Smart People was one of those movies that I just did not want to end. It really would, I think, do well as a television series. I really enjoyed my time in the lives of the characters, and I would definitely want to spend more with them.

With a title like SMART PEOPLE, I figured it was going to be a movie that I really liked. And I was not wrong. I have spent my whole life living amongst very smart family members, and they are very endearing to me. They are such complex creatures. Yes, now we’re at the ‘Smart People Zoo’, kids. Ha! Really, though, they are such intense individuals, often so tormented by whatever demons that haunt the intellectually advanced. But they are also fascinating, usually funny, and often quite warm, generous people at heart.

This movie encompassed all of these things. The dad and the daughter were absolutely adorable in their wickedly dumb smartness. And those of you who’ve ever lived with a smart person know exactly what I mean!

I admit that I was at first thinking I just was not going to like the love interest’s character, played by Sarah Jessica Parker. I’ve kind of had a resentment towards her for a while since she left all of us dorks behind (a la SQUARE PEGS) and wandered into the fancy froufrou zone of SEX IN THE CITY. I was quite wrong, though! I loved her character in this movie and I think she just erased my resentment, seeing that she can, in fact, play more than a high-heels-and-man-obsessed New York frou frou doll.

It really was an enjoyable movie and I hope, if not a TV show, that there is at least a sequel or two. Watching these intelligent creatures is addictive!

My brother, David, just called this afternoon to tell me that his dog, Zeus, has passed on. Damn, ya’ll, I loved that freakin’ dog! It’s crazy – I haven’t even seen Zeus in over five years (it was May 2003, when my niece, Alex, was born) and yet, I canNOT stop crying! Can’t. Just can’t. I just loved that damn dog.

He was a German Shepherd. I was afraid of German Shepherds, pre-Zeus. Hell, I was afraid of big dogs before I started going out to Liberty Hill to stay with my brother. Those were the good ‘ol days – when my brother lived outside of Austin, TX and I lived in Dallas, TX and I would drive down there, with the kids and spend a few days. And sometimes I went without the kids! Woohoo! Par-tay! Well, if you consider hanging around the house and taking walks on the property a party, that is. And I, for one, totally consider it a PAR-TAY!

He had a neighbor across the road (highway) named Chigger and it was all just so …Country Texas! And I loved it! Then my brother did a dumb thing – he moved to Colorado. Then I did a dumb thing – I moved to Alabama. Now we are TWENTY-FOUR hours apart!! (By car, that is, which is how we normally travel. Hmm… wonder how long the flight is?)

So yeah, see, my brother is an emergency vet with a wicked soft spot for animals. A lot of the animals that are brought into emergency care are surrendered for one reason or another. Sometimes people cannot afford the needed medical care, sometimes people just find animals that aren’t theirs that have been hit by cars, etc. Well, my silly brother and his wife wind up falling in love with a lot of these surrendered animals, who, they know, will meet their untimely passing if not rescued and brought home to live with them.

Zeus was one such animal. He was brought in suffering from, I think, Parvo. During the course of treatment, David just fell for this sweet boy. He had only recently brought him home when I was heading out there for a visit by myself. As my brother and his wife have a lot of animals, the big dogs (and horses, ponies, and goats) live outside and the little dogs and cats live inside. Zeus, however, was still recovering and so, therefore, allowed to do so inside.

While I was there for my visit, Suzie and David would have to leave me to go to work. During these long hours alone, (*oh no, more tears are coming…*) Zeus-y and seriously bonded. It was so wonderful. We would go outside and wander the property and I am telling you, that dog was glued to my hip – he did not budge. If I took a step – he took a step. If I stood still to have a look around, he stayed still to have a look around. Damn, this was one cool dog, ya’ll. Seriously awesome.

I don’t know how to train dogs. This one just came out of the box that way. Man, he was cool!

Then they moved and I didn’t see Zeus for a while. We all took a visit out there – like three cars full of us! And it was great to see him, but, rather chaotic, so I didn’t actually get much time with him! In May 2003, however, I again had some alone time with one of my favorite dogs EVAH.

My mother and I flew out there for the birth of my niece and then Mom had to go back home. I wound up staying for ten days. Yeah…without my kids! Can you believe that?! It was so relaxing…helping Suzie, taking care of the baby, and just hanging out. One day I was the only one home and one of their little dogs, Schnotz (yes, he was named that for a reason) got out of the fence. Though not as rural as their place in Texas was, it is still pretty rural. I was freaking out that a dog got out on my watch, when no one was home, and I proceeded to go out looking for him. I’m across the street from the house in, not necessarily woods, but, sort of ….wilderness, yeah, that’s it. Brush, kind of. It was woods-y enough that you couldn’t see me from the house.

I’m walking around in this brushy area, and next thing I know, there is a dog attached to my hip. Who would this be? My Zeus-y! And he accompanied me in my search, until I decided to give up and go check back at the house. It was just so cool how he just ‘POOF!’ showed up there by my side. He came up all quiet, so I didn’t even hear him coming. So it was like he just showed up, materialized – just like any Rico-suave superhero would do! [Luckily, Schnotz's tag and a nice old man saved him. The man found him across the road, almost a mile away or more and picked him up and called the number on the tag. Nice man! Yea!]

Whoa. I just remembered part of a dream I had last night. I had a dream last night about my deceased cat, Rosco. How weird – and cool – is that? I have a dream about Rosco on the night Zeus dies….

Wow. I bet he was coming to tell me he was meeting Zeus-y at the gate of the Rainbow Bridge.

I love you, Rosco.

I love you, Zeus-y Caboosey.

You guys rock! Keep Heaven warm for us!

So yeah, uh, I’m surfing the net yesterday afternoon, and I went here and I went there and I went everywebwhere… and I landed on a blog of a fellow Alabamian who had taken this lovely test, The 1930′s Marital Scale. I thought to myself, ‘Well, self, that right there is gonna be right up your irreverent, slobby, foul-mouthed alley!’

And wouldn’t ya know it? I was right!

6 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Just so we’re clear as mud, here’s how the scoring goes:

Scoring:

0-24 – Very Poor (Failure)
25-41 – Poor
42-58 – Average
59-75 – Superior
76+ – Very Superior

By far, I have to say – I mean, by FAR, this was my favorite line of the test:

Reacts with pleasure and delight to marital congress.

I’m no brainiac (My dad’s in Mensa – does that count for anything? No? Didn’t think so, darn…), but, I can tell what they’re talking about! The thing I don’t get is how in the holy hell does ‘congress’ mean sex?!

Do you react with pleasure and delight? Huh, now, do you? Hahaha!

Here’s a confusing one for you:

Wears red nail polish.

I think they’re saying that’s a bad thing, aren’t they? Sounds like it to me. Now, that’s some funny chit right there!

“Ooh, did you hear that Buck’s wife wears red nail polish?!” Oh the shame!

Subtitle: Hippie Spelunker Gift Registry

Because you all know you wanna buy me gifts. Come on – you know you do. I can see it in your eyes. For real, I’m not even kidding. And here is the gift. I mean – the gift. Frealz.

I must have this squishy. I simply must. If I have to wait ’til Christmas, then that I shall do (Hi Mom!), but, I simply. must. have. him. Must.

I’m so glad she sent out that tweet today, too. I have to sleep with a pillow or a stuffed animal or a wadded-up blanket to hug, or my back just gets really sore. And the pillow that I’m now using is getting all out-of-sorts and stringy. It was really meant to be one of those silly decorate-your-bed pillows. A pillow you can’t use? What? No way! And besides, the darned thing is so soft, you can’t help but, hug it! It is getting terrifically worn out, though. And I’ve been thinking of getting some new something or other, but, I hadn’t really decided whether I wanted to try another pillow or a stuffed animal. And I’d even had the thought that I might try one of those body pillows. That would be really great for someone who sleeps alone, but, I’m afraid it would take up too much room since I sleep in a bed with a rotten, old strapping, handsome man.

So not only would this solve my huggy pillow problem, but, also – I absolutely adore elephants. I mean – adore them! My children have bought me elephant everything. (They’re so sweet! ) And this would make a lovely addition to my collection.

The company that sells these adorable guys is Squishable.com and I just love their site and all their precious animals. They seem like a really neat company with heart and personality. Case in point – those cute, squishy donuts at the top of this post. From the description on their site about them:

What I’m trying to say is, you can’t eat them. I mean, you can try, but they’re made of adorable yarn and stuffing. But comfort your neglected sweet tooth with images of saving the world! Each tray of five is hand-knitted in Bangladesh for the Fair Trade group Yellow Label Kids. We’re talking some serious good karma pastry here.

Another example is that they let customers send in photos of themselves with their precious Squishables and for each photo they receive they send a dollar to charity. The charity supported this month is The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. I’m assuming that means they pick a new charity every month.

They also write a Squishy Travel Blog about their Nomadic Monkey, who has been to tons of places! Darn that monkey – he’s been all over the place! No fair! There are photos from each place he’s been. Very cool!

It just looks like a pretty cool company and an AWESOME ELEPHANT SQUISHY, and if I’d found an affiliate program on the site, I’d be selling the HECK outta those scrumptious Squishies!!! I’ll definitely be asking them about it, you can be sure!

[This post is dedicated to Jenny the elephant.]

Quit scaring me off! I can’t take it anymore! I miss tapping and tapping and tapping away at my keys. See, what happens is that I don’t blog for a while – usually cuz stuff comes up. And then I don’t blog, because, I feel an itsy bitsy out of touch with the whole medium, so I delay. And then I balk. And pretty soon, it’s been forever and a day since I had my way with this here ol’ keyboard. And by that time, I’m just sure that I can’t do it. Me? Blog? About what? What will I say? Whatever will I write about? And the fear grows and it grows and it grows and I cower in the corner, feeding my blog-hungering soul with endless mini-blogging, or the addiction we all love so much – Twitter! And then I’m reduced to nothing more than a ‘Twitter blogger’. A Twitter blogger? And that’s it? Are you serious? How lame is that? Gah!

Well, and another part of the problem is that I’ve been hanging out with and listening to and learning from some pretty successful marketing people. I’m learning a LOT from them. A lot of times, I’m just getting swept up in the industry gossip. And let me tell you, that can be quite entertaining. Anyway, though, reading and learning from these people is great, but, it’s making me think that I need to sound just so and I need to write just so – you know? Well – pshaw! I just need to jump back into the game – period. If you’re not in the game, you’re not in the game. And besides that, this is not a marketing blog.

So, look here, dear, sweet blog ‘o mine – you are mine and I’m not afraid of you. Nope. No sir. And as is apparent by this post, I’m not afraid to mindlessly babble on you, either! So there! Take that, you big, scary blog!

BOO!

Whew! That feels so much better! Blog, blog, blog – that’s what I do. That’s what I do. Oh yeah. It would feel even better if I didn’t have a migraine starting, but, hey – them’s the breaks, right?

My son and I watched a few too many episodes of Burn Notice this afternoon, and my head is revolting. We just kept watching one episode after another – we couldn’t stop. My sister-in-law had recommended it to me, and I marched right over to Hulu to check it out! And boy, was she right that I might like it! I shouldn’t, however, watch TV in the afternoon. Or the morning. Or too early in the evening. Every now and then I can get away with it, but, generally – I’m in for a migraine if I don’t wait until night time. My silly migraine head and all of its ridiculous rules by which I have to live.

I recently told the eye doctor about the ‘TV rule’ and he was really surprised. He’d never heard anyone say such a thing. I bet he could learn a lot about migraines from talking to me for a while. I dance my way around them all the time.

Shawn is dying to continue watching more episodes of my handsome new boyfriend, Michael Westin. *SWOON* He is so cute! I think I’ll give him the computer so he can watch and I’ll go lie down. I am in the middle of a great Janet Evanovich novel. If I rest for a little while quietly, maybe my head will be generous enough to let me read for a little while.

All I know is that I’m happy I poured out this ridiculous, meandering, nonsensical post. This is my blog and my words should be on it. Whether profound or shallow, whether thoughtfully researched or just spilled out of my spasmodic brain – they should just be on here!

I really enjoy romantic comedies – they are some of my favorite movies, so I was excited for the chance to see and review “Definitely, Maybe”. It turned out to be very different from your typical romantic comedy, though. For starters, there wasn’t tons of comedy in it, but, more importantly, I get to happily report to you that it was entirely unpredictable! A romantic comedy? Unpredictable? Yep, I know – weird, huh? It was delightfully unpredictable!

It was a very sweet movie about a young girl and her newly-divorced dad, taking a visit to his youth, through stories. She has been asking him repeatedly how he met her father and up to this point, he has put her off, saying, “It’s complicated, I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

Maya, his sweet and very precocious daughter puts her foot down this time, however! So he gives and tells her he will tell her the story – but! But what? He is going to change the names around and Maya has to figure out who in the story is actually her mother. Oh! She likes that idea! She calls it a “love story mystery” and excitedly fluffs up her pillows, arranges her stuffed animals, and sits back to hear the story!

The rest of the movie is a walk down memory lane with her father, exploring and remembering his young adult years, trying to make his way in the world and figure out what he wants to do with his life – and just with whom he wants to spend it!

It is a delightful story and the only part that I had a problem with, somewhat, was the ending. It was not entirely believable, given the newness of the divorce, but, I managed to suspend belief long enough to let myself enjoy the movie all the way to the end!

I can’t wait to see Abigail Breslin (the young girl) in more movies. She is absolutely adorable!

What is it with old guys that don’t want to replace/update their appliances? The man who had this house built and lived in it for over forty years, didn’t replace the appliances – since the 80′s! And it was not by any stretch of the imagination a financial issue. Not at all.

I checked in my microwave – it was manufactured in 1987. 1987! Good Heavens! It’s a wonder the thing still works. Well, it has its moments, that’s for sure. It has a mind of its own and cooks things how it wants to – undercooked, overcooked, just right – depending on what kind of a mood it is in that day! Heh!

I have tried to figure out the manufacture date of the dishwasher, but, I can’t find it. Let me tell you, though, the thing is o-l-d. So when I was asked to review dishwasher detergent, I figured I was the perfect candidate for that job! I mean, just about any detergent is going to ‘work’ in a fancy schmancy brand new dishwasher, right? You (as a detergent) have to really work, to get the dishes clean in my washer!

The first detergent I tried was Electrasol Advanced. I had a couple pieces of silverware that were not completely rinsed off, and I just put them in the dishwasher like that to see how they would come out. There was a spoon with a tad bit of peanut butter on it and a fork with some tiny bagel pieces stuck to it, and they both came out clean. There were only two glasses in there (we use a lot of cups) and one of them was clean and one of them came out with spots. There was a small, plastic cup that the kids had used to melt butter in for popcorn, and it was still very greasy when it came out. The rest of the dishes came out pretty clean. The second wash I ran with Electrasol had more glasses. Three out of four of them came out with spots.

My vote is definitely for Cascade Complete! Electrasol was pretty good, but, Cascade was definitely better! I’m glad I got the opportunity to try them both out!

Someone on Twitter that I follow tweeted this very cool and extremely addicting site, Wordle.net. For the life of me, I can’t remember who it was that tweeted it, but, I know it was a guy that lives in Dallas. I’ll figure it out eventually.

Look at the awesomely cool things you can make there!

Isn’t that cool? Most people are using a TON of words, but, I’ve never really been one to play ‘by the rules’. My own beat and all…

Here’s one I made with my main sites on it:

I am going to use my Vista snipping tool to grab that one for my Twitter profile. I could seriously spend HOURS there messing around! I love that site! My only critique is that I had to fix the spacing in the coding to make it work on my blog. Otherwise, I freaking love this site!

If ya’ll make some, tell me about it in the comments and tell me where I can see yours!

I don’t know, but, wouldn’t that be great? Haha!

Besides that, though – GO ELLEN! GO ELLEN!

I’m feeling just a bit fired up here, so let’s delve into this a bit further, shall we? I was disgusted when I read Karen’s initial post – I just about completely lost it when I read that she was dealing with a MANAGER of an establishment. And then someone-who-shall-remain-unnamed in my F2F life, argued with me the validity of Karen’s claims. This ‘warmy’ (how I describe people in my right-here-next-to-me life) thinks that she shouldn’t even be upset at all. This person thinks that maybe she could have just gone to the speaker, waited a few seconds, and then hollered her order into it, and then pulled forward. (The ‘warmy’ dug himself out at this point, saying that she could then say, “I did order at the speaker.” Too late – said ‘warmy’ was just too deep.) And now I’m even more fired up!

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states in Title III, straight from the US Department of Justice website:

Public accommodations must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment. They also must comply with specific requirements related to architectural standards for new and altered buildings; reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures; effective communication with people with hearing, vision, or speech disabilities; and other access requirements. Additionally, public accommodations must remove barriers in existing buildings where it is easy to do so without much difficulty or expense, given the public accommodation’s resources.

The emphasis in the paragraph is mine. Would it have been effective for her to go to the speaker and speak into it, not knowing what, if anything, was being said back to her? No. Does effective communication require two or more people? Yes. If I am deaf, and I go to the speaker and talk – that is just me. Alone. The argument came up in my mind about people giving speeches – that is just one person. However, if the entire audience is deaf, and there are no interpreters, then that is not effective communication, is it? So effective communication does require two or more people. One may only be listening, or receiving, the communication, but, without your ‘receiver’ – you are just telling the wind.

The Council for Disability Rights website provides ADA FAQ’s for those of us non-lawyer types. They explain the above referenced section of Title III, in part, as such:

• May a public accommodation require people with disabilities to meet certain standards of policies, especially safety standards?

A public accommodation must not use eligibility criteria or standards which screen out or tend to screen out people with disabilities unless it can be shown these criteria are necessary for the safe provision of these services. Safety considerations must be based in real, immediate threats of danger to others, not on stereotypical assumptions. In addition, a public accommodation must make reasonable modifications in policies, practices and procedures unless it would fundamentally alter the nature of the goods and services offered.

Again, the emphases is in the above paragraph is mine. Speaking to the first emphasis, would it be unsafe to take the order of the patron from the same window through which you will eventually serve them their food? No. Some fool might say, “We have to know they are real customers, it’s unsafe to have them just come up to the window. They could shoot us.” To which I would retort that I could order a burger, as if I’m just a customer, and then once I get to the window, shoot you. People are going to come to your window – it’s a drive-thru.

Speaking to the second emphasis, would it fundamentally alter the nature of the milkshake if I were to order at the window? Would my milkshake be salty? Would it have hamburger meat in it? As far as ‘altering the services’ goes, would you suddenly be physically unable to reach out the window to hand it to me? No, no, and no.

Just give the woman her damn milkshakes, would you?!