Too Much Spice in My Life

I just went to put something away in the kitchen and noticed a whole mess of new spices on an already overcrowded shelf.

This would not worry a normal person, and it doesn’t worry me either, but it bugs the crap out of me on so many levels this blog would overflow with them like a stopped up toilet.

Don’t even say the words, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” because I will fly right out of your computer screen and choke you to within an inch of your life.

It is these mild irritations in life that roll up into a giant wad of aluminum foil that bowls people over the edge. Yes, if you recycle the foil all the time (metaphorically speaking), then it won’t build up and will remain a small, manageable…oh for criminy’s sake, wherever this is going I’ve lost interest in it.

What I’m trying to say is that when someone in your house, for instance your husband, buys excess stuff, you’ve got to wonder what the hell gives? There is already a full bottle of Cream of Tartar in the nicely alphabetized spice drawer. Who even uses it? I once had a jar of Cream of Tartar for over 20 years. It’s not in a lot of recipes, and when I needed it, the old stuff worked just fine – it was still as pearly white as the day I bought it. In fact, I only discarded it to make room for the new jar my husband bought, and NOW THERE’S ANOTHER ONE!

You can probably read my frustration in the ALL CAP words above. At this rate, my children’s will pass on the jars to their children and their children’s children.

You’re asking, “What’s her problem, so what if there’s an extra little jar of spice? What’s the big freaking deal?” I’m warning you, I am THIS CLOSE to reaching out and poking you in the eyes. It’s not just the one bottle. There are at least 15 duplicate spices in the cabinet, with fresh ones being added daily – and these in addition to the 50 that are in the spice drawer. That’s why I had to alphabetize them – there are so many I could never find the one I was looking for.

What are these extra back up jars – spice insurance? Did my husband see some kind of spice commercial like this - “Did you ever go into your kitchen and whip up a batch of cinnamon cookies only to find that you are (Insert Stabbing Sounds from the Psycho Movie) OUT OF CINNAMON? (Homely actress brings her hands to her face like she’s discovered a dead body). Then you need SPICE INSURANCE! We will send you every spice known to the free world – all for the low cost of $249. When you get ready to run out, just notify us in advance and we’ll replace your spice FREE OF CHARGE (Voluptuous actress holds package of arriving spice next to her overflowing cleavage). Don’t ever disappoint your loved ones again with a spiceless recipe (Sad children). Order SPICE INSURANCE today! (Happy family beaming at their spices with a tray of fresh cookies in the background that you can smell right through the TV).”

Ever wonder why I’m not making millions doing TV commercials? I’m a natural, aren’t I? I’d be happy to produce something for you if you’d send money in advance, along with a nice video camera.

Here’s the problem. My husband likes to cook, and he likes to grocery shop. He does not like to be bothered with looking in the spice drawer to see what’s already in there. It’s easier for him just to buy a new bottle. He doesn’t care that it will sit on the shelf for the next eight years unopened. I understand that.

What I don’t understand is that, even in the worst-case scenario, we live at the virtual apex of at least 6 grocery stores – two are within a half-mile of our house. There is one 24-hour Albertsons about a mile and a half away. Would we ever be in such a bind that, if we ran out of a spice, we’d need a replacement faster than the ten minutes it would take to get to the store and back? Is this justification for twenty extra containers of spices taking up space on prime real estate panty shelves?

If you say, “Yes,” even in a whisper, I will creep out of your computer late one night and pour cake batter in your favorite shoe. You’ll know it was me by the jar of Cream of Tartar I’ll leave as a calling card.

My Great Deal

Boy did I get a deal yesterday! I don’t go shopping much because it means getting almost naked in front of a mirror that you can see your front and back sides practically at the same time. I live in denial that age and chocolate have taken their toll on me. But department store mirrors tell it like it is, and it’s a wonder I’m not still wearing hip hugger bell bottoms and a top made of shoelaces and a bandana. What do you mean they don’t make bandanas that big??????

I couldn’t wear something like that around here because, in spite of having a couple of days reprieve from the wettest June in Oregon’s history, and that’s saying a lot since this is Oregon and we are known for the size of the slugs we cultivate around here because they thrive in the wetness of this state. Slugs are snails without shells. I know I’ve told you this before, but I have NEW SITE MEMBERS (welcome to all of you, btw), and THEY may live next to the Dead Sea which probably doesn’t provide the perfect climate for slugs. Which is, btw, our state bird, reptile, mammal, fish, and flower. Or they might as well be, because they are EVERYWHERE.

I’m getting very good at typing BIG WORDS without even using the shift lock key on my keyboard. It’s because I PRACTICE. A LOT.

But you probably didn’t come here to learn about slugs or my typing skills. You are dying to know about me standing semi-naked yesterday, and I don’t blame you. I would describe to you what I saw but I tried not to look. I made my fingers into one of those things like Spock does on Star Trek. He puts those two fingers together and the other two – you know the ones. The little finger and the ring finger are together, and then the other two are together. The thumb stays out of it. Then you try to open and close them. It’s not easy at first, but you get the hang of it quick and then you’re looking at your hands opening and closing and start thinking about eating lobster.

Anyway, I used Spock’s hand trick to hold in front of my eyes so I only saw the clothes. And I never looked in between outfits. Personally I like to keep a little mystery in my relationship with myself. It’s better to leave something to the imagination, and mine is working overtime trying to get Barbie to appear in place of that – that THING in the mirror.

But again, you didn’t come here to listen to one of the many tricks I use to make myself more lovable to me. You want to know about the great deal I got yesterday, so here it is.

Yesterday I got a great deal. I play golf in a 9-hole group and I am the official photographer for us ladies, which means they run when they see me coming because they are so sick of me taking their pictures constantly and putting them on the bulletin board. Truth be told, I Photoshop their wrinkles and warts and buggers away so they should be happy, but they’re not. Therefore I feel it is my duty as representative of the creative arts to try and not look like a ragamuffin. Especially yesterday when our group had invited ladies from several other groups. I did not want to be standing up at the luncheon with my tacky old clothes trying to make people who despise the very sight of me smile. I needed a new golf skirt.

I went to the shop nearest my house, and also the most expensive, and found a skirt for $84! If I knew how to make that $84 into capital letters I would. That’s a lot to pay for a skirt or anything else. I didn’t pay that much for my first VW back in the day. But it was so cute – the skirt! I wanted it so bad, but I hung it back on it’s hanger, tucked my tail, and got my white trash ass out of there before that skirt forced me to hand over my credit card. I found a not-nearly-as-cute-but-way-cheaper skirt at another store and snagged. I got many compliments on it, mainly because people were saving up since nothing else I have is compliment-worthy.

Someone mentioned a sale at a sample store with racks of golf clothes 50% off. Whoo-wee! It just happened to be on my way home. I rushed out of there and elbowed several elderly ladies out of my way on the sidewalk and found that same exact skirt for $13 (BIG CAPITAL LETTERS)!!!!! And it was the only one left, and it was MY SIZE!!!

I didn’t buy it, though. I already had that other new skirt. How many new things does a girl need?

HA – of course I bought it! That’s my great deal, and I hope you can sleep after reading how exciting it all was. I just hope it stops raining long enough that I can wear it.

Cartoons No Laughing Matter

Tonight my daughter wanted to go see Toy Story 3 and I jumped at the chance. Mostly because she doesn’t find much time to spend with me between her job and friends and boyfriend. Although we live in the same house, a teenager’s priority list of things to do has “spend time with mom” way down there, after cleaning out her closet and doing her laundry. I wasn’t nuts about seeing Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, although I remember liking the first Toy Story many years ago.

It was in 3-D, and I was glad to be wearing the 3-D glasses because I got choked up toward the end and my eyes were misting like some foolish old woman getting sucked into a cartoon plot about a bunch of talking toys whose “boy” was all grown up and going to college.

I identified with those toys. When my son, my firstborn, was a baby, I used to look down at him in my arms and know that at that very second he was getting older. I could see him outgrowing one set of clothes after another until he packed them up and moved away. It broke my heart.

He’s moved out, but his closet is still full of clothes retained because of their memories. His Tae Kwon Do uniform is still there, plus all his snowboard tees and sweatshirts from his high school snowboard team. His Boy Scout shirt is there, even though he was only a scout in 4th and 5th grades. Every souvenir T-shirt he got at Disneyland or at Trailblazers basketball games is there.

What does this have to do with Toy Story? Beats the hell out of me. I’m just feeling sentimental about things changing. Life moves forward, for better or worse, and little boys spend an eternity playing with toys that one day will end up under the bed or in a container that will collect dust for years.

My son had this big stuffed parrot about the size of a real one that he took everywhere. He’d fly it around the back yard where it found every kind of adventure. Once he propped it up in a swing and took a picture of it, then made a wooden frame and put the picture in it and put that in his bookcase where it still sits to this day.

It’s obvious that this train of thought is not going to produce anything funny, is it? Since I’m on a roll, I might as well see this through. Remember that song, “Puff the Magic Dragon?” I used to sing the chorus when it came on the radio but never knew the words until it was on a tape of kid’s songs. I listened to the words in the car because those tapes played everywhere we went. I discovered that Puff was a toy, not a real magic dragon. Turns out there was a kid named Little Johnny Paper or something like that who played with Puff in a land called Hanalei. Who knows if I’m getting these names right because those tapes were scratchy. This little Paper boy played with Puff until one day he grew up and put Puff away, and Puff never got to come out and play again.

When I first figured out poor Puff’s fate, I was so sad. “What kind of story is that for a kid?” I thought. It ranks up there with Ole Yeller. Ever seen that one? About the sweet family dog that was so spunky and made you wish more than anything that you had a dog just like then and then… well you ought to rent it if you haven’t seen it, but buy a box of Kleenex.

Oh good grief, I’m bawling right now. Tears are dripping onto my hands and my fingers are slipping all over the keyboard. I exaggerate, but I’m whimpering and my eyes are watering. I could think of some more very sad things, but I can’t take it anymore. I have been on an emotional roller coaster ever since I saw that cartoon, and there’s no cure but chocolate. Thank goodness I made some of those no-bake chocolate peanut butter oatmeal cookies. That’s what I’m going to serve right now at my pity party. Wish you could come. We could have a regular bawl-fest as we stuffed cookies in like we were stuffing stuffing into a torn toy. Let the fun begin!

Trashy Is As Trashy Does

My cousin in Memphis, Nancy, is so much fun and very funny. I call her every couple of weeks for a laugh fix.

She’s a jovial person, shaped like a barrel on top of a pair of gorgeous legs. She could be a model for nylons or socks, but only from the thighs down. It’s amazing how the body stores it’s excess. Mine is a muffin around my waist. Her’s is all in her torso so she looks like an Idaho potato on toothpicks. She’s got a mixed breed dog that also loves to eat, and she calls him “Fweet Tater” because he looks like a sweet potato on toothpicks. Must be genetic.

I’m trying to bring Nancy into the digital age. I set up Office Outlook for her over the phone, a task that took several hours. I’d be telling her to click here and click there, and she’d be reading me everything on the page. “It says File then Edit then….and there’s a box I just clicked on and it says….” She is an artist and notices all the details. I was just trying to get her to simply click on File…New, but that wasn’t going to happen for another ten minutes. I told my daughter it was like telling a child to go into the drug store and go directly back to the pharmacist without stopping, and the child happens to choose the toy aisle and stops to pick up every little thing along the way.

Just now she emailed me from Facebook and wanted to know how to upload pictures. This is a HUGE stretch for her, and I’m proud that she’s willing to make the attempt. I emailed her back from my Facebook and decided the tutorial shouldn’t be boring. So I said, “Go to the photos tab and create an album and name it something like, “Nancy holding a lit match to her bottom just before blasting gas.” Then describe the Location, like “At the Ladies Church Social” and then the Description: “Father didn’t really believe a match could become a torch.”

Once I’d posted it, I got to wondering whether that can be seen by the general public. I hope not because I’m trying to keep up a façade of couth.

Anyway, I hope my friends have a sense of humor if they read it. I know Nancy will laugh like a teenage boy watching “The Hangover.” I’m betting she’ll wet her pants. And maybe even pass some accidental gas.

I don’t know why I’m being so tacky. I should be ashamed. I laid around on the couch all day yesterday, and ate dinner with the family in front of the TV tonight, which according to Jeff Foxworthy is a sure sign of being a redneck. I pointed this out to my husband, and he said, “If the shoe fits.”

I apologize for being trashy, but this is my 250th blog and by golly I can say what I want. So there.

Oh, and to sum up my tutorial to Nancy, I said, “And just click on the pictures you want to upload and they’ll be on your Facebook page faster than you can say, “Who farted?”

I have sunk to the depths of white trashiness. I hope I haven’t offended, but if I have, you can kiss my rosy red toes (I just gave myself a pedicure). Now I look like a muffin on two carrots with a head and shoulders baked into the top and red sprinkles on the toes. Can’t you just picture it?

Please excuse me for rambling. How else could I get through 250 BLOGS! Think about it - TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY! Whoopee!

Wasting Away in Sofaville

I took a day off today from doing almost everything. Instead of gluing myself to the computer, catching up on filing, or planting the flowers I bought a week ago, I finished a mystery novel that I’ve been struggling through a page at a time in bed before I dropped off to sleep. I should feel wonderful making time for R and R, but I feel worthless.

How am I going to make up these lost leisure hours, I’d like to know? Tomorrow I will have to work extra hard and I won’t catch up. Things will be tabled until Tuesday, and then Wednesday. Is R and R really worth it?

I will leave the answer to the philosophers and people who make a living answering such questions (and please let me know if you hear of any job openings in the latter). All I know is that it felt pretty darn good.

One thing I noticed about reading while lying on the couch was that I kept dozing off. When I did, my mind would continue with the story. If I dozed off when the big strong man was approaching the petite detective lady, my semi-conscious mind would actually continue on like I was reading: “He took her in his arms and kissed her ravishingly. And then he scooped her up in his arms and walked toward the bedroom, bending down to kiss her along the way.”

I’d startle awake and look at the words on the page and this is what they’d say: “Lance walked toward Andrea. When he got within arm’s reach, she slapped him hard across the cheek. ‘You bastard!’ she hissed.”

Hmmm, my unconscious mind obviously didn’t pick up on the direction the plot was actually going. This happened over and over – with my half-asleep imagination completing scenes the second my eyes closed.

When I managed to stay awake, my conscious mind knew all too well what was coming, long before the author took the plot in that direction. I knew pages and pages earlier that the son was going to get kidnapped as if I’d already seen the movie. This was frustrating because I really wanted to be surprised. The writing style wasn’t that great, so the plot needed to be good to make up for it. This was a book someone had given me and said it was really good. As I was reading it, I kept thinking - compared to what?

But I finished it, wasting my entire Sunday on the couch, and now I’m going to have to work myself to death to make up for it. I think I’m going to go now and doze off so my mind can take me to a place where my inbox is empty, where all my good intentions have been carried out – every birthday card sent on time, every batch of cookies baked for the new neighbors – and life is carefree, plus there’s a magical box of chocolates that don’t have any calories. I’m going to dub this place “Sofaville” and it’s going to have a remote control that has commercial-free comedies all day long, and a sweet little dog to cuddle up to my feet and keep them warm. All the laundry will be done, dishwasher unloaded, bookshelves dusted, fish water changed, cobwebs knocked down, carpets with vacuum streaks, buttered popcorn that isn’t fattening, and a cheese platter.

OMG – this is so pathetic. Other people dream of changing the world or becoming rock stars. I’m dreaming of a day on the couch. Still, it sounds good. Hence, I’m off to bed where my rich fantasy life awaits me. Here’s wishing that all your dreams come true – at least in your dreams. Good night, my friends.

My Brain Reveals Itself

Yesterday I went to see if any of my other photos had sold at the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts and none had. Funny how you can be so excited about something one day – “YIPPEE! TWO OF MY PHOTOGRAPHS HAVE SOLD!!!! – to “yippee, two of my photographs have sold.”

By using those capital letters I hope you can hear the excitement in my voice and see the joy on my face, while the small words show that I’m being sarcastic, as if to say, “Big freaking deal, two have sold, but what about the other seven?”

My expectations the first day were that none of them might sale, and how awful that would be. But at the end of the first day, I was so excited that I’d made two sales because it validated me as a photographer and artist. I got the stamp of approval from the world.

By the end of the second day, however, the world had said to me, “You got lucky with those two, but we’re wise to you now and you won’t get away with fooling us anymore that you’ve got talent.”

Not that the world is actually saying this (or maybe they are. If you hear anything, let me know), but the little whining, insecure voice in my head is saying, “Why did you ever think you could be a photographer? How humiliating to have your stuff hanging in a festival with real artwork for the whole entire world to see and not have any little orange dots on your card except for a measly two.”

This voice hounds me day in and day out. It’s a wonder I can ever get anything done, because it questions everything I do.

“Why are you still using that frayed toothbrush? It’s embarrassing.”

“It works fine, and who’s going to see it?”

“I see it. It might work fine, but it’s an eyesore and you know you’re supposed to replace those things every few months.”

“I just got it about six weeks ago. Can I help it if the toothbrush companies make them so they get frayed really quick?”

“Oh, so now you’re going to blame it on the toothbrush companies?”

This conversation banters back and forth until I leave the bathroom, at which time the voice starts in about something else, like: “Why don’t you clean out this closet?”

The reason I actually accomplish anything is that another voice is in my head tells me how great I am. This one says, “Why are you only entering nine of your photographs? How can you pick just nine when they are all so beautiful?”

These guys are in there arguing like an umpire and a baseball coach, in each other’s faces, spit flying, while I’m trying to make a cup of tea:

“If you’d clean out this closet, you could find something to wear.”

“There’s plenty to wear, in fact, there are so many cute things in here it’s impossible to choose between them.”

“Cute? Cute? Did you say cute? Look at this shirt? When’s the last time anyone wore this thing? It’s got a stain on the front.”

“That stain is microscopic. Nobody except Superman could see that stain.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So how come you never wear it?”

By then I’m dressed and buttering toast”

“Are you going to put that much butter on your toast? I thought you were trying to lose weight?”

I don’t know if other people have to contend with this, but to me it’s like having two kids in the back seat bickering:

“She hit me!”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“He hit me first.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“That’s because she was looking at me.”

“Was not.”

“Were too.”

I can ignore them and go about my business, or pull over and threaten them within an inch of their lives to get them to stop, or reach back there are start flailing around trying to make enough contact to distract them so they stop. Even if any of these things work, I know it’s going to start back up again a few more miles down the road.

Georgia O’Keeffe, the artist who does those paintings of one part of a flower that is magnified and sometimes look like a vagina, once said something similar to this line: “I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” Actually, this was her exact line, because I asked Google and found that the line I typed (and had to delete) was nothing like this one. I also found I’d spelled her name with only one “f” (which I changed). And I found this interesting quote by her: “I hate flowers - I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move.” This makes her sound kindof crotchety, which seems like the perfect word except I’m not sure how to spell it and I’m not going to take the time to look it up. (Note: spell check fixed it.)

The point is that she must have had those two voices in her head all the time, too, and I know exactly what she means when she says she terrified every moment. I’m just like her, except not rich and famous. I’m afraid of my own shadow, which is the reason I live in Oregon where the sun rarely shines (that’s a joke, ha ha – get it? I don’t see my shadow to be afraid of it so much here in Oregon because….oh forget it.)

If you are still with me on this long, rambling journey through the workings of my inner brain, you are probably wondering how we got so far away from the topic about my photographs. You and me both. But I will bring this full circle by saying that I promised in my last blog to make my next one twice as long, and I think I’ve succeeded, so I can end this now. Aren’t I clever?

“Are not.”

“Am too.”

“Are not.”

“Am too.”

“Are not.”

“Am too.”

I Sold Two Pictures!

I have good news! I sold two of my framed photographs at the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts. It runs for 2 more days so I’m hoping to sell another. I’m too excited to write. I’ll write twice as much tomorrow.

Commercial-free Radio?

Today I was listening to Blue Collar Comedy on my satellite radio that I got they renewed for the next 6 months for a very reasonable price.

I can’t find Laugh USA anymore, which was the station I really liked because the others are pretty raunchy. Many funny people say the f-word about six times in every sentence. In fact, it has become the new “you know.” You know how stoners talk, “Hey dude, you know, man, I went down to the you know store and you know I got some you know candy – a whole you know lot of candy like I, you know, practically bought out the whole you know candy aisle I was so you know hungry for a little you know something sweet.”

On these other comedy stations, they have announcers or interviewers or comediennes or chimpanzees - whoever is holding the microphone – talking like this except they substitute the gerund form of the f-word, as in f___ing, for every “you know.” I’m not a big fan of “you knows” and have tried to eliminate as many as I can, so this substitution irritates me even more because it’s as if they are deliberating trying to insert the word as much as possible rather than just normal rambling and filling in the pauses while they try to remember what they were saying.

Sometimes they liven the word up by adding “mother” in front of it.

Today, however, I had other irritants on the satellite radio. Namely, commercials. Correct me if I’m wrong (at your own risk), but isn’t satellite radio’s claim to fame the very absence of commercials? Isn’t that why we are supposed to prefer satellite stations over the ones we don’t have to pay for?

These commercials are awful, too. I think I blogged already about Prolixus – the male enhancer that sounds like it will add girth to the male member. I don’t know about you but I’m not sure I want a member the size of a can of pork and beans coming anywhere near me. I was not broke in by a horse, if you know what I mean. Men should just leave well enough alone unless they are dating a porn star. The rest of us, and I think I speak for most women endowed with a normal anatomy, are not too interested in being skewered by something that would make the Jolly Green Giant proud. When we say, “size doesn’t matter,” we actually mean it.

I’m dipping into crude territory, but I had a long drive this morning and got saturated with these comedy stations and their stupid commercials. One very excited man was breathlessly trying to tell me that I had better hurry and snap up a home loan because these interest rates would never happen again in my lifetime. I wonder how he knew. Is he psychic? More like psychotic the way he kept saying that the government has never allowed such low rates and I’d be pretty foolish not to jump on board and take advantage of his offer right this very second, because, as he kept saying, rates would never be this low again in my lifetime. Never ever. Ever.

The commercials are homemade without any fanfare or background music, just someone claiming to be a lawyer or doctor or millionaire telling the public the honest truth about the great deals they are hawking.

I’m going to get to the bottom of this whole commercial thing if I have to call the satellite station administrator personally, except that I live on the west coast and you can only call between 8 am and 11 am Eastern Standard time, meaning that I have to call between 5 am and 8 am. It’s enough to drive me, you know, crazy.

Growing Old with Barbie

I was tutoring at the high school a few weeks ago and the kids were asking me to review their essays. One of the topics they could write about was “politically correct Barbie.”

The kids were saying things like: “I think Barbie is unnatural in today’s world. Nobody looks like that anymore.”

Back in the day we all looked like Barbie. All the girls had giant pointed objects on their chests, mostly made of foam rubber or wads of toilet paper, but we all had the look. We were all skinny, too – I don’t know why. I ate like a horse, but if I turned sideways in homeroom, the teacher marked me absent. I guess I ate vast quantities of was mostly vegetables.

Today’s politically correct Barbie would have big, saggy, rounded things on her chest with cleavage going midway to her waist. She’d have long flat hair and wear clothes that didn’t match. She’d wear flip-flops even in the snow, and a tank top layered over another tank top. And she’d have rolls of spare flesh bulging over her low-slung jeans like muffin tops. She’d also have a skin-tight shirt that showed the outline of her bra plus the bra straps and maybe the top of the bra itself.

Or, if Barbie grew old, she’d have a V-shaped bottom with panty lines under polyester pants that did a lousy job of covering her cottage cheese thighs.

If you haven’t guessed, I am in a foul temper. I find that somehow I went from a bubbly 19 year old to a woman of a certain age, and I’m mad as hell about it. This was NOT supposed to happen to me. I told myself in my teens and twenties that I would refuse to grow old. I would be Peter Pan. “The only reason people age,” I said to myself, “is because they quit exercising and give up the fight, and that’s not going to happen to me.”

Now that I just typed that last paragraph, I feel like I deserve a good tongue-lashing. Please indulge me. This is me talking to me.

“Listen, bee-och, all you need to do is lose that 10 extra pounds and you’ll feel like a girl again.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“And it’s always been true. You have to promise to lose the weight and get the spring back in your step.”

“But I’m too tired.”

“Shut up that incessant whining. Just DO it!”

Okay, to shut this inner voice up, here is my pledge. I will drop 2.5 pounds a week for the next 4 weeks, starting today. Then my clothes will fit and I’ll regain my energy and I’ll start looking like the old Barbie, except I’ll still have to use toilet paper.

I’ll let you know how it’s going, and I apologize for the crabby blog. Even us humorists need to take a vacation on occasion. Oh, and I got a fortune cookie today that said, “You are a bee-och.” Just kidding, I just love the way that sounds. It really said, “You are covered in cottage cheese and will meet a nice pineapple.” Just kidding again. It really said, “You have a keen sense of humor and like to have a good time.” That is so true, except today. Today I’m an old hag carrying saddlebags full of globular fat around my waist who can barely get off this chair to drag myself to bed. But tomorrow, as I start inching my way back toward Barbie, I will be in a much better humor. I can’t wait!

Tax Dollars Blues

Recently I wrote about four city employees standing right under the stop signs at a 4-way stop, each one holding stop signs. I didn’t see any construction going on anywhere and thought this was a blatant waste of four perfectly good stop signs, but I soon forgot about it.

Today I was at the same intersection and the same four people were there. The thought crossed my mind; “I wonder how much money we, the taxpayers, are paying these people to be human stop signs when we, the taxpayers, have already paid for the four stop signs they are standing directly under?”

My curiosity led me to pull over to pose the question, “What the heck?” (or WTF for you younger readers). I approached a person in an orange vest that turned out to be a woman. “Why are you guys holding stop signs when there are already stop signs here?” I asked.

“There’s a detour,” she explained, and then went on to tell me the entire detour route. As she was doing this, the man at the stop sign to the right of us yelled, “CINDY!” I presumed he was her boss and he was alerting her to approaching traffic so she could have her sign at the ready. He must have felt that the few seconds it took me to ask the question and her to start answering was distracting her from her duties, which he appeared to think required her undivided attention.

The first time he yelled, she looked over at him to acknowledge that she’d heard and heeded his control-freaking. When I didn’t immediately scurry away, he quickly called, “CINDY” again.

“Actually,” I said, “I’m writing a humor blog and thought it was funny to see you guys standing out here under the stop signs. Is this really necessary, even with the detour?”

“CINDY!”

“We have to keep traffic moving off Multnomah Blvd. as they come around the corner to this part of the detour, and since this is such a short stretch of road right here, it would get backed up.”

“CINDY!”

I looked over and noticed he was waiting for one driver to get to him so he could let him or her through, which meant that Cindy couldn’t let her cars go. They were stacking up and snaking back around the corner of Multnomah Blvd., the very thing these four people were trying to avoid at all costs.

Cindy and I both watched him. The car he was waiting for continued to approach slowly, no doubt confused that his sign said, “Slow” but the sign right over his head said, “Stop.” I know the feeling from going through earlier. You really don’t know which one to believe. Finally the car got up to him and went through. Meantime about 20 cars had stacked up on Cindy’s side, blocking traffic on Multnomah Blvd. (which is a hard word to say and people who aren’t from around here really muddle it up. It’s pronounced “bull-i-vard).

In all honesty, I believe the stop signs could have handled the traffic better than what I just witnessed.

Finally Mr. “Hey Everybody I’m In Charge Here And Don’t You Forget It!” signaled Cindy that she could let her cars pass.

In a related story, I got a parking ticket about a month ago that I lost. It was for $70 and I don’t want the fine to double by not paying it, so I called the City of Portland and asked for a copy.

“I can’t find a record of the ticket,” the clerk said. “The policeman who wrote it hasn’t filed it yet. Call back in a week.” Which I did, and they still had no record.

“It’s been over a month, what am I supposed to do?” I asked, hoping the statute of limitations had run out on the thing.

“Just keep calling back every now and then,” she said.

“How long do I have to keep calling?”

“Sometimes it takes these guys two or three weeks to file their tickets,” she said.

“But it’s been over a month already!”

“Well, just keep calling.” So every week from now to whenever my ticket gets filed, or until eternity (whichever comes first) I will be calling the city.

I see those signs at highway construction sites that say, “Your tax dollars at work.” I’m thinking that my tax dollars hired some folks that really aren’t giving me my money’s worth.

Happiness Is a Good Night's Sleep

I mentioned the happiness book I’d been listening to on my iPod yesterday, and the author started talking about studies that had been done showing happy people get enough sleep, i.e. 8 hours a night.

DUH!

I’m not trying to be sarcastic, well, yeah I am, because this seems like common sense to me. Everybody gets cranky when they don’t get enough sleep, but nobody’s doing it on purpose. If you’re not sleeping enough it’s probably because you have (1) too much work, (2) too many babies (3) too many bed bugs, or (d) too many troubles. Oh, and I forgot to add (f) teenagers.

I have a teenage daughter who spends her every waking minute giving me causes to fret. What are her and her boyfriend doing when they’re supposed to be at a movie? What are her and her boyfriend doing out in the bonus room, and should I go in and pretend to be looking for something again? When we added that bonus room it was to get our noisy kids and their friends away from us. Now it’s way, WAY too quiet in there. Is her boyfriend causing her to study less? Is she spending too much time with her boyfriend and not enough with her girlfriends? Does the boyfriend ever eat at home?

She has a midnight curfew, and I feel I need to be awake to make sure she comes home on time, and alone. It’s not that I don’t trust her, it’s just that I was her age once….and I’m not going to say anything else on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.

So if I hop in bed at 12:01, and the crows start squawking at 5 a.m., which means I’m going to lose about 3 hours worth of happiness. I believe this explains why I am cranky and try to pick fights with my family, friends, grocery clerks, and the dog. If none of them are around, I argue with myself, out loud. Sometimes I snarl and bite. I’ll show you the teeth marks if you don’t believe me.

Sometimes I’d like to switch places with my dog. She lies around all day except when someone goes in the kitchen, where she’ll come from the ends of the earth hoping for a dollop of butter. I sling it off the knife onto the floor but sometimes it hits her. What a mess. Butter splats right between the eyes, and her tongue not nearly long enough to reach it even when she curls it out the sides of her mouth. This is torture for her, so I’m not sure why I nearly roll on the floor laughing when it happens. I invite the whole house in to watch. Then I have to clean off the butter and give her a dab as a consolation, which I’m sure she thinks is not nearly enough for what I’ve put her through and the public humiliation.

I can tell you one thing, though, I don’t lose any sleep worrying about accidently buttering my dog on occasion. I’ve got plenty of other things robbing me of my rest and happiness, including writing this blog very late at night. I get tickled and that makes me wide awake. I just wish you could see that dog trying to get at that butter.

So I will bid you all sweet dreams and hope the crows decide to take a vacation so I can sleep in until maybe even 6 o’clock. Ah, that it would be so….

Humorless Happiness

I was Googling something the other day and came across a website about happiness. There were some tidbits of wisdom in the right hand column and I read a couple. Intrigued, I ended up buying the book, written by Gretchen Rubin, called The Happiness Project.

It was a downloadable book that I started listening to yesterday while I was cleaning house. After awhile I realized a very important thing – happiness is not conducive to humor.

Listen to any comic or watch any sitcom and the humor is all about the misery or misfortune in people’s lives. I love The Big Bang Theory, a sitcom about super-intelligent nerds. Much of the humor comes from them either putting down each other’s intelligence or mishaps they have to squirm out of because they lack the social skills average-intelligent people have people have. Leonard, some kind of super physicist or something, is dating the blond bimbo who lives across the hall, which provides plenty of material to contrast his super-intelligence with her lack of it.

Here’s what the script would be like if they were following the suggestions in The Happiness Project:

“Hi Leonard, thanks for coming in.”

“My pleasure, Penny. You look lovely in your Cheesecake Factory uniform.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet? Taking a break from your contam physics?”

“(Laughs) I love how you say quantum.”

And blah blah blah. Utterly boring.

My point is that I don’t know how much of this happiness stuff I can take. The Happiness Project book is good, and I’m going to listen to it and hopefully follow some of the suggestions and make some positive changes in my life. But she makes it sound like I need to be loving and forgiving and kind and generous, and sensitive and patient and a good listener, and quite frankly, I’m not sure I’m up to it. I’m smart enough to know that these things work because I’ve tried them here and there in my life. But they’re like Brussels sprouts, they’re okay some of the time but I’m a long way off from wanting to make a steady diet of them.

Humor is based on sarcasm, put downs, people’s pain, or unexpected, negative things happening. It is not funny to see a man in a suit walking down the street. But it’s very funny seeing the same man walking along and slipping on a banana peel so that his legs fly up over his head and he lands, WHOOMP, flat on his back with the wind completely knocked out of him and flailing like an upside down turtle.

In a happy world this would not happen. The insensitive dolt who threw the banana peel down would not have done it in the first place. He would have walked a block out of his way to find a garbage can because he’d want to keep the city beautiful. The Three Stooges would never smack each other with a 2 x 4 or poke each other in the eyes in a happy world. I could not write about men with limp you-know-whats because all those men using Viagra (nearly 99% of U.S. males) would be offended.

So don’t worry, you can count on me to not succumb to these happiness theories, even after I listen to that book cover to cover. I will not let this happiness stuff go to my head if I can help it.

Doggie Barf-o-Matic

My dog goes into these cycles of throwing up constantly, and she’s in one right now. My husband was peacefully curled up on the couch watching TV when I heard him bellow, “Awg, the dog barfed on the couch.” I went in there because I’m the designated dog throw-up remover since I was the one who wanted the dog, and there was a slimy wet pile with a streak where his bare foot had carved a path like the wake of a boat. He limped off to scour the foot with bleach, and I cleaned up the 100th pile of the day.

We don’t know why she gets this way. She can go days without even burping, and then one day I wake up to the sound of her stomach. It’s a cacophony of growling like no human stomach has ever made, even the hungriest one or the one that ate chili a couple of hours ago. These noises sound like something miserable is alive in there and it’s got a microphone.

Later, she doesn’t eat her food. This is a very bad sign. She tries to bury the food with her nose. She pretends to cover it with fake dirt, and her nose keeps hitting the bowl, lifting it in the air so that it comes down with a resounding bang like hard plastic dropping on hard tile. This goes on forever. I realize she has instincts that are commanding her to bury the uneaten food lest some wild animal appear and scarf it up, but can’t she see that there is no dirt? Pretending to cover a bowl of food is not the same as actually covering it.

The reason her not eating is a bad omen is because it means that, 9 times out of 10, she’s got an upset stomach and she will be expunging all of yesterday’s food for the next several hours. She goes outside and eats grass, which I’ve heard is supposed to soothe the stomach but for her it’s like turbo emesis. FYI emesis is the Greek word for vomit. Barf is the Latin word.

When the vomit fountain starts flowing, it comes out in erratic spurts. Sometimes there’s just a spot here and there. Others, there is a pool that frogs could play in if they were so inclined. Birds could take a bath in there, and so on. For a 9-pound dog, she’s got quite a reservoir.

The carpet looks like it’s got land mines all over it. I wipe them quickly with some anti-doggie germ stuff but the evidence lingers for hours until it dries. Everyone who has come to our house has either witnessed her throwing up or has been the victim of a barf blast. My brother was over the other day and decided to rest his back by lying on the floor. He started to lay his head down but paused, looking around. “I bet there’s not one square inch of this carpet that hasn’t been covered in that dog’s throw up.”

“Yeah, and more than once,” I said. He put his head down anyway, and the dog jumped on his stomach and promptly threw up a white, slimy pile on his crotch.

“Oh my gosh, that looks just like…” I didn’t say any more because I’m making this part up and don’t know what else to say. But all the other stuff I’ve written is true, if you can believe that.

I asked my daughter, “What should I blog about?” and she said, as she dodged one of the wet piles, “Write about that dog barfing.” So I did. Hope you enjoyed it. If you ever come to my house, wear shoes and guard your crotch.

Drink Life Up Without Regrets

We had some Chinese food last night and ended up with leftovers. One box was this really good green bean stuff with little chunks of garlic that is out of this world from Wu’s Open Kitchen. Anyway, I scooped out all the green beans and put them on a plate to pop in the microwave with the other stuff. I got ready to toss the box in the garbage and noticed there was some juice in the bottom full of those little chunks of garlic.

I was starving and it looked so good, I thought about tilting the box up. Then I calculated what would happen. You know the Chinese take out boxes I’m talking about? They have those little fold tops. I needed to fold them completely down or else, as that fabulous liquid started toward my wide-open mouth, it would run out between the slits and I’d lose some of it.

I knew this would happen by observing the design and because of past experience. So I moved the top lids down so that my mouth could be very close to the box but it still didn’t make contact. I knew there was a risk that some of the liquid would miss my mouth. So what did I do? I tilted that box up faster that lightning strikes, and all that liquid ran out where the slits were and headed right down the front of my top. Not only did it go inside the low cut top, it went between the cleavage, out the bottom of my bra that doesn’t make total contact right in that one and only spot – women know what I’m talking about – and ran down my stomach nearly to my belly button.

I must say I had no idea liquid could flow that fast or with so much force. From a purely scientific observation, it was quite remarkable. And what are the odds that the liquid would find it’s way right down that cleavage? A little to the left or right and the damage would have been minimal.

As it was, I was drenched all the way down the front of me by what appeared to be no more that a teaspoon or two of benign fluid at the bottom of a small cardboard box.

There are forces in nature we do not understand, but they plot and scheme to work against us so that we will not get the impression that we are intelligent beings in control of our own lives. These forces cause us to get tripped up on feet that are so used to walking some people can do it in their sleep. They make it so we can’t remember our debit card pin that we’ve been using daily for ten years when there is a line behind us as long as the equator. They make food leap off a fork as it travels to our mouth and land in the lap of a silk dress that is Dry Clean Only. The list is infinite, and I’m not the only person who has been dealt the cruel hand of fate. How many times have you heard people say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with this key, it always worked before?” or “Of all the luck…”

The heartbreaking thing about tonight’s Chinese food incident is that (a), I didn’t get to enjoy that glorious nectar, and (2) I knew it was going to happen. I was getting the vibe big time that it was going to spill on me, but I decided to gamble. I thought if I tried, I’d have a 50-50 chance that it wouldn’t spill, or worst case, it would spill but only a little. I knew I was taking a chance, and it crossed my mind to pour the stuff in a cup. Why didn’t I? Because I thought that would be a stupid waste of a clean cup, and it would take a few seconds more and I wasn’t willing to wait.

What have we learned from this?

First, we’ve learned that I’m an idiot.

Second, we’ve learned that if something can go wrong it will, so only an idiot would gamble on getting a lucky break, even just this once.

Third, we’ve learned that we can console ourselves with a Costco cookie and some chocolate pudding, which, combined, turned out to be a nice consolation for the missed green bean juice.

And finally, we’ve learned that being cautious is probably a good way to go, but it’s not nearly as interesting, and living your life in fear of Chinese juice in your cleavage is just living a half life. I say, don’t be afraid to go for it all. Better to have tipped the box and get soaked than drink out of a cup like some smug little sissy girl who wants to act superior all the time. That’s just not me, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Now excuse me while I go take a shower.

Surviving Through Lunacy

I was walking my dog through some wooded trails near my house and got pretty far into the woods when I passed a man. I’d been deep in thought, probably thinking about the cookies I’d made and how good they were and how I wished I had stuck a few in my pocket. I wasn’t thinking about being alone out there with a 9-pound dog that would feel like a mosquito if she chomped down on an attacker.

The guy gave me the creeps. Hair started rising on my arms, and I was getting that prickly feeling on the back of my neck. I nonchalantly quickened my pace while I thought about worse case scenarios. He could at that very second be turning around and following me. He’d keep his pace faster than mine so he’d close the gap between us. It was a cold, cloudy, ugly, miserable day and we were probably the only souls in that million-acre park with nothing but quiet trees to hear my screams.

I was getting frantic. I couldn’t outrun him, or outfight him. My best hope was to do something to make myself unappealing to him, but what? And then I came up with a brilliant plan. I started talking out loud to the dog.

“I can’t believe I got cooties,” I said loudly, as if the dog was deaf. “I itch all over.” I started scratching exaggeratedly all over my head “This is the most stubborn case I’ve ever had. They’re everywhere.”

I started scratching my arms and back. “I sure hope you don’t get the cooties from me. They’re highly contagious. You think fleas are bad, they’re nothing compared to these cooties. They get in your hair and all over your bedding. They’re almost impossible to get rid of.” Then I shouted in exasperation, “Oh I HATE these cooties.”

I got the idea for the cooties because when I’m walking in grassy areas where snakes can be lurking. I talk out loud and kindof stomp my feet.

“Listen here, snakes,” I say. “I’m a big, mean, snake-stomping machine and you had better crawl out of my path unless you want your eyeballs to squirt out of your head like popcorn in a hot frying pan. You better get on down the road and don’t look back or I’ll flatten you and make you into a snakeskin belt. You better take your rattling behind on out of here or I’ll twist it off and give it to a baby for a play pretty. You better…” and so on.

I jabbered about the cooties for about fifteen more minutes, scratching like an orangutan in a silly movie, not daring to look back or slow down. Finally I came up to the road. Only then did I look back and see an absolutely empty path.

“We scared him away,” I told my dog. She looked up at me and said, “I’ve been itching like crazy this whole time. You better NOT have given me the cooties or I will rain down an unholy terror of barfing and diarrhea that will blanket the house an inch deep.”

She may be little, but I don’t doubt that she could do it. I had a lot of explaining to do on the way back to my house.

Yes the neighbors may think I’m crazy, but I’m still alive after that close call today. I might be crazy, but crazy like a fox. No?

Stopping for Signs

Today I was driving to meet my friend so we could walk our dogs and I came up to a 4-way stop. Standing under each of the stop signs was a highway flagger person holding a metal sign with “slow” on one side and “stop” on the other. There was no construction being done as far as the eye could see.

The person facing my side of the traffic had his sign turned to “slow.” The car in front of me pulled forward. When I stopped (because of the Stop sign), he started waving the sign for me to proceed slowly.

I don’t know what the guy’s big hurry was. There were no other cars in the entire intersection, and no construction going on, and even he could figure out I’d stopped out of habit, so why’d he threw a hissy fit?

This job cannot be that difficult.

“Okay, you’re going to hold this sign here at this stop sign, and when the cars get close, you want to wave it in the air like this to make ‘em stop. Then you make ‘em wait a few minutes while you look back and forth like there’s something you need to check, and take a puff or two on your cigarette, and then you slowly turn the sign around and let ‘em go. You got that?”

“Whoa, that’s a lot to remember. You better run that by me again a little slower.”

“Okay, now that I’ve gone over it a second time, you think you can handle it?”

“You say I need to take a puff off my cigarette? But I don’t smoke.”

“Holy Jiminy Christmas.. Where do they get you guys? If you don’t smoke, you should. In the meantime, just pick your nose or scratch your ass or whatever you can think of to stall ‘em.”

“Why can’t I just let them go right away?”

“Now what on God’s green earth would be the point of that? You want to make this job fun, don’t you? Well, it ain’t no fun if you just let ‘em go without teasing them a little. If you hold them off long enough, they’ll start squirming in their seats a little, and then they’ll start slapping their fists against the steering wheel. I get a real kick out of that. It’s pretty entertaining on a long shift in the rain. Otherwise your days are going to seem like they last 60 hours. Is that what you want?”

“Well, I…”

“And another thing. You start letting people through in a hurry and you’re going to make the rest of us look bad. We stick together in this job, and you better get that through you head right now. If that’s not something you think you can handle, then you’d better hang up your sign. You finally got all that?”

“I guess so.”

“You’ve taken me well over five minutes to train you, and now I’m way behind. I hope you learn to pay attention out here or else find yourself another line of work.”

“I just…”

“Don’t give me no lip, boy. Now get a holt of that sign and get out there and start slowin’ down some traffic like I told you.”

When I went back home this morning, I took another route. I didn’t have the time to waste watching the State of Oregon spend 4 times the money needed on construction crews waving signs to tell me to do the obvious. I’m sure Oregon had good intentions this morning, but you know what they say about good intentions? The road to Hell may be paved with them, but the road to the dog park is paved with tax dollars and nincompoops.

Unrewarding Rewards

I don’t know about how they do things in your neck of the woods, but here in the Northwest every store has started trying to get you to sign up for their rewards cards. I guess it’s a smart marketing tool to build customer loyalty, but why do they have to give you all those plastic cards or things to hang off your key chain? I have about six of those things to every key on my key chain, and it takes me a very long time to find the right one at the cash register, and then both I and the cashier have to contort ourselves to get the scanner to read it while piles of people stack up in the line behind me.

Some stores give you immediate discounts. At Safeway you can see your $100 grocery bill whittled down to $96 right before your eyes, which I find very satisfying. But Fred Meyer’s sends you discount coupons in the mail. This is a win-win for them, but a pain in the neck for me. To use the coupons, I have to go back to Fred’s and shcp, so I end up buying impulse items like Pepperidge Farms Mint Milano cookies. Also, chances are good I’ll lose the coupons when they get buried in all those wads of plastic in my purse and expire before I excavate them.

I can’t go into any store at all without being given a sales pitch about why I need to join the store’s rewards program.

“Ma’am, would you like to sign up for our triple star rewards program where you’ll earn triple points today?”

“I’m just here to buy a washer for my faucet.”

“That’s okay, you’ll be able to save 10% off your purchase today and earn points you can redeem later.”

“But I never come in here. And B, how much is 10% off of 39 cents?”

“Well, it may not seem like much, but it really adds up, especially in these hard economic times.”

“Okay, go ahead and sign me up.”

“Oh, good. This will only take a few minutes once the computer comes back up….”

I signed up for Macy’s rewards and get 20% discount cards all the time in the mail. It was pretty exciting until I went to try and use one.

“I’m so sorry, but this discount doesn’t apply to these items,” the clerk said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“It’s right there on the back of the card,” she said.

I looked at the card and saw something that I thought was part of the design – little squiggly lines. “Here, use my glasses,” she said. I put her glasses on and could tell the lines were writing, but couldn’t make out the words. “Here, use this magnifying glass.” With it I could see that there was a very long list of items that did not qualify for the discount – namely every regular priced, sale, or clearance item of every brand name in the store. “Is there anything I can actually purchase to get the discount?” I asked. “Not that I know of,” she said brightly. “Will that be cash or credit?”

I think this whole loyalty thing would work better if everyone wasn’t doing it. I have cards at Albertsons, Safeway, and Fred Meyer. I just go to the store that’s on my way without a thought about their rewards. I’ve signed up for Nordstrom, Macy’s, and American Eagle rewards, among others, but I buy different things in these stores. I don’t buy anything for myself in a couple of them, only stuff for my daughter. Toting these rewards cards around has not increased my loyalty, and it ticks me off that I’m probably paying MORE than I did before because these stores are making all those plastic cards and sending coupons in the mail and I’m footing the bill for it.

I just hoping they get rid of them and lower prices across the board before I have to bump up to a larger purse to accommodate my colossal key chain.

Parade Day

I went to the Rose Festival parade on Saturday. It was great seeing all the people. The parade was entertaining, too.

Even though it’s free to watch the parade on the street, I think they must have some admission criteria.

(1) You must weigh 100 pounds over your ideal weight.

(2) You must sit in a flimsy aluminum lawn chair with legs bowing under the strain

(3) When you struggle to your feet, the lawn chair must remain attached to your bottom until someone pries it off

(4) You must wear a very loud printed top one size too small.

There are more horses in a parade than you see on any farm, many of them with rodeo queens. Quite a few of these ladies met the same criteria as (1) and (2) above, except substitute the word “saddle” for “lawn chair.” The horses of the biggest gals were stopping and snorting and trying to walk backwards. The queens tried to make it appear that they were manipulating the horses on purpose, but I knew these horses were putting up a fight. They were thinking, “There is no freaking way that I’m walking on this hard pavement when my back is bowing so much that my belly is practically scraping the ground. I am backing out of this situation right now.”

These robust queens were nothing compared to the dance teams tromping by. Who on earth picks out those stretchy polyester dance uniforms? Listen up, dance uniform picker outer, If the majority of your dance team is made up of girls in the plus to jumbo size range, there must be some other fabric that will camouflage their insatiable craving for Moon Pies and Big Gulps. Look for some corset-like material that will smooth them out rather than those gaudy things that accentuate their every layer of rolls.

In stark contrast to your American dance team, you have the ones coming from Portland’s sister cities in Korea and Japan. These wisps of girls sport bright, NON-STRETCHY uniforms that make them look toned and healthy. They practically float over the ground along with the colorful flags they wave. You could package a dozen of these girls in one of our dance uniforms and still have less bulges.

The size of these kids used to shock me, but I’ve gotten used to it. I look for other things to shake my head at, and I was not disappointed this time. I witnessed something at this parade that I could not for the life of me figure out. When the horses walk by, there is a cute golf cart decorated with signs like “Pooper Scooper” and “Road Apple Patrol.” One such cart lost sight of its purpose and went IN FRONT of the horses. As luck would have it, a horse decided let loose a thunderous amount of baseball sized steamy green chunks in the middle of the street right in front of us.

The crowd groaned and looked around for the Pooper Scooper, but then we remembered it had already gone by, so we thought another one would be along soon.

In the blink of an eye, a mom to the left of us prodded one of her little boys to run out in the middle of the street and stand by the steaming cluster for a photo op. He didn’t want to, so she offered him $5. He slowly walked out there and stood beside the heap while she trained her camera on him. Then she wanted him to interact with the pile – pretending to step in it, fall in it, be surprised by it, etc. He dutifully complied. His littler brother ran out as well and they pretended to push each other into the pile. Most of the crowd sat with our jaws hanging open at this supreme white trash display, but some, the biggest and brightest dressed ones, encouraged the boys to dance around the turds and really whoop it up.

About that time the Marine Band came around the corner toward us. They were all grim-faced discipline. “Do you think they’ll step in it?” I asked my daughter. “No, surely they’ll move over,” she said. “Don’t call me Shirley,” I snapped.

The marines kept their eyes straight ahead and tromped right through the pile, the cuffs of their pants dragging turds along as they marched. The crowd moaned. I felt my cereal rising up like mercury in a thermometer. Not one marine flinched. There could have been a dead possum lying there and they would have squished right through it.

The rest of the parade was anti-climatic after this. The Boy Scouts came next, and they dodged the pile like it was a nest of rattlesnakes, parting like the Red Sea until they got around it. Same with the rest of the groups. Those turds lingered through the whole parade, taunting everyone who passed. My biggest regret was that I gawked at those two boys rather than whipping my camera out and taking a picture, because who’s going to believe that really happened?

Askar's Addendum

If you read my last two blogs, you might get the impression that I’m a nice person. This is not true. I only did a little for Askar. I could have picked him up in the morning and taken him to school. I also could have given him money, grocery shopped for him, bought him clothes and any number of other things. I really did the minimum; so do NOT be hanging a Mother Teresa sign on me.

I’m not exactly sure how I feel about giving handouts. In contrast to Askar, I know a kid who is working at Blockbuster, a video rental chain losing its links to bankruptcy (get it – losing its “links,” like links in a chain, because it’s a “chain” store). You know a joke isn’t good if you have to put something in parentheses after it.

This kid is down to working about 8 hours a week, and his store is closing in a couple of weeks. Rather than looking for a new minimum wage, no-skill job (which are available because of high turnover), he is getting unemployment. He’s an able-bodied high school graduate who could easily sling hash, pump gas, or collect trash. Instead, with the help of your and my taxes, he can sit home all day and play video games.

I don’t know how the government decides who is deserving of a handout and who isn’t, but I can assure you that this kid is not deserving. At 21, it appears to me that he could be an expensive investment for our tax dollars without any return if this continues throughout his life. Giving him a job makes way more sense than giving him money. Couldn’t that money be put toward temporarily employing him to pick up garbage beside the highway of weeding our national cemetery for a few hours a day?

By now you must be asking, “What is her point, and how come it isn’t funny?” The answer goes back to Askar. I felt guilty not doing more for him, especially when I saw how tired he was, but in the end, if I had done more, would he have accomplished all he did on his own? Would he have had his picture in the yearbook or in the graduation handout or gotten the Mr. Perseverance award? Would the principal talked about him overcoming his struggles on his own and never giving in? She might have been talking about ME, for crying out loud.

There’s an old saying, “God helps those who help themselves.” I believe I was put in Askar’s path and given just enough guilt to offer him the exact amount of help so that he would not lose sight of where he aimed to go.

If I had done more, would he have done less? I’ll never know, but one thing is for sure, I will always feel guilty about not doing more – if you’ve seen “The Blind Side” you’ll know what I’m talking about. Still, I will always feel proud that I did something, and that it turned out right.

About three weekends ago I forgot to pick Askar up after work at 11:30 on a Saturday night. I was home writing my blog and just completely spaced it. I remembered around 1:30 and sent him a text to apologize. He replied that he was on the bus heading home and not to worry about it. I continued to send one apology after another. I felt really bad. He finally replied, “Do not be sorry. You saved my life. I am so thankful for all you do.” Perhaps he was just trying to make me stop texting, but his message soothed my stupidity that night and has helped to ease my guilt at not doing more.

So please do not put a hero sticker on me, because I did just the measliest minimum to help a kid graduate from high school. As it turns out, that was enough, but I’m certainly no saint in so many ways, it’s not even funny.

Speaking of funny, thanks for indulging me while I told a remarkable young man’s story. I was just so proud of him that I got carried away and lost sight of where I aimed to go, which is to give you, oh faithful reader, a little dab of humor every day. I pledge to return to humor on my next blog, and I’ll try really hard to actually be funny.

Askar's Story, Part 2

February nudged March, which gave way to April. “You’re almost there,” I told Askar. “Only a few weeks to go.” “I’m so tired, SuzyAnnde” he said frequently, the weariness like a sad mask on his face.

One day in May he got a backache that wouldn’t go away. He started missing school and work. I would text him, “Are you working today?” “No, am not in school too.” He complained that he was way behind on his work. “You have to take something for the pain,” I said. “I have some pills but don’t want to take them.” The doctor at a clinic downtown told him it was strain and he needed to rest. I worried that he wouldn’t have the money to make his rent, but when I asked he said he was okay.

On my regular tutoring day he was back at school but he could barely sit – he was like a board leaning against the chair – his legs straight out under the table and his back rigid. After school I took him home. “Let’s get you some food before I drop you off,” I said. “Then you can rest your back all evening.”

He wanted to stop at an African restaurant near his house to get take-out. “You should try the food too,” he said. “You will like it.” I wasn’t too sure about that, but it smelled so good when we went in the door that I ordered meals for my husband and I to go. We ended up waiting forever for the food to be done, and sat at a table watching Aljazeera news on TV, which I’d never seen before. It was all subtitled in English, and I found it fascinating. Most of the news was about America and Europe, with some Middle East stories as well. “Can you understand the language they’re talking in?” I asked. The sound was turned down but I assumed it was in Arabic or whatever language they speak over there. Askar laughed. “It’s in English!” he said. “It’s not a Middle East station?” I asked, thinking it was some satellite station from across the world. He thought that was the funniest thing ever and laughed in spite of his pain. “They have Aljazeera in many languages” he said, shaking his head. ”It’s like CNN.” How was I supposed to know?

The food finally came and I tried to pay with my Discover card but they didn’t take it, so I handed over my VISA. It got rejected. “That’s nuts,” I said. “I always have a zero balance.” Then I remembered the new card had come in and I hadn’t bothered to replace the old one yet. I looked at the card and it had expired. “I will pay for it.” Askar said, and handed his credit card to the cashier. “I could write a check,” I protested, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “You do so much for me,” he said, and pushed my hand away as I tried to hand over my debit card. I took the food home and my husband and I had a feast. I felt bad taking his money, but I quickly repaid him by buying a yearbook for him since he couldn’t afford it. There was a big picture of him in one place and other pictures elsewhere. He was very happy.

One night he told me his friends wanted him to meet them downtown at a teen club. I felt odd taking him there. I wondered about liability if anything happened. But he had very little social life, and I thought, “What the heck?” He told me later that someone at the club told that his shirt looked like a gang shirt and he had to take it off. He tried to hide it but later, when he was ready to leave, it wasn’t there. I suspected the person who told him to take it off and just wear his undershirt had his eye on it and thought this gullible kid would be easy prey. “It was my favorite shirt and I had just gotten it a few days before,” he said.

As graduation drew near, I asked if he was going to the all-night grad party. “Too expensive,” he said. “I think they have scholarships, and I know the mom in charge. I’ll give her a call.” When I told her the circumstances, she said, “We can give him a full scholarship.” He neglected to get his paperwork in on time, but they were lenient and he ended up being able to go after several moms helped the process along for him.

At the senior awards, he got to go up on stage and accept an award for being, “Mr. Perseverance.” The principal told the students and parents in the auditorium about his story and how he overcame so many odds to finish his education. He was very proud.

On graduation night, the principal again talked about a couple of the students because her theme was “never give in.” One was Askar. She dragged the story out, and I knew she was trying to make the point that life can be hard, but you can press through the bad times and reach your goals. Askar was a perfect example. “I was so afraid she was going to say my name,” Askar said afterward. “I had my head in my hands I was so embarrassed.” “Everyone is very proud of you,” I said. I didn’t tell him that he was an example to so many of those kids who’ve had everything given to them and still whine about their miserable lives.

After graduation I looked for him for a long time in the sea of square green hats and graduation gowns. Finally we spotted each other. He ran over and gave me a long hug. It was the first time we had touched. I thought it might be against his religion so I avoided contact. He took me to meet his aunt and uncle, and his uncle, who could not speak much English, kept smiling and shaking my hand. “You are very kind,” he said, “you are part of this family.” He was very kind.

Askar’s brother was supposed to bring him a change of clothes but did not arrive on time. Askar got on the grad night bus wearing a long sleeved white dress shirt, suit pants, and wing-tip shoes. I felt sad for him because all the other kids were in jeans and tennis shoes. Luckily I’d packed a swimsuit and towel for him – an old one of my son’s – because they were going to a pool and he’d told me he didn’t have a swimsuit.

The next morning at 6:00 am I picked him up after the all-night party. “You don’t have to come,” he had told me. But I knew he’d be so tired, and the thought of him walking all the way to the bus stop and riding in the morning rush hour traffic for an hour and a half was too much.

While I was waiting to pick him up, I thumbed through the pages of a handout made by Portland Public Schools to give to parents along with the graduation program. They had students from all over the city, and I saw Askar’s picture. It had a long paragraph about everything he’d overcome to graduate, “while working two jobs and living by himself, he still managed to get a 3.78 GPA.” I was flabbergasted! He must have never slept to end up with that high of a GPA. When he got in the car I said, “I didn’t know your grades were so high.” “It was because of you,” he answered. “You gave me extra time to study or I would have had all C’s and D’s.” I don’t think that was true, but it was a nice thing to say.

Why have I written about Askar in a humor column? I guess because I will always think of him when I’m ready to give up. And I hope that anyone reading this will find an opportunity to help a kid. Even a little makes your heart swell, and you’d be surprised how many kids there are out there fending for themselves.

And though you’ve probably not laughed reading this, I hope you at least ended up with a smile.