Category: blog

I’m thinking about sprucing up my back 40 with a vintage camper. I don’t plan to ever take the camper on road trips, rather, I’d like to build a deck around it and use it as a home away from and close to home. I’ve been looking in various places for just the right camper and thought I might have found it near my Zumba class.

 

Both Beaner and Sleepless have had their eyes on this camper and immediately notified me when they noticed a ‘For Sale’ sign in its window. So, after Sleepless and I stood on the bumper to take a sneak peek through the front window, I decided to set a time to actually check out the interior.  “I better go with you. I’m Asian and can barter,” Live Longer told me. Upon closer look at the 1972 Georgia Swinger we decided I definitely wanted to keep looking. “As much as you’d love to have a Swinger in your garden, I think you should hold out for something better,” Live Longer advised.

 

She is partially correct in that I should hold out for something better.  She is incorrect about me wanting a swinger in my garden; the only Swinger I’d like anywhere near me is a Polaroid Swinger. Should I ever change my mind I’ll just head to Draper – home to all kinds of swingers.

Ice Cream Man invited Sleepless, Ashterisk and I to join him for dinner. We all accepted the invitation and, after I went to the wrong restaurant, we finally met up at a fine dining establishment. As we dined we wondered how many people might wonder if Ice Cream Man was on a date with his sister wives. We guessed at least four out of five (wives).

 

Ice Cream Man would start to tell us a story and one of us would, inevitably, interrupt him. This, of course, upset him so I started asking, “Ice Cream Man, what?” For whatever reason, this catch phrase caught on faster among us women than it did with Ice Cream Man – he continued to ignore us, even we discussed the argument we planned to have when deciding who could ride in the front seat with him.

 

After dinner we decided to return to Ashterisk’s house where she immediately hooked Ice Cream Man up with a beer and Sleepless immediately headed to the loo. When Sleepless returned she whispered in my ear, “When you go to the bathroom, take your phone.”

 

A little while later I stood up to go the loo. “Are you checking on your phone?” Sleepless asked. “Sleepless, what? No, I’m just going to the loo,” I said, not realizing she was reminding me to take my phone with me. As soon as I entered the bathroom I thought two things: “Ashterisk, what?!?!?” and “Damn! This is why I need my phone.”

 

Just as someone removes their contacts at night, Ashterisk removes hers silicone bra gel inserts and, like a contact lens wearer, she leaves them on the bathroom counter for everyone to see. Except for, of course, the contact lens wearer whose contacts are, just like the silicone bra gel inserts, sitting on their bathroom counter.

In addition to asking, ‘Who wears white shoes anyway?” there are other questions that require some additional questioning or consideration before posing them.

 

Several winters ago it had been a while since seeing a coworker and, upon seeing him, I noticed he was limping and asked, “Did you hurt yourself skiing?” “I have MS,” he replied. He wasn’t kidding. I felt like an idiot.

 

I shared this story with one of the coworkers who witnessed the white shoe question and she told me, “I was in a meeting with someone who kept rubbing her nose so I asked if she had a cold.” “Oh no,” I said and asked, “She didn’t have a cold, did she?” “Nope, Parkinson’s,” she replied.

 

And the list goes on. Some questions are better left ‘questioned.’

 

One of my coworkers recently sprained her ankle and, as a result, has been wearing an orthopedic boot. With the weather warming up she decided to pair her boot with a skirt and a white flip flop.

 

“You better be careful. Flip flops are dangerous and you’ve already shown balance is not your best attribute,” I told her knowing I was one to talk, or walk, or walk and talk.  “I know, but who wears white shoes these days?” she said then looked at our co-worker who was wearing white shoes. “I meant to say where does one get white shoes these days,” she said trying to save face, then asked, “Where did you get your shoes?”

 

“One foot in an orthopedic boot, the other in your mouth,” I told her, returned to my office, sent her the video clip from Vacation when Cousin Eddie gives Clark his white shoes, and included the notation, “This is where one gets white shoes.”

If only I would have reviewed my notes before writing yesterday’s blog. Had I done so I would have known exactly where I was going with “Stripped of Joy.”

 

The other day, while catching up on the news, I heard a story about a nursing home where the residents decided to hire a male stripper. Apparently their family members got wind (not the kind of wind/gas one often hears/smells in a nursing home, rather something they learned) of this information and were not happy. As a result, they made several complaints, alleged their family members didn’t remember (although in some cases this may be true, this is a common statement made by those who frequent strippers), and got the media involved. Their attempt to strip their loved ones of their joy and the strippers of their income provided a huge return on investment for the media.

 

I shared this story with the ladies and within minutes we were talking about Electric Vibe’s magic wand. “It’s my sister’s fault. She is the one who kept telling me I had to have the Hitachi Magic Wand.” Electric Vibe left her wand plugged in one day and, to this day, worries her kids may have seen it. Let’s hope not or instead of a magic wand in our hands we’ll have a nursing home situation on our hands.

 

As the ladies discussed their vibrating dilemmas – large battery bases, forgetting to put them away when guests come over, etc., I had an idea, “We should totally invent a vibrator that looks like a Sonic Care toothbrush. Better yet, we’ll just partner with Sonic Care and make vibrating heads. Or, wait, even better, the top could be a toothbrush and the bottom could be the vibrator.” “If you could add the Clarisonic to the mix it would be even better, ” Live Longer suggested.

 

I’m pretty confident we could combine all three. I haven’t come up with a name yet, but our slogan could ,”From facial to vagial.” We’ll definitely want to test it out on a focus group.

I have no idea why I chose this title for this blog entry. Just as some people pick an accessory and decorate around it, I often pick a title and then decorate with words below it. Typically, however, I have something in mind when picking the title.

 

In this case, not only am I ‘Stripped of Joy,’ I am also stripped of memory. My guess is this is a direct result of the socialite glow I acquired while at an Aussie Wine Pairing with Rated R, Electric Vibe, BioMom, Sleepless and Live Longer.

 

After a very successful wine blending event nearly three years ago – where Rated R, BioMom and I met some nice (straight, but we totally thought they were gay) men and invited them to the stoop for more drinking – we decided it was again time to grace a fine dining establishment with our presence while gracing our stomachs and livers with a decadent pairing of rich foods and fine wines. With Rated R’s birthday around the corner we needed no further justification.

 

The ambiance and company was great. The food was good and the wine was flowing. As we moved from one flight to the next we noticed all of the wines were highly fortified, which was causing some to not finish their glasses. Being that I was not the designated driver, and always willing to take one (or two or three) for the team, I helped finish off several.

 

Once we (I) finished their pairing, we returned to my house for a pairing of a dry red and M&Ms. Stripped of joy? I think not! Stripped of memory? I have a feeling I know why!

 

In my attempt to more efficiently and accurately blog I decided to resort to taking notes again. This is something I used to do quite regularly. As we were out and about I would grab my little notebook and pen and take notes of our conversations or, depending on what was overheard, other people’s conversations.

 

This practice worked great for a very long time. The only drawback was people would often be more cautious about what they said when the notebook was out.  Their caution did not dissuade me. Unfortunately, one day I fell out of the habit of taking the notes.

 

Yesterday, after an afternoon of wining and dining with Rated R and Live Longer, I decided it might be time to start taking notes again. By the time I made this decision, Rated R had gone home, but Live Longer was still with me and Oper and her friend had joined us. We were approximately two bottles of wine and two mimosas in when they arrived. By the time they left we had five empty bottles ready for the recycle bin and, fortunately, I took notes:

Pretty Prudie

How easy is it to pee in Europe?

Usually I’ll hook it with my toe.

Summer breeze makes me feel fine, sounds like a douche commercial in my mind.

 

Sadly, I have no idea what any of this means. I do know, however, that Live Longer wishes she had taken notes. In between checking out the fine lines of my porcelain throne and sleeping on the floor just outside of the loo she made an observation, “I went from feeling fine to being shitfaced. How did that happen?” Based on my notes, it had something to do with a toe.

While in England I became aware a very delicious snack – prawn cocktail crisps. I can get them occasionally here, but it isn’t a huge priority for me. Today, while shopping in a distant hood, I found and purchased a bag of shrimp chips. Although it wasn’t the brand I preferred, I thought I would try them out.

 

I took them with me to work (at the furniture store), opened the bag and offered them to others, “shrimp chips?” The smell was pretty strong and so was the response I received, “Ew, no,” said one of my coworkers who stuck her nose into the bag. “If you don’t put your nose in it, it’s good,” I advised. The operator (yes, we still have telephone operators at this store), who typically sits quietly and unseen by most, quipped and then giggled like a school girl, “That’s true for most things.”

 

That was both true and a little too much information. As Muhammad Ali once said, “Only the nose knows, where the nose goes, when the door close.”

Maintaining beauty is a difficult task. The other day while getting my hair done there were two occasions when my stylist apologized for poking me in the forehead. I didn’t think much of it until the next day when I looked in the mirror and realized she actually nicked me with the scissors. As I result, I had two small, raised, red scabs on my forehead. If only I’d had her cut bangs….instead of me.

 

Five days later, the nicks were still fresh, but I didn’t let that get in the way of me attending Zumba. We were dancing with the weights when Live Longer got a bit out of step. She started laughing, I leaned in to say something to her,  she didn’t realize I was going to do that, and nailed me in the forehead with her weight. “Oops, sorry,” she said while laughing so hard she was again out of step.

 

A little while later the instructor was making her rounds in the class and encouraging all of us to sing along to the chorus which was quite simple, “1, 2, 3, 4, Zumba, Zumba, Zumba.” We were halfway through counting when she  Zumbaed up to Live Longer and Live Longer blurted, out of step, tune and time, “3, 4.” The instructor laughed, shook her un-nicked head, walked away and the rest of us, in sync with the song, shouted out  “3, 4!” “What? I don’t speak Spanish,” was Live Longer’s only response.

 

No pain, no gain couldn’t be more tree. Gaining beauty has been incredibly painful for a lot of us.

 

 

Nearly two years ago, when Rated R’s wee one was born, I gave her a blog name. I chose a name that would help us remember her day of birth and, based on this choice, assumed it would be really easy ‘formula’ to remember.

 

This year, as I thought about her birthday, I couldn’t remember the exact day she was born but knew it was the first part of April. I put her gifts in a bag and decided to give them to her the last day of March, just to be safe.

 

“When is her actual birthday?” I asked Rated R and Cream Of Tartar. “Are you kidding? You named her specifically so we could all remember!” Rated R snapped at me. “Right. Problem is I cannot remember,” I told her. “I forgot the other day too. Thank goodness for the blog,” Cream Of Tartar said and added, “It’s 4-Oh-9.”

 

4-oh-9 – so ‘clean’ and easy. I should really try reading the blog every now and again.