Trip-Trap-Trip OR We Went to Chattanooga!

I love doing vacation blogs.  I post pictures.  I make pithy comments.  People get entertained.  It's all win-win.  Plus, every hit gets me closer to 1,000,000 on my counter.  I don't know what will happen when I get to a 1,000,000.  Could be fireworks.  Could be confetti.  Could be meatcake.  (You have to be a George Carlin fan to get that one.)

Anyhoo, during our holiday break, I said, "Let's take a road trip."  This might have been a mistake on my part, but I went with it.  Chattanooga is not far away and they have lots of cool stuff to do.  So we went, leaving the moron cat in the care of a pet sitter.  (She doesn't think he's a moron, but then she likes animals a lot more than I do, and I like animals.  Really I do.)

First thing I saw on the way out of town was:


This is a Piggly Wiggly.  A Piggly Wiggly
is a grocery store for those of you
north of the Mason Dixon Line.  There is nothing
really funny about a Piggly Wiggly except the
name, which makes me giggle every time
we pass one.  Luckily for me and all the other
drivers involved, I don't live near too many of them.
 

The rest of the trip was uneventful.  We passed a nuclear plant and had a brief round of how-does-it-really-get-pronounced.  Nuke-u-lar.  I just can't say it the other way.  Oh, well.  I did not take a picture because I suspect the NSA has cameras posted on the road to take a picture of me taking a picture of them.  I do not wear an aluminum foil hat, I swear.

But we got to town and immediately went to the aquarium.

Cressy points out the aquariumness of it all.
Nice hat, eh?

Then there were lots of things to touch in the aquarium.

Cressy didn't want to touch the rays and the sharks, but
I did.  HIM said his sleeves were too long, but
it was really an excuse for why he didn't
want to touch the rays and the sharks.

There were lots of tanks with fishes inside.  This is an aquarium that knows how to entertain the kiddos.

Cressy demonstrates how to exist in a bubble.

Later on I got to touch a Giant Calcedonian Gecko, which really riled up the people on my author's page on Facebook.  (It felt a little like Velcro.)  But after that a Blue Morpho got to touch me.  In fact, he/she wouldn't get off my forehead.

I know it doesn't look blue, does it?
(Maybe it's on Prozac.)
When the wings open up, it's totally blue.
Strangers were taking pictures of me, too.
I should have flashed them.

We followed up the aquarium with a boat ride, where we saw 10 bald eagles.  Personally I saw 6 bald eagles, but the tour guide informed me that I had seen 10, two of which were juveniles.  I did not get a photograph, but if I had, it would have looked just like this one:

Seriously, my pictures showed a very distant blob on a branch,
although we did get to look at them with binocs, my
camera was poopoo for capturing the moment.

Cressy quickly got bored with eagle watching and subjected HIM to the infamy of bunny ears.  Also twenty-odd people pretty well saturated the inside of the boat with their hot air and made the windows all covered with condensation, so the visibility was for crap.  I started a trend by using my sleeve to wipe it off, but soon my sweater was soaking wet and the crew finally broke out some rags.

"Are we done yet?"
"Are we done yet?"
"Are we done yet?"
"Are we done yet?"

Finished with a three hour tour, (Well two and not a single professor in sight.  The professor was my favorite character.  I think he should have gotten together with Mary Ann.) we checked into the hotel.  The view was of the baseball stadium!  Oh joyfulness!

And the hotel had a swimming pool!  You had to walk past it to go to your room.  There was no escaping it.  Inside our room we determined the room was haunted because the drawers of the dresser kept coming open by themselves.

It was freaky because I didn't want to put my
clothes in their drawers anyway.

The hotel room also had weird decorations:

I couldn't figure out if they were going
for music, surfing, woodys, or bowling pins.
It was eclectic.  I totally had to spell check
that word.

The next day we overwhelmed ourselves with a trip to Ruby Falls.  This is a waterfall inside a cave.  I think a couple of people missed the cave part because as soon as they saw the narrow passage they freaked out and went right back up the elevator.  The tour guide, named Doug by the way, was way too excited about all of us.  Just as I was beginning to wonder if there was, in fact, a water fall, we finally made it, and my camera on my phone actually did something good.

They got colored lights set up on this thing, plus
muzak.  I don't remember the song but
Doug was worshipping the waterfall so
it became kind of moot.  Doug was seriously
worshipping the waterfall.  He had his hands
in the air and was bowing.  I guess some
people will do anything for a paycheck.

Then we went and found the incline railway.  When they say it's an incline railway, they mean it's an incline railway.  At one point it's a 75% grade.  Couldn't see much from the top but who cares, it was a 75% grade.

This pic doesn't do it justice.  And btw, I took
it from the observation platform not the top
of the train.

So exhausted we went to get lunch and look at the inside of the hotel again.

The hotel had funky rugs.
HIM took the kid to the children's museum.
I napped.

More swimming in the pool ensued.  Fortunately other people with children were there and our child played with their children.  A pool makes for instant lifetime friendship.

We also walked along the waterway and the sun went down:

Cressy chased sea gulls, but I didn't get a picture of that.  I was too busy pretending she wasn't my child.

The next day we went home and the cat was happy to see us, but not before we drove by this:

One hasn't experienced the wonder of fireworks
if one hasn't been to Big Daddy's Fireworks.  Pardon
me, I mean, BIG DADDY'S FIREWORKS.
This sign is a lot bigger than it looks in the picture.
See the ordinary sized billboard on the left for
comparison.

Finally, I ran out of pithy things to say.

The Counter

I just happened to notice that the counter is closing in on...one million.  What does this mean?  Well, I haven't been clicking on my blog in order to raise numbers, that's for sure.  (Once maybe.  Twice on one day.  But that was before I told it not to save the times that I clicked on it.  I swear.)  (Okay, it's not that close to one million, but it's getting a lot closer than it was.)

Whoo-hoo.  One million views.  And some of them were actually people who read the blogs.  (I get spam from all different countries.  I wish I could read the Russian ones.)

Stuff

Warning: the author may change subjects randomly because that's the way she is.

I think if I had a townhouse like this I would definitely
paint it like this.  Rainbow bubbles or something
vaguely LSDy.  What does this have to
do with my foyer being painted?  Well, nothing,
but I started looking for weird painted houses and
found a bunch of funky houses.

The foyer in our house is being painted.  Could they bang on the walls any more than they are?  I don't think they could.  I think they're wailing on my walls and giggling about it.  Why can't I paint my own bleeping foyer?  It's two stories and I've discovered that I have a fear of heights in my older age.  Standing on the ground looking up = okay.  Standing on a ladder looking down = whoops, so much for those panties.

Who doesn't want a cow house?

Furthermore, I asked them how they would work around the stairs and the guy said, "That's a piece of cake."  To which I said, "How is that a piece of cake?" because I am disbelieving and I want to know how they do it without scaffolding, a parachute, and some vicodin.  He tells me that they will simply stand on a tall ladder and cut in at the top.  Then stand on a six foot ladder and roll the rest.  Haha.  So funny.  I need to check to see if my insurance covers dumbasses.  This is the part where my husband or HIM decides to take the child and scamper off to South America for the duration of my crankiness.

I like that the stars aren't all even but then that's the
way I think.

I mean, have you ever woke up in the morning and said, "I should just go stay in the closet for the rest of the day."?  Well, this morning I did.  HIM wanders in and says, "Good morning," and I say, "What's so bleeping good about it?" except I didn't use the word, bleeping.  Then the kid wants chocolate milk and the chocolate syrup only wants to make big chocolate colored syrup farts (this is ugly if you haven't seen it) and I'm not sure if the result was really something I could call chocolate milk, or even semi-chocolate milk.  In any case, the kid did drink it, without saying anything about it, so I'm saying, "Yes.  I pulled the chocolate syrup lacking wool over my child's eyes."

I'm completely past the whole foyer painting
thing but how could I not
put this house in here?
The neighbors must be pissed.

Then the kid says she needs money for the school's Christmas shop.  (Excuse me, I think they're calling it a holiday shop to avoid political hysteria.)  Do I have money in my wallet?  No, I have a credit card and a debit card.  I almost gave the kid the credit card with instructions on how to fake sign mommy's name.  Then I robbed HIM's wallet.  HIM had fives and ones.  I nearly started looking under the cushions in the couch.  But no I remembered the kid's change purse and stole all her money to give to her to spend.  (Does that make me a bad mommy?)  I stole my kid's money to give back to her to spend.  I'll go to the bank and get more money to stick in her change purse, so technically I won't steal from her.  But I can't go anywhere because the painting people are here and I can't leave.

Could be a Scottish house.

The cat has hidden under the bed for the duration because he's afraid of the painters.  He thinks the doorbell as a signal for the apocalypse.  All is safer under the king sized bed in the master bedroom.  Haha.  Is there room under that bed for me?  Nope.

I love the rainbow house.  Needs to be on
a beach somewhere.

But I did finish the first draft of Bubba and the Zigzaggery Zombies.  Yea.  I even finished my first edit.  I sent it off to the editor, who will polish it up for me and tell me if I made an insane hot mess of the whole thing or not.  HIM said I nailed it, but HIM is legally and morally obligated to say that.  I can't trust him to tell me if it sucks big hairy moose dick or not.  I have to wait until the reviews start coming in, which is like sitting on a bed of nails.  (I don't really sit on a bed of nails.)

In conclusion, I hate having my foyer painted, and I can't make chocolate milk because I ran out of chocolate syrup, and I'm pretty sure that HIM might be afraid of me in the morning, but I did finish the draft of my latest Bubba masterpiece and am getting it ready for release.  I'm thinking late January.  I will announce it, of course.

Sigh.  Back to work.

It Must be in the Water OR BAD Things Continued to Happen!

Not sure exactly what happened last week.

I destroyed a microwave by decimating two bags of popcorn in it.  (For those of you who suggested baking soda and vinegar or was it baking powder and vinegar?, it did not work.  Really.  It didn't work.  The microwave now smells like vinegar flavored burnt popcorn.)  We finally gave up and bought a new microwave.  Normally I wouldn't have done that but burnt popcorn smells really, really, really, really awful.

Okay that was bad enough, but the badness fairy had landed on our house and was not through with waving her silly ass wand about.

Then I got an abscess.  In a bad spot.  I actually had to go to an urgent care center where the nurse practitioner looked at it and said, "Yep.  That's an abscess."  They gave me pain pills, antibiotics, and a big shot in the ass.  I haven't gotten a shot in the ass for years.  That was pretty much the highlight of that day.  I took one of the pain pills and that was pretty much the end of the weekend as I remember it.

I think I would have rather stepped on a Lego than
get an abscess where I got an abscess.

While I was reclined in a chair in the den, enjoying all the pretty colors, I happened to notice that water was falling from the ceiling.  It occurred to me that this was part of the pharmaceutical experience but no, there was water dribbling from the ceiling.  The pump on the Jacuzzi tub upstairs had decided to give up the ghost.

Later I pried up marble and HIM, the man to whom I married, actually cracked one piece, to get to the pump because the original builders of the house HAD NOT installed an access panel.  (I hate them.  I would find them and stick the pump up you-know-where if I thought I wouldn't be arrested.  Oh those pesky state laws that hold you back.)

I obviously need to move my kitchen sink into the den.

But wait, the weekend of fun, abscesses, failing pumps, and joyful happiness was not over!  The next day the garage door opener said, "If the pump's going buh-bye, I am too."  And voila, the garage door opener gave up.  Fortunately it did not burn up, leak, or explode in a painful location.

I originally drew this for ANOTHER leak from our upstairs to
our downstairs in this house, but hey, it still
works.

But wait, I have another LOL about pain and Lego's, which doesn't really have anything to do with where I'm going, but let me tell you, that abscess was painful.  I couldn't sit down for a week.  Or I could sit down but only on one cheek.  (Who knew abscess had 3 s's in it?  Not me.  But my spell check did.)

Anyone who has kids and Lego's knows what I'm talking about.
Or abscesses.

In unrelated topics, I am officially sick of turkey.

List of turkey dishes I have made so far.  Potato-turkey cakes.  Creamed turkey over biscuits.  Open faced turkey sandwiches with gravy.  Turkey salad over biscuits.  Turkey spaghetti.  Turkey tetrazzini.  Turkey-sausage gumbo.  I'm freezing the rest of the turkey.

I'm not sure if this is real or photoshopped but if you happen to love
turkeys and have an old VW Beetle, hey, why not?

Okay.  Enough complaining.  Hope your week was better than mine.

Bad Things Happen in Threes OR My Week from Hell

I was painting the den.  La de dah, dah, dah.  My daughter, Cressy, said, "Let's watch a movie."  Then when I got down to help her find the movie of her choice, The Corpse Bride (MY daughter, ya'll!!!) she said, "And let's eat popcorn."  So I went to put the popcorn in the microwave whilst the kid put the dvd in the dvd player.  Now I will explain that the whole movie dvd/cable box/television/wii U is in the den, where I was painting.  In fact, I had already painted my way around where that set up was located.  HIM, the man to whom I'm married, had put it back together in his typical OCD inspired manner using pink and blue ties and labeling each wire while spinning in a counter clockwise manner and wearing his lucky socks.  (I may be exaggerating.)

Oh I couldn't find a burned popcorn lol
but wth?

While I was waiting for the popcorn to pop, my daughter says, "It won't work."  So I trudged into the den and tried to figure out why the signal from the dvd player was not working.  It took me about eight tries to determine that none of the television channels were working.  It took me about ten seconds after that to realize that the microwave was no longer popping, but it was smoking.  (And not in a good, I-have-a-doobie way.)  I had put it on 4 minutes because the popcorn function button doesn't work, intending to stop it manually when the popping stopped.  (It's a good plan in theory when I actually followed through.)  However, I became distracted by the whole television- not-receiving-a-signal-from-the-dvd-player thing.

This didn't really work for me.

The kitchen was awash with smoke.  I have since determined that burnt popcorn smoke smells worse than my daughter's moron cat's poop.  I opened the windows.  I turned on the fans.  I turned on the exhaust fan.  I carried the still smoking popcorn through the house.  It turns out that while I was rushing to get the popcorn bag out of the house I held it upside down and the very hot oil dripped out onto the floor and onto the rug.  I have since determined that Berber rugs can be melted by hot oil.  Really.  I've got evidence.

When I buy another microwave that
doesn't smell like burned popcorn
I totally want a Chaos button.

My daughter took a moment to illuminate me on what she thought of the situation.  She said, "I guess we won't be eating that popcorn."  If Cressy wasn't nine years I would have suspected that she was being sarcastic.

You have to read the little yellow sticker.

I got my daughter to lock up her moron cat upstairs and opened all the doors and windows.  It was cold outside so pretty soon we were wrapped up in sweaters and fuzzy socks.  And the smoke slowly began to dissipate.


My daughter told me the other day she was going
to invent a time machine and I told her
to get a Delorean.

I put another bag of popcorn into the microwave and went back to check the cords on the back of the television and the dvd player.  While doing that I forgot the popcorn in the microwave...again.  At which time I should have just said, "Eff the popcorn.  We're eating carrot sticks."  I should have.

I did not but the third bag of popcorn was a go.  I told Cressy we would have to wait for HIM to come home so he could tell me why he didn't attach the dvd player and then chastise him roundly.  Cressy made herself happy watching Wild Grinders and Rabbids Invasion.  (You should check out the Rabbids.  They're twisted, just like me.)

Okay, this isn't funny to Little People.

HIM came home about a half hour later and was mildly alarmed that the front door was wide open.  His words were "Has anyone seen the cat?"  HIM was worried about the cat but not us.  (Now I truly know where I'm ranked in the household, except when I'm making some dish he really likes, and then I'm number one.)

And the microwave, although having been scrubbed no less than FIVE times, still smells like burnt popcorn.

I need a new microwave.  Pretty sure.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday OR How It Doesn't Feel Like Sunday

I'm beginning to feel like weekends are my other job.  First, painting the den.  It needs two coats and a lot of cutting in.  People and animals just watch me because the den is the most used room in the house.  I can't do it all at once because it would kill my carpel tunnel, so it's maybe an hour a day.  Today, HIM, the man to whom I'm married, changed the light toggle switches.  It turns out that not all the switches in that room are connected to the same circuit breaker.  (Learned this the hard way and now I'm afraid to touch the switches without rubber gloves.)  (NEVER too old to learn new stuff.)

And because getting shocked is so much fun, I had to find a YouTube video, too.

It's so much better when it happens and you have a British accent.

So then I have to do the laundry.  Doing laundry sucks.

Then there's the leaf blowing.  It turns out that when you buy a house with a lot of trees, because it's got a lot of trees, because it's pretty, that a lot of trees give up a lot of leaves.  A HELLUVA LOT OF LEAVES!

I would totally rake leaves in a storm trooper outfit if I could find a storm trooper outfit that fit big girls.

I couldn't find a picture of a fat storm trooper.  But I did find Fat Batman, so it's almost as good.

What was I talking about?  Okay, electrocuted by a wall switch and raking leaves until I almost puked.

This is what you're really supposed to do with leaves in a pile.  (We've been blowing most of ours out into the woods out back.  It's really green if you think about it.  We're helping to make dirt.  Feeding the worms.  The worms feed the birds.  The birds do some other stuff, like poop seeds out which make trees and bushes.  The trees and bushes make oxygen.  We breath the oxygen.  See.  Totally green.  Fie upon the neighbors who put their stinking leaves into bags.)

Then there's blog writing.  Usually this is a lot of fun but when I'm out of ideas, I kind of hate it.  I look like this.

Yes, exactly like this.  Especially when someone disturbs me, which happens a lot in a house with everyone home.

Then there's this...

And let us not forget this...

Okay, I'm done.

Various, Random, and Sundry: My Middle Names!

I suppose I enjoy discussing what's happening in my life and work.  When things happen, and they do happen, I certainly enjoy ranting about it.

Guess what I'm talking about?

For example, last night we went to Walmart to pick up some photos.  Why, you might ask?  Because my daughter needed a photo of herself with her chosen victim, er, interviewee, for a veteran's day project.  Since I didn't have a lot of time to get the photo.  I downloaded it to Walmart and had them do it in an hour for no extra charge.  They send me a helpful text saying it was ready.  There.  The scene is all set.

Maybe I need to go to Walmart more?  Naw.

Then.  Then, the great word that precedes all that is odd and inexplicable in life.  Then when we showed up at Walmart, there was no one at the photo lab in the back of the store.  By the way, getting to the photo lab involved asking the greeter at the front of the store who gave directions, thusly.  "Ya'll go straight on back.  When you get to the big aisle ya'll want to go right.  That's the big right, right?  Then, about fifty feet or so, there'll be the photo place.  If you've gone to the shoes, you've gone too far.  Ya'll understand?"  Great.  But NO ONE was there.  And as HIM, the man to whom I'm married, will tell you, this is a recipe for Fat Woman's sense of injustice.  Furthermore, there was a sign.  A sign that said, "Saturday 9 am - 8 pm."  I checked my phone.  Yes, it was 7 pm.  This was the point where I said several statements which were overheard by both my daughter and the woman with her grown daughter who were using the computer terminals at the photo lab to design someone's wedding invitations.  These statements included foul language and a beseechment of why in the name of Kodak had I ever thought this way of going would be easier.  (Wedding invitations at Walmart?  Really?  Seriously?  OMG.)


Just a small town boy walking his pet alligator...

HIM got on his cell phone and called Walmart, because HIM loves to do stuff like that.  The person he talked to said the photo lab was closed.  I gestured at the sign frantically, er, angrily, and HIM hung up before I could grab it from him.

I had to think about this for a moment.

(This is why I don't shop at Walmart anymore.  That an incident back in the 90s which involved one of the senior citizen greeter/things chasing us out into the parking lot yelling, "YOU KNOW YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!"  True story.  I swear.)

This is like one of those pictures that you stare at
and stare at and THEN it becomes clear.

HIM related the information to me.  I said, "Where's the manager?" and stomped into the front of the store.  HIM wisely took our daughter to where the game section was located.  (She had her change purse and was prepared to waste quarters in a wild and woolly manner.)  There at customer service, I had to wait for the single employee to park a shopping cart full of returns in a way that made her personally happy.  She saw me but she did not really care.  Finally I asked her about the STUPID photo lab hours and she said, "We're horribly understaffed.  You have to go back and talk to the electronics clerk.  She'll help you."

I'm not sure what this is, but I would
have taken a picture of it, too.

I think stared for a while, trying to prevent my eyes from rolling back in my head.  (Through years of practice I can finally do it, but it's still hard.)

I used this before but I couldn't help myself.

I tromped back across the entire store (it's a SUPER Walmart so I'm entitled to bitch) to the electronics section where the sole employee picked up a ringing phone just as I trudged to the counter.  Her conversation went like this, keeping in mind that I only heard one side: "Yeah, I didn't know that.  Hmm.  Well, I don't know about that.  Hmm.  I haven't heard that."  Five long minutes later I realized that she was trying to figure out how to transfer the person but couldn't.  Finally, she finally accidentally hung up on the person and turned to me.  Then someone else came up and said that she was needed in the returns area.  It turns out that this solitary individual was manning three sections at the same time.  (My annoyance quickly changed to pity.)  She got me the pictures and handed them over to me and then had to deal with the mother/daughter/wedding invitation fiasco.  ("Is this really ecru or is it off white?  Because if it's off white, I may vomit.")  (Wedding invitations at Walmart?  Really?  Seriously?)

I totally need Xanax for most of my shopping experiences.

To sum.  I got the one stupid picture I needed for my daughter's social studies assignment and I hate Walmart more than ever.