Things That Make Me Smile II

I received this text from a friend after she took her dog for a walk:

“Who shits twice on their walk? Who unties the bag and gets it all over their fingers? Yeah, that’s our dog all right. Next time I won’t tie the bag so tight. Sheesh, lesson learned.”

I received this instant message from a coworker on a Wednesday morning:

“Speaking of drinking. Monday I decided it was a good idea to not eat and save my calories for wine. Turns out that isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.”

When Idaho arrived I asked him how the flight was. He said “great but I had to go to the bathroom super bad but was scared to ask the two ladies next to me to move during the flight so I held it”. I’m glad he wasn’t scared of me when I met him!!

Idaho and I were in the car with my parents going to dinner on Saturday night and my dad said the following as we were talking about family:

“My grandpa was buried Catholic but because he wasn’t a true Catholic he couldn’t be carried through the cemetery gates so they had to carry him through the ditch.”

It happened again!!! Idaho got sick while he was here. It happens to one of us every time. I sent him on a plane with a bad cough and a terrible head cold. When I talked to him yesterday it now sounds like bronchitis. He’s going to stop coming here pretty soon.

Today I received a voicemail and the following words and phrases were in it and I will let you draw your own conclusions how it went.

Bodybuilder neighbor
Middle of September
Speedo
Smelly overflowing garbage
Empty health food containers

Driving in heavy traffic on the freeway yesterday we were at a dead stop in construction. The third car in front of us didn’t start moving when everyone else did. After a few minutes the truck in front of us tried to go around him on the right when he stopped and got out of the truck. We started getting out because we noticed the driver wasn’t physically moving and his head was over to the side. The truck man pounded on his hood, gave the driver the thumbs up to ask if he was okay. The driver then started moving. Apparently he just needed a little nap during the slowdown!!!

Is There Something Wrong With Me?

Please don’t answer that question because I already know the answer is a big fat yes.

There are things I do or say that make people look at me like a daisy just sprouted out of the top of my head. This could be because of habits I have, things I like or don’t like or an opinion I have. I have a few examples:

I love sleeping on the plane: I’ve traveled a lot in my day and catching a 5 AM flight is tiring so catching some zzzz’s wherever I can is a must. Many times I’ve buckled in, crossed my arms and immediately fallen asleep only to wake up when we touch down at our destination. Even with my current sleeplessness problem I can still sleep on a plane. So many of my friends think I’m crazy because they aren’t able to sleep on a plane at all. One time I was leaving JFK and fell asleep on the tarmac and slept hard and long, I woke up and we were on the ground…….I looked at the woman next to me and she said “we’re still at JFK, you’ve been sleeping for an hour and a half”. She was not a happy camper because apparently she did not sleep. The good thing is I missed the entire delay.

Locked doors while I’m home: I lock all my doors a majority of the time when I’m at home. I think ever since the break in I’m even a bit more paranoid but I’ve always been a bit OCD about it. I usually keep my blinds closed as well especially in the summer but that’s because I’m trying to keep the house cool. I guess I’ve heard enough stories about someone wandering into a house even during the day. I have enough issues I certainly don’t need to find anyone hiding in a closet or sleeping on my couch.

Corn dogs, pot pies and fair food: If these were the only foods in the world I would starve. Perhaps this should be the new diet I try because I just wouldn’t eat. I even have trouble eating things that remotely resemble a pot pie such as pasties and calzones. Yeah, yeah, I know, they’re not the same thing. My head knows that but my stomach says ‘oh hell no’. Fair foods which include corn dogs are not something I go wild about either. I hear people talk about not being able to wait to get to the fair because of the food. Gives me the trots (that’s old-time speak for….well, you know) just thinking about it. I go to the fair for a good ego boost, nothing but people watching on my mind.

My toilet paper supply: A friend recently pointed out my toilet paper supply when I had my basement door open. She was laughing because my extra shelf was plump full. I didn’t tell her about my stash under the sink in the bathroom as I didn’t need to hear about that. I did tell her that there’s one thing that I never want to happen and that’s run out of toilet paper. One can work around running out of milk, bread, toothpaste, dish soap, etc. but running out of toilet paper could be completely tragic, especially if it’s while company is in the house. I wouldn’t want it to happen to me or my company. I can’t even imagine either of those scenarios….sometimes it’s necessary for three or more wipes, can you imagine not having enough paper for the first wipe???

I’m sure as people read this I will get notification of other things I do that cause alarm so expect a second installment of this post at some point.

Pot Pies

Have you ever hated something so much the mere mention of it makes you want to throw up? Well, I feel that way about pot pies. It actually hurts my fingertips to type those words but I’m hoping this works as therapy. I also hope that I can type this story without actually throwing up. You know, face your fears, right?

This complete hatred began when I was a child. We used to have pot pies pretty often. Now, once a month would have been often to me but it seems like we had them ALL the time. I can never remember a time, not even the first time, that I actually liked the taste, the look or the feel of a pot pie. I’m fairly sure the first time I poked through that crust and unveiled the sea of gravy with meat (I use that term loosely) and vegetables this lifelong hate began. I’m not sure if it’s because of this I don’t eat gravy, cooked peas or cooked carrots. I don’t even put gravy on my mashed potatoes. But I digress.

Mom would send me down to the freezer to pick my poison and one was no better than the other. I remember the nightmare of opening the freezer and seeing those square red boxes staring at me. I feel like that was all that was in the freezer. Even when I had to go get something else from the freezer I had to rifle through the layer of pot pies to get to it, nothing like ruining an appetite.

When the pot pie was finally baked I would stare at it, poke at it and swirl it around while eating very little of it. Like most parents mine wanted me to finish my plate, or in this case my crust filled disaster, because there were starving children all over the world. Well, more than once I volunteered to send my pot pies to those poor starving children, even though I knew in my heart of hearts they wouldn’t eat them either. That never went over well.

When I didn’t eat my entire pot pie, the rest of it was saved for the next time I said I was hungry. I’m not sure how any of you feel about pot pies but the only thing worse than a freshly baked pot pie is a heated up half eaten pot pie. The chunks of crust laying soggy in the juice some would call gravy. I just threw up in my mouth a little while I typed that. I believe there were times that a pot pie lasted me several snacks/meals.

Jump ahead to 2005 on a Sunday afternoon, my hatred for pot pies still alive and well. A friend and I would grocery shop together every week. Whoever was done first would wait for the other one and help her bag her groceries and homeward bound we would go. This particular day we were in the checkout at about the same time, her slightly ahead of me a few lanes down. I was paying no attention to anything other than my groceries and getting them bagged, until…………I spotted the groceries of the man behind me coming down the adjacent conveyor belt. Every single item on that belt was a pot pie. My knee-jerk reaction was to turn around and I saw he had an entire basket full of pot pies.

Panic ensued. And I mean PANIC. The pot pies were coming toward me like a marching army of soldiers with their guns drawn. I began to sweat, first my palms, then my forehead, it started slowly and then quickly sped up. I started shoving groceries into bags at lightening speed, my friend coming to help asking what I was doing putting eggs on top of bread. With crazy eyes I looked at her and said “we need to get the hell out of here”. At this point the pot pies were stacking up at the end of the belt and the man buying them was paying. I couldn’t even look at him as I didn’t want to know what sort of animal was buying that many pot pies.

I was literally running out of the store with my cart and my half-assed bagged groceries to try to get some fresh air as my mouth had that watery ‘I’m going to throw up’ feeling. My friend was completely confused as to what my problem had been. We loaded our groceries and she continued to look at me like I was crazy. Finally in the car she asked what had happened. When I told her of my intense hatred of pot pies and the horrible situation that had just happened in the check out lane she about doubled over with laughter.

Writing this story did not work as therapy, in fact, I may hate them more now than I did before. I did manage to write this without throwing up though which I would consider a major breakthrough.

The Great Basement Flood of 2012

Wow, where do I start? I guess at the beginning……

It was Tuesday night, I had company and it was raining. We had dinner and went out to the country to visit friends and family. We managed to sit at the bar through about an hour-long power outage and have a good time. The trip home was iffy, 32 miles per hour in an outright downpour. Talk about nerve-wracking.

I checked the basement when we got home, I had a bit of water coming in by a window so my dirty clothes were wet. I threw those in the washer, hung out the wet rugs and talked to Idaho until I could switch the clothes over to the dryer. Idaho was due in two days so I was hoping for the best. I put my clothes in the dryer and we all went to bed.

My company was staying on my main floor and my bedroom is upstairs and above the other half of the duplex. About 1:45 AM one of my guests woke me up to tell me there was a horrible noise coming from my basement and she couldn’t find the light switch. Did I mention she scared the daylights out of me when she was calling my name from the end of my bed?

I got my butt out of bed, put something on and drug my ass down the stairs to hear this horrible noise. While I was walking down the stairs I got a text from my neighbor that said “what the hell is that noise coming from your basement?” As I got closer to my basement door I could hear the sound, well, I could hear the horrific piercing noise coming from below. I opened the basement door, turned on the light and freaked out.

When I turned the light on all I could see was brown water about eighteen inches deep while covering my ears from the horrifying sound. Well, three of us standing there in our sleeping duds, or lack there of, staring down the steps with our ears covered was quite the sight. My neighbors then joined the fun to stare downstairs wondering what the noise was. I had immediately ran down the stairs and barely touched the water, I use that term loosely, when I realized that was dumb as electrocution could happen easily.

My neighbor did finally venture in the cess pool and unplug all my appliances and the radio which was making the offensive sound. The radio had been sitting on the ironing board which fell over, in turn it turned on the radio and cranked the volume up. It was on a station that didn’t come in so the static was blaring.

It was all downhill after that. We watched the water rise for about an hour. I just have to mention at this point….seeing one of your best friend’s parents in their skivvies walking around the house should have been terribly disturbing but under the circumstances was rather comforting as I didn’t have to be by myself. It’s funny looking back on it now, tightie whities and all!

We finally went to bed as there was nothing we could do about the rising brown disgusting water. I made my home on the couch to listen to the bins splash in the water along with the shatters of mirrors, holiday decorations and glass nick nacks inside the bins.

By 7:00 AM I was sure there was nothing more that could happen that would surprise me and I was completely wiped out from worry and no sleep. Well, not long after that we were all awake and a noise came from outside my front door that sounded like a freight train. We opened the door just in time for the street in front of my house to turn into a raging river. Water on both sides of the house was almost waist deep and flowing right into my front yard and out to the street. I noticed a downspout traveling at the speed of light into the river and wasn’t about to go after it.

The raging river lasted for quite some time and it almost got my extra full propane tank but my landlord saved that from the clutches of the river. Once the rain subsided we walked as far downstairs as we could to access the mayhem and had to chuckle as there were two snowmen that I hadn’t put away perched above the water as if they were watching over the situation.

About 5:00 PM the water had subsided from the basement and clean-up could begin. As I started moving one thing at a time to bring upstairs I knocked over one of the snowmen and broke it. It just seemed par for the course. You can see the lone survivor snowman in the picture below, I will certainly cherish him. I had help from friends that night to bring items outside to wait for a dumpster the next day. The following morning more help arrived and we were able to empty out the basement which made my lawn look like a garage sale gone bad.

I was frantic because Idaho was arriving that night and I didn’t want to have to spend my days with him cleaning up a crappy (pun intended) mess. It was an all day affair going through boxes and bins deciding what was salvageable and what wasn’t, finding out there wasn’t much we could salvage.

Around 8:00 PM I had to stop, go to the neighbors and shower….no hot water heater……and get ready to pick up Idaho from the shuttle. I could hardly move and hardly keep my eyes open but I made it. I’m sure he wanted to turn around and go home once he saw me and the remainder of the mess at my house but he was a trooper and we got it all taken care of.

Things are still a little chaotic but life is as back to normal as it’s going to get and Idaho has gone home. I am so thankful he was here to help along with friends who pitched in, let me use their bathroom for a couple of weeks and company who has come and dealt with clutter and an odd basement smell (which is 100 times better now). You always know who your friends are when you’re in a crisis.

One last note……I believe I found that The Critter was a mouse and it had used the paper towel to make its home inside a roller skate (I didn’t even know the roller skates were down there!!) inside a drawer. I didn’t dare dig into the skate, nor did anyone else, but there was a patch of fur inside the drawer that I believe was the mouse that perished, no idea from what but it perished nonetheless. No more critters as there’s no longer a place to hide in my basement because it’s empty!!

This Week’s Post

This week’s post has gone to the wayside….literally. I have a story, it’s almost done, then another story happens which inhibits me from finishing the original story.

The second story happened last night and will continue for the next several days. I will call it “The Great Basement Flood of 2012”. By the time I write that one there will be another one as Idaho arrives tomorrow night. Yay! So great that he will be here for the great flood clean-up, I bet he’s pumped about that. I wonder if he’s tried to return the tickets yet?

I will be back at it next week for a real post but wanted to give you a head’s up.

A hint for what you can expect:

Yes, that’s water. Yes, it’s brown (you don’t want to know). Yes, the washing machine is floating. No, the garbage can never actually fell over.

Have a good weekend!

Things That Make Me Smile

A few things happened to me this week that really made me smile. They didn’t outright make me die laughing but they really made me smile and made my day.

I went to Target tonight and when I walked in an older couple was walking out. The man was parking the cart so I took it from him. He said to me “she’s got low miles”. I said thank you and smiled my whole trip to Target. Even while I was spending $96 on things like toilet paper and laundry detergent.

A coworker and I tend to vent to each other now and then, the end of the week is especially bad because the problem children coworkers have worn on us all week. Today she said to me “if my 87-year-old grandma can make it through 87 years, I can make it through today”. I kept that in mind to get me through not only the work day but an unpleasant doctors appointment.

Yesterday I received a text that said “Remember Georgia, I’m the sweaty one today”. A coworker of mine is at a client function and apparently she was a little warm. Her and I traveled to Atlanta several years ago and I sweat my rear end off all day long wearing a black suit. A little later yesterday afternoon I received another text from her that said “Now I’m the sweaty one with a hole in my nylons”. I smiled for hours because for once it wasn’t happening to me.

Idaho sends me random texts sometimes. Three that I received from him this week were “maybe I need a fedora”, “maybe you should buy a goat” and “going to a tattoo fest and bike show this afternoon, wish you were here, good people watching”. His texts usually make me smile but those were especially good. I still have no idea if he bought a fedora, maybe he will wear it when he comes to visit in a couple weeks.

A 3-year-old who talks like an adult over the weekend. I could have listened to her all day, she was so cute and funny. A few things that came out of her mouth were “actually Mom, I think you should go in and get it for me”, “how many pieces are in this puzzle” and “can I see the box with the picture on it so I know what we’re working with here”. All I could do was smile and listen to her, most of the time her vocabulary was better than mine.

Next week I’m going to make it a priority to write down those things that make me smile so I don’t have to count on my memory to recall the moments. Perhaps that will also make me concentrate on the good things, not the frustrating things.

Lionel Richie Concert

The other night there was a country music concert on TV that featured Lionel Richie and his music. It was a great concert with wonderful performances. I was a child in the 70s and 80s so I completely enjoyed it.

The funny part of the show was actually the crowd and a few of the performances. Almost every crowd shot made me giggle or shake my head. What’s really funny is that I received a text message from a coworker about 30 minutes into it regarding writing material. I would like to share some of the texts we exchanged during the show.

Her: There is some prime writing material on CBS right now. The crowd is highly entertaining.

Me: Oh yes, watching it. Love the plastic beer glasses they all have.

Her: My hubby likes all the 50+ year old couples, women forcing their men to dance and when not dancing, snapping their fingers.

Me: Careful on the 50s, I’m almost there. 😉 Those two old blond women in the front were once the tramps on Lionel’s bus.

Her: Haha, the crowd is almost more entertaining than the songs. PS – there is no way you are even close to these crazy crowd members.

Me: You should see me at a Brett Michael’s concert!! I’m in love with Jason Aldean.

Her: As am I!! I love the people in the crowd trying to sing along but are caught saying the wrong words.

Me: I know. Who’s the drunk old broad with the butch haircut? Should we know her?

Her: No idea. I laughed out loud at her though.

Me: Me too. She had the look like……OMG, he just made eye contact with me……

Her: How about the group shot with hands in the air?

Me: Jesus grandma, put your arms down!!

Her: Your granddaughter wants her shirt back!

Me: LOL. I just peed my pants at those two women.

Her: I was waiting for your input on those two.

Me: Love the hand gestures while they’re singing their hearts out, hands on their hearts like they can actually sing. Oh good, the Joker…..I mean Kenny Rogers is coming on.

Her: There should be a legal limit on when you are no longer able to dye your hair platinum blonde. Anything over 30, maybe even 25 should be outlawed. Did you see the lady wearing the sparkliest outfit of the night. The place will go wild for those two.

Me: Oh yes, the platinum blonde, over tanned look…..you get old for that real quick. Kenny’s had a bit too much plastic surgery, it’s a wonder he can still sing. I think he played in Batman.

Her: I love the overhead clap. Clap your hands in front over your body like a normal person.

Me: Is he the walking dead? Did he have a mortician do his makeup?

Her: Yes, I believe so. This is painful. The close ups are even worse. I had to turn away, it’s too painful.

Me: Really? You’re too old to do hip movements like that lady.

Her: I have no words for this final performance. Rich’s pants in his sparkly cowboy boots?!

Me: And Big is pittin’ out really bad on his leather vest.

Her: And his pelvic thrusting is uncalled for.

Me: I was just trying to forget that.

Her: The dangers of staying in on a Friday night.

This is proof of why you should surround yourself with funny people.

Hair Cuts

I want to preface this post by saying I love the girl who cuts my hair and I think she works her tail off. Those people stand on their feet all day and listen to people complain, gossip, brag and yell at their kids who are waiting or them.

With that being said, why are haircuts such a pain in the butt? I am currently in desperate need of a haircut, so desperate in fact I wore my hair in a pony tail to pool on Thursday. I use the term pony tail very loosely as you can see.

It looks like 10 pieces of straw in the binder but I just couldn’t help it. One teammate took the picture to send it to our hairdresser. The text said “911 we have an emergency”. I believe the response was “O M G”.

I happened to see my hairdresser last night and she said “I got the picture of your pony tail”. She said it with that look of “what the hell were you thinking?” And then said “it’s getting nice and long, it just needs some shaping”. Shaping? Shaping? I could use a #2 attachment on a razor right now and it would make me feel much better. We laughed about it and decided I need to make an appointment.

It’s a habit for me to completely put off scheduling a hair cut, you would think I was having teeth pulled or something. Then suddenly I can’t stand it anymore and think that she should be able to get me in at the last minute and I know that cannot happen. I shouldn’t do that as there have been times I have then walked in to someone else which rarely turns out well.

One of our friends received a haircut from a random last week and ended up with quite the cut. May have been her first day. I’ll let you judge.

I’m wondering if one of her legs was severely shorter than the other if she thought that was straight. The best part of this story is he went back to the same person to have it fixed. Haha. That kills me. I believe everyone deserves a second chance but he didn’t have much hair to spare on a second chance here. He was a great sport about it and we all had a great laugh. It was the same night I was wearing my ‘pony tail’ so we had a lot to laugh about.

A Birthday Tribute

Since I started this blog, I’ve been thinking about what stories from the past (more than 10 years ago) should I write about. Could I remember the details, could I really get across how funny and fun each particular event really was and would I offend anyone? Well, this will be the first test.

There’s two reasons I finally decided to take the plunge, 1. a conversation with a longtime friend over the holidays and 2. the 13th anniversary of this 30th birthday party will be in two days.

The year was 1999 and 30 was a big deal, one of those milestones you never thought you’d reach and if you did reach it life had to be about over. I was divorced and living with a single mom and her daughter. It was a time in our lives where we were figuring out what we wanted to do and where we wanted to be. Both of us adventurous enough to make us dangerous. Oh, those were the days.

This is about her surprise 30th birthday party. I even dug the album out that has photos of the party tonight, laughing hysterically because I had forgotten some things and also because there are pictures of people who I can’t remember!!! This particular party took planning and teamwork by many. One I remember fondly.

The highlights:

Happy hour after work in downtown Minneapolis – nothing special, normal place, normal time with hot bartenders.
A white limousine waiting for us outside. This was especially good. Our joke when we saw a limo was to say “oh, our limo is here”. Which is exactly what we said when we walked out of happy hour. She was pleasantly surprised it really was ours this time. Eats, soda, beer and champagne waited for us.
A trip to ‘our bar’ to be sure everyone knew she was over the hill.
A stop on the way back to Minneapolis to pick up her daughter who was thrilled with the limo ride as well.
Gifts such as: a mini Etch-A-Sketch, a bra for saggy breasts, name tags for all of us with names like Harry Krack and Buster Hyman, a blow up doll and other unmentionables.
A reserved room at a downtown bar where one of our favorite bands was playing so they could celebrate the milestone with us and get rowdy.
Her family from out of town came to see how crazy we were.
Excessive laughter and drinks with good friends.

The funniest part of the night was the ride home. We had a sober driver (the longtime friend I chatted with over the holidays, poor girl). The birthday girl and I were sitting in the back seat, probably not being the quiet, cooperative passengers we should have been.

We claimed we needed Burger King at 2:00 AM so she pulled into the drive-thru. I’m not sure about anyone else but at that time of the night after a long day everything on the menu looks good. I think the conversation in the back seat went something like this:
Me: “Doesn’t a Whopper Jr. sound great?”
Her: “Oh, yeah, yeah, we’ll have two of those.”
Me: “What about those Rodeo Burgers, the ones with the onion ring on it?”
Her: “Ohhhh, we better have those too, and some onion rings, order onion rings.”
Me: “Fries! We have to have fries, don’t forget the fries!”
Me: “And a shake, oh my gawd! Doesn’t a shake sound amazing?”
And on it went for several minutes. I’m not really sure who said or suggested what but we ordered enough for a small village. The whole time we’re emptying our pockets and throwing money in the front seat. I believe she tried to tell us several times that she had more than enough money but we weren’t listening. To this day she tells us it was a nice tip for having to put up with us. I imagine the bill was well over twenty bucks and we probably gave her fifty or more.

It was a night to remember with a few photographs lingering. No YouTube videos, no cell phone pictures or videos (thank goodness), only memories to share when we see each other or in emails and texts. I wish I was as good back then about writing down details as I am now.

2011 A Look Back

WordPress is really on the ball. I received my blog stats for the year last night, not that they’re anything to brag about, but I received them. This is the first thing it said:

“A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,800 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 47 trips to carry that many people.”

Here in Wisconsin, we’d try to fit all 2,800 of those people on one cable car and a beer cooler for each. Sounds like the ultimate road trip. There’s even a designated driver. Woohoo.

Let me say thank you for that many views. You 15 people who read this are really dedicated!! (Yes, I realize there’s more that read this than that.) Either way, I do appreciate the readership. Recently I’ve shared this with more and more people so I thought I’d do a bit of a review myself.

Several people gave me feedback on their favorite stories and I will share that list with you. This may help newer readers find a few good ones right off the bat, it might show regulars some stories they missed and it may remind regulars of some of their favorites.

Again, thank you for reading Following Funny. I encourage all of you to comment, press like, provide feedback and share mine and your funny stories with friends and family. Pay funny forward.

Life is short, you may as well follow funny so it follows you.