I BET I GET SOME CRAP OVER THIS

WHAT IF...TOM AND KATIE GET MARRIED AND,

1. SHE DEVELOPS SCHIZOPHRENIA (USUAL ONSET IN WOMEN STARTS AROUND AGE 25)

2. SHE BECOMES PREGNANT, DELIVERS A BEAUTIFUL CHILD AND DEVELOPS A SEVERE CASE OF POST-PARTUM DEPRESSION

WHAT THEN, TOM? HUH?

I CAN'T HEAR YOU...

WORKING FOR "THE MAN"

Or, what did you do today? Well, I went to the job that I pay to let me work there. A bookstore. That's like giving a junkie a job as a pharmacy tech. Duh. So, I worked for 4¾ hours and there is my loot.

Magazines are so seductive to me. Two of the ones above, Uncut and Paste, are music mags. Only this time, Van Morrison is featured in Uncut and Billy Corgan is featured in Paste. Since I worked in the music department of the store for half of my shift today, I also managed to make a list of fourteen CDs that I "just have to have!" Maybe one a week for the next 3½ months and that list will be taken care of. Of course, the list only expands each time I work so I will never catch up. Right now I am stuck on the Putamayo Collections. The favorite one that I have so far is Cover the World. It is world music covers of popular songs...great.

The New Yorker is an indulgence that I only give in to semi-regularly. In These Times I rotate with other political magazines. I got it this week since the founding editor and publisher, James Weinstein, recently died and it's my way of making that final connection.

Now for the book, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. For some reason, I have a fascination with Mongolia and will read as much as I can about good old Genghis. (On an aside, if you are taken with this area there is a great movie about Tuvan throat singers and an American blues man called Genghis Blues that you might enjoy.)

The secret prize was a reader's copy of an upcoming book that looks great. It's by a Canadian writer, Brain Francis, and is called The Secret Fruit of Peter Paddington. That's one of the great things about the book store, discovering new writers and access to them before everyone else. Of course, it works well for them, too, as we end up hand selling a lot of them.

Okay, enough of the literary crap. The rest of the weekends highlights include, but are not limited to:

• a break in the heat wave

• no further tick infestation

• a few thunder boomers which caused the dog to turn into a big ass wimp

• and, oh yeah, the grandson walking in on a naked Granny which has probably scarred him for life and will cause him years of therapy and medication before he can recover. Oh, I think he's already over it...his reaction: "Granny, you need to get a tan!" Criticism at every turn.

THE WORST POSSIBLE WAY TO WAKE UP ON A SATURDAY MORNING IS TO TRY AND SWAT A MOSQUITO OFF THE BACK OF YOUR NECK (WHICH IS BAD ENOUGH) AND FIND A F*#&ING TICK CRAWLING ON YOU. I GUESS SLEEPING IN IS OUT NOW THAT I WILL BE CHANGING THE BED LINEN AND SHOWERING FOR AN HOUR TO MAKE CERTAIN THAT THERE ARE NO MORE CRITTERS ANYWHERE NEAR ME!

WELCOME TO THE WEEKEND.

JUSTICE, AT LAST

SUMMER DAY IN MINNESOTA

We don't get a lot of them and this was certainly it. Top left is the bird nesting on the front porch. A nice little thing, well, except for the poop on the porch. Top right is a view of Aerie Lake, where I live. There are loons, eagles, hawks and all other sort of wildlife. The nicest part of the lake is that it is so quiet. There is no public access and the price we pay for that is we have to stock our fish. Bottom left is Jack, lounging on the three season porch. This is where I eat the peanut butter and jelly when I say that I am "camping." Bottom right is Jules with her slimy tongue sticking out and wiping her nose. Talented dog. Jack is in the background and I'm not real sure why the floor is so shiny, it's certainly not that clean. Also, note that good mommy has given dog a rawhide bone which will result in death defying gas later in the evening.

Also, thanks to you all for the concern about the nightmares. I must say that when I remember the medication, the dreams are pretty vivid...just not violent. I have had barbecue with Tom Waits while we discussed music, sang friendship songs to children with Queen Latifah and bungee jumped off of the Sydney Bridge. I am usually very meticulous about my medicine. In addition to medication for my "craziness," I have blood pressure medication, cholesterol lowering medication, medication for hypothyroidism, arthritis and...allergy pills. I call this the prescription for a misspent youth and then some. If I hadn't medicated myself so well earlier in my life...or if I had continued that medication, or...if I would just eat right, exercise, and spend the rest of my life in therapy I could probably cut back.

Not gonna happen...

NOTE TO SELF: When attempting to determine the cause for previously noticed moodiness and self-indulgence always take into consideration:

1. Duh, I neglected to take my medication (antidepressant) prior to going to sleep last night because I was too damn lazy to go downtairs and get some water to take it with.
2. I experience vivid, bizarre dreams without any added reason...i.e. not taking medication prior to sleep.
3. Last night night the dreams were exceptionally disturbing...how about a man breaking into an upstairs apartment where I was staying and stabbing me repeatedly with many sharpened knives. I kept recognizing the knife by the type of wound that was left. Most painful wound caused by serrated blade stuck through neck, hmmm?
4. After that, upon awakening, I decided to spend the rest of night watching shallow Lifetime movies...mother attempting to kill daughters rival cheerleading friend's mother.

NOTE TO SELF: TAKE MEDICINE, WATCH COOKING CHANNEL IN MIDDLE OF NIGHT, FIGURE THIS OUT BEFORE BLOGGING IN SUCH A SELF PITYING FASHION.

OVER AND OUT.

Caden and Jack (Jonny's new nickname...) in Granny's bed as she gets ready to warp his little mind a little more. Today was a pretty big day for the boy. Grandma's Marathon was there for him to watch in town with his mom and dad, met Granny at Pike Lake and got a slurpee (cherry), topped at the basketball court on the way out to Granny's house, swam with the puppy in the lake, took a rinse off shower and got ready to watch, EXORCIST, THE BEGINNING...with Granny. I know, I suck as a positive role model for viewing movies, but I figure he's going to start watching some of this crap on his own some day and at least we can talk about how silly and weird some of this stuff is. I know...still not a good thing. Hey, this granny is up for not hiding too much from the boy. It does him good to keep telling me it's just a movie. The scariest part was when I screamed a bunch of dirty words because I got startled by a flying fake bat. In Caden's own words, "Cheez, Granny, you're scarier than any movie." Little does he know.

It's amazing the stuff kids know about that you assume they don't. He asks me questions all the time that would be easy to avoid. Tough break, kiddo. You ask, you get the answer. I'm walking proof of the saying, "Be careful what you ask for..."

Tomorrow we are going to try and take a picture of the bird that has built a nest on my front porch. The eggs must be getting close to hatching time. It will be fun to try and get a picture of them with their little mouths open and begging for mom to fill their tummies. We will also plant some flower seeds and see what grows now that the fear of freezing has truly past. And then he will head back into town to spend Father's Day with his dad.

Other than Caden news, not much else is going on. I seem to be fighting off a kind of malaise that has me wanting to dig deeper and deeper into my isolation. I love going days without speaking a word, without having to drive, without having to think...hey, maybe I'm some kind of mystic just waiting for the voices to flow through me. Or, maybe I'm just a crabby old lady willing to live out her life with very few distractions.

I have noticed that I can't think on a political level too well, these days. Anger starts and I feel paralyzed by an inability to react in such a way that doesn't involve invectives. I have been thinking about taking classes at the university...but, that will wait until I can take them for free as an old fogey. My self guided learning experiences take me into the world of the darkness of history.

I tend to be as shallow as I possibly can. The only paper I read now is the Sunday NYT...someone has to tell me if anything exciting is happening here in town. The local news that I watch is from LA, via satellite and has no relevance to me except for the phenomena of car chases. Thank goodness for Netflix and movie channels or I would simply fall into the world of the internet. I have visions of becoming that Tron-like character from some old movie who travels an an electron throughout the world of computers.

Hell, I am rambling and think I need to get a grip, finish the laundry and watch the rest of this stupid movie called White Noise as I put my feet back onto the ground and find a definitive purpose that I can measure in definable terms...

Bird pictures, for example.

OH, WHAT FUN IT IS TO SURF....

Yesterday was one of those days of endless wandering and clicking on new sites, links on new sites, and links provided by people who commented on my blog. Lot's of fun stuff out there...for example, On Wasted Days Wasted Nites I found this list:

LIFECYCLE OF BLOGGERS

1. Start reading blogs.
2. You start a blog.
3. You become a stat whore.
4. You become really personal on your site as the online and real-life worlds start confusing you.
5. You faux "retire" from blogging.
6. You cave back into blogging in less than 72 hours.
7. You decide to "get serious" about blogging.
8. You have a pseudo flirty im/blogging/flickr flirting relationship with another blogger you have never met.
9. You deside that you must meed other bloggers.
10. You take a step back and metablog about blogging and what blogging has done about your blogging.
11. See step 5.
12. You decide that as a result of step 10 and having repeated step 5 more than 3 times in the course of your lifecycle as a blogger, that you need to sanitize or reinvent your blog.
13. You either lose your job because of blogging, are afraid of losing your job for blogging, or join a company that builds blogging tools.
14. You decide to start an anonymous livejournal blog.

This, of course, cracked me up and made me realize one more time that there is always a reason for stereotypes, they just don't spring unbidden from the ground. Then, the person writing the above blog posted an "after post" giving credit to the originator of the list. Min Jung’s Original Lifecycle of Bloggers goes into even more detail and should make most of us take a good look at ourselves. I say most of us, because I, of course, haven't done any of the above...(an annoying voice from somewhere is chanting...Liar Liar Pants on Fire.)

INTERNATIONAL WEBLOGGER'S DAY

587 BLOGS 43 COUNTRIES 1 DAY

Today is International Weblogger's Day. "And, just what the hell is that?" you might ask. According to their site it is:

"Bringing webloggers from around the world together on one day to celebrate a year's worth of changing the way the Internet sees personal journalism."

This past year or so that I have been doing this thing called "blogging," I have learned a goodly number of things and come in contact with a tremendous number of wonderful people and stimulating ideas. I have been entertained, informed, educated, and teased. I have made friends and I have come to know people with opinions much different than mine that I actually liked. I
have learned the joy of intellectual opposition. I have watched children be born and grow. I have "met" those that I am absolutely certain are doppelgangers of myself and living in a wheat field in Indiana.

I have sent gifts to and received gifts from people I wouldn't recognize if I passed them on the street. I have learned about your families and shared my family with you. I have copied recipes and talked about food. Learned about books, music and traveled to countries where kimchee is sold
on street corners.

During all of this I have waxed and waned philosophically, had pissing contests over immaterial matters and let others know that one more word would definitely end up with me sending them packing with their hat in their hands or stuck somewhere else.

I have laughed, cried, spewed, sputtered and marveled at the variety of folks out there. This blogging experience has held me in its grip and pulled more of me out into the public eye than has ever been done before. Thank you all, for all of that...and recognize what power is here.

Words and ideas in a free forum, to accept or reject, growing every day in scope...what does it mean, where will it go, what will it do? I don't know, but I'm absolutely sure I'll be sticking around to see.

MOST RECENT BOOKS AND NEW ITEM FOR THE

"WISH I HAD THAT" LIST

I had my book club at Bunns and Noodles the other night. Now, since I had "worked" two hours by sitting around and discussing books with a group that has been together for over five years, I figured I had earned me some book purchases. The Dos Passos is for next months meeting. We will be finishing off the trilogy. The other is just pure mind candy for a woman that has so many books, she will have to read when she is dead.

The really sad thing is that I want the little doohickey over there on the right. You got it. It's an ACEPAD digital notebook. Only about $100. ("Only" Like I poop quarters every morning and just happen to have an extra 100 laying around...) I am a part of the bridge generation that started out with pencil and paper. I remember my excitement the first time I typed on an electric typewriter. Now I use a computer every chance I get...some might say too often. I have a tough time with certain of the newer gadgets, though. I never could get in the habit of the Palm Pilot. I would always get overwhelmed and the amount of time needed to get info in was not going to be very efficient for me. When I go to meetings, I take notes by hand. That's where they stay. On pieces of paper in a variety of folders that have doodles and notes intermixed. They never get transferred into the computer. With this and a USB transfer, all of my problems would be solved. Wouldn't they?

ODE TO THE OFFICE GODDESS

Since my picture host seems to be down today, I figured I had better get a content piece of really quick or readers would be scratching their head in wonderment that I chose to display those little white boxes with red "x"es in them.

You have all heard of the sore throat. (Still here on Saturday.) I have been going to work throughout this, working half days at the office and the rest at home thanks greatly to USB memory devices, a laptop I can operate from bed, and bad movies from the Lifetime Movie Network (aka Battered, Oppressed, Eating Disordered Network.) I usually get my coffee fix at work. Since I drive 45 minutes to get there I prefer to drive there asleep. The other reason is that Sandra makes the office coffee first thing in the morning and it there and waiting for me when I arrive. This also allows for approximately one half hour of paid wake up time. (Don't tell the bosses, oops, I already did!)

Sandra is the Office Goddess who is always there when someone says, "Anybody got a safety pin?" Or, "I have to leave early today, would someone cover my phone shift?" She's the one that brings in the braided bread and fruit loaves. (With cream cheese, too, I might add.) She's the one who takes care of her family...extended and otherwise and she's the one who rocks.

She is also the one who has the Advil, the aspirin, the scented candles or anything else you might need during the course of the day. And, she is the "wife" I have always deserved. Last Friday, when I showed up for work on the seventh day of some holy sore throat pain, I went to the kitchen, poured a HALF cup of coffee since I needed the caffeine yet the heat on the throat was less than soothing. Sandra walked into the kitchen, opened the freezer and said, "Here, I brought this for you, it's so you can have your caffeine and also have something cold on your throat."

She handed me a quart sized thermal cup full of some brown frozen slushy stuff. "What is it?" I ask with my usual paranoid, who-is-trying-to-kill-me-now, tone. I can't remember what she nswered because I had already tasted it and all senses were void to me except the one experiencing the cold, pain relieving feeling in the back of my throat. I was as close the "big one" as I have ever been.

I carried that cup and the spoon with me through five hours. A small bit, held on the back of the throat, relieved the pain, staved off coughing spasms and was the best medicine I could have received. PLUS, she gave me the recipe so that this weekend I could make it for myself. I am absolutely sure that no matter how many times I do, it will never taste as good as the one given to me by:

SANDRA

OFFICE GODDESS EXTRAORDINAIRE

A FEW QUICK TIDBITS ON THE SEVENTH DAY OF A REALLY BAD SORE THROAT

This is not the world's greatest picture, but I took it at work on the sly. What you might be able to see in that saved baggie is a piece of celery approximately 1½ inches long and a "baby carrot" measuring less than ½ inch longer. Yesterday this bag included another carrot of like size and a small broccoli floret. Does the word TRASH mean anything?

Collagen should NOT be used in an attempt to enhance one's beauty to the point of the
woman on the left. However, it is perfectly legal to use when one has no upper lip as the gentleman on the right. No upper lip "oogies" me out...

That is a martini. Up. Perhaps one olive too many, it depends on the size. It is made with Bombay Gin. The glass will be pre-chilled and then dried out with a non-lint cloth. Two drops, maybe three, of good dry vermouth will then be place in the glass. A stainless steel cocktail
shaker will then be filled halfway with crushed ice...two ounces of Bombay Gin will be poured in. It will then be stirred in one direction only for approximately 30 to 45 seconds, depending on the ambient temperature. The glass will be picked up, swirled to coat the vermouth on the inside, and the excess vermouth will be flung out with a quick flick of the wrist. The gin will
then be poured through a strainer (making sure no ice slips through) into the chilled glass and one or two speared olives will be placed in the glass. The first sip will pass your lips and you will be amazed as you feel something cool, smooth, almost tasteless slip down you throat.

What you see pictured above is Bombay Sapphire. Order a Bombay Sapphire martini with same directions as above if you like flavor of Tanqueray. They both have a stronger resin flavor and it is my opinion that Tanqueray is just as good and generally much less than the over the
much touted Bombay Sapphire.

NOW THIS IS WHAT REALLY PISSES ME OFF!

THESE WILL NEVER BE A PART OF ANY DRINK WITH THE WORD "MARTINI" IN IT. YOU WILL FIND THEM IN FOOFOO DRINKS WITH STRANGE NAMES LIKE MUDSLIDE, SNICKERS, HARVEY WALLBANGERS. PUT IT IN ANY KIND OF GLASS
YOU LIKE, WITH AN UMBRELLA, A PIECE OF BROWNIE OR SOME KIND OF NUT AND CALL IT WHAT IT IS...NOT A MARTINI IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM WHATSOEVER!

Thank you for your patience, I think my sore throat and all of the cold medications have pushed me onto the
grouchy side! And for those of you who may be worried about my attachment to alcohol, I can't remember when I last had a drink...but rest assured, the next one will be a Bombay Martini and I will be standing right next to the bartender in my black leather with a cat-o-nine tails as I tell him exactly how I want it! The martini, that is!

"HERE'S TO YOU, MRS. ROBINSON..."

PERHAPS THIS SHOULD BE CALLED
WHINING SATURDAY POST

What could possibly lead to this bout of whining on a perfectly good day off? Settle back and I will tell you.

Let's start with the sore throat. On Tuesday morning I went to the dentist at 7:30 in the morning. He was a new dentist and I chose him because he was more Conveniently located to my drive to and from work. He had just built a new office building and when I walked in I went into one of those "new carpet" asthma attacks. Not a bad one, but enough to cough and pull out the inhaler to get the breathing under control. He didn't hurt and I got two fillings and all seemed well with the world. This leads up to Thursday when my throat started feeling "funny." With me being the "doctor" that I am, I immediately diagnosed the cause as being the coughing fit on Tuesday. Wrong. I woke up Friday with the feeling that I had swallowed tacks. Okay, that's one reason to whine.

Reason number two has to do with living in The great north woods. I am sure that every state has their stories about their mosquito population. I don't want to get into a pissing contest over which state has the worst and biggest mosquitoes, but I'm sure Minnesota would be right up there in the top three. It has been a wet and cold spring for us. (Yeah, some of you are already in summer, it won't be here for another six weeks.) Yet, we have had one or two hot days. Hot enough to cause the mosquitoes to become quite active. Apparently last night a bomber unit of them were in my room and diving for dollars. I awoke with about ten bites, the most annoying one, right on my right eyelid. Imagine how attractive that is, as I peer out between the slit available because the
upper lid is swollen the size of an apricot and has turned the color of a grape. I am so lucky.

Now, the thing that really gets to me...remember the census of 2000. Of course you do, unless your brain is as pickled as mine has been in previous decades. It was pretty simple, fill in the info, mail it off, wait ten years...yada yada yada...The amazing thing for me was that this was the first time I had lived in the same place for two consecutive countings of heads. Quite a transient, I have been. As Yoda would say. Imagine my surprise when a couple of months ago I get a big envelope from the census bureau wanting more information. It was quite intimidating and asking bunches of questions about income, bedrooms, relationships...The anarchy strikes. I throw it away. A month later another one comes. Okay, they mean business, I'll fill this one out when I get around to it. (I never get around to it.) So, I come home Thursday night with a business card stuck in the door telling me an agent of the government (ok, a census taker) would be dropping around sometime this morning. It is 10:18 AM. I am intimidated enough to be here, take my lecture and answer the damn questions. If he gets here by noon, that is...Otherwise, while I will be in the car, heading to town for more throat Lozenges and some mosquito repellent. Do you think they'll let me blog from prison?

(Immediately after posting this at 10:20, "Franklin" showed up and now the gov't knows more than it needs to know. So, what do they do with this secondary information. I am a part of the conspiracy generation, you know.)