Tag Archives: Humor

September 20, 2012 · 0:00

Secrets of a pretty damn good marriage

This week, John and I are celebrating our 26th anniversary.  Seriously!  He has put up with hearing my stories repeated, time after time, and still has not run screaming from the house.  Well, actually he has, but he comes back, so I don’t worry when I see him heading out the door.

Twenty-six years.  Not bad, huh?  It started with the Ode to Joy, which was played at our wedding.

Sadly, no Muppets came. Or maybe it would have ended badly had any Muppets shown up.  We’ll never know.

The anniversary has gotten me thinking.  What makes it work?  Why is my marriage so perfect pretty damn good?  Once I answered myself,  I decided to post my good marriage tips for anyone thinking of getting married or trying to figure out if they, too, did it right.

  • Do not marry an asshole.   You should not just love the person.  You must like the person, too.  Yup it’s true.  It’s the first, the most basic, most fundamental criteria.  Assholes make poor husbands/wives.
  • Never argue.  John and I never argue.  That’s because I let John make all the major decisions that impact our lives.  I agree with him.  On those times I disagree, well, then I do what I want to anyway.  He rarely notices because I haven’t argued about it.  Trust me, this technique is worth its weight in gold.  Or jewelery.  Or whatever it is you want that your husband thinks is stupid.
  • Admit your faults.  I am a kleptomaniac, and always have been.  I steal blankets.  Every night of my life I have taken them from whomever is fortunate/unfortunate enough to be sleeping with me.  Friends, lovers, children, husband, dogs, repairmen.  You name it.  If it is cold, I am toasty.  If it is hot, the blankets are on the floor on my side of the bed.  Otherwise, I am damn near perfect.
  • Make the bed with separate sheets and blankets for each side.  It looks like hell, but it is the single factor that has kept my husband in that bed.  Well, maybe not the only factor.
  • Use Gax-X.  I’m not saying who.
  • Pretend to like baseball.  Seriously, it’s not that hard.  I mean, they only play 7 days a week for more than half the year.  Unless the team is really good and then they play longer.  An occasional “what a hit” is the wifely version of “no, it doesn’t make you look fat.”  All bets are off, however, when he discovers a second team that he also needs to follow.
  • Have more than one TV in the house.  See previous tip and accept your limits.
  • Appreciate his gifts.  They are from his heart.  I am particularly lucky in this regard.  John generally gives me either books or jewelry.  In 26 years, he has given me approximately 300 books.  He’s given me only 2 duds.  Not bad, huh?  He chooses books that he doesn’t secretly want to read – just ones that he thinks I will like.  And he’s right nearly always.

John’s taste in jewelry has also been fabulous.  He gives me simple, tasteful pieces.  Yes I am lucky.  No gaudy jewelry for me!  Except that once.

  • Never tell him that that 10th Anniversary Ring He Gave You Was the Ugliest Thing You’d Ever Seen. When someone gives me a gift, I think of the love and effort it took to go out, choose and purchase that gift.  Whether I like it or not, well, that’s secondary.  So I lie.  I tell them I love it.  Every time.  It’s usually not too difficult.

Our finances improved significantly just around the time of our 10th anniversary.  John was able to buy me an expensive piece of jewelry.  Now I’m not an expensive jewelry kind of girl.  (If I am ever had to sell my jewelry to live I would last approximately 3.5 days.)

But that year, well, John went all out.  He bought me a HUGE ring.  It was a 400 carat emerald ring with baguette diamonds swirling around and around and around the center emerald.  Lots and lots of baguettes.  Yes, it was a grandma ring.  Picture a large emerald losing a fight with a diamond paisley.  When I told John that it was beautiful, well, I should have gotten an Oscar (it would have been my 3rd!).  Sadly, the ring was too big and I had to take it to the jewelry store to have it sized.  That day I cashed in a whole bunch of my lucky stars.

  •  Never admit that when the jeweler shattered the center stone of that horrid ring, that tears streamed down your face because you were desperately trying not to laugh — happy in the knowledge that you would never have to wear that horrible thing.  And that you didn’t have to hurt his feelings by telling him it was ugly and you hated it.  Shhhhh.  Don’t tell.

 

  • Never, ever, ever, call him “Baby.”
  • And never, ever, ever let him read your blog.

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September 18, 2012 · 0:00

So There!

The memory is still sharp.  Clear.  Painful.

I don’t think my brother Fred ever hurt my feelings as much as he did when he laughed at me that day.  When, as a 4- or 5-year old I shouted at him:

“You’ll be sorry when I wake up DEAD.”

Instead of being cowed, well, Fred laughed at me.  I was devastated.  Confused.  I didn’t understand what was so funny.  Later he explained it to me:

“Lease,” he said patiently, “You can’t ‘wake up dead’!”

“Why not?”

“Because if you’re dead, Lease, you don’t wake up.  You can’t.  Cause you’re DEAD.”

“Oh.”

It was the first time I understood that I had done something incredibly stupid.  I learned my lesson, though.  Never again did I threaten anyone with the possibility that I’d wake up dead.

So imagine my surprise when I read about high school nurse Terry Collins in this article.  I learned that I wasn’t so dumb back then after all.

You see, Ms. Collins woke up dead one day.  Yeah, it’s true!  She got a letter saying that she was taken off the voter registration list because she is dead.  She was quite surprised because, well, she felt just fine!  Coincidentally, her 80-year old father was equally surprised when he got a similar letter.  He had woken up dead, too!  Even more coincidentally, they are both African-Americans registered to vote in Texas!  Or they were until they woke up dead in a state where the Governor is a Republican and the legislature is run by the GOP.

Apparently, there is an epidemic in Texas. An epidemic of waking up dead!  And the number of folks who are caught up in this, umm, problem?  According to NPR, there are about 80,000 Texas voters who woke up one day and found out via the US mail that they were dead.  Most are African American or Hispanic.  Imagine that, they were members of minorities who tend to favor Democrats, and they woke up dead.

I’m calling Fred.  He’ll be so sorry he made fun of me.

*     *     *

The creativity of the folks who try to keep others from voting is quite impressive.  If only they used it to govern, the U.S. might be in much better shape today.

Here is a link for online voter registration

 

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September 17, 2012 · 0:00

Sins of the Father

My head is exploding and there is no visible evidence.  Nope.  Not a bit of gray matter on the walls.  Shouldn’t there be serious cleanup involved here?

What could cause this explosion?  This combustion?  This sharing of gray matter with my surroundings?

You might think that it is this video of Mitt Romney insulting about half of the country (47 bloomin’ percent!), by saying that

  • they are “dependent” upon the government — it doesn’t matter that they have been paying into Social Security and Medicare for DECADES!
  • they are essentially lazy folks, unwilling to work for a living, and
  • if you’re not wealthy, well, who the hell cares about you ’cause you’re not gonna vote for Mitt anyway.

Well, certainly Mitt Romney doesn’t care about them.

Now normally, this video would get me pretty damn riled up.

But, of course, there’s more.  Yes, it gets better.

You know how Mitt is always preaching about how he made it on his own?  How he and Ann struggled, eating tuna and pasta.  I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago.  Yeah, it is so very difficult to just live off the interest and dividends from your stock portfolio, Mitt.

But did you know about George Romney?  Mitt’s Daddy?  The guy who gave Mitt and Ann the stock that eased Mitt and Ann’s struggle?  He wasn’t always the successful businessman he became later.  He wasn’t born the CEO of American Motors.  Nope.  He wasn’t always rich and well connected.  Really!  Who would have thunk it!

Still, George Romney was by all accounts 10,000 times the man his son is.  He was an important member of the Moderate/Liberal Republicans that made up that impressive generation of politicians.

And do you want to know a secret?  One that you won’t hear Mitt talkin’ about?

George Romney was on Welfare!

Yup!  It’s true.  When he was young he was a refugee from Mexico (where he was born and automatically became an American Citizen because his parents were American Citizens — but I digress.) And when he was a child, a refugee who fled back to the U.S. with his family, well, the United States Government helped him survive.

Here’s a clip of his wife saying what a good governor her husband George would be.  And you know what?  She was right by all accounts.  He was a good man, a good governor, and would likely have made a good president.

One of the reasons he was such a good governor is that he had compassion all people.  For the poor and downtrodden.  Why?  Well, partly because he was once poor.  George Romney was once on welfare.  And he understood that being poor doesn’t mean that you are lazy.  That being poor doesn’t mean that you want a hand OUT but might just need a hand UP.  And that’s what George Romney got from the United States Government.

So some questions for U.S. voters:

  • Do you really want to elect a man President of the United States who courts the elite by denigrating the rest of us?
  • Do you really want to elect a man President of the United States who pretends his father’s past didn’t happen?
  • Do you really want to elect a man President of the United States who would have let his own father fail?
  • Do you think these folks whom Mitt Romney has just identified and insulted will continue to cling to their guns and their religion?
  • Do you really want to elect such an asshole President of the United States?

I can hear you shouting “NO!” from here.

 

*     *     *

Many thanks to my friend Lisa of Big Sheep Blog for telling me about this video.  I was actually working …

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September 16, 2012 · 0:00

Something to Brag About?

If you’re sick, do you try to choose the smartest doctor or the dumbest?

When you want an accountant, do you want to feel confidence in the ability of that man/woman to add, subtract, multiply and divide?  Use excel formulas?

When you need legal assistance, do you want a wise man/woman or a dope?

These are not trick questions.

I’ve always asked myself similar questions about the people who want to run my country.  I want the smartest people in office, from Town Selectman to President.  Naturally, that means I’m a Democrat.

But you know, I always sort of figured that Republicans at least thought (mistakenly) that theirs were the smart candidates.

Ummm, not so much.  At least, not according to one of the GOP’s shining stars, Rick Santorum.  You know, Rick “Don’t Google Me” Santorum, the former Senator from Pennsylvania (who lost by 18 percent!) who was also a former GOP candidate for President just this year.

Listen up to Ricky speaking just the other day to the Values Voter Summit here in DC:

We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side.

Well, Duh!!!!!  You got that right, Ricky.  But is it something to be proud of?

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September 13, 2012 · 0:00

Eye on the “Booker” Prize!

I am awesome.  Yup.  It’s true.  You see, well, I have a new prize.  A new award!

Yes, just the other day, I got A Booker Award!  Seriously!  Me!

What does that mean?  Well, it is awarded to a novelist of great achievement from the United Kingdom or from Ireland.  Cool!  I’ve been to both places.  I’m sure that qualifies.

The Man Booker Foundation awards the Booker Prize! But not to me.

Here is what it says on the Man Booker Award site:

Winning the Man Booker Prize is the ultimate accolade for many writers. As 1996 winner Graham Swift commented, “Prizes don’t make writers and writers don’t write to win prizes, but in the near-glut of literary awards now on offer, the Booker remains special. It’s the one which, if we’re completely honest, we most covet.”

Every year the Man Booker Prize winner is guaranteed a huge increase in sales, firstly in hardback and then in paperback. There is spin-off too in global sales of books, in future publishing contracts and in film and TV rights. Besides the fortune, the winner of the Man Booker Prize can also be sure of fame. The announcement of the winner is covered by television, radio and press worldwide.

Isn’t that cool?  Won’t it look great on my resume?

Janice, of Aurora Borealis actually nominated me for a Booker Award.  Pretty neat huh?  Especially since I will be the only novelist to win such a coveted award who has not, um, actually written a novel.  But hey, I won two Oscars without ever working on a movie.  Apparently I am multi-talented.

Oh wait.  I just looked at Janice’s post a little more closely.  Oh.  My bad.  I didn’t win the Man Booker Prize.  I won this one:

I got THIS one!

Cool!  Sorry for the confusion.  (But if you think I’m changing my resume, you’d better think again!)

I am delighted to accept it this award.  To do so, I need to

  1. Thank Janice for the nod.  Thanks so much for thinking of me, Janice.  For those of you who don’t know her, Janice is an amazingly good person, a writer of poetry, prose, of pieces that make your heart break, and your heart sing.  Of pieces that make you question the humanity of some humans, and soar at the gifts others can bring.  So thank you Janice.  You were one of my first followers.  And one of my first and best blogging buddies.
  2. I need to put a picture of the award on my blog – there it is!
  3. I need to tell y’all about five books I love.  That’s the hard part, because I love books.  I read two or three books a week.  Whichever one is in my hand is usually high on the list of my favorites – otherwise I would put it down and not bother with it.  But I will try to narrow my list.  Here are some of my favorites:

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stephenson  is the first book I remember.  My sister Beth used to read it to my brother Fred and me every night for years.  When I found the old copy of Treasure Island that Beth read from years later, the book fell open to the “Apple Barrel Chapter,” the one we begged for every night.  It was through the reading of this that Beth taught Fred and me to love books.  Good books.  She taught us to love stories and the magic you can always find in them.

Forever by Pete Hamill.  A young Irish man travels to America in colonial days.  Through an act of kindness, he is granted eternal life as long as he never leaves Manhattan.  The story traces the his and the city’s journey from colonial days to the present.  Magical.  When my sister Beth, who gave me books, was dying, this was the book I read to her in her last hours.  It is a beautiful story.  I wish I could have read her the whole book.

 

The Woman in White by Wilke Collins.  I’m a sucker for the classics.  Wilke Collins was a contemporary of Dickens.  He wrote beautifully about different problems in Victorian society, many of which we grapple with today.  The Woman in White deals with mental illness.  Poor Miss Finch is a blind woman whose life and disability is presented with dignity in a time when that wasn’t often the case in life or in novels.  No Name presents two upper class sisters who suddenly learn that by a trick of fate, their parents were somehow not legally married; The Moonstone set the stage for modern mystery stories.  He is a writer to check out if you love classic literature.  Collins’ protagonists are women and they are true heroines, all.

The Weird Sisters by ­­­­­­ Eleanor Brown.  Weird Sisters is the author’s first novel and it is so incredibly brilliantly (and differently) written.  The three sisters are complex and humorous and absolutely delightful, when you don’t want to kill them.  Just like real sisters.  The book is a gift to anyone with sisters.  Or anyone who likes to read.  Or maybe just a gift to me.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.  A complex look at the lives of two women in Afghanistan before and during the Taliban’s rule of Kabul.

 

Ask me again tomorrow and, well, I’ll likely come up with a different group.  Because I love books.  I just can’t get enough of them.

Lastly, now I need to nominate five bloggers who can lie on their resumes, too.  It’s always hard because folks love or hate these awards, or fall somewhere in between, like me.  I tried to find folks who like awards and who haven’t yet received this one.  This is a challenge, you know!

Speaker 7 of Speaker7

Val of QBG Tilted Tiara

Frank of A Frank Angle

Cooper of Security is for Cadavers

Twin Daddy of Stuph Blog

Lorna of Lorna’s Voice

Totsymae of Totsymae

OK, so I can’t count.  Do not feel obligated to accept this award.  But I’d love to hear what you all like to read too!

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