Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Happy Friday!  Here is, once again, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down! Read on!

Aries (The Ram):   This week you will let loose your inner dragon.  Shame you cancelled collision coverage on that car…  Your high-risk disease this week:  Candidatus Neoehrlichia Mikurensis.

Taurus (The Bull):    This coming Tuesday, you will encounter an old gypsy, who will tell you your fortune.  She will be correct in every detail.  I’m so very sorry.

Gemini (The Twins):   Your week will be consumed with cooking many things and eating almost none of them – shame about all the medication you’re on suppressing your appetite.  You’ll get yours, though – just wait.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Cadang-cadang.

Cancer (The Crab):   You will journey this week, to the center of all things.  Mostly you will find the center of all things includes a 7-11 with Slurpee’s you can’t afford, an 84 Mustang convertible, and more sand than you can possibly count.

Leo (The Lion):  On Monday your mind will be excited, your spirit will be elated, your ego will be inflated, and your access will be deleted.  It’s going to be one of those weeks.  Buy yourself a Guy Fawkes mask, you’re going to need it.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Mycoplasma Infection.

Virgo (The Virgin):    Your heart rate will climb!  This week will see much gushing and great excitement in your house!  Too bad it’s about the plumbing. 

Libra (The Scale):   On Sunday, they will say you are going, and that they’ll miss your bright eyes and sweet smile.  On Monday, bail outta there and take the sunshine with you.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Ross River Virus.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):    You have been tested, tried, troubled, and travailed.  This week, an all too brief respite.  Gather your strength.

Sagittarius (The Archer):  You are back, baby, and with a vengeance.  You’re going to impress them all, even if you know you’re faking it.  By Wednesday, you’ll even believe your own hype.  It’ll be totally awesome, just like the song says.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Golden Cyst Nematodes.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):    They’re going to find you one of these days.  You can’t hide forever. 

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   You will consider a new career this week.  Getting into the iron and steel business might seem like a good idea, but you’ll never get away with it.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Q Fever.

Pisces (The Fish):    It’s a good week to relax.  Nothing bad will happen this week.  Mostly.  Except the bit about the blood, but don’t worry about that.  It’s probably not human blood.  Well, most of it.  Anyway, it’ll be fine.  No need to call the police.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

I used to enjoy playing Doctor when I was younger.  As a parent, playing doctor takes on a whole new meaning, and usually involves more blood than I remember from my youth.  This past weekend, though, I had a new experience – I got to play Dentist.

Now, the Reigning Queen of Pink has her share of medical issues, by which I mean that her file is larger than mine and she’s had tests and surgeries and whatnot that I’d never heard of, and among these many and varied conditions she happens to be missing a few teeth here and there, by which I mean most of them.  In an effort to correct this, over the course of many years and thousands of dollars, she currently has braces on her top teeth, with springs to move them around her head like tiny masticating bumper cars. 

Or she did, until Sunday when one of the damn things came loose, teeth I mean, and fell out.  The Reigning Queen of Pink reports for the record that having a tooth that is no longer connected to your mouth, yet still anchored in place by your braces, is not comfortable.  And by “not comfortable,” she meant, “please call the emergency orthodontist number Right NOW.”   Calling the 17 numbers needed to get to a human on a weekend, I was finally offered this sage advice:  “Well, can you cut the wire?”

Wut?  I’m sorry, first, don’t you have to go to school for something like 6 years for that?  And second, didn’t we just pay for that wire?  I thought they were expensive or something.   Nevertheless, there I was sterilizing my massive boltcutters and needle-nosed pliers and laying her under the big lights, Open Up and Say Ah.

The wire on the far side was straightforward, if hard to see.  The second cut was to the wire on the front side, easier to see but with a big spring coiled up on it.  I clipped the wire not knowing how much tension was on the spring.  I was NOT prepared for the wire – tooth and all – to bounce off up at me and go flying across the room; with the bloody stump of the tooth and the wire and spring attached, it looked like something out of Steven King’s The Dentist. 

The Tooth Fairy agreed that since she only has 12 teeth in her whole head, they ought to be pro-rated, and that having the Flying Loose Tooth Of Doom was a lot to deal with, and so they settled on a new bathing suit.  

So today when I called home to see what the actual orthodontist said or did, they were still out with the followup Tooth Fairy visit (which bodes well for how it went), and I got to speak to the 13-yr-old Human Tape Recorder.  She let me know that SOBUMD and the RQoP were still out, and then announced:  “I was listening to AC/DC in 5th period today!”

BUMD:  What?  Why were they playing AC/DC in school?
HTR:  No, just on my headphones.
BUMD:  You found the 5th period lecture to be, perhaps, less than scintillating?
HTR:  No, we had speech arts, and we didn’t have a studio, and so I had nothing better to do.
BUMD:  I doubt that, but we’ll let that slide.  Do I want to know which song?
HTR:  Oh, it was great!  I put it on a random selection from a random album, and it was called “Big Balls!”  I was rolling on the floor laughing, and I wondered if anyone else could hear it…  It goes like this…
BUMD:  No, no, thank you, I remember *very well* how it goes, thank you.  I’ll talk to you when I get home…

We hung up, with her still humming snatches of Big Balls, some of which are held for charity, and some for fancy dress, as I’m sure you, too, Gentle Reader, remember all too well.  AC/DC, still corrupting the youth of America 36 years later.   She’ll be humming that for weeks.  Rock on! 
 

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Happy Friday!  Here is, once again, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down! Read on!

Aries (The Ram):   By Wednesday, the noise from your computer will drive you to such distraction that you will totally flip and turn it off with your 9mm.  The good news:  HR will decide not to fire you.  The bad news:  your entire office will call you Elvis as long as you work there.

Taurus (The Bull):    You’ll have your hair done up right and you’ll look your best, but you’re still going to look like an idiot standing there with 63 eggplants and a beet in the checkout line.  When the cashier asks you what the heck you’re doing, tell her it’s a math problem.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Angiostrongylus Cantonensis.

Gemini (The Twins):  On Tuesday, you’ll get a chance to pulverize your enemy, your worst nightmare.  Too bad that your enemy is a kidney stone the size of a VW bug.    

Cancer (The Crab):   You will be taking over for your parents sooner than you think.  Remember the song about the palindrome?  It won’t be nearly as funny then, will it Bob?  Your high-risk disease this week:  Psittacosis.

Leo (The Lion):  Your week will be filled with magic, wonder, and a vague sense of longing and despair.

Virgo (The Virgin):    You are a wonderful, generous person and your friends are about to completely take advantage of that, probably in mid- to late June.   You can teach anyone anything, but this week an old dog will test your new tricks.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Newcastle Disease.

Libra (The Scale):   You will need to start a charcoal fire later this week, but you can’t start a fire without a spark.  You will need a match, but you’re matchless.  Serves you right.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):    This week you will be tested to within an inch of your life.  You can pray to Sol, the sun god, for illumination, but you will only dream of breaking tip after tip off your number two pencil.  Lead, lead, they’re spelled the same.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Vibrio Fluvailis.

Sagittarius (The Archer):   Some people have to run away to Canada.  What will you do if you’re already there?  This week, find out.  When in doubt, let it ride.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):    You are the entertainer in your house, but your piano will crap out this week, and your voice with it.  Tickle the ivories with your coattails, it’s to no avail.   Your high-risk disease this week:  Roundworm.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   You’ve heard people say that you have a photographer’s eye, and you know it’s true.  He’s coming back this week, though, and if you don’t turn yourself in, the riot squad will finish this, you sick fuck.

Pisces (The Fish):    The stars say that you’ll take a few days off this week.  Your boss says you’ll probably answer most of your email, and your officemates have a pool betting that you can’t go more than 3 hours without responding to your mail.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Infectious Salmon Anemia.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

I’ve put 500 miles on the Blackfish this week, just going to meetings. That’ll happen when your meeting on Wednesday morning is just south of Richmond and your meeting Thursday morning is just south of Delaware. Wednesday morning I woke at 0430 and drove to Ft. Lee, VA, meeting the cohort at the predetermined rendezvous point at the appointed time with military precision. It’s the same cohort I usually travel with to Huntsville, and so by meeting at the appointed time with military precision, I mean they were half an hour late. By the predetermined rendezvous point, I mean, of course, Waffle House. There is something greasily satisfying about Waffle House that makes it the perfect road food.

Ft. Lee is just down the way from the Petersburg National Battlefield, where Gen. Ulysses S. Grant cut off Petersburg’s supply lines, leading to the fall of Richmond and Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender shortly thereafter. Since the Civil War has come up in about a dozen conversations in the past few months, and I was done studying earned value management and zombies, I decided early this week that I’d finally pick up The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara’s famous book about the battle of Gettysburg. It had been on my to-read shelf for more than 10 years, but I always assumed it was a somewhat dry rendition of the facts of the battle, and found something else to do.

If you haven’t read it, it’s NOT a dry recitation of facts and history. It’s a well told, well crafted story with engaging, tragic, larger than life characters and fascinating dialogues and internal monologues. Within the first 15 pages, I was hooked, and I asked SOBUMD with her amazing library-foo to see if it was an audiobook somewhere. She brought it home the next day, and I’ve been listening to it for 5 hours to and from Ft. Lee and now today 4 hours to and from Aberdeen, MD. It’s a great story – I can’t wait to see how it ends, so if you’ve read it already, don’t tell me!

This morning I awoke again at 0430 and drove, this time, to Aberdeen, MD, arriving in time to find, no, yes, wait for it – a Waffle House. I can’t get enough of their greasy lovely food, nor into my older pants. Aberdeen is prettier than I expected, and the meetings there went well.

I took I-95 to Aberdeen, but I took the smaller Rt 40 most of the way back, at least into Baltimore. The interstates are fine for getting places quickly, but that’s about the only thing they really have going for them. On the slower, older, blue highways, as William Least Heat-Moon calls them, you can see the older America. It has stoplights. Some of them are at the intersection of the Past and the Future, where a simple car repair shop has a distinct carport right next to the highway and suspiciously Greco-Roman architecture, and you realize that this was once a filling station for highway traffic, 60 years ago, before the interstate came through and left this piece of road as a Left Turn to Nowhere.

The interstate, were you to open your windows while driving it, which is not always a great thing to do at 80 miles an hour, smells of diesel fuel and stress. The 20 miles of Rt. 40 I drove this afternoon smelled predominately of honeysuckle, and I left my windows down for all of it.

On the older roads, too, you can sometimes find those places where men of industry have started businesses next to icons, the features of the landscape that stick in the imagination, natural mnemonics that ensure you’ll remember their restaurant or gas station because it’s next to the Biggest Rock In Town or something. Mind you, once you’ve made that Left Turn to Nowhere, sometimes the true entrepreneur needs to create their own mnemonic, their own unforgettable icon to ensure you come back and tell your friends.

Chicken On The Roof

To wit, the Chicken On The Roof Grill. Don’t have a handy natural outcropping or memorable piece of landscape? Put a 20-foot plastic chicken on your roof and name your shop after that!

I didn’t stop. It was on the other side of the road (why did the Chicken On The Roof Grill cross the road?), and I wasn’t hungry. A spot of internet searching reveals that most reviews are along the lines of “take the Beltway, the food sucks,” so perhaps it was for the best.

Arriving home, I found I was in time to pick up the younger of the three lunatic children from school, and so fitting plan to deed I did that. This is always interesting, since right after school is about the only time they’ll both talk about their day. (I think they clear cache after about 10 minutes.) It turned out, on questioning, that the Reigning Queen of Pink had a bad day. This involved food that she’s not allowed to eat being substituted with other food she’s not allowed to eat, plus boys yelling at her. Number One Son asked, “Why were they yelling?”

BUMD: “They’re probably yelling because they’re 3rd grade boys, and 3rd grade boys are stupid.”
Reigning Queen of Pink: “All boys are stupid, and you [Number One Son], meaning no offense, are no exception. No offense, you understand, but you’re one of them.”
Number One Son: “How could I be offended at a true fact?”

These are the future leaders of our country.

Speaking of the future leaders of our country, because driving 500 miles in the last 36 hours wasn’t enough, I then this evening went downtown to Pentagon City Mall for a dinner meeting with a group from my company. The dinner was excellent, but of course the best part was before going in, I took the opportunity to circumnavigate the mall and notice the people, the sounds and the sights and scents and the sense of the place.

I almost wished I hadn’t. There, then, below me, were the quivering masses of humanity, walking and falling and running around in Spring Field Trip Season. Every other person was wearing a school logo or name tee-shirt, I suspect to help identify them to the leaders. It looked like there had been a mass breakout from the Sing Sing or Rikers Island Juvenile Detention Center, and all the escaped juvies had decided to go to the mall, yo. One group stood out in “Class of ” shirts, and instead of the year, they listed the names of everyone in the graduating class – the whole class. (You can do that in a small town. My graduating class would have needed the front and back of Hagrid’s dress robes to fit us all.) Those were the shirts; the young boys were otherwise in their best brown baggies and sporting their Bieber cuts.

The food court at a large mall may be 80 percent of what’s wrong with this country. Starting with the lack of Scotch dispensers. Smoke from the indoor BBQ joint clouded the upper levels, the sweet smell of charcoal, grease, and co-pays pungent in the air. I saw a fat man pay a thin man for a massage, in an open-air massage parlor – very likely the only physical human contact he gets all day.

There are no happy endings here.

Under the roar of it all, the songs of birds, struggling to hear each other inside this glassed-in urban forest they’ve adopted as home. Darwin would be proud; in 10 short years, these sparrows have evolved into flying mall rats, perfectly suited to life under the glass bubble. I noticed that they seem to instinctively flock toward younger children – genetic selection and experience has taught them that a 3-yr-old is more likely to drop the pretzel than an 8-yr-old. Mind you, the kids probably drop the pretzel out of surprise at seeing a bird in the mall. It makes you wonder if the pretzel shop lets the birds in, to drum up business by getting overstressed parents to buy new twisted baked goods to calm irate prepubescent consumers. No happy endings.

Like the like the open-air masseuse, like the Chicken On The Roof, like Longstreet and Lee at Gettysburg, there are no happy endings here. All I can tell you is that if you’re going to put 500 miles on your car in one week, make them good miles. Look out the window. Roll it down if you can. Skip the Interstate, skip the mall. Turn left next to nowhere, and explore the small spaces. You might find something neat, you might wonder how it got there, and you might wonder how the hell you’re going to find your way back to the road, but you’ll be glad you did. Tell ‘em the Big Ugly Man Doll sent you.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Since the current Google Doodle has ensured that no one who logs on today will forget to call their mother, it is only meet and proper that I step out and wish a happy day for all mothers everywhere, with of course special shout outs to my mother, MOBUMD, my lovely and wonderful SOBUMD, and of course to the Queen Mother of Pink – as well as all the other mothers in my life.  You know what I mean, and you know who you are.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Happy Friday!  Here is, once again, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down! Read on!

Aries (The Ram):   This is a good week to wear your wolf suit and make mischief of one kind and another.  Sure, you may be eaten up or sent to bed without eating anything, but there’s probably a private boat in it for you.   Your high-risk disease this week:  Maize Redness.

Taurus (The Bull):   Monday doesn’t look like a good day for you.  You will find yourself in a dark place.  It will be very dark.  You will not be able to find a light.  You are likely to be eaten by a grue. 

Gemini (The Twins):    This week you will sail through night and day, in and out of weeks, and almost over a year.  If you cannot remember the magic trick of staring into peoples eyes without blinking once, you could be consumed by the wild things during the rumpus.  If you can remember, you could be made king, or queen – your choice.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Tubulointerstitial Nephritis.

Cancer (The Crab):   This week you will complete your little “weather control” machine, won’t you, Mr. Cleverdick Inventor?  That’ll be great, just great, when you realize you’ve got it stuck on “more rain” and you can’t switch it off for the torrential downpour.  You’ve doomed us all, you fool!  Oh, and your lucky number is 3.  But you’re still a knob.

Leo (The Lion):  Is it really better to be a live jackal than a dead lion?  Wednesday, you’re going to find out.  Good luck with that.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Pertussis.

Virgo (The Virgin):   Four words:  Dictionary, Passport, Windows Vista.  You’re going to need to flee the country this week; make your checklist now.  They know all about you, and the noose is tightening!

Libra (The Scale):   This week you get to ride a roller coaster!  Up and down, and over and under and puking all over yourself.  The bad news – it’s an emotional roller coaster.  You’re still vomiting, though.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Anthracnose.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):   You don’t sleep enough.  This week will be no exception, except for the parts of the weekend where you sleep past noon.  This will not help. 

Sagittarius (The Archer):   On Tuesday, that new kitchen gizmo you ordered will show up in the mail.  “Some assembly required” means that it will come with a little plastic packet containing four 5/17 inch pilfer grommets and two club-ended 6/93 inch boxcar prawns.  You will need a matrix wrench and 60,000 feet of tram cable.   Good luck.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Babesiosis.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   You should come out for gay marriage this week, and then explain to everyone that you supported gay marriage before it was cool. 

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   Do you know how sometimes you tell people how awful your day was, and they say something like, “sucks to be you?”  All I can say is, try to watch out for that box of thumbtacks, because Thursday, it’s going to really suck to be you.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Tickborne Relapsing Fever.

Pisces (The Fish):    This week, you will roar your terrible roar, gnash your terrible teeth, roll your terrible eyes, show your terrible claws, and fucking eat anyone who can’t meet your eyes without blinking.  Eat them no matter how eloquent they may be, nor whether or not they can spell worth a damn.  If they drop their eyes, kill them and eat them.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

So it’s a true fact that the past few months have been a little lighter on posts than usual.  Many of you may have determined that I was studying, which is true, or that I was busy with the office, which is also true.   However, my office is becoming (a little) more calm, and I’m finished with studying for a while.  I’m glad to be done, although I’m going to miss the dreams about Earned Value Zombie Management and the bit about “All Your Base Year and 2 Option Years Are Belong To Us.”

The Project Management Professional (PMP) exam was, while perhaps not brutal, a tough slog.  The 4-hour test took me 3 hours 57 minutes, which included a short bio break plus 45 seconds of me sitting with my eyes closed, palms up on the desk, reciting the Lotus Sutra, before I pushed the “I’m done” button with 3 minutes to spare.  The screen goes white for nearly a full minute, which if I hadn’t been expecting would have been completely panic inducing.  The screen came back, and I passed.  To say that I’m glad I don’t have to do that again is to flirt with understatement. 

One of the many study methods I used was taking practice exams, which not only gives you a sense of what to expect, but also gives you a sense of confidence that you can pass something like it.  (It’s also good for those of us who need practice sitting still for 4 hours.)  One of the questions on a practice test (though not the real one) was “What is the meaning of a concept called the ‘Journey to Abilene’?”  This took me back a step, since I hadn’t studied it at all in the 6-week course I’d been in – but I knew the answer.  FOBUMD, ever a paragon of learning, used to talk about it often enough that I remembered it off the top of my head, getting that one right in short order and helping position me for the rest of the exam.  Moral of the story:  Listen to your father, no matter what he’s talking about.  You never know when you’ll need to know that.  Thanks Dad!

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about this blog.  It certainly wasn’t a photoblog, was it?  Despite my posting my daily pictures once a week for a month or two – when things got busy, that was the first to go.  I recall being very concerned that this didn’t become a photoblog; turns out I needn’t have worried. 

I think we’re due for a layout change; watch for that this summer.  In the meantime, I’m going to work on a few “in focus” notes about some of the three lunatic children – well, all three of the lunatic children, in fact.  Because I’ve told you about myself, but you’ve only ever seen the kids through my eyes – we’ll try for a more proper introduction one of these days.

In other news, Maurice Sendak has gone to play with the Wild Things.  I was honestly never a huge fan of his most famous book, but I loved and respected the poetry of it.  He was a great and influential author, and he’ll be missed. 

And speaking of great and influential authors, I finally read The Hunger Games the other day.  Pretty good book, and very influential in that sales of archery equipment are up 697% over this period last year.  I’m thinking of approaching a struggling industry and offering to write a book around their product for a small, nominal fee.  Why wait to sell out until you’re famous?  I’m going to sell out first. 

Oh, wait – I already did.  I’m a certified PMP.  D’oh!

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Man, you know it’s a rough day when Vidal Sassoon dies and the biggest headline is the President of the United States presenting a verbal bitch-slap to the asshats in North Carolina who’ve just decided to update their state Constitution in regards to marriage again.  Last time they amended it, it was to ban interracial marriage.   I’m seeing a trend. 

But still.  Vidal Sassoon.  Even I’ve had that stuff in my hair.  An icon, he was huge, bigger than life, I thought his commercials were great, I thought he died years ago.  And now, poor guy, no one will remember the date of his passing.  I hope the voters of North Carolina are proud.  North Carolina: where you can marry your cousin, just not your gay cousin. 

And while I’m at it, thank you, Mr. President.  Some people are already questioning the wisdom of such a statement in light of the upcoming elections.  You don’t lead by staying quiet.  You lead by example. 

Mind you, that doesn’t mean I want to see you smooching Joe Biden.  Not that kind of example.  No one wants to see that.  I think Internet Rule 34 was suspended on that one.  But I digress.

Lead on, Mr. President.  Stick to your guns; we’ll have your back.  And good luck.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Happy First Friday in May.  May the 4th be with you, and also with Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys.  Here is, once again, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down! Read on!

Aries (The Ram):   This week, you will realize that what you really like is girls – the way that they walk, the way that they talk, and you will try to make them smile from White Castle to the Nile.   You will fail; your friend Mike will not.

Taurus (The Bull):   That wasn’t a unicorn, and that wasn’t his finger either.  This week you’ll finally have to admit that the light at the end of your tunnel may be an oncoming dragon.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Syphilis.

Gemini (The Twins):   This is a good week for eating vegetables, but you’ll need to remember to set the brake.  Your lucky number will be 43 on Tuesday. 

Cancer (The Crab):    This week, you will put your left leg down, your right leg up, and tilt your head back and finish your cup.  You will be offered Moet and Chivas, but you will bring Brass Monkey to the castle in Brooklyn where you dwell.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Trypanosomiasis.

Leo (The Lion):  So hungry, but it’s never enough, is it?  How many this week?  How many more until you’re satisfied?  Your lucky number this week is 13.

Virgo (The Virgin):   Your in-laws will be visiting this week, and on Wednesday one of them will burst in on you and ask, “What’s that noise?”  Your best response is to explain that they’re asking out of jealousy, since you’re playing the Beastie Boys.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Botulism.

Libra (The Scale):  You will take a long trip this week, but it’s not going to be fun – the people behind you will play loud music all the way.  You will get no sleep till Brooklyn. 

Scorpio (The Scorpion):   You will wake up late for school, and you will not want to go.  You will ask your mom (“Please?”) but she will still say no.  This week, you will have to fight for your rights.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Tuberculosis.

Sagittarius (The Archer):   This is a good week to read.  Remember that Dale Carnegie book you picked up last summer?  Screw it.  When was the last time someone expressed honest admiration for your hobbies, huh?  Fat lot of good they were.  You know what, just put your feet up and have a drink – just one – and then get a good night’s sleep.  You deserve it.  The week after next can suck instead.  Take the week off.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   Do you remember the monkey they shot into space in the mid-1960s?  Yeah?  Do you remember where it came down?  No, of course not, because it never did.  Well, this week, monkey’s coming home, if you know what I’m saying, and he’s headed for your car.  Space monkey is falling for you, hard, and man is he pissed.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Wellfleet Bay Virus.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   This week, your father will catch you smoking and tell you, “No way!” despite the fact that he smokes two packs a day.  You will realize what a drag living at home can be when your mother deletes your pornographic Internet browsing history.

Pisces (The Fish):    By Monday morning, you will have added a new notch to your resume and sixteen different kinds of interesting Chinese teas to your kill-wall.   The downside:  You’re going to lose weight, fast.  Do you remember “Thinner?”   Your high-risk disease this week:  Sweet Chestnut Blight.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

It’s the last Friday in April – the month has flown by!  Here’s to hoping the most dire of your horoscopes failed to come to pass.  But read on, dear friend, for here is once again another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down! Read on!

Aries (The Ram):    Good news bad news – your dreams will come true this week.   Unfortunately, it’s the dream you keep having about getting caught in the office break room without your clothing.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Red Tide.

Taurus (The Bull):  Today, you can fly!  Tomorrow, though, you’re going to want to lay in a supply of Percocet. 

Gemini (The Twins):   This is a good week to get that surgery scheduled.  Come on, you know you want to!  Your high-risk disease this week:  Rotavirus.

Cancer (The Crab):   This week will be lucky for you, in that you will touch wood three times.  Mind you, one of those times will be as the tree comes through your roof…

Leo (The Lion):  It’s OK to tell your friends that you’ll meet them at that bar on Wednesday and then not show up.  They were going to stand you up anyway.  In fact, no one goes to that bar anymore.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Sarcocystis Calchasi.

Virgo (The Virgin):  You know that week where it seems like every time you need to use the bathroom, the cleaning crew is in there blocking it and the stairs are blocked off for construction and the elevator doesn’t work?  Yeah?  Well, this is that week.

Libra (The Scale):  This week your life will take an interesting turn.  Left.  Then another left.  Then right at the light.  Then straight for about 3 miles, and then left when you see ol’ Roscoe (he’s a hound dog) barkin’ at the corner.   Your high-risk disease this week:  Sorghum Smut Disease.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  This week you will learn the glory and the horror that is global search and replace, as you try to change the gender of your main character and the word “hits” becomes “shits” in several dozen places. 

Sagittarius (The Archer):   This week, you will come to truly understand the deeper meaning of the terror implicit in those immortal words:  “Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!”   Touch it.  Touch the monkey.  You know you want to.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Spotted Fever Rickettsiosis.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  By Wednesday of this week, you’ll understand the difference between having your head in the clouds and just daydreaming.  Don’t worry, the bruises will fade with time, and it’s probably not broken. 

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  Not everyone you meet this week will consider your mere presence to be a walking requirement to shut down the nearest bar – but most of them will.  Play your cards right and you won’t pay for a drink all week.  Good thing you can remove your prosthetic arm at the shoulder – you won’t wake up that troll getting out of bed the next morning.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Staphylococcal Enterotoxin.

Pisces (The Fish):  If your manager quits this week, you might think about applying for the job.  Careful what you wish for, it’s a hot seat – but then you like to keep your rear nice and warm, don’t you?  Run.  Run while you can!

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

So there we were, just relaxing in the kitchen, when up out of nowhere came the topic of sex.  How does this happen?  I’m sure I couldn’t tell you.  Since it was there, I took the opportunity to reiterate the standard message (“Don’t!”) to both girls and the boy, and I guess something caught and tugged on the elbow of her mind, because the Reigning Queen of Pink suddenly turned to me with questions.

RQoP:  Wait.  Have YOU had sex?
BUMD:  I’m your father.  What do you think that means?
RQoP:  Eww!  More than once?
BUMD:  Kid, count your siblings.  How many kids are there in this house?  I’ve had sex THREE TIMES!
RQoP:  Ewwwww!  Wait, was it all with Mom?

I really, really wanted to say no, but I was afraid her little blond head would explode, and then I’d have to clean brains up off the ceiling.  We are obviously not clear on the concept yet, and I’m not going to fix that anytime soon.

Then, a few nights later, I wound up having a totally different conversation with Number One Son.  Planning for the summer, I’d asked him what he thought would be a good reward if he completes all his summer assignments and does them really well.  (We’re planning a mini-homeschooling summer.  Mind you, I say planning.)

Number One Son:  Well, you should probably get me a Nintendo DS.
BUMD:  I am NOT getting you a Nintendo DS.
NOS:  Well, it would certainly motivate me.
BUMD:  Son, I understand that you’d like one, and that you think it would motivate you, but we’re not getting you a Nintendo DS.  I’ve seen kids walking around with those – they have unnaturally large thumbs and they have worse social skills than even you do.  Not happening.
NOS:  But I could play the -
BUMD:  Look kid, you will never get laid with a Nintendo DS.

Yeah, I know, Father of the Year Award.  I hadn’t noticed his sister, the 13-yr-old Human Tape Recorder, standing in the doorway to his room, listening.

HTR, commenting from the doorway:  Truth.  You will NEVER get laid if you get a DS.
NOS:  Ha!  So it’s too late, since I’ve already done that three times!

The HTR and I looked at each other in something very near to horror, since you can never quite be certain if he knows just exactly what the hell he’s talking about.  On the off-chance that he was clear on this concept, I promptly took the coward’s way out and suddenly needed to put away the toothbrushes.  From the bathroom I heard her:

HTR:  Dude, do you even know what that MEANS?
NOS:  I have a pretty good idea, yes!
HTR:  OK, what?
NOS:  Having sex!
HTR:  Ohmygod.  (Retreats to her own room, slams door.)  I am so not having this conversation anymore!

Deciding I’d better man up on this one, I returned to his room:  “So, um, just exactly with whom would this blessed event have occurred?”  Mind you, what I’m worried about is the zero-point-something-small percent chance that he’s not making this up – he’s that cute, but I still list “eleven” as waaaaaaaaay too young.  (As noted, the standard message is “Don’t.”)

“No,” he said, “I meant that you’ve gotten laid three times!”

Oh, right.  With his mother.  He’s got proof of each of the three times, he himself being Exhibit Two.   “Well,” said I, “that’s because I don’t have a Nintendo DS.  If I’d had one, you might never have been born!  Now, go to bed and think of something else to motivate you!”

And quit trying to give your father a coronary.  Sheesh.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

0415 is a disgusting and unholy time of the morning, but there I was, awake and getting dressed.  Yep – we’re going back to Huntsville.

SOBUMD and the three lunatic children dropped me off at my folks’ house Tuesday evening.  As I’ve gotten older, the bedtime routine with my parents has evolved – I miss the bedtime stories, but the good-night Scotch is a welcome addition.  This kids acknowledged my blandishments about behaving for SOBUMD with their usual nonchalance, left with SOBUMD, and we shortly retired to sleep.

I may have mentioned in previous posts that my father collects penguins.  I’m used to all the birds around the house, but I’ll confess the penguin mobile over my bed was freaking me out a little.  The windows were open, and the little bastards were swaying, floating gently just below the ceiling.  Penguins just shouldn’t fly, ya know?  Of course, I’ve only myself to blame – I’m pretty sure we bought it for him.

Time in the wee hours progressing in the manner of a dream, I suddenly found myself thanking FOBUMD for the stay and the ride to the airport and walking into the eerily empty, post-apocalyptic vision that is DCA before 0500.  Neither the folks from TSA not the ticket agents speak, not even to each other.  I guessed they were communicating through some godless pre-dawn telepathy, as though to break the silence would profane even further this already unholy hour of the morning.  As I make my way to the check in desk, they all stare at me like somnambulant feral zombies, with only their eyes moving, waiting for any sign of weakness.  I had the distinct and uncanny sense that, were I to stumble, even for a moment, they’d be on me like a pack of hungry dingos on a baby.

I have no memory of checking in.  I suppose it’s possible that I might have supressed such a memory to protect my sanity, such as it is.  The next thing I remember was boarding a plane, finding my seat, and getting up again to make room for my cute twin blonde seatmates.

Things were looking up.  I like this dream.  So did they, evidently – they were both asleep before we pulled away from the gate.

As I reseated myself, an even more stunning brunette stopped in front of me and asked if she could move my hat.  I took it from the overhead bin and, after watching her struggle for a moment, offered to help with getting her carry-on up into the bin.  Mind you, when I say carry on, as far as US Airways is concerned, if it has wheels, it’s a carry on.  This was proven by the fact that she was pulling a 1973 Ethen Allen hardwood dresser that was taller than the Reigning Queen of Pink.  It had rolling casters on it, though, so it’s a carry on.  For $25 per checked bag, I didn’t really blame her.

My sleeping beauties made a few kind remarks about how strong I was, how polite I was, and US Airways redefining “carry on” – and drifted back to sleep.

I have vague and uncomfortable memories of channelling OJ Simpson in the airport at Charlotte, NC, which is somewhere between “bigger than I expected” and “fucking enormous.”  Mind you, when I say I was channelling OJ Simpson, I don’t mean I was jumping over furniture and people, I mean I looked like a slow-moving white Bronco going through the interminable hallways.  Walking out to the tarmac to board the next hop, I realized that happiness is seeing US Airways loading your luggage onto the same plane you’re boarding.  Mind you, since my luggage is technically smaller than most Buicks (at least smaller than pre-1990′s Buicks), I could have saved myself the worry and just carried it on.

We landed in Huntsville, where I was reunited with my luggage, rental cars, and that smell of Alabama air that is unlike anything else.  It’s not just roast pig, it’s something else undefinable.   It was a nice day, so with the windows down I drove about until hearing from my cohort that they’d meet me for lunch.  That right – it was time for Thomas Pit.

It remains a subject of myth and legend up here in the northern climes, but it’s real, and it’s been real since 1932, when between 80% and 90% of all Huntsville voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and put their faith and their BBQ in the New Deal.  Since then, it’s been pulled pig the best way, in a smokehouse behind the restaurant that may have seen a layer of paint on the outside, but the inside is just the same as it’s always been.  You cook pigs for 80 years, you get damn good at it, is my guess.

But I was stymied!  The cohorts were late getting out of their meetings, and we were all due back to work (I do, actually, work sometimes, hard though that is to believe) in short order.  We settled for nearby and quick.  It was Steak-n-Shake.

I have to admit that Steak-n-Shake does not suck.  The problem lies in its reach – I can go to Steak-n-Shake without leaving my home state.  (I don’t, but I could.)  I’ll go to chains at home, but when I’m travelling, I want to eat the local fare, not homogenized Generican food you can get anywhere.   However, in this case as in so many others, omnivorousness was trumped by expedience, and we retired back to the work.

Dinner turned out to be a return to the Ol’ Heidelberg, which lives up to its name by hanging multiple pictures of the bridge over the Rhine showing the ruins of the old Heidelberg castle in the background.  The surest sign that you’re not really in Germany is the wait, though – people don’t actually wait, usually, for dinner in Germany; if the place is full, you go down the street a block to a place that isn’t.  In this case, we waited for 20 minutes outside in the fading nice day, until we realized that we could get beer and then bring it back outside to keep waiting, but with beer.  Elements of my cohort were keen on a repeat of the last trip to the Ol’ Heidelberg, which involved Spaten Optimator.  My cohort whispered, “Optimator!”  I looked at her and said, “Optimator!”  But again, we were stymied!  They had Spaten, to be sure, and they had a few other varients, but not the Optimator.

What’s that you say?  A locally brewed Porter, you say, on draft?  You can recommend it since I liked the Optimator?  Hmmm.  Well, what’s it called?

“Big Bear.”  How could we go wrong with a local brew called Big Bear?  And so, we had us some Bears.

It turns out that Big Bear Black Bear Porter is actually brewed in Florida.  Now, local can have several meanings, and Alabama does – and I keep forgetting this – border Florida, so I was willing to give the waitress a pass on that, until I realized that it’s brewed in Coral Springs, which is just shy of Ft. Lauderdale and more than 800 miles from Huntsville.  We’ll settle for “redefining local” and roll with it, since it’s really, really good beer.  The Black Forest Schnitzel, veal topped with a Marsala wine sauce with mushrooms, onions, and the all-important bacon, was amazing as well.

The next day dawned with a shot a breakfast in the hotel, which turned out to include waffles.  That’s it.  Just waffles.  There was no protein, no meat, nothing but waffles and something that had been carefully manufactured to closely resemble butter.  Physically adjacent to the hotel, however, was a Waffle House, where they serve more than just waffles.  Oh, yes they do.

Several sausage and grits and waffles and biscuits and eggs later, I resumed the work with the intrepid cohort and we carried on our way.  Today, the dawn had broken in our favor, and the Great Pig was smiling on us.  Lunch was on for Thomas Pit.

This is the best pulled pork I’ve ever had.  I’ve said it before, I’m sure I’ll say it again.  The cohort – and we dragged several new mouths to this font of pork – tended to agree with me, to the extent they spoke at all; mostly we ate.  Mouth melting piles of hot porcine goodness, with a tasty tangy vinegar sauce next to it – excellent but not needed on pig this good.

But all good things must come to an end, even lunch, and the cohort split up for planes and offices and hotels. I met the boss back for dinner at Dreamland – Ain’t Nothin’ Like ‘Em Nowhere – and we split a rack of ribs; they were fine, good perfectly adequate.  Plus they changed the channel so the boss could watch the boxing match hockey game, which was nice of them.  We broke some pig, solved the socioeconomic problems of the world, and retired to our respective hotels to prepare for the morning’s flights.

0445 is a disgusting and unholy time of the morning, but there I was, awake and getting dressed.  Despite the hour, I was actually late to check in for my flight.  The US Airways ticketing lady was nice enough to put me on a later flight without charging me anything extra, so that was OK.  For a very nice change, the HSV TSA folks didn’t find any reason to take me aside and ask me about those embarrassing pieces of cutlery in my bag, mostly since I’d taken a different bag this time and deliberately failed to put anything with an edge on it in the new bag.  Ha!  That’ll show ‘em.

My luggage and I eventually found our way back home, and SOBUMD picked me up in time for some lunch before she had to rush home to get the kids from school.  We went to a great Irish place called P Brennens, and had a plate called an Irish Breakfast.  Despite the afternoon, it was the first breakfast I’d had, and it was great.

It’s good to be back in my own bed – the beds in all the hotels are lacking something, no matter where I stay.  Mostly they’re lacking SOBUMD, but that’s a different post.  Huntsville was once again marvelous in food and people, and I was glad to have gotten to introduce more of the cohort to Thomas Pit.  With any luck, a return to their primal pig lies somewhere in my summer!

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Another Friday, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down! Read on!

Aries (The Ram): Not a bad week coming up.  Your biggest concern is cutting your tongue while licking your knife clean at the fancy restaurant you’re going to on Wednesday.  Try not to bleed on the linens.

Taurus (The Bull):  Good news Bad news – this week, you will finally find enough courage in that bottle to ask your sweetie to marry you.  The answer will be no.  Back to the bottle, and despair.    Your high-risk disease this week:  Mycoplasma Gallisepticum.

Gemini (The Twins):  You will spend the week making up for lost time in bed, resting.  Yeah, that’s what they call it these days.  Resting.

Cancer (The Crab):   This will be a good week for watching the Hunger Games again, then re-reading the book and noting the differences.  Try not to slip into the madness there; you’ll never come out.  Next, you’ll be casting the movies yourself, and that is the path to insanity and despair.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Orange Sugarcane Rust.

Leo (The Lion):  You know you’re not supposed to do that with those cans of compressed air, right?  Not a healthy habit, and this is week to break it.  Just say no.  Be strong.  Join a support group.  You can beat this. 

Virgo (The Virgin):  This week you’re going to hell, you’re going to the races, and you’re going to lose anyway.  May as well go with a bang.  Tuesday will be nice if you buy a present for a Sagittarius.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Pineapple Sugarcane Disease.

Libra (The Scale): You’re going to have a Dale Carnegie kind of week, in that people will try to win and influence you.  Stick to your guns – your weird old guns. 

Scorpio (The Scorpion): This is a great week for reading quietly and pretending you can’t hear those noises upstairs.  Her name isn’t Luka, and you probably shouldn’t ask.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Plague.

Sagittarius (The Archer): This is a good week to smack the HR person who makes life so miserable.  It won’t help in the long run, but you’ll feel better when you hear the cheers from the cubicles around you!

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat): .  This week you will need to remember the lessons your old scoutmaster taught you:  You don’t have to outrun the bear.  You just have to outrun the Virgo behind you.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  You will go to a steak joint that will rock your world this week, and by your world I mean your wallet.  Will it be worth it?  Only you and the cow you’re eating can say for sure.  Don’t forget to tip your waitress. 

Pisces (The Fish): Gemini plays a large role in your week this week, as will the exercise of your democratic rights.  Monday’s not a good day for buying books, stay home instead.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Rabies.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Grab your hockey masks, it’s Friday the 13th!   If you live through the day, this will be another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down! Read on!

Aries (The Ram):  This is a great week to start that diet, but you won’t, will you?  You’re just going to sit there with that box of Oreo cookies and that blank look on your face, staring at the goddamn clock on the wall as you eat that whole box, one. By. One.  You can’t control the anger by eating, but you’ll never learn that.   Your high-risk disease this week:  Leaf & Stripe Rusts.

Taurus (The Bull): You refuse to be categorized the way Jell-O refuses to be nailed to a wall, but this week that will come back to haunt you.  If you can’t be included in the demographic data, Ed McMahon will never know where to send your check.  Move along, opportunity, move along.

Gemini (The Twins): . Your week will include long bouts of self evaluation and require large quantities of adult beverages.  You will coin a new phrase, “the old wire-up-the-nose trick.”  Your high-risk disease this week: Legionellosis.

Cancer (The Crab):  This is a great week to start the next chapter in the steamy fanfic of your life.  Your true calling will reveal itself as you tell an old story from a new perspective, brilliantly executed except that no one’s paying you.   You know, yet.

Leo (The Lion):    This week will be a filbert in a bowl of peanuts, a sour note in the bath, the off-tone you can’t identify as your fax machines dials again and again, never to connect.  Stay away from pushpins and thumbtacks on Wednesday.  Your high-risk disease this week: Lumpy Skin Disease.

Virgo (The Virgin):  All around the world, statues are crumbling.  For you.  You bastard.  Stay away from Facebook this week, that shit’ll kill ya.

Libra (The Scale):  On Tuesday, you will eat a potato and you will be happy about it.  Wednesday, realize that was the french fried potato of your soul, and despair.  Your high-risk disease this week: Measles.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  Try to fart less this week, it’s not as attractive as you think.  Your escape lies in education, but your education is never complete.  Your lucky number this week is 57,005. 

Sagittarius (The Archer):   This week, you are an ice queen Hello Kitty, nice to look at and deadly to touch.  The throngs will worship at your five-inch spike heels in vain.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Turtle Ranavirus.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  You will be held directly responsible this week for North Korea’s botched rocket launch, the recent series of earthquakes, and the disappearance of 90% of the honeybees in the world.  Nice going, asshole. 

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   It wasn’t a dream, no matter how much you wish it was.  Start updating your resume and honing your interview techniques, because practicing your pickup lines on your supervisor’s underage daughter will prove to be a career limiting move.  Your high-risk disease this week: Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.

Pisces (The Fish):   Nobody can be trusted with their finger on the button, nobody puts Baby in the corner, and nobody thinks that tie goes with that shirt.  You are a fashion nightmare and this week, you will prove it!

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Another Friday, and Good Friday to you!  Here’s another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future. Your upcoming Easter and Passover week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down!  Read on!

Aries (The Ram):  This week you will celebrate passing the tests to get your commercial realtor’s license by going out and buying a shiny new pair of bright red shoes.  This will prove all the more ironic when that house falls on you afterward, leaving only your feet sticking out. 

Taurus (The Bull):  All your best guesses will be wrong this week, your aim will be off, and your cakes and souffles will fall.  Tuesday looks good for a low carb snack.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Hantavirus.

Gemini (The Twins):  You should consider surgery, therapy, and astrology, not necessarily in that order.  Pisces will play a big role in your sex life this week. 

Cancer (The Crab):  You will get a new job offer soon.  This week, you will need to bone up on your interviewing skills.  For instance, telling your interviewer ”Any time, any day, my snipers can drop you,” might have had a negative impact on your last interview.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Hepatitis.

Leo (The Lion):  This week will be an emotional desert, a wasteland.  You will be at the bottom of your own personal org chart, the nadir, the lowest rung.  Think about self-promotion, and despair.   

Virgo (The Virgin):  Consider your collections this week.  Do you really need another small stuffed plush toy of one of the Powerpuff Girls?  Maybe you do – only you can say.  Blossom may be smart, but Buttercup is Hard. Core. Bitch.   Your high-risk disease this week:  Anthrax.

Libra (The Scale):  Your only hope of surviving this week is to get in the fountain, naked, and bath yourself in the cold water of shame.  Doesn’t matter, any fountain.  No, not just your underpants – all of it.  Yes!  Just get in, ya sissy.  Oh, shut up, it’s not that cold.  I don’t care.  Now, do you feel the shame?  Does it burn?  No?  Well, you’re doing it wrong. 

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  This is a good week for getting back to things, like school.  While you might consider stealing your father’s cue and making a living playing pool, this is contraindicated at this time.  Hit the books before you hit the rails. Your high-risk disease this week:  Kyasanur Forest Disease.

Sagittarius (The Archer): Social media and alcohol are your best outlets for the muse that wants to blossom within you.  This is your week for fanfic.  This is your week for chick-lit.  Consider the confluence of Hello Kitty, Scarlett O’Hara, and Internet Rule 34.  Live the dream. 

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  You want a pony, but your argument is invalid.  You can’t reproduce your results, and you will not be getting a pony this week.  You’ll be lucky to find a beer.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Late Blight.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  This Sunday, find an Easter flower and pluck it.  Monday, think of the meaning of the flower.  It is your desert rose, your late-blooming moonchild, the seawater in your veins, and the tide is coming in.   There, now practice those lines until you can say them well enough to get laid after a good meal at a French restaurant.  You’re welcome. 

Pisces (The Fish):  This week, you will become tangentially and glancingly involving in a police investigation.  For murder.  Your near-complete lack of involvement will not prevent you from becoming obsessed with the idea, the case, and the highly unlikely series of unfortunate events that will lead Officer Olaf back to you.  Keep your movie stubs.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Urogenital Chlamydia.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Another Friday, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future!   Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down! Read on!

Aries (The Ram):  You’re not going to win that lottery.  Forget about it.  You couldn’t spend all that money anyway, without doing something crazy like trying to bail out Greece.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Clostridium Perfringes.

Taurus (The Bull):  You’re not going to win either, but wasting $500 on tickets will cause you to study statistics later, and you can call that a consolation prize.  Your parents will still call it stupid.

Gemini (The Twins):  Statistics show that Geminis are more likely to win the lottery than any other sign – you still shouldn’t drop $500 on tickets, but a C-note might be in order.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Corynebacterium.

Cancer (The Crab):   Your past will catch up to you this week, and old chickens that you thought were soup by now will come home to roost for a bit.  Don’t worry, but don’t put the gun down either. 

Leo (The Lion):  Your therapist will ask you about your compulsive need to check your Blackberry for messages this week – you need to tell her about the “ghost vibrations” you feel if no one messages you within 6 minutes of your last e-mail. Your high-risk disease this week:  Cryptosporidiosis.

Virgo (The Virgin):  This is a good week to pick up a book, since you’ve pissed off all the people who ever gave a damn about you.  I suggest War and Peace, Anna Karenina, or possibly the Twilight series. 

Libra (The Scale):  This is a good week for hanging in the sky, finding things to do in Denver, and taking in Aspenglow.  If you get too high, you’ll know you’re in the Rockies.   Your high-risk disease this week:  Dengue Fever.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  Your week will be a blur of text messages, relatives, and slash fanfic filled with unrelenting narrative leitmotifs involving Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. 

Sagittarius (The Archer):  This week, you are your very own Dale Carnegie.  You will win new friends, influence people, and then dash them to the rocks of your own little world.  Remember:  A friend is not someone you use once and throw away.  A friend is someone you can use again and again and again.  You have more of them than you think.  Your high-risk disease this week:  E. Coli.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  The answer is “a totem pole.”  Only you know the question.  Don’t blow it. 

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  This is a good week to consider moving, not least of which is because there’s a hired assassin on her way to your flat.  She’s a relentless, unstoppable killer, but she’s bad with paperwork.  A change of address might buy you some time.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease.

Pisces (The Fish):  Never mind the above – it’s a good week to win the lottery!  Make sure you have a ticket or 40!

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Another Friday, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future!   Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down!  Read on!   

Aries (The Ram):   By Wednesday, the death of Davy Jones from the Monkees will have finally sunk in – try to get past the crushing sense of hopelessness and despair.  You can still believe in the daydreams!  You can still believe in the daydreams! 

Taurus (The Bull):   When the FBI contacts you on Monday afternoon, remember to tell them you don’t read blogs.  After that, stay cool for 20 hours and I’ll pay you 20 grand.   Your high-risk disease this week:  Angiostrongylus Vasorum.

Gemini (The Twins):   Nice roof, but it would look better with a plum tree in the backyard.  Tuesday will bring you a chance to get your engineering on – jump in with both hands, a foot, and a hammer.  All your dreams this week will be naughty.   

Cancer (The Crab):   There’s a difference between liking things to flow along because you’re a water sign and being willing to drown your troubles in the local creek – that’s illegal.  Just because you’re older than dinosaurs doesn’t mean you can’t change!  When you see change this Sunday, take it.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Israeli Spotted Fever.

Leo (The Lion):    This week, it’s all about the bacon – you may as well change your sign to Wilbur (The Pig) for all the greasy pork sammiches you’re going to eat between now and Thursday!   Sagittarius plays a large part in your week.

Virgo (The Virgin):   Over the weekend, you’re Alice in Wonderland.  By Tuesday, you’re Katniss, and on Thursday you’re that chick from Twilight.  It’s a slippery slope.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Tsutsugamushi Fever.

Libra (The Scale):   This week will solidify your relationship with hamburgers, the front office admin assistant you’ve been hoping to sleep with, the Pampered Chef Catalog, and your mom.  Remember to put your makeup on before you go to bed on Wednesday; you’re in for a hell of a dream!

Scorpio (The Scorpion):   This is a good week for catching up on your sleep.  You won’t, but this would be a good week for it if you did.  Dream in red:  bulls, vines, wines, and blood.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Bunchy Top Banana Disease.

Sagittarius (The Archer):   This week, you will flirt with the idea of changing your name to Hernandez, with a guy pouring drinks, and with two nurses as they sedate you.  Thursday, your lucky numbers are 18 and life.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  Tuesday’s Naked Day!  Good luck will come to you if you wear the least amount of clothes you can this week – and none on Tuesday.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Cercospora Leaf Spot.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  Your lucky notebook is Moleskin, but those blisters on your junk aren’t because you’re writing in it every day.  Take this week to work on being the master of your domain, and see a doctor.

Pisces (The Fish):   Those Hawaiian shirts won’t get you laid, but this is a good week for that hot air balloon ride you’ve been thinking about.  It’s the closest you’ll come to getting high all week.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Chikungunya.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

So, it’s been a day in the life of a Big Ugly Man Doll – and what a day. You didn’t really think that I’d let pass an opportunity to talk about my birthday, did you?

Yes, I turned 43 on St. Patrick’s Day.

Bridge over Mist

Up at 0630 and walked a 10K around the local lake; got some halfway decent pictures, by which I mean I took more than 250 and kept maybe 9 of them. I was most pleased by the simple fact of getting to the spot I wanted to be with 2 minutes before sunrise – it took 43 years to master timing like that. Mind you, I got there and a dog ran over and started barking at me. I told him I was just taking pictures, go away. He told me my arm looked a lot like a centerfold pin-up in “Meat Sticks I Have Known.” Luckily, his idiot came along a moment later and we did not have to finish that conversation.

Tree Fog Reflections at Dawn

Back from around the lake, SOBUMD made a wonderful breakfast and we opened presents – and by we, of course, I mean me. There was a nice bottle of Tequila, and a church key that looks like a church key, and a book. And another book. And a few more books. All told, there were 22 books, with two showing up in the mail a day or two later. SOBUMD confessed that she’d gotten sick of looking at the books on my Amazon wish list – some of them had been there for 5 years or more – so she bought them all. Luckily, most of them were used and didn’t cost a fortune, but still – I need to be careful what I wish for. Of course the neat part is that many had been on the list for so long, I had completely forgotten about them. Without further ado, my pending reading list:

Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
Bowl of Cherries, by Millard Kaufman
Briar Rose, by Jane Yolen
Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats, By Gene DeWeese and Robert Coulson
Da Vinci’s Ghost, by Toby Lester
Old Masters and Young Geniuses, by David Galenson
Pollinator Conservation Handbook, from The Xerces Society
Searoad, by Ursula LeGuin
Shadow & Claw, by Gene Wolfe
Sword & Citadel, by Gene Wolfe
Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean
The Bestiary, by Nicholas Christopher
The Big Switch, by Nicholas Carr
The Book of Jones, by Ralph Steadman
The Egyptologist, by Arthur Phillips,
The Eyes of the Overworld, by Jack Vance
The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton Christensen
The Kat Who Walked in Beauty, by George Herriman
The Tin Forest, by Helen Ward
To the Chapel Perilous, by Naomi Mitchison
White as Snow, by Tanith Lee
Wild Nights, by Anne Matthews

To say that I can’t wait would be to court understatement, to say nothing of being inaccurate in tense, since it’s already Wednesday as I write this and I’ve read two of them and started a third. Most of them had been recommended by someone or I’d been hearing about them for a while. I may review some of them – watch this space.

Tequila with breakfast, 22 books, and the day was just getting started! Being as I am a Big, Cheap, Ugly Man Doll, we had conspired to use not one but two Groupons for my birthday – one for cake and ice cream at the local Swiss Bakery, and one for the International Spy Museum downtown. We wrapped up breakfast and headed cakeward to the bakery, acquired same with no fuss, and went down to get our intrigue on.

If you’ve never been to the Spy Museum, I have to tell you – find it on a weekday in winter. Saturdays in spring are evidently the time to go if your body shape leans toward the cumbersome and you tend to read very slowly. If, once you have managed to read a few words, you have a proclivity for yelling “Hey Marge, grab Little Towheaded Billy and come look at this one!” at the top of your lungs, man, Saturdays at the Spy Museum have your name on them. The actual exhibits are interesting, but the traffic flow brings to mind the old spy technique of placing explosives inside a cow with horns – that is to say, abominable.

We exited through the gift shop (it’s the law!) while managing to avoid buying anything, and headed to the Very Clever Grandparent’s house for traditional St. Patrick’s Day fare of corned beef, beer, cabbage, beer, potatoes, beer, and soda bread. There was also some beer. To my immense surprise, there were also presents – mercifully, none of them books. There were wonderful bottles, wonderful food, and friends old and new – we got to meet my sister’s new squeeze, who’s a techie in addition to being a Monty Python fan, so all’s well there, and my parent’s friend Reinhold, who’s a delight. Arriving home again, there were dozens of well wishes on Facebook awaiting before bed.

All in all, a most satisfactory birthday. The next day dawned in time for sleeping in and seeing the largest Disney flop in years – Number One Son and I went to see John Carter. It doesn’t suck. We were, in fact, two of only 10 people in the theater, but I quite enjoyed it. Then again, I was excited about it having read the book – this is the guy who brought you Tarzan. They’re great books – it was always going to be tough to bring this to the big screen. Also, I think it actually suffers as a Disney movie – it would have been more widely watched if they hadn’t shied away from the gore and violence (and there was some, don’t get me wrong) and the sexuality. Mind you, Thuvia isn’t wearing much, but I suspect Peter Jackson would have had her wearing a damn sight less.

Regardless, good movie. Rounding out the weekend was an email from Mindy. If you haven’t heard from Mindy, you might – I think she works for the tooth fairy. She asked that I copy the following link onto my blog so that teachers (and presumably parents) can provide printable, personalized tooth brushing charts to your students and kids from www.LoveYourTeeth.net. I was all set to ignore this completely, since I’m not your Big Ugly Dentist, and then I realized that the lovable loons in my office had gotten me a birthday present as well:

It exists. I don't know why.

The Justin Bieber BrushBuddy Singing Toothbrush. Because that’s what you get for the BUMD who has everything.

Clearly, this is a sign from the Tooth Fairy. So please, go to LoveYourTeeth.net and print your personalized tooth brushing chart.

Let me know if you need to “Get Your Bieber Smile Today” as well – I have one yellow and one purple. Yes, they’re loud.

And so here I am, catching up on the week and wondering if I can make this yummy Scotch last until my next birthday. It doesn’t look good, but I’ll keep you posted!

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Another Friday, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future!   Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down!  Read on!   

Aries (The Ram):   Good news this week – you may be asked to marry.  Let this fuel your self-esteem for a little while.  The fact that you’d never marry that toad is unimportant.   That toad thinks you’re good enough – run with it!  Your high-risk disease this week:  Bolivian Hemorrhagic Fever.

Taurus (The Bull):  Wednesday will bring bad news.  The bad news is that Tuesday wasn’t a dream.  You really did accidentally cc: your boss on that email calling him a, what was the phrase you used?   An overinflated, flatulent, fop-mopped, inimical ingrate hack?  That really is your career you see flashing before your eyes.   Hint: “Reply All” is nobody’s friend.

Gemini (The Twins):   Saturday is your best chance to give your husband a great birthday present!  After that, your week is on cruise control – watch your speed and you’ll be fine.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Lassa Fever.

Cancer (The Crab):   You won’t get away with it.  We have pictures. 

Leo (The Lion):    You’ll meet a nice girl at the Monday happy hour, but reciting your high school poems will tell her all she needs to know.  You’re sleeping with the TV on again, my friend – Blake you’re not.   Your high-risk disease this week:  Yellow Fever.

Virgo (The Virgin):   You’re in for a week and a half.  Sunday, while trying to rescue your dog from the PETA freak down the street, you’ll be bitten by an alligator.  Bite back – they taste just like chicken.  Wednesday, in the hospital recovering from your bites, you’ll notice the nurse flirting with you.  You’re delirious. 

Libra (The Scale):   Your great uncle will leave you his second-best spittoon in his will, which will be read on Tuesday.   Be grateful – you’re on the cusp of wealth!  Your high-risk disease this week:  Yellow Sigatoka Disease.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):   You will be diagnosed with a seriously unstable condition this week, leading to brushes with fame and the stage.  The big stage.  If you need to worry, worry that you’re going to be so famous people will confuse other people with you.  Kiss your privacy goodbye, and say hello to Rock and Roll. 

Sagittarius (The Archer):  Monday, you’re on the hook to bring the lubricant.  On Thursday, two words:  Panda boots.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Cholera.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  This week is a good week to try to slip in those last-minute expenses for your corporate expense account – the CFO is changing his oil, and that takes three days.  So go ahead – bill for that lunch!  Never mind that it was a dive bar in Richmond. 

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  Do you know what decomp smells like?  You will.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Chronic Wasting Disease.

Pisces (The Fish):   It’s your birthday, all week this week!  Party like you’re turning 43, you boring old bastard. 

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Another Friday, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future!   Your upcoming week will be poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down!  Read on!   

Aries (The Ram):  The last vestiges of your youthful naivete will be shattered this week like a wine glass falling to a concrete patio, splashing innocence and Cab Franc all over your clothing.  Ignore it like it never happened and order a fresh glass of wine.

Taurus (The Bull):  When your high-school career counselor told you you’d do well in a job where you could use your hands and your imagination, she didn’t really mean the 900 number you’re running as a side business.  Also, $4.99 a minute is a little steep – I’m never calling again.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Coffee Leaf Rust.

Gemini (The Twins):   You will focus both of your intellects this week, and together you will rule the world.  On Tuesday.  It’ll be the same old dichotomies on Wednesday, but still.  Also, I miss that hot little black number you used to wear.  Rrrrrr!

Cancer (The Crab):  By Monday, you’ll have realized that your worst fears could be true.  By Wednesday, you’ll be a shut-in, leaving your room only to eat and pee.  Your only hope is to remember that everyone else’s fears could be true too – we’re all just as screwed as you are.  Don’t sweat it.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Typhoid.

Leo (The Lion):   The glorious rays of the sun give you an inner light.  This does not make you any more attractive to the opposite sex, it just gives you better night vision – you’re still an asshole in a bad suit.  Think about what you want this weekend, and then remember you’re about as likely to get it as Newt Gingrich’s next wife. 

Virgo (The Virgin):   There is no joy but the joy of work!  Do you know, there are wedding cake toppers made just for people like you – a bride at a desk.  Your organizational skills will not avail you.  Lighten up – do you want to be a Virgo forever?  Your high-risk disease this week:  Black Sigatoka Disease.

Libra (The Scale):   Your graciousness embraces all humanity.  It won’t be enough.  Play the lottery on Thursday, though – you never know. 

Scorpio (The Scorpion):   You are driven by boundless energy and a desire to subjugate the weak.  I say, have at ‘em – you can’t do any worse than the boneheads we’ve got now.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Canine Distemper.

Sagittarius (The Archer):  Most of the time, the people pissing you off don’t know they’re doing it.  You’re smarter than they are, so you should be in charge.  God is on your side – and if you don’t have a god, invent one.  You’re fucking Voltare, baby!

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   You’re as married to your work as that Virgo!  The two of you should work something out – corporates with benefits or something.   Aim for Monday to lay your plans.  Aim for Wednesday to pick up the pieces and start again.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Campylobacteriosis.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   Your need to socialize will be your undoing – when the Zombie hordes start marauding, you’ll be at the mall, people watching, won’t you?  “Braaaains…”  You can start practicing saying that now. 

Pisces (The Fish):   You’re an overemotional dilettante with a penchant for make-believe and a tropism for bookstores.  Get over your bad self.  Tuesday’s a good day to work on that short story.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Streptococcal Scarlet Fever.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

“The Winter is forbidden ’til December,
And exits March the 2nd, on the dot!”

So there I was, in my silk-lined yellow corduroy smoking jacket and red-and-yellow checked jester hat, with my jester balls bouncing for emphasis, reading to a gaggle of wide-eyed 3rd graders, when I wondered: “How did I get here?”

March the 2nd, you see, is a great date.  Not only is it the date, the dot upon which Winter exits Camelot, it is also, as you are most probably aware, the birthday of Dr. Seuss.  (Why is it that the two greatest children’s poets who ever lived had pen names?  Charles Dodgson and Theodor Geisel.  I’m thinking I need a good nom de plume.)

So in honor of the father of the Cat in the Hat’s birthday, the Reigning Queen of Pink asked if I would come to school this morning and read a Dr. Seuss book to her and her classmates, as was being requested of all the parents.  How could I refuse?  I was raised on One, Two, Red, and Blue Fishes, and most memorably, Fox in Sox.  (FOBUMD can still get his tongue around a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle, which is of course what it’s called when tweetle beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles.  But you knew that.)

So on with the silk-lined yellow corduroy smoking jacket and on with the red-and-yellow checked jester hat and off, with my battered old copy of Yertle the Turtle and the Reigning Queen of Pink, to school we went.

Reading with Yertle, Rehearsing my Lines

Signing in at the office, I was greeted with “I dare you to go to your office like that.”  Since I work on an Army post, I politely demurred.  One of the school’s many saints, who has worked with both Number One Son and the RQoP, came around a corner, took one look at me and said, “I should have known.” I think it was the bouncing balls around my head that did it, but it could have been that Hugh Hefner aura I was projecting with the smoking jacket.  You never know.  I was also greeted warmly by the wonderful PTA President, who luckily did not have her camera.

Once signed in, I with the other parents milled about while waiting to enter the cafeteria, which is of course the official waiting spot – but we needed to wait before waiting since there were still a few dozen little darlings coming out of the cafeteria, having finished waiting for classes to start.  Three of these little darlings, on their egress from the cafeteria, walked straight up to me, like the crew of Stand By Me confronting their fears, except shorter, and they were girls.

Girl 1:  “Who are you?”
BUMD:  “Well, I don’t know yet.  I’m here to read this book.”
Girl 2:  “You don’t know who you are?”
BUMD:  “Well, it’s hard to be certain.”
Girl 1:  “You’re Yertle the Turtle?”
BUMD:  “I could be.  I’m not sure; I haven’t read the book yet.”
Girl 3:  “Are you a turtle?”

Damnit.  I didn’t see that coming, and I can’t answer this 7-year-old properly.  First, I don’t know her parents, and I would need to apologize for contributing to her corruption.  Second, it would be just generally inappropriate.  And third, the PTA President and a school staffer were standing right next to me.

Mind you, these are all reasons that I should answer her, also.  Because there is only one answer to that question:  You bet your sweet ass I am. 

Thinking quickly on my feet, I replied, “I’m not at liberty to say right now.”   Still, I felt the shame.  Look me up in 15 years, kid – I owe you a beer.  (I then checked with the PTA President and school staffer; luckily, they weren’t turtles, or I would have owed them a beer also.)  The girls must have sensed my discomfiture, because they vanished shortly afterward – whereupon we made our way into the cafeteria for some serious, adult waiting.

After hanging out in the cafeteria for a while, trying to avoid eye contact with other parents who probably thought *they* would make better readers, we were dismissed to our respective classrooms.  In mine, I found that 8 other parents had arrived to read to their respective children – a ratio of 9 readers to 23 little listeners, or as I like to think of it, 9 mouths to 46 ears.  Hardly seems fair, does it?  The teacher – another saint who remembers Number One Son – suggested we break into groups of our own kid and one or two others, and find a spot and read.  The RQoP hauled me to the center of the room and was looking for a place to sit and a friend to grab in the milling crowd, when I noticed a gaggle of five boys in a huddle, with no parent, asking said teacher what they should do.  She told them to find a parent group, and I looked at the obvious ringleader and said, “Hey, I’m a parent group!” 

This little punk took one look at my hat and said, “Oh, yeah!!!”  You could hear the exclamation points.  I was touched. 

And so the RQoP and the five lost boys and I moved to the back, and I rolled through Yertle the Turtle.  On page one, I noticed they were squirming more than I would have expected.  On page two, this continued.  By page three, I realized that I was completely out of practice reading this sort of thing to this sort of audience – I had been holding the book in front of me.  As soon as I switched hands and moved the book so that they could all see the pictures, I had them.  We got through Yertle, Gertrude McFee, and The Big Brag, and with 5 minutes to spare in our allotted time the ringleader asked if I could read his book – The Twenty Little Piggies.  I considered explaining that I was only there for the Seuss, but I had a flashback to the movie Stand By Me and decided to just read it – Gordie might be packing, you never know.  The piggies book didn’t suck, but it’s not Dr. Seuss.  Besides, I was rooting for the wolf – you know how I love a good pulled pig.

Once our half hour was up and all the piggies were accounted for, the boys decided that my balls looked like cat toys and began batting at them.  That the RQoP aided and abetted them in this endeavor did not help matters.  I made my escape with my book, my hat, and my sacred honor, leaving the lost boys to their lost boy games, and to their teacher. 

At least we know winter is over in Camelot.  Plus, happy birthday to Dr. Seuss! 

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Another Friday, another chance to catch up with your own personal astrological future!  What will next week be like?  Will I get laid this weekend?  How’s the weather going to be on Wednesday?  (Bad, not even with an inflatable doll, and awful.)  Your upcoming week will be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short – but don’t let it get you down!  Read on!   

Aries (The Ram):  You’re going to split your pants at the meeting on Wednesday; bring a spare.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Norovirus.  Stay off the cruise lines!

Taurus (The Bull):  This weekend will be the best you’ve had in a while, and that’s not saying much, is it?  Good luck with the card game Sunday night.  If you draw to an inside straight, you will be rewarded.

Gemini (The Twins):   Good news:  Money is in your future.  Bad news:  Not your immediate future.  Keep hoping.  It won’t help, but you’re cute when you hope like that.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Malaria.

Cancer (The Crab):  Wheat germ and rye toast will be the only things you can eat by Thursday.  It’s not the best way to lose weight, but it’s darned effective, I’ll tell you what!  If you go below 110 pounds, or have erections that last more than 4 hours, call a doctor.

Leo (The Lion):   You know that hot air balloon ride you’ve always wanted to take?  Not this week either.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Avian Influenza.

Virgo (The Virgin):   Try wearing a condom this week.  You’ll thank me later.

Libra (The Scale):   You will print a document on Monday, but it won’t be on the printer so you’ll go back to your PC and print it again.  The third time it happens, you’ll realize you’ve been sending it to the printer outside your boss’ office.  Be ready to explain why you needed three copies of your resume.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Nipah Encephalitis.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):   On Sunday, things won’t look so bad.  The blinders come off on Tuesday – back on your head. 

Sagittarius (The Archer):  Your phone now calls you Rock God.  What are you, twelve?  Your high-risk disease this week:  Equine Rhinopneumonitis.  Play that on your guitar, Rock God.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   You will learn to program in Objective-C this week.  This will lead to your complete undoing, spelling out for you a long, unwinding doom.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   The stars have aligned and spoken to you – this is the truth:  On Sunday, you will take out your garbage.  On Wednesday, you will take out your garbage.  Thursday morning, you will realize you should have also taken out the downstairs garbage, but it will be too late, as your friendly neighborhood sanitation engineering team will have already come and gone.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Persistent Leprosy.

Pisces (The Fish):  That wasn’t a banana, and it won’t be a banana next week either.  Why do you even read these? 

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

February is over, except that it’s not.  It’s been unseasonably warm for a February, and the season of Spring seems to be creeping up on us sooner than even the buds on the trees expected.  I’ll take it.  March should add some seasoning to the Spring mix we’re seeing, and the Baseball season is just around the corner. 

Today is a little bit of calendar magic – you get an extra day, a gimme, a February mulligan, once every four years.  It’s like finding Brigadoon, but a little more often.

Today is a good day to celebrate the things we don’t see every day, even if they’re things we see every day, if you know what I mean.   

And today, the cast of Rent sings “Five Hundred Twenty Seven Thousand Forty Minutes” - throws them every time.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

I fell off the photo wagon for a few days this week also – not as much as last week - and so I’m supplementing those few days with outtakes from earlier weeks. 

Day 50 – Mine

Day 51 – MOR CATZ

Day 52 – Memorial (February Outtake)

Day 53 – Big Sky

Day 54 – Nice Caboose

Day 55 – Yellow Light (January Outtake)

Day 56 – Ripe Over River

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Another week shot to hell – and I mean the week before last.  This wound up late and then later, and so I’m posting this week and last’s Not A PhotoBlog back to back.  I also fell off the photo wagon – life gets busy – and so I’m supplementing several days with a few of the outtakes from earlier weeks.  Sue me.  

Day 43 – Life Finds a Way (February Outtake)

Day 44 – Tandori Nights

Day 45 – Chimney Moon (January Outtake)

Day 46 – Tree of Stars (January Outtake)

Day 47 – Lonely Sunset (January Outtake)

Day 48 – InfoSec Restrooms

Day 49 – Vanishing Cupcake

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Here it is already Friday - another week, another chance to catch up with your own personal astroillogical future for the weekend and next week.   

Aries (The Ram):  You will wake with the dawn most of this week, but you’re still getting to bed at midnight.  When you see a 7-11 on your left, you’ve gone to far – there will be no return without stopping for coffee and a lottery ticket.  Your lucky numbers are 3, 27, 18, 34, 42, and 3 again.

Taurus (The Bull):  You’re not swimming with the fishes so much as diving with the dolphins this week.   That’s not what the blow-hole is for, and you’re going to be banned from SeaWorld if you keep that up.  Faa loves Pa, but not like that.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Bacterial Walnut Blight.

Gemini (The Twins):   The stars show that a new gutter will be in your future on Monday.  Enjoy it, it’s probably the only bright spot in an otherwise dull week – aside from all the sex, that is.

Cancer (The Crab):  The words “Now I’m driving the bus” will factor heavily into your week, starting with the hijacking of city bus number 22-L on Tuesday.  You can’t use your umbrella like a sword, but you’ll want it with you when the rain of frogs begins on Thursday next.    Your high-risk disease this week:  Stripe Rust of Wheat.

Leo (The Lion):  This  week, you will become more familiar with lubricant.  Best of luck with that.

Virgo (The Virgin):   You know what you know, you do what you do, but you don’t do what you know.  This weekend may be your big chance.  Bring your cleats, a 3/4 inch grommet wrench, and a dozen bagels.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Scrub Typhus.

Libra (The Scale):   You have to work on uncorking your army of flying monkeys without justification – it’ll get you talked about.  Also, that scarf does not go with that blouse.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):   You will find a new chandelier this weekend; it’ll freak you out as you will fall asleep staring at it from Monday through Wednesday.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Meliodosis.

Sagittarius (The Archer):  The next band you fall in love with may be your own.  Grab a guitar on Monday, learn how to make it talk on Tuesday.  Quit shaving in favor of practicing.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   This week will bring nothing but misery and car repairs.  You will wonder why until Tuesday, when you will hit yet another pothole and think the words, “Who’s the hack now, buddy?”  Also, don’t shave if you can avoid it – you look like a sexy beast.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Muscular Sarcocystosis.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   Your song is as tired as your radio, and you still haven’t told anyone your name.  Congrats on keeping a secret, but the cat’s coming out of the bag on Monday.  Tuesday, put the cat back in the bag and tie it tightly. 

Pisces (The Fish):  Stop trying to dance – you look like Mick Jagger after a 3-week bender and hip-replacement surgery, assuming he was missing a leg below the knee.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Visceral Leishmaniasis.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

So there I was, Dining and Dancing with the SOLs.  This involves taking your 3rd grader, by which in this case we mean the Reigning Queen of Pink, to her school around 6pm, eating fundraiser-priced pizza, and listening to a lecture about what the Standards of Learning tests are, when they are, why they’re important, why they’re not important, why your students shouldn’t stress over them at all, but why you should pleasepleaseplease not go on vacation during test week and make sure they get enough sleep and make sure they get a good breakfast and make sure they’ve studied all the stuff we’re going to send home with them for 2 months beforehand and make sure to quiz them and drill them on the practice tests that you shouldn’t stress over but the URLs are right here, and we’ll have sample test questions sent home every day, but really, make sure the kids don’t worry about this in the slightest – it’s no big deal.

Really.  Not to worry at all.  It’s just our jobs on the line.  Which is the sad, sad, and odd part of it – for most of the kids, this test really won’t affect their lives.  Their teachers’ lives, however, will be measured and found full or lacking based on the results of the kids’ scores.  As a project manager, I understand this completely – but I have a lot more control over my team’s performance than any teacher ever had over a 3rd grader.  To say that this is a goofy way to run an educational system is to risk understatement, but it’s a perfectly valid rationale for the slightly schizophrenic tone to the message.   Also, this is a goofy way to run an educational system.

Then we got to the dancing part.  This is hook to get people to show up – promise the 3rd graders pizza and dancing, and they will drag their parents.

We retired to the gym, which still conjures in me flashbacks of Hell – from being picked last (well, next to last, most of the time; I was at least reasonably tall and didn’t wear glasses) to coming in last to not being at all athletically inclined, the gym was never exactly a sanctuary for younger versions of myself.  This particular gym wasn’t helping with that – we’re going to line up and everybody gets to dance with their kid, isn’t that nice!  You’re invited regardless of inclination or ability.  It’s like the draft, only with line dancing. 

We started with a dance routine lead by an amazing drill sergeant dance instructor gym teacher who was somehow capable of being in 4 places at once.  Her voice is bigger than her frame, which I suspect comes from dealing with small children at a distance, and she moved through the crowd so fast I thought she was disapperating and apparating over on the other side of the room.  We “did the Hustle” for one of the dances, but she did it for the whole dance.  Every time we turned to face a new wall and clap, there she was!  She must be a hell of a gym sergeant. 

Anyway, the music teacher / DJ had us start with some new fresh wedding hell called the Cupid Shuffle, which I’m certain was invented by some wedding DJ bent on highlighting the dance floor inadequacies of overweight white guys. I mean, not that I blame him, but I resemble that remark, you know? 

Truth:  I have all the rhythm of a busted metronome trying to swing, tick-tock-splot, in a bucket of jello.  Thanks to events like this, I have the opportunity to prove it to not only my 3rd grader, but to the rest of the 3rd grade cohort.  And their parents.  And the PTA President.  And her camera. 

For one brief, shining moment, I held out hope that the evening would end as the last one did – when I was here with Number One Son 2 years ago, he bailed out after about one song.  Alas, it was not to be – when the Reigning Queen of Pink dances, she’s in it to win it, baby.

We danced to my Achy Breaky Heart, which (I never knew!) involves moving your hands up to the right and then left, down to right and left, and then slapping your hips – right and then left – and then doing some other stuff.  Needless to say, this lasted for about 15 seconds before my ”right hip slap” sent my Blackberry skittering across the floor (one of the dangers of coming without changing from work). 

There was a brief medley of 5-second musical vignettes that seemed like a combination of “Flashdance in 15 Seconds” and “Name That Tune.”  In less than 3 minutes, we covered everything from “Do You Love Me” and Glen Miller’s “In the Mood” to the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin” to “The Twist” to “Day-O” to Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night.”  We danced to them all, my white bread, jello-shot metronome notwithstanding. 

Consolation prize:  When we came home, someone mentioned that it’s National Margarita Day.  Also, this is my last 3rd grader – I am done with line dancing until the next wedding.  The Reigning Queen of Pink came home perfectly happy and content – after all, she’s got nothing to worry about.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

SOBUMD got a new coffee maker the other day… 

Yep.  It’s a Koirig.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Here it is already Friday - another week, another chance to catch up with your own personal astroillogical future for the weekend and next week.   

Aries (The Ram):  You will finish reading The Hunger Games next week, and then be disappointed by the movie on Thursday.  Keep your ticket stub!  Someone you know will be murdered, and you’re the most logical suspect.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Canine Leishmaniasis.

Taurus (The Bull):  You’re feeling better, and you should – but nothing says, “full recovery” like watching all 83 parts of Shogun on TV back-to-back, just sitting on the couch and letting someone fetch you popcorn and vicodin. 

Gemini (The Twins):   You will try new foods this week, for a very inclusive definition of “foods.”  Mostly, these will be drinks.  Be certain you have a designated driver with you at all times, including while sleeping.   Your high-risk disease this week:  Wobbly Possum Disease.

Cancer (The Crab):  This weekend you will leave the house only to make sure the water is off and the phone lines are cut.  Disconnect the stove and turn it on; watch it fail to heat up and consider the emptiness of your life.  Your lucky number is Catch 22.

Leo (The Lion):  This is a good week to invest in that beehive you’ve been thinking about.   You can fulfill your family’s destiny along the evolutionary dirt road and go from Ape to Apiarist.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Varroa Mites.

Virgo (The Virgin):   You’re gonna love Wednesday!  That was the good news; the rest of the week’s a suckfest of spilled beer, boring lectures, and dusting the piano.  Buy a lottery ticket and dream of a better life, you never know.

Libra (The Scale):   Don’t worry about a thing.  Wipe your mind clean, like an empty whiteboard before some idiot uses the permanent marker on it.  Now, imagine the best Monday you’ve ever had.  Got it?  Good.  Your Monday won’t be anything like that, but it was fun to dream, right?    Your high-risk disease this week:  Aujeszky’s Disease.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  The Nile, not content with just being a river in Egypt, is also a good metaphor for your attitude toward the future.  You’ve been cursed with greatness, and no amount of whinging and slacking will save you from your eternal destiny among the stars.  Get a move on.  And keep the mirrors clean, you’ll need them.

Sagittarius (The Archer):  This is a week for making your wishes known and putting yourself first.  It won’t do a damn bit of good, but you’ll feel better for having gotten it off your chest.  Your lucky numbers are nine and six, in any combination.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Montipora White Syndrome.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   By the end of the week, you’ll have a new nickname.  Make your choices wisely – they’re not going to call you “boat-builder” or “brick-layer” if that’s not what you’re known for.  Oh, and that tie is awful – burn it.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   You can’t forget, you can’t forgive, you can’t move on, but there’s nothing you can do about it.  It’s going to dawn whether you like it or not – this is the age.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Bartonellosis.

Pisces (The Fish):  Stop thinking about plastic surgery – you don’t need it, you look great.  Tuesday will show you how awesome you are, but only as compared to other things you could have been reincarnated as – not a real high bar.  Don’t let it get you down.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

A quick highlight of the past few days would include notes considering the trip back from Huntsville, which to my eternal delight did, in fact, include a brunch-time pulled pig sandwich from Thomas Pit.  From there we retired to the HSV airport, where I checked my main bag and proceeded with my laptop bag through security.  The nice folks at TSA there noticed that I had forgotten to remove my 2-inch Spyderco money clip, which they considered a no-no on an airplane.  Since it’s a folding blade with about an inch and a half of sharp edge, I’m on the fence about how dangerous I could be with it – but I wasn’t going to argue with them, since they let me go back downstairs and pack it in my main luggage, which hadn’t yet gone far. 

Mind you, the knife made it TO Huntsville in that same laptop case…  I guess I should have tried to reroute the plane to Havana on the way down, when I had the chance.  Damn.

Coming home, over the weekend, I had the honor and pleasure of attending a wedding for my friend Rod and his new and beautiful bride.  The ceremony was simple and sweet, and the food was yummy and copious.  There was Peruvian rotisserie chicken, yucca, black beans, rice, plantains, and several sauces that no one (including the delivery guy) could quite identify, but which everyone ate.  To the happy couple! 

Sunday, I made Gumbo – 6 cans of tomatoes (I’m lazy and didn’t feel like dicing THAT many tomatoes), 4 pounds of okra, 3 pounds of Andouille sausage, 2 chickens, and 1 pound of shrimp.  With 3 gallons of gumbo, I now have lunch in the freezer through March.   Following that, we watched the Grammys, where Adele was awarded most of them, plus the Noble Peace Prize.  I hear she’s also up for the Pulitzer this year. 

Monday, I was reminded that there’s nothing like a child’s sense of wonder and delight at the magic of technology.  That child would be the Reigning Queen of Pink, who, when I came upstairs to this computer, gleefully turned to me with a huge smile and said, “I’m teaching myself how to say ‘Fuck You’ in French!”

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

A picture a day, week by week, on Sunday (and sometimes when I get distracted, Monday) evenings.  This was an odd week for pictures, since I was in Huntsville for most of it and using only the Blackberry’s camera.  Some are fuzzy, some are OK. 

Day 36 – All Together Now

Day 37 – Into The Great Wide Open

Day 38 – Aint Nothing Like Em Nowhere

Day 39 – David Gibsons

Day 40 – King Kong on Cocaine

Day 41 – Wing Stop

Day 42 – To the Happy Couple

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Here it is already Friday - another week, another chance to catch up with your own personal astroillogical future for the weekend and next week.   

Aries (The Ram):  You read too much, both into things and just in terms of books.  There is no deeper meaning, that cigar is just a cigar, and you’re a pervert.  Next week may suck for you, sports fan – don’t bet on the basketball games.  

Taurus (The Bull):  Good call getting out of the way of that Sagittarius who wants your job.  The boss will fire someone next week; let it be someone else.  I know it looks good on you, but don’t wear the red shirt to the office.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Fox variant rabies.

Gemini (The Twins):   You should prepare for some serious calisthenics in the bedroom – limber up, you might be in for an all-nighter!   Your lucky numbers are 18 and over and your safeword is “harder!”

Cancer (The Crab):  Don’t beer the fear, and don’t fear the beer.  You had a lousy week last week; next week will bring no change.  Take off the tie and slip into your stained boxers, get comfortable and drink until you forget how to open them.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Poliomyelitits…  Of the liver, of course!

Leo (The Lion):  You need a new toilet.  Get the one where the lid automatically opens whenever you approach the toilet; it’ll freak out your pets.  Besides, what were going to spend that $5000 on anyway?  Don’t you think your ass is worth it?  The Toto Neorest 600 is the last shitter you’ll ever buy, and you need it this week.

Virgo (The Virgin):   You will go to the Diner.  You will have the veal.  Guilt will shame your week next week, three days out of four.  When you have trouble sleeping, remember I told you so.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Bluetounge. 

Libra (The Scale):  Wednesday, something will happen.  You’ve waited so long.  You think you’re ready?  I guess you’ll see.  Oh, yeah, and it’ll happen at the McDonalds, so bring some cash and a box of baby wipes.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  You missed a spot.  You’ll be sledding down snow covered hills, catching mighty air and looking cooler than you’ve ever been, but no one will care because you missed a spot.  OCD is not a bad thing.  Your high-risk disease this week:  West Nile.

Sagittarius (The Archer):  You are the Tiger burning bright in the night’s forest.  Your fearful symmetry is framed only by Prada, Manolo Blahnik, and the awesome power of your death glare.  Your week might suck, but your month will not.   

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   This weekend you will stumble across the world’s most expensive guitar pick at  a yard sale, but you won’t buy it.  Your week goes downhill in a midnight slide to booze and pills as you realize your mistake.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Brucellosis.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):   You need a nap, but you’re not going to get one.  You need a few grand, too, and that’s not coming either.  Resign your life to “good enough” and save yourself a lot of time.  Your lucky number this week is fuggetaboudit.

Pisces (The Fish):  You are back, baby, and next week, you’re loving it.  Until about 2 pm on Tuesday, then it’s back on your head, and boring people with your new talking clock.  Really, no one cares.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Bacterial Tomato Wilt.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Remind me never to stay in this dump again.

No, I don’t mean Huntsville – I’m enjoying Huntsville.  I mean the “Quality” Inn to which I retire each night at the end of my meetings.  I’m being harsh, sure, because there’s nothing really wrong with it, except the burn holes in the sheets and the clothes-iron scorch marks on the floors and the way the AC/heater is competing with the headboard to see which can pull away from the wall fastest and the odor that you just can’t quite place and the stains of dubious provenance in the bathroom and the lack of insulation under the door and the drawer handles that pull away in your hand and the three mismatched chairs that have forgotten the meaning of comfort and of which exactly none fit under either the desk or the table.  Also, there’s a phone in the bathroom, over the shitter, presumably in case you drop The Big One and want to call the Guinness Book of World Records people.  Why that bothers me more than the rest, I couldn’t tell you. 

I’ve tried twice to tip the service folks who clean the room.  The first day I left two singles on the side table by the bed, since I’ve been told that leaving money on the pillow is a no-no these days as it could imply that you think they’re hookers or something.  When I returned, the money was still there so, in the name of scientific discovery, the next day I left it on the pillows, to make sure they understood that I hadn’t just accidently left two singles on the side table, despite the fact that no one had slept with me.  When I returned, the money was still there.  Either there’s a policy here about not taking money the guests leave or they just feel unworthy, which, working here, I would completely understand. 

But we’re not here to talk about the hotel, we’re here to eat!  Thomas Pit remains the best pulled pig BBQ I’ve ever had, even if their cole slaw and potato salad look like they went through the same ricer.  Tasty, but an odd texture for things to do to a potato.  I dragged my cohorts to Thomas Pit within 45 minutes of landing in town.  Wheels down, grab your bags, rent a car and drive to lunch. 

Ain't Nothin Like 'Em Nowhere

Next stop, following meetings, was Dreamland – Ain’t Nothin Like ‘Em Nowhere.  And it’s good.  It’s very good.  I had pulled pig at Dreamland for dinner.  And lunch the next day.  For dinner the next night – whoops, the cohorts wanted to go to Dreamland, where I decided that one must leave one’s comfort zone in the name of scientific discovery, and I had the ribs.  The ribs are good, but not great.  Since my cohorts (most of them) had been to Dreamland before, the consensus was that they were uncharacteristically off their game that night.  Also, we were travelling with one of the team who is currently on a strict health diet regime and was running somewhere between “high-maintenance” and “fussy eater.”  Since she could only eat vegetables and meat cooked without most of the things you’ll find meat cooked with at a BBQ joint, she eventually consumed 17 pounds of raw broccoli and a busboy, before she could be restrained and reminded that she wasn’t in Arizona, where I guess that kind of thing is still legal.  Presumably insurance will cover notifying his family, but it was still a hell of a dinner bill.

To make certain that I did not become too homesick in between meetings and eatings, I talked to the three lunatic children every day.  Talking to Number One Son on the phone is an exercise in brevity.  “Hi Dad!”  “Hi Big Man!”  “Bye Dad.”  “Oh, uh, bye!”  He’s a man of few words.  Plus, to ensure I had all the trappings and cheerful reminders of home, SOBUMD called me as I was going to sleep so that I, too, could hear the damn cat cleaning his testicles as loudly as he possibly could. “Thwoock.  Thwoock.  Thwoock.  Thwoock.”  She had shooed him off the bed into the hallway, and we could still hear the furry little pervert. 

I’ll tell you, there are days when I find myself in Huntsville Alabama in meetings discussing types of lubricants for air compressor maintenance, periodicity of how often those lubricants are utilized for their intended purpose, and the role of the person administering the lubricant in capturing the data concerning just how many thumbfuls of grease he or she has just applied to that air compressor, and I wonder where my life went wrong. 

But then I remember I’m here for the food, and it’s all good again.  Driving back from my most recent meeting, I saw – and you cannot imagine my surprise – a BBQ joint.  And not just any BBQ joint, but a member of the Gibson family!  (Devout readers will recall the pilgrimage I made to Big Bob Gibson’s in Decatur last time I was here.)  This was a shotgun shack just outside the gate from Redstone Arsenal called “David Gibson Bar-B-Q” and looking about as much like a restaurant as my old gym locker.  The sign was small, the place was tiny – a BBQ joint of dubious provenance if ever there was one.  I remembered the need to throw myself into adventure – in the name of scientific discovery – and turned hard right into the path of least resistance, and pig.  

David Gibson's Pulled Pig

It’s good pig.  It doesn’t don’t look like much, but they put the cole slaw on their pulled pig sandwich, and they have nice thick-tangy-spicy barbeque sauce, and they have white sauce, and they have a very nice vinegar hot sauce, and their slaw is what slaw next to pig ought to be.  I asked the lady behind the counter if the David Gibson was in fact related to the Big Bob Gibson’s that I’d – and she pointed to the sign explaining their history before I could finish my question.  I guess they get that a lot.  It’s run by Harold David Gibson, son of David S. Gibson and grandson of Big Bob.  The place has been on that spot since 1960, and still uses hickory wood in man-made pits, just as the Gibsons have for the last 82 years.  You can tell – this is BBQ made with smoke, time, and love. 

For dinner, which was not too far behind, and why should it be since we’re here to eat, we mixed it up a bit.  Huntsville has a long German tradition, being as how when it was Rocket City we “imported” quite a few German rocket scientists here to help us get to space – on my way to several meetings, I passed the Wernher Von Braun center going up and coming down.  We went to a place called the “Ol’ Heidelberg” which lived up to its name by hanging multiple pictures of the bridge over the Rhine showing the ruins of the old Heidelberg castle in the background.  The décor looked less like a German restaurant and more like an American restaurant trying hard to look German, and succeeding pretty damn well.  The desserts in front were tempting, but our mouths didn’t really start to water until the waitress – in full biergarten regalia – rattled off the beers on draft and mentioned Spaten Optimator.  My cohort whispered, “Optimator!”  I looked at her and said, “Optimator!” and we high-fived.  If you’ve only had it in bottles, it’s to die for on draft.   The rouladen was fantastic, served with cucumber salad, red cabbage, and spetzele – it was the best German meal in a restaurant I’ve had since I left Germany.  (My mother-in-law is German, and both she and her daughter SOBUMD can cook circles around my local fare.)   A fantastic meal.

Tomorrow, we fly home, preceded if I am lucky by one last stop at Thomas Pit – a pilgrimage to touch the primal pig before I return to the antiseptic skies of the Greater Metro DC area, the industrial homogenous pig that is Red Hot and Blue, and my wonderful SOBUMD, and the three lunatic children, and the noisy ball-licking cat. 

It’ll be good to be home!

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Man, 5 weeks into the year, February already. 

Day 29 – Happy New Elfa

Day 30 – His-n-Hers Cats

Day 31 – Number One Son’s Latest Obsession

Day 32 – A Cat and His Girl

Day 33 – Angry Wine!

Day 34 – Blitzkrieg Bibimbop

Day 35 – More Noms

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Here it is already Friday - another week, another chance to catch up with your own personal astro-illogical future for the weekend and next week.  Hey, we’re all excited here – it finally has a name! 

Aries (The Ram):  Next week is a fast one.  You’ll need to take responsibility for your actions – just remember that everything you choose will be wrong.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Chronic Cervid Wasting Disease.    

Taurus (The Bull):  Good news!  By Tuesday, you should be fully recovered.  Don’t get used to it.  Thursday will find you back on your head anyway.

Gemini (The Twins):   You will find yourself waiting on Saturday and too damn late on Sunday.  Monday you’ll be holding your head with a headache that will have you in bed all of Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday will have you feeling better, but still staring at the walls. Your high-risk disease this week:  Schmallenberg. 

Cancer (The Crab):  Don’t bother watching the Superbowl on Sunday.  Your team will lose and you’ll drown your sorrows in a frothy mixture of Doritos, shame, and cheap beer. 

Leo (The Lion):  You’re in for a treat on Tuesday, but you’ll have to find it for yourself.  That treat will be taken from you again on Wednesday unless you’re wearing traditional Bavarian lederhosen. Your high-risk disease this week:  Porcine Foot & Mouth.   

Virgo (The Virgin):   You have an army of flying monkeys and you’re not afraid to use it.  Don’t be shy about throwing your weight around, except on the bus, where that’s considered rude. 

Libra (The Scale):  You’re a traveling man this week.  You will be  headed west on Wednesday and south on Saturday. Pack some extra undies, you’re going to need them.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Crimean-Congo Hemoragic fever.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  Brush up on your foreign language skills, because you’re going to have unexpected visitors this week.  Pick up a haddock on Monday and set it in the fridge.  Once you can smell it without opening the fridge, kick them out.  Your lucky number is 13.

Sagittarius (The Archer):  Video didn’t kill the radio star, you did, and the RCMP will be looking for you this week.  There’s no statute of limitations on murder, regardless of how bad a DJ he was.  The insanity plea is your best bet.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Salmonellosis.   

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   You will think about boats most of the week.  Keep those thoughts only in your head, because anything you board in February will end in Vada A Bordo, Cazzo!  Big water is not your friend this week.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  You are developing an unhealthy moist towelette fetish.  Weekends are your own, but you need to leave this one home when you go to work on Monday.  Your lucky number is 5 below.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Necrotizing Fasciitis.

Pisces (The Fish):  Tuesday will be brought to you by the letter P and the number 4.95.   You will reach a pleasant elevation on Monday and Thursday, only to come back down and return to where you started.  Get someone else to pay for it. 

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

So, it’s been 4 weeks with the horoscope, to mixed reviews.  The ManFAQ, mayitrestinpeace, was usually only a single question – not a bad gig if you’ve got a week to write it.  This sucker, man – do you realize there are 12 of those things?  Each week?  What was I thinking?

But there are good sides.  I’ve touched people’s lives.  Amarina wrote in from Australia to say that her horoscope from 2 weeks ago was “spot on, mate!”  Inga from Germany told me hers last week was “frighteningly to the pin” which I’m reliably informed means that I got it right.  Several Canadians have mentioned that the forecasts seem too accurate to be just chance, and 90 percent of Americans polled indicted that they were considering taking out restraining orders because their horoscopes were not just forecasting their futures, but actually creating them.  

However, this has only been the case when those horoscopes have been, well, not to put too fine a point on it, lousy.  For those few times I’ve indicated a pleasant week ahead, smooth sailing, you’re rockin’ out this time – dead wrong. 

What can we derive from this?  Either (A) I’m a prescient genius, (B) everyone’s been having a really shitty month, (C) shitty prophecies are self-fulfilling, or (D) all of the above.   Since I have yet to win the lottery, I can safely discount (A).  I think we can probably safely chalk up (B) to the fact that it’s January.  That leaves (C), which tells us that people generally expect things to go wrong and are usually unsurprised to find themselves once again ankle deep.  Here’s where we pull out the Philosophers.  Who can help us? 

Thomas Hobbes, of course!   Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.  Since we know the lives of men (and ladies) are mostly pretty bleak, we can simply quote Leviathan:

“Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”

From now on, I can predict with pedagogical prescience that my astro-illogical dances with your destiny will be entirely accurate.  From this Friday forth, may I present:  The Hobbesian Horoscope.

Doomed, we are.  Doomed.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Still not a photoblog, Week Four.  There were several days this week when I went to bed thinking “oh, dang, I never did get around to taking a picture.”   Reviewing these, I realized that my days have blurred together so much that I didn’t remember the ones I’d taken – some early in the morning, some random “grab that shot” pics that slipped from my head as soon as I set the Nikon down, entering and leaving my mind like a flashbulb.  To my surprise, they were all on the camera, and we all know – the camera doesn’t lie. 

Day 22 – A World Inside

Day 23 – We Can Be Together Now

Day 24 – I Still Fit

Day 25 – A La Mode

Day 26 – That’s No Cat

Day 27 – Morning Light

Day 28 – Nothing Better

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Here it is already Friday - another week, another chance to catch up with your own personal astro-illogical future for the weekend and next week.  This week, for your fortune and favor, I’m highlighting some of the diseases many of you will be at risk for in the next 7 days.  Sucks to be you!!!

Aries (The Ram):  Next time you go to the doctor, tell her about those sores. Really – it’s not going to go away by itself.  Your lucky number is also the loneliest – 1.    

Taurus (The Bull):  You are happiest when involved in some kind of creative process, which is good since you’re going to spend some quality time alone this week!  Your high-risk disease this week:  Monkeypox

Gemini (The Twins):   You enjoy mental exploration, and see where it’s lead you?  Right.  Despite that, you are loved, deeply, by people who are really really bad at saying that.  Knowing this probably won’t help, but it’s there.  Cling to it. 

Cancer (The Crab):  You don’t even want to know how badly your PC is going to crash this week.  Your data?  Buh-bye.  Backup your life, buhbala, because it’s going to be a bumpy ride!  Your high-risk disease this week:  Banana Wilt

Leo (The Lion):  You’re awesome today, tomorrow, pretty much through Tuesday.  Wednesday through Friday is a greased slide to Loserville.   

Virgo (The Virgin):   You made it through the wilderness.  Somehow, you made it through.  You’d been had.  You’d been sad.  You’d been blue.  How touching.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Black Lung

Libra (The Scale):  Your sign is associated with the lower back and the kidneys.   Which is funny, considering the state of your liver.  Your lucky number is a buck ninety-five, exact change only please.

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  You are a sequence of small scenes played all out of order.  You are highly contagious, capable of causing explosive outbreaks, and characterized by fever, cough, and awesomeness.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Equine Influenza

Sagittarius (The Archer):  You.  Monday will be the best day you’ve had in weeks.  Ride that and coast for the week.   

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   That know-it-all Leo down the block from you thinks you’re cute.  He’s a stalker; don’t interact with him.   Your lucky number is 18.  Your high-risk disease this week:  Coconut Palm Bud Rot

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  Your mama was young, and the skies were rocking with the dusty heart of a beggar woman on the night you were born.  You should listen to more Sally Oldfield, but only on Wednesday.

Pisces (The Fish):  Tuesday will be better than Monday, Monday will be better than the weekend.  Your lucky number is Section 3.5.1.6.  You should probably lie down. Your high-risk disease this week:  White Nose Syndrome

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Still not a photoblog, Week Three, without further preamble. 

Day 15 – Office in the Morning

Day 16 – Rose in Winter

Day 17 – Winter Crocus

Day 18 – Yummys

Day 19 – Maestro

Day 20 – Stump

Day 21 – Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

There are a few bits going around the mommywebs right now that suggest parenting is hard, and then it’s easy, and then it’s over, and that we should enjoy it while it lasts because our kids grow up and then we’re not doing as much parenting and then we’ll look back on these days fondly and then we’ll die.  Or something like that.

Needless to say, I feel the need to weigh in on this.

Carpe Diem, they say.  OK, just carpe the moment.  No, wait, it’s OK to just carpe the good moments.  It’s ok that it’s hard, they say.  We all know you’re not really enjoying every second of every day, and that doesn’t make you a bad person.

All of that is true. 

What I will add is that as a parent, you’re breaking new ground.  We like to think that we know a great deal about raising kids – there are whole industries built around telling people how to do it, how not to do it, and how not to lose your freaking mind in the process.  None of that information is completely accurate.  We’ve gotten pretty good with the parts you learned in your high school biology class, sure, and we know more about diseases and how to treat and prevent them, but “raising” a child?  This is completely new.  No one has ever done this before.

There are no studies to guide you that will show the effects of this or that parenting technique on kids being raised in an era of instant communication, immediate gratification, and no borders.  Not only is every child different, but every day is new.  My early environment taught me that in order to listen to the song I wanted to hear whenever I wanted to hear it, I had to save some money and ask my parents to drive me to a store and buy the record and bring it home and play it.  (Record, vinyl, yes, I’m that old.)  My kids ask for a dollar and download a single song, play it 30 seconds later, and then tell 17 friends across counties, countries, and continents what they’re listening to and what they think of it.  They move FAST because the tools are in place to let them, and they’ve never known a time when those tools weren’t there.

We, on the other hand, watched these tools being developed.  We’re used to them now, and we use them – but we’re not natives, not most of us.  So of course parenting is hard.  We’re digital immigrants with self-induced ADD, trying to get through days that are filled with sensory overload.  Even without kids, we live in a media barrage of consumer-targeted advertising based on fear, making sure you have enough to worry about.  That way, you can spend money to mitigate those worries.  Do you realize that no one worries about burglary any more?  We get to worry about home invasion now.  What happened to all the burglars? 

We’re told that we can spend our way to safety, security, and serenity.  I’m going to set up a button on this site that will let you send me a dollar, in exchange for which I will send you a personalized note telling you that everything’s OK, you’re going to be fine, and you’re doing a good job.  But I digress.

With kids, who are crazy enough without external help, we suddenly have a new source of sensory input.  New parents aren’t used to sensory input devices that don’t come with an off switch.  They are suddenly faced with complete life-and-death responsibility, no operating instructions, and a society that will judge them at every turn, after the fact.  No one says, “I wouldn’t do that.”  They say, “I wouldn’t have done that.”  Yes, parenting is hard – as a species, we had to throw away the guidebooks for raising kids after the industrial revolution, because by the time the next generation rolled along, the books were obsolete.  Not only is every child different, but every day is new.  (Remember that this did not use to be the case.)  This not only hasn’t stopped, it’s gotten faster.  Fully half of what we consider “good parenting techniques” are still based in the 18th century.  We have digital kids.  We need to become digital parents, fast, and it’s hard.  Of course we worry ourselves sick – not only do we have television telling us to worry about everything, now we have life-and-death decisions to make for someone else, and the world watching.  You want me to enjoy this? 

So, do I enjoy my kids?  Yes.  Douglas Adams once wrote that the hours were OK, but the minutes really dragged.  I enjoy all of my life, even the parts that really drag – I’m generally just wired that way.  (Also, being in a good mood really pisses people off, which is an added bonus some days.)  Of course being a dad is hard.  No one said it wouldn’t be, any more than they said life would be fair.  But if you don’t smile and try to enjoy it, you wind up wallowing in self pity – and then the fear-mongers step in. 

The best thing we can do for our kids is make sure they see us enjoying them.  They’re taking in data on all frequencies and monitoring all channels, because their environment is training them to do so, and they notice everything about how we carry ourselves through the days, hours, and minutes.  Smiling – just forcing those muscles in your face to go up – actually tends to elevate your mood, to say nothing of making people wonder what you’re thinking.  Let them see you smile.  They’ll remember it.  After all, soon they’ll grow up and then it’s over and then we’ll look back on these days fondly and then we’ll die. 

In the meantime, everything’s OK.  You’re going to be fine.  You’re doing a good job.

Every child is different.  Every day is new.  Don’t worry about it.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Here it is already Friday - last week is over.  Put it behind you.  Breathe in, now out.  Repeat.  You’ve got a weekend to plan!  Fridays around noon, assuming this server and I ever agree on what timezone we’re working with, you can catch up with your own personal astro-illogical future for the weekend and next week. 

Aries (The Ram):  Next week, the levee will break.  You will have no place to stay.  You will be taught to weep and moan.  Crying will not help you, and praying will not do you any good.  You will have to move.  I suggest considering a move to Chicago, or possibly Aberdeen, MD. 

Taurus (The Bull):  Good job sorting your clothes last week.  This week, maybe you can tackle the dishes?  Your kitchen is a mess, and your lucky number is zero.  Hop to it!

Gemini (The Twins):   You will be offered a hamburger on Wednesday.  Hit it like the fist of an angry god, then pay for it Thursday. 

Cancer (The Crab):  She likes you.  She doesn’t want to sleep with you.  Some people just aren’t going to want to do that, and you need to respect that.  I know, you haven’t meet anyone yet who has wanted to do that, but they’re out there…  Somewhere… 

Leo (The Lion):  You’re having a bad hair week.  It’s going to get worse before it gets better; don’t worry about it.  This is a good week to warm up the bike – helmet hair isn’t an issue today.

Virgo (The Virgin):   Like a can of compressed gas, you’re waiting for something to blow.  This week all hell will blow up, and you will wait no longer.  Sunday, deals await you if you shop.  Skip Thursday, it’s loaded with an extra helping of whoop-ass with your name all over it.   

Libra (The Scale):  You’ve called your congressman twice this year; once more and the FBI will be knocking.  You’re going to go downtown this week; don’t make it be the hard way. 

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  Your suspicious nature causes you to be distrustful, but amidst all your evil character traits, you have grit and backbone.  The Wisdom of the Serpent lies concealed within you, along with a lot of pizza and those cookies your roommates didn’t eat fast enough so you ate them yourself.  Hey, they didn’t want them, did they?  Your lucky numbers are the 18th through the 27th numbers in the Fibonacci sequence.

Sagittarius (The Archer):  You are an idealistic flame, waiting to light the fires of those around you.  You’re mutable, you’re eclectic, and you’re going to bust a heel this week.  Keep a spare pair of shoes in your desk Monday.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):   That Italian cruise ship sank because of you.  Chuck Norris weeps when he thinks about what you could have been.  How do you sleep at night?  Oh, and your mom will call on Sunday; don’t pick up the phone.  You don’t want to know.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  Just as literature is news that stays news, you are as old now as you have ever been.  By Wednesday, you’ll be even older.  By this time next week, everything you know will have turned on its head and you’ll wonder why you ever wore your underpants on the inside.  Roll with it.  Your lucky number is nothing at all. 

Pisces (The Fish):  You glory and delight in getting others to adore you, and why should you not?  You are the Shogun of your office, the Karmic guide of your bus stop.  You’re still going to have to clean the bird shit off the window on Tuesday.  

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

I was going to post something pithy about the dangers of the SOPA and PIPA bills and why I set this website dark yesterday in solidarity with the EFF and all like that, but this jumped to mind instead:

Vada a bordo, cazzo!

This doesn't cross-post from the main site, but I've set http://www.biguglymandoll.com/ dark today to raise awareness, in my own small little way, about SOPA and PIPA.  Please read up on these bills if you haven't, and let your congressfolks know that this is not how you fix the problems they want to fix.  Not that piracy isn't a problem - it is - but that these bills are the wrong bills. 

The Oatmeal says this all much better than I did:  http://theoatmeal.com/

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

This is still not a photoblog, and I don’t want it to become one.   I’m aggregating a picture a day, mostly of cats and food, on Sunday evenings.  It’s only been two weeks and already I have the sense that I should get out more.  Last week’s pictures weren’t too huge, and the format was OK if not great, so I’m keeping with that for now.  Let me know what you think.  Ready for Week Two? 

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

So there I was, innocently driving home this past Friday night, when I remembered – tonight was the night I was taking the Human Tape Recorder to her Theater Sports competition. 

“Her what?” I hear you ask.  Short version – it’s a bunch of kids on school teams competing to see who can do the best improv.  Think “Who’s Line Is It Anyway” with 7th and 8th graders, and you’re there. 

These 7th and 8th graders are better than average at this, albeit none of them is exactly that dreamboat Ryan Stiles, so I can’t say I’m dreading the trip.  Oh wait, yes I can – it’s not the show I’m dreading, it’s the trip to get there.  Why?  Because I’m not driving the HTR to the show, I’m driving the HTR and two of her friends, who are also with her school’s Theater Sports teams, to the show.  For 45 minutes.  In traffic.  In the dark. 

Three 13-yr-old girls on any given day will not be even close to quiet.  Three 13-yr-old theater girls on their way to an improv competition is like listening to the Stooges rehearse with a “Beach Boys vs the 1812 Overture” battle of the bands competition in the foreground, while trying to read 10,000 Twitter updates out loud at the same time.  OK, now try to drive without hitting anything.  After 10 minutes, the problem wasn’t “not hitting something with the car,” the problem was not WANTING to hit something with the car. 

We made it in one piece, sanity notwithstanding, and I disgorged my young wards into the host school, Rocky Run Middle School.  I paid my ticket and took my seat, finding a friend (the mom of one of the HTR’s friends) and commiserating with her.  The show started shortly, and we watched.  There were two games – first, your team is given 2 minutes and a nightmare thing to be scared of, and you take it from there.  Second, your team is given a “In a… With a… While…” scenario, and you have 2 minutes to create a plausible reason for someone on your team to yell “I can’t believe I’m in a thing, with a thing, while thingying,” inside 2 minutes, whereupon your skit is over. 

There were two MCs, presumably past masters of this craft and currently high school students.  They had been doing this kind of thing for a while.  I won’t say that they were both very much into theater, but one of them was Kurt Hummel.  I’m not kidding. 

One of the first teams up was afraid of exit signs – all the prompts were pretty random, which I suppose is the point – and they had fun with it.  One kid lead off with being obviously afraid of exit signs, and the rest teamed up to taunt the first one in a dream sequence.  One of them walked out, stopped dead center of the stage, and pointed out a-la an airline attendant all of the marked exits in the room.  He then had the chance to do what so many of us only dream of – he looked at the kid who was afraid of the exit signs, looked out at the audience, and yelled, “Fire!  Fire!” 

I turned to my parent friend and said, “Did that kid just get away with yelling ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater?  That is so cool!”

By the time the “In a… With a… While…” part of the show started, deep vein thrombosis was setting in and I was really thinking about yelling Fire myself, just for a chance to get up for 30 seconds.  Some of the “In a… With a… While…” skits were good, some were odd but good, and some were just odd.  One of the first teams up managed to roll through 2 minutes without getting to the line, running out of time and knocking them out of contention. 

The audience, getting restive at this point, all perked up with one of the skits near the end of this round, when a team was given the prompts of “In a Shoe, With ABC gum, While Poking the Homeless.”

Poking the homeless?  WTF, over? 

The kids, to their very real credit, did the best they could, and in 2 minutes made several references to “now you know it’s not right to poke those less fortunate,” et cetera.  Still, more than half the audience was very clearly muttering, “WAT?”

I can’t believe I’m in a public school theater, with adults in supervisory capacities, while listening to this.  Someone in Rocky Run Middle School experienced a very real lapse in good judgement Friday night.  The kids competing obviously knew it, and did what they could to compensate, but still – not funny. 

The first part of the show wrapped up and neither of the teams we were there for had advanced, so we collectively decided to relieve the pressure on our legs and brains, forestall the impending thrombosis, and make like drums.  We beat it out of there, discussing things that are funny sometimes and things that just usually aren’t.  All the teams did well, even the ones who did poorly, and I’m even looking forward to the next one.  I hope they have real chairs.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

Here it is already Friday - how time flies when you’re struggling just to breathe.  The Big Ugly Horoscope needs a better title – The Daily Dose of Destiny has a nice ring to it, but I’ll be damned if I’m posting this daily.  Weekly Walk With Wisdom?  I dunno, send ideas.  Fridays around noon, assuming this server and I ever agree on what timezone we’re working with, you’ll have a chance to catch up with your own personal astro-illogical future for the weekend and next week.  To wit:

Aries (The Ram):  You’re going to rock this week!  Just kidding, your Monday will suck like everyone else’s.  Deal with it.

Taurus (The Bull):  Taurus, Aries, Aries, Taurus, ya’ll look so much alike I can’t really tell you apart.  And you know what?  I don’t care.  Both your weeks are gonna suck, doesn’t matter.  Your week will suck more if you wear the red shirt on Wednesday; you should just get rid of it.  It’s bad luck.  Didn’t you ever watch Star Trek?

Gemini (The Twins):   Sunday, drink two bottles of sparkling water and eat nothing but a banana.  Monday, hit the ice cream like it’s that Capricorn who stole your girlfriend.  Take Tuesday off.

Cancer (The Crab):  You know that really funny dick joke you just can’t wait to tell?  Take a pass on that one for now – your boss eats in the same restaurant and is stilling in the next booth over.  She hasn’t found dick jokes funny since the surgery. 

Leo (The Lion):  Monday afternoon looks good for that coffee you’ve been meaning to get with your old boyfriend.  Don’t wear the same dress you’re wearing now; it’s ugly.

Virgo (The Virgin):  A virgin?  Get the sacrificial knife!  Quick, get the – what?  What do you mean we can’t – oh.  Yeah, well, of course they’re an endangered species. Nevermind, um, you’re going to have a nice week.  

Libra (The Scale):  You keep dreaming of food.  Thursday you will dream of meat pies made of IRS auditors and topped with fine-grit sandpaper shavings.  Skip the sauce, it’s bastard. 

Scorpio (The Scorpion):  You really need to lower your standards.  You think a good week includes trips to New York, Disney, and Stockholm, or haute five-star burger joints.  Let me tell you, a good week is one where NOBODY DIES and trips to the ER are kept to a minimum.  Got it?  Try to have a good week.

Sagittarius (The Archer):  Your boundless ambition is tempered only by your, your, um – nope, your ambition knows no bounds.  You are an amoral saber-toothed tiger, moving through this concrete Savage Garden like a bullet in butter, and no one can withstand your force.  This week is the wrong week to break off the affair with the boss’s admin’s daughter’s best friend.  Your lucky number is six hundred forty-three.

Capricorn (The Sea-Goat):  It’s on!  Capri-corn, Capri Sun, Capri Pants! Let your inner nudist shine this week.  Leo is large in your future on Wednesday.

Aquarius (The Water Bearer):  The guy you were dating?  You need to give him one last mercy fuck and then ditch his ass this weekend.  He’s not what you need, and you know it.  He knows it too, he’s just with you for the sex. 

Pisces (The Fish):  That noise you keep hearing in the bathroom is the mirror sighing despondently for lack of your reflection.  You really are that good looking – you don’t need to lose that weight, you look fine.  You carry it well.  And you deserve that chocolate you’re going to eat on Monday, after the day you’re going to have! 

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

The Reigning Queen of Pink, High Duchess of Fluff, and Protector of Barbies was sitting in her room this evening, in her pink chair, next to her pink lamp and under the pink curtains, writing in her journal, when I knocked and was admitted into the royal pink chambers.  I noted aloud that it was pushing a quarter to ten, and that despite the evening’s pretty snow, there was pretty much no chance that school would be delayed or called off – time for bed.

“OK.”  She really is a good sport about going to bed when told, I don’t know why.  She hopped down, closed the journal, and walked to her desk, where she put the journal away carefully in the second slot of the journal/magazine/paper holder thingy.  She then took the pencil, a large feathered (yes, pink) thing, and walked 2 feet down to the pencil/pen holder purse thingy, unzipped it, placed the pencil inside, and zipped it back up. 

She then turned to me, looked me dead in the eye, and said, “I think I got the organizational genes.” She took a step toward the bed, thought for a moment, and said, “Except neither of you really have the organizational genes.  I don’t know where I got them.”

Oh, snap.  That would be grounds for grounding if (A) I weren’t laughing, and (B) she weren’t dead right.  She’s an organizational sport, that’s all there is to it.  We agreed that she had a very useful random mutation, and I put the little pink mutant to bed.

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

This is not a photoblog, and I don’t want it to become one.  But, since SOBUMD last year took 365 pictures, one per day, and it seemed interesting, I’m trying it this year.  On the other hand, I figure if I post the damn things every day, you’re going to get pretty tired of seeing them – so, I’m aggregating them week by week, Sunday evenings.  We’ll have 366 days this year, but I figure the weeks are pretty safe:  I can run Sunday through Saturday and not miss a thing.  Right?

I tend to aim for larger pictures, so I apologize if they’re huge.  I’ll try to use cut tags for my LiveJournal friends, and use thumbnails on the main site.  Mind you, I say “try” – I’m not as technical as I let on.

Ready for Week One?  Let me know what you think?

Day 1 – Fire

Day 2 – Berries and Barns

Day 3 – Messy Bed

Day 4 – Gold

Day 5 – Tree

Day 6 – Pink Morning

Day 7 – Invisible Car

Originally published at Big Ugly Man Doll. You can comment here or there.

So there I was, minding my own and just popping in for a few things on my way home – not like I was still on the clock, you know.  The grocery store isn’t too crowded at my hour, couple of stiffs and junkies, geezers getting out for their daily fiber and trying to cop a feel from the checkout chicas, the usual shuffle of the old, the bored, and the employees, most of whom were both.

I had just checked my list for the sixteenth time – hey, a drinking man’s memory’s got gaps – when I heard the loudspeakers crackle to life:  “Security, aisle 6.”  As I kept moving, it said, “Security, please scan all cameras in aisles 4, 5, and 6.”  I looked up to see where that was in relation to me, not being too familiar with the store, and I realized I was right next to those aisles. 

Being in the profession I am, and trust me that you do not want to know, my friend, I have a healthy enough sense of paranoia that I was perfectly happy to turn the heck around and not get involved or even be standing too close to something unpleasant.  In my line of work, “Cleanup on Aisle Nine” can be code for “kill all the witnesses and invoke the Patriot Act if anyone asks.”  So, I removed myself from the area of aisles 4, 5, and 6, and went over to the produce section. 

“Security, please scan all cameras in Produce.”

I looked around.  I was, for reasonable definitions of the word, alone.  It was me. 

I turned around to look for the cameras and realized I wasn’t as alone as I’d thought.  On the other side of the Produce section was a knockout redhead with the biggest melons I’ve seen this side of Chiquita.  I noticed the celery, the carrots, and the parsnips all standing a little straighter as she walked toward me, and I’ll admit she had my undivided attention as well.  It was a good thing, too, because she set the melons down on a display and pulled a loaded banana out of her purse.  This was looking less appealing.

I ducked as her first shot went wide, winging a turkey in the frozen food aisle.  Since I was pretty sure they were out of season, I assumed the turkey hadn’t been her target.  I took a good jump for the safety of the roughage, and her second shot slammed into the lettuce.  Heads rolled.

There was less yelling than I would have thought there would be, and I could hear the Muzak version of The Cure’s Lovecats as I watched a grocery staffer running pell-mell down the nearest aisle.   She took a shot at him as he made an endive into the dairy section.  She missed, but he got creamed all the same.  I took advantage of the distraction and threw a cabbage at my assailant.  “Head’s up!” I yelled! 

She turned it to mid-air cole-slaw with one shot and kept stalking forward, past the celery, toward me.  “Who are you?  What do you want?” I yelled.  “Why are you trying to kale me?” 

“Stand up, you sniveling collard,” she spat bitterly. 

“Only if you put the gun down – I don’t want to get chard.”  She lowered the gun, and I stood facing her.  I’m not a religious guy, but right there in that produce section, I don’t mind telling you I made the sign of the cress. 

As I got a better look at her, I saw she was sporting a black eye over her sorrel sweater.  “Some tough legumes give you that, ginger?”  It was the wrong thing to say, because she flipped the gun over and beet me with it.  My split lip was leeking and I was more than a little worried, when she stopped and said, “I knew you’d turnip somewhere, chickweed.  Admit it, you’re a rabeist.” 

“Lady, you’ve got the wrong Swede!  I don’t know what you’re talking about!” 

“Don’t give me that horseradish!  You were in Brussels that night, I saw you!” 

I gave her a quick poke while she was yelling, and she dropped the gun.  Store security swarmed her, and I took advantage of the confusion to roll under the garlic and split.  Besides, I had to pea.  As I was leaving, I heard the loudspeakers crackle again.   “Cleanup On Aisle Nine, I repeat, Cleanup On Aisle Nine.”

Oh, snap.  Time to run.