Fleeting Moments of Joy! Dirty Diaper Tasting! BFE!

I had a Fleeting Moment of Joy (FMJ) today. I used to have FMJs all the time, then I went off my anti-depressant and became somewhat joyless. But yesterday I had one - an FMJ.

This gives me hope.

I think most ENFPs have FMJs, which are ephemera, but oh, so wonderful.

I'm glad to be back.

Wow! I just wrote something that was sooooo sappy that I had to erase it! I'm not usually sappy. Sigh. So I made it really small and very light so you'd know it wasn't important; so you wouldn't have to read it if you didn't want to. Then I got embarrassed and erased it. 

All gone - no sap.

Speaking of sap, we were listening to a RadioLab podcast about Gamboge yellow, which is made from sap taken from trees indigenous to the border area of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It takes years to collect enough sap in the bamboo receptacles attached to the trees, and, along the way, souvenirs can end up in the sap. The souvenirs spoken of in this podcast were bullets ... from the Cambodian killing fields. Sadness doesn't express it.

~~~

YOO

Yesterday, I tossed about 1/8 cup of water on YOO, but it was ok; she didn't know it was me who done it.* She got really excited - was racing around, looking and licking.
She thought it was her tail what done it.
Then she bit it.
Her tail.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

That is one scary cat!

~~~

My grandson turns eight this month, and Liza and I are going to BFE** to help celebrate it. It's a LOOOONG trip to BFE - 6.5 hours.

I passed on to Tabitha some excellent kid party ideas, the two best were the Kitty Litter Cake and the Dirty Diaper Tasting. The dirty diaper tasting is actually a game for baby showers - but Gabe and his friends are just at that age to be totally grossed out - and happy with it. When I looked at the pictures, I was grossed out meOwnSelf, and it takes a LOT to gross me out.

It gave me the GRUE and shibbers!

ANYway, you use (clean) baby diapers and either melt good candy bars (something chocolate with nuts in is favorite) OR baby food - you know - squash, beets, green beans, maybe one of those weird meat baby foods. Then people have to guess what it is! They can sniff it, touch it, taste it....

If it looks like poo, but doesn't smell or taste like poo, is it still poo? 

~~~

Brian and I were just talking about the fact that he needs to use a project manager tool for work now. I said I was a big fan of the If It Doesn't Rear Its Ugly Head, You Don't Need to Deal with It management of projects. He said that approach doesn't work so well for him. Of course, he has a real job in the real world. I did too, once. Then a certain President decided to have a war with no way to pay for it (i.e., read my lips*** - no taxes), and then the economy collapsed, and then I was redundant.

I hate being redundant.

Well, that's all I got. Once I start thinking about being redundant, I just dry up and get bitter... oh yes, I'm bitter.

mj

*if Pratchett can say "done it," so can I.
**Bluefield, VA (don't get all riled up - everywhere is BFE to someone else)
***I know, I know - it was his DADDY who said "read my lips."

Big Bird and wine; THOUSANDS!; Shards Galore

So far today I have eaten uh aig on uh tortilla, and drunk plenny tea. My diet plan consists of "Shut Your Pah Hole..." Some days it works, some days it doesn't, and I'm ok with that. Yesterday I oinked on Big Bird (Giant store Fried Chicken) and wine. Brian's binge food is pizza, mine is Big Bird. I used to get Big Bird every coupla weeks when Liza lived at home - I'd msg her and say "Big Bird for Dinner!" She'd msg back with "Yay, Mama!" 

good times....

If I agnore the tv for a coupla days, it has like 5 reruns of Big Bang Theory saved up. Often reruns of reruns, but I don't care. Sometimes that show is Really On, and others not. Oddly enough, I don't like the shows that concentrate on Sheldon. I find smaller bits of him to be much more amusing, cuz I can get the good of them and not be overwhelmed by his sheer Sheldon-ness. 

~~~

Brian has THOUSANDS of Dollars worth of work to be done on his teeth AFTER the INsurance pays. He isn't happy. I thaid, "how come you're willing to thpend $6000 on a new roof, but not on your teefs??" He gave me a narrow look; he was not amused, although he took my point. 

We're old, we're cold, and our teeth are rotten! 

hahaha not mine!

~~~

Well, I'm back on anti-depressants again - but not Effexor, which should be banned. Phook, I was hoping to never have to do anti-depressants again, but it's not something that can be overcome by strength of character, worse luck. It's due to a lack of something.

Prolly beer.

~~~

Well, guess I gotta go. Once again, YOO has jumped on the counter and landed on something that slid and knocked over something I'm sure I'll regret. It happened a while ago, but she keeps going back to investigate the damage. I'm pretty sure it will be one of my favorite BIG wine glasses that nobody else likes to drink out of cuz they're fragile. 
I like fragile wine glasses, but not to step on. 
Shards galore on the kitchen floor! 

Hey, I think that will be my new pen name!

Signing off,

Shards Galore

the train, The Train!

We're leaving for Orlando on Saturday - taking the Auto Train (again) from Lorton, VA to Sanford, FL.

"It is better to travel well than to arrive." ~ Buddha

Brian totally believes that quote, but I've been more of the "it's better to arrive than to travel," state of mind - maybe because I don't like modern travel methods. 

If I could take a ship to Europe, I'd be happier than taking an airplane. 

If I could take a steamer that traveled along the coasts - I'd be happier still. 

If I could travel the Nile on a Dahabeeyah, I'd be REALLY happy. 

Apparently, I think my own happiness is of some importance, and also I'm beginning to think I like slow travel, except that I DESPISE a long trip (if it's just straight through with potty breaks being all you have to look forward to;

3 hours is about all I want to travel per day via automobile).

Our first trip on the Auto Train was almost horrifying - the seats were hard; we were so uncomfortable in the regular car that we moved to the Lounge Car around 3 a.m. where the seats were more comfortable but we had to listen to soft jazz during the following 5-6 hours. If you like soft jazz, check out Watercolors on Sirius. Had to sit through a lot of dross to hear anything we liked at all, at all. Misery.*

Teabags/Let go and WHAT?/"Hubby" sux

Yesterday, I went shopping. There were two things I wanted, well, three: cat food, wine and tea. I forgot to get the tea, and am now stuck with Lipton, which I disdain because I dislike their over-packaging. I just like to dig a couple teabags out of my tin and throw them in the teapot. I do NOT like having to unwrap each teabag first.

So I forgot to buy the tea. Sheesh.

I picked up my Jug o'Chablis (I'm unemployed - no Good Stuff for me, and the Jug o'Chablis is remarkably good!) and got into line, which was really, really long for a Wine & Liquor store. The reason? The harassed woman in the really, really short line (cuz it was just her) was hanging onto her whiney 3-year-old while the teller was on the phone.

Why was the teller on the phone? Good question, that!

She was on the phone because (and we [in the long, long line], who didn't know this at that point, just thought the mother of the 3-year-old was a deadbeat who didn't deserve a drink) the entire Wine & Liquor store credit card thingo had gone fubar. It had decided that every credit card needed to be called in personally, with people being put on hold, etc.

The same thing happened to the woman in front of me, but she told the cashier to cancel it and she'd pay cash.

hmmmm - I had no cash (unemployed!, which,

in today's growing economy, is all myOwnFault!).

My turn - sure enough, the Big Screen of Gotcha! came up for me ... and I had the "new" teller who didn't really know how to deal with it. So the other teller gave him the phone (only ONE phone in the Wine & Liquor store), and he started laboriously entering the phone number...

The line was growing.

Since there were only two tellers and 10-15 customers in line, I suggested to the Other Teller, since she seemed more knowledgeable than MY sad sack teller, that they make two lines - one for cash and one for credit cards.

That made her pissy at me - sticking my oar in.

(Can't help it, I'm a problem-solver.)

So, the customers THEMSELVES, who had heard (and hurrahed my suggestion, or at least "yeahed" it under their breaths), divided into two lines themOwnSelves.

But this isn't what I wanted to talk about... the thing I wanted to talk about was a young lady who worked at the Wine & Liquor store (I got the impression she was an accountant - she kept hovering around the outside of the problem but couldn't actually fix anything), who said right out loud (when my card didn't work and the line behind me Got Ugly) "come on, this is Palm Sunday - no need to be upset!" or something of that ilk; and I agreed with her, right out loud.

Sometimes it's nice to have a little mystical moment 

in which you deliberately love thy brothers as thy/myOwnSelf/Selves.

So, unfortunately encouraged, she voiced a few more religious aphorisms, which got me thinking, "uh-oh."

I'd taken her statement about Palm Sunday to mean she was from what I consider to be a reasonable religion (i.e., Lutheran, Episcopal, maybe even Catholic [if you discount their history and some of their current ideology]). I find these churches reasonable because they

• don't go out preaching, 
• their sermons are short, 
• and their music is good. 

I'd probably throw Methodist in there too, except they don't drink alcohol.

When she started spouting other placard religious statements, I thought a bad word, but ignored her. HOWEVER, when I switched from my Visa card to my AmEx, which went through and I said "Hooray!" or maybe even "Hallelujah," which is religious, and she said, very loudly,

"Let Go and Let God!" 

I said

"No, I won't go that far."

Her face got all pinched and pissy-looking because I'd rejected her "God done it" approach....

Poop on religion.

~~~

That's all I have to say about that, but there's another thing that makes me crazy! It's when new brides (who apparently consider Having a Husband to be more important than having a best friend with whom they can Live Forever) refer to their new husbands as "hubby" instead of calling them/him/it by their/his/its own name(s).

"Hubby and I went to the store." Hubby and I have a new apartment." "Hubby and I have sex whenever we want to."

Cut it out! Don't show the world how desperate you were to grab a husband that you have to call him "Hubby" so everyone will know you caught one!

(Calling a spouse "Hubby" brings to mind an old Popeye cartoon where a desperate woman sees him and hollers out "A man! A MAN!!!!!").

Good grief, have a little pride!

~~~

Yesterday, I was in a much better mood. I had a blog travelling through my head that made me laugh (I often make myself laugh; I'm easily amused) - unfortunately, I'm in a different place today, so find myself neither amusing nor amused.

This too shall pass.

Hurhurhur - I thought that was from the Bible, which would have been* amusing - given today's text, I mean blog. But I decided to look it up (who doesn't love Google?) and learned that it's probably a saying from the Sufis: Muslim mystics.

There you go. Wisht I'd said that at the obnoxiously religious girl.

~~~

Wegman's has oddly talkative tellers. 

So my teller was telling my groceries, when all of a sudden I said, "I HATE this music they're playing!" 

I'm normally reticent about decrying lousy music in public,

but this was GODAWFUL!

So my teller looked at me with his eyebrows up to his hairline and said, "but isn't this Whitney Houston?"

My bad. Don't speak ill of the dead.

So then he wanted to quiz me on singers I DO like.

So I said I like Norah Jones.

Well! That meant I must also like Michael Buble?! 

Noooo.....(his Youtube video for Santa Claus is Coming to Town is the WORST!)! I'm not linking to it because he might Git Me for not liking him.... you never know....

I said, "I HATE Michael Buble!"**

The teller's eyebrows went higher....

So he asked me about the Beatles, who I have always loved; but, I told him, I dislike the Rolling Stones - at which point it looked like the guy behind me in line was going to enter the conversation.

I fled.

Ever and anon,

mj

*pronounce it "bean" cuz today that's the way it's pronounced in my head.

**side note - I have a friend who LOVES Michael Buble.... she loaned me a cd of his from which all the songs got sucked into my computer and then into my Zune. When I realized that I HATE Michael Buble, I tried to erase him - but my computer and my Zune were in a weird state of trading back and forth, and I couldn't eradicate him. To this day, FIVE YEARS LATER, he still occasionally bursts forth in song from my Zune, and I cringe.

And I say right out loud, "I hate Michael Buble. :(

But I like my friend, so it's all good.

Smart phone? Spoons; Cat tinkle...

Having a smart phone means never having to say you're bored. When Brian and I are at the bar and I'm talking to someone who bores him, he plays Solitaire on his phone.

When I'm waiting for my computer to update itself... I'm playing Solitaire or Sudoku or checking Facebook on my phone.

We're never bored. 

The downside to never being bored is not having the time to think, to dwell on things, to let thoughts ramble... to daydream. I was a daydreaming child - one of my best memories, though slightly horrible at the time, was of being by the open window in third grade, while the old man mowed the lawn. I was sniffing that good green smell and was wafted away ... 'til I was brought down with a crunch to answer a question. The question was probably, "are you WITH us, Mary Jo?"

Our brains are spoon-fed all the time now. 

~~~

Speaking of spoons, wisht I was born with a silver one (or gold!) in my mouth. Then maybe I could have a maid/housekeeper. I'm the right kind of person for a maid - messy & lazy. My maid would have plenty to do, and plenty of job security. I'd LOVE my maid...

...I'd also love a cook.

~~~

Here's a thing I never had before: A cat who tinkles when I tinkle. I go in the bathroom, she comes running in. I do what I'm there for, she does, too. Sometimes I talk to her, and ask her how come she's tinkling at the same time I am - but she just lays her ears back. It's rude to talk to someone when they're tinkling. So I let her be.
Was that too much information?
Maybe, but interesting?
Well, maybe.

~~~

My turkey leftovers are all gone. :*(
That doesn't mean I want to roast another turkey from hell that took 12 hours to cook and we didn't eat until 11 p.m. that night. Forget the stupid turkey! Let me eat pah!

Which, of course, we still don't have.

Life is hard when you're too lazy to make your own pah. Although, if I REALLY wanted a pah, I'd make it, but this is part of my weight loss plan. Think of something I'd Really Like to Eat, then DON'T MAKE IT! Works like a charm. Wonder if I should patent that idea? Wait, I don't think one can patent ideas. Well, just remember, you heard it here first. It was MY IDEA. (I'm a middle child - I need recognition when I come up with ideas.)

That's all the rambling this spoon-fed brain can handle at the 'mo. Think it's time to fire up the computer (which, obviously, is already fired up) and play WoW. Or check Facebook. Or check email.... 

Or sign up for the class that starts next Tuesday (I hope it's full already, I need some daydreaming time!).

Peace!

IdotSib#3

Radishes? Pah? Chocolate in bread? El yummo!

What the HELL happened to radishes? I admit (readily) that I'm WAAAAY older than I was* when I first tasted radishes, and maybe a few taste buds have died or otherwise gone South, but where is the flavor? Where is the pepperiness? WTF????

Currently, all the appeal to radishes is their color (red) and their crunch (exquisite).... but there ain't no taste at all, at all.

Why I'm on this rant: I've been on a Chef Book Fit for a while now - mostly.... all right, MAINLY... of the books of Anthony Bourdain, who I adore even though I think he's a snarky, skinny dodohead. He's not a wonderful person, but he's honest, and I like that in a person. Through him (now I'm getting to the point) I learned of Gabrielle Hamilton's book, Blood, Bones & Butter. I don't like her book quite as much as AB's first book, but I still like it a lot. I love it when people write about their childhoods, and hers was marvellous until it went pear-shaped, flared and burned. Then she was on her own....

Her mother is/was French, and Gabrielle inherited a lot of the French mentality. One of the things she does at the bar in her restaurant (Prune, Brian says we're going there some day - I can't WAIT!) in NYC, is serve Radishes, Butter & Kosher Salt.

I want some. 

So I tried it yesterday, and it would have been YUMMY if the damned radishes had had any flavor at all. I admit to putting them on bread, cuz I had read of that somewhere else - good Tuscan bread with some chew* to it.  (Another thing I'd read in a Cook's Book [I'll come up with the name later] was to wrap really good, fresh bread around a piece of chocolate & eat it. I've tried it... It's GOOD!)

ANYway, the butter was good, the bread was good, the salt was good.... the radishes? mere crunch. Sigh.

~~~

We're cooking a turkey today! I know it's two days after the American Thanksgiving, but we celebrated Thanksgiving at Brian's parent's house, so don't have any leftovers.
We LIKE leftover turkey.
We WANT some.
So we're doing the responsible thing and roasting our own dead turkey. Eliza is coming over to help eat it. She'll go home with lots of leftovers of her own, plus we'll clean out the freezer & pantry before she goes... that way she can take all my extra stuff. I love giving away the extra stuff.

Kids are for taking your extra Costco stuff.... it's the Rule.

ANYway, that turkey is smelling mighty good. It's been cooking for HOURS in a really slow oven. Brian makes the turkey, I make the gravy.

I make GOOD gravy!

That's all I have. Happy Thanksgiving!

Peace!
Idot Sib #3

ps wisht we hadda Pah. Ain't nobody guv us no pah. I ain't makin' no pah. We got no pah. Sigh.

But lots of turkey!

*I was somewhere between 2 and 6 years old. Mom & Daddy grew radishes in their big garden, and we would pull them up, brush the dirt off them, and crunch them up, sometimes with tears running down our faces because of the peppery taste and sting. It felt good. It felt like home.

**NOT the "chew" we learned about in West (by God) Virginia, with the tv commercial that said, and this is REALLY TRUE, "Juices up Real Good!"
Gag me with a fork!

I fear I have changed.... "I just vant to be alone..."

I used to take pride in being an ENFP* - "ENFPs are charming, ingenuous, risk-taking, sensitive, people-oriented individuals with capabilities ranging across a broad spectrum."

But I find I am no longer "people-oriented."

In fact, I find that I've come to despise being around many (specific, as well as groups of) people.

Have I become INTROVERTED?

Am I now an INFP**? - INFPs are flexible and laid-back, until one of their values is violated. In the face of their value system being threatened, INFPs can become aggressive defenders, fighting passionately for their cause."

Since I was made redundant at my job a few years ago, I fear I've become a loner - except where my (wonderful, of course!) family is concerned. 

The Boys! The Cake! School! Beer!

I had a lovely time with theSon and his Best Man. Like most young people, they are adorable: they are both excellent people.

My son left to go to the store to buy some stuff for putting the ceiling fan up, and 20 minutes later he came back in the house.

I said, "that was fast!" 

"Haven't left yet," he grinned. "We spent this time getting the lid off and the back seat in."

Translation: they took the top down on the Jeep.

So I walked them back out to the Wrangler. They were happy as clams in muck driving out of the garage with the sun shining on 'em.

~~~

Witch! spayed! Who?

When I get up in the morning, I look like a witch... 
I could scare little kids, and often scare myself when I look in the mirror...

...sometimes, an involuntary OH MY GOD! escapes me... 

Gray hair, particularly at the stage mine is in, just "don't favor nobody"* in the early morning.

So why, you may ask, am I just letting my hair go - albeit, ever so gracefully - gray? Several reasons, one being that Brian's the only one who sees me in the morning, and he's used to me.

I'm still 29 to him.**

ANYway, the two main reasons are:

1. I'm incredibly lazy. I cannot begin to imagine having to color my hair as often as I'd need to to hide the gray. It still seems to grow very quickly, and I'd be one of those ladies you see in the supermarket with an inch of  shiny, brownish-gray at the roots of flat-brown, dead-looking hair.
2. I'm interested in the whole aging process. If my hair wants to be gray now, I want to see what it does. That's just the way I roll. *** It started out with beautiful, silvery strands... which have become a less interesting bone-white; but I wish it would hurry up and turn completely white, even though silver would be prettier (yes, an olde witch can want to be pretty). 

I'd post a picture, but I'm waaaay too vain;

but in a Good Way! Really!

I'm just rolling merrily along, wanting to see what happens next (that's kind of an ENFP thing - always curious).

Dead fairies, Procrastinationion, The Name of the Rose

Three or four Dead Fairies were crammed under my pillows this morning when I woke up; YodieOdieOdie brings them in the Early Morning - hoping to wake me up with their noise.

I make Dead Fairies for her out of empty plastic grocery bags - they're easy to make: just tie the bag into 3 or 4 knots in the middle, leaving enough unknotted to resemble wings. When you throw them, they don't go far - they just sort of sink out of the air, the way a fairie might, if it died in the air.

I don't always sleep well at night - who does? - so I'll sleep later in the morning, still being Unemployed & all. YOO wants me up at 6 a.m. She's bored, she's hungry, she wants some ACTION!

If glowering won't get me out of bed.....

YodieOdieOdie glowers at me... "wake up, Wake UP, WAKE UP!!!"

...she hauls out her Dead Fairies, which crinkle noisily while she throws them on my tummy and pounces full weight onto them.