I admit it, I am

afraid of spiders

(In the Frog Queens English spider=monster)

Oh yes, big ones, small ones, black ones, green ones, hanging ones, crawling ones, plastic ones, invisible ones (you know, the one you know is crawling all over you because you just walked through a web?)

This the monsters/spider season in my garden. Lots of spiders, all different kinds, but mostly, they are light orangey with a bit of yellow when the sun hits them, kind of a goldenish orange.....to put it short - they match my hair color.

Stop laughing!

So, my special hell consists of my "invisible" spiders actually turning out to not being my hair blowing in the breeze, but a evil spider monster the size of a dime that wants to eat my brain! At least that must be what I am thinking of when I start screaming like a little girl. (Actually husband will tell you that I have a very distinct "spider scream")

I have arachnophobia, I admit it, there is no denying.

I actually had to sit down because I felt faint from a picture book of spiders. A few co-workers decided to check out a spider book - while I was standing next to them.

Do you know that for kids books they take pictures of spiders and magnify them a bazillion times? I could see the fangs, little hairs all over their bodies.....no one needs to see that. No one.

Then they go on to tell me that you are never more than 6 feet away from a spider at any given time. Great, go be mister know-it-all somewhere else, I have sharp objects at my desk.

Oh, and you eat so many spiders a year in your sleep......really? Are you this charming around everyone? Do you have any friends? Go away!

Because I hate spiders, I love this Phil Jupitus routine:

Category 1 - small teeny spider, up to about an inch. (big spider alert) Category 1 spider gets away - you can never use that room again!

Category 2 - bigger than an inch, and you can hear them walking (A LOT of screaming) Category 2 spider gets away - you have to sell the house.

Category 3 -you are unable to make any audible sound, and you are scared for life

Oh, and there is a giant, animated spider in my Halloween display. Freaks me out!

I don't want to be cured of my fear, because I bet it involves spiders. It is not the only irrational thing about me.

I recently saw Eddie Izzard and we seem to have a deep fear of spiders in common. I think my favorite thing he said all night was "if spiders could fly, we would have to leave the planet."

I hear ya buddy.

Finally!

It's here the post that you have all been waiting for

Speaking of the devil, the real, actual devil. :)

The John Tesh post reminded me about the one person I wish would burst into flames, get taken by the "rapture", anything, just get his sorry ass of this planet, and into the spirit world he claims to be so familiar with.

If you know me, and some of you do. You know of whom I speak

John Edward - the Crossing Over guy. His name can drive me into a rant faster than...well, anything I can think of right now :) He cannot talk to dead people. I thought Houdini took care of this kind of nonsense years ago.

I would say I apologize if any of you believe his bullshit, but I am not sorry for offending you. I am sorry for you. :)

This man is a fraud. His "gift" can be explained......

It is called "cold reading" (or warm reading if you studio is micro phoned well :) You can do it too, just buy books on it, go to websites and learn a few short tricks and you too can be, as South Park put it, "the biggest douche in the universe" - not my favorite word to use (mostly because I am not two guys pretending to be 8 year olds) but you get the idea.

Now, I know there are a lot of things that happen that cannot be explained. They have happen in my life, but I refuse to believe that this man is anything less than a showman.

(I hear my friends that know I read tarot cards saying.....wait a minute. And you should call me on that. Yeah, that will be another blog entry.)

His shows are edited to make him appear to be a better "guesser" then he is. There are documented cases of people that have claimed that he was completely off, or after they thought about what happened, they see what he was doing. Now his contract for anyone who is on the show states that they cannot say a thing about what happened in the studio. If you are so good at this, why not let them tell everyone?

So, how did I get total hate and disgust you ask?

I have always believed he was a fraud that annoyed the crap out of me. But I did not become rabid in my loathing until he pulled that famous publicity stunt, he claimed to be talking to Terry Shiavo when her story was hot in the media. I was swearing out loud in my office the morning I saw him on TV - good thing no one heard me :)

That stunt put me over the edge. Don't get me wrong, if you want to mess with ignorant/scared/grieving people in the privacy of your own television studio, you are still a jerk, but be my guest, I can't stop you (though I would love to). When he got involved in a media case like that he was just grandstanding. (Being in marketing, I understand getting your name out there, but that was horrible to watch!)

My message to John....

"Listen you charlatan, you are messing with the memories of peoples loved ones. You are taking advantage of venerable people that are in pain. That is completely unforgivable. If there is a hell, I hope they have a special place next to the main furnace for you, with a radio that plays only John Tesh, Vanni and Phil Collins."

I lost a very important person in my life recently, I miss her terribly, but I told her that I loved her, did everything for her that I could while she was alive. I have absolutely no regrets. I think back on her with only love and gratitude.

Lesson today - talk to people while they are alive.

So to all my friends and family out there - peace and happiness to you! And don't watch Crossing Over - or at least don't tell me you do.

Next time. a Halloween post - I promise :)

This made me feel better

You can't go wrong with a zombie reference.


more cat pictures

Well, at least in my book.

Oh, I know I owe you

Okay, all I can say is that I am in a very unhappy place right now. And I am trying all the usual crap to get out.....it is just a state of mind and all. Yes, I read The Secret, well, skimmed through it if you must know.

Let's just say "choosing to be happy" has worked better before. :) So I promise that I will be back very soon, cause I don't want to post anything while I am feeling worthless.

BTW - check out DavisGraveyard.com for cool picture of our highly successful (fun) tombstone making class later tomorrow (we got even more photos!!!) That is a happy thing.

So I will leave you with this image, it explains me right now p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y!

http://bunny-comic.com/?id=567

Yes, we all should be scared :)

You can't go wrong with a bit of

Monty Phython - parody


more cat pictures

Sometimes, I want to move

I know I promised you "worse than John Tesh" or something like that, well, I am going to disappoint you.....I will share this story instead.

The other day when I was getting my flowered toe nails at my local salon - I ran into the Mrs. Southeast Portland. It was a disturbing - sometimes I forget where it is I live.

It was just me in the salon, so they asked me what I wanted to watch on the big plasma TVs? "Just a blank screen is fine with me," I said, they laughed. They thought I was kidding.

I don't watch TV, so I drew a complete blank and said "the news", because I am a radio or music type person, I only listen to NPR and on occasion KNRK. (BTW- thanks to my friends in Ashland Tom & Pat who kept us connected to NPR from Ashland to Medford on our last trip to Southern Oregon - otherwise Jeff and I would have to talk, to each other!)

Back to. . .

I was only half watching the news (something to do with flowers on my toe nails...no!!!) and I heard that ......

Randy Pausch died :(

I have been watching the Last Lecture Series (on youtube), normally a bit boring (but Jeff and I like a bit of that - we get to the Science Lecture Series in Portland as often as we can) and I am used to boring - I work at a very boring place. :)

Well, for those of you who don't know Randy's story, he made one of the most memorable lectures at Carnegie Mellon (the people that host the series) that I have ever seen. I was talking to the staff about it and they were all writing down his name and information about the lecture series - I like to share.

I was sad to hear he was gone and was listening to the story on the news (I am as surprised as you!)

And then Mrs White Trash Southeast Portland came in and sat down in the chair next to me. She proceeded to complain "who watches the news anyway", then insisted they shut it off .....

~ deep breath ~

.....so she could watch a movie. And not just any movie, she proceeded to list off all the movies that she had seen recently, "so don't put on any of those." Well, we come to find out that her list was not complete, because the movie they put in apparently he had seen, and she insisted they put in another. Well, the next movie they put in she had never hear of and she didn't like the title. I could not bear this any longer, I lied and told her it was a good movie, I was done and (happily) leaving anyway. (Anyone seen the Water Horse?)

It appears the reason she comes in the cheap (but brilliantly staffed) salon is so she can watch a movie to get "away from it all." I think they call that a spa, but I bet they are out of her price range (oh, some people bring out the best in me!)

:)

I get that, I like to relax, I am not good at it (husband can testify to that), but I understand the concept. But, to not ask any one else (and there were now several more people in the salon) if they mind, was rude. I guess it could have been worse, she could have asked them to change it to a regular TV show or .....a reality show.

In my mind.......my house is for sale, and I am moving to Edinburgh.