And Then, Depression Set In

OK, who's done this?

You write a blog. It's a good blog. No, that's not really true. It's a fucking brilliant blog. You proofread it, give it a kiss, and send it off into Uploadland.

And Blogger promptly eats it. And you lose your brilliant blog forever.

Well, that happened to me tonight. I'd try to recreate it but I can't. I don't have any more creativity left, and, personally, I'm drained to the core. I can't believe Blogger ate my blog.

I need to go lie down. For days.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* They're still over.
* Gymnast Carly Patterson was on Dave last night. The segment went something like this: "Well, I was like at a birthday party and I was like jumping all over the place and this coach came up to my mom and he was like, "Is she in gymnastics?" and my mom was like, "No," and he was like, "Are you sure?" and she was like, "I'm sure," and then he came over to me and was like, "Are you sure you're not in gymnastics?" and I'm like, "I'm sure." It was, like, riveting.

Acrocanceled!

No, don't fear, I'm not killing acro. I'm just sending him on a little vacation. Actually, I'm sending him to a sanitarium a la Marcello Mastroianni in "8 ½" to take the cure. When he's cured, next week, week after next, he'll come back.

Don't hate me because I'm acroless.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* It's over. They've gone home.

Picture Sunday

Hello, all who mourn the ending of the weekend. I'm there with you, buddies.

It's been a fun and a not-so-fun weekend. It started (see below blog) with some hellacious sickness. Then the old high school football team lost (big) Friday night, and the Hokies lost (no surprise) Saturday. I went doggie looking again, but the doggie I wanted to see apparently isn't ready for the viewing public yet, and was off behind a wooden fence where I couldn't gain access to him.

But I hung at Mr M's, watched three four-star movies, none of which I'd seen and all of which Mr M was pleased to introduce me to. I caught some Olympics, played some clarinet (without tears, arguments, or violence - well, except that time I hit myself in the head with my horn after missing a note), and got nauseous but not actually sick on Mexican food.

Which brings me to my first picture of the evening, but that's not really a segue, because the picture has absolutely nothing to do with anything I've mentioned above.

This is something ongoing in my little office at TheCompanyIWorkFor. As you know, because I've told you, I have little toys all over my office. The bulk of them stand upon my filing cabinet. That's a good display area, but sometimes a little dicey for the toys. Everytime someone closes a drawer in the cabinet George Jetson falls over, and occasionally one of the toys will take that horrible dive to the floor for some reason or other. But then, there's the sad story of Wakko.

Wakko, is of course, one of the Animaniacs, Wakko, Yakko, and Dot. I never really missed Wakko, because I don't keep much of a tab on the toys who hang around on my filing cabinet. So imagine my horror to notice one day whilst opening the bottom drawer of my cabinet - Wakko. In the below position. I swear to you folks, he just ended up this way, no one posed him for this picture. It's been about six weeks now since I've noticed him, and I just can't bear to move him because it's just so...so...so perfect.



Now, the next picture. Well, for the next picture I was going to show you my really cool Sherman button Mr M got me on Ebay. But since it's very small, and shiny, I can't get a good picture of it. So instead I'll print another picture, in which buttons figure prominently. It's called "S and P show their patriotic spirit."



Rumor has it someone is working for the Kerry campaign, but mum's the word on that.

And now, for your eating pleasure - maybe - may I introduce the recipe du jour. It's the "Mom, please, are we having that again?" dish of pleasure, Fish & Vegetable Casserole.



OK, now, I must admit this isn't the worst thing I've ever seen, and certainly not as bad as some things I have coming up for you ("coming up" being the operative phrasing there), but the idea of fish in a casserole doesn't much twang my buds. Besides which, this doesn't really look cooked. That celery, and the mound of parsley in the middle, and those carrots on top (which I first thought must be fat-free cheese - you know, the kind that doesn't melt). Now, the fish underneath, which is halibut, so the card tells us, looks nice and cooked and white, once you realize it's the fish and not a layer of sour cream, which is what I thought upon first seeing it.

Anyway, if you choose to have this lovely casserole, it is suggested by The Card that you serve it with parmesan noodles and ice cream and cornflake cookies. A meal any mom would be thrilled to bits to serve, I'm sure.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Yesterday I got to see me some rhythmic gymnastics. There was some event going on where there were five girls out there on the floor, and three had a hoop and two had a ball. And they were jumping and twirling and throwing and gyrating and, well, it was generally mass chaos. It was basically the decline of civilization as we know it. One thing you never see in rhythmic gymnastics is those girls using that hoop - which is basically just a hula hoop - as a hula hoop! Why don't they just step inside it and whoosh to the music and let that baby go!
* Today I saw a heartbreaking moment in rhythmic gymnastics. A girl got her ribbon all tangled up on her stick and encountered a "major deduction." Later, all we heard was the sound of a gunshot behind a locked door, then the competition continued.
* Mr M came up with a brilliant idea during our discovery of the mind-numbing hell that is water polo. "This might be better if they had to play it in pudding," he suggested. Perfect! Pudding Polo!
* And now the closing ceremonies are going on right beside me on the TV. Everyone is happy and dancing. And I'm happy and dancing. Over the fact that I get to be released from the addiction the Athens Olympics became.

Happy week!

That Was.....Interesting

I kind of forgot that I hadn't blogged since Tuesday. To be honest, I've been enjoying being at home nights, having time to myself, getting some things around the house done.

I'm sure you'll all be happy to know that I am officially Olympicsed out. I've endured the White people's portion of the Games, I've endured the Black people's portion. I've endured the pompous anchors and the commentators using phrases like "he blows all his breath out of those Midwestern lungs." I've come to accept that I'm never going to get to see a horse, and I've also come to accept that I'll never see Kerri Walsh's buttcheeks again.

We're at the point now where all were seeing is barrel scrapings. Whatever's left over. Not only sports-wise (the dreaded rhythmic gymnastics), but invasive human interest story-wise as well. This is evidenced by the fact that NBC actually re-ran one of their human interest stories. It showed up the first time during the women's marathon. And it was a good story, about how hard some women in other countries have it trying to compete. But damn, did they have to show it again Wednesday night? Are they that hard up for human interest in these games?

Anyway, my Olympic visitor has overstayed his welcome in my living room. I won't be sorry to see him leave.
-------------------
I had a most most interesting occurrence today.

As some of you may or may not know, I have had a new little pouch created in my stomach. Pouchy, I call him, being the imaginative creature that I am. One of the features of this little fella is that if I eat too much - and that means one little bite more than I'm supposed to - I'm likely to get violently ill. Not just throwing up, like when a meal doesn't agree with me. Pain in my chest, pressure, not being able to breathe. Even if the offending food is thrown up, all those symptoms will remain until, well, until they're damn well ready to leave. Although I've been sick from food not agreeing with me quite a few times, I've only been sick from overloading once.

Well, until today.

I woke up this morning with a blinding headache. That's odd, because since my surgery two things I just don't seem to have anymore are headaches and heartburn.

I endured it for a while, then broke down and tried some Tylenol, knowing full well it wouldn't work, because my body probably wouldn't absorb it. But maybe it did, because by about 2pm I seemed to be feeling a little better.

This afternoon at work was one of those afternoons I love. It was Friday, we weren't the least bit busy, the big season-opener high school football game is tonight, everyone was happy, and so basically we all just sat around and loafed and talked and laughed ourselves silly and had a good time.

And for some reason, I was unusually thirsty.

Now, as a side story, I generally try to drink two bottles of water between the time I come back from lunch and the time I leave work, in an effort to get in the 64 oz of liquids I'm supposed to consume each and every day but seldom do. But today it was easy - I wanted that water.

What I didn't really notice, though, was the alarming speed with which I was drinking the water. First one bottle, then two bottles, then 2/3 of a third bottle. Even my friend Sandy commented on how I was putting it away. Good, I thought, I'll saturate my body with the stuff.

Round about 4:30 I started doing the end of day deposit. And about halfway through, the nausea began. And when I say nausea, well, I thought I was gonna die.

I dropped all my checks, deposit slips, and the like and ran to the restroom. And you know how when you're getting ready to puke your guts out you have that hot drool that comes out of your mouth? Well, I had that in spades. But guess what - there was nothing on my stomach! I'd eaten hours ago. So I was basically just drooling hot spit into the toilet for 10 minutes. I knew it was fruitless, so I got up and went back to the office.

And that's when the pain began.

My chest felt like someone had made me swallow a rock. I tried to breathe my way through to the end of the deposit so we could get the hell out of the office and on with the weekend. Which we did.

I took the deposit to the drive-thru at the bank, then pulled out onto the road and got stuck in a line of traffic at the red light - and it all started again! The nausea, the hot drool (I found a stray paper towel in the podmobile to mop it off me with), the pressure, pain, not being able to breathe. I don't know how I made it home, but I got there, and headed to the toilet again, only to get the same thing. Hot drool.

This went on till about 6:30, when finally a trip to the bathroom produced results. Well, wait. What exactly do you consider results. I did start to heave and retch, and, of course, nothing came up because nothing was there to come up, but at least I was going through the motions of throwing up.

Which for some reason helped. But now my throat is so sore I can't swallow, and I feel like I've been kickboxed in the ribs, from all the heaving and retching.

However, all's well that ends well. Tonight, Lifetime showed my very favorite teenage lesbian TV movie, "The Truth About Jane."

Betland's Olympic Update:
* An Austrian woman came out of nowhere to beat the Australian favorite and win the gold medal in the women's triathalon. Who cares. I'm waiting for Beijing 2008 when we'll be watching Stennie and Kriz in the women's triathalon.
* This Paul Hamm medal thing is really getting old. He needs to call a press conference and announce, ala Charlton Heston, they can have his gold medal when they pry it from his cold dead hand. Or else just give them all the finger.
* OK, debate (no fisticuffs, please) which is the best rhytmic gymnastic event: the ball, the rope, the big hoop, the clubs, or the ribbon on a stick. I'm a ribbon on a stick gal myself. What courage it takes to do ribbon on a stick, man!

Acrowinners!

Hello, hello, hello. Now go off and blow.

Just trying to make a rhyme. What was that, a crime?

OK, let's get right to it, since my poetry skills are not up there with TS Eliot. Sorry for the delay, but technical problems yet again. No comments when I went to post the list of entries.

This week's topic was "What The Butler Saw." The letters were E T A I O V. The entries:

*Egads! Titties and impressive organs. Vavoom!
*Emperor Tiberius always imbibes ouzo, vomits.
*Ed throttled adulterous Imogene outside, violently.
*Eve's tit, ass. Igor openly vomited.
*Edgar tried assimilating interesting orange vein.
*Even Tight Assed Ivan Orgasmed Voraciously.
*Evelyn, Theodore and Ilsa on Valium.
*Everyone traipsing about in outdated Versace.
*Extraneous tucks and incisions on viejos.
*Everybody's testicles! And in optimal view!
*Emory touched Anne's insides! Oh, vulgarity!
*Egads...that's an interesting orgy, Victoria.

Ahhhhhh. Thanks for entering. And now, right to the prizes. What did the butler see?

This week's Honorable Mention goes to Kellie, with her "Eve's tit, ass. Igor openly vomited." That actually would have been much more true-to-life had it been Elizabeth instead of Eve, but it was still good.

Runner-up this week is Mr Mike, Man of Mystery, with the very clever "Everybody's testicles! And in optimal view!" In optimal view! Bitchin'!

But this week's winner just made me laugh out loud so hard that, if I wasn't such a lady, I'd have spit water across my desk at work. This week's winner is she of the reinstated blog, Flipsycab, with "Everyone traipsing around in outdated Versace." The scandal! The shame!

Again, thanks to everyone who played.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* The German women's beach volleyball team were both sporting white patches on their shoulders. My mother suggested maybe it was "their birth control patches." Well, I'd been thinking the same thing myself, but I was mainly amazed my mom knew about birth control patches. Wouldn't surprise me though - some company paying you $50,000 to sport their birth control patch during the Olympics.
* On the men's diving competition, you know they wear those trunks almost as skimpy as the women's beach volleyball players. (Banlons, my friend calls them.) When they get out of the pool and walk over to the sidelines, then NBC shows their scores, superimposed on a nice blue graphic strip across the screen, that strip goes right across their nether regions, thus making them look very very naked.
* Not only does Chinese diver Wang Feng have a fun name, he also has a humongous bump on the back of his head. A bump like that deserves more hair than Wang has.

I Guess My Part's Over....

My brother-in-law had a good one the other night. The man, who's an amiable sort but a bit on the, well, reserved side, is still capable of getting off some really good lines from time to time.

Anyway, his great line this time was about the Olympics. He said that with the conclusion of the swimming events, someone needed to come on a big loudspeaker and say, "This now concludes the white people's portion of the Olympics. The black people's portion of the Olympics will commence tomorrow."

Now, I know some of you may be offended by that remark. Hell, I might be offended it by it too, but it made me laugh. Hard.

Think about your first week of Olympics here. Swimming, diving, ping pong (or table tennis for you Ping Pong Purists), badminton, tennis (Venus & Chanda being the exceptions), equestrian, beach volleyball, gymnastics. Rowing. Sailing. Fencing.

With the second week, we get track and field, and the thick of things in basketball and boxing.

And OK, I know it. It was a rash stereotypicalization. (Oooh, look at me with my big words.) Not to mention that there are still lots of white people's sports to go around the second week. That is, if you like wrestling, judo, and weightlifting, by far the dirtiest sport in the Olympics, with such divisions as the "snatch" and the "clean and jerk."

But after spending a day yesterday watching the "not my" Olympics, I realized that maybe there is going to be a difference between the first week and the second week.

The first week, in the live-on-the-spot-post-competition interviews, we got swimmers saying, "Yeah, I got a good start, and even though I faded at the end, I managed a win." And gymnasts saying, "I tried to treat it like any other meet, and I just hit all my routines." Yeah. It's as boring as hell, but guess what - so are athletes who spend their entire lives swimming and flipping around on a mat.

Yesterday, I heard live-on-the-spot-post-competition interviews that went like this: "First of all, I'd like to thank God. And my family, my mom and dad, and my coach, my track club...." Well, that's all well and good and mighty generous, but this isn't the fucking Academy Awards. You don't thank people, you talk about if you think you ran a good or bad race, nod your head, then turn around and go put your sweatpants on. (Because, let's face it, track women wear almost as little these days as beach volleyballers. Who would have guessed the time would come when swimmers actually wore the most clothes?)

I also heard an interview that went something like this: "I wanted to go out and win and I ran hard and won and I want to shout out to all my boys in St Louis (or whatever town it was), and -" *eeehhnnnn!* - wrong. This is the Olympics, not the MTV Video Awards. I don't give a fuck who you want to shout out to. Shout out to them on your phone back at the Olympic Village and leave me out of it, OK?

And as for runner Maurice Green, he of the tattoo that abbreviates "Greatest Of All Time" - yes, the man has "GOAT" tattooed upon his person - I guess he's going to have to go back to the tattoo parlor and get a "3rd" put before that GOAT. Cause as of last night, that's his new designation. 3rd GOAT.

Now, I can't speak much for basketball or boxing, because frankly, I hate them both and I know it's hard to believe, but I'd rather sit with the TV off than watch either. I saw a little bit of the basketball team's loss to Puerto Rico ("Pueeerrrrto Riiiico, you loovvvvely iiiisland~"), and saw mainly, well, mainly people in USA uniforms missing the basket, but besides that, tens of bored people with frowns sitting on the bench obviously thinking about anything but the game, probably about their agents and whether Nike or Reebok or whoever would ditch them over the fact that their uniforms are sponsored by somebody else.

Apparently the basketball team is playing better now. Pity.

All I've seen of boxing is one man not punching, but shoving his gloved palm into the face of another. And I don't even know who either man was. The referee was there though, and he was dressed exactly like I was dressed at work the other day. So kudos to him.

So, yeah, maybe my part of the Olympics has concluded. That doesn't mean I'm not going to watch what's still going on, even if it's only with one eye, and even if it's only to bitch. I'm sure black people bitched about the first week.

Hell, I bitched about the first week. But I guess that's what I do.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Boy, is Jim Lampley looking old.
* Great name of the day: Chinese diver Wang Feng. Everybody!: "Everybody have fun tonight, everybody Wang Feng tonight!"

Acrochallenge!

Hello one and all, you and you, and yes, even you over there in the corner. It's time for another yee-haw, by God round of Acromania!

I shall be doing the judging this week, even though a very nice person did offer to do the duties. I kind of had a topic rattling around in the back of my mind, so I guess I'll take this opportunity to use it. That topic is: "What The Butler Saw."

Now, this, besides being a song by Squeeze, is an old nudge-nudge wink-wink kind of a thing. They used to be little things with a window you looked into and saw nekkid people cavorting around, a la, this is what the butler saw through the keyhole in the bedroom door. So basically, "What The Butler Saw" in quotes (like that back there) would be "what did the butler see that maybe he shouldn't have." Got it?

All the other rules are the same, everyone gets three entries to come up with the best acronyms they can that fit the topic and match the letters below, drawn randomly from the acrobasket. I'll do the judging at 9ish pm est tomorrow night, and announce the winners and losers and everything in between. And there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. No, knowing you, there'll probably be much cavorting around nekkid. You know, come to think of it, this has a very strong tie to last week's topic, doesn't it? Oh, well, never mind.

The topic is "What The Butler Saw." The letters:

E T A I O V

There you have it. Now, stop looking through that keyhole and acro.

Picture Sunday

Hello, one and all. It's been a busy and fun-filled weekend.

One of the highlights of which was a Saturday afternoon trip to the Humane Society to look at doggies. Now, before you even think it, no, I did not come home with anything. It was just a little window-shopping, maybe to get myself in the thinking stages of doggie ownership. They had very few dogs (which is a good thing, if you think about it), a couple of really cute puppies which looked to be of some sort of hound variety, and then all the adult dogs were big dogs. I just can't have a big dog here at the Poderosa, I fear. Which was a total shame, because I all but fell in love with one doggie.

He was a blonde lab mix, about a year old (so his description said), named "Doc." And he was a total baby. He liked me! And he had those "take me home" eyes. I just wanted to die. I still do. But there's just no room. But if anybody out there wants an absolute sweetie of a dog, I'll get Doc for you.

Of course, I had no camera with me at the shelter. I had no camera with me basically at all this weekend. So Picture Sunday's going to be "in-house," as we say.

The first is a little something Mr M "took" for us last week.

I'm sure you all know that my little Sherman is just a boy of neverending talents. I mean, he travels, he plays the clarinet, he spreads sunshine wherever he goes.... Well, he does something else, too. He gardens.

He's becoming known far and wide for his specialty, the Shermanhead Melon. He grows them in B'burg, and when the harvest comes in, sells them at his own little roadside stand. He makes ice cream and smoothies with them, too! And here is the world's first documented proof of the existence of the Shermanhead Melon:



Hmmm. Bears a little resemblance to something, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

And let's not leave Peabody out of the loop here. I thought I'd give you a glimpse of my hat. I'm not normally a hat wearer at all, but since I've been doing some exercising away from swimming, and currently hating my hair and everything, sometimes I've been donning a cap. I made this one, from a plain red hat and an applique I got off eBay. So may I now introduce, my head!




OK. Now to the moment I know you've not really been waiting for, but you've made it this far, so why not. The recipe du jour.

This week's recipe is so savvily named "Sukiyaki," but I call it "some raw stuff in a pot that should be on the stove but instead is on someone's formica'ed table."




I mean, what is there to say? Some meat and some vegetables on a bare table with some tea. The serving suggestion says we also need steamed rice and canteloupe slices. Hell, they could have just put the canteloupe in the pot. And notice it's under "weight control." That's because you have to eat it with chopsticks, thus severely limiting your intake.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* I watched the Women's Marathon today, all 2½ hours of it. And it was exciting, man! And I don't even like running! You go, girls!
* A new good name: Australian diver Loudy Tourky. (pronounced "Loody")
* A Swede who's a dead ringer for Charles Manson won the high jump.
* Forget what I ever said about those bad Nike commercials. If I have to see many more "stay away from my Chicken Select" commercials from McDonald's, I'm going up on the roof with a shotgun.

The Crafts of Death

Back before Christmas, I distinctly remember writing about driving to TheCompanyIWorkFor one morning, only to pass by a local funeral home in our town. And right out there in the yard of the funeral home was a big, fat, jolly, smiling, look-at-me-in-all-my-happy-glory inflatable snowman. And I just thought, "Ooooh, that's creepy in so many ways, I don't know where to start."

Friday, as I was going to TheCompanyIWorkFor, to which I take the same route everyday, of course, I passed by that self-same funeral home. What should be out front of it but three tables, manned by an older lady (or would that be womanned by an older lady) - selling homemade crafts.

There were homemade dolls, and pillows with ruffles, and little girls' dresses, and calico aprons and potholders and God only knows what else. All set up on the grounds of the funeral home.

What is with these people? Why don't they just install a couple of gas pumps and maybe set up a stand for novelty t-shirts and license plates? "Free fill-up with every body, and for an additional $14.99 you can get a 'My Loved One Died And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt' Shirt!"

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Well, I finally got to see what I wait every four years to get a glimpse of: sweaty Eastern European women athletes who don't shave under their arms. Ahhhhhh, it was worth it!
* I saw trampolining today. Dang, and just when I was going to list "Jumping On The Bed" as one of the 10 Olympic Sports I wanted to see.

Don't Make Me Hurt You, Wendy

As you may know, I've had my problems with Wendy's in the past.

The one in B'burg never seemed to have an onion, though they wouldn't actually go so far as to tell me that little tidbit, the one in B'field never had any potatoes (I still don't know how a restaurant can let itself run out of potatoes, but that's a rant long gone by).

Back in the good old days, well, the good old days for Big Wendy, because she got waaaay more of my money than she gets now, I used to go to the drive thru on a regular basis. Many of those times, I'd order one of their specialty salads. Something funny happened with the advent of those specialty salads; they decided they were upscale. For years, Wendy's sold Italian dressing. Suddenly "Italian" wasn't good enough for them. It was "House Vinaigrette."

I'd order a salad, and the disembodied voice coming through the speakerbox would say, "What dressing would you like with that?" "Italian," I'd answer. "I'm sorry, we don't have Italian anymore." Then I'd look at the menu and see "House Vinaigrette," and order that.

Then Wendy and I decided not to see each other so much. The only times I've been there lately have been for lunch, when I order a small chili and call it a day.

Until tonight.

Tonight I had a hankering for a salad (I'm just now starting to work them back into my repetoire). So after swimming I zipped through the drive-thru and ordered a side salad. "What dressing would you like?" came the question. And without thinking I answered, "Italian."

"Aheh. We don't have Italian."

Now, there are a lot of things I don't need in my life, but one of the last things I need to deal with is some uppity teenager giving me attitude from behind a speakerbox. What I answered to this Naziette, because I'm nicer than I should be, was, "Well, I want that vinaigrette dressing that's exactly the same as Italian."

What I'd like to say is this: Get over yourself, Wendy. You're a fuckin' fast food restaurant, and I don't care what you call your fucking "House Vinaigrette" dressing, it's nothing but fucking Italian. It was Italian when you started carrying fucking salads, and it's the exact same fucking recipe, only the packaging is different. So you can call it whatever the fuck you want, but I and everyone else in the free fucking world knows it's fucking Italian dressing!

In other words, take your House Vinaigrette and shove it.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Short attention span theatre: I've been noticing that some of the staples of Olympics coverage, most that I hate (basketball, boxing), but some that I like (real volleyball, badminton, equestrian), have been relegated to the "other channels" at "other times." No NBC prime-time coverage. I've decided this is because they take more than 2 minutes to complete, therefore being way too long for the average TV-watching American to care about. Think about it: swimming, gymnastics, nekkid beach volleyball. It's 2 minutes, a cloud of dust, and off to a commercial. I don't know what they'll do about the marathon later.
* Another great name. Chinese swimmer Qi Hui. Pronounced "Chee Wee."
* A shitload of weightlifters got banned from the Olympics for failing a drug test. Including a woman! It makes me think, though. Do they test the horses in the equestrian events for performance enhancing drugs? It would make for an interesting headline. "Disqualified from competition today were Sudhakar Gramauhadi, Figaro Monzini, Hi Leung Wei, and Trixie."

10 Olympic Events I'd Like To See

1. Synchronized Shot Put
2. Bowling
3. Beach Tetherball
4. Bovestrian Event (dressage, cross-country, show jumping)
5. Hokey-Pokey
6. 5000 Kilometer Backstroke
7. Shuffleboard
8. Red Rover
9. Fishing
10.Shoplifting

Betland's Olympic Update
* The Shot Put competition was held where the original competition was held in ancient times. They tried to re-create those days gone by, by having people walk up the venue and sit on the ground, and by not selling concessions other than water. Hmmm. Wonder if they had rampant prostitution?
* We won a silver in kayaking! We won a silver in kayaking!
* Why do men gymnasts always sound like they sucked in a helium balloon? Is it the constant pounding of the ground with such force? Are their testicles forever maimed by that? Have they maybe landed straddling a pommel horse? Are their shorts too tight?

Acrowinners!

Ahhhh, it's Tuesday night, and there's acro in the air. Acrowinners, that is.

Our judge this week is the dishy Michelle, who came up with the dishy topic, "Things You Can Do Naked." Our letters this week were Y M G L I. The entries:

*Yank my gorgeous little imp.
*Yachting, moon/goose Long Island.
*Yak mounting (giving love insistently).
*Yodeling? Maybe gin? Let's investigate.
*You make good loving impressive.
*Yo-yo-ing may generate longer instrument.
*Yoga, mime, gymnastics - list infinite.
*Yowza! Mowing grass! Less interference!
*You're maybe getting laid, idiot!
*You. Me. Glenn. Leather. Interested?
*Yugoslavian massage: gotta love it.
*Yodel melodiously, giddily leaping immodestly.
*You may get lewd, indecent.
*Yoga, macarena, gardening: lustiness inducing.
*Young men get lively, indeed.
* You'll make good lovin' immediately.
*Young Michelle, garments lost, illustrates.
*Yardwork, maybe get Linux installed.

Wow, again, I'm glad I'm not judging because I totally love, well, a lot of these. Michelle will have her work cut out for her. And here she is now, with her selections:

Sorry the judging was late today, Acrofans, but after reading these entries, I had to take a good, long, cold shower. I love my showerhead - it has lots of different speeds and attachments. Really, that thing will scratch any itch you want. Goodness, I'm getting waterlogged just thinking about it!

Ahem... so tonight's runners up are: Mike's "Yardwork, maybe get Linux installed." Ah.. there's nothing like some good geek lovin'.

Second runner up is Nyssa with her "Yodel melodiously, giddily leaping immodestly" This made laff.

One more runner up, cuz it was soooo good is DFF's "Yak mounting (giving love insistently)." I don't think I've ever heard of a sexual fantasy involving a yak. Good job, DFF!

And now, the winner, who had the most titillating acro was......... Nyssa's "You. Me. Glenn. Leather. Interested?" All I can say is, "yes, yes, YES" Way to go, Nyssa, and to the rest of you, thanks for playing!

Well, and there you have it. Now, please - put your clothes back on, OK?

Betland's Olympic Update
* Women's Beach Volleyball. Their "uniforms." Shit, why don't they just play stark naked? And those God-awful blasts of rock music they play during the 10 and 20 second breaks in the action. Who invented this sport?
* According to a "human interest" story about the original Greek Olympics, as we all already knew, the athletes competed naked (and that's without beach volleyball), but they told us too that not only was prostitution "rampant, but also sanctioned." I like it! Tiffany: The Official Whore of the US Boxing Team.

Acrochallenge!

Hello, hello, hello, boys and girls. Welcome to this week's I'm-still-hanging-on-for-dear-life-Bet-hasn't-pulled-the-plug-on-me-yet edition of Acromania!

The dishy Michelle is going to be our guest judge this week. And the dishy Michelle - as she would - has a very appropriate topic for us. Her chosen topic is "Things You Can Do Naked." Hmm. For some of you folks, I think that would include "anything."

The other rules are the same. Everyone gets three entries to come up with the best acronym they can that fits the topic and also matches the letters below, drawn randomly from the acrobasket. Mitchie will be judging around 9pmish est tomorrow night. Then all will be revealed. I mean, really. All will be revealed.

So, this week's topic is "Things You Can Do Naked." The letters are:

Y M G L I

Now, get your clothes off and get acroing!

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Whiny-baby Americans. Already three loser American athletes have called cheats. No wonder the world hates us.
* I've found a commercial I like. For Adidas, where, through the miracle of techno, a little girl competes on the parallel bars with Nadia Commaneci. It almost makes up for those horrendous "You're faster than you think" Nike ads.
* I tried my best to watch a water polo match. My God. I enjoyed surgery more; at least it had morphine.

Picture Sunday

Hello, Sunday nighters.

I came home from Mr M's today only to find strange things afoot in the impatience pots. Of my four pots, one, the white ones on the right, were fine and just as pretty as always. The top two, the pink ones, were both majorly wilted, wilted as in "in need of water badly." The white ones on the left, however, were majorly wilted, wilted as in "hep me, hep me, Lawdy I'm a-dyin'." I mean, it's hard to describe - they looked like someone had beaten them down with a broom. Now, I know I have some weird ass things going on here, number one of which is the fact that passersby seem to love to throw their trash in my yard, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to beat my flowers with a broom. We may have some goofballs in town, but I don't think it goes all the way to plant battery.

Anyway, I gave them all a healthy drink of water first thing when I got out of the car, even the petunias, whom I've grown to hate and kind of wish would die and leave me alone. But still, I can't kill them, that wouldn't be nice.

I may have found something to help fight the fact that I'm not enjoying playing the clarinet anymore. For the past two weeks now, four of us have been meeting to play clarinet quartets, Bob and Roger, very nice guys from R'noke, and Mr M and myself. And save for a song here and a song there, I've been playing bass clarinet. Mr M has one. I'd not played till a couple of days before the quartet gathered for the first time, and though I'm still way much a beginner, I'm having a really good time honking out those bass rhythms and learning to hold a big albatross of an instrument.

Which kind of brings us to our first picture. For some reason (probably done as part of his "touchy feely" class), Mr M had a sheet of stickers lying around in his kitchen, each sticker having a descriptive emotion on it. They ran the gamut. After the first clarinet session Saturday night, I very aptly chose "CRITICIZED." Sunday, I decided to go ahead and pick a sticker before we even started playing music.




Bob noticed right when he walked in that I was standing there with a "Shamed" sticker on my forehead. Roger either didn't notice or was too much of a gentleman to say anything about it.

The next picture has something of a story attached. On the road out to Mr M's, one may sometimes see different members of the animal kingdom. Sometimes one sees cows, sometimes, horses. Today I went out on a cow-finding mission, and by gum, succeeded.

I pulled off onto the side of the road, and walked as close to the fence as I could get. There was one white cow there, looking right at me. I said to him, as I would, "Hello there! I'm gonna take your picture!" Well when I said that, every white cow in the field came up and crowded around. It was like, "Take my picture!" "No, take my picture!" Those cows loved me!

After snapping one picture, dammit, my batteries went out. There's a little convenience store just down the road, so I zipped down there, got some new ones, and came back. Well, wouldn't you know, those bastards were gone under a shade tree at the complete other end of the field. There I was, standing like a complete idiot saying, "Ttch! Ttch! Come here, cows!" Like they actually would. However, one white cow kept looking at me, even from way over there under the tree. He still liked me. But from afar.

Boy, cows sure are fickle. Anyway, here they are before they turned on me.



OK. Anyone hungry?

With deference to my fickle friends above, we'll not be doing a beef dish tonight. Sorry, pig-lovers. But this one's a beauty, a dish any self-respecting pig would gladly give his life to become - Ham a la King!



Really, now. What could be better than some ham with a milky sauce that looks incredibly like human vomit, served, no less with beet salad, peas and carrots, and potato chips!!!! Let's be honest here, did anyone get potato chips for dinner with an otherwise hot meal? That's about as good as the combination we used to get in school lunches. You know the ones, tacos and green beans, and hot dogs and corn.... Ham, gravy, and tater chips. And coffee. I'd need coffee too. (The serving suggestion says "orange ice and cookies," but I don't see them anywhere. After looking at that ham and thinking about beet salad, the phtotographer probably took it and ran.)

Beet salad indeed. Some beet balls on a piece of iceberg lettuce.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* The US men's basketball team got beat today by Puerto Rico. haHAAAAAA! Basketball-playin', tattoo-wearin', smug-ass bastard thugs. Hope they don't get a medal.
* I've found my favorite Olympic name. A German swimmer named Heiko Hell. What a great name. "I'm Hell." "Oh, I'm sure you're not that bad...."

Glorious

I got to do something today I've been wanting to do for months. I got to stay in bed - my own bed - till after noon. I slept some, I watched some TV. It was glorious.

Now it's up and at 'em (when I was little I thought that expression was "up and atom"), and back on the road.

I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics last night, a great deal of it whilst on the phone with my sister. I don't know why we didn't just get together to watch it, it's not like we live more than 2 miles from each other, but it was still fun. (Shades of Reeeeeeeeeeeno and watching the football games in the hotel room while we were on the phone with Mike, Man of Mystery.)

Anyway, there were three things we decided in watching:

1- There sure are some cute boys in other countries, especially the Netherlands.

2 - Anything where people are in slow motion suspended by wires is pretty damn cool.

3 - There seem to be a lot of old people in the Olympics.

#3 on this list intrigued us almost as much as #1. What are all these old people doing in the Olympics? From what we're figuring it's either equestrian, sailing, or shooting. Now, we don't have a horse, nor a boat. But dammit, we can afford a gun. And as my sister says, "Hell, in shooting, all you do is lay on the ground! We're in!" So look for us in 2008, if we're not in jail for accidentally shooting someone in the face beforehand. Or should that be "'accidentally' shooting someone in the face?"

So, I normally hate these opening ceremony things. But the one last night had some pretty cool stuff in it, like the people made up to look like statues (and they really did), and the people who were made up to look like old black and white photographs (and they really did). But my favorite thing of all was the women who carry the signs announcing what country is marching in next. They were wearing dresses that looked like Grecian urns. I swear I'm gonna mix up some papier mache and make me one of those dresses. I don't know where I'm going in it, though - I wouldn't fit in my car to go anywhere.

Oh well, onwards and upwards with the day.

Did You See The One...?

It's been a long week. Work was hell. I only got to swim one night. I'm tired. I want to blog, and yet my mind is a blank.

So.... I'm going to do what I used to do in these situations, before I took to sitting on my ass (somewhere other than at my keyboard) and letting my screen remain blank. I'm going to get out the trusty "Smileage" book!

This should be a good one. They name TV shows, and I have to tell you about my favorite episodes of them. Now, I will say, there are a shitload of shows on this list, and not only did I not watch some of them, but even if I did, I'd be all week writing about all of these. So I'm picking and choosing.

Shall we begin?

* The Andy Griffith Show: Now, since this is one of my very favorite shows of all time, it's going to be hard. I mean, The Pickle Episode is near and dear to my heart (with its great Barney line, "Shoo fly - it's dead!"), but if I had to pick one single episode that still makes me laugh as hard, and one I still want to quote lines from, it's "Mountain Wedding," the episode that stars the Darling family and introduced us all to Ernest T Bass. It contains the great Briscoe Darling lines, "Curb them hot flashes!" and, when Andy mentions the boys are "talkative" (the "boys," actually bluegrass band The Dillards, never speak a word, just stare slackjawed at whoever's around), "They're all keyed up." Add to that Ernest T's "serenade" to Charlene Darling, a chant in which he accompanies himself by beating on a gas can (and that you can see the lyrics to here, if you scroll down to "Old Aunt Maria"), and you've got the Number One episode. Remember, never hit your grandma with a great big stick.

*M*A*S*H: OK, I loved this show when it was out, save the last two seasons, which were horrifyingly bad, but I cannot stand to watch it in reruns. Blecch. And so when I was trying to think back to when I actually watched it, I was totally void of memories. Except for one episode. So if it's the only one I remember, it must, therefore, be my favorite. That would be the episode where the movie "My Darling Clementine" was sent to the 4077th, and they all watch it. And of course, you know the rest, the movie keeps breaking, the projector keeps breaking, and in all of the breaks the camp come up with ways to entertain themselves. My favorite is the Father Mulcahy impersonating contest. Jocularity, jocularity!

*The Twilight Zone: This one's kind of hard for me, because I have my ones I remember from childhood, then many more great ones I've seen as an adult (mainly on cable TZ marathons). One that I can remember so vividly from childhood was an episode where a man gets a stopwatch that stops time, then starts using the watch for evil (robbing banks), and drops and breaks the watch, thus rendering everyone and everything in the world - except him - frozen dead. But my favorite episode, and this is embarrassing, because it's not a well-written diatribe on McCarthyism nor is it biting satire, is the "Talking Tina" episode. Talking Tina is a doll, wanted very badly by a little girl, whose father doesn't really want to buy her. But the girl does indeed get the doll, and for some reason the father severely resents it. It goes on and on, he throws the doll away, she shows back up in the house, etc, etc, and of course, she ends up placing herself on the stairs and killing the poor schmuck (he trips on her and falls down the stairs). It scared the pee out me as a child, mainly because of the doll's talk-track when her string was pulled: it went from "My name is Talking Tina, and I want to be your friend," to "I'm Talking Tina, and I don't like you," to "I'm Talking Tina, and I'm going to kill you," to finally, "My name is Talking Tina, and you'd better be nice to me!" Everyone now: doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo...... (Oh, yeah. The mean dad she kills? Played by Telly Savalas.)

*Star Trek: I'm not a "Star Trek" fan, but of course, as I kid I always loved "The Trouble With Tribbles." I'm sure I don't need to re-hash anything about that one; not for you geeks, anyway.

*Seinfeld: Yes, the Masturbation Episode was one of the classic half-hours of all TV, and the Soup Nazi made me laugh till I hurt. But my favorite Seinfeld ep is The Overdue Library Book, where Jerry finds out he has a book overdue at the library - from 1974. He goes on a quest of sorts to prove he actually returned the book in 1974 and ends up revisiting both an old crush and his gym teacher, who's now a homeless bum (with "baked bean teeth"). Not only does it contain some great memorable lines (like Kramer's "The Dewey Decimal System, what a scam that was!" and Jerry's "Columbus. Eurotrash."), but Phillip Baker Hall's turn as the Library Cop (Mr Bookman) is absolutely priceless. While giving Jerry the third degree, he goes off on a rant about library disrespect and kids "finding pictures of peepees and weewees in The Cat in the Hat and The Five Chinese Brothers." Perfect.

*The Dick Van Dyke Show: Easy Peasy. The one where Richie and his buddy leave their walkie-talkies on, and Rob and Laura overhear a conversation that happens over at the Helper's house. Jerry and Millie are pretty much dissing the hell out of Rob and Laura ("Rob's no Albert Schweitzer"). Well, just so happens they're due to go to a party at the Helper's in a few minutes, so of course they go with fire in their eyes. It's my favorite episode simply because of the scene at the party where everyone's playing charades. Laura gets up and is doing all these horrific movements, pretending to stomp, stab, and everything else, and all the while Rob's screaming out his guesses, "Walk all over people! Goosestep! Stab-stab in the back!" After about 3 minutes of this Rob suddenly yells, "I've got it! 'On The Street Where You Live!'" Genius.

*The X-Files: The Roach Episode. Really nothing more there to say.

*All In The Family: Actually, it's kind of embarrassing to say that my favorite episode is one after most people would say A.I.T.F. had jumped the shark. It was one after Mike and Gloria "moved away." It's the one where Edith gets a case of phlebitis, St Patrick's Day is coming up, Archie has a big deal party planned at his bar, and so she doesn't say anything and stays on her feet all day to cook corned beef and cabbage for him. There are a couple of things about this episode that I love. One is that there's an unbelievably hilarious scene that hints at cabbage and its smell and having gas - it's not really explainable, it's one of those "you have to see it" things. Then, it features George Wyner as young Dr Sidney Shapiro, and for some reason, he and Carroll O'Connor together always made me laugh. And finally, that last scene where you see just how much Archie loves Edith - well, *sniff* I think I need to be going.

So there you have it. If you think your favorites are better, tell me about it.

Garmentitis

I'm standing on the Great Threshold of a Clothing Crisis.

I know I shouldn't complain. I should be happy. But you know me, I'd complain if they hung me with a new rope.

I have an attachment to certain articles of clothing, like my navy blue comfy cotton pants and my dark khaki flood pants. And I'm going to have to lose them. Soon. The flood pants have become decidedly non-flood lately (they're getting longer as I'm getting littler), and to be honest, I had to catch myself the other day when my navy blue comfy cotton pants started to take a little dip below the equator, so to speak.

So it's good, but it's not so good.

I'm wearing some old clothes. I went back to my mom's, rifled through old stuff, took some home and washed the musty odor out of them, and started to wear them. It's nothing that would mark me as "dated," well, I hope, anyway - I don't have any painter's pants or shirts emblazoned with "Frankie Say Relax" across the front.

But anyway, it's getting harder and harder to come up with combinations of pants, shirts, and skirts to wear to work. I'm starting to feel like everyone knows what I'm going to show up in. "Oh, it's Tuesday, that's blue pants and orange striped shirt day."

Today I got up and started searching around for something to wear in to TheCompanyIWorkFor. Still wrapped in a towel, and probably with a heavy growth of recently-shed hair still lodged between my fingers, I picked something out.

I decided to go with my black and white striped shirt and my black comfy pants. Truth be told, they're actually exercise pants, but they hang nice, and if you don't look too closely they don't look like sweats. They're casual, but nice. I didn't want to wear my black leather Keds, because they're not very cushy, so I chose my black Reeboks.

Not long after arriving at work, I had to go back to the back office to use that little machine of hate, the fax machine (God, how I wish the fax had never been invented). As I was standing there, it slowly started to dawn on me. And I became filled with a mixture of fear, dread, and a helpless case of the giggles.

I walked back up to the boss's office and said, "Do you notice anything?" and while saying it, made the "Here I Am, Head To Toe" arm gesture TV game show models so often make while showing off fur coats. And she, thinking, I guess, that I was looking for either a compliment on my smaller but still nowhere near normal frame or my savvy sartorial sense, smiled and said, "Very nice."

"Nice?" I replied. "I look like an employee of Foot Locker!"

I don't know if it was the exercisey nature of the pants, or the black Reeboks, which I've always thought looked like a cross between a referee's shoe and an orthopedic oxford. But I'm feeling a little displaced and disconcerted. All I know is that I have my doctor's bills here in the office, which I keep in - a shoebox. So after lunch I'm just going to walk around the office carrying my shoebox and act like I actually do work at the Foot Locker.

TheCompanyIPretendIWorkFor.

Acrowinners!

Well, it's Tuesday night - things aren't quite as expected, but we do have Acrowinners.

This week's topic, courtesy of DeepFatFrair, was "Why We Need To Un-elect George Bush." The letters were M O G O, which if squared, was the name of a "Survivor" tribe last season.

The entries:

*Makes ornery gestures, oafish.
*Masturbates oratorically, gets off.
*Morbidly offers gays oral .
*More oogling Gulf's oil.
*Moronic, obtuse guy. Obviously.
*Malingerer of Georgie's offertory.
*Mindless, oafish, garrulous, odious
*"More oil? Get oppresive!"
*Mother of George: offensive
*Many opportunities gone overseas.
*Makes obnoxious garrulous orations.
*Marriage official, gays ostracized.
*Many Outrageously Garbled Oratories.
*Many Observe Gigantic Overlord.
*Many Other Good Options.

(Those last three were Kellie's entry - she couldn't access my comments, so she emailed her answer. Which is fine, and anyone can do that if my comments don't work.)

And now, for the switcheroo part of the evening. I present this week's judge:

Yoo hoo! Yooooo hooooo!

It's me, Capt. A., substituting for DFF, who had to leave for Connecticut because of a death in the family. Condolences, DFF.

Well, let me tell you about my day. I interviewed for a job today. You see, money is really tight, and I'm seriously considering abandoning shrinkage for a year until I can get on my feet. But that means I'll lose another year in my slide towards oblivion, and besides that, they want a long-term employee and I'd feel like hell taking the job....

Wait. This is ACRO and Bet's blog!

OKay. No more messin' around.

Second goes to both Kellie and Stennie, with "Many Other Good Options" and "Many opportunities gone overseas," respectively. Straightforward, unobfuscated truth.

Michelle wins with "Masturbates oratorically, gets off," mainly because any acro with "masturbates" in it is a winner, as far as I'm concerned, and because I just get off on people who use adjectives with lots of letters.

The rest of them are really good too, but don't you just hate it when absolutely everybody wins? Hell, even little kids know you're messin' with them when everybody wins. "Bolstering self-concept" my ass.

So, should I take the job?

Oh, and one more thing: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!SHERMULA!

Capt. A., signing off.

Thank you, Captain, for sitting in for the indisposed DeepFatFriar. Thanks to all who played!

Acrochallenge!

Acro lives to taunt another day. Thanks to DeepFatFriar, who's agreed to be our esteemed judge (I'm assuming he'll be cruel, but fair), it's time for another Mondays-really-are-a-pain-in-the-ass round of Acromania.

Now, as the rules of the new wrinkle of the game state, the judge gets to pick this week's topic. For this week's topic TheFriar has chosen "Why We Need To Un-Elect George Bush." Wow. Where do I start??

All the other rules are the same; everyone gets three entries to try and come up with the best acronym they can, one that not only fits the topic but matches the letters below, which were randomly drawn from my buddy the acrobasket. DFF will be putting you all through the selection process, as it were, around 9pm est tomorrow night. Then I shall announce the winners, and CNN will be showing up at your door for a small statement. Mention me, please. By the way, I'm on the road again tomorrow, so if the winners post is a little late, never fear; it will show up.

So. This week's topic is "Why We Need To Un-Elect George Bush." This week's letters:

M O G O

So there you have it - now, acro, you fools!

I Agree With Yall

There is way too much of it, and it is awfully damn sweaty.

But if it's not cheese, what is it?

(Disclaimer: Tonight's episode of Picture Sunday deals with mature subject matter. It is not for the faint of heart. Viewer discretion is advised.)

Picture Sunday

Hello everyone, I'm back at my keyboard, and it's time for another blog.

I spent the weekend in B'burg again. After saying for about a month I wasn't playing the concert Community Band had on Saturday, I came down with a case of the guilts and went anyway. It was pretty fun, though, an absolutely gorgeous day, a day so beautiful it almost made me forget the fact that I hate nature.

But I'm so tired. I feel like I spend half my life driving. It's so good to be back at the Poderosa.

You know, I'm an idea gal. And I think I've come up with a winner this time.

I know I've told you about my little hair loss problem. Well, I've decided it's time to make myself a wig - out of my own recently fallen-out hair! With what I've found the last four days in my shower drain, I already have enough to make a small toupee!

Let's see, how to do it, though.

A few years ago I did some experimenting with re-rooting hair on some old Barbies. I don't think that would work for me, though, because it involved taking a long needle and sticking it up through Barb's neck and out her scalp. First of all, I don't think I have a needle long enough for my head, and secondly, I fear it could be rather painful. Right now I'm mulling over super-gluing the hair to a swim cap. My hair's curly anyway, so that's not going to be too far removed from my real hairstyle. I will have to cut some openings for my ears, though. Hey, in time, I'm sure I'll have enough for two swimcaps full of hair - I could dye one red and try out for "Annie" on the stage!

Anyway, here's what I've collected over four days. Remember, if you're squeamish, look away. Well, maybe you should just look away anyway.






I'm so sorry. I almost didn't publish that, then I thought, "Oh, shit, why not. Andy Warhol got famous with less."

But now onto something a lot nicer. Remember a couple of weeks ago when one pic of Picture Sunday was a collection of all my windups? And remember how one of my windups was a pontificating Mr Peabody? And remember how I said I was really really looking for a windup Sherman to go with Mr P, but they were selling in sets on e-Bay for around $90? Well, look what finally came up - a single S windup. For the princely sum of $10. I'm in heaven:




I could just kvell. The first thing I did when I got him home was take him and Mr P, wind them both up, and have them walk towards each other, thus recreating the heartwarming scene from the first episode of "P's Improbable History" where P's first awarded custody of S. And isn't the placement of S's hands and fingers just exquisite?

And finally. You asked for it, you got it. I found a set of recipe cards, also on e-Bay, that are a complete continuation of the set I've been working on lo these many weeks! I received them on Thursday, and I can't wait to get started on them!

Instead of ending with the "cover card," like I did last week, this time I'm going to begin with it. "Series 9 With Helpful Guides," it is so lovingly titled. And though the picture of the four roast Cornish Hens is on the front (I call them John, Paul, George, and Ringo), I can't tell you much about the recipe because the back of the card is just measurement equivalents. Well, crapola.






But I can tell you they're all laid out there on some lettuce, with orange sections, and we've got a bitchin' Jello salad on the side, and for some completely inexplicable reason, many many slices of cheese. A great deal of cheese.

And off we go on fabulous Series 9.

Come back and visit; yes, there will be an acro tomorrow. So never fear. Or fear. Do whatever makes you comfortable.

Hmmm. Is that cheese?

What a Girl Wants

It's around The First of August (not to be confused with August 1st), and I was looking at my movie list. I have 107 movies on it. Last year at this time I had 155. Something tells me I won't be surpassing my 2003 movie total.

There was a time when this would have bothered me. Nay, I say unto you, it would have depressed me. Because I passed my last year's goal of 200 movies watched, and now I don't have much hope at all of even meeting 200 movies, much less the 209 I ended up with at the end of 2003.

When I look at this year's movie list, though it's shorter, I notice a lot less 1- and 2-star movies on there. And that's why I have less than last year. See, last year, I watched every movie coming and going, whether I really wanted to or not. I watched a lot of cable movies (and as I think I've intimated before, my only "movie channels" are pretty damn sucky). I watched stuff that halfway through I was thinking, "Man, this movie reeks. But I can't let it go, it'll be a count on my movie list." None of that tat this year.

In short, I'm watching what I want.

I had my three-month (although as of today I'm 4-months post-op) checkup with my surgeon Tuesday. It went well. There was a four pound discrepancy in what they had me losing and in what I had me losing, but we figured two pounds of that out, and the other two, well, difference in scales, I guess. But Dr Davies was pleased - he even smiled - and yes, for any of those of you who actually care, I did ask him about my massive throwing up spells, and got an answer and suggestion. After saying goodbye to him, and I mean really goodbye, as he's retiring in October and I'm done with surgeons' appointments until February, I grabbed my mother (who normally tags along on these trips with me) and walked back out into the hot summer day. And decided to do a little shopping.

I'm kinda broke at the moment, I think I may have mentioned that once or twice or a hundred times. Medical bills + unexpected podmobile bills + Clarinetfest 2004 = A Broke Bet. But I felt good that I got the Davies Seal of Approval, and I wanted to celebrate. Yep, it's what I wanted to do.

First of all, in a stunning twist of fate, I bought some bass clarinet reeds (I'm doing some experimental honking). Then I found a nice sale rack and bought some summer clothes. (Not at the bass clarinet reed store, at a clothing store.) For these I paid cash, out of my "walking around money" I keep out of my paycheck. This means I can only do $26 worth of walking around in the next couple of weeks.

Then I decided to treat myself to something I've been wanting a long time. The DVD edition of "Freaks and Geeks," all episodes, commentary, added scenes. No, it's not the fancy special one, the one that looks like a yearbook, but it's still got all the episodes, and, unlike my video collection of the series, isn't snowy and old-looking and full of commercials. It was 70 bucks. I wrote a check. And was happy.

Until Tuesday night. When I was lectured - once again - about my horribly massive and terminal negativity. And my feelings got hurt.

And yesterday I went into work - I'm temporary boss this week because Real Boss is on vacation - and inexplicably (and even now I still don't know the reason) was given both the fisheye and the icy shoulder from both the other girls in the office. Not a word did they speak to me, except for one of them taking a piece of paper with some directions to a property out in the country, about 15 miles out, shoving it in my face and saying, "This needs to be looked at right now. It can't wait."

OK, I thought, that's fine. I took my lunch at 12:30, went home, from 1:00 to 2:00 watched "Law & Order," and at 2:00 walked out to my car to head to the boonies. I took my time. I drove the country roads, back and forth, I took the long way. I sauntered back into the office about 3:15. And you know what? The best part of that is that they hadn't put the disk into the digital camera, so I couldn't even take pictures - I get to do it all over again today! And I won't be taking the time-saving route, either.

I have to do enough in a day's time that I don't want to do. I have to take medicine and worry if every morsel I eat's going to make me sick, and force protein drinks into my body, and drink up until this time and wait an hour and eat and wait an hour and then start drinking again. I have to exercise - even though I like to swim, I have to force myself to do it on days when the water's too cold, the air's too cold, or I'm just too tired to do it. I have to endure criticism I don't feel like I deserve and work in a job where I'm nothing more than the dogsbody people shove pieces of paper at.

I like doing Picture Sunday. It makes me happy right now. It might not in the future, but I like doing it right now a lot. No one seems to get that excited about it, and that's fine. I'm going to keep doing it, because I enjoy it. I want to.

I'm not liking Acro so much anymore. Hardly anyone wants to judge, hardly anyone wants to play. The set-up is tiring to write, the topics are tiring to come up with. Sometimes I feel like it's the only reason people even visit Betland anymore, and sometimes I feel it's the big attraction people used to flock here to ride, but now its time has passed. Will I get rid of it? I don't know. But I might; if I want to.

And I'm sorry about that. I am. But goddammit, there are certain things I wanna do. Or don't wanna do. And if they make me happy, I'm going to do them, or not, as the case may be. And if it pisses you off, you can just get in the long line of people who don't think I'm doing things to suit them. If you stand there long enough, you just may be able tell me off, too.

That is, if you want to, of course.

Acrowinners!

Well, the entries seem to have all been entered, the dinner is done, the "Law & Order" is watched, the nap is taken - I guess that means it's time to announce a few acrowinners.

The topic this week was "What I Did On My Summer Vacation." The letters were S E E X I. Which, if rearranged, spells "Sexie," which makes me think of Eddie Izzard. But let's be honest here, I don't really need something to make me think of Eddie, he's always hanging around in my head.

The entries:

*Summarily executed every xenophobic Iraqi.
*Saw eerily exotic Xhosas intoxicated.
*Studied early ecdysiast-xylophonist interactions.
*Sexily emitted excretions xtra intensively.
*Saw Elvis eat xylophone innards.
*Slept egresiously, experienced Xanadu inside.
*Surgically enhanced each XL implant.
*Saw Englishmen: Edmund, Xavier, Ian.
*Sex, ecstacy, erotica, xylophones? Impossible.
*Saw Erika Eleniak's x-rated images.
*Studied European economics, xenophonia, Icees.
*Sold everything except XII items.
*Saw extreme, endless “Xanadeu” imitation.
*Shaved ears. Ejaculated. Xena’s intimidating.
*Sucked eggs: endured xylophone instructions.

Well. Looks like yall had some vastly different vacations, none of which involved playing the clarinet and picking up Percy Brown's nametag. But on to the announcements.

This week's Honrable Mention goes to Venice with "Saw Englishmen: Edmund, Xavier, Ian." I don't know about you, but sounds like a great getaway to me!

The runner-up this week, for two reasons, is Mike, with his "Saw Erika Eleniak's X-rated Images." First of all, this is funny and made me laugh, and secondly, I happen to know that this is indeed how Mike spent his summer vacation. And most of the Spring.

But this week's winner, and recipient of a vacation descriptive of his acro, is DeepFatFriar with his "Studied early ecdysiast - xylophonist interactions." So grab your binoculars and get ready, Friar!

Thanks to everyone who played!

Acrochallenge!

Hello to all, everywhere, it's Monday and that means time again for another it's-not-so-much-the-heat-but-the-humidity-(although-the-heat's-a-right-bastard-too) round of Acromania!

I shall be judging this week, owing to the fact that no one else seems to want to. That means I get to pick the topic. And the topic this week is: What I Did On My Summer Vacation. And now, I know you people. I'm not expecting, swimming, sunning, and touring amusement parks.

The rules are the same, of course. Everyone gets three entries to come up with the best acronym they can, fitting the topic, that will correspond to the letters below, randomly drawn from the acrobasket. I shall be judging the entries tomorrow night, 9pmish est, and then I shall make the grand announcement, the one that used to make people cry and slash their wrists in the streets, but now just leaves people going "ehh."

So the topic is "What I Did On My Summer Vacation." The letters are:

S E E X I

Egads. Good luck, mouseketeers.

(Caption the) Picture Sunday

Hello, my friends.

I'm back from a whole weekend in B'burg. It was fun. Almost no clarinetting on my part - of course, when I picked up Mr M's horn to do a few of my tonguing exercises, a fight broke out. I sometimes think dumping the instrument for good might be in everyone's best interest. But other than that, dinner with Mr M's friend Mr F on Friday, schlepping around R-town looking in music stores Saturday, movies, and a game of Scrabble that I could have won, except I drew the friggin' Z in my last draw and couldn't find a place to use it. Oh well. Every time I drew from the bag, I was overcome with the need to make an acro out of the letters, anyway.

I came up with a brilliant idea on Saturday afternoon. It may be my key to fame and fortune.

On Friday night, I caught the last half or so of a "48 Hours" program about a woman who was making a film called "Searching for Angela Shelton." See, Angela Shelton was her name, and she was going all over the country finding other women with the same name. In doing so, she found out all kinds of similarities she had to the other Angelas. Then the first Angela goes into a grand mal meltdown as she confronts the fact that she was abused (the dirty kind) by her father. Which was a shame indeed, but she needed to be having a grand mal meltdown over the fact that she stole her whole fucking idea for a film project from British comedian Dave Gorman!

But that's neither here nor there, I guess.

Anyway, as Mr M and I were speeding down the road to R-Town yesterday, I came up with a brilliant idea. I'm going to make my own documentary film project. Called "Searching for Percy Brown." It shall be me trying my best to find the man who dropped his nametag at Clarinetfest 2004. Then, after I think I've found The Man, it will be Mr M and me, in the podmobile, with a camera mounted on the dashboard. Then we'll get a good hour and a half or so of footage of the two of us, winding our way around the nation's highways and bi-ways, fighting, laughing, philosophising, and possibly me playing the kazoo (it's a long story).

Then, we'll finally make it to Percy Brown's house, boldly knock upon his door, and watch him accept his nametag with a look of utter surprise and confusion. "But I didn't really need it back - it was the last day, I didn't even think I needed to pick it up when I dropped it," he'll politely say, and then, after not being invited in for a cup of coffee and Percy's undying gratitude, we'll drive back home in the podmobile, me all dejected, and Mr M giving me a lecture as to why I never should have done this in the first place.

And......cut.

This weekend one thing I did not do was bring my camera along with me. Therefore, I have no pictures to show you for Picture Sunday. However, I've had a picture I've been wanting to show you for some time, so let's use it and play one more round of "Caption the Picture." It was so fun reading your entries last week, we'll try it one more time. I call this picture "The Boys," but I need your captions:




There you go; now I know yall can come with something good for this.

Now for the recipe du jour. And let me tell you something, folks. Tonight's picture is the last picture I have from my wonderful little set of Archie McPhee freebie cards. I was crushed; we were never to see heady days the like of these again. Until I went searching on e-Bay for some more. I've found another little set of them! They're made the same way, and are even published by the same company. So hopefully we'll get an extension on the recipe du jour.

But tonight, we shall end this set of cards not with a bang, but with a whimper. This is what is known in the food biz, circa 1973, anyway, as a "tossed salad." Although I have to tell you, if they tossed this salad, I'll eat the red and white checked tablecloth, because all this is is lettuce and croutons. And these croutons have been laid upon the lettuce.

No serving suggestion on the back, just a seriously bland salad that I suppose we're going to have to eat mayonnaise on, with a boiled egg and some go-to-hell salt and pepper shakers. What a way to end it all for my little recipe cards. Bon apetit!