Duh.

I have no idea why anyone would think that this is a good idea. I mean plastic and metal don’t work well together. The plastic will always either break or wear out.  Anyway, they ordered the $99.00 part and are waiting for it to come.

Meanwhile, I took home her load of beach towels that were hanging out on the fence to dry when it started raining and were in danger of souring.

(Have I ever mentioned the humidity down here? If things don’t get dried fairly soon, they sour and then mildew.)

Anyway, the stuff had been being rained on since yesterday so it all needed washing anyway, as mud had splashed up on it.

I got home, took a load of my own towels out of the washer and tossed them in the dryer and turned it on.

Nothing.

It started to go, the lights dimmed for a second and then nothing.

Wait a minute… the lights dimmed? This can’t be good. I tried again and it happened again. Over and over.

Finally, I held the knob in the on position and the stupid dryer started. It ran for the allotted amount of time and did not dry a thing. Not even a little bit.

It did not get remotely warm.

Shit.

Meanwhile I attempted to wash Lisa’s towels. My washer is making a bizarre noise that can only mean bad things.

Did I mention that the central A/C is blowing and not shutting off, yet not cooling at all? At all?

AT ALL?

Will someone just wake me up before we all go to the poor house.

Boredom is a dangerous thing for me.

There have been many more purchases in those years.  We have a history of making some major purchases together and she and her husband and John and I also have a history of getting a bit sloppy from margaritas and ending up going shopping for computers and another time for new cars.  The scary thing is, purchases were made both times.

So we hit the bars furniture stores and it all started innocently enough.  First stop, Bel Furniture and we took a gander at all the wild, ostentatious, only to be seen in the playboy mansion, flashy-trashy furniture to be had.  We had quite a time.  There was much giggling and squealing to be had.  Lisa posed for a few pics with her new… friend.

There was a lot of glancing around for anyone watching us…  We thought we were sneaky… We noticed the security cameras as we were leaving…

Somebody got to watch that, (if they were smart), and we probably made their day.

You can’t really tell in the picture, but I was tossing around my patented “come hither” look, terrified an innocent bystander would see it and jump me.

Er, innocent bystander…. yeah, now I feel the need to apologize to you.

After making complaints about the mattress, we moved on.

Needless to say, we purchased nothing here.  But we had a high time “shopping”!  On to Dillard’s, The Room Store, and Lazyboy Furniture.

Lisa ended up getting a black leather couch that has recliners built in and she says is perfect.  Along with a new chair for the husband.  I wouldn’t know if it’s perfect or not because for the first time EVER she chose to purchase something hideous and I, like a good friend(?), stood there and let her, (EVEN THOUGH I TOLD HER IT WAS BUTT UGLY), and then when she went back with her man, she changed her mind and told me she didn’t get the “80′s looking couch” even though it was sooooo comfortable.

Thank God.

So she went ahead and picked out something different while she was there with her husband, of all people, and I have no idea if this is going to turn out to be an acceptable piece of furniture or not.  And I bet she’s not even sleeping nights knowing she made a major furniture purchase without me.

The other night we went to Pizza Hut for, you guessed it, PIZZA.  So I am sitting in the car because I looked like hell and was in a white tee shirt with no bra and shoeless.  The homeless look is alive and well at chez Lopez.  Anyway, John went in to get the pizza after a quick glance at me determined there was no way I was going to do it, and I noticed this poster in the window.  Click it and notice it says that they have “Restaurant Quality Pasta”.

As opposed to…what?  I mean I know Pizza Hut is not a 5 star establishment, but it’s not a hot dog cart either.

Just wondering…?

Next, we have a close up of John’s shirt with the little guy on the horse attempting to whack the invisible ball with a mallet.  Only John managed to get a little something Chinese food wise on it at lunch and the horse in his particular version has, obviously, left a pile of poo behind.

What can I say… this amused me.

Remember this?  Lisa’s kitchen and living room, ages ago when the remodel began?  Well, here we have some update photos.  Everything is just about done completely.  She doesn’t have her art and pictures up on the walls yet in these shots, but I’m thinking maybe tomorrow or the next day I’ll get over there and we’ll do it.  She also has some wooden shutters ordered to go up on the windows.

There is a beautiful oil painting that we found at a frame shop the other day to go over her fireplace.  It will look totally different.

There’s not much else to say.  John is off work again tomorrow.  AGAIN.  TWO TIMES THIS WEEK.  Those people at his work who can’t seem to do without him may start to think he is having an affair… with his wife.

Oh well.

We went to Hobby Lobby, Garden Ridge Pottery and out to eat at Cheddars.  No, it’s not a cheesy place.  I don’t know why it has such a horrible name.  Really good food.  We had a wonderful time.

Kes came home from school in time for me to stay out as long as I wanted with Lisa and Mimi.  We had loads of fun.

I came home and now H is fed and in bed and I am waiting for my hubby to come home as it is our 20th anniversary! I got him a new cell phone for his gift as he desperately needed one and I think I got some perfume and I’m not sure what else…  I will see and report back.

On the bleak side of things, I have a rather disturbing picture I am going to shock and appall entertain you with.

The following is an image of my dear mither’s foot about a week after her foot surgery.

Yes, what you are seeing is a pin with a large white ball head on it, sticking out the end of her second toe.  Strangely, what bothers her most, (besides the pain from the surgery), is the blood around her toenails that she can’t clean off well due to the fact that she’s not supposed to get it wet.

The Pin started out pushed all the way in.  It has slowly worked it’s way out and is not supposed to do that.  She hadn’t walked on it at all and yet, it was wriggling out slowly.  She went back to the doc today and he said something like,

“Hummmmmm.”

And then he strapped some tape and gauze around the whole thing and duct taped it to the back of her ankle said he thinks it’ll be fine.

Doesn’t LOOK fine.  Looks gross.

At least child number two and her friend are going to go and see Mither and Pop for spring break.  They will be a really big help, I know.

I wish I could go.

Several times in the past few months there has been a little… eh, afternoon delight going on in the HalfAsstic boudoir when, WITH NO WARNING WHATSOEVER, there has been a knock on the door.  Or worse, a rattling of the doorknob.  (Which is always locked because hey, we may be naive enough to think that we can actually get amorous while the others in this house are awake, but we’re not totally storybook-stupid.)  And then there’s always the ubiquitous ringing of the damn bell from Henrietta, but there’s nothing to be done about that.

Aaanywaaaay, over a month ago I told Lisa that we had a Lucy and Ethel mission to go on that would only rate a 1 on the five star Lucy and Ethel Absurdity Scale, yet, it needed to be done.

Nay, it MUST BE DONE.

I could tell that she felt like I might be just wasting her time with a measly one star mission, but, in true BFF fashion she jumped on board.  When I explained the situation and what needed to be done to remedy it there was no question.  Appropriate measures would need to be taken.

My first instinct was to head to the local Motel 6 and just steal one off any old random doorknob.  Lisa would be the “get away driver”.  (Like I said, a dismal 1 on The Scale.)

Before any of this could happen Lisa left on a cruise with a few family members.  Her aunt knew about what I was in need of and though about me while on the ship.  Lisa returned with the very best “I went on vacation and you got stuck here changing shitty diapers and hauling an old lady around gift” ever.  For me anyway.

Me.  Right now.

Went to the Dr. and got me some Rx’s for meds that will make me tolerable able to tolerate all this crap.  And when I say, “crap”, I mostly mean that figuratively.

Lisa went with me and I’m not SURE, but I suspect she was worried I wouldn’t go in and she was just going to leave me there.  That bitch is no nonsense about several things and when she says, “Are you medicated? …Well you need to be!”  You best pay attention.    So, in order to keep from having a nervous breakdown Lisa happy I had to get in and see the woman with the prescription pad.

On our way back home afterward, we pulled into John’s store and Lisa picked up some wine.  Ten bottles, to be exact.  She grabbed some wine totes to get it all out to the car and put her grandson’s, car seat to good use.

That chick is downright clever if she absolutely has to be.

OH!  This just in!  John heard back from his doc today and his tests all came back negative.  Not thyroid.  Not diabetes.  Cholesterol a “little bit high, but nothing to be worried about”.  So now what?  He lost 65 pounds in the last 4 months and I’m thinking that we may have to start to look in… awkward areas.  He is going to throw a fit and try to get out of it, but he’s just going to have to deal.

Maybe I could hook him up with some of my meds…

Needless to say I had a lot of comebacks to this and then she told me they were all excited because they thought they were going to be breast fed.

I would have just gone back to sleep, but I really don’t think I could have.  And really?  Can’t even imagine the nightmares that were possible.  Scarred. For. Life.

The other day, after realizing that I had been missing one of my favorite bras for a couple of days and was about to REALLY go through the dirty clothes hamper and wash EVERYTHING, I happened to look over at John’s side of the bed and notice that he had attempted to decorate the area.

Lamely.

What’s so brassiere bizarre is that I hadn’t noticed it there for at least 24 hours.

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…”

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.

“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…