War Games

We are supposed to go to Paintball tomorrow, and I am not in the least bit excited. In fact, I'm the complete opposite of excited; I'm antipathic. Strange, eh?

Yeah, perhaps it is because I don't have such fond memories of ducking things being thrown at me. Perhaps I am more a pacifist than I thought. Whatever the reason, I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY AT SHOOTING PEOPLE.

Now, lest you think I am unreasonable, let me tell you I've been trying to psych myself up for this for a month, now. I've told myself that we are just painting each other beautiful colors, we are having a water balloon fight, we are bonding with Behr.

And it isn't working. When I close my eyes and imagine someone pointing their gun at me, in my mind's eye, I squeak, duck, lay my gun down and curl up into a ball with my hands over my ears. I do. I've tried forcing a vision of me letting out a fierce war cry and going all Rambo, but it just doesn't play. I cried for days when a certain blogger killed all the woodnymphs but one, and that was a stupid blog fantasy. Yes, he meant it to upset me, but you'd think knowing that was his purpose would have reduced the sadness I felt! Nope. It didn't.

And look at this crowd! They ALL have itchy trigger fingers. In fact, in my mind's eye, I stand looking them in the eye and saying in a calm and reasonable voice, "This is a character test," and at least five of them look me straight back, pull the trigger and say, "Oops. I failed."

Sigh...

Bend me, shape me, any way you want me...

Main Entry:ef·fi·ca·cy
Pronunciation:\ˈe-fi-kə-sē\
Function:noun
: the power to produce an effect

I was putting on lotion the other day, Jhirmack lotion from a hotel chain recently visited. When I got done, I was hungry. What can I say? Putting on lotion can be exhausting. And...well...the lotion smelled like a creamsicle.

Main Entry:lus·cious
Function:adjective
1 a: having a delicious taste or smell
2: sexually attractive : seductive, sexy
3: richly luxurious or appealing to the senses

For those who don't know, Creamsicles are made by Popsicle. As I recall, they come in four or five flavors, orange being the one that most folks remember and the memory of which is most often triggered by other smells. The core of a creamsicle is vanilla ice cream, the shell a flavored ice. My favorite was lime.

Main Entry:evoc·a·tive
Function:adjective
evoking or tending to evoke an especially emotional response

A creamsicle was a lovely treat to kids growing up in SoCal where the temperatures reach 110 on a sunny summer day. On such a day, the sicle would melt if you didn't eat it fast enough, leaving a lovely colored streak that ran from wrist to elbow, a streak that no amount of licking could remove, but one must try, eh? If for no other reason than that a wet, sticky tongue feels nice against hot, sweaty skin...

The creamsicle was beautifully shaped, being curved at the top, then flat and wide, providing options for more than one manner of eating. Lick? Bite? Suck? Mmmm, so many choices...

I was a licker and sucker; no surprise there :) I especially loved the curved top. I would slide the first inch or two into my mouth and let the warmth of my tongue just start to melt the shell of flavored ice. Then I would suck in and draw out the creamsicle, across my tongue, between my lips and from my mouth. And then to lick my lips, savoring the goodness of sugared cream. What, I ask, could be better on a hot, sweaty day?

Perhaps a rocketpop? Mmmm, I'm hungry again :)

Capice?

Main Entry:con·no·ta·tion
Pronunciation:\ˌkä-nə-ˈtā-shən\
Function:noun
Date:1532
1 a: the suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the thing it explicitly names or describes b: something suggested by a word or thing : implication
2: the signification of something
3: an essential property or group of properties of a thing named by a term in logic — compare denotation
— con·no·ta·tion·al \-shnəl, -shə-nəl\ adjective

If I had the choice to live in either Dictionopolis or Digitopolis, I would without hesitation choose the land of letters. And my supporting argument is simple - numbers are Boooooooooor-ing, with a capital B! (Now see how much cooler that sounds than, "Letters are booooooooooor-ing with a capital 7?" Game, Set, Match.)

Ok, fine. If you need more to convince you...words are bendable; numbers are not. Words are colorful; numbers are not. Words are Arial and Lucinda and Batang, and numbers are open tag blech courier close tag blech.

I can hear the cogs turning in one irish Father's mind. He is likely to point out that numbers and words are kissing cousins, that every word is comprised of a certain number of consonants and vowels and total letters, that every letter has a numeric place in the alphabet, and that words are only as colorful as their corresponding RGB numbers and that ULTIMATELY it is dinkin' with those numbers that controls the shade and hue of those same colorful words.

Well, the good Father can take the number 4 and insert one of its six acute angles into that particularly sensitive spot where the soft undersides of his gluteus maximus curve inward to create a dark cavern where no person in their right mind would willingly venture. (How's that for bending your mind to a place it did not want to go, hm? You are all now picturing the irish lad with the number 4 protruding from his ass.)

See how much fun you can have with words? (and numbers, too, apparently, if you know how to abu...I mean, use them properly)

New words are constantly being created; old words fall into disuse and are retired, but they never truly go away. For instance, did you know that monkeyboy is sinistral and, I suspish, a tiny bit misopedic?

On the other hand, what can you do to increase the number of numbers except count to eleventy gazillion, then add 1 more?

Game, Set, Match - booyah!

On June 11, 1980...

Being a mother can be difficult at times, but some kids make it all worth your while. Happy birthday to one of them :)

Identity Crisis

I am flummoxed. Me and myself are not helping.

Me (buttering toast): What's the matter now?
I: The trainer said I have 1% too much body fat.
Me: (I coulda told you that)
Myself: So? It's ONE PERCENT. Trust me, that's nothing.
I: Oh, yeah? Nothing?? Well, she circled OVERWEIGHT on my scorecard.
Me: Dude, maybe you should go easy on that chocolate syrup.
Myself: Shhhhhh! You're not helping.
Me: What? I'm just saying! Save some for the rest of us!
Myself: Why do you care, anyway? Monkeyboy doesn't seem to mind.
I: Well, he will when he hears about the quiz I took today.
Me: What quiz?
I: To see how feminine I am!
Myself: Oh, geez. Please tell me you didn't take one of those stupid Facebook quizzes...
I: Yes. Yes I did. And you know what? I only took it cuz I thought for sure I would ace it.
Me: hahahahahaha! That was a mistake...
I: Hey! I think I'm pretty damned feminine, but I am not so feminine I can't kick YOUR ass!
Me: Really? Think you can with that extra fat weighing you down?
I: Fuck you! You're even LESS girlie than me! You still climb trees!
Me: Yeah, so? That's called "exercise," and you should try it sometime!
Myself: Guys!
I: I AM NOT A GUY!!
Myself: Well, there was that one quiz - you know, the one that said you looked like Carlos Santana, Charles Darwin and Robert Ludlum? All guys...
I: IHATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOUBOTH!
Me: Oh, for cryin' out loud. How the hell did we get stuck with this bitch?
Myself: See? She thinks you're a girl! Look. Facebook quizzes are for morons. There's even one called How Much of a Moron Are You. The first question is, "How often do you take facebook quizzes?"
Me: You took that quiz, didn't you? What is wrong with the two of you??
I: I can't help it! I don't know who I am anymore!!
Me: Well, maybe if you stopped talking to yourself, you'd figure it out. In the meantime, shouldn't you be going to the gym or something?
(I throw butter at me)
Me: You throw like a girl...

You say "tomato," I say IDONTWANTTOSPEAKTOYOU!!

I was shopping the other day with monkeyboy. Did you know he must go down every single aisle in the grocery store regardless of whether it has something he needs? So we were shopping for about seven items, four of which were on the same aisle, and we went down approximately 18 aisles.

Now those of you who know me, know that I get a little confused in a store-ly environment. For this reason, I tend to always shop at the same store. That way, I don't get so easily lost and, when I do, the cashiers who all know me can come take my hand and pat it gently and say, "It's okay, dear, let me see your list, oh, you are looking for tomatoes? They are right over here!"

Well, there we were going down every aisle until about aisle 15 which was very near the end and also right next to the fried shrimp samples near the seafood/meat counter. And I went to get a sample and he walked about 20 paces away from the cart and started looking at something that I am willing to bet was not on his shopping list but I cannot prove this because, when I asked to see his shopping list, he said, "No."

And he looks and reads and thinks and the guy behind the meat counter nods to me and asks me if I'm finding everything I need and I squeak out something along the lines of "yesthankyou" but it sounds more like a clarinet with a bad reed being played by a fourth-grader, and people are walking by and the room is starting to spin and I'm suddenly NOT AT ALL SURE where I am so I grip the cart handle in both hands and push the cart over to where monkeyboy is still examining something-not-on-his-list and he takes another moment or two to determine that he doesn't need it, then he takes the cart and wheels it back the other direction and down a corridor lined with products manufactured by Playtex and Tampax and Kotex and SureFit and StayFree, products made specifically for women (or men who deserve to have something called Super Plus shoved up the tiniest hole in their body), and he looks at me over his shoulder and says, "You nearly made me miss an aisle."

One Super Plus coming right up!