For months now, I’ve been receiving email from Eons. I thought they were just random spam, but then I actually tried to unsubscribe. Turns out I have an account.
Eons, for those of you who don’t know, is a website for people “celebrating life on the flipside of 50.”(insert trademark symbol here, haha. Yes, they trademarked that.)
On the off chance that by “flipside” they actually meant “younger than,” I asked for my password. I entered my password and checked out the website. This site is for boomers and seniors, and the last time I checked, I did not fit neither group. I guess times have changed, because according to my profile, I am a 67 year old male from Needham. In other words, I am my father.
I don’t know how my father’s information but my email address ended up on this website, but boy, do I feel old now.
It is so hot today that when I got up at 8AM to take the dogs outside, I was sweating. And all I was doing was standing still.
I have been watching Flight of the Conchords videos on Youtube today. I don’t have HBO, so I can’t watch their new show. I had never heard of them before, but I laughed out loud when I watched The Humans are Dead.
Interestingly, Bret McKenzie, the Conchord on the right of the videos, played “Figwit” the Elf in Lord of the Rings.
Another good video from them: Jenny
I have just updated WordPress, which was a long and arduous process especially since Tech Guru Cousin Terry was unavailable to hold my hand through it. Usually I bribe Terry with good food to get her to bus to Boston and take care of my website issues. I even let her make fun of how little food (relatively speaking) it takes to make me full these days.
Yes, I used to be a web developer, and I used to be able to consume my entire body weight at every meal, and yes, our family used to put buffets out of business, but maybe I’M JUST OLD NOW.
The technical information superhighway long ago dumped me in the cul-de-sac of repetitive stress injuries and now I’m a creaky old lady rocking myself in a chair, muttering, “You modern kids are so soft, with your automatic blogging and iTunes and MySpace…why, in my day, I had to code twenty lines of HTML just to get a picture of a school to show up online!”
Anyway, spurred on by three email messages demanding that I upgrade WordPress (one sent on Friday, when the latest version was released, the next on Saturday, the third on Sunday) and fearful that my inbox would keep getting an email a day until I upgraded, I upgraded. And upgraded successfully.
Now I have to figure out why I suddenly have a new category called “Blogroll.” I’m sure you youngsters out there already know it. In another five years, I’ll probably figure it out, too.
A few nights ago, I was trying to fall asleep when something occurred to me.
“Chris,” I said, “if something happened to the dogs or someone in our family, and you were away on a business trip, would you rather I tell you about it right away, or wait until your trip is over?”
I often come up with these sort of ideas suddenly, but in this particular case, I had been inspired by a scene in “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”. I don’t especially follow this show, but I happened to be in the room when Chris watched a scene between two characters arguing over whether to give a friend some bad news right away or wait until later.
Chris didn’t reply immediately, so I said, “Is this too much to think about this late at night?”
He said, “No, I was thinking.”
“I’d want to know right away, ” I said. “But it’s different for me because my business trips don’t involve me making money, so I can turn around and fly back home immediately. Your trips involve clients and making deals.”
Chris said decisively, “I think I’d move to something small.”
I paused. He paused.
“I think I’m having a different conversation in my head,” he said.
“I feel so bad I didn’t get Dad a Father’s Day present.”
“He said you bought him pants, though.”
“That was months ago! And he paid me back for them!”
“Well, he doesn’t remember that he paid you. So it counts.”
Today’s Crazy News excerpt!
From an article in the Boston Globe on how circumcision rates have fallen.
Many parents fear their boys would feel awkward in the locker room if they were not circumcised.
“I like the idea of him looking like his dad — that’s the most important thing for me,” said Denise Milito Stockwell, 40, an artist in Chicago who had her 15-month-old son, Harlan, circumcised. “It wasn’t traumatic for him in any way. He came back from the event sleeping.”
Um…how often do you look at your husband’s and your son’s naked penises at the same time? And if you’re not looking at them at the same time, are you looking at your son’s penis and thinking fondly how much it looks like Dad’s? Because while I don’t have kids, I gotta say that sounds pretty weird and just the tiniest bit sick.
From The Boston Globe:
Legislators Vote To Defeat Same-Sex Marriage Ban
Joyce Durst, an opponent of same-sex marriage from Mattapan, had come to the State House today to pray that the measure passed. When the amendment failed, she pulled a crumpled tissue from her pocket and began to sob.
“I’m sick,” said Durst, 60. “I’m sick.”
To which I must say, “Yes, yes you are.”
I know people have different views on what constitutes marriage. But to cry because two people of the same sex happen to want to get married? In what way does this harm you?
My opinion of many things boils down to: if it isn’t hurting anyone, I don’t care. If it is hurting someone, than that someone has to be a mentally competent adult who has agreed and wants to be hurt.
So unless a gang of crazy lesbians kidnaps Ms. Durst and forces her to marry one of them, I don’t really see what there is to cry about.
by Blaize Clement
ONE LINE SUMMARY: Dixie Hemingway left the Sheriff’s department three years ago after a tragic accident, and is now a pet-sitter in Florida who frequently comes across dead bodies.
I like reading mystery books and books about animals (as long as the animal doesn’t die), and yet I am not a fan of mysteries involving animals. I’ve tried a few: The Cat Who…series, the Dog Lover’s Mystery…and I largely dismissed them because many animal mysteries seemed to focus more on the animals and not so much on the mystery.
With Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter, Blaize Clement has restored my faith in animal mysteries. This book is similar in style to Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series (the early ones), but contains far more depth in the mystery plot as well as in the character development.
I have already read the second in this series, Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund, and while I enjoyed it as much as the first, I have to wonder how the series will hold up after the number of dead bodies Dixie finds start heading into the double digits. After you’ve discovered 4 bodies within a few months, people aren’t really that keen on giving a petsitter keys to their houses and security code access.
The next book, I feel, should be called: The Chihuahua Sniffed His Butt
Earlier today I poured a kettle of boiling water over a portion of our yard that has been taken over by giant ants.
I had tried stubbing out the anthills with my foot yesterday when I took the dogs out. That had ended badly when one of the ants ran up my denim-covered leg. I flicked it off, but I must have missed because suddenly I felt something moving around IN my pants!
I hopped from one foot to another, trying to shake out the ant, and then eventually raced into the garage.
“Get in, let’s go inside!” I yelled to the dogs.
Stanley and Paco followed me inside, watching me curiously as I did my Ant Dance in the garage.
Mina, of course, was immune to my pleadings, and she s - l- o- w- l - y walked toward the garage door. I wanted to tear off my pants, but if any neighbors walked outside, they’d see me in my underwear since I couldn’t shut the door until Mina came into the garage.
When she finally reached the garage, I slammed the door shut behind her, and herded all the dogs from the garage and into the house. Even as they were walking inside, I was already taking off my jeans and shaking them furiously.
I didn’t see anything fall out, but now the jeans were tainted, so I tossed them into the clothes hamper in the bathroom and changed to shorts.
Later that day, I found the ant scurrying around in the bathroom, and I squashed it.
Since stomping the ants with my feet was no longer an option, I went with the boiling water method today. A full kettle of hot water wasn’t even enough to hit all the anthills, so I resigned myself to splashing the majority of them, creating a faintly steaming pile of dirt. Meanwhile, a bee or a yellowjacket tried to kill me as I was killing the ants. The circle of life, in the suburbs.
Dear People of the Internet:
Do I really need to know that you got my sister-in-law’s message yesterday but you were out and about and didn’t want to call her back too late? What possible reason could I have for needing to have this information taking up useless space in my ever-diminishing brain?
As I see it, there are two possible options:
- You think we really, really, like you. Life revolves around you, and thus everyone (people you don’t even know!) are wildly fascinated by your mundane life.
- You are really, really, stupid. “Reply All” is not the same button as “Reply” and apparently you haven’t learned that yet.
For cripes’ sake, people, either just hit “reply” or pick up the phone and call the person you want to relay information to! And all you other people — maybe you should learn to bcc a giant list of people rather than ccing them. I mean, you wouldn’t give a 5-year-old a butcher knife to carry around, would you, so why would you give the “reply all” power to similarly undeveloped minds??
Next time, if you’re going to be so irritating as to reply all, at least include some salacious gossip about your latest boyfriend (”He took off his pants and he was a GIRL!”) so that I don’t feel gypped when I finish reading your email.
Sincerely,
Jane
P.S. When someone calls you on your “reply all,” writing back that you “usually do” just use reply, does not make us think you are any less stupid or self-involved. Especially when you reply all with that response.
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