Better him than me...

Babbles is in Colorado visiting Cruella DeBoner for... like... the next year or something. I'd say that means we'll be Babbleless, but I'm guessing he's bored already so we'll probably be hearing from him with stunning frequency. (Do they have the interwebs in hell?)

I think he thinks there will be a lot of this:






When really I'm pretty sure it's going to look a lot more like this:


And this:



And this:


Too harsh? She once choked me in her living room. Until I turned blue. In front of about 6 people (none of whom stopped her--thanks, mom and dad.)

Here's a hint, Babbles: If she goes for the throat, put your finger in your nose and pretend to try to wipe it on her. She'll be too busy barfing to maim you.

Where's Nitro?

My family is watching American Gladiators, which somehow, the powers that be have made even more ridiculous by making the challengers in this episode win their spot by some feat of amazing weight loss.
It's Oprah-tastic. At any moment I'm convinced the guy who builds houses is gonna show up with his whole crew and tell the audience what a hard life this particular challenger has had, but its okay because they've got a new three story lake-front villa now. And then I'm gonna have to watch the Gladiators cry.

You haven't watched television until you've seen a muscle bound Aryan-Nation posterchild named "Titan" cry.


Please, someone, tell me I'm adopted.

I'd rather be babysitting a six-pack

I have a baseless and longstanding prejudice against Arizona. Actually going there has done nothing to mitigate that. It's not a bad place. I'm just not into it.

So far on this little adventure, I've trained Donkey to come when I whistle. But this baby won't do anything I tell her to no matter how long and loud I blow my whistle

I'm back.

(pop: 1758)

I took a week off of work and the blahg and anything else that involves the use of a cellular phone or the internet in order to spend time with my grandma. She's old but spry and I figured if I'm going to spend time with her it would be really stupid not to do it now. Plus, I've been meaning to visit her for years (years!) and have never gotten around to it. So although the avoidance of guilt probably shouldn't be a good enough reason to take a one week trip to a one-horse town I went ahead and did it anyway.

There were some highlights (Kansas wheat in the spring is so lush you want to get out of the car and roll around in it. It's like a huge green lawn as far as you can see. And a cup of coffee is $.29!) and some really fucking awful moments (visiting my "uncle" Nick at the nursing home during entertainment hour and listening to the organist play hymns. Because I know it's different for people who grew up in a church, but to an atheist "Amazing Grace" and "How Great Thou Art" are funeral dirges and it's fucking depressing to watch a room full of people at the end of their lives humming along to them.)

Here was the part I really enjoyed, considering I grew up in a series of small towns beginning with this one and have spent almost a decade trying to distance myself, literally and figuratively, from them: Within 20 minutes of arriving, a kid comes up to me and says,

"You're not from around here, are you."