Stuff We're Not Supposed to Talk About...

It's a general rule that peeps tend to divulge too much on their blog, so let me preempt this slice of world wide web by saying - if you want to get TMI to a minimum - go 'way now and protect your peepers.   Those of you brave enough to stay - well - lemmie just say "sorry"!!!









So, as you all may have guessed, Harry was gone a long time.  Seven days.  Seven LONG days where I went through a LOT of batteries in my personally operated female hygienic device for want of the dearly semi-departed husband.   And since I tend to be a bit more, um, how shall I put this?  Amped, yes, I'm a bit more amped for carnal lovins than the normal married-for-five-years wife should be I'm afraid that I may have broken Harry along the way. 

Since I'm not much for "love-making" or romance or any of the other stuff that girls sometimes claim to need just because it can be rather hard for some to switch from our internal "to do" list for the house to the internal "to do" list for the significant other.  Me, on the other hand, I can go from 0-60 in five seconds, from Park to Drive in a matter of moments, so it's no wonder that my poor over-sexed hubby is now sitting in the other room, bashing out a Guitar Hero version of a Metallica song and missing every other note.

I mean, after all, he's probably scared to death that I'm going to beat down the door to the man cave and attack him like sex-starved woman at a Romance novel convention.  

Hmm.. Which now that I'm postulating about that - seems like a pretty darn good idea!

Toodles!  hee hee hee hee

                              (Unsuspecting foooooool!)  

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Pictures from my Day

As I was driving up the bridge to get to my parent's house I noticed that the carnival was packing up and all signs of the Fall Fest of Barboursville had been packed up, cleaned up and moved on.   I then noticed something standing on the hill where my Middle School once stood proudly.   The former "Morris Harvey College" turned "Barboursville Middle School" was crudely torn down to make way for a garden and gazebo for the parting mayor to make sure she'd be remembered.

But I digress.

I think someone forgot to pack up one major thing as they scattered last night:

It's not often, I'm sure, that a thirty-foot bulldog is forgotten, I'm sure...

At some point during the day, Gillian, my lovable niece had decided to "borrrow" my phone.  "You can take ONE picture, Gilly - so choose wisely," I said to her.
Here are the several she took instead:

Summer in one of the cool green chairs mom got at a consignment shop.   I'm sure my dear sister was supposed to be doing something else but seems to have gotten distracted by a "Traditional Homes" mag and a mug of coffee.

  The tv looks  possessed!Ahhh - the floor.  How nice.
A cord.   Yup.  That's a cord.

And then, as I was leaving the humble abode of my dear parents I noticed something odd about the house at the end of the alley:

It's demolished!  I have been looking at this house for all of my 25+5 years!  And just like that POOF! It's gone!  Weird...

And finally, a dinner of Bourban Peppercorn chicken and a slightly undercooked veggie casserole for one was how I ended my night:



And since every chair we moved had to first be inspected by a blind Siamese who warbled up a storm and did an unfortunate face plant off the couch on to a rolled up rug, this shot is for him (even if he can't really see it)...
  Sometimes an open paint can causes more trouble than expected...


Hope everyone had a great weekend!
:)

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Vocational Questions and Quandries

After another day of moderately hard labor moving armchairs, tables, more tables, more armchairs, some chests, fourteen pictures in frames, two with no frames, and two frames with no pictures, mom and I collapsed onto separate green-printed couches and she asked me, out of the blue, "Do you like your job?"

I was kinda surprised so I said, "I don't know."

I don't really talk about what I do.  I don't really feel the need to.  It's not particularly exciting in most instances and due to confidentiality the funnier stories can't really be  posted on the world wide web.  

I work in Human Resources for a large non-profit Mental Health Center.  I can't make my applicants rich with gratuitous salaries nor do I have the same lining the interior of my pockets.  I enjoy meeting new people, I enjoy talking to them on the phone but the constant threat of doing something wrong or saying something wrong or inappropriate tends to stifle me on more than one occasion.  I'm learning, slowly, to find the balance between being myself and being a representative for the company but I fear that I may never be able to play the corporate straight man.  It's just not me. 

But I do like my co-workers and I do like the human aspects of being in human resources, but I'm still not sure if it's what I'm destined to do.  

How old were you all when you figured out what you wanted to do with your life?  Was it an epiphany at 16?  Or a thought that stuck when getting on the bus at age six?  Was it something that you had no choice due to parental over-control?  Do you yet know what you are meant to do?   And do you worry, too, that some of us were not destined to figure it out in this life, that maybe we were put here on earth as human fillers for the world in order to make those of concrete mind and determinate ways to flourish?

As for now, I am still liking my job.  I'm not in love with it, but I think I could be.   Like an arranged marriage in a far off land, I hope to grow to love it... or to at least never loathe it in the way I did when I was a receptionist at the "Law Firm that shall not be Named."

:)

Notes from a Day at the 'Rents

1.  Pick up lunch for everyone.  Sit back and watch as my mother takes each chicken sandwich and poke her long, skinny finger in each to find the one she wanted as she simply cannot bare to eat a lumpy chicken sandwich.

2.  Take chairs from the kitchen to the tv room, arrange them only to find out that Gillian wants to eat in the kitchen and I've stolen her only chair.   Take the chair back.  Put it in the "wrong place" and move it as instructed by a picky five year old holding a mini "Elphaba" doll from McDonald's in her tiny dimpled hand.

3.  Try to eat lunch while mom regales story after story of "Times when Ben gets hit in the head."  Gabe, the lovely youth who helps mom and dad out stops in mid-bite of his sub to say, "He does seem to get hit in the head a lot..."

4.  Mom insisted that an eight foot long skinny table would fit in her tv room.   Summer and I dragged it in through the back door, past the pile of expensive cat food, through the late 19th century mini-door and into the tv room.  "Try it there... or maybe over there." She pointed and paused and pointed and paused and when we didn't move fast enough she would position her tiny arthritic frame next to the furniture in question and grunt as she jammed it with her (easily breakable) hip.   Many times I had to threaten her life - for her own good, of course...

5.   Put down a gorgeous rug.  Pick it up.  Put down a different rug.  Rinse, repeat.   

6.  "GILLIAN! WHAT IS THIS?! OH GOD!" was heard from the living room. I stopped in mid-comb of Silver the Cat and looked up to the doorway to see mom holding a baggie containing a greenish gray blob by the tips of her fingers.   She was gagging and wretching and ran, as fast as she could anyway, to the kitchen.  The smell lingered in the air and wafted around us, enveloping us in a non-visible green fog of ick.  Mother made her way back to the other room, armed with an industrial strength cleaner. Gillian followed.  "Did you do that, Gillian?"  mom asked her.  "Noooo.. it was Momma!"  Summer busted out laughing at her daughter blatent improving of the truth.

7.  "What are you making, Gillian?"  I asked my gorgeous brown-eyed niece as she swirled her paint brush in the trays, making them all the same brownish-black color.     "A mess," she replied, without missing a beat.

8.   Go to grocery store and manage to stay pace with a mother whose two kids insist on beeping the horn of the car stuck to the front of the buggy the whole time.  I picked up canned corn. BEEP BEEP!  I contemplated bread choices.  BEEP BEEP!  I inspected eggs.  BEEP BEEP BEEP! It took every ounce of my power not to toss the BEEPIN' eggs at the BEEPIN' kids.

9.  Home now.  Happily eating cookies and watching tv.   Too tired to make dinner.   Will instead eat more cookies and watch more bad tv.  Until I have to go back to the 'rents tomorrow and start the cycle all over again.   

Wish me luck!

Like Mother and Lord Help Us, Like Daughter...

  Sorry it's so small  - I've yet to master my scanner... :)

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Help - I'm stuck.

Harry left yesterday to do a week-long (weekend-included) detail in Whothefrickcares, WV and now I'm all by my lonesome. 

So far on this Friday of Loneliness, I've learned:

1. Three-day-old Fettucine Alfredo does not stand up well to microwaving.   The resulting cakey goo would be better suited for replacing mortar in most brick and mortar houses, leaving only the slight smell of cheese for the inhabitants.

2.  Reading the end to a wonderful book that evokes tears upon the flipping of its last page is never a good idea to the perpetual lonely ones.    But, if you're feeling brave, go buy "Love Walked In" by Maria De Los Santos" and try NOT to sob a bit - k?  Unless you're made of stone (or three-day-old fettucine) and then - never mind.

3.  Have a plan in mind for the dinners to come so that you don't end up sitting in your kitchen, hastily typing on your old laptop and wondering if a Cherry Pepsi and a handful of nuts could really constitute enough for a "dinner."

4.  Be well aware that the weekends of weekends past that seemed to speed by on a dead-heat race to end will now mock you cruelly as Friday night seems never-ending.  

5.  Coming home to a dirty house that could be dusted, cleaned, straightened, mopped and vacuumed is really not worth the time it would take away from moping.  :)

                                           

                                   (oh yeah - and now I'm eating a pot pie!)

 

 

The term "Waiting Room" should be called "The Impatient Patient Room"

I went today for my Wisdom Teeth extraction consultation and, once I found the darn place (stupid piece of sh- shoddy circuitry GPS, Gross Piece of -uh- Crap) I walked up to the sunny receptionist and noticed that her desk - was plywood. 

This can mean one of two things.
1.  The oral surgeon undercharges which means YAY for my wallet
2.  The oral surgeon's attention to detail is not very - uh - detailed.   Which frightens me and my "sockets."

"We're on an hour wait time..."  the woman said apologetically and, as all smiling people tend to do, she won me over. 

I settled into an uncomfortable seat, pulled out my wonderful book "Love Walked In"  (No, really - it's great - you'll love it - go get it! The rhetoric alone will make you love words like you've never loved them before! Ahem...) and started to read.

And that's when the Patients from Hell entered.   Straight from the movie "Idiocrasy" a large woman in unfortunate jean shorts and Nike's from 1989  loudly entered the area and was followed by a tiny girl and a matching tiny boy.  A small child blathered between them and I started a bit when I noticed that oh my heavens that was their daughter.  Yup, the youngin's had sprouted a youngin.  I doubted that their combined ages could have compared to my 25+5 years. 

I decided to ignore them for dwindling on the unfairness selection of life and the unfortunate dying out of Natural Selection was too much to bear witness to in the waiting area of an Oral Surgeon.

"Hey you!" 

Uh - apparently I would be called to witness after all..

"Hey you!"  The jean-shorted lady wiggled a dirty (ew.) tissue in my direction to get my attention.   I looked up at her and said, "Yes?"

"Who you here to see?"  she rolled in her seat so that she was leaning in my direction.  I tried not to stare at her oddly tinged hair or the balloon tattoo that snaked up her ankle that bore at least ten names.  Coldness washed over me as I realized that the balloons, the fleshy, multi-colored balloons, bore the name of her offspring and that this woman, this woman of unfortunate dress and manners was single-handedly (well- almost) trying repopulate the earth.  Or WV at least.  

"Dr.  Gonnapullmyteefers," I said.

"Yeah.  He just left for lunch," she said and then she sat back and waited.

I'm not sure for what.
I guess I was supposed to have some sort of violent reaction but all I could think was "Man's gotta eat."

I blinked at her and she went on to assault the woman to her left.   "MAN!  This weather does a number on my sinuses.   My whole body really." And damned if she didn't run a reddened hand down the front of her to caress her frontal regions. 

An hour and a half later I'm finally in the big dental chair.

"Thank you for waiting," my tall dark-skinned doctor said to me in a soft and kind voice. 

"No problem," I said.  "And I expect a discount," I added in my head.

After the exam and his decision to only remove one of the three useless teeth that grew in my mouth, we talked about birthdays and it turns out he was also born on September 11th. 

"I can't really celebrate my birthday on September 11th," he said with his middle-eastern tinged voice and with a small smile on his face.  "People see me walking around, smiling, on September 11th and think 'TERRORIST!'" 

I didn't want to laugh - but it was pretty damn funny and after being accosted in the waiting room by a tatooed earth re-populator I was overdue for a laugh.  


So - good news:  I only have to have 1 wisdom tooth out of the three removed.

Bad news:  I have to have 1 wisdom tooth out of the three removed.



                                 Young Holly is not happy about upcoming oral surgery...

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Surprise! My husband's a sneaky lil' bastard....

I awoke on the morning of my 25+5 b-day to the feeling of a man hand stroking my back and sleepily muttering "Happy Birthday... Happy Birthday... Happy Birthday..." Which, of course, is wonderful, but maybe not at 4:30am, hm?
Soon after the alarm goes off and I pop out of bed only to be accused of being the bestower of bad dreams as I had apparently forced Harry out of my life and into a studio apt in Boston in one of his few and far between dreams of active over-imaginationland.

Then comes a long day of phone calls and meetings which finally ended with me feeling very much my newly acquired 30 years.  

I went home, piled on some more eyemake-up in attempt to look more awake at dinner and dragged myself to Harry's car.   He'd already made us late by forgetting to lock the door and  having to go back and do it again and then he was pulling up in front of "Blackhawk" (hee hee) and taking his time parallel parking.  

I snapped.  "Oh forgodsakes!  Go up there! Park up there!  No wee-wawing into a space just GO UP THERE!"  Which he did since I was the birthday girl of cheer (or something).

We walked into the restaurant and ran into our neighbors and chatted for a bit while Harry kept tugging on my arm.  Seriously - if my purse would've been heavier I would've socked him with it.  Repeatedly.  And with chubby-girl gusto.

Finally the hostess takes us through the front room, the second room and kept walking to the back room. I was BEYOND annoyed.  There were PLENTY of other seats in the other rooms where I could sit and eat my bday steak but NOOOOO lil' miss "I buy my pants at the kid's store cuz my ass is THAT tiny" had to take us all the way to the BACK.

Harry lagged behind and as we stepped through the threshold I noticed my very tall friend Mike standing there.   I turned around to ask Harry if he knew Mike and Meghan were going to be here when the ENTIRE ROOM ERUPTED INTO SONG and pretty much added another twenty years to my already aging heart.  

As my closest friends, family and loved ones sang me a "Happy Birthday" - I just kept repeating "Well - HI!"  
I was shocked.
I think I almost ran at one point.
:)

We ate like kings, made fun of each other, ate some more and had a wonderful time.

Apparently Harry had been planning my Surprise 25+5 birthday since June.   He had a cake made from my favorite local baker (with 25+5 on it) and special menus at each place setting (with 25+5 on them).  My steak was like butter, my cake was like a dream, and my Harry was the man of the hour.

A sneaky lil' bastard of a man, but still...


                  (This is the front entry of Blackhawk)

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XXX Things to do Before I Turn 30 - RECAP

Three years ago I posted a "must do" list on this exact blog.

Here it is, and on the eve of my 30th birthday, I provide updates!

Things To-Do

(Before I’m Thirty!)

1. Learn to play a musical instrument (a tambourine does NOT count)

-->Okay - I learned three chords on a baby blue guitar and promptly forgot it - but i counts - right???

2. Learn to speak a foreign language - conversationally

-->um, Three years is a really short time to learn the language of a whole other culture...

3. Own at least one pair of shoes that are comfortable at all times.

-->I own six!   My Coach Valeri ballet flats are so great that I own two pairs of each style!

4. Be able to shop at a grocery store without fear and anxiety of produce and soccer moms.

-->I still maintain that grocery stores, and their ever-increasing size, are scary places to go alone...  One can get lost in the frozen foods section alone!

5. Find that perfect shade of lipstick.

-->Kat VonDee from "Miami Ink" (tv show) came out with a line of cosmetics and a perfect shade of rust that worked with my lighter and now my darker hair!  Score one for Holly!

6. Learn yoga.

-->I did pilates. Once.

7. Read at least one best-seller a week.

-->Meh. Maybe one a month!

8. Designate one corner of one room as "all mine."

-->I took the third floor instead.  Booyah!

9. Write a book.

-->Wrote, re-wrote, started, re-started and re-re-wrote...   I'm too picky...

10. Learn to burn a dvd.

-->I haven't yet, but I know I can.  Same difference.

11. Learn to work my pink Ipod Mini.

-->Got a new one and stuck my pink mini in the bottom of a deep, dark drawer.

12. Learn to knit/crochet/needlepoint - and have end results recognizable.

-->No, but I just bought a new sweater!

13. Grow a tomato.

-->I had some home-grown tomatoes the other day.  With home-grown worms in them.  I'm good for a bit...

14. Figure out what I want to be when I "Grow-up"

-->A fairy princess?

15. Watch the Indiana Jones movies.

-->I now completely see the draw of Harrison "I'm a hottie with no shirt on" Ford.

16. Be able to wear a tank top in public without fear of others seeing my jigglies and jubblies.

-->Nope. I just don't care if my jigglies and jubblies are seen now.  

17. Go to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />London - see Big Ben.

-->Nope.  So sad.

18. Pet a koala bear.

-->A stuffed one?

19. Volunteer.

-->I do stuff for my mom for free all the time.  That's GOTTA count for something...

20. Make Harry Kirby, a cartoon based on my hubby, into a real comic strip.

-->I made Harry a Harry Kirby for our anniversary.  Good 'nuff.

21. Quit my job.

-->oh HELL YEAH I quit that job!!!!

22. Find a new job that doesn’t require an IQ in the gray area to exceed at it.

-->I'd be doing a lot better at my current job if my IQ was a little higher and my memory was a little longer and my patience was a lot longer...  :)

23. Paint a mural on a wall in my house - make sure hubby is still breathing - finish said mural.

-->I painted three bricks of color on either side of my fireplace.   I think that counts!

24. Face a fear (ex: heights, falling, grocery stores, organized fun, wal-mart, spiders, bees, lawn-care…)

-->I may have faced a fear or two - but I'm not sure if any of them are worthy of blog-time...

25. Learn to make my own pasta.

-->Go to grocery store.   Avoid Soccer Moms and Cart-toting Grannies.  Grab pasta from shelf.  Run through Uscan.   Run like the wind!  :)

26. Learn to bake a cake - from scratch.

27. Learn to decorate a cake - with all the tricks and tools of the trade.

-->I can now bake a cake from scratch - but I don't see the point.   And as for icing it - it's never been easier: "Harrrrrrryyyyyyy!  I neeeeeeed your hellllllllllllp!"

28. Learn to do crosswords - without cheating.

-->Why on earth did I find this important???

29. Watch at least one foreign film a month.

-->I watched "The Dreamers" the other night. It was shot in France.  There were a few subtitles and a bit too much genetalia for a normal film that didn't have Jenna Jameson on the cover!

30. Learn to be happy with who I am, ‘cause I am what I am ( Popeye?)

-->  Still working on this one.   Maybe by the time I'm forty???

 

:)

 

Happy Hollydays and Hollyweek to meee!

Today is the Sunday before my birthday which means that I get allllll this week (up until Thursday) to be alllll about me!

And I'm starting it off with ordering something from this fun website!

Perpetualkid.com!  I love it!

I like the smelly pencils, the PlayDoh cologne and the men with balls magnets!

AND I like the toast clock, too!

This place is too fun (even if it wouldn't let me paste pictures into my blog!)

Any suggestions as to what else I should order?!

Happy Hollydaze!!!!

Drive me Crazy(er)

It happened again.

I didn't want it to.

But it did.

And there I was, standing in the middle of a showroom floor, surrounded by high end cars and smarmy men wearing matching polo shirts, and wishing I was anywhere else.  The corvettes gleamed, blue ones, yellow ones, convertibles and coupes, all waiting to be purchased, driven, cared for and buffed to a high-gloss shine.

Harry lovingly stroked the hood of a bright yellow Z06 and, while I stood, feeling like a bull in a china shop, he asked to drive one.

Ten minutes later we were given a white corvette that was very un-Z06like and told to "have fun."  As soon as I slid my hefty butt into the car I knew that "having fun" was not going to be achieved.  The car smelled.  It was like someone threw up after drinking one too many Pina Colodas and the coconut-vomit smell still lingered.   As we pulled out of the lot, the smell seemed to intensify as a new annoyance presented itself.

The gear shift rattled.

This poor car, with 8,000 miles on it, was now a sensory assault weapon.

Twenty minutes later, we arrived back at the lot and I rolled out of the car, both hands on my throbbing  head. 

"How'd you like that?"  The salesguy asked.  "Pretty smooth, huh?"  I shot him a look that should've equaled instant death but was deflected by his teflon-like coating of smarminess.

Needless to say - I will not be looking at any cars for some time. 

Which, for those of you who know me and my husband, should equal out to about a week or two.

:)  Hope everyone's weekend is going better than mine!

Our Song(s)

Harry and I have been together a little over eight years now.  And with that time comes love, devotion and - of course - a song that has to be designated as "our song."
About three years into our loving relationship (maybe more, maybe less - I dunno - we're going on a decade here, folks!) I looked at Harry and pouted as I'm apt to do when I want something (dessert, sex, dessert sex, or, ya know,  a pony) and said "I'm sad."
"What is it, my darling?  What do you want and what can I do for you, my utterly wonderful princess-pants?"  is what he SHOULD HAVE SAID, but instead muttered, sweetly, "Oh dear lord, what now?"
"We don't have a song.  That's sad. Here," I said and reached for the knob on the instrument panel.  "The next song that comes on will be our song.  Forever."  I smiled and clapped my hands like a trained seal.
"This is our song?" he said, doubtfully as the music filled the cab of whatever vehicle we had at that time (I can't keep up - we've had more than Jay Leno at any given time).
I tilted my head, squinted my eyes and hummed along like a Maestro at a concert hall.  "Yes.  Yes, this is perfect."
"So... Marilyn Manson's 'Tainted Love' is our song?"
"Yes, darling.  Isn't it romantic?" I trilled.

But I was only fooling myself - we'd had a song way before that.   And my bestest bud since I was a mere toddler found a new version of it - it's BEAUTIFUL! I mean, it's no "Tainted Love" but it's still prolific, ya know?