The Big DumpTruck

I finished! I didn't finish last year, so I am psyched that I finished this year! For those keeping count, I have participated in NaNoWriMo for 6 years, and finished 4 of those. Damn you, 2003 and 2005!








The novel is nowhere near finished or readable. I plan to keep working on it, and will keep updating my official Nano Blog. Whew!

When we were kids, we just loved all the Krofft televisions shows, didn't we? We never questioned them, either. Just love them and loved them.

I just found the opening credits to a show that I literally haven't seen since it went off the air, Bigfoot and Wildboy. Think about the pitch meeting for this one: "Okay, so you've got Bigfoot, right? He's really strong because, well, he's Bigfoot. And he finds this kid and raises him, and his name is Wildboy. So they are Bigfoot and Wildboy, having adventures, preventing crime, you know. Oh, and Wildboy wears a leather Tarzan-like outfit, but Bigfoot can be totally naked because, well, he's Bigfoot."

"I love it! You're a genius! Why hasn't anyone ever thought to do a Bigfoot and his adopted son series before? You keep an eye on your paycheck for a nice bonus!"

I drink a LOT of sparkling water, which I call bubble water. Because it is water with bubbles in it, that's why. I do not like the bubble water that has sweetener in it. That is not water. It is soda, I don't care what you say. If you take water and add raspberry flavor and Splenda (or God forbid the pink or blue stuff) it is no longer water. It is sugar free Kool-Aid. But if it's carbonated, it's soda. Done. No more discussion.
I like the flavored water, but not with sugar. So I buy Poland Spring Sparkling Raspberry-Lime by the case (we have it delivered), or I buy the plain kind. Every once in a while I will buy a case of Perrier so that I can take it with me to someone's house for dinner or whatever, and be all classy-like.
Last time I ordered water, I noticed that they were selling San Pellegrino water too. So I can now choose from American, French, or Italian bubble water. I am tri-liqual! The thing about the San Pellegrino is that it comes in glass bottles. So that is WAY classy-like. Unfortunately, I do not want to have a case of glass bottles in the house, so I may not buy them again until I have a need to impress people with the quality of the water I serve at my house. But if you like bubble water as much as I do, sign up for Poland Springs delivery. Wait, I should see if they have a referral program before I tell you to do that. Drop a note in the comments and I will look into it. I know when I first signed up, a referral would have gotten me a couple of free cases of water. That's not too shabby!

Gotta do an official Thanksgiving post. The law says so. Never you mind which law. So, in keeping with the standard Big temptress theme of pointless mundane content, I will give you an official list of things to be thankful for that doesn't include anything intended to pull on your heartstrings. There are enough other sites out there for that, and they usually have little cartoon kittens and hearts in the background. NTTAWWT.

2006 List of Things You Can Say You're Thankful For When Grandma Makes Everyone Say Something.

• The Internets. Specifically, The Google. And the ability to use The Google to look up satellite photos of our Crawford ranches.
• People who leave comments on our websites. Those people are the best people on the whole planet and also Neptune.
• I am also thankful for Neptune. Neptune rulz.
• The heater in my minivan. Good golly it's been cold this week! If Thanksgiving were in the Summer, I would be thankful for air conditioning.
• Dunkin Donuts. America runs on Dunkin. Nuff said.
• The color yellow. Last year, we thanked the color green, which then got really snotty and did not reciprocate by thanking humans. So I am no longer thankful for green, I am throwing my support behind yellow. Paid for by the committee to thank yellow.
• My fingers. I am thankful that year after year, they are here to support me and my need to type things. A special shout out to left pinky this year. He knows why.
• Q-Tips. I would lose my mind if Q-Tips did not exist. If I run out of Q-Tips I have to make an emergency run to the store to get some because I cannot go two days in a row without Q-Tips.
• Pilot EasyTouch Medium pens. There is no other pen on the planet I like as much as these, so I am thankful to the Pilot company. The Pilot Precise V5 is a close second, but it is not the EasyTouch, available at fine retailers everywhere.
• Crispy bacon. If you are like me, you know that you don't even have to explain it. I like to pretend I am living in Little House on the Prairie days when they had bacon for every meal. Bacon and potatoes, but the potatoes didn't have butter or sour cream, so that is right out. But maybe they had crusty bread and some cheese or something with their bacon. Baaaaacooooooooon.

So there you go. Cut this list out or copy it onto your hand with a Sharpie so that you'll have something to say when it's your turn. Gobble Gobble!

Saturday Junior and I took a quick trip to the grocery store to get our basic stuff, not specifically for turkey day supplies because (and here is what I am thankful for) my mom "does" Thanksgiving dinner. We will make brownies and green bean casserole and a rice dish, but that is nothing compared to the pies and the turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, etc. that she does. Thank you mom! So while in the store, I told him we needed to buy items to bring to the food pantry for the people who cannot afford to go shopping for a Thanksgiving meal. We filled a section of the cart with items - boxes of stuffing stuffing, jars of gravy, cranberry sauce, cooking oil, veggies, broth and something else I know I'm forgetting. I didn't even bother counting up how much was there.

When we got home, we pulled all those items out and put them in a large shopping bag - you know, the kind you get from Macy's with the handles? I was afraid the handles were going to break. Then we drove the bag over to Ginny's on Mechanic Street in Leominster. Ginny White is a Saint, I tell you, and Ginny's Food Pantry (and the thrift shop) are my charity of choice, especially because it goes right back into my own community. She was more than happy to take our bag of supplies (and $20 cash I gave her to go toward turkey or whatever they were short on). She told me that they were handing out the food baskets, which were actually cardboard boxes, some of which already lined one wall, Sunday and Monday. So hopefully our donation helped out. And we will do it again in a couple of weeks. I know that this is the time of year that people actually think about donating, which is great, but hunger happens 365 days a year, so my goal is that we will make this a once a month activity for the whole year. I also like to donate what I consider "staples" that are a little pricey, but necessary for cooking. I like to donate cooking oil, spices, mayonnaise, ketchup, things like that. I also like to donate toiletries, detergent, etc. which is SO expensive but SO necessary. As I said when I ran a toiletry drive at a company I used to work for - if I had to choose between razor blades and deodorant or a jar of peanut butter to feed my kids, the peanut butter would win. But without the razor blades and deodorant, it might be impossible for me to find work so that I can actually afford to keep my family fed. It's a huge balancing act, and I like to help tip it in someone's favor.

Anyway, this is just a public service announcement to remind everyone to keep an eye out for your own local food pantry this holiday season.

I are famous! Well, as famous as I can expect to be. C. Monks, who contributes to McSweeney's, has material he wrote included in their new book. People Magazine reviewed the book, and used one of his pieces in the review. I commented on the review in People Magazine, and C. commented on my comment. Now what I think I need to close the loop is for McSweeney's to review my website, or something like that.

Utter Wonder: The Idle Thoughts Of C. Monks

Oldies 103 is already playing Christmas music 24/7. Why don't they just play it all year long? Sheesh.

I adore Christmas music, you know I do. But 24 hours a day and not even Thanksgiving?

Okay, there is a Christmas special on TV right now. We didn't know it was a Christmas special; Junior actually said "Why is a Halloween movie on now?" That was a good guess as well, because we are watching...

Casper's Haunted Christmas.

Oh ya, you know it! Of course, I'm trying to work on my Nano Novel and not get distracted by shiny things, and I hear one of the ghosts tell Casper he is banished to "Christmassachusetts" which, it turns out, is actually Kriss, Mass (they showed a wooden sign). Does that mean I need to make this my new favorite holiday movie? I think Randy Travis sang the theme song, by the way. So far there have been a couple of funny in-jokes too. But I cannot watch the whole thing right now. I'm going to have to wait for another showing to enjoy the subtle nuances. I'm guessing this will be on again and again on Cartoon Network.

(One of the characters is named "Holly Jollimore." I actually knew a guy with that last name...I think he wrote for one of the local papers.) Oh, and by the way Kriss, MA is somewhere in Central MA based on a map they flashed on the screen. I'm going to pretend it's Leominster. Because I can.

This week is just a little too damp for my tastes. If I wanted to live in a misty swamp, I would move to Scotland, long ago home of my ancestors (shout out to N. Uist). [Note: Funny thing, when I did a search to find a N. Uist site to link to, the text at the top of this one says to contact a man named Donald McAuley. This is actually one of the family names that I trace back to Scotland. So shout out to cousin Donald as well!]

In fact, I just looked up the weather there and the weather here for the next 5 days. While not exactly a mirror image, I think they are close enough for hand grenades.

God, so far it stinks to high heaven. I do this every year, and every year, while I can see the page numbers increasing with each passing day, the stink factor also increases expodentially. My step-daughter asked if she could read what I had written already, and I told her no because I don't want her to read it and think that I'm a horrifically bad writer. Well, maybe I am no matter what, but I don't want her using the first 17,000 words of my nano novel as a benchmark. "Ya, my step-mom calls herself a writer but I hope she doesn't quit her day job." Well, until switching to business analyst for my current contract, I could say "hey, I am a professional writer!" for the past 17 or so years. That's kind of neat. I mean, other than looking at that number. I've been doing that for how long? Yeesh.

Okay, so anyway, I should be working on my NaNo novel instead of writing this or I'm never going to get caught up...

DisneyLies -- your source for bad Disney information

Okay, if you've ever been to Disney or ever wanted to go, this site is a laugh-out-loud fake travel guide. Everything in it is a lie - my favorite kind of site!

I have witnesses. I saw something on the way home tonight and I took the family back out with me so they could verify that I wasn't losing it. A house very definitely had a lit Chistmas Tree in their front window. A LIT CHRISTMAS TREE. I love Christmas, we've discussed that before. But I have rules and Thanksgiving is the line I have drawn for doing Christmas decorating.

On the other hand, we all watched the move Elf last night, so I have my faults as well. But watching a movie isn't the same thing as putting up the tree.

Tonight's movie, by the way, will be Cars. I love watching fun family movies!

Driving down route 495 this morning, I saw the following bumper sticker.

"Never, never, never, never shake a baby."

Sweet Jesus, where have I been? I treat babies like martinis! I really do wish I had seen this bumper sticker years ago. I feel like such a jerk now. Thank you, lady in the ratty old car, for being brave enough to take a firm stand on such a controversial topic. I hope the baby-shakers don't key your car.

Hey, Mr. Dump called a chimney sweep in Maynard (Chim Chimney) and not only did they take his call, they are going to come out and clean our chimney in less than a week! How excited am I? I can't begin to tell you. Well, I did begin to tell you, but you know, you have to fill in the blanks. It's been WAY too long since we got the chimney swept. Like, I don't think we've ever had it swept. We don't have many fires (in the fireplace, not in the chimney, duh) in any given year, and 80% of the time we're using the fake logs, so our risk is lower than a heavy wood burning fireplace. And we have used those logs that are supposed to clean out the chimney. I assume they are crap and a waste of good money, but it made us feel like we were at least giving it the old elementry school try.

Well after Tuesday I won't have to worry about it for the whole rest of the year! Woo!

Are you telling me that Britney is casting aside the boil that is her husband, useless waste of space Kevin Federline? Does this mean we won't be seeing his ugly mug on tv and magazines any more?

I don't know what to think.

A

Positively fantastic. Great script, great plot, parts of it laugh out loud funny. Humor more highbrow than what we've come to expect from a kid's movie.

I absolutely loved it. Best movie I've seen in a year or two...I think I liked it better than Cars. I actually want to see it again already, but I will wait for the DVD. *sigh*

Email conversation yesterday

Him: I'm headed to the store. Do you need anything?

Me: Yes! I need sparkly shoes, some dress pants and a tiara. And a dSLR camera and a Macintosh computer. Oh and a Tylenol because my neck hurts.

Him: One Tylenol, coming up.

He's funny, that one. And speaking of dress pants, what happened to the word slacks? You just don't hear it much anymore. Or at all, unless you spend a lot of time with folks who remember hearing the news live on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

I'm not even sure if slacks are different than dress pants. I should look up the definition of slacks, I suppose, but I'm supposed to be working on my Nano novel right now, instead of having this conversation with you. I think what I'm going to have to do is work this entire post into the novel. That's the only way to make everyone happy. Luckily, that won't be too difficult because as of this moment, 2400 or so words in, my novel is about a compulsive shopper. So actually the entire conversation is appropriate. It's just that my compulsive shopper (who I believe I will be naming Olivia (or Liv to her friends) would actually buy those items. I didn't even end up with a Tylenol.

Kerry Healy...good Lord, how can anybody vote for her?

I am 1/50th of the way toward completing the NaNoWriMo 2006 challenge. 50,000 words in 30 days. I'd stay and write more here, but these words don't count.

It was really weird to have to wake up and go to work this morning. Shouldn't Halloween always occur on a Friday or Saturday so we can sit home the next day and just eat the loot?