Groupon May Be Trying To Kill Me

First of all, I'm amused that the ad at the top of my Yahoo mail today is for makeup, when I rarely (if ever) WEAR makeup and can NEVER be called "haute" in any way.

Also, in MN the word "Haute" is rarely used at all. When it is (recently popping up in food magazines and such) it's used to refer to a high-falutin' HOTDISH* (casserole, for you non-mid-westerners) restaurant. That's right. "Haute Dish" is a place in Minneapolis that serves upscale tater-tot hotdish. I don't know what that means...I loathe tater-tot hotdish so I haven't been. My point is, whatever "Haute" means in real life doesn't apply to me.**

Anyway, Groupon, as you can see, is advertising quite possibly the WORST combination for my grace skillset: roller skating with wine! Granted, every time I fall, run into a wall, or knock over my companions I'd giggle and likely feel no pain, but I expect I'd be ticketed for assault with a deadly idiot. Or at the very least, SWI. I think not, Groupon, I think not.

*See? Even Blogger doesn't know what to do with the word "hotdish" because it's a purely Mid-westerner weird thing involving casserole fixings and (usually) cream of mushroom soup in a can. Ugh.

**In case you were wondering, "Haute" is the root word for "haughty" and means pretty much exactly that: elevated, high-class, fancy-pants (well, HELLO Mr. FANCY PANTS!)

***It's POSSIBLE "fancy-pants" isn't in the official definition... but 10 points to whomever gets the movie quote.

I'm Too Lazy To Write Two Posts: Cross Posting "Dear UnSubtle Gym Rat: My Crotch Is Not For You

While I mostly keep my other blog just to track my progress in my personal self-torture adventures, tonight's fun at the gym made me chuckle when I re-read it.

If you don't find it amusing, that's cool: I'm likely high on something...like muscle pain.

Or idiots.

Dear Unsubtle Gym Rat...

Driving Within The Lines

I'm feeling somewhat melancholy tonight (husband says I should stop that immediately, because melancholy is a silly word). Not depressed, just sad. I miss a few people intensely this time of year in particular: some because they're far away, some because they're no longer occupying the space in my life they used to.

The line between "missing" and "wallowing" is one of those fine dotted ones...you know, like the kind on the highway signaling it's ok to leave your normal space for a few seconds, if it's safe, to go around an obstacle? Yeah. Gotta pay attention and keep my people-missing in the "reflect upon where you've been, with whom you've connected, and who you've let go" phase that stays healthy.

Then again, I'm not terribly adept at staying within lines. Ok, that's not completely accurate: I CAN AND DO stay within driving lines...I just occasionally go too fast. Police, if you're reading this, I do not drive erratically, or drunk, or anything else...and I'm working on my lead foot, I swear.

I once wrote a short story during my bus ride home from school that included haunted houses, bears ripping people's arms off, and a plucky crew of friends who fought ALL THE EVIL. I was in 2nd grade...I believe that would've made me 7 at the time. I'm probably lucky my parents (or the teachers) didn't send me to therapy. See? not good at staying within the boundaries of this very blog post. Ha! Take that, 2nd grade teacher!

And so tonight I'm somewhat melancholy and thinking a lot about what I should hold on to in hope and what I should let go of to move on as gracefully as possible. This IS me we're talking about...graceful means getting out without black eyes or a broken toe, after all.

Townhome Twits: Episode Brothel. Yes, I saved this for last.

So I believe I told the Baba Yaga story about the old woman who sold her house for pennies a few years ago, yes?

This ties to the brothel thing, I swear.

Directly across from Baba Yaga's unit is a home that's flipped five or six times since we moved in. The last actual owner who lived there was a badass lady from Oklahoma, who told me once that her neighbor (Peeping Peeper) once tried to talk his way into her house to "check" something. She, being a take-no-shit-from-anyone woman, looked him in the eye and advise she's perfectly safe with her carry permit and .45. Then she shut the door in his face. I wish she still lived there. Unfortunately, she lost her job when the market tanked and had to leave her house to move back to Oklahoma. Various groups of renters have been in her place since then.

In the meantime, Baba Yaga's house was purchased by a very nice young family with three little girls. In five years I've seen the wife once: she advised (very nicely) that her kids couldn't play with our dogs because they couldn't let dogs lick the kid's faces (their religion says dogs are dirty). To each their own, I say, and we've been pretty decent neighbors overall (there's one house between us: the lovely and VERY forgiving Mexican family whose bird was murdered by my overzealous dog).

The same summer the no-dog family moved in, a group of college girls rented out Oklahoma's house. As typical college girls, they had parties. They had friends coming and going. The whirlwind bitch shared walls with them, and never complained at all so everyone assumed they weren't bothering anyone, and all was well.

Until I came home from work one day to be stopped by the Baba Yaga's new owner. He asked if I'm on the board (I was at the time) and "reported" that "those women" are running a brothel in that house, and something needs to be done. His exact words, which I will likely never forget: "I have small girls: I don't want them exposed to that filth."

What. The. Fuck.

Nope, I didn't laugh in his face. I asked what prompted this suspicion. He said "men come and go, stay overnight, and cars are always changing." Sigh.

I told him it's extremely unlikely the independent women in that house are running a whorehouse: if they were, likely their wall-sharing neighbors would say something. I reiterated that adult women are allowed to have whomever they like over to their home as long as they don't impede traffic or cause disturbances: they'd done neither. Then I asked how on earth a baby and two toddlers would have any idea they'd been "exposed" to "those women" unless HE said something to them. He couldn't really answer that.

To be fair, I was as professional as I could be in my response, no matter what I WANTED to say. I said if he saw actual laws being broken he'd need to call the police, but a house of female roommates with boyfriends is a LONG way from a brothel.

Since then the ladies have moved out (and we've had a few different groups living in that house...I suspect because they discover they're living next to a peeper and run like hell) and the family's girls are old enough to ride their bikes unsupervised around our driveway. Along with all the other lovely unsupervised spawn who taunt my dogs through my back windows, ride their bikes around blind corners with traffic and apparently create campfires on the hill in the backyard.

I love kids. I wish these had parents who paid some attention, because there's way worse things than being exposed to independent women in our neighborhood.

Cosmic Lost Socks Will Now Be Washed, Fluffed and Folded.

Remember the Soul Retriever?

Apparently she now provides "aura cleansing" as an additional service.

I'm unclear as to whether she cleans the pieces of the soul she retrieves for you, or if she just does an overall swiffering. Personally, I would think any retrieved piece of the soul would need cleansing, because you just don't know where that dirty bit has been. It could've been cavorting with nefarious souls, after all. Or at least, nefarious bits (which are not unlike naughty bits: probably just as much fun but in a non-sexual way).

Is it a deep clean, or a surface rinse that leaves aura-obscuring streaks ?

Does she get all the crannies? What about spider removal? GOOD GODS there could be spiders in my aura...there will be motherfucking nightmares, people.

What about stains (coffee, murder, dog pee, etc)? Does bleaching aural stains hurt, or is it the spiritual equivalent of tooth whitening?

Is this like Merry Maids or some other licensed and bonded cleaning service that randomly breaks dishes, moves shit around so you can't find it again, and leaves your house smelling of lemons?

What does a freshly washed aura smell like? 

DO I WANT TO KNOW THIS SHIT??

And...now I have the urge to submit something from this whole thread of thinking as a short story to one of the 6 contests pending in October. Excellent.