Ms. Domestrix

There's a New President...

2008-12-17T00:13:00.000-08:00

This guy told me so, just read it, there's nothing else to say:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28269290/?gt1=43001

Spit take.

2008-11-30T02:51:00.000-08:00

I busted loose today, leaving the kids with Dar at a movie, giving me a couple hours alone. I was on Pacific Avenue, in lovely downtown Santa Cruz. I did a little Christmas shopping, going into antique stores for once - something I can't do with the kids.

I went to this new teahouse called "Asana". Ugh, such a pretentious yogi guru bullshit name. But I wanted a cup of tea to walk around with. I looked at the menu, with so many different varieties and said to the counter hippie, "I'll have the guykiagi green". And he said, "You mean the GEE-OH-KEE-AHHHHHHHH-JEE?" Sure, yes, counter hippie... He rings me up and says, "That'll be ten dollars." And I say, "Oh - no, I just want a cup..." He says yes, that is the price for one cup. (They sell bulk tea leaves and I thought maybe he was trying to sell me a pound or two..).

Did I buy a ten dollar cup of tea? No, I did not. Instead I looked again at the vast menu and picked the two dollar kimigogo (KEE-MEE-GOGOOOOO). It tasted like green fucking tea. This place is full of raw desserts and food-snacks. Reasonably priced - but not the tea, oh no... As I slowly walked out, I scanned the small crowd of patrons, trying to spot the one drinking the high-end brew. Did anyone there look more satisfied than anyone else? Did anyone have an unusually healthy, robust glow? Was anyone slightly hovering above their seat, levitating from the lift one must get from a ten dollar cup of tea?

A ten dollar cup of tea should make you hallucinate g-spot orgasms. At least they offer free wi-fi...

I guess I've gotta say something.

2008-10-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

It's hard for me to believe that there are people in this country who are still calling themselves "undecided". After eight years of a Republican-ruled bad circus (creepy clowns and sick elephants), who can still be unsure? Either you are a loyal Repub voting McC or you're not.

I think I've been stuck behind one of these people in a fast food line. "I'll have the McTurkey..wait...the McGiblet sounds good too..oh, but there's also the McMutton on whole wheat..Lord, I just can't decide...".

Honestly. I think we're beyond nitpicking little policy disrepancies. We're beyond taxes or abortion rights. It's as simple as red and blue. Either you still want a Republican as your president or you want a Democrat. Pick a fucking side.

This is not a hard decision. Really. If you are still undecided, you shouldn't vote. You're a hazard to society. You're like a drunk-driver. A retarded drunk-driver. A blind, retarded drunk-driver, missing a foot (probably lost it doing something stupid). You need to stay home on November 4th. Stay put - don't even attempt a trip to Starbucks, where ventis and grandes confound you, and do you want whipped cream? I don't know - do you want another warmonger for president, you stupid fucking piece of shit?.....

A lot's been going on...

2008-10-16T23:04:00.001-07:00

Ms. Domestrix moved. Took the kids with me, and not much else. At a little bit of a higher elevation, my ears pop on the way in and out of this Topanga-esque Canyon. Sweet apartment, hippie landlords. God Bless Northern California.

A young man I know died, at the violent hands of another young man. The son of friend, the brother of a friend... It's shaken this community of women I live among. Some of them have experienced this kind of pain already. None of us can believe it's true. But, sadly it is. It's made us closer, that's for sure, and opened me up in a way I never knew possible. I'm a hugger now people. I don't quite understand it - but I just want to wrap my arms around my friends and their children, and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze...

Oh, there is some toxic cancer dust that the cement plant, sharing neighbor status with our school for over 100 years, has been poofing on us. Yea... Hexvalant Chromium. Heard of it? Netflix "Erin Brocovich" if you haven't....

But, as the homeless hippie guru , who lived in El Granada harbor, once said, "At least I have my colors to protect me". I don't know what that means, but I plan on polishing my nails, dying my hair, and painting the kids bedroom floor ASAP...

Zealand!

2008-10-02T00:12:00.001-07:00

Young lady, you should be studying. Hitting those books. Or shopping for boys. Mmmmmm -Seattle boys, with their post-grunge coolness and coffee breath....

There's a reason I don't get here very often, and you all know what it is. C'mon say it with me, class: 56k.

I wrote a long, interesting entry a few nights ago, and before I could upload it . Explorer crashed. Shit like that makes me die a little every time it happens.

But, things are looking up. Ms. Domestrix has secured herself some new digs - with hi-speed world-wide-woooo hoooooo!

I will blog more, I promise. For the 2.6 of you out there who care: I care about you, too. I do.

I'm telling people I'm moving because I'm seperating from my husband. But the real reason is that I just wanted DSL...

It can't be!

2008-09-25T12:57:00.001-07:00

Just because, I clicked on the "Clay Aiken is Gay"headline, you know, silly curiosity. Of course, those of us who've been around the block a few times already knew. And the fact that his son was a prodcut of in vitro - well, if you hadn't done your laps yet - that was a good clue.

And I really couldn't give a flying fuck. I'm on-line, I'm clicking from page to page, I land where I land...

But something about this news tidbit went up my ass sideways. It may not be an actual quote - it is the internet after all - but if it is, god help us:

Meanwhile, the Aiken fan site ClayManiacs was open for viewing. Response in a thread on the site's "ShoutBox" was generally supportive, though at least one fan was shaken by Aiken's public confession.

"This is really shocking news as I had no idea he was gay," read a comment posted by "Sheridansq." "And now I have to deal with this. I am not sure what to say to people who know I was a fan. ... I didn't go to work today and am not answering the telephone."

She didn't go to work. She wasn't answering her telephone. She doesn't know what to say to people who knew she was a fan. I wonder, what would someone say to her, if she did happen to pick up the phone?

"Ha ha! You like that faggot Clay Aiken! You like a fag! He is gay now! You listen to his music and enjoy the sound of his voice! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha..."

The echo of the cruel laughter still resounds deafeningly, haunting her every moment, asleep or awake...

Another life ruined by Clay-fucking-Aiken.

Green Animals (Or 'How Bruce Was Right').

2008-08-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

I am not a grudgeholder. I don't walk around remembering past wrongs I've endured. I don't harbor ill feelings towards those who have insulted or affronted me. I get over shit, I 'move on'. (I may completely write some people off, people I choose to never associate with again. But, I don't consider that holding a grudge. I consider that making a fucking decision.)

A long time ago, when I was probably the same age as my kids now, a promise was made to me. I asked my father, Bruce, to take me to "Green Animals". Located in Portsmouth, Rhode Island (on Aquidneck Island, 5 minutes north of legendary Newport). Click on that link there. It'll tell you all about Green Animals.

And here's Wikipedia's glorious description:

The Green Animals Topiary Garden, located in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, is the oldest and most northern topiary garden in the United States. The seven-acre estate overlooks the Narragansett Bay. It contains a large collection of topiaries including eighty sculptured trees. Favorites include teddy bears, a camel, a giraffe, an ostrich, an elephant and two bears made from sculptured California privet, yew, and English boxwood. There are also pineapples, a unicorn, a reindeer, a dog and spot a horse with his rider. There are over 35 formal flowerbeds, geometric pathways, rose arbor, grape arbor, fruit trees, and vegetable and herb gardens. A greenhouse is used extensively to provide seedlings used on the estate. The 1859 Victorian Brayton house museum contains a small display of vintage kids toy and the original family furnishings. Ribbons for prize-winning dahlias and vegetables, dating from about 1915, line the walls of the gift shop. The Preservation Society of Newport County maintains it.

Doesn't it sound just amazing? And as a kid, it was all I wanted to do, the only place I wanted to go. I'd ask Bruce, "Can we please go to Green Animals?" Yup, he'd say. "Promise?" Yup, he'd promise.

But we never went to Green Animals. And although I'm not a grudgeholder, I held on to that.

Which, of course made Green Animals grow bigger and more important in my head.

So on this trip back to my homeland (good, old Rhode Island) what was on my agenda? Green-fucking-Animals, that's what. It was a long, hard road to GA. The first attempt was thwarted by Gannon's low blood sugar. As we were in the lounge, waiting to take a tour of a Newport mansion, followed by maybe another and then to the topiaries (I bought a package deal of tickets!), he decided he'd rather nose-dive into a diabetic coma. So we rushed out to get some lunch, and then ditched the whole idea. What's the hurry? I'd be here all month...

And then it rained for 2 weeks straight.

Finally, today was the day. As if guided by Joseph Carreiro himself, my directional dyslexia banished, I drove straight to it. We parked the car, got out, looked around. It was, of course, Gannon who spoke first:

"Can we go home now?"

Why you little shit...I coaxed him out of the parking lot and towards the garden. With our maps in hand, we matched the little numbers on the page with their garden markers. "Look!", exclaimed Mason, "We're at nine! Whoa...Is this some kind of cat graveyward?" I think it may have been.

Five minutes later, we were done. We'd seen the dahlia garden, the topiary giraffe and teddy bear... the grapes...Maybe I've become accustomed to the amplitude of California...But Green Animals seemed smaller and less exciting than my driveway. I mean, sure I've got a kick-ass driveway, but...I was expecting so much more.

Maybe my expectations were set too damn high. Maybe Green Animals ain't what it used to be. When I got back to the house, I told Bruce what we experienced. He said, "I know. I fuckin' hated that place. That's why I never took you". But...why didn't you just tell me!? "I tried. You wouldn't listen...".

Ah, the politics of parenting: Sometimes it's easier to just give up and lie to your kid. I do it too. Six Flags? Yuck. You don't want to go there...

Why I always look like crap.

2008-08-12T21:38:00.000-07:00

I'm an insomniac. I watched the sun rise a few mornings ago. I'd been wide awake all night long. This happens often. I lie in bed, watching the clock move from one hour to the next. And then, I get out of bed, because it is this thing called 'day' and people must be awake then. (People should be asleep at night, of course, but if they aren't it's too fucking bad - because 'day' seems to be the boss of night.)

I have always been, as long as I can remember, an insomniac. I've always taken the night shifts at work - the dreaded closing times, I loved them. I've locked-up-for-the-night downtown bookstores, late-night laundramats, vegetarian restaurants...And then wandered the streets, looking for more non-sleeping souls to keep me company.

Now though, I'm too old or something for this all-night lifestyle. I've got to function like a normal human girl in the daytime. Not for my kids, by the way, they've inherited my fucked-up backwards sleeping habit - for the rest of the goddamn day-light obsessed world we live in. Me and the kids would be fine living in opposite world, going to night school and mooning ourselves by the pool...But I just can't do it like I used to when I was younger.

When Bram Stoker wrote "Dracula", I wonder if he'd been awake a little too long. Only an insomniac could think up un-dead, night dwelling creatures to whom daylight is deadly.

Daylight seems deadly, with the fucking sun shining in the windows - and the noises. Birds? I fuckin' hate birds. The way I feel, when my alarm goes off in the morning is heartbreaking. It's not waking me up, I'm already awake. It's telling me I have no chance, again, of getting any sleep. It's saying, "Fuck you, Robyn, you've got another day of being completely exhausted and useless ahead of you...Oh, and I hate you".

It's almost time for the new school year to start. That means back to work for me. I thought that this summer would be 'the one'. The one where I finally get some sleep, I finally get on that normal schedule...Nope. I'm on the East Coast right now, watching the clock move from one hour to the next THREE HOURS EARLIER than I ususally do in California. Insomnia and math.

But there is hope. My new Cambodian stepmother got a prescription for Ambien. For me! Now you know, anyone who'll share their prescription goodies (or cigarettes) with me is okay in my book. This shit is GREAT. Someone told me to be careful with it, because it might make me, like, drive my car or paint my nails while I'm sleeping. But I honestly don't fucking care. I'll be sleeping. Sleeping!

I just took one. It feels nice when it kicks in, what I think it must've been like in the womb....

The Fist-Bumpin', Jihadin', Superfly Negros.

2008-07-16T00:24:00.000-07:00

OK. Barack Obama is black. And his name is eerily sound-alikey to "Osama". And his wife - well, god help us all - she's a fucking black too. Like, black panther black. Like Malcom X, Minister Louis Farrakhan black...Blaaaaaaack.

Fuck.

When I first saw this New Yorker cover, I got it. It's a secret message for super-smart people (like me) aimed at not-so-smart-people (like my sister-in-law). It says, "Hey. Dumbasses. He's NOT a Muslim, you stupid fucks. He's an American Christian. Look at the fucking fist-bump, you useless pieces of troglodite shit. Look at it! Muslim terrorists don't fucking fist-bump. They high-five. Everybody knows that, you goddamn, pathetic morons."

And I was like, "Yeah...Dumbfuckers...". It's satirical. It's sarcastic, even. It's that smart kind of humor for which the New Yorker is known.

However, if the super-smart message the New Yorker was sending was aimed at people too stupid to understand it...Well, they missed their mark. And if they missed their mark - well then, where the fuck did it land? Ought-oh...

So now, all of those stupid people, who already thought Obama was an untrustworthy Muslim with an uppity terrorista for a wife, have this...this family portrait to further wrongly influence them.

Fuck.

Sometimes smart people can be so dumb...

A little smug...Just a little.

2008-07-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

Okay. I try to not be *that* mom. You know the one, "Oh, little Tyler is just so smart! He already knows his ABC's and can count to TEN!" Yeah, he's 12...Way to go...

I've never used my kids to boost my own ego (or as little fashion accesories, either...).

But today - well, today I have to just tell all of you out there: IN YOUR FACE! My kids RULE! They fucking rule.

We're at home, for the first time in a while, just relaxing during our heatwave. They're lounging on the couch with me watching a repeat of Oprah. Oprah's guest is Jessica Seinfeld, wife to Jerry and author of a new cookbook called "Deceptively Delicious". In this cookbook, she makes all kinds of kid's favorite foods like mac-n-cheese and chicken nuggets - but sneaks in veggie purees. Spinach puree, carrot puree, caulifower puree...all disguised in other food.

And, it looks good. I mean, it seems kind of crazy, pureeing all of your veggies and then cooking them into brownies - but it works. The wee ones are now getting their vegetables and mommy can lose some of that American "oh-my-god-we-ate-at-McDonald's-again?!" guilt.

So, after a while Mason or Gannon says, "I'm hungry." And the other one says, "Me too". And I say, "What do you want?" And someone says "broccoli". And the other one says, "Yeah, this is making me want broccoli". So, I go in the kitchen, chop up some organic, locally grown broccoli, steam it up, and put in front of them. They eat it.

I didn't have to puree it and sneak it into pudding or something. I didn't have to give them ranch dressing to drown it in. It still looked like little trees. And they loved it.

And I love them. I'm a proud, proud mama....

George Carlin, 1937 - 2008

2008-06-23T01:53:00.000-07:00

"Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money."

I love comedy, I love comedians - I'll always take funny over serious. One of my favorite comics is George Carlin. He's the reason I started referring to god as an "invisible man in the sky".

George Carlin just died. At the age of 71, which doesn't seem that old - at least he didn't seem that old.

George Carlin is probably most famous for listing the seven words you can't say on tv:

"There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven you can’t say on television. What a ratio that is! 399,993 to 7. They must really be baaaad. They must be OUTRAGEOUS to be separated from a group that large. “All of you words over here, you seven….baaaad words.” That’s what they told us, right? …You know the seven, don’t ya? That you can’t say on TV? Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits."

I love comedy AND profanity. I do, you know I do. His humor was based on the shortcomings of his fellow man, that biggest shortcoming being religious fanaticism. My kind of guy. As an atheist, I am sorely lacking in role models. Here was an outspoken atheist, fearless in his humor, never pandering to the other 90-something percent of the population.

"Atheism is a non-prophet organization."

And I appreciate that. I've been out-numbered my whole life. I need to know I'm not completely alone in my wild disbeliefs. Because it can be scary, being in this minority. Religious fanatics can get crazy mean if you refuse to believe their fairy tales. People like George Carlin challenged them - and we need more people like him speaking up for us. He's one of the reasons I'm speaking up for us...

"You can’t argue with a good blowjob."

He also gave great relationship advice. That little gem always helped me come out on top in domestic disputes...

I suck.

2008-06-18T01:37:00.000-07:00

I shouldn't have abandoned my post here. But I've been busy, so busy. The end of the school year just totally took every ounce of my essence, my soul...Most people don't know that Ms. Domestrix holds three different positions at her job. Ms. Domestrix didn't even know until recently ("So THAT'S why I've been so busy..."). As they say, I wear many hats. Luckily, I look adorable in hats.

But that's over now. It's summer vacation - school's out and I'm safe at home. I've been mending my broken soul holistically. Taking my vitamins and drinking lots of water. Today, as I was barreling out of the canyon, drinking my Emergen-C, popping Green Tea pills, sublingually ingesting some vitamin B - all at once - I realized I'm turning into some type of homeopathic Hunter Thompson. Fear and Loathing in Santa Cruz, the organic edition... I'm hooked on health store junk.

Gonna live forever...or overdose on valerian...

Jesus, Mary and Me.

2008-04-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedixt was in town. The new German pope. I had my doubts about this guy from the start of his whole popehood. First of all - a German pope? C'mon. A German?

However, I was lucky enough to get a face-to-face with him, which surprisingly changed my skeptical opinion. (If you're wondering how I got a face-to-face, well don't worry about that - that's on a need-to-know, kabish?)

We decided to meet at a quiet little place, close to where I work. I was glad he agreed to this out-of-the-way location because I hate driving around all the time. I feel like half of my life is in the car, y'know?

When he came in, the first thing I noticed was that his robe had gotten tucked into his tightie-whities, and he was practically mooning the entire coffee shop. How long he had been like this and why none of his handlers had caught on, I don't know - but my opening line "It is an honor to meet you, your grace" was replaced with, "Ummm...Your robe is kinda stuck up your butt, your holiness."

This turned out to be a great ice-breaker. The pope has a good sense of humor. I would never have guessed.

I had many, many deep and difficult questions for him. I told him right away I was an orthodox atheist. He nodded but with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, said something in German that sounded like, "Satan's gonna love you, sweetie." Then he looked right at my boobs. This was actually a problem throughout the whole interview. I'll admit, I was wearing a slightly low-cut blouse (I always do) - but shouldn't a man of god have more control?

The subject of sexual abuse in the catholic church had been a big issue during his trip. I asked him to give me his honest answers on this horrible, painful subject: He expressed remorse, apologized for the cover-ups and perpetuation. He seemed sincere. He asked if I had children. I told him, yes, two boys. His eyes lit up. He asked how old, and I told him 8 and 9. He caught his breath sharply, leaned into me and asked, "Do you have any pictures of them?"

This made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I quickly changed the subject. I asked him the one question every person of faith must have to struggle with: There has been so much suffering in the world, why does it seem like god has turned his back on us? He began, in his thickly accented English to explain the complexities of the relationship between god and man, how it is not god's ultimate responsibility to be the keeper of man, that sin is inbred in all of us, etc. etc. I couldn't pay attention to him for very long though - I realized he sounded like Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes and I got the giggles. He stopped talking and asked me what was so funny. I told him. I said, "I'm sorry - but you sound like a guy from this old, funny TV show.."

Before I could finish, he put his hand up and said, "HO-O-O-OGAN!"

I practically fell out of my chair AND almost pissed myself at the same time. Obviously, this wasn't the first time he'd heard this comparison. I tried to tell him I was sorry - but we were both laughing so hard, it wasn't neccessary. I squealed, "Do more! Do more Klink!" And he did. He was so on, he did the "Heil Hitler" and the “I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!” (I didn'thave the heart to tell him that was Sargeant Schulz, not Klink - and who cared?).

When we finally calmed down, I realized our time was up. Before he left, though, I had one more question: What's up with the hat? He said solemnly, "It's where I keep my keys."

I still don't know if he was serious...

Why I listen to loud music in the car.

2008-04-19T23:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a conversation between Mason and Gannon yesterday in the car:

M: Gannon, truth or dare.

G: Truth.

M: Would you ever name one of your kids "Fart"?

G: Ummmmmm. No.

M: Gannon, truth or dare.

G: Dare.

M: I dare you to name one of your kids "Fart".

Dear Ms. Domestrix.

2008-03-20T22:07:00.000-07:00

Yay! Once again it's time for me to open my overflowing letter bag and answer some of your questions.

Thousands of you write in, via e-mail, fax, or USPS. It's overwhelming, this huge outpouring. Most of you ask me for advice on personal issues - and I am happy to give it. I'd like to thank my assistant Kevin who has picked out a couple of letters for me to address this week

Dear Ms. Domestrix,

I have this cat that I think may not like me. She seems friendly enough - but every time I pet her, she thoroughly - almost neurotically - licks the spot where my hand had contact. Should I be hurt by this gesture? It's like she despises my touch.

H.C., New York

Really Kevin? Out of all of the letters readers sent in, you picked this one? We'll talk about this later.

But, to answer H.C. from New York: Yes, you might be right to feel offended. In cat behavior this is classically known as the "poo-poo you". The cat doesn't necessarily despise your touch - she'd scratch and hiss at you if that was the case. But she does find you slightly repulsive. What she is doing is no different than if a person indiscreetly wiped his hand off after shaking yours. It's like she's saying, "Yuck! Poo-poo you!" This could also be a tell-tell sign of some sort of obesessive/compulsive disorder. Watch her litterbox habits closely. If you notice her ritualistically spinning before she settles into her defecating position, she may be slightly OCD. Contact your vet or pet psychic as soon as possible.

Dear Ms. Domestrix,

I am a man of bi-racial color. My black friends say I'm too white and my white friends say I'm too black. How do I find my balance in this label-obsessed world?'

B.O., Chicago

Poor, poor B.O.

First, let me tell you how sorry I am about those unfortunate initials. Second, I can assure you that I feel the exact same depth of confusion you do. Years ago, I attempted to join the WNBA - I had game back then, but nobody would take me seriously. You see, I'm only 5'1. Too short, they said. A few years later, feeling confidant enough to attempt something new, I tried out for the Micro Wrestling Federation. I'd been working out and needed a venue to showcase my strength and tone. But once again, I was rejected. The reason? Too tall. We all have trouble finding our balance in this world, B.O. But if I have any advice for you, my latte skinned friend, it's to just be the best B.O. you can. No matter what, I've lived my life with integrity and love for all - even for those uppity, little midget-wrestling bastards.

Now where the hell is Kevin.......

If you want hang out with me....

2008-03-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

I'm reading today's MSN homepage headlines and here's one I find excrutiatingly annoying: California Teen Declares Cuss-Free Zone. I've linked the whole article but here's an excerpt from the 14 year old's lecture (I can't seem to not hear him as Beaver Cleaver):

"My mom and dad always taught me good morals, good values, and not cussing was one of them," said McKay Hatch, the founder of South Pasadena High School's No Cussing Club, during a recent break between study hall and tennis practice.

"I've cussed before, I'm not gonna lie to you," Hatch quickly added. "But I try not to cuss any more."

He was in junior high school when he became fed up with all the blue language around him.

He understood why his friends use foul language: "They just want to fit in like everybody else and they don't know how. They figure if they cuss maybe it's an easy way to do that."

But it wasn't for him.

"I finally told my friends, `I don't cuss.' And I said, `If you want to hang out with me, you don't cuss.'"

Well, guess what kid? I don't want to hang out with you.

I'm a cusser. My dad's a cusser, my mom (rest her soul) was a cusser, their parents were cussers (Grandpa Jim was in the Navy)...Shit, my kids are cussers. Cussing is what makes me who I am.

I can't imagine watching a football game without cussing. "Go team! - Oh, shucks - better luck next time!"

I can't imagine having a baby without cussing (you should've heard me...)

I can't imagine having sex without cussing (I like the dirty talk, and you can't have good dirty talk without some really foul, colorful language. You just can't). In fact I wonder, if in a few years when this kid picks up his first freaky sex partner, and she starts spewing out a laundry list of sexual obscenities, if he'll be able to resist. "I'm sorry young lady - but I'll have to remove my penis from your vagina at this moment, unless you can curb the bad language."

I would like to infiltrate this "No Cussing Club" of his. I'd play it cool, for the first few meetings to gain their trust. Then, when nobody expected it, like a streaker I'd stand up and I'd cuss. I'd cuss like those kids have never heard before. I'd let words fly forth from my mouth that could sink an armada of pure thoughts. Oh, I'd fuckin' wreck them.

And for some reason, I want to kick this kid's ass. I don't even know why. Is it the ubermorality? "My mom and dad always taught me good morals..." I wonder what other morals he's gotten from them. If he can't handle a few four-letter words, I'll safely conjecture that he also can't handle gay marriage or abortion either.

Sure, I'm jumping to conclusions about him - I'm assuming. And you know what happens when you assume? Why, you make an ass out of u and me. Get it, kid? I'm cussing for wordplay. Neat, huh? Fuck yeah!

Well, now, hold on....

2008-03-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

So, I'm supporting Obama. And by supporting him, I mean I voted for him in my California primary. I'm not stomping for him, I haven't made him a friend on Myspace. If there was no Obama, I'd vote for any other Democrat. Hillary, Edwards, Bill Richardson (my original favorite). Whoever.

Wnnie, my dear friend, asked me to convince her why to pick Obama. I had several reasons, but boiled it down to this: he's just my first choice. In Australia (and other countries) they have the preferential option. If we had that here, Obama would get my number one vote, but Hil would get my second. I like him because he's young. And from Hawaii. And black. I think the young, black Hawaiian point of view would be a fresh change for this old, white man's job.

But, I don't like all of the trash-talking surrounding Hillary. She's not my first choice, true. But I'll be just fine if she walks away with the nomination. The first female president? Hell yeah. She's not my first choice because I do sort of distrust her DC experience. I feel like she may already be deep in the corrupt Washington matrix. But, whatever - who's the Republican opposition? John McCain? I'm screaming in fear just at the thought.

Dar was just giving her shit, saying something like, "How does she think she's going to fix the healthcare problem? She had 8 years to fix it and she failed..."

I whoa whoa'd him right there. I said, "She wasn't the fucking president. Her asshole of a husband was. She had no real power."

And he said, "Sure she did. All you women have the power."

Really? I pointed to his pile of clothes on the floor I'd asked him to pick up 3 years ago. I pointed to the little note I'd tacked on the wall begging him to build me an outside garbage bin 4 years ago. I pointed to my uterus, where I'd recently had my tubes tied because I couldn't convince him to get a vascectomy...Yeah, I've got ALL the power here.

Blaming Hillary Clinton for Bill's shortcomings is fucking ridiculous. Maybe her bid for this gig is simply a way for her to prove she's not a southern fried jackass like him. (I never liked him, by the way. He put more people in prison for petty drug crimes than fucking Reagan.)

Obama-Clinton, Clinton-Obama: Doesn't matter. May the force be with them (and not with Diebold....)

I got the blues.

2008-02-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

Dar has taken up with some new 'musicians'. He plays guitar pretty well - darn good, really. But these characters he's been playing with? Ee-gads. The first guy, L. - his singing is reminiscent of Alfalfa from the Little Rascals. Anyone familiar with that old-time humor, Alfalfa serenading the lovely Darla by caterwauling "I'm in the Mood For Love"? It's like that, only imagine Alfalfa slurringly drunk and more annoying.

The new guy, X. (I don't even remember his name) is a wee better. While L. is strictly a cover guy (eviscerating Neil Young songs), X. writes his own materials. However, his own materials are a weird hybrid of blues, pop, and crap. Sometimes he sounds like Billy Joe - other times like a dying shelduck.

After being forced to listen to this so-called music, I finally had some sort of fit. Dar was listening to X's 'demo tape' for the umpteenth time, trying to learn the music so they could practice. I don't know if I can blame this on female hormonal crankiness or just raw nerves, but something evil took a hold of me and I stormed into the room where he was practicing and raged at him for a good 20 minutes about how the music sucked, the guys can't sing, he's playing the same fucking Grateful Dead spinning shit....I just told him straight out: It's all bad, dude.

And then something magical happened: He agreed with me. Then he played some of his own stuff, the good stuff. I picked up one of X.'s lyric sheets and said, "Let me sing this song to your music. Then, tell me if I can sing better than either one of those jackasses."

So I sang. I belted it out. And I don't sing. I don't even hum. But I did it for me. I just had to. Well, the kids came running into the room to hear this strange new sound. Mom singing? In the living room? The car yes - but the living room with Dad? Whoa.

When I was done, I asked: Well, am I better than those guys? The kids answered instantly, yes! yes! It took Dar a moment longer before he admitted, that yes I was a better singer than the other two.

Unfortunately, being told I'm a better singer than those two is like being told I'm a little nicer than Hitler. Sigh.

Really? REALLY?

2008-02-20T23:24:00.000-08:00

I am sitting here, my head in my hands - you know the move, when you just can't comprehend something so horrible.

And I can comprehend lots of horrible things. I understand perversion and crimes of passion. I know people do hideous things to each other. I don't excuse it - but I get it. Dar and I always remember these nasty monkeys we saw on Animal Planet or Discovery Channel. They were genetically closest to humans and they were so gross. They did all of this kinky sex stuff with each other, even with the little ones. And they were violent with each other. Oooh - we watched them just viciously shred this lost chimpanzee that wandered onto their turf.

So when we hear about people doing vile and disgusting things to each other, we always nod and say, "Just like those nasty monkeys..."

But, this latest news item (coming from a place I'm so gald I wasn't born unto) - well, I just can't wrap my head around it. It's religious in nature, of course. You know I don't understand any of that crazy shit. It's one thing I can't nod and say "Those darn disgusting monkeys and their creepy god". Because even the lecherous, murderous monkeys aren't this stupid.

In Saudi Arabia (one W.'s closest Middle East allies, it would seem), a woman has been convicted of being a witch and is awaiting her decapitation execution.

It's just too much.

I can't stop thinking about it. I can't believe, that on this planet, along with all of the music and art and medicine and literature and foie gras there is also such powerfully retarded superstition. Against women.

In the Muslim world, women are the targets of most of the violence. And unjust punishments. Why? Are we really witches?

We are. Most of us don't know it - but we are. The woman about to get her head lopped off probably didn't know she was a witch. It's as ancient as the dirt, this witchcraft. And, it's a vagina thing. It's best summed up in that distasteful joke that I actually find very telling: Never trust anything that bleeds for 7 days and doesn't die. Think about it.

We bleed. And I'm pretty it's this blood that gives us this mystical gift/curse. The magic is in the menses. It alligns us with the moon, it heightens our already intact intuition, it makes us cranky (which equals evil).

Most men, I think, can handle this. I had a boyfriend who'd fuck me while I was bleeding - he wasn't scared.

But when dealing with the Muslim world, we're not talking about most men. They're already a bunch of spooky fucks, towing Allah's line.

Imagine this: Jim from accounting, a normal seeming guy, comes into the break room one afternoon and says, "I just found out my wife's cousin is a witch. We're going to chop her head off this coming Friday. Y'all can come if you're free."

Wouldn't you call the police? But in Saudi Arabia it was the police (the religious police) who took her in. In their opinion, a witch is a bad thing. They don't want to know about what a woman can do - they only want to tell her what she can't do and torture her no matter what.

I do not practice religious tolerance. Should I? Should I be tolerant of this? I will not. I will tell you how I think this Muslim fanaticism is disgusting. And frightening. And I know there's some Evangelical in Missouri who wishes he could turn his neighbor in for being a witch. Where are his religious police, he laments? Religious fanatics do not deserve my tolerance.

Anyway, most religions are not tolerant of me, a woman. A bloody, witchy, scary broad.

And one last thing: God-fucking-bless America. With all of the shit going down in the world, this is still quite a nice, safe place for me to be a female Orthodox Atheist. I'm appreciating it more than usual right now while my illiterate Saudi sister awaits her fate.

Aw, fuck me.

2008-02-13T00:33:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought it was safe to...

The new diet soda threat has been all over the news. If you haven't heard, recent "studies" have just concluded that diet soda is making people fatter and more prone to metabolic syndrome - the symptoms that prelude type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Of fucking course, as I have just recently discovered diet soda (and become helplessly addicted to it). I used to be addicted to real soda (Coke). Oh man, I loved it. I'd buy it by the two liter bottles, and keep one in the firdge at all times. I'd get up in the middle of the night and swig it straight out of the bottle, just to get my fix. I loved it, I needed it.

Then, I moved to California and got "healthy". No more soda. Kicked the habit. Cold turkey, practically. That was about 15 years ago. And then, several weeks ago, at a friend's house, I was offered one of her diet Cokes.

L., the friend, drinks lots of diet Coke. It's her drink of choice. And I found out why. It was sublime - I'd outgrown the syrupy sweetness of regular Coke, that's for sure, and this new sugar-free version was just what I'd been missing. I was hooked instantly.

I began to experiment with other diet sodas. I tried Diet Pepsi - not as good, in my opinion. I tried diet Dr. Pepper, diet creme, diet ginger ale...I thought I was having a 13 minute orgasm when I tasted my first cherry vanilla diet Dr. Pepper. I loved them all, really, but that one became my favorite.

And then one day Dar broke the bad news. Yesterday, actually. He's always been against the diet soda. He doesn't understand. So, he was downright gleeful as he played me the news blip he'd tivo'd just for me.

"This is Brenda Blahblah reporting from some science place, where a doctor person has just randomly decided that diet soda fucks you up, etc. etc." (My interpretation of the BULLSHIT I was watching.)

I first reacted by challenging it: Of course most people who drink a diet soda every day are unhealthy, they're probably the ones who order supersized fast food and attach a big gulp bucket of diet soda with it. Duh.

Then today, he tivo'd another news clip, where Diane Sawyer made that same remark to the doctor lady - and the Dr. was prepared for it and had some snappy answer, like "Well, we used lab rats under controlled, Big Mac free conditions..." Bitch.

I'm taking a position on this right now: I still don't believe it. I'm drinking my diet cherry vanilla Dr. Peppers. Fuck it.

And by the way, I think it's funny how Dar doesn't believe anything he hears on the news - unless it's something that'll mess with me. Then, Good Morning America is all of a sudden preaching the fucking gospel.

Revenge is in order.

I think I've figured it out.

2008-02-07T19:51:00.000-08:00

According to this incredibly detailed MSNBC news article (linked below), understanding the delegate system is extremely tricky but sort of do-able. In my own words, I will try to explain the system in an understandable fashion.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23034102/

Okay, it seems that first off, each state has a certain number of "delegates". The larger the population, the more delegates. When a candidate wins a state's voting district he/she is awarded the number of delegates from that district. The more districts you win, the more delegates you are awarded. Oh! That sounds easy enough.

Okay, so lets say that the total number of delegates in a state is 87. If a candidate wins 47% of those votes cast, to calculate how many delegates he/she would receive would be to multiply 87 by...hmmm. I was never good at figuring out percentages, but I think you'd multiply by .047. Or is it 4.7? Shit - ok, they say you should always go with your first answer, so I'm going to say multiply 87 by .047 which equals...where's my calculator? I can't do this without a calculator. Well, I'm going to have to, like, round up or something so I'll say 87 delegates multiplied by .047 equals...hmmmm, carry the four, take away a space for the decimal...let's say 5.

That doesn't seem right though. It seems low. Does 5 seem low? Well, I'm just following the guidelines I just read. Okay so this candidate gets (roughly) 5 delegates, which means the other 82 go to the competition. Ta da!

But that's not all, because in the case of the Democratic nomination there are also those "state Democrats" who award their own special delegates to each candidate in proportion to their district wins. I think. This is, again, where I get fuzzy. I mean, where do they get their numbers? Where does anyone get their numbers?

Of course, I have to mention the Super Delegates. They defend us against evil doers worldwide and they can fly and junk - but they are notoriously known for flip-flopping on their candidate choice and can even vote for a different political party! And since their identities are kept secret, there's nothing we as civilians can do about it.

And then there are a few stupid states who have their own crazy way of assigning and counting delegates. I won't go into details, except to say in Iowa they rely on last year's corn crop and in Minnesota they just do what Garrison Keillor tells them too - because they fear him.

Add that to the extra 500 delegates each candidate earns if they're smarter than a fifth grader. Unfortunately, no candidate can beat the fifth grader and Jeff Foxworthy gets to keep all 500. You may not know this, but he's actually the front-running write-in candidate.

Which also brings up the point of who gets the loser's delegates? Like, for instance Mitt Romney? The Heavenly Father gets Mitt's delegates. For all eternity.

And that is how the delegate system works. It's simple, people. So stop being so dumb.

What in the fuck are Super Delegates?

2008-02-06T00:04:00.000-08:00

And are they able to leap tall Republicans in a single bound? I'm serious - I never understand elections. I vote. I understand that part. But Super Delegates? And why doesn't the popular vote count as the only vote? And if you had to decide between Romney, McCain or Huckabee would you rather drown in hot sulfuric acid? And why are there always voting 'glitches' in Oakland? And is Diebold still in charge of the majority of voting machines in this country? I feel dizzy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegates

All about Gannon again.

2008-01-27T01:39:00.000-08:00

First - I'm cranky. Second, sorry for the hiatus. But, c'mon? You've never been busy? I've got things to do you know. Like, for instance, check a certain someone's blood sugar for the umpteenth time - let's calculate: it's been 7 and 1/2 years (2737 days), I check him about 6 times a day, multiplied by 2737, equalling 16422 finger pricks - so for the sixteen thousandth, four hundred and twenty second time. I'm not even going into the insulin shots.

I was on the couch tonite, late, after a long day out in San Jose, just sitting. Tired. And then I said it out loud, "Oh shit. I gotta shoot Gannon." And then I said to Dar, "I am so fucking sick of doing this, aren't you sick of doing this? Oh wait - you DON'T do this." Because he doesn't do it as much as me. Not his fault. It's a one person job - you know too many cooks spoil the broth. But, help? A little?

It's me, though - I don't ask for the help I need. Or I should say demand the help I need. I'm that person. I'm, "Fuck it I'll do it myself" girl. Always have been - always will be. I don't trust anyone else to do the important stuff. Now in his defense, he hasn't killed Gannon yet while on duty. I commend him for that.

But how much longer? When can I pass the torch on to Gannon? I asked him a couple of years ago when he would be ready to check his own blood sugar and he said, "I dunno. I don't even know those numbers yet." Oh, yeah. He should probably be numerically literate before he starts reading glucose monitors. That shut me up.

However, he's older now and I know he can count because the little bastard nickels and dimes the shit out of me, as we negotiate monitary bribes and payments for work performed.

I'm so tired. Sometimes it just hits me: my kid's a diabetic. And I have to take care of him. When he's grown up and moved away, I know I'm still going to jolt out of a deep sleep at 2:00am and yell, "Oh shit - I gotta shoot Gannon."

In other news, Mason was as low maintenance today as always. I gave him a cookie when Gannon wasn't looking.

All about Mason

2008-01-03T16:10:00.000-08:00

I feel like sometimes I give too much attention to Gannon on this website. It's always "Gannon did this" and "Gannon said that" - what about Mason? He deserves some press, doesn't he?

Mason is a quiet soul - especially compared to his larger-than-life, motormouth little brother. But, being a quiet soul doesn't mean he's lacking in ideas, humor, or personality. He has provided some of the funniest moments around here. He's the king of the one-liners.

I think I've already mentioned his break-out burn, at the tender of three, when a morbidly obese man walked out of a Burger King, and his quiet voice came from the backseat and declared, "That guy's a dumbfucker."

A few days ago, Dar and I snuck into the bedroom for a little hanky-panky. We used the old "We're going to take a nap" excuse, and then barricaded the door with laundry baskets, and attempted to get it on. Two different times the door was knocked on, once by each kid. We accomplished our mission, nonetheless.

When we emerged from the bedroom a half hour later, Gannon said, "I thought you guys were taking a nap."

I said, "How can we nap with you kids knocking on the door?!"

Mason looked at me skeptically and said, "I think Dad was knocking on your door..."

Oh no he didn't! Here's another one: We were at this new pizza place, and the pizza was all sloppy and messy. Mason was having a hard time eating it, and I said, "Use your fork like me. It's easier."

He said, "No thanks. I'm not a 'fork pizza' guy."

Not a 'fork pizza' guy. I complimented him on his heterosexuality.

Together the kids are a great comedic team. Gannon is the clown - but every clown needs his straight man. Mason is his straight man. I really need to give him more credit for that. I'm laughing, I'm always laughing. And I have so many more years of free entertainment ahead of me.

So, here's to the straight man - where would Ernie have been without Bert? Costello without Abbott? Belushi without Ackroyd? Nowhere near as funny, that's where.

They got her.

2007-12-27T11:49:00.001-08:00

Of course they did. Allah forbid a peaceful female has any influence in this fucking world.

Here's the news clip.

I heart Huckabee.

2007-12-27T02:04:00.000-08:00

President Huckabee. Got a nice ring to it, eh?

No. No it doesn't. I was testing you. Huckabee rhymes with "Fuckabee". Right there we have a problem. When we were trying to name our kids, Dar would immediately start rhyming any choice I put out, always coming to some unflattering sound-alike. If I'd had a girl, I seriously thought about naming her Winnie (an ode to Winsor, my dear friend). He rattled off "Winsor? Winnie? Wimpy, stimpy, stinky, winky, weenie....No." Practically every name was doomed to end in profanity or insult. Sorry, Winnie. You weenie.

So you want to be President? Well your name certainly cannot rhyme with the king of all bad words.

Romney. Now there's a name you can't make bad. Or can you? I asked the expert and all he could come up with was Bomney Insomney. Well that's not too bad.

What about Clinton? He was stumped. He came up with "Hillary Rin Tin Tinton" in a last desperate attempt - but I called her safe at first base. Still, a dog association.

McCain? "Lame Brain McCain". That one flowed off his silver tongue like greased lightning.

Obama? "Dalai Llama Obama". Because he likes Barack and didn't want to hurt his image.

Rudy Guiliani? "That asshole from New York." Well, it doesn't rhyme but I can see where he was going with this one.

But certainly not Huckabee. We're Christian folk! In a horrible tongue-tied instant we could slip and unintentionally let fly the F-Bomb. Grandma'd have a heart attack!

So, I think I'm voting for Mitt Bomney Insomney. That's a name with some real razz-a-matazz. I can get behind that one.

(As if.....)

Going down the road feeling fine.

2007-12-22T15:57:00.000-08:00

We were driving down the PCH today, on our way back to the same store we were at yesterday - the store where I forgot to purchase about 8 things I desperately needed. I was going about 60 mph- not too fast, right? Some surfer, a kid in a little wagon with a bunch of boards on top, pulls out in front of me. Too close in front of me, as I was like, "Oh my god - bra-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ake. Fuckwad!"

I wind up passing him, and as we whiz by, Gannon looks at him and says, "What a jackass!" To which Mason adds, "More like a total douchebag."

We have these friends who have a "swear jar" for just these road rage incidents. Whenever mom or dad cuss at another driver, they have to put some $$$ in the jar. There is not enough money in the WORLD for our family...

Speaking of Xmas...

2007-12-17T12:38:00.000-08:00

Due to the huge storms ripping through the Midwest, there are people in Oklahoma who still don't have power. They've been without for a WEEK. Here's what MSN had to say:

On Monday, Oklahoma utilities said just more than 126,000 customers were still waiting for electricity, most in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa areas.

Among those waiting for service to be restored, Choctaw resident Beverly Smith said her trailer had been without power for seven straight days as of Sunday.

"We don't have anywhere to go," said Smith, who lives in the trailer with her 15-year-old son. "We're out of money. Christmas is nine days away, and I have no hope of giving my family a Christmas all."

I feel so sad for her, and the rest. We lose our power all winter long, for days at a time, too. We're rural and Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) take their sweet time getting to us. And I have insulin in the fridge, people - INSULIN. We finally bought a generator. Mostly so Dar could still watch football and Survivor.

But we never have to deal with debilitating snow. I can't imagine being couped up like that stressing over Christmas. Whenever we lose our power, we just eat out and go to the movies. So, my heart (that little, dried-up black thing I hide under my left boob) goes out to the Okies - and everyone else whose pain and suffering is heightened this time of year.

Mommy needs to drink more at Christmas....

Trevor: The Story of an Ugly Christmas Tree

2007-12-16T00:47:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas tree is ugly. In fact, it's beyond ugly. It's disfigured and misshapen. It's unseemly and unsightly. It's horrible. We tried to beautify it, with the lights and the ornaments - but it was hopeless. This tree sucks.

At every angle there are bald spots. No matter which way you spin it, it has big, gaping, spindly holes. It doesn't even smell.

I was also hoping that maybe there would be a small bird or squirrel still living in it. Nope.

It is the sum of the parts that is making this a really Crappy Christmas. We're broke. And even if we weren't, I'm at a loss, as usual. I love Christmas, really I do. But I hate buying Christmas presents. I feel like I'm mindlessly following my fellow lemmings into Macy's and wasting all of my hard earned cash on stuff. Stuff nobody really needs.

Every year I fight it. And every year I get a little closer to winning. This year, the kids are getting SQUAT. A couple of Wii games. A couple of DS games. Some candy in the stockings. That's it.

Those little fuckers already had Christmas anyway.

See, in July I bought a Wii. The kid at the game store told me to get it then, because it would be impossible at Christmas. He was right (thanks, Jerry). I was faced with the dilemma of sitting on a Wii for 6 months or letting the kids have at it. I told them, in many different ways, if they opened it then, their Christmas would be slim. The little junkies agreed on the spot. Anything for a fix.

But now, they seem to have forgotten our deal. "What do you mean the Wii's our Christmas gift?" Yeah, the tired, old Wii.

So back to the ugly tree. I named it Trevor after a jerk I once knew. I hate Trevor and everything he stands (tilted to the left) for.

Mommy drinks at Christmas.

Why I ain't scared.

2007-12-09T13:54:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine recently sent me a Youtube video link of a well know feminist talking about how the Bush Administration (et al) has been planning a Naziesque take over (it's aready happening). I didn't watch it, but I think it alluded to 9/11 being an inside job, etc., national passports for interstate travel, no fly list bullshit, etc., etc. Basically, how everything happening covertly (and not so) in our government is mirroring Germany in the 30s....

I didn't watch it because I can't handle it. Also, it is not news to me. On the morning of 9/11 the first words out of my mouth, after watching the planes crashing, were, "Wow. I can't believe they actually did it."

The "they" I was referring to weren't Arab in descent.

You all know I'm a conspiracy theorist.

But I ain't scared. If this country has to go through 20 years of pure fascism to get where the Germans are today, I'll take it. Of course, the word on the street is that there's a New World Order coming where we'll all going to be enslaved by the matrix. Really?

Again, I ain't scared. Everyone is always complaining about how fat and lazy Americans are. How we're compacent (isn't that how we got to this point in the first place?) and stupid. Well, you wanna see Ameicans get their asses in gear? Take away their 'freedom'. Take away their 'rights'. Enslave me? Does that mean I can't shop at a 40-mile long mall whenever I want to? Does it mean I can't get Dominos delivered to my front door at all hours of the night?

This whole thing will completely backfire in the government's face. The minute you tell an American they can't order Victoria's Secret on-line or buy a car bigger than their house, you will see an angry, hungry, fat mob rise up against the machine and CRUSH it. Literally.

We'll lose the weight (and the greed) fast. We'll be transformed into lean, mean fighting machines. And we may learn a few things along the way. It could be just what the doctor ordered.

Here's are some words to chew on:

"For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights." B. R. Ambedkar.

Translated roughly into Americanese, that means:

"We're not just pissed you took away our Cinnabons. Now, we're thinking we want honest elections, universal health care, a socialist president AND our fucking Cinnabons back, goddammit. And while you're at it, throw in a free Wii system, motherfuckers."

Ready?

"Women who watch football should be seen with pompoms and not heard."

2007-12-06T17:59:00.000-08:00

That's a direct quote from Dar. He's going to be Time's Person of the Year.

See, we were watching football. And I (stupid, stupid, stupid) asked an irrelevant question. He didn't answer. So I asked again. No answer. So I asked again and again and again. Finally he paused the Tivo and yelled, "WHAT?!" So I asked again. He just looked at me. Then he said, "Why are you talking to me? It's fucking fourth down." As if I didn't know. We were watching the Patriots. Tom Brady. But, I can watch football and answer a simple question at the same time. Multi-tasker. And then he said it. The women/pompoms crack.

What a jerk.

And it's this bad TV watching behavior that's gotten him in trouble before. Just a few days earlier - he doesn't know this, so don't tell him - he was watching this gross movie and the kids were running in and out of the room, and I was like, "Hey - Tivo it and watch it later. It's inappropriate for the kids". And he was like, "Grunt. Grunt, scratch, NO. Fart."

So I sat there on my laptop, and unbeknownst to him, logged on to my Directv account and cancelled the movie channel. Less than 5 minutes later, the screen went blank. What happened? Gee, I don't know....

Ha! Take that.

Pompoms my ass.

An honest-to-goodness feud.

2007-11-18T10:22:00.005-08:00

Gannon kicked some kid's ass last night. I am not proud. Not much. I'm glad he can defend himself - according to witnesses, the other guy drew first blood and Gannon was just fighting him off. I wasn't there - I was working and had entrusted the kids to Dar's care. He was to take them to their cousin's birthday party. Simple enough. Of course it degenerated into some sort of 'backyard brawl'.

If I had been there, well, there would have been no fight. I know that the kid Gannon fought with is his nemesis. They are in the same class together and they DON'T get along. (Interestingly, the kid's older brother is in Mason's class - and they don't get along either). I would've kept my eye on them and prevented any violence. I always do. But Dar, well, he's a little more lax than I.

So, I get home from a late night of work to find Gannon with scratches up and down his face, centered around his eye. The little bastard tried to blind my baby! And Mason excitedly telling me all about it. Dar was conveniently sleeping by then, so Icouldn't grill him. (He also conveniently left at the crack this morning while I was still in bed...).

And now I have this 8 year-old Ultimate Fighter strutting around the house today. He's so full of himself. Muhammed Ali had less attitude. I'm trying to explain to him that this is nothing to be proud of - violence is never the answer to your problems, you need to find another way, yatta yatta yatta.

I feel like I should clothesline him the next time he runs past me just to put him back in his place. I didn't say violence couldn't be the answer to my problems.

Another Mel Gibson joint.

2007-11-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

Ee-fucking-gads. I've barely recovered from the "Passion", and Dar's trying to get me to watch "Apocolypto".

I. Don't. Want. To.

But we start to watch it anyway. Ugh, it's horrible. First of all, it has the subtitles. He's a slow reader and I'm lightning fast, so I read them before him and add my own dialogue, like "Here, try this unsweetened chocolate."

He doesn't laugh at this reference to ancient South Americans being the first to cultivate cocoa trees and eat and drink chocolate- unsweetened. He's taking this movie quite seriously.

And then there's all of this Mayan on Mayan violence. Can't we all just get along? I couldn't continue watching. I picked up my new Oprah, went to bed, and read what she knows for sure.

Mel Gibson, you crazy son of a bitch - please make a movie I can watch without being scarred for life after.

Remember when he was People's Sexiest Man Alive? More than once? Classify those as good times.

Here we go again.

2007-11-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

Tonight, Dar says to me (with a straight face) that we have to go to the Mormon's for Thanksgiving.

"Ha!" I say, "That's my fucking holiday!"

Then Christmas, he says.

"Are you fucking nuts?", I scream, "We have a standing invite at the VIPs for Christmas!"

Christmas Eve?

"NO-O-O-O-O! That's the day after our party. I can't possibly do both things!"

January 7th? "I'll think about it -but I'm not making any promises."

If you want to hurt me...

2007-11-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

It happens every year - sometimes twice:

The Pats / Colts game (or as Dar calls it "The real Superbowl"). I'm torn between my hot, passionate approval of Tom Brady's quarterback perfection and my warm, ardent support of Payton Manning's quarterback impeccability.

This is the hardest game for me to watch. I spend half of it with my hands covering my face. I don't know who I want to win - and I know I don't want anyone to lose. It's plain and simple torture.

I am a woman in love with two men. Three if you count my husband...

5.6!

2007-10-30T23:09:00.000-07:00

Tonight, just a few minutes past eight o'clock, we rocked the house. Or rather, the house rocked us. Earthquake!

It was great. Not too big, not too small. I was on the phone with my sister-in-law firming up our Halloween plans. I was like, "Blah, blah, blah Halloween, blah, blah, are we having an earthquake? Blah, blah...I think we're having an earthquake..."

I should've told the kids to stop, drop and roll. No, wait. That's if someone was on fire. Duck and cover. That's it. If I had told them to stop, drop and roll - well that would've been stupid. Duck and cover, duck and cover.

I didn't though. I just stood there, yapping on the phone. But I think they were okay. Gannon was on the couch, surrounded by pillows and fluffy blankets. And Mason was standing in the middle of the dining room, close to the table. He could've ducked and covered. If I had remembered to tell him....

Dar was outside checking the hotub.

We love earthquakes. Little ones like this. Dar was living in Santa Cruz when the "Big 'un" hit in 1989. The one that took down the Bay Bridge. I love to hear about it, so I'm always asking him,"Tell me about the big one, Pa."

Well, he was on the porch to the farmhouse he was living in with his first wife and baby Kyle. He dove off the porch. It was every man for himself, I guess. I always say, "Didn't you try to save Cheryl and Kyle?" And he always says, "No." Their neighbor was riding her horse, which reared up and tossed her off. The chimney collapsed. His wife was killed. Just kidding. But the marriage was fatally wounded. The earthquake, along with his perpetual bad attitude, sent her packing straight home to Wisconsin. The end was near.

Now, I don't need him to save me in an earthquake. I know how to stop, drop and roll just fine.

Al Gore will back me up on this:

2007-10-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here's some fluffy, stupid news for the 90 percent of the population deserving un-anesthetized lobotomies.

Some goofy autistic 18 year-old kid got lost in the woods for a few days. His mother describes to the Today Show's Matt Lauer how "God" watched over her son by breathing his "warm breath" on him. Just read some of the actual quotes from the MSN news page down below:

The weather, chilly at first, grew warmer by the day, and that to her was a sign that a greater power was watching out for Jacob.

“We knew that God had something in this for us,” she told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer during a live interview via satellite on Friday. “Every day the weather got warmer and warmer and warmer — it was as if God breathed his warm breath down on us.”

The temperature that first night had dipped down near to freezing, but Jacob had enough clothing to stave off hypothermia. Warming temperatures gave the Allens reason to believe Jacob was being watched over from above, and the well-organized rescue effort gave them tangible reason to hope all would end well.

As further evidence that divine intervention was involved in saving her son, Karen Allen observed that on Friday, the day after Jacob’s rescue, it started to rain.

It's called Global Warming sister. Go buy a science book.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Twats.

2007-10-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

Ann Coulter. Ann-Fucking-Coulter.

Here's the thing about Ann Coulter: She's full of shit. 'No duh!" You're saying, "Of course she's full of shit."

She's spoken out on topics such as repealing the 19th amendment (it's the one that gave women the right to vote). She claims the US would be better off if we were all Christians (i.e., no dirty Jews). She hates liberals, John Edwards and 9/11 widows. Full of shit, full of shit, full of shit.

Know what, though? She doesn't really believe all the crap she spews. And THAT's why she's full of shit. She's found her niche in American entertainment. Ann Coulter is nothing more that a publicity whore. She's exactly the same as Paris Hilton: a piece of shit, blond cunt, famous for no real reason at all.

Ann Coulter's schtick has payed off for her, though. She's constantly in the "news", her hateful commentary quoted on the FOX and CNN tickers. She's getting paid for one of the easiest jobs in America. I mean, really, how hard can it be?

Here: I'll take a stab at it. Pretend I'm being interviewed by Tucker Carlson.

T.C.: How would you make America better?

Me: Well, first, I'd rip the eyes outof all kykes and skull fuck 'em with a black 12-inch strap-on. Then, I'd round up all the liberal soccer moms out there and forcefully inseminate them with the genetic donations of Karl Rove and Clarence Thomas. I'd electrify not only the US/Mexico border, but every bus stop bench, taco lunch truck, and can of Pledge in East LA. I'd make every disabled Vietnam vet pay a poll tax just to empty their colostomy bags. And I'd get on my knees every morning and blow the oats out of George W. Bush. Oops. That last one is just a little fantasy I have...

There. How hard was that? Do I really feel that way? Of course not.

Ann and I should team up. We could take our show on the road. We could speak at Christian colleges across the South. Every time she'd say something outrageous, like "Women shouldn't be allowed to vote", I'd take it even farther. I'd top her by saying something like, "Not only should women lose their right to vote, they should be gang-raped by a dozen mentally disabled sex offenders if they even argue the point".

Standing room only, bitches.

The road out of my canyon.

2007-10-08T20:55:00.000-07:00

I live on the North coast of California. I'll always remember, when I first moved here fifteen years ago, how amazed I was at my new home. This stretch of Pacific coast is by far one of the most beautiful places on earth. I've driven it all the way north and all the way south.

Along the way, there are roads that lead twisting and turning, for miles and miles, into deep, green and ruddy, rocky little 'neighborhoods' - those California canyons. (A great example I've seen of this is in the movie "Sideways" - where Virginia Madsen lives - I especially like it when Paul Giamatti comes to the end of her dirt road and peels onto the highway, leaving a cloud of dust behind him.)

There isn't much here. We've got the little town where the kids go to school. There's a post office and a couple of restaurants and Dar's favorite surf break (the one where he almost got eaten by Jaws). The picture is of my view on the way out - about 15 minutes after I leave my front door. When I lived in Rhode Island, 15 minutes from my front door got me almost into Providence (I did live right off the freeway). Here, it takes a half hour just to get to school. But what a scenic and lovely half hour it is.

Tomorrow morning, as I'm watching the ocean rise up to meet me, running 10 minutes late as always, I'll be a little happier than usual. I got some good news today. An official announcement still needs to be made, but I'll give a hint: the librarian will be buying some new books soon....

The Passion

2007-10-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

So, I finally saw “The Passion of the Christ”. Well, the last twenty minutes - and on accident, by the way. I was sitting in my bed, minding my own business, when a cat jumped up and hit the clicker. All of a sudden the TV went from “The Biggest Loser” to “The Bloodiest Stigmata”.

Eh, these things happen.

So there I am - completely aghast - watching the brutal depiction of Christ’s last moments of life (his first time around). And, I’m thinking to myself, “Who are those other two guys? How come you never hear about them? Why are they crucifying him anyway? Does he owe them money?”

And then I start thinking, as an Orthodox Atheist I kinda want to know more about the bible. I can’t say why I haven’t tackled it sooner. I’m just a nonfiction kind of gal, I guess.

Do you find it strange, an atheist wanting to know more about the bible?

Maybe it’s a little out of the ordinary, wanting to know more about an opposing opinion. It’s why I wasn’t opposed to the Iranian president speaking at Columbia University. I mean, wow, how fascinating. It was a real historical moment. I know this man said nothing I would agree with (like how Iran has no homosexuals - ha!), but why not check him out?

Considering how many, um, issues I have with Christianity, imagine my opinion of Islam. However, I would’ve been right there in the front row if I could’ve. (I would’ve seen Hitler speak at Columbia if I could’ve. It’s interesting. It’s a curiosity.)

Why do politics have to supersede intellectual endeavors? I mean, for a student of political science or theology or history, this was such an awesome opportunity. It’s okay to listen to someone you don’t agree with. It may even be helpful.

But most importantly for me, it’s just an experience. I can only imagine the nervous excitement surrounding the campus that day and the heated debates that followed. All of those young Ivy League brains sparking…

And, basically, I'm sick of being told what to do and how to think. It seems like for always, somebody's been giving me unsolicited advice and rules I know were meant to be broken.

I like to mix it up. And dictators need love too.

Oh sh*t!

2007-09-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by saying that I am truly embarrassed by what I'm about to disclose.

Today at his school (the same school where I am an employee) Gannon wrote the word "FUCK" on the wall to one of the outbuildings. He used a wood chip (not a can of spray paint). And he got busted. He was sent to the principal's office (naturally). The principal is a gentle disciplinarian. She made him walk outside with a little bucket of soapy water and scrub the nasty word off the wall. Then she sent him home with a writing assignment a la Bart Simpson:

I will not write bad words on the walls at school.
I will not write bad words on the walls at school.
I will not write bad words on the walls at school.
I will not write bad words on the walls at school.

It would be easy to point an accusing finger at Dar and me and say, "Oh those two - they're raising a bunch of foul-mouthed little bastards." But we're not. I mean, sure - we've dropped the F-bomb several thousand times in our house. Who hasn't? But we don't have Mason going around vandalizing school property with - oh wait. Mason did the same thing last year. Just not as bad. He used the goo from an ice plant and he wrote people's names. (Side note: His accomplices? The principal's granddaughter and my tech colleague's kid.)

However, Mason is smart enough to know better than to write the king of all bad words on school property.

Gannon is another story. While not stupid, he is certainly bold. And everyone knows that unabashed boldness is stupidity's brave stunt double. He shares his birthday with Lenny Bruce. And for those who know Gannon, this is more than a coincidence. Lenny Bruce (the only Jewish comedian banned from the Catskills) was the rudest, crudest, ahead-of-his-time comic this side of the Himalayas. And so is Gannon.

His sense of humor is brilliant. His comedic timing is perfect. He's the kid, who when asked what he's up to, answers without missing a beat, "Why?You a cop?". He's the kid who as a kindergartener had all the 4th and 5th graders rolling at his impromptu stand-up routine in a camp out tent. He floors me with the shit he says. And, occasionally he drops the F-bomb. Hey, I work blue too.

I know he did it to impress his goofy little friends (the ones who ratted him out, by the way). It was stupid - or maybe the interchangeable bold. And I'm pissed. And embarrassed. I'll try to make sure it never happens again. But I can make no promises.

Maybe someday he'll be the guy who finally makes Saturday Night Live funny again.

I pee when I sneeze.

2007-09-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

A little.

My vagina is leaky. I know I touched on this subject previously, but I'd like to go deeper into it.

Having the kids did a number on me. In so many, many ways. I was prepared for some of the changes my body would experience. The droopy boobs and extra poundage didn't take me by surprise. How was I to know, though, that my bladder would give out on me? I don't remember reading about this in the zillion pregnancy books I read for 9 months.

There are exercises a woman can do to fix her leaky plumbing. They're called kegels. These are also considered sexually enhancing, as they tighten the vaginal area. A woman can do kegels any time, any place - nobody can tell if you are doing kegels.

I hate kegels. I hate exercising and kegels fall into that category. I was telling Dar about the kegels, and I said jokingly, "An exercise for vaginas? Like, whoever heard of a fat vagina, right? Right?" And he gave me this look - this sort of subtle raised eyebrow look - and he glanced at my vagina! A very quick glance - but he was definitely alluding that I had a fat vagina.

Well. I. Never.

After a brief discussion, though, we decided that I should put my vagina on a diet and exercise program. The first thing to do would be to get on a strict kegel routine.

And the second rule to the vagina diet? No more eating out.

Mocker Mom.

2007-09-08T22:22:00.000-07:00

Mason had his first soccer game today. Not his first of the season - but his first ever. Up until now (year nine) we've been able to avoid all team sports. Why? Because nobody here, including Mason, was interested.

The main reason, I suppose for me, was the whole driving aspect. We live miles and miles and miles (and miles) away from town. Also, the games are on the weekend which is my sacred never-leave-the-house-time. But this year Mason befriended Cosmo, the new kid. And the new kid plays soccer. So now we do too.

And I was feeling the angst, as I sat in Saturday tourist traffic trying to get through the west side of Santa Cruz, to the field today.

However - I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying my kid's soccer game. We did notice one strange thing though - all of the parents were very polite and encouraging to all of the kids playing - even the enemy team.

For instance, when their team scored against our team, our parents would yell, "Way to go!". When the other team's goalie stopped our point, they'd yell, "Great job, goalie!"

Dar and I just looked at each other quizzically. This perplexed us. We came to the game to win and humiliate the other team. I had to stifle myself several times from screaming "Kill 'em, kill 'em!" and "Look alive! Get your head out your ass!".

Because I couldn't. It's not allowed.

I don't know if this is a Santa Cruz phenomenon (we are a notorious politically correct, peace mongering city) or if everyone is like this. Is everyone like this? Even Texans? I coulda swore I just saw a dad on the news tackling a kid on the other team.

Poor Dar. I thought he was going to blow gasket holding it in. He's a rude bastard and public events are hell on him.

Our team lost, by the way. I think we may get a trophy.

Back on line for a time.

2007-09-03T23:04:00.000-07:00

I think I'm back. Dar crawled under the house and jiggled some wires around and Voila!

I've missed a lot of stuff to write about, being stuck here in the woods. I think the most fascinating things to happen were, of course, the Rove/Gonzales resignations. Oh the voodoo I had to do...All worth it. I'll touch on that later, maybe.

The news here is: My (soon-to-be) 19 year old stepson joined the Navy. He'll be "shipping out" on the 2oth. I can hardly believe this. They recruited at his high school, I guess. He's convinced this is the way for him to afford college, get experience, yatta yatta yatta. I suppose the Navy is a safer bet than the Army. I was reading through his enlistment paperwork, and came to the page that stated he was to report for duty a 5:15 a.m. on September 20th. If he fails to show up, he will automatically be put on active duty in the reserves.

Active duty. I pointed this fine print out to him. "Did you know this?", I asked.

"Nah."

"Well you initialed it..."

So I plan on calling on September 20, at, oh 2:00 a.m., and reminding him. Active duty? He's too cute to die.

While he was here visiting this summer I gave him a little advice. I told him to clean up his MySpace page - make it more generic, get rid of any possibly insulting comments (made by other people), take out the beefcake pictures of himself...You know, man up. I forgot to tell him absolutely no ballwalking. And to be respectful of his female counterparts. Kyle - don't be a chauvinist asshole and please defend the girls if they need it. (Women in the military are frequently sexually assaulted by their male peers. Nice.)

Also, I wonder if he's ready to be surrounded by so many convicts. I think the Navy may have higher standards. I hope. Watch your back, baby.

And the anti-homosexual propaganda was immense. Out of about ten pages I think at least 3 were devoted to the "NO FAGGOTRY" rules. It was "homosexual conduct" this and "homosexual deviance" that. Okay, okay - at least we now know how he can get out of it.

I just hope it doesn't change him. He's nice. He is. He's a nice boy. Or man, actually. He's always been nice. Polite. So many thank-yous over the years. It would suck if he came out of this a brain-washed killing machine. Of course, we could look at it positively. He'd be our brain-washed killing machine. Combine him with my road-rage and we could rule the world.

And yet I worry.

Ms. Domestrix lives in a shrub.

2007-07-05T01:57:00.000-07:00

Remember Julia Butterfly - or whatever the fuck her name was - the hippie who lived in a tree? Well, she had faster internet in her Redwood than I have in my shrub.

It's why you don't hear from me much lately. I don't have enough time in the day to wait for my homepage to load. I don't know if it's squirrels or beavers or maybe bugs chewing on my 56K phoneline, but something is seriously wrong.

Why, oh why, can't I be one of the lucky Americans who has cable or DSL interent? We tried satellite but it was way too expensive and still very slow.

It's like I have a curse hanging over me. And it's why I think I have to sign off. Permanently. Well, semi-permanently. I have a garden now. I have kids who need me.

So, I release you, gentle readers. I may pop in occasionally. But, please - go forward with your lives. Go I say. Get out of here.

You're still here. What don't you understand about 'Go'? C'mon - fuck off. I'm through. No more funny stories or political tirades. It's over. I'm serious. I need to go to bed! It's 2 a.m.!

Why you.....That's it. I'm signing off for good now. Remember the good times. They were all good, though, weren't they? Sigh.

Sanjaya.

2007-04-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

"Bush says he won't change position on global warming". Oh dear.

2007-04-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

Well. George W. Bush still can't be convinced. And why should he be?

Maybe he's right not to care. I ain't afraid of global warming. I'm not. I have olive skin that never burns and I can swim. What's the problem? Furthermore, I've never been a fan of polar bears. They look cute but they're vicious killing machines. In fact, marine mammals in general have never done much for me. They're all just a bunch of big, fat, blubbery, fishy-smelling things. I would've clubbed baby harbor seals just for fun, you know?

And why is this our problem? Don't we do enough for this world? Why doesn't Europe and Asia handle this "global warming" issue. They're the ones who have all the smokers.

As an American I feel like I have given enough. This blog alone should exempt me from any more humanitarian effort. You're welcome.

I say everyone in China, India, and Japan (including you, Kyoto) hop back on your rickshaws and quit your bitching.

If everyone else on this planet cut their emissions by - let's say - 95 percent we could actually afford to raise ours! Do you know what that means? Those Super Sweet Sixteen girls could drive two 6-door Hummers around at the same time with nary a care for the environment. Nary!

But, let's not use the logical solution. Let's just put it all on Uncle Sam - again.

Hey, world: Wahhhhh.

Oh lawdy, lawdy.

2007-03-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

Beware. For I have the power right now to shoot white-hot laser beams out of my eyes and singe straight through your whole being.

I must have PMS. I don't usually have the typical 'crazy woman' PMS. Over the years I've really mellowed. Really. But today, I'm just all hate and raw nerves.

I've been on a technical support phone call for 5 days straight now. I've been allowed to stop for bathroom breaks and water - but basically 5 days of non-stop failing downloads, thick Indian accents, and sarcastic, short-tempered emails (from me).

That's during my Technical Assistant hours.

During my Librarian hours I have had one of the worst all-time disasters strike - a borrowed book returned damaged beyond repair. Grrrrrrrr. Remember the good-old days when you could paddle kids at school?

Tonight, however, I will release myself to an evening of all-girl frolicking. I will pay for the first round and make them all doubles. Sometimes a broad just needs to let loose.

The romance is gone.

2007-03-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

Over the weekends, I usually do all of the week's housework. I also do yard clean-up and gardening....dirty stuff. I also don't shower. Unless I leave the house, I figure why bother? I'm just going to get dirty again.

Well, that all may change after this morning. I was sitting on the couch with my coffee when Dar decided to snuggle up against me. I warned him, "I've got really bad B.O. right now."

"I know", he said, "and your hair's all matted against your head. You look like someone just gave birth to you."

I gotta go wash my vagina.

2007-03-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

You want it clean, don't you?

Ahhh, "Boogie Nights". One of the best movies ever. We saw it again last night. We put the kids to bed and fired up the Tivo. It was an IFC double feature. First we watched "Wonderland" with Val Kilmer. This was about porn star John Holmes (the guy with the 14-inch cock known as "Johnny Wad" in his films). This movie wasn't about his porn career though. It was about his involvement in a quadruple, drug-fueled murder.

It was pretty hard to watch. While wildly entertaining, I always feel guilty when the story is a true one. I think the brief glimpses of autopsy photos were real.

I was fascinated with the biker guy David Lind. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. When I watched the credits at the end I was extremely surprised to find out it was Dylan McDermot playing him. All I know about Dylan McDermot is that I hate every lawyer show he's ever been in. But as a shaggy, heroin addicted Hell's Angel - wow!

After "Wonderland" it was "Boogie Nights". It didn't take me long to realize that IFC was doing some sort of porn movie theme.

I don't like porn. I know I'm one of the most liberal gals out there - but there's something about porn that gives me the heebie-jeebies. It doesn't feel right. I can't help but think that all of that come-gargling is really masking some other deep, profound pain. Molested as a child? Neglected? Addicted? All of the above? You know Jenna Jameson was gang raped when she was 16.

I also think there's too much of it. Thanks to the internet and digital photography there are probably over a zillion vaginas on line. A zillion! That's Alotta Fagina*.

Why do so many women want to give it up? It worries me. It's why we'll never have a female president. I mean, is it just natural that some women in their teens and twenties are only walking, talking fuckholes? That's what it seems like (Girls Gone Wild!)

I can't decide if this is a nature or nurture issue. Are women born to be just sex symbols? I know I was. Wink.

Porn stars (and strippers, etc.) always justify their careers by saying that what they do is "sexually empowering". Hmmm. You know what's really sexually empowering? Getting your husband to unload the dishwasher. Someday you'll understand.

And you who know me know that I love the sex. I've always been comfortable with the sex. My sex. Others people's sex - not so much. Maybe that's why porn creeps me out - I don't like to watch.

The quality of the viewer also has a lot to do with my problems with porn. Because there's some fat guy in dirty underpants out there who gets off on choking sex, there's a 19 year-old meth-freak with a rope around her neck. You know? There's nobody in the porn industry who'll say "Sorry, we can't make a movie like that." If someone's willing to pay for it, someone's willing to do it, and of course, someone's willing to email it to me. Thanks and how do I get off this list?

I hate conservatives. I hate censors. I hate religious freaks. But I also hate sexual exploitation.

And Hillary Clinton is wasting her time.

*Austin Powers reference still timely, Winnie?

Get it in writing. (Or : Why I sleep with one eye open)

2007-03-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

Last night, while playing our evening backgammon game (and watching a Tivo'd Grey's Anantomy), I asked Dar this: Do you ever think about the serious things we'll have to deal with later on?

"No."
"Not at all?"
"Well, like what? Death?"
"No, but old age things. Like Altzheimers."
"I already know what to do."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Hit you on the back of the head with a shovel."
"?!"
"Like you said. Put you out of your misery. Y'know. Like you said."
"But I don't remember saying that....."
"Sure you do. Shovel. Quick."
" Wait - I think, you're remembering when I said, if I was in some vegetative coma thing to unplug me. Gently."

Not a racist.

2007-03-12T20:48:00.000-07:00

Could it be possible that every time I shop at Costco I wind up in line behind the same Asian family?

This is one of those tricky questions in life. Because by asking this question I am acknowledging that I may think all Asians look alike. However, that could not be farther from the truth. I used to work at Fujitsu for Christ's sake.

But, I swear, every time I go to Costco, there they are: a middle-aged, short, balding Chinaman and his younger-looking wife. They always use a flat and it is filled with what looks like restaurant supplies including pre-packaged snack type things. They could be Korean. Not Japanese though - the Japanese are neater dressers. I used to work for Fujitsu for Christ's sake.

I think I may follow them. The next time I am in line behind them, I'm going to follow them to their destination. I'm betting convenience store. Or Jewish deli. They buy a lot of bagels.

Well. We meet again.

2007-02-21T22:13:00.000-08:00

Today I was telling someone about how I haven't had internet access for 2 months. Then it occurred to me that I hadn't even tried for a while.

What do you know? I'm back online. Just in time to recount my "When Housewives Attack" moment. I had it today. I even got kicked out of restaurant.

It's the Sicilian blood. A friend of mine (who's also part eggplant) asked me once, "Are you Sicilian?"

"Why, yes!" I replied. "How could you tell? My dark brown eyes?"

"No," he said, "your fucking attitude."

Today, though, my fucking attitude got me kicked out of a Burger Barn. Which I didn't even want to go to, by the way.

First of all, let me say this: restaurants without public restrooms should all be firebombed straight into hell. Anybody out there who has kids knows this sentiment is not at all to harsh.

Trying to tinkle with toddlers in tow is totally troublesome.

Today I had three kids tagging along. Following a friend into "Jack's" (the burger barn), I ordered 20 bucks worth of food and then asked politely for directions to the can. I was told there was no public can. No public can? But I have to pee....Then I saw the big red sign: No Public Bathroom.

I'd had to pee since I left school an hour beforehand.

Now, my bladder doesn't understand the concept of "No Public Bathroom". Eve Ensler hit it big with her Vagina Monlogues - well, I'll be the broad who wows everyone with her groundbreaking "Bladder Soliloquys". Bladders are small by nature, and if you drink 17 to 18 cups of coffee in the morning, they fill up and need to be emptied. Alot.

I asked again, trying to explain how dire a situation it was. Please, I just have to pee. Really, really bad. I am shot down. Rudely. And that's when I snap. Because it's a guy who drops me. A guy, who could step outside into a bush and pee freely. A guy who will never understand how having two kids can take a once happy, healthy bladder and turn it into a leaky, sad, squirty little piss bag. I plead. He's firm. So, I haul off and...

No - wait. I actually don't want to go into that part of it. It's ugly and I'm ashamed of myself. Luckily, the kids were outside and didn't witness the violence that ensued.

When I (swiftly) left the place, I headed straight for the first bathroom I could find while my girlfriend stayed with the kids. The whole time I was worried the burger barners were peeing in my food. Ironic, yes, but a valid concern.

But when I got back, my girlfriend handed me a twenty dollar bill and said, "Um...they, uh, refused your service, and..uh...asked for you to leave. Now." So, they never had a chance to pee in my food because they refused to even give us food. Lucky for us, I'm sure.

As if trying to corral a bunch of stupid kids through downtown Santa Cruz on fucking Farmer's Market Wednesday wasn't hard enough... .

We were now exiles. What would happen to us?

As I said before I never wanted to eat at fucking Jack's anyway.

To be continued. In two or three months. Maybe?

Class picture.

2006-12-16T15:37:00.000-08:00

My kids are in the same class this year. In their school, there are combined classes. This year they are in the 1st/2nd grade together. Next year they'll get split, and then the year after they'll be together again. I have, what some people call "Puerto Rican twins" - two kids born about a year apart. If Puerto Rican twins sounds too bigoted, you can substitute Irish twins or Catholic twins. Basically, any group of people who don't believe in birth control and keep pumping out the kids until their vaginas explode or fall off.

Which I am not, by the way. I believe in birth control. But for a brief period in time there, I was crazed with fertility and mating rituals. I'm all done with that now, though. Two kids are just perfect for us.

And these two kids, these boys - they sure keep this little lady on her toes. Check out this year's class picture. I've blurred out the faces of the innocent. There's Gannon in the middle, looking...well, sinister is the first word that comes to mind. And a little behind him to the right is Mason. He's making bunny ears on the poor sap in front of him.

I was watching the photographer try to take this class picture. Gannon would not look straight at the camera. He kept looking to the right, then left, down, up. He was being an ass. I yelled, "Gannon! Cut the crap!" And that's when he looked ahead. Unfortunately, the only shot of Gannon looking straight was the one where Mason was making bunny ears. Now, I had also threatened to kill Mason if he didn't stop, but he must've slipped another one in. Sigh.

And that was the class picture. I still haven't had a chance to apologize to all of the parents yet.

I'm rich.

2006-12-05T21:26:00.000-08:00

I'm one of those Ebay success stories.

I sold a few plastic dinosaurs, some cookware, and my shoes. I've run out of crap I want to get rid of, though. I'm asking friends and neighbors if they've got some they'd like to "donate". Nobody bites.

Ebay is strange. I send polite emails to my potential buyers, and their replies are always very cordial. But I have this curse of "the shine" or whatever it is you call someone who sees dead people and can tell your future by shaking your hand. So when I'm dealing with some of these customers, I can sense their evil through the 56K. Then I feel guilty because I'm gratifying their wickedness with my reasonably priced treasures - just to make some cold, hard cash. Take the lady who bought my vintage Dutch oven - psycho. She's probably boiling a rabbit in it right now.

I always choose the cash. I can't stand in the way of destiny, and it is the holiday season. Every little bit helps. Although, my conscious ached for days when I auctioned off my wire coat hangers. There was an evil aura emanating from the winning bidder's Paypal instant payment. And the fact that her Ebay username was "mommydearest27" just added to the sinister vibe. I think I made a horrible mistake. The children. The poor, poor children.

It was then that I firmly decided I would be more responsible with the types of items I sold:

No more wire hangers.

Black Friday.

2006-11-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

We had a nice Thanksgiving. Dar not only managed to be here (he was going to take off to Monterey for a surf trip but postponed for dinner) he also brought back my first-born son: G.

G. left home when he was only 3 years old.

Okay, G. is not my first-born. But it feels like he is. He is our much younger roommate, who splits his time betwixt us and his boat. He is a bachelor and surfer - a perfect combination. He's the one who drags Dar off, all over hell and creation, looking for the perfect wave. He's a hard one to pin down, so having him over for a national holiday is quite the accomplishment. Also, he looks like Borat.

The in-law vegans showed up. I made the nut loaf. They ate it.

My brother-in-law fed the baby little tofu bits in soy sauce and I started musing: tofu/soy products have female hormones. Estrogen. (It's what they tell menopausal women to eat to replace theirs.) I started thinking that feeding the baby boy too much soy would give him too many female hormones, which led to the conclusion that he will eventual become a cross-dresser or transvestite. I was having this conversation with myself out loud, in front of Dar and the kids after everyone left, and I ended it by saying, "He'll be a woman trapped in a man's body - just like you, Gannon." I was kidding, of course.

Without missing a beat, Gannon flipped me off and said, "That'll never happen, not with this big man with me all the time" as he patted Dar on the back. Awwwww. The kids were watching him play Resident Evil at the time. Awwwww.

I am surrounded by men. Real ones.

Giving Thanks.

2006-11-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving I am thankful that I do not have to go to the Mormons house for dinner. Not today or for Christmas either. I have been officially invited to a VIP Christmas dinner, and I have graciously accepted.

Really though, I actually initiated the VIP invite, by saying to one of the VIP family members, "Next year, I'm going to your house for Christmas." Ask and ye shall receive, the proverb says. Demand, and ye shall also receive, it seems. It was after yet another Mormon Christmas fiasco, and I knew I just couldn't handle that again. Ever again.

But back to Thanksgiving: I love cooking this meal. I am very traditional on this day and I do the basic turkey and trimmings. I cooked my first Thanksgiving turkey a few years ago and I've stuck with the same procedure since, as it was fantastic. Here's how I cook my lovely turkey, Telma. (I named her "Telma" after a friend's Brazilian model wife.)

I shove onions and apples and carrots up her ass, wrap her breasteseses with bacon, flip her upside down and cook her on her boobies - until the last hour, when I flip her back over and crisp up her front side. Huh. That sounds like something Dar would say about what we did last night.

Anyhoo, I get my stuffing mix from a restaurant in Half Moon Bay famous for their bread. I get all of the produce from the Wednesday farmer's market in Santa Cruz.

On the menu today we have: Roasted Turkey, San Benito House Stuffing, Nut Roast en Croute (for the vegetarian brother-in-law & family who invited themselves over), Green Bean Casserole, Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Yams, Carrots & Golden Beets, Peas with Pearl Onions, Homemade Apple-Cinnamon Cake, Beckman's Bakery Pumpkin Pie, and Vanilla Ice Cream.

Transcribing this menu makes me realize something very important: I need to get my ass in the kitchen! Holy shit, it's already 10:30 and I still don't have Telma out of her wrapper. Did I mention that Telma is free-range and hormone free? I would be more anxious about getting dinner ready on time if I hadn't spiked my morning joe with a nice, healthy shot of Bailey's. I don't usually start my day with Irish coffee, but today is special: It's Thanksgiving. There are no Momons here to judge me.

To the kitchen.

"If I did it..."

2006-11-20T17:50:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately for us, gentle readers, FOX has decided to cancel the OJ Simpson special "If I Did It" - before it even had a chance to air. I find this quite unfair to OJ and the American public.

In the program (which coincidentally would've aired during sweeps week) Simpson was to reveal how he would have murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, if he had done it.

Now, FOX claims it would be unfair to the victim's families and it would be wrong for OJ to profit from their deaths - guilty or not (the publisher of the book of the same name also backed down). And I understand that. But what about the rest of us? There are way more of us than them.

Luckily for us, I happen to have an excerpt from the never-to-be-published book. Would you like for me to share it with you here? Good! Here it is:

"If I Did It" by OJ Simson, The Juice.
If I had known the white devil bitch
had been cheating on me,
I may have thought of revenge,
I may have thought harshly.
How would I have punished them?
Let me count the ways.
I might have shot them with a gun
or tortured them for days.
Or poisoned them with cyanide
or maybe run them over.
You know I had a white Bronco.
Did you know about my Range Rover?
I might have strangled them with rope or electrical cord.
I could've killed 'em with carbon monoxide -
again, I'd use my Ford.
It would've been easy for me to drown them
in a pool or lake.
Or simply just to beat them to death
with a shovel or a rake.
I should've - I mean - would've dumped the bodies
in a hard to find place.
For a few million dollars
I could've shot them into space.
But instead of me killing them
I was out of town that night.
But if I did , here's how I'd do it:
If i did it, I'd do it RIGHT.

Wow. What a fine piece of literature. And I didn't know it would be a children's book! I wish I could've gotten a copy for our library. Furthermore, the pictures are precious. I think Eric Carle illustrated it.

When I berate Jesus freaks, they listen!

2006-11-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

You bet your sweet ass.

My last entry was an open letter to Christians which may have seemed a little harsh.

I have to admit I'm a little surprised that my reverse-psychology pep talk worked quite as well as it did. The Senate and the House? And a Rummy resignation to boot?! Wow.

I'd like to thank Jesus.

An open letter to Christians.

2006-11-04T23:55:00.000-08:00

How much more hypocrisy can you people take? This is a call to "Christians" - especially Evangelicals - everywhere:

You people are mentally ill. You need help. You are superstitious, co-dependent enablers. You have let yourselves be coerced and brainwashed into killing a young democracy. Torturing and then killing a young democracy. And for what? For him?

And he's not alone. It seems like, ever since I can remember, all of these homophobic, anti-sex, self-righteous, pious motherfuckers always seem to come out of the wash dripping in come and wearing lederhosen. Why don't you people seem to care? Don't you sense a pattern? I'm not even mentioning the Catholic priesthood....

Maybe someone like me could (and would) take you more seriously if you seemed smarter and had better judgment. (And by judgment I don't mean the last days of life on earth when Jesus floats down and passes out lift tickets to the virtuous ones. I know I have to clarify things like that when dealing with one-track minded morons such as yourselves.) But you keep disappointing me. Time and time again, you follow like lemmings the first closet case who seduces you with his brimstone and fire sermons. And every time he winds up with hookers (male and/or female), booze, drugs, and some times even children.

These guys take your money. They make promises they can't keep. They prey on you. No p-r-e-y. As in hunt. They use you. Do you understand? You are being used, manipulated, lied to, stolen from and raped.

And yet you follow. Loyally you follow. And when one goes down (catch the pun?) you just follow his replacement. I don't get it.

I really don't get it. Why would your trustworthy god keep doing this to you? Have you ever questioned him about this? And have you ever gotten an answer?

And because you have allowed yourselves be manipulated and coerced, while you were at church, an evil conglomerate bought your country. They did. Your American flag is now a logo similar to golden arches or a red target...and yet you keep voting your debauched republicans into office. Your money is being spent at leather fetish shops. And every time a soldier is killed in Iraq, Dick Cheney gets a million dollars.

I hate you people.

Grab-ass.

2006-10-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

I've been playing it all week long.

You know the drill: world gets scary, Ms. Domestrix hides, Ms. Domestrix pokes head out after 3 weeks and sees all is the same...Ms. Domestrix plays grab-ass.

There is an art to grab-ass. The most important thing to remember is to have an ass to grab. Check. Then, find a handsy playing partner. Check.

Grab-ass can make one giddy and tongue-tied. True story example: When trying to describe the cat who I kept putting out( but wound up back in several times) I marveled that she was a real "Zucchini". I meant to say "Houdini." But all of the sweaty grab-assing going on had diluted the vocabulary portion of my brain. It's that much fun.

The legend states that a woman reaches her sexual peak in her mid 30s. I am living, breathing proof that this truth be not legend but stone carved fact. Who's your daddy, now?

Although: Too much grab-ass can cause numbness and slight swelling, and it is best to pace each round.

Thank god for Tivo, too, 'cuz I can still watch all of my favorite shows.

I plan on grab-assing my life away. I don't care. Why should I? It's my fucking ass. You tell me when there's something worth stopping for. I give up. Sure, I'll go through the motions - but all I'm thinking about is - you know it - that's right - GRAB-fucking -ASS.

Also, I may check football scores on Monday mornings.

New old news.

2006-10-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

There's nothing better than making a new friend, the kind of friend who really understands you - an instant friendship based upon a shared interest or commonality.

I think this may be more important to women, as we are the communicators. We seem to crave this type of interaction more than our less talkative brothers.

Which is why I am so happy for Andrea Yates and Dena Schlosser. It seems they're both serving time in the same hokey pokey and have formed a deep friendship.

Andrea Yates may be a familiar name. She's the postpartum Jesus freak who drowned all five of her children in the bathtub. She was supposedly saving them from Satan. Although, I don't think Satan had anything quite that horrifying planned for them. He was probably just going to lead them into some speed metal, binge drinking, and eventual life-long minimum wage. Hmmmmm. Chronic underpaid monotony or ghastly, watery premature death...That is a tough call.

Dena Schlosser's is not such a household name - and I don't know why. Her choice of infanticide was by far the grisliest choice I've heard since that guy put his girlfriend's kid in a hot oven several years ago. This woman decided to serve her baby up as an offering to god. She (allegedly) sawed off both of the kid's arms with a kitchen knife. ?. Now, what god would want with an armless baby is beyond me. Is this finally the answer to "what do you give the guy who has everything"?

Dena Schlosser's case is different though: she has a brain tumor. Brain tumors make people do c-r-a-z-y things. In one article on the subject, doctors said Mrs. Schlosser's tumor was behind her religious hallucinations. (And, thus, I suppose, her torturous homicidal actions.)

Now, I always stand by my view that being religious is a form of mental illness. Sorry, but in this day and age believing there's an invisible man in the sky just seems sort of retarded. And now we have doctors claiming that a tumor pressing on a certain region of the brain can cause religious hallucinations? Don't the two seem to be intertwined? Is being religious really a cranial malfunction? I think yes! (And a hearty yes at that.)

Both of these women are locked in the same institution - maybe temporarily. I know Dena Schlosser did not receive a life sentence. Hopefully though, their possible releases will be smartly planned after each one has experienced menopause.

And I believe they're in the right place - crazy people don't need jail, they need help. Now if only we could get the other 92.9 % of them straight-jacketed and tucked safely away....

Dirty, dirty penises. Dirty jizz-filled penises.

2006-10-05T23:27:00.001-07:00

Or as some still like to call it: Congress. Isn't it completely fucked up that the only thing that gets Americans worked up is a penile activated scandal?

A fake war to cover up an oil grab? A $30,000 toilet seat? No biggie. But cock? Infuriating! Be it a heterosexual blow-job or some homosexual borderline pedophelia nothing can change the direction of our country faster than SEX. Penis sex. It's never so high-profile when it's vagina sex. Vaginas are hardly menacing. Vaginas are nice, really. Vagina sex rocked the boat in the 80s, but not so much anymore. Penises however are horrible. Dreadful really.

If they're too big they scare children and spook small animals. If they're too small, they're creepy and sneaky. And the hair - shud...der. A properly proportioned penis, probably pleasing perhaps, is still positively putrid. Penises shoot at you. Penises can put an eye out. Penises start wars and topple beaurocracys. Penises rule the world. Poorly.

So when a rogue penis decides to get some action on tax payer time, all hell breaks loose. Gladys in Green River looked the other way every time W mispronounced his own name but she can not - will not - stand for any penis misdoings. She's extremely firm on this. The whole country, actually, has taken a hard stand on this issue.

And no one can get a firmer grasp on this whole scandal than me. This is something I can really wrap myself around. Because, I too, deplore sex scandals.

But I deplore them for completely different reasons than Edith from Evergreen or Mary Margaret from Mifflin. I hate them because everytime there's a filthy penis rampaging through DC, the media ignores everything else that's going on in the world.

North Korea anyone? Ever heard of it? Wait - What? Well I would assume so.... (Gloria in Gaithersburg wondered if Korean men have penises.)

The missing transcript

2006-10-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought it was safe to cruise teenage boy porn sites, out pops another round of Congressman Mark Foley's filth-filled IM frolics. I had to dig deep for this information, people. Y0u don't even want to know how deep.

Maf54 (7:25:14 PM): hey
Auto response from Xxxxxxxxx (7:25:14 PM): scrounging for food...brb
Maf54 (7:25:25 PM): ok
Maf54 (7:25:35 PM): kep scrounging
Xxxxxxxxx (7:31:51 PM): boo
Maf54 (7:32:13 PM): bo dude
Xxxxxxxxx (7:32:17 PM): lol
Xxxxxxxxx (7:32:26 PM): whered ya go this afternoon
Maf54 (7:33:39 PM): to my daugher's recital. she was one of the dancing mice. take out your cock.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:33:47 PM): oh well thats fun
Maf54 (7:34:04 PM): indeed - take out your cock.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:34:14 PM): what are you doing now?
Maf54 (7:34:21 PM): now in my hotel room
Xxxxxxxxx (7:34:39 PM): well ..like why did you go there
Maf54 (7:35:02 PM): for the campaign. take out your cock.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:35:29 PM): have you officialy announced yet
Maf54 (7:35:45 PM): not yet. have you officially taken out your cock yet?
Xxxxxxxxx (7:36:06 PM): cool cool...
Maf54 (7:37:27 PM): how my favorite young stud doing
Xxxxxxxxx (7:37:46 PM): tired and sore
Xxxxxxxxx (7:37:52 PM): i didnt no taking out your cock could make you sore
Maf54 (7:38:04 PM): from what
Xxxxxxxxx (7:38:34 PM): what do you mean from what
Xxxxxxxxx (7:38:42 PM): from waltzing...im sore from waltzing
Maf54 (7:39:32 PM): you mean taking out your cock?
Maf54 (7:39:32 PM): you need a massage. for your cock.
Maf54 signed off at 7:39:37 PM. Maf54 signed on at 7:40:35 PM.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:40:44 PM): got kicked off?
Maf54 (7:41:24 PM): must have
Xxxxxxxxx (7:41:57 PM): ugh tomorrow i have the first day of
lacrosse practice
Maf54 (7:42:27 PM): love to watch that. can youplease take out your cock now?
Maf54 (7:42:33 PM): those great legs running.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:42:38 PM): haha...they arent great
Xxxxxxxxx (7:42:45 PM): thats why we have conditioning
Xxxxxxxxx (7:42:56 PM): 2 days running....3 days lifting
Xxxxxxxxx (7:43:11 PM): every week
Xxxxxxxxx (7:43:14 PM): until the end of march
Maf54 (7:43:27 PM): well dont ruin my mental picture. soooooo. cock?
Xxxxxxxxx (7:43:32 PM): oh lol...sorry
Maf54 (7:43:54 PM): nice
Maf54 (7:43:54 PM): youll be way hot then
Xxxxxxxxx (7:44:01 PM): haha...hopefully
Maf54 (7:44:22 PM): better be. do you think you could suck your own cock?
Maf54 (7:46:01 PM): well I better let you go do oyur thing.....like trying to suck your own cock.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:07 PM): oh ok
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:11 PM): have fun campaigning
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:17 PM): or however you spell it
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:18 PM): lol. i spell it C-O-C-K.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:25 PM): ill see ya in a couple of weeks
Maf54 (7:46:33 PM): did any girl give you a haand job this weekend
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:38 PM): where the fuck did that come from, dude?
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:40 PM): im single right now
Xxxxxxxxx (7:46:57 PM): my last gf and i broke up a few weeks agi
Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): are you
Maf54 (7:47:11 PM): good so your getting horny. have you taken your cock out yet?
Xxxxxxxxx (7:47:29 PM): lol...a bit. you're creepy.
Maf54 (7:48:00 PM): did you spank it this weekend yourself. You know, your cock.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:04 PM): yikes.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:16 PM): been too tired and too busy.
Maf54 (7:48:33 PM): wow...
Maf54 (7:48:34 PM): i am never to busy haha
Xxxxxxxxx (7:48:51 PM):hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahaha
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah hahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Maf54 (7:50:02 PM): or tired..helps me sleep. i hve trouble sleeping. most of hte guys i work with do.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:50:15 PM): i dont know whaty our taking about
Xxxxxxxxx (7:50:36 PM): havent been having a problem with sleep though..
i just walk in the door and collapse well at least this weekend
Maf54 (7:50:56 PM): i am sure. that your cock is out now.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:50:57 PM): i dont do it very often normally though
Maf54 (7:51:11 PM): why not
Maf54 (7:51:22 PM): at your age seems like it would be daily
Xxxxxxxxx (7:51:57 PM): not me. mom says i'll go blind and grow hair on my palms and smell.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:52:01 PM): im not a horn dog.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:52:07 PM): maybe 2 or 3 times a week
Maf54 (7:52:20 PM): thats a good number. i personally like the number takeyourcockout.
Maf54 (7:52:27 PM): in the shower
Xxxxxxxxx (7:52:36 PM): actually usually i dont do it in the shower
Xxxxxxxxx (7:52:42 PM): just cause i don't shower
Xxxxxxxxx (7:52:47 PM): ever haer of a whores shower?
Maf54 (7:52:50 PM): in the bed
Xxxxxxxxx (7:52:59 PM): i get up at 530 and am outta the house by 610
Xxxxxxxxx (7:53:03 PM): eh ya
Maf54 (7:53:24 PM): on your back, bitch.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:53:30 PM): no face down
Maf54 (7:53:32 PM): love details
Xxxxxxxxx (7:53:34 PM): lol. ew.
Xxxxxxxxx (7:53:36 PM): i see that
Xxxxxxxxx (7:53:37 PM): lol. double ew.
Maf54 (7:53:39 PM): really
Maf54 (7:53:54 PM): do you really do it face down
Xxxxxxxxx (7:54:03 PM): ya
Maf54 (7:54:13 PM): kneeling
Xxxxxxxxx (7:54:31 PM): well i dont use my hand...i use the bed itself. theres a hole in the frame. we've got woodpeckers.
Maf54 (7:54:31 PM): where do you unload it
Xxxxxxxxx (7:54:36 PM): oh, i haven't been able to catch it. tricky litle thing.
Maf54 (7:54:43 PM): really
Maf54 (7:55:02 PM): completely naked?
Xxxxxxxxx (7:55:12 PM): well ya. cept for all the feathers.
Maf54 (7:55:21 PM): very nice
Xxxxxxxxx (7:55:24 PM): lol?
Maf54 (7:55:51 PM): cute butt bouncing in the air
Xxxxxxxxx (7:56:00 PM): haha...wha?
Xxxxxxxxx (7:56:05 PM): well ive never watched myslef
Xxxxxxxxx (7:56:08 PM): but ya i guess
Maf54 (7:56:18 PM): i am sure not
Maf54 (7:56:22 PM): hmmm
Maf54 (7:56:30 PM): great visual
Maf54 (7:56:39 PM): i may try that
Xxxxxxxxx (7:56:43 PM): it works
Maf54 (7:56:51 PM): hmm
Maf54 (7:56:57 PM): sound inetersting
Maf54 (7:57:05 PM): i always use lotion and the hand
Xxxxxxxxx (7:57:24 PM): dry flaky skin?
Xxxxxxxxx (7:57:37 PM): with a towel you can just wipe off....and go
Maf54 (7:57:38 PM): lol
Maf54 (7:57:45 PM): where do you throw the towel
Xxxxxxxxx (7:57:51 PM): in the laundry. DUH!
Maf54 (7:58:37 PM): well I have aa totally stiff wood now
Xxxxxxxxx (7:58:40 PM): ouch.
Maf54 (7:58:44 PM): i bet..taht would hurt
Maf54 (7:59:48 PM): is your little guy limp...or growing
Xxxxxxxxx (7:59:54 PM): eh growing
Maf54 (8:00:00 PM): hmm
Maf54 (8:00:12 PM): so you got a stiff one now
Xxxxxxxxx (8:00:19 PM): not that fast
Xxxxxxxxx (8:00:20 PM): hey
Xxxxxxxxx (8:00:32 PM): so you have a fetich
Maf54 (8:00:32 PM): hey what
Xxxxxxxxx (8:00:40 PM): fetish**
Maf54 (8:00:43 PM): like
Maf54 (8:00:53 PM): i like steamroom. especially when ted kennedy's in there. ooooh ya.
Maf54 (8:01:04 PM): whats yours
Xxxxxxxxx (8:01:09 PM): its kinda weird
Xxxxxxxxx (8:01:14 PM): lol
Maf54 (8:01:21 PM): i am hard as a rock..so tell me when your reaches rock
Xxxxxxxxx (8:01:23 PM): rock, paper, scissors! hahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahaha hahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahah hahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahah hahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hahaahahahahahahahahahah
Maf54 (8:01:27 PM): well tell me
Maf54 (8:01:32 PM): cast
Xxxxxxxxx (8:01:44 PM): ya like...plaster cast
Maf54 (8:01:49 PM): ok..so what happens
Maf54 (8:01:58 PM): how does that turn you in
Xxxxxxxxx (8:02:02 PM): i dont know
Xxxxxxxxx (8:02:04 PM): it just does
Xxxxxxxxx (8:02:08 PM):i think i was molested by an orthopedic surgeon once.
Xxxxxxxxx (8:02:27 PM): and if i had one it would probably turn me on
Xxxxxxxxx (8:02:29 PM): beats me
Xxxxxxxxx (8:02:32 PM): its kinda weird
Xxxxxxxxx (8:02:50 PM): but along with that i like the whole catholic girl look....thats our schools uniform
Maf54 (8:03:02 PM): whoa whoa whoa. catholic school WHAT?
Xxxxxxxxx (8:03:14 PM): ya but now im hard
Maf54 (8:03:32 PM): yeah, but a girl? you sure bout thatTimmy?
Maf54 (8:03:42 PM): cast got you going
Maf54 (8:03:47 PM): what you wearing
Xxxxxxxxx (8:04:04 PM): burlap chinos and dutch clogs.
Xxxxxxxxx (8:04:09 PM): and tshirt and shorts
Maf54 (8:04:17 PM): um so a big buldge
Xxxxxxxxx (8:04:35 PM): burlap does seem to bunch up, ya.
Maf54 (8:04:45 PM): um
Maf54 (8:04:58 PM): love to slip them off of you
Xxxxxxxxx (8:05:08 PM): haha.....ew.
Maf54 (8:05:53 PM): and gram the one eyed snake
Maf54 (8:06:13 PM): grab
Xxxxxxxxx (8:06:53 PM): funny thing - i know a guy named graham who has a one eyed sanke. really. he got for half price at petsmart.
Maf54 (8:07:12 PM): well your hard
Xxxxxxxxx (8:07:45 PM): that is true. i'm a tough nut to crack alright.
Maf54 (8:08:03 PM): and a little horny
Xxxxxxxxx (8:08:11 PM): and also tru
Maf54 (8:08:31 PM): get a ruler and measure it for me
Xxxxxxxxx (8:08:38 PM): ive already told you that
Maf54 (8:08:47 PM): tell me again
Xxxxxxxxx (8:08:49 PM): 3 and 1/2.
Maf54 (8:09:04 PM): ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Maf54 (8:09:08 PM): beautiful
Xxxxxxxxx (8:09:38 PM): lol
Maf54 (8:09:44 PM): thats an OK size
Xxxxxxxxx (8:10:00 PM): thank you
Maf54 (8:10:22 PM): still stiff
Xxxxxxxxx (8:10:28 PM): ya
Maf54 (8:10:40 PM): take it out
Xxxxxxxxx (8:10:54 PM): brb...my mom is yelling. it's spaghetti night.
Maf54 (8:11:06 PM): ok
Xxxxxxxxx (8:14:02 PM): back
Maf54 (8:14:37 PM): cool hope se didnt see any thing
Xxxxxxxxx (8:14:54 PM): burlap, man. safe.
Xxxxxxxxx (8:14:59 PM): she is computer dumb though
Xxxxxxxxx (8:15:01 PM): it makes me so mad
Maf54 (8:15:04 PM): good
Maf54 (8:15:08 PM): haha
Maf54 (8:15:11 PM): wait - what? why
Xxxxxxxxx (8:15:23 PM): cause she cant do anything
Maf54 (8:15:31 PM): oh well
Xxxxxxxxx (8:15:41 PM): she couldnt figure out how to download a file from an email and open it
Maf54 (8:15:53 PM): haha
Xxxxxxxxx (8:16:14 PM): and she only does it like a million times a day
Maf54 (8:16:16 PM): ah ya kid? that doen't make any fucking sense at all.
Xxxxxxxxx (8:16:18 PM): whatever
Xxxxxxxxx (8:16:53 PM): well i better go finish my hw...i just found out from a friend that i have to finish reading and notating a book for remedial IMing.
Maf54 signed off at 8:17:43 PM.

Ms. Domestrix threw up at 8:18:55 PM.

I'm huge in Japan.

2006-09-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

Literally. I outweigh those people by about 85 pounds. I'm so fucking fat. Just so you know.

It was hard for me to come to terms with my fatness, because, I still seemed to have it goin' on. Know what I'm saying? Pedro at the the market seemed to know it. And Arturo at the taqueria...he wanted to be my baby's daddy. And Pablo, Juan Carlos, Luis....all of them smitten. With me.

I noticed a trend though. All of these men showing me their appreciation had something in common. I couldn't put my finger on it at first and then it hit me. These men worshipped cellulite and I was their goddess queen. Yup, I am the Mexican man's Angelina Jolie.

Mexican guys (and Puerto Ricans, Guatamalans, Costa Ricans, et. al.) love chubby girls. When I go to Mexico I have to have Dar with me at all times. They're all a crazy bunch of chubby chasers. I thought it was insanity until one day, on a visit to Santiago, I saw something. An old Coca-Cola ad, painted on the entire side of the town's only mercado. It was a picture of a girl in old-fashioned Mexican costume. She looked just like me. She had dark hair and eyes, big-ass titties peeking over her low cut white blouse and a city block's worth of hips in her bright red ruffled skirt. She was holding a bottle of coke and smiling. She was huge. She was hot. She was thirsty.

In their eyes I am voluptuous and sexy. In Bif's eyes I'm a fatty bumbinatty. Well, fuck you Bif. Thank god Dar refuses to go to an opthamologist. Honestly, I don't think he knows what he's got himself into here.

Anyway, I'm just feeling fat. As an American woman I am required by law to feel fat and inferior at least 12 weeks out of a calendar year. I haven't been and they caught up with me, so here I am.

Sigh.

International Peace Day.

2006-09-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

Or something.

Today at school, we celebrated "International Peace Day". One of the teachers arranged to get 118 small rocks (one for each student). The kids painted their rocks and decorated them with glitter and such. They were "Peace Rocks." Because, let's face it - peace does rock.

However, I was crabby all day long, seething over International Peace Day because it seemed like such a hypocritical bullshit sentiment. It's like telling kids they can grow up and be president someday: a big fucking lie. Only children of billionaires can become president and there is no such thing as 'peace'. And those two ideas are eerily linked to each other, by the way.

So, the gentle Santa Cruz teachers (most with "NO WAR IN MY NAME" bumper stickers on their compact cars) read sweet books about peace and tried to explain the deep meaning to the wee ones. The kids were sent off with the instructions to give their peace rocks to someone they care about and wish them "peace".

Gannon threw his rock across the playground as soon as his feet hit the blacktop almost scalping a preschooler. Mason was a little bit more conscientious, tossing his on the ground at my feet and saying, "Here."

My kids, as you might know by now, are pretty savvy. They know W.'s always up to no good and they know we're in some sort pseudo-war for oil. They also know there's people dying on both sides. What they don't know is that their half brother, who just turned 18 four days ago, now has to register for selective service. This scares me. And if it scares me, I'm not sharing it with them. They're already so fucking cynical. Dar and I, well, we're partly to blame for that. Oops.

So, I say screw International Peace Day. How about "International Try Not To Kill Someone For At Least An Hour Day"? I think we should start with an attainable goal first.

Where the hell have I been?

2006-09-18T23:00:00.000-07:00

I can't say.

For a while I had no world-wide-webernet at home. But that's no excuse for the delay. I'm just plum tuckered out. School started. I went back to work. That's all I remember.

In my absence I notice the world kept spinning. That upsets me. I would think that I had more impact, you know? Did suicide rates increase without me? No. Should they have? Of course.

I just bought some phyllo dough and what happens? Spinach infested with deadly e. coli. Could I make my spanakopita with Swiss chard? Unlikely.

We're up to 21 felines here. Someone should call the ASPCA on us...maybe a neighbor. This is a desperate cry for help. Six of them are not ours. Some neighbors up the way moved and left their pets. They weren't neutered and had a litter of kittens. Siamese kittens. All but one of them died. Now, the remaining kitten and 5 of its closest relatives have taken to eating at Chez Robyn each evening.

And we're all just big softies. We couldn't turn away Ziggy, Chocolate Junior Jr., Furball, Black Mama, Siamese Baby and Randy. Yup - the kids named them. Unfortunately, they don't get along very well with Trixie, Mama Mama, Pootiebutt, Twinsor, Chocolate Junior, Princess, Chewy, Little Bitches, Girl Andy II, and the six newborns (Pitbull, Mandark, Runt, Snaketail, Piglet and Whitey).

Dar keeps threatening that, one by one, they're gonna start disappearing. But who filled an extra bowl with kitten chow and set it in the driveway where the strangers congregate? Mmmm-hmm. Big softies. Big, big softies.

Ode to the death of funny.

2006-08-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Everyone I know right now is in a funk. Not a groove thing, but a depressed thing. Might be that our summer vacations are ending and we'll soon have to haul our asses out of bed at the crack every day to shuttle our ungrateful progeny off to school.

Might be that all of our husbands are huge assholes. Every woman I know right now is contemplating divorce. I suggested we just swap 'em for a while and try to retrain them. It takes a village, you know? I'll take the one who neglects his kids and surfs for 10 hours a day. Oh wait - that's mine. Bastard.

I was warned - by many. "Don't get involved with a surfer" they told me. "But he's got those strong shoulders and amazing cut abs" I would respond. Those shoulders and abs are a direct result of paddling aimlessly around the Pacific ocean for days on end. If I knew then what I know now...

Stupid men.

Make sure you read the first link on an empty stomach.

2006-08-08T01:06:00.000-07:00

Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

The US military is enlisting crazy people. Hitler didn't even do that until the bitter, bitter.... bitter end. But Uncle Sam (who molested me, by the way) is taking anyone who can scratch a big "X" where it says "sign here". Sexual deviants, violent personalities....But wait - maybe they were normal when they enlisted. Maybe it was the brainwashing.... Nah, that could've just been a Saturday night in some Fall River bar. Why would it be different in Bahgdad? Baghdad? Bagddad? Baaaaaaaaa?

What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?

"Hello good sir. Allow me to introduce myself - I am Chester. Chester the baby molester. You have just (unknowingly) signed me to a one year lease here in this grand studio apartment. I must tell you, I particularly appreciate the view from my bathroom window. That preschool is darling and the children...well, they are precious, aren't they? Here's my attorney's phone number. He's in Monday through Friday, and can be paged on the weekends. I bid you adieu now."

Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Told you so. Maybe.

And everyone thought I was the crazy one.

A picture of Gannon laughing at Aria's kitty's tail pooof.

2006-08-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

As soon as he noticed the picture he started laughing hysterically from across the room, ran straight to the monitor and said, "What the hell did they do to that cat?!"

Some good news.

2006-08-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I have some good - no great - news to share. Now, I don't want to seem like I'm bragging. I just want to share the joy with all of you. Okay - ready? I have won a gold medal in the Housewives Olympics XXVI! In vacuuming, of course. You know I'm a demon on the Dirt Devil.

First of all, I took first place in almost all the trials. It took years of competing. You've seen the commercial with the seemingly underground vacuum cleaner races? It's not all fiction. But it's not just racing. There are lots of different components. For instance, I excel at vacuum attachment crisis hose manouvers. That's when something unseen gets sucked into the vacuum hose, during an under the couch dust-bunny sweep. The athlete must extricate the clogging article in a timely fashion and finish the course. The athlete is allowed to use one implement of her choice as a tool in helping with this part of the course. Some women use straightened-out wire coathangers. Some women use slender broom handles. This one gal from Yugoslavia had rigged some sort of rope with fishhooks at both ends.

I use barb wire. It's rigid enough to slip through the hose and the barbs hook onto whatever is stuck inside. However, it's a delicate job - the barbs can puncture the hose or delicate lady fingers. But if you can master it, nothing beats it.

In the race for the gold, my vacuum "accidentally" sucked up a dirty tube sock - very similar to something Dar would kick under the couch. As soon as I heard the expected 'kloog' - the sound a vacuum makes when it stops sucking - I was ready.

I carefully removed the wound up 2 feet-long wire from my canvas saddlebag. Then, I straightened it out, and gently fed it into the hose. I did not rush. When I got to the sock, I pinched the hose a little to get the wire around it, and then pulled it back. I felt it catch and slowly, slowly pulled it out. It was beautiful. The Japanese housewife was close on my heels - she was working on a huge wad of used kleenex or something - but, she was using some sort of chopstick creation that snapped and broke before she could get all of it. I re-attached my hose and left her in my dust.

All I had to do after that was be first to suck up some ceiling cobwebs and get to the final crumb corner.

And, I did.

I have to say it was probably one of my proudest moments. When they hung the gold medal around my neck, I thanked my high-school sweetheart's mother. It was her - Nancy Cloud - who told me to look into the housewife profession. She said, and I quote, "It ain't a bad deal."
She was so right.

By the way, that's a picture of me and one of our kittens lying on my majestically clean carpet.

Goddamned filthy jews.....

2006-07-31T13:10:00.000-07:00

Oops! I just had a Mel Gibson moment. So sorry. You know I'm a devout Roman Catholic who would never say anything so...so...despicable about another religious group.

Well, well, well. The "Passion of the Anti-Semite" has been exposed. Remember, right before the POTC was released there was this big hullabaloo because his dad had said that the holocaust was mostly "fiction"? These Gibsons are quite the jew hating bunch, eh?

But, he's so dreamy. In the 80s, housewives swooned over him. I was never turned on by Mel Gibson, by the way. His hair was too poofy for my liking. I was a Burt Reynolds gal*.

It is just so typical (and infuriating) that these god-spewing, right-wing kooks always turn out to be frauds. It's the hypocrisy that kills me. If there was never a priest dipping his wick into an 8 year old boy, my opinion would be collosally different. Mel Gibson rode his wave of piousness as far as he could before he had to stop and get himself a drink. A couple of drinks. Fourteen drinks, really.

Will America still love him, though? Probably. Was it Jimmy Swaggart who got caught pissing on hookers or something and still managed to keep his flock faithfully donating their social security checks to him? It's the hypocrisy combined with the weakness of brain that kills me.

But you know this about me. I am an orthodox atheist - the strictest kind. So any religious chicanery gets my goat worse than most. It's like I have x-ray vision for bullshit. It's a curse, really. Many times I have wished for a weak brain. Why can't I follow the lead of the mighty Kirk Cameron? I could have a kick-ass show on The Inspiration Network (INSP). I'd wear shiny gold shoes. I'd call them my god shoes and whenever I felt the spirit, I'd dance.

I would dance, like no one has seen before, in my shiny gold god shoes. And when I was done, the telephone lines would open and the money would come flooding in. Which would make me happy, and I'd dance again.

The talk is that Mel Gibson's career is in jeopardy right now. I wouldn't be surprised, if in a few short years, we saw him on "The Mel Gibson Jew-Hating Jesus Hour" featuring the ghost of Marge Schott playing the organ. On the INSP network, of course.

*Oh, good gravy, I hope you know I was kidding.

My son has diabetes.

2006-07-21T00:25:00.000-07:00

Gannon.

He was diagnosed at 10 months old. For the last 6 years, he's had his blood sugar checked at least eight times a day (that's at least 8 pin pricks to his fingers or toes) and has received two or three (sometimes four) shots of insulin a day. Do that math. Any needle phobics out there? You can't be needle phobic in this house.

You can't be squeamish or timid or afraid of any fucking thing in this house. You have to be on your toes 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Type 1 diabetes is a tricky fucking chronic nightmare. Trying to keep a child's blood sugar levels 'normal' is damn near impossible. If he's too high, he gets crazy and manic. I cringe when I think of his poor little kidneys trying to keep up. Diabetics are famous for amputations, kidney failure, and heart disease - all due to high blood sugar.

If he goes too low - well, be on the look-out for a 3-feet tall angry drunk. That's before he passes out. If you don't catch it soon enough, he'll start to twitch and cry out in this anguished scream - that's the seizure and the hallucinations that accompany them. Is he not moving anymore? You're now experiencing what we like to call a coma. Yup. Lucky for us, we haven't done coma yet. Whenever he's sleeping, though, I always wonder....is he really asleep or is he in a coma?

Pharmaceutical companies have come up with all kinds of nifty things to help us out. Like the cherry flavored glucose gel. I call it melted lollipop. If Gannon does go too low and winds up unconscious, I can squeeze this sticky shit in his mouth and he'll perk right up. In case of dire emergency there's the glucagon shot. Needle phobics, stop reading now. This bad boy is a doozy. Where the insulin needles are a 1/2 inch long the glucagon needle is about 3 inches long and mean. It gets plunged into the victims thigh. The next step is ususally the emergency room.

Diabetes is unpredictable. You can count your carbs and sugar grams, measure your food, time your workouts, and whatever else it takes to keep track - you'll still be surprised by a random high blood glucose level. Or a random low one. Remember when Halle Berry had her mysterious car accident? She was all messed up and accused of being drunk. She wasn't drunk. She had low blood sugar. Halle Berry has type 1 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes is a life-long illness. Unlike type 2, which is the one you hear about all the time on the news, it cannot be reversed if caught in time. Gannon will most likely die from complications of diabetes. He'll probably get a decent life span, but not as long as if he didn't have it. Mason will probably outlive his little brother.

I've been the primary caregiver for Gannon. I have been the one to monitor him, all hours of the day. There's that 2 a.m. check all parents of diabetics do. There's this weird thing with them going low around 3 a.m. .... I check him around 2 in the morning and if he's too low, I force him to drink chocolate milk out of a sippy cup. Although, he's way too old for sippy cups, so now we call them commuter mugs. He can drink while he's still asleep.

George Bush just vetoed a bill that would help fund research for stem cell testing, one of the few hopes people with diabetes (and Parkinson's, Altheimer's, cancer, spinal injuries, etc.) have for some sort of cure. While I am always cynical of ever finding a cure (the money's in the medicine, not the cure) I still have a little, teeny, tiny hope.

Only now, my hope is in goddamn fucking Korea. Or China. Or Sweden maybe. The United States, former world leader in science, technology and medical breakthroughs has been replaced ten times over.

And don't believe George Bush when he claims he has moral issues with stem cells. He has money issues with stem cells. If all of these chronic diseases were cured, who'd be left to buy blood glucose monitors (about $100.00) and their test strips ($65.00 for a box of 50)? His buddies in the pharmaceutical companies would go broke. (Pssst - it's the same reason weed is illegal and the Feds keep raiding medical marijuana clinics).

Just another reason for me to loathe this man. And I am not alone. But right now, I feel alone. It's almost 2 in the morning and everyone in the house is asleep - as they should be. But I still have work to do. It's worth it though.

By the way, Gannon is the toughest fucking kid I know. All you republican, pro-life, creationalist motherfucking pieces of shit better watch out: I'm training him myself to take you all down.

It's getting a little Gitmo around here.

2006-07-06T21:51:00.000-07:00

We did it again.

That darn tomcat who's been fucking my one remaining unfixed female is still at large. And we're still trying to catch him. In another case of unlawful imprisonment, we trapped the wrong animal again. However, it wasn't a neighbor's cat this time. It was a grey fox! We caught a fox!

See, we had been putting the trap on our deck or close to our house and we kept catching neighbor cats or our own stupid cats. So, I suggested we put the trap farther up the hill, back beyond the kid's trampoline, where we see the tomcat running to and from. And when Dar went to check it we found such a huge surprise.

Inside was a lot of fur, presumably from a smaller animal and a snarling, rabid, hateful fox. She was pretty tight in there and couldn't move around much, but whenever one of us got close to her, she growled at us in this high-pitched, Tazmanian devil screech. She was vicious. She hated us.

Dar thinks we trapped a squirrel or rat in there first and then she went in after it. Which is the moral of this whole story: if you see a free squirrel or rat in a cage, don't go in after it.

The first thing I said was, "I'm gonna go get my camera." The second thing I said was, "Oh, fuck. The batteries aren't charged." So, I have no picture.

We let her loose in the field. Dar opened the cage and she bolted out and ran/hopped across the yard. Superfast. Gone in a flash. She wanted to rip our faces off. But not as badly as she wanted to go home.

In lieu of an amazing fox picture, instead I offer a photo I took today of Mason holding a huge beetle (*cough* cockroach) we found on our deck. It's like frickin' WIld Kingdom around here.

Houston, we have a heart attack.

2006-07-06T00:37:00.000-07:00

Ken Lay = dead. Maybe. I mean, I'll never trust the guy again. After all, what better way to beat a possible lifetime prison sentence then to "die". I want to see the goddamned body. How hard would it be for a Texas billionaire, who is friends with the most corrupt US president in history, to fake his own death and live happily ever-after somewhere, next to an ATM machine, in the Grand Caymans? Not hard enough, I say.

Bring me the head of Kenneth Lay.

If he is, in fact, truly a stiff, well, praise be and hallelulah. I hope Satan's having his rough way with him right now. I hope Kenneth Lay is giving a lap dance to Hitler. I hope Kenneth Lay is forced for all eternity to vote Green party. I hate Kenneth Lay. He stood for everything that has gone wrong with this world: corporate greed and corruption. Overpaid motherfucker.

But, I digress.

I'm a little more interested in the fact that North Korea's 'Lil Kim is screaming loudly in our direction, "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me no-o-o-o-ow?!" and W just doesn't know what to do. I have an idea: Answer him! Send him a little vase shaped like a pot-sticker from 1-800-FLOWERS with some kimchee in it. Let him know you're listening. And then, soften him up with some chocolates and a gift certificate for a massage. He'll love it. And hopefully, he won't nuke us.

Top that off with a fucking toothache. This is my bad karma for having been prideful about my teeth. See, they used to be perfect. Dar, his brothers, my friends - all of them with the root canals and fillings, enameling, capping, veneers, gingivitis....but me? No problems. Great teeth. Well, listen to me now for I know this to be true: being prideful about your teeth will bite you in the ass. I have a toothache and I can't even drink room-temperature water. I just bought ice cream too. I haven't had good ice cream in so long and I don't think I can eat it now.

I blame Kenneth Lay.

Happy 4th!

2006-07-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

There's no better way to celebrate our independence than to rape a young Iraqi woman and then kill her and her whole family. God bless America.

And, it is also the American way to blame the victim. So I shall. First of all, she was asking for it, walking around in her burka, showing all the men her....eyes. American men are an extremely virile bunch, and they can't be blamed when a broad so blatantly flaunts her sexuality.

Then of course, there is the question of her worth. I mean, she is just an Iraqi - brown, non-christian, oily....I don't think this even should count as a crime.

And the guys were young. They can't be expected to take responsibility. They're just boys being boys. Soon enough they'll mature and be more able to control their impulses. In the meantime, I say let them have their fun!

Well, Happy Independence Day. And American soldiers: Keep on raping and murdering. By the way, do you think you guys could rape and murder Toby Keith next? No? Just asking......

I have left the building.

2006-07-02T01:24:00.000-07:00

I live for summer vacation. I feel like a kid again myself, when I see my kids sitting around the house, bored off their asses, begging me for ice cream.

They're older brother (my soon to be 18-year-old stepson) made a surprise visit from Wisconsin. It was a surprise because Dar's weird parents, who made the arrangements, never told us. I heard it from my loopy sister-in-law (who is a pathological liar, so I didn't even believe her).

But, he called as soon as he arrived. It was true after all. Now, here's the weird part: I know I've said it before, but mormons are the craziest people. None of us have seen this kid in over a year. So to get him over summer vacation is quite the special treat. He can only stay for a month, so our time is limited. And what do the mormon grandparents have planned for this limited time with their first-born grandson? Why, they're sending him to mormon bible camp for a week!

Mormon bible camp. Actually, it's an all-boys mormon bible adventure camp. They will sacrifice spending time with this kid now, but hopefully recruit him into their weird cult/church, which in turn will give them an eternity with him in the celestial kingdom. That's what mormons call heaven. Those crazy fucking bastards.

I find it sad. We got him for one week. Grandpa paid for the ticket, so he got to decide when and where the kid would be. We tried to give him a happy week. We cussed as much as we could because I know he likes it when we do that. And when he gets back from mormon death camp, we'll get him for the remaining time he's here. We fear that the brainwashing may have some effect on him. If he comes back wearing a short-sleeved, white button-down shirt we'll have no choice but to start deprogramming, which will involve bootlegged moonshine and ladies of the evening.

Why do they have to be mormons? I am the worst person to have mormon in-laws. I'd have a much better time of it with catholic or hindu or even orthodox Greeks. At least with any of those I'd be guaranteed better food. But no. I got the mormons. Dar scored with Bruce, my dad. Bruce is great. He is the anti-mormon. He sells liquor for a living and has been divorced 4 times. He's a baaaaad man.

For fuck's sake.

2006-06-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

I ate too much tofu. Again. I don't know what it is with me and tofu - but I love, love, love it. I did a simple Asian marinade with scallions and garlic, braised tofu, bok choy, red bell peppers and onions. I ate so much. Did you know tofu alleviates menopausal symptoms? It does.

Besides overindulging in bean curd I have not been up to much. I got a new cruiser - an aqua cruiser, one speed, with pedal brakes. I've been zipping around the Northern California coast on it wearing matching aqua skorts. Do I look as cute as I sound? I do.

My summer vacation is going smoothly. I've been sleeping in until around 11:00 am every morning. That was my original plan, and I'm glad I've been able to stick to it. The kids seem to be fending for themselves. No one's starved to death or drowned in the unattended pool*. I think. It has been kind of quiet here today. I'm not asking any questions. I'll take it anyway I can.

And, this may seem unusual coming from me but I think I'm going to take the kids to a Star Trek convention. I've never been a fan myself, and the kids wouldn't know Star Trek from Star Jones, but - I think it would be fun. When I was a teenager, a friend and I were roaming around Boston and - completely by accident - wound up in the middle of a "science fiction" convention. All I'm gonna say is those nerds could party. I just think it would be a hoot. Have you ever seen those stupid books "1000 Places You Need to Go Before You Die"? I bet a Star Trek convention is on the list.

It's like George Carlin says: being born is like getting a free ticket to the freak show. Why not take it up a notch, I ask?

And, since leaving South Park, it seems Isaac Hayes is hawking Lay's potato chips. Scientology approved Lay's chips. Well, alllllllll-riiiiight.

And with that I will bid you adieu.

*there is no pool. don't worry, be happy.

Well, I saw it.

2006-06-16T00:38:00.000-07:00

I was at the checkout line, buying some Ho-Ho's at the Alpha-Beta. I couldn't have avoided it if I tried. The baby. The most beautiful, perfect baby in the history of humankind. Plastered all over the cover of People magazine.

They did it. Genetic engineers couldn't have gotten it better. The Jolie-Pitt child is truly a miracle. It makes me want to toss my kids off the first cliff I pass, because compared to Shiloh, Mason and Gannon are monstrous. They are hideous with their normal sized lips and ordinary eyes. At this point, they really are just embarassing. I've taken to covering their faces when we're out in public. I thought they were cute, but after seeing what a real perfect baby is, I stand corrected.

So what the fuck do I do now? Plastic surgeons won't touch them 'til they're eighteen. I'm stuck with these mundane, pedestrian kids while Brad and Angie prounce around the world with Little Miss Bee-Sting.

Well at least they're not fat. Yet.

Sorry suckas

2006-06-13T15:13:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss. You know how I get - I bury my head in the proverbial sand for a few weeks, hoping that when I pop out it'll all be better......

Of course, it ain't all better. It's the same shite different calendar appointmentation.

Things here are looking up though - definately. Thursday is the last day of school for the young 'uns. If I hadn't mentioned it before, man oh man do I hate going to school. I love being at school, but I hate getting there. It starts too fucking early. The ideal school day for me would begin around noon. After lunch. Um, maybe not right after lunch. I'd be sleepy. Two-ish would be great, after my siesta. The perfect school schedule would be 2:00pm 'til 6:00 pm. Four glorious hours of late- afternoon learning.

So, I have a few more days of dawn patrol and then I'm a free woman. We're planning a drive to southern California to San Diego for a few days and then LA for the tarpits and a visit to Aria. I think I have to find out if Aria will be around on June 30th...Aria? Will you be around on June 30th? Or maybe July 1st? I'm flexible.

Well, gentle readers. I hope to be back sooner than later.

Pink Godzilla.

2006-05-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

Sooooo. On June 6th we have an election here. We'll be voting for a new Governor. (Sigh.)

There are also many other initiatives on the ballot - the most interesting of them being the one to make marijuana the lowest priority of the Santa Cruz police department.

Lowest priority? I find this too good to be true. How can this be true?

So, say for instance, I walk up to a Santa Cruz cop downtown, tap him on the shoulder, and say, "Excuse me, Officer. I think you may be interested to know that I currently have in my possesion one ounce of the finest Humboldt-grown strain of sensomillia you have ever seen, with hairy, purple leaves and golfball size buds which smell like fresh blueberry pie when sparked up.....But wait - before you arrest me, turn your attention to the southwest corner of the block where you will notice a late-model white van with a crudely painted clown on the side, which seems to be rocking back and forth, and where I think you can hear the muffled squeals of a child....don't answer yet! Because with that creepy clown van I will also throw in the homeless guy pissing on the Jamba Juice sidewalk cafe table.....Well, Officer? Deal......or no deal?"

The kind officer doesn't even hestitate before he races around the corner and throws open the back door of the van to find - a real clown. It's the guy who twists up balloon animals every weekend! And what's that rocking the van back and forth? It's just a bunch of happily squealing kids jumping up and down on the seats. Oops, I think I may have jumped to the front of the high- priority line.....Oh no, wait. I'm still the lowest priority - 'cuz the homeless guy is now taking a shit on the bench outside Pink Godzilla.

Awesome.

Ask Ms. Domestrix.

2006-05-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

Many of you (thousands of you, really) send me lots and lots of emails. Most of them contain questions about me. You all want to know more about the woman who you've come to adore.

I've decided to grace you with an "Ask Ms. Domestrix" column. I will try to answer as many of your inquiries as possible.

Here's the first one:

Dear Ms. Domestrix,

Do you prefer coffee or tea?

Well. This one is easy. Coffee. Usually a cup of regular, old joe will suit me. Once in a while, I indulge myself with a white chocolate mocha. Mmmmmm. But at four bucks a pop, I save it for a special treat. At home, I use a drip filter to make fresh coffee. I buy a dark roast called "Sweet Italian" and grind it fine. I also add finely ground espresso to it. I like strong, dark coffee. I fill half the cup with coffee and the other half with milk. I like lots of milk in my strong, dark coffee. A teensy bit of sugar, just to take the bitterness down and Voila! A perfect cup.

Tea just doesn't do it for me. Rarely, I'll have a cup at someone elses's place - if it's all they're offering. Then, I will go home and jot their name down, in a book I keep with lists of people who are not be trusted or helped in an emergency situation because they do not have coffee in their homes. There are a surprising amount of names on this list. We live in a crazy world.

Another fucking kid movie.

2006-05-20T00:13:00.000-07:00

Friday night has become an unofficial girl's night out - with kids. We (the girls) need our night out, but also have the kids, so it's a big, happy all-ages jamboree.

We try to find stuff to do. Kids movies always seem to be the top choice. Unfortunately, there are only so many kids movies released. And 90% of those suck.

This evening we went to see "Over the Hedge". I sort of had high hopes for this one. The voice cast seemed promising - Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carrell, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Wanda Sykes. You can't go wrong with Wanda, right?

I will say that I was overly optimistic. It was OK. Bruce Willis is a great talking baby but not so much a great talking racoon. However, Steve Carrell was brilliant. As a hyperactive squirrel. Squirrels are hot these days. They're 'now'. And they are very, very funny. So is Steve Carrell.

We went with 5 kids and 4 grown-ups. It was three of us ladies and Dar who showed up 20 minutes into the movie. He went to the wrong side of the theater and I had to wave my arms wildly, "pssst - psssting" him for way too long. I mean, maybe it's dark in there but is he fucking deaf? Ten minutes after sitting down he's snoring. He always falls asleep at the movies and then snores. Crazy fucking cracker.

This was his first girl's night out with us. He will not be joining us again. Mostly because he's, like, a dude. But also because he was, to use his own word, "bored." Whatever. Of course he's fucking bored. He's hanging out with 3 broads! He's not that kind of guy. He's not talker. He's not a shopper. And the Pacific Cookie Company didn't have his precious chocolate dipped macaroons. Having him around completely through off the balance. There's a time and a place for Dar and it's not on a girl's night out.

And this movie? I dunno. Average. A solid average score. If it weren't for the zippy squirrel it would've completely blown. God bless Steve Carrell. And god bless the squirrels - nature's comedy geniuses.

Bad mother.

2006-05-17T19:37:00.000-07:00

I'm in the kitchen cooking up a storm when Gannon yells to me from the TV room, "Mama - is Johnny Cochran dead?"

"Yes." I answer not thinking.

Then it's Mason calling, "Mama - what's a 'beaner'?"

"A beaner is a bad name to call a Mexican. You can't say it."

Then Gannon, "Aw man. First we can't say the 'N' word now we can't say a 'B' word?"

Then I say, "What the fuck are those kids watching in there?"

Carlos Mencia. Who, by the way, is one funny beaner. The kids had watched the 'Johnny Cochran's ghost' bit and heard the word 'beaner' - over 1000 times. I already had to have the 'N' word talk to them after our first and last time watching "Boondocks". (It was a little over the top for them.) Now I had to have the 'B' word talk. Saying 'beaner' where we live is a really, really bad idea. Because, if one of those cholos hears you calling him a beaner you're in big trouble.

So, maybe I shouldn't let the kids watch Carlos Mencia? Hmmmm. This is a tough call. I usually let them watch stuff that the TV ratings tell me I shouldn't. But, my kids now have a certain savvy that I think they've gained from watching more mature programming. And by mature I don't mean sex and violence. Just grown-up humor and situations. Nobody loves Larry David more than me - except Gannon.

I think I may be a bad mother. Well my mother was a bad mother. And her mother was a bad mother. It's a family tradition. Nah - fuck that. I'm a great mother. And - my kids now say, after hearing that someone is gay: "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

I'm cultivating tolerance.

A little boy's dream.

2006-05-12T23:41:00.000-07:00

Tonight on the way home from a busy day, Gannon said, "Mama - I had that dream again. I always have it."

"What dream?"

"I'm in a room. I open a closet door. There's a midget in there wearing a blue suit and eating a taco. I punch him."

Ah, yes. The midget in a blue suit eating a taco dream. I love tacos. The best tacos I ever had were in a little shack on the outskirts of San Jose Del Cabo in Baja. The tortillas were really small so you could eat a lot of them. But this isn't about tacos. This is about the subconscious.

I always like analyzing dreams. And on more than on occasion my dreams have come true. (Like when I dreamt there was a tsunami coming and we all had to evacuate to the high school in Half Moon Bay, because it's the highest point in town. The next morning, there was a tsunami alert due to the huge earthquake in Kobe, Japan. We were told to evacuate to the high school. I told you I was a little psychic.)

So when Gannon starts telling me about his messed up midget dream, I get a little nervous. What if he's got "the shine" like me? What if this one comes true? Why would he have a midget in his closet? Why would he punch him? Was it a flour or corn tortilla?

Then Mason chimes in with his weird dream, fueled no doubt by an extra-distrubing episode of Billy and Mandy. In his dream, he watches as a huge star crashes into the earth and there's no one left but him and Ashley from Resident Evil. (Which, right now has just hit me, maybe those ratings on video games due serve some sort of purpose....But when Dar gets stuck, Mason's the only one who can shoot his way out. The kid's got eagle eyes.)

Anyway, in Mason's dream, it's just him and Ashley and they're trying to outrun the Grim Reaper (the Billy and Mandy influence). He says it's a really bad dream. I can believe it.

Luckily, I don't have too many upsetting dreams anymore. That's because my waking life is a fucking nightmare and my subconscious knows I'm way too fragile for any midnight mind-fucking. Now, I dream of stuff like the strawberry farm we pass every day or the library. I especially like the library dreams when I have lots of dream money to buy new books. Oh, and occasionally I dream I'm one of the Gilmore Girls. Real mellow stuff for my fluffy little brain.

A special "Ms. Domestrix News Update"

2006-05-11T19:14:00.000-07:00

Well, more and more light is being shed on the depth of spying the NSA has been doing on Americans - mostly to those of us not even suspected of a crime. It's called fishing. They listen and listen, hoping to hear of some plot. And be assured it's not a terror plot they're interested in. They're waiting to hear words like "bong" and "ice" and "I'll meet you at the 7-11 on Wilshire at exactly midnight so I can purchase a large quantity of illegal drugs. I will pay you in a huge sum of cash for said illegal substances. Please be on time, as my 1987 maroon El Camino tends to run hot if left idling for too long. I'll be wearing tan chinos."

Tsk, tsk. Actually, it's even more sinister - they're listening for words like "vegan" or "boycott" hoping to farm out any political rabblerousers. It is purely Nazi in concept - and I really hate to compare this administration to the Nazi party because it seems so cliche. Hasn't everyone compared W to Hitler by now?

In other news, the president of Iran sent a letter to W. It was sort of a penpalesque correspondence with lines like "I believe that your country is the great satan. Do you have a dog? I have 12. When you all die in a fiery death at the hands of Allah, can I have your roller skates?"

Experts in Middle Eastern politics think that W should repond to this letter - in kind. This could be a chance to keep the communication open with Iran. I'm all a'twitter with anticipation. Twitter, twitter.

I think this is just another opportunity for W to embarass us. He will most likely flat-out refuse to respond - or worse, have Condi send a brief message on her personalized notecards. The ultimate insult, as the 'No Girls Allowed!' sign on the Tehran clubhouse door is quite bold and hard to miss.

Not that I agree with that nonsense, but in the beginning of nuclear negotiations, even I understand the need to keep up with the sexist status quo.

And in even more news : Britanny Spears is pregnant again. ?. Kevin Federline is icky and I can't understand the attraction. Is she still in her "bad-boy" phase? It's just that he seems so dirty. And not dirty like spank your bottom, who's your daddy, you know you want it dirty - but dirty, like he needs to bathe. He looks as if he might smell. In fact, the mighty Ashton Kutcher did a genius K-Fed spoof on SNL last year. He insinuated that he smelled. He smells.

And finally: Lost. I watch it. A little less wholeheartedly than I used to. I'm bored already. Is it an alien thing? Supernatural? Are they already dead? Wake me up when they finally tell us something. Anything.

This has been a special edition news update from me. Thank you and good night.

A day without immigrants - one week later.

2006-05-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

I'm still reeling.

I never thought Consuela would leave me. In the day without her I was forced to feed, clothe, and bathe my own children. I had to drive them to their soccer practice and violin lessons. And swimming class. That meant that I had to postpone my spinning and pilates until later in the afternoon, which totally screwed up my schedule - and I had to actually cancel margaritas with Diane. Coincidentally, Diane's housekeeper Lupe also took to the streets, so Diane was completely paralyzed with chores and couldn't make it anyway. It took her almost 3 hours to wipe her own ass. I think I finally realize how much we need our immigrant laborers.

In truth, a day without immigrants meant that our favorite tacqueria was closed. As well as our second favorite. We wound up eating at fucking Taco Bell.

I kid the Mexicans. Where we live here, we are surrounded by farms - and thus Mexicans. I want the Mexican border to be completely open. I want a four lane highway all the way to Cabo. I want a lot of things.

Aren't there so many other things to be concerned about than Mexicans? This is just another weapon of mass distraction.

Bon Voyage, Wins.

2006-04-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

My friend Winnie is going to Prague.

I might make it to the Alpha-Beta some time next week if I'm lucky...to pick up some things...maybe some cough syrup.

Wins has been to London, Costa Rica, Belize.....She's one heck of a world traveler. I have a theory that she travels well because she is above average in height. She looks good in hiking shorts. She also smokes, which is a universal binder. "Cigarette" translates into all languages.

I envy Winnie her travel. I don't travel much. Mostly because I dread the thought of packing. I like to travel light, maybe a backpack and a purse. But with the kids, I now own a suitcase bigger than my car. And with Gannon's whole "thing", I have to travel with hypodermic needles - always an adventure since 9/11, where we are pulled out of line and body-cavitied for shits and giggles.

Although, I must say I feel a sense of security knowing that I have my very own anti-terrorist kit. If any terrorists try to take our plane down we can put them in a coma with a lethal dose of insulin. Of course, by the time the insulin affects them they'd already have downed us....*

Oh me, always with the morbid thoughts.

*By the way, I don't really believe in all of that 9/11 mumbo-jumbo. Viva los conspiracy theorists!

Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad ad nauseum.

2006-04-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I am at a loss. The Bush administration is tossing around the idea of settling it's 'biggest penis and hairiest balls contest' with Iran by possibly using a nuclear solution.

This means one of two things: 1.) Either George Bush and Co. have gone clearly insane or 2.) While we've been bombing oil pipelines in Afghanistan the Iranian government actually put together an atomic slingshot, aimed it right at us and now we have to defend ourselves.

We could be in some trouble either way. Here's a useless petition to electrosign. Maybe when they get it, your congressperson will stop rolling around naked in a king-size bed piled high with 100 dollar bills, put their clothes back on, and get to work.

My personal message to my congresswomen read like this: I know George Bush can't wait for "The Rapture" but I can. Please stop this madman before he starts the end of the fucking world. Click your heels together three times and say "There's no such thing as Armaggeddon, there's no such thing as Armageddon...".

Only, I wrote 'fucking' like this: f***ing. Because I didn't want to seem disrespectful.

Oops, I did it again.

2006-04-14T00:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I forget about my delicate state of mind and watch Nightline. Or Dateline. Or Primetime. The news is never good. The news is always, always bad. Maybe Katie Couric will cheer things up? Probably not.

Child pornography, mysterious ground-zero deadly diseases, Iran nukes....that was this evening's headlines. When will I remember to just turn it off?

On a lighter note, I quadrupled up on the fiber tonight. I'm hoping to blast out the demonic bulge inhabiting my underbelly. I can't eat more than a few bites of something without feeling gorged. Gorged I say. I think I may have a 40 pound tumor in my stomach. At least I hope so, because the alternative is that I'm just fat.

I got health insurance for the first time in 15 years so I plan on going to the doctor next week and getting a full workup: cholesterol screening, mammogram, colonosopy, phrenological evaluation, pap, ovarian ultrasound, full-body MRI...It's gonna be great. If I am filled with cancerous growths, we'll be able to zap 'em right out. If I'm not - then, I'll ask about getting my stomach stapled. Or maybe removed completely. Whatever I eat will slip right out - it'll be like having a flume inside of me. I'll get my nutrients through daily vitamin injections.

Is this too much free-form, personal riffing? I apologize.

I went to Whole Foods tonight. There isn't one anywhere near Santa Cruz - we won't allow it. No Walmarts, Home Depots, Targets - or Whole Foods. I drove to Los Gatos (which means 'The Cats' en Espanol). Why? I just had the wanderlust and felt like splurging on some really expensive oraganic TV dinners.

What I saw was surprising. Compared to the small local stores I frequent (New Leaf, Food Bin, Staff of Life) Whole Foods looked kind of dismal. The produce was limpy and definately not local (they really tout the 'buy locally' ethic, but most of their stuff was from fucking Chile). What really pissed me off, though, was that they didn't have any naan. No naan you ask? Yes. Unbelievable, huh?

The last time I shopped at a Whole Foods was about 2 years ago, and I don't remember it being so lame. Maybe I went to a low-end WF today. But it taught me a lesson: stay home. There is no need to drive 25 miles out of my way to "the cats" for frozen eggplant. Especially when there is no naan.

I hope we've all learned something here today. The news is bad, the food is bad, cancerous growths are bad - but great excuses for underbelly pooches. And Ms. D. is losing it here in the trees...

If anyone's been wonderin' where I've been....

2006-04-11T01:21:00.000-07:00

Anyone? Maybe one lonely soul out there? Well, anyway - I've been on strike. Blogger strike? No, more like life strike. This happens some times. I stop cooking, cleaning, bathing, and communicating. It would seem very "zen" like. But it's not. It's anti-social pure and simple.

I know I mentioned that the weather has recently been a little drippy. Well, here we are almost two weeks later and it is more of the same. It's our fucking spring break and it will rain every day. It rained every day during our winter break also. If I wasn't depressed then I sure as fuck am now.

It's all about global warming - this weird weather, and maybe it is a subject I should bring up more often. From now on when I mention the weather it won't be in passing, like a good morning to the broad who makes my coffee every day. It'll be a huge screaming warning of impending death and destruction, sort of like, "It's raining again and the Atlantic Ocean is rising one foot every two months and those fuckers in Kansas are going to be beach-front soon and that's just not fair because I hate Kansas and they wouldn't know what to do with a manatee if it bit them in their gonads."

Which makes absolutely no sense, if you really analyze it, and that is precisely why I am on strike. The kids have taken to calling me "Haywire" (my old prison name) because I have gone mad. Mad I tell you.

We should've tried harder for a flight to Baja or Kauai. If I don't cut my wrists first, tomorrow we have an indoor activity planned - seeing Ice Age 2, the only kiddy movie playing. Ray Romano and Queen Latifah in one movie. It will be as agonizing as it sounds.

Have you heard the good news?

2006-03-31T21:42:00.000-08:00

You know I don't like to rely on the weather for topical discussions but - and it's a big but - we have had some kick-ass, crazy, danger weather.

Our road has been impassable twice in the last week by huge mudslides! Giant trees and burls come down in the muck, along with boulders the size of beach balls. We've had to park one of our vehicles on the other side of the slide area, about 2 miles down the road, in case of emergency. By the way, getting to school during a sloppy monsoon is not considered an emergency.

Now, Dar has a couple of dirt bikes he likes to tear it up with and he's been happier than a pig in shit. Those mudslides don't bother him one bit, as he likes to jump over them, tree trunks and all, like he's Evil Kenevil.

The rain has been dumping for 24 days straight - a new California March record. I am so cold and wet all the time. It's great.

The real estate agents have been trodding along, creeping up the road, taking one look at the place and turning right back around. We declared outright war on them, and this rain is perfect for our special ops. We've been keeping the gate closed, which is halfway up the steep hill to our house. We have never closed it before now. I love watching them getting out of their cars, amidst hail and flying mudballs, and fiddling with the unlocked but heinously twisted chain.

Per Dar's suggestion, our neighbor has parked his largest tractor right in front of our driveway. This makes pulling up to the house and turning around an ordeal similar to reaching the seventh level of hell. He has also moved his two 500-pound smelly hogs to the front of his pasture, which is directly across from our front entrance. It sure does smell awful - and as Martha says, that's a good thing.

I've asked for Dar to walk around the property naked, and possibly make lewd gestures with his cock-n-balls if there are women present. He won't of course. At least not yet. But wait until someone seems interested and comes back for a second look.

The rain has saturated this canyon to a dangerous level. It is fucking awesome. Oh, and please feel free to send me some passive-aggressive tactics for turning off yuppies who think they want to get back to nature...

Societal dropout

2006-03-30T22:53:00.000-08:00

So much great news to share. First and foremost, I do not have scarlet fever. Or herpes. I'm healthy for the first time in over a month. Except for the slight eczema outbreak on my mouth which makes me feel like I am constantly attached by the lips to a 1968 Camaro tail pipe...

The house we rent has been put on the market for $749 fucking thousand dollars. $749,000.00 for a 25-year old double-wide mobile home on twenty acres of California poppies. We are being "diffcult"tenants, not returning realtor phone calls, turning the FOR SALE sign around so the arrow points in the opposite direction of the house, letting our menacing looking Rhodesian Ridgeback parole the parameter with her fierce-looking stud collar. The fact that my cats are more dangerous than the 150-pound hound dog is irrelevant. Hopefully, she'll keep the lookey-loos at bay.

Why are we seemingly prolonging the inevitable? Because our neighbors want to buy this land. And if they do, we can stay as long as we want. The land used to be in their family but was sold my his parents. He now has the task of buying it back for almost quadruple the price. It's a sick, sad world.

If something horrible happens and yuppies prevail, we will have to move. And finding affordable housing around here is impossible. So I am preparing myself for the option of moving far away. Far away from the place my kids have been growing up, far away from the dear friends we've made, and far away from the library I have been toiling over for the last two years.

In fact, it will be the library I miss the most. I mean - I'll be lonely in a new place for a while, but I always make friends and the kids do too. And Dar just does what we do, so he'll be just fine. But I love that library. I have personally chosen about 200 new books and am trying to score some huge money from Lockheed-Martin, the philanthropistic war criminals just down the road. I had plans.

Maybe I could be the librarian at some other podunk, backwoods school. Not that my school is podunk and backwoods....I'm just saying, we'll probably only to be able to afford to move to Bilgewater, Alabammy where the library will be stocked only with several tattered copies of "My Pet Goat".

The eczema is a direct result of stress, by the way. It hurts when I whistle.

An era gone by.

2006-03-21T20:48:00.000-08:00

There is a raging epidemic of scarlet fever sweeping through the kid's school right now. I didn't know there still was scarlet fever. But, there is. And I think I have it. I have been sick for a few weeks with a sore throat and tummy ache and scratchy skin. All symptoms of the scarlet fever. Am I going to die?

So, tomorrow I have to go the goddamned fucking doctor to get fucking antibiotics. If I find the little infected bastard who's passing along this pestilence...well, I'll look at him with sympathy, because scarlet fever really sucks. Could I really have it?

If I can get, in this 21st century of ours, an outdated granny disease like scarlet fever than might it possible I can get the diptheria, too? Or polio maybe? Hell, why not some typhus or cholera?

Oooh - I hate going to the doctor.

I think I may have sold out to the man.

2006-03-19T19:41:00.000-08:00

Completely by accident. I was curious, so I clickety-clicked on the "Ad-sense" doohickey, and before I knew it I was enrolled in some Google advertising pyramid scheme or some shit.

I feel horrible that you have to witness me practically begging for "Hurricane Relief" there on the top of the page. I am going to try to get rid of it ASAP. Not that hurricane relief is a bad thing. But I already sent my cans of organic spicy vindaloo chickpeas to Louisiana, so I feel as if I have done my part.

Well now that sounds insensitive as all heck. Let me explain. When it comes to donations, all of my moolah goes to diabetes charities. 'Cuz my kid's got the diabetes. You know.

Anyhoooooo. Back to this Ad-sense. How the hell do I get rid of it? I thought I could just put it there and then get rid of it after I saw what it was. But it's not that easy.

This is quite a pickle I've gotten myself into.

These guys are awesome.

2006-03-16T18:46:00.000-08:00

Most anyone who knows me knows that I make fun of religion and religious people constantly. I am of the opinion that anyone who believes there is an invisible man in the sky is mentally challenged. Moderately mentally challenged -you know, like Corky, the retarded kid on that show. He could walk, talk, put on his own shoes....but he was retarded nonetheless.

I am also a firm believer that "religious" people in positions of overbearing, wealth-inducing power are just faking it. Like the Bush family. Everyone knows they're descended from Nazi collaborators and their acquired wealth had to have all of the blood wrung out of it and put on the line to dry for a few years. They play the christian "card". It is a simple tool for manipulating the masses (of moderately mentally challenged people). "I believe in god, you also believe in god, so listen to me and do exactly what I say". Works like a charm.

But there is a new breed of mental illness out there. Unlike christians, jews, muslims, etc. who have been indoctrinated into their religions for thousands of years and are in so deep they'll never get out, this new breed of fanatical looney is willingly joining into the latest "religious" fad: scientology.

Scien-fucking-tology. Scientology is based on the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, an author famous for books written in the science fiction/fantasy genre. Becoming a Scientologist is akin to becoming a Startrekologist. They believe in all kinds of weird and wacky alien-centered shit. It is pure science fiction. Oh, and because it's classified as a church, it makes big tax-free money. Big, big Hollywood money.

And I don't know what's scarier: the fact that people actually buy (literally) into this insane nonsense or that other people feel intimidated by them? South Park lost it's beloved voice of "Chef" due to Scientology. Isaac Hayes (a scientologist) quit the show, supposedly due to "religious" intolerance, after an episode was taped that insulted scientology. Now, Isaac Hayes had no problem making fun of christians, mormons, muslims, et al.....but hold on there! Don't you be making fun of scientologists!

According to players, this is just a Tom Cruise power play. I think he threatened Isaac Hayes. Told him he'd give him up to the Thetins or whoever. The episode was pulled off the schedule.

I really wish Tom Cruise would just die. I do. And I wish he'd take Travolta with him. They ruined South Park.

Worse than ruining South Park, though, is - Hello! - these people are fucking nuts. Really. Unless they're all con artists. This concerns me, that thousand of people are willing to disregard reality and live in a fantasy world. It's always concerned me with the Jesus and Allah freaks. But this is even worse. They ruined South Park. Who the fuck is going to replace Isaac Hayes?

I hate scientologists. And I hate the mentally weak. What is it they're searching for? The meaning of life? Their purpose on earth? There is none. We're here by some random chemical chance, and our only purpose is to breed like any other mammal. The higher-evolved of our species do not breed - a sure sign of sheer brilliance, knowing that we have enough of us here and it's time to scale down. (That's actually my reasoning for homsexuality: A natural selection type way of curbing overpopulation. But that's a post for a different time.) I salute you, non-breeders. You're far better than I.

Tom Cruise is currently breeding.

However, two brave men have stood up to the *cough* church of scientology: Trey and Matt. They have been fucking fearless with South Park. While the rest of the country and media have been on their fucking ten-year long "time-out", these guys have constantly, non-stop challenged our politics and religious hypocrisy. They've taken on every sore subject out there. I love these guys. In fact, I more than love them. I worhsip them. I'm a bonafide Southparkologist. Who's with me?

You can't be a creationalist and an oil man at the same time.

2006-03-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

Think about that for a minute.

A creationalist believes that the earth was created, by god, about 17 days ago. However, fossil fuels take millions of years to.....Know what? Nevermind.

Latina!

2006-03-11T13:22:00.000-08:00

Chile has voted in it's first female president. FEMALE PRESIDENT. She's the president and she's got boobs, people. I recommend reading the link - it's just a brief article. What it doesn't tell you, however, is that Pinochet, the horrible dictator who murdered her father and kept her and her mother as political prisoners, was put in power by the US, when South America was our own personal puppet-show theater.

But I digress. This isn't going to be about dirty American politics. This is going to be about a world where some of the leaders will be female. The international political scene has been male dominated for ...... EVER. And that leads to incredible imbalance. In a world that is almost 100% male run, there have been constant cycles of war, genocide, poverty, sexual inequality, greed, pollution, and arrogance.

Maybe, just maybe, throwing a few broads into the mix will help shift things a little. But it's got to be more than one little Chilean lady. Or one little Liberian lady (Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf). Strangely, it's been the third-world countries of the globe consistently voting woman over the last ten years.

Please, please, please Americans, please nominate a female for President. (And, please, don't let it be Condoleeza Rice.) Hillary Clinton, anyone? She may not be everyone's first choice - and she'll get a whole hell of a lot of negative campaign bullshit from the Jesus-freaks currently in charge - but she's a brilliant woman. She could be the prototype American female president. She may not be perfect, but as mom always said: the first pancake always goes to the dog, anyway. We've got to start somewhere, right?

After Hillary drills through the oval office's secret-security monitored glass ceiling, the taboo will be broken and more women in politics will be primed to run - for any office. There are more male politicians across the board, from local government all the way up to the federal level.

I know some women politicians can be just as looney-tunes as their male counterparts. There are still a lot of Phyllis Schafly types out there ready to set us all back one hundred years. Ewwww - Phyllis Schafly. Makes me itchy just saying her name. But, the more women in government the better, I say. Even if some are conservative old bitty's - they're stuffy asses will still be holding the door open for their more open-minded counterparts. Just please, no Condi Rice, okay? Methinks she's not all that female, know what I'm saying? She's a man, baby.

If my own past wasn't so checkered, what with all the sex, drugs, wearing white after labor day, etc., etc., I'd love to run for office. As Commander-in-Chief... of the World.

Maternal instincts gone wild.

2006-03-09T20:38:00.000-08:00

I am not the type of mother who constantly assaults people with stories of how "cute" or "smart" or "funny" her kids are. I am famous for my quote of, "You're one in 6.5 billion. You're not that special". But - and it's a big but - sometimes my kids do say something incredibly cute...or smart...or funny, even.

Tonight in the hot tub, I was in my favorite lower-back-pain-relieving position. It's like the dead-man's float with my head hanging over tub wall. My ass sticks up out of the water in this position. I was reclining comfortably like this when Mason jumped on my back and yelled, "Hey Gannon - I'm on the ass boat!".

Ass boat. I've been laughing ever since.

A few days ago on the way to school, Gannon (who had dressed himself all in black) asked me in a concerned voice, "Mama? Do I look like a mime?". He did, but I told him he didn't. Everyone hates mimes and he knows it. I didn't want to spoil his whole day. Isn't that funny, though?

They make me laugh. Gannon coined the phrase "poop-doctor" and took first place in our annual family insult contest. He's a sick little bastard, actually. The filth that comes out of his mouth simutaneously shocks and entertains me. He should have been in The Aristocrats. The kid's got a gift. His timing is impeccable. In comedy, timing is everything.

Mason, on the other hand, is not as slapstick as Gannon. His humor is more timely - political, even. He's got this satirical edge. His commentary on society is razor sharp. Like when he called the 400-pound man walking out of Burger King a dumbfucker. He's straight on.

So, hopefully without boring anyone, I just wanted to share some of the funny, little things my kids say. And if you dumfuckers don't like it you can kiss my ass boat.

Well, this is a little odd.

2006-03-08T21:39:00.000-08:00

Quadruped humans discovered in Turkey. The scientific "experts" are calling this a case of reverse evolution. Reverse my ass. This is precisely the right direction human beings should be heading in. Babbling incoherently, walking on all fours, digging little shit-holes like cats, eating whatever dead thing we can get our mouths around....

We tried evolution and it just didn't work for us. We stood on two feet, took a few steps, and completely fucked everything up. It's time to get back down on the ground with the bugs. Imagine how simplified your current modern life would become. Sure, every now and then you'd have to fight a jackal over a warm carcass for dinner. But you wouldn't have to worry about which fork to use.

The validity of this news is being challenged of course. It seems suspicious. Someone commented that the woman didn't seem to be "comfortable" walking on all fours. Well, duh. It's going to take some time to get used to being monkeys again. I won't feel right the first time I fling shit at someone - but I'll learn to love it, don't worry. Eventually it'll become quite natural for me.

These huge, super-smart, computer brains we have are no good. Nothing but trouble's come of them. Sure, once in a while someone writes a good book or something. But, with my newly down-sized monkey brain, I'll be just as entertained by a hole in the ground. With ants coming out of it. All in a neat row. Whoa.