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Bratfink
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Name: Bratfink
Gender: Female
Interests: I crochet, stalk people and things with my camera, read, and enjoy vodka and a box of good, fine wine [but not together!]
Expertise: NEAT STUFF ==> www.jordanessentials.com/rephome.php
Occupation: Currently occupied with what's
Industry: WRITE ME! Bratfink (at) crawle
Message: message me
Member Since:
7/2/2006
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| ~No Good Title to Put Here~
I have an aunt and uncle out in Callyfornya. I dearly love them, and I miss them a LOT. [I know Bratsis does, too.] I gave them a call on Monday to tell them about my book and found out that my uncle is a writer, too, and wrote a book. He said he got somewhere around 3 rejections on it and pretty much gave up marketing it. [He said this was like 15 years ago.]
And this really got me to thinking. I mean, how much is there about the various people in my family that I know nothing about? I had no idea my uncle had writing aspirations; none at all. I encouraged him to pick it up again; told him The Online makes things a lot easier for writers these days, as far as selling work goes.
I'll check back with him in a couple months and push him some more. 
The Boy came home from work on Monday in what I can only call a foul mood. I ate my dinner and went for a nap because I knew if I stayed up I'd only end up fighting with him because he pissed me off THAT MUCH.
What is it about people that makes us give our best to those who don't mean as much to us?
You know what I mean.
We are nice to all the people we have dealings with all day, then get nasty when we get home. The 'kick the dog' thing.
Is it because we can let our hair down at home? Our home is our castle? Or do we think that those we love and care about will be the most understanding?
Whatever it is, it's fucked up.
Those we LOVE should get our best, don't you think?
Now, I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this, because I am. I have my days when I am in a lot of pain and the last freaken thing I want to do is TALK to someone, much less anything else. But I do have the good grace to at least feel bad when I bite The Boy for no good reason.
Which is more than I can say for him sometimes.
At least I know I don't suffer alone.
I don't think I told you about this yet, but if I did, forgive me. [I talk to Naked Sara and Bratsis in IMs and tell them things, so sometimes I think I already put in it here. Maybe I need to stop talking to people.]
The guy that The Boy traded DVDs with at work got fired or quit a couple weeks ago. Thankfully The Boy noticed some sort of 'commotion' going on and followed the guy outside and got his DVDs back from the dude. That was the guy we have to blame for my obsession with 'Watchmen', by the way. [You want to view the director's cut when you see it! We now own this on Blu ray if I haven't mentioned that before. ]
Also on Monday I was sitting at my desk watching 'Watership Down' when I noticed Smiggy and Kitty fighting to look out the front window. Then, I heard some kind of noise. I decided to go to the kitchen to see what was going on and I WAS TOTALLY BLOWN AWAY.
You won't believe this. I didn't.
The Naybor guy had his dad's van towed away. 
Proof ==> 11920
I bet that was hard for him. I think while it was here it was kind of a tangible link to his dad. In the beginning he used to start it up and keep it running for a while, then stopped doing that. I don't know why.
But I never thought I'd see the day when it was loaded up onto a flatbed and hauled off.
Hell, I never thought Big Dog would die, either, but he did. [Despite his incessant barking he was a beautiful dog and I miss him sometimes. I don't miss his barking.]
Eventually I will mention this to the Naybor when I talk to him. I'll give him my condolences.
OK... I'm out of here for the night.
Meet me back here tomorrow.
.
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| ~Wabbits!~
You know, it's funny; I haven't seen many rabbits since living in Inderana. The Boy and I used to come home from our job in retail years ago and there would be one in our front yard, caught in the headlights as we turned into the driveway, and I'm pretty sure it was the same one night after night.
I never saw many in Montana, either.
When I was growing up in Illinois, rabbits were as common as dandelions. I mean, they were EVERYWHERE. I was amazed to discover later that even though they multiply like, well, rabbits, there are places where they aren't numerous.
I was your typical kid; I liked rabbits. They seemed rather benign, as far as wild critters go, and they are fluffy and soft and have big ears and eyes and little tails that look like balls of cotton.
What's not to like?
Of course, I wasn't raised on a farm; I suppose those folks have much different ideas about rabbits. But since my dad only grew tomatoes, we didn't worry too much about them.
Anyway, in 1974 the book Watership Down was published and quickly made the bestseller list. I didn't pay much attention to bestseller lists at that time; Watership Down didn't come into my life until a few years later. I picked up a paperback copy of it and one day, sat down to read it.
I couldn't put it down. It is, of course, a book about rabbits, in case you haven't made that connection yet. I have to tell you, I read and reread that book so many times that it actually fell apart and pages got lost and I finally had to throw it out because really, I HAD gotten my money's worth from the book. Besides, I'd pick up another one.
Only it never happened.
I've missed that book. There is much to love about it. There is excitement, there is sadness, there is laughter, there are adventures, there are new words I learned, like stoat and hraka, and hrududu and elil.
The story is simple, really. A bunch of rabbits are traveling from where they live to find a new home. Along the way they have trouble. [But of course they do.]
I've missed owning this book. There have been many, many times over the years when I yearned to have another copy because it was exactly what I wanted to read at the time.
So, I got online and I ordered a copy for myself, which I should have any day now.
But I also did one more thing; I remembered that they made a movie from the book, and I ordered the DVD, too. The DVD has arrived and when The Boy left for work on Monday, I put the DVD in to watch it. It was as charming as I remembered it being. [Watership Down on IMDb] [Watership Down on Wikipedia]
I don't know that this is a movie for little kids; there are many scenes that I would think would be scary for little kids. Yes, Rabbit Violence. Rabbits are killed by other rabbits and by other creatures. These things are not glossed over. It's a scary world out there for these traveling rabbits.
If you haven't read the book, I recommend it to you. Then, once you have read that, see the movie. I guarantee you will have a good time.
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| ~Nubbins~
I got The Boy up at 2 a.m. so he could resurrect his troops that were killed by the invading army, and when he got up in the morning he healed them all.
I asked him how this could have happened, and he said that it was his newest city, so it had the least defenses so far, although the city WAS ransacked and some money and stuff taken.
He may be #1 in Evilness, but he's not #1 in any other category, apparently.
But as long as he's happy....
######
The Boy came home from work last week and said he had an unusual call.
Now the first thing you must realize is that when someone calls Ver*zon for help, they are generally put into a queue and the next available person is connected when they are free. So a person calling usually has to wait for at least a couple of minutes, depending on call volume.
They are treated to muzak while they wait, of course.
So, The Boy gets connected automatically to the next call, and it only takes him a minute to figure out that the person at the other end of the line IS A CHILD. Of perhaps 7 or 8 years old. And whoever this kid is, s/he talks a mile a minute and The Boy can't understand a word s/he is saying.
Frustrated, he says, "Is your mommy or daddy there?"
He understood the "No," when he got that.
Being the good person that he is, he tries a couple different ways to find out if there was a way to help this kid, because the company frowns on any of their people hanging up on ANYBODY.
But finally, he does, after telling the kid to have mommy or daddy call.
So, he's telling me about this and I said, "So, no mom or dad there. Did you ask about a babysitter? ANY adult?"
"Um, no. I didn't think of that."
I shook my head. I guess it takes a WOMAN to think, "Why is a child that young on the phone? Is there a problem? Is the adult passed out on the floor? Is the kid trying to call 9-1-1?"
Too late now, but maybe next time he'll be more concerned about the child and not so concerned about the company.
Because you just never know.
######
The Boy wanted to have a 'Terminator' marathon. Apparently he got whatever movie he was missing on Black Friday. Funny enough, the one I'm most familiar with is the 2nd one. I hardly remembered the first one at all. Thankfully, I happen to like these movies, so it was no big deal for me.
But boy, I have plans when he finally goes back to work on Monday!
######
I have to tell you about something that happened about a week ago. I went to take a picture with Murray and discovered I couldn't see the display. The first thing I did, of course, was panic. Then I decided that maybe his battery needed to be charged up, so I plugged that in and waited.
Once the battery was charged, I plugged it in Murray and was dismayed to see the display was still as dark as it had been.
What to do? WHAT TO DO?
Well, I took a picture with him, plugged it into Hawk, and saw that it seemed fine. But I still couldn't figure out why the display was so dark and hard to read.
Then I remembered this little button Murray has. I can't tell you what it is exactly, except that I started hitting it and suddenly, the display lightened up.
You have NO idea how relieved I was. I thought Murray was dying and I didn't know what I was going to do.
I had been cleaning the day or two before using him, and somehow, in moving stuff around, I must have had something repeatedly hit that button to turn the display down.
You can bet I'll be more careful in the future because my heart can't take too much of that shit. I'd die without a camera.
######
Back in the '80s, The Boy broke his wrist while he was out partying and drunk. The doctor who set it and put the cast on treated The Boy like he 'deserved' what he got and the wrist was set badly. Normally, it doesn't bother him or impede whatever he wants to do, except for one thing: He has a hard time opening jars so he usually brings them to me to open and I do.
I suppose most people would find this funny, and I have to admit that if you didn't know about the wrist thing it would be.
So, the other night he pulls a jar of pickles out of the fridge and he's trying and trying to open them and wasn't having much luck. I see his struggle and I say, "Oh for God's sake, bring it here." He does. But there was a problem. I was having a bad hand day and I couldn't get it open either.
He sighed, resigned, I suppose, to doing without a pickle, until I said, "You hold the jar tight, and let me work the lid." And that worked! He got his pickle and went back to bed happy.
Sometimes we make a good team.
######
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| ~Another Slow News Day~
Not much going on today, so I thought I'd talk about a book I read a long time ago.
The book was called 'The Other' by Thomas Tryon. Thomas Tryon was an actor who turned to writing, and I believe his writing career was more successful than his acting career. I've read most of his books, and all of the short stories of his I can get my hands on, which are few enough [dammit!]
'The Other' was apparently Mr. Tryon's first book, and it was immediately snatched up and made into a movie. [John Ritter plays a supporting role in the movie, by the way.]
Reading the book was an absolute JOY. If you have not read the book or seen the movie, but plan on it [and you should!] then scroll down and don't read anything more until you see this: ######
SPOILERS BELOW!
I will never forget reading the book. It just got creepier and creepier page by page. It concerns these adorable [by the descriptions] twin boys living in New England in the 30's [you see someone reading a newspaper and the headline is about the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, and that was in 1932] when life was slower and maybe a bit simpler [certainly without television!]. But weird shit happens around them and you are pretty sure that maybe one of these boys is what you might call The Evil Twin.
I told The Boy, "I will never forget getting to the middle of the book when Ada, the grandmother, drags Niles to the cemetery and makes him read a headstone. The headstone is of his father. Then she drags him to another one, and has him read the name of his DEAD TWIN. I swear I almost fainted at that point."
I did not even SUSPECT.
I paged back through the pages I had already read, wanting to know how Mr. Tryon did it to me. [Later on, I would get that same thrill by watching 'The Sixth Sense' because I Never Suspected.]
I realized that no one talked TO Holland but Niles, and Mrs. Rowe, of course. But she was nuts anyway. A very nicely done red herring, that.
And then, of course, complicating matters was 'The Game'. The game was something the old Russian grandmother, Ada, taught to her boys; a game where, if they concentrated hard enough, they could BECOME something [or someone] else.
Niles, of course, takes this game to heights even Ada never suspected, until the end, of course.
It wasn't until later that I happened across a happy little movie called 'The Bad Seed'. Again, a movie dealing with a murderous child, but not a twin in the throes of deep grief. Just an evil little girl, if you can believe that. In its day 'The Bad Seed' scared the hell out of a lot of people, mainly because the little girl didn't LOOK evil.
And that's the thing about the movie of 'The Other'. The twins, played by real life twins Chris and Martin Udvarnoky, were ADORABLE.
When I told The Boy I had found the movie and was getting it, he said, "I LOVE that movie!" I was actually amazed he even knew what it was. He said he saw it multiple times in the theaters because it scared the hell out of him. []
So, Saturday, we plunked it in the DVD machine and watched.
The nice part of watching on DVD is that you can stop and go back to see something, and I did that at one point. When Niles hides the tobacco tin in the Chautauqua desk, I half-saw a drawing on the wall as he leaves the bedroom. I backed up to find it was a drawing of Bruno Hauptmann, who was executed for the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. Very interesting.
At any rate, I'm happy to give this movie a place in my collection of DVDs. I wish I could have the experience of reading the book for the first time again, but unfortunately, I can't.
This movie does show up from time to time on teevee, so watch for it and enjoy getting the creeps all over again.
######
The Boy went to take a nap Friday night at around 7:30 p.m. and ended up sleeping the entire night. It's screwed up his schedule big time, and he's not happy.
I'm just glad he's not getting sick or something, a thought that HAD crossed my mind.
I felt like I was doing better; now I'm not so sure. I just feel like if I could get some DECENT sleep, all in one fell swoop, I'd feel better. It's just not happening right now. So, I limp along in a half-asleep fog for the day, until I can't take it any longer.
I know I'll eventually get to the point where I'm past being exhausted and I will sleep for at least eight hours. I hope it's today.
######
OK, I'm off to set this for posting in about 30 minutes. The Boy wants me to wake him at 2 a.m.; he says someone is attacking The Most High Evil Lord God and he wants to be awake when the other god's troops get to his city. I might even be interested in the outcome, since this is the first time The Boy has had to do battle in this world.
I'll let you know how that went. If I can understand it all, anyway. Frequently the shit that happens is so complex and weird that after two minutes my mind just turns to jelly.
No kidding. It happened around 9 p.m. The Boy was talking about something, and he just went on and on and on and I finally just tuned him out because I was past caring at that point.
Well, I got caught, because apparently whatever The Boy was saying HAD AN ACTUAL POINT, even if it took him 10 minutes to get there. We had a mild screaming match, and I told him, "If you require a reply from me, then get to the point quickly, because I have things to do in MY life."
He was not happy.
Yes, I do tune him out sometimes. And he hates it.
But trust me, you would do the same thing if you were in my shoes. I swear he loves to hear himself talk sometimes.
Have a restful Sunday.
.
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| ~I Warned Him But Did He Listen?~
When we moved Kitty in here, he was a little kitty. The Boy was concerned. Kitty ate a LOT; it was like he was making up for lost time, or meals, as it were.
Then, The Boy started feeding Kitty his own cans of food. I told The Boy, "You keep saying you can't wait for the day that Smoke kicks the bucket so that we can cut down on the number of cans of food we buy, and now you are feeding Kitty a can of his own."
He just gave me The Look. "You are going to regret this," I told him.
Today The Boy opened his eyes and sitting next to his side of the bed, staring at him, were Hootie and Kitty. Hootie often does this; it's The Boy's clue to open a can of food for Hootie.
Now, he's got TWO cats doing it.
I laughed and laughed when he told me, and he said, "IT'S NOT FUNNY!"
"Oh, yes it is," I said. "YOU created the monsters; you live with it now!"
######
The Boy has declared that he needs more space for his DVD/Blu Ray collection, and told me a couple weeks ago that he's going to be 'rearranging' things so he can "open up another bookcase to put movies in."
Today was the day, apparently.
He chose the bookcase closest to my desk, and was going to put MY movies on the BOTTOM two shelves. I said to him, "How about putting MINE on the top two shelves and make it easier for me?"
Now I can group mine in a way that makes no sense to HIM. Such as grouping all my most loved movies that I watch a lot together, including the 'I just need some sound in here while I do [whatever]' movies.
I AM missing 'The Stand' and 'Independence Day' and I have a feeling those made their way back to HIS [vast] collection. I'll remedy that tomorrow.
So, the corner where Kitty was sleeping now has the big cat tree in it, but Kitty is still sleeping on the same pile of stuff, it's just not in a corner anymore.
######
We got up to around 30 degrees today and The Boy went nuts. He had the front door open at one point and I couldn't believe it.
This is the man who complains about being cold ALL YEAR ROUND. Sheesh.
I'm feeling a bit better, but still not up to 100%, of course. Still very tired, because I'm not sleeping through the night. As I write this, just before midnight, my eyes want to slam shut and I just may let them.
######
How is your Christmas shopping going? I have two boxes ready to go to the Post Office and when they go all depends upon The Boy of course, and how ambitious HE is feeling on any given day, which isn't much even on his best days.
I really can't blame him; standing in line at the Post Office sucks the big one. At least this time I have the Customs Form already filled out for him. He said it was really fun to piss off all the people behind him in line last time. [I bet! ]
His gift for his mother was another chore. This year he swore he'd get her the stupid digital photo frame she wanted last year and he screwed that up because he didn't get a flash drive to go with it. She ended up taking back one of the 19" HD teevees and hooked a DVD machine to it so she could play the picture CD Claudia made for her [and for everyone else].
This year The Boy says he wants that teevee back to use as a monitor, so got the digital frame. I told him, "MAKE SURE YOU GET A FLASH DRIVE!"
So, he comes home with the frame and I said, "Did you get a flash drive?"
"No, the box said everything is in there."
I was unconvinced, so I opened the box, checked it all and said, "You need a flash drive. I tried to tell you this LAST YEAR...."
Yesterday he made a run into The World and got a 2 gig flash drive for $15 at Rad*o Shack. I'll be working on getting that up and running for the witch The Mother so The Boy can get his monitor back.
The Aunt called the other day to 'formally' invite us both for Christmas dinner and I reminded The Boy that I will not be attending. He said, "I won't force you, but I wish you would reconsider."
"Nope. It's right here on my calendar. I'm sick that day. Written in ink. Sorry."
Yeah, I get sick three times a year. Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Bummer.
Well, my eyes are watering like crazy again, so let me get this posted.
THIRTEEN DAYS TO CHRISTMAS!
Time flies.
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