Clearly I cannot tell teim (or spell)

According to Facebook, my site is "down for maintenance, and should be available again in a few hours." Facebook is "sorry for any inconvenience this has caused."

That note has been on my Facebook page since last Sunday. It is now Wednesday. According to MY mental math, that is way more than "a few hours." Facebook is also "aware of this problem and our technical team is working hard to correct it."

You would think, since I cannot waste as much time farting around on Facebook like I normally do, that I would be getting tons more stuff done around the house. Which would be a good thing, since I am leaving at 5am for a five-day scrapbooking retreat in Ohio. (Hello, beautiful autumn colors, I cannot wait to see you again .....)

But, no. Instead I am obsessively checking my computer, possibly even more than normal, to see if Facebook is "fixed" yet. Because I cannot bear that the lives of my "friends" are going on as usual and I do not know what they are doing. (Nosy, much? Why yes I am.) Thank goodness I don't play farmtown or mafia wars, because at this point my crops would have withered and died and my mafia gangsters would have .... would have .... well, whatever abandoned mafia gangters do.

Facebook, come back to me. Or at least teach me how you tell time, so I can know when "a few hours" will be.

Holding Firm ...

A few of you mentioned in the comment section about how not only personal music devices have changed, but those cell-phone ear piece-thingys as well.

I think I made my opinion on that pretty well known a while ago.

And you know how sometimes in life you make a bold statement, and then later you circumstances change, or your opinions change, and you wind up with egg on your face because you've had to totally eat your words and alter your position on something?

This is not one of those times.*

*although I reluctantly caved to the peer pressure of texting. But I do it as seldom as possible, and I stink at it. So unless you're texting me that my house is on fire, don't expect a response. **

**but seriously, assuming I do continue to text (reluctantly and slowly) how do I fix my settings so that when someone sends *me* a text, their name shows up and not their number? Because I love my friends and all, but no way do I have their phone numbers memorized. So to the person who sent me a text yesterday morning, you didn't get a reply because I have no idea who you are.

***Buggy, basket, cart. Whatever. I use all three, and no matter what I call it, I always get the one with the busted wheel that veers drastically to the left.

Thank you for ....

The other night I was in our local Homeland, as I am every few days, buying milk. Honestly, if someone could invent some kind of long-term pasteurizing method that would keep milk from expiring, so I could buy thirty gallons at a time, instead of having to continually run to the store twice a week for three more gallons, over and over and over, I swear I would kiss them on the lips. Drive through liquor barns in Ohio that also sold milk by the gallon??? Best. Thing. Ever.

But I digress.

After I picked up the milk, and some bread, and some Lucky Charms because my kids are on a Lucky Charms kick, and oh look, some Oreos fell into my cart ..... I pushed the buggy up to the check out lanes at the front of the store. There was a family in line in front of me ..... well, a mom and her teenage son, that is.

His back was to me, and I noticed right away that he was dressed .... well ... as many teenage boys are these days. Baggy pants, oversized hoodie, ball cap twisted sideways. The other thing I noticed immediately was that he had some kind of twitch. I mean, it was that, or a series of small seizures, but since his mom wasn't paying any special kind of attention, I just assumed it was a twitch. And I thought, "Oh, that's unfortunate." Then he turned around and I realized he had an ipod in his ears.

Dear Mr. Stork, thank you for delivering me in the mid 1960's, which means I was a teenager in the mid 1980's, the age of portable stereo systems and breakdancing. Because although I'm sure most of us born in this era looked just as silly as that boy when we were his age, at least people who saw us out in public usually could tell we weren't twitching, but instead were dancing --- the giant boomboxes were typically a dead giveaway. Who knew to be grateful for ghetto blasters?? We might have looked ridiculous, but at least it wasn't confused with Tourettes.**

**and I mean this with no disrespect to anyone with Tourettes, considering Kellen was almost diagnosed with that a few years ago ...... just that in hindsight, I'm happy for my boombox, which classified me as a dork, loud and clear, instead of teeny tiny ipods, which make kids of today less-obvious dorks.

This Time, I Really Mean It

There have been a few fashion trends over the years that I’ve sworn I would never do, only to turn around and cave to the general standards of societal pressure. I swore I would never wear straight legged acid wash jeans .. and I did. I swore I would never get a spiral perm … and I did. I wore shoulder pads and Izods with the collars flipped up and legwarmers and Rocky Mountains and Ropers, although I did at least avoid the Madonna cone bra and MC Hammer pants. Sometimes, you just gotta look back at an old picture of yourself with mall bangs and a Flashdance sweatshirt, and have a good laugh at your own expense. Hello, Aqua-net, anyone?

While most of my “fashion don’ts” took place in the 1980’s, current fashion sometimes creeps in, as well. And nowhere is my age and general level of frumpiment showing any more than in my overall distaste for today’s trends and styles.

I will never enjoy looking at a young man’s boxer shorts because his pants hang down so baggy it looks likes he’s carrying a load in the back. I will never look at a boy with a K-Fed cocked baseball cap, bill pointing to the side, and think he looks anything BUT mentally challenged. I will never pierce any part of my face, or wear a ring through my nose like Rocky the bull, or stretch my ear lobes out to the size of dinner plates. I will never wear skin tight t-shirts, and although I might have no choice but to purchase low-rider blue jeans because that’s all you can find these days, I swear I will never like them and never get used to them and curse them until the day I die and have to be buried in them and have my Buddha belly hanging out over the top of the coffin because the freaking low-rider jeans won’t hold in my gut. (PS Are Lee Jeans Ultimate Fit still the best ones for people like me who don’t want our hipbones showing? Not that my hip bones have made any kind of appearance since I was about eight years old, but you know what I mean.)

A lot of the time, fashion is right there in your face and you like it or you don’t. Sometimes, however, fashion sneaks in, in a more sinister manner. Under the guise of TECHNOLOGY.

Remember the first cell phones that came out, that were the size of a bread box? And boom boxes were the size of a Buick? Now, ipods and cell phones and PDA’s are almost as small as a credit card.

I swore I would never clip my cell phone to my belt, and I haven’t. I swore I would never use my phone to send text messages … and I haven’t. And I swear, from the bottom of my very bottom tippy toes, that I will N.E.V.E.R. walk around town with one of those stupid earpiece phones on the side of my head. I’m all about hands-free technology making the roads a safer place while you’re driving, but those people who walk through Kroger or the mall, chatting away, or who can’t even take the earpiece off long enough to have dinner in a restaurant, just look silly to me. And it annoys me that I often assume they are talking to me, when they're coming towards me in the cereal aisle and their expression is animated and their lips are moving, and I will often say something ridiculous and presumptous, like, “Excuse me?” only to realize they’re talking to the person in their ear and actually aren’t giving me the time of day, let alone asking me if I know where the Count Chocula is located.

I pulled into our local post office yesterday to drive through the circle and put something in the mailbox. There was a man just standing in the middle of the lot, with his back to me, talking to himself, waving his hands around and doing the rap-man’s posture thing. It’s a very small post office …. Sort of an out-post, and he and I were the only two people around. Then he ambled over to the mailboxes and dropped something in. Then he turned and quasi-faced me, gesturing, and waving his arms, and grabbing his nether-regions, and talking and talking and talking the whole time. He just STOOD in the drive thru lane, right in my path, and I was pretty sure he was crazy. I checked that my doors were locked, and the windows rolled up, before he turned some more and I saw the ear piece hooked on his ear. I guess when you’re not holding the phone, and your hands are free, they are suddenly more available for waving around. And touching yourself. While I waited (because there was no WAY I was pulling up any where near where he was standing) he finally, slowly, began to amble off in the other direction, talking and gesturing and grabbing all the way. He never acknowledged my presence, and I wondered if he had any idea how ridiculous he looked to the rest of us. Er, to me.

So there you go. I think they look stupid, and I’m stating it publicly: No earpiece for me, ever. I'll either stop what I'm doing to make or take a call, if I can't manage to hold a phone and talk and walk at the same time.

Of course, I swore I didn’t need a DVR and I got one (and although I still don’t watch tv any more than I used to, it sure is a relief not to worry about getting home in time for Dancing With the Stars.) I also swore I would never wear a fanny pack on vacation, and I did. So maybe there’s a headset in my future and I just haven’t accepted it yet.

But I will NEVER walk around talking on it and grabbing my crotch and scaring women at the local post office, all at once.

This time, I really mean it.