Let Me Amuse You With My Misery

I don’t delude myself. I know most of you come here for a grin and giggle, not to be impressed by:

• my profound insights (you’re smiling already, yes?),
• my clever turn of phrase (look, if you must roll on the floor in laughter, please do so over the muddy paw prints by the door), or
• my dazzling use of metaphor, allusion and other terms you have most likely not thought about since you wrote your last English literature term paper (this was only a few weeks ago for this reader and this one, so they are excused for reading my blog as a way to purge their brains of all intellectual thought before summer break).

However, I’m not feeling all fun and games these days. Oh, let me count the ways:

1. Within 10 minutes of stepping foot in Seattle for our recent Cure JM conference/vacation, Thing 2 left not only his iPod Touch but also his beloved Nintendo DS and some 20 games for it on the airport shuttle train. Even he could do the math on that. In short, a grainy security camera stlll of yours truly might now be pinned to a corkboard hanging in the Seattle-Tacoma International’s TSA office with a note to “Approach with Caution. And Mace.”
2. Returned from said “vacation” to find our house had been broken into. Luckily, the biggest thing stolen was a huge jar of loose change. Unluckily, the only other thing stolen was Thing 1’s piggy bank. Which contained $100. Which she received from relatives as an elementary school graduation gift.
3. In the mail pile that collected during said “vacation,” I received a jury duty notice. All I’ll say is that on August 17, someone in the criminal justice system may be very sorry our state didn’t do away with capital punishment.
4. Speaking of death, our dog Murphy is apparently suicidal. Last month, he ate a bowl of grapes. Yesterday, because our Lab abhors subtly, he chowed down a block of rat poison. I happened along shortly after both incidents and did what I do best – made him puke his ever-loving guts out. It’s a talent.

The list goes on but I’m depressing myself. Maybe I’ll detail it more online (I will most definitely give you the scoop in person if you buy me a beer because I’m just a loose-lipped harlot for the hops as you know), but as of right now I need a little happy in my life and if it can’t be me, why not one of you. Hence:

LET ME GIVE YOU STUFF!

A brilliant PR company (i.e., one that actually read my blog and put a few things together) has offered to let me give one lucky reader

4 FREE PASSES to
Lake Compounce amusement park
in Bristol, Connecticut

Lake Compounce is the oldest continuously operating amusement park in North America, having started in 1846. (I know you folks are used to my typos, but I did really type one-eight-four-six.)

It is home to Boulder Dash, which has been voted the world’s No. 1 wooden roller coaster and is liked even by the stodgy New York Times. Lake Compounce even has Connecticut’s largest water park (no, not Long Island Sound -- we have to share that with, you know, Lawn Guylanders).

The park is a gem from what I hear from friends and I’ve read online.

That’s right. I’ve never been.

Not that I didn’t want to go and give you a firsthand review.

I tried to go last week with the Things and My Love and the four free tickets the PR folks gave me to use, but 30 minutes sitting in a traffic accident on I-84 made me turn back.

And yes, you may add that to the list.

Anyway, here’s da rules:

• Leave a comment by 8 a.m., Friday, July 15. Any comment will do. I’m easy. Duh. (If you want to comment, but don’t live any where near Bristol or don’t want tickets, just say so.)
• Include a working email address when you fill out the comment form so I can contact you if you win.
• Be a citizen of Earth. So unless you are Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum, you qualify.

I’ll pretend to give an extra entry if you like the “Always Home and Uncool” Facebook page, which occasionally includes bonus photos, links, bon mots and extra moanin’ and a-bitchin’ from me.

One winner will be picked at random. As will my nose.