I'm surrounded ...

by morons! But this is not news, is it?

Today Single Son came to me, holding his prized coffee mug with gold embossed Star Trek logo "Mom, don't put this mug in the microwave. It was a lightening storm!"

Doih really? Might this be why the microwave makers warn you to not put anything metal (or metal trimmed) in their products? Could be, could be!

Sadder yet, is DIL commented "if it had been varnished it would have been safe" ... they varnish beverage containers? I said "you mean glazed it?" ... "no, varnished". Remind me to never drink (or eat) off their dishes - well, once they FINALLY move out that is.

*****

So, DIL has had a bug up her behind about getting the spare room cleaned for Grandson to sleep in. Well, that bug lasted a day anyway. The last six days or so she's off socializing. Obviously her son sharing their bed (and disrupting her sleep) isn't too high of a priority.

Could it be that my putting my foot down helped squish that bug? LOL .. she wanted to take the many boxes she has stored in there and put them in the family room ... I told her no way, I was not turning the family room into her storage room - or anyone's storage room for that matter. She wasn't happy that I would tell her no. Oh well ...

And I'm pleased to report, there have not been any boxes moved out of the spare room (storage room, junk room, "the black hole", DIL's dumping grounds ... etc). But then, there hasn't been any boxes sorted through lately either.

*****

Not only has there been an increase in Gremlin activity 'round here lately ... dishwasher flooding, toilet overflows, bathroom garbage can toppled, soap (or shampoo) spilled on floor to name but a few ... but I actually busted one little gremlin. Obviously they work in teams.

I was the one who actually caught the little Gremlin playing with the thermostat. Ah-hah!! Busted! Finally! And the rotten little Gremlin had the nerve to transform his appearance so he looked like Grandson - who of course tried to deny his involvement with said activity.

Needless to say after Gramma finished reprimanding him, the Big Bad DIL stepped in and the Gremlin was banished to DIL's room (for multiple "crimes" including lying to the Gramma)

Let's see now if the house stays at a reasonable temperature or if we end up feeling like that turkey does on Thanksgiving Day! In other words, cooked!

*****

Not much else going on, thankfully. Alien still has not had the baby ... but then he's not due to make his appearance for another three weeks. She's bigger than a house. I'm afraid if she sneezes the kid'll pop out.

*****

Ah, well ... I think that's it for now. Need to go to bed early. Single Son and I have a full list of errands we need to get accomplished tomorrow. We start early.

Happy New Year!

For years now I've preferred to celebrate most holidays alone, especially New Year's Eve where I like to reflect on the last year, think about the upcoming year, and think about how and where I feel changes need to be made to make the new year a much better year. Call it a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), LOL.

This year, for the first time since I can remember, I went out for New Years. Not only out, but all the way to Port Huron! Got to spend it not only in my favorite town, but with some really great folks, too - my fellow Trekkies. The out of towners were at a local hotel, where we reserved the conference room for the night.

And the entire event was streamed live over the internet for those unlucky souls who couldn't make it for one reason or the other. A dozen or so on and off all night long. They got to enjoy watching us eat, laugh ... even were privileged to see my big butt on their monitors after I grew accustomed to the cameras and totally forgot they were there (oops).

At midnight, after toasting the New Year in with a glass of non-alcoholic *made in michigan* spumanti (yum!!) we were witness to our "fearless" leader's swearing in as the new Commander of Starfleet. Single Son stood in for our previous Commander, as he had issues with his shuttle and was unable to attend the party.

And I have to say that Single Son did very well with his speech.

After the festivities we headed up to the visitor's hotel room to party a little more. Or more likely, being the geeks we are, we swapped digital photos from each others digital storage cards to our handy laptops.

We left after 2 AM sometime. Single Son and I had an hour and a half drive ahead of us yet. In the pouring rain no less. Hey, the car is clean now!!

He let it slip on the way home that I'm up for a promotion in rank in April. I know, I know ... ya'll are saying "oy, what a geek". Yup, and proud of it, too! So, I'll go from ensign to lieutenant (ya, the one I can't spell without spell-check)!

I also volunteered to help our new Commander with whatever he needs help with. Although I doubt I'll get many "assignments", he's got a full compliment of staff already. LOL. Including Single Son who is his Chief of Operations, third in command. And I'll be helping Single Son with odd jobs, too.

Now I really really have to find a uniform! The next three years (the length of their term) is going to definitely be Star Trek filled, more than I'm used to!

But, a great thing that may come out of all of this is the networking. There's a lot of Starfleet members ... all geeks, but more than a few are highly respected in the business world ... hell, the Scottish First Minister is a Starfleet member! Like I'd ever be so honored to meet the Right Honorable Mr. Alex Salmond but you never know who could be at that next StarFleet get-together.

Single Son giving his speech.

Chief of Operations (Single Son) and the Commander of Starfleet

First Lady and Commander of Starfleet

 

Happy New Year!!!

Merry Christmas (Belated, sorry)

No reason for not blogging, besides being too lazy to do so.

So, I survived Christmas, barely. Alien, her boyfriend, Butterball, Single Son and I were the first to arrive - half an hour early. The Italian Stallion (Cousin Dear's husband) greeted us with a "Thank You" ... not hello. LOL. I guess they'd been arguing because Cousin Dear still had the kitchen floor to wash and to get dressed for the festivities and he kept telling her to just go get dressed, someone MAY show up early. The thank you was because HE won that argument. And he kept reminding her all night that he was right (he's that type, lol).

In all thirty three showed up at Cousin Dear's house. Crowded and noisy, it made the house way too hot for my comfort (and my dad's too). Although I have to admit, the "M" kids were rather well behaved for a change. Made it a bit more tolerable.

Butterball was way too overwhelmed by it all. He's never seen so many people under one roof before. He wasn't happy with the heat either, but taking his shirt off helped him considerably (Dad quipped that he wished he could have stripped down, too, LOL). For me, it was as easy as stepping outside in the cold air to cool off enough (this is the one time that being a smoker banished to the out of doors is a plus ... LOL).

Since there were ten kiddies present this year, Cousin Dear decided that the kiddies would have to be fed first to make room for the adults. It was a good idea in theory, but failed miserably. The kids took over the kitchen table, and seeing that the kids were eating half the adults (the "M"s mostly, figures, eh?) decided it was time to dig in, too. Only problem is, they didn't vacate the dining room table after they finished for the next wave of diners. Ah, well, they did get the hint when four of us showed up with full plates ... lol.

But this was definitely the last time we need to worry about overcrowding. I didn't have much of a chance to talk to Cousin Dear, and Brother Deere didn't say a word to me all evening, but according to the Italian Stallion their feeling is that if one of the "M"s doesn't volunteer for the next holiday (and many many more after that), these two branches of our Family Tree are out of the "soup kitchen" business (as the Stallion put it) once and for all. Besides, he made a good point, even at holidays "they" stick together, they never mingled with Mom's branch or Aunt Silly's branch of the family ... why bother if they can't at least once a year visit with the rest of the family.

So, other than that ... it was a fairly pleasant evening. Ate way too much ... drank more than a few cups of spiked punch ... hehehe ... opened gifts from my folks ...

Click on the picture of Butterball to see the rest of my photos in the photo album ...

I had to laugh ... Mom got Single Son a pop corn popper (and a bag of kernels). He couldn't wait to get home and pop some popcorn. Only problem was, it's been so long since he's had a popcorn popper that he forgot how much to put in the thing ... he put in a half of a cup of kernels - needless to say he's got a few days worth of popcorn out of that first batch! He was in a mad scramble to find enough containers to hold it all!!

Hope ya'll had a Merry Christmas ...

Christmas 2010

Thursday ...

and I can't think of a cutesy blog title. Ah well, there's more on my mind than blog titles.

Christmas. 'Tis the Season ... dysfunctionality at it's finest.

And for once it's not me or my offspring that's causing such a stir ... LOL.

Mom's mad at the "M" cousins, Silly's upset with Cousin Dear and the "M" cousins .. yup, 'tis the season.

Of course, I didn't help by calling Mom to read to her a status update Cousin Dear put on my facebook wall. It read something like "So...I forgot to pass this along...was talking to J, D, and K (aka the "M" cousins)...each family member who has a young child...should bring a present for "their own" child to open Christmas Day at my house....I'm sure Aunt Silly, your mom, and maybe M will do something if they so choose. Please pass this on to Alien and DIL (although I don't know if DIL is coming here)..... So...no buying for anyone but one's own child/children...." Okay, so that was exactly how it read (copy and paste, gotta love it) ... and yes, names were changed to protect the guilty.

So, why are Mom and Silly so pissed off? Because it had been suggested early that the kids do a gift exchange, bring one gift for each child you have (one kid = one gift, two kids = two gifts, etc) ... and the kiddies would swap gifts with their cousins. But of course, no one wanted to do that. So ... the "M" cousins think it's better to bring a gift for your own kid so they can open it there. Hello? How stupid!! The gift starts out at your house, gets opened (maybe parts get lost) and then you have to take it BACK home again? And it's pissed them off because the "M" family once again calls the shots, because they don't want to buy gifts for the other little kids, yet the four adults of the "M" family have never hosted a family holiday meal, they don't bring a dish, don't clean up and don't contribute to the costly holiday dinner hosted elsewhere.

On the other hand, Mom's happy that she doesn't have to buy any more gifts .. in fact she picked one from a dozen or so gifts she'd bought for all the kiddies and will give that to Grandson. Other than that, she'll be taking all the other gifts back to the store as soon as possible.

Mom and Silly are so pissed off that they claim this is the last of the family meals. No more Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners. Well, as long as the "M"s are concerned.

Damned soap opera, I tell you ...

As long as we're on the Christmas Soap Opera box ... soap box, get it ... There is NO tree at my house. I "won" ... or I should say that DIL refused to clean up her mess, got mad at me in the process, and gave up bitching about wanting the tree put up. Funny thing is, she still has her messes to clean up, but now she won't have the reward of seeing the pretty tree up this year.

Funnier yet, is that once they move out, I will be putting up the Christmas tree for all to enjoy during the holiday season.

DIL had been telling Single Son how she's fed up with me not cleaning up the kitchen. He laughed ... told her "but she does clean up, just not after others". Yup, we're back to that ... her not cleaning up after she uses the kitchen (or bathroom, or living room, or ... any room for that matter). I've given her warning that on the Monday after Christmas I will be taking my house back, and that if she has anything important that she wants that's not put away in a safe place she may be at risk of losing it. I've even provided a folder for her for Grandson's school stuff and a place to store it - let's see if she uses it. If not, I don't care if it's important or sentimental or not, it will be thrown away!! I'm tired and I want my home back!!

I did mention something to Married Son about it, and he said, "is that a good idea, Mom, you know that'll tick her off". I told him I know it will but too bad. His response? "Good, maybe it'll make her mad enough to move out". Yup, he's fed up with her crap, too. He's talking about the big D once again ... I wonder if he'll actually go through with it in 2011. Then again, if he does that will mean he won't be moving out of this house any time soon - he'll be yet another divorced kid who moves back in with Mommy. Oh wait, he can't move back in, he's ALREADY here! Damn.

On the bright side, I'm only four years away from being able to move into senior housing.

Dear Santa. It's me again. I know it's last minute, and probably too late for this Christmas but I want to let you know that what I really really really want for Christmas is an empty nest. Maybe this is enough warning so that by next Christmas I can have my wish granted? If you can't grant me an empty nest, can you at least give me a somewhat emptier nest? I think you know which "Birdie" needs to go and which can stay indefinitely. Thank you Santa. P.S. I read where there are certain people who think you're too fat and send a bad example to the children of the world. You're the most generous person I know (next to my folks) and don't deserve the bad wrap because they're narrow minded fat-phobics. Make sure those fools get rotten carrots in their stocking ... they don't even deserve coal!!

Birthday Catsup ...

I mean Catch up ... our modem died late on the 18th, I'm suspecting the Gremlin had something to do with it ... no chance to blog until this evening. Please don't mind the offline blog that I wrote and pasted here. It's late and I'm sleepy, too sleepy to try to write a proper blog. LOL.

December 18, 2010

LOL. I don't know if I'll have time tomorrow to blog, it's the big StarFleet Christmas Party. Seems it's tradition to have it on my birthday anymore. But then, I'm used to my birthday being upstaged by Christmas, lol. Company parties, school parties, church youth group parties, you name it. I'm not bitter, lol, in fact I always thought I was something special by being born so close to Christmas!

You know, when I was growing up, I never realized that Hallmark (or the others) made anything but Christmas paper. My birthday gifts were wrapped in Christmas paper. Brother Deere, born January 5, also had his birthday gifts wrapped in Christmas paper. It wasn't until I was eight, when Little Bro was born on Valentine's Day, that I found out that Hallmark made more than Christmas paper. They also made Valentine's paper! Who knew? Dad was born on the Fourth of July, Mom's birthday occasionally falls on Easter - yeah we're a family of holiday or near holiday babies, LOL ... yet they never had gifts wrapped in birthday paper either ... Mom always had so much extra inventory of Christmas paper that that's all we ever saw gifts wrapped in (besides Valentine's paper)!

Today there's presents to wrap, cookies to bake ... okay, who am I kidding? I'm not baking cookies, I'm cheating by stopping by the bakery on the way to the party tomorrow. Two dozen chocolate chip cookies should cover it. Plus the stuff Single Son said he'd bring ... pop, cups, cheese and crackers and ... and ... oh I hope he remembers what else he said he'd bring.

As long as I'm wrapping gifts for the Trekkie Party, I may as well wrap family gifts, too. It's either that or I'll put it off until literally the last minute.

I'm so relieved that the shopping is done. I picked a great day, too, to go shopping! The one store I went to ended up not only having everything on my list, but everything was marked 50 to 80 percent off - an in-store unadvertised sale! Yes, 80 percent off. Eureka!!

Seeing as part of the shopping today was to buy my own birthday and Christmas gifts (from Mom) I really hit the jackpot!! Blue jeans for ten bucks, and a beautiful sterling silver amethyst and marcasite ring (valued at $90) for $18 and change!! Combine that with the Flylady order, and Mom spent 25% less on my gifts this year. And no, I didn't run around the store trying to spend the rest of the money. Let her enjoy some savings, LOL.

Speaking of running around the store, I'm beat!! Three hours in one store, unheard of for me! But I did search high and low, far and wide (and circled the place a few dozen times) in search of the perfect gift at humongous savings.

Sore as I am now thanks to *someone* wearing the wrong shoes for marathon shopping, and a few too many wayward carts rammed into the back of my heels by people not paying attention to anything but shelves and I can tell you I'm ready for a soak in the bathtub.

And soak I plan on doing, as soon as Alien gets here to pick up some mail and a ring I told her she could have. We both love amethyst (it was my brother's birthstone). I didn't tell her, but the mail is a check from Aunt Silly ... a hundred dollars to help Alien with Christmas for the Butterball. Now how sweet was that? But that's Aunt Silly ... generous and loving.

Well, I was going to post this ... We've lost internet about half way through my writing this. Seems our router just died. I'll post when I can (hopefully it'll come back to life, even if for only a few hours).

Hmmmm, nope, not the router it turns out, but the modem that went poof.

Nope, no such luck. Single Son said there was a small “explosion” followed by a stench. Great. Monday I get to call AT&T and order a new modem. I wonder how long that’ll take?

Until then, I blog offline, I’ll play catch-up with ya’ll when I can.

December 19, 2010

Just got back from the Star Trek Christmas party. Had a great time! We ate way too much delish food, opened presents, had birthday cake and played the game “Apples to Apples” while the *guys* held their end of the year Star Fleet teleconference call.

Our hostess, “L” had mentioned she’d sent me an email early this morning to ask me to bring a deck of cards, which of course I wasn't able to read, when I said that our modem had died she got all wide-eyed “we have three extra modems here, you’re more than welcome to take one home”. Yay!! As I type Single Son is working on swapping out the old, dead modem for the new one. And I mean new. They never used the one they gave us. It’ll be nice to be back online tonight. Hopefully tonight anyway.

You really don’t know how much time you spend online until you can’t get online. Haha.

It looks like I will be going to Port Huron for New Year’s after all. Single Son pretty much has to go for the swearing in of our new Star Fleet Commander, but he won’t be staying too long after midnight. So, knowing that he’s not staying overnight, or that I won’t have to drive the distance at night, I decided to go. A break from my normal tradition of meditation and reflection as the new year comes.  

Thursday

Geesh, here I sit at the computer, staring at the screen ... don't have a single thought popping into my mind at the moment. How sad is that?

Then again, it beats those days where so much has happened I don't know where to start, lol.

I've been helping Alien set up some "Flylady" stuff lately ... chore charts and schedules, routines, cleaning hints and tips. Anything to help her along with her days. One baby is hard enough (if you don't have routines in place) and she'll have a second child soon enough (due mid-January) that she's really going to have her hands full if she can't set schedules and routines.

I have to say I've very proud of her, too. She's trying. Hard. She's even started taking classes offered by both the Department of Human Services (DHS) and Child Protective Services (CPS) in parenting, and home economics. She had to laugh, today the CPS was out to her house for the home economics session, they set up their system a lot like Flylady does. She mentioned that I was helping her with Flylady and the social worker laughed "I love Flylady. Our system is based on hers" ... I think she earned "brownie points" with her social worker!! LOL!

Oh, speaking of Flylady ... LOL ... my Dryer Cleaning kit came in today! Four days since I ordered it! That's impressive, especially this time of year!

Tomorrow I give my dryer a good ... dare I say ... blow job. And for some sad reason, I'm looking forward to it. Pathetic.

I still haven't been out to finish Mom's holiday shopping list. I know what I want to get everyone, I just haven't had a car available to me. Well, that's not quite true, I have the car, it's sitting in my driveway. It won't start. Seems someone (ah hum) let the gas tank get too low and with that bad snow storm last week, the little gas that was in it froze in the gas line. I know better. I really do!! But I did it anyway. I still haven't been able to get someone to bring me a can of gas ... so I bug them (Married Son, and DIL) to bring me one or two items that I need while they're out - including gasoline. Do they bring me things? No!! "Oh, sorry Mom, I forgot" ... Married Son had asked me to wash something for him ... you know me well enough to know what I did!! Or didn't do. "Oh, Sorry Son, I forgot". And I'll keep forgetting until someone remembers to bring me some freaking gas!

But one way or the other, it has to be taken care of before Sunday! That's the annual Star Trek Christmas Party. And Single Son and I are going. Which means I need my car.

Off now ... I'm going through some serious Hyacinth Bucket withdrawal (Keeping Up Appearances) ... time to pull out the dvds and get my fix!!