Say it! NOO-CLEE-AR

You thought people started going ballistic about NEW-CU-LAR in response to the fact that our 43rd President couldn't pronounce it, didn't you? I've got news for you. My Uncle Sandy was going ballistic about that in the Reagan era. I'm not sure my cousins said it wrong more than once or twice, but I lived in Lower Alabama and my edumacation would lapse in between visits.

My gram taught everything. There was literally not a subject in K-12 that she could not or did not teach. When I lived with her and she corrected me on something, I'd always shoot back "You're not an English teacher!" because she wasn't teaching English that year. I'll be damned if I can remember one of the things she corrected me on.

Nuclear? Well, I'm sure Uncle Sandy never ACTUALLY whapped me upside the head when I pronounced it like an ignorant piece of trash, but that might have been kinder. There was something about his "You. Know. Better." way of correcting you that both made you feel really bright and really stupid at the same time. And to this day, I prounounce it correctly. He would be VERY sad to know that NEW-CU-LAR is officially an alternate pronunciation in this world.

Barking Bullfrogs!

My Uncle Sandy was a funny guy. Seriously funny. He got ALL my gram's brains, which is scary considering the rest of us aren't slouches in the Brainiac department. He was one of those guys who could mortally insult you in 10 different ways, and you'd STILL walk away thinking he was one of the nicest damned guys you ever met. He left me with several great memories, which I think I'll share this week, but this is the one that has wormed it's way into my daily life and vocabulary.

I'm sure Uncle Sandy stole "Barking Bullfrogs!" from someone else, but in my mind it will forever be Uncle Sandy's way of describing THE FART. Not your typical passing gas. Not the ever-so-embarrassing bare legs on a vinyl chair squeal that you try to pass off as chair noise. Not the silent-but-deadly which were also a problem in my family. Nope, this is how he described that time in your day when your ass talks to you and everyone around you.

In later years, I've updated it, slightly. I'd like to think my Uncle would approve. But "Batman" always seems tacked on to the end. "Batman" ends up tacked to the end to number of my strange phrases like "Shit on a stick, Batman" and...well...that's the only one that jumps to mind.

I googled for "Barking Bullfrog" and came up with this. I don't know exactly what Marky barks at, but it's not gas. Apparently, no one is willing to take on the seminal favorite The Gas We Pass. Hopefully, our kids will have both in their library.

P.S.When I hit "Publish Post" to well, publish this post, the following ad came up on Blogspot.
Flatulence Treatment
Natural Flatulence treatment with proven herbal product.
Flacentical.com

There is something underwhelming about scholarly hate mail

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clark

I don't think I've ever gotten hate mail. I've gotten one or two letters that felt kinda harsh at the time. Ok, maybe a few more that I've forgotten. I got one from my ex-psychopath that in retrospect was complete and utter manipulation. I've sent some letters filled with anger, but I don't really have anyone I hate, so it seems like it's hard to send hate mail. Those people I once hated are now dead, and sending them letters was always somewhat pointless.

But I've been thinking lately that mail just doesn't come the way it used to. I know people bemoan the death of the written letter right and left, but I have a reason for thinking this now. I've pretty much saved every letter I've ever received. Except those few from my first crush that I was talked into burning. (Ah, the exQUISite drama of your first "breakup"). And the ex-psychopath's letters don't seem to be around any more either. But we're talking letters from the 7th grade. It's not like email. We all delete emails. They're all short. Can you imagine sending a one paragraph letter?

I've hung on to all of them as some sort of proof that people have cared about me. I don't even wonder about that now, but it took a long time to consider myself worthy enough of love to take this step. I'm about to start sending them back to some of the people that wrote them. Not because they aren't precious. If they weren't precious, I wouldn't have them 25 years later. These letters don't tell the story of my life so much as they tell the story of the people who wrote them. The romantic ones won't go back. I'll keep rereading those for years to come. But the childhood ones...I suspect it will be like reading a diary you don't remember writing.

I hope it's as wonderful and meaningful a gift as it feels from my end. Now if I could just get Rae on the phone to get her bloody address!

I have met the other woman...her name is Tivo

My husband has had two girlfriends during our marriage.

One was the new vacuum cleaner we bought to replace my 12-year-old Hoover. The day she came home with us, he vacuumed the living room 3 or 4 times. Each time, he would take her out the side door to clean out her dirt trap and filters. Each time he would come in and exclaim "Look at all this dirt!" This repeated almost daily for a week or so, then subsided. I still tease him about leaving me for the vacuum, but I don't believe to to be true. Anymore.

There is a new woman in his life. She's been here for a while, and I fear she's here to stay. We've had Tivo for a while, but she was relegated to the basement with our TV. I don't like the basement, so we didn't watch much down there. We'd watch movies on the computer monitor in the living room. One day, I got the bright idea to get a wireless transmitter for the Tivo. Now? EVERYTHING is available upstairs. I've written about the ramifications on more than one occasion. Mike records a LOT of things to watch on his Zune.

Not a day goes by that Mike doesn't wander down with his lists of episodes to see what's recorded today, clear off old stuff, look through to see what's coming up. You see, Season Pass isn't foolproof. If only I could get him to be this efficient and thorough about washing the dishes...or hell, even vacuuming. I'd be surprised if he doesn't spend an hour a day managing the thing.

I got him LiquidTV for our anniversary. This was supposed to make our computer into a Tivo AND allow him to control the downstairs Tivo box. Well, not so much. He hates it for various reasons. Yesterday, he physically brought the box up to plug it into the tuner card in a LAST ditch effort to make LiquidTV recognize the Tivo box. It didn't work. Not only didn't it work, he killed his beloved Tivo. Dead. As a doorknob. The thing is a second-generation box, so it's OLD. Well, it was old. Now, as I've mentioned, it's dead.

He WAS smart enough to write down everything he has on Season Pass before it died. No kidding? Fifty entries. Fifty. Granted, some aren't showing right now. ONE is mine (Cake Boss). But still. I mocked him. He declared it finally and irretrievably dead last night around 8 pm. He lasted less than 24-hours before he left the house for a 40-mile round trip to the nearest known replacement down in Southcenter. I told him I could order it from Amazon and have it here on Wednesday. He whined that he wouldn't be able to record NCIS tomorrow. When I pointed out he COULD record it from the computer? He whined.

Update:My husband informs me that TWO of the Season Passes are mine. In addition to Cake Boss, he's recording Charmed. Charmed is entirely the dogs' fault, but that's another blog post.

Why do zealots never understand irony?

Defying Gravity

Seriously? This show had a Very. Slow. Start. But Sunday night? It started looking up. Really up. We were going to get some answers. Things were going to start moving FORWARD instead of the show always teasing us about "What happened back then? Wouldn't YOU like to know???" There were still going to be mysteries, but we could start to figure them out instead of wish 90% of the show would just catch onto the fact that all is not as it seems.

It was the "season finale". Which is to say, ABC started it late, and is now postponing it indefinitely so that other shows can return. That was episode 8. There were 13. ABC is currently mulling it's "scheduling options". The reality is that it got pretty poor ratings. Go figure. They could have condensed all the effing back story into about two and a half shows and we could be half-way to Jupiter by now.

So, we may or may not ever know what happens after the scene that looked an awful lot like Samuel L. Jackson opening the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. We STILL don't know what was in that freakin' briefcase, and we may not ever know what's in the storage bay.

"We" watched the first episode of The Vampire Diaries last night, too. Mike wanted to see it, and I was playing Mah Jong. Yeah, it's definitely on the air because of the Twilight craze, even though the books were written in the early 90s. Vampire meets girl. Much tension ensues. Big Bad Vampire brother comes back to screw up everything. The music definitely didn't suck. The HOT VAMPIRE that girl OBVIOUSLY falls in love with? Not hot. Weird looking. They WANT him to be hot. But they got a brooding Matt Dillon whose face got stretched a bit by one of those programs we play with on the internet. Matt Dillon was always cool, but he wasn't really HOT. Evil vampire brother who is there to screw things up? Ok, he's hot. But not hot enough to make me tune in. Of course it could be like Defying Gravity where we threaten to stop watching for the first 6 episodes and then they end it at 8. That would be cool.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner

Patrick Swayze, 1952 - 2009

Like most girls of my generation, I was introduced to Patrick Swayze through The Outsiders and Red Dawn. But those have never come to mind when I think of him. Yes, it's always about Dirty Dancing. I must admit, I didn't see it until the middle of 1988, but after that, it became a favorite.

When I told Mike last night, he said "We must go rent Road House in honor". I'm sure it won't be at the store for several days.

He was an incredibly talented man. And SEX-EE. Woof. I could watch the "Love is Strange" scene over and over and over.

May his memory always be for a blessing to his loved ones and his fans.

Next time your coccyx hurts, consider therapy

As you may be aware, my coccyx hurts. It's been hurting for quite a while now. I've tried the hemorrhoid doughnut, the tush-cush (Ten Days to a Tighter, Younger Sphincter), a new chair...the only things that work are my leather couch and my exercise ball.

When we discussing my pain-in-the-ass, I asked if my chiropractor knew that apparently you can have the coccyx removed. He said yes, but that it was very difficult to find an orthopedic surgeon to do it. He then gave me a 45-second disclaimer about not wanting me to think his next statement had anything to do with me. He said that most orthopedic surgeons wouldn't touch the tailbone because coccyx pain has a high correlation with mental disturbances and mental illness. Yeah, let THAT one sink in.

Thinking in retrospect that he might be meshugenah, I just found this on the web. Huh. So all I need for my PITA to disappear is up my medication? Who knew?

So, next time your coccyx hurts, look into some Prozac.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, therapist, or chiropractor, nor do I now or have I ever played on on TV, stage or radio. Never base medical decisions on Debi's ramblings. If you consider doing this, seek therapy.

The topic of discussion is "Operation I Told You So"

Eureka Pilot

I'm NOT adding Eureka to my list of shows. Period. But, as with many things, I will watch it in the background if I'm in the living room. In the pilot episode of this show on SyFy (I'll rant on that below), something goes terribly awry in the town where all the geniuses live and the government develops stuff. The Colonel (of an unnamed agency which seems to supersede the Department of Defense) gets a call in the middle of the night and tells his staff to get all the big wigs together in the Sit Room for the topic of discussion which titles this post. I would give a WHOLE hell of a lot to be able to send a meeting invite with THAT on the title.

But this brings me to SciFi. They've now renamed themselves SyFy. To which I can only say, "WTF"?? SciFi means something. SyFy apparently stands for "We're so hard up in spite of our wildly popular original series, we'd like to show WRESTLING now". Yeah, you weren't ACTUALLY on Spike last time you flipped by it.

Anyway, I'm guessing marketing folks are not only out of work, but ridiculously cheap. Which would imply you could get GOOD work for cheap. Hrm. I guess THAT theory doesn't hold.

I'm nesting vicariously

Chris is having a baby. By which I mean, his lovely and talented wife is having a baby and he gets to stand around, be (most RIGHTEOUSLY) blamed, and generally wring his hands. Any day now. Could have already happened. Apparently, he refuses to tweet about it. He's a writer dork, not a cool kid.

I have not crocheted baby blankets for a while. After crocheting 60 wee funny bonnets (also known as yarmulkes or kippot) for our Jewish wedding, it may be another few years before I get around to it. So, I'm providing tasty food. You know, what I'm REALLY good at. I did all the shopping last weekend for at least a solid week of food, probably quite a bit more. There currently rests three and a half gallons of soup in my freezer. I started muffins this morning (though I think I'm just going to make those fresh as requested. They don't have much in the way of freezer space, so I'm making stuff that can go from my freezer to them in a heated fashion relatively quickly.

Chris says I am not allowed to bring over food UNTIL the baby comes, no matter how industrious I am in advance. He's no fun. How on earth will I coo and cluck over his lovely wife and generally make myself a pain in the ass? Honestly, he has NO regard for my needs WHAT SO EVER.

We also got a dehydrator this weekend I've put two batches of apples in so far and well, one batch is already gone. Next we try "fruit leather" which is your basic no sugar added fruit roll-up. Who KNEW they weren't a General Mills invention?