If Charles were alive, he’d be 200. He’d probably need a pretty big birthday cake to fit 200 candles on it. I’d also have the fire department on standby if I were hosting the party.

Another little, interesting fact: there is a Charles Dickens museum in London. Yet another reason to go there, although it already is on my “To Be Visited” list. (The list is quite extensive so I’m going to need to hit the lottery soon.)

Happy birthday, Charles, and thank you. The world would certainly be a bit duller without Ebenezer, Oliver and David in it.

I was never a big football fan. Part of the reason, I suspect, is because I had no clue what was going on. One team tries to run with a football down the field and the other team jumps on the guy to try and stop him from running down the field. Eh, kinda boring to me.

My dad watched the football games when we were kids but none of us followed the game. I remember attempting to ask questions, trying to understand what was going on. My questions were met with an incredulous look and that was about it, as though to say, “If you don’t understand something as simple as this, don’t expect me to explain it to you.” He had the opportunity to share his love of football but he just tossed it away. If I were to confront my father with this now, he’d completely deny it, but it’s true. Actually, he probably, quite honestly, has no recollection of that whatsoever. We’ll give him a pass on that one.

I suspect there were two underlying factors to my father’s failure to teach me about football. The first, and most likely reason, was he didn’t even hear the question. The man has this habit of getting so wrapped up in watching something, he wouldn’t know if the house caught fire. I’m certainly not at all like that. Really. Just ask Frank or the kids.

The other reason might have been more subconscious. He knew my mother didn’t like football and didn’t like him watching it. He was terrified that if he explained it, she’d be angry that he sucked me into the sport. Yep, that must be true because my mother was so terrifying and intimidating. (For those who don’t know, I am being sarcastic.)

Well, only a few more hours until the big game. And to see if they have any decent commercials. I haven’t been impressed the last few years with the commercials. Y’all enjoy your parties. Go Giants!

What day would I be required to repeat over and over until I got it right? Now there’s a tough question. If it was that clear, Bill Murray would have gotten it by the second or third time around, wouldn’t he have? My conclusion, therefore, is that others would have a way easier time of telling me what I need to do right. Come to think of it, most people are good at telling others what to do; what needs to be ‘fixed’ in their lives. Much to the dismay of everyone around me, I have resisted all attempts to fix me.

There are some people whose sole purpose in life seems to be to fix other people. Now I’m not talking about professionals who we actually pay money to help fix us, like a therapist. Nor am I talking about parents because half the fun of being a parent is being able to boss around my kids. (Yeah, that’s not working out too well for me.) I’m talking about the busybody down the block. “Don’t you think you should plant a different bush there?” Then there are the so very helpful friends. “If you expect someone to be interested enough to date you, you’re going to have to dress differently and wear makeup.”

Thank you but I don’t need to be fixed. Sure there are things that need changing but I’d rather figure them out on my own and fix them by myself. I’m weird like that.

But what if I were to choose my own do-over day? What day would I want to change?

On the surface, it seems like an easy question but if you think about it, it really isn’t. Everything we’ve experienced makes us who we are. If we change one day, we have no idea how it will ripple out and affect everything else.

Sure I’d like to redo the day my engagement ring was stolen. I’d like to make sure I never, ever left my ring out in plain sight just to be plucked up by a ‘friend.’ But what if I still had it and what if I were walking home from someplace late at night and a desperate druggie saw it and tried to mug me to get it? What if I said, “Yeah, you just try to take it.” (Not a completely unlikely thing for me to say.) And then he pulled out a gun and killed me. That ring stealing ‘friend’ might have saved my life. Okay, it might not be likely to happen but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

I guess it turns out that it’s a good thing no one has unlocked the secret to time travel, after all. I think once around is quite enough. I don’t want to repeat my day.

I would have something intelligent to say if only I weren’t sleep deprived yet again. I got so little sleep; I’m amazed my fingers even know how to type. I’m surprised I even remember the English language. They do say a lack of sleep affects your memory and your cognitive abilities.

I know. I’ll do a little picture story today. Back when we first moved into the neighborhood, we had a tornado touch down. This is what our house looked like:

Anyone who has seen my house will be thinking I’m showing them a picture of someone else’s house. Yes, when we moved in, our house was little. And green. And had a big tree fall into the driveway.

It wasn’t even our tree. It belonged to our neighbors:

This was not the only tree uprooted in our neighborhood. In a 3 mile radius, I’d say there was an uprooted tree on virtually every other block. My brother in-law worked about a mile and a half from his home at the time. It took him over an hour to drive home because of all the downed trees.

There you have it – a little story about our tornado. And now I think I will get ready for bed.

I guess there are times when everyone will lie. Husbands pretty much have to say no when their wives ask if they look fat. That’s purely self preservation – for both the husband and wife; possibly the marriage, as well.

I don’t, however, get the people who lie just for the sake of lying, without a real reason for doing so.

“We can’t attend that party tonight because I have to work late,’ the husband might say.

“Oh, we can’t tell them that. That’s not a good excuse.” The wife pauses for a minute. “I will tell them the hot water heater burst and we’re going to have to spend the entire night cleaning up the water and then we’ll have to wait for a plumber to come and replace it.”

For me, if I were to make up stories like that, I’d forget five minutes later. I can’t even remember the truth, much less stuff that’s made up. Then, of course, there’s the fact that if I were to attempt to lie, my face would give it away. That’s why I could never play poker.

Aside from pathological liars, I guess the most common reason people lie is because they think they need to in order to soften a blow. A boss would never say, “I’m firing you because you’re a horrible, lazy worker.” Okay, I guess if you really dislike the person, you might say that but I’ve never known that to happen in the business world. Usually it’s something like, “Management is forcing us to cut costs and we need to let a few people go.”

The thing is I’ve found people who are not pathological liars normally don’t put a lot of careful thought into their lies. The lies just pop out. There’s a danger in that – other facts or other things you say are likely to contradict the lie you just told. Then all you’ve done is hurt and angered the person you thought you were being kind to by lying.

They should offer tutorials on proper lying. I’m sure you can find some psychopath who would be glad to tutor in the art of lying. Or, hey, I can teach it. Try your lie out on me. I have a really good B.S. detector. I can spot the tiniest inconsistency. If you can get the lie past me, your odds are good to go undetected.

Short of that, if you are going to lie, chart it out. With some careful planning, you, too, can become a proficient liar.

We’ve all sent emails we regret sending: that nasty email to your ex-wife, the sarcastic one to your manager, the one where you poured your heart out about your crush on the married guy in the office. Sure your ex-wife or manager may deserve every nasty, sarcastic word you said. Sure it’s true that you have a crush on a married man. That’s not the point. Often those are thoughts better left unsaid. Nothing good can come from it and if only you hadn’t had a drink or two, you never would have sent those emails.

Here’s where my nifty little invention comes in. Never again will you have to worry about sending an email you wish you could take back. Eliminate the danger of tipsy typing. That’s right – stamp out tipsy typing forever! Here is the invention that will save you future embarrassment and possibly even keep you from losing your job, your marriage and your respect – the breathalyzer keyboard lock!

All this can be yours for the price of just $1999. But wait, there’s more. Order right now and we’ll double your order. That’s right, two for the price of one! Cash only. Order now while supplies last.

Clearly I have been seeing way too many commercials on late night TV.

Before playing CastleCraft aka CastleCrack, I had never played with anyone online. My opponents have always been my family, my computer or my own attempts to beat my high score. Then I discovered that I could play and lose against people who didn’t even know me. It sounded like a good idea to me. Losing anonymously didn’t seem quite so bad.

Recently I made the mistake of playing Words With Friends with my son. Like I said: online or at a casino, the luck goes out the window. He is kicking my butt. As a matter of fact, in all the WWF games I’m currently in – I think I’m only ahead in one. (Sorry PDX!) If anyone else out there feels like jumping on the “Beat Monkling” bandwagon, you should be able to figure out my username pretty easily.

Then there are the games in that Game Center thing Apple has with their apps. I had no idea what that was. I didn’t know I could play others in Scrabble, Backgammon or Carcassonne. It wasn’t until one of my friends from another game suggested to me that we play something on there. That was when I discovered there is a Monkling thief. It’s true. Someone else stole that name. I was forced to come up with a substitute so I switched out the ‘o’ for a zero.

Ah, yes. Nothing like a whole bunch of new things to keep me from doing the things I should be doing. On the other hand, if I were to play all day who would know?

Oops. I hit the “Publish” button before I was ready. Well, I was ready but that’s because I completely lost my train of thought. Sometimes that happens.

I had wanted to go into what my son told me when I complained he was killing me at Words With Friends. I said something about having awful letters on my rack. “Well, go for whatever you can but you’re forgetting an element of the game. Sure part of it is to get as many points as you can but you also want to block the other person so they can’t score a lot of points.”

I guess I am not competitive enough or not out for blood or don’t know how to play offense. It would never occur to me to play to block the other person. I’m not interested in making the game difficult for others, just in doing well myself and, hopefully, winning. Even back in that Castlecraft realm where I was number 1. Now I could have taken every single forest and mountain out there. I could have destroyed everyone else. But that’s not how I roll. I did attack players who were bullies or pest but the weak ones? My goal was to help them. I knew I could kick everyone’s butt. They knew it as well. I didn’t need to prove anything. Hmmm….. maybe that’s why I’m losing all those games?

Lorraine was the best mail carrier we ever had. I always knew it was her day off, not because I saw a substitute but because on that day, the mail was messed up. We all missed her when she left us, even Nicky. We had a long line of horrible mail carriers. And then Bob came along. Finally we had someone to equal Lorraine.

Then one day, Bob went well beyond the scope of his job. He could have just delivered the mail and went on his merry way but that’s not how he rolls. One day he noticed our elderly neighbor hadn’t been taking in her mail. He told me and another neighbor and we, in turn, called the police. Our neighbor had fallen and broken her hip. If Bob had simply done his job, no one would have known to check on her. As it was, several days had passed since she first fell. Bob saved her life.

I think I hit the jackpot with mail carriers – first a dog lover and then a hero. My UPS guy, though? Well that’s another story entirely. As a matter of fact, I believe I’ve blogged about him. Five years later, he’s still throwing packages but he’s added a new trick. If the box is really heavy and he can’t throw it, he puts it in front of my door. Directly in front. As in, I cannot open my front door. I think Bob needs to teach him a few things.

(With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Okay, it’s not really a sonnet. Not even close. Nor is it all that great as a piece of poetry but hey, what do you expect from a sleep-deprived zombie?

My particular issue, however, has nothing to do with clothing. No. This came about after my twenty millionth unpleasant experience at the dentist while having x-rays taken. I don’t know what size mouth they were thinking of when they made those things but it obviously wasn’t mine.

When I was a kid, I always got in trouble for things I said. I was told I had a big mouth. That that is a complete lie. I do not have a big mouth. Quite the opposite is true, thus the x-ray issue.

I am also convinced that the dental profession is a profession based on sadism. The writer of Little Shop of Horrors was definitely on to something. What other explanation can there be for all the various torture items? Even the sounds are horrible. Are you telling me no one has been able to invent something that will do these jobs without causing pain and unpleasantness?

“First I’m going to jam these huge plastic things into your mouth with x-ray films attached that will cut into your mouth. Next I will use a device with water that is sprayed out with a force that would cut bricks in half. After that, I am going to use an ice pick to scrape your teeth until the blood flows like rivers from your gums.” Sadists, I tell you.

I don’t quite know how it happened but I was heading off to bed and suddenly realized I hadn’t blogged today. This probably shouldn’t count but tough luck. It does. I can tell because the little calendar thingie is showing up for the 20th.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow’s will be way more interesting.

Once upon a time two crazy people got married. The husband expected his stepchildren to be prepared for life and he felt part of this preparation should be a college degree. In spite of all his unreasonable and crazy demands, this one was pretty sensible.

One of the stepchildren was not a student. He was never a particularly good student and really had no interest in attending college but went anyway. After a while, he had had enough.

The woman had a dilemma on her hands. She had always let her children do whatever they wanted to do and had given them anything they wanted. No matter how unreasonable their requests where, her children were treated like royalty because she felt it is a mother’s job to make sure her children are happy. How could she let her child stop attending college and yet, avoid having her nut husband badger her and her son day and night about getting a college degree? What to do, what to do…. Suddenly, the answer came to her! She would tell the husband that her son was finished with his studies and got his degree.

Crazy woman had a big graduation party. She invited all of her family and her son’s friends. Somehow she managed to either borrow a cap & gown or Photoshop her son wearing one because there were graduation pictures. I don’t know what she did for a degree but I suspect there is a Photoshopped one someplace.

Is it just me or is the whole fake graduation thing the craziest thing you ever heard of?