Oscar and Me

This is my new "favorite book". It's on my bookcase, and I love it. I encourage anyone who is feeling on the grouchy side to read it. From cover to cover. Over and over. It's great. If anyone can define grouchiness and how to be a grouch, it's Oscar the Grouch. In case your local library doesn't have a copy of this great book, let me give you a few highlights: First you must learn to frown. Check. Second, you must look like a grouchy person. Check. Oscar says that grouches can live in trash cans, old cars, crummy old houses or even in yucky beautiful houses. Check. He also tells you that to be a good grouch, it helps to be tired and grumpy, so you should get a bad night's sleep. He tells you to put rocks under your sheet. Well, I didn't do that, but I don't sleep worth a crap a lot of nights. And I did sleep on the sofa last night. To get the day off to a grouchy start, you should set your clock to go off too early. Check. Do that every day thinking I'll get up a little earlier and do some work or something, which I never-ever do. Tell yourself how awful you look this morning. Triple check on that one. Then Oscar has a few pages of some things that make him grouchy. For example, bubble gum machines that take his money but give him no gumball, grouchy hornets, someone who thinks he's funny but isn't makes Oscar grouchy. Oscar thinks coat hangers can be the world's grouchiest things. Obviously, Oscar lives on Sesame Street and not on my street. It is true, though, that coat hangers can be quite obnoxious at times, don't you think? Then the book takes you through several pages of funny stuff about how grouches relax and how to take a grouch vacation and how beneficial it is for grouches to be together, like in grouch clubs and such. There are other famous storybook grouches that Oscar wants us to know about besides himself. Such as the Giant at the top of Jack's Beanstalk, Cinderella's Family, Witches, and storybook dragons.

How can someone like me who likes all things sunny and happy and warm be grouchy like Oscar the Grouch who hates the above-mentioned? Can you say H-O-R-M-O-N-E-S????

I had my surgery in October and now it is February. I think my body is beginning to realize that something is a little different and it's beginning to wonder WTHeck. I'm making a joke of something that's pretty serious business here. I'm snapping my family up like a pan of fresh green beans and all the while looking for something to throw. I have a doctor visit Monday afternoon, so please pray that he'll have a magic cure for me. Soon. Very soon. Because if not, my poor, sweet husband may just leave me. Which I would probably deserve.

Here's Oscar's best advice which comes on the last page of this great book.

But pray for me, please. I really do need it.