I don’t know what this says about me (”I am dumb!”) or what it says about the power of marketing (”Marketing is a powerful force that will sway even the most cynical consumer!”) or what it says about how I waste money on stupid things (”I waste money on stupid things!”)   But not surprisingly, the roller is not very effective (and ironically, DID cause my foundation to streak) and the product went on like spackle.   Which isn’t to say that spackling my face did not improve my appearance, but it did feel weird and probably I will throw it out, or more accurately, will put it in my Giant Basket of Crappy Foundation that I keep in my bathroom in case there is ever an emergency that requires lumpy, weird, unpleasant smelling, streaky, or strange tinted spackle.

OK, I will also admit that spackling my face was sort of fun in an, “OMG, what the hell is this stuff?” sort of way.   And it did give very very good coverage in that it made my face look like it had been effectively erased.

2.   When I started this blog post, I had at least three things to say and the most important thing wasn’t even the bit about the roller foundation.    Now I can’t think of what the other two were.   In the interim, I have poured a cup of coffee and made peanut butter toast, apparently an act that took SO long that my memory of all things leading up to it has been wiped as clean as an Etch-A-Sketch that’s been gently shaken, which is to say that maybe if I squint at it really hard, I’ll be able to see a trace of what I meant to say.

3.   That was a horrible metaphor simile.

4.  Speaking of squinting, I need reading glasses.   I had been coveting some reading glasses at anthropologie, which were blue and sparkly and now that I can actually justifiably purchase them, they don’t have them any more and the ones they do have are sort of fugly and stupid and this puts me in a mood where I feel like TIME PASSES SO QUICKLY, I AM OLD, and EVERYTHING IS FUTILE, or maybe I was already in that mood, or one sort of like it but lesser.   The Germans probably have a word for it.

5.  Sometimes I answer questions that people ask search engines, causing the search engines to point them here to my blog of brilliance and clever insight.   The questions are often stupid and answerless, or at least I can’t answer them, but sometimes they are not.   For example, yesterday someone typed this entire question into Google:

“Do rabbits know what we are thinking?”

I can answer this one.   The answer is yes.   Yes, rabbits know what you are thinking.   Which is freaky, if you think about it.   On the plus side, just because they KNOW doesn’t mean they care.    Actually, rabbits think our thoughts are silly and dumb, which is why they stare at you for a second, absorb your thoughts, roll their little rabbity eyes and then commence holding really still because they think if they don’t move, you can’t see them.   In other words, the fact that an animal that is as dumb as a bag of rocks also happens to be psychic is something that you shouldn’t let keep you up at night.

6.  I wrote my first letter to the editor of our local paper.   I know, right?  It wasn’t even about whales in captivity although believe me if there were whales here that were captive, I would write to the paper about it.   In this case, it was about banning the use of cosmetic pesticides, specifically Agent Orange’s little brother, 2,4-D, on schoolyards and playgrounds.   There is an immensely stupid debate going on about it in our municipality that involves people actually defending the use of a neurotoxic chemical because “dandelions are tripping hazards”.   TRIPPING HAZARDS.      I call my letter, “DANDELIONS ARE JUST YELLOW FLOWERS.”   I thought it required a title because it’s pretty long, which may surprise you, as of course you think of me as someone who is able to come straight to the point without a bunch of unecessary information about my make up or my mother.   The heavily-edited letter is here (you have to scroll down).  (I swear, it was better than that when I wrote it.  It had, you know, actual information in it.)

In the meantime, because I can’t help myself, I like to illustrate all of my letters to the editor with pictures taken with my iPhone using the app I just downloaded that I can’t seem to get enough of  (Hipstamatic).  It is making my mum crazy because she’s all, “But the pictures are blurry!”  Sorry, Mum.

Well, that about wraps it up for today.   Now both my toast and my coffee are cold.   ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

Or maybe you like to see clothes that I want.  I have no idea.

But other people hit this site completely by accident.  Like the person who innocently sat down at their computer and typed:

DO VAMPIRE’S GET ALZHEIMERS?

I know you weren’t asking me, but it did bring you to my website and frankly who is better equipped to answer this pressing query than me?

Answer:  Everybody.   I didn’t even FINISH Twilight.   I just flat out didn’t like it.

But that won’t stop me.   But before I answer, I’d like to point out that the apostrophe errors  in your question are really annoying.   WHY oh why do people put apostrophes in where they don’t belong?   I can understand accidentally missing one (sort of), but putting in extra ones is one of the most profound mysteries of our times.   I’m going to pitch a show to the Discovery Channel called, “THE EXTRA APOSTROPHE” where we will explore if it’s a genetic problem or just that no one paid attention in school and is overcompensating by just randomly strewing apostrophes around in the hopes of appearing to be smarter than they actually are.  

Memo to Apostrophe Abusers:   It isn’t working.    Stop it already.

But back to your question.   The answer is …

YES.

Of course vampires can get Alzheimer’s.   Vampires are just people with dirty hair who have been bitten by other vampires and then get all THIRSTY FOR BLOOD and sullen and glittery in the sunlight, right?    If they are people, which I think we can agree that they are, then they are just as susceptible to degenerative brain diseases as the rest of us.   I’d say that they were at particularly high risk for Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, too, which is just mad cow with a fancier name, because aren’t they always running around farmers’ fields slurping the life out of innocent bovines?   Vampires are not immune!   So if you know a vampire who is starting to show signs of Alzheimer’s then I think you should talk to their doctor.   And FYI, just forgetting a lot isn’t really a sign, it’s more like if they forget how to get home to their crypt after a long day of blood sucking.    Or if they forget HOW, exactly, you are supposed to extract the blood from the victim.    More warning signs are here.    

Now excuse me, because I’m going to be over in the corner panicking for a while as I’m pretty sure I have every single one of those symptoms RIGHT NOW.   And I’m not even a vampire.

So here is a short, sweet answer for you, my vampire-infested friend. Kosher meat. As far as I know, blood is drained from kosher meat before it is koshered. Kosherific. You know what I mean. So kosher meat is the way to go. No vampire in their right mind (though arguably there aren’t any vampires that ARE in their right mind**) would want bloodless meat. It’s also safe to serve to your Jewish friends, so that’s an additional plus. All other meat contains blood. Serve it to vampires at your own risk. And don’t come crying to me when the non-kosher burgers you serve up trigger some kind of insane feeding frenzy that results in your ENTIRE FAMILY INCLUDING THE FAMILY DOG becoming vampirified.

It’s just a matter of time before purveyors of kosher meat realize the gaping hole in the market for vampire-unfriendly meat and start marketing their meat to the vampire-unfriendly, too.

* I know nothing about vampires, except that I’m over them. OVER. THEM. I saw sixteen minutes of Twilight the other night and I didn’t get it. I don’t get. What is the allure? WHAT IS IT? Someone tell me already.

** This is not a slight against YOUR vampire friends, of course. Rather, it is just a flippant remark. Because guess what? VAMPIRES ARE NOT REAL AND THEREFORE WILL NOT EAT YOUR MEAT ANYWAY. I’m just saying.

But I digress because that is what I do.   I am here to answer a question that you didn’t actually mean to ask me, but you did by searching it on Google and landing here on ispuddle.com where you were treated to a list of five (OK, six) dresses.   And then you were like, “What?  What does that have to do with bacon?  None of these dresses are made of bacon!  Who cares about dresses?   We are a meat-eating people!   We care only about highly processed pig products!  What is a dress?”  And you were right to be alarmed.   Sometimes I talk of other things.   I’m sorry.   Your question, and I can’t believe you asked Google this question but then I’m always surprised what people are willing to ask Google, was “Is it safe to eat green bacon?”

Answer:   NO.   NO NO NO, a thousand times NO.   For the love of Pete, Mike, the Lord, and all things holy, unholy, in purgatory, and your mother, NO.   I can’t believe you had to ask.   I really can’t.  Do you eat mouldy bread?   Sour milk?   Rotten cheese?   WHY WOULD YOU HAVE TO ASK?   Green meat will almost surely make you sick.   Unless you want to be sickened by your cured meat so you can get in on a class action suit against Maple Leaf, put the package of crap down, and by “down”, I mean “into the trash”.   If you eat it, you may get a settlement of $50 from the purveyor of the meat, but I’m telling you, it’s probably not worth it.   I am a so-called expert (i.e. I call myself one) on food poisoning having almost died once from salmonella and having almost wanted to die from campylobacter (both from restaurant meals, FYI).   You do NOT want these things unless it’s urgent that you lose twenty pounds in three days mostly through your bum while you scream, “KILL ME NOW I CANNOT TAKE IT FOR ONE MORE MINUTE ARGH ARGH ARGHHHHH, I WONDER IF MY OLD JEANS WILL FIT ME NOW?”  Then the person in the next bed will shout, “SHUT UP, WE’RE ALL SICK YOU WHINER!” And you’ll be all surprised that a ninety-year-old woman is capable of such vitriole.    Also, I will tell you that being stuck in ER for four days with food poisoning of any variety when there is but ONE BATHROOM for all the hundred or so patients to share is about as fun as it sounds, which is to say, NOT FUN AT ALL.   Especially when you are also pregnant.    Keep this in mind as you contemplate just how strong, exactly, your meat craving actually is vs. your desire to not flash your bum to a waiting room of drunk people at 3:00 a.m. on  Friday as you desperately try not to poop on the floor.   Because while wearing a backless gown in a crowd is undignified, an actual public poop may be something from which you never recover.

Do not eat the green bacon.   THROW IT AWAY.

For a more technical answer, I will say with scientific certainty that green meat is guaranteed to be infested with bacteria (probably listeria, but not definitely) which is why it is GREEN and not MEAT COLOURED.

Now I’m going to bed.   I hope I don’t have bad dreams about green meat.   Then I might be cross with you and you wouldn’t like me when I’m cross.

Speaking of dreams, a few weeks ago I had a dream that my husband had to have an emergency vasectomy and afterward he wasn’t allowed to drive or walk so we had to rollerblade to the bus stop to take the bus home from the hospital only he didn’t know how to rollerlbade and he kept careening off moving cars and trucks and bicycles and a woman rolled down her window and shouted at him, so I stage-whispered, “HE HAD AN EMERGENCY VASECTOMY!” and she stopped shouting, gave him a sympathetic half-smile, and carried on.    That dream had nothing to do with green meat, I realize, but I suddenly remembered it and wanted to put it on record because it was really a pretty great dream.   He had to wear knee pads and elbow pads and the kind of roller-derby costume popular in 1970s blaxploitation films.   Awesome.

Happy dreams, peeps.

Would YOU ask a search engine this question?  Let’s hope not.   Because that would make you “psycho” or maybe just “really really misguided”.

Question of the Day:  “Should I keep my German Shepherd dog?”

OK.   Well.   It’s hard to know where to begin, but I’m going to begin with the answer.   The answer is “No” and I’m not even going to consult the Magic 8 Ball to be sure.    I am confident in this answer.   Thank you for stopping by.

I’ll elaborate, because I am nothing if not someone who talks too much even when I have nothing to say.   Here’s the thing:   I don’t know why you are contemplating giving up your dog but I’m a Dog Person, even though I don’t actually have a dog, and I can tell you that if you’re sitting down to coffee one morning and thinking about what to look for on the internet, and your big loving lump of a dog* catches your eye and you think, “Hey!   Maybe I should get rid of my DOG!”   Then you should probably give your dog to someone who will actually just pat their dog on the head and search for some new shoes instead.   Dogs are part of your family once you’ve adopted them.   You’d have to be a pretty cold person to ask Google if you should toss them, frankly.   It’s an animal!   A real live animal!   With feelings!   And whatnot!   If you are wondering if you should give your dog away because your dog is a pain, it’s your fault to begin with for not properly training the dog and probably not paying enough attention to it because you were too busy asking Google if you should leave your husband or put your baby up for adoption.    Christ on a pogostick, people, it’s a SEARCH ENGINE.   If you really need answers from an inanimate object, try the Magic 8 Ball.    It’s much more likely to have a valid (or at least ignorable) answer, even if it’s not what you want to hear.

I will also say that we always had German Shepherds when I was growing up.    I don’t have much more to say about that except that we did and they were lovely although the second one had this annoying habit of running in somewhat insane figure eights at high speed, plowing down whomever was in her path, which made her a bit of a nuisance when you wanted to NOT be plowed down by 80 pounds of hair and teeth.    When she wasn’t running maniacally (she actually ran ditches into the backyard), she was great.   I can still cry about her death if you ask me about it, so don’t ask.    If we still had her, I’m sure we would not have put her on Prozac, even though her behaviour was neurotic.  I mention this because I was thinking maybe your dog is depressed because you don’t love him/her and perhaps some Prozac would help.    I saw on 60 Minutes or 20/20 or one of those shows (about ten years ago, but who’s counting?) how Prozac is being used more and more on animals which frankly I think is madness and probably speaks to how drug companies are exploiting our pets.

In the interest of winding up this post, I will tell you that the song I have in my head at this exact moment is “Staying Alive”.    Sing it to yourself right now while the blog credits roll.    Dance if you need to.    Do not step on your dog in the process though, that poor animal has enough problems.

Now on with my day.   It is Monday so I have to save most of my blogging energy for The Bachelorette, because although I’ve forgotten all the Bachelor wannabes suitors from last week’s show already, you know I’ll be glued to the set, or at least watching it out of the corner of my eye while I blog carefully crafted witticisms some vague commentary interspersed with  anecdotes about me the show for your reading enjoyment tomorrow.

* Unless your dog has bitten someone, in which case you are on your own.   I am very anti-dog bite (Is anyone actually for dog bites?) since The Birdy was attacked by a dog at the beach this spring.     I’m still pretty mad about it and in addition to mad about the dog, still annoyed about the Facebook fight an old highschool friend picked with me about how it wasn’t the dog’s fault, it was the owner’s fault and I shouldn’t have taken my child to the beach if I didn’t want her to be mauled by a vicious animal and I obviously wasn’t teaching my child how to love.    Eventually I will let it go, but probably not in the near future because that’s not how I roll.

Even when I don’t know the answer, I can guess and make the answer seem like fact by presenting it in a really belligerent tone as though I’m shocked — SHOCKED — that you would even ask such a stupid question. It is this style of delivery that got me through university. I’m not actually kidding about that, either.

I’ve just realized that making up answers to vague search-term questions that grossly misfire is perhaps the most fun thing about having a blog. I’d previously thought the most fun thing about having a blog was that you had to write it, thus creating extra deadlines and pressure for yourself that you otherwise wouldn’t be struggling with enjoying. Boy, I was wrong. Because now I think that nothing IN MY ENTIRE LIFE is more fun than making up answers to vague search-term questions that grossly misfire. Nothing. Well, nothing except for the following things:

1. Things I can’t list because they are top secret.

2. Sleep. You know, when you close your eyes at night and don’t open them again to fetch anyone a drink or soothe them back to sleep or shout at them or find their monkey. And then next thing you know, it’s MORNING.

3. That game of golf I played the other day with Clayton where we managed to lose five balls in the forest* on a nine-hole pitch and putt that required no club more powerful than a 9-iron (which didn’t stop me from breaking out a 4 more than once).

4. Did I previously mention the plunge pool at our resort in the Caribbean? That was fun. So was that time when I peed in the water while snorkeling and it got a piranha all excited and he followed me because he was so allured by my pee that he wanted to eat me. True story. I out-swam him though. Because I can do that. You don’t believe me, but I’m still alive, aren’t I?

5. My life in general, with the exception of today, which has been resoundingly Not Fun, beginning with the general unwellness (neck, chest, head, stomach) and fatigue and the two hours of sleep I got last night (which wasn’t even continuous or good) and the fact that Joan Rivers inexplicably won Celebrity Apprentice. And ending with the sudden storm that hit while we were just now at the beach which left us drenched, shivering, and grumpier than when we left home, which I wouldn’t have believed to be possible. (And when I use the word “we” here, I mean “I” because the kids thought it was a great expedition. They even made up a song, or more accurately, stole a song from The Piglet Movie and claimed to have made it up themselves.)

6. Board games popular in the 1970s, played while drinking cocktails from the 1970s, while wearing clothes from the 1970s. (I’ve never actually done that, but just now while thinking of things that are fun, it’s the first thing that came to mind.) (Or maybe I just have a craving for a martini or a Long Tom Collins Island or whatever those drinks were called). (I put it at number 6 on the list because placing it first would have been weird. It’s the kind of fun that you have to warm up to slowly.)

7. Laughing. Oh, come on. Laughing is fun! It is! You should totally try it. If you’re having a crap day, just randomly burst out laughing for no reason. It really works for The Birdy. In fact, she’s doing it right now. Either that or she knows something about this couch that I don’t. Like maybe I’m sitting in pee. It is a bit damp, come to think of it.

Without further unnecessary rambling ado, I present the “question” of the day:

Would leaking gas get into food?

I’m going to assume you’re talking about natural gas in your house and this isn’t a question about, say, what happens when you’re at a gas station and you pull the gas pump out of your tank too fast and gas splatters on the “fresh” sandwich you just purchased inside. If that was the case, obviously the answer would be, “Do not eat the sandwich”. That would also be the answer if the question was “Should I eat sandwiches that are purported to be ‘fresh’ that I purchased at the gas station?” (I just don’t think they are as “fresh” as they suggest. How can they be? There’s just the one guy there doing cash and selling lottery tickets and cigarettes and you never SEE him making sandwiches, do you? I think not.)

Given that we must be talking about natural gas (but please be more specific in your future searches, I’m not psychic you know) and I am an expert on the subject seeing as our natural gas seems to constantly leak enough to smell bad but not enough to kill us, I can say with absolute conviction that if there is enough leaking gas in your house that it is affecting your food in any way, you’ve already breathed in enough of it to be dead and the debate you are having with yourself about whether or not to eat that Twinkie you left out on the counter is no longer your biggest problem.

Short answer: No. (I asked the Magic 8 Ball, just to be sure it also reported “Sources say No”.) (Just in case you wanted a second opinion because you didn’t entirely trust my answer, although I don’t know why you wouldn’t.) (Doubter.)

Wasn’t that fun? I mean, it was no pee-inspired piranha chase, but it was pretty good. For me, anyway. I’m not half so grumpy as I was when I started typing AND the sun just came out! It’s like this post actually just begot (begetted?) (begat?) a miracle! Except not actually anything like that at all.

* I use the word “forest” here because it’s shorter than typing “walker-friendly chip trail featuring weight-lifting equipment for the elderly”.