Sassy has been trying out grown-up phrases lately.  Not naughty phrases that will get her in trouble, just adult phrases that I am very amused by.  Sometimes she uses them all wrong and other times they are just absurd coming out of a seven year old’s mouth.

Last night she tried out a new one.

“I’m going to go the the bathroom and then I’ll help you with your homework,” I tell her.

“Touche,” she says.

“What?” I ask her. 

“Touche,” she repeats.

“You’re not using that right,” I tell her.  When she asks what it means, I explain that it’s used in an argument when your opponent scores a point.  She wants an example which, of course, I can’t manage to come up with on the spot.  I’m a writer and I do dialogue all the time, but apparently not this very moment.

“I’ll argue with Daddy over dinner and see if I can get one in there,” I offer.  What a good mommy I am to sacrifice myself this way, don’t you think?

In another example, the other day she sat down on the couch next to me while I typed away on my laptop. 

“Mom,” she began, her voice and expression very serious.  “I think I need to reevaluate my life.”

I really, really need to work on not breaking into hysterical peels of laughter when she says things like this to me.

“What could you possibly need to reevaluate?  You’re seven,” I remind her. 

“I don’t know,” she admits.

“Where did you hear that?” I ask, still giggling.  I have half a mind to tell her how disappointed her father and I are about the way she’s living her life and insist that we raised her better than that.

“I don’t know, but it’s not that funny.”  She’s insulted.

“Oh yes.  Yes, it is”, I say.  “Believe me, I know funny and that’s funny.”

“Then maybe you need to reevaluate what you think is funny,” she tells me in her haughtiest voice.

I grab her in a huge hug.  “Touche, baby, touche!”

Ava and I had a ridiculously horrible day today.  There was serious talk of layoffs and unemployment and poverty and depression and wretchedness.  The absolute worst thing of all was the not knowing.  I still don’t officially know anything.  Unofficially, we think everything is all right, but this is corporate America and in this economy, in the industry we work in, things can change in a heartbeat.

As much as we complain about the soul-sucking jobs, we still need them.  I am very happy I still have one with health insurance benefits.

I’ll tell you though, as we sat in our church – the Barnes & Noble/Starbucks Cafe – drinking ridiculously expensive and fattening drinks and sharing an asiago cheese pretzel and Godiva Chocolate cheese cake, I wanted desperately to be happy about the impending unemployment.

It’s not like there are any jobs to be had in this town. 

All I could think of is how wonderful it would be to write full time.  I could volunteer in my kids classrooms like they’re always asking me to do.  I could stay up as late as I want to write while my brain is working at its most creative.  And, ooooooh – all the reading I could do.

Sigh.  Nope.  Looks like I’m going to work tomorrow. Apparently, I’m never happy.

I’ve been struggling on a blog topic tonight.  Most of the time I just feel like I’m chatting with you all, telling you a silly story from my day, or complaining about something in my trademark self righteous way.  Having something to say has NEVER been my problem.

Except today.  I texted Kelli, “need blog topic, stat” but she must already be asleep.  My Honey had nothing for me.  I’m too lazy to get up and go through my notes on my desk to see if there is anything I can work with.  I can’t get up anyway.  My Assistant is sitting next to me on the couch and anyone who owns a cat knows you can’t disturb a cat when they’re sleeping.  I don’t know why exactly, but it’s just not done.  Ever.

Right now he’s draped over the cushions, his chin in the edge and both front arms hanging over the sides.  His fat belly

Here he is looking testy

 rises slowly with deep, sleepy breaths.  His tail flicks endlessly even in his sleep.  Every once in a while, he’ll lift his head up and move his ears like satellite dishes and then put his head back down and slip back into his feline coma.

If there are papers to sit on or molest in any way, he’s on it.  Literally.  On it.  With his butt.  But tonight he’s holding down the couch.  It’s a very important job.  Gavity is nothing to mess with, people.

I’ve been asking people I know why it is that I have such an easier time writing dialogue between men than I do between women.  If, for example, I have my heroine and her best friend having a chat about something, I’ll toil over it for days.  I’ll hem and haw and find ways to get distracted.  I’ll over think it and allow the writer’s block to take root.  If, on the other hand, my hero and his best friend are having a discussion I can barely write it down as fast as it’s coming out of my head. 

Men just come so much easier to me.  Why do you, dear readers, suppose that is?

If this was years ago, I would have told you it was because with very few exceptions, I had more guy friends then women friends.  It’s a fact that I’ve always been able to have a great camaraderie with folks of the male persuasion.  I grew up a tom boy and retained much of that attitude through out my life.  My oldest friends are guys.

Now that’s not to say I don’t have good women friends.  Ava and Kelli, obviously, are more than friends, but there are also several other women in my life who know an awful lot about me.  Clearly, it’s not that I don’t get women.

Can I get a clue for my affinity for male conversation from Kelli’s previous post?  Is it because my male conversations are fluff?  I don’t think that’s true.  Of course, you haven’t read my male conversations yet (soon I hope – cross your crossables) so you can’t help me decide. 

One thing I do find with my male conversations, they’re funny.  So, do I think men are comic relief?  I don’t know.  Maybe.  Kurt, are you comic relief?  My brother is pretty funny.  My father hasn’t been funny haha lately, but he does provide a few chuckles.  My Honey is one of the funniest people I know.  Ava’s husband, Ed, is a riot.  My son is a complete clown. 

Maybe that’s it, but as you know from these pages, Ava & Kelli are pretty damn funny.  Faithful reader Michelle is funny.  My mom has a great sense of humor.

I don’t know.  But the more I think about it, the more I suspect this whole convoluted post is a stall tactic to avoid working on chapter fifteen.

So Ava and her family went to Turkey.  Yes, Turkey.  They had a wonderful time, except that Ava brought home some hideous Turkish germ that doesn’t speak English and all the antibiotics available to us here don’t speak Turkish.   I’ve begun searching Craigs List for the services of a Turkish exorcist.  Ava’s husband, Ed, thinks any witch doctor would work and, ultimately, that might be better as our health insurance may cover it because there is “doctor” in the title.

I’ve told you about her trips to the medical professionals here and here.  By Thursday, I was feeling like complete crap.  My teeth and jaw were killing me which is a sure sign of a sinus infection.  I seriously questioned if my neck was strong enough to hold up my head, it was so full of snot.  Also, is there supposed to be a sharp and persistent stabbing feeling in your ear?  That doesn’t seem right to me.  Fairly quickly the misery spread to my chest and the coughing began.  Friday was awful.  I knew just how Ava felt because the coughing spasms would make me tear up and left me gasping for breath.

My mom was concerned at how sick I was after so recently having the strep.  I have included for your reading enjoyment an email exchange I had with her on Friday when we were at our respective jobs. 

She’d been giving me some home remedies she thought would help with the sinus infection when I replied the following:

Me: I also have a BUNCH of the antibiotics from my strep.  Should I start taking those again?

Mom: Are you telling me that YOU HAVE ANTIBIOTICS LEFT OVER FROM YOUR STREP??????????????????
If you are not putting me on to get a rise out of me, then I no longer feel bad for you. That is why you are sick again. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: OK.  I was over the strep.  I’ve never in my life – except with a z-pack – taken all my antibiotics.

Mom: OMG. You are supposed to finish all antibiotics so that you kill all the bugs, including all the ones that are just barely hatching, that is why you are sick so soon. Finish them and never tell me that again. I will disown you and give all your inherited stuff to someone that minds their mother about antibiotics after having their mother be a nurse for over 40 years.

Me: OH dear.  How much of an inheritance are we talking about here?

Mom: I substantially raised my life insurance this last year. And it has a clause in it that specifically reads, “ ANY  HEIR THAT HAS NOT TAKEN THEIR FULL ANTIBIOTIC DOSE WHEN SICK SHALL FORFEIT THEIR INHERITANCE.”

Me: Of course you know, I’ll be blogging about this.  I have no qualms about embarrassing myself at all.

Mom: AND ME. I am serious. That is why you are so sick so soon. How many you got left?

Me: I’m not going to tell you.

Mom: Take them till gone, got it, then if you are still sick go to the CVS nurse prac and get more and I will be by to see that you take them. And absolutely no books in the coffin.

The books in the coffin line is because I’ve always made it clear there should be several books in my coffin with me.  What if there is a line where ever it is I’m going?  If I have to stand in line for the afterlife, or for reincarnation, or hell, or simply to molder there in the ground, I’m going to need something to read.  Several somethings most likely.

The following post is totally off topic.  I’ll follow it up with something authory or witty tomorrow. 

I’ve told you my husband is a musician.  How that affects our life is thus: there is a million cd/casette tapes/lps in this house.  Music is played really loudly here because My Honey can’t hear. In fact, as I write this a Pink Floyd concert is playing very loudly in the living room. There are a zillion guitars in the office and various closets, either hanging on the walls, tucked away in cases or standing up on the floor.  There are amps and speaker cases and microphone stands in the way quite often.  Once a week or so he’s off to band practice so the kids and I have to fend for ourselves (hence the famous “waffles for dinner” extravaganza). 

I like the guys in his band.  In fact, with few exceptions, I’ve liked all the guys he’s played with as long as I’ve known him.  They are a motley group but that makes it interesting.  One or two of them are like my husband.  By that I mean they look family-ish.  Another one has pitch black hair down past his ass.  Yet another is covered in tattoos and wears a giant ring through his nose.  He also happens to be absolutely hysterical and I like him a lot.  His daughter has just started babysitting our kids.  I like the wives, too, which is very convenient. 

The reason I bring this up is that they just finished recorded a track on a tribute album.  I don’t expect you to know the band or the drummer in which they are playing in tribute of unless you’re into very heavy metal.  I am not, but I recognize the name which is more than I can often say of the bands he talks about.  The band this time is Type O Negative and apparently the singer/bass player died around this time last year of heart failure.

The entire song was recorded here in our house on My Honey’s equipment.  I have yet to hear the entire thing – only bits and pieces as they mixed it, but it sounded cool.  Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool to be invited to be on the album and I’m proud of them.

Metalunderground.com To Release Exclusive Peter Steele Tribute Album, “All For None, None For All: A Tribute to Peter Steele”

Band Photo: Type O Negative (?)

Last year the musical world was dealt a serious blow when gothic metal titan Peter Steele tragically passed away at the age of 48. While Peter may be gone, his music and his legacy live on, and they continue to inspire musicians around the world.

To honor Peter’s memory on the anniversary of his passing, and lead a new generation of metalheads to his music, heavy metal news site Metalunderground.com has teamed up with a dozen underground bands from across the globe to release an exclusive tribute album. The tribute, entitled “All For None, None For All: A Tribute to Peter Steele,” was done in collaboration with Dan Mitchell of Beneath The Woods Studio and features twelve stellar cover songs from many stages of Peter’s career in both Type O Negative and Carnivore.

The songs covered, which include interpretations running the gamut from depressive rock to power metal to death metal and many stops in-between, are as follows:

My Honey’s band is Blind Greed and their song is Christian Woman.  It’s released next Thursday.

In the continuing saga of Ava being sick, I’d like to share with you all the following text exchange. 

Here’s the setup.  I took her to the Minute Clinic late last week where she was diagnosed with “ick” and given a whole bunch of prescription meds.  She faithfully took her Z-pack and her various cough meds like a good girl.  Unfortunately, she’s still sounds terrible.  In fact, it’s gotten to the point where she’s coughing so much, so powerfully, and so often that the pain in her ribs and back brings tears to her eyes.  I cringe when I hear her.

So we tagged teamed her and we managed to get her to go, all by herself, to her primary care physician.  This is a doctor she’s probably seen twice in the last seven years.  Suffice it to say, she doesn’t like to go to the doctor.  Some crap about showing signs of weakness.  That and she’s a germaphobe.  She’s just positive she’s going to contract something worse at the doctor’s.

Ava: OMG, this place is overflowing with people.  I’m sure to get Legionnaires here from one of them.  I can’t believe you let me come over here.

Me: Hold your breath and touch nothing.  DO NOT LEAVE

Ava: The lady at the desk just asked the latest addition to our boat of illness if she felt nauseous.  Now I’m nauseous.  Jesus Christ I can’t believe you let me come here.

Ava: come get me.  Please!

Me: You’re fine.  Settle down.  Think of the cute get well cards I can send to the hospital.

Ava: have you seen an electric walker?  What the hell is that about?  Regardless, we’re getting one.

Me: It’s called a scooter.  I’ll have mine in pink with tassels

Ava: Nope, it was a walker.  Electric but why?

Ava: The nauseous one is now complaining it’s hot in here.  It’s not hot, it’s her.  She’s likely dying.  Someone  needs to tell her the hot is because she’s dying and going to hell.

Ava: There’s a teen boy here picking his nose.  I wish I knew how to use my camera.

Me: We don’t want to see that, but thank you anyway.

Ava: There’s a sign that says no cell phones.  I hope I get thrown out.

Me: I already called the lady at the desk & told her not to let you leave.

Ava: She’s already annoyed with me because I wiped the pen with sanitizer.  She thinks I’m crazy.

Me: You are crazy.  We embrace the crazy at the Quill Sisters.

Ava: It’s not crazy to try to save yourself from horrible disease.  Everyone here is SICK.  Really SICK.  I knew I shouldn’t have come here.

Me: Stop panicking. You are not immune deficient.  You’ll come out of there fine with a fist full of new prescriptions.

Ava: If they don’t take me in the next 5 minutes I’m leaving.  I’m afraid

Ava: OMG ANOTHER sicky just showed up.  There’s not enough room for all of us.

Me: Deep sigh.  Don’t make me drive over there.

Ava: the nauseous woman is now sniveling.  I hope she’s next.  In fact, she can take my turn because I can’t stay here much longer.

Ava: NOW

Me: I’m rolling my eyes.

Ava: The nauseous woman’s name is Ava.  I hate it here.

Me: It’s like a weird alternate universe of sick Avas.

Ava: This is taking too long and I feel better just having been here and I’m going to go.

Me: shut up.

An hour and a half later….

Ava: Now I’m getting an x ray.

Me: Oh my goodness

Ava: Yep.

Me: Yikes what does the DR think?

An hour later…

Ava: X rays are done.  I’ll find out in the morning.  I have a scrip for steroids which is really supposed to help.  We’ll see.  I was made to swear I would stay home tomorrow which was a negotiation from staying home Thursday and Friday.

Me: We’ll all be fine tomorrow.  You really should stay home.

Ava: I’m going to because I want to get well and for the pain to go away.  Frankly, I expect Legionnaires to develop by mid day tomorrow.  An old man was there and he looked like a convention goer.

Me: I don’t get it.

Ava: That I contracted some horrifying disease.  Trying to get rid of the disease I already have?  What don’t you get?  I blame you.

Me: I’ll find funny get well cards.

Ava: You’ll need to find funny sympathy cards for Ed.

And that, my friends, is a typical text conversation with me and Ava.  In fact, that is what a lot of our actual conversations sound like, too.

You all know I love dogs.  I even love the Idiot Dog who’s antics graces these pages frequently.  However, even with my all time favorite dog of all time which is a toss up between my Sweet Sophie and loveable old Hugh, I would never even begin to consider this.



This, my friends, is insane.  I’d like to think it’s a joke, but there are crazy people out there with way too much money and I’m certain IKEA will sell a ton of them.

I also love the part where the guy says that dogs are basically a trial run for kids.  Hahahahahahahaaha.  If that isn’t the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever heard.  I’ve had A LOT of dogs in my life: good dogs, bad dogs, naughty dogs.  Believe me, I’ve never had a dog smart off to me about their homework, or flat out refuse to take their dirty dishes to the sink, or, in a moment of canine insanity, tell me I’m the worst doggy mommy in the whole world and they hate me. 

Not even the Idiot Dog has punched a parent in the eye over their messy bedroom. 

No canine family member of mine has shoved mushrooms up their nose or smeared rice in their armpit during dinner. 

Never has one of my fuzzy faced “children” flushed Army men down the toilet causing $1,500 in sewer repairs.

But also, my St Bernard mix, as charming as he was, never sang Queen songs in the shower.  My Newfoundland, as sweet as she was, never made me a hundred different sets of beaded earrings, bracelets and necklaces.

Hmmmmmmm.  Somedays I just don’t know which way I’m leaning.

PS.  It has come to my attention, thankfully, that this commercial was an April Fools joke from IKEA.  They’re funny people.  I’m so relieved because I was really worried that there were morons out there who’d buy this ridiculous contraption.  It seems those people are out there as IKEA has been inundated with requests.  Unbelievable.

Around the corner from my house, in a lot I have to pass several times a week, there is a new building under construction.  The giant block walls have been slowly forming and climbing higher and higher.  It’s a shapeless sort of gray building: long, rectangular with windows.  It’s so nondescript at this point there is no way to guess what it will ultimately become.

Isn’t that one of the most imagination inducing events?  A new building with no signage of any kind could be virtually anything.  Maybe it’ll be an astronaut training facility, or a fortune cookie factory, or a floral genetics

Seussical

 laboratory.  Oh, the possibilities are endless.  It turns my imagination Seussical.

Even more mysterious is the fact that I’ve never, ever seen any constuction workers there.  Now granted, I’m not driving by the site during the day while I’m at work, but I do pass it sometimes in the morning and there’s never anyone there.  It’s at the end of my street – you’d think at least once during the several months activity has been going on there I’d see a hard hat or flat-bed truck dropping off supplies or something.  Nope. 

It’s like invisible trolls pile up the bricks and mortar because everyday the building is bigger with no evidence of construction workers.

This weekend, Sassy and I went into the convenience store next door to the lot and while I was paying my 75.00 per gallon of gasoline, I asked the clerk if she had any idea what the building was ultimately going to be.

“A Window Depot,” she said.

What color was my disappointment?  It was industrial gray, let me tell you, industrial gray like the bricks and mortar of that shell of  a building.  How mundane – A Window Depot.  My Seussical imagination totally deflated.

Worst invisible construction trolls ever.

I’m going to ask all of you a favor.  It’s not going to be an easy favor.  In fact, I don’t know if I could accomplish this favor if it was asked of me, but I’m going to ask it of you anyway.

Say, for example, you’re in a Starbucks or a small café and you spy a lone individual – they’re always alone, these people – sitting at a table and pecking away at a lap top.  Characteristically, they will be typing furiously, great spurts of key clicking which will slow and come to a halt, then pick up again, more slowly, before the fingers pick up some more momentum and burst off again.  During longer lulls, this person may stare off into space, out a window, or unseeingly into a crowd of people.

Here’s where the favor comes in.

All of a sudden, that person will suddenly and repeatedly jerk an arm in an extravagant gesture, or make a severe expression over and over again, or even silently mouth words at different cadences but with great feeling.  I understand this is amusing, and you may even question this person’s sanity and ability to function in normal society.  You may snigger to your friend how, “they must be off their meds!” 

Hahahahahahaha.

You wanna know what’s really happening?  I’m willing to bet all the money in your wallet right now that person is a writer, probably a novelist.  They are working on some dialogue and they are acting out the scene, trying to describe how the characters are talking, walking, thinking, feeling, etc. 

I know I’m right.  I rarely get the luxury of writing in coffee houses, but when I do, something will invariably break my concentration and I’ll find someone across the room watching me with great amusement.  I will have just furrowed my eyebrows over and over in different levels of severity to look up and see some very handsome business man watching me from over his newspaper with a very mirthful grin.

Or a retired couple will be sitting several tables away, forks poised on the way to their mouths, staring at me and wondering why I’ve been sweeping my arm over the table over and over and over with great flourish.

Or a teenager will be watching the crazy lady gaze seductively into the winsome face of her imaginary lover, then tilt her head to the side and back ever so slightly, before wetting her lips …

There is no incident too great or too small that doesn’t provide me an excellent opportunity to embarrass myself.  Is it too much to ask not to stare? 

Deep sigh.

That’s what I thought.  Go ahead.  Stare away.  I know I would.