So how much weight have you gained since blogging?

Me? A whopping 30 pounds and I’m tired of walking around with all that extra tonnage. So what am I doing to lose?

• Walking two miles most weekdays and eight on weekends.
• Eating a healthy breakfast and lunch, with fruit for snacks.
• Having a very light dinner.
• Eliminating the Frisbee-sized iced cinnamon bun I used to have twice a week. OK, make that three times.

I’ve had good success during the first month. And rather than mark my weight loss milestones by a straight number of pounds, I’ve decided to mark them by the number of Stinkys I’ve lost. Stinky, my beautiful, sweet kitty, weighs 5.2 pounds.

My progress so far:

And to the guy who asked me last week if I was losing weight, you have no idea how close I got to jumping in your lap and giving you a big sloppy kiss. Thank you!

So you know how you get so busy and you need underwear, but never have time to drive to Wal-mart and you hate it there anyway because you have to park five miles from the store, then walk three more to find anything, so you hope that they sell them in your grocery store, only to be disappointed that they just sell socks and you think it’d be a fine idea to sell underwear right next to the toothpaste because they’re a convenience item, really, and it’s not like you have to try them on or anything?

Oh. Just me?

Well, in case you ever find yourself too busy to shop for underpants, the next best place to get them is Amazon. That’s right. I’m buying my underwear at Amazon now. The world’s biggest book seller and purveyor of panties.

Incidentally, if you’re not a teenaged twig, Amazon sells Hanes Women’s Comfort Soft Low-Rise Briefs.

They are described on the website as “…… appealing to a broad range of women – from professionals to part-time employees to homemakers. The woman who purchases Hanes Her Way Cotton underwear is typically 25-55, married with children, values pretty things and comfort.”

See how they don’t even call them granny panties?

I love you, Amazon. Screw you, Wal-mart.

We have a winner for the What’s That Wednesday contest. The object in question is a brake for the turntable on a 103-year-old Victrola gramophone.

After some serious consideration, I decided to award two people because they each guessed so close to perfect, just a little bit off on the function of the piece.

Mo, via Babs Beetle, nailed the gramophone part and so that gets her the win. However, she said the metal piece is “the switch that makes it spin.” Although the piece does affect spin, it’s not what makes it spin. The hand crank on the side of the unit does that.

Jen of Redhead Ranting further guessed that “it’s the speed control on a gramophone.” There is a “speed regulator” dial on the device, but the brake obviously controls speed (to stop spinning while changing records), so I’m giving second prize to Jen.

Congratulations, ladies! I’ll be in touch with you both soon.

Here are more pictures of the Victrola. It belongs to my brother-in-law’s family and it was such a treat to hear old records being played on it. We all find it incredible that it’s in such good condition for its age. You can see how well it’s been loved!

Manufacturer’s stamp (inside the lid):

Again, here is the What’s That object (the turntable brake):

Here is the arm that holds the record needle:

Receptacles for needles:

The speed regulator dial:

Here is the piece in its entirety. Records stand on edge at the left. There are angled slats inside the right half of the unit. The doors in front of them act as crude but effective volume control. The hand crank is barely visible, also on the right:

Here’s a one-minute video so you can hear it in action!

UPDATE: See additional photo below!

Like always, I hope that today’s What’s That item is hard enough to make your head hurt, but not so hard that no one gets it.

How to play:

1. The photo shows a small portion of a larger object.

2. First person to guess the object wins a Junk Drawer magnet and your choice of bacon bandaids, chocolate chip cookie soap or toasted Post-it notes.

Item Info:

1. This item is rather old.

2. It is not mine.

3. It’s very cool.

What’s that?

Since no one got it yet, here’s another picture. Same part of the object, different angle, more revealed.

Does this help?

In other Junk Drawer news:

In June I gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal about the loud Sun Chips bag. A marketing reporter found my blog post and video about the ear-splitting noise the 100% compostable bags make.

The article finally appeared yesterday. I’m quoted in the third to last paragraph. They also used a snippet of my bag demonstration 25 seconds into their video (click the Video tab at the top of the article).

Now go stare at the picture above for an hour and drop your guess in the drawer.

Go on! Get going!

This morning at work I took an elevator to a lab I’m responsible for maintaining. Two service workers from a copier rental place got on-board with me.

They asked if I worked in the building.

“Yep. What’cha need?”

“We’re here to pick up a copier in Room 61.”

“Oh, that’s great. I’m headed down to Room 51 myself. I’ll take you to the room.”

We arrived at the pickup location and I unlocked the door for them. Inside was a giant copier on wheels, the kind that can do every task imaginable in addition to copying.

The guys checked the serial number to make sure it was the right copier and it was.

They thanked me for letting them in the room and asked if I wouldn’t mind signing the pickup form.

“Sure. No problem.”

I signed and dated the form and then because the guy wanted to send one to the department who requested the pickup and keep one for himself, he asked me this:

“Do you have a copier I can use?”

Hand to God.

I have lost my writing mojo. I checked the couch cushions, the garage, under my car seats and in that desk drawer that always sticks. It mustn’t be here.

If anyone finds it, please send me an email and I’ll come pick it up. Or, if you live too far, I’ll pay for postage. It does not have to go in a bubble wrap lined envelope, but it does have to be a large envelope. Say, 12″ by 15.5″.

Oh, and if you see it, be nice to it on approach. Use a calm voice so it doesn’t escape. Maybe offer it some bacon. It responds to “Mojo,” “Chops,” or when it’s feeling down, “Serviceable Writing Ability.”

This is the kind of post you’ll get until it’s found. So please search everywhere. Start with your junk drawers. It’s possible my mojo went in search of others because nothing is happening in mine.

Thank you.

1.  Knuckle-dragging cavewoman.

2.  Thrown from horse.

3.  Baby with a too-full diaper.

4.  Drunken Quasimodo.

5.  In high heels with one heel missing.

6.  Defective weeble.

7.  Angry Frankenstein.

8.  Eighty-year-old man with two hip replacements.

9.  Newborn elephant’s first steps.

10. Woodstock Joe Cocker.

If you see Valerie, the woman who suggested we do this fun activity during our first-ever blogger meet-up, throw a brick at her head for me, will ya?

Our other blogger guest, Meleah Rebeccah, fared way better than me. She golfed the next day. Golfed.

I hate everybody who can move right now.

So remember when I was interviewed about Windy on NPR’s All Things Considered program? Yeah, good times baby!

Well, what you don’t know is the day the Windy interview aired, I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal for an entirely different story. I was pinching myself all over because I couldn’t believe my good fortune.

That morning I received an email from a marketing reporter, asking if she could interview me about the YouTube video I made about the very loud Sun Chips bag, a bag that’s so loud husbands can’t eat out of it near a sleeping baby or their wives will kill them dead.

The reporter found my video online and was putting together a story about the bags and all the people who can’t stand them.

She took some vitals from me, my name, town and blog information and then asked me some questions.

When did you realize the bag was so loud?

As soon as I got it home and opened it. My husband and I irritated each other for a week. You can hear it on different floors of the house.

How do you feel about Frito-Lay’s efforts to improve the environment by making 100% compostable bags?

Great, except I’ll never buy them again. I thought of writing the Frito-Lay people and telling them that they’re losing sales because the bag’s so loud.

[This turned out to be untrue, because I recently purchased a bag, but only to give to a colleague so he could hear for himself how loud they were. When I drove to work with it and went over some bumps, the bag made a noise. Just sitting there, it made a noise. God.]

Do you write companies about products you dislike?

Oh, yes. In fact, I just wrote the Glad Wrap people to tell them they need to help consumers find the end of a new roll. The thin plastic is clear and sometimes you can’t see or feel where the end of it is. They can fix the problem by tinting the end of the roll in some color or attaching a little pull tab.

I went on to say that companies should hire me as a product tester to let them know what will work and what won’t. I would make an excellent focus group participant and they should want me full-time because I would never shut up.

Do you hate a lot of things?

Oh, no! I’m in love with my Dyson vacuum cleaner. In a really unhealthy way. I told her that vacuuming was a joy now, and despite the high cost, it’s worth every penny and she should go buy one. Like right now.

We touched on a couple other things and then the interview was over. She thanked me for my time and said the article would appear soon, but it’s been six weeks and still no story. I think I scared her.

What a loss. Just think of all the people who won’t get the chance to leave comments on the WSJ site, saying how certifiably mental I am.

So that leaves just you guys to tell me so on the blog. But I’m a lovable certifiable, right?

It’s really a wonder I can function at all.

Yesterday I had to get gas for the lawn mower and while pumping the gas was uneventful, driving it home in the trunk of my car caused a three-alarm panic attack.

As soon as I pulled out of the gas station, I started imagining every possible scenario that would cause the gas container to spontaneously explode and render me extra crispy.

Is the cap on tightly enough? Is the cap on too tightly? Will it fall over and spill? Will the fumes knock me out?

Will the heat of the day boil it and make it explode? Can you survive an explosion if it’s at the rear of the car and not in the front?

An ambulance pulled out in front of me and I thought surely, if my car explodes, the driver will see it and render aid quickly. So I followed him as long as possible.

I released my seat belt so in case my car blew up, I could get out fast.

I had a headache when I pulled in the driveway, but at least I hadn’t been blown to bits. Is there anyone reading this who doesn’t think it’s a bad idea for me to be anywhere near gasoline?

Today brought more car challenges.

I used my husband Dave’s car to run errands so I could get used to driving it. I plan to take a road trip next Saturday and wanted to make sure I was comfortable with all the bells and whistles his car has that mine doesn’t.

Before I even got in it, I worried that I would set off the alarm and not know how to turn it off. Of course, because I’m me, this happened the minute I left the first store.

I did what every noob does with keyless entry cars and pressed ALL the buttons at once to make the alarm stop.

Unbeknownst to me, one of those buttons is the trunk latch release.

When I got home, I noticed the TRUNK OPEN light on and almost chastised Dave for letting me drive his car with the trunk open. An hour later, I realized it was me who opened it with the button ten miles ago. By the way, I try to blame all my shortcomings on my husband. Just doin’ my job.

I took another trip to a store later in the day and when I was about to come home, it started to pour. OK, now I have to figure out where the headlight controls are, as well as the wipers.

Wipers, no problem.

Headlights? WTF.

I had to call Dave to ask where the controls were and let me tell you, they are in a very stupid place on a Ford Fusion, way over to the side and low, not even on the steering wheel. Who does that?

I set my GPS to take me home (even though I was only 15 miles away) and all goes swimmingly well until I inexplicably ignored the GPS lady’s instructions and got off one expressway for another.

“Recalculating, recalculating,” she says.

I miss two opportunities to turn around and the GPS lady says “Dumbass! Dumbass!”

Ignoring her, I stayed on the wrong road and added 12 miles to my 15 mile trip home.

I am exhausted. Is it any wonder?

More importantly, why does my husband — who knows me inside out — think he could just tell me I’ll be fine jumping in his car and going?

I’m never fine. I’m a panic-stricken, instruction-needing, GPS-is-not-enough train wreck.

I think I need assisted living. Not an old folks home. Just an assistant. For living.

That shriek you heard this afternoon? That was me! I got my voodoo doll! An authentic New Orleans voodoo doll complete with instructions.

Isn’t it the coolest-looking voodoo doll you ever saw?! Oh, it’s the only voodoo doll you ever saw? Me too!

Because I’m a giver, I’m going to let one lucky reader benefit first. All you have to do is drop your wish in the comments and I will randomly pick one winner and see what I can conjure up for you.

Now remember, I told you I would never use the doll for bad, only for good. So none of that “world peace” or “fix the BP oil well” nonsense. Never gonna happen.

If you’re curious, here’s what the instruction paper said I have to do:

This doll is handmade by local practitioners and is “all-purpose.” In New Orleans, we use dolls as focusing tools to bring positive changes into our lives. First, get a personal item (worn clothing, hair or nail clippings, etc.) from yourself or another individual you wish to affect and pin it to the doll (Please be careful not to stick yourself!)

During the waxing moon phase, use the white pin when drawing positive influences to yourself (love, prosperity, etc.) and during the waning moon phase, use the black pin when sending negative influences away from yourself (oppressive people, bad energy, habits, etc.) Remember your karma & try to stay positive.

Now, while holding the doll, in your mind, picture the result you desire (creative visualization). For example, if you need a car, see yourself driving that car. If it’s love you seek, picture yourself with the type of person you desire, doing things you enjoy. You get the idea!

Do these focusing exercises daily, for our specific purpose, until your result is achieved. Remember, true magick (sic) takes time and effort, so don’t give up. Whenever possible, do your magick outdoors to get the power of Mother Nature on your side. You may also add candles, oils, drawings and any other personal items you feel will assist you to best creatively visualize your goal.

When your needs have been met, be sure to thank God, the Universe, the Spirits, or yourself (depending on your perspective) for the Blessings you’ve received. Always have an “attitude of gratitude.” We thank you for your patronage and wish you good luck & wisdom in all of your magickal pursuits!

—-

Isn’t this fun?! I can’t wait to try my voodoo doll out on someone. I promise I’ll try very hard to grant your wish.

* Please don’t send me your hair or nail clippings. I’ll make do without. Really. Don’t send parts of you.

Get wishing!

This is my dearly departed cat, Calvin. RIP, buddy.

Calvin was really a dog in cat’s clothing. He would rather be outside, terrorizing birds, squirrels and anything else that dared come into the yard, than sit on my lap getting nice chin skritches. My husband Dave would put him on a leash and take him for walks like you would a dog. He practically barked.

Calvin would also rather take off a few fingers than allow you to pet him on the head like you can do easily with most cats. I don’t know how or why he got so angry, but towards the end of his life, I stopped trying to touch him.

He was the Hannibal Lector of the cat world. In fact, whenever he went to the vet, they had to muzzle him. That requirement came after the time he bit straight through the rubber glove of a vet’s assistant and made the guy bleed. A big, red warning note was stamped on the top of his medical chart.

We were told the next step would be to medicate him before he was allowed back for any kind of visit. It was that or he would be blacklisted.

By then, I’d been fed up with many of his behaviors, not the least of which was him peeing on the carpets in almost every room of our house. I spent many a Saturday shampooing and disinfecting the rugs.

Were we lousy cat parents? No. Calvin was just one bad ass cat who showed his general displeasure by spraying everywhere.

But it’s not like we didn’t try to make him a happy, normal cat. We did.

How?

We took him to a cat therapist.

That’s right.

We plunked down $75/hour to have a cat shrink tell us what we could do to make Calvin the sweet ‘ol cat he was supposed to be.

We knew how insane the idea was, but we did it anyway out of desperation.

Of course, we laughed to ourselves the entire time we sat in the therapist’s office, realizing how ludicrous it was to spend that kind of money trying to straighten out the plum-sized brain of an animal who couldn’t understand English, much less what brought him to see a doctor who studied at a real school and knew the difference between all the classifications in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

So, yeah. The visit.

We brought him into the office in his carrier and the nice doctor talked to us about Calvin’s bad behaviors for a while. Then she said she would try to coax him out of his carrier and “get him comfortable.”

She opened the carrier door, stuck her hand inside the hole and he bit her. Duh.

That ended the hands-on portion of the program.

She talked more about what we could do to enhance his calm and then the kitty equivalent of Prozac came up. Prozac. For cats. Um. No.

Since I was mostly concerned with his spraying the inside of my house instead of using his litter box, she said “Oh, that’s an easy fix. Put out more boxes. One in every room.”

Now you’re talkin’, sister!

I wouldn’t have thought it would work, but she was absolutely right. Multiple boxes all but put an end to Calvin’s spraying and I could reclaim my weekends as my own again. No more rug shampooing.

Was the kitty shrink a success? Not really. Calvin remained an ornery bastard until the day he died. I’d venture to say he might have been happier that way. Cranky was his thing.

If you ever took your pet to a shrink, I would love to hear how your experience went.

No? Then at least you’ll have a story to tell your friends. You now know someone who actually did and admitted it.

I had a very distressing visit to the dentist yesterday. Not for the usual reasons. I didn’t have any painful work done, only a cleaning.

Simple, right?

The visit turned distressing the minute I realized my dentist replaced his usual swirly water spit bowl thingy with a rudimentary funnel-and-hose device in which to deposit my mouth gunk after the cleaning.

“No fair, dude,” I complain. “What is that thing? I don’t like it already.”

“Sorry,” he says. “We replaced the bowl with this to save about a thousand dollars.”

Crap.

So the cleaning is uneventful, I am praised for my mad flossing skills and we get to the part where I’m going to need to spit.

I’m stressing because I see the little cup of water to sip from and now I have to figure out how to aim everything in that small funnel with graceful precision.

I sip, I swish and then the dentist grabs the funnel & hose contraption and gestures for me to use it.

Maybe it’s because I needed an instruction manual with kindergarten-type pictures, maybe it’s because my mouth is bigger than the circumference of a grapefruit, or maybe it’s because I only thought I’d had novocain, but when I went to spit I did it super stupendously wrong.

The spit fell out of my mouth, onto my paper bib, onto my pants and onto the arm of the chair I was sitting in.

And then the dentist, in his most professional dentisty voice possible, said “You got some on the floor, too.”

Not one drop of it went into the funnel.

That is why dentists should never ever screw with the swirly water bowl thingy!!!

It’s his fault they needed a mop after I left.

God.

While searching online for voodoo dolls at lunch today, a co-worker friend walked into my cubicle with a laptop she wanted me to configure.

We exchanged pleasantries, I unboxed the laptop and then casually mentioned I’m looking for a voodoo doll. Specifically, one from New Orleans, where you can get authentic ones blessed by a real voodoo practitioner.

Discriminating, I am.

I go on to explain that I don’t want to spend too much money on my doll. Wanting a voodoo doll is a little insane, but spending fifty bucks plus shipping is insanier.

So my friend, who totally gets me and doesn’t think it’s odd I am in want of a modestly-priced voodoo doll, grabbed her cell phone and got tapping.

She texted a friend of hers who happens to be visiting New Orleans this week.

She told her I was in the market for a voodoo doll and could she please shop for one.

The friend, finding the request not the least bit disturbing, says she can and asks Looking for anything special?

No, just keep it under $20.

Male or female?

Unisex.

Done.

I love that I have friends who have friends who can acquire voodoo dolls at a moment’s notice. I love that I had such luck with timing. I love the technology that made it possible to grant my wish in two minutes flat.

But I especially love that I have readers who won’t ask me why I want a voodoo doll.

Don’t worry. Hand to God, I’ll only use it for good. Unless you accuse me of witchcraft or something. Then you’ll get a pin in your eye.

The good thing about carrying a purse is that I have everything I need in a day whenever I need it. The bad thing is that I have everything I need in a day whenever I need it. It’s freaking heavy.

Granted, I’m not one of those suitcase purse kinds of women. That’s just crazy. Nor am I like the Sherpa woman I work with who walks into the office a few times a week carrying no less than four kinds of bundles: her laptop case, her regular purse, her knitting materials bag and usually some books. She’s a librarian Sherpa, so I can make a concession for the books.

That’s not me. I need exactly one bag and I’m thoroughly annoyed if I have to grab a bigger sack to put the purse and other things in. I want to be a minimalist, like my husband, who gets to walk around earth carrying a five ounce wallet.

Anyway, I’ve got a bag big enough to hold my wallet, a digital camera, my sunglasses case and about a thousand envelopes with what I think are important papers in them, but never find the time to actually check. At least they’re all rubber-banded together so that I look some measure less disorganized when I go hunting for something.

Even though I don’t think I have too many items in my purse, the weight of it all means that everything is laying at the bottom of it and I still need to dig around. Since I have nothing unnecessary in my purse, this annoys me to no end.

Tonight when I went to the vet’s to pick up medicine for one of my cats, I got in line behind a woman who had her purse slung over her shoulder and in that purse sat a dog.

Cute little thing. Really little. About the size of the turkey sandwich I had for lunch today.

The woman was trying to check out, pay her bill and be on her way. But she just could not get to her wallet. Dig, dig, dig. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

She says “I don’t know why I can never get at anything in here!”

I’ll tell you why.

Because there’s a dog in your purse.

So tell me, ladies, do you hate your purse? Love your purse? Do you wish you could walk around with only a wallet? Do you wish you could carry a teeny-tiny dog around in it, ignoring the snickers of people like me who think that’s hysterical?

Yesterday my husband and I attended a birthday party for my brother-in-law. I was disappointed to find out from other guests that I missed the part of the show where my husband tried to walk through a patio door without first making sure it was, like, open. Smooth move, Dave.

Though he’s not so great with walking through glass, he does have a knack for screen doors.

The year: 1992

The place: Our townhouse

The event: Escaped cat

One morning before work, I had enough time to let one of our cats out into the backyard, which overlooked a wooded area and a small creek. I put Calvin in his harness and tied the leash to a fence.

From the breakfast nook I could keep an eye on him, but when I had my back turned for a split second, he managed to wriggle his way out of the harness and escape to God knows where.

Not prone to too much panic, as this had happened before, I grabbed a can of cat food and went outside to open it up in the hopes that Calvin would hear a familiar yummy sound and come running back from wherever he ventured off.

He didn’t.

I began calling his name, pleading more desperately with each shout.

Still nothing.

I ran inside for a jingle bell toy he liked and returned outside to ring it in an annoyed, I-mean-business kind of way.

Time ticked with no response.

Looking over the bank, down to the creek, I saw something orange and white moving about the brush. It’s him! Good that I found him, bad to see how inaccessible he was. The hill dropped at a 45 degree angle.

Now I panicked.

So what’s a girl to do? I ran back to the house and yelled through the screen door “Dave!!! Calvin’s in the woods!!! I can’t get him!!!”

A formerly-sleeping Dave bolted out of bed, stumbled downstairs and shot through the door to begin search and rescue.

And by “through the door,” I mean through the door.

Like a gorilla in the mist, my beast of a husband took out the entire screen door, right off the tracks.

Huh. That’s sort of unfortunate.

Without skipping a beat, he handed me the door, said simply “Here. Hold this,” and went off to retrieve Calvin.

And so there I stood, regretting having turned a peaceful morning into a three-ring circus, holding an ineffective jingle bell toy and a giant, slightly-bent patio door that would never again close properly.

Awesome.