I've got a lot going on, but I don't want to blog about it.  Some things I don't want to broadcast. So, I'm taking a blogging sabbatical. Watch this space for new content in the fall.

Everything is Harder for Me

Or at least, that feels like a recurrent theme. I realize that other people have it harder, but it often feels that things are unnecessarily difficult for me. For example, laundry woes. Everybody does laundry, with varying degrees of success. But there has to be drama involved if it's my laundry.
Last night, I was relaxing in my comfy recliner, knitting lazily on my CeCe cardigan (almost finished), watching the Tudors on DVD, and sipping away on a Big Gulp. I look down to discover a mysterious round stain right over my left ta-ta. Apparently, I'd set my sweaty drink down on something inky (a People magazine? A yarn catalog? Who knows.), which lovingly transferred to my shirt. I proceeded to panic. Normally, this would be a minor disaster at best. It's not as though I was wearing the Shroud of Turin. The shirt in question, a yellow t-shirt with floral and butterfly design, doesn't even look that great with my coloring. It was, however, my grandmother's, so it was upsetting to me to get an obvious stain on it.
Apparently, there are a lot of different things you can use to try to remove ink. This is what I tried: detergent. I put a ridiculous amount on to spot clean it, which didn't do anything except make a humorous amount of bubbles in the machine. Not I Love Lucy bad, but way more than normal. Next, I tried rubbing alcohol, reasoning that the alcohol is what makes hairspray work in these circumstances. Fun fumes, but no luck. Third: a paste made of baking soda and water. I found that on the internet. This might work if the ink is freshly wet, but just made me feel like I was making a failing science experiment. At this point, I decided to raid my secret stash of product for hairspray. I don't use hairspray that often, but I've got a ton of fancy product from Aveda. It smelled fancy. And it sort of worked. The ink definitely faded, but it still looks like I put down a glass of something on my chest. And I didn't, I swear. I had a couple of samples of Volumizing Tonic and Brilliant Hold, that had apparently been kicking around for a while. I can't remember the last time I used them, but a semi-solid substance that looked like cum issued forth. How absurd.
So, the shirt is soaking now, so that the stain isn't totally set in. I am determined to get it out. My google-fu tells me that Oxiclean is good at getting ink out (?). I have friends who swear by the stuff, and at this point I am desperate enough to overcome my natural distrust of anything with its own infomercial.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

I'm having a hard time at the moment. There are some stressful, serious things happening now that I don't really want to blog about. If you'd like to know more, please email me and I'll try to respond.
If anything, I'd like to think about anything but what's going on. Please send jokes, newsy emails, snarky ecards, whatever. In that vein, I give you some fan art that I found online. Guess I'm not the only one dying to see the new Harry Potter film!

Last night, I spent the evening with the delightful Miss B. I may have had too much Jim Beam to drink. It sneaks up on me. Actually, most alcohol sneaks up on me, because I am an amateur drinker.

Besides discovering how delightful JB is in punch, I also discovered that B and I have something in common: a love of Are You Being Served? You might think that it's a hoary old English comedy, but it's actually quite brilliant. Sadly, it was a topic of conversation because Mollie Sugden, the excellent Mrs. Slocombe, died this week. Oh Mrs. Slocombe, with the frilly collars that have inexplicably come back into fashion, the technicolor hair, and constant double entendres involving your cat, you provided me many a laugh on Sunday evenings and during PBS pledge weeks. What a dame. I wish I had the balls to wear my hair like that.

There was a furor a few years ago in some of the more *conservative* states about Mrs. Slocombe's pussy jokes. Apparently, PBS should only show Lawrence Welk. Sure, it's not the most sophisticated humor, but still damned funny. It amazes me that people can still get upset about jokes that were written in the early 70s. Here's a compilation. Raise a glass and have a laugh.