More Central Ohio White Death, More Funky Victorian Pics, and Other Odds and Ends

February 7, 2014Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I’m still trying to figure out this Rube Goldberg device.

This contraption, which I think is some kind of spinal correction device (?) could also have afforded some tactical advantage when other kids are chasing you down to kick your ass. I can see where it could be a sort of almost skateboard without the board. I love Victorian ingenuity. Strange thing is that even in the early 1980’s (and I’m not sure whether or not this is still being done in schools) all the girls had to get checked for scoliosis in 7th and 8th grade.

The scoliosis check was not what I’d call a good time. All the 7th and 8th grade girls were herded into the gym, (wearing those hideous gym suits, or in my case, since I had a Doctor’s Note permanently freeing me from gym class, a t-shirt and shorts) lined up in alphabetical order, then we either had to unzip the gym suit or pull up our t-shirt and let (supposedly) a nurse trace our spines with her finger and verify that our spines were straight.

If you were found to have scoliosis (a couple of girls did have it) then you were sent to an orthopedist who would fit you with a full torso brace with metal stays and tie up straps that you had to wear 24/7 for two or three years unless you wanted to become a hideously deformed hunchback.

Imagine having to wear this continuously – all through high summer. Oh, the stink!

I’m glad my spine stayed straight.

This is one of the snow piles outside of Target. It’s 5°.

But, as always, they set up the swimsuit racks the week after New Year’s!

The City of Columbus, I must say has been doing an abysmal job in clearing the snow. ODOT got the freeways cleared right away, but the major through roads that are the city’s responsibility, by and large haven’t been touched. I have to wonder what the hell they’re doing with all that income tax money, since the state and the surrounding localities are seeming to cope pretty well with snow removal. I know that corruption and graft and union thuggery run amok in Mayor Coleman’s hizzy. I’m surprised he didn’t ask for emergency money from his homeboy Obama to clear out Downtown.

It didn’t used to be that way, and it’s sad. The illustrious Mayor-for-Life Coleman has ran the police department into the ground, presided over (and approved of) the corruption and vice and absolute lack of accountability in the schools, and now the city can’t seem to get the crews out to clear the freaking snow. Coleman will keep on getting re-elected though, because a.) there’s no term limit, and b.) he kisses up to the gimme crowd. While everyone (me included) who can moves to the freaking suburbs because of the uncontrolled druggies and rampant crime-but if you work in the city limits (I do) you still have to pay income tax so this gimme-appeaser and cronies can keep on subsidizing the gimme crowd. The worst thing about living in the suburbs is that I can’t vote against this shyster when he runs for (and gets elected) mayor again.

So much for the Things-I-Can’t-Change.

I have been somewhat remiss as of late in not posting more of those postmortems that people just can’t help gawking at. It’s bad that I am so bored that I’m trolling postmortems again, but it is February. What else am I supposed to do? February always makes me think about death. Maybe it’s because I have to go to the BMV to get my car registration, and that’s always depressing.

The only way I’d ever been that close to either of my sisters, voluntarily, is if I’d been dead– which I think these two are.

Generally, if either of my sisters had been that close to me when I was a little kid, it was because they had me in a headlock, pounding me with whatever sort of pointy or heavy object that was handy.

I am surprised that I actually survived childhood with only minor scarring and disfigurement. The psychological damage- well, the Prozac does help.

Gam-Gam died in 1890, but those eyes are still watching you!

I know it’s morbid, but I think the postmortem pics are a forerunner of the Open Casket Funeral, which I find most distasteful in almost every instance. I can’t get the images of my grandmothers in their coffins with badly done makeup, in those awful pink nighties out of my head, let alone the image of Aunt Ellen (the non-makeup wearing Pentecostal) slathered down with day-glo orange lipstick and all dolled up as if she were headed for the Oompa-Loompa Prom.

I told Steve-o to cremate me when I die, but knowing him (and I’ve said this before) he will have me taxidermied and made into a coffee table.

“Looking beyond the embers of bridges glowing behind us
To a glimpse of how green it was on the other side
Steps taken forwards but sleepwalking back again
Dragged by the force of some inner tide”- Pink Floyd, “High Hopes”

Perhaps it is true that one can never really go back home again, but in another sense it’s also true that one can never really leave. It’s amazing how our society forgets the past so quickly, and repeats its mistakes so readily. Memory, if anything, should serve as both a harbinger and a teacher.

I think we do ourselves a disservice when we neglect the study of history. It may not be a good idea to continually live in the past, and I have to guard against this, but to deliberately seek a sort of live-in-the-now amnesia isn’t very healthy either.

I’ve learned to be careful which bridges to burn and which ones to leave standing, although I can’t say I’ve mastered the art of moving forward, or of knowing which pieces of the past are worth holding on to, and which pieces are things I need to let go.

I’ll have to remember to check the empty seats in my car for Hitler before I go.

I think I’d be hella nervous if I were approached by a giant talking frog. But I’m paranoid like that.

It Came From Planet Zit, Victorian Quack Cures, and It’s Frozen

January 23, 2014Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

It has taken on a life of its own…

Thankfully this face crater is not on my face. I have enough problems. Unfortunately it’s on the POMC’s face, which really sucks for him. Nasty. The worst part of it is that if the antibiotics don’t kill it off he might have to go to a plastic surgeon and have it cut out. Joy and rapture- and this for a guy who almost lost it over a simple blood draw. I had my quarterly required blood draw yesterday. Big deal. I really don’t even notice it, but then the phlebotomists at the lab draw blood all day long. It’s simply what they do, and they’re good at it. The POMC, on the other hand, I hate to see what kind of anguish he might experience over a minor surgery that will (while still being minor) have a bit more to it than a simple blood draw.

I had to have a funky growth taken off the side of my head about 15 years ago. I was worried about losing hair over it, but they didn’t even shave that section of my head. The actual surgery was about five minutes, and it wasn’t that bad except for the surgeon was a little rough with the Lidocaine. Getting to surgery was the problem. I was scheduled for 7:30 AM, but didn’t get taken in until almost 2:30 PM. The guy who was scheduled for surgery right before me picked a really inconvenient time to Bite the Big One- as in, he commenced to take the Dirt Nap while he was on the operating table getting an ingrown toenail or something cut out.

Eventually, the Morgue Cart comes for us all.

So I had to wait around while they brought the code team in to try to get him jumpstarted. That was an effort in futility. Once they were satisfied that the guy was completely dead, and there was no revival going to happen, then I had to wait for the medical examiner’s team to come in and take notes and clean up and do the paperwork necessary to send the poor dude down to the morgue. Then the cleaning crew had to come in and hose everything down so it would smell nice and disinfectant-y, presumably in the hope that maybe I wouldn’t get too freaked that some guy just died in there while getting a minor surgical procedure on somewhat of the same scale of what I was having.

Yeah, the scent of shit-and-piss hosed down with disinfectant spray and Clorox doesn’t remind me of my own mortality and impending death. Not at all. ‘Kay… What made the whole experience even more fun is that the surgeon was a big burly guy with a very German name and a rather morbid sense of humor.

I was rather pissed by the time they were finally getting me rolled in to surgery. I had spent most of the day starving, sifting through stacks of distressed, inane and aged periodicals, and enduring such drivel on TV as Montel and other various daytime “Who Be My Baby Daddy” sorts of shows. Even so, in spite of my angst, curiosity got the best of me, and I asked some of the nurses and orderlies what sort of disaster went down, and why it was cause for my very minor surgery to be so delayed. They were more than happy to give me the low down on why my surgery was delayed for seven hours.

I also had to find it funny when the surgeon comes loping in the operating room, syringe full of Lidocaine, saying, “Hey don’t die on me here- that’s what happened to the last guy. It’s bad for business.” At least the surgery was quick, and he didn’t do any damage to the facial nerve the growth was right on top of. I can still eat without drooling and can enunciate when I speak, (these are good things.) Also a good thing, according to the path lab, the growth was benign. It never came back.

Getting a new driver’s license and a registration renewal at the BMV is faster than processing a dead dude to go to the morgue, apparently. Shit happens. Sometimes the timing just sucks.

The BMV: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here!

Of course the weather here in beautiful Central Ohio is absolutely frozen- right now it’s 9º. Of course when it is that cold here, that cold is always accompanied by gale force winds that make it feel like it’s 20° below. Just walking out to the car is being outside too much in this weather.

I wish there actually were something like this device, and that it actually worked.

There is something a bit creepy about wearing batteries on your head. There is also something a bit creepy about having a constant, splitting headache that feels like someone is trying to break out my hard palate from the inside with a crowbar, and to take the same crowbar and poke my right eye clean out of the socket from the inside too.

I’d duct tape some nine-volts to my noggin if that would make this shit go away, damn tootin’.

Unfortunately I think it’s just another reaction to stress and the stupidity that surrounds me.

I don’t think this would do much of anything.

I wish this one would work, but we all know better than that.

Party Like It’s 1895, Late Winter Apathy, and More Victorian Death

March 4, 2013Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

Dead? Nah, it’s just early March in Central Ohio.

Early March in Ohio is about the same as late February. It’s cold. It’s windy. There is at least one form of precipitation happening at any given time. The season of Snowbooger Grey lingers on. Sometimes it lingers on until May.

So I figure I’ll go back to some of my favorite art (yes, photography is an art) and dig into some postmortem scans. I don’t know why I find 100 + year old pictures of dead people fascinating, except maybe to underscore that death is a constant and to remember that one’s time above ground is short, unless of course, you’re at the BMV.

“Lifetone” Embalming Fluid- for keeping stiffs fresher longer!

Someday, if I am ever free to determine my own décor, without having to worry about things getting ruined, broken or permeated with cigarette stink and dust, I would furnish my entire house in bizarre ephemera and trinkets that have a macabre twist- like the kinds of stuff featured on the show Oddities. The only problem with that (other than Jerry is as messy and destructive as a horde of hogs, so valuables have to be kept out of his reach) is that stuff is generally expensive if you don’t procure it in strange places like yard sales and flea markets and such.

I probably should go with Jerry more often when he goes to estate sales and yard sales and auctions but I really don’t have the attention span. I’m looking for completely different stuff than he is. He generally looks for redneck crap (lawn mowers, tools, beer-related ephemera, camping and fishing stuff, and occasionally firearms) to resell, while I look for the cool antique conversational items that are a bit harder to find.

For a generation of people who were prone to maudlin sentiment, I find it interesting that some Victorian era greeting cards were just plain emotionless. Maybe it’s like today, where you save the formal cards for obscure relatives and business connections with whom you wish to remain cordial, but not necessarily friendly.

Translation: I like you less than Neal Schon, but more than the Quaker Oat Box Guy.

The nice thing about this card is that I could pretty much say that about anyone who hasn’t gone out of his or her way to piss me off. I could design my own Victorian cards.

This is nice and neutral, but it begs the question:

Upon which list do you appear?

I’ve never really been the greeting card type. I like cards if they’re funny, and if they are relevant to the one getting the card. I don’t do maudlin sentiment well though, and I tend to be a bit of a wise ass if given the opportunity.

If they can walk on two legs, then they can carry AR15s. Just sayin’.

It’s bad that I’m this bored. However, it’s good that I am entertaining myself in a quasi-constructive way. The guys I work with really don’t like it when I put their faces on fat bikers, hippos, or even bimbos with really big boobs in bikinis. The bad thing is with the rise of both the easily concealed digital camera and WalMart, there is no end to just plain awful pics.

Some fashion statements are better left unsaid.

Tonight I have to drop Jezebel off to be spayed and declawed. I am always somewhat ambivalent about declawing cats, but Jezebel has a rather destructive habit of scratching on the door frames instead of the scratching post (F.B. also has claws, but she’s older, very sedate, lets me clip her claws, and actually uses the post.) Jezebel also gets caught in the curtains and on the furniture, and even though she will take medication without going spaz, she will not allow me to clip her claws. Isabel was a curtain climber when she was little as well as she had a rather disturbing habit of climbing people so she could ride around on your shoulder. Fanny almost destroyed one end of a chair arm, and almost gave me a really nasty cat bite when I tried to trim her claws, before she was old enough to be declawed. Cat bites are serious business. The only thing worse than being bitten by a house cat is being bitten by an AIDS or hepatitis infected human. Cats have bacteria in their saliva that can literally infect your blood and eat your flesh.

Jezebel won’t be contributing to the feral cat overpopulation issue.

Some cats can learn to use the post and/or deal with having their claws clipped. I have had a few cats who I didn’t need to declaw, and I don’t do it capriciously, because I know it’s not a fun surgery. But if a cat is strictly indoors, and it’s an issue of declawing vs. the cat being homeless, I’ll go with declawing. I know. Mean cat mom, I know, but it would be more cruel for Jerry to catch her going to town on a door frame and drop kick her across the house. When he’s five sheets to the wind I wouldn’t put anything past his drunk ass. The plus side to declawing, if there is one, is that our vet is a very good surgeon and she has always done a fantastic job on declaws. I still hate doing it.

Creepy. Not a good retouch job on the eyes at all.

Of course, I don’t even care for open casket funerals. The idea of old-hen relatives of the deceased filing by the coffin and making commentary is rather distasteful to me. I still remember my relatives’ commentary when Aunt Ellen died. “Doesn’t Ellen look lovely?”

Ellen did NOT look lovely. She looked pretty damned dead. She was so orange she looked like she passed out at the Oompa Loompa Prom. And she had to be dead to be wearing all that day-glo orange lipstick. She was a Pentecostal, which means she wasn’t allowed to wear makeup, but she did have to wear dresses when in public.

When I die, I hope Steve-o honors my wishes and has me cremated, but he has the same sick sense of humor I do. He will probably have me taxidermied and use me for a coffee table.

More Creative Re-Writing: Because Living Vicariously Is Better than No Life At All

February 22, 2013Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I’ve always enjoyed boating.

I think I know what my problem is lately. It’s the late February Snowbooger Grey Funk. This morning I woke up to a nice sheet of ice encasing my car and no heat in the house. Jerry, noticing the lack of heat long before I ever would, will be sure to do what he needs to do to get the HVAC guys out to get the furnace running again. He won’t try to jack around with the furnace. It has electronic goodies in it that burn up from time to time. I think the old pilot light system worked better than that ignitor module that likes to burn up, which is sort of ironic, because electronics in cars generally work better and last longer than the traditional mechanical systems did. I would take electronic fuel injection over an old carburetor any day, as well as ignition modules, coil packs and ECMs (engine control modules) over the old distributor-and-points ignitions any day. Electronic ignition and engine controls don’t fail as often as the old systems and they are easier to repair when they do fail. I wish I could say the same for electronics and home HVAC working better than the old time set-ups, but I don’t think it does. At least not on our furnace. However, I am no authority on HVAC- unless it’s in a car.

So I am getting to hear about the goings on between Steve-o and the baby mama and it’s driving me nuts.

Why in the hell am I Mom’s sounding board when they go through their petty bullshit?

Oh, why, oh, why can’t she call her little old lady friends with this garbage?

At least I don’t go out in public looking like this.

I did have to go to the BMV the other day- joy and rapture-and as usual my driver’s license picture is abysmal.

I try to avoid the BMV but I have to go at least once every four years. The only good thing about the BMV is getting my license and registration and getting out.

Happy frigging birthday to me…but not until Tuesday.

More Fun With Obscure Old Things, Virtual Road Trip, and Winter Funk Comes Early

January 9, 2013Tonya Lanthron 3 Comments

At least I can keep my sunburst plate (the top one) and save $8 as opposed to getting the new plate which I think is rather busy for a license plate.

Usually I don’t get to the really despondent depths of the Winter Funk until the butt-end of February, when my birthday rolls around, bringing with it the ominous and expensive task of going to the BMV to pay for yet another registration sticker for yet another year.. This year that task is doubly odious because I have to renew my driver’s license as well as my car registration, so I can’t just do it online. Joy and rapture. A new pic of me- four years older, that is guaranteed to be bad enough that it should either appear in “Busted” magazine, or have “Correctional Institute Inmate” underneath it. As far as “Busted” magazine, it’s a guilty pleasure of mine to gawk at the mug shots, laugh at the bizarre names (there is actually a guy in one of them whose name is “Sequin”) and examine them to see if anyone I know is in there. At least as far as I know I’m not going to get stuck with the fugly new license plate. I don’t care for that design, and it really doesn’t go very well with my Hello Kitty license plate frames.

This goes better with the old sunburst plate anyway.

Anyway, I am trying to head off the despair and gloom at the pass. I am making it a point to go to at least one Bible study class (at church, among other live humans) a week, which I’ve not been doing since last October and it shows. I am not the best Christian example in the world by a long shot, but I have an even harder go of things when I neglect Bible study with other people. Yes, I read and study on my own, but the only observations I see are my own and too much navel-gazing is not a good thing. Even though I crave solitude like a junkie craves a fix, I still need to hear the opinions and observations of others- particularly from those with different viewpoints than mine- from time to time.

More importantly, I have to remember that there is life beyond the mundane, and I have been very neglectful of the spiritual as of late.

I couldn’t be terribly interesting to watch.

Anyway, I have found some more fascinating ephemera from the early-to-mid 20th century that piqued my interest:

Toilet water cures baldness. Who’d have thought?

Men generally are less vain than women. Though comfortable, I can’t bring myself to wear Velcro tennis shoes in public. However, some men have a rather twisted sense of vanity and of utility:

What they’re not telling you is the recliner on the boat is nicer than the one in the house.

I have also discovered that the redneck love of bacon is not a recent discovery. Even in the late 19th century a national love affair with pork products was obvious.

The United States of Pork!

To quote the French: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose!

At least back in the day – before Oklahoma was a state, obviously, you got the cool little diagram with all the piggies on it to take home.

While I’m in the road tripping mood, it’s interesting to see how people other than Midwesterners look at the US. I know foreigners probably view the great vast flatness of the Midwest with trepidation (we’re not dangerous, usually, just boring.) There are flush toilets in the South now- even in West Virginia, although West Virginia is technically not part of the South. The reason why West Virginia is West Virginia is that they decided to stay in the Union instead of becoming part of the Confederacy along with the rest of Virginia. Southern Ohio isn’t part of the South either, but try telling them that. Especially that guy in Greene County who has the barn with the huge rebel flag on the roof that’s glaringly visible from I-71 northbound. Never mind that he’s 35 miles north of the Ohio River (and therefore the Mason-Dixon Line.) I guess if the South rises again it might have to redefine its geographical boundaries.

A West Virginia view on what’s what and who’s who in the US. Or maybe a Nebraskan’s?

I still think it would be interesting to take an English speaking foreigner (and yes, I am thinking of Karl Pilkington and the Idiot Abroad series) into the depths of fly-over country. Use Central Ohio as the epicenter, and the only rule for the itinerary being that the destination has to be within 500 miles of the I-70 I-71 split in the middle of Columbus. I could have a lot of fun with that. Visit the Midwest, New England and a good portion of the South that nobody ever bothers to see. I mean, since when has anyone said much about tourism in Cincinnati (which actually is a very cool historical destination) or Detroit, which you can skip entirely, unless you’re into armed robbery and gang rape, with the exception of the Henry Ford Museum (which is technically in Dearborn) and even then, leave your valuables in Columbus. The Ford Museum is worth the drive and even worth the risk to one’s person in getting there. Otherwise I would pretty much give the entire state of Michigan a pass.

This is the Reagan Limo. I took this pic the last time I was at the Ford Museum- back in 2007.

Of course I have not (yet) made it to what might well be the holy grail of museums- the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. I’ve never been to Philadelphia. I can only hope it’s not as bad as Detroit. I simply have to get a.) enough scratch to make the trip, and b.) I have to plan the logistics so that I can stay overnight somewhere because it’s a 12 hour drive each way.

Nothing says cool like old preserved medical anomalies.

Oversight at the BMV, Avoiding Attracting the Attention of Law Enforcement, and “Sexy Time”

January 25, 2012Tonya Lanthron 5 Comments

Just when you thought you’d seen it all, it appears that my Mom, or someone else at the same level of naiveté, got a job at the BMV approving vanity plates. For some reason the Central Ohio area is notorious for not only the number of but the rather “saucy” variety of vanity plates one sees every day. I’ve seen some good ones, but this one takes the prize. I don’t think that the registered owner of this vehicle was talking about Boysenberry Jam. (the quality of this video isn’t the greatest, and the scene I’m talking about begins at 3:59- Granny and her boysenberry jam…right…but it’s funny as hell.) I can’t see any clean reference that would go with these plates. They remind me of Borat and the “sexy time” reference. Now I’m stuck with the Borat in his singlet bathing suit thing image in my head.

Not such a sexy time after all, eh?

I’ve never really been tempted by the whole vanity plate thing. In my opinion the only thing that having a vanity plate does for you is help to make you cop bait, and I strive not to attract the attention of law enforcement. I really don’t want my vehicle to be memorable or easily identifiable. Granted, no one is ever going to mistake a Yaris sedan for a race car, and I’m enjoying the bland anonymity that is one of the perks of middle age. When I was a young punk I really would have enjoyed having my VW Rabbits painted hot pink, but Dad never let me do that. I did enjoy- much to Dad’s disdain- affixing every bumper sticker I could find to my distressed old Subaru.

I don’t think pithy pro-conservative, pro-America tidbits on bumper stickers would raise a cop’s eyebrow any more than an FOP booster sticker would, so I have no qualms about displaying my political commentary for all to see.

One of the nice things about cougardom is that the world at large regards you as harmless. I can sit back and stare at the young stud muffins as much as I want and fantasize about their hot bods with impunity and no one’s the wiser. I blend right into the wall. That reminds me how necessary a pool membership just might be this year. I enjoyed the cougar pool last summer, but the scenery wasn’t exactly stunning. Perhaps I will compromise and take a couple of day trips to the lake, or to the indoor waterpark, which I have been meaning to do and haven’t yet. There is something to be said for going down a waterslide in the middle of winter.

Last night I had to take poor Lilo back to the Vet for her stinking allergies. I know, she’s part Chow and they are horribly prone to skin allergies, but I’ve tried everything I know to keep her cleared up. The dogs’ food is corn free. They are clean and don’t have fleas and crud on them. It’s winter so there’s no pollen. The only thing I can think of now that could be bothering her is cigarette smoke. The other two dogs beat feet when Jerry lights up, but Lilo doesn’t leave the room. So Lilo is stuck with another month’s worth of Keflex (so she doesn’t get another inner ear infection) and prednisone to clear up her ass crusties and keep her from gnawing her hide to pieces. The only good thing about all the pills is that Lilo (also known as “Lilo the Inhaler,” the “Food Ho,” or just plain “Ho,”) is easy to pill. She will take anything if it’s sitting on top of a spoonful of cottage cheese, or mashed potatoes, or gravy, or ice cream, whatever, as long as it’s food. Sheena is the same way about meds- it’s as easy as sticking a pill in or on a bite of anything she likes to eat. Clara is exactly the opposite. She will find and spit out the pill regardless of what you try to put it in- even peanut butter. By the time Clara finished the 30 day course of Keflex she had to have when she was hit by a car and had the seroma where the skin over her armpit was torn open, I was burying pills inside a melty warm cheese sandwich to get her to take them. I never thought dogs were picky eaters until I got Clara. Unlike most dogs, she actually inspects and chews her food. I wonder if all Belgian Malinois are that funky about food. Ironically, she’s not nearly as fussy about sticking her nose in our friends’ crotches (her nose is right at about crotch level on an average sized person) or up the other dogs’ butts. But she is a dog after all.

It’s hard to believe that my granddaughter’s arrival is merely days away. If I had to speculate I would say give it a week or two. I think she will be a bit early, but who knows? The baby shower is Sunday. I have a boatload of stuff for her. I wish they would come up with a name for her, or I might just have to do it. I don’t think they will appreciate me calling their little girl “Princess” for very long.

The End of the World According to elysianhunter, aka: the Bucket List Condensed

May 20, 2011Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

Well, well, our friends the modern-day Millerites are here to tell us that the End of the World is upon us tomorrow, so I better get busy on that bucket list. May as well go out on a limb and check out the street fair on Morse Rd.! Go for a whirl on the “Ring of Fire.” Snarf down greasy sausage and funnel cakes and chili-cheese fries, cholesterol and trans fat be damned! Of course the odds of the date setters being right are pretty slim, so I think I will follow that self preservation instinct and stay away from the street fair. If the cholesterol and trans fats from the greasy fair food or the hazards of riding on or standing near shoddily assembled rides that date back to the 1960’s don’t kill you, the drive-by shooters likely will in that area.

I’ve never been terribly impressed by armchair eschatology. End of the world prognostications have been going on since the beginning of time. I’ve come to the conclusion that regardless of when the world ends nothing I’m going to do will change the timing. So if it’s The End across the board, or just my personal end, it really doesn’t matter. The number one rule of humanity is that death is inevitable. Physical death is part of the package. Whether I expire all by myself, or in a blaze of glory with the rest of the world, is immaterial at that point.

It smacks of hubris to claim you know the day and time the world’s going to end when Jesus Himself said He didn’t know.

(Jesus said:) “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Matthew 24:36 (NIV)

I really don’t think it’s a good idea to claim you know more than Jesus does. Just saying.

I asked Clara her opinion, and all I got from her was her WTF glare. Malinois are probably one of the most intelligent dog breeds, but she’s still a dog. She licks her own butt- and she’s not above crotch sniffing, but I will give her credit for knowing her limitations.

Movies with the apocalyptic theme are ever-popular, whether they be based on the 2012 Mayan calendar hoo-hah, deadly plagues, alien invasions, or asteroids. That genre is getting a bit tired, although I did enjoy the book version of The Stand. Personally, if I want to be scared by a movie, give me an old ’80’s slasher, or dig out the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Tomorrow I am not going to do anything differently. I need to take Sheena to the Vet (not looking forward to that) and get Steve-o’s tags for his dune buggy (the BMV on a Saturday- joy!) Then my plan is to come back home, do more laundry, and possibly watch the Journey Live in Houston 1981 DVD and crank it up really loud because Jerry won’t be home.

If the world would happen to end and the last thing I see is Steve Perry in 1981, at least it would end on a pleasant visual for me.

Just watching the wheels go ’round. I wish I could. At least if the merry-go-round collapses nobody should go airborne.

Here lately I have been busier than I care to be at work. I like being busy and I like the overtime, but I really don’t like coming in on Sundays. Thing is, if I don’t get something accomplished over the weekend I will be so buried by Monday that I will never catch up.

If there is a Monday (he-he.)

Murphy’s Law will almost guarantee it. The world won’t end at a convenient time, and the apocalypse won’t be some sort of deus ex machina that will magically aspirate my carcass out of the latest shit pit. If the End comes during my lifetime, Murphy’s Law would dictate that I would be in the middle of something either pleasurable or interesting.

Examples:

Coming and going at the same time (as if I would be lucky enough to get lucky…)

The world ends suddenly upon receipt of the winning $5,000 Target gift card up for grabs in the sweepstakes I enter probably three times a week.

The world ends suddenly upon the discovery of an affordable and effective method to permanently remove superfluous body hair.

The Apocalypse will likely not occur when I’m already being tortured and sudden death would be a preferable option.

I can assume the End will not commence whilst I am:

At the BMV

At the Dr.’s office

Enduring one of Jerry’s drunk and stupid late night rampages

When I’m getting chewed out (deserved or undeserved)

No deus ex machina for me.

BTW- don’t cancel your plans for Memorial Day Weekend just yet.

Lilo is watching you.

Funky Wiring Has Its Advantages, The Un-Birthday, and Please Practice “Safe Text”

March 1, 2011Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I have to laugh. As I was reviewing my birthday request list , I noted to my dismay that I didn’t even get the 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper. No cougar cruise, no waterpark fun day, no three pack of Hanes Her Way hi-cut granny panties, no gas card, but it doesn’t surprise me. My oldest sister, the childhood sadist, sent me a redneck themed card, because she gets such a hoot out of the fact that I married into the Most Redneck Family Ever. Apparently she doesn’t understand that when you go fishing without appropriate bait you catch whatever bottom feeder the hook manages to snag. At least she was lucky enough to look good from the neck down and was able to land a decent man. Ironically, she treats him like shit. It doesn’t surprise me. Apparently in relationships someone has to be the shitter and someone has to be the shittee. I know all about #2- literally.

Mom didn’t get me as woefully inappropriate a gift as the cookie cutters. I still don’t get why anyone would think a diabetic would want cookie cutters. Why not the whole cake decorating kit and the candy thermometer too while you’re at it? Mom got me a particularly nice pair of Isotoner driving gloves that actually fit my big meaty man-hands- which is surprising as it is difficult for me to find womens’ gloves that fit. That is a useful gift. I did get a phone call from my illustrious offspring, to remind me that February is a short month and he needed his rent money. Although he and Jerry share no DNA whatsoever, they are both blissfully ignorant of dates. Unless of course, there is money involved.

Dad finally remembered that he forgot my birthday last night (28th) and asked me (in all seriousness) how I liked being 44. I reminded him that I’m only 42. Apparently he is 23 years older than me and more senile than I am. Now I see what I have to look forward to. Mom at least knew she would probably forget and gave me the gloves the last time I was up there.

I happened upon a most amusing website today which really cracked me up. Steve-o and his friends communicate almost exclusively through texting. Steve-o is a particularly poor speller. Most technicians are dismal spellers and poor writers- but as a trade-off, they generally have mathematical and spatial skills that far surpass mine. It was always fun to interview techs, if only to critique the fashion and hair faux pas. GQ, these guys ain’t. I should have actually requested them to fill out their resumes using crayons and a Hello Kitty coloring book just to make reading them more entertaining. I almost always ignored their resumes, took face to face interviews with a grain of salt, and hired techs off of whatever good recommendations I could find from others in the business, combined with whether or not they could pass a BMV check. It worked better for me that way.

This being said, I have to laugh at those who use auto-complete or other spell-check features on phones. Those features for the lazy or inattentive generally suck- but they suck in occasionally hilarious ways. Damn You Auto Correct is a nice little site where people post all the ridiculous ways that “smart” phones fill in the blanks.

My funky wiring gives me a few advantages- such as speed-reading and an uncanny ability to spell correctly almost all of the time. I don’t use auto-complete or spell-checks because I generally don’t need them. If I really am in doubt over the spelling of a word I will usually verify it on Merriam-Webster’s site, because I truly want to be correct. I wouldn’t generally refer to myself as a spelling and grammar Nazi, but I do try to maintain a high personal standard. The irony of the auto-complete and spell-check programs is that to use them effectively one has to have some sort of idea of the correct spelling or usage, otherwise one may end up with an entirely different meaning to one’s message. Therein lies the humor.

I think double-entendre to be the most hilarious of the forms of humor. The more off-color the reference the funnier I find it, even though it may be puerile and sophomoric. Everyone needs a hobby, and the more things I can find to laugh at, in the depths of my pathetic life, the better.

I have to wonder, as I troll the Damn You Auto Correct site, what the hell are the people who program the auto-correct and/or spell-check software thinking? Is English their first language? Or do they have as dark a sense of humor as I do? I’d like to think the latter. We geeks are masters at passive-aggressive revenge, and what better way to exact passive-aggressive revenge on neurotypical society than to humiliate those who struggle with the written word? Why not transform their attempt to spell “penne” (as in pasta) to “penis?” Who wouldn’t want to be invited over for “Salad with Vinagrette and Penis?” I’d make a special trip for that.

Does anyone ever proofread their texts, even a little? Or do you just hit “send” with wanton glee?

How about a little “safe text?” Or not. It’s funny when it gets screwed up!

A Peaceful, Easy Birthday Everyone Forgot, and I Like It That Way

February 26, 2011Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

At my age it is a lovely thing when everyone forgets your birthday. Jerry can’t remember his own birthday without either straining to read the fine print on his driver’s license, or by checking with the BMV, so I forgive him for that. His family doesn’t bother to recognize birthdays, likely for two good reasons. His Dad and his Dad’s fourteen other siblings were born at home, deep in the hollers of rural WV, and none of them have birth certificates. The date- and year- listed as his Dad’s birthday on his Dad’s driver’s license is likely not his Dad’s actual birthday, but someone’s best guess. Since his Dad got a social security card and driver’s license long before you had to have a birth certificate to acquire either, his Dad is grandfathered in.

I wonder if he would be able to get a passport? If he were really pressed could he prove he is an American citizen? Our friend Bob is an American citizen but he was born in London (his Dad was American but his Mom is English) and his birth certificate is in London. Bob can’t get a copy of his birth certificate unless he goes to London to get it, but you can’t go to the UK without a passport. Thankfully the Social Security people recognized his honorable discharge from the Marines as proof of citizenship. Bob still can’t get a passport though, because when he tried he was told that one has to have a certified copy of one’s birth certificate. Then again, I highly doubt that Jerry’s Dad would really need a passport for anything, unless they make it mandatory to have a passport to cross the border from WV back to Ohio. The birth certificate requirement to acquire a passport is probably a blessing in disguise to keep old rednecks from traveling abroad and perpetuating the “Ugly American” stereotype. Then again, maybe our foreign friends have never tried getting rid of hemorrhoids by soaking them in kerosene.

When you have so many family members that every day is someone’s birthday or so it seems, it’s a lot harder to remember every one and a lot harder to afford to buy gifts for every one. So, I can see where Jerry gets the idea to simplify his life and just celebrate all his family’s birthdays every day with a 12 pack of Natties and a couple of packs of smokes.

I do find it entertaining how some people remember my birthday sometime in the middle of March and then send sheepy, belated wishes. It’s OK to forget. I don’t really want to be reminded that I’m one day closer to death anyway.

Over time one gets a new appreciation for bodily functions functioning as they should.

Admittedly not everyone forgot my birthday. The BMV doesn’t forget. I renewed my vehicle registration last week. No way do I want to drive around in the Central Ohio suburb with the largest number of cops per capita with an expired tag. I don’t even remotely want to give law enforcement any reason to approach me for anything. Cops make me nervous. My Facebook friends remembered, because your friends get reminders automatically. I appreciate everyone who wrote on my wall today. My friends from my church group remembered for the same reason- all of our birthdays are on the contact sheet. But my family all forgot, which is funny as hell. Steve-o remembered to call- to remind me he needs money. Jerry acknowledged me coming back after I’d gone in to work this morning with a rousing, “Where’s my breakfast, woman?” So the world remains the same.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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