PAY ATTENTION TO ME!

There’s this weird thing that people do that baffles me. As an artist, it has happened to me but it clearly isn't just confined to art, but the puzzling phenomenon of people taking credit for things that they obviously didn't do.

That is not to say that I don’t get the general idea of lying to get attention...

But the chances of it backfiring and looking like a total jackhole when you are figured out totally skews the risk vs. reward ratio way too far into the TOO RISKY category for me and I think, most reasonable people. So much so that I have never actually considered such a ridiculous idea.

Part of the real confusion I experience with this is this "flying to close to the sun" urge that seems to come with the urge to lie about your achievements. Instead of lying in a small way that might give a small boost, it seems to be a huge ridiculous lie that is just so obvious it's kind of insulting. *cough Trump cough*

But there is another way.

For all the flack that millennials get, there’s this beautiful thing I have seen happening in the current generation that would totally satiate these low effort attention seekers without resulting in them needing to delete their Facebook account when their artist friends call out the fact that they have claimed to paint a picture that was painted by a really well-known artist…

It’s called… ASKING FOR COMPLIMENTS.

Honestly, it is the coolest thing about people now. When you’re having a bad day, if you’re friends with leftist millennials or similarly positive nice people, you can just ask for the attention you need and (if you don’t do this on a daily basis and you’re not a total asshole) they’ll totally say nice things about you to make you happy.

This also works with asking for a gif of kittens and pictures of hybrid corgi mixes, I've found. But seriously, have you looked up corgi mixes?



Anyway, if you find yourself in need of emotional support sometimes and claiming you painted the Mona Lisa starts looking tempting, I urge you to try asking for a compliment to get the ego boost you need. Just say, "Hey friends, I'm having a hard time. Could you say something nice about me to cheer me up?"


And there’s the added bonus of knowing who to unfriend if anyone tries to make you feel bad about having emotional needs that are met by receiving external validations sometimes, 'cause you deserve to be happy and feel loved and people who try to shit on that don't deserve corgis AT ALL.

Señor Butter Butt

If Stevie had his way, he would eat margarine for every meal. He seems to have no shame about it. I tweeted this the other night:

as I was turned to the computer, making fun of him online, this happened:

My husband just stood there and watched the cat happily licking the margarine off the piece of matzo I had gone into the kitchen to get (which prompted his meowing in the first place). Somehow he thought I had allowed this because I guess he thinks I am totally okay with disgusting cat mouth on my food.

This is not the first incident with the margarine. My mom left the end of a stick on the counter in the kitchen. I found it the next morning with suspicious tongue prints on it. He seriously won't eat anything else left out . My husband sat some chicken wings on a tray on the bed the other evening, walked away... cat totally ignored them. But he left an eaten ear of corn (that had margarine on it) and the cat was carrying it through the house, happy as could be.

Seriously, if he ever figures out how to open the refrigerator, I can totally see this happening:

New Things I Learned This Week- Episode 3

I haven't learned all that much this week because I am doing the vacationing thing, but I have made quite a few observations, like this ad I found in the back of a health food store's wellness magazine:

The disturbing part here is the wine offering. As I tweeted:

I did learn, however a terrible terrible lesson last night, while getting up in the middle of the night at my friend's house to pee:

Honestly, electrical plugs are like the bachelor's Lego. I feel it is my duty to warn everyone now. DON'T STEP ON THEM.  It is highly unpleasant. 

And finally, a culinary observation: 

Following "The Following"?

                            It's a raven. This is a clever tie in to the Poe theme  source.

How many of you are watching The Following?

It is a show about a serial killer who gets a cult following while in prison who carry on his work for him.

I started watching it with the first episode, excited for it after all the promos, and my immediate thought was TRUST NO ONE. ABSOLUTELY NO ONE.  At this point, all I can be relatively sure of is that Kevin Bacon's character, Ryan Hardy, is not part of "The Following." Not even sure about the wife. Certain that young FBI guy is a follower and that I am supposed to think he is, then think he isn't. Seriously, I SUSPECT EVERYONE!!!

        Nope. Don't trust you at all.    source.

Is his 10 year old kid in on it? Maybe?! Who's to say? I wouldn't hand him a pistol, or a letter opener. If they had a dog, I would be wary of it also.

This all stems from me being right about 90% of the bad people in the first episode. I get one bit of confirmation and I can't be dissuaded (not to be confused with dissueded, which would be what Nazis did to Jews in the holocaust). (I know a parenthetical should not be a whole a paragraph on its own but I would like to apologize for that pun. It was really bad. In my defense, there is no defense, but I'm Jewish so I am really only being insensitive to myself, and every other Jew ever, that is, if anyone actually gets it -I digress).

I don't actually know how much I really like the show. I mean I do, but it's a little slow paced, because really, I just want them to show killings and then reveal each episode that another person I knew was a follower is in fact one, which they do. I am also predicting that this will happen each episode until they finally reveal that OMG EXPERT ON THE SERIAL KILLER THAT THE SHOW IS ABOUT IS ALSO A FOLLOWER... no shit Sherlock. But I imagine it would be more exciting if I were watching episodes in rapid succession instead of waiting a week, at which time I have forgotten the series exists all together. So if you haven't seen it yet, you might want to wait until it comes out on Netflix or something and then show binge.

        EVERYONE. EVERYONE IS!!!    source.

It is good though, but predictable to me, because I have predicted that almost everyone is bad. And my confirmation bias doesn't count it when people are good because we still have possibly umpty-clutch  seasons before everyone on earth is dead by the hands of Joe Carroll's followers and by then I can shrug and say, "Oh, I guess the kid wasn't in on it."

The Popcorn Paradox

It is bizarre to me, that the same substance can produce one of the best AND one of the worst smells in the entire universe.

The Tragic Tale of Carlos and Mari

(there is a video here, RSS subscribers)

I used to have two Siberian dwarf hamsters just like these when I was in college. My boyfriend and I bought them together. It was his idea and when we broke up, not long after we bought them, I retained custody of them. They were named Carlos and Mari. They were both very cute but they met bad ends.

Carlos died during winter break while being watched by my sister, and is buried behind the dorm I lived in at the time. I paid my friend to clean out the cage and bury him for me, because he had been dead a while apparently, before I had been made aware of his demise. We used a spork to mark his grave.

Mari had a stroke sometime the next semester, I think (though I am not veterinarian), and I released her into the wild to enjoy her freedom as an act of kindness, and also because seeing her dragging herself around her cage in circles made me sad. My family likes to tell me that she was probably promptly eaten by a hawk the moment I set her free.

This is part and parcel to why I don't own pets anymore and why I don't think having children is a good idea for me either.

My Bad Summer of Eating Date with @Bing and @Klout

I took my husband out on a date today because I tried to take him on a date yesterday only to find the restaurant we wanted to go to didn't open at normal hours on Sunday, and now that my husband is working again, we can only do things on Sundays and Mondays because those are his days off.

I also took him out because I got a perk from Klout.com and Bing.com (because I am super popular), where I was given a wine set and a $10 Visa giftcard to celebrate their Summer of Eating promotion.
I even told our awesome waitron why we were there and she wrote down Klout.com in her order taking thingy, because she likes free things as much as everyone else likes free things, and as much as I like free things, which is an awesome reason to sign up for Klout.com-- because I have gotten quite a few great free things from them.

Only, when it came time to pay, I pulled out my super duper Visa giftcard, and IT DIDN'T FREAKING WORK.

It was like  one of those moments when you go on a date with some guy who picked you up on the internet and then after you have eaten delicious food that you THOUGHT he was gonna pay for, he is all, "Oh, sorry, I guess my card isn't working..." and you're all "FINE, the waitron has swiped your card three times and you need to know that I am SO NOT PUTTING OUT NOW, but fucking fuck, I'll pay for it. Asshole!"

That's how Klout/Bing made me feel.  They were the bad date that screws you over and makes you pay for the food they promised you, because THEY sure as hell aren't going to wash dishes to pay for this meal. Not that I would really expect them to, because websites and water don't really mix, but yeah, I was pretty damned disappointed.

That doesn't mean that I won't get free stuff from them again if its available, and that I didn't appreciate what they were TRYING to give me.  It was exciting to get such a cool perk.  And hey, I have this awesome wine set (though I don't drink wine, or anything I could use a wine set with). I'm sure I can find a use for it and as always, suggestions are welcome and illustrations are worth extra points.

It totally looks like a fancy murdering kit to me, but my parents bought me an Infamous Murderers book for Hanukkah when I was a teenager, so that probably explains that line of thought.


I just wish that after touting how awesome Klout and Bing were on twitter and in the restaurant, the friggen card worked so I didn't look like one of those girls...



And I think this kinda goes without saying, because of the content of this "review" but:

Influencer disclosure

I was given a free product or sample because I'm a Klout influencer. I was under no obligation to receive the sample or talk about this company. I get no additional benefits for talking about the product or company.

International TYFNKP Day

We seriously need a MAJOR holiday for people who do computer phone support, internet phone support, phone support for anything technological AT ALL. They need parades, and large cash prizes, and pretty much anything they want that is not totally illegal.

I come to this conclusion after trying to help my mom, over the phone for an hour and a half, to download and transfer two files. At this point, I want to destroy planets, take up smoking, and find an orphanage so I can kick some really unfortunate children.

The fact that technological phone support people have not killed us all is a testament to their patience, kindness and over-all awesomeness. Thank you, IT support. For not killing people. You're the best!

And on a completely unrelated note:

So, last year I won Blog of Note from Blogger. I found out a couple days ago that this year, I won Voice of the Year 2012 from BlogHer.*

Actually, I won it in Visuals, so I guess I kinda won Visionary of the Year. Doesn't that sound more impressive than "Voice of the Year for Something You Look At?" The piece that won me this honor was "Occupy the Holidays" which you are all welcome to go look at again (or for the first time, perhaps).

*My "sponsor" aka the people who put those ads on my blog and promote my work and provide my income of 20 bucks every 3-6 months

Thank you BlogHer, for choosing me as someone worth listening to, or looking at, or something. I am very honored and I love it when you guys tell me I am awesome (and send me money*). <3

*Nope, didn't win any money, just thanking them for paying me every 3-6 months.

Matzo, Matzo, Meme.

It's Passover again, and my insides are enjoying the therapeutic effects of matzo. I have managed not to hurt myself with it this year, so far.  For those of you have never eaten matzo, beyond it being stabby, like I covered last year, it is exceptionally bland. This is most likely because it is made of flour and water, only. No salt, no happiness, just 40 years of suffering compacted into one 8 inch square.

And yet, I love it... if, and only if, it is covered COMPLETELY with something delicious, like butter. And I mean completely.  There can not be a centimeter that is not completely slathered because then, it tastes just like matzo, and matzo, it doesn't taste very good.

Queen of the Nerds

I'm supposed to be writing a Secret Cupid Valentine Exchange Round-up because it went really well, but unfortunately, I received The Big Bang Theory on DVD for Valentine's day from my friend Vez, so I have no desire to do anything but fall in love with fictional nerds who will also ignore me and, on occasion, make me cry.  It is like single life all over again.
I must say, I'm proud of myself for understanding so many of the jokes (and not just laughing because they said something I didn't understand at all, which is what I imagine a lot of people do). I am disappointed that they referred to giving electric shocks as "negative reinforcement" when talking about operant conditioning. Any psychology nerds out there will understand my ire. Everyone else will just continue to call me nit-picky and say that I am too serious, but what the hell is the purpose of giving things names if we are just going to call psychological techniques anything we damned well please?!  Also, unrelated to the show, don't get me started on schizophrenia being stupidly and incorrectly mistaken for multiple personality disorders in popular culture. Seriously, cringe-worthy.



So, I'm going to do the round up tomorrow, most likely, and in the meantime, back to my imaginary nerd harem.

It was taking way too long, attempting to draw convincing comic versions of the cast. I don't have the patience while I am jonesing to watch more.

Scrooged.

I'm having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit this year.

For the first time in. . . forever, actually, I think, I cannot afford to send gifts to my friends around the country.

Of course, they will understand, but the problem is, sending things out to people is also MY gift.

The whole process of baking fiddly things and then having to bake more because the monster version of my husband eats half the batch of cookies in the middle of the night, and packaging them up with funny labels, and dealing with the heinously rude jerk mail lady, Betty, after waiting in a giant line, sweating to death because I am wearing 2 sweaters and a fluffy coat and the post office is toasty warm, is my present to myself.
I don't get many presents, so I usually sustain myself by sending things out and being elf-like.  Not LOTR elf-like, more of the Harry Potter/Keeblerish type, and that I can't afford that right now kinda makes me one grumpy asshole.

And unfortunately, "Jesus" being "the reason for the season" doesn't really work for me, because I am Jewish and the Maccabees are the reason for the season, which doesn't ring quite as nicely, since they were an army, and long burning oil during a cleaning binge isn't terribly inspiring. So, barring some unexpected windfall,  I guess this year I'll gorge myself on latkes and Christmas cookies and then I'll go out and find some orphans to kick and maybe staple little antlers on some dormice.

As an aside, I've never understood why they make places so damned hot inside during the winter when people are dressed warmly anyway.  I mean, I don't need it to be negative degrees inside too, but it should be cool enough that people don't get heat stroke while waiting in line, buying eggnog.

It's a Trap!

I was reading an article on how to succeed at blarging, and apparently, it is my failure to "get a celebrity" that is holding me back.

I am assuming, at this point, that there is some secret to "getting a celebrity" that is being purposefully hidden from me, because celebrity endorsement is motherfucking elusive. Or more likely, it will take something enticing like... money, or... something of some sort of value to get acknowledged, because offerings of llama drawings have, thus far, been summarily ignored, as have portrait paintings and obnoxious @ messages on twitter.


I'm thinking that I should build some sort of celebrity trap, which makes me sound a bit like a serial killer, but I promise, I don't want to harm them... I would just chain them up for a fortnight and make them tweet links to my hilarious posts at which point I would let them go, if they promised not to press charges.

I just have to work out a) how to get celebrities to come to Montana, and b) what kind of bait I should use.

If you know a celebrity, send them my way...but if you link them to this post, tell them I was joking about the bear trap... and the new car.

Happy Birthday, Cheeseblarg AKA How NOT to Make Cake Pops.

Today is da Cheeseblarg's FIRST birthday.  A year ago today, I started this here blarg to talk about my computer being a dick, which it still kinda is.  But to celebrate, I made us some cake pops! And I made us cake pops, mostly because making cake pops is one of my least favorite things to do in the ENTIRE world.

It was also to prove a point, because my mom thought that making cake balls might be a great idea for holiday gifts and having made them before (or well, cookie balls, which might actually suck more than cake balls) I wanted to show her that while we are good at A LOT of things, dipping shit just isn't in our skill set.

So here is a (partially) illustrated guide for how NOT to make cake pops:



1. Gather your ingredients. Take a picture. Forget ingredients.

2. Begin to make a cake which cues everyone else in your house to come into your very small kitchen to also cook. Get angry.

3. Mistake directions on cake box, read: mix on HIGH for 2 minutes, instead of MEDIUM and splatter entire kitchen with cake batter.

4. Fight the people in your kitchen to get to the oven to put the cake in to bake.

5. Remember to check how long you should bake the cake that is now in the oven. Take box out of garbage, consult, set timer (minus approximate amount of time it took you to remember that you should probably set a timer).

6. Wait a long damned time for cake to bake and cool. Begin writing and illustrating your hilarious blarg post on the subject in the meantime (optional).

7. Go to Bakerella.com and read the recipe because you realize you don't really know how much of what you are really supposed to use.

8. Crumble cake and mix in half a can of frosting. Roll into balls. Ask someone else to come in and set up a pan for you because your hands are now coated in cake and frosting.

9. Clean out fridge to make space for the balls to chill.

10. Take some prescription pain pills because this is going to suck, and also because you have been standing for hours and all of your joints hurt.

11. Read the directions on the candy melts, follow directions, spend 17 minutes melting stupid candy melts. Think using a blow dryer might be faster.

12. Begin dipping cakepops. Have an argument about dipping methods. Result in cakepop that looks like this:

13. Add Crisco to candy melts because Montana weather makes them harden up in approximately 1.75 minutes.

14. Give up on cakepops, turn to cakeballs.

15. Give up on cakeballs, dipping is too hard.  Roll rest of the batch in powdered sugar and call it a day.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial on how not to make cake balls. You should probably not follow it. But, while I knew it was going to be bad when I started, I did manage to make one cute one.

How do you create a wormhole?

Don't worry,  no matter what, the art I promised shall be delivered.

After much consideration, I suspect the thief was either a disgruntled cab driver who pilfered my credit card info, or someone in the airport, as it happened just as I was leaving and I only used my card a handful of times.  Hopefully, Paypal will understand that I didn't make the purchases and will give me my money back (it is being investigated now). And also hopefully, said thief will get diarrhea puke soon.

Actual Conversations- Fire and Goats

These are hilarious and inappropriate, in that order. Because me and my friends are punny. You have been warned.

Evil Mike: A Cautionary Tale

The summer before my 10th grade year, I met my first boyfriend, Evil Mike*, over the phone while at my friend Veronica’s house.  Because I was awkward and weird and had REALLY low self-esteem, I immediately agreed when Evil Mike, after talking to me for a week or so, asked me to be his girlfriend.  This happened over the phone, of course, and I had not actually seen him yet, as the internet didn‘t exist so I couldn‘t force him to send me a picture before I accepted. I thought he was funny enough though, in a fart joke sort of way, and his voice was very attractive, which, you should know, is never indicative of how someone actually looks, but Veronica had assured me that he was “totally fine” so I figured I was good.

Yes, Clint Eastwood is my ultimate measure of sexiness, thank you.

I was still 14 when I agreed to his proposal of datitude, even though I was forbidden from actually dating, so our first date required the “best friend secret rendezvous” maneuver, wherein I’d spend the night at my friend Katriya’s house (because she was the friend my family liked/trusted the most) so I could do things my parents didn’t want me to do because they were bad bad ideas.  I got all dressed up in my sexiest acid wash mom jeans and an off-the-shoulder tube shirt with a horrendous flower pattern and applied my iridescent tan lipstick and off we went to meet him and his friend at Loehmann’s Plaza, where we were going to see Child’s Play III.

Katriya and I sat outside on a planter that doubled for an ashtray, nervously waiting for him to make his first appearance.  “Over there, that’s him!” Her voice was not kind  as she pointed at the pair of heshers coming out of the arcade.  “Veronica LIED!” I hissed at her as she began to laugh. Please let it be the blonde, please let it be the blonde, fuck, of course it’s not the blonde.  His friend was fairly attractive.  He, on the other hand, totally wasn’t.  He wasn’t much taller than I was, fancied himself a body builder, but his frame didn’t support it well so he just looked a bit like a tall little person. Beyond that, he had a mullet, but not just any mullet, it was a super mexi-mullet. And he was wearing a fitted jean jacket with Eddie Van Halen air brushed on the back of it. I wanted to flee. To pretend it wasn’t me, but it was too late. He had spotted me.

We bought tickets.  I can’t remember if he bought my ticket for me or if I had to buy my own. I spent the whole movie alternating between chastising myself for my desire to dump him on the spot because he was so repulsive to me and thinking how incredibly awful the movie was.  Really, have you seen Child’s Play III?! Serious crap! He spent the whole movie trying to touch my boobs and making me very uncomfortable by actually acting like he was my boyfriend. The only high point was that he smelled of Drakkar, which he might have bathed in.

Afterwards, we broke off from our friends and walked around the deserted outdoor mall. “So, what do you think?” I somehow realized he was asking me to assess his attractiveness. “Oh, yeah. You’re as fine they said.” I’m a liar, a dirty liar. Which should pay off right? Flattery and what not…  “And what about you?” Of course, he didn’t hold to the same principles that I did as his response was not flattering in the least. “Well, you’re not the beautiful flower they said you were, but you’re okay.”  He was entirely wrong.  I was an AMAZINGLY beautiful flower, and he was a jackass.

When I got back to Kat’s house, I called Veronica and informed her that she was a lying jerk, and she told me I was shallow (which I took to be a confession that she knew damned well that her pants were on fire) and she convinced me that I should give him a chance, which was a really bad suggestion, but somehow when you are 14 and you have really low self-esteem, you make really bad decisions, and instead of dumping him, like a sane person, I dated him for approximately two years.

Those were not two consecutive years, of course, because he would break up with me every couple of months/weeks/days because he was convinced I was either cheating on him at that moment, or was planning on cheating on him at any second, and I would cry and  plead with him not to dump me and he would declare that I just wanted to be with him because he was “sooooo fine.” Each time this declaration would come and each time it was really hard not to guffaw the moment he’d say it, but I somehow managed not to laugh openly at him and would assure him of all the stupid reasons I didn’t want him to break up with me, my level of attraction to him had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it.




* Evil Mike's name was coined after I started dating my husband, who is "good Mike" or just Mike.  But evil Mike was evil... or compared to all other Mikes who did not make my life miserable for 2+ years... Come to think of it, he wasn't really clever enough to be evil, I guess... he was really just a dick.. but Evil Mike has a better ring to it than "Dick Mike." 

_____________________________________________________

Remember, tomorrow is the last day to buy your Limited Edition September Sticker! 

http://cheeseblarg.blogspot.com/2011/09/september-sticker-sale-t-rex-wants-ice.html

Urine big trouble, bladder!

I was planning on writing something so entertaining today that people would have DIED laughing, but I'm hella tired and I went to the doctor today and peed on my own hand, so the death by laughter will have to wait.

Here are the events leading up to my awesome day:

And... I'll find out in two days what the hell my jerk pee maker's problem is. In the meantime, thank goodness for AZO and cranberry juice.

And many more...

Tomorrow is my husband's 44th birthday.  I want to share with you the story of how I almost lost my husband two years ago to celebrate still having him today, so that maybe it can help someone else.

Me and my husband at my art show on 5/15/09

On the morning of May 9th 2009, I woke up to a crashing sound. I was notorious for leaving my shoes in inappropriate places and they were notorious for trying to murder people, so when I jumped up and found my husband on the floor at the end of the bed where I had left my shoes, I immediately began apologizing for being a total butthole and helped him up. When he took a few more steps into the bathroom and fell down again, I started to realize that the problem clearly wasn't me and my homicidal shoes.  I asked him what was wrong, he said he was fine. I asked him if it concerned him that he was falling down repeatedly, he replied, "Not really." And even though he doesn't drink, I asked him if he was drunk, just in case. He wasn't.

On his way back from the bathroom, he looked like someone walking on a moving bus.  I was terrified and told him I wanted to call an ambulance and he told me he was fine, this had happened before and had resolved itself and he just needed to lie down and rest.  He was sure it was just an inner ear infection and he would be fine.  I immediately turned on my computer and googled strokes. I roused him and made him go through the steps to tell if someone was having a stroke.  F.A.S.T.  -He could smile just fine.  His arms stayed up perfectly. His speech wasn't slurred or strange, he didn't even have a headache, so I didn't force him to go to the ER and I just stayed beside him, checking on him as he slept to make sure he was still breathing.  When he woke up, he complained that the room was too bright.  He was having double vision and sitting up made him so dizzy he threw up. When he went to reach for things, he would miss them, grabbing a few inches in front of where they were. I kept having to ask him to loosen his grip because he was crushing my hand without realizing it, as I lay next to him in the dark holding his hand.
I should have forced him to go to the emergency room, but I didn't. I'm used to people wanting me to go the ER when I know I don't need to, so I stupidly listened to him and didn't force him to go, and thankfully he didn't die.

My husband had in fact had a stroke.  The doctor called it a TIA (transient ischemic attack ), which is the technical name for a mini-stroke, which means  a stroke that resolves itself and doesn't show changes to the brain on an MRI.

Unfortunately, F.A.S.T. doesn't cover every kind of stroke.  He was having a Cerebellar Stroke, which means that there was a bleed or clot somewhere in his cerebellum.  That is the part of the brain that controls walking, and fear, and sensory input, and coordination.
For a Cerebellar Stroke/ TIA the test you need to do is “W.T.F? :P”

W- Walking -Is the person falling down repeatedly or unable to walk?
T- Touching- Are they able to reach out and touch something easily- is their grip too tight?
F- Focusing- Are they having trouble focusing their vision, or having other visual disturbances?
P- Puking- Does moving make them throw up?

If I had had this list of tests, I would have immediately dragged his ass to the nearest doctor. Like I said, thankfully, he lived.

He is mostly recovered now. It took quite some time and a lot of walking with a cane to get his coordination back.  For some time, I couldn't get him to go places with me because he was afraid people would think he was drunk. His gait is still a little off, but I doubt other people notice much. His vision is permanently damaged, it seems, as he has to wear sunglasses inside if there is a lot of light, which makes him seem like a cool guy, or a Corey Hart impersonator.
 I've asked him about it since. It was, in fact, the stroke that made him think he was fine.  His fear reaction was broken and he just felt happy and at peace.  It was up to me to take care of him and I didn't have enough information to do so, which is a big reason why I want to share our story.  Now he knows that he needs to go to the doctor if I say so, though he is probably pretty tired of me neurotically assuming he has had a stroke again.  He broke his toe last week jumping up to turn off the fire alarm at 4 am and I keep forgetting and spaz out when I notice his limp has worsened.  But he has since been heavily medicated with 2 types of cholesterol pills and as many blood pressure meds, and he has regular checkups, so his chance of having another stroke is greatly diminished.

On a walk to take photos 5/23/09

So I ask you, in honor of his birthday, please share our story with someone to let them know that thinking "W.T.F? :P" could well save a loved one's life when someone is acting like they're drunk when they've not had a thing to drink. It is not what we usually are warned about but it could be a stroke.

"WTF? :P" FTW!

Disclaimer-- I am not a doctor, clearly, I am a humor writer, and while I have spent a lot of time researching cerebellar strokes since my husband had his, I am not an expert.  My initialism (WTF? :P) is meant to help but if you think someone needs a doctor, please, call 911 or your local medical expert and stop reading a humor blarg.

Don't Get Attached.

This morning, I tried to convince my mom to stop using crapo.com for her email service after talking her through the set up for a gmail account.  She pays 10 dollars a year for crapo-mail and has been using it since 1997.   It won't attach more than one item at a time. It sends forwards as attachments.  It takes up to two hours to send emails to my hotmail account at peak hours. It is, in fact, a piece of crap, especially for a paid service. She thinks it is fine.

I think that there is a fundamental difference in the way my generation uses computers compared to that of my mother's generation.   When I use a computer, having had access to them the majority of my life, I want the process to be completely efficient. I want to avoid erroneous clicking and mouse movements and downloading anything, ever. If I am forwarded something, the last thing I want to do is download a file to my computer that I have to open with another program to read a joke about a cheeky octogenarian ordering milk for a bath.  We don't even have milkmen anymore! And who the hell sells unpasteurized milk!?

My mom, on the other hand, is used to reading mail the conventional (read:old fashioned) way.  She expects to open an envelope, unfold a letter, and flip through the 6 different attached Sunday Funnies clipped from the newspaper, so she has no qualms about having to click 4 different things to get a stupid joke forward to open.  If she could do eBay via postcard, she would.  She won't, however, click links that I send her in emails.  Somehow she has learned that downloading things on her computer is fine, but links are super dangerous, especially those sent by your computer savvy daughter. Or maybe it is because crapo-mail doesn't generate clickable links in their incoming emails and she doesn't know how to copy and paste them...

I think the phrase is 'Kill it with Fire'?

My husband is growing me strawberries.  They have been working their way up to actually producing fruit for the last 2 years... and now, I wish they wouldn't because this is what they look like:

Yes, we have terrifying mutant strawberries growing in my backyard.  I'm wondering if maybe there was a toxic chemical spill in that area, because the strawberry plants in the plot on the other side of the yard (that get the same amount of water, light, fertilizer, and love) are just fine, but these ones, all of them, about 6 plants, they have produced horrible alien strawberries and I hate them. It makes me feel queasy just knowing that they are there, in the yard, watching me... plotting to give me their space herpes.

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