So it’s Saturday morning and Kes comes in and drags me out of bed to go do a little shopping with her.

“OK”, I says, “Let’s go.”

So I hop up and while she gets dressed I am in a little quandary since I can’t find anything to wear that fits. You see, I’ve lost weight. A good deal of it, as a matter of fact. So have Kessa and Keelan. We’ve all been on the diet train.

I put on a sleeveless white blouse and walked into the living room and stepped into the stairwell.

“Kessa!”

“What?”

“Come look at this and tell me what you think.”

“In a minute! I’m getting dressed.”

So Keelan has wandered in and looks at me and says, “Why? What’s the matter with it?”

I extended my arms and asked if the hanging armholes looked ridiculous.She shrugs halfheartedly as her sister enters the room and Keelan says,  “What are you going to be doing that would require you to put your arms out like that?”

I immediately reply that there may or may not be an occasion during our shopping trip where the need to do The Funky Chicken occurs.

Kes’s head snapped around like a homing device and her eyes zeroed in on me.

“Mom, let me make this perfectly clear… We will NOT be doing The Funky Chicken at ANY TIME TODAY.”

At some point in the day, on the way to the car, I had a pair of reading glasses perched on top of my head, (I mean how else am I going to read price tags?), and I was taking a pair of sunglasses out of my purse to apply to my eyeballs, having completely forgotten the reading glasses up there.

Kessa pipes up, “Mom, you’ve got too many pairs of glasses on at one time… one’s the limit.

I told her that I always wear two pairs when I’m going to do The Funky Chicken and she came to a complete stop in the parking lot.

“Mom! There WILL BE NO FUNKY CHICKEN, TODAY!”

I think this leaves the chance open for another day and if I keep my mouth shut and don’t remind her that it’s even a possibility… Well, I could very well be seen doing The Funky Chicken in the parking lot of Target near you. Or maybe even far away. The priceless thing won’t be me doing it, but the look on the young lady’s face with me.

Probably go grocery shopping.

Run errands.

Complain about the girls while knowing we would be lonely without them.

Play with the dogs.

Watch a movie.

Water the lawn.

And in the end, we will communicate a lot somewhere in there.

And we will GET each other.

This? Is why I look forward to my days spent with him.

Every single time I comment on another person’s post, it gives “Enter Godzilla” as my latest post. It is stuck there.

What does Comment Luv have against Mardi Gras, people? Why can’t it want people to be able to see that I have a newer post about me dancing with John and getting hit on by Elvis at Mardi Gras?

Does Comment Luv hate me?

Is it not a fan of Elvis?

COULD THERE BE COMMUNISM INVOLVED!?

If you have the answer to these, (or any other questions I might have in the future), PLEASE TELL ME!

I luv love you guys.

Do not despair. (Cause like, I know you totally are.)

What is THIS?

It’s MINE! That’s what! This is my new crush. He lives in my utility room and deals with all my “dirty laundry”.

Er, no. Actually he deals with my DIRTY LAUNDRY.

Whatev.

Anyway, he is beautiful and shiny, (I will always gravitate towards the shiny.), and he sings to me and gives me chocolate.

With almonds.

I have to admit that it was kind of distressing as well. There he sat, looking so damn sexy and beside him?

It’s like a bucket of cold water thrown over my heated up bod. No. This will never do.

NOT TO MENTION, the damn thing sounds like the clubbing death of 5 or maybe 6 baby seals. You have no idea how badly this beast squeals and shrieks. Even with the door shut to the utility room it is impossible to relax when the dryer was running. I KNOW the neighbors have considered calling the SPCA on us since we are obviously torturing the dogs.

Then, day before yesterday, Sunday, February 20th 2011, my dear friend Lisa’s husband, Roger, delivered me from the bowels of hell. OK, actually he delivered my new dryer, but you get the gist here.

Behold.

Roger, if Lisa ever leaves you, I will do your laundry. Love ya, man.

Here’s a rundown of the current goings on:

It’s night time and the meatloaf is in the oven, potatoes are about to boil, and get mashed. Thinking about peas with some honey on them, the way Mither likes them.

I am wearing pink and white  stripped with green frogs flannel PJ’s and have only just recently changed out of the nightgown I wore to bed last night.

I am now taking a good hard mental look at my wardrobe, doing a little self-judging and deep speculation about my…. laid-back attitude.

OK- Done. Yes, I am definitely just laid-back. Not the least bit lazy or slatternly.

Remember- the speculation was “deep”.

The current ear worm is Billy Joel Keeping the Faith. While it could be much worse, it has been the same damn thing for DAYS.

I am now passing it on to you.

You’re welcome.

It is supposed to freeze hard tonight. Really cold and all that shit. I am in south Texas people. We don’t know what cold is down here! My poor parents are getting a good thick layer of snow on top of the thick sheet of ice that was dumped yesterday. Heh! North Texas.

Poor Ree, up in Chicago, is buried in snow by this time. I emailed her this evening and she wrote back saying that she was stuck in a meeting on the 35th floor and it was a white out outside. Hope she made it home. Put it this way: Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel fame was on his way to Chicago this morning. You know if he’s coming to your city it’s time to leave.

So when it comes down to me talking about the weather? It’s time to call it a day, admit defeat and close down HACK. I wish John would get home… I’m hungry and want to eat.

Stay warm, people!

I am going back on Friday and taking EXTRA slave labor with me. Connie, has foolishly sweetly made her services available and I may be a tiny bit slow in some areas, (mathematically), but I know when to take advantage of a unwitting victim.

She offered to help. I screamed yes and got someone to notarize a statement of agreement right there on the spot.

(Having a notary on retainer is one extremely useful tip when attempting to take advantage of good friends.)

So there’s no backing out now and we are off to die in the evil clutches of a maniacal kitchen makeover mad woman.

A.K.A. Mither.

I have before pictures of Mither’s kitchen to share, but am going to wait until we are through and I can do side by side comparisons. In the mean time, I have other pictures of questionable quality to regale you with.

Craig Ferguson attempting to break my lamp with his telekinetic powers .

Ok, I was bored and it was late as evidenced by the shot of my TV with the Late, late night talk show on it. My point? Yes, I’m getting there! You people are pushy today…

That lamp in the picture, (the giant floating sphere beside Craig’s head), is not on his desk. It’s in my living room. Confused yet?

It’s a reflection and anytime I am sitting in my favorite chair and one of the kids is reading or doing homework on the couch with the lamp on, that’s what it looks like to me.  It’s annoying and I keep considering writing in to his show to complain… I just can’t think how I’d state my complaint…

Target and Starbucks makes for a perfect day.

Next up here we have proof positive that Starbucks really DOES love me. Nothing rolls better than a Target shopping cart and the only thing that can top that is one with the nifty little cup holders you can borrow from the in-store Starbucks to clip on the sides and hold your coffee away from your purses. Kessa and I are all over this whole phenomenon.

HUUUUUGE banana spider living on Mither's front porch.

He’s busy munching on a grasshopper one of the grandkids tossed into his web. He was really cool to watch and I wonder if he’s still there. I’ll let you know on Friday when we go.

Mither and Pop's fish pond

Rather self-explanatory, don’t you think?

The tank

The tank at Mith and Pop’s is BADLY in need of a good rainfall. It’s getting all scummy.

Bathroom lav

Scorpion I found in the bathroom lavatory and smushed with a jar of petroleum jelly I was removing my eye makeup with.

On the wall in my room

This guy was on the wall inside the door of my room, about two feet down from the light switch. This was caught right before I murdered it with my flip flop.

Oops. Did I say “caught”? No, darling. Not in your wildest dreams. Taken, I meant TAKEN. As in the photo was taken.

Advertisement for pest control company

I received this in the mail the other day and was a tad… disturbed. I mean, obviously the gigantic roach has been photoshopped onto the child’s forehead. Still… How very disgusting and horrid that anyone, yes, even in this economy, would swing so low with the scare tactics.

I had to snicker though… “Please share this with mothers only”. No father anywhere could possibly react properly, I guess.

Just to see what happened I left it on the wet bar, a.k.a. catch all area where everyone dumps their purses and leaves and picks up notes to others, etc. These people won’t throw away my mail so I knew it would stay. For days and days I kept turning it photo side up and the next time I saw it, it was turned over, face down. Finally Keelan snatched it up and demanded, “What the heck is up with this!? It’s gross, it creeps me out, and I want to throw it away!”

I started laughing and so she just did.

Sooooo... what is it?

This is a test. Look closely at the photo above. NO! Never mind! That’s exactly what I don’t want you to do! How ’bout just glance at it and try to imagine doing it WITHOUT MY YOUR GLASSES.

OK, what is it? What do you do with it? THIS IS NOT A TRICK QUESTION.  (ok, maybe a little.)

Now, I will put on my glasses and show you what it REALLY says.

What the????

Do you see the teeny tiny little “with”, before the words Fabric Softener? Do you also see that NO WHERE on the front of the bottle does it say DETERGENT?  OK, that’s not true. It actually does say it in equally teeny tiny words over on the right, but my gawd! It shouldn’t be that hard to figure out what the heck you’re using when you start pouring laundry ingredients and mixed drinks!

I thought I’d never get all the soap out of the fabric softener dispenser.

I really need to just get some contact lens.

OH! Don’t forget to drop in on this post and enter my contest where you could win fabulous cash and prizes!

Whatever. It’s some good shit.

Till next time! Don’t let a perfectly good HalfAssticalism go by with out documenting it!

It were spooky, ya’ll.

Guess what? They all came back to life! I wandered out into my front yard to try to find the newspaper in the jungle of grass that needs mowing and apparently the top of my head was still visible. My next door neighbor with the immaculate yard called out to me so I took my machete and made my way over to the property line.

He asked me if my air conditioner compressor was running.

I stared blankly at him for a second wondering why there didn’t even seem to be any mosquitoes in his yard and then snapped to. “OH! Yeah, well my A/C has been running all day, just blowing away hard as it can and there is no cool air coming out.”

He then said, “And your dryer? It’s not heating either, is it?”

At this particular point I’m thinking he’s spying on me and the house is rigged with cameras and hidden microphones. While struggling to remember if I had been wearing clothing all day and what other embarrassing stuff I could have done, I stood there and listened to him explain that “A leg of our transformer has blown.”Everything in both our houses that runs on a 220 circuit won’t work.

Well, this is news to me. I do know that anytime that particular transformer blows my house along with the meticulous yard folks and the neighbors located in the two houses directly behind me all lose power. ALL power. So I just go ahead and believe what he’s saying and slip in little tidbits about how my good underwear is dirty but I DO have some. You know, just in case the theory about the hidden cameras and microphones turns out to be true.

After talking to him for several minutes I ascertain that he has called the power company already and they will be showing up shortly.  He mentions that the Homeowners Association would not only be grateful to me for mowing the yard, but appreciative for my efforts in donning a bra before wandering outside.

Yeah, yeah, yeah… I’ll get right on that.

I went back inside my abode and turned on the oven. The digital clock was lit up, but no heat from the cooking deals inside. (Yes, I know they’re called elements!)

It truly is a 220 problem.

Anyway, around midnight and with the house steaming hot from having no A/C all day, the electric crew got my power up and running.

They had to completely shut off the power in order to work on the transformer. Apparently the little sissies don’t want to risk any kinds of nasty little jolts to their precious little bodies. So we not only have no A/C, but no fans either, not to mention lights.

I ran a cool bath and climbed in with a flashlight and my nook. I was sitting there in the spa tub, finally cooling off and guess what I heard immediately to my right, on the outside of the large picture window that overlooks the tub? Men. Talking about the work they are doing. Muttering things about how they wish we had mowed and the mosquitoes are a bitch.

I am sitting NAKED not two feet away from this guy! It was freaky! I have a filmy thing hanging there, in front of the glass that I KNOW you can’t see through, but I know they can see the light from my flashlight.

So, eventually they wander off I kill the light and get out, wake John up and tell him there are men outside the bath window and he mumbles something about “Tell them to mow…”, and goes back to sleep.

Funny thing is that when I was reading my comments a reader named Carla, (a former lurker), figured out what it was just by reading my previous post. She hit the nail on the head!

OR, DOES SHE HAVE CAMERAS AND MICROPHONES HIDDEN IN MY HOUSE?

Doctor, he is not.

Anyway, the warnings and red signs and whatnot you were seeing should not be there anymore. I restarted and did all the voo-doo and stuff and didn’t get anything.

We be disease free, and I’m proud to claim it! At least I think so…

Anyway, readership has been falling off and I feel like that has been due to the fact that the STD warning pops up when you hit on my site… Maybe I’m wrong, and you are just so damn faithful you risked plague and commented anyway.

But then again maybe you need your will revised and didn’t want to risk it…

Revisited to add that the change in masthead is supposed to be temporary.