Thursday, March 31, 2011

To be quite honest, I liked having a room full of 30-something guys looking at my butt all night. Twenty-three times I got up in front of the room to write down my dad’s fantasy baseball draft picks.  Two of my good guy-friends helped me with dad’s strategy (thanks guys!)  We only had to call him a few times for more reserves.  Hope he can better his 4^th place 2010 standing.  Overall, I had a good time! The trash talk and banter was fun – and got more so as the number of beers drained increased.  These guys drink beers by the bucket.  One bucket equals one beer.  I don’t drink any kind of beer that comes in a bucket.  But I do drink Lucky Bucket.  www.luckybucketbrewery.com

I took  what I thought was a major fashion risk this morning with my clothing choice for the Metro Omaha Women’s Business Center Success Series.  www.mowbcf.org  See, this being a new chapter in my life and finally embracing everything that is truly me….I am having a lot of fun with unusual/funky/fun clothes and accessories (thanks sis!)  Today’s outfit from Omaha’s Nouvelle Eve Boutique www.nouvelleeve.com  consisted of black trumpet leg pants (looks like a long, full skirt when standing) and a light pink, ruffled, military-type jacket with ten brass buttons paralleling each lapel and some smokin’ crystal, dangling earrings.  I couldn’t decide if it was more of an evening look…I waivered in the mirror this morning but decided what the hell!  I felt glamorous and fashion forward.  And as they say, attitude is everything.  I rocked it and the outfit.  Many compliments.  The risk paid off!  Or did it?  Of course I am worth it…I just may not be able to afford it.     

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Happy Birthday to my big brother! You are the only person on this planet I have known as long as I have known my parents.  You are significant to me.  Now, get the hell out of Omaha!

My dad can text!  I called my folks this morning to check in and left a vmail.  I got a text immediately, we are in a meeting, will call when over. Guess all parents should lose their old cell phone under the sea.

   

In addition to his party gene, I got my father’s “stream-of-conscious” style of writing.  Dad is dictating his fantasy baseball strategy and picks to mom (they’re still in Florida somewhere); she is typing snippets into an email on their new laptop and sending them to me.  I am editing and compiling into a Word doc so daddy and I can review tomorrow and prep me for the BIG NIGHT.

“Mom,” I asked, “why don’t you just type it into a Word doc or in Notepad and email that doc to me?”

“Lori, these people down here don’t know how to do this,” she replied.  I can just imagine her rolling her eyes at me.

“No, mom.  YOU.  Just open a word processing document or Word doc from your start bar, save it to your hard drive so you know where to find it and then type everything in there, saving it every couple minutes or so.”

Silence.

With exasperation, defensiveness and a tad of helplessness added she quacked, “What?”

“Never mind mom.  You’re doing just fine.”

Here’s a snippet of the notes.  See if you see a similar writing style:

This is my strategy for the 2011 fantasy baseball draft.

Lori B is going 2 B my rt arm & b my score keeper.

This strategy was very successful for me last year. I had 3 starting pitchers wear out & go down on me & my RP were a bust or might have won the whole thing. 

LET’S GET STARTED 

This is a numbers game; defense means nothing except for pitching.

Well?

For those of you not in the healthcare industry please know that giving 16 vials of blood at one time only equals four ounces.  That’s like two Tequila shots so not as much as you think you are spurting out of your vein.  Suzanne Somer’s Sexy Forever book – she is very smart BTW – details the necessity for women “of a certain age” to balance their hormones early, reject toxins of every kind and to test for food allergies and most importantly food sensitivities.  These, she says, are the major factors that cause women “of a certain age” to morph into the shape of a beer keg on legs.  I will be happy to give half of my body weight in blood to avoid this horrendous, natural - yet shunned by American Culture -occurrence to most women “of a certain age.”  I want to do what I can to be sexy forever! (Naturally, that is)

Speaking of sexy, I did 15 girl push-ups today and the plank position for like, 5 seconds.  I’m warming up to mustachioed Doris the trainer.

Mom got two books in the mail today – the mail carrier had to do the rubber band around the mailbox flag and mailbox door move to fit the books and everything else in.

Monday, March 28, 2011

I am supporting my brother’s escape.  Escape from Omaha and my parents.  My move home was a tag team event; he has been tagged; now he needs to get the hell out.  How many of you are “healthy” enough to say NO to your parents?  Exactly.  Time for him to go and live somewhere warm (my mom calls him at work!!)  If you read yesterday’s blog you will know I am working really hard on pronouncing my “N” word.  I have ten days to get it down.

We had Mexican food and margaritas yesterday to celebrate his birthday.  “I haven’t celebrated my birthday for years,” my brother shared.  And, this dinner wasn’t described by him as a birthday event. Bummer.  IMHO, our birthdays are permission to celebrate ourselves and who better to make the plans than ourselves?  I celebrate Loridon.  I learned of this extended birthday celebration from my former neighbors.  Deborahdon and Markadon, both celebrated in February, are week-long specialnesses, events, gifts, and treats, whatever.  It is a wonderful time, all about YOU and mostly planned by YOU!  I have such a great birth date at the end of June that I, not only get my special days, I also get Fourth of July weekend!!!  And like Katie Perry sings, I am a firework!  (Take charge and empower yourself cuz no one else will do it for you!)

This brings me to red lipstick.  One of my BFFs is rocking red lipstick.  It looks amazing on her.  One night on the town, when six of us were in the bathroom together (yes, girls’ go in groups) we tried on her red lipstick…well knowing we all would wipe it off immediately.  We didn’t!  It appeared to be a universal red and we all looked smashing.  Forward to me owning my own tube and trying to rock it every day.  It bleeds.  Ok, maybe not for 20-something lips, or I suppose 30-something lips, yet for 40-something lips…….oy.  Fine lines are highways for bleeding lips. I learned that when I checked my appearance after a job interview today.  Glorious.  Not. *sigh*

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Self development really sucks because it is never over.  Today I find myself having to learn the word NO all over again.  I don’t have a job, yet the time I am spending  administrating all my networking, clubs, and volunteer gigs is immense, not to mention all the tasks and committee work I have accepted.  I got up at 8:30am today for a 9am gig, ran some errands and have been emailing, researching, writing, calling, communicating, etc. all afternoon.  It’s nearly 4:30pm and all I want is a nap!  And guess what?  This is my first opportunity to say NO.  I’ve too much to do and plans at 7:00pm.  This isn’t working right.

Mom is “over-the- moon happy I am back home,” I have been told.  Today, mom told me she is “over-the-moon happy that she and daddy rented a beach house for four months next year.”  She must know something I do not.  I am so looking forward to celebrating the holidays here at home without having to travel.  Now, mom says she wants to push our Xmas celebration to February in the beach house.  I am sensing perhaps mom and I are polarized…and that thought is beginning to clarify a few things….  Perhaps when she gets home in ten days I’ll have a job offer and can move out, further proving the opposite charge.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

I was struggling to breathe, my chest felt heavy and I had a pain radiating up my arm when I was abruptly woken this morning.  One of my garment racks had fallen over onto me and the bed.  A plastic foot had broken so the whole, two-tiered, rack toppled over onto my soundly sleeping body.    In my dream I was petting a cat (must have been my fur tickling my nose) and all of a sudden it turned on me.  Having recently recovered from a dog bite to the face, I was a bit relieved to wake and discover my clothes attacking me and not an animal.

If you have been reading this blog from the beginning, you’ll recall I have had issues with these garment racks before.  I tracked down that initial post so I could find the name of the company to call for assistance.  I ordered a replacement part, an extra, and will keep their 800 number on speed dial from now on.

Mom got another book in the mail today.

Omaha Women’s Networking Club Wine and Spa night tonight.  Don’t mind if I do!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Dad called today just as I was leaving for coffee.  My dad is a man of few words.  He’ll speak two or three words and pause………………………………..and then a few more and pause………………………….talking on the phone with him when you are trying to get somewhere else in a hurry is a cause of stress. 

Seems I am going to be his proxy in his fantasy baseball draft next week.  I am thrilled he trusts me enough to make his selections for him.  He won’t trust me to be the executor of his will, drive his 1928 Ford, and to change the oil in my own car, but he will trust me to make his pre-selected picks and risk his current #4 club standing.  Actually he said, “You’ll most likely be the only girl there so just drink beer, flirt with the guys and make my picks.  You’ll have a good time.”  This is also the man who named me Lori Jo because he thought it simple enough for me to spell.  So, I’m going to represent.  I’ll drink beer and flirt with the guys.  My BFF’s husband, however, is joining me to help with the confusion of the picks. ;)

Since March 1, 2011, my mother has received seven books, each shipped singly, from Amazon and enough catalogs that stacked nearly reach kitchen table height.

A guy is going to win this Idol year.  

Monday, March 21, 2011

Cruella has a brother…or a sister.  The androgynous sibling is named Doris.  When I lived in Atlanta I had a neighbor, who was male, whose name was Doris.  Serious.  Omaha Doris looks to be about 6’ 3”, 300 pounds, has a moustache and breasts.  S/he teaches a weight lifting class called Body Pump.  Omaha Doris scares the crap out of me.  I was a very good student today.

Friday, March 18, 2011

I was at a networking event by 6:30 this morning!  That means I got up at 5:45am; I haven’t been up that early since my last all nighter.  Three hours later it was still time to get a (nother) coffee.  I love coffee.  More – I swung by the mall to pick up a gift card and happened to buy a pair of shoes (on sale!), did a bit of AA work and got cremated by Cruella all before 1:00!!!  This morning thing has its pluses.

“Where are the Benton’s?” the man across the street asked me. 

“Buried in the backyard, why do you ask?” I replied.

“There are fewer cars in your driveway,” he responded, “it’s nice for the neighborhood.”

Even the neighbors like it when my dad is on vacation.

2:00pm, all showered fresh, it’s Friday, my work is done for the day…..cocktail hour!! 

Don’t mind if I do.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

I am finally settled.  All of my stuff has a place.  I can say I have never before lived out of boxes and large Tupperware containers yet I am certain it beats living IN a box, under a bridge somewhere.  Unless that is what happens after living a few months with one’s elderly parents.

Mom emailed with their new cell phone number and called immediately after, wanting to know why I hadn’t yet called. *sigh*  She may walk slow but her fingers can do the Cha-Cha on any type of key.  You ought to see her program her Soaps on TIVO.

I am beside myself that I am unable to see Lady Gaga tonight at the Quest.  I was in Omaha at Xmas when tickets went on sale.  I didn’t jump on them because, silly me, thought Omahans’ would stampede to see Kenny Chesney, but Lady Gaga?  I’d easily be able to get a ticket when I arrived in March.  Wrong.  I am pleased that Omaha has come such a long way in 24 years, really, I am.  I’m just PO’d I’m missing this generation’s Madonna live in concert, here, in Omaha.  :(

It’s St. Patrick’s Day.  At 7:30 this morning the radio alarm woke me up broadcasting, “Clancy’s has been open since 6:30am and already the place is packed.”  St. Patrick’s Day in Omaha.  Omaha, where the population is very Irish.  And if you’re not, you put O’on the front of your surname and claim Irish roots anyway.  There was a day when I’d have been there bright and early sporting my “Kiss me, I’m cute” green T-shirt, eating green eggs and ham, doing shots of Jamison….Now, I prefer to sleep in a bit.  Where’s my O’Benton button?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Woke up at 2:00 p.m. today.  See? I did need a good night’s sleep.

I had three hours to do whatever and get ready to go to dinner at La Bouvette downtown and attend a classical “consort” at the Joslyn Castle. So, well rested, I decided to take another look at my six D parts.  My two new ones were labeled D yet were actually what I needed. Thank you, Jesus.  Two garment racks easily assembled and seven trips up and down the stairs (eat your heart out Cruella) I had all my clothes neatly hung.  I have no idea where I’m going to put ALL THE SHOES though.

My bedroom now kind of feels like it is in the midst of a ladies’ dressing room …it's like I am sleeping in a closet.  My waking view will be of hanging clothes and no longer car parts.  Now if I brought a man in here he’d think we were going to play dress up.

And, by the way, I hate all of my cool weather clothes.  I need some cooler weather killer interview suits, fun going-out dresses and other essentials that I didn’t need to own in Atlanta.  I don’t even have a coat other than my fur.  This is depressing.  Two things ruin the entire day for gals and that is a bad hair day or a bad clothes day.  I can’t have a bad hair day, I don’t have any.

Tomorrow – Body Pump with Cruella at 10:00 am, a network meeting at 1:30 and dinner out at 7:00.  It’s supposed to be in the 70’s tomorrow so my wardrobe shall suffice.  Retail therapy can wait.

Mom called with a new phone number.  Seems their cell phone fell into a large body of water.

www.labouvette.com

www.joslyncastle.com

Monday, March 14, 2011

I think I had an anxiety attack.  All of a sudden I felt scared to death and I had no words to describe the feeling.  I found myself thinking, “what the hell have I done and if I had my old life back it would all be better.”

This occurred somewhere between The Castro and North Beach districts in San Francisco.  Closer to Castro I think because the 20 or so naked people bicycling by our outdoor café in North Beach lifted the heaviness in my chest a bit.  That I remember.

My self diagnosis is that I am suffering from change overload.  Control freak that I am has no routine in her new life and, seriously, one can only party like a rock star for so long.  Anxiety killed my buzz slowly through the Financial District, Eudora and then on in to Oakland.  Got it back for an hour or so at the Hangar One Vodka Tasting and then completely petered out.  It felt like I couldn’t breathe.  So, instead of joining the spray glittered BFFs to a party (complete with Hula Hoop – my idea) I potatoed it on the couch, watched The Year’s 40 Worst Break Ups and Basketball Wives while attempting  to peel back the layers and figure this funk out.

Here’s what I came up with. Since June of 2010 I have:
·         Divorced
·         Moved (within Atlanta)
·         Put my dog down
·         Severed myself from my job of 12 years
·         Gave my other dog back to her dad
·         Became officially unemployed
·         Travelled to Asheville
·         Travelled to Cabo
·         Bought a Time Share
·         Travelled to Delaware
·         Moved to Omaha
·         Moved into my parents’ basement
·         Networked like crazy
·         Met many new people
·         Revitalized previous Omaha relationships
·         Joined a gym
·         Travelled to SanFran

I have concluded that I need a good night’s sleep, to double my anti-anxiety meds and go toe-to-toe with Cruella tomorrow.  Maybe I can make her cry like I want to.  I am in overwhelm.

Oh!  And guess what the mail man delivered? 

My H parts!!! 

And guess what I discovered when I opened them? 

I now have six D parts.  

*sigh*

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Odor gone!

H parts still not here!

I hurt all over and can hardly move from my work out yesterday.

Going to bed early to catch a 6am flight to SanFran – girls’ trip.

Blog on hiatus until I return.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

I met a gal named Cruella today and my arms and legs are still shaking.  She was the instructor for the 4:00 p.m. sculpting class at the gym.  I hate her.  I’m pretty sure she knew I was new so made ¾ of the class a variety of lunge exercises.  When I commented enough was enough she replied that I wasn’t using heavy enough hand weights.  

Of course I wasn’t using heavy enough hand weights - I needed some sort of breather during class (!)  When I only performed the walking lunge half way across the studio (it is a mile long, give me a break) she made me drop and do 10 pushups…and she put her foot on my back.  I think I was physically and emotionally abused.  If I can walk or lift my arms tomorrow, I’m considering reporting her.

Fish guts clinging to the rubber thing.   A friend replied to my last post and said the disposal smell was most likely coming from the black rubber thing at the opening of the disposal. OMG.  I gagged twice.  I used one of those mesh, plastic, ball scrubber things, rubber gloves and a chip clip on my nose to scrape off the underside of the flaps.  I swear that stuff was a half an inch thick. Triple gross. (I think I even saw a maggot) I sprayed it all down with RAID and the truth will become known when I come home from my Fat Tuesday celebration later tonight.

Yes, I am having another cocktail tonight with friends to celebrate Fat Tuesday. “Don’t mind if I do!”  Cruella might get PO’d and if she does, I saved a handful of the disposal goo just for her…..

Monday, March 07, 2011

Major score today on a barstool just the right height for my work bench desk.  Dumpster diving and the Good Will proved fruitless.  The Pool Table and Bar Stool Store bore me a peach of a deal. 

I’m still a bit embarrassed when I explain to folks that I am living in my parents’ basement.   At the PTBSS, I went on to describe my early American garage sale/auto parts store decorating motif and asked if they had a reject or piece of crap bar stool they’d sell me. They did!  

$25 and a compliment on my “hot boots” later, I had a very nice bar stool with a cracked pedestal leg.  Three screws with the cordless drill and viola!  I had been sitting on stacked Tupperware trunks that caused my left butt cheek to go numb.  I am very happy with my new bar stool.

There is something dead and decaying in mom’s garbage disposal.  For days now I thought I smelled something disgusting when I walked into the house but couldn’t place it.  I did yesterday and doused the contraption with bleach and baking soda and called it remedied.  Nope.

Now what?  What would Martha Stewart do?  Grind the peels of a lemon?  I think I’ve heard to grind ice but that doesn’t seem to make sense.

When I redid the kitchen in my Roswell house, I had two garbage disposals installed.  The installer explained to me how garbage disposals are useless for their intended purpose and always will cause the drain to clog if used as intended.  Made me recall a couple of frantic plumber calls.  Hmmm.  I never did use my two disposals. 

Now that I think about it, mom was there both times and is well aware of disposal peril.  Uh oh.  Dad. He cleaned a few fish before they left for Florida.  I know this because I took the trash out to the dumpster.

• I joined a gym today.  Going for first time tomorrow. 
• No H parts for my garment racks yet.
• Networking lunch and house call to Lucky Bucket Brewery to say hi to new friend Zac.
• Dundee Dell tonight for dinner.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

I am partying like a rock star.  The body cleanse and liver detox will have to begin again, some other time, maybe in 2012.  Since I arrived in Omaha a week ago, I have had a cocktail (or two) and eaten out nearly every day.  Celebrating with friends and a lot of networking/socializing provide many opportunities for me to say, “Don’t mind if I do!” 

Friday, for example, started out at 1:00 p.m. with a taste of 12 different wines and Rabbit Liver Pate.  Five locations and some sushi later, I ended up at my BFFs house with a Windsor and Coke and air popped popcorn. 

I got my party gene and stamina from my dad.  So did my sister.  We’re going to San Francisco together this Thursday for a long weekend.   Last time we did something like this, we ended up time share owners.

I was reading over my previous posts and noticed that I’m counting a lot of mom’s things.  Today I will share with you she had 16 assorted bags of chips – potato, corn, multiple flavors and styles of each.  Each bag was closed with a chip clip, a paper clip or a clothespin.   I made some chili today and decided to have a chip or two.  We’ve all eaten a stale chip now and again, no big deal.  I had 16.  A good Red Zin takes that yucky, stale taste out of your mouth in a jiffy.

Do you know people who own an item THAT STILL WORKS?  An item that might be held together with duct tape, looks hazardous, or something that one has to hold together with the left hand while using it with the right?  Or perhaps an item that has been fixed and/or rigged numerous times but, since IT STILL WORKS, is kept?  At this house, that item is my parents’ dishwasher.

The gasket that lines the inner door hangs at odd angles and the lack of seal has decorated the door jam with total grossness… certainly some amoeba or bacteria or something.  I swear it is living. The interior is mottled with rust spots and the dish rack coating is peeling, revealing rusted prongs.  Weren’t we all taught that if we got scratched by such an item we would get tetanus? 

It does not clean the dishes.  Pre-cataract surgery, I gave mom the benefit of the doubt, and presumed she just didn’t see well enough to rinse the dishes adequately.  Post-cataract surgery, I gave mom the benefit of the doubt, and presumed that the dried piece of rice stuck to the plate, or crunchy scrambled egg ring in the skillet just didn’t bother her.  Now I know she suffers these inconveniences because the dishwasher STILL WORKS.

One has to kick the door shut for it TO WORK.  Literally, place your foot on the outside of the door, slam, sometimes more than once until you get the hang of it, and it clicks closed.  This explains the foot indentation on the front of the door.  It also explains my mom’s aptitude for kick boxing.

I receive my 2010 bonus this week.  If good, I’m considering replacing mom’s dishwasher before she gets home.  If not so good, I’ll at least buy her a couple bags of chips.

Thursday, March 03, 2011

I’m still waiting for the delivery of the missing part H’s for my garment racks.  Therefore, mom’s living room has become my closet.  Four wardrobe boxes of hanging clothes, six+ boxes of shoes J, three clear vue storage boxes with all my drawer clothes.  And I can’t find anything.  So now there are hangered clothes all over the furniture and up turned boxes spilling out shoe boxes (I like to keep my shoes in their original box) and various unmentionables in piles on the floor.   What’s more, yesterday it was 16 degrees, today it is 55.  The joy of choosing what to wear and getting dressed has been dampened now that I have to find it and then iron it.  Hurry up UPS guy!!

I was yawning as I enjoyed a lovely 45 minute walk today.  I think it was my body’s way of getting more oxygen into my lungs…because I had spent the previous 15 minutes of my walk on the phone with my mom.  I get winded when I talk, repeat what I said, talk louder with enunciation and walk at the same time.  Once fully oxygenated, I took a quick rest to snap a photo of a house that was still decked out in Xmas decorations.  Quite lovely it was, even if it is March.

I took down mom’s Xmas decorations when I got back home.  She keeps all this holiday stuff downstairs in her laundry room storage area, which we had cleaned out and rearranged last summer I think.  No more.  When I slid the door to the side I got beaned on the head with an artificial flower arrangement.  The closet was stuffed with them.  I counted 35 in all. WT?  My nose started to run from the dust, I really didn’t want to mess with them so I shoved the Xmas decorations in any tiny space I could find, closed the door and performed my best ever Scarlett O’Hara impersonation.  I did manage to hose off the one that beaned me and place it on the dining room table, however.  Mom’ll like that.

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if refrigerators were self cleaning like ovens and cats?

I’m envious of those whose fridges are spotless.  Wary when the contents are lined up perfectly and the inside of their fridge looks like a print ad.  I sever friendships with those who label product positions.

Sometimes I just don’t want to wipe up that spill.   I’m in a hurry or otherwise preoccupied…I’ll wipe it up later.  Same with wiping down the mouths of jars…I can’t seem to get mayo out of the jar without some if it globbing on to the edge, where the twist-close threads are.  I “pretend” I don’t see the creamy ooze twisted further down the side of the jar and if the glob is big enough, I just turn that side of the jar to the back of the fridge.  I am the only one?  And, sometimes that Ziploc or Tupperware seal gets the best of me.  Whatever.

I’m pretty anal about fuzzy or blue stuff, oozing vegetables and items that are sporting an unnatural color.  Milk, however, gets treated like it’s on death row.  I give it all the time it “needs” and then some.  It is housed in my fridge until the first curdle, then the stay is lifted.

Yes, I cleaned out and cleaned mom’s fridge today.  Only three months since I last tended it. Contents get a gold star.  Cleanliness…OMG. 

After I took out all the shelves and drawers I found burnt, large, flakes of something that dried up and died and some crunchy here and gooey there, mealy, pinkish substance hanging out in the bottom, indented, fridge trough.  To me it resembled blended, 12-hour old barf. 

There was a good amount of what I think might have been evaporating Root Beer or Cherry Coke or Diet Coke (all three were well represented in can form) on one of the shelves.  Remember the experiment where you could place a nail in a glass of Coke and the nail would dissolve?  I think that is an Urban Legend, otherwise the Tupperware containers, half full cans of beans, the sardine tin and the foil package housing the blue tinted meat on the shelf, along with the sticky syrup, would have dissolved…if at least partially.  Oh, BTW, I think this is the base for Gorilla Glue.

Mom and dad have 17 bottles of salad dressing.  At my place, I had two.  I know this because I took them to my BFF in Nashvegas, where I stayed the night on my first leg of this psychedelic adventure.  All I can conclude about this collection is maybe taste buds go kafooey past a certain age?  Or maybe the variety is exciting…something to shake up the day of routine?  Hmm.  Mom now sleeps through her soaps in the afternoon. (She has TIVO…now I know why.) Maybe she doesn’t wake up because they are over but because it’s dinner time and she can choose a zesty new salad dressing?

 

I met up with my former professor today.  I upped my fan club membership to Gold Status.  He didn’t say anything about my fat lip or ginger movements. I bet the inside of his fridge is spotless.  

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

The Chiropractor said I should be able to move with little to no pain in a few days.  The fat lip will take time.  I have someone very important to me whom I need to impress tomorrow.

Today I attempted to set up my room and bathroom for a nice, extended stay with my parents.  The neighbor boy was very helpful yesterday moving furniture and stuff, yet I suppose I should have had him over again today as I located the structure that is now my room desk.

I’m on the computer a lot – writing, Facebooking, Googling, LinkingIn, Matching and playing around in Photoshop, creating yet another spreadsheet, you get the idea.  A personal desk/work area is important.  Naturally, all the furniture upstairs serves a purpose so I was on safari downstairs…..and out in the backyard.

Here, at my childhood home, yard is another word for extended storage space.  The neighbors were probably happy when dad built the three-car garage in the back supposing it would hide what all is there.  Think Sanford and Son.  Think me being embarrassed when a date would come to pick me up and there is a motor hanging on a chain from a tree over the front driveway.  Think me not having many dates while in High School.

Underneath the back deck, on a patio that begs for an entertaining lifestyle, is a yellow, 1950ish Ford Thunderbird, firewood, some air hoses, two wheelbarrows, cinder blocks, mom’s old kitchen table now blackened with machine shop juice and a vice, an old rickety, rusty , couch-like outdoor swing, carpet remnants, machine/motor parts and pieces, bicycles and my new desk.

It’s perfect.  It is constructed like the old timey, redwood, crossed leg, picnic table yet is taller.  I can’t quite stand at it comfortably and it is too high for a standard chair. It is supporting a power head from an outboard boat motor…I’m guessing the boat that is nearby with cow poop in the hull.  Imagine how clean this table is.  The power head didn’t seem to be too heavy and is now safe in a wheelbarrow bin.  It wasn’t until a bit later that I think I pulled something in my back.

Mom has 24 rugs in the house.  The house is carpeted.  I had eight rugs in my house.  I had wood floors. I am happy to say I have saved my parents from what could have been a painful accident.  I was moving boxes and stuff down to my room – which is coming together quite nicely with an 1970s rec room, auto part store flair – and tripped over a rug.  Tripped, launched box of loose shoes I was toting, and smacked my mouth on the edge of the rust-colored, sectional couch that was formerly a home to mice.  That’s going to leave a mark.  Not only does my back now hurt more, I have a fat lip.  Getting fatter by the second.   Did I mention my parents’ ice machine does not work? 

I really want to be peeved right about now.  I breathe in deeply.   I think of the wine I will be enjoying later on.  I throw away all the rugs. I carry on.

There are three, 1960s sized, clothes closets in this house, a coat closet and a 6’ x 4’ cedar closet downstairs.  Dad has half a one.  I purchased two, bi-level, 50’ wide, rolling garment racks from Target on which to hang ALL of my clothes and coats.  No tools needed for assembly.  Right up my alley.  I dialed up Pandora on my phone and set out to assemble my new closet and sing my heart out to Katy Perry’s “Firework.”

Parts A, B, C, D and so on.  All is going well.  I’m kind of proud of myself, this is going together so easily, I’m a Firework.  Oops!  Hmmm.  Two part Gs and no part H.  Open box two to see if same deal or if I can rob Peter to pay Paul. Two part Gs in here, too.  What’s this?  A card in the box…”Are you having difficulty assembling this product?  Missing parts? Please do not return to the store, Call Whitmor’s Customer Service Department.”  So I did. 

Recall Bill Cosby’s sketch about going to the dentist?  Recall yourself going to the dentist, receiving Novocain, and afterwards experiencing the sensation of having no lips?  Of course they are working fine; you can’t feel them so you slur your words, beverages spill out of your mouth.  What was the name of the character on Fat Albert who spoke with Bs in his words?  “I’mba going toba theba dentista.”  That was me on the phone with customer Service.

“Honey, (in a wonderful Mississippi drawl), having two part Gs and no H in both sets is nothing (she whispers into the phone) to have to drink about.” *sigh*

Tonight’s wine is improving my back and my slur.   I’m worried about the swelling of my lip – I have lunch tomorrow with a former advertising professor who I am hoping will connect me back into the biz (read I want to stand straight, look smokin’ and enunciate intelligently).  I’ve decided I won’t worry about that right now, I’m going to eat my ice pack for dinner and watch Idol.  Nothing like a good Nebraska steak.