Talk Amongst Yourselves.

This is my day to post, and my time of the day-to-post in which I post, but I've burnt all that time up playing a trivia game and now my mouse hand is frozen stiff, so I am going to go thaw it out.

Bundle up, it's going to get chilly tonight.

By Popular Demand (Well, One Demand)

Here's a sampling of the photo shoot with the clowns. This photographer kicks ass (in spite of her wiggly models). If you need a good photographer, I can hook you up.

and I did it MY WAY

This year, Thanksgiving my way involved no turkey guts, no pot-luck stuffing with hidden raisin mines (ptew!), no bratty kids that I can't legally strike, and no last-minute gravy whisking in the bottom of the roasting pan.

This year, I hosted dessert night with folks who had been stuffed elsewhere, and were able to come up here, put their tootsies up and unwind with treats and booze.

I highly recommend it.

And the leftovers were more fun.

Final Note: the Ducks have disappointed me once again. Story of my life.

Clearance Sale on Weekend News.

Here are the good parts about Saturday:

• Spent too much money on clothes without (a) stepping inside a mall, (b) buying anything stiff or itchy, or (c) trying on a bra.
• Allowed Dean to introduce me to a new chocolate shop in town. So trendy there is no sign. So small we had to wait outside to fit in and there were only three people in the shop. So good you could literally go blind. 150 proof. Like the Everclear of chocolate.
• Went 30 miles out of my way to get my hair fixed by a genius. A savior of small-haired heads. Thank God for Sherry.
• Took Dean and Jenny out for lunch. They are funny. And fun.
• Walked the dogs without getting wet.
• Created a new mascott for a school based on the successful "Buckeye" notion. I just have to find a school to adopt it. Go Angry Filberts!

Here are the bad parts about Saturday:

• I spent too much money (bad piggy).
• I let a sunny day go by without raking leaves (bad piggy).
• I had to look in the dressing room mirror a lot (piggy piggy).
• The Ducks lost. Crap.

Here are the good parts about Sunday:

• Hung around at a doggy gift shop helping a photographer take Christmas-themed pictures of doggies. It was a Humane Society fund raiser.
• Met two bull dogs, two Shih Tzus, one mini poodle, one Leon De something-or-other, one Irishesque Setter, one mutt, one Cocker Spaniel, and a Jack Russell Terrier.
• Got my dogs' pictures taken (couldn't help it).

Here are the bad parts about Sunday:

• I had to drive out to padonkadonkville twice to go to this doggy boutique, and I had Drew's red-light mojo really bad. (Once to pull the morning shift as photographer's assistant, and once more in the afternoon to bring the dogs out to be models.)
• As usual, the Humane Society panicked and booked twice as many volunteer helpers as required, so we all got to stand around a lot.
• The Seahawks lost. Crap.

How was your weekend?

Enter Text Here: I H8 THINKING

So we were at the big game at fabulous new Qwest Field, which puts you as close to the football field as possible by stacking you on top of the approximately 300 rows below you, which gives you a great view of the field, and, incidentally, the blackberry of the party girl sitting directly (and I mean directly) below you.

Party girls are a subgenus of the species Girlus People Readerus, who I am sure you would recognize if I pointed out one to you: holds down a job, but works in order to afford shoes and happy hour, loves whichever soap opera her friends love, and goes to the mall in packs.

The particular party girl I was virtually standing on would often pick up her blackberry and text away with a someone. I'm sure I would have paid more attention to the messages if (a) I wasn't watching a football game, and (b) I had known the content earlier. When I finally looked closely enough to read, this is what her friend had just sent:

"Just bought a Michael Jackson CD - Man in the Mirror gets me every time."

Discuss.

Are You Worried?

Don't worry about whether we got into the game. Seven more tickets later, we got in.

Worry about whether I survived picking up a 200-pound retired roller derby bruiser when she fell from the (really steep) seats above and behind us onto Drew and nearly caused a domino effect all the way to the field (sort of a wave gone horribly, vertically wrong). Somehow she landed on her back, so I had to grab her around the shoulders and heave her back to a standing position like Dracula coming out of his coffin.

She survived with her beer still firmly in hand.

My shoulder is a little sore, but otherwise I am fine. I fully expected it to happen. I always sit behind the drunkest, foulest-mouthed houligan in the stadium. Who knew this time it would be a 50-year-old woman from St. Louis?

The game was the best kind: close but with a happy ending.

Maurice Morris gets no respect.

Tidbits About the Weekend Adventure in Seattle Will Be Trickling In.

I'll just leave you with this thought: what's it like to be brunching away at McCormick & Schmick's in Seattle-town on November 12, 2006, an hour before the big game, look down at your tickets, purchased with the best intentions by a dear friend some time ago and see this: "October 22, 2006. Seattle Seahawks vs. Minnesota Vikings. 1:00 p.m."?

It didn't turn out as grimly as you might assume. Although I thought our friend might have a stroke when we helpfully pointed it out.

More excitement later.

OMG, The Circle of Life Gets Really Close Sometimes.

I'm making cookies (medicinal). A tiny birdy flies into the big window and flops, stunned, to the patio. A hawk swoops down and grabs the tiny bird, and holds on to it with its scary but businesslike talons until it stops fighting. The hawk flies away with its dinner.

Deadly. And cool. Icy cool.

I Would Rub My Weekend Plans in your Face, but That Would Be Premature.

We have tickets to the Seahawks game on Sunday. The weather for Sunday is expected to be, to use a meteorological term, hideous. Cold rain with cold wind. In a "semi-open" stadium (Great idea, Qwest Field! In Seattle!)

We also have tickets to see some exhibition of dead people with no skin on. More on that later.

Off we go to the Only Place On Earth Wetter Than Here.

More wisdom later.

News You Can Muse

Just wanted you to know that my Comcast home page has an important link to a video regarding a python that ate a "gator" and then, apparently, exploded. Haven't watched it. I think the headline pretty much covers it.

Just wanted to update you on the dangers of eating live alligators.

P.S.: Santorum goes down!

Okay, This Has Been Fun. Now Go To Work.

It's been a fun week here in the TAW. I would have posted earlier, but I usually post on Drew's work shifts (every third day) when I've got the place to myself, but so far, it has been over two weeks, and he hasn't been to work yet.

Drew's vertigo is sticking to him like a smirk on Bush. I would feel more empathy if he at least looked sick. Or barfed once in a while, even if it was just for my benefit.

Unfortunately, it is one of those silent non-killers that just makes him feel like somebody blindfolded him and made him twirl around. It can be mildly entertaining at times, but those times are too far apart to make it worth my while.

Meanwhile, this is one of the things that happened:

We had a bird riot in our back yard yesterday when the rain storm pulled all the leaves off the grape vines, and the little neighborhood birds (don't ask me which kinds - that part of my education has been completely neglected) realized that there were grapes hanging underneath. It was a full-blown grape-pulling-off and hopping-around and snarfing-away orgy for a couple hours, until one doofus (you know the type), after overimbibing in overripe grapes flew directly into the picture window and turned instantly into a dead bird.

This put such a damper on the festivities that the rest of the birds just left with those bogus excuses that you always get when a party starts circling the drain.

Even after we disposed of the corpse, the birds refused to come back and finish the grapes. They had obviously learned their lesson about the dangers of grape eating and flying (unlike we humans), and swore off them for good.

The grapes are still bird free today. Weird.

It has rained two and a half inches today alone, probably the same yesterday and tomorrow. There is flooding here and there, but we live on a hill. No worries. Well, no flooding worries.

More wisdom later.

Scary Pictures

I think these pictures speak for themselves. There is no rehabilitation for this.

There's a Perfectly Good Reason Why This Jack-O-Lantern Is In My Bathroom.

It's the only room in the house without a window, that's why. You know, to provide the proper contrast for the photo. And I needed to update you on my pumpin carving choice without delay. It's all perfectly logical.

Although logic would dictate that I then remove the pirate pumpkin from the bathroom, and I haven't actually done that yet.

I kind of like it there now.

You Need This.

You need a picture of Annie in her new butterfly Halloween costume, don't you? Just to get you through the day. I dig you.
I haven't convinced Scotty to model his "Lil Devil" costume yet. He will need more convincing. But when he does, you will be needing that, too, I'm pretty sure.

In Case You Were Worried

You'll be happy to know that I got Drew out of his sick bed today and drove him to the nearest gas station to fill my tank.

A good call, because my gas tank was dry. Too dry to make it to Oregon. I would have been one of those losers on the side of the 5, hoofing it to the nearest gas station. Of course, filling my tank would be less scary after a fiasco like that. Or more scary.

Hard to say.

Anyway, you can continue with your regularly scheduled anxieties in progress.

Drew will not be accompanying you on the Tilt-A-Whirl today.

Drew has come down with a rather serious and inconvenient inner ear disturbance that has left him flat on his back with his eyes screwed shut.

He started barfing in earnest yesterday evening while at work. More specifically, at a car fire.

I got to drive him, dizzy, nauseous, barfy, and moaning, (he was moaning, not me), to the ER. He was so dizzy he couldn't walk straight, so I got to push him around in a wheelchair, while trying not to make it, you know, move, because motion made him vomit.

In the ER, he got a 12-lead, an IV, valium, and anti-nausea pills. A whole bag of IV fluid. Drip, drip, drip. I read a six-month-old copy of Glamour. If you could see me, you would know how much I might thoroughly enjoy reading something entitled "Glamour." But now I know how to keep my nails looking nice longer between manicures. There was a TV in the room, but it was behind me, and showing some true-crime show about how bad it is to kill somebody.

This morning I used my last eyedropper full of gas to fill Drew's new prescriptions for Valium and two anti-nausea pills. One of the anti-nausea pills is some high-powered super-pill they give to chemo patients that cost $295.00 to the uninsured. $295.00! Good God! What do the uninsured do?

It's frightening. Gosh, wouldn't have fixing the national health care insurance crisis have been a super way to spend hundreds of billions of dollars, instead of invading a country with a lame-ass dictator with no credible ties to terrorism and no WMDs?

Ah, well. Live and learn. Or invade and learn. Or invade and dissemble. Whatevs.

Now I have no gas and my gas putter-inner is out of commission. This is serious because my gas-putting-in-phobia is worse than my telephone-o-phobia.

If I'm in luck, I have enough to get to the border so that I can get it filled by professionals in Oregon (thank you, Oregon, and your archaic gas-filling-by-professionals-only laws!).

More phobias later.

Elephants Are People Too.

We are producing psycho elephants.

Just thought you would want to know. You might have to sign in or create an account to read this but it won't hurt and it will be free.

In Which I Visit My Good Friend, Craig Ferguson

While we were in LA recently, we popped in on a buddy of mine, Craig Ferguson. You know Craig, he's got that cute, silly-but-thinky late night show on CBS.

Craig and I, we're like this (finger thing). Whenever I'm in town, I stop by his show. I've got a VIP card I could show you if you think I'm fibbing.

Of course, just to keep it real, we line up with all the other audience members on the benches outside the CBS "Television City" studios, and you know, go through the metal detector and everything. They wave me through even though I set it off like I'm smuggling Emmys under my blouse.

Then the littlest producer comes out and begs us to pretend that we are actually several more people because they are shy a few audience members tonight. He says that his job is on the line, and we are the only ones who can keep him from ending up as an extra on The Price Is Right.

Did I tell you that for several blocks around the CBS studios, tourists walk around with their The Price Is Right name tags on their shirts? They don't take them off after the show. They just keep them on like suburban middle schoolers with ski lift tickets hanging from their coats. I find it endearing.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Saving Craig Ferguson's littlest producer from failure.

After we assure him that we will take up the slack, the audience warmer-upper, a fellow by the name of, oh, I forget. Something about Pudgy. Or Tubby. Let's call him Derwent.

So Derwent comes out and tells us some rather elderly jokes, but he seems like a nice enough fellow, and we don't want to make him feel bad, so we laugh heartily. When Derwent is satisfied that we indeed have the mechanics of laughter down pat, we allow ourselves to be herded into the studio. This is where I always baaa quietly to myself. This is also where another producer eyes each audience unit and seats them according to beauty. That's why we were in the third row. Hmmmm.... They probably just figured that in the front row, we would be too distracting.

Derwent comes back to remind us to be loud and laugh heartily. We agree.

Guests that night were: Tim Daly, hoping we would watch his show The Nine. Not likely. David Cross, hoping we would watch his Comedy Central show Freakshow. More likely. And Billy Bragg, who sung a song about stupid people with smart bombs. My kind of rabble rouser.

Craig Ferguson was as funny and Scottish as always, bless his heart. We waved. He nodded. In our general direction. Wouldn't want to be too ostentatious. Lovely. Quite lovely.

We filed out with the riff-raff. I baaaed once more. I was given a VIP card. I plan on having it laminated.

We ended the evening by walking around a Disneyesque shopping center nearby that had its own trolley even though it was no bigger than four square blocks, speakers in the bushes playing Sinatra, and male models posing at the entrance to Abercrombie and Fitch. Apparently abdominal muscles attract shoppers like chocolate attracts, well, fatter shoppers.

Wretched excess makes me wretch. We booked it for the track in South Central, where we felt more at home.

We'll be back, Craig Ferguson! As soon as we can figure out how to do it without having to drive through LA.

I Know I Said No More Boosterism, But Isn't This Pretty?

If I had something more entertaining to say, I would say that instead, but I have tried to stay as quiet as possible today and not move, so that the cold will think I am dead and move on to a new host. Coco the cat has assisted me in this by holding me down.

I fell asleep during the game once, but Dean helpfully called and woke me up so that I could watch the Ducks finish off the Bruins.

Not sorry I missed last week's game against Cal. Heard it was ugly.

No more ugly. More happy! Jump and bump against a yellow O, rampant in a field of green!

Now back to playing dead. The cat is beginning to meow.

Happy Friday the 13th, Scaredy-Cats

I'm not scared. I live with a black cat and she's cross all the time.

Then again, maybe I could have been really lucky if it hadn't been for her.

Damn you, cat!

No wonder I haven't won the lottery!