I Will Not Pander to Sappy Sentimentalism, Truth in Advertising, and Thinking About a Vay-Cay

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Dogs and cats on motorcycles?  I have seen people carry around ankle biter dogs on bikes, but I couldn’t imagine a cat putting up with that racket.

I really can’t stand those goofy-assed stick figure family stickers.  They’re too damned happy- in a really sappy way- for one thing.  The last time Jerry sported a shit eating grin like the cartoons on those decals it was because he had just won $200 on his Pick 3 tickets, and he was butt drunk.  As for my emotional state, I am doing good to stay on a nice, neutral even keel.  I get angry pretty easily, but as far as the shit eating grin, I would have to say that was some time back in the 80’s, if ever.

If I were to display those horrid stick figures on my car, I would have to design my own so I could at least have some truth in advertising.  Here’s “Beer Drinker” and “Woman, Fed Up.”

I wouldn’t go so far as to add all three dogs, all three cats and the two snakes.  They didn’t ask for stick figure humiliation, and I really don’t want the general public speculating as to whether or not I’m some kind of bizarro animal hoarder type.  It would look pretty weird to some people that there are four times as many critters in the house as there are humans.  The good news is the critters generally don’t sass, and all of them put together are cleaner and require less maintenance than Jerry does. 

It’s pretty sad, but I probably am scowling most of the time.  I should work on that.  The glass is also half-full. 

I actually scheduled a bit of vacation time.  Now let’s see if I can scrounge enough money to take a two or three day excursion to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia- by myself if need be.  I am just weird enough to consider a foray into the wonderful world of antique medical ephemera to be a fascinating vacation.   Jerry, on the other hand, would probably be grossed out and would fail to find anything involving a museum to be a vacation.  His idea of a vacation is keeping me busy pandering to his needs so I don’t get a vacation.  This is why I am considering taking this trip on my own.  Steve-o can’t go for obvious reasons- he’s got school, work and his family to tend to.  It’s kind of sad because of all the people I know Steve-o would enjoy it the most.  But he’s an adult now and is very close to the becoming independent of the parental units phase of his development, and I would not want to do anything to interfere with that.  I should have took him to the Mütter back when he was in high school and he had nothing but time. 

 Then again, if I had the whole parenting thing to do over, and the resources to do it better, I would have done a lot of things differently.  I wish I would have been able to afford to do home schooling or to send him to a Christian school, but I wasn’t able to do either.   I know a lot of people in the educational bureaucracy would be very afraid of me (or anyone else of my political and/or social outlook) doing any kind of home schooling, but at least my son (on my insistence) actually has read the Constitution and several other things high school kids should be required to read but aren’t, such as 1984, Animal Farm, Atlas Shrugged, and The Federalist Papers.  I did make sure my son could read and communicate using the English language beyond the level of  “Whassup, dawg?”

Even though he did have to go to public school and didn’t get total immersion in the World According to elysianhunter, I won’t blame the public schools that my son can’t spell.  Most techies can’t spell.  It has something to do with the way their brains are wired.  They can get the math and the spatial skills, but for him, correct spelling makes about as much sense as algebra does to me.  I will laugh at his auto-correct fails though. 

Here’s another Truth in Advertising (sort of stick figure) decal for the car: