Not by The Hair on My Chinny-Chin-Chin

So, at work, outside in the garden center, I have a spiffy toothpicks-and-saran wrap shelter for the register. The fact that they've spared 2 square feet for my fat butt is incidental. And fabulous.

It's a great place to work, no really. I mean that. *snark*

Anyway, while I'm sitting there, with my obligatory 3 layers to keep myself moderately warm, I'm trying to think of a way to explain this without seeming too sarcastic. Because, I've noticed, sarcasm is lost on the decision makers of the world.

Now, on the particular day I'm writing this (not typing it) I'm thinking seriously of the Three Little Pigs, and that this is, truly, a glorified twig hut. Given my choices, I'd take the straw house, because that, at least would hold the heat in, even if it did smell like cows.

I'm thinking of Little Pigs and the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin. And then a miracle happened. An infinitely better idea on how to explain this situation than I could have made up--it really happened. There is a God, and He, too, is laughing.

I'm sitting there, in the twig house, huddled up over the heater, practicing saying, "Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin" in my best "and your little dog, too" voice, when I hear some shifty shuffling.

Occasionally, my co-workers think it's funny to *scare* me, and they'll come out, and be all sneaky-sneak and tap on the saran wrap or jiggle the toothpicks. Because it's funny to tease Dorothy about the tornado.

My natural response is, "Helloooooooo." I do not recognize the answering, "Helloooooo." The shifty shuffling is still happening.

"Can I help you?" I ask.

"Where ARE you?!" is what I hear. It's practically a shriek.

"I'm INSIDE here, trying to keep warm." And this dumpy sort of woman stomps around towards my pseudo-door. I think she missed the midget designation by mere inches. (Remembering that I am wearing flourenscent hunter ORANGE, and confined within my twig house, there's NO WAY she didn't notice me in there, all things considered.)

So, Gretel comes 'round to where she can actually SEE me, even with those huge bugeyed glasses, and she says, "I need a roll of plastic!" still shrieking, because, well, obviously, I'm deaf. That's why hunter-safety orange is worn often by the deaf.

I tell her where to go (HAH! aisle 18, not where you were thinking) and off she rolls.

It occured to me after she left that what the shifty shuffling was. She was going to dismantle my pathetic attempt at weather protection!

Sweet gingerbread houses!

I have been assured, however, that our policy is that I can roast any midgets who try to take apart my twig house.

(Which is a much better ending than it getting blown away by a wolf.)

I've entered this in Scribbit's Write-Away contest for December.

Green Beans, or How I Met and Fell in Love with My Sweetie

This post is for a contest sponsored by Her Hawtness. And it's about green beans. Not really green beans, but, I guess if you have to talk in code, green beans is actually better than schwalla wax. So, if you're looking for not-so-much information about consenting adult green beans, go visit The Bee, he's still 100% Rated G.

My Sweetie and I have been together for just-over eight years. I love him to death. And so, appropriately enough, this post is about green beans with My Sweetie. First-ever green beans with my Sweetie (the whole true story my mother was smart enough not to ask, Thank God she doesn't read this.)

It begins with my losing my job. A decent job, but a job filled with nasty women. I miss the money, and I miss the creativity, but miss the people I spent 99.9% of my job time with? Nope.

Anyway, I managed to get a piddling job at the cigarette shop down the street from me. I also managed to snag me a hubby, but this isn't about snagging him, it's about how I got that itch scratched. And scratched. And scratched.

So, I'm working at the Nails in Yer Coffin Boutique, and met this guy. Not actually MET this guy, I mean, I didn't know his name for months. The flirting was fun, but I was seeing someone else. Over the course of the next several months, I still hadn't caught his name, and well, at some point in June, I actually tried to set him up to meet my sister (remember, I was seeing someone else.)

He declined all efforts to meet my sister. He spazzed a little when I asked him out (and he turned me down in the middle of the spaz.) The manager of the Boutique would make gagging gestures behind his back whenever he'd be in at the same time I was there. And I knew his name by now.

I got a different, better job (the flypaper for freaks job.) So, I wasn't going to be seeing him anymore. (Remember, this is a job thing.)

I started the New and Improved Job, and quit the peddling death in packs of 20 job. I still managed to run into him now-and-again, simply by driving by the Boutique on the way to my mother's.

It ends up being Wednesday, November 1, 2000. Big deal, you say, but what you don't know is that he's spent the summer telling people about "the Smoke Shop Girl" and I've spent the summer talking about him (the other guy didn't last past July 4.) You also don't know that I asked him, on one occasion when he created his own parking spot, "Hey, I hope you don't fuck like you park." (He walked into the door. Literally.)

So, on Wednesday, November 1, 2000, I stop in the Boutique and he's there (of course he's there, didn't I just say I'd stop there if I saw his vehicle?) He mentions that I didn't bring the Boy (now known as the Toad) to his house for Trick-or-Treat. I tell him that I have no idea where he lives, even though he keeps telling me "it's the little white house, literally, steps from your house" but he fails to mention that it's the little white house that sits behind the big green house. I tell him so, and he tells me again that I was rude to not stop in.

Since I had a sitter set up for that night anyway, I head down the street, walking, to his house. I paced in the alley next to his little white house for about 20 minutes. If he'd looked out his window, he'd have seen a crazy woman, pacing, talking to herself.

I screw up (HAH!) the courage to knock on his door. He answers the door looking like he's in a cartoon, and Tweety has just whacked him on the head with a cast iron frying pan. He lets me in.

Now, I need to tell you that I am a wanton, loose woman. I'm not looking for marriage, and while my mother and grandmother will tell you that I'm giving the milk away for free, I'm heading into my mid-thirties with the washer spin cycle as my best friend. Yeah, that works.

We had discovered, while I was still working at the Boutique that we actually knew some of the same people from his home town. We sit and talk. Like dorks, we actually look through his yearbook, and he keeps having to go to the bathroom (how romantic is that? I make him nervous.)

Finally, somewhere about, oh, I don't know, quarter past just about forever, he kissed me.

Horndog sex starved thing that I am, there's no way this guy is getting away with that.

Partially dressed, smashed in between the overstuffed cushions on his couch, we had green beans. And what green beans it was.

I would have showed up at his house, every 24 hours, just for those green beans. I didn't need more. (Okay, maybe a glass of water now and then, but really, what would that be?) I got home that night (again, how romantic is it that he walked me home?) around 4 am. I had to call off work the next day, because, duh, I hadn't gotten any sleep and there was no way I was going to be flypaper for freaks that day after that.

I have to say that the green beans then was good. Very very good. Plain, straight forward, even your mom has had this kind of green beans. Since then, however, green beans with this man progessed to furniture moving. And now, we're creeping up on furniture destroying. It's a momentum I've never experienced previously.

Honestly, tidal waves of green beans. The kind you clean up with a mop and bucket (you know, now that I mention it, he sings that the morning after sometimes.)

Now, just to ruin a great dirty green bean post, I'll also tell you that I really liked him then, and I still really like him now. And man-o-man, am I glad I didn't fix him up with my sister.

An Agonizing Death

My lovely printer. My absolutely wonderful printer. The fantastic thing.

Died.

I killed it.

Apparently, it's not intended to make a bajillion copies in 10 months.

Oops.

However, it IS still covered under warranty. And what a wonderful thing that is.

In a matter of days (excepting the holiday and the weekend) I should have the parts-n-pieces needed to make it fab again.

I can't wait.

And I plan on telling Kodak--after my stuff arrives, btw--how absolutely fab I think this little techno-marvel is.

(and I get Sweetie points for actually saving the receipt (which he bet was long-goooone), finding the papers needed, and getting the call done.

Yea, ME!

Weirdness Magnet 8's

Thanks, Jen. I owe ya!



8 Thinks I'm Looking Forward To:



1) SPRING!

2) Christmas Shopping (Sick, I know)

3) Lunch

4) Payday

5) PTA tonight (yea, I really am sick)

6) More Bee pictures

7) Next Wordless Wednesday

8) SPRING!



8 Thinks on My Wish List:



1) More time, Less procrastination

2) SPRING!

3) More Bee pictures

4) A Happy Howler

5) A not-so-Toadly Toad

6) Time alone with my Sweetie

7) Did I mention SPRING!?

8) A Haircut



8 TV Shows I Like to Watch:



1) Law & Order of any kind

2) Spongebob Squarepants

3) Catscratch

4) George Lopez

5) Still Standing

6) Biography/History Channel

7) When Weather Attacks (okay, so this isn't the real name, but it's the premise of the show)

8) Anything about true crime



8 Weirdness Magnet Thinks that Happened Recently--and you haven't heard about (much) yet:



1) Amish men are flirting with me

2) Men I Do Not Know approach me and begin talking to me as if I'm their wives

3) Phone calls at work for people who don't work there and/or don't exist

4)



8 People I am Tagging:



Do I even know 8 people with Blogs? I'm not sure. Geez. I hate this part.

The Full Moon Cometh

Or, as I was informed today, it is Overeth.

But it lingereth in bizarre ways.

Today was about the BEST. DAY. EVER. (I'm singing it like Spongebob, if you can hear it in your head.) Seriously.

I armed myself with a pocketful of Smarties. I figured it would be like having a garlic for a vampire. I was able to offer them (with a hint that I need to know when/if they started to work) to a few co-workers, sugared myself up for the day, and off I went.

Amish men were flirting with me, trying to hold my hand.

I was in a happy, laughing mood most of the day. I got handed Jesus tracts (although, it was the "God Loves YOU" kind, not the "You're going to HELL" kind.)

On top of the cranks who just bitched me out anyway. No matter what I said, they bitched. No matter what I did, they bitched. What really made that great, is that these are the parents of the Howler's soccer teammates--okay, it was the Moms. It's either "THAT time of the month" for all women everywhere--except me, I have a different symptom--or, they're just bitches, for real, and I never noticed. Which surprises me either way.

And now, I have a mild migraine. Yes, they exist. They mostly make me feel like my tongue and throat are trying to crawl out the back of my head, and make it impossible for me to do anything unless I have 100% of my attention focused in one direction, and that, of course, means that my Sweetie is constantly asking me questions like, "What did she say?" as if I can listen to the Howler and read my computer screen at the same time.

Does this make sense? I won't really know until sometime tomorrow.

Question

I have a question, and I know I cannot find the answer in my thesaurus. I beg anyone who reads this to please please please leave me a comment telling me their answer.

What is the complete polar opposite of an attention-whore?

About Voting

I'm not going to get on my political soapbox, mostly because it's over done. And why you'll rarely hear from Mumpleland about political issues. It also usually gives me a migraine--and there ain't a politician on the planet worth that kind of MY pain. (Oh, they deserve the pain, surely, but I do not.)

Anyway, about this American voting thing:

My Sweetie, and the Howler both asked me how I voted. I did vote. But it ain't nobody's business how, exactly, I hit those pretty colored little buttons. All anybody needs to know is that I did hit 'em.

Why? Because, one of the things this country was founded on is that every citizen (okay, at the founding, it was MEN, and white MEN at that, but that's a different rant) had the right to choose, speak, and vote his (or in the 21st century, her) conscience.

And I do. I do my best to understand what the candidates (local or otherwise) are blathering about; I weigh the issues of importance; I stand in line; I sign my name; and I vote. And I proudly wear the little sticker. And I encourage others to register and vote also.

What I don't do is discuss my Tuesday-in-November decision. I don't because I don't have to.

And you can't make me. Nyah nyah nyah.

(Although I explain it to the Howler this way: when you talked about voting and elections in school today, did they also explain that in American, you don't have to tell anybody how you voted. And nobody can make you. And that's the way it is because nobody has the right to tell you how to vote, and nobody is allowed to treat you bad if you don't vote the way they think you should. I voted, and that's all you--or Daddy--need to know.)

For my close, I wonder if you can keep a secret.














I can.