My day has been an interesting day.

Well we started off the day with something different.

Columbus Landmarks Foundation, of which I am a volunteer, conducted a rarely held event, Hidden City.  And because I'm on the Education Committee, I act as tour guide at these events.

This go round was the Palace Theater and the Leveque Tower.  And since Columbus is not what I would call a city of tall skyscrapers, the Leveque at 555.5 feet tall is was the city's first real skyscraper, even though its a paltry 45 story's high (or so).

Forbidden City tours take participants behind the scenes and to places that one could never get on their own.  On this tour, we went behind the scenes at the Palace Theater.  We toured the stage, did the green room, visited the vaudeville animal shower (from those dog and pony show days) and then we took our group (about 30 people) into the office tower and explained the building art (it's loaded with symbolism) and did a walk around.

This years tour included the 35 th floor which is raw, open space with a 360 degree view of the city, and then it was up to Mrs. Leveque's private apartment near the top.

After that we returned home to paint the dining room.  We figured that since the floors are going and the furniture in storage, this would be the perfect opportunity.  We chose neutral earthy color called "Gentle Doe" that is a gold with just a hint of green.  So we popped open the paint that husband picked up at Pittsburgh Paints and set to work and completed half of the room before I notice that it was drying to a peach color.

Egad!

So after cursing the bozo at the paint store for fucking up the mixture (he used the wrong base), I ran over to Lowe's and found the exact same color in their palette.  (I have a perfect sense of colors and pigments, fat lot of good that has gotten me in life, but its true.) and them mix it up and we were able to get the base coat on and THANK GOD it covered the old dark green in one coat.

The husband is getting ready to cook dinner.  After the meal I'll cut the yard, and following that I'm going to plotz.

My next milestone will be at 9AM Monday morning when the floor guy shows up and we get this show on the road.

That was then, this is now

I'm not one to go all ga-ga over the royals in the House of Windsor.  I slept through the wedding today and since we had the movers under foot I had no time for the pomp and circumstance other than to look to the TV and think "She looks lovely in that gown, but she needs some meat on those bones," when it happened - the House of Windsor entered the real world.

Look, when I mention British Royal Wedding, this is what we have come to expect:

But when I looked at the "telly" (or is it the "tellie"?) something extraordinary was happening:

Do you see what I see?

William and Catherine are doing something in public by themselves - extraordinary!   They are driving on the street in a car!  And he's DRIVING IT!  Cheeky little monkeys, those two and I LOVE IT!

Not only that but the car - an Aston Martin Db6 - has mylar balloons tied to it!  And then, some jokester slapped a big red "L" (which is worn on cars in which a learner is behind the wheel) on the front grille and on the back the staid British license place has been covered over to read JU5T WED.

But there is deeper symbolism in this caprice that would otherwise go unnoticed if it were anyone else by these newlyweds.

Well, what does all this mean?

People, Hell has not only just frozen over, but the big thaw is on!  The House Windsor is emerging from its long, long state of sleep, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are at the head of the parade!

While I missed the wedding, being able to see these two drive off (even if it was less than a mile) was worth it.  I wish them well!

Let the show begin!

Phase one of our floor reconstruction project begins today when the movers show up this morning.  The movers are carting boxes upstairs, to the basement and then they are loading up our living room and dining room furniture and moving it to a secured site.

THEN at 1PM, the flooring guys show up to deliver the flooring - twenty bundles of red oak planks.  The flooring has to acclimate in the house for 96 hours.  Monday morning at 8AM they show up with their saws and nail pullers and remove the new floor (two days), lay the new floor (two days) and then lay down three coats of polyurethane (light sanding in between) and buffing out.  We should be able to move the furniture back by the 8th of May.

That is the schedule. 

In reality we know that the floor pulling with be three to four days, then the right supplies won't show, then the laying of the floor will run into additional issues of leveling, etc. 

Our HOPE is that we can start moving back in on May 15th. 

Will keep you posted...

In honor of the Royal Couple: Something Telly

Do you have your hat ready for the royal wedding?

Well?

My great Barbie List

It was a slow day at work and I stumbled upon a twenty year old copy of the Great Barbie List. 

For the uninitiated, The Great Barbie List was a list that circulated years ago in the infancy of the consumer Internet that took Barbie, the doll icon and came up with various improbable iterations of the the plastic fashion doll.  Since the list is getting long in the tooth, I started my own, incorporating recent events with some of the more timeless Barbie's that should have been, but never were.

Here are my ideas:

Ain’t Shavin’ My Pits Barbie


Mid-life Crisis Barbie

Desperate Housewives Barbie

Japanese Earthquake Barbie

Haley Barbie (Governor of Mississippi)

QVC Hostess Barbie

Florida Recount Barbie

Math Is Hard Barbie

Asian Driver Barbie (comes with car and Korean totem to hang from rearview mirror)

Women’s Fast Pitch Midge

Golden Girls Barbie (Sold with Over-Sexed Kelli, Bellicose Midge and Simple Stacey)

Perp Walk Barbie

Martha Stewart Barbie (comes with Get Out of Jail Poncho)

Mrs. Barbie Madoff (comes with Federal Pen Bound Ken Madoff, and US Justice Department Skipper)

Share a Smile ADA Becky

Crackhead Barbie (Come’s with Ken’s Crackhouse)

Barbra Streisand Number One Fan Barbie

Blogging to Free Tibet Barbie

Sequestered Grand Jury Barbie

Leaking Toxic Chemicals Skipper

Internet Camming Barbie

Gangsta Bitch Barbie and Tupac Ken

Comb-over Ken

Kicking It With Oprah Barbie

Soccer Thug Ken

Barbie’s Bitter German Cousin Bild Lillie

Michelle Bachman Barbie (Pull her string and all she speaks all sorts of gibberish)

Fukushima Diachii Nuclear Plant Hero Barbie

Waiting For Katie Couric to Retire Barbie

Irrationally Angry Tea Party Member Barbie (Comes with Birther Ken)

Barbie Palin, and her husband Ken Palin

Just Say Mao Barbie

Showing My Tits At NASCAR Infield Barbie

Royal Wedding Attendant Barbie

Sixth Year Undergraduate Barbie

Jewish American Princess Barbie

Betty Broderick Barbie (comes with a loaded gun so you can shoot Ken in bed aside for the Hell he put you through)

Facebook Barbie (She “likes” everything that friends post)

Jewish American Paunchy Ken

Coupon Clipping Barbie

Pole Dancer Barbie

Naked Yoga Instructor Ken

Underage Porn Star Skipper

Roll Your Own Tampon Midge

One Day At A Time Sweet Jesus Barbie

Stroke Out Barbie

Driving My Hybrid Barbie Car Barbie

Stuck In a Dead End Clerical Job Barbie

Block Watch Vigilante Barbie

High As A Kite Ken

Mall Rat Barbie

Pushing Her Rage Down, Deep Down, Barbie

Nazi Memorabilia Collector Barbie

Repressing Her Needs Barbie

Don’t Want No Fucking Kids Near Me Barbie

Condo Association Chairwoman Barbie (Comes With Snitching Skipper and Henpecked Ken)

Never Misses American Idol Barbie

Wheelchair Trapped in a Woman’s Room Becky

Blissed Out on Model Glue Skipper

A Shark Ate Me Leg Aussie Blaine

Lesbian Awakenings Barbie

Klaus Barbie

Neck Tattoo Barbie

Fag Hag Barbie

Feeling Not So Fresh Barbie

Cruel Dragon Lady Miko

Barrista Barbie (Comes with Grande Double Esspresso Carmel Delight Communter Ken)

Lovin’ Hot Wings Barbie (Sold with NASCAR Whore Kelli)

Soccer Mom Barbie

My Looks Are Fading Barbie

Burning Bed Barbie

Roid Rage Blaine

Quick Lift Barbie

Does This Skirt Make My Ass Look Large Skipper

American Catholic Priestess Barbie

Mah Jong Playing Miko

Twitter Freak Barbie

Germ-a-phobe Ken

In Foreclosure Barbie

A Dingo Took My Baby Barbie

Kruat Hunter Barbie

Belle Barth Barbie

Wet Nurse Barbie

Scrap Booking With a Vengeance Barbie

Labia Bewjewelled Barbie

INFOMANIAC Mistress Barbie

LaLeche League Midge

Internet Porn Addicted Ken

Chinese Taking Over World Economy Barbie

That’s What I’m Saying Barbie

ACCESSORIES
Golden Years Barbie Retirement Community and Lawn Bowling Set


Barbie's Dreamhouse in Foreclosure

Have I left any out?  What would you add?

So now you sneak on in here.

Genealogy has been my hobby for the past thirty years.  I'm way beyond average hobbyist and have been teaching people how to search for their lineages for the past 15 years or so. 

How serious am I about my hobby?  I really pains me to come across some obnoxious bore, who when they discover that we have a mutual interest in genealogy feels compelled to tell me how many THOUSANDS of people in their charts - or, and this my personal favorite - that are descended from Jesus Christ or Charlemagne.  As if it were true, or anyone cared.

I've been doing this long enough to know that listening to someone else's noble family tree is a lot like listening to someone drone on about how great their sex lives are.  Its exciting to them, but dental work is more fun then listening about someones 67 great grandfather who was Pharaoh's favorite.

But, in thirty years I met have hundreds of people who are wonderful giving people, and for that, its worth it.  There is something special in being able to help someone fill a hole, or plug a gap when they hit a wall and can't get further than they are.

I would say that the hobby has been universally rewarding.  However a couple years ago I stumbled upon two elderly women from California that were as inherently evil and cruel as all the other people combined were wonderful and giving.  And today one of them reared their evil little heads.

Four years ago I connected with a distant cousin on one of my mother's lines.  We met, we compared notes, and when going through some paperwork she found a hand written note from her great Aunt, who was not only a friend of my grandparents, but a second cousin of my grandfather.  When I was small she was Mrs. Kennedy - it wasn't until I started digging around the family tree that I saw how she was related.  When I asked my mother, her standard explanation was "It was a farming community - most everyone was a cousin."

Well, Mrs. Kennedy had mapped out a family tree of her great grandfather, who was also my great great great grandfather. In that map there was one name that we had never seen before - a daughter that we had verified on US Census records for 1840, but a daughter whose name was unknown.  You see, prior to 1850, only the head of the household was enumerated - everyone else was simply a hash mark in an age range.  And when you dealing with women before 1850's enumeration, good luck with that unless there is a will or family documents of governmental records.

Anyway, Mrs. Kennedy's notation gave us a name - "Mary Marta, married 1851 to Andrew Smith (not his real name)- one daughter Alis."  Well for someone like me, that alone was like hitting the mother load.  In no time I found the find the marriage license and I had a trail to follow.

This is were things got weird.

On a web site message board I started asking people if they had this Smith fellow who left here and went "there".  One of the people who answered my query was a grandmotherly type from California.  We shared information, and she kept stating that she and her cousin had trace So and So Smith to Virginia, and that my information was incorrect.  I knew it wasn't, so I provided her with the facts.  Again, she claimed that my information was incorrect, and again, I stood my ground.  Then this elderly cousin of hers from California emails me and asks what my interest is and which Smith I am descended from.  So I tell her that my interest isn't Smith, its his wife, and that it is the wife who is my (distant) relation.

Well, this my friends is where the shit hits the fan.

All of a sudden these two start playing mind games - they have my information but they won't share it because I have upset them.  Hello?  I write back that I am confused - what did I say? What did I do?  The younger of the two women writes me to say that the elder cousin never wants to hear from me again, and that the younger woman will give me what I want if I promise never to contact them again.

So I don't contact them.

This sets these two off again.  The elder of the two sends me a damning message telling me that I have impugned her integrity ancd how rude I am for not answering them.  I step away from the crazy woman.  Then another email follows, this time she apologizes for the misunderstanding.  "Since we are adults, could you share with me how this interests you."  So since the crazy OLD woman asked, I again explained that I am not a Winder, that it is his first wife I want to know about.  I explained how I found the note from Mrs. Kennedy and how I am simply trying to find information on this wife.

Well, before you can say "here we go again", thats exactly what happens.  The younger of the two cousins send me an email about how she is going to her son's law office to copy the information I am seeking in hopes that I will never again contact them.  "Both my cousin and I old and not in good health and we just can't take these emails any longer."  Hello, again.

The woman emails a page from a family bible with the name and dates that I am looking for and I thank her. 

Then I send the older cousin an email saying that I'm really confused, because I thought "we were all adults..." yada yada yada, and if she didn't want to hear from me, why she simply didn't tell me that before she started with the "we're all adults."

And what comes to me in email from here is one of the most profanity laced, hate infused emails.  Reader, I tell you that in 30+ years of this hobby I have never seen anything like this. 

Evidently what set this harridan and her cosuin off is that I wasn't impressed with their research on someone that I never knew about.  How's that for crazy?

Honestly, dealing with these two must be what it feels like when you jab a knife in an electrical outlet.  Sometimes you miss, but sometimes you get on hell of jolt.

So I walked away from this a little smarter. Shell shocked but smarter.

And I hadn't thought about these crazies until today when I logged into Ancestry.com come and saw where the younger crazy had been snooping around in my tree, copying information from my work into hers on the woman that I was looking for all those years again.

I've spent hours and hours looking for the documentation on Alis and her husband, their sons, grandchildren and the like.  And I have connected with the heirs - all of them lovely people, all of them excited at what I sent them, and two of the heirs still write at Christmas with their findings. 

So when I saw this woman, copying the information I worked to find, I felt a bit angry.

When you spend years looking for someone, studying the documents, piecing the puzzle together, you feel a bit of ownership.  And these two were so horrid to deal with - so dismissive of Alis and her mother that I feel that they have started in on something that shouldn't concern them.

But if I guard that research and begrudge them of that line, am I not as bad as they are?

Best laid plans, take two.

So you know that we are having some work done.

Not on my face!

On our house!

So one of the things that I thought was, what a great time to get my chair reupholstered.  So the husband  and I schlepped to Fabric Farms - oh, home of the deep discount upholstery fabric, and get this done while we have the house emptied out for the new floors.  I thought we were clever.

Let me regress - the chair is a club chair that my mother gave me 25 years ago following the night I was run over by a drunk driver.  Oh, didn't I tell you about that?

Well, let's regress some more. On January 27, 1986, I - along with two friends - to take a "mixology course" at OSU as part of their CAP program.  It was the night of the first class and three of us met at the home of the person who lived closest to the campus and then we schlepped to the Ohio Union.  To get to OSU, we had to cross High Street and we decided to do that at 11th Avenue.  And did I mention that it was COLD AS FUCK that night?  Well, it was colder than that.  But, like all good OSU students and Columbusite's we stopped at the corner and waited for the light to change because back then Columbus was notoriouss for jaywalking tickets and the police were everywhere on campus back then.

So we get the light, we start to cross and some woman screams "Oh, my GOD, look out!"

The next thing I know I land on High Street and when I come to, I start hearing more screams, and I'm thinking that the car is going to run over me.  But it never does.  And this person comes running up to me and tells me to lie still and that she'll "save your boots," and I'm thinking what and then I notice that my feet are really cold.

The construction boots I was wearing were knocked off my feet by the impact.  And when she brought them to me, they were still TIED.

The good news is that while all three of us were hit, no one was killed or maimed, and the damage was all soft tissue.  The driver of the car blew a 2.0 and was so soused that he was yelling at our friend Tom who caved the windshield on the Ford Escort that the drunk was driving.  Anyway, none of us was admitted to the hospital, we all went home when were discharged at 3AM.

And the next morning we wake up and were thinking "we were run over," and people will give us love.  But that thought lasted for about ten minutes because that was when the Space Shutter Challenger blew up.  An event like that has a way of grounding you into what is important, and what is not.

We were lucky - they were not.  And guess what, we could have had all the sympathy in the world, but God decided that was not to be.

Anyway, the club chair was a present from my mother because I couldn't get comfortable on my old crappy hand me down and junk store furniture, and she thought that a new chair would be a good thing to have.

Did I mention that the club chair she gave me was a Lane product and was brand spanking new?  Did I mention it was MAUVE?  Mauve? Yes, Mauve. Well it was 1986 and Mauve was in.  Problem was that in 1987, Mauve was most certainly OUT.  But the club chair was a great chair, and I made it my own.  When when you sit in a chair all the time, you lose sight of the color of said chair.

Anyway, at twenty five it was looking shabby and frankly, it didn't go with anything in our house and the springs were sprung, and it was time to go.  But we couldn't find a replacement chair that was that comfy for under $2,000. (I'm tell you, it was a great chair.)  Hence the trip to Fabric Farms, and timing the chair to go and get done when they came to get the rest of the furniture that was going to storage.  I had cleared this with Linda - my 60 year old hillbilly upholsterer - and she took the Lucky Strike out of her mouth just long enough to cough and say "Honey, for you, I will make this happen."

Everyone was on board, but evidently Linda's husband James never got the memo.  He pulled up his truck today at 5:30 and said "Linda said that I was to come her and git yer chair."

After a phone call and a "Oh my God - this isn't the last weekend of the month? Well shit in my pants, I'm sorry Honey," and I love Linda, so I let James have the chair.

Now there is this big empty spot in my living room.   The dog is vexed because he has no place to nap, and now I have to sit on the couch.

Of course there is comfort in knowing that the chair will be fabulous when its done, but still I have been parking my ass in that chair for 25 years and its gone - a lot like my boots the night of the accident.  Boots, or the chair, today I didn't see it coming.

So if you stop by in the next week, I'll be the barefooted guy sitting on the couch trying to get comfortable.  Linda told me once when she couldn't save a crappy chair that I had bought with stars in my eyes so big I couldn't see the cracked and rotted frame "Honey, if you are looking for sympathy over something like this its in the dictionary between shit and syphilis."

I will endure, but I won't be comfortable while I'm doing it.

Historians believe that the Last Supper wasn't what we thought...

...evidently, there was a whole lot more going on than we've been led to believe...

The happiest, jazziest place on earth

The Whore of Disneyland

In March the husband and I escaped Ohio, our two houses, our obligations and decided that we needed to go someplace mindless – someplace warm where people would take care of us. After looking at the possibilities, it came down to either a sanatorium or Walt Disney World.

We chose Walt Disney World.


Actually it was my brother in law and my sister in law who came up with the idea of going to Orlando because they wanted to know if we wanted to go see the Harry Potter attraction at Universal, and my husband – who is a kid at heart – wanted to go, so we went. We also knew that going would mean I could see my uncle and aunt who live in Florida.  And we haven't had a caprice that didn't involve a trip to stay with family is a long, long time, so we were due.

Well, we wanted to stay on campus because we didn’t want to deal with rental cars. And we used Disney’s Magical Express, which due to an error with Disney was neither magical, nor express, but it got us and our luggage to where it needed to be when we needed it.

We also bought a park hopper ticket because we wanted to come and go to and from the parks as we pleased, which was a good idea because that was exactly what we did. And every Disney park was immaculate and every employee was amazing.

And can you believe it – I wasn’t even annoyed by the children, who for the most part were too busy being children to be pests.

Our biggest disappointment was the food – and it’s one thing that Disney doesn’t do very well. And they don’t do it well because they are so good at moving people through an event or a ride that the restaurants are just like the attractions – standardized, with minimal room for error. Each restaurant has four or five choices, period. One beef, one chicken, one seafood, one pork and one vegetarian option, period. And getting into the decent places to eat is difficult – you have to make reservations well in advance of your visit or you are turned away, even if tables are empty. We had the reservations, but we really would have liked better food. But no one got sick and no one went hungry and no one had a bad meal, it was just "meh".

My only complaint about the whole damn trip are the senior citizens riding around in Jazzy Chairs because it was easier than walking.

I’m not talking about grandma who is on oxygen, or grandpa with a leg and a half, and just happy to be at Disney making memories with the grandkids Jazzy Chairs. I’m talking about granny and gramps who have discovered that they can zip about the parks in Florida using a Jazzy Chair because it saves them the everyday effort of walking. You can tell who these folks are because they travel without family, and they are in a hurry to see and do as much as they can, all others be damned.

These are the people who know how fast they can run their Jazzy Chairs. These are the people who have attached bike bells and bike horns to the handle bars of their Jazzy Chairs lest anyone get in their way. There are the people who LOUDLY bark their Jazzy Chair needs to everyone by saying things like “Well I HAVE TO BE IN A GOOD SEAT to see the show BECAUSE I USE A MOBILITY DEVICE,” and “HEY, GET OUT OF THE WAY – I’m in a MOBILITY DEVICE and I need to get through this crowd.”

Just once I wanted to turn around and say “We ALL need to get through this fucking crowd – so pipe down!”

What annoyed me about these people is that behaved like they were entitled to something that we all wanted (to be treated as if we had the run of the place), but that they were somehow more special than everyone else, especially the people who were really ill or disabled.  And it really annoyed me that they were FAST and they were always in the way.

All that said, the trip achieved what we needed it to do – warm our Midwest selves at the end of a rough winter, free our minds of our cares and our woe and give us something and someplace to go where riding Dumbo, or going on rollercoasters was an option.

Would I do it again? Well I think that our next trip is going to involve Europe – we need to get away to a place where we can get our rough edges smoothed down a bit. I don’t think we’re ready for a country where English isn’t the primary language, but just the same, I think it needs to be a place that others usually don’t go.

And we need to take this trip sooner rather than later because I want to do it before the husband and I need those Jazzy Chairs ourselves.

Miss Ross says....

"Just who in the fuck do you think you are?"

30 Helens Agree

Sage advice to live to by.

My next husband

Should things in life not work out as the husband and I have planned, actor Jason Beghe will be my next husband - I'm just saying, a guy has to have options...

The best laid plans of mice and gay men...

Before the husband injured himself in the bowling accident, we were juggling several big things at once:

-Casa Momma up in my home town -and-

-Our 95 year old house, Castle Man, which is aging very quickly.

Now that Casa Momma is under control, we are focusing on our house.

When I bought Castle Man back in 1993 the idea was that I would stay for two years, fix up the house and sell it for a modest amount that would allow me to buy "up". 

Well, it didn't work out that way because the value of Castle Man shot up like a skyrocket, and so did the houses around us, and if I sold castle man for the 30k profit (in 1995) I wouldn't be able to buy anything like Castle Man.  So I stayed.  And besides, it was a good location and the neighbors were a lot of FUN.

Then in 1997 I kicked my boyfriend out of my life because after 9 years, 11 months and 2 weeks he couldn't commit any more than he could at five months.  And my friends, Cookie was not getting any younger.  And I was stuck in this house, humble though it may be, because real estate prices kept climbing and I was paying $500 in mortgage at 4.99% for 30 years fixed and where were you going to find another deal like that?

Then the man  - an old college friend -  who is the love of my life, came back into my life and we coupled.  Fourteen years later we are 1) Committed to one and other and 2)Married by the laws of Massachusetts for three years.  And we are still in the same house, and gratefully so because...

...the market dropped.  While we lost about 30K in value on the place - not good, but a Hell of a lot better than a lot of people we know - we felt lucky that we weren't in over our heads with a house we couldn't afford and would lose our shirts on IF we ever moved.  So we put in a new kitchen and a small (144 square foot) addition on the back and hunkered down.

And my point?

Well, after almost 18 years in a house built in 1916, a lot of things that were new when it was built, and were old when I bought it, are beginning to fail because they are simply used up, they need replaced.

Think about this way: an oak floor is considered a 100 year investment.  Well, we're at 95 and guess what, it, and other things are worn out.

So this spring we:

1) Bought new canvas awnings to replace the old canvas awnings that wore out after 17 summers in a western exposure;
2) Replaced the "knob and tube" electrical wiring on the second floor and installed a bathroom fan, which doesn't sound like a thrilling thing until you've lived without a fan in your main bathroom for 18 years;
3) We ran electric from our basement to the small garage at the way back of the property that was built to house a Model T Ford (which, research of the abstracts shows) was a buyers premium to the first family that bought the house way back when.  (I was sure the garage was a goner all those years ago and its still in fine form, but now we can see things when we go in there.)

Which brings me to the husband's arm and what will happen on April 29th.  One of the things that has been wearing out and is finally worn out are the 3/8" white oak floors in the living room and dining room - and they can't be saved. 

A week before the husband fucked up his arm was that we went under contract with the floor "Svengali" of Columbus to rip all the floor and sub-floor out of the living room and dining room, level the joists and reinstall reclaimed sub-floor and a 3/4" red oak floor.  This guy's work is amazing!  And he's agreed to do our house!  And he isn't expensive!

And the catch? We have to box up everything in those two rooms, have it moved to a storage facility for two weeks while Svengali works his magic. And now the husband can't that barge and tote that bale. 

So this weekend, I begin packing up and to be truthful, it will go quickly.  But when we planned it, it was a different thing.  We'll get the floors and I'm sure they will run into something that will require this or that.  That's what happens when you commit to a long range relationship like I have with this house, or the husband with his healing wing.  And so it goes: the best laid plans of mice and gay men...

He can wiggle it all he wants

I am happy to report that the husband was released from the surgery center at 6PM and went home and had a pleasant night.

Just prior to surgery they gave him a "nerve block" to help with pain, and it worked, but it also made him unable to feel anything in the right arm and paralyzed his ability to even wiggle his fingers. 

That concerned us. 

So I got him an extra down/feather pillow from the linen closet and made him a tuffit for his arm before bed.  Me? I was out like a light.  Finally he found a position that was comfortable and he nodded off.  Still, I had dreams about his hand and that it couldn't do anything - it just was there, fingers puffy and stained with betadyne.

So this morning, since I had to be at work, I got up, took a shower, made coffee and walked the dog while he slept.  When I went to kiss him good bye he opened up his sleepy eyes and wiggled his fingers and said he loved me and conked out again.  All of a sudden life got a whole lot better. 

The way I figure it, I'm damn lucky to have him - much more fortunate in that respect than he is lucky to have me.  He'll argue that point and claim to be the lucky one, but I know better.

I figure I'll call him by 10 am if I don't hear from him.

Still, life is pretty damn sweet this morning.

Stealing one from Peenee - here's Carlos Ponce, something pretty to look at and many your day just that much better.

Well, what are we doing today?

Well, we are sitting in the waiting area of a orthopedic surgery center.

And why are we sitting in the waiting room of a orthopedic surgery center?

Because the husband went to a bowling function sponsored by his employor (it was a team excercise thingy) and after rolling two games in the low 200's, on the first ball of the third game, he heard a "POP" and discovered that he could not pick up his shoe.

Ouches!

Poor husband detached his bicep from the bone. 

OUCHES!

So he's in the OR and Dr. Hunk and Dr. Gobbler are reattching it.  I won't go into detail but it involves boring a hole into the bone and tying a knot.  They gave him a pain block before surgery, but its going to be a rough few days.

Did I mention that his surgeons are HOT.  That's the secret of orthopedics - the doctors are smoking hot and have killer blue eyes.

While his doctor isn't quite as good looking as this model pretending to be a doctor, both the doctor and the surgeon are pretty damn sweet.

Have you met my stepmother?

She's just had her hairdone and she feels pretty (FILL IN THE BLANK).

Just what was Harriet Craig's lie?

That she was vain?

That she went behind her husband's back and meddled in his career while casting vague aspersions about his coping skills?

Or was it something so vile that the studio dare not print it on a poster?

We are sad to say that if you haven't seen la Crawford in HARRIET CRAIG (or friended her on Facebook) then you are missing plenty.  Its the story of a woman and her insane attempts to control everyone and everything around her, while keeping children out of her house (because you just know those messy little hands leave marks everywhere) and keeping her family in line.

Some people say that this was Joan Crawford playing Joan Crawford.  Other's have said that deep down, Harriet is human, but that she toughs it up to get through life.

The movie has yet to be released on DVD, but is still available on VHS.  There was also a copy of it floating around on YouTube.  But if you haven't seen it, you are really missing out on something special.

So I ask, what was Harriet Craig's secret - and why was it shocking.

Scream Blackula, SCREAM

A favorite of the Late Late Early Late Show audience crowd, of which we found ourselves yesterday and today when I came down with another attack of diverticulitis.

I am on cipro and something called "Anaspaz" which makes me very tired, but also very relaxed. Unless there is something wrong, past expirience tells me that the antibiotic should take full effect in the next 24 hours and I should be back to good old me.

One of my stepmother's...

Dressed to entertain...

The Dead Man's Foil

Of course we've all read the advice and comfort that columnists dispense to survivors of those recently deceased who are appalled at what they find once their loved ones have left behind.  It starts out as "I'm sorry that you had to find this...", and it quickly turns into an admonishment to those reading the column itself: throw the things away that you wouldn't want people to find once you have died ("but people need to think about their loved ones and what they might find after they are gone."). 

But what of the things that are mundane that one keeps around the house?

Cleaning out Ville Momma, we found all sorts of things that were meaningless to us, meaningless to even her.  Like the second sewing basket - brand new, never used, in its bag in a closet with the receipt dated 2003.  Or the old baggie that contains twist ties - dozens of them, all in perfect order, and of course, bundled and tied by a twist tie.

But for us, it is The Dead Man's Foil collection that we find the oddest, yet most useful thing in the house.

Before he passed away, my stepfather - a kind man who died too young at 80 - owned a commercial meat slicer.  Stepfather was all about buying in bulk, because that's where the savings were.  So he would buy meat and cheese in bulk, bring it home, slice it up and chuck it into the "deep freeze" out in the garage.  This, was the man's shopping modus operandi.

When he died, his children came for the things in the house that had been his, and they smartly took the meat slicer.  What they left behind were rolls and rolls of Reynolds wrap.

Since she no longer had the slicer - which she referred to as "wicked" because it could have easily sliced off your fingers if you removed the guard and the baseplate, overrode its safety devices and turned the thing on wile seeing how close you could get to the spinning blade before it sliced into your fingers - she no longer needed the foil.

"Take some.  The cabinet upstairs is full of foil," she said in her usual hyperbole.

Or so we thought.

Following her death, we discovered literally rolls and rolls of tin foil, boxes of tin foil food service bags - foil foil everywhere and not a thing to wrap - which we have named: "The Dead Mans Foil." Large rolls, small rolls, heavy duty and regular.  All name brand, tin foil.  In the kitchen, in the basement.  Foil everywhere.  And then there was the cling wrap, the plastic bags, the celophane - you heard me - 40 year old yellowed celophane.

What did we do with all that tin foil? We brought it home and we are rearranging the pantry to accomodate the boxes upon boxes of foil. 

So when we clean up after a meal, one of us will call, in our most somber voice "Bring out The Dead Man's Foil."  And despite using it as fast as we can, the rolls seem to be unending.  It really like a horror story. No matter how much we use, there are still boxes and boxes waiting to be opened.

So if you all have a chance to come for a visit, just look for the house with the two gentlemen seated on the front porch wearing foil hats.  We'll keep the light on for you.

Beachwear

We think its high time that women everywhere adopted this style.

Magic....in frosting

Along the links on the right hand side is one to a blog called Cake Wrecks.  If you haven't visited it, may I suggest that you do.  You'll thank me.  And you'll forever proof read any cake you buy in a store before you pay for it.  Trust me on this.

No fooling

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April Showers Bring May Flowers!