I hugged my dogs today

I hugged my dogs today. With everything in me, I hugged them and told them how much I love them. I let them jump on me and get me dirty. I love my dogs. Every now and then I encounter a situation that reminds me I don't do that nearly often enough.

After a few days of being sick, I decided that it was time for me to get out of the box and get real food cooked, so I got my shower and pulled my hair back and realized I couldn't have timed being sick better because my forehead has been peeling from the burn I got at cruefest. In short, I look like an experiment gone bad in some mad scientists lab. So, I cut more bangs. Yay me! :(

Once I felt I wasn't going to scare anyone, I ventured out to the grocery store. Most of the trip was uneventful and went more or less how you'd expect a trip to the store to go. Then I got to the refrigerated aisle. Apparently it's going to snow here ya'll...everyone was buying eggs and milk. (I did notice bread and toilet paper in a few carts too) You might wonder why I took so much interest in other peoples carts? That's easy...as luck would have it, I was following a mother with her two children, approximately 3 and 5 years of age and they were following a woman who must have been 70 years of age who was shopping at a snails pace. I was getting frustrated...for God's sake, I only wanted white chocolate raspberry yogurt...I could see the mother in front of me getting frustrated, and apparently her children were getting frustrated. However, where that mother and I kept our frustration inside (Lord knows I hope people are patient with me when I start moving slower) her children had other plans. It was a moment that should have been proceeded by that whistling old west movie type music that is played right before a gun fight or a death scene; her older son suddenly starts yelling at the top of his lungs “BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP MOVE YOUR BIG BUTT”. Everybody in the aisle froze, except me...the self conscious part of me couldn't help but to check behind me to make sure some kid wasn't yelling at MY big butt...and this poor mother who clamped her hands over her childs mouth and actually ducked as if to say you can't see me, you can't see me. She finally composed herself, and sounding even more mortified than she looked (which I wouldn't have thought possible) apologized profusely to the woman who took it with a grain of salt. When time started again, other shoppers parted like the Red Sea to allow the woman quick escape.

Mercy, I love children, and couldn't imagine life without my niece anymore, but it's moments like that that make me realize I might just love them best when I can give them back. haha

Stranded

Recently I've had a string of bad luck with my car. Considering the fact that I drive for a living, that's a big blaring red mark in the lose column.

The day I'm writing about now was the second incident in this string of senseless attacks from the dark face in the universe that we all pretend isn't out to get us.

I had just finished up at one of my New Jersey stores and was on the way to another. I don't go this route often, so when my car started bouncing I thought I'd hit another rough patch...your basic New Jersey road. After a couple of miles I thought that this seemed to be going on just a little too long and decided to pull off to the side of the road to see if something was wrong with my car. I didn't have to do much more than open my door for the answer as the horrible stench from a burning tire nearly knocked me on my bum. I walked around my car and discovered a lump of rubber that may have once been a tire, but given it's condition I still have questions. I was stunned. I had no clue I had a flat. Not one. Until this car, it was always obvious when I had a flat – the car would shake, the tire would make that fwop, fwop, fwop sound that as sure as a gunshot announces your good mood is coming to a dreadful end, and the steering wheel would inevitably start pulling to the side with the flat, especially when it was a front end flat. In this car, it didn't feel much different than driving over rumble strips. (This may mean that I have to take every terrible thing back I've ever said or thought about those “idiots” who've ruined tires because they claimed to not know they were driving on a flat. I haven't made up my mind on that yet...I'm still positive given what I see people do on the road that at least a percentage of them truly are idiots and don't deserve to be behind the wheel of a car...possibly under one, definitely not behind one though.

As luck would have it, there I sat at the side of a NJ highway, with my handy dandy expired AAA card. (To which I will add, when I am down and out, and feeling all kinds of lonely, I need only to think back to days like this to remind me that I am never alone...Murphy will never leave my side...that stupid card had only expired two weeks prior.) Left with no idea what do to, or for that matter where I was really, I called the manager of the store I just left not quite sure what he could do for me, but I imagined him donning his Superman cape and using his super powers to either mold a new tire from the blob of rubber laying under my wheels or use his super strength to fly me and my car home. I settled for a phone number for a tow place and his advice to call AAA to see it they'd renew my membership and get me a tow. Sadly, he adamantly refused to don the cape. Although his super advice to call AAA worked wonders. They renewed my membership and got me a tow—which incredibly I only waited 25 minutes for.

Once the driver got me hooked up and we were on the way to the tire place, I felt comfortable enough to get all kinds of chatty and probably cursed more than a proper lady should. I've not often been mistaken for a proper lady, so why put on a show for a tow truck driver, right? (On a completely different note here, last weekend I was told by a former coworker that he didn't know what to make of me when we first met, that I maybe came off as a bit straight laced, he's learned otherwise since then. Haha)

Once we got my vehicle to the tire place, I figured I was going to be ripped off three ways from Sunday, so I was already preparing myself to take a second mortgage on the house to get a new tire, and initially I wasn't disappointed; the guy quoted me $160 for the tire. Granted, when I bought my tires I spent $100 on them but they were rated for 60,000 miles, I don't imagine this one was. I offered up my firstborn as payment. Shortly after, the tow guy came back in and told him he gave him the wrong tire size, the price quoter called whoever he was calling again and then told me the tire would only be $130 which was marginally better at least.

I don't know what came over me in there, normally when I find myself in a spot like this I get rather cranky and start cursing on the inside. This day though, I decided to give every human that crossed my path a hard time which turned out to be rather amusing with the group of guys in this place. During this time, one of the mechanics came in and took a phone call that seemed to be an unpleasant experience for him as he dropped the 'f' bomb a number of times. Finally, the guy who quoted me the price (who I will now call Jim for the sake of brevity) looked at him and said, “language, there's a lady here”. To which Tow Guy responded, “hey, she said 'shit' in my truck twice!” Of course, I responded by calling him a tattletale and adding in a weepy voice that I was a scared, lonely, stranded woman stuck on the side of the road in a town I don't know, and that if I felt the need to curse to relieve anxiety then he should support me. I then turned on 'Jim' and said in the same voice, and you! I am a scared, lonely, stranded woman, who sat terrified at the side of the road for someone to save me...shouldn't you at least offer a pathetic woman discount? To emphasize my point I dropped my purse onto the counter as if I carried the weight of the world in there.

In a weird twist I never saw coming, 'Jim' looked at me and said, “Woman, that is a Nine West purse, how much did you spend on that?” (You tell me, do YOU expect a man with grease up to his elbows to be able to identify a Nine West purse?!?!) I was proud to announce I got it for $15 on clearance at Ross, because what woman isn't proud of a great discount?!?! He responded by asking me how much I thought he spent for his shirt, I was clueless so he told me it was free, he spent zero money on it. I was all too happy to tell him if it would get me a discount that I'd be happy to give him my shirt, even though the neckline might not do him justice.

He hemmed and he hawed, asked how I was paying, and I told him if cash helped, I had twenty three dollars in my pocket and at least $7 or $8 in change in the bottom of my purse. He looked at me cross eyed, so I said I guess that means I'm paying by Visa. He finally shrugged and knocked $50 off the tire. I wasn't sure if I should have fainted or peed myself right then because I never imagined he'd actually give me a discount, I was just having fun giving them a hard time.

Never underestimate the power of an offer to remove clothing, even if you don't really have to; sometimes, the thought might just be enough. Happy bargaining!

The Joy of Genes

In every family it never fails that a child will pick up a habit or carry a trait that everyone notices right away. She got his eyes, her demeanor, Uncle Stan's weird grin, or grandpas knack for cooking. Every now and then a child may pick up a very disturbing habit that might make his or her family ask, “where did we go wrong?” Take for instance Piero Manzoni--(his real name is Count Holy Too Much Name To Spell Batman; considering his name is led by Count, I imagine he had a noble upbringing) this man is known as the grandfather of shit art. Yep, that's right ya'll...poop. I imagine his parents, leading their prestigious lives must have been quite thrilled when they realized their boy was following in the footsteps such names as Monet, Michelangelo, or Rembrandt and were tickled to share his work with their other noble friends. Until one day it went horribly wrong and they were mortified to see their artist son collect some 90 cans of poo to use in the form of art. I've no doubt that if they were still alive at the time, they argued at great length about who's side of the family that came from. Honestly, who wants to admit something like that came from their side? “Ohh, yes...I remember Cousin Bubba collecting his snot balls...that's probably where he gets this.” Unlikely.

(Thank all that is holy that is now out of the way, I've been dying to use poop art guy in some writing and really, how often does that fit into a conversation or a story any normal person would write? It was just one of those weird things I picked up somewhere along the way that stayed with me. I've got a bunch of them people, all waiting to be thrown into some odd sequence of words; the knack for storing useless information comes from my dad if anyone is wondering. I also got my colorful potty mouth from my dad. Family influence isn't always a pretty thing.)

Sometimes, I think a gene gets confused and throws us all a curve ball.

Other times, things tend to stay right on course...in some cases that is a wonderful thing. In others, well, wonderful wouldn't be the word to use. Poo guy could have come by his disgusting flair as a result of a confused gene or Uncle Bubba. The story that follows, well, it shows my side of 'coming by it honestly'.

Those of you who have spent any time at all with me are quite aware that grace and agility are words that a person will never use to describe me. Clumsy, klutzy, and “OH MY GOD SHE FELL AGAIN”, yes...grace...not in this lifetime. I remember a time after one of my finer moments, I said to a girlfriend, “you'd think with all of the gymnastics and dance and cheerleading in my younger days that I'd at least carry myself with something resembling balance.” She responded, “just think though, if you hadn't had those lessons, you might have killed yourself by now.” She had a point.

She'd be proud to know that just the other day I was on the phone with a dear friend while I was paying bills. As I sat in my desk chair, I leaned over to grab some envelopes. They were just out of reach and instead of getting off of my bum to grab them I leaned further. As luck would have it, I toppled the chair with me in it. On the way down I crushed my arm between the chair and the desk and as a result have a lovely new bruise to add to my collection. I will add that there was a certain amount of grace to the fall, as I avoided head injury and managed to remained seated, as if everyone works on their back. Trust me, when you injure yourself as frequently as I do you tend to hold onto the smallest of victories as if you just reached the top of Everest. If ever you see me without a bruise, chances are I've been strapped down in a padded room somewhere. Or I'm dead and had one hell of a make up artist.

If ever I doubt that my clumsiness is something that was bestowed upon me by genes, I will need only to spend a day with my mothers side of the family to be reminded.
My family reunion occurred a few weeks ago. I hadn't been to one in a few years, so I threw in the towel and jumped in the car with my immediate family and we drove our happy behinds 40 miles to join in the festivities. We sang songs...Do You Know the Muffin Man, 99 Bottles of Beer, etc; we played I Spy, and How Many Cows can you take home (that was a horrible game...count as many cows as you can on your side of the road and who ever has the most at the end of the trip wins. The catch however was that all of your cows died if you passed a cemetery on your side of the road. My parents always drove past a cemetery that was laid out on both sides of the road right before we'd get home. Nobody EVER took cows home. Cruel.) Okay, that's a lie. We didn't sing or play games...we did what every well rounded family does, we argued, whined, and asked repeatedly are we there yet?

When we arrived at ground zero, my aunts and one of my uncles were already there. He came out to greet us sporting a fabulous black eye, swelling, stitches, and all. When asked what had happened we were told that he and my other uncle were horsing around the day before and were throwing logs back and forth and my Uncle Will swung a log just as my Uncle Bob stepped in and he ended up getting cracked in the face. Knowing my family, there was no reason to doubt this account of events. That's right, my family makes you think, yep, they've definitely been hitting each other with logs. I think that grants me the right to make fun of rednecks everywhere and not feel a shred of guilt.

We were told much later in the day though that that story was a big fat lie and that in reality my Uncle Bob had been walking along, sober as all get out and walked into a tree. Not only did he walk into a tree, he walked into it hard enough to require stitches. As this sunk in, we all knew this was even more likely than the horsing around tale and told him he should probably stick to the original story.

I'm sharing this so that the next time I do something stupid, I want whoever is with me to know that I never really had a chance. My family walks into trees. I probably am lucky to still be alive.