Playing him when he’s not home is one thing and usually he’s not home. He’s only here once a week and during that time, he’s busy so there is no time for games. Last night, however, things were a bit different. He had some free time so he made his move. Then he came into the office and sat next to me. He was laughing, and not in a good way. I’ve never watched any of those horror movies like Nightmare on Elm Street or the Halloween movies but I imagine, if the villain in those movies did laugh, it would sound a lot like Steve’s laughter that evening.

I ignored him. He sat there staring at his iPhone, looking for what would be his next move. “Hurry up and make your move. I know what I’m going to do next.”

“What if I block you so you can’t do whatever you have planned?”

That didn’t deter him. His evil chuckle echoed throughout the house. “Oh, you can’t block me. I have a great move.” He showed his father what he had planned. Then he started harassing me to take my turn so he could put down his word.

“I don’t work well under pressure. Go away.“ He pestered me a bit longer but finally wandered off, although not before telling me how he was beating one of his friends by 300 points.

I couldn’t even complain to Theresa. All she had to say was, “I don’t want to hear a word. I told you not to play him.”

Well at least he’s not beating me by 300 points, although I’m still not sure what his next move is and I haven’t gone yet…

Naturally, the first thing I did was googled the video. It is pretty funny and I figured I’d share it with you. It is not G rated so if there are kids in the room – you’ve been warned. Honey badger doesn’t watch his language.

The reason the honey badger video came to mind today was because of a conversation I had yesterday. I was telling a friend that, as I’m getting older, I’m finding I care less and less about other people’s opinions. I think by the time I hit my 80s I’ll be just like the honey badger. Hopefully, except for the non-stop eating part. Otherwise I might act like a honey badger but I’ll look like a hippopotamus. That would be pretty bad.

But I’m telling ya, I’m going to be just like that honey badger when I’m 80. I’m not going to care about anything. What? Bitten by a cobra (or a back stabbing phony)? No problem. It will only keep me down for a minute or two. Stung by a swarm of bees (picture gossiping old biddies)? No worries. I just won’t care. Nope, nothing can stop the Honey Monkling.

God willing, in 2 years I will be the mother of a priest. I have no doubt my son will make a fantastic priest. I have no doubt he would make an equally fantastic husband and father. As much as I long for grandchildren, I also know he could not be fantastic at either the priesthood or married life if he were to embrace both.

But don’t take my word for it. Read what Richard Cipolla has to say about it.

What day would I be required to repeat over and over until I got it right? Now there’s a tough question. If it was that clear, Bill Murray would have gotten it by the second or third time around, wouldn’t he have? My conclusion, therefore, is that others would have a way easier time of telling me what I need to do right. Come to think of it, most people are good at telling others what to do; what needs to be ‘fixed’ in their lives. Much to the dismay of everyone around me, I have resisted all attempts to fix me.

There are some people whose sole purpose in life seems to be to fix other people. Now I’m not talking about professionals who we actually pay money to help fix us, like a therapist. Nor am I talking about parents because half the fun of being a parent is being able to boss around my kids. (Yeah, that’s not working out too well for me.) I’m talking about the busybody down the block. “Don’t you think you should plant a different bush there?” Then there are the so very helpful friends. “If you expect someone to be interested enough to date you, you’re going to have to dress differently and wear makeup.”

Thank you but I don’t need to be fixed. Sure there are things that need changing but I’d rather figure them out on my own and fix them by myself. I’m weird like that.

But what if I were to choose my own do-over day? What day would I want to change?

On the surface, it seems like an easy question but if you think about it, it really isn’t. Everything we’ve experienced makes us who we are. If we change one day, we have no idea how it will ripple out and affect everything else.

Sure I’d like to redo the day my engagement ring was stolen. I’d like to make sure I never, ever left my ring out in plain sight just to be plucked up by a ‘friend.’ But what if I still had it and what if I were walking home from someplace late at night and a desperate druggie saw it and tried to mug me to get it? What if I said, “Yeah, you just try to take it.” (Not a completely unlikely thing for me to say.) And then he pulled out a gun and killed me. That ring stealing ‘friend’ might have saved my life. Okay, it might not be likely to happen but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

I guess it turns out that it’s a good thing no one has unlocked the secret to time travel, after all. I think once around is quite enough. I don’t want to repeat my day.

I would have something intelligent to say if only I weren’t sleep deprived yet again. I got so little sleep; I’m amazed my fingers even know how to type. I’m surprised I even remember the English language. They do say a lack of sleep affects your memory and your cognitive abilities.

I know. I’ll do a little picture story today. Back when we first moved into the neighborhood, we had a tornado touch down. This is what our house looked like:

Anyone who has seen my house will be thinking I’m showing them a picture of someone else’s house. Yes, when we moved in, our house was little. And green. And had a big tree fall into the driveway.

It wasn’t even our tree. It belonged to our neighbors:

This was not the only tree uprooted in our neighborhood. In a 3 mile radius, I’d say there was an uprooted tree on virtually every other block. My brother in-law worked about a mile and a half from his home at the time. It took him over an hour to drive home because of all the downed trees.

There you have it – a little story about our tornado. And now I think I will get ready for bed.

I guess there are times when everyone will lie. Husbands pretty much have to say no when their wives ask if they look fat. That’s purely self preservation – for both the husband and wife; possibly the marriage, as well.

I don’t, however, get the people who lie just for the sake of lying, without a real reason for doing so.

“We can’t attend that party tonight because I have to work late,’ the husband might say.

“Oh, we can’t tell them that. That’s not a good excuse.” The wife pauses for a minute. “I will tell them the hot water heater burst and we’re going to have to spend the entire night cleaning up the water and then we’ll have to wait for a plumber to come and replace it.”

For me, if I were to make up stories like that, I’d forget five minutes later. I can’t even remember the truth, much less stuff that’s made up. Then, of course, there’s the fact that if I were to attempt to lie, my face would give it away. That’s why I could never play poker.

Aside from pathological liars, I guess the most common reason people lie is because they think they need to in order to soften a blow. A boss would never say, “I’m firing you because you’re a horrible, lazy worker.” Okay, I guess if you really dislike the person, you might say that but I’ve never known that to happen in the business world. Usually it’s something like, “Management is forcing us to cut costs and we need to let a few people go.”

The thing is I’ve found people who are not pathological liars normally don’t put a lot of careful thought into their lies. The lies just pop out. There’s a danger in that – other facts or other things you say are likely to contradict the lie you just told. Then all you’ve done is hurt and angered the person you thought you were being kind to by lying.

They should offer tutorials on proper lying. I’m sure you can find some psychopath who would be glad to tutor in the art of lying. Or, hey, I can teach it. Try your lie out on me. I have a really good B.S. detector. I can spot the tiniest inconsistency. If you can get the lie past me, your odds are good to go undetected.

Short of that, if you are going to lie, chart it out. With some careful planning, you, too, can become a proficient liar.

We’ve all sent emails we regret sending: that nasty email to your ex-wife, the sarcastic one to your manager, the one where you poured your heart out about your crush on the married guy in the office. Sure your ex-wife or manager may deserve every nasty, sarcastic word you said. Sure it’s true that you have a crush on a married man. That’s not the point. Often those are thoughts better left unsaid. Nothing good can come from it and if only you hadn’t had a drink or two, you never would have sent those emails.

Here’s where my nifty little invention comes in. Never again will you have to worry about sending an email you wish you could take back. Eliminate the danger of tipsy typing. That’s right – stamp out tipsy typing forever! Here is the invention that will save you future embarrassment and possibly even keep you from losing your job, your marriage and your respect – the breathalyzer keyboard lock!

All this can be yours for the price of just $1999. But wait, there’s more. Order right now and we’ll double your order. That’s right, two for the price of one! Cash only. Order now while supplies last.

Clearly I have been seeing way too many commercials on late night TV.

Before playing CastleCraft aka CastleCrack, I had never played with anyone online. My opponents have always been my family, my computer or my own attempts to beat my high score. Then I discovered that I could play and lose against people who didn’t even know me. It sounded like a good idea to me. Losing anonymously didn’t seem quite so bad.

Recently I made the mistake of playing Words With Friends with my son. Like I said: online or at a casino, the luck goes out the window. He is kicking my butt. As a matter of fact, in all the WWF games I’m currently in – I think I’m only ahead in one. (Sorry PDX!) If anyone else out there feels like jumping on the “Beat Monkling” bandwagon, you should be able to figure out my username pretty easily.

Then there are the games in that Game Center thing Apple has with their apps. I had no idea what that was. I didn’t know I could play others in Scrabble, Backgammon or Carcassonne. It wasn’t until one of my friends from another game suggested to me that we play something on there. That was when I discovered there is a Monkling thief. It’s true. Someone else stole that name. I was forced to come up with a substitute so I switched out the ‘o’ for a zero.

Ah, yes. Nothing like a whole bunch of new things to keep me from doing the things I should be doing. On the other hand, if I were to play all day who would know?

Oops. I hit the “Publish” button before I was ready. Well, I was ready but that’s because I completely lost my train of thought. Sometimes that happens.

I had wanted to go into what my son told me when I complained he was killing me at Words With Friends. I said something about having awful letters on my rack. “Well, go for whatever you can but you’re forgetting an element of the game. Sure part of it is to get as many points as you can but you also want to block the other person so they can’t score a lot of points.”

I guess I am not competitive enough or not out for blood or don’t know how to play offense. It would never occur to me to play to block the other person. I’m not interested in making the game difficult for others, just in doing well myself and, hopefully, winning. Even back in that Castlecraft realm where I was number 1. Now I could have taken every single forest and mountain out there. I could have destroyed everyone else. But that’s not how I roll. I did attack players who were bullies or pest but the weak ones? My goal was to help them. I knew I could kick everyone’s butt. They knew it as well. I didn’t need to prove anything. Hmmm….. maybe that’s why I’m losing all those games?

His reply was, “Do you know you asked me that already?”

“If I did, I don’t remember the answer.”

The boy sighs and answers me again, as though it is a great burden to do so.

“You know – if I get senile or develop Alzheimer’s when I get old, you’re going to have to deal with a lot worse.”

“I won’t come visit you.”

“You’ll have to. You’ll be a priest and priests are supposed to visit the sick and infirm. It’s in the rule book.” I figured I had him with that one.

“With my luck, you won’t get senile. You like doing puzzles and playing games. They say that prevents plaque from building up on the brain and stops you from getting senile.” I didn’t have a reply for that one so I just shot him a dirty look. I’m good at that. I’ve had lots of practice. He just laughed at me. Then he says, “Come to think of it, if you do get senile, it might be fun. I’ll come to visit you and tell you I’m the pope. Then you’ll probably try to kick me out.”

“Nah, I’d believe you were the pope and I’d be all, ‘Oh, can I kiss your ring?’”

Then I shared with him my theory about old people. I don’t think most people change drastically when they get old. Old age just accentuates what was already there. I think it’s a combination of them losing their internal censor as they age and them thinking, “What the heck. I can say whatever I want. I’m old now!”

Get someone drunk and I think you’ll have a pretty good idea of how they’ll be when they’re old. If they’re an angry drunk, they will probably be cranky when they get old. They will yell at children playing. They will complain that dinner is 5 minutes late.

If they flirt with anyone passing by, they’ll end up being a dirty old man (or woman).

Me? I’ll probably just be funnier when I get old. Or, if not, at least in my own mind, I will be.

Lorraine was the best mail carrier we ever had. I always knew it was her day off, not because I saw a substitute but because on that day, the mail was messed up. We all missed her when she left us, even Nicky. We had a long line of horrible mail carriers. And then Bob came along. Finally we had someone to equal Lorraine.

Then one day, Bob went well beyond the scope of his job. He could have just delivered the mail and went on his merry way but that’s not how he rolls. One day he noticed our elderly neighbor hadn’t been taking in her mail. He told me and another neighbor and we, in turn, called the police. Our neighbor had fallen and broken her hip. If Bob had simply done his job, no one would have known to check on her. As it was, several days had passed since she first fell. Bob saved her life.

I think I hit the jackpot with mail carriers – first a dog lover and then a hero. My UPS guy, though? Well that’s another story entirely. As a matter of fact, I believe I’ve blogged about him. Five years later, he’s still throwing packages but he’s added a new trick. If the box is really heavy and he can’t throw it, he puts it in front of my door. Directly in front. As in, I cannot open my front door. I think Bob needs to teach him a few things.

I’m a big fan of superheroes. There’s just something about those muscular bodies running around in tights, saving the world that I enjoy. The superhero concept must appeal to a vast majority of people or its allure would not have endured over the centuries. Who wouldn’t wish that Superman was real, watching over Gotham?

The show didn’t get very good reviews but I still went in with an open mind. The reviews were right. Mostly. First let me say certain aspects of it were amazing. The set, the costumes and especially the acrobatics were fantastic. I’m thinking the kids sitting in the balcony got a big thrill when Spiderman swung up there.

The bad? Well the actors did the best they could with what they had but the plot – could have been better, especially the first half. I won’t even talk about one plot element that was ridiculous & unnecessary. And the music? Really Bono? That was the best you could do? There was only one good song in the lot.

In spite of all that, when the cast came out at the end, they got a standing ovation. In my mind, I always thought that was reserved for performances that were truly outstanding. These days it seems every single show ends with a standing ovation. Every single one. Hasn’t that made it kind of meaningless?

It was still a fun evening out. We don’t seem to get out nearly often enough. I think that has to change.

(With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Okay, it’s not really a sonnet. Not even close. Nor is it all that great as a piece of poetry but hey, what do you expect from a sleep-deprived zombie?