I live with Bert and Ernie only with vaginas.

People? This is the best Bert and Ernie book. Ever. It was one of my sister’s favorites when she was a child.  Ok, I don’t know that for a fact. It was one of MY favorites when she was a child.

If you haven’t read it, (and clearly most of you probably haven’t) it’s the story of how Ernie bought some cookies but broke the cookie jar, so he has to put the cookies in the sugar bowl, and the sugar in a flower-pot, and one thing leads to another ending with the fish in Bert’s cowboy hat.  So Bert has to wear a pot on his head when he wants to play “Ride ’em cowboy.”   People? That is a direct quote, do not laugh at me.

This weekend, the girls and I stopped at Sonic on our way back from The Lake. (who we were with is a blog post for another day).  A few miles down the road,  the following conversation took place in the back seat of the car.

Newt: Here, Tate, Hold your Sonic food.

Tate:  Why should I hold my Sonic food?

Newt: Because I have to put my food in your Sonic Bag.

Tate:  Why can’t you put your food in your bag?

Newt: Because mine has a soda in it.

Tate: Why does your bag have a soda in it?

Newt: Because the cup holder is full.

Tate: The cup holder is full?  Of what?

Newt: Books.

Tate: What?  Why are their books in the cup holder?

Newt: Because I don’t want them on the floor on my feet.

Tate: So what I supposed to do with my Sonic food if you’re using my bag?

Newt: Hold it on your lap?

People?  I can not make this shit up.

Media, He has a tank. Be careful what you write about him.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Yes, my panties are all in a wad.

Because once again, the media has stepped up and made total and complete asses of themselves.

This week, has been Marine Week in St. Louis.  Tuesday night, the Cardinals were playing the Phillies in St. Louis and it was Marine Night at Busch Stadium.  During the game one of St. Louis’s best known Marine, Colonel Shane “Rhino” Tomko, made the following comment:

Col. Tomko: I’ll tell you what, with that M1A1 Abrams we got across the street, if Halladay keeps on pitching well, we can fix that with one round pretty quickly.

That comment lead to the following headlines the next morning.

Lathered up Leatherneck jokes about killing Doc Halliday.

How do you stop Roy Halliday? Marine says use giant tank.

Jarhead Jeers Halliday; Jokes about Murder.

Marine lieutenant colonel offends gentle sensibilities of Phiilies fans.

Ok, that last one? Close to the truth, but they still owe Tomko the respect of capitalizing his rank.  But whatever.  They got their feelings hurt they can’t be expected to use proper English/grammar.

I heard on the radio last night, that there was another article titled St. Louis Marine calls for Phillie’s Pitcher’s Death.

Really?

REALLY????

How many times on Twitter do we say “I want to stab them between the eyes” or “I want to punch them in the face?”

Tomko went on to say:  I can say whatever I want because I’m a war fighter, and this is the Cardinals Nation the last time I checked.

He has a point.  There is such a thing as Freedom of Speech.   The irony behind this whole debacle?  Col. Tomko has done more than 10 tours of duty in his military career.  He joined the Marines right out of high school in 1982.  The military and the Marines are all he knows.  He has fought for these idiots right to say this stupid shit about him all over the country without even knowing the man, the Marine he is.

Never miss an important holiday like National Margarita Day again. You’re Welcome

Yesterday, it turns out, was National Margarita Day.  You would think that I, Queen of all things tequila, would have known this important bit of information and planned my day accordingly.

My minions? Failed me.

I didn’t find out about this National Holiday until I saw it in my Google Reader.  (Thank you Kelley and The Bitchy Waiter)

Finding out in Google Reader? That is a travesty.  Seriously.  How could I not know about this?  So I did what any self-respecting Queen of all things tequila would do. I sent out a text message to my besties “Holy Fuck Batman! Today is National Margarita Day! Why the hell are we not celebrating?”  (The best response to that text? “You are so fucking awesome!”) Of course, it being a Tuesday night, and us having jobs and shit and having to work today, kinda but the kibosh on the celebrations.

In the interest of never missing another important national holiday like this again, I went in search of all the most important, little known, shouldn’t be over looked holidays.  And let me tell you?  There is a fuckton of them.

February 26th is For Pete’s Sake Day *and* Levi Strauss Day.
February 28th? National Tooth Fairy day.
March 1st? Pig Day and Plan a Solo Vacation Day
April 15th is Income Tax Day, but did you know it is also McDonald’s Day and Take a Wild Guess Day?  Pretty sure that last one? Is not the best way to file your taxes.  It is also? That Sucks Day, which makes sense.  Clearly.
May 6th? No Homework Day *and* No Diet Day.  Awesome!

I could go on and on, there are hundreds of observations.  Now?  Not only am I fucking awesome, I am a wealth of important trivial holidays.

Dear McDonald's, I'm beginning to question my love for you

Dear McDonald’s,

I guess we are destined to repeat last year, seeing as how you apparently don’t remember what a traumatic fiasco it was.  I still bear the emotional scars from last year.  But here we are again. Sigh.  Please take notes this year so we don’t have to repeat this. Ever. Again.

I went through one of your glorious drive thru’s a few weeks ago, with my heart, and stomach set on a cherry pie and a small vanilla shake.  I pulled up and placed my order with a really nice sounding teen that I know was just doing her job.  She had no way of knowing just how much emotional trauma she would inflict on me with the simple phrase “I’m sorry, we no longer have cherry pies.  We now have apple and pumpkin.”

PUMPKIN PIES!

At McDonald’s.

I know you pulled this little stunt last year, and I am pretty sure I voiced my opinion and made it clear that you should really get rid of those nasty apple pies for the next 4 months while you try and make pumpkin pies a fast food item.  And really, why must you INSIST on bringing them out in October.  Sure there are pumpkins in October, it’s Halloween.  We celebrate the outside of the pumpkins and throw away the insides.  Pumpkin pies really should only be brought out for two weeks in November and then they should disappear.

I’ve worked with you when I was in college.  I know how your pies are made.  They are deep-fried.  Now, I know that America has an unexplainable obsession with deep-frying everything under the sun, but pumpkin pies?  Really?  And in a drive thru?

I can appreciate that you are trying to make it up to me by bringing back my to-die-for-eat-it-every-day-for-lunch McRib.  But I know that you will take the McRib away from me long before you pull those dreadful pumpkin pies from your menu and bring back my beloved cherry pie.

I will admit that the McRib trick? It’s working.  I will still visit your various establishments just to get my bar-be-que and hot fries fix, but once that McRib is gone?  You won’t be seeing much of me until you bring back the cherry pie.

PS: Even the boxes are ugly.

This is me feeling restless

The phone rang yesterday, a number I didn’t recognize, but since I was at Brian’s house, and he was at work, I answered it.  It was a survey company asking me “Are you worried about the state of the country’s economy?”  I said “It can’t be too bad if we’re paying people like you to call and annoy people like me with unimportant annoying surveys that won’t amount to anything.”

Unfortunately, it was a recording, and he just kept blathering on and on about something. I don’t know I stopped listening to him and hung up.

The thing is, I’m feeling restless.  It’s October, a week before Halloween and yesterday it was 80 degrees.  In St. Louis.  It makes it really uncomfortable to wear hoodies and jeans which, in my mind, is fashionable late autumn attire.  But that’s the thing about me, I’m all about the looks, not so much about the comfort.

The restless feeling?  Really has nothing to do with the weather and my clothes.  It has a lot to do with I have big hopes and dreams and wants and wishes and I am impatient as hell.  I need to write, but I’m not sure what to write about.  I need to get out with my camera and feed that creative urge.  In the most pressing of ways.

And then for a little truth?  I’ve been blogging for 5 years.  I look around at all these new bloggers on the block, who are just celebrating their 1 year anniversary, and they have hundreds, if not thousands of followers, and me?  Not even in the neighborhood.  And I *know* that’s my fault too.  I need to be more consistent with my writing.  I need to be more consistent with cultivating and nurturing my on line relationships.  This is not a “If you build/write it they will come” sort of enterprise.  This is a “If you want it you better get off your ass and go get it because you’re not a princess and that shit won’t be delivered to you on a silver platter no matter how hard you wish otherwise.”

I’m hoping in the not so distant (like almost immediate) future there will be changes to my blogging life.  More writing, better writing.  I think the problem is I want to be Carrie Bradshaw, but I don’t live in NYC and I don’t like Manolos (I love Christian Louboutins, not that I can afford to own a pair).

*sigh* This is just me being restless.  I’ll find my way, my balance, my answers.  I promise.

Where will you be December 22, 2012?

In my great quest to become somewhat of a big deal somewhere other than in my own mind, I have linked my blog to my Twitter account, my personal Facebook page, and my blog Facebook fan page.  That basically means, when I finally get around to writing something and posting it on my blog, I make a general nuisance of myself with all kinds of tweets, status updates, bells, horns, whistles and neon flashing lights going off trying to get the attention of readers and potential commenters because I am an attention whore like that and I love comments.  (so show me some love, will ya?)

One thing I’ve learned about linking my blog to every possible place you can find me on the internet, is that every one out there who is looking for me, whether they want to or not, can find me.  That means that everyone in my life, Brian’s life, our kids’ lives, our friends, our friends’ friends, people we’ve been married to, people who like me, people who don’t like me, people I work with, people I used to work with, people I might could work with some day in the future, people I went to school with, people who happen to stumble upon my blog looking for Batman (sorry to disappoint you all) can find me.

The hardest part of blogging for me is coming up with something interesting to read while at the same time keeping as many people in my real life out of the limelight. They didn’t ask their lives to be plastered all over the internet just because they are in contact with me, and I do try and honor that and respect their privacy.

So to all you people out there who know me in real life, breathe a sigh of relief… this isn’t about you. Or you.  Nope, not even you.  I promise.

My Monday started out with a horrible case of the Mondays which is a whole lot like PMS/road rage/drama rolled into one, only much worse.  I hear that Midol is good for dealing with a case of the Monday, but I tend to think tequila is a better option.  Since my Monday started out so brilliantly, and my blog had sat pretty much ignored for the most part this weekend, I figured why not go ahead and vomit some words up there and make it all pretty and such ask a friend of mine to come up with a topic I could write about since I was coming up with nothing.  Friends are great for that.

Topic for today? Mayan calendar and the end of the world in December 2012.  If you Google Mayan 2012, you get pages of pages of people’s opinions littered with facts, sprinkled with bullshit about the end of the world as we know it.  It looks/sounds a lot like the panic of Y2K.

I’m here to sort it all out for you.  I’ve rummaged through the facts, filtered out the opinions, and brushed off the bullshit to come to this conclusion:

The world is not going to end on December 21, 2012.  The Mayan Calendar comes to end that day because well, the Mayans were perpetually stoned out of their mind.  Now days (ok, back when I was in college) the thing to do while you were stoned was to watch Pink Floyd’s The Wall. (or so I was told. I swear Mom, I don’t know anything about this first hand) Back in the days the Mayan’s had cornered the market on calendars, they all sat around and got stoned and made up calendars and counted days, and every time they thought they came to the end, someone would ask “Uh, what about the next day”. (they hated that dude. Really. They would egg his house at night. For real) (oh, and Mom, that’s another thing I never did…egg someone’s house.) so they would keep writing and making up more dates.

Then one day this dude came along… I think his name was Chief (yeah, pretty sure he was self appointed) and said he had found something new to smoke everyone should come try it.

And they did.

And it was good.

No, it was awesome.

And they made him Chief. For real this time.

And they never went back to making calendars.

The last day on the Mayan Calendar?

December 21, 2012.

December 21, 2012 isn’t the end of the world.  It’s going to be the new 4/20.  Whatever the hell that means.

You’re welcome.

I thought we were beyond witch hunts.

Last night I was reading some blogs from my Read-It-Later. I love that I can click on a website/blog post in my reader and it downloads and I can read it at home that night off line.  The problem then becomes when I want to leave a comment I can’t.

I read this blog post yesterday and I didn’t think too much about it. I mean, everyone is entitled to their opinion.  But this?

It’s kind of funny to me how these holier than thou ultra conservative Christian racists Tea Baggers rush to embrace anything or anyone that fits their idea of what people representing the real America should be.

is a bit much.

But still I let it go.  Last night.  This morning, on my way to work, I was thinking about it and the more I thought about it the more it got under my skin.  I was going to just quietly leave a comment there, but as I composed that comment in my mind, it grew longer and longer and turned itself into a damn blog post.  So, here we are.

I don’t claim to be a Tea Partier. I have never been to a tea party event.  I don’t claim either political party.  I see both sides of a lot of issues.  I’m a little bit left of right and right of left.  I fall somewhere in the vast 80% middle ground.  And just where I fall on that spectrum varies by the issue.

I don’t believe in calling a whole group of people out to be racist when it hasn’t been proven one way or the other.  That’s just name calling and mud slinging.  But that’s not what I started to write about.  I wanted to comment on the people who have their panties all in a bunch because Christine O’Donnell said that she ‘dabbled in witchcraft in high school.”

OMFG! Seriously?  Have you been out of high school so long that you have forgotten all the stupid shit you did at that age?  All the stupid weird strange people you hung out and the stupid crazy shit you did?  We ALL did stupid shit in high school and college.  I’d be willing to bet that damn near every small town in America has some haunted house/barn/farm/field/road whatever and we ALL ‘dabbled’ around there on a weekend night after a few beers.  So. Fucking. What.

Once upon a time I was interested in the Wiccan religion.  And frankly, it’s just another world religion much like Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Muslim.  I read a bunch of books about Wicca.  I have a spell book from the days I was interested in it.  In all the books I read, there was never mention of alters, blood, human or animal sacrifices.  Now, I’m not saying there isn’t black magic and maybe, just maybe there are sacrifices used with black magic, but what I read?  No sacrifices.  And they sure as shit didn’t build alters out of milk crates.

I honestly thought we had grown beyond witch hunts.  Even if she did more than dabble in witch craft, even if she was a practicing witch and a wiccan, who cares?  Don’t we have freedom of religion in this country?  It doesn’t make her crazy or ‘another nut to add to the mix’.

Jail Chronicles, Chapter 8

I am allowed to change back into my clothes, alone in the bathroom. You’re searched when you enter to be sure you’re not smuggling anything in. I guess they figure you’re not interested in taking anything out with you so what’s the point? I’m changing clothes, and there is my cell phone. I am tempted to turn it on and check for text messages, but they are rushing me and I’m afraid of what would happen if they caught me. I need to stay on their good side, and hope that by doing that, they relax some of the rules for me. It’s the only thing that makes any of this bearable.

For the first time since I arrived, I am cuffed. I am lead out to the transport van where I will be put in the seat closest to the front, and I’ll be there alone. Being the only girl sometimes has it’s advantages. There is one more inmate traveling with me, a male. His eyes light up with interest when he sees me. Oh fuck, give me a break. “Welcome to your chauffer driven Limo” he says. Of great, an inmate who thinks he’s a comedian. I am so not in the mood. So, I tell him, “You forgot the Champaign and caviar. You’re fired, don’t talk to me.” He doesn’t.

I know when I get to Lincoln Co I will be taken into booking first. At least there it’s familiar ground. That’s home turf. Richie Rich will have to cool his jets outside. What I didn’t know going into booking was that there had been 60+ people through court that day and 90% of them had been OR’d (own recog) or had bonds reduced to $100. Everyone in jail was bonding out. Booking was a madhouse of paperwork and releasing inmates. I had to wait until they had time for me. I was perfectly ok with that. As long as I stayed quiet and out of the way, they let me sit and wait and I could enjoy the show in relative freedom (not in a holding cell).

Four hours later I’m booked in and allowed to use my cell phone. I call to see if there is any luck on collecting bail money. There is none. I’m going to be sitting for a while. I call Brian. He knows where I am now and he knows the whole ugly truth. He’s been digging deep in casenet and he knows it all. He’s at work and it’s hard to hear normal life going on outside when my life is in limbo inside. He hasn’t bailed on me but he’s mad, he’s disappointed.

I write phone numbers down on a piece of paper. Phone numbers I’ll be able to call collect from the phone in the pod. I’m going in prepared this time. I am booked in, and once again stripped searched. This one is not nearly as humiliating. Maybe because well, I’ve been there done that before, what’s the big deal. I’m put into the holding cell that has barely enough room to change your mind. I grab the last empty bunk, and call it home. I’ve got front and center seats to the booking and release circus. I don’t care. I pray once again, Lord please get me out of this mess. But I doubt my prayers are heard.

Jail Chronicles, Chapter 4

They relay the message to my savior in the visiting area, but that well has run dry. He’s completely tapped out. My options now are simply

1. Wait for bail which is highly unlikely, like almost impossible.
   
2. Wait to be transported to Lincoln County. Which will still have no effect on my bail amount.
   

Either way? I’m fucked.

And yet? I hold on to hope.

The Co’s are no longer my BFF’s they were a few minutes before. Some of the regulations *must* be enforced. My high heals are traded in for sassy orange rubber sliders. My freedom to roam at will is gone. I’m confined to a holding cell, by myself.

For the first hour I’m OK. I’ve got my book and I am out of sight from all the inmates on their way to and from court. They can’t avoid the temptation to come take a look at me, like a rare exotic animal in a cage. That just pisses me off which only serves to excite them. I end up sitting on the floor against the door so that no one can see me.

Two hours. Waiting. Uncomfortable. Still hoping, believing, that The Preacher Man will come back with the money it takes to set me free. I watch the clock as time speeds away. I’m allowed to walk around again not that court is done for the day, but I take little joy or comfort in the minimal freedom I’m given. I should have enjoyed it.

The Last bunch of inmates to pass through booking were unbelievable. They acted like they hadn’t seen a woman in months. And it’s very possible they hadn’t. They made rude comments which I could easily ignore. But when they mentally undressed me, my skin crawled. Virtual Reality Rape. They could undress me in their minds, and I was helpless to stop them.

Three hours. I’m starting to worry but I can’t let it show. I still have my cell phone with me, so I am able to talk to the girls when they get home from school. I am supposed to be on my way home from work right now. I’m not even close. I tell them I’m going to be a little late even though I am beginning to doubt it. I can’t tell them the truth, it will scare them. I’m scared enough at the thought of them at home alone and me in jail. They have no idea I’m not at work.

Hope is fading. Shift change is coming up soon. The simple freedoms I’ve been granted today are about to run out. I sent a text message “If you can’t save me, please take care of the girls for me.” It was all I could do. It was going to have to be enough. I had to believe it was enough so that I could just focus on getting through the next few hours. They put me in a cold holding cell with a bed (concrete slab) a thin mattress and a blanket. It’s Warren Co jail, not the Hilton. I’m locked in a this room alone. For the first time all day it’s beginning to sink in that I may not be going home tonight. I am, for the first time in my life, alone in the world with nobody to turn to for help and salvation.

I refuse to eat dinner. I’m not *that* hungry. Frankly they don’t care. As long as I’m complacent and quiet, they pay me little attention. I sit huddled in my blanket reading my book. I doze off now and then as much from fatigue and boredom as from self preservation. My stress level is building as hope fades with the evening sun. Every tick of the clock is a tick of the clock longer than I thought I’d be there. Sleep offers a temporary pseudo escape from the reality of the Hell I’m in.

I listen for the phone to ring bringing news of my release with it. It never comes. By 9:00 I start to admit to myself I might actually be spending the night in jail. Something I’ve never done, and something I never thought I’d do. I never thought it would come to this. And yet… here I sit.

I get as comfortable as I can, and try to sleep. Without my medication my mind races. Stress, fear and disbelief keep me wired and awake. The noise of jail night life conspire to make sleep fitful at best.

I drift off to sleep praying Save me God. Save me God. Save me God.

Tomorrow offers new hope.

Jail Chronicles, Chapter 2

For a minute I considered not going. Hell, several times I considered not going. But I knew not going would just make the situation worse. It would compound the problem and double the stress I was already living with. Maybe the knot in my gut was just the money issue.

I got to the courthouse that morning with plenty of time to spare. From the look of things, I was the first person there. I checked the morning docket list posted outside the courtroom. H….Ha…..He…..He….Hu….. uh wait, what? No Hood. I looked again, not there. I read the entire morning docket, no Hood. I checked the afternoon docket. Not there either. I’m not on the docket at all.

I won’t lie. For a minute or two, or even five, I thought “Awesome!! I’m not on the docket! I can leave!” and I almost did. But I thought “I’d better ask someone. What if they missed my name when they typed up the list and I *am* supposed to be here and my name shows up on the judge’s docket. If I missed this court date there would be a warrant issued on the spot. Better to avoid a warrant.

I went to the clerk’s office to check in. “Excuse me, can you help me? I have a court date today and my name does not appear on the docket.” She looked in her computer. She looked on the docket. She asked for my name. She asked again. She went and checked at someone else’s desk. The more she looked, the bigger the knot in my stomach grew. I knew that this was not going to end well. But really, what could I do?

The deputy comes into her office, and me, in a state of denial and pure hopefulness, convince myself that he’s here for an entirely different reason. He’s one of thoseI deputies. You know the ones. The young, the proud, the I-can’t-crack-a-smile-because-I-take-my-job-way-too-seriously kind. He has traded in his sense of humor and his smile for a badge and a gun. Turns out I was too late. A warrant had been issued for my arrest the day before.. Their computer system said my court date was the day before. My papers said today. “Do you have the papers with you?” they asked.

No. Foolishly, I trusted them and the system to do it’s job. “I believed in the competency of your office to keep the dates right. I won’t be making that mistake ever again. “

For once I was trying to do the right thing, do the responsible thing, follow the stupid rules and it bites me in the ass.

And it took a HUGE bite of my ass.