The other night, Steve and I recorded a documentary on the History Channel (I heart the history channel, by the way) about the "Lost Book of Nostradamas." It was quite fascinating, but then, I've always liked to hear about guys like Nostradamas and Cayce, who say they've predicted the future. Actually, I saw the show before Steve did because I was home when it was originally aired. So when Steve watched it, I was able to go back and pick up on some of the things I missed before.

What a load of poo.

You know, I like to think I'm more open minded about this sort of stuff than I used to be. I could even go as far as believeing that there are honestly people who have the power to see into the future, but I'm not so sure that Nostradamas was one of them. The more I listened to the "experts" talk about his predictions and about what the book meant - it was a book of pictures instead of quatrains - the more silly it all sounded. Granted, these people are much more educated than I am, and apparently there are real-life symbologists who can decode things a la the Davinci Code, but something about these people seemed slightly desperate in their attempt at decode the pictures. So, just in case you are wondering, Nostradamas predicts (according to the experts) that the world might possibly end in 2012, there is going to be a bad Pope (I believe it will be Josh) and aliens will come to earth in silver tubes to teach the children of the people who survive armageddon how to use their special X-Men like powers. If you get a chance to watch the documentary, please do, because if nothing else it was entertaining.

Personally, I think it was just a 16th century comic book about SuperPope and his sidekick Snake-Man. I'm almost positive I saw a ninja in there.

Oh yeah, and another thing about it drove me nuts. You'll have to pardon me for being such a nerd about this, I beg of you. All through this documentary, they had these 16th century pages that they were leafing through that made up the book. These pages had been painted on with watercolors and were in almost pristine condition. They maybe had a little darkening of the paper because of age, but that was all. These so called "experts" were flipping through the book with their bare hands! You don't do that!!!!!!!! One lady even rested her arm on it while she was talking! I know that probably sounds like a stupid thing to be upset about, but really. The acids from your skin would eat through that vellum like crazy, not to mention that it would get stained! Even if it wasn't by Nostradamas, it's a beautiful old book and these people were treating it like an old newspaper. It made me sick to my stomach.

I took this picture and I liked it. So I thought I'd share. : )
Yes, it's a broken church window.

I was seriously going to give blood during the blood drive they are having here today. Granted, I have the needle issue, but I was going to try and get through it so I could help some people.

I had to change my mind after last night.

Part of our ongoing mission to get life insurance was that we had to get a short physical where they planned to take blood pressure, height/weight, urine, and blood. No big deal, right? The nurse was waiting on us when I got home yesterday, and since Steve was caught up at work, I went first. Everything was fine up until the blood draw. The nurse was really nice and she was talking to me through the whole thing, which was keeping me calm when the needle came out. She stuck it in my left arm and filled a vial that seemed about the size of a hot dog. Then she reached for a smaller vial and stuck it onto the needle and nothing happened. She said 'What?' and started pushing at the place in my vein that the needle was sticking in. Still nothing. Then the needle slipped out of my arm. Lovely. So she apologized and grabbed another small purple vial, but had to insert a new needle into my right arm. She jammed it home and STILL nothing happened. We were very confused. So she started apologizing and telling me it couldn't possibly be anything wrong with me since she had already taken my blood with no problem. Then she proceeded to slip the needle almost it's full length into my vein, and then start to push on it. Still nothing. I could see blood coming up around the needle, but none of it seemed to be getting into the vial. So she took the needle out of my right arm and got another small vial. By then I was about to faint, but I felt so sorry for the nurse because she honestly seemed upset that these vials weren't filling with blood. So she went back outside and got another sealed pack of implements and brought them in. She then stuck another needle into my left arm, which started to pull my vein and really hurt, and still, the blood didn't go in. at that point I was starting to get nauseated, and the nurse's hands had started to shake, so she took THAT needle out of my arm and got yet another pack of needles and vials and went to work on my right arm again. She stuck the needle into the same spot that the last needle had gone in and FINALLY the vial filled up. Apparently she had gotten a shipment of blood vials that didn't have a correct vaccum seal from her current company, so she had to get one of her original packs from another company and do the blood test.

This morning my inner arms look like I've been on the road with the Rolling Stones. If someone came at me with a needle for any reason at this point, I'd probably go Karate Kid on them.

Not enough happened this weekend to require a proper weekend update. That's not to say it was a complete bust or anything, though.

Friday night was So. Dang. Boring. I acted again as marketing babysitter for the Tunnels of Terror and I had to stay so late. As before, I was just there in case I was needed, and I was only needed one time, and that was to go get some tape from my office to rehang a sign. Woo-Hoo! So the seven or so hours I spent upstairs I watched French & Saunders clips on YouTube, did yoga, listened to my iPod, and I think I finally just lay on the floor of the office and tried not to go to sleep. Since I had the walkie-talkie, I could hear that the customers were drying up and they were thinking about closing early. So I waited for someone to come on and say it was time to go. I waited and waited, and finally decided that a big group must have arrived and kept them from closing down. So I waited to hear what to do next and no one ever came on to tell me anything. I finally looked out of the window that overlooks Rocket Park, and everyone was gone! They had forgotten about me! So I finally got to go home and go to bed. :P

Saturday didn't go as planned, but hey, I can forgive that. I mean, the woman I was supposed to hang out with IS in the hospital, after all. It was a nice relaxing day, though. For me, not her, of course.

Sunday was Sunday. They aren't as nice as they used to be.

Well, my secret is out. SIGH.

Holy Reverse Easter Bunny Surgery, Batman!

I just found out last night that my dear cousin Amy will be having expedited surgery today. She will be having her ovaries taken out sometime this morning. Although I'm not sure, I think all of this arises from endometriosis. Luckily, she already has two lovely kids to her credit. At any rate, please keep her in your prayers today as she goes through all of this unpleasantness.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I am so terribly bored. I'm acting as Marketing "babysitter" for the haunted house tonight and tomorrow night. I'm sure I have some type of function, but I don't exactly know what it's supposed to be. I've been sitting in the PR managers office all evening watching episodes of "Absolutely Fabulous" on YouTube. The bad news is that I'm not getting paid for being here, but the good news is that my boss may let me use the hours I'm here as comp time for filling in gaps when I've had to miss work. Yay!

2) I got a text message today from Sara, telling me she is back in the hospital again. Thankfully there isn't a problem with her new equipment, but she is having a clotting issue. Keep her in your thoughts and prayers. She is at Huntsville Hospital this time, so I can run and see her if she needs me. I dropped by today to give presents, because I love to give presents. Plus, of course, I wanted to make sure she was still kicking. Hopefully the next time I'm there, I won't get lost and not be able to find my car. I mean, I'm all about expanding the building and everything, but they REALLY need "YOU ARE HERE" signs!

3) The other day, a girl I know came over to me and gave me a hug and told me she was sorry to hear that my father had passed away. Well, actually she said "I'm so sorry to hear about your dadohmyGodI haven't shown you my ring yet!" and she proceeded to jam an engagement ring the approximate shape and size of a lighthouse beacon in my face. You know, mozel tov and all, but I wasn't in the mood. If seeing an engagement ring was the joy of my life, certainly I would have wet my pants in her honor, but it seemed to be a little not-the-timish to squeal in my ear.

4) I totally fell asleep at work today. I didn't mean to, but I just kind of fell out. I had to get up and do some yoga to wake myself up a little bit. I don't really like doing sun salutations in my office because my floor is really gross, but sometimes it's necessary to keep myself from sliding to the floor unconcious.

5) I was finally rude to the girl I work with, and it made me feel very bad. On my way back from the hospital, I bought lunch and was planning on eating at my desk. When I came up the stairs, I heard her say "Oh, there's Kelly! I'll go bug her for a while." So I just turned and said "NO! Leave me alone! I want to eat my lunch. Go away!" She still followed me down the hall, but she didn't go into my office. I think she thought I was kidding. SIGH. Still, though, it made me feel bad.

6) I had to do a life insurance interview today over the phone. Steve and I are getting a policy because I think Steve realized that if I croaked, he'd be boned, money wise. I'm afraid that they may have me down as having two medical problems that I DON'T have because I was tested for them at some point in the last couple of years. I mean, come on, I said I didn't have them! Boy, those guys are nosey. Plus, they ask questions that don't make much sense, but I guess they are just doing their jobs. At any rate, I believe I'm insurable with little to no risk of dropping dead from syphillis, overt drug usage, and/or alcohol poisoning. Knock wood. : ) Now that Steve knows how much I'm worth dead, I need to make sure to check my break lines before going anywhere.

7) I just had a cup of coffee and I feel as if I'm going to jitter across the room. Stay away from the Sumatra! It's got crack in it or something!

I am a sexy beast.

Ouch, much?

OK, I have gotten much clumsier in the last couple of weeks. As you know, that is saying something for me. I know I've been talking a great deal lately about hurting myself, and seriously, I probably wouldn't keep doing it if it wasn't starting to get funnier.

I had to go to Target after work today to pick up a prescription. While I was there I picked up dinner and a few other things (which the nice man at the check out counter decided would be better distributed if each individual item was in a separate bag.) So I walk out the door, trying to carry about a dozen bags and my foot hydroplaned on a puddle and I went DOWN. Thankfully I only went to one knee and didn't break or spill anything, but I racked my knee pretty good and my jeans were soaked! In that ten or so seconds I was on the ground, I had to decide between whether or not I was going to be embarrassed or just walk on as if nothing happened. I chose the "Nothing Happened" route. Of course, that isn't so easy to do when something like that happens in front of dozens of people.

Oh, but there's more.

So I go home and have dinner. I was pretty much limping around because of my banged up knee, but it wasn't anything that even needed an aspirin. No biggie. Well, while waiting for Heroes to come on, I decided to bring the dogs in and feed them so that they wouldn't be out in the rain when it started. So I grabbed one of the bowls and headed to the garage to get the food. Right at the garage door, my foot malfunctioned and I twisted my ankle and fell over against the fridge. In the process, I banged my already sore knee and somehow the metal food bowl whacked me in the side of the head. I must have made some rather pitiful noise because Steve, who was asleep in his chair, came running into the kitchen and helped me up.

He's threatened to make me wear a helmet if things don't get better!

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I'm thinking about getting rid of this blog altogether.

WAIT! Before you fling yourself out of a window, I just mean this particular blog. I've been having a lot of trouble with it lately, so I'm thinking about making a new one with Wordpress or something. Of course, I'm kind of used to this one, so I don't know if I'll do it or not. Just a thought.

2) Yay, weekend! I'm so glad that it's Friday. Not that I have any plans or anything, but it's nice to know that a weekend is coming up. There is always the potential for something to happen. SIGH. I'm not going to hold my breath.

3) I didn't go to the Tunnels of Terror last night and I'm not going again tonight. I'm just not in a very jump-out-and-scare-people mood. Plus, I've already hurt myself today, so I think I've reached my quota. I kind of feel bad for signing up for these two days and not going in. That's really not like me. But I've felt like doing an awful lot of things that are unlike me lately. This one just seems to be the least damaging. You've got to give me some props for having self control though, right? : )

4) I just got an e-mail saying that nurses will be coming in to give flu shots to all full time employees one day soon. Of course, that doesn't apply to me, since I'm technically considered "seasonal help." Not that I would get one, anyways. I have needle issues. Bad ones. One glimpse of a hypodermic needle and I go into full fledged panic mode. Of course, I know it's all about insurance and blah, blah, blah, but it seems very strange to me that they will give flu shots to the people who have sick days and can stay home from work without missing any pay, but the people who don't get paid for having to stay home sick just get shafted. Oh well.

I wonder what I did to piss off the sleep fairy?

I'm so tired! : P

I DARE you not to love this bird!

I said DARE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm OK

That's not true! That's IMPOSSIBLE! ; )

Sometimes I feel like a cookie that has had too many bites taken out of it. Does that make sense?

I got to have dinner with my very favorite Kenny tonight, and that was a lot of fun. I don't think we've had a chance to do that since late February or early March of this year. Weirdly enough, we didn't even have to argue about where to eat this time. : ) He also drove me around in his new car, which I loved. I didn't tell Lois how I felt about the car because she is a little temperamental and I was afraid she would take it out on me on the way home. We ate and talked, and he allowed me to go on a wold goose chase for some flower seeds that apparently no one in Cullman sells past labor day. BOO! He also beat me at a game of checkers, but only because I let him *cough cough* I finally let him escape after making him talk to me for about an hour after we got back to our base camp - better known as Cracker Barrel. It was such a mild night that I decided to drive home with the top of my car down. I don't know how smart that was, even if the night air did feel wonderful. When my hair was shorter, it would always whip around my face and I couldn't stand it. It only slapped my face a little, but by the time I got home it was twisted into dreadlocks. I'm NOT looking forward to combing those out!

On the way home I started thinking about sad things, which sucked after the fun I had. I don't know why that happens sometimes.

Now I'm going to bed.

In honor of the new "Transformers" movie coming both to DVD and to the SpaceDome IMAX theater, the transformer outside of our house decided to explode in the wee hours of the morning.

Once again I awoke at some ungodly hour for no apparent reason, and just as I was slipping off to sleep again (an unusual event) I heard a weird crackling noise and a beeping sound. Thinking Steve's computer was about to go into melt down, I woke him up so that he could go and save it if he needed to. However, he said he had turned his computer off, so that couldn't have been what it was. So we went on to excuse number 2, which is that the noise was the weather alert thingie. We flipped on the TV to see if we were about to be blown away, but there was nothing on any of the local channels about the weather. Trust me, if lightening strikes anywhere in the Tennessee Valley, at least one of our news channels breaks into regularly scheduled programming and lets us know. So we turned that off and started to go back to sleep again. Then the weird crackling sound and the beeping began again, so we got up to see what was going on and the sound we heard was the battery backup Steve has installed for the warp core - ahem, I mean - his computer system. It was stuttering and blinking, and then suddenly all of the lights we had on were stuttering and blinking. Of course, we had no idea about the transformer committing suicide at the time, so we ran around turning off all of the computers and other such electronic items that would suffer from such abuse. Once that was done, I went back to bed and watched the overhead light have a seizure for about a minute or so. Of course, in the semi-crazytown mindset I was in, my first thought was "Dad?" Then Steve called me to come look at something and he showed me the transformer right outside our house spitting sparks and fire. Um...yikes. So he went off to call the utility people and I watched it as it hissed and sparked and finally died in a ball of blue-white fire. Of course, then our tiny section of the neighborhood went black. Nice. It was a grand total of about five houses on our street without power. So Steve finally gets the dispatcher on the phone and says, totally calm "Yeah, the transformer by our house is on fire." Apparently, if you want prompt attention, the word "Fire" does the trick. Since I couldn't take a bath or anything until the power came back on, I called into work and told them I wouldn't be in until our power issues were resolved and then promptly fell asleep again. Sometime while I snoozed, the power dudes came and restored power! Go Huntsville Utility! Of course, I slept much longer than I meant to and I was planning on leaving work early to take care of some business, so now it doesn't do much good to go in. Meh, I'll just go in on Saturday and make up for it this weekend. : )

I think it's official. I'm trying to maim myself.

I spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday night working at the Tunnels of Terror and I hurt myself every night. Wait, let me rephrase that, I was hurt every night, but only once did I do it myself. You already know about the desk blotter beaning me in the head on Thursday, right? Friday night, the same desk blotter hit me in the nose and cheek. I was even sitting far enough away from the hinge to avoid this, but the monster under the table got a little enthusiastic and he threw the hinge up so quickly that it pulled away from the table and hit me in the face! Saturday night I avoided working at that desk all together to save myself the pain of reconstructive surgery and I worked inside one of the walls as a "portrait monster." Basically, we have a hall of portraits that you have to walk down to get to the end section of the haunted house. Two of these pictures are on rails, so when we see someone walk past us, we drop the picture down and scream and grab for them. I realized that even painted up, my face was hopefully not scary enough to do much to frighten people, so I grabbed a mask out of the dressing room. As I was attempting to put it on, I jammed a corner of it into my eye! My open eye! Oh, the pain! After that I gave up and went home. I wish I wasn't going to be working inside of it anymore, because I'm afraid I'll wind up ripping one of my arms off for something.

Zoinks.

Hi. I would like to apologize to anyone who has been checking my blog for the past couple of weeks to see if I had written anything new. Not that I think you are all torn up about it or anything, but I probably should have given updates about everything. However, my heart just hasn't be into it lately. Each time I'd sit down to write, I'd think about the last time I made an entry and couldn't do it.

Don't worry, this isn't going to be an entry set aside to be sad. In fact, if it's OK with you guys, I hope you will allow me the luxury of ignoring the elephant in the room for a while and talk about other things. However, I would like to say this: I have some really amazing people in my life. I really hate that it took the death of my father to point that out to me, but I'm very blessed. Very much so. Thank you guys, for everything you did (and are still doing) for me.

Since I have been determined to find something to laugh about from the past couple of weeks, I have 2 stories that I'm going to tell you. The first one was about a woman that my sister had gone to school with and who had gone to church with my family when she was a teenager. She came to my papa's visitation service and saw me standing in the receiving line. She said "OH MY GOD! That can't be Kelly! I can't believe it!" Let me pause and just say, what a dumb thing to say. What does she think I'm going to do, send my understudy to my papa's funeral? Anyways, she came over and hugged me and talked a second. Then she reached out and tried to pat my stomach. The heifer thought I was pregnant. Let me pause again and say something else: I know I am not thin. I know I was probably wearing the worst possible outfit I had, but I wasn't exactly in the mood to look cute. I also know that even if I WERE pregnant, I wouldn't want some strange person patting my stomach! Well, as soon as her hand hit my shirt (I was wearing a tunic style top that is a little too big for me) it bounced back against me and she realized what she had done. She looked so horrified, and she just stood there and opened and closed her mouth and then she walked away. I stood there in righteous indignation, but said nothing. As soon as it stops hurting my feelings, I'm probably going to think it's hilarious!

Another funny thing, although I feel a little guilty for thinking so, was that I had called work to let them know that papa had had a heart attack before I actually knew he had passed away. The network started up and soon my friends here at the Sprocket knew that he was in the hospital. Well, it was about an hour before I had a chance to call my boss and tell him what happened, but that news didn't travel very fast. Steve called one of our friends and said, "yeah, I just wanted to let you know what happened and to give you the funeral arrangements." Our friend (who's name is being protected so that I'm the only one who can make fun of him) said "Oh, ok. How is he doing?" I saw him at the funeral and said that Steve told me he asked how my dad was. I told him he was dead. He just covered him face and looked embarrassed. I was only joking with him, of course, but I think he probably felt terrible for the faux pas. I forgive him though. : )

I finally came back to work on Monday and I was slammed with sign requests. Amazingly enough, it wasn't that no one took up my slack while I was gone (because my co-workers are awesome) but that everyone seemed to have forgotten to request important signs that they were going to need this week. I finally finished the monster standees for the food service area, and they were awesome if I do say so, and I worked my face off to finish the other slew of things that were asked for. As of right now (Friday) I'm caught up as much as I can be. Go Me!

I have volunteered to work several days (too many) of the "Tunnels of Terror" haunted house that the SpRocket and the local FOX affiliate are putting on here this year. I haven't worked at a haunted house in so long that I didn't know what job to volunteer for. So when asked, I said I'd play the scary nurse in the hospital part of the thing. Basically what I do is wear a nurse hat and corpse-y makeup and sit in the hospital waiting room behind a desk (which I don't really understand since the "hospital" is supposed to be more of a triage center). The desk I sit behind is built off of the floor so that a person in a monster mask can hide under it. The top of the desk has one of those blotter/calender things on it, which is hinged so that when I say my line "Do you have an appointment?" the person under the desk jumps up and startles the people I'm talking to. All of this was going well. Even though I'm in full "scary" makeup, I am not really a scary character. I'm supposed to draw their attention towards me so that the monster can do it's thing. Well, last night was opening night, and things were going really well. The monster under the desk was doing a really great job scaring people. However, once, while talking to the guests, the monster sprang up and the blotter (the calender is on a cherry wood base and then screwed into a pressboard ) hit me in the forehead hard enough to make see stars. I didn't say anything, but boy howdy, that sucked. I now have a spot on my forehead that is too sore to touch. To add insult to that particular injury, I woke up this morning at about 3:00 and thought I had scooted to the foot of the bed, so I pushed myself towards the headboard and smashed my forehead into it. Apparently, depth perception isn't one of my strong suits at 3:00 in the morning. : )

So, that's what has been going on with me.

I'd like to thank all of you who have supported my family during this time. Many of you asked about the arrangements for my father and we finally have them. His visitation will be tomorrow (Tuesday) from 6-8 pm at Limestone Chapel funeral home in Athens. His funeral will be at the same funeral home on Wednesday at 1:00 pm and burial will be at the Copeland cemetary.

Thanks again for everything.

I wish I had better things to report, but unfortunately that isn't the case.

My daddy passed away this morning from a sudden heart attack. He was only 59.

I don't really know what else to say except to ask that you please pray for my family.

Thanks.

I just got a call from my sister and my mom. My dad had a heart attack and may not be....alive. I don't know anything at all right now.

Please pray for my dad. please.