Welcome to my world!

My life's been crazy since my Daddy moved in with me immediately after my mother's death in October 2010. My one and only kiddo headed to college at Carolina at the end of August. So...I lived on my own, for the first time in my life, for a total of a blissful six weeks. Then, I started the parenting gig with my dad. He's a combination of a grouchy old man, a surly teenager and a temperamental toddler. Needless to say, I get very close to the brink of insanity sometimes. I get through life by finding the humor in difficult circumstances. And for some reason, I wind up in the weirdest situations. I couldn't make this stuff up. So I wind up having lots and lots crazy adventures which make great stories to share with my friends. Writing about my life is so therapeutic. My ramblings range from funny to sad to angry (full of cuss words) to sweet. While my focus is dealing with the trials and tribulations of being a parent to my Daddy, I have lots of random, totally unrelated posts. Whatever's on my mind. I love to make people laugh, and I'm happy to think my readers will get my strange sense of humor. And maybe, people who are in my situation will be encouraged. That's all I can hope for...

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Don't fuck with me

I'm in a mood.  Mad at pretty much everyone.
  • Kiddo
  • Kiddo's dad
  • Pushy realtor
  • The Daddler
  • My biz partner
  • My sick boyfriend (sick as in suffering from flu-like symptoms, not fetishism)
  • The Daddler
  • Sally the Terrible
  • Lucy the Prolific Pooper
  • Lowe's, Comcast, Office Depot, et al
  • Slow drivers, old drivers, most drivers
  • Obnoxious, sexist, piggish pony-tailed self-proclaimed siding specialists
  • Pushy realtors
  • The Daddler
  • The ferocious chihuaha next door (actually, I'm in love with him)
  • The pitiful excuse for police
  • Anyone who abuses animals or children or women
  • Cheaters
  • Liars
  • People who buy $11 worth of bing cherries ahead of me in the grocery store checkout and complain about the price as they present their SNAP (food stamp) card. Why the fuck are they buying $11 worth of cherries on the government's dime - rice, beans, velveeta - I can see, but fresh cherries?  Is there some cherry compound used to make some black market drug?  Wait.  I think Dr. Oz listed cherries as a superfood the other day.  So I'm sure the demand exceeds the supply and the price for bings has sky-rocketed.  That makes me think of the fortune I lost on Beanie Babies.  America's 1990's version of tulip mania of 1637.  Think Gordon Gekko and Wall Street.  Can't remember if it was the first or second movie.
Need a nap.  Bye.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

My New Muse


I am head over heals in love with The Bloggess.  AKA Jenny Lawson.  You've got to check her out.  I added her blog's link to my list of favorites, for your added convenience.

A good friend introduced me to her when he gave me her book:  Let's Pretend This Never Happened

Reading it made me feel much more normal.  Really, though, it just made me embrace my weirdness - she makes it seem downright glamorous to be shrouded in strangeness. 

Have you read David Sedaris?  He's absolutely hilarious, too.  I'm so hooked.  Then there's Augusten Burroughs - he's kind of a darker version of Sedaris.

When I wright a book of my memoirs, I'm going to call it I Couldn't Make this Shit Up.  Because I couldn't.

I've had several blog-worthy experiences lately, but I just haven't had time to chronicle them.  Let's see... There's Sally's disastrous diarrhea episode.  My latest David and Goliath thing (Carol v. Lowe's, this time.)  Another mysterious crime case that called forth my inner Nancy Drew.  These are just a few that come to mind.  I'm sure there are more.

No time to write now.  I'm on a deadline with the rental house.  Tenants are signing the lease tomorrow.  I have to finish it up, plus ten million other things to get the house ready.  Fortunately, they're all relatively small things, but I need to get them done before they start moving in later this week.  And then there are all the things I've put off in my frantic rush to wrap up the rental.

Oh, I just realized I'm way late on The Daddler's dinner.

So, that's all for now.  Later...

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

The Good News and the Bad News

Bad news first.  Sally can now jump over the fence which divides the back yard in two.  The good news is that she has gotten too big to squeeze through the gate from the front section to the carport (and freedom.)  More good news is that she doesn't run away, unless she's following Lucy.  Which is especially good since Lucy can't jump out because she has short Dachsund legs.  That doesn't slow her down when she goes on the lam, though.  The bad news is that, in spite of her short legs, she's a regular canine FloJo.  And she's very clever.  She can open any gate or door latch, unless I've stretched a bungee cord tighter than Mary Tyler Moore's face to keep it in place. 

And she has big, paddle-like paws which she uses to dig under the fence.  I should've never let her watch The Great Escape with me.  Or one of those movies about escaping from Alcatrez.  The Rock, maybe?

Hey.  Lucy hates water, so maybe I should dig a moat around the house.  It would serve a dual purpose.  It would contain her and it would keep my yard from turning into a mud pit when it rains.  That wouldn't help the Sally sitch, though, because she likes water - I guess that's the retriever in her.  When I fill the kiddie pool, she tries to swim in it. 

Maybe an electric fence is the solution.  Now that I think about it, though, there's another, equally challenging problem.  Sally eats anything she finds (if it's not a carrot or a pickle.)  Tell me - why would someone eat a dead vole or bluejay, and not a carrot?  I won't even mention dog poop, vomit, or the litter box.  Which reminds me of a sickening story.  One night, I conducted a bread and butter pickle blind taste test with my friend girl, Jolynna.  Followed by a blind taste test of three kinds of Baskin Robbins ice-cream.  For some strange reason, I threw my guts up.  (No, I wasn't preggers.)  I slept in JoJo's guest room, and I woke up to the sound of her Greyhound rescue - CatDog (I know) lapping up, ummm, yea.  The contents of the waste can stationed next to my bed.

That reminds me.  In case you haven't heard.  The definition of a good friend is someone who holds your hair back when you throw up.  Jolynna is a good friend.  She even got a cold cloth for my forehead.

Damn.  I'm digressing.

It's been a crazy day.  Lots going on with my burgeoning real-estate empire.  Wheelin' and dealin' and scavenging wood from curbs.  I had no idea how expensive wood has gotten.  I hit the jackpot, though.  I found a $300 exterior door today, complete with really great hardware.  The right width for what I need.

Gotta run.  Duty calls...