RaNdOm!!!!!!!!

So much to say, so little time before the strike of midnight and my random would be considered tardy! Okay, I really do not have that much to say. As a matter of fact, I am nearly speechless because.....

Now, since I have completed three of these lovely NaNos, who is willing to read through them to see if there is anything decent in those 150,000 words? You will be paid in cookies! Line forms to the left people, no pushing!

Now with that off my mind I can focus on getting my road trip on to go hold that new baby! (As well as getting myself to the table.) Are any of you serving these?

There is a rumor that we are partying like real pilgrims and the wi-fi and television are out at our feasting location. Just in case...let me wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! 

Build great memories!!!!

XOXOXOXO

Stop in to see Stacy, she has wine for the feast!

A random monkey has my back

First a shout out to my sister and her beautiful new baby! I would like to thank Miss NewBaby for joining the family a bit early, and doing her part to keep our annual Thanksgiving photo shoot from being outdated two days later.

And now, this blog post was made possible today by a friend who is more fun than a barrel of monkeys...

Her pint glass holder

Heck, sometimes she even IS a barrel of monkeys...

She showered me with joy last week when I was at her house. Apparently she knew I was pretending to be very busy doing several real and imaginary things, so she set aside some random delights for me. Let's jump right in, shall we...

Look what her monkey radar detected...I nearly wet my pants...

They may have been hiding for my birthday, but have arrived in time for the holidays, with their creepy soft vinyl skin and creepier soft wisps of hand-applied hair! Oh Double and Trouble you made me weep with joy. I know that even though you are fully poseable, you are not toys. I am an adult, who can be a collector...of creepy monkey ads.
 
So what do we think happened to Emma & Matthew in 2012? Twenty-five years and calling it quits, but nicely commemorating the occasion with a vase?

Warm wintry sweater, complete with monthly breast exam reminder?

I was so disappointed in the plain, mitten-free, pants this was paired with.

No need to worry about anyone else on your holiday shopping list...

And I have a few people in mind for these. The name alone is priceless!

Never mind the tuba blaring out your backside, at least nobody will smell it. The fact that they even cling to thongs confirms insinuates that women might pass gas, which offends me a little.

Thanks for having my back Monkey Lover!

Thanks for hosting the random, Stacy!

A random visit from the dog

Who me?

 You want to hear from me?

Well, I suppose since Andrea is off not writing for her NaNoWriMo project, I can step in. (OK, maybe she did a little something, since you can see the update over there on the right.) She has really been asking a lot of me lately. For one thing, I am pretty sure I will be her side kick, a veritable canine wonder, as soon as my cape arrives. She says it will be here any day now, but she says it in that kind of weird voice she uses a lot of the time.

I have been pretty busy lately, with things like attending the orchestra. Can you believe how awesome my seat was?

I got attacked by a puppet which was terrifying...not that you would have know that by how hard some people were laughing. That's right, run and get your camera, and maybe I will still be alive when you get back.

 I got my hair cut last week at the Chatty K-9 and that is when I fell in love...

Her name is Dani, and she rocked red feet like no other. My blueberry facial was no match for all of what she had going on. I could not muster up the courage to speak to her, but have been grumbling ever since.

Please, just go away and leave me alone with my bear.

The blanket was a nice touch, but sadness remains.

This was exhausting.

Somebody had better feed me dinner now that I did this. The whole "daylight savings time" excuse is so not working. It is still 6:00 in my world. I must go sit by my dish and growl now.

Stacy and her other humans are over at her place rolling out the random!

Not in my hands

There is an undeniable sound when m&m candies are being poured. The light tapping of those candy shells on each other. It sounds like joy. The colors radiate happiness, or at least the classic ones do. I remember the blue taking a bit for me to get used to, but I have certainly come around. I cannot think of a time when I have ever said “Oh, m&m’s? No thank you.” Sure I have my favorite flavors, and sometimes that opinion depends on the day, but there are none that I would turn down.

I remember one semester in college, when I must have pooled all of my leftover change together, for a big bag of m&m’s. They were to be a study treat during final exam preparations. Way back in that day, there was no food allowed in our campus library. I smuggled those m&m’s amongst my books and such, hoping that the librarians had more menacing characters to be on the lookout for.

I did not have the finest of study habits as a general rule, and in hindsight am not sure the addition of candy was going to help me settle in. I am sure my theory at the time was that melt in my mouth, not in my hands delights would keep me awake while keeping my study materials clean.

Just when I least expected it, some faux librarian, on duty just to maintain the sanctity of study carrels and couches approached our area. He took my bag of m&m’s. I am pretty sure barely two handfuls had been removed. I wanted to cry out, but that would have been committing a second crime against the hallowed building. I took solace in the fact that I knew where that troll had been sitting, and I would just retrieve my goods on my way back to my dorm. I held onto that dream for about two minutes, until I heard the unmistakable sound of m&m’s being poured...into a metal garbage can...sadistic bastard!

I have never taken a bag of m&m’s for granted since. I savor each one as if it was the last. I ration them well, and I hide them even better.

Read, vote. Repeat. You get to pick your five favorites on the grid!

 

That's "R" as in Random

I am sort of an organized chaos kind of gal. In order to not disturb the illusion of balance, I typically do not do things on a whim. You have seen me agonize over a box of hair color for fear that it may be a millishade different to what I currently have on my head, as if that is somehow a bad thing. I can barely just buy a new sweater because I like it, without reviewing a quick inventory of the styles and colors already in my closet. I'd like to just do something on a whim, but I just never really seem to take the time to plan it out...ah, see what happened there. Yet somehow I signed up for NaNoWriMo again this November.

50,000 words? Why not? I have ideas, and now will try to parlay each one into at least 1,667 words a day. You can see how that's working out for me by checking that little word counter in the upper right of this page.

I took a break from writing over the weekend to clip some coupons. No, I was not looking for monkeys, but did see that the cats are back!

I hope this hasn't given the Foz any ideas, although I do think he'd make a swell pilgrim.

Speaking of the Foz, I refuse to buy him cookies that look tastier than anything I am serving my children.

Moving on to the toy ads...Um, I'm just going to cut to the chase and ask what the hell is going on with Barbie's lady business? Is this for aspiring young gynecologists? That most certainly should not be where her heart is at.

I saw these at the grocery store the other morning and decided to just take a picture as it would last longer. It's true, every time I see it the craving is still there.

Before I go, here is a little friendly advice for any of you househunters out there. Don't succumb to any false illusions about a whirlpool tub in the master bathroom.

They should just call it a big hamper and clothes rack. Maybe I could turn those jets on and actually wash the clothes right there. Yes, they should install a drying rack right above these. (Please note: I am sorry to my Alma Mater, LeMoyne College, for displaying your name in the midst of such disarray.)

Stacy is making grand efforts to wage a war on her sinuses and bad internet connections to keep the random rolling, so the least we can do is stop by her place to say "hello!"

Halloween at last

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This year I got out my Halloween flair early. My niece and nephew were coming to visit the last weekend in September, so I figured I might as well decorate for some potentially appreciative little eyes. I tried to only get out my favorite pieces, and told myself I had plenty of time to haul the rest of the holiday’s offerings upstairs if warranted. There was still the anticipation that this Halloween would vaguely mirror those that have come before it in this house. The kids were still talking about their costumes at the beginning of the month, so I set aside any notion that change was coming our way.

As the month went on, my son started to talk less about making plans, and I thought my daughter’s enthusiasm had waned. As a defense mechanism of some sort, I started to lose interest. I really just wanted to put the decorations away by the middle of the month. I might have even considered dusting, my mind was in such a bizarre place. Part of me thought we could just sort of skip Halloween. It’s not like Christmas where there is still a tradition to uphold, even once the magic of a man in a red suit starts to fade. Being a creature of habit does not make it simple to change, and sometimes attempts to do so defy logic.

My daughter asked about getting pumpkins a couple of times, but we never actually made plans to go. The couple of times I did ask, she was busy doing something very important on the couch in front of the television. Sure, I could have ordered everyone into the van and set out to find the great pumpkin patch, but that was not the way to honor such a tradition. They might not have even smiled in the photos I forced them to pose for. I do a fairly decent job of celebrating the people my children are becoming and looking to what the future has waiting. However, I was not happy with a concrete reminder of the passage of time being marked by holiday traditions they possibly no longer wanted to participate in.

Suddenly my daughter declared her costume idea, as my son declared he was not going out. For twelve of her thirteen years, my daughter had no reason to plan for trick-or-treating, as she just went along with the crowd. She had no problem standing as a lime green crayon next to two gangsters. The point was to get candy by wandering the neighborhood in the dark. I started to suggest that she make plans, and tried to ask my son to do me a personal favor by just wandering around in costume for a bit. We have three bins of costume makings in our basement, so it was not as if the effort needed to be a grand one. I had one child with a costume and nobody to share the road with and another child who just seemed to have no ambition.

The day before Halloween we had no pumpkins on our porch, despite the rest of the other décor that was strewn everywhere. The girl had lost interest in actually selecting her pumpkin, but still demanded to have one. It took more than one stop, by more than one parent to make her squash dreams come true at the last minute. I also had to rectify the situation of us having no candy to hand out. Don’t get me wrong, we have candy, and plenty of it, but not trick-or-treater candy.

On Halloween morning I felt deflated. The ceramic pumpkins, plastic skeletons, and other attempts at creepiness were just mocking me from every nook and cranny. I started to fear that I would have to eat a sensible breakfast on November first because I was going to have no candy gathering minions by the grim looks of things. I quickly realized that I might finally feel no guilt taking advantage of the fifty percent off sales on candy the day after Halloween, for baking of course. I could not possibly eat all of that candy by itself. Some of it had to be baked into cookies first. I also started to consider the potential relaxation that might accompany the absence of the obligatory rushed dinner, intended only to provide a base layer stomach coating for candy. While a smidge of hormones coupled with sentimentality tried to take over in a perfect storm of tears, I rose above the wave and set my sights on reading a book for the afternoon.

The first text came from my son around 9:45 asking if his friend could come over. Since the kids had a half day of school, I was guardedly optimistic. I was not sure if they were just going to kill some time in the afternoon, or if this visit was extending into the evening - prime trick-or-treating time. A few more texts and I realized there was possibility. By 11:00, my daughter had gotten off the bus and asked if she could go trick-or-treating with a friend in her neighborhood…absolutely! Oh, but maybe the boy child wanted to go? Did his friend want to go? Would all interested parties have someone to go with? I let the allure of chocolate wash over me and tried to just have faith that things would work out.

I remained optimistic, despite Fozzie's refusal to cooperate with his Halloween finery. Seriously, he would not move, in part due to the jingling little bells being absolutely terrifying, and in part because he is a weirdo. When he started crying, I removed the offensive item.

Then this happened...

 Then this...

 And even this...

It was exhausting and wonderful and I swear I am ready to accept the possibility that it was the last big candy haul. No, really, I am...