A Meme A-La-JaneyV

Here's the meme I owe JaneyV over at Whittering On. Janey just celebrated her Blogiversary by having a wisdom tooth extracted - not my idea of a great way to celebrate, but to each her own. So I raise a cuppa to Janey and here's my meme:

"Tagged Bloggers post answers to the questions on their blogs, changing questions as they wish:"

1. What do you do before bedtime? Well, I get up, brush my teeth, go to work...What? Oh, you mean RIGHT before bedtime!!! I usually read a book or play Bubble Breaker on my Treo. Something to quiet my ever-swirling brain.

2. What is your favorite sound? Silence. Is that a sound? Or is it the absence of sound? White Noise will do if silence is unavailable. I KNOW that's a sound. I am very sensitive to "ear pollution" and I like to hear myself think!!

3. What were your childhood fears? My childhood fears were pretty much my adult fears. Heights, death, small spaces, the enormity of space and time...Gee, wonder who Plato takes after? Poor kid!

4. What place have you visited that you can't forget and want to go back? Well. I have traveled extensively within the US, but not much outside it. I loved New Orleans, but fear it will never be the same since Katrina. Also loved Seattle and would love to spend more time there. My all-time favorite is St. Mary's glacier just outside of Denver, CO. What a spiritual and scenic place...

5. What has made you unhappy these days? Being away from home so much with my job. Love the job, hate the overnight travel.

6. What websites do you visit daily? My blog, the blogs that are updated from my sidebar, my email accounts, and my company's portal.

7. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is? Well, JaneyV and I have only "known" each other for a short time, but she is an Irish woman with a rapier wit and exceptional writing skills. I love her "Irish-isms" that flavor her writing like a sprinkling of gourmet salt flakes on a steaming ear of buttery sweet corn (that's a huge compliment, Janey, coming from a Midwesterner!). The Blogiverse is a better place with Janey in it!

8. What is your favorite item of clothing? My Spanx, of course!

9. What is your dream for the future? For the near future, it would be to find a living situation that allows me to do the job I love, and be home every night with the family I love. Ah, Bliss! For the long term, I want to enjoy raising my kids, see them leave the nest and live happy, productive lives. Grandbabies would be nice. I want to live to a ripe old age with my mind intact, preferably with my body intact too. I want to die peacefully in my sleep, and to have my survivors talk about what a rich life I led. Guess that's about it. Everything else is frosting!!

So that's me. Boring and ordinary, but now you have a deeper insight into my ordinary-ness!!

Who to tag? Well, how about Monnik, Debbielou, and SUV Mama? Totally optional, and if you've done it already, just let me know!!

An Afternoon Quickie

I'm in the airport, and no, I'm not figuring on joining the Mile High Club.

Just hanging out and figured I'd do a quick Meme. This one's from Travis over at One Word, One Rung, One Day and it's a simple one: grab the book you are currently reading, flip to page 56, and give us 2 - 5 lines. Since page 56 isn't the best for quotes, I am going out of bounds here and going from page 51. This is an excerpt from Dearly Devoted Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay:

(Dexter is meeting his sister, a police officer, for lunch)

'Because I am an inhuman monster, I tend to be logical, and I had thought that her new assignment would end her martyrdom as Our Lady of Perpetual Grumpiness. Alas, even her transfer to homicide had failed to bring a smile to her face. Somewhere along the way she had decided that serious law enforcement personnel must reshape their faces until they look like large, mean-spirited fish, and she was still working very hard to accomplish this....'

'...She called in her location and status and then sat across from me with a frown.

"Well, Sergeant Grouper," I said as we picked up our menus.

"Is that funny Dexter?"

"Yes," I said, "Very funny. And a little sad, too. Like life itself. Especially your life, Deborah." '

If you haven't read the Dexter novels, I would enthusiastically recommend them. The writing is as enjoyable, if not more so, than the story. Now that's my kind of book!

I still owe JaneyV a meme. Hopefully soon, Janey!

The Presidency, Explained

I picked Plato up from school yesterday, which he absolutely loves (so do I). He was bouncy and chatty, telling me all about his day. The highlight of his day was helping his class spell the word "VOTE" with red and blue plastic cups pushed through the holes of a chain-link fence separating their schoolyard from the street.

As we drove by and he proudly showed me his handiwork, he asked, "Mom, are you going to vote?" I told him that of course I would. He replied, "Who are you going to vote for?"

I explained that I hadn't quite decided yet, that I was still listening to the candidates talk and discuss important issues.

Plato informed me that if he were voting, he would vote for Obama. I asked him why. He rolled his eyes and said, "Moooommm! Don't ask me WHY!"

"Well, Plato, you don't just vote for someone because everyone you know is. You vote based on what you think of the candidates. Do you know who else is running besides Obama?" (I was figuring he just liked saying "Barack Obama." It does kind of roll off the tongue...)

"Uhm, John McCain?"

"Yes! Good job, Plato. You've been paying attention!" (as if he has any choice)

Plato thought a moment. ""Well... I would vote for Barack Obama because he talks smarter.

Aannnddd, he LOOKS smarter, too."

"Well. That's a MUCH better reason."

Plato is quiet, mulling something over. Finally he declares, "Mom? I would never want to be president."

"Really? Why not?"

"I think you have to take too many tests, and you probably get really tired."

I agreed, figuring he was talking about the rough campaign schedule and debates.

"Mom? When you run for president do you have to: (pumps arms wildly and pants) RUN for president?"

I stifle a guffaw. Barely. "No, honey, it's just a phrase. Everyone wants to get to the White House, so it's like a race, so they say you're RUNning for office. You don't actually have to run."

"Good, 'cause that didn't make any sense to me."

The Pony Eater (My 100th Post!)

Wow. 100 posts. Crazy goodness!

Put on your hard hats, post ideas are falling from the sky today.

First, a confession. I had a major blonde moment today. I was trying to get cash from an ATM at one of my hospitals. The machine looked ancient. I put my card in, entered my PIN, and then couldn't get the thing to give me any money. I couldn't select the options: there were options in green, red, and black, with buttons on the keypad in corresponding colors. I tried pushing every button, then pulled my card out and tried again. Same deal.

I did this 5 times, then tried a different card. Same thing. Disgusted, I headed off to my case with no cash (and no coffee, grrr...). I asked the folks in the lab if they've ever had troubles with the machine. No, no one else ever had that issue. I figured the damn thing was malfunctioning and someone would probably be fixing it.

6 hours later, I tried one more time before I left the hospital. Same thing. As I pulled out my card to leave, a light bulb went on. I swear, there had to be one above my head!!

I put my card back in, entered the PIN, and USED THE TOUCH SCREEN. Voila!! Money!! (giant forehead slap) Some days I'm just so blonde it hurts.

-------------------------------------------

There I was, commuting (hate it!), warily watching the bumper-riding teenage driver behind me as she held her phone in one hand and twirled her hair with her other. I had my escape route all planned out like a good driver. I pulled up to a stoplight, braced for the impact, and when it didn't come I turned my attention to the car in front of me.

Crud. Why did I do that? I now have one of those brain-eating questions that Lewis Black talks about. The one you will NEVER learn the answer to:

"...when from behind me, a woman of 25 uttered the dumbest thing I'd ever heard in my life ... She said, 'If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.'

I'll repeat that.

I'll repeat that because that's the kind of sentence that when you hear it, your brain comes to a screeching halt. And the left hand side of the brain looks at the right hand side and goes, 'It's dark in here. And we may die.'

She said, 'If it weren't for my horse...' as in, giddy up, giddy up, let's go -

'I wouldn't have spent that year in college...' a degree-granting institution.

Don't! Don't think about that sentence for more than three minutes, or blood'll shoot out your nose. The American medical profession doesn't know why we get an aneurysm. It's when a blood vessel bursts in our head for no apparent reason.

There's a reason.

You're at the mall one day, and somebody over there says the dumbest thing you've ever heard and it goes in your ear. So you turn around to see if your friends heard it, 'cause if your friends heard it, and you can talk about what the jackass said, then it'll be gone. But your friends are over here, pretending they're gonna buy a cellular phone, and they're not gonna buy a cellular phone, because they don't even understand how the rate structure works.

So you turn back, to find the person who said it, because if you can ask 'em a question like, 'WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU TALKIN' ABOUT?!' ...then it'll go away. But they're gone.

And now those words are in your head. And those words don't go away.

'Cause the way I see it, 7% of our brains functions all the time, because 99% of everything that happens is the same old stuff. We get it. All right. Move on. Get it. Right.

But every so often, somethin' like that happens:

'If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.'

So your brain goes, 'LET'S FIGURE IT OUT! Son of a Bitch! I wonder what that's about?!!'

I wonder, was she riding the horse to school? No, she wouldn't be riding the horse to school.

Maybe it was a polo pony? She had a Polo Pony Scholarship.

Maybe she sold the horse and that's how she...?

....She was betting on the horse!

WHAT THE F**K!!!!

And then you realize that anybody who went to college would never SAY anything that stupid in public...and as soon as you have that thought, your eyes close...

And the next morning they find you dead in your bathroom."

(The White Album, 2000)

Pardon Lewis' language, he claims that F**K is his "thinking word;" you know, instead of "like...uhm..." Much more colorful.

Anywho, back to my own personal brain-eating question. The license plate in front of me reads:

PONYETR

No, I did not type that incorrectly. That's what it read. Phonetically, that would be "poh-nee-eet-uhr"

I'll let that eat your brain for a moment.

U crazy yet?

Because I'm going freakin' NUTS.

So my brain is running wild. The car is a recent model Buick LeSabre - and the guy driving is about 75 years old (I can see his white combover through the rear windshield). He's turning into Wal-Mart. So what's with PONYETR? Is it his last name? Unlikely. Is it some kind of vulgarity? That's a long shot.

So does he, literally, eat ponies? Like horse meat? Doesn't seem likely that its something a person would feel the need to advertise on a license plate.

Gathering speed, my mind downshifts and hits the accelerator. Now it's spewing other license plates that follow this theme (for my non-US readers: the standard US license plate is 7 letters and/or numbers):

Jeffrey Dahmer's plate: MANEATR (would also work for Hall & Oates)

Drunken Sot: BEEFETR (or a rampant carnivore)

Lord Voldemort: DETHETR

Dementor: MINDETR

Hunger Striker: NONEATR

Vegan: VEGEATR

Insert your favorite food here: PIG- COW- CHIK- FISH- ETR

Deity on earth: SUNEATR, MOONETR, STARETR,

Vampire: BLUDETR

Anorexic: UNDRETR

Demon: SOULETR

Foot Fanatic: ODORETR

Obese Driver: UBERETR

Always Wrong: CROWETR

STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP!!!!! GAAAAAHHH!!!

I finally got the brakes applied and my brain skidded to a screeching halt. I had to find something that I could accept as reasonable so I could sweep this issue under my mental rug and move on.

So here it is: my backstory to the shiny black LeSabre with grandpa behind the wheel and the license plate proclaiming: PONYETR.

So this old guy saved all his money when he was a young man to buy a muscle car, say a Dodge Charger. He used to drag race the thing, and his biggest competition was a guy driving a Ford Mustang. As a cocky gesture, he went out and got himself a license plate that read PONYETR, and he's never been able to let it go since it makes him feel young.

Either that, or that was his nickname in WWII.

Any thoughts on this one?

Karma, Sweet Karma

So JeepMan got a ticket 3 weeks ago driving my company car: Failure to Obey Traffic Signal; i.e., he ran a red light. Thing is, he swears he didn't. But with only a 4-year-old and 7-year-old as witnesses, he decided he might as well just suck it up and pay. The ticket was a $29 fine, but with all the processing and BS fees, it ended up being $96.

The ticket is due this week and, interestingly, we have found not one, but TWO $50 bills this week, both with no chance of finding owners.

Karma? Seems like a pretty big coincidence to me.

Thanks, K. Won't you stay a while?

****footnote: probably explains the money part of the dream below, huh?****