This week’s whine is all about computer woes and the crap I don’t have time for. 

I don’t have time to replace the router that went out or replace the printer which has decided that dragging the paper in crooked and creating a jam every time we try to print something is its new favorite thing.  The problem is, I need to fix both.  The router connects my laptop and the kids’ computer to the internet.  It enables me to email my document back and forth so that I always have a back-up of my work-in-progress.  Furthermore, I bore easily so I work between the computers all the time.  Butt gets sore on the couch?  Move to the office.  Office starts feeling too small?  Move to the recliner.  Rock myself sick in the recliner?  Move back to the office.  I know this sounds like a little thing, but I am a creature of habit, used to doing things the way I like them and saving this baby to the jump-drive and going back and forth between the computers is a pain in the ass.  I don’t trust the jump drive.  Irrational?  Yes.  But I can’t help myself.

As for the printer, I whined earlier this week about the Science Fair Projects which are due tomorrow.  I’ve had to give up a lot of computer time to them over the past few days while they pulled their projects together–I have red cabbage stains in my sink and lemons with wires sticking out of them on my dining room table–and the kids have drained the ink cartridges trying to get a decent print out of the various pictures and reports to go along with their crap, er projects.  If my router hadn’t quit and the printer worked, all of this would have been fine.  As it is…not so fine.  Deadline is looming and son’s 8th Grade trip to DC is next week.  So’s my birthday.  Hmmm.  Wonder if I should ask for a new router and printer?

******Addendum to the whine: Grackles are swarming my feeders, eating all my birdseed and chasing away my songbirds!  Argh!!!

******Addendum to the addendum: Have had some sort of allergic reaction–to what, who knows–and my eyelids have doubled in size since I got up this morning.  Whah!!!

Last week my husband was on a mission trip with our church.  He didn’t get in until around two Saturday night/Sunday morning.  Aside from the obvious–him actually being here now–here’s a little list of things which let’s me know that he’s truly home.

1.) Empty wire hangers hanging from the doorway between our bedroom and bathroom.  I ABHOR wire hangers.  If it wasn’t for the dry cleaning, you’d never find them in my house.

2.) Dry cleaning bags shoved into my small bathroom trashcan, making it impossible to put so much as a Q-tip in there.

3.) ESPN is back on and at full blast.

4.) There is much wrestling and whooping with him and the kids.

5.) Routine “What’s for supper?” has started once more.

6.)  “Have you seen my__________?  What did you do with _________?” 

7.) More laundry.

8.) More noise.

9.) More stuff left lying about.

10.) More fun.

“Mom, I need some red cabbage.”

I am used to odd requests, so I don’t even look up from the computer, but try to sound interested to keep from hurting his feelings.  “Why?”

“For my Science Fair Project.”

Immediately a little alarm goes off and I reluctantly take my eyes off the computer screen and look at my son.  “Your Science Fair Project?  When do you need to turn in a Science Fair Project?”

“Thursday.  I told you about it.”

Er…no he didn’t.  He’s just slipping that in there, hoping that I’ll think that he probably did tell me and I’ve been so deep into this book that I’ve just forgotten.  However, I know that he hasn’t told me about the Science Fair Project because last year’s race to finish the SFP was a hellish nightmare I have yet to forget.  To compound matters, my daughter has recently asked for lemons and I have a horrible suspicion that they aren’t for lemonade, as I’d orginally suspected, which means she probably has a SFP due on Thursday as well.

Oh, joy.

But then I remembered some magical words, words which would solve my problem and make it someone else’s….

“Tell your father.”

   

Last night I dreamed I was trying to negotiate Atlanta traffic in a car made out of a cardboard box to go get a jar of jelly that tastes like pecan pie from Jen.  Yes, you read that right.  (I know where jelly part comes in.  Jen called yesterday on her way to Gatlinburg to tell me she’d gotten me the jelly.  Is she a good friend or what? )  But I don’t know where the cardboard box comes in, and it’s pretty disturbing to me that I’d drive to Atlanta to get a jar of jelly, when she could just mail it to me.  Is my subconscious trying to tell me something?  I’ve stopped buying the Reese’s Crunch Bars, dammit.  What else am I supposed to give up?

What about you?  What’s the strangest dream you’ve ever had?

…I have been following the Anna Nicole Smith saga in the Florida courtroom with rabid–and often horror-stricken–facination.  Here’s what I’ve decided.

With the exception of Larry Birkhead who seems sane, the rest of them are crazy, the judge included.  The issue before his court is who should get the body and where Anna Nicole should be buried.  The sad woman bought a plot next to her son.  How much plainer could her wishes be????  From everything I’m seeing, her son was the only person who didn’t use her.

Howard K. Stern makes my flesh creep and the mother…  Well, yesterday was the first day in ten years since she’d seen her daughter.  She’s visiting her in the morgue, for crying out loud, and who drives her there?  A journalist from Splash magazine. 

Gee, I wonder where her heart really is?  I wonder what could possibly be motivating her tearful performance in the courtroom?  If she cared about her daughter at all, she’d bury her next to her son. But does she want to do that?  No.  She wants to take her back to Texas.  I guess it’ll be easier to charge admission to the grave if she’s there.

Argh!

Anyone else been keeping up with this?

Well, since I’ve been whining all week I feel sort of bad about whining again today…but I’m not going to let that stop me.   Today’s whine?  The pissing contest between Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest on American Idol last night.   I think both of them need to go have their egos surgically altered.  Even Randy and Paula were cringing.  And did you notice that they barely spoke, though Seacrest continued to take pot-shots at Simon?  Ruined a perfectly good show.  And I liked Chris Sligh right up until he said he didn’t like “Sweet Home Alabama.”  Congratulations, genius.  You probably just alienated an ENTIRE state with rabid voting habits.  You auditioned in Birmingham.  Bama would have gotten behind you, but I’m not so sure now.  If you don’t feel the love for Lynryd Skynrd, you won’t be feeling the love from Bama. 

Just sayin’. 

That’s my whine.  What’s yours?

At one o’clock this morning my black Lab–Ocho–decided that he needed to go out.  Fearing that he had to use the bathroom, I reluctantly got out of bed and let him outside.  He shot out the door like a bolt of lightening and immediately set to barking.  Don’t know what was out there–coyotes, probably–but whatever it was really put a cramp in my sleeping style.  It took an hour to get him back in–and I’m sure the neighbors were loving me and him both by two–and now it’s four and I have yet to go back to sleep. 

I’ve worked.  I’ve checked email.  I’ve scoped out People.com and TMZ.  (Geez, Lord, Britney Spears has lost her mind.) I’ve clicked out to the Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet, watched Amber Frey talk about moving on since the Scott Peterson trial.   I’ve scrolled through some of the eHarlequin boards, visited the Plotmonkeys, Jen LaBrecque’s site, The Writing Playground and various others.  I’ve played Strike A Match.  I’ve logged onto my children’s accounts and made sure that their internet settings are still right.  (They are.)  I’m exhausted…and yet I can’t sleep.

Whah!

(Honestly, people, it’s looking like I’m going to whine all week.  Consider yourselves warned. )

 

I got up and walked out of a movie on Sunday.

PG-13 can cover a whole lot of ground and I discovered that the hard way yesterday when I took my kids to see Norbit.  I like Eddie Murphy.  I liked Dr. Doolittle.  I liked The Nutty Professor movies.  I liked Daddy Day Care.  That’s what I was expecting when it came to Norbit.  The previews were clean and funny.

I was wrong.

Language was absolutely terrible, relatively explicit sexual situations and nudity within the first twenty minutes.  It was awful, just awful.  This movie should have been rated R, and whoever is in charge of rating these movies should come up with a new system, because the one currently in place isn’t worth jack diddly.

Grrr!

And it’s not even Wednesday.

Kris kindly tagged me with this meme, so I’m going to give it a shot.

Rules: No re-tagging, write a blog with 10 weird random things, facts, or habits about yourself, chose 10 people to be tagged and list their names, leave a comment that says “you are tagged” on their profile, and tell them to read your latest blog.

Let me say upfront that I am a rule-breaker, not a rule follower.   So ten weird random things, facts or habits about myself…

1.) I’m a neat freak.

2.) My favorite dinner is meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

3.) I have to have three pillows to go to sleep.  Two under my head and one to hug.

4.) I have a tattoo of a butterfly on the top of my right foot.

5.) I once convinced a cousin that dirt was chocolate and made him eat it.

6.) I love Sonic ice and will occasionally make 2-3 passes a day through the drive-thru for it.

7.) When I was in grade school, me and my friends had a make-believe friend named “Ontay” whom we fought over.  (Clearly we weren’t the brightest bulbs on the tree, though we should get points for imagination.)

8.) I tend to look too deeply for the good in people, often to my disappointment.

9.) I am Southern, and I am proud.

10.) I am a rule-breaker, which is why I’m not tagging anyone with this meme. (Sorry, Kris!  I don’t have ten people to tag. ;-) )

It’s miserably cold down here in the Humid Land.  I’m not cut out for this.  My feet stay cold regardless of how many pairs of socks I put on, my skin is dry from running the heat 24/7, taking the dog out to do his business is torture and pumping gas–egads, I thought my ears were going to chip off my head before I could get back into the car.  I don’t know how you people up North stand it.  Seriously.  At first I thought, oh, good cold weather.  Hot cocoa and blazing fires.

To hell with that.

The only positive thing I can see coming out of this is that surely surely SURELY it’s gotten cold enough this winter to kill off some of the mosquitoes.

Hope everyone has a nice, warm weekend.   Me and mine are going to huddle in.