Reasons Why I'll Never Go Nude Sky Diving

You know how people always have things on their bucket list, like "Sky Dive Nude Over The Grand Canyon"??

I'm not one of those people.

My bucket list includes things like, "Eat every kind of cheese ever made" and "Flash my boobs at the top of the Eiffel Tower."

(Sidebar:  Absolutely Fabulous is my #1 favorite show, like, ever, and Patsy and Edina are my Siamese Spirit Animals.  In the episode where they go to Paris for a fashion shoot and Eddie lures Saffie to the top of the Eiffel tower and convinces her to flash her boobs, screaming, "Your tits are the key to your cage, darling!" I had an epiphany.  My tits are the key to my cage.  I need to go to Paris and flash them.)

One day, this dream will come true.

My Bucket List (or, as I like to call it, my Fuck It List) does not include activity that involves too much exercise or risking my life.  It doesn't involve running in marathons or bungee jumping off of the Empire State Building, or even taking the Chunnel from London to Paris.  (Okay, I might do that.  But only if it gets me to the top of the Eiffel Tower with  my top off.)

And most of all, I have no such lofty ambition as to throw myself out of an airplane.  Naked.

There isn't enough Xanax and alcohol in the world to EVER make that happen.  (I think.  Though maybe I should add "See if there's enough Xanax and alcohol in the world to make me jump starkers out of an airplane.")

Every time a naked person jumps from an airplane, a nudist gets his wings.

Years ago, my ex-husband and I lived in Lake Elsinore, CA.  Lake Elsinore is famous for biker rallies, high crime, and nude sky diving.

I kid you not.

There is a nudist colony hidden amongst the hills of the Ortega Highway, which winds down into Lake Elsinore.  It's not one of those nudist colonies where people play naked volleyball or naked Twister or lounge naked by a sparkling blue pool.  (Well, they do, but wait... there's more!)

It's one of those nudist colonies where people hike, bike, and throw themselves off of cliffs, naked.

Every year they have a Big Fat Saggy-Tittied Flapping-Nutsack Naked Hang-gliding event.  (I don't know if they actually call it that, but they might as well.)

And thousands and thousands of Lake Elsinorians wander around outside, looking up.

And in 1987, I was one of those people, looking up.


(I didn't actually see anything, but it wasn't for lack of trying.)

"I'm a bird!  I'm a plane!  I'm a... Wait, that's not a rip cord!!!"

I'm intrigued, I am... but not enough to risk life and limb, not to mention numerous abrasions and foreign objects getting lodged in unfortunate orifices.  (Because you just know I'd be the person landing ass-first on a freaking cactus.  And if you don't know that, this is the first time you've read my blog.)

Many thoughts run through my head when I think of the wind in my hair, the bugs in my teeth, the ground 5 miles below me...

I think, "Dear God, it's not a parachute... it's a knapsack!" And then I laugh myself stupid, remembering the time Chandler said it on Friends.


Then I think, "I'd probably poop out of sheer fear... and that would be an unpleasant surprise for the folks below.  Dani, Dani, in the sky, dropped a poopy in my eye..."  And then I laugh myself stupid yet again, because poems about poop are pretty damn funny.

With my luck, the wind would shift and the Santa Anas would blow through the valley and there'd be a Dani-shaped indentation on the side of a mountain.

A naked Dani-shaped indentation on the side of a mountain.  My entire family would have to leave the state of California, just from the shame of that indentation.

Or I'd land, like a disoriented bug, on the windshield of a semi headed for the Grapevine.  Imagine that hurtling towards you as you rounded a bend, listening to country music and talking on your CB radio about the damn fool naked hippies jumping off of cliffs.

Lives would be ruined and again, it would be all my fault.

What if I got flipped upside down, like the Awkward Turtle, and just fell like a sack of stones to the ground, belly up and flapping my arms uselessly trying to fly, but failing miserably and dying an embarrassing and naked death in the deserts of south eastern California, only to be discovered later that same day by a nice family picnicking in the barren countryside on their way to Vegas?

Again, more lives... ruined.  I cannot die with the knowledge that I was responsible for a destroying someone's Vegas Vacation.


But the Number 1 Reason Why I'll Never Go Nude Sky Diving (after 1.  Because I won't and 1 1/2. Because there's no fucking way) is that it doesn't actually look like this:

Pretty sexy girls jump out of a plane!  Yay!  Men are smiling down below!

Oh HAYELLLLL to the no.  It looks like THIS:

Oh. My. God.

I paid wayyyy too much for these boobs to pop them while jumping out of an airplane.

California Brain Rides Again

Finally... someone made a chart:

My lack of geographical knowledge regarding my country of origin is appalling.  Or at least, it should be, if I actually cared about all those pointless states that come AFTER California.  I have the West Coast down pat:  California (Angels singing), Oregon (tax free shopping), and Washington (birth place of Starbucks).  I can get to Reno and Vegas, which are the only two places worth going to in Nevada (unless you're near Tahoe, in which case Virginia City is a nice change from Reno).  Then there's alllllllll this land in between California and the East Coast, where New Yorkers reside and are under the impression that they're special.  

Is there a Cooter Bug in NY?  I think not.

If I had to look at an unmarked map and pick out any state past Utah and identify it, there's a 50 - 50 chance that I couldn't.  Well, except for Texas and Florida, because they're more than just random squares on a map.

I know, right?

I probably wouldn't even know which one of those little crooked blocks is New York.  

I should be ashamed.

If only I were...

Dan's embarrassed for me, because my California Brain tells me that I don't care, because those places really aren't important.

Because they're not California.

Jesus isn't in the Bible Belt, y'all... he's serving tacos to the chosen people of Cali.

When I say things like that (which I do... sad but true) Dan never knows how to take it.  Part of him really hopes I'm kidding, but the rest of him knows that unfortunately, I'm not.  

We have a lot of conversations that go like this:

Me:  "Which way is Pennsylvania?"

Dan:  "Huh?"

Me:  "Is it before or after Ohio?"

Dan:  

Me:

Dan:  

Me:  

Dan:  "You're not kidding, are you?"

Me:

Dan:

Me:  "Ummmm..."

Then Dan feels compelled to quiz me, just to find out how utterly stupid I actually am.  (I think it makes him feel better about himself.)

Dan:  "Dani, which state borders New York to the East?"

Me:  "I'm not stupid, Dan."

Dan:  "Then prove it:  what is it?"

Me:  "I don't have to tell you.  I know what it is."

Dan:  "Which state is right below New York?"

Me:  "I know which state is below New York, jeez!"

Dan:  "Sooo... what is it?"

Me:  "I'm not telling you."

Dan:  "What three states are in the Tri State area?"

Me:  "Shut up."

I don't need no stinking geography.

And it isn't just me.  

I met my first husband on a blind date.  A friend of mine was married to a Marine, and she told me about one of his friends who was also a Marine, and really tall and really cute.  And when I asked where he was from, this is what she said:

Her:  "Ummm... I dunno, one of those states that begins with an M, I think."

Me:  "Montana?"

Her:  "No, not Montana... I think it's somewhere back east."

Me:

Her:

Me:  "New Mexico?  No wait, that's an N.  Are you sure it's an M?"

Her:  "I think so... I'd remember it if I heard it."

Me:  *racking my brain for an M state that isn't Montana*

Her:  *racking her brain for an M state that isn't Montana*

Her:  "Oh, wait... I remember it reminded me of a movie star.  Marilyn.  Marilyn Monroe.  Maryland!"

Truest.  Freaking.  Story.  EVER.

The Great State of Marilyn.

For the longest time, when I was little, I thought  Illinois was a city in Chicago.

And I thought Washington D.C. was on an island, which I blame on my piano teacher, because one of the songs he had me play was "Columbia, The Gem of the Ocean."  (Which I honestly thought meant it was a green and lucious island that housed our nation's capital.)

I thought Alaska and Hawaii were right next to eachother, since they both entered the union at approximately the same time.  (Didn't they?  Hmm.  I should probably google.  Okay, they were both admitted in 1959.  See?  I'm not entirely stupid.)  I thought they were two little islands hanging out together somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.  Like, if you were in Alaska, you could just pop onto the ferry and hit the beaches in Maui for a change of pace.

And when someone told me that California was going to break off of the rest of the country and sink into the ocean, my logic was thus:

The rest of the country would actually sink, because it would be heavier.  Ergo, California would stay afloat.  I argued that point quite heatedly with my best friend in third grade, because she was moving to Idaho and for some reason, felt the need to let me know I was doomed.

Long story short, her mom called my mom to let her know that I had convinced her daughter that Idaho was going to be the first state to plummet to the bottom of the ocean when it broke off from California.

You know it, bitches.

Ahhh, Geography... if only I cared.

Here's a map of the state, for your convenience.

Interactive Bloggery Friday

Same Time Next Year

And...

GO!

Sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you...

I dread going to bed for one reason, and one reason only:

Dan.

Back off, girls.  He's MINE.

You know how some couples love to cuddle up together in bed at night, falling asleep wrapped in each other's arms?  Their hearts beat in perfect harmony as they inhale and exhale in unison, sharing dreams of puppies and kittens and moonlit walks on the beach while visions of sugarplums dance in their heads.  

What the fuck ever.

Dan and I are SO not that couple.

Well, actually DAN kind of is.

Okay, *I* am so not that couple.

We're THIS couple.

I love my husband.  I do.  He has many wonderful qualities that I fail to mention because, let's face it:  His negative qualities are much more interesting (and there are so many more of them to choose from) than his positive qualities.  Plus, I'm kind of an asshole.  (There is that.)  But he really is, for the most part, a pretty good guy.  He works hard, he loves me, he loves my kids, he loves our pets, he's good to his mama and papa, he puts gas in my car and opens jars and he's tall, so he can reach the high places that I don't feel like climbing up to.  He carries everything that ever needs to be carried that is heavier than my purse and on more than one occasion has toted my fluffy black Pomeranian through airports, football fields, tourist attractions, into restaurants, and through stores in a pink and brown Juicy Couture pet carrier.

Fluffy little dog.

Pink pet carrier.

Yes, he carried that.

And he did it without complaining.

Real men carry Juicy.

Yes, it was THAT pet carrier.  Exactly.  Only filled with a tiny fluffy little purse dog.  

Willingly.

Because I didn't feel like carrying it.

Because it was heavier than my purse.

Yes, I AM that kind of spoiled.  What's your point?

Okay, so blah blah blah, Dan is wonderful.  Moving right along...

He's also pretty sexy, no?

And then he falls asleep.

And then?

I want him dead.

Not DEAD dead, just not able to breathe.  For at least 8 hours.  

Dan looooves to cuddle up next to me in bed, wrapping his big ol' arms around me, pressing his face against my neck and mumbling sweet nothings for the 2.2 seconds that it takes him to fall asleep.  It's like:

Dan:  *practically purring as his head lands gently on the pillow*  "MMmm... night baby... I luh..." *HONK SNOOOOOOOOOORE!!  HONK SNOOOOOOOOORE!!!*

Me:  *elbowing the shit out of his rib cage*  "MOVE OVER!  YOU'RE SNORING!!"

Dan:  *purrrrrrrrrr*  *HONKKKK SNOOOOOOOOOOORE!!!  HONK SNOOOOOOOOORE!!!*

Me:

And that's my night.

The man SNORES.  And DROOLS.  And FARTS.  And HOGS THE BED.  And CLAWS ME WITH HIS DISGUSTING, RAGGED TOE NAILS.  And STEALS THE COVERS.  And BREATHES, GODDAMMIT!!  HE WON'T STOP BREATHING!!!

And it all  JUST PISSES ME OFF.

He lies in bed, smiling and dreaming and making little happy noises in between gurgles, farts, gasps, grunts, and snores while rivers of drool pour out of the corner of his mouth...

Don't EVEN get me started on the drooling.

Actually, it IS the snoring.  AND the drool.  

Meanwhile, I'm lying next to him, clinging to the edge of the mattress like it's a freaking lifeboat and I've just been shoved off of the Titanic, trying to get comfortable in the 6 square inches of bed that he's left for me, plotting his demise.  

Muu-wah. Ha. Haaaa.

And how I can get away with it.

Plan A:  Don't post your evil intentions on blogger.

Plan B:  Don't post your evil intentions in a status update on Facebook.

Plan C:  Smother him with a pillow and plead insanity.

It was the CAT!  The CAT did it!

I think I need to get a cat.

Awkward Moments In Time

When you get to be of my vast age, you spend a lot of time looking back... baaack... baaaaaaaack over your life.  Some people feel a sense of accomplishment, some may feel regret, some may feel blessed over a life well lived.  

I, on the other hand, always feel a vague sense of embarrassment.

I'm pretty sure that in those moments before I die, when one's life is supposed to flash before one's eyes, what I will be treated to is a rapid-fire slide show of myself walking through college campuses with my skirt tucked into the back of my panty hose, of me falling on my face in front of crowds of thousands, of me sitting on a steak knife, ripping my bathing suit bottoms in half, floating on my back in a public pool with my bathing suit top hanging uselessly around my waist, of me walking through a grocery store with a panty liner stuck to my pant leg... 

And lest we forget, the millions upon millions upon millllllionssss of times that I stuck my foot in my mouth and yet managed to continue talking around it.  

Some people learn from their mistakes.

I do not make mistakes.  I just make a giant ass out of myself.  

This may or may not have happened recently:

My landlord stopped by to check out a piece of laminate flooring that decided to spring forth and make a nuisance of itself in my kitchen.  (And by "make a nuisance of itself" I mean that I have tripped over it and stubbed my toe on it literally every single time I go into the kitchen.)  After he was done inspecting the rogue piece of flooring, he asked how I was enjoying living here in this tiny, piece of shit "village" in the "North Country."

Me:  *carrying on at length about everything wrong with this area and possibly including words like "inbred" and "fashion backwards" and "Big M"*

Landlord:  "You don't like the Big M?"

Me:  *carrying on at length about everything wrong with the Big M, beginning with the stupid teensy tiny useless little midget shopping carts, shelf after shelf of pickled pig particles, and ending with the old bitch at the checkout counter*

Landlord:  "My sister and brother in law owns the Big M.  What checker are you talking about?"

Me:  *praying mightily to choke on own tongue and die right then and there*

Oh, how I wish I would learn to think before I speak.

Oh, how I wish I'd never learned to talk.

Oh, how I know with absolute certainty that I will never shop at the Big M again.

Have you ever had a long conversation with a kind, genteel, polite older person and as you're walking away, wondered uneasily if you accidentally and unknowingly dropped the F bomb?

Was it something I said...?

Have you ever posted a status update on your Facebook page, totally blasting one of your in-laws, either past or present, and then remembered belatedly that they were actually on your Friend's list?

And then wondered why they hate you?

In-law.  But you didn't hear it from me.  On Facebook.  In my status updates.

Have you ever gotten totally hammered at your husband's work's Christmas party and discussed loudly, obnoxiously and at length about the office tramp who was whoring around with the manager, only to realize belatedly that you were discussing her with... her?

Oh, SNAP!

Have you ever been on a date with a really cute guy that you were trying desperately to impress, and during drinks and chit chat, you  find yourself laughing so hard that a fart slips out?  And you hope to GOD no one heard it...

And then the next day, while he's hanging out at your house, he starts laughing?

And you say, "What's so funny?"

And he says, "For a such a little girl, you can sure rip a good one!"

Ahhh, sweet lips that never tell a lie...

(That totally didn't happen to me, by the way.  It happened to a "friend."  I swear.  NOT. ME.)

Did you know that turtles breathe through their butts?

Have you ever whisper-gossiped with a friend about the extreme hideousness of another friend's outfit, only to find out later that the outfit was borrowed from the previous friend's closet?

Ummm... yeah.  Me neither.

Speaking of Hell...

I'm pretty sure this is the one I'm going to.

When Socks Go Rogue

I hate doing laundry.  I hate it with the white hot intensity of a thousand angry suns.  The thought of spending the day doing countless loads of laundry makes me want to take to my bed with an attack of the vapors, like an overly dramatic Southern Belle.

I'm positive that Dante's 7th Circle of Hell is an endless pit of dirty socks, with a washer and dryer sitting over in the corner.  

"Where is my damn sock?"

And none of the socks in that pile match.

And in a parallel universe there's another Danielle folding laundry and holding up a stray sock, thinking, "What the fuck?"

In a galaxy far, far away....

There are countless things I'd rather do than laundry.  Remember when you were a kid and you and your morbid little friends would play, "How Would You Rather Die?"  And you'd get hideous choices, like "Would you rather fall off a cliff into a live volcano or jump off a high dive into a nest of pissed off water moccasins?"  

(You did play that, right?  It wasn't just me?)

*pause*

Anyway, that's the game I play with myself when it comes to laundry.

"Would you rather do 5 loads of laundry or get a root canal?"

Answer:  Root canal.  Because there's always the possibility of good drugs.

"Would you rather do 5 loads of laundry or be locked in a room with a fruit bat?"

Answer:  Fruit bat, because I would die of fright within the first 5 seconds and at least it would be over.

"Would you rather do 5 loads of laundry or parachute into a swarm of angry weiner dogs?"

Answer:  Okay, that's a toughy.  I hate weiner dogs almost as much as I hate doing laundry, and laundry doesn't bite.  I'm gonna have to go with laundry on this one.

And so it goes.

Laundry or shave your head?

Shave head.

Laundry or walk through hot coals?

Hot coals.

A lot of my Laundry Issues have to do with Dan and his socks.

Dan has hundreds of pairs of socks, none of which match or aren't ripped at the heel.

Yes, that's what I said:  Ripped at the heel.

How do you rip a freaking sock at the heel??  

Dan has enormous feet with long, frightening tree-climbing toes.  It's hard to find socks that even fit him (which until I met him, I had no idea could even be a problem.  How can a sock not fit?  It's a sock, for Christ's sake!).  It actually takes him longer to put on one sock than it takes me to put on a pair of panty hose.  He grunts and groans like he's giving birth while struggling to yank a sock over his giant freaking foot.  And for some reason, that just irritates me to no end.

I have no idea why this annoys me so much, but there ya go.  I have to leave the room to stop myself from screaming, "IT'S A SOCK, FOR GOD'S SAKE!  A SOCK!  JUST PUT IT ON!!!"

Dan was here.

Very quickly his socks deteriorate and shred and collapse under the hugeness that are his feet, and one sock will be thrown away, as it's basically been reduced to nothing more than a few threads being held together by lint and dog hair.  

And even though he has 60 black socks, none of them match.  And even though he wears work boots and no one SEES his socks, he needs to go buy MORE socks, so that they match.  And I can't bring myself to throw away 60 black socks, just because they don't have the same color of stripe on the toe or the ribbing is slightly different than the other 59 socks, so into the sock drawer they go.  And somehow, even though he never wears them, they wind up back in the laundry hamper.  At the bottom.  Where they sit and mock me.  

Meanwhile, Dan opens his sock drawer at 7:15 in the morning and says, "How come I don't have any clean socks?"

Me:  "You tell me."

Dan:  *being an extreme smart ass, which is a dangerous game to play with me at 7:15 in the effing morning*  "Ummmm... because you need to do laundry?"

No, Dan.  NO.  That is NOT the reason. The reason is because I was cruel to a washer woman in a past life and this is my hell on earth.  

Screw you, Karma.  I know that somehow, in some way, this is your fault.

GIVE ME BACK MY SOCK!!!

Pet Peevages

Dear Paula Deen,

I challenge you to get through one damn sentence without saying "y'all."  Heck, sometimes you toss in three or four y'alls, just in case we didn't catch the first two.  I get that it's supposed to be all Southern and homey and folksy and all that shit, but it's not.  It's fucking annoying.  I can't handle watching your show because of an almost uncontrollable urge to take your beloved butter and shove it down your throat, just so that you can't talk.  

Please fix immediately.

Love,

Dani

P.S.

For a while, you almost ruined butter for me, because the way you say it skeeves me out.  Thank GOD I got over it.  Because that?  Would have been unforgivable.

Dear Volkswagon,


We need to discuss your new barking dog commercial.
What.
Were.
You.
Thinking??
If I were in the market to buy a car and was seriously considering buying a Volkswagon, this commercial would send me straight over to freaking Toyota because it's that fucking annoying.  
Every time it comes on I have to scramble to hit the mute button because it triggers a cacophony of barks, yaps, and howls within my own living room that inevitably results in this pointless and stupid conversation:


Commercial:  "Bark! Bark! Bark! Bark bark bark! Bark bark bark!"
Maisy:  "Roooof!  Raff!  GrrrrrrrrrRARF!  ARF!"
Javi:  "YAP!  YAP!"
Me:  "SHUTTUP!"
Dan:  *from the other room*  "What are they barking at?"
Me:  "That damn Volkswagon commercial with the freaking dogs."
Dan:  "What?"
Me:  "The Volkswagon commercial with the barking dogs!"
Maisy:  "ARFARFARFARFARF!"
Javi:  "YAP!  YAP!"
Dan:  "WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY BARKING AT?"
Me:  "THAT VOLKSWAGON COMMERCIAL WITH THE BARKING DOGS!"
Dan:  "WHAT??!!"


As you can plainly see, this shit needs to end.
Fix now.


Love, 


Dani

Dear People Who Think OR-range Is Pronounced AH-range,


It's not.


Love,


Dani

O-range.  OR. Ange.  ORANGE, DAMMIT!

Dear People Who Put "At" At The End Of A Sentence,

Just stop.

Don't ask me, "where I'm located AT."  

Don't say, "Where's it AT?"

Just... don't.

Love,

Dani

It's for your own good.

And finally...

Dear Men Who Wear Bike Shorts,

You might want to rethink that choice.

Love,

Dani

Fascinating! Innovative! Edgy!!

Misty, from the hilarious blog Misty's Laws suggested that due to the number of times I fall on my ass, lick laundry soap off of my hand, or make a giant public ass out of myself, I should star in my own reality show.

Being the not-so-secret fame whore that I've always been, I thought that might actually be a fabulous idea.

(Sidebar:  Totally embarrassing but also totally true story:  My senior year in high school, we had an assignment in English to write a paper listing all of our Life Goals following graduation.  One of my Life Goals, that I actually wrote down and turned in, was "Make the cover of the National Enquirer."  Not Time Magazine, not even freaking PEOPLE magazine, but the National Enquirer.  I had such lofty ambition.)

Just to see how fascinating I actually am, I mentally followed myself around yesterday with an imaginary film crew.

The highlights of my day were thus:

1.  Dani wanders aimlessly around her extremely freaking teeeensy apartment in her Betty Boop pajama pants and an enormous pink sweatshirt, complete with coffee stains and dog hair, while she waits for her coffee to brew, because she didn't get the fancy-pants Keurig coffee maker that she sooo dreams of for Christmas.  She trips repeatedly over the prancing little black Pomeranian who won't back the fuck up and get out from between her feet.  Oooh... now she's bribing him with Pupperoni because his doggy happiness is starting to piss her right the hell off.  Her scintillating dialog goes something like this:  "Jesus, Javi, knock it off!  Get out from between my feet or I'm going to step on you!  Javi!  Cut it out!  I'm gonna boot your fluffy little ass right across the room if you don't chill the fuck out!"


2.  Dani wanders aimlessly around her extremely freaking teeeensy apartment in her yoga pants (because she's too lazy for real pants) and Dan's enormous gray Kum n Go sweatshirt, complete with diet Pepsi stains and dog hair, while she procrastinates about getting anything done.  Even the Pomeranian is over it.

Classy, yes?

3.  Ooh... she's on the move!  Dogs are on leashes and she's ready to go outside for her daily walk!  Dani refuses to acknowledge that even though it's sunnyyyyy outside, it's still freaking cold.  She toodles outside in 12 degree weather wearing yoga pants, a sweatshirt (yes, she actually left the house in that sweatshirt) and Uggs.  The dogs refuse to get off the porch because they're not idiots and they actually do realize that it's too damn cold to play outside while she stands there and turns blue, cajoling them.  What a wimp... she's losing a battle of wits against a 4 lb Pom and a 15 lb Pug.  Her gaze hones in on the 2 foot long icicle that is hanging directly over her head.  Her face registers shock and fear as she recollects reading somewhere about people being killed by plummeting icicles.  You can actually see the movie reel playing in her head as she pictures herself flat on her back with a giant icicle sticking out of her chest.  She contemplates her mortality and finally does what the dogs knew needed to be done all along:  She goes back inside, where she gives her spoiled rotten dogs a treat, even though they didn't do anything, actively disobeyed her, and kicked her ass in a game of Chicken.

4.  Dani sits on the couch and watches Dr. Phil, wondering if this is going to be a changing day in her life.   It isn't.

Really, Robin?  Is there something we don't know?

5.  Ooh... now she's cooking hotdogs and rice!!!  Move over, Rachael Freaking Ray... it's ON like Donkey Kong, bitch!

6.  Dan is home.  Crap.

7.  Dani is eating sugar cookies while watching Biggest Loser and heckling the fatties who are all crying and sobbing and "sharing their feelings."  Suck it up, you big girls!

Dear Me, You are beautiful!  You are strong!  You are the sexiest thing on two feet!  Love, Me

8.  AND... bedtime.  Dani tosses and turns all night, gets up 15 times to pee, and never once falls asleep.  Let's count how many times she kicks, nudges, and shoves Dan while bellowing, "You're snoring!  Oh my GOD!  KNOCK IT OFFFFFFF!!!  YOU SOUND LIKE YOU'RE GARGLING SNOT!!  GAHHHHHHHH!!!  ARGHHHHHH!!!!"  She records him with her cellphone so that she can play it back to him in the morning, because she's a giver like that. Not to mention the fact that she's also bored out of her flipping mind, just lying there not sleeping.  Wait... is she actually getting up to pee again?

Dudes, this is fascinating shit.  Sister Wives and the Kardashians got nothin' on me.

Move over, bitches... there's a new sheriff in town.

Dumbassery Du Jour

This has been one of those days.

I woke up this morning with a pounding headache that morphed into a migraine before I even got my coffee started.  

For breakfast I had two Tylenol, two Advil, and two cups of coffee.  

That's never a good sign.

Since Dan went to work in dirty socks (because I haven't done laundry in like, days) I figured if I didn't get anything else done today, I should at least wash the man's socks.  I dumped a bunch of darks into the washing machine, filled the cap with Tide, sloshed some onto my finger...

and licked it off.

What.  The FUCK.

As my tongue was landing in the blue goo that was dripping down my hand, alarm bells started clanging in my head while my common sense screamed, "ABORT!  ABORT MISSION!  ABORT!"  

Danger, Dani!  Danger!!

I ran to the sink, spit until I was deeply dehydrated, rinsed my mouth 5647948373 times, brushed my teeth, spit a few more times, scrubbed my tongue with a wash cloth, and briefly wondered if I was going to die.

WHO FREAKING DOES THAT?

Dear Dani,

Remember all the years that you made fun of your mother for that one time that she unthinkingly licked the spoon after mixing up wet dog food with dry dog food?  You had at least 35 years of hearty guffaws at her expense regarding that one incident.  Who's laughing now?

Love,

Karma

Eventually, several cups of coffee later, I determined that death was not imminent. I managed to get dressed and get another load going without incident.  That amazing fete was short lived, however, because then?

This happened while I was making the bed.  (Which just proves that what I've always thought about making the bed was true:  It's stupid.  Because you're just going to climb back in it and mess that shit up again.)

I pulled up the sheet and the blankets, then pulled up the bedspread.  Rather than walking around to the other side of the bed to straighten everything out (ittttt's toooooo farrrrrrrrr!), I decided to fling myself ON to the bed and just straighten it out from THAT angle.  I have no idea what went wrong, as it's all kind of a blur, but somehow my execution didn't quite go as planned, because I literally flung myself right off the bed.  

I thought I would catch myself before I went over but seemingly lost my balance from a prone position (???  How??? HOW???) and wound up with my head and shoulders smooshed onto the floor with my feet kicking uselessly above my head.

The dogs were ecstatic.

Long story short, I couldn't pull myself back up on the bed so I had to roll the rest of me off, which caused Javi and Maisy to dance around my head with glee, barking and licking and panting happily in my face.  I laid on the floor for a few minutes, pondering life and the meaning therein, while Maisy dropped her wet and smelly stuffed hedgehog on my cheek, obviously assuming I was down there strictly for her amusement.

My one and only moment of enlightenment occurred when I thought to myself, from my vantage point of the bedroom floor, "Jesus, that's a lot of friggin' dog hair around the baseboards..."

Oh, shut up.  And bite me.

Being the eternal optimist that I've always been, half an hour later I was in the kitchen belting out loudly and off-key, "I will survive!  Oh, as long as I know how to love I know I'll be alive..."

Five seconds later I heard The Awesome One leaving his apartment with several other members of Team Awesome, who were up partying til dawn, singing obnoxiously, "I've got all my life to live, I've got all my love to give, I will survive... I will survive..."

Fuckers.

(Okay, this may or may not have happened last night:  Dan and I came home late from Dan's niece's birthday party.  As we were tromping into the hallway, Mr. Awesome opened his apartment door and said, "Hey!  It was really great meeting your son!  He's pretty cool!"

Me:  "He's awesome!"

Dan:  *dirty look at me*  "I'm glad you got to meet him.  He's a good kid."

Mr. Awesome:  "Yeah, I invited him in for a few minutes just to talk to him... Man, he's lucky to be stationed out there in San Diego!"

Me:  "Because San Diego is awesome."

Mr. Awesome:  *either not noticing that I was amusing the hell out of myself or deciding to ignore it*  "I was in Cali for a couple of months during some training.  I was at Pendleton and loved it out there."

Me:  "That's because California is awesome."

Dan:  *shoving me up the stairs to get my head out of the doorway and hopefully shut me up*  "How long were you out there?"

Mr. Awesome:  "Only two months, but I went every where I could on the weekends.  I loved it out there."

Me:  "Was it aaa..."

Dan:  *rudely interrupting*  "Cool!  Talk to you later, man!"

On second thought, that qualifies as Douchebaggery, not Dumbassery.  My bad.  Never mind.)

Moving right along...

I'd earned a break, after my morning of face planting, detergent licking, and douchebag roulette, so I filled a glass with ice, poured in some Diet Pepsi, and sat down with the doggies to watch the episode of Snapped! I'd recorded last night.

At the exact moment that I brought the cup to my lips to take a gulp of my soda, the ice, which had apparently frozen together at the bottom of the glass, burst upwards and smacked me in the teeth.  A fizzy, cold burst of diet Pepsi shot up my nose and down my front, making me feel as though I'd stuck my face into Old Faithful at Go Time.

As I sat there holding my cup, coughing and spluttering and wiping soda off my chin, I finally came to this conclusion:

The One In Which My Blatant Stupidity Kicks Grief's Ass

Author's note:  This blog contains embarrassing amounts of idiocy, mostly (okay, entirely) on my part.  Please don't judge me for the really dumb things I say.  I swear I'm much smarter in my head.

My father passed away after a long illness early last Sunday morning.  My mother was his main caretaker during that time, and losing him has hit her hard.  

My entire family is in California, with the exception of me, as my husband dragged me by the hair across the country 8 months ago and deposited me in a remote "village" in upstate New York.  (Yes, I'm still bitter.  In case you were wondering.  Also?  I still can't figure out the whole village/township thing, because I think it's stupid.)  I'm not able to make it back for the funeral, which leaves me as the person that my mother calls to cry to, since she feels the need to keep a brave face on for everyone else.

Since I can't do much else for her here, I'm glad I'm able to be her shoulder to cry on.  

My mother called me the other morning and I could tell she had been crying and was having an extremely difficult day.  She told me about the plans she'd made for the funeral and broke down, sobbing uncontrollably for several minutes.  Struggling for something to say that would somehow ease her grief, I blurted out, "It's snowing outside right now... It's so beautiful."

(Okay... this is the part where I am going to wax poetic.  I have no idea why I did this, but it just came out.  I'm pretty sure that it's largely due to the fact that I read Anne of Green Gables as a child about 600 times too many.  Normally I'm not this flowery, but what can I say... my mother eats this shit up.)

Me:  *channeling Longfellow*  "The flakes are so big and puffy... they look like baby marshmallows falling from the sky."

Mom:  *sniffle*  "Really?  It sounds so pretty."

Me:  *getting into it*  "It's like the world is covered with fluffy frosting.  The bows of the trees are bending to the earth, like a young woman in a white wedding dress.  You would love it.  It's like a Normal Rockwell painting.  The only marks in the snow are tracks made by the crows."

Mom:  *perking up*  "Birds are out while it's snowing?"

Me:  "Are you  kidding?  There are so many birds out there it looks like a scene from The Birds."

(I may or may not have lost my poetic flow right about here.)

Mom:  "A scene from what?"

Me:  "The Birds.  You know, Ethan Allen Poe.  The movie about all the birds?  I think Jamie Lee Curtis's mom was in it.  Oh wait... that was Psycho.  I don't know who was in it, but it was a really popular film."

Mom:

Me:  "That movie where the birds went all psycho and killed people?  I think it was in the 50s?"

Mom:  "Ethan Allen Poe?"

Me:  "Or whoever.  I think it was him.  Wasn't it?"

Mom:  

Me:

Mom: *sounding slightly incredulous*  "Do you mean Edgar Allen Poe?"

Me:  "Yeah.  Edgar Allen Poe.  I don't know why I said Ethan Allen.  I must have furniture on the brain."

Mom:

Me:  "Wait... he wrote The Raven."

Mom:

Me:  "I meant Hitchcock."

Mom:

Me:  *continuing merrily down the garden path*  "Hitchcock, Poe, same difference."

Mom:

Me:  "Edgar Allen, Ethan Allen, Alfred Hitchcock... it's like their parents all got together and held a "Name That Psycho" party."

Mom:  "Danielle.  Are you listening to yourself?"

Me:  "No."

Mom:  "I'm appalled."

Me:  "Me too.  Sorry.  But I got confused by the whole crow/raven thing.  And the Edgar Allen, Ethan Allen thing."

Mom:  "How on earth can someone confuse Poe with Ethan Allen?  You know better than that.  You should be ashamed of yourself."

Me:  "I am."

Mom:  "I have too much to do today to worry about you suddenly becoming stupid, so I'm going to let you go."

Me:  "Okay."

Mom:  "I love you.  Bye."

Me:  "Bye."

Me:  *hanging up phone*

Me:  *suddenly realizing she hadn't cried or sounded upset throughout my entire diatribe about horror films, horror writers, and furniture makers*

That's right, bitches... I think I found my special purpose.

Let's review:

Ethan Allen

Edgar Allen

Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred E Newman 
(I'm giving myself mad props for not getting HIM confused
with Poe or Hitchcock.  I'm not ENTIRELY stupid.)