Barb Best

JUNE To-Do List

Thank you Covid.

You have taught us patience.

A year of delayed gratification, postponements and chronic procrastination has created a to-do list longer than the pandemic itself.

The Short List

BIG MANICURE

Footsie

An entire year without a pedicure.

The horror!

You know it and I know it.

It’s damn time for a serious exfoliating foot treatment.

Bon Voyage

Vaccinated. Caffeinated. Ready to roll!

We are itchin’ to travel.

A niggling case of wanderlust has been eating away at our weary souls as we have settled for Netflix binges, web surfing and mediocre take-out food.

Doesn’t have to be a Mediterranean cruise, a first-class flight to Paris or a month on a private yacht.

You’ll settle for a road trip to Grandma’s condo or the local beach.

Smart Phone

In the past year, you’ve built up digital clutter on your cell phone like pounds around your middle.

Time to cut and clear.

Lighten the megabyte load.

Lastly, don’t forget to plan for your tombstone inscription.

Don’t forget to choose a snazzy font.

Sweet!  A woman In Utah had her headstone engraved with her fudge recipe.

Who says you have to stop sharing after you die?

June Gloom: 50 Shades of L.A. Gray

Wine: Ruminations from the Bottom of a Glass of Rose´

My Dream Job is A Remote Job

Yippee Yay!

Now that I’m working my forever dream job remotely from home…

I am free!  Free at last!

Riding the Freedom Choo-choo

While collecting a chunky paycheck

And maintaining my life work play goof off balance.

Now That I Work Remote I Can…

• Breastfeed my toddler twins fifteen times a day – each!  Ouch. Ouch.

• Reach Level 8500 of Candy Crush Saga.  And you thought Skittles and M & M’s were addicting?

• Score a load of laundered moolah in bitcoin trades. Too late?

• Be a crypto consultant, day trader and night owl. Never too late.

• Learn to play the saxophone while pretending to be in boring business meetings. So cool 🙂

• Cook gourmet lunches for friends and family. Yum Yum.

• Take my diva cat for lengthy acupuncture treatments and manicures while “working.” Wink, Wink!

• Meet the neighbors. Why not?

• Nap whenever I want! Like right now.

• Have sex all day. They don’t call it Zoom for nothing.

• Save money on gas, wheels, personal grooming and a presentable wardrobe.  I may look homeless, but I’ll be rich.

• Every day, I can ditch the heels, Spandex and bra and wear my comfy clothes. Highly conducive to napping.

• Experiment with acid and magic mushrooms before my annual job review.  Helps to focus? On what?

• Go on vacation somewhere, anywhere, anytime.  The real goal!

Dream On!

Work & Retirement: All You Really Need to Know

April Pain

On a scale of 1 to 10, where is yours?

Pain is Relative

Nobody has no pain. Not even a sea sponge or a nitrous oxide enthusiast.

Constant stress from styrofoam cling-on… a 2?

A nagging concern about proper toe alignment… a 1?

Cardiac surgery… a 10!

Childbirth… an 11!

A paper cut from a past due snail mail bill… a 5?

Personally, I worry that it’s wicker bag season. I hate wicker. It cannot compete with calfskin, cotton canvas or nylon as an accessory… a 2?

I love a Ceasar salad, but croutons annoy. They lack character. They either try too hard or not enough… a 3?

Perspective

Pain is subjective, but so is pleasure and joy.

Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown hell, illness and death… 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 +

My arm hurts – not from the shot – but from logging onto numerous websites for days, weeks, months trying to nail an appointment for the vaccine… not even a 1.

Scientists seek ways to finally take real measure of pain…

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-scientists-ways-real-pain.html

JUST IN TIME!  APRIL IS NATIONAL HUMOR MONTH 🙂

I Feel Your Pain

National Humor Month

Friends: Our Dubious Achievements of 2020

While contemplating goals and intentions for the new year 2021 (yawn),

I asked pals, “What have I and/or you accomplished in 2020?”

Prolific artistic output?  A thick, juicy novel ripe with creative breakthroughs?

A slew of wonderful new paintings — like 83 year old David Hockney?

After a totally non-scientific study and truly shallow analysis…

Ta Da!

[…]

Pandemic fatigue has set in

According to the World Health Organization (WHO as in Dr. Who) pandemic fatigue is expressed by demotivation in adhering to “protective” orders, hopelessness and alienation.

Baby boomers, Millennials, Gens X, Y and Zers – all ages suffer from this malady.

Ironically, it causes exhaustion from not doing stuff.

We are tired of this.

Rumor has it PF is more contagious than Covid itself.

Regression Anybody?

A QUIZ FOR YOU

Are You Suffering from PF OR Are You A Three-Month-Old Feral Baby?

• I wear stained clothes everyday.
• I take five naps a day.
• I suck my shirt sleeve and gaze into the abyss.
• I startle and screech when the dog barks.
• I bawl my brains out uncontrollably for no apparent reason.
• I let a few big, stinky ones rip while I drink my lunch.
• I vomit my breakfast in the car on the way to pick up an antidiarrheal and a crate of Chux.
• I curl up in a fetal position and grab my feet.
• I suck my toes.
• I babble to the cat.
• I suck my fingers and stick them in the nearest electrical outlet.
• I cry for mommy. I cry for daddy. I cry for the Amazon Prime delivery person.

THE MISERY MANIFESTO – A MONTH-TO-MONTH SURVIVAL GUIDE

Kindle e-book and paperback
https://amzn.to/3lr4Wf5

Holidays: ‘Tis the Season to Survive the Stress

Daylight savings time

Tick tock, tick tock.

Turn your clock back or is it forward?

Fall back, spring ahead, fall forward, spring back?

Daylight savings time is like kimchee – nobody seems to like it.

And yet there it is.

It’s fake time!

Even the dog and cat are confused by it.

Does anybody really know what time it is?

As if the pandemic hasn’t skewed your sense of time over these tedious months,

The powers that be shall now screw with your Circadian rhythm!

So much for your delicate sleep routine.

Your internal clock will be out of whack again.

There will be more darkness, less light.

Thank God for caffeine

Rhythm

How do I keep time?

I got rhythm!  I got caffeine! Who could ask for anything more?

Alarm Clocks are Evil and Sleep is Divine

Are People Dying of Boredom?

Due to Covid, we are (duh) spending a helluva lot more time at home.

Surprise! Many people tell me they are dying of boredom.

To put it bluntly, they are in a rut.

Someone who is world-weary is not enthusiastic about anything, often because they have had too much experience of a particular way of life.

Boredom is Dumb

What am I doing to pass the time? To keep intellectually stimulated, emotionally engaged and (more or less) awake?

Oh, and not bored.

A few examples:

• Installing a wine window in my home office. Salut!

• Experimenting with at-home mole removal. Ouch.

• Teaching my pet duck to straighten up and fly right. What can I say, he has issues.

• Tweaking that decadent rum cinnamon pecan caramel bun recipe. Practice makes perfect.

• Woo hoo! Going craft crazy. Etsy beware! Don’t miss my elegant skeleton nipple jewelry and my one-of-a-kind pumpkin glitter art decoupage. Busy hands are happy hands.

• Giving Fitbit a run (actually a walk) for its money. Come all, join the Fitbit cult of Stepford spouses. Ho hum Step, Ho Hum Step, Ho Hum Step. Zzzz Step. Zzzz Step. Zzzz…

• Toilet training the cat. So what if he’s nine years old? It’s never too late to embrace baseless optimism.

You Can’t be Bored While Laughing

• Immersing oneself in The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker  Laughter rules!

World Weary

Dedicated to the Year 2020

Home Stuck Home? 7 Really FUN Things to Do Really!

Social Distancing Pointers from Howard Hughes

Having trouble social distancing

being stuck at home

how ’bout

taking some grooming tips from

the eccentric, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes –

you will not only be successfully distanced…

people will stay clear away from you!

Image Wikimedia Commons

DO IT LIKE HOWARD!

• Wash your hands 15 times a day – so what if you’re wearing gloves? You don’t need a pandemic to be Mr. Clean.

• Wear Kleenex box hats. Nothing like protective headgear to make you feel safe and sound. And much more stylish than a tin foil cap.

• Only bed busty actresses and only have sex with them once, then gorge yourself for months on their housekeeper’s baked goods – while they fantasize about marrying you and helping you handle your filthy millions.

Image Wikimedia Commons

• Grow foot-long, curly fingernails that put Elvira to shame.

• Don’t trim – or comb – your beard for a decade.

All in jest.

Books

Read these fantastic biographies of the genius Howard Hughes

Movies

ICYMI… here is a great movie about Howard Hughes

The Aviator (2004) Official Trailer #1 – Leonardo DiCaprio

Boost Your Immunity

What to do when there’s a health crisis of biblical proportions?

Beef up your defenses. Build your resistance. Bolster your gut health.

There’s no better time than a global pandemic to boost your immunity!

BTW it’s also a dandy time to write your will and ditch your boring diet.

Do You Think I’m Sexy?

Predatory invaders – whether they be Covid-19, flesh-eating bacteria, or the good ole stand-by chicken pox – want your body.

Hacks from Quacks

You can UP your immunity by employing a strategy involving medicinal (barf) food, habits of hardship and dubious herbal supplements.

FUN Health Advice

• Practice safe socializing! Wrap yourself in layers of bubble wrap before interacting with any live humans. This prophylactic will protect you and them. God knows you have enough packing materials from the Amazon Prime buying binges you’ve been on.

• Nothing says social distancing like garlic and onions on your breath, in your hair, seeping out of the pores of your sallow skin. Load up on the bitter bulbs and people will keep their distance.

• Don’t forget. A spoonful of sugar helps the foul smelling kimchi and fetid apple cider vinegar go down. And by “spoonful” I mean “cup.”

• Warning. Expensive immunity-boosting supplements may leave a hole in your wallet and your Sigmoid Colon.

• Intermittent fasting will build your tolerance for suffering and deprivation. Germs respect that. So suck it up.

• Splurge on scads of Vitamin A, B, C and D. Now I know my ABC’s…

• Walk around holding an umbrella 24-7. This will catch any viral droplets hanging over your head.

• Bonus! Tend to your mental health. If necessary, paint the interior of your home a soothing Aqua and pretend you live in a spa by the sea.  Namaste.

Oh Health: A Pop Quiz

Available on Amazon

Lighten Up!

In defense of kind-hearted humor

No kidding!

Sometimes a joke is just a joke.

And not a deliberate manipulation, power play, micro aggression, political attack or intended personal offense.

Image taken from a University of Alabama site, “Approaches to Modernism”: [1], Fair use

Funny

Sometimes a jest, a quip or a pun is not a Freudian slip – but merely a leap at silliness, a feeble attempt at levity, a verbal slide on a banana peel.

Like almost everything else in this imperfect world, sometimes comedy is really dumb,

but…

Laughter and Play

can bring people closer together and unite them.

Positive humor

Take a flight into whimsy,

a playful swing at fun,

a flirtation with optimism,

a respite from burdensome reality.

Laughter can be the best (if not the cheapest) medicine.

Learn more about applied and therapeutic humor…

The Association for Applied & Therapeutic Humor 

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The Humor Academy

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Free Laughs

I Started A Joke * Puddles Pity Party