HalfAsstic.com

(Started last Tuesday…)

Hello there.  I am just sitting here waiting for the caregiver provider to get here at 11:00 to stay with H for the next three hours and I am OFF!  Lisa and her Mimi are picking me up and we are running the roads.

Let that be my own personal warning to anyone in the area who might be out and about at the same time we are.

There will be Christmas shopping and lunch eating, laughing and cussing, squealing and hair pulling.  Well, OK, maybe not hair pulling, but ya never know with Lisa and me.

I will give full disclosure when I get back.

It is Thursday now and no, it didn’t take this long for me to recuperate from the wild partying shopping spree we were to go on.  The original one on Tuesday didn’t even really happen.  Lisa’s grandson, a three year old, got kind of dumped on her at the last minute, when his mother, never showed up to pick him up from the father’s house and the father and his girlfriend had to go to work.

So we were attempting to shop with a three year old.  We, basically, didn’t.  The whole day was shot.  There was no stroller and it was a constant effort to keep up with where he was.

So yesterday, Wednesday, we struck out again and accomplished a bit more.  I bought two nightgowns for the girls for Christmas and then took them back.  I did keep the house shoes I got them, though.

I bought two pairs of sleep pants and two tee shirts to go with them for The Boyfriend, and they are going back today.  The pants, not the tee shirts.  Kes says the pants are way too small.  They are X-large and I know how big his waist is cause he’s worn some of John’s old belts before.  She says that I keep forgetting how big his thighs are.

Oh.

He is very large and muscular. and has gigantic muscles thighs.  So his pants have to be bought huge in order for his legs to fit into them.

Maybe he needs to sleep in shorts.  It’s not that cold.  I mean really.  We’ve been sleeping with the air conditioner on for the past two nights.

OK, now it’s Saturday and John and I spent all day yesterday and the day before frantically running around doing Christmas stuff.  And by “stuff” I mean shopping.  You know… buying shit you can’t afford for people you “have to” give to because they always give you something, whether or not either one of you can afford to do it.  And I mean people you don’t even necessarily like, but you are obligated to share Christmas with and give crap to JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE PART OF YOUR HUSBAND’S FAMILY.  AND DID I MENTION THEY REPRODUCE LIKE RABBITS AND THERE ARE A MILLION OF THEM?

(Stepping down from rickety platform I hastily erected for myself.)

Anyway, we were driving in unbearable traffic and trying to make it all the way to a certain store and John popped in a CD since nothing was really good on the radio at present.

All the sudden I am listening to Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.

I know.  John is a strange one and his musical taste is… diverse.  You never know which way he’s gonna go.

So we’re sitting there and Willie and Waylon are belting out “Good Hearted Woman” and it comes to a spot in the song where Willie Nelson is singing close to the end and he’s going on about how she loves him in spite of his *something* ways she don’t understand…

John was singing along with him kind of low and I turned and looked at him and said, “What did you say?”

He repeated himself and said, quite clearly, “She loves him in spite of his Micky Mouse ways, she don’t understand?”

I could not speak I was laughing so hard.  So there was much backing up of the CD and replaying that particular part, and this version really did sound weird.  I couldn’t understand what Willie was saying right in that particular part, but, I assured him that he absolutely WAS NOT saying anything about Mickey Mouse.   He might have been taking a drag off of one of his herbal cigarettes, but he was not speaking of the mouse.

This is not the same version that John had burned for the CD, however it IS Willie and Waylon and a good listen if you like this kind of music.  I guess I like it well enough, just not my usual cup of tea…

Oh, note the lack of mention of Mickey Mouse…  He says, quite clearly, “…his ways, she don’t understand…”

Today I ran up to the Breast Imaging place right here in Dickinson and… imaged my breasts.  Those machines were “invented” by a man.

I rode up there with Lisa and her grandmother, Mimi.  Mimi and I had appointments as Lisa already had her boobs squished a month or so ago.  I tried to get her to do it again with us, saying things like, “Come on!  All the cool kids are doing it!  It’ll be fun!”

She thought not.  And I got a fresh reminder of why shortly thereafter.

You know it’s really not the squished boob that was so bad, (speaking for myself here), it didn’t bother me too much.  It’s that the machine is so uncomfortable everywhere else.  Digging into my ribs and shoulder and arm like that.  Is it really necessary?  I was thinking, as I held my breath for the nice little lady to click the damn film already, that if they just put some padding on the edges and corners of the deal and moved the stupid plastic shield that my face was pressed up against to a remote corner of the earth… well, I might find my way back there before another three years have lapsed as they did this time.

I know!  I know!  That’s no excuse, it’s true!  There really isn’t any excuse and I was happy that my girls looked good on film.  I’ll get the official results in 7 to 10 days.

And it’s over with for another year!

John is off today but he had to run up to the store for a bit to take care of the possible firing of one of the slackers up there.  The caregiver provider person is coming at 3:00 today instead of the usual 11:00 AM, so that worked out well.  When he gets back, my honey and I are going out to eat!  Woo-Hoo!

There is also a bizarre laundry list of things to do:

The ever-present grocery store run

Dash over to the barn to pay our LAST month’s rent on the paddock that we rent for the horses that are being sold.  Woo-Hoo! (Yes, again.)

dry cleaners

Vet’s office to leave flier for somebody to buy that colt.

Sherwin Williams store here in town to pick up the winner can of paint that I decided on for the front door.

It hasn’t rained in for freakin ever and was the perfect weather for painting something outside.  It started raining today and is unbelievably humid, now.  Of course.  I know I should use oil base paint and primer because it’s on my front door, yet, I HATE, let me say it again, HATE painting with that shit.  It’s not the paint that’s so bad as the clean up. The door gets no direct sunlight or weather on it.

Yes.  I will be doing it latex style.

Well, gang, that’s the update from chez Lopez.

Lisa and I were out shopping at Kohl’s yesterday and while browsing through some knit tops she indicated one of them and said,

“Eww, no.  I can’t wear circles.”  To which my curiosity got the better of me and I replied,

“Circles?  That’s horizontal stripes…”

Lisa:  *deep sigh-bit of an eye roll*  “They go all the way around and make a circle.  Makes me look and feel fat.  Not to mention dizzy.”

Quite frequently our conversations are reduced to this sort of analogy.  The scary thing is I knew right where she was coming from…

I promised John I wouldn’t post about his… stomach virus issues, so I’m not.

HOWEVER, this does not mean Lisa is safe from my marauding posting.

Years ago, Lisa and I and her daughter Brittany, Kessa  and Keelan were on our way to, (or from… can’t remember) my parents house when they lived in Trinity, Texas.  Kessa and Brittany were both 10 years old and Keelan was 8.  It was a good three hour drive and we were on the north side of Houston…. somewhere.  Not any area we were terribly familiar with.

Lisa and I were chatting away, as usual, while she drove and the girls were doing their own thing in the back seat.  Lisa squirmed a little bit and mentioned that her stomach was feeling bad.  A few minutes later she was moving around in her seat looking pained and she said her stomach was really hurting.  Seconds later she was speculating that she was going to have diarrhea.  Momentarily there was some deep breathing and rapid panting that I swear she had done in the delivery room, combined with extreme butt clenching exercises.  She was writhing in the seat as she drove us faster and faster down the highway and we all searched frantically for a convenient place for her to go potty.

The priceless thing I will NEVER forget was when we were up to about 80 miles an hour and Lisa was bouncing up and down in the drivers seat, I glanced back at the girls in the back.  It had gone deathly quiet back there and three pairs of eye’s had grown saucer sized and were bouncing back and forth from me to Lisa on mildly terrified faces.

I wanted to laugh so hard right then!  I mean I felt SO bad for Lisa and was really a little worried myself that we weren’t going to find a bathroom in time, but you should have seen the looks on those girl’s faces!

We finally spied a Target and zoomed in the parking lot where Lisa leaped out of the car and raced in while I got out and went around to the driver’s side to get us out of the firelane.  We drove over to a parking spot and watched and one of the girls piped up and said, “… ya think she made it?”

In a few minutes she came out with a sack in her hands and headed for the car.

She had purchased a potent anti-diarrheal and a box of Tucks Medicated Wipes after she came out of the bathroom.

There were no more incidences the rest of the way home, but I glanced back several times just to see the difference in the looks on the girls faces from when we were desperatly seeking a bathroom.  I laughed every time I looked at them and the memory of the sheer terror in their eyes still makes me grin.

Yesterday, a mere eighteen days into NaBloPoMo, I forgot to post.  Actually I remembered, but by that time it was after midnight, so what the hell…

It was all John’s fault as he was off yesterday and I am always distracted by him when he’s off work.  I suppose that is as it should be… BUT IT’S STILL HIS FAULT.

We went running around and the caregiver person was here for her three hours so it was kinda nice.  I went back up to the eyeglasses place and complained bitterly about mine and they went to great lengths to explain that this is the way they are supposed to be and my eyes will get used to them.  I have 90 days and if I’m not completely satisfied, well, I get a do-over.

Do-over’s are great.  I wish do-overs came with everything I do.

Lisa called me today and when I answered the phone I said “Hello, Lopez residence, maid speaking.”

And, of course she said something to the effect of, “Where is that bitch?!”

To which I replied, “She’s out and I gotta clean this entire shithole before she gets home.”

Lisa replied, “And this is the maid?”  And then she started trying to speak Spanish to me and I got lost and I KNOW she was.  I told her, “I no speaky the English, and I no understandy you Spanish either, sista!”  Then it got so politically incorrect that the intertubes are not safe with me around anymore.

I told her,

“Oh, yeah!  You know those Lopez’s!  They are rolling in so much money they’ve even got a white woman cleaning for them!

She then commenced to tell me that she had a white woman cleaning her house too and the friend with her chimmed in and said she did too.

Now the pressure is on and I gotta get the dump cleaned, supper cooked and the laundry done cause I don’t want to be the one to make the white chicks look bad… let someone else do it!

Well, today I spent the majority of my time at Lisa’s house with her three year old grandson, Bryen and her son’s girlfriend, Megan.  We worked hard and emptied out her entire kitchen, (except for the pantry), and put every single thing in any cabinet or on any counter top in her dining room on the table.  Now if those SOB’s don’t show up to put in those cabinets tomorrow I will, personally find somebody to castrate.  You just don’t take a woman’s, (or a man’s, for that matter), kitchen away from them and not follow through with your promises to give it back, only better.

Here’s Lisa, Megan and Bryen hard at work while I walk around aimlessly snapping pictures…as it should be.

Good Gawd.  That was a lot of shit to move into the other room.

These pictures, I offer as proof of how badly she needed this redo.  I have known Lisa for 13 or 14 years now and she has wanted to do something with this house for a very, very long time.  Well she is doing it up right!

Her walls are sheet rocked and painted really beautiful earthy colors.  It as so much fun picking out the paint chips!  We even had professional help!  (Lisa keeps telling me I need professional help… wonder if that’s what she meant…)

Living room with the couch sitting in the middle with the cushions upended.  The cat and dogs are not welcome.  Yet.  The furniture isn’t coming back in yet.  Still some touching up the painters have to do and SOMETHING has to get done about that fireplace wall.  We have plans for it.

I love the paprikaish colored wall thrown in just for good measure!  Lisa’s idea and she was on fire.  It is a short little wall around the corner and is just one side of the foyer.

I wish I had pics of before it was painted!  It was bad and dark, and paneled in the living room and the LR and hall, along with the kitchen, breakfast area and utility room all had tragic flooring.  The living room was an unfortunate carpeting choice that she made years ago, (with me there assisting) and it was a horrible, stinky, stained mess.  (Lisa and husband, Roger have two large outside dogs that tend to smell.  A lot.  And even with the giving of a bath, this is not rectified.  Stinky. Dogs.  They are supposed to stay outside, but someone I will not name, (starts with Rog and ends with er), tends to let the stinky dogs in when Lisa isn’t at home.  I think he’s scared to stay by himself.  I am sure he would dispute this.

This is in the breakfast room.  Can you tell we had only just gotten started bringing stuff in here at this point?

They also have two small inside dogs and a cat.  Housebreaking the dogs and having the cat puke hairballs all over the place for ages has just worn the sanitary out of the carpet.

The kitchen, breakfast area and utility room all had terrible old sheet vinyl that was original to the house, built in the 60’s.  Now it is this awesome large Italian porcelain tile.

Strange side note:  Every time Lisa takes pictures in her house with her camera she gets all those weird little circles and light spots on the pictures.  You can see them above and I think in all these shots.  I never have that problem so I brought my camera.  These pictures are with my camera and there are still all the weird little spots.  What’s up with that?  Are they haints?  If so there certainly are a lot of them and they better not smurf up the new paint job.

Oh!  That’s the little antique oak table I am SO GENEROUSLY GIVING UP OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF MY HEART.  (I’ll kill her if she tries to put that thing back in my garage.)

Ok.  It pains me to say this but there is some bad news in the way of our friendship.  I am afraid I am going to have to report Lisa to the SPCA.  I even have photographic proof.  Before I show you these disturbing pictures I will explain what has, obviously, been going on.

Lisa has been contributing to the obesity, (I mean incredibly obese), of these poor, over indulged squirrels.  These poor guys don’t stand a chance if the cat ever gets out.  I watched one of them attempting to… scamper(?) up a tree and let me tell you, there was no scamper about it.  Poor squirrel looked like he was hauling a load of bricks up a ladder.  He may as well have been.

She buy bags of mixed seed and seduces lures attracts these little critters from the surrounding yards with her own brand of crack.  These guys can barely move.

There’s even a little one.  A baby, that she is trying to get hooked at the moment.

I think this little guy is doomed.  Here he is, so transfixed in his stupor he doesn’t even notice me.

Passed out Sacked out in a tree trying to recuperate.

Please remember these guys in your prayers…  I don’t think there is a Jenny Craig program for squirrels…