Texas is still fighting an extreme drought. We might have to start bathing with friends.

Holy crap (again). I DON’T SLEEP WELL ANY MORE. I got up this morning (again) two hours before dawn with pain in my feet and knees EXACTLY THE SAME AS YESTERDAY ... except this time with the added excitement of hypoglycemia, which has been happening more often than I care to admit. So while I waited for Sam to wake up I killed a substantial chunk of time with a Glucerna vanilla milkshake for old broads with diabetes and fantasizied about Pop Secret with Movie Theater Butter. (Low blood sugar can do scary shit to a person’s brain. Trust me.)

Happy Halloween, y’all.

It’s 3:30 in the morning and I can’t sleep (believe me, I tried) so I thought I’d hang out with the Howdygram for a few minutes. But before I forget ...

I am a well-rested invalid zombie with a deranged bladder.

It’s 7:30 a.m. and I don’t want to write this post. I’m tired, I’m crabby, I’ve got watery eyes, my shitty knees hurt (my shitty knees ALWAYS hurt) and the bottoms of my feet burn. I’d rather be in bed or — better yet — stretched out on the chaise in the family room drifting off to sleep with one of my favorite napping movies, most likely something with Margaret Rutherford, whose little face appears at left for your possible interest.

Democrats are definitely nicer than Republicans and way better for the United States of America.

A couple of things. First, here’s an extremely cute “feel-good” video of a manicky dog who just discovered that it’s huge fun to bounce on a bed.

Double bonus points are a huge fucking deal for old people.

Listen up, guys! Yesterday was A RECORD-BREAKING DAY IN HOWDYGRAMLAND! The Howdygram had 743 unique visitors and 891 pageviews after everybody on earth clicked a link to this post from a comment I wrote about Bristol Palin on Jezebel.com. Holy crap! I’m speechless! I’m dumbfounded! I’m popular! I’M HUNGRY!

Basil Rathbone was hot.

Holy crap, I do NOT feel well right now. My hands and feet are burning due to diabetic peripheral neuropathy, my leg muscles ache, my knees hurt, my right arm is stiff as a board, I’ve got electric shocks in my bunions, my blood sugar has been consistently way too low since yesterday morning and — worst of all — IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING NIGHT AND I’M WIDE AWAKE. What the hell is wrong with me? I’ve been back and forth to bed three times but keep waking up either in pain or, like right now, with HYPOGLYCEMIA. This is one of the crappiest nights I’ve ever had. Thank God Sam is planning a Costco adventure this morning because NOTHING MAKES ME FEEL BETTER THAN TEENY TACOS. (Except possibly drugs.)

We ran out of silverware yesterday.

Howdygram headquarters is brimming with all kinds of important crap today! I’ll list everything for you below in cleverly-subtitled paragraphs so you’ll know what’s what.

I dreamed about Charlton Heston last night. If you can explain this, please let me know.

Sam and I both woke up at 5:30 this morning for totally different reasons. He’s “on call” today at work and had to turn on his company iPhone to monitor incoming emails and I was in the middle of a hypoglycemic episode. Happy Sunday, everybody!

Ebola. We almost had a chance to stop panicking.

I love Saturday mornings! It’s just a few minutes past 6 a.m., Sam is on his way to McDonald’s to buy me a Sausage McMuffin and I’m parked at my desk working on a Howdygram post because THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING TO DO not counting long naps, eating things and insulin injections. (I might be kidding about that last one.)

The Wasilla Hillbillies crash a party.

It was my original intent to include an Einstein Award in my last post but I didn’t want to overload everybody with too much of a good thing — you’re welcome — so I’ll post it now instead.

Voter fraud, immigration fraud, welfare fraud and rape fraud. It’s a scary world out there for the right wing, isn’t it?

Following the world’s longest afternoon nap — a full 6½ hours that actually commenced at 10:30 this morning — I’m feeling perky, creative, feisty, really hungry plus mildly “inebriated” due to impending hypoglycemia. I ordered dinner online a couple of minutes ago. I’ll take a break from this post when the doorbell rings but you’ll have my undivided attention in the meantime. As a quick preview, tonight’s Howdygram post will include many of our most popular features, including a PUTZ OF THE WEEK, a HEARTWARMING VIDEO clip, CRAP YOU SHOULD BUY and WEATHER COMMENTARY along with the usual assortment of entertaining horseshit. This is your lucky day!

I get to rip up an invoice and anticipate tartar sauce all at the same time.

Sam and I don’t receive many bills, so it was a huge and lousy shock today to get an invoice from HealthTexas Provider Network for $25 related to my last office visit with Dr. M at the beginning of September. My first instinct, of course is to freak out all over the house because we’ve had Blue Cross for decades AND WEVE NEVER OWED A DIME beyond the regular co-pay for an office visit with the usual routine lab crap (i.e., bleeding into tubes and a pee-pee sample). My second instinct is to get really mad, assuming THIS IS A NEW KIND OF  SCAM TO GOUGE HELPLESS OLD WOMEN WITH SHITTY KNEES WHO CAN’T FIGHT BACK. I decide to pour a Marcytini and call HealthTexas.

A morning of monumental accomplishments featuring deep-dish pizza and tartar sauce.

Good morning. Want to see what happens around here when a senior citizen insomniac gets hungry in the middle of the night? The aforementioned senior citizen visits Foody Direct and orders $69 worth of deep-dish pizza from My π in Chicago for two-day delivery in a colorful crate of dry ice.

Motivation and a Marcytini ... the perfect catalyst for a Howdygram post.

It’s another hot and sweaty fall afternoon here in north Texas. Our landscapers just finished mowing for the zillionth time since April, our maid is vacuuming the master bedroom, and I’m comfortably parked at my desk with motivation and a Marcytini ... the perfect catalyst for a Howdygram post. I’ll probably stop halfway, though, for a nap. Because RETIREMENT!

The scary side of plastic surgery? You wind up looking like somebody else.

Sam just called. He’ll be home from work late tonight — I’m guessing around 2 a.m. — so maybe I’ll hang out here with the Howdygram for a little while.

Answer me this: Do South African burglars routinely stop to take a dump before they steal the silverware?

Welcome to Insomnia Central. It’s 5:30 a.m., I’ve been awake since 4:45 and I’m parked comfortably at my desk with a teeny bottle of Coke Zero (from the mini-fridge here in the study) and two Russell Stover sugar-free peanut butter cups. I really want to go back to bed at some point because I’ve got a JAM-PACKED AGENDA this morning that includes visits to CVS for my annual flu shot and then to Mesquite City Hall to sign me up for the MTED program. In case you’re interested, MTED stands for Mesquite Transportation for the Elderly and Disabled, and as a handicapped old lady with shitty knees, nerve-damaged feet and a cane I qualify for the city’s free door-to-door bus service so I can get to my doctor appointments in case Sam can’t take me one of these days.

I’m actually too tired to eat a Russell Stover sugar-free marshmallow pumpkin.

I’ve had two stinking hours of sleep and I’m so tired I can’t even keep my eyes open long enough to eat a Russell Stover sugar-free marshmallow pumpkin. As a matter of fact, my present level of sleep deprivation is so profound I actually feel INEBRIATED. Sam just left for the gym and his weekly Costco excursion — TEENY TACOS! BREAKFAST BURRITOS! SALSA! MUFFINS! VERY VERY GOOD FROZEN HAMBURGERS! — and I’m seriously considering an immediate nap in the family room since my afternoon will be interrupted by technical people from Display Systems, Inc., who are coming over to replace the lamp in our projection TV so I won’t miss any William Powell movies. (The lamp hasn’t burned out yet but those threatening little on-screen warning messages irritate the hell out of me.) For your possible interest I’m expecting the aforementioned technical people between 2 and 4.

I smashed another toe.

Just 13 days since my last toe disaster [see post] I did it again, people. Tonight on my way to the kitchen for a cup of sugar-free lemon-lime Jell-O I whacked the big toe on my right foot against the leg of our new coffee table, and BLAMMO ... blood all over the place. Sam came to my rescue with a bandage and I spent the next two hours on the chaise with my foot propped up because it hurt like hell. I’M FED UP WITH ALL THIS LOUSY TOE SHIT AND IT HAS TO STOP. Thank you for putting up with me.

The latest conspiracy theory: President Obama is planning to cancel the 2016 election and declare a dictatorship.

A couple of things. First, Sam assembled our new coffee table a few minutes ago AND IT’S ABSOLUTELY SWELL. Perfect size, perfect color, zero damage, heavy glass, a handy-dandy lower shelf to hold remotes and snacks, and — best of all — TONS OF ROOM UNDERNEATH FOR MY SHITTY FEET. I’m not sure I can explain why room for my feet is such a big deal, but trust me ... it just IS. When you have arthritis and neuropathy you spend most of your life trying to get comfortable, and OUR NEW TABLE DOES IT FOR ME! I’ll bet there are many, many hours of happy, pain-free movie-watching in my future. Glorioski!

Try Marcycita’s South-of-the-Border Tamale Bake for Senior Citizens with Hot Sauce.

I’ve just discovered that it’s fun and liberating to wake up at 4:30 in the morning for a routine middle-of-the-night senior citizen bathroom adventure and wind up in the study eating Russell Stover sugar-free marshmallow pumpkins! Right here on my desk I’ve got a great big display box of 36 GORGEOUS FOIL-WRAPPED PUMPKINS filled with FLUFFY MARSHMALLOW CREAM ... exactly like you’d find them next to the register at Walgreens. Seriously, can life get any better than this?

Michael Dunn gets life in prison without parole. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving douchebag.

Yo, everybody. Before I mosey into the family room for some late-night TV with Sam there’s huge news I want to share even though it was plastered all over the Internet today and you probably already know: DOUCHEBAG MICHAEL DUNN GETS LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE. No kidding and holy crap, this actually made me smile. RUSSELL STOVER SUGAR-FREE MARSHMALLOW PUMPKINS FOR EVERYBODY!

Welcome aboard the Ebola Magic, Carnival’s newest floating petri dish.

Ebola ... the gift that keeps on giving! Today we learn that a lab supervisor from Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who most likely handled Thomas Eric Duncan’s infectious specimens IS ON A CARNIVAL CRUISE IN THE CARIBBEAN with 3,690 passengers, thereby creating the world’s largest floating petri dish from hell. And you thought norovirus was bad? Holy shit.

Welcome to Dallas ... where the fun is infectious!

According to a steaming pile of news reports this morning, Dallas County commissioners are considering an EBOLA OUTBREAK DISASTER DECLARATION due to “the potential to suffer widespread or severe damage, injury, loss or threat of life.” There’s an emergency meeting scheduled for this afternoon with coffee and a couple of sweet rolls.

“I Love Lucy” is still a scream and I promise it won’t make you think of Ebola even for a second.

To distract all of us from The Great Ebola Panic of 2014 — which is SCARY SHIT and A VERY REAL THING, especially here in Dallas — I think you should know that today is “I Love Lucy” Day, commemorating the iconic TV comedy’s premier on October 15, 1951, just two stinking weeks before the birth of yours truly.

Welcome to Ebolaville.

Yo, everybody, and happy October 15. It’s 5:30 in the morning and I’ve got some breaking medical news from Ebolaville: Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital — the facility in Dallas where Thomas Eric Duncan died last week — was COMPLETELY UNPREPARED to treat any kind of highly infectious disease. According to a group of nurses who filed a complaint with National Nurses United, they had no protective gear and reportedly left Duncan in a room with other patients for “several hours” before isolating him, exposing at least 76 additional people. The complaint states that a nursing supervisor “faced resistance from other hospital authorities” when she requested moving Duncan to an isolation unit.

The 2016 Republican clown car is filling up fast.

The big news first, okay? An order issued by the Supreme Court today ensured that ABORTION CLINICS IN TEXAS MUST STAY OPEN. The order negated part of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling issued a couple of weeks ago that would have forced 13 of the state’s 18 women’s health centers that provide abortion services to close in compliance with new “safety” requirements that would have cost millions of dollars in bullshit building code upgrades to turn clinics into fancy-ass “ambulatory surgical centers” and require all staff doctors to have hospital admitting privileges.

Christopher Columbus is our latest Putz of the Week.

I’ve got a shocking revelation for you, people. AMERICA’S SCHOOLS DON’T TEACH THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. He didn’t “discover” the new world ... HE INVADED IT. And for this reason I’d like to announce that Christopher Columbus is the Howdygram’s latest Putz of the Week even though he actually deserves something a whole lot worse. (I’m considering Shithead of the Fifteenth Century.)

Fine dining and wholesome family entertainment are the hallmark of Howdygram headquarters.

Know what? Lots and lots of REALLY EXCITING CRAP is happening around here this week! To prevent an outbreak of general hysteria maybe I’d better organize my thoughts into neatly-subtitled paragraphs for your reading pleasure.

Cookies and beer? Holy crap.

You think you know the person you’re married to? Think again. I just discovered a new side of Sam, the mystery man. It’s 10:30 Saturday night and he decides to drive over to Kroger to buy an emergency late-night snack: Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies and a cold six-pack of Sam Adams. COOKIES AND BEER? Holy crap, right?

You should always listen to your stomach.

Shalom, y’all. We’ve got a damp and dismal Saturday here, which is no surprise whatsoever when you stop to consider Friday night. In a word, it was LOUD AND WET (okay, three words), and I’m thinking we probably got at least an inch of rain along with three hours of thunder, lightning, rattling window screens and wind. (A lot of wind.)

End of weather report. (You’re welcome.)

The toe has survived. Send presents.

I haven’t been sleeping well lately — mostly in teeny spurts, like two hours at a time — and last night was no different. Strangely enough, though, I haven’t been very inspired to write Howdygram posts while I sit around here doing nothing (I didn’t write one yesterday) but I hope to make up for it RIGHT NOW with a bunch of stimulating baloney. Thank you.

Former President Jimmy Carter is the genuine article.

If you’re a regular Howdygram reader you already know by now that I’m no fan of the religious right, always whining about “persecution” while shoving their brand of artificial pseudo-Christian hate down America’s throat. Based on what I see from their warped displays of faith, therefore, I’m more than willing to accept that former President Jimmy Carter is the genuine article. He doesn’t look for publicity and he doesn’t spew any idiotic anti-woman, anti-minority, anti-gay, Obama-is-the-antichrist horseshit; instead, very quietly, last week President Carter — at age 90! — was here in Dallas for three days helping to build 35 new houses with Habitat for Humanity, something he and Rosalynn have done together all over the U.S. (and around the world) as a Christian ministry for the last 30 years.

You don’t want to miss these excellent bargains.

It’s 5 a.m., I’ve got a throbby toe [see previous post], my feet are burning, my blood sugar is too low, my left thigh hurts and my right eye is watering. Other than that it’s really swell to be awake in the middle of the night again. How the hell are you? 

I smashed a toe.

More specifically, the big toe on my left foot. And I didn’t even realize it at the time. At 2:15, about five minutes after Sam left for work today, I was sitting on the sofa in the family room and bumped my toe on the coffee table. Five minutes later I look down at my foot and I’M COVERED IN BLOOD. Nothing hurts, thank God — my feet are numb due to diabetic neuropathy — but I won’t be able to do much about my crushed nail and the extent of my toe injury until Sam gets home tonight because I’m an old lady with mobility issues. No kidding, people, I’m really freaked out right now. I wanted to load and run the dishwasher this afternoon and maybe do some laundry but I don’t think I should shlep around the house putting any pressure on my toe or risk additional nail damage (if that’s even possible) by stuffing my foot into a slipper.

Absentee ballots rule. And you don’t have to wear a brassiere.

Know what I forgot to tell you? I ALREADY VOTED IN THE NOVEMBER ELECTION! This year, for the very first time, I requested and cast an absentee ballot so I won’t have to get all freaked out about having good days and bad days, dealing with potentially shitty weather conditions or not feeling well enough to vote in person. Doing the mail-in ballot thing is FUN AND EASY, you get a big free pre-paid envelope to send it back AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO WEAR A BRASSIERE. Seriously, people, I plan to do this for the rest of my life and you should consider it, too. ABSENTEE BALLOTS RULE.

Two late-summer maladies are creeping back into my life.

Hello from I’m-Feeling-Crappyland. It’s 7:30 Monday morning and I’ve got a stuffed-up nose, watery eyes, a mild headache and — horrors! — I’m pretty damn sure two maladies from late summer are creeping back into my life: 1) the same miserable urinary tract infection; and 2) CELLULITIS IN MY LEFT THIGH, which started up again last night and already hurts like hell. I’ve decided to send an email to Dr. M’s office this morning to maneuver an Ampicillin refill, so cross your fingers that she won’t ask me to make an appointment because I was just there in September and enough is enough. Please watch this space for additional health updates as they become available but feel free to continue your usual routine in the meantime. Thank you.

A popular redneck destination breaks ground near Howdygram headquarters.

I’d like to launch this Howdygram post with TWO IMPORTANT TEXAS NEWS STORIES, okay? (I should be in bed right now, but what the hell ... I’d rather do this instead.)

Alexander Graham Bell. What a schmuck.

Hello, shalom and happy Saturday to you and yours. I’ll begin today’s post with news about yesterday’s THOROUGHLY SHOCKING WAL-MART DELIVERY featuring two half-gallon jars of surprise dill pickles.

I hope you have a really pleasant Friday. What’s for lunch today?

Hi. It’s me again but I wish I was still in bed. I woke up about 40 minutes ago for my routine middle-of-the-night senior citizen bathroom adventure and decided to hang out in the study for a while for the following shitty reasons: 1) I’ve got a clogged nose, watery eyes and a raspy cough; 2) my back is itchy; and 3) I can’t think of anything else.

If you bet on Texas to contain Ebola, you’ll lose. Rick Perry is as dumb as a box of rocks.

Color me shocked: WE ACTUALLY GOT THOSE BIG-ASS THUNDERSTORMS predicted by Weather.com! They started to blow through here around 5 p.m. with violently strong circular winds, sheets of heavy rain and plenty of noise and lightning. Mesquite survived unscathed except for two brief power outages; areas west of us — such as Arlington near Cowboys Stadium and snooty Highland Park — had considerable damage and about 250,000 residents are still without power. A couple of photos appear below in case you need to see this for yourself.

I’ve discovered the perfect, squeak-free pre-popped popcorn.

The lying sacks of poo at Weather.com are forecasting thunderstorms today for the drought-ravaged Dallas metro area. We haven’t had any rain here since two days of really pathetic sprinkles back in mid-September that brought the month’s total rainfall to barely half an inch. That’s 2.5 inches below “normal.” We’re screwed. WE NEED RAIN AND WE NEED IT IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE CATTLE CAN’T DRINK DUST. The big hoo-hah is supposed to start around 4 with “severe storms” and “locally heavy rainfall.” (I’ll believe it when I see it.)

Grab your calendar! It’s Dwarf Awareness Month and only 31 days until my birthday.

Holy crap! IT’S ALREADY THE FIRST DAY OF OCTOBER! In case you don’t quite grasp the significance, the month of October features all of the momentous milestones listed below.