Woulda Coulda Shoulda

I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to tell you a fantastic made-up story and convince you that it’s true. I’ve never been a fan of April Fool’s Day—as much as I love a good story, the calculated intent to trick never sits well with me—but we may as well get it out of the way.

So: Licorice is pregnant! Also, Licorice is actually a cat. Who recently won the lottery. SWEARSIES.

We good? Okay, then. (I know. I’m not very good at the whole trickster thing.)

Instead of that nonsense, I have a VERY SERIOUS burning question which I urge you to consider carefully because this is IMPORTANT. If you like eggs, and you like hard-boiled and deviled eggs, can you please explain to me why it is now de rigueur for deviled eggs to be all fancified with weird ingredients instead of just being, you know, regular deviled eggs? DEVILED EGGS ARE ALREADY DELICIOUS. (This question brought to you by Easter dinner.)

Please discuss. I require enlightenment.

What this IS is a reminder that sometimes I post stuff on the Woulda Coulda Shoulda Facebook page that I don’t put here. It’s like a bonus reel! Hosted by the Evil Empire! Except no matter how evil Facebook becomes, it’s still the easiest place to waste time playing Scrabble with far-away friends, so I just can’t quite quit it (and probably neither can you).

So if you’re not a fan over there to see things like post updates and random pictures of things like my kid in a rainbow tutu, you might be missing out. Just sayin’.

So first of all, thank you for all of the coffeemaker feedback you left on my last post. It was very helpful, and I was over on Amazon, comparing and contrasting, and in the meantime I was drinking expired espresso made in my Tassimo (because once I won Otto over to the dark side and he started drinking coffee with me, I pretty much retired the Tassimo because I’d rather just make a whole pot). I was hovering over the “BUY” button when Otto said he wanted to try cleaning out the pot lid before we gave up.

Huh.

He soaked it in some stuff. Things did not look promising. BUT THEN he poked around in the lid with a Q-tip and soaked it again. (This is our pot lid; it has a “floating” ball inside there that magically lets coffee drip in but then settles to seal the pot and keep the coffee warm, after.) On the post-Q-tip soaking, about a half a pound of powdery coffee grounds floated down out of the lid. MAGIC. It’s like the lid was its own coffee-laden clown car.

This morning the coffeemaker worked perfectly. Order (and caffeine) are restored. Phew.

1) Yesterday I found out that the hulking, terrifying mass which has become my gimpy hand is apparently “perfectly normal.” Well, that’s a relief. I was getting tired of waiting for an alien to burst forth from the scar. But, uh, I kind of miss the days when my hand looked like a hand, y’know? So I am now on a strict regimen of weirdo anti-inflammatory treatments via battery-powered patch. Really. I have to drive over to the orthopedist’s office every other day to have said patch slapped over my hand/wrist. Thank goodness I’m a lady of leisure and don’t have anything else to… oh. Crap.

2) Are you taking the Little Drummer Boy Challenge? It amuses me. Though it amused me more before Monkey’s doctor’s office knocked me out about fifteen minutes ago. IT IS NOT EVEN DECEMBER. I PROTEST.

3) We have our favorite Visiting Dog at the house right now, and last night I woke up certain I was having a hot flash. I wasn’t. I was, however, having two dogs laying on top of me, both eager to show the other that they could have me. It’s nice to be loved…? Kind of? But also sort of sweaty.

4) I have a new post up over at Feel More Better, all about my very first car (which wasn’t a car at all, actually, but a truck). You know how I like reminiscing about the old days, and then waving my cane at the young’uns and telling them to get off my lawn. Come on over and tell me about your first ride, if you like.

It rhymes with Sandy, but it less depressing. See?

Today I’m over at Feel More Better, pondering Halloween candy and the politics therein. Maybe you don’t view this as the most candyful time of the year, but I sure do.

Come on over and check it out if you’re all hurricane-d out and need something a little more… chocolatey.

This is old news, I know it is, but I kept meaning to write about it and then life exploded and I never did, and it is REALLY SUPER IMPORTANT that you know that you can get Bert and Ernie on your GPS if you didn’t already know.

If you DID already know, sorry. This video always makes me laugh, even though I’ve already seen it a hundred times:

I contend that NO ONE who 1) owns a TomTom and 2) grew up watching Sesame Street could learn of this information and not immediately run to the associated website to download your favorite muppet voices. (more…)

So the good news is that I feel confident that I’m now firmly on the road to Less Crazy, thanks to the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals. (And all God’s people—or at least the ones who have to live with me—said AMEN.)

The bad news is that this seems to be being accomplished by rendering me narcoleptic, and I am simply unable to stay awake long enough to be significantly depressed and/or anxious. Now, it’s true that prior to this I hadn’t been sleeping well for a few weeks a month two months a really long time, but you would think that eventually I’d be caught up and could stay awake for 16 consecutive hours, no? I’m apparently not there yet.

The kids are with their dad for the weekend and Otto and I had big child-free plans that have been mostly thwarted by inability to stay awake. Today we’re off to The Big City and I’m hoping that if I sleep all the way there he won’t have to carry me around when we arrive. Wish me luck.

1) In honor of the Super Bowl, I not only made Stephanie’s crock pot spinach and artichoke dip (which is, truly, one of my favorite ways to evoke a cheesegasm), I bought my family a fresh-baked loaf of pumpernickel bread to eat it with. (I ate tortilla chips and veggies.) For the most part, eschewing wheat is now so much a part of my life that I barely even miss it, but for some ready, TODAY that half-eaten loaf of pumpernickel is TAUNTING me. It’s almost unbearable. And I have no idea why. To make matters worse, an unbidden voice that sounds a lot like a bad parody of Freud keeps asking me what the pumpernickel REPRESENTS. Sheesh.

2) While quickly checking through my spam comments to make sure I wasn’t deleting anything that wasn’t actually spam, I came across one where the comment was “Blogging is pure vanity.” Of course, the spam link was for… increasing your seminal volume. Um, at least MY vanity doesn’t make a mess, dude.

(You’re welcome.)