Mississippi Dots

I was minding my own business this morning in the bathroom. (Yes, I know, the place where one generally would mind her own business. Tee-hee.) Something made me think of the Bar/Bri class I took in DC all those many years ago. And by many, I mean five.

That does seem like many years ago.

I wasn't enrolled in the same bar review class as some of my classmates, although some people from my alma mater were taking the class in the same location as me. Mine was popular enough to have a morning, afternoon, and evening class. I am an afternoon person, and at that point, I was unemployed, so everything came up Milhaus and I took that class.

I met a young lady named Caitlin, and we bonded over being from the south and not being entirely sure what we were doing in DC. Her husband, if memory serves, had a job up there, and I had a wild hair that would not allow me to return to Alabama. So we shared accents and anecdotes and the occasional lust for sweet tea, and we would play games during the more tedious videos.

I taught her about the dot game. She had never heard of the dot game, which to me was just about the horrifying news I'd ever heard. No dot game? How did you manage sitting through church? Hangman's tough to hide after a while, you know. But I laid out the game and taught her the basics and it only took two games before she was routinely kicking my behind.

I was proud of my little protege, and I wonder where she is now, and I hope she's happy.

Caitlin, just in case you forgot, this one's for you:

And This Is Why I Love You

This morning was a slow morning, a lazy, syrupy, holy-crap-did-I-really-need-that-last-vodka-we're-meeting-the-inlaws-for-lunch-morning, and I took full advantage of the gurgly, mildly hungover slow-moving feeling to switch channels quickly on my TV until something interesting/ignorable came on just for me.

First I watched some of Flip This House. Oh, mid-aughts. You were a silly, dreamy, delicious time. You made us believe that there was money to be had, if we worked really, really hard at it and somehow yanked a leg off a bunny and made a wish on it.

Then I flipped over to the History Channel, and came in about fifteen minutes into Modern Marvels. It was discussing 90s technology, and I thought to myself, "Now this is something I remember!"

See the first paragraph. That should explain my deep thoughts.

There were pictures of old cell phones, and the world's first portable computer (from 1981 - hey, History Channel, you cheated!) and there were video games and GPS (thank you, President Clinton, for letting all us civilians play along as well) and then there were Furbies. Boy, do I remember Furbies. I had two of them - one Momma bought me, and the other a gift from my ex-fiance.

I watched and learned that Furbies did not, in fact, actually learn English from hearing me speak to it. It was programmed to use more English words the more it interacted. (Or maybe not even interacted? I'm not clear on this.) It reminded me how annoying I found my Furbies because I couldn't understand one good goddamned word they said or what they wanted, and I eventually put them into my closet where they would occasionally mutter, usually in the middle of the night, and scare the shit out of me.

Furby revenge.

My revenge? Their batteries finally died.

If I had known that they would speak more English as time went by, and if I didn't have the patience of an overtired toddler in a grocery store candy aisle, I would have given them time to speak more English. Had the internet existed in the way it does today, I would have Googled Furby secrets and found this out, and actually used my fuzzy weird-eyed toys. For I know now that no matter what I want to learn, someone has already been interested enough to explore it more deeply than I care to and would have created a dedicated Wikipedia page, along with pictures.

And this is why I love you, Internet. (And you guys, too.)

After-School Special

Thursday night, Momma and I celebrated an achievement of hers, and then went out to dinner for her accomplishment and my birthday. I was thinking of a sandwich with garlic aioli, and she was thinking of a pasta dish and cocktails. When the waiter came to our table, Momma asked me what I wanted to drink. I said, "Diet Coke," for I am a fan of anything with caffeine, and this restaurant doesn't serve diet Mt. Dew.

Which is a shame. Everywhere should serve diet Mt. Dew. It is delicious and refreshing and burns my throat and can keep me pleasant for days.

Momma looked at me with sad eyes. Then she looked at me with a bit of stink eye. The waiter, noticing this, mentioned that margaritas were on sale for $2.95. Momma looked away, still looking at me somehow, in a way only mothers can.

"Apparently we're having margaritas," I told the waiter, and he left to fill our order.

My mother totally peer-pressured me into having a drink when I didn't really want one. My Momma is a protagonist in a very special episode.

I love that woman.

Good Week

I'm sorry, you guys, I've been neglecting you! After a relatively crappy start to the month, things have been improving. Again, I thought you'd like some good news for a change, after reading my complaints, which, while, let's face it, are fascinating, get old not only for me to write and for you to read.

So.

I started the week by driving an hour and a half to visit my friend and to go to a required training class for bankruptcy filings. The class was scheduled for two hours and the training lasted thirty minutes, so I was in a good mood. Plus, it's fun to meet new people and get out for a while. And, although it was a rainy day, I didn't get rained on. This is always a plus as I do not own an umbrella. Normally I dress pretty casually, but I felt it important to dress all formal 'cos I was going to a secured floor (when you punch the button for that floor on the elevator, it doesn't even light up. That's how secure it is.). So I was dressed up and dry. Later, I met Wade's brother for lunch, and we went to a real Mexican restaurant and it was delicious and I have a whole new appreciate for guacamole.

Then my friend and I sat around her place and talked and talked and talked. Then we played Uno and talked some more. I almost never run out of things to say, but you guys, this time I came close.

Thursday I did a whole lotta legal work and have decided to make some positive changes to my practice. I'll tell you more about that as the details are worked out. These details include more talking. Today I got a good outcome for one of my clients and I filed a bunch of papers and I got to see Cita and the Mayor and it was fun.

I am happy and almost calm. Calm. Weird. I've not been calm in a while. It's been so long that calm on me kinda looks like tired. So it's time to kick in some caffeine and maybe watch some bad TV.

I hope your week's been good.

Hank

GPOM and I went to see Henry Rollins last night, and boy, did he not disappoint. I laughed, I shouted out loud a couple of times, I clapped, and at the end, I drove most of the way home giggling about Satan's Own Burrito.

You'll have to ask Henry. It's an inside joke between us and him, and it seems unfair to take away his thunder.

I got some pictures, and you'll have to forgive me because they are terrible:

I don't know how to use the camera on my cell phone, and I couldn't convince my digital camera to not flash Henry in the eyes every time I tried to take a shot. Plus, that camera's from like 2007, and it doesn't have image stabilization (my shaky hands), and I didn't want to be the jerk in the audience taking pictures the whole time. So these are what I've got.

5:40am

It's really early, you guys. I've been up since three and there's only so many Law & Order reruns I can watch before I need a break.

And by break, I mean that I think I just announced to the internet that I'm poor. I am, of course, not poor, but I am also not rolling around in dollar bills, y'all, giggling and wondering where next to dive into the dollar bill pool.

I totally wish I could do that. Doesn't that sound like fun? I mean, barring the potential paper cuts. Maybe I'll have a dollar-bill pool that only has old, softened dollar bills. But then I'd worry about germs.

I can't win.

Speaking of germs, I went into a mall food court bathroom today. I considered, briefly, using the facilities, but the smell of human waste and despair, plus the alarming number of women who were on their cell phones while using a mall food court bathroom were quite the deterrents. Ladies, what possible conversation could not wait until leaving a public restroom? Even in an emergency, pants down to your ankles in public, what could you possibly do?

But hey, no judgment here. It's a personal lifestyle choice to inflict the power sound of flushing toilets onto your hapless caller. Who knows? Maybe the next generation will have toilet-flushing fetishes!

Storm Artist

This morning has been a whirlwind of tornado sirens and local meteorologists jacking each other for the best position. And by that I mean, welcome to storm season in Alabama! The cable company is incredibly helpful - when a watch or warning is issued by the National Weather Service, the TV automatically changes channels, the beeping sound of which I am terrified. Still, the channel goes to PBS, so there's something.

I decided to harass my soon-to-be niece, because she's in high school, about crouching in the hallway. Remember that? She texted me back that she was indeed in the hallway, and that the power was out and she was nervous. So I figured my job was to let her know what's happening outside and to entertain her.

Update: She was fine, got out of school early only to find that home had no power, but now that it's later, we have plans for tomorrow. Plans that involve getting my Momma a sandwich from Subway(c).

But as for the entertaining her part, I drew her a few pictures. Artiste extraordinaire that I am, I will show you the pictures. Try not to be jealous, and remember, if you sell them, I totally get the royalties.

This is the map I drew her of where the storm was, and how she was not in danger.

I told her that if she needed another picture, I was totally drawing a witch.

I thought she needed to know how the cat was handling the danger.