I wish I had an entertaining story for you, but, well, it appears that my cat has herpes. Apparently, herpes in a cat is not a serious thing. In fact, it’s quite common. According to the veterinarian, when a herpefied cat (my term, not his) is put in a stressful situation, the herpes will flare up and will often manifest itself in the form of sneezing fits and drainage. Apparently, the overnight stay at the vet office last week stressed Ramona out a bit. As a result, she sneezed something like 3,284 times last night. And because she sleeps at the foot of our bed and her sneezes come out as cute little high-pitched screams, we didn’t get much sleep last night. (It’s hard to blame our exhaustion on the stingrays, but Ramona insists we do so.)

A few weeks ago, my kids ate spinach, beans, and bread. And we shot a video. And now I’m giving away $100 plus a year’s supply of Wonder® bread! Follow me over here if you’re interested.

Do you remember last week when I updated my software and I was So Proud and maybe a bit cocky about the whole thing?

Yesterday, as I was writing a review for BlogHer, my screen went squirrely, and I received a message accusing me of being an attack site. The message came from Google, but when I log into Google, my dashboard is all, “Hey, Fluid Pudding! Everything’s gravy! Wheee!”

As I type this message to you, I’m hoping that Liquid Web is looking into my issue. The last I heard was “I’m putting this over to our Security team. You should be hearing from them shortly.” That was about sixteen hours ago. I’m perplexed, Internet.

BUT, my house smells good. And if you want to read about it, you can follow me over here, once again, I doubt you’re attacked. Trust me. Argh! (Updated to add: One person was apparently sent to a site filled with pop-ups. No one else has mentioned any problems.)

First up? Making paper clip chains.
Next? God only knows.

Actually, one of my plans is to embark on a thirty day fitness adventure.
If you’re interested in more details, follow me over here. (Full disclosure: It’s a review thing! And it will eventually contain video footage of me working out!)

((We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.))

Most importantly, thanks for all of your kind words regarding the photograph of Harper in the fountain. I’m still learning the ins and outs of the camera. So far so good.

Thirty Days to a Firmer Pudding!

After getting her coffee, Beyoncé sat in a corner and talked to herself for nearly an hour. And here’s the part of the story that haunts me: She didn’t bring her child into Starbucks with her. In other words, I really should have hung out a bit longer, because Beyoncé left her child in a car seat in a van in a parking lot (in St. Charles, in Missouri, in the United States, in North America, continue to pan out, etc.) for an hour while she sat inside muttering battys and whatnots. Hhhhhhhh.

Funniest Thing The Starbucks Guy Said to Me: Yeah, thanks for waiting four days to check in on us. If she had been swinging a knife, we would still be bleeding while you were “out there” doing your ugly hair thing!

Insert seamless segue right here, would you?

So, I’ve got this fresh thing under my arm (you WANT me to spare the details.), but I can’t go see my dermatologist BECAUSE HE IS IN PRISON. (So, I’m going to see my gynecologist instead. Monday morning. 8:15. Don’t worry.) By the way, did I mention that my dermatologist is in PRISON? I do hope they crown him Dermatologist Amongst the Prisoners, because he did cure the ugly batch of eczema on my hand (Remember when I had to wear the gloves? Yeesh.), and I’m a firm believer in requiring dermatologist prisoners to palliate the perplexing pustules of their prisoner peers. (I know. I’m making light. And the reason he is in prison is so completely horrible. Unforgivable, really.)

Another segue here! You’re getting good at this!

I’m giving away a hefty amount of Max Factor stuff over here. And even if you’re not into scoring makeup, you should at least jump over and witness the disaster that is me after applying 39 years worth of makeup in one sitting. (My mom doesn’t have any photographs of me playing with makeup as a child. Now she does. You know, minus that whole Child thing.)

One more thing: If you’re interested in reading about Snapfish products and possibly winning a $50 Snapfish gift card for Father’s Day, step on over to my side room.

My book club is meeting next week, and for the second month in a row, I have not yet read the book. Instead, I’ve been reading The Household Guide to Dying. And I’m loving it, and I talk all about it right over here.

Also, I’ve been eating yogurt. And I made a video of myself eating yogurt (follow this link to see), because sometimes that urge just strikes, don’t you agree? Actually, I believe we should pick a day and all make videos of ourselves eating our favorite food. Would you be up for it? (I choose Delhi’s Chaat (#11 on the menu), and I choose May 12th, for obvious reasons.)

Sadly, I have to work today, and I doubt Scruffy will still be available tomorrow. Nevertheless, it’s kitten time.

On a surprisingly related note, I recently received a Swiffer in the mail. And if you follow this link, you’ll see one of my closet skeletons. (Not really a closet skeleton. More like a dusty nightmare. Tomato, tomahto.)

When it was my turn to reveal a creation, I said, “Well, I really didn’t come up with anything, but I can work a Hooey Stick.” With that, Oprah shook her head and muttered, “I like your skirt.”

With that said, if you want to see my bedroom and how I was able to improve it with the help of BlogHer and JCPenney, join me over here.

But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

When Jeff and I were shopping for wedding rings, we ended up at a jewelry store in a mall in Nashville, Tennessee. After making our selections (Jeff’s ring is gold with black ridges that remind him of record albums, mine is platinum and has eleven tiny diamonds embedded into the band for no real reason at all), we were asked if we wanted anything engraved onto the rings.

Me: Yes. Put ‘My Only Friend, The End’ inside Jeff’s ring.

Jewelry Store Kid: Seriously?

Me: Yes. If engraving costs less than five dollars.

After our wedding ceremony, it occurred to me that Jeff never answered the question about engraving. I slid the ring off of my finger, expecting (and sort of hoping) to find a fabulous William Gass quote. Instead, I found one word. Ben.

Me: Jeff? Why did you do this?

Jeff: Um, I didn’t do that. Actually, it sort of looks like the engraver screwed up someone else’s ring and then put it back into the case to be sold. Look at the messed up N.

Me (muttering a few expletives, some that begin with an F): I’ll be clearing this up when we get back to Nashville.

Get this. When I returned to the store to clear up the Ben issue, I found that all of the jewelry cases had been removed, and the store had closed down leaving no forwarding address. Interesting. (I immediately took the ring to have it appraised. I have no idea why, other than: What if those aren’t really diamonds?! What if it’s not really platinum?! It seems that everything is fine, except I still have Ben rubbing up against the finger that holds the vein that runs directly to my heart or something.)

Let’s fast forward seven years, shall we? (Seven years that involved purchasing every Ben Folds album and familiarizing the girls with his music to the extent that they can name Gracie in less than three notes.) ((If you follow that link, please know that I have no idea who the people are in that video, and I sort of wish they wouldn’t have interrupted the song with their baby’s first cry. Then again, I tend to be insensitive when the moon is full.))

On Thursday night, Jeff and I took to the streets to see Ben Folds play at The Pageant. And I won’t tell you that I was clearly the oldest person in attendance, because that fact tends to make my eyes well up a bit. So, let’s skip over my realization that several of the kids in line were born when I was already drinking beer. Legally. Wait. Can I just tell you that I heard a girl say “It’s on like Donkey Kong!” as we stood in line to enter the building? She was totally serious about It being On like Donkey Kong! (She had spent nearly two hours in the Big People line, and was slightly distressed about being asked to move to the back of the Under 21 line. When we heard her story and discovered that it was about to be On like Donkey Kong, we quickly surrendered our place in the Under 21 line and went in search of our fellow Big People. I do not regret that move.)

We found our seats, we made out a bit (I might be stretching the truth on that one), and we prepared for the opening act. (Prepared = Continued to sit. We were very lucky to have seats.) Opening act? Missy Higgins. And during her first song I developed one of those I Want to Buy All of Her Albums Right Now crushes. I also want to figure out how to knit the cabled tank she was wearing. But you don’t care about that, do you?

The Ben Folds performance? As expected, it was flawless. Had you been sitting next to me, you would have noticed me giving my cranial approval by cocking my head to the side in that “I’m really feeling this” way, and nodding to the rhythm as if to say “Yes! Uh huh! Uh huh!” over and over again. Let’s see. Do you mind if I simply run down the set list with you? (I know you’re really wanting to get to the part about the shirtless crab walk. I’m getting there. I promise.)

• Way to Normal (part of the fake leak)
• Brainwascht
• Effington
• You Don’t Know Me
• Landed
• Dr. Yang—Lovesick Diagnostician (fake leak)
• Dr. Yang
• Cologne
• Hiroshima
• The Frown Song
• Annie Waits
• Kylie (And I know that’s not the complete title. However, WordPress gives me Fail messages if I type those other two words, believe it or not. Somewhere out there is a list of perfectly tame words that I am not allowed to type here. And I will find that list. Tomorrow, maybe.)
• Free Coffee
• Free Coffee Town (fake leak)
• Zak and Sara (You really should click that link. And I really should move to Australia.)
• Bitch Went Nuts
• Bitch Went Nutz (fake leak)
• Fair (during which I swear they were singing ‘Obama’ during the background chorus) (Wait. Maybe they were!)
• Still Fighting It
• You to Thank
• Kate
• Army
• Rockin’ the Suburbs
• Frowne Song (fake leak)

And right now you’re wondering what the Fake Leak thing is, right? I know! Before their latest album was released, Mr. Folds “leaked” songs onto the internet with the same titles as the album tracks. But they weren’t the album songs. SO, the folks who grabbed up the fakes thought they were getting actual album tracks. But they weren’t. And I would say something about getting pleasantly punked, but I’m 38, remember?! (You can find some of the leaks on this site if you fish around a bit.)

By the way, we left after the fake leak version of Frowne Song. If you were at the show, please don’t tell me that we missed a second encore. Please. And please don’t tell me that it contained Philosophy. Seriously. Because I don’t want to know that. (Philosophy was on the CD that Jeff and I gave out to everyone at our wedding reception. And that was Seven Years Ago tomorrow. October 20th. Seven Years. I’ve never held a job for seven years. I’ve never done Anything for seven years. (Except for the Fluid Pudding thing. Fluid Pudding and Jeff. There you go. Cheers.))

When we got home after the show that night, I sat up and watched The Office. And then I fell asleep and had a dream during which I was crab walking around The Pageant without my shirt on. (As I sometimes do. The employees are very patient.) I eventually found myself backstage balancing a bottle of beer in Billy Pancake, and Ben Folds walked up, bent down, kissed my cheek, and placed a bright pink bucket hat on my head. “You are Queen of the Shirtless Crab Walk!” he proclaimed as he tapped my head with his own bottle of beer, which is just as good as slipping an engraved ring containing eleven tiny diamonds onto the finger that holds the vein that runs directly to my heart or something. And it all seemed very Just Another Day in the Life.

If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme. When you wish upon a star as dreamers do.

“Fluid Pudding is not THAT kind of website,” I answered.

A few weeks later, I discovered a large white box on my front porch:

Clearly, my nuts had dropped.

(Wow. Two nut jokes, and I’m already tired of the nut jokes. I was eleven when I started writing this entry. Suddenly, I’m 86 again. Will you run me to the post office, Sweetie?)

I popped the box open, and found the following items:

Four boxes of pistachios, a pistachio shirt, a pistachio hat, a brochure all about pistachios, and a stuffed pistachio that Harper quickly claimed as her own. Because “it looks like a big sandwich with eyeballs.” And we all know that big sandwiches with eyeballs = Comedy Gold amongst the pre-school set.

Although I was sort of weirded out by the stuffed pistachio and the hat (okay. and the shirt.), I have to give the Everybody’s Nuts marketing team some credit. The back cover copy on the pistachio box is probably the funniest back cover copy I’ve seen. (Oh, and I’ve seen my share of back cover copy, Sparky. Someday we’ll kick back with a glass of milk and talk about it.)

On the back of the Roasted, No Salt box:

When Everybody’s Nuts first started, we gathered all the pistachios and said, “We want each of you to open up. Can you do that?” The response was overwhelming. “I like to wear cowboy boots to bed!” yelled one nut. Another piped in with, “I have an unnatural fear of kitty cats.” We heard, “I sing show tunes in the shower” and “My parents never supported my acting career.” Finally we said, “Hey, hey. We didn’t mean to open up like that. We meant for you to open up your shells 100% of the time, so people can easily enjoy your cholesterol-free, protein-packed delicious goodness.” Thankfully, they agreed. And they also agreed to stop talking about their distrust of nutcrackers.

I admit, it loses a bit of funny toward the end. But the part about the pistachios opening up? Yeah. That part made me ROFLMNOP.

Okay. Pistachios. There’s really not much to say, except: I never really considered these things to be a snack food. BUT, I ate every single stinkingly delicious pistachio. My favorite flavor? Salt and Pepper Pistachios. (Incidentally, I found three pistachios that were NOT opened. According to the box, I could mail those back in with a proof of purchase and they would send a free box of nuts to me. Because I didn’t pay for the pistachios, this is not an option for me. Perhaps I should look into selling the unopened pistachios on eBay.)

I know you’re wondering if I wear the shirt and the hat.

I do not wear the hat. However, I’m sure one of the kids will someday have a Wear a Goofy Hat Promoting Your Favorite Protein-Packed Treat Day during Homecoming Spirit Week, so it will eventually get some face time.

The shirt? Okay. The shirt says “Everybody’s Nuts.” As soon as I can convince myself that the apostrophe is filling in for an omitted letter and has absolutely nothing to do with possession, well, maybe then I’ll pull it over my head.

Wait. Wait! The apostrophe is clearly NOT filling in for an omitted letter. It IS denoting possession. These nuts belong to everybody! And by Nuts, I mean Pistachios!

I’m forever tripping over entendres…