Hello, my name is Sue and I watched America's Got Talent

Just about from beginning to end, I watched it, not counting the commercials and when David Hasselhoff spoke. You see I had to record the episodes because the husband white hot hhhhhates it. Nothing entertains him on TV except World War II documentaries and Sports Center. It's a right brain versus left brain kind of thing we have going. He has absolutely no imagination what-so-ever and I watch Kookamonga television shows.

The advantages of recording America's Got Talent are as follows:
1. I can't say enough about the Fast Forward function, let's break this down.
a. I can't get past this David Hasselhoff picture and video. When he speaks, "Hoffatizes" everything and criticizes an act, I just want to say, "Shut up, you ate a cheeseburger "hoff" the floor." It's much easier to fast forward through his self indulged babbling. I think he even sang on the show, maybe even danced too, but I fast forwarded so quick it was just a blur and I covered my eyes partly too.
b. Commercials, except for the e-trade babies, who wants to voluntarily watch a commercial?
c. The sob stories, if you make it to the big show, semi-finals, finals, whatever, there's a certain amount of crying involved. Too much crying you blow your chances, not enough and you're done. So fast forwarding through that crap saves brain cells. None of them have ever made me cry and none of them have ever made me vote. But for some reason America's Got Talent entertains me and drives the husband crazy, it's a win/win.
2. That pause button, it gives me the ability to yell at a teenager at will and never miss a thing. Barking orders from my recliner with my fingers on the pause and fast forward buttons while the husband contemplates sticking a fork in his eye, now that's one hell of an evening.

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How off do you have to be with your spellin' when the spell-check says "no suggestions"?

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My mother-in-law is recuperating in a nursing home now and doing much better! Thanks everyone for your kind comments and wishing her well!

Apparently I have mad ironing skills

"You look nice in that white shirt."
"Thank you."
"Did you press it yourself?"
"Uh yeeees."
"It looks good."
"Thank...... you?"

So along with my charming personality, friendly disposition and my ability to get along well with others, I can wield a mean-ass iron. This conversation was with a Marine, they know about pressing. My resume is complete.
I'm guessing they call ironing, pressing in the Marines, right?

So I asked the husband.
"Did he mention your gib line?"
"Huh? Give line? The hell are you talking about?"
"Gib line, the line of buttons from your neck to your crotch."
"He never mentioned my crotch."

So I searched google for gib line, nothing.
"You don't know what you're talking about, gib line, there's no such thing on google or wikipedia."
"Are sure he wasn't hitting on you?"
"I.... no.... I just have mad ironing skills."

Isn't it about time we had our flying cars already?

"They have the road to the hospital down to 2 lanes because of their endless construction this summer." The husband says to me. "But I know an alternate route that will take us around it." And he says this with an all knowing, I'm all over this traffic thing look on his face. The kind of look that made me think he spent most of his day contemplating our route and probably was on the Internet and everything.
We were breezing along the alternate route, windows open, radio humming and discussing the boys and where we went wrong with them, when we turned the bend in the road and saw a gozillion red brake lights at a stand still ahead of us.
"Huh. Looks like people are on to your alternate route."
And since I try to maintain a PG rated blog I won't mention what he said next.

So we sat for awhile lost in our own thoughts. That's when I wondered what the hold up was on the flying cars.

If we learned anything during our childhood while watching The Jetsons, it was that in the future we'd all be driving flying cars. I took a sideways glance at the husband and knew that it wasn't the time to bring that subject up. I knew I had to mull in over on my own.

You can't just give a flying car to anybody, I thought. Flying cars needed to be doled out carefully. Someone with an excellent driving record. Which then had me switching gears to my loaner car mishap, how was I going to make that go away? If that gets in the way of me getting a flying car I'll be pissed. I had an excellent driving record before that incident.
You can't just give a flying car to a dumb person either, there's going to have to be an IQ test for flying car ownership. Which I would pass with flying colors, I'm sure of it.
Probably in the beginning stages of flying cars we would have to wear helmets, something I would have to someway get around. I spend too much time on my hair in the morning to have helmet head all day.

Yes, I had that much time to ponder flying cars in the traffic jam.

"Hey we're moving." We made it to the hospital in time to see mom, who looked so much better than she has in days. The hospital staff was making an exception and letting her great-grand children visit, she was beaming.

It's what I get for wearing white after Labor Day

Gulping down my beloved mocha yesterday in between phone calls at work, I got a little careless and spilled. This sent me into a frenzy. My favorite white, long shorts, with the embroidery and beads at the bottom of the legs had mocha spots on them. Damn. Damn it.
Risking unemployment, I left the phone unattended and ran to the ladies room. Constructing a story as I went. The office is primarily men so any mention of tampons shuts them up quick. That was going to be my story if needed. I don't like to use the tampon card unless absolutely necessary, one doesn't want to reduce it's effectiveness, you know?
Vigorously I pumped pink soap out of the dispenser in the ladies room onto 1-ply C-fold paper towels and scrubbed my mocha spots until my entire left leg was soaked. Away from the phone as long as I dared, I soaked more 1-ply C-fold paper towels and brought them back to my desk. This will have to do until I can get to the Shout and scrub brush, I thought.
I spent the rest of the day obsessing over my mocha spots and smelling like pink ladies room soap. This event re-enforced the law of never wearing white after Labor Day for me, never again will I throw caution to the wind and break fashion rules. My tampon card remains intake for now.

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My mother-in-law is doing a little bit better. Thank you everyone for wishing her well!

Nut-tastic

Boy #3 did his grocery shopping yesterday. Living with a diabetic has taught us all to hide sugar. That's why he does a little light shopping on his own. If I locked him in his room, I'm guessing he could survive about a week in there. I asked him to buy dog bones, we were dangerously low on them and I don't want to have Nooter report me to doggie social services. He came home with Nut-tastic dog treats.

Nut-tastic. That name is so fan-effing-tastic.

The husband came home and saw the jar, picked it up and said, "Nut-tastic!"
Boy #2's girlfriend blurts out, "They're for the dog."
The husbands eyebrow went up and he looked at me, "Huh." I said, "She's known you less than a year and she's figured out you're a moron."
"I see the dog on the jar, I know they're dog treats."
"Oh, then maybe she overheard some diabolical plan to put them in a candy dish and watch you eat a few before anything was said, maybe."

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My mother-in-law's initial diagnosis, Stevens Johnsons Syndrome has been changed to Bullous Pemphigoid, equally as awful and has begun to progress aggressively. We call the husband a moron in fun, we know he's hurting, he's worried about his mom.
Thank you all for your well wishes.

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Oh and there's less than an 80% chance that I'd ever lock Boy #3 in his room.

Bras freak him out

The problem with having a loved one in the hospital for a long period of time is that the world doesn't stop for you. You still have to go to work, eat and do laundry. Sunday I was getting dressed and realized I didn't have a clean "good" bra, damn it, I put an old one on and threw a load in. The reason we call them "good" bras is that we take extra special care of them, they never see the inside of a dryer, they go over the shower curtain rod to dry.

"I want to get to the hospital in time to help mom with her dinner."
"So we should leave in a half hour then?"
"Yeah, get those kids ready, I have to make a couple calls."
"Boy #3 get in the shower." This is the third time I barked out that order. The boy is incredibly difficult to get out of the house.

"I would, if you'd move your bras."
"Bras freak him out, we don't have to worry about this one for a while." I explained to the husband.
"No. He's freaked out by his mother's bras." The husband explained to me.

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The progression of my mother-in-laws Stevens Johnsons Syndrome has stopped for the last three days. This is very rare, but very good for her. If this damn syndrome has stopped then she should recover from it. We are all praying and crossing our fingers and toes.

Long Story Short

My mother-in-law developed an allergic reaction to a medication and is in a burn unit of a hospital. This allergic reaction has it's own name, Stevens Johnsons Syndrome. I'm not providing a link because I won't go back to those sites, ever.
This is why I haven't posted in a week. Our family has been schlepping back and forth to the hospital like a bunch of nomads, meeting in the family waiting room, all dressed in yellow hospital gowns tied in the back. And everyone with blank looks on our face, emotionally numb, wondering why the hell is this happening to this 83 year old woman.

I'll try to update this post when I can and I will be reading you guys when I need to smile, because you guys always make me smile.

I am Anti Meme

meme - n. A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

While a lot of bloggers participate in the crazy world of meme's I chose not to, simply because I consider it too much work. I was tagged last week by Collette at My Babcia's Babushka and I must politely decline to list 7 of my personality traits and tag 7 more saps to do the same. No offense Collette, I decline everyone that tags me. The only meme I half heartily participated in was Diesel's Retarded Meme and that's only because it has purpose and meaning. His goal is to be the #1 retarded site on the Internet and when that happens I like to know I played a small part in that achievement.

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The boy fixed my computer, I knew there was a reason we had him. So I can get back to my commenting and answering comments and posting and FaceBooking. The hell with the housework I was forced to do while the computer was down.

The Blood Sugar Level is Right

Boy #2's girlfriend is in nursing school and she has joined forces with me in lording over the damn diabetics sugar intake. So much so that the husband fondly refers to her as the sugar nazi.

"Did you pick up milk?"
"Got it."
"Your arms look pretty full for just milk. What's in that bag?"
"Hide this from her."
"This" was a bakery box with 4 cinnamon rolls gobbed with icing.
"Didn't you hear Obama warn us of greedy surgeons lopping off diabetics feet left and right for monetary gain? And still you're going to look that danger in the face, laugh it off and eat ooey gooey cinnamon rolls?"
"Just one, the rest are for you guys."

Later that evening:
Pointing my finger at the husband, "He ate a cinnamon roll, see them out there in the kitchen?"
The girlfriend, "Did you take your blood sugar level? I'll bet it's high. I'm guessing two fifty at least."
Me, "I think it's one seventy...... no, one eighty-nine."
We turned our attention to Boy #2.
"I'm gonna say one dollar Bob."

"We don't have power, the cars in the garage and it's electric, so we can't get out."

Occasionally a sentence you hear from a breaking news interview on the radio sticks with you and you have to share it, make fun of it and then blog about it. After a storm blew through Northeast Ohio Monday, several communities found themselves without power, ours just went out for a minute then everything came back on except my computer, I'm using the husband laptop until Boy #3 fixes mine, cross your fingers with me.

Tuesday morning I'm listening to the radio and hear something stupid, "We don't have power, the cars in the garage and it's electric, so we can't get out."

Seriously read it again, "We don't have power, the cars in the garage and it's electric, so we can't get out."

Doh!

Even I know how to get out of the garage when the powers out. Apparently this guys meandered along in life without knowing the rope that hangs from your garage door opener can disengage the electricity and render it a manual garage door like in the olden days. I hope he doesn't try to use that on his boss.

Besides a computer with a blue screen we have a tree down in the yard. The husbands stoked about it though, he gets to use the trailer he bought for his John Deere. Now on Saturday he will drag the boys out to the yard and chain saw stuff, load his trailer and haul stuff. He's also been waiting for a good strong wind to knock down some dead tree limbs that he can't reach. Not wanting to pay someone to remove them and unable to reach them at the top of his ladder while swinging a shovel at them he's been waiting for Mother Nature to take care of them. They survived the storm and the perfectly good tree cracked off about half way up. Mother Nature is an indiscriminate bitch.

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My time will be limited on the computer until I can drag this kid away from his friends long enough to help his poor mother.

Weekend Weirdos

I like to spend most of my weekends in search of the weird people, it makes blogging fun and there's so many of them out there. I've run into a bit of a blogging dry spell so this weekend is crucial. Since I wasted my Friday already because of my sunshine and lollipops mood, today I need to be particularly alert for morons. It won't be easy I have to spend part of my evening at the nursing home my mother-in-law now resides in for the next 6 - 8 weeks because of her latest fall Monday. The time I spend there will be wasted when it comes to post ideas, because the people there are sitting ducks. It would be way to easy and I have bad karma issues. I will be on my best behavior unless I can't help myself, unless ........

I selfishly push my kids into a hopeless situation. Hey there's an idea. Use the children to feed your blog. But wait, they are the ones that will be picking out my nursing home. This is a dilemma.

My Perfect Egg McMuffin Day

When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets and I will buy an Egg McMuffin. It takes that kind of luck to get me out of the house early enough to stop at McDonalds before work. And it happened this morning. My Egg McMuffin and I checked my emails this morning. My day was filled with harmony and understanding. It was a sunshine and lollipops day, the birds were singing, the traffic was non-confrontational and everyone at WalMart seemed smarter. They all used the exit as the an exit and the entrance as the point of entry, it was amazing. Although my hands stuck to the shopping cart handle it didn't ruin my perfect Egg McMuffin day.
And since Relax Max has been perusing my blog lately I thought I'd share my wonderful day by mentioning WalMart because I know how much he enjoys a good WalMart story.

Is that the one when she stabs him in the neck with a pen?

I got myself "into" a movie tonight. The husband was in the backyard burning stuff so I found myself in charge of the remote. The movie Red Eye caught my attention, but since I'm legally obligated to not leave any of my children standing in a dark parking lot waiting for a ride home from work, I had to hit the record button so I could see the end. This woman was in quite a pickle up there on the airplane.
On our way home I asked Boy #3 if he'd ever seen Red Eye.
"What's it about?"
"Well they're up there in a plane, a terrorist and a woman, he has a fellow terrorist watching her fathers house, if she doesn't switch some government officials hotel room to an easier to kill him room, terrorist A will have terrorist B kill her father. But I had to stop watching and record it because I had to pick up you. How was work?"
"It was busy but not crazy busy. Is that the one when she stabs him in the neck with a pen?"


"Like I said, I haven't seen the whole movie yet. But thanks for the heads up on the pen, honey."
I should have left him in the dark parking lot.

You know he loves you when .........

1. You wreck a loaner car and he now lovingly refers to you as "Crash." Yeah we can laugh about it now.

2. You come home from your hair appointment and he says, "I like your hair" before he even sees it!

3. He gets home from work, takes one look in your eyes, realizes "you've had a day" asked what's for dinner, you say tuna fish sandwiches and he says, "Great, can I have three with chips?"

4. He notices three small red marks on his leg, all the same size, evenly spaced, he concludes that the aliens took tissue samples last night and suggests you to check your legs for the same marks.

5. He sends you one dozen red roses to work because he knows you won't tell anyone there that it's your birthday and he wants everyone to know you're another year older.

No, it isn't my birthday, that was in May, but the other 4 things all happened yesterday and I wanted to round off my list at five.

Seymour had his babies!

"Seymour had his babies! Seymour had his babies!" Unfortunately that's me running out of the ladies room at work making the Monday morning announcement. For weeks we ladies at work, The New Girl, Woman of Action, Lady in the Corner, The Animal Lover and me, have been keeping our eyes on the spider in the ladies room. Not just any spider, a freakin Daddy Long Legs. I've been very leery of Daddy Long Legs ever since one attacked me in the shower.
Last week Woman of Action asked us if we thought the spider was getting bigger?
"Yes!" We said in unison.
"It never moves from that corner across from the toilet, it's like he's watching us."
Hence the name Seymour.
"I'm alright with him staying there as long he doesn't make a move towards me, one almost got me in the shower you know."

I started to wonder to myself, huh.... if he's not moving is he still alive? So the next time I was in the ladies room I inched over to the corner for a closer look. No movement. I ever so lightly blew on the web. Seymour's legs moved, he's not dead.
When sharing my day with the husband, I updated him on the spiders progress and the fact that he is alive because I blew on his web and his legs moved. The husband says to me, "Let me get this straight. You women at work let a spider watch you in the bathroom and today you gave him a ........"
"No, no, no, no, you can't talk like that on my blog."

So Monday morning, when I went in the ladies room I immediately checked on Seymour's location, there he was in his web, considerably thinner and a bunch of little spots around him. Holy Crap.
"Seymour had his babies! Seymour had his babies!" Like a freakin lunatic I run out of the room.
"What?" says Woman of Action.
"Seymour had his babies! Come and see." I'm followed by her, The New Girl and the Service Manager. The following conversation is swear to God true:

Woman of Action: We can't have all those spiders in here. We need to think extermination.
Service Manager: Anyone have a lighter?
ME and I still can't believe I said this: Wait a minute, we can't kill them after all this time.
Woman of Action: What do we do with them?
Service Manager: Anyone have a lighter?
The New Girl: Remember in the movie Shrek, when he took a stick and swirled the spider web around it like cotton candy? He ate it, but you get the idea.
Me: I have to get the phones, I'll be back, we'll think of something, don't anyone give him a lighter.

A plan was formed while I was gone. After answering a few phone calls, I walked back down the hall and around the corner to see Lady in the Corner holding open the ladies room door and The New Girl holding open the outside door. Woman of Action comes out holding a stick and bolts for the outside door. Seymour and his babies now reside in a bush next to the parking lot.

Animal Lover was at our corporate office Monday and missed out on what just might be one of the most exciting days at work this past year. This I regret because she's always freeing spiders, flies and mice, she would have loved the opportunity to save Seymour and his babies.
My other regret is that I thought to take pictures, I meant to take pictures, but I didn't. It just all happened so fast.

The son of a bitch is running his chain saw now

Under misguided assumption, the husband and I continue to try to sleep in on Sunday mornings, because someone, somewhere once told us, "Sunday is a day of rest." I think it was God.
Our neighbor with the nice yard, but bags under his eyes, wakes us up every weekend. This morning, to the lovely sound of a chain saw. You have to wonder with the list of things he probably had written down on his "Yard work I want to get done today" list, why is chain sawing on the top of it?
"It's 10 o'clock in the morning, shouldn't he be at church or something?"
You could tell the dog was pissed too, she finally found a comfortable spot after looking for it all night. It was a particularly restless night for all three of us. And we were content to sleep away the bright sunny day. The husbands restless leg syndrome was in full swing last night, the kids were out late and I drank too much ice tea earlier in the evening. Some kind of critter was roaming around the backyard, being the dog of the house, Buckeye has to check out every sound and bark at it, this includes children coming home later than they should. They were totally busted.
The day didn't turn out to be a total loss, the neighbor with the nice yard and bags under his eyes finished his "Yard work I want to get done today" list, is sitting right now in said yard to enjoy it and a thunderstorm is rolling in.
I think it's God's way of saying, "Dude, let thy neighbors rest."

I became a Turd Grabber

I felt sorry for the dog. After a couple rainy days she looked bored. So I assembled the necessary items for a walk, cell phone, keys (because everyone has abandoned me tonight) and a plastic bag in case of the dreaded poop. The plastic bag unfortunately proved to be useful because the boys, who are no longer in my will and legally I only have to feed one of them until April, forgot to mention they never let her out today.
I became a turd grabber this evening. Our normal walking route are the roads less traveled by cars, so we can walk down the middle of the road and Buckeye doesn't stop every two feet to smell other dogs pee. But this road, by the pool was over populated as the swim meet dispersed. I swore like a drunken sailor under my breath. The dog was so excited to see the swimmers, she pooped. Being as excited as she was, she pooped while walking. I've had to maybe grab turds 3 times since we've had her. So with a hyperactive dog attached to my left hand and a plastic bag on my right, I attempted the impossible, in front of a stream of families walking and driving home from the swim meet. Probably, I'll never eat again.

And that's what we call dancin'

One brief moment of my weekend, five minutes tops, just innocently walking through the house with the TV on, because it always is, gave me irreversible brain damage.
And that's what we call dancin'.
Dear God it's stuck in there good.
Cocoon came on the television, you know that movie that lulled us into the warm, fuzzy, sunshine and lollypops feeling that aliens are nice? But we now know after watching Independence Day that they are going to blow us up eventually, unless a meteor destroys us first, 2012 I believe. Wait a minute.
Cocoon.
And that's what we call dancin'.
Gah!
The movie was in the beginning scenes, in the nursing home/retirement village. The diabetic, Quaker Oats man and Mortimer Duke were walking through the nursing home lobby, their was an old lady exercise class going on. And that's all it took to render me an idiot. That one line is deeply embedded into my brain, bouncing off brain cells and killing them. The usually stuff isn't working to remove the catchy tune. I'm slowly losing all logic and reason. Just this afternoon I said to myself, "Self? That song isn't in your head right now. Huh. What was it again?"
And that's what we call dancin'.

From the Scary Asian Dry Cleaning Dude Files

I've been quietly observing my scary Asian dry cleaning dude for some time now. In the past here and here and somewhere else I can't seem to find, I've posted about how this little guy looks like he belongs in a Chuck Norris movie staring as a evil prison camp guard. But my during weekly stops to the dry cleaners, I've noticed the woman seems to be taking charge of the place. She has inadvertently fallen into some American customs. Always on the phone when I stop for the husbands shirts and doesn't bother to hang up, she just chatters away in her native tongue and tells me to "have nice day" when I leave.
She has advanced herself to a phone stuck in her ear and now she can continue to work at her sewing machine while chattering, instead of waiting on me she yells something to the scary dude and he hops to attention, bringing the scariness down a few notches. Hmmmmm. The charm and ambiance of the stereo-typical Asian Dry Cleaners has been removed from my weekly routine. They've Americanized, a simulated into our rude culture. What a drag, they were a good source of blogging material.

Buckeye's First Kill

We're pretty sure. In the two and a half years we've had Buckeye she's killed 4 comforters, 7 shoes, 38 moths and chased countless flies and bees. But the dead mouse in her backyard "space" has been identified as her first kill, by the boys.

"MOM! Buckeye killed a mouse! Hey, Boy #2! Buckeye killed a mouse!"
"Awesome. Where is it?"
"I'll show you, it's got teeth marks in it."
"Awesome."
"Wait a minute." I interrupt their delirium. "How do you know she killed it? You didn't see her do it. Check and see if she has mouse breath."
"Mom, she's got the taste for blood now, she'll be going after squirrels next. Won't ya Buckeye? Good dog."
Buckeye had no idea what all this new found attention was about but she was loving it. My baby is the sweetest dog ever, there's no way she's a mouse killer, no way.