Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Grrrrr! Anne is in a bad mood. It's a Loki hangover. He was here for the weekend, and then He departed. It's kind of like crashing after a sugar high.

In honor of this bad mood, I will now list the pesky items that are ticking me off today.

1. I now have to blog professionally. Thank goodness I was able to set up a different account. Still it's like being paid to taste salt water taffy, which means you have to try all the flavors you don't like.

2. My refrigerator broke down. Have you ever noticed that this always happens in the summertime?

3. Mel Gibson meltdown. Prior to "The Passion of the Christ," I rather liked Mel Gibson. He's about my age, and he used to be good-looking. Now he's a washed-out, scary raving lunatic who ought to be watched closely. I wonder what the fundies think of their altar boy now?

4. George Steinbrenner dies. First we must consider what they are listing as cause of death. Heart attack. If that guy had a heart, he never showed it -- just ask the people who worked most closely with him. I am mourning his death, though, because in this household he was the Number One Baseball Executive We Loved to Hate. The mere mention of his name would cause even Decibel the Parrot to hiss. I would nominate Mel Gibson to replace George as household hate-ee, but Mel doesn't own the @$$%^$%@#!! Yankees.

5. I saw someone run over a chipmunk yesterday. Worse than that, I was driving to my daily teacher workshop at the time! I couldn't even stop and consign the sweet little thing to the Green Man. This put me in a blue funk, I assure you.

6. Governor Fat Ass. Ask and ye shall receive! We've got a Republican governor in this state now, and he's acting just like every other Republican since poor Abe Lincoln got shot. He's balancing New Jersey's budget on the backs of the poor and middle class while allowing the state's wealthiest few to go right on being under-taxed and spoiled rotten. Cut your calories, not our salaries, asshole! (If you've never seen this sorry excuse for a human, his name is Chris Christie. I refuse to place his photo on my blog.)

7. The end to New Jersey's traffic circles. It's bad enough that we are losing the famed 1920s-era traffic circles that couldn't exactly handle today's suburban crush. But as the circles get re-made, the "upgrades," with their orange barrels and cones, have made travel far slower. I will sorely miss the take-no-prisoners-only-the-strong-survive mayhem of the circles. Everyone needs a little assertiveness training. Where will we get it now?

8. My readership is down. Booo hooooo! According to my stat counter, my readership has tumbled from three to two. What have I done? (I guess the better question is, "What haven't I done?")

9. Fridays with Thurber. Do you watch "Countdown with Keith?" Have you seen his Friday exercise in vanity, in which he sits in a chair reading James Thurber? James Thurber? Couldn't he had at least picked an interesting author? I don't want to hear about James Thurber's fourth grade class! I want to hear H. L. Mencken's rants against the popular preachers of his day!

10. Supreme Court nominees. You know, as long as Obama is getting accused of being a socialist, why doesn't he act like one? If I stood in his shoes, I would have picked the most rabid liberal activist judge in the nation and stuck him/her on the Supreme Court. How come the conservatives get justices who go to conservative parties and write letters of thanks to their far-right Christian base, while we get blank slates who may or may not change the face of the Supreme Court of the United Corporations?


Mr. Johnson just handed me my final, and perhaps most brutal, piss-off. It's an invitation to my 30-year college reunion next spring. Can I have been out of college for 30 years? I am totally ripening for the buzzards.

So, to my two faithful readers, have a nice day. What do you want me to blog about ... politics or religion ... or my sister? Or Rhodesian Ridgebacks? Kept women? Rat Finks? Tea Party morons? My garden? My cats? Decibel the Parrot? My sordid past as a pole dancer? Just asking.