Thar She Blows!

One of the little joys of being a homeowner is taking care of the home at its most uncooperative. Case in point: our washing machine, which decided to overflow just as the kids and I were getting ready for church.

So instead of praising God in God's sanctuary, I get to plead for God's intercession while ankle-deep in pink, sudsy water (DD's new sheets are being washed so we can put them on her bed). Things you discover while mopping out your laundry room:

• The dust in my laundry room is practically its own layer of continental crust
  
• 37 cents
• A missing sock
• Sand. Lots of sand. It's a wonder there's any left on the school playground.
  
• My water heater is ugly--time to buy a screen
• You need a contortionist from Cirque du Soleil to unhook the drain hose from the back of the machine
• Now that the washing machine's pulled away from the wall, maybe we can finish the paint job

Oh, how I long for a Hold Everything laundry room. HE laundry rooms are pristine, dust-free, and apparently capable of turning out freshly-laundered, fluffy clothing with little to no human intervention. That's what I want.

Just wondering, though--my laundry room is in the prosperity corner of my house. DH painted it lavender a couple of summers ago (well, most of it--that area behind the washing machine does need to be completed). Now that the machine has overflowed, does that mean I'm going to be flooded with money soon?

Let's hope so. It'll take a pile of it to solve my laundry problems.

Iraq the Vote

Today's the day.

Iraqis are casting votes today, the first free elections in fifty years. Now I'm not a big W fan, but you have to admit, that's pretty cool.

Already the insurgents are setting off bombs, mortars, etc. Seems most of them are Sunni muslims, who have been in charge--viciously--for some time now. The Shiite majority is expected to turn out in record numbers for the vote. A photo posted on the Friends of Democracy website shows an expatriate Iraqi who voted in Michigan. He's in tears because his son, who was killed by the Baathists, did not live to vote himself. Powerful.

Kathleen Parker's column in the Sentinel today is interesting. She likens all the insurgency to the weirdness in this country when minority groups pressed the voting issue after the Civil Rights Amendment passed. I hadn't thought of it that way, but she has a point. People in power often get nervous and irrational when their power is threatened, especially when their power is threatened by a group the people in power have been suppressing, without repercussion, for some time.

Since baby bro is over there in the line of fire, I pray is that all of the ruckus is worth it.

The Waiting

Tom Petty's right. The waiting is the hardest part.

About two weeks ago, I sent the complete manuscript of my chick lit, The Crash Test Dummy of Love, to New York. Thirty-day exclusive. Within thirty days, I'll know something.

In thirty days, I will, most likely, no longer have cuticles.

I do not wait well.

I love this book. I love it because it's chick lit for people who don't live in New York, who don't understand why otherwise-intelligent people will pay $1000 per month rent for an apartment roughly the size of my walk-in closet. City that never sleeps and all, I know. But still. A thousand bucks is not too much less than what I pay for a 4/2 in the 'burbs with mature trees and excellent schools and no crime.

Yes, it's the burbs. I'm sure that damages my cool chick cred somehow, but I don't really care. I can sleep at night, and the weather's fabulous, when we don't have a hurricane (or two, or three) bearing down on us.

What was I saying? Oh, yes. Chick lit. Book. My book. Love my book. Hope Dream Agent loves it, too.

All together now...Rep the book! Get a huge advance! Rep the book! Get a huge advance!

Weather Wuss

So I wake up this morning and it's 37 degrees. Did I mention that I hate being cold? That the only thing worse than being cold is being wet and cold? That once I catch a chill, it takes for-freakin'-ever to warm back up again? This is Sunny Florida, for goodness sakes! Where's the heat??

Then I read in the paper that Boston's buried under two feet of snow. I feel for them, I really do, but I just don't see the sense in volunteering for that kind of abuse every winter. I'll visit, but I'm not ever living there. Clam chowder and Bunker Hill just aren't enticement enough. Besides, I'm a southerner. I don't give a flying flip about hockey.

(Sitting in lotus position, trying out warmth mantra) Margaritaville....ohmmmm....Margaritaville.....

Travel Notes

So I'm looking at yet another way to kill time instead of writing, and I stumble across BluePyramid's Country Quiz, and I find that...

You're Italy!

You pretty much feel like you are the most long-standing bastion of civilized humanity on the face of the earth. While this is probably not true, you do have a noted history of living the good life and spreading culture to those around you. More recently, however, things have started to slide and you're having a hard time staying together and not getting beaten up. People still like to ask you how it was to be the center of high culture, but your days at the top are long past you. Avoid volcanoes, flooding, and unstable buildings wherever possible.

I wonder what would have happened if I'd said I didn't like wrestling. Hmm.

Try it yourself: Country Quiz

Celebrity Muppets

I'm convinced that some of today's celebrities are really human muppets. Their mouths are grossly oversized compared to the rest of their features. Watching them gives me Grover flashbacks. A few of my favorites:

• Steven Tyler of Aerosmith
• Julia Roberts
• Fantasia Barrino
• Jessica Simpson

I'm sure there are more, but visualizing all those tonsils makes me want to brush my teeth. And floss. And swig some Listerine.

Guilty Pleasure of the Day

One of my writer-loop buds has this hysterical blog:

Conversations about Famous People

Yeah, what she said. DistressedJeans, you rock!

Jobs that Suck

Jobs I would not like to have:

• proctologist
• actuary
• garbageman
• doctor
• lab rat
• nanny for obscenely rich couple
• convoy escort, Baghdad, Iraq

Guess which of these my brother will be doing for the next 12-18 months?

Oy.

(We're not even Jewish, but somehow, there's no Presbyterian expression that fits quite as well in this circumstance.)

Quirks

We all have them.

Some of mine:

• Logging onto IMDb every morning to read the trivia, quote, and celebrity dirt du jour.
• Obsessive reorganization and reading of The Orlando Sentinel every morning (woe be unto you if you snatch a section out of order)
• Deboning magazines, especially of those godawful perfume inserts
• Cuticle chewing
• Eating M&Ms in pairs by color
• Salting my cocktail napkins (this works--salt the napkin before they put the drink down, and the napkin won't stick--no fear of looking like the Bar Geek)
• Screaming "It's not even Halloween!!!" at the top of my lungs when I see the Christmas display Wal-Mart puts up 3.2 nanoseconds after Labor Day (especially fun when lots of red aprons are in the vicinity)

I'm guessing the blog will be, too.

Weapons of Mass Distraction

I'm shocked.

During her confirmation hearing, soon-to-be Secretary of State Condi Rice admitted that, concerning our military presence in Iraq,

"We have made a lot of decisions in this period of time. Some of them have been good, some of them have not been good, some of them have been bad decisions, I am sure."

Well, damn. Who knew?

Actually, my brother. He's an Army MP who is, as we speak, on a plane to Kuwait for his second deployment to our favorite Middle Eastern outpost. Never mind that the first time Uncle Sam sent him to Baghdad, he came home with a plate and seven screws in his arm. Apparently, that injury wasn't enough fun, so now my little bro will spend 12-18 more months in a country that flat doesn't want him there.

I can't even begin to think how his wife and four kids must feel about this. I know I'm not too happy about it.

Read the whole scoop on the Rice confirmation here.

Cannonball!

Diving in for the first time is as scary as ever. Welcome to The Dish. I usually have more to say than people have time for, so this will be a way to vent some spleen--er--steam and keep myself mostly sane in the process. Books, life, celebrities, schools are all fair game. Hope you enjoy!