Category: crazy

A rare bit of clarity from a cluttered mind

Ok, fine. I have New Year’s Resolutions. Sure I do. Doesn’t everyone?

I won’t list ’em out…I’d rather accomplish them and then gloat.

Don’t deny me the gloat.

Or, you know, fail miserably in solitude.

Anyhow. Since the first of the month, I’ve been working on a goal, slowly but surely.

Things are improving.

But I’ve made a rookie mistake.

Oh yes.

I got on the scale. A lot. I mean several times a day.

You know, there are some people in this world that are already in the groove of their personal health, and they tell me “well I weigh myself once a day and that gives me an idea of how to plan the day.”

Yeah. Good fer you.

I am not one of those people. I tend to, uh, well, a bit of OCD.

If once is good then eleventy kabillion is better, right? Right?

I mean once after you pee, after you shower, when you take a sip of water, when you sneeze, after blowing your nose, before dinner, after dinner, in the middle of the night when you are pacing the floor wondering why you are such a nutcase.

Trouble is, if you spend all your time looking at just the numbers and the results (how they fall short of goal), you are missing the most important part of the process.

(This may be why my last boss grew weary of me…she being ALL about the numbers.)

So yesterday, I weighed myself and I was pissed off. I mean, I’d weighed the day before and it was a yay! And then today it was a boo. One day? How can I go from yay to boo in ONE FRAPPING DAY?

Because you can. The body is funny that way. Especially the female body. Today is good, tomorrow is bloat, next day who knows.

So as I was fuming…my mind clicked in and my mouth took over, without my permission.

I shouted at myself:

GET OFF THE SCALE AND GET ON THE TREADMILL!

And I realized that has to be my new philosophy.

No more weighing. Screw that. I need to simply eat a little better and exercise a little more and when I feel good just…you know…allow myself feel good without ruining it.

And when I feel poorly, try to figure out how to feel good again.

And leave that g’damn scale in the closet.

I’m telling you, get off the scale, get on the treadmill has deeper meaning than just my expanding waistline.

It’s a new way of life.

How about get off refreshing my Esty page and get on some crafting?

How about get off the internets and get on some writing?

How about get off wishing and get on to doing?

And I’ve now redlined and revised every single one of my New Year’s Resolutions.

Get off the scale, get on the treadmill.

Meaning…Karen, stop dithering and start doing!

And *then* you get to gloat.

I will SO do the superior dance (for those who remember Dana Carvey’s character, the Church Lady) when I make all of my 2010 goals.

Such a Suggestible Girl

Sometimes it really worries me that the things I can most easily remember, can get to most quickly in the old brain bucket, are commercials.

Especially those commercials from the formative years.

I can whip out a jingle or a tagline from commercials dating way back, and repeat ’em like Rainman in a phone booth (yikes, no more phone booths!).

What makes these commercials so sticky in the brain? I don’t know, but obviously this is the intended effect, eh?

So here in this Christmas season, I’ve been thinking about all of those old Ronco commercials. No, not the new Ron Popeil ads. Those are lame.

The old Ronco ads. Let’s talk 1970’s.

Remember when Ronco ads used to repeat, ad nauseum, at every commercial break?

Here’s a few I was able to find on the web:

Smokeless Ashtray

Boogie Nights Record Album (Click to play)

Ice Cream Machine(Click to play)

Look at this!! The early Bedazzler!!

Rhinestone and stud setter(Click to play)

Oh yes. Good times.

There are a few of my faves I wasn’t able to find. For example, the Egg Scrambler. A funny little machine that with a pinprick to the egg and the revs of a small motor would scramble it up inside the shell.

Or the Record Vacuum. I found a couple of those ads, but not the one I remember. In the one I recall, they ran the vinyl through the vacuum then tossed a handful of confetti at it (to prove the static was gone, I think?).

Ah yes.

But then, there will always be the gold standard of Ronco commercials.

Found on the web and brought to you.

“Hey good looking! I’ll be back to pick you up later!”

Enjoy

Mr. Microphone! (Click to play)

Just how "natural" are we talkin’ here?

The other day, while out and about, The Good Man bought himself a bag of cough drops to try to quell the dry cough the endless exposure to indoor heating provides.

Plus, we gave the house a good cleaning over the weekend and kicked up a bunch of dust that has us both sneezing and coughing.

After purchase and back in the car, he opened up the package and popped one in the ol’ cake hole.

After a cough or two myself, I said, “may I have one?” to which he readily agreed.

I grabbed the package and flipped it over to review the ingredients.

Yep. I’ve become one of those people.

Anyhow, I try to avoid corn syrup. It’s just my own thang. Doesn’t have to be yours.

So I read off the ingredients list aloud and got to “natural flavors.”

Now, what in the sam hell are “natural flavors?”

This is the part where I make it hard for The Good Man to share a life with me.

I turn and say to him, “I hate when they list ‘natural flavors,’ I mean, what is that? It could be anything! Are these cough drops poop flavored? Poop is a natural flavor!”

The Good Man turned slowly and gave me a look and a slow head nod.

This is a look that in going on five years together I’ve come to understand means, essentially, “While you are technically correct, it’s going to be better for me in the long run if I don’t dignify what just came out of that sideways mind of yours with a response. So I’ll just nod.”

We nodded at each other for a long moment, and since my “poop is a natural flavor” just hung there in the air, so to speak, there really was no good segue.

I chose then to open the pack of cherry and whatever-the-hell-other-natural flavored cough drops and fired one into the ol’ cake hole.

It tasted nasty. I spit it back out after a minute.

“Natural flavors” are gross. And possibly poop.

I’m just sayin’.

(these are the offenders in question)

Whoo hooo!

Mama, I’m going to Disneyland!

Oh, ok, not really. I’m actually going to…uh, sleep.

But still, I pulled a rabbit out of my arse hat for the fifth time and completed a 50,000 word novel in less than thirty days!

Thanks to the amazing people at National Novel Writing Month for making it so much fun to rise to the challenge every year!

Opening Day

And so, the 2009 baseball season is underway.

The major leaguers started early in the week.

But that’s not where I’m at.

I’m talkin’ about one lowly Single A.

Yeah baby.

The San Jose Giants kicked off their 142 game season in the Pacific Coast League with their home opener last night.

It was, perhaps, one of the strangest baseball encounters I’ve ever experienced.

And I’ve seen some weird sh*t.

To start with, the weather was was, what the indelicate call “pissing rain”. The not quite raining, not quite not. Just…dribbling.

For my home-squirrels in the 505/575 who come from a place where, when it rains, it means it, this phenomenon may not make sense to you.

Imagine those misters they have at Hooters. Only as big as the sky, unrelenting, and without the desert dryness to evaporate that water.

Close enough.

So it was Hooters misting all night long…and cold…and not very baseball-y weather.

Pretty much, the not really capacity crowd thinned out over the course of the game, leaving only the die hards to carry it to the end.

Which would be both me and The Good Man.

We stepped under cover for the third and fourth innings to indulge in bbq-sauce-up-to-your-ears tasty ribs and came out of there recharged and ready.
When you’ve endured several hours of cold soaking rain, it does something to your brain.

So as most people left, and us weirdos starting losing our minds, it got really fun.

Best moment will take some backstory.

Every game, the San Jose announcer designates a player on the opposing team as the “beer batter”. If the San Jose pitcher strikes out that batter, then beer is half price for the next half inning.

Needless to say, people cheer pretty damn hard for a strikeout.

Usually, they end the beer batter promotion in the sixth inning.

So, round about the seventh inning last night…we, the looneys in the crowd decided to dub that same opposing batter the hot chocolate batter (it was freaking cold!). Cheering went up. Someone yelled, “C’mon, daddy needs marshmallows!”

That damn beer hot chocolate batter would NOT just take a swing. Poor sport.

And then, for some reason, in the eighth inning, the announcer played the usual beer batter song and dubbed the guy the ‘apple juice batter of the game, as sponsored by Martinelli’s’. I don’t know if that was a legit promotion, but then all of us started hollering for our apple juice.

As the beer batter stood at the plate, we screamed “aaaaaaaple juuuuuice!” Damnit if that guy just wouldn’t strike out for us! No, he kept foulin’ ’em off! So I yelled “I’ll share mine with you!” No, he wasn’t to be swayed. I even offered to *give* him my apple juice. Considering I was sitting in the third row behind the plate in a nearly empty stadium, I KNOW he heard my offer.

But no, instead of sipping my apple juice, b–tard hit a rope out to center.

A cold soaked to the bone crowd couldn’t even get an apple juice. That ain’t right.

But damn did we have fun!

And yes, the Albuquerque Dukes pennant is still painted on the wall at Muni Stadium and I touched it for luck, like usual! Worked too! We won 7-1!

Tonight, I think I’ll stick to the couch and a blanket and my feline (who I’ve finally forgiven) and baseball on the television.

But I may be prompted to yell “aaaaaaapple juuuuuuuice” at a hitter who needs to strike out. : shrug :