The Eyes have it

“And she'll tease you
She'll unease you
All the better just to please you
She's precocious
And she knows just what it
Takes to make a pro blush” *


I have known MET for about 15 years now. For almost all of that time, we have been mistaken for each other. We have never seen the slightest resemblance, other than the fact that we are both short, rather loud-mouthed brunettes who wear glasses. My own mother has seen a picture of MET, in MET’s own house, in MET’s own photo album and asked her why she had a picture of me that young when we didn’t know each other then. It boggles the mind.

Earthpig’s boss on Guam was in charge of “the Sty” while the Pigs were on vacation to the States. Sgt Psycho met the Pigs at the airport upon their return. Sgt Psycho began to explain that the single troops who had been staying in the house had returned to the barracks, but he could not vouch for the cleanliness of “the Sty” after their departure. He then told the Earthpigs that MET had the keys to their house, and she said to just come in to the kitchen and get the keys without waking anybody since it was the middle of the night.

MET looks at Sgt Psycho and calmly asks, “who has the housekeys?” Psycho replies “MET has your keys and you are to go to her house and get them.” MET questions Psycho about the keys a few more times and is told each time that MET has them. MET finally looks at Psycho and yells “Psycho, I AM MET, who has my frigging housekeys ??????” Psycho steps back, realizes what he has been saying and then says “Bluejinx has your house keys” Seeing as how I also worked in the same office as Sgt Psycho, and he saw me in uniform all day long with my name on my chest, you would think that would have helped.

It got so bad that at one point MET made us tee shirts. Mine said “I am NOT MET”, hers said “I am NOT Bluejinx”. We would wear them to parties, but it didn’t help one bit. People would forever confuse the two of us. This is where the Evil Twin comes from. Each of us thinks the other is the Evil Twin. Most of our friends and family refuse to answer the question as to which of us is the Good Twin and which the Bad. It is a long standing joke.

So we headed out last month on our long awaited cruise. One night before dinner, myself, MET, CombatMom, TJ and the Geek went down to the Photo Gallery to check on the times that formal portraits would be available. MET and I are standing together talking to the photographer, a lovely Indian man named Dushynet. I hate to be terribly un-PC but you must imagine this conversation with Dush while hearing the voice of Apu from “The Simpsons”.

“You have the daughter who likes to pose!” and Dush points to me-Bluejinx. Piglet #1 has been voguing every time she has seen a camera and all the photographers know her. I laugh and say that MET is the mom of both the young ladies. Dush is confused about who our hubbies are too, so we pull out pictures of Fozzie and Earthpig and explain. TJ comes over about now and chastises MET for flirting with Dush, and vows to tell EP that she is flirting with all the crew. I reply that we just showed Dush our hubbies photos and he KNOWS why we are flirting with him. The Geek chimes in now and asks Dush which of us is the Evil Twin. Dush doesn’t understand right away, so we all help by saying “mean, nasty, EVIL” all the lovely adjectives we can think of. Dush listens to us, hears a word he understands (mean) looks at the 2 of us and without hesitation says “it is her!” and points to MET. “She is the evil one, it is the eyes!!”

We are howling. Proof positive from an unbiased source that MET is the Evil One.
TJ, the Geek and CombatMom figure they have done enough damage for one night and they slip away. Too bad for them, the best was yet to come.

“It is the eyes!” I catch my breath long enough to point out that she has 2 beautiful daughters, she needs to have mean eyes. Dush says “I am afraid” and drops his eyes to the floor. I can barely stand up at this point. Dush says “If I had a daughter, and I put your picture on my wall and she saw it, she would cry all the time and never sleep.”

At this point the tears begin to come. MET and I are almost unable to breath, we are laughing so hard. I am kicking myself for not wearing Depends. We decide that we have had enough and need to go now (straight to the Ladies room) and as we are leaving Dush says to MET “but you are the more beautiful one”. I agree.

At dinner MET and I tell the others what all Dush as said. TJ, Geek and CombatMom are sorry they left so soon. Fozzie and Earthpig just sigh and shake their heads.

On formal night we all troop out to have portraits done which you can see below. After dinner that night, MET and I decide to find Dushynet and get our picture made with him since we will be talking about him for years to come. Dush was set up by the casino and he looks up and sees us approaching. He immediately blushed and dropped his eyes to the floor. We start laughing and then tell him that he has made THE most enjoyable cruise memory for us and we would like to have our picture taken with him.


He agrees and then he decides he wants to photograph us together. MET and I have several shots taken, but this one:

Proves beyond a doubt that she is truly the Evil Twin. It is the eyes.



“She'll let you take her home
It whets her appetite
She'll lay you on her throne
She got Bette Davis eyes
She'll take a tumble on you
Roll you like you were dice
Until you come out blue
She's got Bette Davis eyes ” * 1981 “Bette Davis Eyes” Kim Carnes

Of mice and men

You might have guessed that we are having a mouse problem around here. The little fuckers have taken over. I’m not sure which is worse-the fact that they are here or the fact that they are here thriving in a house which is home to 4 dogs and 5 cats!!!

The problem became apparent back in August, when TJ was here. She had turned the tables and was shrinking ME hard and fast, working her way up to deep and probing on a fine fall day. The only thing I could do is cut and run, so I headed to the kitchen and started playing in the Tupperware, only to find that there were mouse turds everywhere.

So I began pulling out a few items to run thru the dishwasher, and found that the turds were more extensive than it first appeared. Having suitably sidetracked TJ with this discovery, she did what all good friends would do—(no MET, she did not pack and go home) she switched from shrink to scrubber and we spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning my kitchen.

TLFs (the little fuckers) had been partying hard in the Tupperware and under the sink area. They had found a bag of puppy chow in a third area to supplement their diet of sponges and soap powder from the sink. SIGH. TJ is truly a saint to have spent an afternoon scrubbing mouse shit. You can pretty much bet I would not have done the same for her.

The Earthpigs joined us on the weekend to go shopping up in Asheville, and an excellent time was had by all. Sunday morning was spent lazily recovering from the festivities of Saturday. I was standing at the stove about to cook lunch and a blur of gray ran past my outstretched hand. Much to the amusement of all, I screamed. Well, it was not exactly a bloodcurdling scream, it was more like a yelp, followed by much cursing. Earthpig came to my rescue, grabbed TLF and took him outside.

Mice under my cabinets is one thing, but right out in the open is another. TLFs had to die. We sent Surlyman out to buy traps and by the time the Earthpigs had departed Sunday afternoon I believe we had killed 4. Over the next week, the death toll abated to about 1 a day, and so we believed we had won.

Until we got home from the cruise. Surlyman and his buddy Jethro told us that they had been seeing mice in Fozzie’s office. They only noticed because TLFs had been making appearances around the game boxes they were using. SIGH. My MIL was going to be here for Thanksgiving, and you just can’t have TLF sightings with the in laws around.

Once more into the fray, with plenty of peanut butter as bait. Fozzie and Surlyman discover that the insurgents have set up a base camp in the vicinity of the birdcages. They are using our library as bedding and supplies, to supplement their new diet of birdseed. The death toll is high on the first day, and then down to 1 every few days. All seems to be well. The tide has turned again.

Until this weekend. I stumble into my bathroom, park on my throne and begin to survey my kingdom. All is still well with my world, until I look up at my skylight. The little fuckers have now chewed a hole in my bathroom ceiling!!! As there is a 10 foot drop from the hole to the bathtub below, we cannot imagine why they would put a hole there. If they jump or fall out of this hole, they will be trapped in the tub below. Unless they are using parachutes or hang gliders made out of plastic wrap to glide out onto the floor.

Fozzie believes they are using the ceiling hole for espionage purposes. Espionage my ass, we’ve brought out the big guns now. Camoflague duct tape. When all else fails, duct it.

To be continued

"The Cruise"

I bet some of you have given up. You think we'll never get around to posting anything about the cruise. You're almost right. As per standard operating procedure, fate has decreed that a few of us had to have some very bad weeks to make up for the glorious time we had on the cruise. It's in the regulations somewhere - the more you enjoyed it, the worse the repercussions. Maybe someday we'll tell you about the repercussions.

We had a great time. There were very few places on the ship that we didn't visit. I suspect most of them were the insides of spacious staterooms. We visited every place open to the public, most of them many times. We met some interesting people. One or two were interesting in the "avoid them at all costs" way. For all of the pre-cruise discussion we didn't spend a lot of time drinking or gambling. We did spend much time talking, an average amount eating, some time in the arcade, an amazing amount of time getting formal pictures taken, lots of time walking to one place or another on the ship, several hours in the casino, and of course, several hours a night sleeping. That about sums up the trip. Here is a pic of our group on formal night.


The weather was bad so we didn't get to stop in Nassau. St. Thomas was wonderful (unsophisticated, relaxed). St Maarten was over flowing with pricy stores and tourists. Would we do it again? Apparently. The Evil Twin has been named "Julie, the cruise director" and is responsible for finding our next cruise. The plans are for 2007.

Jinx will be writing a few posts about some of the people we had the pleasure of meeting. Hopefully she'll tell the full story of The Evil Twin and the Photographer. I'm sure there are many things I could tell you about from the trip. Maybe I'll remember some of them as time goes on.

The only funny thing that I haven't forgotten is 'the little girls' room' . We all know that phrase is slang for a women's restroom. So when asked I mentioned that was where I was headed. I did not realize just how literal that statement was. I headed for the nearest public facility on the ship, and slipped into an empty stall. I immediately figured out why it was empty. Once in the stall, to close the door you had to slip sideways between the toilet and the wall. I repeat, the door could not be closed if you were standing in front of the toilet. I had to go bad and no other stalls were open, so I slid sideways and closed the door.

If you've pictured this then you've probably guessed that having to perform this maneuver means there is not much room for knees once you sit down. You'd be right!!!! There was also not much room for the movement necessary to lower and raise jeans. The contortions I had to go through to make effective use of the stall had me chuckling by the time I left it. Of course, I went back and warned my girlfriends of the "little girl’s room". I think they doubted the size until they actually saw it.

Toward the end of the cruise I entered a restroom in time to hear one woman tell her friend to watch out for the tiny stall, that she wouldn't be able to unstick her if she managed to get in it. This stall was a tight squeeze for me, a size 12. There were many women larger than me on the ship; I hope none of them got stuck in that stall.

I'd say that the following picture is of the most important people on the cruise but I'd be lying.



This picture is the best of the cruise and summarizes the fun we had.

Thanksgiving

Flylady suggested it and I think it is worth the effort. Here are some of the things I am thankful for:
my husband (and everything that comes along with him)
my family (and everything that comes along with them)
my friends (and everything that comes along with them
my health (I'm alive, I'm grateful for that)
my home (my retreat from the world)
my talents
the opportunities to help someone else
when someone else helps me
not living in a severely controlled society

That's just a broad stroke of the paintbrush.

Flylady can be found at www.flylady.net

Dreaming?????

Someone, somewhere went to sleep and
dreamed us both alive.
Dreams get pushed around a lot and
I doubt that we’ll survive.
We won’t get to wake up.
Dreams are born to disappear
and I’m sure that neither one of us is here.*


Have you ever had dreams so vivid and realistic that you could swear they really happened? To someone, somewhere. Usually dreams have a touch of something that you know won’t happen in reality so you know it’s a dream. I’ve been having the kind of dreams that have nothing odd in them. I wake up wondering was that real, am I picking up scenes from another persons life? Or maybe it is my alternate life! Lately the dreams have been so vivid and real that I am considering believing in parallel universes or telepathy.

Sometimes I wonder if this moment is the dream and the stuff I’m dreaming is actually the reality. I mean in dreams I usually CANNOT take charge and make myself think about my day. I cannot say ‘okay, remember the trip to the grocery store today, now think about it’. So maybe what I think is reality is the dream and I cannot make myself think about the ‘real’ reality. And after I wake I lose parts of the dream and eventually it is all lost. So in the ‘reality’ I wouldn’t really remember this now.

Of course the strange part is – this ‘dream’ has continuity. Which isn’t much of an argument because what I have considered my dreams in the past have had continuity also. BUT, not continuity for years. On the other hand, time flies in a dream. I can experience things that would take weeks and months in reality. So, maybe the months and years I am experiencing in this ‘reality’ is actually only time flying in a dream. To further bolster this theory: In my dreams there are usually gaps as I skip over some apparently insignificant time period. Sorta like TV does in the sitcoms. In my ‘reality’ there are gaps in my memory, of apparently insignificant events that occur on insignificant days. When I examine my memory as a whole there are some weeks with nothing worthwhile to remember. So maybe these ‘reality’ gaps are just the event jumps in a dream.

These questions go along with this one: Am I in an insane asylum somewhere/somewhen imagining all of what I think is really happening and all of the people around me. There have been some great books and Twilight Zone-type shows/movies done on that question. If the answer is yes – I’ve got a TERRIFIC imagination!

Don’t you see that someone, somewhere went to sleep
and dreamed us both alive.
Dreams get pushed around a lot and
I doubt that we’ll survive. We won’t get to wake up
Dreams were born to disappear
and I’m pretty sure that none of us are here.*

*None of us are here, 1975, Jim Stafford.

I can hear it now and all I have to say is: don’t think about it as much as I did. You might start questioning your reality too. Yes, I have told my shrink about these and other altered state concerns that I have. She says I have a very vivid imagination, wait until the medicine kicks in, it will all be clearer then. I think I’ll quit watching Twilight Zone for a while.

And the survey says:

What do you call the mid-day meal? Lunch or Dinner?
What about the evening meal? Dinner or Supper?

Sometimes I get so confused. Lunch is the mid-day meal and dinner/supper is the evening meal. To me. I don’t know where I learned this, probably a military chow hall. They had breakfast, lunch and dinner. The confusion (over meal names) occurs when I visit my family and they are talking about dinner and supper. Two meals at the same time of day? Huh? What about lunch I ask. That’s what we were discussing they say. Huh? Then the light comes on – again – oh yeah they use different words. I suppose if I visited my mom more often I would remember what they call each meal instead of having to slap my hand on my forehead and go duh! I have an excuse though – I’m a blonde (dirty dishwater dark blonde who has augmented natures blonde coloring). As I remind them that I’m a blonde, I tilt my head, twirl a strand of hair around my index finger and stare off into space. Duh.

Veteran's Day

Read this letter to the Prez at Yellow Dog.
I couldn't have said it better myself.

Bluejinx

Random Thoughts

The seas are still rolling, only 3 - 5 feet high today. Pass the Bonine please.

Posts concerning the cruise should start popping up this week. Right now we are (at least I am) trying to catch up on laundry, paying attention to the cats and mail. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll have thought of something witty or funny to tell you about the cruise. In the meantime.....

Questions you may not want answered:
What are the meat by-products used in hotdogs?
What happens to an 18-hour bra after 18 hours?
Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do practice?
Why do they put Braille on the drive-thru bank machines?

Have you ever thought about what a phrase really means? I know what we use it to mean; look at it from the point of view of someone that doesn’t know American slang and for whom English is a second language. Such as: anal retentive.
anal= butt (ass) specifically butt hole area. retentive=keeps.
butt hole keeps; butt hole keeper; keep your butt hole, keeping stuff in your butt hole; constipated. I don't see anything that suggests someone who pays too much attention to the smallest detail and is crabby about it. Of course, constipation could suggest that.

From Microsoft Word: You should never dive into murky waters. Such a helpful tip. I must really remember to thank Bill Gates for that one.

Something that has been mentioned that I think needs to be clarified:
Yes, sometimes my posts may be funny but then I DON’T have a life to write about. Except the animals. Don’t you get tired of reading about my damn cats? I wish I had a life to write about.

WEEE'RRREEEEE BAAACCCKKKKK!

Somebody please tell the floor to stop rolling. This wasn't happening when we got home last night but it is today. I think we have some 4 - 5 foot seas under this house. My DH is laughing at me. I've been reduced to crawling on the floor to pet my cats, I can't keep my balance when I squat. Maybe if I go back to bed and sleep some more it will all get better. More on the wonderful cruise later.