Bad thing number 89 about life in a cubicle farm:

When your intestines sound like a 4-wheeler spinning out in a mud pit, everyone else can hear them too.

------------------------------------------------

Tuesday nights are small group nights at our house. A bunch of folks (or maybe just 1 or 2) from church come over and we discuss whatever was preached about the previous Sunday. It can be very very interesting, especially when we start to read what’s AROUND the verse used to support the message.

Let’s just say that once you start that kind of reading, you realize that ‘context’ is key.

Anyhow. People start coming over at 6:30, and normally stay for a couple of hours. We spend a good deal of time just chatting and having coffee, eventually winding up plowing through question prompts and exploring all over our various versions of the good book.

It’s the 6:30 that’s the most difficult part of the whole affair. It might not SEEM like it to most people, but if you’ve worked all day, having your house clean, the dishes done, the coffee made, the snacks put out, and sanity in check by 6:30 p.m. is sometimes a very difficult task.

Especially when both parts of the ‘hosting couple’ slide in the door at 6:15…which is what happened this past week.

Which, in turn is why the oven was full of dirty dishes last night. That’s right – we stashed the dirty dishes from the NIGHT BEFORE in the oven, where they stayed for a further day. What could possibly go wrong with that? Well, I’ll tell ya – 48 hours of unrinsed dishes marinating in their own grease and funk in a closed space can generate a miasma powerful enough to turn stomach from a half a house away. Something evil was brewing in that oven, and I shudder to think what might have happened if we hadn’t done the washing-up last night. Spontaneous generation, anyone?

Maybe giving rise to something like THIS?



And have a lovely day. Tiff out.

I should be working, but there's a thunderstorm.

I should be hard-nosed, focused, but the cataclysm outside is....better

I should be putting the final coats of spackle on a shiny new document, prepping it for distribution and review, but the flashing lights and peals of gut-rumbling thunder, the needy dog, the sketchy power, the wide-furred cat, are all far better entertainments than mere WORK.

There is no work that can stand up to an act of nature, no matter what. A good thunderstorm is something to stand on the front porch and watch wash over whatever brand of reality surrounds you.

This is not time for the reality I believe I have the power to create. This is the time for what is real.

So, come join me on the front porch for a beer and a gawp and perhaps an arms-flung-wide stand in the blessed rain. I'll be there a while, I'm sure of that much. Thunderstorms demand that kind of attention.

Not work. Not now. I'll make my apologies tomorrow.

By 11 a.m. this morning I'd already apologized to three people for screwing something up or not getting them things they need or providing the WRONG thing to them in the first place.

It did not bode well for the rest of the day...because I HATE apologizing to people for ANYTHING. I'd prefer to never be in a position at work to be the one tagged as the fuckup. Things have just been getting away from me lately, and in the chaos I'd lost track of some stuff, didn't bother to update a couple of timelines, and didn't fully QC something that contained a few mistakes.

Perhaps there are a few too many balls in the air, and I've never had juggling lessons?

Let us turn from such negativity, and instead face a far brighter horizon. To wit: I jogged for 5 minutes in a ROW this morning! TWICE!! BEFORE 7 A.M.!!! Holy cats, people, do you have any idea how impossible I thought it would be to do that? Just a few weeks ago jogging for 1 single solitary minute caused me to hate the world with a jihadic passion, and today there was multiple minutes of wogging all strung together!

Yes, I'm busy practicing how to pat myself on the back, thanks for asking.

I'm really REALLY proud of this morning's outing. Five minutes seemed like a total pipe dream, and for a moment I thought about begging to just do last week's workout again this week, but the air was cool, the planned route was flat, and I'm not getting any younger, so why NOT try for a push goal? OK, so I 'jogged' about about a half a mile an hour, and must have looked quite the sight as I galumphed along the sidewalk sweating from every pore and several orifii (some of which I'm pretty sure I grew JUST TO SWEAT OUT OF THEM), but I do not care, for it's the minutes that matter, not the style in which I do them. In all, the workout went like this:

5-minute walk
3-minute jog
90-second walk
5-minute jog
2.5-minute walk
3-minute jog
90-second walk
5-minute jog

That's 16 minutes of pure joggery, right there. Not so bad. The big fly in my ointment of contentment though is that at the end of next week there's a workout with 20 minutes of straight jogging.

That *thud* you just heard? Yeah, that would be my confidence hitting rock bottom.

-------------------------------

Changing topics yet again - Over at Facebook I've asked people to write me a haiku. I do not know why, and it doesn't really matter, does it? Once asked, obligation sets in, does it not?

Thus far there are several amusing entries. People are amazingly compliant and creative. I love that.

That being said, if you have FB, go on over and write me a daggone haiku. If you don't have FB, and want to get in on the fun of creating ART for ART'S sake, feel free to leave your haiku in the comments below. Otherwise, join in the pride parade and tell us about what your proudest moment in sports has been.

And have a lovely day.

When faced with a day of 'nothing planned' over the weekend, would you

1) sit around watching movies on teevee all day long
2) start training for the olympic power-napping team
3) experiment with what's in the liquor cabinet, or
4) drive 140 miles one way for lunch and a visit with friends

If you live in the Tiny House, the answer is 4. OF COURSE IT IS, because long stretches of unplanned time are perfect for road trips with your sweetie to places you keep saying you'll go but can't normally seem to carve out the time to get there.

Well, in 2.5 hours we were there. And it was dagggone swell, is what it was. Free lunch, babies! Woo! Oh yeah, there was the conversation and the visitin' and the historic tour of downtown and a back-door sneak into the Capitol, there was open-house touring and piggy-back rides and RUM-SOAKED POUND CAKE too. Because Oldfriend and her husband 'Boner' (his new online name (he plays the TROMBONE, you sickos)) know how to host people who randomly show up on Facebook at 8 a.m. bemoaning the plight of having nothing to do for the day and invite the whiners up to see them...just like that.

The only downside to the trip was that Biff won 3 of 5 Alphabet Games. And he was driving!

-------------------------------

If you need any idears for dinner tonight, here's what you do:

- Slice 4 potatoes really thin
- brown up a pound of ground beef and season to taste
- saute some veg (onion for SURE, others are optional)
- mix a can of cream soup (mushroom, celery, broccoli, NOT chicken) with 1.5 cans worth of milk

Layer the potato slices, meat, and veg in a casserole - 3 or 4 layers is great. Pour the soup mix over top. Cover and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until 'taters are tender.

Pour a nice glass of dry white wine or a hearty red, serve the casserole, and enjoy a lovely homemade meal. I know, I know, it's not terribly original, but if you're looking for something nummy-licious and can't stand the thought of trying to come up with something for the evening nom-fest, consider this option if you would. Plus which? Leftovers!

----------------------------------

That's it from here. Time's whizzing by and I need to go don my Billy Mays memorial fake beard and spend a few moments marking the passing of one of the most beloved people in history.

No, really, I do.

(Preamble - if any of y'all had read this before about 6 pm Eastern time, you might have thought I'd commenced to drankin' well before posting this. That is most certainly NOT the case. What you saw was my abhorrent typing skills, which have now been corrected. You're welcome)

-----------------------------------------

1) Hai! I missed you too, though probably not as much as I'd miss a winning Powerball ticket if I had one...just so you know.

I mean, friends are wonderful and all, and I treasure each of you DEEPLY, but a cool few million dollars is enough to buy new friends, or have some made in my likeness should I choose to do so, which wouldn't be creepy at all because I'd make them all have different color hair and such.

However, being that I don't even PLAY the lottery anymore, guess you're stuck with me.

2) Birds are fine. Still sticking around. I'm worried that they're not going to be independent enough come vacation time and that we're going to have to 'make arrangements' for them. Or, maybe they're just opportunistic little FREAKS who know a good meal ticket when they taste it and so come chirping around the back door ready to dive-bomb any likely suspect if it's around dawn or dusk (or any time in between when they're around and peckish). They've gotten....tall. Tail feathers are all sticky-outy now, so they're flying a LOT Better. Them babies best watch out though, for this morning I spotted Albert The Cat set himself up on the deck rail just UNDER the bit of roofline the birdines frequent. There was malice in his golden eyes, people, and I would NOT be surprise to find him Cheshire-grinned one day soon, with a mottled brown feather jutting rakishly from one side of his mouth.

3) Saturday will find us doing something I've never done before - CORN GLEANING! Sounds fun, huh? It's only supposed to be a 4-hour stint in a buggy, spidery cornfield stopping between rows to pick up the ears left behind by the combines and they rumble through today's modern farms. Shoot, I had no idea it was even TIME to harvest corn. Seems too early, but this is the south and while time SEEMS to run much more slowly than in other place, in fact it is corn season and the corn will not wait. Corn, as we all know, is an impatient food. Look at how fast it exists after being eaten, for Pete's sake!

After the gleaning I think there will be a nap. Is it sad that I'm already looking forward to that?

4) Otherwise, the groaning coming from under the hood of my car is nothing serious. Phewf on that, eh? Never mind that it might be a worn out motor mount or 8, which might results in the engine just dropping out onto Route 40 at an inopportune moment, it's FINE to drive now the nice young fellow ath the shop tells me. I am SUFFUSED with confidence now! SUFFUSED!

5) Watched 'The Princess Bride' last night (and this morning). Woo! Pit of Despair, Fire Swamp, Cliffs of INCONCEIVABILITY (or whatever), plus dashing derring-do and Manny Patinkin in TIGHTS? Delicious. To say nothing of Christopher Guest, who is sexy in a way that confuses me Of course for the men there's the ethereal Princess Buttercup and enough swordplay to satisfy an entire RennFaire, plus blood! What a fun fun flick, with tons of quotable lines.

Which prompts a QotD: what's your favorite PB line? Mine's "have fun storming the castle!"