My Voodoo List

There are times when I get frustrated. Everyone does. But Lent has made me realize just how happy I am when I get to consume sugar, mostly in the form of chocolate. I have been a grump around the house, and find my patience frayed more so than usual. And y’all know patience is one of my strong points. I thought long and hard about how I can cheer myself up and improve my outlook on life, and came upon the best idea ripped off from Laura ever.

I’m making my first ever Voodoo List©. That’s right! Anything that just ticks me off for no reason will be placed on that list faster than a pin goes through burlap. So far, these are my entries for the week:

• The Oskars™. Yes, I misspelled it on purpose.
• The US Post Office. I paid the $0.56 I owed on postage due on a package on Wednesday, and I have yet to receive it.
• Danica Patrick. Over-hyped, and over-blown, and definitely over dumb.

Believe me, there will be more. I will update weekly for my sheer enjoyment. Feel free to leave any suggestions in the comments.  😉

Dream a Little Dream

For me, dreaming is an adventure. Last night I dreamt I was in Paris, France!!

And that’s where the romance ended.

I’m in a boutique salon, run by my sister, who isn’t there, because she is off touring a canal for a pair of shoes (??), and I am waiting to have a dress fitting and a haircut, because there is no such thing as nepotism, and someone steals my purse and my dog, and I can only find the purse shell, which has a bunch of markers in it, and I’m walking around in a smock, with my hair in weird rollers, asking people if they have seen my purse, and someone points outside, so out I go, only to see two Mexicans (they had shirts with Mexican flags and they read “Proud Mexican” in French) walking my dog, and I run over and ask them why they have my dog, and they give me the dog and tell me the PLO was giving them away over at the park, so I run to the park and see them distributing dogs that they are buying on the internet with my credit card, causing me to call the Embassy to cancel the credit card, which makes the PLO very mad, and they in turn put a fatwa on my head, and I yell at them that my head isn’t very pretty right now so they have to wait, so they pencil me in for Tuesday.

This is the part where I wake up, look at the clock, and realize I have one more hour of sleep to enjoy. And as I drift off to sleep, I am jolted awake by the thought that today is Tuesday!! But eventually I calm down and fall asleep again, because I am not a machete-wielding zombie killer for nothing 😉

Compoopers, and Why I Stay Away From Them

I am not a fan of computers. Don’t get me wrong: I do enjoy using them (obviously, I’m here!). But the darn things are still a mystery to me, and one that should be respected along the lines of dark matter and voodoo.

Christmas night had us all relaxing after a wonderful day. I was chatting with friends on the laptop, when from upstairs there arose such a clatter. Eldest and Son were locked in a battle of wills over the Monster. That’s what I call Hubby’s computer. I screamed for them to come downstairs and explain what is going on. Eldest tells me Son has been monopolizing Monster all day, and she has to upload photos for Hubby. Son explains he has been “tweaking” the Monster so it can handle a game better.

This is where my heart came to a slow thud and then died.

Me: Do NOT “tweak” anything on that thing!!!

Son: But Mom, I’m just making the computer work faster.

Me: DON’T TOUCH IT!!!

Eldest: (smirking)

Son: Don’t worry, Mom. Dad showed me how–

Me: (Totally panicking) JUST LEAVE IT ALONE!!

Son: Ok, ok…but why?

Me: (so past the freaked out stage that “making sense” is only an album title) Because that thing will end up like SkyNet and come to life!!

Son: (laughing by now) Wow, Mom…

So you see, I have a healthy respect for the things, and would rather leave them alone to their own devices than “tweak” anything on the off chance of bringing the Apocalypse. It is almost 2012, after all.

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Normally, I am a weighty sleeper. I don’t say “heavy”, because I can be roused with no problem. But I do tend to enjoy my REMs. However, with Hubby deployed, I can’t sleep well. I tend to stay up very late, and get up rather early. So you can imagine that any little noise will wake me up.

Last night, or rather early this morning, I was awakened by a constant rushing noise, like a tap had been left running. GAH!!! I got up, went to investigate, but everything was fine. Of course, then an unholy terror suffused my being: what if a pipe had burst?? With the house shifting it was a possibility in my sleep-deprived mind. So, like a moron, I went to get a towel and began to search for the burst pipe now flooding my walls. I started downstairs where I could hear the noise and ended upstairs where there was none, which was a relief. As I when downstairs I decided to check in the garage, where I found the culprit:

It was going through the rinse cycle….

It’s a good thing I didn’t have my gun on me. 😉

Watching My Tongue

I hate, hate, HATE censoring anything. It goes against everything I believe in. But sometimes, even innocent things can come back and bite you in the hindquarters.

Eldest was having a tough time with her Physics homework last night. Son is a wiz when it comes to that, so he decided to help her. While he was explaining to her things like velocity and acceleration and a tree that apparently a car hit, she sighed and said, “This is why I don’t like Physics.”

Whereupon the Sage of Casa de Aggie says this:

“You don’t have to like it. You have to conquer it! You have to drive a stake through it’s heart and pluck it from it’s chest and eat it while it’s still beating! That’s what you have to do to physics! You have to make it your little–well, you know what I’m saying.”

I have to admit, that was pretty cool of me to say. And I did manage to censor myself before I said something totally inappropriate in front of the kids. Still, I had gained some coolage brownie points with my kids, who usually see me as a fuddy duddy, stuffy old bat.

Yesirree Bob, I was cool!!

Cool enough for my Eldest to put that on her status at Facebook. GAH!!!

I hope no one judges me too harshly. Coolage brownie points still count for something!

Old Habits Die Hard

Goodness, there are so many, aren’t there? No matter how much logic or how many facts you learn to help you break them, you just can’t seem to let go.

For example, yesterday we went to the mall. On the drive there, I glance at my side mirror and see that Little One has her fingers, (not her arm or her hand, mind you), out her window. Naturally, visions of her entire arm getting snagged into a tree and being ripped off come to mind, and I proceed to freak out and scream at her to PUT HER ARM INSIDE THE CAR!!!! Why did I have that vision, you may ask? Well, when I was young, still living in Puerto Rico, my dad would take us for a drive or to visit relatives, and of course, the windows would be down. That meant, of course, that my sisters and I would fight over the window seats, which in turn would mean the one who got the seat could stick her arm out the window and feel like she was flying like Superman (No, I had never heard of Supergirl at that time. Besides, who cares??). Needless to say, my mom would yell at us to put our arms back in the car, and one day, we got the nerve up to actually ask why.

And then, my dad spoke. It’s one thing to have my mom tell us a fantastical story. We would question her endlessly with why. But when our father spoke, it was gospel. No one questioned it. NO ONE!!

So, imagine our surprise when my sister (the gutsy one) asked my mom why we couldn’t have our arms out the windows, and my father proceeded to explain:

“Your arm can get snagged on a tree branch or a bush, and get ripped off, leaving you with only one arm, and nowhere to put your purse when you grow up.”

Not just the words, but the chilling delivery of that pronouncement underlined in triplicate the veracity of that statement. Never again did I put my hand out the window. NEVER AGAIN!!!

I’m sure I have other quirks laying in wait to surface when one of my kids pull some idiotic stunt. Until then,I shall try to cut my caffeine intake and try to relax over things I can’t control…

Yeah, I’m laughing at that, too 😉

Unlucky Strikes

The best laid plans of mice and moms often fail.

Last night was the Homecoming game for Eldest and Son’s high school. We were getting ready to go, but the kitchen still had to be cleaned up. Eldest is in charge of washing the dishes, and as she was washing a glass, it slipped and broke, while she tried to catch it. The result?

My baby had a deep gash that required stitches, the first time in her young life. Four heart-wrenching stitches to her mom. But she took it all like a trooper, and even told the doctor that she would be able to get her own stitches out, because she has had experience doing it. Hubby has sure taught the kids the basics on first aid.

We missed Homecoming game, but there’s always Homecoming dance tonight!

And no, she won’t be washing dishes for a while!!

UPDATE!

Looks like The Real Dave needs a bandaid 😉

On Etiquette

No, I don’t even pretend to be Emily Post. I don’t even pretend to be the most well-mannered person. But there are some things that just get under my skin, and tend to make my blood boil out through my pores.

If you call me, call to talk to me, not to another person in the room, with whom you choose to get into an argument while I listen to the taudry details of whether or not you owned a particular brand of skillet. I do NOT care.

If you decide to drive on the left lane, please be aware that you are supposed to go a bit faster than the other people in the other lanes, because it is for passing. Don’t be a left lane vigilante and force the rest of humanity to go three miles under the speed limit out of the goodness of your heart. If I want a ticket, I will damn well earn it.

If the check-out line is for ten items or less, and you have 11 or 12 items, it’s no big deal to me. If you have a cartful of stuff, it becomes an issue. If you insist that you have a right to check out in that line because you are a taxpayer, or because you are in a hurry, it will cause a detonation of your milk jug all over your head.

While I am glad you wear boxers, I am NOT glad to see it. It is referred to as underwear for a reason. Unless you happen to be Heidi Klum or Jason Statham, pull your pants up and use a belt. You look like a convict.

If you are driving a vehicle that is capable of major damage, and even death, don’t use your freakin’ cellphone. Pull the hell over and answer it. And while you’re at it, put the damn thing away if you are eating at my table. I will toss the cellphone in the trash disposer if you insist on using it while eating dinner in my home.

Sigh…ok, I think I will stop for now. Too early for a beer.

But not too early for cookies 😀

A Study in Contrasts

I was so lucky! I had the chance to speak to Hubby while he was on a tour of Egypt. Skype is not very dependable in *ahem* certain Middle Eastern countries. But he was very excited to have toured Karnak and Luxor and cruised the Nile River. This is where he is today:

And this is what I’ll be doing:

Sometimes, life can be so funny….

Does anyone know if napalm is good for mold??? 😉

Forget Ruby Slippers

Stilettos are IN!!!!

Literally.

A woman allegedly beat her boyfriend to death with the spiked heel of a stiletto shoe.

Thelma Carter, 46, struck her live-in boyfriend Robert Higdon, 58, with the shoe at their trailer park home in Augusta, Georgia, police said.

Never underestimate the weaponry at our disposal, gentlemen.

Deadly in more ways than one 😉