Is That a New Earring or Were You Tagged?

I got tagged by Ian for the "6 weird things about me." I pretty much thought this whole blog was weird things about me. I'll try to come up with 6 weird things:

1. I automatically don't like guys that look very northern European: meaning very pale skin, very light colored eyes and blonde hair. I have no reason for this. I probably should not go to Minnesota.
2. I've only been friends with one female in my whole life who dyes her hair blonde. I only accepted it because she had turned fully gray in her 20's. I just can't be friends with bleached blondes. I don't get it.
3. I have more fun (and am more comfortable) with strangers than I do with people I know.
4. I wash my hands probably twice as much when making a batch of deviled eggs for non-relatives.
5. I think people who have different political beliefs than I do are "just stupid."
6. I've broken the same bone twice - with TWO DIFFERENT bones. (Maybe I'm "just stupid")

These are the rules according to Ian:

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with 6 weird things about him/herself. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things, as well as state this rule clearly for the next tagged people. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged, and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment on their blog that says, "You are tagged," and "tell them to read your blog."

Well, since three of the people I would have tagged (le nightowl, tai and djn) were also tagged by Ian and I think Josie and Jeanette just did this recently, I'll just tag Gary, Lone Grey Squirrel and Jr's Thumbprints.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

I kinda glossed over the Wednesday night of January 3rd in my January 5th post, but something funny/annoying happened. What happened was, my daughter, who knew better, accidentally left the guest bathroom door opened. Rufus, our crazy cat, took that opportunity to roll an entire roll of toilet paper into the toilet. I DID mention that we had spent most of the evening at a bar so we were a little slow. When I discovered the toilet paper mess, I yelled for Kate and told her, "Look what you did!" We both stood there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do. Finally I said, "Okay, we can't flush that much toilet paper. I'll get you some latex gloves. You can pull it out and put it into some double-bagged Target bags and I'll take it outside." So that's what we did.

I have a friend I'll call "Z." We do not spend a lot of time together as she has a young active family and works full time. And she doesn't drink - which is my full-time hobby. She lives on the other side of the metroplex, but we do spend a lot of time on the phone because of her insomnia (and I'm always up at night). Z called Monday night to tell me she had a conference on Tuesday on this side of town and would have a 1 and 1/2 hour break for lunch. She asked if I would be up (as in awake) for her to come over and hang out. I told her to call me when she was free and ready to come over. I got up and we were having a good ole visit when I noticed the bathroom door was open. I ran in and caught Rufus red-handed (black-pawed?) perched on the toilet and rolling the toilet paper into the toilet. I said, "Oh, Z, you left the bathroom door open!"

Z came into the bathroom and saw the reason for my distress. She immediately said, "Well give me some gloves and a grocery sack and I'll fish that out." I was VERY impressed and told her that's exactly what we did when my daughter left the door open. (I should have told her that she came up with the idea much faster than I did. But she doesn't drink so it makes sense.) Anyway, she took care of it, we laughed about it and a little bit later it was time for her to leave. About 20 minutes later she called and asked if her wedding ring had been left on my bathroom counter. I looked, told her, "Yes," and she said she would be by some time this week to retrieve her ring.

Today (Saturday) Z called. She said, "I'm on my way over. Don't be surprised if (my husband) calls. He doesn't believe my story." I was all ??????? Apparently, he didn't buy the cat/toilet paper story and thought . . . Hell, who knows what he thought (or thinks) but he thought she was lying. I'm still flabbergasted, shocked, surprised, flummoxed and just generally confused about the whole thing. He thought she was lying? WTF! YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!!

Knee Update and Squirrel Story

My knee is healing slowly. Very slowly. I called Meals on Wheels on Monday to tell them I would need a sub for Wednesday. I realized that I had not been out since Wednesday the 10th and was getting cabin fever. Yes, me, the anxiety disorder/borderline agoraphobic actually wanted to go out. So Tuesday night we met my daughter at Razzoo's. I did not want to leave once I got there. I stretched it out as long as possible, but we finally left after my third beer. The hardest part was trying to get my right leg in the car. It would have been a lot easier if we had been in England and the passenger side was over there (on that side of the car, not in England.) I finally was able to kind of almost stand up in the car and swing my leg in. It was actually funny.

The part I dislike the most is I can't quite lift my leg as high as I would like in the shower to wash my right foot. (Oh a funny little thing happened in the shower today. Duke was playing at 6:00 and I got in the shower around 5:30. The first time I looked at the clock it was 20 'til, so I was taking my time. The next time I checked the clock, it was 20 'til. So I looked at the clock a little closer and it was 20 'til 2:00 and the second hand was not moving. I just thought it was goofy that I hadn't even noticed the little hand.) Anyway, it's frustrating that I can't really reach my right foot very well. I was telling My Sweetie how I feel like I'm walking around with one dirty foot. He said, "Maybe we should get you a shower monkey." Then I was picturing a little monkey washing my foot in the shower. And maybe washing my hair and scrubbing my back. Which is a pretty funny picture but in reality I am afraid of monkeys. Which leads me to. . .

Why I'm afraid of squirrels: It was the spring of 1981. I was still recuperating from my car accident. I was seeing a physical therapist for my arm but my broken leg and pelvis had pretty much healed. It was a very nice day and I decided to get some sun. I took a blanket out to the little greenbelt between my Dad's apartment and the woods. I had been out for a while when I started hearing a lot of noise off to my right. I looked over just as a cute little baby squirrel came bounding out of the woods. It was quite a way down on the greenbelt. In that sing-song voice that one is wont to do with animals, I called, "Hey little squirrel, hey little squirrel!" Well that little squirrel stopped and turned torwards me then started bounding toward me at full speed! It was so unexpected, it freaked me out and I jumped up and ran into the apartment, pulling the sliding screen door shut behind me. The little fence around the back patio was about 5 inches off the ground. That squirrel popped under the fence and climbed right up the screen door to my eye level! He just clung there chittering away. Say what you want about being afraid of squirrels but I KNEW this was NOT normal squirrel behavior. He stayed up there for some time. I was yelling, "Get down! Go away!" Finally I just closed the glass door and the curtain. I waited about 2 hours to retrieve my blanket and suntan lotion. And I never sunned out there again.


Meals on Wheels called me this afternoon and wants me to train another person. I felt like such a big girl!

Stupid Phrases and Size Does Matter

I can't think of the name of the online dating service - it's not match.com - but I remember when their commercials first aired. They claimed they had some comprehensive questionnaire with like a billion questions to help people find their perfect mate. I remember one of the "questions" floating by. It wasn't a question but a statement that I suppose the respondent would rate on a scale. The statement was "I find humor in everything." If the scale was 1 (least) and 10 (most), who on earth would click the 10? What a stupid "question!" I sincerely hopes no one finds humor in war, famine and disease. It should have been: "I try to find the humor in most situations" or something like that.

Another one that bothers me is "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Well that's not true. Let's say I'm in a room with a bunch of astrophysicists and they are trying to figure out how to land a craft on Enceladus (an active moon of Saturn). I obviously would not be part of the solution, but in no way shape or form could I be considered part of the problem.

Very close to that one is "Either you're with us or you're against us." Not true. Maybe I just don't care. An example here would be: There is a town that is 1000 miles away. An alligator is found in a pond. Half the town wants it killed, the other half wants it to live. I wouldn't be with or against either faction. I really wouldn't care.

Size Matters: I have a severe freakatude about spiders. If I see a large spider I will actually speak in tongues and do odd dances (convulsions). I saw a spider tonight and I actually felt my brain do some sort of calculation and decide that THAT spider was too small to freak out about. I have absolutely no idea what the criteria is for spider size. I guess some strange part of my brain decides on its own. If a spider is REALLY tiny, I will actually mash it with my finger, but I can't even be in the same room with a large spider. I wonder how that works?

Smells Like . . .

Except on Meals on Wheels Wednesdays, I usually start my day around noon and stay up until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. I also drink a lot of beer all day. I don't ALWAYS remember things I do at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. I got an e-mail the other day from a large big city newspaper asking my permission to publish my letter in their letters column. I had to go to my sent folder to figure out what the hell they were talking about. I can't say anything about it because I think they are going to use my real name.

A couple of weeks ago, again in the middle of the night, I got the great idea to send a suggestion to the S.C. Johnson company. About a week later I got a four page legal packet in the mail that contained

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

(yes it was in 36 pt. red all-caps boldface type) telling me how to legally submit my idea, along with a release form. I laughed and laughed. This line killed me:

Only those ideas with a patent or patent pending

application will be considered.

I don't have a copy of my "original idea" because I just filled in a box on their website, but I'm pretty sure it's not something you can patent. It was this:

Why don't you guys make a spray that smells like cedar?

That would be nice.

I Want My Smooth Back

Before I can finish my San Diego story or tell about my injured knee I have to explain something else. 2007, all 16 days of it, has been kinda sucky. Initially I had a hard time trying to figure out exactly what was going on, then once I figured it out, I had a hard time trying to convert it from an abstract concept to something I could put into words. I'll try to explain it. The expression I came up with is "I've lost my smooth."

Although I have my fair share of goofy moments (which have been well chronicled here), I'm a pretty capable person. Most of my life I've been several steps ahead of the game, imagining every possible outcome of any action, and planning accordingly. Also, when confronted with the unexpected, I'm quick on my feet. Lately I've been WAY off kilter. And particularly unsmooth.

We woke up in our lovely room, on Sunday, the 7th looking forward to our ferry trip to Coronado Island. My right foot was bothering me, particularly my little toe. Being the self-diagnostic type regarding anything about my body, I decided the problem was that my toenail was too long. Obviously clipping it would solve everything. And being the person that I am, I of course had nail clippers. I clipped that silly nail and decided everything would be fine after that. Shortly after lunch, as we were walking south on 5th avenue, I realized my problem was not solved. Still we continued to walk around stopping only once or twice for me to quaff some beers. We knew the ferry left on the hour and kept slightly missing our window of opportunity to head to the Broadway pier. Finally the timing seemed about right and we caught a cab for the pier. I was so happy knowing I would be sitting for 15 minutes. The day was gorgeous. I loved sitting on the ferry and looking at the water. I even had my little binoculars. For 15 minutes I forgot about my achy little toe.

We disembarked at a cheesy little tourist trap place. I was not impressed with the place although I found a surf shop with decently priced t-shirts and we found a little cafe where we had drinks on the deck and split a steamed artichoke. At the indoor bar, we asked if there were cabs for the grabbing to go to the hotel Del. The bartender said he could call for one and one of the patrons suggested we rent bikes to go there as it was only about a mile. My toe was KILLING me so that was not an option. We should have taken the bartender up on his offer, but we headed out and walked out to the public streets. Nothing. We did finally notice a shuttle stand. A shuttle to the Hotel Del even. So we sat there for 20 minutes to wait. Once we were finally on the shuttle, as I pondered my screaming toe ache, I realized I could have bought some flip-flops at the touristy place. The NORMAL me would have thought of that AT THE TIME, but not the new unsmooth me. So then I not only had a sore toe but was frustrated with myself. I continued down my path of unsmoothness. We walked through the shops at the Hotel Del. No flip-flops, just $145 moccasins and tennis shoes. No thanks. THEN I walked right past a bathroom - and yes I noticed it at the time. Since when do I not stop at a bathroom? I drink beer all day for crying out loud! Unsmooth. We ended up at the cabana bar out by the beach. Everything was gorgeous, the bartender was very nice, but I had to pee. And there was no way I was going to walk all the way back to that bathroom. I took my shoe off and the bartender gave me some ice. I iced my toe and had 2 or 3 beers.

The way to look for the bunnies was in the opposite direction of the bathroom, but I wanted to find the bunnies so we headed off that way. They are no longer there. I found the place where they used to be, but no bunnies. I hate to think of what happened to them. I'm sure they didn't just LEAVE - I mean it's an island, where would they have gone? Let's not think about the bunnies anymore.

We made it back to the main part of the hotel, found the bathroom and My Sweetie said, "Okay, let's just get a cab back to our hotel." Best plan ever! When we got back to our room, I took those shoes off and may never wear them again. Now is a time to mention that since it was such a short trip, I only took the one pair of shoes, but I did have my L.L. Bean moccasin slippers. Yes, my house shoes, or in this case, my smoking shoes. Our hotel was non-smoking except on the roof, so I had brought those to wear up to the roof in the mornings and late at night. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I decided to wear my slippers for the rest of the trip. If you want to feel weird, sit in a fancy restaurant in the Gaslamp District of San Diego in your slippers. Wearing them to the airport the next day was awesome though, and I may fly in them from now on.

At the airport, we pretty much had the bar to ourselves. I made up a game where we did a pictionary type thing of movie titles. It was pretty funny. And the plane! I think there were maybe 15-20 people on the whole MD-80. I haven't been on an empty plane in years! That part was NICE. I forgot to mention that I was full-blown sick at this point so I pretty much slept the whole way home. I didn't even have a beer, just orange juice - and if you knew me you would know that meant I was really sick.

On Tuesday, I was so sick I forgot to call Meals on Wheels and tell them, so I had to buck up and go out on Wednesday. Friday night brought the beginning of our arctic blast. It was basically a stay-in-the-house weekend. On Sunday night, My Sweetie bundled up to "go out and check conditions." He said, "There's no ice on the road." I heard, "There's no ice on the ground." Our power had been going out for about 5 minutes at a time. When it came back on the air blower for our spa would come on. We don't use it and it's very shrill so he had turned it off. Well, after he went to bed, the power went out again for about 9 minutes. It came back and shrill air blower was screeching away. I decided to go out and push that little button by the spa. "No ice on the road" does NOT mean "No ice on the deck." I know that NOW. My left foot went up on the deck, I mean sheet of ice, and every part of my body flew left except my right foot from the knee down. It all happened pretty fast but it was bad. Then I went straight down on my butt and burst into tears from the knee pain. I hobbled back into the house blubbering away, woke up My Sweetie, freaking him out. He cut the power to the spa and helped me settle down with an ice pack and a small ice chest of beers. The next day he bought me an Ace knee brace, and it is doing better - my knee I mean. Slipping on ice - not smooth.

I want my smooth back.

Two Words at a Time

Icy Weekend

Nice Fires

Weird Movies

Power Outages

Icy Deck

Injured Knee

Enough Said

More Later

San Diego Started Out Well. . .

For all of you "airplane cold" conspiracy theorists out there (you know who you are, and if you don't, just read the comments from the last post) I did NOT get my cold from the plane. Both my daughter and my husband were sick the week before I left, but being the psychotic, oh wait, psychic doctors that we are, we decide ourselves whether we have colds or allergies. Of course, both Kate AND My Sweetie diagnosed themselves with allergies. Yeah, I'm gonna say no. I remember as Kate was driving me to the airport on Saturday morning I said, "I have the weirdest sinus ache. It's just on the right side in like a 3 point triangle between my two eye points and the bottom of my nose." I decided to ignore it because I'm good at that type of thing. I got to the airport and breezed right through check-in and security. I found a Friday's near my gate and parked myself. I was more concerned with their TV just above me because Duke would be playing their first conference game at 11:00 and I knew I had time to watch the whole first half. Sure enough, the TV was tuned to ESPN. It was all good at that point.

I ordered a giant beer and started watching the game. I doubt any of my readers watched this game, but take my word for it: if you were a Duke fan you would have HATED this game! At home I cuss a lot when I watch Duke play, but I was sitting in a public place so I had to be aware of my "reactions." And believe me, I was having A LOT of reactions. I kept consoling myself with my usual mantra of "we will fix all of this in the second half," but it was hard to leave at halftime. I was on the starboard side of the plane in an aisle seat next to two broads who seemed to know each other but weren't really friends. They were kind of amusing. Also we had the emergency exit and I knew they could handle the heavy lifting in case of emergency while I would direct people and tell them to shut up, I mean calm down. On the port side next to me (with just the two seats) was a guy with a laptop that he had placed on the window seat table. He watched every single part of one of the Zorro dvd's. I couldn't even hear it and I grew tired of the "behind the scenes" stuff.

I didn't stop in the San Diego airport for a beer because, quite frankly, I did not need another one at this point, plus I was far more interested in getting outside for a smoke. It was fun going down the escalator and seeing the handsome young man holding a card with my name on it. I told him I was going out to smoke and he came with me. I thought that was cute. We went back inside and I pointed out my bag and he grabbed it. He was very nice and pretty much kept up with my incessant chatter. He told me that after he dropped me off he would be going to get My Sweetie from Torrey Pines. I said, "Tell him I'll be sitting right there." I was pointing at the bar diagonal to my hotel.

I got to the hotel almost two hours before check-in and was going to check my bags, but the clerk said the room was ready. That was great! I got to redistribute my stuff so I'd only have my tiny purse, AND brush my teeth. Oh yeah, the room. First of all, he said it was on the 7th floor. I was kinda disappointed. Then I walked into the room and was confused. It was a good sized room, but there was no bed, just two small couches facing each other. I walked to the end of the room and there was A DOOR! We had a separate bedroom! It was awesome. AND it was a corner room so we had windows EVERYWHERE! And there was a giant window seat cushion in the bedroom window. It was really nice. NOW it was time for a beer. I went down to that bar - the Gaslamp Tavern - and people were cheering and yelling at (for?) the football playoffs. I immediately asked some sports savvy looking guys if they knew how the Duke game ended. Yeah, not good. I was sitting next to two sisters from L.A. and we chatted it up until My Sweetie showed up.

We eventually went back to the room, got the camera, jackets and whatnot and headed out for the night. We bar hopped, had a great dinner, bar hopped some more, sang and danced in the street (HE said I did) and then headed back to the room. We were going to watch "Buffy" but we both crashed on our couches. I woke up after midnight my time (yes only 10:00 in California!) brushed my teeth and went to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up with terrible foot pain, but I was too tired to get up for Advil. That was a portent for the rest of the trip . . .


(And thank you all so very much for the "Get Well" wishes!)

Sick Sucks

I woke up in San Diego Sunday night with a horrible full-blown head cold. I made the mistake of doing my Meals on Wheels today, when I should have been home sleeping. I feel horrible. I will post the fun stuff when I am well.
:(

I'm Off!

I guess most people were getting back to their normal routines this week after the holidays, but not me. I guess I'll start next week. My Sweetie left for California Wednesday morning. After Meals on Wheels, I had lunch at Bennigan's, ran by Marshall's for some cute tops for my trip, hit the grocery store and came home. About 5 minutes later my daughter showed up and Wednesday night was one long party. We had a really good time at a new neighborhood bar. After we got home I showed her some youtube stuff and we started to watch my new "Buffy," but we both crashed. I woke up in my recliner at 6:00 a.m. and had to brush my teeth for about twenty minutes. Kate had Thursday off and stayed all day. We watched Phantom of the Opera around 2:00 and then spent the next two hours singing things like, "I'm going to get another beer now." and "What shall we order for dinner?" I did get a few chores done. Kate left late Thursday night. I spent today packing and organizing for my trip (like cleaning the humidifiers and watering the plants). Around 3:00 today, I was trying to print stuff for the trip and kept getting blank pages. I was getting very frustrated. I kept looking over every option for my printer, kept changing settings, yet kept getting blank pages. Finally I did the nozzle check thing and after the page printed out and I compared it to the screen I noticed 2 things: My nozzles are printing perfectly and I HAD NO BLACK INK. What happened was, when I replaced those cartridges recently, I put in one called "photo" and one called "color." I'm guessing one of them should have said "BLACK." So I ended up printing the scoring rules for gin rummy, Gaslamp District entertainment info, and MY PLANE TICKET in either red or green. It's all very festive. I'm not even sure which cartridge I should change to black, but I guess I'll just deal with that later. I have to leave for the airport in 8 hours, so I guess I should try to get some sleep. I hope I have fun. Fun is a good thing to have!

San Diego, I Hear Ya Calling

This is a picture of a room at the Gaslamp Plaza Suites - from their website - and I would swear it's the exact room we stayed in last year. Seriously, if I had leaned my butt on the minifridge, I could have taken that exact picture. I have a feeling we will be in the same room on Saturday. It's not a giant hotel and has several floor plans, but we've been guaranteed a top floor room facing south and I don't think there are that many up there -and some of them are privately owned. Anyway, I was looking at their floor plans here: http://www.gaslampplaza.com/floorplan.html and I sure hope we don't get a room with the bottom left floor plan because I won't be able to figure out how to get into the bathroom.

Last year we pretty much took it easy because of my healing broken foot. It's all here. This year I want to take the ferry to Coronado Island. The ferry dock (is that correct? ferry dock? It sounds like a character from Lord of The Rings) is only one mile from our hotel. I haven't been to the Hotel Del in over 12 years. I don't even remember what year I went. What I mostly remember was The Hotel Del Coronado had a bunny problem. There were bunnies everywhere. You had to "help" them out of the hotel sometimes. I love bunnies. I hope they are all still there.

So far, the long term weather predictions for San Diego are 66 - 70 degrees/day and 46 - 50 degrees/night. That sounds good to me. I'm looking forward to splashing through the bay on the ferry on a fine sunny 68* day on my way to see some bunnies. That's my plan for this Sunday. I would have added more but I was dizzy from stringing all those prepositional phrases together. And now I'm going to visit my own bathroom, because I know where the door is.