An Early Morning Word-Vomit Session

I'm still alive, I didn't go all AWOL on you guys again.  Thanksgiving really threw a monkey wrench in my blogging capabilities.  Hey, playing hostess to 20 people for dinner and making your own turkey for the first time ever is stressful, y'all!

I'm feeling a totally random post this morning and I'm not even close to being alive awake yet, so a few things I have on my mind:

I'm up well before the ass-crack of dawn this morning since my friend Amanda was supposed to meet me at the gym  at 5, but texted me ten minutes ago and said, "Prolly not gonna make it this morning since I was up all night. Tell u about it at school."  Question: if you're already up at 4 fucking 30 in the morning, why not just GO?  All we were going to do was treadmill cardio anyways.

I joined the gym.  Finally.  Another reason I've been somewhat absent from my blog the past few weeks... getting back into that routine has been difficult.  Time is a precious commodity and in order to make working out a priority and find that motivation back again, something had to get axed temporarily.  Sorry, Blog.

Amanda just texted me. "Okay, I'll go anyways.  Can't sleep anyways."  Her ears must've been burning.  My response: "Damn you, I just drank a shit ton of coffee and if I go now, we'll only have half an hour.  I'll just see you at school." Meh.  We're supposed to go after school also and actually work out, so whatever.

I thought I'd be nice yesterday and blow leaves in the yard for an hour for Sean before it got dark outside (at the ungodly hour of 4:45PM... I despise winter's lack of daylight!).  The backpack blower needed gas so I put some in, started it and went to town on the yard.  For all of about 30 minutes, anyways, and then the blower's motor surged weirdly a few times, spluttered, and died.  Weird.  When Sean got home I told him about it.

"What kind of gas did you put in it?" he interrogated.  Defensively, I pointed to the collection of gas cans in the corner of the garage. "That one."  "Ugh, Baby!" he groaned, "That's regular gas!  The blower takes mixed gas!"  Well excuse the fuck out of me, how was I supposed to know?  In hindsight, the little picture of an oil drop + a gas pump on the lid to the gas tank probably should've been a clue, but then I've never been much of a visual learner.  Oops.  However, the blower pulled through the mishap just fine after Sean drained it, put the right gas in, and ran it for a while.  I'm now cut off from any yardwork involving small engine equipment.  Sweeeeet.

Christmas shopping is done!  I'm awfully proud of myself for that one.  I have yet to ship the presents, but hey.... baby steps.

If you noticed, I mentioned "school" earlier instead of "work."  I got the best hookup ever a few weeks ago when I found out that my chit got approved to go to EAWS Academy; because this week, the week they enrolled me to go, is the horrible terrible week of our huge dreadful quarterly audit by AIRLANT and Naval Reactors.  And I'm skipping the whole week to go to air warfare school and learn about what the air wing on the carrier does. HAHA, bitches... have fun doing stressful Monitored Evolutions and Level-of-Knowledge interviews (ala the Spanish Inquisition) with those motherfuckers... I'll be sitting in a classroom with a cup of coffee not thinking about nuclear power.  Sweeeeet!!

Also, if I get my Air Warfare pin I'll look like hot shit and maybe get a better eval in March because of it, since I already have my primary Surface Warfare pin.

Life is so good this week.

And finally...

Today is the Big 4 for Sean and I.  Four years of married bliss with a healthy dose of agony on the side to boot.  The man drives me crazy as hell most of the time, but God I love him!  He's taking me out for sushi and the new Twilight movie tonight, with promises of a mysterious "real" anniversary date which apparently fell through and had to be postponed for the time being.  In spite of his faults, he's still the most amazing man I've ever met and I wouldn't trade him or what we have together for anything in the world. ♥

And now I'm off to get ready for school.  Toots!

Big Little Bro Gets A Wife & A Life: Part III

So earlier this year, after a series of unfortunate events of the romantic type, Big Little Bro met The One.  She was apparently "a goddess, an angel fallen from heaven, my destiny, my soulmate!" (also known to us mere mortals as "Kia").

He promptly went completely off the deep end over this one.  He talked to her on the phone constantly.  There'd be nights where I'd hear him pull the Golf into the driveway and shut it off; and then 45 minutes later when I realized that he'd never come inside, I'd look out the window and sure enough, there Bro sat in the Golf, still talking to Kia on the phone.

Every story was about Kia.  He kept bringing up details of their first date.  Every time he learned something new about her, he would excitedly relay the information to me.  "Kia likes to snowboard."  "Kia likes brussel sprouts.  You should make brussel sprouts for dinner tonight."  "Kia broke her arm in 3rd grade."  OMG.


Alright, so maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but it was pretty ridiculous.

He was like a zombie attack victim (no, I haven't been watching too much Walking Dead) only instead of blood, he was single-mindedly focused on Kia.

I have to admit that, while all the stories and constant blather about Kia got super old super fast, the shit that this poor smitten brother of mine put himself through trying to impress her did not.  He started doing crazy and uncharacteristic Things, to apparently make himself more attractive to her, and I relished every second of his antics.

First, there was the Food Thing.

This goddess was apparently some brand of vegetarian, so Bro promptly kissed McDonalds goodbye and said hello to packing healthy lunches.  He'd give me money and a shopping list for him when I went to the grocery store. Chicken, eggs, organic baby spinach, fruit, vegetables, soy, tofu... you name something healthy, it was on the list; along with some strange herbal shit and even stranger organic shit that I had never even heard of.  Protein shakes, multi-vitamins, herbal tea... there was no end to the ridiculousness of this overnight about-face of his eating habits.  Who are you??

Next came the Exercise Thing.

Bro said to me one Saturday morning, "Hey Miss, would want to go and do Bikram yoga with me?"  I snorted the coffee I was sipping out of my nose and - spluttering and wiping coffee-snot off my face - stared at him increduously.  "WHAT??  You want to try yoga??"  It turned out that the Goddess was a huge Bikram buff.  "Um... sure... okay."  I enjoy yoga, especially hot yoga, so I was down.

Let me just say... that shit was hilarious.  I've never laughed so hard at someone else's misfortune.  Newport News is not quite as trendy of a place as Denver and there were no Bikram yoga studios to be found, so I took Bro to a beginner hot yoga class at the studio I like to frequent.  I had warned him to practice some basic poses, drink lots of water and stretch out well beforehand, but he didn't listen.  Ten minutes into the class he was already shaking with muscle fatigue and concentration, and I was worried at one point that he was going to tear something trying to contort his unused, McDonalds-fueled limbs into the various poses.  I think he was actually upsetting the instructor with all his distracting struggling and grunting.


Bro doing yoga was epic beyond all words.


I also mocked him relentlessly after I caught him listening to country music on his Ipod one day.  He's been relentlessly mocking country music for the past 15 years.


Sucker.

Ahhhhhhh well, the things we do for puppy love....

In May, we had the opportunity to meet the Goddess when Bro won a trip to NYC through their company.  The Goddess had won the same trip, and since they were going to be sharing a room together, he offered us his room and got us massively discounted plane tickets through the company's group discount.  A weekend in NYC for almost-free AND a chance to meet the Goddess? I'm totally down.

I expected her to be a hot mess, given Bro's track record with women, and was surprised when I found that she was actually quite... normal.  And not a psycho, either.

(At least, not yet.)

The Goddess turned out to be a short, perky blonde with a dazzling smile and a very large "in charge" attitude.  She struck me as someone who always lots of fun and is usually all smiles and giggles, but who could become reeeeeeeally un-fun reeeeeeeeeally fast if you ruined her plans or in any other way derailed her agenda.  I sort of felt sorry for Bro, but then I thought about all the crap I'd put up with from him for the last 8 months and snickered to myself.  Karma's a bitch, Bro.

And although she seemed fairly well-balanced, they did cook up this crazy idea over the weekend in NYC that Bro should move out to Colorado.  And move he did a few weeks later, in June; but not before he tried leaving all his belongings at my house and coming back for it "sometime in September."


"OH HELL, NO." was all I said.

All summer long after Bro moved to Colorado, I waited for the other shoe to inevitably drop; waited for that phone call from him saying that they broke up and he was moving back to Virginia.  It never came, though, and quite frankly I'm still shocked.  Somewhere in a dark recess of my mind, too, there's still a proverbial shoe lying dangerously close to the edge of a precipice somewhere.

At the end of July they announced their engagement, and I quickly swallowed something bitter (I think it was either a pill or a nasty remark, although my retainer went missing around that same time) when he told me that her canary diamond engagement ring had cost a cool $6K.  So much for all the debt I nagged him into successfully paying off during the time he lived with us; and never mind the $1500 he still owes Hubs and I from the $3000 we lent him two years ago when he first hit a rough patch.  It's cool, whatevs... just don't be surprised at the lump of coal you'll be getting in the mail from me for Christmas.

They announced at their engagment that they'd be getting married in October in Sonoma Valley, CA.  At a winery.  On a Sunday.  I thought for sure that my uber-religious mother was going to shit a brick that Bro was stealing the show from God on the Lord's Day to get married at a den of drunkenness and debauchery, but I was sorely disappointed; she barely raised an eyebrow about it.  All I heard from her on the topic were a couple of disapproving grunts about not getting married in a church (a very condensed version of the hell-fire-and-brimstone lecture I got 4 years ago for getting married in a courthouse instead of a church).


She actually threw a much bigger fit when she found out that the maid of honor was a lesbian (to be expounded upon in Part IV).

That fucking figures.

Can I just interject for a second?  I've caught more hell from my parents in my life than all three of my siblings have combined, and almost always for bullshit that was not even half as terrible as the things they got away with unscathed.  Shit, they didn't even have to "get away with" anything... it was all just allowed (condoned even!) by the time they were old enough to get in trouble.

You're welcome for me saving you from at least 85% of the parental wrath that I've been putting up with for 30 years, you little bastards.

Er.  Sorry.  I'm not bitter still or anything.

So Bro and Goddess announced their intention to marry in October.

Read all about the ridiculous wedding that ensued in Part IV. ♦

"Turbo Has Fleas!"

My friend May is one of the nicest people I know.

Even when wronged by someone, May is always quick to forgive and forget.  She's rarely angry.  She never curses, ever; in fact, words like "crap" and "goshdarn" are reserved only for the worst of offenders.  I admire her for her kind and gentle nature, even though I often catch myself jumping to her defense and then later scolding her for being such a doormat.

She's basically everything I wish I was but know I'm not.

Recently, May asked our co-worker Keith to dog-sit her standard poodle, Cesar, while she and her hubby went out of town for a weekend getaway.  When she came back to work on Monday, she was distraught.

"Cesar has fleas!" She exclaimed.

"Fleas??  How'd he get fleas?" May and her hubby are very neat-freakish.  Their house is so clean, you could eat off the welcome mat.  The one on the outside stoop.

She wrung her hands in annoyance.  "He must have picked them up from Turbo, that's the only logical explanation!" 

Turbo was Keith's dog.  May had carefully interrogated him about the possibility of fleas and other preventable doggie disasters before deciding to leave Cesar with the two of them.  It was understandable, then, that she was upset at this rather itchy and unpleasant homecoming gift.

Keith walked into the office a few minutes later.  Without preamble, May asked him nicely, "Um... hey, thanks again for watching Cesar this weekend.  By the way, ah... Turbo doesn't by any chance have fleas, does he?  I know I asked you before, but... well, I noticed a few on Cesar after we picked him up last night."

Keith looked offended. "No, he doesn't have any fleas.  I don't know where Cesar would've gotten fleas, but it wasn't from him.  They were playing out in the yard a lot on Saturday... maybe one of the neighbors' dogs has fleas and spread them around outside."

May didn't look convinced, but she dropped the matter.

A couple weeks later, a last-minute obligation came up and she needed someone to watch Cesar again.  She asked me, but Sean and I already had out-of-town plans.  Too cheap to board him at a kennel, she reluctantly asked Keith as a last resort.  He told her yes, so she dropped Cesar off with him after getting assurances from him that there were no fleas to be found.

The next Monday morning... "Oh. My. GOSH!! Cesar has fleas AGAIN!  I can't believe this!"

I refrained from making a comment about being a glutton for punishment.

This time, the fleas were so thick on Cesar that May had to shave him completely and give him multiple flea baths, and treat all her furniture and carpets as well.

"I am so disgusted with Keith!  I can't believe this!" she stormed.  When she confronted him at work the next day, he got downright resentful at her accusations.  "Never mind," she said, "I won't be paying you to watch him again, so don't worry about it."

Last weekend, Keith asked Hubby to do him a big favor and help him drop his new engine in his car.  I had duty on Sunday, so Sean really didn't have any other plans and agreed to help him out that afternoon.

When I called him from work that evening, he started jabbering into the phone.

"Hey, Babe.  Yeah, I just got home from Keith's a little while ago.  Holy shit, I felt so dirty when I got home that I stripped down and took a shower first thing.  What?  No.  No, not dirty from working on the car, even though I was disgusting after working on the car  No, dirty from going inside his house!!"

Hmmm.  Interesting.

"There were piles of clothes everywhere, dirty underwear on the floor in the bathroom.  Ugh!  Dust bunnies and dirt all over the floor, food and crumbs on the kitchen counters, dirty dishes piled up in the sink... just FILTH.  Everywhere.  And it SMELLED.  Oh, and his poor dog has fleas like nobody's business; he sat there the whole time just scratching, and scratching, and biting at himself.  It was so gross!  He invited me to stay for dinner and offered to order pizza, but I just couldn't eat there... not in that house.  The whole drive home I had imaginary fleas biting me."

After we ended our conversation, I turned to May, almost tripping over my next words in excitement.

"Turbo has fleas!  Sean said so!"  I shouted at her.

Her eyes widened.  And then narrowed.  She slammed her book down on the desk.

"AUUUGGHHH!!!  I KNEW IT!!! THAT... THAT... DOUCHEBAG!!!!"

Even the very best of people have their limits. ♦

Spell Check For Retards

I decided to make a covert trip to CVS for 50% off Halloween candy Lowe's run for more paint and some door hinges for the spare bedroom I'm repainting.

Yes... Lowe's... door hinges.  (taps forehead)  Must remember alibi.

"Huuuuubby! I'm running to Lowe's, do you need anything?" I shout upstairs.

"Uh, yeah... I need a padlock for the shed if you're running there.  Thanks!"

"No problem, be back in a bit."

I look at my list.  Paint and hinges... check.  Padlock... check.  Halloween candy... check.

While strolling down Aisle 15 looking for the padlocks, I pretend not to notice the grubby contractor in the overalls and the 5 o'clock shadow ogling me furtively from over by the doorknobs.

(I'll leave that last part alone for now.  I have a completely separate rant reserved for Lowe's and its cave-dwellers.)

 I successfully evade Grubby and finally find the padlocks.

So many choices.  Who knew?  Hmmm....

Nothing with a key.  That won't work at all.  I can absolutely see Hubby losing the key and having to smash in the new doors he just built in order to mow the lawn.

Next?  Your standard combination lock?  Nix on that... he can't even remember my Social Security number. (Maybe not a big deal to you, however, to those of you who are or have been a milspouse, you understand.  Kind of a big deal.)

And then I spot The One, a combo lock that has letters instead of numbers.  You mean my lock combo can be a word??  Oooooooh.  Perfection, thy name is WordLock.

I'd like to tell you that I bought it for him, but I didn't; I really bought it just because I thought it was badass.

I get back home.  "Hey, tada!  Look at the cool lock I bought myself you for the shed!"

(pause)

"Ehhhhrrrrr.... what is it?"

"It spells words, see?  Way cool.  'Cause I figured you wouldn't remem... uh, wouldn't want to bother remembering numbers just for a shed lock."

"Oh wow, Babe, thanks for the vote of confidence."

You're welcome.  Because the first time you hesitated over the exact year, month, day, hour, minute and second that I said 'I do' and made you the luckiest man alive, you lost that vote.  Oh yeah, and the social security number thing.  I'm just sayin'.

I take the high road.  "Who cares, you know what I mean.  Open it!  Let's pick a word!"

Looking through the sample words on the instructions, he points.  "CANDY.  That's gonna be our combo.  Because yesterday was Halloween, and candy is dandy."

"Huh?  No, no, no... you can't pick a word on the instructions, how easy is that to figure out?!" I scoff.

"Well, then pick something better, Einstein."

So I - being the mature 30 year-old woman that I am - stare at the letters on the lock studiously for a moment and then announce, "How about 'dildo'?  That'd be a hard one to forget.  Haha, get it?" *laughs at own hilarious impromptu joke*

Hubby raises a dubious eyebrow and frowns at me like a 5 year-old who just said 'penis' out loud in church.  "Yeah well, it's all fun and games until the little old neighbor needs to borrow a rake. What're you gonna tell her, "Oh sure, Miss Matilda, go ahead and help yourself to whatever you need in the shed; if we're not home, the combination is 'DILDO'?"  I don't think so."

Fine.  Such a killjoy, that one.  Like when we got our tattoos and I wanted to get matching ones that read 'S&M' because I thought it'd be funny and he told me hell to the no.  Some people have no sense of humor.

We go back and forth for a few minutes, and finally I say, "Terds.  How about terds?  That's semi-PC."

"Nope, it won't work.  There's no 'U'."

"What?  You don't need a 'U'!  Why would you need a 'U'?" I exclaim.

"Turds.  T-U-R-D-S.  Turds."

"What are you, a Speak & Spell?  Terds is spelled with an 'E'.  Teeeerds."

We argue.  I Google it and Google gives me:

turd  (tûrd)

n. Vulgar

1. A piece of excrement.

2. Slang A contemptible person

But I can't let him win.  I Google it again and it kicks me to this:

 Showing results for definition of turd

No-o-o-o-ooooooo!!!

He sees the look on my face.  "I was right, wasn't I?!?" he gloats.

I muster a nonchalant face and say matter-of-factly, "It had it spelled both ways."

"I win, I win, I beat the Grammar Nazi!  I was right and you were wrong! Nanny-nanny-pooh-pooh!" he mocks in a sing-songy voice while he does a victory lap around the coffee table.

"What are you, like, 5?  You will so fit right in with our children.  If we can have any... are you sure that you've hit puberty?? You are such a tard sometimes!"

He goes outside to smoke a victory cigarette, still gloating, but Hubby has wisely learned when to stop poking the sleeping bear.  So instead of a verbal counter-jab, he offers a peaceful alternative to end the Turds vs. Terds battle:

We're the rubber and the glue.

It fits us, don't you think?

I just hope that Miss Matilda has her own rake. ♦

Maybe The Bronchitis Will Scare The Roaches Away?

We interrupt the recent rash of really long story-blogs to bring you something a little more light-hearted today.

1.  Happy Halloween!  I won't be doing shit for Halloween this year due to a horrendous head cold I've had since last Tuesday, which only got worse when I had to do my PFA on Friday morning in the midst of an icy, rainy, cold wind and 40F temps.

Halloween.  I suppose I should put a pumpkin on the doorstep and go buy some candy for the trick-or-treaters.  Maybe I'll even go all health-conscious and hand out little travel-size hand sanitizers along with the candy so the kiddos don't catch my diseased cold.

Now all you moms and dads are thinking, "Oh my God, thank God my kids won't be trick-or-treating in her neighborhood!" and you're also contemplating making your kids throw away any and all candy that's not hermetically sealed.

Or, if you weren't thinking that, you are now.

You're welcome for that.  I'm here for you.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

2.  Ha!

I totally scammed out of work today.  On a duty day, too; and I don't feel one bit bad about it.  I never scam out of work.

This morning, Hubby told me, "Fuck it.  You need to go to Medical when you get to work this morning; your hacking kept me awake all night."  "Fine," I croaked.  I figured I had nothing to lose by it.

Being ill is frowned upon in the Navy.  I don't get to just phone my boss and tell him I'm not coming in today.  I have to go to work and go to sick call at the ship's Medical, where they'll decide for me if I'm too sick to work.

Oh, and did I mention they're not real doctors, either?  Well, some of the officers might be; but all the corpsmen are just a bunch of incompetent enlisted fucks who have a basic knowledge of how to stick needles in arms and read the display on the blood pressure machine.  Not really the kind of people you want 'diagnosing' you with their pretentious latex gloves and their little Playskool doctor kits.

But... I went to Medical anyway.

I figured there was no way I'd ever get lucky enough to get an SIQ chit (read: get-out-of-work-free card), but maybe I'd at least get some free cold meds.

I may have slightly over-exaggerated to the doc how ill I felt.  A feigned heavy-lidded, glassy-eyed look and a wracking, hacking cough can be very effective when combined with just right the inflection when you're rasping, "I feel awful, Doc."  Puh-lease.  I've faked my mother out at least a dozen times over the years; the Navy doctors don't stand a chance.  Also, as a smoker, I never seem have a hard time finding some lung cheese to cough up.

Just be careful not to overdo the dramatics.  It has to be convincing, but you can't make them think you're coming down with the bubonic plague.

I was nonetheless surprised and pleased when the doctor told me I had the beginnings of bronchitis and ordered me SIQ for the day.

Even with my congested chest and runny nose, it was all I could to to keep from skipping to the parking garage and singing, "'Cause I've got a Gold-en Tiiiii-cket! 'Cause I've got a Gold-en Tiiiiii-cket!"

I celebrated my bronchial freedom for the day with a cigarette as soon as I got out to my car.

And now to go pick up my Albuterol inhaler.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

3.  Have I mentioned how much I hate spiders?  Spiders and roaches.  Eeeeuuuuggghhhhh.  They make my skin crawl!

Our new house is in a much more wooded, tree-ish area than our previous house.  I've haven't seen a ginormous spider or roach a day in my life since we left South Carolina and moved to Virginia.

Until we moved into this house.

I think a lot of it had to do with how completely dir-tay the previous tenants were, and the general condition of filth that we took ownership of when we bought the place.  It's much better now after I bug-bombed the place and had it professionally sprayed inside and out by an exterminator.  But still.

One is one too many for my tastes.

So imagine my delight when I was shopping at Big Lots a few weeks ago (I ♥ Big Lots!) and found a 2 for $10 special on these:

I know.

I'm a total SUCKER.  I'll buy anything that says it scares spiders and roaches away.

These things probably don't work.  But just in case they do, I bought some.

I got home and gleefully plugged them in, images dancing through my mind of ultrosonic sound waves driving the spiders and roaches screeching away from my house in terror.

When my parents came to visit a few weeks ago, I proudly pointed them out to my mother, who hates creepy-crawlies even more than I do.

"Cool!" she said. (Pregnant pause) "....but where does it scare them away to??"

Silence.

Silence.

I hadn't thought of that.

Images of terrified roaches and spiders fleeing to my upstairs to evade the killer ultrasonic Bug Scare thingies downstairs - and spotting me sleeping peacefully in my bed and exacting their revenge - danced through my mind.

Oh, fuck.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

4.  The song "Day Tripper" by the Beatles is stuck in my head today, and keeps repeating over and over in my brain like a skipping record.

Can anyone tell me what this song is actually about?!?

It confuses the fuck out of me.