Movember Movement!

My friend Shawn in involved in a charity event. It's called Movember. Now, I know you all think Movember is only "No shave November" for those lazy bastards who would rather have small rodents living on their faces than have to brave the cold steel or whirling blades of a razor. Not so, my loyal reader (what? is there more than one??), not so. Movember is actually a world wide event where mustaches are grown as a charity fundraiser to support men's cancer research and awareness. You know, those cancers with nasty names like "testicular" and "prostrate" and yes, even "breast." I know breast cancer is covered in the boobie-centric month of October and is represented by, what looks like a 500 gallon vat of Pepto Bismol being spewed all over the world, but men get breast cancer too, folks. I'm sure the manly men would much rather be represented by a full, sexy, mustache than anything in pink. Did you know Brian Piccolo died at 26 years of age from a testicular cancer that wasn't discovered until it was in his chest cavity? Or that a next door neighbor of mine lost a testicle at 15 years old from testicular cancer? This isn't something that strikes only when these Y chromosomers are old peeps.

So, anyway, back to Shawn. He has a Movember page on the Movemeber site. Here you can make a tax deductible, charitable contribution to either Shawn, his team Major League Moustaches, or both for that matter! You can also check out his growth (ha!) on both Facebook and on Twitter So, come on peeps! Make a donation! Loosen those pocketbooks and those wallets. Unstrangle the moths and release the fists! Donate so, if my boys or anyone else's boys, God forbid have to face cancer, we can be that much closer to a cure. And you can be a part of it! Go YOU!

I know I usually talk about "cooter electrocution," but this last time I swear my aesthetician had the laser set on "Kill/death/murder/serial killer/death row/electric chair". Holy Schnikes!

The next month is going to be me pre-gaming for Rodney Carrington. So you get to go along for the ride!

I was telling someone at work a story about my horse (probably about breaking my ankle falling off of her, that one is always good for a laugh) and it reminded me of this one.  I was in middle school and had a job feeding the other horses in the mornings.  I would ride my bike to the barn at the ass crack of dawn before school, looking like Super Janitor with all the keys to the tackrooms hanging off my belt, and feed about 15 horses  so the other owners didn't have to worry about getting mussed before work or school.  Then, I had to ride my bike home, shower, change, and get myself the 5 miles to school before the bell rang, but hey, I was making about 40 bucks a week and that was bank for an 8th grader in the early 80's, baby!

Like all large stables without in-house cats or dogs, we had a significant rat problem.  Stems from all that readily available grain. Despite using metal garbage cans to store it in, enough fell on the ground from either the humans being careless or the horses being sloppy to keep our rat population fat and sassy.  Now, when I say rat, I don't mean the kind you get at the pet store and keep at home as a companion, waiting for it to chew your head off.  I'm talking RATS.  Rats the size of small dogs.  Rats that would kick the shit out of a Chihuahua, and make a Pit Bull pause.  And these suckers had no fear.  If you came upon one, they'd look at you like, "What the hell do you want, bitch?"   The owners began leaving rat poison out in the tackrooms to try and reduce the number our disease carrying pets.  Rat poison in basically warfarin, which is a blood thinner, commonly known as Coumadin, and used in people with artificial heart valves.  The rats eat this tasty treat and, at some point, suffer catastrophic internal hemorrhaging.  Not a fun way to die, be ye man or beast.

So, here I am, one foggy morning, feeding the horses and in one of the stalls was a rat that was obviously in some distress.  Grossed out as I was, I knew I couldn't leave it in the stall where it might bite the several thousands of dollars worth of show horse in it's dying moments.  I grabbed an Apple Picker (wide, flat, non-sharp tined pitchfork used for cleaning stalls) and picked the poor rodent up and carried it to the manure pile, thereby saving the horse a bite and, well, what better cemetery for a large swamp rat?  As I was carrying it, I heard this scratchy, grinding sound.  I had no idea what it could be.  Until I tried to dump the rat off the fork and it held on, not only with it's front paws, but it also had a death (ha) grip on the tines with it's teeth. Gah..  Using my burgeoning critical thinking skills, I held the handle vertical and the rat slid off the tines onto the manure pile.  And started coming at me with what I could only imagine was blood lust in it's eyes.  Not wanting that thing anywhere near me, I picked it up with the fork again.  I also didn't want it to latch onto the tines again, so I started bouncing it up and down on the fork, so it couldn't get a grip.  My dilemma was now, "what to do with the little bastard?"  I started to get a little freaked out by this time, and decided to just bury it.  Yes, alive.  But it was barely alive, which is almost dead...so...there.  I flipped it one more time, and instead of catching it, let it fall onto the manure pile.  As it started coming toward me, I began to cover it with manure, thinking, wrongly as it turned out, that the weight of the manure would stop it in it's tracks.  No, this was the freaking Terminator of barn rats; it just kept coming at me.  I covered it with more manure and started beating the hell out of it until it stopped moving.  I don't know if the extra covering of manure was so it couldn't see what was coming or to protect my own sensibilities.

It was scary hair time again and so, since today was a holiday, we went to see Michael-The-Extremely-Gay-Hairdresser.  His hairstyle suggestions for SoS were severely limited as SoS had, once again, taken it upon himself to modify his coif.  He wasn't clear to the scalp, as he has been known to do, so that was a relief.  However, he also took the scissors to his eyebrows.  Seriously, what is wrong with this kid?  He was upset to find that he couldn't get "just a trim" like he wanted since he had cut the front so short.  Perhaps now he will leave his hair to the professionals.  FB got his usual barely-enough-trim-to-even-see-that-we-cut-it cut and Michael changed my color to a nice fall/winter brunette.  Which is good, because my poor hair was begging on it's knees and promising all manner of craziness to not be bleached again.  My mother, of course, hates it.
I like it.

FB came to me last night and said "Mom, I've got this bump and it's purple."  Do you know what fear that strikes in the heart of a mother?  When your teenager (or close enough) comes to you talking about bumps??  With the trepidation I imagine I would feel before sneaking up on a rabid tiger and poking it in the ass with a sharp stick, I asked, "Um, where is this bump?"  He said it was on the bottom of his stomach and pulled the waistband of his underwear down to the top of his hairline to show me the biggest, angriest ingrown hair I have ever seen.  "Good grief!  How long has that been there?"  He had no idea.  "Doesn't it hurt?"  Yes, yes it did.  So I got a straight pin, doused both it and the site with rubbing alcohol, and proceeded to lance this sucker.  At first I just poked it with the needle to see what would happen and then applied just the slightest pressure.  It was evacuated easily, but the whole time I just kept thinking, "Don't be MRSA, don't be MRSA, I really can't handle MRSA."   I'm pretty sure we're okay on that count as the ingrown hair came out with evacuation.  Although, I must admit, I always thought if this situation ever happened that FB would be old enough to deal with it himself.  Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be happening where I had to take care of it.  But since when has that kid ever done anything on the accepted timeline:?

No matter if I get beat into the ground, have six deliveries in 12 hours, have to crawl home on my knees over glass, slaughter my own livestock and grind my own wheat for even one meal, I will never be this tough.  Or amazing.

Grades of Hot

The Sniper used to have Titillation Tuesdays (now it's kind of whenever) for the dudes and, for equality's sake, had Bridget the Flogging Molly Chick do Manmeat Mondays (now defunct) for the dudettes. The Sniper is nothing if not full of equality and democracy.  However comma since Bridget and her MM selections have been missing lo these 18 months or so, I feel a vacuum in the Hotness universe.  I would not presume to try and fill her stylish stilettos (knowing that no one named "Bridget the Floggin Molly Chick" would ever wear sensible pumps), and yet I feel the compunction, nay the downright need to express my Grades of Hotness scale.

There is Boy Next Door Hot:

(sometimes known as Cyclops hot)

Jailbait Hot:

Mutant Hot:

Average Smart, Snarky-as-hell- Dude Hot:

And, of course, Classic Kilt Hot:

Okay, I think I'm done now.  I'm gonna need a moment to myself, please.

I was just thinking; is there anything that feels more fanTAStic than a nice orgasm? One would think Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome would be a cause for celebration.   That is, until I found out the definition is "spontaneous, persistent, and uncontrollable genital arousal, with or without orgasm"  Well, that sucks.  It's also referred to as "Restless Genital Syndrome" which brings to mind "Restless Leg Syndrome."  I had Restless Leg Syndrome when I was pregnant and I had to continuously bicycle my legs or I felt like I was going to lose my tiny little mind.  Not exactly what I'm looking for in the arousal department.

In a slightly related vein, heeeeeeereee's RODNEY! (going to see him Novemeber 26th. Yayski! Oh, and beware of language. Funny, but language.)

Since I had to stop running because the arthritic ankle threw off the line of my whole leg and it felt as if gremlins were shoving pieces of shrapnel into my bones from my foot to my hip, I have let things, ahem, slide. So, now in an effort to regain lost ground, I have once again turned to that rabid freak, Tony Horton. Yes, I have restarted P90X. It was so effective the last time I used it, I'm almost sure I can get through it, despite yelling all manner of abusive and insulting remarks at Tony. Poor Tony. An hour a day a day I heap vitriol of the foulest kind on him; he who is only trying to help.

I refuse to do Pyleometrics this time, however. I don't care how much shame I feel because the one legged guy and his prosthesis are jumping all over the screen with nary a wince, that shit hurts me. And speaking of hurt. Why, oh why, does it hurt more the second time around? Yeesh. All I've done is Synergistics (core and cardio mostly), Cardio and that freaking Yoga, which is enough to make you get down on your knees and beg for Percocet. My abs, lats, and shoulders hurt so bad I can't cough or laugh without crying like a big girl. And don't get me started on sneezing. Soaking in a hot tub sounded like heaven. Unfortunately, I don't own one of those. I do have a big garden tub. And as soon as I got into it, someone rang the doorbell. Just as well I guess. If you think about it, the concept of bathtubs is kind of gross. Sitting in your own filth in stagnant water. Oooohh, relaxing.

Hot tubs, however, a genius idea. Just hope you don't run into these peeps.

Sometimes You Just Need Some Cameo

Really just because there aren't enough nasally singers wearing giant, scarlet codpieces anymore. And I dig that about them.

Glinda Will Cut a Bitch

Being the single mother of boys has lost it's glamor.  Humor. Har.  Seriously, I didn't plan on being a single parent and there are aspects of parenting that I was preeeetty much betting on being handled by the Y chromosome half of the parental unit.  For instance, testicular exams, foreskin maintenance and hygeine, you get the picture.  It's not that I'm squeamish about sharing this information with my boys; I'm a Labor and Delivery nurse for the love of Mike!  I'd just like someone to relief pitch once in a while.  It's frankly exhausting.  And I'll tell you why.   The other night, I arrived home from work, spent some quality time with the boys and then went to my room to decompress and read for the last half hour before it was time to beat them into submission and get them to bed, when I hear, what can only be described as caterwauling, coming from downstairs.  Think Siamese cats fighting over a PA system.  I heard one of the offspring pounding up the stairs and took bets on which one would come apprise me of whatever hideous sin the other had committed. SoS came to my door and with an outraged, bordering on horrified, expression on his face exclaimed, "Mom!  FB was lookin' at NUDED WOMEN!"  Well, just hell.  I walked downstairs and FB was coming out of the office, books under his arm, computer shut down and a resigned look on his face.  I didn't even get a word out before he said, "I know."  All I could think was, "Buddy, you have NO idea."  So we had a chat about how looking at porn was inappropriate and disrespectful to women, how I understood that he had all these feelings and he was curious, but dealing with it this way was, again, inappropriate, and when he was an adult and married he would have a naked woman he could look at whenever he wanted.  I know that is not completely accurate, but why burst the kid's bubble now?  With any luck, he'll marry a woman who is more like his mother in that department ( having been referred to as "oversexed" and "like a guy") , rather than what seems to be the norm among my friends.  He is grounded from the computer for however long I feel its going to take for me to beat (ha) this dead horse and when he's allowed to trip the Internet fantastic again, he's going to find his freedom curtailed.  Nuclear missile firing controls aren't as locked down as our family PC. And, why yes, I do find it ironic that the porn surfer turned out to be the low key First Born rather than the boob loving little perv, Spawn of Satan.

I have purchased several items of bedroom furniture for the boys and it has all arrived in flat, heavy boxes.  You want to know the sweetest words in the English language?  "No Assembly Required."  From now on I'm buying all my furniture in this condition, extra cost be damned.  I have spent several hours a day using a screwdriver and my right forearm and palm is so sore that it is difficult to use it in any twisting type motion.  It would probably feel better with some kind of brace, but I am just perverse enough to tell anyone who asked how I injured it that my batteries died at an inopportune moment.  And then snicker up my sleeve.

In the last three weeks I have been a part of four postpartum hemorrhages (one of which resulted in a airlift to a higher level facility and an in flight hypovolemic MI), a cord prolapse and subsequent emergent c-section, had to perform three ECGs, a nasty forceps delivery, and a postpartum fainting episode that presented like a postictal event.  Yay.  Thus, I haven't posted lately.  And yes!  I have come up with yet another excuse!