Nothing at all

Radio question of the day:

Which is Africa's most populous nation?
Which is its largest by size?
Which of its nations has the largest economy?

Huh? Like we care! We're Americans damnitall! We don't gotta care 'bout nowheres else. Hrmpf.

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It has been scientifically proven that if we drink one litre of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than one kilo of Escherichia coli bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are drinkin' a lotta shit! Actual poop.

But, we do not run that risk when drinking wine because alcohol has to go through a distillation process of boiling, filtering and fermenting.

So, it's better to drink wine and stuff and talk shit, than to drink water and be full of shit. Just sayin'.

(No need to thank me for this valuable information. I am doing it as a public service.)

In other news: Pfizer Corp. announced today that Viagra will soon be available in liquid form, and will be marketed by Pepsi Cola as a power beverage suitable for use as a mixer. It will now be possible for a man to literally pour himself a stiff one.

Obviously we can no longer call this a soft drink. It also gives new meaning to the names of "cocktails," and "highballs." Pepsi will market the new concoction by the name Mount and Do.

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Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation. Sudan is largest by area. South Africa has the largest economy by far. As if you care. You guys. Shallow.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

You've probably seen this before. So why are you here anyhoo? There's never nothin' of importance on this site!


Good : Your wife is pregnant.

Bad : It's triplets.

Ugly : You had a vasectomy five years ago.


Good : Your wife's not talking to you

Bad : She wants a divorce.

Ugly : She's a lawyer.


Good: Your son is finally maturing.

Bad : He's involved with the women next door.

Ugly : So are you.


Good : Your son studies a lot in his room.

Bad : You find several porn movies hidden there.

Ugly : You're in them.


Good : Your hubby and you agree, no more kids.

Bad : You can't find your birth control pills.

Ugly : Your daughter borrowed them.


Good : Your husband understands fashion.

Bad : He's a cross-dresser.

Ugly : He looks better than you.


Good : You give the "birds and bees" talk to your daughter.

Bad : She keeps interrupting.

Ugly : With corrections


Good : Your son is dating someone new.

Not so good : It's another man.

Kinda Ugly : He's your best friend.


Good : Your daughter got a new job.

Bad : As a hooker.

Ugly : Your co-workers are her best clients.

Way Ugly : She makes more money than you do.

Meme

It seems I have a couple of lurkers out there. Who knew? Not me. I lurk on blogs myself, so it shouldn't have been a big surprise.

One of these lurkers e-mailed me a meme. I got nothin' else to say, so I figured I do this meme. Here goes.

Does your mate annoy you without realizing it? How do you bring it to his attention?

Hoo Boy! Does he ever! I usually hit him over the head with a skillet. I don't cook much, so this is a good use for the skillet.

What was your first impression upon meeting your mate? Has that impression changed?

The first time I ever saw Niks, he was sitting at his desk in his office, wearing a red leather cap. That Niks. This was a protest about the air conditioning blowing on his head. He's been bald since he was in his early twenties, so he is sensitive to air blowing on his head. I thought he was a NUT. Now, I realize that he is a cross between a bird and a nut. A sweet bird and a nutty nut.

Does your mate do anything that embarrasses you? What?

You're kidding. Right? Of course he does. That's what husbands do. What? I don't know where to start. I'll just list one: he undoes his pants when he eats to allow for the expanding belly. No matter where he is. That guy.

Would you ever go to an all-nude beach?

What? I thought this was all about my mate! Hrumpf. Okay. Sure. I'd go to an all-nude beach. Would I strip myself? You know what? Yes, I would. When I was young and had a nice body, the answer would have been "no." Now I'm old, and if the other nudes were not people I would see again, I would be okay with being naked. But I wouldn't do it in front of folks that I know.

If it's May, it must be Church Yard Sale time.

Radio question of the day:

The number one cause of fist fights in America is over a woman. What is the number two cause?
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Well once again it’s the dreaded Church-Yard-Sale time of year. My church has had a yard sale for the last 15 years, and I’ve been involved every year. For many of those years I was in charge of it. The last couple of years I’ve been “assisting,” which turns out to be even more work. Hard work. You know, “they” lied. Hard work has killed lots of people.

But I’m like the president of our great country. I’m stayin’ the course with the church yard sale stuff. You know, STAY THE COURSE: Say and do the same stupid thing over and over, regardless of the result.

At least working for two weeks at the church sorting and pricing old junk does keep me from eating all the time. Seems like food has replaced sex in my life. Now I can’t even get into my own pants.

My church is Unitarian-Universalist, as most of you know. This past Sunday I was thinkin’ that the reason we Unitarians don’t sing so hot is that we’re always reading ahead to see if we agree with the next verse. If folks don’t agree with it, they just sing whatever. Those U-U's.

The yard sale is one of the dumbest things I do. Well, of course, it’s not as dumb as pick up the feces of a lesser mammal for a living. And half of you do that for free. You guys. Havin’ pets always sounds like it’s lots of fun, but it really follows the Gold Standard 80/20 rule of life. You know, the rule that says that 80 percent of everything in life is bad, and 20 percent is good. In the case of pets, the 20 percent is the free dog or cat hair so you can knit yourself a sweater or somethin’, and the 80 percent is poop.

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Answer to the radio question of the day: Parking spaces.

That’s more like it. Parking spaces are harder to find that women.

Mama gets married, and oh yeah, Rabbit Rabbit

Last July I posted this post about my Mama gettin' married. It's a true story. I'm too lazy to write nothin' new, so if you've read about my Mama gettin' married before, go away. Don't go away mad, just...go away.
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Daughter dddragon suggested that I post about my mother. Of course we never called her "mother." My three sisters and I called her Mama all of our lives. Mama was a hoot. She was a tiny little thing, claimed to be five foot one. More like five foot nothing. I was taller than she was by the time I was ten. Probably weighed more too. She weighed 88 pounds most of the time. Got all the way up to 114 before she died. What a tub of lard.

Once when I was visiting my sister Doris, we started talking about how much family information was being lost almost daily, because the older generation was dying off. I mentioned that a friend of mine had been hired by a rich guy in New York to interview his older relatives and to tape those conversations. Doris got the idea that I should go over and interview Mama using a tape recorder. Sounded good to me.

Doris thought that I should start out by asking about Mama and Daddy's getting married. She was particularly interested in the names of the couple who had gone with Mama and Daddy when they eloped. We'd both heard these names before, but neither of us remembered them.

So I took Doris' tape recorder and off I went to Mama's apartment. I'm guessing Mama was about 85 or so then, and time was awastin'.

Mama took to the idea of being interviewed just fine. She was tickled in fact. I started out by asking the names of the couple who took part in the elopement. She told me the names.

Darn tape recorder wasn't working right. Drat. I fool around with the recorder some. Take the batteries out. Put them back in. Like that. I'm amazing with machinery. Real genius. Start again. S**t. Thing is just not working right. I decide to take notes, and come back with the recorder later. You know, get a few things down, in case one of us dies overnight. I was betting it wouldn't be Mama.

Okay, we start again. Mama described the scene. This couple has a car, Daddy doesn't--he's a student at Memphis State College (now University), and he's home on some kind of semester break.

It's winter; they're all in winter coats. Why is this important, I'm wondering? Mama and Daddy are in the back seat. Okay, this seems like a lot of detail. I mean, we're just driving to the wedding chapel, right? They get to the preacher's house. Mama says that she believes that he's probably eating his dinner at the time. Gee, this is a LOT of detail. Get to the wedding.

I'm guessing they had maybe called ahead? This is 1930 -- they DID have phones. Anyway, the preacher comes out to the car, and leans into the opened window, and marries them. WAIT! WHAT?!?

"You didn’t get out of the car?! You sat in the car? You were MARRIED IN A CAR?" I could not believe it! "Mama, you and Daddy got married still in the $%#@ car? You never even left the car?"

Well, I have to say she got a little huffy. Pulled her little self right up straight. Looked a bit peeved. "It's perfectly legal," she said. "You want to see the marriage license? It's right in my bedroom."

Those guys. I have no idea what the names of the other couple were. Lost my train of thought completely.

Oh, shit!

I’m goin’ to tell you a Daddy story. I’ve told stories about my sweet Mama in the past. I don’t have many Daddy stories on accounta he wasn’t around much.

The characters in this true story are my father whose name was Boyd; his father whose name was Bud; and my father’s older half-brother, Herbert. Herbert was Bud’s stepson.

My father’s mom and dad were widowed-with-children when they met and married in 1909. They then had four boys together. The oldest of those four boys was Boyd. The oldest of my grandmother’s first set of children was Herbert.

Apparently Bud showed favoritism towards Boyd in all ways and all things for a long time. Any time Herbert had anything that Boyd wanted, Bud would say, “Herbert, give it to him.”

Now, I’m not kidding when I tell you that these people had nothing of value. They were the poorest of the poor. Dirt farmers. So anything that Herbert would have had couldn’t have been much. Scarce resources make for bitterness I’m afraid.

One day Boyd and Bud were walking down the dirt road that led to their farm when they saw Herbert coming towards them from the opposite direction. I’ve seen this road and I can picture the scene so clearly: the sun is shining brightly on the Tennessee hills, it’s warm, and the boys are barefooted because they can’t afford to wear shoes in the summer. They’re all wearing straw hats. Herbert is around 12 years old and Boyd is about six.

Herbert is carrying something. As they get closer to him, Boyd sees that Herbert has a stick with something on it. He’s holding it out in front of him. It’s clearly something important. Boyd starts running towards Herbert, saying, “I want that!”

That Boyd.

Bud says, predictably, “Herbert, give it to him.”

Herbert obliges. He hands the stick over to my father.

What is it you may ask? It’s shit. Shit on a stick.

My father told this story many times when he was an adult. He claimed that Bud never again told Herbert to hand something over to Boyd. But he acknowledged also that it may have been just that he himself learned a lesson and that he never again demanded things that weren’t his. Certainly as an adult my father saw that both his father and he had been unfair to Herbert for a long time.

My sisters and I used the phrase, “shit on a stick,” often. If one of us said to another one of us, “Whatcha got there?” The answer not infrequently was, “shit on a stick.” Translation: None of your bee’s wax. Hummmm...do people still say that? That means “none of your business,” and “you ain’t gettin’ it.”

So be careful out there. What looks interesting and important from a distance may be shit on a stick.

Talking trash

Radio question of the day:

One in 25 dads do this, and aren’t aware of it…what is it?

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Lainey tagged me to write six weird facts/things about myself on my blog, and in her comments section, and then to tag six more people. You guys! Relax. I don’t tag folks. But I’ll do the tag for her. I’m sure I’ve been tagged with this before, but I’ve got weird stuff to spare, so I’ll do it again.

1. Right now it is raining hard. It’s blowing against the windows in the room that I’m in. We need this rain. I like rain okay. But I’m very agitated right now because I just washed the windows and rain makes them dirty. Is that weird or what?

2. I eat ice. Lots of it. I love ice.

3. Apparently I’m a cleaning freak. Frankly, my house never seems clean to me. But other people think I’m a cleaning freak.

4. I have a system for “disappearing” my husband’s old stuff. First I pack it away in a spot that I can get to quickly if he asks about it. After it has been packed there for at least six months, I store it in a more remote location in the house. (We have a full basement and a full attic. When people in this area say that they have a “full basement” or a “full attic,” they mean that the basement area and/or attic area is as large as the house is wide and deep.) After it has been in the harder-to-get-to location for a while, it just disappears. Poof. Out to the trash. Or in some cases, out to daughter 3D’s trash. Like a complete set of old encyclopedias. That was too obvious to set out to our curb. And no, he never missed it, but never, ever would have agreed to throw it away. Have you tried donating old encyclopedias? Don’t bother. The Goodwill, et al, will not accept them.

5. I walk for exercise, but try to park as closely as possible to the entry to a store, or mall. Why? Doesn’t make sense. I should park a distance away and therefore get more exercise. I’m working on this.

6. I love the television show, Monk. The weird part of that is, I am a little, teensy tiny bit like Monk. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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Answer to the radio question of the day:

Raise someone else’s kid.

Whoo boy! Why did Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes pop into my head just now? I’m sure that Tommy can father children...

Spring Cleaning

Radio Question of the Day:

A recent poll asked: During my Spring-cleaning, I'd like to throw out all of my significant other's _____...what was the most popular answer?

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I'm busy with Spring-cleaning. Yuck. Housework is like stringing beads…without putting a knot at the end of the string. Everything you do just has to be done again. And again. And again. Like beads dropping off onto the floor.

Where does dust come from anyway? Turns out that dust is made up of all kinds of stuff. Some of it comes from you, some comes from the ocean, and some even comes from space! Anything that is dry and light enough to be blown around and carried by a light breeze can be called dust. The grossest stuff that is a part of dust (it seems to me) is tiny insect bodies, but dust is also soil, pollen, and dead skin cells from people and animals. Dust is other disgusting junk that I don't want to think about. Don't get me started on dust mites. Shiver. They show those on television sometimes. Gross. I asked you nicely not to get me started on them! You guys.

So a lot of what is dust and mess in general is of course, caused by people. There might be one-too-many people livin' in this house. Problem is, which one?

My answer to the question of the day would be books and magazines and pamphlets and just paper stuff in general. But the most popular answer was clothes. My husband's belly grows at a rate that prevents most of his stuff getting that old these years. He used to keep clothing forever, but it's not a big problem these days. His memory is a big help too. That Niks. He doesn't have much memory left. If I don't like something, I disappear it. He forgets he had it. Works like a dream for clothes. Not so much for books. *sigh*

Got get back to work here.

This and that and the other thing

I just filed our Federal Income Tax Return on Friday. We usually owe a couple of thousand dollars, but only owed a little over a thousand this time. If you're about to brag about how much your refund was, all I can say is that your refund was your money to begin with. I just kept my money longer than you did. And no, we've never had to pay a penalty. I was an accountant before I retired. I know the rules.

It's about 3 AM now. I just now filed our State Income Tax on-line. It's April 15, but this year I could have waited all the way to the 17th. So, I was early on it.

I don't mind paying taxes. Honestly. If we didn't pay taxes, then we wouldn't have libraries, street lights, and paved roads and all those wonderful things. We wouldn't be able to afford to invade other countries either. But that's a different rant.

I watched a Monk re-run tonight while stalling on finishing the State Income Tax. That Monk. He's so neurotic that he makes me look sane. Almost. I love that show.

I have just washed all the windows in the house, inside and out, and that's a big job. My fingernails are shot to hell because of it. Naturally if you wash the windows you also take down and wash the curtains or other WTs. That's window treatments for you WT dummies out there.

I was sick today, or actually it's tomorrow now, so that was yesterday that I was sick. Anyway, stop distracting me here...like I said, I was sick, so I was in bed on-and-off all day. Slept a lot. So now I'm wide awake at 3 AM, which means that tomorrow, or actually that's today now, I will be tired and sleepy, and so I will probably sleep a lot, which will mess up the day-after-tomorrow, which is actually just tomorrow, since today is the tomorrow I was talkin' 'bout before you started messin' with my mind here.

You just read the Meme that Puppytoes made me do to you. So, blame her, not me. She's sweet an' all, but I don't mind pickin' on sweet people. They don't usually hit back. NOTE TO PUPPYTOES: that was not a challenge.

The Meme was to tell 6 things you didn't need to know about me. I could go on and on, 'cause you don't need to know anything at all about me. And you don't even care, do you?

*goes off in a snit*

Blogger doesn't love me anymore

Blogger wouldn't let me comment yesterday. I was able to get into a couple of sites, but slowly, and a couple of times it let me comment, but then .... I was frozen out.

It just don't love me like it used to do. Dunno why. My hair's still curly and my eyes are still blue. Has it been dropping hints that I missed? Was there a memo that I missed?