... usually when there's a lot of other things I should be doing.
I'd like to take a poll. Whom do you think will contact me first:
A. Maddie (see this post)
B. Ellen DeGeneres
C. Terry Bradshaw
D. The Publisher's Clearing House Prize Patrol
Vote Early! Vote Often! God Bless America!!
Glenn's on vacation all week. The nerve! This morning I woke up to this guy:
I got nuthin against Chris Higgins as a person, but he's just not The Z-Man.
I guess most people probably don't have the intensified level of Local Meteorologist Loyalty that I carry for my BLM.
In a parallel universe, I might possibly even go so far as to call my BLM a MILF (M = Meteorologist, in this case), but nah, I won't. That would be tacky. And I'm all about class, people. Right?
'Scuse me while I scratch my butt...
Getting me through this Z-Free week is the 6 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies we got yesterday. I think we've eaten 3 boxes already.
On the needles - I'm almost done with Booga. It's going so quickly, I'm excited! I wish I'd gotten a different color of the Kureyon, the one I have is kinda gray and green and I hope it doesn't felt into a funky depressing color. But now that I know I can handle this pattern I'm sure I'll do it again.
I've just got a few more details to iron out before we go on our trip. The kids are soooooooo excited!
Ok, since I'm on this yarn diet (day 11, if you're playing along at home) I've really been jonesin for the coziness of the LYS. I thought that I could go in and just absorb the atmosphere and leave without buying anything, which is really what usually happens, and then I'll go to Hobby Lobby and buy the cheap stuff.
And because I've been trying to be good and use up the yarn in the ol' stash, I've been looking online for some patterns to inspire me, and as I mentioned a few days ago, I found the Booga bag. It called for a 10.5 circ in either 16" or 24" length.
Long story short, I went for the Addi Turbo. And all I can say is...
YES! YES!! I BELIEVE!!!
Seriously, I flew through this pattern, started it yesterday and worked through a whole skein of Noro Kureyon in about 2 hours, which, for me, is like double-greased lightning. Worth every cent, my friends.
So I had this idea to go to the Daytime Talk Shows and see if any of them are doing any little special segments that might be appropriate avenues for me to pursue my Dream Date with TB. Today, I emailed the following to the Ellen DeGeneres show.
"I want to go an a Dream Date with Terry Bradshaw. Why would a married mother of three from Missouri want to spend time with a Hall of Fame Quarterback? Terry is one of the funniest people in existence anywhere. Obviously, the accomplishments of his legendary career are extrordinary (and yes, I do understand football and enjoy watching it), but I really admire him for two other reasons. First, and particularly dear to my heart, are his efforts to de-stigmatize the use of medication to treat depression, particularly for men. It meant a lot to me personally to see this big, tough, strong man admit that he also takes anti-depressants. I'm kinda one of those cryin-on-the-inside clowns myself. That's what I dig about TB more than anything.
Additionally, the man bares his pasty ass in Failure to Launch! Forgive the play on words, but that's really ballsy!
I would really love to go to dinner and maybe see a movie (maybe even Failure to Launch, so he could see his own nekkid butt, wouldn't that be funny?) or something goofy like that with Terry Bradshaw. Yes, my husband is fully aware of my fondness for Terry, (and so are my blog readers at http://beholdmybrilliance.blogspot.com) and hubby's cool with my wanting to do this. That's probably because he doesn't think it will ever happen. And nothing gives me more sheer joy than proving hubbypoo wrong.
Now, I don't want to marry Terry or anything (his track record, hel-LO!), I just wanna hang out with him. I bet he's an absolute hoot.
Anyway, I know that something like this My Crazy Dreams thing is the only way I'd really get to meet the man, so I thought I'd give it a try."
Oh, it's gonna happen, y'all. Stay tuned.
But before I go... tell me why THIS picture is funny.
Ok, ya know how us incognitoCatholics are supposed to not eat meat on Fridays in Lent (BTW, I really don't understand the Biblical basis for that), and then if St. Pat's happens to fall on a Friday the Archbishop gives Special Dispensation so we can all eat the traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage? We have this Archbishop that's reeeeeeeeeeeally conservative and he's pissed a lot of people off around here. So R and I had a discussion yesterday.
I think it's completely silly that the Archbishop has to give special dispensation every 7 years for St. Pat's meat-eating. Why doesn't he just decree it that, going forward, should St. Pat's fall on a Friday, it's ok to eat the Corned Beef without fear of Purgatorial Consequences. It's even sillier that this Special Dispensation gets Headline Media coverage, but it does. So I said that since it's bascially a Clergical formality, we'll soon see on the news that Dispensation has been granted.
R said that this archibishop is enough of an ass that he will not grant it, and everyone who eats Corned Beef will be banished to a special section of Hell where everyone must wear Gauchos made of FunFur. Ok, I made that last part up. Now I agree that the Archbishop's an ass, but I was so sure that I was right on this, I made a bet with R. If I won, I got to polish R's toenails.
And last night, it made the news. I was right. I'm gonna pick out the sickest, girliest, Barbiest, pukey hot pink I can find. I'll post a photo. Muhuhahahahaha.
And also in the news, this bonehead I used to work for. Doesn't he just look like a genius financial wizard bidnissman? Yeah. Nice to see that he's being punished for blowing mine and six other people's yearly salaries in one night of drunken debauchery on the company dime. 
Here's a little something my Secret Pal Ivana sent me, it seems appropriate for Rob McCormick.
http://beagleweb.com/personal/Frantics-Tae-Kwon-Leep-64k.mp3
Give the link a minute to warm up, it's worth it.
I am in serious need of a row counter.
I want to make The Booga Bag.
And I have the yarn to do it, so I don't have to buy any.
Maybe the planets will align, the laundry and dishes will wash themselves and the boys will take naps this afternoon.
And perhaps primates will spontaneously expell themselves from my rectum. Monkeys might fly outta my butt, for the Undercaffeinated.
But maybe MW's word of the day is a sign of good things to come. Click on Vanilla Ice in my sidebar. Today's word, kids, is KITSCH. One of my favorites.
The Word of the Day for March 9 is:
kitsch • \KITCH\ • noun
*1 : something that appeals to popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality
2 : a tacky or lowbrow quality or condition
Example sentence:
On the route up the mountain, there is plenty of kitsch (from teepees to giant dinosaur replicas) to entice campers to visit the roadside shops.
Did you know?
"The fashionable clothing label . . . kicked off the revival last June . . . , putting its models in [Carmen] Miranda-inspired swimsuits and marching them through a gantlet of 50 tons of bananas," writes Mac Margolis in Newsweek International (January 2006) of a fabulously kitschy gala commemoration for the late Brazilian singer and actress Carmen Miranda. Since we borrowed "kitsch" from German in the 1920s, it has been our word for things in the realm of popular culture that dangle, like car mirror dice, precariously close to tackiness. But although things that can be described with "kitsch" and the related adjective "kitschy" are clearly not fine art, they may appeal to certain tastes—some folks delight in velvet paintings, plastic flamingos, dashboard hula dancers, and Carmen Miranda revivals!
*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.
I personally enjoy the Kitsch Factor of Esquivel and Lounge Music.
And I don't know why all the stuff in my sidebar is suddenly italicized. If you know how to fix it, please enlighten me.
I have begun my all-out blitz on Terry Bradshaw! Yesterday I emailed the NFL on FOX to pitch my Dream Date idea to whatever random toadie pissant reads the emails. I'll give them a week or two to respond, then I'm gonna start my massive Letter-Writing Snail Mail Offense detailing Why I Love Me Some TB. And then I'll re-assess the situation after that, to determine my next tactical move.
I am SO gonna score. (Insert Beavis laugh)
Wanna join the team? Help me out. Click HERE and then click TV, NFL on FOX, comments about announcers. Refer to this blog and we'll see what happens.
Buncha stuff going on today.
Ry said sumthin funny.
He called me into the bathroom to wipe him, and as soon as I entered, he said,
"Diarrhea is not good."
Classic.
*** Oh my gourd, I totally just realized I should have said "DUUUUH!!" in response to him! Dammit! That would have been brilliant! Ah, well.
In other news, my Beebie is gonna be a model! Well, kinda. She's going to appear in the American Girls Fashion Show as Kit, one of the Historical Character Dolls! We stood in line in vain for hours at two different casting calls (which each chose 30 names at random to be the models), and then we sent in this photo and they said Yes, come be Kit! What a lesson in perserverance!
Here's Beeb in her Kit jammies.
And here's a pic from the catalog with Kit, the doll she's gonna be dressed like. (The little girl in the pic below isn't Beeb.) 
And one week from today, we will be at my parents' house. It should be interesting. It always is. Anyone with kids knows that a vacation with the kids is anything but a vacation. But I think we've got some fun stuff planned, and the kids are getting older and able to do more. We're supposed to spend some time in Austin to see my sister and her hubbypoo. Last time she had left her stash (and I'm NOT referring to yarn here, if ya know what I'm sayin) out on top of her entertainment center when the kids and my parents and I were there. Lovely.
And speaking of unhealthy addictions (although I don't think buying yarn kills brain cells, or does it?), I'm on day 9 of my yarn diet. I'm hanging in there. It's getting easier, actually. R doesn't think I can do it. And nuthin motivates me to do something more than knowing somebody doesn't think I can do it.
Ever have this happen, someone you used to talk to every day just suddenly doesn't talk to you anymore? A friend of mine (let's call her Maddie) hadn't spoken ten words to me since Christmas, and I had no idea why. I didn't think I'd done anything to upset her. I knew I didn't do anything on purpose, and she's really the sort that I'd have thought would at least call me up and give me an earful if I pissed her off.
But I never got that from her.
Maybe it's nothing, I thought. She's probably just really busy with school and work and everything. It's nothing personal.
But apparently, I was SUPPOSED to take her not speaking to me personally.
I tried at least 4 times to reach out to her, both via phone and email. I even had R call and tell her that I missed talking to her and asking if I'd done something to upset her. She was short and abrupt in the times she did reply, and, as I said, had not initiated contact with me at all since before Christmas.
I had no idea what's going on and I was really sad. And worried. This wasn't like her.
The only thing I could think of was that my sister's guests booked rooms at the hotel chain that my friend works for (she got everyone a pretty decent deal on the rooms, which at the time she said she was happy to do)and maybe somebody bitched about something and it somehow got back to her, but nobody in my family did anything like that. The last time I talked to her was around the time of my sister's wedding.
** Just to give you an idea, HERE's a brief overview of what I was going through at that time. I had TONS of family coming in, a Flower Girl's dress to locate, decorations, drama drama DRAMA - plus my kids were out of school so all the work I did had to be around their schedule.
A few weeks before the wedding, my sister's FIL actually emailed Maddie's boss (TOTALLY went over her head) to complain that some of their guests had the room rate misquoted to them, which wouldn't have been Maddie's fault anyway, but she emailed me like "WTF is up with that dude?!!?" She was understandably really pissed that he did that - and my family was horrified, but she knew it wasn't my fault since I don't even really know the guy at all, and so I said something to my sister about it, and my sister apologized to me, and I apologized to Maddie, and everything calmed down. See, she'd totally call me if she was pissed, I still think she would.
I didn't think anything bad was going on in her relationship, but I really didn't know and that's what was bothering me more than anything. She and I used to work together and we're the only ones that either of us keeps in touch with from our old job, so we kinda have mutual friends but I couldn't imagine that she would be talking to any of them and not me. I'm positive I didn't do anything snarky like talk shit about her behind her back and then have something I said got back to her, nuthin like that. I really don't know.
At one point, I even wondered if it would it be really bad form if I were to call her boyfriend where he works and just ask if she's ok. I know him, so it wouldn't be out of the blue like I was a stranger. Of course, if something bad is going on at home, I don't want to fuel anything. But the not-knowing part was bummin me out.
So, yesterday I emailed her, asking "Hey, you're going to be done with Massage Therapy school pretty soon, aren't you? Are you excited? When do you graduate?" And her reply was -
"3 weeks."
Ok, I'm a conversationalist (could ya guess?), and so is she, and that's why we got along so well. That reply was really, really out of character.
This is the email I sent her next.
"I'm sad and I miss you. It kinda bums me out that I don't hear from you anymore. If I did something or said something that upset you, you'd tell me, wouldn't you? Cuz if I did, I am totally unaware of what it might have been. If you're really busy, that's cool and I don't want to bug you, I just wanted to make sure you weren't angry."
So here's what she said -
"I know you were really stressed out about the wedding but it really hurt my feelings the way the you and your mom spoke to me. "
You gotta be fucking kidding me.
This happened in DECEMBER. I've tried to talk to her since then, and R did too, and she and I have actually spoken maybe two sentences to each other, but this is the FIRST time she's said ANYTHING as to why she's been avoiding me for the last three months.
I was STUNNED.
So here's what I sent back.
"My mom said she was going to send a note saying how helpful you were. That whole wedding experience was a blur of activity to me, and I don't even remember what I said but I'm sorry. Clearly it affected you enough to stop talking to me. Thanks for letting me know."
I don't think I'll hear from her again.
I mean, Good God, we've been friends a LONG time. And if you recall, the week before and week after my sister's wedding (see my Blog entry for January 3rd) was PURE HELL for me. I'm sure I must have talked to her, but I honestly don't remember what I said. I can't imagine saying something that made her stop talking to me for 3 months, but I must have.
The kicker, to me, is that I HAVE tried to reach out and be pleasant since then, obviously not knowing anything was wrong. Now I'm just pissed. She never said a word. How was I supposed to know I did anything?? Thanks for the benefit of the doubt, under the circumstances. She was perfectly willing to trash our friendship and never talk to me again. And yet, I kept on trying. She never told me to stop calling her. So again, how would I know it was something I did?
I don't know if she reads this or not, but here's what I'd like to say to her right now -
For the last 3 months, I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt. It was actually hurting my feelings that you weren't talking to me. I didn't know why you weren't talking to me, but I assumed it wasn't intentional, and I made the conscious effort to not take it personally because I just figured that something was going on and that you probably weren't even aware that you were hurting my feelings. You're a busy person, I'm a busy person, I really didn't think anything of it, because in my mind, you had no reason to be angry with me. I had no idea I'd done anything to deserve the cold shoulder, so I never interpreted your not talking to me as being a result of something I did. I just figured you had school and work and your boyfriend and everything. Yeah, I was sad and I missed you, but I couldn't imagine that you'd be trying to hurt me on purpose. I had already forgiven you.
This is why I can't understand why you wouldn't have extended me the same courtesy during an extremely stressful time in my life, and think "oh, I know Sarah wouldn't hurt my feelings on purpose, she's just stressed..." and either let it go, or SAY something. I have tried to contact you several times in the last three months. You could have confronted me any of these times. It had to be obvious to you that I didn't know I did something to upset you. I would have at least appreciated the opportunity to apologize to you before now. In my own defense, I did apologize THE SECOND I knew I'd pissed you off. It's NOT my fault that it was three months afterwards. The silent treatment is just not the way to let me know something's bothering you. Especially if you want me to know that I did something that upset you, and I obviously am unaware of it.
If you're mad now because it took me so long to catch onto the fact that something actually WAS bothering you, and that you WEREN'T just really busy, or in a horrible situation you couldn't tell me about, or somehow isolating yourself intentionally, that's because I was alternating between thinking "oh, I'm sure she doesn't mean anything by not talking to me" and "God, I hope she's not in an abusive situation or something". I'm sorry if you thought I was just playing it off and minimizing your feelings by pretending like nothing was wrong.
But I WASN'T pretending. I didn't know anything WAS wrong. Until I asked. And at this point even my sincerest apology is a formality since I still don't know exactly what was said, and I doubt I ever will know since you're not really talking to me at all. And that's your choice, and that's fine. And now that I know that it's your choice to cut off all contact, I can at least go on with the knowledge that I've done all I can to make amends to someone who won't talk to me.
I realize that a lot of my regular readers may not know who Kirby Puckett and Terry Bradshaw are, and may not care. And that's okay. So here's a post for you guys.
Mr. Pie has discovered the word "DUUUUH!!"
He uses it quite often. Observe.
"Hey Pie, do you want a sandwich?"
"DUUUUUH!! I'm HUNgry!"
Grrrrrrrrr.
Good thing I got The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Familes from Paperbackswap.com today. I'm gonna see what Mr. Covey says about what to do with smartmouthed 4-year-olds. I'm hoping he condones the ol' forehead flick.
Have I mentioned Paperbackswap.com? It's such fun. There's a button in the sidebar. If you read a lot, or even if you don't but would like to if new books weren't so bloody expensive, it's a really great deal. It's FREE! All you do is pay for shipping the books via Media Mail (just a couple of dollars). You don't even have to go to the Post Office - the site tells you how much shipping is for each book you're sending out, and you just wrap it up in printer paper and put regular stamps on it.
I know that libraries exist and they're really free, but it always takes me longer than 2 weeks to read a book. I figure what I spend on shipping costs is comparable to what I'd pay in overdue charges at la biblioteca.
I was skeptical about Paperbackswap.com at first, but based on a $4.50 used book price, I've saved about $150 since joining up in October. R's a voracious reader, and he really loves being able to swap out the books he's read for different ones. And the kids have even swapped their books there. You can set up a Wish List, and then you'll receive an email when the books on your list are posted. The selection is improving as new members join, and the customer service is great. Anyway, if you're looking for something fun to do today, go through some old books and post them, then search the site for something you haven't read yet!
But enough with the Paperbackswap.com commercial.
I'm really having a hard time fighting the tempation to buy new yarn. I KNOW I don't need it. I really do posess the cognitive ability to understand that fact.
But it's sooooooooo cathartic.
And here's my problem with eBay. I'm SuperCompetitive. Like, cut-throat competitive. I hate losing. So I'll bid waaaay more than I really want to spend, even on stuff that I don't really want or need, just because I want to win. Dr. Phil would be proud of me for acknowledging that, I think. I need to stay away from eBay, especially on days when I'm drowning in self-loathing. There. Just saying it out loud is helpful.
I'm reallllllllllly trying to eliminate unnecessary spending from our lives. Yesterday I bought each of the kids a book at the Book Fair at the boys' school. And was promptly consumed by guilt. But is that guilt worse than the guilt I'd feel if I didn't buy the books? This is what perplexes me.
We are constantly surrounded by items, situations, and media images all of which make us feel like the worst parent in the world if we don't supply our children with Sufficient Educational Material (like the $750 laptop my SIL bought for my nephew's 9th birthday) and Learning Opportunities (like Space Camp for $2000). And have you seen the latest commercial for Disney World, with the glaring implication that if you DON'T take your kids to Disney World, they won't be as smart as the kids whose parents love them enough to take them there? We're supposed to put ourselves in hock so our kids can get the latest technological innovation, lest they be unable to compete in a Global Economy as adults. Riiiiiiight.
Maybe the logic is selfish at the core. After all, the more money our kids make as adults, the nicer Nursing Home they'll be able to afford to put us in.
It's ridiculous, and yet, like so many other parents, I buy into it. And it explains so much of what I hate about my life.
