In honor of the upcoming festivities and such, I don't have to go into work for a few days, so I am going to wear my unicorn t-shirt all day today to celebrate. I am also going to be super traditional this year and follow all of my "time off work" traditions, and I figured I might as well share them, because some of them are downright amazing. Well, really, all of them are. Here goes!

First, I am going to eat cookies for breakfast whenever possible, in order to keep my energy up. Cookies are the perfect blend of carbohydrates, fats and chocolate chips, so I should be all set, nutritionally speaking.

Second, it is important to wear pajama pants as much as possible. If you have to go somewhere, you can even keep them on and just put a jacket over your t-shirt, because the people at the drive-through aren't going to judge and I don't think they really see that much of your pants, anyway.

Third, always make sure you set aside at least five hours each day to watch deliciously crappy TV. If you have Netflix, now's the time to watch Troll 2 (hint, hint).

Fourth, if your hair will go into a mohawk, you should probably do that, so you can attempt to look as awesome as I do.

Fifth, make sure you remember all of the funny stories about junk that happened at work, so you can compete with all of the others at Thanksgiving dinner and win the "I work in the awfullest office" prize. I may win this year, but we'll have to wait and see.

Finally, and most importantly of all, remember that wine is made from grapes and is therefore a fruit. Even though you've covered the cookie food group, you need at least five servings of fruit a day, so get on that.

That is all. Enjoy your holiday and (hopefully) your time away from your office, and don't drive drunk or I'll hunt you down and force you to watch every single episode of Family Guy ever made with me, and I'll say all of the lines with the characters and annoy the heck out of you. That's a promise.

As a special sort of celebration, because of some new work commitments for both of us, and the fact that we've both survived the last week (which has been no small feat, mind you), my husband brought home Chinese food and I baked a mini pecan pie since I was already baking a big one to take to Thanksgiving (that and 4 batches of buttermilk rolls...I am not making rolls again for a long time).

We don't get Chinese food very often, so it was kind of a big deal. I asked for my favorite, broccoli with beef, and le husband got what he wanted. When he got home (20 minutes away from the Chinese place), we took the cartons out, all excited like, and lo and behold, my broccoli beef looked suspiciously like lemon chicken.

Now, I enjoy lemon chicken as much as the next girl, but it looks nothing like broccoli beef. Granted, they had lined broccoli up along the sides so that was kind of like broccoli beef, but that meat was most definitely chicken. Fried chicken, which I avoid like the plague since I'm trying to be really good to save room for Thursday.

My husband is not one to stand by and just let things like that be. He decided to call and let them know, just in case someone else ended up with our broccoli beef. He calls, and the lady says, "No. That's what our beef looks like." He says, "It's white and it's been deep fried." It also looked exactly like the meat in his sweet and sour chicken, which I would hope was chicken and not beef. Anyhow, the lady on the phone insisted that it was, indeed, chicken, and then she did the rudest thing I can think of. She laughed at my husband.

Uh oh.

Yeah, you probably should avoid doing that. It's not a good idea. He hung up the phone and was annoyed the whole rest of the night, and I now I have to go kick some little old lady's behind.

Not really, but a whole Kung-Fu movie just played itself in my head, only it had me and the lady at the Chinese restaurant instead of David Carradine and whoever else was in the real movies.

It made it very hard to enjoy our dinner, as we felt mocked. The lemon chicken was pretty stinking delicious, though. Which is good, because I will be eating it for dinner tonight, since they give out a truckload. I was just sad that the lady felt like she had to mock my husband for his suspected inability to recognize chicken/beef, when this WAS chicken. It was totally chicken. In a lemony sauce, which is nothing like broccoli beef sauce. Turds. How can you question our ability, as people of girth, to differentiate between meats? We've got that down. It's the vegetable area where things get a little hazy.

Regardless, we then proceeded to eat the finest pecan pie the world has ever known. So that was good.

But still. Urgh.

On a recent trip through Target, I realized that sometimes I get really excited about things and I lose all ability to keep my voice down, causing me to say stuff really loudly that may or may not be appropriate.

I was Christmas tree shopping with my sister and dad, and we were walking up the aisles, just kind of looking at stuff and being our usual hilarious selves.

Because we are the funniest group you'll ever encounter. Or, at least, we think so.

Anyhow, I came upon a display of things specifically packaged as gifts, and one of them was a phone receiver handle that you can hook up to your cell phone and it's like talking on a real phone handset. Like this:

The ones in Target were neon colors, too, which is also distracting to someone like myself. I became a wee bit excited and said, "These are supposed to be gifts, but I really want one for myself!" (or something along those lines) and, apparently, I was kind of loud, because this woman down the aisle from us started laughing at me.

I think she may have been laughing with me, because I did start laughing a few seconds later.

She may also have been a hobo. I suspect that she was.

At any rate, I guess I was being loud, but it's hard to contain one's excitement when one is confronted with big plastic phone handsets, immediately after looking at Christmas decorations and the like. I guess I am loud a lot, though.

Or maybe it's just that people listen extra hard to what we're saying because we're the kind of people that look as though we're having so much fun that everyone else wants to hang out with us.

Yep, that's it.

Today is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world's birthdays. He is fun and talented and one of the few people on the planet in front of whom I can let my hair down and relax.

Well, relax as much as is humanly possible for me.

Anyhow, in honor of the Flash's birthday, I would like to list all of the best things to do on one's birthday, so that he won't even have to think about what to do (except that he's an adult and it's a weekday, so I'm guessing some of these things will be impossible).

1.  Sleep in as late as you want. Personally, I stayed in bed until the late, late hour of 7:30 a.m. last year, so you know what kind of a party animal you're dealing with here.

2.  Eat whatever you want for breakfast. WHATEVER. If that means having a G & T with your cornflakes, rock on.

3.  Drink wine all morning while watching cartoons. Wine makes Scooby-Doo even more profound and insightful. Seriously.

4.  Drink lots of water after all of that wine, because if you don't, you'll have a headache. Again, seriously.

5.  Go out to lunch with all of your friends (except the ones who live nine billion miles away, in which case you should probably move home). They have to pay for you, because of the whole birthday thing.

6.  Order dessert after launch. Don't skip this one, it's miraculous. We should always have dessert, after each meal. Totally the best part, there.

7.  Here's a conundrum:  Nap or Go Shopping? This one really depends on how much wine you drank during the cartoons. Go with your gut. Or you can take a short nap, and then go shopping. Make sure to wear a party hat or something so everyone in every store knows it's your birthday. That way, they may give you a discount.

8.  Go to the movies. Some theaters offer free shows on your birthday, so take advantage of that. The only thing that's more fun than a movie is a free movie. Plus, there's a new James Bond one out right now, and he's pretty awesome. Rawr.

9.  Make your friends take you out to dinner. Preferably at Benihana or some other place where you can all sit at a big table and get a show and drink a festive birthday drink out of a glass that's shaped like Buddha. Do it. It's insanely good.

10.  At this point, your friends should be surprising you with a limo-driven trip to a club or concert or some other such fun place that all the kids are going to. If you're old, like me, this is the point where it's getting to be like 8 p.m., and I have to get home to take my medicine. But you kids go out and have fun, now, and be safe.

So I guess the whole point of this is, have a super fantastic day, be safe, and I miss your face, Flash.

For everyone else, if you follow the steps above, you can turn any day into a birthday. I might try it sometime, but I think I could possibly break a hip by the time I get to step 10, so I'll have to pick and choose. 

Happy Friday!

Some mornings, I'm pretty sure that my coffee maker takes longer because it's trying to spite me. This is definitely one of those days.

I'm sure some of you will say, "Hey. Come on. I's a coffee maker. Machines aren't capable of plotting to ruin your Thursday."

We've all seen movies. You know I'm right.

How am I supposed to write a decent piece of crap for you all to enjoy if I haven't been properly caffeinated? Come to think of it, how am I supposed to do anything if I'm not properly caffeinated?

Yep, it's a conspiracy. I'd bet that the toaster oven is in on it, as well. I've seen the way it looks at me, all hateful and whatnot. And they both know how much I need that hot cup of caffeine to give me the oomph I need to actually wear pants to work.

Tick tock, Mr. Coffee. If you want to bring it, I can. I haven't had any coffee yet and I'm feeling kind of feisty.

Okay. The coffee's finished, so I guess I have to let my coffee maker live to pursue its dreams or whatever it is that coffee makers do when not making hot coffeeish deliciousness. 

At least, until tomorrow, when I will complain about the same thing.

Last night, I decided that I was going to move the "fat" indicator up a ways in my brain. Now, fat doesn't start until 350 pounds, and chubby starts at 300, so I'm on the skinny end of the scale. Yes, I am authorized to do that, but if I told you how that happened, I'd have to kill you.

This accomplishes three things: First, I can finish that bottle of wine with my dinner tonight and not feel like that's going to tip the scales for me, even though with the amount I've had to drink in the past three days, I've probably consumed more calories in liquid form than in food form.

Second, it'll lessen the guilt when I emotionally eat. Because that is just going to happen. I'm trying very hard not to, but I seem to have been stricken with some form of perma-PMS over the last two days and all I want to do is read a book in my pajamas and eat cookies while crying and listening to Christmas music (I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet...Johnny Mathis is my hero). Oh, and more red wine. Red wine is now my favorite.

Finally, if I'm not fat, then I don't have to obsess about how fat I'm going to look in the pictures we'll take while on our vacation, which I'm also feeling guilty about because we leave on the day scheduled for my Grandpa's memorial service.

Yeah, feeling guilty about that, too, but we've saved up for this for two years and it's all prepaid and we'll lose all of our money if we don't go. I'm pretty sure my Grandpa would reach down from the sky and smack me upside the head if, after spending that much money, I didn't take the trip.

So I'm going, but I feel crappy about it.

Ugh.

Therefore, I have shifted the fat scale up. Feel free to join me if you, too, need a little extra room.

Apparently, not everyone had the day off yesterday, but I did, so no blog post.

It seems like it's been about fifty years since the last time I was sitting at a computer, doing anything, but I guess it's really only been a few days.

A few crap days.

Yesterday morning, my Grandpa died. As weird as it may seem, yes, people my age do sometimes still have grandparents. And this guy was a doozy (in the best possible way).

There's a lot to say about him, but I think we all know what we're going to miss the most about him, and I think it'll be different things for each of us. My husband and I talked about it a lot yesterday, since this was the last Grandpa for either one of us, and my husband's been part of my family for so long that he got to know and love my Grandpa too. It's pretty sad to say good-bye.

I take that back. It's very sad. I know that I only saw him a couple of times a year, but it was comforting to get those Christmas letters and to always remember their wedding anniversary, since it falls on my birthday.

Ugh. Depressing.

I suppose I will get better at this whole "losing people I love" thing as I get older, but so far, it just pretty much sucks. I do not recommend it. I haven't decided yet how I'm going to stop this from ever happening again, but I'll let you know when I figure something out.

I'm pretty sure the answer is contained somewhere within a Scooby-Doo episode.

Alright, it's time for me to be jolly. Not quite the "ho ho ho" kind, but still, better attitude.

I do not really hate everyone and everything, I'm just having trouble getting a particular piece of music to work, and I really want it to, and I don't think I can. Which makes me slightly irritable, in the way that Michael Jackson was in the "Bad" video, all street-fighting and whatnot.

So, I'm being a jerk. And I apologize, and I will be nicer and kinder from here on out. I swear.

Unless you piss me off.

At least it's Friday and I have a longer weekend to look forward to. And some of this, right here, which I think could make me a better person all on its own:

Yep, I'm making some fancy French toast for breakfast tomorrow. I'm already getting worked up over it, because, well, I'm fat and I like food. Especially sweets for breakfast. Plus, this has eggs in it, so it's pretty much nutritious. This will definitely make me friendlier.

Maybe.

Ugh. Happy weekend.

The key to getting along well with others is realizing that you're not always the smartest person in the room, or the most capable person in the room, or the most worthwhile person in the room, regardless of your job title.

That's it. There's no maybe this time. Treat other people as if they were worth just as much as you, or maybe even a little bit more, and they'll be much more likely to want to cooperate with you instead of wanting to stab you in the forehead with a ballpoint pen the next time you start up with one of your long and boring stories about all of the wonderful and amazing things you've done.

Maybe they've done some wonderful and amazing things, too.

Also, maybe they have a working b.s. meter and know quite well that you're full of it.

Either way, my system is much more effective than one where you just continually crap all over others with your smarmy condescension. That doesn't tend to work too well with anyone.

I'm really not hostile. Really. I just think we should all be nice and respectful. To illustrate, here is a puppy:

Does this puppy look happy? No. He looks ashamed because someone has taken away his dignity. 

Yep. That's how people feel when you act like that. So stop it.

There's an issue that's on everyone's mind this morning, so I'm just going to go ahead and discuss it: Cereal.

As you may or may not know, I loves me a nice bowl of cereal in the morning, so why in the world did I go to the store yesterday to pick up a few things that we "needed" and not get some cereal?

I am now completely out, not counting my husband's box of cereal, which is off-limits and not really my favorite anyway, and the container of oatmeal, which is fine but not the same as a lovely bowl of frosted whatever or some crunchy cinnamon goodness.

Sigh. It's going to be a long week if I don't find a way to get my husband to stop off at the store on his way home and buy me a box of Cheerios or something. For reals.

I don't think my brain will function without cereal.

For that matter, I don't think it functions too well even with cereal, so that's not a very good argument. Oh, well. I guess we will all survive this, the harshest of situations.

Especially if there's a big box full of cookies in the freezer.

Please go out and vote today. Lots of people in lots of countries would give anything to be able to have a say in how things are run, and are unable to do so. We automatically get the privilege when we turn 18, but so many people skip out on elections because it's a pain in the butt.

It's really not that much of a pain in the butt.

Oh, and keep voting. Vote in the little elections, too. They're much more important to your daily life. I don't care who you vote for. I have already accepted the fact that my candidate probably won't win, and I'm okay with that. If more people get out there and state a preference, we'll have people in office that truly reflect what the majority wants.

Oh, and afterwards, we all get to not hear all of this crap for a little while. That part of it is like Christmas. So just go vote and get the sticker and be proud of yourself. You just took five minutes out of your day to be an upright citizen. Woohoo! Yay for America! Go us! (That's about all the perky I can manage, thank you very much.)

When looking for inspiration for my blog, I sometimes have to search high and low before finding a suitable topic. Not so today.

This weekend was chock full of sad, but right at the end, my sister and I saw a sight that let us know that the world was alright: A lady wearing a Victoria's Secret Think Pink velour tracksuit that was two sizes too small, stretched so tight over her badonkadonk that you could see that she was wearing a thong that was also two sizes too small (seriously, I don't know if she'll require surgery to remove that thing from her butt, but my guess would be yes).

As she sashayed her way around the corner of the Giant gas station to let her little dog go poo, we were treated to a lot of cellulite and jiggle, and it made my day.

Not that seeing my family this weekend wasn't great (because it was, and it would've been a lot more fun had it not included the whole really really really really sad sadness that happens when people get too old and sick to be able to care for themselves), but a lady in a too-small velour tracksuit is pretty high up there on my list of things to see before I die. That fabric was stretched so hard that it was incredibly see-through, allowing for a view of every dimple and every wrinkle, but it still provided a lot of movement, so her cellulite was free to get its Jello-type wiggling on.

It was super impressive. I thought you'd wear one of those just for comfort, but there's no way that was comfortable. That's dedication to a look, right there. Lady, I applaud you.

Anyhow, at that moment, my sister and I looked at each other and laughed, and I had that happy feeling inside that means, "Ah...I have a blog topic for tomorrow." 

Yeehaw.

I am so glad the election process is almost over. People I love have turned into angry, bitter, fellow-man-hating people, and it makes me very sad. Politicians will always disappoint us, but we should try to respect our friends and neighbors and their rights and beliefs, even if we don't share them. There is no 100% right or 100% wrong, unless I'm the one saying it. Then you know it's right. Every time.

I just wanted to say that, no matter for whom your vote is cast, I am happy that you decided to vote. I am happy that we can all have different opinions and still co-exist. I am happy that, no matter who wins, I will get my friends back after next week, and my mailbox will no longer be full of circulars that tell me not to vote for somebody because he/she is a devil/anti-christ/puppy-killer. Yeah, those have been really effective.

Oh, and I would like to suggest that the Presidential loser buys drinks. For everyone. To make up for all of the inconveniencing that went on over the last year or so. So, yeah, get out your wallets, guys. I don't want a beer, I want one of those big fruity drinks with a plastic sword and some fruit. Something like this:

Note the orchid. That's a really nice touch, and I would appreciate something similar.

This year, we have absolutely no Halloween candy lying around the house. This makes me sad because this morning is shaping up to be a little rough and I'd like some chocolatey goodness to sooth my brain.

No such luck.

I am eating a lovely bowl of oatmeal with a big spoonful of jam in it, but that's not quite the same.

It's especially difficult because this morning is my earliest morning of the week and I'd like to not be insane for work. Oh, well. I guess they'll have to deal with me. After all, I do have over 5000 hits on my blog as of yesterday evening, so that makes me kind of famous. That special kind of famous, where I'm famous in my own head and others laugh at how delusional I am.

Haven't I really been that kind of famous all along, though? At least, the delusional part?

Maybe I'll have time to stop and buy something delicious for lunch. Probably not, but maybe if I trick myself into thinking I will, maybe I'll actually leave a little early this morning instead of being one or two minutes past the time I'd like to leave, potentially causing me to be one or two minutes late, which isn't a big deal for most people, but for me, it's the end of the world.

Oh, crap. I have the hiccups now.

I think it's like the cowbell fever except I don't need any more cowbell, as I have a slight headache. I need more Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and/or Twix bars. Right away. This could be serious if I let it go too long.

I may actually become a bitch. Hahahaha...just kidding. I got there a long time ago.

THIS is what would make my day. This right here.

Oh, the hunt is on now.