Five Years

November 30th.

Five years to the day since my Mother departed this goodly earth.

The Man and I went to Mom's grave today...just because I had to. It's something I need to do every so often.

We've had a lot of snow lately, as you can see. I had to dig to find the stone - and even then, I found it iced over. Not that her stone reveals any great truths to me or anything...I just wanted to see it...see her name. Sadly, I couldn't get all the ice off it as I only had my keys to work with, and I feared scratching the marble surface.





I guess it was about five years ago today that I started despising Christmas. The yuletide season was always my mother's favourite. She wanted the tree up, the lights on the house and garland on the banisters the minute the jack-o-lantern was gone.

It seems strange that this time of 'giving and generosity' took from me one of the best things in my life.

Christmas sucks.

So does cancer.

I miss you, Mom.

Hello, My Name Is...

I was informed yesterday that a friend of a friend of mine recently gave birth to a baby girl (as opposed to a litter of puppies....which wouldn't have shocked me as much as one would think)

She and her husband named the child ~ahem~ Madagascar Delaray. Anyone else want to help me beat these people to death with a garden weasel? And yes, Delaray is the middle name - not the surname. To protect the idiotic, I will leave that out....for now.

I realize that people want their child to be unique. Giving them a name like that isn't going to make them unique, it's going to make them a freakin' target! I think they should take the poor little thing right now and get a nice white and red ringed tattoo put on her forehead.

Names, I know, come and go with time. Not a lot of Berthas, Ednas, Agathas or Hazels running around these days. I believe that is because most of them are in the nursing home.

Nowadays, we are inundated with Tiffanys, Cheyennes, Ambers, Caitlins, Ashleys, Ariels, Courtneys, Whitneys...and all of the many, many spellings thereof.

And speaking of spelling - why is it that names traditionally spelled with y's are suddenly all ending in i's?

Kathi, Nanci, Judi, Kerri, Juli....this is absurd! Next thing you know it will be: "Hi, my name is Heatheri...the i is silent."

I'm not even going to go into the names celebrities give their offspring - although Gwyneth Paltrow, lovely thing that she is (with a great name, too) should be drawn and quartered for naming her daughter Apple and her son Moses. If she and her husband had any brains or biblical knowledge, they should have named their son Adam...that would have at least been funny instead of just moronic. Apple, indeed. What's next? "...and these are my children, Baklava, Parfait, and the twins, Peanut-Butter and Jelly"??

Shakespeare wrote: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet."

Obviously, Shakespeare didn't have to deal with the names of today - because most of the trendy, cutesy names out there just plain stink.

Madagascar...

Ugh.

Blech

Ugh.

I'm sick.

I've been fighting a bug for a few days now...telling myself it's just a cold and not to be such a big baby.

Now I have a fever.

I feel dizzy and I'm hearing voices...although they don't speak English, so I can't be sure what they're saying.

Everything tastes like glue, and my tongue feels like it's wearing a sweater.

~sniffle~

I hate feeling like this.

Anyone want to make me soup?

The Purse-moot of Happiness

Okay, so obviously I have a hang-up with my key chain.

Many of you have emailed me or messaged me to tell me that I do, indeed have a problem and that I should seek help.

One kind soul was brave enough to suggest that the problem may lie deeper than my key rings, and that I should perhaps look to my purse.

Oh god...

My purse (or, the black hole as The Man calls it) is a frightening thing. It holds more mysteries than a Masonic Temple ledger. Not secrets of wisdom and wonder, but more along the lines of 'what the bloody hell is that doing in here?'

So, it is with more than a little trepidation that I present to you, my friends and readers of this nonsense, the contents of said accoutrement.

First, the bag itself:



Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Simple black leather.

Now...the hard part.

The contents:




Wow! Where do I begin here...

Well, let's do it this way:

Here is what any functional, right-thinking woman would carry in her purse (give or take maybe two or three sundry items)



Wallet, glasses, hair brush, lipstick case (2 lipstick), perfume, calculator, compact mirror, address book, sunglasses, parking change (that's the small velvet bag). You will note that I do not have a cell phone. Don't ask why...trust me.

These are the items that should be in my purse - and they are. Along with all this other crap...



All right...let's see here...um...

One hair band, one barrette, three hair elastics
Eight more lipsticks, three lip liners, one eyebrow pencil, one tube of highlighter cream, one tube of mascara, one lip gloss
Two bottles of perfume
One bottle of hairspray
A jar of assorted D&D dice (never know when you may need 2 d12)
One bottle of black shoe polish
One pair of scissors
A glue stick
Two CD's (I've been wondering where that Refreshments CD was!)
One deck of cards
Three ball-point pens - two blue, one green
One paperback novel - Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins (excellent book, btw)
One worry stone
Two double A batteries
A large, pointy screw (ah...shaddap!)
One roll of cellophane tape
An acorn (I have no idea...)
Three more packs of gum
Two butane lighters
One pack of matches
A flask (doesn't everyone carry a flask?)
One bottle of silver sparkle nail polish
Two more pair of sunglasses
A pack of shoelaces
Four bottles of medication (actually, they probably belong in the necessities group)
A packet of DayQuil cold medication
Two more key chains - woo hoo!
One wine bottle cork (honestly, officer...I haven't the slightest idea how that got there)
One Japanese good luck coin
One container of hand cream
One toothbrush
One spool of dental floss
One pair of gold earrings (I've been looking for those, too)
One silver heart necklace

Yikes.

My purse is now much lighter - and much emptier.
But I feel better...

The Keys to My Undoing

I dropped my keys this afternoon.

I think I broke my toe.

Seriously.

If there is such a thing as a contest for the most crap on a keyring, I believe I could be a contender. It's ridiculous, I tell you. The fact that I can still manage to lose my keys is baffling to me...

I have all of nine keys...that's it. The rest of this conglomeration is assorted junk.

Red baubles, The Horde symbol, a fob from the local radio station (I used to work for them), lip gloss, a brass egg, a jar of sand from Cuba, a glow-in-the-dark spiky ball, a War-Amps tag....

There must be some kind of therapy for this.

Redundant (see: Redundant)

Redundancies annoy me.

Here are a few that I have seen recently while perusing the net:


Total Abstinence

Subject Matter

Honest Truth (no, really!)

Join Together

General Public

Harbinger of Things To Come

New Initiative

Audible Gasp (because a silent gasp is just a breath)

Advance Warning

Execution-Style Killing

Future Plans

Gather Together

Jewish Synagogue (as opposed to what, exactly?)

Lag Behind

Manual Dexterity

Occasional Irregularity (don't give me that crap)

Basic Fundamentals

First Time Ever

Shrug One's Shoulders (what else are you gonna shrug...hmmm?)

And then...then there is Redundancy in action!

Behold and be amazed.

To Be or Not

Below you will find a clip from the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. This is possibly my favourite movie of all time. I know many of you are not Shakespeare fans - but you don't have to be to appreciate the simple genius of the words spoken.

This particular clip is a parody on Hamlet's 'To Be or Not To Be' soliloquy...only it is far better in my opinion.

If you haven't seen the movie - do yourself a favor. It is incredibly funny, intelligent, and has a phenomenal cast including Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss.




"Whatever became of the moment when one
first knew about death?
There must have been one - a moment.
As a child; when it first occurred to you
that you don’t go on forever.
It must have been shattering...
stamped into one’s memory -
and yet, I can’t remember it.
It never occurred to me at all.

We must be born with an intuition of mortality -
before we know the word for it.
Before we know that there are words...
Out we come, bloodied and squalling;
with the knowledge that for all
the points on the compass, there is only one direction -
and time is its only measure."