Tag: humor

Another Myth Busted!

We’ve all heard them, the statement of “facts” handed down for ages that turn out to be not true at all. Like the one, “If you swallow chewing gum, it will stay in your stomach for seven years.” Well it won’t, it will pass through looking pretty much like it did going down. Or the myth, “Your hair and fingernails will continue to grow after death.” They don’t, but because your skin starts to shrink, it looks like your hair is growing longer.

Well I have a new myth to bust. Mine is much more relevant than chewing gum in your stomach or hair growing on a dead body. I have through research and “clinical” trials debunked a myth that has plagued women for decades. And I want everyone to be forewarned so as not to get fleeced by this long standing myth.

First off, let preface this by saying I have curly hair. Not only do I have naturally curly hair, I have very thick coarse naturally curly hair. If I were to place one of my hairs next to one of Mitch’s hairs, mine would look like a redwood tree next to a piece of silk. So when I say I have a lot of hair, it is an understatement. In order to have hair that looks somewhat presentable, I wash it every day. Because when I get up in the morning after rolling around in bed all night, I wake up with clown hair. I am not exaggerating one little bit when I say my hair is pretty scary to look at when I jump out of bed. It is sticking out in all different directions with curls going up, down and straight out in a wildly uncontrolled mess and it is not brush-able.

When my children were just three weeks old, they decided it was best to sleep through the night because I was so scary in the middle of the night. Orso won’t get up and ask to go outside in the middle of the night because he has seen what I look like after tossing and turning in bed. Suffice it to say, that thick curly hair does not sleep well.

The woman who cuts my hair told me to buy a satin pillowcase, because it would keep my curls under control and I would wake up with this beautiful head of lovely naturally curly hair with every hair still in place. Of course she neglected to say that I had to have every hair in place to start with. I am the poster child of the “messy hair” look and I wear it well. Anyway, I was willing and eager to try something, anything that might make my clown hair look less clownish.

I found and bought a single satin pillowcase, red of course. My choices were red, zebra print or leopard print so I bought the red pillowcase. I thought that I would just buy one and see how it works and if it did, then I would go back and get more. Well another myth bites the dust. I slept on it and woke up with clown hair. Nothing different than any other day, hair sticking out in all different directions, pretty scary for any unsuspecting soul out walking at four in the morning.

Maybe satin pillowcases only work on straight hair.

As Much My Fault as it is His – Really More

But that doesn’t stop me from being mad and angry with Orso. I know better, in reality it is all my fault, he’s just a dog. I had the best intentions, because I know his history, but I got distracted. That seems to happen more and more these days. I get to blame the drugs, but that doesn’t change the outcome.

We were getting to leave and run some errands, one of the which was to go wine shopping and that alone is enough to make me lose focus. I had taken a package of hamburger out of the freezer and moved it to the refrigerator last night to thaw for dinner. Before we left to go run our errands I checked the hamburger to see how thawed it was. It was still pretty frozen so I took it out of the fridge and started to put it in the microwave, safe from the “Stomach”, but I thought Mitch might heat up a sausage biscuit before we left so I set it on top of the microwave and turned to check on him.

Mitch met me at the laundry room door with the cooler in hand looking for ice packs. I told him they were in the freezer. At that point I forgot all about the pound of hamburger. Squirrel! Orso knew we were getting ready to leave so he was following me around panting heavily and occasionally barking to let me know he was not happy about being left home. Even though I always leave the television on and I always give him a rawhide chew. And finally he is home in the air conditioning with the TV on and the doggie equivalent to a bowl of popcorn, what more could he want?

We drove off, and got about three miles from home sitting at the stoplight waiting to get on the highway when it dawned on me that I left the hamburger out unprotected on top of the microwave. So just to be prudent, we took the next exit, jumped back on the highway, and went home. I jumped out of the truck ran up to the door and unlocked it, Orso met me at the door barking away. I walked to the microwave, no hamburger, I looked inside to check it out, no hamburger. I walked to the living room around the corner from the microwave and saw pieces of Styrofoam, a bit of plastic wrap and no hamburger. It was gone, three miles and ten minutes’ tops and it was gone. Six dollars and ninety-eight cents a pound and it was gone.

I was so angry, madder at myself than him, but that didn’t stop me from yelling at him. That didn’t stop me from wishing all kinds of wrath to fall on him. At the same time, I was holy irate I was also praying that he doesn’t get a blockage from any plastic wrap he probably ingested and then have to take him to the vet and have emergency surgery. That would be the cherry on top, Orso eats our hamburger, gets sick and we have to take him to have surgery.

I need a keeper.

Death Wish

Though I’ve not seen any of our state’s predators, it is widely recognized that living in the State of Washington we have a large number of predators, Mountain Lions, Bobcats, Lynx, Bears, Wolves, Coyotes and Foxes. Each one of these predators have the ability to eat small and large animals. I am putting out an all call to any or all of these predators. If I send you my address would you send a couple of emissaries around? I promise you will be richly rewarded.

Sound totally insane right? Well I know that mountain lions and bears can’t read (maybe wolves can, they are pretty smart) but I do have a totally rational reason for the need. We have rabbits here. Brazen or stupid, I don’t know which and I don’t care, I just want them gone. The other day a rabbit ran into our backyard in the afternoon while Orso and I were out there. He ran straight at Orso then turned and ran at me with Orso in hot pursuit. I was almost run down by a charging hundred-pound brown locomotive that only had eyes on a one-pound fur ball. Good thing I was paying attention and jumped aside.

Yesterday morning on our early morning walk, yes I still walk Orso at the crack of dawn, when I noticed Orso was very intent on something ahead of us. Something small with tall ears, another rabbit was sitting in the road just waiting for us, not moving, just waiting. Stupid rabbit, or maybe he was suicidal having the curse of not knowing utter fear and was totally bored with the good life. I tightened my grip on the leash and told him no, for all the good that did. He still lunged at the rabbit and woofed quite loud at four in the morning. People are sleeping and don’t want to hear a very deep loud woof then the screams of a rabbit in the jaws of my menace.

Again this morning we ran across another rabbit with a death wish just sitting on the side of the road, watching us come toward him. Again with the woof and the lunge. The evil little creature jump meandered off with a couple of small hops. Not the wild jerking and sprinting I have seen on the nature shows with a fox or coyote in hot pursuit. I could see my fears of being a boat anchor coming true once again if I don’t get rid of these small suicidal marsupials.

Hence my plea to all predators, please come, I’ll send you my address and I promise you will feast handsomely.

One of Those Days

We all have them; you know those days where you are better off staying in bed. Some of us have multiple days in a row where everything you touch goes way wrong. And then there is me. When I have one of those days or multiple days that go bad, it usually means I have maimed myself in some sort of fashion, and holding true to history, I’ve done it again.

Yesterday, I was sharpening my boning knife on the sharpening stone using deliberate circles like my dad taught me. I held the knife at about a forty-five-degree angle to the stone going in a counter-clockwise motion. Flipping the knife over I repeated the process only going in a clockwise motion, when the knife slipped and sliced into my right thumb. The good news is that I got the knife good and sharp. The bad news is that I bled all over the kitchen.

Today I put a bottom round roast in the crockpot to cook all day for dinner. The roast was so tender by the time dinner rolled around that it was falling apart in the crockpot as I was dishing it up to put it on the platter. I used a large fork and spatula to try and get it out of the crockpot when it broke apart, with part of the meat plopping back into the crockpot and splashing a small piece of cooked hot onion to wrap around my little finger and another piece of onion stuck to the left side of my hand below the thumb I tried to amputate yesterday.

I ran to the sink and turned on the cold water, pulling the onion off of my finger and let the words fly. Who would think a hot cooked onion would stick like glue and burn the daylights out of you. I actually have blisters on my little finger and a long red streak on the other side of my hand. I thought that using the crockpot would make my life easier not help me meet my deductible for the year.

Needless to say, I am not looking forward to tomorrow.

It’s Gotta be a Record!

Maybe even a World’s Record or close to it. There should be cake to celebrate or at least wine. I started thinking back to our move out here. The dogs and I got here in August of 2015 and lived in the apartment until we bought our house and moved in the middle of March. The house is a two story with the bedrooms and wet bar on the second floor. That means at the very least I would go up and down those stairs a minimum of six times a day. One time down to feed Orso and take him for a walk, back up the stairs to shower then down again to go about my day. One time up to get a bottle of wine and down to open and drink the wine, one last time up to go to bed. I go up and down many more times than that each day, but you get the point.

Take that minimum number and multiply it by the three and a half months we’ve been in the house, that totals to over six hundred times up and down the stairs. And I haven’t fallen up or down the stairs once. That’s gotta be a record. If that doesn’t sound so awesome, then look at my history. I’ve fallen down the stairs to the old house and hit the side of the house at the bottom. I’ve fallen up the basement stairs and took the skin off my shins at the old house. I’ve fallen off the side of the road walking the dogs. I fell over a giant boulder in the middle of the road one morning walking the dogs. I got tangled up in a four-foot step ladder and fell down a hill. I have a knack for falling, either up or down, I’m an equal opportunity faller.

Come to think of it, most of my falls were at the old house. Maybe it was the house. Maybe the house had it in for me. Maybe I’m not that clumsy after all, maybe I was attacked by the old house. Well I got the last laugh, I’m not there anymore. So take that house!

In the ten months we’ve been here, I’ve only fallen twice, once at the hands of the dogs dragging me across a sidewalk to meet a new dog and once hiking when I tripped and fell over a downed tree. All in all I’ve done pretty well out here and haven’t had to go to the emergency room once, which is a good thing since I don’t know where the hospital is.

Dog for Rent

“One very large dog for rent. Extra-large dog weighing one hundred two pounds wants playmate of equal size and temperament. Dog needs to be willing to play tag and wrestle. Has to like being chewed on. I will even supply the yard if necessary. If interested, please call.”

That is how my ad will read. I’ve decided that in order to keep Orso happy and content, I am going to rent him out as a playmate to other dogs. I’m not strong enough to really play with him. He does not have the “soft mouth” labs are famous for, he bites down hard and one of these days, I’m pretty sure he’s going to break my arm. He’s faster than I am and has learned how to whip around on me and grab whatever is closest to him, whether it’s my leg or arm.

This morning he was in a playful mood and as I reached down to push him, he turned much faster than I expected and grabbed my right forearm and bit down. At first I thought he broke it, but after I pushed back my sweatshirt, I saw the hole and blood. How he can bite through fabric and break the skin, but not the fabric always surprises me. So now I’m sporting two bruises on one side of my arm and a large puncture wound on the other.

So in order to keep me in one piece and Orso tired and happy, I need to find him a playmate. I am not ready to get another dog, so renting him out is the next best option. So what do you think, any takers?

Definitely not on my Bucket List

I don’t really have a Bucket List, mainly because I haven’t done or been hardly anyplace and I want to see and do so much, a Bucket List isn’t necessary. I want to go hiking more, drink more wine, take more pictures and on and on and on. But there is one thing that is not something I want to experience ever again. Oh there are lots of things I don’t to experience, this is just one of them.

I had the distinct displeasure of getting to experience Salmonella Poisoning this week. Not only did I get to experience it one day, but I have gotten to experience for the last five days and after I finally figured out what this might be, I will get to live with this for probably another week or so. If I’m wrong in my self-diagnosis, I may be miserable for even longer. Yay. I’ve never had Salmonella so I’m not one hundred percent sure that this is Salmonella, I’m just guessing. Of course, if it’s not Salmonella, then I have a bigger problem, maybe. If I’m right I should recover within a week or so, if not then I guess it’s time to find a doctor. God knows I wouldn’t want to rush into anything.

I think I got Salmonella from eating bad eggs. Oh and I have been eating the eggs from the same carton of eggs for the last five days and so has Orso. I cook two egg whites every morning then cook the yolks and give them to Orso. So far he hasn’t experienced any discomfort, but then Mitch pointed out that he also eats dead things. It didn’t occur to me that eggs could be the problem until I went online and read up on Salmonella Poisoning. I kept going over everything I’ve eaten for the last five days, trying different things, like not taking a certain vitamin (even though I’ve been taking the same ones for years) or blaming not enough wine (can you get enough wine?) and the only common food I had eaten for the last five days is eggs.

Who knows, maybe it was just one of the eggs I ate or it could be the whole carton. I haven’t been playing with any lizards or snakes, so that’s out and I don’t hang out with chickens, making me think I’m pretty safe on my hypothesis. As far as food poisoning goes, from what I’ve read, Salmonella is not one of the worst and most people recover from it after about a week without any special treatment or medication. Lucky me, maybe only seven days to go.

Undo

I wish I had an undo option. If I had an indo button, I could fix my stupid mistakes with a simple push of the undo button. Wouldn’t that be something special, being able to hit the undo button? Think of the possibilities. Think back through your life and all the times you said to yourself, “I wish I hadn’t done that, said that or eaten that. With an undo button you could have a second chance at getting it right. I don’t think that every mistake or misspoken word should be undoable, just the really big ones.

You have the chance to undo the harsh words you spoke to your husband or wife or child just because you were tired or frustrated from work. You could undo the night at the bar where you drank too much and woke up with someone you’ve never seen before. Or you could undo eating the super large slice of cheesecake before it ended up on your hips. There are so many undo’s waiting out there.

For me I would have been able to undo some of my biggest blunders in life. Like the time I thought a perm would be a good thing. Yeah right, a perm on a woman with naturally curly hair. Not a really bright idea. I looked like a thirty something woman with a very tight afro. I had almost shoulder length hair that was curled so tight I looked like I stuck my finger in a light socket. It took almost six months for the permed hair to grow out enough to be all cut off.

Or maybe the time I got in a hurry driving out of the airport and instead of being patient and letting the rental car bus get in front of me I decided to hit the gas in my firebird. A really bad idea since my tires were well worn and the road was wet. I lost traction and started to fishtail. I overcorrected and spun out right in front of the rental car bus and slid across the road tearing up two tires and two wheels. To add to my embarrassment the first one to stop to check on us was a deputy director of the aviation department. Yes sir, definitely an undo.

As a teenager growing up I did lots of really dumb things. Some I needed to do to learn and grow from but some I would undo. I started smoking cigarettes when I thirteen and didn’t quit until I was in my thirties – definitely an undo. I didn’t apply myself in school like I should have or go to college. I would definitely undo that, slap myself upside the head and make me buckle down and get my degree. I was smart enough, just didn’t push myself like I should have. I should have listened to my parents better, but that goes with each generation. My parents didn’t listen to their parents and my children didn’t listen to me, just wait until their children get older, that is something I wouldn’t change even if I could. Everyone should have some regrets and insights from their flubs. But some would be awesome if we could wipe them out and start over.

Crash Kelly Strikes Again

I wanted to go hiking today and decided not to wake up Mitch, so I turned on the computer and searched around for some trails nearby. I found one that was only about fifteen minutes away from our house, so I loaded up Orso and headed out about seven thirty this morning. I left a note that said we went hiking, but I neglected to say where we went. I pulled into the parking lot and noticed a car already in the parking lot. I unloaded Orso and my backpack when I noticed that there was a man just sitting in the car with the engine running. A bit odd, but you know me, once I start on a path I usually just plow on through. As I passed his car he rolled the window down and said something I didn’t hear. I said good morning and kept on walking to the trailhead and into the woods. Yeah I know, not super bright, go into the woods and make it easier for a maniac.

The man didn’t follow us, just my overactive imagination, but I was more aware of any movement I came across. I was disappointed in what I found. The trail was okay, primitive, which was fine, just not much to see. There was a creek and a rickety wooden bridge, but not much else. Maybe because we were too close to civilization or maybe I was just spooked from the guy in the car, anyway I decided to turn around and head back to the car. When I reached the trailhead I saw that the white car was still in the parking lot and there was another car parked between his car and mine. As I got closer to the cars I saw a man in the second car just sitting there. Pretty creepy, so I quickly loaded up Orso, my backpack and jumped in the car and locked the doors. What a scaredy cat. I drove home and decided to wake Mitch up so he could take me hiking.

After he got up we headed out for a second hike, this time farther away. Our destination was Federation Forest State Park, about ninety minutes away. This one turned out to be a bust because the park was closed. Not to be denied, we turned around and found a trailhead along the side of the road, which was part of the park. We unloaded and headed off into the forest. We found huge trees toppled over, some that had pulled out of the ground by the roots. Huge trees that were six or seven feet in diameter laying between other trees or stacked on trees that were crushed under the impact. The trails were a tangled mess of branches and limbs and whole trees that we had to either climb over or crouch down and crawl under.

One such tree that was laying across the path proved to be my swan song. I stepped over it with one leg and as I was clearing it with my left leg, my boot got caught on a small branch still attached to the tree. I went down hard landing on my right side. I hit a root that jutted out of the ground with my ribs under my arm. I thought I was dead for a minute, then when the pain hit I realized I was still alive. I hit so hard I thought I popped an implant. But least I landed so that I saved the camera I was holding and the backpack with the other cameras were not hurt.

Mitch walked up to me and asked if I was impaled on anything before he helped me up. I guess he didn’t want to have any blood gushing out of me. I’m not sure what he would have done if I was impaled on something, leave me and go get help or just leave me. I slowly got back up on my feet and assessed the damage. I think I bruised my ribs on the right side, but none were broken I was pretty sure. There will be a nice bruise in a day or so on my right hip too and I cut the palm of my right hand on something.

I decided I had enough fun for one day so we headed back to the trailhead. As we neared the trailhead we saw a sign that was taped up that read, “Trail closed due to hazardous conditions.” Really I never would have known.

I think I need to do more pre-planning on our hikes.

People Watching

Another business trip and more people watching. This is rapidly becoming my favorite thing to do and as soon as I master my Gopro I will share some videos of my finds. Because our airport is always so busy I get to the airport extra early and hang out until my flight boards. This affords me ample people watching and with practice I am becoming quite the “professional voyeur”.

Sitting next to me also waiting for boarding to begin, was an elderly woman who had just made it through security and was not pleased with the amount of time it took to get through the checkpoint. She also was not adept at using her cell phone. She tried repeatedly to leave a voicemail to her son without much success evidently, either that or he got the benefit of listening to the same voicemail four times. She held the phone in front of her and spoke into it like a walkie talkie, so all of us around had the privilege of getting to hear the same message four times. Now I know where she fills her prescriptions and that it takes a long time to get through security. (Good to know).

Another passenger that was flying with me was a man I assume was in his late twenties to mid-thirties. He was tall and normal sized about one hundred fifty pounds with hair long enough to pull back in a ponytail. He was wearing shorts, short sleeved T-shirt and a vest, so far as attire goes, there was nothing special about him. What really caught my eye and almost drop my jaw, was his roller board carry on. He was pulling a small hard case roller board that was shaped like a pirate chest complete with pirate chest graphics. There was jewels hanging out and pirate swords next to the chest in the design. So cool if you are a ten year old boy. He dragged it behind him with his head held high like it was what his main piece of luggage. And all I had was a briefcase and a black tote, I definitely need to up my game.

On the return trip home I was seated in the aisle seat one row behind and across a man who as soon as we took off and leveled out, dropped his tray table and pulled out a brown paper bag from Noodles & Company. From the bag he extracted a round bowl about 8 inches in diameter filled to the top of the bowl with noodles and chicken. Then he reached back down into the paper bag and pulled out a pair of chopsticks. I sat there in awe watching him dig into the bowl with the chopsticks grab some noodles then stuff it in his mouth. He didn’t drop any of the food once, quite an accomplishment while flying in a plane air turbulence and so little elbow room.

What really surprised me was not that the man was able to eat food with chopsticks but that he didn’t stop eating for the entire three and a half hour flight. As soon as he was done eating the noodle dish, he tore the corner off of the free pretzels and ate them. But no, he didn’t eat the pretzels like the rest of us, you know we mere mortals tear open the package, pour the pretzels into our palm and put them in our mouth one or two at a time. He would push one pretzel up to the open corner and put each little pretzel square in his mouth by bringing the bag up to his mouth to biting on the pretzel. He did the same thing with a very large chocolate bar in his lunch bag. He tore to end of the package off and fished the bar up and took a bite, chewed, then pushed up the bar a bit more and repeated the process until it was gone.

After the candy bar, he poured granola mix into his drink glass and ate the granola by tipping the glass up and into his mouth, like you would if you were eating the ice out of your glass. After the granola it was a bag of pistachios. These he had to touch because the pistachios were still in the shell. I couldn’t believe how much food he carried on the plane. I was stuffed just watching him eat and he was not a large person, fairly normal sized, probably five foot eleven inches or so and about one hundred sixty pounds. I wish I had his metabolism, because I ate everything he ate for three hours, I would be so miserable and seriously overweight.

Aww, the joys of flying.