And how do I know when I get there? Why, easy!

You know you’re in California when….

1. Your coworker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.

2. You make over $300,000 and still can’t afford a house.

3. You take a bus and are shocked at two people carrying on
a conversation in English.

4. Your child’s 3rd-grade teacher has purple hair, a nose
ring, and is named Breeze.

5. You can’t remember…is pot illegal?

6. You’ve been to a baby shower that has two mothers and a
sperm donor.

7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee
beans are grown and can taste the difference between Sumatran
and Ethiopian.

8. You know which restaurant serves the freshest arugula.

9. You can’t remember…..is pot illegal?

10. A really great parking space can totally move you to tears.

11. Gas costs $1.00 per gallon more than anywhere else in the U.S.

12. A man gets on the bus in full leather regalia and crotchless chaps.
You don’t even notice.

13. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing
the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney
IS George Clooney.

14. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment.

15. Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman
who delivers your mail is into S &M, and your Mary Kay rep is a
guy in drag.

16. You can’t remember…is pot illegal?

17. You pass an elementary school playground and the children
are all busy with their cell phones or pagers.

18. It’s barely sprinkling rain outside, so you leave for
work an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents.

19. Hey!!!! Is Pot Illegal????

20. Both you AND your dog have therapists.

I am cleaning out all my old photo archives and burning CDs for them and came across this photo, which was snapped while Robert and I were living in San Antonio, circa. 1990.

The fish truck must have just driven by! No, actually, that sliding glass door opens onto a spacious patio surrounded by a tall wooden privacy fence. It’s also where the paper boy used to lob the Sunday paper. And it was, as I recall, a haven for squirrels and birds. So something must have caught their attention.

These two cats have both “crossed over the Rainbow Bridge.” Fred (tail, right) was my beloved red Persian. He died of kidney failure at age 9 in 1993, a few years after I moved to Houston. Cappuccina (or “Tuni” as we called her), in addition to being a pretty champagne Persian, was also a psycho-kitty I bought from a breeder in San Antonio. She was very aloof, unloving and generally a pain in the butt. When I left for Houston, I left Tuni in Robert’s care. He in turn left her with a friend of his and she lived to a ripe old age, mainly because Robert’s friend was as maladjusted and unfriendly as the cat!

Enjoy.

Landed in my in-box this morning….
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I just got Mariah Carey’s new CD, Charm Bracelet, specifically for “Bringing on the Heartache”, which is a great cover of Def Leppard’s version done oh so many years (decades!) ago. I’ve never been a big Mariah Carey fan, but when I overheard this song playing, I made a point to find out the who, what, when and where. Lyrics below. Enjoy.
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Boy, was I had. There was a comment from a Jim Treacher[1] at a blog I visited today. This Jim-Treacher-Person posted some WHOIS information and I ate his ass out over it.

What struck me as odd was that he decided to put in one of those lovely fake email addresses — you know the kind, the kind I was always getting at my blogskin download site until I got smart and got a script that mailed the blogskin — so if you wanted it, you had to “come clean” with your real email address — anyway, I have read Jim Treacher’s site before and he always seemed to me like a really sensible, level-headed guy. In fact, I even prefaced my diatribe with “Jim, until just now, I thought you were a pretty smart fella,” because I DID think he was!

Well, apparently he still is. This other person was an interloper. You know, this whole thing is making my head hurt. It’s like that sick soda commercial. Where Johnny Carson unzips himself and becomes Carson Daily, who unzips himself and becomes Carmen Electra, who unzips herself to become….

Anyway, Jim, I’m very sorry I mistook you for just another moon bat. To the moon bat posting as Jim: Take a long walk off a short pier.

That is all. Now I have some crow to eat. As soon as I take my foot out of my mouth.

[1] I went back and read the entire thread where “Jim” posted and he didn’t even post as Jim Treacher, but merely as Jim. What the hell I was thinking about at the time I fired off that retort baffles me. But it does prove one thing (well it proves a lot of things, but I don’t have the time and neither do you), it does prove that we all are capable of jumping to erroneous conclusions. With less than stellar results. I’m living proof.

As you all know, I’ve been without a network card. Just got a new one installed this afternoon and my Roadrunner is back up and running! Yay.

Also, yesterday, I had to run around looking for a replacement CD-RW drive since the Phillips model that came with my less-than-nine-month-old Compaq has already bitten the dust. Why didn’t I take the computer in for warranty service? Several reasons: (1) I need to burn some CDs like NOW! I have a project I’m way behind on, and I also promised some homegrown CDs to take to Robert’s family reunion Labor Day weekend; and (2) I just don’t feel like being without the computer for the entire week that they claim it will take to fix the darn thing.

So I went to Best Buy and bought this little guy for $79.99. I guess I’ll go ahead and apply for the rebate. Hopefully Sony isn’t like a lot of those other fly by night rebate places. We’ll see.

I’ve also scheduled Time Warner to come out and install wireless cable so that I can go ahead and use my laptop to surf with the high-speed connection. So maybe I’ll bundle the Compaq up at that time and send it in for repair. God forbid I should be without the computer, eh?

For some of us out there who have an online presence, this article on cyberstalking is too late. I already have the domain jonimueller.com (go ahead, Jim Treacher, post the WHOIS info. They’ll have to come get me from my job, which on most days would be doing me a favor!). Oh well.

As much as it pains me, again, to admit that a man was right, this post, aside from getting a name wrong, cuts to the heart of the problem, examines both sides OBJECTIVELY and puts everything into perspective.

Would that we all could view things with Dave’s clarity.

THIS is a prime example of perpetuating an error and fanning the flames of contention. Please check your facts — all of them — before you post, especially before you post NAMES. This is not the first time Joanie and I have been confused in all of this mess. In fact, it was in the “diatribe” that is the gravamen of this entire shitstorm where my name was erroneous first uttered. But do me one favor: GET THE NAMES STRAIGHT before you post. It IS NOT BRAIN SURGERY to visit the sites involved and figure out the blog owners’ names. Not hard at all.

A comment left today at a blog I enjoy reading sums up my thoughts exactly.

I feel like I’m seeing a couple of very dear friends in a bloody fight over something silly.

And I am selfishly sad because I enjoy reading BOTH blogs involved (which I will continue to do as long as I am not banned from either). Most of this fight has taken place in the comment boxes. To paraphrase, “Stupid evil comment boxes” and “Die, comment boxes, die!” I hate admitting that a man was right, but….