Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-yore!

A couple weeks ago, Eddie came to visit me so we could go to the wedding of a friend in Dallas. We had many adventures and decided to write about them together and post on both blogs. Why? Because we're nerds like that. So hush up and read. Eddie's in blue.

Chapter 1: Pigs’ POV: Scary Hotels and Eeyore

As I sit here on a Friday night babysitting at a friend's house and watching Ice Princess on the Disney Channel, my mind wanders back to last weekend. Last weekend, Eddie came into town for a long-awaited wedding. We had been looking forward to this weekend for months, talking plans, making arrangements, planning shopping....at last it arrived. Before she even packed her suitcase, Eddie began to Eeyore. That is, to spin the negative on everything around her. It's a gift she possesses that is like none other.It goes a little something like this:

Me: You come in three days!!!

Eddie: The whole trip's gonna be over before we know it.

Etc. I think it would suit her to have one of those Debbie Downer Wah! Wah! horns at her side at all times. As usual, I digress. [Yeah yeah yeah. So I’m a glass-half-emtpy kinda girl.] Refocusing on the weekend. We got a downtown hotel and everything! We arrived, we valeted, and Eeyore put her luggage down on a bed. She peered out of our – very high – 23rd floor window and sighed. Here it came:

Eddie: Man, I hope we don’t get bombed.

Me: What?!

Eddie: It’s a tall building. There’s a Pegasus on top. Like something to aim at.

Me: Are you insane?

Eddie: Plus, look how high we are. We’d never get out. I bet the building would collapse. And even if we broke out a window, there’s no ledge to get on. We’d be dead.

One must plan for these calamities. Had we been bombed, I would have been mentally prepared, while Pigs would have panicked.

After settling into our room, we were of course immediately excited that we had plenty of time to locate some snack-y food before dinner. The hotel manual said there were vending machines on the 3rd and 25th floors, so Pigs decided to forage for food. She came back to the room way too soon to have found any grub.

Me: What, did you get lazy and change your mind?

Pigs: There was no button for 25 in the elevator, so I tried taking the stairs but they were too scary.

Me: You’ve gotta be kidding me. It’s only 2 floors further up. Wimp.

So we went to check out the stairs together. And you know what? They were scary.

All I’ve got to say is that it was scary! Skeery, really. Here’s how it really went down: I left the room with my key and my five dollars carefully tucked into my pocket and Eddie’s snack order in my mind. I walked to the elevators and pushed the up button, when I noticed two dweeby types staring at me. I stared back. They resumed their talk about the nuances of fine literature in the modern age. DING! My chariot had arrived. As I headed to the elevator, they hastened to follow me. “Going up?” I asked, making sure they knew I was headed up, not down, lest they get annoyed. One dweeb snickered loudly and said, “There’s only one more floor, I’m not sure that’s worth an elevator.” Shows what he knows. I had read the hotel manual and I knew that the snacks were on the 25th floor and I was on the 23rd floor, so there were clearly two more floors above us. I rolled my eyes and walked knowingly into the elevator where I poised my finger to press the 25 button, only….there wasn’t one. Of course, I couldn’t let them know that. I haughtily punched 24 and stared them down as the doors shut. Now, where was I headed? And where was this elusive 25th floor? Why would an elevator have a 24 and a 26, but no 25? Who stole 25? The doors opened to a rather ominous 24th floor. It didn’t look anything like our cozy 23rd floor. An awkward NO SMOKING sign hung rakishly in a random dirty window across from the elevators. The two doors that I could see had the creepy old-fashioned windows above the doors from the days before air conditioning. It felt like I had stepped back in time. It also felt haunted. Didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all. I eased back toward my elevator to find that the door had shut and my carriage had left me. I glanced above the doors. Instead of the traditional up/down arrows to show you which direction the elevator is headed, this one had two eerie lamps, one above the other, illuminated with red bulbs. Creeporama. I decided to take the stairs. The hinges creaked as I pushed open the ancient metal door and peered into the stairwell. Whoa. NOT going in there. Rusty hundred year old metal stairs clung to the peeling walls. Nuh uh. I shut the door quickly, headed back to my elevator and punched the button impatiently until it fetched me. Did I mention that the elevators had a sort of disclaimer in them? Regarding the unusual speed and lurching of the aged machines? It tried to play them off as “quaint” but it didn’t work for me. I bolted out of that elevator and back to Eeyore as fast as lightning. Her response? “You should’ve taken your cell. I’m surprised you didn’t get locked in the stairwell.”

I would like to go on record as saying that Pigs is exaggerating my Eeyorosity just a little bit. Take it with a grain of salt.

Untrue. She's really that bad. I wish I had written down half the things she said. More of our exciting adventures to come...

'Tis the Season

I've never been a huge fan of Thanksgiving. It's just kind of a boring holiday between Halloween and Christmas that is an excuse to not go to work/school and to eat a lot. I'm all for the pilgrims and tradition - woo hoo! Go Pilgrims! - but I'm not feeling the holiday. It just reminds me of stomachaches and football, two things I don't really get excited about. Plus, I don't like stuffing and I detest pumpkin pie. It looks and smells like vomit.

This is the last year that the Pigs Family will be in Texas for this season, so we are going to do it up right. You know how? Chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese! That's right, campers! Our two favorite parts of Thanksgiving - well, poultry, though it may not be a whole turkey - topped off with a pecan pie. (Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash. But I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie.) Eddie informed me today that pecan pie has something like three times the calories of pumpkin. Well, hello! That's why it doesn't taste like vomit! Eddie, always such a calorie counter. (Snicker.)

So, Thanksgiving: just a speedbump on the road to Christmas. Speaking of Christmas. I am doing remarkably well shopping for some family members and remarkably poorly shopping for others. I have to have a clear and concise list of what I intend to buy for people before I can go shopping. I've never been good at just wandering around a mall and spotting random items for Uncle Bob. I think that's how people wind up with lousy gifts. Like those displays of pre-wrapped jobbers in the aisles of Macy's. I also have a problem with getting Christmas things for Christmas. Maybe it was the years of teaching and getting trinket after doodad after POC, but it doesn't interest me. You have to put it away until the next year and forget about it. Exception to this rule: hostess gifts or the like. Okay to go seasonal there.

Is it wrong that I'm probably not getting my child anything for Christmas? And that I didn't get him anything last year either? He's 14 months old. He doesn't know what Christmas is! We're going to be traveling the whole week, not even in his home, and he's going to get countless gifts from doting relatives. (Which he does not need - my house would look like Toys R Us if not for my carefully controlled playroom-with-gate toy quarantine area.) It just seems like a waste of money when he doesn't need anything and this is the last year I can possibly get away with it for the next sixty years or so. Right? Right? Tell me I'm right.

And? I'm not sure that this child would be visited by Santa Claus anyway, as he has taken great pleasure at whacking Gus on the head with various items to see what kind of noise they will make. Poor Gus. Poor, stupid, patient Gus just winces and looks at me with pleading eyes. Piglet's favorite sound? Remote control on dog knee. We instituted time out yesterday, which has yet to have any effect. Suggestions welcome. The dog may have a sketchy past, but he does not deserve abuse. He was here first and has been most tolerant.

Alas, this has turned into a classic Pigs Ramble covering several holidays and opinions when I just started out intending to ponder the joy that isn't Thanksgiving. Ah, well. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Those Darn Kids!

This morning there were two juvenile delinquents teengage boys putzing around Lake Pigs in my backyard trying to shoot a goose. One lone goose, who dipped in for a morning swim, innocently going about his day and these two mean boys are shooting at him. When I look out the window and see a boy with a rifle looking thing resting on his shoulder as he peers through one of those squinter-into-er aiming thingers, I think murder. Mr. Pigs claimed it was an innocent BB gun. First of all, I don't care what kind of gun it was, it's not innocent and he doesn't need to be trying to kill/maim/annoy a goose in my backyard. Secondly, those bullet thingies could come flying over my fence and cap me in the noodle. And don't say it couldn't happen, because odds are good that it would absolutely happen to me. [See Sink Falling on Toe Incident for further evidence.]

What's a girl to do? I sauntered over to the computer, looked up a number and called in the Law. That's right, I did. If I live in an area suburban enough that we were told "no" when asked if we could shoot a darn snake in our backyard, then goose torment by BB gun should be forbidden as well. I have to tell you that I took great satisfaction at peering through my window and watching those two forlorn boys, arms hanging scared at their sides, nod reverently at Mr. Policeman as he gave them what appeared to be a fairly stern ten minute lecture.

I think I may have become Mrs. McCluskey.

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Bob and myself are going to Lucy and I's swimmin' hole.

I will be the first to admit that I watch far too much reality television. And then I have the audacity to criticize the genre, as though I am surprised by the lack of quality. Knowing all of this, I can still trace my recent grammatical aggravation primarily to reality TV.

Today's Grammatical Rant:

People Who Use the Words "Myself" and "I" in Attempts to Appear Intelligent.

Now, surely you realize that simply by writing about anything that is grammatical in nature, I am guaranteed to have at least one grammatical error in this post, as well as 2-3 typos. It's just the way things work. That duly stated, I will proceed to my point, which is threefold.

1. The Basic Rules:

Most people know that you always put the other person first, such as "Mike and I" or "Mom and I". Somehow as a result of years of teachers and parents yelling "I!" after children's innocent "Can me and Katie go play outside?" comments, there are some idiots out there who really believe that it is always correct to say "I" no matter what. This is in fact, quite wrong.

If you must, then simply remove the other party from your sentence to see how it should sound. For example, the sentence "Eddie and I like to pick our noses." is correct for two reasons. One, we both like to pick our noses. Two, if I took Eddie out of the equation, "I like to pick my nose" sounds far better than the Elmo-esque "Me like to pick my nose." Now, if we were to see a third party picking their nose, one might say, "Look! That girl likes to pick her nose too! Maybe she could join Eddie and me in therapy." In this case, "me" would be correct because upon removing Eddie once more, the sentence would read "Maybe she could join me in therapy." It would sound foolish to say "join I in therapy". Which brings me to reality television, where apparently no one has ever been taught this basic rule.

2. Taking Things Plural:

The same people who have always been taught that "I" is always far superior to "me" tend to worsen the situation when discussing their relationships. It never fails that someone on my trashy TV show is speaking quite earnestly to the camera about their relationships when it happens: they try to sound smart. The phrase "John and I's relationship" inevitably comes out of someone's mouth. Have you ever in your life heard of the word "I's"? Would you ever say "That book is I's"?? Would you? Then don't say "Eddie and I's house". There's no sense to it. I think the correct way to say it, if you insisted on pushing through this miserable skanky camera interview, would be "John's and my relationship." Don't hold me to it, but it sure sounds better than the alternative.

3. Bringing in Myself:

Now I might be going out on a limb here because I've never actually read the real rule, so feel free to opine. But! The word "myself" is starting to get out of hand. It again appears to go back to people trying to sound smarter than they are. It's not quite as masterful as knowing when to use "whom", which seems to elusively evade some people, but it seems to make people feel as though they are close to that coveted grammatical status.

Let me elaborate. It's perfectly okay to say "I hurt myself picking my nose this morning." It is not okay to say "Eddie and myself picked our noses yesterday." Would you say "Myself picked my nose today"? I think not. It's almost as though the people on my shows (of course no one in real life would ever make these errors) took the "say I!" lesson to heart, and then as though to prove that they had surpassed that usage error, they began to use "myself" instead of I because clearly it sounds a lot fancier. "You will be judged this evening by the panel of judges, including Mark, Ronald, and myself." No, no, no! It vexes me everytime. Don't use myself when it should just be me or I.

Whew! I feel as though I have unloaded some great grammatical angst. That will be all today. Class dismissed. Gonna go pick my nose now.