“NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) – In the wake of his comments about the earthquake in Haiti, televangelist Pat Robertson has become a ‘public relations nightmare’ and a ‘gynormous embarrassment to me, personally,’ God said today.”

Borowitz Report

And an astounding satellite photo courtesy of The New York Times

I heard the bicycle chimes that signaled I had a text message.  It was Ava.

“Where are we going to lunch tomorrow?”

“Rome,” I replied.

“Oh my goodness! That’s where I wanted to go!!!”

“We’ll picnic at Trevi Fountain so we can watch the pretty Italian men drive by in their Ferraris.”  Doesn’t that sound lovely?

“!!!!!,” she texted back.

I immediately went to Orbitz. “Our plane leaves at 11:55.  I booked 3 first class tickets with British Air.  They’re supposed to be the nicest.”  And really, if you’re going to have this fantasy, shouldn’t you go for the best?

“We’re set to stop in Dallas and London before we get to Rome,” I continued.

“I hope you charged them to Ed.  He’d want us to be happy in this small way,” Ava told me.

“Oh no,” I answered, “I sent the bill to the dude that handles My Honey’s trust fund.”  I have a very rich fantasy life.

Later I talked to Isabella and told her the plan.  Understandably, she was excited.

“Don’t pack anything.  We’ll buy what we need when we get there,” I told her.

Now, the only problems I can foresee are:

1. My passport is expired and Isabella doesn’t have one.  She said we really should get on that and I concur.

2. The tickets are 17,076 a piece – but it’s round trip so that sounds worth it, right? 

I think we should hold a bake sale or have a telethon or something.  I’m setting up a Paypal link.  Watch for it – consider it a charity tax deduction.

I bought myself a new calendar for my desk.  This time, it’s interesting quotes and trivia about famous authors and artists, so you can come to expect me to share from time to time.

With the advent of the new Sherlock Holmes movie out right now (which I saw by the way and really enjoyed – just don’t expect it to be very reminiscent of Doyle’s Holmes), I bring you this quote.

“If in one hundred years I am known only as the man who invented Sherlock Holmes, then I will have considered my life a failure.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Well, yikes.  This is quite disappointing isn’t it? 

All in all, it’s a pretty good legacy, if you ask me.

Blink…blink…blink goes my cursor.  And then my head is filled with the stupid lyrics of The Trolley Song by Judy Garland from Meet Me in St. Louis.  “Clang clang clang went the trolley, ding ding ding went the bell”.  Then I’m off and running into Lala land with no chance of getting any work done.  And, to make matters worse, that stupid song will be stuck in my head for God only knows how long (the God of annoying songs – like the whistling theme from Andy Griffith.  That one’s like a curse.)

Before I went off on that tangent, I was staring at the blinking curser.  Or is it Curser as in: The woman was a curser who could swear blue like a sailor”.  Sometimes, when the muse is punishing me, or my brain won’t quiet enough to allow me to write, that stupid blinking line makes me want to curse. 

It’s like it’s taunting me.  “Oh, hello there intrepid writer.  Come, sit in front of me, the Tormentor, and feel the words slip from your mind all the while my stagnant blinking will beckon the letters that won’t come. Hahahahahaha. Bask in my glorious oppression.”  Then it twists its invisible Snidley Whiplash mustache.

 I hate the cursor.

My Honey and I decided to take the kids for a hike today.  I don’t know what we were thinking, except that I made darn sure they didn’t have any breadcrumbs in their pockets when we left the house.  Basically, we were probably just looking for an opportunity to yell at our kids outside.

It was a really beautiful Southwestern day.  It was somewhere in the mid 60s with bright, blue skies with an occasional fluffy cloud.  When we first got there, we purchased tram tickets to ride up to the top of the canyon but decided to do some walking first.  I casually mentioned that once when I was a kid, a long, long time ago, I had vomited on the tram.  I must have had an upset stomach at the time.  I really don’t remember the incident well, except that it was blueberry pancakes and I was around 8 years old.

We had a nice walk down the canyon.  The creek was running so there were small waterfalls and the kids enjoyed the nature.  We met up with the tram when we made our way back to the pavement and rode all the way to the top.  The kids played with binoculars and we saw cool rock formations, birds and even a white tailed deer. We met and spoke with interesting people and even experienced other cultures.  Mostly it was a nice day.

Later this evening, I hear them playing “Tram” in the hall.  Sassy is saying, “Stop 1, that’s a Mesquite or Ironwood tree” and “Stop 2, that’s a Palo Verde tree” in an official sounding voice.  Then I hear the bandit, “Driver, stop! I have to throw up!”

This is what they got from the whole experience.  When their mother was 8, she puked on the tram.  Deep sigh.

I have a bit of advice for you.  Do not, under any circumstance, ever, roll your arm up in the car window.  Really folks, this is serious stuff.  I know what you’re saying right now.  “What intelligent person would do such a thing?”  I am a relatively intelligent person.  I hope that shows through in by blog posts, but as I have started rereading them lately, I fear that, at the worst, I might actually be coming across as a bit of a lunatic.  Best case, I’d like to think that at least I come across as the person in charge of the asylum, but probably not. 

Anyway, I was throwing bits of stick out of my car window (don’t ask) and I started the electronic mechanism before my arm was completely back inside.  As the window started to crush my arm, I panicked and instead of turning the thing in reverse, I kept rolling it up.  I finally had the foresight to stop altogether and finally released my arm.  It left a mark.  My Honey couldn’t resist laughing at me.  He sat there in the driver’s seat silently shaking with laughter.  I can’t be mad.  I’m sure I would have done the very same thing.  I even missed a phone call from Isabella while I was being eaten alive by my Dodge.  It appears as though I won’t lose the limb, but I still have a blue line across my forearm.  This would never have happened with the old fashion crank windows.

The Bandit cut his own hair again.  Deep sigh.  He is on scissors restriction.  I have confiscated and hidden all the scissors in the house.  At least I’ll know where they are for a change.  This brings to mind a story about my brother and his boy.  Several years ago, my nephew was playing with plastic swords in the house and in  rather energetic dragon slaying move, he poked a hole in the back of the leather couch.  My brother was understandably furious and he put my nephew on couch restriction.  He was not allowed to sit on any of the furniture for a week or more, I don’t remember how long exactly.  Anyway, Christmas rolled up and my mother asked my nephew what he wanted.  “I’d like a couch of my very own so I could sit down,” he told her. 

When did women start wearing  hoop earrings big enough to jump poodles through?  Seriously, I saw a girl today with hoops in her ears that had to have  a diameter of 8 inches.  She could barely even turn her head.  It’s not only odd, but stupid.  When I’m Emperor I won’t allow that.  And everyone will have to pull up their pants because I’m entirely sick of seeing everyone’s underwear. 

My Honey just whistled out the door for Roscoe.  The whistle he uses to call for him is the theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.  He says you can decide which one he is.  I assure you it changes constantly.

My bother and sister-in-law got 2 eight week old rotweiller puppies.  My kids are over-the-moon in love with them.  All day long they pestered us to go over there so they could play with them.  The dogs are absolutely precious, of course.  I am only allowed to touch and pet them for small amounts of time, otherwise I’ll try to smuggle them out of the house.  The kids like to climb in the giant puppy crate and snuggle with the pups.  They asked if we could get one, too.  I’m sure they meant “puppy”, but I’m hoping they meant “cage”.  If so, the answer is totally YES.

So anyway, these are my thoughts.  We’ll let this post stand in for evidence when they hold my trial to have me committed.  I’m sure I’ll be fine.

“You need to talk to the boy.”

That’s what I heard when I walked into the house from work.  When the heck did I become Ward Cleaver?

“I’ve had it up to here with him.  Seriously.  You better go talk with him.”

Deep sigh.  “What did he do?” I ask.  The answer could be so many things.  That boy is in any number of trouble pretty much all the time.

My Honey went to the grocery store today.  Apparently when The Bandit came home from school he devoured 3 strawberry yogurts, 1/2 can of Pringles, 2 juice boxes and some string cheese.  All of this in a matter of 45 minutes.  And he never disposes of the evidence.  He just leaves it scattered about like a grizzly bear in a camp ground. 

I suggested that we hang the refrigerator from a tree like you would if there were actually bears about.  Or we could chain the refrigerator closed.  This child is constantly eating – except when there is an actual meal on the table.  That he looks at, turns up his nose, and says, “Nnnnnnneeeeevvvvaaaaaah!”

I don’t know what we’re going to do when this child hits puberty and needs to eat constantly like a shark. 

Anyway, to placate his father, I talked to the boy.  For all the good it was worth.  My child doesn’t seem to learn life lessons in 1/2 hour like the Beaver did.  How was that for truth in advertising?

Writer’s Block: When you imaginary friends won’t talk to you.

That doesn’t exactly define my problem.  It’s just that right now, I’m not really liking what they have to say.  Or, maybe it’s that they’re speaking a foreign language and it’s too hard to try to figure out what they’re saying.  It’s hard to concentrate when there are so many good distractions.  And what I’m working on now is very hard.

One of my favorite distractions texted me this evening so I spent quite a bit of time screwing around with him.  I miss him terribly and I’m sorry that he’s so far away.  He’s one of the few people who truly appreciates my snarky side.  In fact, that may be his favorite thing about me.  We’ve made efforts lately to be in touch more.  There’s really no excuse anymore.  Technology has made it so easy to goof around from far away. 

I needed to know when barbed wire came into existance so I spent a lot of time the other day researching that.  We can add that to the list that includes the history of  muffins and sugar cubes if the Sister’s ever get on a tag team version of Jeopardy.  You all better watch out.  The three of us could take it all.

That’s one of the challenges about writing historical fiction.  You constantly find yourself trying to decide if a word is too modern, if food is accurate, a saying too recent.  I know that Isabella wrote a brilliant blog about this very topic.  It’s so easy to get sent off on a tangent of research.  It’s the very same principle as a dictionary.  Every time I haul out my ginormous dictionary to look something up, I spend twenty minutes in there.  “Ooooh what’s that word mean?  And that one?  What’s that illustration?  There’s a map! I can never resist a map.”  The minute I get onto Wikipedia I’m lost for at least an hour.

It’s not hard to lose your way when you really don’t want to get back.  Those people have been  in the parlor fighting for at least a week and quite frankly I’m sick of it.

The other day I was driving down the street and I passed a smoking jogger.  Not a jogger that was smoldering, but rather a person, jogging, wearing running clothes and what appeared to be very expensive running shoes who was actively smoking a cigarette.  I don’t even know what to say to that, but I do see the irony.  I don’t know whether to applaud that person or condemn them for the inability to just say “Bleep it” and hitchhike home.

Speaking of irony.  I was driving around town yesterday in an older neighborhood I’d never been in before.  When I say “older” that is not meant to imply that it was one of the historical neighborhoods by any means.  In this neighborhood, there was a trailer park named Noblesse Oblige.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “Noblesse oblige” is generally used to imply that with wealth, power and prestige come responsibilities.  In a trailer park.  Although with a name like that I’m sure they would rather be called A Manufactured Home Neighborhood, but don’t be mistaken.  It was a trailer park.  As they say, you can polish a turd all you want, but in the end all you have is a shiny turd.

The Bandit has a new “thing”.  It is a weird behavior that started out very amusing, then spiraled into extremely annoying, and is now emerging on the other side as funny again.  His father and I have started to imitate it to each other and the other day I even tried it out at work.  Anytime you ask him to do anything, absolutely anything, his response is to say, “Never!”  It’s not the word that’s so funny, it’s the way he says it.  “Nnnnnev-AAAAAAAAH” with all the accent on the second syllable.  Sometimes there is a hand gesture that is very reminiscent of the court room scene in And Justice for All with Al Pacino.  The kid is odd.

Yesterday I was trying to get him dressed.  It was taking forever and I was sweating and exhausted by the end of it.  But I was also laughing.  I managed to get him into his Transformer underwear but the pants were another thing entirely.  At one point he put up his dukes, and said (God strike me down if I’m lying – the god that created action movies) he said, “You wanna piece of me?”  All thirty-five pounds of him terrifies me.

I remember as a child my mother owned a pair of scissors that we were not allowed to touch under penalty of death.  They were her sewing scissors and she didn’t want them tainted by paper.  I always thought it was annoying, but now that I’m a mom, too, I finally get it.  I can’t find scissors in this house to save my life.   If, say a giant, mutant squid were to come out of the bathroom drain, wrap its slimy tentacles around my arm and start to pull me into the drain with it, I’d have to go because there would be no scissors to free myself.  I guess we’d have bigger problems if that was to actually happen, but you understand my use of the metaphor, don’t you?

Pre-children, there were several pairs in the kitchen: the good Henkels ones and the utility ones for cutting flower stems, etc.  There was another pair in the wrapping paper box.  A set was in each desk and another in a drawer by the front door.  There was a small pair in my needle work box, some in the bathroom, and I seem to recall another pair in the drawer next to my bed.  Anytime I needed scissors, there they were.  Now there are no scissors.  As sort of a joke, Santa put some in My Honey’s Christmas stocking.  They barely emerged from the stocking when they vanished into thin air.  There is a dimension somewhere out there in space where all the scissors are floating around.  They have good company with the missing socks, the stuff you buy at the grocery store that never makes it in the bags home with you, and the postage stamps that you know you had last week.

I’ve also decided that besides being a Ninja when I grow up, I’m also going to be a curmudgeon.  I like the way it sounds.  Try it for yourself.  Say it outloud.  Let it roll around on your tongue.  Besides, it’s a way of life I think I could really  be enthusiastic about.  Some definitions say the it is usually an old man, but I think I can trail blaze the way for women.  I plan to bust through the glass ceiling where Nag leaves off and fill the void that has been sorely lacking in female curmudgeonness.  Who’s with me?