'Memba Bartles & Jaymes?

Every time I type a letter for this doc, I think of these guys:



She says, "Thank you for your kind referral and continued support."

I'm such a loser

After a long night, this just tickles me no end:

"She is referred to me
by Dr. McKee
for evaluation of her knee."

Help me.

How did I miss this???

Obviously, this would have been more effective before 12/25, but better late than never.

I graduated 20 flippin' years ago.

So, I'm doing the Facebook thing. Meh. I officially feel like I'm trying NOT to act my age...even more so than usual.

So, I've got the flu (thank you, son). I can't keep my mind on what I'm supposed to do (the bone marrow transplant guru at Sitemann). So what do I do?

I find my high school class on Facebook.

It's nice to know (or pathetic to realize) that I still have the same criterion of friendship (whom will I snobbishly invite to be my friend?) now as I did then.

Did they ride in my 1964 T-bird? Would I still allow them to ride in it now (if I still had it)?

I contacted three people.

Yeah, I don't want to be my friend either, but I'm kinda stuck with me.

Funny. I missed the reunion this summer, and it doesn't bother me a bit. There are a few people I'd like to contact but they, too, wouldn't be disappointed that they missed the reunion and that is probably why they're not listed on the high school Facebook page.

I have a feeling that Facebook is the greatest stalking tool EVER.

I HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED AS SOMEONE'S FRIEND.

This is better than my "You've got mail!" phase.
What I learned today: If a child fails Cereal Box Opening 101, it is asinine to assume that he's ready for Kibbles-N-Bits 201. This lack of readiness leads to Advanced Dustpan Use 307 and Anger Management at a postgraduate level that is bundled in the DSM-IV psychoanalysis course

Worse, by comparison?

The only thing worse than having a tape where the doctor's voice is clear as crystal but there is a jackhammer noise in the background covering it alllll up...is the chicken-scratch writing he uses to fill in the blanks you left him.

Then he faxes it. On a yard-sale special. Running out of ink.

I just had to laugh...or I'd cry. I think I might be able to fill in two of the blanks out of, oh, 20 or so. Miracles 'R Us. That's me.

I wonder if he'd notice if I filled in every blank using Mad Libs for inspiration.

"Crohn's disease and FUZZY crypt abscesses with inflammation, enteritis, and colitis in the past. DARK BURGERS. She had a flare-up with active ileocolitis, where she actually needed surgery. She also was told to start SNOWING, but she did not want to because SNOT. She now continues to have about one to two bowel movements a day, which are liquid and BLUE. There is no blood. The patient has lower abdominal pain, which COVERS stool HIGHWAY GYN surgery, CUCUMBER diagnosis."

Criminy.

*NOUNS, ADJECTIVES, ETC. BY KITKAT. No lie. I shot her IM to give me random stuff.

Hear ye, hear ye!

I have updated the SapphireTigress.com. Go. Laugh at my creative ineptitude.

If you do anything...if you ever read anything I've ever written, read this:

The Trouble With Trebuchets

I looked through my site, making sure all the links worked, and I had to reread it. I think it's probably the best thing I've ever written.

Have a good weekend, all.

Today's Random

Is it so wrong to want a cattle prod to make life easier when it's time to get the kids up for school?

This is my idea of a morning!

more animals

It's my daughter's, too.

I'm a writer! Officially! Well, kinda

I saw an ad for a writer, so I actually made my first writer's resume. In my cover letter, I thought about what I could say to make me more interesting more appealing. We know I don't need to be any more interesting.

Anyway, just for kicks and giggles, I googled my African soft furred rat page.

Google Returns for the rats...

The 2nd link down? That's flippin' MINE. MINE. I included that in the cover letter, some smug comment about how a current search of the Internet for the page revealed mine at #2 out of

hits with lots of zeros behind it.

I may never get this job of my dreams. It's an Internet ad, so who knows if it truly exists? But somewhere, in that process, I wrote something that mattered. Not only the page for the softies, but I listed my skills on that resume. I included my rejection letter in my skills. It's bravery, of a sort, to put myself out there, just like putting that manuscript in a box and mailing it. I already e-mailed the resume, and realized that there was something not grammatically incorrect, but I used the wrong word.

Doesn't matter, to me, at this moment.

I know what I am.

I know what I can do.

I am interested in anything I don't know and want to find more details about what I already do.

I want to be able to start an intelligent conversation with a goatherd, a prison inmate, a toothbrush maker, or a retired railroad engineer. In order to do that, one must have a basic knowledge, a springboard, to at least know what kind of questions to ask to get the fullest out of the conversation.

I know I can do that with a lot of people, but not universally...yet. I'm working on it!

My ego is celebrating. I may never see one of my books get in a binding, but I'm #2 out of a million--for something I wrote.

Not quite one in a million, but close.

This is why the old woman swallowed the fly.

I think I know why that old woman swallowed the fly.

She had too many critters. They made her crazy, and she'd had it.

Once she started with the fly, it got easier...

It all started with five gerbils, whom I stole from my husband.

Let me tell you about Ashlee. She's my most prolific gerbil. She also makes the most beautiful gerbils, too. She makes silver, blond, peach, gray, and nearly white.

Imagine my joy...when she had nine.

Nine.

All healthy, perfect and booful, just like their mother and their father, Chester. He's all silver and quite a looker. Months went by and no gerbils. I thought maybe Ashlee was past her prime, enjoying growing old with our lovely Mr. Chester. Greg Graziani has a theory on barometric pressure, which I now totally endorse, and African-originating animals. If it rains, it pours...

animals of African origin.

I have six gerbil enclosures. I have lots and lots of silver ones. In fact, when Ashlee got tired of her first set of offspring vying for her mate, I pulled her out (she can kick some serious gerbil butt) and put her in a cage of her own. Gerbils, however, do not like being alone. They get depressed, and a lone gerbil is a mean gerbil. I've heard many times that someone bought a gerbil and took it home, only to have it bite the heck out of them. There's a reason for that. They need another gerbil or two.

So, I introduced Ashlee to Chester. They took an instant liking to one another. And there was peace amongst the gerbils and Ashlee's former cagemates did this:



In unison, aaaaaaaaaaw. Cuteness to make us hurl.

Where was I? Oh. Nine. Nine precious little ones. When their fur grew, we went crazy. We had another snowball looking thing. More silvers. More blondes. And one little Chester Jr.

Who's been nothing but a thorn in my side.

I've had baby gerbils in this cage before, no problems. Heck, Ashlee's first litter resided in this cage. These little guys, though, are Houdini people. Several got out the other day, but were tame enough for me to put my hand on the floor and they crawled on it.

Not with Chester Jr. Wood floors + knees + fanny in air + mild profanity + begging a 5-cm gerbil = very funny, glad no one was here to witness it.

I got him back.

I have nowhere else to put them, but young gerbils grow quickly. Feed and distract has been my attack with extra food and constant supply of what KitKat calls "gerbil crack," i.e., paper products, which they will shred endlessly.

Except Chester Jr.

This runt won't grow. I have the gooseneck lamp on my desk trained on the cage, which is on a medium-sized bookcase. Why? I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and I catch little Mr. Chester Jr in the act, hold out my hand, he crawls on it, and I put him back.

For two days, no Junior looking down upon me as I worked.

I heard something rattle around under my desk behind my under-desk plastic stackable drawers. A paper not quite shut in the bottom drawer bounced.

I counted the gerbils in the cage.

Yep, Junior, out to terrorize again.

I waited. I felt him cross my foot, but he darted behind another bookcase. Patiently, I waited. He never goes far.

Fur against my foot again. I look down.

It's not Chester Jr. It's the CAT.

This is trouble.

Okay, maybe not. Mr. Purr likes to play with his food and then leave it after he loves it to death...

He won't kill it...

He's smaller than me...

He fits in those little nooks...

So I let Purr do the stalking.

Mr. Sapphire woke up, and I'm thinking I'm finally getting him back for the Moonlight escapade. I've got the gooseneck lamp following the path of the gerbil and the cat. My workstation is comprised of two desks sitting perpendicular and a narrow bookcase sitting at the junction.

The gerbil ran from one side of a desk leg to the other, and the cat, stuck by the bookcase, leapt back and forth to each side...

Then shut off my computer.

My work was saved, though. Lucked out there.

For 15 minutes, Purr and Junior went back and forth by the desk leg. Then, Junior decided to take a narrow path behind the other desk and make a run for under the bed.

Mr. Purr is 18 pounds or better. Mr. Purr does not do well running under the bed, but he tried his best.

His head bumping on the box springs, to the head, to the side, to the head, to the base, and then he shot out, hot on the trail of a little gray gerbil, who went right back to the spot where it all began.

Good thing I hadn't turned my computer back on, yet.

I put a crick in the gooseneck lamp's neck.

Finally, Purr tired the poor gerbil out. The gerbil came close, I scooped him up, and put him back in the cage, with more food.

I keep checking for Houdini to reappear. Purr's still trying to figure out what happened to his playmate.

In the shadows of the dark, I see the little gerbils climb. I want to take time and figure out HOW they're getting out, but I already spent a good half hour watching Purr corner Junior until I got him. Safe and sound (for now), Purr's left to patrol Mr. Sapphire's feeder mice, trying to get a piece of that action, too.

And I really entertained thoughts about breeding lion-head rabbits. What was I thinking?

Which self-help book do you recommend?

And you only think you're codependent.

I've had to cancel dinner plans twice. My life is so on schedule that any change and, wham, I have to scramble. I'm so freaking far behind. I'm so tired of not getting what I expect. Dinner. Help me, I just wanted dinner! Easy dinner! I had it worked into my schedule, but something came up. Lord help me...

my

crock

pot

died.

I'm actually mourning its loss, but looking for a replacement, anyway. I have to have my crock pot. I swear, its death has put me so friggin' behind. The day I found it dead in my kitchen, dinner was salvageable. The pork cooked at 8 hours for 250 degrees (in the oven) and worked out just fine.

Please consider, though, I WORK NIGHTS. The crock pot is my sure-fire way to make sure we have a good meal at least THREE TIMES A WEEK.

Chicken and wild rice? Gone. Black bean chili? Not happening. At least, not in that nice turn-the-crock-pot-on, go-to-bed, and wake-up-to-dinner kind of way.

It's still sitting in my kitchen. I'm in denial. It's like it now waits for me to come by to poke it with a stick one last time to verify its deadness. My grandfather used to do this with an old dog of his. His knees were stiff and so were the dog's, and she slept down a big step in the back patio.

I need to put the pot in the trash. It's got a beautiful green ceramic bowl thingy. I love the color. It's the perfect size for us.

Anyone have a book for THAT? Crackpot healing for crock pot weirdos?

P.S. This is written while the chicken meant for the chicken and rice is in a nice silver pot with onions and garlic, frying. Must go.

Cuteness to make you hurl.

see more crazy cat pics


see more crazy cat pics

Access my dementia...

How in the heck did GI docs make any money before colonoscopies, EGDs, and capsule endoscopies?

I definitely don't begrudge them the money. It's great and very tekkie, but I just realized I type about 50 of those reports a week combined, and that's a serious chunk of change, which makes me come back to:

What was the point of being a gastroenterologist before endoscopies? I know, I know.

I'm allowed to be random. Isn't that one of the constitutional rights?

This is us.

Welcome to St. Louis Weather.

Bitten

Okay, tell me why...

Months will pass before I get the urge to write. I never truly worry about it (other than the fact that I've never been published, have a few finished novels, and I'm getting older), because I know, eventually, I'll sit at a stoplight and figure out how telepaths and giant mutant roaches all come together for a good story.

So...this week, not only do I get a great idea for a book from a song, but I've written chapters (in my head) for the other books I've started, so I've got six different themes and an overabundance of characters taking a schizophrenic walk through my mind at any given time. Can we say be careful while working a job where zoning out could mean the difference between something in the foot and something up higher by mistyping just one letter? Can we say talking to ourselves in the kitchen, getting the conversation and inflections just right? Can we say burning dinner? Can we say Sapphire needs a laptop to put in the kitchen while she implements her cook-all-weekend plans?

It's feast or famine. I wish I knew what to blame...

Support the screenwriters...

They need your support, and please keep supporting them until I catch up on all three seasons of "Lost" at abc.com. Yeah, I know. Now I have four TV shows I have to watch, but I've made it through season one and not quite halfway through season two, so let's make sure our writers get what they truthfully deserve--royalties and respect. Just wait a couple of weeks and make them compensate you fully and enable you to reach your goals! Truly! By then, I'll be waiting for the rescue that's probably not going to be a rescue. This show is Gilligan's Island on steroids. I'm hooked, I tell you. Hooked! Hey, it's not any more unrealistic than "Grey's Anatomy."

Remember...support your writers. Thank you. Thank you, screenwriters, for giving me three seasons of mesmerizing beach scenes, things that go boom, and all the off-the-beaten-path approaches I've come to desire in the entertainment I choose. It's time like these that really make me appreciate American entertainment.

Cuteness to make you hurl your Asti Spumante

I didn't even pose them this time. Happy New Year!

Chicken. Me.

After three kids, trust me; this is the most you'll ever want to see of me.

She's inheriting my dementia...

My 13-year-old KitKat allowed me to post this. She actually wrote about me for an English paper. The title is attention getting, yes? One-two author punch!

I think she loves me. It gives me the sniffles, and my favorite presents never came with a bow, anyway. I'll add this to my list of favorite things.

Thanks again, baby. I forgive you for the in-utero stretch thing, you know, where you hit my bladder and my diaphragm simultaneously whenever I had hot coffee on my tray, taking orders at Cracker Barrel.

Play Whutzit! What's this picture?

Played with the dog this morning and took some pictures of something I thought quite beautiful. Got any guesses? The subject of the photo is the same, just different lighting and different angle.

Thought it would be fun if y'all joined in. No prizes, just some fun!

EDIT: Well, y'all amaze me. Most everyone saw the leaves and ice. This is actually the bottom of a mud puddle where ice and leaves mixed together after Alex put his paws through it. If you take a look at Alex, said puddle is right underneath him.

Thanks for playing! It helps keep the dementia at bay. Sometimes.