--- Oh. My. God.
"(Lionel Richie) and I had an extraordinary extravagant lifestyle," Diane Richie, a former dancer, says in the
declaration. "(We) regularly spent in excess of $300,000 a month. We could comfortably afford to spend unlimited sums of
money on everything and anything we chose. I had no limit on what I could spend."
$300K a FRIGGING month???
Methinks this chick is living in Delusionville, Pop. 1. Two
possibilities: Lionel really is making that much money on royalties
from all those light rock songs and they can afford such a lifestyle.
(Hey, just because you don't listen to the light rock radio station in
your town doesn't mean nobody else does---there apparently still seems
to be a market for Dancing on the Cieling. Not to mention that perennial classic Endless Love. Gag.) Or Lionel is in debt up to his eyeballs and he will be filing for bankruptcy shortly.
I couldn't even begin to imagine how you would spend $300,000 in a month. Perhaps I'm not imaginative enough, but crikeys, that seems like a lot of money for even the most extravagant of lifestyles.
There's a place where people who spend money like that usually end up--the poorhouse.
No small wonder Nicole Richie is as screwed up as she is.
--- We have SILLY GERMANS today!
Talk about "cradle to grave" government services, eh?
--- It's slurpy here today---again. Lo! Minnesota---the land where it
snows copiously in March! We had a couple of really nice days this last
weekend---days where it got well over forty degrees---and a goodly
amount of snow melted. Then, to help the melting process out, it rained
on Sunday night and that got rid of a few inches as well, leaving a lot
of mud, but very little snow. This week has been dry and uneventful,
fortunately, until last night. I didn't think inclement weather would
be happening, but I didn't know enough to make the call---haven't been
watching the weather. So, around one this morning, I'm having the final
smoky treat of the evening before retiring to bed, I look out the front
window and it's snowing. Woohoo, says she, with little to no excitement
at the prospect.
And it was really coming down, too. So, fast forward eight hours and I
wake up and I'm freaking out because I'm not hearing any traffic on
streets. Did it really snow so badly that there's absolutely no traffic? Wow. There's always traffic.
So I rise, I look out, there's traffic, it's just muffled because of
all the goopy white stuff that is now covering the ground. About two or
three inches of goopy white stuff. Sigh. You see, it was my turn to
snowblow. The husband and I have a nice little division of labor going
on in the snow removal department. He takes a turn, then I take a
turn---thus ensuring that neither one of us gets completely sick of
snowblowing and just gives up, thinking that it'll melt soon enough
anyway. Then, like an ongoing chess game, come November and that first
snowfall, one of us will inevitably say, "But I did it last time! It's YOUR
turn!. If, indeed, this is the last snowfall of the season, I'm taken
care of next autumn. I'm tricky that way. But, I was also leery of
handling this task this late in the season. The snowblower probably
won't like this snow, I reasoned. We don't get much of the waterlogged
variety of snow---we always get the fluffy white sugar snow that
sparkles in the moonlight and looks pretty in pictures for about a day.
The logic follows that the snowblower, which stalls repeatedly when
blowing the fluffy stuff, will stall even more with the heavy stuff. Turns out, however, that my little Toro is a dyed-in-the-wool contrarian. It likes the heavy white snow.
It cut through it like a hot knife through butter. So, I ask you, my
devoted readers: what the hell is that all about? The husband said it
was something to do with the engine actually using its capacity,
but---pfft---like that's
the answer to the problem---there's gotta be something else, like God
acting in mysterious ways, to explain this curious phenomena. Hmmph.
I'm stumped.
--- Another side effect of the heavy white goop: our satellite is out.
Wow. That's never happened before. I have to say, I love my DirecTv.
It's fabulous. Not only is it cheaper than cable, but you also get BBC
America, along with any number of other interesting channels. And it never goes out. Did I mention that already? It never goes out.
I've had to deal with it being out for a few moments because of a
thunderstorm, but the rest of the time?---never a problem. It's great.
Plus there's always the added bonus of not having to deal with idiotic
cable guys. But we have sticky white snow clinging to the satellite,
goofing up the signal. The dish has to be clear to receive the
signal---according to the husband, the dish is clear, but the
microphone-looking thing on the end of it is not
clear. ("Is that little thing supposed to be white?" he asked a little
while ago. "No, dear. It's supposed to be black." "Oh. Well, we're
screwed then.") Sigh. And it's not like I can call DirecTv to have
someone come out and fix it. That's the deal with DirecTV: they assume
I'm not an idiot and can solve some of these problems myself, and
because of that they charge me less. It's a pretty good deal, on the
whole. Except for when I need an extension ladder to get to my roof to
clear off the satellite. Then the deal pretty much sucks. Snow is
currently falling off the trees and roofs at a pretty regular
clip---one can only hope it will fall off my satellite as well, or it's
going to be a REALLY boring night at the Cake Eater Household. The
husband was going insane without his CNN this morning, so one can only
hope it will be up and running before it's time for Anderson Cooper.