I need to find a new signature drink. Martinis are so passé, not to mention I can’t make a decent one and therefore have to rely on the skills of others. Suggestions?

Some caveats:
(1) No “shot” type drinks. Only sippers!

(2) I want something simple, as in: open bottle, pour, enjoy.

(3) If it costs more than $25, VH will “accidentally” forget to buy it. Even if it’s a sure-fire Get Lucky drink.

(4) Don’t suggest red wine (it gives me headaches) or tequila (I give other people headaches).

(5) Nothing too sweet. Yep, I’m STILL dieting. (Down 27 pounds now, thanks for asking.)

That said – heh – what do you suggest?

What is it about some people who feel the need to sneer at fundraising efforts like last night’s Hope for Haiti Now concert? “A bunch of self-serving celebrities”, they’re saying on Facebook and elsewhere today. “How much did THEY give?”

News flash: celebrities, like the rest of us, probably had other plans for how they were going to spend their Friday night and, being celebrities, they probably made their plans far more in advance than the rest of us. So the very fact they canceled said plans — and whatever money-making was involved — is still more than the average TV viewer, sitting at home on a Friday night shoveling Munch-os into their mouth, did to help Haiti.

Meanwhile, here are a few of the names and the numbers: George Clooney, $1 million. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie matched him with $1 million of their own. Madonna pledged $250,000. Leonardo di Caprio’s giving $1 million, too. Supermodel Gisele Bundchen wrote a check for a cool $1.5 million. And, although there are probably plenty others, perhaps some celebrities just don’t think it’s anyone’s business what amount they give. Kind of like some non-celebrities I know.

But, naturally, the nattering nabobs are now whining that million dollars is a drop in the bank to someone like George Clooney. Then they pat themselves on the back for having taken a break from Facebook to donate $10 by text messaging the word ‘Haiti’ to 90999 on their cell phones. Because, you know, apparently that ten dollars combined with the interruption of their annoying Facebook status updates (“I just ate cereal!” “My kid just sneezed on my monitor!” “It’s cold and rainy here!”) deserves SO much more recognition.

And the worst part — the really, terribly annoying worst freaking possible part — is this grousing about celebrities not donating enough, or that their appearances were self-serving, is coming from REPUBLICANS who have just spent the past several days complaining about DEMOCRATS telling people how to spend their money.

Hypocrites, all.

I don’t sleep in the nude very often, having learned that slumber au naturale and parenthood can be an embarassing mix. Years ago, when my son was first mobile, I’d nixed the nightie on a particularly warm summer evening only to be awakened at roughly four o’clock in the morning by a finger jabbing my right boob and a little voice asking, “How come you’re so squishy there?” Ever since, I’ve been a big fan of pajamas.

Last night, however, I took a long, hot bath after my son was in bed and, knowing that 42-year-old bladder wouldn’t let me sleep later than 6:30 am, I just collapsed in bed naked as a jaybird. And, yes, it felt sinfully good.

As luck would have it, my bladder woke me up at the usual time this morning. At that hour, I have to admit, I’m a slow mover. I tried to bargain with my bladder for another hour, even a half-hour, of sleep, and apparently I won. But, like so many such victories, it was an illusion. Although I’d fallen back asleep, I dreamed I’d gotten up, shuffled to the bathroom, and settled on the toilet to pee for a very, very long time. Needless to say, some little part of my brain began sounding an alarm: “Hey, idiot! You’re NOT in the bathroom, you’re in bed under an electric blanket. Wake up before bad things happen!” That got me up and moving quickly.

First thing I noticed when I opened my eyes — okay, second thing, because I first made sure I hadn’t peed in the bed — was that I’d kicked off the blanket and, for reasons unknown to me, my naked body gleamed in technicolor. My left boob was amber; my thighs and feet a sickly green; and crimson streaked down the right side of my body. I looked like a frat house floor the morning after Jell-o shot night.

Of course, my bladder made it clear that I didn’t have the luxury of tripping out on the pretty colors, so I hurried to the bathroom and did my thing. Halfway back to the bed it dawned on me that I hadn’t turned on a light; I hadn’t needed one. I could see my way out of the bathroom toward the bedroom door, then around the foot of the bed and past the television all the way to my nightstand the path was clearly lit. That kaleidoscope of colors which had been playing on my skin moments earlier? It emanated from a variety of gadgets around my room.

Suddenly, I understood why I so often wake up sprawled diagonally on the bed, my neck twisted oddly so I can tuck my face beneath my arm, a mound of pillows piled on top of my head and with a sore back that even an irrationally expensive mattress hasn’t been able to fix. Despite my blackout shades, despite the drywall I had installed inside the arch window through which the morning sun used to shine directly into my eyes, despite my closed bedroom door with the draft stopper at the bottom to block out light from our living room, my bedroom was still illuminated.

The culprits? Just about everything in my bedroom that requires electricity, the number of which increased dramatically after Christmas. Why the hell do gadget manufacturers’ believe their widgets shouldn’t just perform their function, they should also have a light showing that they’re doing so?

Okay, I get why there’s a red light telling me if the house security system is armed and a green light if it’s not, although I’ve never understood why they couldn’t put those freaking lights beneath the plastic door that flips up to cover the keypad itself. I fixed that annoying gleam years ago with a few strips of electric tape.

But what’s with the weather radio emitting an amber glow to let me know it’s conducting a weekly test, as if I couldn’t read the text display informing me as much? Why does my iPod speaker system need to emit a cobalt blue glow all day and (more importantly) night to let me know it’s working… as if I couldn’t tell by the music coming out of it when I turn the thing on? Shouldn’t the heat coming out of my electric blanket — and not some tiny orange light — confirm the thing is working? And why the hell does my iPhone charger need a red light to let me know when my iPhone is plugged into it and a green one to let me know when it’s not? I know if my phone’s attached, and in case I’m such an idiot that I can’t tell, the phone itself has a nifty little display to tell me when it’s charging.

At six forty-five this morning — when I would have much preferred to be asleep — I slipped on a pair of PJs and started heaving furniture away from the walls of my room, reaching over dressers and crawling behind the bed, all in an effort to unplug all of the crap that fills my room with light and disrupts my sleep. Not surprisingly, there was quite a bit of cursing and a sore back involved.

When I’d finally disconnected the cable box, the television, the cordless phone, iPhone charger, iPod player, the laptop and it’s cooling deck, the digital clock (a backup for those rare times I do forget to charge my iPhone) and the vaporizer, it was finally — finally — pitch black in my room. Cave like. Dark enough to sleep and, perchance, to dream of being George Clooney’s beard.

But could I go back to sleep? Nope, not a chance. Between all those lights and all of that moving furniture, I was completely and irreversibly awake at that point and, of course, I had to pee. Again.

Have at it! Winners announced… eventually.

(Facebook readers please visit Electric Venom to comment.)

How on earth did I — or he — survive three months of summer???

See, I thought for once that stating the obvious about a Caption Contest deadline — that I’d post the winner whenever, rather than a date I didn’t keep — might get you people off of my back. But nooooOOO.

So, you want a winner? Fine, you’ve got a winner. And a second place. And an honorable mention.

First Place: Bill with, “December 15, 2020: Now wait a minute, I didn’t say global global warming.”

Second Place: Timmer with, “Seriously? You ALL came on private jets and you ALL rented limos? Nobody thought to car pool?”

Honorable Mention: Ike with, “Back when I was pretending to grow up in Tennessee while going to DC prep schools, my nanna gave me this bit of wisdom: Never let leaked messages from a whistle-blower get in the way of a potentially-lucrative narrative.”

Happy now?

This year I told myself that I wouldn’t make any New Year’s Resolutions primarily because I didn’t need to. After all, I started dieting in November — just in time for the holidays. Now that I’ve lost 20 pounds (with !#*&ing more to go) and have made an hour of exercise part of my regular daily routine, it seems redundant to resolve to keep doing what I’ve already been doing.

And then I opened my basement closet in search of a blanket because it’s so freaking cold. It went something like this:

Now, one thing I didn’t expect from losing weight and starting to regain my fitness was just how much energy I’d regain. It feels as if, by seeing some success at weight loss, I’ve rediscovered my sense of purpose and my confidence that I can accomplish what I set out to do. That’s an amazing feeling.

So as stood there getting pummeled by things falling out of my basement closet, I finally came up with my resolution for 2010: this is the year that I will conquer the clutter in our Venomous Household, without relying on VH’s assistance, without telling myself that I can’t do anything until it’s garage sale-weather, without planning to eBay crap but never getting around to it.

This year — because I am sick of blogging about how sick I am of the clutter in my house — I am going to do something about the cause of my annoyance. No, I’m not getting rid of VH… I meant the clutter.

You might think I started by tackling the basement closet, but you’d be wrong. I started, instead, by ordering myself a Kindle, something I’ve been lusting after since they came out. Why start with that? Well, for one thing, because I plan to read and implement David Allen’s “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” (on my new Kindle, of course).

For another thing, well, I didn’t make a resolution about ceasing to be a procrastinator. I’m putting that one off until next year.

Meowy Christmas, everyone, from the Venomous Household and the cat who owns us!