I was in a building permit office today waiting for a plans review – which is very similar to waiting at the doctor’s office and strikingly similar to waiting for a nurse to call you to get a colonoscopy or mammogram – you’re at the plan reviewer’s mercy, holding your breath that (s)he will accept the plans you’ve drawn and not ream you out with the words: “Looks like this is going to require engineering.” Because if (s)he says that, you’re immediately behind schedule by two+ weeks AND it’s going to cost you a whole ton more money that you didn’t budget into your solar system contract. Money will fly out the door like sun rays from the sun.
Since there is always a wait at these permit offices, they try to help you pass the hours with a few months’ old magazines. I picked up Shape magazine and within seconds found out I was at risk for glaucoma, skin cancer, and stroke – all for just being the victim of genetics.
Did you know that if you’re a woman who wears glasses, glaucoma risk rises – especially if it runs in your family (thanks to my grandfather who I affectionately called Pops).
Also if I wear sunscreen I’m more at risk for sunburn – why? Because I may artificially think that I can stay out longer, or maybe I’m not slathering on enough or often enough, or maybe it’s because I got up on the wrong side of the bed – scientists aren’t sure and even if they were, they will change their minds in a few years and everything they preached today will seem ridiculous a decade from now.
I could have a stroke for any number of very good reasons, many of which I can’t do anything about, such as having a parent whose had a stroke. Eating everything in site, including shoe leather and bugs, doesn’t help my case either. I’m just kidding about the shoe leather part, har har.
But now I must digress from this intriguing topic to let you all know, each and every one of you, that I just won $75 playing Bingo! I went out with a couple of girlfriends to Renner’s bar in Multnomah where they play Bingo on Wednesday nights. I went kicking and screaming - the place has been a little uncouth in the past with drunken bar maids slurring out the numbers and trying to be stand up comedians between calling numbers with no success whatsoever, but they have new management and it’s not as raunchy as before. Yes, there were a couple of comments about the Bingo “balls” but who can resist going there if you’re the guy calling Bingo. It was quite fun, all the more so because of winning and the beer and the cinnamon whiskey and the Jello shots with whipped cream.
Whoo-wee! I must elaborate more tomorrow – the bed is calling so loud my ears are ringing.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Hanging On to Christmas
It’s January 3rd and my neighbor still has a gajillion (I counted) Christmas lights up in her front yard. It’s lit up like a stadium over there.
I like them, but I was taught that it’s white trashy to have your Christmas lights on after New Year’s. You can leave them up all year round if you want (but that’s technically white trashy too), but if you turn them on Before Thanksgiving or After New Years, then, as Jeff Foxworthy says, “You might be a redneck.”
On the way home from the movie tonight (I saw, “We Bought a Zoo!” which was wonderful if you happen to like heart warming, feel good types of movies – I know this is not everyone’s cup of tea. Don’t get me started about blood and guts in movies. Why? Because I’m already off track with tonight’s subject and surely you don’t want me going even further afield? I didn’t think so.
On the way home from the aforementioned movie, I observed that about every 5th house still had their Christmas lights up. That equates to roughly 20% of the population in my neck of the woods being white trash, which seems much lower than the national average as seen on TV. My vision of the outside world as seen on TV may be skewed because the shows my husband gravitates to have names such as “Swamp People” and “Storage Wars.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with people making an honest living killing alligators and rummaging through other people’s abandoned storage units, but can you imagine the Rockerfellers or Kennedy’s engaged in these activities? I can just see one of these high-brows showing up boatside amongst the assorted crooked-toothed, scraggly-haired, cuss word slingin’, rifle-totin’ “stars” of one of those shows where they track down animals and shoot ‘em for their pelts right on TV.
“Oh, sorry there Mr. Rocketfeller, sir, but you jist steeped in a pile a gator shit right there.”
“Oh drat the luck, I will have to have my valet, James, sanitize them when we get back to our hotel suite.”
Judging from my TV, about 98% of the US population is white trash, and the other 2% are simply foul-mouthed, with beeps making up a good 70% of the dialogue. I bet they all still have their Christmas lights up.
Well, this is enough facts and figures for one evening. I have beat this dead horse senseless, and so I will ride him off into the sunset, where my path will be illuminated with the warmth of Christmas lights looking like Santa’s runway all up and down the January street.
I like them, but I was taught that it’s white trashy to have your Christmas lights on after New Year’s. You can leave them up all year round if you want (but that’s technically white trashy too), but if you turn them on Before Thanksgiving or After New Years, then, as Jeff Foxworthy says, “You might be a redneck.”
On the way home from the movie tonight (I saw, “We Bought a Zoo!” which was wonderful if you happen to like heart warming, feel good types of movies – I know this is not everyone’s cup of tea. Don’t get me started about blood and guts in movies. Why? Because I’m already off track with tonight’s subject and surely you don’t want me going even further afield? I didn’t think so.
On the way home from the aforementioned movie, I observed that about every 5th house still had their Christmas lights up. That equates to roughly 20% of the population in my neck of the woods being white trash, which seems much lower than the national average as seen on TV. My vision of the outside world as seen on TV may be skewed because the shows my husband gravitates to have names such as “Swamp People” and “Storage Wars.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with people making an honest living killing alligators and rummaging through other people’s abandoned storage units, but can you imagine the Rockerfellers or Kennedy’s engaged in these activities? I can just see one of these high-brows showing up boatside amongst the assorted crooked-toothed, scraggly-haired, cuss word slingin’, rifle-totin’ “stars” of one of those shows where they track down animals and shoot ‘em for their pelts right on TV.
“Oh, sorry there Mr. Rocketfeller, sir, but you jist steeped in a pile a gator shit right there.”
“Oh drat the luck, I will have to have my valet, James, sanitize them when we get back to our hotel suite.”
Judging from my TV, about 98% of the US population is white trash, and the other 2% are simply foul-mouthed, with beeps making up a good 70% of the dialogue. I bet they all still have their Christmas lights up.
Well, this is enough facts and figures for one evening. I have beat this dead horse senseless, and so I will ride him off into the sunset, where my path will be illuminated with the warmth of Christmas lights looking like Santa’s runway all up and down the January street.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
The Interview
Last night my company had an interview with a non-profit organization, and we were so anxious to be awarded the work that we arrived a few minutes early to make a good impression.
We could hear an interview going on in the large office, but we couldn’t see it because of a partition.
We were greeted by a middle aged woman wearing a knobby tan ski cap with tassels hanging down the sides, ending just above her ample bosom, which gravity was pulling down like a boy ringing a giant church bell. The bright, multi-colored shirt she was wearing looked like it had come from the 70% off racks at a discount store. She had dark brown freckles on pale ale skin, and when we approached she kept her face level with the computer screen but raised her eyes to look at us and say, “Can I help you?”
“We’re here for the interview,” the company owner whispered. “We’re a few minutes early, do you have a bathroom?”
“Sure do,” she said, and hoomphed herself up from her chair, “I’ll show you where it is.”
“I’ll go too,” I said, thinking I could check my hair and see if I had any of that black stuff you get in the corner of your eyes if you wear mascara.
When the receptionist was finally on her feet, she was stooped over like little pine tree in a snowstorm. She put one foot deliberately in front of another, like a hospital patient inching down a long hallway with an IV pole.
She rounded the corner of her desk and started heading toward the aisle where the interview voices were coming from.
“Oh crap,” I hissed.
“I’m not going,” my boss whispered.
We stood there watching the receptionist progress along until she was beside where the interview was happening, muttering and not realizing we weren’t behind her.
“Oh my gosh, that poor woman,” I said. “I’ll go.”
I scurried toward her – this aisle was a good forty feet long and she had covered most of it. I kept my eyes straight ahead as I passed the interview table, noticing in my peripheral vision that there were at least five people – not counting the three from the other company with their backs to me – who saw me whisking by.
The receptionist stopped and turned to speak to me and saw that I was hustling to catch up. “Lord, honey,” she said in a voice oblivious that business was being conducted a few feet away, “I didn’t know you wasn’t behind me, I’ve been talking to myself the whole way.”.
She led me through a closed door, down a stretch of hallway, around a couple of corners and through another door or two. Finally she said, “Here it is!” - proud she’d accomplished this important mission.
I ducked into the door and started asking myself important questions in preparation for the interview, such as: “What were you thinking, you idiot? Why did you ask to go to the bathroom, you didn’t need to go to the bathroom? You looked like an idiot out there and now you have to walk past that table. There’s no escaping this blunder." Then I looked at myself in the mirror and found 9,000 flaws. “Oh my gosh, how are you going to go back out there looking like that and walk past table?”
I decided to skip the interview and stay in the bathroom. Seeing the impracticality of this, I figured I’d wait until I thought the other company would be gone.
When I thought it was safe, I crept out the door and turned to the right and encountered a network of cubicles and hallways - and freaking got lost. I’d been preoccupied with being an idiot so didn’t notice the hallways running in all different directions. I wandered around for an eternity until I finally discovered the main door that led to the other room.
When I got to the table, my company’s interview was already in progress. That threw me so off kilter that I could barely look anyone in the eye as the boss hurriedly introduced me. When it came my turn to speak, I started saying my rehearsed words, got a frog in my throat, cleared it two or three times, stuttered, stuttered some more, got a few things out before my brain fizzled on me.
No one asked me any questions.
I spent the whole evening and restless night worrying that I had blown our chances. I kept saying, “Why didn’t you make a joke like, ‘That’s really a journey to your bathroom - I felt like I was on some reality show and had been dropped in a maze.’ They would have chuckled and loved you forever. Why? Why? Why?
The next day, at 1:38 in the afternoon, we got a call saying we’d been awarded the contract. We must have been the very lowest bidder!
We could hear an interview going on in the large office, but we couldn’t see it because of a partition.
We were greeted by a middle aged woman wearing a knobby tan ski cap with tassels hanging down the sides, ending just above her ample bosom, which gravity was pulling down like a boy ringing a giant church bell. The bright, multi-colored shirt she was wearing looked like it had come from the 70% off racks at a discount store. She had dark brown freckles on pale ale skin, and when we approached she kept her face level with the computer screen but raised her eyes to look at us and say, “Can I help you?”
“We’re here for the interview,” the company owner whispered. “We’re a few minutes early, do you have a bathroom?”
“Sure do,” she said, and hoomphed herself up from her chair, “I’ll show you where it is.”
“I’ll go too,” I said, thinking I could check my hair and see if I had any of that black stuff you get in the corner of your eyes if you wear mascara.
When the receptionist was finally on her feet, she was stooped over like little pine tree in a snowstorm. She put one foot deliberately in front of another, like a hospital patient inching down a long hallway with an IV pole.
She rounded the corner of her desk and started heading toward the aisle where the interview voices were coming from.
“Oh crap,” I hissed.
“I’m not going,” my boss whispered.
We stood there watching the receptionist progress along until she was beside where the interview was happening, muttering and not realizing we weren’t behind her.
“Oh my gosh, that poor woman,” I said. “I’ll go.”
I scurried toward her – this aisle was a good forty feet long and she had covered most of it. I kept my eyes straight ahead as I passed the interview table, noticing in my peripheral vision that there were at least five people – not counting the three from the other company with their backs to me – who saw me whisking by.
The receptionist stopped and turned to speak to me and saw that I was hustling to catch up. “Lord, honey,” she said in a voice oblivious that business was being conducted a few feet away, “I didn’t know you wasn’t behind me, I’ve been talking to myself the whole way.”.
She led me through a closed door, down a stretch of hallway, around a couple of corners and through another door or two. Finally she said, “Here it is!” - proud she’d accomplished this important mission.
I ducked into the door and started asking myself important questions in preparation for the interview, such as: “What were you thinking, you idiot? Why did you ask to go to the bathroom, you didn’t need to go to the bathroom? You looked like an idiot out there and now you have to walk past that table. There’s no escaping this blunder." Then I looked at myself in the mirror and found 9,000 flaws. “Oh my gosh, how are you going to go back out there looking like that and walk past table?”
I decided to skip the interview and stay in the bathroom. Seeing the impracticality of this, I figured I’d wait until I thought the other company would be gone.
When I thought it was safe, I crept out the door and turned to the right and encountered a network of cubicles and hallways - and freaking got lost. I’d been preoccupied with being an idiot so didn’t notice the hallways running in all different directions. I wandered around for an eternity until I finally discovered the main door that led to the other room.
When I got to the table, my company’s interview was already in progress. That threw me so off kilter that I could barely look anyone in the eye as the boss hurriedly introduced me. When it came my turn to speak, I started saying my rehearsed words, got a frog in my throat, cleared it two or three times, stuttered, stuttered some more, got a few things out before my brain fizzled on me.
No one asked me any questions.
I spent the whole evening and restless night worrying that I had blown our chances. I kept saying, “Why didn’t you make a joke like, ‘That’s really a journey to your bathroom - I felt like I was on some reality show and had been dropped in a maze.’ They would have chuckled and loved you forever. Why? Why? Why?
The next day, at 1:38 in the afternoon, we got a call saying we’d been awarded the contract. We must have been the very lowest bidder!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Hot Lips Nachos
I had nachos for dinner tonight and got way too liberal with the hot sauce and jalapeno peppers. Law have mercy! My lips were burning like someone was lighting them with a match. And yet I could not stop eating, so the flame barely had half a second to calm down before I put some more fire in my mouth.
I suffered through a rather large plate of nachos, and it never got any easier. Each bite was as hot as the last, and just as painful, and yet it was not a deterrent to me stuffing myself.
The weird thing is that once it got past my lips and into my mouth, which was also burning like asphalt on the equator, and then headed to my throat, it didn’t burn anymore. All the way down the chute to my stomach, I didn’t feel a thing.
This makes sense, when you think about it. Your lips and mouth are like two Buckingham Palace guards – they’re not going to let anything in that would do you any harm. If those guys can take the red-hot fire of spicy food, then they must figure that your cast iron stomach should do just fine.
I’ve popped things in my mouth and discovered that they were too freaking hot – as in like they’ve come out of an oven in Hades. When that happens I don’t spit it out, I simply make a big “O” with my mouth and say, “Hot! Hot! Hot!” and fan it a few times with my hand. And then I swallow the blistering tidbit so it quits burning - once it gets past a point, I can’t feel it anymore.
This is a wonder of biological engineering - a miracle of the human body.
On the other hand, some things go in your mouth all nice and easy-like, for instance the beans I had for lunch today, and then later they raise a ruckus in your digestive system like two Tasmanian devils wrestling in the belly of a tornado.
But I am not going to let this deteriorate into a discussion about flaming bottoms and lighting matches to see if they can ignite a blow torches when a person passes gas, and so forth.
Why can I NOT seem to get past bathroom humor?
When I went with my writer’s group to a retreat a few weeks ago, I got the “Humor” award, and the one line summary of me was, “Wait, wait – I have to go to the bathroom.” That pretty much sums me up – I don’t want to miss anything, hence the “wait, wait,” but the bathroom is always close by – either in my writing, in my talking, or when I’m rushing for it because of some extremely spicy food I had no business eating.
Okay, speaking of the toilet I have to tell a story, but it will need to wait until tomorrow because it’s too long for tonight when the bed is calling and my eyelids are as heavy as a full bladder. See, I just can’t get away from bodily functions……
I suffered through a rather large plate of nachos, and it never got any easier. Each bite was as hot as the last, and just as painful, and yet it was not a deterrent to me stuffing myself.
The weird thing is that once it got past my lips and into my mouth, which was also burning like asphalt on the equator, and then headed to my throat, it didn’t burn anymore. All the way down the chute to my stomach, I didn’t feel a thing.
This makes sense, when you think about it. Your lips and mouth are like two Buckingham Palace guards – they’re not going to let anything in that would do you any harm. If those guys can take the red-hot fire of spicy food, then they must figure that your cast iron stomach should do just fine.
I’ve popped things in my mouth and discovered that they were too freaking hot – as in like they’ve come out of an oven in Hades. When that happens I don’t spit it out, I simply make a big “O” with my mouth and say, “Hot! Hot! Hot!” and fan it a few times with my hand. And then I swallow the blistering tidbit so it quits burning - once it gets past a point, I can’t feel it anymore.
This is a wonder of biological engineering - a miracle of the human body.
On the other hand, some things go in your mouth all nice and easy-like, for instance the beans I had for lunch today, and then later they raise a ruckus in your digestive system like two Tasmanian devils wrestling in the belly of a tornado.
But I am not going to let this deteriorate into a discussion about flaming bottoms and lighting matches to see if they can ignite a blow torches when a person passes gas, and so forth.
Why can I NOT seem to get past bathroom humor?
When I went with my writer’s group to a retreat a few weeks ago, I got the “Humor” award, and the one line summary of me was, “Wait, wait – I have to go to the bathroom.” That pretty much sums me up – I don’t want to miss anything, hence the “wait, wait,” but the bathroom is always close by – either in my writing, in my talking, or when I’m rushing for it because of some extremely spicy food I had no business eating.
Okay, speaking of the toilet I have to tell a story, but it will need to wait until tomorrow because it’s too long for tonight when the bed is calling and my eyelids are as heavy as a full bladder. See, I just can’t get away from bodily functions……
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Stuff I'm Thankful for
We just got through with Thanksgiving and I forgot to mention things I’m thankful for. Since this is supposed to be humorous, I’m obliged to be silly.
First, I’m thankful that I can end sentences with infinitives and no one seems to mind. In college composition classes you would have had to write: “These are the things for which I am thankful,” because it isn’t proper English to say, “These are the things I’m thankful for.” But when you’re writing a humor blog, you can do anything you want, even going so far as to split infinitives – which used to make the nuns at my grade school mad as toothless beavers. Here’s an example of a split infinitive if you don’t know what I’m talking about: “I needed to briskly go to the bathroom or I was going to whiz my britches, and yet there was a line as long as the Baltimore tunnel.”
In this example, briskly is an adverb and it should not come between the infinitive “to” and the verb, “go.” You can get away with it in your own blog where there’s not a nun around to slap your hand with a ruler, and for that I am thankful.
I’m thankful that Thanksgiving is over, because now all those premature Christmas decorations all over the stores and on people’s houses are no longer illegitimate. As far as I’m concerned, they are justified the day after Thanksgiving but not before – I get sick of harping at me to buy for Christmas. I’m going to put it off until the last minute no matter how early the commercials start because that’s who I am and I’m not changing, so those early commercials and decorations irritate me. They make me feel more like a procrastinator than usual.
I’m thankful for gas stations that fill you up without making you get out of the car. We just went to Seattle and in Washington you have to pump your own gas. I used to not mind when I lived in Tennessee, but now that I’ve been spoiled, it’s a nuisance – I always get gas on my shoes when I have to pump my own. At least one drop leaks out of the nozzle before I can whip it back into place. So I’m thankful Oregon charges the same for our gas and I don’t have to get out in the freezing rain to fill ‘er up.
Another thing I’m thankful for is that I put up some of my outside lights last night when it was dry, because right now it’s raining like a cow pissin’ on a flat rock.
I’m thankful for the above saying, which was handed down to me from my dad.
I’m especially thankful that I didn’t gain much more than five pounds during the gorge-fest I had on Thanksgiving Day - and every 2 waking hours since with all the leftovers.
Finally, I’m thankful for you, my faithful readers, who put up with my foolishness and come back for more. You are the best fans I can ever think of, and that you continue to boldly go down that path of humor with me, even when sometimes I’m about as funny as a cockroach in a Rueben sandwich, makes me as thankful as I was when I took notice of that cockroach as my mouth was traveling toward that thick sandwich and somehow I spied a leg between layers of corned beef. I’m really thankful that I did not take a bite and later discover half a cockroach, if you catch my drift.
And now I bet you’re thankful I’m not going to expose you to any more disgusting stories – at least not tonight.
First, I’m thankful that I can end sentences with infinitives and no one seems to mind. In college composition classes you would have had to write: “These are the things for which I am thankful,” because it isn’t proper English to say, “These are the things I’m thankful for.” But when you’re writing a humor blog, you can do anything you want, even going so far as to split infinitives – which used to make the nuns at my grade school mad as toothless beavers. Here’s an example of a split infinitive if you don’t know what I’m talking about: “I needed to briskly go to the bathroom or I was going to whiz my britches, and yet there was a line as long as the Baltimore tunnel.”
In this example, briskly is an adverb and it should not come between the infinitive “to” and the verb, “go.” You can get away with it in your own blog where there’s not a nun around to slap your hand with a ruler, and for that I am thankful.
I’m thankful that Thanksgiving is over, because now all those premature Christmas decorations all over the stores and on people’s houses are no longer illegitimate. As far as I’m concerned, they are justified the day after Thanksgiving but not before – I get sick of harping at me to buy for Christmas. I’m going to put it off until the last minute no matter how early the commercials start because that’s who I am and I’m not changing, so those early commercials and decorations irritate me. They make me feel more like a procrastinator than usual.
I’m thankful for gas stations that fill you up without making you get out of the car. We just went to Seattle and in Washington you have to pump your own gas. I used to not mind when I lived in Tennessee, but now that I’ve been spoiled, it’s a nuisance – I always get gas on my shoes when I have to pump my own. At least one drop leaks out of the nozzle before I can whip it back into place. So I’m thankful Oregon charges the same for our gas and I don’t have to get out in the freezing rain to fill ‘er up.
Another thing I’m thankful for is that I put up some of my outside lights last night when it was dry, because right now it’s raining like a cow pissin’ on a flat rock.
I’m thankful for the above saying, which was handed down to me from my dad.
I’m especially thankful that I didn’t gain much more than five pounds during the gorge-fest I had on Thanksgiving Day - and every 2 waking hours since with all the leftovers.
Finally, I’m thankful for you, my faithful readers, who put up with my foolishness and come back for more. You are the best fans I can ever think of, and that you continue to boldly go down that path of humor with me, even when sometimes I’m about as funny as a cockroach in a Rueben sandwich, makes me as thankful as I was when I took notice of that cockroach as my mouth was traveling toward that thick sandwich and somehow I spied a leg between layers of corned beef. I’m really thankful that I did not take a bite and later discover half a cockroach, if you catch my drift.
And now I bet you’re thankful I’m not going to expose you to any more disgusting stories – at least not tonight.
Monday, November 28, 2011
JHappiness
This is dedicated to happiness - what is it, where do you get it, how much does it cost, why is mine on backorder, and when is it going to get in?
What is it? That’s easy. It’s feeling good while, at the same time, not feeling guilty. Guilt is a big deterrent to happiness, especially if you’ve been raised religious. A lot of stuff that should make you happy can also make you guilty – like you could steal something and have it, and you think you’re happy that you got it, but then you feel guilty about stealing it – unless you’re a heathen. I am only talking about religion so I can type the word “heathen.” What a great word. It sounds like a trouble-maker, doesn’t it? I like words with sounds that evoke their meaning.
Moving right along, where do you get happiness? In simple things, like winning the lottery. Show me someone who’s won a couple million bucks and I’ll show you one happy honcho.
How much does happiness cost? They say you can’t buy it, and I believe that’s true, because I’ve never seen it in a store – not in a bottle or can or box. If you find some, buy it and send it to me.
Why is my happiness on backorder? Ha, ha, that’s funny, since I just said you can’t buy happiness. But seriously, a lot of the time happiness seems to hinge on some upcoming thing, like, “I’ll sure be happy when I get this blog written tonight.” So while I’m writing, I’m anticipating that feeling of accomplishment and those soft sheets I get to climb into when this is posted.
When is happiness going to get in? Ha ha, another funny comment. I’m full of them – it just delights me, makes me happy as a mule eating briars. I once tutored this high school kid who was perpetually miserable. He wanted to spend the whole hour complaining about his mom, his classmates, his teachers. Once I got so fed up that I bitch slapped him. Not really, I wanted to, but instead I drew a world and a face looking at it with a frown. I said, “This is how you see the world.” Then I erased the little frown line and made it into a smile. “But you could also see the world this way. The world itself doesn’t change. It’s just how you look at it.”
The kid bitch slapped ME and never came back. Not really, I just love saying “bitch slapped.” I’m laughing right now after typing it. It’s a blessing to be easily amused. But in all seriousness, if you’re waiting for happiness to show up on your doorstep looking like a winning lottery ticket wrapped in chocolate, you’re going to have a whole lot of dull hours in your life. Happiness can come knocking every minute of the day, all you have to do is give it a toehold by looking for amusement in your everyday life even when you feel like wearing a frown.
What is it? That’s easy. It’s feeling good while, at the same time, not feeling guilty. Guilt is a big deterrent to happiness, especially if you’ve been raised religious. A lot of stuff that should make you happy can also make you guilty – like you could steal something and have it, and you think you’re happy that you got it, but then you feel guilty about stealing it – unless you’re a heathen. I am only talking about religion so I can type the word “heathen.” What a great word. It sounds like a trouble-maker, doesn’t it? I like words with sounds that evoke their meaning.
Moving right along, where do you get happiness? In simple things, like winning the lottery. Show me someone who’s won a couple million bucks and I’ll show you one happy honcho.
How much does happiness cost? They say you can’t buy it, and I believe that’s true, because I’ve never seen it in a store – not in a bottle or can or box. If you find some, buy it and send it to me.
Why is my happiness on backorder? Ha, ha, that’s funny, since I just said you can’t buy happiness. But seriously, a lot of the time happiness seems to hinge on some upcoming thing, like, “I’ll sure be happy when I get this blog written tonight.” So while I’m writing, I’m anticipating that feeling of accomplishment and those soft sheets I get to climb into when this is posted.
When is happiness going to get in? Ha ha, another funny comment. I’m full of them – it just delights me, makes me happy as a mule eating briars. I once tutored this high school kid who was perpetually miserable. He wanted to spend the whole hour complaining about his mom, his classmates, his teachers. Once I got so fed up that I bitch slapped him. Not really, I wanted to, but instead I drew a world and a face looking at it with a frown. I said, “This is how you see the world.” Then I erased the little frown line and made it into a smile. “But you could also see the world this way. The world itself doesn’t change. It’s just how you look at it.”
The kid bitch slapped ME and never came back. Not really, I just love saying “bitch slapped.” I’m laughing right now after typing it. It’s a blessing to be easily amused. But in all seriousness, if you’re waiting for happiness to show up on your doorstep looking like a winning lottery ticket wrapped in chocolate, you’re going to have a whole lot of dull hours in your life. Happiness can come knocking every minute of the day, all you have to do is give it a toehold by looking for amusement in your everyday life even when you feel like wearing a frown.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Christmas Is Like NASCAR
Christmas reminds me of NASCAR. It passes by and then it comes around again – over and over. Lately it’s been coming around faster than ever.
In fact, it arrived in Portland, OR around Halloween. I remember a few years ago when people griped about the department stores putting Christmas decorations out before Thanksgiving. We didn’t know how good we had it. Now they are putting things out before Halloween. Red and green decorations and snowy white angels on shelves next to orange ceramic pumpkins and ugly witches is disconcerting.
Even worse than that is the Christmas programs already starting on TV. Used to be – and I’m talking a couple of years ago - you could at least get through Thanksgiving before Santa and Rudolf started showing their red noses on TV. Already they’re running Santa movies - for the last two weeks - and it’s the day before Thanksgiving.
What’s this world coming to?
Trick or treaters in Santa costumes?
Give Trick or Treaters those swirly Christmas candies that get gooey and stick together because they’re for “decoration” and nobody eats them?
Sell pumpkins as Christmas ornaments?
Get rid of the turkey and have a Christmas ham for Thanksgiving?
When I was a kid it seemed like Christmas took forever to get here. That’s because it was considered white trash to put anything Christmassy out until after Thanksgiving. People already have Christmas lights on their houses – I drove by one a couple days ago with lights all over their outside tree and a lighted reindeer in the yard. Years ago we would have shunned them into keeping that stuff in the attic until the proper designated time. Now you just shake your head and wonder what the heck’s the hurry.
This is why Christmas feels like NASCAR to me – it lasts 4 months by the time you see things in the store in October and it’s still in the stores in January on the clearance aisles, there’s not a lot of time in between like there used to be – it just keeps whipping back around. About the time you get all those decorations into the attic in late February when football season is over and you can get your husband off the remote control, you get a short lull and then that Christmas “car” is back again.
I love Christmas, I really do. But there’s an old saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and I’m feeling mighty contemptuous thinking about all those TV commercials I’m going to be watching the next few weeks. They’re almost as bad as mud-slinging political ads for being annoying and repetitive – kindof like the only NASCAR race I went to...
In fact, it arrived in Portland, OR around Halloween. I remember a few years ago when people griped about the department stores putting Christmas decorations out before Thanksgiving. We didn’t know how good we had it. Now they are putting things out before Halloween. Red and green decorations and snowy white angels on shelves next to orange ceramic pumpkins and ugly witches is disconcerting.
Even worse than that is the Christmas programs already starting on TV. Used to be – and I’m talking a couple of years ago - you could at least get through Thanksgiving before Santa and Rudolf started showing their red noses on TV. Already they’re running Santa movies - for the last two weeks - and it’s the day before Thanksgiving.
What’s this world coming to?
Trick or treaters in Santa costumes?
Give Trick or Treaters those swirly Christmas candies that get gooey and stick together because they’re for “decoration” and nobody eats them?
Sell pumpkins as Christmas ornaments?
Get rid of the turkey and have a Christmas ham for Thanksgiving?
When I was a kid it seemed like Christmas took forever to get here. That’s because it was considered white trash to put anything Christmassy out until after Thanksgiving. People already have Christmas lights on their houses – I drove by one a couple days ago with lights all over their outside tree and a lighted reindeer in the yard. Years ago we would have shunned them into keeping that stuff in the attic until the proper designated time. Now you just shake your head and wonder what the heck’s the hurry.
This is why Christmas feels like NASCAR to me – it lasts 4 months by the time you see things in the store in October and it’s still in the stores in January on the clearance aisles, there’s not a lot of time in between like there used to be – it just keeps whipping back around. About the time you get all those decorations into the attic in late February when football season is over and you can get your husband off the remote control, you get a short lull and then that Christmas “car” is back again.
I love Christmas, I really do. But there’s an old saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt,” and I’m feeling mighty contemptuous thinking about all those TV commercials I’m going to be watching the next few weeks. They’re almost as bad as mud-slinging political ads for being annoying and repetitive – kindof like the only NASCAR race I went to...
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