I Do Things So You Don’t Have To

Wish I knew what you were looking for
Might’ve know what you would find

WOOOOOOO!

You read that right. I am giving away three of the rare, hard-to-find Simply Caramel Milky Ways to three lucky, LUCKY readers.

Can you believe my generosity? It knows no bounds, srsly.

It all began yesterday, when I went to PetSmart. On the five-minute drive, I experienced a cold feeling of terror in my empty Milky-Way-less belly. Was it PetCo or PetSmart?

I’d have to wait and see.

I approached the candy display. More cold terror. I didn’t see them. I saw regular Milky Ways but no . . . oh, wait! There they are! Oh, phew. Oh, thank Zod. Oh my stars. Bless my soul. And so on.

I scooped up eight Simply Caramels and left three. I don’t know if there are any more in the stockroom, but who cares. I have mine. Milky Way will just have to make more.

I also bought a cat toy. True, it was the cheapest one I could find, but Gus and Pru seem to like it:

WATCH THE VIDEO!

Gus and Pru play with their cheap cat toy!

I know Dave will be asking, “Where’s MY Milky Way?” Don’t worry. They’re carefully hidden, and he doesn’t know my secret hiding place. Oh, apropos of nothing, Dave, please don’t bother ever putting away my cereal when you do the shopping. Just leave it out. I’ll put it away myself. Really, I don’t mind. I swear, if you open that cereal cabinet . . .

Oh, but it doesn’t even matter, because Dave has some kind of weird crevice between his teeth that forced him to stop chewing gum (”Everything tastes like spearmint”) and switch to sugar-free Starlight mints. That Dave. He knows how to live.

On to the contest!

I’m giving away three (3) of these sweet little babies. And, yes, Mr. and Mrs. Mathematician, that DOES mean I’m keeping five for myself.

If you want one—R-E-A-L-L-Y want one—all you have to do is say so! In a comment. So easy. So sweet. So chewy. So . . . NOM NOM NOM! OK, now there are seven. We’d better get this contest on the road. Just drop a comment on this post and tell me that you want a Simply Caramel Milky Way. OR a Milky Way Simply Caramel, for that is the official name.

There are no tricks or gimmicks. Your comment can be a simple statement, a poem, a diorama, or even an animated GIF. You don’t HAVE to include the phrase “JD, thou art so pretty,” but I can’t say it won’t help.

The contest ends on February 13 at 6PM. The winners—drawn randomly—will be chosen by a LIVE (well, what that means is I plan to film it on my camera and post the YouTube link) drawing the following day.

Are you excited? Maybe not. A lot of you, frankly, were all, Oh, I only like dark chocolate. I don’t even like caramel. I hate Milky Way. Blah, blah, blah. So maybe there won’t even BE three entrants.

Or maybe there will be thousands.

Winners must be prepared to cough up their addresses via private e-mail. I will mail these precious bars ANYwhere: England, Canada, The Land That Time Forgot, even the Planet of the Apes!

Good luck!

And hurry. They’re going fast.

CHOMP!

Share on Facebook

A living box of candy wrapped up so very fine
Do it to me chewy chew me out of my mind

I thought I’d dreamed it.

I saw it. I bought it. I ate it. I loved it. And I dreamed about it.

But then, was it all a dream, after all?

NO!

Because my favorite candy blog, CandyBlog, wrote THIS.

Yes, it’s real. A Milky Way bar with ONLY the caramel part. Brilliance! No more of that annoying fluffy noughat. It’s JUST THE CARAMEL! (I don’t think you quite understand the significance of this . . . but then, neither do I.)

Oh, I know. You could go out and buy a Caramello, and believe me, I WILL, but this is news. Big news.

Weirdly, tho, the only place I’ve seen it is at PetSmart. Whaaat? Why PetSmart? Are pet owners known for their caramel love? I don’t know. But I do know that I can’t find this caramel-only Milky Way anywhere else. Of course, I could go back to PetSmart, but is it weird to go into a pet store and buy just a candy bar? Or, to more more precise, 50 candy bars?

Ah, Milky Way With Only Caramel. How you haunt me, with your awkward name and noughat-less filling. Wow, “noughat” is one weird-looking word, isn’t it. Am I spelling that right?

Apparently not.

Anyway, as I was saying, OH, Milky Way. How little I really know about you. Let’s learn more, shall we? First, we shall check out the all-knowing Wikipedia for some Milky Way facts.

The Milky Way, or simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of . . .

Well, THAT doesn’t sound very delicious.

OK, here we have a more reliable source on the Milky Way CANDY BAR, Wikipedia!

Oh, my God. I am home.

People are actually writing ODES to the Milky Way on this site.

Oh, caramel. You are my sweet piece of heaven. Mmm. [punctuation added by JD]

So fluffy. So creamy. So chocolatey. So Milky Way.

Oh, Milky Way, how you satiate my intense longing for something sweet.

Milky Your Way to a delicious Milky Way bar, dark or light, frozen or not.

That last one was kind of lame, yes? I think I can come up with something better.

Milky Way, your chocolate robe
Covers the most modest of fillings.
Sweet caramel — nothing else!
This shy maiden lies silent, waiting to be discovered.
Milky Way, fling open your chocolate robe!
And let the mouth chomp away on your hidden secret.

AND IN THIS CHOMPING, let there be . . .

OK, that first stanza is probably enough. Oh, but what a stanza it is.

Dang! The Milky Way site only let me submit the first two lines. Stupid.

Anyway, I hope you’ll all create your own ode to the Milky Way and submit it, both here and on the Milky Way site.

And head out to your local PetSmart and try the new Milky Way With Only Caramel!

Share on Facebook

Everything was plentiful
at the buffet
Raise your fork
and something’s always there

For the second night in a row since returning from vacation, I left Dave a note saying I’d gone to bed already. At 6:30.

“Another early night, eh?” he said the next morning.

“Yup. Still catching up, I guess.”

“Catching up from what? You were in a reclining position the entire week.”

“I had to walk to the bathroom!”

“You slept 12 hours a night. And took naps every day.”

“It wasn’t quality sleep!”

“You snored.”

“. . .”

But our Jamaican vacation wasn’t ALL sleep. From my travel journal, I give you:

BULLETED TIDBITS!

WITH PHOTOS!

(and some helpful green headings)

Getting There

• It’s a weird feeling to awaken from a sound sleep at 3:15 AM and take a tranquilizer an hour later in order to board a plane.
• D did the Web check-in and got my birthday wrong. The baggage check lady was all, “Oh, no, you di’in’t!”
• “SECURITY CHECK!” My carry-on bag got pulled off the conveyor belt! How exciting! My too-large lotion was confiscated and my bag of cookies was held up and commented on (”Cookies?”), but my TENS unit? No one even noticed it.
• My Nanny Goats pen came apart in 3 pieces, fell onto floor, and I was still able to put it back together. STONED!
• Slept really well until awakened by a screaming baby placed at my ear. Looked up to see an inordinate number of people parading babies up and down the aisle. Not just walking, but pausing and looking meaningfully at various passengers, as if they might wish to comment on their infant. I did not. One woman said to her baby, “No biting, just kissing.” I wonder if that’s one of those lizard babies.
• Changed into shorts in the plane bathroom. Challenging!

We Arrive

Everyone drinks on the bus from the airport.

Town square.

View from our patio doors.

• Our clock from home immediately went haywire as soon as we plugged it in. Since the room clock was impossible to read, I gathered that was a sign that we were to pay no attention to time.
• I feel fat. Wore my BlogHer outfit to dinner, and I swear, it’s tighter now than it was then. Had to force D to compliment me.

At the Pool

I did this ONCE, totally accidentally. It really shouldn’t even BE a rule.

• D brought Under the Dome, which elicited many comments due to its size (1,000 pages). “Have you finished that yet?” “Maybe you can leave it here and read a bit every time you come back,” and my favorite, from our friend Jerry: “Dave, I usually try to read smaller books. Large books make my penis look small.”
• Watched naked people play the “Eye and Ear” game, wherein a blindfolded person (the “Ear”) must find ribbons around the pool area, guided by the “Eye.” For some reason, the “Ear” got up on the bar, waving blindly at nothing. The leader of the game cried out in alarm, “Who is watching the Ear? Who is guarding the Ear?” Apparently the Eye had wandered off, leaving the Ear to flail helplessly on her own.
• Played the Jamaica trivia contest. One lively player answered every question with a lusty “GANJA!”
• Participated in the body painting contest. I painted my Sleeping Cat on D’s back, and he painted lame flowers on my boobs. After he’d done only the green center on my nipples, someone asked, “Olives?” We did not win.

The Food

The first of 65 coconut rum and pineapple juices for Dave.

I looooved my blueberry compote.

No, I REALLY loooooved it.

• Told D he should try the swirly pastry. “Don’t tempt me. I’ve been eating healthy.” (Healthy = bacon, booze, but no dessert, apparently.)
• Oh, my god. D met a guy who also doesn’t like cake. When they both agreed they preferred pie, this guy’s eyes lit up and he practically screamed “PIE!!!!!!!!!!” And he owns a bakery.
• I ate baby corn! And I liked it! Spent the evening trying to come up with lyrics to the tune of “I Kissed a Girl.” I ate a corn, and I liked it. It was one of those baby ones . . .
• Woman at Japanese restaurant complained her dinner had “too much flavor.” WTF?

Murder and Death

Watched these huge black birds with red heads converging on the beach. They flew in from EVERY direction. Soon there were a million. We stepped closer to investigate, for surely there’s a corpse hidden there in the sand? A security person joined us and explained that these were “John Crow” birds, and YES they always gather around something dead. They weren’t feasting yet, tho, because they were waiting for their leader, who is all white with a red head (COOL!). Later a steamroller dumped a bunch of sand over the area where the rotting corpse had been. OK, that’s one way to deal with it. This was the most fascinating thing to happen except for the show about the Sphinx we watched last night.

We Love It Here

• D came up with a really awesome plan to stay on the resort forever: sleep on the beach, eat garbage, and hide in the bushes. “We’ll call it ‘Naked on the Run’.” Not sure if this is a plan or a movie pitch.
• We passed a new group of guests on their orientation tour right on border of the nude/prude side. As we passed into the nude side, I tore off my dress (no underwear). It is little things like this that make me so awesome.
• Made the mistake of taking a few sips of D’s rum and pineapple juice (on Vikes). Passed out on beach. Woke up 3 hours later, staggered to bar area, demanding ice cream, but there was none to be had.

Miscelleanous Photos!

Preparing for the Friday night street party.

I came across this at around 6 AM and thought it was some kind of terrifying tropical bird. (It’s not.)

“Authentic” fare at the Reggae Cafe.

This cracks us up every year. Because we are five. At least the American and German people will know where to go for medical help. Frenchies? You’re on your own!

View from the treadmill inside the gym. I wasn’t ON the treadmill; I just ran in, took the photo, and ran out.

View from our bathroom window. I loved to stand in the shower and spy on people walking by.

Started out fairly healthy. Look! A banana!

OK, breakfast potatoes are totally healthy.

Is this a beautiful photo or what? Look at those tender young peas. So photogenic!

Mmmm. Here we have jerk chicken with salad and mixed vegetables.

Yay! Saturday is Taco Day!

Oh, just a cup of soup for me. (HA! This was the first of about 35 courses.)

I do love the salad-potato combo.

Tons of salad, vegetables, baked potato, and a tiny, humble bit of chicken.

This was Dave’s. He swears the cheeseburgers (in paradise) are delicious.

See all the photos HERE!

Coming up next on I Do Things: VIDEOS! (maybe)

________________________

John Crow bird came from here

Guess who’s back
Back again
JD’s back
Tell a friend

Oh, boy.

So . . . yeah. A week ago at this time I was floating over to the swim-up bar. The sun was beating down on my naked butt. My only dilemma: should I move to the beach or stay at the pool?

Today I am staggering into the kitchen for coffee, scratching the bug bites on my butt, and glaring at the snow outside my window. My only dilemma: should I go back to bed or do some work?

Re-entry is always difficult, but this year, it’s especially hard. Eight days in Jamaica = a soft, spongy brain and a relentless need to sleep and pretend this all isn’t happening. It isn’t, is it? I’m still on the beach? Dreaming this? No?

Gus jumps into my arms, purring and snuffling. I’m home. And truthfully, I am happy to be here.

I am just . . . not really here, I guess.

And I totally feel bad, y’all!

Not only did I leave you alone for over a week, but I have no snappy, entertaining post for you . . . even as of today!

I do have a few photos for you, along with a promise of more to come THIS WEEK. Like . . . more photos! And some actual words. And videos!

Until then . . .

It started with this:

Then there was a lot of this:

And even more of this:

A little of this:

Still more of this:

And, yes, there were plenty of potatoes. Potatoes of every kind!

And at the end of every day, there was this (only nude):

Instead of gawking at my undah-drawers, you should be impressed with the fact that I can balance billiard balls on my boobs . . .

Billiard Balls on My Boobs. That’s a song title, isn’t it?

See, I told you. I’m not really here yet.

But it’s good to be back.

Honest.

Vote, baby, vote

UPDATE!

I won!

Can you freaking believe it? I couldn’t have done it without YOU, my non-dorky readers. Thank you for voting. I will now carry on my dorkly duties with pride and a little bit of embarrassment. Thanks, Lin!

And as Margaret from Nanny Goats once said, “We’re ALL dorks . . . I mean, winners.”

*        *        *

Some of you may have seen this photo recently. Oh, I’m not talking about it’s recent appearance on THIS blog but at Lin’s Dork Off II over at Duck and Wheel with String.

Yes, I am competing with other dorks (including the mysteriously named “Baby Corn”) for the title of . . . dork? Hmmm. How did I get roped into this one? Anyway, I guess it’s an honor to be a dork, so won’t you please vote for me? If you don’t think I’m dorky enough, there are plenty of other good dorks to choose from.

If I win this prestigious title, I get the honor of . . . sharing it with Lola, who won the first Dork Off.

And the glory of beating Baby Corn.

But you must vote by the end of today!

Lin made this contest real easy-like by just asking people to submit their dorkiest photos. But to give you more reason to vote for me, I submit:

The 4 Most Dorky Things I Ever Dorked

• When I was 11, I loved looking up big words in my thesaurus and using them in sentences for vocabulary exercises. One such word was “ejaculate.”
• Those orange elephant pants? They were part of a three-piece ensemble. Orange vest, orange elephant pants, and patterned blouse. I wore this proudly through the halls of my junior high school. Somehow I didn’t get beat up.
• I almost got beat up by one of the tough girls in junior high. No, not for the elephant pants but for imitating how she squinted her eyes. Those squinty eyes fell on me at the wrong time, unfortunately, and I was busted. “Meet me on the hill,” she said ominously and extra-squintingly. I ran home bawling to my neighbor to protect me.
• While all the cheerleader-types were doing their modern dance routines to “Beach Baby” and “Who Do You Think You Are,” my friend Sheri and I were busting out the moves to Alice Cooper’s “You Gotta Dance,” complete with inappropriate grinding movements. Yes, I still remember the routines.

*        *        *

And now I have some sad, non-dorky news.

I am leaving.

This Friday, Dave and I will board a plane headed for Jamaica, where we will stay forever. No, not forever, exactly. Maybe just a week. Can we stand to be parted from each other for a week? I can’t. I’m not going! Wow, I really am a dork. No, of COURSE I’m going, and you’ll just have to deal with it. I’m not even sure I’ll have a post to

Wait. I stopped mid-sentence to let a howling Prudence into the bedroom, where Dave is trying to sleep. When I came back, I read that above fragment as “I’m not even sure I’ll have a potato.”

Oh, my GOD! I hope they have potatoes in Jamaica! I’m pretty sure they do. But what if they try to feed me sweet potatoes? Man, I hate those!

OK, obviously, I’m quite upset. I’ll miss you. I hope you won’t mind if this site gathers dust for the next week or so while I gather skin cancer and eat non-sweet-potatoes.

You KNOW I’ll be busy doing some good “things” so you don’t have to, right?

I may get another post (or potato) up between now and my return. If not, fly your dork flags high!

And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

And the ride
I say, the ride is so smooth

Death-Mobile!

Terror Ride!

Drive of Death!

Horror Car!

Fear on Wheels!

Er . . . Scary Ride to Get Coffee and a Potato!

These are all would-be titles of the movie that was my morning yesterday. Tell me which one you like best!

Soooo, I wanted coffee. Special coffee. Something steamy and styrofoamy. McDonald’s coffee! But there was a problem. My car was covered in half an inch of snow crystals. Brush them off? NAY! I would take Dave’s car. Sounds simple, right?

NAY!

The Red Car
I’ve never officially been allowed to drive Dave’s car. The one time I was given permission was when I had to pick it up from the Toyota dealership and despite the fact that it was at the TOYOTA dealership I still had to ask for “The Red Car.”

Because I didn’t know what kind it was. I only knew that it was red.

Luckily, McDonald’s is only a few feet from our house, or I would never dare to drive The Red Car.

Oh, and I also needed a potato.

First, I ventured into the deep, dark recesses of the basement to find where Dave had hidden his car keys.

A HA! Right there on the dresser.

The keys themselves are terrifying, because there’s a panic button in addition to the “lock” and “unlock” buttons. Hit the wrong one and . . . ? I don’t know. You die? Something bad happens. All I know is you do NOT want to hit the panic button.

Once in The Red Car, I had to make some adjustments. Here is some more terror, because I must remember EXACTLY where everything was. The seat. The rearview window. The radio station. The radio VOLUME.

See? Horror Ride! I haven’t even stepped on the gas.

At McDonald’s drive-thru, I’m in trouble. My easy, non-death-car (Mazzie) has old-fashioned roll-down window opener handles. But The Red Car has these new-fangled auto-button roll-downies. WHICH ONE? In my panic (I can hear the impatience in the order taker’s voice), I push blindly at them. Soon I’m sitting in a freezing Red Car with only the driver’s side window still rolled up.

“CAN YOU HEAR ME I WANT COFFEE!”

I’m almost in tears, so I just open the damn door and give my order.

(Then, of course, I roll down the correct window in my confusion to roll the OTHERS up.)

Never mind. I’ve got my coffee. I shall sip it calmingly whilst I shop for a potato.

The Potato

Usually I like to stock up on groceries so I have fewer trips to make. But for some reason, I have an aversion to getting more than one potato per trip.

I had just bought a dang ol’ potato yesterday. And I had some problems.

At the self-checkout lane, the machine didn’t recognize “Potato, russet.” The unfriendly voice told me to wait for assistance. Man, I hate that, don’t you? After several years, the nice lady came to push in the correct potato code. I tried to memorize it, but her fingers were too fast.

So. New day, new potato. I remembered what I learned yesterday, and tried to outsmart the machine. This time I checked the other options. HA! I’ll fool it by clicking on “Potato, sweet.”

Please wait for assistance.

Damnit! And the lady who helped me yesterday is the same one to come to my rescue today. I’m embarrassed. What is going thru her mind, regarding this strange potato-buying/potato-lying woman? And why do I care? I have a right to buy a single potato every day for the rest of my life if it so pleases me. And it does.

An old lady in the parking lot says to me, perhaps in reference to the extreme cold: “We must be crazy!”

Well, maybe you are, grandma, but I really needed this potato and coffee. Now stand aside while I juggle my purchases to find the right button . . .

WEE-OOO WEE-OOO WEE-OOO WEE-OOO WEE-OOO

Next time I’ll just brush off the damn snow crystals.

Share on Facebook