The best pieces of advice I’ve received in my life were from my dad and my brother. My dad told me Don’t shit where you eat. It’s applicable in every situation.

And my big brother told me he was a pessimistic optimist. It goes like this, sorta: You go into every situation expecting things to go completely wrong. Then, if things unexpectedly go right, it’s a lagniappe, a little gift, an unexpected happiness.

This philosophy has never steered me wrong. I expect the worst while hoping for the best. Facing Game 5 in the Stanley Cup series, this outlook also serves me well.

Ben and Sam both wear Chicago sweaters, mostly ’cause they look cool. I wear a Flyers sweater now that the Duckies went down for this year. I don’t get my hopes up. But if those boys win, total lagniappe. ‘Cause y’all, they are SO overdue.

I like to write top ten lists. For a while, in fact, I was actually retained by some actual, respectable (as opposed to fake and sarcastic) website to do it. However, this arrangement ceased when said website concluded that my name was funnier than my writing.

After that, I made occasional forays into top ten on my blog, like Words Of Wisdom For The Next President and Election Week Top Ten List around the time of the 2008 election. It’s been a long time. But someone reminded me today of the abundance of certain concepts in my Facebook entries, so I give you:

TOP 10 ELEMENTS OF GRETCHEN’S FACEBOOK POSTS

(1) The word “fuck”
(2) The loathesomeness of California generally and Los Angeles specifically
(3) Penis
(4) Weather
(5) Sexual double entendre
(6) Bad grammar, spelling and/or punctuation
(7) Pythons
(8) I’ll bet I can write an entire post without saying “fuck”. D’OH!
(9) Elvis Costello
(10) Shit

As it turns out, I appear to be a sort of one-trick pony. So I tried and tried to think of a topic on which I could manage to sound profound and/or respectful. Couldn’t think of one. Not a single one. Earthquake in Haiti.The health care bill. The war on terror. All I could come up with was “Ha ha, remember the Iraqi Information Minister saying on TV with a straight face that the infidels had been repelled, when anyone could see he had a U.S. tank up his ass?” Sometimes irreverence and humor are required to make reality palatable.

Someone said that use of profanity is a sign of little or no education or intelligence. I disagree. It’s an art form best practiced by those who can speak or write expertly and therefore are entitled to dip into the basement for embellishment. Think of low humor as a sort of garnish or parsley. I’m probably thinking of Joe Biden as I write this, but in fact at this hour I’m thinking not much at all.

In short, give the guy a break, and give me a break. You can’t unfriend him, and you can’t make me stop saying “fuck”.

December 24, 2009 marked 25 years since I came to Southern California for, apparently, the rest of my life. In odd ways, I’ve grown used to it; I’d have a difficult time going back to someplace where I couldn’t get a triple espresso and a New York Times in the dead of night. In other ways, I’ll never get used to it. I’m sort of done crying What is wrong with you people? because I know. I know exactly what’s wrong and it’ll never get better. So it goes.

I wish I was John Irving. I’m rereading A Son of the Circus and he has exactly the words for everything. Last Night in Twisted River is fucking brilliant; okay, there is the usual flair for the dramatic, but you have to admit the boy does his research. Logger? Sous chef? The boy is THERE. Oh, and can you say achondroplastic dwarfism and orthopedic surgery for A Son of the Circus? I thought not. Is this a writer’s life, always looking in from outside? I can tell you everything you might wish to know about the latest storm system headed our way, but that’s all I’ve got.

Like him or hate him, I adore John Irving. Yeah, Dickensian. But I am rereading A Son of the Circus and Ben keeps asking me “What are you laughing about?” It’s life, Crumpacker. Hilarious but deadly serious. As John Irving would say, an X-rated soap opera. So it goes. This post may have turned out to be a paean to Vonnegut and Irving, but that’s okay with me. Those are the gods I invoke when I sit down to seriously write.

A couple of weeks ago, Ben and I took the kids to the Orange County Swap Meet. I’m not sure if they have swap meets in other parts of the country; when we lived back East, we called them flea markets and they mostly consisted of cast-off used items or purported antiques of obscure background. Our swap meet consists of a large number of vendors peddling items they can’t readily sell elsewhere — if people really wanted to buy their stuff, if they were making a profit, they’d be able to afford a proper storefront. In other words, it’s a matter of wading through acres of cheesy crap. About once every six months, on a Saturday or Sunday, Ben and I have the following conversation:

Ben:  We could go to the swap meet.

Me: Yeah, we haven’t been there in ages.

Ben: It’s a good way to get our exercise. Let’s go.

Exercise, hell. He wants to go because they sell beer. But I always let it slide. This is the secret of the swap meet: Daddies don’t mind walking all over creation while Mommy browses beauty supply shops and discount shoes, if and only if they can have beer.

I’m such a bitch. A real snob. I’m extremely picky about the clientele in the places where I shop. Meaning, for someone of my means, that I turn up my nose at Wal-Mart. I’m a Target girl, me. I refuse to rub elbows with the Great Unwashed in order to buy printer ink and toilet paper. But the swap meet? Makes Wal-Mart look like Fashion Island.

Honestly, where do these people come from? This is coastal Orange County, after all, and these people look like they’ve climbed on a bus from Jurupa or Rubidoux. Smokers. Scads and scads of them, and the swap meet is one of the few remaining places in OC which hasn’t banned smoking. These people figure no problem, we’re outdoors! all the while they’re practically flicking their ashes on my children. It requires a monumental effort of will to not physically assault them. Well, that and the fact that most of them are 300 pounds and covered in tattoos. I don’t think I could take them.

And morbidly obese people. I’m not talking about stuff like my fat Polish ass, I am talking about people who are so overweight they have to ride scooters because they physically can’t walk around. And who sent out the memo to young women who are 30 pounds overweight that it’s cool to wear belly shirts and strappy tank tops? Yeah, that rolls of visible fat look is all the rage in OC. At least I have the grace to keep my fat to myself.

I always spend my time at the swap meet snarking to Ben about these people under my breath, eventually announcing Let’s get out of here. I can’t stand this place one moment longer.  Next time we get the urge to go to the swap meet, I’m going to insist we go to the Santa Ana Zoo instead. There’s lots of wildlife to be observed there, and at least those animals don’t blow cigarette smoke on my children.

My friend Mary put up this meme on Facebook, and since I’ve got bugger-all to write about that won’t bore you to tears, I’ll bore you with this instead. Feel free to pick up this ball and run with it.

1. I have a good working knowledge of palmistry and Tarot card reading (leftover from high school/college years).
2. I started college when I was sixteen.
3. I’m married to my third husband.
4. I’ve almost died three times: once from simultaneous measles and German measles when I was three; once at 17 when I almost broadsided a semi truck that was blocking the highway at night; and once when I was 28, my appendix ruptured and I got peritonitis.
5. I have no living parents, aunts or uncles.
6. I have a Mexican red-legged tarantula in a tank in my living room.
7. I can’t touch the bottoms of my own feet; it completely squicks me out for some reason.
8. I have never broken a bone.
9. I have a tipped uterus.
10. I have a “lucky fork” stamped with “Prop. of City of NY” which was stolen many years ago from Bellevue by a friend’s father; I eat almost every meal with my lucky fork, and no one else in the family is allowed to touch it.
11. I watch “Robot Chicken” religiously.
12. I was vegan for a year, about 12 years ago, with the result that I hated vegetables for 10 years.
13. I would give my left ovary to move back to New Jersey.
14. I live in Costa Mesa, CA on the Newport Beach border, but frequently say I’m from Newport Beach because it sounds cooler.
15. I’m afraid of heights.
16. I don’t believe in Satan or Hell.
17. The most worthwhile thing I’ve done in my life is mothering my kids.
18. I’m neither as tough nor as confident as I come off.
19. I’m a member of Mensa.
20. I’m a dreadful housekeeper, really bad.
21. I will always regret not finishing law school.
22. I’m crazy about my husband.
23. I like liver and onions.
24. I wish I lived someplace where it rains and/or snows like hell.
25. In general, I find memes boring and stupid.

I have exactly bubkes, doodly point squat, jack point shit to write about. I mean, it’s 90 degrees outside when I want football weather, So Cal sucks, and my kids are slobs, and Boolie’s demanding to be taken to the potty every 3.2 minutes and be careful what you wish for, because I almost wish she was still in diapers. But y’all don’t want to hear about that. God knows I don’t.

But I have me some ferocious links, and some of them you may not have seen, and you should see them. So here goes:

Extremely cool National Weather Service online weather school

Australian showbiz gossip site, better than Perez Hilton because possibly less trashy

Map of recent California earthquakes

The NWS Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK, home of awesome meteorologist and weather photographer Roger Edwards

Gluten Free Frugal, the website of my friend Tenille, who just had a baby girl, Mira, on October 4. Full of gluten free recipes that don’t involve $80 worth of groceries from Whole Foods!

The BBC News and the Toronto Star, which provide especially intriguing reporting on American issues; bear in mind that the UK and Canada are almost the only friends of the USA left standing

Awesome website which will insert your name, or one of your friends’, into a fake news story announcing the Internet phenom of grassroots Presidential nominee [fill in name of your choice], thanks to my Canadian friend Dana!

I know, I know, there’s a lot of weather stuff. But I’m just odd that way.

Finally a topic on which I can speak with authority. I attended the University of Delaware, Biden’s undergrad alma mater, and lived in Delaware 1977-1984. Here go the basics:

Pronunciation: It’s not Dela-where, it’s Dela-whirrr with a falling inflection, i.e., no stress on the third syllable. Y’all got that? Thank you.

Geography: Delaware is on the East Coast, southeast of Pennsylvania, north of Maryland, south of New Jersey. It’s within shouting distance of both Philly and D.C. By and large we affiliated with Philadelphia but that could have changed for all I know; when I was there, it was a matter of what TV channels got better reception. Delaware was a slave state but remained in the Union in the Civil War. I shouldn’t have to tell you all this, but I have had Californians ask me things like Isn’t that somewhere in Pennsylvania? and Isn’t that out near Ohio somewhere?

Delaware is divided into two parts: northern Delaware (Wilmington where Biden lives, Newark where the University is) and Lower (Slower) Delaware. Despite what some Wilmingtonians will tell you, Lower Delaware is utterly charming, but it’s a different world. Wilmington is pretty much an upscale (if you have the right zip code) suburb of Philly. Lower Delaware is totally the fucking South, with all the charms and pratfalls of the South.

Joe Biden personally: He has been a Delaware senator since 1972, and Delaware doesn’t willingly suffer fools. At least, not for long. I think it was Wilmington News-Journal reporter Cris Barrish who said that there are six degrees of Kevin Bacon, but there are only two degrees of relation in Northern Delaware. It’s true. If Biden was an asshole, Delaware would have long since sussed him out. I’ve been gone for almost 25 years and I know people who know him. You can’t cut a fart in Wilmington without someone blowing the whistle on you. I’m satisfied Biden is a good guy.

The Obama factor: I told you and told you that Obama needed an old white guy on the ticket if he wants to win. Our old white guy is in place. And Joe? This old white Delaware girl thinks you are an okay guy.

Yesterday I took Sam to the community pool that belongs to our little townhouse community. Very usually, we have the place to ourselves; yesterday, also present were a trio of twentysomething women, two blondes and a brunette. The brunette was, of course, Hispanic, because there is apparently some sort of law in Orange County against white Anglo-Saxon brunettes.

Anyway. I was reading and generally overseeing Sam, who was practicing swimming, and sort of listening in on these broads’ conversation. And people, it was Jessica Simpson-worthy. They got to talking, of course, about diets and what they were and were not eating:

Girl A: I only eat organic foods. Like, my fridge is full of organic chicken. Because I don’t want to eat an animal that’s had stuff injected into its body.

Girl B: But WE inject stuff into OUR bodies.

Everyone ponders this for a while. The conversation stays on chicken.

Girl C: I love chicken wings.

Girl B: Oh, yeah, me too. I absolutely LOVE chicken wings.

Girl A: But are they REALLY made out of chicken?

At one point Sam went to the bottom of the pool and held his breath and stayed under forever, not moving, in an attempt to freak me out. It did; I ended up running over to the edge of the pool saying Sam? but fortunately he came up for air before I could dive in to save him. That little shit. The girls made quite a flurry over this, chattering back and forth about how freaked out they had been, but finally concluding I didn’t want to have to go in and save him, because I didn’t want to get WET!

Everything you have ever heard about So Cal and its denizens is absolutely true.

It’s this guy’s fault. Worse, I ended up doing it at midnight.

There had been rain in the forecast for this weekend, but the current models are backing off with respect to the intensity of the system, and the predicted rainfall totals for Newport Beach are now running at less than a tenth of an inch. And I don’t reasonably expect any more appreciable rainfall until the next rainy season starts up in November or so. Damn, damn, damn.

Because I am a great believer in God’s car wash; I leave my van out in the rain, and thus have managed to avoid washing it since last autumn. It’s true that God doesn’t scrub, but I’m willing to forgive Him for this; He doesn’t charge money for raining on my van, I don’t have to tip Him, and I don’t (perish the thought) have to stir my lazy Polish ass to wash the damned thing myself.

But the rain’s been scarce for a while, and the storm I was counting on has petered out. I don’t require that my van be sparkling clean — it’s not a fucking Rolls Royce, for God’s sake — but things are starting to get out of hand. I don’t think even a torrential microburst would help at this point.

Therefore, there is actual washing of the van in my future. The only question that remains is whether I will bite the bullet and pay someone else to do it (and they always give me the stinkeye if the thing is REALLY dirty), or rally my husband and sons to do it as a family. I’m voting for the latter. Because why, apart from garbage disposal, lawn care and vehicle maintenance, do we keep men around the house?