December 6, 2007 | Health is overrated

I can’t believe I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL YOU about this. Heck, I almost forgot to tell Otto. It’s called REPRESSION, people. It’s a wonderful coping mechanism. I use it all the time. Like… ex-husband? What? I don’t recall.

(See how that works? It’s awesome.)

Anyway, some of you noticed that I told you all about my excellent adventure in the MRI machine a few weeks back but then didn’t post a follow-up. This is not because I don’t love you (because I do! I love you! each of you! and especially you, there, in the back!), but because I didn’t have any information to share.

Yes. You read that correctly. I had a breast MRI for “something suspicious” nearly three weeks ago, and the feedback was… nothing at all. (more…)

December 5, 2007 | Ottomatic For the People

Yesterday was Otto’s birthday. I like it very much when Otto has a birthday, because he is the youngest man I’ve ever dated (I, apparently, used to have a thing for older men), and it is only between his birthday and the following summer when I have MY birthday that I can claim he’s a year older than I am.

(Why yes, his birthday IS all about me. Why do you ask?)

I have been ribbing Otto for a while about what we’d do for his birthday, because my birthday this year didn’t work out all that well, due to a number of circumstances. It wasn’t a big deal, really, but you have to understand that Otto completely and totally screwed himself the year of my divorce—when life had been running at maximum suckitude for several years already—by making my birthday not only a veritable festival of extravagance and pampering, but he somehow managed to draw the whole thing out for about a month. (”It’s your birthday week!” he’d say, and then “It’s your birthday month!” after that, and by the time he was into “It’s your birthday quarter!” even I had to concede that possibly this was enough.) Anyway, dude neglected to pace himself, is all I’m sayin’. (more…)

December 4, 2007 | Friends, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Once upon a time there was a small boy who became overly attached to his stuffed puppy. The puppy’s name was, of course, Puppy. And everything the boy did, he did with his puppy. And any time you suggested a game or a book or even a TV show, the boy had to check with Puppy, first, to make sure that that was okay. At bedtime, his mother had to kiss him AND Puppy goodnight, or he couldn’t sleep. And if Puppy was missing at bedtime? Well, let’s just say you’d better find him. STAT.

This was extremely charming when the boy was two or three years old, but was becoming tiresome by age six or so. By the time the boy was seven, his evil mother was working very hard to suggest horrible things like “Leaving Puppy at home” and “Thinking for yourself” and “MAKE YOUR DAMN DOG STOP LOOKING AT ME.”

And then the boy and his puppy moved, and the mother decided it was time for some changes. (more…)

December 3, 2007 | Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, The Year of Living Changerously

Otto and I stayed up past midnight last night, and I probably shouldn’t tell you what we were doing, but I can tell you that it involved a lot of licking.

Oh my GOD; what is WRONG with you???

We were doing our Christmas cards. Sicko. Sheesh.

It has generally been my policy to do Christmas cards only on alternate years when Mercury is in retrograde and I’m able to dig the money for the cards out of the sofa cushions, and then I take some pictures of the kids and Photoshop them beyond recognition or transplant a head from one picture onto the body of another or something, and then I send them out bearing some terribly personal message like “Happy holidays from our home to yours!”

Boy, are you lucky if you’re on my list. (more…)

December 1, 2007 | Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Chickadee is mastering the fine art of defusing a potentially unpleasant situation with humor. I’m not sure where she got that, but WOW I LIKE IT. (This is your humor. This is your humor perpetuated through DNA. Any questions?)

I mean, yes, I don’t like it so much when I’m mid-rant about how there’s books all over the floor and a wet towel on the chair and would it be SO HARD to get her dirty clothes into the HAMPER… and she flings her arms around me and shouts, “WOW, I think I see something SHINY! And it is YOU! And I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, SHINY MOM!” It is very hard to lecture when you’re trying not to laugh.

This afternoon the children were playing Uno together very nicely while I finished up some work. I was just thinking to myself how great it is, when I heard Monkey begin to whine. (more…)