Monday, December 31, 2007

HAPPY NEW--zzzzzzzzz...

Well, we didn't die of dryness at my folks' house, in case you're wondering. Though I am just moistening up enough today to be able to move my finger joints to type. I'm not going to rehash all the holiday goings-on in this post -- just don't have it in me. It's 11:36 on New Year's Eve, and the Old Lady and I are in bed and it looks like we won't make it 'til midnight. When the fuck did I turn 80?! Oh well, I better lie down slowly so I don't shatter a hip.

Anywhich, another year passes and I'm still not dead, so I look that as a major fucking bonus. My resolutions for 2008? Eat more lettuce and don't die.

Happy New Year, and may you also eat more lettuce and not die.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

GACK!

Could it be any drier here at my parents' house? And the answer is no. It was so fucking dry last night, as the Old Lady and I fitfully tossed and turned in my childhood bedroom, that all canals, tubes and mucosae in my body dried up and I woke up like some sort of hollowed-out, dessicated cicada husk. After ingesting about 18 gallons of water today, I've managed to re-moisten myself back to the level of a burlap gunnysack filled with psoriasis.

Tonight, before bed, I plan on lubing myself up with vaseline and slipping inside a giant lambskin condom filled with rice pudding. That should keep me nice and dewy.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

M.R.AAAIIIIIIEEEEEE!

Holy mother of shit! What kind of sick FUCKDICK invented the MRI?! There is no fucking way that that thing passes Geneva Convention muster! Oh my shit, that was the most nerve-wracking, fucked up two hours of my life. It actually would've been funny, hilarious even, if it didn't suck so shittily. I swear, I was convinced that I was on an episode of Punk'd, where they'd invented this ridiculous machine, stuck me in it, and then blared these bone-vibrating alarm noises into my head for a couple of hours, just to see if my mind would explode. Oh my crap! What a dick that machine is.

Oh, and thanks for the 5 mg tab of Valium to relax me, Dr. W. That did ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOTHING! Next time, prescribe a giant mallet that the Old Lady can konk me in the head with, so I'll be unconscious for that magnetic torture chamber of horrors.

I go in there and change into the little gown thing. Didn't know if it was supposed to be the forward tying kind or the backward, so I did forward and hoped that nothing would sproing out at an inopportune moment. I get in the room and they say they're gonna do the brain first. I had headphones for that part, so it wasn't too bad. About 20 minutes of buzzing and beeping, but I was doing my deep breathing exercises and I didn't open my eyes to view the fucking death-tube I was wedged into, so it was okay.

Then, they pull my ass out and switch shit around for the spine part. They said the headphones wouldn't fit in there, so they gave me ear plugs that didn't fit, so basically it was going to be loud as fuck. Then they shove me waaaay into the tube and mention, at the last minute, that this part should take about 40 minutes. Motherfucker! I swear, waterboarding can't be any worse than that shit. It just didn't fucking end. After a while, I was started to freak out a bit and then made the HUGE mistake of opening my eyes. That was it. I squeezed that fucking ball they told me to squeeze if I needed anything and the little speaker said, "Can we help you?" I said, "Uh, yeah... I'm kinda losing my shit in here."

So I figured they'd let me out to chill for a sec, right? They said, "Just relax, and breathe deeply, and it'll be over soon." NO THEY DIN-UNH! Then they kept blasting the fucking tornado sirens in my ears and I continued to flip my lid. My hands and feet got totally tingly and my head was spinning. Total panic attack. But there was nothing I could do -- I sure as fuck didn't want to move and fuck it up so I'd have to do the whole fucking thing again.

Oh, and did I mention that I had to fucking piss like a race-horse that had to fucking piss an assload? So, a half-hour later, they pull me the fuck out, and I think it's all over. HA! The evil lab lady goes, "Okay, now we need to inject some dye into your arm and we'll do about another 20 minutes on the spine and then another shot with the head." All I heard was "You will die in 20 minutes." Which was actually quite comforting at that point.

And they wouldn't let me pee because I had to be in the same position for the next round. So, back in the tomb I went, my ureter filled taut like a fucking pee-filled balloon animal, and my synapses sparking and fizzling out by the second. And the sounds got louder and even more ridiculous. There's the pulsing "AH! AH! AH! AH! AH! AH," and the "EEE-AHH-EEEH-AAAAH-EEEH-AAAH." The worst ones were the long, continuous ones that kinda shifted waveforms throughout, occasionally syncing up with my brain waves and turning my grey matter into fucking Cream of Wheat -- "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH
EEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOHHHHHH."

I swear to fuck, I couldn't imagine a worse torture for me. I was totally ready to give up any and all secrets I had about Mr. Z, Miss O and the Old Lady. All they had to do was ask and I'd turn 'em all the fuck in to the authorities. Luckily for them, it ended and they hauled my jittery ass out of the chunnel-of-terror once again.

I was just shy of spraying both technicians with a tsunami of piss, so I asked if I could PLEASE take a whiz-break. They said okay and told me to sit up. I did and almost passed out. I had to sit there for a second until the little swirly cartoon eyes I had stopped spinning and then I hobbled over to the crapper. It had to be the longest piss I've ever taken -- a good 4 and a half minutes of full-force golden firehose action. I realized, about halfway through it, that I still had my eyes closed. I pried them open and started to feel myself calming down a bit. When the well ran dry, I got up, splashed some water on my face and hobbled back to Dr. Magneto's Fright Funnel.

I hopped back up onto the table and finished the last 15 minutes of brain scan like a champ. Then they pulled me out, I hopped up, told the technicians that I was reporting them to the authorities, flipped them off and then high-tailed it outta there.

I don't care if they find a fucking leather-winged homunculus stirring a cauldron of aneurysm juice on those scans -- I will never go through that bullfuck again. Seriously. I'd rather have my head do this:



But it's done, so yay. For now, I think it's time to see how that Valium mixes with some Plymouth gin and a couple of olives.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Well, At Least We Have Our Health...

Mr. Z and Miss O are both sick. The Old Lady's catching it. I've got my MRI at 8:45 tomorrow morning.

It's a Xmas miracle, Mother!

More later... if and when we make it out the other side.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Have You Turd the Latest?

I finally took the plunge and bought this incredible hand-held digital audio recorder thing I've had my eye on for, oh, a year or so. I wanted to have something that I could just whip out at a moment's notice to record an argument the spawnage were having, or record Miss O singing in the tub, or record an awesome fart that was just going to go to waste. So much audio gold has slipped through my tingling fingers, I decided I had to buy the fucker. And I was not disappointed. (For those interested in joining the club, find it here.)

Anywhich, Miss O and I have been singing this song from time to time while she sits on the toilet for half-a-fucking-hour trying to dump before bed. It's just kind of this meandering ditty, and we just kind of sing about whatever has gone on that day. I wanted to record it down in the studio (basement) but I didn't want to lose the spontaneity and uncertainty spurred on by the impending poopage.

Enter the Zoom H2!

We recorded it in one take last night during a particularly constipating poo-formance. It's kinda long (the song, not the poo), but I think it's a keeper. I dumped the file onto the mac and then added a little extra noodlin'guitar in the background, but I like the fact that it's raw and un-fucked-with (and a little outta tune).

So, yeah, here you go. I give you "The Toilet Song"! Enjoy...


"The Toilet Song" by the "Miss O Beat."

Sunday, December 16, 2007

BLONG!

There are four things have kept me from losing my shit lately, and I think, because of them, I'm ready to join the living once again.

1) The Old Lady and the Spawnage. No matter how fucking oh-woe-is-me I've been feeling lately, the Old Lady has been there to pick up my slack and is just patient as shit with my bullfuck. And the Spawnage -- even when they're annoying the crap out of me, they're so goddamn adorable, it's impossible to be a fucking mope for too long. (By the way, I recorded a song with Miss O tonight and I'll try to post it tomorrow. We recorded it live, with my new portable flash recorder, and I think it's tits. It's tentatively called "The Toilet Song.")

B) The very kind people who read this miserable fucking drivel on a fairly regular basis and have left such supportive comments. As I've mentioned, because I have no life outside of this house, I consider you all to be my imaginary friends and it really helps when friends, even imaginary ones, are there for you in times of self-pitying wretchedness.

iii) The mystery person who just ordered three (3!) KICKSOME CDs through the spawnages' web site. Seriously -- I think it's been like a year since someone has ordered one of those fuckers, let alone three. I actually didn't even have any blank disks to burn them onto, so I had to go to Best Buy to get some... on a Saturday... a week before Xmas. That sucked balls. No, but seriously, thanks for the order -- I'm gonna send them out tomorrow.

IV) And I'm fucking embarrassed as shit to admit it, but the final thing that actually made me say, "Snap the shit outta your malaise, Crabbydick, and start posting again! You may have incurable boola-boola, but you've gotta suck it up, ya douche," was this video:



Yes, I know it's a video of a laughing baby... yes, I know it's over a year old... yes, I realize I'm contributing to the downfall of the fucking innernecks by linking to it, but goddammit, it made me blow a fucking snot out of my nose that shot halfway across the fucking room.

I salute you, happy, drunk foreign baby!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Birdy Numb-Numb...

So, I guess I should check in, huh? You know, I thought I knew from crabby. I thought I had crabby's number, I did. Well, let me tell you something, people... I have entered the Thunderdome of crabbitude. The Grand Crabyon. Mt. Crabbyama. The Great Wall of Crabna.

And you know what? It fucking sucks donkey dicks.

This'll give you an idea how shitty I feel -- I called in sick to work. I can't remember the last time I didn't work when I was sick. Which sucks, by the way, 'cuz I work from home, so it's not like I have an office full of people I'm gonna infect. No, through colds, flus and 'the 'rrhea,' there I sit on my little TV screen... the omnipresent video monkey.

But when I limped my numb-ass legs/feet/arms down that basement staircase on Monday morning, I just couldn't pull it off. I feel like such shit, whether I'm sitting or standing or lying down -- I'm sorry, but I just couldn't fathom writing trivia questions about the similarities between Dr. Spock and Mr. Spock. I didn't go in yesterday, either. Just lied in bed and whined. Today, I worked a bit, but it was painful.

I've gotta figure out what's going on in my nervous system, and quick, or I'm gonna fucking lose my shit completely. And I haven't been sleeping much at all, so my mind is just spinning. At this point, I have no idea what's actually fucked up with my body and what's just a result of lying in bed all night and freaking out about whatever horrendous ailment is plaguing me.

Oh, and fuck you, internet. There's nothing worse than having an unexplained numbing/tingling of your extremities and random pain, and having a fucking wireless laptop sitting next to your bed. The list of potential heinous maladies I might be harboring has grown exponentially. There's all kinds of goodies: the oldies like MS and pinched nerves, and then the new ones, like liver failure, diabetes and chiari! Motherfuckers at Webmd and the Mayoclinic. Dickbags.

The shittiest thing of all is that I'm a fucking pain-in-the-goddamn-ass to live with right now. The poor Old Lady is working overtime to talk me down, comfort me, spend time with the spawnage, buy food -- fucking saint, that woman. And the spawnage -- if I have to say I can't read a book to Miss O or draw with Mr. Z because I feel shitty one more time... it's gonna rip my most-likely-malfunctioning heart clean out.

Luckily, my MRI is NEXT WEEK GODDAMMIT, and the appointment with the fucking neurosurgeon who's gonna interpret it isn't until motherfucking January 8th, so I get to wallow in misery for the entire Xmas holidays!!! That'll fucking rock!!!!

So there, you wanted a post -- that's it. Now I'm gonna down some Advil PM and not get a fucking wink of sleep, while I lie in bed and try to decide between a manual or electric wheelchair.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

But Enough about Me...

I'm sick as shit of talking about my fucking extremities, which, by the way, I received no closure on from the doc today. Scheduling an MRI for next week. Excellent!

Anywhich, I've gotta move on for now...



I present to you the first, in what will most likely be a continuing series of candid bathtime interviews with the Crabbykids. Tonight, Episode 1 of the Mr. Z Bathtime Chats! Tonight we talk about the girls he likes at school, and, as usual, it all devolves into him talking about his schvantz. Enjoy.


"Bathtime Chat Series, Ep. I" with Mr. Z

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

This Theory Just In...

Okay, Theory 3: The Theory Which is Not Mine, But Rather My Mom's...

So, I'm talking to my parents tonight, filling them in on my woes, and outta nowhere, my mom comes up with this:

MOM: You know... it could be a pinched nerve. You and Dad did carry that giant buffet down those four flights of stairs on Friday... and then you went bowling.

ME: [cut to picture of a gummy jackass going "HEE-HAW, HEE-HAW"]

She's brilliant!! I mean, she may totally wrong, but what a theory! If she's right, I might even forgive her for molding me into the sniveling hypochondriac I am today. I mean, my dad and I did carry that fuck-ass buffet down four, really tight/twisty flights of stairs. See, my parents had some friends who were moving and they mentioned that they had a nice mid-century buffet that they'd sell to us for $100, and all we had to do was drive to Evanston to pick it up.

When we got there, it was an okay mid-century-STYLE buffet (actually only about 10 years old from Dania), but we couldn't say no or we'd look like ungrateful dicks, so we lugged it down the back staircase and, in the process, I potentially ruined my entire nervous system. And of course I had to volunteer, "Hey Dad, let me walk down first and go backwards. I don't want you to hurt your back." Idiot. Yeah, that was definitely worth 100 bucks.

Oh, and THEN, that night, I was roped into taking Mr. Z to the annual day-after-Thanksgiving-bowling-party with all the second and third cousins that I hardly know over at the depressing, dimly lit Best Western motor lodge/bowling alley in Wheeling, the town with feeling. Nothing better for the old freshly ruptured neurons than hurling a 30 pound rock down an alley a coupla hundred times.

So, yeah, when the doctor asked me, last week, if I had done anything to injure myself over the holidays and I said, "Me? No!"... well, maybe I should've THOUGHT for a fucking nanosecond and said, "Oh, well, there was that 300 pound buffet..."

We'll see what the ol' doc says tomorrow morning when I present my three theories to him. I have a feeling he'll listen quietly, mull them over and then come up with a theory of his own -- That I'm a fucking douche.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Maybe It's "The Grippe"...

All right, let me preface this by saying that, when it comes to issues regarding health (mine in particular) I tend to catastrophize at bit. Okay, a fuckload. With that in mind, this may be my last post, as I will most surely be dead by morning.

Okay, remember my black and blue toe? Ol' Bruise-ter? Well, the bruise has faded, but some other funky shit has taken its place. For the last week or so, I've had this bizarre phenomenon where my hands and feet feel like the blood is just pooling in them, and they're all hot and stiff and prickly and shit. And they're all crampy and weak feeling and it gets worse when they're hot, like in the morning, when I have the comforter on them.

At first I thought it had something to do with my sitting on my ass in the freezing basement all fucking day, but now I'm not so sure. I have two theories:

Theory 1: The Theory Which is Mine
For the last year, I've been taking this anti-reflux pill called Zegerid. I was having this horrendous reflux that was burning a goddamn hole in my esophagus and this fucking wonder-drug fixed me right up. No more schpilkes in the schnitzengruben.

So I looked up the side-effects the other day to see if my hand/foot thing might be caused by this little wonder pill. Apparently, the active ingredient in Zegerid, (Omeprazole, for those keeping score), inhibits the little pumps in the stomach that make the acid and shit. It also blocks the absorption of a shitload of vitamins that your stomach acid normally helps you absorb. One of the vitamins it blocks is B12, which, when you don't get enough of it, leads to "numbness or tingling in the hands or feet," and a whole host of other delights, including... neurological damage (which would explain a fuck of a lot.) So yeah, no vitamin B12 for a year... sounds like a pretty solid theory, no?

Theory B: The Other Theory Which is Mine
Now this is where my catastrophization kicks in. There's usually one logical explanation and then I stumble upon the WORST-CASE SCENARIO! Fucking WebMD shitheads. In this case, my worst-case scenario is... Multiple Sclerosis. I'm telling ya, look at the fucking symptoms -- it's me, goddammit! Tingling? Got it. Numbness? Got it. Weakness in one or more limbs? Got it. Blurred vision? Okay, I don't have that. Sudden onset of paralysis? Okay, I don't have that. Lack of coordination? Well, Mr. Z has that in spades, so I'll count that as a "yes."

The thing is, no matter how much the logical explanation makes sense, it's the worst-case scenario that I always cling to. Oh, and did I mention that my grandma's sister had MS? Huh, huh, see?

I don't fucking know. I'm going to the doctor on Thursday to see what he says, which I'm sure will be, "Sorry, Crabbydad, but you've got a bad case of the MS. If I were you, I'd get my things in order. That'll be 200 dollars, please. NEXT!"

The Old Lady has been very patient with me. Believe it or not, I used to be a LOT worse with this kinda shit. During her 21 years with me, she's seen it all -- brain cancer, lockjaw, heart attacks, appendicitis, Boola-boola, Dengue fever, flesh-eating bacteria, SARS... you name it, I've had it. She listens to my complaints and then talks me the fuck down with a lethal combination of bullshit detection and logic. Tonight she said, "Look, we'll probably be together long enough where one day, one of us is going to get something. Maybe you do have MS. Maybe you'll have a brain aneurysm. Maybe I'll get breast cancer and have to have a double mastectomy. We'll just deal with whatever happens. It's very unlikely that we'll both just grow old and die peacefully in our sleep, or say 'Okay' and float off into space like Mr. Magorium."

I think she was trying to make me feel better, which is very sweet of her. Unfortunately, now all I can think about is brain aneurysms.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Tortie-Something...

Well, I wasn't gonna post tonight, but Mr. Z just sleep-walked out of his room and basically handed me a post. It's 11:57 p.m., mind you, and and I'm sitting here on our bed perusing the innernecks.

I watched him walk out of his room and sit at the top of the stairs. Then he called out, "Mom? What were your torties like?"

That's right, "torties."

The Old Lady was downstairs in her office and she yelled back, "What?!"

He repeated, with a mild variation, "What were your tortoes like?"

Without missing a beat, the Old Lady shouted back, "Fine."

At this point, I was helping him to his feet and guiding him back into his room. I couldn't help myself, so I asked, "Mr. Z, what were YOUR torties like?"

He said, "Pretty good."

So, in case you're wondering, over here at the Crabbyhouse, all of our torties and/or tortoes are just fine, thank you.

Good night.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Look, Can't I Just Read You a Story?

Miss O had what may have been the most adorable little existential meltdown at bedtime tonight. I was sitting there rubbing her back and we had the following conversation:

MISS O: Dad... after I go to college, I don't know where I'm going to live. Is it okay if I still live with you and Mom?

ME: Of course, sweetie. You can live with us for as long as you'd like.

MISS O: That's good. I want to be a painter when I grow up, [her voice starts cracking, like she's trying not to cry] and I don't know the places I can live if I want to be a painter.

ME: Well, you know, painters can live anywhere. There are painters all over the world.

MISS O: Yeah? Okay, but if you guys move and you see a house on your street with one of those sale signs on the lawn, can you tell me and then I'll buy it.

ME: Sure. Maybe you can get the house across the street and then when I want to visit you, I'll just jump in the car and drive across the street and say, "Hi, I'm here!"

MISS O: [laughs] I think I'll be an abstract painter for a while and then do some other styles.


ME: That sounds great... but, you know, I think you have a year or two before you have to decide exactly what you want to do.

It went on for a bit and she vacillated between being on the verge of tears and then laughing. It's fucking wild, 'cuz I remember Mr. Z having almost the same conversations with us when he was around six. Something about realizing that they're starting to get a lot more independent and then thinking ahead and realizing what the fuck that really means.

I think I put Miss O's mind at ease, though. And I'm not worried about her -- I'm sure the minute she has the chance to move out, she'll be more than ready to bolt. And if she does want to come back and stay in her room, she'll just have to convince whatever schmucks are living here to let her in, 'cuz the Old Lady and I sure as fuck aren't gonna be hangin' around this life-suck of a town.

Actually, she can probably just rent her old bedroom out from Mr. Z. He said he's never moving out -- he's gonna get married, have six kids and live in our house forever. That's it -- shoot for the stars, boy! Everything you need is here: Cracker Barrel, Caeserland, Ye Olde Country Buffet, Heavenly Ham...

Holy crap, I gotta get outta this town.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Where's Hypothermia When You Need It?!

Ugh, what a shit-ass day. I think it's a combination of my bum foot, the goddamn Arctic tundra that is my basement and me just being a warped, frustrated old man, Mr. Potter. Unfortunately, I carried along my mood with me when I went to pick up the spawnage, after school, and I kinda 'sploded a tad.

So, I pick them up from after-care on Thursdays and Miss O usually doesn't want to leave. Understandable, as she likes to hang with her homies... I get it. But when she saw me, she crawled under the craft table and started yelling at me to leave. I laughed it off and then did a wacky pull-her-back-out-comically-by-her-legs move, that would usually get a chuckle out of her. Did she chuckle? Fuck no. She threw some papers at me. Fucking hilarious.

Then, one of the kids there tells me that Mr. Z spit on her on the playground. Mind you, she's kind of a freaky, skeleton-y albino kid that I've seen around before, so I took her salivary-saga with a grain of salt. I asked Mr. Z what the shit was up, and he started denying it, flipping his lid and yelling... AT ME?! So I've got both of these little spazmos screaming at my ass, and I'm standing there like a fucking jagoff.

We get out to the car and I kinda raised my voice, which I do, maybe, never, and told them that it was pretty shitty of them chew my ass out when they were the ones acting like dicks. It was a wonderful Crabbyfamily moment -- actually, I wish I had had my camera with me, cuz it would've been a phenomenal cover for this year's holiday card. A picture of me yelling and the two of them crying and written under it in gold leaf, "Crabby Holidays, Fuckers!"

I smoothed it all out by the time we got home and managed to salvage a moment or two of quality, happy-go-lucky time before bedtime, but I'm tellin' ya, this day definitely ripped me a new one... or seven. It's okay, though, 'cuz I get to do it all over again tomorrow!

Did I mention that I wore my snowpants in the basement today?

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

It's Elementary, Dear Blogson...

Well, not that it's a big fucking surprise to anyone, but:

cash advance



Funny... I don't remember saying things like "Holy fuckstain!" and "mother-cock-ass" until at least junior high. Eh, maybe late fourth grade.

Anywhich, over the last couple of weeks it's gotten really fucking FREEZING down here in the basement. It's gone from that brisk autumn chill to "Shit, I think my nipples just snapped the fuck off." So, I dug out the ol' piece-o-shit space-heater I used last year and fired its ass up. I guess it qualifies as a space heater -- it heats about two square feet of space in front of it. The thing's a glorified hair dryer, is what it is.

So I have that thing spitting its little lukewarm farts onto my feet, which are ensconced in the down slippers that I've had for so long that the bottoms are completely worn away, exposing my mysteriously bruised digits. Then I'm wearing, in ascending layer order, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater and then a fleece sweatshirt. Oh, and pants. So, I can barely move with all this shit on, and my fingers are still turning purple and all my joints are aching. I'm telling ya, it's a motherfucking Charles Dickens story down here.

And so, today, the contractor guy, who has been putting in our new front door and fixing up some other shit, presented us the plan he drew up for finishing our basement. The Old Lady has been saying that we really need to finish it up down here, so I have a nice place to work, and the spawnage can have a play area, and blah, blah, right -- like that's ever going to fucking happen.

So, I'm paging through the drawings and all the shit he's planning on doing, and it looks fucking spectacular! It's all framed in and drywalled, there are outlets all over the place, 13 can lights in the finished ceiling, it's carpeted, painted, the staircase is all opened up, there's tons of room for recording and still plenty of room for the spawnage to fuck around. I'm starting to get all excited and shit, and then I turn the page for the quote...

25K.

Well shit, dude, Miss O could come up with a fucking awesome basement design if I gave her 25,000 dollars! The CHALLENGE is to do it for, like, 10! Show me something for 8,500 -- then I'll be fucking impressed. Holy carp, I was seriously expecting less than half that price. I would SO suck on "The Price is Right." Of course, the Old Lady still thinks it's possible -- "We can do it... we'll just save up all year and then by next winter we'll have enough."

A) I won't last until next winter, and 2) no we won't. So, I don't know. I'll get another quote, and maybe ask the contractor dude to dumb it down a little... maybe get rid of all the fancy lighting... and the nice carpet... and the walls...

I'm not holding my breath, though. In the meantime, I'm thinking about getting me a pair of these:



(The USB gloves, not the lady hands.)

Monday, November 26, 2007

Pho-toe Funnies...

Okay, James and Mike, you asked for it. To the others -- if you're the kind of people who get all ookie when you see other peoples' gnarly, stanky, hair-festooned digits, turn away now. Or at least focus on the Siberian tiger. You have been warned...



Now, I'm a little creeped out that it's two dudes who want to see my toe-porn, but I'm not going to judge. Metatarsal Mike, if your name is any indication, perhaps you can bestow upon me your diagnosis. Remember, there was no apparent trauma that preceded this bruising. (It was magical.)

Other than the toe, I don't have much to say tonight. Uh, it snowed a shitload today. Not that I got outside to see it... I noticed the flakes out my tiny basement porthole (not a euphemism), and decided against actually stepping out the door to experience it. I'll save my excitement for the shit that falls during December, January, February, March and a good chunk of April, thank you.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a good hour of plugging "symptom + bruised toe + no apparent cause + deadly?" into the WebMD search field before I hit the ol' sack (that was a euphemism, by the way... only one bruise at a time, please).

Sunday, November 25, 2007

This Little Piggie Don't Look Too Good...

Well, we're back. Pretty painless trip, actually. I think we made it home in under four hours, which fucking rocked. The spawnage did a great job and we managed to zip in and zip back out without any major deaths or casualties.

Actually, the only real casualty was my big toe. Fucking bizarre. I was just sitting there -- it happened while I was writing the last (riveting) post. All of a sudden, I had this pain in my big toe -- I look down and it's kinda purple. And it hurt like shit. And then, over the course of the next coupla hours, the whole fucking thing turns black and blue. What the shit?! I didn't bump it, or kick anything, or drop an anvil on it or anything. Spontaneous fucking bruisage.

Of course, my first thought was big-toe cancer. My brother (the doctuh) checked it out and he mumbled some shit about a varicosity and a ruptured something and tossed in an "I wouldn't worry about it," but that didn't help. I mean, whose toe just goes black and blue for no goddamn reason. The fucking thing looked like Jackie Gleason's foot in "Nothing in Common" -- right before they had to amputate it. How depressing was that movie, by the way? Miserable fucking piece of cinema. No wonder he died after filming it.

So, yeah, it's still kinda purple-y/mauve right now, but it's not swollen anymore. And it doesn't hurt, so I guess that's a plus. It fucking sucks getting old, though. What happened to all the young, concrete injuries, like a sprained ankle or the clap. You knew what was happening to you and you knew what salve or unguent to slap on it. Now, it's weird-ass shit, like blood vessels just bursting outta nowhere, and patches of hair growing in random, normally hairless places. What's next, am I gonna start pissing cerebral spinal fluid and shitting fire?!

What I'd give for a nice, predictable STD. Ah, youth.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

I Yam What I Yam...

Quick check in from the home of Grammacrab & Grampacrab. Minimal lid-flippage by the spawnage thus far, save for a one hour chunk yesterday morning in which Mr. Z basically lost his shit in a craptacular fashion. I felt bad, at first, when we made him chill the fuck out in his room for a 1/2 hour or so, but then, last night, I saw something that made any disciplinary guilt just melt away.

As a matter of fact, I would like to make a recommendation to all parents who might occasionally have that feeling that "Gee, I feel bad 'cuz I kinda lost my temper," or "Man, I'm in kind of a shitty mood today and I'm not as patient with the spawnage as I should be."

Go see "Margot at the Wedding." I guarantee that after the end credits, you'll feel like the greatest fucking parent in the goddamn universe. Trust me... go see it. Actually, if I didn't think it would fuck them up for life, I'd make the spawnage go see it, too, just to show them how fucking good they really have it. Maybe it'll be a good rental when Mr. Z hits puberty. I'll make it a double-feature with "Squid and the Whale."

Uh oh, gotta run. I hear screaming downstairs and I can't tell if it's the good kind or the bad kind. Five bucks it's the bad kind.

Happy Turkey.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Schmeckel Me This?

Private message to the person from the Allstate Insurance Company who, at 4:48 this afternoon, Googled "what does schmeckel mean?" and got my blog:

It means schvantz.

Glad I could help.

To everyone else, I'm going to bed early tonight, as we're loading up the car tomorrow and making the ill-advised trek to Chicago for Turducken Day. I'll try to post there, but it's kinda tricky -- my dad's computer is in the room where Miss O sleeps. I'll have to type quietly or face the wrath that is the rudely awakened spawnage.

Ha, I love how Blogger underlined "schmeckel" and "schvantz" with that "you-misspelled-this-word" underline thing and suggested "Fleishman" and "servants" instead. Well, at least they put their anti-semitic, racists agenda out there in the open. Bastards.

Anywhich, off to sleep. Maybe I'll have another stress dream like I did last night, where I was on the road with my old band, and when we showed up to the gig -- Surprise! I forgot my entire drum set.

Curse you, dream-me!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

I Come to Bury Caesarland, Not to Praise It...



Well, I no longer fear death -- for today I spent 2 1/2 hours at Caesarland. What's that? I'll be dead for all eternity, never to think or feel or love or breathe again? Bring it on! I've been to Caesarland!

I won't get into why I was the one lucky enough to escort Miss O to the party. I won't discuss the fact that I was one of only four parents who stayed to make sure their children weren't A) crippled while crawling around in code-defying, shit-caked play tunnels, 2) poisoned by bacteria-ridden cheese-and-salmonellaroni-pizzas, and/or III) molested by the myriad sex-offenders roaming the E.coli-stained carpets. I won't even get into the two tantrums thrown by Miss O, in front of all the other satan spawn, when she refused to fucking sit down for cake and ice cream.



Oh, and I definitely won't mention the Cops episode that broke out, mere feet from the fucking party, when police burst into the building and forcefully apprehended, handcuffed and carried off some skeev who was most likely one of the aforementioned sex offenders. I shit you not, by the way. The boyfriend of the birthday girl's mom, who looked like he was maybe, oh, 17 1/2, told me, after the altercation, "I thought that guy didn't look quite right. I seen 'im earlier when I was outside smokin', and he asked me for a light."

I'm just going to go upstairs, steal a coupla candy bars from the Miss O's halloween bag (that she fucking OWES me after today), take a long, hot shower to dislodge the silt of death that descended upon me in that Hellmouth, crawl into bed and pass out. And if I never wake up... well, at least I won't have to think about this day ever again.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

You're Not Making it Work...

You know what, fuck Project Runway. Sure, they've got their fancy fashion school degrees, and their pricey fabrics and their severe hair-dos, but at the end of the day, the turds they pinch out are just plain boring.

Tell you what -- I'll start getting really interested when they start cranking out stuff like this:



I challenge you, Tim Gunn, to offer up the Cher/Osmond purple spacejumpsuit challenge! And while I'm at it -- striking writers? I fully support your strike and hope you're able to milk a coupla nickels from the engorged teats of the networks, but promise me something. When you get back to work, try to write some shit like the above clip. Now THAT'S fucking ENTERTAINMENT, goddammit! I could watch that shit all fucking day! Hell, I'll bet you could pick up Cher and, like, 90 Osmonds for 75 bucks and a case of Strawberry Ensure.

Variety shows, baby! Just pair random people together: Dana Carvey and, fuck I don't know... Shakira. Done. Number one show. How 'bout Bonnie Hunt and... The White Stripes. Done. 'Nother hit. Edie McClurg and Wolfmother. Now THAT I'd watch. And I'm GIVING you these ideas for free. Take them and run, people!

You're welcome.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Autumnal Sequin-ox...

And, being the Autumnal Sequin-ox, I have to make this a quicky, as "Project Runway" starts tonight, signaling that time of year when I inexplicably turn gay for 15 or so episodes. This season looks promising, what with their Jay clone, their Austin Scarlett/Sanjaya mash-up clone, some weird, pale street-urchin newsboy dude, and, of course, the insane chick who just slaps shit together and calls it "clothes." I apologize to those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, or who could give two shits, but when you spend 98% of your life wheezing in a dank basement, fashion reality shows somehow become important.

Again, I blame the radon.

Oh, and I'm not saying Mr. Z fucking blew the class away with his diorama presentation today, but he informed me after school that his teacher actually asked if he could keep the diorama in the class to show future 5th graders how the fuck it's s'posed to be done. I told him to tell his teacher that that would be fine, as long as he ponies up an annual display stipend, along with the requisite 10% agent fee.

We'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear how Miss O's not-a-turkey presentation goes. I'm thinking they're gonna have to build a fucking wing on that school to properly house the fantabulous treasures of the Crabbykids.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Explosive Diorama...

Okay, on to Mr. Z's school project. For his last book report, some Hardy Boys dreck, he wrote a five page journal in the voice of Frank Hardy. Right up Mr. Z's alley, and he totally rocked the hizzy and got an A+ on it. This time around, he had the option of recreating a scene from a fantasy book, called "Dragon Rider," in the form of the oldest and most beloved of all media -- the diorama. He decided to go for it, and, of course, I had visions of a wait-until-the-last-minute, tearful shoebox gluing pig-fuck.

If we were going to take on the diorama challenge, we had to hit it early and hit it hard! And that we did, my friends... that we did.

One trip to Hobby Lobby later, we sat at the table -- clay, pipe-cleaners, gold & silver paint, gold & silver lamé fabric, cotton fluff, Sharpies, fishing line, and a locked-and-loaded glue gun at the ready. Of course, I wanted to push the boy aside and do the whole thing myself, but I said to myself, "Self? Back the fuck off! This is Mr. Z's first diorama, and you must let him travel this road on his own. Yes, he will be faced with challenges... but they are HIS challenges to face, alone. You may lend him emotional support only... wait... you should probably tie the shit up with the fishing line... and definitely don't let him fuck with the glue gun, that would be disastrous. Okay, other than the fishing line and the hot glue, it's his journey."

So, I showed amazing restraint and let him do his thing. I offered a little advice on scale and positioning, but he really had his own vision for this bad boy. And personally, I think it's fucking spectacular. How do I know? To test the success of a diorama, you have to ask the question, "Would I want to shrink down and live in there?" If the answer is yes, it's the shit. My answer was a resounding, "Fuck yeah!"

Behold... DRAGON RIDER: THE DIORAMA!



A detail of Nettlebrand, the malevolent:



Fear not, however, for the silver-wing-ed Firedrake, and his riders young Ben and the Brownies, shall best the merciless monster and fly off to the Rim of Heaven in the Himalayas -- where dragons can live in harmony in a snow-capped sanctuary, free from those who seek their destruction:



If the boy doesn't get an A++ on this mofo, heads are gonna roll.

Monday, November 12, 2007

To-FUR-Key...

I've been spending my non-existent free-time, of late, assisting Mr. Z and Miss O with school projects. I'm telling ya, you really can't truly appreciate the crafting of an elementary school project until you've been out of elementary school for say, oh, 33 years or so. I swear I could do this shit all fucking day.

Let's start with Miss O's project. She brought home this outline of a turkey on a big piece of white paper. The assignment was to disguise "Tom Turkey" so he doesn't get hunted down, slaughtered, baked and then ripped apart and ingested. Apparently Miss O's teacher's a vegan, I dunno. So, the Old Lady had some idea about covering the thing up with fur and having the head peeking out, but Miss O insisted on doing it her way. The nerve!

She gathered up a shitload of the crafts crap that we have shoe-horned into every fucking open space in every drawer/closet/cubby/receptacle in the house, and started placing shit on the picture where she wanted me to glue it. I had already broken out the hot glue gun for Mr. Z's project, so I was rarin' to glue. Can I just say, by the way, how mind-blowingly awesome the hot glue gun truly is. I'm a pacifist, mind you, but you can have my hot glue gun when you pry it outta my cold, dead hand. Greatest firearm ever invented.

Anywhich, we glued all the crap onto it and it was looking pretty intense. Miss O, however, felt it still looked too much like a turkey. I suggested that she maybe draw a t-shirt on the thing to further confuse any would-be turkey-assassins. When it was all finished and we regained consciousness after huffing the glue-fumes for a 1/2 hour, this is what was staring back at us:



I don't know what the hell that thing is, but A) it sure as fuck is not a turkey, and 2) it's all Miss O. I think if the gang over at PETA were really on the fucking stick, they'd outfit the 50 million turkeys that are on the chopping block next week with duds like this. But they're probably too weak from lack of complex proteins to properly wield a hot glue gun anyway. Oh well, at least Miss O did her part.

You know, this post got a little out of hand, length-wise, so I'll save Mr. Z's project until tomorrow. To be continued...

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Why Must You Have So Many Friends, Dammit?!!!

There must've been a shitload of boinkin' going on in this town around February of 2000, 'cuz the goddamn birthday invitations for Miss O are getting outta control. She just got invited to another one in two weeks and guess where it's being held? That's right, mofos, Caesarland, or as I like to call it "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

I've made my feelings about Caesarland quite clear in the past, what with its e.coli-smeared play structures, the eau de Ass that hangs in the thick, smoky air right at burning nostril level, the acid-washed-jeans-wearin' moms that glare at you (with their one good eye) with that "fuck with me and I'll snap your neck like a nitrite-engorged Slim Jim" look, and, of course, the pizza that I'm pretty sure is just a photo of a pizza transfered onto a circular mound of wet pantyhose.

And did I mention that the party is from 11:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.?! Four hours! AT CAESARLAND!!! That's the equivalent of 18 hours, here on Earth. To expose Miss O, and myself, to that much filth for that long -- she'd have less of a chance of getting ill if I drove her over to the sewage treatment plant and scooped out a few ladle-fulls of fecal greaseballs for her choke down.

Luckily, I'm planning ahead, this time, and I think I've got the perfect outfits picked out for the party:



Bring on the pizzas, ya bastards... with extra pantyhose!

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

The Latest Rave to Hit the Toy Aisle...

Well, it's great to know that Miss O's favorite present that she got for her birthday is basically a date-rape-drug dispenser:



In case you missed the news, Aqua Dots, the latest craze sweeping our moronic fucking nation, just so happen to be coated in a chemical called gamma hydroxy butyrate, better known as GHB to all you budding date-rapists out there. Eat them, and you die. Brilliant! 'Cuz it's not like the thousands of tiny, brightly colored plastic balls, that are the keystone to the whole fucking product mind you, look like delicious shiny candies or anything.

And here's the kicker -- guess who gifted the Aqua Dots? That's right... the TWINS WHO PAINTED THE HORRIFYING BLOOD-SPATTERED PENGUINS, THAT'S WHO!!! I guess if they're not around to personally steal your breath, they send in proxy murderers in the form of poisoned craft supplies. Those devious doppelgangers!

The fucked thing is, back in my college days, I'd probably eat a couple of those plastic bb's to see if I'd get a good buzz off of 'em. Now, I'm thinking about downing a few just to get a good night's sleep. Don't worry, I'll be sure to drink tons of water first and sleep with a couple of glow sticks.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

1 + 1 = AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

We finally picked up all the pottery from Miss O's birthday party and it all turned out pretty well. Of course, we had to deliver it all to each kids' house, and by "we" I mean the Old Lady did it, so it wasn't really that big of a pain in the ass at all. Actually, it was quite painless.

So, I didn't bother posting pics of Mr. Z's and Miss O's pieces -- they did a dinosaur and a dog, respectively, and frankly, they were eh. It's not like they sculpted the fucking clay or anthing -- they just slapped some fucking glaze on a pre-made tchotchke and that was it.

The piece that really stood out, though, was done by one of these twins that Miss O knows. Now, I'm sure I've mentioned before the extent of my crippling twin phobia. And my ability to pick out a twin, even if I've never met them before and have no idea that they even have a twin? Have I mentioned that? Fucking creepy motherfuckers, twins. They always have that look like they never quite "finished" in the womb. Like there wasn't enough skin and shit to go around, so instead of one "complete" human, you end up with two not-quite-done humans.

The hair on the back of my neck just stood up thinking about it.

Anywhich, you might not have a problem with twins but you fucking should. They're like cats -- they steal your goddamn breath when you're sleeping. And they stare at you with those sunken baggy eyes of theirs. And, they paint horrifying clay abominations... LIKE THIS:



That, right there, is enough to turn your fucking hair white instantly, but remember... THERE ARE TWO OF THEM!!! AND THEY'RE EXACTLY THE SAME!!!!

I've gotta go. I just shit my pants.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Foyer Consideration...

Miss O's friend, Miss A, came over to play after school today. I don't know what the fuck they do up in that room when they get together, but when it's time for Miss A to leave, I go up there and A) the two of them are invariably wearing each others' clothes, and 2) every goddamn thing that Miss O owns is littered over every square inch of her floor.

So, Miss A's brother, Mr. R, came over to pick her up and there I was, stuck making small talk with a 10 year old.

ME: So, how's school going for ya there, Mr. R.

MR. R: Uh... okay.

[2 minutes of silence]

ME: Hey, how'd Halloween go for ya? Get a lot of candy?

MR. R: Yep.

ME: [looking at feet] That's cool... candy's excellent.

MR. R: Yeah.

[3 minutes of silence]

ME: Boy, those girls sure do take a long time up there. Ha! [silence] Uh, I'm gonna go see what's keeping them.

[run upstairs -- Miss O and Miss A are now in their underwear and are preparing to put on COMPLETELY DIFFERENT OUTFITS!!!]

ME: You guys, Miss A's brother is waiting. You've gotta get dressed in your own clothes and get downstairs. C'mon. Two minutes.

MISS O/MISS A: [ignoring the shit out of me] Okay.

[run back downstairs]

ME: They're still getting ready. I'll tell ya, they sure do like to take their time, those two.

MR. R: [silence]

[I realize that the onions I'd been sauteeing are now burning, so I excuse myself and run to stir them.]

MR. R: What're you cooking?

ME: Oh, just making some potato and turkey sausage soup.

MR. R: Oh.

ME: Soup sure is good on a chilly day like today, huh?

MR. R: What?

ME: I say, soup's good on a--You know... lemme go check on the girls again.

[I run back upstairs but cut the corner too close and ram my hip into the motherfucking banister -- pain shoots through body but I try to act like it's no big deal. I have potentially broken my pelvis.]

ME: [yelling up stairs] YOU GUYS! WE'RE WAITIN--

MISS O: Duh, Dad. We're right here. You don't have to yell.

ME: Oh... heh, hey guys. Good job. Come on down.

They finally make it downstairs and then have to do their goddamn secret handshake for five minutes. As I smell the onions turning into carbon in the kitchen, I just keep saying, "Oookay... there you go... finish off that handshake there... yep, all right now... that should do it... let's go... all right... just... that's it... just... JUST FINISH THE FUCKING HANDSHAKE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!!"

By the time they finally fucking leave the house, I've got an ulcer, a fractured pubis and burnt onions -- the spoils of yet another successful play-date.

I've really gotta find a friend my own age.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

In Need of a Short Crabbatical...

Thanks for the "KONK/SLAP" combo, Monica. I needed it. I've been burning the old candle outta both holes, or however that saying goes, and I've somehow managed to rip mySELF a new one. The last coupla nights, after working into the wee hours, I've found myself staring at this blank text box, unable to pinch-off an original fucking thought. So, rather than waste virtual paper, I've given myself a little break.

Anywhich, let's see. Last night was Halloween. Windy, cold and wet, as usual. Who the fuck decided to have a walking-around-the-neighborhood-for-two-hours holiday at the end of October?! Oh yeah, it was Satan. Guess it makes sense, then, actually. Nevermind.

So, Mr. Z was Yoda and Miss O was Sparkle, the sun fairy.



I went as "Old Man at Wit's End." Miss O lasted for about an hour and then wisely headed back to Casa de Crabby with the Old Lady. Mr. Z, wet productive cough, hoarse voice and all, decided to keep the jocularity up for another hour, so off the fuck we went. Five pounds of fun-sized-frivolity later, we found our way back home, where Mr. Z sorted out his booty and I dried off mine.

I was hoping to chow down on some of the leftover candy the Old Lady had been passing out, but, of course, there wasn't any. I KNEW it. I told her two weeks ago at Target that we hadn't gotten enough, but she said, "Oh c'mon! This is PLENTY! We'll have tons left over."

Bupkus.

However, she redeemed herself tonight when she came home with this:



That, my friends, is why I married the woman. Goetz-fucking-caramel-creams! They're like scrumptious cross-sections of tiny, corn syrup impacted candy rectums. Confectionary sphincters of deliciousness. And they're all mine. Maybe they'll even help me shake off this brain cloud that's been plaguing me.

I hope so, 'cuz I really want to want to start posting again. It's just been kinda painful lately, like pushing out one of those turds that feels like it's coming out sideways. But, you know, when it finally does make its way out, it's such a satisfying feeling, ya know? Like, "Man, it was really painful getting that thing outta there, but just LOOK at it! I made that! Me! With my own two hand-- er, colons."

Man, I need a vacation.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

What the Shemp?!

There's no way to convey just how fried my brain is, of late. Nay, there's one way. This is what has been playing on an endless loop in my head all day:



Please, someone konk me on the head and snap me the shit out of it.

Monday, October 29, 2007

Don't Bother...

I have absolutely nothing to say tonight. I think my one still-firing synapse was pushed to its limit, yesterday, during Miss O's party at the paint-your-own pottery place. I suppose it's not a bad place for a party -- the kids get to slap paint on some cheap-ass ceramic dogs and penguins and we don't have to worry about our house getting trashed. But A) the pottery ends up looking like shit and everyone would probably be a fuck of a lot happier if they just picked out an already painted piece, and 2) everyone has to wait a week while they throw the shit in a kiln and and make it still shitty but shiny.

It's like, "Hey, kids! Let's paint some pottery!! Okay, you're done? Great! Give it to me and then get the hell outta here. Go on home empty-handed, and then we'll call Miss O's parents to pick up all your ugly-ass pottery, and it's pretty much up to them to drive it to your fucking houses like the delivery lackeys that they are. Oh, and that reminds us -- Miss O's parents, you can write us that check for assloads of money now."

So yeah, forgive me if tonight's oh-so-witty repartee is more like repartain't.

Oh yeah, on Saturday we took the spawnage out to dinner for Miss O's birthday, and we finally bit the bullet and supped at "P.F. Chang's." What the shit is up with that place?! Six o'clock on a Saturday night and the place was moo-shu packed. Bizarre.

And it's not like the food was anything special -- it's like a T.G.I Changigan's. But the people kept pouring in the fucking door. It's official -- P.F. Chang's is where all the people we never see anywhere... ARE! It was downright creepy.

Though not as creepy as the desserts we ordered. One plate had these fucking fried eggroll wrappers stuffed with chocolate and, I don't know... mayo?, with a caramel-peanut-butter-toffee-bacon? dipping sauce. I felt like walking to the bathroom and dumping that fucker directly into the crapper. The other dessert, known as the "Great Wall of Chocolate," looked like a 5 pound cow's liver floating in a pool of clotted blood. Just fucking foul. Of course, Miss O, who up until then had eaten maybe "a" piece of sweet and sour chicken, proceeded to pretty much inhale 7/8ths of "the wall." It was quite a sight. We all sat there watching and waiting for her heart to explode or her kidneys to crystallize, but the just kept on spooning it in.

Of course, when we got home, she waltzed to the shitter and fuzzy-pumpered out her own Great Wall of 'Chocolate.' Talk about your cables to China! Made her old man proud.

All right, I'm done. I told you I had nothing to say. I'm going to sleep. Nighty night.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Alert! Alert! Alert!


Okay, I just received a much anticipated CD in the mail today and it's so mind-blowing incredi-fucking-ble, it has driven me to temporarily put aside my no-blogging-on-the-weekend restriction.

Click here to listen and then buy the fucker.

If you like ELO or XTC or Wings or Jason Falkner or even The Royal Guardsmen, buy the disk. Holy shitstain, it's tits.

Oh, and holy crapass, I forgot about this other in-fucking-credible disk I got -- the new duet CD by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant. I know, I know... weird pairing. Get over it -- it totally fucking works. Get it, too.



==> End temporary no-blogging-on-the-weekend allowance.<==

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Our Baby's Done Growed Up!

Miss O thanks all of you for your warm birthday wishes. I said to her:

ME: Miss O, some people who you don't know... actually people who I don't know either but who I like to pretend I know, wanted to wish you a really happy birthday today!

MISS O: Uh... okay.

Trust me, she was thrilled.

The birthday was a smashing success, and all it cost the Old Lady and I was all of our money. But it was worth it -- she loved everything she got. The highlights were her new orange Vtech camera (that I'm sure will break right about... now!), her "Enchanted Fairy Village" (with pieces even PUNIER than Polly Pocket footwear, if you can fucking imagine), and a really cool erasable, magnetic calendar from Miss O's cousin, Miss W.

The biggest hit, though, was the kimono the Old Lady and I got for her:



She's wanted one ever since she read this book that she's completely obsessed with called "Suki's Kimono," and we finally found a cool one in this hippie/nerdarino catalog, "Magic Cabin." It's the kind of place where Deadheads and Trekkies walk hand in hemp-y hand, in perfect harmonerd. Oh, and she also loves the Jan Brady locket we got her -- complete with a tiny picture of the whole crabbyfamily wedged inside.

Anywhich, it was a great day that has managed to render my crabby-powers completely useless. Even Mr. Z's inevitable meltdown before bedtime barely registered on the ol'crab-o-metre. I won't even attempt to shoehorn a "motherfucker" or "what the shit?!" into this post -- my heart's just not in it.

Oh well... tomorrow's another day. As a matter of fact, it's a day when the spawnage have the day off school... FOR NO APPARENT REASON WHAT-THE-FUCK-SOEVER!!!

Uh-oh... my crabby-senses are a-tinglin'...

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

I Think I'm Gonna Be Six...



Miss O will be six years old in one hour. Holy carp. It was like only yesterday that she was sobbing uncontrollably because I wouldn't let her throw the beach ball in the living room. Wait... that was yesterday.

Like the crabbyspawnage that she is, Miss O is a true individual. A) She's fucking hilarious. Case in point, tonight I told her that we were just going to get her a roll of toilet paper for her birthday. Her response? "Great! Make it white. I'll color it myself!"

2) She's a musical genius. Case in point:


"A Cool Pair of Shoes (Is All I Need)" by THE MISS O BEAT


And III) Aside from her mother, she still has the greatest laugh in the world:



Happy Birthday, Miss O! Without you and Mr. Z, I'd just be plain ol' "crabby."

Now if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go wrap your roll of toilet paper.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Right! What's All This, Then?!

I'm tellin' ya, British people are so damn fancy, even when they're searching online for porn. Statcounter informed me that someone performed a Google.uk search for "unclad hairy old ladies," and wouldn't you know it, crabbydad.blogspot.com was the number one result!

A tip-o'-the-hat to all you snaggle-toothed, kidney-eatin', UK pervs out there! I'm afraid the only hirsute old lady you're gonna see 'round these parts is me, but you're more than welcome to stick around -- you never know when my bangers and mash might become accidentally unclad. Pip-Pip!

Anywhich, the toilet, remember? The thing that was fixed a couple weeks by a real purfeshinull? Yeah, it's broken again. Running all night like a motherfucker. I had to shut the water valve off just to get some sleep. (The water valve attached to the toilet, not the one attached to me.) I got up at 3 a.m. to shut it off and i guess I woke up too much, so I couldn't get back to sleep until 5:30. Fucking toilets. I'm THIS CLOSE to just renting a goddamn Port-o-Let and just sticking it in the corner of the bedroom. Sure, it might make the room smell like ass (at least more than usual), but I could always dress it up real purty-like and you probably wouldn't even notice it was there:



All I know is, port-o-let or no port-o-let, I need some fucking sleep. I think I'll go upstairs now, snuggle up next to the unclad hairy Old Lady and see what happens.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Infernal Equinox...

'Twas all about the spawnjamins this weekend. We hauled our asses over to the "Country Mill" in Charlotte for a pumpkin-gettin', cider-swillin', apple-pickin' good time. We used to go to a place called "Uncle Jon's," but last time we passed it, we noticed a shitload of Dick DeVos signs out front and we decided we just can't cotton to supporting that Amway douchebag, even indirectly through over-priced apple juice and greezy donuts.

So we drove all the way out to farmblefuck and instantly knew we had chosen the perfect place, as we looked to the crisp blue skies above the Country Mill and saw the traditional autumn helicopter rides:



You know when the helicopters are a-flyin' that Indian corn and pumpkin pie are right around the corner. Or should that be Native American corn? Indigenous peoples' corn? Wait... maize?

So, we get there and Mr. Z starts a-pesterin' me about going into the Haunted Cider Mill. Now, this is the kid whose hair practically turned white when he saw two bugs mating on the window up in Traverse City, so he'd probably pull a "Scanners" head 'splosion if he saw something really scary. But he kept bugging me about it and saying "No, really, I totally want to go! Please! I won't be scared! PLEEEAAASSSE!!!!!"

And, just as I went ahead and painted the brick on the house when I knew damn well that is was a fucking big-ass mistake, I ignored the "not recommended for children under 10" sign and paid the 14 bucks for the two of us to go get the shit scared out of us.

Big-ass mistake.

The minute we stepped through the fucking door, the boy clamped a death grip around my waist/neck and didn't let go for the next horrifyingly painful 15 minutes. It was pitch-fucking-black in there and I had to feel around to find our way through it. It was like wall... wall... cobwebs... wall... someone's flannel shirt... AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Mr. Z was fucking PETRIFIED -- screaming, crying, begging to get the fuck out of there, and all we could do was continue through the blackness. I'm pretty sure there was only one dude who would scare the shit out of us, then run ahead to the next door, switch masks, and then scare the fuck out of us again. After about the 10th scare, I kinda called out to the darkness, "Um... there's a REALLY terrified nine-year-old in here and so, uh, if any of you ghoulies want to take a break for the rest of our trip through your oh-so-spooky house, you go right ahead! [pause] Seriously." After about three more scares, the asshole finally figured out my subtle hint and we made it through the last few minutes BOO-free.

Oh, and Mr. Z's hair turned white.

We met up with the Old Lady and Miss O, both of them chomping merrily away on some donuts and suckin' down some cider. After about 10 minutes, Mr. Z finally loosened his steel grip on my arm, and we walked through the corn maze, which technically isn't really a maze if I'm able to see over the top of the corn and figure out the right path, we picked out a few punkins and then, as we were walking back from the punkin patch, Miss O started whining that her stomach hurt. We figured that she just had a cramp from walking, since she and Mr. Z are "indoor kids" and never really get any fucking exercise. But she kept whining and then started crying and that's when we realized that the oily donuts and the almost-turned cider were causing a chemical 'rrhea-action in her puny colon and she was about to have an ass-plosion. The Old Lady ran her to the crapper and, sure enough, Mt. Crack-a-toa let loose, and the cider was no longer in-cider.

After that, we quickly dragged Mr. Z, who was still catatonic from the fright-fest, and the now completely voided and pale Miss O back to the car, so we could get the fuck out of there with our lives intact. But not before the nice folks at the Country Mill fired one last parting shot our way in the form of the Headless Horseman who came galloping up behind us:



Guess they could tell Mr. Z still had one heart ventricle left that hadn't completely seized up and they wanted to make it four for four.

No wonder the spawnage are indoor kids. Outside fucking sucks.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Torna-D'OH!



Right in the middle of the season-fucking-finale of "Mad Men," last night, there was a goddamn tornado warning and we were right in the fucker's path. We reluctantly chose to save the spawnage over seeing what fate was in store for Don Draper, and we carried them down, a-snoozin', to the basement, or what I like to call: where-spend-every-goddamn-moment-of-my-life. We waited the requisite half hour, and then lugged them back upstairs.

We settled back in to see how the fuck Peggy gave birth to a full-term baby, when she seemed to have only had a potential gestational period of about three months, when ANOTHER fucking warning flashed across the screen. This was getting tornadiculous! We dragged the now wide-awake and lid-flipping spawnage back downstairs and decided to just have them sleep there until the morning. Miss O seemed mildly annoyed by the whole ordeal, but Mr. Z, being Mr. Z, lost his shit. It probably didn't help that the tornado sirens were going non-stop. The Old Lady and I had a very "Tell Me You Love Me" moment where were each rubbing the back of a spawnage, trying to get them to chill the fuck out, our arms cramping up as we wondered what the shit happened to our lives.

But we weren't killed by the tornado, so there's that.

By about 1:00 in the a-fucking-m, we decided that we should probably try to sleep, as well. The Old Lady had to get up early for a meeting, so I, being me, told her that she could sleep upstairs in our COMFY BED, while I would hang out in the basement and sleep in Mr. Z's sleeping bag atop the cold, hard concrete. She weighed the options for a moment -- get a good sleep but potentially die in a twister vs. sleeping in the basement -- and took me up on the offer. She got a good sleep and I... well, you read this fucking shitfuck of a post and figure it out.

I woke up at 5:30 with a neck as stiff as the neck of Dickie, the kid from the "Little Rascals," in that episode where Stymie heals his neck and says, "Oh, I just gave it a twist."



I miss Stymie. Holy crap, this is a shitty post. So, yeah, woke up all sore and shit after probably ingesting a mouthful of silverfish and earwigs all night, and started the goddamn day. And now, 12 hours later, I'm ready to take an earwig-studded dump and call it a day.

If there's another tornado tonight, I'm just gonna sleep out on the fucking roof and let it whisk me away. Maybe it'll at least give my neck a little twist.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

A Nows for Science...

Apparently, Miss O has been studying anatomy in her 1st grade science class, of late. Based on the detailed anatomical schematics I found in her backpack, they have been dissecting ducks:



... and dogs:



When she got home from school, we all sang a rousing rendition of:

Head, shoulders, lage and fot -- lage and fot!
Head, shoulders, lage and fot -- lage and fot!
Eyes and erues and mouth and nows,
Head, shoulders, lage and fot -- lage and fot!


Best. Drawings. Ever.

I'm seriously contemplating making one of these a tattoo. But Miss O would have to do it to properly convey her true pert insouciance. Hmm... I wonder if Fisher-Price sells a kid's home tattooing kit?

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Shotgun Wetting...

Now, I'm not a religious man by any stretch, but today, my friends... today I have been saved. I have accepted a personal relationship with my new god -- THE WATER-FUCKING-SHOTGUN!!!!



Holy fuckstain, this machine is THEE SHIT!!! Oh my crap, I can barely move my arms up to the keyboard to type because this beast ripped me a new one SO WIDE that when I sit around the house, I sit AROUND THE HOUSE with an ass that has been ripped clean off.

The whole experience is a blur, actually. I know that I rented the fucker from A,C & E Rentals this morning, they delivered it because of its behemoth-ness, I plugged in the hose, pulled the rip-cord and then... hm... I can't really remember anything after that. I have a vague memory of BLASTING THE SHIT out of all that toxic crap that was adhered to the brick and I remember basically ingesting about 1/2 a pound of said crap as it hurled forth, into my gasping maw at the speed of wet sound. I remember thinking about halfway through it, "Shit, I probably should be wearing a hat... and goggles... and I should really stop eating these toxic paint-stripper flakes, but damn if they aren't paint-stripperiffic!!!"

Of course I didn't have the foresight to video the whole thing because I'm a fucking moron, but the Old Lady did snap one pic early on in the proceedings:



Isn't it beautiful? It's like Christmas, but the snowflakes are poisonous and I'm eating them.

And the brick is fucking pristine now. Exactly like it was before we decided to shove our heads up our asses and stain the bricks in the first place. But see, if we never stained the brick, then I would've never rented THE WATER SHOTGUN, and if I hadn't rented THE WATER SHOTGUN, then I would have never realized the joy of blasting the shit out of things with 3000 psi of water, and then every man on that transport would've died because Harry Bailey wasn't there to save them, because I wasn't there to save Harry, and can't you see George, you've really had a wonderful life. Don't you see what a mistake it would be to just throw it away?

Wait... where was I? Oh yeah... Attaboy, Clarence!

Monday, October 15, 2007

Crabbydad & the Strippers...

Well, I've been quite the negli-gentleman, of late, with regards to the ol' bloggy blog. Sorry, we've been busy breaking our house.

The painting is done, and the dickbag who painted it kinda fucked us on the staining of the brick, which he said would cost us an extra grand. Fuck if we were gonna give him any more of our hard-earned simoleons, so we decided to stain it ourselves. You see where this is going, don't you. Yeah, so we glopped the shit on the brick area of our porch and, while the Old Lady didn't really mind the end result, I thought it sucked balls. Big, sweaty, hairy balls.

And here's something I learned -- it's really fucking impossible to get stain off of brick. Between all the toxic stripping products, gels and unguents we've been slathering onto the side of the house, I wouldn't be surprised if a brand new ozone-hole opened up right above our fucking roof. And it's a good thing we're not having any more spawnages, 'cuz the vapors we've been huffing would most likely yield some sort of perfectly spherical flesh-ball tot. The shit that's on there now is called "Peel-Away," because, while it's doing nothing to the stain, it will probably cause all of my skin to peel away from my skeleton and flop down to around my ankles like a fleshy, hairy wetsuit. Here's what the porch looks now, in all its peel-away-y glory:



Anywhich, the shit's still clinging to the brick, so tomorrow morning I'm renting a power-washer. I figure that if I can't blast the shit off the brick with 2000 psi worth of a death-geyser, I can at least blow out a few windows and ruin all the rough cedar siding.

Raise your hand if you think this is all going to end with the stain still clinging to the brick and my left pinkie toe being power-washed right off my foot and into the bushes.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Who Wants Another Roachcicle?

I found this in Miss O's school folder yesterday:



Guess that's what we get for enrolling the spawn at J. Dahmer Elementary.

If that girl asks about a bigger freezer for the basement, she's off to boarding school.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Hut... Hut... HORK!

Well, there's a new fella in the showers over at the Y, and I like to call him "The Hummin' Hocker." Charming gentleman -- he hums as he lathers up his sundries, and every time he gets to the chorus of his tuneless little number, he snargs up some primordial, from-the-toes chest-chum, and then expectorates it out... somewhere.

I've never actually witnessed his lathery-loogie-launch because my back is either turned, or I'm in the process of GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF THE GODDAMN SHOWERS SO I DON'T GET SLIMED!! I'm hoping the shithead at least aims for the drain, but I'm not holding my fucking breath -- I'm thinking of trading my flip-flops in for a pair of moon boots... and hip-waders.

I swear to shit, if I ever plant my foot on one of his motherfucking lung-oysters, I will personally rip his upper-respiratory system from his body (through his ass, mind you) and stuff it down the drain myself. And, of course, this dude's a swimmer, so you know his fucking sputum is floating around in that goddamn cesspit of human excre-mung they pass off as a pool.

Okay... I just threw up in my mouth a little. Good thing I just ordered some new swim/shower togs:

Monday, October 08, 2007

Sounds Like... HEADACHE!

The spawnage were in a bizarrely collective good mood after school today, so, buoyed by their brio, I asked them if they wanted to play a game. They balked at all of my suggestions (Uno, Jenga, "you-guys-do-something-while-I-
lie-on-the-couch"), but then Mr. Z suggested charades. I gave them a "why the fuck not," and off we went. Mr. Z grabbed the paper, I got some pencils and, as I was about to tear off some paper to write down some ideas, Mr. Z informed me that, no, he, and he only, would be crafting the clues. I made a pathetic attempt at disagreement, but then gave in because... well, because that gave me an additional 10 minutes of lying on the couch, so what the shit?

Miss O grabbed a hat and the boy threw in the clues, and off we went. Now, charades is tough enough with one adult and two kids under 10, but it's pretty much fucking impossible when all the clues are written by a nine year old who basically doesn't understand that in charades, the idea is to make it within the realm of possibilities that the other people playing may have an actual chance at GUESSING THE FUCKING CLUES! And who is obsessed with poop.

Here are the four clues I chose in order of non-sequiturness:



By the way, the last one there is, apparently, "a stinky butt." I think the one that gave me the most difficulty was "Kevin's poo." Miming poo is a challenge, but getting across the idea that the poo belongs to Kevin... well, I'm afraid even the late, great Marcel Marceau would've been trapped in a box on that one.

Oh, and since Mr. Z wrote all the clues, I was acting this shit out solely for Miss O, whose stock answer was "[whining] I don't knooowwwww! Dad! Just tell me!!!!"

All I know is, tomorrow we play Jenga.