Today’s funny T-shirt

I couldn’t get the picture to copy from the Signals’ catalog site, so here you go with the hopes that you can read it. I think that there should be one that changes out the word “novel” and makes it “blog.” Don’t you?

I remember at a resort a couple of years ago someone letting out an “uh oh” when they found out I was a writer, as he, she or someone close by had just told a wonderfully juicy story of love, loss and raunchy movie making.

I stopped wanting to wear T-shirts with sayings like this on them a while ago (though the “Runs with Scissors” one still appeals to me), but I thought it might give you all a laugh.

Happy Weekend, all!

He wins!

(This has been around but is a must-read for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet — taken from a viral e-mail I received a while back with my thanks to Victoria for sharing it.)

The next time you are having a bad day, think of this and chuckle.

Subject: Bad Day At Work

Hi Sue, Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother.

Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you’ve been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it’s not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first, must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It’s a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose.

Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I’ve used it several times with no complaints.. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It’s like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened.

The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don’t have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn’t stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt.

I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically. Needless to say I aborted the dive.

I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet.

As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber The cream put the fire out, but I couldn’t poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut.

So, next time you’re having a bad day at work think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt.

Now repeat to yourself, “I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.”

Whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, “Is this a jellyfish bad day?”

Beowulf

Two hours of my life that I will never get back.

Barbie meets Lord of the Rings — only nowhere near as good.

I’d rather watch Vince Vaughn’s Dodgeball one hundred billion times than have to endure this movie again.

Awful.

With one tiny exception or two: 1) No one who has warm blood pumping through their veins can help but be entranced by the Angelina Jolie scenes — she is absolutely stunning, and 2) the message of being careful what you choose was not lost on me.

That being said (the part about seriously regretting that I ever agreed to go and see this movie), there were some really good moments and nice lines, so you may not want to write it off based on my opinion, unless you can’t STAND watching other people play slasher video games. If that’s the case for you, spend your movie money elsewhere.

The sad thing is that this movie could have TOTALLY been redeemed — a true case of movie tragedy, folks. TRAGEDY, I tell you. What I wouldn’t have given to have seen them in REAL FREAKING LIFE instead of animated characters stumbling around like a bunch of fantasy people in Shrek.

Honestly. Does anyone over 30 who isn’t going to run out and buy the Beowulf video game think that this was a good movie?

Blech.

Free to good home

One large, beautiful, multi-colored goldfish.

Does not play well with others.

See pictures below.

Solitary confinement: sometimes it’s the best choice

In the tank with all the green water that I can’t seem to manage to get clean, especially after he took out my plecostomus after offing Little Fish. He’s like the Goldfish Godfather.

Note to fish: “If you’re going to eat everything in the tank, you’re going to have to go in the bucket. I don’t like putting you in the bucket. You’re too small for the bucket. Don’t make me put you in the bucket. Just be nice, would ya?”

It all began so innocently

Author’s note: I wrote this a while back trying to put down some of what I was going through that has since been resolved. I post it here so that you all can come in to my world a little deeper and realize that for all the love that Jon and I share, it’s nowhere near perfect, and not only is it not easy, sometimes it’s damn hard. We all have our paths. I believe that now more than ever. When we begin these journeys, I am convinced that if we knew where they would take us, many of us wouldn’t have the courage to begin, including me. But thank God for that ignorance. Without it, hundreds of thousands of good things never would have come about. I believe that, too.

——————————-

There are times in life when if we knew where the road would take us or had the faith to trust our friends that we wouldn’t end up in the messes we create. This is not one of those times.

A little over a year ago, Jon thoughtfully purchased an aquarium for me on my birthday because my poor fish was swimming around in a bucket for half the month. (I’d change the water in the fishbowl and put him into the bucket for safekeeping and then leave him there, because, hell, isn’t that just easier? It’s more water than was in his fishbowl, I rationalized. I do that. I’m a justifier.)

So I put Mr. Fish (whose name escapes me at the moment) in the tank and look! There he is swimming around. I think he was happy in his new digs, but I also thought he must be horribly lonely — more of my own particular brand and blend of crazy coming out.

So I bought more fish.

Looking at this photo, I am shocked! Were they ever that small? The guy at the pet store warned me not to put four fish in a 7-gallon tank, but do you think that he could have told me that was because the bottom one was going to grow to be the size of a potato? He literally takes up a third of the tank when he’s floating in the middle.

I’m afraid that I’m going to have to buy him a bigger tank. Or flush him. But he’s pretty much too big to be flushed now and the pet store doesn’t want him back and I can’t, in good conscience, put him outside in the pond knowing that he won’t survive the winter. What’s a girl to do? (As if I didn’t have enough to worry about already.)

Last night, after an emotional conversation with Jon, I noticed that the fish who is second from the top in the above picture (the only one left, unfortunately, besides Jaws, as Big Man has come to be named) — he was lodged in the plastic plant.

What the hell, I thought, and I started crying some more, which really worried Smokey and he was trying to climb me to lick my tears off. Good boy.

I thought he (Little Fish) was dead and then realized that he wasn’t; his little fish lips were still moving.

“God dammit, Jon,” I cried in frustration. “It’s like that Chinese energy thing. One of our fish is dying now to absorb the negative energy.”

He came over and put his arms around me. I cried a little more.

Then he looked at the fish — the little one, not the potato-sized one.

“He’s missing his tail,” he said. “And a bunch of his top. The big one’s been eating him.”

“What?!” I started crying all over again.

So I ran and got the bucket, filled it with water, fishbowl salt and the drops that are supposed to dechlorinate the water. I was afraid to put him in before the 20-minute waiting period was up for fear of killing him with cold water, but I also didn’t want him to keep being lunch for the now appropriately-named Jaws.

Jon said he would take care of it.

I was grateful and went to bed.

This morning when I was leaving for work I checked on Little Fish, and he’s not doing so well. He’s missing really big chucks of him, and I’m scared that he won’t be there when I get home tonight.

But then I think, why am I crying over a fish?

And then I realize that I’m not. And that’s even harder.

So I’m breathing today and trying to honor the sanctity of what Jon’s soul is saying and what my soul is saying.

I grew up in fog, so I’m used to driving through it without fear. I knew the roads. These roads I don’t know very well, but I’m trying to implement all I have learned in the last 10 years and really, truly put it into practice.

Breathe.

Relax.

Know that you are loved.

Because at the end of the day, not a one of us is promised tomorrow, not even — or perhaps, especially — Little Fish.

A question

Are Black Friday sales really worth it?

I have a credit card burning a hole in my pocket, but have this feeling that I should just stay home.

Thankful

Among the sordid family history stories that circulated before my grandmother died, I remember hearing about a man named William Bradford, a man accused of knocking off his first wife by pushing her overboard so that he could marry my 12-times great grandmother. Tonight I learn that he is also the person supposedly credited with this day we call Thanksgiving. (I did already know about his position as governor of the Plymouth Colonies, though history was never my strong suit.)

Whether that little piece of family lore has any weight or not is unknown. The dates don’t match well, since it was two years from the date of Bradford’s first wife’s death until my great-gram sailed over. One account listed the first wife’s death as a suicide, but it also seems to have been debated throughout the years.

And I thought I had problems!

On that note, I’m happy to say that I feel that I can readily tap into the simple abundance principal of gratitude and feel led to give you a big ol’ list of all the things I’m thankful for. I know that gratitude is why I smile and laugh so much. I am deeply blessed on a daily basis and hope that I rarely lose sight of all the really wonderful people, situations and things I have in my life.

So, without further adieu, here are some things for which I am grateful that may not be readily obvious:

- Firstly, that I’m not my 12-great grandmother who had to deal with a lot more shit than I do on a daily basis. (She left her young sons in England when she came to America. It would be several years before they were reunited. I don’t think I admire — or envy — her. She had to crap in the woods, for God’s sake — AND, she chose to be married to a guy who quite possibly shoved his first wife off the Mayflower. Nice.)

- On a smaller level, I am grateful for a garage - after years of scraping ice and snow off my car, having a place to park at night is a blessing.

- On a similar note, I have a safe neighborhood in which to live, and that is up higher on my list than some might think. Have a child chase your child with a broken beer bottle, and you’ll be grateful for a good neighborhood, too.

- A good job with really wonderful people and work I enjoy

- My car - it suits me, and I still get a rush every time I see it (or one like it). It’s 12 years old and has nearly 180,000 miles, but I really, really, really love my car. (Okay, not the way I love my kids, but you get the idea.)

- The chance to be LJ’s step mom. Being a step mom is even cooler than being an aunt. I tend to think that it may be what it feels like to have a grandchild, the freedom to just relax and enjoy without the constant nagging guilt and worry that comes with being fully responsible for this little piece of your heart walking around outside your body.

- A really wonderful girlfriend for my ex who treats my daughter well and gives me, for the first time since I divorced, the ability to get a true night’s sleep when Babs isn’t here. I am deeply grateful that she came along and has made that entire situation infinitely better. I tried to tell her once, but I don’t think she’ll ever know how truly thankful I am for her.

- I’m thankful that LJ’s mom and Jon continue to learn how to work together. It’s still a little rocky at times, but on the whole, we are all in a better place than we were three years ago.

- I’m glad I had a chance to really hug my dad and have him show off his new car for me.

- I’m grateful for my friendships, especially the ones that have grown and deepened over this last year. I am nothing without the people in my life, and my gratitude to them could never be adequately expressed. (And y’all are in this list, by the way. I am more grateful for you than you can know.)

- With one of my best girlfriends once again facing surgery to remove a brain tumor that stubbornly continues to grow, I am grateful for my health and pray for her and her family on her journey.

- And last, but certainly not least, this wonderful man who has come along and made the lives of two girls infinitely richer for the experience. I would not be where I am today without him.

We have so much. And yes, every life has problems, and nothing is ever perfect, but the adage about someone always having more and someone always having much less is true.

Today, I realize that not only is my glass half full, it’s overflowing. I hope the same for all of you — that your cup is so filled with blessings that you have to have an overflow plan to catch them all.

Another of my secret fantasies

I want to be one of the girls on the red carpet at an awards show. I do. It’s true. I can’t help it. It’s been a fantasy of mine for ages, since I first started watching “Wheel of Fortune” and Vanna was just always so damn yummy and graceful. Maybe I could at least be a suitcase opener on “Deal or No Deal.” That would work, too. Just five minutes of fame. That’s all I need. Oh, wait. I think I’ve already had it. Okay, how about five minutes in this decade?

Also going on my Christmas list

Only 33-and-a-half shopping days left, folks. No pressure or anything.