and now for something completely different

I've spent part of this week wondering what I could come back here and write about, and while there's a bunch of random nouns and verbs languishing in my drafts, I honestly couldn't think of anything I felt like pulling together into a cohesive thought after going through these past seven days. In light of that, I'm going to serve up this post potluck-style. Please, I beg you, enjoy some of the Jell-O with shredded carrots and raisins so I don't have to bring it home.

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First, and really, the only important thing here, my thanks to all of you for your notes and condolences for the loss of my friend Shawn. It meant a great deal to me to receive them, especially those who told me they got a true sense of the type of man he was because I finished that post feeling that I'd failed to do so. Shawn was such a vast personality there's really no way I could contain him in words. That aspect of him also explains why his memorial was a two-hour event where more than 800 of us were filled with so much laughter, boisterous singing, and celebrating.

So I thank you. Very, very much.

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Tonight is trick-or-treat night in our community. I bought two huge bags of miniature Butterfinger candy bars three weeks ago, then promptly hid them so I'd stay out of them. Last night, sadly, I found them. When I did, I stood over them and considered the cute little children and annoyingly uncostumed teenagers who would be coming to my door seeking sugary sustenance and tried to talk myself out of opening them. The bags of candy, that is. I would not intentionally rip into an annoyingly uncostumed teenagers, although in my mind, I could see pulling a Freddy Krueger on one or two who've darkened my door over the years.

Anyway, screw that, I said, and I opened them. At first I ate two. An hour later, I ate two more. By 8 p.m., I was telling myself stupid knock-knock jokes so I could justify the nearly empty bag resting on my chest like a sleeping baby. Today, in the harsh light of morning guilt, I must now decide if I want to go shopping and buy more candy, or just keep the porch light off and hide away from the goblins in the night.

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Considering how damn cold it is outside, I may stay home and just spend the day chopping up the solid chocolate rabbit my youngest son got last Easter to hand out to the kids. Yes, that damn thing is still in my house. Unopened. For more than seven months.

And you said I didn't have any will power, Butterfingers!

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Speaking of my youngest son, last night, I heard him telling his brother the punchline of his trick-or-treat joke and then roaring with laughter. Want to hear it? Well, I wish I could tell you, but so far, he's not been able to tell me without suffering from a serious case of the guffaws, so all I can tell you is the punchline. Ready? Brace yourselves:

Alice Pooper!

(He gets his comedy stylings from me)

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Which explains why I was laughing like the 14 year old boy who resides inside me while driving home from QuikTrip Wednesday afternoon with the free hot dog and pop I scored with a coupon because I'd pulled my hot dog bun out of a draw labeled "Warm Buns."

Except now, when I share that story with you all, it's really not that funny. Weird.

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Which is also odd, because when I placed my delicious free hot dog and pop on the counter and whipped out my coupon and handed it to the kid behind the counter, he totally gave me the "Heh, heh, heh" chuckle and said "Have fun with your free hot dog now!" and at first I was all, "And what are you implying, my good man?!" but then I sort of laughed and muttered something about warm buns, and I don't know. I guess you had to be there.

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Which is also odd because I thought that you all were always there anyway! I thought you lived in my mind!

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Warm buns.

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So just over a week ago, I colored my reddish-hair an incredibly WHOA!! TOO DARK SHADE OF BROWN!!! I have a name for this shade, which was deemed "Warm Mocha" on the box, but because I like to give off an air of sophistication (despite the fun I can have with a free hot dog), I are not tell you what I I renamed it. Suffice to say it involves a bodily function.

I thought this would be a glamorous new look for me (before the name change) and people would be captivated by my mysterious ways, so far, that has not been the case. Eight days later and my husband STILL HAS NOT NOTICED!!! See that profile picture up there to your left? See that red hair? It's brown now. Trust me. It's a noticeable change. Also? I want the red back now.

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If I had to make excuses for my Tool Man, I would say he's not noticed because he was gone for more than three days after I changed the color, and then when he returned, he declared himself a zombie and has been fighting the zombie infection for the past week. After a week of hearing him attempt to hoist a lung through his nasal cavity and having flashes of what it will be like to live with him when he's the same age as my father-in-law, I'm ready for this zombie virus to be out of his system. I am trying desperately not to lose my sympathy, but at this point, it's hanging by the tendon where his arm once was.

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My plan was to keep this post of nothing brief. Last night, while scrounging around on my nightstand for something to read (because I'd left Ace of Cakes: Inside the World of Charm City Cakes downstairs)(damn but I love that show, btw. Tool Man and I are going to go see Anthony Bourdain - swoon! - next week, but just this week, I learned Duff and Mary Alice are going to be here next month for another event and I am down with getting my culinary on, so now I'm working on Tool Man to get tickets for that), I landed on my copy of Not Quite What I Was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs I've shared my love of (in a far, far better post than this). I love this book for the amazing way the contributors allowed brevity to say so much. I wonder what that's like. I can't even make a brief paragraph.

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Oh, wait! Yes, I can!

Warm buns.

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Anyway, back to what I was getting to when I attempted to be brief. Have you been reading Polite Fictions? What? Did you just say "Yes, master"? Good. Very good, indeed, because there's some awesome new contributors up in that tangled web and to paraphrase my good friend Sir Mix-A-Lot, they are down to get the fiction on. Please, click the link. Get caught up. Remark "Geeeeeyawww, that's a damn long entry!!" when you read my turn at the knife from last week, and then marvel at the thunder everyone else has been bringing. Then be thankful you are not privy to the depravity that ensues when the emails start flying between us.

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I guess that's about it. It's Friday, which means no one is probably around to read this post anyway. I read yours on Friday, though. No guilt or anything. I'm just saying...

Before I go get ready for the day, let me say thank you all one more time from the bottom of my heart, which hurts something awful because it's resting atop a 10 pound, 12 ounce Butterfinger baby at the moment.

Thank you.

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Alice Pooper!!