I was listening to NPR this morning, as they interviewed the curator of the Museum of Bad Art. And the idea struck me…

Every month, Fresno hosts a monthly art experience called Art Hop. Essentially. bunch of venues pop up— whether one-time event related or permanent showings—and display art. But I feel there is something missing in this presentation:  humor.

I want my venue to be different.

Let art be appreciated if it’s funny. Or off-key. Or missing the point, but that then brings up a whole new point…

I want to host a Humorous Art venue, where the art connoisseur can view quirky art—or funny art—whatever, whilst enjoying a Dixie cup of Pabst Blue and Twinkie bites. And the idea of a MoHA (Museum of Humorous Art) showing was born.

The setting will of course be very swank and high end. That’s the delicious part of the theatre of it.

My point: If you are an artist, if you have funny art, or bad art or can send bad art— PLEASE CONTACT ME.

Important: Your art must have a story. A funny story.

Looking for:

* Sculpture

* Installations

* Paintings/drawings/renderings

* Taxidermy

Interested? Contact me.

Know someone who owns bad art? Or who creates funny art? PLEASE help spread the word!

Me in my fancy coat.

…It’s literal. This past weekend my hubs and I climbed Mt. Whitney with some great friends of ours. For those unaware, Mt. Whitney is the highest peak in the contiguous U.S., standing at an elevation of 14, 505 feet. It might not seem like a big deal, but that is a long way to hike.

Seriously. Twenty-two miles round trip to the top, to be exact, with an elevation gain of 6,100 feet. Most of that hike was done with a pack weighing 33 lbs. on my back. So go ahead– say it: WOW YOU ARE AWESOME.

Yes. Yes I am awesome.

Okay and also super physically tired. My calves are really, really, really sore.

Proof.

But I did it. Highest peak + me climbing = AWESOME.

Here are a few pics of the journey.

We who thrive in this superstitious vein have simply come to accept this Rule of Threes as fact; or, to quote the sheep from the movie Babe, “The way things are is the way things are.”

OTHER FACT: Good news is shocking. Wonderful, exciting, glorious—but nonetheless shocking, even if and perhaps especially if you have been preparing for it. Good news happens in blips and burps along life’s road. It crops up, surprising you like a shiny nugget of joy.

OTHER-OTHER FACT: Everything else—if they are not bad things and happening in threes, nor wonderful and exciting and glorious—should be appreciated as much as possible and accepted at face value… because to otherwise not accept the bland, regular, normal parts of life is akin to waggling said blandness in fate’s fat, gaping maw and declaring it under-appreciated. And heaven for-gawd’s-sake-bid you do not sufficiently appreciate the little things in life. Because, my friends, those things that are *not* appreciated can quickly sour. Like at supersonic speed. And by ignoring the preciousness of the average, you are basically tempting fate into retooling the mundane moments of your life into something HORRENDOUS.

Like many, I’ve dealt with my share of yuckiness spawned by bad news. I’m pretty sure that’s the definition of wisdom: Learning to deal with life’s crap. Sometimes gracefully.

And in these last 40 years, I have also learned that when things go swimmingly, fantastically, super-duperously, what I all-too-quickly presume is a really cute handbag falling from the sky is actually a shoe. And oftentimes—BUT NOT ALWAYS—its match appears out of nowhere and drops right on my head.

This other-shoe occurrence has happened so, so many times in my world that I sometimes ignore the handbag and wait for the other shoe. Good news in my world has been reduced to a dropping shoe named Godot. It could happen. It might happen. Maybe today—but if not today, then surely tomorrow.

Do you see the circle I’ve created here? Do you see how, by not accepting the good at face value, I am tempting fate to deliver me an ugly anvil-of-a-shoe? How, by not appreciating the good and reveling in it, I’m missing out on life’s best handbag experiences?

No more.

I’m going to try something new.

We bought a house—our dream house. We made an offer and the offer was accepted and now we’re in escrow. Life is moving forward. I can accept this. It’s okay to be happy about this. Right? I mean, this bit of news is good, and no matter how many times I pester our infinitely patient and awesome broker, Jeff Carroll (Realty Concepts, LTD.),  thinking he will state otherwise, it is for reals. And trues. We really are buying a house.

So for right here, right now, today—this moment—I can revel in this amazingly awesome handbag.

Wow. Just… wow.

Killer whales: Busy being awesome.

Well… I was reading Scientific American in my never-ending quest to be able to state that I read such a high-brow mag, and I learned that both certain species of whales and the females of the human species live decades past menopause.

And nobody else. Not dogs, not elephants, not fish. Nor sea turtles. Nor ducks. No really, you can keep guessing— but you’d be wrong. Just humans and two species of whales live decades past menopause.

I have never in my life thought about this fact. First, because I didn’t know it until I read Scientific American (name dropping again) and second because I took it for granted that all animals’ life cycles were similar.

Nope. It all comes down to breeding patterns.

In some societies, the male leaves the group to go mate. The females of that group, then, see lots of males (to whom they are unrelated) over the course of their lives. Which is to say, a female in that group raises her young; her sons leave eventually to seek their reproductive fortunes elsewhere.

However…

“For mammals in which the female leaves the group to mate—or in which breeding happens away from the group—a female will find herself surrounded by an increasing number of males to which she is related (as sons, grandsons and other generations of males stick around). In this scenario, it actually behooves her—and the group—to stop mating (and competing for breeding resources that could increase the fertility of younger females) and help younger females raise her progeny. Other research has shown that having a grandmother around to help out confers extra benefits on younger generations.”

Call it the grandmother effect: We all do better when there’s a grandma around.

“Although contemporary human societies have given rise to all kinds of moving and mating arrangements, the researchers point out that in traditional human forager societies, “female transfer to the husband’s family at marriage is more common,” and genetic analysis shows an extended human history of “female-biased transfer.” For the two whale species, the researchers noted that both are thought to mate outside of their local groups, leading to “an increase in local relatedness with female age.”

So, not to overstate the case, but we live longer because, in a best case scenario, we had grandmas that helped our moms raise us to maturity. Same thing with these whales. And we live well past menopause, because we are supposed to help our kids raise their kids. Doing little things like helping forage dinner for the young, or watching the calves while mom and dad get away, take a breather and grab some krill.

And not to overstate overstating the case, but perhaps we just stumbled upon the meaning of life: grandparenting.

To read the full article, visit Scientific American online. To send your grandmother flowers, visit FTD.com.

Why would I want to see two kittens playing with yarn? There was nothing calming about that. And the kittens weren’t at all cute; in fact, they were kind of scraggly looking.

The stirrups were cold. They put little socks over them to keep the metal from icing your feet, but it’s really just a small comfort. Warm the KY, or warm the speculum. Those are HUGE comforts.

The poster is for pretending you’re somewhere else, or to keep you entertained and your mind otherwise occupied while some person you see maybe once a year pokes and prods at your most sensitive areas with an overlarge and alien looking Q-tip.

You know, if they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they take away the horrific discomfort of this cavity search? I hate the pap smear. It’s so undignified. Laying there in a paper gown, then that gooey gel gets slogged on followed by the cold hard prodding of that invasive instrument and scccwwwwwAHHHH– suddenly I feel like I’m a tent that’s being aired out.

I scrunch my face and I’m immediately told to relax. Apparently scrunching your face also scrunches the not-your-face. I breathe. I stare up at the ceiling, at the glistening, new poster and I’m grateful it’s not kittens anymore. Feeling like this, I’d associate the experience and end up resenting the kittens. It’s hard to resent a waterfall.

Still, a little Enya might have been nice.

So when our two 18-year-olds were facing their first summer post-high school and came to ask us for fun money, after a good, hard laugh we encouraged them/badgered them/set forth the mandate that they HAD to get summer jobs. Yes, it’s a lousy job market, we said, but there will be no resting on your laurels this summer. You must take on responsibility. The Bank of Mom and Dad is now closed. Go get jobs.

That’s right: We sure told them.

Rising to our expectations as children so often do when they have big dreams and empty wallets, they did get jobs. My husband and I were naturally very proud… of ourselves. We congratulated each other on our brilliant parenting techniques. Our cajoling worked! Those freeloaders were now productive members of society! And just as we settled in to pat our own backs and toast one another, these crafty teens were back—this time asking for rides to work.

So we drove them off, and returned home and resettled in and raised our glasses and— phone call: they needed rides home. And when we got home, back they needed to go but we were busy now so we loaned them our car but then the other 5 kids needed to all be at various and sundry activities at the exact same time and GAAAHHH!!!

It became apparent rather quickly that we hated these stupid teen jobs.

Yes, yes, they needed the money. Yes, I know, blah blah productive something something society blah. Those stupid teen jobs had the unpopular side effect of creating shuttle driver jobs for my husband and I.

That’s when we sat down and looked at our finances. Maybe it was time for the teens—we have FIVE of them, after all—to have a car they could share to get them to the places they wanted and/or needed to go.

We’d already held out as long as we could. We calculated what kind of vehicle was reasonably priced and safe to drive. We visited the used car lot.

Our intention was to check out the electric blue Toyota Yaris.  It was cute. Better, it was in our price range. I didn’t know much about safety ratings, but it was the kind of car that could carry maybe a good 3 people. Four if they were small. And it apparently got great gas mileage. Sure, the color was a bit outlandish, but being an intelligent person, I knew that color had very little to do with the actual functioning of the car. Or so my husband told me, anyway.

But the bronze Toyota Corolla, two rows over? Now there was a car. It was larger and the price was better. And one look and we knew the kids would practically almost smirk with joy at such a car. Perhaps even manage a shrug of gratefulness to have something that safe. Yes, it looked like a car a mom would drive. Not this mom, per se, but you know. Some mom somewhere. Like an older mom. A grandmother, perhaps. Not my grandmother, per se, but… whatever. It would be a car that the kids could use, once they got past the flinching and gag reflex.

My husband and I knew it was the sensible choice. Logical. Responsible, practical. And we’re the parents, so clearly we know these things. This car had a lot going for it, characteristics the kids would come to appreciate in time. I mentioned the safe thing, right? Yeah, well there was that. Oh and it got similar gas mileage to the Yaris, so that’s something. I mean, while they probably didn’t care now, those kids would come to appreciate the gas savings. Bonus: it wasn’t peacock blue.

We went to the lot to see the blue Toyota Yaris. And we decided that the sensible thing would be to go with the larger, bronze Toyota Corolla.

How we ended up driving off the lot with the red 2001 Mustang GT is another story entirely. That one’s the story about us: the non-sensible parents.

Oops.

Fast forward 25 years.

Let me share the massively exciting things to occur in my home life recently that do not involve my kids:

1)    I figured out that by unplugging/turning off the power strip to our plasma screen TVs, we saved $81 on our electric bill this month. I KNOW, RITE?? I cannot emphasize enough how insanely happy this makes me. OH MY GAWD, that’s like, four days of groceries! Insane. I am apoplectic with joy.

2)    I cleaned the laundry room. And when I say clean, I mean, CLEAN, honey. All the laundry was done. ALL OF IT. And folded and put away. I even was able to sweep in there. I am so flipping excited about this, I’m getting hot flashes.

3)    We watched LOST last night. And it was AWESOME. My TV friends are all alive and well still, but I am really worried about Jack.  PREDICTION: Jack becomes the next Jacob and he’s stranded evermore with Lock on the Island. Doesn’t that just scream poetic justice? It absolutely completes their character arcs.

4)    Ever since I discovered Morning Star Farms Meatless Crumbles, my dinner making ideas have just exploded! Those darn crumbles just add so much possibility to healthy-ing up and rounding out a meal it’s FABULOUS.

5)    My cilantro is sprouting! And my tomato plants are absolutely thriving—flowers everywhere. The basil is a little slow to take flight, but I think with a little patience and guidance, it’ll come along just fine.

6)    Is there anything more exciting than clean sheets? Does life get better than that?

7)    One of my big social events recently was to attend the memorial service of my grandmother. That’s not a real positive event, but it was very social. By which I mean I spoke to people to whom I am related AND who are not my children.

8)     I finally got that darn bite guard, so I don’t need to worry about grinding my teeth when I sleep. So. Awesome. BONUS: My insurance covered half the cost.

9)    My favorite author released another novel! *bliss* DOWNSIDE: I finished it in 2 days.

10)     FREE DONUT! Need I say more?

The joy. The craziness. The pure, unadulterated, eye-bleeding excitement of my insane lifestyle. I am practically weeping with glee.

Sure.

Glee.

…And then a decade later I blend families with this awesome man. Suddenly, we have seven crazy squirrels all our own, all leaping to their own dances while my husband and I try to corral them down a path of success. Or, at least, out of our basement and away from the video games by the time they’re 40.

This video is exactly the crazy life my husband and I live. Only instead of felines, imagine vermin. Cute, skittish vermin.