Perfection, thy name is Gerard

For the record...

It's 11:56 p.m. and I'm watching "300" for the well-over 300th time. And can I just say-

GERARD BUTLER.

*Dreamy sigh*

So beautiful I can even look past the Scottish accent coming from a Greek warrior's mouth.

Perfection, thy name is Gerard.

Me and four fleas

Tonight was a relaxing evening in our humble abode. Hubs and I were deeply engrossed in a phenomenal episode of "Dr. G, Medical Examiner" and couldn't wait to find out who the third burnt body was, and how the hell did he end up with the Mexican Mafia guy?

PPT was watching The Military Channel in the playroom and asking rousing questions like, "Did Adolf Hitler kill himself before he was caught?" and "Did you know that China has been at war for over 200 years?" Damn that Current Events class he's been taking in school. The other day he actually asked me what I thought of the $750 billion dollar bailout plan. I just blinked and walked away.

The Dictator was on the computer under the pretense of playing games on Cartoon Network, but I'm fairly positive he was perusing midget porn or looking up ingredients for a McGyver house bomb. That's just how he rolls.

All in all, a soothing, electricity-hogging night.

Then, as I was rubbing Good Dog's large belly, this happened:

M: You're so cute, Good Dog, yes you are, you're such a good...WHAT. THE. HELL. IS. THAT? Oh my God, it's a flea. It's a freaking flea. Good Dog has a flea. I'm going to barf. Seriously. Get me a...OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD, there's another one. What are we going to do? If there's two fleas, that means there's 300 fleas, and-

H: Calm down. It's just a flea.

M: No, it's TWO fleas. Which means 8004 fleas. Which means they're going to crawl up my nose and eat out my eyeballs when I sleep and-

At this point, I've started scratching my arms like some sort of heroin addict on a bad fix. And I'm on a mission. A mission, dammit. I'm going to find every damn flea I can and make it suffer. Because that, you dirty little vampires, is how I roll.

I call Bad Dog over, and she immediately flops on her back for a tummy rub...and WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS? Two more fleas. Sons of bitches.

Now I'm in a full fledged panic.

M: Oh my God, what are we going to do? Do we have to bomb the house? What if they eat The Dictator whole? What if we wake up and he's missing because the Flea Tribe has carried him off in the middle of the night to meet their leader and he's going to be their human sacrifice, because you know there are 4 billion of them in the house now and-

H: Seriously.

M: I'm going to Petco, and I'm going to buy every single flea product I can find to wipe this whole God-forsaken flea species off the planet. I'll teach these little jerks who's boss around here.

And so, at 8:30 p.m. on a Thursday night, I went 185 miles per hour down Tustin Avenue to Petco. And I got flea shampoo and flea medication, and held a lengthy conversation with a Labrador owner about the benefits of neutering.

But that was just the beginning of my evening.

This was the rest of it:

1. Drag both dogs outside for a flea bath at 9:30 at night with freezing hose water. Relax, they were fine.

2. Strip their dog beds of all washable materials and put them in the washer, on high, high holy-crap-my-eyebrows-are-burning heat and the 'Sanitize' cycle. Put both dog collars in there too. EVEN THE LEATHER ONE.

3. Vacuum the ENTIRE house. At 10:00. Move everything. Fleas are tricky little bastards.

4. Scrub walls behind dog bed area with baby wipes, because...well shit, I have no idea why.

5. Stay up waiting for dryer cycle to be done with dog beds so I can put the white load I need by tomorrow in the dryer.

6. Blog about it at 11:40 p.m. and watch Snakes on a Plane to stay awake.

And so, my peaceful little evening turned into a flea hunt of epic porportions. I'm scouring every square inch of this house looking for the fallen fleas' angry brethren, and when I find them, they'll wish they'd never stepped foot on Good Dog or Bad Dog.

But here's a neat little fun fact: fleas can't swim. They paddle their loathsome little legs and try, but they can't. So hypothetically, if you were to get a plastic Islands cup full of water and shove them in there, they would drown. And you could watch and laugh maniacally at their suffering.

You know, hypothetically.

I'm never going in the kitchen again

If you happen to live in the city of Orange and see a fat, freckled redhead galloping down the street barefoot, boobies flopping in the wind, and she's screaming like she hasn't been on her meds for a few months, that's probably me.

Because as I was minding my business, tooling away on the computer, I glanced over and saw this on my kitchen wall.

Freaking sonofabitching ninja cricket.

Bastard can have the kitchen. I'll blog from the front porch.

You just wait another six hours until Babe wakes up...then your nasty cricket ass is grass, shithead.

GNO & the BEST. GAME. EVER.

Sunday night was our monthly Girls' Night Out (GNO), and this month, my pal Anita was nice enough to host us for an evening of eating, playing 8th grade paper games and screaming loud enough to wake not only her little girl, but the whole damn neighborhood. Thanks Neeters!

The Guy That's Snoring on the Couch has these fantasies about what we gals do at GNO. His fantasies involve Catholic school uniforms, pillow fights and high pitched giggling. He's a little off base.

Want to know what us party animals really do at GNO? We eat. A LOT.

And we laugh. And we tell stories about vaginas, and childbirth, and all kinds of nasty stuff you don't even want to know about. And we take 4002 pictures of ourselves on Vern's camera and put stickers on the ends of our already huge and massively accentuated noses.

Oh wait, that's just me. Holy shit, I only have one (very pointy) chin! It's a Christmas Day miracle! The cute one with scary earrings is Gina, by the way.

But we've never had a naked pillow fight. And I don't think any of us even owns a Catholic School uniform. Sorry, Hubs.

We did play the best game EVER, which I simply can't recommend highly enough. Appropriately titled "The Paper Game" (an ode to our 8th grade creativity), here's the gist of it: each person goes around and says something they've never done. For example, "I've never had sex with an animal." Then, everyone who has done that thing (in this case, someone who's had sex with a goat, cow, sheep...you get the picture) puts a piece of paper in the middle of the table and everyone in the room now knows that person has screwed a hairy creature of some sort.

Really, it's a compassionate game, because said person never even has to tell anyone they like to get it on with dogs...we all just know because of their pristine white scrap of paper.

Don't judge.

I'd fill you all in on some of the topics we discussed, but I'm afraid a gang of middle class, almost-middle-aged, church-going women would bum rush me and burn me at the stake this evening.

Good times.

I love you all, and for the record, there's nobody I'd rather be talking about threesomes and vericose veins with.

Big green wiener

This weekend was one big, long sports fest for our family. PPT had a football game Friday, two football games Saturday and a baseball game on both Saturday and Sunday, and The Dictator had a soccer game Saturday. Babe and I were juggling kids, which sucks but is a necessity.

Anyway, I was going to do this post about how amazing PPT is at both football and baseball. And I was going to post this picture and talk about how much I love him, and how proud I am of the person he's become.

But then I downloaded this picture, and realized he's holding his bat like it's a big, green wiener. And I can't stop giggling about it, so the mother in me is gone and the 13-year old boy has taken over. Sorry.

But really...BIG. GREEN. WIENER.

*Giggle*

Communication is key

The Dictator and I were reading a book about whales last night:

M: When whales want to communicate, they make...?

D: Babies!

*Note to self: Hubs is no longer allowed to speak to The Dictator. Somehow, this is his doing.

Dear Time Warner Cable

Dear Time Warner Cable,

Pardon my language, but just shitgoddamnasssonofabitch you.

It's 12:20 a.m. on a Monday morning, and I'm finally sitting down anxiously to watch my DVR-ed episode of Dexter I've been looking forward to all night. Yes, it means I'll be up until 1:15 on a work night, but for my adorable little serial killer, I'm willing to make the sacrifice. This simply can't wait until tomorrow.

So I cozy down in my loveseat and start my beloved Dexter, and all is right in the world. Until I realize that holy shitbricks and coffee cakes, I'm going to have a seizure any minute. Why, Time Warner Cable, you want to know why?

Because you suck ass. And my digital cable looks like it's being run by a crack whore all juiced up on speed. My eyeballs are shaking from trying to focus, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a migraine in 14 minutes. Maybe I'll try crossing my eyes and jumping up and down, because judging by the quality of the "picture" on my TV, that might actually work.

I hate you. And Dexter hates you. Ack. That's all I have to say to you.

Bite my ass,

Shannon
A horribly pissed-off Orange customer, currently making plans to call The Dish Network asap.

P.S. If you'd like to keep me as a bill payer, fix my Dexter. And find out what's up with Jimmy Smit's accent. Why is every other word he says in Spanish? I can barely keep up with this intelligent series banter in English, now I have to figure out Spanish too? Great.

Reason #12,643 that I'm the best parent on Earth

Last night, I actually said these words to PPT:

"Opinions are like assholes, sweetie...everyone's got one and most of them stink."

Maybe I should call Kaiser and see if they have a child psychologist.

You know, just in case.

Note to self

*Note to self: Don't ever Google Image 'warts'. EVER.

Dear Taco Bell Lettuce Gnome

Dear Taco Bell Lettuce Gnome,

Why do you feel it necessary to ruin my dining experience?

For years, I've been going to Taco Bell and ordering the same thing...a taco with no lettuce and a soft taco with no lettuce. For a long time, my tacos were correct and lettuce-free, and all was right in the world. But the last few years, I started noticing that my tacos are not correct, nor are they lettuce-free, and I could never figure out why. I've pondered and struggled to understand, and I think I finally get it.

It's you, isn't it, Taco Bell Lettuce Gnome? It's you.

You lurk behind the steel bins full of processed meat and cardboard lettuce, waiting for a chance to get your revenge on all of mankind for whatever harm was done to you as an innocent toddler Gnome. You wait, giggling and rubbing your hands together maniacally while you devise your master plan, until you hear the magic words: NO LETTUCE. Then...you spring into action.

You watch the Taco Bell workers carelessly gather up the rubber meat and plastic cheese and toss it on the tortilla. Then, as they turn their hair-netted heads to double check the paper order, you pounce, gently placing one little piece of disgusting, wretched lettuce in the taco. The workers, too busy and full of hatred for that little mircophone in the drive-thru, don't even notice you. But your evil plan has worked. You've now officially ruined my tacos. Both of them. And all it took was 10 centimeters of that horrid green shit.

Why, Taco Bell Lettuce Gnome, why? Why do you desire to destroy my nourishment? What have I done to upset you so? Please let me know, and I will fix it immediately. I'd like my tacos lettuce-free again.

And in the meantime, I'm ordering the nachos and a cheese roll.


Sincerely,
Shannon
A Huntington Beach/Orange Taco Bell patron

P.S. I drive a silver 2005 Mazda MPV, and am always very nice to the cashier. Even when he calls me "Honey", which makes me want to bash his friendly little face in.