My (not-so-impressive) goals for this weekend

1. Get the invitations ready for the Kiddo's birthday party. It's next weekend, so I hope I can get the friends from school in time. Partially done: need to buy colored ink to print them out for him to bring to school Monday. He helped design them. ^.^DONE!



2. Put together the Christmas list. Pretty much everyone's getting handmade things this year, but how many gifts do I still need to put together? Who am I exchanging with? Do I even know? (and is it OK to hint that I'd LOVE the Aziraphale and Crowley perfumes? And how cool is it that they even EXIST?) Work in progress.....

3. Shave the legs. It's a jungle down there. Sure, no one sees my legs but Z, and he's still in Georgia for another two weeks, but it can't hurt to start some maintenance down there. I'm starting to look a little manly. Done. It's nice to look like a girl again.

4. Make my room no longer look like a yarn shop threw up in a thrift shop. There's some serious straightening that needs to be done. Also, getting the assorted strings organized will help a bit with #2. Not quite done. Spent more time in the Kid's room than mine. Sigh.

5. Work. Yes, that still needs to be done, as well, doesn't it? Alas. To be honest, I did shift a fair amount of my store visits to Friday and Saturday this week so I can spend more time with the kid. But I can still Do It All. A challenge appeared when the Kid needed to go to see the doctor Friday afternoon, but I'm on my way to finish things up as soon as I get my uniform on. Forget that. Done, baby, done!

6. Actually call my brother and have a real conversation with him that doesn't involve either one of us reading out loud from the internet. DONE!!!! He's working overnights now. Weird....

I promise I won't do this too often.

Posting test results is really more of a MySpace or LiveJournal thing, and I try to keep this as different from those experiences as possible. That said, I enjoyed this test.





If I do it again, soundly berate me.

I blame boredom.

Either that, or I have been spending WAY too much time reading and listening to everyone else's stories. Nonetheless. I have actually, for the first time in a long time, actually written a (I think) coherent and amusing story.

I haven't proofread it much; this is basically the second draft, taken from the version I scribbled in my notebook between shopping trips today. It's been renamed twice so far, and I have yet to find a permanent last name for the lead character (The current one is from a spell-check suggestion from her previous name), but.... well, I like it. And I probably won't be too embarrassed to reread it in a month's time. I hope.

Also, there's zombies. You're welcome. And I hope you enjoy.

Thelma Lagerfeld's First Night at Bingo

Thelma Lagerfeld’s 1986 Cadillac pulled into the VFW parking lot fifteen minutes after Bingo night was scheduled to start, as usual. She took her wrap-around driving shades off and tucked them into the sun visor, then checked her helmet of apricot-colored curls in the rearview mirror. She sighed, reached into her oversized tote bag, and pulled out a value-sized can of Aqua Net hair spray. After a few liberal spritzes of the sticky stuff, she stuffed the can back into her bag with her Bingo markers, two packs of Marlboro Reds, her deceased husband’s Zippo, a roll of peppermints, and the other detritus that accumulates in the purses of the geriatric set.

She stepped out of the car and made her way to the side door of the VFW building. She actually hated Bingo. However, her girlfriends Muriel and Sally kept crowing about the men they had met there, and Thelma was not about to miss out on any opportunities. They kept telling her to make an appearance, an unforgettable entrance, and that the gents would be sure to notice. So, gritting her teeth, she went. Muriel and Sally told her to make sure to “dress for the men”, so Thelma was in an ill-advised halter top that strained across her drooping breasts, pale floral Capri pants that accentuated every dimple and ripple in her thighs and rear end, and high-heeled mules that made her teeter when she walked. She felt too exposed and a bit shameless, but the girls did say she needed to lose her shame to get a man, especially at their age. She straightened up as she put her hand on the door.

Judging by the sounds she heard, this was an awfully rousing Bingo night.

Muffled shouts came from behind the door, with a rising note of hysteria. Thelma decided that they must have caught someone cheating, and shame on anyone who would try to cross the Shady Pines ladies on their evening out! They’d get a lecturing they’d not soon forget. However, a particularly bloodcurdling shriek made Thelma’s already-teased hair stand on end. She stood frozen with her hand on the knob for a minute, then smiled. Shameless, right? Time to live up to that. She swung the door open and stepped inside.

Not what she expected.

She was half-anticipating a robbery, or a hostage situation, or even gang violence. Barring that, a catfight over one of the few remaining available men wouldn’t have been shocking. What Thelma saw, though, was her friends and some of the neighbors from the senior village cowering behind the caller’s table, flinging Bingo cards and golf pencils at a group of slow-moving, groaning, slavering zombies. Thelma saw Muriel and Sally holding onto each other and crying, a mass of orthopedic shoes, leopard-print stretch pants, and running mascara. Thelma’s mouth hardened. Muriel and Sally may have talked her into wearing hussy clothes, and they may have unwittingly lead her into an attack by the undead, but that didn’t matter. These zombies were going to get it. No. One. Messes. With. My. Girls.

Thelma flew into action. She whipped out her extra-large can of Aqua Net. She took her lighter in her hand, kissed it for good luck, and sparked it into flame under a spritz of hair spray. A fireball whooshed into life and ignited the nearest zombie. The undead slowly turned and began to lurch her way. She dispatched another four of the stumbling animated corpses with her makeshift flamethrower before she ran out of hair spray. Frustrated, she pocketed her lighter and threw the can to the ground. She glanced over to the table, where the other seniors were standing in awe, their mouths open. However, her girlfriends seemed to be getting it together. Good.

She grunted a signal to them as she grabbed the flag that stood near the door. She stripped the material from the stout metal pole and began to swing it at the zombies, making sure to aim for their heads. A burst of light and heat from one side made her flinch, then grin. Muriel, another Aqua Net devotee, had taken her cue, and was incinerating the unlucky bodies that Thelma knocked down. Thelma risked a glance to her left, and saw Sally swinging at some other zombies with her own artificial leg. The trio worked their magic until the final creature was down.

Thelma breathed a sigh of relief, and patted her hair back into place. She smiled at the frightened but amazed group, still immobilized behind the caller’s table. She had no idea whether this was an isolated incident, or if there was going to be more carnage to follow. But she did know one thing.

If THAT didn’t impress the menfolk, she was absolutely going to have to join the senior choir instead.

Gratitude

So today is Thanksgiving, and before we all munch our way into a tryptophan-induced coma, take a moment to reflect upon the good stuff that keeps us going. Our families, whether we're together or not, and the love they have given and continue to give to us. Our friends, for everything they do for us. For our homes, and for work, which we can be considered lucky to have. Just remember - Life Is Good.

And now, a message from the kid.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, he was done faster than I expected.

To you and yours, a safe, fun, holiday. Now go fall asleep watching football.

Another thought for today

When considering unwinding a skein of sock yarn at both ends to find the center point and divide into two center-pull balls: Don't.

I may get untangled someday.

Living up to the page title

I see it's been some time since I posted in here, hasn't it? While much has gone on in real life (Z finally came home for a great weekend! Getting lots of Christmas crap knitted! Saucy text messaging! Introducing the Kid to palindromes! Paying off the car!), there hasn't been much activity here in blogland for me.

So today, you get a bunch of links for other sites that I enjoy. Why? Beats making a sidebar. And you never know when a linkback may occur. Although I do doubt it for some of 'em at least.

Let me get the first two out of the way, because you already know about them, and if you don't then you may well have missed the point of having the internet in the first place, funny pet photos. For cute fuzziness to the nth degree, get your tush over to Cute Overload and prepare to go "awwwwww!" until you drool. For the poorly-spelled caption variety, your source should very well be I Can Has Cheezburger?, home of the so-called LOLcats. Prefer cats saying silly things, but as a cartoon? Also, have a hankering for hoboes? Visit Adam Koford's HOBOTOPIA for his Laugh-Out-Loud Cats comics and other niftiness.

Like laughing at photos of unfortunately dressed celebrities? Sure, we all do. Get your "They wore WHAT?" fix at Go Fug Yourself, and resolve to never wear formal shorts. You're doing us all a favor, believe me. For good photos of the largely non-famous, Bill Wadman's mission to deliver 365 Portraits this year is a visual treat. Like them new-fangled moving pictures? Get a quick fix with Joel (or Mike) and the 'bots with this collection of MST3K Shorts!

Want to knit with a wacky, drunken Southern girl? Why the heck not? At Crazy Aunt Purl's site, you get all that PLUS obsessing over her cats. Sweet. I also get a kick out of the goings-on of soon-to-be-famous writer Max (and other strangeness), who has a penchant for zombies and such. More frightening, but shorter, are the products of the Daily Scares writers, who I am convinced I know from school, and if so, they haven't changed a bit. EDIT: I do know them, and they're talented. Go listen to the stuff. You will love it.

So go click around. I've got nothing here today. I'll come up with something next time. More superheroes or something.

Martian Child

Oh, I want to see this.

My bestest best guy, ever (okay, third after the kiddo and Z), John Cusack, has a new movie starting this weekend. It looks like a cutesy-poo thing about accepting a weird kid for his faults BLAH BLAH BLAH but despite that, I want to see this. Hell, I'd pay money to see this man read out loud from a stack of corporate memos.

I could bring up the "Well, Z looks just like him during the 'Better Off Dead'/'Say Anything' era" discussion that this usually goes into, but let's just say that although there is a similarity, (okay, a HUGE similarity. Even the same height, come to think of it. It's just the hair texture and noses that differ) they're different brands of good-lookin'.

Whatever. You can't find me this weekend, I'm likely to be wallowing in Cusack-induced blissfulness.

Guess what?

Z is coming home for a visit!!!!!


Does it show that I'm excited? ^.^

He'll be in town for Veteran's day weekend, so we'll need some fun for Saturday evening. Maybe Bitting's, or something? We'll figure it out.

Halloween awesomeness

So it was a great, great day. Kiddo's costume was so cute, he charmed the peanut butter cups right off of everyone he met. He was *really* into trick-or-treating this year, too, so we had a LOT of fun making the neighborhood rounds after school. He was a bit rambunctious at the class party; I just hope it was because he was overexcited. I dressed up as well, but I always do, so no big shock there. Our Jack-O-Lanterns are still pretty much intact (yay lack of pumpkin rot!) and I need to snap some pics of them before we toss them out. I was hoping we could carve one with the immortal image of a bear holding a shark, but sadly, I was voted down. Instead, we have a grumpy face and a cheery face.

But yes. Fun ensued. And my kid was cuter than anybody, hoorah!