Tag Archives: humor

Oct24

Stupid shit that makes me smile

Posted on by
Standard

I was just looking through one of two clothing ‘junk drawers’ for Halloween costume accessories. I’m really excited about what I’m making iDJ go as this year, and I had to sort through the drawer full of scarves, bandannas, flowery hair clips, shawls, old undies I might fit into again, and weird and/or winter socks. I found some suitable gear for him, but I also found these:

20111024-205230.jpg

20111024-205243.jpg

Aren’t they just the stupidest things you’ve ever seen? How can you be in a bad mood with ridiculous stuffed lions or alligators on your feet? How great is it that the lions have bellybuttons?They are warm, too. I’ll have to protect them from Lokii the fabric-eater, but I think they need to come out of the drawer and smile smarmily up at me this winter.

Aaa! I forgot an important part! My superduper hubby got me these; he does all the shopping. You gotta love a man that knows his wife is a goofball and proud of it. X

Oct24

Why is my dog purple?

Posted on by
Standard

I took the Queen for walkies today, go me! The weather was good (not pissing rain or looking like it was about to, not windy) and I was up, washed, motivated, and looking out the window at 3pm. The timing is important, because the local school lets out at 3:30 or thereabouts and I detest walking Herself through hordes of tweens. She doesn’t like them, they hog the pavement (sidewalk), and sometimes they try to pet her, which really freaks her the fuck out. I’m not thrilled to deal with them either, though I do like it when one says ‘that dog is savage!’ when we pass, because ‘savage’ means ‘awesomely cool’ and not ‘vicious throat-ripping beast.’

We had a good little walk, with no excitement. She did get to go into the post office with me, a rarity. I won’t take her inside if there’s a queue (unless it is people we know). She’s a big dog, I don’t want to scare anyone, and our post office is usually chock-full of old ladies. The Queen loves old ladies. When she loves you and wants to say hi, she does this funny front-legs bounce which can be intimidating. She’s under control, but just looks a bit excitable.

Today she got to put her feet up in the service window and say hi to the clerk; that was good.

We also went in the Paper Shop, to see if my mother in law was working. She wasn’t, but I had a little chat with one of her co-workers on issues of little importance. I do like my town.

We also had a short visit with Chris. Chris is… not all there. I believe the story is that he lives in a home for the handicapped, but by his own admittance. He always wears a suit, no tie. He perches his bony butt on the windowsills of various businesses up and down the main street and chain-smokes. Some days are bad days for him; when you say hello he doesn’t answer and his upper lip is caught on a snaggled lower tooth, making him look a bit deranged. Other days, like today, are good ones, and he’ll actually talk a moment and ask about the dog. He never remembers that he always asks the same things.

On the way home, Dogzilla likes to walk on the church wall as it gives her a nice perspective to survey every.last.moving.thing. I lean and wait while she checks out the ‘hood. Today, I noticed a purple spot on her lovely white fur. And another, smaller one, near it:

20111024-191733.jpg

I know the pic sucks. It’s just for funsies.

It took me a moment to puzzle out why my dog had purple spots. Then I remembered: she was on the couch with iDJ last night after dinner. He was drinking wine. Red wine. He spilled wine on the dog!

I think he could officially have a drinking problem… at the very least, getting it into his mouth!

Oct21

I be a thrifty bitch

Posted on by
Standard

I don’t have a particular topic tonight. I have so very, very much in my head – especially at 6am when the cats have woken me up and I can’t read in bed because my optimum iPad placement is impossible due to iDJ actually using his pillow as a pillow, instead of as a prop for my machinery (the nerve of the man) and having an iPad fall over and clunk into my forehead as I drift off is not only painful but isn’t conducive to sleep – but at 9:30pm, the weight of the day is heavy upon me and I can’t seem to think clearly.

Hence, me spitting out a massive run-on sentence that includes both dashes and parentheses.

I do wish that I could get up and write during those early morning brainstorms. There’s no way I’m trying it without coffee, or at the very least chocolate milk while the coffee brews. It feels traitorous, slackeresque, to get up and play in the dark when I know damn well I have to have 8 hours sleep or I will be useless. Then again, once the job listings have been checked and discarded, I am useless during the day.

During my extended unemployment I have tried not to goof off during the daylight hours. I’ve done a ton of things, some fun, some not, but all things that were needed around the house. I’ve done a ton of painting (fun) and when we got a pressure washer on the cheap, I couldn’t wait to blast the concrete patio, walls, and windows (massive fun, but really bad for my back). It’s wet here, there’s moss and mould growing on everything, and cleaning things to the point of new gives me great satisfaction. Fun and messy!

I’ve also fixed the sticky oven door, and scraped years of goop off the top of the stove (it came with the house, that shit was burned on). I installed new taps in the bathroom, too! They aren’t tight, so when you shut the tap off the whole thing moves, but that’s because it took me a whole damn day to put them on and I don’t have the right tools to tighten them up.

My best ‘save’ was when our microwave died. I found a fantastic redneck on YouTube that told me how to fix them, so I took it apart. There were a few things that could be wrong, but first and cheapest was to see if the internal fuse had blown. We went back to the shop we got it from five years ago and asked if they had fuses for that model. We were told that if the fuse had blown, there was something wrong and we should just get a new one. Saaaaay, that reeked of shite to us. “Oh, a fuse in my house blew, I need a new house now!” Feic off. To the Internet we went, and got a fuse from Scotland for about €12 delivered. I popped the old one out, wires and all, put in the new one – and it is still working. A couple of weeks later, the door fell off. I superglued it, it’s still grand. Saved a couple hundred Euros there!

When the dryer broke (also just five years old, are we seeing the planned obsolescence time frame yet?) we took it apart too, but getting a new motor was the same price as a new machine with a warranty, so we had to eat that one. At least we tried.

The fridge is a massive POS, we can’t get replacements for the busted freezer drawers anywhere. I can NOT deal with them, I completely lose my head, patience, and will to live when I need something from the freezer section; so that is iDJ’s job. He whines like a sick dog when his widdle finners get cold, too. Awww. He knows well that cold fingers are preferable to my searing hot rage.

Thanks, punkin’. 😀

I am a thrifty bitch by nature and nurture. When you have more time than money, you teach yourself whole new skills, and new ways of doing things. I make candles out of the crummy ends of ones we bought, I recycle and compost, I’d rather grow from seed than buy a plant. I save every-bloody-thing that might come in use, one day – and I keep a mental catalogue of the crap I have to hand. Just this week, I repainted our styrofoam headstones. These are Halloween decorations that are a few years old and constantly battered by the winds we have this time of year – we find them in the neighbours’ gardens all the time, with chunks missing and the white showing through. Well, hell, that’s not scary!

I’ve been different levels of broke most of my life, but I have a family history of cheap, too. My grandfather used to come to our house on Sundays. He’d be there for lunch and dinner, and drive himself back home. He would eat lunch, and then carefully fold up and pocket the single, non-brand paper napkin Mom had given him. He took it back out and used it again at dinner. Yikes! I really hope I never get that bad.

I wonder if he took it home with him…

Oct19

Wine sucks

Posted on by
Standard

I have to write something! I’m sitting here, just goofing around fingerpainting instead of putting words on paper. Um. Pixels on pixels? Just what the hell is it called when you write digitally, anyway? We need new clichés.

I actually do use paper on occasion. Mostly to make a quick note to remind me of something funny, or a good turn of phrase I want to keep, something I want to Google later, or a date of importance. I have a crap memory. I blame it on all those drugs I did in the 60’s. Drugs, at least, would explain why I cannot keep to a single topic in a paragraph. Bad writing? Probably. Do I give a shit? Obviously not. This blog is me upending my cerebellum and splashing around in the puddle.

How many topics did I fit in there? I could have kept going.

Right, notes. I have four from last night, two from conversations with iDJ and two from the KIBIS meeting. One of the ones from my beloved relates to wine, and I have a photo to share, so without further ado, let’s talk about wine!

It sucks.

Okay! The ‘meeting’ was great craic of course. I’m glad we are making an effort to have a get-together regularly. Lawsy me, I do need a social life. We mostly talk about our pets, because we are all animal people and all have at least two fur-persons in our respective homes. Our representative from Italy (hereafter Mrs MMC) currently has way, way more than two, in two countries and at least three houses. Wow! Loads of stories, and despite English not being her first language, she can really tell a funny tale. But I can’t share them, because I wasn’t taking notes. Well, except for those two times I mentioned…

Mrs MMC and I share our homes with menfolk, along with the other animals. We have picked menfolk who are particularly good at letting animals manipulate them. If one of their cats miaows at her hubby he panics, trying to figure out what kitty wants: Do you want me to make you a sausage? Some take out? A curry?

My other note was about when they are at his parents’ house. Now, they feed a lot of local strays, and there are a lot of strays. Mrs MMC catches and has them vet checked and sterilised at her own expense, by the way. Thank you! Anyhow, there are always a rake of kitties outside on the back patio. When the parents aren’t home, Mr & Mrs MMC leave the door wide open and let the furry masses troop in and out as they please.

Right, maybe you had to be there.

Back to wine. Here’s iDJ’s temporary workstation last evening:

20111019-203410.jpg

Yes, my Halloween decor is over the top. Feic off. I love Halloween.

Please note he has the essentials: Plastic Halloween wine glass, Mac laptop, and a box-o-wine, all ready to hand. Blargh! Even if I could stand wine, I cannot imagine boxed wine decanted into plastic tastes good. Yes, dear, I know we’re broke (that is for when he reads this and gives out to me for making fun of cheapo wine in a cardboard bottle).

Ugh! Just now: I needed to check the internal temperature on my pork roast. I’m not allowed to bend over cuz of the bad back, so I got on my knees in front of the oven (I’m tall, this put me eye level with the meat thermometer). iDJ starts in right away about how he never sees me on my knees anymore. Like, as in prayer (we are atheist). I told him I was praying to the pork, then wished I never, ever, said that.

Back to wine. See, I hate it so much I can’t even be arsed to keep writing about it for 10 minutes! M’man was giving me stick about not liking wine, and pulled out his old standard, “One of these days. I’ll keep working on you.” This got him a glare of rage and a rant about how, at my age, I fucking well know what I like, and no amount of different colours or flavors of wine was ever going to convince me that wine is palatable.

He kept at me, and I finally shut him up by threatening him with the words that have been uttered many a time since blogs were invented – just not said by me.

“Don’t make me blog about this!”

Oct17

NSFW

Posted on by
Standard

It seems tonight is a cat night.

I have photographic evidence of my boys, in flagrante delicto. Bad Cats, no one wants to see that!

So I’m gonna show it to you 🙂

20111017-212540.jpg

Poor Lokii, he just wants a nap. But noooOOOooo.

20111017-212902.jpg

Can gay cats use the ‘not tonight, I have a headache’ excuse? I feel bad for him, this isn’t his idea. But from the look on his little face, he doesn’t have a clue what is going on. Poor gormless kitty.

20111017-212733.jpg

Hey! Yes, YOU! You are sooo busted.

Oct17

Kitty ears warp space and time

Posted on by
Standard

iDJ never spent a lot of time with cats until I descended upon him from Americay with a Bengal. I also brought a big dog, and a big snake. But this is about cats.

I, on the other hand, have been around cats my whole life. My mom had a Siamese before she had kids. We picked up other cats over the years from family, friends, and the streets, but there was always a Meezer. I do a damn fine impression of a pissed-off cat, and I can read their body language as if they were talking. As Socks would say, I speak Cat.

One day, shortly after we were all settled in, iDJ turned to me and asked, “What’s that noise?”

“I didn’t hear anything. What did it sound like?”

“I don’t know. Kind of a flapping noise, maybe?”

As the sound wasn’t repeated, we forgot about it until a few days later.

“There it is again! What is that?”

“I got no clue, hon, I didn’t hear a thing.”

A few more days pass, and we are settled on the couch watching TV. Spot (the cat) gets up from my lap, stretches, and shakes himself.

iDJ jumps, startled. “That’s it! That’s the noise! Spotty made that noise!”

I stare at him blankly, then it hits me and I fall over laughing: cat ears. Cat ears make a very distinctive flappity-flappity noise when a cat shakes his head. I’d gotten so used to it, I didn’t even hear it anymore.

Of course, now that I do hear it again (sometimes) I always try to mimic the sound, so’s my man knows I heard it. That, and I really like doing sound effects. I sound like a 5-year-old boy playing with toy airplanes when I swoop anything through the air, because I cannot do any swooping without making a ‘swoosh’ noise.

A few days ago, iDJ walks into the room and tells me this: “Cats’ ears cause a rift in the space-time continuum whenever they shake their heads,” and he walks out.

Perhaps he had beer on board; in fact I’m sure of it, but I’m blaming this entirely on the fact that we are working our way though the Star Trek: the Next Generation box set.

Oct14

Auntie E’s Socks update

Posted on by
Standard

Yay, it’s Hangover Friday, which nearly always follows Oirish Tirsday!

Obviously I’m not going to recount every minute of the several hours Socks and I spent on the phone. But, this is where I’m chronicling my view of Socks’ journey into motherhood, so off we go!

First off, just for you, Socks – ask him!

I’ve not laughed so much or so hard on the phone with my girl for a while, for obvious reasons. But this time I nearly peed myself, and I had to take notes. They don’t make much sense, now, but I’m not pregnant and so can drink all the rum n Pepsi I want. At least I can read my own handwriting for a change.

So! Socks hasn’t been to the obstetrician yet. They want her to wait until she’s a bit further along, and will listen for a heartbeat and do an ultrasound then. This is scheduled for next Thurs, so waiting for the next phone date will be stressful for me. Do I need to say that it is much more stressful for her? At this point, the positive pregnancy results are all from home based pregnancy tests.

A lot of them.

Because she’s been peeing on a stick every damn morning for a week, just for something to do! Just to see the line get darker every day. I find this hilarious. My mental-picture-generator is in overdrive with this one. I see the garbage can in her potty overflowing with empty boxes and used tests. I also wonder if she’s saving them? How tempting, for someone like me who saves sentimental stuff. How horrifying, for someone like her hubby, Bear, who had to ask her to move the DRY pee-test from the side of the bathroom sink as it was freaking him out.

Wow, is he in for a wake up call! What if it’s a boy, and has the skillz to pee straight up, into daddy’s eye, during a diaper change? Ok, don’t even tell Bear that this is quite possible.

My other good note is a direct quote, “I love my life, and I want to fuck up every aspect of it.” it would take too long to explain the context, but I love that sentiment so much.

She’s also got some loot from family and friends: a high chair and crib, both too old to be sold due to modern health and safety laws. Still okay to be gifted, though, and the numerous babies who survived these dangerous, well-loved and well-made, wooden items can attest that they aren’t bits of furniture that are actively out to murder babies. We also agree that anyone stupid enough to let a baby’s arm or leg get trapped in the bars of a fold-down crib railing probably shouldn’t be procreating in the first place. I think it’s great she’s got heirloom items that will suit her style, personality and height (sorry, had to!) so well.

We’re also trying not to worry about the fact she isn’t barfing yet. Apparently, you only start doing the morning technicolor yawn after so many weeks of being preggers. But, as she says, she’s a pukey person. Hey, I didn’t say that, she did! Anyhow, being prone to yarking in general, and not yarking yet, is slightly concerning. Not everyone barfs, but it seems her family all did. The female ones. When they were pregnant. I felt the need to clarify that because my mental picture factory is playing again: everyone gathered round the table for a holiday feast, each with a bucket-in festive colors!-by their side. Oops, grandad lost his dentures, better get the tongs!

Well, if Socks wasn’t puking before, she probably is now.

Sorry, grandad.

Oct11

A peek into iDJ’s mind

Posted on by
Standard

Really, this happened.

It was a lovely day half hour outside. I’m in the fabulous Coleman camp chair and iDJ is directly behind me on the garden bench. I’m trying to read, but he’s doing a running commentary on everything. I’m mostly ignoring him. The dog (AKA the queen) is also outside, turning her lovely white feet green on the fresh cut grass. After listening to iDJ talk to no one for a while, I opened a word processing app and started transcribing what he said.

iDJ: “Aw, look at the queen.”

Pause.

iDJ: “Aw, poor Spot. Someone is crying. I know, kitty, we’re all outside!”

Pause.

iDJ: “I love my kitty. He loves me.”

Pause.

iDJ: “Yes, yes. I definitely need an occasional table out here.”

Me: “No, hon. You occasionally need a table out here.”

Then we went inside, because it started to rain again.

20111011-163714.jpg

Oct10

I saved 5 lives today, and maybe another

Posted on by
Standard

It’s a red-letter day here in Culchieland! I left the house! I know, what on earth could possibly have happened to make me leave? On foot? In the rain? Hell, it’s Ireland, it’s nearly always raining…

Well, I had to make the trek down to the post office to get my dole. That’s welfare, for my Yank friends. On the way, I:

Met BD who is a manager at the post office, and my sometime Harley-Davidson biking buddy. He was making deliveries, which is not his normal job. We had a short chat and blamed the shortage of staff on the presidential election flyers tying up all the postal workers. He handed me my post – a presidential election flyer.

So, mail in pocket, I continue my walk to the post office… is that ironic? It had rained a LOT overnight so there were little earthworms drying up and dying in the church driveway. I picked up three and tossed them into the grass.

Continuing on my way, I saw a small tortoise-shell coloured kitten running around under the parked cars in front of the grocery store that we don’t patronise. I don’t know why not, we just don’t. I tried to coax her to me, but she was scared and probably feral. I wouldn’t let a young fella in a hurry leave until she moved from under his car to another.

Up to the PO, chat with the clerk – turns out two people are on holiday and one other had a funeral for his mother in law. Aren’t small towns fun? Can you imagine getting to have a chat at the post office instead of a surly government worker? Wheee! And my dole went up €20, why? no clue. I’ll take it, 70 is better than 50 any day. It still is a drop in the debt bucket.

Back out, down to the Paper Shop where my mother in law works. She’s usually only there in the afternoon, but she’s in, and so are the other three ladies that work there. They aren’t all working; mam and B are, and the other two are chatting and bringing coffee and sammiches to the others. Aw. Mam has a cold and can barely talk. They all ask me about my back, and my job hunt. A fella delivering magazines hears me talking about my back, and I get advice and the name of a physio who fixed him ‘in one go.’ A physio is someone who isn’t a doctor, or a chiropractor, but does stuff to people who are hurt, like a sports/physical therapist. This one apparently is the physio for a GAA team in B… okay, I don’t recall the name of the town, but it started with a B and I’d never heard of it. Apparently if I go to B… and ask anyone on the street for so-and-so, they will know him and give me directions. Yes, that is the way things work over here!

Back out for the walk home. Dammit, kitten is still under the cars along the main street. Very dangerous for the wee thing. So I try, and try, to get it to come to me. She talks to me, but runs. I gave up, walked away…then turned back and into the grocery. I went to the deli counter and asked if they had a tiny bit of ham or turkey or chicken, as I was trying to catch a cat. I would have paid for it, but she handed me a bit of ham off the slicer. Thanks, deli lady!

Back outside, the kitten finally gets sick of my attentions and runs off down the alley, past the back road behind the houses & shops on the main street, and into someone’s overgrown garden. I tore up the ham and left it in the grass. At least she was safe from cars, now.

On the way home, I find and save two more worms. I feel like an Annelida hero! Yes, I Googled that. I’m a geek, but not that much of a geek!

In case you were wondering, here’s why worms surface when it rains.

Oct9

Socks, part deux

Posted on by
Standard

***Some of my readers might know who Socks is, from other social media outlets. Please keep any comments about the content of this post ON this blog, and not elsewhere. I have her permission for this post, but we all know this is an anonymous blog for the moment, right? Thanks, y’all!

–

So, I’ve been putting this post off since I started the blog. I feel I have to get this out before I can forge ahead and talk about stupid things again.

I think I made it clear that Socks is damn important to me. She’s my inspiration, not only for writing, but for anything creative. She and I had great plans for a mutual project, and I never even started. See, I was journaling, but stopped, and that was part of the project. My blog is my new journal, in a way that seems to work better for me. Therefore, I need to hold up my end of our joint writing enterprise, and talk about babies.

Travel back to January with me. Socks and I are having our weekly blab-a-thon, and the topic of kids comes up. She’s been thinking about them, about actually having one! Well, this is new. We’d decided ages ago that they are too much work. They make a lot of noise. They cost a lot of money and time.

But most of all, they…leak.

Fluids.

And solids.

All the time.

Now, I’m not bothered by this aspect of children. You just deal with it, and hope like hell you have a good washing machine, cuz that sucker will be running daily for years. But Socks? Not so much.

Ever seen one of those funny video shows where someone is lying on the floor (usually dad because men rarely think ahead), holding a baby over their head, bouncing it up and down, and laughing? And then junior pukes rancid, lumpy, half-digested hot milk DIRECTLY into daddy’s mouth?

Right now, somewhere in the world, my BFF barfed up her last meal just from reading that. There is very little chance of her dealing well with this happening in front of her. Even clear baby drool makes her go totally phobic.

So, of course, when she starts talking babies I remind her about the fact that they leak. Because I’m not having kids, for my own non-fluid related but equally valid and well-thought-out reasons, and I sort of don’t want her to turn into Just Another Mom. I’m a selfish bitch, and I don’t want her to change. Because I’m an honest selfish bitch, I tell her this. She agrees, whew! Barf, and the chance of her turning into someone different, someone …. well I hate to say boring, that’s not the best word. Someone that is no longer ‘Socks’ and is just ‘Mom.’

Yes, I KNOW how that sounds. Bear with me. Anyway, crisis averted.

Except… it isn’t. Despite my attempts to hog her whole life, she talks to her hubby about why they decided not to have kids.

Turns out, he thought she didn’t want them, and she thought he didn’t want them. And they both DO want them. Well, now, don’t I feel like a jerk. Game on!

So, not to go into too much detail, plan Team Building was instigated. How cute! Awww, I love these guys.

I was the only other person who knew they were trying to get pregnant. Loads of reasons, mainly due to her wanting to surprise a certain family member with the good news. Because I was the only person not actively involved in Team Building, Socks and I wanted to come up with a creative way to record how we felt during the journey.

As I said earlier, I totally let down the Team. I’m not sure why. Maybe I was in denial, maybe I was too stuck in my own head with my own issues. Maybe from 3,000 miles away, it didn’t feel real. But, I never wrote one word. See ‘selfish bitch’ above.

We still had our weekly teleconference. I heard about each disappointment when Aunt Flo showed up, that dirty old hag. I couldn’t help, but I mentally changed from being a spectator in the stands into someone that wanted to buy pom-poms and lead the cheers from the field. Figuratively. I doubt her hubby would have welcomed me in the bedroom, even if I was in a cheerleader skirt.

Go, Team, Go!!!

Finally, there was a touchdown, a goal, a try, a slam-dunk. They have a positive result! I got a phone call in the early afternoon. Yay! Now, we can make plans! And great plans they were. The timing was perfect for Socks and Co to tell her family in person, which is exactly what she wanted all along. Just a few weeks to wait. So hard to keep the secret!

It didn’t happen that way. They lost the baby. She had to tell her family the sad news, over the phone. Oh, sweetie.

I cannot talk any more about her loss.

I can say that I now am able to talk about the journey I had the privilege to be a part of. And now, I can talk about it here. Because this is not a tale of sadness, this is one of joy, no matter what else happens.

My best girl is pregnant again!

This time, she doesn’t have to wait until Thursdays to talk about it. She’s got a much bigger support network, and I’m happy about that!

My selfish self is happy to finally want, and need, to record my thoughts about my future niece or nephew. Because if I don’t get called Auntie E, I’ll be grumpy.

Hint, hint 🙂