So we have these two babies.  They are furry and funny and curious and brave.  We name one Isabella and the other Nitro, which got changed to Snuggie, which got changed to Noogie(I have no idea where this came from, but I was the one who started it).  Now Isabella’s name is Izzy.  This is because we realized Izzy was male when he found his “special purpose in life” and started humping Noogie til he fell over sideways in a swoon. 

We finally had to move them to different quarters because Noogie emphasized her “not tonight, headache” with an attack that left Izzy sans hair on his nose.  MDH, darling that he is, constructed them a three-story condo, complete with balcony and burrow.  We actually moved lawnchairs into a semi-circle around them and sat outside drinking coffee and watching the bunnies for amusement.  (We have such a random life sometimes)

Just in case, we kept track of how long it had been since they were together and finally came to the conclusion that Noogie was not preggers.  Whew!  Dodged that bullet.  Well, not so much.

Rocky and I returned from town one day to discover four tiny little bare assed baby bunnies in the cage.  What??  Yep!  Four of em.  Crazy Legs told us he walked in the house and found Mini (one of our rat terriers) laying on the floor, eyes open, not moving.  And DeeDee on the couch with her paws up on the back of the couch, staring at the wall.  He couldn’t figure out what was going on.  The he checked the rabbit cage and there were the babies.  At that point, the dogs came out of lala land and started freaking out. 

OMG…..baby bunnies are the cutest things EVER!  The fit in the palm of your hand, will try to hop out even though they can’t see, and they feed upside down!  I’m serious.  They get close to their mom’s tummy then they flip upside down onto their backs and start to feed.  Weird! 

We gave one away and sold the other three.  Ten bucks apiece!  w00t!  I was thinking about getting Izzy fixed but now I’m not so sure.  I wouldn’t mind feeling like a contributing member of this family again.  We’ll see how it goes.

Next……Intentions vs Results

I have a very good friend who had a brain tumor.  She was treated for it, did a bunch of rehab, got way better(even lost weight!!!), and it was all way awesome!  She was telling me the doctors told her she had a 50/50 chance of it coming back at some point in the future.  I told her that was great!!!  She said…Huh?  WTF is so great about that????

My intention was to say that a 50/50 chance is all we ever get.  Any of us.  We could wake up dead tomorrow, we could choke to death on a chicken sammich, we could be walking down our steps and get tripped by a tear in the space/time continuum(don’t laugh, shit like that happens to me all the time!),  a piece of space debris could fall out of the sky and embed itself into our brain.  ANYTHING could happen.  Every time you wake up in the morning you have a 50/50 chance of going to bed that night without a tag on your toe.  THAT was my intention.

Result?  I pissed her off and now she knows without a doubt that I’m an idiot.  *sigh*  I’m really getting tired of people finally figuring that out.  I had hoped to keep it a secret for a while longer. 

Intention: Wake up in the morning and decide what housework I need to do, then do it.

Result: I get so bogged down in all the things that need doing that I ‘m not able to do, that I can’t think straight.  I can’t sort things out in order of execution, I can’t bend over, I can’t put my arms over my head for any length of time, I can’t get too hot, I can’t be in an open area without something to hold onto in case I get vertigo, I can’t go down steps very good (hence the badly sprained right ankle and broken left leg that started on the first day of summer and ended on the last day, literally, which was caused by a step down off of a six-inch high porch), I can’t turn my head too fast or I will fall down, ……I could go on forever but I will stop here. 

Intention: Find out how the kids’ day went at school. 

Me: How was your day?

Result: *sigh*

Buddha: FiiiinnnneeeUH!  (whereupon he disappears into his room never to be seen again unless a) food is ready to eat, or b) I wake him up the next day to go to school.

Princess Bella:  Why, what did you hear?

Me: Uh….nuttin.  I was just asking.

PB: Well it was fine! (face getting red, eyes slightly bulging)

Me: Good!

PB: I don’t know why you always have to ask me that!  Nothing happened!  Everything was fine! Not one bad thing happenedalllday! (face very red, eyes bugged out like something off of Outer Limits)  Whereupon she disappears into her room, which lasts all of five seconds because Bella runs at warp speed.  She can only bounce off the walls of her room for a few seconds, then she has to have a larger area to bounce off of. 

Me: (alone in the room, slightly disoriented) Well, that went well.

Next…….

I’ve been browsing around the blogosphere and I ran up on something truly amazing!  simplynutmeg.com is the coolest. blog . ever.  Nutmeg has the voice I heard in my head when I first imagined this blog.  THAT was what this was supposed to sound like.  Unfortunately, my blog comes out sounding just like me.  I wanted to sound all witty and funny and cool.  I guess this could be considered a P.S. to the Intention vs Result section of our day. 

Go check her out.  She rules.  http://simplynutmeg.com/  And while you’re there, you HAVE to check out the “how I survive barney” section.  The woman has taste!  You will find yourself, ninety minutes later, holding your sides laughing and wondering where the time went!

Ok, seriously, I have to get something done.  I have been sitting here for hours and it’s time I earned my keep.  I could go make that bread in those new pans that I bought myself for Christmas.  They have cute little shapes.  But I’m not sure if the bread in a tube will work for that.  Maybe I should try to come up with something more productive to do with the bread?  Or I could do laundry. But I can’t bend over to take it out of the dryer, so I can only do one load until someone comes over and I have to beg them to get them out for me.  I could clean out the closet, but that requires arms over head, bending over….no, I guess not that one.  I could vacuum the floor!  Yeah!  Yay I found something I can do!! 

Crimanently, it’s sad when sucking dirt off your floor is the most productive thing you can think of to do in a day. 

Welcome to Life in the slow lane.

We had a great December. It was busy as all get out but fun just the same.  We went to a family dinner at a local steakhouse.  It was fantastic!  The kids had a blast, the adults got to catch up, and our cousin came home from far away and it was wonderful to have her home.  She is basically the driving force behind all significant family gatherings.  If not for her we would spend half our time together saying how we really need to spend more time together.  We also went to our youngest daughter’s house for a Christmas celebration.  She, her husband, and our youngest grandchild hosted our little celebration. It was the first time she had Christmas in her own home and it was really great.  The baby had a ball and entertained us all with his cute antics and his darling little sweet face. 

The only problem with the trip to our daughter’s house was the fact that it’s about two hours away.  That means that I was in a vehicle riding for about four hours that day.  For those of you who don’t know what that means…it means that for four hours that day my cerebellum was being jiggled farther and farther down into my spinal column.  It bites.  I am just now starting to feel better after massive quantities of ibuprofen and many days on my back.  But it was worth it.

We have had Christmas programs to go to for both The Buddha and Princess Bella.  They were both awesome!  Bella’s was first and it was a band concert.  Isn’t it funny how you can pick out your own child out of all the rest?  I love that.  And Bella did an excellent job!  I always feel like crying when I go to these things.  I’m just so proud. 

Buddha’s was a dance recital.  He rules.  The dancers were all wonderful.  Even more amazing was that they choreographed the dances themselves.  As I sat and watched them I was struck by how much creativity was there on that stage.  Buddha was in two dances: one in a large group and one with just three of them.  He is also the only male in the dance classes.  When he started doing his own dance in the one with three people, everyone in the audience started calling out his name.  He got a standing ovation at the end and everyone had a natural fit over him.  It made me so proud! 

We had a great Christmas Day.  It was just the six of us and it was nice and quiet.  The kids both got what they asked for (which was very little).  They both asked for just one main thing and said that if they got that they would be happy if they got anything else at all.  They were true to their word and were both happy and satisfied.  The really nice thing is that we won’t be trying to pay for it all well into this year. 

We go pick up Buddha’s car this week from his other grandparents’ house.  Bless their very souls, they are paying his insurance!!!  Which, if you have young drivers around the house, you know is incredibly expensive!  If it had been up to us he would have been 21 years old and just getting his licence because there is NO WAY we could have afforded it!  They passed a new law last night (thaaaat’s right, last night) that requires him to have a driving log that has at least 60 hours of driving time on it, done over a 6 week period, before he can get the first level of his driver’s licence.  He is totally cheesed off.  I am very happy about it.  I think  know it will be a wonderful thing for him and everyone else on the road! 

So….there’s the update.  Now for the second half of our program…..

To the Republican Party – You would not be having  near as much trouble finding a standout candidate if you would stop trying to put a candidate in the white house who would keep the status quo.  The country hasn’t forgotten that a Republican administration, defined by greed at any cost, is largely responsible for getting our country and our economy in the sad and sorry state it’s in today.  You should instead be telling us how you are going to do things differently.  Not differently from the current administration(whose hands you have tied at every turn in one of the most appalling attempts at mis-direction I have personally ever seen), but differently from what you yourselves have done in the past.  You would stand a much better chance of achieving your goals if you would do that. 

To Michelle Bachman – Chilling.  I saw you on the CBS news show this morning and you strike me as one of the most incredibly dangerous people in the world today.  You made the hair on the back of my neck twitch when you so blithely decided that traipsing out some massive weaponry and putting embargos in place strategically around Israel is a good response to Iran having nuclear capabilities!  WTF????  What, exactly, gives the U.S., in your mind, the right to “punish” another nation for having exactly the same weaponry capabilities as we do?  Did it ever cross your mind that pissing in the Wheaties of another country is not necessarily the best option for foreign relations? 

And while I’m on the subject let me just say that our country has a serious, and I mean SERIOUS, problem understanding that WE are not the only people in the world with a viewpoint, or rights, or the right to weaponry.  We believe that our country and our ways are the only ones that are right, but we do NOT extend the same right to opinion and therefore action, to anyone else.  Only we and our friends are allowed to be free to make up our own minds about what we want to do and believe.  The unmitigated gall of that crap is the very reason why a large majority of the countries of the world smile at our face, then  flip us off the minute our back is turned!!  This ridiculous policy, that it’s no fair hitting back , is bullshit.  Get the hell over it before we end up with bombing in OUR streets!!

P.S. Michelle….stop beating a dead horse and transfer your support to someone who might have an ice cube’s chance in hell of winning.  Just sayin.

I absolutely love the commercial where the kid is telling how his mom is addicted to denial.  I just can’t say how much I think the commercial is spot on.  As a parent, I have often dabbled in denial.  You can’t ….deny….(lololol) that it’s way easier than confronting a problem you don’t feel equipped to deal with effectively.  Unfortunately, the fallout from denial is way worse than the confrontation could have ever been. 

Okay, I’m tapped out now and my brain is completely empty.  Ahhhh that feels better! 

Shall I tell you about them?  Okay, I will.  In order of appearance:

Sugar Plum: She was dropped off here with her brother when they were puppies.  I wasn’t here yet.  She was probably between 9 months and one year old when I moved here.  Her brother had been shot by a neighbor for trying to eat their dog’s food.  Sugar got away.  But she was starving and no one wanted her…..until we came.  We consider her our good luck charm.  When we decided to buy the house, we came one day to just hang out and get used to the place.  Sugar Plum was very friendly and playful.  She was also very hungry, skinny,  and scrawny. ( She was sooo hungry in fact, that she ate my cell phone!  Ever after she would occasionally roll around on the ground and make really strange noises.  We decided that she was answering the phone when she did that. )  But I digress.  When we came to hang out that day, she was under the plum tree eating plums.  Hence the name Sugar Plum.  She speaks in a gentle, witty, sweet, wise, strong, fun loving voice.  Underneath it all is a will of iron.  She can climb a chain link fence.  She teaches all the babies how to survive.  She will defend herself and her friends against anyone and anything. She plays with the babies when they are little.  Her favorite treat is bird seed.  I love her with all my heart.

Jeremiah: Jeremiah (Jerry) came to us because The Buddha made a lil slip up.  The neighbors were going on vacation and he was given the job of feeding their dogs for them.  He was supposed to keep Fat Girl locked on the porch and keep Boy fed and watered too.  What wasn’t explained to him in detail was that Fat Girl was in heat.  And Boy, being a boy, was desperate to get to her on that porch.  Well, the vacation was over and all was well until we were informed that Fat Girl was pregnant!  Questions were asked, answers given and the mystery solved.  Seems that The Buddha felt sorry for Fatty and Boy because they were really lonesome for each other so he let Boy onto the porch to give Fat Girl some company one day!  We felt duty bound to take one of the babies.  As we walked into the yard to pick one out, this tiny fat lil rolly polly fella came running right out to us and checked us out.  On the spot My Dearest Husband chose him.  And that is how we got Jeremiah.  He was tough, sweet, very protective, and he snored.  He also taught my baby Dash how to act like a big dog.  He would find a bone, give it to Dash(who was all of six weeks old), and then come take it from him.  Dash would just sit there.  He would bring it back and give it to him again.  Then take it very slowly, gently growling while he did.  Dash would then growl his tiny baby growl.  Jerry would lick him and give him back the bone, then start all over again until he taught Dash how to defend his food or rag or stick or pebble or whatever Dashie had picked up to play with.  Jerry spoke in a strong, loud, protective, country voice.  He went missing and I miss him still.

TT: TT stands for Tiny Tot, which she most definitely isn’t!  She is Sugar Plum and Jeremiah’s baby girl.  We didn’t intend to keep her.  We went to Wal Mart parking lot to give the babies away and a girl said, “PLEASE PLEASE hold her for me while I go inside and do my shopping. I will pick her up when I come out!”  So we held onto her through three or four people who wanted her.  The girl never came back.  But when we got home, Sugar Plum was beside herself with joy that one of her babies had come home to her so we kept her.  She spent her first year being very quiet, unassuming, and watchful.  Since then she has become friendly, funny, outgoing, and smart.  She plays like she’s making up for lost time. She speaks in an exuberant voice that is strong, quiet, and vigilant. 

DeeDee: DeeDee was the only dog we ever bought.  Right after The Buddha and Princess Bella came to join our family, MDH decided that the kids needed a dog.  We decided on Rat Terriers because they are very tiny and also incredibly smart.  A lady who was selling babies was located and we went to pick one out.  We fell in love with her immediately.  Rat Terriers come in two shapes, with tall legs and with short legs.  DeeDee has tall legs.  We also fell in love with her brother, who had short legs and looked like a miniature tough guy.  He was going to someone else though, so we made our deposit on Dee and left to wait til she was old enough to leave her momma.  When we got there, the lil boy dog was still there too.  The breeder said that his girl never came and we could get him too if we wanted to.  WE DID!  So we bought both dogs and took them home to the kids as a surprise.  They were so tiny that we had both of them in a cat carrier and the kids had to peer all the way to the back to find them.  Theo died in the house fire, but DeeDee survived.  She speaks in a quiet, dominant voice that is occasionally girlish and silly.

Mini: AKA Minimum, Miniature, Mini Mouse.  She is Dee’s baby and she was incredibly tiny right from the start.  She was half the size of her siblings at two weeks.  She stayed the same size for months.  One or more of her siblings bit her head when she was little, and bit her tail and broke it twice.  I had to take her out of the pen and keep her away from the other pups.  I was going to give her away too but I could never get in touch with the guy I was going to give her to.  I would call his shop (at 2:00 AM) and he never answered.  I would drive by there with her in a carrier (at 6:00 pm on Sunday) and he wasn’t there.  Eventually I just had to keep her!    She is built like her mother, with long legs and slender body.  She is all speed.  She can lap every dog here running around in the field.  She can jump higher, run faster and go longer than every dog we have.  She is also mildly retarded, from the bites to her head when she was little I guess.  She speaks in a squeaky voice at hyper speed, often and long.  However, she speaks a foreign language and most of the time we can’t understand her at all.  But she’s funny and fun and amazing to watch.

They all talk to me all the time.  I wouldn’t change that for the world.

Antibiotics – Probiotics

antihistamine - Prohistamine

antidepressant - prodepressant

Antidote – prodote

Antibacterial – probacterial

Anticipate – procipate

Antiseptic – proseptic

Antimacassar – promacassar

Antipasto – propasto

Antipathy – propathy

Antigen – progen

Antidisestablishmentarianism – prodisestablishmentarianism 

Antique – proque

Antitheses – protheses

Pro vs Anti

Probably – antibably

Probation – antibation

Probe – antibe

Problem – antiblem

Procedure – anticedure

Proceed – anticeed

Profession – antifession

Profane – antifane

Profile – antifile

Profit – antifit

Prohibit – anithibit

Protect – antitect

Profound – anitfound

Project – antiject

This is what happens when you have too much time on your hands. 

No, I didn’t win the lottery or Publisher’s Clearing House.  I didn’t get a free trip to the Bahamas.  I didn’t get anything….except to feel fantastic, incredible, happy, healthy,   normal.  For me normal is the highest height I can aspire to.  It’s the highest feeling I’ve had since I got FUBAR’d.   (Thank you Arnold Chiari Malformation and MS….you suck a big green weenie)

It started when I woke up at 4:30 am.  Very unusual for me lately.  Normally I would hit the snooze about seven times and sleep until almost 5:30 am.  But I felt really awake and so I rolled with it.  I got up and fixed homemade biscuits and sausage for everyone for breakfast.  After I got everyone off to school and work, I sat down to read for a few minutes.  When I looked up again I decided that feeling normal ROCKS and so I would use that time to do something constructive.  I proceeded to clean up my paper avalanche around the computer.

When I die it is going to be from being suffocated by a large pile of paper that I couldn’t think well enough to decide what to do with. 

So I put the FAT principle into motion and divided everything into three piles: File, Act, Toss.  That eliminated about 90% of the paper.  Then I filed the F pile and that left me with the Act pile.  So far so good.  Then I tossed 3 years worth of old files and dug down to the current page of my desk calendar.  That right there is more than I’ve done in months and months. 

After I was done, I could actually get to my computer without climbing any paper mountains and without a native guide.  I was happy.  I then went grocery shopping with Rocky and Pony.  When we got back I put away groceries, loaded the dishwasher, did some laundry, and fixed dinner. 

Sounds like a small fraction of anyone’s normal day, doesn’t it?  Yeah, I know.  But for me it was like a life orgasm.  I got to spend a day being sorta like I used to be.  You know, like a real person.  Like a human being that can get up in the morning and look around and say…..I need to do this and this and this…..and not mean ONLY this and this and this but mean in addition to my normal stuff. 

What I can usually do is get up in the morning and look around and say to myself….how in the name of God will I ever be able to catch up with all this stuff?  Then I get really optimistic and say to myself….just pick a couple of things to do and don’t worry about the rest.  Then I look around and there is just SO MUCH that I haven’t done that I can’t decide what needs doing most.  Which makes me feel like a total slug and worthless in the extreme.  Then I get to feeling bad about myself and it ends up where I spend most of every day trying to keep from cutting my own throat for being such a worthless excuse for a human being. 

Because I can’t lift my hands over my head because it messes up my neck and I get headaches and vertigo, and I can’t bend down because it makes me dizzy, and I can’t stand up straight for long because it makes my knees go numb, and I can’t and I can’t and I can’t and I can’t……..!  My entire life is the things I can’t. Sometimes I just go ahead and do it anyway.  Then I spend days where I can’t think good, I can’t walk good, I can’t talk good, my head hurts, my neck hurts and that damn screaming tinnitus will not leave me alone.  I don’t understand what people are saying to me, and I don’t get what they want and I don’t know how to say that I don’t get it.  I am terrified of becoming stuck in that state one day.

But the other day……I had a GOOD day!  I live off of those like they are food.

WTF is the idea that commercials have to discuss, along with cute little graphics no less, bowels?  Seriously?  If you have questions about that, I suggest you go to your family doctor and talk about it with him/her.  Or you could take a little trip on the world wide web and get informed by a bunch of people who wrote all about their own bowels on Wiki.  If there isn’t one, after you talk to your doctor and get all the latest info on pooping, you could invent Wiki Pee dia. LOLOL  Damn sometimes I crack myself up!!

WTF is going on with young, gorgeous teachers suddenly deciding that the only place that they can knock out a piece is with a way underaged student?  Are there no grown ups out there that you can hook up with?  It boggles my mind.  Not to mention that these folks, who are teaching our children, still haven’t figured out that if you text (or sext) a kid, that kid will….I REPEAT WILL forward that text to every single person on their contacts list the instant you don’t give them the grade they want!  It’s really not rocket science. Figure it out!

WTF is up with the political situation in this country?  I have been shaking my head for so long that I think I have permanent vertigo!  Just so you folks who are professional politicians know….most of us hate you and everything you don’t stand for.  And in case any of you think you have fooled anyone, all of you Republicans and Democrats alike can stand around until Hell freezes over with your arms crossed in front of you and pointing in both directions at who is to blame, but every one of you greedy, power-hungry bastards and bitches are to blame for the situation our country is in at the moment.  I still believe that every single person who wants to be a politician for a living should be summarily shot and that every single citizen of this country should be required to serve a term as part of their duty to this country.  It couldn’t  come out any worse than it has so far!

WTF…..teenagers.  *sigh*  Need I say more?

WTF…..all the people protesting on Wall Street, and now everywhere else?   I’ve never been able to get a firm grasp on exactly what they are there for.  The pseudo-hippy dude that always seems to be the spokesman for the groups just fascinates me so much while he’s talking that I just fugue out and start reminiscing about “back in the day” when we were all involved in “the revolution” and stuff.  We were all so self  important and sure we were doing something.  Turns out what we were doing was hanging around somewhere getting all involved in one huge mutual admiration society.  We were all so busy standing around in a circle patting each other on the back that we completely missed what the powers that be were doing behind our backs.  I’m just sayin.

Luckily for his wife….she is now free to leave his sorry ass in the dust.  Run far, run fast, and don’t look back Mrs. Robertson!

I have a hard time trying to figure out why they will show this type of disaster but don’t show the bodies flying through the air when they film a traffic accident.  If it’s acceptable to show someone drowning in mental illness, why isn’t it ok to show someone jumping from a burning building? 

Both are personal disasters and they shouldn’t be made as public as humanly possible.  That’s just common and tacky behavior and news organizations should be ashamed of themselves for cashing in on it. 

I’m just sayin.

P.S.  Does it strike anyone else as odd that one of the top rated television shows in this nation is about a booze addled sexual reprobate who has no interpersonal skills except with hookers?

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is threatening to sue McDonald’s restaurant if they don’t stop putting toys into their Happy Meal.  WTF?  These people, whoever they are, are equating the happy meal toys with candy from child predators!  What???? 

Number One: This still being America, it is MY decision and MY decision alone what my children eat.  If I don’t want them to eat a Happy Meal I will tell them NO myself.  I don’t want or need your help to do it.  Rest assured, The Center for Science in the Public Interest…….I got this.

Number Two: Who the hell are you anyway?  I never asked some random anonymous group  you to represent my public interest.  I can handle that quite well all on my own, thank you very much.  I’ll be doing that right along with deciding whether or not my kids can have a Happy Meal! 

Number Three:  Butt the hell out!  Here’s an idea…..how about you concern yourself with kids who have no one to make that decision for them?  How about you take your “science in the public interest” and use it for some real public interest?  You can use all of your influence and backing (from God only knows where) and fix the foster care system in this country. Or you can use it to try to infuse some common sense into politics, like maybe instead of forcing people to purchase medical insurance, you can set it up so that those of us who are free Americans can decide for ourselves if we WANT to buy insurance.  Oh wait…..That’s the opposite of what you do, right? 

Number Four:  Who told you what the public interest is?  I don’t recall having a vote as to what my public interests are.  And I can promise you this: it will be twenty years after the end of the world before I let some random group whose aims and goals I know nothing about, decide anything for me. 

Number Five:  What science?  Who are the “scientists” who are providing you with your information?  Is this real science or junk science?  Or is it maybe science of the “let’s see how many dumb asses we can get to back this lame idea without thinking about it” variety? 

Number Six:  What ever happened to parents making the decisions for their children?  That is our JOB!  We decide what we are going to allow.  You can’t legislate stupid out of the world.  If we could, YOU would be the first to go!

*sigh*

2. I want to start walking.  Nothing big but it would be nice to be able to go out to the deep freeze and back without huffing like a buffalo with emphysema!

3. I want to smoke less. 

4. I want to see my daughter Birdie happy and relaxed for a change.  It’s time for her to be able to do that and she deserves it.  This doesn’t really count as something for ME to do, but it still applies.

5. Make pottery.  I have done this in the past but not for a long time.  I want to start back.  And weaving.  And tanning hides.  Yeah, stuff like that.