Yay! Amazon Delivered!

I have a new Richard Bachman - Blaze - the first new Bachman since he died in the early 80s and became Stephen King. Way back in the early 80s I used to get off my bus (from work, not school lol) in front of Bridgeman's Pharmacy in Uptown Minneapolis. Every week I went inside hoping that they would have a new Bachman book in their paperback novel section.

I also got The Cold Moon by Jeffery Deaver. I love me a Lincoln Rhyme crime scene suspense book.

Then I also got a Panasonic Epiglide epilator. It say glide in italics right there on the box just so you know how smooth and soothing it will feel even though 50 powerful little microtweezers are grabbing away at you. Okay. Now I'm scared to use it. What if I can't take the pain?

I Got Nuttin Today

So I'm going to go hang out in your blog. See you there.

Swami <--- lazy today.

I Almost Missed Top Chef!

Tom had to watch Larry King interview Rome Ramada (or Bridgit Budgetel, I haven't decided which name I like better for that skank.) No problem, I did random things and tried to ignore it. Then right after the interview CNN amassed all their A-list commentators (I hate that made up word) to analyse whatever it was she said.

About 9:05 I thought - wait - I should be watching something. TOP CHEF!!! So I flipped the channel to BRAVO in a panic and whew! They were just starting the Quickfire Challenge.

Can you imagine if I had missed a quality offering like Top Chef because of Pari... I mean Rome?

French Press

After talking about it for a couple of years I finally bought Tom a French Press coffee maker. (I usually drink instant coffee in the morning but Tom doesn't care for instant.) Anyway, I had my first cup of pressed coffee this morning. Tres good! But - whoa - I am not used to such strong stuff. Evidently when you drink French Press coffee you can tap dance and type at the same time! Who knew?

*tap, tap, tap*
*type, type, type*
It's strong stuff!

How do you prepare your morning coffee? Or do you always buy it? Or are you one of those cheerful types who can open both eyes and even converse without the benefit of caffeine?

Intake Day

No smart ass post today. This is about my real life.

Today is Intake Day for my DS with autism. He will start his Adult Day Program after the 4th of July, in a place just south of Minneapolis.

This is a place where the hard cases go - young adults who are just too much to handle for a typical structured workshop. While he is quite rational in an autismy kind of way, the DS is very opinionated and capable of sudden, random violence. On a fairly regular basis he will hit, pinch, kick, spit upon and knock down people. This makes him (and rightly so) a "hard case." (DS is 21 years old, 6'2", and has all his dad's champion athlete quickness and reflexes. He can be scary.)

This is the one place in the Twin cities that specializes in hard cases and openings are hard to get and on an as-needed-most basis. When we enquired about placing DS there for a day program they talked to his HS teachers (he graduated this month) and said 'yes' at once, lol. No hesitation.

I toured the facility in early April. Physically it is quite adequate. The staff is wonderful! And fearless, lol. For a kid like my DS the capabilities of the staff are everything. I think he will do well here.

So DS will spend his days (5 - 6 hours per day) putting together packets of flyers for a small community newspaper and working on basic job and social skills. And having lunch which is always his favorite part of the day. They will also have weekly outings just for a treat. Their goal is that one day he can move on to a sheltered workshop.

I'm not complaining here. I am glad this facility is available and they will accept DS into their program. It is very hard to find a good adult day program for a 6'2" 'hard case' who needs 24/7 supervision.

Squirrel Poop

Okay, I have been obsessing about squirrel poop all weekend. For the past 20 years I have lived in a pine forest. My property supports mabe 50 (?) squirrels. Saturday it occured to me that I had never seen squirrel poop and I had no idea what it looked like! See, if I had 50 rabbits living in my yard, I would see clear piles of rabbit poop. But the squirrels? Nothing.

Why are there no little piles of poop under the pine trees? Certain favored trees have a regular litter of pine cone bits underneath - clearly the squirrels are eating lots of roughage. Where does it go? Even in the winter, when we get a fresh coating of white snow it will remain unsullied by squirrel droppings, week after week.

How can this be? What if their poop is so cleverly camoflaged that I can't tell it's poop? Maybe all these years my children have been playing in piles of squirrel poop that looks like grass. Maybe we have sat on the ground and eaten cheese sandwich picnics right on top of squirrel poop disguised as pine needles! If it is that invisible and I have 50 squirrels in my backyard it seems inevitable that I have been living in a pile of poop all these years!

So this morning I started Googling squirrel poop. I found some images and also ran across this theory in Wiki's uncyclopedia:

"Due to a total lack of witnesses, scientists are led to believe that squirrel poop does not exist or rather, does not exist outside of the squirrels body. The theory states that magic causes waste to disappear as it meets the end of the large intestine. While most are convinced that after this stage it completely disappears, others believe that it could actually be teleported to either another dimension, or the ingredients bay of Slim Jim factories. UPDATE: Squirrel poop does exist. It looks like little pellets, much like a rabbit's, only a bit less firm and more brown. This was discovered when one of our operatives mistook some of the rodent droppings for chocolate candy (yuck!!!) Yet another mystery of the universe solved."

Now my main worry is: how much squirrel poop have my children eaten, thinking it was funny chocolate jelly beans?

GAH!!! Water In My Ear.

Somehow, while washing my hair this a.m. I managed to squirt water deep into my ear. I'm going nuts here! How do I get it out!?! I've shook for all I'm worth. I've laid down with that ear facing down so it could drain. I've made a little pointy probe with a kleenex and tried to roto-root it out. I'm walking around with my head tilted waaay right, which takes the pressure off a little, but it is still so annoying!

How do I get the frickin' water out? I'm going deaf in that ear!

Rebellious

Today? I did not make my bed.
*sullen, rebellious look*

I left a towel on the floor!
*spikes a closed fist at the sky*

I bad, I bad.

Then later today I am going to Target (without makeup) and buy whateverthefuck I want!

Nobody better mess with ME today.

Make Way for Prince Ali !

My talented grandson is just finishing his first year of dance lessons. His group, the six-year-olds are performing a number to the song BabyFace. (Which song, btw, he has requested to never again be played in his presence!)

Anyway, he is very excited because the older class (7 to 8 year-olds) decided to dance to a medley of songs from Aladdin and they needed a good Prince Ali. So they asked him! Grandson has been an Aladdin freak since he was two years old so he is just thrilled to dance the part of Ali! I can't wait for DD to send some pics.

Grandson, who is very musically inclined really enjoyed his dance lessons. His dad is warming slowly to the idea of dance. Dad's theory is that dancing causes gayness in boys. *Rolls eyes* So dad spends a lot of time pointing out pretty girls as they drive around. *Re-rolls eyes*

Coco, I thought of you...

Coco I thought of you this morning while I was having sex with Tom. Why?! you might ask? (Because I am not in the habit of thinking about my internet friends while I am - you know.) But we had just seen Pirates of the Caribbean 3. If you have seen Pirates 2 or Pirates 3 you will remember that Davy Jones has a sort of 'beard' made up of multiple, writhing tentacles. So when Tom started mumbling about pirates while he warmed me up, and then said "so, shall we have tentacle sex?" I immediately giggled and thought of you. And Zombie too, of course. It was very weird.

So, did you or Zombie feel any shivers at about 5:20 this morning?

I Want a New Avatar

Who do I remind you of?

(Edited to add some photos I am considering)

Maggie Smith, B&W



Maggie Smith, color


Maggie Smith in Harry Potter drag, the outfit she wears when she watches young Harry (Coco's crush) through the keyhole as he dresses/undresses.




The young Isabella Rossellini, because I think she is the most beautiful person who ever walked the earth. She didn't age as well as Maggie, though:



Margaret Mead, because I always wanted to be as smart as her:



And this nice horse because I really like horses:

Thrilled

I can't begin to tell you how thrilled the dh was to learn he had become an "international rallying point." If you all had been here, he'd have taken the bunch of you out for dinner & drinks!

Word.

1. Where is your cell phone?
purse

2. You're single/taken?
taken

3. Your hair?
acceptible

4. Your mother?
bodhisattva

5. Your father?
intelligences

6. Your favorite thing?
arts

7. Your dream last night?
weird

8. Your favorite drink?
raspberryicetea *waves to Nookie*

9. Your dream car?
Maybach62S

10. The room you're in?
home-office

11. Your ex?
irrelevant

12. Your fear?
loss

13. Where were you last night?
home

14. what you're not?
trendy

15. Muffins?
lemon-poppyseed

16. One of your wish list items?
time

17. The last thing you did?
coffee

18.What are you wearing?
casual

19. Your pet or pets?
felines

20. Your computer?
Gateway

21. Your life?
low-key

22. Your mood?
borderline

23. Missing some one?
achingly

24. Your car?
unwashed

25. Your work?
boring

26.Like someone?
love!

27. Your favorite color?
green

28. When is the last time you laughed real hard?
yesterday

29. Crush's first name?
Christopher?

30. Dream job?
author

Why I Will Never Live in Texas.

Too. Darn. Hot. It is supposed to hit 90 here today and I HATE heat! Hate it! All heat should stay in the south where it belongs and not bother us Northerners. /complaint #1

Also, today is Pizza Wednesday with my son. I believe he has selected Pizza Hut as our destination. *gag* I am no fan of pizza, and Pizza Hut's salad bar is a truly sucky afterthought. /complaint #2

On the bright side, today we can begin to drive on our newly blacktopped driveway. I am sick of parking in the grass and sneaking in through a side door. My house has six doors to the outside, did I ever mention that? I think the architect must have had entrapment issues or something. Really, there's only one downstairs room without a door - and it has a very tall, crank-out window that would let you step out of it onto the front steps.

Tippy Cat Puke

These were the signs awaiting me when I came downstairs this morning. Evidently the cat puked in the hallway last night and as always Tom was the first one downstairs. So he helpfully wrote Tippy Cat Puke on several 8 & 1/2 x 11 sheets of bright yellow paper and laid one sheet beside each little spot of puke, thus neatly delegating the puke pick up.

How is your week so far?

Happy Birthday Tom!!!

Happy Birthday to Tom - light of my life, love of my lifetime! You are - absolutely - the best man in the world !

My Sweetie grew up as the oldest boy in a family of 8 kids. This is the earliest pic we have of him: his first portrait, taken when he started school.


His family was totally, prayerfully Catholic and their life revolved around church. It was way too intense religious imo. Of the 8 kids only one is now a practising Catholic and all the Catholic-on-Catholic marriages ended in divorce.


The farm was pretty small and not very mechanized. As a boy and young man Tom worked his ass off when he wasn't in school. In school he was an outstanding football & basketball player, and earned top grades.


In college at Rutgers he majored in education. As a freshman they put him on the 7th football team (or something like that) but he wanted to compete so he joined Crew where he could be a starter. This is one of the few pics we have of him rowing. He rowed Stroke on the 8-man and 4-man varsity teams. In 1969 his team were the NCAA National Champions in the 4-Man Heavy division.


After a couple of days of practice teaching he decided that teaching was not for him and returned to school, in Madison this time - where he was a leader of the local hippie/yippies and grew this beard. There are many stories from this period but I have been sworn to secrecy on the ones he has told me, lol. Okay, I'll tell just one. His hippie group had an FBI informant (all hippie groups back then had one) who was always coming up with harebrained ideas for stupid stuff they could do. His most harebrained idea was that they should kidnap the Homecoming Queen at the big Homecoming football game, then make a political statement. Tom was supposed to run onto the field, throw her over his shoulder and then race off. A monumentally stupid plan. No one was going to do it of course, but I think they told the informant they would just to screw with his mind. FBI informant was the only one who showed up at the game, ready to rumble.


After about a year of hippiedom Tom cleaned up his act and went all Joe Cool. I think he did it for the "chicks" but he's not talking about that. At least to me he's not. Still, doesn't this pic make you miss the 70s?


When I met Tom he was a pin-striped CPA in wingtipped Florscheims. Crunchy conservative on the outside with a creamy, wild yahoo center. A totally delicious man! Every day with him is a brand-new adventure!

It's okay. I'm still alive.

Probably, when cleaning the base unit of your Krups electric teakettle with a wet sponge, you should unplug the darn thing first.

Swami <--- lucky once so far today!

And Another One

Evidently, when your child is being unschooled he has time to do educational stuff like march on the state capitol. See what a nice tree-hugging liberal my grandson is growing into? He designed a pretty nice sign too.

photo removed

In other news my son had his high school graduation last night. I don't have pictures down-loaded yet but he looked very handsome. Today I am taking him out for a pizza lunch, part of our continuing Wednesday Pizza summer lunch dates. (He eats pizza, I try to find anything else on the menu.)

Just One

One new photo of my grandson, at the Magic Wings Butterfly Conservancy.

photo removed

I think he went with his home-schooling & unschooling group. Isn't he a sweetheart? He was very patient and got a butterfly to sit on him twice!

40 Cloves and a Bird

This is the name of the dish my DD prepared for supper last night. She is learning to cook from the internet and TV shows and mostly experiments on her BF - but last night it was dinner for all.

The forty cloves in the title are 40 cloves of garlic. So a cut-up chicken tossed with 40 cloves of whole garlic, some fresh thyme, a little olive oil, salt & pepper - then slow roasted. It tasted pretty good. This was served with a BLT salad (which was delicious!), garlic-mashed, skin-on red potatoes, and a loaf of fresh garlic bread.

So today? I am feeling a bit garlicky. A lotta bit garlicky.

You know I am not usually a smoochy type of person. But today all that changes! Fresh garlic smooches for everyone!

*borrows Flip's roller skates*
*puckers up*
*races into blogland*

Update.

I have a bug bite inside my left ear and when I pick it, it bleeds.

Weird. {/update}