You lie, weather man

In my email: Carmelo McGuire wants to know if I'm, "Short on dough?" No, Carmelo, I'm good. I've got plenty of dough, and if I run short and need more, I've got flour in the pantry and can whip up a fresh batch. But thanks for asking.

So, the meteorologists on TV keep telling me that there's practically nothing in the air - a tish of mold, and today they said maybe a little ragweed, but nothing that should be a problem! So, why can't I breathe? I'm dyin' here.

For days now, my sinus passages have been swelling up and making me stupid. I went to a co-worker's baby shower yesterday and finally had to just excuse myself and leave because I realized I was just staring at her slack-jawed. I could hear everything, but my head felt like it weighed about 20 pounds and the pressure behind my face had paralyzed my speaking muscles.

I'm trying to bombard myself with what I can - Vitamin C, decongestant, Zyrtec, Neti-pot, Tylenol - but it seems to just barely keep my head above water. And I'm doing this weird double-sneezing. Like I can't sneeze just once. I sneeze twice in quick succession - the second one comes before I can catch my breath from the first one. That's never happened before.

So, SOMETHING is in the air. And I'd appreciate it if you (metereologists, readers, whoever) could get it out. It's unpleasant.

I'll buy a vowel.

Phone is still out. Word is that an AT&T repairman should be out today. After it's all up and running, I get to start making calls demanding a refund on my DSL and phone bill for all the days I've been out of service. That'll be so much fun. Big companies are always so willing to step up and do what's right.

So, Pat Sajak is my favorite celebrity today because he gets it. For those of you too lazy to read the editorial he wrote, he basically says that while a celebrity endorsement might be advantageous for a political candidate because of the publicity it brings, it should be completely useless to a voter in helping them determine who to vote for. Sajak says celebrities are "uniquely unqualified" to tell you who to vote for. He's so friggin' right. And the fact that he just said it out loud makes want to buy the man a beer.

That's what's called integrity folks. Sajak *is* a celebrity, and yet instead of trying to elevate himself/celebrities for his own ego-driven motives, he's being intellectually honest. He knows what the truth is, and he's saying it, even if it doesn't particularly do anything for his own status. And you know what? Doing that just elevated his status in my eyes.

Right on, Pat.

In my email...

The Tucker Sling wants to know: "Could your baby have acid reflux?" I don't think so.

No phone yet. AT&T repair guy is supposed to come today. I hope he's not expecting me to be there. I'm 99% sure whatever the problem is, it's outside the house, so presumably I don't need to be there. I guess if he can't resolve things outside, they'll make an appt to come out when I can be there so they can come check things inside. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. However, things rarely get resolved for me the first time and in the most convenient way. So, we shall see.

Sidenote to the problem of no phone: I just listed my car on Craigslist yesterday. And I put my home phone, banking on the home phone being up and running today. Which it isn't. I don't like handing out my cell phone number to the masses. So, one more reason this needs to be resolved. If you're in the market for a 2002 Cougar, though, lemme know. It just had a brake job!!

Oh, well...yeah

So, my boyfriend came over last night and we decided to tackle the DSL problem. Because we're problem solvers. Both of us. And between the two of us, this problem could be solved. What problem couldn't we solve, I ask you?

I searched until I found the paperwork for my DSL service, cleverly hidden in a box under my desk. I'm such a minx, hiding things from myself like that. It wasn't in the least annoying as f*ck looking everywhere for it - like in my files related to my computer.

We did the troubleshooting stuff. Nothing. No change. So, we re-launched the set-up CD, which is also not in the least annoying as f*ck what with the screen that launches being too small and the buttons you need to click on to advance through the set-up being located outside the viewable area and there being no way to scroll the page down. What could possibly be aggravating about that?

But we limped through the CD, doing our best. At a certain point, the instructions said that if you still didn't have a DSL signal, to call customer care. Boyfriend passed me the phone and exited the office at this point. Only one of us could talk to AT&T (I think they frown if you put them on speaker phone and have more than one person yelling at them at a time), and since I'm the one who knows the passwords and such for my computer (in theory, anyway), it made sense for me to take over. And yet...I am computer stupid, so this can lead nowhere good.

I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with the tech guy. He couldn't figure it out. The signal leading into the house was dead as a doornail. He'd have to pass me to a maintenance guy (I pictured a man with a drill and a blue shirt with his name embroidered on it, and I was unconvinced he'd be able to help me). He did.

Maintenance Guy and I talked a bit, then to do more trouble-shooting he thought we should check the filters on all my phone lines. I was to go to each phone, pick it up, and see if I had noticeable static on any of them. I actually only have two hard line telephones, so this didn't take long - particularly after I picked up the second one and noticed what I'd been too oblivious to notice when I picked up the first one. See, I was listening for static. There wasn't any on the first phone. Or the second. There wasn't any static...or...(wait for it)...a dial tone.

Yes, campers, my phone is out. According to my caller ID, and recollections by Boyfriend and me as to when I first noticed the DSL was out, my freakin' phone has been out FOR A WEEK and I only figured it out last night!! It's possible I may be more than "computer" stupid.

Turkey and football and tv, oh my!

Lots to catch up on, so I guess I'd better get to it!

Turkey Day. Had a great time with the fam. Lots of good food, and the cool weather was perfecto. It was rainy, which was less fun than just simple cold, but at least it felt like Thanksgiving, so I won't complain. I have discovered the best way to handle my portion of the Thanksgiving cooking, and that is to do it at my house the night before (depending on what I'm making of course), and then arrive with my stuff already cooked and ready to go. I don't have to enter the kitchen at all on the day of the actual feast. This is especially important at my mom's house where the kitchen was apparently built as a one-person operation.

Football. Football overall was enjoyable. However. The UT game was agony, and I don't quite now how I managed to watch through to the end. Colt, baby, you're going to have to step it up and be more of a leader. Receivers, one and all, you've got to catch the ball. That's all. You have to catch it. Defensive tackles, look at the name of your position. It involves two words, the most important of which is the second word. We're going to have to figure out what kind of tackling fuel you all need, because if this happens again next year, I'm going to have a stroke. Mack, figure it out, bud. I can't take this.

Volleyball. For those who don't know, the UT volleyball team clinched a share of the Big 12 title on Saturday night with a 3 and out match against K State. Well done, ladies!

Amazing Race. It's official. I'm rooting for the brother and sister team that held onto the lead this week and for the Goths. I like the Goths. I really do. It was awesome what Vixsen (sp?) said about looking around, even in the midst of a million-dollar race, and recognizing the need and kindness of the people around them. I'm rooting against the Barbies, and though I like Kris, I still want Ron to go away, so that's a team I can't root for. The rest all kind of run together for me right now. I did find the demeanor of the team that got eliminated really good. That girl has got herself a good man - I hope they make a go of it.

And I guess that's it for now! Sorry for being incommunicado during the holidays. My DSL is down at home, and when it comes to computer stuff, I'm about as handy as a sock, so I've got to try and figure out how to get it up and running again. Wish me luck! Or, you know...come over and fix it for me.

Pearl of wisdom

Insane week, so just not much time to post, but I saw this little gem today and just had to share:

"Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than in a Kia."

Amen.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Good god I'm tired.

I've always been up front about my love of sleep and my dependence on sleep to function. I've often said that one of my greatest fears of motherhood would be the endless months of interrupted and scarce sleep. I don't even want to know what kind of psychopath that would turn me into.

But I got enough sleep last night, and I still feel like I was up all night. I'm exhausted. I came down with a little sumpin' sumpin' this weekend, and I guess the combination of my body fighting the infection and the fact that I'm supposed to avoid caffeine (among other things, but it's the caffeine that's kicking my butt) for a few days until the antibiotics can really do some damage has just freakin' zapped me.

I swear you never realize how much energy you walk around with on a normal day until you don't have it one day. And it takes so little to just throw how your whole operation into disarray.

I accidentally cheated just a little at lunch. I bought some chocolate milk. It's the whole milk kind all loaded up with chocolatey goodness. It tastes like God made it himself and wanted me to have it so I'd feel better. If not for the 5,000 calories and fat grams (and the Borden label), I'd fight you if you told me differently. But I'd probably fall asleep in mid-punch, so that's not really much of a threat. In any case, I forgot until I'd drunken half of it that chocolate has caffeine in it. Bugger.

Oh well. Give me another 24 hours, and I think I'll be back up to snuff. What does that mean, anyway? Snuff is tobacco, right - like sniffing a cigarette? Why does "up to snuff" mean that you've met a standard? Is there some alternate meaning I'm not aware of? I guess I could Google it and find out. But I'm too tired to bother.

New phone

The cell phone switch has occurred!

As of yesterday, I am now a Verizon customer. I was with T-Mobile for about 8 years, and I really gave them a lot of time to iron out the issues I had with them, but apparently they didn't feel compelled to plug the iron in, so I have finally moved on.

For anyone who doesn't call me on my cell phone on a regular basis, here's the low-down on my T-Mobile experience. For several years, when I lived in an apartment, all was well. The number of minutes I got for the price I paid with T-Mobile was better than anyone else around. I had nationwide roaming, so I never paid long-distance, even when I traveled. And I was in a long-distance relationship for most of that time, so cell minutes and a nationwide "home area" was prime. I was satisfied.

Oh sure, I noticed when I would travel that I was frequently without service. Much of that travel was with my long-distance boyfriend who had Verizon, and he always seemed to have a signal, even when I didn't. But hey - I was home more than I traveled, so no big deal. And if I was in the mountains in New Mexico or something, I could use a calling card. Really - no big deal.

Then I moved into my house. When I first moved in, my phone had virtually no signal inside the house. I had to stand in the backyard, which was a dirt pit for the first 6 months, when I wanted enough signal to talk to anyone. Did I mention I moved into my house in December? You try standing outside in January for any length of time and see how satisfying your phone calls are.

Suddenly, though, after the first 6 months, I had a full signal. Voila! Okay, good. That's overwith. I had that fine signal for about a year. And then, as suddenly as it appeared, it went away. Poof! No more signal. I called T-Mobile - asked what was going on, what could we do? Oh, they had new towers coming online - sometime in the next 6 months! All would be well again! And in the meantime, they'd give me extra minutes! "But I can't use the ones I have now. You seem to be missing the point - I can't use the phone when I'm home."

They were not to be swayed, though. After all, it costs them nothing to offer me minutes they know I can't use. The seeds of discontent were now officially planted. I waited 6 months. I never used the extra minutes. I never got a new signal.

Why, you must be asking, did I wait, then, another 3 years to switch? Laziness - pure and simple. I did try upgrading my phone about a year and a half ago. Maybe a better unit would solve the problem, they told me. They lied. The new phone did nothing to solve it and just locked me into another year with them.

That year was up at the end of March. Unfortunately, I was planning on quitting my job at that time and didn't want to obligate myself to any new bills. I could go month-to-month with TM until I was sure I'd settled somewhere, and then I could get a new phone and new service. And that's what finally happened.

After a few months of not being sure about my new job, things finally settled down, and I decided I was ready to commit to a new contract with a new company. So, Verizon it is! I kept my old phone number, so no need to learn a new number. I'll pay about $10 more with my new plan, but I get more bells and whistles and my new phone rocks the free world. This is it. Mine is black. It's not one of the free phones, but I love it. I may decide to have its babies. You never know about me.

More evidence of the decline

Santas in Sydney, Australia have been encouraged not to say "ho, ho, ho" because it might offend women.

I don't even know how to resp-...I mean what do you say to-...it's just so...are you kid-...I have to go lie down...

To lawyer up or not to lawyer up? That is the question.

So, the latest in my saga with traffic tickets is I got a letter in the mail the other day from a lawyer here in town who wants to help me with the speeding ticket I got a couple of weeks ago (me personally - it says he trolls Austin Municipal Court dockets looking for people with tickets, but I think he saw my ticket pop up and understood immediately the injustice that's been perpetrated upon me in recent months by Austin P.D. and felt moved to offer his assistance in a personal and direct way).

This guy says that if I pay him to handle it, I basically don't have to do anything. I don't have to go to court and may not even have to go to his office. Presumably I just write a check and let him do everything.

Normally, I might ask why I should pay a lawyer to handle it when I could fight the battle myself for free. BUT I have a couple of hurdles with that. First, my appearance date is Nov. 30 - that's the deadline for either paying the fine or requesting a court date. Preumably, if I request a court date to fight the ticket, that date would be set for December. My employer isn't terribly generous with time off, and I'm already scheduled to take a bunch of hours off in December, so the prospect of requesting even more hours to sit in court isn't terribly appealing.

Second, while I feel there are arguments to be made in my case, I don't know which ones would be most effective - I haven't had a speeding ticket in about 5 years, so I'm a little rusty with the whole process. I don't want to go in and try to argue the thing and make things worse. Traffic tickets are what this guy does all day everyday. So, why not let him have a crack at it?

Yes, it would cost me to have him handle it (I'm not sure how much yet - I haven't talked to him yet). But it'll also cost me if the ticket goes on my record. Tickets raise your insurance. I'm about to buy a new car, which will raise my insurance as it is, so the last thing I need is something to jack it up even more. I might be money ahead to pay this guy and save the hit on my insurance.

So, I'm going to talk to the guy and see how it works, and I'll let you know if I decide to use him and how it all turns out. If anyone has any experience letting a lawyer take care of their ticket for them, I'd love to hear how it worked out for you.

An idea for Thanksgiving.

If they ever make a sequel to Office Space, they need to include something about the obligatory Thanksgiving meal. Every office I've worked in does some kind of Thanksgiving feast for the employees. Sometimes, the company pays (always nice). Sometimes it's potluck (the company usually supplies the bird). And sometimes they cater it and expect you to pay to participate (give me a break).

The set-up can be more or less annoying, but the real problem isn't how they arrange it. It's the fact of it. It's nice that they want to do something for the employees. It is, and I appreciate it. But these company Thanksgiving meals are always held within two weeks, and usually a mere week, of the real Thanksgiving. And they are *always* a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

For those of you not connecting the dots, that means that a week, sometimes only days, before I'm going to eat a full-on Thanksgiving meal with my family, on the actual holiday, I'm stuck eating that EXACT SAME FOOD, food you're only supposed to be diving into once a year, with my co-workers. And it's highly likely that much of it won't even be as good as what I'm going to get with my family.

At my current job, they're holding the annual office feast TWO DAYS before actual Thanksgiving! Who does that???

So, here's what I propose. From now on, when offices want to give their employees a little shout-out to celebrate Thanksgiving, which is admirable, make it a point to serve non-traditional food. Poll your employees. See what they want. Italian? Mexican? A foot-long from Subway? Whatevuh. Just don't force them to eat the same food they're going to eat with their families in a few days or risk being labeled as an unsocial non-team-player for not joining in the feast.

And if you'd like your employees to really appreciate you, have an open bar. That's something they probably wish they'd be having with their real family.

TAR, Week 2

I actually watched the whole episode of The Amazing Race last night, so I am ready to comment cogently! Let me start by saying that it's still a little early for me to have found teams to root for or against this season, but a few are edging forward.

As usual, we have a Barbie team, and I wanted to slap them on sight (when they showed the one diligently applying lip gloss as they waited for the bus, I wanted to grab it from her, snap it in half and throw it on the pavement - don't ask me why, I just did). And I think I'm going to hate Ron really soon. Within the first 15 minutes, I was already just about yelling everytime they showed him badgering Chris. By the end of the show, I wanted someone to staple his mouth shut. He seriously needs to shutty.

On the "like" side, I don't have anyone I'm totally rooting for yet, but I'm finding myself suprisingly liking the goths. They work really hard and work nicely as a team and they cracked me up a couple of times. When Kynt said, "I'm kind of a prissy boy" when he didn't want to do the ditch vault, that made me laugh. God love honesty. So, let's get to the action!

First leg: Fly from Dublin to Amsterdam.
This was pretty straightforward - the only real drama was from Ron. When he went off on Nick because Nick was pushy with the ticket clerk, my jaw dropped. Yo - Ron. Dude. You're not Nick's dad, and I'm pretty sure that unlike obedient, patient, sweet little Chris, he would've stabbed you in the chest 2 years ago if he were...and the jury would've let him off. Step the frig off.

Detour: Hoist It or Hunt It.
While I have a pretty keen eye, I think I would've gone with the hoist it. It's right there and barring any catastrophes, it would go faster than the bike thing. The only thing is I don't know jack about knots, so I'd probably have to be the one at the top hoisting the furniture in through the window - I know, that's the cush part. But I wouldn't pepper the person down below with useless advice on how to do the knots, so that would automatically make me a better partner than half the people we saw last night. Oh, and did anyone hear Jennifer when she said, "Oh my (bleeping) gosh!" Um, honey, if you've been bleeped for what was probably the f-word, you can probably just go on and say God instead of gosh. The ship has sailed at that point on your language.

Roadblock: Ditch Vault.
I could have totally done this. And my favorite moment of the show came during this segment. No, it wasn't when Grandpa stripped down to his undies. I could've done without that. It was when Shana ate it. Lipgloss doesn't help much when you're chest-deep in a black bog, does it, sweetie? Awesome. (Shout out to the gods for that.) This segment is also where Ron and I would've thrown down. When he said to Chris, "You need to lose some weight" I'm pretty sure I would've told him, "And you need to shut your mouth, old man, before I take you the fuck out." That's presuming I hadn't already beaten him to death with the vaulting pole at the bog. WOW does that guy make me thank God for my own father.

Pit Stop.
Lorena and Jason won this leg. That's cool. Like I said, I don't have a favorite team yet, and they seem fine. I kind of liked Kate and Pat, so too bad they're gone so soon, but I can't say I'm surprised. They weren't really built to last in a contest like this. Nick and Don will probably be gone fairly soon, too. Grandpa isn't going to be able to keep up. I'm not sure who else yet is likely to make a quick exit, but it looks like we've got some meltdowns coming next week. That should be interesting.

It comes in threes, right?

Okay, I've got yet another home-related repair on deck. I'm counting the $900 I spent on my car a couple of weeks ago as a home-related repair, mostly because...well...the car lives in the garage.

First it was the washer, then the car, and now my back door. I tried to shut the door the other night, and it closed, but it wouldn't lock. I started looking at the locking mechanism trying to see how it's supposed to work and why it wouldn't anymore, and I could see where a screw had either broken or come loose or something, and that seemed to have caused another part to not be in place, which in turn prevented the lock from moving into position.

I decided to see if I could fix it, which is always a great idea when it's late and you're tired. Sure enough, when I took it all apart, two parts fell down inside the door, never to be seen again. Fantastic.

So, yesterday I went to Lowe's and talked to the Lowe's Door Guy and we decided I could probably fix it myself (he said I seem like I'm "creative," which is not the same as being "handy," and I think you need to be "handy" to fix things, but maybe he sensed that if I screwed it up, I'd curse creatively and blog about it and he wanted to encourage that). I bought a new lock, which is actually better than my old one, because it has a handle instead of trying to cram your fingers into a little recessed box to pull the door open and shut. And he showed me how to take the door off of its tracks in case I needed to do that.

After owning a home for 5 years now, I recognize that what took him 10 seconds will likely take me 2 hours and lot of f-bombs, so I'm going to try not to take it off the tracks and just fix it in place. I appreciate his confidence that in the event I got the door down, I could actually get it back up again, but if that can at all be avoided, that'd be supah.

So, wish me luck that in the process of fixing the lock, I don't destroy something else. And cross you fingers for me that this is it on the repair front for a while. I'm ready to spend both my time and money on other pursuits.

I think it all started with gold teeth.

A bunch of people with absolutely no sense of what's important in life created the world's most expensive dessert - a $25,000 chocolate sundae.

Just for the record, you could send a kid to college for an entire year for that. At some schools, that would be tuition AND living expenses. Don't ask me for a list of what those schools are. I don't have a kid, which means I don't have to know that kind of stuff. But you get the point.

This vital concoction is made of 28 cocoas, including some of the most expensive and exotic from around the world (because God knows Hershey's doesn't appeal to anyone), and edible gold. Read that again, in case you missed it. I said *edible gold.* Can ANYONE tell me the point of that? I'm not even sure what that means. I'm sure it involves science and metal content and some sort of extraction method, yadda, yadda, yadda. In the end, we come back to the fact that someone somewhere thought people should be able to eat gold. There's literally only one response to that: why?

The effort to create the sundae - truly an amazing use of human potential - was launched in response to some chef coming up with a $1,000 bagel. The proceeds from the sale of that bagel will help raise funds for culinary scholarships, presumably so we can have more such ridiculous food. I think if there ARE actual sales, it just goes to show that some people are too stupid to have money, and it's not necessary for the government to redistribute wealth, because left to our own devices, we'll do it ourselves.

I am suddenly hungry for a bagel, though, now.

Minutiae.

Blogging. Blog. Ing. Blooooooogging. BloggING. Buh-lah-ging.

What, oh, what to write about? Sooooo much nothingness in my head today.

Let's see. How about an inventory of my desk? I won't do my actual desk - just my computer desk. GO!

1. A small lamp.
2. My computer and mouse.
3. A little stuffed Aflac duck that quacks if I squeeze it.
4. Two speakers.
5. A postcard advertising a party that an ad agency in my office building is throwing on Thursday. Martinis and food will be served.
6. A pin for some old program that my company used to sponsor.
7. A stuffed mouse cat toy (Significance: It's a reminder of the "Who Moved My Cheese?" book - a tangible object to remind me to always be in the process of assessing if where I am is where I need to be and to not be afraid to step out of the familiar to find happiness. The only way to find happiness is to look for it and tend to it. Change is constant. Adapt to make your life work. Are you inspired?)
8. A Caribou Coffee "Caramel High Rise" granola bar, i.e. heaven in a foil packet.
9. A coffee cup filled with delicious java.
10. A pencil.
11. A card with the name of my new cell phone, which I need to order.
12. A kleenex.
13. A little contraption to hold a piece of paper vertical for me when I need to work from that paper while doing something on my computer.

I realize no actual work product is listed here, but I really do do stuff. Pieces of actual work - papers involving things I actually do - move from this desk to my actual desk and in and out of files in a constant stream. It's like a hurricane of efficiency!! Watch out!! You don't want to get a paper cut.

Where are my shells?

Okay, I'm going to do a little shotgun blogging today.

1. The weather. We had a cold front roll through last night. That. Rocks. It's in the 50s, and I'm wearing a sweater. Not that I couldn't have gotten by with, say, a long-sleeved shirt, but I like sweaters, so at the warmest acceptable temperature, I wear them. By tomorrow, it will be in the 60s, slowly climbing back up to the 80s by the weekend. So today was my only shot at sweater weather. Tomorrow will still be cool enough for boots, though, so I'll have to make that happen.

2. Heroes. Ang, you gotta be happy - they're transforming Hiro away from the goofy personality and more to the samurai one. Right at the end, there was a bit of the goof, but the transformation is clearly under way, so I think you can probably stand to watch it again. Have you even been watching this season? They waited so long to start back up, they almost lost me. But please. Those people are all just too beautiful and bad-ass not to stare at for an hour. Makes me want to take a martial arts class. Seriously.

3. Wurstfest. Good lawd-a-mighty, people, the 10-Day Salute to Sausage is under way! Vanessa damaged some brain cells there last weekend, and Judy and fam have already eaten their way through most of the tents (and nearly lost it all on the rides) - I am BEHIND!! My peeps and I always hit it on the last Saturday night, though, and tradition is tradition. So, this weekend, after I watch the Horns atone for last week's ridiculous performance against Oklahoma State, I'll slap on my liederhosen and head south for some delicious frosty adult beverage and meat on a stick. If we can just find an oompah band to play "Play that funky music white boy." Oy! Oy! Oy!

4. Red-light cameras. Austin is installing them as we speak. Big Brother is watching. It's for "safety." Right. I'm sure that's exactly it. I'm sure it will in no way become a cash cow for the city. They swear the money is going to go into some traffic-safety fund...presumably for more red-light cameras. Can I be the auditor tracking where those funds go - every cent? Can you be ticketed if you flip them off - every single time you pass by one? Because I'd like to. Why not just fit us all with sensors that watch our every move so that if we commit any infraction of the law at any time, we can just be fined immediately? Whoa! She just littered. Fine automatically deducted from her bank account. Then we can all be safe and properly abiding by the law like we're supposed to - good little robots.

5. Got a speeding ticket last week. I'm sure I was speeding, but not as fast as the cop said. He says he radared me, but he was *in front* of me the whole time. Plus he wrote the actual ticket for a slower speed than he says he clocked me. I burned my once-a-year-defensive-driving on a BOGUS ticket a month or two ago (everyone told me to contest it, but I was lazy and took DD - now I can't take it for something I actually did). So, the question: do I take the ticket to court, hope the cop doesn't show up or try to argue that I question the infraction? Or do I suck it up and pay it and let the conviction sit on my record for 3 years? What would you do?

It's baaaaack!

The Amazing Race is back! Fannnnnnnntastic!

Unfortunately for anyone who had hoped for one my fabulous breakdowns of teams and action, I actually missed the first half of the show and couldn't get enough of a sense of the teams with the last bit that I saw to really comment. I saw yesterday that the show was starting back up, but I hadn't realized it would start last night, so I didn't tune in until 8:00, when it was about halfway through. So any commentary from those of you out there who actually watched will be appreciated, and I'll leap in next week.

The only thing that stood out to me in the little I watched was the Marilyn Manson team. But I'll have to see more of them before I decide to say anything about them, except that I'm pretty sure if this season goes someplace like Africa, they're going to be stoned to death in the streets by scared villagers.

Great weekend. The Horns scared me half to death. A win in the last 2 seconds is a win, but really guys...I mean...really. Though I will say that the refs at that game should have their bank accounts checked. I couldn't even belief the freakin' calls. A review and a reversal on a NON-call??? Wow. Just...wow.

Saw some of my girly-o's last night and enjoyed that. And a big shout out to the best part of the weekend - you know who you are. Blog mention - an achievement of great distinction. You're not going to get cocky on me now, are you?

Oh, and stay tuned for a rant about my cell phone situation. I've been muy dissatisfied with that for quite a while, and I decided over the last week that the time has come to make a change. F-ing T-Mobile cut me off *3* times yesterday afternoon during one 20-minute phone call. I was ready to throw the phone out the window. I already know what switch I want to make, though, so I only have to put up with T-Mobile for a small bit longer and was able to restrain myself. I'll keep you all advised, because I know you're deeply affected.

Hero, or close enough

I'm starting a new category to periodically visit here in the blog. It's called, "Spam in my email." In today's installment, Diedre Whitehead wants to know if I "Want it to hang?" No, Diedre. I don't.

Moving on. The ASPCA gave out some awards to hero pets yesterday. Did I ever tell you my hero cat story? I don't believe I did. Grab a cup of coffee and prepare to be enthralled and amazed.

A few years ago, I was housesitting for my parents. They had two cats at the time: an indoor/outdoor cat named Domino (black and white) and an outdoor cat named Sammy (all black). Dommie always slept inside in my parents' room, and he really didn't like to sleep in the guest rooms. Their guest rooms are on another floor, and maybe he didn't like to be downstairs or something. I don't know. But while housesitting, I slept in their room so he'd have some company.

Well, one night, about 1:00 a.m., he starts meowing from the doorway. It woke me up, and at first I tried to ignore it, thinking if he thought I was asleep, he'd stop. He didn't. So, then I tried to being stern. I raised up, found the blob where the sound was coming from (I'm blind without my glasses, and I wasn't putting on my glasses - I might wake up too much), and told him to hush in tough tone. He kept meowing. Okay. So, then I patted the bed and tried to get him to come to me - "Maybe he wants some lovin'," I thought. No dice. Kept meowing - really insistently.

Finally, I gave up, turned on the light and put on my glasses. It wasn't Domino! It was Sammy! WTF? How is Sammy in the house, and why is he all the way up upstairs in the bedoroom???? This cat barely lets his paws touch the tile in the entry - he *never* comes all the way inside, much less upstairs.

So, I got up, and started to go to him, thinking he might be hurt or something, but still totally confused how he was even in the house. As I approached, he ran away, but kept stopping to look back - trying to get me to follow him. When I finally reached the stairs and looked down, the front door was wide open!

Presumably, the door had blown open with a cold front that had blown in that night. And Sammy knew it shouldn't be open, and he knew I was in the house alone, and I shit you not, that cat went completely against his natural instinct and came inside and upstairs to wake me to show me that the door was open! Can you believe that???

As soon as I saw that it was open and reacted, he ran outside and didn't come back in, and for the record, I've never seen him come inside voluntarily since then. Of course, I was way too freaked out then to stay in the house by myself the rest of the night. I'm sorry, but I'm a Houston girl. The very idea of sleeping with the doors unlocked, much less open, is ludicrous to a Houston girl. Why not just sleep in the front yard with all your valuables on the sidewalk? Am I right, Judy?

I checked the whole house, but I knew there was no way I'd really be sure that no one had come in while the door was wide open and I was sleeping, so I packed up my stuff and drove home in the middle of the night. But hey - at least I slept the rest of the night in peace.

Sammy, however, earned himself the moniker "Sammy The Wonder Cat" that night. And that's my hero cat story.

What happened to fun?

Did you all have a nice Halloween? I had a *great* Halloween. I guarantee you that none of you enjoyed your Halloween more than I enjoyed mine. But that's all you get - you'll just have to imagine what I might've been up to. As Salt n Pepa say, "It's none a yo bizness!!" So why blog it? Why toss out the morsel but not give you the meal? Because that's how I roll. (I'm doing what looks like some kind of hip-hop, gang sign thing right now. Imagine that, too.) Word.

Okay, so what AM I willing to talk about? Hmmmm. Let's see. Let's talk about the decline of modern civilization - particularly with respect to cherished American holidays that are being butchered.

Case in point: Halloween parties in schools. Seems the trend now is to call them "Fall Festivals" and the kids can't wear scary Halloween costumes - presumably they all have to dress up as pumpkins and princesses. How freakin' lame. Let's see if I can say this clearly enough for all the PC folks and religious fanatics: Halloween is not evil. It's not a celebration of evil. It's not an invitation for evil. It's not Armageddon come to Mayberry. Please do not preach to me about how it started or how it glorifies the devil or demons or any of that garbage. I'm not even listening. In fact, I'm covering my ears. "I'm not going to listen to this...I'm not going to listen to this..." (Anyone recognize the movie reference/clip? Another of my obscure favorites, and if you know it, you rock.)

Halloween is one day a year where the kids (and adults if you're cool enough) get to dress up and pretend to be whatever character their heart desires, and not only do they get to ask without shame for a cache of candy - they're *supposed* to! It's FUN. Not evil - FUN. If "scary" is thrown into the mix, all the better, because we all like to get scared. That's why roller coasters and horror movies do so well. Lighten the frig up. You shouldn't worry if you're 8-year-old wants to pretend to be a goblin for Halloween. You should worry if he/she wants to be Lindsay Lohan (unless he/she is making fun of LiLo, in which case you praise them for the wry social commentary). K?

I guess our next stop is Thanksgiving, where we all try to pretend its about turkey and not being grateful for the country we live in.

Is all that too bitter? Okay, here - to lighten the mood. I want to work at this office. Oh wait...I kinda do.