Things I Haven't Done Yet
Mamacita says:
!. I just realized that the silk mistletoe “kissing ball” is still hanging from the archway between the dining and living rooms. I need to take that down and pack it away for next year.
2. The green Christmas candles are still on the hutch, but, but, I LIKE them!
3. I haven’t finished grading that first week’s worth of quizzes. But there’s no school tomorrow for me, so I’ll do them then. Our school system, aka Hell, doesn’t recognize MLK Day as a holiday, so my husband has to go to work tomorrow.
4. I haven’t been able to forgive Certain People for Certain Things, but I’m trying – I’m sincerely trying. Grudge-bearers have such shallow souls. I don’t want to be one of those people. I WON’T BE one of those people. But it doesn’t come easily, does it. . . .
5. I haven’t cleaned out my briefcase from last semester yet. I’ll do that tomorrow, too.
6. I’m okay with most of my Broadway shows, ie music and dialogue memorized, but I’m still working on Sweeney Todd. Once we memorize something, we have it with us always. I still think it’s a shame that our schools have done away with memorizing poems, etc. Kids have nothing inside their heads with which to entertain themselves when things get boring on the outside. I can close my eyes and experience entire shows, movies, and books. Also? I still remember every word of those poems that old Mrs. Roberts made us memorize in seventh grade. Mrs. Chandler, junior year, made us memorize Thanatopsis, and I still remember that, too. Our brains need some class and culture stored in them just as badly as our bodies need some real nourishment, to sustain them and keep them from demoralizing into pap, BS*, and fat. Maybe one reason so many of our teens are so often bored is because they’ve got nothing INSIDE; it all has to come from the OUTSIDE.
7. I didn’t do any laundry this weekend. I hope Tim can find a clean shirt for school. I’ll do some laundry tomorrow, while I’m home and he’s not. (neener neener)
8. The cats overturned my sewing box and spilled straight pins all over the floor. I scooted them into a little pile. That was Friday night. The pile is still there. I’ll pick them up with one of the refrigerator magnets tomorrow.
9. I have never peeked into the back of a crossword puzzle book to find an answer.
10. I would sell a kidney for a film version of Jane Eyre that took no liberties, changed nothing, and included everything. By “everything,” I mean, every detail, every nuance, and every subplot. I would gladly sit through a ten-hour movie version of a book I love, as long as NO LIBERTIES were taken. I sincerely hope that all film editors who change plotlines burn in hell, and actually, I sincerely believe that they do just that. My question for them is WHY? Why must you CHANGE THE PLOTLINE? The plot was awesome before it was tampered with. Yes, film editors who mess with the PLOT, will burn in hell. And that is exactly where they belong. Bah. I have seen some fairly good versions of Jane Eyre, but I haven’t seen a version that was good ENOUGH, yet. I’ve also seen some terrible versions, may their screenwriters and editors rot in hell.
Does anyone really believe that I’m going to do all of those things tomorrow? How amusing. Tomorrow, I plan to sleep in until I’m good and ready to get up, which won’t be until all the “proper” people have been up for hours and hours, poor things. Then I might grade some quizzes, or not, and do some laundry, or not. It’s a day off, not an off day. See how important grammar can be?
I’m listening to Evita. “Did you hear that? They called me a WHORE! They actually called me a whore!”
“But, Segnora Perón, it’s an easy mistake. I’m still called an admiral, though I gave up the sea long ago.”
That conversation always makes me laugh.
*Britney Spears, or bull shit – but that’s redundant, I suppose. . . .
Quotation Saturday
Mamacita says: Here are some great quotes, all from some great women!
1. Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth. –Diane Ackerman
2. Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut her up with cookies. –Anon.
3. The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy. —Helen Hayes (at 73)
4. I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime. –Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
5. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.—Lily Tomlin
6. The power of the harasser, the abuser, the rapist depends above all on the silence of women. –Ursula LeGuin
7. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your girlfriends. —Laurie Kuslansky
8. My second favorite household chore is ironing, my first being,hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. –Erma Bombeck-
9. Old age ain’t no place for sissies. —Bette Davis
10. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. A woman must do what he can’t. —Rhonda Hansome
11. The phrase “working mother” is redundant. -Jane Sellman
12. Every time I close the door on reality, it comes in through the windows. —Jennifer Yane
13. Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. —Charlotte Whitton
14. Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart. —Caryn Leschen
15. Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it. –Jane Wagner
16. If you can’t be a good example — then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning. —Catherine Aird
17. When I was young, I was put in a school for retarded kids for two years before they realized I actually had a hearing loss. And they called ME slow! —Kathy Buckley
18. I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb — and I’m also not blonde. —Dolly Parton
19. So I go to church, not because of any legalistic or moralistic reasons, but because I am a hungry sheep who needs to be fed; and for the same reason that I wear a wedding ring: a public witness of a private commitment.–Madeleine L’Engle
20. Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but unlike charity, it should end there. –Clare Boothe Luce
21. When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.–Elayne Boosler
22. The minute a person whose word means a great deal to others dares to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow. –Marian Anderson
23. In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman. —Margaret Thatcher
24. I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house. —Zsa Zsa Gabor
25. Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. —Eleanor Roosevelt
26. I’ve been married to one Marxist and one Fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out. — Lee Grant
27. Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose. –Billie Holiday
28. I love people. I love my family, my children . . . but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up. –Pearl S. Buck
29. I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes — and six months later you have to start all over again. –Joan Rivers
30. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. –Helen Keller
31. I am not being facetious when I say that the real enemies in this country are the Pentagon and its pals in big business. –Bella Abzug
32. For women the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time. –Isabelle Allende
33. When the grandmothers of today hear the word “Chippendales,” they don’t necessary think of chairs. –Jean Kerr
34. Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it, and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work — and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t. –Lucille Ball
35. I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man’s work for less than a man’s pay. –Clara Barton
36. Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks. –Charlotte Bronte
37. I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. –Marie Curie
38. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you. –Annie Dillard
39. Eternity is not something that begins after you are dead. It is going on all the time. –Charlotte Perkins Gilman
40. It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought — that is to be educated. –Edith Hamilton
41. I think nothing is religion which puts one individual absolutely above others, and surely nothing is religion which puts one sex above another….–Julia Ward Howe
42. What you need is sustained outrage…there’s far too much unthinking respect given to authority. –Molly Ivins
43. Now that I’m over sixty, I’m veering toward respectability. –Shelley Winters
44. Religion without humanity is poor human stuff. –Sojourner Truth
45. The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved– they are Jesus in disguise. –Mother Teresa
46. No one worth possessing can be quite possessed. –Sara Teasdale
47. You have to leave room in life to dream. –Buffy St. Marie
48. Taking joy in life is a woman’s best cosmetic.–Rosalind Russell
49. Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality. –Beatrix Potter
50. Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church or robbing a bank, but never to being bores. –Elsa Lanchester
It’s almost time for normal people to get up, so I guess I’d better go to bed.
I Have No Self-Control: Meet Hal
Mamacita says: I am writing this on my new Gateway laptop. Thank you, oh Credit Card Gods, that there was enough room on you for this purchase!
My old desktop computer is still in Safe Mode, which is actually good for not-too-much, and I will leave it that way until my son, the computer guru, comes home and says “Sure, Mom” when I ask him to tinker with it and try to make it behave itself as a proper computer should, ie do what I tell it. You know, like the children always did. Stop laughing!
Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. I’ve been married longer than many of you have been alive. To remember how long I’ve been married, I have to think of our daughter’s age and add a year and a half. That’s EIGHTEEN months, for those of you who are counting on your fingers.
People always used to figure up the months between the wedding and the birth, to see if the couple had any self-control. I don’t imagine it’s done all that much these days, because nobody seems to have any.
Self control, I mean. They’re still having babies, and often the day after the wedding, if indeed there is any wedding at all. I’m glad they don’t still stamp “illegitimate” on birth certificates any more; it’s not the baby’s fault. And most people these days don’t even know what the legal definition of ‘bastard’ is. Ultimately, it’s nobody else’s business.
Where did that topic come from, anyway? I am the Queen of Tangents.
And, I have a Gateway laptop. So far, so good.
It’s navy blue. His name is Hal.
I love him.
