The boys are away on a travel meet, and everybody we run into keeps asking Hubby and me the same question:

You’re alone this weekend? How come you guys aren’t running around the house, naked?

First of all, the questioner seems to assume that not only have you NOT been doing any running around the house, naked, but also that you do not expect to do any running around the house, naked, EVER.

And all of a sudden you realize that empty-nesters everywhere must have built up this huge reputation for running around the house, naked, and that you’re going to have to live up to it, too, or nobody will ever ask you over for dinner again.

And if this question is asked in, say, the grocery store, you wonder if perhaps the questioner is thinking your grocery shopping is more important to you than running around the house, naked!

And then you’re torn between reassuring them that yes, you do expect to be running around the house, naked, as soon as you get home and unload the groceries… or telling them flat out to mind their own beeswax, at which point you just KNOW they’ll think you never intended to run around the house, naked, and poor Hubby.

So. What to answer back?

Appropriate Response if Asked In the Grocery Store

BONNIE: (blushes) Well, um, I, uh….

And then there’s the problem of knowing that the two of you really did plan to run around the house, naked, but were just trying to get in a few errands first.

Appropriate Response if Your Evening Plans Do Include Running Around the House, Naked

BONNIE: (blushes) Well, um, I, uh….

HUBBY: (puts fingers to head in imitation of bull horns, and paws at the floor with his feet)

And what if you’ve already done a little running around, naked, and hope to do a little more, later, but you really feel like it’s too much information to share with, you know, the WHOLE WORLD.

Appropriate Response if You’ve Already Done a Little Running Around the House, Naked

BONNIE: Ummm… (starts blushing)

HUBBY: (puts fingers to head in imitation of bull horns, and paws at the floor with his feet)

BONNIE: (hits him) Stop that!

Okay, so I’ve put the groceries away… and I am now trying to finish up this Super Sabado, and I’ve got to hurry, for reasons you might be able to guess… (Read the rest of “Super Sabado: That would be running, not jogging, which is different”)

SQUIRT: You know that swim trip to Sweden that’s gonna cost $2000 if we go?

The way I figure it is, sure, I could spend $2000 and go to Sweden and look at Swedish babes…

OR…

I could spend $2000 and get TWO laptops! And then I could look at Swedish babes on the internet all I want!

The Good News/Bad News in my world:

• Bad News: my afternoon internet connection at the pool bleachers disappeared. Got to find a replacement connection for that 4.5-hour wait.
• Good News: the morning swim practice (1-hour wait) has an internet connection! Hoo yeah.
• Bad News: spammers figured out how to get past the three biggest WordPress spam plugins, so I spend a bunch of time deleting spammy comments and blacklisting their spammy IPs.
• Good News: the excuse, “I’ve been denying IPs all day” sounds very authoritative when explaining why there are no clean socks in the house. (That and, “How come you can deactivate Delta Halo but you can’t figure out the washing machine?”)

Moving on!

This is one of those flash games featuring boneless characters that flip and swoop through the atmosphere while you make them do stuff. In this case, Peter Parker looks as if had one too many Mojitos before he donned the spidey suit.

It seems to me as if the game strategy for playing is to have one too many Mojitos yourself, BEFORE pressing “Start.”

(If Mojitos are unavailable or you have to operate heavy machinery, go with chocolate, instead.)

Link for feed readers: Spiderman City Raid Game.

WHAT: Little, tiny black things. We weren’t sure at first what they were. They looked like little… spiders?

And then there were more of them.

And even more…

And even more! They were turning up everywhere!

It was an invasion!

But what could they be?

Wait a minute…

BONNIE: Oh, man. Mojo just chewed up our door mat!

HUBBY: No way—I don’t believe it! Clara did it! She did it, and blamed him!

BONNIE: You blame everything on Clara.

HUBBY: If the shoe fits, baby, you put it on.

BONNIE: Whatever. Say, doesn’t that look like a map of the United States? Look, there’s Florida, and there’s Texas.

HUBBY: Hunh? Wait a minute! Mojo! Did you swallow any of that stuff? My poor baby!

REPLACEMENT COST: $42.95.

I have to fly early this morning and late tonight, and I am looking forward to it about as much as I look forward one day to traveling to a distant planet, getting a good face-sucking by an alien potted plant and then a few days later having a very sharp and pointy creature claw its way out of my chest.

So now you know something else about me: I hate to fly. I dislike it so much that there’ll be no Super Sabado today because I just spent 24 hours trying to make my last day on this earth a useful one.

I know it’s safer to fly than drive… I KNOW THIS. I’ve seen the statistics. But for some reason I’m still quivering, even though I’ve spent the last few months in the passenger seat of my van with my teenager at the wheel, and if that doesn’t squeeze all travel phobia out of my cranial matter, nothing ever will.

In fact, I think it made my phobia worse. The way I see it, I’ve stared Death in the face so often while riding shotgun with Tiger that Death now knows what I look like and is just waiting for an opportune moment to scoop me up… like when I’ll be hurtling through the friendly skies, my cushy derriere perched atop a tank of jet fuel.

So I’ve been stashing things away, filing, and tying up loose ends I’ve let go for months, and why?

Because when I go down in a flaming ball of fusilage, I don’t want Hubby complaining to the widower-chasers that his wife left everything a mess, even though if they looked in the closets they’d see that’s what I really did.

In case you’ve been wondering if I tipped head-first into a giant Halloween bowl of candy, I did. It took forever to climb out, too, especially considering how bottom-heavy I got while I was in there.

We’re talking HUGE. I keep bumping into things I never used to bump into, a sure sign I need to start working out again. Either that, or move into a bigger house.

Anyway, while I was living it up in the candy bowl my laptop battery decided to go on strike, so I visited the UTC Apple Store to check battery prices.

While I was there I played with some of the new MacBooks and the software that comes with them, including something I never heard of before called “Photo Booth.” It sounded interesting, so I clicked the little Photo Booth icon and started it up.

A video began and I decided Photo Booth must be a movie player of some kind. And I wasn’t going to say anything critical until I knew more, but this movie was pretty darn boring! Kind of like an art student project where nothing ever happens but the actors look pained all the time anyway.

There was only one actor so far, an older woman who did nothing but peer into the space below the camera. I waited, but she didn’t do anything else, except squint. And look kind of peeved. Or maybe she was trying to convey annoyance about something.

Boy, I thought, that gal sure looks an awful lot like my mom. In fact, she could be my mom’s sister! No, maybe a little younger than my Mom. Maybe more like her… her…

… her daughter.

Good grief.

Turns out Photo Booth makes videos using the iSight video camera built into the MacBook screen. And that art movie? It was nothing but a horror flick featuring me—the old, squinty, peevish woman at the UTC Apple Store.

I’m sure Photo Booth will be handy for video chats and the like, but you won’t catch me using it again, unless I put a paper bag over my head.