Guest Post!

Well hello there! I hope each of you had a lovely Christmas, Hannukkah, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, and whatever else falls into the holiday category. I had a lovely Christmas as did my family.

This morning my fabulous friend sent a story about her morning to my email. I read it and immediately wanted to share it with you...1. because it was funny and I'm sure you can relate, b. because I'm lazy today and don't want to right anything substantial, which I'm also sure you can relate to. (I have put a few notes into the story, you'll notice them because they will be in red font.)

You're welcome.

Stephanie's story starts......now!

So you know how some customer service people have that kind of irritating sense of humor, where they say the opposite of what you say then think it's really funny. (these people are called sociopaths)

I hate those people. It is their fault my coffee was disgusting this morning:

I drive out of my way to Kaladi this morning because the coffee shop downstairs is closed this week, and I need espresso to get through the day. So I order my coffee, "Grande half-caramel latte" (like a boss). Cashier responds "Half-caf latte?" I say "No. A half a shot of caramel, full caffeine please." She responds, "oh, extra caramel latte" (what the hell is wrong with this person?)

I stare at her blankly. Thinking she is one of those idiots at the beginning of this story. Like, I'm going to say "no. not extra. THE OPPOSITE OF EXTRA. HAaaaLF." And then she'll say "hahahahah I know I'm just joshin' ya" at which point I feel like an ass. Every time. Gah. (people that say "joshin'" are psychopaths...great, she's a socio-psychopath)

Meanwhile, the actual barista goes, "I got it" and takes the cup before I can decide whether to say HALF again or do that awkward laugh. I think, naw, she saw the whole thing go down and heard me order twice. I'm good.

"Extra caramel latte!" Stares into my eyes. It was disgusting. (Stephanie, did your nemesis call ahead and tell them you were coming so that they could totally ruin your morning? Look into this.)

Here's the thing. She heard me say half. Otherwise how would she have responded "half-caf". How did she get to "extra" HOW!?!? (in other planets "half" means "extra", she's from Jupiter obviously)

I wish I would have actually lit my $4.00 on fire. That would have been a better experience.

Clearly, socio-psychopath.

I Don't Like This

I'm sure that this entire post will just sound like a rant. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I don't know, I'm already irritated.

You've heard of Subway right? You know, the place you go to tell people how to make your sandwich? I've been there quite a few times, and by "quite a few times" I mean a lot. I've been there a lot.

I went there today. I wanted a BLT. On Honey Oat bread. With lots of things on it. Now here's where I wonder if I'm the only one that does this...I can usually tell by looking at a person whether or not I can tell them my entire vegetable order or if I need to go one at a time. Do you understand what I'm talking about here? No need to fret, I'll explain.

I've ordered my type of sandwich. That order taking person puts my bread with meat into the oven to toast. Now I stand in front of the vegetable adding lady and wait for my sandwich to come out. She gets it out of the oven and then asks, "What do you want on it?". I can do one of two things, I can rattle off all of the things I want, or I can say "Lettuce." Wait for her to add lettuce. "Bell peppers..." and so on.

I size her up (totally judging a book by its cover, what the fuck ever) and decide that she cannot handle having the whole list given to her at once.

I say, "Lettuce..."

She looks at me, without adding the lettuce mind you, and says, "What else?" She's basically forcing me to tell her everything. I narrow my eyes at her because, duh, she basically challenged me.

"Lettuce, bell peppers, onions, olives, a few jalapeno peppers, mayo, salt and pepper." One breath.

She adds the lettuce, looks at me and says, "did you say bell peppers?"

Then of course I had to go through the entire list with her one by fucking one, because "oh gee, I thought I could remember a list of seven things". (I count the salt and pepper as one thing because they are mixed together in that little shaker cup. Sweet baby Jesus, they barely have to do anything themselves.)

I don't have a picture pertaining to this story, so here's a cute

kitty that has fallen asleep in his food.

He's so tired you guys.

God Bless the Seamstress

I will start off this story by telling you about my lovely friend Amber. Yes, I have a friend whose name is the same as mine. No, I am not having a moment of insanity and referring to myself in the third person....this time. Amber was married recently to Joshua. (See, my husbands name is Joe, hers is Joshua. Different. Kind of. I'm not crazy...right now.)

The wedding was beautiful. The reception was beautiful. Everyone and everything was beautiful.

Okay. Enough of that.

I had the pleasure and honor of participating in the wedding as a bridesmaid. I've never been a bridesmaid. Always the bride never the bridesmaid, woe is me. (For the record I've only been a bride once.) As a bridesmaid you have the general worry about having to wear a terrible dress, I lucked out and the dress that Amber (the other one, not me) picked out was great. Simple. Classic. Lovely.

There are even pockets!

See. Not bad. A few days before the wedding I was a little stressed that the dress was a bit snug. I took it into the dress place (I guess I shouldn't name it...but it rhymes with David's. Oops.) because it needed to be steamed. The ladies there had no trouble zipping it, it was just a little tough when zipping through the waist where the fabric is all gathered and bunched. I grabbed the optional straps and tags and left my dress there to be steamed. 

Wedding day! Another bridesmaid picked up our dresses, thank goodness. By that day I couldn't handle one more thing on my plate, I was about 5 minutes away from a nervous breakdown. Hair done. Make up done. Legs and arms moisturized. Spanx on. Dress time! Grabbed my dress off the rack and shimmied into it, two of the other girls proceeded to zip me up.

Ziiiiip...."Hmm"

"Hmmmmmmmmmm.....Um. Uh-oh."

Not sure about you but that really didn't make me feel confident in what was happening back there.

I will shorten this story by about 2 hours now. The zipper broke. Right in the center of my back. Couldn't get it on. Couldn't get it off.

"For fuck's sake!"

Is what I would've said if I hadn't of been in a church.

I stood in one place for an hour and a half while the lovely Anastasia literally sewed me into a dress. She had the perfect color thread, you couldn't tell at a glance that it was sewn on, I took the straps out of my pocket and she was able to use it to even more conceal the sewing. The only way you would've known I was sewn into my dress was by how much I was drinking and my perfect posture. At one point we had to interrupt the sewing so that we could all take pre-ceremony pictures, to hold my dress through that we just safety pinned it. At one point a safety pin popped open and punctured my lung.

I stayed in that dress until 1am, because I had to go to the after party and play charades. In a dress that I was sewn into. Charades. When I arrived home Joe had to cut the dress off of me.

At 1:01am I took my first full breath in 12 hours.

This is the point right before the safety pin popped open and tried to kill me.

For some reason my dress is shorter than everyone else.

Look at those pockets! Amazing.

Also, two days after the wedding I found MY straps in my wallet.

I had someone else's dress on the whole fucking time.

So Many Words

Phew. I just put a post up. There were so many words. Sweet baby Jesus.

I've been doing so much working and listening to so many people say so many words. This post right here is a break. A break from words...well, too many words. As we see now there are definitely words here in this post.

Fuck.

Civic Duty

Jury duty is what I'm talking about here.

I've been called for jury duty before and never made it past the initial large room where all of us meet for roll call. This time though, I made it farther much farther, a little too far for their tastes apparently because I was eventually sent home.

I'm not sure if jury duty is the same in your part of the world, but here's how it works here.

First, you get your jury summons in the mail. You have to fill out the survey and mail it back. Then you get something else in the mail that assigns you a number and gives you a phone number to call every night of the week you have duty. If your number is called then you are required to wake up at an un-Godly hour and rearrange your whole morning and digestive habits to drive to the courthouse. When you arrive you are shuttled through security like cattle.

If you are like me then the moment you get through security you are crouched on the counter of the coffee cart demanding the fuel you need to "dole out sweet justice". I may have or may have not said that exact thing. Actually, the barista was quite a piece of work. After standing in line for a few minutes she adjusts her body over to me and says, "Is there something that I can get for you?". Let's see. It's morning. This is a coffee cart. You are wearing an apron. Yeah, my drycleaning please, last name Wolf.

Next, you have your coffee (or drycleaning) and you go into a large room with about 100 other humans filled with disease or creepiness. Fill out your next survey, this survey is probably engineered to detect racism and love of capital punishment through handwriting. While waiting for a court clerk to come in and start assigning jurors to courtrooms open up your laptop to try and get some work done. (Oh, did you forget that while you are sitting here drinking your hot coffee and trying to not make eye contact with the creep who has turned completely around in his chair to look at you that your deadlines are passing you by, that your inbox and voicemail boxes are filling up, that your entire life is passing you by? Consider yourself reminded.) It doesn't really matter because as soon as you open your laptop they are going to call your name and usher you into a hallway outside of a courtroom to wait another 20 minutes.

There are about 40 of you now. 20 names are pulled from a box. If your name is one of them you proceed to the jury box, if not then you sit your ass right where you are and get ready to try hiding your yawns and laughter. The lawyers and judge give you just enough information about the case to peak your interest. The lawyers then ask the 20 jurors in front of them questions. Ridiculous ones. Like, if your child asked you for a snack and you said no, but later found remnants of said snack, is it possible that a neighbor broke into your house and made the exact snack that your child had wanted and then left your house stealthily? (This is where I had trouble hiding my laughter.)

After those questions the lawyers get to dismiss the jurors that they don't want. (Definitely the ones that said that they hate the police or have passwords on their e-mail accounts.) Then more names get called to take their spots. (Here's where my name got called.)

Then the lawyers ask you the same questions. You answer truthfully.

Then the lawyers decide that you are not worthy of finding out what crime the defendant "allegedly" committed and you have to leave. Right then.

That's all I know, because I had to leave right then. I'm sure my handwriting gave something away about me...that, or my snickering at the lawyers didn't bode well.

Oh, I almost forgot!

Then you get to go through the parking garage, and the booth attendant will treat you like total trash.

For the ultimate satisfaction you can mouth "bitch" right to her face before you drive away.

So gratifying.

Good luck making it through your jury duty process!

In Case You Are Wondering...

The Florence & the Machine station on Pandora is the best station ever.

Add that shit.

Out of Control

I have joined a gym. Even more amazing than that, I've actually been going to the gym. I love it! Sometimes my schedule gets the best of me and I miss a day or two but for the most part I've been pretty steady and motivated.

Then I also have days where I eat everything. Then I go to the gym and work out in front of the very unflattering mirrors and really let myself have it.

Have you tried Zumba? Not Zumba for Wii...that shit just lets you get away with standing there doing basically nothing. 

Zumba at the gym won't even let your big toe stand there and not do anything.

For real.

I do pretty well for myself, I can basically move my body in the same direction of the instructor.

Most of the time.

In my last class my body revolted. My legs and arms must have gotten into an argument earlier in the day because when class time came around they were still not speaking to each other. In short, my legs refused to work together with my arms and really my entire upper body and just did whatever the hell they wanted to do. At one point I just gave up and cleaned my glasses on my shirt while my legs just did their thing. I felt like one of those dancers where their upper body remains still and their legs just kick and kick and jig.

Or. Like a cartoon character who tries to run really fast but only their legs move around and around.

Or. Like. A moron. I looked like a moron. The 85 year old lady next to me could rotate her hips in ways I never knew where possible and guess what, my hips still won't do that now that my body knows that it is possible.

I still love it. I'm used to looking like a moron, so I fit in perfectly.

Oh, someecards.com, you always know what to say.

All Burney and Whatnot

I burned my toe with the hair dryer this morning.

This is the first time it has happened and I must say, I am surprised that it hasn't happened sooner. All in all I am clumsy...a little wobbly, kind of like a newborn horse. A calf.

See, I was drying my hair. The hair on my head of course, I don't have hair to dry on my feet. (Thank God.) When I'm done drying my hair and about to flat iron it or curl it or do some other damage to it I just put my hair dryer on the floor...the floor where my feet go so that I can stand, unsuredly.

Just so happens that this time my hair dryer was all super close to my foot and then BAM SIZZLE cooked toe.

It hurt and I was all, "OF COURSE!" Then Joe said I should stop trying to do my hair with my feet.

Har dee har har.

What I'm trying to say is, I am my own worst enemy and apparently the hair dryer is my weapon of choice.

Well, for today anyway.

As I'm reading this it sounds kind of like, "blah blah blah toe blah blah blah stuff". I just shrugged at this sentence. What does this mean? Does it mean I don't care? Of course not. What it means is that I'm hungry and can't find a place that delivers. Ta da! This post is what happens when I'm hungry.

You're welcome.

These guys know what I'm talking about.

With Statham Like Ability

This is one of those posts where I just show you a text conversation that I've recently had. I'll give you some background to how it all got started, especially since it spiraled out of control so quickly.

Shannon and I were texting trying to coordinate a movie night with our families. Every day that she would suggest would be shot down because Joe had already made plans for us. As you are reading please remember that we are ladies...not men. And....go:

Shannon: That's it. I'm going to have to kill him. I just don't see a way around it. But we have to kill him like Jason Statham would kill somebody. We can't do it regular.

Me: Yep. We need to use the accent as well.

Shannon: I second that. And we have to be awesomely hot while we do it because that's how he would do it.

Me: Yes. We need a motorcycle. Or...a classic car. With changeable plates.

Shannon: And we need muscles and to smell fantastic no matter how much we sweat.

Me: We will sweat pure sex. It will serve as a distraction.

Shannon: And our balls will be shorn by the feathers of angels wings. (This has deteriorated so badly.)

Me: In true Amber/Shannon fashion.

Shannon: And the flexing of our leg muscles will cause tsunami's.

Me: We will carry our own custom made seats that have a cradling section just for our balls...it will of couse be reinforced with the steel of cannons.

Shannon: For our balls are made of steel and require cradling.

Me: That was implied. If not cradled they will bust through any manmade fabric or material.

Shannon: Our balls are kryptonite to mere mortals and the Gods shudder at our laser shooting nipples.

Me: I don't want my nipples to shoot things, you can have that one. Mine cut glass perhaps? That seems useful.

Shannon: I WANT LASER NIPPLES...that do not react to cold.

Me: You can have them, mine are glass cutting diamonds.

Shannon: YES!

Bam. You're dead.

Potty.

You guys, I completely forgot that I had to train a small human to use the potty. I don't know, I guess it slipped my mind what with being so busy feeding him and dressing him and making sure there isn't some sort of goo in his hair. There's usually goo in his hair...but at least he's fed and partially dressed.

Amazingly he is doing well in the potty training department and he's not even two yet! That's good right? I'm going to go ahead and say yes, that's great.
Well. He's been doing great at going pee in the potty. He doesn't go every time but if we ask him if he needs to go he yells, "YEAH!" and runs to go. Today he went POOP in the potty. Poop. It's a big deal, in case you don't know.
Joe was home when this happened. The poop happened and Joe tells Cooper, "Okay buddy. You stay right here and I'll go grab you a new diaper."

You.
Stay.
Right.
Here.

Take a beat. Really let that soak in. Let the fact that a grown man told a one and a half year old to, "Stay. Right. Here."

Joe is in the other room trying to find the pull up style diapers, he's bent over digging through the diaper drawer when he looks up and there stands pantsless Coop.

Cooper has his hand stretched out and says proudly, "Dadd'n" (That's how he says Daddy.)

What do you do when someone holds there hand out to you? Do you hold your hand out back? Yes.

Of course you do. Even if that other small little hand is full of poop.

Now, you're hand is full of poop.

And you are a parent.

And you are proud, because your kid just pooped in a potty.

Is it poop or is it chocolate?