I CONQUERED THE CAVE AND IT CONQUERED ME

Well, that was an...experience.

As you might remember, back in September Steve and I signed up for a 5K race and I totally failed it. It was close to 100 degrees that day, I was apparently dehydrated, and I managed to get heat exhaustion not even halfway through it so I had to stop.  It sucked, man, and I was very upset with myself for not finishing.

It wasn't long after that, that the same racing outfit decided that it had been so popular that they needed to have another race at the same location in November, and in a burst of inspiration, Steve decided that I should redo the race so that I could finally finish it and not have it hanging over my head anymore. So he signed both of us up for it. He told me that this time he would stay with me the whole time and make sure I finished it. He is a much faster runner than I am, and I knew that meant I'd be holding him back (which I wasn't thrilled about) but I mean, I genuinely thought that was a very sweet thought and gesture, so I agreed.

I wasn't thrilled at the prospect, though.  Almost falling out at the earlier race had actually scared me a lot more than I had realized at the time. I don't usually get dizzy and fainty like that, and the experience had really unsettled me. Knowing Steve would be with me on the course helped, but also knowing that it could happen again (maybe not the heat exhaustion since it was in November) made me afraid of trying.

In the meantime, I signed up for and ran/walked another 5K in October. There is a big to do here about breast cancer research, and there is a race every year to benefit the charity that Steve's company does. I was afraid that I wouldn't finish that race either, but I did manage to do it.  I couldn't run very much, though. I can't seem to catch my breath enough to run anymore. I also realized that a big part of my anxiety stems from the fact that I can't seem to BREATHE enough! Ugh, I hate that feeling so very much.  Anyway, I made it through that, which helped, but the closer I got to the November race, the more anxious I became.

Y'all, I literally had nightmares the night before this race. Like, stupid ones. I dreamed I went to the bathroom and ended up starting the race 10 minutes late, then found out the race was more like an obstacle course and I had to figure out these weird puzzles before I could advance to the next part. Then when I got to the final leg of the race (everyone was on roller skates by this point) I couldn't figure out which way to run, and I couldn't find the roller skates. I finally started yelling at the judges (?) and started saying that I couldn't find the skates, and one of them removed a hidden panel on the wall to uncover the skates. I started screaming "HOW THE F*CK WAS I SUPPOSED TO FIND THEM IF THEY WERE IN THE WALL????!!!!" only to then be told the race was over and I wasn't going to be allowed to finish at all.  That's about the time I work up and realized that I was taking the whole thing WAY too seriously.  Hehe.

We had to leave the house at the crack of dawn to get to the state park and it was absolutely pouring down rain the entire time.  I hoped that it would stop by the time we got there, but alas, I was disappointed. The second I stepped out of the car, I sank into an ankle deep puddle.  So, out of the gate I had wet feet.  Somehow, defying physics and hydrodynamics as I understand them, water was running and standing everywhere regardless of elevation, incline, surface, and grade.  Seriously, there was no place to make a path. You had to just walk through water no matter where you stepped. We found a small tent near packet pick up, and that sheltered us a little, but we were already soaked from walking there. We finally decided that we should just stand out in the rain to acclimatize us to it.  That sucked.

The 15K runners left 15 minutes before we did, and we finally got to start on the trail. Oh, did I mention that this was a trail race?  Yeah.  I can't run on pavement, but we were going to be in the woods and shit. Nice. Once we started I was able to run a little, but then my breath seized up and I had to stop and walk. Steve was as good as his word, though. He stayed by me even when I had a mild panic attack as we were walking.  I broke through that, and finally found my stride.  Fast walking in the gentle rain wasn't so bad. However, about the time we reached the next trailhead, the bottom fell out and I couldn't see.  Steve had to pull me into the tree cover before I could open both eyes again (I was afraid my contacts would wash out.) Oh, and that trail was a special kind of hell.  I don't know how, on the side of a freaking mountain, you can have standing shin high water, but it happened. Mud sucked at our shoes as we stomped our way down the trail, trying to find purchase and not slip on any rocks.  Steve was ahead of me, but I managed to keep up if only because I wanted out of that trail so badly. I twisted my ankle three times, almost lost my shoe, and said several curse words before we made it out of the woods. I had nature all over me and I was unhappy.

The rest of the race was mostly on paved paths, except for some reason we had to go across a field. It was mostly underwater, so that cleaned some of the mud off at least.  The big hill that got me last time was cut from the race, but we still had to go up a fairly steep service road before we finally made it to the cave!  It was here that I screwed up a little.

The race is weird because there are people going both ways on the walkway inside the cave. Directions are that we are supposed to stay to our left, no matter which way we are running, so no one runs into each other.  There were two pathways into the cave, one on the left and one on the right, but I saw the people in front of us run to the path on the right and stay to the left of that path.  Does that make sense?  Steve directed me to the left path and no one was on it, so I said I didn't think we were going the right way.  Heh, damn, this is confusing.  He swore that we were in the correct place, but for some reason he listened to me and we joined the other (right) path and headed in.  In about a minute, I realized he had been right all along because I hit the timing mat going the wrong way and saw the clock register my name and a time that defied anything I could have actually done.  Well, crap. Also, just after that a guy saw us and said we were going the wrong way, and Steve said we were following everyone else. The guy said "Don't Follow Anyone Else!"  Wow, thanks guy. Glad you were standing halfway in the cave to tell us that.  Ugh.  At any rate, I got to the back, got my glow stick (proof you went all the way in) and made it out and got my medal!  Woo-Hoo!  I actually finished the race in 1:07:43:12, but the official stats say I finished in 42:02:17.  Going the wrong way on the course is the only way I'd ever get a time like that.  I feel like I should tell them my time is wrong so that the rankings will not be skewed, but I don't know if it matters that much.  Hehe, it feels like stolen valor, though!

I was so glad it was over when I got out of the cave. Everything hurt and I was soaking wet, and I realized in that moment that no matter how much I wish I was good at running, I don't think I ever will be. I know I could spend every free moment running and working up to things and getting better, but it would take more work that I think I want to put into it.  I mean, I could beat my body into submission, but would it make me hate running? I like running, I wish I was better, I like crossing finish lines, but I don't know if I want it bad enough to make it my hobby, and I think I would have to.  Granted, I know that the shape I am in now (which is round. Round is a shape) I need to be doing something, but I don't know if running is the thing I want to do. That makes me a little sad, but I'll figure something out, I hope. We'll see.

Oh, and there are photos from this race, but I will never, ever show them to anyone. First off, the pink and gray ensemble that I chose for the occasion was a bad choice. I looked like a giant, wet, morbidly obese, raw turkey wearing muddy shoes. My hair was pulled back so tight that it looked like I was bald underneath my wide hair band, and worse....oh worse...  Forgive me for being crude, but nipples.  I was cold, and my sports bra was apparently no match for my headlights.  Every single picture of me prominently displays them, and trust me, it isn't cute.  I am going to keep the photos though, so I can look at them and remember that day, but only so I can laugh. Hehe.

All of the unplesantness aside, I did finish the race, and I'm proud of that! Even if Steve had to be my seeing eye person, and sometimes pull me up a hill.  I might be undignified, but I am a finisher this time. Since that Saturday I've been sore, exhausted, and realized just how out of shape I have become, but damnit, I finished my race!

BLOGGED AFTER THE FACT: CAPE CANAVERAL, FL PART 2

OK, so where were we?  Geez.  I have a lot going on.

So my boss and I arrived at the Cape Canaveral port while it was still dark outside. This place is usually where cruise ships dock and take on their load of travelers, but today it was outfitted with a million little booths and tables for all of us who would be pimping out our businesses.  'Cause that's what we were doing.  Haha!

We got to our booth and set up our swag and flyers, and then schmoozed around with other business owners as we waited for the trade show to open. I really had no idea what to expect.  Well, I've been to trade shows, and I got a tiny taste of what it would be like at a much, much, much smaller venue here in town, but this was on a grand scale that I wasn't sure about.  Angela told me all I really needed to do if someone came up to the table was talk about our company.  Trouble is, I still had no grasp as to what our company really did!  That sounds terrible, but if you consider I only work there part time, and I generally do office administration stuff, it's not that surprising. However, after the doors opened to participants, and I listened to her do the spiel a time or two, I got the gist and was able to talk about what we do.

I could give you a play by play of the trade show, but you'd be terribly bored.  Let's sum it up by saying I talked earnestly about things I didn't quite understand, I joked, I complimented people's outfits, I visited other tables, and flirted with old men.  It was like customer service and marketing on steroids, and I can do that!  I was there for hours, and I stood up and talked for so long that by the time we packed up our booth to leave, my feet were swollen and I was dehydrated to the point of delirium.  It was actually kind of fun, though! 

Afterwards, Angela had a meeting she had to attend, and she said I could go with her, but that it wouldn't be anything I'd enjoy. I said I would indeed not enjoy it, so she drove me to the beach!  I was still in my business casual dress, so I'm sure I looked a bit out place around all the people in swim suits and shorts, but I didn't care.  She and I had a drink with some other people from Huntsville that she knew in the industry (I just nodded and smiled and made nonsensical jokes, per my usual) and then Angela left me there to relax.

I realized pretty quickly that Spanx and hose are not a good combination with sand and humidity, so I trekked over to some shops that were near the boardwalk and bought a bag to hold all of my stuff, a water bottle, and pretty much got mostly naked under my dress so that I could enjoy the rest of my time there!  And I was there for, um...longer than I expected.  I didn't mind, of course, because I love walking along the beach, but I had to keep myself in a pretty small area so that I wouldn't miss her when she came back. I finally had to find a bench and sit until she arrived. I think a group of teenage girls thought I was a creepy adult, because I sat next to the sand volleyball court and watched them play for about an hour.  Eh, well, what else could I do?! 

By the time Angela came back, I was starving, so we went to a pier restaurant, had dinner and then headed back to the hotel.  Haha, we actually got lost along the way, though, and it took us over an hour to find our way back!  We saw the seedy underbelly of Orlando that night, I tell you. By the time we got back, we only had a couple of hours to sleep before we had to get up again to catch our butt-crack-of-dawn flight back to Huntsville.  BTW, my room was roach free when I got back, so one point for me!

We had to leave by 3:00 AM to catch our flight the next morning, so by the time we got to the airport, got patted down (thankfully I didn't get another pelvic exam by the TSA agent) and boarded the plane, I was all but unconscious.  I think I probably snored and maybe drooled on my seat mate (sorry, man) but I made it back in one piece by 8:00 AM that morning and went home and went straight to bed! 

All in all, I actually really enjoyed the experience, even though it was confusing and exhausting, but I think I learned a lot about how the business development side of the defense industry works, so next time I'll be a little better prepared!  Who knows?  One day I may get to schmooze you!  :)

BLOGGED AFTER THE FACT: CAPE CANAVERAL, FL : PART 1

OK, you guys, this trip was a quick one and I'm still trying to recover!  Oy.

Tuesday evening, around 5 o'clock, Steve dropped me off at the airport for my very first, official, real-life business trip! Woo! I know I sound overly excited about it, and in a way I guess I was. I don't know why exactly, because it wasn't like I was going on vacation or anything, but saying that you're going on a business trip sounds awfully grown up and professional.  Those are two things I rarely get to say about myself!

Anyway, so Steve dropped me off and, since I'd already checked into my airline online, I went directly to security.  We are very lucky to have such a small airport nearby. While it's a pain in the ass that we can only fly directly to just a few cities, the silver lining of it is that it doesn't take any time to get through the unpleasantness of being scanned and x-rayed.  Well, usually.  For some reason I set off the scanner. Not only that, but when I looked at the body outline on the screen, the portion of my body that seemed to be questionable was (and forgive my indelicacy) was my crotch.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Kelly," you're thinking "there are better places to store your iPhone." You are correct, which is why my phone was in my purse. I genuinely couldn't think of any other questionable object that might have gotten lost in there over the span of the day, so I expected the TSA agent to get the woo-woo wand and do a few swipes over my person to make sure my crotch was weapon free, find me innocent of any devices, and let me go on my way.  Alas, that was not what happened. The nice TSA agent said that I needed to be patted down, and she explained in (almost) full detail about what she was going to do.  As I was wearing a trapeze dress for travel comfort, my considerable form was shrouded in a rather shapeless mass of cloth, so I figured that a good pat down would ease their minds. So I submitted.

Y'all...I've been patted down by security before, but this was the first time I ever got to third base with a TSA agent. Yikes. I'll say no more about it, except to say I thank God that I'd pregamed with my anti-anxiety meds before getting to the airport, because I think that was the only reason I managed not to faint in the process.  And just in case you're concerned, there were no liberties taken by this agent, I promise. From what I could tell, it was all by the book. I just didn't expect that my own "book" would be thumbed through, if you catch my meaning.

In due time, myself and my boss, Angela, got on the airplane and took off towards Florida. I'd been told we were going to Tampa, but found out a few days before it was actually Orlando that we were headed to. Eh, that was fine, although it was disturbingly close to Disney World.  We made it to our Hotel after 10:00 pm, and I grabbed some dinner at the hotel shop and enjoyed it, as well as the complementary cookie, in my room before passing out from near exhaustion.

We had to wake up early, and by early I mean by 4:00 AM, to be able to get ready in time to go to Port Canaveral, where the trade show was taking place. Everything was fine as far as that goes, except for one thing: Since I didn't have a napkin when I'd eaten dinner the night before, I'd wiped my mouth and hands on one of the washcloths from the bathroom. I'd placed it on the TV tray the night before, but when I went to pick it up to put it in the bathroom so it would be taken out my housekeeping, it was moving. Yep, there was a big, German roach having a field day on that washcloth. I've been in a lot of hotel rooms, both nice and questionable, and I've never seen a roach crawling on stuff in any of them until that moment. You'd be proud of me, though.  I didn't scream, or panic. I steeled myself and very gently picked up the washcloth so that I could shake that little hastared into the toilet and drown his wretched soul, but the minute I picked it up, it disappeared.

*SHUDDER*

I don't know where it went, and I didn't care. I got out of there ASAP, and I told the man at the front desk about my little visitor. I guess I could have made a fuss, but there was no point. I asked that the room be sprayed and cleaned, and went on my way.  Bleh.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I know, I know. I don't write here much these days. I don't mean to neglect ye olde blog, but as I've mentioned, things have been kind of boring. I work, I eat, I go home, and once I'm there, I don't do much of note. That sounds kind of sad, actually, but it's fine. I'm sort of in a rut, I guess you could say. I need to get back into doing some things I've been neglecting, but it's a process. We all have our processes, right?

2) So, the biggest news I suppose is that I have a new job!  I also have my old job. I'm also still doing my freelance graphic design, so I have two and a half jobs! It's all very confusing, I assure you. In addition to my job at the church and the graphics, I have also been hired to work with one of Steve's colleagues at her new office!  I am an office administrator, or assistant office administrator (which is weird, because there isn't anyone other than the CEO I'm assisting) or maybe I'm an Admin Assistant. I really don't know, because we haven't landed on a title yet. The business is an IT/Cyber Security/AI kind of deal, and I'm eventually going to be running the office while other, smarter people do important computer work for other, bigger companies.  Basically, I'm doing the same type of thing that I do at the church, only I'm allowed to drink during lunch breaks!  No, seriously, I think it might even be encouraged. :)

I didn't set out to have more than one job. The new job was intended to replace my church job, but it turned out that being the very first non-contractor for this company (which I'm not naming because I don't know if anything I say on my blog might embarrass anyone) would require training that my boss would have to be able to do, and she's so busy that she doesn't have time to do the amount of training I need all at once. So we're doing it in bite size increments! In 6 months, we will reevaluate my work and go from there. So I'm part time office help for two offices!

What I like the most about the job (other than the fact that my new boss brings her dog to work and I love him) is that we have an office downtown in one of the historical buildings that has been outfitted as office space! I can't be 100% sure, but I think our particular office space used to be a bridal shop back in the day. I can't find the history of it online, but I'm still looking to find out for sure. Our floor has been separated into strange, uneven office spaces, but you can tell it was a part of something else at some point. We have a set of stairs that literally goes to a blank wall. I love working downtown, because we are right next to the swanky, hipster area that has been revamped for the influx of young professionals being lured to town with all of the new jobs. We can walk in any direction and be in a coffee shop, a restaurant, a neat little shopping area, or the courthouse square. It's all very cozy.  I'm sure the novelty will eventually wear off, but for now, I like it a lot.

So I'll keep you posted as things progress! Now my main concern is trying to remember what I'm supposed to do at two different jobs. I'm not sure my brain was made to handle that much.

3) Steve signed me up to do a redo of the race that almost killed me last week. He said "You're going to finish this time!" which I'm not sure if that is encouragement or a threat, but I'm game. It's not until November, so at least it won't be as hot! I just want to get the medal. I'll be honest, I like winning things. Medals are kind of a silly, borderline useless thing to have in the house, but that changes nothing! I WANT IT.

4) My weekend was fine, thank you for asking!  It wasn't at all what I was expecting, but honestly, no weekend ever really is.  One of the best things was, and I kind of hate that the food was the best part, but was breakfast on Saturday. Steve took me to a little hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint on the edge of town. It's literally inside a gas station, but the barbecue is excellent. We had something called a Boarhog biscuit, which was pulled pork, an egg, and cheese on a giant, homemade cat head biscuit. It was excellent! I was skeptical, because I'm not one to eat barbecue for breakfast, but it was better than any breakfast I've had in years. If you're ever in town, I'll take you to have breakfast there so you can try it!  If you don't want me to go with you (which is understandable) I can at least give you the address so you can go! Eat One Before You Die!

I DIDN'T QUITE CONQUER THE CAVE

Oooh, y'all.  I'm so embarrassed. 

About two months ago, Steve told me that he had signed us up for a local-ish 5K race. That isn't a thing that we normally do, of course, but this race was special because a mile and a half of it was inside a cave. Neat, huh?  

Since it had been nearly a year since I'd done a 5K I decided I needed to practice, and although it was tough to begin with, I was getting better. I wasn't great, by any means, and I was slower than last year, but not by a lot. I was much lighter and in better shape last year too, but I didn't think it would be difficult to get to a point where I could run/walk it in a decent enough time. I've done 5K races before, and I even did a practice one to check my timing to make sure I could finish it in the time allotted for the actual race, and I did in plenty of time.  That probably doesn't sound like much, but since I don't employ a coach, I did the best I could on my own.

We set out to Cathedral Caverns state park, where we were in the 4th wave of a race called Conquer the Cave 5K. It started on a half mile stretch of road, which you had to run down and back, then go up a monster hill which would lead you into the cave and then you would go to into the very back of that, and then back out of the cave to finish. 

Because so many people signed up, we couldn't all go at once, and since we had signed up so late in the game, our wave wasn't set to start until 3:30 P.M.  I started getting ready the day before to prepare, making sure I was drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, and that sort of thing. Well, I did what I thought I needed to, anyways, which had never steered me wrong before, but I think I did something wrong because it didn't take long before I knew I was in trouble.

First thing was that it was hot. I mean, it was middle of summer hot, and I don't think anyone was expecting that. I want to say it was 97 degrees?  Maybe not that hot, but it was miserably hot and bright, and the first leg of the trip was flat and unshaded. I actually started out pretty good, and had a moment of thinking "hey! I think I can run further than I ever have, today!" but right after that, I started to feel like I was in a furnace. It felt like all moisture in my body was suddenly gone, and I actually had a moment where I thought about asking someone to pour their water over me. I didn't do that, figured it was just because it was hot, and I trudged on.  I had to switch to walking, because I felt like I couldn't breathe. Even my breath felt too hot. I made it to the turn around, began to walk back and it all got worse. I was genuinely afraid that I was going to throw up, or pass out, and I desperately didn't want that.  I made it to the first water station and got some water and poured it on my shirt, which helped a little, but it didn't last long.  The hill was what got me. It's not easy to go up a steep hill anytime, but it was so damn hot and I was getting dizzy and I was panting too hard.

I didn't want to stop, but I felt so sick I didn't have a choice. I finally had to wave down one of the hay ride trucks that were taking people from the earlier waves back down to the parking area and get in. The people on the truck were very kind, and they gave me water and got me to the paramedics. I don't know if I needed the paramedics, but they checked me out, said I was ok, and told me they thought I could finish. I didn't go far before I had to admit to myself that I wouldn't make it and I had to quit. I felt like I was on fire from the inside out. I was the last person in the race by far by that time, and I was so shaky that I had a hard time holding my water bottle. I had to flag down the paramedics again and ask to be taken back down the hill. I was done. It was humiliating.

Once I had a few minutes to wallow in my shame, I decided to catch a ride on one of the hay trucks up to the cave so that Steve wouldn't have to look for me when he was done and I realized when I got there that I was the only person who didn't finish. Old people, kids, people much more overweight than me, they all made it and I didn't. I wanted to cry, but I didn't. Well, at least not until I got back to the car. I was much better once I had a chance to cool off, but I hadn't been able to make it up the hill. I'd been working hard to make it to this stupid race and literally, all I wanted to do was finish it. It was only a 5K, and I couldn't do it. I was so mad at myself and embarrassed that I didn't talk much on the way home. All I wanted to do was lie down and forget the whole day.

I don't know why I feel like such a failure. My body, for whatever reason, just wouldn't do the thing. I know, intellectually, that not pushing myself harder than I could handle was smart, but I had been so convinced that I was going to do this dumb race and finish it that not doing so was a mental blow.

Anyway, so I boofed it. I couldn't even do a dumb 5K. I still don't feel well this morning, so who knows what was going on inside of my body, but it doesn't make me feel like less of a failure. I was the only person out of hundreds not to finish the race. Hehe, well, at least there's that!

At any rate, I have another race set for next month, so hopefully I'll do better then. I hope so, at least!  Gotta keep trying, right?

You know, I came here to write about something personal. It's nothing bad, or worrisome, not really, but it's something that has been weighing (heh) on me for a while.

I just can't do it yet. I know that sounds ominous, but it isn't. I'm just having a hard time trying to write about it without A) garnering a thousand eye rolls, and B) sounding like an idiot and C) expressing myself badly.

Have you ever had that?  You'd like to express a feeling, but can't figure out how?  It sucks, I tell ya.

Anyways, I'm only writing this because I was here in my dashboard and it felt like I shouldn't leave it blank.  I'll figure it out eventually.

Anyways, hope you're having a great day! 

YIKES

I may not be very smart. 

Yesterday, I was at work alone and I had to leave the office for a few minutes to load a Power Point presentation into the sanctuary computer. Before I left, I looked at the security monitors to make sure there was no one outside that needed to be let inside before I was out of the room.

I saw a van acting weird in our parking lot. By weird, I mean that there was a van in the middle of our parking lot in an odd position. People do park there during the day from time to time, as people feel safe stopping to make a phone call or answer a text in a church parking lot, but they always park in a space and they leave after a few minutes. This van was in the center of our lot, then it would move forward about 20 feet, then it would stop, then it would go another 20 feet and stop. It caught my attention. So I opened the desktop version of our security software (I always feel very CSI when I use it) and I watched as the van approached my car, stopped as if someone was looking at it, then began circling my car. I thought maybe it was someone trying to figure out if they knew my car. It has fairly distinctive stickers on the back, but other than that it's fairly common  and non descript. However, they just kept circling and circling, getting closer and closer, and then they'd drive around the parking lot again, only to come back to my car and stop after circling it again.

I've only seen a car do this kind of thing once before in our parking lot, and it ended up with three windows being busted out. As I had just paid more money than necessary for my car to be fixed last week, I was feeling protective of Brunhilda Fahrvergnügen and didn't want her getting violated.  So I did what anyone would do. I grabbed the bat that sits behind my desk and ran to the back door with it. I'm not kidding, I was honestly about to go outside and attempt to f*ck someone up for messing with my car.

I'd like to pause here to clarify something. I realize that to say I was about to go outside and use a bat on someone sounds like I'm trying hard to sound tough or bad ass. This is not the case. I joke a lot about using my bat to hit people with, and I joke a lot about throwing things and shouting at people, and while I do get the urge from time to time, I'm not really a violent person. It takes a lot for me to act on any sort of confrontational physical tendencies, and usually by the time I get to that point, I'm either crying in frustration and can't see well enough to do it, or I manage to control myself. If I do act on it, I usually only throw stuff across a room and that is a petty way to handle anger and I always regret it. As I said, I am not a violent person as a rule, but just like anyone else, I can be pushed in that direction.  However, taking the time to write about it on Twitter (which is my go to) gives me a second of clarity before I do stupid things.

I only say all of that because in that moment, I was genuinely about to go outside and do it. I don't know what was going on in my head, or why I thought it was a good idea, but the thought of some punk-ass neighborhood jerk (and we have lots of them here) messing with my car flipped a switch in me that doesn't get flipped often. Luckily, before I could do anything, I realized how stupid I was being. What exactly was I going to do when I got out there? Was I going to hit someone with the bat, for realsies?  WTF was I thinking?  Holy crap, y'all, was this some kind of severe PMS or something? I don't know, but thankfully I stopped, and when I got a good look at the van I saw it was a teenager and his mom, practicing driving.  We have such a big parking lot, and it's usually empty, that I guess people do stuff like this all the time. It just so happened that the driver was using my car as part of his homemade, SpongeBob Squarepants-ian driving course.  Can you imagine how scarred that kid would have been if some bat-wielding, crazy haired, land-locked sea witch came flying out of a church to beat his van windows in?  I mean....

Also, what if it hadn't been someone innocuous?  What if someone HAD been about to break into my car? I imagine that if they were going to do that, they wouldn't have a problem getting the bat away from me and hurting me before I could do anything to them. I could have been hurt, or hurt someone, and I have no idea why I immediately went into Mr. T "I pity the fool who messes with my Jetta" mode in the first place!

I suppose it's anticlimactic and all, because nothing really happened, but have you ever had a moment like that, where all common sense left your body? I think that I must be in constant state of high alert while I'm here at church, because there is a genuine chance that someone from around here will do something stupid to our property, but that is no excuse for dumb-assery of any kind.

I was going to include the security video of the moment I realized I was about to be an idiot, but the less you actually get to see me be an idiot, the less likely you are to remember me being an idiot. Haha.

Oy.

VICE

I have a shameful secret. I shouldn't even talk about it on here, but I think I've kept it to myself long enough.  I hope that the repercussions don't spread too far and ruin lives, but I need to talk about it.

I can't stop watching these horrible, gross, slime videos on YouTube. I mean, I don't indiscriminately watch slime videos, and trust me that is a weirdly prolific genre, but just one "creator's" version of slime videos.  The channel is called "Lena Slime" and this woman (I assume) makes clear slime, and then smushes makeup into it.  I know that description doesn't really sound terrible, but trust me, it is.



You don't have to watch it, but just in case you're curious of what I'm talking about, there you go.

I accidentally found this channel when I was on Facebook. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but if you watch a video on Facebook, they try to keep you watching videos (and therefore ads) by scrolling down to another video, and another, and another. One of these popped up and I thought I'd see WTF it was, and this is what I was shown. After I started watching them, I couldn't stop. I even subscribed to the channel.

The Shamalanian twist about this, though?  I hate the videos. I don't just hate them, but I'm actively disgusted by them. I don't care than this person is wasting makeup, which seems to be the biggest concern in the FB comment section, but I hate it because it's gross. I am grossed out by the sound of the squishing slime. I am grossed out by the fact that she mixes all manner of different textures of waxy, oily, powdery makeup together into a big disgusting paste inside whatever slime is supposed to be. I can somehow mentally FEEL the mix-matched lumps of stuff and it makes my skin crawl. I am also weirdly disturbed when she puts the "wrong" color into the slime - as there is always a theme - and I am completely sure that the end result has something else mixed in to make the colors so homogeneous and for some reason it makes me mad.

There is only one thing I like about these videos, and that is the one moment when she is through destroying makeup, she curls the sides of the clear slime up over the mess in the middle and for a very brief moment it looks like a ball of really pretty, dichroic, blown glass. That's it.

So why do I watch it?  I'm not sure. The only explanation I have been able to come up with is that I can turn my mind off while I'm watching it and I don't have to think about anything. I just watch this woman crumble up makeup and my brain is free to roam at will. That's not always a great thing, especially in my head, but I don't have to focus on anyone talking about politics, or bad things, or people getting shot, or anything like that. I just wish I didn't hate the videos so damn much.

So if you can think of some type of restful, brain unplugging, non gross thing I could be watching instead, please let me know.

Thank you for listening.

BLERF

I am stressed.

Not, like, super stressed, but a fairly constant, low level kind of stressed that is like having a slight headache that I can’t shake. It’s not even about really big-deal type stuff, either, and it’s all stuff I have zero control over.  It’s just a lot of small things that are suddenly happening all at once, and I don’t feel as if I can get a good grasp on any of it. It’s a cumulative thing, I think.

I wish I could be like some of you and give zero fucks about everything, but alas, I was not wired that way. I have a three fucks minimum. Hehe!

Ugh, sorry. I don’t want to sound complainy. Genuinely, I don’t even know why I am mentioning any of this, as it just makes me sound whiny, and I know you have little tolerance for that. I suppose I could just delete this, but I’m not gonna. I’d like to think if you read this, you must care a little bit about me, so maybe you won’t mind me mentioning it.

It’s one of those times when all I want to do is curl up in someone’s lap and get petted until I figure it all out. Metaphorically, of course. Unfortunately, I don’t have any laps.

Ok, so let’s just get through this day and if you could spare some good vibes, I’d appreciate it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta pull myself together and be gangster for a bit.

NEIN, ICH BIN KEINE BANANE

So far, this has been kind of a shit day. 

I mean, it hasn't been terrible by any stretch of the imagination, and it could certainly get worse, but it's been one of those days where little things keep happening that just build up and keep the day from being as awesome as it should be. I woke up not feeling well but had to come to work anyway, I'm still waiting for a response from at least two people I need to get in touch with and cant seem to catch, my car had some kind of seizure and I couldn't turn it on, or off, because the computer got stuck somewhere in the middle, I had to drive the truck (which is a non-air conditioned adventure in itself) and I have had to listen to my coworker bitch for a solid, everlasting, two hours. You've been there right? 

But I don't want to dwell on any of that. Seriously. I know that doesn't sound true since I just outlined all of it, but I did that to kind of purge it out of my brain. I also wanted to put out some good vibes to you lovely people to counterbalance my own weird karma today.

So I hope your day is better than mine has been so far.  I hope your lunch tastes awesome and your tea is perfectly sweet. I hope your dogs and cats behave themselves and no one throws up on your carpet. I hope you get to kiss your sweetheart hello and/or goodbye, at the proper intensity and as often as you like, and the fact that they're wearing lip gloss won't matter at all. I hope your favorite movie comes on and you get to watch it in it's entirety uninterrupted with your choice of pants or no pants and the snacks of your choosing. I hope you get to make your vacation plans, that you find that thing you lost, that you get to go home from work early, and that you get that text you've been waiting for. I hope you run into that friend you've been missing and get to have lunch with them, that your bike ride is epic, and that you hit all of the steps your fitness tracker seems to think you need. I hope you are suddenly struck with a wonderful memory that you haven't thought of in a while that makes you smile and laugh spontaneously while you are coming back from lunch so that other people see you and wonder how you can be so happy just walking back to your office. I hope the doctor visit results in good news, that the package you've been waiting for gets delivered early, and that you are having a really great hair day.  And finally, I hope that if you decide to get naked, either by yourself or with the person of your choosing, that your time is well spent.

I genuinely mean all of those things because, whoever you are, I want you to have an amazing day.

I hug you.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING: HELLO AGAIN!

1) I didn't realize until a day or so ago how long it had actually been since I've written anything here. I mean, it isn't as if I have ever written on my blog every day, but geez, it's been...well, it's been a long time. Part of it is because I'm lazy, part of it is because I've been trying to write something that is difficult for me to express (nothing at all bad, FYI, just kind of personal and I need to find the right tone for it) and partly, actually mostly, because there is very, very little going on worth talking about! 

So I come to you today with some notes about my recent life and to assure you that, as of today at least, I am still kicking. You're welcome!

2) A couple of weeks ago, Steve and I were supposed to go to New Orleans for the weekend. It was just a quick trip for a couple of days, but we ended up cancelling it because there was supposed to be some kind of music festival going on and the town was going to be packed.

Honestly, New Orleans is a crowded, hot, and sticky place even at the best of times, and to think about going during some big to-do was unpleasant for the both of us, so we decided to reschedule.  Probably should have gone since it flooded again a week later!  Haha! 

It all worked out, though, because that Saturday we took an impromptu trip up to Gatlinburg. I had no idea that it was only 4 hours away from us.  Every time we've ever been, it's seemed like it took forever to get there. I am always game for a road trip, so we jumped into the car and did the thing.

It was hot, sticky, and crowded, but not New Orleans below-sea-level hot, sticky and crowded!  We had fun! We just walked around, went to a moonshine distillery for a tasting, visited the Star Cars museum, and had lunch.  Honestly, that was all we wanted to do, so then we headed home!  It was a good day!

3) Sara came into town and spent July 4th with us! Yay! She was actually here to visit her dad, but we hijacked her and took her to Guntersville with us to watch the fireworks.  Anthony was supposed to come with us too, but he punked out. BOO!  We never really have a plan when we go out there, so we spent most of our non-sitting-by-the-lake time going to different stores to buy snacks and walking around. We also ate at a restaurant called "What the Crab!" because you can't go to a place where a restaurant exists called "What the Crab" and not eat there. It's the law.

The fireworks were fun and I wore a plastic sea-shell bra I got at the Dollar Tree (over my shirt, don't worry) and we gave the kids around us glow sticks and bracelets and all kinds of fun stuff that we'd gotten that day, so it was a good time. Now I need to go visit Sara is Dallas.  We will have shenanigans.

4) Tomorrow night we are going to the Dancing in the Streets party in downtown Huntsville! It's the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and there have been all kinds of things going on in town since Monday.  I'm not sure what all there will be to do, but Steve, Anthony and I will be there to do it. I don't know if Steve will dance, but Anthony probably will. He dances like no one is watching. :)

It's funny, because I was actually at the 25th anniversary of the moon landing when I was 16 years old.  For some reason, volunteers from our marching band were there either running a concession stand, or handing out souvenirs, or something.  It was a big party in downtown Huntsville and we were there, and Grass Roots performed, and there was indeed dancing in the streets then too.  Of course, at that point, I had very little idea about the moon landing and what it entailed. I knew it had happened of course, and that it was a big honking deal, but I didn't know any particulars about it. I think that I can appreciate it a lot more these days, so I hope it's something memorable!

I still haven't taken off my dancing slippers, Mr. Von Braun!

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) We finally finished watching Game of Thrones!  It took us a lot longer than it should have, but Steve had to travel and he had band practice and he didn't want me to watch it without him.  Also, I don't know how to access the server where our shows are stored because it needs to be as complicated as necessary to watch television in our house for some reason.

My thoughts: - I liked it a lot more towards the end than I did when we started it, although you can tell a marked difference in quality where the original material stopped and the television writers headed out on their own.  - There were a lot of naked people on the show. Like, a lot. It didn't bother me, exactly. I mean, sometimes I'm a naked person too, but it seemed like more than was strictly necessary at times. Granted, it was on HBO and I think that's kind of their thing. I suppose it's just a fact that sometimes you can get people interested in something if you make it sexy and then hope they stick around to find out they like the rest of it on it's own merits. -  The scenes with the wights were intense, claustrophobic, and sometimes completely overwhelming, even for me as a person who likes zombie stuff! I loved it! - Bran was useless. I don't know why they made him king!  I mean, yeah, he knows everything that was and will be, but haven't they seen Minority Report? Knowing the future doesn't make someone fit to rule. -  Also, dangit Jon Snow!  He could have kept him mouth shut, right?  He didn't want to be king of Westros, so it's not like his true identity was important.  Sure, maybe he didn't want to keep sleeping with his aunt, because gross, but there are a million different reasons he could have given her for stopping that stuff!  He could have given her any one of the million bullshit reasons men give women when they are done with them, or ghosted her like a jerk, but he picked the absolute worst thing to tell her.  Usually I'm all about people telling the truth. I insist on it, even. But when you're dealing with a potential crazy person with megalomaniac tendencies and big scary dragons, I'll give you a pass if you want to give her the old "It's not you, it's me" speech.  UGH.

As much as I hate to admit it, though, I think I identified with Daenrys a little too much. Were I in her place, I might not be so different. I'd have the best intentions, want to free slaves, and make the world better, but I can definitely see myself letting the power go to my head and just losing my shit. Add to that being rejected by the man I love and who knows? I might even dracarys the crap out of a city!

Haha...no, I'd probably just eat the dragon in the end. I'm an emotional eater. Drogon wouldn't have stood a chance. :(   

All in all, though, I enjoyed the ride. I can see why so many people enjoyed it!

2)  I am very discouraged with my latest freelance gig.  had three different jobs in May, which is a lot more than I usually have at a time.  One job was big, one was medium, and one should have been fairly easy.  I finally managed to finish the big job after a lot of back and forth with the client, and the medium job was finished once I had all of the pieces, but the little job is what has me frustrated.

I completely misunderstood what my client wanted. It's my fault for not understanding what he asked for, but he said he wanted me to redesign his business card. I took that to mean he wanted to change everything, including the logo, so I spent all my extra freelance time coming up with 4 drafts of the card. I used pieces of his old logo as place holders until we could figure out where to go from there and sent him all of the drafts, keeping my fingers crossed that I'd come up with something at least close to what he was looking for. I was way off base.  He just wanted me to make him a simple card with the existing logo and his info, which should be one of the easiest things in the world to do.  He was very kind about it, and told me exactly what he needed, but I feel like such a tool.  My client is new, but he is a former teacher of mine who is throwing work my way to help out my side hustle, and I was hoping I would, at the very least, look professional. Now I look like I can't even follow simple instructions. I'm still working to send him what I think he wants (VBS week has kept me busy) so hopefully I can get him what he wants, but stuff like this makes me question my ability to do design at all.

It's a good thing I already know I'm talented. ;)

3) This time last year I was counting down the days for our trip to Spain/France!  That was such a fun trip!  Good grief, that feels like it was a whole other lifetime ago. I was 30 pounds lighter and a big chunk of my family were still alive, so it feels like it happened to a completely different person, anyway. Haha! I kind of miss having something exciting like that to look forward to!  Ok, that sounds kind of depressed, but you know what I mean. I miss the anticipation of going on an adventure, I suppose.  As much as I love to travel, it's not like I want a big, complicated trip every year or anything like that, so I don't need that. I just enjoy that sense of something exciting to look forward to.  Who knows?  Maybe on my way home I'll turn left instead of right and have an unexpected adventure, kind of like Frodo!  You never know, after all! :)

4) There was more, but I can't remember what I was going to talk about. That's no fun!  I'm sure it was amazing and I'm sorry you didn't get to read whatever it was. 

via GIPHY

Haha! Dear God, I'm so tired.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) So, after a great deal of peer pressure, we have finally begun watching Game of Thrones.

Hold your applause.

I've been hearing about Game of Thrones since it started in, what, 2011?  I have very good friends who have loved it, I've had family who have loved it, and it has been a constant part of internet culture for lots of years.  We have never had HBO, so it wasn't a thing we could just flip over to, which is probably the main reason we never watched it.  We've been collecting the episodes, though, with the intent to just cram it all in at some point when we had the time.  We particularly were waiting for it to be over so we could just watch it all from start to finish without having to wait a week between episodes.

I'll be honest, though, what I did know about it: i.e. dragons, witches, swords and stuff, wasn't really my thing.  I've always had trouble getting to fantasy fiction like that. Not because I don't like fantasy stuff, I mean, I love Harry Potter, but that is at least partially based in my own world. Trying to understand a completely new world with different rules and different borders seemed like more of a slog than I wanted to undertake. To be frank, I was OK not watching it at all, if we never got around to it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those "I've proudly never watched an episode of this thing and I don't intend to because popular things are stupid and I'm too cultured to waste my time" kinds of people. Those people suck. The idea just didn't interest me much. Then, of course, so much of the enjoyment of the show seemed to be the big reveals and twists and what-not, and whether I wanted to or not, I found out about them. Hell, you couldn't go anywhere online without someone saying "Oh, did you see this amazing thing that happened?! It was a pivotal moment in the show! You never saw it coming!" Also, my coworker (who is a huge fan) never once got the hint that I was planning on probably watching it one day and that I would've liked to go in as unspoiled as possible.  He literally would tell me a blow by blow of each episode. God love him, I could say "I don't want to know what happened." and he would say "Well, just this one thing..." and then do everything but hum the theme song. I can't blame him, I guess, he was just excited about it. I mean, I get it. I was a rabid fan of "Lost" and got all kinds of involved in the world behind that and I'm sure I talked about that to people who didn't care much one way or the other.

But we were finally worn down by Steve's cousin, Greg. I'm not sure what he did, but we started watching and I actually like it.  I don't know if I think it's the best thing ever, but I'm interested. I don't understand a lot about it yet, as we have just started on the second season, but we already hate Joffrey and love the dire wolves and like Arya, and Tyrion so that's something. I'm interested to see where the story goes, although I know a lot of what is going to happen already. Steve doesn't know, so at least one of us will see it with fresh eyes!  I kind of wish we'd started watching it from the start, because I'd like to be able to see it all fresh and get excited about it with everyone else, but such is life. Hopefully we'll still be able to enjoy it all even though we will hear how it ends! 

2) Speaking of things everyone is watching right now, we saw Endgame!  I loved it!!  We've seen all 22 movies in the series (?), starting with the first Iron Man in 2008, and it was the perfect ending for all of that, I think. I don't want to say too much if you haven't seen it yet, but even though there was a LOT going on in the film, it was great! 

My favorite scene of all was the very last one.  It was so satisfying.  Although Thor is, and always will be, my Marvel Boyfriend (even chubby Thor could get it!) I've had a soft spot in my heart for Captain America since the beginning.  I even managed to find the song from the end on iTunes!  I tried to get my personal Steve to dance with me to it, and he did for a second but he got distracted and left, so I finished the dance all on my own!  Hehe.  Ah, well, I knew he didn't like to dance, so I can't complain too much.  I'll just have to wait for Steve Rogers, I guess! 

Anyways, great movie and a good ending to that story arc, and I managed not to spoil it for anyone, so GO ME!!

3) Steve, Anthony and I went to the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburgh, TN a couple of weeks ago, and it was so neat!  That sounds like a weird thing, I know, but there were tons of people there and it is apparently a big, stinking deal.  There was music, contests, food, and all kinds of merchandise booths. Mainly we just walked around the vendors and visited "Cornbread Alley" which is where you can pay five bucks and get a sample of all of the different kinds of cornbread that each organization made. We over-carbed a bit, but the hush puppies alone was worth the price of admission! 

We also forgot sun screen, so Steve and I came back with a nice, bright sunburn that hurt like fire. That is our fault, so I won't complain, but I will say that I hate weird tan lines and peeling.  I forgot the sour cream trick, so we just had to suffer through it. 

It was a fun day, though. I like going to things like that.  Maybe this year I'll go to the Grease Festival in Athens this year. That doesn't sound as delicious as cornbread, but you can't go wrong with a festival of fried things!

I NEEDED A WIN

This is a dumb story.

I know it's dumb, because it's so very common and trivial and anticlamactic, but still, I'm going to tell it because I needed a win.

Things have been...weird...for the past few months. Not necessarily bad, just...weird. I won't go into it now, or maybe ever, but suffice it to say that when there isn't something to post on social media, life is different.

Anyway, so that happens and then something very small and stupid happens, in my case, my tub got clogged.  A clogged tub is no big deal, but sometimes it can feel like a big deal, ya know?  Our house is old, the pipes are old, and the thing clogs up every once in a while, but this time it felt personal. I was having dreams about it, even.  I tried very hard to fix it the way I normally do, with caustic chemicals and bad language, but it didn't work. 

It wasn't just a regular clog, oh no.  This one was sentient and sneaky.  I thought I fixed it, but it came back with a vengeance. I considered asking Steve to fix it, but he's so busy all of the time I knew it would be a week or more before he would be able to do it.  It got so bad I thought we were going to have to call a plumber and I didn't want to do that!  I should be able to fix this! It was just a clog!!

OK, so after the chemicals and long bouts of fruitless plunging with the various plungers we had in the house, I finally gave up and asked my pastor, who has rental properties as a side hustle, how I should fix it.  He told me I needed a specific kind of plunger and how I needed to go about plunging it.  So I went to Wal-Mart and spent $30 buying the plunger and one of those drain snakes (for extra insurance.) I went home and did what I was told to do, and it didn't work.  If anything, it just made things worse! I also couldn't get the snake thing down the drain! I was down on my knees for I don't know how long using a hand plunger and I'm not going to lie, I almost cried.

I already know it was nothing to cry about, but that's just where I was. 

So I stopped, had dinner, and fell asleep for a little while.  I had given up.  I was done.

But when I woke up, I decided to try one more time.  Of course, this isn't a Hallmark movie, so nothing had changed.  It still didn't work.  I don't know how long I hung over the edge of the tub, plunging and cursing into the pipes, but all to no avail.  I still couldn't even get the damn snake thing into the drain!  WHY?!

I decided I would need to find out what old-ass pipes, installed in the 50s, looked like so I could figure out which direction I needed to stick the drain snake, so I Googled it.  Lo and behold, there was a video that, I swear, looked like it was taken in my bathroom.  Literally, if I didn't know better, I would have thought a strange man had been filming in my house, so I clicked on it.  Basically he said I needed to remove the flippy bit, you know, the thing that you flip so you can take baths instead of showers, stuff a plastic bag down into the empty space, and plunge the drain.  I thought that was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard, but I was willing to try anything at this point.

Y'all, it worked.  In less than 10 seconds, the clog broke free and the tub drained, and again, I almost found myself in tears over the stupid bathtub!  I have no idea how plumbing works, and I had no idea that the flippy thing (which has not worked in years) was a vent, but stuffing a freaking target bag down the flippy bit hole created a vacuum that allowed me to do the thing! I'd spent almost a week and more money than was necessary to fix it, and all it took was a plastic bag! 

So now I'm pretty sure I can do anything.  If you need your house roofed, or your windows replaced, or whatever, let me know.  I'm sure I can find a how-to video online and take care of it for you!  It's amazing what one small win can do, isn't it? : )

IT'S OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL

DAMNIT!

Ok, so you already know that when my computer died a few years ago, we had to send the hard drive and the failed backups to a place where my files could (hopefully) be recovered.  I needed to be able to access my graphic design files. NEEDED TO.  We've talked about this. You know this.

We got the resulting files back from the place, and it was thousands and thousands and thousands of weirdly named, coded files in a series of folders that had no distinguishing names or categories or anything else that might tell us what the heck we were looking at.  I have sifted through them over time, and most of them were completely useless. I didn't know at the time that the computer was saving low res images of just about every button, avatar photo, arrows....just whatever garbage that pops up on your screen while browsing the internet, there was an individual file for it in the folders.  You might already know that too, I have no idea what I've talked about as far as this goes, because it's been an ongoing battle and I'm sure it's frustrated me before.

I'd given up trying to sort through them time and again, because it was just too tedious, and I was getting nowhere. However, knowing I needed and wanted to recover my work from this haystack of suck kept me going back to try and sort through them periodically.  I kept thinking that I could find something usable.  Maybe it would just be fonts, or photoshop brushes, or elements, or anything that could help me, but I thought that eventually I'd find something, ya know?

There was one file folder that, could it be found, would give me at least some of the stuff I'd been looking for. It was a classic case of putting all of my eggs in one basket, I know, but I didn't realize at the time that I was setting myself up for disaster.  Today, I found it!  I was thrilled, because...well, it was my stuff!  I'd have something to get back!  Yay!

BUT NO! PUT AWAY YOUR YAY.  I opened the folder, and inside were files. All of them, save three, were corrupted. The files that would have brought back 15 years of work were useless. They aren't even recognized as anything my computer will open.  All I have is a photo of Mr. Lee, a to-do list from 2011, and a weird photo of myself that I was using to practice an Illustrator technique on.

I kept thinking that I'd find something that still worked, but no, everything else is broken. I am, officially as of today, done trying to find any usable files because there are none. Three years of sifting through files to find out that the files I was looking for wouldn't work.

I'm disappointed of course, and I had a moment today where I was even nauseated about it, but I think deep down I knew they were gone.  It was just So. Much. Work. To. Lose. UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

But, at least I know now. I don't have to sit and click on hundreds of files one at a time anymore. That's something, at least.  Onward and upward from here, right?  Oy.

IT'S NOT OK

Last night I went to the spring concert that Steve had with the community band that he plays with.

The spring concerts are always held in the gymnasium of the church where they rehearse, and so it's a little more loose and informal than say, the Christmas concert that is held in the sanctuary. Also, because it's being held in the gym, the acoustics are not so great and when the band is warming up (which isn't part of the concert, obviously) it's harder to chat with the people sitting next to you.

The organist from our church had driven out to hear the concert and she and I were sitting together talking about this and that. The band was doing the warm up, so we had to talk a little louder than usual just so we could hear each other, but we weren't talking any louder than anyone else in the room. I saw her expression change into one of confusion in the middle of our conversation, and she pointed to herself and mouthed "me?" at someone sitting beyond me, the way you do if you aren't sure if someone across the room is waving to you or not. I had seen a guy out of the corner of my eye waving his hands like he was trying to get someone's attention, but since we didn't know him, I did think anything of it. When I turned my head to see who she was looking at, I saw that same guy that was sitting a row ahead of us and several chairs down looking angry and pointing at us. So I did the same thing and pointed at myself to see if it really was us he was talking to and he said, kind of loudly, "Yes, you, both of you. Shut up. SHUT UP RIGHT NOW."

Ok, so my first reaction was to think "Who the fuck are you to tell me to do anything?"  Also, I don't like being told to shut up like that, by someone I do not know and who I could not be bothering in the least. So I flipped him off and went back to my conversation.  I mean, the hell, right?

The hell indeed.  The man got up, walked in front of us and went off on a tirade about how we were being rude and disrespectful, and how we needed to leave if we couldn't shut up.  I was completely baffled, because we were literally two of probably 100 people in that room talking, and we weren't yelling or making anymore noise than the rest of them, and the concert hadn't even started yet!  I have a pretty quick temper, so my instinct was to jump up and get into his face and tell him to leave us alone, but for some reason I didn't do that. Just looking at this goon, I realized if I did that, he would have hit me. I have no doubt of that. He was scary.  His face was all bruised up like he'd recently been in a fight, and he was wearing a wrist brace, and something about him made me realize that he wasn't all there in his head.  He wasn't like the mentally disabled people I deal with at work, but he was not mentally OK.  I'm not sure what I said back to him, although I couldn't stop my smart mouth anymore than I could stop a train with my bare hands, but I do remember telling him that sure, we'd stop talking, would that make him feel better?  I guess it did, because we walked back to his seat like he'd just told us what for.  That made me mad, because now I knew he felt vindicated for yelling at two women who were literally doing nothing, and something like that would make him feel comfortable doing it again to someone else.. It was weird and scary, because it came out of nowhere.

Halfway during the concert, the man got up and walked behind us and put his hand on my shoulder and leaned down and apologized for being rude. He did that to both me and Karen, and I have to say, that was just as scary and weird as the yelling thing. All I could say was that it was OK, and he went back to his seat.

But you know what? It wasn't Ok. He yelled at us for no reason, he picked us out of a crowd of others to...I dunno... make himself feel big and important.  He scared Karen, and she is the kind of nervous tempered woman who would let something like this upset her for a long time. Also, and what I didn't know until later, was that Anthony (who was in the back of the room and saw what was going on) walked up behind us while the guy was yelling at us to leave, and that was when he walked back to his seat. So that guy was the kind of asshole who doesn't mind yelling at women and telling them what they should do, but when a man comes by, he acts as though everything is fine.

The worst part to me, though, is that he scared me. He had no right to do that. I should be able to go to a fracking concert without some random dude deciding I'm talking to loud for his taste and jumping on my case. I shouldn't have to tell a person like that that everything is OK when it isn't, just so that nothing else happens. I am angry at myself for being scared. It makes me feel small and weak and ineffectual, and I am none of those things. I shouldn't need a flipping bodyguard to listen to music!  I'm tired of being afraid someone is going to hurt me all of the time. I have to deal with that at work, I shouldn't have to deal with it anywhere else.

I wish I had a clever way of ending this, but I don't. I am still embarrassed that it scared me so badly, and I'm mad that such a small and unimportant situation, which is fairly tame in the scheme of things, unsettled me so much.

NOOOOOOOO

UGH.  You know how sometimes you can be going about your day, just doing your life like normal and suddenly remember something that happened years ago and be freshly horrified about it?

This morning, I was at work and suddenly remembered that about 15 years ago, a woman from our church told me that she had Porphyria (a terrible blood disorder that ultimately led to her going insane and dying.)  When she told me I said "COOL!" because I had never known anyone who had it, and the only thing I knew about it was that it was probably one of the things that created the myth of vampires. 

I didn't mean it was actually cool, and even then I knew it was an awful disease, but I...I don't know why I said cool.  I guess it was the vampire thing?  Maybe?  I don't know, but I had successfully blocked the memory because right after I said it I knew what an asshole thing it was to say.  THe look on her face, y'all...  I'm not even sure what brought the memory back, but I've felt very uncomfortable about it since.

Please know that if you ever get sick and tell me about it, I genuinely do care. If I say something like "COOL!" it's only because my brain hasn't caught up with my heart yet.

via GIPHY

SNICKERS!

Last week we took care of a friend's puppy!  It was kind of a mess, in more ways than one, but the mess and biting aside,he was a very sweet puppy. 
The puppy belonged to one of Steve's coworkers, and she had gotten the dog (Snickers is what they named him, but don't believe that should be his name*) only a couple of weeks before. They were planning on taking Snickers on vacation with them, but only realized when it was too late that the condo they'd rented had a no-pets policy. Steve offered to let him stay with us, which I was 100% on board with, and so she brought him to us the day before they left.  Snickers is a 9 week old yorkie that is roughly the size of a large rat. He was the smallest dog I think I've ever held, and that includes both of my own dogs when they were puppies.  We realized, only after getting him home, that Snickers could actually get lost in our house. He also doesn't know his own name yet, so if we did lose track of him, he wouldn't come when he was called, and panic would ensue.  I lost him thrice.  We tried (unsuccessfully) to barricade him in the living room, just so we'd know for sure where he was, but Snickers is apparently part Yorkie/part ninja, because he could get inside and over almost everything we put in his way, and disappear without a sound.

Y'all, that dog owned me from the second we brought it into the house. He required constant attention, which wasn't terrible because, you know, puppy.  He hated when I didn't have him in my lap, or when I got out of his sight. I tried letting him run around while I was doing house things, but I found that when he did that, he was constantly under my feet or going potty in various spots in our house. That was the peeingest dog I've ever met in my life!!  He. Peed. Everywhere. He was also very bitey. VERY BITEY.  I kind of expected that, because that's what puppies do. They chew on everything, but man, he had tiny, sharp teeth and he chewed on me constantly. He chewed on my necklace, my neck, my hands, my arms, my pants, my hair...anything he could get into his mouth he chewed on.  I finally had to find a thick pair of mittens that he couldn't bite through and wear them when I held him.  He licked my face raw on one side and would suck on my earlobes.  It was weird! 

Now, having said all of that, it might sound kind of miserable, but it wasn't at all. I loved him!  He was tiny, and he had that sweet puppy smell, and he let me hold him and carry him around. Early in the mornings, he would whine and bark and howl in his tiny puppy way, and I'd get up and hold him on my chest, and he'd go back to sleep and cuddle on me.  It was so sweet!  We would also sit together in my chair and I'd ask Alexa to play Queen songs, and I swear, the dog loved them. Every time I did that, he'd get really still and doze off when the music was on. Nothing else I played did that to him, just Queen. It seemed to be the only thing that would calm him down!

I sent daily photos to his owner so she'd know he was still alive, and he didn't like to be still long enough to take pictures. He especially didn't like that I would try and put props on him, but he didn't have a choice. See:

I don't care what anyone says, he was a tiny Wookie.

We finally had to let him go back to his family. I won't lie, as much as I loved him, he was a handful and I was glad to have my life back. However, I do miss him. My mom said that it sounded like what it was like to have grandkids. You love them and miss them when they aren't around, but you don't mind so much when they go back home!

Lots of people have asked me if keeping him made me want to get another dog. People are weirdly invested in my getting another dog for some reason.  It didn't, at least not yet. I'm still too sad about our boys being gone. I know we will get another one someday, probably more, but my heart still isn't ready yet!  For now, I'll just love as many of other people's pets as I can. I'll get there. :)

*Snickers didn't seem like his actual name. I don't know if it was because he wasn't my dog and I didn't name him, but the name didn't fit. I kept waiting for his "real name" to come to me, and it finally did. That dog's name (Snickers to his family though he may be) is Chewy. Not Chewbacca, regardless of the fact that he was a teacup wookie, but just Chewy. It might have been because of all the actual chewing that he did, but that was the name that I accidentally called him, so I know that's what his real name is.

EXPO WEEKEND

Two weeks ago Amy and her younglings (who are not really that young) came to visit and we went to the Huntsville Comic and Pop Culture Expo!

It's literally been years since Amy and her family came to Huntsville to visit, so we were very glad to see them.  Since we were going to be spending the weekend at the Expo, we got hotel rooms at the Embassy Suites, which is attached to the civic center by a walkway, and also is close enough to downtown to walk wherever we needed to go!  No Car Weekend!  Woo-Hoo!

Everyone got here on Friday night, and we took the opportunity to walk around Big Spring park and talk and chase the ducks around for a while. Pretty much everything was closed by the time we got back, so we retired to regroup the next day for the Expo.

Actually, on our way back to our rooms via the slowest elevators in the history of elevators, I recognized one of the special guests that would be at the Expo. Ming Chen, who is kind of a renaissance man and one of the guys on the show Comic Book Men, a reality show based in a comic book shop in Red Bank, NJ. If you're one of my constant readers, you'll remember that Steve and I visited there when we visited New Jersey. Ming has always been my favorite on that show, but I genuinely didn't expect to see him right in my hotel!  I said hello, but was immediately distracted with a dog that came out of one of the elevators (of course) so Steve struck up a conversation with him and had a quick chat. Ming seemed to be a very nice dude, so I'm glad he got to visit with him a bit.

Saturday was the full day we planned to spend at the Expo. Can you believe that I didn't wear a costume?  Steve wore a costume, Amy wore one, Kate wore one, but Sean and I just wore our nerdy shirts (Hogwarts Alumni REPRESENT!) I would love to cosplay at a con someday, and to be fair Amy did offer me one of her costumes to wear, but I didn't have the right shoes or have hair and makeup planned. Aside from that, I haven't found a character that I think I look enough like to cosplay as. Granted, I know that isn't really important, but I'd at least like to find someone I kind of favor to dress as! Come on, Hollywood! You need more chubby brunettes with big, brown cow eyes in your sci-fi stuff!  Help a sister out.

Anthony met us in the lobby, and we headed into the vendor hall!  TBH, that's my favorite part of going to cons. There are so many local artists who can make amazing stuff. I was determined to find something special as a souvenir, and I did, but someone bought it out from under me!  I'm so mad!  I hesitated! You never hesitate in the vendors hall!  UGH!  We walked around and enjoyed people watching and browsing.  Look, even if you aren't into Sci-Fi or pop culture, and you'd rather chew your own face off than participate at a convention, you should still go sometime. The people watching is so freaking fun, and the costumes on display are very impressive! Although this particular Expo isn't huge, there were still a lot more people there than last year, and the level of participation was impressive.  The guests lined the hall, and there were lots of fun people there.  Besides Ming Chen, I actually rode in the elevator with one of the best comic cover artists in the business, Arthur Suydam, several of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were there (and I think the Pink Ranger had the hots for Steve!), voice actors, professional wrestlers that I loved when I was a kid (I met Jake "The Snake" Roberts, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan was there as well) and Gil Gerard (the OG Buck Rogers) was there too, but I didn't get a chance to meet him. Lou Farrigno was also there and that guy is HUGE. I mean, you'd imagine that he'd be big and muscly, but you'd have to see him in person to really appreciate it.  It was a lot of fun!  

We skipped out in the afternoon to get lunch and coffee (I finally tasted Korean barbecue and it was great!) and we went back to our rooms to rest for a bit, because we were going to a hockey game that night.  The game was a lot of fun, and I think it was the first hockey game that Kate and Sean had ever been to. As far as I know, they enjoyed it, which was great!  Stupid me, though, had to leave and go back to the room because my allergies were making me very stopped up and dizzy and it was hard to watch the puck go back and forth without wanting to puke. Of course after I left, the Havoc made an amazing shot and won the game and I missed it! BOO! STUPID ALLERGIES!!!  Afterwards, we all got together in the hotel restaurant and had dinner before going to bed.  It had been a long, but very enjoyable day.

Sunday we got up to do it all over again. :)  It was a little less crowded, but no less fun.  We walked around and saw and met people. Amy wore an amazing costume of Idris, the female form of the TARDIS, which I covet. :)  We didn't spend all day there, though. By that afternoon, everyone was tired and Expoed out, I think, and Amy and the kids had a long drive back home.  So we wondered around outside for a bit and then said our goodbyes.  It was a great weekend!

EVEN MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I find myself a little blue these days.

Don't worry, I'm not going to detail my own issues, but I am finding that many other people I care about are going through such awful things right now and there's nothing I can do for them. It makes me feel helpless and like there isn't a lot of good happening anywhere.

That's stupid, I know, because there's always good, but it feels far away and I can't seem to find many silver linings these days. Every time I turn around, something else bad is happening. Literally, I keep getting bad news about people I care about.  I also find myself feeling this weird mixture of being very glad and being jealous of other people who seem to be moving forward and accomplishing important things and being happy. I don't want to feel like that. I just want to feel the happy for them part.

Anyway, enough of that. I'll work through it, but it feels hard right now. I feel dumb for feeling like I do because other people have it so much worse. I know life doesn't suck completely, though, and I'll prove it!

2) I've been looking through the photos that are available on my Facebook page, because sometimes I like to check and see what other people see if they happen to be looking for me. I'm beginning to wonder if it looks like I am in some kind of polyamorous relationship with Steve and Anthony because we are always together! We hardly go anywhere without him.  That's fine with me and not a complaint, but for the casual observer, I wonder how that looks.  

I mean, I like Anthony a great deal, but no. That...that...no.  Haha!

3) Speaking of Anthony: he, Steve, another friend that was in Spain with us and I (God help my grammar on that) went to a curling class!  We'd been trying to get into one of those classes for a couple of months, but they were always full. We finally got in one, and it was so much fun!

Granted, curling is a strange thing for people in southern states to do, since there is very little ice, but there is a curling club and they give lessons every month or so to get people interested in forming teams for their league.

I knew nothing about the sport going in, except for the little bit I watched during the Olympics, but we learned a lot about it in the short time that we were there. I know why it's called curling, now, and I know that I suck at sweeping, because I am not fast enough to keep up with the stone, but I'm fairly good (balance aside) at throwing it!  I got to be the "hammer" for our team when we played a round after the preliminary lesson, and I was one of only two people to manage to get the stone all the way across the ice. I did fall on my face a lot, but that was part of the fun!  We plan on going back and taking the next level of lessons on the 30th, which will teach us about it in more detail. I don't think we'll be joining a league or anything, but it's a lot of fun to play around and learn about it!  I'm excited about going back!

Just FYI, the sport was developed in Scotland. I thought it was a Canadian thing. Also, there is drinking involved, but I abstained and you all know very well why. :)

4) Our church basement flooded a little over a week ago!  We were pounded with almost 12 inches of rain over a few days, and the sump pump in the basement wasn't working properly and there was two or three inches of water down there! It was a mess, but once the pump was fixed and the water wasn't continuously coming in, a bunch of people came in and cleaned it out. Not me, haha, but others!

A reporter from the local news saw our Facebook page and wanted to do a story about the church flooding. I know it was supposed to be a fluffy, feel good piece about people working together and all of that, but the pastor said no.  He wasn't interested. I waited until I heard back from him before I answered her (I'm the page admin and get the messages) and I was as polite as I could be telling her that he was not interested, but damn, she was tenacious.  I know reporters have to be like that, but for what she was wanting to do a story on, it seemed a bit much. She finally left me alone, but I thought I was going to have to get aggressive. I'm sure her journalism teacher would have been proud of her!

5) There's a slim chance we might be going to Germany with the band next year. I hope so! I haven't been there yet. There are still so many places I'd like to go!

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Would you like to know something that sucks?  I've realized that all it takes is one person to misunderstand something that I've said and get angry about it, and for about a month afterward I'm going to be double checking and explaining myself to everyone, just in case there is more than one way to interpret what I said. I didn't actually realize I was doing that so much until this morning, and now I'm annoyed at myself. It's a part of my anxious nature, and I am tired of it.


I know I shouldn't worry so much about things like that. I know that rational people figure if they are misunderstood, then it's the other person's problem. I just hate anyone thinking I'm being mean, especially when I'm really not intending to be. Being purposefully mean to people makes my stomach hurt and I feel awful about it for days afterward.

Yeah. I realize I'm over explaining myself here, too.  Don't worry, it'll pass.

2) The weather has been freaking terrifying here lately. 

It started getting warm much earlier in the year than it normally does, so for the beginning of February we've had some beautiful, spring-like days. One day it was almost 80 degrees, which is nuts to begin with, but mainly it's just been an early spring.

I guess we may be paying for it, though, because since Sunday we have had terribly wet and wild weather. It's was sleeting and then started raining almost non-stop, we've had thunderstorms, and last night I happened to be up late and the wind was blowing so hard I legitimately thought at one point the windows in the living room were going to blow inward.  It was scary!  We usually have weather like this is early April and May, but it's rare this early in the year.  I hope this doesn't mean it's going to be super tornadoey (shut up, it's a word) and then be 90 degrees starting in April. 

3) Apparently, some lady came to church last Wednesday night and hid so that she could sleep in the church once it was locked for the night.  This is not the first time someone has attempted this, but it is the first time someone successfully accomplished it.  Well, until she came out of hiding to go to the bathroom and she set off the alarm. One of our deacons had to come up to the church and meet the police, and the lady was caught. I'm pretty sure God worked it out so that I wasn't the one that had to come in the next day (It was last Thursday) because I don't think it would have ended well for her.

I have a fear of this exact thing happening, because sometimes I'm the first person to come to the office in the mornings.  I know people think I'm joking when I talk about grabbing the bat I keep behind my desk and investigating strange noises, but that is not a joke. Obviously that's the stupid, white lady thing that happens in horror movies right before the monster rips out her spleen, but since I have a responsibility to the church, I do my best to check things out to make sure everything is ok.  If she had managed to stay all night and I'd been the first one in and found her here, there is a very good change that poor lady would have gotten hurt.  I don't want to end up beating someone to death if I can help it.

As it turns out, it's a very sad story. The lady isn't mentally well and no one is sure if she has a place to live, or if she's scared to stay at her own place for some reason, but she felt safe at the church and figured that she would just sleep here. I'm sure wherever she was hiding was much nicer than wherever she normally sleeps, but unfortunately we can't allow stuff like that to happen. We aren't a shelter, and we can't allow people to wander around in our building all night. I'm not sure what happened to her, or where she ended up, but I hope she found a place to go where she felt safe. To be honest, it's all to easy to imagine doing the same thing if I were in her shoes. 

Sometimes this job hurts my heart so much.

4) Y'all, I hurt my stupid back again. Our circuit class got cancelled when our instructor was injured, so I haven't been doing enough strength exercise to keep up the gains I made with upper body stuff. I don't know enough about how to do that myself anyway, so any weight training I've done since was just sort of guessed at. Since I didn't want to completely give up altogether while we're waiting for the class to resume, I decided to do the most basic of what I was taught and do planks.

I forgot that was the stupidest thing I could do. I've hurt myself that way before. I don't know if it's the particular muscle group that is used or if I'm going them wrong without supervision, but I pinched a nerve in my back again and it is causing all kinds of problems.  I already have a bum back, but when I was doing those classes, I was working the right kinds of muscles in the right kind of order to actually help my back feel better.  Now that I haven't been doing that everything hurts all of the time, and with the new pinched nerve, it's worse.  I'm not incapacitated, but it's just one of those nagging pains that never goes away. My back feels like it's literally on fire.  If I sleep weird, which I did last night, I also wake up and it feels like my entire body is full of ants. It's the same feeling when your foot goes to sleep, but everywhere!  I hate it!

I know I should go back to the spine doctor, but she wants to give me shots in my spine. IN MY SPINE!  It might make me feel a little better, but I can't stand the thought of it. Not yet.  *shudder*

Anyone want to come and give me a massage? :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

Look, let's just get this out of the way. I know that it's odd that a 41 year old lady took a day off to celebrate her own birthday, but that's what I did.  I took that day off and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

My mother always made sure that I had special birthdays growing up. We didn't have much (although I didn't know that at the time) but she always made sure I had a cake and gifts, and when I got older and we had a little more money, I had the requisite roller skating parties and sleepovers, and one magical year I even had a Showbiz Pizza (AKA Chuck E. Cheese) Party!* 

This is accurate.

After I became a teenager the parties stopped, but my birthdays were still treated as something important by my parents. My mom always made a special dinner for me, and every year until he passed away, my dad would wake me up singing happy birthday.  Granted, I often have had bad luck on my birthdays, which led me to boycott them for a while, but the memories of the good stuff always stuck. I think that's now why I like the idea of "doing something" for birthdays, because I fondly remember so many of my own from being a kid. Not just for me, though. I like to make a little fuss for all the people I love on their birthdays to pass that along. Everyone deserves to feel a little special to celebrate being alive, I think. 

Since I didn't want to subject anyone else to possible disasters, I decided that I'd take the day and wander around to do whatever the wind told me to. Really, that meant I got to sleep in and then lie around for a while watching YouTube videos (a habit I really need to break myself of) until I decided to get ready and go out!  My mom called me to sing Happy Birthday (she took over when my dad died) which was my cue to get out of bed, and Sara sent me flowers, which were delivered while I was mostly undressed.  Sorry you had to see me like that, delivery man!  I got in my car and drove to the only place I really planned on going, which is an Asian market on the other side of town. I know that sounds weird, but I love going in there and buying stuff that I'm not 100% sure what it is or how to fix it. That's always kind of an adventure in itself.  Of course, I did go there looking specifically for something I'd seen on the internet, but I also managed to find several other things that looked interesting.  I didn't buy anything too weird, but now I have an ass-load of instant boba tea, Haw Flakes, and pandan flavoring. (Yeah, still not sure what that last one is, but it's green and I'm going to use it on something.)

 

Next, I was planning on going to a fancy-ish shopping center and walk around for a while, but the universe decided (and by that mean that I didn't turn at the right exit) that I should go to downtown Huntsville and have lunch there instead.  A lot of hipstery places and boutique shops are starting to open up in the the old business district down there, so I also decided to walk around and see what I could see.  I went to lunch at a tiny place that I've been trying to get Steve to go to for months, but he never seems interested enough. It's called Domaine South, which is place on the square that sells wine, cheese and sandwiches. I think you're supposed to have a reservation, but since I was alone, I snagged the last seat at the bar and had a nice ham sandwich and an amazing piece of cheesecake. From there I walked across to the Harrison Brother's Hardware store and looked around for a while, and then I walked in and out of some of the places I'd never been before.  It was nice and relaxing, really. I ended my excursion by getting hot chocolate from the hipster coffee shop on the corner and then went home and took a nap.

The nap was important. I'm an old lady now.  Heehee.

Steve came home from work and he brought me a birthday cake. A real, live, birthday cake!  Not once, before being married nor after, has he ever done that. I realize that it probably sounds like I'm being snarky, but I promise I'm not. I thought that was nice and I was surprised! He doesn't usually do things like that, so it was both weird and very sweet. Since we usually don't go out on my birthday (as Valentine's Day is kind of a pain in the ass to try and go out during) we were going to grab some dinner and bring it home, but decided on the spur of the moment to go to a local hibachi place before things got too crazy. I really like the food at hibachi restaurants, but I do NOT like enduring the show portion of things. I know that makes me a stick in the mud, but unless I know everyone sitting at the stove-thing, it's always awkward and you feel the need to talk to strangers and Steve never talks to anyone, and I end up having to interact, and I would just rather enjoy my dinner and enjoy the company of the person I came with.  Also, I like to get my food all at once and not have to eat one thing at a time as the cook finishes it.  At any rate, we got to eat good food and go home and have cake, and that was a nice way to end the day.

Now, if I might be allowed to be a bit sentimental for a second, I do want to say that the best part of my day wasn't the cheesecake, or the exploring, or even the nap (although that was way up there) but the fact that so many people that I love were a part of it.  I got messages, phone calls, and a video that I loved wholeheartedly.  I've been reminded - often - over the past few months that you don't get to keep people forever. You have to love them and enjoy them while they are with you, so it wasn't just that they remembered me and reached out (and I know how easy it is to forget about people who aren't near you all of the time) but that they reminded me that they were still there in my life and I love them even more for that. 

So until next year, happy birthday to me! :)

*That was my 9th birthday in 1987. I had an accidental mullet, permed, from a bad haircut and I wore a wildly patterned button up shirt that Weird Al Yankovick would have been proud of. Oh, and a pair of sky blue Converse high tops. I don't remember that birthday specifically because it was at Showbiz Pizza, but because I was dressed as Screech from Saved By the Bell.  No pictures survive, so don't even ask. Heehee. 

I hug you.