What I learned from NPR today

–geek alert–

I podcast several broadcasts from NPR and PRI (and I’m a member of my local station and give to the “digitize Terry Gross Fresh Air” fund every year (whyy.org) and “pay” with donations for what I podcast).

So in other words I actually paid for this information: I learned today, via one of the Fresh Air podcasts I burned to cd (cdcast?), that they make toupees (wigs??) for the crotch area. Did you know this?

They’re called merkins, and the dude she was interviewing got one because he had cancer. I did a quick search of the web and found an entry for it on Wikipedia too. They’re apparently also used in movies.

I love to learn…

That reminds me of something my sister also heard on NPR: if you eat asparagus and your urine smells afterwards it’s because you have a certain gene. Not everyone’s smells after they eat it.

Who knew? I was 45 before I found that out.

Of course, I guess if your urine doesn’t stink after you eat asparagus then you might not realize that it could even smell, not to mention that there’s a gene that could cause this.

Well, there is.  If you are special.

 

One thing I’m seriously considering getting

or maybe the apricot one

Sure there’s the $15 Walgreens’ version, and this one costs a little lot more but I want the original product because of its name.

 

What I’m looking forward to right now

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another summer, another summer reading list

Well, yet again I find myself finally returning this summer’s reading for punishment – (Train your Mind, Change Your Brain — apparently I did neither) after renewing it the maximum # of times (originally checked out 6/2).

So yeah, I’ve had it checked out for about 3 1/2 months, haven’t finished it, and it’s overdue, as were at least 2 previous selections for reading for punishment: The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot and The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching.

Someone with a larger ego might be embarrassed not completing them, but nope – not me. A bit disappointed, but not embarrassed. I tried, right? And it’s not like I totally slacked off in the reading department: I did manage to catch up on several months’ worth of O, National Geographic, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, More, and read several thriller-type and just-plain-funny books…

What did you read this summer? (If it was something like Proust please don’t comment.)

 

My tv picture is so good…

…that I accidentally watched some golf today. I caught myself pretty quickly, though.

 

More from the poopy diaper chronicles

Fanny and I went to watch a friend’s child play soccer at the park down the street. Well, technically I went to watch and Fanny went ’cause she’ll go anywhere…

So the game was between the unofficial-school-of-my-suburb (which is NOT a public school, but which “everyone” sends their kids to) and another school (where friend’s kid plays).

Being that there were kids from my ‘hood there, I saw a gaggle of girls I know. They weren’t playing soccer and when they saw Fanny they ran over (of course) ’cause she’s so darn cute.

They passed her around like she was a doll or a baby or something and then (god I am so stupid sometimes) asked if they could walk her around the park.

I compromised with the girls to limit the walk to around the exterior of field, talked to their moms, locked the leash at about 5 feet, and off they went.

About 1/2 way around, I could see things were getting a little out of control. Fanny wanted to run, the girls wanted to “show” her things, pick her up, meander around like kids do, and before I knew it…

the leash had been dropped, and the Fanster was hauling as# across the soccer field. Through the game. Right through the game…

so “through the game” that they had to pause it while we did a recovery mission.

The parents, kids and I (who all knew her name by now) were all calling her, but (thanks to early training and heavy food rewards) she came towards ME when I called and once she finally heard me over the voices of everyone yelling at her to stop (duh-that SO doesn’t work).

She was almost to me when one of the dads (natch) stopped her in her tracks. I was actually a little ticked off because this was a huge test of her obedience, and she can run FAST and AWAY if she wants to…and she was thwarted mid-stream.

But I did the “walk of shame” to go get her and the game continued.

I let her dig a hole in the ball field just to get some of that energy out and give the city workers something to do with my tax money.

Note that I would kill her if she did that in MY yard. Well, in my garden anyway…

She is such an energetic little puppy.

 

Life without lappy

Have lived without my laptop 3 weeks now and am missing it more as time passes…I am at the libarry now, using the public machines, which is cool, but it’s not the same as having it at home…

Here’s what I miss:

• gizmodo.com
• lifehacker.com
• consumerist.com
• tmz.com (I’m ashamed. Shallow, but ashamed)
• unclutterer.com
• netvibes.com

What I knew I’d miss and now I really miss:

• tvguide (What am I missing on my local PBS digital stations? What will I miss because I don’t know about it? Is The Office on next week or another stupid “reality” show?)
• podcasts: (I am so far behind in downloading audio I wouldn’t get to for another year anyway but now I won’t even know what I’ve missed ’cause it’ll drop off the list and I’m too lazy to go to the websites and see what was on.)
• Ability to download more podcasts to phone, cd, mp3 player
• Same with music (am over Poco for a while)
• Looking up stuff on the fly (Who was that author on the radio? Wonder what’s on sale at Target this week? What’s the difference between cayenne, red, chili peppers? When is my library book due?)
• Online bill paying
• Even my (offline) ‘Come to Hayzeus’ (talk it out) with my budget
• Missed the last 2 episodes of Samantha Who and it’s bugging me.
• Blogging: I’m actually not sure I miss it. While I always have something to say (no big surprise there, eh?) and moments of inspiration (no really!) and the desire to let it out on “paper,”  work is sucking the life out of me and what’s left is taken by the Fanster. Not to mention it’s summer and I like reading on the back porch and/or going to the pool…

 

Texting with John M.

Recent text session with friend’s 9-year-old son (using older brother’s phone):

Him: Sup

Me: Gettin’ haircut and dye job. This is John? <ed. note: He has been known to attempt to snow me and say it’s his sister, so I have to verify. Soon to come: secret word>

Him: Yes

Me: Sup with you? Got your homework done? What are the sibs doing? How does your mom like her job? Kiss your dad for me.

Him: Good

 

Quick update during lunch

• Lappy needs new mobo so haven’t had use of laptop except at work to check email, at sister’s a couple of x, and at the libarry once for 2+ weeks (gasp pant).
• Fanny, “grandpa” and I start Beginning Adolescent Puppy Training tonight. Told the teacher I had to withdraw because of needing new motherboard but she said she loves Fanny and really wants us to come so will comp us the class!
• Saw Julie and Julia and it reinvigorated my dormant desire to move to Paris. But not to cook.
• Sometime during the last few weeks my blog got its 13,000 hit, no thanks to the active writing I’ve been doing…but thanks to you all.
• My developer is leaving me and I am despondent.
• Got hit on by someone (in a what-most-people-would-think-was-a-good way) and I ran away from him (really a fast walk).
• Garden looks great despite me.
• For the 2nd time in my adult life, my mother told me I should be someone’s friend because THEY need me. Not because I want their friendship and despite the fact that each is toxic, but more like because they are toxic and (basically) because it’d be more “christian” of me to lose my mind and whatever trust I have in humanity just so these sad people could call to itchbay and moan while they’re effed up. I guess their sanity is more important than mine…
• (Almost as if to prove the above point she says…) Sometimes I think I hear one of my cats meowing to come inside. I did have them for 15 years though, so cut me some slack on the sanity thing, ok?
• Punishment reading for this summer: Train your mind train your something. I can’t remember the title but it’s about how Buddhists have helped scientists understand brain plasticity.
• Read any post from the last 2 summers, and as long as it doesn’t have to do with the cats, it probably could apply to this summer too.

 

It’s all semantics

Hear on news which was on in the background, so I don’t have an attribution, but someone just said that Cheney had “served with fidelity.”

Well, just ’cause you’re “faithful” in your marriage doesn’t mean you’re not pinching the admins. on the butts when they walk by…

 

search results

When I searched for “So you want to start a dog park” (actual book name) on Amazon the second result I got back was “So You Want To Be A Woman: A Transse!uals’s Guide.”

 

poopy diaper chronicles or “OMG I am living ‘Groundhog Day’”

I was thinking about doing Twitter, because I frequently have random thoughts that would be perfectly suited to Twitter’s über-haiku format. But then I think “what if I only have 2 followers?” and I think I would get depressed about that.

And then I thought about doing Facebook, because even some of my (ahem) uncles have been harassing me about not having a page. But I don’t need something else to suck my time away, and I don’t want to be in touch with anyone from high school except the one I’m in touch with, and I’m not going to be “friending” my boss, so WTF? I can’t even stay in touch with friends in the real world, so now I should be “friends” in the cyberworld?!

I guess I could use it to post pix and what – only – a- parent – thinks – is -perfectly – adorable- ramblings about my dog  (the Poopy Diaper Chronicles?) and do some mini-twitters (something about a wall in FB? Mine would always say ‘Marie/y is walking her dog’), but I hear FB is addictive, and if there’s one thing that someone who quit smoking 6 years, 5 months, and 29 days ago does not need is something to become addicted to.

And then I review my life over the last couple of months, and it’s “all puppy all the time” (“and did I tell you she can stay ‘down’ for more than 10 seconds now? and she has the attention span of a butterfly?”)

yawwwwnnnnn – the Poopy Diaper Chronicles

Or possibly worse, with the exception of a no-holds-barred job hunt to move down South, I am living virtually the same life I was last year at this time: bitching about grass growing in the garden and not in the yard, working too much (although this year I have the punishment of making less money—yeah yeah, I know…at least I have a job–whatever–tell it to my 401k), walking the dog (albeit a new dog) all the time, talking about my grandmother’s Eureka Princess vacuum cleaner (it died btw), wondering where all the flies come from.

Sure there are a few variables, but essentially I am living Groundhog Day. Basically my life has been so rote that I don’t even have the twisted point of view to make fun of it here (or anywhere).

That was also an alarming realization – if nothing else I’ve always had my twisted perspective to see me through…

Add that to the fact that (for reasons out of my control) I haven’t had a vacation this year, nor met several goals I had for myself a year ago, and suffice it to say I had a mini-wakeup call.

So I decided that I’m going to re-frame this time in my life as a time to prepare for what lies ahead. Not that I know what that is mind you, but what I have now isn’t what I had planned…I’m not used to that – I usually meet my goals.

So for now I’m looking for cheap thrills (on every level) and am mixing it up a little: Going into work later, taking 1/2 day off, making more effort to see my friends, getting rid of toxic friends, seeing my cousin’s baby (who I keep calling my niece, but since I don’t see mine I’m adopting this one as my 3rd niece), going a different way to work, etc.

Even taking the dog somewhere different to walk, since I have walked every single street within the surrounding mile and am sick of it all. I now actually frequently drive my dog for a walk. That just seems wrong, but I don’t care. I’ll go stark, raving madder if I have to keep walking the same walk.

But yeah, I’m doing crazy stuff like that. Next thing you know I’ll be trolling for men in bars or something. Anything is possible. I just have to see the possibility through the b.s. I’m swimming in.

note to self: possible book title “Swimming in (Through?) Sh!t” – need subject

But, don’t abandon me dear reader (even those of you who’ve reduced me to your “check once a week” list). Short of an original thought, I have 50+ drafts I can always post, and stay tuned for my new dog treat name and tagline idea.

More to come but in the meantime I’ll be living a the dream.

I’m desperately trying to re-frame this time in my life as a time to prepare for what lies ahead.

 

Self-delusion #893932028

hard to believe I ever considered becoming a professional organizer…

…really hard…

 

Is seventeen-year man TRYING to p*** me off?

I couldn’t avoid,,,ran into had to see ,,saw the seventeen year man at a birthday party a couple of weeks ago.

Wait, let me back up: I actually chose to be in his presence at New Year’s thing because his brother was in town and I wanted to see him. But I pretty much ignored him. –>musical interlude–>”I’m looking through you- where did you go? I thought I knew you. What did I know? You don’t look different but you have changed. I’m looking through you. You’re not the same.” reeh reeh reeder reeder, reeh reeh reeder reeder “Baby you’ve changed. Yeah.  I’m lookin’ through you.” (Beatles never go out of style.)<–end of interlude

<side note: I grew up with the whole family, was best buds with one of ‘em, dated one, have been friends with and in touch with many, and they’re pretty much my alternate family. Or have been in different phases of my life.>

Anyway, a few weeks ago, one of his sisters and I were talking and she asked if he’d called me. I was confused – as I said “Why would he call me?!” I couldn’t think of one reason, especially since I didn’t even talk to him at the holiday deal.

According to his sister, seeing me at New Year’s ’sparked’ something in him and he wanted to call and ask me out but (and this says everything I guess) ‘he was scared I would curse him’ if he called me.

Again, I must refer you to the prologue so you understand why I think I can rightly say this…but I told his sister that I wouldn’t curse him out (though clearly he had a clue about why I’d be justified doing so), however,

1. I think I know where that spark was located and it was a little south of the mind or heart, 2. did he forget that he ‘forgot’ to break up with me lo those 17+ years ago? and 3. he’s getting old and freaking out and wants a mommy to take care of him.

For some reason, I guess she never told him all that because he walked up to me at the birthday party (remember that topic?!) and said something random about going back to Amsterdam. I breezily wished him  a good trip and walked away, when he called out “Muhree! blah blah blah – kept talking but lost me at Muhree“

<side note: My name is spelled Marie but it is (as you know) pronounced Mary (thanks again, Mom and Dad).>

I whipped around and said, “WHAT did you just call me?” You would’ve thought he had yelled out “hey ‘ho!” or “hey beeatch” if you’d heard how I said it, but I was beyond shocked. It just came out (the words  that’d go on my tombstone if I weren’t being cremated).

Not only did he remember my name 6 months ago, but I’ve known this guy for the better part of 40 years. FORTY. Not to mention the 3+ years we were in a (apparently loosely-based) relationship. Seriously? “Muhreeeee?” WTF dude?! Way to ingratiate yourself. But I digress…

One of his sisters called me ‘Muhree’ at the bar after her mother’s memorial service, but she’s an alcky cokehead who lives across the country anyway, so while it pi**sed me off, this little malaprop (sp?) just frosted my as* for the rest of the night, as anyone who I talked at afterwards can attest to.  Obviously, it’s bugging me enough still to even write about it…

I can forgive someone from grade school I haven’t seen for 10 years but FORTY?! Come on. Seriously, that would be like one of my blood relatives calling me Muhree. Some things are just not excusable…

I know I need to let it go, and I certainly don’t obsess over it or even ponder it (wwbd*?) but for now it is a fingernail on my chalkboard.

*what would buddha do?<–He wouldn’ write this rant, I can tell you that much…

 

Enough already…

Well, the last of the original ‘beasts of burden’ is now gone.

For the 3rd time in less than 3 months I had to put one of my “original” pets to sleep. Allie was my first “real” (non-fish, non-bird) pet. I never even thought I was an animal person until I got her from the Humane Society 15 years ago.

She had been found in an alley so I named her “Alley”  but much like my own name nobody got it right, so it morphed into Allie.

I got better stories from Bubba but Allie lived a no less colorful life and had her own idiosyncrasies and unique qualities.

*She was annoyingly unmercifully affectionate, always trying to be right where I was all the time. “Talking” to me. Hence the suffix “the co-dependent kitty.” She always had to be nearby, if not on, me.

*She liked it when I held her tightly. Really tightly. She would relax into my arms and quit whining right away.

*She’d been separated from her mother too early and would try to suckle on my ear until the end. For real.

She’d get this look and wouldn’t even look at you, just at your ear, as she tried to go in for the suck. I warned several people, they didn’t believe me, and they experienced otherwise.

Fortunately she didn’t do this with too many people.

*Until very near the end she chased her tail, caught and dismembered rabbits (the 2nd to last one was brought into the living room and I dragged it, Allie, and the area rug they were on out to the front porch overnight), and rested on the kitchen window ledge looking at birds.

She was defintely the great hunter, having caught and partially dismembered innumerable m/voles as well as the aforementioned rabbits. Oh, and the snake (story here). Who could forget the snake?

*Several years ago she disappeared for 2 months and 1 day. She got trapped outside during a storm and freaked out and I guess ran. Twice I saw her down the block at the park but she was so traumatized (weird for such a co-dependent animal) that she wouldn’t come near me. I finally gave up.

Then one morning I was out in my garden and she toodled up and rubbed against me like I’d just seen her yesterday. She had lost some weight but she’d survived the mean streets of S’bury just fine.

From that point on, she put up with absolutely no sh** from any animal she didn’t want around. Girl was scared of her (for no reason) so she wasn’t an issue, but Bubba was used to being able to antagonize her at will. When she got back after her street livin’ she wouldn’t take it no mo.

*My favorite features were her Egyptian looking profile and her tan front paws that bowed outward like Vs.

Unlike Li’l Effer, Allie was calm at the end and died peacefully. I’ve been wishing the cats would finally die already, but I will miss her.

Yet I have to admit I felt a huge sense of freedom when I threw away the litter boxes the other day. Huge. Cannot be over-stated how huge…

I was confident I was over cats and then I saw this young cat in the ‘hood the other day. It was soooo sweet and affectionate. I wavered for a moment and then I remembered all the dead m/voles, rabbits, litter box scooping, the tail-breaks (objects broken by their tails), the amount of hair (example here).

The cats were a great addition to my life and I loved them mostly dearly, but I’m over the cat thing for now.

Allie (left) and Bubba in their “fat cat” days.