Advice to HIMs Everywhere OR Why One Shouldn't Compare Their Wife to a Mythical (?) Beast

Recently I hurt my back.  In the interest of brevity (Hahahahahaha, I actually know what brevity means) I will make the back story short.  (Well, as short as I can make it.)  We moved.  I bitched.  Our new house needs work.  I started with my office.  Then I did my daughter's room.  I killed my back lifting a paint can.  (True story!)

(See.  Completely and utterly brevitious.  Did I make up a word?  Probably but the dictionary is too heavy to lift so I'm not going to check.)  (Googling it did not require heavy lifting so I did that instead.  Apparently other people have used the word first, but I don't care.)  (BREVITIOUS!  The act of using brevity.  In other words, limiting the use of words.  Being able to shut up in a timely fashion.  Not talking too much.  Keeping it to a minimum.  NOT FAT WOMAN!)

Ah, yes.  Getting off the subject.  I'd imagine that most of you are wondering when I'm getting to the subject of the title.  Wonky back does not equal title.  It does.  I'm getting to it.

I have consumed my morning allotment of ibuprofen and tea so I'm feeling well enough to blog.  Sitting in the office chair doesn't seem to bother me unless I lean drastically one way or the other.  (I have a long stick to whack anyone who comes to mess with me so I don't need to lean.  What?  It needed to be said.)

HIM, the man to whom I've been married for nearly three decades, has been supportive.  Mostly.  "Don't lift that, honey.  I'll do it."  "I'll carry the laundry in for you."  "I don't want to do the dishes.  Wait, yes I do."  However, (Did you suspect that there would be a "however" in there somewhere?  Bet you did.) several years ago I hurt my back in a similar manner and one day HIM made the mistake of saying that I looked like Bigfoot.

You might be saying at this moment, "And HIM is still breathing?  How very extraordinary."  It is, after all, truly miraculous that a significant other would make such an appalling statement to their somewhat volitile wife and live to rue the day, but not only to rue the day but possibly to repeat the mistake.  Truly, truly, truly a miracle.  Men reading this blog at this moment should learn from the lesson.  Never compare your wife to Bigfoot.  It's a golden rule.  I think it's implicit.  She doesn't say anything about your stinky feet and you don't call her a Bigfoot.  I think I should put it by itself, in caps, italics, in red, and larger because it's such an important rule:

NEVER COMPARE YOUR WIFE TO BIGFOOT!

But there is a back story to the comment.  I hurt my back.  One day I was walking away from HIM and he said something.  I turned back to look at him and since my back was hurting, it was a very awkward movement.  HIM said it looked just like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterson-Gimlin_film

Come on, everyone's seen this film.  Taken by this guy, Roger Patterson, in 1967.  He said that he and this other guy were off in the woods, doing stuff best not mentioned by polite company, when suddenly female Bigfoot wanders out in front of them.  (Please try to remember this is the era where Droids and cell phones did not exist.)  So Roger whipped out his camera (which probably weighed thirty pounds) whilst his horse was bucking and he took this minute or two's worth of film of...the creature.  (I think they're lucky she wasn't having PMS or she would have stomped over and put the camera where the sun doesn't shine.  How do I know that she wasn't having PMS?  Well, because she didn't stomp over to them and put the camera where the sun doesn't shine.)  Wait, I'll link you to the footage on YouTube.  (Why?  Because I'm making a point and foreshadowing HIM's verbal misadventure in a way that amuses me.)

There ya go.  1967 footage of Big freaking foot.  Except Bigfoot's got boobies and her feet don't look that big to me.  The Wikipedia article about this film makes a big deal out of hairy boobies.  Apparently most hominids don't have hairy boobies.  (I'm easily distracted and who doesn't want to know about hairy boobies?)  I like this clip because they make the Shefoot walk backwards.  Any second and I'm expecting her to moonwalk.  (That's where Michael Jackson really got the idea from.  My right hand to God.)

Yes, that is a sequined glove on Shefoot's hand.  She's bad.

Now that you've watched the footage you can probably intuit where HIM got the idea that I looked like Bigfoot when I turned the upper half of my body to look at him.  Unfortunately for HIM, this was one of those times where he should have kept the clever witticism to himself.  HIM did not.

Also unfortunately for HIM, there was a Bigfoot show on one of the Discovery/Science channels last night where the Patterson-Gimlin film was shown, for the one thousandth time this year alone.  (I hope the widow Patterson is getting a few dimes every time they show the damn film, but she probably isn't.)  So what did HIM do?

Yes.  HIM did it.  Again.

Husbands/boyfriends, I don't care if you know for a fact that your spouse/significant other has a wondrous sense of humor equal to Don Rickles/Bob Hope/Eddie Murphy (in his twenties), don't do it.  She'll hold it against you.

There.  Now you know. 

What the Bleep Happened?

Yes.  I fooled around with the template again.  I was bored with the other one and felt that it needed some pick-up.  Also I'm ticked because I can't change the template on my webpage so I got some meager amount of satisfaction by doing this one instead.

Also I've been to Home Depot three times this week so this seemed simple in comparison.  I hate home improvement crap.

Stuff on Writing OR Uh-Oh

Although I have degrees in psychology and counseling, I can honestly say that I do not understand people.  But that's cool.  I don't think anyone really wants to understand everyone.  That would be overwhelming, plus their brain would probably combust in a spectacularly nuclear event of cosmic proportion.  (Think of when Bruce Willis's character found out he was really dead in The Sixth Sense or maybe when Obama actually beat McCain.)  (Did I slam Dems or Repubs there?  Haha.  I don't even know myself.)  So I don't understand people.

I love this cover which is why
I jump at the chance to
insert it into a blog every time
I get a chance.

What makes me say these words?  I've recently gotten another comment about Brownie and the Dame.  Brownie and the Dame is a novella that I published lately.  Brownie is a character in my Bubbaverse.  (I like that.  Bubbaverse.  I'm actually so arrogant that I'm calling my inner world by a specific name.  Incidentally that was HIM who came up with it.  HIM, for all of you not familiar with my blog, is the man to whom I'm married, and of whom I tease mercilessly.  Well, mostly mercilessly.  Sometimes I let him off the hook.  Sometimes.)  Brownie is a ten-year-old who causes wreck and havoc wherever he roams, which is a pretty ideal character for me.  So he had a mystery to solve and got Willodean's eight-year-old niece involved.  Rousing mystery ensued.

Here is the comment: "Brownie is not exciting.  Bubba is exciting.  You need to write more about Bubba."  Also there was another comment: "There is not enough Bubba in this novella.  I want more Bubba."  I feel compelled to add another comment from a reader: "This was written for kids.  You use too big of words for kids."

I need a step stool for my desk.

I have to take a brief respite to gather my thoughts and to discourage my daughter's moron cat from digging his claws into my ass.  (The cat seems to think this is a great way to get my attention and stupidly I fell for the ploy so Skinner was right about another animal.  Behavioral theory, ya'll.  It works on bipeds, too.  Case in point, HIM no longer leaves his socks on the floor.)  (Anyone hear a hiss?)

Here's my break.  (Did anyone hear an audible snap?)

Okay I'm back.  I often tell writers who ask me for advice to get used to criticism.  Good criticism.  Bad criticism.  There's a lot of it out there and a writer needs to develop a thick skin.  The thicker the better.  I tell them that somewhere, somehow, someday someone will be heavily critical of their work and probably poopoo it up the hooha in a way that will make the writer's toes curl upwards and backwards.  (Try to imagine a little dark room with someone sitting in front of a computer monitor screaming, "NOOOOO!  Not that!  It is better than the liner of a bird's cage!  IT IS!")  Sometimes a writer even needs to dig out the good bits from a bunch of bad stuff.  Or...or...OR...don't read reviews.  Don't read comments.  Don't read Facebook, email, and signatures on their websites.  Honestly, it's a little hard to do.

I luv using this drawing over and over and over again.

Mostly I get positive stuff.  (The negative stuff is why I don't generally write bad reviews about books I loathed.  I just hate the idea of an author reading my snark about their blood, sweat, and tears.  I will make a comment about formatting or horrendous typos, which can put people off.)  (There was a whole time period on B&N where people were complaining about one of my novels changing fonts and I tore my hair out trying to fix it, because that would drive me nuts.  I can assure you that I did not change fonts on purpose.  It was the formatting program from Smashwords that messed me up.  I ended up hiring a professional formatter because I could not solve the problem myself.  Serious headache.  But I wouldn't have known about the problem if readers hadn't commented on it, so for that I'm grateful.)  (I love Smashwords but I want to fly to California and slap around their IT people with a wet noodle.)

Therefore I'm somewhat confused.  The book was supposed to be about Brownie.  It was about Brownie.  Did I promise somewhere that it was a novella about Bubba but with Brownie in the title?  The description of the novella was explicit.  (Not that kind of explicit for those of you with explicit thoughts.)  Brownie was the protagonist.  It was implicit. Yes, I know that there are some people who just love Bubba.  After all, Bubba's a great character (and just wait until Book 4, because it's getting good) and he's fun.  But Brownie's fun, too.  He's got a stun gun and Sharpies.  How can you go wrong with that?  (I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to insert dynamite and a potato launcher into the novella but hey I can write another one.  I have a great idea for another Brownie novella or even a Brownie novel.)

I just don't understand people.

Therefore the moral of the story is no matter where you go, there you are.  No.  No.  No.  That's not the moral of the story.  The moral of the story is you can't make everyone happy.  I have displeased the die hard Bubbaphiles.  (I just made that up.  It could have been Bubbites or Bubbettes, but I liked Bubbaphiles better.  Literary Bubbas.  How can I go wrong with that?  I do not know but undoubtedly someone will be pointing out something to me very soon.)

Off to redeem myself by writing the fourth Bubba novel.

Enter the Pre-Apocolyptic Ramblings of a Fat Woman on the Edge OR Some Title I Came Up With Because it Sounded Funky

Avowal the first: I shall not blog about HI (or Home Improvement to you Fat Woman neophytes).  (Sorry Hawaii and/or the USPS.  No offense intended.)

Avowal the second: I shall not blog about politics or the Olympics or the fact that it's all HIM's fault.  (Although I enjoy a rousing moment of what-else-can-I-blame-on-my-dearest-scapegoat-er-husband, it is NOT his fault it's an election year or a leap year or the Summer Olympics is occurring and the Chinese seem to be whupping our collective tushes.)  (But not me personally, the only Olympic sport that I would be good at would be the 100 yard Snark, in which individuals use their sarcastic tongue to berate anything or anyone in their general vicinity.  Extra points go to creativity, inventiveness, and making contractors cry over the telephone.  Wait, the last part was just me and I didn't really make a contractor cry over the phone.  Also I seem to be breaking my second vow in record time.  It could be another possible Olympic sport.)

Avowal the third: I shall not blog about my daughter's moron cat.  (The moron cat got stepped on last night because he was too stupid to get out of the way in a dark hallway and he particularly enjoys a sprawling stance on the hard wood floor.)  (I've never had a cat who seems to lay down on the floor 90% of the time.  I'm certain that he would lay down in the litter box if he thought he could accomplish it without losing his dignity.)

Where was I?  Blogging.  Ah yes, the house is empty at the moment and I'm watching the Home and Garden channel where there is a woman bitching about getting a free bathroom redone.  She doesn't like the tile.  She doesn't like the fixtures.  The lavatory is wrong.  I think this woman is a twit.  I want a free bathroom redo.  (Wait, am I talking about HI?  No, I'm talking about some stupid woman on HGTV.)

Anyway, I'm making gumbo today.  Chop.  Chop.  Chop.  Celery.  Onions.  Bell peppers.  Garlic.  Some hot peppers to make sure our stomachs don't disrespect us no more.  Once I was done chopping I started in on deboning the chicken I had just finished crock-potting.  Then I reached up and rubbed my eye.  Big mistake.  Apparently I should have worn nuclear-plant approved gloves to chop the hot peppers.  There should be a warning on the peppers.  (Don't touch your eyes, dumba**.  Just sayin' if you like the flaming, holy-carp-my-eyes-are-burning-please-dig-them-out-with-a-teaspoon feeling, then go ahead, touch your eyes.  But if you don't like that feeling, see above for good description, don't touch your eyes...stupid.)  So I went and washed my hands, but apparently the peppers of doom have a long lasting effect.

(There was this one Simpsons episode where Homer was attending a chili contest and the peppers used by Chief Wiggum.  "The Merciless Peppers of Quetzalacatenango....grown deep in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum."  Consuming the peppers made Homer have LSD like visions and then things went down hill from there.  Well I didn't use Quetzalacatenango peppers, but the peppers I did use were like their cousins.  Their very close cousins.  Their even-in-rural-areas-that's-too-close-a-family-connection cousins.)  (The Don't-Touch-Your-Eyes-After-Chopping-Us Peppers for further clarification.)

After my eyes stopped flaming out, I finished with the gumbo and went to take a shower.  (Because cooking always makes me sweaty.)  Then I discovered that washing my hands apparently didn't wash off all the pepper juice and made my eyes burn all over again.  (Yes, Virginia I washed my hands with soap and I even sang the Happy Birthday song whilst I washed.  No, I didn't sing the Happy Birthday song, but I did wash my hands for a long time.)

So HIM came to see what all the screaming was about and decided to take the kid to see a movie.  (They went to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days because that's what we've been reading for the last week or so.  I was not permitted to take the kid to Batman Kicks Butt Again in a Moody Fashion so I stayed home to bath my eyes in Visine and morbidly watch HGTV.)

But the gumbo smells great.  (And hey wouldn't a pepper eating contest be a great Olympic sport addition?)

Primal Scream Therapy OR My Daily Life

Recently I had to deal with contractors.  Inevitably one of them effed up and I get to blog about it.  It's great fun.  Snarky but fun.  It wasn't fun at the time it happened.  Our a/c unit at our house has a pan under it to catch condensation.  When this pan is full it means the primary pan is overflowing.  This is bad because this unit is in our attic and we don't want water falls coming into our second floor, down the stairs or through the floor to our first floor and creating a pool in the crawl space.  (Unlike the toilet leaking through the flange, HIM decided we should get on top of this.)  So I contacted the warranty people.  Yea, warranty!

(A note about the YouTube vid above.  This is Sam Kinison screaming.  Sam Kinison was a comedian who liked to scream.  Sam probably also had an ulcer.  Whenever I get irate with customer service issues, which seems to happen a lot, a really, really lot, I think of Sam Kinison.  Sadly, I don't think screaming at customer service reps really works well.  But I enjoy thinking about it.)

(This also makes me think of a scene from a Rodney Dangerfield movie in which Sam Kinison plays a history prof, which I'm forced to share because it's probably not pertinent.  But it is funny and it's my blog, so there be it.)  (I never cried in college.  Sometimes I wanted to throw something at a professor like Sam Kinison's character does with the desk top, but I never got to do that, either.)

(Let me just say that TBS ruins this bit because they substitute another word for "pussy."  The naughty word substitute people at TBS are pussies.  They should just bleep it out because everyone really knows what the word was supposed to be anyway.)

But wait.  The warranty people contacted a local contractor, who shall remain nameless because I intend on speaking vilely about them at great length.  Let's call them Contractor Smith.  Smith sent a guy over who wrote down the model and number of the unit, spent a few minutes in the attic taking pictures, and said, "We need to see if this is covered.  The office, Doris Mae Sue Bob or Sally Jo Martha, will call you back."  (I know I covered this in a previous blog.  But this is important because this is a continuing saga.  I know people out there really want to know.  I know they do.  And if they don't they should.)  So Smith didn't call me back.  I called them back.  Alice Lee Ruby said she would call the warranty people.  The warranty people called me back and said, "No can do.  Not covered.  It's the secondary pan that's broken and that's specifically not covered in the warranty."  This is true.  It says that.  I had the warranty in my hand and I was looking at it.

However, I called another contractor who had a good set of references and he came over and said, "It's the primary drain pan.  It's clogged up.  I'll unclog it for you."  He did this.  Then he discussed why there should never be water in the secondary drain pan.  I'm getting to be a drain pan expert of mysterical proportion here.  (Before last week I didn't even know what a primary drain pan was and if asked I would have thought it had something to do with my brain.  Seriously.)  (Call me the Drain Pan Whisperer.  Haha.)

Once I paid the second contractor his $90 fee and called HIM to gloat, Contractor Smith called back to say they could fix the problem for only $300 to $500.  Then she said, "But wait, it's more complicated.  Say $750."  Then in the conversation the number slipped up to $1000.  Oh, my, telephone conversations are costly, aren't they?  Then she tried to tell me what I really needed was a whole new system which would cost only $4300.  I love contractors.  (Can you sense the sarcasm in the writing there?  I assure you it's very, very thick.)

(I'm all over clips today.  I think we should all scream out the window.  My new neighbors should be thrilled with me.)

So you'd think I'd be happy but the primary drain pan obviously plugged up again the next day and the secondary drain pan is draining again out the side of the house onto the kitchen's roof.  Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  HIM spent a half hour on the computer trying to see if he could fix it himself.  He broke out the wet/dry vac and vacu-sucked the holy living crap out of the drain line of the primary drain pan.  It worked for a while.  Then he did it again.  It worked for a while.  Then HIM went back to the computer to do some more valuable research.  HIM started to get crabby.  You can tell because his eyebrows descend into his eyes and you can't tell them apart.

The next morning I woke up frisky and called the warranty people again.  You see, the primary freaking drain pan is COVERED.  There wouldn't be water in the secondary pan if the primary drain pan wasn't clogged.  I talked to a nice young man named Shawn, who is obviously reconsidering his choice of work environment once he got off the phone with me.  Perhaps he would do well in the a/c unit field since he now has a better understanding of it.

(I don't know why I added the dog, but it sounded kind of like the noise I've been making lately whenever I look at my MasterCard bill, so why not?  I'm not sure what would happen if I owned this dog.  I would own a lot of ear plugs or possibly listen to my iPod a bunch.)

So today I went to look at the drain pan, after spending a restless night concocting arguments to use upon another unsuspecting dupe at the warranty people's place o' deception.  (I bet their people have a very high turnover.)  I had all kinds of arguments about pre-existing conditions and primary drain pans and secondary drain pans.  HIM even took pictures of the primary drain pan where he pointed a laser pointer at the problem area.

I had to include HIM's photo for posterity and some other legal reasons that HIM spouted at me.  Now you know the whole picture.

Anyway, after all that drama the damn thing's working right now.  I might need to swear off writing about HI for a few blogs.  (That's Home Improvement for all of you people who still live in apartments.)

Who wants to help me paint my daughter's room?

Oh Sunday, Sunday, Sunday OR Things I Don't Wanna do

Warning: Here is more meandering, randomness, wandering, subject switching, and other annoying writing habits that might cause people's brains to implode.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  Also did you know that you can make sausage from scratch?  Where was I?

Okay, I have been dealing with contractors galore.  Some are good.  Some are bad.  Some are stupider than my daughter's moron cat.  (The cat just meowed at me piteously.)  Also I was forced to give the cat a special hair cut to help cut down on what I call poopy dreadlocks.  Pet stylists probably have a highly professional and technical term for it, which I don't know.  Didn't I just finish telling you I was going to switch subjects in an annoying fashion?  (I just Googled it and found that people get their long-haired cats something called a lion cut.  Then I looked at pictures of a lion cut and I had to pause for a bit to wipe the tears from my eyes.)  (Poor damn cat.)

I'm pretty sure the cat would die of shame if we did this to him.  But hey he wouldn't get dingleberries.  (And well, he isn't happy with me anyway since I had to give him the "special" booty trim, if you know what I mean.  For those of you without cats, talk to those with cats.  They'll explain it to you.)

Back to the contractors.  We have a warranty on the house.  The air conditioner in the attic has a problem.  I called for assistance.  They sent someone over to look at the problem.  (I told them what the problem was because anyone with half a brain can see that the PVC pipe that drains the a/c unit is either clogged or tilted down in the wrong direction but I could sense that they weren't inclined to listen to my opinion over the phone.)  The guy went up there and said, "The PVC pipe is clogged or tilted wrong in the horizontal direction."  I said, "Duh, Herman," on the inside.

Then the contractor said, "I'll have to go back to the office and they'll see if this is covered by the warranty."  What I wanted to say was, "I already know it's covered in the warranty because I just read the warranty before I called this in and it SPECIFICALLY MENTIONS DRAINAGE OF THE A/C UNITS IN THE FRICKING WARRANTY!"  (Sam Kinison style, in fact.)  In fact I circled the segment with a pen because I know exactly what the frick the problem is.  But I didn't say that.  The guy looked at my face and repeated what he said about making sure that the warranty covers the problem.  Then he said something lame about Betty Grace or Elizabeth Sue from the office calling us back when they figured it all out and could we please fork over the fee for him so graciously showing up at our house to ascertain what I already knew was broken.  It's a $100 service call fee.  (They gave us a break and only charged us $60.  Oh, I should be so grateful, but I'm not for some reason.)

So once the contractors graciously conclude that I might be right they be back over to charge us $100 and can we please be polite about their hosing of us?  (They have a preference for flowers, but definitely no carnations, and Astroglide.)  All of this happened because we have a house warranty that came with the house.  I HATE CONTRACTORS!  I HATE WARRANTY SERVICES!  I'm not happy with HIM right now because he had to move here and I have to get all neurological (Pathological?  Psychotic?) about a new house.  I'm pretty sure there's a new category in the Diagnostical Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that features ME!  FWD: Fat Woman Disorder.  Kind of like PMS, except with bazookas and snarky blogs.

Of course Mary Jo Ann Doris from the office didn't call us back on Friday to say anything about the stupid drainage issue or the warranty or the fact that I resemble a Gorgon when I'm really pissed off.  And I would know if they called because we have CALLER ID.  (This is a reference to another contractor who swore he called us but I happen to know he did not, even after he did call the right number for something else, so he lied his a** off about the first call because he didn't want to sound like a moron, but he failed miserably.  Oh carp, meandering again.  Very sad.)

Therefore I will be calling the A/C people back tomorrow, which does not make me happy because I will be wasting time that I could be outlining Bubba 4 or doing other things in a writing fashion.  Also I will be dealing with an insulation contractor who will be coming to foam us up, and not in a good way.  Then I have to do some calling to a gutter repair service because one of our gutters acts like a huge waterfall, also not in a good way.  Tomorrow I expect the house to fall into a great big hole like at the end of Poltergeist, except without the old cemetery underneath it.  But ya never know.  Could be a meteor hitting us tomorrow, too.

Exploring the Inner Workings of an Eccentric Meanderer OR Stuff I've Been Thinking About Lately

On my mind: Writing, my daughter's hair, my daughter's moron cat's intestinal system, and the local humidity.  Not necessarily in that order.  In fact, definitely not in that order.

On writing: I'm trying to get back in the groove, but sometimes it's hard not to think about what else needs to be done around the house.  (Insulation in the attic, the stopped up drain pipe from the upstairs air conditioner, insulation in my daughter's room.)  I feel like a great big goofy goony bird trying to fix up her nest.  I'm not going to be happy until it's right and I'm not tripping over cardboard boxes every five minutes.  (A personal note to the three women who packed up all of our shizz in boxes and then used extra packing tape like the boxes were Egyptian mummies: please tell me where you hid the wires to my printer, for the love of missing melancholy micromanaging misogynists.  I know that doesn't make sense but it had all the 'm's so I went with it.)  Anyway, just finished one outline and now about to start on another one, so I can start writing next month.  (Yea!  Writing good = crack to my brain.)  (Not that I've done anything remotely illegal like that and I don't mean writing, except it could be illegal in some states.  Probably illegal in the District of Columbia, too.)

On my daughter's hair: Cressy, our angel, got her hair cut short.  She looks adorable.  Doesn't she look adorable?

This kid is totally cute.

But...but...but...but I hate buts.  Of course there's got to be some little walking, talking buttholes who have to ruin it.  The conversation to me went like this:

Her: "Mommy, two boys were mean to me at science camp."

Me: "What did they do?"

Her: "They asked if I was a boy or a girl and then they said I was a boy who was lying."

Me: "Did you tell the teacher?"

Her: "I tried but she wasn't paying attention."

Okay, my problem isn't so much with the walking, talking butthead little boys, although they're bad enough, but with the teacher who isn't paying attention.  (Science camp has a bunch of teenagers who are in charge, which is good and bad.)

Me: "Tomorrow you can tell those boys they're being rude and lots of girls have short hair cuts.  I'll talk to the boss."

Her: "You mean you'll talk to the boys' parents?"

Me: "Oh, I don't mess with the small fish.  I'll just go to the top."

Her: "Okay, Mommy."

The next day the two little boys were in a different class.  It turns out they had other complaints about them.  Cressy was very happy but I have to keep telling her that things like that will happen and it's better just to ignore the people or blow them off.

On humidity: Today the weatherguy said it was 100% humidity.  I'm going "How can it be 100% humidity without it actually be raining or some sort of liquid pouring in from the heavens?"  I do not know.  All I know is that when I went out my hair did something like this, except it didn't look that good.  (HIM's pants are still on fire concerning his tall tale telling on the comparison of the weather in Alabama versus the weather in Virginia.  The local fire chief called yesterday to discuss our ongoing clothing issue and it wasn't a pretty conversation.)

On my daughter's moron cat's intestinal system: I would ask what the stupid cat is eating but I know what he's eating.  I don't think he's eating the various fauna around the house, although last night he was torturing a grasshopper in a very inhumane matter.  I would have called PETA but I don't think they would have appreciated my sense of humor.  (The grasshopper was saying "HELP ME!  The cat's ripped off two my legs and they're the good legs!")  In any case, Megaroy did not EAT the grasshopper, although I'm not sure what he did do with the carcass.  (Eww.)  Yesterday the moron cat took a humongous dump-o-rama in his litter box, which is exactly what he's supposed to do.  Unfortunately the area around the litter box was deemed hazardous and no one could go near it for some time.  HIM made some unruly comment and slipped out the door to go to work.  Haha.  Very smooth.  I went closer, thinking I'd scoop the poop and solve the smelly problem.

But I discovered another problem.  I shall draw a diagram, because it's funny.

The blue box is, in fact, a litter box, in case anyone is confused.

That, however, wasn't what happened.  This is what happened.

For anyone to whom this isn't obvious, the cat has deposited his
smelly load outside of the litter box area because
he's too stupid to put his big gray ass inside the litter box.
I'm pretty sure that his excuse, if he were able to speak,
would be, "I was standing in the litter box, so it's all gravy."
(Also I drew the arrow and bull's eye instead of
drawing kaka because I had to draw a line somewhere.  Get it?)

HIM obviously noticed and hightailed it out of the house before called upon to do his duty (as official scapegoat) to pick up freshly deposited cat doody.

So I got some wetwipes (they were good enough for my daughter's tushie when she was a baby) and I got most of the cat nuggets up with the first try.  I also got a very good whiff while actually holding his dirty sinful business.  (Well, technically I was holding the wetwipes that was holding the doodoo bomblets but I could still tell they were the consistency of microwaved tootsie rolls.)  Then I threw up in the sink.  I literally barfed in the kitchen sink.  Which led me to the observation that my vomit was blue.  Really, I mean bright blue, the color of the sky and I was all "What the hell is that?"  Then I remembered we ate some of Cressy's summer themed Oreos the night before.  (They've got a bright blue middle.  Apparently the dye was long-lasting.  Good thing I'm not going for an X-ray anytime soon.)

The moral of the story is to never eat blue Oreos before cleaning up stinky cat poopoo.

Another Fabulous Blog OR Enter the Caverns of DOOOOOOM!!

Yes, having moved to a strange new locale, we were forced to go out and explore the local area.  Next weekend is Jet skis where I will probably end up with black eyes and a sunburn.  This weekend we went to Cathedral Caverns.

(You might be asking yourself why we didn't just go to the movies but we wanted to explore.  Say it with me slowly.  Exxxxxxplllloooorrrrrrreee.  There's the full effect.  We wanted to seek out the new and unusual or the odd or the stuff that would make our asses hurt while there's a 100% rate of humidity.  Seriously, HIM told me that Alabama was just like Virginia.  HIM was lying like a dog on a hot day on a porch!  HIM's pants are on fire.  HIM said in his defense that April in Alabama was just like Virginia, but what HIM should have said was that April in Alabama is just like Virginia in July.  I need a fire extinguisher for HIM's patootie.)

Where was I?  Oh, yes.  Caverns.  I have been to Carlsbad Caverns thirteen times.  (That's another story, by the way.)  Also we went to Luray Caverns and Skyline Caverns and there was this cool ice cave in Oregon where my father dragged us when we were little kids.  Arnold Ice Cave.  I might have to take a break and google it to see if it's still open.  (It is but it's not developed and you have to have a GPS to find it plus a coat because the stairs are covered with ice.  Also a flashlight with fresh batteries helps.)

Cressy in front of the cave's entrance.  I told her
to look out for bats and she glared at me.
Notice she's wearing a headlamp on her head.
Thanks to her great aunt Nancy for that.
Aunt Nancy was always the cool aunt
who sent cool presents.  You gotta love an aunt
who sends a headlamp to a six year old girl
instead of a Barbie doll.  Really.
Damn, that's a big a** hole in the ground
and I don't mean HIM.

Cressy, our eight year old daughter and would be spelunker, was excited.  Caves were meant to be explored.  OMG, there was a cave and we were there.  Soon we were joined by fellow parental brethren, whose children looked enviously at Cressy's headlamp.  (But the gift store sold hard hats with lamps for $13.95 so they had to break out the credit cards.)

Soon we were joined by Gizmo, who was our tour guide.  Gizmo didn't have any front teeth and said, "I'm just a good ol' country boy."  (Imagine 5 foot six inches of a good ol' country boy with a ZZ Top beard and a beer gut that would make Budweiser proud.)  (The National Park Service needs to review it's dental insurance.)  Several children hid behind their parents but Cressy felt brave enough to tough it out.

The man on the left is Gizmo.  I couldn't get
him to smile for the camera but he
did point out a megalodon tooth and
a cave spider.  I didn't hear banjo music so
all was well.

Actually Gizmo was very entertaining, although a group of college students in the back didn't care for his humor.  (One perky girl took exception to his asking, "What's your name, lil' girl?"  I think she might have taken too many legal classes in school.)

We did see the nuclear fallout shelter sign in the cavern.  So if a nuke fell we were in the right area.  Yea!  We would survive nuclear Armageddon.  We would protect our cavern from the glow-in-the-dark zombie annihilation to come.  We would eat cave spiders and...I'm wandering again, aren't I?

I took a picture because I wasn't sure if anyone
would believe me.

We did a lot of walking downhill which made me wonder if there was an escalator or an elevator on the far end.  (Haha.  Gizmo thought that was funny as hell.)

Cressy protects HIM from cave spiders,
unruly, pre-menopausal college students, and
Swedish tourists.  "Ja, a cave, ja."  "Jog förstår inte."
"Jag smäller av."  (The Swedish people who
read my blog are going to laugh their asses off.)

There were lots of stalactites and stalagmites, and I still can't remember the difference.  There were also several memorable columns that looked like giant penis's, but were called something else.  A bell.  An ice cream cone.  A rounded tower.  (I wondered what kind of bells, ice cream cones and towers the people who did the naming were used to looking at, but I guess it was just me.)

Gizmo also pointed out a megalodon's tooth in the ceiling of the cave, which looked suspiciously like a wad of black bubble gum to me.  There was something about the cave being underwater at one point in time millions of years before and sharks loosing teeth because of poor dental insurance and such, (must be the same insurance company the National Park system uses), but I was too busy avoiding the imaginary bats flying around.  (Cressy might have been provoked.)

We sweated a lot considering it was mostly downhill.  At the end of the path Gizmo did some tricks with his Maglite (which sounds a lot more dirty that it really was) and the kids went "Oooo," and "Ahhh."  He turned off all the lights so that we could see what being in a cave without light was like.  Then in complete and utter darkness, someone farted loudly.  I suspected HIM but he said it wasn't him.  Possibly a college student or one of the Swedish tourists.  (The poor bastards probably ate some local cuisine before they came to the caves and were waiting for just the right moment to let it rip.)

Gizmo cut us loose at the end of the trail and basically said, "Hasta la pasta, ya'll."  We had to walk uphill about half the way where I collapsed at the entrance to the caverns.

Finally!  We reached the cave entrance again.
Cleverly I used the ruse of taking a picture as
an excuse to catch my breath.

Upon reaching the exit/entrance, we entered the gift shop.  (Unlike Luray Caverns in Virginia, Cathedral Caverns missed the boat by not making the tourists exit purposely through the gift shop.  Their loss.  It didn't matter for us because Cressy was locked on target.)  Cressy bought a pink and gray camouflaged bat.  (I don't make these things up and yes, I have photographic proof.)

See.  I didn't make this up.
And for those of you who are wondering,
those are walnuts on the end of sticks.

Then we went to Red Robin.

The bat wanted to drink a Screaming Bloody Zombie
but she couldn't show her driver's license.

More cavern induced zaniness followed.

I called the bat a lush plush
and HIM insisted I take a pic for
the blog.  Nice to get the family
involved in my blogging activities.

Next week: Jet skis and sunblock.  Who will persevere?  (Yes, Cressy will have SPF 75 on as well as a life jacket.  Probably some floatie things on her arms and some other forms of protection I haven't yet thought about yet.)

New Post OR a Pithy Title Hasn't Popped Into My Head OR Call This Blog Anything You Want Except Late to Dinner OR Some Stuff About Writing

Here I sit broken hearted, paid my dime, and hey, I digress.  I done digressed before I even got started.  (That does not bode well.)  I suppose I should warn people but what the heck.

I reached a milestone this month in sales.  I have sold over 100,000 novels and novellas.  (The illustration is a clue.  Don't tell anyone.)  Of course, that would be more interesting if I had sold 100,000 of the same novel but what the flipping farp am I complaining about?  The Bubba series and the Lake People series seem to be gaining in popularity.  Incidentally, I sell much better on B&N than on Amazon and I can't quite figure it out.  I look at figures and occasionally Google the names of the books because it seems like someone must have recommended it to someone else.  There's a whole lot of word of mouth going on.  (THANK YOU TO ALL THOSE FOLKS WHO TOLD SOMEONE ELSE!  YOU ROCK!  NO, REALLY, YOU ROCK!)  There's some luck involved and some serendipity, too.  There's also the emerging market of ereaders and there's the Internet which obviously has tainted most of us.  (I can't imagine what it must be like without my Android, my laptop, and my Kindle, not necessarily in that order.)  (I would probably sit on the ground and eat dirt and cry big gooey tears, but I may be digressing again.)

I'm going to talk about ebook sales in a few months to a group of people and I'm going to tell them, "You can do it, too," which I believe, but lord a writer has to be persistent.  Do these would-be authors really want to hear how many years I've slaved away at writing?  (Seriously putting myself out there since 1997, although I've been writing books since I was 14.)  Do they want to hear I went through two literary agents?  (I dumped the first one and the second one dumped me, which really makes me want to email the second one and write, "Nanny-nanny-doo-doo.")  Do they want to hear that I've lost count of the number of manuscripts I've got lurking around?  (At least twenty, maybe twenty-five, some of them are complete crap-o-rama?)

I recycled a pumpkin illustration/drawing from an old blog, but hey
it totally works.

No, I don't think they want to hear that.  I really hope they don't want to hear "It's easy!"  The horrific truth is that I work harder at writing and the business of writing now than I ever did before.  Networking.  Doing financial records.  Website.  Facebook.  Blog.  Writing.  Working with an editor/proofreader.  (I luv my editor/proofreader.  She's my angel.)  Working with a cover designer on some of the novels.

Okay I recycled again but I love using this one.

I don't think I ever thought about all the work that goes into a business.  It's going to be difficult for some people to understand that writing as an indie author is not just writing.  It's a business.  (That's almost a naughty word and some of my die-hard writing buds just gasped.  Loudly.  Some of them might have had a myocardial infarction.  Call nine-one-one if you have shooting pains down your left arm and your chest hurts.)  One needs to treat it as a business.  This year I'm going to incorporate because the IRS is looking at me.  I think they have the pool cleaner van up the street to see what I'm up to and no one has pools on the hill I live on now.  (Seriously, they have water falls, not pools.  But hey we have a view.)  I've been looking at ways of doing the incorporation and I'm starting to make buh-buh-buh noises when I look at the accounting involved.  I reckon it can't be all that difficult but I think I'm going to have to find a CPA to take care of business.

Get it?

Let me tell you about something else I have to do.  I think there's a fancy author's word for it that I don't know, but I'm compiling a character list for all of my worlds.  For example, I have Bubba's world.  It's got the name of the character, descriptions of the same, and details that I need to remember about them.  Bubba, specifically, is six foot four inches, and has a size 12 shoe.  I wouldn't have to remember that but I used the shoe size twice in the novels.  (Don't think I don't know what you potty minds are thinking right now.  You know who you are.)  He's also got brown hair and blue eyes and is not ugly to look upon.  He drives a 1954 Chevy truck that is an unbecoming green.  He owns a Basset hound named Precious or rather, she owns him.  So every character in the series has their own entry and guess what?  There's A LOT of characters running around in the books.

Recently I boo-booed (boo-booed being a highly literate and technical term for f**king up) and called one character by the wrong first name.  I won't say who but it was a minor character.  My editor/proofreader caught it in Brownie and the Dame.  Unfortunately I had put it incorrectly in my Bubba World document.  Therefore on my big list of Things To Fix, I have to go back and change the character's name to the right one in Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas and Bubba and the Missing Woman.  Que bummer.  (A LOT of characters running around = oopsy-daisy.)

(A note to the person who complained there wasn't enough Bubba and Willodean in Brownie and the Dame: the novella was about Brownie.  It wasn't called Bubba and the Dame for a reason.  Fret not, however, more Bubba in the fall.  And I've got a great plot idea in mind for it.  GREAT!)

Let's see, where is this train of thought going?  Writing, teaching a class, bitching about someone who complained about Brownie, and whatnot.  (Would you rather me rant about home improvement again?  Because there's a great story about the last toilet we installed and the water fall we had in OUR KITCHEN!  I thought readers might be tired of my DIY woes.)

Anyway, sales = good.  Fans' word of mouth = wondrous sparkling rainbows of joy.  Teaching people how to make E-sales = possibly interesting or life threatening depending on one's point of view.  HI (AKA Home Improvement) = re-doing the popcorn ceiling in the kitchen because the people who put the second tile floor in the upstairs bathroom didn't raise the toilet flange up to the level of the floor.  Okay, I couldn't help myself, it slipped right in there, didn't it?  (How can I not write about HIM screaming up the stairs to shut off the water supply to the upstairs toilet "RIGHT NOW!  RIGHT NOW!  RIGHT NOW!"  Him used my rice cooker to catch the dripping water and now I have to buy a new rice cooker.  I liked that rice cooker but ewww.)

Miscellanea OR Here She Goes Again

Here's my week.  I pulled off shreds of wall paper from the dining room walls because it had the most horrendous poop brown pattern that man will ever see.  (Or woman.  Or child.  Or Moron cat.  Or Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, which I will get to later in the blog.  Be patient.)  Beneath the wall paper I discover MORE WALL PAPER.  But this wall paper has been painted over with graveyard gray.  (I'm not making this up.  They had GRAY walls the color of Bruce Willis' undershirt at the end of Die Hard.)  Normally this probably wouldn't bother me but they didn't do a good job on the corners and they look like Joan Rivers' face before Botax.  (That would be a bad thing for the walls, not so much for Joan.)  Not much I can do about the wrinkles except to break out the box cutters and a big sanding block.  You might wonder why I'm doing home improvement instead of writing.  (Well, I'm writing now, I'm blogging.  Same thing.  Kind of.)  The formal dining room will be my Fortress of Solitude or my office of doom, into which no animals, children or HIMs shall intrude when I have my headphones on.  (Hah!  That'll work.  Really.)  So I need my office space and since the IRS is particular about home office rules (we don't need no stinking IRS rules) I have to have a dedicated space in the house.  Hence, home improvement nonsense, which naturally translates into blogging galore.  (I can't help it.  It's kind of like a weird writing disease.)

Under the painted wall paper I found evidence of termite damage.  The amount of critters in this house is gaining by the minute.  Ghetto bugs, daddy long legs, skinks, chipmonks, er, chipmunks, squirrels, and probably a few other species I haven't yet seen.  (Bigfeet, skunks, aliens, the list could be endless.)  My daughter, Cressy, who is eight and not into entomology except under glass and from a great distance, said she won't be using the downstairs bathroom anymore because there was a large daddy long legs in there who I indulgently nick-named Bob.  Even though Bob is gone, she says she doesn't trust the bathroom.  I'm not sure what she thinks is going to happen.  I don't dare suggest anything like there might be a spider in the toilet or she might cross her legs in perpetuity.  (Once we went to the Smithsonian and there was a bug guy in the basement of the Museum of Natural History.  He had a large bug in a cage that he was letting crawl over people's arms.  Somehow he managed to get the gigantic critter on me and I stood there and calmly showed Cressy how brave Mommy was being.  Cressy wouldn't let the guy put the bug on her, because I suspect she's smarter than I am.  Then I asked the man what the bug was and he said, "It's a Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroach."  I said, still very calmly, "I think I'd like it off my arm now."  Then I went to the bathroom and napalmed my arm.  What fun.)  (What does that have to Cressy not trusting the downstairs bathroom on account of Bobs in the corners?  Well, nothing except it's a bug story that I've always wanted to tell and hey, it gives me ideas.)

It's a pity you can't hear the moaning wail
that came from my lips after I realized
what I'd had on me.

Anyway, termite damage.  Lovely.

And I can't help myself.

The house also has a sprinkler system which the guy who owned said works.  Hahaha.  It probably worked in the last decade when he last turned it on so technically he wasn't lying.  Technically.  (I think the fact that the first zone won't turn off and that eight sprinkler heads spray gallons of water in the air like broken fire hydrants qualify the system as broken, but what do I know?  HIM, the man to whom I'm married, is running around with a cheap metal detector trying to find the valves.  (So far he's found a paperclip, a Budweiser can, and some unidentifiable metal.)  I'm not sure why it is but the last house we had with a sprinkler system had all the valves in one place.  The house we live in now, has valves all over the place.  There are eight of them.  We've (I should say HIM) has found three.  It wouldn't be important except one of the valves isn't working properly.  So it's a treasure hunt!  Come find some.  We don't have a map, but we have beer and Cheetos!

I have a bamboo pad and I'm not afraid to use it.

I'm also preparing for two breakout sessions at the Hampton Roads Writers Conference 2012 in Virginia Beach, Virginia on September 20-22, 2012.  I luv this.  I get to do How to E-publish your work and Make Money and Maintaining and Sustaining Authentic and Appropriate Voice.  I also get to hang out with all the writers and drink Screaming Blue Vikings off of Turkish Cabana boys' six packs.  (Well, okay not off their six packs.  HIM, you know you're the only one I would drink a Screaming Blue Viking off of, don't you?)  So if you're thinking of going to Virginia Beach in September come by and check it out.  I'll sign business and post cards and brag about my sales.  I might even tell a pirate joke if someone asks nicely.

This is what I'd imagine a Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroach
would like to teach, if one were so inclined.

Then I'm outlining two works.  There's a Cat Clan novella, tentatively called Crescent Moon, because I'm running out of moon names, and I'm digging deep.  (Booger Moon, Hangnail Moon, Howling Moon, you can see where I'm going right?)  I'm also outlining Bubba 4, which I haven't yet named.  I thought I would have a naming contest for my blog, Facebook, and website fans.  I'll give everyone a short teaser synopsis of the book, and ya'll will make suggestions.  The only stipulation is that it has to start with "Bubba and..." for obvious reasons.  The winner will get a Basset hound plush, a free copy of the novel, and an honorable mention in the novel.  The five runners up will get free copies of the novel.  I'll announce the contest in a couple of months, so keep an eye out.

For you people who keeping asking why I don't write faster, this is why.  House improvement, getting everything in line, registering our daughter in school, picking up the dry cleaning for HIM, opening boxes up to discover things I haven't seen for years, and attempting to figure out what the packers did with the cables to the printer and the scanner.  (You would think if one were packing a printer for a computer and a scanner for a computer that one would put the cables that go to the two items in the same box as the two items.  YOU WOULD THINK!  I would think.  Maybe this is their little joke.  I can see them standing there, giggling as they put the cables into a box marked kitchen sundries.)  While I don't use the printer or the scanner much I do use them and when you need one, YOU REALLY, REALLY NEED ONE!  So the cables remain missing in action.  I might need a monument to them.

Everyone within a mile radius would have heard the scream.

But hey, look what I  did find.  This is the statue of a head hunter my parents brought back from the Philippines about forty years ago.

This statue used to give me nightmares as a child.
I used to imagine it would come to life and come
down the hall with the big knife/machete thing to
do lurid things to me.
How inspiring to have it on my desk.

I used to piss off my mother by walking by the statue and pulling its scarf down, revealing the statue's nekkid glory and bare buttoskis.  My mother would mutter endlessly while pulling the scarf back up and retying it.  So I put it on my desk amidst all the clutter and Cressy came by and immediately pulled down the scarf.  (Of course, she stopped to stare at his wee-wee.)  Ah, she has my DNA.

Off to outline and call exterminators.

The Demonic Influence of Magnetic Paint OR How I Killed the Carpet in my Daughter's Room

My daughter, Cressy, said, "I want a new color paint in my room.  Also a new kitten.  A McDonald's in the back yard.  Justin Bieber in the bathroom crooning to me as I take a shower.  Some other stuff I will only use once and then disregard as useless."  Okay, she didn't say all of that.  But she did want her new room to be a different color.  Her last room was **PURPLE**.  I believe I have previously discussed (ranted about) this issue.  Painting over the **PURPLE** was like asking for a favor from a Sicilian crime lord when he's about to get indicted on RICO charges and he hasn't had his morning cup of cappuccino.

So stupidly I said, "Okay."  We went to Lowe's and picked out a new color.  It's a kind of purpley-blue.  But it's not **PURPLE**!  Even more stupidly I pointed out the...da-da-dahhhhh....magnetic paint.  I will explain for those of you who don't watch the DIY channel.  This is paint that you paint on a given wall and then you can stick magnets to it when it's all done.  Kid's room cool, right?  Sounds fab, correct?  Whiz bang, great?

It isn't that easy, buster.

Whilst reading the back of the can I said to HIM, "It doesn't say if it's cleaned up with water or turpentine."  HIM said, "How about that?"  You might imagine HIM's insouciance as being tactful, but on the inside HIM was thinking, "I don't have to paint shizz, so I don't care how it's cleaned up."  Okay, I'll come back to HIM later.  Here's a clue for all of you who want to rush out to Lowe's or Home Depot or whatever and buy magnetic paint to do a cool wall for your kids.  IT'S NOT WATER-BASED!  IT DOES NOT CLEAN UP WITH WATER!  IN FACT, IT ONLY CLEANS UP WITH MYSTIC WATERS FROM THE DEEPEST DARKEST DEPTHS OF AFRICA AT A MAGICAL WATERFALL BLESSED BY PYGMY CANNIBALS!  I'm just sayin'.

Another lesson I learned: One can of magnetic paint only covers a four foot by four foot square.  It says on the can that it covers sixteen square feet.  Well, it was telling the truth and not one flipping, farping, furdling inch more.  Four frickin' feet by four frickin' feet.  So if your only beloved child wants a magnetic mural of epic proportion, you're going to spend about $22 per can that only covers FOUR FRICKIN' FEET BY FOUR FOUR FRICKIN' FEET.  (It does not say frickin' on the can, but it should.)

Before I purchased the paint I did read the back of the can for instructions.  It says, "Must be well-stirred."  Well, campers, well-stirred is somewhat misleading.  I set up at home.  I put out a drop cloth.  I had all the paint tools.  I even had a tool for the drill that would stir the paint for me.  HIM bought it specifically for me to stir this...frickin'...can...of...magnetic paint.  I opened the can and looked at the blackish oil.  It didn't look like paint.  It looked like vegetable oil that someone had used to deep fry about ten baskets of hushpuppies.  (No, I never did that.  Once.  And it was deep fried something or other.  I don't remember.  I'll use the Ronnie Reagan defense.)

I picked up the drill and immediately discovered that the stirring tool was too large to go into the quart sized can.  Duh.  I thought about it and decided I would get the paint stirrers downstairs.  Upon going downstairs it occurred to me that if I put the can of paint in a larger container I could use the drill tool thingy.  So I got a very large plastic tub.  I went back upstairs.  I poured the paint into the tub.  The bottom half of the paint can was like semi-hardened black dog poop.  (Don't ask how I know this.  We had a Siamese cat who was about 20 years old and the poor cat had to have a teaspoon of Metamucil in his wet food everyday.  Is that too much information?)  I had to use a tool from the drill's box to scrape it out.  Seriously it was the consistency of antique peanut butter.  (Arnold Schwarzenegger would have had trouble stirring that shizz and I mean back in the Conan the Barbarian days, too.)  I hurt my shoulder doing it.  In the process I got black crap all over my hands.  I got Cressy to bring me the roll of paper towels.  The black stuff wiped off but left a beautiful black stain on my hands.

I sighed and went to use the drill on the container of paint.  Immediately the drill roared and...did anyone see this coming?...splattered black/oil/paint/ickiness everywhere and especially off of the drop cloth onto the carpet in my daughter's bedroom.  Well the magnetic paint does not wipe off Berber rugs.  I know.  Really, I know.

After the cursing died away, I managed to stir the paint up to approximately the right consistency.  (See how I bravely struggled on?)  However, it did not matter how much I used the drill because there were still clumps at the bottom.  (Clumps that magically attached themselves to the rollers and disengaged themselves onto the walls in question.)  These clumps reminded me of the oil spill a couple years ago in the Gulf.  It looked just like those little clumps of oil washing up on shore.  Any minute there was going to be some blackened animal bleating at me for assistance and I was going to have to call Exxon or Green Peace or maybe a celebrity.

The lesson there: have the store shake the frickin' can of frickin' magnetic paint up before you take it home.

Finally, we began to paint.  Thank gawd for drop clothes.  I immediately stepped on the stirring tool, shrieking in pain, and dropped the roller.  More cursing commenced.  There was a couple of black hand prints on the wall where I caught myself.  Cressy thought I was going to pop a vein in my forehead.  After a brief respite, we managed to paint the section we wanted to paint and then I had to use impromptu paper towel shoes to get to the bathroom to clean up.  (My daughter thought that was some funny shizz.  Paper towel shoes.  Hilarious.)

Cressy and I both discovered that the magnetic paint didn't want to come off of our flesh.  Out came a scrub brush and a bottle of Goo.  (Goo is a hand cleaner for those of you who don't do dirty stuff.  Not that kind of dirty stuff.  Dirt-y stuff.  Goo is the scrubby creamy stuff that helps get the dirt off your hands.  Or feet in my case.  You know, everything in this whole section could be purposely misconstrued.)  A half hour later, Cressy still had little black spots on her hands and a couple on her face.  I had black toes and hands that appeared as though I had dipped them in black indelible ink.  Cressy wanted to go back and help with the second coat, but I decided I didn't want to scrub her down a second time.

I opened the second can, but not before I shook the holy living carp out of it.  That didn't really mix it up but it did help avoid the whole scraping the bottom of the can thing.  I used the drill again.  (Stupidly.)  I splattered the rug again, but worse this time.  I also got a part of the wall that I hadn't intended on painting with magnetic paint.  Bullheadedly I persevered and got a second coat of paint on the walls.  (The directions say you need two to three coats.  However I didn't want to go back and buy another can for a third coat.)  I bagged up everything but the drill and threw it away.  (Well, I didn't throw Cressy away.)  I went and scrubbed my flesh until it screamed for mercy.  When I was done there was literally a black ring around the tub.  I felt like a coal miner just in from a double shift.

My daughter's rug is ruined.  There's still black crap under my nails and I've been invited to a neighborhood coffee tonight.  (I'm thinking of wearing some of my daughter's purple sequined dress gloves.  Should be a great look with jeans and a LA County Coroner's t-shirt.)  I have sworn on my parents' graves to never use frickin' magnetic paint again in my life.  (Never.  Never.  Never.)  My daughter's moron cat managed to avoid the whole sorry affair.  (I think he remembered getting paint on his paws from a month ago and said, "Eff that.  I'm getting catnip instead.")  But magnets WILL stick to her wall.  On the downside it just occurred to me that I might set off the metal detectors at the airport when I go to the book conference next month.  That should be a lot of fun.  Maybe I'll get strip searched.  At the very worst it will make a great blog.