A note to the McDonoughs

I'm sure a couple of you saw my new web address and thought, "Wait a second. This girl marries into the family and then screws up our name. What's this bitch playing at?" Many have heard - because our friend Tom and I love to tell it - the story about J telling us over and over again that his name is spelled M-C-D-O-N-O-U-G-H after we saw a license plate that said MCDUNA and pointed it out to him. He didn't laugh, or say "Oh yeah, look," but instead said "It's McDonough," and that was that. For him anyway. We've gotten considerable mileage over mocking his somewhat uptight attitude when it comes to the spelling and pronunciation of his last name.

When I went to choose a URL for my new blog site, I wasn't sure what to go for. Unfortunately my first choice - noagenda.com - had already been purchased (by someone, by the way, who isn't even using it, thus upsetting me further) and I didn't really want to use my name as it's actually spelled. That seemed, I thought, as though I was embarking on a more serious endeavour. I thought that caramcdonough.com might be expected to contain scientific data. And writing I wouldn't mind future employers seeing. Not writing, for instance, about strippers at bachelorette parties and whatnot. Although, I don't know, that might work in some situations.

So I thought about the McDuna incident, and how I'd already threatened to use that should I ever get my own website anyway, and decided it was a good fit. Now, with major help from others, I've got the site the way I want it for now, and shall commence, once again, regular posting on this, my new site.

But don't worry, guys. About the name? I mean, I know, I know. It's McDonough.

Warning: In this post J uses language, because he is angry about prostelyzing and the amount of fiber in his diet

This morning we were watching a piece on The Today Show while drinking coffee and having a generally relaxing start to our day. J was also reading this month's issue of Men's Health magazine, which I got him for Christmas after he'd made a comment that he'd like to "try and be more healthy, maybe I should start reading Men's Health or something." I enjoy reading health magazines as well, the only problem being they often urge one to overload their diet with enough with fiber, vitamin E, essence of toad liver and what have to to mean one suddenly has time for nothing else but ingesting supplements.

J was reading aloud, telling me that people who repeat a personal mantra when in stressful situations tend to be more calm than those who don't. "What should my personal mantra be?" he asked me. I was suggesting "I love birds" and a few others when a piece came on the news program about a high school valedictorian, Brittany McComb, whose microphone had been cut off when she was giving her speech during graduation, deviated from the approved script she'd submitted, and started talking about God. She claimed she was just exercising her right to free speech, but the school said since she mentioned things like Jesus's crucifixion, she was clearly speaking about, and to, one religion, and therefore the speech was innapropriate.

J, who was kind of getting unbelievably fired up about liver cancer and preventative measures by this point, stopped reading and glanced up at Brittany, whom he clearly disagreed with, and started talking, rather rapidly and loudly, "Hey. What if someone had thrown a few "fucks" or "shits" in there, huh? How would you feel about "free speech then"? Come on! We need some Fiber Plus! And some Zone Bars!"