Momma Said Knock You Out

I'm hard at work behind the scenes trying to catch up on blog posts (I have about 6 in the works going back to February). Hopefully, this might hold you over until the dam holding back the Rio de Useless Info breaks (where IS the damn dam bathroom?).

Mother's Day will be here before you know it. I was just in, uh, the Library, reading and I'm shamelessly stealing this idea from my current issue of Real Simple (though I did have a similar idea WAY before this). Below are 10 questions to ask your mother (interrogate Dad too!). If you want to share them with me and the people who happen to trip and fall on to my blog, feel free to email it to me. Please don't post the answers in the comments section. I'd like to collect all the answers and post them up closer to Mother's Day (and Father's Day), so don't delay! If yo momma (and/or poppa and/or you) wants to remain anonymous, please make that obvious in the email. Otherwise, everything's game, except, of course your last name, address, bank account and SSN.

Tell your friends! Don't be shy! Hit my blog! Yea! Audience participation!

1. What's the one thing you would have done differently as a mom/dad?
2. Why did you choose to be with my mother/father?
3. In what ways do you think I'm like you? And not like you?
4. Which one of us kids did you like the best?
5. Is there anything you have always wanted to tell me but never have?
6. Do you think it's easier or harder to be a mother now than when you were raising our family?
7. Is there anything you regret not having asked your parents?
8. What's the best thing I can do for you right now?
9. Is there anything that you wish had been different between us--or that you would still like to change?
10. When did you realize you were no longer a child?

Palm Coast Art! Good stuff!

My Very Creative Mother Just Creates The Best Stuff.

That's a fairly useful mnemonic for remembering the nine planets. If they were Mercury, Venus, Cearth, Mars, Jupiter, Caturn, Turanus, Beptune, and Sluto. And if Pluto was still considered a planet.

Anyway, my mom creates some incredible things with the brain cells she was fortunate enough to retain after raising my brother and I...and letting us live too. Please peruse and purchase. You will love. Promise. Also? BEERINGS! YEAH!

My Kind of Crack

I just wanted to announce to the world that I just looked through a bunch of Partylite stuff and felt completely and utterly compelled to buy...NOTHING.

I think I've grown financially. :)

O.o.O. (Out of Order)

Good Lord, I'm so sorry to disappoint all two of you out there who read this regularly. I've got a number of posts started, but not completed. I was hoping to get to them while on vacation in Florida, but vacationing with My Dear Trish, her husband and two small boys? Well, silence is a RARE commodity, and I need a measure of it to be able to write something that looks like I contributed my complete attention to it, instead of looking like I was watching TV while blogging. Please be patient. I promise once I'm home (this weekend) and after I've slept off the effect of instant parenting, I will feed your useless need for many posts to come. As much as I'm hoping I can just return to the Northwoods, hop on my Freaky Tiki and go ride off in the 60 degree weather, I just read that it's snowing up there now and it looks like my energy will need to be directed elsewhere. Bummer. For me, not you.

She Who Must Be Obeyed

Happy Birthday Momma.

You have taught me many things. The most important advice that you ever gave me is be who you are and let no one change that. I hope this day was a lovely one indeed, and I wish you a buttload more to come. :D

She Was Sesquipedalian...A Lot

About a month ago, a bunch of us riders made the 20 minute trip to Menomonie to listen to Turd's band. A carload or two of us met up at a fellow rider's house for pre-gig snacks and conversation. Brother, Anya and I rode up with E and his girlfriend, whom I believe E called "Killer" at one point. Killer is a sweet, very pretty young lady who cracks me up at how unfiltered she is. She isn't rude, she just doesn't hold much back. I can appreciate that; it's a refreshing change from that whole, "What are you thinking?" silliness. Also? It means I'm not a lone female wolf in the pack full of less secure women. Who cares what they're thinking anyway??

So we're sitting in the kitchen, stuffing our faces with some good eats and seemingly out of the blue, Killer called me out about my big vocabulary.

Killer: "You like to use big words."
Me: "I...what? Sorry." I'm all embarrassed.

She just pointed that fact out where everyone else around me, never, ever seemed to take the same notice quite so to-the-point. So, I dwelled on it for a number of days afterward. Why do I use big words? In the spirit of the impending St. Patrick's Day, my list o'reasons:

• My high school vocabulary books were the only homework I enjoyed doing. Yes, I waited until 10 minutes before English class each time to do the vocab homework, but it was still my favorite. Even now if I happen to see a Reader's Digest, I'll flip to that word quiz (I'm sitting in a bar at Big Powderhorn updating this...the name is escaping me) and bomb through it.
• I absolutely, positively CANNOT do math. That's one of the reasons I take my brother out for dinner so often...I make him figure the tip. I enjoy his company, of course, and it's with great ease that makes me laugh till steak comes out my nose.
• Common, everyday speech becomes so boring, rarely used words make conversation more colorful.
• The big words just stick in my head, like all the useless information I file away for later use.
• Sometimes, they're just funny in the right circumstances. Especially when you're trying to describe a bodily function.
  

So, I'm coming out of the big word closet, here and now. I love the way they flow out of my head and across my oft-stumbling tongue. I LOVE USING THE BIG WORDS! Everybody knows if you find you enjoy something, you tend to excel at it with seemingly little effort. You may think I use big words to impress you or maybe it makes you think I'm a snob, but that's not the case. If it were, I probably wouldn't be able to back the usage up with a proper definition. And nothing's funnier than someone using the wrong big words. I just enjoy using them bigguns. When you decide to call me out, I'll do my best to not take umbrage at your servile proclivity, you varlet.

Artificial Albums #2 & #3