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Oh I get it...like humor...but different.

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Headline: Comet research pioneer Fred Whipple dies

That is such a shame. He really knew how to make good scouring powder.
I wonder if he is the one who insisted on squeezing the Charmin?
Hmmmmmm.......

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Monday, August 30, 2004

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it....

is to read about the attack squirrel of death But go to the bathroom first. Trust me.

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Thought du jour

"When you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart." - St. Francis of Assisi

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Friday, August 27, 2004

See you in September

I know I should leave you with something pithy, something erudite, something at least marginally educational for the weekend, but I got nuttin. The summer is screaming to an end, with Labor Day just around the corner. The poor kids elsewhere in the country have already started back to school. Not California. No, no. PU2 won't actually start her classes until the week of Sept. 13. So late. Why bother. Just forget it and go to the beach.

People are cramming last-minute vacations into too few days. Everyone is getting that "I-can't-believe-it's-almost-September-and-I-haven't-(fill in the blanks)-yet" look. Me? Nah. I did everything I wanted to this summer. Lived life to the fullest. A prime example of the Uhmurkun Dream in the flesh.

Everyone have a great weekend. Or, if you don't, keep it to yourself. Cause I am ALL out of sympathy. *kisses*

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Thursday, August 26, 2004

Does this make me look fat?

Someone please tell me, is my font different on your computer today? I turned on my page this a.m., and the font has gone miniscule. Everyone else's seems to be the same. Is it just me? And if not, then WTF? I haven't made any changes to the template at all. But then, my yahoo page looked miniscule too. Honey, I shrunk the fonts!

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Wednesday, August 25, 2004

The word for the day is manskank

PU2 is hoping that her first vehicle will be a pickup truck (although that is up to her dad, not me), so we spend a lot of time looking at trucks on the road as we travel about. Her favorite trucks are the Ford Lightning and the Harley Davidson edition F150.

Yesterday we were out for a drive, with PU2 practicing her driving skills (which are already prodigious), when she spotted a truck she liked. It was in the lane to our right and slightly ahead of us as we were stopped at a stop light. We were checking it out, commenting on the color, the interior, the white retro gauges, etc. As the light changed and we began moving forward, we moved up beside the truck, and I became aware that the man driving it was giving us a look....a look that said "Oh, yeah, I still got it, I am SUCH man candy!" He had noticed our interest and assumed, incorrectly!, that it was in him, not in his truck. I burst out laughing and described the situation to PU2, who was duly horrified that some 40-year-old manskank thought she was warm for his form.

Then we became aware that the manskank was, in fact, attempting to catch up with us on the road. I was about to pee in my pants from laughing as PU2 took evasive action, changing lanes and speeding to get away from his nasty ass. She finally turned onto a side street and made her escape. I was imagining the conversation with the police. "Well, officer, I am not quite sure what happened, as I was incapacitated with mirth, but I believe my daughter was attempting to flee a manskank when she rearended the Lexus."

On the plus side, we probably made that guy's week....

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Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Fear in the Neighborhood

PU2 and I were walking CJ yesterday in our gated housing complex. I first realized something was amiss when I saw a teenager crouching behind a wall at the top of an exterior stairway. He was looking down the street intently. Then I saw another teenager lying on his stomach in the front yard of the same house, peering between the leaves of a shrub, in the same direction. I said to PU2, "Whoa. What's going on here." It felt, I don't know, dangerous. It was broad daylight, midday, but these hoodlums were clearly looking for trouble. I didn't know either one of them (and our development is pretty small, so I see everyone). I crossed the street, partly to avoid any trouble, partly to keep CJ from loving the teenager to death as he passed by. Then...across the street...another one! In the bushes, crouching...looking down the street as well. Clearly something was very amiss.

I pulled CJ away from the third one. The kid didn't change positions and hardly even noticed us as we walked by. What the hell was going on?

We looked down the street, and there was a fourth teenager, boldly walking down the center of the street toward the other three. He was young, maybe 14, but BIG. Probably 6 ft, near 200 pounds, I don't know. Crew cut. Looked mean as hell. I heard excited whispers behind me.

"Here he comes! Come on, guys!"

"No, Adam, don't do it!"

"Come on!"

Teenager number three, apparently named Adam, came running past us, straight toward Teenzilla. Adam was about the same age as Teenzilla, but half the size. However, Teenzilla turned and ran, taunting Adam, "Don't you get on OUR side!"

"Turf war?" I said to PU2. [Thinking, "Gangs come to Irvine! Film at 11:00!"]

"Dunno," PU2 replied, apparently completely uninterested in anything that these dorks might be up to.

Then we heard it. The words that strike fear into every honest, law-abiding citizen just trying to live in safety in suburbia.

"Watch the flag! Watch the flag!"

They were playing capture the flag. Yes, right there, in broad daylight, in Irvine, California. Obviously, it is a good thing we are moving. The neighborhood has totally gone to hell.

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Friday, August 20, 2004

Complaint

I would like to register a complaint about straw paper. You know the paper that straws come in when you drive around Wendy's or dash in 7-11? The quality of straw paper is definitely below par these days, and I want to know to whom I should complain. Time was when straw paper was nice and strong and solid. You could tear one end open and blow, depapering the straw in the direction of the target of your choice. Those were the good old days. Today you tear and blow, and you get this fizzzzzzzzzssssssss as the entire length of the seam gives out. No depapering. No attack on target. No satisfaction. Just fizzzzzzzsssssssss and a tattered, limp mess hanging on around the straw. I can tell you this--it has seriously affected my relationship with my daughter. I am thinking about sueing for mental distress and emotional whatever.

I am struck by a sudden memory. Crow's Drug Store, downtown Bentonville, Arkansas. Walking there after school in Junior High (there's more to that story, but I don't want to digress). The fountain. The booths, seats covered with bowling-ball red vinyl. Ordering a cherry coke. Taking the straw. Dampening one end of the paper. Tearing the other end of the paper. Blowing into the torn end, with the paper pointed at the ceiling. Kersplat---the damp end sticking to the ceiling, and the straw clinging, yet another straw paper among the inverted forest of stalactites there from previous patrons.....


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Thursday, August 19, 2004

Hi, my name is Yogi, and I'm an alcoholic
Hi, Yogi.


SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) -- A black bear was found passed out at a campground in Washington state recently after guzzling down three dozen cans of a local beer, a campground worker said on Wednesday.

"We noticed a bear sleeping on the common lawn and wondered what was going on until we discovered that there were a lot of beer cans lying around," said Lisa Broxson, a worker at the Baker Lake Resort, 80 miles (129 kilometers) northeast of Seattle.

The hard-drinking bear, estimated to be about two years old, broke into campers' coolers and, using his claws and teeth to open the cans, swilled down the suds.

It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge.....

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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Scatology 101

If you don't regularly read The Pork Tornado, go read "Pass the Old El Paso." OMG. I nearly hurt myself laughing. Now, bear in mind, I am more than marginally juvenile...and if you don't find bathroom humor amusing, then never mind. But otherwise....dude, this guy is as funny as hell.

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Monday, August 16, 2004

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap

This is one of those times. Waiting. House not selling. Can't move yet. Need a place for my mom and dad to move to. Hard to find one that meets their requirements. Hubcap has started new job. Has no time to play with me by email during the day. He is working long hours. My job is boring to a startling degree. The "rest of my life" is just right there---right THERE---but I can't get to it yet. Still stuck, still mired, still killing time. PU2 is back from her visit to her dad, though. That's good. She keeps me entertained for part of the day. Other than that, waiting.

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Friday, August 13, 2004

Busy busy busy

It's a busy time at work (on deadline on a product) and at home (still for sale), so no good posts lately. My apologies, if anyone has been disappointed.

What I would rather be doing (circa 1963) than what I am doing:

teetertottering
clothespinning playing cards to the spokes of my bicyle tires
swinging out on a rope swing and dropping into the swimming hole
eating Hostess cupcakes on the back porch
climbing the dogwood tree by the alley
reading a library book on the window seat
playing on the giant top in the swimming pool at Bella Vista
making popsicles in those tupperware moulds
tormenting my baby brother
walking down the alley to see my bestestest friend
watching for my dad to come home from work

Everyone have a great weekend....

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Monday, August 09, 2004

Tribute

A sad tribute to Honeycar....I hope she is in one piece and will find her way back to Mo.

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Thursday, August 05, 2004

Update

On the minus side, we finally withdrew our offer on house # 1 because they continued to ignore us.
On the plus side, we made an offer on house #2, which we loved.
On the minus side, there were multiple offers on house #2.
On the plus side, they accepted our offer and took the other offer as a backup.
On the minus side, we have to sell our house now, and fast.
On the plus side, there has been some interest in it.
On the minus side, no one has actually made an OFFER.
On the plus side, we do have a contract on house # 2.
On the minus side, I find out that contracts on houses mean next to nothing in California.
On the plus side, someday this will all be settled and I have will have something more interesting to write about than houses!!!

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Tuesday, August 03, 2004

The following post...

will NOT be about selling OR buying a house.

So it's, what, Tuesday? That would be a day not particularly close to Friday, right? Is there anything that we can do about that? Some way to shake up the space-time continuum so that Friday follows Tuesday? Or better yet, Saturday follows Tuesday, and is followed itself by yet another Saturday? And another? We need to pull some of those scientists off that unimportant stuff like solar power and curing cancer and get them on this weekend-all-week-long thing.

It's a balmy day here in SoCal...the birds are singing, the sun is shining. Not too much wind. It's 27 minutes until I can leave this place and go home. Wait, can I say "home"? Yes. I believe that doesn't depart from the rules I set for myself in the title and first line. I can go home. And walk my dog. CJ the dawg.

I visited an "independent living" facility today, a place to which my parents may be moving (no mention of buying or selling houses there, so that is legal). I had lunch with the residents to give the food a go (not bad, but what the heck is a choice between brussel sprouts and lima beans? OMG!!!! Just let me eat pencil sharpening debris and be done with it).

Dull. My life is so freakin' dull. I got nothing. I could tell you I need to wash my car. I could tell you they have changed the coding for the periods again where I work. I could tell you I need a nap.

I need to change the title of this blog from "Solo in the HOV Lane" to "Paint drying." *yawn*

Later.

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Monday, August 02, 2004

Staging

If you are tired of reading about house-selling-related stuff, please don't hesitate to stop right here. You won't hurt my feelings. It's just all I know right now.

If you are still with me....If you have ever sold a house and worked with a realtor, you are probably familiar with the concept of "staging." If you haven't, but you have ever watched HGTV, you may be familiar with it. Staging is what you do to your house to make it look good to a potential buyer. There are various degrees of staging. The houses on shows like "Designed to Sell" are staged to the tune of a $2,000 budget--repainting, refacing kitchen doors, major furniture rearrangement, maybe new furniture purchased, landscaping, etc. That would be high-end staging. Low-end staging would be covering the dirty sneakers with the gym clothes to minimize the sneaker smell in the closet. In the course of getting our house ready to sell and then looking at houses for sale, we have seen it all.

At our house, we moved out unnecessary furniture, rearranged furniture, packed items that we didn't actually need, spot painted, scrubbed, changed window treatments, changed nicknacks, etc. In fact, the stuff that we prepacked is probably more than a lot of people own in their entire homes. Needless to say, if you need a button sewn on a shirt, you better see the dry cleaner, because I have NO idea where my thread is. Or my needle. Our realtor also told us to take down all personal pictures so that the people viewing the house could envision themselves living there rather than focusing on the people who DO live there. Makes sense. And I never leave the house without nice scent in all the rooms.

So what do we see when we go in houses?

1. If the strip is blue.... Almost every house we have gone in, there have been personal pictures. Sometimes there is an entire gallery of personal pictures. Mr. Realtor was right--you get so busy counting the number of kids in the pictures that you forget to notice if there is a walk-in closet or not. We joked our way through one house about "telling those people what was causing them to have so many kids," and I don't even remember the house.

2. Laboratory experiments.... Dirty bathrooms. Most houses have been clean, but a few have been rather yucky. Last Saturday our two realtors (both women) were talking what it would take to bleach the shower in one house.

3. Have you seen my halter top? Laundry. No, I don't mean laundry baskets with stuff in them. We all have that. I am talking about walk-in closets that you can't walk in because of the mounds of clothes on the floor. What are these people WEARING? Everything they own is right here in a pile!

4. Have you seen my son? Clutter, especially in the kitchen. Excess furniture, high chairs, serving trays, toys toys toys....Oh and that one house, holy toledo....there was a teenager's room that you could barely open the door to. It was 12 feet by 14 feet of horizontal storage. There was no seeing the floor. Now I know as well as the next mom that teenagers are like that. I KNOW that. But if you want to sell your house, don't you at least TRY? You should see PU2's room....it looks like something out of a magazine layout. It CAN be done.

5. Bad dog! Pet smells. I love pets. I HAVE pets. But I don't want to smell them the minute I open the front door. Ack.

6. Ride 'em cowboy! I love a good bumblebee nursery as much as the next mother, but I have never seen so many mural-painted rooms in my life! I have seen jungle rooms and train rooms and cowboy rooms...and the bumblebee room. Of course, they can all be painted over. And I have the vision to see what it would be like. But it is a bit .... strange. Clouds on the ceiling? Oh my.

7. Stop these people before they paint again! On the same note, I know a lot of people do their own painting to save money. Heck, I do that myself. But at least I attempt to do a good job! I know what painter's tape is and how to use it. SOme of the paint jobs we have seen...lordy. There was one house this weekend that it seemed that every wall was a different color....forest green, chocolate, maroon....Boy. Do I sound bitchy. I should stop. But I'm not going to.

8. Are there pygmies in there? Unmowed grass. TALL unmowed grass. In the front yard. Why?

On the other hand....we have seen some absolutely gorgeous houses with scented candles burning, fresh flowers, fountains founting, and---my personal favorite---a bowlfull of peanut M&Ms. I LOVED that house......*mental note: get M&Ms before next open house.....*

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