If You Can't Say Something Nice...
Say Something Vague

...And on that day, sadly, tragically, she was forced to kill her boss. She could no longer handle the put-downs, the expectations of mind-reading, the daily frustrations. She knew she would spend life in prison, but others would be freed by her noble actions!

I'm so glad that Jenny mentioned the problem with her comment section. I thought it was just me!

So I thought of adding two running lists to my blog (someday I'll figure out enough html to be able to keep this up on my blog, but for now I guess I'll just have to copy & paste whenever I want to repeat myself).

First, I thought I would do Stephanie's book selections. Or, more grandly, Stephanie's Super-Fabulous, You'd Better Read 'Em Book Selections. Secondly, I would like to keep a running list of words that I *LOVE* but don't get to use nearly enough--Stephanie's Lexicon of Super-Fabulous Words That She Would Like to Use More Often But Doesn't Get To. (clears throat) Eh hem. Let us begin:

Have you ever read The Princess Bride? No? Well you should. No, really. You should. It's super-fabulous. The real title of the book is The Princess Bride: S Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. The author also refers to it as The Good Parts Version. No small claim to live up to!

While the movie is a really, really good adaptation, the book is even funnier. I have the 1972 edition, featuring a fold-out map of Florin & Guilder, showing the Cliffs of Insanity, the Zoo of Death and other important landmarks from the story. Some of the great quotes in the movie are lifted right out of the text, and other parts are included in the book that don't appear in the movie--like background information on Vizzini, Fezzik, Inigo and Humperdinck. Great stuff about Humperdinck. Hee hee. There are great little vignettes about situations that are only alluded to in the movie like Buttercup being the most beautiful woman in the world, or she and Westley sharing the greatest kiss in recorded history. Anyway, I could go on, but the short version is: READ IT!

As for my list of seldom-used-but-much-enjoyed words, here are a few to whet your appetite -- felicitousness, priapism, redoubtable, persnickety, persimmon.

This is the unspoken dark underbelly of majoring in English; you find yourself addicted to all of these fancy schmancy words and not allowed to use them anywhere because 'people might not understand you'. Whatever, people! I'll use them here and consequences be damned! Don't think I don't know more big words. I just want to make you feel a teeny bit inferior every day. Good for my ego, you know! ;)

Warning: Political Diatribe on the Loose!

So, here's my latest "Whaaaa??" where Bushy is concerned. In California (or, as Arnold says, Cah-lee-four-ni-ah), we are recalling our governor over a $35 billion deficit accumulated over the length of nearly two terms in office. But we have a "president" who has accrued nearly $500 billion in deficit spending in less than 3 years, and we're not recalling him?!?!

Where is the outrage? Where are the calls for responsible spending!? They are certainly not being exposed by the supposedly "liberal" media (liberal, my big toe!).

In addition to my brief blog yesterday that it is expected to take 10 years or more to pay off that deficit -- not including any additional debt accrued the rest of his term in office (please God, just the one term!) -- there are other spending programs on the table by Bushy and his administration that could more than triple that amount!!! Things like rebuilding Iraq (is it really a democracy if we force it on them?), further defense spending (grrrreeeeaaat) and more completely irresponsible tax "rebates" (like those that we paid for in our 2002 taxes, by the way).

This country makes no friggin' sense to me.

sigh

It is quite disturbing to me to walk down the hall at work and see a rack thingy that mounts on a helicopter to hold missiles sitting there on a cart. Pointing at me. Or to have one of the guys in production open a big, huge box to show me a U.S. military missile launcher that looks much like a hot water heater. I don't much like that.

I also don't much like hearing that the federal budget is likely to run in the red for the next 10 years. 10 years!!! Um...it really wasn't all that long ago that we had a balanced federal budget. Hmmm, what was different then? What could be the big factor that caused change, here? Oh, yeah. !@#$%^&* pretender-to-the-throne Bushy.

I should not be allowed to listen to the news. I just get more and more cynical and angry. How sad our world is. :(

I have a new mantra. It's not a nice one. But it's a testament to how I feel at work right now.

Thank you, thank you. When I'm president, I'm going to have you all killed.

So there you go. If you've been wondering how I am or why I haven't posted lately, that should give you some indication.

Anyone good at dream interpretation?

I had a dream on Sunday night that I went hiking with some friends around an area that looked much like Disney's Country Bear Jamboree area. Which is ironic, because in my dream we stopped for lunch at a rustic cabin restaurant and I ate a bear. You read that correctly. They served me up this humongous slab of bear meat and I ate the whole thing. In fact, one of my friends was so proud that afterward she surprised me with a (real) giant bear skin mounted on the wall in my living room. What is that about?!?!

Oh, and has anyone ever accidentally made pizza sauce come out their nose? Anyone besides me, that is? Trust me, it's not fun. I started laughing last night while eating pizza and this big blob of pizza sauce went up my nasal passages at the back of my throat. It did not, fortunately, come out the nostrils. That would probably have put me over the edge. And, man, it BURNED! Tomatoes are quite acidic, you know. Eventually I sniffled and I could feel a big glob of tomato sauce and a chunk of tomato go down my throat. Eeeeewwwwww!!!! I am a danger to myself, people!

I'm too tired to tackle anything of importance, here, so I'll just briefly state that I'm renaming my cat.

The cat formerly known as Max is now to be known as Puff Kitty. I'm trying to establish his street cred in Anaheim early on because there are a lot of cats in my building.

I can't wait to see him laden down with bling bling, cruising in his gigantic black SUV. Hee hee.

It turns out that either I have a gift for prognostication, or I'm really smart and in-touch with popular culture--or, at least, with NPR's take on pop culture.

I was all set to blog a couple of days ago about the verbification of the Google website. People google other people when they want to know more information about them. Google is a mandatory staple for many businesses; for getting directions; for finding restaurants and shopping centers. It is now crucial to human existence. And it is now a verb.

I was thinking about all this because I heard a girl say that she googled a guy before going on a date, to see if anything negative came up. Then I read a book, and the main female character is this neurotic chick who googled this guy she met on a plane to be sure he wasn't a serial killer or anything. And then, just as I got set to blog about all this, they did a segment on NPR (Marketplace) about Google (the origins of the company and its name, etc.). AND THEN, they talked about how it has become a verb and how important it has become to people--personally and professionally--in a relatively short period of time. !!! I've been robbed of my moment of glory by National Public Radio!

BTW, I know that verbification is not a word. YET. But if a website can become a verb, I can bring my own words into the American lexicon!

So here's my real post. This weekend Jason and I watched the squirmy little rugrats (a.k.a. my three little sisters) all weekend. We actually had quite a lot of fun. And who wouldn't, with exciting things like this going on?

a) Being 27 and driving a mini-van all over the Valley

b) Eating lunch with a 7-year-old and a 6-year-old at Islands who decide that it's fun to spit out half chewed food and crawl around on the floor under the tables

c) Searching all over Mervyn's for a 7-year-old who decided to hide in a rounder (clothing rack) for reasons best known to herself

d) Screaming matches between the two older girls and the 3-year-old

e) Blood-curdling screams, evidently meant to indicate happiness and/or excitement

Having said all of that, though, we actually had a great weekend. The kids were adorable and really good (except for b-e above). They say funny, funny things. And it's way easy to blow their little minds. Hee hee.

Briefly, when my sisters Rachel (7) and Nikki (6) were very little, my mom and I had lunch with them in the mall. Afterward we were sitting in the car, engaging in a bit of gossip. The girls started whining and my mom got exasperated. Finally, she warned them that if they continued to misbehave, the Mall People were going to come and get them.

Over the years, the Mall people have taken on mythic proportions in our family--they now take children for one year at a time once they've received multiple warnings; they are then forced into a year of constantly cleaning other people's rooms (Jason informed them on Sunday that his niece Katlyne did a stint with the Mall People in Pomona). The Mall People drive those cars that are always parked in malls labeled as 'Register to Win a Free Car' (that's to throw the kids off). The Mall People can be put on speed dial for easy access (as they are on my sister Heather's cell phone); handy when babysitting. The Mall People have branched out, and now cover strip malls and large department stores, as well as traditional mall settings. Mall People look like everyone else, so a kid has to be on his or her best behavior at all times--you never know when a Mall Person is going to swoop in and snatch a disobedient child away. The Mall People are even exempt from the law--or more accurately, they are a law unto themselves. They laugh at small children like my 6-year-old sister who bluffed that she would just call the police if the Mall People came after her. Woe to her!

You have no idea how effective the Mall People really are until you use them!

There's also the unbridled joy of telling little kids things that are just plain not true (besides the Mall People fiction). Nikki had the hiccups on Friday night. Mom told her that if you have hiccups for more than five minutes you'll go into a coma like Sleeping Beauty. Then my mom nonchalantly looked at her watch, widened her eyes, looked at Nikki and said, "Oh no, Nikki, it's already been three minutes! Maybe if you hold your breath for two whole minutes, you'll be able to make the hiccups stop." So Nikki started to hold her breath. Then curiosity got the better of her and she asked what a coma was and whether or not you could die from one. We were watching Steel Magnolias at the time, and it was near the end (which is the reason mom started this; Nikki was interrupting us constantly while we were watching the movie). When Julia Roberts' character is shown comatose in the hospital, Nikki asked what was wrong with that girl. "Hiccups" mom solemnly replied. Hee!

Anyway, I think it's clear why I'm both not ready to have children, and yet thrilled to babysit. Although, after making this public, I may not be allowed to have children!

Now, I know I'm more British than this!

Quick! Someone run for help! I'm trapped in Microsoft PowerPoint and I can't get out!!!!

Me, 12 presentations and PPT (I feel that we know each other so well that I can refer to the program by its nickname).

What a horrid way to go.