I have always found Eastern Philosophy to be brilliant.  Would you like proof?

This was in my fortune cookie last evening: You deserve special treatment this month.  Enjoy dessert.

Pretty damn insightful if you ask me.

Also, you know how you always think of the perfect thing to say after it’s too late.  I hate that.  I am extraordinarily witty 10 minutes later.  This morning the universe threw me a bone and let me have one.

When I take Sassy to school we always sneak in the back way because the front parking lot is a complete zoo.  There are a few other wise parents that park back there, too.  We have to drive through a residential neighborhood and park at the city park the school leases as the school yard.  I am always careful to go the speed limit through the housing development because there are always lots of joggers and dog walkers out in the mornings.

This morning, Sassy and I were jumping out of the truck in a hurry because we were running late of course.  An older gentleman passed us and said, “The speed limit is 25 through here.”

“I believe I was going 25,” I replied as I yanked Sassy’s door open.

He snorted in response but didn’t say anything.

“Perhaps it’s time to get yourself re-calibrated,” I told him as we dashed off.

I’ve repeated that little spark of timely brilliance all day.

I was looking at My Honey today.  He looked weird.  Like he was off kilter or askew in some way.  I didn’t say anything to him.  I didn’t want to freak him out.  Besides, I figured it out on the way home from dinner.

We had gone to buy Valentines for the kids to give their classmates and, when we were finished, it just seemed easier to go get dinner. 

I’ve decided there needs to be another section in the restaurant.  Do you remember in the old days the hostess would ask you, “Smoking or Non-smoking?”  Now I respectfully request the “No Children” section.  Specifically, I’m referring to my children: the one who hollers at us and refuses to eat his dinner and drops 75 pieces of silverware on the floor over the course of one meal, and the one that won’t stop singing Miss Mary Mack incessantly.

In the car on the way home, I decided I wanted to get a trailer to hitch to the back of my Durango.  Like a little U-Haul trailer.  I’ll heat it in the winter and air condition it in the summer.  I’ll put some of that squishy foam all around the floor and the sides and fill it full of toys and those damn kids can ride back there and fight and spill food and yell all they want and I won’t have to referee it.

And that’s when I figured out what was wrong with My Honey.  One arm has grown another couple of inches so he can reach behind his seat to smack the kids while he’s driving. 

He’s my hero.

I finished the pirate story.  That’s six out of eleven books down and 1,818 pages. 

This book was fine.  That’s the most enthusiastic review I can give you.  It didn’t wow me, but I don’t have anything negative to say about it.

I’ve reviewed the math.  I wanted to see what my book/day count was since I slowed down there a bit.  Now I have to read a book  every 9.2 days.  That is totally doable.

Next up, another offering by the author I enjoyed so much from the previous category.  I hope this one is as good.

If you’re thinking about coming over to my house, I’d skip it if I were you.  Not only is the place its usual mess, but you’re likely as not to be asphyxiated.

Intrigued? 

I came home from work today, walked through the front door and immediately gasped for breath.

It seems The Bandit absconded with Sassy’s fingernail polish remover solution and spilled 90% of it on the carpet in his room.  Of course, he didn’t tell anyone for fear that he’d get in trouble. 

We had to rush right back out of the house to a dinner engagement so there was no opportunity to air out the house.  When we returned tonight, my eyes watered when I opened the door.  We’ve turned all the fans on and opened a few windows. What we really need is to turn on the cooler, but it’s much too cold for that.

If you don’t hear from me soon by way of a blog post assuring you that we’ve all lived through this, I bequeath my unpublished manuscripts to the Sisters.  Ava will assume that this is a whole ploy to get someone else to work on my revision.

The fumes are making me hallucinate.  A while ago, I thought the Care Bears were here.  I can’t feel my feet.  Hey, did you hear that? Sounds like buzzz……….ack……wheeze………..

I hit a little bump in the road.  Or to use the metaphor I attributed to my early reading success, my freight train ran off the tracks.  The last book in the first catagory I was reading was just not my thing.  It is a “continuation” of a very famous story written several hundred years ago.  I am not a fan of a new author continuing a much loved book long after the original author is dead.  I didn’t enjoy either of the continuations of Gone With The Wind for the very same reason.  I say quit messing with perfection.  Along that vein, it should also be illegal for anyone to remake Hitchcock movies.  And they sure as hell shouldn’t be allowed to colorize black and white films.  Who are “they” anyway?  Horrible people, I say.  Self serving #*%^&#!……..

Wow, I just ranted away on one heck of a tangent there.  Sorry.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.

SO, because that book is quite long at 500+ pages (or rather much longer than any of the other entries), I set it aside so I could blow through the other books and then plow through that one at the end without worrying about missing my deadline.

I’ll finish this one in a day or so and give you an update.  It’s a pirate story and you know how I feel about pirates.

Yo ho ho.

Not so long ago I told you about my cooking challenges.  This is something that I’m not proud of necessarily, but I still don’t care enough about my shortcoming to do much about it.

Tonight, My Honey seemed especially beat.  I could tell, because when I got home from work, he was sound asleep and the children and the dog were running amok.  I took it upon myself to make dinner.  I expect some sort of reward, by the way.

I deviated ever so slightly from my normal routine of spaghetti.  I am very proud to tell you that I made ravioli.  I’m really branching out, huh?  Anyway, I was just tickled with myself.  I remembered to put the garlic bread in the oven.  I even remembered to take it out before I set off the smoke detectors.  I made a lovely garden salad and even chopped up onions to put in my husband’s because he loves them so.  I set the table – with ALL of the appropriate silverware.  I remembered to get everyone a beverage.  This is significant because usually the drinks are forgotten altogether. 

I sent my darling Bandit off to rouse his father while I dished up the food.  I was damned near gloating because I pulled the whole thing off without a hitch.

And then I realized I never made any sauce.  Damn it!

I really need to call my little brother and find out just what kind of a sister I was.  My Honey seems to think I was mean and bossy and mildly abusive.  This opinion has been formed because apparently that’s what all big sisters are like.  

“I already asked him about it,” My Honey told me.  “He showed me his membership card.”

“What membership card?” I asked.

“The Fraternal Order of Abused Younger Brothers membership card,” he informed me.  “He’s been a member since 1973.”

My Honey speaks from experience since he is a younger brother as well.  He says that’s why all little brothers are good in Cub Scouts.  It’s due to the fact that they are good at following directions because they’ve been bossed around all their lives. 

This subject came up at dinner today because I was chewing Sassy out for bossing  her brother around all the time.  I can’t believe I did that as spitefully as Sassy does, but then I remembered a few things. 

I do recall that I handcuffed my brother to the mailbox while my parents were out.  He cried out there for half an hour or so before I let him go. 

I also have a feeling that I flushed his head in the toilet at least once.

I remember dressing him up like a girl and sending him to school like that.

I made him take the wrap for snooping for Christmas presents that I was guilty for.

I drove his hot rod once and broke something.  I can’t remember what, but I did, and I’m sure I didn’t fess up to it.

I used to lick all the Oreos so he wouldn’t eat any.  And then, when my mom bought him his very own cookies, I stole them.

Good Lord.  I was a horrible sister.  Maybe that’s why I feel such a need to protect The Bandit from his sister’s machinations.

This also explains why Cub Scouts are always studying knots.  Perhaps they should have a badge for picking the locks on handcuffs.

Yeah.  I’m not calling my brother.  That’s a stone better left unturned.

From my daily calendar:

Michelangelo believed that the depiction of the naked body, particularly those of men, represented art’s highest achievement.  So deep was his devotion to the male nude that even his female nudes look like men.  His sculpture Night, for example,

features strange balloon-shaped breasts emerging from the muscular abdomen of a man.  That Michelangelo disliked using female models was perhaps due to ignorance – some scholars question whether he ever saw a naked woman.  It sounds outlandish, but it’s possible.  The artist never married, and his rare relationships with women were purely platonic.  Michelangelo frequently advocated abstinence, which he believed prolonged life.  Given that he died shortly before his 89 birthday, perhaps he was on to something.

That’s a pitiful way to go through life.  I disagree with the whole abstinence idea in general.  Obviously, considering what I write.

Besides, now this lady looks like every Playboy Bunny with implants.

So this is our dear fellow, Michelangelo.  Perhaps he’s depressed from that whole abstinence thing.  Or maybe it had to do with all that time in the Vatican.

As you all know, I try to post something here everyday.  Yesterday I missed posting anything.  It was one of those days where sleep finally catches up to me and I crashed out pretty early.

I have the day off from work today – for all you jealous people out there – so I promise I’ll post something longer today.  Stay tuned…..

Just wrapped up book 5.  That’s 1,506 pages since last Saturday if you’re counting and apparently some people are.  I now have to finish the remaining 6 books – one every 8.6 days. 

This book was pretty good.  Not as good as the one I read earlier this week that I loved so much.  I have had some requests for the title and author of that book: Tempt the Devil by Anna Campbell.  I recommend it for any reader that enjoys a really fantastic, character driven story.  I absolutely devoured that one.  I was delighted when I looked at the titles for the other category that I’d agreed to read and she has a title in that one as well.

Off to bed – I start my new job tomorrow.  The job I’ll have until I get that book deal anyway.