Have You Ever Had This Conversation with Yourself?

Quit talking to yourself! Just. Quit. Doing. It.

Oh, For Pity's Sake, Will You Clean off theToilet Seat? Please?

More on this later. Maybe.

Too Fat for My Pants

It's going to be an uncomfortable day.

Deals Out This Week

Deals is on vacation this week. I wouldn't expect any new posts from her until at least next week, if I were you. That way, if she posts something sooner, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Well, Shiver Me Timbers, It's Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Ahoy, there, mateys! Today (Sept. 19) is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yippee!!

To learn the basics, go to http://www.talklikeapirate.com/.

Go to http://www.talklikeapirate.com/howtogerman.html to learn how to talk like a pirate in German!!!!!

My Apologies to Mr. Kitchen

It's Michael Kitchen, not Kitchens.

When Being Helpful Backfires

Sometimes, when we try to help someone, it blows up in our faces. This is especially common among children (or at least the children in my family), as they don't usually have or understand all the information needed to make a good decision.

For example, one time my brother and sister and I (when we were about 10 and 7 years old, respectively) decided to wash my mom's car for her, the car my mom hadn't had for very long. We wanted to make it very clean, so we used what mom used to clean the tub. Softscrub with bleach. The paint job on that car was never quite the same after that, and since we didn't have any money to fix the problem, poor Mom had to drive the car that way. Then, when we got to high school, JLR and I got to drive it.

When my brother was a little tyke, he covered our parents' new sofa in Vaseline. You know, to make it shiny.

How about you? Have you ever been this kind of helpful?

How to Deal with Stress

I think I could handle being at the grocery store much better if Kevin Max would sing my grocery list. Yep, if his beautiful voice were to whisper in my ear "you need bread, milk, and granola bars," I'd enjoy the grocery store much more.

Also, if Michael Kitchens could provide the narrative everytime I'm on hold, I'd probably actually believe it when whatever corporation I'm holding for insisted that my call was important and that I should remain on the line. In fact, I'd probably want to stay on hold. Mr. Kitchens has such a pleasant way of speaking.

Blinky blinky blink

Deals has jury duty today, so if you're looking for a new post from her...stop looking. It's not going to happen.

She is, however, able to send me text messages on my cell phone. I've counted 9 so far (as of 10 A.M.).

More on Wally

It's true. I'm one of those women. I love my cats. I have decided, therefore, to post pictures of them from time to time so that you all can pretend that you love them, too (no negative posts allowed!).

Wally likes to cuddle. Wally also likes to chew on toes. I don't know why.

Wally as a Lightbulb?

JLR thinks that Wally is beginning to look like an upside-down lightbulb.

Wallis Olivia, Mutated Behavior

My cat Wally and I used to have a certain nighttime ritual of which I was—shall we say?—not so fond. Every night, I would crawl in to bed, turn on the lamp on my night stand, and settle in to read my Bible. Then Wally would come strolling in to the room, jump on the night stand, deposit himself on my alarm clock, and blink at me, purring. It was really cute. The problem was that he would also "knead" his paws. This activity, invariably, reset my alarm or my clock or, if he was especially productive, both. My attempts to shoo him off of the alarm clock (still purring) only encouraged him to rub the side of his face on my lamp shade, the force of which often knocked the alarm clock off of the table. He also was partial (accidentally, or so he claims) to knocking my water glass off the night stand. If he had a good night, he could knock over the water glass, the lamp, and the alarm clock. Water and electricity, oh boy. Because Wally is not often bright enough to connect punishment with bad behavior on his part, attempts to deter this nighttime behavior were not successful. As it turns out, the only effective way to get him to leave the night stand was to turn off the lamp. For some reason, when the lamp went out, he was no longer interested. Perhaps he figured out that if the lamp was out, I was going to sleep and would no longer be available to pet him. Whatever the reason, it worked, and I did not question it. It got to be that when I turned on the lamp, and then he--having heard the lamp go on--came strolling in to the room, I would immediately turn out the lamp. I started reading the Bible by flashlight. After a while, the sound of the lamp going on no longer signaled to Wally an internal urge to sit on my alarm clock. I could turn on my lamp, and he didn't even enter the room! I grew careless with this new power to read by lamplight. I was no longer careful to make sure I turned out the lamp when he came in to the room.

Recently, though, he started jumping on my nightstand again, and then...

You know how if you get sick, and the doctor gives you antibiotics, but you don't finish taking them because hey, you're all better now, right? And then the germ or whatever it was mutates and comes back and makes you twice as sick as before?

Turning out the lamp no longer works. Wally has decided that my getting in bed is the signal to jump on the nightstand. No lamplight needed.

So we're back to the hasty removal of the water glass and the covering of the alarm clock with whatever is handy that might prevent his being able to reset the clock or the alarm or both.

A Resolution, 9-6-2005

Whereas, JLR and I finally got to meet Amstaff Mom and K-Pinion this past weekend, and we really enjoyed hanging out with them (although K fell asleep part way through the movie, so we didn't spend all that much quality time together); and

Whereas, I should add, that JLR and I let no time waste in making our usual bad first impressions; and

Whereas, my mother had given me this fancy conditioner that was supposed to make my hair super soft and silky (which it did. Not having instructions for this potent stuff, I used waaaaay too much. My hair wasn't greasy, exactly. It's just that, well...when I complained of what had happened to my hair, the general opinion of my audience seemed to be that maybe it would look allright after it dried. Then I would explain to them that my hair was dry already. So I didn't exactly look my best); and

Whereas, JLR and I tend to get a little nervous when meet new people, so we talk even more than we usually do, if you can believe that (We don't want to pry in to other peoples' lives, so we talk about ourselves, considering it a safe, non-confrontational topic of conversation. The problem with this tactic is that we are B. O. R. I. N. G.);

JLR and RR do hereby resolve to make a better impression and to be generally more interesting company the next time we hang out with Amstaff Mom and K-Pinion.