Happy Birthday to me.

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but I'm thinking that's not such a bad thing...

argh, the tourists are here...they tumble from their cars and RVs and swarm...like ants from a dark, breached mound...we will hide out on our secret island until the horde and Easter recede, whilst drinking down amber brew and humming "blow us a breeze..."

my daughter's school finally acquiesced to the insistence of some of us parents of girls and for the first time ever, we have a girl's softball team. I am one of two coaches. It's the sweetest thing I've experienced in a long, long time. The girls all have heart, baby, miles and miles and miles of heart. Yesterday we had our first victory against a private school from the next town over--the team was all boys and we gave the girls the option of playing them or not--they had just suffered through an impassioned girl-power pep talk from yours truly and they apparently bought it. We played the boys from the hoity-toity prep school. And we kicked some hoity-toity-prep-school-boy-ass. I wish you could have seen the girls strutting to the bus. God, it was sweet.

Douchebag of the Month: Miss March

"...I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot'".

~Ann Coulter

PS: I was going to wait until the end of the month, but Annie made this month's choice a slam-dunk.

If I live to see the seven wonders...

I'll make a path to the rainbows end...

...and here are the seven wonders per the smooth waxings of dearest eb.

Watch yourself, there is some frankness and what some may consider racy, even pornographic. It's also all true. Every. Damn. Word.

And as you ponder the wisdom of the great and powerful eb, check out these here seven wonders of good ole down-home southern cooking. It was the fare at Kimmie's all-girl St. Paddy's Day chicklit party (except for her husband, Gary, who had to endure being called "Mangina" all night--a small price to pay to bask in our collective loveliness without having a vagina--a condition of admission to our partays).

So here's what we et: (clockwise, let's start with the bowl at the bottom, shall we? Chicken wings, tossed salad sprinkled with bacon and scallions, crackers and home made hummus, collard greens, potato salad, Kimmie's special cheddar creamed corn bread (Oh, YES), and in the center, the requisite ribs. Heaven. We had Key lime pie for dessert. And people, real native Florida Key lime pie is NOT green. It is yellow.

dear god,

I confess that I don't believe in you, at least not in the way that they taught me in Sunday school to...but at this very moment, right when Kip was snapping this picture, I was thinking, "Thank you, God, for my bodacious girlfriends. I love every one of them and would be lost without them." But I guess you already knew that.

some day we'll all be dead and none of this will matter anyhow

A friend of mine is soon hosting his annual Shakespeare's Sonnet Reading, an evening of highbrow wine-ing and cheese-ing and recitation of what I like to refer to as "the Best-O-Bill." John has asked me to recite this year but I must choose my own sonnet, as he is loathe to assign, being a retired professor and all. When he called, I allowed that sure, I have some favorites. I like the one Kate Winselt reads in Sense and Sensibility to the cad who loves her but dumps her anyway because the other girl offers stability and he is, after all, a coward, #116:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Yeah, I like that one. But I also like #29:

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state (
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.

Love kind of sucks and makes us feel like total unabashed retards sometimes, doesn't it?
That was me, not Bill.

fear and loathing in the WC

I am afraid of my toilet. This irrational fear only grips me late at night, when everyone else in the house is slumbering and I am working well into the wee hours, flailing away at the keyboard and alternately staring at the nudie NYFD firefighters calendar my sweet daughter gave me for Christmas. Because she knows I have a thing for the firefighters going on. Anyway. I drink a lot of water and tea and too much Diet Coke and so of course, I must trip to the loo, but it never fails to occur to me as I sit there all naked from the waist down and vulnerable, that something is going to bite me. On my hienie. In my warped mind I see huge fangs coming up from the deep waters of the pottie, poised to sink into my ass. Or worse, Freddie Kruger-like talons sinking into my bare naked bottom. I try to avoid the pottie thing at night whenever possible.

I'm in love and I don't care who thinks I am a horse's ass because of it. This little green guy is the best damn $139 I have ever spent in my life. In. My. Life, people. Kip turned me on to Woot, a cool little site that offers great deals every day (the deals are good only on that day or until the Woot-o-de-Day sells out) on super groovy cool tech stuff. I have never bought anything remotely techie in my life, save my cell phone and the requisite PC. And I admit, the first time I saw the Roomba advertised on TV, I thought it was as idiotic as the dumbass Popeil Pocket Fisherman. But wait, there's more! I was wrong, so wrong. Please forgive me, my sweet little Roomba. This baby vacuums my entire house in two hours and for the first time since Miss Daisy came to live with us, my house does not smell like dog (thank you, sweet baby jesus!!!!). Plus, it makes cute little R2D2 noises to tell me it's off to go clean, call to me when it runs into trouble (rarely) and when it's done, the cute little bastard even puts itself away. Yup. It returns itself to it's docking station to recharge and await my next command. Why, oh why, didn't God make guys like this? But who the hell needs men when I have my Roomba? Seriously. I'm done.

a poem for March

Youth, Day, Old Age and Night

Youth, large, lusty, loving-youth full of grace, force, fascination,

Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace,force, fascination?

Day full-blown and splendid-day of the immense sun, action,ambition, laughter,

The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness.

~Walt Whitman

(because March is my birthday month, which means it is Spring, and it is the time of year when I always believe that all things really are possible and I am more hopeful than any of the other 11 months in the calendar...)

The lovely Barb had a setback recently because a lump was discovered in her other breast. I guess I could say in her breast because she has but one now, but anyway, another sharp intake of breath that we have all been holding. Barb has refused to lie down and let the cancer take her because, dammit, she's not done yet. And she has survived past any time frames the doctors have given her. (In spite of the time frames, or in order to spite them. She's that kinda girl :)

Anyway, so here's the latest from my girl:

My biopsy came back and it was nonmalignant, so I am very happy about that. I went to my chemo treatment and asked the nurse if Dr. Diaz could call and find out for me. She came back and said that the report wasn't in yet. However, on the way out we ran into Dr. Diaz and he said he would call the pathologist if we could just wait for a few more minutes. Well, it was more that a few minutes and every time he would walk by his face looked bad. I was freaking out. Then, he finally came in and gave me the report and we all kissed and hugged. He told me to go home and enjoy the weekend. That used to mean a drink, but today it meant a bowl of ice cream. I was at one appointment or the other until 1:30. So, by the time I got home and had lunch, I was totally exhausted. But, it was a good tired. I am just going to sleep and not wake up worrying about things. That is a good feeling. Thank you for all of your prayers and good spirits, my peeps. Hope you all will sleep well tonight also. Love me.