No Stinging Please!

Yesterday I stopped in at my parents house to drop off a tape of "Into the West" that I had taped for my dad.
I was sitting on the couch chatting with my mom, when my dad came into the living room and motioned for me to follow him.
"You've got to see this" he said
I got up and followed him down the hall, through their bedroom and out the sliding glass door to the backside of the house. He pointed up towards the roof. I looked up and saw a HUGE yellowjacket nest.
I said "WHOA! COOL!" and dad says "ummm, I wouldn't move too quickly if I were you"

It was the neatest thing - they had made it out of PAPER. Dad said he'd been watching them for the last couple of months, and they would fly over to the fence or the woodpile and eat the wood and mix it with their saliva and plaster it onto the nest. It looked like a big paper maiche (or however the fuck you spell that) ball. But it's really pretty, kind of gray colored with swirls of white and actually looks like a chinese lantern.

So I said "Dad, you've just left that thing here for 2 months? Isn't that dangerous?"

and he said "well yes, but I don't know how to get rid of it..."

and I started laughing because I was picturing that guy on the commercial who was trying to knock down the bee's nest with his buddy holding the trash can open...and then he falls off his ladder and all hell breaks loose?

Mom walked out then and was watching it with us. She said "your father wants to get rid of the yellowjackets but save the nest, I can't figure out why"...

Dad and I looked at each other and said in unison "because it's COOL!"

He elbowed me and we laughed together as we watched mom shake her head and say "you two are asking for trouble"

I'm gonna have to do some research on how to get rid of that thing and if possible not ruin the nest.

I'll try to get up there with my camera next time so that I can post a picture of it.

All about the hair...

I'm just gonna say it...

Hubster has a bald spot.

Many people in our families feel the need to point this out to him, but he's in complete denial and so we just don't talk about it.

About a week ago, hubster informed me that he was going to grow his hair out. I just snorted at him and said "shyeah right, that'll be the day" - mainly because he very often tells me things like this and rarely if ever, actually follows through. He once said he was going to grow his goatee for a whole year, just to see how long it would get...

He last about a month (which to be honest, was longer than I thought he would last).

The thing about hubster is that he's positively ANAL about his hair. He gets it cut every two weeks or so and never goes anywhere without his precious bottle of LA LOOKS (can you say 80's???) styling gel. He even carries one in his car...yes, yes he does.

So it's probably going on 3-4 weeks since he last had a hair cut. He had taken a shower right after he got home, so his hair had no product in it for most of last night. I was laying in bed reading and he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, and apparantly he decided to brush his hair as well. I heard him laughing and I looked up and he turned to me and goes "I'm not growing my hair out, I'm growing a FRO!"
and yes, he certainly is growing a FRO...for some reason, his hair is growing out really thick and puffy...except for you know, that spot in the back... so it's actually like of like a fro-mullet.

So I giggled at him and I said "well HELLO Mr. KOT-TER!"

He yelled "Shut up!" and proceeded to grab another mirror so he could see the back and the sides...

I was watching him as he was turning his head this way and that...and he stopped and looked at me and said "why are you staring at my fro?"

and I raised my hand and shouted "ooouuu-oooouuuu Mr. Kotter!"

He then frowned at me and slammed the bathroom door...while I collapsed on the bed with laughter.

He eventually came out and said that he just can't do it - he has to get a haircut...he's not into the FRO-MULLET that he's growing...

Excuse me a second...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - I should have taken a picture, so I could share the hilarity of hubster's hair without the gel and in FRO-mode.

My friend Murphy

Sometimes I have days where I feel like a walking catastrophe.

I seem to have issues at a local supermarket. It's kind of a smallish store, but very close to where I live and a convenient place to go, even if they don't always have the best prices. A couple of weeks ago, I knew some friends of mine were here from out of town - and she and her husband wanted to get together with my family and a couple other friends. I planned a get-together at a local park, so that everyone's kids could run around on the playground and we could eat and catch up.
I called this local grocery store a couple of days before the picnic and ordered a tray of sandwiches. I figured it would be much easier to just buy some chips and drinks and everyone could build their own sandwich. I was on the phone with the girl for quite a while as I decided on meats and cheeses and condiments. She assured me that everything would be ready by 5pm on the day of my picnic. I doublechecked the date and time with her and hung up.
On the day of the picnic, we'd decided to meet at around 5:30 which I figured would give me just enough time to get off work, pick up the sandwiches, and head to the park.
I got off a bit early and headed to the store, filled my cart with drinks and paper plates and chips and headed over to the deli section to get my sandwich tray.
I gave my name to the girl, and by the deer-in-headlights look that she gave me, I knew something was wrong. She went back to check and came out with bad news written all over her face. There was no sandwich tray. I told her who I'd spoken to, and she checked with the other deli workers...nobody had seen a sandwich tray get made and it was nowhere to be found.
The manager then came over to see what the problem was....
ahem, anyway....
He looked concerned and asked what time my party was....I told him that I had about 20 minutes to figure out how to feed 10 people and 4 kids. They were all running around trying to call the girl I'd given the order to and trying to figure out what to do. I finally just said "hey, is that fried chicken in there? Got enough to feed 10 people?"
and I walked out with 4 bags full of fried chicken, 2 big buckets of macaroni salad and pesto pasta salad, all for about $15. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet - they all felt so bad and were really nice about it. I'm supposed to get a free tray of sandwiches as well...very cool.

So the next day, I went to the same store to get some groceries for home. I ended up getting lots of BIG stuff...bottles of water, 12 packs of soda, boxes of cat litter...etc, etc.
I was walking towards the car and I saw this creepy guy feeling up some lingerie that was on a sale rack outside of a local adult oriented store....
I guess I was so distracted by the weirdo that I didn't notice I had pushed my cart off the sidewalk...and my entire cart tilted sideways spilling out all my groceries into the (Empty, THANK GAWD) parking space. I made a couple of foolish looking attempts to set the cart upright - but DAMN are those things heavy! The creepy guy came running over and helped me take all my heavy stuff out of the cart and then eventually we got it back upright...I thanked him, and he nodded at me without saying a word, and went right back to the rack and held up a pair of panties. Yeah, it was weirding me out...so I hurriedly starting putting my groceries back into my cart.
In the meantime, some jerk decides that he HAS TO PARK in the exact space that my groceries are strewn all over and actually had the audacity to honk at me...I waved him away and yelled to park somewhere else. When I turned back around and who was standing there smiling? The MANAGER guy from the day before...
He started helping me pick up my groceries and chuckled and said "hmmm, having some problems here I see? Is our store cursed for you or something? At least I can see that you came back after the fiasco from yesterday...but now your groceries are scattered all over the parking lot"
My face was flaming red and I just laughed and said "well, you can't say I'm not LOYAL!" hehe
We filled my cart back up and he wished me a good day...I saw him turn around and notice the creepy guy who was STILL feeling up the skimpy outfits and he kinda did a double-take and then glanced back at me and shrugged...

About a week later, I was back at the store...and I was walking down an aisle. There were two young boys in the aisle roughhousing and shoving each other....I was about to go around them when I noticed Mr. Manager come around the corner. At that exact moment, one of the kids knocked a huge jar of applesauce off the shelf and it cracked and splattered all over the floor and my cart and ME...
The kids took off running and the manager guy just held up his hands and said "SHEESH! I swear, Murphy must follow you into this store or something"
He proceeded to get a towel for me to wipe the applesauce off my shoes and he said that next time he saw me in the store, he would be ready for something odd to happen.

So TODAY, I had to run to the store real quick on my lunch hour. I'm wearing a long purple skirt, with a lavender peasant top. When I was standing in line, the manager guy saw me and nodded in recognition, and then went to help a customer.
I get up to the register and I'm writing out my check...
I hear the bagger girl say "wow, I LOVE your skirt...and the shirt is so great! Where did you get that outfit?"
and I told her that I found it at the strawberry festival...
and she goes "oh, well did you get a business card? I'd LOVE to buy a skirt like that"
and I said "uh, well no..it was a little chinese couple selling them...but I couldn't tell you the name of the business"
and she proceeded to ask me how much it was, and if I knew of any other festivals in the area...
and after I said "I'm sorry, I have no idea", she said
"well, can I see the tag? Maybe they have a website or something"
I was kinda wierded out that she didn't say "hey, cool skirt" and leave it at that...

She started to walk around behind me and I said "well, oooookay" and I scrunched down so she could see the tag....and while she's reading it - I look up and see the cute manager guy walking by shaking his head and he goes "see? what did I tell you? ODD!!!!"

and walked away...

Sometimes Life can be so weird...

Monday blah's

I'm trying to learn how to personalize this blog more...the whole "learning HTML process" seems very long and tedious, but at least I added a notify list to the bottom of the page - that way if there actually is anyone out there reading this thing, y'all can sign up and you'll get an email whenever I finally get off my lazy kick and post something.

Hubby and I stayed up late on Saturday and we both drank so much caffeine that we couldn't sleep, so at about 1:30am, we both took a muscle relaxer. His back was hurting, and I had cramps - so we figured "Why not?"
Holy moly, those things are strong! Hubster slept until 1pm (which he NEVER DOES) and I slept until almost 3pm (which I could probably always do, but I'll force myself to get up at around 10 or so). Dang, talk about sleeping the day away. We slept right through hubsters company picnic...and we were both worthless and fuzzy headed the rest of the day. Oddly enough we had no problems falling asleep last night.

I got up late and had to do a 15 minute search and rescue on my set of keys because I couldn't find them ANYWHERE - except that they were sitting on the kitchen counter and because I'm a big dork, I looked everywhere BUT there. Poor hubster was dragged out of bed and looking under the couch cushions and under beds in his underwear because I was frantic and already late for work.

I need to have those things surgically attached to myself because I lose them ALL THE TIME.

We watched a movie last night called "In Good Company" - it was EH...not what I expected...didn't end the way I'd hoped...but we watched the whole thing, so it couldn't have been that bad.

My friend T bought a podometer the other day, and after dropping it into the toilet at work (ahem, T!) she bought another one. That thing is pretty darn cool, so I think I'm going to get one. It's a good way to judge how much exercise I'm getting. They say you should walk 10,000 steps a day to get a sufficient amount of exercise. Heck, I'm probably at about 100 steps a day...so I need to get off my duff.

I still suck...

and I'm still here. Sometimes it's wierd because I'll THINK about blogging and then I'll get sucked into whatever I'm doing here at work and I'll forget all about it. I like to write and I feel better when I can clear all the crap out of my head, so I'm not sure what the problem is with the absent posts and all...

Okay, so we went on vacation which was fun, of course it's always fun to be away from work and the daily chores at home. We went to Venice Beach first...Doug didn't like it so much, but I love it down there. It's a FREAKshow, and I just love the freaks. Doug goes into what I call "city mode" in places like that - he makes sure I'm close to him at all times, and he's constantly looking around keeping his eye on things. I also call it "paranoid mode" but that has a tendency to produce a lecture on the evils of big crowds and all the hypothetical things that can go wrong. BAH
I was flitting around looking at all the hippie clothes and smelling incence and checking out the head shops and tattoo parlors...tra, la, la - completely oblivious to any possible danger. Doug does enough worrying for both of us.
The next day, we headed down to Anaheim to go to Disneyland. It was a Monday, and we probably would have had better luck on a Wednesday or something, but it was fun anyway, we missed a few rides...but we stayed until the park closed and then headed back to the hotel and ordered room service - aaaaaaah rooom service....is that the best or what??

The next day we drove back to downtown LA to hit the art museums with my aunt and uncle. I completely got us lost and we ended up in a very questionable place called Echo Park...we totally could have scored some drugs there. HEH
I told Doug that there is no way we would ever make it on the Amazing Race because I am so directionally challenged - and he is so anal about doing all the driving. The only time he lets me drive is when he wants to sleep...the hypocrite.
We finally found the place, and honestly, I learned more about art in 3 hours with my aunt and uncle, then I ever did in ANY of the art classes I took in school. They ROCK when it comes to that kind of stuff...my uncle was an art professor, so he knows his stuff - as well as my aunt who is just naturally very knowledgable...and they have a cool appreciation for all the modern stuff, and can explain things to me so I understand it instead of looking at some trash sculpture and thinking "shoot, I could clean out one of our closets and make that SAME peice - where's MY million dollars"

We stayed with them for a couple of days, and after that, we went to Palm Springs where it was hotter than HELL itself. 113 degrees? Yeah, that's too hot.
I ended up getting a cold because of all the air conditioning...but we did get some good R and R - and Doug got to go to an old WWII airplane museum...very cool.

Let's see - back home on Sunday, and back to work on Monday (for me anyway, hubby had monday off - lucky!)