You know, there are times when I want to come type away on this blog about some of the stupid shit I do just because, well, it seems like it would make it less dumb if I were to publish a post and then sit back and imagine that somewhere out there I have several readers who are sitting in front of their monitors, smacking their foreheads and saying out loud, “Dude. I’ve totally done that too.”

As if doing something stupid makes it less so when it is diluted and spread out among a greater sampling of humans. Like buying a Humvee. Or wearing crocs.

Anyway, here is a list of the stupid things I’ve done in the past week that no person in their right mind would ever fess up to:

- backed over something, stopped, rolled down my window and put my head outside - and then without confirming that what I had backed over was not, in fact, a dog or small child or some other legally recognized entity whose annhialation would result in me being sued - pulled forward, and then backed over it again.

- fed my kids several metric tons worth of chocolate, marshmallow and soda before allowing them to ride home inside the car instead of putting them in front and yelling Mush!

- Forgot to wear BodyGlide to the gym so that my running skirt wouldn’t ride up (at least the guy on the treadmill behind me didn’t seem to mind)

- answered the door for a Jehovah’s Witness

- locked my keys in the car

- locked my keys in the car with the kids (who were Not At All Helpful in unlocking the doors)

- locked my keys in the car and gained entry by crawling through the rear window when there was a perfectly good spare clicky-thing just ten feet away

- inadvertently introduced flax seed to my daughter’s diet

- plotted a ten mile run for Sunday, answered the phone, became sidetracked during phone conversation, finished plotting run without really looking, fled house, returned twelve-point-two miles later wondering why I felt so beat up.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this. What kind of goofy stuff have you done this week?

…yesterday at which Matt Mullenweg - the founder of WordPress - said:

“I love it here. How can you not love San Francisco? It’s, like, FREE AIR CONDITIONING!”

I’m planning on launching my own salsa company next month because, you know, a marriage, two kids, mortuary school, training for a triathlon in August and another one in September, a half marathon in October, a convention and writing a book? Totally not enough chaos for my over-caffeinated ass.

No, I need more stimulation. Also, I need money to fund all the stuff I’ve already signed up for and all the stuff I have yet to do: like cage-diving with great whites. Because I’m not leaving this world until I’ve found my way into a shark cage even if it means saving for a couple of years because yikes people, have you seen the price tag on that little adventure?

Anyway, I figure what better way to generate some cash than to start up a little side-gig doing something I love to do and would do and already do regardless of whether I’m being paid to do it or not?

To this end I’ve checked out tomato suppliers, gathered jars, learned how to can, experimented with growing a bunch of my own stuff and armed myself with some fancy accountin’ book-learnin’. I’m even opening an online store.

The only thing missing is label art, but I haven’t been too concerned because for once my dedication to ambivalence has given way to certainty and I know EXACTLY what I want. I have a mental picture of the perfect label to complement my new company’s name and I have no doubt that once I put it all together I’ll be able to take over the world one tortilla chip at a time.

Plan? Meet monkey wrench.

Enter my boundless lack of creativity. I’ve never been able to draw. My kids look at me sideways if I so much as eyeball a crayon. Forget software, I can’t even name a single program for illustrating much less one. In short, I’m having a hell of a time getting what’s in my head onto a flash drive so it can be printed on a sticker that can be slapped on a jar.

Until someone sent me this:

Which contains almost exactly what I was looking for in this:

Don’t get me wrong. I still have no clue how I’m going to make the changes I want before getting this onto something as useful as a label. Still, I now have my skeleton dog safely stowed in a file on my desktop and every so often I’ll whip him out so that I can stare at him admiringly in between yelling at my paint program for not being Adobe Illustrator. And yes, I had to google “illustrations software” to come up with the name of that program.

If you are a runner, how often have you done this?

It’s Saturday morning. You throw back the sheets, grab a yogurt and juice before pulling on a pair of shorts, applying BodyGlide and filling up your water pack. Tie on your running shoes and hightail it out the door. Today’s a long run. You could gone anywhere between ninety minutes and four hours.

No keys. No ID. No cash. No cell phone.

That’s what this woman did last Saturday.

This is Nancy Cooper of Cary, North Carolina. She is a 34 year old mother of two in training for a half marathon. She went out for a long run last Saturday and hasn’t been seen since.

Like the majority of us who run are prone to do, she left her home wearing less than two pounds of clothing and carrying nothing that would help her in the event of an emergency. Her husband was familiar with her favorite trails but confesses he wasn’t informed of her exact route that morning. Now the only thing he can do is cooperate with police, the national guard and post developments on nancycooper.blogspot.com in an effort to find his missing wife.

As always, it takes an unfortunate event like this for us - and I include myself in that statement - to begin discussing safety on the run. If my running readers are anything like me or the people I run with around here then there are a bunch of us whose photo may end up on the front page of our local papers next to the sentence, “Last seen wearing a white T-shirt, black running shorts and grey running shoes.”

So let’s discuss this. I’ll go first with my suggestions since it’s my blog and I hope that my readers who are runners will then chime in with their own suggestions:

#1 - Let people know where you are. Telling someone where you are is a good thing. Showing them where you are is even better. Programs such as Gmap pedometer make it easy to plot a run and leave the window open on the home computer until you return, just in case your whereabouts become an issue.

Also, don’t think that being single and childless means that you have to forego being accounted for. Before I was a married mom my dad would insist that I call him before every run and let him know which route I was taking. Though he was unfamiliar with the city I was living in it always made him feel better knowing that if something happened he had solid locations in the event I didn’t call him back when I returned from my run.

The best part about Gmap? You can e-mail it to the person you’ve entrusted to keep track of you.

#2 - Road ID. Yeah, most of our clothes don’t have pockets and carrying a housekey - much less a license - is a pain in the ass.

Still, it’s hard to argue the importance of identification in the event that something happens to you. I discovered this the hard way when I bonked during a distance event and found myself on all fours vomiting into the grass. (See #3: Self Rescue)

I was disoriented and shaky and only made it to the finish line when a girlfriend of mine - noting my face-downedness - marched my heaving butt to the finish line under her watchful gaze. But what would have happened if someone I knew hadn’t come along?

While most distance events will have roving medics on bikes patrolling the course, the same is not true of our training runs. Also, while we runners often pride ourselves on taking care of each other and being helpful to runners in distress, that offer of assistance isn’t going to be worth a whole lot if you’re a diabetic experiencing insulin shock and your Asics-wearing good Samaritan is trying to force nothing but water down your gullet.

Medic alert bracelets are an excellent start but they don’t do much for those of us without pre-diagnosed medical issues. The bonking incident is what spurred me to purchase a RoadID. Road IDs are simple metal tags that can be worn on your shoes, ankles, or wrists with your name, emergency contact and other pertinent info engraved right into the metal.

* Remember to have someone else’s cell phone engraved into the metal because having your own number isn’t going to do you a hell of a lot of good if you’re the one who is snake-bit, passed out, or otherwise incapacitated.

#3 - Self-Rescue. Self-rescue was a term I heard a lot when I was obtaining my dive certification and means, basically, that when you undertake a certain activity you should be prepared to cope with unforeseen circumstances on your own because help may never come.

I believe that this is an idea applicable to running as well.

How do we participate in self-rescue? By letting people know exactly where we are and when. By wearing identification. But also by taking care of ourselves before an accident even occurs:

- Hydrate. The bonking incident I described above could have been prevented if I had simply worn my CamelBak (which was, incidentally, sitting in the trunk of my car at the finish line.) My decision to leave it behind (to save weight) was a stupid and irresponsible rookie move that cost my friend the new PR she was seeking.

Runners tackling distances greater than a few miles should always take water/Gatorade and Gu with them every single time. For me, anything over ten miles puts me into an effort level that requires readily available hydration. Plus, as mileage increases so does your distance from home-base and the potential for serious trouble. Prepare accordingly.

- Know your limits. Don’t head out for a ten mile run in the midday heat if your previous running experience consists of half hour stints on the treadmill at the gym. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen someone hauled off a course by medics because they had not properly trained and had no business being there in the first place.

- Buddy up. When possible, run with someone else. If you can’t find a reliable training partner then at least run in well-populated areas where help will be immediately available should something happen.

- Sunscreen, hat, sunglasses. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to stave off heat exhaustion with a few simple precautions.

#4 - You’ll never, no matter how fast you are, be able to outrun a mountain lion. There were a couple years back in the nineties when it seemed like you couldn’t turn the television on without hearing about some yuppie asshole who got himself eaten while running. Here’s a tip: if your favorite running spot is shaping up to be an all-you-can-eat buffet for the local fauna then it’s time to pick a new running spot.

In other words, maintain a reasonable awareness of the inherent risks of your fave runs. Mountain lions can pick you off in El Dorado Hills, sleeper waves can get you at Ocean Beach, and the heat will follow you just about everywhere else. Consider the conditions in which you are running and plan accordingly.

Now I’ve had my say, what say you?

My family and I have been on vacation. Or more like a “staycation” since our time away from home wasn’t exactly far from home.

Still, my online presence has been next to nill and I have been neither posting nor visiting other blogs which, I realize, makes me A Very Bad Person And Flaky Blogger and really? After such prolonged neglect who could blame my laptop if it decided to break up with me and move on to a more dedicated end user who would caress it with soft kisses and a tender upgrade to Windows Vista? Not I.

But I’m back now and boy, I have to say that after several days of choking on smoke and ash from wildfires in Monterey, Big Sur, Watsonville and Santa Cruz it sure was refreshing to return to the Sacramento area and find that it too was a charred and smoke-filled bowl of Hell.

…and I’ll bet a $20 Starbucks giftcard that every televangelist in America is gleefully proclaiming that these wildfires are proof that God is still in the smiting business and legalizing gay marriage is as good a reason as any for him to convert every Californian’s home to ash.

At any rate, I’m back. But not that back since I am going to have to further neglect my laptop while I complete a huge project for my summer accounting class and if the words “summer accounting class” didn’t cause whatever was in your hands to fall to the ground and shatter while you crossed yourself and said a Hail Mary for me then you are a black-hearted and soulless being beyond salvation.

Also, in case you’re wondering, that top photo is a rather large jellyfish that my husband and I found washed up on the beach in Marina last week. I’d love to say that I picked it up and relived my glory days by starting a jellyfish fight with my husband using that hamburger-sized monster but I’d be lying.

Nah, I was feeling rather kind that day so I picked up this little half-dollar-sized jobber and hucked it at him instead. 

Jellyfish fights… good times!

Around eight tonight I shimmied into my favorite jog skort and went for a run through Watsonville - an act which I realize now is an open invitation to every migrant worker on the central coast to catcall the bloody hell out of my blonde ass.

Thanks to my evening jaunt about town I now know sixteen ways to say sit on my face in Spanish. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with being invited to sit on someone’s face, I suppose. I would just prefer the proposition be made over a candlelight dinner and not, say, by a bunch of short dudes swilling Budweiser and plugging quarters into jukeboxes that only play that annoying Mexican polka-sounding music.

Then again, I suppose I should just be grateful that I was wearing my iPod. Otherwise the relatively innocent propositions aren’t the only phrases that might have been introduced to my already colorful repertoire.

Ok, so yeah the blogosphere will be rife with Father’s Day posts and still I feel the need to throw in my own two cents.

So happy Father’s Day to my husband, who has spent the last eight years being a dad to this one:

Before I go on I’d like to have a word about step-parents. I met my now-husband when I was a rather baffled single mom with a four month old baby and an ex with little interest in parenting (he had taken off with another woman when I was pregnant and only returned a week prior to my son’s birth to interrupt an adoption I had set up).

My now-husband did not shy away from me. He did  not shy away from my baby boy. He did not shy away from a tiny screaming, diaper-wearing human that he had no biological or moral obligation to support.

Rather, he jumped right in with both feet and has been a fierce parent and provider to our son ever since. He’s earned the right to refer to the boy as “his son” a million times over. His first act while we were dating was to baby-proof his apartment. His second was to start an education IRA for the boy. We were married when my son was eighteen months old and he has been a loving parent to him ever since.

My husband is the reason why - if you happen to know me - I get a little irritated when people refer to biological parents as their “real” parents. I think it’s backward to give credit to people based only on their biological contribution to your existence. Your “real” parent is the man or woman who changed your diapers, fed you at midnight, kissed owies, taught you to ride a bike and spanked your sorry ass when you used a rusty nail to carve a family portrait into the side of the station wagon. Many of us are fortunate to have biological parents who double as our “real” parents. Still, there are numerous children out there who, through a fabulous stroke of luck, are being raised by wonderfully caring parents who had no biological obligation to take on the burdens presented by parenthood.

In my mind, my son hit the parenthood lottery with my husband. Happy Father’s Day to my husband and all you dads out  there who are raising step and adopted children. You are the “real” dad.

My daughter, on the other hand, is the perpetrator of a grand experiment in which she is trying to see just how far she can push my husband and I without actually being sold to gypsies:

Also! Happy Father’s Day to my own father, who is spending this one at Club Afghanistan at Uncle Sam’s bequest:

This is my dad’s favorite photo. Ever.

It was taken by a vatican photographer in 1988 after my dad’s unit flew the pope and his mitre-wearing entourage from Colorado to Carmel, California during a papal visit to the states. Upon arrival in California the pope asked to meet with every person involved in his travel so that he could thank them individually. To this day my dad still brags that Pope John Paul II requested an audience with him.

Happy Father’s Day dad. Try not to eat too many MREs will ya? We’re having a budget crisis over here.

(And yeah. I hit the parent lottery by having you as a dad too.)

I’m sick with something. I’m not sure what bug hit me but it’s chewing at my throat and making every muscle fiber in my body sore and achy. I’m pretty sure the damned thing is gunning for my sense of humor as well because I just puked on my husband’s side of the bed and I haven’t been able to muster the energy to properly savor that moment the way I should.

At any rate, I can barely sit up so I’m just going to post photos and try to come up with something to go along with them. Sound good?

Alright, here goes: 

Ok, so let me explain; yesterday was our new housekeeper’s first day (yes, I am quite the spoiled bitch) and while I was taking a bath last night I noticed that not only did she manage to get the hard water stains out of the toilets and sinks, the woman made spotless our soap savers. 

I have no idea if she scrubbed them or soaked them or dipped them in a substance that will eventually eat my face off but who really cares, really so long as they look good. After seeing this I proceeded to throw the contents of my refrigerator on the floor before letting my children lick the tile clean. Just because I could.

This carving was a gift from a friend of mine who was gracious enough not to kick me out of her house when I ran rough-shod over her southern sensibilities:

It’s called “Love of Learning”. Isn’t she adorable what with her books and no face? And totally unexpected since just two days prior I had the audacity to ask my southern girlfriend about her rib recipe which, apparently, is grounds for justifiable homicide where she’s from. Even when the southerner in question is a white woman who threw off enough of her old-fashioned southern upbringing to marry a black man.

Went to Tahoe the other day: 

There was no real reason for the trip other than the fact I was about to kill and eat my offpsring if I spent one more day cooped up with them. In the end the pile of gold kugrands required to fill my gas tank was worth getting out of town for.

I helped out with a jog-a-thon at my kids’ school: 

Quite a few parents turned out, which was nice since it meant we didn’t have to jump through hoops for permission to beat students when they got out of line.

I finished up finals, but not before I snapped a few photos inside the Winchester Mystery Trailer: 

You know what I love best about this photo? The fact that right next to the infant casket is a Costco-sized package of granola bars and a sign admonishing people to pay fifty cents before taking one.

I received straight A’s by the way. Not that anyone really cares, but I figure what’s the point of getting straight A’s if you can’t lord it over everyone? Oh, and there’s more funeral education photos here.

I’ve been growing stuff: 

It’s large and loud and orange and therefore I am totally in love with it.

Ever see a wind farm?  

This is a photo of the wind farm on the Altamont Pass taken during the drive between Sacramento and Santa Cruz.

A friend of mine made the trip up to Sacramento to participate in the Sac State Alumni recital:

He’s an incredibly talented musician and I can’t think of anything smart to say about him although trust me - I’ve really tried to come up with something. Since we grew up together I try to tread lightly since he’s the only one who can produce photographic evidence that I’m a total tard and not at all as cool as I try to portray myself on this blog. He leaves for Kansas next month to earn his doctorate.

…and since this post doesn’t have nearly enough photos to destroy the bandwidth of most of my readers, how about another photo of the Winchester Mystery Trailer?

Yup. That just about wraps it up. Sorry about the loading time.

I have a theory about political bloggers:

99% of all political bloggers are knee-jerk histrionics who have given as much critical consideration to their political ideals as the average person uses to select toilet paper.

As if the first one weren’t enough, I have a second theory about political bloggers:

Most of your Pavlovian political zealots - the ones who salivate at the mere mention of Hillary or Dubya - don’t give a wit about the political ideals that they claim to care so much about. Rather, the blogosphere seems to have attracted the latest generation of drama queens who have masked their need to be the properly outraged center of attention in the guise of being “principled”.

Translation for those of you who don’t speak Stephanese: most political bloggers act like hormonal fourteen-year-old girls on the hunt for something to cry over.

To be sure, there are definitely a few gems out there:

- MW of DWSUWF is dedicated political blogger with whom I disagree on many points but who has - quite admirably in this environment - managed to keep a dispassionate and intelligent blog that is a joy to read.

- Another blogger whose political posting consists mainly of where the political meets the personal is James, who has a set large enough to regularly engage his readers in conversations about topics that make most people do that creepy rocking back-and-forth thing while holding their knees to their chest and sucking their thumb.

- Kevin and Kyle are two fellow Catholics who consistently post through the minefields of politics and faith with respect and class and - if I were them - are justifiably annoyed about now that their track record of taste and virtue has now been marred by an affiliation with this blog.

…and despite the fact that I’m forgetting a couple, my quest for intelligent life in the realm of political blogging has been a frustrating experience indeed.

Just for once I’d like to read a post by a liberal who concedes that an immigration free-for-all is a disastrous idea that encourages the cruel exploitation of people who enter this country without the benefit of being documented workers with requisite rights as human beings.

Similarly, I would do backflips if I could find a conservative who would concede that the human flow from Mexico consists mainly of folks who bust their ass doing jobs that we’ve become too silly and full of ourselves to dirty our hands with and not - as some would have you believe - seething hordes of brown people intent on bankrupting our welfare system.

I’d love to hear a rational and constitutionally sound argument devoid of ad hominem appeal supporting a continued ban on gay marriage.

(That last part was a joke because a constitutionally sound argument supporting a continued ban on gay marriage does not exist.)

I’d like, before I die, to hear my fellow Christians acknowledge the benefits afforded us by secular government.

I would positively faint if I ever heard an atheist admit that the U.S. is hardly a theocracy.

It would be nice if for once a political blogger could form an original thought instead of relying on jackass idealogues like Ann Coulter or Al Franken to do it for them.

On a personal note, I would really appreciate it if in the course of a political discussion people would use logic to argue with me based on the points I’ve made instead of a) throwing up their hands and invoking my home state as evidence that I’m some pinko-commie nutjob or b) using my Central Valley digs as proof that I’m some right wing extremist who’s only a small cache of weapons away from being the next Randy Weaver.

I’d also like for everyone I know in both the real and virtual worlds to conference and decide once and for all whether they’re going to brand me a conservative or a liberal because I’m sick of receiving political e-mail forwards and if there is any way to cut that crap in half I’d be mighty obliged.

…or perhaps this post should be titled, “This is the post that results when my readers e-mail to tell me what they want, what they really, really, want.”

First of all, let’s give a hand to Barrister Mobutu Sese-Seko. I, for one, truly appreciate him taking time out of his horrendously busy schedule bilking old people for their pension checks to help tie up a few loose ends around here concerning Those Hit Generating Schemes That Shall Not Be Named. So thank you Barrister, may you have long life and health in whatever third world hellhole you are practicing your art of scammery from.

Secondly! This is where I answer this guy’s and this other guy’s questions about the tuberculosis. Yes, I was really, truly, actually exposed to TB. I’m taking pills for it until September (originally my doc recommended nine months but recently reduced my sentence to six.) No alcohol, processed cheeses, raw sushi, aspirin, hookers, Malawi nationals or anything more fun than red flavored Jell-O until I’m done with the meds.

You read that right. No alcohol. And it’s only April. Don’t come near me or I’ll stomp on your toes.

Thirdly, I can’t be the only participant in the 2008 Northern California Invitational Celebrity Death Prognostication Challenge who was absolutely pissed to read this.

Fourthly, I would like to publicly thank Blondie for sending me a link for a local freelance job writing web copy for a Davis-based company that makes eco-friendly burial containers. I submitted my resume last week and if I somehow manage to land the contract I’m sooo sending you a bottle of wine.

Fifthly, I would like to whore Jay out. Again. Just because he whores me out so much and I fear a breach in our informal mutual pimping agreement might result in bad juju.

Sixthly, I would like to thank Cranky Prof for being so cranky. And professorial. I love you. And your blog.

Seventhly, an update on the funeral sciences program. Life has been busy on the back forty of American River College where the FSE headquarters are housed in the Winchester Mystery Trailer. We’ve quizzed. We’ve tested. We’ve grilled our professors for gory details about stuff like purge, skin slip, and anal leakage. We’ve covered areas of the funeral business in deliciously gruesome detail that makes the Faces of Death people look like amateurs.

…we’ve even moved bodies around. Ok, not real bodies… fake ones. Like the mortician’s equivalent to those plastic dummies that you practice CPR on.

Classes have been great, especially considering that I’ve spent the entire semester sitting next to the Men of Mortuaries calendar boy Mr. February. No joke.

So anyway, Mr. February is an apprentice embalmer in San Francisco and has more good death industry stories than you could shake a dismembered arm at. Oh, and he also does a mean cha-cha with our program’s permanent resident, Senor Esqueleto:

Need I say more? This semester’s been the best time I’ve had in school since starting Kindergarten as a wee Death Lass.