True Beauty & Common Courtesy

Lately I have been watching this show on TV called "True Beauty." For those of you who haven't seen it I will fill you in. They picked 10 beautiful people to move into a house together and every week they put them through a beauty challenge (photo shoot, commercial filming, wardrobe contest, etc.) to see who is the most beautiful. These are 10 of the shallowest people I have ever seen. They are all superficially lovely to look at but that is where their beauty ends. What the contestants don't know is that they are also being judged on their inner beauty. The are being watched by hidden cameras and their every move and word is being recorded and critiqued. Every week one of our beauties must leave so they pick the two in the bottom and send them to the Hall of Beauty. There is, however, one final challenge to test their inner beauty.

The final challenges have so far been:

1. Help the delivery man with the full arms open the door.
2. Pick up the bottle that the man tossed on the ground in front of you on the sidewalk
3. Help the crying child to find her mother.
4. The gardener accidentally sprays you with the hose, how do you react.
5. Bike messenger falls of his bike, do you help him and make sure he is alright.

Each week they let one of the final two go back to the contest and they reveal the "real" competition to the one going home. They play the hidden footage for the contestant that is going home and show them what a douche bag they really are.

I am amazed by these people. I know that this is a reality TV show and that parts of it could be staged. I like to believe it isn't because I find that it makes for more entertaining viewing. I can't help but be sucked into this show. For years I have been saying that common courtesy is dead. I mostly blame the cell phone but that is an entirely different rant so I won't go into it. The problem with watching this show is that I was already acutely aware of the lack of niceness and common courtesy in the world around me and now I feel as though it is lit up by spot lights and being enhanced by a microscope.

Today I went to the grocery store. Here are the things I witnessed...

1. I needed to walk in front of someone in an aisle. I said "pardon me." She sighed heavily and glared at me as though I was doing something wrong.

2. A child knocked a box of cereal off the shelve directly in front of his mother. The mother looked at the box and then walked away. She didn't pick it up. I find two issues here - 1. she was thoughtless and 2. she is teaching her child that this behavior is OK.

3. There was an old lady behind me in the line who had a cane and was leaning very heavily on the cart for balance. She looked distressed and uncomfortable. She only had about 12 things in her cart so I let her go ahead of me. It turned out that she had a leaking carton of milk that needed to be swapped out. I grabbed it and said that I would do it. The woman behind me sighed very loudly and said "I'm glad some people have all day because I don't." It was so rude and I wanted to punch her.

4. When I was leaving the store there was a woman in front of me going through the doors. Her cell phone started ringing so she stopped walking (in the doorway, completely blocking it) and started digging through her bag to find it. I said "Excuse me, can I squeeze by?" She had answered her phone before I asked and when hearing me said into her phone "Hold on, some pushy bitch needs to get by."

I was at the store for less then 30 minutes and these are just four of the dozen or so things that I saw that disgusted me. Believe it or not there are more. I am saddened by how people have become so self centered that they don't even seem to notice that how they are acting is unpleasant. I always try to say excuse me, I hold doors for strangers, I yield and let others go ahead, I pick up things I drop, and most importantly I taught my children these same traits.

I am amazed at the end of every weeks episode when they show the contestant their behavior. They ALL say "Well that isn't really who I am" or "everyone else does those things too." There is simply no accountability. Are people really that oblivious to how they act? Have we, as a society, just decided that being helpful and using basic politeness is no longer important?

What has gone wrong with our society when you can get a glare for saying "excuse me?"

Next time you are out and about running your errands, whether on a busy stressful day or a laid back Sunday afternoon, pay attention to your own behavior. How do you react when you are inconvenienced? Do you remain calm and polite or are you the one doing the glaring? And how have you taught your children handle these situations?

So my sister went to the library...

...to get books for her four year old daughter. Like any unsuspecting parent would do, she let her daughter go to the children's section to pick out books. This has become an every Tuesday ritual for them, they typically get enough books to make it through a weeks worth of bedtime stories.

Well this weeks selection held a bit of a surprise for my sister. Imagine, if you will, what the story in a book called "Mommy Laid an Egg" would be about?

There is no easy way to describe this book so I have scanned the pages that I found to be the most informative. Before you look at the pictures I feel like it is only fair to tell you how the books starts...

It is innocent enough. Mommy and Daddy decide to tell little Jane & Johnny about where babies come from. We then go through about twelve pages of the normal childhood explanations, such as: sugar and spice, all things nice, slugs and snails, puppy dogs' tails, delivery by dinosaur, baked from cookie dough, found under a rock, squeezed from a tube, grown from a seed and hatched from an egg. OK, so some of these I had never heard before but they had wonderfully cute water color illustrations so I just went with the flow of the story. This part of the book ends with the "egg" exploding and babies shooting out (click on any image to view larger).

All is very simple and fairy tale like up to this point and then the kids decide to get serious and tell their parents the truth. Rather than describe these to you I will let you see for yourself.

First we learn about the basic anatomy of both mommy and daddy.

Then we get to see how they work together. I am curious as to why daddy's "seed pods" are so small in comparison to his "tube."

How DO they work together? Can you show me? Why, yes, I can. Thank you for asking.

Well first off you might want to try the old standard, what I like to call "Skateboard Sex." It is not as difficult as you might think. Look at how much fun mommy and daddy are having.

After you have mastered "Skateboard Sex" and "Circus Sex" you might want to move onto something a bit more complicated like "Hot Air Balloon Sex." Don't worry about daddy, he is not as frightened as he looks, he is just concentrating very hard on getting his tube into mommy's tube.

For the grand finale you might want to try "Space Hopper Sex." Daddy must do this one a lot to be able to do it no handed like that.

Once all the acrobatics are done the newly planted "seeds" must race their way to the egg so that we can make the baby! Swim boys, swim!!

Apparently there is a winner in this race. Is it the one that doesn't speak Ebonics? And do the "losers" really turn around and swim out? Where is the illustration to show us how the losers run down the inside of Mommy's leg? And who is that woman waiting to catch them?

The next few pages in the book show you how Mommy goes from being slightly round to completely HUGE ( I will spare you the pictures, by now we know they will not be pretty).

When Mommy is big enough...

So tell me, do you feel like you have a pretty good grasp of how this process works? If you were a child would this clear it up for you?

My nieces responses: "Tubes, yeah, right."

Fort Stewart Trip - Day Five - Tybee Island Adventures

We arrived about 6 so it was already dark but we went wandering anyway. This is a cool old tree on Butler Street.

See the demons in the tree?

We wondered around on the beach and it was in a word, awesome. Warm and windy and smelled terrific.

James was strangely attracted to these newspaper stands...

After our beach combing we were hungry so we went to look for a place to eat. Unfortunately it is Christmas eve in the "off season" on the island so there weren't many places to choose from. We ended up at a seafood place called Sting Rays. It was fantastic. We sat outside on the patio to eat where it was a bit chilly so they used the propane patio heaters to keep us warm. I am not complaining too much because we would never have been able to sit outside in MN even with a propane heater! Bailey and James had crab legs. Watching Bay eat them was a hoot.

Fort Stewart Trip - Day Five - Shopping with Bailey

Today Bailey and I had to check out of our hotel at 11 but James had to work until 2 so we had some time on our hands. We decided to go the Outlet Mall near Savannah. We found a used book store that was selling what seemed like the entire contents of a library...for $.99 per book. I bought seven hard cover books for $7.00. It was awesome. We also went to a toy store that was closing and got some fantastic deals on some Polly Pocket dolls for my niece.

We went to a store called Bealls Outlet that is similar to the TJ Maxx we have in Minnesota but much less organized. They had tons of cool "church" hats. Here are some...

James' Barricks & Jungle Gym

Ok, so it is not really a jungle gym but it sure looks like one!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Fort Stewart Trip - Day Four - Downtown Savannah By Day

Today Bailey and I met Jessica at the Savannah Mall to do a bit of shopping. Bailey got a ton of stuff at a store called Rue 21. She found a bunch of t-shirts that were inexpensive and just her style. After the mall we decided to go downtown to see Savannah by day. We didn't get very far because we were hungry. We did revisit a store that was closed when we were there on Monday night. It is called 24e. Way cool home furnishings that I can't afford. It was open today so I was able to go inside. It was everything that I expected it to be and more. I LOVE this store.

This is the most amazing crystal light fixture I have ever seen. It is not only enormous but it is super duper sparkly. I WANT it. It is ONLY $3000 - that's all...


Here is Bailey and Jess in the cool white leather bar chairs...

Fort Stewart Trip - Day Three - Downtown Savannah By Night

We took a last minute trip to downtown Savannah. James' friend Jessica played tour guide - I was glad to have an "native" with us. It was beautiful but very chilly. We walked down to the river walk and got coffee. We went to this fantastic little candy store where Bailey bought a pound of candy to rot her teeth.

The "squares" in Savannah are so lovely. I am not sure what this one is called by I didn't want to leave and I was quite happy with how my photos turned out.


This is down by the river. Not a great photo but it was dark and my camera hates taking pictures at night!

Fort Stewart Trip - Day Three - Camo Everywhere

We had to follow this truck into a parking lot to get this shot...

Fort Stewart Trip - Day Three - Killing Time

Bay and I had some time to kill waiting for James to get off work so we wandered around the base. We were driving and saw all of these sappling trees that had decorations and wreaths on them. They were obviously mean as a memorial to something so we decided to stop and have a look. It was the Warrior's Walk.

There are so many things I could say here about the political side of the war and what my beliefs are in regards to them but instead I will just say this - it was sad, lovely and overwhelming. So many lives lost...

Let us not forget the men and women who protect our country. They do it not because they are forced to but because they are proud to.

Fort Stewart Trip - Day Three - Ranking Ceremony

Bailey and I slept in today (til noon). It was fantastic after the long drive here. I was tired and she is sick. We were just starting to plan our day when James called to tell us that they were going to do his promotion "ceremony" at 2 PM. If we could make it there we could watch. He called at 1:30!

We got dressed faster then I thought was possible and left for the base. Our hotel is close so it wasn't hard to find and only took a few minutes to get there. We had one hiccup along the way - we were visitors to the base and needed a pass. We were held up for a bit during that process but still made it in time to the "ceremony."

The ceremony consisted of all of James' D-FAC (dining facility) coworkers standing at attention while the Sergeant said some words. I was given the privilege of putting the lapel pins on for him. It was very awesome. After the pins were in place they went through the tradition of pounding them into his skin. It was both funny and disturbing.

Here are some pictures...

It's Humiliate the Pups Time Again.

The pictures from last year turned out so cute that I thought I should revisit it. The problem is that they are older and wiser...and much less cooperative! So instead of a half a box of Milk Bones it took closer to a full box and the after effects on there poor digestive systems were not fun. But, here are the best of the best...

Still cooperating -

Completely done cooperating -

Best Knife Set EVER! I love this.

The person who thought of this is a genius! Pure genius.

What they are teaching my son in the Army.

Newly Discovered Webcomic - XKCD.com

This is truly awesome!

A Walk Down Memory Lane

Today my ex brought over a box of my things that was at his house. It contained mostly memorabilia from my days in high school. It was awesome to look through the old magazines, notebooks, notes from friends and pictures in there. My favorite had to be the pictures from my prom when I lived in Arizona. My date was Christopher Gagne. Football playing hottie with a very nice ass. It is really too bad that due to the styles that were popular at the time that I didn't come close to matching his hotness. We would make a much better looking couple now then we did then. Have a look for yourself...

Here is Chris in his football uniform...


Here is his school picture...


Here we are preparing for prom...


Here we are with my friend Michelle Palmer and her date. I have been trying to find Michelle since I left Arizona. If by some chance of fate anyone sees this and recognizes her please contact me...

So many great memories. So much weird hair! Good times!!

Cute boys half my age.

I was going to continue the update of my life in this post but instead of all the boring & somewhat crappy things I have decided to write about my new friend Livingston.

I met him the day my son left for basic training. -Livingston, McCrutcheon (sp) and my son were all flying out to Fort Jackson together. I took them to lunch as their last supper in Minneapolis. It was a nice afternoon considering it was somewhat of a melancholy occasion. I admit that I especially liked the attention from these young strangers, who were baffled by my age and the fact that James is my son. My ego felt very good.

Well I saw Livingston at James' graduation and because James didn't have a cell at the time I gave him my number so he could keep in touch. I got a text message from him about a week ago and we have been exchanging messages ever since.

He is sweet, clever and naughty in equal portions. One of those slightly nerdy smart types that I fall for so easily. The only issue is that he is just about half my age! Since he is 1200 miles away and all of our communication has been via email or text it is easy to forget this. I had a friend tell me that if I was a near 40 year old man dating an early 20 something girl I would be a rock star.

I am not certain I want to stop flirting with this boy. I enjoy it. I like the attention and I have grown accustomed to getting his messages. I have started looking forward to them as a bright spot in my day. I am not sure I want it to stop.

If this is right then why does it feel shady?

James at Basic Training

I'm Back!

I am certain that what limited readership I had is now gone due to my inactivity so I guess I will post this just for the sake of posting my thoughts. If you are reading it, Thank you.

The past 6 months have been crazy. I started a new job on January 3rd and I feel like I haven't slept since. We have gone through so many changes that I have lost track of most of them. The most exciting, by far, has to be a complete infrastructure overhaul. We now have ALL new computers, monitors, server, backup system, wiring, router, and everything else. Clean start - not only did we upgrade all of the technology but we replaced the furniture as well. It is freaking awesome. I have spent the last month rearranging, assembly and installing software/hardware. I love the result but it has been tiring. Like having two full time jobs. One doing the production management and day to day client care and one as IT support. Tomorrow we go live on our new network and I can go back to sleeping at night.

Outside of work, what little time I spend there, has been just as crazy. My son joined the military in December and shipped off to basic training at the beginning of April and my daughter just finished her last year of junior high. They are so grown up. It is awe inspiring to look at them now. They aren't supposed to be this old yet. They aren't supposed to have their own lives yet. They should be more dependent on me. How come they don't realize this?

I have so much more to write but I need to get some sleep. I have an early start and a very long day ahead of me tomorrow. I miss posting here though, so I will be a more frequent writer from now on.

G'night.

Christmas Memories.

Well, Christmas is over and I wish I could say it was wonderful but I would be lying. It was "mostly" great but no where in the neighborhood of wonderful.

I do have some good memories though and mostly they were captured on film. I forgot to bring the disc with the rest of the photos on it with me today but I do have this picture - I took it and framed it as a gift to each of my kids. It only took an hour and a half and half a box of Milk bone dog treats to get this picture!

Merry Christmas - From Rudy & Henry!

Missin' the Kissin'

Last night I started taking an inventory of all of the things that I miss about having a "roommate." I guess mine wasn't really a roommate situation but more of a "we don't know how we are supposed to act so we should definitely still behave like a couple most of the time. This will make it easier and ultimately make it much more complicated than it needs to be" situation. If that makes sense to you then you are ahead of the game. I am still a bit baffled by how we could do that for so long. Don't get the wrong idea. It was not all bad, in fact it was mostly terrific. Here I was living with someone who I should for all intents and purposes be bitterly mad at but I thoroughly enjoy both him and our friendship so what's a girl to do?

So here I was taking this inventory. Mostly in hopes of putting together a list of all the things that I LOVE about living alone but my plan back fired on me terribly. Instead of feeling better about the solitude I started to feel worse. I realized that while "pretending" to be a couple wasn't necessarily healthy it did provide me the best of both worlds. I like to share things. I like to talk about my day and have someone else tell me about theirs. I like to share the chores and the mundane daily tasks. Along with this, I am a VERY tactile person. I love to snuggle. I love to kiss and be hugged. I like having someone who feels the need to rub their hand along my back when they walk past me, even if it is just out of impulse. I had all of these things and a best friend rolled into one.

By now you are asking yourself "If it was so great why is she not still with this person." Well, recently a friend of mine broke up with his girlfriend. I asked what went wrong. He gave me one of the best answers I have ever heard. What's more - it fit my situation PERFECTLY. He said "Our inner demons refused to get along and play nice." Well there you have it, in a nut shell, why I am single.

So, back to my inventory...

I realized that kissing is one of the things I miss the most. All of the kissing. The "good morning" peck on the forehead. The kiss "good-bye, see you later." The kiss on the back of the neck that said "thank you for cooking dinner." The "boy you are silly and gullible" kiss on my cheek. The "are you thinking what I am thinking" kiss on the more passionate side of life. All of them. I miss them all. Even if they never really had all the love and passion that should have backed them up. I still miss them.

What's a girl to do? In my moment of weakness and self pity I decided to do the one thing that would cheer me up and quite possible find that needle in the hay stack - a man who wants to fill the kissing void. I posted an ad on Craigslist. (Don't judge me - I REALLY don't want to pay any of the online dating sites. I am not ready for that quite yet so a quick fix was necessary).

Anyway - while the ad on CL was not my proudest moment it did succeed in breaking me out of my funk. Not because I found a tremendous amount of likely candidates but because the emails are SOOOOOO ridiculous. In order to demonstrate my point I will first tell you what my ad said:

"Kissing"

"I need a kiss. I just got out of a relationship and am not looking to jump into anything but I really miss the kissing. I am looking for someone who I click with who wants to do nothing more than that. I can hold a conversation, I think I am funny, I am tall and height/weight proportionate. I have good hair and good teeth. Want to know more? Just ask. I will tell you anything you want to know.

We will need to have chemistry, so for the sake of narrowing my search I will give you the things I am typically attracted to. Here goes:

Tall - over 6 feet
Average to muscular build
No long hair or facial hair
Non-smokers only
Smart & funny

Last but not least, the ability to write an email that is more than one sentence, has capital letters and uses punctuation."

Simple, to the point, not too demanding, right? I thought it was an OK post. I didn't include a bulleted list of all the things that I REALLY like in a man or all the things that I absolutely won't tolerate. I even left off "Must have good, clean teeth." This is a big one for me. I am OK with crooked but if I can see the plaque on them I am out. Ewwww, gross.

A brief overview of my responses:

- 23 in total
- 3 pictures included. Two were of the guy who emailed and one was a random picture of lips.
- 1 asshole lecturing me on the two typos I had in my post. Funny that he had at least 4 misspelled words in his email, not including the half a dozen intentionally incorrect words that he used to try to make his point.

Here is a cross section of the replies I have received in the past 12 hours:

Mr. Robberts said, "sure! would you like to chat?" Yes, that was the sum total of his email. Brilliant.

Mr. Anderson was much more wordy. In fact I am not sure what ad he was responding to because it certainly was not mine. You can view his response here.

Anonymous Emailer #1 said, "ru real or phony?" I could ask him the same thing. Good job on the complete sentences though!! Your mother should be proud.

Jeremy said, "I know how you feel."

Mr Lubrant is the guy who told me off for my typos. To read his PERFECT email click here!

Anonymous Emailer #2 said, "got to try this-----see if you get past the 1st sentence--in this format you should use anything available to make a point----" This one falls under the "things that make you go mmmmm" category.

Mr. Sadrai decided to quote e.e. cummings in his email. You have to read this one.

Anonymous Emailer #3 said, "Hi there, I am a married 25 year old attractive white mail. I am well endowed endowed, and looking for some hot discreet fun. If interested get back to me. Pic 4 pick." I am confused. What does the size of his johnson have to do with his ability to kiss? And if you are ONLY 25 and already unhappy in your marriage then you should get the hell out. WTF???

Mr. Billingsley said, "Hey! How are you sweetie? Wanted to let you know that you are beautiful adn I would love to get to know you better. If you are interested let me know. Here are few ways to get to learn more about me and check out some photos." He then included the link to his business website and his myspace page. Funny how I did NOT include my picture in my ad and yet he thinks he knows how beautiful I am. C'mon buddy, get a clue.

Mr. Ford said, "I also love to kiss, it seems that a good kiss is capable of of insulating us from all our cares, and giving us a special "high" unlike any other. That being said, I personally lack the confidence to harbor any notions of being selected as your partner. I would however, like to submit this picture. I do wish you well, d." The picture he included was a random shot of lips. I was especially intrigued by his overwhelming self confidence. So very attractive. I guess I should give him credit for trying but holy crap dude.

Anonymous Emailer #4 said, " If you pick me,will you wear a kinda tight casmere sweater ?" He actually wrote more then this but this was the best part of his email.

Brad wrote, " Hi there, How are you doing? You sound very interesting and appear to be a very good looking lady. I am very interested into you. I LOVE Short hair." Hmmmm, again, I DID NOT POST A PICTURE - and hey buddy, I don't have short hair!

There were more responses then this and they just keep coming. I would like to thank the few guys who wrote quite thoughtful emails that were not smarmy.

I started this whole thing by trying to put together a list of things I liked about living alone. I then got side tracked into making a list of all of the things I miss about not living alone. The ad I posted on CL was done in a moment of desperation and depression by a woman whose life is in a flux right now. I had it in my head that I would feel better if I could just find someone to fill the void. Well I didn't find someone through CL (not that I had any real expectations of doing so) but I did find something better. I found out that I am not ready to let another man into my life.

So for now I will just try to be happy with what I have and not dwell on the little things that I feel like I am missing. I will get used to it eventually, right? God, I hope so.

But - if anyone reading this knows any cute, tall, funny, SMART, single men who want to spend an evening having good conversation and/or kissing a cute, tall, funny, SMART, single woman - let me know!!