Menopause Means

You will saves tons of money. Like on heat for instance. Who - me? Cold? Not at all.

Tom is such a trooper. He doesn't mind sleeping with the windows open and a fan on when temps are well below freezing. He just disappears under the pile of quilts on his side of the bed. He did ask for some flannel lined jeans for Christmas however. And my daughter is beginning her four months of martyrdom - December, January, February & March. Wimp.

I just thought I'd give all you youthful babes an update from the front, is all. Carry on. *fans self*

Fat Squirrels & Christmas Stuff

Every fall my squirrels chub out in preparation for winter. This year must have been a very good year for squirrels because my guys are seriously overweight. They can barely climb the trees - forget that scampering crap. The black and gray ones are the fattest but even the little reds are unusually rotund.

You can tell I live in the sticks, eh? Most of you guys have to worry about holiday (and everyday) Road Rage, where to park, where to get coffee, weird co-workers, bossy bosses. Me? I just fire up my home office computer, do my little part-time job stuff and watch the cats watch the squirrels.

Lately I have been getting about 2 deliveries per day - USPS, UPS, FedEx, DSL, Speedy. They all know where I am. I rarely order stuff with a delivery charge (usually only from eBay) but when I start wrapping my gifts later today *I* will have to pony up for delivery. Delivery services? A growth industry.

The first stuff I wrap is for my sister in Canada since it can take for.ever. for packages to arrive in Canada. Then I send to my grandson in NY so he has a few weeks to shake boxes, wonder what is in them, and coincidently think about how his grandma loves him. For my sister in Hawaii I got an art history book she really wanted. Actually it's a book that has been out-of-print since 1997 and I found the only copy available on the internet after hitting my search engines every day for about a month. There was no free shipping, so I had it sent directly to her and told her to put a bow on it herself! I only felt slightly Grinchy. My story is that I wanted to be sure she got it in time and she is just so happy to have the book that she doesn't care.

How many gifts do you send to out-of-town places?

White Food Good {/Larry}

Is there any food more perfect than sliced turkey breast with mayo on mooshy white bread? I think not. White food perfection. And? Breakfast.

The Joy of Cooking

Eludes me just now.

Stuffing. Poptarts. What's the difference, really?
Bah humbug.

Happy Pie Day to You

And Happy Turkey Day tomorrow.

Today I will make 2 pumpkin pies and one strawberry pie. This is three of the approximately five pies I make each year. We put Cool Whip on top. *waves to Coco*

OW ! OW ! OW !!! All done.

*drops smoking credit card into a glass of ice-water*

It's official. I have finished my Christmas shopping before Black Friday! You may commence envying me.

Hide The Banana !

I'm playing "hide the banana" all by myself today. I'll be playing all day long.

Tom likes green bananas. He will peel and eat them while the skin is still mostly greenish and crunchy - ewww! I like them when the skin is all yellow and mostly covered with itty-bitty freckles. Which means Tom eats most of the bananas before I am willing to touch them, so I always have to hide the last banana or two. He likes green-center, crunchy tomatoes too - ick. And don't even get me started on pears.

So I have a simple question. (And I hope to prove to Tom that he is part of a very small minority here.) Do you eat fruit before it is ripe?

*secret happy dance*

I think my DD is breaking up with her BF. Hallelujah! He's a nice enough kid, and I have always been friendly to him, but he is going. nowhere. fast. This kid graduated high school in 2002. Since then he has attended (in 2004) one quarter's worth of community college. He has not been able to find a job, nor does he have a driver's license. He just hangs out and plays computer games. His mom gives him small amounts of cash for "work" he does around the house. It's sad really because I don't think he even realizes that he is in a crisis - which he is as far as I am concerned. He's just having "a run of bad luck" job-wise. Zheesh, convicted felons and illegal immigrants can find jobs left and right! But this kid? Nothing.

Someone or something needs to kick him in the ass real soon, and it can't be me. Maybe losing a beautiful girlfriend will do it.

Shoot Me Now!

I am shopping on eBay.

Did you know that if you look for Christmas Cow in collectibles (or something like that) you get 138 hits? My favorite is Moodolph.



Yes, this is a cow with antlers, a red nose and (more apparent in other pics on the site) a nipple-less udder. I may have to bid on it just so I can keep laughing.

Mr. Swami's First Blog Post

Is not here. Monday night I was watching TV and Mr. Swami was on the computer. Suddenly he called out "I posted on a blog!!!"

"What!?!" I cried. "Which one?"

Silly me. He posted on some stupid financial wizards' board hosted by Yahoo, for "serious" discussion only - no ulterior motives, no spammers, no personal chatter of any kind. How dull is that?

So I asked him, "What's your name?" When he told me I thought "uh-oh." He used a name that is part of an RL email address. I told him he shouldn't use that name because people could easily find out who he really is. He got kind of frustrated and said "How was I supposed to know that !?!" And then he got really frustrated when I told him everyone knows that.

So I logged on, did a quick Yahoo search of his chosen board name and in less than 2 seconds pulled up a page of links to a few business websites that he is included on (and two product reviews he did for Amazon.com, lol.) The top link, of course, included his photo, full name, home address & phone, and place of business. Boy was he stunned!

So we changed his name right away.

Usually for all things computer related he has the deep tech skills and I am just a monkey on a keyboard. so it was fun to finally show him up in a computer-related way.

Good Neighbour Sam

I have such a lovely husband.

One of Mr. Swami's friends recently bought a loft condominium in an area of the city that is just now developing a bunch of loft space for homes. It's quite lovely, with a mix of retail and entertainment venues in the lower floors. One of these venues turned out to be a nightclub so the friend had a few noise issues and the odd drunken street argument below her windows, but nothing too extreme.

What drove the friend nuts was the police. Turns out, this was a gay nightclub and many nights at about 2 or 3 in the morning a patrol car would repeatedly drive by, turn on their loudspeaker and taunt "here pussy pussy pussy." Which woke this friend up and annoyed the heck out of her. Mostly they 'called for' pussy, sometimes for queers.

So friend was trying to figure out how to stop this loudspeaker wake-up call. She worried about reporting the cops to the cops, and her other friends all agreed that if she did that then the end result would likely be that if she ever had an emergency the cops would take their own sweet time getting there, and probably stop for coffee on the way too. Cops are often petty that way. For the same reason, other loft owners did not want to complain.

So she was trying to figure out what to do. Then she mentioned the problem to Mr. Swami. Turns out, Mr. Swami is pretty good friends with the retired police chief of a neighboring suburb. So Mr. Swami casually mentioned the on-going stupidity to the retired chief - and within a day or two the cat-calling cops cut it out. Completely. Because nothing annoys cops more than knowing they are a laughingstock to cops in other cities. And it was all done with the complaining parties staying unknown to the stupid cops.

The stupid cops are probably still driving by and still thinking their private anti-gay thoughts - but at least they are not broadcasting their prejudice to the entire city. (Did I mention that the city in question is the capital of Minnesota?)

I like my Mr. Swami.

My People Are A Hearty People

Only in Minnesota can you drive by a Dairy Queen at 8:30 p.m. on a Saturday night in November, when the temperature is a cool 27' (with blustery wind) and find five people standing in line at the take-out window, waiting to order their Frozen Treat.

Well, maybe in East Bumfuck, Quebec - but not in many other places.

Wow.

I just got served breakfast in bed. How sweet is that?

Sausage Biscuit

This is one of the few items on McDonald's menu that I like. I know, I know, the biscuit is mooshy and greasy feeling; the sausage is American generic. But I like 'em!

Speaking of things Mc, I just got back from my annual physical exam. Since my doc was booked up until the second coming I wound up seeing my son's doctor who is absolutely gorgeous. Really. He makes Doctor McDreamy look like Doctor McOrdinary. Really. He McBlows me away! Sadly, the whole time I was naked and he was fingering me I was just another old woman to him. I hate being old.

Anyway, because I was on a 12+ hour fast for the lab tests I felt like I deserved a a McTreat - thus the McD's sausage biscuit.

He's like 6 ft tall, with curly black hair, nice eyes, great shoulders. Doctor McLuscious maybe?

I Need A Ruling Here.

I have a $5.00 bet with Mr. Swami that the price of gas would go up by at least 20 cents within 24 hours of the polls' closing.

Today, on my way home from voting I noticed that gas had just jumped 24 cents at SA ($2.05 yesterday afternoon, $2.29 this afternoon.) At first I thought - yay! - I win. Then I thought, have I lost on a technicality? Because the freakin' polls are still open! (They will close at 8 p.m.)

My current theory is that since I didn't specify before or after, just said "within", that I have won the bet. Mr. Swami will probably try to claim that 'after' was implied when I said 'within', because that is intuitively correct and besides he hates to lose a bet.

Which is it?
I think I won.

My 'Do' List This Week

1. finish 90% of my christmas shopping.

That's it. I have already missed the November 1st Raising of the Toy Store Prices (which goes unnoticed because everyone is in a chocolate coma at that time.) I have one pile of flagged catalogs with stuff to order online, one pile of flagged store fliers to go show up & buy, and two favorite import shops to cruise through just in case.

That Was Wierd. & I Heart Mongolian Barbeque

Okay, when I republished my blog just now it totally wiped out my Mongloian BBQ entry. I actually still had this in Word because the first time I tried to post it Blogger gave me some kind of error message and said to copy it and try posting later - the mystical software engineers were supposedly notified & everything. Fifteen minutes later it seemed to post fine from Word. I don't understand Blogger.

---original entry from Friday night---

Especially the spice your own stir fry part!

Tom hates to go out on Friday nights because a work week usually has him whipped and all he wants to do is put his feet up for a couple of hours. So last night we met up at the Mongolian BBQ in Stillwater & got take-out, which they sell by the pound - load your take-out container. We got 3 empty containers at the register & headed to the food.

First, I head for the BBQ grill where you pick out the sliced raw meats and assorted veggies & stuff you want stir-fried. I pass on the white meat chicken, getting mostly dark meat chicken with a little pork & beef and lots of shrimp. I get lots of fresh noodles because I love their flavor after they're cooked in "my" sauce. I pass on the mushrooms but add bean sprouts, celery, sliced tomatoes, carrots and lots of sliced onion. For my sauce pick the "Mongolian" combination but change it up a bit - so 2 ladles of Mongolian sauce, about 1/2 ladle sesame oil, 1 ladle wine sauce, a full ladle of chopped garlic (pieces - no juice), one light ladle of ginger sauce, a full ladle of chopped cilantro and sprinkle on fresh black pepper & some sesame seeds. No black bean sauce. Then the nice guy with 3 ft chopsticks cooks it all together on his super-hot flat grill.

After he swoops my cooked entree off the grill I head to the giant Chinese/Mongolian Buffet they have on the side. This is a very high quality table! I put a bunch of Pepper Chicken on my plate and pick good-looking vegetables from here & there. By this time my take-out container is full. And Tom has done his own thing - more pork and less spice; he adds deep-fried stuff from the buffet table.

In our third container we put the stuff we don't want to get 'juiced' in transit. Tom picks out wontons; I always get my sesame dumplings. I don't know what they are actually called but they are so delicious!

Then we rush home and put the food on our own china and eat. So yummy! And too much food of course, we only put half on the plate. So today? Microwaved Mongolian for dinner!!! Another full dish too.

The best part of this is the price. Remember they sell by the pound. For $20.85 total Tom and I get 2 delicious meals each - exactly the way we want them.

So, who wants Mongolian Barbeque? I'm buying.

What This Country Needs

What this country needs is a way for you to vote early, like the day after the parties announce their tickets. Then, after you vote your postal address and Dish or cable account number are notified. Maybe you can get your hand stamped too. I dunno.

Then you are officially out of the process. You will not have to throw away $8 - $10 worth of glossy political mailings every freaking day. Instead of listening to political candidates (& their spokespeople) endlessly vomit on the airways about how their opponent is a lying anti-Christ who can't wait to get elected so he/she can stand on the steps of the Capitol eating live puppies while accepting blow jobs and back rubs from assorted lobbyists, corporate money-suckers, gay activists and baby-killers -- instead of that your TV will show clips of kittens playing and children creating stuff in art class.

That's how I want to reform the voting process.

I Am Off to Tamarack Mall

To buy some stuff I decided I need. My shopping list: (Tom stop reading now)

--Epicurean Cutting Board, $19.99
--Oneida Roaster, $19.99 less $10 rebate = $9.99
--Roast & Stuff Turkey Lifter $19.99
--Stuffing Cage $9.99 (This looks so cool! You put up to 6 lbs of stuffing into this cage, and then stick the cage into the bird's cavity so it can cook inside the bird they way stuffing ought to. Then, you can just pull the whole shebang out by the handle, open it up and dump it into a serving dish. No mess, no fuss.)
--2 gravy boats $9.99 less $5 rebate = $4.99. (I don't own a gravy boat, so underpriveleged am I.)
--5 Qt Covered Chef Pan $19.99 less $10 rebate = $9.99. The handle broke off the lid of my dutch oven. I will buy this item only if the cover will fit my dutch oven too.)
--Wilton 3-piece cookie sheet set $14.99 (another maybe. I will have to look at them and decide.)

I have been cooking my turkeys in an ancient blue enameled turkey roaster that I bought at a garage sale for, I dunno - maybe 50 cents in 1980. I think I am due for an upgrade, no?

I have decided to get a regular turkey this year - not a high-end, all-natural, free-range, coddled-and-sung-to from birth, sold-by-reservation-only, $3.99/lb gourmet bird. So I'm not really spending any extra money. I'm just redistributing it. /rationalization

The Cat Won't Go Out.

Miss pussy-pants was born wearing a fur coat, but evidently she is too delicate to actually go outside when temps are below 30'. Instead, she is going to stay inside and destroy the house, torment me play with me. This includes playing on the computer keyboard.

Anyone want a hyperactive, slightly brainless young cat?