In Bed

That's an old game that adults play at restaurants that serve Fortune Cookies. If you're bored and the company's not congenial, you can play it by yourself, but try not to giggle.

It's a very simple game. As each person reads his/her fortune, you tack "in bed" to the end. For example, if the saying is "You are a lucky person" change it to say "You are a lucky person --- in bed."

Here are some actual fortunes to help you play at home. (If you had anything better to do, you wouldn't be reading this in the first place.) Just remember to say "in bed" after reading each saying.

Fortune Cookie Sayings

1. You were born with the skill to communicate with people easily.
2. It doesn't matter. Who is without a flaw?
3. Make two grins grow where there was only a grouch before.
4. Decide what you want and go for it.
5. You are talented in many ways.
6. You should be able to make money and hold on to it.
7. The skills you have gathered will one day come in handy.
8. Every excess becomes a vice.

Weird Fortune Cookie Collection (unusual fortunes from actual fortune cookies)

1. Life is not a struggle. It’s a wiggle.
2. An alien of some sort will be appearing to you shortly.
3. You are about to make a new friend.

Bad Cookie (spoof site)

1. You will not advance far with your meager abilities.
2. Your spirit of adventure will be deadly.
3. Your heart is impure, and your mind clouded, and your soul evil.

Did I just hear you giggle --- in bed?

Just a state of mind, my Aunt Fanny's hat!

Suddenly I'm falling apart. I can't half see, I'm having blind spots, flashes, and floaters; there's a ringing in my ears, my joints are stiff, I wheeze in the morning, my ear hurts, I have no energy, no stamina, no "oomph" (if you know what I mean), my left arm hurts, I'm constipated, and I have a pimple in my nose. Not to mention I'm grumpy, irritable, frustrated, and just plain "sick and tired".

It's hell to grow old.

Music Lessons

It's hard to describe Phil and Sarah Tulga's web site Music Through the Curriculum, but if I could only use one word, I'd say "fun". This is an educational and entaining site that will help you (or your kids/grandkids) learn to listen to music.

1. It gives you directions for making simple homemade musical instruments (such as a glockenspiel) or you can pay to get instructions for making more complex ones.
2. It also teaches you such things as "How to hear fractions".
3. You can actually play musical instruments which include the glocenspiel, a xylophone, drums, and strings.

This is a great site for teachers, boy/girl scouts, youth group activity coordinators, or people (like me) that like to make music but can't play an instrument.

Try the Pickle Cucumber Machine - it's a dilly!

In a Jiffy

I went to Jiffy Lube and got the oil changed in my car this morning. It was due a few months ago, but I just couldn't bring myself to get 'er done.

I absolutely dread going anywhere that involves men and cars. I don't like to go to any garage, service facility, or car dealer. Why? Ask almost any woman my age. It comes from years of condescending treatment from know-it-all males. From years of feeling like you're getting ripped off while being mocked.

I'll admit that not all the garages, service facilities, or car dealers have treated me badly. But too many have. At one time I actually thought about going to school to learn to be a car mechanic so I could fix my own car, but that seemed an extreme solution.

Which brings me back to the Jiffy Lube. I know they charge more than other places might, but to me they're worth it. They treat me with respect, they open doors, they say thank you, they smile. They recommend products they think I need, but there's no hard sell, and they check everything that I know should be checked but don't want to, as well as a lot of stuff I never heard of.

And they wash the windows.

I just wish I could bring them home to try their hand at housecleaning.

People are weird

Have you heard about the dentist in California, accused of fondling patients, who's claiming that pectoral muscle (breast) massage is part of the treatment for certain jaw problems? msnbc

You think that's weird?

One of his accusers, a 31 year old woman, claims Anderson fondled her breasts at least six times over two years even though she starting wearing tight shirts with high necklines to protect herself from his roving hands. 6 times in two years?!? What were you thinking? Was he the only dentist in town? Did you stop to think that a good loud scream might have been more of a deterent than a tight blouse? Or maybe it would have been a good idea to find another dentist?

You know you just can't make up stuff this stupid.

I like dreamin'

I heard a song today that reminded me of the man of my dreams. Literally, the man of my dreams.

He's been haunting my bed for more years than I can remember, but I don't know who he is. Sometimes he just drops into my dreams and I demand, "Where have you been? I've missed you." and he laughs teasingly in reply, "Oh, I've been waiting for you." And I pout, "What were you doing?" and he kisses my forehead softly and whispers, "Loving you." And I melt into my pillow, deeper into sleep, deeper into dreams.

I must have seen his face a thousand times, but I don't know his name. I know how it feels when his hand caresses my cheek. I know the tilt of his head and the sorrow that goes deep in his eyes when he thinks I'm hurting. I know how he looks in blue jeans when he's walking out the door, and how his shoulders fill out the jacket of his favorite blue suit when he's holding a door for me. But I don't know his name.

Ladies, if you see him tonight, when you close your eyes and drift off to sleep, send him back to me. Because, make no mistake, he's mine.

Life - can't live without it

Life is perverse sometimes.

For example, despite growing up a Hoosier, I can't make good chicken and noodles. There's always too much broth. Last week I fixed homemade chicken noodle soup and there wasn't any broth.

For another example, the autumn temperature this year has been close to 90 degrees. Except for this week, when it plummeted 30 degrees. This week I got my birthday coupon for free ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. This week it's too cold for ice cream.

And another: I looked all summer for plastic glasses and found some on sale at Kroger's in August. They were about $2.00 apiece, but had been $6 so I thought "What a bargain!" and bought 2. A week later, I found other glasses on sale at the same store for a quarter. Yes, just one quarter, 25 cents, two bits. So I got two; I would have got four but I just bought the other two.

The $2 glasses are already showing signs of crazing, the quarter glasses - still looking good.

And another, well I can't think of another one that I want to share with you right now so think up your own.

Feelin' hot! hot! hot!

Did you hear about the Georgia man who claims the iPod in his pocket set his pants on fire? Thankfully, the man’s skin was only slightly singed and the manufacturer is replacing the iPod for free.

Since the man wasn’t hurt, this story is just begging for jokes. See how many you can come up with in 5 minutes.

Here are mine:

• Man, you got one hot butt.
• Money actually burned a hole in his pocket.
• If you saw a man with his pants on fire, would you point and yell “Liar! Liar!”
• Gives a new perspective to a radio DJ use of the phrase “hot tunes”.
• Are you excited to see me or is that a fire in your pocket?

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to my nephew Mark. Hope you are having a great life!

Odd news

Yesterday was my birthday. I don't know how I got to be this old without learning how to live.

This is the 413th posting on this blog. I think it may be my last, but I would like to go to 500. I don't see my writing improving; actually, I think it's deteriorated. I started this blog as a way to write something every day, but you may have noticed that I'm lucky to write once or twice a week now.

Maybe I'll wait till the end of the year. Procrastination is my best trait so I might as well put off quitting.

Sarcasm is art - hang that on your walls

Today on the web, I saw an article title "19 ways to make a small space look bigger". Living in an apartment that is begining to feel cramped with a truckload of Goodwill wannabes, I thought "Ah, maybe this can help me." So I clicked on it. The real title of the subsequent slide show was "10 ideas to steal for your apartment".

Thanks, but no thanks. The ideas were stupid, ugly, impractical, and/or just plain strange. I don't think the author(s) ever lived in an apartment before. It reminded me of the book I have about small gardens. The first picture was of the upper garden and the next, the lower garden. Now if you have an upper and a lower garden, you don't really have a small garden, do you?

But I digress. To return to the topic at hand - which is making fun of the 19 apartment ideas in case you hadn't figured that out yet:

1. Why are there 19 ideas? Not 10, 15, or 20? Couldn't you think of one more?
2. You only put curtains over bookshelves when they are used to store junk instead of books, or when they hold pornographic books or bomb-making manuals. Otherwise, it just looks cheap or like you are hiding bomb-making/terrorists manuals. Now, if you're a college student or just starting out on your first job and everybody knows you can't afford nice furniture, this looks shabby chic and it's OK.
3. Make do with storage shelves but make them look as pretty as possible. a) There isn't any room in the average apartment for extra storage shelves, b) Storing clutter on them is not pretty no matter how you arrange it, c) They don't make small spaces look bigger unless you think "crammed in" is another word for spacious.
4. "Hide unattractive storage" by covering with cloth is not new - people have been throwing sheets over crap for decades.
5. Don't have room for seating? Get some large throw pillows to toss on the floor, stack them somewhere out of the way when they aren't being used. Uh, people, if I don't have room for a chair, I don't have room for overstuffed floor pillows. Actually, they showed cloth covered squares of foam rubber that were about 1 to 1 1/2 inches thick. Not my idea of a comfy seat.
6. The idea to stick a file cabinet under the sink in your kitchen to use for extra drawer space wasn't a bad idea - if you have empty space under your sink, which you probably won't, but they went one step too far. Number the drawers, then keep a list of the contents elsewhere. That way, if you change the contents you don't have to re-label the drawer, just change your list. Uh, wouldn't it be easier to just open the drawer to see what's inside than to hunt for the list?
7. Here's a good one - buy an armless couch and position it away from the wall so you can walk around it, then put one or two coffee tables in front of it. If you put your couch away from the wall far enough to comfortably walk behind it in most apartments, you wouldn't have room for a coffee cup in front of it, much less a couple of coffee tables.
8. Then they suggest, you put a glass topped console behind it to use for your home office. OK. Glass isn't the best material to use here, because people are going to have to walk over it to get from one side to the other and glass will really show those footprints.
9. Their best use of awkward corners was to buy two file cabinets and throw a sheet of melamine on top. I know you can't see the picture from where you are, but, trust me, that doesn't fit in a corner.
10. Throw out old papers and stick the ones you have to keep in a box. Duh, why didn't you think of that?
11. Can't hang art on the wall because you're afraid to put a nail there in case you can't get your deposit back? Stick a colorful surf board in a corner. Cowabunga, dude! If you surf, this is great, but it will look just plain silly if you live in the middle of the mid-west. And it's not going to make your apartment look one inch bigger, a couple of feet smaller maybe, but not any bigger. (And, just so you know, the odds are probably 1 to 10 that you'll get back that deposit anyway. Just saying.)
12. To sum up most of the suggestions, if all else fails, stick it in a box, stick the box in a book case, and cover it up with a sheet.

A Toast

Did you see the new show Carpoolers this week? I watched it off and on but the only thing I got out of it was that the wife bought a $400 toaster. I didn't know they made $400 toasters.

So today I Googled it and found that there is indeed a $400 toaster made by Dualit of Great Britian. Good news, serious toasters - Amazon has it on sale for $300. Be aware that if you need the "sandwich cage", you'll need to fork out another $20.

I really think they could throw in a $20 attachment if you're willing to spend $400 just to toast bread.