Stumbling Down Memory Lane.

It's one thing to see someone at the mall, behind the wheel of a horrific mini van or jogging down the street with certain appendages absent ten years ago and flash back to those care-free yet horribly angst-ridden days of High School.
This was me in High School:
    I'm the one in the middle who should've known better than to mix a bright red dress with equally bright red lips resting upon metallic orthodontic braces.

The gal on my my left is Amanda - who owned the entire "Limited" clothing store collection our senior year.  The gal on my right is Melanie, a gal I still think of as my doppleganger and the only one who may remember a foggy night, on a hill, the middle of nowhere and a man tapping on the window:  "Ya'all seen my coon dog?"
We hadn't.
And we grabbed our selective menfolk and hightailed it down the dirt road just in case the man did find his coon dog.  And hook.

But, like always, I digress.  

I was reading a book last night but glancing at the tv, too so I could see when the weather man would come on to tell me of the rain/snow/wind/cold that was impending when I saw someone I knew.  It was a guy I briefly dated, mistakingly, in high school.   He was being lead away in handcuffs.
Ya know - it's hard to see an ex getting married, having babies, moving away - but it's downright shocking to see one being arrested on local television.
For robbing a Dairy Queen.

Have a good weekend everybody! 

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Nerds, Irony and an Overall Air of Patheticness

After fixing myself a nice dinner of a frozen pizza and a nice tall glass of grape pop (it's not soda if it's grape or orange, we country folk nabbed that as "pop" long before you snooty city soda-drinkers)  I decided to rest my aching limbs (is it going to rain?  I feel a twinge in my knee... Am I 80?) by plopping into bed and watching episodes of Veronica Mars on dvd.
One problem.
I wanted dessert. 
I look helplessly at my cluttered bedside table and contemplated a slurp of my prescription cough medicine due to the fact that anything else would require my abandonment of the bed-nest and walking the five feet into my kitchen.
Quickly deciding against the grape-flavored wonder drug, I rummaged around and found a box of Nerds. 
Unopened.
Grape.
Strawberry.
Perfection.
I quickly start pulling at the top of the carton trying to free the little sugary bits from their over-packaged prison.   I rip off little bits until the flaps are in sight and I start with the strawberry side, tugging slightly on the the side of the box. 
And rip the tab off.  
I look down into the abyss and see little pink rocks ready for my consumption. 
Shrugging I tip the box back and let the little teeth-rotting morsels dance on my tongue. 
I wasn't done. 
I wanted the grape side open, too.
Now a reasonable person would just wait and eat one side before moving on to the uninjured side.
But not me.
I wanted both sides.
I managed to wriggle the grape top tab until it was barely open.  Using my battered nail as leverage I opened the side and grinned.
Hastily I tipped the box to my lips.
Forgetting about the damaged right side.
So there I sat.   A chubby girl in a bed of nerds.  They were nestled in my hair, my crotch, my cleavage.  
It was like high school all over again!  ahahah!
No, really, it was horrific.
And it took nearly two episodes to eat them all off the bed like some overgrown, sweet-tooth driven monkey. 
                          

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Boil, Boil, Toil and Trouble

    A Boil Water Advisory was issued for most of Huntington today.  A water main break that flooded streets, drowned businesses and almost threatened the pastry of a very important baby shower at my day job left most of us in a tizzy.   The morning after the break that shall live in infamy I awoke groggily while smacking my alarm clock (three times) and went through my morning routine.   Showering, shaving various forgotten and winterized appendages and brushing my teeth liberally I sat down in front of the television to catch the weather while I downed my bowl of frosted mini wheats.  
    I noticed then that a scrolling caption was warning all of Barboursville and Huntington to not drink the water.  The very water that I had immersed myself in just momentarily ago.   
    I calmly sat my bowl of cereal aside, flipped open my pink phone and dialed my roaming gnome-esque husband.   
    “Hi!” he said in a much too chipper voice.   As if he didn’t know that I was facing dire circumstances with my poor but hygenie-conscious choice to bathe!  
    “Hi, honey,” I said.  “They’ve issued a Boil Water Advisory for our area. I just took a shower and brushed my teeth.” I paused to draw in a breath.  “Am I going to die?”
    He roared with laughter so loud I’m sure he woke up his hotel-lodging neighbors.   
    “No, you’re not gonna die.   Just don’t drink it.”
    “I brushed my teeth.  No, really. I can’t afford to lose any more teeth!  Am I gonna lose my teeth?”
    “No, you’re not gonna lose your teeth.   And if you do, I’ve got a good dental plan! Now, about this car thing that I’m going to talk about until you turn blue in the face and your ear falls off …” Okay, fine, he didn’t say that last part but he does love to peruse the new car lots and that means I will be subjected to car salesmen of every type and manner.  No thanks.   I’d rather my teeth fell out.
    But I digress.  
    I continue on to work that day, subtly checking the rearview mirror to ensure that my freckles were still intact, my teeth were still tight in their gummy beds and that my hair wasn’t molting.   By the time I get to work I find outthat a certain large and non-local bakery is unable to make the cake for the baby shower that was to take place later in the day because they had no water.   They have aisles full of bottled H2O but had no water. They had large kitchens – but no place to boil water.  Hmm.
    But we didn’t complain less they actually make us a cake with something other than bad water.   Picking out a pre-made cake the shower went off smoothly and the expectant mother was happy – or too polite to say otherwise.  
    Arriving home I run to the kitchen, arm myself with two large pots and fill them to the brim with water.   Getting most of the liquid on myself, the floor and the counter I managed to wrestle each of the containers onto the waiting burners and watched for the pot to boil.   However, the old adage was true and I found myself instead tuning in to watch the latest on Heath Ledger’s tragic death while the water boiled on the stove.  
    I was very proud of myself as I walked over to the stove and reached over the rapidly boiling pots to turn off the heat. And that’s when it happened.   A rogue wave curled from the (hopefully) bacteria-free water and popped – landing right below my eye!
    I screamed like a banshee on helium and hopped around the room, slipping in puddles and very nearly doing an impression of a sub-par gymnast as I found my legs sliding in opposite directions as I continued to hold my hand over my burnt eye.
    “YEEEEOOOWCH!” I yelled as I grabbed the counter, righted myself and glared at the obscene pots of devil water.
    “That hurt!” I said, my voice full of accusation.
    Luckily I am one of those folks who can find irony in just about every situation, so the fact that I was boiling water to help my health and ended up almost losing an eye was just too good to be too mad over.   
     I can only hope that the ban on water will be lifted tomorrow and as long as it’s not replaced with a tornado warning or a blizzard watch, well, I think I’ll be safe.  As long as I stay out of the kitchen.   

Just Stop it, Already.

Enough! 
I am sick to death of reading of celebrities taking that final plunge into nutzoid land and dying!   I mean, what in the freakin' world could be so bad about fame, forture and notoriety.  I would give up my handbag collection (gasp!) for HALF of the achievements that these 'dorable dudes just flush away because they're ready to be all dead and stuff. 

Case in Point #1:  Jonathan Brandis


         He was one of my favorite teen crushes and I followed his career through the good, the bad and the ugly.  He was the reason I wanted to become a writer.  I wrote in to a magazine to defend his title as the "cutest boy EVER" and they published my letter. I was hooked.  On both cute boys and writing.    Few years later he hangs himself at his apartment.  

Case in Point #2: Brad Renfro:
      Loved the movie "The Client" and although he made some questionable theatrical and personal choices following his claim to fame - he was always amazing and eerily not unlike his pouty-lipped doppleganger River Phoenix.

Case in Point #3: Heath Ledger
    And finally, the man who made me believe that gay cowboys could love, bitchy girls could love and that knights really do still exist - Heath Ledger.   Although I am more of a fan of his earlier work in "10 Things I Hate About You" and "A Knight's Tale" I was looking forward to seeing how they transformed his cuteness into a joker of the Batman variety.  I'm not sure whether or not his death was drug related as Mr. Renfro's undoubtedly was, but either way it truly is a shame. And me, being the bleeding heart girly girl that I often am can't help but think about his 2 year old daughter.  Being the offspring of a celebrity isn't exactly easy, I'm sure.  But being the kid of a star who tragically died too soon rarely works out well. 
Just look at Lisa Marie.   
Eeeeek.  

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Back in the Saddle Again

Hi all!  Well, here I am on a Sunday night and attempting to do what I have been avoiding for months now - write.   I know that the brain is a muscle that must be exercised, and that we must strive for intellectual superiority over our peers and all that psycho babble crapola but honestly - when someone tells me that I need to exercise my brain I immediately switch to a mental image of an overweight, dimpled assed brain on a dusty treadmill wearing pink legwarmers and an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt. 
That sweating brain would be mine.
I have been trying to get back on the horse, back in the saddle and back to me - but with all the new movies out, a wedding shower to plan and so many other distractions that require less mental energy than sucking a smoothie - I've been far more content to watch the making of "Stardust" than work on a novel. 
But here I sit in front of my cornea-searing new apple MAC and attempt to be creative. 
And I come up with - nada. 
No good ideas come to me. 
No muse whispers sweet somethings of substance into my ears and I am not struck with inspiration.  
Oh well. 
At least I have a cool new program to play with.   Harry sent me a picture the other day over my phone of a box:  Final Draft.
It's an uber cool and a tad expensive program that I have been drooling over for years now but since it is mainly for screenwriters and I had yet to enter into that masochisticish writing realm, I only coveted it from the sidelines.
"Hi baby,"  I yelled into my tiny pink Razr phone and slipping accidentally into Summer-speak I continued.  "Howmuchwasit? CanIhaveit? ILOVEYOU!!!" 
"I'm not that mean!," Harry said, "I already bought it for you."
"Oh, you're so sweet."
"I know. Hey - I think I want a Blue SuperBee Charger"
Groan.  
:)  Off I go to toil! Who knows ? Maybe I'll write the next great screenplay?! Heck - if Ben Affleck can do it!
            

What Women Do in the Cursed Name of "Beauty"...

I should know better than to go to the drugstore alone.  I
t starts off innocently enough. Moseying down the hair care aisle, shopping shampoos and canoodling the conditioners, moving on to hair brushes, bands, bobbles and tweekies.   Inevitably I find my quest for the perfect deoderant has led me down the hair removal aisle.
Now, as other conformist women like myself - I have developed, over the years, an aversion to body hair.  I don't want it where I don't want it.  
Perfectly coiffed on my head - fine.
Precisely plucked brows - fine.
Below the belt and between the chubby thighs - well - that is a different story.  I once was asked, by a man who shall remain nameless (you know who you are!) and who has an ironically odd aversion to female nether-hair to go bare.  So, out of love stupidity and nothing better to do on a Saturday night - I got rid of it.
All of it. 
I felt - cold.
Naked.
And it looked - for lack of better and over-descriptive terms - scared.
I've never gone back to the "grin and bare it" look but have often contemplated sitting on a waxing table with my everything exposed in order to have a groomed groin worthy of the sluttiest of Hollywood's pantyless people and peons. 
So as I read box after box of hair removal creams, waxes, no heat waxes, gels,  and one odd box that had horns - kid you not - I picked up a purple package and went home.
Three hours and one rather horrible fast food chicken sandwich later I was in the floor of my bathroom with a small lilac tub of microwaved wax. 
I decided to do my legs first. 
Putting one pale foot on the cabinet front, I used the wooden stick to smear on a thin layer of warm and soothing lilac-scented wax on the lower part of my leg. 
I glanced at the directions.
"Immediately apply paper and rub in direction of hair growth."
Okay. 
I found a paper and stroked my leg, cringed for a bit and then RIPPPPPPPPP!
"Holy Mother of Gooooooooooooood!"  I screamed.
And then thought about it.
It really didn't feel much different than when I accidentally cut myself shaving.  So I plundered on. 
The wax was so sticky that my right hand was now covered with various bathroom debris and fuzz.  I had used eight strips and other than having a nice polka dot effect and some patches of smoothness, I was doing okay.
Sticky, but okay.
Then - Summer calls.   I answer the phone, my pinky sticking to the cover while my thumb tangles in my hair.  
"Whatareyoudoing?"she asked in a hurried voice.
"Waxing my legs. Sticking to things.   It sucks."
"Oh. Wannagotothestorewithme?"
"Summer, I'm in my nightgown, I have purple goo on my legs, some on my fingers and -well  - everywhere! So - uh -no"
Holding the phone while ripping off another strip was unbearable, and I almost knocked the wax pot over on to the carpet when I jerked and spasmed.
"Okay," she said and then proceeded to talk to me about everything under the sun while I tortured myself with wild abandon. 
Finally, I got off the phone with her and looked at my bespeckled, red leg.  It was half done, little patches of hair still stood like soldiers in a field trying to go unnoticed by their big, goopy purple enemy.
The wax was cooling and more and more I feared that I would end up going to work with a wooden stick stuck to the inside of my calf.  
So I gave up. 
There was NO way I was going to put any of that on my other leg - so it's still "au natural" at the moment.   
And as for my nether-regions -  I worried that something awful would happen - like the lilac scented goo would be too sticky to rip off and end up just STUCK there and, well, that would make things rather complicated... so I deferred and will just be happy with one partly smooth leg and deal with the rest later. 
Well, it IS winter, after all...
:)   
AND                                         

to keep with the theme - here is a blog by my dear sister, stolen and reproduced WITHOUT permission from her one-hairy-legged sister:

Hairy Situation
Current mood: sleepy

I took Gillian 1/2 way to Richmond, VA yesterday to meet her dad. That side of Gillian's family are celebrating their Christmas a little early this year.  2 hours into the trip Gilly  had to go potty.  So we stopped at a bustling travel plaza.  In the packed, and very echo-y restroom Gillian was performing her usual antics.  She sang, tapped her feet, and spoke very very loudly.  When it was MY turn to go potty Gillian kicked it up a notch.  "Momma! WOOOOK!" To say she was screeching would be putting it too midly, for sure. The walls of our quaint little stall rattled with, " Momma! YOUR BAGINA HAS HAIR ON IT!!  WOOOOK! THAT'S SO SIWWY!! But my BAGINA don't gots hair on it.  BUT YOURS DOES!!"

Remember how I said before that the bathroom was busy?  Well, after my kid's  announcement, a pin drop would have sounded like a bomb going off.  OUr footsteps echoed  as we exited the bathroom. Gillian seemed to sense the eerie silence and, for once, when I could have used some distraction, she was quiet.  When we were clear, I swear the restroom erupted into laughter. 

I dont mind being laughed at. I quite enjoy it. And kids certainly have a knack for stating the obvious. I just gotta teach MY kid the proper place and time for a comedic monologue!

Hungry?

    I went to dinner with sis and Gillian tonight.   Yup.  I was talking about that book - "The Road" (which I finished tonight and loved it after all) and I said to sis "So, the world is gone and the food is gone so what do YOU think people are going to eat,"  I asked ominously.   
    "Mama!  Wook!   I eat your finger" she mimed eating Summer's finger, "and it's all bwoody!"  Summer looked terrified of her bundle of "joy".   
    "And - yer heeeeeeaaaaad.  It's cracked now - go wike dis," her large brown eyes rolled up into her head like the littlest exorcism candidate.  "And you can seeeee how your head is cracked!" She hopped up in her pink sparkly boots and red tights and, in the middle of Bob Evan's, in front of a booth of terrified chubby people full of gravy, my niece tried to eat my sister's head.   "And I ate your head!" Giggling like the deranged child that she is, Gillian plopped down, curled pigtails trailing into her macaroni and cheese.    
    "Hey Gillian?  Can you say 'serial killer'?" I asked.
    "Prettiest thing on death row, I always say," Summer said while stroking the curled frizz that enveloped her daughter's head like a halo.  
    Or a ring of fire.

Feeling better, now?

Although I have tried many times to post a new blog - I just couldn't do it. 
No, not because I was upset, or even still healing (which is half true) but mainly because my new mac wouldn't let me! 
I really wanted to call up that cute scrawny kid from that Movie "Accepted" and yell at him in a very deep and threatening voice "Let my postings go!"  Every single time I would try to post something, anything, my nice desktop would freeze and the large apple at the bottom would mock me.  

I was mocked by an apple.

Finally, good ol' Cindy finally clued me in that, surprise surprise, my new mac and AOL journals were not exactly on peacemaking terms.
So, I downloaded a new explorer thingy, configured my new black classic Ipod that is oh  so sleek (and only, like, 1% full!) and now I come to my final task:  I will now post a blog:




Lying on my back, a couch pillow propped behind me and a sweltering hubby behind that, I started to feel peculiar.  Sitting up, I ran a finger along my lips and then down to my racing heart. 
"I feel funny," I said as Harry shot up, pillow be damned, and started rubbing my back.
"Are you okay?"  he said, his voice full of concern and love.  "Do you need to take your panties off?"
I cracked up.
"So - lemmie get this straight - when I feel weird - I need to immediately remove my panties and - what?  I'll feel better?" 
"No.  Yes.  I mean, you said they were bothering you! So...  do you need to take your panties off?"

So new rule of - ahem - thumb.   If you've tried Tylenol, IcyHot, Ibuprofen and even an Alka-Seltzer - then you might as well try the ol' panty removing technique!   Four out of four husbands swear by it!

(that's me at my new mac!)

As a sidenote and one that is very serious: thank you to all of you who have sent such kind words and wishes our way - we really couldn't have gotten through the ickiness of what happened without you all.   Someone once asked my why I bothered to blog.  They sneered and wrinkled their nose "you can't even call those people your friends!"
I didn't even bother to tell them how incredibly wrong they were and still are...

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