Blogger, I've been Two timing you.

I have a new love...

No, Facebook doesn't count. That's like crack. It's different.

I just finished reading another fabby post by Maria, at Just Eat Your Cupcake. I have a long blogroll, but nothing makes my day like seeing that Maria has posted something new.

When I was little, my father brought home a treasure from one of his trips. It was a book, Conversations with a Pocket Gopher, by Jack Schaeffer, the man who also happened to write Shane, the western. (Total side story, when I was running my bookstore in Hanford, my fella took me to Yosemite, and when we saw the little bookstore on the way, you know I had to stop. I had always looked for another copy of my book in all the hippy granola bookstores, to no avail. When we walked in, I began the title and the lady who owned the store finished it for me. Her dad WAS Jack Schaeffer, and she had multiple copies, so I bought one for me and one for my dad. COME ON, that was cool.) Back to the point, Maria can make folding laundry with her dog at her side into poetry. She reminds me of that book. Whether she's talking about her partner, her daughter, her dog or her dishes, she takes you there. The lady's got soul, folks.

I've been cheating on Blogger with my new favorite, Open Salon. It's fun to browse their blogs and see who strikes a chord. My favorite so far has been Ann Nichols.

I'm not really blogging much these days, but I had a late latte, and Little O was quietly sobbing in her bed because of growing pains. The Honey doesn't remember having growing pains, but I DEFINITELY had 'em. Based upon Miss Priss' misery, my kiddo is gonna have some gams, let me tell ya. A little tylenol and some back rubbing and she is back out, but I am wide awake, too wired to even play a little bejeweled. It doesn't help that I've been off for the last week and am due back to work tomorrow (yikes, make that in 4 hours).

I am the Queen of...

I frequently refer to myself as the Queen of the Worst-Case Scenario. This is thanks to my dad. My parents are both nurses, but my father specialized in Emergency medicine. Our house had lots of black, gallows humor. For much of my life I blithely told people that my father scraped people off of the street for a living, and only as I entered adulthood did I realize how disturbing this could be to hear. My wanna-be english major father, who got into nursing to support his family and found a vocation, would bring home these stories of epic stupidity. He would turn it into a game of "where did they make the wrong decision" and illlustrated very clearly how a seemingly harmless prank could (sometimes literally) blow up in your face. I probably missed out on some great mindless fun as a kid. But here are the two stories that stick out in my mind even now, brought to me by my father:

1: The kids in the midwest who found (or tipped over themselves?) a railroad taker with chlorine. They saw the cloud of chlorine gas and thought it would be a hoot to drive through this cloud. They thought ahead and rolled up all of their windows, and were going to drive through as fast as they could. Why did they all die?

2: One of my father's close friends was working as an ER doc the night of a horrific car accident in which the driver was essentially decapitated. He recognized a birthmark on the thigh, it was his youngest son. I used to drink with this guy. But he was cRaZy, and I was a little too sane. He was apparently drunk as f* that night and just drove off the road. His father was unable to work in the ER after that night and sort of became an empty husk for then next decade. I will never willingly put my dad in a position like that.