Get your shop on! Day [I lost track].

Slugs!

Oh. My. God.

I mean, really. Does no one know the "it's/its" apostrophe rule?

No shopping suggestions today. Just reading.

Raccoon castrates man who deserved it.

(Hey, I am trying to stay on-theme)

Oh, okay. One. As a palate cleanser:

Button

Get your shop on! Day 3.

It's a mere eighteenish days until Valentine's Day! Time's a wasting! Why are you not shopping for the one perfect thing that will make someone love you rather than simply tolerate your presence, or off heartily wooing someone lonelier than you in the organic scallions area of your local supermarket? Why are you instead surfing some stupid blog that doesn't even have ads and therefore makes no one money and only burns away the meager free time of everyone involved, especially you, and also will also probably keep me from getting that wholesome family column because I keep mentioning NIPPLES?

Love Rat.

Or, you know, you could go in another direction . . .

Get your shop on! Day 2.

One of my most pathetic Valentine's Day was when I was seventeen. My mother greeting me at breakfast with a glass, heart-shaped bud vase in which I could place the sweetheart roses my boyfriend always gave me.

But my boyfriend had broken up with me the night before.

Think: Thirty-two ounces* of the greatest love of all:+

+ Love - and water - sold separately.

Hydrate!

*Not suggested as the best of all possible gifts for vampires, sparkly or otherwise, if holy water-adverse. And, you know, this may be a little faith-myopic for Muslims, Jews, and Agnostics. And Wiccans. And virulent misogynists. Also, don't buy this for people who cannot parallel park, because they make me fucking nuts. And while we're on the subject what's with the new double parking thing? I don't care if you are just running in to get your low-carb tortilla wrapped egg salad from ToGo's. Move your damn Volvo station wagon to an official parking spot like the rest of us and get a little cardio walking that extra twenty feet. Twenty feet! What the hell is wrong with you?

Get your shop on! Day 1.

It's almost Valentine's Day! Okay, not really, but the stores all say so, and, Bitch, if they say you'd better get ready, then, dammit, you'd better get ready.

I am here to help!

Every day, except for when I forget or lose interest, I will suggest THE PERFECT GIFT.

Okay, ready?

Think: Automated Soothing

This for the Sweetie who is carb-adverse. Grumpy. Recently unemployed. Stabby.

Put a lil Mr. Rogers in his or her pocket!

Calming phrases include:*

"Let's put on our comfy sweaters!"

"It's just fine to need chemical help!"

and

"Soon we will all be dead and none of this will matter, anyway."

*But all in a soothing, totally noncreepy, sing-song voice.

Which one is the budding serial killer? I think we know.

What are your favorite scents, Children?

Daughter: Cut grass, trees right after the rain and that ozone smell just before it snows.

Son: My blankie and nitrous oxide.

He's not a "doll," he's an "action figure!"

This is my president.




This is my president kicking Imperial BUTT.

Want more? Like, killer samurai accessories? Right here.

Compost happens

One of my newest projects is writing a column for MSN.com on going green(er).

We are field testing eco-friendly items and it has not, as yet, been any hardship to do so. We already recycle, we eat a wide variety of organic food, we use CFL bulbs and have power saver gadgets on our computer. A number of companies have sent me samples of their eco-friendly products - edible shampoos, biodegradable soaps, organic vodka (Prairie, and it was fantastic!) and more.

My children and I are using or have used all of the products sent, with varying success. I am now madly in love with the Shark Steam mop and the soda maker and I cried piteous tears when I had to return the laptop case made out of recycled tires, the rubber softer than (and I know this might not be the most appropriate analogy) calf leather.

The one item I have yet to try? The infant, diaper which I have then been instructed to compost.

My son won't put it on, but, okay, he's almost nine years of age. My cats just run when they see me coming with that thing clutched in my fist.

I guess, once again, it's up to me.

I don't want to give the impression that I am not committed one hundred percent to my project, but for this I am going to need a lot more organic vodka.

Surf's Up! Or something.

Totally ZOMG, right? Like, tattoo-worthy?

THOUGHT so!

Dude.

When is a donut not just a donut?

When it's an obvious enticement to lure even more on-the-fence pregnant women to have abortions!

The baby haters at Krispy Kreme are offering free donuts today to celebrate "freedom of choice" -- obviously just some dastardly code words. I wasn't going to get an abortion this week, to be honest, but after they handed me a frosted circle of sweet, sweet fried dough, it seemed only polite.

Wearing these nonstop until Wednesday morning

I am trying to find a tiara to match.

And if it gets chilly, I am switching to these:

A good weekend

Patrick Swayze is out of the hospital.


Seems like a good morning to make waffles.

Wasting Time

You can, too.

Nine days

Image by The People's Cube

Capsicum fruits

I was waking up every morning feeling tired and achy and hung over, so I stopped downing half a bottle of wine before bed and now I am waking up feeling tired and achy and hung over. I think it's Oldness.

I just Googled home remedies with which to battle aging and I found "green peppers, Castor oil and tape." I didn't click, but I am pretty sure it's a recipe for a suppository mixture and let me just say the Internet has got a lot of nerve.

Talkin' 'bout my guy

It's funny raising my children as gay-baby-loving, tree humping liberal elite; they don't realize that not every momma rants about President W. and unabashedly flips off the huddled, sign-holding Prop 8 supporters ("Whoops. What I just did there, kids, is our country's national hand signal for 'I greatly disagree with you, you soul-sucking hate mongers.'")

It's a mere twelve days until Obama goes door-to-door, handing out to each of us a unicorn of our very own. I plan to name mine "Johnny Depp;" he will have minty breath and his eyelashes will be tinged with real gold.

It's gonna be spectacular.

Unduly suspicious

Eggs. The one time I cracked a raw egg, only to find it partially inhabited, has since given me Post-Traumatic Egg Syndrome. Every time I begin to make pancakes, I experience four seconds of potential, pure blood-flooding terror, a la "The Shining."

Consider the egg. It is smooth, and seamless. It's a spaceship, a pod, an alien form. It's ovoid, Life, protein. It's Gamete.

I don't trust it.

Just another alien host

We went to The Tech Museum in San Jose yesterday, thinking no one would be there on January 1, and we were right in that no one who was not hung-over was there and that no one was there until 1 p.m. when the ibuprofen and coffee kicked in, and then everyone was there. And like them, I also loved and adored my children and was indeed violently sick of being nonstop within three feet of said children for fourteen days, and so we all staggered, zombie-like (with arms at our sides, though, how the cool zombies walk) from blinking! whirring! boinging! exhibit to exhibit, as children scurried under our feet and over our heads and we all gazed, fixed, into the distance, our dry, chapped, puffy lips mouthing the words, "January Five. January Five," which is when school resumes.

The exhibit I loved most was the thermo scanning thing, and I was sorely tempted to strip nekkid and lie down, the better to look for tumors or alien babies implanted in my chest cavity while I was sleeping because with all that New Year's Eve Cheese Plate and Booze Snorfling, I slept not unlike the ideal alien baby host.

Family portrait, including, potentially, the pod that will burst out of my chest cavity in the very near future, but notice I was required to stay fully dressed and so cannot be certain of my fate.
Museum Fascists.