WE ARE - WAY TOO EXCITED!

                              

I have just received my credentials and invitation to the hospitality suite for the upcoming "WE ARE... MARSHALL!" movie premiere happening tomorrow in beautiful downtown Huntington, WV.

So far, the perks for this job are: seeing the stars walk the green carpet and having an excuse to take pictures and gawk at them, free press screening of the movie, a day off of work, and a chance to prove myself as a writer!

So - send happy thoughts my way and please pray for me - make sure I don't trip over the Green Carpet and send myself flying like a chubby missile toward one of the Matthews!

On second thought... that may not be so bad!

 

Stick a Fork in Me, I'm DONE!

As I hit the "submit" button on the pop-up box on WebCT it prompted with "Are you sure you want to submit this assignment?"

Oh, hell, yeah, I want to submit this bleepin' paper! I thought to myself as I forcefully stabbed my mouse with my index finger. 

With that one small hand movement (and a bit more jazz hands) I was done with my school semester.

I survived, I thought with glee as my mind floods with things that I now have time to do: go see movies, read books, bake cookies and lemon bars, email friends, update my blog, concentrate on my writing career.

Actually get started on your Christmas Shopping List! 

With that being said - I'm off to go to the store (I will have to clean the cobwebs from the cupboard before filling them wih food once again), Border's books at the mall, maybe a nice dinner with Harry and to go see my neglected family!

My only - wait - what is that?

From my seat at the kitchen table (buried under piles of papers on Stephen Crane) I can hear Harry talking on his phone.  He's standing in the downstairs driveway which happens to be directly 'neath the windows I am sitting beside.

Now, here is the perfect devil/angel moment.

I know he's talking about me and my future Christmas present.  I shouldn't listen.

But it would be HILARIOUS if he came upstairs, smirking with happiness and I say "So - when are they delivering my (insert specific gift here)?" 

But - isn't it better to be surprised?  My angel, rockin' a sweet halo and some kick-ass ankle wrapped sandals strokes my newly blonded locks, trying to convince me otherwise. 

Drats!  I turn on the television and pretend to be interested in an HGTV program about landscaping. With the volumed turned up to 17.

I'm too nice.

Bah Humbug.

Well you Still Love me when I'm all Wrinkly?

As you may have guessed, my dear ever-traveling husband is "on the road again" leaving me alone with an ailing kitty and a pile of laundry that has consumed the floor of my downstairs kitchen.  Everywhere - as far as the eye can see is piles upon piles of dirty clothes courtesy of J.Crew, Banana Republic, Tommy Hilfiger, I.N.C. and Polo. 

I sigh and grab onto the pile of clothes closest to the door to begin the cumbersome sorting process.  Suddenly a small brown spider lunges at me from the folds of a Tagless Tee.

I scream like a banshee on helium - nearly shattering the twin floor-to-ceiling display cases filled with Simpson's figurines to my right.  Flinging the shirt to the ground, I pick up the nearest object and start spraying the spider, who will, from now on, be nice and starched.

He's still scurrying like  "Frosty the Spiderman" when I plop the can on top of him and yell at Harry to come help me.

That was four days ago.

I had honestly forgotten about my arachna-nemesis - until I went to iron a shirt for work this morning - and realized that my spray starch was being used as a cruel and unusual prison.

I ended up at work with an unperfectly pressed shirt.

Somehow - it's Harry's fault....

I decided to exact my revenge when laundry day continues this evening.  Yup, I, the killer of "spiders gone wild", will "forget" to use fabric softener on his "man panties."

The vows were "love, honor and cherish" I didn't hear a thing about "thou shalt provide non-spider-cleaning-upper hubby with non-scratchy underwear"!

Pet "Peevey"

Today, while I sat at my desk and listened to the "Holly" station on XM - the sky behind me filled with large fluffy flakes and - the bestest Christmas song EVER filled through my tiny computer speakers:  "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas".

    

I don't know what it is about this song that makes me just bounce and giggle while pursing my lips and singing along - it's just a happy little tune that makes me forget about my emptying checking account, my furry sicky friend and the fact that my hubby is two hours away in some podunk town, during this Christmas Season.

But I will hold my head up high, toss my curls (I was too lazy to straighten my hair this morning) defiantly and bellow carols for all the office to hear.

Why?  Because my name is Holly - and for that - it's my civic duty to spread cheer like a female Santa - so get happy - dammit - or I'll come shove a sprig of mistletoe up your nose!

             HAPPY HOLLYDAYS!

Big Brother's Not Watching - Thank God.

I think it's really good that others can't see what we do when we're alone.

THAT could get really embarressing. 

In the past hour I've done the following:

1.  Giggled like mad while quoting from an essay on "The Death of the Lady (Novelist).

2.  Burst in to seven completely different renditions of three different Christmas carols.  My favorite one so far is the Bette Midler version of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" complete with jazz hands.

3.  Drank three cans of Pepsi.  In a row.

4.  Ate three Lindor White Chocolate Truffle Balls.  In a row.

5. Ate a large batch of Krusteaz Lime Bars (darn you, Cindy!).  I would stop typing now - but I'm now stuck to the keys with green goo.  :)

6.  Clapped like a seal when I saw Luke and Christopher have a "man fight" in the middle of Stars Hollow on the CW's "Gilmore Girls."

7.  Lit a clove scented candle.  Played in the flame.  Had to resist launching into a Beavis tirade of "Fire!  FIRE!."

8.  Launched, instead, into a jazzy rendition of Michael Buble's "Let is Snow."

9.  Pulled my hair into a pony tail.  Pulled it out.  Put it in a half pony tail.  Took it out.  Wound it up in a bun. Pulled it out.

10.  Successfully wasted a full hour that should've been spent on my essay about "The House of Mirth."  I'm so proud.

About an hour ago - before all this animated wasting of time - I had to give Phoebe her meds.  Alone.  She's getting wise to the scheme.  I pull out the turquoise towel and she attempts to dart.  Luckily for me she's only running on like a 1/2 cylinder so I catch her and plop her into my lap.  I prepare her syringe of antibiotics and pry open her tiny mouth with my finger (thanks to Dan - I can still type with all ten fingers) - just as I'm about to squirt a small amount onto her pink tongue  - she bitch slaps me with a paw that flies from under the towel and makes immediate contact with my left cheek. 

I panic and - empty half the banana-smelling goo onto my arm. 

I swear the little gasping feline smirks at me.

"Oh no you don't!"  I quickly refill up to the 1ML line.

This time I manage to get most of it in - some on my arm and a small smudge on my glasses - but MOST goes into Phoebe.

Afterwards, she's so mad - she won't move.  She lays in my arms like a highly pissed off catepillar, waiting to become an even more pissed off butterfly.  Finally, after three minutes of heavy breathing (still not deep) she bucks and frees herself from my lap.

Stopping a few inches from my knees - she looks at me and shakes like Hooch from Turner and Hooch.  Spit strings, laden with that foul, sweet-smelling, liquid launches from her jaws and on to my right cheek. 

Harry calls from Ripley, WV.

"I'm bored," he whines.

"Really?" I say while whiping at my sticky cheek with a rag, "I just got beat up by a sickly cat who covered me in her drool."

"Still, it's better than being bored," he reasoned. 

Next time, post medicine injection, I'm going to toss Phoebe into his closet and let her shake her drool onto his Robert Talbot shirts. 

Now that would be a cure for boredom!

BTW- Pheobe's bloodwork came back - she's not suffering from pneumonia.  And he's not certain that it's cancer either.  Hello, square one, how I've missed thee...

Do You Have This Straightjacket in MY Size?

Since the paper I write for doesn't have up the link for my latest column - I'll include it here - for your reading "pleasure"!

                   There are times in every girl’s life when she must question her holding on that elusive thing called sanity.  On two separate occasions within the past few weeks I have felt that my sweaty, white-knuckled grip on the sane part of my brain was dangerously close to lifting off, taking flight and leaving me forever.  I have decided, for the mental health of all women and girls out there struggling to juggle a career, schooling, family, hobbies and social pressures, to let them know – they are not alone.

                 I have been doing quite well as of late in my Graduate School online poetry class.  I have learned terms, studied poets, and counted lines, stanzas, forms and rhymes all to better understand what makes a poet tick.  And now, many assignments later, I was to begin writing “The Big Paper” (hereinafter to be called “TBP”).  I was to fill ten pages of precious Microsoft Word space with an American Poetry topic of my choice.  I proposed to my professor the following: “I would like to study the very different poet Stephen Crane and maybe compare and contrast him to other Literary Giants of the day, like Emerson or Browning.”  My ever-prompt prof quickly wrote back via the wonderful (complicated and ever-bug-filled) WebCT:  “Good, Holly.  Emerson would be a great comparison to Crane.”  I copied down his suggestion in my notes and immediately developed an odd case of schizophrenia-dyslexia as I printed: “Crane v. Browning” at the top of my page.

Eight and a half pages into “TBP” I developed a nagging migraine that left me wishing I hadn’t purchased such a psychedelic rug for the family room as it was triggering a nice vertigo to go with the burning, smacking sensation that was working its way up my neck.  I log in to WebCT and quickly submit my Rough Draft, also known as “I’m embarrassed to have even have typed this load of poetic-based rubbish” and crawl up to bed.  At one in the morning I’m jolted by the following realization:  I did it all wrong!  Yup.  After sending it in is when I realize that Browning is not even an American Poet!   So, I do what any other girl would do in my situation – I commenced a massive freak out.

Earlier this week was when the second instance of my slipping sanity manifested itself for all the world to see.   Harry, my loving hubby and the cleaner-upper of the yard, begged, pleaded and whined until I finally agreed, reluctantly, to go to the shooting range.

Let me pause here to ask one general question:  If you knew your wife’s stress levels were zooming somewhere past the planet-formerly-known-as-Pluto – would you stick a pistol in her grubby paws?  I thought not – but Harry did.

We met another couple at a local gun range and I listened carefully as I was taught the basics of firearm safety.  I fought the urge to let the Lifetime Movie of the Week titles stroll across my mind like a doomed marquee:  “Bang, Bang: A Woman’s Accident in the Woods”;  “The Holly Shivel Story: Itchy Trigger Finger of Death”;  “Why I Wore Lipstick When I Accidentally Shot my Husband’s Big Toe Off.”  I shook my head and tried to pay attention to the life-saving techniques my friend, Mike, was calmly explaining to his wife, Meghan, and me.  He was detailing the trick to “releasing the action” when I felt my mind wander again, and began listing off a carefully mentally bulleted “To-Do List” across my brain.

“Okay – now release the action,” Mike said and looked at me expectantly.  My tiny right hand tried to wiggle up to the little button – but to no avail.  So I put one hand on top the gun and used the other to pop the action – and promptly got my finger stuck in it.  I got my finger stuck in a gun! was all I could think as I began an internal countdown to my next psychotic break.  10, 9, 8… “Okay, now keep your arms loose..” Mike warned as I fired and cringed.  7, 6, 5.. “Okay, Holly, your arms were too tense, the shell got stuck.  Try again…”  4,3,2…  “Nope, still too tense, it’s stuck again…”   One. LIFTOFF!  I insisted that Harry take me home, as a meltdown was imminent.

“Will you call HCA for me?  Book me a penthouse suite, please?”  I beg my husband on the way home as tears streak my face and I search for a napkin in the glove box.  “I’m just too stressed-out…”

“You don’t want to go to HCA, baby…” he said sweetly.  “Besides, I’m sure they don’t have 500 thread count sheets.”

I stared at him and then dried my tears.  “Really?  Oh, right.  Think they’d keep my reservation –just in case?”

But as the semester end looms before me like a bright, shining beacon of hope and as my Poetry professor assures me that my rough draft was just that – rough – but possessed good “bones”, I can feel myself relaxing. I’m sure things are going to be just fine.

Unless they continue to jackhammer the street below my office window.

And then, I can’t be held responsible for my actions:  “The Holly Shivel Story: How I Beat Up Construction Workers Wielding a Knee-High Payless Boot.”

 

Will Work for Catnip Cure

Phoebe's sick.

                                  

Friday night we rushed her to the Kitty ER where they took x-rays and told me that the reason why my beloved feline can't breathe is due to masses of - something - in her lungs.  "Could be pneumonia, could be cancer - we'd have to do more tests to be sure..."

After midnight we picked her back up and took her home where she slept next to the bed in a little, shaky, furry pile.  Shallow breaths rack her little frame as she struggles to sleep.  Food, once her favorite pasttime has now been forgotten. 

I took her to Dr. Tambling, her regular vet who took more x-rays only to annouce "It could be pneumonia, or cancer... we really can't be sure..."   Phoebe slept fitfully in her tiny carrier while Dr. Tambling stressed the importance of squirting 1 ML of an antibiotic into my ever-shrinking kitty's mouth.  "Be careful not to choke her - we don't want anything else foriegn getting into her lungs." 

No pressure, there.  Ugh.

So I have to hold her - upright - while I pry open her tiny mouth with my finger, stick the syringe in and give her the dose in three increments.  All the while praying she doesn't choke on it and hoping, too, that she doesn't take one of my much-needed fingers with her when she flies away from me in fit of furry fury. 

So, please, send happy thoughts (or padded gloves) our way!