And not in a creepy way.

I was going to post a picture of the dead things my cat killed and left on the deck, because I can’t identify them and thought you might be able to, but then I got this email and that bumped the dead things post.

I had a dream with you in it last night.

GPop, Son, and I were asked to go on a bus trip to the Twin Cities.  The admin assistant of our area was driving.  There was someone standing at the front of the bus, a la the movie Speed.  Later that evening, we finally got to the bus stop, which was right outside the small restaurant you owned in downtown Minneapolis.

You came out to greet us, looking just like your arms-out-head-back picture.  You told us that you thought our admin was a bad driver, so you were going to bring us a better chauffeur.  You snapped your fingers, and the old Batmobile from the Adam West Batman series zipped around the corner and approached the curb.  Just as it was about to pull up, a black Corvette zoomed up and parked right in front of us.  The door opened, and Tom Cruise looked out from inside.  He started to talk to us as though we should care what he had to say.  He just kept talking from the passenger seat.  I think his wife was driving him around.

The guy in the Batmobile kept checking his watch, but nobody was paying attention to him.  I think you were getting irritated at Tom Cruise.

Then I woke up.

GDad, from Cranial Hyperossification, is one of my best blog friends. We have never met in real life, though we have talked about it. I’m rather impressed with this dream. I love that I could snap my fingers and conjure up the original Batmobile. I’m not really sure why GDad thought I had this kind of power but it has really made my day, and saved you all from the dead things post.  I don’t usually remember my dreams, though occasionally I have written about them.

Have you ever had a dream about someone from the blogosphere?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Batmobile Spotted On The Set Of The Arthur Remake (cinemablend.com)
• A Batmobile Retrospective: 1966-2010 (ridelust.com)

I had a garage sale this weekend, actually it started last Thursday and ran through yesterday. Well, sort of yesterday. By Sunday I had had it and opened my garage just long enough to move everything around so I could get my car back into the garage. Anyway, that is why I have been MIA for the last week. Sorry, I will be around more this week.

Garage sales are a shit load of work in case you have never had one.

My neighbor was the one who started the whole garage sale thing. Not the WHOLE garage sale thing but the garage sale thing in my neighborhood this past weekend. She convinced me and another neighbor that it would be a good thing if we had multiple garage sales. She was right but still, it wasn’t my idea.

The people who shop garage sales are freaks.

Not the ones who just happen on a garage sale and pick up an item or two, but the ones who knock on your door because they want to be the first one to pick through all your stuff that is basically junk.

The worst part about these people is that they want to bargain. I didn’t price anything over $1, I wanted to get rid of my crap and I didn’t want to negotiate. They did.

I had a pair of brand new leather Harley Davidson riding boots that cost me over $100, for sale for $1 and yet someone wanted to bargain them down to 50 cents! And they wanted to do this bargaining on the first day in the first five minutes.

I told them no thank you. I wanted that extra 50 cents dammit.

I had a woman show up in a Mercedes sporting diamonds and designer clothes looking for cheap furniture so she could stage her basement for the sale of her house. If I’d had anything that could have been used for the purpose I would have gladly bargained with her but I didn’t think she wanted an over sized chair that my son found on the boulevard that had been sitting in my garage for the last year.

She didn’t.

I told her to go to Ikea, which she did.

Most of the people who came to the garage sale were women, heavily tattooed women. All very nice but some were missing teeth.

I don’t understand the men in this world who wear dress shirts with sweat pants, and there are a lot of them, at least at garage sales. What’s wrong with throwing on a t-shirt? Why a dress shirt? Are they news anchors or something? I’m confused.

There are people in this world who think it is all about them. I can’t tell you how many people drove through the alley, parked their car in the middle of the alley and then left their car door open while they shopped. I was hoping one of the many many cars that wanted to get past them would take off their car door but in Minnesota we don’t roll that way. We wait patiently until the horribly selfish person, who is obviously not from Minnesota, finishes and leaves.

For the last four days I have done nothing but stand in my garage talking to strangers. I haven’t had time to write, I haven’t had time to read. I have mounds and mounds of laundry and the dishwasher has needed to be emptied for the last three days. I desperately need to go to the grocery store.

The garage sale was not a huge hit, it rained the whole time. People still came to it but I’m sure if it had been sunny I would have gotten rid of a lot more junk.

I’m off to the Goodwill today.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Organizing A Successful Garage or Yard Sale (homemanagement.suite101.com)

There is only one Golden Girl left. Betty White is the only surviving Golden Girl after the death this morning of Rue McClanahan who died from a stroke at 1am.

Rue played Blanche Devereaux on the groundbreaking series The Golden Girls from 1985 to 1992. Blanche was the over sexed one of the group.

The Golden Girls was one of my favorite shows. The dialog was witty, the characters were interesting and they managed to push the envelope without being tacky. It was a classy show filled with laughs.

The Golden Girls was on when we had fewer choices on television and no reality shows, and somehow television was better. There are only two shows on these days that I try to stop everything and watch, Parenthood and The Big Bang Theory. Shows die so quickly these days that I wonder if Golden Girls would be able to make it on television today. Probably not.

I’m not a huge fan of the Gores, even though Al gave us the internet, but I am sad to hear that they have decided to get a divorce after 40 years of marriage.

I try to stay away from politics on my blog, even though the first year I talked about nothing but politics.  Blame it on the two year long presidential election which was just filled with things to talk about and the fact that I was a campaign manager right before I started blogging. I have since realized I know nothing about politics and it is better if I keep my opinions to myself. If I don’t Jayne will come over and kick my ass. I love her blog but feel as if my welcome there is tenuous at best, even though I am her token republican. I need my Sunday Recap so I keep my mouth shut even though I am not convinced she says some things just to get my goat.

As such I’m not going to talk about the Gores’ politics except to say that my dislike for them started back in the 80′s when Tipper decided that record albums needed warning labels. I’m sure her plan to protect children from questionable lyrics backfired and she probably created millionaires out of some musicians who wouldn’t have otherwise made a splash, but that was not her intent. I also have a hard time with hypocrisy. Al Gore is Mr. Environmentalist and all things green and yet he consumes more energy and pollutes more than I could ever hope to in my lifetime. Of course he buys his carbon offsets so it makes up for everything.

So, no, I don’t care that much for the Gores. But, I am sad to hear that their marriage is ending after 40 years. According to their ‘people’ there was no affair, though I find that hard to believe, they simply grew apart.

I’m no expert on marriage, though I do know quite a bit about divorce, but it seems to me that after 40 years you might just want to stick it out. Apparently these two were high school sweethearts. They have no idea what they are about to face. The dating world is brutal. Okay, it might be a little easier for both of them because they are celebrities but still, dating is no fun.

The whole world is talking about  Al and Tipper, maybe not the whole world, maybe just those of us in countries where we have so much extra time on our hands, because we don’t have jobs, that we can concern ourselves with this kind of thing. Or maybe everyone is talking about their divorce because it really is scary.

I’ve never made it past the three year mark in a marriage but I always assumed that once you got past the seven year itch (which seems to happen around the three year mark) and got the kids out of the house, that marriage was a little easier. That after a certain amount of time together, ups and downs, and all out fights, that if you could survive those things you could coast for a little while. That you could maybe relax a bit and know, really know, that you were going to hit that rocking chair on a porch next to your spouse. You both might have dementia and gravity has taken over but still, you had your person who made you not alone.  If you were lucky and no one had dementia or Alzheimer’s, you might be able to remember the past with fondness, look back at what the two of you had created and smile.

Now both of the Gores will have to find someone else to sit with them on that porch. They won’t be able to talk fondly about their past because they won’t have much of a past with the new person. If Al finds some hippie chick to spend his golden years with there will be certain subjects that are not allowed. Subjects like his life as a VP, his invention of the internet and all the other things he did while he was married to Tipper. I don’t know what Al Gore does these days but his glory days are probably over. He probably isn’t going to run for president again, he might create something just as awesome as the internet, say, the iPad or the Hubble Telescope, but my guess is his inventing days are over too.

Tipper probably fares a little better than Al in finding a lasting mate. She looks pretty good, she seems to have mellowed over the years and men are dogs who will bang anything. They don’t really care who she was married to before. Since they don’t often listen anyway they probably won’t care if she talks about Al’s campaign or that kiss they shared on election night.

I’m sure both Al and Tipper will be just fine. They have gobs of money and can do what they want. They don’t have to stick it out for the kids or because of the crappy economy. Which is really a sad thought.

Who do you think will get the Clintons in the divorce settlement?

Originally this post was going to be about awkward family photos.

In the another blogger gets a book deal file is this fun site about awkward family photos. I figured I could post a few of my family photos that were just as awkward. The post was going to be a little on the snarky side because I am jealous of any blogger who seems to be an overnight success by getting a book deal and winding up on the Today Show.  I’ve been a little testy lately.

In my search for awkward family photos I discovered there weren’t many that were truly awkward. There were several that were funny:

I don’t know who that baby is but I thought he looked funny.  That is my grandmother and some strange dog, I don’t recognize the house.  This picture was taken in 1966 so that baby would be 44ish now. I apologize if this is you.

This actually is rather awkward. Yep, that’s me, during my long, drawn out, awkward phase. Hey, at least I’m not wearing those pants that my brother is wearing.

I couldn’t find any pictures that were truly horrible but I did find a lot of photos that were interesting and made me wonder how we ever survived growing up back in then.

That’s my brother in his car seat in our family convertible.

That’s me, face down, in the bassinet.

Remember when kids where still allowed to play with guns?

My brother has grown up to be a very calm, reasonable person. To my knowledge he has never picked up a real gun.

I played with dolls as a child.

And finally, the picture that just says so much

Mullet, seven beers, full ashtray, nearly empty salt shaker, fast food, diet mayonnaise because that fixed everything, and Diet Pepsi obviously this picture was taken before Diet Coke was invented. Don’t even get me started on the wallpaper.

*UPDATE*

If you would like to send your survival pictures to me I will feature them here next Friday. You can send your survival photos to redheadshesaid@gmail.com. Please include your name or moniker and blog URL so I can link to you.

I refuse to talk about Tiger Woods, the Masters or his cheating. I will say this however, the editors of Vanity Fair should be ashamed of themselves. I know they want to sell magazines, something few of us buy anymore, but don’t they even for a minute, consider Tiger Woods’ wife Elin or their children? I think not.

Moving on.

Do you know who this is?

I didn’t until last week. Now he is all I hear about.

My daughter is in love with Justin Bieber. She’s only in first grade. I don’t think I had my first crush until I was in third grade but I guess they grow up a lot faster now.  She is already talking about their wedding.

My first love was Donnie Osmond. I was also convinced that if he just noticed me he would fall madly in love with me and we would be married and live happily every after. And then I fell in love with Shaun Cassidy whom I was also sure would find me irresistible once he met me.

I’m actually relieved that nothing every developed between Donnie and myself. Our political views are not compatible, we could never see eye to eye on religion, I wouldn’t under any circumstance had as many kids as he wanted and he looks funny with all that plastic surgery. I dodged a bullet on that one.

Shaun Cassidy on the other hand would have been a great catch. He still looks cute, he’s an amazing writer and he hasn’t gotten into any trouble since he was a pop star, at least none that I am aware.

I’m not prepared for puppy love yet. I don’t know how to handle it except to not make a big deal out of it. When I told my mother about my love of Donnie and Shaun she belittled it considerably. She called it puppy love, and basically made fun of me for having a crush on someone who would never notice me in a million years. Yeah maybe, but only because I lived in flyover country and unless my parents were willing to take me to Los Angeles I wasn’t going to meet either on of them.  They weren’t.

I’m sure Justin will be the first in a long line of crushes my daughter has, especially since they are churning out these young stars much faster than they did when I was a kid. YouTube and Facebook have made stars out of people who wouldn’t normally get the kind of exposure necessary to become a one hit wonder at most.

For now, I am going to try to get excited with my daughter when she plays one of his videos or one of his songs comes on the radio. Why not? Just because his voice hasn’t changed yet and it sounds like fingernails on a blackboard to me doesn’t mean that I can’t get wrapped up in the love as well.