Things that make me go...huh?

• I have currently ran out of face wash and not yet made it to the store to buy more. However, I have been using my regular body wash and yet, my face seems to be clearing up better than it was when I was using my face wash twice a day. Case in point? I have spent hundreds (OK, let's be honest...hundred singular...which is pushing it) of dollars on all different kinds of face wash. And now it seems all I had to do was use the body wash I already had.....interesting.
• I was walking the Leira dog this evening and was completely stunned to see that someone on my road has put up a Christmas tree that appears to be spray painted white. To make it worse, it is covered in bright neon pink and green and yellow lights. Can. You. Say. Hideous? Perhaps that is a bit harsh. Who am I to be judgmental on Christmas....but really?
• Speaking of said white Christmas tree listed above...I think I spotted a menorah in the same window.....Is that allowed for the Jewish?
• I don't consider myself too much of a TV watcher. In fact, I can be pretty harsh on TV shows if I don't like the pilot. And yet...I watch The Nanny religiously. What. Is. That?
• No matter what I do to try to prevent it, laundry always piles up and is a never ending process. Where does it all come from? And how do I make it stop?
• I have found that children under the age of 2 are not interested in the present inside the box, only the box itself and perhaps the ribbon used to decorate it therefore causing a slightly possible chance that he will be visiting the emergency room sometime in his very near future...
  
• When decorating the tree at work last week, I knew that one of my co-workers was having a bad day. Therefore I asked her if she would like to join in the Christmas spirit. She looked at me blankly and said "I've never liked decorating Christmas trees. I let my husband and son do it this year. All I had to do was buy one of those big boxes of multicolored ornaments at Target and I'll just throw them all away at the end of the year." I can't tell you how sad this makes me.
• We have a dog that has been coming to work during the day to Hospital board. He is actually going to be boarding during the entire weekend. I walked in on a conversation of one of the technicians complaining about why he is boarding all of the time. I looked at her and said "His mom is in a wheel chair and can't take care of him during the day." She looked at me and replied, "I mean I know she has MS but......".......All I have to say is REALLY?
• The paper towel dispenser attacked me today and made me pull a muscle in my neck. That can't be normal, right?
• The movie Stigmata. Two words. Purple. Jellies.
  

Horror on Glendower

There are times that I don't care too much for having a vivid imagination. For example, when the power goes out, I'm home alone and I still have to get ready for work. (AKA: Having to take a shower in the dark, scary bathroom...)

I think to myself as the lights flicker to a permanent "off" (of course perfectly timed to do so as Andrew is driving himself off to work...figures), "OK. This can't be too bad right?" I grab a couple of candles and walk up the dark staircase to the bathroom.

Even during the middle of the day, it is pitch black. I try to light one candle. Burn myself in the process and have false hope in accomplishing lighting it for the first time, only to watch the minuscule flame flicker out before my very eyes.

I glance around accusingly, "OK. Did a ghost just blow out my candle for shits and giggles?"

I try another candle, burning myself yet again, but manage to keep the flame intact. I follow suit by lighting several more candles and set them all on the toilet seat. I look around.

Um. The bathroom is still pretty dark.

Damn. It.

So I go downstairs in hopes that time will make the candle light seem brighter. (Shut-up. When you're scared, any excuse to prolong the situation works in the mind of the over-imaginative.)

I sit in front of our bay window because it is the only place in the house that lets a lot of light in. I stair outside and watch the stupid workmen who are responsible for this predicament.

I silently curse them.

The. Evil. Bastards.

I look at the clock and realize I cannot wait any longer.

It is time.

I make sure (several times I might add) that the front door is locked (back door too even though we hardly ever use it. But I can't take any chances.) I begrudgingly walk back up the stairs with my dog Leira at my heels.

I silently think to myself, "well should someone decide to break in while I'm in the shower, surely my dog or at least one of our 5 cats would protect me."

I try not to think too hard over the mere fact that said dog is actually afraid of at least one of said 5 cats and that most likely my last vision before being brutally murdered via being stabbed to death, would be of my pansy-ass dog's rear end sticking out from under the bed. (I think she thinks she's an ostrich?)

Guard dog she is not.

I make it upstairs only to find that my brilliant idea of waiting for the candlelight to get brighter has back-fired.

The "lighting" is just as dull as before.

I sigh, try the light switch one last time (just in case)- nothing but darkness and mocking flames.

"Here goes." I think to myself.

As I step in the shower, I turn to find Leira and one of our cats Lorelai sitting by the door to the bathroom.

Awe. Perhaps they would protect me after all.

While in the shower, I think I hear a noise downstairs. I peer timidly out from behind the shower curtain, Lorelai and Leira are gone...

Traitors!

I pick up the pace in the shower trying not to think of the random scenarios going through my head. For example:

The noise I heard is one of the workmen I had previously seen outside. But he is not a workman. he is in disguise and he is a known rapist/murderer and I am his next victim. He stalks around my downstairs dining room after breaking the lock on the front door and peers down at something on the kitchen table.

It's a notepad and what appears to be a short story. He thinks to himself, "Ah. She's a writer. Too bad she will never be published because she will be dead soon." [insert evil laugh here].

As for his appearance, he has a mullet and a handle bar mustache, clothed in tight dark jeans and a flannel shirt that barely covers his beer gut.

He creeps up the stairs to find me.

So as you might have guessed, in thinking of all of this, I am slightly panicked. I keep peering out from the shower curtain, expecting to see said scary ass man standing there in my dark bathroom with a hatchet. In doing this over and over again, the only thing I accomplish is managing to get shampoo in my eyes and panicking even more because now I can't even see my attacker coming. I try to open my eyes more and more but the burning is too much and I am now blind.

Forget it.

I've had enough. Still soapy and wet, I turn off the faucet and grab for a towel. (This takes me a few minutes considering I still can't see...)

I wrap the towel around me and slowly pull the shower curtain back.

Silence.

There is no one there.

Whew.

But what if he's hiding behind the door and he's just waiting for me to step out of the bathroom for him to do his evil deed?

I feel so small and trapped in my little, dark bathroom.

I hear a noise. I hear footsteps. I open my mouth to scream and then....


"Chiiiiiirp meeeeeeow." says Lorelai as she struts into the bathroom and looks at my fear stricken face.

She looks at me in a way that says, "It's OK Mama. Stop freaking out."

I begin to giggle at myself. Then my giggles turn into chuckles. Now I'm boiled over with laughter and I can't seem to make myself stop.

I. Am. Delirious.

One things for sure though. If this horrid thing ever happens again. I'm going to work dirty.

It's just not worth the effort.

Squirrel or Dog? That is the question.

So for those of you who don't know this already, our dog Leira's favorite toy is her stuffed squirrel. (In all reality, it is no longer stuffed because she ripped all of the fun fluffy stuff out and it is indeed flat. Plus I don't really think it's a squirrel. Perhaps it's a cat...? But at any rate, it is not really recognizable now what type of "animal" it started out as...so we just call it her squirrel.)

And because of her love for her favorite toy, when I came across a squirrel costume in target around Halloween...I couldn't resist. I mean really? What is cuter than a dog dressed as a squirrel?

Can't think of anything can you?

No?

That's what I thought.

But I have a feeling that somehow during playtime with her squirrel and dressing her up like one, Leira might...just might be a bit confused.

This thought crossed my mind the other morning when I was taking her on her walk. We were quietly frolicking along the sidewalk when I saw a squirrel running across the street. It just so happened that a car was coming very quickly down the road (because people are stupid around here and drive too fast...ahem). I glanced up at the squirrel who had chosen that precise moment to sit and investigate an acorn....IN THE STREET!

Without even thinking, I yelled "Run squirrel run!" In which at this time Leira picked up her pace to full speed and started running as fast as she could.....

The squirrel made it but by this time I had another thought brewing in my mind...did Leira perhaps think I was yelling at her to run? Does she think she's a squirrel when indeed she is not? Have I given her some kind of inter-species complex?

I looked down in the middle of my thought process because Leira had come to a full stop. She was chewing on something she had found in the grass. I began trying to pry the contents out of her mouth and alas found that the object of which she was chewing was....

An acorn....

My God. What have I done?

Bless the Southern Culture

Growing up in the outskirts of Asheville, NC in Buncombe County, I learned many phrases that might seem unusual to any outsider. Upon thinking of this fact the other day, I found that many of these phrases include the word "bless". We southerners like to bless everything. Here are just a few examples:

"Bless your Heart."

"Bless him."[insert "I feel sorry for you" face here]

"Did you hear that crazy lady bless me out?" (I found that Andrew had never heard of this phrase and when I used it he looked at me like he was confused. I didn't hold it against him though...he's one of them northerners.)

"That happens too me every blessed time." (This one's a nicer way to use the word "f***".)

In church, we like to scream "Bless the Lord." a lot. But I have also found that this phrase is also used in other circumstances such as when a child does something cute or stupid. This is when your grandmother looks at you and shakes her head saying "bless the Lord you is and idiot."

And last but not least, "Bless my soul."

Let me just say, I am very blessed (ooh! that was another one!) to have grown up in a southern culture. It is part of who I am today.

Bless my little heart.

Punch bug, slow bug...it's all the same when your'e being hit by your mother.

My brother and I taught our parents the rules of the game "punch buggy [insert color here] back when I was in middle school....17 years ago.

Should you ever travel in the car with my parents in this day and age, you will be forced to hear from the backseat random bits of conversation interrupted by "Blue!" or "Green" and a swift punch into the opposite person's shoulder. And as if nothing happened at all, the conversation will resume.

For example, Andrew and I went to visit my parents a couple of weekends ago and this is the conversation we were forced to listen in on.

Mom: "I'm so excited about Jackson Brown, but I haven't brought myself..."Red!" (then punches my Dad mercilessly as hard as she can) to listen to him too much because i don't want to get too excited before the concert."

Dad: "Which Carrabba's are we going to?" (There are only two in Asheville and we always go to the same one so I'm not sure why he asks this question every time we go...it will always remain a mystery to me.)

Mom turns around to look at us in the backseat and is side-swiped by Dad's ruthless punch into her right arm "Silver" he yells.

Mom: without a bit of distraction, "where do you guys want to go?"

Andrew and I just stare completely baffled at the violence that sits before us.

On a slightly different note, I can't tell you how many times I have been driving my Mom somewhere when out of nowhere she hits me and almost startles me to the point I run off the road. I stare at her in the passenger seat looking so sweet and innocent, constantly reminding her that I am not Dad and that she almost gave me a heart attack.

Mom: "Oh I'm so sorry." (But it never stops her...nope. She still does it. She claims it's because she's so used to riding in the car with Dad. But I honestly think it's her way of getting back at me for giving her such a hard time when I was a teenager.)

It should really be a form of child abuse. I can see it in the headlines now, "Punch Buggy Lavender. It's Not To Late To Seek Help Now."

It could be the next episode on "The Closer."

An episode that I could completely identify with.

Obcession: Perhaps something of an addiciton.

I have a problem. That's the first step right? Getting through the denial...the denial of "I can stop any time." "I don't really need to spend the money so I'll pass." "One excuse after another until it hits....

No longer do you have enough space to put them all. No longer do you even have the extra corner to throw in another bookcase in order to place them. You're stuck and yet....you crave more.

That's right. You guessed it.

Hi. My name is Mary and I am a hoarder of books.

There, I said it. Whew. I fell so much better!

But seriously, when is enough enough? I tell myself over and over again, "Mary, there are so many books on your shelves that you haven't read...and even if you try to read 4 and 5 at a time, if you keep buying more, there is no way to catch up."

But the buying of said books continues. From classics, to memoirs, to cheesy vampire series' I tend to drift to in the "popular teen" section. (Hey! I said I have a problem. I never said I was proud of it.)

I walk into a bookstore calmly and think to myself, "I'll just browse. I don't need to buy."

But then I see a shiny new cover of an author I collect (never mind that I haven't even read one word of said author...but her covers are preeety and shiny and I find myself addicted to buying the whole series before I even glance at the first page.)

Then there are those authors I am so in love with because I have read everything they have ever written and the moment they release a new book it's like homemade brownies to a pothead.

I. Want. Them. All. (books....and brownies)

Is that really so much to ask?

Maybe I just need a bigger place to where I can put more bookshelves and therefore more books. That would solve my problem right? And then...it wouldn't be a problem anymore.

I. Am. A. GENIUS!

Ooh. I think I'll go browse on Amazon right now.

You know, just to look.

You know the one...?

My brother Pat used to work at Best Buy. He would often tell me stories of customers who would come up to him and ask him if he knew where to find a certain song.

Pat: "Who's the artist?"

Customer: "What?"

Pat: "The person who sang the song you're looking for."

Long pause.

Customer: "Oh. Well I thought that was why I am asking for your help?"

Pat: "Well what's the title?"

Customer: "I don't know."

I always got a kick out of these stories and gave an extra two thumbs up to him for putting up with such idiots. My favorite stories were the ones in which the customer would start singing the song he or she was in search of.

Singing very badly.

And off key.

And not with the correct lyrics.

I would have paid money to see this.

I was thinking about these memories today when I heard a familiar song on the radio. It reminded me of when I had first heard it and how I looked over and over again for the name or the artist who sang it. Then I remembered asking Pat.

And singing it to him (not fully knowing the words).

He just looked at me and shook his head.

Me: "What?"

And now I know. He thought I was one of "those" people.

But he's wrong.

I mean, I don't count.

I'm his sister....

Am I right?

Am I?