Grape Did It

Little Miss Sunshine

I know I'm behind on this bandwagon. But perhaps the world's best movie scene, here. Best if you watch the movie first but wow. So good.

Dad? New career?

For now...

I have a great video of Ella trying to will Alison's head into her mouth and, since she is unable to, exclaiming in frustration. But since my computer thinks it's 1996, it's taking forever to upload so you'll have to be pacified (mainly Ga and mom) by this picture of Ella eyeing a beer. I taught her that.

Aim for the low hanging clouds

Yesterday I decided to try the cycling class at the gym I just signed up for. Holy hell. When I got there I asked the instructor if it was a hard class, I'd heard it was hard, but just wondering? And she said, yes, it's a pretty intense class. When she asked if my seat felt comfortable, I said no and the girl next to me laughed, looked over and said, "It's not supposed to feel like riding a bike!" Oh ok, my mistake, it's just a cycling class. The instructor - who by the way does have the proportions of a Barbie - hopped onto my bike and said, "oh yeah, this feels right."

I have learned something from classes you can take at the gym. Set your standards low. If they say, "turn up your bike resistance!" turn it down. It looks like you are turning it up but you will thank me later. The worst part was "riding" while standing. If I'd had any idea that was to be a part of the work-out, I probably would not have joined. The instructor would yell, "Up!" wait two seconds then holler, "Down!" meaning you had to peddle while standing, peddle while sitting, peddle while standing...I wanted my water, but was afraid if I grabbed for it, I'd throw-up all over the floor. I was painfully aware of my paint-spattered old pants (thank you black lights) and my jalapeno shirt that says, "I'm hot!" on it.

And now I have to drive to Jonesville with barely working legs.

Puh-lease

Backing away slowly

My cousins got a goat, yes a small baby goat, and Bud and I had this conversation on the way home. I started by asking:

"So, you decided you don't want a goat after all? After we have a house and maybe a little land?"

"Well, nah,"

"Why not?"

"Because then we'd have to have a barn and clean out stalls and all the complication and mess,"

"Well, some people just have a truck with an old camper shell on top for their goats,"

"Would you go for that?"

"Uh, no, but some people just have a little lean-to near their house,"

"Would you ever go for that?"

"Uh, noo...why couldn't we just have a small barn?"

"And another dog, and a cat and a pig and four children?"

Dog Orgy

For Christmas one of the things mom and dad bought me was a rather large gift certificate to dog.com. That is like handing someone on a diet a hundred dollar bill and pointing at a bakery. Yesterday the huge box arrived in the mail and I plunked it down on the living room floor to open. You should have been here to BEHOLD the excitement in this little household. Sadie couldn't decide between jumping in my face, jumping in the box or throwing herself backwards onto the carpet in fits of ecstacy. Oh please, please, PLEASE! get that bag of little squeaky pigs open! If she had been able to become one with all the toys I don't think that would have been far enough. Copper meanwhile tried to pull the "bite and run" so he could be assured the toy (each and every toy) first. Except for he bit before the toys were freed from their bags of hazardous choking material. I had to keep snatching them away, removing bits of plastic from around his teeth and then setting the dangerous material on the table because no way was I going to miss any of the action by getting up and putting the trash into the trash can. No way.

The below video is several minutes after the initial excitment. All heart rates have returned to almost-normal. But I think you can still get a good idea for the happiness that was just seeping out the doors yesterday - the room was filled and it had nowhere else to go.

Finally

It is cold here now. Finally. But not finally yay a winter! More like we've had an unseasonably warm winter thus far and finally it has started to act like it a real winter. But I did not move to Alabama for the way winter "should" feel. I moved to Alabama because of the promise of warm weather 90% of the year and the other 10% to be when I was visiting my parents in Florida. If there is one thing you should know about me it's that I hate cold weather and so I am like the Ice Princess - wherever I go, an El Norte (or whatever they are called) comes flying in. Kind of like, "Phew! Finally we caught up with Hope - she didn't think we'd let her enjoy warm weather now did she?" I can so see my brother now shaking his head, thinking, or even saying out loud to his wife, "She really does think the world revolves around her, it's not just an expression, she actually thinks weather has something to do with her personality." (More incredulous head shaking). No, I don't! It's just - you try having hands that are ice-cold unless the thermostat is turned up to 80 degrees which no normal human being has to have it on so I am always cold. And in the summer, people crank their air conditioners up right as I'm getting comfortable! You try living my life. Maybe Angelina will adopt me.

My point is with this weather comes a monumental laziness. On a good day someone might call me "lazy" whereas I prefer "efficient", but on cold days, forget it. And my poor dogs. They are so suffering. Copper, the good one, is actually starting to whine at the sliding glass door and not because he hasn't been outside, because he has, ten minutes ago. But it's all I can do to rush them outside to pee and then rush back in to warm up. They sigh, they look at their paws, they look at me expectantly. I would kill for a fenced in yard right about now.

I am also supposed to run some errands today. Work related things that will hopefully add dimension to my business. But what's dimension when it's as cold as Christmas outside. Finally.

$2 to non-ass bartender

Saturday night Bud and I went out with friends to a nearby bar. It's overpriced and the clientele is, on-average, at least twice our age. But it has lots of pool tables and live bands sometimes and a small dance floor. So we've been a few times. Bud went up to the bar and ordered two pitchers - for the 6 of us, not one for each, as I would have it. The bartender told him they had no domestic beer, which they did last time (what is it about bartenders and the odd power they yield?), to which Bud muttered, "gimme a break," to which the bartender yelled back, "YOU give ME a BREAK! I'm the only one back here!" I thought for a minute he was going to either dissolve into tears or jump across the bar and grab Bud by the throat. It was so unsettling we both just kept looking at each other like, what? Did that really just happen?

After a while another bartender showed up and so I played the little game of "avoid seriously unhinged bartender and order from the other" but somehow, I still live with my mother kept asking me what I wanted. At the end of the night Bud asked me whether he should tip the bartender at all. I said, yeah go ahead and give something small so as not to be a total jerk, but maybe you should specify that you really only want it to go to the other, more seemingly normal employee.

The next morning I pulled the receipt out of Bud's wallet just to see what he'd written. Also, not to worry, I was able to snatch plenty of marischinos and olives on the way out as retribution.

Cops

"Sir, did you get in an argument at the bar?"

"Huh?"

"Did you get into an ARE GUE MENT at the BAR?"

"Huh?"

"Sir, did you get into a FIGHT, at the BAR, the BAR you just came from?"

"Uh, I've been drinking,"