Tim Tebow.

First off, let me say I'm not a football fan.  Not even a little bit.  I've never understood the fascination with it all but hey, to each their own.  That said, living in central Flaaaaahda, I know who Tim Tebow is because, you know, he's Flaaaaahda's next thing to Jesus.  While I'd personally not go that far, he seems like a decent enough guy and that's sort of a refreshing change from some we hear about in sports. 

I'm sure most everyone has heard of the whole controversy about Tim's Superbowl ad and I admit, I'm fascinated by it all.  If you aren't familiar with the story,  here you go.

Here are my thoughts on the whole thing...do you agree?  Disagree?  I'm nosy.
 1.  Any person and any organization, no exceptions, should be allowed to request the purchase of airtime on any network.

2.  That network should be allowed to decide what they want to run as long as it fits into FCC requirements.  After all, it's their network.

3.  Who cares?  I mean, seriously, if you're pro-choice, do you really consider Tim Tebow to be a threat?  Do you have no higher opinion of our female population's decision-making skills than this?  Do you really think he's going to sway women into choosing not to abort, simply because he's Tim Tebow? And if some do chose to (not) do so after seeing his ad, what's the problem?  Isn't lowering abortion rates a good thing on both sides, in general? It's not exactly something anyone wants to encourage, is it?

4.  Anyone and I mean *any reasonable person who would be swayed in such an important, personal opinion by a TV ad featuring a college football player probably isn't someone with an intelligence level either side of the debate wants to claim.  God can't sway you, values and beliefs your folks taught you didn't phase you, your own intelligence and common sense didn't cause you to know how you feel about it all, but Tim Tebow can make a difference in how you feel about abortion?  Yeaaaaaah, you ought not be breeding anyway so if you do, consider adoption. 

I say that commercial should air and good for Tim for having the conviction to say how he feels so publically.  That *is setting a good example - own your beliefs, whatever they may be.  I'll watch the ad and cheer Tim on.  I have no issues in the world with it.  Hey, it's a better example for our kids of how to stand up for our beliefs, whatever they may be, than another godaddy.com ad.

Oh, and I'm pro-choice...vehemently so.  Go figure.

"I Ran" by A Flock Of Seagulls.

The minute I signed up for that nablopomo.com thing, I shut down.  I had nothing to say.  I avoided my blog.  It became a relationship and I fought the urge for a bit, but then I ran away.  So, I own it...I don't do commitments well.  Okay?  See the title up there? It's also the ringtone on my phone. 

And I ran, I ran so far away
I just ran, I ran all night and day
I couldn't get away

I'm back.  Break out the mashed potatoes and rum, let's all settle back into our recliners and see what happens.

Bad news:  My washer has been leaking like a sieve for the last 2 weeks.
Good news:  I figured out if I use cold water only, it doesn't leak.  That means it's a simple fix of the hot water hose.
Bad news:  $1 says I'm still using only cold water a year from now.

Bad news:  All my Christmas stuff is still up.
Good news:  I'm not the only one on my street.
Bad news:  I still have to take it down.

Bad news:  A good friend's 90+ year old father is "non-responsive" (doesn't that mean comatose??) from kidney failure and a possible massive stroke.
Good news:  He's old and has Alzheimer's.  Whatever happens, he won't remember it.
Bad news:  She asked me to pray that it's "only kidney failure, since that is fixable".  Uh, jeeeeez, trying to prolong the agony for the poor old guy as long as you can?   No, thanks.  I'll pray he finds peace.  It's the best I can do.

Bad news:  My house stinks.
Good news:  We had shrimp for dinner and I got enough to snack on for a day or so, too. 3 pounds total and yes, we love shrimp. I made a broth with the shells.
Bad news:  I have no idea what to do with the shrimp broth.

That's about it...I know everyone is staggered with the excitement.
Calm down.

My best fuck-up in many years.

In keeping with the best theme, which is going to get old quickly, please allow me to present you with my best fuck-up in years...maybe ever.  It happened Wednesday and trust me, no matter how bad your shit might be right now, you'll read this and think "Okay, mine's bad but that might have been a little worse.  Or at least equally as bad as mine."  At least I think you will and I think you might feel a little better about your own life.  That's my hope, anyway.  Also, we may as well call this another one of my "really keeping it real" posts, much like my trashy house was because I've got a gut feeling I might be one of the only people in blogland to not only own up to this kind of stupidity, but show the results of it.  Ready?

Backstory:  I HATE my own financial matters and suck at them...always have, always will, I'm afraid.  Well maybe not now, but we'll see on that.  Give me the finances of a business to handle and I'm aces, even my own businesses.  Let me take care of yours and I'll do a top-notch job.  My own.  It's bad.  Really bad.   Bills, banking stuff, investments?  Hate them.  As a result, I've had utilities shut off more than once, not because I didn't have the money...oh, no.  Because I get my mail while in my car, so I tend to shove everything between catalog and magazine pages, then toss it in the backseat of my car where it emerges again only when I'm expecting company and I clean my car.  This is my normal filing system except for important stuff like tax notices, insurance crap, investment stuff...those make it into the house and get shoved in a filing cabinet, unopened.  Seriously.  Checking account statements?  Get shredded and trashed without even being opened because I check my checking account balance online every few days to see what I have in there.  Over time, I have put all of  my utility bills on autopay, which is a real blessing for someone like me.  And I set up overdraft protection with another account so I don't even have to keep track of when those get pulled from checking.  This, folks, is the extent of my ability to mind my own finances.  How's that for some honesty?  So, a little more backstory, I don't have a mortgage on my house, which means I have to pay my property taxes and insurance myself.  Insurance is on autopay...yay.  Property taxes can't be.  Years ago, well, 6 exactly, Miss Arse told me to just give her my tax bill when it comes in and she'll pay it when she pays hers.  That's not as generous as it sounds since we share one specific account so it was my money paying it but she would handle it and she's pretty good with this stuff for an old bird.  So, twice I dropped my tax bill on her table...two years.  Then I get served papers that my taxes are delinquent by 2 years.  The hell?  I go to her and she swears up and down she never told me any such thing.  She doesn't lie and she's not senile so it had to have been some really awful misunderstanding...I trudge up and pay my taxes.  In an effort to prevent this from *ever happening again, I tell her we need to turn over anything that says "tax" on it, be it federal or county, to the CPA who handles some other stuff for us.  Just pay him to take care of it all.  She agrees.  I take my stuff to him and she says she will soon.  He tells me he's going to semi-retire and so one of his employees will be handling my stuff, something I totally understand since I'm pretty peon-y in the financial world.  He assures me things will be monitored and he'll alert me/us to any issues.  We set up a deal where I autopay into an account quarterly for my property taxes and a couple of other things. Cool. That's how I like it...no muss, no fuss, let the professional keep me from muddling it all up and at a reasonable cost, comparatively speaking.  So, for the last 4 years, I get my property tax bill, drop it off at his office and go on my merry way.  Here's where I need to admit one *huge mistake I made in all this.  Because really, I'm not blameless in this story.  I never opened those tax bills.  Ever.  Like I said, I hate this shit and I'm paying someone to do it all so why should I?  Well, I know why I *should now, but that was my reasoning. 

Cut to day before yesterday, Wednesday.  It's 1pm-ish, I'm still in my PJs, farming away and there's a knock on the door.  Now, I never answer the door if I am not expecting anyone and particularly to people I don't know.  I peek and see a young woman standing there, back to my window.  I ignore her, even though I know she can see my car and that I have a TV on.  She knocks again and I ignore her.  She knocks a third time and something tells me to answer it.  I do, all  pissy-ish, and am immediately thrown off by her face.  She's *so damn sweet and kind looking that, I kid you not, my first thought was that she looked like a Renaissance angel.  In my confusion, I was nice to her.  She stutters about how awkward this is and then tells me that she and her dad have been driving the neighborhood with a list of homes getting ready to be auctioned Thursday for delinquent taxes.  Okay.  She then asks if I know my home is on that list.  Silence.  I mean, I literally said nothing but my face must have shown my shock.  She takes my hand, asks if I'm okay and explains that she just felt drawn to stop and check with me, that when she saw my house it just didn't look like the home of someone in that kind of situation.  I finally get the words out that I didn't know, somehow stuttered a thank you and closed the door on her.  And then I freaked.  I mean, I came unglued.  I first called the tax collector's office to confirm this and yes indeed, the deadline to pay was 4 hours away and they gave me a total. I gagged.  I mean, I have no credit cards and I know I can't liquidate anything that fast...at least I don't think so.  I call Miss Arse, screaming.  Literally screaming.  Now, those who know me well know that I've lost total control of myself maybe twice in my life.  It's just something I don't do.  But I did then.  I mean, this is my *home.   She calms me some and I start to think that hmmmm, unless the CPA embezzled my money, it ought to all still be right there in that account where it's being put quarterly.  I call the bank and there it is, minus the huge amount of penalties, fees, advertising costs, legal fees, etc. that is now tacked on.  For four years.  Yes...FOUR years. They just never paid my taxes and no one ever told me. Well, except the county probably did tell me in those unopened envelopes I was dropping off.  *sighs*  See, I told you this was my fault.  I called the CPA, had to leave a message and figured I'd deal with them later.  So, I'm now down to three and a half  hours to save my house, unshowered for the second day and now literally sick to my stomach and vomiting.  I head for the bank where, with the help of some lovely ladies who understood the urgency (God, I love Wachovia, even before this deal), I head off to the tax collector's office with about an two hours left.  You know, TO SAVE MY HOUSE.  All because I can't get my shit together well enough to be a grown up and handle my own bills and finances properly.

Now, so that the lesson of my failure really sinks in with you all, would you like to see what this little unexpected...adventure...cost me yesterday?  Because really, this is going to impact how we live for awhile and so much of it could have been avoided had I just, oh, you know...opened my mail.

Here.  Click to enlarge it, then bask in the fact it wasn't you.
.

Don't you feel better about your own crap now?
I live to serve.

PS:  Miss Arse's house taxes were fine.  She never got around to taking her stuff to the CPA and has just been doing hers herself.  Ughhhh.

Well, whatever.

So, a couple of days into this blogging every day thing, I missed a day.  I suck. I own it.  Let's move on.
I mean, it's like a diet, right?  If you cheat, you're supposed to pick it right back up where you left off and that's what I'm going to do now.  I own my failure and will move on.  *twisty-butted*

The last couple of days have been interesting and since I love a good list or two, I'll list the best and the worst.  Let's hope they balance out.

Best:
1.  Florida is experiencing record cold and I love it!  My thermometers are reading 34 and 35, respectively.  And yes, thermometers...plural.  I'm a weather freak.  I have an electronic weather station with monitors placed around my house and yard.  At any given moment, I can tell you the humidity over by my twin palms or on my carport.  Take your pick.  I also like to monitor barometric pressure from time to time.  I love my weather station.  That said, I don't trust my weather station since batteries can fail.  As a result, I've got a $2.50 thermometer attached to a white resin patio chair that I drag to my sliding glass door when anything interesting is going on, like now.  It's a ni...um...jerry-rigged setup that, along with a coffee can partially buried in the ground, serves me well for extremes in temperature and rain.  We'll see the 20's tonight and lower tomorrow.  Love. It.

2.  My house makes the "best" list.  I have no heat in here other than some space heaters and, as of right now, 2:30 am, one big and one small one are holding the living room and my office at 64 degrees because of the way this place is built and the new windows I had put in when  I bought it.  Not too shabby.  Our bedrooms are colder since we don't run space heaters in there.  We just shut them off and bundle up for bed...it makes for great sleeping!  It's too cold for the fur babies, though, especially since two are old ladies and I turn the big space heater off at night.  I've spread  fuzzy blankets and throws on the couch and loveseat and they're all nesting into the fuzzy goodness together.  I di'nt raise no dumb felines.  Or boys.  But that's a different story.

3.  We've been sipping on a huge batch of pumpkin curry soup all day and mmmm!  If anyone wants the recipe, let me know but you have to love pumpkin and curry, or it's useless.  Personally, I'm not happy if I can't smell curry in the house.  I swear, my last name should have been Patel.

4.  Jake and I have not left the house today but just had the best time.  He's planning a new hairstyle, so we started the process with some crap to get the hot pink and purple out of his bleached parts.  This means I do it for him...good times and it's an extremely cool hairstyle he's getting!   Good enough that I wish I were young enough to get it, too.  :-)    I got to hear his newest song and lord have mercy,  he's doing great in school so he's been busy with that and we've had no "gentle reminder" phone calls in ages.  Basically, it's pure peace around here... laughing, eating, sharing, teasing, talking and debating.  We had one snippy incident that was totally my fault because I was pissy about something else and took it out on him. I apologized.  He laughed and said it was fine and asked who pissed me off.  That led to a fun-as-hell discussion of people with issues which finally led to a discussion of midgets, as it invariably does.  Life around here is chilly and hot liquid-y and very, very good!

Worst:

1.  My tolerance of stupidity is low.  Still.  Always.  Forever.  I can stand dumb people who own being dumb and, in fact, embrace them since they are never as dumb as they think they are if they're able to realize this about themselves. But stupidity ?  Is intolerable.  The saying that stupid people shouldn't breed?  Ought to be taught in school and in remedial classes to those who really need it.  It should later be required as a parenting class for all parents.  Credit can be given to those who can prove, annually, they are not stupid.  Just imagine what a better world this could be if it happened.

2.  I have no tolerance for bullshit, especially coming from stupid  people (see above) who present themselves with rudeness and condescension.  Disagreeing is good.  Both sides can learn from that when done respectfully and a resulting respectful discussion ensues.  Foolishness and lack of seeing one's own failings is not good when engaged in a logical, intelligent discussion.  Do that and I?  Step back and obsess over Farmville so that my fingers and tongue don't work in unison.  I have farmed heartily today.

3.  My camera isn't working right or I'd show you this "worst".  Since all my space heaters are old as the hills, I went and bought two new ones a couple of days ago. One for large rooms, painfully expensive, and one for small rooms.  The latter?  Malfunctioned almost immediately and melted the plug on the heater cord, as well as the outlet cover, the wiring inside the wall and sent burn marks up my wall.  I had no clue this was going on except I noticed that my little constantly-nervous-as-hell-once-feral boy cat, Tucker, kept going to that outlet area (just barely out of my sight) and then running to me and saying "maaaaaaaaaaa", the sound he makes when he wants me to pick him up and comfort him when he's scared.  Only when I picked him up, he squiggled to get down and ran back to that outlet. Rinse and repeat.  I finally got up to look and discovered that we were about to have a major fire problem since I saw big sparking.  Tucker is a huge positive since he possibly saved our lives!  But the fact I have all the residual damage is still a negative. Bah. Be careful, y'all.  Those warnings about space heaters are founded in very real fact.

4.  The fact my camera isn't working is a huge worst on my list, as is the fact I have a good camera on my cell phone, a Samsung Behold, and I can't figure out how to get pictures off it but am ashamed to ask Jake (who has the same phone) how to do it since I can generally do techie stuff with ease.  I love my phone but it is smarter than I am...for now.

5.  My washer is leaking from underneath and this is not good news.  It is 14 years old and does a good 10-12  loads a week so my logical side knows it is time for it to be replaced.  My fiscally-sensitive side is screaming "noooooo", though, and says we can mop and it'll be fine.

There you have it - my life in 10 points.

It's nearly 4am.  I wonder if I've ever been bitten by a Tsetse fly.

Dammit.

I'll say something before bed just so I don't break the post-every-day thing.but I can't think of any bests right now. Oh, I know.  It's below freezing out right now.  I have no heat but for some space heaters I just turned off. And I?  Am in heaven.  I'm cold as hell but love it...brrr! 

Oh, and I'll share a totally unrelated picture of how Miss Arse used to amuse Jake.  It's no wonder he's turned out as he has...and Jake, for me?  Is absolutely the best kid ever, even though he's not a kid anymore.

Goodnight, all!

A day late and a dollar short.

I've been in a blogging funk.  There it is.  The holidays have worn me out since I had to be social and upping my iron and switching my multi-vitamin produced no miracles.  Although, as a side note, did you know they have gummie vitamins for adults now?  Saw those and sadly got all excited.  Anyway, I thought about posting some pictures but even though it is now clean and nice, my house seems so...poor...compared to others and, frankly, compared to others I've had, too.  What seems fine-ish  in person looks so run down in pictures so that discourages me. I've not had anything too exciting or drastic happen to tell about, at least not that I think anyone would find interesting.  We had a nice Christmas but I'm finding it hard to imagine anyone would find it all that interesting.  In the end, I think I might have some self-esteem issues.  *sighs*  So, tonight, I joined NaBloPoMo.  It appears I now have to post every single day with a theme of "best" for the month of January.  Wish me luck...I mean, I'm one of those people who have no issues with failing and owning it, basking in it even, so I don't have high hopes but I'm really going to try.  I am.  Really.  Awwww, shut up and just go join NaBloPoMo with me and we'll bore everyone together.  Also, yes, I know it is technically  January 2nd and I'm sort of already a day late but I've not been to bed and I think it might still be the 1st in...um...Samoa.  Or somewhere.  Whatever, I'll do 2 today.

So, the theme this month is "best" and my plan is to share the best thing that happened to me every day, even if the best thing is only that I woke up.  My best thing today (fine, yesterday) was the fact it turned cold and the temperature dropped all day and it was drizzly.  I made scalloped potatoes (my most favorite food on earth), a pork roast, black eyed peas *blech*, fried apples, beer bread and a spinach salad.  For dessert I made a Sweet Potato Cake, a favorite of my family.  If you decide to make it, I will say that a spice cake mix is my preference but hey. it's your call.  Miss Arse came over and we ate until we were about to pop and then lit candles all over the house for warmth and watched Constantine's Sword.  Interesting movie, by the way. After she left, I slept in my recliner until around 1am, which is why I'm here, now, at 4am.  My sleep habits suck.  Anyway, the best part of my New Year's Day was that we were together, we ate good food and no one died.   Look when you've got an 81 year old, a 47 year old with a chronic medical condition and an 18 year old and all the shit they do, any day that no one dies is good!  In the end, the scalloped potatoes were really the best part of the day anyway.

So, who is in for NaBloPoMo with me?  C'mon, y'all, this can be a resolution we can actually keep.  One month, blog every day with the best of something.  Let's see a show of hands.  Or breasts.  A show of breasts would be fine, too.