I hate cold weather. I get depressed in cold weather. Something about the lack of sunshine makes my happiness melt away.

Cant get my special omnibus edition of a book because apparently my email is wack.

I need a cigarette. I want to go home.


*Edit

I can't believe I actually used wack in a sentence.

I should probably quit drinking. After a good night, I wake up bruised and confused and usually owing someone an apology for something I can't even remember doing, and usually am mortified that I did at all.

But I enjoy getting drunk. I enjoy the buzz. I just don't know when to say when and usually get white girl wasted and embarass myself profusely.

Ugh.

Medusa

So fall has landed here in the Underworld, my hidey-hole sneak out and smoke spot while I am at work is losing it's leaves, so soon, my hidey-hole won't be hid too well. Then the smokeless days will be back. I better get used to them I suppose, anymore you can't smoke anywhere. What happened to the great seventies and eighties when the "we'll do what we want, when we want crowd" ran the world. Oh how I miss you Ronald Reagan. :)

OK, I am so not going to get political here, or even go into a long boring diatribe about how I hate the smoking laws, or how bad I hate those who voted for them, just like those same losers that voted for "Obama and his running mate, you know that nice looking girl, Sarah Palin."

I shit you not. That was said to me once.

I'm not here to talk about politics though, I am going to talk about Medusa.

I share an office with two people, Hephaestus and Medusa. I get along well with Hephaestus, she is sweet, even tempered and just does her work with minimal amounts of conflict. Medusa on the other hand, doesn't shut her fucking mouth all day long, which makes working difficult at times. Most times.

She is crass, loud, and just talks so she can hear herself. Half the time she lies about what she is saying too. She has had breast cancer, heart attacks, bought and sold numerous amounts of property all over the world, seen big foot and the loch ness monster on the same day, and had sex with Johnny Depp. And that all just happened last month.

I don't mind loudness, you should meet Hades, he is loud. And when you add alcohol? He is louder, and he thinks he's funny. But Medusa is obnoxious loud. The kind of loud that grates on you while you are just praying for some silence to get some work done.

So, I have decided that I will just kill her. Cut off her snakey-head, mount it to a post, and plant that outside our office door. I feel that will be the best way to convey my threat to others that think distracting me is an amusing past time.

Think I will get fired for that?

I Hate to Clean

So, we have been living in this house for over a year now. Not a bad place, four bedrooms, finished basement, kitchen, dining room, large living room and two and a half baths on a cul-de-sac. Needs updated bad. Horrible blue flowered 80's wallpaper in the kitchen, part of the kitchen 70's panelled. It's just looovely. But hey, it's home.

So, the bathroom. The bathroom that we call the grown up's bathroom. Simply because Me, Hades, his brother Poseidon (who also lives with us) my daughter Melaena and her two year old son use the bathroom I am referring to.

I hate to clean. Ask anyone that lives with me. Or anyone that doesn't live with me, but knows me. The bathroom gets to looking like something tacked onto the back of a gas station, and when I think I may become deathly ill because of sitting on the toilet, I'll clean it. OK, so I half ass clean it. I clean the sink and the toilet, run the wet jet over the floor, empty the garbage, and close the shower curtain.  I have actually cleaned the tub less than five times since we have lived here. I'm embarrassed to say, I am not lying.

There is a window in the shower of the bathroom, and many half empty bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash litter the ledge. Both Melaena and I have enormous amounts of hair, so occasionally there is even an extra bottle or two of some type of different conditioner in there also. The dog's shampoo will sit on the edge of the tub from the last time someone bathed him, and there is an empty cup that sits in one corner that the baby plays with when he is in there. (I know he drinks his bath water, and twenty bucks says his mom doesn't stop him.)

One day, a few months back, I was showering, and glancing at the black mold growing around the edge of the tub, and up into the grout and thought, hmmmm maybe I should clean the tub. I reached over to grab either shampoo or conditioner, I don't know which and almost had a heart attack. There was something under the lip of the window sill. 

I hurriedly cleaned myself (I swear it was the quickest shower I have ever taken in my life.) Eyeballing this...monster bug egg sac? Window sill glue leaking out because of so many hot showers? Alien bat shit? the entire time. I threw on clothes, ran downstairs and practically screamed at Hades to save us all from the brain sucking aliens that had planted something in my shower. Hades calmly walked upstairs, grabbed a hunk of toilet paper and removed the...mushrooms.  I shit you not, mushrooms had sprouted in the grout of my shower.

So, that was probably three months ago. I got around to finally cleaning the shower today. Six inches of soap scum, a can of comet with bleach, half a spray can of Kaboom, and a half a gallon of bleach later and my tub, toilet, and sink are so clean you could eat off or out of them. If the dog could actually reach the toilet, he would agree the water was clean and good. :)

When I was finished (I even replaced the shower curtain liner, the red mold growing on the old one wigged me out when the shower pressure was intense and the liner would come at me.) I looked down at the tile floor. Now mind you, the bathroom is an eclectic mix of 70's and eighties. Blue sink. Blue tub. White toilet. Peach and beige teeney tiny tiles on the floor, horrible geometric peach and blue and white wallpaper. A vanity that came straight from the seventies, double cubbies with mirrored doors and a mirror between, set off by an ornate silver frame that looks like it belongs in a castle. I think the vanity is wicked cool.

I studied the tile on the floor for a moment, wondering if it would look better with lighter grout. Why anyone would use brown grout was beyond me, It looked stupid.

Anyway, I was in a cleaning mood, so I decided to scrub the 7 inches of hairspray from the floor. (Yes, you can still get aerosol aqua net in the pink and white can!!) I got hot soapy pine sol water...mmmmm...into my bucket, got myself a couple of rag rags, and my scrub brush, and went to town. Two and a half hours later, two more refills on that pine sol bucket and, the grout is white. Yes, the grout is white.

I think I just threw up in my mouth. We have been walking barefoot on other people's grout ick.  For over a year.

I need a maid.

I didn't know lesbians shaved their legs

Actual Scenario That took place in my kitchen a few years back.

Enter Erinyes, moody, bitchy fifteen year old girl, destined to make my life hell.
Enter Persephone, Erinyes' tortured somewhat alcoholic mother (ME!!!)
Enter Artemis, best friend of Persephone, ten years younger, gay.
(And yes, since she is my best friend I have permission from the BDGALA* to use the term gay instead of the politically correct shit everyone is trying to cram down our throats)

*Beer Drinking Gay And Lesbian Association

Set Scene: Pumpkin Carving party, involving beer and Apple Pie (Homemade hooch moonshine that tastes JUST like apple pie...yum) Kids having finished carving pumpkins, admiring them glowing on front porch outside.

Background: I met Artemis when I tended bar. She was one of my customers. We had good times when I worked, and when we needed a fourth for cards one night I invited her to join us. We have been friends ever since. Artemis is openly gay, not in the closet, not a secret. But it's like my sexuality. It's not something we discuss often, even though she has done some stupid people things and then confesses this to me.

So Arty and I are standing in my kitchen, bullshitting about nothing in particular, and she says, "yeah, I really need to shave my legs too."

More background: I hate to shave. I only shave when Hades acts like he has hurt himself by touching the stubble on my legs, or says some off-hand remark about bad seventies porn and looks at my crotch while saying  it. Or I will shave if it's summer and I am wearing shorts, or if I'm lookin for some hot Hades sex. Any other time? I am Sasquatch under my cute jeans.

Anyway we are discussing leg shaving, and what a pain in the ass it is, when Erinyes pipes in;

"I didn't know lesbians shaved their legs."

Oh. My. Gods and Goddesses. She did not just say that?
Yes, yes she did.

Artie almost falls to the ground laughing. I had to laugh too, did my child really believe that lesbians didn't shave? Did she think they all acted like hairy ass men or tree hugging hippies?

Apparently she did.

After Artie explains to my child that she does shave her legs and yes, even though she shaves she is gay, Erinyes takes this as  a "She answered my question, I am going to ask another." And proceeds to corner my friend and interrogate her about what she apparently is very curious about. I stay out of the conversation, watching Artie, and only but in when my daughter's question is waay out of line. (I think it had to do with muff diving)

So Erinyes learned about lesbians and both Artie and I still laugh about her lesbian interrogation.

Two Posts, One Day, At no Charge!

OK, so I am thinking I better change the settings of my blog to adult, simply because here in the Underworld? We drop the  F-Bomb on a regular basis, and even though I don't go around chanting Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck, there's probably pretty good odds that I am gonna drop it, and people should be forewarned so they don't run screaming, horrified, and flag the crap outta me. What do you think?

I would hate to get upset about that, because then Hades would get pissed, and when he is mad, on my behalf, bad things happen. One time, one of the four horsemen- never mind, that's probably not a good story to tell here.

So, this morning, dropping my kids off at the high school, we were listening to the radio, and mind you, I adore torturing my teenagers, so I listen to one of the local country stations, where they use ya'll instead of yo in songs, and when they say hoe, they mean the tool to garden with.

Anyway, while dropping these tortured children off at the high school, Jason Aldeen's Dirt Road Anthem comes on, and I realize that step son in the front seat is singing his heart out, and daughter in the back seat is harmonizing beautifully. It was so good that I stopped singing, just so I could listen to them. Then step-son turned all country-twangy with "We like corn bread and biscuits, and if it's broke round here we fix it." And ruined the spell they had woven, and then they dissolved into hysterical laughter.

Now, these two of the six we call a brood are musically inclined. I don't mean like Erinyes who spent six years with her ipod headphones in her ears, I mean Zagreus (Step-son) is teaching himself the electric guitar and can play a few songs so far, and Macaria (daughter) plays trumpet and alto sax for the high school band, and is stumbling her way through learning the acoustic guitar in the privacy of her own bedroom. They each have talent musically, and out of the six, they can appreciate music that is not just their favorites, even though they both can rap right along with Lil Wayne, scream along with Disturbed, and even be-bop to Miley Cyrus.

They may not be huge fans of country music, but today's performance in the car was amazing. Zagreus has a fantastic voice, and can sing wonderfully, and Macaria actually has the voice of an angel (even if she looks like a demon with all that died black hair and thick black eyeliner.) I wonder if I can force them into singing Christmas carols this year at the family get together?

Thursday Morning

OK, so if you people haven't taken a look around and realized it yet, I am back home with my husband for the time being. I need a rest and I am soooo happy he came to get me. I know he wants me to get my butt back to work, and help him with souls and crap, but you know what? I need a break. So he can just bite me.

I have a huge stack of books to read. Our local bookstore went out of business, and I scurried my butt over there and bought a Stack, and I'm talking STACK of books. I paid like $30 for $120 worth of books. I also have about 100 books downloaded onto my kindle that I still haven't gotten around to reading, and my wishlist on Amazon just keeps growing as my favorite authors continue to put out release dates for their upcoming books.

And when I have my nose in my Kindle at night, and Hades is sitting on the other end of the couch, he wants me to put down the Kindle and pay attention to whatever inane comedy he has on tv. Which translates into a whiny, "Pay attention to meeeee."

So, I just finished reading Gena Showalter's last installment in the Lords of the Underworld series, and yuuumm. Fabulous book all around. But let me tell you, I am in the Underworld, and let me tell you the truth? No hot men running around here with quirky demons in them...nope. And Pandora? She opened that box, oh yeah she did. Curiosity killed the cat so they say. I think that witch has nine lives...human, my ass. She's still running around causing trouble.

So then I went cruising on Amazon and Smashwords. Yes, I did say earlier I have a stack of books I need to read and enough downloads to last me forever, and I have my favorite favorite authors that I read religiously, but I am always in search of that fantastic new and upcoming author. I want to be one of the first fans..lol. I want to say, "Oh yeah, I read her when she was struggling and publishing her own books, and I downloaded her first one for free. No, I'm not kidding, it was before everyone realized what a great writer she is."

I have found some fantastic authors this way, CL Ellison and the Vampire Inn tales are fantastic, Lizzy Ford and her Rhyn Trilogy are to die for, and J.R. Rain and the Vampire for Hire series, just to name a few. But I went cruising as I said, and I found a freebie called Reckless Magic, written by Rachel Higginson. So, I downloaded it, sat down on the couch, propped my feet in Hades' lap and started reading. And didn't stop.

Now, Reckless Magic (Book One in the Star-Crossed Series) is a YA book. I will read anything if it's good, anything from YA to Erotica. But, if you want me to buy say the second book in a series you've written? It better be good.

Good doesn't even begin to describe this book. The characters are fantastic, the book flows wonderfully, and the plot is full of twists and turns and surprises. It's a good solid story. So I go to search for number two, and yes, I find it. It's written, it's available, and with a push of a button and a small charge on Hades' credit card, I have Hopeless Magic.

Here's where I got mad. I read it. In one sitting. It was even better than Reckless Magic, and I stayed up until like 3 am to finish it. Laughed, cried, fell in love with all of the characters again. And then it ended. I needed sleep, and Hades was snoring, so I put down the Kindle and crashed. So I signed onto Amazon today, and....the third one isn't out yet? What? I almost popped up to Olympus to smack some Muses around, but refrained. I haven't been back for long and if I take off, Hades won't be happy with me.

So, I'll wait. But if you want to read some fantastic YA books. Grab them. I think Reckless Magic is still available at no cost. And when Stephenie Meyer is asking for Rachel Higginson's autograph, I'll be able to say I read her first book for free. ;o)