Game On!

It's 12:15am on a Saturday night and guess where this rockin' WV chick is???

I'm in a deserted parking lot of a Gamestop.

Metallica for Guitar Hero was released tonight.

And we had to come pick it up.

Tonight.

At 12:15 am.

I'm totally giving Harry the "devil horns" hand gesture-whoops-wrong finger!

And now-I Fade to Black...

Well, Blow Me Down

AND - just because I feel the need to post another Daddy story - here ya go:

Thursday night I tottered over to the 'rents house to partake in some takeout "Jim's" spaghetti sauce (great lil' place in Huntington, WV - stop by ya'all!) and sat at the long, old table mom decided to put in her newly remodeled and modern kitchen.   

Mom was actually eating heartily for once and dad had abandoned the blaring tv in the other room to come regale us with stories of the zombies he works with at the Veteran's home.  He leaned against the sink, his blue sweatshirt straining slightly over his belly as he put both hands in his pocket --- and pulled out an open tube of super glue. 

"Uh-oh," he said while mom and I froze, food hanging halfway from our plates to our mouths. 

"Well, where's the lid?"  he dug around in his right pocket, eyes crossed in concentration before hopping slightly and yelling, "OHHH! IT BURNS! IT BURNS!"   He then grinned at mom and said ---- and here's where I died a little - again--

"It's burning! Wanna blow it?   It burns! Wanna blow it?"

He then capped his superglue, stuffed it back into his pocket and sauntered back to his blaring television set with a satisfied smile on his ruddy face. 

"Well," I said to mom as she tried to regain her appetite, "at least now when he slices off a buttcheek from putting exacto knives in his back pockets - we'll know where to find the superglue to glue it back on!!!"

That's my daddy!!!

I'm a "Killer"

My new nickname at work is - wait for it - "Killer."

That's right - I made a co-worker cry.  But, to be so mature about it, she started it.   I asked a simple question in a well-thought-out email and I got a paragraph about how I should "trust" her and other veiled accusations about me and my ability to do my job. 

Now, I'll admit, that last part made me pause as I have some doubts about my job performance quite often,  but what good employee doesn't? So I may have been a bit persnickety back.  

But just a bit. 

So, after all was said and done - I closed up shop and went home and she, apparently, sobbed on a curb.   

Really - I'm not that girl. 

I'm not a "hear me roar cuz I am a woman" woman.  

I am not a barracuda nor do I relish or denounce anything about women's lib. 

Open my door. Feed me peeled grapes.  Walk on the streetside of the sidewalk and you better be damn sure you hold the umbrella for me.   

But I'm not going to pick a fight. 

I'm not mean. 

I'm not that girl. 

So, maybe I'm in the wrong field. 

Maybe I'm assuming a persona that's not quite puzzle-picture-perfect on to my current Holly-shape.   

Or maybe I am just a "Killer" waiting to be released upon the innocent and ignorants that seem to multiply in my living area.   Maybe I AM that girl. The one on the five o'clock news and the CNN special report who, finally, snaps when faced with yet another person who cannot seem to capture the subtle art of email tone conveyance and, more difficult perhaps to grasp, the two-prong drive-thru at McDonald's.

Either way, no one likes to have their whole nature poked fun at and labeled incorrectly.  After all, labels are often placed in an area in the back, hard to read, and often quite itchy. 

So, if you excuse me, I think I need to head to curb now. 

Meh. 

Kid You Not

Just a small blog to let you all know that Harry got home safely!

Unfortunately, due to a laser tag injury to Harry's knee, our loving weekend was cut a little shorter than I'd have liked.  I was invited to play too but since I have half a brain and didn't want to make my back injury a permanent one, I, instead, spent 20 minutes being auditorally hammered by a pack of animatronic puppets.  

Two hours at Billy Bob's Wonderland is fine.  

Three hours at Billy Bob's Wonderland borders on the Redneck Version of Chinese Water Torture.  I don't remember that place being quite so, well, gross, as when I was a kid and it was Showbiz Pizza.   The puppets are the same but the location, and the amount of questionable gooey substances, have changed.   And never, NEVER, in my life do I want to enter a bathroom when a mother is profusely apologizing to a staff teen about how "if you clean up the big stuff, I can get the rest," 'cuz, well, ewwwwww!

But Harry had fun, we got to hang with friends and family and I got to see two grown men play "Tokyo Drift" - one in a bright pink Ford GT and the other, well, I couldn't see what car he was in since his nose was pressed against the glass in apparent approximation of distance from equals distance from finish line!  :)

So - uh - YAY!  Harry's home!

:)

When Life Gives you Lemons...

...tell 'em to suck it. 

I can't explain the level of my aggravation as Harry's been traipsing across the D.C. region having oodles of fun working 12 hour days while I was here watching bugs crawl up the wall.

Literally.

How sad is that?!

Since he's been gone I've had no creative juices, no ring-a-ding-dings of inspiration for stories, no romantic inklings to light kindling afire upon his return, no fun projects, no painting of canvases, no stories written, blogs posted, recipes tried and tasted and tacked on the fridge, no new music was discovered, no songs of love were created, no games won, played or even attempted in my three weeks of hermit-induced solitude. 

But I have cleaned a lot. 

I do that - ya know - when the ol mojo is on hold-o.  

Which has SUCKED.  And, since my blog ALWAYS seems to loop back to it, let's talk about sex!

The last time I went this long without having my knickers punted to the side was, um, what year is it?  The last time I can remember having a dry spell this lengthy was when my high school beau and I parted ways.   He left me for a chick with a hump and a wonky eye from Salt Rock (no, really - I kid not).   So I vowed celibacy for life.  

He was my first, my only, my one true love and he'd broken my heart and left me in a heap of dirty laundry on the floor. 

So, sis and I moved out and into a crack shanty of sorts. 

I went to school. I went to work.  I did every thing but pray in a black and white habit to solidify my nunish-ness. 

 

And then - there he was.  Baby-faced with blue eyes that sparkled with barely kept in check man-giggles and positively wreaking of a heavenly mixture of boy musk, Abercrombie cologne and garlic sauce from his day job at Papa John's pizza.  

"Do you have anything?" he asked as my knickers were punted to the side (Ah - those were the days). 

"No, of course not - I'm clean - not a thing wrong with meeeeooooooh - you mean - yeah- I have that, er those.  Hold on," I giggled and ran around the room, topless, until I found the key that was hidden in the bear that opened the box that contained the Trojan horses needed to get past the gates. 

We laughed and I wondered at the fact that two and half minutes was apparently NOT the average and - I was hooked.  

Harry, not even skirting the age of 20, had brought me back from months at the nunnery and showed me that sex didn't have to be something that's skirted around. 

Obviously - I learned that lesson well!

We lost each other after that.  We dated others.  We connected again - I was seeing someone else - and Harry was sporting pseudo dreads.  

ButI was hooked - again.   

Some trimming (both literally and figuratively) and here I sit - still.  Waiting anxiously for my love to come home again and love me again. 

To find me again. 

To hook me again. 

So pass the lemonade, peeps!  Life gave me a bunch of lemons and I survived! I made it!  Stung the eyes a bit and was a whole bunch of sour - but I made it.  I can make it.   

Well, until he comes  home tomorrow, anyway!

My Husband Made Me Do It

"Will you do me a favor?" Harry twisted his words up at the end, adding a little bit of a "you know you can't say no" lilt to it. 

"Sure, baby, what do you need?" I said, trying not to roll my eyes as his requests usually leave me standing in a long line with sweaty men, all of us clutching an over-priced gadget to our chests.   

"Will you post this on your blog for me?"  

And here it is - the story - as told to me by my loving husband:

Andrew and Harry were two non-assuming males.  Both loved expensive steaks, overpriced mashed potatoes and oodles of hair gel.  Their lives were the picture of perfection according to GQ magazine.  Both had women who loved them, enough must-have gizmos that even Bill Gates himself would want to come over and play and were also the owners of two very respectable and number-laden occupations tucked neatly under their perfectly coordinated and distressed belts.  

And then they pulled up to a stoplight in a downtown D.C. neighborhood.  

The Prius in front of them rolled to a stop and the doors flung open.  Harry and Andrew, two men who have damn near seen it all, watched as two Asian students laughed and scurried around the car and then rushed back inside the tiny imported car with a speed usually left for foreign game shows and Olympic trials. 

"Was that," Andrew's eyes grew wide in amazement, "An actual Chinese firedrill?"

"Yes," said Harry as the light changed and he eased the gas pedal down on his handy Audi.  "Yes, I believe it was a true Chinese firedrill!"

And the two went on to live happily ever after with the gals of their dreams who, of course, were tortured with this same damn story ad nauseam.  

(Groan!) 

Well, Excuse Me!

Finally, after days of utter misery I went to my first real Chiropractic appointment on Thursday.   I hobbled in and felt the butterflies in my stomach start to beat mercilessly in all directions as if they could see a light at the end of the tunnel and had to get out. My back was still not yielding in its pursuit of driving me insane and as I was led in to the office of the man who would either be my savior or my torturer I was a little taken aback by the

 things that decorated his office.   Among the bi-plane models, corvette Z06 car and plastic spines, there was Jesus string art:

and an empty gumball machine:

and the window I almost escaped out of: 

Good thing my angst was unfounded.  After I was tested for mobility, x-rayed, and placed in various positions on a table ("If you're going to ask me if that hurts - the answer is yes!!!") and a few accidental flashes (those tables were NOT made for the chubby - nor were the split up the back gowns!) I was finally hooked up to some electrodes and shocked for a good 20 minutes. 

I, the sicko, loved it!!

I'm back the next day, sitting in a chair with more of those relentless butterflies.  My stomach is rumbling and my lunch, eaten while typing emails to various supervisors about god-knows-what, is trying to make a reappearance. 

Dr. Chiroman then calls me back, shocks me some more and then shows me my spine.  It's a little un-moving-like at the bottom so as he explains to me in far more detail than my layman mind can comprehend I stare at the xray and wonder how my tiny spine can hold up my non-tiny chub.  It looked - scared. Fragile - even.  

"What caused this?" I asked him, fearing the worst would start with "good steaks and food with flavor" and end with "chocolate bon-bons."

"That's like trying to determine what exact food caused a cavity" he said and I was content. 

Then he put me on the table and jumped on  me.

I was so surprised by it that I couldn't react. 

But as my spine cracked - I went "Ohhhhhh" and I knew it was love at first adjustment. 

Turning over to my right side my stomach clenched as I knew I was to be laid on again.   I was nervous and as he bumped against me to get my spine to crack, the air between the vertebrae, held in all day, suddenly escaped in three short bursts.  At least that's what I was telling myself as he continued to manipulate me and my face turned red before my spine cracked and he jumped off of me and ran to the other side of the room. 

I was mortified. 

Here was this man, trying to save my posture, keep me from pain and trying just to be a good doc and help me and I repay him by farting on him. 

Three times.   

He seemed unfazed.  I, on the other hand, looked at the plastic spine dangling to my right and tried to figure out how it could be a suicide aid.  

So even though I embarrassed myself to no ends - he still wants to see me - three times a week for two weeks and if that doesn't work - MRI time to look for nerve damage. 

Either way, whatever he did seem to help as I was able to bend over to pick up stuff I dropped on Monday,  yesterday and today I have managed to do a load of laundry. 

I have my next appointment tomorrow morning and I'll be there, hopped up on the anti-gas-drug-Beano. 

After all, I really only want my spine to crack - nothing else!!!

:)

Uncontrollable Urges

Since Harry left town I've been struck with these- urges. And who can really blame me? Here I am, alone, in a big house and , well, I'm only human - I have NEEDS!!!


Like the need to stand without crying in pain, the need to bend over and pick up a dropped item, the necessity of being able to put on one's own underwear without using the "toe loop" method!!!

That's right. I'm broken. Again.

So off to the Chiro I went. More on THAT experience later!

Any advice out there for acute lower back pain?

Three Weeks to Insanity.

Harry's away at school this week. And this weekend. And next week. And next weekend. AND the following weekend.





Stupid government job...





Anyhoo - I'm guessing I have t-minus 10 days before I officially go insane. Yup - this time I'm not even pretending to be brave or energetic or even half-way ambitious. I'm going to sit at home, stare at the walls, pretend to be "busy" and cry a bit (lot).





Take today for instance. I came home from work after picking up what was to be a truly horrific pizza-like substance, sat in front of the tv, let the space heater warm my toes while I watched "Dollhouse" and am now heading up to bed at 9pm.





But it's only the first day.





Who knows what tomorrow will bring!





And - just so you can get good and giggly at my expense - here's a blast from the past. Try to guess which sparkly maven was me:

And, no, I'm not sure why we all look a bit goofy but check it - it's taken at CHI-CHI'S!!!!