I owe it to my medical terminology classes for helping me to not misspell words like ‘diarrhea’ ever again. Granted I should have had these kinds of learnin’s down, solid, since middle school but I was too busy doodling, and by 8th grade my brains stopped developing in that department to make room for perspective and color theory. Now, on the cusp of my impending 30’s, and having spent over 5 years without using a single one of my natural artistic talents, I’m catching up on things like spelling. Grammar has yet to call attention to itself and has been, regrettably, lost in the quagmire of useless trivia that makes up about 90% of my grey matter.

I didn’t start this post to tell you about how cruddy I am at writing. Or even how ironic it is that I have a blog when I a) can’t write and b) don’t even like writing — although that doesn’t seem to stop most bloggers from plugging away year after year. Actually, I didn’t start this post to tell you anything in particular. I just realized that I haven’t made one of those Random-Uninteresting-Shit-I’ve-Been-Up-To-Lately entries in a long long time.

And I’m not going to do it now.

But I’m considering it.

Did I also mention that I’m the The Queen of Procrasti Nation? Several times? Good to know I’m being clear.

</pointlessness>

Recently I said that I had a mental block on 99% of the things I learned in the military. I tend to confuse this with that and all my acronyms are a jumble in my mind. It must be something like pregnancy amnesia because just like the biological projects (our desire to produce more small humans is a topic for another time), I keep thinking that going back couldn’t be all THAT bad… And yet, I think I remember telling myself that being pregnant sucked and that I’d be insane if we had more kids. Just like the time that I was chomping at the bit while waiting in line at CPAC to return all my junk.

God, I hope I used the right acronym. Like I said… forgetful.

Anyhoo, that’s what I was posting about. The forgetful thing. Mr. H will call home from work on occasion to tell me when to expect him. Ever since he started back up with the full time Army shenanigans and stuff, he’s started back up with the 24 hour time. Mr. H will tell me, “Hey hon, I’ll probably be home at 1800 or 1830 tonight,” and where understanding used to come automatically, I now have to mentally count on my fingers, “Okay… 12, 13, 14…OH! Oh yeah, that means 6:00pm or 6:30pm, got it.”

And yet the swearing continues. As I’m speaking with other parents and seeing the horrified expressions on their faces, I realize I don’t seem to be capable of unlearning that new skill.

If the cracks don’t show up on the x-rays then running is a go.

Screw that whole pain is weakness leaving the body bs, though.  They invented pain-killers so we could break ourselves to pieces and remain blissfully removed from the side effects.

Onward, treadmill warrior… onward.

I had to. The last pair of running shoes I bought were from four years ago. I was way overdue for a new pair and so I bought these from my former place of employment. They were having a Mother’s Day sale so I got about ten bucks off the pair.

Now, I like New Balance, but I’m Horribly Flat-footed — which would probably explain the plethora of stress fractures and join swelling/pain… — and most of the motion control shoes designed by New Balance (and most/all other companies) are Ugly! Not only are they Ugly! but they make me feel like a Clydesdale (no shit, I get the cloppity-cloppity noises accompanying me) when I run. They’re also usually designed for, well, let’s just say “the heavier kind of runner” and since I’m only 5′4″ish and 133 lbs, these shoes feel like cinder blocks on my feet. I put the aforementioned new shoes on and they felt fantastic, looked fantastic, had the right amount of bounce, and were incredibly light weight.

But.

They weren’t motion control (for Horribly Flat-footed Persons) and in a fit of denial I bought them and wore them anyway. For a month.

Several ouches later, I finally admitted defeat and returned the shoes for a pair of Adidas. My old pair were Adidas and, as you can see by the post I made about them, I was pretty darned happy with the choice. And they weren’t even motion control, so that’s kind of impressive. The new ones are designed for my little problems, and while they’re not as pretty as the New Balance shoes, they’re not too terribly ugly. They’ll be arriving in the mail in a couple of days. I hope I like them.

You know? This is a little off subject, but for a person who hates running as much as I do, I sure seem to be doing a lot of it lately.

While driving to and from…wherever, I tend to lean heavily on Mr. Autopilot while my mind wanders. I probably shouldn’t state that so casually — nobody in their right mind will ever want to drive anywhere near me, let alone with me, but hey, as long as I’m divulging scary habits of mine, I may as well admit that I don’t ever wear my glasses while driving, even though I should. (WOW! All your first prize for longest run on sentence EVaR belongs to Barmy!) I highly doubt I’m the only person on the planet that does this, though that’s not exactly a good thing either.

Anyhoo, during my habitual ponderdrive I’ll think of things that range from the everyday-mundane to the borderline ridiculous.

For the past few days the subject has been a member of the latter category: universal translators. Yes, the ones used in the fictional Star Trek Universe. Now I’m about as geeky as the next fan, but I’m not so hardcore that I’ve looked this subject up to research the piss out of it. It’s highly possible that a debate about universal translators was brought up and thoroughly picked apart years ago and it’s only now that I’ve begun to think about it.

As I drove down Cornhusker the other day, dodging traffic, slowing down, stopping, and turning where appropriate, I mulled this one over. I’m assuming that all the alien races in the various shows are speaking their own language while the translators do their little thing so that everyone can understand eachother. I’m assuming this because of an episode of DS9 where Quark, Rom, and Nog go back in time and end up in Roswell, NM. Their translators aren’t working and they are unable to understand English. Transversely, none of the Humans could understand… whatever language Ferengi speak (I haven’t looked that one up either) until the trio get their translators fixed.

Here’s the problem: Why is it that occasionally words slip past the translators when a character wishes to convey something in his/her own language? Do the translators read minds (“Okay, I don’t want this translated,”)? And more puzzling, if everyone is speaking their own language, then how come in every episode we don’t see every Klingon’s/Cardassian’s/Betazoid’s/Andorian’s/etc. lips flapping like some low-budget, dubbed kung fu movie?

Now that I’ve typed that all out, I will leave you with a little scene between Husband and Myself. We were watching television when the Dairy Queen commercial advertising their Blizzards came on. This is the one situated at an elementary school on Career Day. The commercial opens with some guy at the front of the class wrapping up his presentation on how cool it is to be a spy.

Myself: *frown* Why would a spy go to his kid’s class and say, “HEY! I’m a SPY!”? Wouldn’t that blow his cover? This is a stupid commercial.

Husband: And then there are some people who take television way too seriously.

Ever wondered how many calories you burn cleaning your house? How about a game of lawn darts? Or unicycling?  Or synchronized swimming?

Well. Now you can look it up.

Thanks, Mr. Ed.

I’m off to scrub some floors on my hands and knees.

to T1G:

Thinking about it. Will post later.

Geez. I went to school with this kid’s older brother, whom, incidentally, I had the biggest crush on at the time. I remember going on a camping trip with friends and they were both there. After the trip, as I’m getting ready to go home, Ross looks up at me questioningly and says, “My brother says you’re mousy…” Hah!

He’s now being awarded a Silver Star. I’m sitting here listening to his story knowing my husband went through a similar incident while he was overseas. Only he was the one who was in ops and had to take the call when the guys in his unit were hit. They lost one and another kid lost his leg. I still remember getting that call from my husband and how absolutely devastated he sounded. I’m watching Ross on the video and there’s that same far away look in his eyes that Husband gets.

What do you tell someone when things like this happen? “Hey, congrats on the Silver Star, man!” ….Geezus. Hope he’s hanging in there. My heart goes out to him, his family, his soldiers and their families.

P.S. I probably shouldn’t call him “kid” because a) he’s an officer and b) he earned that title at West Point but I can’t help remembering him as young Ross Pixler, Ryan’s kid brother from back in the day.

A hermit.

Nah, it’s just one of those days.  It’s not a bad day, really, it’s just kind of blah.  It’s overcast, too, but I love it when it’s cloudy which is perhaps due to an early childhood spent living in Oregon.  It’s just a move away and live alone in the woods with no modern conveniences kind of day.

My parents have a great acreage on a lake up in northern Wisconsin that some day, finances provided, Mr Husband and I will be getting a little spot on.  If I have my way, we’ll put a little cabin up there and it won’t have a phone or internet or cable or anything.  Husband would probably go into withdrawals, but if it gets too bad I can always send him over to my parents’ place.  They’ve got all that stuff.  I just can’t imagine going up there “to get away from it all” and spend a summer doing all the same things we do at home.

When we were kids we’d stay at the Big Cabin and it didn’t have things like cable, air conditioning, phones–there was even a time when it didn’t have hot water but that, mercifully, was remedied.  Over the years the Big Cabin has evolved and even grown in size.  It’s now owned by my aunt who takes excellent care of it.

I miss the summer days I spent up there when I was little.  My sister, and later my brother, and I would spend hours playing in the lake or in the woods.  Digging up mud to make clay pots that we would fire in the fire pit.  Fishing.  Hiking and picking berries along the way.  Catching toads.  Building things. Playing cards.  Roasting hot dogs or marshmallows.

And I want that for my daughter, but I don’t see it happening with all the distractions of the modern world.

Man, I gotta get away from all this stuff.

Super Target fits in there somewhere.

I can’t go to this place and not buy something.

Tonight, I went with the intention of buying diapers and two gallons of milk. We go through milk in greater quantities than we do toilet water in this house, and that’s not very much of an exaggeration.

Instead I came home with:

• 2 gallons of milk
• Pampers Swaddlers size 2-3 diapers (I swear they exist, but Husband doesn’t believe me)
• 2 jars of Vermouth-spiked olives
• 6 pack of Guinness (glass bottles, duh)
• 6 pack of Shiner Bock (again with the glass bottles)
• Easter stuff for the girl, most of which Mr. H and I will undoubtedly eat, ourselves
• And last (but possibly worst of all) one chocolate mousse Cheesecake Factory cheesecake

I needed the olives in order to make martinis. I simply cannot have vodka martinis without olives, and I cannot have gin martinis at all (barf).

I’m about half way through one of said martinis (takes the edge off my budget deficit guilt complex) and I’m really feeling it, in case you couldn’t tell. I tend overuse the parenthesis when I’m tipsy.