My Dear Humans:

It has come to my attention that now that warm weather has returned, my beloved human-puppies are in a state of near-constant danger. They leave the den on a regular basis, and not just to enter the Brown Box with the half-eaten sandwiches strewn about the outside.

I try my best to remain vigilant at all times, but they often stray out of my line of vision. I do not like this at all, but I accept it, grudgingly. What I cannot accept, and what I am here to discuss with you today, is the re-emergence of a devastating menace that causes the entire neighborhood to erupt in a frenzied, chaotic state. I can but watch, helplessly, as the human-puppies are dragged toward it, its irresistible pull causing what I can only assume to be unbearable pain in the human-puppies based on the shrill screams I hear emanating from them as this creature, this monster, rolls down the street.

I speak, of course, of the I Scream Truck.

Am I the only one who sees this noisy, smelly intruder for what it is? Why do you humans sit idly by while your precious, beloved puppies get sucked into its vortex of terror? Do you not see its enormous, threatening bulk? Do you not hear its ear-splitting, irritating screeches? Do you not realize it is trying to take your children?

So far, the human-puppies have been able to ward off the threat. Just as it appears they will be sucked into the thing's gaping maw, they throw some sort of paper or metal into its mouth, causing it to vomit forth frozen objects at them and leave them, relatively unscathed, on the sidewalk. But what will happen if the human-puppies are caught unawares someday, without their paper or metal deterrents? I hear them pleading with you to give them the tools necessary to repel the beast; I have no idea why you even hesitate to provide them with these simple defense items. If they should be found lacking, I will be unable to protect and defend them, thanks to the neck harness and tether you insist upon me wearing.

Let it be on your heads, humans. I have warned you. You rob me of my freedom, which I would've used only to protect and defend the human-puppies. You ignore the peril at your own risk, and the risk of your offspring.

I wash my paws of it.

But I will still vigilantly and valiantly bark my doggie heart out every time I see that loathsome beast. You can count on it.

Forever Yours,
Ms. Moxie M. Pupppypants, esq.

Step one of surgery complete, step two scheduled for June 11. I have to stop thinking about it. It's very nerve-wracking.

I've tried shopping for Dilf's bathing suit as a distraction, but it's not working.

Please put suggestions to get my mind off of things in my comment section.

I have been infected with a story-writing virus. Thanks, Frieda Bee!

For those unfamiliar, here's a recap:

"Here's what I would like to do. I want to create a story that branches out in a variety of different, unexpected ways. I don't know how realistic it is, but that's what I'm aiming for. Hopefully, at least one thread of the story can make a decent number of hops before it dies out.

If you are one of the carriers of this story virus (i.e. you have been tagged and choose to contribute to it), you will have one responsibility, in addition to contributing your own piece of the story: you will have to tag at least one person that continues your story thread. So, say you tag five people. If four people decide to not participate, it's okay, as long as the fifth one does. And if all five participate, well that's five interesting threads the story spins off into.

Not a requirement, but something your readers would appreciate: to help people trace your own particular thread of the narrative, it will be helpful if you include links to the chapters preceding yours." -Splotches

There always has to be a start of a story, so here it is...

The ground crunched beneath my feet. Besides my noisy footsteps, I heard only the sound of the gentle crackling fire behind me. Its faint orange light lazily revealed my immediate surroundings. Beyond the glow, there was total blackness. I whistled. I took the small rock I had been carrying and whipped it away from me, expecting a thud, crack or plop -- but a soft yelp of a cry answered. (Splotchy)

"Crap! I forgot all about Monster," I realized. "I must be drunker than I thought," I spoke aloud to no one in particular, though an owl answered my drunken slur. Ever since my neighbors have been giving me grief for the way Monster chases their cats and poops in their lawn, I haven't felt comfortable staying in my house. I'm pretty sure my landlady is thinking about evicting me, so I've decided to lay low for a while.

To the surprise of no one... (Freida Bee)

My contribution:

...but myself, Monster has become increasingly unstable and unpredictable. I thought I could keep him under control, that through love and perseverance and the training techniques I learned at the institute I could introduce him into human society after just a bit of effort.

I was wrong, of course. We were all wrong.

Our colossal blunder began as most colossal blunders begin -- with the best of intentions. We wanted to end disease and human suffering. Our experiments in genetics, fueled by the endless possibilities we foresaw once the human genome was mapped, led us down a garden path of scientific achievement and biological conquest. We imagined only positive outcomes, and ignored the negative possibilities to our peril.

That's how we -- I -- wound up with a drooling, hirsute, gruesome Monster living under my porch.

Of course, it didn't start out badly. At first, Monster...

Now it's time for someone else to pick up the story. Someone like Nick or Todd or Darth Roker or Jeanne or NWJR.

Let's all move on from yesterday's post. Really, Dilf doesn't need to hear how great he is, people. He's impossible to live with as it is.

Anyway, the following exchange on Twitter (you are all familiar with Twitter, right? Oprah commands it!) made me think:

the_ubermilf I forget: are we supposed to be remembering our dead, or grilling this weekend? Because I mostly hear about the grilling.

anthony_pdotcom@the_ubermilf I bet your dead would be grilling if they were around to be able to.

Anthony is absolutely right. What sort of dead people would be willing and able to grill and/or have an early summer/late spring outdoor get-together?

Zombies.

Zombies are totally about dining al fresco. The streets are nothing but one big picnic to them. I really hadn't considered just how much zombies enjoy grilling and eating outdoors, until I looked into the subject and found this.

I can only conclude that Memorial Day is a holiday for zombies. Please celebrate accordingly.

I have always been a fan of Phil Mickelson. He's about my age, he is more about finesse than power, and he seems like a nice guy.

My respect for him solidified in 1999, when he was playing the U.S. open. His wife was due to give birth any moment, and he caught flack for carrying a beeper around with him and vowing to leave the tournament rather than miss the birth of his child. Not everyone criticized him; only people with skewed priorities.

Now, he is proving again to be a stand-up guy.

The fact I am waiting for results from a rather painful biopsy taken today make this story even more meaningful to me.

Also, Dilf did fly home from Austin today to be with me. I married my very own Phil Mickelson, I guess.

Exhibit A: Top Gun



Not enough proof for you? What about this?

Or the multiple Kenny Loggins songs?

Still unconvinced?

How about this?

I rest my case. If that doesn't convict "Top Gun" as a horrible 80's soundtrack album, I have no faith in the system.

All I wanted to do is see a movie, people. Specifically, this "Star Trek" picture some of you folks may have heard of lately.

We arranged for Ubers Elder and Younger to view "Monsters vs. Aliens 3D" in the same theater complex with my niece and nephew (ages 24 and 21 respectively; I didn't send a bunch of little kids into a theater alone). Their movie started at 1:25 p.m., ours was to start at 1:30 p.m.

Only we didn't get any further than the "please turn off your cell phones" message when the screen froze. Then we sat there for a while. Dilf and I made jokes about the theater personnel asking "Is there a computer geek in the house who can help us with our technical difficulties?" and having 2/3 of the audience jump up.

Then emergency lights came on and a pimply-faced adolescent in the employ of the movie theater informed us that "the manager wanted to see us all in the lobby," as if we had done something wrong.

We were told the power was out. And could we all please go outside now? And then the fire and police departments showed up. Then we heard there was a fire in the building. Then they gave us all rainchecks.

Am I being punished for having impure thoughts about Simon Pegg? If I try again tomorrow, will something even worse happen?

Does this happen to you when you try to see a movie?

When I was little my dad worked for the IT department at Morton Salt, so I guess it's fitting that "When it rains, it pours" fits my life.

This isn't a "woe is me" post; some people have their stresses and problems spaced evenly throughout their lives. I have stretches where I'm at a "cruising altitude" and just kinda coast along, interrupted by rapid-fire missile attacks that put my life-piloting skills to the test in a major way. Mayday, mayday!

I'm going through one of those times right now, but that's not what I'm writing about. I'm prompted by this story to write about the last episode (episodes?) that occurred in 2003-2004. (You can see why I'm not complaining -- I've gone about 5 years without any major trouble.)

In early 2003, with UberElder 2 years old and UberYounger due to be born in a few months, Dilf and I decided to sell our house located on a busy street and buy one in a subdivision where our kids could run around in their own yard. We were lured by new construction, because -- it's all pretty and smells nice and we got to pick all the fixtures and all that other stuff that lures people to buy new construction.

The only problem was, we didn't sell our house in time. And rather than extending our contract to give us more time to sell, Kirk Homes decided to keep our $13,000 in earnest money and sold the house to someone else. For more money. Ka-CHING, Kirk Homes! I'm really surprised you're going bankrupt, with business acumen like that! I would've thought the devil would show up for your soul, first, but then life is full of surprises!

UberYounger entered the world, and we decided we might just stay in our little house on the busy street. My brother went missing, then was found the next day; my dad found out he had cancer and underwent surgery, then another one when he found out he had ANOTHER cancer elsewhere; a little thing like losing a house didn't seem so important anymore.

We also talked about what size of family we would want. While considering this, I weaned UberYounger to the bottle and realized I had post-partum depression because I felt JUST LIKE I DID when I weaned UberElder -- which was, in short, not good at all. I also became pregnant again. Then I miscarried. So, my OB-GYN put me on a very low Zoloft prescription and sent me to a therapist. A psychologist.

I laid it all out there for her -- losing the house, having a new baby, my brother's problems, my dad's cancers and his subsequent surgeries, my third pregnancy, the following miscarriage, the post-partum brought on by the weaning exacerbated by the miscarriage, the having my house on the market for a year with multiple contracts that fell through (we were still trying to sell and buy elsewhere) and having to constantly run out of the house with two babies while people looked at my house -- and when I stopped, she looked at me and said (as a therapist in Hinsdale, estimated median house or condo value in 2007: $849,752): "You know, some of my clients come in here struggling to accept that their manicure appointment was canceled that day."

She seemed to think I was actually handling everything quite well, under the circumstances.

I have had other times, besides that one and now, that seemed to hold a concentration of stressful situations. It's almost as if someone was studying me: "Now let's see what she'll do if we throw THIS at her..."

I would imagine I am quite fascinating to watch in action.

I'm sure everything will be fine.

"Experts" like historians and sociologists like to tell us about events that "changed everything." Sometimes they're right. Sometimes they're talking about Woodstock. But as for changing the way people live their everyday lives, I can point to two events in the early 1980's that "changed everything" -- perhaps not in the lives of the "powers that be," and perhaps not in the "historically significant" sense, but they made a huge impact on the average American family.

I am speaking of the Tylenol tampering case and the Jeanine Nicarico case, which took place within a few months of one another.

Frustrated by unending layers of plastic wrap, foil seals that won't come off, or impossible to crack lids? Thank the homicidal maniac from autumn of 1982. Before that, packaging was designed to keep freshness in, instead of potential toxins out. You didn't need to go through hell and back just to open a bottle of Snapple. Life instantly became more stressful and complicated on a day-to-day basis as we suddenly began maneuvering through layer after layer of packaging to get to our foodstuffs, medicines, cosmetics and other consumables.

In fact, did anyone ever check the alibis of the top packaging companies' executives? They had the greatest motive for committing that crime and gained the most from it. That case remains unsolved to this day.

Soon after that, in the spring of 1983, 11-year-old Jeanine Nicarico was home sick from school, alone. That was an everyday experience back then. Kids that age were routinely left home alone. There was nothing negligent about her parents' behavior. Now, I think DCFS would investigate you for leaving a child that age alone for hours. It changed the way people behaved toward their own children, and how people viewed the safety of their own homes.

Have you read The Cat in the Hat lately? How old were the kids in that story? When Dr. Seuss wrote that story, it was in the context of a bizarre event occurring in the midst of normalcy. Now it seems like a frightening home invasion borne of parental neglect.

That case, too, is still under investigation. Not The Cat in the Hat. The Nicarico case.

Have we always lived under an atmosphere of fear and anxiety? Do the causes of these fears and anxieties just shift with the times? Will we ever not live under this cloud?

This won't help you avoid arrest, mind you. If you are a dangerous serial drunk driver who routinely puts yourself and others at risk by driving under the influence of intoxicants, police will still notice you swerving, running red lights, or passing out in the middle of the road with your car still running.

But here's a list of items to make sure you don't actually receive any sort of punishment, courtesy of former Chicago Bear Bob Avellini:

• Be famous -- like a current or former athlete
• Be white -- everyone knows white people don't commit crimes. Well, that's the prejudice Drew Peterson was banking on...
  
• Be rich enough to hire a lawyer who knows how to work the system
• Refuse to take any tests. How this translates to "cooperating fully with the police" is up to your lawyer to explain

But if this bozo -- whose drunk-ass has been arrested in my very own town -- careens into my car, crashes into the side of my garage, or takes anyone's life because he now thinks he has carte blanche to get into a potentially deadly vehicle while not under full control of his own faculties, I will not care how famous or rich or white he is.

I know there are important civil liberty considerations at stake. But where are this man's friends, family or even lawyer? Why is no one making sure this menace stays off the streets? Does someone have to die before this guy is finally stopped?

Note: I changed the picture. I was afraid that someone would confuse the man in the photo I had up before for Bob Avellini, when in fact that man was the victim OF a drunk driver.

I was going to try and take a break but spilling my guts here helps ease the tension.

Please excuse the vagary of the medical details. Not everyone wants to hear them.

I have to meet with a surgeon on Wednesday because I need something (tiny and inconsequential) removed, and some other calcifications removed and biopsied. I am feeling tremendous stress due to upcoming moves and impending renters and all sorts of things, added to the medical stuff and caring for an infant who shows up at my house three days a week and my regular two kids and life in general, like paying bills and feeding people and all that sort of thing.

This is not what I'm here to complain about.

I have had one sad-sack, overly-dependent neighbor who usually bothers Dilf not me. Although he has been known to talk to me for hours about his ex-wife who left him for another woman and who offered to have a threesome with him and how come she can get a girlfriend and he can't and all sorts of personal details I really don't need to know.

Now I have two.

The second one is a partially-deaf woman who has spoken to me only a few times, but has already told me how her boyfriend left her years ago for another woman he met on the internet and her last two kids are his but the other four were from her previous husband who died and she doesn't want to be in another relationship except what's the deal with Sad Sack #1 and what can you tell me about him? And she's in Section Eight housing but she doesn't go to the food pantry very often because she knows there are people who need it more than she does but BOY DO THOSE MEXICANS LOAD UP THERE and she wonders what she does when she doesn't get child support anymore.

(this is after the daughter of deaf woman told me about her brother trying to set off the smoke alarm with his incense sticks and how her sister dresses up like a man so she can date other women.)

This stuff is none of my business. I don't want it to be any of my business. It doesn't come up in the course of a normal conversation. It is purposefully left at my feet and I have no idea why, or what they expect me to do with it.

These uninvited visits and dumping of personal baggage is starting to get to me. Don't these people know that's what a blog is for?

But this showing up at my house business is adding stress to a woman already on the edge, and my health seriously can't take it. My stomach is in knots. The problem is, the deaf woman can't hear me when I say, "I really have to go..." she keeps right on talking.

I need a bouncer.

I have to get some medical tests done; one is contained in the title. Don't Google it if you're squeamish.

Also, it has come to my attention that some people think it's okay to desecrate the graves of our nation's greatest thespians. What do you think, Ghost of Charles Nelson Reilly?



I rest my case.

I hope you all have a pleasant and productive day.

Happy Star Wars Day! Enjoy what I think might be the most recent episode of Chad Vader.



If these guys can keep writing this stuff, why does Heroes suck so bad? Even Kensei gave the season finale 10 thumbs down.

She's mislabeled in the picture. It should read MoxIE.

Evil is as evil does, and waking up a defenseless person at 5:45 on a Sunday for no good reason is evil. Indefensible.

He's not driving down Highway 40, nor is he in a big ol' pickup truck, but Dilf IS on his way to Austin. He will be there, sans us, from now until June when school ends and we join him. He'll be flying up on weekends.

In other news, I am cranky when people post Facebook statuses (stati?) that say something like, "Being extra healthy and perfect today! Isn't life just the BEST??!!"

It's not the happiness I am opposed to, it is the bland sentiment, boring delivery, and uselessness. Okay, complaining about uselessness when discussing Facebook is a bit redundant, but... your sense of self-satisfaction is not news.

Also, the people who post these things tend to be people who never visit/comment upon other people's postings. They have nothing clever to say, nothing important to do and no interest in anyone but themselves.

If you're going to be a narcissist, you should at least be an intriguing narcissist.

That is all for now.