I think I’ve discussed this before, but I need a genie to grant me magic powers.

Before I mentioned that I wanted to have the ability to dish out instant karma. I’d like to change that. Instead, I want the power of telekinesis.

I do not need bent forks. They are stupid. What I need is the remote.

You know how every time you get settled on the couch with a nice cup of tea and the blanket is just settled over your lap and the kitty has settled in nicely next to you – that’s when you see the TV remote across the room.

Who the hell left the remote across the room? you wonder. What kind of idiots do I live with? you ponder.  Of course it was you. If anyone else was awake you could convince them to get you the remote, but the rest of the family is all asleep. The cat is useless. If you had the power of telekinesis you could just float that stupid remote right over to you.

I found a website that is supposed to teach you how. It seems like a lot of work.

It would totally be worth giving up the power to dish out instant karma though.

We were watching the movie John Carter. The dogs were both asleep on the couch. Sassy and I were tucked under fuzzy throw blankets and we were listening to the freezing cold rain falling outside. The Bandit is in the bathtub singing along with the radio, loudly. It took some finagling to get him into the bath. He acts like the dirt is the glue that’s holding him together and if he washes it off, he’ll loose a limb or something. Oddly, when we finally get him in the tub, it’s an even bigger fight getting him out.

Back to the movie. It’s a bad movie, but that hasn’t deterred me in the past. Since I’m rarely only doing one thing at a time, I watch TV with only a third of my brain anyway. The title character of the movie can leap like crazy. Sassy wanted to know why that was so I tried to explain about gravity and how it’s different on other planets and how that would could make you super strong or super weak depending.

She blinked at me.

So I tried to use the example of Superman and how he was a regular man on his planet but when he came to Earth he got special powers – all because of gravity. I considered myself pretty nifty, turning a bad movie into a science lesson. One point for me. I never expect to win parent of the year but I do like to keep track of my points for when Child Protective Services shows up. Eventually they will when they find out I let them stay up and watch awful movies and make them clean their rooms and feed the dogs.

“Superman couldn’t fly on his planet?”

“Nope,” I told her.

“What planet was he from?” she asked.

“Krypton.”

“And you’re telling me he couldn’t fly or run as fast as a train before he got here?”

“Nuh-uh.”

She put her hand on her hip which isn’t easy when you’re sitting on the couch. “Only when he came to Earth? And gravity did all that?” Her look was of absolute skepticism.

“Yes.”

“Mmmm kay.”

“Look,” I told her, “I don’t make this shit up.”

So much for my points. I think this round can safely be considered a draw.

This will be the last Favorite Things of 2012. It’s been an interesting year. Not especially fabulous, not truly awful – just sort of here. 2013 is going to start off with a bang. Amylynn will have two books up on Amazon in the first quarter. Maybe even three. We’ll see how organized we are right off the bat. Still, it’s going to be a banner 2013. Ready. Set. Go.  Alright, hold your horses. We’ve got a couple of days left in 2012 to loaf about. Here’s some funny stuff to round out your year.

1. Fabulous quote. There are some women out there who routinely give birth without the assistance of drugs. We say good for you. We’re not of that ilk. If there is reincarnation, we can guarantee you we were not those women who squatted in a field, pushed out a child then went right back to tilling. No possible way. Apparently neither is Megan Fox. Behold the best quote from a movie starlet ever. “I thought I was going to be tough and the nurses would be like, ‘She’s a warrior princess’…[but] as soon as I got out of the car, I was already crying…[and] asking the security guard for an epidural.” Really, pregnancy and child birth are the great equalizer. All you pregnant women out there – just take the drugs. We’re not animals.

2. Beer theft. Two guys got arrested for over one hundred thefts of beer which they ripped off from convenience stores, took back to their house and sold off piecemeal at a discount. Even with the discount price the overhead was next to nil so we imagine they made a nice profit. Of course, you can imagine that the mug shots of these two jackasses looked exactly like you’d expect. Do you suppose they set up a bar in the living room? Do you think they carded people? 

3. Crossing guard cat. The state of Washington has a crossing guard cat. Really. There is a kitty named Sable who adopted a family who lived near a middle school. The kitty started showing up at the crosswalk everyday in the morning and afternoon so supervise the kids crossing the street. Everyday. Rain or shine. They even got him a little orange safety vest. We love this. Who doesn’t like a kitty in a vest?

4. Baby Bigfoot. Ava lost like an hour of her life watching a show profiling people searching for Bigfoot. These people are very serious. Very, very serious. Ava wanted to know why we couldn’t have that show. Amylynn reminded her that we don’t like the outdoors and that the woods is most definitely outside. In fact, it doesn’t get anymore outside than the woods and that is where Bigfoot supposedly lives. Ava did point out that if there is a Bigfoot then there must be baby Bigfoots too. If there are baby Bigfoots then we’re definitely going to need us one of those. Can’t you just see the news footage of Ava and Amylynn running out of the woods carrying a wee Bigfoot that we tempted away with fruit and berries and maybe a cupcake and a giant momma Bigfoot chasing along behind? It could happen.

5. Local News. Actually, we hate local news. Admittedly there are moments of absurdity that make it worth it. Besides, we do love to heckle.  The local news is even more ridiculous than the Picayune newspaper. Everyone once in a while you should tune in just so that you can spend a half hour in outrage. It’s good for your digestion.

You may remember that Ava and I are huge fans of the Walking Dead. Honestly, we’re beginning to wonder at the series of crushes we seem to be developing with white trash characters on television. We would like to make it VERY CLEAR that we wouldn’t talk to any of these men in real life unless it would be to correct their grammar and suggest a series of personal hygiene treatments. But while they are kicking ass or making smart ass comments we feel a little swoon-ey.

One of my writer friends also has a crush on Daryl Dixon of The Walking Dead. Actually, as it turns out, a lot of our writer girl friends are crushing on Daryl. One of them even suggested that the episode where his bad-ass self was crooning to a baby even while his ever present crossbow was strapped to his back caused a million pairs of ovaries to contract in lust. I think she’s absolutely right.

Anyway, these friends forwarded the following spoof – The Walking Dead Christmas Special.

Seriously, this is spot on.

So Jojo Kitty is a bit of a dope. I’m certain he can’t help it – he is after all a very pretty young man and every pretty young man I’ve ever known has been a dope.

Over Christmas he thought he’d have a bit of an adventure. I still have no idea how he got out of the house. I suspect the Bandit had something to do with it, although when asked he claimed to have no idea what I was ranting about. That boy wouldn’t notice a herd of stampeding elephants bursting through the door. I worry about that kid.

Anyway, no one noticed that Jojo was outside. In fact it wasn’t until I realized the idiot dog and his stupider friend had been barking for ten minutes that I put two and two together and got a missing cat. The only time Winnie the Wondermut barks is when she’s trying to get the cats to play with her. I have no idea when she’s going to learn that the old cat, Geddy, isn’t going to play with her. Ever. I guess she’ll learn it when he actually kills her. Still, her endearing attempts are pretty funny, but not as funny as the look on the cat.

I got a flashlight and went out into the backyard. I found him by the prancing Labrador – filthy and pitiful under the picnic table. The dogs had roughed him up pretty good. I’d warned him that the living room was his but that the backyard was the domain of the dogs and they can get pretty rambunctious. He was unharmed, just muddy and annoyed. Of course, he was more annoyed when he got a bath in the sink. Actually he did pretty well considering that I held him by the nape and My Honey squirted him with the hose attachment. I think the part he hated the most was being forced to cuddle with me on the couch for half and hour swaddled in towels.

That’s life.

Today, Ava and Jojo and I all had to go back to work. We don’t know what his problem was, but he was all kinds of testy and difficult. He yelled at me the entire time I was in Ava’s office discussing appointments for the day. Literally yelled at me. I kept inviting him over but he refused to come. Instead, he sat in the doorway to my office across the hall from Ava’s and meowed and squeaked in the most plaintive way. When that didn’t get him what he wanted, he attacked the office plants and then sat in the bookshelf outside her office and stared at us in the most unsettling fashion. Finally we decided that all he really wanted was for me to come back to my office so he could go to sleep. I have no idea why he found it absolutely necessary for me to sit next to him while he did it, but when I sat down, it finally shut him up.

The problem was, I had back-to-back appointments so I was out of my office again for about two hours. During that time, I heard that he roamed around acting fretful and whiny. He wandered over to Ava’s office where he stuck his face in a lit candle not once but twice. Ava moved it away from him the first time but he was compelled to climb around on her desk, over her computer monitor and past the phone just so he could stick his face in there again.

He has two curly eyebrows now, singed for our amusement. Curiosity did not kill that cat but it leaves the smell of burning hair and a glob of mud in the sink.

See. He’s a dope. A gorgeous, moronic dope.

Merry Christmas to everyone! We had a really late start this morning as far as Christmas is concerned. My kids didn’t get up until 7:40 which is pretty miraculous. I can
remember several years where I was sending the short people back to bed as early as 3:30 in the morning. The policy has always been that the sun must actually be up before Christmas can begin. I think that’s totally reasonable.

It was a lovely day. The kids got a ton of stuff and it was very loud at our house today. I got a new laptop which just about made me pee myself. My old laptop was embarrassing. It was missing three letters so I had another wireless keyboard I would set on top of the laptop to type. That is not really a set up you want to take to the Starbucks with the rest of the writers and their sleek machines. I was like the low rent writer with, what my brother-in-law would call, a Jethro laptop.

Even though it was a lovely day, I am ending it on a sad note. I worked really hard this whole week. Sassy kept asking roundabout questions I did my best to evade, but she wasn’t having any of it.

Finally she asked me point blank, with no easing into it, whether or not I was Santa Claus.

Crap.

I told her if she didn’t believe in Santa she didn’t get the presents, but that didn’t sway her. So then I asked if she was sure she wanted to know. She told me yes and I found that I could no longer lie. She took it very well. She had already come to the undeniable conclusion so that softened the blow. She didn’t piece together the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy yet, but she will when they come around, I’m certain. It’s only a matter of time.

I took the news way harder than she did.

I wonder if I can get the boy all the way to college before he figures it out.