Some of the Neat-o Things I Got for Christmas

Since we all know that Christmas is about the stuff and not the time we spend with family or ridiculous things like that, here are a few things I got this holiday:

1. Fuzzy slippers. I love these things, and so does Hercules. He thinks they are furry little creatures attached to my feet and believes it's his duty to remove them from said feet and devour them.

2. A hot pink suitcase. All the better to embarrass my husband when I make him carry it through the airport.

3. Really nice knives. Gone is the knife set that has been passed through the entire family and that is so dull I couldn't cut through toilet paper (not that I've ever tried that, as far as you know). The Chicago Cutlery knives have a place of honor in my kitchen and I can't wait to get to slicin'. The husband better be very, very good this year.

4. Socks. Shut up, I actually loved this gift. My socks have a funny way of disappearing (i.e. the husband wears them, stretches them out, then hides them so I don't get wise to his ways), so I was in desperate need. I have a pair of them on right now, thank you very much.

5. More lotion, handwash, candles, etc. than you can shake a stick at. I'm going to be smelling very tasty this year, as will my house. All the better to cover up the stench that comes from living with a husband and two dogs that really, really like to fart.

So what did you get this year?

Things to Do on a Long, Solitary Drive Home

The countdown has begun. No, not the countdown until the presents get ripped open or the ham and turkey get devoured. The countdown to the loooong drive home that I undertake every year. By myself. I take off this afternoon for Western Nebraska, about a 6 hour drive. Since the husband has to work over the holidays, it will just be me. And I am not one of those people who find it fun and relaxing to drive alone long distances. Not at all. So I am presenting a list of things to do on a long, solitary drive home.

1. Watch other drivers. It's amazing what people will do in their cars, where they seem to think no one can see them. Nose picking, seat dancing, talking to themselves and any other manner of indignities can be seen on the road and laughed at.

2. Sing. Loudly. This is how I survived my drive home for Thanksgiving. I put all my favorite CDs in the car and WAILED to weepy love songs. I was surprised I didn't lose my voice by the time I got home. This also gave other people on the road the chance to take part in # 1 above.

3. Reflect. I don't know what it is about long, solitary drives, but they always make me think about things I haven't thought of in ages. Old boyfriends. Childhood friends. Weird events that I didn't even know still lived in my memory. Sometimes I start laughing wildly at these recollections, sometimes I get a tear in my eye. Again, fun for the other drivers.

4. Drink. I'm not saying alcohol. Who do you think I am?? I'm saying any type of liquid. Because then you have to stop every hour to pee. While stopping at gross public bathrooms isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, fun, it at least breaks up the trip.

5. Make up stories. You can't imagine the scenarios I come up with on these long drives home. I'm a famous novelist. A rich, gorgeous hockey player falls in love with me. I am suddenly picked to be the next editor of Bookmarks magazine. I wake up being able to eat anything I want and never gain weight (this is a surprisingly common fantasy. I'm so vain).

6. Obsessively watch your gas gauge. That's what getting a new car will do to ya. On the drive home for Thanksgiving, I looked at that damn thing every five minutes, thinking, "I shouldn't be this low on gas already! This thing really doesn't get good gas mileage! How much gas would I have left if I was driving the old Honda right now? I am going to spend my entire paycheck on gas and end up living on the streets!" I am a rational, calm human being.

7. And here's what I'll REALLY be doing most of the time. Listening to books on tape. Oh, these are my savior for long trips by myself. I hit the library yesterday and got a book by Stephen White, one by Harley Jane Kozak, one by Robert B. Parker and...okay, I can't remember the other one. The point is, I have enough listening material for three trips home and back, but it's always good to have backup.

Happy holidays, everyone! If any of you are driving, be safe and try to keep yourselves entertained.

Walkin' the Dog

The number of reasons for having a dog are too many to count and I can't imagine living without them. Today showed me just one more reason why life with dogs is just plain better.

I'd had what you could call a bad day. I'd made the stupid decision to brave Steve & Barry's in the mall (if you don't know what this store is, it's a discount sporting goods store that apparently employs the slowest idiots on earth as checkout clerks) to grab a few last Christmas gifts. Stupidly, I did this on my way to a meeting, so I had a limited amount of time and of course I ended up in a line that didn't move for 10 minutes. Add to my day a coworker with a bitchy disposition and to top it all off, the beginnings of a very nasty head cold. Needless to say, when I got home, I was in no mood for, well, anything other than a nap. Hercules had other ideas. As soon as I stepped in the door, it was obvious Herc had a walk on his mind and nothing was going to deter him. He followed me around the house, a hopeful look in his eyes. When I changed from my suit into comfy clothes, he got so excited he nearly burst. Now, the last thing I wanted to do was walk into the 20 degree night and freeze my nipples off. But I just couldn't say no to that face. So I dragged my ass out and Hercules and I had a walk. Now, make no mistake, this was not the most pleasant walk on earth considering the following:

1. It was gah-damn cold out and I'd neglected to wear a hat because the Rottweiler down the street gets very angry when he sees me wearing a hat and tries to jump over the fence and eat my face off. Oh yeah, and because I'm vain and look ridiculous in a hat.

2. Hercules had to stop at every tree, shrub and fire hydrant to sniff out the other dogs' pee--what Kirk and I call 'checking his doggie voice mail'. Yes, we're frickin' hilarious.

3. He chose the one house with someone looking out the window to take a huge, steaming dump in the yard and, to make things worse, my poop bag had a ginormous hole in it that I didn't realize until I was picking up said poop.

4. The elastic in my pants is shot and I had to hitch the damn things up every half a block or I would have been flashing the entire neighborhood a view of my goosepimpled, white ass.

So no, it was not the most fun walk I've ever been on, but when we arrived back home I realized something--this not-so-fun walk when I hadn't felt in the mood to take a walk had not made me feel worse. In fact, it had made me feel better. Maybe it was Herc's delighted face when he realized where we were going. Maybe it was just getting out and getting a little exercise. Maybe it was watching my big furball cavort in the leaves and the rest of the ever-dwindling snow. Whatever it was, it was one more reason why I love living with dogs. And one more reason why I should get some new damn workout pants.

The Streak, She Has Been Broken

All of you book readers out there know that you sometimes go in streaks. Either streaks of amazing books or streaks of how the hell did this shit ever get published? books. Recently, I've had one of the first streaks. Every book I've picked up lately has been amazing. Here are a few of them:

Blood Memory by Greg Iles
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Cast of Shadows by Kevin Guilfoile
Flush by Carl Hiaasen
Faithless by Karin Slaughter
The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg

These are the kind of streaks that make you want to rush home, throw on your jammies and just read the night away. They are the streaks that make you remember why you fell in love with reading in the first place.

Unfortunately, it appears the streak has been broken. The book I'm reading now has languished on the coffee table for over a week. I'll read a chapter here and there, but don't feel rushed to find out what happens. It's not a bad book by any means, just not as great as the ones I have been reading. Sigh. This usually means that I won't catch another streak of wonderful books for a while and may even find myself saddled with a string of lousy ones.

Does anyone else go through streaks like this? Is there any rhyme or reason to it?

Jackass on our Anniversary

For our anniversary this year, the hubby and I went to a local steakhouse that is famous for its expensive menu, surly old waitresses and dark lighting. I would have preferred Red Lobster (shut up, I love it!), but we got a free dinner at this place and we're suckers for free meals. Anyway, as soon as we sit down, we notice the three men sitting a couple tables away. Okay, I noticed them. My husband is a decent human being who does not eavesdrop on strangers' conversations, as opposed to his wife.

So anyway, the three men. Two of them look like regular working class guys. One has a black eye and is wearing white sneakers with his dress pants. The other one looked like he tried really hard to dress up for the evening, but he must have dug his pants from high school out of the botton of the closet because they were about four inches too short and, when he stood up, we saw his jacket was also waayyy too short. They were with a fat guy with hair like Donald Trump, wearing an expensive suit. I mentioned to Kirk that they were probably construction guys who had to butter up an out of town client.

In the hour that we sat there, we heard Construction Guys 1 and 2 say a total of about five words. We heard Fat Donald babble about, among other things, his wife (whom he referred to as Fertile Myrtle), his glory days on the high school football team and I think how much he weighed when on the wrestling team (my guess? About 200 pounds less). When they finally got up to leave, I felt like cornering the construction guys and giving them some sort of award for putting up with this blowhard.

My question: how do people like this not realize they are huge annoying assholes? Did this man really think that he had lots of interesting stories? Or did he just know he had a captive audience who had to listen to every piece of crappola that came pouring out of his mouth?

The good part of the evening? Kirk was actually getting into the whole, "Let's listen to these people's conversation and make snarky comments about them" thing. That's the best anniversary gift a girl could get.

In Honor of our Anniversary...

...it's a whole week of posts making fun of my husband! In a good natured way, of course, because isn't that what marriage is all about? Making fun of each other? If it's not, it should be.

So this is another I Can't Believe You're Wearing That post. Kirk went on a cleaning/fixing things around the house bender this week since he had time off work. I came home from work the other night to see him manically cleaning the bathroom wearing...a t-shirt, boxer shorts (AGAIN with the boxer shorts), white athletic socks and his brown leather dress shoes. What in the hay-el? I guess I can't make too much fun since he once came home to find me wearing stretchy workout shorts, a sports bra and my new Anne Klein pumps. But that's just because the shoes were too tight and I was trying to wear them around and stretch them a bit before I wore them to work the next day. See, I had an excuse. As far as I could tell, Kirk did not have one for his crazy outfit.

Ahhh, gotta love a man who can keep you laughing, whether it's intentional or not.

By Popular Demand...

Here is a picture of the hubby.



Okay, by popular demand, I mean that one person asked to see him, but I'm nothing if not accomodating to my reader(s). Besides, I like to show off the crazy gym clothes wearing, word making up man that is my hubby of three years (tomorrow). So this doubles as a Happy Anniversary! post.

Please ignore the fact that not only do I look fat, but I also look like I'm wearing no shirt. There is a shirt there, it's just half backless. As for the fat thing, I have no excuse except that...I was fat. Or at least fatter when this photo was taken.

Words

When I was little, I had my own word. It was jahusafactor (pronounced ja-hoo-sa-factor). It was completely made up and meant any damn thing I wanted it to mean. Jahusafactor could be name, it could be an adjective, it could be an inanimate object. I got a lot of mileage out of jahusafactor and annoyed the hell out of my family in the process. As I got older and fell in love with books and the written word, my adoration for that made up word was replaced by adoration of real words and I never much thought of it again.

Until I met my husband.

My husband makes up words. And not just one word, like me and jahusafactor. He makes up words all the time. Not only does he make them up, but he also expects that other people won't realize he's making them up. This may be due to the fact that he works at a prison and inmates either don't bother or don't know any better than to correct him. But then he met me. I know every word he makes up because I read about a hundred books a year...and because I work as an editor for a living. I might correct him every single time, but he doesn't stop making them up and trying to get one past me and I never stop being amused by it.

His newest word is gorbulous (pronounced gorb-you-lus). I'm still not quite sure what it means since, unlike jahusafactor, his words are usually supposed to have a specific meaning. I've decided it means a combination of garrulous and corpulent, a.k.a., a fat person who talks too much. I've sure known some gorbulous people in my day and I'm sure you have too.

We'll probably never see a return of jahusafactor, but that's okay. My husband makes up enough words for both of us.