Free Manure!

The other day I was driving down the road, and I’ve got to say, I was feeling pretty down. Then I saw this sign that said “Free Manure.” Well, damn! Finally there’s something that really is free and I don’t need any of it. That’s just another irony in the bullshit of life! But then, I thought, Wait a minute, angry person . . . Maybe that’s a protest sign. Yeah, “Free Manure!” Manure deserves to be free after all these years of being bagged up, churned under, or just left for stinking dead. Or maybe somebody named their kid “Manure” and for some odd reason things didn’t go right for that kid and now he or she is sitting around in prison and the proud parents have decided that kid should be free!

Anyway, I was just on my way to the grocery but I’ve got to say if you believe in all that is good and holy, “Free Manure!”

A Few Commercials and Why they Eat at Me:

Dr. Tenlan, that doctor for Restasis, the prescription eye drops for dry eyes: I’m sure she’s a very nice person/alien (the other planet type), but I’ve seen lizards that blink more than she does and whose eyes are closer together for that matter. (Not to mention her Stephen Hawking delivery.) No wonder she has dry eyes! She assumed an earthly form but skipped human facial expressions training. Hint Dr. Tenlan: If you blinked more than once a day, your eyes might naturally lubricate.

The woman who comes over with her entire family to her elderly mother’s house for lasagna every Sunday: One Sunday she and her brood arrive at Mom’s only to find that Mom isn’t in the kitchen cooking away, but taking it easy in the den. “Mom, it’s Sunday!” she whines, automatically assuming that the octogenarian has Alzheimer’s. "I knew then that it was time to call the doctor," she opines. Maybe the poor woman is tired of making dinner for you every Sunday. Maybe she’s sick of lasagna. Maybe it's time for you to get off of your lazy, fat butt and make her something to eat or take her out for gosh sakes!

The young female (who is also a doctor) who rattles off the entire pharmaceutical info/warning sheet for Yasmine (a birth control pill) to her friends at a bar: First of all just the name Yasmine for something that’s going to make you gain 20 pounds of water weight and break you out worse than when you were 12, effectively preventing pregnancy due to enforced abstinence, just ticks me off! Yasmine. She’d be wearing her pretty little martini way before she finished that dialog.

Those cervical cancer immunizations commercials in which a slew of supposedly caring mothers announce that they’re having their pre-pubescent daughters immunized: With a shot that has never been tried, that no one knows what the long-term effects might be, and that the voiceover reminds doesn’t cure all kinds of cervical cancer. Thanks Mom!

Gross miscasting because someone must have known someone (wink, wink): One commercial has the daughter rolling her eyes and saying, “I always get grounded.” The mother counters that the daughter will lose that sassiness when she’s on her own. Let’s hope that’s soon, because the “teenager” is about 35-years-old! (About the same age as the klutz that played Liam Neeson’s daughter on the movie “Taken. She was not a day younger than 27, playing a 19-year-old that acted like a 12-year-old with the mental capacity of a four-year-old. I kept hoping Liam wouldn’t get there in time to rescue her from the white slave traffickers but I think they were pretty well fed-up with her and death was their preferred option.

Why do I even bother with critiquing these ridiculous gaffes? Because people other than me are getting paid really good money to come up with things like an animated set of lips with legs that asks questions of an animated, and poorly drawn ear that only answers, “No.”

Oh well.

Monday 'Til Midnight

I’ve heard all the admonitions about hating Mondays—that’s a seventh of your week; thank God it’s Monday, yada, yada, yada. But these people must be writing Chicken Soup for the Soul entries and sipping mint juleps all day. Mondays stink and I try to lay low and survive the 24 hours until Tuesday. I could try going to bed early but since I’m a night person, I’d just be spending the time staring at the ceiling.

Jack calls and tells me that he woke up with a black eye. Not guilty! What the heck! We haven’t figured that one out yet, but even though I’m up way after he goes to bed, beating the sleeping isn’t one of my activities. I’m too busy doing things like chasing bullfrogs.

Yes, every night between midnight and 1 a. m. the dogs and I go out to the pool to remove a giant frog from his nightly swim. Bear especially loves to run around the pool chasing the frog’s underwater path and usually blocking my attempts to catch him in my net. The frog seems to enjoy the whole thing. In fact, if he isn’t in the pool when we come out, he suddenly emerges from the monkey grass, jumps right past us, jumps in and swims around a bit. He then compliantly lets me lift him out after a few laps. (He has to be removed because the chlorine isn’t good for him and sometimes the frogs can’t get out and eventually drown.) This one seems to be an old pro, but I don’t want to take any chances. Besides, it’s a ritual for my two canines who jump up and run for the door when I ask, “Want to go see the frog?”

After deliberations with dogs over continually begging for treats, running through the house, and fighting with one another, I finally sat down to watch a bit of television. Yeah right. The rest of the evening was spent on HazMat cleanup duty that led me to leave this note for Jack:

Sweetie:
One of the dogs threw up—a lot—and Bear was eating it. I had to spray him with the bad dog water spray to get him away from it and put the vacuum over the spot after cleaning it because he was still licking the carpet. Very, very gross!

XXOO,
Me

P. S. How’s that for a love note?

Thank God it’s Tuesday.

I'm Baaack . . . I Think

Over the past few months I’ve put my brain into even more of a self-imposed state of hibernation than usual due to a series of events including :

A fraudulent accusation by a nutcase accusing my son of purposefully kicking the back of her chair in a theater when he crossed his legs. She wanted him charged with assault! The kid’s never even been in a fist fight. The accuser and her husband were on police blotters, had aliases, but we couldn’t bring that up because she was the “victim.” I think they thought we’d give them a call and make an offer to make it go away, but we had nothing to offer. No telling how many innocent victims she’s had and probably continues to have. Never being in the courts for my entire family’s history, I learned that anyone can make any accusation and no matter how outrageous, the accused pays for the entire debacle. In England the accuser pays if the case is deemed ridiculous—as it was—but not in good old America! In short, we endured a several months long nightmare, or should I say daymare, because I barely slept through the entire ordeal. Case dismissed, but legal fees and moving him to another location because these people know where he lives (another courtesy of the court)—very pricey.

Moses, my 14-year-old pug and my little baby: we had to have him put to rest after months of trying to address with pharmaceuticals what may have been sinus cancer. The tests and the operations were just too cruel at his age so I gave it a try. It was rough going, so I finally had to make the call. After years of having that heavy little fire hydrant command my sleep position, I actually thought I’d sleep better even after all the grief, but so far I still can’t get quite as comfortable without his pudgy little body against me. Can there be too much flexibility freedom?


Bills without billables. The year for this freelancer has been a bit meager which means I spend my time looking for work or completing the little work that I find. I’m very tired of the whole shebang, but sort of stuck in a rut. Anyone know of a company that will hire geezers?


I have to have outpatient surgery. What a hassle! Nobody hates hospitals and medical procedures like I do, but hey, guess I better go while I can. I understand that soon I’ll be categorized as not worth resuscitating. Are they going to put that on the driver’s licenses along with the donor status? NWR!


Okay, so kvetch, kvetch, kvetch. My sense of humor may eventually make a comeback, but right now it’s in slo-mo. I’ve missed my little blogging habit though. It’s an outlet, so I’m plugging back in and hoping my generator will recharge.