TWISTED susan

2012-01-29T21:34:00.000-05:00

Susan's daughter responded to the question put forth by her mother of can't anyone in this house do some laundry? by getting up to do some laundry.

What a good girl.

She put dark clothes into the machine, filled the tub with water and took a plastic bottle down from the shelf.

Is this what I use, mom?

She was holding the bleach.

Susan clutched at her heart then traded it for the detergent.

2012-01-26T00:53:00.000-05:00

Susan baked a tofu cheesecake using a recipe she's held onto for a few years. It was a pretty easy recipe, just honey, pineapple juice, lemon, unflavored gelatin and a brick of soybean curd.

She even made her own crust which she doesn't normally bother with.

Everything was humming along except that the batter tasted like tofu.
It's one of those flavors that you don't even realize exist until you taste it again, and then you remember.

Tofu.

Susan added a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract (rum and vanilla beans, go make your own), three tablespoons of sugar and felt she was in good shape. She poured it over the crust & stuck it in the fridge to set.

The next day Susan served the bean curd pie to her dinner guests without revealing the secret ingredient then requested their assessment. The flavor was lemony, they could taste the pineapple but the consistency was a little more congealed than they cared for. It reminded them of flan, which gave Susan an idea for individual honey drizzled tofu-custards.

Cousin Lisa will be the guinea pig next weekend.

2012-01-21T11:36:00.003-05:00

Susan now has a new standard for paper towels in her house. Gone are the days when she'd purchase the cheapest ones, also noted to be the scratchiest ones. She didn't pay attention to to paper towels because who really cares what one grabs to clean the evidence of a sick dog?
That was until Susan was felled by a thick soft thunderbolt called Viva.

How did she live so long not caring about paper towels?

Well, that's not entirely true, it's more accurate to say that she had no brand preference. She hates designs on her paper towels and she double hates that new choose a size where she can tear off less than she needs.

Happily, everything is her world is brand new now that she has found a home in the plush embrace of Viva paper towels.

Kirsty Scared of Robyn

2012-01-20T00:00:00.003-05:00

2012-01-17T22:51:00.000-05:00

Susan's dog got beaned on the head with a can of clam sauce.

It happened when Susan opened the tall cabinet over the stove, ducked when the can came at her and watched it bounce off Lucy's head.

The can sustained a large dent but Lucy's cement hard pit bull head was undamaged. Thank goodness.

2012-01-16T23:30:00.001-05:00

Susan made a minestrone soup for dinner using the final few vegetables wheezing in the back of her fridge.

She encouraged the family to pile on the Parmesan to distract them from noticing that dinner was doomed. The kids were fooled but the husband eyeballed her from across the table with a look that conveyed why are you feeding this to me?

Why not?

2012-01-16T00:00:00.005-05:00

Susan was in an expensive grocery store looking in the gluten free aisle.

$7.99 for a 5.5 ounce bag of chocolate covered pretzels, really?

Nonetheless, she wasn't purchasing them for herself so she put them in the basket and took another ten minutes thoughtfully considering what else she would need then set off toward the sign which read Formaggio.

Susan walked past all manner of gorgeous packaged foods, fresh seafood laid out on tables, beautiful breads and baked goods, but she didn't have the time to stop. She had come directly from work & had a limited amount of time to run her errand then get home ahead of her company.

The Formaggio sign lied, there was only yogurt & assorted dairy items. She started walking away in search of the cheese when she passed an employee in a white apron.

Where is the cheese? she asked and was directed back to where the cheese wasn't. She more specifically asked the employee if there was a cheese department?

Oh, I thought you wanted like, shredded cheese in a bag the employee said and pointed her toward the other end of the store.

So now Susan knows how she must appear as she walks through an upscale marketplace, like someone in search of bagged cheese.

Super.

2012-01-11T00:00:00.003-05:00

Another January and Susan's going cold turkey with the sugar.
Well, not one hundred percent cold turkey, she'll still eat cereal, peanut butter and whatever she bakes, she just won't do it to excess. But, the dark chocolate has already been removed from her little office fridge and she's started telling people not to feed her sweets anymore.

2012-01-09T00:00:00.005-05:00

Susan had an epiphany on the first day of the new year, if anyone can remember that far back.

Susan was in cousin Lisa's kitchen peeling turnips and squash for soup with a vegetable peeler so f*cking magnificent it was like a piece of surgical equipment.

The oversized soft grip handle provided excellent leverage and control and the peeler easily removed the hard skin of the rounded winter vegetables in a way that mesmerized Susan.

The vegetable peeler got into her brain and started a chain reaction of thoughts leading her to the conclusion that she was just as deserving of a beautiful vegetable peeler as anyone! Susan's own vegetable peeler is a decade old and of basic construction, it has never occurred to her to trade up.

Susan thought about a few of the lower end items in her kitchen such as the plastic mat on which she chops her vegetables and the utensil drawer organizer she made out of shoebox tops. It's very practical but looks like it was made out of shoebox tops.

Often Susan likes to make do with what she has on hand instead of spending money, particularly if it's very utilitarian. That's how her dining room seating ended up green and purple. But this vegetable peeler went to the core of her self worth. She peels vegetables on a regular basis and why shouldn't she have a f*cking magnificent peeler to aid her in that drudgery? Or a beautiful cutting board on which to chop her vegetables, which she does even more often? Or a bamboo drawer organizer for a drawer that she opens more often than she peels or chops vegetables?

She should have these things, and as soon as her current state of being broke ends she will!

It's almost HAPPY New Year, Everybody!

2011-12-31T00:00:00.029-05:00

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Click here

And here!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2011-12-30T11:39:00.006-05:00

Susan’s computer decided to work in one more F*ck you, Susan! before the end of the year.

OMG, Susan can’t wait till the husband gets paid and buys her a new laptop.

Can’t wait.

She’s going to throw that 1.5 year old m*therf*cker into the toilet then pee on it.

Until that magical time arrives, let Susan use an entirely different computer and catch you up on all she’s been doing through the holiday season.

Susan looked forward to watching each of her children perform in their school concert, although she had difficulty remembering which instrument her daughter played. Initially she told an interested party that it was the violin. Then she told a different interested party that it was the flute. However, the instrument that her daughter has been practicing and playing for two years is actually the clarinet.

It was much easier for Susan to remember that her son is in the chorus because she loves him more.

Twice that week Susan sat in the high school auditorium stuffed with wretchedly dressed parents. There were sweat pants, mens’ tee shirts, sweatshirts and ball caps a plenty…on the moms.
The women of Susan’s neighborhood now all dress as if they came directly from blacktopping the interstate.

On Christmas morning as is their custom, Susan’s family met at the local diner for breakfast with her little sister’s family, minus one brother in law. Susan lost count of the number of families who wore their pajamas out to eat eggs in public, including one college aged girl who wore fleece footie pajamas.

Alas, there is no longer a dress code in Susan’s neighborhood.

Later, Susan rolled out a twenty pound pan of butternut squash, carmelized onion and spinach lasagna using a recipe that she found in the November issue of Cooking Light. Her little sister and nieces, all good sports, excitedly exclaimed ‘I’ll try it!’

She sobbed real tears as she scraped the remaining 19.75 pounds into the garbage an hour later.

During Susan’s computer black-out period she also met a favorite girlfriend for dinner, smeared moldy chapstick on her lips, failed to reorganize her pantry, planted an amaryllis bulb and stayed home sick one day.

2011-12-19T23:53:00.001-05:00

Thanks

Nick Holmes!

2011-12-13T00:00:00.003-05:00

After Susan spent an hour on Sunday evening listening to the dreamy and wonderful Nigella, she fell asleep all warm and giddy imagining herself as one of Nigella's guests. Twinkly Christmas lights, bubbly prosecco & cranberry cocktails and impossibly rich gravy swirled through her head all night spinning her round and round until the alarm woke her up Monday morning.

Brrrr, it's cold in Susan's house.

She layed in bed long enough to put her behind schedule then resigned herself to the routine of her morning. She got ready for work, packed up the *brownies she made for the staff, and took her cup of coffee from the husband on the way out the door.

In the car she drove through the grey of her neighborhood, looking at the sky and the trees and the garbage cans and the kids waiting for the bus. She pressed all the buttons on the radio. She wasn't in the mood for music, she wanted to listen to people talking so she stopped at NPR.

At that precise moment Steve Inskeep was beginning an interview on Morning Edition and welcomed Nigella Lawson.
CLICK HERE!

*Susan made peanut butter and jelly brownies by swirling microwaved peanut butter and raspberry jelly through prepared brownie mix.

2011-12-12T00:00:00.001-05:00

Lest anyone forget, Susan would like to remind you that she is
SMITTEN
with
NIGELLA!

2011-12-11T15:40:00.003-05:00

Susan and her daughter enjoyed a lazy weekend by themselves. The daughter finished up her Advent calendar, folding and decoratively numbering 25 little construction paper boxes to be filled with candy. However, in the time it took her to complete this overdue Xmas craft the family had ransacked the candy leaving only a few dark chocolate kisses.

They made some pretty unspectacular gingerbread cookies causing Susan to reconsider going back to this recipe and just keep the lubricating ingredient a secret. Much better was Pam's big linzer cookie.

Falafel dinner was provided by Kelly's blog. The daughter is now a falafel eater, even opting to use the yogurt sauce over ranch dressing while Susan was impressed with her own substitution of peanut butter for tahini.

Yes, it's obvious that there's nothing much going on at Susan's house, but she doesn't mind. She likes spending a weekend in her stretchy pants doing very little. She knows folks who are currently wrestling with terrible, awful losses, for whom the solace of a boring weekend is light years away.

Susan may even treat herself later on and bust out the ironing board.

2011-12-04T01:00:00.001-05:00

Susan was in the midst of deep cleaning the bathroom when she took a break to have a bowl of cereal.

During this time the son came home, headed for the bathroom and called out 'What's wrong with the bathroom? It's all messed up!'

Obviously Susan's family is so used to the filthy bathroom that they can't recognize when it's being cleaned.

2011-12-02T00:00:00.001-05:00

I grabbed this from Patti's blog, go over & say hello.

HAPPY December, everybody!

2011-12-01T00:00:00.082-05:00

Now that Susan's free of the constraints of NaBloPoMo she'd like to jump right in and tell you about the gurgling misery that has become her stomach.

A week of takeout punctuated by wedding food at one end, bridal shower food at the other and Thanksgiving in the middle along with two batches of homemade pumpkin seed candy really f*cked her up. Seeds and nuts are like plutonium to Susan's digestive ability.

Get her some vegetables fast.

John Singer Sargent

2011-11-30T00:00:00.000-05:00

Here is Sargent's El Jaleo which hangs in the wonderful Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

The lovely Madame X hangs in Susan's tip top supreme all star favorite place in the world, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Chupa Chups

2011-11-29T00:00:00.002-05:00

Susan's got a favorite lollipop; Chupa Chups.

She can't always find them, so she stocks up when she does.

Susan favors the slow release of sugar that hard candy provides & keeps a stash of suckables in the bottom of her bag, in her car, on her desk and in a back up bag locked in her drawer. She's happy to share, so come on by & maybe you'll score some little espresso candies, or Werther's hard caramels (nothing sticky for Susan's delicate dental situation) or mints with chocolate in the middle.

She doesn't generally share the Chupa Chups.

Walking Dead

2011-11-28T00:21:00.000-05:00

The last zombie killed on Sunday night looked eerily like Susan's daughter.

Chipotle Peppers

2011-11-27T00:00:00.001-05:00

Behold the object of Susan's undying adoration!

Tiger Lily Cafe

2011-11-26T00:00:00.000-05:00

Susan and the daughter like this little vegetarian cafe so much that they willingly overlook the unfriendly counter help whenever they eat there.

Footnote: Earlier this year Wild Bill's daughter declared Susan's carrot-ginger soup "better than Tiger Lily's".

Milk!

2011-11-25T00:00:00.001-05:00

SUSAN LOVES MILK but didn't appreciate when her mother would mix it with powdered milk, warm it on the stove & dump it over her cereal.
OMG, yuk mom.

HAPPY Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T00:00:00.007-05:00

Scary Sounds Machine

2011-11-23T00:00:00.001-05:00

Susan loves her scary sounds machine, press a button and you might hear a woman screaming, a bloke being strangled, a creaky casket lid, crashing thunder, a laughing lunatic, the psycho knife, a howling ghost...

Fresca

2011-11-22T00:00:00.003-05:00

Susan's heart leaps for joy whenever she sees this in a vending machine.
Grapefruit soda is muy fresca!

Slaughterhouse Five

2011-11-21T00:00:00.003-05:00

'Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim,' said the loudspeaker.
'Any questions?'

Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last:
'Why me?'

'That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?'

'Yes.' Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three lady-bugs embedded in it.

'Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.'

Stonehenge

2011-11-20T00:00:00.004-05:00

Stonehenge is Susan's favorite surprisingly anticlimactic neolithic monument.

Twenty five years ago Susan and her little sister took a lovely side trip from London to visit Stonehenge.

They learned two interesting things that day; Stonehenge is set in the middle of rolling farmland and surrounded by sheep blueberries.

Thanks for coming and have a safe drive home!

Red Sweetie

2011-11-19T00:00:00.001-05:00

Susan's palate leans toward cartoon penguins.

Unobstructed View of the Water

2011-11-18T00:00:00.001-05:00

It's a real treat anytime Susan gets to go over the Robert Moses Bridge because for 2 miles she gets a clear view of the Great South Bay through every window.

There's also a set of black tire marks that go from the left lane over to the right and bounce off the guard rail that she likes to look for.

Stargazer

2011-11-17T00:00:00.001-05:00

The Stargazer is Susan's favorite accessible six story sculpture which she's lucky enough to pass every time she goes out to visit Cousins Andy & Melissa.

Chili Cheese Dogs

2011-11-16T00:00:00.001-05:00

Susan has no fear of eating a chili cheese dog purchased from a truck on the side of the road, or from a carnival, or even from some guy in an alley although hers never look this good.

Blood On The Tracks

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-05:00

Susan's been listening to this moody record since 1976.

2011-11-14T00:00:00.002-05:00

This is Susan's newly discovered favorite silly painting by Roy Lichtenstein that was just auctioned for $43,202,500.

Isn't it fabulous?

Susan could absolutely imagine this hanging on her living room wall, making her smile every time she saw it. Or setting a line of chairs in before it and inviting friends over to sit and look.

However, she thinks forty three million dollars is a bit much for a silly painting.

2011-11-13T00:00:00.113-05:00

Susan would like to take a day off from her Nablopomo inspired favorites and catch up with her bloggy pals because she misses them, and she misses keeping them informed of the mundane minutiae of her life.

First, she'd like to send all her animal lovers over to Maggie's blog to read this post.

Next, she feels like she's on an ice floe floating toward the Department of Labor website. It appears that Susan's best is not cutting it at Acme Sweatshop.

Of late she has fantasized about being unemployed; greeting her medium-large sized children when they get home in the afternoon, working through all the recipes in her binder, throwing sticks in the yard for Lucy to fetch, reading a book, keeping the bathroom clean.

Anyway, she'll keep on keepin' on and see what happens.

Islip Art Museum

2011-11-12T00:00:00.002-05:00

The Islip Art Museum is Susan's favorite little local, imaginative, always at the edge of being broke, hundred plus year old house which used to be an orphanage and is now a four room art museum.

Santa Clara Pottery

2011-11-11T00:00:00.004-05:00

Susan fell in love with Santa Clara pottery while on her honeymoon.

The pottery is made from one long coil of clay which is wound into shape then smoothed over and carved. The designs are specific to the potter's family and reach back for generations. If Susan remembers correctly the clay starts out as red and turns black during the firing when the pot is placed in a pit and covered with dung.

Susan and the husband went to the Santa Clara pueblo in New Mexico and bought a pot from the person who made it. Afterwards they drove over to Abiquiu to see where Georgia O'Keeffe used to live but her house was surrounded by an adobe wall too high to even peek over. Instead, Susan settled for admiring the view that Miss O'Keeffe used to paint then left.

The BIG Duck

2011-11-10T00:00:00.012-05:00

The Big Duck is Susan's favorite local example of novelty architecture.

Doctors Without Borders

2011-11-09T00:00:00.040-05:00

One of Susan's favorite charities is Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). It provides independent, impartial assistance in more than 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters. These folks go out to help the neediest of the needy and sometimes get kidnapped or killed.

Please consider sending Doctors Without Borders some cash because they'll send you a BIG map of the world so you can finally see where everything is.

The Onion

2011-11-08T00:00:00.001-05:00

The Onion is Susan's fave fake newspaper, but she doesn't like to read it online, she prefers to fold one up and put in her bag for later. Susan tries to score it anytime she's in NYC, sometimes that means giving a homeless guy five bucks for his.

Burberry Rain Boots

2011-11-07T00:00:00.004-05:00

Susan favorite utilitarian footwear are her Burberry rain boots. They may start the day as part of a stylish outfit and end up slogging through the backyard while Susan picks up dog sh*t.
And when they are left out on the front steps all summer Susan just hoses out the spiders and beetles and sets them upside down to dry.

Livingetc

2011-11-06T00:00:00.007-04:00

Susan has already received the December issue of her favorite magazine. It's BIG, glossy, colorful and filled with all sorts of ideas that Susan can replicate on the cheap.
The magazine is so much better than the website & she never has to hunt down her magazine then chase away whichever family member is using it.

Cousin Lisa

2011-11-05T00:00:00.001-04:00

Susan's current favorite picture of Cousin Lisa and the husband.

The Old North Church

2011-11-04T00:00:00.002-04:00

Susan's family loves Boston and Susan really loves the Old North Church.

Euphoria

2011-11-03T00:00:00.002-04:00

Susan is a BIG fan of Calvin Klein fragrances, this is the one she's been wearing for almost two years.
She's very loyal to her smells.
Don't think that sniffing it at the perfume counter is going to be enough to pick up the smoky undertones. Give it a spritz and smell like Susan for the afternoon.

The Endurance

2011-11-02T00:00:00.002-04:00

Do you know this story? OMG, it's fantastic and unbelievable and comes with pictures!

Read about the book here.

The Menaced Assassin

2011-11-01T00:00:00.001-04:00

This is one of Susan's favorite paintings, you can see it at the MoMA, which is not really one of Susan's favorite museums although lots of people seem to love it.

Susan is going to fulfill the obligation to provide a post a day by revealing thirty of her favorite things. She's not quite sure of what they all will be, and they may be as simple as oatmeal, but she'll weed 'em out.

Day one is done.

2011-10-31T00:00:00.001-04:00

Susan prepared to begin her month of daily BLAHging by drinking coffee and thinking up gimmicky stuff to post for when she can't come up with anything better. She also ate three pieces of pie and watched the wind bend the tree branches in her yard as far as they could go then snap back into place.

Susan thinks it's worth noting that she made her first online purchase for Xmas.

2011-10-25T00:30:00.002-04:00

Susan saw these rings in a magazine a few months back and felt the first rumblings of excitement. That ended when she looked at the website.

Very recently she found this on Etsy and the feeling came back.

However, Susan finds herself so attracted to this ring that she can’t stop thinking about it. Except when she’s thinking about the gold Etsy ring.

2011-10-22T16:20:00.001-04:00

Thank you all for suggesting that Susan's brief lapse of time and space is excusable, but she must respectfully disagree.

The 20th can be mistaken for the 21st and a Wednesday can feel like a Thursday but the very least that Susan expects of herself is to know which month it is. She had three weeks of October under her belt, why would she think that it was November?

She understands wanting to fast forward past Halloween, she likes the Day of the Dead motif but can't stand the endless interaction with the front door and the fake enthusiasm for her small neighbors' costumes.

Plus, doesn't November feel uniquely like the excitement of Thanksgiving mixed with the dread of Xmas and the monotonous anticipation of being able to kick another year to the curb?

Then comes the cold, inescapable, hopeless misery of January and February. Ugh.

March isn't much different from February, but at least one can say it's March. April is really the first month that isn't horrible, then it's smooth sailing through the spring and summer till the cold weather comes again.

God help us all.

2011-10-21T23:06:00.002-04:00

For a few minutes Susan thought that Thanksgiving was next week. It was odd that she didn't realize earlier how close Thanksgiving was, but she got excited about having next two extra days off. Susan ran through a quick mental checklist of everything she had to do; find out what Aunt Eileen wanted her to bring to dinner, get the old folks from the airport, prepare their subterranean guest room and cram a week's worth of work into three days. She moved a pile of office debris from her calendar and saw that it was still October.
OMG, what a dopey a**hole, of course it's still October.

2011-10-20T00:41:00.002-04:00

Is there something wrong with Susan for not caring about BlogHer and blogging events? She wouldn't mind increasing her modest fan base but she won't go out of her way to do so. She doesn't want to improve her BLAHg or advertise along the edges. She has immediately regretted signing up for everything she initially assessed to be a good idea but makes an exception each November for NaBloPoMo because she likes to punish herself with the Herculean task of writing a post a day.

The husband doesn't read Susan's BLAHg. It holds no value for him because it doesn't generate income. Can you believe that?
Even though she finds this ignorantly limited viewpoint frustrating it provides her with the freedom to say what she wants about him.
For instance; the husband likes to dress up like Liberace and dance like a butterfly.
It's true!

2011-10-18T00:04:00.001-04:00

Susan couldn't sleep last night.

She was in a rustic cabin in the Adirondacks without a television, internet access, cell phone service or even radio waves.

She had a few cocktails at a family wedding and crashed early, but her unconscious slumber ended sometime in the middle of the night while everyone else in the universe was asleep.

The creaky cabin was silent except for the sound of her family snoring. Lying on the rock hard mattress she was the most awake she'd ever been. Tossing to the left then turning to the right didn't help, she felt like a prisoner lying on a jailhouse bunk contemplating her crimes.

She got up and moved through the darkness in search of a book or newspaper or cereal box to read but found nothing to occupy her brain. In desperation she slipped outside to shiver in the rain and contemplate how many more hours till breakfast.
Too many.

2011-10-14T23:03:00.002-04:00

Susan took the day off to drive around with the husband and look at wedding bands. You may recall that she lost hers last year, if you don't then Susan won't hold it against you. It's unreasonable to think that everyone can remember everything.

Anyway, they got a late start because Susan & the husband have a recurring house guest who sat around all morning drinking coffee and talking. Susan used this time to stay in bed and watch Joseph Cotten look for Orson Welles.

Susan wants a ring that is similar to her original ring in that it's a thick band of yellow gold with colored stones and some amount of detailing. Well, that's not so much similar to the original as it is exactly like the original. But, she doesn't want the same ring even though it was perfect and she wishes she never lost it. That being said she's open to other options.
But, it has to be yellow gold and it has to be thick.
It may or may not have colored stones, she doesn't want diamonds.
She'd like it to look hand made, maybe even a bit rustic.
Or maybe totally modern.
She's not sure, she assumes she'll know it when she sees it.

They drove to a good shopping town with lots of stores and places to get coffee. Every store they went into made custom jewelry. They could make Susan whatever she wanted using the material and finish that she liked with the stones of her choosing. She could add detail or take it away. They'd make her a wax replica so that she could see just how it would look on her finger and work with her until she was happy. She could have a ring that was uniquely hers, imagine how special that would be!

Susan has zero interest in designing her own ring, she just wants to find something she likes and buy it. She doesn't do well with an limitless array of options and doesn't want to be responsible for figuring out what it should look like. She'll be happy to wear someone else's vision.

She ultimately stopped listening to the jewelers describing the endless possibilities available because she could only wonder how much will this cost? She doesn't need a two thousand dollar ring, she's been very happy to wear her twenty dollar silver ring from the craft fair. She'd just like to find something that's more appropriate as a wedding band and then marry the husband again with their kids in attendance.

2011-10-12T22:53:00.001-04:00

Susan's tired so she's just going to post a picture of her brother in law and call it a night.

2011-10-09T22:55:00.006-04:00

Susan and her daughter spent a lovely day together in the East Hampton cemetery. They took a pad of large sketch paper and a cookie tin filled with crayons that have been in use for the last thirteen years and did some grave rubbings.

East Hampton is a wonderful cemetery for this sort of thing, it’s got primitive headstones, soft grass, and is a very relaxing place to spend time. Susan doesn’t think much of East Hampton town however. Over the years all of the interesting little shops have been devoured by Tiffany, Coach and Juicy Couture, but the cemetery is reason enough to visit.

Susan is in love with old headstones and is always willing to walk through a cemetery to see some. One Veteran’s Day Susan, her little sister and their kids took a side trip to an upstate cemetery to visit an old pal from the neighborhood and spent time cleaning off all the veterans’ headstones. On another occasion Susan and her daughter spent an hour in a witheringly hot cemetery in Maine where they read the headstones of seven children who all expired over the course of a few months.

Sad stuff, but not today.

Happy Birthday, Wild Bill

2011-10-06T23:32:00.000-04:00

2011-10-05T01:22:00.002-04:00

Susan opened her laptop to find an e-mail from her son's Italian teacher. Wonderful!
No doubt she was writing to let Susan know how much she enjoys having the kid in her class.

Hmmm, that wasn't the case.

The most notable aspect of the communication, other than the son's collision course with failure, was that she was the first teacher to ever give Susan a heads up to anything. Honestly, the first.
Susan has always had to contact the teachers to talk about her kid, never the other way around.

Anyway, contrary to the way she was raised, Susan had a calm conversation with her non Italian speaking underachiever. They established that he would attend weekly extra help, study for all tests and quizzes and be plunged into a black pit of despair if he fell below a predetermined grade point.

2011-10-01T16:24:00.001-04:00

Susan misses Joe Strummer.

2011-09-27T00:03:00.006-04:00

Susan found this game in which you choose a $9 an hour job and then figure out how to get through a month of bills. She had the daughter play & then ridiculed her for buying health insurance and spending money on the family pet.
The kid is hopeless.

Over the weekend Susan spent an entire afternoon baking a fresh lime chiffon birthday cake for her little sister then made everyone insist that it was delicious. The margarita cake with tequila glaze was her first choice but it was inappropriate for both birthdays and children.

She's got her cake goal for next weekend.

2011-09-24T13:14:00.008-04:00

Susan has continued to comb fleas out of Lucy. It's just a few every other day, and the dog rarely scratches, but there's still more than 10 days to go before her next Frontline treatment.

Susan bathed Lucy in the marvelously fragrant all natural shampoo previously approved by cousin Lisa and now her hands smell like clove oil. When she's not huffing them inside a paper bag she's sticking them under the daughter's nose saying smell my hands.

Thanks to the change of seasons & a bit of muggy rain, the past week has been a bonanza of smells that Susan loves, other than stagnant water under her sink. All Susan's fave smells have to do with trees; pine trees, decaying trees, smoke from firewood and dirt.
Susan likes dirt.

Every day on her way to work Susan drives through a section of the pine barrens & past two pine prserves. Regardless of the weather she rolls her windows down and gives a nod to God for that perfect solitary pleasure.

Susan has memories going back to grade school attached to the fragrance of trees; class trips, summer vacations in a cousin's cabin (Hello cousin Kathleen), camping in her twenties and long Labor Day weekends in Seattle (Hello April and Lisa). There's nothing better than walking outside on a freezing winter night and smelling the smoke from a neighborhood of fireplaces.

Unrelated to either fleas or trees, if you want a treat go watch Susan's current favorite movie.

2011-09-22T00:58:00.001-04:00

Susan came home for the second day in a row to an awful smell in her house. She assumed it was a combination of closed windows, farts and the dog but soon suspected that was not the case.

Everyone in the house smelled the smell, except for the husband whose nose is for decoration only. Susan sniffed her way from room to room asking each member of her family if they knew what a dead mouse smelled like. No one knew.

Her nose led her to the space underneath the sink; ground zero. The smell made her stumble backward and drew her children in to yell ‘Ew, it SMELLS!’ Even the husband caught a whiff and came in to investigate.

A small leak from the new sink & faucet ended up as a tub of thick, cloudy, stagnant, stinky water. Susan handed off the disposal & cleanup to the husband and fled.

2011-09-21T23:25:00.000-04:00

Cousins Veronica, Susie, Lisa, Melissa, Caroline & Kathy.

2011-09-19T23:37:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend Susan completed her 17th year of being married to the same person which was commemorated by a dinner of Indian food and a movie. At the theatre Susan was given the senior citizen discount because she was standing too close to the husband. Later, she found twelve dollars on the floor.
It was a good anniversary.

2011-09-11T00:33:00.000-04:00

2011-09-06T23:09:00.001-04:00

Susan got new slang flashcards at the mall and she's teaching herself to talk cool like the inner city kids and rappers.

She already uses simple terms like down (in agreement, indicating willingness to participate), crew
(an intimate group of friends with whom one is most publicly associated) and aiight (often used as a generalized term of approval). She thinks chillax (to pass time in an unstructured, comfortable, stress-free manner, usually at a residence) sounds silly although many of her associates use it.

Right off the bat she can use jawn
(a substitute generic term for any person, place or thing for use when the actual word cannot be readily recalled or identified). Fresh to death (truly superlative especially as it relates to a condition of trendiness or fashion forwardness) might get some use, same with shake the spot (to leave, depart). She likes what it do
(an expression of informal greeting) because it reminds her of being a teenager in the '70s.

Steez (style & charisma which is uniquely one's own), trill (genuine, authentic) and jockin' (1: flirting- 2: imitating- 3: ingratiating oneself for ulterior motives) might take some practice.

Next, Susan's got her eye on corporate flashcards so she can learn to talk like a suit.

2011-09-05T15:07:00.006-04:00

The son has been saying that Lucy the lucky pit bull had fleas but Susan chose to do nothing until he reported seeing one jump up, jump up and get down. Then the daughter saw one do the robot.

Susan grabbed Cousin Lisa and headed out to the local pet superstore, the one where people bring their animals. Susan doesn't travel with her dog and doesn't understand why anyone would want to get their car all full of hair. Conversely, some people might not understand why Susan spends a half hour ironing her white blouse with the intricately ruffled collar. Whatever.

Susan was deciding between two chemical laden treatments when Cousin Lisa, ever the natural woman, held up a shampoo with peppermint oil & clove extract. Susan is powerless to resist clove extract, so, ridiculous or not she bought it. Plus, it was buy one get one free. A flea comb and some dog treats later Susan was out the door.

Once home Lucy was shampooed and combed, her dog bed was thrown out and Susan got on the internet. She replaced Lucy's heavy fabric collar with a bandanna dipped in tea tree oil then she boiled all available citrus fruits (goodbye cocktail essentials), liquefied them in the blender, strained them through the sieve twice and decanted them into a spray bottle for a natural flea deterrent. She's taught the whole family to comb the dog & squish any fleas, of which there haven't really been many, against the teeth of the comb. Susan will also introduce a dietary supplement of brewer's yeast which she recalls from her days as an owner of flea infested cats.

She'll monitor the situation but she's completely aware that she may be kidding herself.

Susan's Kidding Herself: The Update.
Susan's little sister came over, took a look at all the natural bullsh*t and made some snide remarks. Susan recognized the truth in her ridicule and sent the husband out for Frontline.

2011-08-31T00:00:00.002-04:00

2011-08-30T22:20:00.001-04:00

Black outs are so boring.

How many games of Bananagrams can one person endure? When the daughter dragged out the puzzle Susan opted to wash all the dishes instead. After the dishes she went down to the river to beat the clothes on a rock then she took a cold shower.

Heaven help her.

When Susan’s little sister invited the family over to her house they grabbed everything that had a power cord & sped away from Frontier Town.

It was little sister’s 23rd wedding anniversary and the hurricane necessitated the cancellation of her weekend plans to hook up with her husband who still works and lives two states away. Instead, the two families, minus one brother in law, made a lovely dinner then watched Jersey Shore.

When Susan’s crew returned home to the pitch blackness of their neighborhood the son commented about the amount of stars that could be seen in the sky and how the longer you looked at them the more of them you could see.

It was a very nice observation.

2011-08-27T23:51:00.002-04:00

Friday night Susan began getting ready for the hurricane by purchasing a 504 piece puzzle for the daughter. They wanted to get in a little puzzle practice so they spread it all over the table and set to work. At the end of two hours, with only four pieces connected, they dumped it back into the box.

Saturday Susan continued her preparation by taking down her wind chimes. She also clipped all the sunflowers from her front yard and put them in her dining room. A quick check of supplies determined there was more than enough liquor and ice cubes to make it through to Monday. There was also enough coffee and reading material.

And speaking of coffee, Susan's new countertop necessitated that she trade up to a French press and now she and the husband are hooked. Hooked!
They can't go back.

2011-08-26T00:06:00.003-04:00

Susan f*cking HATES the Pinkett Smiths and prays every night that horrible things happen to them.
Will you pray too?
O, (insert the leader of your personal belief system), we beseech thee, please give Jada Pinkett Smith the most miserable itch in her lady area and make all the Pinkett Smiths' money fall through a hole in their pockets and let their children get pimply and let a rat die behind the all refrigerators in their beautiful houses and let their help all give unflattering interviews and let their tongues only taste anchovies.
Amen.

2011-08-22T00:11:00.007-04:00

Susan and her family went to the outlets looking for school footwear and Susan came how with these in brown.
You lost a little respect for her, didn't you?
Well, Susan already owned these but her little sister has declared them so ugly that Susan only wears them in the house. They're wonderfully comfortable for inside the house, she keeps them right next to her bed so that her bare foot never has to touch the floor.
Susan avoids walking in her bare feet at all costs, unless it's impossible. Like if her footwear is a few steps away and she can't hop or walk on her hands or anything.
She likes these too, she has no defense.

Evening Exchange

2011-08-20T10:09:00.004-04:00

You complain alot Susan's teenage daughter said to Susan.

You all give me alot to complain about.

2011-08-18T20:31:00.006-04:00

Susan was in the middle of her regularly scheduled morning hot flash when she stepped outside in search of a cool breeze and walked sweaty-face-first into a spider web.

It was a big one.

It got in her mouth and her hair, it stuck to her fingers and even though she spat it out and washed it off it still left sticky remnants.

Did you notice that last sentence had five its?
It, it, it, it, it.

2011-08-13T00:32:00.001-04:00

Susan and the husband did something only rich people do, they went out and purchased a granite counter top. Oh, it's a lovely black granite flecked with brown and it'll get turned into a wonderful counter top with a bevelled edge and a fancy faucet and soap dispenser just like the Rockefellers must have.

And, normally she would request that everyone wish the husband a HAPPY BIRTHDAY, but since he doesn't read her BLAHg he'll never know the difference.

2011-08-12T00:00:00.009-04:00

Susan donated blood on the Bloodmobile this week, it was quite the sponatenous decision. She saw an opportunity to atone for blowing off the blood drive at the Knights of Columbus earlier in the week and took it.

Have you ever been on a bloodmobile before? There's not much room. Susan's bloodmobile had reclining seats that ran along the sides and two teeny little interview rooms in the back.

Teeny.

Susan sat in the teeny room being interviewed by the phlebotomist and took notice of the extreme lack of space. The room was claustrophobically small and Susan was uncomfortable. There was probably more elbow room between two people having sex than there was between her and the phlebotomist. But, Susan was there to get stuck with a needle and have her blood drained for twenty minutes and was not going to let anything derail her from that goal.

She was good with the whole thing, then she had juice and cookies.

2011-08-11T22:50:00.005-04:00

Susan's husband is an idiot.
She can say that because she's been almost exclusively complimentary for many years.

Lately there have been a bunch of trips thru the fast food window because Susan's lazy and doesn't care about her family's health.
During each one of these trips the husband mispronounced chipotle as chipotey.
She let it go and let it go until it drove her crazy and she was forced to correct him. Susan's husband argued that no one pronounces it that way.

Oh, really? No one pronounces it properly? She immediately enlisted help from the girl handing the food bag through the window.

Please tell my husband how you pronounce chipotle, she requested.

Chi-pote-lay.

End of ridiculous argument with someone who is normally not a f*cking idiot.

2011-08-07T15:36:00.007-04:00

Susan and five sixths of her cousins met up for their annual summer dinner on City Island. Cousin Caroline was unable to join them, but pictured from left to right are Cousins Veronica, Lisa, Susie, Kathy and Melissa in front.

Yes, Susan's alter ego is known as Cousin Susie.

The cousins always meet at The Black Whale, which has a lovely garden out back under the trees. They stay late into the evening laughing, talking and eating. In fact, Susan's profile picture was taken from one of those summer dinners.

Anyway, it was raining this year so they couldn't eat in the garden.

Inside, the restaurant was filled families and children, crying babies, groups of friends and one slightly older couple seated at a small table diagonally across from the cousins.

It was a terrific evening filled with laughter, happiness, funny stories, and conversations about Captain Andy's upcoming deployment and Cousin Veronica's winter wedding.

OMG, Susie loves her cousins so much!

During the evening Cousin Susie's little sister, Cousin Kathy mentioned that the couple at the small table kept looking over at them. Everyone checked to make sure that their boobs hadn't popped out then went on with their merriment.

A little while later, Cousin Kathy mentioned that the female portion of the couple actually turned around and glared at the cousins in a very dramatic manner.

They thought it odd, but continued with their conversations.

After a bit Cousin Kathy said 'I think they threw something at us' which got the cousins' attention. However, upon closer inspection there was nothing that raised suspicion about the couple at the small table so the cousins went back to discussing Cousin Veronica's wedding dress and deciding what dessert they'd like to order.

Then a big SHUSH! was lobbed at them from the small table at the same time Cousin Kathy discovered the projectile; a wadded up sugar packet which she offered as Exhibit A.

The gloves were off!

The couple paid their check and left while comments went back & forth between the two tables. The cousins waved bye bye and blew kisses as the glaring woman gave them the finger. But when the the departing man told Cousin Veronica 'No one cares about your wedding dress' Cousin Kathy returned the wadded up sugar packet by bouncing it off his head.

None of the other diners even noticed what was going on and the cousins sat there for another hour happily enjoying each other's company before making the long drive home.

2011-08-06T00:45:00.003-04:00

Susan's little sister made her see
The Psych Furs play a free show overlooking the water on a beautiful Friday evening.
Damn her!

2011-08-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

Dueling Banjos, NC as photographed by Wild Bill

2011-08-04T00:09:00.001-04:00

Susan took a lovely shower as she does every morning. She let the hot water blast away at her stiff bones, relax her tense shoulders and bring some mobility back to her cricky neck. After this she would be in good shape to be able to bend over and wash her toes.

Anyway, she did everything one does in the shower then reached for the nearest towel. She started from the middle and worked upward when she got to her face she it became clear that she was drying herself with the dog's towel.

2011-08-02T00:00:00.002-04:00

Susan's computer was not where she left it, a brief investigation revealed that the daughter had moved it when she tried to crack the password.
Her choices were
CLEAN
then SHUT UP
then PICK UP YOUR SH*T.
Susan was impressed, the kid was on the right track.

2011-08-01T01:31:00.003-04:00

Susan's husband forced her to finish the kitchen this weekend. The cabinets were done but they still had no hardware, the tile back splash had no grout and the walls had to be painted.

Susan never grouted anything before. It was easy enough but she's not interested in tiling or grouting ever again. She'd be very comfortable hiring someone for that purpose.

The husband took care of the hardware while Susan started to paint. Halfway through she realized that the color wasn't dark enough.

She didn't like it.

She closed up shop for the day and decided that she would reassess in the morning. Everything looks better in the daylight after a restorative night of sleep.

The next morning Susan sent the husband back to Home Depot for a new can of paint.

2011-07-30T00:31:00.005-04:00

Susan has been without her computer for two weeks. Two weeks!
One week went by while Susan dragged herself over miles of molten concrete and the second week was eaten up by the husband forgetting to pick the computer up every single day.

Anyway, the children adjusted very well to using their father's laptop, so first thing Susan did when she got hers back was to change the password & lock them out. G'bye kids.

The second thing she did was to import her vacation pictures and who doesn't love vacation pictures!

Here's some jelly fish from the aquarium in Baltimore

And, proof that she was in Philadelphia

She spent the hottest night of her life with Abe

Then saw him again the next day

She visited the fantastically ornate Jefferson Building at the Library of Congress

Which is directly across the street from the wonderful Capitol

These girls are in the sculpture garden of the Hirschorn Museum

During this trip Susan found the lovely Sackler Museum

She took her children to see the Wall

Then over to the Jefferson Memorial

And looked across to the White House

Then everyone went to Chinatown for dimsum and Susan had a kumquat mojito or two.

The End.

2011-07-24T00:25:00.009-04:00

It's already been well documented how poorly Susan does in the heat, how she immediately and completely decompensates leaving only the extremely rotten parts of her personality in evidence. Heat and Susan are not friends, they can't even give a civil nod as they pass one another on the street. And, don't even mention that f*cking b*tch, humidity. Oh, how she hates humidity!

Susan walked on boiling hot pavement all week, first through Philadelphia then through Washington, D.C.

Susan walked till she couldn't walk any more, then somehow found the strength to keep going specifically, but not limited to, the Lincoln Memorial. It was the hottest place Susan had ever been at 10pm, like wading through an airless, steamy landscape, she could barely put one foot in front of the other. The husband referred to their nighttime trek as the death march.

At the end of the next day after walking a thousand miles across the surface of the sun Susan saw the Lincoln Memorial and said
Ooh, I'll be right back then sprinted away like a gazelle to ascend the steps and pay her respects again.

You don't get much better than Lincoln is what Susan thinks.

She had a wonderful, educational, visually spectacular trip and didn't even get blisters or a sunburn, although she got two mosquito bites and a cramped toe had to be massaged back into shape.

2011-07-20T23:33:00.002-04:00

Susan and her family went to see this exhibit in Philadelphia and upgraded their tickets to include admission to this IMAX movie. The theatre was set up in extreme stadium style with plush seats and a dome shaped screen which took up the entire overhead space, much like a giant umbrella. Susan happily settled into the air conditioned comfort of her situation and studied the screen before the movie began. It was made of many, many fabric topped panels behind which were the speakers and other things of a technical nature. The lights went away, the titles started and a deep masculine voice began explaining how the giant screen worked. The audience was advised that some may experience a dizzy feeling, but to close their eyes and the feeling would go away. If one had to leave, they were to climb upward to the back of the theatre and once they exited the doors would lock & that would be it.
Susan wondered who would have to leave.

The movie began with a great, swooping aerial view of the desert. It was right on top of her.
She immediately panicked and closed her eyes.
I don't like this.
She waited a moment, it was only a movie, she's sat thru IMAX movies before.
She tried again.
It was too much, she bolted up to the back of the theatre and out the doors.

Claustrophobia: you don't always see it coming.

2011-07-18T11:25:00.006-04:00

Susan is now the mother of two teenagers.
She can't get by anymore with the ambiguous reference to medium sized children. Alas.

The thirteen year old girl spends her days reclining in front of a fan reading. Or drawing. All day. A summer's worth of glorious leisure time to jump in the pool and pal around with friends and paint her toenails and play with the dog.

Her fifteen year old boy has a gig as an unpaid camp counsellor which he takes very seriously; getting up & out on time and dressing like a pirate when mandated. It's his third summer as such, he calls it going to work, Susan reminds him that one can't call it work if one doesn't get paid. It's the same thing she sez to her self-employed husband.

If the kids are getting older then Susan's getting older too. She's adjusted pretty well to her advancing decrepitude. She just needs to know that somewhere out there is somebody older than her.

She really didn't get it together until she became a working mother. Her five years as a stay at home mom mixed pleasure with depression and loneliness. Being forced to return to work with small children made her figure out how to get stuff done. That notwithstanding, she's still lazy and not too smart about some things and erupts easily over nonsense and never met a magazine that she didn't want to keep stacked in a corner and would rather go to sleep than meet her marital responsibilities.

And, speaking of working mothers; poor JLo, eh?

2011-07-17T01:49:00.004-04:00

Susan's f*cking computer is out of commission again.
Did you hear her put her fist through the wall?
How about when she was throwing sh*t all around the house, did you hear that? The only thing that kept her from really going crazy was that it wasn't her hard drive. Again. The point of entry for the power cord will cost $130 to be soldered back in place. Until that magical transaction occurs she's sitting at the dining room table using the husband's relic, the one she spilled sangria on.

So many exciting things have happened to Susan since last she blogged.
First, she had a piece of home made chocolate cake with peanut butter filling that just ruined her for any other cake.

Next, a recurring house guest sent her an ice cream maker, which is a bloody awesome gift to give someone. Susan's daughter, the floor installer, immediately made strawberry ice cream. This was followed by the most painfully tart and sweet lemon sorbet, which got eaten up by a house full of puckery faced guests. Doesn't a limey, minty mojito sorbet sound fantastic? Yes, it does!

Then, Susan's friend GP came for a visit with her little dog, Sadie who was immediately set upon by Lucy. Sadie was snatched up in Lucy's pit bull teeth and shaken from side to side making a reality of Susan's worst expectations. Lucy went at Sadie twice, ignoring all hysterical recommendations to the contrary, then released the pup and stood calmly looking at Susan.

Miraculously, there was no blood and Sadie walked away without so much as a limp although the dogs cannot be in each other's company. So, when one is inside the other is outside. When both must be inside, one is upstairs and the other downstairs.
Oh, my.

3:30 am GP awakened Susan with Sadie's having trouble breathing! Susan stumbled out in her underwear to research the address of the 24 hour veterinary hospital in her county. She remembers a story told by Cousin Lisa's brother, Captain Andy, of his own dog's emergency followed by the general location of the hospital and 'if ever you need one'
Susan sent GP off with directions and the prophetic
It's gonna be expensive.
And it was.
Susan's down for half.

Oh, and Susan would like everyone to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her daughter, a brand new teenager!

2011-07-16T02:09:00.001-04:00

Susan and her family are going on a road trip next week, can you guess where?

2011-07-10T12:51:00.007-04:00

Alright, alright, calm down everybody. No black walls.

Susan's little sister recommended Susan paint the kitchen the color of Lucy the lucky pit bull which is such a dark brown it may as well be black. Susan thinks she's just going to choose something a few shades darker than the newly painted cabinets and be done with it.

In the meantime Miss Twelve helped her father install a new linoleum tile kitchen floor. Susan was on site during the critical initial stage to argue about how they should be placed. When she saw how enthusiastic and capable the daughter was Susan left the room to search for Celebrity Rehab on TV.

When she returned she was impressed with their progress, almost half the floor was done. Under closer inspection it was determined that the tiles were only sort of straight. Susan pulled them all up and made the team start over, this time under her supervision.

Miss Twelve displayed a wonderfully professional demeanor, free of complaining or pouting or anger. She stuck with it & finished as much of the floor as she could before everybody got sick of the project and quit for the evening.

Oh, and Susan would like everyone to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her mommy.

2011-07-08T00:00:00.004-04:00

What do you think of black walls?
Susan's kitchen is very small, it's more like a pass thru from the livingroom to the dining room.
It's really the perfect location for black walls.
But first she's got to paint the ceiling.

2011-07-07T00:07:00.006-04:00

Susan got bleach in her eye. Ow!
She was cleaning the bathroom using her regular glasses in lieu of protective eye wear when a single drop of bleach went airborne and scored a direct hit. Pow! Immediately Susan's eyeball burst into flames. She flushed it with water like a crazy person but it still smoldered for the rest of the day.

She took her Marilyn Manson eye and started prepping the kitchen cabinets to be painted. They were sporting an undercoating of grease topped with a layer of dog hair. She green cleaned them with rubbing alcohol and a surprisingly small amount of physical effort.

Next came the disassembly, which she left to the husband; fourteen doors and two piles of hardware. Then the priming then the painting. Priming is easy because you don't have to be neat, but painting requires two coats with 24 hours drying time in between. Susan doesn't want to mislead anyone into thinking that she knocked this project off quickly. Nay! It's taken three days and she's still working on it. She fears that when she's done she'll have to paint the walls too.

It's pretty certain that she'll have to paint the walls.

2011-06-29T00:00:00.004-04:00

It's been established that IKEA sucks because they didn't give Susan bags last week. She had other issues, but the bags really bugged her. She wrote sucky IKEA an e-mail explaining the depth of her disgust and threatened to stay away until the bags came back. As the week wore on she realized that she wouldn't be able to stick to her plan of hatred and avoidance.

It started because Susan bought some really lovely dark chocolate for like,
a dollar. But, she didn't buy enough because she was afraid of what one dollar dark chocolate might taste like.
Now she needs more.
She also bought salmon and crab spread in toothpaste style tubes, but her friend George ate most of it.
She needs more.
She has to go back.

2011-06-22T00:06:00.001-04:00

Susan and her little sister went to IKEA after work. Before you guys get all Oh, IKEA! Susan wants to know if you've been to IKEA lately? Well, then you know that they have NO BAGS!
That's correct. They have NO BAGS unless you'd like to purchase a reusable bag for a dollar. Susan doesn't want to purchase a reusable bag for a dollar. Susan wants IKEA to provide the basic requirement needed to complete their transaction; a m*therf*cking bag.
Susan does not want to gather her little kitcheny things and votive candles and lingonberry jelly jars in the folds of her clothing like an immigrant and schlep them out to the car, which is a whole other story. Once you get outside you can't take those horribly unwieldy rolling carts beyond the barriers to the parking lot. The poor slob of a customer has to leave the cart behind, run out to retrieve their car and hope no one has pinched their sh*t.
OMG, Susan hates IKEA now and she told them why here.

2011-06-19T22:48:00.000-04:00

Susan spent day two gardening in the front yard. She learned a few things from day one so she put on her Burberry rain boots then made the entire family come out to assist.
The Burberry rain boots are really fantastic for slogging around in mud and dog sh*t but utilizing family labor is really fantastic for doing all the stuff that hurts Susan's back.

Susan's next door neighbor came over and traded some yellow buttercups for unearthed sea grass, her up the block neighbor contributed sunflower plants. Beetles and slugs hid in the grass, birds pulled worms out of the dirt and Susan let her family do all the hard work.

2011-06-19T01:14:00.003-04:00

Cousin Lisa gave Susan a tree for her birthday which started a chain reaction of Susan digging up her front yard and moving plants around. Half got chucked into the compost bin.

Susan's not a gardener and she's definitely not into manual labor at all. Once a summer she'll drunk-weed the hydrangeas. Her only other involvement is thinking that somebody should do something about the yard. But today she used a shovel, a hatchet, a wheelbarrow and a pick axe like an old gold miner. Then she walked around in mud which served to grind dirt into her caloused feet.

Anyway, the place looks better.

2011-06-18T00:12:00.002-04:00

Susan turned down a piece of cake this week.

She knows what you're thinking, but it was a really awful cake that her little sister picked out.

Imagine the worst cake in the world and what do you come up with?
White chocolate?
That's right.
And the inside?
Red velvet.
Ugh!

The white chocolate red velvet cake was so horrible that Susan couldn't even stand the smell of it and once this was discovered everyone took great delight in sticking their cake under Susan's nose.

Susan hates her family.

2011-06-13T23:36:00.002-04:00

Susan had three large teenagers in the backseat of her car. One belonged to her and the other two were being driven three blocks. They whined like babies when she made them strap in.

I can't find the seat belts
Are there even any back here?

Susan assisted them by illuminating the inside of the car and waiting until they were securely fastened before she drove even one inch.

When she got home she took the opportunity to review with her son & daughter the minimum requirements she has for them as her children;

They must always wear their seat belts even when no one tells them to, even when they're in the back seat, even when their friends make fun of them.

She told them that they will doom her to a life of grief and agony if anything happens to them because they opted not to wear their seat belts. Even once.

We do wear our seat belts mom, all the time they said, their voices dripping with that special exasperation reserved just for Susan.

2011-06-11T23:52:00.000-04:00

Susan's back to normal now. Her bad mood has blown over and everything is as it was.
She treated herself to a sparkly pair of flat shoes. Any time she has money she looks for flats. All year round. She loves heels but she loves flats too. Susan's got a big foot, not as big as her little sister's, but big enough.
The flats made it a good day.