It's really freaking hot, but that didn't stop us...

We got busy today.

This is our pathetic patio.
About 2 weeks ago we used to have a crappy plastic patio set, with an umbrella. It worked for us, until one night I left the umbrella up, and some mysterious wind came up and blew over our umbrella, slung it to the ground. The tragic fall busted it beyond repair, taking with it the cheap ass plastic table, which frankly was on its last leg anyway....

In Texas, Texans and Texas residents transplanted from Nebraska enjoy their patios. While our previous patio wasn't much to shake a stick at, it got us by. Then the wind came and just swept it away.

So we decided we needed to do something.

Ta Da....Our first major home improvement project.




Took us approximately 5 hours in 100 degree heat, to dig holes, put dirt down, level out the ground, and two trips to Lowe's later, we now have a comfortable place to relax, grill and entertain. And I'm not even kidding when I say I lost 5 lbs. today. I literally sweated my arse off. Don't worry, we had fajitas for dinner and I'm drinking a glass of wine now, it'll all be back tomorrow,

We'd like to do the other side, but I think I might need a month or so to recoup.

Shamona Hee Hee....

Michael Jackson 1958 - 2009

King Of Pop

Here is what I say we should do...

I say we talk about the man and what he did, his accomplishments, his gift.

He really was a genius. He revolutionized music. He was the ultimate performer. I can't imagine there being people out there that don't have a favorite Michael Jackson song. I in fact have a few. Billie Jean is probably on the top of the long list.

Instead, let's all do the Moon Walk once or twice in our living rooms, crank "Beat It" so loud the neighbors want to call the cops, but they don't because, really ... everyone 'hearts' MJ.

While the body is dead, he created a legacy and will live on through his music and his children.

Before you start blasting a guy post mortem, let us also remember he was a brother, a son, a father and a friend. At the very least his loved ones are due that respect.

I still got it?

I had to go to the Wal-Marts the other day for dog food, eyeliner... just the necessities. I ended up perusing around the clothing department...it's next to the card department, and there were a couple of guys causing a ruckus looking for a father's day card or something. They were dressed in fatigues, not for fashion but more for occupation, and normally a man in uniform will turn my head, but well...I"m sure they were nice guys but nothing to write home about.

They were finally able to get the attention of a Wal-Mart associate to aid them in their quest for the perfect card, apparently they couldn't find anything but birthday cards, when the big one, the obnoxious one eyed me.

"Hey, how ya doin?" He yells from 30 feet away, I raise my head and nod and probably said fine, when he seems to think it appropriate to announce to me that he is available. "I'm single ya know." I smile and say, "Really? Wow, what a surprise."

I left after that, had enough of the Wal-Marts for the day, making a mental note to file that encounter away to tell Mr. Vasey or Spanky about later.

Fast forward a day, when I finally get around to telling Mr. Vasey that I sorta got hit on at the Wal-Marts, which considering the person that sorta hit on me, I really shouldn't be telling people about the sort of people that I attract, but I guess I have no shame.

So I tell him the story and his response is, "Boy, what is it about you and picking up guys at Wal-Mart?" And this is something that I never even thought of....what is it about me and the Wal-Marts?

How a flat tire changed everything

I had just moved to the metro-plex back in 2003. I was working for free, living off of my last paycheck at my previous job and the money I got from my 401K, which wasn’t much, when I happened to get two flat tires in one week.

My cousin who lived nearby gave me directions to the most easily accessible Wal-Mart in the area, and the next day, with barely two pennies to scrape together, I went to the Wal-Marts fully intending to just have them patch up my holes and send me on my way.

I’m sitting in the waiting room at the Tire and Lube Express at the Wal-Marts, completely grunged out as I woke up late for my internship and didn’t have time to shower, I was wearing a pair of black, baggie, cargo-style pants, a blue striped beanie and I was sporting the whole longsleeved t-shirt underneath a short sleeved t-shirt. When one of the grease monkeys comes in and asks if I’m the owner of the Olds. I said I was and while still standing in the doorway he tells me that the tires are too worn and he won’t be able to patch them up, and if he does just patch them up I’ll be back in a few days with flat tires again. I tell him I really don’t have the money for new tires and I asked him to see if there was any way I could get outta there without having to buy new tires. He complies and goes back outside ... only to return a few minutes later.

He sits down this time, right beside me, I’m taken aback a bit as I am kind of a Nazi when it comes to my personal space and it being intruded upon by strangers. He again says that he wouldn’t be able to just patch them up, I needed new tires.

“Why is it everytime I come to Wal-Mart I always have to buy new tires, what do you get outta this?” I said.

He swore he didn’t get anything and that I really needed new tires, “And plus I couldn’t let a girl as cute as you drive out of here on those tires.”

I’m sure I blushed. Was this dude hitting on me? “Um...OK, I guess just do what you have to do.”
He tried to make me feel better, “Hey I’ll make it up to you, I’ll take ya out for dinner or something sometime.”

Hmmm, I guess he is hitting on me. Have I ever been hit on before? No usually I have to do the hitting, this is all very strange to me. “Uh...ya...Sure, OK" I say, but thinking "Ya I'm probably never going to see you again, grease monkey dude."

He leaves and after a few minutes, the manager calls my name to tell me that my car is ready, and as I’m up at the counter paying, the tire guy walks up to me again and says that he’s about to go to lunch, and if I wanted to go with him.

"Boy he likes to work fast" I think, and so I stand there a minute and think about this proposition…ok is he going to rape me in the middle of the day? Would I even enjoy going to lunch with a grease monkey? Is a grease monkey really my type? He said he was paying, and I didn’t have any friends here yet, so I ran all the possible senarios through my head and I decided to go with it and at the very least get a free lunch and at the worst I'd be found dead on the side of the road. But I'm more of a 'glass is 1/2 full' kind of gal.

He took me to Chili’s. We sat alone in the restaurant, since it was after the noon crowd had cleared out and I ordered as cheaply as I could, I think I had soup and we started talking about our interests and what not. I found out he liked movies and even had aspirations of making a movie or writing a screenplay one day. Which at the time was exactly what I was trying to do, my internship was with a video production house.

I kinda got a little creeped out, like how did he know that I was into those things? Was he just trying to impress me? I mean, he does work at the Wal-Marts…but I went with it. He was funny, easy to talk to and surprisingly enough we had a lot in common. As I was dropping him back off at the Wal-Marts we exchange numbers and he asks if we can maybe get together that evening?

I was giddy, my little tire problem turned into meeting a guy, who didn’t seem to have any interest in raping me, murdering me and dumping my remains by the side of the road. And I actually kinda sorta liked him. (tee hee) I had those stomach flutters going on, the proverbial butterflies. I was on cloud 9, I was smitten you know all the cliches...

He called me later that night and said that his best friend (Mr. Bywater) and fiance, (Mrs. Bywater), were in town and he wanted to know if I’d be interested in going out with them and have a few drinks at a local bar. After spending my first month in Dallas sitting alone in The Dorks house I jumped at the opportunity.

We met at his apartment, and all four of us went to a little dive bar named Chase Place. He kissed me that night and I must say... I kinda liked it. The beers were flowing and we were having fun, and I didn’t feel comfortable driving home after drinking, so he offered to let me stay at his place. There was no hanky panky, I woke up the next morning and we started discussing our future.

“I’m not really the type of girl to date around, I generally just date one person. So I guess if we were going to be seeing eachother, I probably wouldn’t be seeing anyone else.” Not to mention I didn’t exactly know anyone else that I’d be dating anyway, I knew three other people in this town and I was related to all of them.

“Well I don’t really date around either,” he said. “So um…I guess that means we are...like ‘going out’?”

“Sure, sounds good….but um…what is your last name?”

“Vasey,” he said.

My First Poem

My mother has taught me,
many fine things.
Marry for money my dear,
love will come later.
But me, I feel marry for love
you can build your fortune together.

She once said "Men my dear,
are trolls from hell."
But why does something that
looks so good, have to be so wrong.

Some things my mother told me
she meant for me to hear.
She said never settle, for you
deserve nothing but the best.

She has tried to teach me well,
picked me up whenever I fell.
So for her I try to do no wrong,
cuz in my heart is where she'll belong.

-May 31, 1994

I was very insightful at 17 apparently

Voices

It may have been in my head, or it may have been real. Regardless, I heard a woman's voice last night.

She seemed to be standing in my room, but I checked the living room anyway, just to be sure it wasn't the TV I heard. But the TV was turned down low, and Mr. Vasey was listening to heavy metal music.

Her voice was very distinct, very clear and frankly scared the crap outta me.

"If you follow, I will lead," and then I jumped and my heart started racing. Had I cut her off? Would she have said more? And what's more important, am I going crazy?

To rationalize this occurance, I took stock in the fact that I was reading a Stephen King novel, could have just been my imagination getting away from me. Could've been...or it could've been Mr. Vasey talking to the dogs, which he does from time to time...could've been...might have been a guitar riff from the crappy music he was listening too...ya it could've been.

I just know I heard something, and I kinda wish I didn't get so scared, maybe she'd have said more...and I wonder can a new house be haunted?

Multi-tasking...driving and sleeping

I'm sure there are those that say, this can't be done. But unbeknownst to the naysayers I have devised a way to do just this very thing, sleep and drive.
Well what I really do is catch a tiny little cat nap on my 45 min commute to work. When my head starts bobbin and the Kia starts drifting into other lanes because of the head bobbin, I begin to embrace the opportunity to stop at a red light. I crack my window just a smidge, close my eyes and doze until the light turns green. How do I know when the light turns green? Since I was smart enough to crack my window I can hear the cars around me accelerating and so I too know it is time to go. I had to do this, this morning. I’m always on the look out for ways to do 2 things at once. Probably need to be real careful not to actually fall asleep, don’t want some pissed off Texas commuters on my arse. They can carry concealed weapons here…and they use them too.

Before I die

Not that I expect to pass anytime soon, but someone asked, therefore I tell.

On a side note, I am kind of a blabber mouth. Don’t tell anyone, oh wait…I just did. Well sort of, I’m not holding any sort of grand delusions that everyone reads this crap, but they could if they wanted to.

Anyhoo, the top 10 things I want to do before I leave the land of the living and traverse to the world of the un-living, or to the world of the dead, the dead zone. Not that I think there is a place where there are a bunch of dead folks running around, it’s just a figure of speech. These are really in no particular order or nothing…

1. Learn to play guitar
2. Travel to Europe
3. Meet someone uber famous

(Ted Nugent and Randy Travis don’t count in my book)

Ted

Randy

4. Run in and finish a marathon
5. Write a book or at least publish what I have
6. Dip my toes in the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean
7. Visit NY City and have one of those hotdogs from the hotdog stands in the street
8. Go to the Grand Canyon
9. Go camping in at least 5 national parks
10. Travel by car, van or RV across the U.S.

Why I hate being broke...

This is going to be a list of all the things I can’t do because we don’t have any money.

1. First and foremost the worst part of being broke….I haven’t had my hairs on my head cut since December 20th 2008. I like to keep my hair short, prefer it to be short actually. And in the last month I have had no less than 10 people ask me if I am either A. trying to grow my hair out? Or B. if I’ve don’t something different with my hair? To which I answer A. Not on purpose and B. Ya it’s called nothing. (usually I fix my hair, but its at this crazy, strange inbetween stage that you can’t do anything with and it has too many split ends and uneven growth to even look good if I did attempt to ‘fix’ it.

2. Eat normal food. Our fridge and pantry are as barren as stretch of Nebraska highway at 3 a.m. (trust me, that’s pretty freakin barren) tonight’s menu includes Totino’s Pizza, last night was leftover slop nachos that Mr. Vasey put sweet gherkins in for seasoning to try to ‘spice it up’ a bit.

3. I am reduced to drinking coffee and water only. My body runs on a certain amount of caffeine and I maintain that balance by partaking in the drinking of no less than 2 Diet Mt. Dews in the afternoon, between lunch and when I end my day at my part-time job. I have on several occasions almost fallen asleep at the wheel, on death highway 75, traversing between my jobs.

4. I am out of eyeliner and am reduced to wearing mascara which I hate.

5. I am out of fingernail polish remover and therefore cannot wear open toed shoes because I haven’t been able to properly paint my tootsies.

6. I am dangerously close to being out of bubble bath, which means I may have to choose between food and soaking my day away in a tub full of bubbles.

7. I can’t buy tickets yet for the upcoming Blink 182 tour.

8. Filling up my gas tank becomes almost a strategy game. If I put just enough in it to get me by till such and such day, then I can buy some wine to drown my sorrows over the weekend.

9. And finally, there are just some days when you want a big greasy hamburger from Jack-in-the-Box. And driving by it everyday, smelling those oh so glorious smells just tearing at my stomach acid and making me want it even more, even when I know its bad for me, even when I know I shouldn’t, distance really does make the heart and taste buds grow stronger.

Interestingly enough, this is also a list of all the things I plan to do next week. After I get’s paid….money, money, money…

Copy and Paste

My sister Treebee is not what one would call computer literate….at all.

This realization came as quite a surprise to me, as she grew up with the internets. Me? Not so much….I remember playing Oregon Trail on the old skool DOS, wasn’t even our DOS, it was our neighbors, I’d trek across the street and spend hours in their basement playing that game. This was probably my first clue how addicted I would soon become to playing video games.
It wasn’t until my senior year in high school that we even had computers with the internets on them, and hardly anyone had internet then, specially in my little scanty of a town. The first time I got on the internets was when a few friends and I were over at the Heitman’s house, they had the internets because they were rich, rich at least by our standards, a product of the Kool-Aid fortune. One would think with our first web surfing experience we would do something productive with our search…but no, we went to chat rooms. I was both fascinated and disgusted with what we found there, I was definitely too young to be chatting.

This digression has a point, it really does, what I’m trying to convey is that most of my formative years were spent internetless, while Treebee had access to all this throughout most of her high school experience. We both went to college, where the only time I spent on the ol computer was writing papers, or doing research for some project, as I’m sure the same was true for her. However, she has probably always had a computer in her home, she has had some of the same access to learn as I, and yet she still didn’t know how to copy and paste and switch from one program to another without closing out the first program to go to the next program and back again.

I got to witness this lack of knowledge first hand when I recently tried to help her with one of her speeches. This wife, mother of three and who happens to work full-time as a LPN (licensed practical nurse) is going back to school to become a full fledged RN (registered nurse). So she is going to send me her speech so that I can take a look at what she’s got so far and help her with some of her research, and so that I don’t repeat what she’s already done.

First she tries to send it to me as an attachment, but I have a Mac at home and I can’t open up her Works Doc., so I tell her, “Just copy and paste it into the body of the email and send it to me that way.”

“What?”

“Just…copy…and…paste…it…into…” I start to say before she interrupts me.

“I heard what you said, how do you do that?” Oh boy, here we go.

So I explain to her, “Ok, go to your speech document…”

“Wait how do I go back to it?”

“Um Treebee, go to your little “start” button at the bottom of the screen and go to your Works program and open it up like you normally do, or go to ‘recent documents’ either way should work,” I explain.

“Ok, but what about my email do I need to close it out?”

“No don’t close it out, just open your speech.”

“Ok, now what?”

I say “Push ‘ctrl’ A and then right click on your mouse and go to copy.”

“Ok?”

“Now go back to your email…”

“How do I get back to my email?”

Ugh...“At the bottom of your computer screen you’ll have some rectangle boxes one of them should be your email unless you closed it out.”

“Oh I see it,” she says. I decide not to take anything for granted at this point, seeing how she has no idear what she is doing...

“Ok now in your email compose a new message, put my email address in the ‘To’ and then go down to where you would normally write a message and right click and paste….and um Treebee…how is it you know nothing about computers? You grew up with this crap…”

“Ya, well I’m sorry, Lynnette," She says with that exageration on the 'Lynnette' so I know she's pissed. "I don’t sit in front of a computer all day like some people I know".

Hmmm point taken….she got an A on her speech.

Bring on the Thunder

I love me some thunderstorms. And some pretty heavy storms moved through the DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth) area last night and this morning. Seemed like quite a party going on up there in the sky.
Sort of got me thinking about how when I was a kid and was scared of the thunder and lightning how my parents or maybe my older sister told me that the thunder was just the angels bowling and I should cheer when I hear a big one, because one of the angels just got a strike. I guess I don't recall what "they" told me the lightning was....but I remember watching some movie maybe Gremlins or it could've been ET or actually maybe it was Poltergiest or something, obviously I don't remember, but I do remember in the movie they explained how you can tell how far away the storm is by counting the seconds between when you see the lightning to when you hear the thunder. I would lay awake at night during the storms and count away, and wishing the storm away. As I was afraid of the dark as a kid, still am actually and storms just made it that much creepier to me. I began to appreciate the power of a thunderstorm and to respect it's might.

I used to stand out in the drive-way with my Dad, when a big storm was coming in and watch the clouds for any signs of a tornado. He taught me what to look for, what to be worried about, when to take cover and when everything would be O.K. I loved watching the stoms come in and I love storms now, probably because of my Dad, and I love weather also probably because of my Dad.

The Bull Fight

Bull fighting to me, after seeing it, is inhumane. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think I will ever go to one again.

Mr. Vasey and I went to Cancun for our 1st anniversary and saw, to our surprise, that Cancun put on a bull fight every Wednesday night, so we thought we'd go.

The first part of the event was somewhat like a fancy rodeo, this I can get on board with, pretty ladies on horsies, showing off their horsemanship around the ring.
There was, what appeared to be a dance off. The pastels against the jets...I guess.
And then more of the pastels came out and danced around this pole thing in order to tie these ribbons around it.

These guys showed off their roping and tricks. All fun and games until...
The bull came out. He was pretty pissed off, he ran into the wooden side rail chasing after someone and put a nice little chip in it.
The Matador worked him into a sweat, and every one screamed "ole". At this point I'm still o.k. with the whole thing. Then this guy came out.
Notice how the horse is all covered up with shielding, and his eyes are covered. I guess its so that he couldn't see what was coming.

The dude on the horse just stabs the bull with this pole thing and gets him to bleed. I guess the matador is out having margaritas with some senoritas while all this is happening...
But he comes back....
And now that the bull is losing blood from his back and neck, I guess the matador has a fighting chance.


The bull is extremely tired at this point, and the dude has an easy time taking him down. With the help of a few friends.
But alas he does finally fall. And then they have a party.
I don't know if you're wondering how do they get this 500 pound plus animal out of the arena, but I know I was. But that's ok they have a solution to that...
The just tie him up and drag him out, while more partying goes on.

I have no idea what happens to him after that, but they cut out the tongue evidently.

So we went to a bar near our hotel, this is after walking for 2 miles in a pair of heals to find a bus stop, and drowned our sorrows from watching something so brutal the first day of our vacation.
This is how I drown my sorrows.

We met up with some Canadian college students on their spring break and they went to the bull fight too, they had the same opinion of the brutality, but that didn't stop them from going and getting their picture taking with the dead bull. Crazy Canadians.

Memorial Day Festivities

We were just going to stay home on Memorial Day, I had to work at the part-time job and I just didn't think I'd be up to actually leaving my hole I call my house.

But the Bywater's wouldn't hear of it...plus beers and Bar-B-Q on the patio isn't ever really a bad thing, specially on their patio...

We solved lots of the worlds problems, that's what we do...drink beer and cure the universe.

This is our Fireman, we like him. Specially us married ol women. We've decided, or at least I've decided I need to take a tour of his fire station, maybe right after they got done washing the Big Red Engine. And they are all wet and glistening in the afternoon sun.

This is Mrs. Bywater. She shares my appreciation for the finer things in life....namely firemen and potatoes...the women loves her potatoes. In all it's lovely forms.

Sue doesn't like to take photos, she always seems to find a way to screw it up.

Now Cavlin and Suzie, they are just so darn cute. She also shares my appreciation for the Fireman, and even Cavlin he'd be lying if he said the Fireman didn't do it for him too.

And well NicNic was a bit too enamored with this one to care about the Fireman, or anyone else....awwww new love. Is it just me or does it look like he's about to pull or grab a fast one there...hands off buddy. Her kid is right behind ya!

And then there were the rugrats. They love the Fireman too, but for completely different reasons. They like him because he gets to ride in the red truck and save grandma's from burning buildings.
They are planning something here... supposedly they are getting the monsters...which may or may not be Bell the boxer. She is definitely a holy terror sometimes.
Oh ya Bruno and Bell were there too of course...

A Basher?

I got to wondering if I was racist or maybe a better word is a bigot or maybe just insensitive. I don’t know why I got to thinking this, but I often have these kinds of conversations with myself and so I thought I would express those thoughts, in a forum where, well … where darn near anyone can see them, but doesn’t.

I often use the word “gay” in my every day conversation, either with myself or on the off chance that I am actually speaking to someone other than myself. (Have I ever mentioned how often I talk to myself? Well I do it and I do it a lot, talk to myself that is. This blog actually is somewhat of a reflection as to what goes on inside my head, though I do sensor myself regularly) But I degress…

Lets just say I catch my husband watching Rachael Ray and I’ll say, “You’re so gay,” or “That’s so gay,” actually let me take that back, he would never watch Rachael Ray, because he hates her, but he will watch Bobby Flay, that Countessa chick and Iron Chef, and I think those shows are all gay. (I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it) I do this all the time, say this or that is gay. I call people gay, even when they aren’t or even when they are, I even call my obsession with America’s Next Top Model, a little gay ok it’s really, really gay.

Another example, A few months ago we were discussing getting a board game for when Spanky and #2 were here. My Hubby was asking me whether or not they would play board games, and I said, “Well Spanky will because she is gay like that, and #2, he will tolerate it if everyone else wants to play.” And the Hubs responded “Wow that’s an awful big generalization isn’t it?” (You see because Spanky really is a lesbian, as in, she really is gay.) And so then I had to clarify…. “No, no, no I didn’t mean she is a lesbian therefore she likes to play board games, no, it has nothing to do with her sexuality. I mean she is gay as in wearing plaid golf pants to a barbeque is gay.”

Additionally I’ll use the word “retarded” in the same way. And I mean no offense to those with handicaps. I have a very warm spot in my heart for people with developmental disabilities. I guess actually I don’t call people with handicaps retarded, I reserve that term specifically for those that cut me off in traffic, though its usually proceeded with an expletive, or when someone says something totally stupid I will throw the retard card out there.

And while I know I use these terms in the derogative, I don’t mean any harm or offense, though isn’t that what everyone says? I mean I crack jokes and make generalizations in reference to myself as well, but does that make it right or really all that wrong? Jokes about being corn fed, white trash, a porch monkey all sorts of things, because a part of me epitomizes all those things, and no one says anything when you are making fun of yourself or using a derogative in reference to yourself. Though I guess I could say that I am both gay and retarded because I do have the tendency of being a little on the slow side in reference to catching on to jokes or not knowing when someone is pulling a fast one on me. And additionally I am of the belief that almost everyone is a little gay and even people who say that they are gay are even a little straight. Don’t get me wrong there are those on the polar’s of the gay/straight scale, but more often than not, most people lie somewhere in the middle. Take me for example, on a scale of 1-7, one being very straight and 7 being very gay, I would say I was a 2 or a 3. I’m straight but definitely have some homosexual tendencies. So since I’m a little gay, doesn’t that mean I can use the term anyway I want?

I guess what it comes down to, is this…to be my friend you have to be able to take a joke, laugh at yourself and laugh at me. And ya I might be insensitive, so put your man panties on and your extra layer of skin and lets go. Or you can also just tell me to shut the H E double hockey sticks up.