Join Me in Snarkville

Ok, folks, this is a break from your normal bit of snark and joys of my overheated life. However, I want everyone who reads me to understand the flurry of the upcoming posts. I’m at BlogHer, and in order for me to be able to come, I must work! So, I’ve offered up my services to live blog — read post during sessions about the sessions for those millions of fans who can’t make it to BlogHer.

So, as a result there will be little snark, probably more mistakes and less humor in the next two days worth of posts. I promise to return to my normal insane self soon enough and I will be thrilled to tell you all about it.

Years ago, when I was far younger and dumber than I am now, I met a star.  A real live Hollywood star.  I didn’t just meet him (actually there were two) I partied with them.  I got to chat with a beer in their hands and a coke in mine (I was underaged after all).  And I made a complete ass out of myself.  The stars were Tim Conway and Pat Harrington; the party was a Cast Party for The Odd Couple that they starred in and I worked on.  I met stars and while I never expected them to remember me for life, I think they wish they hadn’t come to the party.  I was a complete ass (trying to be cool, but was an ass).

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The summer is ending, I just have to keep believing it right? I’m not sure why I’m longing for the back to school time, it isn’t like Duke will be heading off to the halls of higher learning. I can hear Prince saying, I’m longing for summer to be over because this heat will end and I’ll finally begin to sleep full nights again. I’m not sure that’s my biggest reason to long for summer’s sweet demise.

Now, in the desire for complete and total honesty, I have to say, I’m not summer’s biggest fan. I never have been. Summer and I have a love/hate relationship. First there is the sun thing. I’m Whitey McWhite Legs and the sun hates my lily white, Irish skin. I’ve been burned so many times just walking across a parking lot it is really embarassing. “No, I didn’t go to the beach, I walked from the back lot to the stores. Yes, I know I’m red like a lobster.” Yep, sun is not the Queen’s friend. Secondly, there’s the stuff to do thing. When I was younger, read high school and before I began to work summers at 14, I had a period of a few summers where I didn’t do a whole lot. For years I’d done the camp thing, but by the time I was 12ish, I had a couple of trips to the grandparents and that was pretty much it. Then I worked my summers away for years. And finally, now, I seem to be on the go so much for the summer. This weekend is one of my last trips of the summer. Oh, how I long for the packing and laundry cycle to end. Finally, I’m not a huge fan of the clothes of summer. Or more to the point the lack of clothes for the summer. I’m a fairly modest girl, so you can imagine my personal shock when I went to a meeting of the mother’s club last night to face more nearly bare breasts and short-shorts than I ever wanted to see. (Note to my ‘friends’ at the club: we are all post-partum at some point. I seriously remember those oversized boobs. However, I was capable of keeping mine INSIDE my shirt. An exposed nipple — or nearly exposed nipple — is not a good look for anyone, and it really doesn’t go with loose skin that is rolling over the top of your shorts and hanging out from beneath your tank top.)

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I’m a good Southern woman.  I believe firmly that ladies don’t sweat, we glow.  There are few things I don’t think a tall glass of sweet tea won’t cool down on a hot day.  But all of that may change because of today.

I’ve had, what can only be described as a craptacular day and only desire to share here, because if you were to call me, I’d not be able to tell you all about it — so I (and this did happen) would be forced to say, “You’ll read it in the blog; I’m sorry, I just can’t talk — it generates too much heat.”

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Ok, if you bother to get up, get dressed, and step out of your door these notes may be for you. What you are about to read is true. Since I don’t actually know any of these people, I can’t change their names to protect the guilty. However, let these people be an example to you.

1. Cart Driving in the Grocery Store 101: Once again folks, I must remind you that you are not in fact the center of the universe. This means you may not park your cart across the opening of any aisle in the store and walk away. Bonus points if you realize in a reasonable amount of time that I’m trying to get to the item you keep parking your cart in front of (in a strange effort to get it out of my way, you kept it in MY way).
2. When driving, can you please take note of the speed of the drivers around you? Could you perhaps try not to single-handedly attempt to slow down all the traffic in Snarkville? Is is possible that you might be able to drive better if you didn’t attempt to put 7 to 8 people in a Dodge Neon?
3. To the construction crew on my street in Snarkville. Learn the joys of night-time road work, PLEASE. You are currently blocking a lane and a half of a 2 lane road. You have the signal men who are so far apart they use walkie-talkies change the one way road and let the cars pass. You have the road blocked to within ONE car length of the corner of a MAJOR street, which means it will take twice to three times as long to clear the cars out and the back-up goes onto a major road. Good going guys. I also find that you may consider going back to school for hand signals, pointing me to go head first into an oncoming forklift will not be good for you, me, or the forklift. And giving me the finger when I don’t blindly obey your STUPID order to meet the stinky forklift driver, will not help.
4. Fashion note: if you are balding man who has turn completely grey, may I suggest your hairpiece NOT be jet black? Yes, I mean you, there in the motorhome at the stop light. Yes, I can tell it is a piece, by the fact it is a completely different color that the bottom part of your hair AND it is crooked. Embrace the balding and give up the piece. (Not that it will make you any more attractive, just will make you seem less icky.)

Go forth and bring joy to those around you, by avoiding these life’s little annoyances.

A reader (ok, Niki) wrote:

“And I have to know - how on earth do you collect kitty pee?”

Well, I shall share.

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Yes, I know the Prince has mentioned, rather often, that a day isn’t a day without cat puke in this house. This goes so far beyond cat puke, I’m sorry — but hey, it is share time right? Well, two Fridays ago, on a routine vet appointment, I took our two older cats to the vet. For lack of better names, we will call the oldest, Fatty, and our middle cat, the Snob. So, the Snob gets on the scale and she’s perfect (since she’s Prince’s cat — he will say she’s always perfect). Then I put Fatty on the scale, shockingly he has lost 3 pounds in about 6 months. Now, while truly not a small cat even now, I start to get all upset because cats aren’t supposed to loose weight quickly. So, they did blood tests. Guess what? Yup, Fatty came back normal and the Snob has a UTI (Urinary Track Infection).

So, vet visit number one results: Fatty: No Idea what’s going on; Snob: Pink icky antibotics twice a day for two weeks.

A week later I have to take cat number 3 to the vet for his check-up, some vaccines, and to get him microchipped (since he just wandered out of the house the other day and wasn’t noticed for 3 hours). We shall call this third cat, Crazy. Now, Crazy has a unique problem when it comes to bringing him to the vet, he has crate fear. Actually I think he is afraid of any confined spaces. In addition, he gets mean if he’s confined and then the vet wants to do anything. So, I’m still way worried about Fatty, so I make this insane decision to bring both cats to the vet. Fatty is fine in the carrier. Crazy is hand carried in. Everyone is happy UNTIL…. (more…)

Ok, now that I got that whole “got to be serious and write something” bug out, I can return to my normal semi-snarky state.  Ahh, that feels better.

There’s been so many things not happening around here.  We certainly aren’t cool.  We are sweating a lot, dripping in fact.  It is not pleasant here which means as little as humanly possible is actually getting done right now.  I ran errands in the “heat” of the day — thinking I was being all smart.  But no, when the heat doesn’t break until 2am — there is no amount of shopping in AC’d stores that can help.  I have no idea what I will choose to do today between 2pm and 4pm — but it will be somewhere that is cool.  (In this one way, I do kinda miss going to an office everyday — at least if I worked in an office building the chances of it being AC’d would be pretty great.)

We are NOT getting ready for Duke’s third birthday.  This is officially the least prepared I’ve ever been for a birthday in his life.  The first year, I started planning in February.  The theme was rubber ducks (don’t ask, it is an obsession with me) and I order 98 of them to put on the cupcakes, decorate the tables, float in the punch, and put in the goodie bags.  The next year the theme was Noah’s Ark.  I had wild animal cupcakes made; bought goodie bags full of animal themed fun, I even had a craft project for the kids making Noah’s Ark themed photo frames with their names on them.  Yep, I’m *THAT* mommy and I love all of those green eyeballs looking at me.  This year I can’t get my birthday joy up.  We don’t know all that many folks here in Snarkville with kids Duke’s age.  You’d think between my mother’s club and school we would.  But Prince does the school thing and Duke’s schedule doesn’t allow him to be in any of the playgroups (any — as if there was more than 1 for his age and it meets on Tuesday’s at 10am — as if).  Add to that the descending hordes that are my family and Duke is leaving two and entering three like a lamb, no lions here.  Alas, there will be cupcakes at school and if I get off my happy ass, I will have goodie bags for his whole class.  (Perhaps it will not be flyers to the various cruises I have going on, even.)

Ok, so finally, I made a promise to a guy.  (Prince stop looking at me like that.)  Warren, the owner of Marin Fiber Arts, just got in some amazing wooden handles for handbags.  I happened to spot them as I was walking out of the store on Thursday night.  He, all casual-like says, “I don’t know how to display them.”  I said, you need a bag with them on it — I know, I’ll make one for you and bring it next Thursday.  Ok, so I’m nuts.  Now, a simple felted bag in a week is nothing really.  It isn’t until you realize that I have NO.IDEA.WHAT.IT.SHOULD.LOOK.LIKE.  Ok, I had exactly 1 yarn that is feltable that Warren carries in his shop.  So I had to use that one.  It has not told me what kind of bag it wanted to be yet.  So, I cast on and FROGGED (ripped out) the base no fewer than 9 (yes, that is NINE) times.  First, the yarn held up shockingly well to my torure (Natrawool).  But 9 times???  What was I thinking?  I’m thinking I’m a complete dork who made a promise her knitting needles couldn’t keep.  It took until late Sunday night for me to finally get the right combination of needle size, pattern, and cable length just so.  Last night I got through half the second ball (second of three) so I see the light at the end of this.  I think I’ll be able to keep my promise.  My solution you might ask?  I stopped knitting the base.  I currently have this open tube of knitting.  I’m either going to decrease to a base or sew the cast on edge together to make a base.  Opinions welcome.  (No, I don’t have a photo).

And while I’m speaking of my buddy Warren.  He is having a MASSIVE sale in his shop the last weekend in July.  It is to make room for his fall yarns, but the whole shop is 30% off, including a bunch of things at 50%.  He will ship, no he doesn’t have photos online — but I assure you if you call him he will help you.  He carries Lorna’s Laces (and I hear he’s getting a shipment of sock yarn in), GGH, Nature’s Palette, Goddess Yarns, Blue Sky, Jo Sharp, and tons more (even Cascade).  His number is 415.459.4600, call him or Maya and I so promise that you will fall in love with his shop.

You may not know this, but I have a little crush on someone. An amazing writer and a funny person and someone I’ll get to travel with soon enough. But anyway, she runs a little contest monthly called Blogging 4 Books, find the details here. This month the prize is from HER, the object of my little crush. So alas, I felt this overwhelming need to attempt to write something. So here it is. Back to your regularly scheduled snark tomorrow.

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At about 3am this morning, I woke up with a start.  Was it Saturday?  Did I miss the vet appointment on Friday?  Did I have a doctor’s appointment I should have been at?  Where has my head been for a few days?  It was this overwhelming feeling that I had checked out on Wednesday and checked back in on Saturday morning.  But it is only Thursday morning, right?

Don’t you hate that feeling?  It feels truly horrid that you misses things you had promised to do and you never remember until it is about 3am and the only thing to be done at that point is fret.  Now, once I came to my senses enough to realize that it was in fact Thursday morning, that I had the vet appointment on Friday morning, and I had no doctor’s appointments planned whatsoever, I took a deep breath.  Then, at about 3:10am, I started to worry, “What was I missing that would have woken me up with such a start?”  I have no idea.  So, if I happened to mention something to you that I’m not supposed to forget, please let me know — cause I hit clueless.

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