DUI Check Point!

Last Friday night I was working at the restaurant. To my surprise and delight I was not a closer which means I was actually done with all my tables, doing my side work, and turning in the required money and paper work before we closed. It was fantastic! Having my other job normally makes me a closer which is fine, but every once in a while it is good to get out of there early. I was sitting around with some other servers who were also done already. I was thinking about having a drink…but I just wasn’t really in the mood, and by the time I figured I was, we were closed and as servers are not suppose to order drinks after we’re closed. So I chatted a little bit longer and figured I’d just go home and have a beer from my beer drawer.

On the way home I’m just jamming out to some music when I see a guy randomly take a fast turn into Little Casers. That’s weird I think, they are closed, I don’t know what they are trying to do?

Just around a corner, the night sky is light up with blue, white, red, and yellow light. What in the world? That has to be a huge accident! Then I start to see the signs and cones and cars. They are all slowing to crawl and I realized what was going on a DUI CHECKPOINT!!! I am about to go to my FIRST DUI check point! This is fantastic!

One, I hadn’t had anything to drink. Two, look at all the lights. I am actually giggling with excitement. I prepare, I turn the radio down, and I pull out my driver’s license, and start to kind of straighten the mess that is my passenger seat up. I was tossing clothes in the bag, gathering trash and other items to make it a bit neater.

The hardest part about this experience is that I keep looking around and trying to take pictures. Can you take pictures while stopped? Are they going to get mad? I was able to take these two that kind of came out.

The only thing I was actually worried about was if I was going to get my window back up. My diver side window rolls down just fine but getting it up, now it takes two hands and a few grunts.

So I’ve finally came to the part where you can talk with a police officer. I’m ready, I have nothing to hide, I’m good to go, I’ll probably ask him about how long it takes to get these set up or something. They have a coup of cars pulled over; a few people are by their big mobile police unit which is like a big Bus that probably has cool stuff in it.

The officers start to wave me though, I’m like cool, and I’ll just be talking to an officer further down the line, that’s cool. Except, the police officers didn’t ask me any questions. I ended up getting waved through the whole line. I was bummed. I mean really, what a perfect time to get stopped! I had so many questions starting to bubble up to be asked. Oh well, there will be others.

Be safe don’t drink and drive so you too can enjoy the light show that is a DUI checkpoint.

Curly is best.

To show how long my hair is and my cool unicorn.

I think everyone has a favorite body part or characteristic about themselves they enjoy. For some people there are lots of things they like while others have a much smaller list. I feel like I have a lot of pros and cons and I'm going to talk about one of my pros today. My hair.

If you've seen my profile picture you can see that I have brown curly hair. I like my hair. It is one of those attributes that I enjoy. Like most people, as a child I hated my hair. I didn't hate it to the point I wanted straight hair, I just always had my hair up. It was always in a pony tail, braid, bun, or something, always back up always pulled up.

Things like that probably would have continued if I hadn't hacked my hair off one night so that it was too short to pull up. That is a story for another day. I was forced to wear it down all the time for several months. When I could finally put it in a pony tail it was like I had stolen the tail off of a poodle. It was a tiny little puff at the back of neck. Quite funny actually. Sometimes I miss it.

I enjoy my hair more once I discovered moose. For any of those ladies with curly hair use moose. It helps with the frizz without the crinkly and weight of gel. I have been using Tresemme as recommended by a fellow curly haired friend. I use their moose and their curl conditioner. That leaves me with super soft fluffy curls. Not always, but most days.

Two funny facts about curly hair. If it rains, most people start to groan and whine and complain. Personally I love it! It turns my curls into tight ringlets that I like to boink. Sure the frizz goes up a bit, but walking outside in the rain, everyone runs and hides because their hair is getting "ruined" Not me, I walk through it proudly and usually without an umbrella because water isn't going to do anything. Plus every time I do this, it confirms that I'm not the Wicked Witch of the West. On those really rough slightly bitchy days I like to double check. 

I do miss the ability to run my fingers through your hair. I've probably straightened my hair about a dozen times now, and the whole time I just comb my fingers through it over and over and over. With curly hair, I cannot just run my fingers through my hair. I could, but it breaks up the curls and my  hair  would triple in volume so I would look like Frankenstein Monster's wife or some chick from the 80s. Not being married to a monster and the 80s being several years ago, I think I shall pass. I can however, twist, twirl, boink, and kind of pat the curls. Anything else.... well it just doesn't work out for your best interests.

I enjoy my hair. Here's a Haiku

Part Identity
Bouncy, soft, brown, little curl
How you make me smile.

My personal swimming pool.

This week started off with a new adventure. It’s called flooding in your basement. For anyone who has not had the pleasure of this experience, count your lucky stars. This was one of those lessons that you wake up one morning and learn without warning.

I, per usual this week, was running slightly behind in getting ready for work. I hopped out of bed, had 20 minutes to get ready and out the door, I can do this! That was until I opened the door to my basement. First thought, what’s that hissing sound? Is it a snake? No, it’s louder than that. It’s coming from the laundry room, which is cool, I’m going down here for socks anyway… is that water? Yes, yes is. And it’s….. oh, everywhere. Where in the world is it coming from? I’m going to guess the same place as the noise, the water heater.

Yes, that is correct, the water heater, at some point from yesterday’s exploration to find socks to the next, had sprung a leak and had covered my basement floor.

First call I made was to Pop to find out how to turn the heater off. He told me the valves on top of the water heater. I tried, badly, to move them. They didn’t budge. I blame my lack of hand strength. So I did the next best thing, found the valve that turns all the water in the house off. Pop said he’d call a plumber so my next concern was getting the water up/out of the house. To make sure I had more than 20 minutes to do that, I called my boss and was like water heater broke, flooded the basement, I’m going to be late. He said that was fine. So now I went from room to room, the basement is divided in 3 rooms, and had to figure out how far the water went and started to move things onto higher or just further back places to keep them dry. Some things I moved with care like lamps, chairs, and dressers, and other less so, like dog cages and suit cases. Once that was complete, I started to squeegee the floors.

I learned a couple of things in that hour and half of scraping water into the drain or out the door. 1. Those drains in the middle of floors really do have a purpose. 2. Cement basement floors, though are cold, are excellent for using a squeegee. 3. I have no idea where the squeegee came from but it’s has worked wonders with snakes and floods. 4. I apparently had a dead lizard in one of the rooms. Gross. I sent the dead lizard out the door verse trying to pick it up or shove it down the drain. 5. If you turn all the water off in the house and use the restroom you will not be able to get the soap off your hands no matter how many sinks you try. 6. When concentrating on getting water out of the house you don’t hear people approaching. I was just working away when the plumber showed up. He scared the crap out of me. I yelled in surprise, he apologized, I waited 10 minutes for my heart to stop trying to break through my chest walls. Man! That freaked me out.  

"There's a Snake in my Boot!" ~ Sheriff Woody from Toy Story

One chilly night last winter I came home after a long hard day of work and decided to watch some TV to unwind. I usually keep my house pretty cool in the winter time because I have oil heat. It is quite expensive to fill and you can always wear an extra layer for a lot less. Plus winter time should be filled with wool socks, blankets and more sweatshirts then you can count. One way I like to indulge with some extra warmth is by placing a stand up heater that automatically turns on and off according to time or a set temperature, in random rooms like my bedroom. I’ll set this heater for something like 74, shut the door and let the room become nice and toasty compared to the rest of the house.

On this chilly night I was watching TV and became sleepy and I said 20 feet was too far to walk and I’m comfy so I’ll just sleep on the couch. This worked until about 4:30am when my back started to ache, my pillow was on longer comfortable, and my feet had gotten cold. I hate cold feet when trying to sleep.

I turned off the TV and walked towards my warm waiting bedroom.
When I pushed open the door I noticed something on the floor. A snake? My first thought was who’s been in my house? There are a few friends that like to play practical jokes on me. After a few minutes of pondering who could have gotten in, I came to the conclusion that I don’t think anyone has been in my house. I took a tentative step forward and the fake snake, did indeed move.

Crap.

It’s 4:30am in the morning, I’m tired I don’t want to deal with this right now. I send a text message to my step dad and brother and inform them of my issues. As I wait for their responses, which were KILL IT NOW! I’m groggily trying to figure out my next step. Is it a poisonous snake? If it not, then I don’t want to kill it. If it is I really do need to kill it. I keep field hockey sticks in my bedroom so I was thinking about using one to smash it. The question of  do I need to clean up the  guts now to keep it from doing weird things too my floor? Or do I have a few hour period where it wont hurt anything if left unattended. I get a second KILL IT text from my brother. By this point I’ve shied away from that option because I’m really tired and I just want to go to bed. If I kill it and have to clean up the guts and I might wake up more. No, I don’t want to do that, I just want to go to bed.

Clearly I cannot just let the snake wander around the house while I’m asleep. Who knows if it would show up again? So I decide I want to capture it to keep it from going anywhere. I wander into my kitchen, get a pie pan and a bowl. I come walking back to my room and find the snake is still there. Very carefully and quickly I kind of throw/toss/place the pie pan over the snake. I put the bowl top just for more weight and then do my little ick dance, where I make weird faces and question what I just did. This takes about another 30 second until I crawl into bed, turn the lights off and go back to sleep.

Note: Yes, I still slept in the same room as the snake, it was nice and warm I didn’t want to go anywhere else and wait for the room to heat up. I did sleep well with just a few dreams involving snakes.

So the next morning I wake up and kind of hope the snake thing was a figment of the imagination and really I just threw a pie pan on the floor last night. I call a few people to see if they can remove this snake for me but everyone is either busy or out of town. By this time I realize I’m going to have to suck it up and take care of this issue by myself.  First, I go take my class at the gym before dealing with this snake.

When I get home from the gym I go downstairs, grab a giant squeegee thing and a tall bucket. I head back upstairs to face the snake. After  a few calming breaths I enter the bedroom, put the bucket on the ground and hold the squeegee in my left hand. I remove the bowl and put it aside. Very quickly I flick the pie pan off the snake. Yup, still there. That was not a dream. At this point the snake, I feel, makes a rattling sound. I quickly start using the squeegee to try and get it in the bucket. After a few moments of holding my breath, the snake goes in, the bucket stands upright and I can breath a sign of relief. I quickly take it outside and place it on my porch. This snake was probably as round as a sharpie marker, about a foot and half long with brown, tan, and white markings in the shape of diamonds all over its body.

With the snake safely outside my house, I pull out the computer and try to look up what kind of snake it is. I learned really helpful tips like you can tell if the snake I poisonous bases on its eyes. If they are round iris then they are NOT poisonous. If they are slits like cats they are. Okay, being someone not very comfortable around snakes how in the world am I suppose to look at its eyes? I don’t want to get that close! Same thing with the shape of their head I think it something like more rounded is not poisonous verse more pointed is. Either method involved getting way too close for my comfort. I kind of gave up, google wasn’t failing me as much as information overload. So I waited for my neighbor to get home and asked him.

He looked at the snake and was not sure. So he said he’d bring it work with him and find out. He later called and told me that it was a rat snake and he let it go around his work. Now, I kind of have a feeling that “letting it go” around work is probably about the same as when your hamster goes to live on a farm, but that’s okay. The snake was identified and removed.
So the lesson learned is if you have determined the snake laying on your bedroom floor is in fact NOT a fake one, capture it by placing a pie pan over it until you have more time to deal with it.

Why I'd be a Cat.

I am more of a dog person. I think it is their blind loyalty, they are always happy to see you, easily bribed with food, and they can be brought on hikes, walks, and runs. I guess not all dogs, but the kind I like Spaniels, hounds, labs, bigger dogs.

However, if I had to be reincarnated as an animal I would be a cat. I’d prefer to be something bad ass like a tiger, but I would settle for a stripped tabby cat. (I’m leaving this here but I just checked it out on Wikipedia. Saying stripped tabby cat is like saying you want a large grande size coffee at Starbucks.) Here are the reasons why.

Balance: Something I lack in my current life. If you were to pick me up and drop me, I would not land on my feet. More than likely, I’d be on my butt trying to kick your shins for being mean.

Retractable claws: Who doesn’t want these? One minute you’re nice and then next minute you have small razors sticking out your hand to take out someone’s eyes. Kind of fantastic. There other uses are to help climbing trees, ruining furniture, scratching backs and maiming people.

Purring: I love the fact that when they are happy or content they purr. A low grumbling feeling that says I’m at peace and doesn’t require my tail to move.

Tails: Not all cats have tails, some of them are tailless and that makes me sad. However, I love the way the end of their tails, when they are like laying on the couch or something just twitch. It is just fun. That and if they are sitting on the top of the couch they always seem to make sure you don’t forget about them by always putting their tail in your face. Devious.

I do think a dog growling is a lot scarier than a cat hissing. You win puppies you win.

Now it’s your turn, what would you want to be and why? Leave me a comment or just look to the right and take a vote.

Malls and I are like Oil and Water.

On Friday, I had an evening off. Those are kind of rare. I also had the urge to go shopping for clothes which is even rarer. I had had some gift cards that had been burning a hole in my pocket for a while, mostly because it made it hard for my wallet to close. So I figured it was time to get some more work clothes.

I hopped in my trusty chariot and headed out towards the biggest mall, which compared to most cities, is quite small. I had two stores in mind and a movie to make at 9:00pm. Plenty of time. I spent about the first 30 minutes going through sales racks, normal racks, checking out what the manikins were wearing and if I thought I could pull it off. In most cases it was a no. Especially with yellow, that is one thing I learned earlier this year, yellow is so not my color. With my arms loaded down, I headed to the changing room. 15 minutes later I had tried on everything, rejected some, laughed at others, and was confused about how one dress was even worn. I kept pulling and tugging at it trying to figure out if that is how the material was going to lay. It was red, white, and cream stripped and made my butt look great, however, the middle section with some weird extra cloth and tiny little string belt confused me. I almost went outside the stall and asked the gaggle of teenage girls if they thought it looked good and how it was worn. But, I figured if I couldn’t figure it out myself, I shouldn’t wear it. Feeling slightly successful in adding new colors, styles, and textures to my closet, I headed off to a favorite basics store of mine, Old Navy.

This store is great for all of your basics like flip flops, camis, and t-shirts. The previous weekend I had lost one of my black flip flops. One flip flop does you no good. I lost it while swinging my feet off a pier. It hit the water and floated off faster than my mind could work to use the long net sitting next to me. Anyway, I needed to replace that and get a few more things. After a couple more wardrobe changes I felt satisfied with my choices and headed out the door. That was it, not browsing other stores, just in and out and I hadn’t wanted to scream. I was proud of myself.

That was until I walked outside and had NO idea where I parked. It has been a little while since I’ve done this. My car, though long, is not very tall. A Ford Fiesta could easily hide it. I wandered around looking for it for about 10 minutes. Where or where did I park? Was it this way? Or over here? What angle did I enter the store? I had no idea. In my head I kept making the little panic beep beep noise that people with newer cars can use to locate their car. However, Eleanor being as sexy as she is does not have that ability. Success! I found her! Wait, was my window down? Yes, yes it was. Apparently sometime between the first store and the second store’s changing rooms a massive storm popped up, dropped buckets of water and left. Some of those buckets ended up on my seat. It didn’t just make the seat damp, it made it wet. So now, lacking a towel, I am trying to sit more in the middle of the bench seat while driving. Not really a smart move.

Before leaving the mall, I decide, my glasses have been driving me crazy for some time, why not take them to Lenses Crafters and get them adjusted. This requires another parking space which I will make sure I remember where I parked. I was successful in finding one fairly close to the store, however, it took me like 5 minutes, and it was probably more like a 18 point turn to get into the spot. If I had a parking card, someone should have come up, taken it out of my possession, ripped it up, set it on fire and blew the ashes in my face. That is how horrible of a time I was making this parking job. The good news, I didn’t touch the other cars.

My butt it wet because I couldn’t quite avoid the wet seat. I wnder around for a little bit until someone comes to my rescue. A kind lady asks what I need, I tell her an adjustment for my glasses, and then she takes my glasses. It has been a hot minute since I’ve sat around glassless or contact free. Man, is the world is a blur. I kept randomly giggling to myself because everything is just so fuzzy. I felt like my eyes were open wider because they were trying to take in every ounce of light in hopes of making anything a tad bit more clear. I had a thought that if anyone were to come in and rob the place I would only be able to tell them what color shirt they were wearing and only if they were male or female based on their voice. I would be a terrible eyewitness. When the sales lady came back she commented on few scratches my glasses had. She places the frames upon my face and noted they were crooked and I told her a little tight. I also assured her that it was probably my fat face and lopsided ears. She laughed and went back to make some adjustments. At this point I tried to send a text to a friend. This meant my phone was like 3 inches from my face. When the eye glass people are laughing at how close you put the phone to your face you know you’re blind. The glasses wer successfully adjusted this time and I thanked them for their time. I also made my current favroite saying about my eyes. I told them I was so glad to be living in this century other wise I feel a bear would have eaten me by now. They laughed and I left.

Pulling out of the parking lot, now sitting on a flease jaket to buffer some of the wet seat, I head home. Mission comlete.

So Many Hats

I am pondering on the all the different hats people wear in one day. For example, we’ll just take a look at all the hats I wore yesterday.  

Work Hat – This is the business casual wearing, avoid cussing, writing and speaking proper English, trying to keep all conversations professional, please and thank you, yes sir and ma’am person.

Friend Hat – This is the going for a walk to chat with my friend. The lean on me and yet opening up to talk about my issues as well. Support and listen, really listen, not just wait patiently for your chance to talk.

Daughter Hat – Chatting with the parents to find out how they are doing, what the plans are, tell them what I’m doing the whole time trying to avoid cussing and giving them

Sports Hat-  Showing the dedication by showing up for soccer practice, running, kicking, chatting, some cussing, aggressive, competitive, enthusiastic , the whole time while still having fun and learning.

Chill Hat – Hanging out having dinner with friends. Sitting back and just hanging with the baby, knowing when to ignore fake tears, watch TV, talk only during the commercial while football is on.  Add friend hat at the same time.

Home Hat – sitting on the couch watching TV, playing on the computer, knowing I should be scrubbing my tub that I’ve been successfully avoiding. I am the lover of all things soft and fluffy like puppies and my stuffed animals a hula hopper in the living room and cereal aficionado.

I guess my pondering isn’t so much as the different hats is much as what keeps them from becoming masks?  I can wear multiple hats any day of any week at any point. What worries me is being lost under all those hats. Is there, even a true self? Is it the Chill Hat? Maybe the Daughter Hat? I know that the older I get it I will have more hats like Wife Hat, Career Hat vs my Job Hat, Mom Hat, or Dog Owner(hopefully sooner rather than later) Hat, all to be add with my other hats like Aunt Hat, Sister Hat, Bookworm Hat, Runner Hat, Writer Hat, Pondering Hat etc.  

The first thought that comes to my head is to be true to thy self. But clearly, after just pondering a few of these hats, I am not sure if I am ever totally hatless. If there were not hats  would I just be a brown eyes, curly hair, 5’2” flesh bag of bones? Or maybe all these hats make up thy self? Maybe the challenge or pondering isn’t to find the hatless self as much as just a balanced self? Maybe the way to keep the hats from becoming masks is to keep them proportional and evenly stacked? As long as one of the hats, like the Work Hat doesn’t become too big and it stays in place then I don’t have to worry about them growing, consuming the other hats and becoming the mask? Is the answer to this self analysis the same as it is for eating and drinking? Always, always, always in moderation? Does that mean each and every one of these hats are needed to make up Thy Self, which is a multi-dimensionally and probably not color coordinated stack, that sits on top of this flesh bag of bones? Today, I shall lean towards yes. Tomorrow, is another day, and another set of hats.

Getting in touch with my inner Mario.

The other day is was in the ladies restroom at work and walked in to my favorite stall. I don’t know if everyone has a favorite or default stall, but I do, I am a creature of habit. Anyway, I was in the process of closing the door behind me when I realized the top was down. Odd, and then I realized it was because the toilet needed to be flushed. No worries, I can work the handle, but it just giggled uselessly up and down and so I decided to use another stall.

As I was going to leave the bathroom I had a moment where I was like, I think I can solve this problem. So I walk back into my favorite stall, took the lid off of the toilet, place it on the seat and check out the tank. Yup, the chain to the handle and the little floater thing that control the water lever and the valve that opens up to let more water out had come undone. I stuck my arm in the tank reconnected everything, flushed the toilet, put the top back on and went to go wash my hands.

It wasn’t until I was walking out of the restroom that I started to shake my head, laugh and even question what I did. I mean, fixing that issue on a toilet, not a problem. It took all of a minute. But why? I’m not a plumber. Heck, I don’t wear overalls with a red shirt, (I do wear overalls. Have you tried a pair lately? They are quite fantastic.) white hat, or have a mustache. I have no idea why. Still don’t. I could say it was me doing my little bit of good for the day, or because I can so I did. But whatever the reason, the toilet now works. Win for me!

Doodle Adventure

The other day I was in a meeting for work. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon, I had eaten lunch about an hour ago, and I’m trying to stick with just one cup of coffee a day. This silly little rule is mostly for concern about the color of my teeth and creating a caffeine addiction. I’ve seen people deal with them before and I don’t want to be part of that group.

Since it is very unprofessional to put your head down and start drooling in a peaceful sleep, the next best thing I can do it doodle. One, it pulls out my 3^rd grade artistry, it keeps my mind from humming circus music, and still allows me to sort of pay attention.  Below is the picture I drew. I felt it was kind of entertaining. My boss looked over kind of shook his head. I wasn’t scolded so I guess that means I’m okay….? Anyway, I figured a nice task would be to try and write a short story about it. So here is my attempt.

My doodle. (I cannot figure out how to rotate the picture.)

“This would be a great adventure! I can be a kick ass pirate like Johnny Depp. It would be great to have some peace and quiet; I need some time to myself. Sure I can drive a boat, sure I know what I’m doing,” thought Scott as holds up his help me sign.

He wasn’t sure where he was. His plan for that day had been to escape from his nagging girlfriend, his job that didn’t appreciate him, and the mother that wouldn’t stop whining about not having any grandkids yet. If he had to have that conversation with her one more time, he might lose it.

So he did what any person does in that situation, grab a wad of cash and go make some random adventures happen.

Scott’s day had started out in a spa with a nice massage, sipping on fruity drinks, having his body rubbed down by a nice lady, possibly take a nap.  However, he didn’t get any further then the counter. The receptionist told him that they were all booked for the next 6 weeks, but if he would like she could pencil him in on the 27^th? Scott kindly declined and went to go try something else.

Scott had always thought about going hot air ballooning. Hang out in a basket, see the city from a new perspective, the wind in his air, the sun on his face, yes! That’s it! He quickly did a Google search on his phone and pulled up the nearest hot air balloon companies. He called the first number and the phone rang, and rang, and rang, and rang, and rang, and rang, and rang. After seven rings he gave up. He tried the next location. After only two rings the person picked up. However, he informed him that last time they crash landed in a Christmas Tree farm and their balloon was still being repaired. Scott thanked him for his time and tried lucky phone number three. After a few tentative rings, the company picked up. They said they could take him out, but it would have to be later in that day. It is best to fly in the mornings and later in the evenings. Scott scheduled a flight for later that evening.

Scott looked at his watch and realized he had about six hours to kill before he was airborne. He knew a great oyster bar on the beach so decided to grab a beer and chill there for a little bit.