Fluckr...

So I was button-ing through the pics on my camera, today, and realized that there's like 115 goddamn pictures on that thing that I've totally fucking spaced on. I dumped 'em onto the ol' pyooter, and thought I'd start highlighting a few of them.

Tonight, we start with the perfect visual representation of Mr. Z's, how should I say... "uncultivated self-awareness." Horse-sense, if you will. He had a new pair of pants that was the right length but, surprise, ran a tad wide 'round his waistly-scrawnitude. It was a school morning and, as usual, we were running late. I yelled upstairs for him to put on a belt and hurry on downstairs for breakfast.

Five minutes later, down he shuffled. Here is how the boy, who started reading when he was two, figured a belt should be fastened:



When you look "What the shit?!" up in the dictionary, THAT is the accompanying picture. I have no idea how he even conceived of that particular wrappage. It's wrong on so many levels, yet somehow, so right. I'm thinking of using it as my desktop image, it makes me laugh so fucking hard.

Pic 2 is a bit more grim. I was getting Miss O's bath ready last night when I saw a most horrific sight. As I approached the tub, I was faced with the aftermath of what appeared to be a mass ritual suicide. I had stumbled upon... The Pollytown Massacre:



Those poor, innocent, bikini-clad victims. I'm pretty sure the mermaid was the ringleader. If you look closely, you can see grape Kool-Aid on her dorsal fin. At least it looks as if they all went peacefully to their washcloshy demise. Miss O honored them with a very tasteful burial at sea. Farewell, Pollys... and all your goddamn microscopic rubbery clothes that get stuck between my fucking toes whenever I walk into Miss O's room.

Actually, good riddance.

Never Go to the Doctor!

You can stop reading here if you don't want to read yet another self-absorbed post about my ridiculous health. If you are still reading, then you really need to find something better to do with your fucking time.

I don't want to get into the whole thing, but the last week or so has been the pig-fuckingest shitfuck I've experienced in a long time. My numb extremities have gone from mild annoyance to "gee, this might actually be the goddamn thing that does me in."

But that's not the even the part that pisses me the fuck off the most. I blame my current state of doom and gloom on this fuckhead of a surgeon who took the fat sample outta my stomach. I went for a follow-up appointment with this dickface so he could look at the little hole/bald patch he had carved in my belly. I was expecting to pop in and pop the fuck out.

So, he's almost done pokin' around, and then he goes, "Oh, hey, I got the pathology report! Looks like the found something!" Like he was all excited and shit. He hands me a copy of the report and says, "Looks like you might have amyloidosis! Okay, see ya later!"

What the shit?! And when I asked him what the fuck that meant, he says, "Oh, I don't know. You'll have to follow up with your doctor. See ya!" And this is on last Thursday. I couldn't get ahold of the hematologist, so I got to spend the weekend, sans Old Lady, with my pathology report and my good friend, the innernecks. BAD weekend.

I start looking this fucking thing up and it fucking blows, lemme tell you. There's nary a positive story with this fucker. Lots of chemo, lots of stem cell replacement, lots of memorial guest books to sign. I was working myself up into a fretful lather, the spawnage are running around like meth-addled bush babies, and the Old Lady was in fucking Chicago, living it up big-city-style. My lid had officially flipped its own lid.

But here's why the Old Lady is, and forever will be, the goddamn yin to my yang... the beans to my cornbread... the R2 to my D2... the fucking Engelbert to my Humperdink -- she called on Thursday night and we talked about the test results and shit, and she gets in the car the next day, blows off her conference and drives the fuck home. Against my protestations, I might add. That lady is the goddamn shiznit.

So we both sat around all weekend, depressed, doomed and glued to every fucking relevant/irrelevant case study we could find online. I don't know when or how the spawnage got fed, bathed or dressed, but somehow, they did. It was the longest fucking weekend ever, basically.

Today, I talked to both the pathologist and the blood doc. They said that while the fat pad results were indeed kinda shitty, the bone marrow test was totally clean, so that was a positive. The kicker is, Count Von Bloodula wants me to go to the goddamn Mayo Clinic for a few days to get all the same tests done again, plus a whole slew of new fucking tortures, at their fancy amyloidosis clinic up there. It's gonna be fucking biopsiriffic!!

We go to the doc to talk about what exactly is gonna go down on Thursday. In the meantime, I'm trying to stay away from Google, and I'm popping Xanax like fucking Mike & Ike's.

There -- wasn't that a fun little story?

As a reward for getting through that steaming turd of a post, I will leave you with a drawing that I caught Mr. Z and Miss O doing together last night. Miss O wielded the red marker, Mr. Z the black. If everything turns out well at Mayo, I'm thinking of getting this tattooed across my chest in their honor, for somehow making me laugh my ass off during all this fuckshit.

Survivor: Okemos...

Oh, I'm sorry... did I forget to mention that the Old Lady left on Wednesday for a "conference" in Chicago that lasts until Sunday? Can't imagine how that slipped my mind. It's day two of being outnumbered by the spawnage and, lemme tell you, I may not make it to the weekend.

Don't get me wrong -- I had grand plans for our time together, but my will to live kinda wisped away like gossamer as the Old Lady pulled outta the driveway. I think it has something to do with the "dude, no one's gonna show up at 6:30, like usual, to help out with the goddamn dinner/baths/bedtime routine" reality. I was all set to record some new songs, start some great art projects, go out to dinner, play board games... but this afternoon it was more like "ARR!! Finish your homework!" and "Let's just have chicken tenders tonight," and "AAAHHH!! WHY DO YOU TWO HAVE TO BE SO LOUD?!?!"

It also doesn't help that my fucking hip is still throbbing and I can't sleep when the Old Lady's not here and I have to wait until next Thursday for the results of all my goddamn lab tests, even though I got one report today that said that they may have found something in the stomach tissue biopsy that, according to some very ill-advised, half-assed innernettin' I did, states that I may not live past the end of this post.

I'm trying to be in the moment and shit but damn, the fucking moment cards that're being dealt to me, lately, suck ass.

Maybe if I re-shuffled.

Have You Never Been Marrow...

Okay, I had the bone marrow biopsy this morning and, as much as I'd like to craft a rant about how horrifically painful it was, it really wasn't that bad. Don't get me wrong, it sucked donkey danglers, but it sure as fuck wasn't the Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Torture that everyone online made it out to be. Fucking online alarmist dickheads.

Basically, after sitting on my ass for a fuckload of time in the waiting room, they took me into another room, had me drop my drawers and lie on my stomach on this table. The doc and the nurse were both very cool, and we were all just a buncha Chatty Cathy's throughout the whole procedure.

The doc started by swabbing down the poop-deck -- actually just above and to the left of the poop-deck. Right around the area where, had I any actual body fat, there'd be one of them back-dimples. Then he jammed a needle filled with local anesthetic into said area and told me there'd be a slight burning sensation. There was. Then he jammed the needle kinda into the bone and said he was trying to numb up the bone sheath or some shit. Luckily, it didn't hurt, or I would've numbed up HIS bone sheath.

Throughout all this, we were just chat-tattering away. He asked where I was from, I said "Chicago," he said he grew up on "the mean streets of Chicago," I said I grew up on "the mean streets of Deerfield." He laughed. I winced. We talked about Iowa (I was wearing my Grinnell College t-shirt), and he said he's thought about doing the Ragbrai bike race. I said "sounds grea--OW!" All in all, it really would've been quite enjoyable, all this chatting, had he not been jamming fucking needles into my bones.

So, yeah, he rammed a needle into the back of my pelvis and said that there would be "some pressure." There was. It was kinda like the pressure you'd feel if... oh, I don't know, if someone were ramming a needle into the back of your pelvis. Then he said I might feel a little pain as he started to draw out the bone marrow.

That kinda sucked. And yes, Jasper Mockinbard, you're right when you said that the sensation was akin to that of the dementors from Harry Potter sucking out one's life force. It was a combination of that and being turned inside out... ass first.

Then came the fun part -- he had to get a biopsy of the bone itself. I don't know exactly how he was accomplishing this, as I was on my stomach facing away from him, but I'm pretty sure he drove a backhoe up my... backhoe, and started chipping away at the bone until a coupla good-sized hunks cracked off. It's probably similar to the feeling someone numb from the waist down would have as they were being mauled by a bear. Or a bear surgeon. Unsettling, yes. Painful, eh.

And that was pretty much it. I had to lie there for 15 minutes to make sure I didn't start spraying blood out my fresh backhole, and then the Old Lady drove me home.

And now here I lie, clotting. I have a headache and my back feels like a bear surgeon mauled it, but all in all, it's not that shitty. I'm not supposed to lift anything or go up any stairs for 10 hours, and I can't swim or bathe for a coupla days, or apparently my cork'll pop out.

There was a strange, Truman Show-esque moment as I was getting ready to leave. The doc said, "That wasn't so bad, was it?" and I agreed. So he says, "Well then, make sure to mention that in your blog."

What. The. Shit?!?!

Blood Brothers...

I don't think I mentioned that the other day, while I in Count Von Bloodula's waiting room, a familiar looking old gent and his lady walked in and sat down. I kinda recognized the dude, but I couldn't quite place him at first. Then, I pictured him naked, soaping up his balls while standing a coupla feet away from me -- of course! He was one of the old-man-ball-latherers from the Y! And there he was, waiting to see the blood/cancer doctor.

Bummer.

So, we both just sat there, recognizing each other but not acknowledging that fact, each of us wondering what the fuck was wrong with the other guy. I was figuring he was in there for some kinda cancer, or something. It most certainly wasn't ball cancer, that's for sure. That dude must've had the cleanest sack in the mitten, the way he froths that baby up in the shower.

He was probably looking at me thinking, "There's that skinny, hairy lad from the pool. Poor schmuck. Wonder what he's got. Probably nut cancer -- kid doesn't know how to properly lather his nougats. Maybe I'll give him a lesson, next time I see him."

I saw him at the Y today. We looked at each other for a sec, but then we both looked quickly away. I guess we just didn't want to acknowledge each others' mortality, or something. We were at the Y -- we were there to get healthy. To try and undo whatever it was that was causing us to go see the blood doctor in the first place. We parted ways as he entered the sauna and I went out to the pool.

While showering after my swim, I lathered up extra good in his honor. Here's to your health, old man.

Chewin', Nay, Suckin' the Fat...

Time for another episode of...

CRABBYDAD'S HEINOUS EXPERIENCES WITH INSANE, MEDIEVAL DOCTOR-IMPERSONATORS!

Today's story finds our hero at some random surgeon's office -- for what he was told was supposed to be a "consultation." We were supposed to be consulting about the "sucking a fat sample from my stomach" test prescribed by Count Von Bloodula.

The surgeon looked like a paler Jim Gaffigan with a Moe Howard haircut and Coke-bottle glasses. I know. He had the kind of glasses that, if you look at him through said glasses, his head looks about 10 inches thinner than if you look at his real head. So he's basically blind, which is really what you want from a surgeon. He comes in the room and says, "So, you're here for a hernia?"

Exsqueeze me?!

I told him, "Um... no?" and then did my best to explain what I was there for. He replied that he'd never actually heard of this procedure before, which further bolstered my "zero confidence in this clown" factor. He actually excused himself to "go look it up for a sec."

Yobbita-yobbita-WHUH?!

Anywhich, he finally comes back in, giving me the whole, "Oh yeah... I know what they want. Yeah, I was just kidding back there with the 'never heard of it' thing. Heh..." Of course, he goes on to criticize the whole "aspirating with a thin needle" method -- the method that's apparently really quick and doesn't hurt. Instead, he wants to do a few "core needle biopsies," just to make sure they get enough to send to the lab. I'm like, "Dude, I weigh like 98 pounds -- three core needle biopsies is a third of my fucking body weight!"

Then he says, "Hey, we can do it right now, if you'd like." Shit, why the fuck not, Dr. Magoo. Bring it!

So, we go into this mini surgery room and he instructs me to lie on this skinny table. The nurse comes in and he tells her what he wants to do and, get this, she opens this li'l recipe box and pulls out a soiled, weathered index card, that apparently has the fucking directions for the procedure written on it. I'm just lying there, alternating between thinking, "I am SO going to be dead in about eight minutes," and "I sure as fuck hope that's the procedure card and not the process for preparing a goddamn brisket."

What happens next is a blur. First the dude shaves half of my fucking stomach -- DRY -- and then wipes alcohol over the freshly, DRYLY shaved patch. Excuse me but OW, MOTHERFUCKER! Then he spreads a surgery sheet thing over it and tells me he's going to numb the area. Needle. Hey! Stings! STINGS! Then he says, "Okay, first I'm gonna punch out a hole..." WHAT?! I'll punch out YOUR hole! Actually, I didn't feel that part, so his hole was saved... momentarily. Then he gets out this fucking mongo needle thing, like two feet long, and tells me he's gonna stick it in that fresh hole and grab some samples. At this point, I'm convinced he's making this shit up just to fuck with me. He says there's going to be a loud "Click!" which there was, but I didn't feel it, so again, his hole was spared.

Then, as quickly as it started, it was over. He bandaged me up, told me not to swim for a coupla days and that was it. At that point, I finally had the nerve to look down at my stomach -- my bandaged, half-hairless stomach. Great. That'll go over really well at the pool. What is more repulsive to an early 20-something lifeguard -- a skinny, middle-aged man covered in way-too-much body hair OR a skinny, middle-aged man covered in way-too-much body hair with a giant patch of said hair shaved off on one side of his abdomen? Oh, and with a band-aid covering a fresh hole on said bald patch. It's quite a toss-up... and I'm thinking people will be "tossing up" either way.

So, now I'm just sitting here, feeling slightly nauseated, waiting for the sepsis to set in. Should be any minute now... like a black death-cloak.

Oh, and Count Von Fuckula's office called this afternoon and scheduled my bone marrow biopsy for Tuesday. Can't wait for that pig-fuck. The Old Lady's going with me, so she'll be able to identify the body quicker when it's all over.

Hey, maybe the Count can use the same hole that Dr. Magoo made!

Fledgler's Blog!

It's finished! From the mind and voice of Mr. Z comes the latest KICKSOME KLASSIC -- "Fledgler's Log (Polka-Dot Feet)"! I think it's his best song to date, which is saying a lot 'cuz the boy has cranked out some beauts. I think story-wise, though, this one is totally solid. It's the story of an outcast bird who is taunted by his classmates for being different. (Hmm... how does he come up with these crazy ideas?) Luckily, the bird finds a good friend, and the two of them proceed to win over the world with the help of a mysterious stump. But here, let Mr. Z explain it.

OH! And check out Mr. Z's very first solo -- he rocks the hizzy with a Farfisa lead!

Enjoy!



"Fledgler's Log (Polka-Dot Feet)" by KICKSOME



Fledgler's Log (Polka-Dot Feet)

Here's a story 'bout a bird called Peet
That had some funny polka-dot feet
Peet's classmates made fun of Peet
Just because of his polka-dot feet

Well, Peet went to his good friend Dog
Dog helped him build a Fledgler's Log!
Peet thought the log was very swell
And brought it in for Show & Tell!

Oh, it's a log!
(What sort of log?)
A Fledgler's Log!
(What is a Fledgler's Log?!)
A very special kind of log.

Peet's classmates thought the log was neat
And they didn't make fun of his polka-dot feet
Everyone though Peet was neat
And Peet now loves his polka-dot feet!

[Mr. Z's Keyboard Solo!]

Peet saw Dog and a nice piece of ice
And they feasted upon worms and rice
Peet and Dog and Ice loved the rice
And from then on, the classmates were nice!

Oh, it's a log!
(What sort of log?)
A Fledgler's Log!
(What is a Fledgler's Log?!)
Oh, it's a log!!
(What sort of log?!)
A Fledgler's Log!!!
(What is a Fledgler's Log?!?!)

A very special kind of log
It was loved by Peet and Dog
They found the log in a big, giant bog
And I hope you liked my story of the Fledgler's Log!

Wake up and Go to Sleep!

Blaaarrrrgh!

I got four, count 'em, four hours of sleep last night. First, I couldn't fall asleep, probably because I was thinking about the blood doc appointment I had this morning. You know, new doc, new horrific tests involving electrical shocks or claustrophobia death-tubes, and all. Then, as I was finally drifting off, Mr. Z starts calling out at 2 a.m. He had a sore throat and his tonsils sounded so swollen, I thought it was former Bulls center Bill Cartwright calling out from his room.

So, between going back and forth to the boy's room with water/Motrin, and obsessing about Dr. Blood, my night fucking sucked donkey balls.

And, the blood doc didn't let me down today. He's of some sort of Slavic descent, so he had this kind of Dracula vibe going on, which seemed very appropriate, being interested in blood and all. Basically, he wants to do more fucking tests on me. X-rays... fine. Regular blood tests... no problem. Aspirate a sample of fat from my stomach... huh-WHUH?! Suck a sample of bone marrow from my hip bone... WHAT THE SHIT, DUDE?!?!

Once again, I'm convinced these dudes just make this shit up. "Hmmm... numb toes, eh? Well... let's stick a needle in your... in your HIP. Yeah, that's it! Then, we'll suck out a sample of your bone marrow and then, ah what the hell... just for good measure, let's... stick a needle in your belly and suck some of that shit out, too. Sound good? Great! That'll be nine million dollars, please. Oh, and did I mention that the bone marrow thing is going to HURT LIKE BALLS?!!"

After all this dickin' around, I better have fucking bubonic plague, goddammit. There's no way I'm going through all this bullshit so they can tell me I'm healthy. Fuckin' fuckers.

On a positive note, I've been toiling away the last coupla nights on Mr. Z's latest song, "Fledgler's Log." It's pretty rockin' -- his lyrics are incredible. I've just been trying to come up with some music that'll do it justice. Oh, and did I mention he sings it in a British accent?

Anywhich, I'm passing out now.

Why I Never Liked Room 222...

Just to give you a little peek inside the dark, twisted little minds of the spawnage, they do this thing whenever they see a clock with the time 2:22 on it. It's a chant, basically, that lasts until the time changes to 2:23. Like everything else they do, it was kinda funny the first 9000 times they did it, but it tends to grate on one after a while... like coarse-grit sandpaper on the inside of your eyelid.

Well, I was innocently packing lunches this morning, as the spawnage ate their breakfasts, when it suddenly dawned on Mr. Z just what day it was today. What follows is only ONE, SINGLE MINUTE of what proved to be a painfully long... unrelenting... never-ending... perpetual... uninterrupted morning:


"222" by MR. Z and MISS O



Wake me up when it's 2/23.

That's What Firenbs Are For...

After getting home from day-5-President's-Day-Kids'-Club, Miss O showed us a note that her friend Miss C made for her. The two of them met at Montessori a couple of years ago, but have since moved on to different grade schools, so they only really see each other on these day-off daycare days, or on the occasional play-date.

Anywhich, it's pretty damn cute:



Still waiting to make my ferst firenb in this town. You know... someone to get nice letters form.

Would that it wer.

No Wonder Lincoln Was Shot...

Day four of the 5-days-off-President's-day extravashitfuck. At this point, the entire Crabbyfamily has cut the bullcrap -- we're fucking sick of being around each other and, frankly, we're not afraid to show it. Whining, crying, stomping around -- and you should see what the spawnage are doing. Luckily, for everyone's sake, they're off to the Kid's Club camp tomorrow, allowing all of us a chance to settle the fuck down and return our lids to non-flipped status.

I mostly blame the goddamn arctic shitstorm outside for our collective crabbitudes. If it weren't iced over like fucking Hoth outside, we'd all be able to venture beyond the confines of Casa de Crabby and run around to let off a little steam. But it's so fucking hayeen-ass out there that I just want to slice open my Tauntaun carcass, climb inside and hibernate until spring.

I will admit that I had a teensie bit of something that resembled "fun" today, as I helped Mr. Z with his latest school book report project. This time, he has been tasked with creating a mobile based on the subject of the biography he just read. His subject: Mr. B.B. King. Now, if you know me, you'll know that I'm not the biggest fan of "the blues" on the planet, but shit, at least it wasn't Robert Cray. Why is that man famous? Anyone?

So we set about creating the BEST GODDAMN MOBILE BASED UPON A NOT THAT ANNOYING BLUES LEGEND EVER CREATED!!! The vision was pretty much Mr. Z's... I played more of the logistician role. But it was his idea to use guitar/microphone/guitar pick shapes for all the components, and, of course, he made sure all the text involved employed EVERY SINGLE FONT KNOWN TO HUMANKIND! I helped a bit with the tying and balancing because shit, if I let him do all that, a) we'd still be working on it in April, and 2) it'd look like carp, so what're you gonna do.

Photographing the fucker proved quite elusive, but here's what I was able to capture:



My favorite guitar pick information nugget Mr. Z wrote was either the one that says, "King currently has 13 children, (5 adopted), with women he met while touring. Some of his kids' names are Shirley, Claudette and Barbara," or "In 1944, B. B. married Martha Denton, and got divorced in 1952. Then, in 1958, King married Sue Carol Hall. But... In 1966, they got a divorce. Now,
King doesn't have a wife." Ain't the blues a bitch.

The mobile's pretty fucking massive -- Mr. Z said that most people use a hanger to make their mobiles, so the "wow" factor should be pretty fucking hilarious when he walks into the class toting this mofo.

I really hope I get an "A+!" I mean... he gets an A+. Heh... uh... right.

Tanks Fer Nuttin', Noonan!

Okay, so I guess I have to fulfill this archive meme obligation that Burbanmom foisted upon me. Apparently, if I don't follow through on this virtual chain letter, she's going to do something drastic, like starting to use paper napkins or throwing away used crayons or, even worse, using the "More Dry" setting on her dryer, and, frankly, I can't live with that kind of responsibility.

So, I'm supposed to link to five posts from the Crabby archives that fit this criteria:

• Link 1 must be about family.
• Link 2 must be about friends.
• Link 3 must be about yourself, who you are... what you're all about.
• Link 4 must be about something you love.
• Link 5 can be anything you choose.

Now, because I'm a lazy sack of shit, and the thought of poring over 507 crappy posts makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon, I'm just going to pick five random posts and hope that they fit the bill. So here we go...

1. The "Family" post.

2. Since I don't have any friends of my own, I'll let Miss O talk about one of her friends for the "friend" post.

3. A post about me? Shit, aren't they all? I dunno... this explains me pretty well.

4. A coupla things I love: "thing one" and "thing two."

5. And finally, I choose this one, 'cuz I just want this post to be over.

There. Done. Holy shitstain, that was more painful than I could've possibly imagined. My life's depressing enough the first time through, without having to relive it in slapdashedly-written crabbytext. But thanks anyway, Burbanmom. I guess what doesn't kill me makes for a halfway decent blogpost.

Oh, and I guess I'm supposed to "tag" five people for the same meme. Shit. I guess I'll just throw it over to the rarely updated "I Heartily Endorse These Links" list on the right there. No pressure, though. If you don't feel like doing it, I'll take the bad mojo hit. Shit, 'tweren't for bad mojo, I'd have nothing to fucking write about.

Spee-D'oh!

Well, the new bathing suit was delivered today (the "Spiffy") -- unfortunately for the members of the YMCA, it showed up a coupla days late. The other night, I realized that my old suit hadn't been washed in a while and was starting to smell a tad ballsacky, so I rummaged around for one of my other suits. I found this red pair of board shorts that I forgot I had, and thought I'd go with those. Problem was, they were a little loose around the waist and I worried that they might whisk off suddenly in the churning, brackish waters of the pool.

I asked the Old Lady what she thought and she said, "Don't worry about it. It's not like you're going to be diving in or splashing around or anything. They'll be fine." And, of course, if you're familiar with the Old Lady's uncanny jinxing ability, you'd realize that I should have incinerated those board shorts right then and there. For some bizarre reason, however, I trusted her.

Cut to the Y -- I enter the swimming area and, wouldn't you know it, it's all women in there. Every lane but one is taken -- the center lane. I put my towel down, pull my goggles on and slip into the water. Instantly, the suit balloons out like a grade school, gym class parachute, soaks up a couple gallons of water, and then starts feeling really heavy. I figured, "C'mon... there's a drawstring. They're not going to fall off."

So, I started my first lap. Before I take my first breath, the top of the suit slips down to about plumber level and, with each additional stroke, threatens to slip down even further... like to Chris Farley level. I managed to finish the first length, but had to pause at the opposite end of the pool to figure out some sort of suit-bondo that would at least allow me to get back to the other side without flashing a "full crabby."

I rolled the waistband over a couple of times and it seemed to tighten things up a bit. Just to play it safe, I did the breast stroke on the way back. I went really slowly to keep the friction to a minimum, but about halfway across I could feel the waistband unrolling and my junk unpouching. I stopped at that point and just walked back to the wall, dragging my deflated circus tent along with me.

It was at this point that I noticed the young, freshly scrubbed life guardess looking down at me from her lofty perch. She basically had a bird's eye view of the whole fi-ass-co, and, frankly, she didn't seem pleased. I decided to do everyone a favor and just call it a day. Another couple of laps and the cops would've been called and, to tell you the truth, skinny-dipping in that water, whether intentional or not, is a good way to catch a bad case of "the drip."

So, tomorrow I try out "The Spiffy." I tried it on today -- modeled it for the Old Lady. It basically makes the area from my waist down to my knees look like some sort of Lycra blood sausage. It's really quite revolting. But I think I'd definitely rather be known around the Y as "Squeezie VonPorkcasing" than "Harry McCrackandsack." I just hope I make it out of there tomorrow without getting slapped.

Portrait of the Fartist As A Young Girl...

So, the Old Lady called tonight, conveniently right before she was supposed to get home to help out with the spawnage, and informed me that she was going out to tip a few back with a couple of her fancy professor cronies. Which is fine, mind you -- I'd do the same if'n I had a crony.

But that meant that I, and I alone, had to feed the li'l rugrats, bathe them, help with the homework and the piano practicing and all that other nighttime bullshit that "parents" have to "do." So, while I was getting dinner ready, Mr. Z was finishing up his homework and Miss O was drawing at the table. I popped by to see what she was up to, and found her finishing up this so-cute-it'll-make-you-shit self portrait:



Isn't that the shit? Her new thing is making herself jump up in the air in all her pictures, and she's started drawing herself looking off to the side like that a lot. Classic. And it looks surprisingly like her, to boot. Except for the giant three-fingered hands and the club-foot.

So, I get back to fixing up the vittles, and Mr. Z comes waltzing in and, before long, the two of them are flipping their lids and yelling at each other. Miss O said, "Dad! Mr. Z drew a mean picture of me!" He replied that, in fact, it wasn't mean and that it looked exactly like her. This is what he drew:



I totally had to hold in a giant blow-snot-outta-my-nose-laugh 'cuz I think the drawing is fucking hilarious. It doesn't look anything like Miss O, of course, but it is such a perfect older brother making fun of his younger sister's drawing drawing that it was hard not give him props for it.

It all evened out in the end, though, as Miss O brought Mr. Z to the verge of tears after she jinxed him during dinner and refused to say his name.

Payback's a bitch, Mr. Z.

My Boy the Fartist...

From the sounds of it, the spawnage have a fairly inspired art teacher at school. They come home with some pretty wacky projects that aren't usually your bullshit construction paper, yarn and Elmer's grade school slapdash-o-ramas. Mr. Z has been talking about a t-shirt that he's been working on for the last coupla weeks -- apparently, each kid created their own design and then made some sort of crude silk-screen to transfer it to the shirt. He came home wearing the finished product today:



Is that the greatest fucking t-shirt ever, or what?! Robots rule. Truer today than ever.

ME: That shirt is AWESOME, Mr. Z!

MR. Z: Yeah... it's not what I originally wanted to do, though.

ME: Really? What was the original idea?

MR. Z: It was going to say 'Robots Rule but Aliens Drool," but it wouldn't all fit on the shirt. So I just went with 'Robots Rule.'

ME: Wise choice. I mean... what else is there to say?

Maybe I should quit my job and have Mr. Z just crank out more unwittingly ironic slacker shirts that I could sell over at Urban Outfitters for like 40 bucks a pop. The boy's a marketing genius!

Rectum?! Yep... sure did...

Oh, hi. I didn't see you there, as I was busy picking pieces of my ass off the floor... you know, the ass that had been ripped clean offa my backhole after pulling a brutal all-weekender, right after pulling a brutal three-or-four-week-freelancer. If I don't ever have to descend into that seeping, hellmouth of a basement to plop my no-longer-there-ass in front of those soul-sucking giant monitors again, it'll be too soon. What's that? I have to do it tomorrow? Oh, okay.

I have to say, though, that part of me relished the challenge of the all-weekender. It was an impossible task I had to accomplish -- create this massive audio demo, chock full of sound effects, music and voice-over, for this project we may or may not get -- but I think it ended up sounding pretty craptacular. It reminded me of the old days... back when I could stay up working until two in the morning, back when I knew people over the age of nine, back when the only extremity that tingled was the one that was supposed to tingle... back when I didn't have to look for energy in the bottom of a 1/2 gallon coffee mug... back before my fucking neck started getting all crepe-y.

The other part of me, though, relishes being a crabby fucking shitball. Who the fuck wants to stay up until two? Working, no less?! And I like hanging around people under ten -- they're very easy to please, I can crack their asses up by simply blowing a fart, and if I manage to feed, clothe and mildly amuse them on a fairly regular basis, they think I'm the fucking shit. And I like coffee, goddammit.

But the crepe-y neck thing is a fucking pisser.

Work-O-R-Kuh-and-Oh!!!

I know I've been absent since Thursday's post but I've been working my bung off on this ridiculous last minute project for work that has managed to suck up the last three days and nights like some sort of sucking machine that sucks things dry until they can't be sucked no more.

Wait a minute... why am I horny all of a sudden?

Anywhich, I'm still neck-deep in the muckety-fuck, so I'll have to catch up with all the wacky, crabby goings on tomorrow sometime... which, by the way, is rumored to be another snow day...

[SFX: a single tear dripping onto a computer keyboard]

I Told Me So...

Do I really need to talk about today? Is it necessary to mention the goddamn foot of snow outside and the again-with-the-no- school and the hacking/hocking spawnage and the dickloads of work I have to do? Yeah, I thought not.

I will mention this, though. Remember that game I invented where I basically take a nap on the couch and the spawnage put different things in my hand and I have to guess what said things are? Well, we were playing that again (surprise) and there was one item that had me completely stumped. It felt like some sort of little vial, and when I shook it, I could hear something lightly clattering around inside of it, but I couldn't figure out what the fuck it was. Finally, I gave up and opened my eyes. This is what I was holding:



It's a tiny glass jar that Miss O has apparently been saving her discarded, used band-aids in. That's my girl. Little Dr. Frankenspawn. You know, she's always wanted a little sister... maybe she's trying to clone a wee, scabby version of herself. Who knows what other little jars she's got stashed away, stuffed with fuck knows what? I think the next time I play the guessing-while-napping-game, I'm gonna wear me some rubber gloves.

Loogie Houser...

Well, both of the spawnages are sick... again. There's seems to be a never-ending, boogery river of snot, phlegm and sputum that courses straight through the crabbyhousehold, and it looks like she's never gonna stop a-flowin'. Of course, I blame their mutant, bacteria-encaked classmates, smearing their infecto-fingers 'cross the desks, chairs and water fountain spigots of the school, while wheezing out their viral plague-vapors through their crud-taminated cakeholes.

The trouble is, they've already been out of school so much with the snow days and the other 'mystery' days off that there's no way I'm going to keep them home unless they have a fever, or they're bleeding from their eye-sockets. They've been waking up kinda iffy, but once they get all lubed up with a glass of juice, they hock up a coupla lung oysters, perk up and then they're rarin' to go. Thankfully they inherited their perkiness-in-the-face-of-infirmity from the Old Lady, instead of my I'm-gonna-die-from-this-scratchy-throat feebleness.

Though, looking at the overnight forecast, I'll bet the left half of my rucksack that they're gonna close that fucking school again tomorrow. One to three inches tonight and another five during the day. Motherfucker. Who's the moron who built this state so fucking close to Canada?! What a dick.

Then again, we're the assholes who moved to a state known as "the mitten."

Screw That...

This weekend was quite the handyman's special for ol' crabbydad. I got that "there's too much cluttery crapshit in this house" bug all up in my sphincter, and I went on a major purging spree. I started in the basement and just started chucking shit into a giant hefty-hefty-hefty bag. I didn't make a fucking dent in the impacted colon that is our basement, but I filled the bag, so at least it felt like a satisfying dump.

I also unearthed the camera tripod I was looking for that I was thinking of using for my "Cooking with Crabbydad" idea. I ripped it apart and had this bright idea that I was going to duct tape it to my bike helmet for the ultimate first-person-shooter-type head cam. I got it all taped up and it looked pretty fucking awesome, but when I strapped it to the ol' noggin', I almost a) fell over, and 2) choked myself with the helmet's neck strap. There was no way I was gonna be able to keep that thing on my head and cook a fucking meal without auto-asphyxiating myself in the process -- and that's not really the type of video vibe I was going for.

So I ripped the duct tape off and tried to figure out another way to mount the crabbycam. I ended up just sticking the tripod pole through the front of my belt and then taking another belt and cinching it around my chest, making a sort of Baby Bjorn camera holder. It works surprisingly well -- as long as I don't try to crouch down, 'cuz then I'll pull a Phineas Gage through the ol' nutsack. I'm gonna try to do a test run sometime this week and see just how unfunny and ill-advised this whole moronic idea is going to be. (My prediction: "extremely" and "way.")

I also decided to finish replacing the few remaining light switches/outlets that I promised the Old Lady I'd replace back in July of 2004. Things were going along swimmingly until I forgot to trip one of the breakers for the upstairs playroom, and I literally electrocuted myself. Serious lightning bolt from my fingertips to my already tingling toes. It was classic -- the Old Lady was at the grocery store and the spawnage were downstairs watching tv, so if I had actually succeeded in killing myself, no one would've found me for a good 3-4 hours. Luckily, it was only enough electricity to singe the hair off my knuckles and make me go "NYARRRRRGGGGGNNMRRFFFFLLNNNGGG!!!"

Oh, I also put up a wall coatrack hanger thing in the mudroom/back hallway area AND it didn't rip itself right outta the wall when I hung the spawnages' coats and backpacks on it, which is totally bonus for a crabbydad-screwing-something-into-the-wall type project. It'll probably crash to the floor overnight, but it managed to stay up for a whole day, so fuck yeah!

So what's that... three home-improvment projects in one weekend? Shit, man, I'm good until at least 2011.