Grim Reaper Gallows Humor

It’s another Prompt For The Promptless - Gallows Humor is humor that makes fun of a life-threatening, disastrous, or terrifying situation.

And often to scaredy-cat me, not funny at all.

Except when it’s in cartoon form.  Then it’s funny.

From http://themetapicture.com

From the book “All My Friends Are Dead”

 

Going Listy in the Moonlight

Moon (Photo credit: shahbasharat)

Daily Prompt:  The Satisfaction of a List

Who doesn’t love a list? So write one! Go silly or go deep, just go list-y.

Ten Songs I Like About the Moon

1.  It’s Only a Paper Moon  Ella Fitzgerald http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gapCK5_rMuY

2.  Bad Moon Rising  Creedence Clearwater Revival  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YlTUDnsWMo

3.  Moon River  Andy Williams http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QaFd59bjCE

4.  Harvest Moon  Neil Young  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj6xkMl0yyg

5.  Fly Me To the Moon  Rod Stewart http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfd9z968CbY

6.  How High the Moon  Emmy Lou Harris   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2cgpNr-dpo

7.  Dancing in the Moonlight  King Harvest  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5JqPxmYhlo

8.  Moondance  Van Morrison  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy25lRydw6A

9.  Blue Moon  Dean Martin  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3gFEkgrT0

10.  Yellow Moon  Neville Brothers  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTJyExd4dmw

Honorable mention as well to Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig Van Beethoven, a piece I would like more if I had not been forced to mutilate it on the piano as a child.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQVeaIHWWck

Moon and Saturn / Maan en Saturnus (Photo credit: Arjan Almekinders)

 

 

 

Just Jazzy 77

I organize my housework by dividing it into categories: things I won’t do right now, things I won’t do later, and things I will do after I die.

 

Christmas Maladies

Christmas gifts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, it is a joyous time of year, filled with celebration and good will.  But it also makes all of us a little crazy in one way or another. If you haven’t suffered from any of these Christmas-specific maladies, ailments or disorders, I’m sure you can think of someone you know who has.  A malady is a state in which you are unable to function normally and without pain.  And there are many different kinds and degrees of pain.

1.  Malady of the Christmas Spirit, or melancholy, discontent.  Let’s get this one out of the way first.  For some people this seems to be a chronic illness for which there is no cure.  Something bad happened in Uncle Harry’s  life, it coincided with the holidays, and forever after, this is what sets the mood for his bah-humbug depressing attitude.  Even if his life is now one of comfort and joy, he choses to dwell on some former disappointment or tragedy as if it robbed him forever of his Christmas spirit.  Get the hell over yourself Uncle Harry.  Nobody wants to deal with your witches brew of emotional explosives, not knowing if this year it will be the egg nog or the stuffing that sets you off.  We’re here for a good time.  Set aside your sad memories and enjoy these moments with the rest of us.  Let this be the happy time you remember.

2.  Decubomania, or The Christmas Collapse.   I love it that there is a word (decubomania) for the urgent desire to lie down.  This malady can be particularly debilitating when it strikes in the middle of a busy shopping mall or halfway through dinner.  It is an abrupt failure of function caused by complete physical exhaustion.  Symptoms include saying things like ”my legs won’t move”, or “this fork is too heavy”, followed by glazed over eyeballs and difficulty responding to outside stimuli.  Often the condition is caused by an unreasonable insistence by the individual affected that others submit exactly to his or her way of doing things, or an unreasonable reluctance to allow others to do things for them in his or her own way.  Give up some of the control before it kills you.  Who cares if the tree looks like monkeys decorated it or there’s half a roll of tape holding wrinkled wrapping paper together on Aunt Sally’s gift.  You’re not perfect, and this does not have to be the perfect Christmas.  Sit down and put your feet up.  And don’t apologize for it either.

3.  Obsessive Compulsive Christmas Disorder   This is the compulsion to make lists and schedules while being rigid and inflexible about the things that have to get done and setting written in stone deadlines for their completion.  Why do we insist on setting ourselves up for such massive guilt trips?  We didn’t get all those home-made gifts finished and there wasn’t time to make short bread and the mail order personalized perfect whatsit failed to arrive before the 25th.  Oh well.   Don’t try to fight the list making compulsion because, believe me since I speak from personal experience, it’s one of the hardest habits to kick.  But do add a list of reasons why task completion may not occur.  Then when something goes wrong (and something always goes wrong) you can point to your list of random reasons and say, See?  I KNEW we could  have a fluke monsoon here this month and that there was quite possibly going to be a fresh cranberry militant workers strike in South America.  Talk about your Acts of God.  I am SO not responsible for any of this.

4.  Christmas Hoarder Disorder   This condition strikes those of us who are not capable of disposing of worn out or insignificant things even when they no longer have any sentimental meaning or value.  Perhaps they never did.  Possibly we had parents who saved things for a rainy day, or “just in case”, or simply felt bad about throwing something perfectly good in the garbage and we feel powerless to break with this tradition.  And so we hang on to it, even though it’s the sixth or seventh brightly colored plaid flannel shirt in a size too small from our loving mother who keeps having the same gift idea year after year.  And then there’s that construction paper wreath with the glued on crap that keeps falling off because of all those crazy colored finger paint ridges and bumps and sparkles and sequins and ratty ribbon.  Come on.  Even the child who made that and is now a grown up is embarrassed that it’s still kicking around.  Throw it out.  Or put it on your Christmas Yule Log and enjoy the flames.

5. Doromania   An unusual urge or preoccupation with the giving of gifts.  Thank you Wordnik for putting a label on this epidemic which sweeps across our continent every December.  We ask people what they want.  We force them to make a list!  We end up either giving too many things to one person, or one small  thing to way too many people.  Do you really feel obligated to purchase a box of chocolates for your paper boys grandmother?  Or tuck a little something in an envelope for your favourite clerk at the coffee shop?  STOP THAT!  It only makes people feel bad that they don’t have anything to give back to you or that they didn’t think of it first.  And please try to resist the urge to buy one more little thing to go with the gift that you believe isn’t quite enough.  Because you will end up getting two little extra things.  And in your misguided attempt to make things even for everyone involved, you will eventually need a calculator and a balance sheet and (God help us) maybe even another LIST to keep it all straight.  Most people will not be keeping notes on what you gave to everyone or trying to figure out how much more you love the person on whom you spent that extra five bucks. It is a lovely thing to want to give.  It is a disorder to give too much and not know when to stop.

6.  Gluttonous Holiday Overindulgence.  Everything looks and smells so good.  There are treats and delicacies and goodies that you won’t see again for another whole year.  So you sample and indulge and taste and savor.  You appreciate, you enjoy, you close your eyes and stuff your face with one or two or several helpings of everything you’re offered.  Just remember, there is a fine line between ‘luxuriate’ and ‘wallow’.  All that delicious food and drink can send you staggering off the edge of reason and you could end up suffering for your pleasure, with severe indigestion, intense heartburn,  or a killer Christmas hangover.  Moderation my friend – spread the fun out a little more thinly and make it last longer.  There will be turkey left for many tomorrows.  You all know I’m right about that one.

Nobody wants to be sick for Christmas.  Or sick OF Christmas or sick because of the self-induced stress related to it.  So slow down, have some fun, be grateful for your family and your friends.  Try to avoid the Christmas Maladies if you can.  And if you can’t, don’t worry.   In January they’ll all be miraculously cleared up and gone for another season.

winter_solstice_yulelog (Photo credit: USDAgov)

 

Friday the 14th

There is no rest for Our Lady of the Lists

In honour of day fourteen in my December 2012 Book of Days, here is my list of 14 random things I want to say.  I’m sorry I can’t be more specific about this particular lists contents until I’m finished writing it.  Before I went out shopping this morning I had to shuffle through that conglomeration of attempts at getting organized that you see above.  The pile of lists is considerably smaller now.  But there’s never any real end to them.  So what the hell, here’s another one.

1.  My favourite wine is on sale at Superstore this weekend so I picked up four bottles of it, and just for good measure, two more of another kind that was recommended to me by a very reliable source, also on sale.  If that isn’t enough Christmas wine to last us through the holiday, we are entirely too fond of it.

2.   W. has agreed to host one of his famous fish fries for our family over the holidays.  Delicious all you can eat fish in batter with a side of not exactly fries, but more like real English chips.  I love a man who can cook.

3.  For the first time in umpteen dozen years, I have my very own Avon lady. She is sweet and she delivers to my door.

4.  The  Bath and Body Works White Barn Sandalwood Vanilla scented candle is lovely.  I have four of them.  Because, (I don’t know), I seem to be doing things in multiples of four.  They’re a little on the pricey side, but they last a long time and the fragrance from one candle goes everywhere in the house.

5.  Apparently I have 202 followers here.  Huh.  I wonder how many of them are real people who did this on purpose?  Ultimately I don’t care.  Just seeing that number makes me smile.

It’s a number that starts with 13! Woot!

6.  This Likes badge popped up in my notifications a few days ago and it also made me smile .  Do these things come in multiples of 1337?  If so, hopefully it doesn’t take my blog another six years to make it to 2674.  I love cryptic milestones.

7.  I’m done with stocking stuffers and I’m done with gifts, except for a couple of things that are ordered and have to be delivered and should be here next week.  Expected time of arrival is now the 17th.  I can keep it together for three more days, I’m almost certain.

8.  People who love to wrap gifts are cordially invited to my house for a gift wrapping party.  It’s one of my least favourite things to do on the list of things I whine about having to do.  I was going to start it early this afternoon, but I’m putting it off and complaining about it instead.

9.  Since I’ve misplaced my recipe for a layered dip that I make every other blue moon I looked one up on allrecipes.com and found this Layered Seafood Dip which is very similar except for the addition of crab meat.  I don’t remember using that before.  But I’m going to now, and I’m sure it will be good.

10.  Against the recommendation of a very UNreliable source, I  have purchased Christmas blend Starbucks coffee.  This person told me it wasn’t very good this year.  If I started a list of all the things this lady has told me that turned out to be deluded nonsense, I’d be here all day.  So I won’t start.  And I’m sure the coffee will be fine.

11.  I think I’m down to only two lists now, not counting this one!  But, you know, the day isn’t over.

12.  W is going to come with me to do the final grocery shop (which never ends up being final, no matter how many damn lists you stuff in your handbag).  We’re aiming for Monday to pick up most of the perishables and produce and fresh things that, if they didn’t go bad, we’d stock up on in October just to avoid the crowds.

13.  If he’d come with me today I could have had him carry six clinking bottles of wine in two plastic bags across a slushy slippery parking lot fearing for his life.  Liquor store parking lots are not for the faint of heart.

14.  Fourteen was a rather ambitious number of items to aspire to for a list, even for me, but there it is.  The book of days is nearly halfway done!

 

Number Eleven in the Book of Days

Why does December always seem to go blasting by us like a rocket ship on crack?  Not that I’ve ever seen one of those, but it’s the eleventh already?  Really?

Gingerbread (Photo credit: Stuck in Customs)

Today was another very productive day for me at work where I compiled several long lists of things I have to get done in the next 14 days.  The gifts are pretty much finished (YAY!!) and now we’re on to ingredients for things that I just might get around to making, if I have the ingredients.  I try to bake shortbread cookies and butter tarts, and make at least one pan of fudge.  And that’s it, because the adults complain that they shouldn’t be eating any of those things.  (They also complain if they’re missing.)  And it’s best not to have an unlimited supply of sweet stuff and risk having the kids go into a sugar coma.

I even got around to doing some menu planning and thinking about kid activities like building a gingerbread house and making a fruit punch.  (To which the rest of us can add copious amounts of vodka after they go to bed.)  And that reminds me that we have to take a trip to the liquor store and make some kind of educated guess as to how much red wine grandma will need to make it through the holidays.

Here’s some great music to do your Christmas baking by – but I’ll warn you now, it will make you want to add a dash or two of Jamaica Rum to your gingerbread.

 

Over the Second Cup

Good morning world.  In my little spot on the planet the snow is coming down so heavily it looks like a thick fluffy blanket hanging from the sky.  We’re stuck in one big crazily shaken snow globe.  I’ll be out there driving in it soon.  Yay.  But not before I finish my second cup of coffee while writing yet another installment for the ongoing saga of my life in lists.  Man, I love lists.  Whoever invented lists is my hero.

These are my random thoughts for the day, in no well thought out order whatsoever.

1. The election is over at last for our American friends, and, for whatever it’s worth, this Canadian is happy with the results.  What’s good for you is often also good for us.  And I’m so sick of hearing all things political at the moment but I’m sure my little sigh of relief was lost in the great collective one to the south of us.  Time for some serious back to normal.

2.  Having a house husband around certainly has its perks.  I can give him a grocery list, and he goes off and buys stuff.  Last night when I came home he was barbecuing pork chops in the garage.  Yes, I think he does realize it’s November, but his barbecuing compulsion is proving to be a hard one to shut down.  Maybe by Christmas he’ll give it up.  Then I’ll get him going on the George Foreman Grill.  I may never cook again.

3. W has just informed me that we have a heavy snow fall warning in effect in our area and that it’s supposed to keep right on snowing all day long.  See how useful he can be?  He loves his snow blower even more than he loves the barbecue.

4.  December is the deadest month there is in the optical business.  Nobody that I know of ever decides to put a brand new pair of glasses in a childs stocking.  For the rest of this month and into the next, my working hours have been cut back, supposedly to make the wages number look better on paper.  But I also have been given the time off over Christmas that I requested, so I am not going to utter even one word of complaint.  Well, okay, maybe one.  But no more than that.  This will give me more time to shop and to make probably twice as many lists as I would have done with a normal work schedule.  So everybody wins.

5.  Thanks to sillyliss, one of my awesome blogging friends, for a lovely comment in which she mentioned the name of an author I greatly admire. I have downloaded the newest Kate Morton book to my kindle – The Secret Keeper.  That would no doubt be a great one for curling up with when we’re snowed in.  And can’t make it to work.  Even though it’s like a ten minute drive away on a normal day.  Well it’s a nice thought anyway.

My second cup is empty.  My list is done.  As long as the world never runs out of coffee, I feel like I can face anything it throws my way.  Or at least have the strength to make a list of all the reasons why I can’t.

 

Self Indulgence Haiku

Breathing, coffee, sleep,

time to think and time to write,

my greatest pleasures.

My list book suggested making a list of my guilty pleasures.  Pleasures should never make a person feel guilty – unless the whole point is getting away with doing something you shouldn’t be doing.  I suppose there’s a certain amount of fun in that.

I wanted to work ‘bacon’ into the above haiku, but gave up.  It deserves honorable mention though.  W made breakfast this morning.  I love a man who knows how to cook bacon so that every bit of it is crispy and not one bit of it is burnt.  He has an infinite amount of patience with some things, and slow cooking bacon to perfection is one of them.

So I had a choice this morning – write something interesting, or sit down and indulge in the best bacon and egg breakfast I’ve had in a very long time.  And the winner is…..

English: Open face bacon and egg sandwich (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Books and Lists and New Age Twists

These two books are full of writing prompts – Listography, Your Life in Lists by Lisa Nola, and 642 Things To Write About by the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto (many contributors).

I guess they’re actually journals that are supposed to be filled in.  But where’s the spell check fun in that?

  There’s one list suggestion that I will probably fill out but not share – “List Your Memorable Injuries and Illnesses”.  I know, it would make fascinating reading for somebody, but I really can’t think who that sad person might be.

I am also reading (at the same time, back and forth from one book to the other) Survival of the Soul by Lisa Williams, and Wicca, A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, by Scott Cunningham.  If you were to make a wild guess that I spent some time in the New Age and Occult section of Chapters the other day, you would be right.

When I start browsing in a bookstore there’s no foretelling the things I’ll end up bringing home.

Well maybe a clairvoyant could predict it, but it’s all news to me.

It’s absolutely amazing to me all the things that are out there to be pondered over and learned, and how we have so many preconceived notions about so many things that could quite possibly be completely wrong.

And yet….when you get right down to the bottom of things, the basic premises are so similar it’s incredible.  And thus doubly astonishing that there are some religious groups out there trying so hard to compete with each other to prove who’s the most right.  In these two books, Lisa Williams explains what she knows about the afterlife and how she knows it; and Scott Cunningham explains the beliefs, philosophies, tenets and rituals of Wicca.  No one is trying to convert you to anything.  How refreshing is that?

Well it’s damned refreshing, is what it is.  I think religion and spirituality are very individual and personal things, and different beliefs comfort different people.  How very boring this world would be if we were all the same.  And how very little we’d learn from each other.

I’m also reading a book on my kindle, but I’ll do a separate review of that when I’m finished, unless my head is so full of lists and topics and spirit guides and signs and symbols and deities that I never get through it.

With all this knowledge in my head, maybe someday I’ll be interesting to talk to.  There is some method to my madness.

 

What Happiness Is

Yay, it’s another LIST!  I live for lists.  When I got home from work yesterday I realized that I’d been relatively happy all day long.  How odd.  I need to figure out why so I can do that again sometime.

Happiness Is……

 - waking up before the alarm goes off and realizing I can go back to sleep for another hour.

- having enough time to finish my morning coffee.

- booking extra walk-in eye exam appointments for the doctor so he has a much less crappy day.

- finding out all my contact lens patients have rescheduled or cancelled.  Proving my theory that if people book on a Saturday they will always think of something better to do with their weekend.

- listening to a wild and crazy thunderstorm and the rain pounding on the roof.

- realizing the rain has finally stopped right after remembering my umbrella is in the car.

- getting everything finished and clocking out on time because no crazy person wandered in after I turned the lights out to ask if we were closed.

- finding out it rained so hard it beat all the dirt off my car so now I don’t have to wash it.

- not having to stop and pick up anything on the way home.

- discovering I didn’t leave the bedroom window wide open after all.

- eating a piece of toast slathered with Nutella.  Knowing nobody saw me do that.

- watching “Water for Elephants” on Netflix, skipping over the cruel and brutal parts and replaying the touching scenes one more time.

- knowing that I’ve made it through yet another day, unharmed, still breathing, and mentally sound.  (Well, two out of three ain’t bad.)

It’s been raining all night long.  Our lawn is as green as a golf course and the air is so fresh it makes me want to breathe in and never exhale.  Have a Happy end-of-a-splendid-week-end Sunday.