How Do You Let Go of Your Children?

I cared for her. I fed her. I cleaned her little bottom. Okay, I paid people to clean her little bottom. But one heartbreaking day several weeks ago, I had to give her up for adoption. I'm talking, of course, about my baby, little Jade Mica. Here she is at Carmax, the adoption agency:

Notice the sparkle in her eye. That's because she doesn't know we're leaving her there.

Some of you may have seen this very picture on my Facebook page. I was mourning my loss and had to tell someone. Someone who really really knew me and would understand. So I shared my feelings of loss with 500 of my closest friends.

I was inconsolable. Ask my husband. Little Jade Mica was a part of my life for nine years. But once I moved everything out of L.A. and into Sacramento, no longer living in two cities, there was no point in having two children any more.

Depression took me over, embraced me in its eternal grip, and handed me reams of Kleenex.

After about four or five weeks of this, my husband climbed up to my Tower of Despair and tentatively asked if we could stop fasting. At first I couldn't believe his gall. How could he think of food at a time like this? But then my stomach growled and I too became famished. Come to think of it, I was starving!

Excitedly, we decided to try a new restaurant. Well, new to us, the restaurant has actually been around for nearly 100 years. After lunch, we walked into the warm sunshine rubbing our bellies feeling satisfied and content. My husband looked across the street and stopped short.

"What's that?" he asked. "Is that little Jade Mica?"

My head jerked up to follow his pointing finger. We began to walk toward it's sleeping form. As long as I had little Jade Mica, we had never seen another one in the same color. Could it be? It had to be...

It was! I pulled out my phone and took a picture:

My heart filled with joy. She looked healthy and happy. I was so glad to know she had already gone to a good home - you know how everyone only wants to adopt infants.

Carmax is about 20-25 miles from my house, in Roseville, which is not even in Sacramento. Sacramento is a pretty large city (don't we have like over a million people or something?). When we saw it the other day after lunch, it was about 2-3 miles from our house. So maybe, if I wait long enough....








OMG, OMG, OMG it's almost here! There's a new video game coming to town from iWin.com on August 20. It's called Coconut Queen and I'll be credited as writer - woo hoo!





And no, I didn't write the code, you silly, I created characters and story and words and voices.





You can check out the game's website at www.coconutqueengame.com , see some screen shots, watch a little video of the game, and download wallpaper and ringtones. And then you can sit and wait a few days with the rest of us! I'll be the one in the corner looking like I'm doing the pee-pee dance.

Graphics courtesy of iWin.com.

Did you know there's a goat in Disneyland?

as seen on Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

It's amongst the 547,920 things you see in the It's a Small World ride. Thanks to Mikki of the Here's What Let's Do blog for telling us about it.




I'd like to thank Collette at My Babcia's Babushka for this little number, uh...whatever it is. A baseball holding open a book on a piano? I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I'm honored regardless.



I would also like to thank the Cincinnati Women Bloggers for teaching this HTML idiot how to stick one of these things on my blog for my many thousands of rabid fans who must have an NGIP badge of their own:


<a href="http://www.nannygoatsinpanties.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Nanny Goat in Panties" src="http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z159/manjoufna/NGIP%20Badges/NGIPbadgepantiedgoat125x125.jpg"/></a>

'Dude Walks With Cars' is neither Aerosmith, nor Native American

Yesterday I had lunch with awesome funny gal, Suzy Soro, author of Hollywood: Where Hot Comes to Die. What does that even mean? Does it refer to all the delusional people who comes to Hollywood for fame and fortune, only to end up on the corner of Loser Street and Crack Boulevard, peddling what's left of their good looks in torn fish net stockings, or standing on street islands advertising a lack of residence, or worse, selling Star Maps?

We met for lunch at Buddha's Belly in West Hollywood, whose food I would love to brag about, but as soon as you found out I was an investor, you'd go: "Oh, yeah, I'll be going there REAL soon", so ask Suzy, she'll tell it like it is, man.

Suzy, whom you must never call 'Sue' while shaking her hand, lest ye pull back a bloody stump, was trading wit barbs with our waiter, Matt. Did I mention Suzy is a stand-up comedian?

Here's a picture of our illustrious server:

You can also follow him on Twitter. Best to do it now, too, because when he becomes a famous movie star, good luck getting him to follow you in return then. This would also be your opportunity to ask him about his orange hat. That's Matt Kawczynski. Rhymes with Ted Kaczynski. (Not sure if he changed the spelling to avoid the association.) The same goes for me, by the way. (The Twitter follow, not the unabomber uncle relation).


So anyway, I'm driving back to my place in L.A. and while waiting for a light to turn green, this guy walks past my car with a sign advertising his lack of residence.

I don't know about you, but it really bothers me when a dude walks with cars. It seems so pushy and I don't respond well to pushy. I lose my compassion and want to yell things like, "Hey, if you can stand all day in the middle of traffic, you can stand all day in front of a grill, pal!"

Maybe the pay is better on Beverly Blvd, but if he came to L.A. to live out his dream and failed, and he wants to work on the street holding a sign, he can do something more respectable like, I don't know, sell STAR MAPS.

Goat Thing of the Day

Hey, did y'all hear about the magic goat that was arrested for armed robbery? He is accused of stealing a car.

How silly is that? Everyone knows goats only steal tractors.

(Thanks, Cakelet!)

I Coulda Binna Supermarket Tabloid Journalist

In case you're wondering what an unauthorized interview looks like (where the interviewer can't get an audience with the interviewee so she just starts making stuff up - kinda like The Enquirer), you can check out my review of Anna Lefler's blog, which just came out on Humor Bloggers Dot Com. It is entitled The Life of Lefler: An Unauthorized Interview. (Feel free to rate it when you get there.)

Anna's blog is called Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder and if you're not reading her blog already, you should be.

And from the Thank You Sir May I Have Another Department...

If you're into throwing yourself to the lions, the blog review site Ask And Ye Shall Receive will brutally, but honestly rip your website apart, critiquing it until it squeals. They'll bruise your ego, and undo all the flattery you've ever received from your friends. And they'll do it for FREE!

On this site, I've seen such biting comments as:

"I’ve had more fun falling ribs-first onto a fence than I was having cobbling together this review"
 or
"Next to lame, in the dictionary? There is a picture of this blog."
 or
"This is the most pathetically incompetent attempt at "masterful entertainment" that I've ever seen."

Did I mention that it was free?

After I witnessed the cruel harshness toward bloggers and their pride and joy, I thought, "Sign me up!"

Click here to see the review of NGIP and you can tell me (and/or them) what you think.


* * * NGIP Shout Out * * *

Speaking of nonsequitors and the people who blog about them, Stephanie over at No Cleaning Here gives us a brief tour of her local county fair. Stephanie has also been so kind as to add NGIP to her "Favorite Funny Blogs" blog roll. Thanks, Steph!

Priorities, Schmiorities

I spend a great deal of my leisure time ignoring my husband while playing on the computer, talking to YOU people. He'll bounce into my office at home, asking me if I want to go to Starbucks, or go to Tiffany's so I can "pick something out", or tell me that his alien abduction is scheduled for 10pm and not to wait up, and I invariably reply: "Did you say something?"

And yet, he still supports my blogging. And burps my computer when it's gassy.

I came back from L.A. recently and he had designed and ordered these for me:

I know!

Just for that, I think I will have dinner with him tomorrow, rather than throwing whatever gourmet meal he's spent hours preparing onto a plate and taking it into my office. I might even remove the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging outside my office door.


* * * NGIP SHOUT OUT * * *

Mahala over at Hidden Mahala lives in a place called Frog Pond Holler. Which makes for great blog fodder. When was the last time you read something like, "Who puts loose weiners in the freezer?". For a good laugh, head over to her post entitled, Freezer Surprises and Wrestling Matches. Thank you, Mahala for adding NGIP to your blog roll!

NGIP Spills It Over At Merlotmom

I'm blogsitting for Merlotmom today while she's in Japan and you know what THAT means! PARTY AT MERLOTMOM'S! Everybody follow me over there; you people in the back can just keep your eye on this little doo-hickey on a stick that I'm holding up way out here in front, or just follow the crowd.

By the way, there's a wine cellar. And since I'm guest blogging and drinking and can't keep my big trap shut, I reward you for that extra click by divulging a big secret about Merlotmom. So, if you decide to blab it to the rest of the world, don't mention my name. The post is entitled: Guest Blogger Makes Herself at Home. And Spills.


* * * NGIP SHOUT OUTS * * *

Georgie over at Confessions Of... has a sister she calls The Faloozie - I'm sure it comes from love. The Faloozie sent her a funny little piece that may hit a little too close to home for us bloggers. It's called A Living Will and it's pretty dang funny. WARNING: If you are in your office, or the baby has finally, by the grace of God, fallen asleep, turn down your volume before heading over there. At press time, I got blasted by The Scorpions. Listening to her playlist may bring visions of Hair Bands and Flashdance and MTV (back when they used to play music videos) and all things 80s. Plus a little Gwen and Beyonce thrown in for good measure. A big THANK YOU to Georgie for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to her blog roll!

An NYC friend of mine got a new puppy: a Vizsla. I'd never heard of them before and suddenly it seems as though they are popping up all over the place. (Is there some psychological term for that phenomenon of things you thought never existed before but were there all along, you just became sensitized to it?) Apparently, these dogs are even blogging. Dennis The Visla of Dennis' Diary of Destruction is such a dog. His spelling is atrocious, but he's a dog fer chrissakes! This mattress-eating dog's latest adventure begins with a post called hay, thats my bed!!! beginning with Dennis The Vizsla's discovery of gophers making off with his mattress. This may be a job for The Mattress Police! Thank you, little doggie, for adding NGIP to your blog roll!

A Small Case of Attempted Murder

Do kids run away any more? I'm talking about the silly seven-year-old kind. Not the teenage, steal your mom's cookie money, hop on a bus to Laughlin, Nevada, turn a few thousand tricks and come back home pregnant and tweaking. Not that kind. Ick.

We kids were playing at some girl's house down the street from ours. I don't remember her name, so let's call her Agnes. I coveted Agnes' bike and it must have shown because she let me ride it, as long as I stayed in the driveway which ran down the side of the house. The bike was a little big for me, so when her little brother stood in my path, I mowed him down, unable to brake or steer clear of the kid. He cried. I jumped off the bike, happily turning the weapon over to Agnes. As panic and overwhelming guilt flooded my senses, some sort of fight-or-flight response took over and like a weasel, I skulked away.

I was a fugitive. On the lam. I wandered around the neighborhood, too scared to go home and face the consequences of attempted murder. Mortifying images danced around my head: confrontation with both sets of parents, our family becoming the shunned ones, jail, and OHMYGOD, ... probably an apology! There was no way I could face the victim's family.

Adreneline hopped, skipped and jumped through my body. I turned down this street and went down that alley. Where could I go? I was seven and had never traveled by foot more than four blocks to school. I did not do well with the unknown, so I sat on the sidewalk at the edge of my frontier and I shook and cried. I think I was stalling, sure that my parents would have found out by now and might be looking for me. I wanted my mommy but at the same time, I couldn't face her. She would be ashamed of me and that made me feel even worse about the whole ordeal. It would be easier if someone just caught me.

Fifteen or twenty minutes must have passed since the tragic incident when I heard the dull roar of my father's tow truck coming down the street. He pulled up next to me and I left my fate in his hands.

"Come on," he said.

The judge was lenient. I was released on my own recognizance and apologized to poor little Timmy (or whatever his name was) after being told by his mother that he required however many stitches on his face. Her feeble attempts to make me feel bad about what I'd done were puny and tardy. I was embarrassed and guilt-ridden beyond her wildest dreams.

And that was the end of it. This was, after all, the 70s, before people sued the crap out of each other for everything. Back then, shit just happened. You got your nose rubbed in it and then you moved on. Judgment was rendered by parents and neighbors, for free. Not courtrooms and lawyers, for thirty percent.

To give you an idea of my expansive journey that day, I've drawn a map:

Yep. A veritable Homerian Odyssey, that one.


(This childhood memory was dislodged by Alicia's childhood adventure story at Pleasing Procrastinator. I even lifted her map idea.)


* * * NGIP SHOUT OUTS * * *


Speaking of childhood memories, Meg of Prefers Her Fantasy Life , who has generously added Nanny Goats to her blog roll, recently had me on the floor laughing with her post entitled Teen's First Mammary. This post explores that whole "The-family-that-works-together..." thing. And it reveals how Newsweek magazine has insidiously evolved into a Playboy competitor, right under Tipper Gore's nose!


And while we are going on about boobs, Sandra over at My Girls has a post entitled More Boob Squishing. No, the girls in "My Girls" do not refer to her boobs. Now if you wish for a break from boobs, you might like to check out her recipe for Texas Caviar. What is Texas Caviar? Well, go look! Sandra's claim to Nanny Goats fame is that the NGIP banner picture was taken in her backyard. Wow, she sure has a big backyard! And with goats! NGIP thanks My Girls for adding NGIP to her blog roll.

Can Openers: They're Not Just for Cans Anymore

Anybody here read Wired magazine? You know that "How To" section last month that gave this super helpful tip on opening those electronics blister packaging?

Scissors and steak knives are dangerous, they said. Use a can opener, they said. Just clamp down on the edge and start cranking, they said.

How convenient that I learned this, I thought, after puchasing a new ear piece for my cell phone (because my previous ear piece went kaput about 2 hours after the California Hands Free Law went into effect).

I have one of those hand cranking can openers, so I just clamped down on the edge of the packaging and started cranking:

Can you see how the goddam can opener I mangled it? You can click on the pictures for a closer look.

So I busted out the scissors and managed to avoid bloodshed:

What a bunch of crap that advice was. Did anybody else see that handy tip and try it? Well, I was so angry that I decided to destroy my can opener, because what good is it if it can't open that stubborn plastic packaging?

Of course I accidentally stabbed myself 14 times trying to mangle the bastard that mangled my packaging, but I think it learned its lesson before I threw it in the trash back in the drawer.


* * * SHOUT OUTS * * *

You may want to hire Yankee Drawl to write your letters for you. The ones you've been mentally addressing to all the assholes interesting people in your life. The ones you've been wanting to maim and/or shove slivers up underneath their toenails gently remind of common courtesy. Her latest post entitled "Dear Y'All" might help relieve some of your own stress you've experienced lately, or just have a good laugh at her own misfortune. And a big THANK YOU for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to Yankee Drawl's Reading Material (aka blogroll).

Just A Girl has her own issues with false advertising. Her post about Bounty paper towels will save you the trouble and the money, and it might have you laughing as well. And when was the last time you used "Salmonfreakingella" in a sentence? Nanny Goats In Panties is honored to be a part of her "Just A Bunch Of Blogs" blogroll.

My Karma Just Ran Over Your Dogma

Plenty of us have plowed over an animal or two with our car, but is it some kind of "girl thing" to completely freak out when it happens? Or have some of you menfolk also blubbered over the murder and/or destruction of one of God's fine creatures? Los Cuatro Ojos offers up this freaking out by a girl, but I should warn you, it's a little disturbing, so don't go over there if you are easily disturbed by seeing others disturbed over more than disturbing a bird.

Hey, what's the last thing that goes through a bug's mind as he hits the windshield?

His ass.

* * *

It was October of 1981. I had a cream-colored 1973 Datsun 710 with over 100,000 miles (because when your father owns a towing service, you get the vehicle dregs for your birthday, the nasty crap that people neglect to pick up because the tow bill costs more than the car is worth. Dad had replaced the broken parts with slightly less broken used parts, hammered out the dents, spackled the hell out of the holes, poured a gallon of crappy cream colored paint over it and presented it like a long stem single red rose.)

Where was I? Oh right, driving to the high school junior class' float-building barn during Homecoming season. Two classmates accompanied me, and we were probably playing some popular album in my cassette player; let's say it was Foreigner 4 or maybe REO Speedwagon. We cruised down a lonely rural two-lane highway toward Simms Ranch, today a small oasis in an over-built cookie-cutting suburb south of Sacramento.

We gabbed and giggled with the innocence of youth, unencumbered by the tragedies and disappointments that jade you over time. We were teenagers. The world was our oyster, and my car was the cream colored pearl sliding through the slimy muscle of the boondocks. We were immortal. And then an orange tabby cat sailed into my right wheel well, crunching out its life and part of mine with it.

You see roadkill all the time, never thinking that a person took the life of that animal and may have been traumatized by it. Until it's your turn.

I was a shaking, adrenaline-fueled mess when I pulled over. My friend walked back to the cat and returned with a solemn face. "You don't want to go back there," he said. I had no idea what to do. There was no procedure manual in the glove compartment for whacking kitties.

The ranch houses along the quiet road were acres apart, but I felt I should tell someone about it, so we drove up the long dirt driveway of the nearest house. What the hell was I going to say?

When a woman opened the door, I nervously asked, "Hi, uh, do you, I mean, did you know anyone with an orange cat?"

"Yes," she said.

I told her I had accidentally hit it and it died.

"Oh, bummer." She didn't cry out or scream or anything. I was clearly more upset than she was. "Oh, poor Bummer," she said again.

It took me a second.

"You mean the cat's name was Bummer?" I asked.

"Yes. Well, it's not our cat, but our neighbor's. But you don't have to tell them. I will, you've been through too much already."

Bewildered, then relieved, we left. I was still shaky but managed to fold tissue paper into flowers that October night while completely pre-occupied with the thought of having taken the life of another living thing. Someone's pet. Bummer.

Fast forward a couple of months to basketball season. I was the manager for the boys varsity team, which is a glorified term for "gopher". I gathered up the uniforms that the boys threw on the floor while warming up, gave them water bottles during the game, and accompanied them into the locker room while the coach ripped them a new one during half-time (perhaps a peek at future parenting, and therefore one of my deterrents from it).

Coach and Mrs. Coach hosted a Christmas party (back then, December 25th was called Christmas) for the team at their house and Matt, their four-year-old took an instant liking to me. The feeling was mutual. He was such a cutie. (This is the kind of peek at future parenting you get that tries to persuade you it will be all puppies and rainbows). Later, the coach would tell me that Matt carried on around the house with his imaginary friend, Margaret (that's me, for you new readers) for a long time.

So anyway, at this party, Matt sat in my lap while we read one of his books about animals. We paged through and discussed goats and pigs and horses. Matt turned the page to the kitties and said, "We used to have a cat like that, but it got hit by a car."

He pointed to the orange cat. I slowly realized Coach's house was on that same two-lane highway as the float-building barn. Oh my God, I killed Matt's cat! Talk it through, man, just talk it through. Don't just sit there, you idiot.

"Oh, really?" I said. My body detached and floated above the noisy Christmas party with the turkey, stuffing, punch bowl, fireplace, Christmas tree, and the little kid sitting in the girl's lap with a book.

"Yeah..." said Matt.

"Ohhh...I'm sorry..."

"Yeah..."

I quickly turned the page as memories from October pushed their way into my brain. ("Oh, poor Bummer") My robot self read the words while the emotional me jumped up and down and screamed and cried and more or less had a heart attack. Not unlike the girl in the video on Los Cuatro Ojos' site.

Was I a chicken for not fessing up to Coach that I had killed the family cat? Or was it unnecessary? It's not like I was hiding some political scandal, afraid of ruining my career as a uniform picker upper or anything, but I never told them. And I could never tell Matt. Your imaginary friend is not supposed to break your heart.

Perhaps it was karma, or just dumb luck, then, that I should mangle a deer late one night on my six-hour drive up foresty Highway 101 to college. Thank goodness by then I had graduated to a four wheel drive truck, or Bambi would have done more than tear up my fender.


* * * SHOUT OUTS * * *

Tricia over at Papercages bitches about the heat so much, I could swear she's talking about Sacramento. And she bitches about driving long distances so much (anything past her driveway), I could swear she's talking about me. Regardless, I would like to thank her for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to her blog roll!

One of my favorite blogs to read lately is David (aka Munch) of Free Soup With Purchase. He's mean, funny, edgy and surprising - my kind of writer! For a sample of what I mean, check out a recent post entitled Here Comes Poor Charlie. And Thanks, Munch, for adding Nanny Goats to your blog roll!

How To Mercilessly Taunt Those Who Raise The Dead

Nanny Goats in Panties feels the awesome weight of our duty to entertain the millions of you who stub their toe and tumble down the Internet hill, landing on the dotcom that is NGIP, Jack, with Jill right behind you! You people are relentless, coming here day after day after day.

To you anal-retentive and argumentative types who wish to point out that our traffic counter merely reads 18,000 or so, we submit that we are using an archaic blogging widget that, like a 1982 Honda odometer, has rolled over several times. Whenever that meter hits a million readers, it starts over at zero again. So really, NGIP has had like, one gazillion, forty-seven million, eighteen thousand some-odd readers as of today. 

May we say we love what you're wearing and where did you get that cravat? Your repeated bleats to Nanny Goats have been heard and your wish is our command. We can't tell you how many requests we've received for more of our incredibly tantalizing, internetty tips. And the reason people keep coming back again and again to our humble site? NGIP isn't just a blog of excruciatingly helpful hints, nor is it a vessel of humor...

It is an Internet Experience.

Oh sure, you can read all those other blogs. You might have a laugh or pick up a handy new recipe for chocolate enchilada surprise. But after digesting a blog entry at NGIP, you walk away with a satisfied sense of having lived life: a true Internet Experience. That is what we strive for and by God, that is what you will have.

Also, as an NGIP reader, you get exclusive information that will set you apart from the average blog hopper. You belong to a group whose superiority is exacerbated by what you learn here. We can make you feel inappropriately better about yourself in five minutes or less. In fact, we should get right to today's superiority complex Tip #47.

NGIP Superiority Complex Tip #47:

We want you to feel comfortable insulting others on the internet. You should be able to throw down barbs with confidence and panache. Let's say you're interloping through a message forum about the Stone Tablet industry, a built-in easy target, right? I mean, who better to make fun of than Draconian internet users who can't let go of the old ways. Stone tablets, indeed. They probably don't even know the difference between a USB port and a hole in the ground, am I right? Idiots.

Now, let's say you find a thread that started several years ago, something called "Help! Has anyone out there built a Colosseum?"  Go in there, and sure enough, some Neanderthal newbie (username: icankount_123) has ressurrected a thread that ended years ago and has been taking up cyberspace ever since. This is a fantastic opportunity to try out a new phrase you're just about to learn from NGIP. It's called "Necro Post" and icankount_123 has just committed this  egregious act that must not go unpunished. Say something simple, forceful and be sure to use your new phrase:

"Nice necro post, moron! No one has posted in this thread since 200 B.C. ...UNTIL NOW!!!!"

Now wouldn't that make you feel just a little bit superior? I know it would me.

NGIP has also noticed your vociferous requests for more FREE stuff. Well, we can certainly understand in today's economy that all you cheapskates out there need more excuses to act like a Scrooge. And we're here to help!

TwentyFourAtHeart is giving away FREE stuff like there's no tomorrow! In fact, right now (until Friday at 8pm EST), you can win a $50 American Express Card. So get on over there and sign yourself up! And while you're there? Congratulate her on her 100th post!

NGIP came across a virtual ad for The Swiffer at Orion Unleashed the other day - virtual being the functional word there. Visit Orion today and see if you agree with his assessment of this "revolutionary" domestic tool... tool being the functional word there. Also, NGIP thanks Orion Unleashed for adding Nanny Goats to his blog roll. Thanks Orion!

HumorBloggers.com launches today and NGIP is lucky to be a part of it. 49 other bloggers are also featured on this site. Go and have a look!

Skankiness & Shoe Spray, With Honors

I got a warning (or a helpful tip, depending on your skankiness) from Jessica that the Sheraton near LAX is loaded with incompetent car parkers. They're also rife with active prostitutionism in the lobby for your business traveling needs. Did I mention the proliferation of drug use conveniently located near the elevators?

Speaking of nonsequitors, I spent every Friday night of my childhood at the bowling alley. Not bowling. From the age of two until long past the seven year age limit (I want to say at least ten) I was relegated to the nursery. My GOD the boredom. I was surrounding by screaming brats in a small room with old broken toys. Bored, bored, bored. After graduating from the nursery, I had the relentless pleasure of sitting on plastic benches for three hours in a smoke fogged alley that reeked of Lysol-ish shoe spray while my brain atrophied watching my parents bowl.

This was the 70s. This was before there were GameBoys or cell phones, or DVD players or anything that would help kill time. I envied other kids who had the quarters to play the pinball machines or Asteroids or Pac-Man. I had to make up games inside my head or mentally add up people's scores before they did, just to prevent The Reaper of Boredom from taking me away.

At fourteen I moved up to the scoring desk where I was paid something like $1.25 to keep score for one of the teams. They kept me in Cokes while they got drunk and I manually added strikes and spares and gutters (again, this was the 70s...before that fancy schmancy auto-scoring they have now.)

On the weekends, my mother watched bowling on TV, which is almost as boring as watching people today play poker on ESPN. She must have had a thing for Earl Anthony, because that's the only guy I remember from the bowling show. Was it called Bowling For Dollars, or was that some game show I'm confusing it with?

I never took to bowling. I guess when you get too much of a good thing - - you know, the kind that scars you for life - - you overcompensate for it later. So now, I'm overwhelmed with activity. I'm involved in too many things. I even live in two cities. I'll probably die of an ulcer.

And I blame the three-holed balls and their endless rolling down waxed lanes searching for ten pins to smack down.

* * *

* * * WARNING: LONG AWARDS CEREMONY COMING * * *

If you're a playa, yo, but you have virtually no pimp handle and your pimp cup looks like this:

...you're not alone. Kirsten from The Soccer Mom Files had the same problem until she got jiggy with it and now you can too, if you check out her post entitled This is off the Chain, Aight!!

Perhaps you're wondering why I keep relentlessly linking to Soccer Mom's blog. Well, the reason starts with her adding Nanny Goats In Panties to her blog roll and ends with her presenting NGIP with the Amy Oops Award. See?

And you bloggers know what's coming next, right? Wrong! You see, the Amy Oops award appears to have hit a saturation point. I feel I can't pass this award on any further without it repeating on itself like goose liver and onions in a bacony, garlicky sauce. However, if I am wrong and you wish to add this award to your trophy case, well then, knock yourself out. This award is free for the taking! In fact, if you want to say you got it from me, I'll say I gave it to you by updating this very blog entry. Hear that folks? All you can eat links for free!

And not to be outdone by The Soccer Mom Files is Wit's Bitch who has also presented me with the Amy Oops award. (See what I mean by saturation? It's like Amway around here. Oh, excuse me - - Quixtar.) For those of you who were asleep during my last discussion of the Amy Oops award, here it is again:

Now Sandy from Wit's Bitch is a bowler who sucks less than she did at the beginning of the season, so you might want to pay a visit and congratulate her for that. Because she got an award for it. She must not have been subjected to the lanes the way I was as a child, because she appears to enjoy it.

And while I'm showing off awards, here's one I got from Scratch Bags: The KickAssBlogger Award which originated on MammaDawg.

And I would also like to brag about my Spread The Love Award that I received from Twenty Four At Heart. Thank you, Suzanne! I'm honored and awarded and bestowed!

So, okay, that's enough showing off for one blog.

As you were.

Perverts and Abacuses (or is it Abaci?)

How many perverts does it take to screw in a light bulb?

See, here's the thing: A pervert will arrive on this post, not because he will Google the word "pervert" (why would he do that?), but because of the word "screw". And not just because he types in "screw", but because he will, in his twisted mind, have a reason to type in "screw" and "panties", or something else and "panties". If he is a stupid pervert, he will type in something and "pantys". With a Y. Why? Because everyone knows perverts don't use spell check. Perverts and hostage takers. Hostage takers can't spell either, did you know that? Yeah, that's why they cut words out of magazines for ransom notes. And even then:

Have you ever said a word over and over again so many times that it doesn't sound like a word any more? I did that today with the word abacus. I had this awesome story I was going to tell you about an abacus. It was terrifying and engaging. One of those hanging-on-the-edge-of-your seat abacus stories, but totally original. It had a surprise twist at the end and everything. But then I said abacus too many times and it didn't sound like a word any more and I lost my story. So now I'm talking about perverts instead. Maybe telling the abacus story is like cracking your knuckles, or having an orgasm, where if you wait long enough, you can do it again.

Have you seen the phrases that the cyber-pervs have polluted their search tools with to get to poor little Nanny Goats In Panties? Here I'll show you:

cramming panties

ancient chinese panty

picture of goat in panties

picture of goat in pink panties

how to shorten your poo

kind of panty do female use in india

wearing no any panties thumbs

What does that last one even mean?

Mind you not everyone is interested in panties. To wit:

goats to hot slobbering

goat - it isn't just for breakfast any more

what's the name of a goat's house

goats in the movies

nancy grace strange caller about her twins it's not going to happen

It might interest you to know, that goat is indeed not for breakfast any more.

See?

Now you can get goat 24/7.

Like at IHOP.

Or Denny's.

abacus. - Hey! I thought I was all out of those!


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NGIP would like to thank PegLegStarFish for adding Nanny Goats to her blog roll. PLSF hails all the way from Houston Texas (OK, that's a relative term, but if you're more than a couple hundred miles from Houston, I can probably still use "hails all the way from", except for maybe Holly from June Cleaver Nirvana or Allison from WomenBloom or Feisty Charlie from Feisty Charlie who are also from Texas). Anybody else out there from Texas? Can I get a Yee-Haw?

ENNYWEIGH...... PegLegStarFish scares easily (there's a video and everything!) All you have to do is sneak over there and yell BOO in ALL CAPS.


NGIP is currently in Beancounters' In Basket. It's not quite the blog roll, I'm just there sort of waiting in the wings. Maybe I'm on probation. Maybe I better lay off the pervert talk for awhile. Maybe I'd better get some funny stuff up here already. No pressure or anything. Just.."I haven't decided if I want to keep you just yet. We'll see..."

I hate "we'll see", don't you? You need to plan your life, but your friend wants to wait until the last minute to commit, because well, what if something better comes along? So you lose sleep because you have NO IDEA of your fate.

Well, I just won't think about it is all. I'll just go about my blogging and not give it another brain cell. It's not like she hails all the way from anywhere. She's right here in Sacramento. And while I'm counting the days I have left on her site, she's counting the beans. I wonder if she has an abacus. Whoops! There goes another one. I'm beginning to think I could have told you about that darned thing after all.

Dennis Hopper Would Like To Ask You A Question

Stop me if you've heard this before...



You're barreling downhill on a runaway trolley with five other people: a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, and two nuns. With red hair. The wind whips across your face as your fellow terrorized passengers scream in terror. You notice an upcoming fork in the tracks and you're standing next to the lever that will switch the trolley to the other track which levels out and would slow down the trolley to a safe stop.



But wait! A man is standing on that other track. If you switch tracks, you'll kill him. Your hand is on the lever. The other passengers are frantically smacking into one another as they alternate between praying and cursing. What do you do? Do you pull the lever and kill one person to save five?



But what if the man is the Dalai Lama? Or a policeman? Or a grandmother? Or your grandmother?



Or what if the man was a murderer, you may think. Why is he wearing a trench coat and what's with the black handlebar moustache that he's twisting? And why is he hunched over? What if he ties little kittens to railroad tracks? Or worse, this little guy?

Pop quiz, hotshot. What do you do?



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Win this Piggy Bank!



Lynn over at After The Dust Settles is having a contest (two, actually). Click on this link (or the piggy picture) to win this beautiful handmade piggy bank, and see the details for entering her second contest.



NGIP would like to thank Pleasing Procrastinator for adding Nanny Goats to her blog roll.  Her post entitled Christmas in July is a perfect example of what it means to procrastinate.





AB from My Neck of the Woods has a great tip for the many Nanny Goats who flush their panties down the toilet, accidentally or otherwise. See her post entitled Plugged Toilet?  for the perfect (and inexpensive) solution to any of your drainage problems. You'll find NGIP on her blog roll as well...THANKS AB!





(photo courtesy of Mike S. of Mike's Mixed Memories. The goat picture along with others pics of Glacier Park can be found here )

Bullet Proof Vests Now Required in the Kitchen

So there I was at the Farmer's Market the other day, you know the one in Sacramento in that parking lot downtown, underneath what some of us old-timers call the WX freeway? What's that thing called now? Anyway, I came across something I don't recall seeing before, but I can only assume I ignored them all the time and became sensitized to them when I was served flowers at a Hollywood restaurant recently...

I stood there like a tourist and took a picture of these squash blossoms, attempting nonchalance, because what idiot takes pictures of vegetables at the Farmer's Market? I mean, really. I've never seen anyone take a picture there. People are too busy pushing and shoving to get to the perfect basket of strawberries, ignoring the fact that this is a civilized society, people and there's a line here, buddy, I want to pay for my avocados too you know and I got here before you! That is what normally happens at these places. Anybody stopping to snap a photo is just plain cuckoo and should be made fun of.



Less than a minute later and further down the aisle, I walked past a woman pulling out her camera and exclaiming, "Oh! I've never seen THESE before." And then click, click click.



Was she crazy? A camera at the Farmer's Market? Didn't we just go over this? Honestly!



So I whipped out my camera again, just so I could show you what she found so fascinating...

Good Heavens, with ingredients like squash blossoms and torpedo onions, what kind of violent offensive would a cook execute in his or her kitchen? Hammunition Surprise? Blood Red Velvet Cake? Firecracker Quiche in a Nuclear Fusion Sauce? I mean, yeah, they sound yummy and all, but the next time you're at Joe's Landmines and Chop Suey Bistro, and the guy at the next table blurts out, "This soup is the bomb!", take cover.





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NGiP would like to thank Drowsey Monkey for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to her blog roll. Every time I visit her blog, I smile, because penguins roam around in the side bar and penguins make the corners of my mouth reach for my ears. Today (Saturday) is Drowsey Monkey's 1 year Bloggiversay, so go over there and say Congrats! And tell her Nanny Goats sent ya!

It's All Fun and Games until Someone Loses an Eye

Hermosa Beach is one of those towns where if you have a friend who lives there and you visit her on a sunny Sunday, and her newly remodeled house is a block from The Strand and you WALK along this Strand to some totally hip, French Bistro for lunch, you go home feeling like you suck in comparison. Your house is a hovel. You are so not cool, not to mention that after strolling past all the volleyball players on the beach, you are now fat and pasty white as well. Oh God, why do you even bother to leave the house any more? What reason do you have to live, really?   

 

So anyway, when I first arrived at my friend's house, before my low self-worth set in, I took a picture of her cute little dog...

 

 

Her name is Wink. Can you guess why?

 

That's right. It's because she only has one eye.

 

Now, in a country where it's not OK to tell jokes like "What do you call a girl with one leg shorter than the other?", is it politically correct to name your poor one-eyed barker 'Wink'? I'm sorry, what I meant to ask was, is it politically correct to name your optical-quantity-challenged canine 'Wink'?

 

I don't think she knows she's a one-eyed freak of a dog, but that doesn't mean if you repeatedly call her that name followed by a fit of giggles, that eventually her own self-esteem won't be crushed.

 

Actually, Wink is spoiled rotten and everyone who meets her fawns over her and asks to babysit her and she's welcome at many restaurants where the servers will wait on her hand and foot. Or paw. Or whatever. AND she lives in a gorgeous house in Hermosa Beach - did you see that hardwood floor? And if she's taken too far for a walk, she gets carried the rest of the way like a baby. This furball may as well be wearing a tiara with her pink bow. 

And if this princess is ever disturbed by the proverbial pea, she can enroll in Doga (yoga for dogs and no, I'm not kidding... I wonder what they call the dog pose... or is that like asking what they call watermelons in Louisiana?) This little furball would just need to be sure to remove her diamond-encrusted tiara before class so as not to accidentally poke her precious little head while wrapping her legs back behind her neck and breathing properly.

 

Bitch.

 

Not that I'm jealous or anything. I mean, I may not have a house by the beach, but at least I have two eyes. HA! And I don't have to bust a gut waiting all day for someone to come home just so I can pee. Double HA!

 

 

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NGiP would like to thank Tina over at The Bigger They Get for adding Nanny Goats to her blog roll. I loved Tina's recent post entitled Newsletter: Month Two Hundred Sixty Four.  It's a birthday card to her son.  It's beautifully written, moving and funny.

 

There's Nothing To See Here

Today's post is sick of my cooking and has decided that it can no longer stand the sight of me. So, when I said "Why don't you just leave, then?" it called my bluff.

Before I start enabling its behavior by coddling to its spoiled rotten attitude, you'll have to click one more time to get to it. For some reason, it likes a blog called No Cleaning Here more than NGIP. I ask it to vacuum the dust bunnies once a week and it thanks me by going to a blog that promises no more need to do housework???  Please go to the post at this link to read my post for today.


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A thousand Thank Yous to Stephanie over at No Cleaning Here who asked me to be a guest blogger on her site today.

Maidenhead, Revisited

I visited my first internet porn site today. And while I willingly clicked on a link to get to it, I didn't know that was where I was going. Although with a name like Assopedia, what did I expect? I'm no prude but Jesus Christ, I hadn't even had my coffee yet and I was just checking my web statistics to see where people came from to get here and this, this,... blog of blow jobs (for lack of a better - or cleaner - description) shoves itself in my face (so to speak).

But did I immediately click away? Hell no. Now that Mr Ass O. Peedia had my number on his stats page, it was too late to leave undetected. Granted, I didn't want to further be seen as lurking for more than 2 seconds, but I was on a mission, dammit, and I had work to do. So I scrolled through the muck, stepped over naked bodies and slurpy sounding links, looking for a reference to "Nanny Goats In Panties" because SOMEBODY got to my site from this godawful place. Somebody from Romania who should have been in church on a Sunday.  Praying to God to save his soul! Repenting for his sinful thoughts! 

Now I'm not a prude, or maybe I am, what the hell do I know? And I know that such sites exist. I just don't subject myself to it and when stumbling out of bed with bad sleep breath and eye-boogers, I'm not exactly thinking, "Yeah I could really go for some RedTube videos right about now". I've been to sex shows in Amsterdam for Chrissakes, but there's a time and a place, ya know? (And as Chef would say, it's called college).

This blog is just out there for any child to see - how do you parents keep your kids out of these places?

I shielded my eyes from the horror as I waded through looking for the NGIP link, certain I was breaking some law by being there (I told you this was my first time, a virgin if you will, a maiden voyage if you will again, on an "adult" site, I don't know what to do in these situations other than completely freak out).

I figured there must have been some mistake, you know, some random link generator that snatched (oops, pardon me) my blog's name thinking it was a good and nasty site involving nannies and their undergarments and slapping it (oops, pardon me again) up onto their link list. But I couldn't find it and I was afraid that any minute some internet cop was going to come (oops - darn these double innuendos!) over and arrest me and my face would be plastered all over CNN and my family would be humiliated (well, some might congratulate me, or welcome me over to their side, actually).

So I left that nasty place, swearing I would never visit it again. It's gross, demeaning to women, and shocking as all get out.

But not before I bookmarked it. You know, just in case the FBI needs me to testify against these awful, awful people, and I'll need a reference to jog my memory because no doubt I will repress these horrible, icky images until the trial.


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I was going to wait until another post to thank Unfinished Rambling(s) for adding NGIP to his blog roll, because maybe he'd be offended at being linked to in the same post as the subject matter above, but then I remembered his post about man boobs, so he can't be all that upset about it. Granted it's not all man boobs all the time. Sometimes he talks about pens. (That's PENS! Without an "i", you pervs.) And any blog that pictures and quotes Christopher Walken's SNL dialogue rules.

NGIP would like to give a shout out to Extremely Funny for adding NGIP to his blog roll. I do this without hesitation, due to the fact that I counted no less than 7 scantily clad breasts on the first page of his blog, so I'm guessing he doesn't have a problem accompanying a blog post about [whispers-->] s. e. x.   Thank you Extremely Funny! You stumble and you rock!


And how convenient is it that I already have "weenie" and "taco" to choose from in my list of previously used labels to categorize this post? (...sorry, that was an inside joke between me and my label maker and it was tasteless and I should have kept it to myself... I sincerely apologize for that rude outburst.)

Succumbing to Drew Barrymore's Boyfriend

So anyway, I got this pen for my birthday last week:

OK, it's not a pen...it's a friggin' laptop!



I'm completely new to Mac, so there is a bit of a learning curve. Apparently, at some point I will become a religious zealot about it and refuse to understand how you ignorant PC users could POSSIBLY still be using your Draconian lead bricks. Luddites! (see? it's already starting.)



During this transition, I will be nothing short of a confused child, victimized by a bitter divorce, trying to sympathize with each of my parents as they battle it out for the blue teeth and thumb drives.  I will be shuttled between Seattle and Silicon Valley on the weekends and 2 weeks in the summer.



And the lies! 



"You mother drained my bank account. She always had to have the most expensive version of everything!"



"When your father and I made love, his operating system would crash halfway through. Did he ever tell you THAT?"





As I put away my new laptop at the airport last weekend, the lady standing next to me in line uttered, "So it really is that thin."



That's what she said.



Let the record show, that was my first "That's what she said" reference.





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NGIP would like to thank Zen Mom for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to her her blog roll. A former reporter, Zen Mom is an excellent and thoughtful writer. If you're a Joss Whedon fan you might enjoy her recent post entitled Strong Women Characters.



And another thing, MJ over at Note To Self is crazy. But crazy for a cause. She's doing a blogathon starting at 9am EST tomorrow (Saturday), where she will post a new blog entry every 30 minutes for 24 hours. Can you imagine either blogging every 30 minutes OR staying awake for 24 hours? ACK! It's madness! You can visit her blog and watch her all day tomorrow and give her some comment love. Any $donations$ go to benefit HUGS (Helping Uplift Grieving Survivors). She's got all the info on her blog. Also, there's a cool prize for the people who support her the bestest!

Add THAT to Your ToDo List and Smoke It

I hate ToDo lists. They may help you organize your life, but what's more depressing than looking at 147 chores that simply remind you of all the stuff you haven't accomplished yet? It's like getting bogged down in massive debt that you don't want to pay because it will take YEARS to climb out of that hole. So why bother?



That's why I've decided to just let the bank repossess my ToDo list.  HA! Let's see them try and unload THAT thing in today's ToDo list market. Plus, for the last six months, I've let the thing go because I just don't care any more. Rather than rewrite a fresh clean list after completing several items, I'll just scribble out "feed wombat" and add "blog about Olympic Gold Medal" and other ToDos until I have to staple pages together into an unwieldy mess.



And...I use a pen. A big fat leaky one.





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NGIP would like to thank Motherhood From the Edge of the Map for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to her blog roll. This gal seamlessly combines The Two Coreys and lobster sex into one post  which somehow manages to demonstrate how happily married she is. Well done!



Hey, while you're here, could you do me a solid and click on this link which will bump me up a bit in the Sacto Top 25 rankings? That's it, just one click, nothing else. Thanks, man.

Motorcycle Diary of a Madman

Those of you who arrived here by Googling "motorcycle panties" have come to the right place. Anybody landing here through the key phrase "billy goats in high heels", that's next door...wierdo.



Why are we so comfortable hindsight-quarterbacking bad behavior, feigning dismay and asking, "What were they thinking?", insisting that we would NEVER do such a thing, when in fact, we pull stupid crap all the time. It's just that we don't wind up maiming ourselves, or get caught on camera for the rest of the world to judge us afterwards, claiming that they would NEVER pull such a stunt and what were we thinking?



After announcing our infallability, we ostensibly sensible folk then jump on our motorcycles with our pants stretched halfway down our butts because it's cool. It shows off our panties and it impresses the ladies. And when we zoom by said ladies on the freeway we weave in and out of traffic to get their attention.



But then our balls get all sweaty, because our legs are hugging tight against hot leather seats in the desert sun. So our leader, Gerard, gets a little wind flappage going in his shorts and stretches his legs straight out like kickstands. We think Gerard has one-upped us showing off for the chicas, so we follow his lead and play around too, because - say it with me - - "It sounded like a good idea at the time."

Speaking of dumb-asses on motorcycles (oops did I type that out loud?)... have you seen this? Apparently, in India (hi Scratch Bags!), "Hands Free" means something else entirely:









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NGIP would like to thank Mojo over at Why? What Have You Heard? for adding Nanny Goats In Panties to his blog roll. Mojo is working toward "charming curmudgeon" status.