Mishmash

I'm having internet issues again. For those of you keeping score, you are aware that it has been three months of on again off again service. Now I am officially pissed off. I have my limits ya know. Until today, I've spared my giant cable company the embarrassment of being named as the useless piece of shit they obviously are. I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, but the fact remains, Comcast blows goats!

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Sailing

I'll be taking a long weekend off from Blogland, not just because Comcast sucks but because the Return Of The Sith Sale. That's right folks. I am no fan of Star Wars but my little Lane 2 is a huge fan of garage sales. And because we have so much shit yet to get rid of, we will have another garage sale. I have created a friggin' monster. Someone help me to help her!

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This Little Piggy

We finally got a new grocery store that isn't 20 plus miles away from our house out in the middle of nowhere. We Lanes were quite happy. We didn't run out on opening day. We knew better. The whole town turned out for the blessed event. Not us. We waited until the crowds died down, which seemed to happen rather quickly to our surprise.

A few days following their grand opening, we set plans into motion. Lane 2 and I worked feverishly on a list, while Lane 1 checked our in-house inventory, calling out items we were running low on. We would go to the new store first and checkout the goods. We would compare prices to the other store and we would then decide if we were buying certain items there or the old place. We had our plan flawlessly worked out.

I know it seems rather silly to be excited over grocery shopping. The idea of not being at the mercy of the blood suckers at our other, and for many years, our only store, made me giddy. The kids were giddy too because they have seen their mom freak out plenty of times.

It isn't unusual for me to say, "How can they be out of bread? Can you believe this guys, five and a half friggin' dollars for a box of cereal. God I hate this store!"

Because that scene plays out more often than I care to admit, we happily entered the new store. It had a weird smell. It was like walking into one of the markets in Tijuana. You know the smell of every type of pepper ever grown and then mixed together? That smell.

We walked through seeing that we would be hard-pressed to find any of the items on our list because it seemed everything, excluding the signs on the windows, was written in Spanish. Every sign on the inside, every label, everything was foreign to us.

The kids gave me that confused look. I gave it back, shrugging my shoulders. We walked isle by isle in hopes of finding something, anything, on our list.

"Oh, hey guys, look at the size of their meat counter. That might save us a trip to the butcher."

We were excited for a short-lived second. We saw lamb heads, cow intestines, tongues and ooo, pig's feet. And they weren't the jarred kind! Oh no! They were fresh wiggly piggy toes.

"This little piggy went to market," I recited as I wiggled each unwrapped toe.

Lane 1 and Lane 2 almost threw up right then and there. No wonder why the crowds died down so quickly. Who would eat that shit?

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Take A Look It's Almost A Book

Who wants to play junior editor? While I am selling my wares this weekend, I would like to ask those of you who will be looking for stuff to read, to check through my archives. If you can, read through and find what stories or types of stories you like the best. I'd love your feedback on this.

Some of the stories here will be in my book. Yes, my book! How cool is that?! I just have to decide which stories to include. That part is the hardest for me. Everything you read here is a memory of mine. All of my memories are cherished, making them hard to choose from.

Many of these stories need to be retold, with more detail and more words, which is what I spend a lot of time working on these days. Since I feel like I am running in circles chasing my tail, I could really use your assistance.

Any willing participants can either leave comments at the end of the stories you read or you can e-mail your thoughts, ideas or suggestions. Don't worry about hurting my feelings, honesty is what I need right now. I'd much rather my "friends" tell me something sucks, than a publisher.

Have a great weekend folks! I'll be checking in on your blogs and returning e-mail, as soon as my cable internet, that's COMCAST, is back up and running.