Talk Thursday: Things That Make Me Go, “Hmmmmmm?!.”

☼ The cure to a Gummy Bear addiction is not a twelve- step program. No, no it’s a five-dollar bag of Halloween Tootsie candies.

☼ I am addicted to trashy TV. I disgust, even, myself with this reality. For so long I lived in peaceful ignorance that Real Housewives trod the backs of their Real Housewives counterparts (who may or may not actually be, have been, or will ever be married if bitch factor has anything to do with it) with five-inch stilettos and really primpy princess tacky satins. Forever I am to wonder if they truly believe all their collagen puffer fish lips look sexy. It’s the uni-brow of lip looks, it makes me realize that the person who invented the lip liner was a psychic.

♥ Oh mi god, Swamp People are interesting. One they get to hunt gators all day long, get paid to do it several times over and can even wax poetic about gators. The down side they live in snake infested swamps. Wait, that’s all I have to say.

♥ Ice Road Truckers drive the Himalayas - that is when the Dalton isn’t frozen. Things I have learned 1) There are no driving laws in India 2) You never initiate passing another vehicle in India unless you are on a blind curve 3) If there are traffic laws enforcement is afraid of mob rule 4) ergo, the redundant - there are no driving laws in India 5) I will never go to India – snakes and bad driving.

♥ Dual Survival is on hiatus…. No I want my Dave and Cody back. Haven’t seen it? Dude you don’t know what you’re missing. I have learned sooooo much from this show, beginning with, “Respect Diversity.” Oh wait I knew that, it just makes me honor it more. And two if I am ever lost in the woods I might be able to make myself a passable structure for the night and on a good dry night with the planets in proper alignment, I think I can make fire with a Bic lighter.

♥ Survivor, only idiots and hateful people go on Survivor. Most can not make a passable shelter by themselves (or in a group and if they do they stop at one because why be sensible) nor can they make fire – except on two occasions – without their Bic lighter, flint and a metal sharp object. Oh, and they have lots of snakes (both in the game and out.) Hateful people have made me quit watching Survivor on several seasons, Big Brother and Amazing Race all together. Hate hate hate.

♥ Other reality shows that I watch…. Dancing With The Stars, American Idol, Matchmaker Millionaire aka you can put mega money in their pockets but dude you’re still a loser jerk, and my absolute fav, So You Think You Can Dance. I’m sure the moment I print this I will think of more shows I should have added…

♥ Ack!!!! Like Deadliest Catches, Ghost Hunters, Dirty Jobs, American Pickers, Pawnstars, Undercover Boss, and Mythbusters. See, it’s an endless list of characters and learning opportunities.

☼ What makes me really go huhhhh? Not hmmmm, but a big WTF Huh? Situation comedies. Two and a Half Men? What is it with people who love tv shows that put each other down? Degrading. With that said, I ♥♥♥♥ Big Bang Theory ♥♥♥♥ (my favorite can not miss show) from the opening show of season one when no one watched. I ADORE THIS SHOW. ♥♥♥ Castle ♥♥♥ what more can you say? ♥♥ NCIS ♥♥. And finally, ♥ Eureka ♥ That’s it. Everything else is on cable and reality.

☼ If I clean the bathroom sink several things are inevitable and all will make me do the physical version of hmmmm, which is shaking my head and intoning, “WTF?!.” 1) Despite the whole open sink area in front of the faucet my husband will brush, rinse and then spit over top the faucet. 2) Despite the fact a wash cloth and hand towel (with no apparent purpose in reality) sit on the counter, he will fail to see or clean up the water dripped all over after washing his hands. (And yes I count my blessings that two out of three husbands are known hand washers) 3) in the face of all evidence to the contrary (please realize the blessing you have receive with no accompanying photos) that he does not rinse out his toothbrush well enough, he will loudly complain that his medicine cabinet is disgusting where he puts his toothbrush. “Why doesn’t it happen on your side?”

☼ If I clean the bathroom floor Burp will come pee all over the toilet. Is that an Aspie trait? I absolutely adore my grandson, but honestly the things that I discover are his traits in all truth make me scratch my head… forget the hmmm. Make him clean it up - no problem it just doesn’t deter him. Mass sympathy and sorrow for his mom’s frustration and her bathroom, please.

Okay that is it for now. I think. I’m sure as soon as I hit the publish button all sorts of hmmms will hit my forethoughts. Hmmm, don’t cha think?

Oh Oh and I miss my favorite bloggers, they all seem to be on hiatus. It must be October ennui. Seriously a major ailment of autumn darkened north Americans.

☼ Oh mega crap, things that make me go, HMMMMMM! Americans in general and the Democratic Party in specific. I know, I’m an Independent registered Republican. But really folks, have guts, have patience. Go Shopping, help the economy, but do not think just because you voted for change it will happen yesterday. We, and the world, suffered a major recession you don’t snap back with a wish and a word. Healing takes time, give it five years before you start bitching things aren’t (I love my auto correct wants me to write isn’t instead of aren’t) fixed yet.

And a special note to my friends and family, I won’t have msn.com much longer I now have Charter so please change my email ending to charter.net and voila’ you’ll find me.

Sith,
Cele

I Did It! Argh!

I resisted for a long time, but finally gave in last night and signed up for Facebook. Did you know it works better when you put a picture with you registration? Yeah, so I am told. But I don’t look like I’d like to look. Sad, sad.

Natalie tried to talk me into it a several months ago. I thought, I’ve got my own website, I have four chatrooms, I’m signed up at Classmates, I have two blogs, and a Myspace page. Crap how much more does a girl need? I read a zillion blogs when my time allows and Facebook will just suck up my spare time.

This I found out last night in aces. I talked myself into it, really I thought I needed to sign up because I’m trying to put together this reunion. What I found was that Pam was one of three people I could find – and I already talk with her. Lillian is on Facebook, but I have her email. Bummer, I sucked up three hours last night deciding I liked Myspace better. The positive side of it is that I got to chat with Natalie for a few minutes so my time wasn’t a total loss.

Now I just need to get a picture that is acceptable to me and not a lie as to what I look like, (i.e. pleasant looking but not a blimp.) I think my eyes are great, but annoy the heck out of people.

Oh, and don’t get any ideas, I’m still resisting Twitter, Linkened, and whatever new thingie is on the horizon.

Sith,
Cele

I have been a bad blogger. And you my friend have come here looking for words from me. The words are too quiet. No inspiration. I think about a topic and it dies a withered death in the dark space of my little writing heart. My word womb is barren.

The rains have kept me from taking flower pictures in my garden...that is running rampant with weeds. I could try to weed, but the clinging tendrils of root refuses to give up the ground they have burrowed into. Therefore I remove more of the precious soil from my garden than the nasty little rooting greens that run amok of their own accord. Is that redundant? All this might be a plot of Mother Nature hatched to take back the tilled ground of my flower garden and return it to a savage forested state.

My hoe and I shall prevail. I will have new gloves and sharpen my blade (okay that was just poetic license, the blade to my trowel is quite dull actually) and I shall over come winter's devastation of my garden... and the lawn next to it.

And then I will hot tub. There.
Sith,
Cele

O圣诞树， O圣诞树我流了我的在您的血液: O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree I shed my blood on you

I think I’m allergic to my Christmas tree. Yes, it’s artificial. But it’s from China and I have an aversion to all things manufactured in China. If I’d been boycotting products made in China back in 2003 I might not have bought it. Do Americans make artificial trees? I know I live in the land of the Christmas tree, but I also have a woodstove. Dried out Doug Fir and American made woodstoves do not a happy holiday make. Does that contribute to my carbon footprint? And since it probably does, which contributes more: the Chinese wire and probable lead content, or the smoke from my chimney burning good old American grown Doug Fir? Crap I don’t want to know the answer do I?

Yesterday, after appreciating the lit brilliance of my Chinese artificial Nordic Christmas tree (ha, ha I’m imaging blonde Chinese people with dog sleds hauling my Christmas tree after harvest from the hills of Outer Mongolia,) I took off all the red balls and beads, crystal hearts and angels (all most certainly made in China) and carefully packed them away for later this year. Gingerly parting the wire branches I waded inside to break the tree trunk in to three parts, and proceeded to scratch my arms all to heck, pierce my left thumb (which was already highly abused from changing the high beam bulb - most assuredly manufactured in China- in Ducky’s Aspire earlier in the day) and bled profusely from that tiny hole for thirty minutes. Note: Chinese made band aides do not last as long as Chinese made Christmas trees.

I’m fairly certain I left a Chinese band aide in my American made hot tub filter.

And dirty words (all in English) I flip over my Dell Inspiron lap top and note, that yes folks the (frellin’ Australian made up word for Fuck!) stamps on the underside all say “Made in China.” Next time I’ll buy a Samsung or Sanyo or something less America sounding and maybe it will be made in some place closer to home, like Mexico or Canada.

Bah Humbug,
Cele

Victoria’s Secret …The Business of New Math

I am one of those people your accountant told you about: I do not balance my checkbook. Sad, but very true. While in the past this has caused me much woe, I’ve learned to compensate.

During my second marriage I always buffered my balance by rounding every thing up to either…
1) the nearest dollar… or
2) five dollars

The latter was actually the best method when you consider at the time I always paid more bill than I should have, which meant that something would bounce somewhere, some time. My mother, I am sure hangs her head in woe and angst.

In my third marriage (yes I get better with age and repetition) I have learned to just make sure I have a bumper in my accounts. I still over pay my bills. Which is the point of this whole blog.

America is in a financial crisis. Yeah, I know you had no clue until I told you.

While the bra industry is not sagging (pun intended) to my knowledge, I have to question how some companies remain in business. I was a diehard Victoria Secret customer. Their Emma line was smart, sexy, and affordable. Sadly I can no longer be an Emma Line diehard, the brand just doesn’t make their bras big enough, and yes woe is me, no one else makes affordable, sexy bras for women with large breastesesss. I’m sure Ducky would offer to walk around supporting me, but it would get in the way of my typing. And really, manly hands holding up my ponderously, obnoxious bosom is just a fashion faux pas (or wardrobe malfunction) waiting to happen, plus it’s not like I need to add rear cargo. You try typing when you’re being fondled, I have a hard enough time staying on task without diversions.

Yes, and no I was off task. I paid off my last Victoria Secret bill with sadness and began looking for a new brassiere. Last Friday in the mail I receive a check because I over paid my bill. Now I maybe wrong in my calculations, big companies do buy in bulk and therefore trim the pork off the edges of their bills, but really this is ridiculous.

Now keep in mind I am mathematically challenged being the product of the 1970’s “New Math” Fiasco. Ergo my calculations could be flawed…but not by much. Here is my estimates for Victoria’s Secret to refund my over paid bill (which I paid electronically) are as follows…

1) Envelope - .09 cents
2) Check - .12 cents
3) Office time – this is already a wash so let’s say 1 minute @ $10 an hour is .166 cents
4) Bulk postage .26 cents

Therefore Victoria’s Secret spent approximately .63 cents refunding my over payment of six cents. And I can’t even shop there anymore. If they kept my six cents maybe they could invest in someone to figure out the dimensions of a size “too big, old woman ponderous boobs” so they could keep my business. Maybe I should send them a plaster cast of Ducky’s hands.

Sith,
Cele

Warning…Copious Whining Ahead

I have never been one to get depressed during the holidays. No I get depressed when I can’t find something to wear, have gone through my entire wardrobe (which then lays in disarrayed on both floor and said bed,) resultantly I spend the next hour totally engrossed in self pity, crying on the bedroom floor in front of my empty closet. Weeping. Sadly. Weeping. But that is another story. I will say, before I go on to my real topic, this: If you are physically young (pre-menopause and wear a nice tidy size of say 10 or 8) and you smoke, stop now, because if you do it at menopause you are going to gain 70 pounds and are destined to find yourself weeping. Sadly. On the bedroom floor. Far too often for comfort.

Radio is a great industry, I love my job, it is creative, current, and strangely I get paid to play music while sitting in a little room all by myself. But if you are thinking of finding a career to make a living and want to enter radio, especially small town radio…Reality check! You need to be really good, a really, really wacky A – type personality (some sort of mental illness would probably help) and live in a mega city … LA… Chicago… New York. Not Florence, Oregon. And, oh by the way, I am not an A – Type personality, although my sanity has been questioned several times. Ergo, I don’t have a lot to offer my job (as in no dazzling, witty personality) and know that means I have to try to make myself indispensable – all the while knowing that no one is indispensable.

After years of hints from my boss, and I mean very gentle hints, I said last year that I’d take on some clients and work sales. It’s a way for me to make extra money. Most of my clients are area entertainment venues and troupes and not-for-profits, but my new cliental come from all walks of local business. With the down turn (isn’t that an understatement?) no one wants to advertise. Especially from me, it appears. I understand not wanting to strain your bottom line, but in a community where only one tenth (according to a recent poll) of the community shops in the historic old town area, wouldn’t that make your advertising all that more important? I mean really, attract your potential clients to your store, work to get your share of those buying dollars this holiday season.

Or say you’re selling Christmas Trees wouldn’t you consider radio, too if last year only advertise in the paper and ended up throwing over a hundred trees away? It’s Christmas, if people know you have trees at great prices their going to buy…but only if they know about it.

As you’re whining (hey, I know whining when I hear it) to your sales rep that the economy sucks and people aren’t shopping, shouldn’t you consider advertising your wares, services, and sales? Just wondering?

This morning I told our office manager that I couldn’t sell a parched man in the desert on drinking a glass of water for free. I need to be positive to sell, but in all truth my face is an open book, so when you have been telling me for months that you were advertising your Christmas Trees beginning Thanksgiving week and then say, “No we’re going with the paper, unless you’ve got a special” my face is going to drop, because I’m not good at poker. How I kept from responding, “No, you turned the Chamber Hometown Shopping special down last month”, how?

Now I am discouraged and apparently bitter. I feel like a fool trapped on a ship of nincompoops. A bad economy responds negatively to a lack of funding by becoming worse. Ergo, if you spend no money, the economy becomes more repressed, suppressed, and depressed. This holiday season please spend wisely, but none the less, spend. You can’t help me, but we can all help the economy.

Oh, and we’ll eat chocolate and douse our woes in Kahlua.

Sith,
Cele

OH, PS I will try to blog gratitude tomorrow for Talk Thursday, last week. It is such a good topic, thanks to Lynnblossom.

And A Mighty Chest It Is

I think about blogging constantly, Hello my name is Cele, and I blog. A.LOT. SML needs to hold session soon.

Unfortunately I don’t write as much as I think about writing and not nearly as much as the average blogger. Which I suppose is okay, because who in the heck reads my blog anyway? I’m not whining, I just realize that the only person who is hurt by my not blogging is me.

So today I have a bit on my chest, and a mighty chest it is, but a chest no less that can only hold so much. So here are random attacks at thought, comprehension, and higher mental health numbers.

It started raining again today. Nothing new, this is Oregon. But about, hmmm four weeks ago I bought two new sets of windshield wiper blades; a set for Zuzu and a set from Ducky’s commuter car. Well par for course when I bought them Discount Store Down The Street didn’t have all I needed so I bought one refill for the passenger side of my truck and gave the good ones to Ducky. Well that isn’t quite true. Let me rephrase, I set aside the two good matching ones for Ducky. Today’s rain made me decide to change out my blades.

WHO THE HECK THOUGHT UP REFILL? The Marquis De Sade? So today, four weeks later, I throw the refill in the trash (but only after spending an hour trying to master the piece of crap,) drive back to Discount Store Down The Street, who now has the correct blades. Finished the job – piece of cake. Tomorrow I’ll do Ducky’s car.

I believe in truth in advertising. A rare concept I know. But damn it if a product says it’s going to take the soap scum residue and build up off my shower walls, don’t cha think it should….especially after using cases of the crap? I am here to tell you, “Fuck, NO it doesn’t.” Can’t someone tell the truth about their crappy product?

When I write an ad, I try to tell the truth. I really do. Thank God I don’t have some of the crappy restaurants in town as clients, I would be in a world of hurt. But I do have tuna fishermen as clients; so when I say “Buy your tuna off the boat fresh” I make sure I say, while supplies last first.

Example,

“While supplies last, fresh tuna is waiting for you on the Fishing Vessel Going Under.” It just makes good business sense to me. The fish will be fresh in supply while it last, and the supply will last until it’s sold. I know there is a gray line there, but let me tell you fresh tuna at a good fee tends to sell fast.

So why can’t a shower cleaner work or at least tell me it’s a fifty - fifty crapshoot? (wow, did you know crapshoot is in the dictionary? I didn’t until my spell checker corrected me. Fuck is too, I guess dictionaries are allowed to cuss, don’t tell my mom she’ll charge it a quarter for each indiscretion.)

Dog food, my poor Arlo is suffering from food allergies, the poor baby scratches and licks non-stop. Drives me friggin’ crazy (btw friggin’ is not in the dictionary.) I knew that dogs had problems with corn; you should stay away from any dog food where corn is among the top three ingredients. Try that, it’s not easy. But I learned long ago. Or so I thought. I didn't know dogs have gluten allergies worse than corn. My poor dog – his favorite treats are riddled with wheat, corn meal, and a lot of other crap not good for him. So now I must find him new treats, ask my vet about Benedyrl for him, something that will keep him from scratching, biting, licking, chewing, and driving me and Ducky crazy.

Dj’s that think the world is interested in every little opinion they have. WTF! This is only made worse by Dj’s that talk about topics they know nothing about. Drives me bat shit. It is compounded by Dj’s (dj’s, btw, is not in the dictionary) who run a joke into the ground. Who do not respect their audience. Who demean others – especially when they’re not God’s gift to radio (or the world) in the first place. Or the DJ who constantly tells you that this song was their favorite make out song in high school. The only thing worse than this, is the Dj who is boring and speak very little, but play lots of music – er which is the category I fall into. Sadly. Oh maybe not.

So what’s on your chest today?