Flashback Friday eerily like the present

Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Wash Me Please….

I guess I need to dust my mirror…

Wednesday Leif cleaned the mirrors in my bedroom.  He wanted to use my full length mirror, but all three were coated in dust.  Apparently they have been since at least July of 2009.

Dusting is my Achilles Heel.  Normally when I’m not having a nervous breakdown underneath the crippling mountain of homework I am a very neat, tidy person.  However, I’ll mop, vacuum, steam clean carpets, clean stoves and refrigerators, sanitize bathrooms and organize like a fiend but I won’t dust unless the world is coming to an end or relatives are coming to visit.

Our new mission:  to train the spud to dust.  She thinks it’s fun.  She gets to dance around waving the Swiffer Duster like it’s a fairy wand.  Awesome.

Flashback Friday: Logic Never Fails

This old post reminds me of a joke that went something like:

If olive oil is made from olives, and fish oil is made from fish, then baby oil must be made from babies.

Ewww!

Gross as it is, this is the kind of logic I have to work with in the spud.  And, her logic is impeccable.  I’m sure she is going to grow up and be brilliant.  Can you believe she was only 5 when she came up with this one:

Friday, April 16, 2010
If appleseeds come from apples then naturally pistachios come from ham.

A funny tidbit:

The other day we were eating some mortadella. For those of you unfamiliar with this food item, it is basically baloney but with pistachio seeds in it. I know, I know. Weird. I didn’t buy it, it was given to me by someone who received it as an office Christmas present in one of those gourmet food gift baskets, and being less adventurous, would not touch said mortadella with a ten foot pole so I inherited it.

Any way, the spud cleans her plate except for a pile of pistachios she’s picked out, remarking, “Momma, I don’t like those ham seeds.”

Once I realized what she was talking about I found it quite hysterical. I suppose to a five year old who is less familiar with mortadella than the average individual and more accustomed to picking seeds out of her food than pistachios it probably makes perfect sense.

MMmmm. Ham seeds.

Happy Friday.

Flashback Friday Revisited, in which I post a chirp about lame and irrelevant subject matter, impose upon your better judgement and shamelessly link to other blogs….

Last Friday we flashed back to January 23rd, 2009.  Wow.  That’s like a totally really long time ago.  Totally.  Really.

Sorry, apparently I’m channeling a Valley Girl today.  Now that takes us waaaaay back.

Anyway, I digress.

So, I have reviewed all the brilliance bloggers world wide had to offer (Thank you Tilly Bud; see the comments of last Friday’s post) and determined that I either have a horrible lame sense of humor and just posted a Chirp (thanks Jess, at Scratching to Escape) or my hit counter is an inveterate liar and no one actually reads my blog these days.  Now, while I can understand the lack of readers, content quality has degraded along with my brain since Fall Semester of Doom 2011 began, I find it hard to imagine the hit counter is a cold hardened liar.  There fore, I must conclude I have missed the boat on comedic plays here.

However, since I re-incarnated this monster I intend on staking it, decapitating it and burning it to death before re-burying it for the rest of eternity.  I decided I couldn’t throw this out there without giving my own input, so after languishing over it while showering, driving 9 hours round trip to and from campus and lying awake at nights exhausted but wired (or perhaps I should say weird), I came up with the following.  And, I must give credit where credit is due; my suggestion to the challenge was helped along by Tinman’s post, For No One, Aug 8, 2011:

It’s amazing how hard it is to get enthusiastic about writing when you know that nobody is going to read it. We all tell ourselves that we write our blogs just for ourselves and to some extent that is true. …

I have to say that I now admire those girls who write their thoughts daily in those little pink diaries with the big locks on the front, determined that absolutely no-one will ever them, at least until after they have died romantically of a broken heart.

Even if all they are writing is “David from across the road smiled at me today” they’re still doing a better job that I was able to do last week.

And, yes, it took me about 20 minutes of reading old posts to find this quote.  But I figure it was 20 minutes well spent, and if you read Tinman at Worth Doing Badly you will surely understand why.

Anyway, his words popped into my head the other day and I came up with:

A diary is generally a pink thing, with hearts drawn on the outside with little arrows piercing through them that say “I Love David.  4-Ever!!!”  Maybe “I Love David” is crossed out and replaced by “I Love Chad” or “I love Skyler.”  The diary is safeguarded by a lock so flimsy it’s basically there for decoration, but never the less is dutifully locked after every entry to protect the adolescent dreams of the Ashley’s, Sara’s and Emma’s from the 12-16 age set who declare “I will just Die if anyone ever reads this!”

A blog on the other hand, is generally an invisible thing, viewed via a black or grey box (unless one is channeling their inner Apple in which case it may be a rainbow of colors).  The box is often the source of much irritation, angst and hatred, and yet is worshipped for the access it provides to the forum where the less perky age set of 16+ pour out their innermost thoughts and feelings declaring, “I will just Die if no one reads this!”

Hmn.  I have lost my perspective and can no longer judge if I think this is funny.  It seemed funny at oh five twenty in the morning when I was trying to wake up.  Now by the full light of day I’m not so sure.

The other entry was, as mentioned, offered by Tilly Bud at the Laughing Housewife.   Here’s a recap:

Not funny, I’m afraid:

In one, you let your friends read your writing and in the other you write about your friends.

Told you it wasn’t funny. I’ll think some more.

Thanks, Tilly, for playing along.  And don’t worry.  Mine wasn’t funny either.  Although, perhaps more pathetic as I meant it to be.  What do all y’all think?

I would create a poll but Poll-Daddy irritates me.  That, and I really need to get on with my physics homework.  And my graphics design homework.  And, my environmental health homework.  And, everyone’s perennial favorite, my Spanish homework, which incidentally, this chapter is kicking my butt.

So, use the comments and vote in my lame poll:

1.  Janie, you posted a chirp, take the hint and let it die gracefully.

2.  Janie, we’re way too busy to care.

3.  Janie, we love you but this poll is a lame as the challenge was boring.

4.  Janie, the concept was so brilliant we were swept away and completely dumbstruck.

Okay, I shuts up now.

Happy Friday.

Flashback Friday: In search of a punchline challenge

I have this disco song that has been careening about in what passes for my brain the last couple of days.

I think the band was Imagination, and the song is appropriately titled Flashback.

Flashback!  To the days when the nights were young.

Flashback!  We could do no wrong.

Hmn.  Today is Flashback Friday.  Coincidence?

Yeah.  Probably.

 

Friday, January 23, 2009
Wanted: A Punch Line
A friend of mine recently texted me saying she’d been reading my blog and, OMG, enjoying it!!! Who’d have thought?

Thanks. I’m touched. Really. There’s a dirty joke in there, sure, but if you are reading into it then shame on you. Seriously, I love hearing that there are people out there who read my blog and don’t think I’m a lunatic.

Anyway, back to my point. I do have one, most of the time. She then texted me the following:

Anita: What’s the difference between a blog and a diary?

The whole text. Sounded like a good punchline was in the offing.

Me: Is this a joke? I don’t know, what’s the difference between and blog and a diary?

Anita: No joke. Just wondering.

Hey, I feel gypped now. I need a punchline to tear my mind from the thought. Something dirty, or lame or some kind of ending to this story!!!

So, I sense a challenge people….

Sadly, that was back in the day when I could count the number of people reading my blog on one hand, and apparently my readers were dull, boring people and no one rose to the challenge.  I’ve so moved beyond that.  I got 47 hits on August 22, 2011, a mind boggling high for Janie’s Place.

I know for a fact I have a much wittier and obliging level of blog friends now -Yay for me!!- and perhaps after 2 and a half years this feeling of being left in the lurch can be put to rest by your amazing literary and comedic talents.  The challenge is set.  Perhaps we can even have a prize for the best offering.

Happy Friday!

Flashback Friday: A little dose of PMA

Reading my old blog shows an ugly side of me and a very ugly time of my life. However, this little gem is a testament to the spirit that pulled me through the worst of times and helped me get my life back on track.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Have I Mentioned How Much I Love My Job?

I have a pretty cool job. Although at times it can be a little, well, gross, at least it is the kind of job that I can go to and not feel resentful that it is taking time away from my life. It is something I can feel good about doing.

For those of you who don’t know, I work for a home health company and I go to homes of seniors and handicapped people and help them with tasks of daily living and provide companionship.

Sometimes I have to clean houses or do laundry, which can be the gross part, but sometimes I just sit and visit with a lonely old person. Last night I got called in to sub for a co-worker who was sick. I actually got paid to sit with a very pleasant elderly gentleman and watch Dancing with the Stars and the news. It was oddly pleasant and relaxing after a tough couple of days at home with the spud.

Occasionally we forget that we have a lot to offer the world, and by getting out helping others we in the end are helping ourselves.

I miss having a job. I miss earning money. I miss feeling good about myself.

School has been kicking my ass these last few weeks. I find I have not been my usual self; a tired, depressed, frustrated and cranky person bearing an unflattering resemblance to a Janie I thought I’d left behind. But this too will pass.

Happy Friday, friends!

Flashback Friday rants at the world

I am tired. Very very tired. When Janie gets tired she becomes highly unpleasant to be around. I pity my family. I console myself that I’m doing this for them. What being a weepy miserable bitch? No. Going to school which makes me a weepy miserable bitch. What also makes me miserable is having to admit I can’t hack it.

It has been an ugly week at casa del Jones.

So I dug up a Flashback Friday post which seems in keeping with my cranky mood. And, is also poignant as fall has finally fallen and it’s back to long pants in the Great White North.

Friday, September 19, 2008
Fashion Police Should Eat More Donuts….
I want to know who it is who was the brain trust who decided that the only way you can get pants that come up above your belly button is to get the kind that taper at your ankle and make you look like an ice cream cone. Not attractive.

So just excuse the Hell out of me Stacey London and Clinton Kelley when I say that the new “low” rise look is just not cutting it for me. I seem to recall the fashion gurus saying a few years ago on an episode of “What Not to Wear” that tucking your shirt into high rise pants makes one look like Erkel, but last I checked, tucking your shirt into pants that barely cover one’s underpants looks pretty stupid too.

Anyone over the age of 25, and even the younger set who have given birth, does not need to have low rise pants with their stretched out mommy bellies hanging out. I might have had a nice enough belly to expose for about 60 seconds while I was in my early twenties, but still I didn’t see the point in having my thong strap or my belly button flashing the world.

Now, I am not skinny, but neither am I fat. I am pleasingly plump perhaps, but come on people. In order to cover my hind end and fit in my thighs, the size I have to buy invariably is about 4 inches too big in my waist. Low rise pants just do not stay up on that nameless area some where above my hips and below my waist. They are forever sliding down. No amount of ass will keep them up, and wearing a belt just makes me look like I’m wearing ill fitting pants that gap up in bunches around the belt. Ugly and uncomfortable. And, if I am lucky enough to not have them sliding off my ass, it seems like they bunch up in the little roll of loose skin below my belly button left over from 9 months of carrying a 25 pound watermelon in my uterus, then when I wear a snug fitting blouse you can see my belly button “dent” and it makes my little flap of skin look like a monstrous amount of whale blubber. Who looks good in these pants? Only super skinny teeny boppers.

But if a person like me with an amply rotund behind can’t keep her pants up, what to the really skinny chicks do? Tape them on?

Let’s be reasonable here. Who, other than the dorkiest she-geeks, actually tucks their shirts into blue jeans? Are you listening clothing designers and fashion police? Make us boot leg and straight leg jeans with real waists! Give me the old fashioned traditional high rise pants that keep my mommy flap concealed and keep my pants from falling off my ass because the waist opening is smaller than the hip opening!

If I win the lottery I am starting my own line of jeans that actually make sense for the body of a mature motherly female who wants to look nice, but not expose her flesh to all humanity.

Why am I carrying on you may ask?

Yesterday I was in a rush to get to work and needed to change from my “moving” duds. I grabbed the only clean pair of “nice” pants that were in my dresser (the rest are still hanging on the basement clothesline from when I last washed, about a week ago). Unfortunately, they were a pair that when cinched tightly enough to actually keep the pants on was extremely uncomfortable from the insane amount of bunched up denim between the belt and my gut, and that without a belt would not stay up. So, I either had to spend the whole evening at work feeling “bound up” or like I had gansta pants.

I hate fashion. And, I have now officially stayed up way too late to rant on and on about something as stupid as fashion.

I have a physics test today which has me scared shitless. There is no math involved, but I am afraid because I am so tired I think the neurons in my brain have melted and oozed out my ears. At least today I have a comfortable pair of jeans, which come all the way up to my waist, fashion police be damned. If I’m going down in a ball of physics flames I’m going to do it comfortably.

I also apologize for the foulness of my language. It tends to degrade as the exhaustion multiplies. I’m sure there’s some law of physics which could explain it, but I’m too tired to try and form a good joke.

May your Friday wear not bind and you get more sleep than me.