How Can You Tell When Val is Lying? Her Fingers are Moving.

I don't mean to brag, but Tammy from Message in a Bloggle has bestowed two awards upon me. For this, I am grateful, because it has given me something to blather about.

Guilt over the first award plagues me. Like Hoyt Axton buying a Mogwai from a backstreet Chinese curio shop, I am saddled with great responsibility. I'm supposed to post a picture of myself blogging. No can do. I can't take a picture of myself tickling the keyboard in my dark basement lair, and one son is busy ignoring me, while the other is getting ready for bed. Don't even ask me why Hick can't take my photo. Now don't get all worried that you're going to wake up with Gremlins encased in gooey cocoons scattered throughout your attic. My lack of attention to the instructions will only deprive you of a picture of me in action. Which some might consider a good thing. But in the spirit of trying to find a suitable substitute for a photo of myself, I bring you...

...Nellie, one of Hick's precious goats. Perhaps some of you will feel her pain, and mount a far-reaching internet campaign to Save Nellie. She can be the Ferris Bueller of the caprine world. Look into Nellie's ice-blue eyes. Hone in on her telepathic beam. "Help. Me."

Hick is not so much a goat-torturer as a misguided gadget-creator. Kind of like Hoyt Axton, our Mogwai-meddling friend, with his Bathroom Buddy and Juice-O-Matic. Hick's attempt to stop Nellie from catching her horns in the hog-fencing and standing all day without food and water resulted in her lovely chapeau of wood and yellow electrical tape. It's all the rage this spring in goat headdresses. The other goats find Nellie's headgear to be not only charming, but quite tasty, as well.

Moving on to my next special award (gosh, I'm starting to feel like Darren McGavin uncrating a leg lamp), I present you with four truths and a lie. In no particular order. That's the catch, you see. You have to discern the lie.

1. I make a kick-ass garlic cheese bread, and once sold the recipe through classified ads in the National Enquirer. I am famed district-wide for my world-class holiday Chex Mix, and a certain principal has tried to hire me twice to whip up a big batch for his family gathering. My other culinary masterpieces include delicious deviled eggs and an Oreo cake that co-workers clamor for.

2. I love to play the lottery, and sometimes ride the old people's bus to the casino. Twice, I have won $1000 on scratch-off Missouri lottery tickets.

3. In college, I shared a one-bedroom apartment with a lesbian couple. Every Saturday night, we hosted theme parties with live entertainment. One of my roommates and I wrote all the entertainment sketches on Friday evenings, and were told by our guests that we should write for SNL. Which was maybe a backhanded compliment, because at that time, SNL royally sucked. We bought pretzel sticks to set out for snacks at our parties, because people don't like them much, and they last longer. We funded our endeavor with money earned among the three of us from jobs at the YWCA, a car collision-repair shop, and by selling plasma twice a week.

4. One of my best-ever Christmas presents from Hick was a pair of tickets to see Kathy Griffin at the Fabulous Fox Theater in St. Louis in 2008. It was doubly special, because it was in February, a couple of days from my birthday. We got there early, and Kathy was out in the vestibule checking out the crowd. I got to shake her hand, my most notable brush with greatness.

5. This one time, during surgery, I woke up. I said, "I can feel that." The nurse repeated it to the surgeon, and he said, "Yeah, but will she remember it tomorrow?" I spent the next 30 minutes with my arms strapped down, listening to the surgeon profess how he hated to see patients in his office. How he'd rather they were just wheeled into surgery, as in: here's the gallbladder that needs to come out. The nurses joined in about how they were averse to certain ugly body parts. Only the nurse at my right arm remained silent, as she stroked my hand and wiped away the single tear that slid toward my ear.

Good luck with putting the kibosh on my lying ways. I am a pretty good prevaricator.

There are two bloggers I would like to bestow these awards upon. Kathy at her Kampground, and Jennifer the Cookie Crumbler. It's okay if they choose not to participate. But I think they would have fun lying to us.

Oh, and I just love the word upon. It's two prepositions in one! So I get double satisfaction in using it to end sentences with.