OK, departing from my previous stance on Mediocrity, tea-stained with Abject Apathy, let me rant about something else my daddy taught me: If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And in my case, if I didn’t do it well enough, I did it over and over until it was done to the highest caliber. I have visions of that damned black bathroom sink…..the toothpaste, the stained brass fixtures, the scrubbing, endless scrubbing. No wire hangers, no! (OK, kidding about that. (just the hangers, though))

Anyway, I do believe if you’re going to do something, you should do it right. I’m not asking for a parade, or mylar balloons every time you perform your job, but for god’s sake, is it THAT hard to put the toilet paper in the bathroom stall correctly? Because when you don’t, it only comes out one square at a time, if that, and I feel like a crazy monkey, clawing up and under at a roll of tissue paper I can’t see, and can’t maneuver, and CAN’T GET TO WORK because you can’t put it in right.

Don’t get me started on the refilling system for the liquid soap. Because there isn’t one. And when it runs out, you have to physically get under the sink, unscrew the big container and leave its Royal Emptiness on the counter to get refilled. And that not only makes me NUTTERS, but it makes me think wire hangers might just be in order. Yes, the spirit of Christmas is alive and well in Kansas City.

I said I wasn’t going to talk about work here, and I’m trying really hard not to. So far, so good. Just one tiny-teensy vent. MY COMPUTER SUCKS! Or at least our ISP sucks. It is like having one of those little vintage toy cars with the hole in the floor to push with your feet – not even equipped with pedals – and you look over and there are those kids across the street sitting in their battery-powered H2 Hummer, with a RADIO in it. The internet connection is apparently powered solely through energy converted from a hamster running on a wheel. And my hamster seems to be abiding by the same workout program I have: let’s sit and watch tv!

ARRRRRGH. Because with The Way things work, the hamster will still get his kibble, regardless of quality control or erg output. Goodness, the hamster will probably be in management soon, at this rate.

Mediocrity was never part of my mantra. When did it sneak in?

Satan would be a vacuum cleaner.

Devil, I have seen thee and thy name is EUREKA SPIN DUSTER!

At 1:30 a.m. this morning, I decided to go to bed. As is customary, I let the dogs out.

Let me interrupt myself. We live across the street from some very elderly people, who are kind-hearted in their own way, putting out cat food for stray cats. I am not a stray cat fan (Well, I do like me some Brian Setzer, but that’s different), mostly because our dogs think Stray Cat Poop is the BEST TREAT EVER. And it makes them stink something hideous, to the point James & I gag when they come back & breathe on us.

So one of these cats is hanging out across the street, and my dog Polly sees it, and is literally bounding up and down so enthusiastically her ears are going straight up. Normally, these dogs of ours are classified as “very well trained” & under total voice command, but not at 1:30 in the morning when a Stray Cat is Right THERE because if those “treats” taste so good on the ground, then maybe we can catch & bring this cat inside & have our own TREAT MACHINE at the ready. And off they went. Completely disappeared into the night. Suzy obeyed me and came back immediately, but not my Polly! She is like a teenager, and has been exhibiting all sorts of “I Am Independent Doggie” and “You Ain’t The Boss Of Me” rebellion of late. And so, that is how I found myself at 1:30 in the morning, shivering & driving around our neighborhood, looking for her, only to circle back home & find Miss Polly in our driveway, reeking of “cat treats”. Because apparently the Stray led her to the Mother Lode of Cat Poopatorium, and it was Feast Night at the Apollo.

There will be no doggy kisses today, and Polly is sporting the e-collar, which makes her extra-incredibly obedient with no action required on my part. Pavlov, you da man. And I know, there are no bad dogs, only bad dog owners, and she could have been hit by a car or stolen and I would never, ever have forgiven myself, not to mention I would be an emotional wreck. So this means she will be wearing her collar a lot more, rather than less, in the future. We chose to have dogs instead of kids, for many reasons, and we try to be the best dog parents we can be. We’re happy with that choice, based on who we are & what we want out of life, despite how many times we’re told, “You’d be such great parents! Are you sure you don’t want kids?” Sometimes I wonder what life would be like, if I’ve missed out or I’ll regret not having children. It’s fleeting, and I know the choice is right for me. For now, I’m still content with raising dogs & we’ve even talked about breeding dogs in a few years. You can’t crate train children, and you can’t put e-collars on them, or leave them in the car when you go shopping.

I will say this, I can see one definite upside to kids over dogs:

To the best of my knowledge, kids don’t eat cat poop.

I spent 12 hours today with one of my best friends: Shelley. Most of the time was spent working on our respective knitting projects, but we did go out and grab breakfast, and I puttered around the house part of the time, working on other list items….. I made hamburger soup, which is nothing special, it’s just browning burger & creating soup around it – onions, canned veggies, tomatoes, bouillion. I threw in half a bag of cheese tortellini to make it a little less white-trash stovetop soup. It was yummeh.

But the best part? Not having to ask your best friend if she likes corn, or beans, or peas, or onion, or tomatoes. Because you know. And it’s different when it’s your friend, versus your husband. I think because you’re expected to know if you’re married, and for whatever reason, soup is a big issue in our house. I absolutely hate cream of mushroom soup, because I was raised in the upper midwest, where cream-based soups are merely flavored glue, to be used in “hot dish”, or what the rest of the world calls “casserole”. James keeps trying to serve it to me as an entree, and his feelings get hurt when I point out, for the 10th time, I DO NOT EAT CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP like that. In any event, Shelley’s one of those friends I’m completely relaxed around, enough so that she can see my house in a total pigsty state and I don’t worry she’s going to leave and raise her inner eyebrows.

Talking about good girlfriends, I miss Sheila, and Rebs, my dear ol’ college buddies, because I still feel like they’re my best friends – they’ve known me so long, and even when months or years skip by, and we don’t talk, or get a chance to see each other, we still love each other, and I believe we always will. They knew me when I wore Chuck Taylor high tops and spiked my hair because I was SO New Wave and patiently listened to me proclaim my deep, unwavering love for David Bowie. And Joe Jackson. And later – I can’t believe I’m admitting this – Richard Grieco. WHERE ARE YOU NOW, RICHARD?

I can fast-forward through the microfiche of my memories, seeing breath-stopping stupidity, moments I skip by in a blur, heart-breaking moments in my life, but I am also comforted to know that they were there, an undercurrent of constance, the faith & security that never broke or was used against me to further divide my heart and mind. They handed me glue to heal. I see people in my life now, who will be there in ten years, when I do the same retrospection, and I know that I am lucky now & will be grateful for them down the road.

So let’s talk about soup, once more. It’s funny, I promise.

Shelley made us soup a few years ago on Christmas eve. She made two kinds of soups: one was a creamy cheesey cauliflower, and the other was matzoh ball. We started with the matzoh ball. I had about three matzoh balls in my bowl, and I took a spoonful of broth & a chunk of matzoh. Hm. First reaction from my tastebuds told me: “Salty!” and “Not Very Flavorful.” I paused. I tried a smaller spoonful. I looked across the table at our friend Meredith, who had not tried hers yet. I looked to my right at the man I didn’t even know I would end up marrying. He was eating his soup, not looking up. So I tried a third taste, and Shelley said, “Is it ok?”

I said, “Well………… it’s a little salty.”

– pause-

“Did you use chicken broth in this?”

And then it was like fourteen things happened at once. Meredith didn’t even get her spoon out of her bowl. James surfaced from his end of the table, looking at us, as he shriveled & dehydrated in front of my eyes. Shelley was up and out of her chair into the kitchen to get the box of soup to investigate. I realized in the midst of the commotion that what we were eating was not actually Matzoh Ball Soup, but Just Matzohs, in Brine. Because that’s how you make matzoh balls, on their own – you cook ’em in salt water. And if you’ve never made the soup from a mix, and just got matzoh ball mix, you might not realize that you need chicken broth (unsalted!) to float the cooked matzoh balls in. Did I mention none of us are Jewish? And then Shelley was grabbing our bowls in HostessShock, apologizing and laughing and James was beseeching her for lots of water, and my heart melted a bit more that day because James is nothing if not accommodating, and a perfect guest, who will eat matzoh balls in brine, quietly, because it’s not polite to say bad things about soup, or a meal in general, and maybe, just maybe, I won’t be such a harpy next time about the cream of mushroom soup, because I married a man who would never want to hurt the cook’s feelings. And I have an awesome friend who still lets me laugh about her soup.

And in Iowa City, and in Seattle, and in Minneapolis, Chicago & Kansas City, I have the greatest friends. I hope when we’re all old & doddering, we move into the same retirement village together. We’ll reminisce about the good old days & eat lots of soup. And knit. Who knows? It could be like college all over again, without the painful mistakes. Except instead of drinking, we’ll all be swapping our arthritis medicine and comparing bunions. It’s gonna be awesome.

I did aqua aerobics, a long time ago, in a pool in Minneapolis. The day we tried it, the pool was very full. Full of people & full as in a LOT of water. I guess that’s what makes it a pool. Anyway, the instructor insisted on having the exercises in the 5-foot section, and you were supposed to touch the bottom of the pool with your feet as you bounce around. When you’re 5’3″, this is a bitch, because you keep plunging most of your head underwater, and you’re trying to watch what he’s doing (yes, this was a guy instructor) and listen to what he’s shouting in this echoing huge olympic pool area. I got frustrated quickly, and reverted to what I always do when I’m no longer participating at 100%: being a smartass. My friend & I were laughing about the rythmic dunking I was doing, and then I made the observation that this guy sounded exactly like Andre the Giant. It was most funny when he’d yell, “DUH BUH TINE!”, which meant, “double time” and I was supposed to dunk myself at twice the annoying rate. From that point forward, any time we needed to pick up the pace (shopping, driving, working), the rallying cry was “DUH BUH TINE!” accompanied by big waving arm movements.

The holidays are comin’. I’m moving at DUH BUH TINE. It is all gonna get done, no matter how many times I have to get dunked. My best friend Shelley is coming over today to hang out & knit, and I’m going to knit on holiday gifts, get some cleaning up done, make haystacks for the cookie exchange at work, and wrap presents. Then it’s off to do some more shopping, and get ready for tomorrow’s Survivor finale party, with homemade pizzas and 7 guests! DUH BUH TINE! DUH BUH TINE!

It’s a fine line between accomplishment and drowning sometimes!!!!

It’s interesting how, when you’re sick, the most mundane, boring, everyday things are suddenly the most fascinating, riveting, captivating things you’ve EVER SEEN in your life.

Last week, I stood in the middle of our kitchen, breathing through my mouth, watching my husband fill the plastic tank for the humidifier. I was entranced. This was amazing! He’s using a siphon-like tube, I’ve seen hundreds of times before, and yet tonight it holds my interest like CSI (the Original One.)

He noticed me, slackjawed, staring at him & said, “Am I in your way?”

I replied, “No! Not at all.”

He looked at me kinda funny. He was sick, too, but that man can FOCUS. He also has the ability to get dressed in the dark and can teach fifth graders without slapping them.

As if I were underwater, I looked at his face, slo-mo and all. “I’m sick,” I said.

We did shots of Ny-Quil and went to bed.

Life in the fast lane, my friends. Life in the fast lane.

Speaking of Spanish, and Mexican people, always makes me think of a story that happened to my father. He told me the story several times as I was growing up, to teach me a life lesson that many – too many – people never get: to remember that everybody is valuable & wants to be appreciated for what they do. Regardless of what that is.

My father was working at the Montfort cattle packing plant in Colorado. He was doing this for work while my mother was in graduate school in Denver. I was all of a year old at this time. Working at a cattle plant is not a very glamorous job, lest you think it might be. It smells like cow shit, it’s labor, and “plant” is a nice word for slaughterhouse – it doesn’t matter how humanely it’s done, or how entrenched a part of our culture it is, or how far we come since the days of “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair – it’s still death & blood and not really the environment a 22-year old college graduate with a degree in philosophy expected to find himself. My father had dreams of an Ivy League law degree, but if he couldn’t get in to Harvard or Yale, then it wasn’t worth pursuing. In any event. This was the job he had while my mother was in school. One of his main assignments was feeding. So, he was outside, shoveling corn to feed the cattle. Back-breaking work, and my father cursed and complained and bitched and moaned about it. He wasn’t alone in his work – he often worked with an older Mexican man, who never complained or said anything about his job.

On one particularly hot day, my father started up with his griping. The Mexican THREW his shovel down on the pile of corn and got in my father’s face. Pointed finger and all.

“You! You! You complain, all the time! You think you’re too good for this? College Boy? You know what? Next year, at this time, you will be someplace else, doing something different! And you know where I’ll be? I’ll be RIGHT HERE, shoveling this CORN. Because I’ve got NOWHERE ELSE to go. So SHUT UP.”

My father could do nothing but swallow his embarassment and work silently the rest of that day. And he didn’t complain for the rest of the time he was there.

Every single time I think of his experience, I am stunned out of my selfish, petty world and back into the reality of how much bigger the universe is. And when my father would tell me this story, he always made the point that I shouldn’t feel like I’m better than somebody else who works at a grocery store, or cleans up the trash, or waits tables, just because I got a college education & was born into more fortunate circumstances. Because I am fortunate, and I don’t have to work three jobs to make ends meet. I have options. I have freedoms. People out there, even in this country, don’t have that, and WhiteAmerica doesn’t want you to believe we have those kinds of flaws but it’s true. Their are Mexican illegals here in Kansas City who live in the hollow cavities of the beams in the BRIDGES so their stuff doesn’t get stolen and because they are safer from authorities there. They work 100x harder than I do, but I drive my car home to my house & husband & dogs and I don’t worry about whether or not I’ll have heat tonight or if someone else learned to climb the beams and stole my only change of clothes.

When my dad did quit Montfort, he stole the scoop shovel he used for that corn. When I moved to Minnesota, he gave it to me, and it has dug my car out of many snowfalls, notably the Halloween Blizzard of ’91 in Minneapolis (36″!) But beyond its usefulness, it’s symbolic to me of so much, of all the things that are easy to forget, especially this time of year when it’s all about consuming and measuring up and meeting other people’s expectations. So when the woman at Hobby Lobby with her thinning mullet and sullen face took the time to wrap all of my ornaments, individually, so slowly, so excruciatingly slowly, I’m on my lunch break and I’m late and you are SO SLOW, all I said was, “Thank you so much for taking such care in wrapping those for me. They’re so breakable and I really appreciate it. You did a really good job.”

That shovel is one of my most prized possessions.

Sometimes I need to be hit over the head with it.

Well, it’s not ENTIRELY true. As this country’s Hispanic population grows, I’ve noticed that I’ve picked up a bit of the Spanish language. The other day, as I was scrawling out ‘BASURA!’ on an empty box, I jokingly said, “Hey, all I know how to say in Spanish is ‘trash’ and ‘beer’!” And then we started running through the words that I do know, and it turns out – yes – I am bilingual.

Step back. I’m going to dazzle and amaze you.

Cerveza is beer, and everyone knows that one. It’s when I have to order the pink squirrels at the poolside bar, you know we’re all in trouble.

Cuidado! Caution. I learned this from industrial mop buckets and little folding signs that warn you to exercise cuidado in a general area because otherwise you will slip & fall and it will be workman’s comp physical therapy ALLLLL over again.

Banyo. This is spelled wrong. I can’t write Spanish, only speak it. Bathroom. Essential to life. Especially if you’re having dos or cuatro cervesa.

I am of the opinion that words like “tamale” or “chorizo” don’t really count, because they are so commonplace. However, if we’re counting them? I know them. I can order just about anything on a mexican menu without fear, because I know to not get the menudo. Or go to a Menudo concert.

Donde’ Esta? This is a good starter for helping you find things. Wave your hands and arms a lot, to distract the listener enough & perhaps they will believe you actually speak the language. It is also goot to know if, for instance, you are drunk and really, really NEED the Banyo.

OK, yeah, I know the greetings, “HOLA!” “Como esta” or however it’s spelled, yes & no, and mind your manners, POR FAVOR, be nice when you ask for cerveza, GRACIAS – those are sort of a given, especially if you’ve ever gone to Mexico, because it is NON-STOP HOLA! at a resort. And I can count, up to ten, but I did NOT know “14” in ol’ Espanol until that U2 album came out. Thanks, Bono.

The next round of menudo & Dos Equis is on me.

Last night on Church of Lazlo on the Buzz, they were ripping some woman for her birthday party invitation, how she referred to herself in the third person, etcetera, etcetera. I missed most of the ripping. However, the Birthday Party Girl herself was pissed & she called in to rip on Lazlo. So – and this is why I’m blogging about it – they were saying that she was all about herself like P. Diddy (and his infamous party invitations) and they started playing this funkilicious-hip-hop groovin’ music under her ranting & raving (but SHE couldn’t hear it), and then Lazlo’s sidekick Slimfast came in at the end & did his own version of the song, also ripping on “Madame T” or whoever she was. I was BELLY LAUGHING at this skinny white kid singing, “Don’t. Disturb The. Sexy DON’T” and so on and so forth. I love when something completely hits my funny bone, and it’s even funnier when I try to explain it to you, to James, to anyone else who didn’t hear it, because it is SO NOT FUNNY in the re-telling, but I am still laughing so much it’s hard to type. And so you, my friends, can only shake your head and walk away. Because nobody, but nobody, can disturb the sexy. Or take away my laughter. DON’T.