Turning 37�...again.

It�s slowly creeping up on my 37th birthday. All year I was under the mistaken impression that I was already 37, I was even telling people that. Turns out (when I decided to do the math) I was wrong. I inadvertently aged myself, gypped myself out of being 36 for almost the entire year.

No, I don�t have any special plans for my birthday, it�s not a big deal really. I already bought myself a digital camera and I am seriously considering a DVD player.

There are a few people that remember my birthday every year, so I always have a nice day.

My son, however, has still not figured out that it is ok to ask his dad for money to buy me a gift. He is still under the impression that I should give him money. It worked when he was 5 but now it just gets on my last nerve. Especially since he has no problem asking me for money to buy his dad something. (except this year, we both forgot).

Today in school he made a beaded necklace. After he showed it to me he said, �Hey, I should have made one for you.� (nice) I don�t get it. He lives with me and has his fathers sense (or lack there of) of consideration.

I am going to stop here, before I get into the whole nature vs nurture thing and give myself a migraine.

First Snow.

I woke up this morning to this.



I guess its all over but the cryin'. Winter is finally here. I don't know what it is, but when I was greeted with this sight this morning, I was suddenly stricken. Panic washed over me like a wave. I felt nauseous, my skin got all clammy and my mouth went dry. It wasn�t the knowledge that I would be seeing 6 more months of this stuff, or the uneasyness of having to drive on icy roads, it all came down to just one thing.

At that moment I realized, there are less than 50 shopping days till Christmas. How depressing.

HA!

Just heard a really good joke, and I just had to share it.

How many divorced men does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

None, they never get the house.

My sister became a Grandma yesterday to a little girl, Haley Don, 6lbs 8oz.

THIS BITES!

I took today off of work to get some things done, only to find out it is a national holiday.

First day of hunting season.

How do I tell my cult leader, �It�s over.�?

I sell Mary Kay cosmetics.

Ok, sell isn�t the best word to describe what I am doing with Mary Kay. I basically buy a whole lot of shit I don�t need and can never sell and then store it in my home. I suck at it.

My cult leader sales director is very good at it. She is bubbly and enthusiastic and says stuff like �Super� and �Awesome�. She even mails the newsletter to �The Awesome Evel Woman�. Every time I speak to her my eyes get sore from rolling back in my head so often.

I call her my cult leader because when she calls me I have absolutely no intention of buying anything and by the time she is done with me I have $400 worth of product making its way to my house before we even hang up. She can�t understand why I am not thrilled. I am just not Mary Kay material. To sell this stuff you need to be one of �those� girls. The kind of girl I used to make fun of in High School. Pep rally, cheerleader, glee club kind of girl. The kind of girl that �air� kisses hello and goodbye. Hell I don�t do that with my family, I am not doing it to complete strangers.

I couldn�t sell air conditioners in hell, and I�m ok with that. But my cult leader isn�t. She is hanging on to me by her fingernails but the deprogramming is working. Don�t get me wrong, Mary Kay is a great company and you can make a shitload of money (my cult leader is on her 5th car) but you just have to have �that� kind of personality and I don�t.

I am not the kind of person that should be dealing with the public. At least that is what I was told when I applied to MacDonald's back in high school. My mother couldn�t believe I didn�t get the job,

�Evel! They hire retarded people at MacDonald's!� (she wasn�t very politically correct but she had a point)

And I thought my brother was a pain in the butt.

I thought my brother was a pain to live with, can you imagine how this poor schmuck must have felt growing up?

Burial box offers proof Jesus lived

�Why can�t you be more like your brother? He's out there turning water into wine, you can't even finish your homework.�

Maybe his name wasn't James, maybe it was Judas. I know my brother used to rat me out all the time.Something to think about.

Grandma in training.

The Boy has a brother and a sister. The best kind, the kind I personally didn't have to give birth to.

He doesn't see them all that often, although he sees them a whole lot more often than he sees his father. Now that his little brother Liam is a little older (he's 5 now) he comes and stays overnight. He and his brother are a lot alike. The good news is, they never act up when they are at houses that are not their own. That said, his little brother is a complete angel when he is here and I just love having him.



I have seen him in his natural habitat and I have witnessed him during a full blown fit. I looked at his mother and said,

"Oh my God, if I close my eyes, that could be Boy. You know what this means don't you? It's the 'Surname' gene."

It is nice to know that I am not the only one who gets to experience these fits. My son has one daily and since the only common denominator is his father, we can blame it all on him. ( I just love it when that happens)

But I digress, yesterday Liam came to visit. Later in the day he asked if he could stay over. He is so cute and talks like he is from Jersey, so you just can�t say no to him. So we load into the car and head over to meet his mother. She of course agrees and Liam yells,

�O day, yets doe. Det dome moobies and dunk!� (translation�Ok let�s go, get some movies and junk) He is too cute. I think half the reason he likes to come to our house is because I load him up on all the junk his mother doesn�t let him have.

One time he told me that I shouldn't buy him candy. I asked him why and he said , �duz my mom dunna let me had candy.� (I could just eat him) I look around dramatically, under the car and behind him and say, �Do you see your mother anywhere? I don�t see her.� Then he flashes me a devilish grin and we head into the store for the candy. Mind you he never eats much of it, but it�s fun anyway.

Well on the way home tonight, he mentions that he had a birthday, and I missed it. (I felt really bad, no one even mentioned it to me), �Dats oday,� he says, �you diddin no.� After a comment like that I, of course, had to take him to the mall and buy him a toy, and one for his sister since I missed her birthday too. We load up on toys, pick up some movies and junk and head home. He didn�t eat any junk and only made it through half of the movie.

This must be what it is like to have grandchildren, spoil them, load them up on sugar and then send them home.

The leaves, they are a changin'.

Don't ya just love fall?

Welcome to my nightmare.

This is all I will see for the next couple of weeks.



Pray for me, and my poor tired eyes.

Turkey induced flash backs.

I was laying here, stuffed to the gills full of turkey and stuffing and just about to doze off, when all of a sudden this popped into my head.

Every day on the way to school, our bus driver would turn up the radio at 8:15am to catch the latest episode in "the life of the most fantastic crime fighter the world has ever known..... BAWK BAWK BAWK BAAAAAWWWKK!"




CHICKEN MAAAAAAAN!
He's everywhere, he's everywhere!

That shit used to crack me up. Interestingly enough, even though this was in the early 70's today is the first time I actually laid eyes on this picture. I am not sure if this is the creators original concept for chicken man or this was dreamed up for today's visual media. It is not how I always imagined Chicken Man would be. I suppose back then, he could be as funny looking as you imagined him.

I guess it's like everything now, leaves nothing to the imagination. Mores the pity.

Dinner Time!

The turkey is done, lets eat.



(I have a digital camera, and I am not afraid to use it.)

Happy Turkey Day!

I know it isn't until Monday, but I am having my dinner tomorrow (or is it today?) and I am so ready for Thanksgiving it isn't even funny. The veggies are peeled and cut, the cheesecake is chilling and the bird it stuffed and bagged.



All I have to do is pop that sucker in the oven and turn on the burners at the appropriate time. I love it when a plan comes together. Since I only cook twice a year (Christmas and Thanksgiving) I have lots of time to plan it. I even bought myself some flowers.



Tomorrow I can just laze around till its time to serve it all up. And since you all know I don't do dishes, the girl will come in and clean it all up. Who says it's a hectic time of year? I am woman, hear me roar. Wow, I can hear Helen Reddy in my head.

Another sign of old age.

Well for all of you interested in my purchases with the new CC, I hope you are not too disappointed.

The first thing I did last night, as you know, was pay to have the banner ad taken off this site. I then headed over to eBay, but I couldn�t find anything I wanted so I decided to pay a few bills. I topped off my two cell phone accounts.

Today I couldn�t take it any more I had to actually go out and get something. I said to myself,

�Self? What is it that you would really like to have, right now?�

I headed over to Staples and bought myself a digital camera, camera bag and USB hub. As I was paying for the camera, my computer guy called and I dropped by his place on the way home to show off said camera and get a list of computer components I need to upgrade this beast.

I am will be ordering a new video card, ram, and 1.3 Ghz processor. After that I will be pretty much wiped out.

I have to say I thought I would go a little crazier, but I seem to be getting older. 10 years ago I would have partied till I puked (like I did with the student loan) but now, sadly, I am an old bag. As my purchases show. How the mighty have fallen.

Thank Fuck its Friday!

Well, technically by the time this is posted it will be Saturday, but that is just splitting hairs. What makes this a truly noteworthy Friday is that I got my credit card in the mail today.(whoo hoo!) Now it's burning a hole in my pocket.

Couldn't wait to get home from work today so I could activate the thing and begin the shopping frenzy. Ten seconds after activation, I made my first purchase. You will notice there is no banner ad at the top of this page. That purchase took the edge off.

Now I am planning my Saturday. I can't decide where to go first. I want to upgrade my computer and I just have to get my geek computer guy to give me some time and direct me to the proper components.

I wish I were a geek, but whenever my computer guy starts talking tech, my eyes start to glaze over. I am like a lot of people, I want to just plug it in and have it work, I don't really give a shit how it works. I do give a shit, however, when it doesn't work.

I know enough to dazzle the truly computer illiterate, but not enough to carry on an intelligent conversation with a card carrying geek. I wish I were more like BigBadMan he is well on his way to achieving the ultimate in geekdome......total Microsoft certification. I think I'll wait for the neuro-implant technology, I don't have the attention span for school of any kind. (hey, it could happen)

Well, I am starting to go into the DT�s, so I think I will head on over to eBay and make a few frivolous purchases. That should get me through the night.

I love it when a plan comes together

Well I thought I would update all my loyal readers (both of them) about the �hockey� thing.

There was a meeting of the executive this last Tuesday. It was advertised as a general meeting of the hockey association. When we got there this strange little man was standing next to an easle with the following on it.



The man turned out to be a big wig from Nova Scotia Hockey. He began to explain to us the divisions of hockey.

�In the rep league (traveling teams who represent the county in provincial tournaments) there are three divisions, triple A, double A then A. Then below this line is house league which consists of B and recreational hockey known as simply house.� (very little travel involved, play within the county)

We all just looked at each other, �Does this guy think we are morons?� Anyway, we just let that pass. We were there to get A hockey put back down to recreation. So we were all just waiting for someone to make that motion so we could vote. Then the executive started to talk and indeed they were under the impression we were morons. At that point, someone made the motion to return the A hockey to recreation. That�s when the shit hit the fan.

�We are not taking motions tonight, this is just an information meeting, because some of the parents were confused on how the divisions worked.�

What!? The room erupted. �No one is confused, we came here to vote, this meeting was advertised as a general meeting not an information meeting. There is a motion on the floor that has been seconded, will you take a vote?�

�No, this is an information meeting� (The sign on the door to the meeting said �general� but still this guy argued) They argued for an hour over what the meeting was, general or information.

Long story short. Two hours later, the parents got what they wanted. We vote in 4 weeks to make it official. Those who were forced to pay to have their kid tryout for A hockey will get their money back. No one will be forced to play A hockey if they don�t want to or can�t afford to.

What happens when you have some man who has to have an A on his son�s hockey jacket vs a mother who has to schlep that hockey jacket all over hell and creation in the dead of winter? The mother wins.

That silver lining is mercury.

Well we are now into the new fall shows and there are a couple of really good ones. And of course there are the ones I have been waiting all boring summer long for. West Wing, Survivor, Amazing Race, Angel, CSI and the Sopranos.

Wouldn't you know, just when all the new shows are back, someone decides they need a years worth of bookwork done, as well as two others who need quarterlies done. And they all land at the same time. I just can't win. The upside is that I will be able to afford to upgrade my computer before xmas instead of after.

The year is starting to look up. I am a scrotum hair away from getting the "EX" to sign a paper so I don't have to claim income tax on my child support, which is great because I owe the government about $4000 and it will only get worse if I don�t get that paper signed. Also Capital One in its dubious infinite wisdom has decided to bless me with credit, so I think I just might be able to get everything done that needs getting done. So aside from the crappy job I guess all is somewhat well.

Jeez! Reading back that last bit, sounds pretty depressing. I should be depressed. Why am I not depressed? The way I see it, it could be a whole lot worse. I could be living in a cardboard box, or in a third world. So as long as I am fed and housed, life is good.

EUREKA!!

Finally after a year of looking I have found it again, quite by accident.

This is halarious, you must read it.

Redneck Neighbor

Breaker, Breaker

The other night we had a little birthday dinner for Kimmy, the old broad is 37 today. As we were waiting for the lasagna to heat up, I spied a blast from my past on the corner table in the living room. As I stared at it I was warped back in time about 25 years.

�Is that what I think it is?�

With a little giggle, her mother said, �Ya�

As I sat close to the machine, I was thinking to myself, �Its impossible, isnt� it?�

�Does it still work? Do you still use it?�

�Ya�

In this era of internet and cell phones, here sits a wonder of technology that people still actually use. A simple box with transistors and do dads, and at the end of a thick black curling cord, a speaker that fit in the palm of your hand and once you pushed that button at your thumb, you were �on�. The CB radio.

�Good God, that brings back memories� Kimmy and I exchange sly glances.

Late nights, sneaking out to the Bobcat with a flashlight. Two pre-teens making up exotic �handles� and talking to strange men (mostly truckers) into the wee hours of the night. I guess the CB was just the preamble to the internet chat rooms. You could be anyone you wanted to be, no one found out your 10-20 unless you told them.

Even then we were cautious, if anyone got close to figuring us out, we just switched channels, and handles. We thought this was the most wondrous thing and couldn�t get enough of it. Many a time we looked sheepishly at each other when her father pondered how his battery could go dead three times in one week. And if our parents had had any inkling , they would have put the kybosh on the whole thing.

Thankfully, they were blissfully unaware of our goings on. Don�t you wish you could say the same? I do.

If your gonna rifle through my pockets, at least buy me dinner.

I am being blackmailed by the Nova Scotia Minor Hockey Association.

"The boy" is in his second year of hockey. The first year he played recreational hockey, he had fun and he improved quickly. Recreational hockey is what we call house league, non competitive, no one will ever see them play except for their parents. Within this house league, children who are slightly better are placed on what is called a B team, competitive hockey, a little bit of traveling. It is where kids can compete and still have fun.

Now there is also A, AA, and AAA. These are the hard core competitive hockey teams, with provincial competitions. It costs more to register ($140 more than house) plus you have to pay ($45) just to try out for these A teams. Not to mention all the expenses of traveling. I am told it can cost a family with only one kid playing approximately $5000 per year.

There are a lot of really good players that never try out for the A teams, not because they can't make the A teams but for the simple fact that their parents simply can't afford it. They sign up for house and end up on the B teams, and are very happy to be there.

Well this year, the powers that be, have decided that if you do not try out for an A team, you cannot be considered for the B team. So now we all have been blackmailed into paying $45 to try out for a team that we don't want to play for, just so we can be considered for the team we do.

And here's the kicker. If by some chance our kids "make" the A team? They have to play for the A team or get bumped right back to the house league, and cannot be considered for the B team.

Here�s the back story. Last year one B team was filled with kids who were A material, but couldn�t afford to play A. After wiping up the ice the entire season, the other B couches complained and they ended up being classified as an A team. Since each division can have only 1 A team represent them in the provincials, the two teams had to play each other to see who would go.

The B team won. Imagine the egg on the coaches faces when they had to tell the parents, who paid close to $5000 that year for their kids to play hockey, that their kids were beaten by a B team and wouldn�t be going to provincials.

In order to avoid this, these coaches are going to bury these potential B players in house. You see if they make an A team and refuse to play, they are bumped straight back to house where no one will ever see that they are A material, they can't even be considered for the B team. Understand? And most of those kids who are bumped will simply not play hockey this year, it would just be no fun for them. It would be like Mark McGuire having to play little league. But that is what these coaches will do to keep from being embarrassed again.

So if my son makes this A team he is trying out for he is screwed. What the hell is up with that? What kind of message is that to give a kid? Now he is talking about screwing up the try outs on purpose, a lot of kids are talking this way. Is this the way we want our kids to view sports? You have to manipulate the system in order to get a fair deal?

Well let me tell you that if my son makes the A team, I am gonna tear someone a new one. You will be able to hear me from wherever you are on the planet because I will not be blackmailed. And my son will NOT be punished just so these egomaniacal coaches don�t have to look bad in front of the parents that they are extorting the big money from.

If you hear a scream in the night, it is me, grabbing one of those sons a bitches by the balls and squeezing.

Don�t fuck with the mother.