Let the Bodies Hit the Floor...

Since Bailey has been TV-barren for 4 years, she’d never had the opportunity to watch ‘Chelsea Lately’. We caught as many of these as we could fit into our busy spring-break schedule, as C H reminds me of an old friend—Nancy, a gal who wasn’t afraid to say anything and everything no matter where she went. Always a blast, her outspoken, harsh, and shockingly inappropriate remarks were/are sure to get a laugh.

Take the ‘Octomom’. Oprah’s used ‘Va-jay-jay’ based on Grey’s Anatomies word choice, but Chelsea' s irreverent ‘Ka-sslop-us’ has tickled me pink! (‘Octo-canal’ was another…giggle!) Sorry all men out there, but the wet, wide, mushiness of that word (combined with my utter distaste for swoll-lip Suliman) has amused me for days….ka-sssllopp-us! Whaaa.

Something Wicked This Way Comes...

I'd written a blog or two in the past about a nastily-smooth-talkin', self-perceived-heart-throbbin', ridiculously-poofed-self-justified, devious-ba$tardly coot. (MOM STALKER!)
So last night when it became obvious to me that no individual in a realistic/sane frame of mind would drive 23 miles to pull his new stunt in MY neighborhood-- well! I believe his attention has turned to Wamego KS instead of St. Marys. Lucky me.
Got some uneasy feelings about the future...trepidation arises! What's up his sleeve now? I'm assuming a level of 'the Resentful Stalker' is kicking in. I will spend some time on the phone come Monday. The courthouse is first on my list...

I really want to type a bad word 3 feet high...but I won't! Use your imagination.

Sea? Navigation.

When Bailey and Nate told me that the pool (by which they were married) was now murky and low and yet still an area evoking laughs and good times, I wondered what was so amusing outdoors at this time of year...
Both these young folk have a deliciously different sense of humor. When Nate was living in Ireland, they'd exchange clever little anecdotes by hotmail based on their 'people watching' skills...or powerpoint presentations of deep sea slug/seahorse marriage stories and the like. Sometimes these were forwarded to me...which upped my mood for the day. Anyway...the topic of the swimming pool:a tiny shrew boating (stranded) on a lonely flipflop... HA! ("Are you sure it wasn't Stuart Little?" "Was it oaring with a dried leaf?" Yes, the correct word is 'rowing' not 'oaring', but I'm not correct.) I picture it with a tiny Shakespearean dress w/ minute white apron and cap, gently riding the waves, an acorn bowl filled with mulberry seeds traveling by her side...

The weekend was great! So many people around right now! My sis-in-law from Georgia/Florida flew in for a B-day Party; she had just made Chief in the Air Guard and we got to watch footage from her ceremony: Congratulations! She works her buns off... My other sis-in-law from Fairbanks flew in for a Wedding... and brought the most amazing chocolates. We got in a tif over whether she said bought or brought--as in homemade! Talk about perfect. Pale green mint, white with hearts, chocolate stripes. We visited one of HER relatives and had a bazillion farm kitties love us. Brian had sent us pics of his new knives for our viewing pleasure. A nephew showed us his rotating hog-roasting barbecue-- I think I might have newcomers for the invention page. UPS friend held a Hunter Safety Course for Nate and Bail, where Bailey shot the center out of all of her targets--rifle and pistol. I did well--with a bipod! Nate kicked a$$ with the shotguns and we all shot Brig's Russian antique. Talk about chest percussion...ba-whoomp. ba-whoomp. The kids got a new puppy for their move to Alaska and she's a fuzzy sweet thing with a great temperament(and I don't even like dogs!) Between the good company of Nate's folks and lounging on my mom's floor...I sure have a smile this week!

"The Shrew is a tough little underground dweller that spars mostly with his own kind. Shrews will stop at nothing to defend their precious food supply, because in their world eating is truly a life-or-death situation. With their incredibly high metabolism, including a heart that beats 20 times faster than a human's, shrews must eat triple their body weight every day or they will starve to death. Even if they are successful in doing so, it's still a lose-lose situation. All that gorging leads straight to an early grave, as most shrews die within less than a year." I might have to change that story!

Stalking a Stalker, or Weekend Uppers & Downers.

Downer: Valentine's weekend hazed by, so this weekend was exceedingly better with the exception of opening up the door today to discover mom's stalker creeping by out front... Coot! Bastard! Well. I never! Oh, the outrage to think that he can still break his restraining order--of all the nerve! I suspiciously wonder how many times he comes by that I don't know about... Asshole! Creeps me out. I stepped outside to watch him turn the corner, still intently gawking like a hawk at it's prey. I stood clear out by the street raising my phone so that when he drove by again he couldn't miss my (fake) call to the police station--I was pretty obvious in a bright red hoody.

Since I was going to the store anyway, I jumped in my truck, ending up 2 vehicles behind him. He headed out of town (good riddance!); I picked up my asparagus and eggs--to discover him out in the store parking lot. Hmmm. I hunkered down and unfolded a huge US map as my 'cover' and waited him out. 45 minutes later (for christsake!) he got into his van with one dinky little plastic bag of groceries. (Hrrmpf--probably trying to put the moves on some other unsuspecting old lady, poor thing!) He headed opposite of his home town so I followed him again and once he got to mainstreet, he pulled into a parking spot (illegally) and tried to back out. I stopped right in the middle of the street, putting a halt to all traffic behind me (sorry folks!) and waited with a rabid glare until he finished making his clumsy (illlegal) u-turn...I then drove on home, as not to waste any MORE of my time.

So, anyway, the good part about the weekend was Friday.... I always like 'fun' words; seeing a slow rivulet of water snaking its way from sink to door I called out "Help! Someone go get a custodian!" I had many avid volunteers, but one individual boldly jumped forth exclaiming, "I have ploomatorial knowledge!" his one finger raised high in the air. I couldn't help but grin, (envisioning peacocks) "So,...would you perhaps be referring to... feathers??!" Wryly, he mumbled "I know plumbing."
Upper: hearing a funny word actually used in a sentence... Plumetorial/Plumbatorial/Ploomatorial?
Upper: Nate's reference to a friend's newborn hedgehog pics as 'pink prickly sphincters'!
Downer: Realizing you'll miss TLC's 'Say Yes to the Dress' show because you promised a friend you'd go listen to a band--very early Friday night.
Upper: Getting out of the house to listen to a good band down at the bar.
Upper: Many colleages would be going too.
Upper: Its 65 degrees at 6:30pm.
Downer: Its 30 degrees at 7:00pm. Have to quickly change clothes.
Downer: Realizing that the thought of drinking alcohol would upset my queasy stomach.
Upper: Watching everyone else get wasted!
Upper: Tear-jerking laughter at a gal's comments on her 'gerbil-sized bladder'!
Downer: Married men that wink.
Upper: Cram-pack sardined to the brim with assorted males.
Upper: Some want to buy you beers.
Downer: Too young, too young, too young, meth-head aura, and too old flannel beer-bellied Capt. Kangeroo railroad-hat look-alike.
Upper: great music--Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd...
Downer: too short to see.
and I move on...
Upper: no games to work this weekend.
Upper: swimsuits hit the stores!
Downer: assuming one doesn't care about dry white skin, February is still NOT a good time to try them on!
Upper: last week's 'flu' enabled me to lose a few lbs.
Downer: I should of been sick LONGER!
Upper: Today was fairly temperate--nice enough to plant peas!
Downer: I killed 2 earthworms by digging.
Upper: Turning the dirt performs their funeral service.
Downer: Desperate Housewives isn't on.
Upper: Oliver Twist is.

and lastly...
Upper: Discovering that one's mother has a new-found male friend!
Downer: Discovering that one's mother has a new-found male friend.

At Play...

Here I was using the word 'Sabotage' earlier and I'd totally forgotten our 'fun-filled' week! A colleague was plagued by evil gnomes or something...every night his computer connection might be unplugged, his podium turned around, belongings randomly placed in odd places....
Eventually a lookout was posted one day and the poo later hit the fan: wiring the telephone cord together, taking off the chair back, hot-gluing a cup to a desk, packing peanuts filling drawers to the brim, vaseline on the handles... and hole-punchings spilled everywhere! Darn those gnomes. They apologized by email later...the 5 that participated, plus about 30 more that didn't--tee hee!

The Invention of Sabotage

The old Dutch door to our kitchen’s been shut in attempt to keep the living room warm with a space heater but it’s a real drag opening up the top half to reach inside and flip the lever to swing the bottom half open—the bathroom is through the kitchen. The door is extremely plain and very old; no wooden crossbars that resemble a barn (thank god), and the old varnish has crackled and separated into a rough beaded texture as has all the wood trim here, being built in 1897. So one evening Brigham says “Pull the fishing line” as I attempt to open the latch yet again. I stood back baffled and finally spotted a very thin invisible line looped from a straight pin that had been stuck in the wood near the top of the frame. I pulled it and the entire door swung open at once…YEAH! This is what I’m talkin ‘bout! Using the old noggin. Problem solving. Innovation. His friend Jesse came over later and spent quite some time finding the line and following it up to the pin, over the top to the other side, by another straight pin and down to the latch where it was tightly tied. Very cool, simple, and useful. Yes, the human race is lazy.

On TV, I saw a few instances of items made by felons—styrofoam cups melted/heated into hardened shivs, newspaper spears (the whole reason I don’t use flour and water for paper mache is that it dries rock hard and is nearly impossible to scrape off a table once its cemented itself on), and even a handmade gun from metal and JB Weld.

When Brig was a 5th grader, we’d been in field collecting monarch and other caterpillars and found a heavy metal serrated triangle to bring home with our jar of creatures. I heard him out later…ransacking scrap wood and hammering away…Viola! Fishing line, a wooden brace, and a falling triangle—all set to guillotine the head off a grasshopper. The contraption worked—it would also cut a banana and hard grapes (not that we ate them after insect murder), but it would not cut into the skin of your finger, thus making it marketable and safe for youth everywhere who felt the need for pest control or to provide mother with help in the kitchen(not). I believe the remains of this device reside in the basement, minus the blade since I always got a kick out of it…

Boys and their toys. Older brother was into technical and electrical aspects…as a grade schooler rigging the computer so that any pics that mom saved would disappear in 24 hours and having it play an annoying little song if I typed in certain words. Tiny lights on the desk nearby that would light up as keys were pressed; then the old broken Nintendos that were converted to a computer games with the use of a soldering iron and other things that I can’t recall…then using the soldering iron on the back of ID cards trying to use them in pop machines for a free one… ”That’s a felony to add money to a card illegally!” Luckily that trick never got above 3cents thank god, or him and the friends got tired of failure and went on to write more Doom levels, with a dry-erase board and stolen calc book. There were always language books all over and then little snippets of other games too (‘mom, can you draw the outline of an aircraft carrier here?’) or ‘Watch my character run and jump!’ The boys waited until ‘the day of’ to submit a labyrinth/mousetrap device which could light a match at the end…to the chagrin of their teacher—and it actually worked.

My brothers created all manners of funny little explosive devices and meddled with welding tricycles together into weird elements and played with fireworks in a safe manner, as far as I know. I’ve also come home to the smell of sulfur in the air and strange black grains in my pie pans—“Don’t light gunpowder in the house!” and when I saw it lit in the backyard that phrase changed to “at all!” I was afraid the cops would come from all the smoke...whoosh!
And since I am getting sidetracked, I’ve probably written this before…fishing line allover the entire backyard like a giant laser web to catch good old mom and the true Vietnam experience: a low invisible trip wire to send my coffee cup flying through the air…!

Sad Underwear

I was walking through a library aisle and saw a title that provoked a smile: Sad Underwear and Other Complications.
Ahh, yes. I was instantly reminded of life’s little complications; rushing about that morning, pulling on my socks, as I turned to grab my pants I luckily saw my reflection: a pair of my favorite underwear had 2 holes in the butt cheek—Thank God for that mirror! I’d thought all was ‘well and good’ for my physical therapy appt later where a youthful pretty gal would attach electrodes to my hip and ass muscle. Crap! I raced to grab a decent, new-looking pair and praised my lucky stars that I now would NOT have to undergo the humiliation of Miss PT raising her eyebrows at that sorry pair of sad panties. But did I throw them out? NO! They are ‘staying home not getting in a car wreck’ underwear now and reside in a drawer filled with their many sisters. In fact, I am hard-pressed trying to find something hospital-stranger-worthy while retaining some semblance of comfort at the same time. Alas. I usually don something pretty or lacey that ends up in my ass crack when I do the 5 minute Elliptical warm-up thingy.
I guess Sad Underwear is better than a friend’s ‘No Underwear’ story…L H is also having hip problems and rather than getting shots ON the hip bone like I did, her’s was to be inserted deep within her hip socket. “Hip.” You imagine placing your hand on your hip, your jeans ride your hip…well, the handsome dark-eyed XRay Tech asked her to take off her pants. And panties. Huh? Totally. And had to shave slightly…a certain area…you know…near the groin. Enduring utter embarrassment, she lay still for quite a while for this procedure, red-faced and clenching her fists because the ‘attention’ down there tickled! I don’t handle surprises well—I would of been horrified!
There was going to be much more to this sad underwear story…but ….gonna watch some bad tv….