live from the guillotine

Site Announcement

A word to all of those who've emailed or called to say they're really glad I've been posting, or they wished I would post more often.  It would be nice, people, if you made those remarks in the comments section of this blog.   If I promise to make you grin every day with my shameless utilization of myself and my family members for giggle fodder, the very least you could do is tell me you've gotten a chuckle in the comments.

If I don't get any comments from you, I'll just have to assume you're no longer reading here.  Which will be good for me, because then when I lack amusing items to dissect, I'll just start using those items in your life which I found vastly amusing. 

Jeez, people.  Work with me here.

I'm Bored and Irritated...

So I've been doing family and school stuff, and then had the grandbaby over to spend the night last night.  (A/C went out at their house, blah, blah, blah.  You don't wanna hear it and I don't care to type it.) 

The thing I love about little kids is that you can say absolutely anything to them in a sweet, syrupy little kid voice and they just grin and giggle like mad, mad munchkins.  The pumpkin and I were kicked back in my bed on a pile of pillows this morning, watching Dora, The Explorer.  (Ola, mes amigers!)  I remarked with above voice, "This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've watched in my life, pumpkin!  Don't ya think so?  Don't ya think so??"

The pumpkin just giggled, cuddled back down, and kept right on watching.  She pointed to her sippy cup and said, "huhn! huhn!"

Which means, give it up, Granny!  And I didn't mind 'cause that is what Granny's do.  Spoil 'em and send 'em home. 

I also went to the library.  Then, of course, I started reading and...

As Mom and Mr. G have repeatedly said, "The house could burn down around Lana while she's reading and she'd never even notice."

One incident from my teen years sticks in the memory.  Mom always thought there was some rule of vacuuming my room which stated it had to last for a certain period of time or it didn't count.  She wasn't a big fan of the lick and promise school of housecleaning, so I was always having to go back and for a longer period of time.  I solved this pesky dilemma by shutting my door, vacuuming up what I considered a decent job, and then parking the still running vacuum in the middle of my floor.  I'd grab a book, flop on my bed, and read to the hum of the vacuum until enough time had passed that I could pronounce myself finished without getting a lecture.

It worked pretty well until I got caught up in Piggy's sad demise in The Lord of the Flies, forgot I was "vacuuming", and even Mom decided no one could possibly vacuum that long and came to check on me.  But I digress...

Yes, I read about the Republican meltdown over immigration, saw the speech, the blog infighting, the tantrums, the breakups, the columns drawn at dawn,  and the pending D-I-V-O-R-C-E.  The whole spectacle is turning into a George Jones/Tammy Wynette song sans amazingly poofy hair.  Just like a bad country song, everyone ends up miserable and eventually in rehab or dead, but not before they destroy themselves and everyone around them in the process. 

As always happens in these situations, our children, some of whom are fighting and dieing in Iraq and Afghanistan, some who will be blown to bits in the next terrorist attack, some who will expire waiting in line for that wonderful national health care Hillary promises to deliver, some who will merely shoulder the burden of higher and higher taxes thanks to mommy and daddy's hissy fit, asked for none of this mess and they will be the ones to pay the suffering bill. 

People.  There is a war on.  It's being fought in countries far away and it's being fought right here.  Our enemies, while different in many respects and some only in their minds, will drive us toward the same result domestic and abroad.  Loss of freedom, not only for ourselves, but servitude and bondage for our children.  The only question will be does the state or Al Queda get 'em first, because mark my words, BOTH will get 'em.  It will simply be a matter of circumstances and time. 

Let's sit the election out and let the Democrats take control to drive our point home?  Because of illegal immigration worries, we are going to just hand over the whole candy store that is this country and roll the dice?  Yeah, right.  And I'll just get busy measuring the pumpkin for her burka.

Keep Walking!

It occurred to me that since I'm dropping Veritas off for work in the early mornings, and the track is one block down the street from the donut shop, now would be the perfect time to implement my new fitness regime.  Also, I probably shouldn't buy a dozen "to go." 

I've failed to implement numerous fitness regimes, as long time readers of this blog are aware, because of my pesky little problem with coordination.  As I discovered in the grocery checkout aisle on Tuesday afternoon, there is a brand new and quite miraculous fitness idea called walking.  Yes, I was shocked, but according to the women's magazines strategically placed along side recipes for cakes, walking is the latest fitness craze.  Heck, even I can walk. 

I discovered this amazing secret inside the cover: People who walk more than 45 minutes a day lose weight at a far more rapid rate than those who don't.  It's like magic or something.  No, I didn't buy the magazine.  The only other important news it contained, aside from the cake diet, was important tips for wearing a headband and how to "back-comb" a big poof behind it.  I learned how to back-comb at my mother's breast, for pete's sake; we are from the South. Now I'm working on how to stop my children from their infernal cackling every time I wear my new headbands without actually strangling them in public. 

Back to my excellent exercise plan, I got up this morning excited and after dropping Veritas off to make the donuts, I hit the track.  As I began my warm up lap I recalled another tip from the article:  Be sure to keep your shoulders high, your buttocks tucked in, and your abs tight. 

I don't know where people in other regions walk, but the only place in our town is the abandoned junior high track field which is located on the street with the highest traffic in our fair hamlet.  I don't believe during morning rush hour with hundreds of cars driving past, I need a magazine to remind me to keep my buttocks tucked in and my abs tight. 

This isn't for exercise reasons, but for reasons of sanity.  If I happen to forget this important information, the kind passers-by are happy to hang out their windows waving and offer tips.  It's possible this information was helpfully included in the article for those who do not live in small town Texas or who walk during the off hours inside Disney's Space Mountain. 

I'm happy to report that Day 1 of my plan was a smashing success.  If I can get out of bed for Day 2, all the better because people, it's lake season, and these extra pounds aren't going to disappear themselves. 

Isn't This Special?

Nothing warms the heart quite like coming home from a cheerleading meeting to find "Farrah Fawcett poster" in the google search box of the web browser.  I guess tomorrow I'll drag out the hot rollers and see if I can find a plastic surgeon eager to eliminate 2/3rds of my cleavage.  Not.

Update: Why Farrah?  Veritas explains no  member of the family was ogling Farrah, at least overly,  last evening.  Yes, Virginia, over-ogling does go on.   There can be a wide chasm between an appreciative glance and glazed, compulsive, obsession. Not here, claims Veritas.  She and her father were discussing subliminal messages in Disney's The Lion King.  As some of you may have read way back in the day, there was a charge by a Christian group that s-e-x was spelling out in the clouds during the movie.  We at the guillotine were highly dubious, mainly because we owned a copy and had seen it approximately 3.4 gazillion times.  To be blunt, if  s-e-x was there it was so darn subliminal we'd missed it every time.   

However, our crack team of guillotine researchers, Val and Viagra, immediately slapped that sucker in the VCR and began fast forwarding for any hint of s-e-x.  Imagine our surprise when we realized it was indeed right there in the animated night sky for all to see.  Well, all being one individual of the anal, compulsive, glazed, over-ogling type.  It actually looked more like s-e-y.  Perhaps Mufasa was having trouble getting a signal in that great pride in the sky. 

But back to subliminal messages, Mr. G reported to Veritas that the rumor went out after Farrah's famous swimsuit poster that s-e-x was spelled out in her hair highlights or some such thing.  Of course, anyone who has seen the poster realizes that much like The Lion King,  nary a soul would think of anything remotely involving s-e-x without subtle subliminal messages being woven into her fair locks.

So the two researchers googled up Farrah's poster to search out any creative writing involving bleach.  And I wondered why Mr. G kept staring at my hair all evening.  He was merely looking for subliminal messages.  So I canceled the reconstructive surgery, and made an appointment with the hair stylist.

I can imagine how that conversation will go:

My stylist, the lovely Amber:  "You want me to do WHAT?!?!?"
Me:  "And for pity's sake, keep it subliminal.  Otherwise I'll have to carry a stun gun every time I stop for gas at the corner store/laundry mat."
 

The Blind Leading the Blind!

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Governments, not private companies, should take the lead in improving public access to safe drinking water, representatives of 148 countries said Wednesday at the end of a forum on improving global water supplies.

Maybe you have to be a Texan to see the irony in this, but the #1 thing people say before a trip to Mexico is, "Don't drink the water!!" 

Ya just can't make this stuff up.

Blog Stuff

I've been meaning to update my sidebar for a while now.  Some of the links were broken or the sites had moved.  Several sites I read quite regularly weren't listed and I wanted to not only share them with my readers, but make them more accessible for me.  Now if only I could figure out how to get the picture of Val's football buddy OFF my sidebar all would be excellent.  At least for the next 5 minutes.

Happy Birthday, Texas!

(This entry was written on March 2, but after editing it ended up being posted on March 3. )

As all good Texans know, today is Texas Independence Day!  Well, I would have know it if I'd thought about it, but after reading the net this evening, I was reminded of this important fact.  For a few brief years following our war with Mexico, not to be confused with your war with Mexico because we'd already beaten them, the great state we now know as Texas was, in fact, an independent nation and we didn't even need Zorro to get it done.  Unlike Jerry Jones, it was and is one of our many claims to fame.

We Texans like to point that out as often as possible, because it's just one more reason we are superior to you 49 lesser states.

And then my husband's family had to come along and screw all that up.  Yes, friends, Mr. G's great-great-great grandfather, Anson Jones, was the last President of Texas and he's the guy who reluctantly ushered in Texas statehood:

In 1844, Jones was elected president of the Republic of Texas. He held this position until Texas' annexation, when he surrendered the executive office to Governor Henderson, who had been elected the first Governor of the State of Texas.

Because of he was conspicuously neutral on the issue of annexation to the United States (and who wouldn't be - ed.) when the general mood on the public was strongly for Texas statehood (should have been the first clue something was amiss! - ed.), Jones quickly lost influence as president of the Republic.

After statehood was achieved and Jones failed to re-establish himself in public office, he became increasingly moody and introspective. He took his own life on 9 January 1858, and is buried at Glenwood Cemetery in Houston.

This seems a bit extreme reaction-wise, but Mr. G's family has always been a bit moody.  The southern comedian, Jeff Foxworthy, has often mentioned that marital arguments are interesting in that when the individual spouses have run out of nasty things with which to attack each other individually, they often move briskly on to attacking members of the spouse's extended family.   

Anson Jones ratchets up our family spats to a whole nother category of difficulty, which is why I love him and bring him up often.  Consider the following conversation without Anson Jones rattling around in the ancestral closet:

Mr. G:  Are there any clean socks in this damn house?
Me:       *sleepy blinking, followed by eye rub, followed by personal chagrin as I roll  over and stuff a pillow over my head*

Consider the following conversation with Anson Jones available in the family arsenal:

Mr. G: Are there any clean socks in this damn house?
Me:  Your great-great-great grandfather signed away the Republic of Texas and I'm supposed to be concerned about your damn socks?

What a difference a little genealogy research makes.  Just to be fair, we have another little joke in our family.  While Mr. G's family was going about the process of governing our fair state, my family was busy swinging "a wide loop" up and down the Brazos River.  In layman's terms, I come from a line of cattle rustlers.  Or as the kids joke, "So Daddy's family was buying cattle and your family was stealing them?"

Yep.  Welcome to Texas.

Cooking or Kissing?

Joe Carter at evangelical outpost has a tongue-in-cheek discussion about the topic:

Dear R.K.,
When I was just a boy my dad pulled me aside and gave me some advice on choosing a life-long mate. “Cooking lasts,” he said, taking another shot of Pepto-Bismol, “Kissing don’t.”

From the tone of his voice and the smell of Rolaids on his breath, I could tell that he came by this discovery the hard way. (My Mom wasn’t just a bad cook, she was completely confused about food. We never did convince her that Spam wasn’t a vegetable.)

One of the many reasons I love Joe's blog is his ridiculous sense of humor coupled with his thoughtful exploration of so many serious topics.   However,  I have  two problems with this post.  The first is in the extended post where Joe tries to pretend men can't fend for themselves:

There comes a point in every man’s life when he realizes that he is just too incompetent to continue taking care of himself. Some of us can manage on our own for several years but eventually if we don’t settle down we will die of self-induced ignorance. Sometimes I catch myself running through the house with sharp objects in my hand. Other times I look under the kitchen sink and wonder what all those colorful bottles of cleaner would taste like. When I was a kid I had my mom around to keep me from doing something stupid. Now, I’m on my own. It’s only a matter of time before I put an eye out or give in to the temptation to take a swig of Windex.

This isn’t a new situation. In fact it goes back as far as the first marriage. The Bible says that God looked upon Adam and decided he needed a “helper,” that it wasn’t good for “man to be alone.”

 

Nah.  There comes a point in most men's lives when they try to pretend they cannot cope with cooking, laundry, cleaning, or poopy diapers in order to induce their women folk to do it for them.  I don't blame them for trying.  After all, since I've been married I've steadfastly maintained I've never touched a lawn mower and suspect it's Satan's tool, contact with full trash bags may cause breast cancer, and gas pumps are a mystery of the universe beyond my comprehension.  I just don't have the time or patience to pretend I can't change a tire, but if a man drives up in a timely manner to offer assistance I'm happy to conveniently forget all previous knowledge on the subject and hand him the tire thingy.  If one of us is going to get greasy, why should I when he's graciously volunteered?

Men and women have long pretended not to be able to do things because they have no desire to demonstrate competence and be subsequently stuck with an unpleasant job for life.  An agreed upon distribution of the ugly chores of life is the best ticket to a happy marriage.  Each individual and each marriage is unique, so what may be untenable to Party A is possibly tolerable to Party B.  Some folks can cheerfully mop up vomit while others might happily plunge a toilet.  The communists might have been onto something if they'd just kept their "each according to his ability" within the confines of the marriage contract. 

As to my second quibble and with all due respect to Joe's father, after 23 years of marriage I can safely say kissing lasts.   If all the kids are gone on Friday night when Mr. G walks in the back door, I can offer to fire up the stove and cook up a little something special or...

He hasn't handed me a skillet in 23 years and I don't think it's because we have leftovers in the frig.

Cats...

I hate 'em, yet I have two of 'em.  This is because we live in a very old house and without a cat, we have mice.  I hate mice slightly more than cats.  We have the old cat who used to catch our mice, but age has crippled her efforts and as I mentioned in an earlier post which I don't feel like looking up right now, Mr. G and my oldest daughter Val brought in a new cat to help with the problem.

The new cat hates the old cat and constantly attacks her, so Mr. G solicited advice in the fishing forum as to how to help the cats get along.  Several someones suggested spraying the new cat with a water pistol when she attacked the old cat.  I didn't have a water pistol on hand,  so this evening I took a bottle of Windex out from under the sink and had at it in the midst of the cat fights.

Good preliminary results.  The new cat hates the Windex and has been much better behaved all evening.  I was a little carried away with the excellent results and also sprayed my 14 year-old daughter and 12 year-old son when they were reluctant to go to bed this evening.  Again, excellent results.  I don't know why I didn't think of this before now.

It seems the father from My Big Fat Greek Wedding had the right idea after all.  Windex fixes the most pesky problems. 

Whole Lotta Postin' Going On

Why am I posting so much today?  I'm on a diet and it's either eat or type.  Expect excessive verbiage here until I've lost at least 10 lbs. 

By the way, Denise Austin is so full of crap when she says her workout with weights only takes 10 minutes per day.  I spent at least 10 minutes trying to figure out the proper procedure for the exercises themselves and another 10 minutes losing my balance and falling completely off the step when my hand weights drug me sideways.

Perhaps using an old Coke bottle box for my step wasn't such a great idea.   Jumping immediately to the 5 lb. weights was definitely a mistake.  After dumbing the workout down to 3 lb. weights, I greatly reduced my conversations with the carpet.

"Still here?"

"You again?"

This is why I lock myself in the bedroom when I exercise.  I'm such a klutz the kids enjoy the spectacle, overly.  And it's hard to concentrate with all the hysterical laughter and cat calling going on.   Denise Austin didn't mention that either.