I AM A NO-GOOD PARTY-POOPER

DATE: JULY 22, 1998

Last night I suspect that Jujie (baby sis) must've eaten a bowl of sugar--she was absolutely hyper. She kept saying, "Let's play a game, let's play a game...let's PLAY a game, GAME GAME, lessplayagamegameGAME!!!" Over and over and OVER.

So I said, "OK, let's play The QUIET Game." She lasted about a minute and a half at that before she started screaming again.

So I said, "Let's play Sitting In the Rocking Chair." (I was in it already.)

"There isn't any room for me!"

"Weeell, I guess YOU can't play then."

"WA-ahhhhhh!"

"Then let's play 'Well Begun is Half Done'."

"Hrumph!"

This all took place at about 10:30pm. That girl must have followed up her bowl of sugar with a sugar cube chaser, because her hyperness was only increasing the later it got. Even hyper, she is cute, so I caved and told her I'd be her game-stooge.

We ended up in parents' room where Lols (mom) was relaxing on her bed. Here, Jujie told me we were going to play the funnest sleepover party games ever! Hoo-boy. I loves me the sleepover party games.

She told me to lie down on the floor. "Ok," I said, "but I don't want this to be one of those things where you fall on me, or even pretend to fall on me. And I don't want to get wet."

She started her game (verbatim follows): "There are tall trees everywhere, and the man swings the ax--" She started swinging her arms around violently. "--at the tree, chop chop chop. But the ax MISSES the tree, and gets the owner!"

She jabbered on and on, becoming completely incoherent.

"So, swing swing swing and it gets the MAN!" At this point, despite of my earlier protest, she came crashing down on top of me. Whump! I'm not as young as I once was and I'm sure she broke my hip. Fun game!

I bloody well knew she was going to fall on me. And SHE knew that I knew it but did it anyway.

Next she told me she's got another fun game and that I was to stay on the floor. "Please don't jump on poor ol' me this time," I said.

This game went a little something like: "Pocahontas is out in the forest. She goes to the stream---" She followed with a VERY long, incoherent saga involving Pocahontas. "---And THEN, an arrow shoots! And it gets Pocahontas!!!! AAAARGH!" She SCREAMED, and then---yes---once again she jumped on me. Now I've got a matched set of broken hips.

Final game: Jujie instructed me to go in the bathroom and not to come out until she was ready. When I was called back out, she had three chairs set up in a row, all of them completely covered with a blanket. Jujie had dragooned Lols into her twisted little-girl game world, because Lols was seated on the far left chair. Jujie sat on the far right chair, so the middle spot was mine.

"Sit down," she said, "we have to take your X-rays." I could see where this game was going. Sooner or later my chair was going to disappear, and I would fall---ha ha ha ha---onto the floor.

"OK, but I don't want to sit on a chair that isn't there," I said. I am such a party-pooper. But I sat down and Lols & Jujie took my X-rays--a process where Jujie manhandled me and made whooshing and clicking noises.

"Now," said Jujie, "Go BACK into the bathroom....."

"OK..."

When I was called me back out, Jujie said that they needed to take some more X-rays and for me to sit down again. Mom and Jujie were once again seated on the two outer chairs. The blanket was still stretched over all of the chairs and I could see plain as day that the middle chair was now missing from beneath its blanket cover.

Mom, this whole time, has been stifling giggles at Jujie's ingenuousness. Her eyes were watering and she looked like she was going to do herself some damage if she held it in much longer.

"Oh, look," I said flatly, "my chair is gone."

"Just SIT there!"

So I smacked the middle of the blanket with my foot, which resulted in Jujie becoming unbalanced and tumbling into the chair-hole.

"HEY!"

I had to laugh and laugh. Jujie went through all of this drama, knowing that I already knew the punchline. I guess this officially makes me an old fuddy-duddy---this and my broken hips.

In my defense Mom couldn't stop laughing either.

At the end of all of this time it was about 11:30pm. Time for some more sugar...

A DISH IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE WASHER

DATE: JULY 14, 1998

Yes, once again it is I, Captain Vegetable, with my carrots and my celery.

I'm taking a break from doing GROTTY (with a capital ROTTY) dishes. I've done one sink-full and only have about ten more sink-fulls to go. Argh! I'd pay someone a thousand dollars if they'd do them. I offered my $1000 to Mom and she laughed, though I kid her not.

Here's el stupido thing: we have a dishwasher in this nice, nice new house, but it won't work because the electrical circuit it's on (which is also the one the garbage disposal is on---and the electrical outlet in the bathroom) has burned out somehow. We've flipped ALL of the circuit breakers a million times to no avail.

So I'm stuck doing these nasty dishes by hand and hating every second of it. It wasn't so long ago that I'd shell out the big bucks to my siblings not to have to do dishes on my day.

Next on the list of grotesqueries: I can't put any slimy scraps of food-rubbish into the garbage disposal---I have to carry it all outside. And, we can't dry our hair or plug in the curling iron in the bathroom. Nice house.

Also, I'm STINKING hot because this is summer, and this is the desolate desert, and it is a billion degrees Fahrenheit outside, and we have no stinking trees to blot out the evil sun and the "refrigeration" in our nice, nice new house bites the big one.

The people who built this house weren't exactly tip-top in the smarts department. They put in far too small a refrigeration unit. They also put ALL of the vents in the master bedroom and almost none in the front of the house where people are most of the time. So you freeze in the bedroom and fry in the kitchen/living room. And because the unit is so gutless and small, we have to turn it down to approx forty degrees early in the morning and keep the blinds closed all day to shut out the Devil Sun and keep ALL of the fans on, just to stay ahead of the heat. N-I-C-E.

My, I didn't know I had such a diatribe inside of me. I have a headache. My hands are pruny, and I'm not even a tenth of the way done with the dishes. I guess that I'll just cry and cry.

Switching tracks:

Chien-Po (little bro) and I almost wrecked on the freeway coming home from San Jorge today. That's the closest I've ever come. I was behind a van (VAN 1) in the passing lane and we were passing another van (VAN 2) that was in the slow lane and was behind a very SLOW RV (is there such a thing a fast RV?).

As soon as I'm equal with VAN 2, it decides it wants to pass the RV it's behind. So VAN 2 starts coming into my lane and it doesn't stop! I had to go off of the road as far as I could, but at that point on the freeway, there's a cement divider and NO shoulder and no where for me to go.

I couldn't speed up because VAN 1 was still in front of me. It was also too late to step on the brakes. The VAN 2 idiot kept coming and coming! I was honking and screaming at it, and Chien-Po was as white as a sheet (no doubt having Oak Grove Wreck flashbacks).

I honestly do not know how a wreck was avoided, because VAN 2 came all of the way over into my lane. Suddenly, we were magically in front of the offending VAN 2, and out of harm's way. I can't explain. We had ten times the usual allotment of guardian angels today.

I reckon I should get back to my other nine sink fulls of hateful dishes. Criminitly.

INDEPENDENCE DAY

DATE: JULY 04, 1998

I watched the USA Original Picture "Buried Alive Part II" this week and hoo-boy, let me tell you, it is every bit as good as "Buried Alive" the original. The moment you bury a character alive, it's instantly a great movie, not to mention it stars the very pointy, blade-faced Ally Sheedy. She makes one very fabulous buried alive lady. I can't wait until "Buried Alive Part III" comes out. That'll be Some Pig.

I'm such a lazy face on this July 4th. Here it is nearly 11:00am and I'm still jammied up. We're going over to Auntie Shirley's at 2:00 to have luncheon with her fam.

My pop wants to go fishing today. He's really into fishing lately (all because one TEEEEEEENY fishy accidentally got snagged on his hook up at the Pickett reunion so now Dad thinks he is a fisherman). Tee-hee-hee.