Game Night Is Over!

etc.

I haven’t played board games in a while, but that’s largely because no one will play with me. I’m considered a killer shark at Scrabble With Friends. (I knew one woman, Joan Milano, who could—and did—regularly beat me. She didn’t have a bigger vocabulary than I do, but she sure knew how to use the board, playing double- and triple-word scores and filling gaps in a way that cut off access to other parts of the board. But I digress.)

Recently, I discovered Scrabble Go, a game I can play on my phone, so I’m giving my spelling muscles a much-needed workout. I managed to win one game when my tiles were almost all vowels.

For a while, I was obsessed with Texas Hold’em because I had read the book Positively Fifth Street, all about professional poker players. (I also once read Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players, a book that revealed the dark underbelly of competitive Scrabble, which I didn’t know had a dark underbelly until then. But I digress again.) I even watched the World Series of Poker on TV. (There weren’t any games to speak of around here except for charity games at the VFW. And one private game that was robbed, leaving the participants with no money and no clothes. A casino has been built just outside of town, but I have no real desire to go. That part of my life is over. I have moved on. But I digress some more.)

I also played a lot of Trivial Pursuit back in the day, and again, it was hard to find opponents. One night, however, we had another couple over (let’s call them Sam and Sheila).

We set up the game board, card boxes, and pies. (There was some controversy at the time—and still may be, for all I know—about whether the little triangular pieces were called “pies.” I come down firmly on the side that says the round holders were the pies and the triangular ones should be called “slices.” I know I’m in the minority, though. But I digress even more.)

Anyway, we might have ended up playing couple against couple, but when the subject of teams came up, Sam turned to Dan and said, “C’mon, Dan. Let’s whoop their asses.” Dan shied away from him. He knew what was coming, but there was no way to back out.

Play proceeded pretty much without incident until Sam pulled a card and said, “This will really stump them!” Again, Dan gave him major side-eye. “What is the national flower of Switzerland and Austria?” Sam intoned with a superior smile on his face.

Sheila and I looked at each other. Then we burst into song together: “Edelweiss, eidelweiss. Every morning you gre-e-e-t me!”

Sam looked annoyed. “What is that?” he asked. “What does it even look like?”

Sheila and I could recognize a straight line when we heard one. We gleefully launched back into the song: “Small and whi-i-te, clean and bri-i-ght; you look happy to me-e-e-t me-e-e!”

Just to rub it in, we continued with even more enthusiasm. “Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow for-ev-er. Eidelweiss, eidelwiess, bless my homeland for-ev-er!”

The game went on from there, but there wasn’t really any competition after that. Sheila and I sat back smugly, correctly fielding questions from every topic except sports.

As I recall, we never played board games with them again.

It Came From Michigan!

cats, etc., humor, pets, ,
Toby, sleeping peacefully with his prey

I was in my study, peacefully watching a rerun on the Food Network. I was warm and cozy in my gray sweats and under my blue blanket. All was quiet in the house, as it usually is when I’m home alone. Dan was at work at Meijer. The cat was snuggled up asleep in my arms, and I kissed him on the head without disturbing him. It was a good morning. But that wasn’t going to last.

All at once, I heard a hideous clatter and clang from behind me. It sounded like crashing bottles, clashing metal, and thundering, heavy boxes. It sounded like someone had broken the window behind me and was trying to climb in. Or like the tornado that had destroyed our house in 2019.

Suddenly, I was bleeding and bruised. My arm stung. My ears rang.

Disaster!

It wasn’t an intruder or a tornado, however. It was what we call a stuffalanche. (There’s an interesting portmanteau word for those interested in such things. But I digress.) One of the bottles, boxes, or jars that lived on top of the minifridge had shifted, tumbled off the side, and overturned the garbage can next to it, releasing numerous soda pop cans and other detritus.

Suddenly, the cat was no longer sleeping blissfully in my arms. Toby launched himself like a gymnast on a springboard, flying through the air toward the vaulting horse. Unfortunately, the springboard was my arm, on which he was no longer nestled in comfortable slumber.

When he leapt, he dug in with his death blades. Blood spurted from my arm. In fact, his claws dug in so deeply that he nicked a vein, which spread the blood under the skin and left me with a purple bruise surrounding the puncture wound.

(I secretly suspect that Toby caused this disaster. He sometimes treads where he’s not allowed to go, like the top of my desk. If he pussy-footed across the top of the minifridge at any point, he may have created an instability that later triggered the unfortunate cascade. But I digress again.)

The Michigan Part of the Story

So, why do I say this disaster came from Michigan? That’s where Toby’s from, as far as we can tell. Apparently, he hitched a ride on a Meijer delivery truck that originated at the home office in Michigan and came to the store where Dan works. The cat skulked around the stock room for about three days before Dan was able to nab him and bring him home.

(This wasn’t really all that difficult. Dan has a glowing sign on his forehead that only cats (and a few dogs) can see. It says, “Sucker!” They know it leads to shelter and food. But I digress some more.)

Toby has been with us now for about ten years. He’s still skittish at times (and at other times, like yesterday, more than a little skittish). Most of the time, he is a cuddle-bug, but every now and then, he hides under the bed for some unknown reason. He’s really more attached to Dan, who rescued him, but he will attach himself to me when Dan’s not around.

I guess eventually I will forgive him for the blood and the bruise (probably about the time the bruise goes away or the scab heals). After all, I jumped too when the crash occurred. I just didn’t have anywhere to leap!

How Not to Sell Out

books, etc., family, humor, , ,

As a Girl Scout, I was not a success. Oh, I did a lot of the usual Girl Scout things. I wore the uniform, even to school, when the meetings were right afterward. (This was not a cool and popular look in high school.) I went camping and hiking. One summer, I was even a camp counselor. I learned the campfire songs and taught them to younger campers. I earned badges for esoteric pursuits and wore them on a sash. (Another reason the look was uncool at school.)

Trying to Push Cookies

What I couldn’t do was sell cookies—at least not well. Back in the day, we went door-to-door. (This is considered unsafe now for obvious, unsavory reasons. Nowadays, Girl Scouts market the treats by phone or online, or at tables outside supermarkets. (They would no doubt sell more if they set up their tables outside marijuana dispensaries.) I have a dealer who fixes me up every year. She’s the granddaughter of a fellow scout from my high school days. But I digress.)

My problem with selling door-to-door was that I had a sister who was also a Girl Scout, and with whom I went door-to-door. We split the orders, which meant that I got only half the orders I could have had without her.

Another way that Scouts got orders back then was to send the order forms to where their parents worked. The grown-up could then apply pressure to coworkers to buy. (This led to infighting. “You bought from Norma’s daughter, but not from mine.” But I digress again.)

My father, however, had a government job and claimed that he wasn’t allowed to pass around the order form. I now suspect that this wasn’t strictly true, and that he simply didn’t want to be the middleman.

As an adult, I have become a consumer of Girl Scout cookies, not a purveyor.

I Didn’t Learn My Lesson

My eptitude with sales has not increased over the (many) years.

I have written two books on the subject of bipolar disorder (gleaned from the writings in my other blog, Bipolar Me (www.bipolarme.blog). They aren’t selling well on Amazon. I get royalties from time to time. I’m saving up for a pizza.

I figure my choices for selling these books are:

A) door-to-door (That would be silly, not to say ridiculous. Well, okay, it would be ridiculous. There simply isn’t a neighborhood full of people living with bipolar disorder that I could canvas. But I digress some more.)

B) from a food truck or bookmobile-like trailer. (Same problem as with A. Besides, the price of gas would kill me.)

C) Facebook ads (I tried a few of them, to resounding silence.)

D) ask Dan to take orders at work (That would go over well. Not.)

E) have a website

I chose E. I found a company that would host a website—an online bookstore with my two books (and a third, when I finally write it). The site is called Bipolar World, and it lives at books.by/bipolar-world. Of course, the product is not as appealing as cookies (of the Girl Scout type, not the computer sort).

Maybe I should be pushing books AND cookies on my website. (I could call it the Cookie-Bookie Website, except then people would think I was taking bets on which cookies are the best. I’m pretty sure oatmeal raisin would lose. But I’ve digressed enough for this week.)

On the Bougieness of Pets

cats, etc., fashion, humor, pets, , ,

It all started with a post about rescue dogs and how adorable they were and how much they needed homes.

I replied that rescue cats are the same. Dan and I get our cats from shelters, ones that come up to us on the street, or ones that choose us by appearing at our door. They’re adorable and need homes, too.

My friend Donna Waller replied that cats are bougie. That took me aback. I didn’t know whether she meant that cats themselves are bougie or that people who own cats are bougie.

Are Dogs Bougie?

They are if they’re toted around in purses the way Paris Hilton does. They are if they wear diamond-studded collars. They are if their owners dress them up in precious little outfits, especially if the outfits include hats. (Come to think of it, dog owners are bougie if they carry purse-dogs or buy mixed breeds like chi-weenie (chihuahua and dachshund), pom-chi (pomeranian and chihuahua), shnoodle (schnauzer and poodle), mal-poo (maltese and poodle), or shi-poo (you can figure this one out for yourself). In fact, any dog breed that ends with poo is bougie. But I digress at length.)

Non-Bougie Cats

Rescue cats tend not to be bougie. Even when they’re mixed breeds, people don’t invent cutesy names for them. You never hear of a Siam-ersian or a Norweg-anx. (I once knew some cats that had, let’s say, some irregularities in their ancestry. The mother was a Siamese, and the kittens, like all Siamese, were entirely cream-colored at birth. But when they were old enough to develop “points” (the colors on their legs and face, like chocolate-point, or flame-, lilac-, or even blue-point), the kittens had striped points, their father having evidently been a tabby. They were definitely not bougie. But I digress at great length.)

I have also known silly cats, affectionate cats, mischievous cats, and athletic cats. I’ve known tortoiseshell cats, calico cats, tuxedo cats, ginger cats, and many varieties of tabbies. None of them were bougie. (Ginger or orange cats can be stroppy, but not bougie. One orange cat we had would bite Dan on the ankle when he stepped out of the shower. But I digress yet again.)

Truly Bougie Cats

In my opinion (not very humble at all), there are only a few types of cats that are truly bougie. First are all the cat breeds with pushed-in noses that look like they’ve been hit in the face with a nine-inch cast-iron skillet. (Please don’t mistake me. I do not advocate doing that to cats. Some of them just look like someone did. But I digress some more.) And they always look like they disapprove of you.

Flat-faced cats are the most likely to be dressed up by their owners in diamond-studded collars and frilly little outfits. Cat therapist Jackson Galaxy says that no cat should be dressed in any kind of little outfit. (The closest we ever came to doing it was placing a stray whisker on top of a dignified cat’s head and making beep-boop noises like she was an alien. What she was, was deeply offended. But I digress still more.)

So, Donna Waller, there’s your answer: Many bougie dogs, few bougie cats. And because, as I mentioned, Dan and I get strays and rescues, we’re unlikely ever to have a bougie cat. So there.

Things I Never Thought I’d Say

cooking, etc., family, food, humor, ,

When you get married, you’re moving into uncharted territory. Plenty of people have been there before, of course, but this time it’s you. And it can be an education.

For me, marriage brought with it a lot of things I couldn’t even imagine myself saying. Of course, there are things like, “Which side of the bed do you prefer?” and “So how did your mother make her amazing stuffed peppers, anyway?” But there are also things you say that, when you look back, are completely unfathomable.

Here are some of mine.

“Please don’t use power tools after I’ve gone to bed.”

I’m not even sure which power tool it was—let’s say a circular saw. I’m not sure what project he was trying to finish. And I’m not sure where in the house he was. (I was in bed, upstairs, on the edge of sleep. But I digress.) But I am sure that it was loud enough to wake me up and unexpected enough to alarm me. Was some evildoer trying to saw his way through our front door? Was the intruder trying to even out the height of the dining room chairs? I never found out. But at least hubby’s never done it again. (Or anyway, he wakes me up first and tells me he’s going to be using power tools, so it won’t take me by surprise. But I digress again.)

“What do you mean I’ll cater your parents’ surprise 50th anniversary party?”

Actually, I knew what he meant. He didn’t mean calling a catering company and telling them what we wanted, or sampling the wares of various purveyors and choosing among them. What I had heard him promise over the phone was that I would prepare all the food and drink myself. He graciously agreed to book the venue, their longtime family church, which at least had a kitchen. (I got it done, but it was only by channeling Martha Stewart. And I hate Martha Stewart. But I digress some more.) I managed to convince Dan to hold it in the afternoon, so dinner was not a concern. Hors d’oeuvres, cake, and punch seemed doable, at least until I saw how many cherry tomatoes I’d have to core and stuff.

“There’s a Cheerio in my underwear.”

Now, this one takes some explanation. Dan has a favorite snack food. He buys a huge bag of already-popped corn. Then he dumps in a variety of crunchy foods—Cheerios (as you may have guessed), Wheat Flakes, Corn Chex, and sometimes mixed nuts. Then he shakes the whole thing and feasts on it for not as many days as you’d think. Often, he sits in the comfy chair to watch TV as he snacks. And he grabs handfuls of his magic concoction and shoves them in his mouth, never caring where the crumbs fly. (Hint: Into the crevices of the comfy chair.) I use the comfy chair sometimes, too, often wearing a rather short nightdress. And one night, I did indeed find a Cheerio in my nether garment. (I guess I’m lucky it wasn’t one of the Corn Chex. At least Cheerios don’t have corners. But I digress yet again.)

“I do.”

I was never the sort of teenager who wrote her initials and a boy’s in hearts on my notebook cover or wrote my name in combination with various potential last names. (As it happens, when it came down to it, I didn’t change my last name. But I digress even more.) I just assumed that I was too weird to attract a male partner and settle down with him. But here we are, after more than forty years. We do things I never thought I’d do, like live with five cats or travel to Croatia. I guess the power tools, the catering, and the Cheerios are just what go along with it.

Sweet Obsessions

Christmas, etc., food, holidays, humor, , ,

Everyone has their favorite candy, from Ronald Reagan’s Jelly Belly jelly beans to the butterscotch cotton candy that Trump wears on his head. At Halloween, these preferences really come out. We know that children prefer full-size candy bars and hate boxes of raisins, and that everyone hates candy corn. (I don’t know why. As far as I can tell, it’s pure sugar, which should make it popular. But I digress.)

But candy doesn’t just make its appearance on Halloween. There are Valentine’s boxes of candies and Easter candies like Cadbury’s Creme Eggs (though I’ve noticed that these days, Easter baskets come with more toys than treats. It just seems to me inappropriate to celebrate Easter with Spiderman action figures. But I digress again.)

I have fond memories of Christmas candies. Every year, my sister and I could count on finding in our stockings an assortment of Life Savers packaged to resemble a book. We never tired of them. (We also got an orange that filled the toe of the stocking. This was no surprise, as every year our Grandma in Florida sent us a crate of them. But I digress some more.)

Through the years, my taste in candies changed. I fondly remember Reed’s Cinnamon red-hot candies that looked like Life Savers, but with a dip in the middle rather than a hole. I went through a Tic-Tac phase (never mind that they were marketed as breath mints). Now I’m very fond of Sanders’ dark chocolate bourbon-flavored sea salt caramels.

Salt and sweet make a great combination. After all, the four food groups are salty, sticky, sweet, and crunchy, which makes nature’s perfect food the chocolate-covered pretzel stick (sprinkles optional). If you look hard enough, you can even find chocolate-covered potato chips. There’s a local potato chip manufacturer and a local chocolate purveyor who team up every year to make them.

My Aunt Thelma and Uncle Earl had a general store in Campton, Kentucky, which offered a vast supply of penny candies, which actually cost a penny in those days. Sugar Babies were my favorite, along with their larger cousin, Sugar Daddy (no rude remarks, please). I also had least favorites, such as jawbreakers, Butterfingers, and Good’N’Plenty.

Recently, however, I’ve developed a new sweet obsession. I saw that there were dark-chocolate-covered dried Montmorency cherries available locally, but made in Michigan. I absolutely despise regular chocolate-covered cherries. I hate the sickly sweet goo between the cherry and the chocolate. But I had hopes that goo would not be a component of the dried kind of chocolate cherries. So I bought a couple of small bags.

It turned out they were amazing! The dried cherries were chewy and tart, with a texture like raisins. The dark chocolate coating was a perfect complement. Before long, I had devoured both bags.

Then I noticed a whole box of the candies for sale. I had to have it. I thought it would contain a number of the small bags of cherries. But no. It contained one large plastic bag filled with three pounds of yum. It’s all I can do to keep myself from diving in headfirst and binging into a potentially dangerous chocolate-and-dried-cherry sugar rush. (The small bags say that eight candies equal 130 calories. I’d have a Willy Wonka blueberry (only cherry) moment if I ate my fill. But I digress even more.)

I hope they sell well. Well enough, anyway, that they aren’t discontinued, but not so well that stores run out of them. While I wait to see, at least I have pounds of them to see me through.

Simpsons-Speak

etc., family, humor, language, television, , ,

Pop culture is responsible for many sayings that people quote: “Inconceivable!” “He’s dead, Jim!” “Make it so!” “You’ve been chopped.”

(Of these, “Inconceivable!” and its follow-up, “I do not think that word means what you think it means,” are perhaps the most useful in everyday conversation. But I digress.)

But if you ask me (no one did), the best source for memorable quotations would have to be The Simpsons, which today airs its 800th episode. Some of these bon mots have even made it into our family vocabulary.

Bart was on his way home from Sunday School when Marge admonished him for saying hell. Bart’s reply? “I sure as hell can’t tell you we learned about hell unless I say ‘hell,’ can I? Hell, hell, hell, hell!” Now, whenever one of us says “hell,” the other jumps right into the quote.

Then there’s Homer. After a lesson on fire safety, He sings, “When a fire starts to burn/There’s a lesson you must learn./Something, something, then you’ll see/You’ll avoid catastrophe. D’oh!” Dan forgets lyrics often, and some older songs I just don’t know. We often end up saying, “Something, something. D’oh.”

(I understand that in the Simpsons’ scripts, “D’oh” is indicated by “annoyed grunt.” But I digress.)

One particularly important exchange for Dan and me starts when the characters are standing around the statue of Jebediah Springfield, the town founder and local hero. The legend on his statue reads, “A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.” Someone inquires whether “embiggen” is a real word. Mrs. Krabappel, the teacher, replies, “It’s a perfectly cromulent word.”

(I would think the meanings of “embiggen” and “cromulent” should be clear from context, but let’s take a look at Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, where both are defined. “Embiggen” means “make bigger or more expansive.” And M-W defines “cromulent” as “acceptable; satisfactory.” What’s even more amazing is that autocorrect didn’t balk at either one when I typed them just now. But I digress again.)

(Just as a digression (to a digression), Dan and I use “embiggen” all the time, almost daily. Because of my various injuries and operations, I can’t climb the stairs to where the bedroom is. So we bought a chair that expands into a single bed and collapses back into a chair. I ask Dan to embiggen the bed in the evening and dis-embiggen it in the morning. But I digress some more.)

Then there’s Grampa Simpson. He has a technique for answering intrusive questions. He goes into a totally irrelevant soliloquy. Like this:

“Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m’shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. ‘Gimme five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time….”

(Sociolinguist Suzette Haden Elgin recommended this tactic as well. She could also shut down awkward conversations by saying, “Well, you can’t tell which way the train is going by looking at the tracks.” But I digress yet again.)

Let’s finish with Marge. In one episode, she went away for a self-care day, indulged in a bubble bath, and called room service:

“I’d like a banana fudge sundae. With whipped cream! And some chocolate chip cheesecake. And a bottle of tequila!”

(We don’t use this one in conversation, but once when I had to write something on self-care, I worked it in as an example of what self-care isn’t. But I digress even more.)

Thus has our vocabulary been enriched by a cartoon show. (I also like the episode in which Ned Flanders complains to Principal Skinner that he doesn’t want Darwinian evolution taught at school, and Skinner replies, “You mean Lamarckian evolution?” It doesn’t fit into any conversation I’ve ever had, but it cracks me up every time. And this is my final digression for this week.)

Bad Bibliotherapy

etc.

Did you know that doctors can prescribe books? It’s called bibliotherapy. Apparently, if you’re suffering from a problem like a breakup, work stress, family issues, or the heartbreak of psoriasis, you can come away with a note you can take to your local library, bookstore, or secondhand store to fill.

The theory is that “Reading novels with characters in predicaments similar to yours helps you find new perspective, develop empathy, and just feel less alone.” Or instead of novels, you could end up with prescriptions for Overcoming Depression, Mind Over Mood, or The Feeling Good Handbook. (Personally, I would never even pick up a book called The Feeling Good Handbook. In my mind, I see the cover looking like a middle school student’s notebook, replete with fireworks, rainbows, and maybe even candy canes. But I digress.)

I like the theory of bibliotherapy, but I have a few qualms.

(Full disclosure: I’ve ghostwritten a lot of self-help books. It’s kind of my niche. I’m not necessarily proud of it, but it helps pay the bills. If that makes me a writing whore, so be it. But I digress some more.)

The kind of self-help books usually suggested reminds me uncomfortably of books written for children to help them respond to difficulties such as loneliness, feeling different, bedtime, toilet training, and the heartbreak of psoriasis. (The Berenstain Bears seem to have a multitude of problems, including but not limited to bullies, dentists, strangers, and TV addiction. But I digress again.) These books have little to no plot, characterization, imagination, or literary merit.

So, “How to” books, either adult or juvenile, are off the menu, but there are many kinds of novels “with characters in predicaments similar to yours” to be avoided.

Dystopian Novels

While novels like The Stand, The Hunger Games, and The Handmaid’s Tale may be engrossing, they are not likely to perk up your mood or offer solutions to the problems you face daily. (Unless, of course, you live in a world scarred by an atomic war, ravaged by mutant animals, or controlled by a malignant hierarchy. If you are, the books most likely to help are ones on homemade weaponry and gardening skills. I guess you could discover “My life doesn’t suck that much.” But I digress yet again.)

Horror Novels

Stay strictly away from H.P. Lovecraft. Trust me on this. The Elder Gods will not tell you how to recover from divorce. Stephen King is iffy as well. Read one of his books, and you could wind up in either horror or dystopian fiction, depending on whether you pick up Carrie or The Stand. Either way, you’re bound for plenty of misery (sorry, not sorry).

Romance Novels

While romance novels almost always have a happy ending, the advice on how to accomplish it is suspect, charming antique shops in quaint seaside towns being almost impossible to find. (And don’t get me started on “romantasy” (a portmanteau of “romance” and “fantasy”) which is a hot (in both senses) trend in fiction right now. Unless your dilemma is that you are in love with a blood-sucking fiend, you won’t find help here. But I digress even more.)

So what do I recommend?

Children’s Books

Okay, not the Berenstain Bears or How to Avoid Satanists (there really are books like that). But children’s and teenagers’ books that do have plot, characterization, imagination, or literary merit can be helpful.

Take the Harry Potter books, for example. Whatever you may think of the author or the quality of the books, they do include important themes of friendship, loyalty, bravery, and overcoming dragons, trolls, and malevolent wizards, which are assets in anyone’s life.

I’ve even known a psychiatrist who recommends The Little Prince to her patients. Now that’s bibliotherapy!

Deconstructing the Woobie

etc., film, humor, language, , , ,

Right now, I am snuggled up in a blue woobie. What’s that, you say? I’ll digress at length on the subject.

There’s a role-reversal comedy movie from 1983 starring Michael Keaton, Teri Garr, Martin Mull, and Ann Jillian. The plot is very ’80s: worker at an auto plant loses his job; his wife gets one at an advertising agency; and he becomes Mr. Mom. So far, so standard.

But the movie is genuinely funny and worth a look. Yes, it covers a lot of the cliches regarding rising business star vs. stay-at-home dad. But the ensemble cast and the comic timing make it a film that really ought to be better appreciated. (This whole section of my post has been a digression.)

In the movie, one of the children has a security blanket, which he refers to as his “woobie.” (Psychologists call it a “comfort object,” but my husband and I like “woobie” better. But I digress again.) Wiktionary defines “woobie” as “any object, typically a blanket, garment, or stuffed animal, that is used simply for its comforting characteristics; a security blanket.”

Elizabeth, the fashion influencer

(Apparently, “woobie” also describes a military “Liner, Wet Weather Poncho.” Soldiers call it a “woobie” because it’s their essential comfort blanket in the field. Maybe so. I would like anyone with expertise in the area of wet-weather poncho liners to verify this. But I digress yet again.)

My sister and I each had a woobie when we were children. Hers was a square of soft but sturdy woven fabric named “Tag.” Mine was a flannel sheet I called “Fluffy.” I think Fluffy was the better security blanket because I could—and did—wrap myself entirely in it and, essentially, hide when I needed to.

Lots of my grown-up friends have comfort objects, although they don’t refer to them as “woobies,” as far as I know. Dan’s only friend John had a small plush rabbit that he took to his sleep study. I did the same because they wouldn’t let me bring a live cat.

Sometimes plushies get names even weirder than “woobie.” I have one that I call “Pandacoon” because I’m not sure whether it’s meant to be a panda or a raccoon. A friend has a plushie that he can’t identify as either a yak or a buffalo. He calls it “Dr. Yakalo, Psychic Travel Agent.” (No, I don’t know how it got that job.) Another indefinable plushie is “Huskie Bear,” which might be either a dog or a teddy bear.

Most of the woobies I’ve had over the years have been bunnies. It was a tradition in our family that Easter baskets came with a plush rabbit as well as candy. Above (right) is a woobie rabbit that I won in an Easter raffle. I named her Elizabeth (she wasn’t psychic). My mother found fabric that exactly matched Elizabeth’s outfit and made me a dress to match.

Antonio (not the surgeon)

I do have one cat woobie (at left). My husband got it for me on the occasion of having my knee replaced, and I named it Antonio, after my surgeon. He (the woobie, not the surgeon) was too large to cuddle with at night in the single bed at the post-acute facility, so he lived on the shelf across the room. Most people never noticed him, big and orange though he was, but I could see him clearly from my bed and was quite pleased to have him watching over me.

I once received a mystery woobie. At Christmas, a friend presented me a box which, when I opened it, contained a few strands of differently colored wool. She gave me no hint of what it would be and told me that I would receive the actual present at a later date. Then (I later learned) she spent the next few months knitting and, sometime in April, presented me with a lovely, multicolored blanket woobie. It wasn’t Linus’s security blanket, but it made me just as happy.

Fun With Smut

literature, funny things, humor, books, etc., NSFW, writing, , ,

I may get in trouble for either the picture (no one I know) or the topic, but it’s an aspect of writing and reading that I have just a wee bit of experience with.

How do I feel about “dirty books”? I’m tempted to quote Tom Lehrer from his song “Smut”: “Dirty books are fun. That’s all there is to it.” He also said, “I do have a cause, though. It’s obscenity. I’m for it.” The song contains not one “dirty word.” ( You can find it online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSwYID-u71M. But I digress.)

Reading Smut

I must admit that I did read Fifty Shades of Grey when it first came out, just to see what the commotion was all about. (My advice: Don’t bother. It’s miserably written. And unrealistic. Any couple having that much sex that often would be too chafed to carry on carrying on. But I digress again.)

When I was an editor for an early childhood magazine, I was frequently given books to review. One was an illustrated sex education book for young children, written by a doctor. I don’t remember the title, but the book was written in a style meant to emulate Dr. Seuss. I also don’t remember much of the content, except for this metaphor for some body parts, which he supplied the location of:

The towns are both called testicle

And they look like two round eggs.

They’re not located on a map

But between your Daddy’s legs.

(The conception scene was a meeting of Stanley Sperm (who wore a top hat) and Essie Egg (who wore a bow) in front of an ornate gate. I did not write a review of the book. It was my theory that it could be read aloud at a party to great amusement. But I digress some more.)

Reviewing Smut

I’ve recently gotten a gig reviewing books. Most of the books I’ve reviewed were in a category called “steamy romances.” This means that the couple must overcome obstacles to get together, but when they do, they have sex. This means about two realistic sex scenes per novel. (They’re short. The books, that is. The sex scenes go on for a number of pages.)

Personally, I’m grateful that these books (there’s a series) use neither clinical names nor cutesy euphemisms for body parts. (I still remember in the movie The Naked Gun when someone used the term “throbbing purple-headed warrior.” Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess) has been known to refer to her “lady garden,” a euphemism she created when not allowed to say “vagina” on TV. But I digress some more.)

Writing Smut

Once during my ghostwriting career, I had to write a piece of smut (erotica, if you prefer). It was the adventures of a woman who was connected (sorry) with various men. The men were all gorgeous and rich, and they bought the main character extravagant gifts. The woman gave me an outline describing her (and their) escapades, which I didn’t believe for a moment. I would call it “wish fulfillment porn.”

This time, I was in the position (sorry) of having to come up (sorry) with words to describe body parts and sex acts without being cutesy or clinical. I guess I succeeded. The customer was satisfied (sorry) with it, and I got paid for it (sorry), so I guess I did okay. (I’ve never been tempted (sorry) to look it up on Amazon and read the reviews. We will not discuss whether or how much I had to conduct research for the book. But I digress even more.)

The only other thing I know about writing sex scenes is that a writer friend of mine once wrote one that went on for multiple pages (and orgasms). My husband read it and was impressed.