waffle and steak

Today was the big sales trip to Indianapolis. What Yahoo! claimed was a 2-hour and 33-minute trip and MapQuest claimed was a 2-hour and 26-minute trip, took us exactly two hours. So, being early, we decided to stop at the "Waffle and Steak" in Franklin, IN for breakfast.

It's the first time I ever saw grits on a menu in Yankee Indiana. I ordered a la carte because all of the pre-packaged breakfasts included grits.

"I'll have the waffle, eggs over easy, crispy bacon and a side of toast."

"You want grits with that?"

"No. That's fine."

"Well, honey, grits comes with the toast. If you order toast you get grits. If you order grits you get toast. You can't order one without the other."

"Why?"

"It's complimentary."

"I'm afraid I won't be very complimentary if you serve me grits."

"You sure?"

"Ah, what the hell, give me grits. Can I have rye toast?"

"You can't get rye toast. We've got white, wheat, raison, an' Texas"

"Was 'Texas' on that list?"

Sheepishly. "Well, it's extra."

"Wheat is fine."

My friend and I ate our pseudo-Southern cuisine and listened to the guy in the next booth. He was some sort of an Innerneck Guru, I tell ya.

"You know what I love? I love that I can edit mah Web site right on the Web. I never have to worry about whether I've got my drives configured right or anything. I was at a client's once and I saw an error on the site. I said 'Can you look the other way for a minute?' And I changed the site right there in his office!"

My co-worker and I smirked at each other as the man described new-fangeled technology that we had been writing for six years now.

"Sometimes XP will just forget itself. If you don't validate the registration with Microsoft in three days, you're screwed!"

Really? We don't have the problem with Linux...

As entertaining as that was, I'm glad to be home.

since my blog is boring...

...I'm giving you this link to a movie of a cat masturbating courtesy of Bazima (long "i"). If you try to tell me that's something you see every day, I'm not ever going to speak to you again because you're a lying sack of excrement.

Bazima's blog is pretty damned unique too.

dang

I have an entry for today on my laptop, but none of my other computers can read the floppy I just saved it to. Y'all are gonna hafta wait until tonight for me to post it.

yep!


The new Yahoo! personals ad pretty much sums up my weekend.

Brody Surprises Berry With Kiss at Oscars
from Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES - Best-actor winner Adrien Brody created an amorous Oscar moment to remember when he grabbed presenter Halle Berry and planted a long kiss on the mouth of last year's best actress.

AP Photo

A stunned Berry was left openmouthed and gasping Sunday, although she appeared amused by Brody's enthusiasm after he won an Oscar for his role in "The Pianist." Looking on from the audience at the Kodak Theatre was Berry's husband, singer Eric Benet.

"Whoa, I bet they didn't tell you that was in the gift bag," Brody cracked.

Backstage, the 26-year-old Brody was asked about the smooch.

"Well, if you ever have an excuse to do something like that, that's it," he said. "I took my shot."

Did Berry kiss him back?

"Oh yeah," Brody said, grinning.


Ric sez: Now this is what I'm talking about. I love that last line.

my weekend

I've always had a policy on this blog not to kiss and tell, but some dealings with the opposite sex are integral to my life and not sexual conquests. I can't say that I've really had any "conquests" in my life anyway. I don't intend to use this forum to put notches on my bedpost or anything like that.

That being said, I had the indescribable experience of meeting someone this weekend that actually values and enjoys kissing as much as I do. We went to dinner, but we didn't go to the comedy club, or watch much of The Princess Bride, because of the undeniable and irresistible draw of osculation. I felt like a teenager, but I didn't feel foolish.

I am giddy.

respite

I had a pretty good Thursday.


A beautiful woman took pity on me and gave me a head-spinning kiss.

The Ex removed things from my house and cooked supper.

A stunning, intelligent single woman saw value in a two-hour IM then a three-hour phone call with me.

A different stunning, intelligent single woman e-mailed me all day.

Someone gave me a VCR.

My kids hugged me.

A big dog gave me some love.

A small dog gave me some love

On the third try, I got a cordless phone that actually works.


The kids are gone for the weekend. I'm going out when I should be home organizing, but how can I say "no" to a stunning, intelligent single woman after five hours of conversation? The answer is that I can't. And I won't.

I've already called in sick to church.

because your kiss is what I miss when I turn out the lights

I remember every girl I've ever kissed. Vividly. I can tell you if they used tongue and how much and how well. Some were stiff-jawed, some melted onto my face.

My first girlfriend used to chew lightly on my tongue. I didn't know any different so I went along. A couple of girls somehow caught too much air and it escaped making that sound. You know the sound. One sucked on my tongue so hard I thought she would rip it out. But it was erotic all the same. But none of that matters.

Kissing is the whitecap of a wave of limerence. The longer the period between the heart pounding when I see her and the actual kiss, the better the kiss. I knew I was going to kiss one girl for three weeks before we actually did. We even talked about it in email. We'd get together and she was shy and wouldn't want me to kiss her. When the kiss finally came, it was the most incredible kissing experience I ever had. I nearly passed out. It wasn't even a great kiss, but it was so anticipated and so wanted and, at that point, so needed that it totally fulfilled me. And we did nothing but kiss for four months. It was all I needed.

You see, here's the thing: I know I haven't had a lot of experience with sex, but I've never almost passed out from sex. I've never felt completely fulfilled from sex. I don't have any problem enjoying it, but it's not as intimate to me as the kiss.

My Ex was a great kisser. Much to my dismay, along with sex, the kissing dwindled once we got married. In fact the kissing dwindled more quickly, as she would gladly have sex without ever kissing me. Until in December of 2002, she stopped kissing me altogether. I suppose we kissed a few times in the fourteen months between then and our divorce, but by and large, it was over. I was deflated.

I'm looking for dates now. Yes, I'm a bit empty emotionally after the divorce and I want someone to fill the void, if only temporarily. But really, I just need a kiss. From one who means it. And from whom I desire it. It sounds like such a simple formula. Certainly it requires a lot less commitment and less danger than sex. And you can do it in a car without hurting yourself.

Maybe I should put up a dating application like Fish.

no one to watch over me

I couldn't get to sleep last night. Not that I was trying hard, but I felt like I was waiting up for someone. A constant feeling that at any moment someone's going to come in and nag me or bitch at me or whine or inebriately stumble into bed. The girls were all in bed. I have no wife. I have no houseguests. I'm free. For the first time in fourteen years, no one's going to come through that door. When I close it, it's closed for the night. It's exhilirating when I think about it, but rather depressing if I don't think about it. Lonliness is a strange spectre--it haunts you till you try to find it.

The house is mine now. The mess is mine. The schedule is mine. The tabletops are mine. The food and the pots and pans and washer and dryer are all mine. They are no longer ours.

There's more work now, but the work is mine. I'll do it my way.

how does my brother feel about my divorce?

He explains it:

Ric and his ex (I'll call her Ex) on the other hand, got a fairly quick and painless divorce (if there really can be such a thing) because they both recognized in their own way that it was best for them. (I'm not including the children in this story of because the focus is on the "couples") After years of ups and downs progressing to more downs than ups, my brother and his ex were forced to face the fact that they were too different to be "one" any longer.

Read the whole article

a major life change

She left.

I've been acting as a single parent for exactly two days. I think I can do this. I bought a big planning calendar for the kitchen, now I just need one of those 4-color pens to hang by it. (One color for each person.)

Her sons, my former brothers-in-law, came Saturday to move her. I helped. Some. One U-Haul, one pickup truck and one Crown Victoria later, they were gone. I'll never forget her last words to me that day:

When you warsh them kidses clothes, you know, you gotta be sure and spray them spots or them clothes'll be rooned.

I sprayed the spots last night.

mother-in-law from hell justifies divorce
from Reuters Oddly Enough

ROME (Reuters) - The mother-in-law from hell is the butt of jokes and comedies the world over.

In Italy, she is officially a cause for divorce.

The country's highest appeals court on Thursday upheld a ruling that granted a woman from Vasto in southern Italy divorce on the grounds of "excessive and inappropriate interference of the husband's parents in the private life of the couple."

"My husband was his mother's slave. He would hang on her every word while she criticized everything about me, my make-up, my diet, the way I was bringing up my daughter," the woman told the court.

The woman was awarded custody of her daughter and a generous alimony to compensate her for not being allowed to work after she was married.

The ex-husband has returned to live with his mother.

Actually it was the spineless mamma's boy of a husband that caused the divorce...

asya schween, you are my idol

LilFluffy pointed me to My Own Self, the Web site of Asya Schween. Asya is a photographer and artist (and a Russian exchange student soon to have a PhD in Biomechanics) and all of her work is self-portaits. And there's over a hundred of the most hauting, lovely, terrifying and beautiful portraits I've ever seen.

You won't find out anything about her from her "deaf and mute" Web site, but DPReview did an interview with Ms. Schween. She is quite intelligent and quite driven. She will make your day and visit your dreams.

If you look at no other Web site today, look at this one.

guess what I did on the way to work

I was going to be on time for once.

Halfway to work, on a country road, the serpentine belt on my car broke. I knew it was old and worn, and I'd intended to replace it when the weather got warmer. In fact, because I put in a water pump in the middle of winter, and AutoZone gave me the wrong belt, then we put the old one back on, then I got the right belt, I had the new belt and tools in my trunk.

Keep in mind that this is a two-person job. One to route the belt under the hood while the other releases the tensioner pulley through the wheel well (I had to jack the car up and take off the tire). I had no phone to call anyone from work to help. It turns out that my Saturn SL2 is small enough that I could release the tension with my left hand buried in the wheel well as I fiddled the belt into place with my right hand crooked into the engine under the hood.

I was only a half-hour late for work. Only seventeen other items to fix on the car when it gets warmer.

she is leaving!

For those who didn't have time to read yesterday's post, here's a summary:

My Ex-Mother-in-Law is leaving Saturday. No more of her negative, whiney, poorly-worded, grammatically-incorrect, arbitrary, groundless, contradictory kvetching.

Yay!

book 1 -- final chapter

Everybody kept asking me why I didn't just kick MOL (Mother-OutLaw) out. These are the same people who wanted me to grab my middle child kicking and screaming from her mom's house. My reply to both was the same: that's not my way. I don't avoid confrontation, but I do avoid unnecessary confrontation. The Bitchen Manifesto says "never accept an emotionally-charged solution when a civil solution can be had." I got my daughter back and no one raised their voice. No one cried. And my kids are all where they need to be right now--with me.

To these same people I replied concerning MOL:

I'm going to wait until the divorce is final. I'm going to see how the weather changes after that. She may be too stupid to see that things have changed, but certainly she'll have friends whispering in her ear, "you know, he's not related to you anymore..."

Saturday we sat in the living room, alone as the kids were with their mom for the weekend. MOL speaks:

"Well, I've come to a decision."

"Yeah?"

"I'm leaving."

"Okay." Yippeee! Woo-hooo! Happy Dance! Yee-hah!

"I've been talking to my friends and my friends have been telling me things. Things like 'it's not fair to Ric' you know. Me living here."

"Really?"

"Then I heard you talking on the phone the other night. You were joking about me and said 'at least she cooks and cleans' and I knew right then I was going to get throwed out..."

Throwed out? That's not only improper English, it's also semantically inaccurate!

"The kids' mother said that you didn't want me here and that the kids didn't want me here. I talked to your daughter and she said that mommy gets mad sometimes and doesn't know what she's saying."

"That's an accurate statement." But not in this case!

"I was going to just leave and I'd be gone when you got home from work, but I didn't think it was fair to the kids. So they're coming with a U-Haul on Saturday."

"What can I do to help you move?"


I bought her a toaster oven as a housewarming present for her new apartment at her son's house--two hours away. I also bought her dinner at Texas Roadhouse as thanks for her service to my kids and me.


...join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

-- Martin Luther King, Jr. August 28, 1963

boggle

You'll never guess who I just waited in line behind at the gas station! The camo-rapper-homeless dude from Power's Hamburgers. I wasn't anywhere near downtown either. He had the same camo coat on too! Bizarre.

it's oscar time!

"If you pull out a piece of paper and start to read a list of names -- you're done. The orchestra will begin to play and you are finished."

--Academy Awards producer Gil Cates, admonishing Oscar nominees to be brief in their acceptance speeches.

this is my childhood

My brother and I are and always have been very close. We have way too many shared experiences to ever grow apart. We know what each other are thinking and what the other will say next.

He has a new blog. He summed up our childhood nicely with this list.

Go there.

ugly malaprop on Yahoo!

In the Yahoo! Personals article Master the Art of Cyberflirting, I found the following:

If you are the first to initiate an eflirt, keep your message relatively short and simple, but always include an intriguing fact about yourself to illicit curiosity (and inspire a response).

They surely meant "elicit curiosity" not "illicit curiosity."

a red letter day

My former cow-orker (and former Yahoo! employee) Derek has actually written something called "The Missing History of the World" that is not only worth it's bandwidth and disk space, but is also something I agree with. Truly, a remarkable occurrence!

How many more people have simply vanished, because of the poor timing of having not lived in a period when everything ends up in data warehouse of some kind? It's obvious that the next generation isn't going to care a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys about meatspace records, if it's not online, it's not worth knowing, that's the motto of the future.

I wonder what can be done? Sad.

Read the whole article.

save ferris

LilFluffy's got a dilemma about the merits of marriage. I think y'all should go over there and help him out.

this is a post

Roo's birthday went great. My three-cake-mix half-sheet cake looked great until I tried to hand-letter it. Don't ask...

The present I got for her was Yasmine of the Bratz doll collection. My mom bought a pinata the Roo wanted, but I didn't realize they came without candy. So in the middle of the party, I ran to The Wal-Mart and got five pounds of candy to fill it. It was a hoot.

More later.