Stuck on "Loop"

My dad called me yesterday with an assignment (we're like that show Charlie's Angels- he calls and deals out orders, I go take care of them with well placed roundhouse kicks.) My assignment yesterday was to "Go look at your Pap's cd/dvd player, he says it says "no disc."

O....K.... I guess... I'm really not electronically minded so he'd probably have better luck getting my eight year old nephew to fix it.   But since I have occasion to drive past Pap's more than my other relatives I decided to swing by and take a looksee while I was out running errands.

Pap wasn't home at the time so I plopped down in front of his tv to investigate. As it turns out, my prognosis is that the sensor eye (or whatever that thingy is called) that reads the discs was only recognizing them now and then. Mostly he was right, it would just say "no disc." But every now and then I would get one to work.

So I left a note explaining that to the best of my abilities and told him to call me if he has questions.
Later on in the evening he did.

Me: Hey Pap, how's it going?

Pap: I can't get this thing to work. It says no disc.

Me: Yeah, I know, it only works sometimes.

Pap: Well I have a disc in it.

Me: I know, it was doing that for me too.

Pap: Well how's it supposed to work if it says no disc?

Me: I don't know. I think the sensor is bad in it.

Pap: Well I have the wires hooked up.

Me: I know. It's inside your machine, not the wires.

Pap: Well why isn't it working?

Me: Because the sensor thingy isn't reading the disc.

Pap: Yeah, it says no disc. What buttons did you push to make it play?

Me: Um the same ones you do?

Pap: How did you get it to work?

Me: Luck?

Pap: Well it's not working now. Why isn't it working now?

Me: Pap, it has Alzheimer's. It only works sometimes, when it feels like it. I don't know how it knows when it wants to work and when it doesn't.

Pap: Tell me what button to push.

Me: You're probably pushing the right buttons. It's not your fault, your machine is just going nutty.

Pap: Wait! It says loading.... HEY- there it is, it's playing!!

Me: Yay! See I told you it would work for me sometimes.

Pap: Let me try another one.....Ok, it says "loading."  HA- now it says no disc! How's it supposed to play if it says no disc?

Me: sigh....

An Evening At My House

A typical evening goes something like this:

1. I let the puppy up from the basement to socialize with me and play with his toys. 

2. I put in an exercise DVD and workout while the puppy plays.

3. The puppy remembers that we have a cat.

4. The puppy barks at the cat.

5. I keep exercising.

6. The cat hisses at the puppy. I ignore both of them and keep on working out.

7. The puppy starts chasing the cat.

8. The cat runs into the living room and hides under the couch. This would be a spectacular hiding place if she'd shut up and quit growling and spitting while she's under there. (She's awful at hide & seek.) 

9. I keep exercising.

10. The dog runs into the living room and barks at the couch, which has hissing sounds coming from underneath it. 

11. The cat runs out of the room.

12. The puppy chases her.

13. Repeat steps 4-12 about six more times.

14. I finally get sick of hearing the hissing, growling and barking so I separate them. The puppy gets yelled at.

15. I go back to exercising. 

16. The puppy is somewhere being quiet and this makes me and the cat happy.

17. The puppy runs into the room wagging his tail.

18. The puppy gives me a big fat kiss. 

19. Aw, I think, that was nice. And then I smell it. Cat poop. He was eating cat poop and now he's licked me and my face smells like cat poop. 

20. I scream and try not to barf as I run upstairs to scrub my face with bleach.

21. The puppy spends the rest of his evening playing outside. 

22. The cat sits smugly at the top of the stairs. She has prevailed again. 

$1 Death Meal

I've always prided myself on being a hearty un-picky eater. I like food. There is nary a food I will not try. That isn't to say that I LIKE Brussels sprouts but I will eat them without complaining. For a long time, hot dogs were the only thing I couldn't eat. I got dogged out as a little kid and just lost my taste for them. But for the past several years I've been eating bites of them here and there in an effort to build up my hot dog tolerance and I'm happy to announce that I can now eat them without throwing up if there is nothing else to eat. But just like the sprouts, I would not naturally gravitate towards them if there were other foods available.

Yes, the wonderful world of food offers many delights and I enjoy them all. I eat calamari, sushi, Mexican foods, Chinese food, Japanese food, sea food, raw food, cooked food, expired food. On cruises my favorite meal of the week is when I get to have escargot in garlic butter. (Snails, people.) When I watch Andrew Zimmern I get jealous when he's shoveling bar-be-qued scorpions into his mouth. As long as the meal is not moving and is prepared in some way, it looks good to me. I'd try it. 

That is why I was so shocked yesterday when I couldn't eat the cheap frozen dinner my husband bought for me. (He was eating one too and he is the world's pickiest eater. Ever.) It was a "BBQ Ribs" meal but the meat thing clearly wasn't anywhere close to being the real deal. I'm not even sure it was originally a pork product. It smelled fine, looked gross. Far be it from me to judge a food based on looks so I eagerly cut off a bite and shoveled it in. Even as it was entering my mouth, the little guys in my brain in charge of food intake were screaming "NO! NO! RED ALERT!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T EAT THAT!!" But it was too late, it had already hit my tongue. I did manage to chew and swallow that bite without gagging but the rest of the mystery patty had to stay in the plastic tray. The sad part of this story is that I was starving (not really, but at lunch time, if you try to keep me away from food, I get really aggressive. And if you ever get in front of me at a buffet line, don't dilly-dally or I will ram your tray right out of your hands.) I looked down the break room at Jimmy who was slurping down spaghetti he brought from home complete with buttered bread and seriously considered beating him up for his lunch. Instead I had to make a PB & J out of the questionable ingredients I found in the break room. 

I can't believe I found a food that defeated me.

What was that?

In an effort to keep my legs from exploding out of their jeans (this is where Gram says "Oh Kelly, your legs are not going to explode out of your jeans, why do you talk like that?" And I say "Gram, have you tried on jeans lately, they're not made of 100% cotton anymore like in the old days, now they're like 90% spandex so although they are stretchy, there is a maximum stretching point.") But back to the point- in an effort to fight off the evil cellulite gnomes that sneak into my room at night, I started going to Zumba.

Zumba is a fun filled hour of gasping for air and trying not to accidentally pummel the person beside you with your flailing limbs. I like it. Most of the time when I'm not gasping or flailing, I'm doubled over from laughing at my own uncoordination. At the end of the hour, I am drenched with sweat. Some ladies there can do the whole workout in a sweatshirt and their hair is still fluffy and perfect. When I am done, my head is soaked, my face is red and the sweat is wicking out of my pony tail and dripping onto my back. In order to keep my sweat contained to just my area of the floor, I take with me a hand towel to mop my head off with between songs.

Last week after class, I draped the towel over my head, put on my coat and left. When I put the car in reverse to back up, I realized that the towel was sort of blocking my peripheral vision so I tucked the front of it on either side behind my ears. I suppose I could have just taken it off my head altogether but I was sweaty and it was freezing outside and the car was cold so I just tucked it and left it up there.

On my way home, I encountered a car who had missed the road and ended up in a ditch. There were two guys standing there with their hands in their pockets pondering the situation. As I drove away I felt sort of bad for not stopping and asking if they needed help so I turned around & went back.

I rolled down the window & asked if they needed help. They both looked at me & Shirley (my car) and said they didn't think my little car would be of any use to pull them out. Then they went back to looking at the ditched car with their hands in their pockets which I figured was my cue to drive away so I did.

As I was pulling into the driveway, I realized that my towel was still on my head tucked behind my ears, which  in the dark, and only seeing my head by the glow of the dashboard lights, would have made me look like a weird sweaty nun. No wonder they didn't want my help.