Our home phone voice mail stopped working on April 11 and we didn’t even know it.

In this post: Kidneys, outages, Howdygram 2.

I’ll begin with the results of this week’s lab work, okay? Dr. M sent me an email Friday evening and the news is swell, especially finding out that MY KIDNEY FUNCTION IS NORMAL following three years of slow but steady decline. In case you’re wondering, I never really detected a problem with my kidneys in any way whatsoever because the “decline” was something that only showed up in blood tests. Nevertheless, if anybody wants to help me celebrate please send an email at your earliest convenience and I’ll order Chinese food.

For a limited time ... free high-class Obamacare bumper stickers!

In this post: Insomnia, barfy images.

4:13 A.M. It’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep again, although this time I think I’ll blame my predicament on way too many Saturday naps. There were THREE. (Oy.)

It’s not every senior citizen who gets two Sausage McMuffins without begging.

In this post: Food.

Pictured above is McDonald’s world-famous Sausage McMuffin — the Howdygram’s all-time favorite breakfast sandwich not counting braunschweiger on low-carb white toast with sweet relish — and Sam is on his way to McDonald’s RIGHT THIS MINUTE to grab a pair of these fine babies for me. Actually, he goes on a doughnut run every Saturday morning and stops at McDonald’s for me on the way home, but I’m thankful just the same. It’s not every senior citizen who gets two Sausage McMuffins without begging ... AND I DON’T EVEN HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM! Holy crap, am I lucky or what?

Families and children do not want deranged gun fetishists eating burritos in the next booth with high-powered rifles.

In this post: Food, guns, dickheads.

Damn. Sam just called to let me know he’s still stuck at the office and probably won’t be home until after midnight. This means I have to endure BOREDOM and NOBODY TO SCRATCH MY BACK for at least another 45 minutes, which is a mighty depressing thought. In the meantime maybe I’ll eat things because lots of food can solve almost anything ... except possibly obesity.

I never thought it would be such a huge hoo-hah to find a comfortable and reliable place to sit down.

In this post: Grout people, seating issues.

Clayton, leader of the grout people, dropped in this morning to assess the latest crisis with the shower in our master bathroom. To help him better understand where the current leak is coming from Sam jumped into a Speedo, turned on the water full blast and sat on the bench in the shower until a visible little puddle began to form on the bathroom floor. It was pure genius. Clayton realized that his crew didn’t re-hang the frame and glass correctly four visits ago so he volunteered to hire REAL GLASS PEOPLE to redo it from scratch sometime next week.

Here’s a portrait of my new Alera Merix 450 Series heavy-duty ergonomic mesh chair for big butts.

In this post: Storms, seating, haircuts.

The big hoo-hah around here today is RAIN. More accurately, this should be RAIN AND HEAVY THUNDERSTORMS FOLLOWED BY FLASH FLOODING AND A COLD FRONT. At 8:45 a.m. water is already pouring out of the sky and the lying sacks of poo at Weather.com tell us to expect a lot of intense weather for the next 36 hours. For once in my life I think I actually believe them! The teeny red star on the following map denotes Howdygram headquarters.

Don’t forget to turn out the light when you’re done here, okay?

In this post: Egg rolls, Robert Wagner.

It’s 1:45 Tuesday morning. Sam won’t be home from work until maybe 5 a.m. so I thought I’d try to squeeze in one more quick Howdygram post before I go to bed. We’ll see how long I last. I didn’t get much of a nap yesterday so I’m mighty tired right now. Try not to make any unnecessary noise.

Has anybody tried Amazon’s cool new Prime Pantry service?

In this post: Blizzards, Prime Pantry, jigsaw puzzles.

It’s a really hot spring day today in north Texas … 93° with lots of bright sunshine and gusty winds. I’m comfortably situated in the study horsing around with the Howdygram and Sam is working his way through the the Dairy Queen drive-thru buying an “extremely chocolate Blizzard” (his words exactly). I didn’t go with him because DIABETES. Also there was zero motivation to wear shoes and a brassiere.

We still don’t know what’s responsible for The Dinty Moore Dumpling Incident.

In this post: The shower saga continues, flying dumplings, Jane Powell.

There are so many EARTH-SHAKING HOT SCOOPS today at Howdygram headquarters I almost don’t know where to start. Maybe the best approach would be to separate everything into neatly-typed, indented sections for your reading pleasure. I hope you’ll consider turning off your phone until you’re through here to avoid interruptions and distractions, okay? Thank you.

Happy April Fool’s Day from the Queen and Donald Trump.

In this post: Scary crap, remodeling, dried fruit, Doris Day Day.

Believe it or not I spent most of the morning trying to figure out something clever to post for April Fool’s Day, but I came up short except for this ... and I apologize profusely if it scares the living crap out of you.

Learn how to make Sam’s favorite marinated salad.

In this post: Good things to eat.

My project du jour? Making a huge tub of cucumber & onion salad because SAM LOVES THIS STUFF and he requested it last night when he got home from work. My recipe is an old standard (I learned it from mom) with four basic ingredients: cucumbers, onions, vinegar and sugar. However I like to use two kinds of onions (red and white) and due to having diabetes I prefer granulated Splenda to sugar. A sprinkle of dill is nice, too. (Also black pepper.)

Sam will be heading to Wal-Mart this morning to load up on ingredients and I’m so excited I typed out my grocery list at 5 a.m.

Cheese doesn’t make any noise.

In this post: Misinformation, quiet sandwiches.

Boy, did I ever screw up. Do you remember that UPS tracking debacle from one of yesterday’s posts? I was confused. Apparently UPS returned my damaged carton — the one I was supposed to receive on March 17 — to Netrition, and it’s on the truck for delivery today in upstate New York, NOT here at Howdygram headquarters in Mesquite, Texas. So, I just sent an email to Netrition’s customer service team and asked them to please re-ship my order IMMEDIATELY and stop horsing around already before I have a nervous breakdown.

Sunday night doldrums highlighted by bathing in the sink.

In this post: Redelivery, baby Sam, Plan B.

Hey, remember the damaged box from my last Netrition order (see previous post, paragraph titled “Sucky Reason #3”) that UPS never delivered on March 18? The tracking information on UPS’s website reads like “War and Peace” — check out the screen shot below — but apparently Netrition finally reshipped everything from upstate New York for overnight delivery TOMORROW. Wow, people, that’s one damn expensive shipment, considering the carton contains nine really heavy glass quart bottles of DaVinci sugar-free flavored syrups plus three boxes of chocolate bars, three bottles of sugar-free Thai chili sauce and a jar of Stevita sugar-free fake cherry Kool-Aid drink mix!

God willing and weather permitting I might clean out the freezer tonight.

In this post: Screaming, organizing, dining.

Know why I love the Howdygram? I CAN TYPE IN ALL CAPS* WHENEVER I WANT AND NOBODY’S ALLOWED TO GIVE ME ANY CRAP ABOUT IT. Caps are liberating. Try it sometime. It feels like you’re SCREAMING AT THE WORLD, and lately there’s plenty to scream about. For instance:

1. Sam had to go to work today. On Sunday!
2. Russia steals Crimea; NATO says Moldova is next (see below). Romney blames Obama.
3. Missing airplanes.
4. Killer mudslides.
5. Exploding helicopters.
6. An oil spill in Galveston Bay.
7. The ebola virus is rampant in Guinea.
8. Tiger Woods misses the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

I can hardly wait to scorch my Ball Park Smoked White Fat-Free Turkey Franks!

In this post: Overtime, kitchen gadgets, celebrities.

Here’s some sad and pathetic news: SAM HAD TO GO TO WORK TODAY and probably won’t be home until 4 a.m. This sucks, right? Fortunately he managed to squeeze in a three-hour nap after lunch — actually, we both did — so at least I know he’s not feeling like a zombie. To amuse myself in Sam’s absence I immediately ordered an adorable stainless steel toaster oven from Wal-Mart for $39 ... the exact same brand and model that Amazon sells for $156. Click here to see for yourself! I’M NOT KIDDING!

It’s amazing how you can talk yourself into eating insane crap when you have diabetes.

In this post: Shirataki on sale.

In case you don’t have anything productive to do tonight here’s a hot tip from our Happy Homemaker department! Zero-calorie shirataki noodles are 10% off through March 28 at Asian Food Grocer, and if you love this crap as much as I do you’ll drop everything RIGHT NOW and buy yourself a bunch. Asian Food Grocer has the best prices on the Internet plus cheap flat-rate shipping. I just ordered some Skinny brand shirartaki angel hair noodles and shirataki rice.

Chocolate chip cookies to the rescue.

In this post: Killing time.

It’s 4 a.m. and I should be in bed right now. Unfortunately a hypoglycemic episode woke me from a sound sleep about 45 minutes ago — it always amazes me when that happens! — so I decided to sit around with a box of chocolate chip cookies until I feel steady enough to go back to bed. At this point, though, I think I might hang out in the study for a little while and wait for Sam to get home from work. I hope it’s SOON because he’s supposed to start work tomorrow morning at 11 (instead of 2 p.m.) and won’t have time to get any sleep.

Dallas has a lot of millionaires, such as the Ewings of Southfork Ranch.

In this post: Sam, millionaires, braunschweiger.

Sam is working late tonight or he would have been home two hours ago. Yes, his hours are insane. If you’re wondering what the hell he does for a living, I’ll simply say that Sam is a senior project manager in the financial print industry, and his job involves helping corporate clients prepare and submit to the SEC confidential transactional and compliance documents related to IPOs, mergers, acquisitions and other fancy whatnots like quarterly and annual financial reports. He also answers the phone.

Low pressure, a frownyface and hysterical hair.

In this post: Tuesday sucked, a Nutella knockoff.

For the record, Tuesday pretty much sucked around here for the following reasons:

SUCKY REASON #1. Something is weird with the new Whirlpool water heater that was installed on Monday. We’re not getting good water pressure in the shower in our master bath and the heat dwindles down to lukewarm before we’re half finished. Sam called Lowe’s and asked for the installers to come back and troubleshoot because we’re freezing to death and crabby.

Today has been a whirlwind of senior citizen excitement.

In this post: Rain, baloney, bargains, speedy meals.

I don’t believe it, people. IT RAINED HERE TODAY! As a matter of fact, it rained HARD for several consecutive hours and, as I write this post, I can still hear thunder somewhere in the distance. (It’s probably heading into Arkansas.) The following screenshot from Weather.com was taken about an hour ago. The big red star in the middle denotes Howdygram headquarters. Everything here is really, really wet right now.