I'll be onstage at the new Cleveland Improv tomorrow night, Tuesday, Nov. 15. Doors open at 6, show starts at 7:30. The Improv's new location is 1148 Main Ave, next to Shooters on the river. If you and any friends you'd like to bring drop my name at the box office, you'll get in for a buck apiece. The headliner is Ryan Dalton, who just won the World Series of Comedy in Las Vegas, and the show will also feature the Seinfeld writer who wrote the hilarious episode, “The Pick” (“It was a scratch!”). I hope you can make it, and if you can, bring your pals.

I'm listening to MFM talk to her physical therapist and she is just spouting nonsense. The thing is, she thinks it's the truth.

Got my “thanks but no thanks” email from the Cleveland Comedy Festival today. Suckage. I'm not surprised — my video was less-than-professional grade (though it did start w/ the words “zit spooge,” which I figured could only help my cause), and of the featured performers on the festival's Web site, TWO are women. Out of 20. Yeah, because 10% of the population is women, right? Whatever. This has me determined to be as funny as possible on my next Tuesday foray at the Cleveland Improv.

Both boys have coughs so we're all home today. Tomorrow both boys have the day off from school, you know, because it's so convenient to vote with two children in tow. Monstro and I did manage to get nearly all the leaves out of our yard and onto our tree lawn so the leaf truck could suck them up. Good thing, too, because our leaf wall was starting to fence us in!

So today was the second Saturday of a three-Saturday stand-up comedy workshop. It's being led by the inimitable Dave Schwensen, who has more ties to the comedy industry than Barney Stinson has ties. This week was all about presenting an in-depth version of the work we shared last week. Let me tell you, even to run rough-draft stuff through on the Cleveland Improv stage is a frickin' blast and a half.

Last week I did some stuff about the town where we live now, and bees, and cell phones, and more bees.

“We want to know more about you, Lynn,” Dave said. “Like, why did you choose the city you live in?”

“Because my mom has mobility issues and this was the only house that suited her needs.”

“Well…” he trailed off.

So I wrote more about our town and then wrote some stuff about being a full-time caregiver, and then I fretted throughout most of the movie Monstro and I watched last night, because it was “Bridesmaids” and that shit just wasn't funny. I even called Dana on my way to today's workshop, opening with, “Well, I'm off to my comedy workshop to not be funny.”

And then I did my bit, and of course, the stuff about my town fell flat and they laughed, laughed, laughed at my caregiving stuff.

Comedy, you are a fickle bitch.

Monstro and I had a date night the other night and stumbled upon an AMAZING restaurant in our neighborhood: Opus Restaurant. If not for the $25 restaurant.com gift certificate I purchased for four bucks, we never would have stopped in, but I'm so glad we did because the drinks were stupendous and the food! Oh, the food! We became the first people to order “the tomahawk”, a 32-ounce bone-in wagyu beef cut that was so rich, it tasted almost like liver (but in a good way). Plus, there was a jazz combo that played the type of jazz that even Monstro likes. And the red velvet cake we had for dessert was delicious (though I think the sugar kept me awake far too late).

OK, time to go to the gym.

When I found out this week I would need to contribute to a month-of-November class birthday party for Lex, I got kind of excited. See, I have this cute animal-face cake pan, and I had a box of banana cake mix in my pantry, so viola! Monkey-face cake! Found the icing directions and today I baked the cake….

And 10 minutes before it was to come out of the oven I thought, “hmmmm, wonder if I should have looked at the allergen info?”

(See, Lex's classroom is tree-nut free, due to some food allergies suffered by his classmates).

Allergen info: Contains wheat, soy and (wait for it) TREE NUTS (pecans).

Shit. Off to the store we went (me, BK, and MFM) to buy a non-nut mix. Of course, the fancy-pants supermarket had only gluten-free mix, and I'll be darned if I'm going to present THAT to my little angel, so I tried Walgreens. They had two boxes of allergen-free yellow-cake mix. I bought them both and raced home, then washed the cake pan, made a yellow-cake monkey-face cake before Lex got home from school (popped it out of the pan about three minutes before he got off the bus), and then made a batch of cupcakes, just in case there's not enough monkey-face cake for everyone.

Nine eggs later and all I need to do is ice everything. Damn straight I'll be posting pictures. 🙂