Survivor Winner!

I’m just happy that the winner tonight was Danni, from Tonganoxie KS. It’s a small town just past Bonner Springs, KS, which is where the big outdoor concert amphitheater is, so even though it doesn’t sound like it, it’s part of the Kansas City area. You know I always love gay Mormons, and I really liked Rafe, despite a couple of times I wanted to smack him, but I am glad Danni won – Stephenie just got too whiny & bossy and thought she was too in control of the game.

Now, if only the CHIEFS could have won, too…. we’d have had a great Sunday here in Cowtown. Instead, we have to keep hoping Denver trips up & we like, uh, win all the rest of our games. :cough: Keep hope alive!

This has been your final Survivor update, back to regular blogging (and Mondays! and driving! and knitting! and work!)

So I mentioned my newfound love of the Sudoku, and how I’m certain it’s staving off dementia (rationalization for WASTING TIME). I only play the easy level, and have it set up so I can hit “enter” and see how I’m doin’, along with the pencil feature so I can jot more than one number in as a placeholder.

If only hooking up all my electronic equipment were so straightforward. If I accomplish a complete, full-hookup by the end of the year, I will pretty much guarantee my senior years will be spent solving crimes ala Murder She Wrote and you will all start calling me “Miss Marple”.

For the time has come, the walrus said, to buy my big tv.
And surround sound system, with stereo
and dvd player things.

But wait!
She cried, for there was more
Another DVD player
It must somehow also hook in
To the big electronic pile
Come sit, have a cookie, some coffee
she sighed, for this will take a while.

Take care!
Don’t trip!
Speaker wire is everywhere.
The dogs sleep and lick your face.
They really just don’t care.

For you are surfing on the floor,
You’re lying down with them!
They care not for your stereo feats,
Or what hooks into what
They simply wish you’d give them treats!
This wiring thing is nuts.

And so the process begins again
Fourteen remotes surrounded
I finally got my big tv….
and the theme of the day is “Confounded”.

The finished Anouk pinafore….. on the absolutely adorable Miss Lily. She wore it for the Thanksgiving holiday, and I have to admit, not only is she the cutest li’l bug in the woooorld, but the dress/top looks pretty cute, too. :)

But I do still detest knitting with cotton… :)

I’ve officially hit the point in the holiday season where I feel like I just got dropped into the deepest, darkest jungles of ‘Nam and my only source of safety and rescue is thud-thud-thud soaring away from me. I have a zillion things to do, about half a zillion more things I *want* to do, and then there’s that pesky thing called “work” that requires attendance & time….. I started to list everything here but it made me hyperventilate & my chest started to tighten, and that’s not acceptable behavior in the dark jungle.

One foot in front of the other, one step at a time, don’t sweat the small stuff, keep on keepin’ on, keep on truckin’, keep hope alive, lord what a FRIEND we have in Jesus. That last one would occasionally be shouted out by the gay black man in men’s suits when I worked retail (men’s dress shirts & ties) right out of college. Emmett, wherever you are, I am shouting it with the same energy. While running through the holiday jungle with an AK-47 strapped to my bathrobe.

I am just sayin’. Since the hubby drove me to work, I was car-less, so Kristin and I ventured out together for some lunch. We weren’t in the car two minutes before it got stuck, because some dumb cluck hasn’t cleared the parking lot yet.

Much attempting of the tire direction, the level of gas, and yet the car? Not going anywhere but backwards, and that is a finite venture as well, given the metal pipe fence. At one point, we had ‘er in neutral & were both pushing, and that didn’t work, either. Finally, I got behind that car and I bump-pushed. Repeatedly. And assisted in getting that sucker un-stuck. At this point, it is also the proudest moment of my day.

Do you know how much her car weighs? 3,563 pounds.

I’M JUST SAYIN’.

MIGHTY.

We do.

The snowplow hasn’t come down our street (after all, it’s supposed to warm up this weekend, so why bother? I loooove the dedication to snow removal ’round these parts….) I’m inside, lollygagging around and waiting for all the accidents to take place so when I go in to work, it’s clear. My industrious (school’s out today) husband, on the other hand, is shoveling. The dogs? Having the times of their lives.

We’re getting snow. Lots of it. (Well, lots for Kansas City. Panic! Panic! The grocery stores are being raided of all bread and milk as I type.)

I’m about to head out into the driving mecca that is my hometown now, and go through what I endure every year, which is much gritting of the teeth, cursing & fleeting wishes I was back in Minneapolis, where most people know how to drive in the snow, don’t overuse their SUV power, and they actually have more than two snowplows for the entire city. You think I exaggerate? I DON’T. Up there, living with snow is a way of life, not an occassional crisis.

On the MN drivers test, you have to identify the flashing lights of a snowplow. Here, it’s more like, “pick the ranch house that looks most likely to be a meth lab.”

Don’t you try and tell me I am boring. I know how to rock it out. I just spent half an hour tonight searching online, comparing pricing & then ordering a part for our humidifier. Because I’m a responsible adult? I also got a new filter. Then? THEN? I played Sudoku online. Because I read somewhere doing different things & working on puzzles is supposed to help stave off Alzheimer’s. It’s never too early to start worrying about dementia. Especially when your career’s in advertising.

There was a time in my life when I fell down a flight of concrete steps & took all the skin off my shins. (Bloody Hell! Didn’t break a single dish, though!) My father showed up half an hour later (he was moving me out of my college apartment) and in horror asked, “Don’t you have any band-aids?” Huh? Who has band-aids when they’re 20? That’s a pitcher of beer! Now I have a small plastic crate labeled “First Aid” with various band-aids, including some Hello Kitty bandaids, first aid TAPE and more neosporin than you can shake a stick at. Last year I bought a CANE after my enhanced gymnastics routine. I hung the cane up in the garage this fall and actually thought, “Well, at least I’ve got that for later.”

At this rate, I’m going to have a LifeAlert and the Clapper before I’m 40.

…As A Child.

You know what I’m talkin’ about. I would lie in my bed, staring out the window at the trees silhouetted in the moonlight & fantasize & dream about finally getting one of these things. It would change my life, all for the better. I’ll be interested to see how many were your dreams, too – and what your list would look like. Call it a meme, borrow the idea for your own blog. Share it!

5. A Swimming Pool. Not terribly practical in Northeast Iowa, especially RURAL NE Iowa. I, of course, did not dream for an above-ground pool, either. I wanted an in-ground, heated pool. With a bubble roof. I don’t know if it was truly Olympic-sized? But it was a BIG ASS POOL in my fantasy world. Never got it.

4. A Pogo Stick. So, again with the practicality. Yes, you might think, hey, that’s not so bad, what’s the big deal? Why deny a child her god-given right to attempt to kill herself by bouncing around on a stick? Well, please reference the above wish – because along with RURAL comes GRAVEL. And hard dirt surfaces. We did not have cushy grass lawns, the only grass was on a hill, around the gardens, and a bitch to mow. I did not profess to knowing all I know now, so my desire for a pogo stick lived on. I did not get it, instead, my father made me stilts. Moderately fun, but again, there was no spring-action in the stilts. SIGH.

3. A Boomerang. You know about this simple device, I’m sure. You read about the aborigines in Australia, and while you didn’t necessarily need to go take down some kangaroos, you couldn’t imagine a more stellar, riveting show you could perform on the playground. Perhaps it could also work to knock fruit from trees. (Nevermind we only had crabapples.) I believe I had a cheapy knock-off, which I never succeeded in throwing correctly, but I knew if I got a True Australian Boomerang, I would be collecting fruit and wowing the other 4th graders in no time. Instead, I violently flung a piece of plastic into the dirt, up over my head, and generally away from me, causing me to trudge trudge trudge to pick it up & try again. Never succeeding.

2. A Scooter, Vespa, whatever. My own mode of transportation, and faster than a pogo stick. Every Sunday, I would check the classifieds in the Des Moines Register, and dream about having my own scooter. I would visualize myself speeding off to town, NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, the high-pitched whine of an overfed mosquito, to have a part-time job, pick up some milk, anything that would rationalize buying it. I did not think of the practicalities (GRAVEL! HILLS!) and was always frustrated by my parents’ dogged determination to DENY ME MY FREEDOM. Freedom in a scooter. Don’t think the last craze over these things didn’t tug on my heartstrings a wee bit.

1. Discovering I Was Given Up For Adoption By The Queen of England In A Shroud Of Intrigue And Mystery. Listen. Delusions of grandeur have to start somewhere. I didn’t care about how mean and pinched she looked, I just wanted that palace, the guards, and those little corgi dogs. And the tiara.

It’s funny now, because I want for so little. I have many, many things to be thankful for, my life is not extravagant or filled with pogo sticks (god help me now, I’d break both legs), and yes, I did (weakly) try to convince my husband we should get a house with a pool when we were looking, two years ago. DE-NIED. But, I don’t lie awake at night & yearn for one, either.

I will never be completely practical, I’ve always been something of a dreamer. I married someone who knows about insurance liability & the fact he would get stuck cleaning the pool, and would tell me in a kind way I would burn the engine out on a scooter. I’m just going to have to settle for being some form of royalty I bestow upon myself. I like the sound of Czarina….

This year, my holiday wishes include peace, good health, laughter, and love. Could I get more schmaltzy? That’s Czarina of Schmaltz to YOU.

Just cover myself in Vaseline & roll around in the sand.

That would pull all of my irritation RIGHT into focus and serve as performance art at the same time.

However, I’m not the only one having grouchy times. The holidays do bring out the best, don’t they? MMMm, love your hair, hope you win!

Anyhoo, the internet was down at home this morning, I didn’t pre-write anything, and the day has been spent pretty much mixing vaseline & sand. Thus, you have been stuck with an unintelligible knitting post written last night.

I love the holidays. Good thing I’m not getting a week off.

GOOD THING.

I have, however, decided to name everything bothersome & irritating “Habu”. Get your Habu off me. Take that Habu and SHOVE IT. I don’t WANT Habu for dinner. Habu is being mean to me. Piss up a rope, Habu. Habu is the tool of The Man.

Habu Holidays!