i'm thankful the pilgrims were a bunch of zealous bastards

Today as you're sitting around the table being thankful for this, that and the other in your life, I'd like you to also be thankful that the Pilgrims destroyed those damn, dirty Wampanoag savages. If you are religiously-inclined, please do contemplate the Thanksgiving sermon delivered by Mather the Elder in 1623 in which he praised God for unleashing the smallpox on the Indians that killed "chiefly young men and children, the very seeds of increase, thus clearing the forests to make way for a better growth" - "better growth" being, obviously, the Pilgrims themselves. Suck on that one, Squanto!

Our story of Thanksgiving was a PR spin invented in the early 1900s to make the immigrants to this country feel like they belonged and that we, Americans, embraced cultural diversity. And then we killed them, too.

Whadda bunch of suckers, eh?

For once I can list ancestors who were on the bad side rather than as the victims. On my father's side I can claim the austere, Puritanical lineage of the Beard, Olmstead, Sanford and Cone names - the Beards, as I mentioned before, played a pivotal role in the founding of Milford, CT (by virtue of the fact that the mother brought roughly 47 children with her from England). His line has been in America since God was a little boy and undoubtedly gave many a gift of pox-ridden blankets to their brown friends. But, really, everyone was doing it, ya know? Get them before they get you and all that.

Nah, I'm kidding - I'm not really sitting around reflecting on past genocide. I'm deliberately being confrontational because I'm sick and pissed off that all y'all are gearing up to eat your turkey and stuffing and I'm not. What's my Thanksgiving feast going to be? Friggin Thera-Flu. So, yeah, I'm a little bit pissy. In retaliation for my bitterness I'm pretending I'm too choked up on righteous indignation over the brutal slaughter of an entire race of people to swallow even a smidgen of mashed potato. Yeah, that's the ticket.

What's that quote, something like "righteous indignation is jealousy wearing a halo" or something like that. That's me today, totally. Enjoy your dinners, you bastards...hope you can wash that Indian blood off your hands in time for pumpkin pie.

Delusional again, naturally-ingly,

Natalie

It's pure wicked to hate this many people at once, but damn it, a turkey dinner is worth it. ()

it's just a little prick

Would someone who's had the influenza shot please, please tell Andy that it's not a big deal?

Once again, for what, the fifth year in a row?, we are sick over Thanksgiving. This is good in that we get to lie about watching James Bond films but is bad in that since we're both ill it's not like we can take care of each other.

One year, Samantha brought us tepid water. I don't know why. Didn't help, but it's almost like a comfort food now.

We've put off our Thanksgiving feast until Sunday because, quite simply, the lack of family and I have every confidence we'll be fine by then but until then, we'll be suffering.

It could be worse, I know, but think about me for a second, you selfish bastard...first, I was sick with a head cold (I once had a boyfriend who claimed that only Jews got head colds because he'd never known anyone else who suffered in quite that way), then the Midol Mafia dragged my ass in for questioning (I go by "No Squeals Yates" so I was cool), and now I"m sick again.

Shoot me now, Billy. Please. I ain't had a moment's peace for a month.

If only diapers changed themselves-ingly (or, "Why don't I have a nanny-icious?),

Natalie

And you actually missed having me post? HA! ()

buy american

If by any chance you're currently a'courtin' one of them there damn fur'ners all I can say is it's easier to go domestic than to import. Talk about a pain in the ass!

Okay, technically we don't need a lawyer to file for us but it's kind of a tricky situation so we thought we'd better do it. These guys are pretty reasonable on their rates, coming in at around six grand less than the highest quote we'd received, and I guess they really want us to think they're working hard for the money. In our situation it's important to prove that we have a real history together and are not just pulling a Gerard Depardieu but honestly, is it really that important that the garbage bill be in both of our names? We have kids together, we have debt together (oh lawdy, the debt we have together!), we've lived together for five years (half of which has been spent in our own home), and they still want all of this crap as "proof" of our "shared life". Kids, house, car loan...nah, that's not proof enough. Gah, it's just getting really tedious. It makes me wonder to what lengths some people must go to in order to bring someone in the country for illegitimate reasons. Things would be easier for me if I hooked up with some Jose who got into the country by riding on top of a train from Mexico.

We used to live near a couple, an American woman and Japanese man, who were married in Japan before moving to the US. When they had their immigration interviews the guy from the INS (or whatever they're called these days...I think they've had a different Ashcroftian acronym bestowed upon their illustrious department) wanted to see their "early correspondence" (read: love letters). Could you imagine having to sit there while some stranger read your love letters? People say some goofy-ass stuff in love letters. I found a letter just the other day that I'd written to Andy years ago and it made me cringe - honestly, I was too embarrassed to read the whole thing. If I were to write those words to Andy now he'd laugh his ass off at me, and rightly so. Ah, the things one has to go through in order to prove their marriage isn't based on a green card!

I mention this as a public service announcement - forget the accent, just go with whatcha know. Keep it in the country. This goes double for all of the dumb-ass women on the BBC America ads who say such enlightened, not-shallow-in-the-slightest things as, "I've dated guys for their British accents alone. Not good-looking - hot accents." Another one that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up is this statement, from an otherwise seemingly-intelligent woman, who says, "Things just sound a little bit smarter when they're said with an English accent." She's obviously never met anyone from Liverpool.

A fact that often escapes Americans is that England has many, many different accents, just like America. Only theirs are far more regionally-based than ours are. In America there's little to no difference in accents if you go from, say, Ohio to Phoenix. It's pretty much a flat accent. There are a few hot points in our country where you can definitely tell the region by the accent but in England if you travel more than a few miles in any direction you're facing an entirely new language.

Quite frankly, some of the accents will make your ears bleed.

Sorry, I kind of lost my point in all of this. What was my point? US immigration sucks donkey. Compare the US with Canada - the basic requirements for emigration to Canada is that you need to know where the provinces are located and you have to live there for four years. If you can find a job in Canada, well, more power to ya, eh? Sigh.

Paul McCartney didn't have to jump through these hoops-ingly,

Natalie

I guess it's worth it to mix up the old gene pool - we're doing those Brits a great service by strengthening their jawlines. ()

we call him hugh. hugh mongous.

This does not bode well for the old clothing budget - Nic has outgrown a shirt while he was wearing it. It fit him just fine when I put it on him but taking it off nearly required scissors. This has never happened with my other kids. I find myself buying Zoe clothes in darker colors because I know that very soon Nic will be wearing them - have I mentioned that he's over half the size of Zoe, who is turning four in January? Yep, in height and in weight. He's not fat, just solid as hell.

Growing up we had a dog that got too big for our house so we had to give it to a man who lived on a farm. At this rate I'm going to be looking for someone to take in Nico. "I'm sorry, girls, but we had to get rid of your brother. He was getting too big and too expensive to feed and clothe. We'll get you a goldfish instead."

I hope he never reads what I just wrote - by the time he's four he'll be big enough to kick my ass and I really don't want to make him angry.

Hulk smash-ingly,

Natalie

Get thee to a baby farm, Gigantor! ()

never a dull moment

Ya know, I'm not really feeling this whole blogging thing. As I've mentioned, this room holds my computer as well as Andy's and Samantha's so when I'm in here Zoe gets on Sam's machine, Andy is on his and Nico is trawling around trying to liberate the firewall from its various wires. I sit and try to do my thing but keep getting distracted by what Andy's doing and I get too engrossed in the computer and often miss what Nic's up to. It's only when I hear Andy scream, "Nic, no!" over the Bizet I have blaring from my headphones that I know something's amiss. Or Zoe will tap me on the shoulder, making me jump out of my skin, to "fix" the computer, which basically amounts to closing all of the various windows she's opened and cancelling all of the jobs she's queued up for the printer in order to get her back down to her memory game. I just don't have the attention span for this. (Like I told Andy the other day, "I think I may have adult-onset ADD but I never got the doctor...hey, let's go ride bikes!")

Andy's given a glimpse into how utterly exciting our days are with him home, and I have to agree that it's all a bit lame. He watched Miami Vice while I made up the Don Johnson drinking game (take a drink every time he wears pastel, two drinks if it's a pastel jacket and slam your drink if he clashes pastels...and what's up with all of the evil chicks being hot? Are they hot because they're evil or are they evil because they're hot? Apparently in Miami you can only trust women with bad perms who wear sensible earrings. At least in the eighties that was true.) and knitting an absolutely revolting scarf. This thing is so colorful it looks like a rainbow puked on it - the yarn came free included in the "learn to knit" kit that I bought to teach myself and Samantha seemed to like it so I carried on knitting. Now it's done apart from the tassles but it's so damned ugly that I cannot look at it for any length of time but at least I'm on a different yarn. If I can motivate my lazy ass I may go buy a book to learn some other stitches so I can get into the really cool stuff but I'm not seeing that happen any time in the immediate future.

Knitting has surprised me, as it takes a really long time to complete even the simplest projects and I'm more of the school of instant gratification. If something takes too long I get bored with it and cast it aside. (Just ask Andy how many half-finished projects I have littering up the place.) Like I've said, my attention span just isn't...is that a cricket? I think I just heard a cricket, but that's crazy - it's too cold for crickets!

I'm sure today is going to be just as thrilling as yesterday, perhaps even more so as I get to use power tools. I've had a stack of wood in my kitchen for days, intent to make a couple of screens to hide the toy corner and have an easily-accessible place to keep our vacuums but I've only gotten so far as covering one of the six panels with batting and fabric and attaching, what, one hinge? Yep, that's my attention span right there. My two main character flaws that I can see in myself is that I'm far too ambitious and refuse to recognize my own limitations. Or I could just blame Andy's laziness. Yeah, that's it - I'm too codependent to motivate myself to do anything while he's home. It's an accomplishment for him to simply put on a pair of pants before Sam gets home from school, let alone to get his ass up and moving. Between TNT, USA, BBC America and Spike TV it's a wonder he moves at all most days. We are rich with television.

I am all over the place here so I'm going to liberate you from this mind-numbingly dull post. I have to go find that damn cricket.

Boring-ingly,

Natalie

The general rule of thumb with blogging is that if you don't have anything to say, then don't say anything. But I've never taken my own advice in the past so why start now? ()

beaten to the punch

Alright, so I was going to post pictures an' stuff but Andy beat me to the punch at set up a subdomain for Nico with pics from last night. (The first pic is hard to read but it's a "happy birthday" banner that I personalized for Nic. "Happy 1st Birthday Nic". They were out of the letter "o".)

Worse than that, Andy's bitch-ass got onto my computer when I was asleep and talked to my Melly. As per usual, she insulted him for no apparent reason so maybe he'll think twice about ganking my computer again.

Since he's already covered the festivities I'll cover the gifts.

We picked him up a cell phone made by Parents that's very cool. There's a little button on the side that you press to record up to seven seconds of messages. On the box it showed a baby holding the little flip phone to his ear with the phone saying, "Mommy loves you!" but I recorded, in my best zombie voice, "They're coming to get you, Barbara!" and "I pity the fool who don't eat my cereal!" Oddly, Nico was not impressed with my sense of humor so I waited until he started crying and recorded that. When a baby hears themselves crying back at them a lot of fun things happen, the best being that they shut the hell up to listen to the crying baby.

He's also the proud owner of a busy ball popper made by the incorrectly-spelled Playskool company. I only saw the ad for this once (the tagline is, "It makes dropping things fun!") but I knew I had to buy this. You don't get many chances in your life to work the phrase "busy ball popper" into conversations so I couldn't pass that up. This thing is pretty cool - you drop the ball into one side and it shoots it out of the other side using air pressure. It's a little loud but it only runs for about thirty seconds without being reset, which is a feature that all toys should have. Too many of the noisy toys just keep going and going...I remember buying this interactive "learn with me" DW (from Arthur...the cartoon, not the Dudley Moore movies) doll that I wanted to kill. Start her up and she never stops, as the song goes. If you make the mistake of, say, stepping on her foot or something she springs to life and screams, "Hey, you've come to play! Squeeze my watch to hear the time. Tie my shoes with me. Are you still there? Where did you go? Don't you want to play with me anymore? Hello?!?!" She's like the worst date you've ever been on combined with the neediness of your mother. I hate that damn doll so much.

Where was I? Oh, right, the ball popper. It's an A+ toy to be sure, so if you have a toddler I'd recommend it.

His other toy was a Fisher Price baby playzone basketball hoop which is very cool. You slam dunk and the face on the backboard spins around and plays songs. But not your typical trink link plink baby-song crap...one of the songs it plays is the opening riff of New Order's "Blue Monday". There are a few other songs on there that I vaguely recognize but they're altered just slightly enough so that I can't quite put my finger on them, but they all have that New Order-vibe.

The only real trouble we've run into is that the balls for the basketball are a touch larger than the ball popper balls. Not so large that they won't fit down the chute on the popper but too large to be popped out again. It's easy enough to remove them when they get stuck but I'm very lazy and hate to stand up if I can help it. (I'm so lazy that I don't eat apples because it takes too much effort. I ate an apple for the first time in years last month and felt like I needed a nap afterwards. All that chewing? No thank you.)

Anyway, there are a couple of gift ideas for the toddler in your life. Be warned, though...you may say things that sound dirty but aren't. See, Nic (and most kids his age) have this thing where they think it's really funny to put things up to your mouth so you can pretend to eat them, or kiss on them. They'll shove their stinky formula bottles up to your face so you can pretend to munch on them. This is a normal thing. What's not normal, however, is to say to your husband, "He likes it when I pretend to eat his balls." They were busy ball popper balls but it just sounded a bit too Freudian for my liking and I'm afraid that my statement is stored somewhere in Nico's subconscious to be called out later in regression therapy.

At any rate, the boy had a good time and thoroughly enjoyed his gifts. Yesterday. Today, he's more interested in eating the brightly colored bits of paper that are strewn about the place.

Can't wait for Christmas-ious,

Natalie

Toys are wasted on the young and should be reserved only for the stoned and/or inebriated. ()

semi-pseudo update thing...

I've received a couple of emails on this from people who (obviously) weren't around this time last year and who (obviously) didn't click the link in the last post, but yeah, I gave birth to my son at home in my dining room. In fact, my Shop-Vac is currently occupying the space that the birthing stool did this time last year.

So it's kind of an update, kind of a clarification.

This is why we link, people. Click 'em. It takes less effort than sending an email.

But for duh-ingly,

Natalie


I ain't tryin' to be snotty, I'm just...well, okay, maybe I am trying to be snotty. It's a fecking link, guys! I blogged the whole birth - it was beautiful an' shit, ya know? ()

another year older

Today is the first birthday of my last child. The run-up to this day has put me in a rather introspective mood and has left me a bit sad - it's bittersweet because on the one hand my little man is one but on the other hand this is the last "first birthday" I'll ever celebrate with a child of mine. It feels very "beginning of the end" to me and I'm not sure how ready I am for it. It makes me feel so weary and old...it hit me pretty hard the other night as I sat on the couch knitting a scarf (did I tell you I taught myself to knit? Yeah, I'm a knitting mo-fo.) and Andy was sitting on a heating pad smelling of Icy Hot for his muscles. I had this weird image of us as grandparents spending our lives waiting for a visit from our grandkids, who will wrinkle their noses at our old-people smell, and our children, who will suggest we sell our house and move into a nursing home.

Needless to say, that freaked me the fuck out.

But I shouldn't think about that now, because it's my little man's birthday. A year old - twelve months has never flown by more quickly.

From this date last year, Andy wrote:

Wow. That was fast. I called the midwives at 11:10, after scrambling around looking for the phone for five minutes. In the hour that it took for them to get here from St Paul, Natalie started heavy contractions. Based on previous experience, I'd put on a pot of coffee in readiness for a long, long night.

By the time the first midwife got here, Natalie was begging to get into the birthing pool where she remained for around 55 minutes. As you can imagine some colorful language was screamed around the house (Bean and Sam were asleep downstairs in the basement).

At the suggestion of the midwife, at around 00:55, Natalie got out of the pool and sat on the birthing stool. Fifteen minutes of pushing, cursing and very loud screaming later, at 01:13, little Nicholas arrived, weighing in at 7lb 8oz.

Bean and Sam joined us just in time to say hello, having been awoken by the screams but awaiting the OK to surface.

Much picture taking took place and Samantha cut the cord because I am so bad with blood and the like. Little Nic had his first scrub down at around 03:00 and was weighed and measured.

The midwives left at around 04:00 having declared the birth pretty efficient.

I only cried once, although I did get chastised by Natalie for holding her a little too tight.

Of the three births I've seen, that was the quickest by a factor of at least five. It was actually more intense than the previous ones just because of the speed and this one is the first where I haven't had the flu.

So Nic is here and sleeping. I'm sure I've forgotten to mention lots due to fatigue but as I remember tomorrow (which is actually today), I'll update and I'm sure Natalie will want to share her side of the story.

To finish for tonight, one of the highlights while in the throws of labor, was a scream "How did I get pregnant? I don't want to be pregnant."

All the fears have gone and sure enough, there's my boy!

Maybe it's just because his birth was so thoroughly recorded but I remember every single bit of that night much more vividly than I remembered the births of my girls at the one-year mark. I remember everything about this little guy.

He's the most amazing kid - you wouldn't believe it. He is so damned happy to just be alive. I could sit and watch him play for hours - he'll sit on the floor and yell at one set of toes, then kiss his other toes and coo at them. Out of nowhere he'll scrunch his face up, throw his arms in the air so hard that he falls backwards, and laugh like it's the funniest thing that's ever happened. And the climbing - my girls never climbed like he climbs. I'd never put much stock in gender differences - I figured a boy would be just as happy playing with a doll as a girl would a truck - and with having two girls we have plenty of dolls around the house. Nic plays with them all right...while the girls are busily diapering and feeding their dolls Nic is body-slamming his. He'll set the doll on the floor and walk away, only to creep up behind the doll and jump on it again. He sneaks up on a fricking doll with the sole purpose of hurting it. Boys are odd little creatures and I don't think I'll ever get used to that.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure his first word is "shit". Andy thinks he's saying "sit" but I don't buy it.

Ah, enough of the naval-gazing. I have to get the house ready for his birthday party ("Bob the Builder" themed...I wanted to do a Dora party because Nico's a bit sweet on the Latinas but Andy nixed that because Dora's too "girly". So instead we have Bob, the guy whose Christmas video includes a performance by Elton John. Good call, Andy!) and I'll post pictures tomorrow or something. In the meantime, I'll leave you with these:

From this:

To this:

You've come a long way, baby-ingly,

Natalie

Maybe I can convince Andy to let me have another baby...geesus, what am I saying?!? ()

roguing...rogan...rogueing...whatever. i'm stealing, okay?

Unceremoniously ganked from Tanya, I present you with your horoscope. (I've seen this before a few times but it still makes me laugh - especially my own, Aquarius.)

AQUARIUS (1/20-2/10) You have an inventive mind and are inclined to be progressive. You lie a great deal. You make the same mistakes repeatedly because you are stupid. Everyone thinks you are a jerk.

PISCES (2/19-3/20) You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed by the FBI & CIA. You have minor influence on your friends and people resent you for flaunting your power. You lack confidence and are generally a dipshit.

ARIES (3/21-4/19) You are the pioneer type and think most people are dickheads. You are quick tempered, impatient and scornful of advice. You are a jerk.

TAURUS (4/20-5/20) You are practical and persistent. You have dogged determination and work like hell. Most people think you are stubborn and bull-headed. You are nothing but a communist.

GEMINI (5/21-6/20) You are a quick and intelligent thinker. People like you because you are bisexual. You are inclined to expect too much for too little. This means you are a cheap bastard.

CANCER (6/21-7/22) You are sympathetic and understanding to other people’s problems which means you are a sucker. You are always putting things off which is why you will always be on welfare and won’t be worth anything. Everyone in prison is a Cancer.

LEO (7/23-8/22) You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are an idiot. Most Leo’s are bullies. You are vain and cannot tolerate honest criticism. Leo people are thieving and spend most of their time kissing mirrors.

VIRGO (8/23-9/22) You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and often fall asleep during sex. Virgos make good bus drivers and pimps.

LIBRA (9/23-10/22) You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. If you’re male, you’re probably queer. Chances for employment and monetary gain are nil. Most Libra women are sluts. All Libras die of sexually transmitted diseases.

SCORPIO (10/23-11/21) The worst of the lot. You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You shall achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of ethics. You are a SOB. Most Scorpios are murdered.

SAGITTARIUS (11/22-12/21) You are optimistic and enthusiastic. You have a reckless tendency to rely on luck because you have no talent. The majority of Sagittarians are drunks. Nixon was a Sagittarius. You are not worth the time of day.

CAPRICORN (12/22-1/19) You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You are basically a chicken. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance You should kill yourself.

Jerkily lying-ingly,

Natalie

This is the dawning of the...aw, hell, nevermind. ()

i blame the inbreeding

So Andy had to go to a job interview today (and not a moment too soon - I've been having to avoid the computer room for any length of time because Andy and I have developed this habit of either ripping each other's clothes off or ripping each other's hair out if we spend too long together. Yes, I know he's already bald - it's just an expression.) and I was worried that all of these weeks of sleeping until noon may mean he'd have some difficulty waking up. I didn't get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning myself so I knew there was no chance of me waking him so I left my eldest, Samantha, a note to please make sure we were awake before she went to school.

The alarm goes off and Andy snoozes it a couple of times but I think, "No worries - Samantha will let us know when it's eight o'clock" so back to sleep we go.

It was knocking on ten when we woke up. Did I mention the interview was at noon, a good forty miles away? Yeah.

I know it was ultimately our responsibility but you should be able to count on your kid to every once in a while do a little something for you, right? I didn't curse Sam too much until I went into the kitchen and saw the voice message indicator going on my microwave. I punch the button to hear a thirty-second message from my lovely daughter explaining how she was in too much of a rush this morning to wake us up.

Um. What?

Okay, so to wake us up all one has to do is open our bedroom door. This triggers a "Mousetrap" effect - first the dogs stir and the two bigger ones growl at the smaller one. (We've had Bowie for nearly as long as the other two but every morning Sasha and Stella act really surprised to see her there and treat her like an interloper. Doggie games, eh?) Andy will tell them to shut up and Sasha will notice, "Hey, dad's here!" and talk to him (loud, annoying, friendly growling that goes on forever). Andy will stretch, roll over and fling his arm across the bed in a passive-aggressive, "I was sleeping - sorry, did I punch you in the nose?" manner, causing me to yell out. This, in turn, wakes the baby, whose cries trigger something in Zoe that causes her to run down the hallway screeching, "Nico's awake, Nico's awake!" before she dives into his crib with him. This will freak out the dogs who then run down the hallway to throw their combined 300 pounds at the sliding glass door. The mental image of shattered glass and gusty winds whipping through the house will cause Andy to shoot out of bed to let the dogs out. Et voila, we're all awake. (And in such a peaceful way, too. Is it any wonder why I'm always so danged chipper when I wake up?)

All of this would have resulted, had she simply opened the bedroom door. That she didn't have time to do. Because she was busy leaving a message about how she didn't have the time.

I don't remember being this ditzy when I was ten. The scariest part is that it's going to get worse before it's going to get better. When I'm finally out of the woods with Samantha I'll have Zoe coming up behind her to start the torture all over again.

Some species eat their young.

Maternal-ingly,

Natalie

update: You're so lucky you're not married to me. I am the worst wife ever - while jotting down the directions for Andy to get where he's going I accidentally sent him on I-35W rather than I-35E. Those roads totally confuse me, as they both run north and south (the E and W are just part of the name of the road, apparently, and do not indicate direction) and they slowly curve away from one another (instead of, oh I don't know, running parallel). I managed to get him back on track (I think - he hasn't called me back to say otherwise) and he has plenty of time, but still...way to set your husband up, eh? Take an already nerve-wracking situation and make him think he's lost and going to be late. Way to go, me. (I feel like doing that Chris Farley, "Stupid! I'm so very stupid!" and smacking myself in the head.) Gah. Stupid Minnesota highways that don't make sense. I curse thee!


Honestly - just open the frickin door! Don't spend thirty seconds telling me you don't have enough time to spend two seconds opening the door. Where the hell is the common sense? ()

you shouda seen it - i almost died an' everythin!

This morning I woke up on the brink of death. Sweating, weak as a kitten, boiling my brains up. I felt like a Bronte sister, being suddenly ravaged by tuberculosis. (They didn't actually die from any disease - everyone knows that Charlotte poisoned them all to death, but that's a story for another day.)

The end was surely near. In my death throes I kissed my fingertips and gently touched Nico's face - I wanted to keep him far from the fever that was wracking my very bones - and told Andy that he should try to remarry soon. It's not right for a man to be expected to raise children alone - but the bitch better not wear my clothes or else I'd haunt them both.

I saw a visage of my grandmother in a soft white light, hand outstretched, beckoning to me, and smiling beatifically. I tried to rise up to take her hand but found I yet could not stand - it wasn't quite my time to go. As I paused and looked over at my darling son and dear husband, I heard Andy's voice from beyond the ether. This is it, I thought - the last words I would ever hear my husband speak. I brushed the sweat from my face and strained to hear him...

"Fucking hell - the damn heater reset itself to 82 degrees again. I'm sweating like a pig over here. What's that stink?"

I'd thought the smell was death but it turned out to be a forgotten and curdled bottle of formula.

I couldn't complain about having to wash it, though, as I'd come so close to death that I've now found a new appreciation for life. Well, an appreciation that lasted through my first cup of tea, that is. After I shook the sleep from my brain I remembered all of the crap I still need to do and it pissed me off.

Still...in those moments I was almost kinda dying you should have seen me. Man, was I frickin serene or what?!?

Lazarus-ingly,

Natalie

I returned from the dead and didn't even manage to pick up any super powers along the way. What's the point in that? ()

but i've never even been to thailand!

Been busy cleaning up a slew of viruses (virii? virui?) that seem to have infected me ages and ages ago that I only noticed when my Sophos stuff told me, "Damn, girl, you ain't run me in months. I can't be held responsible if your PC's all funkedified." I downloaded a couple of free anti-virus, anti-trojan, anti-worm and anti-spyware programs and - well lookie here! Five thousand corrupt nuggets on my computer.

Okay, well it was only a couple of hundred corrupt files infected by the same couple of things (looks like Kazaa is a sneaky little devil on that score...yes, I was downloading songs and software and neglecting to scan them before I ran them. Kinda like having sex with strangers in bathrooms and acting really surprised when my shit goes rancid, I know.) but it was an absolute bitch to clear up. I'm still not convinced I'm totally clean but I'm working on it.

This just goes to prove that Andy is utterly useless. I can't even count on him to protect me, and he's the geek! I totally blame him and have decided that I am better than him at absolutely everything. First I spanked his ass at the eighties quiz (link via MJ) despite the fact that he's eight years older than I am, and now this - having to clean up my own infected computer! That settles it - I rock (RAWK) and he sucks.

So let it be written-ingly,

Natalie

If Andy were here he'd say I was the useless one. But, no, he's the useless one. But if he heard me say that, he'd say that I was the useless one. No, I'm sorry, Andy, but you're the useless one. ()

coersion blogging

So there I was, taking a little break from the old blog (I've often said that I wasn't addicted and had to prove to myself that I could stop any time I wanted to) when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a declaration from Solonor that I'm going to be his aortal site for the whole friggin month so I figured I needed to get back in the game.

Plus, people were beginning to suspect that Andy had done horrible things to me and was keeping me away from blogging. The concern was sweet but I find it disturbing that people know deep in their hearts suspect that he's capable of doing something criminal.

I really have very little to say right now - and I hate it when people post that statement - but I did feel obligated to check-in. I haven't been dodging you on purpose, honestly. There's just been an awful lot of good television lately and I'm also re-reading "A Brief History of Time" because my brain has been feeling mushy. But that might have something to do with the wine rather than my decreasing intelligence, I dunno.

Wow, was this post a waste or what? I feel like I've just robbed you - I need to include something of value here. Okay, I've got something - let me impart my new-found wisdom...never, ever wax your eyebrows while you're distracted by a spy movie on television. For one, you will go far too thin. Ick. For two, you will forget the fact that you have a chicken pox scar in one eyebrow that requires a very delicate hand, lest you expose the hairless bit and end up with half an eyebrow on one side.

Thankfully, I come from a very eyebrow-heavy people (I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I'm related to Groucho Marx) so it shouldn't take me long before I'm back to having two caterpillars resting over my eyes, but at the moment I'm looking a bit like Divine.

Let this serve as a warning to you...international espionage and eyebrow maintenance simply do not mix.

Bald-faced-ingly,

Natalie

Tweezers are the tools of the devil. ()