Welcome Christmas

I assure you, when I started this Christmas playlist project, I had no idea it would be so controversial, but there you go. My own Anonymous Mother and my sister are questioning my choices in the comments! The nerve -- don't they know the kinds of problems that can cause? The fire and brimstone coming down from the skies? The rivers and seas boiling? The forty years of darkness? The earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave? The human sacrifice? The dogs and cats living together?

Mass hysteria!

But by way of clarification, in case you do go back to read part one and/or part two of this exclusive three-part series, I would like to mention that some of the songs my sister mentioned are included in today's list, and as it turns out, I actually do have Gene Autry singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" on my iPod, and I've had it all along. I played it for Shae this morning and she literally squee'd. That one was a terrible oversight on my part; I totally should have included that version in with yesterday's Christmas Classics. I've never been wrong before. I don't know how I will managed to live with myself from here on out. I hope you're all happy. Harumph.

So. Today's list is basically made up of "modern" Christmas songs, by which I mean stuff that I am pretty sure I grew up listening to as a kid, plus a couple of other things that I would very much have enjoyed listening to as a kid, if I had acted like an actual child at the time, and not some kind of weird time-bandit hippie who spent more time than was strictly necessary listening to Carly Simon, James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel, and Carole King. (I supposed it goes without saying that I fell hard for R.E.M., the Ramones, and the Cure once I got to college.)

Still and all -- and I say this with an absolutely straight face -- I don't consider it Christmastime until I have listened to the songs on this list at least a couple of dozen times. Even some of the ones on the bottom half of the list, the ones that are so goofy and out there that they border on the sacrilegious.

And now I present to you my Top Ten Contemporary Christmas songs, basically in the order in which I prefer them (favorites on top) -- with a caveat. The first 5 songs are the "real" ones, and the bottom 5 are sort of "novelty" songs, but I assure you, I love each and every one of them essentially the same:

1. "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" by John & Yoko and the Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir -- "A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, let's hope it's a good one without any fear." What more could anyone wish anyone else for the holidays? Not even Yoko Ono wailing through the backing vocals can ruin this song. (There are, of course, other versions, but why would you want them?)
2. "Someday at Christmas" by Stevie Wonder -- "Someday all our dreams will come to be, someday in a world where men are free, maybe not in time for you and me, but someday at Christmastime." When I hear the opening chords to this song, I start tearing up, and by the time we get to the end of the first verse, I am done for. There aren't many songs that make me start bawling just from writing out the lyrics, but this is one of them.
3. "Give Love on Christmas Day" by the Jackson 5 -- "Every little child on Santa's knee has room for your love underneath his tree." One of the few songs in the world that I have never heard covered, and I would like to keep it that way. I honestly think of this song as the "All You Need Is Love" of the Christmas season. Practically perfect, just as it is.
4. "Keep Christmas with You All Through the Year" from Merry Christmas from Sesame Street -- I can't even pick a favorite lyric. I love this whole song SO MUCH. This record came out in 1975. I wasn't even a year old then. My sisters and I used to listen to this record ALL THE TIME. The actual record. Like, vinyl record. I remember listening to this in July once, on purpose. I think this song should close every Christmas pageant everywhere ever. It would totally be the Grand Finale! of the BGDCFCPE.
5. "Welcome Christmas" from How the Grinch Stole Christmas -- "Christmas Day will always be just as long as we have we." Love love love. Doesn't need any fussing or messing around with. The Glee cast version is also very good, but you need to get that one from iTunes.
6. "Father Christmas" by The Kinks -- "But remember the kids who got nothin' while you're drinking down your wine." Totally kick-ass, but also a kind of important reminder that maybe if you can, you should give a little bit of something to those who have even less than you do. Somebody out there might really need some tomato soup for Christmas, you know?
7. "Swiss Colony Beef Log" from Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics -- "Swiss Colony beef log, baby, that's what Christmas is all about." This song makes me laugh so hard I cry. Cartman is such an obnoxious little shit, but sweet cracker sandwich, this song is SO AMAZING. Second choice for best lyric: "I [expletive] hate egg nog, seriously."
8. "The Night Santa Went Crazy" by "Weird Al" Yankovic -- "From his beard to his boots, he was covered in ammo like a big fat drunk disgruntled Yuletide Rambo." I defy you to spend more than an hour or so at the mall in the next two weeks and then tell me that you don't feel exactly like Santa in this particular scenario. And I will also tell you that [SPOILER ALERT!] if the elves did go work for the USPS, it would significantly improve service at my local service center.
9. "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses -- "When what to my wondering eyes should appear, no lie, it's that guy I've been chasing all year." OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH SHUT UP DON'T YOU JUDGE ME.
10. "Last Christmas" by Wham! -- Another song where I can't pick a favorite lyric, because COME ON. This song is so corny that it came full around to being awesomesauce again. There has not yet been, nor will there ever be again, another Christmas song in all the lands and the seas that is so earnest and emo. Oh, George Michael. I really thought we had a chance, you and I. I really did.

Oh! And because I care about you guys, I wanted to include a bonus Hanukkah song, too: "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel," also from Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics. Shae came home from school yesterday singing the "original" dreidel song, and it was the most adorable thing ever. I thought instantly of this song, which is totally amazing because at one point there are like six different musical parts going on at once, and also because this song manages to be respectful and totally disrespectful all at the same time. You'll get it suck in your head for weeks, though, be warned.

Okay -- have at it in the comments. What did I forget this time? Let me know.

Fifth Element

As I previously reported before, I am a notorious hypochondriac. If I so much as hear about the hot new disease, I convince myself six ways from Sunday that I have it. Swine flu, shingles, echolocation (which is not actually a disease but it sounds like one, doesn't it?) -- if it exists, I've convinced myself that I have it. Having once worked for a doctor's office in a position that allowed me to read other peoples' diagnoses probably exacerbated this problem. And of course the Internet and "The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death." do not help.

After that adventure I had over the summer where I had that weird case of contact dermatitis that caused some kind of underlying secondary infection -- or, as I like to call it, the "Really Bad Hot Itchy Boob Poison" -- I am particularly wary of (and suggestible to) rashes and itching. Like, right now my face is SO ITCHY that I feel like I am going to have no choice in a few minutes but to SCRATCH ALL MY SKIN OFF WITH A BENT PAPERCLIP just to keep from slowly going insane.

Now, probably it's nothing -- just dry skin from the weather changing. But this has been going on for a couple of days and it doesn't feel like it's getting better, even though I've been using my fancy expensive moisturizers every day and my special exotic treatment gels every night and washing my face with Cetaphil and sacrificing virgin baby unicorns during a lunar eclipse with a blade made of fairy wings and titansteel. Nothing has worked, so I went to WebMD, and simply by filling in that my symptoms include itchy or burning skin on my face, with nothing else going on (no foreign travel, no eating fish, no dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight), I have helpfully been informed that I probably have lice, or poison (again!), or hives, or alopecia, or narcotic abuse.

NARCOTIC ABUSE. Son of a bitch, I knew those two Vicodin that I took when the dentist YANKED TWO WHOLE TEETH RIGHT THE FUCK OUT OF MY HEAD were going to come back and bite me in the ass eventually. I didn't think it would take two and a half months, but there you go -- those 10 mg of Vicodin have turned me into an ADDICT and soon I'll be living on the STREET doing GOD KNOWS WHAT for money so I can buy cigarettes and alcohol and more drugs and it will just all be a bad scene and this is ALL BECAUSE THE INTERNET TOLD ME I HAVE ITCHY SKIN ON MY FACE! Because it's almost winter. Those bastards.

Oh, my point? My point is that Shae is sick, and she ALSO has a weird rash:

Except when little kids get a head cold with weird rash on their face (now it's more on her cheeks than around her mouth -- the mouth and nose redness is because she has been blowing her nose for three straight days), they get to have something called "fifth disease" and not, you know, a DRUG PROBLEM.

Back in the Saddle Again

Sorry that blogging has been so light in the last few days: someone -- and I am not saying who because it might be me -- ran over the camera cord with the computer chair, and we just this morning got it fixed. We've also been wallowing in our depression over the end of the world the other day, and we're still kind of down in the dumps about it.

Oh, and there's that whole situation where I've been working on two calendars at the same time for Christmas. Boy howdy, what was I thinking with that? But I promise: we'll be back on track this week. Thanks for your patience.

High Art (Emphasis on the "High")

I have been having that Dream again, the one where I am standing near the stage of a high school auditorium in a pair of well-fitting jeans and bright yellow Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star low-tops and a black turtleneck with a long blue sweater-coat with what looks like deceased Muppets around the collar, and I have my hair up in a tousled yet sleek bun that manages to be messy without being bumpy, and my glasses are clear frosted rhinestone encrusted cat's-eye numbers and they look good, and I have between my fingers a long 20's-style cigarette holder and nobody is giving me any shit about smoking indoors, because I AM AN ARTISTE, dammit, and I am the director of the Best Goddamned Community Fucking Christmas Pageant Ever.

And yes, I know EXACTLY how many things are wrong with that paragraph, not the least of which is the fact that it is absolutely the run-on sentence from holy hell.

ANYWAY. One of these days I will tell you in great and embarrassing detail about TBGCFCPE, because in my head I have the whole thing planned out, but in the meantime, let me share with you someone else's Vision of Pure Entertainment Perfection:

via NPR's Monkey See Blog

I am struck, primarily, by the following:

(1) HOLY SHIT, THIS IS REAL. I mean, video of it exists on the Internet, so it HAS to be real, right?

(2) The backup dancers' outfits would make more sense if they included Solid-Gold-Dancer-style tinsel wigs instead of those ridiculous clown mops.

(3) I really, really love Florence Henderson's dress, in all seriousness, and if I could get it in my size, in a slightly more A-line cut, and with a shorter hem, I would totally wear that to the company Christmas party.

(4) You know you are a sad, irreparable dork when the woman who plays Alice, dressed as a duck, is way cooler than you are, Peter Brady.

(5) When I win the lottery and I buy my Pleasure Palace in Cabo, I am ABSOLUTELY going to make sure that I build my own personal nightclub, and it is going to look like this set.

(6) HOLY FUCKING SHIT, YOU GUYS, THIS IS FOR REAL.

(Sorry, but the Management of this Blog is unable to provide you with brain bleach after reading this post. Please consult your nearest mental health practitioner or drink Jaegermeister until you numb the pain.)

Cupcake Calendar: August

I KNOW. SHUT UP.

These are some of my very favorite pictures from last summer -- how they all ended up on the August calendar page, I don't remember. Here, she is (clockwise from top right): crawling around under my mother-in-law's coffee table, wearing my very favorite of her onesies, ever (God, I miss onesies!); rolling around in the grass in a Project (RED) onesie that my mom found at a yard sale, and which I have since passed along to Joey, because yes it's a charity program but shit still ain't free; chillaxing in my grandparents' recliner, chillaxing; and OMG CUPCAKE NOM NOM NOM! at my sister's baby shower last summer.

To make up for this abomination ("WTF? no Cupcake Calendar until the month is more than 2/3 expired? STOOPIT WHOOR!"), allow me to offer as a consolation prize this bold imagining of Shae's future life as Action Heroine And Savior Of The Free World:

via Photofunia

You're welcome. Have a nice weekend.

21st Century Digital Boy

Skype, people. It is t3h r0xx0rz! Last night Shae, G, and I had a video phone call with my sister and newphew, and it was AWWWWWWWWWWWWSOME. So much so that we're looking into a webcam for my parents.

Technology is amazing, yo.

Rainy Days and Mondays

Today is my birthday. I am 35. And this has been one of the crappiest birthdays I can remember. It isn't because of the Big Significant Number -- my age does not scare me or anything, and I know that I have earned every damn one of my wrinkles. But it is Monday, and it rained all day, and work sucks, and there is water in the basement, and I still have the pig-SARS-avian-flu-plague thing or something, and I kind of really wanted a party. Although I did get ice cream cake, and G took me out for lunch. That at least counts for something, although ... not much. But he tries, and I can be very difficult.

Yet again, I am going to start whining about how I need a vacation. It's hard to get over the Seasonal Affective Disorder when the season won't change and stay changed, when it won't warm up for long, when it won't stop being so damp and dank and miserable. I want to feel like this:

So I'm going to pretend that I do. And I'm going to take a mini "vacation" from blogging this week and let other people write my posts for me for a couple of days or so, beginning with my sister Jaime.

Promise you won't download the old photos and try to blackmail me with them later, 'kay?

Free Advice

Let's just say, hypothetically, not that any of this actually happened to anyone we know or anything like that, but let's just suppose it's a rainy Monday, and you are feeling some vague sense of ennui, and maybe perhaps also an inexplicably strong urge to spring clean. Not your house, of course, because nothing short of a nuclear air strike is going to help that disaster area.

But maybe you find yourself thinking: "Hey, I've heard good things about XX blogging platform, so maybe I'll randomly decide at like 2:00 in the afternoon to take three years or so worth of content and just switch over to there," even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with the blog you already have except for maybe you're a little bored with the background color.

I'm going to repeat that, for emphasis: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH WHAT YOU'RE ALREADY DOING. It's fine, just ... meh. And you're insane, have we mentioned that part yet?

You know that old cliché about how if it ain't broke, then don't fix it? Yeah. There's a reason why it's a hackneyed old adage, and that is because it is damned fine advice. If you read my tweets you'll see that I rather quickly came to the conclusion that "blogging like a grown-up" is not fucking worth the hassle. Christ on a whole-grain cracker.

So anyway ... I'm going to be sprucing a few things up around here. As soon as I commit to a new background, I'll change it, and I'm going update the "Cupcake Cam" over there in the sidebar, but despite my intentions to the contrary, I'm not going anywhere. Except crazy, but we already knew that.

PS -- In case you were wondering: I didn't tell anybody I was thinking about this, because I wasn't, not really. It was totally a last-minute game-time decision that seemed like it might have been a good idea in the moment. Which, as it turns out, it was NOT. Epic fail. So anyway, if this brief flirtation with another blog host is news to you, you're not alone. I'm a nutbar. Just ignore me.

PPS -- Added at 8:57 AM -- Apparently I managed to break something in Flickr and some of my pictures are not showing correctly now. Sorry about that. It's a long story that I don't really have time to get into now. And to be honest, I'm not really sure that I could explain it anyway. Hello, me = Luddite, haven't we already had this conversation? If a picture is borked, you can still click on it and see it in my photostream, but to see them in my blog directly, I'm going to have to fix something, and ... I don't know how, exactly, yet. Working on it.

PPPS -- Added at 9:08 AM -- Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. Every one of the fixes needs to be done manually. FUCKING MANUALLY. !!!!! Next time you even SUSPECT that I might be thinking about touching my blog or my Flickr settings, smack me in the goddamn head.

Gone Fishin'

If I have done this correctly, when this entry gets posted, we will be on our way to the airport. We're going to Key West, the three of us, for a much-needed vacation. I can't speak for G or the Cupcake, but I'm exhausted. Life, the Universe, and Everything have worn me out to the point where nothing will get me back on track except a few days on an island in the sun, eating pie and Cuban sandwiches and drinking frosty beverages and photosynthesizing.

We're taking the camera and I hope to have a lot of good stuff to share when we get back. The laptop is staying at home, where it will sit in its drawer and sulk and send electrotelepathic messages to the TiVo and the microwave and no doubt our appliances will rise up as one and slay us when we return. This is a chance I am willing to take -- and anyway, I will be taking my iPod and my iPhone and four brand new books, which is really all I need for survival anyway.

In the unlikely event that we are sucked into the Bermuda Triangle, never to be seen or heard again, please know this: we love you all, and Amelia Earhart says hello. Otherwise, there will be no new blog posts for a few days, but I will still be Twittering about anything good or exciting or cute that happens. (Check the sidebar under the Cupcake Cam, or click here to follow me.) If I can figure out how, I might even include pictures, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, okay?

Love you all. Happy motoring.

Long Strange Trip

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, I have been awake for a looooooooooong time. Got up at 4:30, snoozed, got to work at 5:30, farmed the cubicle wastelands, then had an adoption class, which was kind of OK, but it ran late. We are just now getting home and before I shuffle off to bed, possibly to keel over from exhuastion, I have to start installing my Wrath of the Lich King expansion, because: DUH.

So a couple of random observations:

• Didn't the Italian Chicken Sandwich at Burger King go away for a while, and then come back? I remember getting it in the 80's, possibly up until the early 90's, and then it like disappeared or something. Now it's back. Had one for dinner. It was good, but of course Chicken Parm from a divey sort of local pizza joint is always better. (Hello, Frank's!)
• And didn't there used to be a French Chicken Sandwich, that was kind of like Cordon Bleu, with Swiss cheese and ham? Or am I just making shit up again?
  
• According to my sister-slash-babysitter, she has seen my house more times this week alone than she has in the almost 5 years I have lived here. I have no reason to doubt her; it's just one of those things.
• Anything will pass for a blog post when it's 10:30 and you're tired and you're trying to get in under the deadline.
  

Queen of the Internets

I'm not sure which is more strange to me: that Cupcake has recently started saying "butt" and/or "poop" for practically every other word, or that she has suddenly become positively obsessed with looking at pictures of the "baby" on the computer. Of course, she is the baby, and mostly she looks at one picture: this one, from the summer, that I use as my desktop wallpaper.

Vain much, are we?
;-)

So Wrong ...

... and yet somehow, so right. So very, very right. (May be offensive, but I think it's hysterical. YMMV, obviously.)

Bwahahahaha!

How I Roll

OK -- maybe this isn't always entirely true of me, but I sure do appreciate the sentiment:

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Hi! Just wanted to let you know I have added a new feature to this here blog thingie: patented "Cupcake Cam"©™® technology. Under that gorgeous glamour shot of me at age 2, looking for all the world like the future diva attention whore that I turned out to be, you will see a thumbnail of a pic from my flickr photostream -- every time you come to the page, or refresh, it will be a different random picture of Cupcake. Click on the picture to go the full photostream (same as with the larger daily-ish photos).

Seriously, though -- as she gets older and taller and tanner and even more awesome every day, it will be like a mini blast from the past.

Oh, and if you ever actually do go into my photostream? Feel free to leave notes or comments on the pics. But be nice -- you can snark on me until the cows come home, but Cupcake and G are people with feelings. Don't make me hunt you down like a dog and cut you where you stand, OK? Mean people suck, and besides, that shit is disrespectful.

Progress Report

I don't know when this turned into my officially-unofficial World of Warcraft blog, but since that's pretty much my only hobby these days (goddamned writers' strike!), there you go. According to Xfire, I've spent 22 hours in the past 7 days playing WoW, which is horrifying in so many ways. But I'll be the first to admit that I just love vaporizing giant creepy spiders. Again: surprisingly therapeutic.

At this point I am a Level 28 Gnome Mage. Since my last report, I have joined a guild -- well, actually, two of them. My first guild ("The Yummy Muffins," tee hee) was absorbed by a newer, bigger guild ("Beguile") with more high-level players. My guild leader played "Pimp My Mage" with me yesterday and outfitted me with a whole bunch of improved armor. Of course, I still have 3x as much mana as health, but things are slowly improving.

Oh, and now I have a crown. So I am happy.

Yeah, I pretty much have no life any more, but I am OK with it, for a change. Although I still can't use Flamestrike in real life, which continues to be a gigantic disappointment.

PS -- Yeah, that's a mage with a sword. Because I am that much awesome. Mai skillz, let me sho u dem.

Doers of Dorkcraft

If the on-line gaming community or MMORPG'ers or whatever the hell they call themselves ever does a Google search and they end up on this blog, I expect a flaming raft of shit for things I might have said in the past that were not entirely (or, ahem, even at all) complimentary of what passes for a "hobby" in those circles: namely, sitting in front of a computer for countless hours at a time, vacant and vapid and vacuous, clicking oneself into oblivion while perpetuating what to the uninitiated such as myself appears to amount to nothing more than a giant electronic circle jerk.

But that was all before I became an on-line gamer myself. Er, sort of, anyway.

My very first MMORPG experience came via a friend on the SDMB, my very favorite source for almost all the information I need. We were in a thread about the late un-great TV show "Pirate Master" (blech on a stick, by the way) and somehow I ended up checking out and ultimately joining this awesome game called YoHoHo Puzzle Pirates. (I link to it on this blog, over there on the left, in case you find that you are interested.)

Although I should backtrack a bit and say that I partly joined, at the beginning anyway, out of spite. G is a gamer, and his friends are gamers, and he spends hours at a clip playing games that I don't understand and will never be good at. Counterstrike, and Team Fortress, and I don't even know what the hell all else. He got a special set of "cans" so that he can lurk up there in his den with his headphones on and talk to his buddies and have fun without me while I sit on the couch and pout, all lonely and with nobody to fetch me juice from the kitchen because I'm too spoiled to do it my damn self.

And I'm not a big fan of shoot-'em-up games, anyway, because I am highly suggestible and get nightmares, plus I don't really see the point of blowing other people's virtual heads off. Why? Are there prizes for winning Counterstrike? Does that game even have a story? I mean, some of the stuff that comes out of on-line gaming is hysterical and fantastic and I love it, like "im in ur camp killin ur dudes," and also "the cake is a lie," and the occasional "Leeroy Jenkins" -- but even then, I have to use my Google-fu a lot so I don't look like a giant clueless tool (any more than usual).

But Puzzle Pirates is altogether different. For one thing, the game is mostly puzzles (duh), not shooting -- although as you get better at it, you can progress to games where you have to shoot things. Cannons, mostly, at other people's ships. And the puzzles are all based on things that hypothetical pirates would really have to do: bilging, sailing, carpentry, shipwrightery, rumbling, sword fighting, drinking, carousing, playing spades. (Well, OK, maybe the spades are more purely hypothetical than other parts of the game, but still.)

And also, there are the people. I have been lucky enough to have only dealt with really nice people in my experience with the game. I'm sure YPP has its fair share of jerks and buttheads, but so far so good, for me. Only once has anyone made me cry, and I'm pretty sure that was a 13-year-old kid. My crew has been awesome, patient, teaching me what to do and how not to behave, and just generally not caring if I "level my druid" or not, as long as I show up and have a good time and help other people have a good time. I even placed in a couple of contests, including one where I wrote about Mother Teresa in an adventure with pirates. (Total fiction, of course.)

So ... not to make this long story any longer, but I think I finally understand what all the fuss is about. I know that hardcore gamers probably think that the YPP people -- "puzzlins," I believe my husband called us, once -- are lametards or whatever. And, exactly: whatever. (I don't care how lame he thinks I am, anyway, since I know what's really on his iPod.) I'm an old woman who never did this kind of thing before, and because I got my foot in the door in an environment where I felt safe and comfortable and encouraged, I am willing to try other games too. Which is kind of the point, right?

My heart will always belong to YPP, whatever I do, because that's where Pondera is, and my people, who know strengths and my skills and my language. (LOLcat.)

Crazy Is Contagious

Another one of my many mental ailments: I am a wicked hypochondriac. Like, if I smell coffee or bacon in the morning, I am instantly convinced that I have a brain tumor or nasal polyps or epilepsy or something, and not until I am actually holding a plate in front of me and bitching about how this pigmeat isn't crisp enough does it ever once occur to me that I might be smelling strange things because someone is cooking something.

Example: from time to time I wake up in the morning with a sore throat, cotton mouth, a splitting headache, and absolute killer death-breath. According to WebMD (the Internet is a wonderful thing, no?), I might have Sjgren's syndrome, or acute kidney failure, or constipation, or mono (which I'm pretty sure I already had when I had "the flu" in college for six damn weeks, but who knows?), or even leukemia -- OK, leukemia isn't technically on the list, but I know that different kinds of cancers manifest in different kinds of ways.

Of course, what I really have? Is a hangover. It's the great-goddamn-grandmother of all hangovers, but still. God. Weirdo. (But I can't really help it that I'm allergic to having a good time.)

But the point of all of this is that right now I have a cat with the sniffles, and so of course I am freaking the fuck out. You can ask my husband about last night, when I lay in bed weeping and shrieking hysterically because I was terrified, absolutely inconsolably convinced, that something is seriously wrong with the cat. Practically at death's door. Making funeral plans and picking out an outfit and everything. I mean, come on! He's been hanging out in the bathtub, ferchrissakes!

Plus I recently discovered WebDVM, which is like WebMD for animals, and ... Christ on a cracker, the horror! Owen has been sneezing and coughing, which could mean kennel cough, or feline herpes, or heartworm. He also has the sniffles and some congestion, which could be COPD, or distemper, or pneumonia. And he's been drinking a lot, which could be diabetes, or kidney failure, or a thyroid problem. Every single one of these things sounds horrible. A simple cold, which is probably what he actually has, is almost anticlimactic now.

I figured out what will fix him, though: Valium. Lots and lots of Valium. Or Zoloft, or Xanax, or Prozac, or some other mood stabilizers. Oh, not for him, though. They're for me.

=====

UPDATE 12/14/07: G took Owen to the (craptacular) emergency backup vet today, because he wasn't sounding very good overnight into today. Poor little bugger is on antibiotics ... and now I need to watch out for amoxicillin allergies, because cats can be allergic to amoxicillin, and since I'm allergic to amoxicillin you just know the O-Bert will be. If Something Bad happens we might have to give him steroids or epinephrine. Like what happens to me, only I don't know if you'll see his hives under his fur. Oh, and feline herpes is apparently a possibility. Sometimes the worst-case scenario is actually possible. Oy vey.

This blog post is titled "My Life, In Words and Pictures Misappropriated from Teh Intartubes."

Two days ago, it was a great day because



Caturdays are full of win and awesome. I love Caturdays. Everybody loves Caturdays.

The next day it was Sunday -- not Caturday, but is OK -- and Sunday was also a great day because



But today it is Monday, and Mondays are full of lose and pleh and also I had an interview and I feel like I am



And also it is month end and so



Please send money for an escape, OK? And booze. Lots and lots of booze.

Things That Are Sexy Right This Very Minute:

10. Chuck on NBC, Monday nights at 8pm - Because I ♥ Nerds

9. Anybody who beats the Yankees - Bonus points because: Grady Sizemore! Squee!

8. Gossip bloggers who are bitchier than I am - Plus, pink hair! (Sometimes!)

7. High-definition television

6. House on Fox, Tuesday nights at 9pm - Because I ♥ Snarky Bad-Asses

5. Scrapple, sliced thin, and fried until crispy on the outside but still mushy inside - with ketchup

3 (Tie). #26

3 (Tie). #11

2. American sports cars - Mustangs & Corvettes especially

1. Shutouts in the playoffs

Oh! And Matt Damon (note: NOT Tom Brady)!

In case you haven't noticed, I blog to deal with life. It's cheaper than therapy, and in a lot of ways more honest -- I already know I can't impress the whole Internet, and so I feel no need to lie. Other people deal with their issues in other ways. PostSecret is one of them. I check out PostSecret.com every Sunday to see the new art-projects-cum-catharses that people send in. Frank Warren, the creator/curator of PostSecret, has made a little movie about his site, so I'm helping to get the word out. I don't normally do pimpage, so believe me when I say this is worth checking out.

If you like what you see, new secrets are added to the site every Sunday. There are also some PostSecret books available on Amazon.com. Check it out, and know this: whatever your secret might be, you are not alone.

PS - This video was also inspired by PostSecret and some of the secrets were used with permission. Great song, too.