United Parcel Sucks

Remember last week I bitched about UPS failing to deliver a package? They left me a message with a huge freakin' tracking number that was wrong, had no record of a shipment to me under my name or under my address.

The 800 UPS lady said she would send a message to the Tulsa hub to contact me. That was last Thursday morning. Thursday, Friday, Saturday go by -- no word from the Tulsa hub. Then a post card arrives, saying "you can pick up your package at the hub between these hours."

Let's see . . . my publisher paid money to UPS to deliver this package to me. Deliver it. Am I even gonna consider driving to east Tulsa to pick it up?? I don't think so.

So I call the 800 number on the post card -- different from the one I called before -- and get a message that I can pick up the package blah blah blah. "If you'd like to make other arrangements, please press 2," the canned voice says. I press 2 so hard I damn near break a nail.

A nice guy comes on the line, verifies all the information on the card, then says, "When would you like to pick up your package?"

Uh, never. You were paid to deliver it; please deliver it.

"They tried to deliver last Wednesday, but they couldn't locate the address." So he verifies the address. Not once, but twice. The same address they've delivered at least a hundred packages to in the twelve years I've lived here.

"So you would prefer that we attempt another delivery?"

No, actually I would prefer that you actually deliver it.

"The soonest we can do that is Wednesday. If you want it before then, you'll have to pick it up at the hub."

Listen, bucko, I'm not driving fifty miles round-trip with gas at $3.19 a gallon to pick up a package that you were paid to bring to me. You're a delivery service; deliver the damn thing.

The nice guy doesn't quite stifle a sigh, one of those put-upon, why-do-I-get-all-the-difficult-customers sighs, and says, "Okay. It'll be there by close of business on Wednesday. Thank you. Have a nice day." Which really meant Go to hell.

So Wednesday comes. The package doesn't. Doesn't even make it onto a truck leaving the Tulsa hub. Why not? I dunno. Probably because UPS has collected the shipping fee. Hey, the money's in their pocket; who cares where the package is?

They called this morning and left a message that the package would be delivered by close of business today. Gee, heard that before, haven't I? I'll believe 'em when I see it. Rachel3:39 PM

Where are those damn house elves?

It's only fair that messy people should marry neat people. Do you know the chaos that results when two messy people marry?

Robert and I have lots better things to do than housework. (Anyone who says they don't is lying.) We'd rather tiptoe through the debris than spend a few hours clearing it. Oh, I go on a tear once in a while and clean/scrub/reorganize until I collapse, but right away, it gets dirty again! What's the freakin' point?

To add to our, ah, untidiness (slovenliness is such an ugly word), we live on a dirt road with a whole passel of indoor quadripeds. Between the dust and the dander, I can get a surface absolutely spotless -- shiny enough to see my own grouchy face in -- and while I'm standing there admiring it, the dust and dander start to settle again. Within an hour or so, depending on the amount of traffic on the road and the level of activity inside the house, I can write obscenities on the surface. Again, what's the freakin' point?

I wash dishes, get a drink to soothe my parched throat after all that work, and voila, there's another dirty dish. Spend the day doing laundry, undress to sink into fresh clean sheets, and leave a pile of dirty clothes behind. If I vacuum, one dash through by the dogs is all it takes to litter the floor again. I can't get ahead. I can work my fingers to the bone, and I get to enjoy the results for, oh, thirty or forty minutes. (Remember that Hoyt Axton song: "Work your fingers to the bone, and what do you get? Bony fingers.")

Granted, I've never been fond of housework. It used to involve a lot of threats from my mother when I lived at home. She told me once that she worried about me when we lived in California, because when she came to visit, I was cleaning house twice a day. (I was amazingly bored -- a depth of boredom no longer possible for me to reach. I wrote and sold my first book not long after that. I quit cleaning, too. And gave up cooking. We ate out at least twice a day for years.)

Also when we lived in California, I tried combatting the boredom by returning to school (with a major in Film and Television Production and Accounting). At the end of the semester, we were coming back to Oklahoma for Christmas as soon as my finals were over -- and I had five finals in two days. Somebody had it in for me, I was sure -- though I was offered the chance to reschedule a couple of them. I turned it down so we wouldn't have to delay our trip. If we had delayed, we would have missed the ice storm that stuck us in Texas for a couple of days. Funny how things work out, isn't it?

Anyway, so I took the finals, we packed up and headed out the next day, spent two of the coldest weeks I could remember in Oklahoma, then drove back to California. (Many years have passed, but I do still remember that it was seventy-some degrees the night we got there. For the first time in two weeks, I got warm.)

We grabbed the vital stuff -- mostly the kiddo's presents -- and hauled our tired, thawing bodies to the door. Robert unlocked the door, then let the kiddo enter first. He skidded to a stop, looked around, and said, "Oh my God, we've been robbed!"

Not robbed. While studying for and taking finals and shopping for and wrapping Christmas gifts and packing for the Christmas trip, I hadn't done any cleaning. The house only looked ransacked.

Some things never change. Rachel9:58 AM

Feels like Monday

Even if it is Tuesday. Monday holidays do that to me.

You couldn't tell it by looking at me, but I'm pretty jazzed today. I'm back to working in my office for the first time in weeks. A couple of patches of carpet got soaked back in an early spring rain, and I didn't realize it because, hey, it's a floor; there's stuff on it. "Soaked" finally turned to mildewy, moldy, and stinky, and I finally went looking for the smell and found the mess. A dozen tries at cleaning didn't work -- and I'm usually only good for one or two tries -- and my allergies were killing me -- I'm allergic to mold, and just about everything else.

I learned pretty quickly that mold doesn't want to come off carpet. Neither does moldy smell. So I grabbed some carpet deodorizer from the house and sprayed it. Heavily. I bought this stuff back when we had carpet in the house, along with dogs who were occasionally having accidents in the house. (The peeing still happens, but it's never an accident anymore.)

Let me tell you: nothing my dogs ever did on the carpet ever smelled as awful as this Arm & Hammer Spring Rain carpet stuff. It was horrible. Made my nose run and my eyes water and gave me a terrible headache. No shit, I got sick just being in the room.

So I saturated the area with Febreze (after checking the scent first). And did it again a few days later. And again. When the Arm & Hammer fumes still lingered, along with big patches of mold, I went for the final solution: I grabbed my utility knife and cut out the two sections of carpet. Fortunately, they're both in corners; the part in my office is beneath a rolling cabinet, and the other is in the store room where we'd have to tear it up eventually to do some work.

Still the A&H stench drifted on the air. So I plugged in a million of those Plug-In air freshener things, closed up the office tight, and kept my distance for a week. Good news: no A&H stench. Bad news: citrus and blueberry Plug-Ins don't mix so well in a small space. First thing this morning, I unplugged all of them, and the air's starting to smell better.

Now, on top of all that, it's been raining off and on, so it's too wet to work in the yard and we're about a third of the way back to ugly jungle again. We've got a measurable chance of rain every day this week, according to the weather geeks, so who knows when I'll get back to the yard?

And as if that's not enough, as I write this, my foot is propped up with an ice pack that's so cold I can't feel parts of that extremity anymore. I have Achille's tendonitis -- again -- and I'm hoping ice will help. I never had much luck with icing sore joints until I went through physical therapy a year ago and Steve, my therapist, gave me the ABCs of icing: Cold, Burning, Aching. Then, when it gets numb, you remove the ice pack. Hmm, I always quit soon into the Cold phase. I followed his advice (really, what choice did I have when I was on his table in his clinic under his care?), and it works.

I would say how cool is that, but it seems a little too punny. Rachel10:02 AM

Like a kid in a candy store

THREE P.M. TODAY -- moment of observance to remember those who have died in our many wars and conflicts. It's the least you can do.

Yesterday I was looking for something to write while I wait to hear from my editor on another proposal. I came across bits of stories I'd started in the past, then put aside for one reason or another. I read the chapters, the synopses, the notes . . . and I couldn't decide. Oh, that's a great one . . . but there's a problem with the plot, and I don't really want to do major plot revisions. Wow, I love that hero . . . but the heroine needs work, and I don't really want to do major character revisions. Hey, this one's pretty cool . . . but talk about suspension of disbelief!

In the end, after hours of reading, thinking, considering, arguing, I decided I'd rather play Mah Jong Tiles.

Computer games are my addiction. Solitaire in all its infinite varieties, Mah Jong, Cubis, Tetris, crossword puzzles -- even Hearts if I'm desperate. (First time I ever played Hearts, I won damn near every hand. I was pretty pleased. Beginner's luck, and all that. Then the freakin' computer tells me I'm in LAST place??? No one said the point was to not win any hands.) (Okay, so the instructions did say it. But who reads instructions first???)

I can play games when I'm supposed to be working. Reading. Watching TV. Making phone calls. Sleeping. I play until my wrist and fingers get sore from working the mouse, and then I play more until my eyes start to cross and get watery and gritty. I'd be playing right now if I wasn't blogging. Even though I need to work in the yard. And do some writing. (Oh, yeah, I couldn't decide which project to work on yesterday. What makes me think today will be any different?)

Computer games are a plague from Satan, sent to distract me from real life. I really should remove them all from the computer, and set a strict never-to-be-broken rule that I can't Google them.

I actually thought about having Robert remove them all. But I have a stack of puzzle books sitting on the shelf, and the Boggle game in on top of them. Did I mention I love Boggle?







Rachel9:37 AM

Fried pancakes

Okay, so you know if you've hung out here long enough that I like to cook. I do baby back ribs to die for, jambalaya and sweet cornbread, bread pudding, a killer pot roast (you cook the meat and veggies practically to death in merlot -- yumm) and on and on.

I also specialize in taking food that's perfectly good for you in its natural state and doing something dietarily horrific -- you know, like frying apples in butter and brown sugar. Carmelizing mushrooms in butter and brown sugar, too. Baking bananas with -- you got it -- butter and brown sugar. Steeping tea in simple syrup rather than plain water.

Yesterday I deep-fat-fried pancakes. No shit. Not that pancakes are good for you in their natural state -- what's a pancake without plenty of butter or peanut butter and maple syrup? But I'm pretty sure deep-fat-frying them and dipping them in honey blows the top off the not-good-for-you scale.

What happened was I bought a box of churros mix. I like churros, but there's no place here in town to get them fresh, so I thought I'd give making them a shot. I followed the directions to a T, and the result was good, but not as good as I wanted. They were really heavy, and I remember something lighter from my days in San Diego when you could buy them fresh and hot everywhere.

Naturally, that got me to thinking about how to lighten the batter, to get something frothier that would fry up airier, and I thought of pancake batter. So yesterday I whipped up a batch of pancake batter (just me and Aunt Jemima), let it sit a bit to get fluffier, scraped it into a pastry bag and piped it into hot oil.

The results still weren't quite what I was looking for, but man, were they good. Especially the crunchy pieces that had dripped from the end of the pastry bag when I wasn't looking. Especially sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. I didn't even dip them in honey (though Robert did) and when I was done licking my fingers, I was ready to start on his.

Maybe today I'll wilt some fresh spinach with bacon grease for a salad. Or coat shrimp with batter and coconut and deep-fry, then dip 'em into orange marmalade sauce. There's nothing low-calorie that can't be made fattening with just a little effort. Rachel9:18 AM

I should have stayed in bed

I'm having one of those crappy days that could improve only with medication. First, I woke up with a headache, but since it went away soon after, I decided I would get some mowing done before the rain they were predicting for the weekend moved in. So I got dressed in jeans and long-sleeved shirt -- delicate and fair skin, remember? -- and fed the dogs. While my back was turned, one of them peed on the kitchen floor. Not because he had to pee -- that would have been okay. No, he did it because he wanted to, because that's the precise spot where one of the other dogs always eats his meals.

Since I didn't know which one was responsible, I kenneled all but one of the males, went out to mow, and the sky opened up. Not just rain, but torrents of rain. I went back inside, checked e-mail and disconnected the non-vital electrical stuff (our house and my office have gotten hit by lightning more times than I want to count). There I discovered that the one unkenneled dog had peed in the living room. Off he went to time-out.

So the morning wasn't going well. I got online to pay a couple of bills. One wouldn't accept my account number. Seems the actual account number and the account number on the bill are two different numbers. I'd never paid the other online before, so I had to set up a bill-pay account, which took about twenty minutes, and then, when the end was in sight, they asked for the three little numbers on the back of my credit card. The credit card that was in my checkbook that was with my husband who wasn't picking up his cell phone.

Okay. My blood pressure was rising, and deep breathing wasn't helping. Next, I thought, I would do something easy -- transfer money from checking to savings online. Easy? It took about fifteen minutes, because every time I typed in a command, I'd get this stupid Microsoft Internet Explorer pop-up asking, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Grrrr.

Transfer finally made (but two other bills unpaid) and smelling of bleach, which gives me a headache but does a great job cleaning urine stink, I decided to work off a little excess irritation by vacuuming while everyone was otherwise occupied. The dogs hate the vacuum. One tries to eat it, one wants to wrestle with it, and the others run in frantic circles trying to get away from it. So I got the whole house vacuumed -- no easy task with all the dog hair.

Then I took a few minutes to return a call to UPS. They'd left a message (at nearly nine o'clock last night -- too late for business calls!) asking for directions to the house so they could deliver a package. They gave a huge string of numbers and letters that I was supposed to repeat to the nice lady on the phone this morning.

Only the nice lady couldn't find any record of any package being delivered to me -- not under the tracking number, not under my address, not under my name. Not encouraging.

My head no longer felt as if it was going to explode, so I let four of the five detainees out of custody. Three minutes -- no shit, that's all they lasted before two of them had peed (or one of them did it twice) on a piece of seldom-used exercise equipment shoved into a corner of the newly-vacuumed dining room. Back into time-out they all went, and out again with the bleach, rubber gloves and paper towels.

Once that was cleaned, I decided to move the equipment into storage. One easy adjustment, the instructions said, and it would fold almost flat. I made the one adjustment -- it wasn't so easy, either; I was straddling the machine, bracing it on both sides with my feet, and pulling on a heavy-duty stretchy band with all my might. Okay, it was adjusted; I pushed the top part down, let go -- and the damn thing sprang back and the metal bar cracked me across the top of the head.

I cried. Stood there and cried. Then laughed. Then cried some more.

Yes, I am officially insane.

So . . . how was your day? Rachel12:46 PM

Cool advice for the day

Don't eat your dead relatives.
From Tess Gerritsen
(Check out her blog for the full text: http://www.tessgerritsen.com/blog/)

Okay, so I'm looking for an idea that excites both me and my agent, and I've got one that excites me (though I haven't shared it with said agent yet). I've only got a few pages written on it, so far, along with a few pages of notes, and it's already turning out to be one of those stories that surprises me. (Whaddaya mean, the hero's a priest? Who the hell is this woman and why does she need to be awakened?)

I love surprises in books -- more in reading than in writing. Oh, sure, it's great to be writing along and have a character say something unexpected or react in a way you hadn't planned for (especially since I never plot too rigidly). But I was two-thirds through a book once when I realized that the killer was someone totally different than I'd thought. And I couldn't change it at that stage in the book, not without rewriting the whole thing. And my editor already loved the original set-up and killer. So I had to write that book with the wrong killer, and although the readers never noticed, I'll always know that she was really the guilty one.

Talk about surprises . . . Numbers . . . season finale. Colby's been a bad guy all along????? I couldn't believe it. I was shocked! And betrayed! Exactly the things the writers wanted me to be. Wow. Double wow. I knew from the previews that there was a traitor, but I figured they were writing Megan off the show and it would be her (where has she been the past few episodes?). But Colby . . . omg.

That's one of the cool things about writing -- the surprises. When you're given every chance to figure out who the bad guy is or what the secret is, and it comes totally out of left field, and then after you think about it, you go, "Oh, yeah, there was this and this and that. I should've known."

Right now I'm totally in the land of surprises. I know practically nothing about this idea except that the guy who's just had terrific sex is a priest. And that the woman he's just had terrific sex is somewhere thousands of miles away and all she can say is, "Wake me up." And there's somebody or something terribly evil involved.

Oh, yeah, and I can't wait to find out.

I hope my agent feels the same way! Rachel9:05 PM

Twisted Sisters

Here's three of the four us, enjoying a beautiful sunny day in McAlester, Oklahoma, known for the maximum-security prison and its proximity to Krebs, home to multiple fabulous Italian restaurants. Some nice guy in the parking lot of the motel where we met took this picture, and except for my windblown hair, we look fabulous, too. Too bad we couldn't have gotten DL there, too, but I guess traveling halfway across the country for Italian food is a bit much to ask . . . maybe . . . though I wouldn't swear to it. I'd drive a looong way for great gnocchi.

Yesterday I set fire to parts of my yard and watched the thatch that's accumulated over the last few years burn. I also burned enough downed wood to make a couple of good-size trees, and I saw only one snake -- a harmless type. I did find a big turtle in a hole that was almost exactly the size of his body. I lifted him out, and after taking a while to recuperate from his shock, he toddled off into what little tall grass is left there.

The first cutting of hay -- er, grass -- is almost done! Two more hours, and this whole damn yard will be all trimmed at once. Of course, I should have started over on the front yard against yesterday and won't get to it before tomorrow, but I'll have oh, all of five minutes to feel some sense of accomplishment. But it's Monday, and after a nice long chat with Leah, I'm going to actually write today. I'm looking forward to it. No gopher holes, no copperheads, no Achilles tendonitis to make each step throb -- hey, no steps while seated at the desk . . . it ain't heaven, but it's close. Rachel9:04 AM

People you love to hate

So I'm reading a book review a few days ago, and there's a mention of this ongoing character in a series that the reviewer described as both the character you love to hate and hate to love. I can't think of anyone in my life whom I hate to love, but there's definitely one or two of the love-to-hate variety.

Years ago I became friends with this woman -- for public consumption, I call her TB, or The Bitch. Privately, I've got other, more fitting names for her, but they are incredibly tacky and rude and petty, so they'll stay private.

Anyway, TB turned out to be a mega-phony who lied, was devisive and manipulative and just plain not nice, so we kicked her to the curb. (Leah, Liz and DL were, sadly, exposed to her, too, because of me.)

TB is still around, of course; she didn't disappear off the face of the earth the way I wished. I still run into her, still get news of her, and still think of her too often with greath loathing.

So Leah, Liz and I were browsing through an antique store on our foray into McAlester the other day -- the kind of antique store that's got mostly junk -- and I came across this terrifically ugly ceramic pig. Let's face it, pigs are not adorable creatures to start with, and this ceramic multiplied the grossness of their features tenfold. My first thought was "The Bitch." (Yep, pigs remind me of her for various reasons, none of which I'll go into here.) My second thought was what in the world possessed someone to make something so ugly in the first place, and who in their right mind had bought it so that it could eventually wind up for sale here in this junk store.

Then my mind wandered back to The Bitch. You'd think, considering how much time has passed since I met the real Bitch and not the persona she presented to us, I would have gotten over it all and forgotten her. I have gotten over it, but come on, how do you forget someone you treated like a best friend, who then turned around and stabbed you in the back? How do you forget someone who made a fool of you? (Honestly, I think that bothered me more than finding out this woman thought "friendship" was just another word for "manipulation.")

But after thinking about it, I realized that not only can I not forget -- (what is they say -- she who forgets is destined to repeat?) -- but I don't want to. I have had a lot of fun hating The Bitch. It's entertaining. It's funny. It's refreshing. It's an outlet. I don't even wish for her to disappear off the face of the earth anymore, because then who would I hate? Who would provide me with such evil pleasure?

Who would make me get the giggles in the middle of an antique store over a grotesquely ugly ceramic pig?

So stick around, Bitch. You're now officially the person I love to hate. And you're lots more entertaining this way. Rachel8:49 AM

Updates Everywhere!

After a long but too cool day -- driving, talking, laughing, eating, shopping, driving again -- I tired of playing my evening computer games and signed online to check my favorite blogs, and virtually all of them had been updated in the past twenty-four hours. How great is that?

I don't read a lot of blogs -- time away from my games? my yard? my writing? my husband? But the ones I do read, I check fairly often. Unfortunately, the ones I do read sometimes get updated about once in a blue moon. There are friends' blogs, authors I admire, people I don't admire (I need to know which curse to heap on their heads, of course), and there's one actor -- Kirsten Vangsness, who plays Garcia on Criminal Minds. You do remember that Garcia is, in my never-humble opinion, the coolest character on television these days? She's not a prolific blogger, but I like reading her stuff.

Anyway, today all but one of the usual stops had something new. The only one that hadn't been updated -- Leah's -- was okay, since I spent the day with her, so I know the latest and greatest in her life.

Back to that day . . . Leah and I met Liz halfway between our homes (actually, it was a lot less "halfway" for us than for her) and had the best time. We ate at this amazing little Italian place in Krebs, Oklahoma . . . I'm all for plugging places I like, but it's late and I'm not sure about the name of this one: Roseanne's? I'll have to check with Liz.

It's the first place I ever had gnocchi, and it's to die for. I all but licked my plate today. The last time we ate there, I came home and found a recipe for it in an old cookbook. Mine was pretty good, but theirs is better. Their salad dressing is great; their bread is damn good; even their tea is great. It's a good thing the place is nearly two hours away, or I'd be as round as the stereotypical Italian nonna, and while I will happily become nonna in October, I'll skip the round part, thank you very much.

After lunch, we hit the antique shops in McAlester. We found some great stuff, but I kept a tight hold on the purse strings until I came across these wooden bowls. They were pretty rough -- not sanded or stained -- but that was part of their appeal. (And the fact that they were cheap cheap cheap didn't hurt any.) I have some other turned bowls I love that are smooth as satin (and were pricey, too), but something about these rough bowls just grabbed me. Besides, I can call them "primitive" instead of "rough" and they automatically become "art."

I could have loaded up my truck with all the stuff I saw and wanted, but hell, with gas running $3.19-3.45 a gallon between here and there, who could afford to shop? Have I ever mentioned how offended I am at paying that kind of money for gas here in Oklahoma? I thought about it as we passed the tank farms -- storage places for oil -- on our way down and back again and as we drove through Glenpool. (During its early years, the Glen Pool -- or is it Glenn? I'll have to ask Leah -- produced more oil than any other place in the world.)

The best part of the day, though, was seeing Liz and Leah. There was a story on the news yesterday about how good laughter is for you -- lowers blood pressure, eases stress, burns calories. I must be way healthier tonight than I was this morning because we laughed our way through the day. It was a badly needed break from the usual routine of working, mowing, housekeeping, cooking, and dog-wrangling. I wasn't tempted even once to kick somebody's ass -- and that's saying a lot! Rachel11:47 PM

A little bit o'dis, a little bit o'dat

(Do you know the song from subject line? Dr. John. Cool song. Cool singer. Saw him in concert once at the Brady Theater, and he was great.)

While making hay on the second terrace -- excuse me, mowing the second terrace -- Tuesday, I came across my first copperhead snake of the summer. It was a little one, no more than 12" long, and if the way it slithered away was any indication, it was more scared than I was. If I'd had the lawn mower, it would have chewed him up and spit him out in pieces -- exactly the way all copperheads should be -- but the weeds were too tall so I had the wheeled trimmer instead, and he just wiggled underneath the lines.

I watched him go, thinking that little bugger's going to grow bigger and fatter and come back and try to bite the hell out of me if I don't kill him now. (Since a spider bite put me in the hospital last summer, I don't want to test my luck with a damn copperhead.) But I didn't have a damn thing to kill him with besides my faux-Crocs, and I doubt he would have even felt a blow from them. Made me wish I'd dug out the machete from the attic. I could have rigged it onto one of Robert's old gunbelts. Rachel, haymaker and snake slayer.

Mom graduated from cardiac rehab last Friday and finished her physical therapy yesterday. We went to lunch to celebrate -- okay, we went to lunch every day we went to rehab or therapy, but it's my story and I'm telling it my way -- then stopped to pick out some baskets of flowers. She loves flowers and has them anywhere, while the only thing blooming in the Butler yard is clover and wildflowers. ("You do know 'wildflower' is just another word for 'weed,' don't you?" she asked me.)

I look at houses with big beautiful gardens and think, "Oh, I could do that." Then reality smacks me upside the head while I'm stumbling through the mowing. The gophers and moles are trying to kill me. The sun is none too kind to this redhead's skin, so I'm covered from head to toe, so I'm courting heat stroke. And that weed that has spread across much of our yard . . . why does it look familiar? Oh, yeah, because it's number three on my allergy list. Duh! And there's this little thing called work . . . I haven't yet found a way to get someone to give me bucks without me giving back something in return. If I ever do, I'll let you know . . . for a fee.

Hey, in case I haven't at least made you smile, I'll close with a joke, courtesy of sister Leah:

One day my housework-challenged husband decided to wash his sweatshirt. Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to me, "What setting do I use on the washing machine?"

"It depends," I replied. "What does it say on your shirt?"

He yelled back, "University of Oklahoma."

Delivered to you by a proud former student at Oklahoma State University. Go, Pokes! Rachel8:45 AM

Dr. Phil and the moms

Dr. Phil's doing the shows with the moms who are determined that they're kids will be STARS, no matter what. Holy cats! If I had to spend ten minutes with some of these women, I'd snatch them bald. What bitches. Especially the one whose daughter the casting director described as "tarted up." ("Like mother, like daughter," he added.)

What person in her right mind could let the Dr. Phil show tape them being rude and obnoxious and a bad mother and then be surprised when he smacks her upside the head for it? Are they totally out of touch with reality, or just stupid?

My vote is usually for "stupid."

We got a break in the endless rain long enough for me to do some mowing and trimming -- six freaking hours' worth, and I've hardly made a difference. I would still be out there, but while I was on a break for lunch, rain moved in for a while, so I headed for the shower. I hope it didn't get too wet out there. I was planning to burn off part of what I've mowed. Wonder if I'm part pyromaniac?

A quick touch on one of my favorite topics -- the mangling of our language -- and then I'm off to work (or play Cubis, whichever): on one of the local news shows the other day, the cute female reporter gave all the details on a story regarding some problems with water in west Tulsa or Sand Springs, then said something about talking to "the former man" responsible.

Okay. She got my attention. I really want to know . . . what is he now? Rachel3:23 PM

Mother's Day

If you haven't realized that today's Mother's Day, one of the most bogus holidays of all time, you must have been hiding in a cave somewhere. (Is there room for me in there??)

I hate bogus holidays, and Mother's Day and Father's Day top the list. Think about it: a single day each year to honor your mother and your father. And then what? You can ignore them and neglect them and fight with them the rest of the year without feeling guilty?

I'm so tired of all the commercials for cards, flowers, chocolates, jewelry, overnight getaways, romantic dinners . . . Sheesh! Why don't they just be honest and say, "If you love your mother, then come drop $$ at Hallmark/Godiva/FTD/etc. And if you don't spend the money, what does that say about you?"

Yeah, yeah. F*ck you. I see and talk to my mom four or five times a week. I take her to rehab and physical therapy and doctor's appointments and shopping and visiting. She doesn't need a bouquet of flowers and a sappy card to know I love her. (Though, okay, she does love those sappy cards. And since I like the funny/rude/irreverent ones, shopping for them ain't easy.)

Whatever I do -- or don't do -- today has nothing to do with how I feel about Mom. Ditto for the kiddo. I don't know whether he'll call -- don't know if he'll even remember the day. Sometimes he remembers; sometimes he doesn't. (Ironically, he remembered when he was in Iraq and Afghanistan. Does getting shot at jog your memory or make you long for the safety of home?) What's more, I don't care whether he calls today. I'd be just as happy to talk to him on any of the other thirty days of this month.

If we have to even have a Mother's Day and Father's Day -- and, apparently, we do -- I wish next year everyone in the entire country would spend the day as it should be spent: remembering/honoring/recognizing your mother and father. Not buying cards, flowers, aftershave, ties, candy, tools or anything else. Just children and their parents having a nice time while the commercialization of the days goes down the drain.

That would be too cool. Rachel8:58 AM

Criminal Minds

I love this show. Love the stories, love the characters -- love love LOVE Morgan -- and I think Garcia is the coolest character on TV. The interplay between her and Morgan is always sharp and witty with its share of sexual underplay, and she's just always a hoot. A lot of the FBI stuff is about as real-life accurate as CSI's forensic stuff, but the characters make the show one of my favorites.

The guy who plays Morgan -- holy cats! Is he not entirely too hot?! And Mandy Patinkin -- I've been a fan of his since the first time I saw The Princess Bride. Who can forget "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die"? (Okay, if I quoted that wrong, be smug. I'm watching Criminal Minds. I can't take the time to put the DVD in and find the line to make sure I've got it right.)

And Thomas Gibson . . . I've adored him ever since Episode o1 of Dharma & Greg. He's so different here, but he's still a doll. I do wish he'd smile once in a while, but that's okay. Morgan smiles a lot -- and like I said, Garcia is the coolest character on TV.

Okay, commercial's over. Back to the show. Rachel8:42 PM

Girly Talk

Yesterday I mentioned a book excerpt where the hero lost his macho status with me within the first page or two with something he thought. It got me to thinking about other stuff I'd read where the hero was just a bit too girly in his speech to work for me. One was a historical romance, and the hero, while walking through the garden, had a knowledgeable discussion with another character on the difference between the colors lavender and lilac. {Snort. Show me a man who doesn't call 'em both purple. Go ahead and try.) And there was the romantic suspense where the eeevviill villain got enraged and called another man a jerk. Sheesh! Shades of my seventy-some-year-old mother!

I also got a good laugh from a contemporary romance that was one of a series featuring a bunch of brothers. It was going okay until the hero from the previous book began telling the hero of the current book how wonderful love and marriage were; his life had been transformed. That's what I want for myself, Hero #2 says. I hope I can be as fortunate as you. It'll happen, #1 assures him, as long as you open yourself up to the possibilities. It went on for two pages, and it was so flowery, so touchy-feely, so gosh-darn sensitive that I wanted to puke.

I'm not suggesting every hero needs to be a take-charge, me-Tarzan-you-Jane, chest-thumping bossy bastard. I don't like those kind of heroes, either, except in the hands of a master. But when it starts feeling like the hero is more emotionally evolved than any male on the planet besides Dr. Phil, it just gets crappy -- and when he's more emotionally evolved than any woman I know, it's damn near creepy. Jeez, who wants to read about a romance between a woman and a girly-man? Rachel11:58 AM

Hero Speak

I was reading a book the other day written by an author known for her "male" voices. It was the first thing I'd read by her in a long time, and I was struck by how real her male characters sounded -- a little too real, in fact. If I want to hear guys being rude and crass, all I have to do is listen to Robert and the kiddo. I want my book guys to be a little more civilized -- real men on their best behavior, if you will.

Anyway, after setting this book aside for a computer break, I came across an excerpt of a book online in which the hero, honest to God, says to himself, "Boohoo. Cry me a river."

I hooted. Oh, yeah, that's manly talk. I tried to recall whether I'd ever heard Robert or the kiddo use those words, and the answer was a resounding no. If any of our RWI members had their heroes saying that, she would have gotten a quick "Girly talk!" from all of us. Too much touchy-feely, too much wimpiness, too much girliness -- nothing weakens a hero quicker.

Boohoo Man lost me immediately. If I'd been reading the book, I would have tossed it on the table to return to the store. No way he could recover hero status with me after that. Men characters don't have to be vulgar -- I've read some great heroes who rarely curse and are usually polite, the epitome of a gentleman -- but they do have to "feel" and think like men. Boohoo Man just didn't make the cut.

Let me get back to the real-men story. At least I have no doubts about their masculinity. Rachel9:05 AM

Whine about dinner

Okay, so for the past couple weeks, Robert and I have been trying to find an evening when we could go out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, just the two of us, and have a nice, pleasant meal with conversation. We decided last night was it, so off we went.

We were seated in the corner booth, got our drinks and our appetizer and were relaxing from the stressful day -- days -- and having a really nice time when four women came in, passed all the other empty tables and booths and sat down in the booth next to ours.

Of cooourse. You know in the theater, when there are two hundred empty seats and the goobers walk in and sit down right in front of the only other people there? Robert and I are those people.

So these goobers -- er, women sat down and proceeded to talk. LOUDLY. Like make you cringe every time their voices assaulted your ears. And the youngest one had one of those little-girl voices and used odd inflections, like going up, on the last syllable of every fourth or fifth word.

And as if being ungodly loud wasn't bad enough, they were BORING. Sheesh, they droned on and on about the most boring crap you could imagine. Airport delays. Deadly uninteresting jobs. Painful crappy anecdotes. Ex-husbands who, in my never-humble opinion, were lucky to escape.

And they found everything each other said hilariously funny, responding with a kind of fingernails-on-chalkboard, horribly loud, making-your-ears-bleed laughter. No shit, the glasses on our table started vibrating when they were all cackling at once.

They pretty much ruined our dinner. We couldn't talk for all their noise unless we lowered ourselves to their level of social boorishness, and call me strange, but I don't like to share private conversations with an entire dining room full of strangers, whether the conversations are theirs or mine. I just wanted to scream at these women to shut the f*ck up. No one around us gave a damn about their conversation.

But I restrained myself. (Okay, so there's a fine line between restraint and weenie-dom.)

But, man, I hope they were up the whole night with bad indigestion. Rachel7:36 AM

Can we say "scary"?

I admit, I never look as good as Leah when we go out. She always looks as if she's ready for her stroll down the red carpet, and I always look like her not-so-polished kid sister. Part of that is probably due to my fashion . . . uh, sense. Or nonsense?

I like quirky clothes. Shoes. Styles. Colors. For years, color was not my friend. I wore pastels, white, navy blue, brown, black. Then I discovered the sad truth: with my pale skin (peaches and cream, DL calls it; ghastly comes to my mind), pastels, white, navy, brown and black are truly not my friends. Though it turned out not to be so sad, after all, because I love color. Fuchsia, deep purple, royal blue, emerald green, and every shade of orange/salmon/tangerine/peach known to woman.

I moved from color to jewelry. I used to have a lapel pin of The Scream -- I think that's the title? By Munch? Guy screaming in agony? It served as my mood barometer. When I wore it, the message was clear: as Tony Ceola often says, don't f*ck with me. I also had the tackiest flamingo pin ever made. It was huge -- three inches tall, a couple inches wide -- and never failed to elicit one of two reactions from people: a disgusted eye-roll or a great big grin. A sales clerk told me it was a great piece, because wearing it was telling the world, "I don't give a damn what anyone thinks."

I gave The Scream to a friend who loved it, and the flamingo broke. But I've acquired plenty of tacky -- I mean, quirky pieces since then. The Moooos Brothers, the cow jumping over the moon, the Christmas flamingo, etc.

I have lots of novelty socks, a passion Liz shares with me -- I especially like the ones with little jingle bells attached. They drive my dogs nuts. Of course, socks are usually hidden inside shoes and under pants, so people don't generally see them. (Though I have been known to take off a shoe and prop my foot on the table to show off a particularly cute pair.)

Anyway, all this aside, I usually try to at least match when I go out in public, even if I do look as if a blind person dressed me at home. I don't want to embarrass the sisters too much. I put my hair up, do my makeup, pick clothes that don't scream "homeless person", that sort of thing. Usually.

And yet, the other night, I found myself in WalMart, looking . . . well, scary. It had been a long day, Robert was worn out, I was pooped, but I needed some stuff from WalMart -- primarily, yet another fifty-pound bag of Dog Chow. He wasn't about to leave the house again, and the dogs were starting to eye each other with bits of drool coming out of the corners of their mouths, so I grabbed my briefcase-sized purse, jumped in my Tahoe and took off. I got everything on my list and was walking swiftly toward the checkouts when I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror.

Holy cats. My hair looked as if it hadn't seen a brush in a week or more. I had on no makeup. Denim capris that looked as if I'd mowed the yard in them -- which I had. A cherry-red T-shirt. Melon-colored faux Crocs. With white socks. Folded down around my ankles. And, to top it all off, a black-and-teal windbreaker.

Thank God I got out without seeing anyone I know. At least, I think I did. There could have been family and friends hiding all over the place, cringing at the thought of acknowledging me.

And who could blame them? I didn't want to acknowledge myself. Rachel9:05 AM

A Word from Our Sponsor

There are some really sucky commercials on TV these days. I realize a good commercial is an art -- getting an idea across in such a limited time frame is tough. Doing it well is even tougher -- proven by the fact that there are so many really sucky commercials out there.

Take the Sonic commercials. The Sonic guys make my teeth hurt. The husband-and-wife bozos aren't much better. I can't hit the mute button quickly enough when they come on.

There's an ad locally for a race track that shows people playing slot machines, the lottery, etc., each shot accompanied by a voice-over: "Dumb. Dumber. Dumbest." Then it shows people betting the horses at the track and the voice says, "Smart."

Huh? First, playing the horses is smart? In whose world? But more importantly, what the hell kind of commercial insults its viewers? Telling me I'm dumb doesn't leave me inclined to listen to your message.

There are a lot of commercials I won't even watch -- the cell phone ad running right now that shows two guys talking about "getting" various artists . . . most car ads . . . some really stupid check-cashing/finance spots. Some, on the other hand, are a hoot. The current Axe commercials -- the "Bom Chicka Wah Wah" ones -- are great. I actually downloaded them, and I don't download nothin'. There was a Superbowl commercial a couple years ago for one of the beer companies that showed a bunch of soldiers walking through the airport and everyone stands and applauds them that brings tears to my eyes every time I see it. And I think the Sprint commerical from a few years back about the dauschunds (man, I never spell that word right!) stampeding is one of the best.

But God save me from the Sonic guys. I wish they'd choke on those toaster sandwiches. Rachel9:55 PM

Shhh

Have you ever noticed how damn near impossible it is to find a quiet place in the world today? Everywhere you go, there's such a level of noise that your head rings with it. Cars, horns, sirens, voices, music -- your own and everyone else's. You get put on hold, and there's music or, worse, commercials. You get on an elevator -- music. Cell phones ringing, people having private calls loudly enough for everyone within twenty feet to hear both sides. Conversations carried on as if they're in the middle of a train yard instead of a doctor's office or store.

My family's funny in that we can be quiet together. We're all big talkers, but we only talk if we have something to say. My mom and sisters and I can be satisfied sitting in a room or a car together for long stretches of time without speaking. It's not that we have nothing to say to each other; it's that we don't need to say anything. It's a companionable silence, and you don't find that often.

It sounds sappy, but silence can be golden . . . and seems about as hard to come by. Rachel7:16 PM