Ok, since I got shitcanned from my job, I figure that the very least that I can do for my roommate is have a nice hot dinner ready for him when he gets home from work. So after I finish dusting, vacuuming, and helping little Jimmy with his homework, I donned my pearls and pumps and headed for the kitchen! Oh wait..scratch that..that was from a bad episode of the Donna Reed Show from 1959! >>and everyone who knows me breathes a collective sigh of relief<<

Seriously, though, I did decide to do something nice for the roomie since he's been so cool about this whole situation. So I thaw out some boneless chicken breasts with the intent of smothering them with my own secret blend of herbs and spices (and flour) and then deep frying them in my rarely used deep fryer. Also on the menu was Stove Top stuffing and garlic mashed potatoes. Yeah the potatoes were instant..sue me. Anyway, the first sign of disaster is when I opened the lid of the fryer and was shocked to find that the oil that was currently in the damn thing had turned a rather unflattering shade of black. Now, I'm no chef, but I knew right away that vegetable oil isn't supposed to be black. Or chunky. So I decide to take on the decidedly grotesque task of cleaning the fryer out. Gee, I hope there's no law in Fuquay about dumping that stuff down the drain! Once I had the fryer shining as though it were fresh out of the box, I must have fallen and hit my head >>really HARD<< because I had the INSANE idea that it would be EASIER to just fry the chicken in a frying pan on the stove.

The second sign of disaster is when I put the first two chicken breasts into the sizzling hot oil in the frying pan and a huge plume of smoke came billowing out of the pan, hitting me directly in the face. Luckily, I was able to feel my way through the cloud and I turned the burner down a couple of notches. Coincidentally, this was the very time that all NINE of the smoke detectors in my house went off simultaneously..

After the fire department and paramedics left (my neighbor spotted the mushroom cloud and came over to see what was wrong..the doctors say the hair on his chest and his eyebrows WILL grow back!) I was able to finish cooking the meal. The roomie came home, commented that he didn't really like the shade of gray I picked for the dining room walls and then informed me that he'd gotten a burger on the way home from work.


The next time I feel like being nice, I'm ordering Chinese take out!

......in other news........

It looks like Uncle Delbert is going to be retiring, effective immediately. His blog didn't get quite the response that I..er, HE, was hoping for, and quite frankly, it's very difficult to use such horrible grammar on a regular basis! I honestly don't know how the grammatically challenged folks do it every day! I'm sure that in the near future I'll come up with another alter ego to inflict upon the unsuspecting folk of Blogstream!

Ok, so the title doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it just sounded kind of quirky, so there it is.

Christmas day went very nicely...I was able to be up in the early a.m. to videotape my nephew on his first Christmas. He got a lot of loot this year...hopefully stuff he'll still be playing with NEXT year! That's the hard thing about a child's first Christmas..they are really too young to get anything that will grow with them, and too old for "baby" stuff. He did get one thing that I hope will NEVER show up at my house when he comes to stay with me..it's this annoying "piano" sort of thing that when you push the corresponding button, it "sings" the color of the key. It's one of the most annoying toys I've ever seen, short of anything along the Elmo line!

So, aside from the 4 inches of rain we got on Christmas day, I was pretty upbeat! So far, this winter, like LAST just SUCKS. I should move to Northern Canada for the winter so that I get my much desired snow! Of course, folks up there are prepared for it, so it doesn't cause the same chaos that I so look forward to down here. Drats! I can't win for losing!

Christmas eve was quite entertaining as well...I went to my cousin's house (the one with the bratty kids..see previous post!)...his children were in rare form. Since they knew that they were due presents, they were actually well behaved. It's the one day out of the year that I don't want to pinch their heads off. Of course one of the many presents they got were helmets to wear when they are riding their (existing) 4wheeler and dirtbike...my cousin was concerned that his kids would be disappointed when they realized that the helmets weren't for NEW 4wheelers and dirtbikes. My idea? Remove all the presents and put tire tracks in the yard and then tell the kids that all their gifts were stolen! I don't think my cousin was very appreciative of that. Oh well. I tried.

Well, the party last night wasn't too bad. Not a huge turnout, but not a bomb either. There were just enough folks in attendance to make it a good time. Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about the tequila having an adverse effect on me..I didn't drink any! I did, however, mix myself a few rather strong versions of "Sex on the Beach"..in their original form, I found them to be a little too tame, so I kicked them up a notch with regular rum...YUM!

I did learn a valuable lesson last night at this party, though. Never, EVER mix alcohol with those frozen meatballs that you find in the grocery store. I produced methane so potent I could have powered the city of Los Angeles for hours! Ok I'm sure that no one really wanted to know that, but after having killed innocent plants and a couple of small squirrels on the way home last night, I felt it only right to do that public service announcement!

So this evening will consist of going to visit my cousin Chris and his family, where we'll eat dinner and open presents. Well, we'll watch his children open presents anyway. That's a story that I don't even want to get into right now..suffice it to say that there are children in this world who, over the years, have NOT been taught the TRUE meaning of the holiday by their parents.

Tomorrow morning will be the real fun for me. I will hopefully be videotaping my nephew Eli opening his Santa Claus gifts for the very first time. It's hard to believe that he's almost a year old! He's already crawling and is trying his best to stand on his own...pretty soon, he'll be walking, talking, and driving his mother crazy!

I hope that everyone out there has a Merry Christmas!

Well, tomorrow is going to be a busy day for me. Somehow I managed to get myself recruited into helping my neighbor across the street preparing for her Christmas bash. I'm the official "Pigs in a Blanket" cook. First of all, I don't know how to cook these things. Secondly, I have no idea WHY these things are called that anyway...they are hot dogs rolled in a crescent roll. The last time I checked, hot dogs were not made from pork. Everyone knows that hot dogs are made from ground chicken beaks, pulverized horse hooves, and granulated pigeon droppings.

It's funny how when you're unemployed everyone seems to think that you're available to do all of the little jobs THEY don't feel like doing. "Um, no, I don't think I'd want to help you dig the dead squirrel out of the tree....yes, I know I'm home all day today, but that doesn't mean I want to fish dead rodents out of a tree." Or better yet..."No, I didn't hear that Burger King is looking for someone to come in on weekends and clean out the grease vats for $5.15 an hour...but thank you for letting me know."

As for tomorrow's party. Well, it's supposed to be a pretty big deal. If it's anything like the 4th of July party in 2005, it should prove to be a good time. All I know is that there will be lots of Tequila there. I am looking forward to revisiting my old friend that I haven't seen in so many years. I just hope that revisiting that old friend doesn't have me end up paying dues to my old nemesis, The Porcelain God!

One of the great things about pounding the pavement looking for the next chapter in my professional life is the utter excitement of going through the interview process.

I went on an interview this morning. It went well enough..I actually spent a good amount of time just BSing with the head honcho..but then of course we had to get down to the 'structured' part of the process, which included taking one of the dreaded "personality tests"...most companies do them now, and for the most part, they are all the same. This morning, however, I took a test that literally had me laughing out loud. I'll list some of the questions below:

1. How many times in the last 12 months have you committed murder?

2. True or False: You have a sexual attraction towards children.

3. How many times in the last 12 months have you assaulted your supervisor or subordinates?

4. In general, how many people would you say that you have stabbed either with a knife or other sharp object during your lifetime?

5. How many times have you murdered someone and gotten away with it?

Now, this is just a sampling of some of the questions on this test! What scares me is that I just KNOW that at some point, someone has actually admitted to the murders, or the child molestation...or answered another one of the questions "The letter C is the first letter of the alphabet" as 'true'...

I will admit that the question about assaulting my supervisor or subordinates was the funniest one..considering some of the things I went through over the last several months, I certainly FELT like assaulting a supervisor or subordinate! So anyways, we'll see how this all works out.

Something to think about the next time you're having a bad day:

Not long ago, I was down and out with a pretty bad cold. A friend of mine was very thoughtful and sent me a get well card. I got a paper cut opening the damn thing.