Looks like we're back to using sticks.

Randy and I each use a Sonicare toothbrush and today I noticed that the heads were looking a little grimy. So I did what any good 13th century housewife would do-- I boiled them.

I have a feeling this is going to earn me the same reaction as the time I tried to fix a scuff on Randy's dress shoe with Clorox and nail polish.

 
¶ posted by Erin on Monday, November 09, 2009

 

So I officially registered to run a half-marathon today.

I managed to squeeze it in between a breakfast of Diet Coke and Tylenol and a lunch that was at least 86% sour cream.

I'd talk more about how excited I am but I'm running late for a Happy Hour thing and I still have to bribe someone to carry me into the shower. 
¶ posted by Erin on Thursday, October 15, 2009

  My apologies to clowns. And... everyone else.

Randy just got home from a monthly meeting and he had a joke for me. He often returns from this particular meeting with jokes but not anything I would ever repeat; not anything Randy would ever repeat either, since he usually gets about halfway through one before he resorts to wild gesturing and muttering, "you know, you know" because he can't bring himself to actually utter the punchline. I think the birth of his granddaughter rendered him physically incapable of articulating certain words and/or phrases that breech an understood base level of decorum. It's endearing, really; his mouth keeps moving but it's mostly high-pitched squeaks. Like one of those bark collars, but one that's activated solely by crude references to female genitalia.

So here's his joke. That he told. That I liked. And laughed at.

A clown is walking hand in hand with a child into the woods. The child looks up at the clown and says, "It's really dark out here! I'm scared! Let's go back!"

The clown pats the child's hand and smiles. Keeps walking deeper into the woods.

"It gets darker and scarier the farther we go!" whines the child. "Let's go back!"

The clown shakes his head and keeps walking.

"Mister, please!" the child says, "It's dark and spooky out here, I'm really scared!"

"How do you think I feel?" the clown says, "I have to walk out of here alone."


Annnnd that's the only joke my husband has told me in ten years that I can repeat. Now who wants to hear the one about the three-armed narcoleptic stripper who SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK! 
¶ posted by Erin on Wednesday, October 14, 2009

  His sea monkeys greeted him fourth. With somersaults.

I saw a commercial early this morning for this stupid shoulder bag with a zillion compartments, and it never would have even pinged my radar were it not for the "FREE BONUS" gift the stupid bag people were using for bait. Because (as seen in the above link) the FREE BONUS gift was a "tapeless voice recorder"!

Tapeless! It's a recording machine that doesn't require tape! What year is this, 3042? Did the aliens bring this device as a high stakes bartering chip for our collective bone marrow? Because that's the only plausible explanation! Next thing you know they'll be giving away a magical wand that you wave at your television to change the channel! YES, I WILL BUY A BAG WITH A SPECIAL COMPARTMENT FOR MY CATHETER TUBES IF IT MEANS I CAN OWN TOMORROW'S TECHNOLOGY TODAY.

Somewhere there's a guy who just got home from work, right, and when he unlocks the door to his townhome the first thing he's greeted by is the flashing "12:00... 12:00... 12:00" from the clock on his VCR. The second thing that greets him is the ERROR message on his answering machine letting him know his message tape is full. Luckily the third thing that greets him is his pet rock or this might have been a pretty rough day. THAT'S the guy who seriously needs to learn to program his VCR to record the shoulder bag infomercial. 
¶ posted by Erin on Tuesday, October 13, 2009

  Look...

I said I would post every day in October, I didn't say every post would be readable.

And I'm taking the weekends off from here on out, too, unless you want more Amazon screenshots and BlackBerry Messenger updates. I've got a huge craft show this weekend and I'm up to my nethers in stuffing over here. See you Monday.

In the meantime go read the latest issue of The Plug. Good luck on that "Treasure Haunt", damn thing took me four days. 
¶ posted by Erin on Friday, October 09, 2009

 

I'm slammed today finishing zombies for a big craft fair on Saturday but in the interest of actually posting every day in October, here. A big dork update.

RIM released the newest version of BlackBerry Messenger yesterday, version 5.0, and it's awesome. If you use a BlackBerry and your operating system is 4.5 or higher*, point your BlackBerry browser to blackberry.com/messenger for the download and follow the directions.

(*If you don't know what operating system you're running, go to "options ->about" and you'll see it. And if you're running anything lower than 4.5 you should update it.)

Oh! Oh! And the incomparable Kate Danley is going to be on Parks and Recreation tonight! NBC! Check local listings! Keep an eye out! 
¶ posted by Erin on Thursday, October 08, 2009

  Or a martini shaker.

I was just searching Amazon for a baby swing-- this family has a couple of outdoor-loving babies who could swing you under the table and I finally managed to find a tree limb in the backyard that doesn't dead end straight into a concrete wall-- when I found this swing by Fisher Price.


Hey, perfect! A brand I trust not to fall out of the tree, right size, good price... heyyyyy, wait a second:


Oh hell yes. This could only be better if instead of that pet stair thing, Amazon recommended noise-reducing headphones. 
¶ posted by Erin on Wednesday, October 07, 2009

  363 days until 35.

I had a bunch of bills and zombies and things to mail yesterday so I drove to the only blue mailbox I know of that opens wide enough to accept a packaged zombie. Standing in front of it my hands were ridiculously full, envelopes, packages, car keys...

You see where this is going.

HA! No you don't! Because I very smartly opened one hand and let my car keys fall safely to the ground while I did my dangerous mailing! Look at me, taking preventative measures and whatnot.

"Maybe thirty-four is going to be my year!" I thought. And then I smugly shoved everything else I was holding into the mailbox. Including a $700 bank deposit. 
¶ posted by Erin on Tuesday, October 06, 2009

 

A couple of weeks ago at the grocery store I picked up one of those days-of-the-week pill keepers like your great-uncle and your drug dealer have, the long strip of plastic pockets with the days of the week on them so you can allocate your daily vitamins and pills in advance and have them all in one handy place. As opposed to losing an entire open Costco-sized bottle of Centrum for Women under the passenger seat of your car where you occasionally snatch for one when you happen to be both at a red light and feeling particularly low on B7.

I had actually wanted to bring my grandmother's pill keeper home with me after she passed away because I thought it would be a daily sentimental reminder. I was wrong, though; according to every single person I've ever met, using your deceased grandmother's medication holder isn't "sentimental" as much as it is "breathtakingly morbid" and I was rather harshly ordered NOT to store my Claritin in the same plastic pocket where my grandmother once kept her nitroglycerin.

Fine then, I bought my own. And I felt self-conscious and rickety and like a giant hypochondriac doing it-- I mean please, right? I need a pill organizer the same way I needed a retainer made out of paperclips when I was eight. In third grade my next door neighbor and I came up with a plan to break each others' arms so we could get plaster casts. We didn't go through with it, of course, but lack of follow through isn't the problem: I HAD THE IDEA. THAT'S the problem.

So I get home with my pill keeper and I start bustling around grabbing vitamins and shit out of the pantry, and Randy swings through the kitchen and sees me and he's all, "???" And I'm all, "!!!" And he's all, "Yeah, I'm leaving now because I can't pronounce an asterisk but don't touch my BC Headache Powder." And I was all, "YOU BETTER FEED YOUR LEECHES BEFORE YOU LEAVE."

I popped open Su through Sa and started assigning pills to days; fiber tablets, linty Centrum I scraped off the floorboards, vitamin E capsules the size of quail eggs, a bunch of Cipro for a UTI (you're welcome), vitamin C, some Anacin (don't tell Randy), assorted allergy medication, and before I knew it all seven of my plastic compartments were jammed.

JAMMED. I tried to slam Tuesday closed and a fish oil capsule exploded.

So obviously I ran out and bought a larger pill organizer. Larger. A larger one. It came with a free bottle of Geritol and a coupon for five dollars off at Cardigan World. I could store a portable breathing machine in Wednesday and still have room for an adrenaline shot on Friday. Deep inside me a little girl squinting needlessly through her mother's reading glasses rejoiced.

Randy happened to walk back in as I was repositioning everything and stopped to watch.

"Hey, are those One-A-Day Men's? And these," he pointed, "these are for joint pain. You don't have joint pain."

"I might have joint pain."

"You should have told me," he started, and I grabbed my pharmacy and ran out of the room before he could slap a leech on me.

The whole system lasted exactly one week; I lost interest when it was time to refill everything again. Now I'm back to eating Centrum off the car floor. It's probably for the best, it was a really weird week. I mean yeah, my UTI went away and I was completely allergy-free, sure, but I also started growing hair on my back and my joints felt all soggy inside. 
¶ posted by Erin on Monday, October 05, 2009

  It's my birthday!

And we've been busy. I promise this won't be a month of Family Guy videos, I truly have a bunch of posts lined up, but I'm totally exhausted and I seriously adore this clip.

 
¶ posted by Erin on Sunday, October 04, 2009