The Funnel Of Love

If you put a funnel down the front of your pants, bend your upper body backward, and balance a coin on your forehead, can you make that coin land in the funnel? Mr. Lane can. He’s amazingly patient and has great aim.

Too bad me and the kids played another nasty little trick on him. What’s worse than that is I can’t get this family computer to talk to the video camera. I caught another practical joke on film. Now I just have to find a way to show you. For now, I guess you’ll have to use your imaginations. And those occasional video blogs will have to wait too.

Anyhow, as Mr. Lane was balancing that coin on his forehead, ever so carefully, Lane 1 poured water into the funnel.

He was such a great sport, standing there, soaked from crotch to socks. Or maybe he was just in shock. It is hard to tell the difference when you are laughing your head off.

Try this trick on someone you love and tell me all about it.

Hurts So Good

Damn it all. I had this nice long post for you and guess what? My computer pooped out. Well, the cord did. Now with no battery power, I am not able to access anything on my laptop. So here I am stuck using the family computer. Which, by the way, is a total piece of shit. Eventually I’ll buy a replacement cord and all will be right with the world. Eventually.

I’ll do my best to recreate the madness that once was today’s post. Maybe I should do video blogs. Would you watch if I did? Do you like reading more? Let’s vote on that subject.

With video, I think I can easily upload them to YouTube and embed them here like I did with the crawdad trick we played on Mr. Lane. Of course, I do not live alone, therefore, some of the other Lanes may make an appearance out of nowhere. They are all camera hams. Chances of me getting through a five to ten minute video, without interruption, is pretty slim. Would they turn into mini family videos? I have no clue.

I know Anita and Angie won’t be able to watch video blogs at work, but they can access the blog there, and they can watch from home. Mom would probably choose the video blogs because she may have forgotten what I look like.

You want to know something terrible? I mean, way worse than any laptop breakdown. Worse than a hard drive crash? Worse than a puppy getting left out in the cold to starve. Okay, well it’s bad but not puppy bad… I haven’t seen my mother since May.

That translates to seeing her twice this year. How fucked up is that? I didn’t really move THAT far away last year. My job isn’t THAT hard. It doesn’t make me THAT tired. I haven’t been THAT sick. The weather hasn’t been THAT crappy to drive in. The gas prices haven’t been THAT high that I couldn’t dump the couch over and find enough change to fill the tank with.

Fucked up! Right?! But those have been most of the excuses I have given myself to try and not feel guilty and miss her. But I do anyway. I miss her awful. Sure, I miss the other biatches in the family too, but Mom is a Grade A Biatch.

Anyhow, you think about the posts, video or text, vote, and I’ll go with what you choose. By the way, this is nothing like the lost in the laptop post so far. I’ll get to the short version of that now.

I am feeling better. Thank you all for the phone calls, ecards, emails, and comments. I did make it to the ER. They ran a battery of tests on me and decided that all of my innards were teaming up against me. There is a name for this, which I can’t know how to pronounce, let alone spell. Doc says it’s brought on by stress. I laughed at him because, hahaha, I have no stress in my life. I am one happy, carefree mother fucker.

With inflammation in my intestines, gallbladder, pancreas, stomach, etc., doc said I’d be fine if I took a bucket of pills everyday and stayed on a clear liquid diet for a few days.

Okay, clear liquid diet, it didn’t sound so bad coming from the doctor’s mouth, but what the hell?! It was terrible! Extra bad because I’d already been starving for a couple of months, eating only rice, bread and crackers. But now, I could only have chicken broth, jell-o, water, apple juice and Sprite.

Drinking chicken broth is like licking a chicken bone. There is no yummy goodness to be had, whatsoever. Eating jell-o, well, sure, there is always room for it, especially if you are starving. But try filling up on it sometime. It’s virtually impossible.

While trying to fill the void with jell-o, I couldn’t help but think about my dad and how much he hated jell-o. After surgery on his deviated septum, he had to stick with nasty blandness too. Jell-o was a staple of his diet then. Every bite he took, he’d say, slid right down. I couldn’t agree more with him. I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into something that wasn’t going to slither down my throat.

I went through with it for three days. I thought I was ready to reintroduce bland food on day four. It was death by rice, I tell ya. Damn that rice. Obviously it was going to take more than three days. So I toughed it out three more days on clear liquids. Then I tried toast. I didn’t die, and it was likely the best dry toast I ever ate. After three days of bland dry food, I was finally ready to slowly add real food to my life.

I should have done things a little more gradually, but hunger makes me impatient and kind of bitchy so, I opted to go for broke. I struck up the grill and made a cheeseburger. In the history of cheeseburgers, there has never been a finer burger ever made. Within ten minutes of eating that wonderful slice of Heaven, I thought I was really going to die.

It was too soon to try something so unhealthy and flavorful. I was more careful for the rest of the week, and finally am feeling better, which can only mean one thing… Lois Lane is striking up the grill again today. And let's just hope I am not singing Hurts So Good, when I am done.

Don't Look Back

Dear Argyle Texas, hi. I don't know you. I mean, I don't think I do, but you have made me smile. Thank you for taking the time to read through the archives here. I see on the site meter that you have read for several hours on end, over a period of a couple of days. It means a lot to me, really. Sometimes it seems as though people aren't interested in blogs of yesterday let alone yesteryear. There is no shelf life, or expiration date and I promise, this shit ain't spoiled.

I've been blogging nearly three years, so if you are a new visitor, you've missed a lot. Back when I started this blog, I wrote every day. Now I am a slacker once a week blogger. If I had more time, I'd write more often. But life has a way of getting in the way, ya know?

I was checking out my site meter, waiting for the 100,000th visitor. Only guess what?! There was no information for that person. It was a private IP address too. So much for another contest. Oh, well, at least I was able to see Argyle hanging around.

I'd like to have a reader's favorite section for new visitors. It would give them all the best funnies Home Fires has to offer. If you would like to suggest a story that was your favorite, feel free to do so in the comment section. I plan to put it up in a week or so.

In between working at the nursing home and taking care of the family, I've been doing some odd freelance stuff. I've submitted some ideas for t-shirts, greetings cards and printed gifts to various retailers. If I make a bundle on this new line of freelance work, I'll give up the nursing home and blog much more often.

Don't get me wrong. I love the nursing home and all of the residents. I even like most of the staff. But damn I am tired every single day when I walk out of that building. I swear those precious little old folks stay up late at night thinking of ways to drive me bonkers.

Do you remember this episode of Tom & Jerry?



There is a lady at the nursing home, I'll just go ahead and call her Jerry, she is a walker. For whatever reason, she just can't sit still. I can have all of her favorite things set up in front of her, and damn it if every time I turn my back, she doesn't show up right behind me. It's kind of scary.

I have no idea how she manages to move so quickly, when she is otherwise, a very slow mover. This is what she and I go through at every single activity, every single day, several times a day. I set up an activity, and then I gather people to attend. I usually bring her first because she is one of the few up and walking. So, I walk over to her, tell her my name... again, tell her what we are doing... again, and then I take her hand and lead her to wherever we need to be. I offer her a chair, but it takes several minutes to get her to sit down. I re-explain what we are doing, who I am, and take one of her hands to rest on the arm of the chair, while I pull the chair to the bends of her knees. "Feel the chair? Okay, I've got you. Have a seat and we can begin."

It's a slow moving process, especially considering we have about ten activities every day. Yesterday every time I said, "Please wait for me, I'll be right back," she would agree, and seconds later would be right on my donkey, directly behind me. Just like Tom, my eyeballs popped out of my head, as if to say, "How the hell?" And every time, I would turn her back around and go through the steps above to get her to sit back down.

Of course, I wasn't entirely like Tom. I didn't lock her in a closet, stuff her in a suitcase, whack her upside the head with a fire poker or baseball bat, but I have no doubt if I had, she'd still have found a way to be right behind me in her cute, little old lady, adorable, freaking scary way.

Oh, I almost forgot, I have insurance! Yay me, I'm like a real live person now. Still dealing with gallbladder pain. Tried to make an appointment, only to find out doc is three weeks out. Called some other doctors in my plan, they too are several weeks out. I may just hit the emergency room this weekend in mid attack and see what they can do for me.

Watch out for those sneaky old folks and gallbladders that attack. They should have their own special on Fox soon. When old folks attack, or when gallbladders attack. Now that would be must see TV.

Have a great weekend everyone!