Gifted

First of all - in case you missed your daily dose of amazement and belief in sheer raw talent, take a listen to this kid:

 

 

Second of all, I must share with you the course of my father's day on Monday.   First, as he was helping a friend of the family move deck furniture from the lower level to the upper level, the back of the metal chair swung down and knocked him square in the forehead. 

Twenty minutes (and more than a few chosen curse words) later he was in the yard looking for his lost lawn equipment: "Drema!  Where'd I put the rake?  Hey!  Did you see where I put the RA-"  WHAP!  Dad had stepped on the upturned spikes of the rake and pelted himself in the face with the pole as it swung upward in a comical arc.   Mom told me later, when she could breathe between fits of laughter that my poor father's day did not end there.   Later, at work, he moved the chain that blocked the entrance to his place of work to allow a truck to get by.  As he grinned and waved them though, the large pole toppled over and smacked him in the back of the head and shoulder.

The best part of the story was when he and mom had come over to my house for dinner last night and I asked "Hey, mom?  Why is there a quarter-sized bruise on dad's forehead?"

:) I love my daddy.  Even though whenever we go through a drive thru he will insist on yelling "Can I get nuts on that cheeseburger?!"   And he likes to wear shirts that depict stick figures pointing to large lipstick prints on their behinds.  And that he once called me during a really busy day at work to tell me, in the middle of winter:  "Hey, hey... Holly... I just fell in the pool."

:)  I guess we all  have our gifts.   Some, like opera boy above, are natural and wondered at.  Some, like the ability to be hard-headed like my dad, well, those are just as natural and wondered at, too.

aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_1

New York, New York!!!

I can't wait to go to New York again in October!
Hence my newest "masterpiece"  "Apple on apple":




    
hee hee

aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_1

And Then There Was Boredom

I get bored.
I draw fishies.
Which, as it turns out, is really hard to do on a drawing pad.
Here's my elementary attempt:
     

:)<
           

And Then There Was One

Harry is spending the night with some much-needed male bonding with his new friend Chris.
Chris, on the other hand is PETRIFIED that I'm mad about not having my hubby at home.
So I decided to write him a note.
Without a pen in sight I typed up a quick "Get Out of Jail Free" note and sent it with Harry:

Dear Chris,
I can’t find a pen.  So my “hand-written” note will have to do.

This note entitles my hubby, Harry S. Shivel III, to hang out with you tonight – free of charge and free of any wife nagging, needling, poking, moping or general all-around beating up.

This is a limited time offer.  No, not really, but just pretend.

So enjoy.

And remember – well – something.  I don’t know.  I’m a bit tired and loopy so – just have fun and bring him back in one piece… or at least two.

Thanks, 
Holly – wife of that one guy that you’ve been hangin’ out with.  


:)

And then there was one... Me.

Pearl Necklaces, for example

One day a few weeks ago I went to Gabe's due to the fact that someone who dresses not unlike a forty-year old DAR woman told me that there were some cute designer shoes on the racks.   For some reason I took her lead and headed to the store.  Packed with the rejected items of the discount stores and smelling like feet, Gabe's is a place where most retailers sent their crap.
For the seasoned shopper it can be a treasure trove.
For the mildly interested after-work browser, it can be hell.
So imagine my surprise when I found a cute pair of espadrilles and later, a book entitled:  "The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual Euphemisms."
For a buck.
So I grabbed it and walked up the counter with my prizes.
I expected something hilarious and a book that would help me with my "smut" writing.   I mean, really, how many times can one not use the word "penis" before things just start getting silly?
Imagine my surprise when I opened the pages to find a rather dry and unfunny account of such things as "Little Dutch Boy" and "Red Riding Hood" and "pearl necklace" and "paddle the pickle." 

However, even if the book was not as funny as I expected and really wanted it to be - I can say that I'm much better educated on sexual euphemisms.

Anyone out there wanna guess what  a "Blind Houdini" is?
HA!

Laryngitis ?

Last night I sat in bed, hot laptop in lap and grimace on face while I plugged away writing my articles for the little publication to which I contribute, monthly, a humor piece and a book review. 

Okay, fine, I revamped an old blog and chose to cop out on the book review by telling the greater tri-state area to be lazy and pick up a paranormal chick lit anthology by MaryJanice Davidson, but still!  Brainpower was sacrified for the greater good!

Or so I thought.

Turns out the paper, VoiceboxX, went out of business and I received a short "thank you" in my INbox this morning.   True, the article-writing thing had gotten old since the last time I actually saw a paper copy of the darn thing was back in 2007 and the occassional glaring typos were enough to make me cringe but it was still something to do.  Something fun and - well - I was out there. 

And now I'm not. 

Sigh.

Okay, gimmie a week to wallow and I'll find something else to get into.  

Any suggestions?   

Juggling, for Experts

Harry's home tonight on a one-day pass before he hops in his car and drives away to Raliegh, NC for a three night excursion.  So instead of eating some of the food that I sacrificed my sanity for at the local market we went out to eat at "Jim's" and to get some ice cream.

Now, we do have a specific routine. 

I sit on my poofy posterior in the heated/cooled leather seat and Harry goes in, gets the ice cream, and then delivers it to me like I'm some sort of spoiled princess.

Which is totally true (I used to have the crowns to prove it).

So today Harry opens the store's door while holding my little cone in his left hand and his double decker chocolate monster cone in his right.   He comes around to the driver's side, opens the door to the SUV and, as if in slow-motion, the double scoop of ice cream falls off  his cone.   Now, my reflexes rival that only of a dead seal so I just sit there with my mouth open.

Harry, on the other hand, manages to bounce the double scoop from his right hand to his left while still holding on to my cone and then using the three fingers he has wrapped around the almost-dropped mass of gooey ice cream he places the scoops back on to the previously vacated cone.   He didn't squish my cone.  He didn't drop my cone.  He didn't sacrifice the napkins or even toss my ice cream aside to save his own.  Nope, he juggled the ice cream instead. 

I knew I married a cool dude but I never imagined he would have such wondrous skills as an ice cream juggler.  He was like some sort of expertly-trained circus monkey!  It was cool as hell.  

"Hon?  Hand me another napkin?"   he finally prodded me from my stupor by gesturing with chocolate-laden fingers toward the center console.  

"Sure!"  

He's so sweet.   And talented.                                                                                                        

XYZ

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

Literally.

With Harry traveling and seeing all the wonders of West Virginia ("Trailers come in pink???) I am stuck here tossing and turning 'tween the sheets.   Okay fine - I don't use a top sheet - more like 'tween the sheet and a big ol' comfortor that's not living up to its name. 

So I wake up late, get dressed, toss on my face and head for the door with ten minutes to spare.  Of course - when my fingers curl around the brass doorknob - that's when it hits me. 

Crap.  I have to pee.

So I waddle back across the floor, through the bedroom door and into the bathroom.   I then re-button my pants, latch the hooks and fix my belt cursing the fact that the people that make women's pants think we need at least four barricades to our underoos.   It was like I was wearing an accidental chastity belt with no key in sight.

The morning at work passes by with little drama.  I talked to people who want jobs in the mental health industry (some I think could use services instead).  When we run out of paper I walk down the hall, waving to the people I've yet to learn the names of even though I'm seven months past being a newbie.

About fifteen minutes till noon I notice something - odd.

My arm brushes against my middle and I realize - with horror - my pants have been unzipped all day.  I have talked to my boss, my officemate, various other people all while exposing my fluffy gut. 

To make it worse, I'm a little behind on laundry so, framed in the triangle of my fly was a large peice of LIME GREEN GRANNY PANTIES.   These undies are awful.  They are so "full coverage" that I could tuck them in to the bottom of my bra and still not have a wedgie. And there's a large flower on the front.  A green and pink ugly-ass flower. 

I discreetly wheeled around in my black office chair, swallowed the urge to giggle like a crazy person, and subtly zipped up my tan dress pants.  

But tomorrow's a new day. One that will be filled with pants with no zippers and smiles all around for it really couldn't be much worse than today.  And it's promised to end well as I plan a mini bonfire of the panties.  Then again - these are LARGE panties and I'd hate to call the fire department if the blaze got out of control.

How would that call go?  "Yes, come quick!  I've burnt down my house when I tried to have a bonfire of the panties party!  No - it's not a joke!  No - my house is on FIRE! What?!  No!  I'm not cra- forget it.   The hose isn't completely melted - I'll take care of it myself!"

 

Blow Me

After a particularly torturous evening of walking the aisles of Wal-mart (a horrible task that no one who hasn't committed a heinous crime should ever  have to do) Harry and I turned our buggy into the check-out aisle.  
I noticed that the "impulse buys" that lined the aisle had changed slightly.  Along with the candy bars, Bic lighters, gift cards and cookies, one can now buy antiseptic hand cleaner and KY lotion.  That's right.  You can clean your hands and get right down to bidness all by shopping at your local Wal-mart.
To my left was a wall of candy.
I grabbed a green box off the shelf and thrust it toward Harry's shiny one.  "Look at this!" I yelled while shaking the box in his face. 
"This is gross!  What were they thinking?!" 
"I dunno..."  Harry ignored me while continuing to pile our groceries on to the dirty black conveyor belt. 
"It's gum!  It's gum with a <gag!> chocolate center!!! Are they trying to out-gross each other?!"  I looked back at the box with the bursting chocolate center and wondered at the horrors of the flavor combo it held. 
"That's just - wrong..." 
"Yeah," Harry agreed while he continued to single-handedly empty our filled-to-capacity buggy.
I put back the green box and then dug around in my Kate Spade purse until I found my pack of gum.   I needed to get the chocolate-mint gum flavor taste out of my head.  
So I chewed some Orbitz Bubble mint.  Which tastes not unlike Pepto-bismol.
:)

                             

aoljurlAdd, aoljurlAdd_1

DDR - Gillian-style!

And just because it's sooo funny - here's a little snippet of my niece in a full-blown dance fever!

        

aoljembedAdd, aoljembedAdd_1

UnBEARable

Today was yet another fashion show at the local mall in which my niece flashed the audience, danced like a maniac in the wings only to dart to the end (and off the end) of stage when it was her turn to "model."
On one of these "flashes and dashes" she made it into Adams Fine Gifts and started touching all the things that are tiny, breakable and too damn expensive.
Like two trained missiles my sister, teetering on her heels and clutching a camera to her over-exposed chest and me in my tasteful outfit of jeans and granny shirt, followed after.
While looping around a table covered in bears I stopped dead in my tracks.

A tiny bear about the size of my hand was nestled along the rows of its comrades.   Wearing a minuscule green felt bucket that  had a large yellow flower on it.  I marveled at how much this stuffed animal looked like the girl from that tv show "Blossom" which was popular when I was young.  
The worst part was the large yellow stitched letters on the bears fashionably challenged apron: "Thirty and LOVING it!!!"

"They put it on a bear?"  I said while picking up the horrible animal and thrusting it toward my sister. "I'm to that age now?  Where it's appropriate to stitch sayings on a bear wearing a horrible 'Blossom' hat?  Is that what we've come to? Oh no," I said, putting the cringe-worthy doll back on the table and walking away.  "Oh no, oh no, oh no..."





                                                                       
                                                     "Thirty and Loving It"???

Romance is Alive and Well and Living in WV, Just So Ya Know...

Last weekend Harry paused while toweling off post-shower and said "Do I do romantic things for you?  Am I romantic enough for you?" 

Me, ever in the cheery and bright mood, said "No!" and then tossed all the toothbrushes in the house right into the garbage.  Why?  I'm a girl.  I don't need a reason.

This dental brush dilemna was right after I chucked a large package of light bulbs at him and grunted while gestuing toward an ever-burnt out light fixture.  

Then, by the light of the weekdays of lonliness (Harry was in Romney, WV - where ever the "f" that is...) I realized that he is very romantic and is endlessly sweet.

He's the type of man who walks while holding the umbrella more toward me than him, sacrificing his shoulder for my protruding handbag.  Harry will always walk on the traffic-side of the street while I'm nestled closer to the dry buildings.  He brushes my hair with caring strokes instead of attacking the tangles.  My feet, even when stinky, are still fodder for a rub.   He's confident enough in our love to let me have my "Married People Crushes" (though not yet enough for me to get a pool boy).  I've drooled on him many a migraine-ish night to nary a complaint.   When things go awry in the bedroom - he's kind enough to bring me a towel and then offer to wash my hair when I have been shot in the back of the head unexpectedly.   He still finds me funny and mostly amusing.  He tells me I'm beautiful when I first wake up with leftover make-up rings and exposed freckles.    He makes the bed for me when he leaves me on Monday and puts my stuffed bear, bought for the child that wasn't, in the middle of the covers with remote in paw.  For many months in a row he would drive home on a Friday night - just to have to leave for a return six hour trek- just to get to see me. 

So, yes, babycakeshead, you're a romantic fool for me - and now - all the world knows it.

Now go empty the dishwasher.

                                                 :)

aoljpictureUpload, aoljpictureUpload_2