Keep Reading; it Gets Better

So here's my excuse for the blog-lag this time:

Aside from the brutal mental and emotional malaise brought on by election saturation and its attendant gastrointestinal difficulties . . . .

I have been trying to get on top of my workload and that's not easy to do when you have no organizational or time-management skills, no secretary, and no away-from-home office. Plus I have to be a part-time mom, de-clutter in time for the housekeeper's visits, sometimes feed the dog, and keep the pantry and fridge alphabetized.

Then there's all the household paperwork management. Does anyone else go insane about paper? I know I've bitched about this before, but I need to do it again. I get stuff from everywhere daily and let it overwhelm me. Daily. Sure, the junk mail goes right into the trash, and magazines and catalogs are set aside to read at my leisure (which is why that stack is 4 feet high and the clothes advertised in the ones at the bottom are already out of style).

Then there are birthday invitations to respond to (and get a gift for), bills (to pay or dispute), insurance forms (to get the new liability card from then file away somewhere), health care questionnaires (to consider filling out only to trash them later), receipts (some to keep, some to throw away, some to record in a register somewhere, some to look up online so as to figure out which account that money came out of and what the hell it was for even though it is dated yesterday), septic maintenance notices, post office "package to pick up" slips, Amazon packing slips (for things I may need to return but most likely not), kids' school notices to read and calendar, order forms to fill out and write a check for, assignment sheets to review and sign, progress reports, report cards, Boy Scout and Girl Scout forms to fill out and emails I printed out to use as reminders that I never look at again or lose, permission slips, reminder notes to myself (that I always forget to look at), blog ideas on scraps, songs to remember to download scribbled on Starbucks napkins, songs to remember to delete from my iPod scribbled on business cards, oh, and business cards (either mine or someone else's), work ideas on post-its, certified mail receipts from work, letters from the VA, copies of letters to the VA, letters from clients, client-related paperwork, potential-client paperwork, my board-member paperwork, legal research copies or printouts, ads for summer camps, forms for basketball sign-ups, salon or spa brochures, coupons, coupons, coupons, phone message notes, to-do lists, grocery lists, newspapers, newsletters, quasi-newspapers or newsletters . . . these are just the things that dropped out of the side of my head in the past 5 minutes.

Sure, I can pretty much keep the work papers separate from the home papers. But they all just keep pressing in on me. Where to put this or that so I can prioritize and be efficient --- I get emails from this "Get Organized Now" website, but do I even open them? Who has the time??? And don't even ask about how disorganized and overloaded my 3 different email accounts are. At least those are virtual.

Anyway . . .

Here are a few important tidbits I needed to purge:

More irritating old-person words and phrases: whippersnapper (not that any of them actually say that anymore), on the fritz (who is Fritz and why is he the bad guy?), get your goat (what does this mean? What goat? You want my goat? Take it. Didn't even know I had one.), lickety-split (is it just me, or does that just sound incredibly nasty?)

A phrase I hear a lot that makes no sense: "I miss not seeing you!" What? You miss not seeing me? Gee, thanks. I could say that to a lot of people who are up in my face far too often, "Hey, you who won't leave me alone, I really miss your absence." This is similar to when people say "I could care less." You mean you could not care less. Why do I waste my efforts on these technicalities?

From the Mind of Luke:

After I told Luke I would help him get his backpack organized and he laughed at me, Mike, Luke, Katy and I started discussing our similarities. The kids realized that with parents like us, they really have no chance at being even-tempered, focused, manageable, organized individuals. Luke said: "Well, I guess we're all floating in the same toilet."

Cutting Out the Middleman:

So the kids got dressed up for Halloween, but we weren't sure where we were going. We used to go to our old neighborhood where the houses are close together and where they have sidewalks. But this time we thought we'd just go to the neighborhood next door where there are no sidewalks, but the houses are somewhat closer to one another. Well, the kids were met with nothing but unopened doors even at the houses with Halloween decorations. Guess you could say they were giving out tricks instead of treats. "Hey kids, come see our cool scary Halloween decorations . . . Oh, you want candy??? Psych!" So we go to the Baptist church where they are having this little "Fall Festival." At first I was scared (get it, scared?) that the kids' costumes were inappropriate for the Baptists. Katy was a trampy pirate wench and Luke went as her prisoner with a big fake chain and shackles around his neck and wrists. But they weren't frowned on too much, even though they seemed to be surrounded by princesses and football players and angels and cowboys. Whatever, kids. Halloween is for being scary, if you ask me. They didn't seem to have much candy flowing at this festival, but Luke and Katy still had fun with the games and bouncy stuff—until they realized they had no candy. A friend told me that the local grocery store strip center was the place to go to trick-or-treating with the various merchants. So we hop in the car to get some candy there, only to discover we were late. They were wrapping it up at like 7:30. On a Friday night. Are you kidding me? That's a podunk town for you. The kids were none too pleased. So I took them straight into the grocery store and told them to pick out 2 big bags each of any kind of candy they wanted. They were all over that, and everyone went home happy. Next year, maybe we'll skip the costumes, too.

Election Hangover

I'll sign off by saying that I can't wait to see who President Obama puts on his cabinet. Here are my predictions:

Of course his secret gay Muslim husband will come out of the closet and be named Secretary of the Interior because he's a great decorator.

Rosie O'Donnell will be Secretary of Agriculture, for obvious reasons.

Condoleezza Rice will remain Secretary of State, for obvious reasons.

Satan will be assigned the post of Secretary of Energy in hopes that we can harness the flames of hell to solve the energy crisis.

The Ghost of the All-Powerful Saddam Hussein, also known to his nephew Barack as "Uncle Saddy" will be tapped to act as Secretary of Homeland Security. This way, he'll be able to tell the difference between Egyptian or Saudi terrorists and those from Iraq.

The Secretary of Labor will be Sisyphus. (Google it if you must.) By the way, he was a Muslim.

Secretary of Commerce, my sister Kelly -- because she loves to shop. He will include her even though she is neither gay nor Muslim. Sometimes he's fairly tolerant of mainstream hetero Christians.

Health and Human Services -- Dr. Kevorkian, of course. And if he dies (or is already dead) then his spirit will do.

Housing and Urban Development —- maybe one of Barack's old Muslim slumlord buddies he used to shoot heroin with in Chicago back in the day.

The Secretary of Education will be replaced by the Secretary of Misinformation who will make sure all school children get a good dose of the gay leftist liberal Marxist/Socialist agenda. This will of course include required subjects such as Women's Rights, Constitutional Law, Religious Tolerance, and Ebonics.

The Transportation Secretary will be the river Styx ferryboat driver, Charon, who, by the way, is gay.

The Justice Department will be headed by a well-regulated team of sado-masochistic fetishists ready to spank or tickle any malfeasants into submission. Then put them in pink boas on a parade float in San Francisco. That'll teach 'em. A slap on the wrist may be in order as well. And for the really bad guys, they get to spend a weekend at the newly-renovated Trump Club Gitmo locked in a hot tub with Dick Cheney.

Alec Baldwin will act as Secretary of Defense because he can be a real asshole.

The Treasury Secretary will be unnecessary as no one will have any more money. All of it will go to a charity for gay atheist Muslim dope smokers so they can live in a commune and teach that cockamamie theory of evolution. The rest of us will have to rely on the higher power of our choice as we stand in line at vegetarian soup kitchens before going to the government voucher office to reload our Universal Big Brother Health & I.D. card to get authorization and funds to buy a few squares of environmentally-approved single-ply toilet paper to use before we go get treated at the mobile clinic for the ass-reaming we have only begun to endure.

And I get to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs so at least one important part of this messed-up government might finally get fixed.