Fun with Infertility

Sexy.

I am going to try to conceive a child today. My husband and I will not even be in the same county when it happens, if it happens. I will pay a doctor $200 for the pleasure of (hopefully) knocking me up using an apparatus that looks like it might be used to administer an enema to a rat. To set the mood, there will be fluorescent lighting, and I will be alluringly clothed in an ephemeral paper sheet from the waist down. Because I am a tease, I will tear the sheet in several places while trying to tuck it in such a way as to not reveal my lily-white ass to every nurse, technician, and janitor who should have need to enter my room before the doctor arrives. I will attempt to seduce my husband's sample by tucking it under my armpit to keep it warm while I wait. Hopefully the warmth of my armpit will convince it that I might be a nice place to set up shop and divide for a while.

If my armpit does not provide sufficient persuasion, there will also be David Gray or Josh Groban piping through the speakers to let the sample know what romance is really like. The walls will be decorated with pictures of drooling infants from mothers have not been pwned by the infertility jerk. These pictures are helpful examples to make it clear to everyone what we are here to do. The choice of decoration is very important. It would be an embarrassment, after all, if I were to accidentally conceive a serene country landscape, or perhaps an adorable little diagram of rectal polyps.



When it's all over, I will have use of the room for a further twenty minutes. I will lie still with my hips elevated. In the event that my armpit, the torn paper negligee, the rat enema tube, the dulcet music, and the helpful baby pictures have not done the job, there is still gravity. Gravity, and the hope perhaps one day, Apple will come out with an iSperm GPS app for the reproductively challenged.

Wish us luck.
-Cyndi

On the importance of checking your message twice, and possibly three times before hitting "Send"

Email from co-worker: 'Cyndi, thank you so much for making the travel reservations for me. I feel so spoiled!'

Cyndi's reply, draft 1: 'You are so welcome! I'm all about soiling people!'

My finger was literally in the downward trajectory to hit "Send" when I caught it.

Cyndi's reply, draft 2. You are so welcome!

Yikes.

I must admit the image of me being all about soiling people did make me giggle briefly.

Hee. And eew. And yikes.

-C

Stuff on My Desk

My desk is where all the cool kids hang out. Truly it's sort of competitive up here where all the executives live, and one can't underestimate the importance of having shiny objects to attract the attention of ones "higher ups." So here, for your pleasure, or abject boredom, is some of the stuff that lives on my desk.


These are the little creatures that live on my desk. I bought them at Borders, my hang out of choice, and yes, the C-level executives stop by and play with them frequently. So far George, the back-flipping frog, is the clear favorite.


These little guys are an homage to my art historian days, when I used to spend my time lurking in the deep, dark corners of the library researching obscure references to Greek and Egyptian imagery of a man-octopus who represented the forces of Chaos in tomb paintings. Interestingly enough, Chaos is named Seth in Egyptian mythology. Who knew? Well I knew, because I was enough of a nerd to spend a year and 57 pages of my life reading about him. Still, to this day, the name Seth only brings back images of Jeff Goldbum's character Seth Brundle in the Fly. That movie scarred.me.for.life. Anyway, yes. Figurines, art history, and nostalgia.


No desk is complete without a marshmallow gun. How else is one supposed to halt interlopers who have designs on entering the CEO's office uninvited? Also it is very handy for intimidating co-workers who stand too close whilst waiting for me to complete a fax. Impatiently tapping your foot eh? How about you impatiently tapTHIS! (sound of a marshmallow being forcefully ejected from my gun). That's what I thought. Hope you can dial 9 with one FRIGGIN EYE!


My African mask hat stand. A girl's got to have somewhere to hang her hat. And then forget to take it home for 8 months. Hee.


I affectionately call this "The Bird Feeder." It's just like hanging a hummingbird feeder out your window. Put out a bowl of candy and enjoy the wild life. Some creatures secretively squirrel away a large handful to sustain them through the winter. Others make the ever-so-casual-on-the-way-to-the-bathroom-drive-by. Others still prefer to hunt nocturnally. That is, you come into work each morning and the contents of your bowl have magically vanished. Poof!


This impossibly small Zen garden is a particular favorite. I had originally intended to use this for myself. The thought of dragging an impossibly small rake through a tiny sandbox and lovingly arranging the stones filled me with dreams of peace and serenity. The reality proved to be far less calming. Within five minutes of placing the box on my desk, I promptly upturned it with an errant swipe of my elbow, sending the wee little rocks and sand flying in a graceless arc through space. I did my level best to clean the mess, but spent the rest of my day shaking grains of sand out of my mouse. Needless to say, this was hardly a zen inducing experience. It now lives safely beyond my reach on the desk bar for other people to play with.

I'm in imminent danger of becoming one of those people who look like they live at their work. You know the kind. Several houseplants, bunny slippers under their desk, a plethora of placards bearing inspirational phrases, lamps, a couch, a cat. For now, I draw the line at toys. And food. And a zen garden. And decorative figures. And several jackets. Come to think of it, this is a pretty roomy cubicle. I'm sure a cat would be delighted with these digs...


-C

Things I'm Embarrassed I Eat

My culinary upbringing was, admittedly, an odd one. I believe I owe this largely to my parents, though it seems unkind to make them take credit for any of my (many) oddities. My mother is German you see, like her mother, my smokin-hot Grandma Marion. Germans are made of hearty stock and are not to be daunted by the odd vein or bit of cartilage when approaching a chicken wing. Indeed, having sat down to a few meals with my relatives from Cuxhaven, I witnessed a gleam in their eye not unlike what one might expect to encounter in the eye of Kveldulf the berserker (and also alleged werewolf) as he sat cagily waiting on the field of battle.

Coming from my father's side then, a love for odd and seemingly nonsensical food combinations that prove to be intensely satisfying. Peanut butter, jelly, and cheese sandwiches for example. In a particularly entertaining home video, my eight year old self (be-sweatered in a hot pink best embroidered with pandas, and no Mom, I still haven't forgiven you for that outfit. ; ) demonstrates how to make tuna fish by my father's recipe. The ingredient list is as follows: tuna, mayonnaise, dijon mustard (which I refer to proudly as "Grandpa mustard" as my dad's dad loved it so well), an onion soup mix packet, and crushed up Fritos. It seemed normal enough when I was a kid, but I'll be darned if I've ever seen such a concoction repeated in any of the many encounters with tuna I've had as an adult. A year ago in a bout of nostalgia I whipped up a batch of onion-soup-mix-Frito-tuna and by-passed the bread, opting instead to trowel it down my gob on a handful of Doritos. It was every bit as excellent as I remembered.

Fueled by love of food and an addiction to PBS cooking shows at an alarmingly early age, I did my level best to pass on my self-proclaimed sophisticated tastes to my younger siblings. One of my favorite summer games for us to play was "restaurant." I would draw up menus for their breakfast and lunch featuring exotic items given what I thought to be catchy and alluring names. The only one that stands out in my mind is the oft-ordered "Americana" - a piece of bread with melted cheese topped by Bacos (Bacos are essentially bacon-flavored corn flakes if you've never had the pleasure to experience them). Look out Jacques Pepin.

Oddly the menu never featured chocolate mousse as I had hoped; I being unable to reproduce what I'd seen on TV by relieving an entire carton of eggs of their whites, adding a goodly measure of chocolate Quik powder, and frantically assaulting it with a fork. Giving up on pillowy clouds of delicate chocolate mousse, I attempted to salvage the dish by doing the only other thing I knew how to do with eggs. Scrambling them. Needless to say, the unseasoned palates of my younger brothers were not as adventurous as I'd hoped, and my chocolate egg white scrambler was rejected outright. Strangely I also failed to be seduced by their chocolatey-eggy goodness as I attempted to demonstrate to my young wards just how fabulous a dish they were missing.

And so continued my pattern of tinkering around in the kitchen, slapping together odd conglomerations of foodstuffs while standing in the cool air in front of the fridge, squirreling away my prize to the den of my room/couch/wherever. In the comfort of my family home, all of this seemed very normal and reasonable, as do most things we do in isolation. It's not until we introduce an outside person not in possession of our treasured quirks that we perceive we have done something terribly, irrevocably odd.

The first challenge to my cultivated tastes came in the form of my dear friend Crystal as we sat at the breakfast bar in her kitchen eating chicken, she with a surgeon's precision, neatly extracting the bits of vein odd colored peices from hers, I chewing the delicious pocket of fat happily found at the end of the my drumstick joint. Her pert nose wrinkled as I moved onto the crunchy gristle. "What?" I queried. "I don't know how you eat that stuff. Nastiness," quoth she. I smiled sheepishly. Being a good friend, she still spoke to me in spite of my habit of eating like a member of the Mongol hordes.

The next encounter took place during my sojourn at Ricks college, and came in the form of my friend Heather's perfectly plucked brow raising in a suspicious arc as I loaded up a Dorito with a goodly knob of scooped out avocado flesh. "It's really good" I assured her, offering her a bite. Wonder of wonders, she liked it, and we ate it frequently at our pig-out gatherings thereafter. Vindication at long last.

Which brings me to the next bit: the not-so-fascinating list of things I'm embarrassed I eat. All these things I find to be utterly delicious, but without fail, if consumed in front of witnesses garner at the least a raised brow or more severely, full-on goggle-eyed querulousness.

Spicy Hunan egg rolls and chocolate milk - The oddness of this one lies not only in the combination of foods, but in the fussy and ritualistic way I insist on eating them. A bite of eggroll, a small sip of milk. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The spicy meatiness of the eggroll when contrasted with the cool creamy chocolate milk is exquisite. Warm/cool, warm/cool - delicious.
French fries dipped in a Wendy's frosty - This combination is a quadruple juggernaut of taste contrasts. Sweet and salty, hot and cold. Mmmm.
Cheddar cheese dipped in ranch dip or dressing - Ranch takes on a subtle sweetness when contrasted with the sharpness of a good aged cheddar, and finishes with a certain pleasant herbiness that cuts through the richness of the cheese. Plus it's fat on fat action so the flavors meld beautifully. But boy howdy. I ate this combination off a relish tray amongst in-laws on one occasion, and judging from their reaction, you'd think I'd just fished a fresh cat-biscuit from the litter box and popped it in my mouth.
Fat - I love the taste of fat. Go ahead and shudder your revulsion. I'll wait. Now then. Fat has a delightfully mellow flavor and melt in your mouth texture I adore. It's like a meat truffle.
Chicken skin - I've been known to pick boiled skin from the pot while I'm making stock, salt it, and bolt it down.
Burnt things - I'm blaming this one on my father, as he introduced me to the wonders of burnt toast. I apparently took it to levels he hadn't ever approached as I set marshmallows aflame whenever making s'mores and regularly filled our house with smoke as I incinerated my breakfast of English muffins. He accused me of being carbon deficient. At work I was outlawed from making popcorn as I would purposely add thirty seconds to the timer to produce those delectable brown-black pieces that dissolve into charcoal-y buttery loveliness on your tongue.

So there they are in all their shame and glory - my pet gastro-anomalous goodies. Mock if you must.

-Cyndi

I am a telephonophobe.

So I am afraid of phones. Particularly, of answering phones or making calls to people I don't know. I'm just socially awkward enough that this is regularly a rather painful experience. I stutter and stammer. I forget my own name and telephone number. I am regularly met with suspicion as the person on the other line attempts to figure out if I am either some sort of idiot or sometime pretending to be me. I would be happy to confirm for them that I am indeed a very specific kind of idiot, but they never ask. They only ask questions with increasingly obscure answers.

"What is your mother's maiden name?"
"What was your first pet?"
"Who do you know that has a third nipple?"

And so when most companies adopted an express system where you can punch a sequence of options and arrive at your goal without ever speaking to a human being, I was delighted. Ecstatic even. But my euphoria was short-lived. Something even worse has come to replace it. The pseudo-human triage system that regards you in its terribly insincere chirpy robotic voice and makes you speak out loud to a damn computer. Case in point, Dish Network.

I sit in my work building's terribly echoe-y atrium on a brief break trying to conduct a simple bit of business. I need my Dish Network account number. I dial the main number and wait.

Computer voice: "Thank you for choosing Dish Network, home of the super ultra mega basement dweller cable package. Tell me in a few words how I can help you today."

Cyndi looks around, speaks quietly into her phone. "Account number."

Computer voice: "Great. Member access, I can help you with that. If heard you right, say yes. If not, say no."

Cyndi: "No."

Computer voice: *Insincere laugh. "That's alright, my mistake. Tell me in a few words how I can help you today."

Cyndi, slightly louder this time: "Account number."

Computer voice: "Okay. Payments. If heard you right, say yes. If not, say no."

Cyndi: "No."

Computer voice: "I think I heard you say yes. If this is correct, just say yes. If not, say no."

Cyndi: "Er yes. I mean no. No."

Computer voice: "I'm afraid I didn't catch that. If I can help you with a payment today, say yes. If not, say no."

Cyndi: "No. No payment."

Computer voice: "Sorry about that. In a few words, tell me what I can help you with today."

Cyndi, louder and slower this time, noting the glances of the first floor receptionists with distress: "ACCOUNT NUMBER."

Computer voice: "Alright then. Account number. I can help you with that. If this is correct say..."

Cyndi: "Yes!"

Computer voice: "If this is correct please say yes, if not, say no."

Cyndi: "YES!" Cyndi notices a loud echo with chagrin, shrinks down on ugly print sofa.

Computer voice: "Great. I see that you're calling from a number on an existing account. I just need to verify your identity. Please tell me the address where you receive service."

Cyndi promptly forgets the first numbers of her address and frantically rifles through her purse, looking for a bit of mail she may use to tell her where she lives.

Computer voice: *Insincere laugh once more. "I guess you didn't hear me. I'd be happy to help you with your account number. I just need the address where you receive service."

Cyndi: "Um, uh..."

Computer voice: "I'm afraid I didn't recognize that address. Let's try this a different way. What is the last four digits of the primary account holder's social security number."

Cyndi: "xxxx."

Computer voice: "I thought I heard you say xxxx. If this is correct, please say yes. If not, please say no."

Cyndi: "Yes."

Computer voice: "I'm sorry, my mistake. Could you please repeat the last four digits of the primary account holder's social..."

Cyndi: "xxxx!"

Computer voice: "Your account number is: -blur of numbers spat out at five times the speed of human hearing.- "If you would like me to repeat this, please say yes. If not, please say no."

Cyndi: "Yes!"

Computer voice: "That number was - blur of numbers-l. Thank you for calling today. Is there anything else I can do to assist you?"

Cyndi: "Yeah, you can shove this system up your automated arse."

Computer voice: "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I didn't recognize..."

Cyndi: *click*

When it feels that good to hang up on a non-sentient system of voice prompts, you've got issues. I've got issues.

-Cyndi

More Random Trivia Guaranteed to Bore You

In answer to a tag from my beloved friend Heather, here are 25 random facts about me. I pondered long and hard to try and think of information not readily known to the 2 people that read this blog. Sadly most things people did not already know are either not-very-well hidden neuroses or negligible facts from my childhood. Enjoy. Or take a nap. I recommend the nap, for what it's worth.

1. I have serious textural issues. There are certain things I can't touch without jumping about, retching and much shame-inducing girly ado. Some examples are: Any food bits left in the sink after washing dishes - I have to fill a bowl or cup with water and splash it down the drain. Cold wet washrags/sponges - I seriously pinch the eensiest bit of the corner and I can get and fling it under the hot water before I can pick it up.

2.I hate turtlenecks. I don't remember which comedian said it, but he expressed my feelings perfectly. "Wearing a turtleneck is like being choked by a really weak midget all day."

3.Whenever I sit down to work on TEH BOOK I am writing, I can't manage a single word unless my kitchen is immaculately clean.

4. I can only eat a tomato when it's been freshly cut. If it's been sliced then put in the fridge overnight, I won't touch it.

5. When I make a sandwich, I have to put the lettuce between the tomato and the bread. If the tomato juice gets onto the bread, I have to pinch the piece of bread off and put it to the side.

6. I was obsessed with koalas when I was a kid. I had koala t-shirts, mugs, puzzles, socks, stuffed animals, you name it. I had a secret plan to run away to Australia and start a koala farm. How I was going to generate or maintain capital from said farm I have know idea. I only know that I was going to feed my koala friends eucalyptus leaves and ride them around on my back all day.

7. When I'm severely stressed out, I've been known to watch kid shows on TV (usually things on PBS. Caillou, Arthur, Reading Rainbow, etc.) or read young adult books (Goosebumps, anything R.L. Stine.) It's the equivalent of a Ferris wheel ride and cotton candy for my brain.

8. I've always hated Kool-Aid, even when I was just a sprout. To me it just tasted like crappy flat soda. Now I know that Mr. Kool Aid is just a tubby cover for a child-friendly brand of crack cocaine, I feel my ire more than justified.

9. I'm a repeater. I fixate on a particular song and play it over and over and over. Then I wake up one morning, realize I now hate the song, and move on to another.

10. One of my legs is 1.5 inches shorter than the other. It's not terribly noticeable until you look at my jean cuffs. The gimpy leg cuff is always dirty scraped and scuffed. The normal leg cuff usually never touches the ground.

11. My regular body temperature is usually between 95 and 96 degrees. I have suspicions that I am, in fact, a reptile masquerading as a human being. Ssssshhh!

12. I had four different majors during my college education. I originally applied as an English major. On a whim, the day of registration, I changed to fine arts since all the English major classes were filled. Following my first semester in college, after enduring the not so divine tutelage of a particular puke-faced professor, I decided that art was not for me after all and switched to psychology. Over the summer, it became readily apparent that I was by far the most mental person I know and probably ought not be dispensing psychological advice, and so I switched back to fine arts. After gallivanting through Europe in the summer of 2000, I decided art history was for me.I graduated in that field with a master's and have managed to stay largely un-useful to the general population ever since.

13. My given name is Cynthia, but growing up, my parents spelled my nickname Cindy. Feeling what I thought to be a streak of rebellion (later investigations revealed said streak to be latent nerdiness and a closet fixation for Cyndi Lauper), I started spelling it Cyndi. It stuck. I still spell it that way, but inherently, every other human being on earth spells it Cindy. I've grown too apathetic to correct anyone anymore. Meh.

14. Though I usually test 20/20 and 20/15 on vision tests, I am actually far-sighted. This means I can often see random things way in the distance but my eyes throw a hissy anytime they are required to read something close for extended periods of time. Oh they can do it alright, they just don't like to do it. For this reason, I usually help them out by wearing geeky reading glasses to help prevent eye strain as I sit parked in front of my laptop 9 hours a day.

15. I'm not a big fan of ice cream. Given, there are exceptions. Godiva's chocolate raspberry truffle or Haagen Daz creme brulee for example. But given a choice, I'd typically take just about any other dessert option.

16. When I was seven or eight years old, I had a massive crush on Mark Summers. Back then he was the host of Double Dare (my favorite show at the time.) I dreamed that we would get married and live in a house that contained an exact replica of the Double Dare obstacle course. Am I weird that I still think that would kick ass? Not the married to Mark Summers part, the obstacle course in my garage part. Yeah, I thought so.

17. I love burnt food. Burnt toast, burnt popcorn, burnt cheese on the pizza crust, etc. you burn it, I'll snarf it. When toasting a marshmallow, I carefully roast it to a perfect golden brown, then at the last minute, set it on fire, blow it out, and scarf it. Nom nom nom.

18. I can dislocate my own jaw and pop it back into place just by opening and closing my mouth. One of my favorite things to do when at a dentist's office is to wait until they tell me to open wide and...POP! Totally freaks them out. Heh heh heh. Wait a minute...Snakes can dislocate their jaws as well. Usually in the operation of masticating over-large rodents. Freakin hell. I am a reptile. This sucks. I don't even like rodents.

19. I suck at doing laundry. As any of my bestest friends could tell you, I am pretty much a perfectionist freak. I have very particular and orderly way of doing things, typically involving an over-complicated system of lists, check boxes, and sacrificing live chickens. But when it comes to laundry, I seem to have some yet undiscovered deficiency. I've dyed my white laundry pink at least 5 times in the past two years. And I swear to you that I check the colors. Honestly I do. But without fail some red bastard of a clothing item finds its way into the load and pow! Pink undies for everyone.

20. I hate any sort of candy with rice cereal in it. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of rice crispy squares. They are honest and open about what they are. Rice poofies, marshmallows, butter. I can handle that. But when you go to bite into a piece of chocolate and are surprised by irritatingly crispy aggregate matter...*shudders. Ick.

21. I always have one drawer at work and at home that is an utter mess. The resident crap drawer, or so I call it. It seems that no matter how hard I bend my diseased little brain around obsessively organizing, there are some items that just defy logic and end up homeless. These unfortunate cast offs lay sadly label-less and unalphabetized in whatever drawer is closest to the ground.

22. I can't wear socks without shoes. I simply can't stand the way they feel on my feet by themselves. Especially socks with loose toes. Bleeegh!

23. I'm a freak about eyes. It's not so much a pain thing, I can deal with pain. I've been tattooed (oh the follies of youth), pierced (oh the follies of adulthood), and surgeried (oh the follies of a asshat appendix)and done just dandy. I just don't take kindly to any sort of procedure that involves my eye. I dang near beat the snot out of the doctor who first introduced me to the puff a jet stream of air in to your eye test. It was bad enough to have to get close to all those metal contraptions. And then he did that. They had Demerol waiting for my next appointment. And a spatula to scrape me from the ceiling. And protective body gear. Wisely done, I thought.

24. The list of things I wanted to be when I was a kid: koala farmer (we've established this one), monster truck driver (still hoping), marine biologist (it just sounded cool), chef (I used to draw up menus for my brothers and they would order their breakfast and lunch from them during summer break).

25. Shows I do not follow: Anything on reality TV, Lost, Grey's, Heroes, 24, CSI Anything, Anything on VH1, MTV, etc.
Shows I do follow: Nigella Feasts, Nigella Express, Barefoot Contessa, Viva Daisy, Man vs Food, (see a pattern developing here), the Office, Battlestar Galactica.

I supposed to tag someone now, but being the pathetic dork that I am, I really don't have anyone to tag, seeing as the only person I would tag is the person who tagged me. If anyone other than Heather a.) reads this, b.) has a blog, and c.) hasn't already been tagged, consider yourself tagged!

Cyndi

Updates

Ever said to yourself, "I need "X" like I need another hole in my head" ? Well, a warm welcome if you please, for the new hole in my head. I dun pierced mah nose! And I love it. I now fully expect to find out what "X" is and why I need it. No, that didn't make any sense to me either, and I wrote it.

In other news, Doritos and half a king-size Hershey bar, while seeming like a most excellent lunch, are in fact, NOT excellent. At all.

You live and you learn.

Cyndi

Songs that are supposed to be romantic...but aren't

Songs that are supposed to be romantic but aren't...Volume 1 (I feel this may become a regular series as today's music industry is kind enough to provide me with such ample fodder.)

I get the distinct impression that today's young women become increasingly easier to impress. All an uber-sensitive whiny chap with mascara must do is slap together a few notes, paying special attention to engineering a chorus that stops a hairsbreadth away from devolving into WAAAAAAAAHHHHH!, and he has his very own gaggle of ravening, weepy, screeching girls who assign to him the status of Mega Ultra Super Romance God of the Universe. Honestly, does anyone listen to lyrics anymore? Anyone?

So with that I give you Secondhand Serenade's "Fall for You." Try not to expire from the romance of it. I know it will be difficult. I've honestly been out and heard a young woman shoosh her friend when this sodden Kleenex of a song came on. "Shhh! Oh my gosh! It's our song!" *Fans herself.* "Oh my gosh, Secondhand Serenade is sooooo awesome! They're deep."

They're deep alright, my young emo mall-rat friend. So deep I need a shovel for fear that a load of steaming piffle might find it's way into my ear. Let's begin, with the song's first stanza. And I quote:

"The best thing about tonight is we're not fighting,
Could it be we've been this way before?
I know that you don't think I am trying,
I know you're wearing down thin to the core."

Honestly,'The best thing about tonight is we're not fighting,'? Perhaps he's celebrating the much-anticipated commencement of his Thorazine drip. They're not fighting tonight. Hurray oh hurray!

Sounds like the hallmarks of a trailer park romance to me. What a momentous night indeed! The neighbors won't have to call the cops for once. No one will have to witness the spectacle of Jim Bob in naught but his boxers and stained tank top lurching about on the lawn, shouting drunken obscenities at the plastic flamingo as Jane Bob ejects his possessions from the trailer's front window. No, not tonight. Tonight Jim Bob can ruminate on the fact that they're not fighting.

"Woulda you look at that Jane Bob, we ain't even broke a dish tonaght! I think that maght jest be the best part bout tonaght. Other than this frosty Keystone a course." Oh the romance! Help me for I grow faint!

And just because this line is too droll to pass up, "I know you're wearing down thin to the core." Well yes clearly, he needed something to rhyme with 'before.' I can only imagine the choices he elected to pass on. Pore, spore, bore, gore, lore, more. No, none of them quite communicate the depth of the angsty angst that drips from this song. Really dude. Thin to the core? What, is she an apple? The earth perhaps? Does she have a liquid hot mag-ma center? Gar.

Ready yourself, for here comes the chorus:

"But hold your breath,
Because tonight will be the night
That I fall for you over again
Don't make me change my mind."

Don't make me change my mind? Is that a threat? Don't make me change my mind or what? She'll see the back of his pimp hand? And how will she make him change his mind precisely, by NOT holding her breath?

"Hay! Jane Bob, I dun told you to hold yer breath! Don't make me change mah mind now. I's said I's gonna fall fer you over again. Now get on in there and put on them cut-offs you hade awn when we first met down at them stock car raises. You know, the ones I spillt that beer awn."

Yes, Jim Bob sure does know how to charm a lady. But wait! There's more!

"Or I won't live to see another day!
I swear it's true!
Because a girl like you is impossible to find
You're impossible to find."

Ohhh. I see. So Jim Bob really only wants to patch things up because a girl like her is impossible to find. Uh huh. So what is she now? A Tickle Me Elmo at Christmas time? A quail in hunting season? It's hard work puttin down the beer and going out on one of them women-hunts. You're right Jim Bob. Better than to patch things up that actually put forth an effort. Good on ya.

Skipping forward a touch:

"So breathe in so deep
Breathe me in, I'm yours to keep
And hold on to your words, cause talk is cheap
And remember me tonight when you're asleep."

Boy, the rhymes sure were coming quickly when he composed this stanza. He must have felt like Stradivarius approaching the work table. Aside from the oh so deft rhyme schema, does this make any sense whatsoever? So breathe in so deep, breathe me in, I'm yours to keep. Breathe me in...hmm. Sounds like in a misguided attempt at romance, Jim Bob resorted to the ole covered wagon, which while utterly hilarious to him, would likely not have greatly impressed his lucky lady love.

Jim Bob and Jane Bob lay in bed together. Jim Bob suddenly pulls the covers over Jane Bob's head.
"Shoooeee! Git a load of that babydoll! I bet it was them deviled eggs I dun ate. Go on, breathe me in. All that is yers to keep! Yes m'am. Ain't you the lucky one."
*Jane Bob retches, flees for the bathroom.
"You better not be holdin yer breath baby, don't make me change mah mind!"

Continuing on, 'So save your words, cause talk is cheap.' Wait, so she can't talk, because talk is cheap, and therefore meaningless. Okaaay. Em, terribly sorry if I'm pointing out the obvious here. But, isn't this song, well, composed of...words? So would that mean this song is well...Oh never mind.

The song whines on for another couple choruses, of course, just so we fully understand that he won't live to see another day, he swears it's true, she's impossible to find, yadda yadda, blah bah. What can one do in the face of such linguistic deliciousness but yield to its solicitous sentiments?

Holding my breath,
Cyndi

UCGs and Other Random Facts

Before I begin to ramble, a couple of not terribly important things:

Firstly, I received a notification via email that I have officially reached the 1000 hit mark (this number reflects all the hits between June when I started tracking and now). Who knew my Mom and Dad were online so often?

Nextly, I'm just awful at remembering birthdays and anniversaries (I know how old I am, but only because I can do basic subtraction. 2008 minus 1981, carry the 3...wait. That's not right.) Being such crap at remembering these things, I am not at all surprised to announce that I missed my own Blog-versary on January 4th. Happy blog-versary to me! It's been one year of incredibly sporadic posts about things no one but me gives a goat turd about. Gives me a deranged sense of accomplishment really.

But neither of these insignificant items is what I wish to talk about today. What I wish to talk about is something that makes me, Scroogesquely, heave a sigh of relief when the holidays are finally over. UCGs. That's right. Unexpected Christmas Gifts. Please note that the gifts in question do not come from close friends or family members. Those you should see coming and reciprocate, unless you are a total jerk (like me). I am referring to totally unexpected gifts. Ninja-like gifts that leap from the shadows and nearly cause you to soil yourself. You know the kind I'm talking about.

There's a knock at the door. You wonder who it is. You're not expecting anyone. All the kids are off mugging old ladies, making origami from their homework, or watching mostly inappropriate shows in the basement. Your significant other is deeply engrossed in a sporting event of some kind. Yes, everyone accounted for.

You open the door, and there it is. A shiny and lovingly-wrapped parcel, grasped in the mitten-ed hands of a friend, neighbor, or co-worker, face flushed red with seasonal cheer and cold.

"Hi!" They shriek excitedly. "I just wanted to drop this by for you!" They extend the package to you. You stammer, you stutter. You forget to invite them in.
"Oh, thanks," you manage awkwardly. They blink at you. You blink at them. You frantically scan the nearby table for something that even remotely resembles a gift that you can present in return.

"Would you care for a fish stick?" You mumble stupidly.
"Oh no, I'm good" they say, patting their festively be-sweatered stomach. An awkward silence follows. "Well, I need to be on my way," they chuckle nervously.
"Yeah, sure. And...erm...thanks for...this," you say, feeling like the world's crappiest crap-hole.

This happens to me every year. I suck at sending Christmas cards. I don't make cutesy things to hand out to friends, let alone near acquaintances. It's not that I never think about it. I just never think about it in time. An idea lodges in the back of my muddled brain and only squeezes out until there is no time and no resources to make it happen. As a result, I have become utterly paranoid at avoiding these sorts of gift-givers at all costs. For an example of one of these interactions, please peruse the dramatization below:

*Phone rings, Cyndi looks uncertainly at a number that looks vaguely familiar and answers.

Cyndi: "Hello?"
Gifter: "Hey there! I was just wondering when I could stop by your house?"
Cyndi: *Cyndi recognizes work acquaintance's voice. Said acquaintance lives nearby as was discovered by a recent water cooler conversation. "Stop by? Why?"
Gifter: "I just wanted to drop something off to you."
Cyndi: "I'm sorry? Did I leave something at work?"
Gifter: "No, I just got you a little something for Christmas. It's not much but..."
Cyndi: "Oh no. You really don't need to do that."
Gifter: "I know I don't need to but I wanted to just..."
Cyndi: "No really, I'm good. Thanks though."
Gifter: "Look, it's really not anything big. Just tell me when you'll be around."
Cyndi: "You know, it's really busy right now and all. I'm just not sure when I'll be home. Probably you should just give it to someone else."
Gifter: "But the gift has your name engraved on it. I don't know any other Cyndies. Much less Cyndies that spell their names Cy..."
Cyndi: "You could change it. Maybe just scratch some of the letters out..."
Gifter: "Look. I could just swing by and leave it on your porch."
Cyndi: "Er...umm...that may not be such a good idea."
Gifter: "Why not?"
Cyndi: "Tapeworms."
Gifter: "Excuse me?"
Cyndi: "I have a tapeworm. They might be contagious within a 20 foot proximity. In fact, that's why I won't be around tonight. I need to uh, get it removed."
Gifter: "Don't they just give you pills for that?"
Cyndi: "It's a new breed of tapeworm, it's developed an immunity to medication.It's a...um, really big tapeworm. Highly evolved."
Gifter: "So how are they going get it out?"
Cyndi: "Um, make it feel unwelcome?"
Gifter: "Sorry?"
Cyndi: "Yeah, these new tapeworms are really sensitive. I think they said something about getting down near my abdomen and hinting about George having overstayed his welcome."
Gifter: "George?"
Cyndi: "I named him."
Gifter: "Will you be at work tomorrow?"
Cyndi: "Gosh darn it no. I'm done for the year."
GIfter: "Cool, I'll just leave it on your desk."
Cyndi: "Piss!"
Gifter: "Excuse me?"
Cyndi: "Hiss! Meow meow," laughs shrilly, "I was just talking to my cat."
Gifter: "Oh, that's em...nice. Well anyway, I hope you like the gift."
Cyndi: "Thanks a bunch."

Cyndi

A Treatise on Travel Toileting

I suffer from terminal wanderlust. I rather enjoy the whole experience of traveling, from the butt indent in the front seat of the car down to the hotel soaps. Travel often gives us the opportunity to see things from a different perspective. Removed from our natural environment, familiar things become foreign, the commonplace transforms into the extraordinary. Some of these experiences are thrilling, others, horrifying.

I had one such experience the morning before last, Christmas Eve Eve. There I sat, in the Hampton hotel bathroom, in the process of conducting a "transaction," if you take my meaning. Take my meaning, please. Don't make me say it. That would be icky. I don't like icky.

Yes, anyway, so in the process of a transaction, when I look up, and there I am, in the mirror, with a perfect view of myself sitting on the toilet. I did a double take, quickly looking away after the first pass. There was, after all, a person on the crapper in the mirror. Somehow, it didn't seem polite to watch. And yet, inexplicably, after a moment, I discovered that again, I was looking at myself in the mirror, and yes, I found that I still sat on the toilet. Then of course began my neurotic fantasizing (this happens often, as you should well know.) The following is a conversation between MC - Mirror Cyndi and TC - Toilet Cyndi.

MC: "I say, you there. Would you mind awfully averting your eyes? I seem to be in a most compromising position here." *laughs nervously. (For some reason MC speaks in an English accent. Don't ask me why, I don't know. I'm going to blame the part in Mary Poppins where she speaks to her reflection in the mirror.)
TC: "Oh, yes. So sorry. *Looks down at the linoleum floor, notices a cobweb in the corner gathering hair, looks back at the mirror.
MC: "Em, I do hate to be a bother, but you seem to be looking again and I believe I just requested that you.."
TC: "Goodness, yes. I am aren't I? My apologies." *Looks towards the tub and notices a rather curly dark hair in the corner of the tub. Turns back to the mirror "Eeew! DO YOU SEE THAT! THAT'S A PUBE!"
MC: *Narrowing eyes "Yes, I could see how that would be rather disturbing, nevertheless, here I sit, attempting to have a private moment, and you insist on harrying me continually. I would greatly appreciate it if you would kindly..."
TC: "Oh, of course. So sorry. I'll uh, Ill just look over here instead. *Looks at towel rack by the mirror, thinks she sees a dark spot on her face, looks back at the mirror and wipes at cheek.
MC: "Alright then you bloody tosser! This is utterly ridiculous! I'm at the end of my tether Miss! If you can't be bloody bothered to look somewhere else for five rat-arsed minutes, then I'll not be finishing this transaction."
TC: "No! No no! I'll be good! I promise! Please, just go ahead."
MC: "No, it's no use now. My concentration's been broken. You'll just have to try again tomorrow."
TC: "Aww. Come on! I had an extra-strong cup of hotel room coffee and everything. I need to GO!"
MC: "Perhaps you should have thought about that before you started leering at me like a some peep-eyed lout then shouldn't you?"
TC: "Crap."
MC: "I'm afraid not for you. Ah ha ha ha. I do believe I've made a funny."
TC: "Jerk."

Yes, travel provides one with a wealth of opportunities for rich and engaging conversations. With oneself. About toileting. And watching it. In the mirror.

Cyndi

PS. Merry Christmas y'all!

A Practical Husband's Guide to Rabid Meyerism Survival

It's not often that I feel sorry for men. Comparatively speaking, it seems like men have it easy in a plethora of ways. They don't have to wear make-up, their pants size comes in inches and is generally consistent from brand to brand, and they never have to take trip down the "Masculine Needs" aisle of the supermarket. In fact, such an aisle does not exist. The refrigerated beer section is about as close as it comes.

But as I've observed the whole Twilight phenomenon (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you have a bigger problem. Like the fact that you live under a rock and lack a social security number and a belly button) I've come to feel bad for the men of the world. Edward and his hunky vampire pals done gone and upped the ante. What's a man to do when his wife becomes a screeching, teenage vampire-obsessed, "Team Edward" t-shirt wearing lunatic?

Well stress no more dudes. I'm here to help a brotha out. Ever hear the saying, if you can't beat 'em, join em? I find it practically sound, and if you follow my easy steps, you'll be on your way to winning back your wife. So without further adieu, here is Cyndi's guide to everything you need to know to become an honorary Meyerific vampire.

1. Brooding - Now that you are a vampire, attitude is everything. You must remember, you are deep, you are soulful, you are conflicted. You are powerful, yet sensitive. Cunning, yet vulnerable. You want to impress your lady love but you must, no matter how tempting it is, MUST resist the urge to tear her throat out. Are you feeling conflicted yet? Is your soul torn with anguish? No? Perhaps you should practice in front of a mirror. Repeat after me. Brooding is all in the eyebrows.* Practice lowering those brows. Loooower. Good. Now draw them together, and remember, you are deep in thought, your inner struggle must be made manifest. Smiling of any kind is strictly forbidden. Who has time to smile? Certainly not an immortal. Earl the tax accountant perhaps. Earl the tax accountant who will lose his wife if he can't get his damnable eyebrows to sing with inner sorrow and pain.
(*Author's note: Not all eyebrows are created equal. A thick, bushy brow is a must for that extra-tormented brooding look. If your brows are sparse, you might consider filling them in with your wife's eyebrow pencil, or perhaps supplementing with the application of a little spirit gum and furs snipped from junior's teddy bear.)

2. Aggressive carnivore-ism - You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, and you can't be a vampire without rending some flesh. It's the way of the world folks. However, in the Twilight series, one of the elements that distinguishes the Cullens from other blood-suckers is their oh-so-gentile refusal to gnaw on humans. Instead, the hunt down Bambi and his friends. Chances are you don't have a steady supply of deer, wildcats, or rabbits to lustily masticate in front of your wife, so you'll have to use your imagination.* Go ahead, go crazy, tear into a raw steak with your teeth. Be an animal. Growl! This is your marriage we're talking about here.
(*Author's note - Though this would seem to be a great opportunity to rid yourself of your wife's irritating Persian, hunting of household pets is generally to be avoided. No one is going to think you are a bad ass for taking a bite out of Muffy the hamster.)

3. Pasty/Sparkly/Cold skin - As a vampire, you are immortal, and have therefore done away with such archaic concepts as a circulatory system. Therefore you are pale, you are cold, you are marble. There are several good cosmetics on the market that can help you achieve that bloodless look. Any sort of commercially available foundation in Ivory (this is the industry equivalent of ass-that-has-never-seen-the-sun white) should suffice. But instead of pressed powder to set your look, opt for pure talcum powder, you know, the kind you puff sprinkle liberally onto a baby's bottom. But for those on a budget, a sparing application of certain household items is acceptable, including but not limited to: Desitin, powdered sugar, corn starch, or cream of tartar.
To achieve that ever-so-impressive sparkling skin in the sun look, you should keep a pot of Bonne Bell body glitter gel on hand at all times. A stealthy application of this behind the porta potty, and your gleaming skin will be the envy of all your wife's friends.
For the requisite cold and clammy feeling, wear a hoody at all times and keep a bottle of frozen water in your hoody pouch. You can keep your hands on it until it's time to give the wife a little accidental brush with your chilly fingers. She can the gasp in true Bella style and marvel at your frigid temperature.

4. Super fast movement - Vampires are fast and agile creatures. To be a vampire, you need to be fast as well, or at least give the illusion of being fast. To give the impression of extraordinary speed, I recommend wearing roller blades or skates to zip from room to room. These can be deftly hidden by wearing extra-long and baggy pants. (This manner of concealment provides the added benefit of helping you appear taller. All the better to loom ominously over the shoulder of your beloved while brooding. The brooding is vitally important people. I cannot emphasize this enough.) In addition, whispering a "whoosh" sound as you pass might help create the illusion of excessive speed.
*Author's note - I do not recommend hooking your belt to your brother Bubba's trailer hitch with fishing wire and having him take off down the street in third gear whenever you need to leave the room. Preliminary experiments with this method proved to be hazardous. And also somewhat inconvenient during hunting season when Bubba was not readily available.

5. Poofy vampire hair - When you are a vampire, even your hair must say, "Don't mess with me, I'm volatile, I'm broody, I cannot be tamed, and I'll cut you if must." In order to communicate this, your hair must achieve the proper verticality so it may properly look down its nose at smaller, less beautiful hair. In order to achieve this look, first, hang upside down from a sturdy curtain rod to get gravity working for you. Now that your hair is standing on end, apply a generous layer of shellac and dry thoroughly with a hair dryer. Not only will your hair be formidably tall and intimidating, it will also be waterproof - very important when you are brooding in the rain. And you should be.

6. Eyes that change colors - This one is a little harder to do. You can of course employ the use of colored contacts, and pop them in and out regular intervals if you wish. But I did say this was the practical guide to Meyerific vampire-ism, and such practices sound less than practical to me. Instead, I would recommend straining as if taking a bowel movement. This will force blood into the whites of your eyes. Due to the color principle of simultaneous contrast, your blue eyes will look greener against the red, your brown eyes blacker, and so on.

Following these simple tips, you too can be a moody, brooding, deer-eating conflicted hunk of man meat that your wife won't be able to keep her hands off of. When she's not nose-deep in a Meyer novel that is.

You're welcome.

Cyndi

Where Was Santa?

So Thanksgiving is over. It is now officially the Christmas season. And with Christmas comes Christmas songs. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE Christmas songs. I have CDs. I have records. I have radio stations that play Christmas songs 24 hours a day 7 days a week. But sometimes, a particular song gives me pause. I hear the lyrics and I begin to think (always dangerous). I begin to ruminate. Read my ruminations here.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We've all heard it. This song has bothered me since kindergarten when I had to learn it for a presentation. Come the day before Christmas break, we were to sing this song (in a cafeteria that smelled vaguely of fish sticks) for a crowd of adoring parents at my elementary school. I consciously only mouthed the words as the song offended me. Why you ask? I'll tell you. Read the song lines that follow and see if you feel me.

'All of the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names, they never let poor Rudolph, join in any reindeer games...then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say Ho Ho Ho, Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?'

Okay, let's establish one thing right from the off. The other reindeer? Bitches. I can hear them now: 'Oh. My, gawd! Rudolph's nose is red! Eeew. We totally have to hate him! I mean, he sorta looks like us, but his nose! It's like...RED! It's like a zit or something. Sooo gross! We should make sure he doesn't play any reindeer games. Like 'eat from the trough,' or 'crap-some-pellets.' (I mean honestly, what kind of games would reindeer really play?)

So let me ask you folks, Are these really the kind of animals you want helping deliver your presents? Discriminatory bastards that freak out over a genetic mutation? Did Rudolph choose this deformity? I highly doubt it. Can you imagine if he'd had a goiter? A gimpy leg? The gout? I shudder to think.

And where the hell was Santa during all this anyway? Don't tell me he was too busy to intervene. Unless by "busy" you mean snoring with his fat ass wedged in a Lazyboy in front of a fire.

Here's his bitchy reindeer, starting a gangland style turf war out in the barn. Seconds away from threatening to buss a cap in Rudolph's deformed reindeer carcass. And there's poor Rudolph, watching, wishing, hoping, traumatized in the corner, only wanting to play some freakin reindeer games. And where is Santa? Don't tell me he's too busy checking lists. Please. I'm an admin people. Santa is the head of a multi-national corporation.

The man does not check his own lists. He has hired help for that, elf temps in short skirts, or perhaps Mrs. Clause. Do you honestly think that if a man was checking the list, it would be divided into naughty and nice? Mmmhmm. Perhaps naughty (as in meeow) and nice (=boring). ie. Librarians and academicians get no presents. Jerk.

So it gets a little foggy one Christmas Eve, and who do they look to? That's right. Old glowing zit-nose. Santa stumbles out, drunk as a skunk, as evidenced by his declaration of 'Ho! Ho! Ho!. Really, when's the last time someone greeted with you with "Ho Ho Ho!"? Other than drunk uncle Ralph at the last family Christmas party that is.

So here comes Santa, and asks Rudoplh to guide the sleigh (a safe bet considering Santa started hitting the eggnog before five pm that night). And what happens next? 'Then all the reindeer love him' (fickle dill weeds that they are). Oh now they love him. He wants to play some reindeer games, and its all bitch slaps and snide comments. Suddenly he's gonna make sure the old man doesn't steer them into the broad side of a barn, and it's all, "Oh Rudolph we love you!" Sure you do, you ignoble prigs.

But this doesn't even address the most insidious undertones of this little ditty. Check this out. What's so special about Rudolph? Why, he has a glowing nose, of course. Know what we call that in the tech field ladies and gents? Something that's sort of like the original only with an added functionality feature? Reindeer version 2.0. An upgrade. Follow my logic here. This next bit is important.

Guess how long it takes for a reindeer to span from birth do adulthood? Less than a year. So in my estimation, between the time that Santa figures out that a reindeer with a glowing red shnoz is a significant improvement over a bunch of catty game-playing skanks (even a raging lush can observe market trends) and the time when next Christmas rolls around is more than plenty to hook ole Rudolph up with a few smoking hottie reindeer cows (that's what they call them, I kid you not) and breed a super-race of present-hauling, nose-illuminating work horses, or deer, I guess.

And what do you suppose happens to the obsolete reindeer? Well lets indulge in a little conjecture, shall we? The facts are as follows. 1. Non nose-glowing reindeer are no longer needed. 2. Santa is a rather large man with a rather large appetite. 3. Chickens are not widely farmed at the North pole last time I checked. 4. There are a proliferation of excellent venison recipes available via Google. You do the math people.



Cyndi

All Nine Lives

A cat is considered geriatric at 12. Two Sox was eighteen when he finally passed away last week. I've seen those bumper stickers that say "Animals are People Too." Given, these bumper stickers are typically pasted on the backsides of cars that also have tatty sun bleached stuffed animals in the back window and woman wearing stretch pants and a chocolate frosting stained Garfield "I Hate Mondays" t-shirt wedged into the driver's seat. But I digress. Animals are people too, that is my point.

As strange as it may sound, I believe that. Anyone who's had a pet knows that pets have personality. And where there is personality, there are also personality quirks. Two Sox certainly had his share.

The Ambush: Two Sox simply knew, without question, that he was lord and master of our house growing up. Our insistence on introducing unworthy companions into his realm proved to be someone disconcerting to him, though he deigned to allow himself to play amusing games with his unworthy wards. One of these was "The Ambush." Two Sox often preferred to take his leisure on the dining room table. This locale had the added benefit of allowing him to observe the approach of his dim-witted canine co residents, who on occasion (being of course, far less intelligent than himself) would amuse themselves by doing laps around the table. This behavior, of course, providing Two Sox the opportunity to wait until said dog came racing around and perform a graceful leap onto their passing back. Typically this elicited a reaction rather similar to having lit the dog's ass on fire. Which, of course, would have been infinitely more satisfying, but it is rather hard to strike a match without the operation of an opposable thumb.

The Ambush 2: Being the well rounded and open minded individual that he was, Two Sox was not so shallow as to limit himself to hunting from the dining room table. Indeed, he wisely took advantage of seasonal opportunities as well. One method of doing this was to conceal himself amongst the foliage at the bottom of the Christmas tree. Hidden in the shadows afforded by the lower branches, Two Sox would then lay in wait for a passing dog, or foot, and erupt from his concealment in a gray streak of feline claws, teeth, and fury. Being also benevolent, as well as skilled, he typically allowed his quarry to escape after minor scratches an abrasions, such was his self control.

The Ambush 3: As was becoming a gentleman who knows the importance fealty, Two Sox allowed his lessers to display their gratitude for his presence with the occasional pet on the head, chin, or throat. In the case that said lessers became overzealous in their adorations, he was prepared to remind them of their station and permissions. On one such occasion, one subject by the name of Steve dared to pat his hind quarters. After a stern warning of tail flicking and pupil dialating glares, Two Sox, with his keen powers of observation, determined that his lesson had not been taken to heart. In a powerful and terrible gesture, he launched himself at Steve's arm and into Steve's cereal bowl, soiling Steve's trousers with both milk and shame.

The Refined Palate: An epicure of the highest order, Two Sox did not limit himself to canned cat food sup or dried pellets for sustenance. Indeed no. He was a cat who enjoyed something sweet to tempt the palate. Some of his favorites included a nibble of strawberry Pop-Tarts, Twizzlers, or the very occasional marshmallow. Such was the refinement of his tongue, that he preferred to take only one bite from each marshmallow, knowing of course (as all experts do) that after one bite has been taken, the flavor and texture of said marshmallow has been hopelessly compromised and must then be discarded in whatever manner one sees fit. Which is exactly what he did do, all across the living room carpet, where his minions would collect them and dispose of them, as is their station.

The Chatter: As a scholar of military stratagems, Two Sox was infinitely aware of the philosophy that one should keep one's friends close, but enemies closer. In order to do so, Two Sox developed a system of speaking in short mews and chatters (modified from his celebrated moth hunting techniques) that could be easily understood by those in his jurisdiction. Hearing his vocal chatter, the humans would then respond with gushy coos and greetings, instantly alerting him to their location within the domicile. Ingenious.


The Games: As I mentioned before, Two Sox was a great hunter, a strategist. Such skills, like claws, must be kept sharp, honed, and ready to kill. But how does one hone such skills when entrapped with lesser beings? Simple. War games. Through a series of subliminal prompts, Two Sox taught his subjects to help him hone these skills by pitching him ice cubes from the freezer. Upon hearing the freezer door open, Two Sox stealthily maneuvered himself into the sink, only his eyes above the rim, waiting for his practice quarry. Seeing him hunkered down, the subject would then toss the bit of ice slightly above his head, affording him the opportunity to spring into action, swatting his target with deadly accuracy. Through such preparations, he could be assured that when the time came, he would be ready and able to kill. Sudden death, served chilled.

The aliases: Wisely, an assassin of Two Sox's order had many aliases in order to keep his true identity a secret. Some of these included: Toxy, Soxy, Mr. Kitty, Mr. Sprinkles, Puddles, Soxo, and Keeton. It is believed that he survived as long as he did through the operation of his closely kept identity. A cat of mystery, to the very end.

We will miss you Soxy.

Cyndi

Why Is My Underwear So Comfortable?

One of the benefits of having a blog, and reading other blogs, is the handiness of disseminating information gained from a wealth of personal experience. As people, we can share with one another lessons learned in the operation of living. Vastly aided by Google, one can type in just about any search term and get at least one hit, no matter how obscure the subject matter. For example, Googling "How to deworm a camel," returned ten pages of results. Go ahead, try it. No matter what your question is, chances are somewhere, someone's been through it and sent their intellectual gainings out into the ether. It's a beautiful thing.

As a blogger, I feel it's my duty to disseminate some of the information I have learned over the years. So, read on, and benefit from my experience.

Fact: If you are suddenly stricken by how terribly comfortable your underwear is (are?), it is very likely that you have managed to put said underwear on inside out. Thus, the seams face outward, and you benefit from the smooth comfort of the underwear's exterior against your posterior. Why they are not designed this way in the first place, I do not understand.

And also, to wax tangential, what's with underwear having tags? Hanes, much to my delight, has gone a long way towards furthering the tagless campaign. But why on earth did it take so long for someone to figure this out? Honestly, you wear underwear (hopefully) roughly 23.5 hours a day (assuming you shower regularly). Would it not seem expedient to make all structural underwear design decisions based solely on comfort? Why on earth do you need a tag in your undies?

I can think of no real information so vitally important that it begs a minuscule cloth note sewn straight to the fabric that covers your ass. "These underwear were made by Victoria's Secret!" Yes, thank you. I was aware of that, seeing as I purchased them there. "Machine wash and tumble dry with delicates!" Why thank you for telling me that. My personal plan for cleaning this twelve dollar and fifty sent pair of underwear was to spit on them and beat them with a stick.

No. There is no need for tags. Besides, they tickle.

There you are, trying to take notes, and all you can think about is the tickling right above your hiney. You think perhaps it might be a hair (head hair, not bum hair. eeew.) and you start to freak out. You obsess until you have to excuse yourself from the meeting and go to the bathroom and check, only to find it's the tag. Then you have to go to your desk and get the scissors and take them back to the bathroom and perform minor surgery on your unmentionables in the stall. Then your coworkers think you're a weirdo when they come in for their morning pee and hear you snipping away at something. "What is she doing with scissors in there?" they think. Then they look at you funny when you come back into the meeting fifteen minutes later. They know you've gone to the bathroom, and they know you've taken fifteen minutes. You know what they think you were doing. So what do you say? "No no no, it was nothing like that. I was just cutting a tag out of my underwear." FAIL.

So this has never happened to you? Well then, for my friends who Google "why is my underwear so comfortable?," this is for you.

Happy Birthday Ma

Today is my Mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Ma! My Dad's birthday was October 5th. Happy late birthday Daddy! I am writing this post in their honor, though embarrassing them in a semi-public forum (okay, Mom and Dad are the only ones who read my swill anyway) may not be their idea of "honor." What can I say, that's just the sort of thoughtful daughter I am.

Parentage is a interesting thing. One of the joys of step-parenting has been to watch the boys and pick out all the various little aspects of my husband divided amongst them. I suppose we are all strange hybrid composites of the stuff that makes us (kindly donated by mom and dad) and the various other spiritual filaments we pick up from our environment. So in this post, I will attempt to dissect myself (gruesomely apropos for the season, no?) and see what of my parentage spills out.

There shall be two categories (categories, like lists and check boxes soothe me. Sue me.) "Characteristic" - trait as manifested in Cyndi, and "Parent at Fault" - parent at fault for said manifested trait.

Characteristic - I am a klutz (as has been multiply elucidated by my many self-inflicted-injury posts, and more recently, in a heretofore undocumented event resulting in a broken toe.)
PAF - This one is going to rest firmly with my Ma, who over the years has regaled us all with both story and working example of various impossible slips, falls, injuries and accidents. IE, a black eye from opening a cabinet door into her face. Yes, this is absolutely something I would also do, and likely will do at some point in the future. My father, graceful and lithe, was an athlete of the first order and lept like a gazelle over high jump bars throughout high school and college. Were I to attempt anything of the sort, it would likely look like something like a heifer getting a running start to jump a barbed-wire fence. The result would be all flailing hooves, pained mooing, blood, and the always inevitable shame.

C: I am lurpy. The aforementioned lurpiness is the result of my odd shape combined with above-average height.
PAF: Actually, this one goes to both parents. Like my father, I am tall and have slender wrists and ankles. My father and my brothers have often bemoaned the fact that their delicate wrists could be fractured with only a delicate thwap of a rolled up newspaper. I don't mind the wrists so much. Being a girl this presents me with less of a problem. But combine gangly height with squat-in-the-potato-field-and-drop-a-kid German birthing hips (thanks Ma), and you get a rather odd combination that baffles many a sales girl when shopping for jeans. Thus the ensuing "lurp" factor.

C: I am a book nerd. When I don't have my nose buried in a book, I am usually rattling on to some uninterested party about a book I read, recommending several books I think they should read, or detailing the many uses of books in decorating and furniture propping.
PAF: This one is going to my Ma. My mom is an avid reader and kept me in books from the time I was old enough to begin reading. Not surprisingly, the first thing I read was food-related, the back of a package of ham. I have many fond memories of visiting used book shops with her and lugging home a treasure trove of dusty tomes that enabled me to retreat solidly into geekdom.


C: I am a snark. Snark: (according to the urban dictionary, source of all pertinent knowledge for my generation) "Combination of "snide" and "remark". Sarcastic comment(s). Also snarky (adj.) and snarkily (adv." You may or may not have picked up on this already, since you are reading my blog. Hopefully leaning towards may. I lay it on pretty thick here people.
PAF: This one is all Dad. My father is a deceptively quiet man, but behind this placid exterior glows a hotbed of pure liquid snark. Evidence of this can be found in any Richards home video where in my father's voice can be heard firing off the occasional quip from behind the camera. Perhaps the most famous being his remark about a lady in double-wide stretch pants lumbering across the street to the hospital - "Whoa. There goes a sick patient," he snarks. Like me, my Dad would walk on his lips through a bed of hot coals before knowingly hurting anyone's feelings, but every now and then, one of those snide little buggers leaks out.

So here's to parents! I will be forever grateful for mine for putting up with me for all these years and loving me even when I'm a dork (which is almost always).

Cyndi

Miss Fix It

This is kind of a long story, and I may or may not switch from first to third person in the telling. Strongly leaning towards may. Turn back now if you wish.


It's not really a good idea to leave me alone for too long. One of two things typically happens. 1. I think too much. (After such occasions, one could likely find me weirded out by the possibility that Osama Bin Laden's goat may be harboring plots to overthrow our agricultural economy.) 2. I try to fix things. Believe it or not, it's the second of these options that proves more dangerous.

Yesterday, I came home from a leisurely lunch and went upstairs to switch a load of laundry over. The washer and dryer are the front-opening kind, and whoever set them up put them in backwards, meaning that the front loading doors open into eachother and one must maneuver around them to wrangle a load from the washer into the dryer. It has bothered me for months now, like the sort of low frequency hum that you quietly ignore until one day you tote a gun off to the local grocery store and shoot a checker for giving you plastic instead of paper. You know. That sort of thing.

So yesterday, having an afternoon to myself, I decided that I'd had it. A few days previous I'd been watching one of my home improvement shows, and the hapless host put an idea into my diseased little brain when he switched the hinges on a refrigerator door so it would open the opposite way. "Ahh!" Cyndi says to herself, "that didn't look too hard. I'll just take the doors off and switch the hinges. It will be easy. Probably it will only take a few minutes."

Twenty five minutes later, sweating and cursing (minimally of course, and only in my head), I had the dryer door off and found that even with all the might of my scrawny arm, I COULD NOT get the screw to go into the hole on the opposite side of the dryer opening. I begged, I pleaded, I threatened, I tossed around the word "scrapyard." But alas. No progress. (Switching into third person present tense mode in 3...2...1)

"That's it!" Cyndi shouts inanely. "I didn't want to do this, but you give me no choice. I'm going to go rent a drill!" Cyndi watches the dryer carefully for any sign of dogged submissiveness, but finding none, stomps downstairs to get her shoes and car keys. "You'll be sorry!" she shouts over her should as she clicks out of the front door.

(Fast forward 15 minutes.) Cyndi stands at the rental counter of the Home Depot. Buck the rental clerk blinks at the blond in shiny black heels and skirt standing in front of him.

"Hep you m'am?"

"Why yes. I need a drill," Cyndi says, trying to sound confident and knowing.

"Why?"

"Erm, why?" Cyndi stammers. The little voice in her head begins to yap at her, 'If you tell him what you need it for, he won't give it to you. You'll feel stupid. Be vague, be breezy, be confident.'

"Oh, just a couple little projects, you know." Cyndi laughs in what she hopes is a breezy manner.

Buck raises an eyebrow. "Like what?"

'You blew it,' says the little voice, 'you call that breezy? Psh.'

"Oh, this and that," Cyndi answers uncertainly.

"Well yer gonna have to give me some kind of idea of what yer doing else I can't give you the right tool."

"Oh, I just need to hang a few pictures, switch a door around, that sort of thing."

"Door? What kinda door?" Buck asks, preternaturally sharp now, formerly dull eyes taking on the glassy ferret-like sheen universal to used car salesmen.

"Washer and dryer." Cyndi mumbles.

"Washer and dryer! Waaaale. You caint use no drill fer that. You'll jest strip out the screws. Only it take ya 2 seconds instead of a minute. Trust me missy. I been usin these tools for 40 years now. You have to use a screwdriver."

"I tried that. The screw wouldn't go in."

Buck flicks a quick glance at Cyndi's arm, the problem already decided and quickly settling over his features in a mask of practiced skepticism. "Well you probably jest wasn't gettin enough power behind it. Or you have the wrong kind of screwdriver. What kind was you using?"

Frantically, Cyndi's mind swims. 'What is the name of that stupid thing?' she questions inwardly. The little voice in her head shrugs deferentially. 'Phillips' has miraculously vanished from the memory banks, and instead, "The one with the little crossy things at the top," is all that leaks out. Cyndi grimaces inwardly, feeling an utter moron.

"That's called a Phillips m'am. What size was it?"

"Uh, I dunno. Five or six inches long I guess."

Buck laughs his patented "Ain't it adorable when women try to fix things" chuckle. "No m'am. What size was the head?"

"Oh well, yes. Um. Not too big, about like this" Cyndi says, pinching her fingers and holding them up to her eye to indicate a quarter inch, simultaneously glancing around the shop for a tool to jam in her ear to end the mortification of the moment.

Buck sighs. "You come on back with me now and I'll show ya some thangs." He lumbers to a stock room behind the desk, Cyndi clicks after him, heels echoing mockingly in the industrial shed filled with steel and sawdust.

With a thick-fingered grease coated hand, Buck scrapes up a handful of screws.

"Now see, this here is a sheet metal screw," Buck says, poking at the flinty lot with a blunted black rimmed nail, "It's self-tapping, so ya don't hafta knock a hole in first. He counts out four screws and offers them. "You go head and put these in yer purse."

"Er, thanks."

"With the right screwdriver, these'll go right in fer ya. Guarantee it. Lemme show you what kind screwdriver you need." Buck clomps off into the store proper with Cyndi tagging along. He pauses by the screwdrivers and selects one from the bottom shelf.

"This one here is a good deal. It's got two sizes of flat and Phillips," he says, overemphasizing the word, doing his best to educate, "heads. And when ya take them out, it will double as a ratchet. You tell yer husband about that? Kay?"

"Sure. Thanks," Cyndi says, resisting the urge to kick him in the shin and claim a spasm.

"Now, that oughta do ya. Good luck." Buck ambles away back toward the rental section. Cyndi checks out and flies home with her new prize.

(Fast forward 20 minutes)

With considerably less sweating and cursing, Cyndi screws the last screw into the dryer door, now happily installed on the opposite side, opening away from the washer. "Hmm," she says happily, "I guess Buck did know what he was talking about."

She pushes the door closed triumphantly. It hits on something and flies back open. She tries again to the same result. "What the..." Cyndi opens the door and discovers she has installed it upside down.

"Oh for the love!" She shouts ineffectually, realizing that she has to switch the hinges to the other side of the door and reinstall. She opens the door and examines the hinges to find all the screw heads are stripped out and cannot be removed. "Some moron must used a drill on em," Buck comments from inside Cyndi's head.

The only option left is to take the door off and put it back in in its original backward position. Cyndi takes the door off again and re-installs it a third time, only this time the door requires and extra push in order to close.

So all that, and yours truly managed only to make to dryer door close less smoothly than it had in the past. Yeah. I rock. Grocery checkers beware.

-Cyndi

The Willful Cowlick

Naturally, I have coarse brown hair. It's been this way since I was a kid. My regular routine of bleaching, blow-drying, flat-ironing, etc. seems to have little or no effect on the texture. Simply and stubbornly, it is what it is. Most the time it cooperates, though over the years it has informed me in no uncertain terms that it will not stand for any foofy type of up-do. Due to an unfortunate accident of genetics resulting in ears that jut away from my head at a roughly 80 degree angle, I'm okay with the no updo thing. Though I have oft suspected that allowing my ears out of their padded hair prison would give me special sonar powers. Or at least the ability to hear dog whistles.

But for the most part, I don't mind terribly. That is except when new hairs grow in exactly where my hair parts. You may not know this, but coarse hair grows vertically until passes the 3 inch mark. Only then does it consider laying down. When my hair grows, I am rewarded with a plethora of defiant brown (sometimes gray- eek!) spikes that shoot from the top of my head like so many bamboo shoots. And they will. not. lay. down.

I've tried every type of "product" known to man (or woman). Sprays, gels, waxes, pomades. Nothing works for more than 30 seconds. Goop on, plaster it down, and DOING! Back up it springs, only perhaps a little shinier, straighter, stiffer, etc. Short of scraping engine grease from a carburetor (somehow I thought this would only create a different issue), I've done everything I could think of.

Why not pluck them? - you ask. Ahh! If it were only that simple. It would seem that plucking one only creates room for the hair next door, who previously lay down for whatever reason, to stand tall and find its place in the sun. Or florescent bathroom lights, as the case may be.

They also catch the light of any given room fabulously, and often people talking to me will take a quick glance at the top of my head. "Yes," I say, "I know they're there. But could you pretend you don't see them? Recognition only serves to swell their egos." At which point said person usually walks away.

Not that I blame them.

-Cyndi

Can you guess what's next?

The pieces of the puzzle are as follows:

A. Items on Cyndi's desk.
-One Letter of Agency
-One Service Order Agreement
-One styrofoam cup containing paperclips
-One styrofoam cup containing Coke and ice

B. Task at hand
-Letter of agency must be signed, faxed, paper-clipped to Service Order Agreement, and filed.

So have you guessed what happens next?

If you guessed, "Cyndi shoves her hand in the styrofoam cup of coke looking for a paperclip and is so shocked that she jerks it out and tips the cup over, ruining the documents...You are CORRECT!

You win a cookie. It's in my purse. Feel free to drop by and grab it. But you may have to fight me for it. Fair warning has been given.

-Cyndi

Calculations - Dieting the Cyndi Way

Latte - 130 calories

Asiago bagel - 360 calories

Vegetable Cream Cheese - 120 calories

Grand total for Cyndi's breakfast - 610 calories

Calories burned in one hour while sitting - 88

Hours for Cyndi to burn her breakfast while stationed like a lump at her desk - 6.93

Licking the cream cheese off of the remaining half of your bagel and throwing the rest away to save 180 calories so you can eat the chocolate bar in your desk without guilt- Priceless.

It's Haunted Alright...

by stupid people. Allow me to explain.

On Saturday, Andy and I stayed at a reportedly haunted lodge out in Utah's ski country. I have whims like this, on occasion. A couple weeks ago I stumbled across a Haunted Places in Utah site. I sent the link to Andy, we peeked at a couple places, found a little lodge that was cute, and decided to go. My decision to do so was vastly aided by several factors, which I shall present in list-like form, as it pleases my diseased little brain.

1. The Lodge was running a special as it is off season for skiing (why does that word never look right?). Decent price, cute countrified room, home-cooked breakfast included. So far, so good.

2. The Lodge is located up a beautiful canyon and promises an outdoor hot-tub and sauna with a beautiful view. Also good.

3. The lodge promises an excellent menu of higher end noshing. Being the fat gir erm, foodie that I am, this is always a significant aspect in my decision making process.

4. The Lodge is supposed to be relatively empty this time of year, promising one's fill of solitude and serenity. I can always use a little of each - so cool, right?

5. Lodge is haunted. Also very very cool.

So I booked the room, and off we went. It all started well enough, the drive up the canyon was lovely. Andy's company is always immensely enjoyable. We were having a grand old time joking about the various ways we might be ghosted in the middle of the night.

Then we pull up to the lodge. Which looks nothing as grand as the photos they have posted on the website. There are several more cars parked outside than I had expected. I begin to feel dubious.

"This may not be very cool." I say, suddenly feeling the need to warn Andy.

"I'm sure it will be great," he counters, ever my more optimistic half.

I feel my eyebrows bunch. Something is weird. But we go in anyway and are greeted promptly at the door by Dirk-the-not-so-bright lodge dude and a barely controlled chaos of employees shouting and rushing every which way.

"Sorry folks, we're closed for a wedding," he bellows.

"Uh, what?"

"Closed. We're closed. We have a wedding here tonight."

"Oh, that's odd. We have reservations to stay here tonight," Andy informs him.

"Oh yeah?" Dirk consults a pencil-scribbled ledger. "Oh, I guess you do. Here, fill this out." He shoves a piece of paper towards Andy.

"So is the restaurant closed as well?" Andy inquires politely, filling out the slip. He knows I am fuming, irritated at the unwelcoming greeting, more irritated that my hopes of dinner are in peril, more than a little peeved that no one bothered to inform me of the wedding when I made the reservation.

"Yep. But I think the reception is gonna have a buffet line. You guys should just crash and grab some grub." He chuckles.

I narrow my eyes at his back as he turns away, Andy quietly asks if I want to push it out a couple weeks. I tell him no, that the room is non-refundable and we are already here. My discontent is quickly doubling and redoubling.

Another minion tells us he will take us to the room. He leads us through the dining room (where the reception will be held) up the stairs to the room. I am now panicky as I realize if we want to come and go at all that night, we will do so through some one's wedding reception. Tables are also set out on the patio, so unless I want to prance amongst the wedding guests in my bathing suit, sauna-ing and hot-tubbing are also out.

In the hall we edge past a group of women spilling from the nearby room, ironing some component of the bridal gown.

Our room at the end of the hall is small, wood paneled, and has hideous doilies tucked under animal themed lamps. It also smells. Minion points out that we have a view of the patio and can spy in the wedding guests if we want. His suggestion is the creepiest thing about the place as of yet. Still the view of aspens and pine trees beyond is nice. Minion leaves, I frown.

"Is it so unreasonable to expect that someone should have told me that they were hosting a wedding on this particular weekend?" I ask Andy. He agrees, they should have told us. We decide we will drive further up the canyon for an early dinner and then return before the reception begins and hole up in our room. We find a place to eat and are the only ones there, which is nice. The cook informs me he doesn't trust the steak, and asks if could he interest me in a burger instead.

"Fine," I say. It's not. I can't shake my disappointment. Still it's cloudy and beautiful in the canyon. It looks like rain and I am here with Andy, who is enjoying himself.

The storm begins in earnest as we arrive back at the Lodge. The parking lot and surrounding road is choked with cars. We elbow our way through a clot of wedding guests to get to the stairs. People look at us strangely. "Are they supposed the be here?" Someone whispers behind us. "Look, they're going up stairs," a concerned female points out. "Just let them go," her male companion comments. "They're probably just lost."

I fight an urge to cartwheel down the stairs ninja-style and kick them in the head. Probably best as I can't cartwheel and I don't have any ninja moves. I'd likely trip and fall on Aunt Edna, killing her instantly. Maybe then this place really would be haunted. I smirk at the thought then promptly censure myself. I have a formidable mean streak when I'm feeling put out and anxious.

We settle onto the bed and read as it begins to pour. I finally begin to unwind. I open the window and watch the rain slant onto the tables, soaking the cloths, ruining the flowers. Concerned female shrieks and people scampering to drag in the decorations. I shouldn't be pleased but I am. A wolf howls in the distance. Andy and I grin at each other. Perhaps this won't be so bad after all. The night is lovely, the rain loud enough to compete with the revelers from the reception. I have a nagging feeling they will all still be here tomorrow morning, and I am correct.

The last part of the reservation worth salvaging, the promised breakfast with our bed, already looks foreboding. As we ready ourselves for the morning we can see from our window that the tables on the patio, still sparkling with last night's rain, are clogged with people. We pack up and decide to do a drive-by as we turn in our room key. The restaurant is stuffed with people, there is not an open table to be had. We elect not to wait, and leave.

It was a lovely night, nevertheless, but not through any fault or effort of the people who run the lodge. By accident and happenstance. And was not, sadly, haunted by anything other regular ordinary people. Methinks I may need to go leave a couple reviews.

-Cyndi