Oh, the pains I suffer for love

FROM JASON’S ETERNAL MAN-IRE — I will premise this by saying that my wife is the smartest, most beautiful woman I have ever met. And that I am deeply afraid of her wrath.

As much as I love her, she does crazy things. They range from batty to full-fledged insane:

She buys pasta sauce based on how pretty the label is.

She will frequently grab the remote, insist on watching a certain show, and then proceed to drift out of the room 10 minutes later. But don’t try changing the channel. She’s still watching that dreadful interior design show on HGTV.

She bellows Britney Spears songs in the shower at 6 a.m.

Rather than use the phone to hold a comprehensive two-minute conversation, she’ll drag me into an hour-long texting fest. It’s not efficient.

She likes to deliver orders to me by talking to our dogs: “Macy, does Daddy know it’s his turn to clean the toilet?”

Her idea of good money management: Constant trips to Dairy Queen to spend $7 on ice cream cones instead of buying a half-gallon at the grocery store for $3.50.

If it isn’t HGTV, it’s a horrendous Bravo reality show. Or worse — The Style Network.

She makes up “cute” names for neighborhood animals, along with elaborate backstories: “That cat running through the field back there is named Mr. WhiteyPinks III. He is going on a trip to see his friend Rufus over at the brown house down the street for a tea party.”

Have you heard the Nannerpuss song? Because I have. On a loop. Since it started airing. Three months ago.

Two words: Speed walking.

“Cleaning” apparently means moving my papers, games, pens, and books into new, arbitrary piles where I can’t find them.

My primary function: bodyguard. Because in any public or private place, she believes she is in danger of being raped, no matter how many potential witnesses are nearby. That makes for a lot of protective trips by her side to the mall.

Putting clothing on animals is not amusing. Except to her.

Neighbors are not meant to be watched, but she keeps a vigilant eye on their every move. The comings and goings of each neighborhood car are carefully documented, as are the dates and times of various lawn-mowings up and down the street. And should a police car arrive at any house within sight, her body goes into spasms of voyeuristic curiosity.

There are pink curtains in my kitchen. Pink. Curtains.

Good-bye Fruity Pebbles, hello Raisin Bran Crunch

FROM JASON’S CERAMIC BOWL — Count Chocula is a hack. Cap’n Crunch is all washed up. Lucky the Leprechaun is clearly a pedophile. And I’m pretty sure Tony the Tiger is dead.

The best cereal in the world doesn’t have a mascot. It has two scoops and a delicious, sugary coating that ensures crunchiness.

Now, I don’t often endorse commercial products, or even really care about them. But in-between keystrokes, I’m scooping oversized spoons of Raisin Bran Crunch into my mouth. I can’t stop. This is my third bowl. I am in love.

Where has this cereal been all my life? Think of all those years I wasted, suffering through soggy regular Raisin Bran as a teenager, pouring lumps of sugar into the bowl to try to offset the weak wheat flavor that no sun-ripened grapes could ever mask.

This is how I know I am an adult: when I was a child, cereal served as just a vehicle for enough sugar to fuel my hyperactivity and ensure early onset diabetes. I wanted puffed rice saturated in corn syrup, then coated with rainbow-hued dyes:

I wanted loops of something that was probably fried corn dipped in three unique artificial flavors that tasted really nothing at all like cherry, orange, and lemon:

I wanted what ostensibly were marshmallows cut to look like clovers, clowns, robots, Pac-Man, vampire bats, balloons, or ghosts:

I wanted crushed cornmeal seeped in brown sugar- and honey-flavoring and treated to keep away the Soggies during sea-faring missions:

These days, I’m looking for an actual meal. No more Crunchberries. No more Cookie Crisp. No more Honeycomb, Marshmallow Crispies, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Cereal, Smurfberries, Frankenberries, Honey Smacks, C-P30’s, Urkel-O’s, Cocoa Krispies, or Apple Jacks.

As an adult, it’s all about getting bran that tastes decent and has a satisfying crunch, sun-dried fruit, and some granola clusters. I salute you, Raisin Bran Crunch.

Everybody dies eventually

FROM JASON’S PROGNOSTICATION — No, it’s not the title of a new James Bond movie. Just a simple statement of fact: Whether you’re Bernie Mack, Paul Newman, Elvis, or Jesus, everybody dies eventually.

You will too, someday, and so will I. So it goes.

That’s why my wife and I have had clear consciences for the past five years now playing a game that has disgusted our family and shocked our friends: Each New Year’s Eve, we make our Death Lists.

Last year, I called Arthur C. Clarke and Charlton Heston out of a Dead Pool of 10 names. This year I’m hoping to do better than 20 percent, and we’ve expanded our pools:

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1. Patrick Swayze — The Swayze was diagnosed last January with pancreatic cancer, the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related fatalities in the US (33,370 deaths in 2007). Most people diagnosed with the disease do not live a year –and some doctors say cancer of the pancreas has the shortest average survival time of all cancer types.

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2. Fidel Castro — The Cuban dictator hasn’t actually been in power since transferring authority to his brother in 2006. The 82-year-old has been in poor health for more than a decade, and is rumored to have undergone several intense surgeries in the past few years, including one for “acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding.”

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3. Kirk Douglas — The screen legend and father of Michael Douglas is 92, but he’s looked 132 since appearing in Greedy in 1994. He suffered a stroke two years later.

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4. Nancy Reagan — The former First Lady is 87 and is a breast cancer survivor. She is one of just six surviving First Ladies. Though not life-threatening, she did suffer two falls in 2008, the later in October resulting in hospitalization for a fractured pelvis and sacrum.

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5. Ed McMahon — He survived a 2002 battle with toxic mold, but the 85-year-old former Tonight Show co-host isn’t looking so good these days. It was reported last spring that he’d broken his neck.

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6. Billy Graham — America’s most celebrated televangelist (con artist) is 90 years old and has retired from his Bible-thumping crusades due to frail health. He survived a bout in 2007 with intestinal bleeding and later in the year was not healthy enough to attend Lady Bird Johnson’s funeral.

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7. Zsa Zsa Gabor — The Hungarian film star, now 91, suffered a massive stroke in 2005 and a leg infection in 2007.

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8. Nelson Mandela — The first democratically-elected president of South Africa is 90. He was diagnosed in 2001 with prostate cancer and he was accidentally announced dead in 2003 when a pre-written obituary was posted to CNN’s website.

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9. Walter Cronkite — “The most trusted man in America” is 92, but he’s still extremely active and outspoken in regard to journalistic ethics (blasting Fox News, in particular). In my opinion, he’ll probably outlast everyone else on this list.

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10. Betty Ford — Like Nancy Reagan, the former First Lady, now 90, is also a breast cancer survivor and has the distinction of being the oldest living former White House resident. She fought blood clots in 2006 and 2007.

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11. George Steinbrenner — The 78-year-old Yankees ballclub owner fainted in 2003, leading then to speculation about his declining health.

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12. Les Paul — The guitar legend is 93. After a heart attack and bypass surgery in the 70s, and has since been the victim of stroke and severe arthritis.

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13. Christopher Lee — The man who was both Count Dracula and Count Dooku is 86, and he’s starting to look undead. He’s a wildcard on this list.

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14. Jack Klugman — At 86, Quincy is ailing. He lost a vocal cord to cancer in the late 80s. He remarried early this year and seems fine… but I have a gut feeling.

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15. Ted Kennedy — The senator has battled alcoholism, a blocked artery, and earlier this year was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His illnesses manifested again in September as seizures. Most news reports have him as a walking corpse, with surgeries only able to extend his life a matter of months.

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16. Nate Dogg — Hip hopper Nathaniel Dwayne Hale is only 39, but I think he won’t be Regulating much longer after suffering two strokes in the past year. Word is that he is on a breathing machine.

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17. Dear Abby — Pauline Phillips, the longtime feel-good quackery columnist, has been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease more than a decade.

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18. Jerry Lewis — What isn’t wrong with him? He’s looked ready to pass during any of his last 20 telethons. He’s wrestled with prostate cancer, diabetes, pulmonary fibrosis, and has had two heart attacks.

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19. James Garner — The original Maverick, now 80, had quintupple bypass surgery in 1988 and a stroke last May.

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20. Amy Winehouse — Clarification: I wouldn’t know who this was if it weren’t for the wife’s terrible taste in music. At 25, she’s younger than me, but I’m voting her Most Likely to Overdose on Something You Normally Wouldn’t Huff.

A quick question…

FROM ANDREW’S MIND AT 2:30 IN THE MORNING–Why does the media and the public refer to the head of special political positions “czars” in America? It just seems like a slap in the face of our government to call an elected official the title of an eastern European monarch.