Godzilla Attacks the City

I'm in charge of a Silent Auction for my job. The auction is less than two weeks away, and about this time every year, my office starts filling with donations for the auction. Some of these donations are fantastic, and some is stuff you couldn't pay me to take home.

Anyway, my office isn't tiny, but it isn't huge either. So, it's getting harder and harder to move around in here through all the piles of stuff. Yesterday, I had cleared two spots that would enable me to come in and out of my office.

Yesterday afternoon, I decided I needed to get up for something, and I started my climb through my office. I was wearing shoes with heels, so it was a little precarious anyway. I started at my chair, hoisted my leg over one pile of stuff, landed in the first clear spot, and was propelled over the second pile and into the doorway. Somehow I caught some serious momentum doing this, so I basically came flying through my office and all the junk and landed just in the doorway. I am not at all graceful or agile, so it was really quite a feat.

At that precise moment, one of my co-workers, whose office is right next to mine, came around the corner to ask me something.

I landed directly in her face.

Now, I've told you this before: I am not small. But she is. So, not only did she have the first surprise of someone landing right in her personal space, I am like twice her size, so it was a very frightening scene, I'm sure.

She looked absolutely terrified, and we both started laughing so hard we couldn't talk. I truly was like Godzilla attacking this poor little village. She may not recover.

Thank you for being a friend...

I know I haven't written in a while, but I am finding it harder and harder to blog everyday. I don't know why, and I hope that y'all are still checking in with me!

I do have important news to share:

Tonight, I have added another celebrity sighting to my ever-growing list. This evening, I had the privilege, along with my friend A Real Mother, of standing in line to get a book signed by the fabulous Rue McClanahan. Now, I am assuming that you know that she is none other than the fabulous Blanche Deveraux on one of the all-time greatest shows, The Golden Girls.

I'm not sure I can adequately convey how awesome I think The Golden Girls is. I mean, those four were totally fabulous in their outfits and their bawdy talk, and I still laugh out loud every time I watch it. My favorite episode (or at least in the top 5) is when Blanche and Rose enter the songwriting contest and write the smash hit: "Miami, Miami"

Miami, Miami, you've got style... blue skies, sunshine, white sand by the mile...

Wow, do I love it.

So, you can imagine how thrilled I was at the chance to meet Miss Rue. She was signing her book, "My First Five Husbands" and she read from it. One of the things she read was a part of the script from the Golden Girls, and she did a Bea Arthur impression. That brought down the house, let me tell you.

And speaking of the house... the Rue fans were a motley crew, to say the least. There was a group of women younger than I all wearing puffy painted "I love Rue McClanahan" t-shirts. There were two different women carrying Golden Girls purses. There was a woman who could have been Estelle Getty's twin. There were two older women in front of us dressed like the GGs who cut in line simply because they couldn't follow the tape arrows that dictated the line.

There was also a wonderful man in front of us who heard us berating ourselves for not bringing a camera (it said no pictures!) and offered to take our picture with his camera and email it to us tomorrow.

When we got to the table, our dorkiness around celebrities reared its ugly head. All we could say to Rue was "thank you! thank you!" She was lovely and gracious, as you can well imagine, and she called my friend "My dear".


God bless you, Borders Books, for bringing this woman into my life! Viva la Blanche!

Huh?

I really love bumper stickers. I don't have any on my car, but I love to read them. In college, I had a running list of all the bizarre bumper stickers my friends and I saw.

Today, as I was driving down the street, I found myself behind a car with a gigantic bumper sticker on it. The sticker read:

If it's not a baby, you're not pregnant.


What?

I don't think I understand that. If what isn't a baby? And who thinks they are pregnant if they have something besides a baby? Is this a really big problem? I feel like I must be missing something here, and maybe this is some serious issue with which I am simply not familiar, but I am baffled.

If anyone can help me, I sure would appreciate it.

Also, feel free to list your favorite bumper stickers in the comments section as well.

On My Mind Today

So, I have not solved the mystery of the sawdust scent. I can't even come up with a decent explanation or even a guess. But, I do have a few other things to share that might entertain you in the meantime.

In the Television Category:

1. Friday Night Lights is SO. GOOD. This week was the season finale, and as is my weekly custom, I wept. Not out of sadness, but out of how much I LOVE THAT SHOW and every person on it. I highly recommend that you rent the first season on DVD if it comes out or at the very least catch it in re-runs this summer so you can watch next year. I will be happy to hold tutorials on this show if you have any questions. Watch it. Do this for me or I will come to your house and make it smell like sawdust.

2. Grey's Anatomy: Are you ever going to be new again? Clip shows don't count.

3. Idol: I was not sad to say goodbye to Haley, although Phil would have been fine by me too. I am not speaking about this S. Malakar situation. Team Doolittle, all the way.

4. Notes from the Underbelly: I am watching it right now on Tivo. Did anyone watch it? Should I bother? I am not committed yet.

5. Classics: The OC started up on Soapnet this week, and I am LOVING reliving the glory that was Season One. Even though Mischa Barton is on there, it's so so good.



I'm an idiot category:

1. It rained a lot last night. This morning (I'm off today), I came downstairs and looked out at my beautiful new canopy. I realized that some of the rain was pooling in the tent, so I decided to push it out. Long story short, I'm soaking wet.

2. I'm doing something tomorrow and I need to read from these papers (I can't be too specific on this). Anyway, suffice it to say that I spent a good bit of time with one of my co-workers making these papers into a booklet so I could read them more easily and without being distracting by shuffling them around too much. Yesterday afternoon I came home and was looking over it. I knew that I had originally printed four pages, and this was only two. I searched everywhere; my house, my car. Finally I decided that I must have left the other half at my office, so I drove back over last night. Nothing. I searched the whole room, including the trash. I printed it out again, but didn't remember how to copy it to make it into a booklet, so I decided I would leave and go back today and see if someone could help me.

A couple of hours later I open up my planner, where I had stuck the two pages I already had, and realized that by turning the papers into a booklet, I STILL HAD THEM ALL, they just were consolidated now because they were copied on both sides. So basically I wasted all that time looking for something I already had. Brilliant.


Music Category:

1. I'm going to see Justin Timberlake! I can't wait. I just got the email from my friend Really I'm a Mother, and she and Mayor and I are going to the show this summer! We're bringing sexy back.

OK, I can't pull that off. But I am going to love it nonetheless.

Dust up

So, last night I am getting ready for bed, and I can barely breathe all of a sudden due to this bizarre scent. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't something I was too familiar with.

And then I realized: It was sawdust, and it was me. I DO smell like sawdust. It was overpowering! I'm serious. It was following me everywhere.

Why do I smell like sawdust? It has been a pretty long time since I used a power saw--or a drill--- or whatever else creates sawdust, and I certainly haven't done that it in my pajamas. So, really... what is it? Is it my shampoo? My detergent? My own odor?

This is a mystery that I may not solve. Help me.

Sweet Nothings

One night this week, I was semi-asleep in my bed when Mr. Bossy finally decided to come upstairs and go to bed too. When he got in the bed, I rolled over next to him. A few minutes later, he says,

"You smell like sawdust".

Well, for some reason, that made me laugh really hard. I can't image why I would smell like sawdust, since as you know, I'm not too handy. I managed to get control of myself, and was settled down again, when:

"Seriously. You smell like Home Depot".

So, I am giggling away, trying to figure out why I might smell like sawdust, when he says this:
"Oh, Lord. This is going to be in the blog."


It's nice that he knows me so well.

Finally.

Well, I know you've all been waiting with baited breath, so without further ado....

Here are pictures of the finished product:















I can't believe how non-simple this process was, particularly for my almost 70-year old father, but I must admit I am totally excited about having it.When I was thanking him last night, I said, "I didn't realize what an intense project this was going to be", and bless his heart, he said "The challenges made it more fun." He must have had a hell of a good time, then.


I promise that I will not talk about this thing anymore, as I am sure I've bored you to tears with my little mini-drama. I am sure many blog-worthy things will happen in the next few days to keep you interested.


Just one more thing: lest you think there was nothing left to remind me of how far we've come, here is a little remnant left in my yard.

Progress

Well, I apprecite the many inquiries I have received regarding this canopy, and wanted to give you an update on its progress. When last I left you, it was UP ON CEMENT BLOCKS in our backyard. I am sure Southern Living was on its way to photograph it, because it was a lovely sight to behold.

The day my dad left it on the blocks (just to get it the right height), I took Mr. Bossy out back to show him what the situation was, and there was my next door neighbor and a bunch of his friends all walking around his backyard, admiring his handiwork. I was mortified. I was like "I didn't want you to see this-- it's only temporary-- blah blah idiot" and he was like "relax, lady". In my defense, he is a groundskeeper at a country club in our area, and his yard is slightly nicer than ours.


Anyway, my dad then decided that he would build these little forms in which he could pour concrete, in order to raise the canopy up enough so it could clear the door. Saturday morning, he came over around 10 am with 9 bags of concrete, a wheelbarrow, a pick axe, two shovels, a trowel, a T-square, his toolbox, a power saw, and a drill.

We did all the measuring and planning and line drawing and all that stuff, and then it was time to pour the concrete into these "L"-shaped forms. Well, as soon as we poured the first one, the boards of the form totally collapsed and we were holding it all together with our hands and a prayer.

So, we had to scoop all the concrete back into the wheelbarrow before it set, and he decided that he could make the forms stronger with screws instead of nails. Now, as you may or may not have gathered, the Bossies don't have that many tools. We have a hammer and a few nails, a couple of screwdrivers, and that's about it. So, when he was like "Do you have any wood screws?" I looked at him blankly for a while and wandered off to the garage to try to find something. Eventually we scraped together the necessary pieces and made much stronger forms.

At one point during the morning, I said "I have to leave in a few hours to go to a birthday party, is that OK?", to which he responded "In a few hours I'll be dead".

So, a few hours later, I left my (still living, thankfully) father out on my back slab surrounded by his tools and pouring concrete into forms. The front two weren't too difficult, but the back two had to be off the concrete (due to a light fixture on the house) and in the grass, which is on a slope. So, he had to dig and you know... do all that stuff to make it level. I told him not to stay out there too long, but I learned later that he worked well into the late afternoon. He may be regretting that he lives so close to me.

So, that's where we are right now. The forms are in place, and this afternoon he is coming over to help me lift it onto the forms and anchor it into place. I can assure you, no matter what it looks like, I'm telling him how much I love it, or else I might get a bag of concrete "accidentally" dropped on my foot, if you know what I mean.

I hope that tomorrow I will have pictures of the finished product for you. These pictures aren't so great, but I was trying to quickly snap a couple while I had the chance. Thanks for sticking with me through the Drama of the Canopy. Tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion, fingers crossed.

Blogger's Remorse

Dear Friends,

If any of you are even still reading this blog after I have been so very lazy about posting, I am grateful. I think I can do better now, I just had a difficult time getting to it this week, not that there weren't several blog-worthy events in my life.

Some of the highlights of the week included:

-- watching a bunch of 50-something year old women talk about me in a tight little circle while I just sat in my chair and watched.

-- being screamed at by a parking attendant for doing the wrong thing while trying to enter the deck. First, he LEFT THE BOOTH AND CHASED ME, then made all the cars behind me back out onto the street. It was awesome.

-- receiving my second parking ticket in three weeks.

-- overhearing critical comments regarding a performance I was a part of -- made by a woman who was already on THIN ICE with me.

-- The Service Engine light coming on in my car-- the A/C broke last week too. My car is a piece.



When I look at it in writing, it sounds like I had a pretty bad week, but it actually wasn't so bad. I did get to celebrate three different birthdays, see some of my friends, and watch a lot of "The Office", so it wasn't a total wash. Plus it rained, so a little bit of the pollen finally got washed away.

I will be back tomorrow to tell you more in the continuing saga of The Bossies and the Backyard Canopy, starring my father and more tools than you can imagine... I even have pictures! How's that for a teaser?