Time for another trip in the Way Back Machine, which if it was built prior to the late 60's, may not have any seatbelts. You see kids, people weren't always horribly paranoid about having proper safety gear and killing their entire family in a car wreck. There were less distractions in those days so parents just left their kids roam around the car whilst mobile. My husband fondly recalls trips in the old Malibu with his family where he layed on the back dash.
Cup holders were not standard features in cars back then. No one ever just thought to themselves as they were driving, "Hmm, I think I'll swing in here to the Piggly Wiggly and pick me up a Coke, I'm thristy!!"
No. If you were thirsty you waited till you got home.
Anyone brave enough to stick their hand under the smelly vinyl passenger or driver's side front seats would probably find the following items: An old 8-track tape of the Eagles (left behind by the car's previous owner), a mystery car part that no one was quite sure about, a handful of change, a ten year old stick of stale Black Jack gum, and a roach clip (also left behind from the car's previous owner.)
As for car seats- those were only used on days you had time to strap your kid into them. If you were in a hurry the kid got socked onto the back seat & told to hang on honey! You could even hold a baby in your arms in the front seat of the car. Imagine!
There were no automatic windows back then either. You had to put your hand on this little knob and roll the window up and down yourself. This is how we used to fight off the obesity epidemic (that and not having cupholders for our Cokes.)
Most car interiors were made of Hot Vinyl, usually black for maximum hotness. And I don't mean sexy hot, I mean, scorch-the-back-of-your-legs-with-third-degree-burns-if-you-were-wearing-shorts-hot. That made for a fun family vacation! Pile in the car kids- we're gonna drive you around till you're hot, sweaty and cranky!
Then there was the smell. It may have been from the asbestos stuffed vinyl seats or it may have been from the previous owners (the one with the roach clip) but there was an unmistakable used car smell back in the 70's/80's. It reminded you of B.O. mixed with cologne, mixed with hot vinyl, mixed with anti-freeze. A potpourri of weirdness. The only way to get rid of it was to hang a green Royal Pine air freshner on the rear view mirror, which only exacerbated the situation to such a degree that one could actually get sick just from smelling it, and then you'd have the puke smell to add to the mix.
Oh and television! A true delight. There used to be no color tv's, only black and white. And they weren't ginormous flat screens. They were square-ish and weighed a thousand pounds. Especially the floor models. Every Saturday morning I would bounce out of bed and race into the living room to turn on the tv and watch cartoons. Ours was a tiny little thing and since they hadn't invented remote controls yet, my little kid fingers couldn't grasp the tiny knob to turn the tv on. But my Pap loved me and rigged up a cord switch so I could turn it on that way.
So out I'd go and turn on the tv. Then I'd go get breakfast while it warmed up. Cause back then tv's didn't turn on right away. They sort of hummed around (kinda like these twirly light bulbs they invented lately and are trying to make us switch to) and then you'd get a picture but it would go away and then it would come back but then it would "flip" where the picture would just keep flipping onto the screen so you had to reach behind the tv & adjust this little knob that some how made the picture stay still. Once you got the picture to stay still, you sometimes had to back the knob up a bit to get the picture centered. Otherwise the bottom half of your cartoons would be at the top of the screen and the top half would be at the bottom like some sick magician's trick.
Saturday was a very magical day. It was the ONLY day a week when you would get to watch cartoons. Back then there were no cartoon channels, no satellite tv, (although the US did go through a phase for awhile when those huge space-like satellite dishes were popular) and cable tv was for rich kids. (As you can probably imagine, we did not fall in that category, why do you think we drove around in used smelly vehicles?) So Saturday was the one day a week when networks would play cartoons from 7am- 12 noon. When the Action News For Kids show came on, you usually got up and called it a day, cause no kid wants to watch the news, even if other kids are presenting it. Plus that marked the end of Saturday cartoons for the week.
Saturday morning cartooning was such a sacred ritual that I continued it well into my married life.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
FAQ's
Q:Am I really welcome to your psychosis?
A: Indeed. Misery loves company.
Q: What is this "Follow by Email" crap you stuck over here at the left hand side?
A: I'm not totally sure but I think it's for if you'd like to receive an email when I stick something on here.
Q: Will it give me a virus?
A: No but you may get ringworm.
Q: What do the "sociable" buttons do?
A: They socialize you. It's for people who don't get out much due to their own psychosis. You can Digg or Stumble Upon, Twitter, or Facebook this blog to your friends, but only if you really want to. There is no Evil Blog Dicatator who is going to make you. I'm actually surprised that enough people (all three of you) are reading this that I need to do a FAQ post.
Q: Do you have other stuff on here, like old posts, or is it just this drivel?
A: Oh, it's all drivel but if you look at the left hand side, then scroll down, underneath Old Fat Gladys you will see where it says "archives". Click around there and you will find even MORE drivel to enthrall and delight.
Q: Why are there ads listed here also? Are you a sellout?
A: Yes. But not a very good one. For me to make any money requires people to be interested enough in those ads to actually click on them. And I know I never click on any ads, so unless it's something you're really interested in, I don't expect you to either. Plus it would probably take 10,000 clicks to equal a dollar so I'm not too worried about it.
Q: Shouldn't you be downstairs making sure your supper isn't burning?
A: Yes. But you are more important to me than my beef flavored Ramen noodles.
Q: I thought the Schwan's man was just there. Didn't you get something from him? Why aren't you cooking that?
A: He was. We're really having hamburgers and french fries. I was just kidding about the Ramen noodles so you'd feel bad and start clicking on ads.
Q: That's not cool.
A: Sorry.
Q: Sometimes I want to leave a comment. Can I?
A: Yes! Please do! It's been so long since I set this up that I can't remember exactly what it asks you, but I think you have type in some of those letters and numbers that look like they're reflecting from a fun house mirror. I really don't remember.
Q: What good are you then?
A: Not much apparently.
A: Indeed. Misery loves company.
Q: What is this "Follow by Email" crap you stuck over here at the left hand side?
A: I'm not totally sure but I think it's for if you'd like to receive an email when I stick something on here.
Q: Will it give me a virus?
A: No but you may get ringworm.
Q: What do the "sociable" buttons do?
A: They socialize you. It's for people who don't get out much due to their own psychosis. You can Digg or Stumble Upon, Twitter, or Facebook this blog to your friends, but only if you really want to. There is no Evil Blog Dicatator who is going to make you. I'm actually surprised that enough people (all three of you) are reading this that I need to do a FAQ post.
Q: Do you have other stuff on here, like old posts, or is it just this drivel?
A: Oh, it's all drivel but if you look at the left hand side, then scroll down, underneath Old Fat Gladys you will see where it says "archives". Click around there and you will find even MORE drivel to enthrall and delight.
Q: Why are there ads listed here also? Are you a sellout?
A: Yes. But not a very good one. For me to make any money requires people to be interested enough in those ads to actually click on them. And I know I never click on any ads, so unless it's something you're really interested in, I don't expect you to either. Plus it would probably take 10,000 clicks to equal a dollar so I'm not too worried about it.
Q: Shouldn't you be downstairs making sure your supper isn't burning?
A: Yes. But you are more important to me than my beef flavored Ramen noodles.
Q: I thought the Schwan's man was just there. Didn't you get something from him? Why aren't you cooking that?
A: He was. We're really having hamburgers and french fries. I was just kidding about the Ramen noodles so you'd feel bad and start clicking on ads.
Q: That's not cool.
A: Sorry.
Q: Sometimes I want to leave a comment. Can I?
A: Yes! Please do! It's been so long since I set this up that I can't remember exactly what it asks you, but I think you have type in some of those letters and numbers that look like they're reflecting from a fun house mirror. I really don't remember.
Q: What good are you then?
A: Not much apparently.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
A Comprehensive Guide to the Past for Generation Z (those born in the 90's), Part Uno
Gather 'round kids. Aunt Kelly is going to tell you a tale.
Over the weekend my bff & I were talking and perhaps it was the box of Red Delicious that was making us a bit reflective, but she mentioned how kids these days don't appreciate going out to dinner like we did when we were little. That sparked a rant on my part about cell phones and how much I hate texting in the work place which went on and on till we were distracted by something else then couldn't remember what we were talking about (it happens.) We decided that there is a whole generation of young people who know absolutely nothing about us or where we came from. Most of them are really great humans, they're just totally clueless.
So kids, and by kids I mean "Everyone Younger Than 30 But ESPECIALLY Those Who Are in Their Late Teens And Early Twenties" the following post is for you.
Back in the day (every old codger starts their stories like that, it's in the Old Codger Handbook), before computers were found in every household (GASP!) we used to go to a place to look things up called the "Library." Libraries were awesome places that looked like Barnes & Noble only they smelled funny, there was no coffee barista, and you didn't have to pay to take the books, they were free.
There was a lady who worked there called a "Librarian" which means she was not a Democrat or a Republican. The Librarian believed in two things: Being Quiet, and Being Orderly. When you were in the library you tiptoed around and tried not to make any noise. That meant no talking. If a librarian would have caught you talking or texting on your cell phone (which never happened because they weren't invented yet) she would have confiscated it and thrown it in the Raystown Lake. Cause you didn't mess with the Librarian. And your parents wouldn't have called her up whining about it either. Back then parents left you run free and if you got in trouble you were on your own.
If you were at the library and wanted to find a book, you went to the "card catalog" which was a big wooden box with a million recipe cards in it. The recipe cards didn't have recipes on them though, they had the names of all the books in the whole library. You had to use your fingers (those things you text with) to manually (that means by hand, not by computer, cause there were no computers back then either) thumb through each card till you found the name of the book you were looking for. They were listed in alphabetical order because the Librarian believed in Order. THEN you had to go to wherever in the library the card told you to go to find that particular book, leading you in a scavenger hunt to find the "H" shelves.
There was a whole system for book filing and finding invented by Dewey Decimal, who was very popular with the Librarian Party and raised a lot of money lobbying for them. He later fell from grace when he was charged with unleashing the bookworms that sparked the Great Bookworm Pandemic of 1945. Chaos ensued as the little devils chewed through hundreds of books before they were caught by Agnes, the librarian at that particular library who tried to contain them with ether before she herself succumbed to the fumes. Agnes would have been alright but when she passed out, her lit cigarette accidently ignited the Overdue Book List and caught the place on fire. (Back then it was alright to smoke in public. See what your missing kids?) It was all downhill from there with firemen and police and flaming bookwarms running amuck.
But I digress. Enough about Agnes.
Let us move on to other things you have no clue about. Cassette Tapes. These were played in "cassette players" or "boom boxes." Boom boxes were about the size of a labrador retriever. You carried them on your shoulder with Madonna singing "Like A Virgin" at top volume. They ran on 27 size D batteries. Or you could plug them in the wall if you didn't lose the cord upon purchase. Batteries were cooler though cause you couldn't walk down the street very far if you chose to plug it in. However, the con to using batteries was that they only lasted about an hour, maybe two if you were listening to the radio instead of a cassette and just buying batteries alone would literally bankrupt teens who would then have no money left to buy new tapes with, forcing them to make horrible mix tapes off the radio complete with d.j. interruptions.
A storebought cassette by an actual artist, such as Eddie Money or Duran Duran, had a Side A and a Side B. One side had about 5 songs on it. When those songs ended, you opened up the tape deck, took out the tape, flipped it over and played the other side which usually contained about 7 songs instead of 5. I don't know why.
One of the cassette tape's biggest problems was the tape itself. It would get "eaten" by your stereo and you'd have to spend hours fishing it out without breaking the tiny tissue paper-esque tape. The result looked like a mound of brown Easter grass. Once you got the tape out of the implement that had eaten it, you had to spend the next two days manually (remember that word from earlier?) winding the crinkled tape back into the cassette. If you were crafty you stuck a pencil in the winding hole and twirled the pencil. If you didn't have a pencil you had to use your finger which was no fun cause the spokes on the winding wheel would poke you and it took way longer.
Cassettes were the predecessor to the CD which I realize is now outdated. And before the cassettes we had "records" which were like huge black cd's that you put on a "turn table" or "record player" and played by asking your Dad because he could smell you looking at the turn table and if you even thought about using the record player by yourself he would yell from elsewhere in the house "DON'T TOUCH THAT- YOU'LL SCRATCH THE RECORD!!"
Record scratching was followed by paddling which is something else that may be foreign to you. Because back in the day, parents would grab their kid and whack them on the butt if they didn't listen. Time Out hadn't been invented yet and I still question its effectiveness.
And since I've been informed that you all have short attention spans, I will stop here. But there will be more to come. Feel free to comment at will or even better, share me with your friends. There are Facebook, Twitter, etc. buttons at the top left of the screen and also at the bottom. Click on it. I'm ready to go global.
Over the weekend my bff & I were talking and perhaps it was the box of Red Delicious that was making us a bit reflective, but she mentioned how kids these days don't appreciate going out to dinner like we did when we were little. That sparked a rant on my part about cell phones and how much I hate texting in the work place which went on and on till we were distracted by something else then couldn't remember what we were talking about (it happens.) We decided that there is a whole generation of young people who know absolutely nothing about us or where we came from. Most of them are really great humans, they're just totally clueless.
So kids, and by kids I mean "Everyone Younger Than 30 But ESPECIALLY Those Who Are in Their Late Teens And Early Twenties" the following post is for you.
Back in the day (every old codger starts their stories like that, it's in the Old Codger Handbook), before computers were found in every household (GASP!) we used to go to a place to look things up called the "Library." Libraries were awesome places that looked like Barnes & Noble only they smelled funny, there was no coffee barista, and you didn't have to pay to take the books, they were free.
There was a lady who worked there called a "Librarian" which means she was not a Democrat or a Republican. The Librarian believed in two things: Being Quiet, and Being Orderly. When you were in the library you tiptoed around and tried not to make any noise. That meant no talking. If a librarian would have caught you talking or texting on your cell phone (which never happened because they weren't invented yet) she would have confiscated it and thrown it in the Raystown Lake. Cause you didn't mess with the Librarian. And your parents wouldn't have called her up whining about it either. Back then parents left you run free and if you got in trouble you were on your own.
If you were at the library and wanted to find a book, you went to the "card catalog" which was a big wooden box with a million recipe cards in it. The recipe cards didn't have recipes on them though, they had the names of all the books in the whole library. You had to use your fingers (those things you text with) to manually (that means by hand, not by computer, cause there were no computers back then either) thumb through each card till you found the name of the book you were looking for. They were listed in alphabetical order because the Librarian believed in Order. THEN you had to go to wherever in the library the card told you to go to find that particular book, leading you in a scavenger hunt to find the "H" shelves.
There was a whole system for book filing and finding invented by Dewey Decimal, who was very popular with the Librarian Party and raised a lot of money lobbying for them. He later fell from grace when he was charged with unleashing the bookworms that sparked the Great Bookworm Pandemic of 1945. Chaos ensued as the little devils chewed through hundreds of books before they were caught by Agnes, the librarian at that particular library who tried to contain them with ether before she herself succumbed to the fumes. Agnes would have been alright but when she passed out, her lit cigarette accidently ignited the Overdue Book List and caught the place on fire. (Back then it was alright to smoke in public. See what your missing kids?) It was all downhill from there with firemen and police and flaming bookwarms running amuck.
But I digress. Enough about Agnes.
Let us move on to other things you have no clue about. Cassette Tapes. These were played in "cassette players" or "boom boxes." Boom boxes were about the size of a labrador retriever. You carried them on your shoulder with Madonna singing "Like A Virgin" at top volume. They ran on 27 size D batteries. Or you could plug them in the wall if you didn't lose the cord upon purchase. Batteries were cooler though cause you couldn't walk down the street very far if you chose to plug it in. However, the con to using batteries was that they only lasted about an hour, maybe two if you were listening to the radio instead of a cassette and just buying batteries alone would literally bankrupt teens who would then have no money left to buy new tapes with, forcing them to make horrible mix tapes off the radio complete with d.j. interruptions.
A storebought cassette by an actual artist, such as Eddie Money or Duran Duran, had a Side A and a Side B. One side had about 5 songs on it. When those songs ended, you opened up the tape deck, took out the tape, flipped it over and played the other side which usually contained about 7 songs instead of 5. I don't know why.
One of the cassette tape's biggest problems was the tape itself. It would get "eaten" by your stereo and you'd have to spend hours fishing it out without breaking the tiny tissue paper-esque tape. The result looked like a mound of brown Easter grass. Once you got the tape out of the implement that had eaten it, you had to spend the next two days manually (remember that word from earlier?) winding the crinkled tape back into the cassette. If you were crafty you stuck a pencil in the winding hole and twirled the pencil. If you didn't have a pencil you had to use your finger which was no fun cause the spokes on the winding wheel would poke you and it took way longer.
Cassettes were the predecessor to the CD which I realize is now outdated. And before the cassettes we had "records" which were like huge black cd's that you put on a "turn table" or "record player" and played by asking your Dad because he could smell you looking at the turn table and if you even thought about using the record player by yourself he would yell from elsewhere in the house "DON'T TOUCH THAT- YOU'LL SCRATCH THE RECORD!!"
Record scratching was followed by paddling which is something else that may be foreign to you. Because back in the day, parents would grab their kid and whack them on the butt if they didn't listen. Time Out hadn't been invented yet and I still question its effectiveness.
And since I've been informed that you all have short attention spans, I will stop here. But there will be more to come. Feel free to comment at will or even better, share me with your friends. There are Facebook, Twitter, etc. buttons at the top left of the screen and also at the bottom. Click on it. I'm ready to go global.
Monday, March 14, 2011
God the Father and the Godfather
Last week it was my turn to be worship leader at church. There are several people who kindly volunteer to do this each week on a rotating schedule and they were running low on kindly volunteers so they asked me if I would be willing. The purpose of the worship leader is to sort of hang out up front and introduce the next thing that's going to happen in church. Kind of like an emcee of sorts. Only instead of being up there the whole entire time, your just there until it gets to the part where the preacher preaches the message, then you hand the whole deal over to him and go sit down with the rest of the flock.
So I said OK! I may have even said it in capital letters with an exclamation point because I was very excited at the prospect of having a captive audience who would be morally obligated to sit there and listen to me ramble for fear that if they tried to get away the mighty hand of God might come crashing down and shoo them back into their seats.
Now may be a good place to interject that although I am TOTALLY into the whole public speaking thing and have no qualms about standing up there in front of everyone (my leader at Dale Carnegie informed me that I have no comfort zone)- I have the speach abilities of a stroke victim. I get so excited that PEOPLE, REAL PEOPLE are going to have to sit there and listen to ME that the thesaurus in my head goes into overload. My vocabulary is way too large and every word I want to say evades me, but I know that there IS a certain word that I'm looking for and my brain races around ("Lycos, go FETCH!") while my poor, poor mouth tries to keep up.
But this past week I thought maybe I could outsmart myself. As a worship leader you have three basic prayers: the Invocation (opening prayer), the Offeratory Prayer (where you pray over the offering) and sometimes the Benediction (the closing prayer.) Now, at our church, the worship leader is free to pray these in any way they choose, so long as it's appropriate. So I, being sneaky, and knowing I need to outsmart my stupidness, wrote out a short Invocation, Offeratory, and Benediction.
I knew that I would be able to cheat and read the Invocation and Benediction prayers, but the one that sort of worried me was the Offeratory prayer. Cause for THAT one, you're standing there in front of the ushers, not behind the podium, and there's no place to hide a little piece of paper with a prayer on it. So I spent the morning repeating and rehearsing my offeratory prayer.
It was exactly like the beginning of the Godfather where the big dude, Luca Brasi, is sitting outside the Corleone house during the wedding reception and he's there muttering to himself the same sentence over and over: "Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your house on this day of your daughter's wedding..." He practices for ever and ever and finally goes in to see the Don and.... screws it up. ("Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your daughter's wedding on the day of.... your daughter's wedding....") But the Don is very understanding and doesn't mind.
That's pretty much how my experience went. I muttered my little two sentence prayer over and over and over all morning long. Then I got up there and.... had no idea what I was going to say. I just went blank. Nothing in my head but the sound of crickets chirping. So I just made it up, stammering as I went. God seemed pretty ok with it and the congregation didn't really mind either. Or at least they were polite enough not to stare at me when church was over.
So I said OK! I may have even said it in capital letters with an exclamation point because I was very excited at the prospect of having a captive audience who would be morally obligated to sit there and listen to me ramble for fear that if they tried to get away the mighty hand of God might come crashing down and shoo them back into their seats.
Now may be a good place to interject that although I am TOTALLY into the whole public speaking thing and have no qualms about standing up there in front of everyone (my leader at Dale Carnegie informed me that I have no comfort zone)- I have the speach abilities of a stroke victim. I get so excited that PEOPLE, REAL PEOPLE are going to have to sit there and listen to ME that the thesaurus in my head goes into overload. My vocabulary is way too large and every word I want to say evades me, but I know that there IS a certain word that I'm looking for and my brain races around ("Lycos, go FETCH!") while my poor, poor mouth tries to keep up.
But this past week I thought maybe I could outsmart myself. As a worship leader you have three basic prayers: the Invocation (opening prayer), the Offeratory Prayer (where you pray over the offering) and sometimes the Benediction (the closing prayer.) Now, at our church, the worship leader is free to pray these in any way they choose, so long as it's appropriate. So I, being sneaky, and knowing I need to outsmart my stupidness, wrote out a short Invocation, Offeratory, and Benediction.
I knew that I would be able to cheat and read the Invocation and Benediction prayers, but the one that sort of worried me was the Offeratory prayer. Cause for THAT one, you're standing there in front of the ushers, not behind the podium, and there's no place to hide a little piece of paper with a prayer on it. So I spent the morning repeating and rehearsing my offeratory prayer.
It was exactly like the beginning of the Godfather where the big dude, Luca Brasi, is sitting outside the Corleone house during the wedding reception and he's there muttering to himself the same sentence over and over: "Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your house on this day of your daughter's wedding..." He practices for ever and ever and finally goes in to see the Don and.... screws it up. ("Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your daughter's wedding on the day of.... your daughter's wedding....") But the Don is very understanding and doesn't mind.
That's pretty much how my experience went. I muttered my little two sentence prayer over and over and over all morning long. Then I got up there and.... had no idea what I was going to say. I just went blank. Nothing in my head but the sound of crickets chirping. So I just made it up, stammering as I went. God seemed pretty ok with it and the congregation didn't really mind either. Or at least they were polite enough not to stare at me when church was over.
And Yet Another Tribute to Ramen Noodles
My friend Carrie sent me this link. If you are on a Ramen Noodle diet it may throw some variety into your otherwise bland and dreary life. Hopefully the link will work and I won't be fined for some copyright infringement.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mattfischer.com%2Framen%2F%3Fcategory_name%3Drecipe&h=be4e1
Enjoy.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mattfischer.com%2Framen%2F%3Fcategory_name%3Drecipe&h=be4e1
Enjoy.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
More Tips for the Poverty Stricken
As I write this, it is 5:48am and I've already had a pot of coffee and cleaned cat puke off the rug. Ce la vie. It's going to be a good day.
Anyhow, the first round of Tips for the Poverty Stricken were so wildly popular with the masses that I felt the need to elaborate further. Here goes:
Tip #1: The Self Hair Cut. You will find at some point, that your hair has grown unmanageable. You will want to have someone cut it for you. Someone who can actually SEE the back of your head. But alas, everyone you know who cuts hair professionally charges....money. And you have none. You can: ration out your Ramen noodles from the Dollar Store to save $12 for a hair cut. You can flip the couch over & shake out all the cushions and roll any change that may spew forth. Or you can cut your hair yourself.
If you follow this blog, you may have noticed a few posts back that I had a little mishap with my own hair recently.See: http://welcometomypsychosis.blogspot.com/2011/03/dealing-with-bad-hand.html (I don't know if clicking on that will really take you there because I'm no internet genius but what the hey, try it out & let me know how it goes, if it doesn't work, just scroll down, like, two posts.) Hair disasters are to be expected when you're penniless. It's like shopping at the Dollar General (they should pay me royalties or something for all the business I'm throwing their way, HINT, HINT!) you don't have to like it but you need to accept it. Plus, think how your hair looks now. Could anything you do really make it worse?
So be brave and fearless, grab those scissors and hack away. We can all look horrible together.
Tip #2: Avoiding the Gas Pump. I've recently noticed the sky rocketing gas prices. This does not help the plight of the Poverty Stricken one bit. One of my favorite hobbies is coasting around with the car on "E", mostly out of necessity, and maybe a little bit because, like Kramer on Seinfeld, I just want to see how far I can really go before the car rolls to a complete stop. Eventually though, you will be forced to mug a nice old lady for $5 so you can put a half gallon in the tank. Make the most of your 12 miles of freedom. Try not to run around all willy-nilly. Plan your trips wisely. (That's actual advice, not the casual sarcasm I usually throw at you.)
Also (back to casual sarcasm) keep a pair of sneakers in your car, if not on your feet. When your car runs out of gas, you'll want to be able to walk to the nearest place to beg use of their phone so a person with more gas than you can come to your rescue.
Why not use your cell phone to call for help? BECAUSE YOU'RE POOR. YOU DON'T HAVE ONE. If you still have a cell phone, you are not poverty stricken, you're just "strapped for cash." Plus, if you live around here, you probably don't get a signal anyways so you might as well just throw your phone in the Raystown Lake. (I don't know why, but that's always where I seem to suggest throwing them, see older posts from 2009 on that subject. Someday they'll drain the dam & find like 10,000 cell phones at the bottom & I'll get hauled in for littering, or at least blamed for it, even though I don't even have a cell phone. But I digress.)
So what were we talking about? Oh yes, make sure you have comfy shoes to walk for help in.
Tip #3 It's Ok to Eat Dead Stuff. Ok, this might offend some. Especially if you are vegan or vegetarian or Californian. If, theoretically, you happen to say, get hit by a deer (not the other way around because after all, your car never left the road- THEY lept out at YOU) while driving down the road minding your own business, and if, theoretically, that hit is fatal to the deer (stay with me on this) why not.... eat it? I'm just sayin'. It's perfectly good meat, you know it's fresh and your car already made hamburger out of most of it. It's not like the deer's family is going to come by and demand you return the body so they can properly lay it to rest at the side of the road for the buzzards to snack on. And, let me remind you, you're Poverty Stricken (I like to capitalize those words to make us Poverty Stricken feel important) you don't get to pick & choose any more. You're a bottom feeder now and you're probably getty pret-ty sick of those Ramen noodles.
So if you run over something substantial, go on, eat it. But first butcher it and cook it. I don't want you to get worms then get all fussy at me for not telling you to cook it first. Sheesh, do I have to do all the work around here? ***NOTE**** Dear PETA, do not send me any letters telling me I'm awful for eating God's animals. That's why he gave them to me in the first place. Plus the deer was dead anyhow. Why waste it?
Ok. Well that's it for today, my caffeine induced haze is wearing off. See you next time, kids. Same bat time. Same bat channel.
Anyhow, the first round of Tips for the Poverty Stricken were so wildly popular with the masses that I felt the need to elaborate further. Here goes:
Tip #1: The Self Hair Cut. You will find at some point, that your hair has grown unmanageable. You will want to have someone cut it for you. Someone who can actually SEE the back of your head. But alas, everyone you know who cuts hair professionally charges....money. And you have none. You can: ration out your Ramen noodles from the Dollar Store to save $12 for a hair cut. You can flip the couch over & shake out all the cushions and roll any change that may spew forth. Or you can cut your hair yourself.
If you follow this blog, you may have noticed a few posts back that I had a little mishap with my own hair recently.See: http://welcometomypsychosis.blogspot.com/2011/03/dealing-with-bad-hand.html (I don't know if clicking on that will really take you there because I'm no internet genius but what the hey, try it out & let me know how it goes, if it doesn't work, just scroll down, like, two posts.) Hair disasters are to be expected when you're penniless. It's like shopping at the Dollar General (they should pay me royalties or something for all the business I'm throwing their way, HINT, HINT!) you don't have to like it but you need to accept it. Plus, think how your hair looks now. Could anything you do really make it worse?
So be brave and fearless, grab those scissors and hack away. We can all look horrible together.
Tip #2: Avoiding the Gas Pump. I've recently noticed the sky rocketing gas prices. This does not help the plight of the Poverty Stricken one bit. One of my favorite hobbies is coasting around with the car on "E", mostly out of necessity, and maybe a little bit because, like Kramer on Seinfeld, I just want to see how far I can really go before the car rolls to a complete stop. Eventually though, you will be forced to mug a nice old lady for $5 so you can put a half gallon in the tank. Make the most of your 12 miles of freedom. Try not to run around all willy-nilly. Plan your trips wisely. (That's actual advice, not the casual sarcasm I usually throw at you.)
Also (back to casual sarcasm) keep a pair of sneakers in your car, if not on your feet. When your car runs out of gas, you'll want to be able to walk to the nearest place to beg use of their phone so a person with more gas than you can come to your rescue.
Why not use your cell phone to call for help? BECAUSE YOU'RE POOR. YOU DON'T HAVE ONE. If you still have a cell phone, you are not poverty stricken, you're just "strapped for cash." Plus, if you live around here, you probably don't get a signal anyways so you might as well just throw your phone in the Raystown Lake. (I don't know why, but that's always where I seem to suggest throwing them, see older posts from 2009 on that subject. Someday they'll drain the dam & find like 10,000 cell phones at the bottom & I'll get hauled in for littering, or at least blamed for it, even though I don't even have a cell phone. But I digress.)
So what were we talking about? Oh yes, make sure you have comfy shoes to walk for help in.
Tip #3 It's Ok to Eat Dead Stuff. Ok, this might offend some. Especially if you are vegan or vegetarian or Californian. If, theoretically, you happen to say, get hit by a deer (not the other way around because after all, your car never left the road- THEY lept out at YOU) while driving down the road minding your own business, and if, theoretically, that hit is fatal to the deer (stay with me on this) why not.... eat it? I'm just sayin'. It's perfectly good meat, you know it's fresh and your car already made hamburger out of most of it. It's not like the deer's family is going to come by and demand you return the body so they can properly lay it to rest at the side of the road for the buzzards to snack on. And, let me remind you, you're Poverty Stricken (I like to capitalize those words to make us Poverty Stricken feel important) you don't get to pick & choose any more. You're a bottom feeder now and you're probably getty pret-ty sick of those Ramen noodles.
So if you run over something substantial, go on, eat it. But first butcher it and cook it. I don't want you to get worms then get all fussy at me for not telling you to cook it first. Sheesh, do I have to do all the work around here? ***NOTE**** Dear PETA, do not send me any letters telling me I'm awful for eating God's animals. That's why he gave them to me in the first place. Plus the deer was dead anyhow. Why waste it?
Ok. Well that's it for today, my caffeine induced haze is wearing off. See you next time, kids. Same bat time. Same bat channel.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
A Pawn In Their Evil Scheme
It started so innocently. Someone opened an Old Folks Home in town. Then another one opened across the street. After a few decades, they both slowly, ever so slowly, began to expand. First by building an addition here, and an addition there. Then, ever so sneakily, they began to stretch outward in a never ending sea of cottages and apartments. They gave the new streets quaint names like “Memory Lane” & “Milk of Magnesia Rd.” No one noticed. No one ever saw it coming.
For years we’ve been ignoring them. It’s what they counted on. It gave them time to see their plans come to fruition without the younger crowd foolishly interfering. It’s all part of their master plot. Yes. The Old People are taking over the world and Martinsburg has become their sprawling Mecca.
Now that they’ve taken over the town, they no longer stay contained within the confines of the Homes. They’re Day Walkers. Worse yet, Day Drivers. Randy Marsh on South Park was right when he went running down the road screaming “STAN! STAN! GET OFF THE ROAD!! THE OLD PEOPLE ARE DRIVING!!” Oh I’ve seen it. And since most of my very part-time jobs are in Martinsburg, I’ve even been stranded in their parades, slowly cruising through town with the other dismayed drivers reaching break neck speeds of 15mph.
But the Day Drivers are just a distraction. They’re like Kamikaze drivers sent forth to wreak havoc and chaos while the others, yes there are others, stay behind in the secret lair to continue plotting. Although I have no blue prints or otherwise solid evidence to back up my theory, I feel fairly confident that there is a huge underground room that connects the two Old Folks Homes. They call it the “Canasta Room” but that’s not what’s really going on inside. That’s just a clever guise to ward off any intruding Younger People.
Imagine my surprise to find myself part of their evil schemes. Do you know why? Because they have mastered the power of Mind Control. They needed a younger body, a minion of sorts to do their bidding. I still don’ t know how they hooked me originally. But when I step back, I realize that a lot of my friends are retired plus. They range from early 60’s to mid 80’s. I’m only 33. And apparently they’ve been secretly grooming me for years. The church ladies, my Quilting Ladies, even my OWN GRANDMOTHER (Gram! How could you!) Their plot is so diabolical that even I, the Chosen One, have yet to discover what they’re really up to.
Their geriatric apocalypse is nigh. But I’m sure they’ll wrap it up by 3:30pm so they can be back to have dinner by 5:00pm and be in bed by 6:30pm. And it won’t be on a Saturday cause that’s when everyone gathers in the “Canasta Room” to watch Lawrence Welk blow bubbles on their gigantic flat screen television while they enjoy umbrella drinks filled with Ensure.
I am supposed to be marking a quilt right now. But the then the Old People “inspired” me to blog instead, thus rendering me useless to all humanity. And there was nothing I could do about it. See how they are? It's all about trickery. They’re very clever. Well played, Old People.
For years we’ve been ignoring them. It’s what they counted on. It gave them time to see their plans come to fruition without the younger crowd foolishly interfering. It’s all part of their master plot. Yes. The Old People are taking over the world and Martinsburg has become their sprawling Mecca.
Now that they’ve taken over the town, they no longer stay contained within the confines of the Homes. They’re Day Walkers. Worse yet, Day Drivers. Randy Marsh on South Park was right when he went running down the road screaming “STAN! STAN! GET OFF THE ROAD!! THE OLD PEOPLE ARE DRIVING!!” Oh I’ve seen it. And since most of my very part-time jobs are in Martinsburg, I’ve even been stranded in their parades, slowly cruising through town with the other dismayed drivers reaching break neck speeds of 15mph.
But the Day Drivers are just a distraction. They’re like Kamikaze drivers sent forth to wreak havoc and chaos while the others, yes there are others, stay behind in the secret lair to continue plotting. Although I have no blue prints or otherwise solid evidence to back up my theory, I feel fairly confident that there is a huge underground room that connects the two Old Folks Homes. They call it the “Canasta Room” but that’s not what’s really going on inside. That’s just a clever guise to ward off any intruding Younger People.
Imagine my surprise to find myself part of their evil schemes. Do you know why? Because they have mastered the power of Mind Control. They needed a younger body, a minion of sorts to do their bidding. I still don’ t know how they hooked me originally. But when I step back, I realize that a lot of my friends are retired plus. They range from early 60’s to mid 80’s. I’m only 33. And apparently they’ve been secretly grooming me for years. The church ladies, my Quilting Ladies, even my OWN GRANDMOTHER (Gram! How could you!) Their plot is so diabolical that even I, the Chosen One, have yet to discover what they’re really up to.
Their geriatric apocalypse is nigh. But I’m sure they’ll wrap it up by 3:30pm so they can be back to have dinner by 5:00pm and be in bed by 6:30pm. And it won’t be on a Saturday cause that’s when everyone gathers in the “Canasta Room” to watch Lawrence Welk blow bubbles on their gigantic flat screen television while they enjoy umbrella drinks filled with Ensure.
I am supposed to be marking a quilt right now. But the then the Old People “inspired” me to blog instead, thus rendering me useless to all humanity. And there was nothing I could do about it. See how they are? It's all about trickery. They’re very clever. Well played, Old People.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Dealing With a Bad Hand
I had one of those "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" slow motion moments just now when I inadvertently dumped most of the broth from my Ramen noodles down that tiny slot between my counter and my stove. (I know, Ramen noodles - Ha Ha!) I don't know how it happened. My hands have poured noodles from a pan to a bowl many times. Why is it that they suddenly decided to pour the soup elsewhere?
Did I begin the pour with too much gusto? I don't know but I am certainly not pulling the stove out to sop up that broth. It can lay there and congeal with all the other food particles I've lost down there over the years.
Last week I decided to cut my bangs. I'm a beauty school drop out, I can handle it. Or so I thought. I looked in the mirror and deduced that the very best length at which to cut them would be the bridge of my nose. Excellent! Good plan Kelly! I opened up the medicine cabinet to pull out my scissors. I held the scissors in my hand and closed the door, peering in the mirror. Then I proceeded to wack off a chunk of hair at my eyebrow line, not the bridge of my nose. What the??!!! WE HAD A PLAN. WHY DID MY HAND NOT FOLLOW THE PLAN?!
That slight of hand left me with Audrey Hepburn - Breakfast at Tiffany's bangs. Only she could pull it off. And I'm pretty sure she didn't cut them herself. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't know why my hands are sabotaging everything I do. Maybe this is a side effect from eating so many Ramen noodles from the Dollar Store.
Did I begin the pour with too much gusto? I don't know but I am certainly not pulling the stove out to sop up that broth. It can lay there and congeal with all the other food particles I've lost down there over the years.
Last week I decided to cut my bangs. I'm a beauty school drop out, I can handle it. Or so I thought. I looked in the mirror and deduced that the very best length at which to cut them would be the bridge of my nose. Excellent! Good plan Kelly! I opened up the medicine cabinet to pull out my scissors. I held the scissors in my hand and closed the door, peering in the mirror. Then I proceeded to wack off a chunk of hair at my eyebrow line, not the bridge of my nose. What the??!!! WE HAD A PLAN. WHY DID MY HAND NOT FOLLOW THE PLAN?!
That slight of hand left me with Audrey Hepburn - Breakfast at Tiffany's bangs. Only she could pull it off. And I'm pretty sure she didn't cut them herself. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't know why my hands are sabotaging everything I do. Maybe this is a side effect from eating so many Ramen noodles from the Dollar Store.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
A Tribute To My Running Partner
Having a slow, deaf dog tag along on a run was not my idea of exercise and I began to cleverly sneak away when he wasn’t looking. I’d peep out the window to see where in the yard or on the porch he was laying. Then I would exit through the door farthest away from him. He couldn’t hear so if I was vewy, vewy qwiet (Elmer Fudd) I could get out of sight before he woke up and noticed me. I thought.
But Bud had a keen nose on him that must have been compensating for his lack of hearing. That blasted dog could smell me leave the house. (I didn’t think I smelled that bad really.) So I had to watch out the window to see which way the breeze was blowing and throw that into my sneaking equation also. This might be a good place to add that I’m really bad at math so anything involving equations for me is not going to end well.
No matter how quickly or quietly I left the property, about a half a mile down the road I would hear the jingle of his dog tags and the clacking of his toenails on the pavement somewhere behind me. I would turn around and there in the distance, smiling with his tongue hanging out would be my old pal Bud, jogging to catch up with me.
The Husband once watched Bud track me through the yard after I left. He said Bud appeared out of nowhere (he had been sleeping under the porch) and starting sniffing all around the house till he found my scent at the door. Then he tracked my steps down to the shop (where I had stopped to say “Hey! I’m going for a run –try to distract Bud if you see him” ) and then proceeded to zig zag through the yard in the exact same places I had walked. Yes, he would follow me anywhere.
Part of this weird devotion started when he was young. Bud & I were strolling down the road together and he hopped up on a bank into a field to sniff around. The weeds were high and he didn’t know I was there when he came leaping through them, off the bank and onto…me. He flattened me right there on the road. It knocked me almost to the yellow line where I lay, staring at the sky and laughing, despite the road rash. Thank God no one ran me over. Bud ran over to me and desperately licked my face in an apology. After that incident, he never left my side again. I didn’t have to use a leash, he stuck right there with me. Until he couldn't keep up anymore. But that didn't stop him from trying.
You may be thinking "Why not just tie him up or throw him in the house if you didn't want him to go?" Valid question. Believe me, I tried. But the minute Bud smelled my running shoes, he'd go bananas and turn into a puppy again, jumping and leaping away from me every time I lunged at him to put him in the basement. There was no catching him. If he saw: me in a pony tail, me wearing running shoes, or me in a baseball hat, an aura of joy immediately enveloped him, giving him super canine powers to scamper and evade. These powers only lasted until I actually started down the road with him in tow and he would revert back to Old Man Winters again, still smiling cause he won.
Last summer I all but gave up and just walked all year, knowing there was no escaping Bud. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So we poked along all summer and fall.
But this year it will be different. My oldest running partner got called home in November, leaving a big sad empty hole in our lives where he used to be. His collar is hanging on a peg in the basement. I’ve laced his dog tags onto my running shoes so he can still be with me every time I go for a run. What I wouldn’t give now to hear those toenails clacking down the road again.
In Loving Memory
"Bud"
Nov. 1996 - Nov. 2010
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