The horse and the barn

Yesterday was school picture day. Monkey Man and I picked out a very simple outfit - light blue t-shirt and jeans with no holes in them. He wanted his hair combed by me for a change, which is a challenge in and of itself because his head is full of cowlicks...just like his mama's. Our hair is like a daily surprise - you never know what you're going to get.

In addition to Pose C (which was the least cheesy of the poses to choose from), they took a class photo. He was very excited about the class pose - I'm not sure if it was the chance to have the picture taken with his best bud Quentin, or the thought that just maybe he'd be next to his secret crush Mollie.

Side note: Apparently a "secret crush" isn't really secret with half of the third grade knows she likes you.

After the school day was over, we met Joey for an ungodly early dinner and then Monkey and I went to the local ice cream place to pick some up and take home. As we were standing outside waiting on our order, all of a sudden Monkey looks down and notices his zipper is down.

"The horse is out of the barn!" he yelped, pulling up his zipper.

"Huh. How long do you think your zipper has been down like that?"

"Um.....since after lunch.....and before the class picture....."

"Eh," I shrugged. "You're the tallest in the class, so I bet you were in the back, right?"

He nodded yes. "Then you're all good." I gave him a big hug.

I'm just waiting for either the call from the school or when the picture comes out. Class picture FAIL.

Mulch mania and puppy playdate

I must be insane to get a new puppy and have ten cubic yards of mulch delivered to my house in the same week.

Nick has settled in here really, really well. He is such a sweet boy, loves to snuggle but has no problem hanging out and chewing a bone or unraveling the umpteenth roll of toilet paper. He is very thankful that the hoomans in this house apparently are dumb as hell and keep refilling the rolls. Housebreaking is definitely going a lot better - we had one really bad day where I went to bed exhausted from cleaning up accident after accident and was really wondering what I was doing wrong. And since then, I've been way more diligent about keeping on top of taking him outside for walks and making sure I pay more attention to his signals. Much better!

But maybe I'm the one that is housebroken. If it works, you can call it whatever you want to.

We wore his little ass out today. The mulch was delivered yesterday, so we spent a few hours in the yard hauling mulch and spreading it. Up and back, up and back...then he slept for 3 hours. Then, off to Monkey Man's baseball practice so he could be loved up on by all the boys and their parents. After that, a quick drive-thru lunch and we went to Cat Door's house so Nick could play with their new miniature pinscher puppy Stony.

Stony, according to Nick, is the puppy from hell. He might only weigh three pounds, but he would do Flying Burrito Brothers jumps onto poor Nick's head, wrestle until Nick would finally stop playing Mr. Nice Guy...I think it was a good experience for both of them, not to mention that Cat Door and The Mrs. really loved Nick. They want to love Rufus too, but he says No Thank You. I was very pleased to see that Nick had very good manners and didn't try to eat Stony The Bossy but maybe twice the whole time. Considering Nick eats a bowl of food equal to the size of Stony for breakfast and dinner, I thought that was quite commendable.

Anyway, I am getting a new blog up and running purely just for Nick and his adventures. I got the template set up last night and hopefully will take it live tomorrow if I can squeeze it in with the other 27 things we have planned. Bringing Nick into this family has opened up such a new and wonderful world to me filled with new friends and new adventures, and I thought he deserved his own blog. Especially since he is running for President next time.

My eyes are falling out of my head

We made it back from our Vegas trip safe and sound. No one was injured, no one got more sick than they already were, and no one got food poisoning. I think we can classify this trip as a success! Yay! Yay! Yay! The only real casualty was one of the "feet" on my large hideous hot pink suitcase was ripped off, so it tilts like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and is destined to a new home at the landfill.

Do you hear that? It's Joey, yelling Yay! Yay! Yay! to the demise of the suitcase. Nothing diminishes the power of your Man Card like carrying a hot pink suitcase.

In an attempt to cram even more crazy into our lives, we decided to take the red-eye back on Saturday night so we'd have all day Sunday to hang with the Monkey Man. In all honesty, I still can't decide if this was the smartest thing we've ever done, or the dumbest idea in history.

Our flight was scheduled to leave Vegas at 11:30 on Saturday night. My mind was racing with all of the delicious possibilities of all the things we could do with a whole day to ourselves (everyone else left on Friday or early Saturday). Sleep late? Enjoy a decadent day shopping at the Forum Shops? Gamble a little? Gamble a lot?

We ended up waking up ungodly early - 6:45 AM! Ate breakfast, packed our stuff to drop it off at the bell desk so they could hold it for us, and then gambled a bit. Joey won over $800, which is a good thing because it offset all the losses from the previous three days. Oops. We had lunch and then couldn't figure out what the heck to do. At one point we sat at a bar and couldn't even decide if we should drink alcohol or not because we didn't want to get sick on the plane. Pathetic. We were tired, our feet hurt, and we probably should've just headed for the airport to try and get home earlier.

But nooooo. Did I mention the part about wondering if this whole red-eye thing was stupid? We still stuck it out, and by the time we got on the plane I was cranky and at the point of exhaustion. Not to mention I looked like ass.

Jethro, the drunk redneck from the rural South, happened to sit behind me with his equally drunk redneck friend. Now, I love me some drunk rednecks, but not when I am sleep-deprived and they keep poking the touch-screen behind my headrest. I think I may have gotten a wee bit of sleep, but not nearly enough. We landed in Atlanta at 6:30 AM, ate a pathetic breakfast at TGIFriday's (how do you eff up pancakes?) and then sat at the gate in a stupor just waiting to get on board.

The flight between Atlanta and Richmond was possibly the most sound sleep I've had in my life. Amazing, fantastic, wonderfully blissful sleep. Too bad it only lasted about 40 minutes. I was ready to storm the cockpit and ask them to circle the RIC a few more times just to get some more shuteye.

We struggled through the rest of the day yesterday, slept fitfully last night, and today I was like the walking dead. What happened to the days when I could stay up for days on end?

Unfortunately, no sleep yet. I need to Swiffer up the mountains of dog hair, vacuum, straighten up, and throw in some more laundry. No rest for the wicked. I tried to train Rufus how to use the Swiffer himself, but he is protesting on the grounds that Swiffer descriminates against critters with no legs. And no opposable thumbs.

Amy, what you gonna do?***

***With apologies to Pure Prairie League***

After my father died, the constant treadmill of running back and forth to The Land That Time Forgot and here came to a thankful end. And I don't mean that in any disrespect to my father - Lord knows, I would've gone to the end of the earth and back every hour of every day if he needed me - but that road between here and there isn't one that I particularly relish.

My lucky sister, Kathie, lives yet another 45 minutes north of me. She had even more delight added on to her trip. At one point, we were both going on the same weekends, then as he rallied we'd swap off on weekends.

As he left us, we were left with all this time on our hands. And my brother-in-law, with idle hands being the Devil's playground, had been surfing the internet looking for whippets. As in dogs. (All perverts sign off here, 'kay?)

I guess he never had pets as a kid - and he is in all honesty a great guy, a wonderful doctor, but a different breed. Which is probably how he became attracted to sight hounds like borzois, greyhounds, and whippets. There have been many of them in their family since he and my sister married, with varying success.

I think this time, they've met their match. He found a beguiling little lady down in North Carolina named Amy. The week after my father died, he conned my sister into traveling down to see her and of course my sister (sucka!) fell totally in love with her. She is a real beauty and just as sweet as she can be.

All I can say is it's probably not a good idea to fall for the dog that the breeder has named Devil Dog.

Amy has eaten my brother-in-law's eyeglasses, his Blackberry, one shoe out of seven different pairs of shoes, an elevated sprinkler head out in the yard, who knows how many toys, and the motherlode of all dog fodder:

The feet of the Baby Jesus. Yes, she ate the feet of the Baby Jesus after she managed to pull him out of the Nativity set. Devil Dog strikes again.

Unfortunately, poor Amy and her big greyhound brother Teddy (who, by the way, is so big that he can literally eat a stick of butter off the middle of a table without making any serious effort or moving anything on the table) got giardia - they have no idea how but the poor pups have been miserably sick. So for at least a few days while she's been feeling punky, my sister's house has been free from destruction.

All I can say is that I can't wait to see what she does to the Easter Bunny. If the Baby Jesus isn't safe, then who is?

Maybe being sick isn't a bad thing

And again, I am posting this from the vast expanses of my kitchen which is a mess of dirty dishes, uneaten Tater Tots and pill bottles. I ran a fever all night, and woke up at 4 AM with a sick Monkey who now has strep throat too. Seems like last February all over again, except instead of calling this movie "Groundhog Day" I'm going to call it "Strep Diagnosis and Never-Ending Copays." Kind of wordy but it might catch on at the box office.

I haven't posted much about the office in quite a while, mostly because they came up with the genius idea of our company joining this millenium and starting its own blog and Facebook page. Which then resulted in the powers-that-be coming up with an internet policy that says we're not allowed to blog during work hours or write anything company-related. Hmm. I guess I could push the envelope and see, but since work is really more of a hobby than an occupation I haven't really had much to write about. Well, let me restate that - I've had lots to write about, but reliving my daily torture really isn't good for the soul.

Layoffs started again yesterday. Luckily, they laid off two of our most impulsive and demented field employees who will probably arrive mid-afternoon on Thursday with pistols blazin' and taking swigs of Mad Dog as they rampage through the office. And by luckily, I mean that at least we would expect this behavior from them so we're kind of ready for it. Not to mention I'm on the executive level on the back side of the building, so I'll have time to run down the back stairs before they shoot my ass. Both of them actually liked me though, so I'd probably get a free pass. I hope.

More will be coming. And I know this is terrible, but I'm almost crossing my fingers that I will be chosen. I was on the short list last year and was saved. But we're out of work, we're not picking up any new work, and honestly they're not going to pay me just to sit there and look cute. I mean, they already do that but I actually have enough to do to look busy.

What would I do if I got laid off? I dunno. I have a resume in to a Fortune 100 company that is pending an interview and they are notoriously slow in hiring. I might pull Monkey out of The World's Most Expensive After-Care Program and try the stay-at-home gig for a while. I might find something part-time that is local so I don't spend my days commuting anymore. I might start writing again. I might go back to school and try something else for a change.

Just for fun, though, I've been thinking of some possible new career paths for myself.

1. Midget Stripper: Okay, so I have that whole height thing working against me. But there's a definite lack in this city of midget strippers. Did you know that in order to get one, you have to import them from D.C.? I see a definite market here.

2. Construction Cleaning Company: I've thought about this one for a while. Hire the hottest women I can find who might do a half-assed cleaning job and call it "Dirty Girls". What red-blooded American male construction company wouldn't hire them? EXACTLY. And would they care if they didn't do a good job? You can bet your Daisy Dukes they wouldn't.

3. Personal shopper: For myself. Hey, don't judge. I need stuff too.

4. Model for David Yurman: As long as it comes with free bling, I'll model wearing nothing but two bandaids and a tissue. Hope David doesn't mind a few stretch marks.

Any other suggestions? I'm all ears.

Corgi stalker

Hi, my name is Liz. And I have a Corgi addiction.

(Hi, Liz!)

So, if you followed me over here either from the C-Myste blog or from my comments on one of a zillion corgi blogs, hi! And if you're one of my regular readers (all two of you), bear with me while I rhapsodize about The Corgi.

We've had Rufus, a.k.a. Da Woof, Woofenheimer, Roof-roof, Midget Hound, Rotten Hound, Woofa Bear, and The Long-Haired, Short-Legged Great American Trash Hound for about eleven years now. Or maybe twelve. That is up for debate here at Casa Builder Mama. He is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi straight from York, England. It's kind of a long story how we got him, but he's ours and despite the fact he's probably more cat-like than dog-like, we love him.

I have had a corgi obsession forever. I love them - all colors, shapes, sizes, you name it. I prefer Cardigans (the ones with the tail) more than Pembrokes, probably because I just think a dog needs a tail. Period.

Corgis are kind of rare here in the South. Everyone and their brother has a Labrador or a Golden Retriever or some sort of hunting dog. I had one instance where I took Rufus somewhere and a woman actually asked me if he was a small German Shepherd with surgically altered legs. Seriously? If I had that kind of money, I'd be getting a tummy tuck and a boob job, not sawing a dog's legs off.

Just to show you how unusual it is to see one, I went to a local dog bakery to acquire a fancy birthday cake for His Royal Highness and lo and behold - there was a Cardigan Welsh Corgi there! I squealed like a Justin Bieber fan, knocked a bunch of old ladies out of the way, and probably scared the poor owner to death by mauling her in the store. Luckily, she didn't have her stun gun with her and she was very tolerant of my questions and the fact I was all over her dog. He was absolutely adorable and had the softest Corgi coat ever (attributed to New Zealand bloodlines, whaddaya know? And I thought my British import was fancy.).

Lately, I have been plotting and planning to (hopefully) acquire a new furry member of the family. I hope it all comes to fruition, because I will be crushed if it doesn't. And I will be reduced to lurking outside the dog bakery, waiting for that poor New Zealand import to come wandering in again, completely unaware that some nutty woman is hiding behind the chihuahua tutus, just waiting....

Pain in the tuckus

Wouldn't you know it, just as I'm getting back in the post-holiday swing of my workouts, BAM...I threw my damn back out last night.

I've had sciatica for years, thanks to a pre-marriage romp with Joey on his desk at work. It was pretty damn awesome until I realized that yup, I was STUCK in a very compromising position that was probably going to take some assistance to get myself out of. And it's been downhill ever since. The memory that keeps coming back over and over and over.

Anyhow, I got some steroids and ibuprofen and even Flexaril (which I'm trying not to take if I don't have to) and already feel much, much better. Once I'm up and moving around I'm a wee bit stiff but it doesn't hurt like hell. Getting up and down is a whole other story.

*****

Meanwhile, Joey is having a sleep study tonight because they think he has sleep apnea. Honestly, I've been nagging him for years about this because not only does he snore like a freight train, but he'll stop breathing like his train has come into the station and run out of steam.

The snoring really isn't bad unless he goes to bed before me (which is very rare) and gets ramped up before I can settle in. Then I just lie there and think about how I should've watched more episodes of either Forensic Files or Snapped just so I could know how to smother him in his sleep without anyone knowing. Snoring will do that to a sane person, I tell you. I don't think there's a jury of non-snorers out there who would convict me.

*****

So if Joey ends up having sleep apnea, they want him to wear one of those CPAP masks every night. This will actually require us to get a REAL bed, something we haven't had in about 8 years since we upgraded to a king-size bed. The bed is supposed to have a headboard to hang the hose off of. I am thrilled because honestly, I've been desperately wanting to get a new headboard to match the rest of the furniture in there instead of it looking like a bunch of hobos are crashing in The Roomstore.

I hear from certain people that sleeping with someone with a CPAP mask is like sleeping with Darth Vader. Unfortunately, I was always kind of a Han Solo kind of girl, so I probably need to adjust my way of thinking.

Mental vomit

Day Three and I realized with some horror - after the post office had closed for the day, of course - that I haven't mailed the first Mother's Day card.  Oops.  

My Drunk Friday for tomorrow has been ruined yet again by stupid adult responsibilities.  Of course the only opening the washing machine repairman had other than NEXT THURSDAY was tomorrow between 1 and 5 PM.  Of course.  I hope he doesn't mind if I'm sitting in my living room drinking Mike's Hard Pomegranate Lemonades while he works.  If he's hot, I'll even offer him one.

Monkey Man is wearing his favorite pajamas - they have freaking Spongebob all over them, and they are hideous.  He adores them to the point he wanted to wear them to Pajama Day during school spirit week and I had to ixnay that idea.  Not a good idea to show off the package to the ladies, my friend.  There are some things that are better left to the imagination.

I have been planning all week to pick out a paint color for my kitchen which desperately needs painting, ideally while we can open the windows and it's not 110 degrees outside.  And yet, every time I bust out the paint deck my palms start to sweat and I get panicky.  I think I have commitment issues.   No, I don't think I do - I know I do.

You know you have crazy friends when  you get an email from one of them saying, "Raise your hand if you got drunk and rode a mechanical bull for three hours.  My thighs are killing me.  But I am totally getting one of those for my house."  

And now, it's time for me to collapse into a heap.  I spent most of last night watching tornado warnings and waffling between just going to sleep and hoping for the best, bringing Monkey Man down into my bed to I didn't have to try and get him out of bed if I happened to hear an actual tornado, and sheer terror.  I probably just should've had a few shots of bourbon and called it a night.

White trash, or don't eff with my cans, yo

Here we are on Day two, and no one has perished yet in the absence of Joey.  Except, perhaps, my 4-year old washing machine which has a very odd electrical burning smell and won't advance past the rinse cycle.  

I am envisioning mountains of laundry by the time the effers get out here to fix the thing.  Leave it to me to get some off-the-wall brand of washer instead of a damn Whirlpool or something.  With the amount it's been raining here in the past week, however, I could probably just lay our clothes out on the grass and let good ol' Mother Nature do her stuff.  Of course then there's the thought of the dog taking a crap on one of my BCBG blouses so maybe that's not such a great idea after all.

Did I tell y'all what happened with our trash collection last week?  Oh yeah, this is a good one.  So we have had a certain provider for the past, oh, EIGHT YEARS and about two months ago I got an email from them asking if I'd like to be put on their paperless billing program.  As an alleged tree hugger, I'm all about saving paper where I can (not to mention hello, I pay most of my bills online anyway) so I eagerly signed up for it.

Well...apparently our stellar IT filters caught my invoice up in there somewhere so I never got it nor did it appear on my "gotcha" emails that the server generates every few hours.  As in, I get an email that shows (or supposedly does) all of the spam that is headed for my account and then I can choose to release it to my email or just ignore it and it goes away.  

Last Wednesday, I got home from work to a voice mail from the trash company saying that they were coming to abscond with my trash cans due to "nonpayment of your account" - namely, I'm a trash deadbeat and they were hoofin' off with my cans, yo.  But they were unable to remove the cans due to "a dog that is in your yard" namely Rufus who was probably snarling and chasing their asses all the way back up the driveway.  Which actually, one of the cans smelled like something had died in there so the thought of them taking that particular can was pretty appealing.  But I gathered my senses...attempted to call their office which had closed a mere three minutes before...and then got online to their website and paid up my account.  

Thursday morning, I got on the phone first thing with my confirmation number for payment and called the trash company's office to tell them what had happened.  Obviously, the customer service representative either had her period or was just an overall flaming bitch, because she basically told me that A.) I could explain it a thousand times but look, yo, I've heard these stories all week from you deadbeat people, and B.) If I did want to continue with their stellar, unparalleled trash service then it would cost me $25 to reactivate my account.  

For reals?  $25 to keep the trash service going when I had accidentally not paid my bill?  Wow.  What a bargain.  Not to mention that not only was I a residential customer of this company, but I usually get my dumpsters through them too for work.  Talk about good customer relationships, huh?

So with a few choice words, I told her what she could do with her effing trash cans.  And that if they could get past Corgzilla in our driveway, they were welcome to come get them.  

And damn if I didn't get home that evening to find that we had no trash cans.   Oops.  Nothing like writing a check with your mouth that your ass can't cash.  And poor Rufus looked utterly defeated, so I can only imagine the hilarity that ensued when Frick and Frack showed up to take my (full) stinky trash cans.  Between them getting chased back up the driveway to them attempting to get my (full) stinky cans up in their truck, that was probably some Grade A neighborhood fodder right there.  

Luckily, said Trash Nazis don't corner the market here in the RVA, so I found someone else cheaper (yay!) that picks up on Wednesdays and we already have our beautiful new can that doesn't smell like ass.  

And this time, I'm not doing the paperless billing.  

Not tonight, dear

So we've had a banner day here at Builder Mama Headquarters.

It looks like Joey is going to be able to fix his big mistake at work that I referred to the other day.  Basically, the Cliff Notes version is that he transposed some numbers on a bid and then actually signed the contract with the wrong bid number on it.  To the tune of already being in the hole almost $300K.

Yeah.  He had to change his undies after discovering that little gem.

Last night, he got a call from the contractor basically saying that they want to work things out too.  So that's good, I hope.

The other big news - since we took a bath in stocks last year, we actually...Got.  A.  Tax.  Refund.  The accountant called today, and it's a nice ol' chunk of change.  We were prepared to do our annual Bend Over, Here Comes the IRS pose.  Not necessary this year, though.

So we've had some celebratory beverages and I think as soon as we get Monkey Man stowed away, maybe a little celebratory somethin'-somethin'.  And then I'm going to bed, y'all.

There is no way that I can do a post about our Vegas trip any justice tonight, so come back tomorrow when I will be sober, well-laid, and ready to spin a good yarn.

Get out the tissues

You will laugh so hard you will CRY.

I have spent the last hour going through Cake Wrecks. I haven't laughed that hard in ages.

Enjoy. And it's going on the blogroll. Good stuff!

Texas - part two, the revenge

After the unit dinner on Friday night, we took Monkey Man to the pool to blow off a little steam and then hung out with my family on the outdoor patio. It was pleasantly cool and we traded a lot of stories and laughed a lot. It was a pretty nice evening.

Then, in the middle of the night, the thunderstorms started. I am not kidding when I say that they probably lasted about five hours of nonstop crashing and banging. The power even flickered off in the hotel a few times. I think the only person in the whole hotel sleeping was Monkey Man, go figure.

So Saturday morning, we groggily headed over to meet my family for breakfast before we left town. Meanwhile, my poor nephew Steve got stranded at the Abilene airport thanks to a power outage and the thunderstorms that were still going on at flight time (5:30 AM, egads!) so there was a brief chance that we were going to have to pick him up on the way to Dallas, but thankfully he managed to get the last seat on a flight to Dallas. Poor guy ended up then getting put on another airline, sent to Cincinnati, and then back to Richmond. He was supposed to be home by noon on Saturday and I think actually got in around 6:30 PM instead.

We had previously decided to head back to Dallas on Saturday in order to take Monkey Man to the aquarium. Dallas has a pretty cool aquarium, and we had visited it back in 2001 when he was still in utero so we felt like hey, let's do it again.

Another mental note to self: Going to something like an aquarium during the weekend in the summer is tantamount to shooting oneself in the foot repeatedly. With a bazooka.

The aquarium was wall-to-wall people. And strollers, God, the strollers. I think Baltimore has the right idea to forbid strollers. There were two couples in front of us with infants (and no other kids) and those huge travel systems that were the size of a Honda Civic - which was pretty annoying when they decided to park said systems in the middle of the already crowded and narrow pathways. Not to mention, why do people let their kids run wild in places like this? Maybe they are hoping that someone will kidnap them so they can go have a beer? I don't get that at all. I'm all about letting kids blow off some steam and be kids - but letting them run wild in a place that was already chaotic and crowded was pretty idiotic in my opinion.

That being said, Monkey Man had a total blast especially when we got to the penguins. The kid is totally enamored with penguins so of course we had to pick up a stuffed penguin at the store on the way out. Did I mention he got a few airplanes from the museum store in Abilene, and then my sister-in-law Karen had bought him some new books too? The kid made out like a total bandito.

By the time we finished at the aquarium, our nerves were totally shot. We headed straight for our hotel - a Marriott that was close to the airport, and we have always had a great experience at every Marriott that we've ever stayed at so we were really looking forward to it.

Um, not so much. A tip for you - if the Marriott is one of the older properties that has had the interior decorating all redone, chances are the walls are made of something like tissue paper. But more on that in a minute.

They had a steakhouse at the hotel so we opted to stay in and eat there. We ordered dinner and a nice, inexpensive bottle of red wine which I promptly managed to spill all over Monkey Man. And no, I hadn't even had a drop yet. So they graciously moved our table, cleaned it all up, replaced the wine (for free) and were kind enough to present Monkey Man with a very cool organic cotton t-shirt from their gift shop to change into. Again, for free. We were impressed.

Later on, we got some Haagen Dazs from room service and chowed down on some ice cream while we watched the Olympics. A perfect night after not getting much sleep the night before, and we settled in knowing that we would be well-rested on Sunday morning for our long trip back.

This would be where the irony starts.

Around 1:30 AM, I heard some very loud and drunk people come down our hallway. Turns out that some of them were in the room next door, and the others were staying across the hall. They jabbered on for about 20 minutes and I could've been a beeyotch and told them to STFU, but I figured hey - I've BEEN that drunk person before, so I'd just wait a bit and they would eventually shut up. I drifted back off to sleep...

Whee....wheeeee....wheeeeee....

What the hell? It sounded like a baby crying. I perked my ears up, groggy, still half-asleep.

Oh, hell no. It was the rednecks copulating. And she was squealing like a pig.

For real.

This went on for forty-five minutes. Forty. Five. Minutes. Wheeeee....wheeeeee....wheeeeee....

The first five minutes, I have to admit - I was kind of turned on. But after twenty minutes, I was annoyed. I mean, come on, people!

They finally stopped. I drifted back off to sleep....

Wheeeee....wheeeee....wheeeeeeeeeee....

Twenty minutes. Then stopped.

Back to sleep.

Wheeeee....wheeee....wheeeeeeee.....

Holy damn. Again? This time, I finally heard the guy let out a loud groan/primal yell and I was like Thank You, Whoever Made This Possible. And I went back to sleep.

Wheeeeeeeeeee.....

At this point, I turned to Joey - who was asleep in the other bed with Monkey Man (who slept blissfully through the whole thing) and said, "Maybe I should go over there and volunteer to help them, because they really need to wrap this thing up!"

We got to giggling so bad we couldn't stop. And finally, at 5:12 AM, I heard the last squeal and it stopped.

The alarm went off at 7 AM. And if you guys think I was quiet trying to get ready to leave, you'd be dead wrong. Not to mention, I was scanning all of the faces of the couples in the restaurant trying to see if any of them looked like they had been up all night playing farmer and pig.

So we were already exhausted...our flight leaving Dallas was delayed so when we got to Atlanta we had less than 20 minutes to change terminals and of course our gates were at the total opposite ends of the terminals...we barely made our flight and there was no lunch to be had. We had one apple NutriGrain bar tucked in Monkey Man's backpack so we gave that to him, we survived on the miniscule packages of pretzels and vowed that the minute we hit the ground we'd find the nearest place to eat and get some food.

I think we ordered about $30 in appetizers alone. We were like wolverines.

Thankfully, all of the luggage made it and other than being hungry we made it home, safe and sound. But tired. Exhausted, really.

And if I lie in my bed at night, I can still hear the sound of a woman squealing like a pig. I'm hoping that will fade away soon.

Suddenly, it all became clear...

Today, while visiting Bobby, My Fabulous Gay Hairdresser-Slash-Therapist in order to get my horrendous roots touched up, we got to talking about funny movies:

Bobby: I just love a good funny movie, especially old movies.

Me: Yeah! The other day I caught "Some Like it Hot" on AMC which is one of my favorite movies ever!

Bobby: Isn't that the one with Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe?

Me: And Tony Curtis, too. Have you ever seen it?

Bobby: Bits and pieces, I don't think I've ever seen it. Doesn't Marilyn sing in that movie?

Me: Well, it's not really her singing.

Bobby: Thaaat's right, there was that Marni...um...

Me: Marni Nixon. She sang for a lot of the stars back then like Marilyn, Audrey Hepburn...

Bobby: And that girl that was in "The King and I," what was her name?

Me: I think her name was Deborah Kerr. Yup, I think she sang for her too.

Bobby: Liz, are you gay? You know an awful lot about musicals....

Yup, I think that answers a lot of questions. I'm a gay man trapped in a woman's body. Either that or I have such a command of 1950's musicals that it's scary.

Who is crazier?

So recently we discovered that a swarm of honeybees has taken up residence in the siding of our house. Apparently we have a gap between the siding and the brick outside of our walk-out basement door where the productive little darlings have decided to turn into their home.

I'd been reading recently that there is a shortage of honeybees due to all kinds of environmental issues, so I decided that being the green geek that I try to be, I'd find a beekeeper who surely would be ecstatic to get my bees. Right? Um, not so much. I found "TJ" the local beekeeper thanks to Google, left the guy four messages, and finally gave up before he took out a restraining order against me.

Undaunted, I asked around the office and found out that we had used a professional bee-removal service on two jobs within the last two months with great success. I got the number from one of the project assistants, and left a message thinking that surely, I'd never hear from them.

The guy finally called me. We chatted on the phone for a few minutes and I told him about my bee problem, so he said that he would drop by our house the following day and ascertain how serious our problem was and then we could talk about what we could do. Do? Like there are options? I really wanted them GONE. Is that an option?

Three days went by with no word from the Bee Guy. In the meantime, I mentioned my problem to Cat Door because in all likelihood he was going to have to be involved with this whole process anyway. You see, once bees nest somewhere, you have to completely clean the area of all bee materials (including honey), sanitize it and then seal it up in order to, hopefully, keep them from coming back. And I certainly didn't want some unskilled Bee Guy ripping the siding off of my house. I'd much rather take my chances on Cat Door's experience knowing that I could easily kill him with some arsenic brownies if things didn't go well. Not that I would do that, but it's nice to know that it was a viable option.

"Well, ya know, I've dealt with this kind of thing before. And I can get Ryan (his helper) to help me out. One day, and we will fix your bee problem," said Cat Door. I wasn't totally sold on it because, well, he's not a professional Bee Guy.

Finally, Bee Guy called back. After 20 minutes of discussion about bees and how bees are apparently rampant this year due to all the rain and the pollen overproduction, I asked him how many bees he thought we had. He estimated between ten and twenty thousand. THOUSAND. BEES. Hmmm. So, what are our options? He can set a trap outside of the entrance to the "hive" and maybe catch half of the bees. That's $350. But that doesn't guarantee getting all of them, nor does it solve our problem about cleaning all the bee crap out from under the siding. Well, Bee Guy, how much does doing all that cost?

Four thousand dollars. That is on the low side of his estimate.

"I left some materials under your doormat for you to look at. No rush, the honey doesn't start flowing again until the fall so you have a little time to decide what you want to do...." said Bee Guy.

I got home and eagerly pulled the materials from under the doormat. Two sheets of paper - one discussing bees and possible options (with no pricing, might I add). And the other one...well, one side is the Company Philosophy and then the other is an essay on "Some Different Thoughts on Fear, or Are We Really Upset for the Reason We Think?"

For real? Yup. Just a few gems from his papers. And yes, they are copyrighted but I just can't put any credits up here for fear of being Googled and then sued by this guy, because as you can see he is obviously crazy.

On fear: First he discusses that a lot of times our fear is caused by past experiences, often as a child...."Fear destroys more relationships in marriage, business, and countries than any other cause. If we want to lessen the negative happenings in our lives, we need to examine our thoughts, feelings and belief systems. We also need to replace our negative thoughts with positive ones. Could it be that we get everything we ask for by our own moment by moment thinking?" He then goes on to quote the comedian Flip Wilson. Ye gods.

Then, a brief passage from the "Company Philosophy": "Our goal is not pest control but pest elimination in a given area for a period of time. This is the best anyone can hope for. It has been stated in the past that no insect species on our planet has ever been eliminated. However we humanoids have a tendency to destroy ourselves along with other species. It has also been stated that 'We are losing other species of life at a rate of one per day, and soon it will be one an hour.' The obvious causes for this are: loss of habitat, pollution, improper use of chemicals, etc. The challenges are many. We fully acknowledge that it is impossible to overestimate the value of another - nor is it possible to compare one to another - because everyone is unique (and yet equal) in his own right. Some are so much so that the only thing we can agree on is to disagree. In that case distance can promote peace, even though separateness from our world and each other is impossible...."

I disgustedly slammed the papers down on the counter. Four thousand dollars? For someone who doesn't even say he can get rid of the bees? So I called Cat Door. He came by the house, thumped on the siding and the walls a bit and only ever saw about ten bees.

"Six hundred bucks. Actually, five hundred if you cook me and Ryan dinner."

Sold. But here's the thing. The proposed ghetto beekeeping outfit? A Tyvek suit. Hard hat. Covered with queen-sized pantyhose pulled down over it and around their necks.

I am so going to take the day off from work just to watch.

The question is, though - who is crazier? Bee Guy, or Cat Door? I'm not so sure.

Return to sender

This morning promptly at 7:06 I got a triumphant phone call from Cat Door, who returned last night from a 10-day trip to Spain alive and in one piece. I'm not sure how The Mrs. fared on the trip since it was a motorcycle tour and instead of the usual tour for wusses that he signs up for, this one actually required them to ride the bikes from city to city for 10 days versus having a home base and him taking off and riding most of the days alone while she shops. And shops. And shops.

I'm thinking there was a method to his madness on that one, because the woman seriously spent some major bucks last time they went on one of these trips. Do not leave her unattended with a credit card or there will be some major debt racked up.

Anyhow, I guess he is still on Spain Time and had been up for a while and was just itching to talk about his trip to someone other than their dogs. And since I'm probably the only one of our circle that is actually awake and coherent at 7 AM, I was the winner of the phone call.

We chatted for a few minutes and then he finally was like, "Well, what did you think of my email?"

Email? Huh? I didn't get no stinkin' email.

As it turns out, he had gone with a few of the other tour guests to an internet cafe and decided to shoot some emails out to the crew. He tried to email me at work and then copy my gmail account. The work email probably never made it since he has an AOL account and our spam filter is pretty tight and most AOL and Yahoo accounts never make it through.

But what about the gmail address? Yeah, it went through. But not to ME. He apparently sent it to a similar email but not my address. Oops.

So somewhere out in the Midwest, some elderly man is probably checking his email account. "Mabel? Some guy just sent us an email. Says he's in Spain, and that the women are hot but they have terrible teeth...."

Pieces parts

Am I the only one happy that Kristy Joe left "Rock of Love II" last week?

*****

I swear, this week I am going to post some pictures of the bathroom. It looks freaking awesome.

Of course, you know that it couldn't all be perfect. I picked out (or rather, didn't pick out but said "just put in something similar to what we have") some recessed can lights and they look like crap. Oops. I think Cat Door can swap out the trim kit with minimal cost, but I'm not entirely sure.

The other ongoing issue is the floor. The price came in and let's just say that either I'm an idiot when I was doing a rough estimate of the cost, or the tile subcontractor is trying to screw me. Cat Door is trying to schmooze a little more off the price, but I'm not holding my breath.

I've been treading that fine line of friend/customer/person who probably knows too much and is being a pain in the ass. It's been stressful, to say the least. To Cat Door's credit, he has been remarkably tolerant and hasn't killed me yet. And honestly, since everything else in my life seems to have gone all cattywampus lately, it only makes sense that part of my twisted little mind has decided that The Bathroom Project is the only thing that I can control right now. Sort of.

I did notice, though, that they gave me the handheld shower with variable sprays. Or, in the words of Cat Door, "they go from 'aaah' all the way to 'who needs a man anyway?'" Oh yeah, baby.

*****

Question of the day: So my friends and I were discussing the resignation of former NY Governor Spitzer recently. And the question was raised...let's say that his wife came out and made the statement that they hadn't been bumping uglies for a while...let's say a few years just for argument's sake...and that she had given him permission to use the escort service to take care of his needs. Do you think it would've saved his political hide?

Something I hadn't quite counted on

Poor Monkey Man. He is the absolutely last of his friends and classmates to lose a tooth. As a matter of fact, he hasn't lost one yet.

It's been a subject of constant discussion lately. A few months ago, he would get downright depressed when he found out a friend had lost a tooth. Most of the Badasses were so concerned about it that they would email me on the down low to let me know if their kid had lost a tooth for fear of sending Monkey Man into a spiral of fully-toothed depression. We've both tried to tell him over and over - neither one of us lost any teeth until the first grade, so chances are he was going to be one of the late kids. And all you get is that look like "you suck".

And today, we have a loose tooth. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. He is totally obsessed with wiggling that tooth. Every five minutes, "Mom, is my tooth still loose?"

I have to admit, even for a hardass like me it's pretty exciting. A little sad, I mean the dude is growing up faster than I can even believe.

But in typical fashion, I am starting to obsess. Like what if he loses it at school and ends up not having a tooth to bring home? Okay, I know I can totally do the old "note to the tooth fairy" gig and it will be okay.

But what if he swallows it? See, that's the one I can't wrap my brain around. Like I told Joey a while ago, even my love has limits and I'm not going diving for teeth if you know what I mean.

Hopefully you're not eating right now. Sorry.

So anyhow, The Great Tooth Countdown is on....

The lottery

Am I the only one that thinks the Geico cavemen commercials are just stupid?

Today was the first Monday that I've worked in four weeks. Pretty impressive statistics if I do say so myself. Two weeks I was sick, then last week I was on vacation. So once I got to thinking about this being the first full week I've worked in four weeks, I got kind of down in the dumps. Eventually, the Virginia Lottery will come through for me and I can leave all this glamour behind. If I remember to buy a ticket.

Have you ever thought about what you would do if you won the lottery? Would you quit your job, would you never work again, what would you buy?

If I won, I'd probably still work. Not full-time, and maybe not even at the company I've been with for almost 12 years now, but I will always work doing something. We'd probably stay in our same house. It's perfect for us and we've put so much love and work into the house that I can't imagine being anywhere else. But yes, I would also buy myself a Porsche. And maybe get Joey one too. If he was good. And also hire a half-naked man to be my, ahem, assistant. I have my needs, you know.

So what would you do if you won? Share your thoughts in the comments. I'm curious.

Something you don't want to skimp on

And today, in the world of Cat Door....

Me: So what else has been going on?

CD: Well, The Mrs. and I got another dog.

Me: Another freaking dog? Seriously, you guys are turning into people like cat people. You're going to end up with like 50 dogs and I'm going to see you on the news or something. Do I need to do an intervention?

CD: Naw, it was just this dog that we found out one of the neighbors down the street bought for his kid. The kid didn't like it and the guy has had it chained up outside on a 3-foot chain with some shitty doghouse for weeks now. I rode by there the other day and saw the dog, asked around about it, and then went up to the guy and flat out told him I'd take the dog from him if he didn't want him anymore.

Me: So is he nice? How is he getting along with the other dogs?

CD: He's doing pretty good except he freaking humps everything in sight. Puccini is sick and tired of being mounted all day long, so I'm taking him to get him fixed tomorrow.

Me: Oh, where are you taking him - to our vet?

CD: Are you kidding me? Do you know how much they want to charge to neuter a dog? It's $428. That's like $214 per ball. So I found another vet who is willing to do it cheaper.

Me: Well, how much do you think it should cost to neuter a dog?

CD: I don't know, but not $428.00. That's outrageous!

Me: Well, how much would you pay someone to cut your nuts off? Is $214 per nut enough? It just doesn't seem like something you should skimp on, ya know?

CD: Leave it to you to put it all in perspective, dammit.

Resurrection

The laptop is back. Don our IT guy delivered it before 9 AM this morning and I spent the rest of my day being super productive, as in sorting through about 200 emails and surfing the internet. I mean, if it wasn't for the internet I would have no freaking clue what is going on in the world.

I used to be a news hound. Read the New York Times every day, watch CNN, all that good stuff. When did this part of my life disappear? I mean, we actually get the local paper (which bites but we get it anyway) and we probably throw it away unread at least half of the week. It's embarrassing. But I just can't admit that I can't sit down and read the paper.

So after two days of not having my precious laptop at work - which is my prime time to catch up on world and national events - I pretty much spent the rest of my day playing catch-up. Who needs to work on change orders or billings when you get to read about the restraining order against Sam Lutfi? Or the results from Super Tuesday? Or the effects of cell phone usage on sperm production? See, I knew you'd agree.

In local events, it seems as though our fair city has been overrun with the flu and also strep throat. And, if you talk to the local doctors, they will tell you that this strain of flu isn't covered by the flu shots that were given this year. And this totally figures, since this year was only the second time in my entire life that I actually voluntarily got a flu shot. You see, Jay sent all of the Badasses emails back in October basically stating that since she was having a baby in November, we were all welcome to come visit and see the baby as long as we'd had a flu shot. At first, I thought she was insane...I mean, who actually emails all their friends and demands innoculations? But then when you think about it - with three kids living in the house, when one gets sick then all the others get sick and it can shut your house down for weeks. WEEKS. So maybe she isn't so insane after all.

Until Monday, when she texted me to see how I was feeling...I replied fine, that I didn't have the flu but definitely some kind of upper respiratory infection...and she texted me back to say, "I heard at the doctor that the flu shot this year doesn't work. FUCK!!!!!!" Yes, Miss I Never Cuss actually dropped the F-bomb. So obviously this news has been disturbing to a lot of people.

So in light of the fact that my head still feels like it's full of goo, I've elected not to participate in my YMCA training run this Saturday. And ya know, it seems to me that they've ramped up the distances pretty sharply considering I'm in the "novice" group which is described as "some walking, some running". This would be our 3rd Saturday and they want everyone in Novices to run 3 miles. That seems a little excessive considering the schedule they have us on only has us running 3 days a week and crosstraining 1 day. Or maybe I'm just a big, fat, goo-filled wuss. So I will be taking a bye this week and skipping out. And hoping that maybe, just maybe, my head will finally drain and I can breathe again and sleep without feeling like someone is putting a Black and Decker drill in my ears. That would be lovely.

I do, however, see the light at the end of the tunnel. Today I woke up feeling a little better. I put on one of my new shirts that is gray and sparkly. So at one point, I emailed one of my friends and proclaimed that yes, I must be feeling better because I had sparkly boobies today. And a sparkly boobie day is a great day.