Dirty Talk...

Unless you've been living under a rock or you've been out straight, like me, with the holiday drama and an endless string of December birthdays (yesterday, my boy turned nine - WTF! -party with friends tomorrow) or trying to make money to pay for the aforementioned shit, you know that our dear friend Aunt Becky has another contest going on. No, it's not a run-on sentence contest, because we all know there would be no contest with me involved, and you can just hand over all the prizes tout de suite.

This contest is called "Open Your Whore Mouth," and all you have to do is answer her probing questions to win a book or a world famous Aunt Becky happy ending massage at the hotel of your choosing or something like that. You'll have to visit her for the details, as I pay little attention to fine print.

Now, I must admit that I felt like I should be given a less generic interview by my former virtual lady love, and my feelings were hurt so badly that I was going to ignore this little contest of hers in protest. "Take that, Auntie! Your blog will never survive without my genius comments!!!" Then, after much inner struggle, I chose to take the high road and forgive her just a little and play along. Must be the joyful holiday spirit that's coursing through my Grinch-green veins.

Or maybe I figured I could use this contest as a quick, easy post to let you know that I haven't taken up residence in the mental institution (I wish) or run off with some dude dressed as an elf (I really wish). No, nothing that exciting. I'm still spinning my wheels here in reality and will take up residence in Blogtown again if I live to see the end of this week. So, this is more for me than you, Auntie. Plus, everyone knows I've got a major whore mouth, and a whore mouth is a terrible thing to waste...


Aunt Meaner asked everyone in the world:


1) Do you like sprinkles on your ice cream?

We call them jimmies here in Assachusetts (or maybe that's just Podunkian), and no, I don't like them on my ice cream. In fact, I don't like ice cream all that much. Frozen yogurt for me.

2) If you had to choose one word to banish from the English language, what would it be and why?

V-A-G-I-N-A. Hate that fucking word. Love my vagina, spend lots of time with it, but I hate that word. Not sure why it drives me so crazy, but it always has. I much prefer puss; although, pooter makes me so happy that I call my little Stella "Pooter." I also call her "Tuna," but I think "Pooter" is an incredibly endearing name for a dog. Don't you?

3) If you were a flavor, what would it be?

"If" I were a flavor? I'm pretty sure if you took a bite outta me on any given day, I'd taste like garlic and red wine. Those are flavors, no?

4) What’s the most pointless annoying chore you can think of that you do on a daily/weekly basis?

Is there really anything more pointless than vacuuming when you've got three hairy-assed dogs (two of which are nothing but fur), two pussy cats and two dirty boys running around?

Laundry is way more annoying, but I guess there is a point to it if you're not a full-time nudist or if you don't want to stink. I may be a streaker, but I'm no nudist, and I don't like to stink of anything other than garlic, red wine and horny elves.

5) Of all the nicknames I’ve ever had in my life, Aunt Becky is the most widely known and probably my favorite. What’s your favorite nickname? (for yourself)

Nobody has ever really called me by a nickname, at least not to my face. Unless "Witch" or "Bitch" count, but I'm pretty sure the people who call me that call every chick that.

Lucky for us, I give myself all kinds of nicknames. Lola was my "stripper" name and became my blog name. Most of you know I like to call myself Lola Ebola, which is quite fabulous, but I think my favorite is Skanky McFuckface. Every single time I lovingly refer to myself that way, it brings a huge smile to my skanky mcfuckface.

6) You’re stuck on a desert island with the collective works of 5 (and only five) musical artists for the rest of your life. Who are they?

This question blows, for obvious reasons, but I'll give it a go: Bowie (large body of work, and I never get sick of that skinny body of his); Chili Peppers (girl's gotta dance if she's stranded); Nina Simone (for when I'm sad that I'm stuck on a fucking island); Seether (for when I'm angry that I'm stuck on a fucking island); Concrete Blonde Garbage (because I couldn't survive without them. Yeah, I know, that's two incredible bands made into one by yours truly, but since Becky only listens to queer pop music, she'll never know.)

7) Everything is better with bacon. True or false?

Of course that's false. Greasy swine does not improve wine or weed -- err -- I mean chocolate.

8 ) If I could go back in time and tell Young Aunt Becky one thing, it would be that out of chaos, order will emerge. Also: tutus go with everything. What would you tell young self?

I would say, "Young, sweet Lola, do not start smoking at 12, because you will grow up to be rather short. Also, there is no such thing as perfect, so get the fuck over yourself and have fun. Oh, and never fall in love with someone named Aunt Becky, because all you'll get is a 'framed needlepoint' to hang on your blog, just like everyone else!"

Now, where's my happy ending?

Family Game Night...

Wednesday afternoon, just barely after noon, the boy got off the bus, walked in the house, dropped his backpack on the floor and announced that we need to institute a family game night around here. "Oh, yeah? Who came up with that idea," I asked.

"Me. It's all my idea," he said in his proudest voice. Knowing full well that he had absolutely nothing to do with coming up with the idea, I said, "Uh-huh." Thinking that my "uh-huh" was a "Why, yes, dear, that is such a wonderful idea," he took off running and began ripping open closet doors in search of a game.

"What are you doing," I asked, as if I didn't know. "I'm getting the game." "There's really no need to go pulling out all of those games right now, since it's 12:45, hardly night, and your father isn't here. Family Game Night is a ways off, especially since Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I've got a ton of work to do for the next two days."

"So, when can we play?" "How about Friday night," I said, knowing full well that I'd be hitting the couch to suck my thumb after putting the last dish away on turkey day. "Okay, Friday night it is. I'll call Daddy and tell him that from now on Friday night is Family Game Night." "Yeah, you do that," I said with a smile.

After he called the husband to let him know what we'd be doing every Friday night, he grabbed a pen and wrote it on the calendar. It was all pretty cute Wednesday afternoon. His excited reminders of our game plan got old by Friday morning, but I'd humor him every time he'd point to the calendar or ask, "You know what tonight is, right?"

I couldn't figure out why the kid who spends almost all of his time with his parents was so excited about a Family Game Night. We often play card games on Sunday mornings after the boys return from their flea market adventure, so it's not like we've never sat down and kicked his butt at Go Fish before or tried in vein to get him to improve his checkers/Connect Four strategy. The boy is the one who always wants to quit and go ride his dirt bike or dig a hole or something. Santa wasted $600 on Wii last year, because this kid is not at all interested in video games, even when you get to stand up and throw actual punches.

I decided that maybe it was the "night" part of the plan that got him all worked up and told him around 6:30 to pick a game so that he would stop annoying me. "I think it's going to be Monopoly," he yelled from the other room just before I heard all the other games crashing to the floor. "Whoops!" I was loving Family Game Night so much already.

Now, I haven't played Monopoly in many years, but I do remember I used to love it as a kid. I remembered it took a long time and that the rules would be a bit too complicated for the boy and WAY too complicated for the husband, but I was up for kicking their asses by the fire. Having stacks of fake money is kind of rewarding, I thought, so I poured myself a big glass of wine and sat on the floor with the directions in hand while the boys chose their car and cannon. I had already pulled the dog out of the pile of choices, because that's how I roll. There were a lot more directions than I remembered, so I sent the boy to fetch his old mother's reading glasses. The husband was whining already, because sitting down is synonymous with snoring, after all, and five whole minutes had passed while setting up the board.

So, I made him the banker, figuring that handling "money" should keep him pacified for a half hour or so. I really wanted to be the banker, but a whining husband is way worse than a whining child, and we were going to be here a while. I couldn't understand the new Fast Play directions, nor could I fully understand the buying houses directions enough to explain it to an eight-year old, so I made up my own version of a couple rules. I'm pretty sure they're the rules my mother must have made up all those years ago, because I don't remember this game being so damn complicated.

On and on it went, with me going to "jail" over and over again; with my husband whining, "When does this game end," and the boy excitedly buying properties like he was a mini Trump hopped up on speed. Just when he'd get down to a couple bucks and there was a light at the end of this Monopoly hell tunnel, he'd pass "GO" and get $200 more or draw a great Community Chest/Chance card and be flush with cash again. The junior real estate mogul was getting off a little too much charging us rent and kept yelling "I LOVE THIS GAME!!" every time we handed him cash.

My game plan was to keep going until the husband freaked out and lost on purpose, but two hours and a bottle of wine later, it was me who had to MAKE IT STOP by throwing the game. "Oh, thank god," the husband said, followed by, "We are never playing that game again," as he went off to bed. "That was awesome," declared the boy. "I can't wait until the next Family Game Night!!" "Go brush your teeth," I said, while I cleaned up and considered accidentally ripping the board into several pieces.

I know, I'm a cranky old hag, but that game BLOWS, and my ass was killing me from sitting on the floor that long. The only reason I must have liked that game as a kid was that I made my mother, sister and brother sit there long enough that they threw in their towels and I was declared the winner every single time. Since the boy is not going to forget about Family Game Night any time soon, and since the husband and I are NEVER playing Monopoly again, it looks like the boy will be getting board games for his birthday next week. This is where you wise parents/game lovers come in:

We've tried Scrabble (a game I will never, ever lose, not even for my kid); Trivial Pursuit (a game I couldn't possibly lose if I tried due to how much they suck at it); Pictionary (a game that I'm only good at guessing, not drawing, and I tend to yell out rather inappropriate things. The boy can't draw either but is all ears, if you know what I mean); checkers/Chinese checkers (games that no one can really beat me at, but I will throw for my kid occasionally, never the husband); Operation (one of my faves, since Mama's got a steady hand, but the endless buzzing from the other inept players drives me nuts), and various card games that the menfolk can't seem to follow. How hard is gin rummy, I mean, really?

So, Internet geniuses, help a desperate mama out and save Family Game Night for my kid by recommending some games that you think an almost nine-year old boy will enjoy and a half-awake 45-year old man, with extremely large hands, will be able to play. I'm talking board games here, not bored games, like Monotony -- err -- Monopoly. Just looking at the name of that game makes me want to cry...

Turkey Farts A Day Early...

Since I'll be extremely busy tomorrow cooking for who knows how many guests (not sure on the actual body count, since some people find it impossible to let you know whether or not they'll grace you with their presence), I figured I'd wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving before I start drinking heavily and running around like a turkey with its head chopped off. So, yeah, Happy Thanksgiving, my friends.

My real holiday ramblings will be brought to you via guest post over at my good friend Moon's blog tomorrow, as she is away this turkey day. Just because I've been insanely busy and I haven't been writing here doesn't mean I haven't been writing elsewhere, you see. So, while your bird is in the oven or in between dinner and dessert, sneak away from that annoying relative or the obnoxious football fans, plunk yourself down in front of a computer, and check me out.

Or, you know, I suppose you could wait until everyone has passed out from the tryptophan/overindulging-in-everything combo or check me out while the truly insane people are trampling each other and fighting over Wiis on black Friday or you could admit that you're sick of me already, couldn't care less what I think about the holidays and tell me to fuck off right here and now. Don't feel bad. I'm sick of me, too.

If, however, you do decide I'm worthy of dragging your overstuffed bodies off the couch for, unbutton those pants, get comfy, and do check out Moonspun's work. She is a dedicated blogger, unlike yours truly; a former Masshole (like yours truly, only I'm still a Masshole,) and she's lived/lives a very interesting life up in Vermont. We figured out through blogging that we roamed the same streets as wee lasses, and she even remembers the grumpy old pharmacist that taught me crime doesn't pay back when I was six by denying me access to those incredible pickles he kept in a jar on his counter after my mother made me return the candy I had stolen from him. The old dude hit me where it hurt when he cut off my perfect dill pickle supply for a couple weeks, and I never stole a damn thing after that.

Moon and I finally met in person a few weeks ago at our friend Mumma Boo's place, and it was great to sit and talk in person. All I can say is she is the real deal. She's an awesome woman, and I love her.

Now, before I go dig out the candle lights to put in my windows (hey, Christmas is-a-comin', and pretty lights in every window somehow seem to make cleaning the nasty turkey a little less nasty), I'll leave you with a small sample of things I'm thankful for this turkey eve. As I'm always thankful for my family, friends, relatively good health for all of us, relatively good fortune for most of us and don't feel the need to gush about such things on my blog, I'm going with a less cliche list this year:

I'm thankful that I finally got to walk out of a parent-teacher conference in a good mood last week. Due in no small part to my fierce determination to save our boy from being broken and having his self-esteem crushed by a one-size-fits-all approach to public education, things are looking up. All the time I've put into teaching him how to do math my way and convincing the teacher that my way is better than hers, all the money I'm spending on a reading tutor and the giant bribe I threw at the boy appear to be paying off. We're not out of the woods yet, but we are getting closer to cracking the code to my little enigma's brain.

I'm thankful that my husband's control-freak approach to running his business paid off in a huge way yesterday when he caught one of his drivers showing up to drive one of our very large delivery trucks stinkin' drunk at 3 A.M. Can you fucking imagine? My husband wanted to beat the shit out of his drunk ass but instead fired him on the spot and did the deliveries himself. I still want to beat the shit out of the idiot for thinking it was okay to put innocent lives at risk, not to mention everything we've worked our asses off for.

I'm thankful for Motrin taking away the throbbing pain in my tooth that got worked on last Tuesday. With the help of my little orange pills, I'm willing away a root canal on the tooth I just spent $1200 to crown. My will is THAT strong!

I'm thankful that Stella's leg didn't get broken or dislocated from battling, a/k/a playing with her big brothers this morning. For a couple hours, it looked like another expensive trip to the vet was going to be how I spent my turkey eve day, but my scrappy little bitch walked it off eventually and is starting another brawl with the boys right this second -- wait. Now, she's chasing the cat. Terrier...terror...terrorist, get it? God, I love that little firecracker!



Last, but not least, I'm thankful that I am finished with the massive amount of work I was forced to suffer through these last two weeks in order to pay my bills. I may not like my job all that much, but I'm thankful I've got one to bitch about.

And with that, I will once again wish you all a great holiday, hit "Publish" and get to work cleaning, cooking and bedazzling tables. What the hell am I doing sitting down when I've got a Thanksgiving to put on for somewhere between 10 and 20 people?

I Hate Numbers...

4 - The number of times I sat down to try to write a post this past week and decided deleting the whole damn thing seemed much more prudent. I guess I've taken my NahBlowMe pledge rather seriously.

17 - The number of times I threw up last night, which is quite spectacular, seeing that I hadn't been able to swallow a thing in 20 hours. The bile well apparently runs very, very deep.

102.7 - My body temp when I decided that shivering on the couch for six hours might mean I'm sick.

1.5 - How many centimeters the nasty zit on my cheek is.

6 - The number of red Fla.Vor.Ice I've eaten in the past hour. I'm about to start on the greens. Hey, I haven't chewed anything since Saturday night, so don't judge.

1 - The number of one-of-a-kind, absolute favorite necklaces I lost at that stupid restaurant that quite possibly poisoned me in order to steal my necklace Saturday night. If it weren't for the fever that accompanied the severe stomach pain, I'd be screaming food poisoning all over the Daily Snoozepaper.

1 - The number of bitches I'm going to rip said necklace off of when I see her wearing it. No one found it, my ass!!! The thing is HUGE, and no vacuum is going to suck that sucka up.

1,756 - The number of necklaces I looked at on eBay this morning, hoping that some angel out there was selling my necklace or one exactly like it.

0 - The number of necklaces that I liked out of the 1,756.

10 - The number of pounds I better have lost since Saturday.

861 - The number of green dollar bills I'm supposed to hand over to my dentist tomorrow morning for just one out of the three crowns I need. Soft teeth are way more of a curse than cellulite, my friends.

60 - The number of green dollar bills I actually have to give to that extortionist bitch.

2 - The number of appointments I cancelled so that I might have a chance of surviving the next two weeks.

9 - The number of hours I spent watching season one of Sons of Anarchy, which is probably why I used none of my spare time to blog. Watch Jax's sweet ass or blog? Hmmm, what should I do? Netflix can't get me the next three discs fast enough, so I'll be on my couch if you need me, starting tomorrow.

23 - The number of people that came to my blog this weekend looking for June Cleaver and found me sporting big, fake tits instead. Gotta love that shit.

232 - The number of posts in my reader that are going to be marked as read as soon as I check out of here. Seriously, people, stop fucking writing so damn much!!! Watch Sons of Anarchy instead. Biker justice is incredibly sweet and intoxicating, I promise.

Hey, maybe I'll start my own bike gang and go all vigilante in my old age. Mothers of Anarchy has a nice ring to it. Why the hell not? I'm a demon on a dirt bike, and I've ridden a Harley or two around a field. So, all I need to do is plunk my $60 down for a deposit on a bitchin' hog, instead of my boring busted tooth, design a kickass patch for my leathers, find me some prospects to do my dirty work while I hunt down whoever has my necklace and teach them some respect. Finders keepers doesn't play with the Mothers of Anarchy, bitch! !!

Yeah, I think this stupid little town is in desperate need of an outlaw biker gang headed up by yours truly. We'll see if that little bitch that tried to embarrass me and did embarrass my kid at the park tries that again once I start sporting my colors 'round town. Yeah...

I Call Bullshit...

I will admit that I'm crankier than usual, as I try to fight off the pig flu or strep or the bubonic plague or the common cold that never seems to leave this house once school starts, but there's a few things that got my rant-o-meter spinning out of control in the last couple days. In between the frequent naps that only make my exhausted ass more tired, I've managed to read some news online and watch a bit of TV (and ride a horse and run agility with the dogs -- shh! I'm really sick or getting sick any moment, I promise) that, quite frankly, had me yelling at the flat screen and the laptop all at the same time.

Since my sick husband and sick child are sick of listening to my cries for sanity in this fucked-up mess of a world, I'm forced to bitch to the "masses" that stop by this here blog (you know, the one that I find increasingly easier to ignore as the days wear on.) Maybe if you lurkers jumped in and called me a twat or a nasty whore once in a while, I'd find a reason to light the candelabras and crank the music in the Leopard Lounge more often than I have lately. Maybe not. Who cares...

Without further annoying ado, I give you my list of things that make me want to scream or puke or both this week.

Bullshit Item Number One: Big banks on Wall Street getting pig flu vaccines before, say, the hospitals, pediatricians and OB-GYNs around the country has me seeing Pepto pink (which is way worse than seeing red). Yeah, Goldman Sachs, Citi, The Federal Reserve, etc, apparently have a lot of pregnant women and young children working there, so they were shipped the impossible-to-get vaccines already. Morgan Stanley got a thousand or so vaccines and was at least human enough -- more likely, PR savvy enough -- to donate theirs to the local hospital that hadn't gotten any yet, so I give them a pass on my anger.

Can this government do anything right, EVER? We hand these same greedy fuckers billions of dollars that we cannot even account for, haven't been paid back, and now we give them the vaccine that pregnant women and children and health compromised Americans -- you know, the people that are at risk -- are standing in line for for 12 hours, only to be turned away? Shameful, pitiful, disgraceful.

Don't even get me started on the prisons getting their vaccines already, because I might say something really, really unkind. Oh, hell, I'll say it, because I'm in a mood. I don't give a shit about a bunch of murderers, rapists, pedophiles and thieves getting sick with the flu. Fuck them!! Vaccinate the guards and everyone who works there, and let's see who survives in the inmate population. Sorry, but a few less inmates that we have to pay for for LIFE seems like a win-win to me. In reality, it's a flu that most survive, so a handful of uncomfortable days for scumbags who rape kids seems only fair. I'm sure everyone will weep if the greediest of pigs, Bernie Madoff, dies from the pig flu.

Bullshit Item Number Two: Now, I really like Ellen DeGeneres. I do. Sue me. However, as I watched her show yesterday, I saw something that had me questioning her judgment. I found her guest Jonathan Safran Foer, author of "Eating Animals," to be fascinating. As he pimped his book, he enlightened us about factory farming and the disgusting practices that are involved in putting the burger in our cheeseburgers, the eggs in our omelets, the hormones in our breasts and the massive holes in our ozone.

I agree with almost everything he said, except the fact that there are still some farms where cows actually eat grass, see the light of day and are not fed any hormone-enriched grain whatsoever right here in New England. The same goes for chickens and pigs. My husband and I grew up on real, old-school dairy farms, you know, Old MacDonald kind of farms, and we know exactly what goes on today with the food supply. It's disgusting. Still, we manage to drink hormone-free milk and eat burger from grass-fed cows that live on old-school farms you can visit with your kids.

I'll get off of my farm girl soapbox for a second and get back to Ellen. Ellen is a vegan. I have no problem with that at all, as I have been a vegetarian and a vegan many times throughout my life and could live without meat without batting an eye. I'm the freak who gets all excited by vegetables and couldn't care less if she eats meat once, twice a month. I do love my poached eggs, and you better not get in between me and a hunk of cheese, but I've gone years without those, too.

So, Ellen is a vegan, and she became a vegan after doing research into how a cow becomes a cheeseburger these days. Take it from someone who's been to a slaughterhouse, it ain't pretty under the most humane of circumstances. You all know I love animals more than most people, so I get it. I totally get that meat is murder, and I own a Meat Is Murder Smiths t-shirt (one of the best albums ever made -- or was The Queen is Dead better simply because some girls really are bigger than others? It's a toss-up, I suppose.)

As I lay on the couch, watching all of this, however, with Ellen asking Jonathan how we could make a difference and Jonathan telling us that we should at least give up eggs, because the chickens are treated way worse than the cows, something struck me as just not right with this picture. I dragged my "am I sick or not," tired ass off the couch, went to the pantry and grabbed that incredibly small bag of incredibly expensive Halo dog food that I feed my dogs and checked the ingredients. Hmm...

Chicken and eggs in the dry food. Beef, beef liver and lamb in the canned. Just as I thought. In case you didn't know, Ellen is part owner of Halo. So, Ellen is a vegan because it's wrong to eat animals, especially when they aren't raised in idyllic conditions. But Ellen's dogs and my dogs eating animals is just fine, because she's making money off of it? Are these cows and chickens and little lambs being raised like beloved pets on magnificent farms until it's time to make the dog food? Maybe. I seriously doubt it, but maybe they are. I'm way too lazy to do that research. I'll leave it to Jonathan.

Maybe I'm just an asshole for asking is meat not murder if it's going to our dogs, but I can't believe I'm the only one who picked up on this. I still truly like Ellen, and my dogs most definitely love her incredibly expensive dog food, but I had to call bullshit on this one.

Bullshit Item Number Three: Rihanna all of a sudden coming out with her story a couple weeks before her new album (I'm showing my age, I know) drops. I truly love this girl's songs, and I'd stand under her umbrella anytime, anyplace, but the timing of this interview just feels too publicity driven for my taste. Personally, I wanted to go beat the fuck out of that little pussy Chris Brown when I saw the pictures of her battered face. It was disgusting, and he should have gotten in a hell of a lot more trouble than he did.

Then, when she went back to him, I wanted to sit her down and talk some sense into her. These things happen all the time, all over the world, and I cannot pretend to understand how women do not take a knife and slit an abusive bastard's throat when he's sleeping. I don't understand it, but I also try hard not to judge it. Low self-esteem, misguided love, day-in, day-out fear, these are things I've thankfully never known, but I have compassion for people who get trapped by all of it.

Had Rihanna come out months ago and told her story to the young girls that look up to her like she is a goddess, I would have been cheering her on. I guess I still am, since I do love the girl, but the timing is incredibly suspect.

Bullshit Item Number Four: My husband yelling at the boy to cough into his elbow and to wash his hands every two seconds, while he, himself, doesn't cover his mouth at all when he coughs, wipes his runny nose on his hand and leaves snot rags laying all over the house. Yeah, the boy and I both call bullshit on that one!

So I don't feel like the only ragbag in Blogtown, what's got you calling bullshit this week?