it's a great thursday!!

if my computer threatens to want to restart ONE MORE TIME i will kick it's ass. STOP IT!! i said NO! do it later... when i am done here...

so we now know this about the puzzle book unsub - he is left handed (always completes the left hand page, i do the right hand ones - but i reserve the right to return to the left hand side!!) and he doesn't like the hard puzzles either. and he uses MY bathroom. curiouser and curiouser and curiouser...

oh my gawd. my dogs' nails on hardwood is seriously going to drive me INSANE! stop clicking!!!!!!!!!!! i need totes toasties for dogs. stat!!!!!!

Danny wants to go to Disneyland for his fourth birthday very badly. but i am still a little disturbed by that place and fear i might purr/pop with the utter stress of the heinous fartsmelly crowds, the fight for the front seat of It's a Small World, my kid frrrreaking out over standing next to Tigger then the people who stand in my shots when i finally convince him to do so for a toy... the terror that is..."the happiest place on earth". i feel like i should sue disneyland, because it is anything BUT happy there. but he wants to go.... what to do, what to do (pop pop pop)

oprah... i don't like you very much anymore. firstly the stupid snapfish book thingie was just a ruse to drive me crazy and make me cry. and yes it worked! and your show these days is awful awful awful. i don't care about chris rock and nicole kidman, oh and today jennifer effing aniston... i hate stars, they SUCK! show me people who are far worse off and more messed up in the head than me - it's what the people want!! more nate berkus! less lame australian guy who isn't cute. and i am not saying anything about the yellow dress, it's a low blow and i won't go there :)

must go. back later :)

is it friday yet...?

there is an unsub on the loose (i cannot remember for the life of me what unsub means i know it means bad guy...) someone has crept into my private bathroom haven and completed one of the number searches from my private puzzle book collection... it wouldn't be such a big deal but i can only do the simple ones at the front of the book and the perp chose to do NUMBER ONE... (the ones at the back are for total geniuses and i have no idea how anyone does them without copying them from the answers, so we know the unsub isn't smart either :)

if i hear the word madagascar or that song 'i want to move it move it' one more time... i will spontaneously combust, i am soooooooo not kidding. surely it's bedtime? somewhere in the world it's bedtime, surely..?

i cannot resist a shiny tempting offer. at coinstar if you put $40 or more into their coin sorting thingie they will give you an extra $10 back and that is an offer too good to be true... so now i am staring at my bucket, trying to guess by weight, how much is in it... if i take it to stater bros there will only be $37.53, i just know it, and i will have to beg the cashier for $2.50 in quarters to make up the difference...

walked for the first time in a week today due to my lame flu. it was a perfect 73 degrees. all the lame-o McCain lawn signs have gone (!) and the awful 'yes on 8' homophobic goat family have finally taken down their HUGE OBNOXIOUS YELLOW 'yes on 8' sign. but the 'no on 8' lesbian labrador couple's sign now reads NO ON HATE. gooooo labrador family!!! gosh i sure wish i was brave enough to talk to them over their picket fence, i want gay friends soooo badly, it's palpable (sob)

i hate projects such as photobooks. i have never successfully made one without losing my mind/having to take an anti-anxiety pill/hating the finished product. today i thought it was my lucky day - oprah had some fancy offer for an EASY free snapfish book, a $29.99 value :) so far i have sat and watched dots spin maddeningly in circles for hours on end, while it 'loads'. i am guessing today isn't going to be my lucky day either.

my omnipresent-headache-of-the-last-few-days-is-gone playlist:
kitty - presidents of the usa
watch that man - david bowie
sweet child o mine - guns n roses
orange crush - rem (like losing my religion/man on the moon/etc i have never listened to this song all the way through by choice because it was sooo mtv played to death... now when i listen to it i actually quite like it :)
paranoid - black sabbath (yes Aaron... i do and did when you were in short pants;)

it's a beautiful day.

i am back from the brink of death. should have got the damned flu shot that i rolled my eyes at, in alberstons last weekend. i realized that flu shots aren't just for the weak/people with too much time on their hands about 1am on sunday morning... and again at around 3am... and on and on and on. but in true Michelle Obama style... i am NOT complaining because my dvr is only 15% full now, my christmas tree skirt is seconds away from completion and my pants are wonderfully loose (ahem, looser...)

i can tell how sick i am by how many of my pets are sitting around me looking gravely concerned about who would bake their chicken broth bones and make their litter smell like french lavender if i should die. there are 3 out of 4 right now...

i spent the afternoon making a cape cod picket fence to surround Sam's christmas village out of popsicle sticks and wire. everytime i do something like this i am so so glad i am not in China making 70,000,000 units for walmart. twisting wire is not good for your hands... i am typing with what remains of my bloody stumpy fingers... excuse the squelching noise :)

will i ever EVER get used to having to dial 714 when calling a local number? nope.

must work on dumb stupid christmas card... i am seconds away from quitting and buying 99c cards at walmart. so if you get a 99c walmart christmas card just know that you're still on my A list ;)

positivity rocks

so we didn't go to palm springs. i know, so sad but it's ok because i just hate unpacking from vacation (sorry Michelle:) Danny got horribly sick last night at Grandma and Grandpa's house so we went to get him and spent the night convincing him that pedialyte actually tastes really yummy - although i tried it and yes, Danny, it tastes about as bad as regurgitated stomach lining. he's ok now - just pale, floppy and watching endless dinosaur movies - just typing 'endless dinosaur movies' makes me yawn like crazy...

so far so good... my first objective in becoming a citizen worked :) so in my bid to get every last penny out of my $675 naturalization fee, next on my list is a government job, specifically managing the future presidential pet's website. Barney's is just shocking, firstly it doesn't even give any info about Willie the cat, pictured here (hello lame pet photographer, cats ALWAYS look when you go Ch Ch Ch... everyone knows that...)

in various pictures Willie is referred to as generic "Kitty", and i know with my little flip camcorder i can knock the socks off videos such as this!

anyway i'm off to make dog bones for my future boss :) i added chicken broth to make my application smell irrestible.

today's play it forward playlist:
new york girls - morningwood
wouldn't it be nice - beach boys
boys keep swinging - david bowie
bow wow wow - i want candy
candy everybody wants - 10000 maniacs
acrobat - u2
too funky - george michael

by the Obama sign at target


what he wants from Santa Claus...

in the spice aisle :)

cat hats - the latest must-have fad at target??!

friday kennedy

i want a goldfish. ok I don’t reeeeally want a goldfish, nor a hamster or a fluffy chinchilla or anything requires a daily walk, a rabies shot, a drink with a lid, it’s tank cleaned, help putting on shoes, help taking them off... etc etc… but I DO want to name SOMEONE Barack! maybe if i take Danny to Build A Bear and let him choose the bear and he can be the one to kiss the heart and everything, he will let me name the bear Barack :)

since the writer’s strike we have been totally hosed. i used to have to hide under the covers to watch Criminal Minds and take a sleeping pill and everything... now it is about as suspenseful and predictable as Scooby Doo (jet=mystery machine and skinny dorky guy=Shaggy) and CSI: no words. did they REALLY replace Warrick Brown with that new girl? really??? REALLY????! but... did they SEE Warrick Brown?! and think that is a fair replacement for womankind???!

and... Desperate Housewives can only be described in one word this year: total drivel. if it weren't for dashing Agent Cooper/Trey MacDougal/Orson Hodge, i would just give up altogether. but for him, i FF through that nauseating Susan who i would sooo love to bludgeon to death and the most insanely boring character EVER, Mike the plumber... brother of Joe :) if Orson leaves, i walk too.

today our internet connection was off from 6am till 11am and our power was off from 9am to 3pm. what the hell...? when did Orange County become a third world country?! some people work from home, don’t they know that... and need coffee and TV and important things like that...?! seriously. we decided to step outside our comfort zone and go to the Getty museum. i hate museums with a passion so i should have resisted the urge to attempt to appear human, but i could only stick it out for all of 18 minutes. no backpacks, no touching, no stepping on anything dark grey (yes!!) no picture taking, no breathing, no fun whatsoever.

luckily there was not a "no bangtails" sign....

or a "no taking pictures of leaves on the ground" sign

i had to illicitly snap this one of my annoyingly squeaky shoes in stealth mode :)

i already love this woman and would totally have let her in if she needed my lane :)

knifty knitting for beginners

a tutorial on something so easy even i can do it :)


(Boston Legal is entirely optional... but Denny Crane makes knitting far FAR less dull :)

rule of thumb: the bigger your head is, the thicker the wool should be...


"say cheese Mr Bumps!' he is proudly wearing a cranberry hat made with the littlest blue circle


for anything but cat hats i use the green or yellow circle... to do stripes just do 4 rows of each color

hazy shade of wintry thursday

sure.... winter just means cap sleeves instead of no sleeves here but still, there's a refreshing feeling in the air

at risk of sounding like a broken record... that's such an outdated saying... OK, at risk of sounding like Sarah-the-GPS-woman-who-i-don't-so-much-care-for-unless-i'm lost-and-late, when she says "off route"(snippily) "recalculating" (exasperated tone)...... i want to move to cape cod. i am so not kidding anymore. i want a little white house with a big metal star over the door and perfect white starfish hanging in every window. with a little attic full of treasures and perfectly muted daylight and unfinished wood floors. a white picket fence (distressed:OK) a big wooded lot that has shade all day long where little boys can go exploring for frogs and fireflies and be safe from the world. near the christmas tree shoppe. walking distance to perfect dunes and a silent windswept, dogfriendly beach where the sand is combed perfectly by the cool breeze and you always need a sweater in the morning. ahhh... blood pressure: 110/70

sighhh.... on second thoughts that sounds just awful, what was i thinking? i'd much rather be off to the Santa Ana city hall this morning... to wait for cripples with shopping carts to hobble across intersections slowly while begging you for money, and watch awful real housewives of OC (in white SUVs always) almost mow them down because they are 'too busy' juggling their starbucks, mac mascara and blackberries, then pay someone $10 to watch my car for 30 mins while i try to communicate with someone who speaks AWFUL english to get a US passport.... argh, blood pressure 130/85

i don't like my Costco mineral translucent powder at all. nor the moisturizer that i have used like 3 times and smells like sunblock. nor some other thing i tried and instantly disliked. and it's odd because i always love everything from Costco but their mineral stuff makes me look like i spent far too long tanning. i am clearly NOT medium, i am FAIR!

he loves Jo Malone orange blossom as much as me

this boy wants his birth congrats resent from BOBAMA!!!! (the letter is already written out with a post-it "mail 1/20/09!)

it's a miracle!!! (a true blue spectacle ;)

he WON!!!! he WON!!!!!! he actually WON!!!!

i am back from the living dead! my 8 year hanging chad hangover is gone and my head is clear again!! i had to wake up 217 times to check and recheck and rerecheck and rererecheck the news but i feel like i am floating on a very soft clover and i never even imagined it could possibly happen this time... and yes i cried like a baby last night! he had me at the puppy :)

i think my one little teeny extra vote counted!!! or maybe it was my walking 5 miles per hour ALL DAY LONG to keep the momentum going. or the perfect ice formation in my diet coke. or spilling the frosted flakes (frosted flakes are very republican) or donating my 2:22, 3:33, 4:44 prayers to Obama instead of saying the Eternal Rest prayer for my lost loved ones....

in celebration today we are going to Walmart for all things good:
~a BRAND SPANKING NEW American flag to show our pride! we haven't flown the last one since january 2001, except for 14 desperate days straight after 9/11....
~the rockettes christmas spectacular - i was going to wait but well, i just CAN'T! i want it TODAY!!!
~popsicle sticks and wire - i am making Sam's village a picket fence :) shhhh!!!
~snacks for our Palm Springs weekend away with NO KIDS!!!
gosh i might even smile at the mean old "greeter" lady who forces you to give a dollar for some miracle thingie everytime you enter - she's not getting a dollar though:)

historic night pics:
6pm... i kind of knew it was going to be OK when i saw these ice formations...

excuse me man walking pet dinosaur we are TRYING TO WATCH THE NEWS!

this was about 8 mins before the announcement - we were cautiously optimistic....

screenshots - my f5 and printscreen keys have the ink worn off them! i didn't believe yahoo or katie couric... so i had to check BBC... i just about collapsed and died of exhaustion/euphoria when BBC announced he had won :)))))


happy happy day!!!! floating off off to Walmart now on my very soft clover :)

it's finally today already

i have the williest of willies today. frequent urination (sorry if that is too much information for the squeamish), putting on socks, urgh taking them OFF, i want a very hot drink, then a very cold drink with three cubes of ice which MUST form a triangle in my glass or we're doomed... then run around like a crazy mad dog doing laundry, baking pies and shining the countertops with lavender scented windex, then collapse like the world's largest ginger cat on a 100 degree day... must watch tv, read news, scan reports, count electoral vote worst case scenarios over and over again, lean forward never back, close my eyes and grit my teeth and will sweet Mr Obama to WIN!! win damn it, i did all the above for you!!!!

anyway this is how the day started... woke up to the sound of rain.... RAIN???!! but it NEVER rains in southern california!! i leapt out of bed, flew outside and found last night's batch of painted pretty starfish, sodden and smelling like rotten fish... sigh, so not christmas tree worthy. i wonder... can you microwave starfish.... just a quick nuke to dry them out :)

i don't get that people camp out overnight to vote...? am i missing something? sleeping next to the opposition...? breathing their exhaled air? does voting on the day get you into disneyland for free? or oprah's favorite things...?

speaking of people, i cannot help but wonder about the 'still undecided' people. it's like not knowing what you want for Christmas when you are 4. i wanted a doll that pees (but does NOT poop), a silver cross doll's pram (with matching purse), a toblerone as tall as me, a maclaren double buggy, a candy cane full of smarties, markers that smell like strawberries, a female monchichi monkey, bay city rollers records... seriously... undecided? banished to the bog of eternal stench!

we voted

for Obama!

sam's moo tree

7am in the rain

earthworm superhero (it's OK, mister earfworm...)

blue monday

sometimes i wonder if i have some terrible illness that makes me want to lay in bed everyday watching Dr Phil eating chilled grapes. or maybe i am just really really really lazy.......

case in point: this morning. all i did was walk around Disneyland for like 15 minutes, got some beignets which Danny refused to eat because he thought they had jelly in them... when i told him they DIDN'T have jelly he refused to eat them because they did NOT contain jelly... (?????)

then i walked to Trader Joe's out of guilt over eating the beignets (which Danny eventually tried and liked). got back, cleaned like a maniac for 10 minutes, ate a handful of gummi-vites, put Danny in his nap (times 3) and made some dog biscuit dough... i mean when you add up these things, i didn't do a lot.... but i want to go and lie down and sleep til wednesday... but maybe the whole election fever is getting to me on top of the above mentioned illness.

just returned from the wonderful walmart. Sam wanted a new christmas tree and Danny picked out a nativity scene :) got fishing bait, cornmeal, chicken broth too (for the doggie biscuit production line) and still change from $20 - LOVE walmart.

it's a cool breeze/tight squeeze kind of evening in southern california tonight:
somewhere down the road
river (i play it all year round :)
i made it through the rain
weekend in new england
forever and a day
see the show again

Mr Bumps hanging out

us hanging out



for Melissa... Sam's NYC ornament collection