I found a new favorite cartoonist.

You can find him here: http://bigeyedeer.wordpress.com/

Ahead of my time

I realised today that I was blogging before blogging was a word. I used to have this email list. I called it a newsletter, but there wasn't much news. It was just random thoughts I had, done up in a vaguely article-like format. It was called Deep Freeze. (The name came to me in a dream) I had a website (on homestead, I think) where people could sign up for the mass emailing and read past issues. I had about 45 subscribers. I was on a webring. I kept it up for about two years.

I was hoppin'.

Ironic, though, isn't it, that I only post here once every two months?

I blame the emo kids.

My Old Lady

So there's an old lady I know. I take out her dog in the afternoon, cause she can't make it down her stairs to the back door. I feel bad for her, cause it seems like her daughter is a controlling meanie, but she's also really funny. Every now and then she'll call me to let me know that I don't need to come over, because someone is there, or will be there. I just got a phone call from her.
Me- Hello?
Her- Melissa?
Me- Yup.
Her- I just thought I'd let you off the hook today. I'm planning my funeral.
Me- (laughs) You're planning your funeral, okay!

And so on.
She cracks me up.

New Josie Pictures

I added some pictures from Christmas. We didn't take too many, given the day's events. There's some video from opening presents, but it's locked away on the camcorder. Someday I'll figure it out.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Melkirk81/Christmas2008

Lipodiesel!!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,473078,00.html
A former Beverly Hills, Calif. liposuction doctor claimed to have the environment's best interests at heart when he began fueling his and his girlfriend's SUVs with human fat sucked out of his patients.
Unfortunately the practice was illegal, according to California state health officials.
An investigation by the California public health department revealed that Craig Alan Bittner created "lipodiesel" from his patients' fat and used it to power his Ford SUV and his girlfriend's Lincoln Navigator, Forbes.com reported this week.
"The vast majority of my patients request that I use their fat for fuel — and I have more fat than I can use," Bittner wrote on his now defunct Web site. "Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly but they get to take part in saving the Earth."
California law forbids the use of human medical waste to power vehicles.
Bittner's practice, Beverly Hills Liposculpture, closed in November.
Several former patients have filed lawsuits against the doctor, claiming he allowed his unlicensed girlfriend and an assistant to perform procedures, causing mistakes that left the patients disfigured, attorney Andrew Besser, who represents three of the former patients, told Forbes.com.
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Mel has deemed this AWESOME!

Grandma died on Christmas

My grandma Helen died. My mom's mom. She was 87 and had been sick, but mostly she was just old and ready to go. She was in the hospital earlier this month and pretty much hadn't been responsive since. She had dementia pretty bad, too. Anyway, we're all okay. We know that she's better off and she didn't have any quality of life before. My mom was holding her when she went and I know that mom feels better for that.

We were called while at church, and mom spent the day over at the nursing home after that. She came home for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and we opened our presents and went out to eat. We usually have lasagna for Christmas, but today we went out for Chinese (go figure) since no one wanted to mess with all of that. Mom went right back to the nursing home after dinner and grandma passed about five minutes after mom got there. We think she was waiting for her.

So the funeral's next Saturday, which means Josie and I miss Tyler's family's Christmas, but they understand. We have to go all the way up to Calumet City for the funeral, since that's where her arrangements are and that's where grandpa and uncle Tom are. Mom thinks grandma got a nice surprise when she died, since we never told her that Tom died. With her dementia it was better that way.

Anyway, we're all okay. We glad she's in a better place, as corny as that sounds, but it's all good.

Josie laughing hysterically

Mom and I were trying to get Josie over the trauma of having her hair washed. This seemed to work. It was hard for us to not laugh at her laughing.

The 37 year old Virgin (language, sorry relatives)

(This is taken from a couple of posts I made on CafeMom, and it happened about a week ago, so I'm sorry if it's written a little weird.)

I just got a lady's life story. She came by to ask about a power chair we're trying to sell. She was a little chatty. I found out that she's 60 and her daughter is 20. She was 37 when she lost her virginity because she was waiting for her white knight and by that time she figured he wasn't coming. But it wasn't like she was screwing around or anything.

She was saying that she and her daughter were going to go shopping for some expecting moms they knew and I told her that I knew 8 pregnant women and I was going to say that I couldn't shop for any of them (cept Smash) cause they weren't that far enough along to know what they're having, and she cuts me off and starts talking about when she lost her virginity! WTF? I just met this lady and I know her age, where she worked for 35 years, all about her knee problems, that she had gastric bypass to prove she couldn't lose weight, that her brother died from a gastric bypass and that her friend's granddaughter (whom I graduated with) now chews tobacco.

Whoa, lady. Slow down.

Then, a couple of days later....

We agreed that they would come pick it up yesterday. Well, I wasn't going to sit on my butt all day so I did some stuff and figured they'd call before coming. They did, but didn't think about the fact that my answering machine took the call meant that I'm not home... The message said that they're on their way. Well, duh, shit heads, I'm not home. Anyway, they called about twenty minutes before I got home, so I thought they may still show up. But they never did. I finally get a call saying, in a roundabout way, that she came by and was too tired to come back. Okay, so we agree on 10:30 to 11 tomorrow (today)

At about two o'clock I hear a voice at my side window. "Hello?! ANYONE HOME?!" What the fuck. I go check it out and there's a guy in my neighbor's yard leaning over the fence, yelling into my window. "You the lady with the electric chair?" Electric chair. That's what they've been calling it.

So it's the buyer's son. They drove to the back of the house because the chair is in the garage and instead of, oh, I don't know, going to the front door, or maybe going into my yard, and knocking on the back door, he decides to go into my neighbor's fenced in yard and yell into my window. What the fuck.

So I heard a little more about the lady's colostomy bag (she told me about it in a previous phone call, and her surgery on Wednesday and her broken arm. Poor lady. Then the matter of getting the chair home comes up. Well, she wants to just ride it home. I'm guessing at least ten blocks. Her son, bless him, says that's a bad idea, at least til she gets used to it. So we have to wait for him to call all of his friends with trucks to get someone to take it to their house. That was another fifteen minutes.

I'm so glad this is over. I'm really glad Tyler was home, so we could stand together and make disparaging remarks under our breath.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the son was at least fifty, grossly overweight and wearing a Snoop Dogg "Doggfather" shirt.

I want to live where the normal people live.

Todd, Tasties, and Tidbits

First off, I love Todd Rundgren. I think I could hear 'Hello, It's Me' every day for the rest of my life and never get tired of it.

Second, Tyler and I just got back from Don Panchito's and we both think it's the one of the best Mexican restaurants in the world. They have this tomatillo sauce that I could eat with a spoon. I'm glad someone in town carries tomatillos so I can try to fake the sauce at home. Seriously, it is so frickin' good, and I have to stop myself from slurping the leftovers up after my tacos are gone. And First Wok is one of the best Chinese restaurants. How did little ol' Lincoln, Illinois get so lucky? If there was a good Italian place in town I don't think I'd ever want to leave. Bella Donna in Williams, Arizona needs to move here. *Homer Simpson gargle/drool*

As for tidbits, I don't really have anything else. Just food and music, that's what I like. But Tyler and I are going to look at a house on Sunday. So there's that. I'd say wish us luck, but we don't really need that until we decide to apply for a loan.

Anyway. Toodles!

The Blue Doodlebop is Scary

I gave in on being a high and mighty 'I don't let my toddler watch TV' mom. Josie was so cranky yesterday, so I put on the Backyardigans, which I can actually watch.

Today we're watching the Doodlebops. Well, we were. Now she's wiping her face with a buttwipe, after watching me clean the ink off of her hands with one. Oh, she's licking it. Nice.

Anyway. Kids' TV is so much better than CNN. The jokes are about the same par, though.

Halloween Already

Last night I came up with Josie's costume. I'm going to sew a bunch of stuffed cats onto some clothes and she'll be... wait for it... Josie and the Pussycats. I figure this is the last year for me to do what I want with her. I don't know what I'll be. I have to come up with something since we're going to a costume party. I'm bad at costumes. And I don't want to be something where it only works if someone asks me what I am. Like carrying around a quarter and a hammer, so you can be a quarter pounder. And I'm not skinny enough to get one of those stupid sexy girl outfits. Hmm... it's a thinker.

Random Acts of Mothering

You know you're a mom when you're totally willing to pull poop out of your child's butt with your bare fingers. Poor Josie is such a picky eater, and unfortunately what she wants to eat is not conducive to easy bowel movements. I pulled an adult sized turd out of her tiny little butt today.

And for the record, I cannot for the life of me remember what my original first post was. I wrote about three paragraphs, but they must not have been important, because they're totally gone from my mind.

I made a blog

Then I wrote a post. Then it got erased. I'll do it again later. I have to get un-mad first. This is probably the fourth time this week that I've written out something, then lost it.

Rainy days are bad for my wallet

Normally, if Josie is cranky before her nap, we'll go to the park or for a walk. But it's raining today, so after trying to distract her with coloring and her ball popper, we went to Big R to buy a toy. I know, I'm an enabler. We got a tractor with a trailer with animals that make noise. That's the key to a good kid distracter: Must make noise. Flashy lights are a plus, too. Then we went to Wal-Mart, cause what else are we going to do? There, we got a See 'n' Say. I think we'll be saving that for Christmas, though. She doesn't seem to get that she has to let go of the handle to make it talk. She just cranks it up and down over and over. And it doesn't stand up very well. I remember the ones we had standing up. Oh well.



I also got a big piece of cardboard that I'm planning on using for a bean bag toss. She loves the bean bag toss game that's set up in the garden center of Wal-Mart, so I figured I could do just as well, without paying fifty bucks.

Hey, check it out! Auto-save! What a thing!

The next day...
I actually made that bean bag toss. I sewed two bean bags and filled them with popcorn kernels, then cut squares out of the cardboard. I colored around the holes, so hopefully that'll help her learn colors. I do what I can. I'm so glad this post got saved. Pulitzer winning stuff, I tell you.