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....
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
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.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
$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.
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.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
If You Happened to Look In My Window Today...
Every now and again I wonder to myself what people would think if they saw what was going on inside my house. For example:
My kitchen looks like a hobo has been using it to hoard random items found on the street. Shoes that don't match, one mitten, three weeks worth of mail piled up and falling off the table. Dishes in the sink. Stuff like that. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
Then there's me. I just walked four miles with that crazy Leslie Sansone wearing shorts and two-toned blue knee high socks and sneakers. My hair was plastered back in a pony tail and helped out by two bobby pins in my bangs. Classic Revenge of the Nerds look. The knee socks gave my legs the appearance of lumpy white stuffed sausages.If someone had rang the doorbell, I would have hid. Now that that's over, I've shucked off the knee socks and started to color my hair starting with just the roots for 20 minutes so I look a lot like Medusa on a bad day. And I'm sitting in front of the computer eating a burrito from Taco Bell (left over from last night.) It's all so weird and random.
On another rambling note, I posted this on facebook and I'll say it again:
Dear Men/Boys/Anyone of the Male Gender,
It is Never ok for you to wear "skinny jeans." And unless you are the actual original Lone Ranger, it is also never ok to tuck your pants into your boots. Never. Ever.
My kitchen looks like a hobo has been using it to hoard random items found on the street. Shoes that don't match, one mitten, three weeks worth of mail piled up and falling off the table. Dishes in the sink. Stuff like that. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
Then there's me. I just walked four miles with that crazy Leslie Sansone wearing shorts and two-toned blue knee high socks and sneakers. My hair was plastered back in a pony tail and helped out by two bobby pins in my bangs. Classic Revenge of the Nerds look. The knee socks gave my legs the appearance of lumpy white stuffed sausages.If someone had rang the doorbell, I would have hid. Now that that's over, I've shucked off the knee socks and started to color my hair starting with just the roots for 20 minutes so I look a lot like Medusa on a bad day. And I'm sitting in front of the computer eating a burrito from Taco Bell (left over from last night.) It's all so weird and random.
On another rambling note, I posted this on facebook and I'll say it again:
Dear Men/Boys/Anyone of the Male Gender,
It is Never ok for you to wear "skinny jeans." And unless you are the actual original Lone Ranger, it is also never ok to tuck your pants into your boots. Never. Ever.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Information Overload - Out With The Old, Out With The New
My brain has become so full of information lately that it no longer stores things neatly in files to be found later. The clerk inside my head who processes information is so busy that she hasn't gone home to eat or sleep in weeks. I picture her as Madam Trelawney in the Harry Potter movies.
Instead of the neatly filed drawers in alphabetical order, there is now just a huge in-bin with papers cascading to the floor. Sad really.
What's sadder is that I have full confidence that this system will magically work when I need it too. For example: Yesterday, at one of my jobs, I had the pleasure of learning a new task. I enjoyed this new task very much. However, it taxed Madam Trelawney to no end. Not only did my new task involve math, which both I and Madam Trelawney hate more than screaming babies, but it also involved me having to try to remember where an entire warehouse of ingredients was stored.
I bet you think I'm kidding. I assure you I am not. It was like playing an all day game of Memory, which I also hate. I would ask a co-worker "Where is the Energy Boost?" and they would explain in full detail where in the warehouse to find it. Then I would say "Ok, well, where is the epsom salt?" And they would explain that also. While they were explaining that, Madam Trelawney would throw down the information containing the whereabouts of the Engergy Boost and begin to furiously scribble down directions to the epsom salt. By the time we got to the warehouse, she had forgotton where she put that also. I would forgive her and look for a mysterious third ingredient in hopes that I would just happen upon the missing first two in my search.
Some of the ingredients I searched for had no label and some had a label named something different than what was written down. (Me: Where is the biotin? Co-Worker: Oh, that's in the bin labeled "magnesium sulphate." Of course it is.) I felt like I was trapped in the Legend of Zelda, where you search for stupid Zelda all day long but no one ever really finds her. In the end, you die jumping over something pointy and have to start all over at the beginning. I did level up and gain an extra life after I successfully remembered where the red rumensin pellets where.
All of this was a challenge, and yet, at Thanksgiving, when my sister was bemoaning the fact that she couldn't find the envelope containing her employment papers for her new job, I clearly recalled that she told me the week before that it was in her van. This is info I did not need to retain, but somehow, I did. Well done Madam Trelawney.
Instead of the neatly filed drawers in alphabetical order, there is now just a huge in-bin with papers cascading to the floor. Sad really.
What's sadder is that I have full confidence that this system will magically work when I need it too. For example: Yesterday, at one of my jobs, I had the pleasure of learning a new task. I enjoyed this new task very much. However, it taxed Madam Trelawney to no end. Not only did my new task involve math, which both I and Madam Trelawney hate more than screaming babies, but it also involved me having to try to remember where an entire warehouse of ingredients was stored.
I bet you think I'm kidding. I assure you I am not. It was like playing an all day game of Memory, which I also hate. I would ask a co-worker "Where is the Energy Boost?" and they would explain in full detail where in the warehouse to find it. Then I would say "Ok, well, where is the epsom salt?" And they would explain that also. While they were explaining that, Madam Trelawney would throw down the information containing the whereabouts of the Engergy Boost and begin to furiously scribble down directions to the epsom salt. By the time we got to the warehouse, she had forgotton where she put that also. I would forgive her and look for a mysterious third ingredient in hopes that I would just happen upon the missing first two in my search.
Some of the ingredients I searched for had no label and some had a label named something different than what was written down. (Me: Where is the biotin? Co-Worker: Oh, that's in the bin labeled "magnesium sulphate." Of course it is.) I felt like I was trapped in the Legend of Zelda, where you search for stupid Zelda all day long but no one ever really finds her. In the end, you die jumping over something pointy and have to start all over at the beginning. I did level up and gain an extra life after I successfully remembered where the red rumensin pellets where.
All of this was a challenge, and yet, at Thanksgiving, when my sister was bemoaning the fact that she couldn't find the envelope containing her employment papers for her new job, I clearly recalled that she told me the week before that it was in her van. This is info I did not need to retain, but somehow, I did. Well done Madam Trelawney.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Drama-Cat: Gladys Goes To the Vet
Today was that magical day that happens once a year. No, not Christmas. It was Take Gladys To The Vet Day. Every year we start warning her and taunting her about it weeks ahead of time.
"Gladys! You get to go see Dr. Charlie soon!" we say in our sing-song voice.
Gladys usually blinks her disdain and ignores us. As if ignoring us will make it not happen. Cats are like that.
On the big day, or sometimes the night before if I'm really on my A-game, I drag the cat carrier up from the basement and wipe the cobwebs and coal dust off of it. Then it sits on the kitchen floor. Gladys senses that it is there and avoids it. She is still in denial that this IS going to happen.
When it's time to depart, I go looking for Gladys. This is her red flag that something big is going down because we usually just leave the house without searching for her first. I sometimes try to bait her into entering the kitchen on her own but it just feels wrong since I know that she is going to see the cat carrier and run the other way. So this year I picked her up and immediately wished I had gotten her back claws removed also.
Cats have a way of growing seven more arms and legs when you are trying to stuff them into a cat carrier. She pretty much spreads all of her limbs out, her back claws grow an extra three inches and you begin to re-evaluate the physics of jamming such a large cat into such a small hole.
Perhaps it can't be done, I say to myself. Then I remember that just last week she wiggled under the dresser in the quilting room which only has about a 6 inch clearance. I jokingly asked her if I was going to have to employ the jaws of life to get her fat body out from underneath it when she deftly swooped back out at me in a failed ambush attempt.
This year my husband was on hand to witness the circus that is Vet Day. He thinks I make it up how dramatic she is about the whole affair. Now he has seen the light. He picked up Gladys and tried getting her in the cat carrier. With the two of us working together, we managed to get her pushed in. We examined each other's wounds and tried to find that one finger of his that she sliced off. Yowling and crying poured forth from the carrier. And continued for the whole 20 minute car ride to the vet.
At first she tried the distressed yowl. I turned the car radio on. Then she started peppering the yowls with growls. I turned the radio up louder. She added hissing to the repertoire. I started to sing along with the radio. That was when she gave up and switched tactics to the Poor Pitiful Me meow. If you've ever watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation you may remember the part where Aunt Brittany accidently wraps the cat up in a box. The box is making terrible noises and thrashing about wildly. That's what Gladys does inside her cat carrier between the house & the car, the car & the vet's.
At Dr. Charlie's, we went into the exam room. (Lights please.) We waited a moment or two. (Camera....Gladys Goes to the Vet Take One....Action!) The nurse came in and opened her carrier and instead of springing out like a crazy baboon, she walked out calm, collected and graceful. Like a movie star on the red carpet. There was no sign of the poofy tail or the big yellow saucer eyes. She walked that counter like she owned it.
Dr. Charlie came in and said hello to her. She curtsied. He checked her ears with q-tips to make sure they were clean. She sat perfectly still, as if we spend every day sticking q-tips in her ears. He pulled her lips back to check her teeth. She smiled and batted her eyes. When it was time for her shot, she acted bored. Needles, shmeedles.
And then for the grand finale (I love this part and I swear some year I will take a video camera) Dr. Charlie opens up the cat carrier door and says "Would you like to go home now Gladys?" And the cat who butchered and maimed us just a half hour before for even SUGGESTING such a thing, put her tail in the air in a delicate curve, and walked into her cat carrier as if she were the queen. (Cut! That's a wrap, folks.)
"Gladys! You get to go see Dr. Charlie soon!" we say in our sing-song voice.
Gladys usually blinks her disdain and ignores us. As if ignoring us will make it not happen. Cats are like that.
Here is the usual silliness we are forced to put up with.
On the big day, or sometimes the night before if I'm really on my A-game, I drag the cat carrier up from the basement and wipe the cobwebs and coal dust off of it. Then it sits on the kitchen floor. Gladys senses that it is there and avoids it. She is still in denial that this IS going to happen.
When it's time to depart, I go looking for Gladys. This is her red flag that something big is going down because we usually just leave the house without searching for her first. I sometimes try to bait her into entering the kitchen on her own but it just feels wrong since I know that she is going to see the cat carrier and run the other way. So this year I picked her up and immediately wished I had gotten her back claws removed also.
Cats have a way of growing seven more arms and legs when you are trying to stuff them into a cat carrier. She pretty much spreads all of her limbs out, her back claws grow an extra three inches and you begin to re-evaluate the physics of jamming such a large cat into such a small hole.
Perhaps it can't be done, I say to myself. Then I remember that just last week she wiggled under the dresser in the quilting room which only has about a 6 inch clearance. I jokingly asked her if I was going to have to employ the jaws of life to get her fat body out from underneath it when she deftly swooped back out at me in a failed ambush attempt.
This year my husband was on hand to witness the circus that is Vet Day. He thinks I make it up how dramatic she is about the whole affair. Now he has seen the light. He picked up Gladys and tried getting her in the cat carrier. With the two of us working together, we managed to get her pushed in. We examined each other's wounds and tried to find that one finger of his that she sliced off. Yowling and crying poured forth from the carrier. And continued for the whole 20 minute car ride to the vet.
At first she tried the distressed yowl. I turned the car radio on. Then she started peppering the yowls with growls. I turned the radio up louder. She added hissing to the repertoire. I started to sing along with the radio. That was when she gave up and switched tactics to the Poor Pitiful Me meow. If you've ever watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation you may remember the part where Aunt Brittany accidently wraps the cat up in a box. The box is making terrible noises and thrashing about wildly. That's what Gladys does inside her cat carrier between the house & the car, the car & the vet's.
At Dr. Charlie's, we went into the exam room. (Lights please.) We waited a moment or two. (Camera....Gladys Goes to the Vet Take One....Action!) The nurse came in and opened her carrier and instead of springing out like a crazy baboon, she walked out calm, collected and graceful. Like a movie star on the red carpet. There was no sign of the poofy tail or the big yellow saucer eyes. She walked that counter like she owned it.
Dr. Charlie came in and said hello to her. She curtsied. He checked her ears with q-tips to make sure they were clean. She sat perfectly still, as if we spend every day sticking q-tips in her ears. He pulled her lips back to check her teeth. She smiled and batted her eyes. When it was time for her shot, she acted bored. Needles, shmeedles.
And then for the grand finale (I love this part and I swear some year I will take a video camera) Dr. Charlie opens up the cat carrier door and says "Would you like to go home now Gladys?" And the cat who butchered and maimed us just a half hour before for even SUGGESTING such a thing, put her tail in the air in a delicate curve, and walked into her cat carrier as if she were the queen. (Cut! That's a wrap, folks.)
The queen setting majestically on her Victorian couch.
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