Happy New Year!

I'm working on a "November / December Wrap Up" post, but in the meantime I thought I'd bounce in here to wish everyone a happy new year. Randy and I went to a friend's birthday party last night and I made it until almost ten o'clock before I headed home to do some embroidery, so later when you're hurriedly pouring champagne and counting backwards from ten, just assume I've been asleep for five and a half hours. I'll go ahead and have my champagne in the morning, thanks, just like every other Friday.

We actually drove down to Rocky Point today so we could sleep through all the excitement next to the ocean. Right now I'm sitting on the patio amassing photos of all the damage we managed to do to our house over the last couple of months so I can start documenting the unfathomable remodel we're attempting on our kitchen. You'll love it, it's horrifying.

Looks like we're back to using sticks.

Randy and I each use a Sonicare toothbrush and today I noticed that the heads were looking a little grimy. So I did what any good 13th century housewife would do-- I boiled them.

I have a feeling this is going to earn me the same reaction as the time I tried to fix a scuff on Randy's dress shoe with Clorox and nail polish.

Carry me.

So I officially registered to run a half-marathon today.

I managed to squeeze it in between a breakfast of Diet Coke and Tylenol and a lunch that was at least 86% sour cream.

I'd talk more about how excited I am but I'm running late for a Happy Hour thing and I still have to bribe someone to carry me into the shower.

My apologies to clowns. And... everyone else.

Randy just got home from a monthly meeting and he had a joke for me. He often returns from this particular meeting with jokes but not anything I would ever repeat; not anything Randy would ever repeat either, since he usually gets about halfway through one before he resorts to wild gesturing and muttering, "you know, you know" because he can't bring himself to actually utter the punchline. I think the birth of his granddaughter rendered him physically incapable of articulating certain words and/or phrases that breech an understood base level of decorum. It's endearing, really; his mouth keeps moving but it's mostly high-pitched squeaks. Like one of those bark collars, but one that's activated solely by crude references to female genitalia.

So here's his joke. That he told. That I liked. And laughed at.

A clown is walking hand in hand with a child into the woods. The child looks up at the clown and says, "It's really dark out here! I'm scared! Let's go back!"

The clown pats the child's hand and smiles. Keeps walking deeper into the woods.

"It gets darker and scarier the farther we go!" whines the child. "Let's go back!"

The clown shakes his head and keeps walking.

"Mister, please!" the child says, "It's dark and spooky out here, I'm really scared!"

"How do you think I feel?" the clown says, "I have to walk out of here alone."

Annnnd that's the only joke my husband has told me in ten years that I can repeat. Now who wants to hear the one about the three-armed narcoleptic stripper who SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!

His sea monkeys greeted him fourth. With somersaults.

I saw a commercial early this morning for this stupid shoulder bag with a zillion compartments, and it never would have even pinged my radar were it not for the "FREE BONUS" gift the stupid bag people were using for bait. Because (as seen in the above link) the FREE BONUS gift was a "tapeless voice recorder"!

Tapeless! It's a recording machine that doesn't require tape! What year is this, 3042? Did the aliens bring this device as a high stakes bartering chip for our collective bone marrow? Because that's the only plausible explanation! Next thing you know they'll be giving away a magical wand that you wave at your television to change the channel! YES, I WILL BUY A BAG WITH A SPECIAL COMPARTMENT FOR MY CATHETER TUBES IF IT MEANS I CAN OWN TOMORROW'S TECHNOLOGY TODAY.

Somewhere there's a guy who just got home from work, right, and when he unlocks the door to his townhome the first thing he's greeted by is the flashing "12:00... 12:00... 12:00" from the clock on his VCR. The second thing that greets him is the ERROR message on his answering machine letting him know his message tape is full. Luckily the third thing that greets him is his pet rock or this might have been a pretty rough day. THAT'S the guy who seriously needs to learn to program his VCR to record the shoulder bag infomercial.