I feel like I’ve just woken up from a long sleep- a Rip Van Winkle long sleep. Believe it or not, I am typing this on my very own Dell laptop. That’s the good news.

The bad news is I can’t get it to work at my house right now. I need a network key, whatever that is, to connect to the wi-fi that Nate set up a couple of years ago for me. He knows what it is of course; but he’s at work and I can’t talk to him right now.

So I’m at a local restaurant, drinking a Diet Coke and using their wi-fi til I get the problem resolved.

Nevertheless, needless to say, I’m thrilled.

Nathan is still in possession of my old Toshiba POS. I still want to put it on the train tracks and watch it smashed to smithereens. However when I mentioned it the other day, I was told that I could get in trouble for that.

Could a puny, plastic encased laptop actually hurt a train?

I don’t really think so.

Still, I don’t want to wind up with a husband named Stella, so perhaps I should rethink my plan for it’s demise. I am open to suggestions; but please keep in mind that both Doug and I have boogered up shoulders so a sledge hammer is not a option.

I thought about explosives; but don’t want the popo getting after me, so that’s probably out as well. Not to mention I really wouldn’t know where to score some anyway. But I definitely open to suggestions, so please send them on- the more creative the better. I think I’ll film it and post it on YouTube. If only PO’d owners of Toshiba laptops watch I should still get a million hits.

Seriously, Toshiba should stick to making TV’s.

But enough of my rant… onto other things.

Doug and I spent the last 5 days in Austin. We had an event in town Saturday and Sunday so we just stayed at the Ramada. Then I used a Groupon for Vintage Villas, a gorgeous boutique hotel out on Lake Travis, for the last two nights we were in town. Evelyn and I had had stayed there 1 night last summer when we’d ran away from our hubs. It was nice then; but it’s really great for couples.

There’s a huge Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom, which she and I did enjoy last summer. However we used it separately, declining to share it at that juncture. I was really looking forward to sharing it with Doug. (I’d forgiven him for his lack of judgement a couple of weeks ago.)  We don’t to go anywhere super nice very often.

I packed a few things to make our stay even more special. Gizmo and Daisy were at Aunt Bunny’s dog spa (Evelyn’s house) and Amanda and Nate were watching the big three.

I was on cloud nine.

Prior to getting there I’d called on two places to sell our LP pots that I’d painted. Both bought.

I had big plans for the next two days.  Keep in mind Doug isn’t the most overtly romantic guy on the face of the earth.  But I knew in this bucolic setting with the big tub, no dogs around or Ecofab materials stacked up to the ceiling in our bedroom to distract us and wine coolers in the mini fridge things would be different.

Here are some photos:

All that and a separate living room with it’s own couch and flat screen.

We had big plans and nothing was going to spoil our good time.

Or so I thought.

We stopped at a store near the hotel to lay in supplies and when Doug went to get out of the car he could barely walk. When he stood up a pain shot through his leg. He stood there not knowing if he’d be able to walk in.

I was perplexed.

(Sometimes after a couple of days of slap and tickle we can get kinda broken.  Even though our driver’s licenses say we’re not young, our minds refuse to believe it; so we still act like we’re young, then may pay for it for a couple of days after with some aches and pains. But that’s OK. The huge smiles and feelings of bliss are worth it for sure.)

Anyway, at this point I hadn’t laid a hand, or anything else on him; so I had no idea what had precipitated this problem.I knew though from the description of the pain and where it was located what was wrong. He has a torn meniscus.

Dr. Michele is rarely wrong.

I watch a lot of Discovery Heath after all. Besides I had the same thing a few years ago- not surprising since I hit the ground more often than a terrible toddler throwing tantrums all the time.

But he hadn’t fallen, not since the rodeo almost a year ago anyway. But all that was irrelevant now.

He was busted; and I was bummed, for both of us.

So I gave him 4 Alleve, propped up his knee,which was now swollen, and got him as comfy as I could on the bed. I then opened a wine cooler and went to sit it in the big tub all alone and sulk. After about 20 minutes at which point I’d decided I’d reached my maximum pruniness without my skin actually sloughing off like a “floater” (thank you very much Law & Order), I was ready to get out of the tub.

Imagine my surprise then when just as I was about to get out, a naked Doug came limping like Amos McCoy into the bathroom.

For those who are too young too remember here you go:

(Just for clarification you never saw Amos naked, thank God. )

Anyway, Doug was determined to get in that big tub with me. And after some maneuvering he got in.

I was determined that we’d position his knee so that it’d be near one of the jets. Perhaps hydrotherapy would help I’d hoped. And as I was moving all around trying to get his situated just so, apparently I slid over the intake hole in the tub.

I felt like I was being violated by a giant octopus. That tub had hold of my butt and for a second I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to break free. And with Doug being all boogered up, I wasn’t about to ask him for help. I had the lights off in the room so he didn’t see the look on my face or he’d probably have tried to help.

Actually it was probably only about 10 seconds that the monster had hold of me; but it felt like much longer for sure. It really hurt.

Eventually we both got situated and stayed in the tub another 20 minutes. Of course the whole time I expected my skin to start coming off in clumps, but I never mentioned it to him not wanting to quash his efforts at romance.

I got out first and was relieved to see that my skin was staying in place. (It wasn’t where it shoulda been of course in a perfect world; but that was too much to hope for anyway after a lifetime  of wildly fluctuating weights. Over the years a graph of my weight would look like an EKG strip.)

We got him re situated and I gave him a medicinal wine cooler. Usually shortly thereafter the fun and games would begin. But I knew that was not to be this night. So I put on my head nurse outfit and gave him his favorite sleeping pill.

Two minutes after the man was damn near in a coma. Between the wine, the tub, the Alleve and his absolute favorite thing in the world he was deep asleep.

I stayed up watching HBO and feeling concerned for him/sorry for myself.

(I know Amanda doesn’t ever like to think about it but we still have sex and still enjoy it.) She prefers to think we found her under a cabbage leaf.

Thank goodness the next day his leg was better, but was still not right. But if the first night was a 10, the next day was about a 6. I was happy for that. He was still limping like Amos, but not wincing every time he took a step anyway.

However, I do have more good news. I went to three more shops in Austin before we left- Prima Dora, A-Town and Wondercraft. They all carry kitschy items made by Texas artisans. I met with the owners and they all took some of my stuff.

Actually they took a lot of my stuff. I started painting more pieces last night.

Of course being consignment shops I won’t see a dime from any of them til after March 15th, but I still feel good about it; and the first nursery I sold to is ready to reorder. True it’s a small order; but over a $100, so I’m not turning up my nose at it.

So I guess that’s it for now. Sorry I haven’t been around much to visit. Having to borrow a computer sucked the big wahoo. Hopefully I can get this network key issue resolved soon and be able to post from home again and catch up with everyone.

See ya soon.

The rumors of my demise are premature.

I’m still here, I’m happy to say.

Never fear.

Only the good die young.

I’m sure I’ll live long enough to become an outrageous old crone.

According to Doug sometimes I’m pretty close as it is sometimes.

(Of course he’s the one who left me alone downtown at night and is now still sporting a bruise on his arm for it, so he may just be a tad biased in his assessment.

But once again I have but a few minutes so I’m gonna make the most of it and share a story that my friend, Fishducky, gave me. I’d been holding onto it for awhile until I really needed it, and that’s now.

With any luck my life should be somewhat back to normal, whatever exactly that is, sometime soon.

And I’m really looking forward to it, mostly- anyway. I think.

Anyway, here you go- enjoy.

BRING YOUR OWN CHICKEN

When our kids were small we called my husband’s sister, Jackie, one hot 4^th of July & asked if we could come over.  She was the only one in the family with a swimming pool.  The kids loved her, as did we. She was a very warm & generous person.  She said, “Sure—come on out!  Can you guys stay for dinner?  We’re having some friends over & you’ll have to bring your own chicken, but I’ll supply the rest of the food.”  We told her that would be great & that we’d be there in a couple of hours.

We called our friend, Larry, who could get his hands on anything, anytime.  (I will explain this reference later.)

We loaded the kids in the car, stopped & picked up a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken & drove out to Jackie’s house.  We all had a fun afternoon swimming & visiting with my sister in law, her husband, their friends & everybody’s kids.  When it was time to serve dinner, Jackie said to my husband, Bud, “It’s a good thing you brought a whole bucket of chicken.  I hope we have enough to serve everyone.”  Bud told her not to worry—we had another chicken in the car & asked her if he should go get it.  She said, “Yes, please.”

For some unknown reason, Jackie was shocked when Bud brought in the chicken from the car.  Perhaps it was because she expected more KFC.  What Bud brought in was not KFC.  It was a LIVE chicken, in a cage!  (Supplied by Larry.)  She asked him why & he explained, simply, “You told us to bring our own chicken, so we did!”

(Note from Larry:  If you want a live chicken on the 4^th of July, it’s much easier if you order ahead.)

Thanks Fishducky. I really appreciate your helping me with this.

Larry sounds like my kinda guy for sure. You just never know when your gonna need a live chicken after all.

I’ll be around to see everyone in a couple of days I hope.

I hope all is well with you.

I am still computerless; without a working computer that is.

When I can’t get to a computer somewhere I’m stuck using my old Android phone for data; and now that I’ve had to use it so much it’s going slower than ever.

I feel like I’m back in the dark ages, clacking 2 coconuts together to get around.

For those who don’t understand that reference I will illustrate-

But I am not without hope.

I have some good news.

We were back at Discovery Green this weekend and I made a great contact. An interior decorator who caters to the Richey Riches of Houston came by the booth. She’s redoing a number of homes and would like to put our LP art in their media rooms. And not 1 piece per room, but many.

She also said I’m charging about half of what I should be for them. So I’ll be talking to her later this week.

Although I’m thrilled that she says we’re undercharging, I’m kinda spooked about charging significantly more. There’s a fine line between charging too little or too much. Just a tad one way or another can screw you for sure.

When I am computered again (God willing sometime late next week) I will post photos of some of the pieces and ask for input. Of course I can’t do that right now.

Now onto the more interesting part of the weekend…

Saturday night after working all day at Discovery Green we went to pick up some albums from a record shop south of downtown. It’s before Hermann park and the med center. Now this area isn’t exactly a place where you’d want to hang out at night.

But that was OK. We were only going to be there for a few a minuted to pick up the LP’s.

Or so I thought.

Doug dropped me at the door so I could go pay. He came in to get them.

A hundred albums are pretty heavy after all.

He left to go put them in the car and come back to get me.

Or so I thought.

The shop owner closed for the night and left. I was waiting in front for Doug. He asked if I’d be OK. And I said “Sure, he’ll be right here.”

Or so I thought.

Unfortunately, I was wrong.

When Doug left there was only 1 other person nearby- a homeless man with one leg. He smelled none too good and was talking to himself so I didn’t feel inclined to interrupt his conversation.

But he was the most normal guy I encountered.

Now the bad news was that I’d gotten outta the car without my purse, so I didn’t have my phone or even a dime with which to make a call (assuming you could even find a pay phone these days and that they were still a dime). I thought he’d be right back to get me.

After almost 15 minutes I was getting really worried/ pissed off. For all I knew he’d gotten carjacked. (Not that a 15 yr old Villager van is a hot commodity in the world of stolen cars.)

While I was waiting perhaps three cars drove by. Since I was on a side street there wasn’t a lot of traffic, especially at night.

One guy stopped, lowered his window and asked if I needed a ride.

“No, I don’t, thanks anyway.” I said.

“Well I could tie you up if you’re into it.” he replied with a straight face. This was not a joke.

By now I was getting seriously pissed. A minute or so later the shop owner came back. I ran into his shop and asked if I could use the phone.

“WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU???!!!” I screamed into the phone.

Needless to say the shop owner looked somewhat shocked.

“You were taking so long I went to get gas. I was afraid I’d run out.” (Doug has a bad habit of waiting til he’s almost out before getting more. There are very few gas stations anywhere near downtown.

After I slammed down the phone I explained and apologized to the man who had a confused look on his face. When Doug showed up I got in the car and hit his arm as hard as I could to get my point across just in case he was confused about the situation.

I don’t think he’ll be letting the gas tank get that low again.

This isn’t the first time that it’s done it; but it’ll be the last.

Anyway, in the meantime I’m going around and using computers when and where I can. Right now I’m at the library while Doug is off running errands. Lucky for me it’s usually pretty empty here til 2:30 when the kids from the Jr. high across the street come here to hang out while waiting for their ride home.

Usually I’m pretty chilled when I’m here. I figure if someone has to use a computer away from home they’ve had a problem of some kind, like I have. So I don’t mind people who, while on the computer, have to make a quick call. I understand. Sometimes there are just things you need to attend to.

Apparently not everyone is as easygoing as myself however.

Across the table and 1 computer over from me a troll is using a computer.  He’s sitting over there with a sour expression like he just threw up in his mouth and can’t spit it out.

Actually I think it’s his regular look.

I think he’s just backed up and needs a colonic with a fire hose.

A young Hispanic woman near me was making a call. She wasn’t be loud or profane. The librarian walked right by her and didn’t say a thing so you know she wasn’t loud.

But the troll made it his business to get up and get the framed admonition about cellphones. He walked over to her, didn’t say a thing and waved it about 1 foot in front of her face. He then looked at me with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

I guess he was waiting for a thumbs-up from me or something, since he’d quashed the heinous menace. (At least he thought so apparently.)

All he got from me was a shrug. She hadn’t been bothering me after all. I thought he was being an ass. Shortly thereafter Doug called. I was literally whispering while talking to him, which took all of about 20 seconds.

As I put the phone away I could feel eyes on me.

The Troll was now giving me the hairy eyeball.

I was just waiting for him to come over and try to wave that sign in front of my face.

I’m feeling feisty today.

Bring it big boy.

However after I gave him a withering glare in return, he decided not to go there after all. Instead he went back to work compiling his list of widows to tie to railroad tracks.

Finally the giant walking ad for Preperation H was done. He adjusted his plaid polyester pants and left.  As he was leaving I was noticing how nicely his plaid pants went with the stained Guayabera shirt he was wearing. And who just doesn’t love clip on suspenders? He was almost special enough to be on People of Walmart.

Anyway, now onto other things…

The big debate over a computer is still going on at my casa.

Brett, a Mac zealot, is insisting that we get a Mac. Nate is a PC guy. Of course is a Mac is about 3 times the cost of a PC, a big factor at this juncture.

All I know is that I need a computer that I don’t have to fiddle with all the time. So I’m thinking of getting an inexpensive desktop then saving up for an I-PAD. If I’m away from home can I run the business on an I-PAD?

Does anyone know?

In the meantime though I guess I’ll have to come here. We’re only given 1 hour of time at a time though so I can’t go everywhere and do everything I need to do in that little time. So if possible please keep all the excitement in your lives to a minimum til I get my new computer and can keep up with everyones goings on.

Thanks for hanging in with me.

So after I do my email stuff and check on Ecofab and trying to book spring shows there isn’t much time left for Bodacious goings on and me popping around to visit everyone.

However, I’d been getting emails that people have been following me on Pinterest.

I didn’t have anything on it; so I finally had Amanda show me what to do.

It’s really fun.

So for today I thought I’d share something I repinned from someone else.

I think it’s cute; but then I have the maturity of about a 12 yr. old so that may be why.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

I wanted to pop in and say hi and thanks to everyone for their words of encouragement for Amanda.

I’m happy to report she got home yesterday afternoon.

And she was able to avoid surgery. They all passed on their own.  She was even able to miss the CAT scan.

After we got her back to our side of town everyone went for lunch. As you might imagine Doug, myself , she and Nathan were not exactly sparkling conversationalists, having been at the ER the whole night before. Evelyn who came for lunch carried most of the conversation since she wasn’t sleep deprived.

By 2pm yesterday I was in deep ZZZ’s and stayed that way til some time after 7.

I woke up just in time for the People’s Choice Awards.

Why I even bothered to turn it on I have no idea. I only knew at best 50% of the people nominated and of those probably 20% by name only. When they announced the winner they didn’t even identify what show they came from. So for the most part, I was clueless. Not that that’s anything new these days.

I was in time to catch Adam Sandler’s bit which I guess he thought was funny.

I didn’t. And it went on way long too.

I think next year I’ll just watch something on Netflix.

After the show was over I thought I’d get online, visit everyone and perhaps write a post for today.

I thought I would anyway.

It wasn’t to be.

My Toshiba laptop, a Japanese POS, has taken ill again and is down yet again.

Sadly, this is nothing new.

I’m going to see if Nathan has the time tonight and can resurrect it.

I’m not holding out a lot of hope however.

If it can’t be I’m really screwed. I have photos ready to load for Ecofab.

I’m at Amanda’s now and using their desktop computer. But it’d be a huge imposition if I had to be here everyday. Not to mention I’m not even sure I could run a site without a working computer at home.

So depending on whether or not Nate’s successful you may or may not see me around a lot. I’m in no position to buy another computer right now. That much I know.

My chuckle for the day came this morning when a young woman from the hospital where I went for my kidney stones called.

“Mrs. Eigler, we were wondering if you’d like to set up a payment plan for your recent stay?”

“What did you have in mind?” I asked

“$1,150 a month for 18 months.” she casually replied, like it was no big deal.

“If I had that much extra a month we’d have health insurance.” I said.

So, I made my first payment today, a whopping $50. I assured her that I’d get it paid off. She may have retired by the time it finally is, but it’ll get done-eventually.

I guess that’s it for now. I’ve got to get back home. We have a small show on Saturday and have to get things ready. It’s going to be 29 early Saturday morning when we leave the house. I can’t wait.

If Nathan can resurrect my POS I’ll see everyone manana. So please keep your fingers crossed and thanks again for all your well wishes. I read them all; please forgive me for not replying personally.

In fact we just got home perhaps and hour ago.

Where were we? you ask.

Were we partying with all the pretty people?

Did Doug lose possession of his faculties and decided to start dancing?

I wish.

No nothing that much fun.

We were back at the ER.

And the best guess the Dr. has right now is that it’s kidney stones again.

But I wasn’t the patient this time.

Amanda was.

Nathan called about 9pm and said Amanda wasn’t feeling well. By 11 she’d gotten worse and we were on the way to the hospital. She was screaming and crying and inconsolable with pain.

Unfortunately I could relate.

By the time we got to the hospital though her pain had gone from about a 716 down to a 3.

I was scared her appendix might’ve ruptured.

She said she could just go on home; but there was no way she was leaving til we knew what was up.

So they’re running tests. They gave her IV morphine and by now I’m sure she’s sleeping. We were told they wouldn’t know anything til mid morning at the earliest; so Doug and I came on home. We have to let out the pack and go feed Molly at their house.

Nate stayed with her and we’re going back mid morning unless Nate calls us before.

So I guess that’s it for now. I gotta get some sleep.

BTW- If you want to read the post I actually wrote yesterday for today, just check the one right before this. I posted two today, one right after the other.

Ho ho ho.

Obviously while my body was occupied by an alien presence last Saturday morning, my brain suffered oxygen deprivation.

How do I know this, you ask?

Because for a few minutes I actually thought going to an aerial arts class would be a good thing- for me that is. It sounded like fun and naturally Doug would be thrilled if I got that flexible again.

So how did I discover that this would not be a good idea?

Watch and see for yourself:

In case you missed it, at one point the woman pulls her body up the silk from a sitting position, which means she’s dead lifting her weight with just her arms. That’s impressive.

And since after 35 years of face painting I now have carpal tunnel and the grip strength of a 2 month old, I realized that the aerial arts were not for me.

What I was thinking I do not know; but still, I was bummed.

You never really appreciate the little things like having grip strength til they’re gone.

Now on to more news of the none too bright or just flat out strange…

-I think it’s fitting that that this Mensa reject tried to do this at a Walmart.

-This guy was either just extraordinarily stupid or just assumed the women all would be.

-There were guys at Mardi Gras who actually walked around in T-shirts that said “Official Boobs Judge”. They were pretty successful at it. A lot of woman flashed their ta-tas for them; but then that wasn’t all that unusual at Mardi Gras anyway considering the level of alcohol in most of the women’s bloodstreams.

-Here’s a crime mystery for you.

Now if you paid attention when you were reading you noticed that all the other thefts were items that didn’t need refrigeration; but margarine does. I’ve seen people go door to door selling meat, but never margarine. Not to mention it’s not an inconsequential amount.

I’m really curious just what they’re going to do with it all.

Popcorn? Lobster?

Yesterday I got the heads up for us to participate in an event this weekend. It’s down at Discovery Green, where we set up for Discovery Flea once a month.

From Thanksgiving through mid January they have an outdoor ice rink set up there too. It’s predicted to be 74 tomorrow. This isn’t all that unusual for Houston in the winter and is one of the few reasons that people like living here. But tomorrow it’s gonna be so warm that it’ll be like skating around on a slushee. The first inch of ice on the rink will have melted; so if you fall, you get wet.

Tomorrow they’re also having an ice sculpting contest there. I hope those guys can work fast and can put something out for judging before they all just turn into a big puddle.

Kiddzstuf (us) is the only vendor there tomorrow with things for kids to do (other than the rink). And since the rink is only 72′x100′ it gets filled up quickly. Besides a lot of the people here aren’t great ice skaters like they are up north.

With the ice being so slushy and the rink being so small, we’ll provide another option for something to do with the kids. And last year there were 10,000 people at this event.

So I’m going to eat a huge amount of Alleve in the morning and go face paint. Doug is gonna run the sand art.

We have 3, 10′ sides we can use. So I think Amanda is going to come down and sell ECOFAB goodies out of the third side.

It should be a good day, if my arm doesn’t just fall off tomorrow night or I wind up running with scissors in traffic from the pain.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty good til I looked in the mirror.

Really looked, with a 15x mirror that is.

No one my age should do that- ever.

But I wanted to make sure some random hair on my chin had escaped my notice. Years ago, before I had electrolysis, I face painted all one weekend then saw on Monday I had a couple of chin hairs long enough to braid. It was horrifying.; but at least then I understood why the kids were all staring at my chin the whole time. They were probably looking for my mole or waiting for me to turn them into a toad.

Anyway, this morning my chin was smooth as baby’s bottom, a good thing.

Then I looked up higher though and noticed that I had 1, only 1, crazy- ass eyebrow hair.

It was gigantic, and curly; and horrifying.

I plucked that hair out and heard it clank when it hit the sink.

Am I turning into a female version of Andy Rooney?

This I am not prepared for- at all.

Now I have something else to worry about it would seem.

Lucky for me Doug needs glasses to see up close these days; and if we’re in bed giving each other physicals he doesn’t wear them. So I dodged a bullet there.

After recovering from my unexpected and unwanted discovery I checked my email. And what has Evelyn sent me?

Take a look-see:

Fabulous.

I’d already read this.

Now my stomach isn’t big enough to scare small children, but it’s bigger than it should be. So it would seem that yet once again I must steel my resolve and keep on the path the health. I’d hate for ECOFAB to go big and me be so out of it that I’ve been reduced to sitting in the corner and having all the conversational ability of a turnip.

Actually we’ve been pretty good since Christmas. No true junk food or baked goodies have darkened our doors. And for me that’s a good thing. Cake, birthday cake especially is my kryptonite.

What’s yours?

Brett’s old room has been turned into a mini photo studio and today I’ll be shooting photos.

So we’re getting close, real close.

But before I can go live with this I need some input.

The first items that will be on Ecofab will be the bracelets and the earrings. For those of you who have forgotten what I do here’s a photo of a couple of bracelets I took awhile back. (These photos are not the best.)

Take a look-see.

Each piece of jewelery that we sell will be at least slightly different from the next. Even if the colors are exactly the same, the pattern will be different.

I paint 1 record at a time; and outta that 1 LP I get a variety of pieces- there could be thin bracelets, wide bracelets, some with parallel edges, some with 1 curved edge. Sometimes I get earrings out of the LP, sometimes not.

It always varies.

So do the earrings. No two pairs are ever identical. They can be very similar but never identical.

Knowing that, here are some questions for you.

Do I need to have a separate photo and listing for each piece?

As an example- can I post a photo of a gold bracelet (like the one above) with a note that yours will have the same color but it will probably have a different pattern?

Amanda said each individual piece needs to be photographed. But if I do that I’m going to be spending all my time taking photos and doing computer work, adding and deleting photos. (That’s even assuming that I can learn to do it.) My web guru says just to photograph a bracelet in each size, in each color and let it go at that; that people will be OK with not seeing the exact piece.

Listing each different piece does seem like a lot of work for pieces that are relatively inexpensive, only $10-$25.  Would you buy a piece of jewelery online from a photograph that wasn’t the exact piece you’d be getting; if you could exchange it if you didn’t care for it?

What do you think?

New question-

Would it be better to bump the price $2 and then offer free shipping on the jewelery?

On things like the tinned bottles and the mirrors free shipping wouldn’t be possible of course, but I could bump them too and then offer reduced shipping.

What do you think?

How important is the shipping cost?

Right now the bracelets are all cuffs. There is no closure on the back side. The bracelet goes at least 3/4 of the way around the wrist; so it doesn’t come off.

So here’s the question-

Should I also offer them with the option of a closure in the back?  (The price would be slightly more of course.)

So I guess those are the big questions for today. I’d really appreciate any input you can give me; and feel free to share this post. I’d like a information from as many people as possible so I can make an informed decision.

And since I’m busy trying to figure out the new fancy smancy camera that we got for Christmas so I can take Ecofab photos, I don’t really have time to write much today anyway. So instead I’m just gonna share this.

And yes, part of it is politically incorrect.

But it is funny.

BTW- Next time I’ll have some questions about Ecofab that I’ll need answers to. I have to make some decisions about how to set up the site and I’d really appreciate feedback; so I hope everyone will answer the questions.

So here you go…

I hope you were able to greet 2012 with a clear head today.

Did I?

You betcha.

On the biggest party night of the year Doug and I just laid low, staying home.

One reason was that the man just won’t dance. So there’s really no point in going out to one of the big parties that the hotels here have. (Doug danced the night we met and hasn’t really since.) He says he saving himself because he knows he’ll have to dance with Amanda at her wedding. Of course she and Nathan haven’t even set a date yet; but Doug’s saving his dancing for that just the same.

The other reason is that I’ve somehow boogered up my back. I have no idea what I did when or exactly when I did it; but I did it- big time.

When I got out of the car on Friday I stood up and a pain shot through my lower back like I’d been electrocuted. I’d had back pain after the whole kidney stones debacle; but this was a different kind of back pain. It hurt so bad I wasn’t even sure I could take a step.

But I did.

Channeling my inner knight I girded up my loins and walked (slowly, very slowly) into the store. I probably looked like I was 106 and shoulda been pushing a walker with tennis balls on it’s legs in front of me; but I got inside eventually.

After that we went home to get ready to go Evelyn’s for dinner and game night. Amanda’s and Nate’s best friend Elizabeth is in town from Seattle and it’d been decided that we’d all get together for dinner and to play games. I took three Alleve and off we went. I love our game nights. It’d take more than pain to make me miss one.

Like the last time we started by playing Apples to Apples; but this time it was the Jewish edition. Amanda bought it on sale and thought it’d be fun.

Was it?

Not so much.

It might’ve been fun if we were actually Jewish; but being as none of us were we spent most of the time reading the definitions on the cards before we could proceed. So if you’re a Gentile like we are, I’d suggest taking a pass on it.

A much better choice is Loaded Questions. A card is drawn and everyone at the table has to write their answer to the question that is read. Then after hearing the responses the person who drew the card and read the question has to try to match each person with their answer. One question was ‘If you could have a superpower what would you want it to be?” Another was “What’s the worst genre of music?”

I answered techno-cowboy. I’m not even sure it is a real genre; but that’s some of the fun, trying to confuse people.

“What famous person do you most resemble?

I answered Jim Croce.

The questions went on and on and Evelyn laughed so hard she farted while she was laughing. We’re a high class group to be sure.

Anyway, since I don’t have an exciting New Year’s Eve story to share I thought I’d start off this year by posing some questions to everyone. Be aware these aren’t funny; but they do make you think. Is everybody ready to start the year with some introspection?

Here you go-

1. There is now a test that can tell you if you’ll develop Alzheimer’s. Would you take it?

2. If you had the chance to live forever, would you want to?

3. What is #1 on your bucket list?

I’ve decided that if my back isn’t all better by tomorrow I’m going to go ahead and take steroids. I always keep an prescription for them on hand. I don’t take them just willy-nilly. I actually haven’t taken any in over 5 years; but sometimes you just need them.

Also, I just found a great photo for the next Bizarrometer. So that’ll be coming soon.

Back to the funny next time.

That’s why most men would never answer the question “Does this make my butt look big?’ with anything but a “No”. (Not if they wanted to live to see the sun come up the next day anyway.)

That’s why there are at least 1,000 different lotions, potions and creams that promise clearer skin, bigger boobs, shinier hair, brighter teeth or an ability to turn back the clock and take years off your appearance. And personally every woman I know has bought into the hype, at least a little bit.

Last spring I went in for a series of three IPL treatments, also known as photo facials. The promise was that there’d be a huge reduction in the amount of sun damage and some fine lines would disappear too.

Did it work?

Yes, it did.

Do I look 18 again?

Not so much, which is probably a good thing or Doug would just look like a desperate, dirty old man when we’re out and about together. It probably did take at least 8-10 years off my face. The brown splotches from years of sun worshiping when I was in my 20′s did disappear and my skin looks a lot better.

Now if I could just find a Dr. with a staple gun who could take some tucks here, and here, and here and there I’d be a truly happy camper. But like most people my age, I suffer from both turkey neck and flapitis.

Flapitis- noun- 1. the unfortunate condition which causes your tricep to still flap away long after your bicep has stopped moving.

All people of a certain age get this; it’s inevitable.

I noticed recently in video clip that Madonna, who has about 5% body fat, has now developed flapitis too. That made me smile.

When you’re young you think you’ll never get it. You just go around with your good memory wearing strapless dresses and sleeveless shirts never really appreciating your toned arms.

But take my word for it, you will get it too, no matter what. So all you young ones enjoy your taut biceps while you can. Go strapless whenever possible because the time will come when you too will be stricken with it. And just to be clear, at some point men get it too.

Sadly most people never realize they have it til they’re out in public in a sleeveless top, hailing a cab or waving hello and the people nearby shriek in horror and turn away averting their eyes.

Evelyn even gave me a birthday card which illustrates the problem.

I’m so lucky to have such a good friend to keep me in check.

But enough of flapitis. Onto other things…

Overall I’m happy with my everything from the chin on up. I was blessed with a smallish nose and ears so that now even they’re still growing I don’t look like a caricature. Also I never wore heavy earrings. (I must admit however that was more for comfort than anything else.)

Anyway, if you just looked at my ears by themselves you’d think I was in my 30′s. Too bad the rest of me doesn’t match.

Some people who are tired of their ears giving away their age, are opting for a surgical fix on their ear lobes to turn back the clock.

I don’t think that Doug really looks his age, especially when he lets me lowlight his hair; but his ears are a dead giveaway. I’ve offered to take care of them right here. (I’ve watched Nip/Tuck.) A couple of quick snips and a few blanket stitches and he’d look 45 again.

But he says he doesn’t care. Of course if I drop dead and he goes back on the market again I bet he’ll rethink that.

In another cruel twist of fate, Mother Nature also makes your lips get smaller as your ears get bigger. So some women in attempt to regain the pouty lips of their youth opt to get filler injected into them.

I haven’t done that either, but can understand women who do.

But this woman has just gone too far, way, way, way too far.

If  my math is correct I calculate she’s spent about $6,000 to look like that, when she coulda just spent about $1 for a pair of wax lips like this little girl did.

So just what have you done to make yourself feel more attractive?

Now, for those who are interested, here’s the exciting report on our Christmas festivities.

The weather here was heinous. Christmas Eve it was in the low 40′s and raining. Brett, Doug and I went to Nate and Amanda’s house a few blocks away. Nate had fixed us dinner, afterwards we exchanged presents. The kids were really generous, giving Doug and I a super fancy camera which will arrive this week. We’d been needing a new camera for the website so I was thrilled.

Unfortunately since I’m about a tech savvy as a brain dead caveman and anything info even remotely techie only sticks after it’s been explained to me about 90 times, I’m sure I’ll require many, many tutorials on how to use it; so after a few weeks they may well wind up regretting giving us that.

Knowing that I fully anticipate next year for them to give us a 50# bag of rice.

Meanwhile, their main present, a 6′ tall hound dog that Doug and I had made for them, was still at our house waiting to be painted. I’d planned to paint it like Charley Brown, their dog who died last summer, before we gave it to them. Then Doug mentioned that perhaps Amanda would like to paint it herself. So we left it unpainted for now. When it’s finally finished I’ll post a photo of it.

After that we played Apples to Apples for a couple of hours. If you like to play games when you get together with family and friends it’s a game I highly recommend. There are no right or wrong answers so everyone can have fun and not feel like a dunce.

Christmas morning we went over to Evelyn’s house for breakfast, presents, then games.

Lucky for me Doug found Evelyn’s present the night before. I thought I’d misplaced it.

But I hadn’t.

It seems that Daisy, our resident toy hoarder, had found Evelyn’s gift and taken it under the bed, along with about 15 dog toys. Doug discovered that after he took the rug rake and pushed everything out from under the bed. But unlike Blondie who was hoarding all the toys thinking they were her pups, Daisy just collects them because she loves to play with them. That little girl dog is just crazy for squeak toys. Giz is too for that matter. Lucky for us the other three could care less about them or there could be some serious confrontations of the canine variety around here.

Anyway, over at Evelyn’s I got out the Boggle. I love word games but Doug won’t usually play them with me because he can’t beat me. Knowing that I was feeling like I was all that before we played. Then Evelyn decided to join our game and after the first round I’d been bitch slapped back into humility.

I’m usually pretty good at word games; but unbeknownst to me Evelyn is some kinda Boggle savant. She was impressive; and I felt like a recent immigrant to the US who goes to ESL classes at the local Y.

After lunch we played Pictionary; but as usual we did it our way, with everyone writing down movie titles for the other team to draw and guess. The teams were our young ones against their parental units, who of course possessed the wisdom of the ages.

Team Maturity played fair. We chose movies that were mainstream- Picnic, Tower Heist, Narnia. The only one the kiddos hadn’t heard of was Gunga Din.

Team Young Ones chose many, many movies that none of us had ever heard of.

One of Amanda’s choices for us was: Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking your Juice in the Hood.

Doug drew that one. You can imagine how tickled he was when he read that slip; but we did pretty well I think. Out of the 14 words in the title we got 10 of them before time ran out.

Brett put a real goody in as well: Edward Penishands, which strangely enough is a real movie and even more strangely I guessed correctly.

And no, I have no seen it.

Doug was perplexed when we didn’t figure out his drawing of The Fugitive. But I reminded him that he drew a guy jumping off a cliff, not a dam; and the one armed man was nowhere to be seen, so he could just get over it.

Anyway, after hours of play and when all was said and done the oldsters lost by 8 points; but I still contend that the young ones cheated by including such obtuse titles.

And of course all throughout the day Evelyn’s delicious home baked goodies were on the table and unfortunately within reach.

Was I good and reached for celery sticks instead?

Not so much; but at least I wasn’t the only one. We all ate those goodies like we were going to the chair as soon as the game was done.

I bet over the course of the whole day and night I probably ate 10 chocolate chip cookies, a big no-no since both chocolate and nuts are both on the hit list for kidney stones; but Christmas comes but once a year, which for me food wise is a really, really good thing or I could rent out my butt for billboard space. I’ve done the math and if I run behind the car for the next month instead of riding in it I’ll just about have worked off all the extra calories from last weekend.

But enough about me, what was the best part of your holiday?

Yesterday while Doug worked on our present for Nate and Amanda, Brett and I took the pack to dog park. Everyone but Gizmo that is. (Even with Evelyn’s jacket on him Giz is not a fan of being outside when it’s cold and yesterday was in the low 50′s and damp.)

Lazer had never been to dog park before so we weren’t sure what to expect from him.

We used to take Kiwi, who was also a Siberian. I always expected her to break into a run and just keep running and running when she was there; but she never did. She always just trotted, usually staying near the pond. She just loved to swim.

But as soon as Lazer got inside the gate he took off like a shot, running as fast as he could and within a few seconds was over a hundred feet away. The twins tried to keep up with him at first but in short order decided that instead their time was better spent treeing squirrels. Daisy went off by herself making new dog friends.

Every few minutes Lazer would come within perhaps 30′ of Brett and I, then make a sharp turn and haul paws off in the other direction. He ran non-stop for over 20 minutes and for all that time was the fastest dog there, till… two greyhounds showed up.

One of them saw Lazer and took off, bypassing him in no time.

Well he couldn’t have that. So off he went in hot pursuit, running as fast as he could in attempt to surpass the greyhound. But it was not to be. That greyhound was a blur and by now Lazer had already been running for 30 minutes. I’d never seen a greyhound run before, not up close and personal anyway. They are crazy fast.

After that Lazer went for a swim then decided to come to Brett and me. Eventually we got everyone back in the car. When we got home they took some serious dog naps.

It was a good day.

So today is Christmas Eve and soon I’ll be starting to wrap presents.

But before I do, I wanted to share something sweet.

Well I think it’s sweet anyway.

It’s the story of a little guy who just keeps getting lost or maybe just really wants to change his address.

Either way, I think he’s adorable; and if he kept showing up at our house somehow, some way I’d figure out a way to keep him.

So I guess that’s it for now.

I hope everyone has a fabulous Christmas and enjoyed at least one of my Christmas funnies.

Stay warm and safe kiddos.

Ho ho ho.

Everyone knows the music from the Nutcracker Suite.

And if you look just below you can see the words so you can sing along.

‘Thong March’

Thong
What a delightful gift idea
Thong
Magical shorts that disappear
Buy your loved one this noel
The kind of gift you can’t resell
Because it kind of smells
If someone else has tried it on

Thong
You could be dancing cheek to cheek
Thong
Wiggle the string play hide and seek
Buy your workmate or your boss
The proctologic dental floss
That really works a hair across
His astronomic bum
Thong

‘Dance of the Plumber Fairy’

See the repair man go
Tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink, tink-a-tink
Working on the sink
Bending way down low
See the big tool belt go
Slippy-slip, slippy-slip, slippy-slip
Sliding down his hip
Say it isn’t so
See the rear cleavage go
Peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo, peek-a-boo
Cheekie sneaking through

See ya at so ‘n so
See the plumber
Doesn’t even show
What a bummer
Get a dial tone
Called a number
On the telephone
Hire someone else

‘Wedgie Dance’

Lunge!
Spin around and stretch and lunge
And Leap!
Do a kick and shake your buns
And fix those wedgies everyone
Let’s go!

Twirl!
Double dip and somersault
ThenSplit!
Shuffle back and twist and fall
And fix those wedgies
Fix those wedgies
Let’s go people
Fix those wedgies

Cracks are flyin’ just keep pryin’
And pull
Pull hard!
And pull
Pull hard!
And pull
Pull hard those leotards!

‘Waltz of the Buttcrackers’

Please just say no to crack
When you spot butt crack attack
You can see a trucker change a tire
Or a cable worker fix a wire
Let him know his bottom line is looking out
Somehow you don’t admire it

So everybody please just say no to crack
Give all those crack backs a sack
If you see a plumber show a breach
Or a tubby hubby on a beach
Sneak right up behind his back and strike a match and drop the burning sulfur right between his cheeks

Because as sure as pants and men surround us
Cracks are all around us
Slacks fall to the ground as
Miles and miles of spoil going up and down

Everybody
Don’t be unbound near a crowd get a grip
Fix your drawers
Every Fall ride along take ‘em back
To the stores

Show some class and hide that massive astronomic butt crack

Get in the truck
Cover the crack
Gimme the thong
Hurry along

Buttcracker’s joys are sweet

Brett came home last night. Gizmo was so excited I thought he was going to wag his tail off. It looked like a metronome running amok.

Tomorrow I’ll finish with something so cute that even the Grinch would smile.

Ho ho ho

Ho ho ho

I know I did.

And although yesterday was certainly offensive to anyone who wasn’t legally blind, I suppose it’s time to get back to business.

(I’m an equal opportunity sterotyper after all.)

I didn’t understand the Pendelton’s being knives either. Then I read below the video on YouTube and the guy who did it said the Pendelton’s shoulda been shirts. (That makes a lot more sense.)

So I hope everyone’s holiday preparations are going well and soon you’ll be able to just kick back and relax. And now that you’ve been here you can go back to indulging in all the sweetness that the holidays have to offer without fear of going into a diabetic coma.

I have a truly tacky item ready for tomorrow.

Ho ho ho

Today’s posting is interactive.

For Evelyn I made a tat over Santa’s left nipple that said “Property of Bunny”.

(For those that don’t know Bunny is also known as Evelyn.)

The lower back tat is particularly disturbing because he has Santa’s butt.

Anyway, here’s the link so you can play too.

Ho ho ho

With Christmas now less than 1 week away have you already had your fill of schmaltzy made for TV movies and commercials portraying the perfect, happy family at Christmas?

You know them- they’re full of the beautiful people in the perfect houses filled with relatives that all actually get along without threats or massive doses of pharmaceuticals. No one is grinding their molars into dust because they’re stressed; no one is in the bathroom with their finger down their throat trying to rid themselves of those 6 chocolate truffles they think they shouldn’t have eaten; and that special holiday dish that aunt Minnie brings every year is actually something everyone really looks forward to.

In most families there’s usually at least 1 thing that someone makes, and unfortunately brings, that they think is fabulous, but is just plain vile; but even so you still have to take at least 1 bite then smile while trying to figure out how you’re going to get rid if the rest of it without being caught.

In our family, about 20 years ago, it was a cookie that my SIL made.

The dreaded pizzells.

They were terrible. And what made it worse was that they were pretty- then they tasted bad.

They tasted like anus anise. (Yes, I knew how to spell anise.) I just cannot stand it; never been a fan of licorice. And considering that out of the 8 people that were always together at my mom’s on Christmas Eve, only 2 of us ever actually ate them, I wasn’t alone in my assessment. Mom’s dog wouldn’t even eat them.

But in these December offerings, all family discord, disappointments, and financial worries have just magically disappeared.

Please.

All those movies do for 95% of us is set up unrealistic expectations of what the holidays will be. Then when our own don’t meet up to what we’ve seen on TV we feel bad, whether we actually realize why or not.

I mean how many people actually walk outside and see a  giant ass bow sitting on top of a shiny new Lexus that’s just for them?

Some of you may be wondering why I’m sounding so Grinchy when I’m now medicated.

Did the meds fail?

or

God forbid did I just go off them again cold turkey?

No, no it’s just time for my annual Christmas reality check, which means it’s time for my always politically incorrect Christmas funnies. I provide these just to counterbalance the tsunami of ooey gooee goodness that’s being broadcast right now.

Please remember that I’m an equal opportunity offender, so I really hope no one gets their ta-tas in a twist. I have lotsa gay friends. By Friday I’m sure I’ll have offended almost every group. Just wait and see.

Anyway,  if my memory is correct this should be Christmas Funny #13. This is courtesy of the Kinsey Sicks- a dragappella drag quartet. (Their song I featured last year was much more disturbing.)

Enjoy…

If you want to be offended more before tomorrow you can always search the archives for the previous Christmas funnies.

Be aware:

These are not appropriate for everyone on your list.

Let me rephrase: Although they may indeed be appropriate; they’re probably actually not a good idea to give as a gift- not if you’re going to put your name on the gift tag anyway.

So if you’re easily offended stop now, but pls come back soon because the ever popular politically incorrect Christmas postings are coming soon.

Now with that pesky disclaimer out of the way, here we go:

1. This toy first made the scene in 1964. Every family I knew back then

had one of these.

Remember the Rock ‘em sock ‘em robots?

They say a classic never dies so I think it’s great that someone decided to bring them back.

Of course everything changes over time; so here’s the updated version:

I’m not quite sure which demographic these robots target exactly, but my guess is it’s not kids. However I guess they thought it might look a tad strange to have adults playing in the photo.

Now something for the fashionista on your list- especially the one who still thinks wearing fur is cool.

2.  It’s a coin purse made from a cane toad.

Yes, a real cane toad.

And it can be yours for only $32!

And for those that need options, please know that it’s available either with or without legs.

Now these next few things are for those who are comfortable giving a gift of a more personal nature.

Personally I have no problem with doing that.

As a gift to the sighted world I gave Doug a nose hair trimmer years ago. (I just wish he’d use it more often.)

Anyway, on to the next…

Tired of being out in public watching your guy dig around in his pants like he’s looking for gold while he’s trying to readjust his boys?

I have a solution.

I give you-

3. Fresh Balls.

And yes this is a real product.

Here’s a product for the ladies who have Brazilian regret, for those who have waged such aggressive deforestation programs that nothing will grow down there anymore.

This is just the thing.

4. Kitty Carpet

And yes this is a real product too.

Of course they still have the Bedazzler for down there for those want to jewel encrust their hooha; but that’s so last year.

Besides did you see that you can download a different pattern every week?

Now the perfect gift for your the female in your life who habitually oversleeps…

5. The Little Rooster.

A very different kind of alarm clock.

Some women really hate to wake up to a buzzing alarm clock. But with this one, maybe not so much…

Of course it probably won’t  put an end to her tardy behavior since she’ll just hit the snooze about 9 zillion times; but when you bitch her out for being late she won;t argue, instead just looking at you with a goofy grin.

So there you go. My Christmas 2011 list of Unforgettable Gifts.

I hope you enjoyed them. And remember if you want to read the lists of previous Unforgettable Gifts, all you have to do is go to the sidebar on the homepage and click on Unforgettable Gifts. It’ll take to you to all the other lists.

Ho ho ho.

It’s my birthday.

When I was growing up I hated my birthday being in December.

I felt I always got screwed, since by mid-December Christmas preparations were in full swing; and my birthday was just a blip compared to those kids who had birthdays in the summer, the lucky bastards. They could have parties at the beach or the pool; not to mention that by the time my birthday came around my parents had already been spending money on Christmas stuff.

Therefore I always got less. Well I thought I did anyway.

Seriously, women of child bearing age should just super glue their knees together the month of March.

I’d really expected to be bummed about turning the big 6-0. However thanks to the power of modern pharmaceuticals I feel just fine- better than fine actually. Well actually I woke up with a headache, but that’s just because I forgot to take my BP pill yesterday. And now after a couple of aspirin, I’m feeling much better.

So here’s what I really wanted to do for my birthday-

I’d do that in a heartbeat- less than a heartbeat; and would push nuns and orphans outta the way to do so. Actually there’s very little I wouldn’t do to be able to do that. However as a courtesy to my younger and more sensitive readers I’ll not go into further details about that at this juncture…

But if I ever hit the lotto I’m calling that guy. Of course I might need an extra engine to counterbalance all the beef enchiladas and cake over the years; but I’m sure for enough money modifications could be made.

However since I realized that probably wasn’t going to happen I’d told Doug that all I really wanted from him was a hand made card. (We’re pouring all the $$ back into Ecofab right now.) And just a couple of minutes after I woke up he walked in with a card he’d made and red roses. It was very sweet.

Then just when I was feeling all gooshy and sentimental Doug said “Too bad about the headache. I was looking forward to doing a 60 yr. old. I’ve heard they know stuff.”

I guess I should feel good knowing that some things in life never change…

Last week we saw a friend we hadn’t seen since mom’s funeral 2 years ago. She said “Your skin is just glowing.” Laughingly I told her it was because I was pregnant. Then I fessed up that I’d gotten my face zapped by 3 laser treatments last spring.

“Well something has changed.” she said; and since she isn’t someone known to be effusive with compliments I guess I do look better than I did before, even if I’m still stuck in this body which looks a lot like a human Shar-Pei.

It kinda made me wonder if I’d been walking about looking like a zombie before; but I decided to take it as a compliment anyway.

And lastly a bit of news- We did 2 events this past weekend. At the first we set up just two tables in front of a house in an cool, old neighborhood near downtown. Two streets were lined with luminaries as people walked the 7 or 8 blocks looking at the decorated houses. People pulled their kids in wagons decorated with Christmas lights. A few women were wearing tree toppers as hats and had on Christmas tree skirts. There were bands playing Christmas music at some of the houses. In three hours we did $300- all without a tent or even a sign of any kind.

Then yesterday we did a tiny event on a side street south of downtown. There were about 30 vendors and no press. Still we did almost $400. It was exciting. We took 2 special orders for Elvis albums to make into wall art.

Anyway, it was our biggest weekend so far.

We have an event at a country club tomorrow. So today I’ll be making more bracelets.

Such is life. I’m just glad our stuff is being well received.

Anyway, please forgive me if I haven’t been around to visit online lately. It just seems there aren’t enough hours in the day for everything I want to do, or for that matter need to do. But I’m going to carve out some time for myself tomorrow after the show to go catch up with everyone.

I’m guessing that some of of you are still nursing hangovers from enjoying just a wee too much holiday cheer this past weekend.

Am I?

Not so much, which actually means, not at all.

All I did all weekend was work like a slave on the pyramids. I stayed up til the wee hours Sat. morning assembling jewelery, then work all day Sat. and Sat. night at the gallery show. I thought I’d need a Brinks truck to take away all my cash. All the artists did.

Did I?

Not so much. I made a whopping  $120 for 10 hours work; and in the process lost another EZ up. But before you feel sorry for me, please know that I was the most successful artist there by leaps and bounds. Many of them made not one thin dime.

But before I explain my fun filled weekend, I wanted to tell you that at the end of my tale of woe I’ve included a lot of great videos of animals ( not just all dogs) guaranteed to put a smile even on the Grinch’s face.

Anyway, no one showed up on Saturday to buy- well almost no one. The gallery was located on a busy street. However the building itself was hidden, located way, way off the street; and although we were in the parking lot in front we too were still way off the street.

And other than the spot on TV last week, she’d done no advertising.

And as usual, Doug set things up then left me alone to go home and do more.

Then the wind came (30 mph); and one of our two tents went down like the Titanic. The guys nearby ran over and helped or tried to help, jerry rigging the tent back together; but after that first gust it was in bad shape. And after a few more hours of constant wind then a couple more huge gusts, the tent looked like a giant had sat on it.

After that I made a command decision. In the future if I have an outdoor show, Doug will stay there with me. Whatever we forgot to bring or didn’t get done before we’ll just do without. We were supposed to be back at the gallery on Sunday, but I just couldn’t go. Instead I went to a place I’d been told about. It’s a feed store in Houston.

This place actually sells live chickens, in the city.

They have vendors set up on their covered porch on Sunday from 11-3. It was kinda strange, but great. My first sale was $102. I was told I could set up there again another weekend, so just like Arnold in Terminator, I’ll be back.

So now onto the good stuff…

And just to show that I’m just not all about the canines, here’s something for all the cat people.

Here’s a cute one; but you’ ll just have to click on the following link. For the life of me I can’t figure out how to embed this.

That dog just really seems to love making that baby laugh.

And yet another you’ve got to go to; but it’s so worth it. Here you go.

How cool was that?

Lazer loves to play rough with Doug. I’m sure he’d be thrilled to have a ginormous friend to roughhouse with.

And because no one wants to be around a dirty monkey…

Anyway, I’ve never had a bird. It never seemed like a good idea with a pack o pooches here; but I’ve always kinda wanted one. But if I got one, this would be what I’d get, probably because we look so much alike. Why that guy acted like that at the end I have no idea; but if the pelican has been coming back for 12 years I guess he doesn’t mind too much.

And here’s something that shows just how crazy cats are for ice skating. Who knew?

This next clip reminds me a lot of Evelyn and I out and about.  There’s just something about it-not that I’ll tell her that though…

You gotta love a pet that does their own shopping…

Of course Lazer is more than strong enough to bring at least a year’s worth of food home from the store. I’m just not sure who’d be at the reins. Of course Gizmo would tell you it should be him; but sometimes size really does matter. (Sorry guys).

Here’s one happy camper on his birthday.  He really likes his balloons.

And finally I’ll leave you a clip of a really happy boy- boy dog that is.

We should all be so happy.

So I guess that’s about it for now.

I’m off to match a double batch of chicken soup (one for Evelyn), then I’m photographing Ecofab pieces all afternoon. I may not be around visiting much the next few days. Please don’t take it personally.

I hope you enjoyed the clips. Stay warm kiddos.

I hope December is treating you well so far.

I’m doing OK, just busy, busy, busy.

So this will just have to be a quickie. Sorry to disappoint those who were hoping for something more exciting after reading the title…

Right now we have 5 events over the next 10 days and are looking for more. Since the launch of the website has been delayed (now waiting on the logo to be finished) I’ve got to work as much as I can just to keep our heads above water.

And of course Doug is still bouncing around between projects like he has the world’s worst case of  ADD. I’ve been waiting on him for two months to finish painting the frames on the soda can mirrors that I worked so hard on. I finally got frustrated and painted one. He found it unacceptable, sanded it off and was going to re-do it himself; “going to” being the operative words.

That was, 2, yes 2 months ago!

I’m so glad I stayed up til 2am working on it the night before our first show so we could take them with us- which never happened. They have yet to leave this house.

I’m getting seriously irritated with him about this.

It seems these days there’s only 1 thing he can start and seem to finish without getting distracted and doing something else; but unfortunately, he can’t make any money doing that. Well not without a mask, video camera  and a director being involved anyway.

Funny how he never gets distracted while doing that; guess that must be a guy thing.

I do have a bit of good news- Ecofab speaking.

I just saw one of my bracelets on TV. We have a gallery show this weekend; and the owner of gallery was wearing one of my bracelets and actually talked about it while being interviewed on a local talk show. True it’s just a local show; but it’s a start anyway.

I had Evelyn take a quick photo of a couple of the bracelets the other day. The photo is nothing special but you can get an idea anyway.

We did a show last weekend and did pretty well considering a huge cold front blew through a couple of hours into the show, bringing with it huge thunderstorms. At every show I talk non-stop like I’m on the speed while handing out business cards.

Since the show I’ve taken orders for 5 custom wall pieces.

Now on to other news…

We have a crackhead who’s been trying to roost at our house.

This woman lives across the street.

Well, maybe she lives across the street.

We’re actually not sure if she officially lives there.

We thought the house was empty; but we see her lurking about there from time to time. I don’t think she’s dangerous, but something’s not right for sure.

When we were out in the driveway working on the bottles she came over and asked if she could charge her phone using our porch plug.

Not wanting to be unkind, we said OK. We didn’t ask why she couldn’t do it at her house.

Well that was like feeding a stray cat.

Now she’s coming over all the time and knocking on the door which of course makes the pack go absolutley nutso. Then when I open the door she’s standing on the porch so close to the door that I almost knock into her when I open it.

She’s a close talker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGVSIkEi3mM&feature=player_detailpag

It’s disconcerting and unwonderful.

Anyway, she started perching on our porch multiple times a day having crackhead conversations on the phone. And since the dogs could still hear her through the door so I told her she could charge her phone there but couldn’t just stay on the porch chatting. It’s not easy trying to quiet the pack once they get wound up. Besides, that’s their job.

Yesterday she came and asked if Doug could go get her a can of Vienna sausages and a Coke. She said she was starving. I usually help someone who is truly in distress. However she has a mani/pedi and smokes so I figure she’s not totally indigent.

When the Comcast tech was here she close talked at him by his truck, saying that he needed to go to her house and pick up a couple of cable boxes. When he was finishing here I asked him if he was going over there.

“No way. I’m not going in there.” was all he said as he walked quickly to his truck.

Then this morning she asked Doug “If I fill a bucket with water then put lighter fluid on the top and light it, will it heat the water?”

Do-do-do-do. (Insert Twilight Zone music here.)

So can anyone please tell me how to get a crackhead to move on?

But that’s kept me off the streets and outta the bars so that’s a good thing I suppose.

On to new things…

Now that Andy Rooney has gone to the great grouchatorium in the sky, someone has to take his place; and I think I’m as good as anyone to do so. I can be really grouchy, just ask Doug or for that matter most anyone else who’s been around me for an extended period.

So now that I’ve assumed AR’s mantle, sans the crazy-ass eyebrows, I have some questions that I need answers to and some general observations.

1. Why do people jump up and down like maniacs making themselves into moles like those in Whac-a-mole just because a TV camera has turned their direction?

I am totally confused. Can anyone explain that behavior?

2. Now here’s some good news for the woman like myself who are built more for comfort than for speed. According to the Star magazine, which like the National Enquirer is known to be a font of honesty and integrity in reporting, Angelina Jolie wears butt pads to make her skeletal frame look more curvaceous.

I think that’s hilarious.

I’ll admit she can wear clothes that I never could. But have you seen a close up of her forearms and hands? It’s not pretty. They look like a relief map. And besides if we both crashed into a mountaintop in the Andes, she wouldn’t last three days.

Score one for curvy girls everywhere.

3. There’s someone in west Houston who is nicknamed the “sign bandit”. He’s taken it upon himself to go around destroying bandit signs such as the one below, that are posted by the sign of the road.

Most of these signs are placed by small companies that can’t afford big billboards. The county picks these heinous signs up from time to time up; then the company who posted them can buy them back from the county. It’s a little dance they do. But many times, before they do so, this self appointed do-gooder either slashes them or paints over them.

And some of these signs they destroy are literally 20 ft. or more up on a telephone pole. That requires both a ladder and an extension roller.

I think that’s a lot of commitment just to be an ass; or am I wrong?

3. Last week Justin Bieber was on the Today show. People were lined up on the streets of NYC a full three days before, camping out in the cold weather to make sure they had a good spot for his performance. Good for them. I’m a big believer in doing whatever floats your boat as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

And this day they interviewed a woman who had Bieber fever big time. Her T- shirt said “Moms love Bieber.”

OK then; I can’t understand it, but if she wants to sleep on a cold, noisy street in Manhattan so be it.

Ten years ago or so, Amanda invited me to a N’Sync concert. At the last minute her friend couldn’t go so Amanda asked me. They were great seats. Amanda had used some of her face painting money and had paid $200 ea for the tickets. We went together; and I had a great time. I liked N’Sync.

There was woman in front of us who was about 35, who had a great time too- a really good time. She lost it- big time- and in the process of screaming louder than all the girls was rubbing her hands up and down over the front of her shirt; and it wasn’t because they were cold.

It was creepy. I felt like a peeping Michele. If I’d had a cigarette I’d have offered it to her when she was done. I’d never witnessed anything exactly like it before, not without some type of plug in novelty nearby anyway.

Anyway, after being totally overcome she looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Of course all the kids Amanda’s age were way too focused on the stage to give her a second look. However, another mom who was sitting nearby and I noticed for sure and we gave each other a knowing nod..

But I’m rambling again, back to the woman with Bieber fever in NYC.

What bothered me was that the woman camping on the street had her two young (too young to be fans themselves) kids with her-camping on the concrete, in the cold. I will admit, when I was much younger and our kids were still young I didn’t walk around in my shirtwaist dress wearing pearls and making tuna fish sandwiches like Beaver Cleaver’s mom, June.

I didn’t.

June would never have done that either

But I also didn’t have my kids sleeping literally 7′ away from traffic that was just whipping by. I’ve been on the streets in Manhattan. One of those crazy ass taxi drivers makes a mistake and little Timmy and Jenny are roadkill. Could it be that I’m just that out of touch? I mean if a Brazilian drug lord is ga-ga over this kid, maybe I’m the one who’s confused; but I think someone needed to give that woman a good shake.

Or did I just overreact?

4. And finally I got an answer to something that had been plaguing me. Just what had happened that broke up Kim Kardashian’s idyllic marriage?

I know that I was verklempt over it.

Apparently one of the reasons was that her new hubby walked into their hotel room and found her doing naked yoga with a male instructor.

And just to be clear, he was naked too. I’m not intimating that there was anything going on. But I know that if Doug walked in and found me doing naked yoga with a guy who was also naked, the situation would get pretty tense pretty quickly. For starters the guy would be chucked outta the room on his naked butt.

But that would never happen. Some of you may remember that I went to yoga about 6 months ago. It wasn’t pretty.

And about the only thing I can imagine that would’ve made it worse woulda been doing it naked. Even the skinny Minnie’s were sweating like whores in church. So why in the world would anyone want to do that naked? Some of the ways you have to contort your body are so unnatural. And I think everyone would agree, not everything looks good being done naked, no matter how toned you are.

So there you go. I think I’m done for now.

I feel better.

Back to the funny next time.

How big is it you ask?

Well according to a doctor I saw on TV, the average American consumes 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving day.

That is a butt load of calories for sure; however keep in mind that includes all the pre-dinner munchies, the dinner itself plus the desserts and the inevitable late night kitchen raid which comes 3-4 hours after waking up from the post dinner coma.

If it makes you feel any better please know that that number also includes all your beverages.

But before we all go running in with scissors in traffic please remember that after all, it is just one day- for most people anyway. And afterwards you can always just bump up your exercise to offset all those extra calories.

Of course in my case that means I’d have to jog from Houston to Galveston and back; but then I really like pie.

Some people feel like this later:

I’ve never felt like that. However, the post turkey day dinner stupors in our family are legendary. I’ve seen Doug crashed so deeply after Thanksgiving dinner that someone could’ve removed his kidney without him ever knowing til it was long gone and already into someone else.

Like most people, I always thought it was the tryptophan in the turkey that was responsible for turning people into zombies after dinner.

There was even a Seinfeld episode about it:

http://youtu.be/S_pw2805WZ4

But I was wrong.

Here’s the straight poop, so to speak.

So all those years when the turkey has been fading the heat, in reality it’s those carbs we all love so much- the stuffing, the potatoes, the bread and the desserts that are  responsible.

Personally, I can live with that.

To me a short coma is totally worth a dinner that is just that good AKA bad for you, especially one that you don’t have every day.

Besides I just got my lab results back a couple of weeks ago. My triglycerides were only 65!  Deep down I think they got my labs probably got switched with those of a marathon runner; but I’m not getting them redone to check for sure.

Of course you don’t have to go that route- the route of excess that is. Some people are good at self-control.

Good for them.

That same doctor that I saw on TV discussing calories prepared a “healthy ” plate to show that it could be done.

It had:

1 slice of white meat turkey, no skin

a thick slice of roasted sweet potato, plain

a heap of steamed green beans

1/4 C. of stuffing

2 T. cranberry sauce

a slice of pie so thin that you could read a paper through it

The gravy was MIA.

Yeah, I know that is the healthy way to go.

And afterwards you wouldn’t succumb to a carby coma then be struck with massive guilt for having been a glutton. And I’m sure it would be fine; but would it be great?

I don’t think so.

In Texas, gravy is it’s own food group. The gravy fountain is a popular gift.

Having Thanksgiving dinner without gravy would be like having Christmas without a tree, or having sex without the happy ending.

Sure you could do it, but it just wouldn’t as good.

Everyone has one thing at Thanksgiving dinner that they are absolutely defenseless against- usually consuming mass quantities of it like the Coneheads.

It’s their Kryptonite.

And the funny thing is that for most of us, you could have this exact same thing any other of day of the year; it’s not hard to find like Yeti testicles. Still on turkey day, it’s the one thing that makes your day.

So for some people it’s candied yams, for some it’s stuffing, for some it’s desserts.

Some people eat Crescent rolls and butter like they’re going to the chair.

My Thanksgiving Kryptonite

So what’s your Kryptonite?

Well I’m alive anyway; but I guess you know that by now. And for the most part I’m well.

But after working two different events over the last 3 days, my body let me know it wasn’t happy with me. When I woke up Sunday morning the only thing that didn’t hurt were my eyelashes and earlobes.

At least that’s the way it seemed.

Eons ago, I used to be able to abuse my body without repercussions, going Hellaciously long periods without sleep or working for hours on end like a longshoreman doing whatever had to be done. Now it seems despite my protestations my body is turning me into a huge wuss.

And I really, really hate that.

Anyway, since I knew it wouldn’t be as busy, I let Doug go the show on Saturday that I’d worked on Friday. But since it started earlier on Sat. than our show Susan and I were left to load everything. We had to take 2 EZ ups, enough weight to secure them and everything else, not to mention the unwieldy, heavy ass cart (100lb.) that Doug had made for the rodeo so we could move everything to our spot. It’s great if you don’t have to lift it high into the back of a pick up, then down again, twice in the same day.

Then more fun… Although Doug had actually given me enough weight to secure both booths, what he he failed to do and I failed to notice while loading was that he didn’t give me enough actual containers in which to put the sand so I could weight all 8 legs. So when I got there actually had only enough to make 4 weights, not 8.

So I Macguyvered the two booths together as best I could with only 4 weights and hoped for the best.

Did it work?

Not so much, which in this case means not at all.

The wind whipped up and in a split second our 2nd EZ up was literally upside down on top of the other. They were roof to roof.

Susan said it looked like they were having sex. I thought it looked more like an an alien with really spindly arms and  legs. No matter what, the bottom line was that someone could’ve been seriously hurt when it flipped. We really lucked out that no one was. I can’t ever let than happen again.

Now onto to other things…

I have a question-

Are the 80′s making a comeback and somehow I didn’t notice?

I was in a store today and saw a display of legwarmers- a big one.

Seriously, I did.

It was like I took a ride in a time machine.

Now I’ll admit once upon a time I had some legwarmers. I wore them over tights when I went to aerobics.

But I wasn’t the only one.

Remember Aerobicise?

My fav part is the sequence starting about 2:45.

I know that when I went to aerobics I always made sure I had full blown make up on, just like the girls in the video.

No surprise that most of the people who watched the show were men.

So I guess only time will tell if leg warmers are actually making a comeback.

Actually some things from the 80′s were OK, like disco.

Of course these days I wouldn’t be out dancing to Boogie, Oogie Oogie like I used to; but that’s OK. It’s good music to clean to anyway.

I just hope that mullets stay gone. Some things should never be resurrected and I think those are pretty near the top of that list.

Now though onto some good news…

I know that with the holidays upon us many people are concerned with how to include some healthy choices. And last night I found something that til then I had no idea fits the bill.

Here you go:

Now packed with a whopping, now count them, 4 grams of protein!

I am so excited! Who knew candy could be part of a healthy diet?

Seriously, are people really falling for that?

So I guess that’s it for now. There are supposed to be big storms here manana, so I plan to stay close and go around visiting online. Se you soon.

One of the most special bloggers I know, Elisa of ECWrites is launching her book, Golden Sky tomorrow.

It’s based on the journal she kept while she was pregnant with her son Zeke.

It chronicled her pregnancy, his birth and his all too young passing at the age of only 2.5 months.

Elisa asked her blog buddies to participate today by sharing their stories of loss.

Since I took myself off antidepressants again I’d decided that I probably wouldn’t participate; instead just read what everything else had written.

But as I sat here this morning, crying while reading what others had written, I’ve decided to.

However, my late decision to join means I have very little time to do this. So please forgive me if this posting seems haphazard and isn’t edited very well. I have to leave in less than an hour to set up a show that starts tomorrow.

I hope this story is OK, because it’s not only a story of loss; but of a miracle as well.

When our son Brett was little, he was quite the little fireball. He was an early walker, talker and just about everything else you can imagine. And even though he wasn’t quite two when I got pregnant with Amanda, over the months he got more and more excited awaiting the arrival of his little sister who was due in late November.

In October Brett started running high fevers. It’d go up to 105.2 then with Tylenol break and go back down. The pediatrician said not to worry, young kids can do this. Nothing else seemed wrong at the time. But after this went on for almost a week, Brett was admitted to the hospital where he was born for a battery of tests to try to figure out what was causing the fevers. Some of the tests were invasive. I remember that they had to strap him down on a papoose board so they could start all the different lines and for the blood draws that were multiple times a day.

After 5 days in the hospital they still had no idea what was wrong so he was transferred downtown to Texas Children’s Hospital, where all the big giant heads of children’s medicine practiced. They redid all tests, not believing what anyone else had done of course. Brett had a gaggle of pediatric specialists attending him. None of them could figure out what was wrong.

After 5 days downtown, we finally got a diagnosis and it came from the hospital.

Brett had EB virus, the same virus that gives you mono.

We were told that there was no treatment. (Remember this was 26 yrs. ago now.)

Just take him home and let it run it’s course. He’d be fine over time.

A few days later Doug came home from work and said he felt awful. He’d been sitting in the car in his suit with the heater on even though it was still in the high 80′s outside. I took his temp. It was 105. I called the hospital. They said to bring him right in, but first see if we could get the fever to break, since adult brains don’t handle high fevers as well as toddlers. So I gave him some Tylenol and had him get in the tub. I ran tepid water and had Brett go back and forth putting ice in the water.

When the fever broke I got him to the hospital. He had viral pneumonia from EB virus and was admitted immediately. A few days later while on the way to the hospital Brett passed out in the car. I rushed him into the ER. They said he had viral meningitis. The EB was the cause.

So Brett was in a coma and his father was also in the same hospital and couldn’t see him. I was almost 8 months pregnant.

Before Brett was taken upstairs they said he had encephalitis. He was put into the ICU and listed as critical. He stayed there for days with no improvement. He was in a coma.

I went to the chapel in the hospital and cried and prayed that he’d be given back to us.

After 5 days Doug was finally released and could with a mask on, see Brett.

That very day the neurologist called us into the little room with the mini blinds in the ICU.

That’s never a good thing.

“Brett has had a stroke.” was all she said.

We couldn’t tell. He was in a coma.

She knew from his fluttering eyelashes and the EEG. The fluttering eyelashes meant he was seizing.

After 2 weeks he finally woke up; but was unable to talk or even hold his head up. The stroke had been on the left side of his brain, so his entire right side was affected. When he left the hospital he was tied into a wheelchair, with his head to the side, unable to speak. We were told to buy a wheelchair; that he’d never walk again.

Amanda was delivered early, just a week after Brett got home. My BP was going through the roof. Go figure. Thank God she was born healthy, even though I’d had EB while still pregnant. I felt like typhoid Mary, having made both Doug and Brett so sick. It was a miracle she escaped harm.

The road back to health was a long one for Brett. From the moment that he got home he didn’t have a normal childhood. His days were filled with at least 2 trips a day to a total of 7 different types of therapy over the years. He was in therapy for 10 years.

Sometimes he didn’t like us very much.

And even all these years later, some of the effects of the stroke are still there. He has balance issues and his right ankle twists and turns when he walks. He can’t swim, skate or ride a bike.  He had significant ADD in school and because of that didn’t go on to college. He works hard and always without complaint.

But he’s one of the best people I know with literally hundreds and hundreds of friends. He’s loving and compassionate and never feels sorry for himself no matter what. He says “Even if I could go back and not have the stroke, I wouldn’t. It’s made me who I am today.”

Afterwards we were counseled as if we’d lost Brett. The Dr. said that when a child goes through something like this that is so profound, it’s like a death. A death of all the dreams that you had for them. And I know that at initially Doug was sad that Brett would never follow in his footsteps and become a jock like he was. He never verbalized it; but I know he thought about it.

But Brett is now 28, happy, healthy and my hero.

We’re participating in a 3 day Christmas buying show in Katy at the Merrel Center; and once again Ecofab will be at Discovery Flea, the once a month market where everything is either vintage or upcycled. We’re hoping for a really big weekend. Please keep your fingers crossed for us.

The guy who did the Handshakes logo is now working on one for Ecofab. It’s exciting. With any luck I’ll see some preliminary designs later today. I decided to put off the launch of the new site til I have the new logo and we get by this weekend. After that I’ll decided which of the items I’m going to put on the website, and which to keep for sale at shows. Also all of the items for the site have to be entered on a spreadsheet so we can keep track of what’s sold, when and who to ship it to.

And since I’d rather run with scissors in traffic than try to figure out how to set all that up, I’m turning all that over to Evelyn, at least in the beginning. I love making the pieces and even like the selling; but just the thought of all that back office stuff makes me nutso. And I certainly don’t need any help getting there any quicker.

Now for an explanation of today’s title…

Last night Doug saw something that made his eyes dilate with excitement.

Amazingly it had nothing to do with with either boobs or tools.

It was a man cave.

Doug had seen one on TV of course, but never one up close and personal; and I’ll admit it was impressive.

A friend who’s helping me with some of the techie stuff for Ecofab had us meet him at his house last night. Actually he said come to the building behind his house. And when we walked in, Doug was in Nirvana.

There was a giant flat screen, flanked by four other flat screens, two on either side.

And every screen was sports.

Facing the enormous bank of screens were two plush leather chairs with ottomans.

A few feet away was a pool table.

Doug used to look at me that way.

But I hadn’t seen him look like that for awhile now. And he thought one of the best things about the whole set up was that it was a good 60′ or more from the main house.

If he had one like that he could just disappear into the land where it’s OK to slap another guy on the butt.

(Not that he’s into slapping guys on the butt.) It’s just that he loves sports. However, I’ll admit he’s not a jerk about it like I’ve heard some guys can be.

But he does love it and if he had his way, he’d watch it every day. And if he had his own man cave he could escape to it and indulge his obsession without my criticism. Last Sunday he watched 2 hours of the Baseball Channel. They were replaying one of the the World Series games from the 60′s.

Seriously?

The game was over almost 50 years ago!

I just cannot relate.

Now onto other things…

For those who’ve been in a cave and haven’t heard, People Magazine just named Bradley Cooper as the sexiest man alive.

And although I don’t want to sound like a horny cougar, I can’t say I disagree.

He’s buff without being overbuilt, has a really cute smile, and from what I’ve heard is a really nice guy. When he did the photo shoot for People magazine he said the two most important women in his life right now are his mom and his dog.

So I’ve got a question for you. Who do you think is the sexiest man alive?

For the most part all we did was clean.

Due to my recent illness, the surgery that ensued, then the trip to Austin for Handshakes, no deep cleaning in our house had been done for a long time. I love a clean house.

But I’m not one of those people that revel in actually doing the cleaning probably because I’m not good at it.

Years ago while cleaning a sliding glass door I sprayed on the Windex, did big sweeping circles with a cloth, hit the side of the door with the cloth and broke my wrist.

I told Doug it was a sign from God that I wasn’t meant to clean.

I have other things I’m much better at.

So without me constantly riding Doug’s ass like a demented jockey to keep his hoarding under control, the clutter and debris in the house had exploded exponentially. I knew it was getting bad again of course, since walking from the bedroom to the kitchen I had to negotiate about 72 turns to navigate around the stacks of recyclables and other treasures that Doug had accumulated in the last few weeks. I was beginning to feel like a rat in a maze.

Our house had once again descended into something that I would imagine would resemble the waiting room of Hell.

It actually wasn’t too bad until last year when in a 1-2 punch our oil well dried up and the last of our cattle died from some yet unidentified disease which made them all anorexic. Then their teeth fell out.

After that I just could no longer justify keeping our live-in staff.

Since then I’d been holding out for the Publisher’s Clearinghouse prize patrol to show up at my door and fork over that check for $1,000,000; thereby allowing me the opportunity to hire all of them back negating the need for me to actually start cleaning again.

But they never showed, not here at least.

So even though I hate it and am not very good at it, I had to clean. I put my hair up in a bandana and assumed my Brungilda persona. And actually between Doug and I we got a lot done. We didn’t finish of course; but at least if the fire department or paramedics have to come here they could actually find us.

But enough talk of manual labors…

The highlight of the weekend was going to the movies yesterday. We went to see Tower Heist.

It was the first movie that I’ve seen in a long time that made me actually laugh out loud. And I wasn’t the only one in the theater doing so.

I really like Matthew Broderick. He’s so droll. Although everyone else involved is spoken to by first name, throughout the whole caper Broderick is referred to as Mr. Fitzhugh.

He’s part of a group that Ben Stiller assembles to seek revenge on Alan Alda, a Bernie Madoff clone who has made off with the retirement fund from The Tower, an ultra posh apartment bldg in NYC where Stiller is the GM.

So if you like to laugh and the thought of a rogue maid and a gauntlet of lesbians sounds funny go see Tower Heist.

So I guess that’s it for this Monday. The guy who did the Handshakes logo is working on one for Ecofab Gifts. Hopefully he’ll be sending me something to look at today. In the meantime I’m starting to write copy for the website and still adjusting to house that’s free of quacking.

LB’s quacking could be really irritating sometimes; but still the house seems strangely empty without it. Sometimes now Gizmo will just go and sit in LB’s crate. It’s sad. I suppose I should just put the crate in the garage now; but I wanted to give Gizmo time to adjust since he wasn’t here when Little Bit died.

But on a happier note. I wanted to share a clip of this little guy. Brett sent it to me. His name is Boo.

I think he looks like a little stuffed animal come to life.

Our baby turned 26.

I still find that hard to believe, since when my neurons are all talking to each other and not leaving me in a menopausal fog where I can’t remember what I said 2 minutes ago, I still feel 26.

About 30 years ago when my mom was the age I am now she said “You don’t get old on the inside”. I never really understood what she meant at the time; but now as I am getting older I really do understand. And for once, mom was right, really right.

My mom wasn’t right about a whole bunch of things as she got older because as she got older her relationship with Mr. Jim Beam became increasingly more important to her. So important in fact that many times it was her sole focus. And that was sad for the rest of us to watch and be around; especially for me since I was usually the one she usually went after when she was drunk. She was a mean drunk.

I still don’t know how a 110lb woman could drink almost a quart of bourbon a day, every day, but she did. And amazingly it wasn’t the decades of drinking that finally ended her life. Her liver was fine. And she beat cancer three times. Perhaps bourbon has health benefits that have to this point gone unrecognized.

But enough of this philosophical BS. Now back to her birthday.

Doug and I had 2 cards ready for her yesterday. We  even had a little gift. It wasn’t much cash wise; but it was cute. The problem was that yesterday I couldn’t find where I’d put it.  That is an example of suffering from CRS- can’t remember shit. Oh, if I could only have my 26 yr. old brain again. Back then I never misplaced anything. But if I had a 26 old brain stuck in this body it’d probably just be frustrated so I guess it’s better than my brain and body match; until I can get my new ravishingly gorgeous android body that is.

Anyway, such is life; Amanda will get her present when I find it. And lucky for me, she’s OK with that.

Late yesterday Evelyn picked up Amanda and I and took her shopping for make up goodies for her big day. Amanda loves going to Sephora. I’d only been there once or twice before. If I need something I just usually pick it up at the Walgreen’s or the Walmart. I’m not overly choosy about makeup, probably because I don’t wear it everyday.

When we got to Sephora they were dispensing mimosas and gourmet chocolates to their shoppers.

And when we got to the cash register I understood why.

Our bill was $452.36 and that was with a 20% discount!

And it all fit into 1 small bag.

Seriously, I almost wet my pants. In my 45 years of self-beautification I haven’t spent that much cumulatively. I told Evelyn they shoulda had a Sherpa carry her to the car. I’m surprised they didn’t have an AED on the wall nearby. If Doug had been there, he’d have needed a jump start for sure.

But Evelyn took it in stride, God bless her.

Now I understood the mimosas though. It’s hard to get really upset when you’ve got a buzz on.

I did get 1 lip stain/gloss thingy for myself.  The rest was them.

After that we all went to dinner then when she got home Nate had flowers and a cake waiting for her. So Amanda had a good birthday and thinking back that shot I got before the epidural 26 years ago was totally worth it.

We have a smart, beautiful, loving daughter and I couldn’t imagine having one that was better. We’re lucky.

Now onto news from the land of the odd…

http://www.toofab.com/2011/09/07/toddlers-and-tiaras-costume-hooker-julia-roberts-pretty-woman-video/

I have question and an answer please.

Does anyone think this is odd?

Is dressing your little girl up like a hooker wrong? or I am just overreacting?

And if you’ve got an extra $31K laying about here’s a way you could’ve spent it:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/05/world/europe/uk-lennon-tooth-auction/index.html?hpt=hp_bn4

I mean who wouldn’t want John Lennon’s discolored molar?

I’ve heard of people before that have paid for used chewing gum, etc. from celebrities; so I guess this should some as no surprise, but ewwwww.

I have locks of both Brett’s and Amanda’s hair from their first haircuts; but that’s as far as I went. My dad keep his gallstone in a jar in the bathroom cabinet when I was growing up and it freaked me out, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised; but at least that had been in him.

BTW- If anyone else wants something like that, I think the hospital still has my kidney stones; and I’ll be happy to let them go for only $1995. Just remember Christmas is coming. and they’d be a one of a kind gift.

So I guess that’s it for now. And although I’m still in a funk about LB, I have no choice but to pull myself up and start cleaning again. Unfortunately I don’t think Manners the Butler or a pack of maids is going to just show up and decrud our house, so I guess it’s left to us to do it.

And somehow that just seems wrong.

I hope your weekend was a good one.

Last weekend we were in Austin at FFFF- Fun fun Funfest.

Was it FFF?

Well I saw a lot of people having fun. Ryan Gosling was there partying.

Was it fun for us though?

Not for us.

What is was was WWW-work,work,work.

It was exhausting and then some. But that was OK because Handshakes was a success- a big success.

And we couldn’t be more happy for Brett.  

His vision is coming true, with a lot of help from friends and family of course.

Nate, Amanda and I got to Austin about 8pm Friday night. When we got near the festival grounds I noticed that a lot of people had bandanas on their faces. Some people actually had huge scarves wrapped round their heads,  leaving only their eyes exposed.  And many of those folks had on sunglasses-at night.

I thought perhaps that Ebola had broken out.

Thank God  I was wrong about that.

But as soon as I actually got out, walked through the gate, and went about 60 feet I realized why so many people looked like they were ready to rob a Stop N Go.

Their faces were covered with bandanas in an effort to thwart the blinding dirt that was blowing- and blowing-and blowing.  The fair grounds had no grass or concrete. It was just 1 big patch of bald-ass dirt; dirt that was being flung through the air by a relentless wind.

It was just plain awful. And as bad as it was Friday night it was multiples of that by the time I got there on Saturday. And of course I showed up unprepared AKA bandana less. I was sitting at the very front of the booth taking orders and making change. Claire, a good friend of Brett’s, came to help me manage the line. And we had a line, for 11 hours.

Amanda was standing right behind me finishing the shakes with whipped cream and garnishes. She stood all day til after 10pm shaking cans of Reddi Whip for hours. Since she too has carpal tunnel I don’t know how she endured doing that for so long; but she did. On Sunday, Amanda sat next to me at the front table taking orders.

Nathan was working behind us in the booth, doing what needed to be done making sure that everything kept working smoothly. Doug was the gofer. We seemed to be constantly running out of this or that and he was making emergency runs to grocery stores or the Restaurant Depot. When the 4 of us were finally done Sat. night Doug showed us where he’d parked and walked to and from the festival multiple times that day. Nate checked the distance.

Doug had walked 8 miles on Saturday.

Sp the weekend was a labor of love for all of us.

When I got to the hotel Saturday night and got in the shower and my hair got wet, rivulets of muddy water ran down my chest; and I’d had a hat on. I found dirt in places I didn’t even know dirt could get into. And as a public service I won’t go any further with that.

Anyway,

when the crowd hit it’s peak, people were waiting 30 minutes to get a shake. There were 3 blenders running constantly.Thank God for Vita-Mix’s. They’re expensive but can take a real beating.

Since every shake was a custom creation, each had to be made individually; and that just takes time. And lucky of us, the vast majority (99%) of the customers were happy to wait. There were a couple of people who after waiting for awhile were giving me the hairy eyeball; but I figured they just needed more fiber or were from New Jersey so I wasn’t overly concerned about them.

And when they finally got their shakes they were thrilled- beyond thrilled.

And the proof that the crowd was thrilled was that people kept coming back for more shakes. One of the parking lot attendants came back four times. I thought that was pretty amazing since the shake he ordered cost almost as much as he made in a hour.

Here’s a photo of me Sunday night with Aby our best customer. After his 2nd shake I’d learned his name. I think he bought 5 from me over the two days I was there. He said he just had to get a pic with me.

So here it is. I warn you, it’s not pretty; but please remember I was at the end of my second, 13 hour day in a row. My eyes are just little slits from all the flying dirt they had in them.

But where else can you get a shake with a whole pancake in it and your choice of blueberries, strawberries or chocolate chips?

If you’re interested here’s a link to Yelp. You can read some of the reviews.

There were some problems last weekend for sure; but overall Brett’s first venture into the festival world with Handshakes was an enormous success. Doug and I couldn’t be more proud of him. We stayed in town an extra day to help with the after festival work.

Then we drove home yesterday afternoon, exhausted but happy and ready to see the pack.

When we opened the door 4 dogs came running and hopped up, crazy happy to see us. (Gizmo was still at Miss Bunny’s doggie day spa and resort.) Evelyn said Gizmo had been sleeping on top of her if she fell asleep on her couch. He was a happy camper for sure.

But we didn’t see or hear Little Bit; and that was odd. Even though he’s little, being a Pom his quacking bark was always easy to hear among all the others. Then Doug went in back yard, came back in and told me why he wasn’t barking.

Little Bit was dead.

There wasn’t a mark on him anywhere.

Doug said he thought it’d happened quite recently. I didn’t ask why. I didn’t go to see him. Little Bit went to the Rainbow Bridge before we got home. Me seeing him now would do no good.

I dissolved into a weeping mass. Little Bit had been a family dog; but more than that he was Brett’s dog- and now he was gone.

Nathan had checked on the pack again not long before we got home and Little Bit was fine. We have no idea what happened. He said everyone was healthy and happy.

So on the heels of his biggest success I had to call Brett and smash his happiness telling him that his baby, Little Bit was gone.

It was so hard to do. And I felt totally responsible; even though Brett told me not to when I spoke to him.

Nate, Amanda, Evelyn, Doug and I went to dinner last night to celebrate Little Bit’s life. It’s a tradition that Evelyn taught us. Somehow it seems to help. We spoke of how LB quaked like a duck and how he had a hair fetish. He just loved rolling over and over in long hair. He was one of a kind for sure; and we miss him already; but I know I’ll see him again and that helps- at least a little.

Anyway, I woke up at 2am last night, crying in my sleep. It wasn’t a good night. When I went to put everyone out this morning I called for him. (It’ll take awhile for it to sink in that he’s not here anymore I suppose.) And when Gizmo got home, he went around looking for his buddy. Being the two smallest they were BF’s. I know he’s confused as to where he is.

I called our vet today. He said he couldn’t be sure of course without a necropsy; but his speculation was that it was a seizure or a stroke.

So today Doug and I are laying low and regrouping. Tomorrow I’m finally going to start doing the photos for the new site. So please forgive me if I haven’t been round to visit lately. Between the surgery, the trip and now LB’s passing, I’ve been busy; but I’ll try to get round to see everyone manana.

Thanks for hanging in with me.

Michele

Yesterday was my post op visit AKA stent removal.

Never having to have one removed before I really didn’t know what to expect.

Basically the Dr. had to go in and find it, then pull it out, all 11″ of it.

The removal itself only took a few seconds.

It felt more odd than painful at the time. As I was leaving the doctor reminded me that I’d be feeling it repercussions from it last night.

He didn’t lie.

My kidney got really, seriously pissed off at me last night and let me know.

It was a 4 Vicodin night.

One at 10, 2 at 12, one last one at 1am. I figured if I’d been or morphine at the hospital, 4 Vicodin wouldn’t do me in.

And since I woke up his morning I was right, and happy about it too. Someone had to let the dogs out after all.

And of course the pain seemed worse last night because I was alone. Not that Doug coulda done anything anyway, but I had no one to share my misery with. Doug left yesterday morning to go help Brett get ready for FFFF AKA Fun, fun, fun, fest. This is the first big test for Brett’s new venture, Handshakes. Handshakes has a booth there. The festival started at 11am today and goes til Sunday night.

Evelyn took me to the doc yesterday and instructed me to call her if the pain got bad; but she was busy getting ready for a big event at her church on Sunday and I really didn’t want to bother her. Besides she’d already done so much for me last week.

Anyway, back to yesterday now.

I made sure to get a different doctor for the removal yesterday.

Same practice, but different doc.

Afterwards, I didn’t like the Dr. who did my surgery last week. I was hurting so much before surgery I probably wouldn’t have cared if Dr. Hannibal Lechter had walked into my room. I just wanted those things gone and anyone who could do that was fine by me at the time.

Although I was on heavy drugs I remember his visit- all 2 minutes of it. He just introduced himself, confirmed what the CT scan and x-ray had said then said he’s talk with me the next day. He called me at 7am and asked “Are we going to do this or not?”

That was it. He didn’t see me before surgery in pre-OP. Nor did he come out to see the family. Doug had no idea how I was doing til they wheeled me in from recovery. I left the hospital without any real instructions from him; just the general post OP ones that they give everyone.

Doug went to get the Vicodin at the pharamcy. Not there.

I called his service to find out what was up.

They weren’t called in til Monday.

Thank God Evelyn still had some Vicodin from when her knee was done. I ate them like Pez the first couple of days.

I’d had no idea what to do or not to do this past week if I hadn’t gone online.

So when I made my appt for the stent removal I made sure to ask for one of his associates. He was super sweet and actually very informative and not altogether unconcerned when I told him what treatment I’d received up to that point..

To prevent kidney stones in the future, I must make some changes in my diet.

First off no more black tea- ever. I thought at first he meant no caffeine. But no, he meant no more black tea. Black tea is loaded with oxylates. And oxylates trigger formation of kidney stones. So does spinach, nuts, sweet potatoes and chocolate as well as a plethora of other things I really like.

I can have spinach 0nce a week, nuts and chocolate infrequently. Salt is on the list too; but I rarely use at home instead using copious amounts of garlic, ginger, cumin and chiles to flavor our meals. But we’ll be cutting back on eating out. And on top of everything else I have to drink enough water every day so when I go to the bathroom it’s perfectly clear. That’s a lot of water.

So it seems my body is making me get healthy whether my brain is on board or not. All I know is that I never want to go through that kinda pain again.

But the good news is that today I feel great. I think my kidney has forgiven me; and that’s a good thing.

My plan was just to be a layabout all weekend then be rested when Doug comes home on Monday. But then he called. Apparently most of the people Brett lined up to help at the festival are clueless as to what to do. They’ve never worked in a booth of any kind before, especially food at a high volume event. They’re overwhelmed. And no one knows how to handle a crowd at a big event better than I do.

So I packed some undies, a toothbrush and some Vicodin just in case, and I’m going up to Austin to help.

I’m riding with Nate and Amanda. Hopefully, we should be leaving by 6pm I hope. Evelyn is coming to get the Gizmo and I’ve left out copious amounts of food and water for everyone else. I’ve got a friend coming over to check on the rest of the pack.

So if you’re in Austin this weekend, please stop by the Handshakes booth at FFFF and say hi.

Just look for the short, round, LOL with curly hair and a loud mouth.

That’ll be me.

I’ll be back among the living Monday afternoon. In the meantime young ones, have some fun for me this weekend.

However I must admit, I did not find this one myself.

My friend the Padded Cell Princess sent this to me via Pinterest. If you haven’t been by to see her yet at Padded Cell Confessions, you should. She’s very young (I have bras her age.) but she’s already led an interesting life. Just remember not to be too sick and twisted while you’re there. I’ve probably already damaged her enough for all of us already.

But now back to the subject at hand.

For those who are new here, if you want to go back to compare this entry to the past ones just click on the Bizarrometer tab under Categories in the sidebar. That’ll take you to the previous photos.

And since I’m a remorseless thief I’ve decided to do something I saw another friend, Dazee from Crazee Daze and Nite Dreams do; ask her readers to caption a photo.

So in addition to scoring this newest photo 1-100, please come up with a caption for it as well.

Quit your bitching. You know you want to do it anyway.

Anyway, I think this will be a lot of fun.

So here you go- Bizarrometer #8.

Actually I kinda snuck home last night.

Naturally Doug knew I was home since he brought me; and Gizmo did too.

But the pack hasn’t figured that mom is home yet. When we got in from Evelyn’s last night, Doug entered the house without me and put them all outside for their nightly ablutions. And while they were out I came in and went straight to our room.

Although I missed them terribly I just wasn’t up to that much puppy love at the end of a long day. I hadn’t had a pain pill since dawn yesterday and just didn’t know if I could handle all them last night.

So I didn’t.

The last time I was gone for a few days I came home and sat on the couch ready to receive their love.

I was ready.

I thought.

Then they ran at me with so much exuberance that they actually tipped the couch I was sitting on backwards and I wound up on my back looking at the ceiling. And of course while I was flat on my back Little Bit went just buck wild, rolling over and over in my hair.

He has a hair fetish. Seriously. He’s a freak.

Soon I’ll be going into the den and bracing myself for the onslaught of slobbery tongues, wagging tails and barking- lotsa barking that will ensue the second he opens the back door and they see me.

It’s good to be loved.

In the meantime I turned on the Today show this morning to catch up with what’s been going on in the world and what’s the first thing I see?

Kim Khardashian’s marriage is over after only 72 days.

Please God say it isn’t so.

Not to sound like I didn’t believe their love was true, but I had 73 days in the pool. And just my luck, she just couldn’t have held on for just one more day for me.

NOOOOOOO.

Then after that, the Neely’s, a couple from Memphis who have a cooking show on the Food Network, did a cooking segment. I knew I shoulda changed the channel right away; but I got distracted. Then less than 2 minutes later I was already butt deep in their “Oh honey baby”, “Sugar Pie”, “Sweetie face” BS.

From what I’ve seen, every time they’re on TV they literally cannot speak to each other without first spewing out a plethora of cloying descriptors.

And it’s not that I’m against pet names.

I’m not.

But these people are beyond the pale to the point that makes me want to bitch slap both of them back to reality. Every sentence starts like that. It’s nauseating.

Why can’t they just STFU and cook? You’d never hear Paul Prudhomme talking like that to anyone.

Today is Evelyn’s 36 wedding anniversary! I think that’s quite an accomplishment. And although both she and Ken urged me to stay for 1 more night, I knew it was time to clear out and get back to my world. I wanted to leave them alone so they could scamper naked through their house and frolic should the mood strike them.

But I also knew that before I rejoined the outside world again I had to go through defunkification.

I knew it wouldn’t be pretty.

And I was right.

I dulled two brand new razors in an effort to remove the national forest that after 5 days of unchecked growth had covered my legs. For a moment halfway through the process I thought about stopping altogether and instead just braiding some red, yellow and green pony beads into it and joining a reggae band.

But then I realized that I didn’t have access to any grass so being a Bob Marley wannabe would be pointless. So I continued the logging operation.

After finishing that that I started the descumming. I lathered up the washcloth and got busy removing the hospital smell. And as I was doing so I realized that I still had one of those EKG sticky thingies still on me. It was hidden under my left ta-ta and been there 4 days. Who knew?

Finally I gave my hair a good scrubbing and when I got out I was as shiny as new penny and smelled good too.

Not long after that Doug showed up at Evelyn’s to move me back home.

“You smell good.” he said as he gave me a hug.

“Touch her anywhere above the knees tonight and you’re in deep shit.” Evelyn sternly admonished.

Doug took her at her word and was a total gentleman all night. All I got was a kiss on the top of my head.

So I guess that’s it for now.

The pack has been in the backyard all morning enjoying the beautiful weather. But it’s almost noon now I’m finally ready to see all my furry babies.

It’s good to be home.

I’ve weaned myself off the big guns and am now just taking boatloads of Alleve to cope with the pain. (I figure my liver can take the hit for a few days til I get the pain under control.) The main thing now is that I feel like I’ve been kicked in the back by a mule or hit in the kidney with a shovel; take your pick.

It still sucks; but it’s nothing compared to how it it was was pre-surgery.

Of course if I hadn’t had it fixed til Tuesday then I coulda done a good impression of Linda Blair tonight, cursing with my head spinning around and spitting out pea soup; but as usual hindsight is 20-20.

Anyway, I wasn’t really enjoying laying about here all stoned and semi- addled. Once upon a time it was OK; but that was way long ago now when I was partying hard.

Now, not so much.

Now I seem to revel in bouts of clear headiness. (Probably because they occur so infrequently these days.)

Anyway, I seem to be rambling once again. This time I’ll just blame in on toxic doses of Alleve.

I was bummed that due to the unforeseen turn of events last week, I wasn’t able to get a Halloween costume together for either Doug or myself. And I really hate that since Halloween is truly my fav holiday of the year.

Adults can dress up, act silly, decorate their houses and eat junk without any of the usual familial pressures and societal expectations that come along with Christmas. No one ever goes into debt trying to outdo their neighbor decorating their house for Halloween or putting a great costume together.

It’s just all fun.

And fun is good.  And there’s waay too little of it in the world these days I think.

The world is so serious these days. I really hate that.

When we owned our mortgage company I’d wear a tall, black, Cat-in-the-Hat hat with neon polka dots to the closings. Of course some of the people at the title companies thought I was crazy; but that was OK with me. It interjected a little color and fun into what is otherwise such a dull and tedious proceeding that it always made me want to run with scissors in traffic.

Besides our clients loved us and that’s why we got so many referrals. They said they felt like they could really talk to us because we wore shorts and Crocs. They weren’t afraid of us.

Anyway at this very last moment the only thing I’ve come up with for a costume is to glue shards of brown glass to a sweatshirt and go as a kidney stone. I doubt many people would understand though. Of course if I ran across a group of urologists I’d be a big hit; but seriously, what’s the chance of that?

For a moment I considered just blowing up some pink balloons and going as a hemorrhoid. However I’m sure that some smart ass who knows me well would say that you’re not supposed to be yourself on Halloween and I’m a pain in the ass already. Besides between Doug and Evelyn I’m sure they’ll conspire to keep me home and quiet anyway, so I suppose it really doesn’t matter that I won’t have a costume; but I hate missing a party.

So it’s now early Monday morning and hopefully Doug got back to our house safe and sound from Austin. He was going straight home to be attacked by our pack, then come here later this morning to take me back home. Evelyn has been lobbying for me to stay here at least another day or two; but if I stay much longer I fear I’ll become truly insufferable and demand to be carried about on a giant tufted velvet pillow by a group of buff young men. So it’s probably better if I check back into Hotel Reality ASAP before that happens.

Besides sleeping so much here the past couple of days has gotten my days and nights all ass-backwards and now I can’t seem to sleep at night; and since I’m not a vampire that sucks. I mean just how many infomercials for the ShamWow can one person be expected to watch without going berserk and just running amok?

I think my funny somehow got misdirected when they put me under. Please come back manana. I hope to have located it by then.

I do have a couple Halloweeny things to share though.

Here you go-

For #1 you’ll just have to click on the link. I have no idea where the embed code is.

Live with it. I’ve been sick. – http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/iXx6CaVib9j2JNy5

Of course after I made that JibJab last week Amanda pointed out that the photo I used of me in it was my zombie photo from last year. (For those who don’t better I usually don’t have a jagged scar and snarly expression, well not everyday anyway.) So I guess I should used a different photo; but such is life. The one of Doug I used was when he he channeled Katy Perry, minus the blue wig of course.

Well I thought it turned out cute anyway.

#2 is for all the dog people-

Go out tonight and have lotsa fun for me young ones.

See ya soon.

First off let me say thanks so much for all the kind things and well wishes you left me yesterday. I smiled as I read them and felt really special.  Please forgive me if I don’t answer each of you individually right now.

Now onto the news of the day so to speak.

As you can surmise, the rumors of my death are premature. Sorry if anyone lost money on that.

I am still here- a little worse for wear, but here.

Actually I was released from the hospital about 4pm yesterday and when so I felt great, better than great. I coulda tap danced outta there in fact.

Before I was attacked by that granola from Hell in the wee hours of Thursday morning, Doug and I had planned to go to Austin this weekend; Doug was going to help Brett with the Handshakes trailer and I was going to set up our Ecofab Gifts goodies in the artists market on South Congress.

And I felt so good AKA pain free, immediately after the procedure that I thought I’d just go ahead and go to Austin and do just that.

Funny how drugs can cloud your thinking. Go figure.

However, not wanting to get into a steel cage death match with Evelyn, I relented and agreed to stay at her house for the weekend so Doug could go on to Austin and do his thing without worrying about me. She wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be home alone and take a bad turn or get overwhelmed by a canine tsunami of love that would perhaps knock me down.

She also snarkily pointed out that my Life Alert Necklace had yet to arrive.

Such a bitch.

So upon being released Doug drove me to her her house straight away.

As I write this I am safely ensconced at Miss Evelyn’s rehab and day spa. When I arrived I was directed to go lay down immediately. And being as by now she’d slipped into her nasty, black dominatrix shoes with the knives in the toes she bought after seeing them in an old James Bond movie, I had no choice but to comply.

So I did.

And when I woke up a few hours later the party in my hoo-ha was in full swing.

A party of pain that is.

And the pain wasn’t actually in my hoo-ha of course, but the entire area south of the Mason-Dixon line was seriously pissed. And by now my back was screaming too. That was something I’d hadn’t expected never having had anything kidney related before.

Then it was time to go to the bathroom for the first time.

I will spare you the details; but suffice it to say it was unwonderful x10.

I finally took another round of meds and went to bed for the night about 11pm. I thought anyway.

I woke up at 4am and my teeth were chattering from the pain. So I took more meds, including 4 Alleve, drank some more water, did the potty of pain and went back to bed. At 8am I stumbled out into the den, said hello, took more pills and slept on the couch til 1:30 this afternoon. I was then treated to breakfast en couch which was fabulous.

After that I woke up again after 5pm. (Evelyn’s couch has a narcotizing effect.)

Since then I’ve just been lying low.

Evelyn won’t let me do a thing. She’s in now making beef stew for dinner.

And since Gizmo needs his meds 2x a day he’s with me here. The rest of the pack is at home under Nate and Amanda’s care.

Needless to say Giz and I are both feeling pretty pampered right now.

I could get used to this.

I have a cute video of Doug and me that I’m going to post on Halloween. I hope by then I’ll be back to being me.

See ya soon and thanks again.

:) Michele

This is a good news/bad news situation depending on whether I’ve pissed you off or insulted you lately I suppose.

But for those few who do like me never fear, I’m not going to die; as far as I know.

If it’s true that only the good die young, rest assured I’ll be around a long time.

But just how did I get here inquiring minds want to know?

Did Doug finally go buck wild on my ass and I landed here as a result?

No.

Did I break up another dog fight and have to have a phalange re-attached like before?

No.

Did I put myself in harms way to stop a bullet for someone else?

Not hardly.

Nothing that glamorous.

Instead I woke up at 3am Thursday morning with intense pain in my lower abdomen. Being super sleepy I assumed that I just had to go to bathroom; so I did. However, the pain remained. I got back in bed and scooted over holding close to Doug thinking that if I could relax, the pain would go away.

It didn’t.

I laid there for an hour hurting. Then I got out the laptop and looked up the symptoms of appendicitis. Except for the pain being on the opposite side my symptoms seemed very similar. And since I am a lightening rod for the bizarre, I just assumed that was what it is.

By now the light had awoken Doug so I told him what was up. I told him to get dressed that we were going to the hospital.

This is no small thing for me.

When you’re uninsured you just don’t go popping off to the ER at the drop of a hat, like the lucky folks who have major medical. However I didn’t want my appendix to rupture so I thought we’d better go.

So we did.

As soon as I walked in the receptionist asked for my ID and shoved a plethora of papers to fill out across the counter at me. I told her that I felt sick and needed something to throw up in. Before she could get anything for me I let fly all over the floor of the ER. It wasn’t a plan; I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d wanted to. In the next five minutes I threw up two more times.

The tech went to get a wheelchair and brought over one of the ginormous ones they use for the truly super big folks. At first I was unhappy but then realized that I felt tiny in it so it was OK. Meanwhile the pain was unremitting. The Dr. on call came in, palpated my abdomen, asked me about 5 questions and said “I think you have a kidney stone”.

You coulda knocked me over with a feather.

I’ve never had a UTI, kidney infection or anything like that; so I was surprised for sure. They sent me for a cat scan and 10 minutes later he came back and confirmed his diagnosis. “They’re right there on the X-ray.”

The ER tech came in a placed an IV line. He got me on the first stick but I felt like I’d been assaulted. Apparently he used the biggest needle that’s made; and my small veins knew it for sure. I accused him of using a knitting needle. He denied it of course but I had my doubts.

So I spent all of yesterday in a drug induced haze. I was given 2 double doses of morphine yesterday.

(Apparently kidney stones rank right up with natural childbirth- pain wise- without the bonus of getting a beautiful baby afterwards. And when I was in labor the first time I was getting my epidural as soon as I could. I am not pioneer woman after all.)

Anyway, did the morphine help?

Yes.

Was it wonderful though?

Not so much.

It made me nauseous- and dizzy(er) than usual.

It was unwonderful.

So then came the Midrin for the headache and the Phenegren for the nausea (from he morphine).

Doug was with me all day; then Amanda came so her dad could go home and get some sleep. The highlight of my day was when a therapy dog, a Golden Retriever no less, came to see me. He was great. Of course I wanted him to stay with me ; but I knew he had rounds to make so I had to let him go on.

Nate took off work early to come see me. Then Evelyn showed up. Brett called.

I was beginning to think that they all knew something about me that I didn’t. I was beginning to wonder if I should start making a  deal with God to make sure I got through this.

Should I offer free face paintings to orphans? Should I vow to give up chocolate forever?

Doug went on home about 10pm; he had a Drs. appt this morning to get an order for the MRI for his shoulder. Then Miss Bunny showed up with her overnight bag to sleep on the couch right next to me all night. I tried to dissuade her, telling her that I’d be just fine alone; but she was determined.

That woman is stubborn.

I told her that when I was sitting in the wheelchair throwing up in the ER I threw up so violently that I peed my pants. Being ever the good friend that she is, Evelyn stopped on the way here last night and bought me another pair- red lace and all of a size 4- maybe. She walked in and put them up high on the IV pole.

What a good friend.

She was just getting me back for kidding her about the doc tightening up her hoo-ha while she was getting her knee scoped a few weeks ago,

So last night was uneventful. Every time I peed they strained it to see if the stones had passed; as of yet they have not. So they took an X-ray early today. And depending on what that shows I’ll probably have surgery in a few hours.

And for those that don’t know, this is what a kidney stone looks like.

They kinda look like granola to me.

Anyway, just found out- surgery is at 11am. Off for an EKG.

Bye for now kiddos.

I knew better.

Seriously, I did.

Especially with my family history.

I had my annual mammogram.

Or in my case this time, my semi- annual mammogram. But before you all bitch slap me into unconsciousness for my oversight; rest assured I’ll never let it happen again.

As everyone who has had one knows your mammogram is not something you look forward to unless your a masochist. It’s uncomfortable for sure; but in the past I’ve always just located my loins, then girded them and got on with it. It never really hurt- til yesterday.

But hurt it did.

And I don’t know exactly why. As far as I could tell nothing was really different. But I’d never been to this particular place to have one before. Perhaps the mammographer just thought she should give me an extra tight squeeze since my mom had breast cancer- twice.

I was at a family clinic; and the radiology dept. was right next to pediatrics.

As she was compressing one of Doug’s favorite things into oblivion, we could hear a toddler screaming. They were definitely unhappy.

I said “Can I do that?”

“No, you cannot.”she said dismissively.

She was as dry as toast.

Then when she turned I noticed the giant stick coming outta her ass. Now I understood; and her name tag confirmed it- Ms. Nofun.

Seems to me that if you’re doing something so unwonderful to someone that a sense of humor would be a good thing. It wouldn’t remove the discomfort of course but at least it’d help lighten the moment.

Anyway, for three of the four views I was fine- not loving it of course; but I was fine.

Then came number 4 which was the same til it had to be redone.

It started the same as all the others; then she just kept pressing the plates closer and closer and having me lean so far to the left I could barely keep my balance. At one point I just expected it to pop like a water balloon.

Tears fell from my eyes.

It wasn’t a plan, just a reaction to pain- real pain, not just discomfort. Thank God it lasted only a few more seconds, then I was free.

I looked down to see if it was still there.

It was; but now one was significantly further south than it was before. I was sure of it.

My Playboy career is over for sure now.

I wonder, is it the same way for women who have TB?

Tiny boobs.

I’d really like to know. Everyone I know well wears bras big enough to use as umbrellas, so asking them will do no good.

However, now should National Geographic want to do a pictorial layout of New Guinea and not want go all the way there, they can just come here on a humid day. Between my frizzy hair and now more than ever boobs that are equator bound, they could save a fortune in travel expenses. Of course they’d have to give me a spray on tan, but that’d be about it.

Actually I think mammogram centers should have a cutout like the ones you see at carnivals.

Just imagine a charactercher of one of the National Geo women with her boobs to her knees. Then you could put your head in the cutout. Underneath it could say “I had my mammogram today.”

I think it’d be funny. And there isn’t enough laughter in the world.

So now comes the big wait for my results. I really hate that.

But in the meantime here’s a little mammogram humor for you-

So I guess that’s it for now.

I’m off to look for some scaffolding for my now lopsided ta-tas.

Squishedly yours,

Michele

Did I?

Not so much.

But it was my own fault. I trusted someone I didn’t know well; which in this case means not at all.

You might remember that the director of the Cuban/Puerto Rican came to me last weekend at Festa Italiana and asked us to attend his event this past weekend. I told him we already had something booked and that I’d change my plans but only if he guaranteed that we’d have no competition at his event. (His said his event was huge and that people spent freely.)

“No problem. I guarantee that.” he said as he shook my hand. So we changed our plans to come to his event.

Was it a good idea?

Not so much.

The man lied like a rug.

Directly across from us was a booth doing FREE face painting as a hook to get people to come to their booth.

Guess what?

It worked. They were busy.

But it’s hard to compete when you’re charging $5 for something and someone else is doing it for free. For more the most part the parents don’t care how good or bad a painting is’ just that the kids get one and stop pestering them.

When I tracked down the director he said “Sorry about that. You’ll do fine though.”

And of course I’d already pre-paid my booth fee, in cash.

And in addition to that there was another booth doing it for $2. Doug was seriously pissed and went looking for the man who’d made that promise to us, but of course he was nowhere to be found.

So for the most part our day sucked- big time. I watched person after person walk by with a painting that I hadn’t done. And the free spending that was promised was actually a trickle. It was infuriating. And most of the crowd was Cuban or Puerto Rican (go figure) and spoke no English at all. Of course I couldn’t be upset with the people attending. They’d done nothing wrong.

However, having anticipated a super busy day we even had Brett come to town to help out. What a waste of his time.

The highlight of the day was when a woman- an unusual woman, came to be painted. She was tall- seriously tall- 6’5″ at least. Standing next to her I looked like the Travelocity gnome. She sat down and pulled her maxi dress up, way up. (Her long legs woulda reached all the way up to my armpits.)

“I’m dancing tonight and I’d like my leg painted.” she said in a husky voice.

I was happy since I could just do my thing, painting big swirls.

By that time I was so sick of painting the Cuban and Puerto Rican flags I could have barfed. I hate painting flags of any kind.

“That’ll be $20.” I said.

“That’s fine.”

So I started painting her leg and glittering as I went; and the more I painted the higher she raised her dress, eventually revealing her thong which hid a bulge.

“Just keep on going.” she urged. Having just seen the bulge I now understood the husky voice.

By now quite a crowd had gathered to watch. Many people had kids with them but seemed totally unconcerned. In retrospect I suppose she was showing no more skin than you could see on a beach; but it seemed strange to me just sitting on a street, watching a woman reveal that much skin and not be at Mardi Gras.

It wasn’t that I really cared, but I was surprised by my reaction. After all over the years I’d painted tons of ta-tas, bare butts and even a few tallywhackers and over time have come to think of myself as a doctor; skin is just skin.

And in the end everything turned out OK. I charged her $40 and she was more than happy to pay it.

Then as I was moving the mirror down her leg so she could see all of the painting I noticed the had an unusual fashion accessory on the other leg.

It was an ankle bracelet.

I wanted to ask but knew I couldn’t.

But I bet it was quite a story indeed.

I used to have a morning routine. I’d check my email, then come here, then go to CNN and USA Today to get the news of the day. Then I’d write a bit, post it and go around visiting my online friends.  That was pretty much it. It wasn’t very exciting, but it kept me outta the bars and in the loop with what was going on in the world and with my friends.

Lately however, I’m lucky if I get online for any substantial amount of time 3-4 times a week. Between festivals and getting things ready for the EcoFab launch, I seem to have no time for anything else.

And I hate that.

I feel like the world is passing me by. I’m happy at least some of my friends are still popping by to see me here even if I haven’t been around to them in awhile.

I just need about a 36 hour day, that’s all.

Apparently I was totally oblivious to the fact that recently the earth tilted on its axis, with some really bizarre consequences.

I will illustrate:

1. Barbie got a tat.

Apparently this isn’t the first time Barbie wanted some ink; but unlike last time when it was just temporary; this time it’s permanent.

It’s a truly lovely piece, extending up on her neck as well; and who doesn’t love that?

Not that I have anything against tattoos.

I don’t.

Although Brett keeps pressuring me, it’s not for me at this juncture; but many of my friends have more than one. However, having gone through laser treatments on my face, I can only imagine how much having one removed must hurt if it comes to that after making a poor choice at the tattoo parlor.

Apparently making a poor choice isn’t all that uncommon.

Years ago at an event we met a 26 yr. old young man who admittedly had made a very bad choice indeed. Brett was only 17 at the time and just rabid to get one even though he knew he’d have to wait.

We were in Milwaukee at the time. It was summer and the weather was fabulous compared to ours at home. The young guy was quick to explain that as nice as the summers were up there the winters were just awful- long and freezing for what seemed like forever. And apparently back then during those long, cold winters it wasn’t all that uncommon for teenage boys to tattoo each other.

No I didn’t understand it either; but I just report the news.

Anyway, he now had severe tattoo regret and pulled his shirt up to show Brett just why.

And just what did he now find so objectionable?

Below his belly button in 1″ tall letters was emblazoned CHRONIC MASTURBATOR.

I laughed out loud, which in retrospect probably wasn’t very nice. But it wasn’t a plan. just a reaction. Brett said nothing, but looked at him like the RCA dog. The guy went on to explain that now 10 years later, he was married with a two year old son and was desperate to get rid of that regrettable ink before his son was old enough to start asking questions.

Obviously he hadn’t seen this product:

It was designed for the lower back; but I bet it’d work on the lower front as well.

But I’m getting off topic again.

Sorry, back to Barbie.

Apparently her edginess knows no bounds since she now she’s also resurrected Jennifer Beals Flashdance, one shoulder look from 1983.

I know I couldn’t pull that look off.

A one shoulder top and no bra?

Please.

I’d wind up memorialized on the People of Walmart for sure; but even at 53 Barbie doesn’t have saggy boobs, cellulite or even need a Lifestyle Lift. So I guess she can get away with it.

I hate her.

2. I heard of a water hazard before; but this one takes the prize.

We used to live pretty close to a park which had a bayou running through it. On the other side of the park is a chi-chi country club. Apparently from time to time on the fairway of their golf course there is an alligator taking a sun bath. According to our neighbor who golfed, everyone gave the alligators a wide berth, which always made sense to me.

Apparently though some people do not, much to their regret later on.

Seriously, just how much can one golf ball cost?

Anyway, I thought alligators on a golf course were bad enough til I saw this.

Apparently a nearby river flooded and bull sharks from the river wound up in the golf course pond.

These are not nice fish. Many times when people have thought a great white was responsible for a fatal attack it was later discovered a bull shark was responsible.

And people there are feeding these sharks.

I do see the warning sign in the video. But what if someone not from around there assumes the sign is a joke and goes in for his ball anyway?

However I’ll admit that YouTube video is fascinating- to see someone that close to a deadly shark yet safe seems bizarre.

But I guess that’s it for now.

Doug just came in and gave me the hairy eyeball. The Cuban festival is tomorrow and not surprisingly, we are running behind in our preparations; although not as much as usual, which is a good thing. We’re trying to Lazer proof the house before we leave in the morning. I guess we’ll know how good a job we did when we get home tomorrow night. I’ve got my fingers crossed. But no matter what happens I’m happy that they’ll be loose and on patrol while we’re at the event.

So have a great weekend kiddos. See ya soon.

But I forgot to ask? Do you have tattoo regret?

So even if the rest of me looks iffy, my hands look great; if you overlook all the brown spots which, if connected look a lot like Stephen Hawking (minus the wheelchair of course).

Anyway, I went last Thursday to a place I’d been before with Evelyn. In the past they’d done a good job; but none of the people I knew were there. However I was really short on time so I decided to stay and let them do it.

Was it a good decision?

Not so much.

Now usually one of my bad decisions doesn”t actually bite me in the ass; or in this case the finger; but it did this time.

I was led to a table where a woman, who appeared not much younger than myself, sat across from me.

That shoulda set off alarms.

Since she appeared close to me in age, then in reality she was probably about 118, since most Asian women take care of their skin better than we baby boomers here who were sun worshipers when we were younger.

But I sat there like a mindless dolt, watching TV, letting her do her thing.

And all was well for a few minutes. She was chatting away in Vietnamese with the young manicurist at the next table. (I don’t necessarily think they’re talking about me, but I hate that anyway.) Anyway, all of a sudden my nail gets hot from her having kept the Dremel tool (A mini sander) in one place too long on my nail.

“Ouch.” I pull up my hand and shake it.

“Sorry.”

I’m not angry. Anyone can make a mistake after all.

But not 2 minutes later:

“Ouch!”

This time she drew blood with the Dremel.

“Sorry” she said as she applied the antiseptic,which made it hurt even more.

Then, in an obvious nod to my heretofore unrecognized masochistic tendencies, I put the already wounded hand down yet again.

(In retrospect I really wish now I’d quit huffing Liquid Paper before I did.) Obviously I wasn’t thinking straight, but what was I going to do? Run out half done?

That would’ve have been what a smart person did.

But not me.

This time I gave her a stern look as I put that poor hand down yet again.

And not two minutes later again-

“OUCH!!! OUCH!!”

I looked down and the skin near the nail on middle finger was pretty bloody. This nick was significantly worse than the first one.

I didn’t need a tourniquet or anything but by now I was pissed; and before I knew it she’d squirted more of that liquid blue fire onto my bleeding phalange.

Now the younger woman stepped up and directed me to her table. I hesitated for a minute, but knowing I had to start Festa the next morning and that I couldn’t go with my nails half done, decided to sit down anyway.

Lucky for them their were no more incidents.

I could hear the news anchor in my head “Woman runs amok at local nail salon, film at 11.”

When I got back to Evelyn’s Doug was there. He said “If you’re really getting into pain these days we can always stop at Cindie’s on the way home and get some toys. I hear they’re having a sale on whips.”

Funny, funny man.

He thinks he quite the comedian.

Anyway I worked all weekend and didn’t think much more about what had happened unless I bumped my fingers and noticed they were still tender. Still I didn’t give it much thought til Monday afternoon.

That’s when I noticed that they were both swollen, red and slightly oozy.

I am so thrilled.

Now I have two infected fingers and another event starting Saturday.

(Thank God at least they’re on my left hand.)  I’m soaking them in Epsom salts, then peroxide multiple times each day; then applying Neosporin and a Band-aid and hoping for the best.

As of right now, they’re no better but no worse so I’m taking that as a good sign. Of course if they do get worse I’ll be heading to the Dr.; but when you’re uninsured you just don’t pop off to one for every little thing.

And if I do have to go the Dr. that nail shop is going to be paying the bill for sure.

So next time I’ll be looking for a manicurist that looks like she’s still in elementary school.

Back to the funny next time. I promise.

I think the world is woefully lacking in funny these days. So I love finding something that makes me laugh out loud.

Anyway, this past weekend, Festa Italiana, was supposed to be our biggest of the year- monetarily speaking. Traditionally we do very, very, very well there.

Was it ?

Not so much.

When we got there to set up on Friday morning the first thing we saw were the bubbles.

Remember the bubbles?

They were our nemesis at the rodeo.

We hate those things- with a white hot hatred.

And there was a mechanical bull there. That was new too.

And finally, next to us was a booth where people could make macaroni bracelets for free. Honestly I don’t understand the allure of a pasta bracelet; but they were super busy. Then I heard some parents say “You already got to do something (meaning the macaroni bracelet).” as they led their kids away from our booth, which was next to theirs.

It was unwonderful to be sure.

So we wound up doing less than 50% of what we did last year, even though the weather was perfect.  The big giant heads with the festival have just brought too many things in for kids, thereby reducing what all of us can make. The available parent dollars can only be divided so many ways.  And they raised the booth fee by 50% this year to almost $500. It wasn’t good.

Pain from my shoulder woke me in the middle of the night. It was bad; but not unexpected. I knew I’d be paying a price for abusing it by having painting faces from Friday morning til Saturday at 10pm.

And I did.

Of course some of the pain could be karmic retribution for running over that van of nuns and orphans years ago; but I thought by now I’d finally paid enough penance for that; but then again, maybe not.

My plan had been to go to Discovery Green on Saturday, just forgoing the face painting $ on Sat.; but after seeing how poorly things went on Friday I knew I couldn’t do that. Lucky for me Brett showed up unexpectedly Friday afternoon. So he and my friend Susan went and did Discovery Flea. Apparently there were a bunch of looky loos there on Saturday. We did OK there but not what I’d hoped.

Sunday I didn’t go to Festa. Instead Susan and I went and did a BD party instead. I cut my hourly rate substantially for it. But Dayna is very cool and is going to host an ECOfab party at her place; and it’s things like that that are going to help us grow quickly.

Besides my shoulder just wasn’t up to another full day of painting at an event. I know the days of me painting multi day events are now behind me. Doug is mourning that fact.

Then in a sudden and scary move, Doug decided yesterday he needed to paint faces.

I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it.

Doug does many things well.

But face painting isn’t among them.

When I paint a rose bud on a face, it’s small and delicate.

When he does, they are ginormous. It’s like the rosebud is on steroids or has been exposed to radiation.

Doug just doesn’t know when to stop, so his rosebuds just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger, eventually covering one side of the face from the lower eyelid to the jawline.

Almost anyway.

I told him that it’d be fine if the 50′ woman came by and wanted a face painting, then his rose would look just about right.

However on a child it’s bad.

Seriously bad. I just hope he didn’t scar some child permanently from the experience.

One good thing did come from this weekend though. We got invited to participate in the Cuban/Puerto Rican festival next weekend which brings 20K people in 1 day; families w/kids, and we are the only kids activities booth. It should be great. Years ago we did a similar event and almost unbelievably actually did $2200 in 6 hours on a Friday night. (We had 2 helpers in the booth that night.)

We were insanely busy after that weekend and dead tired on Monday; but it was great and totally worth the pain I had afterwards.

So I guess that’s it now kiddos. Back to the funny next time.

Today starts our biggest event of the year, Festa Italiana. And just like last year, we’re not ready. Actually we’re more behind than last year because I wasn’t around to keep Doug on track.

But that’s OK. I’ve decided to roll with whatever happens. The event starts in the morning at 11am and we’ll be there. Actually he’ll be dropping me off and I’ll be there all alone.  It won’t be pretty.

If I’m really lucky Doug may be back to me to work the event by 5pm.

Maybe.

In a parallel universe.

But it is what it is and so be it.

I actually got a lot of pieces made for the festival when I was with Evelyn; and she’s on her way to a speedy recovery from her surgery.

It was time well spent; and I’ve gotta give her credit. She was a lot tougher than I anticipated. I was proud of her.

Tomorrow, for the first time ever, I’ll be away from a major event for a whole day. I’ll actually be at another event at Discovery Green in Houston. Discovery Flea started last month. EcoFabgifts participated; and we did well. It’s important that Ecofab is there each and every month; that people know that we’re going to actually be somewhere that they come come and see what we have, what’s new.

So, although it’ll almost certainly cost us money for me to be away from Italian, I feel it’s something I just have to do. I mean we’ll do well at DG, but it can’t match what I can make when I’m in the zone face painting.

So I’m going.

We just got approached by a shop owner who wants to put EcoFabgifts.com pieces in her shop.

It’s exciting.

I’ve now got a tripod and a light box and next week I’ll be shooting and indexing pieces for the new website. Thank God Evelyn knows how to do spreadsheets so she can get us organized so I’ll know what we have in inventory and what to ship.

BTW-I find it interesting that no one commented on the photo of  Evelyn’s hairy chest. I thought it was funny anyway.

Anyway, I’ll be working about 34 hours in the next 3 days, so you won’t be seeing me online much at all. I’ll try to do a quick post, maybe. I could Tweet, but I hate doing that from a phone. But I know I won’t be popping by to say hi. So everyone have a great weekend; and have lotsa fun for me.

In the meantime I want to share something I saw on a friend’s blog I Wasn’t Blogged Yesterday.

This made both Evelyn and me laugh out loud.

I hope you like it as much as we did.

Did you like it?

She came through the surgery with no complications. I finally got her home. Then she ate some chicken soup, had 2 doughnuts, a glass of milk, a pain pill and fell sleep.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that I got so stressed this morning I was shaking, literally.

And what caused my distress?

What it my loving hubs?

No.

My pack o’ pups?

No.

Was it the fact that my jeans are now into double digits and the first one isn’t a 1 anymore?

No.

Not that I’m happy about that but that wasn’t the problem today.

But before I start spewing bile I will explain.

Before we left today I took Evelyn’s wallet and mine and put them in my backpack with my laptop. I put my phone in there too. I had put the numbers of people to call for her after she was outta of surgery in my phone. I didn’t want to take my purse. That was just something else to possibly forget there when I was taking her home.

I got Evelyn to the surgery center on time today. I sat with her while she filled out yet more paperwork. Sheaves and sheaves of it. It was like a manifesto. And of course she’d gone in twice before today for pre-op tests and paperwork. Wouldn’t you think in this day and age a place could get all their shit straight prior to the few minutes before your surgery?

Apparently not.

I can understand them wanting to check your ID at the last moment and double checking what was going to be done. However, I can’t understand needing all the consent forms signed yet again and a list of your meds, yet again.

I went back to pre-op with her and was telling the nurse all sorts of ridiculous things about her. I figured it was good to keep the mood light. After they took her back I went back to waiting room, got on my laptop and tried to get online. Emphasis on the word tried.

Their network was down. No internet access.

OK.

I’ll just do everything on my phone. I have an old Android phone, one step up from a tin can and a string. I can get around online but it’s not pretty, especially when compared to all the new i Phones which, from what I can gather, can do everything for you including giving you a reason to smoke a cigarette afterwards.

So I fire up my old phone.

Wait let me rephrase. I try to.

“Your account is temporarily suspended. You are being routed to T-Mobil.”

WTF is this??? I paid it 2 weeks ago!

So now I’m away from home, with people I’m supposed to keep updated about Evelyn and I have no phone; and the only phone at the surgical center is behind the reception desk. I can’t even get to it.

The surgeon comes and speaks to me. Then I borrow a phone to let her family know that she came through the procedure just fine. I go back to the recovery room and am sitting with her while the nurses keeps checking her vitals and talks to me about aftercare.

Evelyn starts to stir and asks if it’s over.

“Yes it is” I say. “They tightened up your hoo-ha so much you can bounce a dime off it.”

The nurse snorted and Evelyn called me evil. I knew she was back to herself at that point.

We stop at Shipley’s on the way home and she buys a dozen doughnuts and a bag of donut holes. (Apparently doughnuts have curative powers heretofore unknown to me.) We stop and pick up her meds and I get her settled in with a big bowl of chicken soup.

I made the chicken soup last night and as directed LOADED it with garlic- three whole heads of garlic in fact. I thought it would be too much and I love garlic. When Evelyn’s husband walked in last night he said something was burning his eyes.

It was the garlic.

I tried the soup last night. It was too garlicky for me. There isn’t a vampire within 50 miles of here. I told her she could have it all. However when she had a bowl of the soup last night she said it was great and was looking forward to having more today.

It was a manly chicken soup. A real “put hair on your chest” chicken soup.

I thought that was an old wives tale.

Until I helped her change into her gown for surgery.

No more of that chicken soup for me.

I just finished electrolysis a few months ago, thereby ending my resemblance to ZZ Top.

I’m not going back there. No soup is that good.

Anyway, when I finally got her home I decided to deal with T- Mobil so I called 611- their customer service number.

In actuality it should be 666.

So I went through the whole explanation how it was paid on 9/26; but paid out of a different account.

I expressed my concern about a potential problem to the T-Mobil rep that exact thing the day it was paid on 9/26.

“I don’t want a problem with this later.” I said, worried that there’d be a problem later.

“Oh no, Mrs. Eigler. You’ll be fine.”

Well I wasn’t fine today. I was pissed.

Seriously pissed.

And when I called customer service and explained the problem they said all I could do was fax a copy of my bank statement showing that T-mobil received the $ and they’d research it; which would take 3-5 business days. They ‘d call me back. I asked how they could do that since my phone is OFF.

In the meantime the phone would stay off.

I called the library and got the number of T-Mobil corporate.

I called their escalation team.

The receptionist said I could leave a message and someone would get back to me in 3-5 business days.

“Are you in the corporate offices?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I want to speak to another human.”

“There aren’t any.”

“Are you telling me there are no other humans at T-Mobil? It’s all run by robots?” I asked.

“No, but it’s all voice mail.”

By this time the receptionist is getting catty. Something I did not appreciate- at all.

“I told you what to do. Do it.”

GRRRRRRRRR…..

I could feel my pulse in my jaw.

So after all that, I drove to T-Mobil and paid what they wanted. What they said they were owed. Which they weren’t.

So I called back one more time and was asked why it would take 3-5 business days.

“Well there are probably 100,000 people in the queue in front of you.” I was told.

“If there are 100,000 people who have to call the corporate offices to get their problems resolved that doesn’t say much for your customer service now does it?” I said.

So that’s it for now. Our phones are on. And Doug will deal from it from here on lest I go to Bellingham, WA where the T-Mobil mothership is located and go buck wild on someone’s ass.

I’m going to give Evelyn some more soup and make a wine cooler for me.

Back to the funny next time.

My head is still spinning from the past few days. We were Hella busy. And since I can’t seem to get my oars going in the same direction, today will be a jumble of thoughts- some complete some not.

Be kind.

And for those who didn’t come along for the Austin adventure, here’s are the links to get caught up if you want to-

I was there for the birth of an empire…Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

This was unwonderful.

It was still daylight when we drove through Bastrop, TX on the way home yesterday. It was the first time I got to see the damage from the massive wildfire a month ago. And although I’m almost officially ancient I’ve never seen fire damage before; not up close and personal anyway.

We slowed down in the fire ravaged area. So did a lot of others.

I’d expected just to see a bunch of black stumps everywhere. Instead, as far as I could see the trees were still standing but they were leafless (go figure) and totally black. The ground looked grayish from all the ash I suppose.

It looked like a scene from a Tim Burton movie. I bet it’s especially creepy when there’s a full moon.

Some of the burned areas closest to the road have already been sprayed with hydromulch in an effort to stave off erosion. And since the hydromulch is bright green the contrast between it and the scorched trees right next to it made the scene look even more bizarre.

I’d seen the devastation from a tornado before. We had to drive through a town ravaged by an F-4 to take a loan app years ago. That took my breath away. I hope I never have to witness such things ever again.

But enough of talk of Mother Nature’s Nastiness.

Today is Columbus Day. So this seems appropriate.

I like it. The graphic that is.

As far as Columbus day goes, it’s just another chance for a three day weekend. Although when you’re self employed it doesn’t really affect you anyway.

I don’t have any Columbus Day specific plans.

Although rumor had it that Doug, paying homage to Columbus, had planned to lay claim to an area he hasn’t visited in awhile.

Good luck with that.

Yesterday I was an angry as I’d been in over 10 years at him and told him that very thing, at one point going so far as to call him “Gutless”. (It takes a lot to get me mad, but when I finally do it’s best to be nowhere close.)

As soon as I’d said it I’d regretted it. But I didn’t apologize. I don’t have to threaten or curse to get my point across.

Needless to say, it was a quiet trip home.

Things are better, but he won’t be planting his flag anywhere today.

And of course this couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

Our biggest event of the year, Festa Italiana, starts Friday. As ususal there’s much to do and on top of that I have our monthly event at Discovery Green on Saturday. And starting tomorrow, I’ll be at Evelyn’s for three days. I think a few days apart will be good for us. Besides I’ll still be talking to him, and probably seeing him too, just not as much.

She’s having her knee scoped on Tuesday and I told her I’d stay will her and be her nurse Ratched. I’m going to make a ginormous pot of chicken soup and be at her beck and call.

I don’t expect she’ll need all that much. I had my knee scoped years ago and worked a festival the next day. But I’m hardy pioneer stock and if you gotta work, you gotta work. Besides she does so much for me it’s the least I can do.

You really can’t get mad when it’s your fault…

It was late when we left Wed. night; I couldn’t get a pet sitter. So I installed a dog door and then we left the biggest 4 of our 6 on their own for 4 days. (Giz and LB were with us in Austin.) Nate came and checked on them to make sure they had food and water, but most of the time they were alone.

But they weren’t bored.

Oh no, they weren’t.

Apparently we left the makings for quite the party.

Most everything that wasn’t put away or otherwise secured was destroyed. The good part was that the couches and blinds weren’t touched. It was just everything else- the magazines, a gigantic box of crackers and assorted containers of bits and bobs that were some day destined to become Ecofab goodies. Most things were no longer even identifiable having instead been transformed into teeny-tiny bits of debris not usable for anything. It looked like a ticker tape parade had gone through the den and dining room.

And since Houston, like Austin got a real pounding by thunderstorms while we were gone, there was mud everywhere too. Thank God leather couches can just be wiped off.

Anyway, it was quite the mess. Almost Turner and Hoochish.

I found this photo. It isn’t one of ours, but I can totally relate.

As soon as I opened the door I knew who was really responsible for the destruction at our place.

See below.

That was taken the day he showed up here, 6 months ago.

He’s bigger now.

And even if I hadn’t known, Blondie and Blackie ratted him out as soon as I hit the door.

“It was all him, mom. Really.”

A few minutes later Daisy said the same thing. “I told him to stop, but he just said “You’re not the boss of me.”"

I knew they were all telling the truth.

That giant pup just loves to destroy things.

A bored husky is a destructive husky. Once when we were away for a day, Kiwi ate through the side of the house, literally. We came home and her body was outside and her head was stuck in the wall of the utility room.

We knew it was chancey when we left; but we just had to go.

Blondie and Blackie just love being outside on squirrel patrol. They’re not interior demolitionists; and Daisy’s all about the squeak toys. We left her a whole basket of toys.

So it was the big boy. No doubt about it.

But since it was totally our fault so there was no point in getting upset. I just grabbed a big trash can, a broom and a dust pan and got to work. I worked for almost two hours. non-stop and still have about 50% left to go.

I needed to finish cleaning anyway. Lazer was just giving me some incentive.

In the future I’ll be better about putting things away before leaving them alone for protracted periods.

I guess that’s it for now. I gotta clean, and clean  then clean some more, then get everything I’m taking to Evelyn’s ready to go.

Later gators.

Ah, I remember. The truck/RV/trailer had just gotten it’s seal of approval from the city. They could open.

Now all they had to do was get it to it’s final location.

Sounds easy, right?

Was it?

Not so much.

In their enthusiasm Doug and Brett forgot to do obligatory virgin sacrifice before attempting to actually drive the RV across town again.

Was that a good idea?

Not so much.

They got back on S. Lamar and once again developed a catastrophic engine problem.

This time it was terminal.

She was dead- as a doornail.

And this time no amount of cajoling, making promises to God that could never be kept, etc, could make her start again.

Lucky for them though a man in a truck near them noticed their plight and offered to tow them to where they needed to go- for free.

Austin people are like that. That’s why everyone wants to live here.

So now Doug and Brett are being towed across Austin. And life is good; except for the fact that since the RV was dead neither the power steering nor the power brakes worked. And Doug, who was driving the RV was now responsible for not only stopping the RV they were in, but the truck that was towing them as well.

Apparently it took a near Herculean effort to do this.

Thank God Doug isn’t a 97 lb. weakling. In fact his legs are super built up which was quite fortuitous at this moment.

He said he was stomping the brake as hard as he could; and the veins on the top of his foot were so engorged they looked like a relief map.

Twenty minutes later I caught up with them over at Cheer Up Charlie’s, the bar where Handshakes would be doing business in their parking lot. When I arrived the Good Samaritan was still at it, now in a steel cage death match with the Handshakes trailer trying to wrestle it into it’s proper spot on the lot.

At one point his truck could no longer be used so it was left to us to push it into position. Someone had to stay in the RV and steer it. But instead of one of us, all of whom are obviously well fed, Doug recruited an anorexic kid sitting nearby to get inside and steer. We needed as little weight as possible inside it at that moment.

So the rest of us (5) got behind that RV and just like the slaves in Egypt pushed liked our lives depended on it.

There was much sweating, swearing and shoving.

It remained immobile for what seemed like forever then slowly started to move forward by inches.

Then it stopped.

We rocked it back and forth a few times and eventually it moved and was jockeyed into place.

After that we realized that we were hungry. Which wasn’t surprising when we remembered that we hadn’t eaten a bite in 16 hours.

So we adjourned to the local Furr’s- a cafeteria where for $6.99 you could have all you wanted. That was a good thing because we all ate like it was our last meal; we were going to the chair in the next few hours.

After that we went back to Brett’s, crashed and slept like the dead.

By the time we got up and moving today it was already mid- morning and there was still lots to do before the opening at 4pm. Doug was making the shelf for the outside of the trailer and I was sent on an errand to Buda, an Austin suburb, to pick up the power cord for Handshakes.

Did I get there?

Yes.

Did I get what I needed?

Well I’d certainly thought so.

In reality, not so much; although I was there for an hour talking to no less than 3 different people in the parts dept trying my best to explain the Hieroglyphicesque drawing Doug had sent with me. And of course in that hour I received no less than 10 calls from either Doug or Brett.

Then of course when I needed to talk them and tried to call them back I never got them.

By the time I got finished there and drove back to Austin through Friday afternoon traffic I was so frustrated I ‘m surprised I had any molars left at all.

And to top it off, all the stuff I got, all $354 of it, was wrong.

So 4:00pm came and went and Handshakes did not open.

The hard labor was almost over; but the baby was breech and for just a minute I was wondering if we’d ever see it.

However, by 5:00pm with much jerry-rigging, bargaining with God and other sordid acts and agreements which decorum prevents me from discussing here, and without any formal sign Handshakes had their first customer.

Congratulations! It’s a girl!

To be more specific a girl who ordered a Texas Popper AKA jalapeno/vanilla shake.

The 1st customer

So there you go. The big reveal has now been revealed.

Over the next few hours I watched a steady stream of people walk up, order and walk away with their shakes. Everyone seemed pleased.

Of course there are still things to fix on the RV and other things to tweak of course; but due to a lot of hard work by Brett, his business partner Alisia, and a lot of their friends and family Handshakes is up and running and that’s a good thing.

We couldn’t be more proud and since I have to get up early, I’m off to bed. I was told there’s going to be a party here tonight but since it starts at about 3am, I doubt I’ll be participating. Doug’s been in a bed for an hour already.

So if you’re in Austin and craving a really great milkshake in a flavor you’d never have thought of before go get a Handshake.

They’re at 1104 E.6th. Just look for the tacky/cute trailer and the cute guy with the beard and infectious smile. Tell him his mom sent you.

Here’s a link. http://do512blog.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/handshakes-austins-gourmet-milkshake-trailer-opening-friday-oct-7/

Thanks to everyone who came along for the ride the last few days. I appreciate it.

And if you do get a Handshake, please let me know how you liked it.

BTW- I’ll be at the South Congress Artists Market Sat. from 9- 6. If you’re in the area pop by and check out our Ecofabgifts.com goodies. They make great Christmas presents.

Back to the funny next time kiddos.:)

So where did I leave off?

I remember.

When we got to Brett’s house in the wee hours we saw her in all her glory. The Airstream that is our Grandtruck.

And unfortunately she didn’t take after either Doug, Brett or myself.

This baby was ugly.

Actually fugly. And we all know what that means.

She looks like a Doodlebug as all Airstreams do, but she is baby poop gold and brown. A more unappetizing color combination I cannot fathom. And her paint job is only about 2/3 at best, thereby giving her the appearance of having some heinous flesh eating disease.

But she’s ours and we have to love her. So we “ooh” and “aah” while checking her out while internally going OMG!

Since their leashes were left in Daisy’s crate and that was left at home we have no leashes with which to walk the Giz and LB. Never fear though Brett’s Mac Guyverness came through and he fashioned 1 collar and 2 leashed outta speaker wire so that they could attend to their ablutions before retiring.

By this time it’s 4am and I head upstairs with my canine companions hoping to snag at least a few hours sleep before I go with Brett to get the trailer inspected by the city first thing Thursday morning.

Brett’s mattress is on the floor.

This is not surprising; he’s been channeling his inner ninja since he was a kid.

I put the pups in their crates and try hard to sleep. Emphasis on the word try. My brain is bouncing around like a pinball, between Handshakes and Ecofab and wondering what’s happening back home since 4 dogs have the run of our mansion while we’re gone. Amanda’s checking on them and refilling their food and water but they are loose 24-7 and I can’t help but wonder if that’s a good thing or not. Not that I’m letting Doug know how I’m feeling of course.

Usually the boys settle down quickly once they’re in their crates; but not this time. They wimpered and bark for the next hour as I try without success to sleep. Finally I relent and let them out of their crates and since the bed is on the floor they’re in bed with me.

Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal. Blackie sleeps on our bed most every night. But she’s cool, always heading to the end of the bed, down by my feet.

Even Giz eventually settled tucking himself into a nook. But did Little Bit?

Not so much, which in this instance means not at all.

First thing he finds Brett’s pillow and proceeds to have a special relationship with it, licking it non-stop for 30 minutes.. Being a Pomeranian he’s somewhat brachycephalic, which means his breathing is louder than dogs with longer snouts. When I finally couldn’t stand the sound of that anymore I yelled at him to stop.

He did.

Stop.

Then he went on to Act II.

He started doing something I’d totally forgotten about. He started rolling in my hair.

LB has a hair fetish. Big time. Truly he’s a freak.

And being as I have curly hair having anything done to it that encourages it to tangle is a bad thing.

In addition to the dogs doing their thing, Brett called me on the phone once and Doug popped in to ask 2 questions. By now all hope of sleep for me is lost.

At 6:30 on the dot Brett decided it was time to leave to get the Airstream inspected.  It’d been decided that Doug would take Brett and I’d stay at the house with the dogs. I thought they were leaving way too early and said just that.

Was it?

Not so much.

They went to start it and it wouldn’t start. Brett had been cleaning it the night before and used the lights inside it thereby running down the battery. So it had to jumped.

Not an auspicious start.

Then Doug turned the key.

It was unwonderful.

It made a screechy sound that is hard to describe. Although it was so loud it roused my father who’s been dead for 30 years. I finally heard them leave and prayed that they’d get it there and that it’d pass inspection. After that I settled in for a chat with my dad.

He’s been good and I was happy to hear that.

Also apparently in Heaven calories just don’t matter. And I was really happy to hear that.

But I’m off course once again. Sorry,

According to Doug they made it onto S.Lamar, not terribly far from Brett’s house, when the Airstream had what can only be described as some type of automobile seizure (there was much uncontrollable shaking and thrashing about) and died for the first time. S. Lamar is a major street and there they were broken down in rush hour traffic. It wasn’t long before the cops arrived; but they were totally cool and directed traffic around them lest they become smushed while trying to figure out what was wrong.

Three and a half hours later they made it to the inspection facility and with only a few last minute repairs which super Doug was able to handle, it passed inspection.

And the angels wept.

And so did I.

Of course there’s much more to tell, but I just a call. Doug is on the way to get me, so I gotta go. Handshakes officially opens for business at 4pm.

Pray for us.

Part three next time.

Doug and I got here at 3am and we’re finally going to crash.

I saw a bed last night, but for various and sundry reasons didn’t sleep.

But I guess before I go any further I should provide some backstory.

In addition to Doug and I trying to get Ecofabgifts off the ground right now, our son Brett decided that right now would be the perfect time to launch his own business- a food truck called Handshakes. Handshakes will be a gourmet milk shake truck.

Their signature shake is a Panshake- a shake that tastes just like a pancake. They’ll also have a shake that taste like oatmeal and one that’s vanilla bean with jalapeno. Of course in addition to all the bizzaro shakes they’ll also have shakes for the less adventurous- strawberries and cream and double dark chocolate.

Brett had been wanting to start his venture for awhile and when the opportunity came along to get an old Airstream truck at a great price he jumped on it; even though the timing could’ve been better. Since we are in start up mode for Ecofab, buying all kinds of tools, ecomerce sites and such, we weren’t in a position to just chuck over $5K to help him at this juncture.

But he found a partner and between the two of them they got the Airstream and secured a spot next to a popular club on the eastside of Austin- an up and coming area favored by hipsters.

As far as he knew the trailer was good to go- it’d been used as food truck before. But still it had to go through the City of Austin Health Dept. inspection.

Opening day for Handshakes is tomorrow.

He was taking the Airstream to be inspected TODAY.

And if it didn’t pass they were screwed. They only do inspections Tuesday and Thursdays.

Doug and I were planned to come up for the grand opening on Friday. But as of last night hadn’t started our preparations to leave. When I got home yesterday from a day of running about with Evelyn, Doug was in a foul mood. He had a headache.

And when he has a headache it’s the worse headache in the world.

Remember the man cold?

Doug took the bed and I loaded him up with every pain killer I could find, since what he’d taken before did no good. About 9pm, an hour or so into his coma Brett called.

“When are you coming?”

“Tomorrow. We’ll be there about 1pm or so.”

“I need you to come now.”

I told him that his dad was down with a bad headache and was deep asleep. Brett was really stressed. The hot water heater wasn’t working correctly, the truck was making some clunking noise and he was freaking out. We had to come right now.

So I woke up Prince Charming.

It was obvious at that moment that he needed a refresher course at charm school. He was being somewhat less than charming.

Actually he was doing a pretty good imitation of Rancor from Star Wars.

Not that he didn’t want to help Brett, he did; but he still had a headache- a man headache. And we were still hours away from being able to leave.

Doug had been cleaning the garage yesterday when his headache started; and he’d left a copious of amount of debris out on the driveway that had to be dealt with before we could leave. Not to mention I hadn’t lined up anyone to do the dog sitting.

As you know, procrastination runs in our family.

So at 10pm Doug starts reloading everything into the garage, I start to pack and can’t start calling around to find a dog sitter. So instead I install a dog door in our back door, all by myself. (I was quite proud of myself for that.)

Knowing that we’d be taking both Gizmo and Little Bit with us I grab Daisy’s crate, throw 2 leashes in it and put it in the car. Daisy’s crate is big enough for both of them; and with space being at a premium, since we were taking huge saws and all matter of tool in addition to the Ecofab stuff I’d need to work on South Congress on Saturday, I thought it was a good idea.

Rancor was quick to disagree so back inside Daisy’s crate went and out came two crates in it’s place.

Then I put down enough food and water for a herd of camels, checked that I had our meds and clothes for the trip and pronounced that I was ready to go. I load Gizmo and LB in their crates. It’s 12:15am and we hadn’t eaten dinner yet.

And since we’re running later than late we have to eat in the car and just keep going. We drive thru Jack-in-Box to enjoy their finest cuisine.

We even got the boys a bacon cheeseburger to split, so they wouldn’t feel left out.

Have you ever tried to feed dogs a cheeseburger through a grate while you’re on our knees facing backwards in your seat in a car going 70mph?

It wasn’t fabulous.

Then to top off my epicurean experience when  I take a big drink of my water it tastes like what I imagine would be a mix of nasty toilet water and Clorox would be. By this time we’re already outta town and miles away from anywhere else to get a drink.

But the fates smiled on us and we made it all the way to Austin in just under 2.5 hrs., pulling in at 3am. At this point I’d been up 20 hours.

Lots more to tell but all of a sudden I have a massive case of the I’ve never been so tireds, so I’m gonna crash for awhile.

More manana or maybe tonight if I wake up-ever.

BTW- You probably won’t be seeing me around much for the next few days. Tomorrow is the big opening of Handshakes and Sat. I have a booth on South Congress. If anyone is out and about please pop by and say hi.