Photo shoots everywhere.

Sidewalk cafes, cell phones and people in a hurry.

Pretty women everywhere!

People the size of the mannequins!

Hair, hair everywhere.

People actually riding the buses.

Fishermen 20 feet away from a $50 piece of tuna.

Frankie Avalon's grandkids at Malibu.

Pelicans!

Good morning!

I spent the weekend hanging out with a guy who entertained me from the moment he came to pick me up Friday night until he left for the week last night. (He went home to sleep…I’m still a Los Angeles virgin!)

We had a lots-O-fun going to see Jethro Tull, Malibu, Farmer’s Market and just walking around. We had GREAT food at a restaurant called Du Par’s which is at the Farmer’s Market. Yesterday we started out for Brentwood and Bundy Lane so that I could take pictures but we were mainly walking and by the time we got close to our goal, we were losing the sun so we just turned around and went back to my place to make-out. I haven’t done that in a while and I plan on doing it much, much more…even if my daughter keeps catching us and saying, “ICK!”

You know, you can kiss a lot of bad kissers in a lifetime and lord knows that I certainly have. So, it’s always a nice surprise when you come across a really accomplished kisser and I certainly have. Unfortunately, there are far too many kissing fish out there and I’m very disappointed after most kisses planted upon my lips. Oddly enough, a bad kisser has just as much confidence in their kissing abilities as does a really GOOD kisser so just in case there are any bad kissers out there (and chances are there are a LOT of them!), here are a few things to ponder BEFORE you assault another person with your lips:

1. Hard lips are only good for expressing derision and you should NEVER express derision in a kiss. I hate it when I kiss lips that seem to be in a foul mood, relax those bad boys and enjoy the moment.

2. If the lips you’re kissing keep wandering away from your mouth, consider the fact that you might be offending them with your tongue, your lips or your facial hair.

3. This seems to be a tough one for some moustachio-ed men…if the person you’re kissing continually jumps and says, “OUCH!”, you might have one of those faces that hurts. Be on the look-out for sharp hairs. You wouldn’t want to kiss a porcupine and neither would I!

4. If the chick has road rash on her cheeks, you should stop rubbing her face with your own.

5. Just because she let you kiss her, that doesn’t mean your hands can act like Daniel Boone, keep them away from boobs, crotches and backsides for at least a FEW make-out sessions.

6. Here’s a good rule to remember…if your hands aren’t soft, touch others softly with them.

7. A kiss is hard to refuse if you have your hands on both sides of a woman’s face.

8. Pay attention to a short person’s neck…they might be badly positioned. You never want a chick to remember you as the person who gave her whiplash.

9. Tongues should NEVER encroach uvula’s…if you’re going to let one out to play, keep good control of it.

10. Your best bet is to let another person kiss you for a bit and when you figure out what they’re doing, do it right back. It might not be exactly what they want, BUT…they can’t get mad at you for doing it!

My ex could have used some lessons in kissing and I’m glad I didn’t help him out. It’s nice to know that he’s annoying someone else with his mouth, moustache and bad breathe.

I captured this picture in Camarillo California yesterday...isn't it cool?

I lived in California before but that time I was in Petaluma, a bit north of Frisco. I occasionally saw celebrities, on and off of movie sets. Now I actually live IN Hollywood so I seem to see quite a few…so many so that I’ve even been surprised at how many I’ve seen. I stopped mentioning them after about 4 because it was becoming rather boring and to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have known who most of them were if someone hadn’t told me.

Saturday night I was at a place called Busby’s shooting a few games of pool and minding my own business when the bartender asked the guy who was playing pool at the other table why he looked so familiar. The guy said that he was on Madmen, a show I’ve never seen. I didn’t have a clue who the guy was and I didn’t know his name so it wasn’t really worth mentioning.

What I should have mentioned about Saturday night was that I had a beer and 3 sips of a Bacardi and Coke after taking a pain pill Saturday afternoon. I did all of that without eating so I sort of deserved what happened on the way home. Unfortunately, others who DIDN’T deserve it paid for my stupidity.

After a few sips of my drink, I started to feel a bit queasy so instead of waiting for my daughter to pick me up, I started walking home. After walking for about a mile, I decided to hop on a bus for the last mile down La Brea. I don’t know if it was all the people dressed in costume that tightly packed the bus, the movement of the stupid thing or the fact that I never did eat, but I quickly turned green and felt an impending and unstoppable need to puke.

Luckily for me, the bus was approaching my stop so I pulled the string to signal a desire to get off of the bus. I was actually relieved for a moment because, despite my best efforts, I was about to blow chunks and I hoped to be able to do so at the intersection of La Brea and Melrose and NOT on the bus. I won’t tell you how far I went to avoid heaving all over the bus, but trust me…my efforts were valiant.

They were all for naught. Before the bus came to a stop, I barfed on the arm of the guy sitting to my right. Then, without missing a beat, I got the leg of the guy on my left. That’s when the bus stopped and I bolted without apology. All I wanted to do was get off of the bus before it happened again. I’m not blaming any of that on the Madmen dude, but it was quite a coincidence that I lost my beer shortly after seeing him.

Although I felt badly about leaving the contents of my stomach in the lap of some dude dressed up as a vampire…I planned to find a way to spin my short bus ride into a humorous story and I did so for most of Sunday. But I DID feel for the 2 guys who caught the wrath of my gastro-intestinal upheaval. I even tweeted an apology on Twitter on the off chance that the barfed upon guys were cleaned up and reading my tweets but I forgot to tell you guys about it until right now.

Then, yesterday my daughter and I stopped at a gas station in Camarillo. I was sitting in the car as my kid went in the store for dog food and although I noticed the chick in front of me stick the pump into the gas tank of her Suburban, I certainly didn’t know who the anorexic wench was so I paid no attention to her.

When my kid got back in the car, she told me that the woman in the Suburban was Rachel Griffiths, an actor on a show called Six Feet Under. I’ve never seen that show so even when my daughter told me who she was, I didn’t know her. And I couldn’t see her because she was sitting in the Suburban as the gas pump was hanging out of the left side of it all by itself.

Apparently, my daughter was a fan so when she made eye contact with the skinny chick, she smiled at her. By that time she was also pumping gas and not likely to run away from her own car to mob Griffiths. Also, it was the middle of the day and the gas station was full of men so I can’t imagine anyone feeling threatened, certainly not by the smile of a young woman.

Now, I know my kid. She isn’t a nut and she has seen her share of celebrities around town and as a planner of the Golden Globe awards. Star spotting has become very commonplace to her and if she wasn’t a fan of Six Feet Under, she probably would have walked away without smiling.

But as soon as she DID smile, the middle-aged quasi-celebrity jumped into her vehicle as though Jack the Raper had just shouted “You’re next!” at her. So even if I wanted to see her, I couldn’t unless I was nutty enough to wait for her to get back out of her gas guzzling truck/car and I’m not THAT nutty at all.

I’ve long ago lost count of the famous people whom I have met as well as those with whom I’ve worked. I can safely say that, with the possible exceptions of Bill Murray and Sally Fields, every single star who I’ve met has been as pleasant as a normal person would be.

It doesn’t surprise me that a nobody would hide from “prying eyes” because it seems as though the sweetest stars I’ve encountered have been the most celebrated. For example, Bob Hope, Charlton Heston and Harrison Ford were all more than gracious when I met them. I met Ford at a party but Heston and Hope could have easily avoided me. They didn’t. Instead they behaved liked regular human beings.

Those 3 men were stars that most people on this planet would know. If they were pumping gas along with 10 other people, at least 9 would have recognized them. But Rachel Griffiths would need quite a few more gas pumps full of people before anyone would pick up on her identity. She should be pleased that ANYONE knows who she is yet rather than return a smile from a fan and continue pumping her gas…she chose to go to all the trouble to jump back in her ride with the gas pump hanging out of the side of it.

I didn’t think about it until I was back on the freeway but if I see her again, I’m sticking my finger down my throat and blowing chunks all over her Suburban, her left arm or her right leg.

The clock on this computer is finally correct. I guess it’ll screw itself up sometime next spring but for now, I’ll enjoy the convenient little time keeper in the corner and it’ll actually tell me the truth for a change. I don’t have to do any math, I don’t have to consider what time zone I’m in and by the time I get used to this method of time keeping, it’ll be wrong again.

I’m sure there’s a way to fix that sucker but when I sit at my computer, I usually have something else on my mind that takes precedence over the clock thing. Instead, I sit here for 6 months of the year chronologically challenged and wishing that there was a clock around here with the correct time on it. I sometimes think that I should offer myself as the poster child for procrastination but once again, there’s always something more pressing to take up my time.

You may ask why I don’t just stop what I’m doing and fix the stupid thing. Well, there’s a reason for that. Since I moved to the West Coast, I always worry about the people who like to read this crap in the morning. I don’t want to screw up their evening by making them wonder if I ever did get around to writing something and I certainly don’t want to mess up my own evening worrying about people I’ve never met so I’m always in a hurry when I sit down to write and with my daughter around, I notice how much time I spend writing. Sitting alone in my own place lends itself to writing more so than having a kid around seems to.

See? I’m digressing again and digressing is really just written procrastination, don’t you think?

I feel the need to do it again so here goes. My daughter keeps BBC on the television so much that she’s beginning to get a British accent. I’m not really sure how to change the channel without alerting her to my actions. She keeps that remote control so close to her that I can’t really do it discreetly, even if I wait for her to fall asleep. It’s not like I can do anything without the remote…if I tried I might end up pushing a button that can’t be un-pushed without the remote. Then I’d have to come right out and tell her, “I’ve screwed up the TV, I need the remote.”

That would start an argument over “Why didn’t you just get the remote in the first place?!”…after all, “What you did just doesn’t make sense!” I never claimed that I made sense and I never said that I wasn’t a flake. As a matter of fact, I’ve colored my hair blonde as a warning. If she assumes that I’m brighter than your average blonde, it’s on her.

You know that look that you get when you get caught doing something incredibly stupid like eating a co-worker’s lunch, locking the car keys in your trunk or asking a Pet-Mart associate where the peanut butter is? Well, I seem to be getting that look often and I don’t think it’s fair. I could take her into MY house and get annoyed every time she breaks one of MY arbitrary rules but it just wouldn’t occur to me. Even if I wanted to take the time and energy to do that, I’d just procrastinate until I forgot about it and nothing would come of it so I don’t even bother pondering over such minor transgressions.

I may notice a person who does something that annoys me, but unless they keep on doing it in front of me, I won’t go out of my way to bitch at them. It would be like trying to reason with a drunken person walking down the street…it’s not worth the time so I just keep walking to my destination. My daughter would stop and take the time to bitch at the drunk and there you have the difference between her and I.

The difference between a drunk and myself would be that I remember all the stupid stuff my kid tells me. Unfortunately, I never seem to remember to avoid irritating her. On Halloween she got mad at me for eating a candy bar. If eating a candy bar on Halloween can get you in trouble, who’s gonna worry about which kitchen sponge is for the pet’s dishes and which one is for people dishes?

And one more thing…I’m not nice because I don’t know HOW to be a bitch…I can do that quite well. I simply CHOOSE not to.

I have a hard time keeping up with all of the new words that seem to pop up in daily use nowadays. Ordinarily I can figure out the meaning of new words by the way in which they’re used. I heard a new word recently and I thought that I knew what it meant. It was used in reference to me by someone who obviously doesn’t appreciate my humor so I just figured it was something bad. And since it was used by someone who only knows me online, I knew it had to be because of something that I said or did on this blog.

A while back I wrote a post about my odd feet. I didn’t know that they were odd until people started pointing that fact out to me. I have very long fingers, legs and toes and my second toe is so long it’s actually longer than my great toe. I posted this picture of my malformed foot to go along with the post regarding people who suffer the same ailment:

My freak toe doesn’t bother me, and as far as I know, I’ve never suffered any discrimination because of it. But, I know how people frozen with 8th grade emotions think and most of them would seize the opportunity to make fun of me and my toe. That’s OK, I’m not stuck in 8th grade so I couldn’t care less what some nit wit says about me or my abhorrently long second toes.

Having met more than my share of feeble bullies, I can sort of see the effete attacks before they come. So, after publishing that picture of my malformed toe, I wasn’t surprised to hear that there was a name for that deformity and some childish man-wannabes were using the derogatory term in reference to me. When I became aware of the sad little attempts to annoy me with the toe jokes, I brushed them off and never really thought about it again.

Then, this morning my daughter said that one of her toes was hurting her. That made me think of my toes and the freaks who made fun of them. My daughter seems to be rather hip about things so I decided to get her opinion and see if my toes qualified for the nasty little moniker given to them by some computer troll.

As my daughter walked into the kitchen where I was sitting at the table, I took the sock off of my right foot, stuck my foot up in the air so that it was pointing at my kid and asked her, “Do I have a camel-toe?”

Well, she knew what it meant. First she looked at my face and then she asked, “Are you kidding?” Of course, I was NOT kidding and she could see that. It caused her to laugh for a very long time. She laughed so hard that she couldn’t tell me why it was funny. Eventually she did calm down enough to say, “Look it up on the computer…search images so you can see one.”

I did. Apparently camel-toes have absolutely nothing to do with feet, or toes for that matter. Even after she stopped laughing, my daughter couldn’t quite explain what an actual camel-toe was, but she was able to say that I did have one in this picture of my backside:

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it seems as though the camel reference has something to do with two humps.

You know, if I had met someone with a really long second toe, I very well might have called them “Camel-toe”. Knowing me, I would have said it right to their face and with my luck, they would have known exactly what a camel-toe was.

I’m glad that the issue came up with my grown daughter, I could have asked ANYONE had the thought had popped into my head at a different time. Even so, it was slightly embarrassing. I’ve asked a few stupid questions in my life…here are some of the more asinine queries that I’ve made:

1. I took a letter to the Bensenville post office so I could send it to my cousin who lived about 10 miles away. I asked the man if they could send it air mail. He responded, “You could if there were any planes flying from Bensenville to Roselle.”

2. After a night of making love I asked the father of my kids what the fishy smell was. He laughed so hard he had an anxiety attack.

3. I asked my father the name of the song that goes, “Bingo, bango, bongo” over and over again. He didn’t even laugh, he just shook his head and walked away.

4. I walked into Auto Zone and asked for the “small funnel”. I needed one that would help me get the oil in the little hole. Instead, the guy showed me the BIG hole that said OIL.

5. I walked around the Dollar Store looking for someone to tell me how much the sponge in my hand was. Luckily I realized where I was before I actually asked for the price check.

6. My ex had a woman calling our house, I found someone else’s make-up in our car, he stopped calling me from work and he treated me like shit. Then I asked, “Is there somebody else?” That may be the single dumbest question that I, or any other woman, has ever asked a man.

I tried to come up with 10 stupid things that I’ve asked people but I only came up with 6. Do NOT let that lead you to believe that those are the ONLY dumb questions I’ve ever asked. They’re the only 6 that I can come up with right now. I may remember more and if I do, I’ll be back to let you know about them.

For now, I have to take my dog for a walk. He LOVES Los Angeles but they do have a law that ALL dogs (except breeding dogs) have to be de-sexed. That poor dog is a virgin and now he has to lose his testicles without ever having a chance to use them. How sad.

I like to think that I occasionally push the envelop when I’m writing. I like to do it and it seems to come naturally to me considering that I just write what’s on my mind. I may make a joke about someone’s sex organs now and then…but not their religious beliefs. I wouldn’t bother doing that even though it might be funny because it’s sort of like going out of your way to hurt feelings. Unless you are a husband who cheated on me, I probably won’t hurt your feelings if I can avoid it. (Of course there are exceptions to this rule…but you’d really have to be a prick to incur my wrath.)

I’m not sure what Larry David was going for in the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (he peed on a picture of Jesus Christ) but I suspect it was a play for publicity. His best cerebral work is behind him and without Seinfeld, David is just another Jew with a bad attitude. His character is a nasty little man without the appeal of a Kramer or George. I wouldn’t want that nit wit in my house so I won’t invite him in by watching his show. As a Seinfeld fan, it seems that everyone wants to give me DVD’s of David’s latest season. I tried watching the first season and except for a minute when David’s pants made it look like he had an erection, I couldn’t find anything about the show to be funny.

Obviously the show has it’s fans, I’m just not one of them. I’d like to see the episode with the old Seinfeld cast members, but other than that, I have no interest in tuning in to HBO to catch Larry David being a jerk.

It seems as though the pee was actually a splash-back of urine that missed it’s target. David wasn’t trying to pee on Jesus, but, inadvertently, he did. When a lady subsequently used the restroom, she observed the ‘peed upon’ Jesus and assumed that the image of Christ was crying, leading her and her mother to kneel down in prayer…right there in the bathroom.

Now, I see the humor in that and I’m sure many others do too. BUT…I’m also sure that some people would be seriously offended and the bit wasn’t THAT funny. I would never go to Islamabad and pee on whatever Islamabadians find sacred and I don’t think that David should pee on a picture of the most Sacred Being to ever walk the earth in the middle of America which…like it or not…was founded by a bunch of fervent Christians.

If those Christians had settled for some tents and sheets for clothing, America would be like the Gaza Strip. But, we didn’t sit around for generations throwing rocks at English people, we built stuff and created the country that many Jews, Muslims and Atheists aspire to call home.

It was the very same Christians who gave us the First Amendment so David is certainly allowed to be annoying, obnoxious and yes…even offensive. I just wonder why he would do so in such a despicable manner…even if it IS funny, and I admit that it is actually VERY funny.

So now that David has crossed the line into offensive humor, I assume another publicity hungry freak will try to top peeing on The Savior of all Mankind. I’m sure that someone, somewhere is trying to top David’s little publicity stunt as you read this. In case those people are coming up blank in their efforts, here are a few ideas that just might be offensive to someone and funny to someone else:

1. The Rabbi gets lice from a hooker and passes it on when someone else mistakenly wears his little black beanie. Before long, the entire congregation has lice, except for the Hasidic women who are all wearing wigs.

2. American tourist mistakenly takes a dump in that thing Muslims walk around by the thousands. Shocked…the Muslims take the towels off of their heads and use them to snap the offending crapper to death.

3. Pope answers ad on Craigslist to be a “host” at an S & M party. We find out he likes to play the submissive male and has even been seen hanging from ceilings with a red ball strapped in his mouth.

4. Crazy chick from Jersey goes to Utah and puts birth control pills in the water leading to the eradication of all Mormons except the Osmond family who are actually in on the caper because they want to eliminate the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and replace them with their own family members.

5. Called to treat for cockroaches, an Orkin man kills all of the snakes in a West Virginia church. He replaces them all with garter snakes and becomes famous when the congregation believes that he turned evil serpents into gentle beings.

6. A hemiplegic Auswitch survivor and a blind old nazi share the same room in a nursing home. When they learn of each other’s history, hilarity ensues.

7. Shortly after the first gay President takes office, he takes aim at the media who continually refer to him as the Gay Guy-in-Chief. Media strikes back with pictures of the gay president committing sodomy in the Oval Office with 7 prepubescent young boys. Liberal Supreme Court rules that taking it up the backside is NOT technically considered sex so the gay president dude is cleared of all criminal charges and returns to the Oval Office…and to the little boy tourists who get lost in the White House.

8. A Jewish mortician opens a business called Jew-Mart where up to 50 Jews can be cremated and their ashes stuffed into a single receptacle which of course is the no-frills model…you can buy a nicer one but don’t let him sell you the ten dollar waterproofing. That’s basically just 2 feet of Saran Wrap and you could waterproof the dead people in your own kitchen before you store them in the attic. There are occasionally Jews dumb enough to buy the waterproofing, but it means a mandatory tattoo with a big dunce cap on their left forearms if they do. They call it “Jewish Darwinism”.

9. White chick is ship wrecked on island with 32 black guys. She is in charge and the men can’t look her straight in the eye, approach her without invitation or fail to perform the day’s duty. She immediately commands them to build a new world for her as she goads them on with a whip made out of the same stuff Tom Hanks used to hold his raft together in ‘Castaway’.

10. At Joey and Dee’s local Pasta-R-Us, an obnoxiously loud Italian family is mowed down, mafia style, while enjoying a meal of eggplant Parmesan. The hit-man was another guinea named Guido. Guido’s mother insists on driving him to all of his hits after he gets a DUI. She can be very helpful as she was when her son took out the noisy dagos in the restaurant. She could only shoot the kids, but hey…somebody had to.

Hi….my husband cheated on the internet….he says it does not mean anything…but my world has fallen apart….we are back together….but how do i ever trust again….on your blog you went through something similar….maybe you can give me some advice….

Thanx

I’ll do my best but that might lead to more confusion. Anyway, I wish someone would have spoken to me about it but I didn’t know a soul to ask for advice. First let me offer my deepest and most empathetic, “I hear ya girl!” and now I’ll see what I can do with your situation.

First of all, whether he cheated online or in person, the fact is that your trust has been compromised and the pain you fell is valid. People might tell you things like, “Men will be men.” or “They all play online, it doesn’t mean anything.” For some reason people tend to belittle your feelings and minimize what the dishonest person did. Do NOT allow yourself to feel badly for feeling badly. It is what it is, you’re hurt, you’ve been deceived and the sanctity of your marriage vows have been cracked to the core. Trust your own feelings, if you feel hurt, you are. If you feel as though your husband betrayed you, he did. NEVER let anyone tell you differently or make you feel as though you did anything to contribute to your hurt feelings. That’s tough for most women by itself, add the efforts of a bit of a manipulator and before you know it, the deception was somehow your fault. Do NOT fall into that trap.

Next, make a decision while you have control over the situation.. If a marriage is going to end, do your best to end it on your own terms or else you will end up blindsided and reacting to the decisions made by someone else. That is NEVER a good thing.

If you decide to stay with your husband, make a reasonable plan. Tell him what you expect, honesty is a good start. Have a calm and serious discussion about what you want out of a marriage. Tell him in no unclear terms exactly what betrayal means so far as YOUR marriage is concerned. For example, if you feel betrayed when he looks at Internet porn, tell him so. Tell him that he has the option of disagreeing and leaving, but if he wants to stay married to you, he must avoid doing things that make you feel betrayed. Tell him what you are willing to do for him and ask him if there is anything that you can do differently to make him happy. That doesn’t mean that you did anything wrong in the first place, it just means that you’re willing to work hard to keep your marriage together. Set a goal for when you will be able to trust him again. I tried telling my ex to refrain from lying for one year and I would do my best not to act like a jealous fool. The problem was, he could never go for a year without lying. But, if he had been, he might have been able to earn my trust again. We’ll never know because he never did it, but if you’re lucky, your husband will try to earn your trust and you will see his efforts and begin to trust him again.

If you see that he IS trying, try to let him know that you’ve noticed and that you appreciate it. If you find yourself unable to trust him no matter what he does, I suggest that you get counseling, either for the two of you or just for yourself.

Probably the most important advice that I can give any woman is to take care of yourself. Go back to school, take up a hobby that you’ve given up or just take on a new hobby. Do something that is just for you. Make yourself a better person for you, your family and for your husband. The effects of doing that have unlimited potential toward making your marriage better, your life healthier and your self esteem greater. There is absolutely NO downside to that last piece of advice and as I said, unlimited potential exists for you to be happier, healthier and much more successful in life.

I meant to write this earlier today but I don’t like to write sans THC and last night I lost my weed after smoking myself stupid. I finally found it behind a pumpkin so, here I am! If I try really hard, I might be able to write a complete post without being interrupted by my daughter who I love dearly. I really do. She’s my favorite person on the planet and I would do anything for her. I enjoy her company and I could hang out with her for days and days before I started to get annoyed with the stupid things she says and does.

Well, it’s been days and days. Actually, it’s been weeks and that chick is about to drive me INSANE! From the way she hollers across the grocery store to get my attention to her ever-present disdain for my clothing du jour, that kid is making me wonder if her father was telling the truth when he said she was mine.

But…I shall persevere because I represent a group of people who have been persecuted for far too long…parents whose kids keep moving back home.

I was one of you as recently as last year when my first born became the last little chickadee to fly the coop. But, as the occupant of a 3 bedroom house, I have always lived in the fear of a child or two returning back to the nest. Well, for the rest of the parents out there who live in fear of a return to servitude, I have taken it upon myself to buck the trend and do what was previously unthinkable…I moved in with one of THEM. I’m not sure if it will help alleviate any situations that are occurring out there between annoying children and the parents who love them but, it will certainly give other parents a momentary escape to a land where parents sleep on couches and spend time in other people’s bathrooms.

It’s a land where children write checks to utility companies and worry about what the neighbors think. In this topsy-turvy world, children like a clean bathroom sink and vanity and they don’t like socks on the living room floor. Previously normal offspring will walk into rooms carrying an empty bottle of ketchup and say things like, “Why did you leave this in the fridge?”

There are as many ways to infiltrate this land as there are parents so HOW you get in is up to you. But once you’re actually IN your kids place, you need to slowly remind them that you are still the parent. If you raised them right, they will be putty in your hands but you have to approach them like a snake would…stealthily and without fear. Never attempt to claim any parental rights early in the Child as a Landlord relationship. It won’t work and can only serve to increase hostilities which are inevitable. A wise parent-tenant will minimize these hostilities and use them in a way that will eventually evoke guilt. What cannot be avoided must be manipulated in a way that makes it an asset.

Some people prefer to say it like this, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” I’ve never liked that platitude because if you’ve ever tried to make lemonade, you know that the juice of the poor lemon is impossible to drink unless you have water, ice and a BUNCH of sugar. Sometimes you need to take the lemon and stick it in someone ELSE’S mouth to get it to work for you. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish today.

I need to find a way to retrain my daughter who has always been single. She lives alone and although she’s certainly a YOUNG lady…she’s also surprisingly set in her ways. As nurse, I was taught to approach a problem logically. There needs to be a rationale for everything I do or don’t do. I might forget a list of commands but if I understand what it is I’m trying to accomplish, it won’t matter. Now…if the stuff my daughter wanted me to do had any basis in reason, I could easily grasp her point and abide by her wishes. But some of her rules exist for tradition alone and those are tough to remember.

I can really get that lemon in her mouth if I try but it’s seem as though I can make her pucker with absolutely no effort whatsoever. I was pleased with that, it’s a bonus that I hadn’t even considered. For example…who would know that anyone could have 4 sponges at the kitchen sink…each with their own purpose? I’ll never memorize such useless crap so if I’m in a good mood, I ask her before choosing a sponge. Even if I AM in a good mood, sometimes I use the wrong sponge just for general purposes. You would too if you had to put up with a Child Landlord.

I’d love to have a video tape of my kid barking orders at me…but even if I had a camcorder, I wouldn’t have it on at the right time. My luck isn’t anywhere near that good. But, yesterday, during one particularly prolific list of my wrong-doings, I started keeping notes. This is an honest to goodness list of things that I heard from my daughter’s mouth yesterday…if I’m lying let lightning strike me where I’m sitting. Also, I double dare my daughter or anyone who knows her to accuse me of embellishing this list-o-comments:

1. “I hope you remembered to lock the door!”
2. “You left your purse in plain sight in MY car?! Are you nuts?!?!?! Where do you think you are? This is LOS ANGELES…HELLO! Someone could break MY car window to get to YOUR stupid purse, thanks for that.”
3. “You didn’t drink out of MY water bottle, did you?”
4. “Did you wash your hands before you did that? Well DID you?”
5. “So, you didn’t like my idea of keeping a sign on the dishwasher saying “Clean” or “Dirty”?
6. “I don’t like using someone else’s toothpaste so I bought you your own and put an “M” on the lid. Mine has an “A”.
7. “Are the clothes in the bathroom clean or dirty and what do you want to do about them?”
8. “You realize that we’re having company for dinner and that YOU offered to do the cooking…well they’ll be here within 2 hours and you’re taking a break now? Why did we just spend 3 hours shopping if you were just going to come home and take a break?”
9. “Could you NOT put the drink near my Gucci purse?”
10. “Here, the pink towel is yours, don’t use mine. Oh, and don’t forget, the hand towel in the kitchen is ONLY for drying your hands on. Don’t do ANYTHING else with it.”

I could go on and on and I’m sure that sooner or later I will add to that list…or should I say that my DAUGHTER will add to it. But for now I’ll simply enjoy the quiet that surrounds me. During down times like these, I like to think of my responses to my daughter’s copious edict barking. I’m wise enough to withhold retort for a more appropriate time. Responding to numerous commands given by a Child Landlord is dangerous if done immediately after the child gives the command. You risk an argument which is fine if you enjoy that sort of thing but I don’t. I wouldn’t mind a verbal altercation but there are too many loose emotions out there in the world. They make life, and verbal altercations, a bit too unpredictable. I spend too much time positioning myself to allow for anything as out of my control as an emotional female.

The only thing worse than an emotional female is a testosterone induced male stricken by love, grief or acrimony. I try to keep things at a low level around here, or anywhere else for that matter. My daughter is a lovely young woman but…let’s just say she’s part Italian. During our one and only “heated discussion”, she stood 10 feet away from me, naked as the day she was born…trying so hard to scream that her voice became distorted. A wild-eyed Irish-Italian redheaded woman…she looked me straight in the eye and screeched, “You’re crazy!” Her head didn’t spin but it looked like it wanted to.

Anyway, I need to go because I have a few things to do. While she’s gone, I think I’ll:

1. Use her toothbrush.
2. Erase all the messages in her cell phone and say it was an accident.
3. Scrub the entire kitchen counter with the sponge designated for pet bowls.
4. Eat a Nutter-Butter or two while drinking milk straight out of the container.
5. NOT brush the dog. Later I’ll claim that I did.
6. Let them hem out of her black and white dress…just a bit and then iron it so that she NEVER knows.
7. Let the cat walk on the refrigerator.
8. Walk on the carpet with my shoes on.
9. Eat a bunch of her Moosetracks ice-cream.
10. Write a blogpost that will make her laugh but will also leave her wondering exactly what’s on my mind.

She should be back soon so I better get started. See ya!

I recently overheard my daughter tell someone that I was “computer savvy”. I never knew that before. I was certainly a little late coming to the computer world…I had heard about them but until my brother amazed me with his home PC, I never saw the practical applications for such a thing. I still had 8-tracks and had just given in and purchased a microwave oven. They had been around for over 20 years before I broke down and got myself one of those boxy little counter-top necessities.

I still don’t have a cell phone and I’ll be damned if I’m going to cave this time. God forbid I become one of those people standing in the middle of Wal-mart talking to myself before I’m 70. It’s easy to go without a cell phone, but it isn’t easy to kick a habit so I think I’ll continue confounding everyone I meet and refuse politely every time one of my kids try to give me one. As long as my phone is tethered to a wall in my kitchen and sans answering machine, people can still wonder where I’ve gone or if I even knew that they called. People with cell phones make conscious decisions not to accept calls and I like to keep people guessing.

I have no MP3 thingies so my daughter’s crappy car radio is an issue. The rotten radio stations alone should be reason enough to warrant a conversion on my part but I fear that with every golden oldie I download, the chances of losing that sucker will increase exponentially. So, I drive in silence and enjoy it…proof positive that I am old.

Along with cell phones and convenient music, I have chosen to avoid:

1. Counter-top appliances that require a “drip” pan
2. Removal of pubic hair
3. Sam’s Club sized cleaning supplies
4. Televisions that hang on a wall, are bigger than my dresser or require more than one remote control
5. Lite beer, low fat ice cream or low carb ANYTHING
6. Tramp stamps
7. Instant messaging in any form
8. Hair spray with glitter
9. Products that say “Green” without a Jolly Giant and a Niblet on the label
10. Annoying gadgets that are supposed to make it easier to clean a kitchen floor

I have succumbed to microwave ovens, my computer and lip liner…that’s it. Other than those 3 things, my world is pretty much the same as it was in 1976 and I like it that way. I only got the computer for the word processor…if I didn’t enjoy writing, I still wouldn’t have one. And, if it wasn’t for one dreary January afternoon when I learned about blogs, I wouldn’t know how to go online. Everything I know about computers, I figured out because I needed to do something with a blog. And now…years later, I am “computer savvy”. Cool beans.

Every so often I find something that makes it easier to do things blog-related. The web-cam was one such discovery. I think I’ve had another blog/computer epiphany…this thing has been extremely convenient:

http://www.digeus.com/products/snapit/snapit_screen_capture_3_5.html

It captures whatever is on your screen and saves it in a file. Even I can find a file and open it. It’s just another newfangled contraption that I use in my efforts to appear “computer savvy”.

I think I’m more Internet savvy than anything else, I can find anything I need online from the episode of Gilligan’s Island where they made cars that they never used again to how much anti-freeze it takes to off a cheating husband. I can find songs that I haven’t heard in 40 years, men who will mow a lawn for no good reason whatsoever and pictures of the house in which I lived as a 6 year old. If I were a psycho, I could cyber-stalk the mean kid in 8th grade who offered me a nickle after I became a woman in Algebra class.

Yep…I like my computer. It may not grill a grease free burger, but it certainly has it’s relevance in my life.