Sunday Scramble 3-28-10

Whew!  What a couple of weeks I've had.

Let's see what I can update you on.

Well, Mikayla got in more trouble last week than she's ever been in in her life.  Why?  Because she insisted on telling Madison that there is no Santa Claus.  Said she couldn't stand perpetuating the lie anymore.  She didn't actually say perpetuating, but that's what she meant.



I threatened her bodily harm if she went ahead with it.



She did it anyway.



WHOP upside the head.

I can't even tell you the trauma this caused all of us.  Madison crying hysterically, asking why we've lied to her all these years, Jimmy over the phone from Kansas City yelling at Mikayla, Mikayla in her room crying for hours... and punishment!  Ooh, for five days Jimmy let her think that her hip hop classes were a thing of the past.



Thank goodness I convinced him not to take that away.  It's the first thing she's ever done that she's truly passionate about.




I love my sister.  You all know that.


But sometimes she's stupid.


The night of my nephew, Jonny's, play, we all went out for dinner at a Chinese buffet.


Blech.  Ptooey.  Need I say more?



But as we were sitting there over dessert, all of a sudden Jill looks at me and says, "Man, this ice cream is cold!"



Now what would you do or say if your beloved sister said something so completely ridiculous?  I mean really, was the ice cream supposed to be tepid?  I wanted to smack her, but instead I just called down the table to my brother and loudly announced what she'd just said.  Ya know, to make her feel even more stupid.  Jeff, of course, was not surprised, but rolled his eyes anyway.





Then, days later Jill and I are on the phone.  She's telling me about seeing her friend's mother's house for the first time and how beautiful it is.

Jill:  You should see it.  It has a porch that goes all around and then those big, tall cylinders.  So pretty!

Me:  Excuse me?  Did you just say cylinders?

Jill:  Yeah, what was I supposed to say?  Oh duh!  I mean, colanders!

Me:  Really Jill?  They have giant colanders on their porch?  What?  They have massive amounts of pasta to drain?

Jill:  Oh.  Shit.  What's the word I'm looking for?

Me:  Columns, you asshole!


See?  Stupid!

Love you sis!


I'm excited and I'm nervous.  I've decided I'm going to take online courses and get a certificate in medical transcription!!!!  I have two different schools I'm looking at and am just waiting for Jimmy to look them over and see which one will work best for me.  I know which one I want to use, but dammit, it's $5,000 for the course, versus $800 at Penn Foster.

This could potentially open up a whole new world for me!





Remember the pictures of all those adorable armadillos I showed you weeks ago?  Seems the poor rototillers are dropping like flies around here.

Actually, it's more like they're dropping like animals being shot by pellet gun-totin' neighbors who are out for blood.

I shit you not.  They're working together, the neighbors.  They've formed a regiment of sorts.  One traps, one shoots, others look on, another disposes without Justine seeing.

Last week, I was sitting out here in the bitch cave, minding my own business as usual, when suddenly I see 3 or 4 people skulking around the side of my next door neighbors' house.  Yes, I said skulking, because that's exactly what they were doing.  Grown men and a woman actually tip-toeing as to not alert me to their presence.  But I saw the murderers.

I just didn't know they were murderers at the time.

I raised my hand to wave at my good friend and wouldn't you know she looked down, turned around and the whole gaggle of them skulked away in the other direction?  One of them holding a garbage can?  They actually turned in unison like synchronized swimmers (Buzby Berkeley comes to mind) and walked away guiltily in the direction they'd come from!

I grew suspicious (wouldn't you?), so emailed my good friend to ask what they had been doing.

She said, "Well, Tim had an armadillo trapped in his trash can and we didn't want you to see and make you sad.  So we turned around."

Hmmm... What else?

"Well, we kind of bought a pellet gun to get rid of these things.  They're digging under the foundation of our houses now!  They've gone rogue!  Four down at my last count."


Then, a few days later, while on the phone, she says, "Hey, did you see the picture on my Facebook page?  It was on my front porch so we killed it with a shovel.

Oh.My.Goodness.  It's a harmless garter snake for goodness sakes!  These beautiful animals eat the disgusting vermin.  Stop squishing them!  Squish the vermin!  Hell, you can even shoot them with the pellet gun if it'll make ya feel better.  Leave my critters alone!



Holy crap, am I still living in Saint Augustine, or have I been transported to Buttmunch, West VA?  We don't shoot things in these parts!  We trap them humanely and release them a few miles from our neighborhood.


At least that's the way it used to be done.


I'm thinking it's time to move.


Or get new friends.


Does it occur to anyone else that I'm really not fit to live in suburbia?  Me, the critter lover, is meant to be out in the wide open, with animals walking up to my porch to be hand fed, birds alighting upon my raised hand, pecking gently at the organic seeds I offer.




I truly feel that my destiny is to commune with cattle like Temple Grandin.

I would just look a wee bit better while doing so.








Pssst! If you love me, you might love my stupid sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!

Sunday Scramble 2-28-10

Not too sure about this one.  I usually have my SS ready to roll by Thursday or so, but this week I've been completely discombobulated and lost my SS mojo some time around Tuesday.

One reason is Mafia Wars/Farmville.  In order to get my nice big seeder on FV, I have to level up 5 times on Mafia Wars.  Since I don't normally play that game I've been going nuts trying to figure it out so I can level up quickly.  I've been declaring wars, "icing" enemies and making numerous visits to the hospital with horrible injuries.  Blood everywhere.  You can't see it, but you know you're just gushing copious amounts of it all over the place.

It's such a pleasant game.

Last night we went to our community's free comedy night up at the clubhouse.  Lots of our neighbors were there, of course, and we laughed until our faces hurt.

The opening act was funny, but our headliner was hysterical.  I think it's totally nuts that we got a comedian who's done Caroline's and HBO to come to our neighborhood.  Johnny Mac rocked!!!

 

We even had a taco bar catered by our local Mexican restaurant, plus drinks, including beer and margaritas. Can't beat the price of free for a show and food!

Last week's visit with the family was completely fabulous but there's too much to tell you about for a Scramble post.  If I ever get my act together I'll be able to tell you of such things as paper texts shoved under hotel room doors, observations of the many people with Brachydachtyly Type D that were in one room, my brother caressing wild animals on his iphone, and Mikayla's stripper name.

Me and my nephew, the thespian, Jonny.  Why did he have to blink just as the picture was taken?  And why can't he smile with teeth showing?

As soon as I'm done here I'm going upstairs to throw out that bra.  Droopy, squashed- looking boobies.  Me no likey.

A couple of days after our family thing Mikayla said to me, "Two days with all those Italians.  I'm pretty sure that's why I've got this headache."

I killed a scorpion yesterday.  Squished him with a paper plate.

But of course I took a picture for you first!

 

I'm experiencing the Wal*Mart DTs.  In an effort to try and curb spending, I've kept far from the crack house of Wal*Mart for nearly a month.  I don't know how much longer I can last though.

Might take a drive up there tonight on the pretense of needing kitty litter.

Just recently I've realized that polka dots make me happy.  I think I picked up this rare condition from BJ because if she's not singing the praises of Mackenzie Childs, then she's probably squealing like a sissy girl over her polka dots.  

No no no, not on her person.... she didn't have the pox the last time I looked.

She's just got all these great polka dotted dishes and mugs and stuff and each time I saw a picture it would make me smile.

So, while browsing Home Goods with Chessie and Michael last weekend I couldn't help but gravitate toward the dotty mugs.  I love coffee and I love the dots now too, so I can't think of a better combination.  I wanted at least two of the red ones, but dammit, they only had one.  So, I got one red and one black.  I excitedly walked through the store to find the gang and show them my prize.

Big mistake.  Jimmy bitched and whined at me because I was spending 8 whole dollars on mugs.  Mugs!  Can you imagine?  I've already got a ton of mugs, right?  Well yes I do, but not red polka dotted mugs dammit!

He tried to convince me to put them back, but I would not be deterred.  I took my mugs to the register and proudly forked out $8 plus tax.  And ya know what?  My mugs make me happy!  Happy I say!

Coffee + good book + red polka dot mug = Happy Justiney!

So when I got in the shower today I realized I'd forgotten to grab a new bar of soap.  No way was I getting out of the shower to run naked and dripping wet across the cold, slippery tile to get some either.  So what's a girl to do?

I washed my body with shampoo, that's what!  Sure, it's an inconvenience to pick the bottle up and put it down numerous times (hey, I've got a large body to soap up here!) but there are some up-sides to it.

• I left the shower smelling like soothing lavender.  

• My skin felt especially moisturized.

• And my pubes have extra body and are perfectly pH balanced today.

Okay, link up my peeps!  But please, leave a comment first.  I've been feeling so comment deprived lately.  I've even contemplated quitting the blog for a while, until I think about the whole bunch of you that are so loyal to me and, I decide I just couldn't do it.





Pssst! If you love me, you might love my stupid sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!

Sunday Scramble

Here I am again, twisted and disconnected thoughts awaiting your perusal.  Let's get started, shall we?

• Thursday was Strudel's 1-year birthday!  We celebrated by doing... nothing.  According to Golden  owners far and wide, a  Golden Retriever stays in the puppy stage for a good 2 years.  Yay me. Not sure I can survive it.  This week?  She ate two pencils, my new-ish throw pillow, the new, $20 remote Jimmy just bought a couple weeks ago, another People magazine and a tennis ball. All dogs love tennis balls, right?  Well, Strudel loves them so much that she tears them into teeny tiny pieces. 

Gotta love this dog.  Or hate her.  I'll leave it up to you.

She looks so innocent, but I promise you, she's not.  In fact, she's not even allowed on the couch!

• Wednesday night I was running late to pick up the girls at CCD (religious education).  I was shoveling spaghetti in my face as quick as I could but even so only had time to eat half of it.  I quickly grabbed my purse and ran out the door.  Halfway there I realized I was wearing my slippers (okay, I'll be honest and say I pick them up wearing my slippers most of the time, and on purpose) and no bra.  Yes, no bra... with the DDs flappin' in the breeze.  I had to walk to their classrooms with my arms crossed over my chest. Not an easy feat considering my boob to arm- length ratio.

• Sinead and her family are here!!!  Not sure when I'll get to see her because they're in a kind of moving-from-Hawaii limbo.  They're here, but all their shit is somewhere on the Pacific ocean.  It could be a month or more before they have any furniture.   While on the phone with Nade yesterday she whined in my ear, "It's cold here!  I don't like it!  I want to go back to Hawaii!"  What a pussy.  This is Florida, she's from NY for cripe's sake, where we used to endure blizzards.  She's crying because it's 65 degrees. She may just wake up on Sunday and start sobbing when she realizes the high for the day is only supposed to be 56 degrees.  Bwaa haa haaaaaaaaaaaa!

• Do your tomatoes wear diapers?  Well, mine do.  But only the ugly ones.  I shit you not, I even took a picture for you. 

Why do they call these ugly tomatoes?  I don't think they're ugly at all.  Nice and red and with just a few puckery wrinkles.  To me, that just gives a tomato character. Sure, this one has a tiny bruise but it's not his fault... someone obviously mishandled him.  Poor thing.

So as I was saying, Publix always seems to have the ugly tomatoes in these foam diapers.  Can't for the life of me figure out why.  And isn't this discrimination against the Romas, the fresh-on-the-vines, the Beefsteaks, etc. etc.?  Why don't they get foam diapers?

• Okay, who here has read Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol?  This is so not my typical kind of read, but after hearing Jimmy nag me for months on end to read it, I either had to actually crack it open and give it a try, or take the book and bash him over the head with it.  Whereas I wish I could say I did the latter, I'm actually glad I did the former.  This book rocked my face off, as Amity would say.

And now I have him reading this series...

 

Frickin' awesome books, but I don't think he's ever read a book with actual sex scenes in it.  I may have traumatized him for life.  Goody!

 

• As I sit here out in my bitch cave in the absolutely freezing 61.5 degree weather, I can hear Mikayla inside, yelling at Jimmy.  She just said, "Daddy! Stop it with the popcorn now!  You're disgusting!"  Jimmy has this thing with eating the un-popped kernels and I can attest that the sound of him crunching them is, in fact, disgusting.

• And now, for my favorite bloggy quote of the week:

This one comes to you from my friend Recia, at The Crazy Train.  The reason this quote had me peeing my pants is because Mikayla just pulled this one on me a few weeks ago.

"If you are the spanking parent..you probably have good kids...but in some places it's frowned upon. CHILDREN KNOW THIS...who the hell told them? SO they might respond to their punishment with "I'll call CPS" and you can respond with..."well they'll have to find your body first" :)"

•  Note to Self:  Please remember Recia's come-back to that particular threat.

Now come on in and link up with Mr. MckLinky!!!  I'll love ya forever if you do!









Pssst! If you love me, you might love my stupid sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!

I Probably Don't Deserve It, But...

I'd still love it if you joined me for this week's Sunday Scramble!

I feel undeserving because in the past two days I've barely even opened my blog, much less read any of yours.  I'm in a funk, remember?

But come on, the SS kind of flunked last week and that made me sad.  So, put your scrambled, inconsistent thoughts together and come by Saturday night to link up!  These are the kind of posts you don't even have to think about.  Just sit down and let your fingers type whatever the hell you're thinking at the moment, or what's been driving you batty all week.  It's actually kind of fun!



Pssst! If you love me, you might love my stupid sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!

Join Me For The Sunday Scramble

Well, here we go.  The first official Sunday Scramble meme.  I'm curious to see how many, if any, of you will join in with me!

As Pooba Would Say, "A Turrible Turrible, Mess

This past week Jason did a post on his kitchen's multiple junk drawers.  Yes, he actually blogged about that.  Even made it not too boring, in fact.  Which got me to thinking about my junk drawer and how much crap is probably in there.  I didn't catalog it as J did, but I did take a couple of pictures.  I'm just thankful that Jimmy got it in his head to organize it a bit a few weeks ago so it's not too turribly embarrassing.

My question is, do we really need all that crap?  I mean, I even see a fake flower boutineer.  Is that even close to how that's spelled?

WTF?

And while I'm at it, why did Blogger upgrade their editing program, only to take the spell-check out?  Does that make any damn sense to you?  I'll be honest and say I'm a pretty good speller, but come on, sometimes there are words that you just don't know how to spell.  I want my spell-check back!

Justine Is Awesome

Nope, not tooting my own horn here.  I'm talking about Justine Carrelli, the American Bandstand dancer from back in the 50s.  If you stopped by here last week you would have seen this post about how I came by the name Justine.

After finishing that post I searched hunted her down the web looking for any current information on Justine, and lo and behold, I found her.  She's a real estate agent in Las Vegas these days.  I sent her a quick email to tell her I was named after her and to my surprise, she responded the very next day.  I thought that was super sweet of her!  When I called my mom to tell her, do you know what the first thing she asked was?  "Is she fat?"  That's another WTF moment for sure.

Forever Friends

I haven't mentioned my oldest and dearest friend Sinead in quite a long time, but if you're a long-time follower you may remember hearing about her.  Friends from the ages of 3 and 4, we've stayed close all these years.  It's actually a little surprising because we haven't even lived in the same state for the past 15 years.

Sinead's hubby is Navy and they've moved quite a bit in the last 10 years or so.  California to Virginia, Virginia to Hawaii.  But now they're moving here to Florida!  And not just Florida, but to the Jacksonville area!  Holy crapola, for the first time in a decade and a half we'll be within driving distance of each other.  Well, her driving distance, not mine.   The panic disorder and all that.  I hope "Nade" isn't too camera shy because if she even dares to tell me I can't blog about her (with pictures) in the future, I'll just kill her.  Or write her off completely.  You hear that Nade???

Sinead and Justine, circa 1976?  Notice the smears on her face?  I don't think there was a day of her childhood where she wasn't sporting some kind of crap on her face and/or clothes.  Piggy.  Wow, that just made me remember Sinead's word for "pig" or "piggy".  It was pigro!  Weird.

Sinead and Justine, circa 1978 or '79?

I can't wait to sneak pictures of her with food smooshed on her face again!  Bwaaa haaa haaaa!

Just Pop It, Please!!!

For the past 2 or 3 months I've had this spot on my shoulder blade which itches almost constantly.  I'd rub it on door frames, I'd wiggle back and forth in bed to rub the sheets on it, but no matter what I've done I can't get rid of the itch.

It's a pimple!  It's an itty bitty, teeny tiny pimple and it's causing me the itchy-bitchiness from hell!  Why I didn't suspect a pimple from the get-go is beyond me, but there's a problem.  I can't reach the nasty little bugger.  The other night I threatened bodily harm to Jimmy if he didn't take my pimple popping implement to my back.  It took a bit of whining shouting, but I got him to do it.  He pressed and he pulled to no avail, causing me considerable pain while doing so.  He then said, "It's not a pimple!  It's a skin tag or something!  All I've done is make it bleed."

The next day I had Mikayla look at my back.  She said, "Daddy was picking at the wrong spot!  Here, lemme at it!"

Unfortunately, she was unable to get rid of it and now I'm stuck here waiting for another opportune moment to force ask Jimmy to give it another try.  Until then, I'm eternally itchy.

Word Twist

Do you have certain words that you always type incorrectly, no matter that you've typed that same word a millions times?  For many years I couldn't even type my own daughter's name properly.  Mikayla came out something like Miklalya or something.  And YouTube.  Holy crap, almost every time I put that into Google I type YouTubel.  Why does my ring finger insist on hitting that L?

Favorite Bloggy Quote of the Week

Brought to you by Jason, of The Jason Show, while explaining the health benefits of potatoes in any form:

Low in carbs, low in fat, low in calories, and packed with vitamins, minerals, calcium, anti-oxidants, protein, probiotics, lycopene, iron, omega-3s, folic acid, potassium, lithium, progesterone, testosterone, estrogen, podium, immodium, and fiber, potatoes just might be nature's most perfect food!

So, now it's your turn to link up your scrambled thoughts, if you choose.  If you choose not to, it's okay.  I won't cry or anything.  Sniff.  Sniff.  Really.  It's okay.  I'll still love you.  Sniff.  Sniff.





Pssst! If you love me, you might love my stupid sister more. Go visit her at Jill's Believe it or Not, and tell her I sent you!