In a rare moment of good taste, I managed somehow to blacklist myself from commenting on my own website. The tech-support also known as my dear husband, sighed, “Only you could get banned from your own site.” It might seem that he’d be annoyed with me, but truth be told, he finds my incompetence to be cute and girlish. Moreover, he finds all the weird shit I do to screw up the website both mysterious and strangely alluring. Intrigue is what our marriage is all about. I like to keep him guessing all the time. “What the hell did you do to your site?”

“I don’t know. Take a guess.” See how it works? He loves it.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Oh, I do have one more thing to share with you. It’s loosely related, but not related enough for me to make a smooth literary transition into it. Hence the colon, which should be your signal that I’ve given up: Anytime you see the colon, I have given up: Here I go again:

Have you ever lost something really important? You look through your pockets. Nothing. You pour out your purse. Nada. You panic. You freak out a little. You imagine repercussions. You comfort yourself by saying things to yourself like, “Well, you know they say Einstein was absent-minded.” Then you answer yourself back with, “Yeah, but Einstein wrote that theory of relativity. How does your life stack up next to that? Uh-huh. I thought that would shut you up. So, where were we? Ah, I remember now, we were talking about you being a dumbass.” You beat yourself up a bit more after that for good measure. Then, the next day, you find out you didn’t lose the thing you thought you lost, because you had never even been given it in the first place? Meaning not only that you are living in your own little world but that the alternate universe you’ve created is so painfully mundane that you have to lose a key to shake things up a bit. How sad is that shit?

So, let’s just say, this happened to someone close to me - a close friend, may haps. Would you say this person needed electroshock therapy or ginkgo biloba, or both?

Well, we just got back from Cedar Point. A couple of days ago. I know, I know, I’m slow to blog, but I found myself ass-deep in laundry when I got back and also had to catch up on a lot of yardwork and grocery shopping and watching television. Not necessarily in that order.

We stayed at a place called Castaway Bay. They have an indoor water park. Big hot tub, wave pool, water slides — and all of it nestled safely indoors so that I could better maintain that ghostly palor my husband so adores. The only downside to this particular hotel was the maid service we got, or more accurately, didn’t get. Even when I left a friendly note requesting a linen change, the maid didn’t change the sheets. Two notes and three days later, I grabbed some clean linens off a service cart and changed them myself. The next day when the maid came in to half-assedly clean and to NOT change the sheets, she left the dirty ones on the floor, assuming, I guess, that they belonged to us. Heh, heh, heh.

Overall, the trip was good. Percentage wise, it would round out like this:

33% of the trip was spent sleeping (on questionably clean linens).

1% percent was spent with me wondering aloud exactly why that particular maid hated me and what I had ever done to her.

12% of the trip was spent driving to and from Ohio.

24% of the trip was spent swimming or relaxing in the indoor water park.

12% of the trip was spent eating.

17% was spent riding some mind-blowing coasters.

That’s only 99%. The other one percent is time we all spent trying to grasp why such a relatively small town had such an endless supply of pizza. It would be an understatement to say they like their pizza in Sandusky, Ohio.

Pizza was readily available in the hotel from three different sources. One of the two Mexican restaurants we visited had a pizza section on the menu. Six different pizza choices on a Mexican food menu. The “German” restaurant that was actually in the park had pizza. Shitting you, I am not. We didn’t actually go in there; they advertised it proudly on the sign. Maybe they had Wiederschnitzel pizza. I dunno. Anyway, I can’t even tell you how many Italian eateries and pizza parlors we saw during our stay. Basically, if you throw a stone in Sandusky, you’re gonna hit one of three things: a pizza joint, a roller-coaster, or another pizza place. Did I mention that you can get pizza there? ‘Cause you so totally can!!!

PS - The Top Thrill dragster was awe inspiring. Many bugs were harmed. I found them all on my white shirt after the ride was over. The front car is good fun ’cause ain’t nothing blocking your view of the 420 feet below you as you topple over the the arch at 120 mph., but maybe wear a garbage bag over your clothing. Wearing bug goggles and a bra on your head are, as always, optional.

PPS - The indoor water park made my kid VERY happy. We’ve decided that she’s basically a ninety pound fish of some sort. I don’t know what kind. What kind of fish lives on chicken nuggets and spaghetti and listens incessantly to annoying hip-hop and rap music?

Have you ever been behind one of those people who consistently drive 10-20 mph under the speed limit and wondered to yourself, “How does this person ever get anywhere?” Sure you have - ’cause you’re all philosophical like that.

I am too. I get especially philosophical when I’m rushing somewhere and I’m behind two people who not only drive slowly but insist on driving side by side like their frickin’ cars just got engaged to be married. What’s more, I have a theory about this very subject. It’s a little sketchy, but bear with me, I just might be onto something. Even the crackiest of crackpots is right every now and then.

I’ve thought about this long and hard and the best I can come up with is that maybe they really don’t get anywhere. Ever. They spend their lives in their cars, stuck in a self-perpetuated loop between one destination and another.

Diary of a Slow-Assed Driver (Spoken into a tape recorder.)

Wednesday, July 13, 2005
6:00 a.m. - Still on the road. I’m only ten miles away from work. I’m hoping I can get there today if I hurry. Uh-oh. There’s a green light. Better slow down.

3:00 p.m. - Stopped for a quick bite and for gasoline. It’s a good thing the wife keeps paying the credit card bills or I’d be dead on the highway by now. Still not at work. Only five miles to go.

6:30 p.m. - Got to work late again. It’s closed. Going home.

5:30 a.m. - I can see my house. But, shit! It’s five thirty. I gotta get to work. I can’t be late today, since I didn’t show up yesterday. Or the day before. Or the day before that. Nope. Better keep driving. I’ll just call Helen and the kids later and explain that I’m fine….

Disclaimer: The previous account was fictional. However, any resemblance to persons living or dead is completely intentional and not purely coincidental in the least. These people are out there. Furthermore, they need to get out of the way.

When I order a couple of pizzas and Michael asks me how much it costs, no matter what the price is, I always round up to about $35.00. Then he says, “Oh my God! That’s outrageous!” and generally has a fit. Thirty minutes later, when the pizza arrives and the delivery person says, “$26.00,” my poor sap of a husband feels the relief of getting a reprieve from the governor - even though he just spent $26.00 on dough and sauce.

It’s the little things that make a marriage last. Learn from me, young padawans.

If you ask me today why I’m a vegetarian, I will likely tell you that it’s mostly for environmental reasons, and that’s mostly true. But, it’s not the whole story. A big part of the reason I don’t eat animals anymore is that I’ve already tried them all.

When I was a kid, my family ate more exotic fare than just cows and chickens. And dinner time was more than just a meal - it was the precious time where my parents sowed the seeds for my future in therapy.

See, my father hunted. Bunnies and squirrels and frogs and deer - all manner of fierce creatures with razor sharp teeth and cute furry tails. It was them or him. He’d cut them up on the kitchen table with the same dirty knife he’d use to groom his fingernails.

Then, Mom would cook them up, and we’d eat them. Involuntarily.

My sister and I would have paid you to invite us to dinner at your house. Whatever you were having was OK by us. Hamburger Helper? We’d kiss your Mom’s feet.

Not that we never got Hamburger Helper at our house. We did. We loved it, too, because we had never met the cow before it reached our plates. The squirrels and rabbits, we weren’t so sure about.

Dad would shoot pretty much anything that had the nerve to scamper onto the property. My sister and I had to be careful when we wore our little faux fur coats. “Dad, wait! It’s me - Debbie! See? I’m taking down the hood…Moooom, Dad tried to shoot me again!”

But, that’s not the worst.

Let me see here. I started to say the worst was when Dad brought home the cow tongue from the local grocer and Mom boiled it. The smell permeated everything in the house, and that was pretty frickin’ bad.

But, that wasn’t really the worst, because Mom decided that nobody should have to eat that. She was right. Say whatever bullshit you want about the starving kids who’d be happy to have it, but I think even they might have to draw the line at the boiled cow tongue. Personally, I could go a lot of days without eating before I’d even venture to touch it with a stick.

But, the really really worst was Dad’s phase where he deemed that he should be the one to do the cooking.

Armed only with a set of Ginsu knives, a cooking bag, and a Justin Wilson cookbook, he stepped boldly into the world of culinary arts. The world of culinary arts trembled before him, and his own children prayed nightly for his untimely demise.

How many recipes could good ol’ Justin Wilson come up with that call for both a shitload of cooking wine and an ungodly amount of cayenne pepper? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

I never thought chicken was such a bad meal until I consumed several who tasted as if they might well have died of alcohol poisoning while pursuing some ill-fated fraternity dare.

Dad would put the poor chicken in a bag with two quarts of booze and three heaping tablespoons of red pepper and then cook it up for our eating pleasure. Even though the bird would already be dead at this point, you’d swear if you listened long enough that you could hear the fucking thing hiccup. “Dad, I think your friend there has had quite enough to drink. Give him a cup of coffee, and don’t let him drive.”

So, why am I telling you all of this now - more than twenty years after the fact and much too late for you to call child protective services to have me put in a nice foster home? Well, because Justin Wilson was evil, and Ginsu knives weren’t all they were cracked up to be, and sometimes a person just needs to get these things off her chest.

There. I’m feeling much better now.

How are you?