Well, There’s Yer Problem Right There

We bought a mini-ranch, and this blog has just gone. to. hell. Hasn’t it?

Sorry, kids, but ranch and work and commute make awesy here not so awesy-ish.  Or something. See, now I’m just rambling.

Where was I? Oh, right, I had not yet begun had I?

Begun what? You ask.

Today’s post, which in retrospect is probably not funny but desperate times and all that…

The hubs is a machinist.

Trust me, it looks like it’s random sitting up there by itself, that statement. But it’s important to the story. Or maybe I’m bragging.

Definitely one of those things.

We have been unpacking and sorting and decorating the ranch for elebenty-hunnert months now, and in one of the guest bedrooms we were missing bedside tables.

Tired of hearing guests curse whenever they went to either turn on a lamp, or lay their phone/keys/wands on the nightstand only to find there were none, we decided to buy some.

Only here’s the thing, we were adamant about re-purposing an old set.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find just the right set of old nightstands that aren’t covered in Scooby-Doo stickers, have things growing in the drawers, are missing a leg, or have been painted over so many times they are collapsing under the weight of the paint?

You know what, never mind. That isn’t even really what this post is about.

Suffice it to say it’s hard to find the right nightstands. Also, we did…after looking for six months under every Flea Market rock in the land (or at least the land we live near), we found two gorgeous tables.  We also scored big on these solid wood babies, because it was approximately the surface-of-the-sun hot that day, and the poor vendor at the flea market booth was literally melting in front of our eyes – no shit, I’m not exaggerating (much) here..he was over six feet tall when we first spotted his tables.  By the time we’d negotiated price, he was only five foot three.  The rest of him was pooling at his feet.

We got them home, and then proceeded to place the set of gorgeous lamps the previous homeowners had left us on the tables.

Except, one of the lamps was missing the whazzit that you use to turn the switch on.  It had the stem part – the part made of machined glass that will cut your fingers to ribbon if you can latch onto it , which you can’t so you have to either unplug the lamp every time you want to turn it off or keep a pair of pliers on the table so your guests don’t require stitches.  But you see, pliers really aren’t in my decorating scheme and unplugging the lamp is just too much work.

In steps the hubs…the machinist who tells me he can make a “knurled knob out of black metalkote”.

Oh. Kay.

The next day he does in fact bring home a knob-thingy.  And it’s black.  And it doesn’t fit.

“Well, I was guessing,” he says, “I thought it was a 256, but it’s gotta be a 440”

“Clearly” I said, haughtily. “You should have asked me. I coulda told you the standard 256 won’t work on these. Ya gotcher non-standard 256, but that’s risky.  Idagone with the 440 from the git-go.” I  said.

“You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you?” He said, smugly…and right-ly.

“Nope.”

And, the next day he brought home the 440 and it fit like a glove.

Of course, I could have told him that if he’d of just asked me in the first place.

Men.

Did You Ever?

Did you ever just have so much going on in your life, some good, some not so good, that you felt like you should build a blanket-fort, get inside with some cookies, milk, and a stack of books and threaten anyone who dared peek in with maiming?

Yeah, me either.

I was just checking.

Heh..heh…

Texts With a 4-yr. Old

One of my granddaughters is 4, and this is what happens when she gets a hold of her Daddy’s cell phone.

First, she figures out how to get to the text message screen, then she figures out how to find me in the Contact list, and then she starts sending me texts.   This kid is brilliant, I tell you, just brilliant.

But, I may be prejudiced.  Below is a screenshot of the actual conversation.

You be the judge.

I don’t know, I think it’s rather poetic.  Don’t you?  Look at how she cleverly inserted an actual word – derided – into the message, and then left me wondering…am I being derided? Did I do something that deserved such an outburst? Or is she simply pondering the condition of man, and his inhumanity to his fellows?  Or is it just ‘Ed’? And who is this Ed person anyway?

The kid is a genius.

 

I DID It!!

I made it through a nearly 2-hr shopping trip, at my favorite grocery store without:

1. Singing very loudly, and off key, in the produce section – or any other section for that matter.
2. Responding to a phone call/text with a blue streak of profanity that looked like I was berating myself

I did dance a little jig when I realized my accomplishments, though. And, no I didn’t do that in the store.  I did that in the parking lot to some wide-berth stares.

But, that doesn’t count, right? Right?

It Probably Won’t Be Long Now…

….before the store management asks me to leave

The conversation will go like this:

ME: *engaged in some utterly inappropriate activity in public, oblivious to my surroundings*

MGR: Ma’am…ma’am…MA’AM!!

ME: Wha…?

MGR: While the staff and I appreciate your level of comfort here, and understand your need to ___________________(insert whatever stupid thing I happen to be doing/saying at the time here) we’d like you to leave.

ME: How soon?

MGR: Yesterday.

Why do I think this will happen?

Remember this?

Well, ever since that happened, every time I see the manager of the store he gives me the side eye and a wide berth.

Yesterday, I was quietly shopping again, headphones on and listening to Kevin Hearne’s “Shattered”.  It’s part of his Iron Druid series, and I totally recommend it…mostly for Oberon, but I digress.

Anyway, I was minding my own fecking business, that’s what I was doing, when I got a text from my son.  The one to whom we are (probably) going to gift the mini-van I inherited from my mother.

He’d had it ONE day after I spent over $500 getting some repairs done to it, and he’d slammed a curb, blowing both passenger-side tires, and bending the rims.

I knew he had the kids with him, so my first concern was them.  They were fine, so I called him…and…well…

ME: ARE YOU SHITTING ME??????????????????????????? WHAT. THE. FUCK????????????????

(I am screaming this into my phone’s headset – it’s one of those bluetooth things that looks like a collar and the buds come off it and go into your ears, but it’s not readily noticeable, so anyone standing nearby might think I’ve suddenly lost my mind and am screaming at the air..or myself.)

SON: *mumbles something about “sorry” and “can’t believe this happened*

ME: WHAT??

SON: The person in front of me slammed on their brakes, so in order to keep from hitting them I had to brake hard and I  rode up on the curb. I was only a mile from my apartment, so I limped it home.

ME: WHY WERE YOU SO CLOSE TO SOMEONE YOU HAD TO DO THAT????????? ESPECIALLY SINCE WE’VE BEEN HAVING ALL THIS RAIN? JEEZUS-CHRIST-ON-A-CRACKER, SON!!!

SON: I know, I know…I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry.

Did I mention I was in the middle of a store?  Did I also mention by “middle” I meant checkout lane?

Ever see someone actually “skitter” away from you?   I did, three employees as a matter of fact, all color draining from their faces.  I didn’t care, then, I was so beyond furious.

ME: I CAN-NOT BELIEVE THIS SHIT!! I JUST SPENT HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS ON THAT THING, AND NOW YOU DO THIS!!!

SON: *soft whimpering*

ME: STOP IT. Everyone is fine, here’s what you do, get me pricing on repairs from Discount Tire, and a turnaround time. We have to get this thing fixed right away.  Call me back.

It was about here that I noticed the store manager and a couple assistants sort of hovering a few feet away, and realized they didn’t know what this crazy woman was up to or might do next.

Well, I didn’t do anything.  I just quietly paid for my groceries, one brave bagger having stepped back into the ring of my fury to bag my stuff, and then I left.

The whole time, though, the manager just stayed there by the register.  He never said a word, but he watched me.

Sigh, I’m just one more outburst away from being banned, aren’t I?

p.s. the repairs are going to cost me another $400

p.p.s. one of the things broken on the van (not by son’s stupidity, it was already broken) is covered under a manufacturer’s recall so yay!

 

 

Did I Tell You About The Time…

….my mother died and then I had a head-on collision a couple of days later?

Yeah, so that happened.

I think y’all have heard me gripe about our frat boy neighbors across the street a time or two, amiright?

Well, one of them got up close and personal with me the day we were traveling to my mother’s funeral a couple of weeks ago.

And I don’t mean that in a good way.  He hit me, head on, on our street as I was taking the critters in for boarding.  They are fine, by the way. Me, not so much, but I digress.

He was turning onto our street at a “T” intersection, and I was coming up to the intersection to turn off the street.  When he turned, he cut the corner really sharp and accelerated – as you do, when you’re 19 and too cool for school – when he looked up, and remembered this isn’t England a millisecond before his Beemer hit my Impala smack in the nose.  One inch to the right and my airbags would have deployed, likely totaling my car, but the gods of mechanical shit were with me and instead of totaled, the car sustained about $5K in damage.  He bent the frame when his little car went under mine or else it wouldn’t have been so much.

Amazing what an impact at 20 mph will do to a car and the bodies inside.

So, after he hits me I just sat there staring at him through the windshield and after a minute this big boy, covered in tattoos, gets out of his car..and he’s crying.

Crying.  There’s no crying in car crashes. But there he was, crying like a baby about having just had a crash “and it’s my fault” he kept saying.

Damn right it was, and I was pissed…and this is what happened next as I sat in the driver seat dialing 9-1-1 as he approached me.

ME: What the fuck? HOW did YOU  not see ME??

CRYBABY: I don’t know. I just….*sobs*

ME: Stop being a pussy, will you?  Are you hurt?

CRYBABY: *hic* No.

ME: Well, I am..my chest hurts and I’ve got the cops and fire department coming.

CRYBABY: *wails*

ME: Geez…you live across the street from me, right?

CRYBABY: *sniffle* Yes

ME: First, why the fuck do you think I want to hear your music all hours of the day and night?? TURN THAT SHIT DOWN!!

CRYBABY: *sniff* Okay.

ME: And that has nothing to do with this. I just saw an opportunity. Now, the police are coming, everyone’s fine, you just stay where you are.

*an aside, I’ve had dipshits try to run on me before – this is accident #7 and twice that’s happened*

CRYBABY: I’m not fucking going anywhere.

ME: Don’t you talk to me that way, young man!

CRYBABY: (stares at the profane old lady in the car)

So, the police and hunky firemen came (seriously, why are all firemen so damned cute?) and checked me out.  My chest was bruised, and I had a goose egg on my knee from hitting the dash.

I rode to my mother’s house with an ice pack strapped to my knee.  And every breath hurt.

I thought I was fine.

I’m cute when I’m in denial.

Last weekend, two weeks after this incident, I noticed a GIANT lump in my chest.  Looks like I’m growing a third tit, and it hurts a whole helluva lot.

What. The. Fuck.

My doctor took x-rays and said I fractured the xiphoid bone, and have a large hematoma (third tit) in my chest.

No worries, none of that is as bad as it sounds. It’ll heal on its own and the hematoma isn’t in a vein or anything.  It’s on the bone and surrounding cartilage.  It’ll just take time. Time and ice.  Really, ice seems to help a lot. But, I can’t go around with an ice pack in my bra at work.  Stupid social rules and shit like “propriety” get in the way.

Since the day of the crash, I’ve been trying to get Crybaby’s insurance to accept liability.  First, they had no copy of the police report.  Then, no copy of the report AND Crybaby was not responding to calls or letters. Then Crybaby said it was MY fault, and they were investigating.

THEN, this morning I went all bitcharoni on their asses in a pain-induced fit of rage. Lo and behold, they have their reports, they got his statement, and they are 100% sure they are accepting liability.

Hallelujah, holy shit, where’s the Tylenol?

 

Is Your Life Too Hard?

Well? Is it?

Is it YOUR fault?

Tim Hoch, at Thought Catalog, thinks it just might be.

And, in many ways he’s right.

What say you?

What Fresh Hell is This?

I may have mentioned a time or elebenty hunnert that I live with an enormous amount of daily physical pain.

I’m beginning to think I may actually be a reincarnation of the goddess Odyne. Which reminds me, why can’t I be like Athena or even Artemis?  I’d like to be able to say I possess badassery or indescribable beauty because I’m a descendant of the goddesses of both, but nooooooooooooooo I have to be Odyne, the goddess of pain.  Oh well, at least I’m a goddess, even if I don’t rate more than a mere mention in mythology and lack a Wiki page of my own.

Is there a goddess of sleight?  Because I’m pretty sure Odyne has a valid grievance here, and I’d like to talk to someone about that.

And, I have gotten waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off track.

See, that’s what pain will do to your brain.

So, the sources of my pain are numerous and boring – eight ruptured discs, spinal stenosis, fibromyalgia, arthritis, blah, blah, blah…

Most of the time a liberal application of heat, and the liberal downing of pain medications I take, keep me upright, mobile, and not feeling all stabbity to the world.

This week, though, it’s been different.  And by “different” I don’t mean ‘oh joy and happiness, I don’t feel like I’ve been run over by a truck!’  I mean it’s been ‘holyfeckballsoffirebreathingdragons, what.the.feck. is going on?’

My sciatic nerve, heretofore a quiet little dude that I gave nary a thought to, is pissed.

Royally, royally, pissed.

He’s decided to show me how pissed he is by setting my right leg on fire, while simultaneously stabbing me from ass to heel with a hot poker.

This is going on all. the. time.

It’s actually a breathtaking kind of pain.  As in, I gasp with each wave of pain, am nauseated most of the time from it, and cannot focus on what anyone is saying to me until the wave subsides and I wait anxiously for the next.

Even upping the pain meds is not dulling it much.  And they are strong motherfeckers, let me tell you.   Sciatic-Bob (yes, I named him) is stronger.

I know the inflammation will pass, and I really wish I could take anti-inflammatories but they make me pukey, I just wish it would pass sooner rather than later.

This gettin’ old shit? Ain’t for wimps.

And Uh-One, And Uh-Two…

I love music.

No, I mean I really, really love music.

I have two genres that are tops on my list.

#1 – Blues and Swing; from Billie Holiday to Voodoo Daddy

#2 – Celtic; from the Celtic Women to..well, everyone else, it’s not a large pool here in the States

Numbers three through elebenty-hunnert include gospel, classic rock, Rat Pack, and country.

The other day, as I was shopping, I was listening to Pandora radio on my headset.  I have one station called “Thumbprint”.  It’s fairly new (to me), but I’m sure you kids have seen it.  It takes music you’ve “thumbed up” and lumps it all together in one station.

(An aside, you young’uns don’t remember but back in the day radio stations were mostly AM and most of them played a wide variety of music.  It wasn’t until electricity came along, and FM was born, that specific stations with specific music were created.)

I was getting my groceries to the crooning voices of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, and tapping my feet to the huge sounds of Voodoo Daddy and Brian Setzer.

I was in the produce aisle when a beautiful hymn called “Down To The River to Pray”, sung by the incomparable Alison Krauss, came on and I stopped and closed my eyes for a second.

Then I started to sing.

You know how when you have headphones on you think you’re being really quiet when, in fact, you’re being exceedingly loud and everyone around you notices only you don’t because you’re so caught up in the moment and sure at any second someone from a major label is going to spring up from the fruit display and offer you a million dollar contract on the spot because you’re the most amazing singer since singing was invented and angels weep every time you use those pipes?

Well, let me tell you, it’s every bit as interesting as finding out you left the house without pants again.  Except with fewer recording contracts.

Totally busted while belting out a song in the middle of the produce aisle?  Can check that one off my bucket list.

 

More

…about moi…

*clears throat, considers what to put out there on the Internets, decides she’s way too boring/paranoid to say anything other than what’s already here*

Ahem…

Uh….yeah…

Well, that got awkward in a hurry.

Sorry.

Here’s a picture of a cute puppy to make up for it.

You’re welcome.