Billionaires are people, too

I had originally titled this post "Millionaires are people, too" but then the thought occurred to me that fact checking is an author's responsibility, and - sure enough, the subject of my post is actually a billionaire. According to Forbes, "she's one of only five self-made female billionaires, and the first billion-dollar author." I'm referencing, of course, J.K. Rowling - author of the Harry Potter series.

In an attitude partially fueled by sour grapes and mostly fueled by the documented greed that is the life-blood of the mystical creatures called millionaires and billionaires, I tend to view them as pathetic things, trapped inside the diamond-encrusted walls of their own wealth. They seem incapable of seeing themselves as anything but deserving of their circumstances. They look down on those who have not, and throw their money around in lavish displays of disregard for its value to those who are struggling just to make the monthly bills.

There are a few notable exceptions who are putting their money and star power towards helping the disadvantaged, among them Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Oprah Winfrey, and J.K. Rowling.

I have known for some time, due mostly to my loyal following of her website and numerous fansites, that Ms. Rowling has supported various children's charities and has been involved in charitable activities.

Charitable giving in and of itself does not indicate a truly loving heart, because as we all know, some rich people use donations as tax shelters, to further their own financial cause and to show a pious face to the public which they do not wear in private.

It truly touched my heart to see the following video, in which J.K. Rowling re-visits the small flat where she finished writing the very first Harry Potter book. She was visibly shaken by the experience, and from what she said I can see that she truly appreciates the amazing journey to stardom from her humble origins (she began as a struggling single mother in financial distress). I confess to a tear in my own eye at the final scene, where she enters the bedroom.





The BBC television special (for which this video is a preview) is to be aired tonight, and I am trusting YouTube to give those of us in the USA a chance to see it, too.

Although every life is different, and no one's story is the same, it gives me a warm feeling of hope to know that it's really possible, in this day and age, for one unknown, un-famous woman to sit down in a coffee shop, pull out a pad of paper, and write a story that changes her life, and the world as we know it. Just think of it - all over the world, even people that have never read the books or seen the movies have heard of Harry Potter. To me, the gift of hope I've gleaned from her life is as great as the gift of enjoyment I continue to glean from her work.

Thanks, Jo.

I'M SO EXCITED!!!

Remember that formerly long-lost friend of mine, Margie, from South Africa? The one I blogged about not being able to find, and then blogged about finding, and then she actually commented on this blog, bringing the whole thing full circle?

Happy Birthday Margs! January 13th!

Yeeese, that one. Well, I just got off a three -hour long SKYPE "phone" call with her! I am so excited I can hardly sit still in my chair! This Skype thing ROCKS, can I just say that?

Bear totally cheated on our "no presents this year" rule and gave me a Skype headset. I hadn't even pulled it out of the package, it was still sitting all sealed up in plastic. Bear and I were sitting at my computer, playing a PC game (no, not a politically correct game - you should know better than that!) and suddenly this wacky disco music started coming out of the speakers.

I didn't know what was going on - the game we were playing was full of soft, spooky music, and I wasn't sure if the game had suddenly gone wacko.... but once I was able to minimize the game screen, I saw that there was a Skype call coming in from Margs!

Bear sprang into action, shredding the hermetically sealed package in seconds, and I hurriedly tried to figure out which thingamabob to plug into what whoozis, and answered the call.

IT WAS AMAZING!

The first thing I heard was the sound of her laughing - and she has the most wonderful laugh, but it was crystal clear, and I could have sworn she was sitting right next to me, the quality of the sound was that good. And, unlike regular phone calls overseas, there was only a tiny split second delay between when she spoke and when I heard it, and vice versa. There was no "echo" either, so I did not have to hear my own words back again before hearing her response. It was gold, pure gold.

We did have one or two times when the connection got lost, but we just hit the reconnect button and we were off and running again. It was just like old times, and Bear even got into the action and we had a conference call going for a while there - her South African accent is so rich and lovely, I wanted Bear to hear it for himself, and to get to talk to Margs first hand, so he could get a sense of the real personality of one of the best and closest friends I've ever had.

I am not usually a technology freak, I don't scramble to get the latest doodad or the most updated frabbus... but I have to give my wholehearted HOORAY to the genius that thought up Skype and Voip and all that stuff ending in "p", which allows two great friends to converse free of charge for hours on end.

Thanks to Bear for the gift which allows me the luxury of spending time with Margie again - it's one of the best presents I could have ever hoped for.

Bye-Bye to the Old Year....

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Well, peeps, here it is, almost New Year's Eve, and I gotta tell ya, I can't wait to see the ass-end of 2007 going through the door.

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This year has sucked royal donkey dick, and I finally found a picture that perfectly represents just exactly how pathetic it really was.

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Bye-bye, old crappy year!

BUH-BYE NOW!

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And may 2008 be more like...

Just because the first part of the day sucks...

.... is no reason to let the rest of it go to the dogs!

I went to work today to enjoy the sight of my Scrooge-ass bosses skipping to the front and back doors waving (no, literally - waving) Christmas bonus envelopes for the mailman, the FedEx Ground guy, AND the FedEx Express guy. In front of the entire office. The entire office full of hardworking employees who got DICK for Christmas from the boss. No holiday party. No holiday bonus. And we had to work up until the exact moment of quitting time on Christmas Eve. To say I was disgruntled by the end of the day would be an understatement.

It's not that I think we automatically deserve a bonus just because we put up with the lunacy that is the two-headed freak joint-leading this corporation - no, it's not that. But to completely stiff the staff and then make a big show of tipping the delivery people, who probably got tipped by at least half of the people they deliver to? And who else did we have a chance of getting a bonus from? No one, that's who.

So I got home, and hugged my husband goodbye as he set out for his Wednesday night Zen practise. Then I changed into my candy-cane Xmas pajamas, did the dishes, and whipped up a whiskey sour. I watched an episode of the British gardening detective series "Rosemary & Thyme" while stuffing my gullet with holiday cheese and crackers.

Then I whipped up another whiskey sour and put the "Arena Rock" channel on the TV, surround sound speakers blasting full force, and screamed and air-guitared along with The Scorpions, Bon Jovi, and Def Leppard. I can still hit every note on the air guitar, although my vocal range has declined somewhat with age. I'm not sweating it too much, since I heard David Coverdale singing his "unplugged" version of "Here I Go Again", which sucks royal duck's ass since he can't even hit half the notes anymore. Even the gods of rock fall prey to old age, sad but true.

So - Bear just phoned me that he's on the way home, I've put some extremely yummy leftovers into the oven to warm, and I have evil plans to throw that man down and ravage him - either before or after the leftovers are scarfed, dunno which. There's just something about 1980's hair band music (Bulletboys' "Smooth Up In Ya" is a great example) that really gets my motor running.

rrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOWWWWWWWWWRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Have a Verry Merry!

Out of the closet

Bear and I were in the grocery store this afternoon, and my cell phone rang. It was my mom. She said that she and her husband had been throwing change in this big glass jar in their closet for the past however many years, and today they took it out and brought it in to be counted.

They poured it in the change counting machine in the lobby of their bank, and the sum total was $1,000. She said she's going to send it to me, to help Bear and I over the financial quagmire.

I feel like the car that has been parked on my chest for the past month has just been lifted off.

Yay, Mom!

The hits just keep on coming

Sweet Penis Cake, this has been some week.

My uncle died on Tuesday around noon. I flew down to NC that night, and got up at the crack of smack the next day to ride 4 hours in the car with my mom and her husband up into the mountains to see my grandmother and aunt, then 4 hours back to my mom's house that night.

I have to say there's really nothing more cheerful than standing around in the house of a relative who has just died, trying to decide how to sell all their stuff. Not for personal gain, but to pay back my grandmother for all the social security money that he had taken from her all his life. See, I told you it was cheerful!

Then up at the crack of smack II the next morning to get my ass back to the airport, so that I could fly up to change planes in Boston, which got an unexpected snowstorm. Not only did I not "change planes", I got bumped off of three consecutive flights, and only by the sheer grace of cod did I get the very last seat on a flight to NY. On the nice side, they stuck me in a first class seat, even though I looked more like a homeless person than a first class passenger. I bet that pissed off the obnoxious business man that had been muttering and threatening to sue the universe if he didn't make the flight. He got a seat back in coach.

Of course, since I was flying to NYC and not the small airport fifteen minutes from my house, Bear could not pick me up (he was bartending right after work), so I had to pay $57 for a "limousine" (read "beat-up van driven by Hip-Hop Hoolio") back to my house. The good news is that my mom had stuck $60 in my wallet as a surprise before I left her house... lucky for me.

I didn't want Hip Hop Hoolio to know exactly where I lived (because I am so luscious that I fear the consequences of my power of attraction over all man-kind) (SNORT), so I had him stop a few houses away from mine and I walked down some stranger's driveway as he drove off. Luckily, they weren't home, so once he'd rounded the corner, I walked back down to the street and over to my house. Can't be too careful these days.

Would have been really funny if the person was home, and opened the door to see who was dragging a roll-aboard suitcase down their driveway at nine o'clock at night. I wonder what I would have said. Probably just would have told them the truth - sometimes the truth is weirder and funnier than anything you could make up.

I am failing to gain any holiday cheer. I fear I am actually depressed. My house is a wreck. There is no tree, there are no presents, although Bear says he got me something... I didn't get him anything, and the thought of going to a store and staring around at shelves full of crap, looking for something he might like and I might afford, is too much to take. Every year I get him soldier ornaments for the tree - all different ones, in all shapes and sizes. This year, not one single ornament. I feel defeated.

I tried to shop on my lunch break today. I went in the store, and walked around. Everything seemed to run together like images from a horror movie. I finally found one picture frame on sale that I thought would be nice for Bear's daughter-in-law. I picked it up and turned around to go to the register. The line, which began at the register, ended in Ethiopia. So much for shopping. I just put the frame down and left.

Honestly, I just wish it was next year already and all this happy horse shit was over. My boss didn't even come through with a holiday bonus in our paychecks today, AND we have to work on Christmas Eve. I heard rumblings a few months ago about a holiday office party to be held at a local restaurant, and today I saw some coupons (coupons???) for that restaurant being printed on the printer... but no mention of any party followed. Which makes me wonder if only a select few (you know, the people who are excluded from the posted demand in the office kitchen to pay for their coffee) are invited. Whatever.

To all of you who have managed to pull it off and "do Xmas", I tip my elf cap and wish you a very merry.

To those of you who are just trying to hold on until this wave subsides so you can gulp some air before the next one hits, I'm with you.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Yes, here it is! My birthday! And boy, and I excited! I am just overflowing with joy (as if the impending holidays are not packed with enough joy already!)

!!

!!!

Okay, enough bullshit. It's my birthday, and therefore I will post pictures of the things in life that make me happy. Unlike the posts from all the other days in the year, when I post pictures of the things in life that make me happy. Right. So here we go.

I already started (see above) with a picture of the Sweet Penis Cake. This photo was chosen not so much for any similarity it has to an actual penis (mother of jebus bless the person whose package resembles this mess), but rather for the heart-ily embraced words "Sweet Penis Cake". I psychically predict that this phrase will come up in my vocabulary often in the near future, the likelihood being in direct exponentiality to the impropriety thereof.

Um... what?!?

Oh yeah... pictures of things that make me happy. The first SERIOUS one has to be.... Bear.

Not only is he big and strong and bald and tattooed and hotter'n a firecracker on the 4th of July (pronounced JOO-LYE) in the bedroom, he loves me more than it's really actually possible to love anyone. Damn it, he makes me HOME-MADE SOUP, people! Soup that would make you weep with joy, except that you're not getting any. He gives me HARRY POTTER MOVIES for my birthday! The world has never seen a love like this! He has exposed his naked eyeballs to the destructive, village-leveling view that is me - me without makeup, me without clothes, and he STILL loves to give me the Sweet Penis Cake! I can't believe the military didn't keep him classified.

HOO-AH!

My kids. They always know exactly what the moment calls for - when it's time to play, when it's time to curl up on my chest and absorb my sadness, or when it's time to hack up a furball on the third step from the bottom, where it's dark and no one will see it until it's too late. These little critters are an amazing, wonderful part of my life and they bring me joy every day.

Did I mention how happy penis cakes make me?

Yes, I thought I had.


ONWARD!

All things Harry Potter - they warm my soul, sort of the same way a bowl of hot soup makes you feel on a damp, chilly day. I used this picture of Lucius Malfoy because - hey, hey! - and also because Jason Isaacs has such a great sense of humor when it comes to his stardom.





Popcorn. Popcorn, popcorn, popcorn!. Breakfast of champeens. I love popcorn. Day or night, it matters not. My favorite version is popped in oil, heavily drifted with parmesan cheese, then a light dusting of salt.

The person in the above photo is advertising a utensil called "The Popcorn Fork". I know this because the letters on the utensil? They spell it out. This utensil is extremely useful for people with a popcorn phobia - they will eat it, but if they touch it with their hands, the mother ship will be alerted, and the universe as we know it will be no more. It also comes in handy for those people who are allergic to popcorn, but just can't seem to stop themselves from playing with it anyway. To the genius that invented and marketed this life-saving utensil, I would like to say: "Sweet Penis Cake, what the fuck is wrong with you?"



I know you're probably sick of hearing about how much I lust after fighter jets, but it's my birthday, and I don't care.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

And you're on crack if you think I'd finish a Happy Birthday to Me post without including at least one picture of your favorite toothpick and mine....

Sweet Penis Cake! I was only kidding!
Jeez, eat something, why don't ya - it'll take the edge off!

Jack, Remembered

Jack
? - 12/15/07

Our good friend Jack, who was kind enough to adopt us as his family for the past seven years, died today.

Jack was an old soul, and a cool dude. He was a big fan of outdoor barbecues, yoga sessions, and garden walks - anything that brought people out of the house, where he could wind around their ankles and trip them up.



When we first moved into the cottage, there were several neighborhood cats that we fed each day. Jack was the most timid of them all. He would stay far away, peeking at us over the fence or staying hidden completely until we'd put out the food and gone back inside.

Over time, he got bolder and bolder, until one day he actually bumped up against my arm when I was pouring the food into the dishes. From that point on, he was a "lap cat". And, since he figured out we weren't out to get him after all, he decided that Thistlebright was his domain, and he wasn't in the mood to share.


Jack systematically "convinced" all the other cats that they should really move along to another yard, and he remained the sole lord of the land. He chased away intruding neighborhood cats and dogs alike, but sat uncomplaining as a baby possum shared his food one morning. (He also shared with the raccoons, but that may have been because they were twice his size.)







He also provided valuable quality control services whenever we did work on the property. Here he is, inspecting the slate circle installation project. He said we did a pretty good job with the slate, but it would have been better if fish had been included. Or maybe chicken.



We think Jack was probably a pretty old man when we first met him. He lived up to his image by taking every chance he got to have a nice, long nap in a sunny corner of the yard.



This was his favorite spot of all, though - the bench in the circle garden. He spent many happy afternoons snoozing away on that bench. He'd also come and sit beside me when I'd spend time out there writing in my garden journal, keeping track of what new plants were blooming, or where we'd just planted a new tree. He was always very interested in what I had to drink, whether it was a glass of wine or a cup of coffee - it was a struggle to keep cat hair out of any beverage enjoyed on that bench, I can tell you!


Because he loved that bench so much, we buried him right behind it. Now he will always have his favorite spot in the sun.

We'll miss you, old man!

Rally 'Round the Flag, Dudes

Hey, peeps.

The Bad News

OR

No, These Are Not the Lyrics to a Country Music Song

OR

This Is the Reason Hugs Were Invented

• My birthday is Sunday, and then I will officially be old.

• My dad's cancer is getting worse.

• My uncle had a stroke day before yesterday and will most likely die shortly

• The uncle that had the stroke lived his entire life with my grandmother, and my grandmother says that she cannot live without him. Unfortunately, I believe her.

• Our outdoor cat, Jack, is looking ready to kick the bucket (we take him to the vet tomorrow, dunno if he'll be making the ride home with us or not).

• We may lose our house if we don't get tenants in the downstairs apartment immediately.

The Good News:

• I am still really enjoying my new job, which is now officially three months old. Must be some sort of record.
  

• I was able to get my cracked windshield replaced through the extreme kindness of a friend who has family in the auto glass business, so I can now get my truck inspected. (Hell, it's only been overdue since May...) The coolest part is how clear the windshield is now! Looks like it's not even there - sure beats the old, sand-blasted one.

• Bear managed to (somehow) get me HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX for my birthday!!! Which I will be watching tonight as I OD on popcorn. He also got me some soft yarn to crochet with... he is the sweetest, best guy EVER. I am so lucky.

• Bear got assigned another bartending job this weekend! And the crowd goes wild....

How the Stress saved Xmas

Xmas was coming, there was nothing to say
It was coming, though she had not a penny to pay
She thought, and she schemed, and came up with a trick
To earn some quick dough without rolling St. Nick

Ebay gleamed brightly, with promises gay
Of payment for treasures she'd hidden away
In the store room, 'neath sofas, and up in the attic
Lay gifts she'd received without giving off static

These things were not things that she'd ever have chosen
But still, there they were, in the attic - all frozen
She carried them down, blew the dust from their wrappers
In one last attempt to save all from the crapper

She took out her camera, and set up the lights
Positioned the stuff so it came out just right
Then she started to upload, and upload some more
Until she had items enough for a store

But then she searched ebay, and to her surprise
Saw hundreds of similar auctions arise!
Identical items were all there for sale
And no one was bidding! She stopped and turned pale

But then a bright lightbulb appeared o'er her head
It started out small, then it started to spread
A small voice said "Hey, you've got all these nice presents...
Why not give them away? Go ahead! It makes sense!"

And that, my dear friends, is how Xmas was saved
The stress of the holidays made her mind cave
She wrapped up the presents and mailed them away
To her family and friends from New York to L.A.!

The blender that Susie had given her went
To a friend in Duluth - without spending a cent!
Unless you count shipping (but count she did not)
All her holiday shopping was done in one shot

Dear readers, remember, if you're in a fix
And you're thinking of hijacking elves, or St. Nick,
Just re-give the gifts that you hated like liver
Beware, though, of giving them back to the giver!

I thought Hallowe'en was in October

I know this post could have been written from a comic point of view, and it would have been, if it hadn't been one of the scariest, most upsetting things that has happened to me in a very long time. I wasn't even able to blog about it the night it happened, because I knew that dwelling on it would give me nightmares. I'm still pretty sure it will, they just haven't happened yet.

In the words of Bette Davis, buckle your seatbelts - it's going to be a bumpy night.

When I came home from work and pulled into my driveway, it seemed just like any other evening. I've never enjoyed the Daylight-Savings-Time-assisted early pitch dark of winter. As a result, my sense of self-preservation is always kicked up a notch or two when I walk through the parking lot at the end of a workday, and when I get out of my truck in the parking area at home.

If I have to dig through my purse to find my keys, I do it while I'm inside the vehicle with the doors locked, not while I'm standing outside. I never assume that just because I'm home, or shopping at a familiar store, or at my place of business, that I'm impervious to crime. It's little things like these that can make all the difference sometimes, and my training as a police officer and as a flight attendant have allowed me to include these simple precautions into my everyday life pretty seamlessly. I don't think about it, or worry about it, I just do it.

As I got out of my truck on that icy-cold night and walked to my front door, I heard a sound that made me stop in my tracks. It sounded like the half-roar, half-growl made by a B-movie werewolf. And it was loud. Loud, but coming from a distance of maybe 200 yards.

Because we humans are hard-wired to come up with plausible, rational explanations for everything, I thought that perhaps it was a man (a very large, deep-voiced man) playing a joke, standing outside the windows of his house and making loud scary noises so that the people inside could hear him.

Joke or not, I suddenly wanted to be inside my own house with Bear, and not standing outside with whatever made that noise. As my feet started to move toward the front door, it happened again. rrrrRRRRRAAAHHHhhhhrrr.... rrRRRRAAAARRGGHHH!

I stood stock-still again, chills going up the back of my already-cold neck. My brain kicked in again, this time working against its previous explanation. Now it was saying how completely irrational it would be for anyone to be standing outside on a night as bloody cold as this one, playing tricks on someone by making awful gutteral sounds, for longer than a second or two. I got my ass into the house immediately.

Once inside, I put that sound out of my mind. I was home. I was safe. Bear and I started to talk about the events of the day, and we realized we had to go out and do some errands. We changed into our banging-around clothes, jeans and sweatshirts and sneakers, and headed out. About an hour or so later, we swung into the driveway, parked, and headed around to the back of the vehicle to get the groceries.

The sound came again. Only this time it was different. Worse. It was a growl and a roar and it sounded like the throat it was coming from had been ravaged with a wire brush. It was raw, and painful, and the scariest thing I've ever heard that wasn't coming from a movie theater sound system.

I looked at Bear, my eyes going wide. He stopped and turned his head in the direction of the sound, and then he turned back to me and said, "I heard that when I came home from work." I gulped and said, "You, too?"

Then we began discussing, in whispers, the possibilities of what it could be, and where it was coming from. I knew, from the deepest place where knowing lives, that nobody in their right mind would be outside roaring for over an hour in the cold and dark. Nobody in their right mind.

As it changed, the sound had ceased to be anything that could be expected to come from a human being. But neither was it a sound that I would ever hope to hear from an animal.

We took the groceries inside quickly, and then came back out again, listening hard. It came again, worse again than the times before. I looked at Bear, and said, "That is not a human. But what IS it?"

We crept towards the fence between our property and the neighbors'. A house a few doors down had its back floodlights on, and we could hear arguing voices. Another growl, low, which ended in a piteous, awful moan that went on. And on. And ON.

It was at this point that I started to lose my cool. And then I heard a woman's voice yell, "SHOOT IT!".

I freaked. I ran to the end of our driveway and peered down the street. I saw a man in a hunting jacket run out of one of the houses and around toward the back yard. Some horrible thing was happening, and I didn't know what. I was trying to figure out what to do next, and Bear was scream-whispering for me to get my ass back to the house. Right. Now.

I ran back to the house, completely disregarding the ongoing tendonitis in my bad knee, and my hands shook so badly that Bear had to unlock the door for me. I grabbed the phone and dialed 911. I gave the operator our location, and tried to describe what I'd heard without coming off like a complete lunatic.

Bear was telling me to stay inside, but I didn't listen. Something living was in pain, and possibly being tortured, and in danger of being killed. With every second that ticked by, the possibilities filling my brain were more horrific. What if it was an animal? What if it was a human being?!? Whatever it was, it didn't have the ability to speak, and the sounds of its agony filled my ears. I ran back out to the end of the driveway to wait for the cops.

A car arrived more quickly than I had expected, and we told the cop everything we had heard, including the woman's shout. He drove down the street, got out of his car, and started knocking on doors. No one answered at the first two houses he tried, but when he got to the third house (the one with the flood lights on in the back yard), the man in the hunting jacket answered the door.

I heard his voice as if it was amplified by the cold night air - thin, but crystal clear. "Yeah, that's my dog. I don't know why he sounds like that." Then I heard him say, "Someone called you?" As if he expected people in the neighborhood to hear bone-chilling sounds of horror echoing through their back yards and just laugh it off.

Since the cop was on the scene, and the guy had admitted it was his dog making that terrifying sound, I headed back inside the house to try and recover my nerves. Bear was tall enough to peer over the stockade fence and see the officer and the man with the hunting jacket walk into the brightly-lit back yard. He saw the man open the locked gate of a fenced dog corral, and he saw a dog come out, wagging its tail and groveling happily for attention - apparently in good health. He heard the man tell the cop that the dog makes an awful racket when he's penned up, but once he's let out, he's fine.

The cop never came back to our house for a report, so I am assuming that the explanation given by the dog owner was satisfactory to his mind. Bear says he saw a happy, healthy dog come out of that pen. I don't doubt this, because Bear doesn't lie.

But somewhere, in the back of my mind, I know that something isn't right. No healthy dog has a voice that sounds like a chainsaw on a blackboard. No animal that isn't in pain or some sort of anguish moans like that. Women generally don't scream "Shoot it!" with that sort of panic in their voice, unless something is very, very wrong.

I wonder if the dog in the pen was really the animal making that noise, or if perhaps there was another animal, some wounded thing, out there in the dark. Maybe something that wasn't locked up in a pen.

I'd be lying if I said that my ears are not straining, listening for that sound, every time I leave the house.

And I'm telling the truth when I say that I hope I never hear it again.

The Invisible Axeman

Work was pretty enjoyable today... I was working on a case involving a recently deceased famous songwriter, and the data available was immense - which is so much better than those times when you throttle Google and threaten a boycott and still can't coax a relevant fact out of it.

However, about halfway through the day I noticed that my right knee was giving me a good twinge every time I stood up to go to the printer. By the end of the day, it was actually making me wince and limp.

Damn, I swear I've heard that in some bar before - ALL RIGHT, PEOPLE!!! GIVE IT UP FOR...... WINCE AND LIMP!!!!!!

Right now, it feels like some axeman took a good swipe at me and hit me just above the kneecap. I checked when I got home, and there's no bruise in sight. I'm one of those people that's got brutally white Irish/English skin, and I bruise if someone looks at me too hard. The way this knee feels, I was shocked to see no blue and purple marks at the site of the pain. I sleep on the side of the bed against the wall, and I wouldn't put it past myself to have slammed my knee into the wall during my sleep, but apparently that is not the answer. a) No hole in the wall b) No bruise

I wonder if you can get a knee injury from going too long without shaving your legs? Hmmm, doubt it, because this would have happened every winter.

Well, that's about as exciting as I'm getting today, peeps. I know you're just tingling with the exhilaration. I'm going off to round out my weak old lady-ness and knit now. If you're gonna do something, do it right, I always say.

Marcheline's Holy Grail Experience

The other morning, I awoke and descended the stairs, muzzy from sleep and my mind fixed on one goal.... coffee. Bear was happily asnooze, bundled under the still-warm comforter.

The fluffy honey-colored tail-less cat, Jinx, was still on the bed next to him, her blinky eyes telling me she was going to get up, yes sirree - just not right now, thank you very much.

The black, sleek, long-tailed cat, Widdershins, raced ahead of me to assume his very best "see how pretty I am and how much I deserve some cream in my very own bowl" position in the kitchen.

I stopped en route through the living room to select the "light classical" music station on cable - it's my favorite morning substitute for NPR's "Sunday Baroque", when it doesn't happen to actually be Sunday.

As I turned the corner into the kitchen, I reached to raise the shades on the two front windows, which are home to my considerable collection of house plants. Those two front windows, with their foot-deep sills, are the only windows in the house that get direct sunlight and have enough room for plants (the upstairs windows only have skinny little sills that the cats love way too much to share).

When I finally stopped in front of the coffee maker, a beatific glow made me rub my eyes again. I searched to find the source of the aura, and - lo and behold, just beside the counter...

THERE IT WAS!

The Holy Garbage Can!