I've never been a fan of having my picture taken. After this weekend, I never want to see a camera again as long as I live.

Hey y'all!

It's been another somewhat crazy week here in the 'hood.  I really don't know how June manages to post every single blasted day.  I'm in awe of her.

I can't even get through my emails anymore since my internet at work time has been slashed.  I can only get on for a minute here and there or if I eat lunch at my desk.  The partner who does our Friday Afternoon Song has even stopped doing it because he knows those of us who participate who are not attorneys will get in trouble with the way our temporary space is set up.  I MISS THE INTERNET, Y'ALL.  And I don't seem to get online much at home because I'm too busy keeping up with my Words with Friends, Hanging with Friends, Matching with Friends, and Trivie, and maybe I have a gaming problem on my phone.  I currently have 768 emails in my personal email in-box.  Crap!  How did that happen?  Oh yeah....games.  Letha and I have about 47484 Words with Friends games going on right now because I hit something and it just kept sending her new game invites.

I did manage to get my Christmas tree decorated.  I never got it completely straight.  Here's what I did before I posted a photo of my tree on Facebook for those of you who saw it:  I turned it so it's leaning backwards towards the bay window away from the camera.  I also got my mantle about halfway decorated, and I put up and decorated my tiny tinsel tree in the dining room, sort of did some Christmas-y type crap to my dining room table, and put up a bunch of Christmas themed paintings I taught when I worked at the studio.  Oh and the cheapest and ugliest plastic wreath you've ever seen is now on my front door.  I'm hoping it's so ugly no one will want to steal it.  It was given to me for free.  I didn't purposely go out and buy the ugliest wreath in all of Atlanta. 

I decorated my tree late this past Saturday night because I have no life and was home alone on a Saturday night.  Also, I was afraid if I sat down that night I would never get back up due to soreness.  Yes, two Saturdays in a row that I've been in pain.  Last Saturday it was raking and bagging leaves.  This weekend it was standing.  And standing.  And standing some more.  And then hours more of standing.  How in the hell can you get so sore from just standing?   

On Saturday I took almost 50 of my dad's cameras to a camera guy to have them appraised.  My entire SUV was packed with boxes of working cameras, antique cameras that just look good sitting on a shelf, lenses, tripods, filters, etc..  So I made 34746394 trips across the parking lot to take them all in to the camera shop.  And the guy kept asking, "You have some MORE cameras in your car?" and I kept replying, "YES!  There are still some freaking more cameras in my car.  I'm sick of carrying cameras!" 

Then I stood for SIX HOURS having cameras appraised.  He had some chairs, but I had cameras in them most of the day.  Every hour or so I'd sit for about 2 minutes then I'd have to stand back up to repack a box of cameras and move on to the next one.  Then I had to make 34746394 trips back out to my car to load them back up.  I got to his store about 10 minutes after he opened.  He turned the lights out, locked the doors and walked out with me when he closed.  I was there with him for his entire work day, y'all.  And that man didn't charge me a penny to appraise everything.  So gave him about $40 worth of filters, an antique case, etc. for his time.  He is amazing!  If you live in Atlanta and need to have a camera appraised let me know and I'll give you his information.  Apparently he's known world wide so I guess if any of you need his info I'll give it to you, not just those of you here in Atlanta.  He pulled out one antique camera, looked at it for literally 2 or 3 seconds and said, "this one is probably from just before 1920, they only made these for a few years, and it's worth about $50 or $60."  He then looked it up in a book.  It was made from 1914 - 1916 and it was worth around $70.  He has a collection of over 7,000 antique cameras.  He also repairs cameras, sells manual ones (absolutely does not deal with digital at all), and just loves to look at stuff people bring in for him to appraise.

But by the time I got home I could barely walk my feet hurt so bad.  I decided to keep moving instead of sitting down and watching the final quarter of the most sad football game all year (I'm a graduate of the University of Georgia and don't watch football but I still got caught up in the hype this weekend) so I cooked some dinner, cleaned the kitchen then decorated the tree.

Sunday my older brother and I went back out to my dad's to go through MORE boxes of paperwork and crap.  But we found some photos of my biological mom that neither of us had ever seen.  We found a birthday card she had given my dad back in the 60's.  I think it's the only time I've ever seen her handwriting.  And we didn't tell a single person we were going so my dad's wife didn't show up and, while I can't say it was the most pleasant thing to be doing on a Sunday afternoon - going through your dad's things because he has passed away, my brother and I had some good laughs and we have really been reconnecting quite a bit since we've been spending so much time together taking care of this awful business of going through my dad's things.

We also found some documents from our great-grandfather that date back to 1893.  So now there are two boxes of incredibly old paper sitting on my kitchen counter.  And we found some old newspapers from the 1940's including stuff about the war, the front page when FDR died, etc.  There are also framed photographs and some of them we have no clue about but they must be famous people because there were huge crowds surrounding them to hear what they had to say.  One we think is of FDR on the back of a train in Warm Springs, GA.  My dad didn't take those.  But we found a lot he did take.  We're fairly certain a couple of them are from the beginning of the race riots here in the South.  There's one that is possibly from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s funeral.  We're trying to figure out what to do with them.  We're torn between wanting to keep them (but they're printed in a gigantic size and mounted and I'm not sure they are things I'd ever hang in my house) and we've discussed taking them to some sort of Atlanta historical society or something along those lines to see if we can donate a collection of his work.

Anyway, after we went through the attic and basement for yet another 5 hours, I met a friend of mine for dinner.  We both have massive amounts of drama going on in our lives so we had a drama filled dinner and I didn't get home until almost 11:00 Sunday night.  And then back to the grind Monday morning......

And in the middle of all of this, I also had someone staying in my guest room for two nights.

So I think I'm going to stop talking at y'all and go eat a couple of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups while I lounge on the sofa until I fall asleep with my cat on top of me and never make it upstairs to my bed.  Not that I've ever done that before...

I really can't believe all of this happened in a week

Okay.  Ima see if I can even remember what all has happened over the past week since I've been on here.

My mom was here for 9 days.  Her husband was here for 3 of them.  And they completely wore my butt out.  No, they didn't spank me.  They just kept me incredibly busy.

My mom got to my house on the Friday night before Thanksgiving.  On Saturday morning I was in the shower by 6:15, out the door by 7:30, had a mammogram at 8:00, met my mom and one of my aunts at 8:30, and drove them to the outlet malls up near South Carolina to meet another aunt for the day.  We got back home around 8:00 that night.  And then my mom and I stayed up until almost 1:00 a.m. playing cards.  After having that as my first day with her in town, I knew I was in trouble in the exhaustion department with a week to go.

We got cheap (but good) massages.  We went shopping in all of the stores she misses in Atlanta that she doesn't have in her town out in Texas.  We did grocery shopping for Thanksgiving. We went out to dinner almost every night.  We stayed up late playing cards every night.  We went through paperwork my brothers and I have gotten out of my dad's house that has my mom's personal info included, we went through boxes of pictures, we made some slight changes to decor in part of my house, and we did some laundry and cleaning (well, I did.....I didn't make my mom clean and do laundry).

And by the way, I was also working and doing all of this stuff around my job.  And I have major sleep issues and never sleep past about 3:30 every single morning. But I'm way too exhausted from never sleeping soundly to get up and blog in the middle of the night.

Wednesday night her husband flew in to town.  Thursday my mom, her husband, my older brother and I went to my fun neighbors' house for Thanksgiving dinner and stayed there most of the day.

Friday we did our family Thanksgiving because that worked better for some of our other family members' work schedules, split up family schedules, etc.  But before my mom and I could start prepping and cooking for hours and hours and hours, we had to go Lowe's to get a new deadbolt for my front door (yet another thing that broke in my house - for the second time), yard trash bags, and a bunch of flood lights because her husband was bored and wanted to work on stuff.  Which, YAY!

So now I have flood lights which light up my house as bright as though you are standing on the sun.  Y'all.  I'm not kidding.  You can probably see my house from outer space standing out more than any other house in the entire state of Georgia.  Unfortunately, the fixture that is right behind my bedroom windows has a malfunctioning motion detector so they just stay on all night.  All night.  Shine.  Shine.  Shine in my window.  And the one on the corner of the garage (also right behind my bedroom) has an overly sensitive motion detector and if a breeze blows and a limb or leaf on a tree 800 feet away moves the lights turn on.  And off.  On.  And off.  All night long.  But I am grateful because I'd rather have bright lights than the pitch black that I've had out there for the entire first year I've been in this house because remember?  I live in the 'hood.  And I have had two snakes in my driveway.  So I'll take the bright lights to hopefully scare off the thugs and so I don't step on a wiggly, bitey, poisonous snake.

After her husband replaced all of my flood lights and messed with them trying to get them to work properly and changed my deadbolt he said, "I really need another couple of weeks at your house to fix stuff."  Which?  Dude.  I know.  Daisy Jane's Dough Drain did not get that name because everything is in great shape up in here.

Anyway, my mom and her husband left Saturday morning to drive back to Texas (yes....they drove.  yes....it's a long trip) and I collapsed on my sofa from complete and utter exhaustion.

But only for a little while.  Then I decided that the massive amount of leaves in my yard and up and down my driveway really was getting ridiculous.  And I was afraid I'd step on a wiggly, bitey, poisonous snake that might be coiled up in a leaf pile.  That happened to my grandmother once.  She was about to step right down on a copperhead but thankfully saw it coiled up in the leaves at the last second.  So I blew leaves.  I raked leaves.  And when it was all said and done, there were 16 of those giant paper yard bags crammed as full as they could possibly be crammed full of leaves.  SIXTEEN bags of leaves.  I have a postage stamp sized lawn.  It's like an itty bitty baby yard.  It's 1/3 of an acre and my house, driveway and detached garage take up about 85% of it.  A few of y'all have seen it in person.  Can y'all imagine there being 16 bags of leaves in my teeny little yard?

Y'all, I don't even have a single big tree on my property.  I wish mother nature made leaves fall right under the tree they came from and never blow into another person's yard.  Because I have 4 tiny little trees and I would have had one bag at the most if that's how things worked.  I also dug up a small tree that was growing in a really undesirable place for a tree but the roots were already pretty major and that was not easy to dig up.  Within 15 minutes of quitting yard work, I could barely move and I knew I'd be in deep doo by the next day.

So I went ahead and pulled my Christmas tree out Saturday evening while I could kind of sort of still move.  And that's as far as I have gotten with decorating.  My tree is completely off kilter but after I messed with it for a while and my butt muscles and back muscles and hamstrings were getting more and more painful by the second, I gave up.  So maybe by next weekend I'll manage to get the tree to stand up straight and get some decorations on it.

By the time I went to bed Saturday night, I felt like someone had beat me to a bloody pulp.  Yard work ain't for sissies.  I almost cried I was hurting so horribly.

Sunday morning?  I did cry I hurt so much.  And I knew I had to go to my dad's house to meet my brother to move more stuff.  Which made me cry even harder.  I felt like I had done 12335496347634 squats while holding 94658436594 pounds.  Oh it was awful!  It hurt to lay down.  It hurt to stand up.  It hurt to sit.  It hurt to walk.  It is now Tuesday and my left butt cheek still trembles from pain off and on throughout the day.  You cannot find a more out of shape person than I am.  Yesterday I donated blood for a Red Cross blood drive in our office and I could barely get in and out of those lounge chairs they have you sit in.  It was humiliating!

Sunday at my dad's house was AWFUL.  Once this is all over I may tell y'all just how incredibly awful his wife has treated us.  But just as an example, she tried to take our grandmother's desk from us and when that didn't work because her kids protected it for us, just to be vengeful she went to my dad's bookshelves and took the only books I had said I wanted.  My dad had hundreds and hundreds of books and the ONLY books she took was the set I had expressed wanting.  She has shredded boxes and boxes of his papers from his entire life.  We have no idea what she has shredded.  It has been 4 months of complete hell dealing with her since my dad passed away.  As a reminder, she was only married to him for 2 years.  She has moved a good bit of her stuff out of the house and promised she would leave us a key so we could get in anytime we wanted.  We got there and she had not left a key.  Luckily, my brother had one on his keyring.  Then she showed up and said, "I didn't leave y'all a key.  How did you get in my house?"  MY HOUSE?  Her name was nowhere on any piece of paper having to do with that house. My brother told her he had a key and she said, "I don't remember giving you one."  And he told her it was the one he had when he used to live there because it's been our family home for almost 35 years.  Way before you came along, lady.  Then she followed us around to see what we were doing so we decided to go eat so that she would just leave.  Then we went back and packed up our cars with the stuff we came for.  Also, while we were there she hugged on us, kissed us, and kept telling us how much she loves us and that when she gets settled in her new place she wants us to come over for dinner.  Um.  No.  I've known a lot of two faced people in my life, but if I could tell y'all all of the stuff she's done, all of the stuff her kids have told us she's said about us,  and then have her acting all sweet and innocent and like she loves us, you would agree that she takes the cake in the two faced people department.  Because that's a real department right there.

Since I didn't get home until 9:00 Sunday night and then had to unload an entire SUV full of photography equipment that I have to take and have appraised (I think I had almost 45 cameras in my car) AND could barely move without screaming from the pain, I did not change the sheets and clean the bathroom after my mom left and before my renter came back last night.  But at least I had bright lights like the sun to unload my car.

That's why I didn't blog at y'all last night.  Because I had to work, then go to the grocery store, then come home, unload groceries, change sheets on a bed and clean a bathroom.  And girl, I was beat after this entire past week.

Before I made it to the grocery store, you'll never guess what I did.  I got on the elevator in the parking deck of my building and a City of Atlanta police officer got on too.  I then flung my arms and hands up in the air rather wildly and said loudly, "MAN!  YOU'RE GOING DOWN!"  This is something I would never advise any of you to do and say to an officer of the law.  He raised his eyebrows and said, "Um, excuse me m'am?"  And I yelled, "NO!  NO!  NOT YOU.  YOU'RE NOT GOING DOWN.  I AM NOT GOING TO MAKE YOU GO DOWN!  The elevator is going down.  But I need to go up.  I got on the wrong elevator is all."  And he mumbled something incoherently and moved as far away from me as he could get.

Oh my goodness.  I am exhausted.

BUT, BUT, BUT.....I also found out this past week that I seem to be cancer free!!!!!  The biopsy came back negative.  YIPPEE!  I have to have another ultrasound in a couple of months to follow-up and see what's going on at that point.

With all of this nonsense going on in my life, don't y'all think Hot Brazilian is going to be so glad to be back here living it with me soon?  Ha!  He's going to stampede back to Brazil within a week of getting off the plane.  He'd probably rather chase his meat source into a snake infested river than deal with the drama I have going on in my life currently.

Also, because I can't seem to post Music Monday results on a timely basis with the things I have going on right now, I think I'm going to put it on hold until after the holidays are over.  Because if y'all think my life is crazy now, you should see how it gets during the holidays - and we are still going to be dealing with my dad's house and his beyotch of a wife for at least another month or two.  I already know of 2 Christmas parties, a girls weekend out of town, two (and possibly three) house guests coming at different points during the month of December, and my mom and her husband are contemplating coming back for Christmas.  And Hot Brazilian is supposed to be here the week between Christmas and the New Year.  And oh yeah, I have not even made a list of what gifts I need to buy, much less actually gone out to buy them.  So yes, I think I'll put Music Monday on hold for a month and I will blog as often as I can.  It really stinks that I can't get on the internet at work. 

Y'all tell me some crazy stuff going on in your life right now so that I don't feel so alone.....

In which I give thanks for my lady bits.

Are y’all ready for my weekly excuse(s) as to why I haven’t written sooner?  How ridiculous am I? 

Honestly, I’ve kind of been feeling weird this past week and I wasn’t sure I wanted to say anything or not so I just kept my mouth shut.  And then my mom arrived from Texas and she’s not a fan of sharing anything on the internet so I couldn’t exactly explain that I needed to go share the stupidity of my life on a blog and not spend time with her.  She’ll be here until Saturday so don’t expect much blogging from me until this weekend either. 

But anyway, y’all want to hear about my lady bits?  Because that’s what made me feel all weird this week.  I mean, not physically.  My lady bits feel just fine.  But I’m not entirely sure that they are.  Fine I mean. 

I have fibroids so I have to have an ultrasound when I go for my yearly gross girly doctor visit.  And imagine my surprise the first time I had to have the ultrasound and assumed they would do it on the outside of my stomach as though I'm pregnant with child (I am not pregnant with child so please do not start any rumors) and then they held up a wand and told me exactly how they planned to do it.  “You’re going to do what?” That’s what I said when they told me.  And then they have you on the table with a monitor right above your head with the tech’s arm draped all across your leg and they tell you to let your legs fall open and “just relax” since that’s the most relaxing and not at all compromising position to be in, and I say all kinds of stupid things about the blobs that show up on the monitor because my mouth has no filter. 

But anyway, I went for my ultrasound and yearly gross girl doctor visit this past Tuesday morning.  And after the ultrasound was done and the nurse was taking my blood pressure and I had to wee in a cup while trying not to wee all over my hand, and I was refusing to be weighed (seriously, I tell them each year I don’t want to be weighed and they don’t do it.  I was shocked it worked the first time and I never plan to be weighed again because I do not want to be prescribed depression meds by my gyno), the nurse casually says, “your temperature is fine, your blood pressure is perfect and oh by the way, the doctor wants to do an endometrial biopsy while you’re already in here if that’s okay.”  And I said, “is this because I refused to be weighed?  Because you can totally weigh me and tell me how bad I need to lose weight in lieu of saying I need a biopsy.  I actually ALREADY KNOW that I’m fat in case you’re wondering.  I just don’t want to know exactly how fat I am is all.” 

It turns out some stuff showed up on the ultrasound and in combination with me having one of the worst cycles of my life a couple of weeks ago, they want to see what’s going on and make sure I have no abnormal cells growing and stuff. 

Have any of you had an endometrial biopsy?  I can now add something else to my List of Extremely Unpleasant Things I Never Want to Repeat.  (It contains things such as almost drowning as a toddler and being saved by my older brother, divorce, sitting through a Tom Cruise movie, finding a snake in my driveway (twice in the past 6 months), tripping on a flip flop and breaking my humerus in 4 places and wearing a body brace for a long time, dying my hair the wrong color, living in a house during a construction project, having my boyfriend living out of the country for a very long time, dealing with an obnoxious and mean spouse after the death of one of my parents, stepping in dog poop in my yard and not realizing it until I got to work and the stench started making my eyes and my co-workers’ eyes water, having the elastic in my slip break and it falling down to my ankles while at work in a meeting with a client (yes….true story), telling a room full of people kind of loudly (twice because they said “WHAT?!" after the first time I said it) that my boss was grabbing his package,  losing one shoe at a college football game BECAUSE IT FELL INTO THE HEDGES on the sideline of the University of Georgia football field and having to walk across campus to my dorm with one shoe on, and accidentally squirting dark brown paint all down the leg of a customer’s pants when I was teaching a painting class and then helping her wash them in the bathroom sink and have her sit in my class WITH NO PANTS ON with 60 people.)  Anyway, this whole biopsy business has freaked me out.  Because have I told y’all about my family’s cancer history?  It’s rich.  Rich with cancer.  My biological mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 26 and died when she was 28 (I was 5).  My dad had prostate cancer.  My younger brother had testicular cancer.  My older brother has had pre-cancerous skin things removed.  Two aunts (one of each side of my family) have had breast cancer and one died from it.  My cousin had breast cancer.  Another cousin had lung cancer even though she’s never smoked.  My grandfather died of a brain tumor.  My grandmother had stomach cancer and colon cancer.  Do y’all want me to keep going?  So they keep a close watch on me.  Especially because I’ve gone through multiple cyst aspirations and have had fibroids for a few years.  And now I’ve been keeping a close watch on my phone waiting for the call with the pathology results.  I should know something today or tomorrow.  Just in time for Thanksgiving.  Hopefully I will be giving thanks for the results. 

Then I went for my mammogram at 8:00 on Saturday morning because I can think of no better way to start my weekend than getting up at 6:30 and leaving my house by 7:30 for a fun mammogram.  The rest of the weekend was good though.  But anyway, y’all please keep me in your thoughts.  Yes.  I’m asking y’all to think good thoughts about my lady bits because that is how I roll. 

Let’s move on to Music Monday. 

Next time I will post results for last week AND this week because I’m trying to type this post in stealth mode at work by typing it in Word to look like I’m working on a document and then I’m going to quickly cut and paste it into my blog while I'm at the office since my mom is staying at my house and I can’t do it there, and I cannot pull up You Tube videos with people walking behind my desk every 45 seconds.  My life is stupid. 

This week’s theme is lady bits!  Just kidding.  This week’s theme is this:  the title(s) of the song(s) you submit must contain something you’re thankful for - whether your thankful for stuff like kittens, food, love, flowers, or you’re not like me at all and you’re more into giving thanks for chores (Laundry Room by The Avett Brothers), crime (I Shot the Sheriff), or bad weather (Riders on the Storm).  And give us a little explanation if you feel like it (and especially if it needs some explanation.  If you’re thankful for laundry, that will need some explaining in my opinion.)  I just want to know what all of you are thankful for. 

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I’m thankful for the friendships I’ve made with all of you!

Love and Marriage. And camouflage. Lots and lots of camouflage.

Remember when I told y’all a few weeks ago that I was taking a trip soon?  Remember when I said I was going somewhere y’all have probably never heard of and would probably never go on vacation in a bazillion years?

I went.

This weekend was my sweet little cousin’s wedding.  In Morton, Mississippi.  See?  Has anyone heard of it?  Y’all don’t want to go there do you?  No, I can assure you that you don’t.

Want to know what other little towns I spent time in while I was there?  Forest, MS.  Cooperville, MS.  Puckett, MS.  Canton, MS (yes, that’s where A Time to Kill was filmed and my aunt worked at the post office back then and got to meet all of the movie stars so maybe Canton, MS is actually more exciting than Atlanta).  And we did make it to Jackson, MS yesterday morning for breakfast before we left.  But we went to Cracker Barrel so we may as well have been in Forest or Cooperville or Puckett again with the countryness of it all.

My aunt by marriage (the bride’s mom) has a sister and two brothers.  One of the brothers has a barbecue restaurant so we went there for dinner Friday night.  Y’all.  That was some awesome barbecue.  Then we decided to go out for coffee.  There is no Starbucks in Morton, MS.  Or any other coffee place for that matter.  But there is a McDonalds (and they only got a McDonalds about 2 or 3 years ago) so that’s where we hung out. 

Between the barbecue restaurant and the only McDonalds around for many, many miles, I am fairly certain I saw more camouflage on Friday night than I’ve ever seen in my life.  There were entire families covered in it.  Girls on dates.  Babies.  Everyone wore camouflage.  Except us.  I kind of wanted to go buy myself some camouflage coveralls so I would fit in better than I did in my jeans and grape colored sweater.  Also, every female between the ages of 13 and 40 in Morton, MS has the exact same hairstyle.  It is so weird.  And my aunt was telling hilarious stories about my cousin’s new puppy and how it is eating everything in their house and she said it ate the electrical cord off of “one of the six hair styling tools” in my cousin’s bedroom so apparently the women of Morton, MS spend the majority of their time all making their hair look identical if it takes that many tools to do it.  And they probably do that because there is very little else to do in Morton.

Guess what happened when I was there though?  There was something going on with some major police activity.  They had police at every stop sign.  The police were stopping people on the expressway, diverting them off the highway and then back on.  I guess they were searching for someone.  I brought the criminal element from Atlanta with me it seems.

And guess what happened when I got back to Atlanta last night?  I got off at my exit and I was right behind an Atlanta Police Department Crime Investigation unit.  It turned down my street.  But then it turned off at the street 4 houses away from me and thank goodness for that.  I only like my ‘hood crime when it’s a few houses away.

This morning the fire department and ambulances were at the house across the street from me while I was eating breakfast and the police had a car pulled over in front of my house when I was leaving for work.  There is always something going on in my ‘hood.  There is a fairly young girl (late teens/early 20’s maybe) who lives across the street from me and she is very sickly and the fire department and ambulances are there a lot to take her to the hospital.  I haven’t seen them pick her up in several months so I honestly was afraid she had passed away because they are normally there about once every month or two.  Maybe it’s just been happening while I’ve been at work or out somewhere though.  Anyway, I was glad to see she’s still alive even though she headed back to the hospital this morning.

But anyway, the wedding was super sweet.  Her bridesmaids wore my favorite color (peacock blue) and their dresses were a little above the knee and they all wore cowboy boots.  The bride wore cowboy boots with her wedding dress too.  The reception was at the lodge in the state park where we have our family reunion every summer but they fixed up the lodge quite a bit and it was just one of the sweetest and simplest weddings I’ve been to in a while.  It was beautiful.  And now they are on a cruise for a week. 

On the way home, I passed by an exit for Eutaw, AL.  I was thinking maybe they thought that’s how “Utah” is spelled and named it after Utah.  Thank goodness I didn’t go offend someone asking them that because I Googled it and it’s named after some Revolutionary War battle somewhere in the Carolinas.

When I got home last night I saw that Hot Brazilian had tried to call me a bunch over the weekend and sent me sad, frowning faces because I wasn’t around to talk to him on Skype.  I told him last week that I would be out of town this weekend.  Can he not remember that while he’s busy trying to stay alive, chasing animals into snake infested rivers for dinner, helping the poverty stricken children of the Amazon, and in general being a giant badass fighting corruption so he can change people’s lives?  Geez.  Can’t he do it all?  (Y’all do know I’m kidding, right?  Because he is totally doing all of those things.  That’s part of what makes him so freaking hot.)

Now I will spend this week working by day and getting my house ready by night because my mom is coming this Thursday to stay for about a week and a half.  Also I will be grocery shopping because I have nothing to feed my mom.  I hate grocery shopping. It ranks right up there with cleaning toilets in my world, and if there is one thing I despise doing it’s cleaning a toilet.

The college student that is renting my guest room sometimes one night a week and sometimes several nights a week is here through Wednesday.  So I can’t change sheets and clean the guest bathroom until the night before my mom is coming.  And then the college student might be here one night next week.  If so, I will have to kick my mom out of the guest room since the college student has already paid me for the month, change the sheets (again) and clean the bathroom (again) before the college student comes, my mom will have to share my bed with me and the gross stain Bailey left on my comforter while she was exploding everywhere last week because quite frankly I am too broke right now to be buying a new comforter, and then after the college student is gone I get to change the sheets (again), clean the guest bathroom (again), and put my mom back in the guest room so she can have that room when her husband flies in the night before Thanksgiving.  Because I’m absolutely not sharing my bed with both of them.  (Ewwww!)  I have a 5 bedroom house but only two beds so I have to go through this ridiculousness a lot.  Because I’ve had nothing but house guests for the past year.  Have I told y’all that already?  I feel like I have.  The longest I’ve gone in the past year without a house guest is a little less than 3 weeks.  So please do not ask me to come stay at my house anytime soon. 

I think the college student will be gone at the end of November and then Hot Brazilian is supposed to be here the last week of December.  I was hoping I might get a whole month without a house guest before HB got back.  But when I talked to Hot Brazilian last week he told me one of his daughters has been saving her money to come visit the U.S. for 10-15 days and you know what I did, don’t you?  I offered my house for her to stay.  She’s trying to come in early December instead of waiting until her dad comes back.  No, I’m not sure why.  However, I’m not sure that’s going to happen because he is uncomfortable with her jumping on the train and sightseeing around Atlanta by herself since she’s only in her late teens and has never been to the U.S. before and I have to, you know, work.  I told him I might be able to take a day or two off but not two weeks.  When I asked him what she would do all day stuck in my house if he wouldn’t allow her to go downtown alone, he said she likes to read.  I told him a teenaged girl who has worked and saved her money to travel to another country does not want to sit in an old lady’s house and read while the old lady is at work.

My life can be exhausting sometimes.  As I’m sure all of yours are too.

Let’s move on to Music Monday.

In honor of my cousin and my trip to one of the most countrified places I’ve ever been, this week’s theme is:  Gettin’ hitched!  The song(s) you submit must contain a word in the title relating to weddings/getting married (wedding, marriage, dress, veil, flowers, honeymoon, ball and chain, etc.).  I’m going to say “love” is not good because there are way too many songs with “love” in the title and I want this to be a bit more challenging than that.

As usual, I have a few songs in mind but can’t wait to see what y’all submit!

I got smarter this week.

Things I have learned this week:

*  The best way to vote in my polling place is to work late, stampede to the school I have to vote in completely in a panic that you are not going to make it there in time, and you will not have to wait in line for even a minute. 

*  I have some far right, over-the-top conservative friends in life.  And some of them are super sore losers on Facebook.  And apparently any of us who voted for Obama do not care about children, we have "rabid cravings for free stuff free of any responsibility," have our "heads up our asses", we have an "absurd amount of ignorance," and we are "self absorbed greedy thieves."  Today he says he hopes Texas secedes from the US and that it would be the ultimate irony if all of the southern states secede to escape slavery.  And that's just what ONE friend said..... By the way, he also claims to be a Christian and talks about going to church all the time.  Aren't Christians supposed to be non-judgmental?  And do people on either side think that such mean comments will ever convince someone on the other side to think about changing their mind about things?

* With my new temporary desk at work, I cannot get on the internet for anything that isn't work related because I'm directly in the path between the lobby on our floor and the office of one of our big wig partners who is on the management committee.  He walks by my desk a lot.  And one of my bosses is in an office approximately 2 feet from my desk and my back is to him so I never hear or see anyone coming.  So no internet for me.  And I have learned just how productive I can actually be when I'm working the entire time I'm at work.  There is another girl on the other end of my floor who apparently just doesn't care, because one of my friends told me she sits in her cubicle and plays computer games a good part of the day. 

*  My car seems to have some electrical issues.  A couple of years ago, every single time I turned to the right the 'door open' chime would go off and my dome light would come on.  And if you want to know something that got to be incredibly annoying, it was that.  I finally got that fixed after 2 times in the shop.  About a month ago, I had to have every brake light bulb changed except one - my driver's side main brake light was out and all 6 of the little bulbs in the middle light were out.  Last week my battery died.  When I took it in, the passenger's side brake light was out.  Last night a headlight went out.  I've now spent almost $150 getting lights replaced in less than 2 months (and don't even suggest I do it myself.  I tried that once.  Once.  Never again.)  Oy.

*  Trying to download stuff from my Amazon Cloud Drive to my mp3 player is enough to put me in the funny farm.  I kept downloading and downloading and synching to my mp3 player and it would not show up on it.  And then suddenly this one album did show up.  Three times.  I like The Lumineers, but not that much.

* And finally I learned this:  y'all know yourselves some meat songs.

Here are my submissions:


 And crap.....my computer is only playing about 3 seconds of each song on You Tube if it will play anything at all.  So I'm not going to link to videos for the Music Monday results this week.  You'll have to look them up.  Sorry!  Don't know what's going on......

My submissions:  Tom Waits - Eggs and Sausage, The Smiths - Meat is Murder, and Taj Mahal - Bacon Fat.

First Place goes to Tee for The Chicken Song!  Come on, you know you can't hear that song without wanting to dance!!

Second Place goes to Lisa Pie for Jimmy Buffet's Cheeseburger in Paradise.

And Third Place goes to Scraps for Meatloaf's In the Land of the Pigs, The Butcher is King.

Hey Just Paula, are you okay up there?  Y'all have been beaten up by Mother Nature but I hope you and your family are making it through this okay.  I saw on Facebook that it took you 3 hours to get home yesterday?  OMG.  Did you have to work today?  Let me know if there's anything we can do for you!!
 

Meat and potatoes. I'm too tired to think of a better title than that.....

Okay.  Apparently my cat is just an asshole.  Because I spent $300 I really don't have right now at the vet last week to find out there is nothing wrong with her.  Every single test they've done has come back normal except her white blood count was a tad elevated.  So I guess she's just fighting off some sort of infection which has been blowing out of her butt and making me panic.  And almost barf on a number of occasions while cleaning up after her.  I'm now out the $300 at the vet, a set of sheets, and my comforter, all of which I washed three times and cannot get clean.

We started working in our new temporary office spaces today.  And we are all very pissy about it.  My one boss HATES his office.  And they lost his gigantic leather desk chair during the move.  And his desk set up is not comfortable and so his arm is aching when he types on his computer.  And the person who was in his office before him left a bunch of crap behind.  And a few of his desk drawers will not open.  And there's no hook for him to hang his coat so I have to hang it in my cubicle.  (Believe it or not, this boss is normally one of the most easy going, non-complaining people you'll ever meet.)  And my other boss has a GIANT round pole in the middle of his office so he HATES HATES HATES his office.  Seriously, this pole thing is so large I could not reach my arms around it if I tried.  And my phone didn't work and they didn't hook my printer up to my computer.  They just plugged it into the wall and left.  And they lost one of my largest boxes of stuff and as of 6:15 when I left the office tonight it's still missing.  So Monday went well.....

But last night I finally got to talk to my Hot Brazilian.  Yaaaaayyyyy!  When he gets back here in late December/early January y'all are going to see a whole different side of me.  The side that is happier and is getting the world's best hugs and has someone to lean on.  And hopefully the side that is way less whiny than I have been lately.

While we were talking though, he told me something and it made me second guess whether I'll ever be able to kiss him again......

He and a couple of friends had to go deep, deep, deep into the Amazon for some work related stuff  which is one reason I didn't hear from him for a while.  Do y'all know how easy it is to find internet service that deep in the jungle?  It's impossible because it doesn't exist.

Do you know what else doesn't exist? 

Restaurants.

They had taken rice, beans, etc. with them but he got tired of eating that constantly.  So they started catching their own fish to eat. 

Then they got tired of eating nothing but rice, beans, and fish.  Hot Brazilian wanted to sink his teeth into a giant piece of meat.

He sent me the name of the animal they hunted, chased into a river full of snakes, and killed to eat.  And I cannot even tell y'all the name of it because it is disgusting that they ate this thing.  It's nothing we have here in the US that I'm aware of so there is no need to try and guess.  But trust me.....when I Googled it, I almost barfed just thinking that they ate it because it said what animals it's most related to (and no, I'm not telling y'all what it's related to either).  He says it tastes like pork.  I told him I would starve before I would eat it.

And now I have to try and forget about it or I will never be able to kiss the lips that had such a disgusting kind of meat pass them.  Oh.  Y'all.  I can't believe they ate this thing......

Which leads me to this week's Music Monday theme.....

Meat!

The song(s) you submit must contain a type of meat in the title (ham, steak, hot dog, chicken, etc.) OR the animal a meat comes from (pig, chicken, cow, etc.)  You can also submit songs with a food that would likely contain meat (burrito, taco, fajita, etc.)

Can't wait to see what y'all come up with! 

Dead things. Nasty things. Weird things. Scared things.

I keep getting better and better at posting the Music Monday results in a timely fashion, don't I?

When I last wrote this past Monday, I had spent the evening at the vet with my sweet little Bailey.  I still don't know what's wrong because guess what?  Just guess!  Her urinalysis came back fine.  All of her blood work came back fine.  The vet called me on Tuesday night and told me her white blood count was elevated but the vet says that's probably from whatever infection is causing all of her tummy issues but the only way to know what is causing the infection is for them to test the stool sample I was to bring in.  But when I got home from work Tuesday, Bailey had stopped eating.  She would not eat a bite.  She was moving slow, acting weak, etc. and I'm not going to lie....I was scared out of my mind.  So instead of writing to y'all, I sat on my sofa and watched every little move she made and checked on her every 2.5 seconds, and begged her to eat.  She refused.  She also left me no stool samples.

Wednesday night, I worked late because it was Halloween which is, without a doubt, the absolute worst rush hour of the year in Atlanta because everyone leaves early or on time to get home to take their kids trick or treating, or to hand out candy.  I worked until 6:30 and breezed home with very little traffic.  As I was driving home I got two texts to call people, and literally as I was unlocking and opening my door, my neighbor texted me asking me where I was and to come over.  I told her I was just getting home, had to make two phone calls and would be right over.  Bailey still wasn't eating and I felt awful for doing it, but I left her and went to my neighbors' house.  The wife had taken their daughter to go trick or treating so the husband, one of his friends, and another neighbor combined all of our candy and handed it out from their house.

They decorate, they dress up, they play scary music, and they have fun.  And I showed up with a bag of candy and nothing else.  So the husband put a super scary mask on me, a cape with a hood, and he had on a scary gorilla mask and a black gown thing with a hood and he and I just looked scary.  The neighbor lady had on regular clothes and a witch hat and the husband's friend had on regular clothes and a cowboy hat.

And then a huge group of people came walking up to the house and man neighbor and I apparently scared the ever loving crap out of some kids.  Because 4 of them started screaming bloody murder.  One of them was too terrified to even come up and get any candy.  So I ripped off my hood and my mask to show them that even though I am naturally scary looking, I'm not as scary as that ugly green faced mask with the hot pink hair sticking straight up looks that I was wearing.  But they just kept screaming and crying.

When I got back home around 10:00, Bailey still would not eat anything.  Y'all, I was in tears I was so scared.  And I wasn't even wearing a scary mask.

Finally, when I got home on Thursday she had eaten a tiny bit of food.  I knew this because my cat is weird and every now and then she will pull about 10 pieces of her food out of the bowl, walk over to a step and leave them there.  She had done that a couple of days earlier, and when I came home Thursday they were eaten and little crumbs were there.  And then she had gone upstairs and crapped and bled all over my bed.  Awesome.  I did not even care though because she was finally eating and I was able to get the grossest stool sample in the history of cat stool samples.  Y'all.  It was awful.  And I almost got sick gathering it.

So I stampeded to the vet's office Friday morning and dropped it off for testing and I should hear something by tomorrow if there is anything wrong and otherwise, I will get a letter in the mail.  I find it hard to believe with the stuff coming out of my cat that there is nothing wrong.  But she has seemed totally fine last night and today (other than loose stools).

In the meantime, we worked our butts off and I finally managed to get my office and my bosses' offices all packed up before we left last night.  Before they left, the partners in my group took magic markers and wrote crap all over the walls.  Things like, "HONEY BADGERS RULE!"  Everything will be moved this weekend and I will have a new temporary space on another floor to work in when I go in Monday morning.  And then in 3 or 4 months, we get to move again.  Back to the original (but remodeled) floor we will go.  However, the worst of this whole thing is done because all of my files have been sent offsite so I will have only my desk stuff and whatever files have accumulated in 3 months to move next time as opposed to 15 years worth of files.

Things sound okay, right?  Bailey is eating again, my office is packed up on time, and I scared the crap out of some little kids.

But then I tried to leave work last night and my car battery was dead.

I was standing there in the parking deck staring at my car like it was possessed, when a guy came walking out to get in his car.

"Um, excuse me," I said.  "What does it mean when I try to crank my car and the alarm starts going off and every light in the car starts blinking on and off?"

I've never had that happen before with a dead battery.  But Justice (that was his name - and he's a legal recruiter and he started asking me if I wanted to change law firms while he was helping me) said that's not unheard of with dead batteries and then he jumped my car off for me.  I'm quite sure that's what he wanted to be doing on a Friday night.  Also, Justice was just as cute as he could be and super nice, and I think he was gay.  Now I want him to be my gay best friend and help me pick out better clothes because I'm a complete fashion disaster.

I drove to Pep Boys because that's about the only place open at 6:30 on a Friday night between my office and my house and they tested the battery and confirmed its deadness. 

"It's dead," the guy told me.

The battery is only a year old so he told me to take it somewhere that sells that brand of battery because it's still under warranty and he would jump the car back off so I could get home.  And that's where the night went awry.

He could not find their jump box.  He walked around.  He yelled at people.  He screamed at people.  He was pissed.  He couldn't find it.  Then someone finally found it.

What I didn't know was that then he was looking for jumper cables because I would have told him I have some in my car.  But he walked around for another 10 minutes and then went in the store and came back out with brand new ones.

He hooked the jump box up to my battery.

It wouldn't work.  My car would not start.

We tried.  And tried.  And tried.

Nothing.

He said the jump box probably didn't work so he would move his car around and jump me.  Well, jump my car, not jump me.

We tried.  And tried.  And tried.

Nothing.

At this point, we had spent almost 30 minutes looking for the jump box, looking for cables, trying to jump my car with the box, trying to jump my car with his car.  And then he shut my car door and it started right up.  Oh, let me tell you how happy he was that he had wasted 30 minutes when all we had to do was shut the front door.

This morning I called around until I found somewhere that would replace the battery for me and then texted my neighbors asking if one of them could come jump my car (and I made a note to myself to shut the front door).  It was a little after 10 and they were all gone from home already doing various things.  I waited a bit and then I heard my new next door neighbor outside smoking and I ran over and he was in his pj's but I introduced myself and asked him to come jump my car.  And he did.  And now I have a new battery.  And I found out I am right on the verge of needing new tires which I kind of suspected, but I don't have $600 extra right now because I just spent $300 at the vet this week, I have a trip coming up soon, and oh yeah, my house has been breaking for the past year.

But I did need groceries so I stopped for those on the way home from the car place.  And a girl in the grocery store almost drove me to the wine section to start drinking.  I went to the deli to get some ham for sandwiches because I cannot afford to eat steak every night (see above) and this girl was sampling some sort of deli meat.  Then she asked for a sample of a second type of meat.  And she stood there and picked itty bitty pieces off of it and tried them.  And chewed slowly.  And stared up at the ceiling like she was deep in thought.  Then she repeated.  About 9 times.  But then?  She liked it.  Yay!  Then she ordered 5 slices.  And the deli guy said, "Huh?  You only want 5 slices?"  She did only want 5 slices.  He explained (and it took a while for her to catch on) that they would be very small slices because it was the beginning of the big hunk of meat so it was the tiny end pieces.

So then she decided she needed to sample a third thing.

And that's when the guy who had walked up behind me shook his head, looked at me and said, "it's going to take this girl all day to pick her meat" and then he walked off in frustration.  I stuck around to see how things ended.  She finally happily left with her 5 slices of meat.

So I have a new car battery, a cat that's eating again, a most nasty cat stool sample at the vet, my office packed up, I managed to scare some kids, and an odd girl is happy with her 5 slices of meat and that's my week in a nutshell.  And in the middle of all of this nonsense, Hot Brazilian tried to call me 5 times this week from the Amazon and I missed every single call because I was dealing with the crap of my life.  And the crap coming out of my cat.  I haven't talked to him in over a month.  I am sad.

Also, it is now super duper official that I live in the 'hood.  I came home last night to find a grocery cart sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house.  The grocery store is a long walk so I'm not taking it back.

Let's move on to the Music Monday results.

Only two of you participated so here we go:

First place goes to Sadie for Ray Stevens and the Mississippi Squirrel Revival:

My dad loved Ray Stevens and we listened to his stuff a lot when I was growing up.

Second place is a tie.

Lisa Pie (this song is a little dirty so don't watch this if you're easily offended).  From SNL, "D^&k in a Box":

And me.  Greg Brown's "I Don't Want to Have a Nice Day":

Third place is also going to me this week:

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! 

Poop happens. And sometimes it ruins your Monday night.

This is going to be short because I have had a day.  And a night.

I finally finished packing the client files in my office today that have to be sent to our off-site storage.  One of my bosses was moved this past Friday so he called and emailed me all day about stuff he was missing, stuff he can't find on his new temporary floor, stuff that wasn't working, etc.  Then we had trick or treating for the children, grandchildren, etc. of our employees so I had a bazillion kids coming through my door asking for candy.  One of my co-workers was crying most of the day because she had to have her dog put down on Saturday and I felt just awful for her.  Then one of my bosses told me that his wife had called him and she had found their dog dead in his bed early this afternoon.  So relaxing and non-emotional was what today was.

All of this was going on while I knew I had to take my sweet Bailey to the vet tonight because she has had some tummy issues for a couple of weeks and then I saw blood on the floor twice this weekend and I have no clue which end it's coming from.

I got to the vet at 7:15 and we finally got called back at almost 8:30 and we sat in the waiting room with 3 big dogs and yet my sweet little cat was howling and crying the loudest of any other creature in there.  And I finally got back home at 10:15.

The vet cannot figure out what's wrong with Bailey, but Bailey is not happy with me at the moment.  She had a rabies shot, another vaccine that gets shot up her nose, a thermometer stuck up her butt, a doctor's finger stuck up her butt, got wrapped up in a towel, and this cat does not like to even be petted anywhere other than her head.  Also, she apparently cannot go more than 2 hours without food because when I let her out of the carrier, she shot like a cannon to her food dish as though she hadn't eaten in days.  Drama queen.

So now I get to attempt giving pills to Bailey twice a day for the next 9 days for her loose stools AND guess what else?  When the doc stuck her finger up her butt it came out clean so she couldn't get a stool sample.  So I get to scoop up cat diarrhea into a vial, keep it in the refrigerator to keep it as fresh as possible, and stampede to the vet with it when they open so they can test her for kidney problems, thyroid problems, and a bunch of other stuff.  And if any more blood shows up on the floor I get to scoop that up too.

It's true what you've heard about me.....I live a glamorous life. 

So let's make the theme for this week's Music Monday.....poop! 

Just kidding.

Let's make the theme be humor because I need some.  We have hurricanes, winter storms, cat diarrhea, packing, dealing with my dad's estate and his not very nice wife, and so I think we could all use a little humor.  Submit the funniest song you can come up with.  We all could use a good laugh, right?

Cardboard. I never want to feel cardboard again.

So I thought tonight I would show y'all photographic proof of why I can't seem to blog more often than I do.

As I told y'all before, our office is going through a remodel.  Next Friday is the day my floor moves.  We move to a temporary space for 3 or 4 months, then we move back to our floor after it's been completely gutted and rebuilt from the floor up.  Fun!  But this coming Monday is our deadline for getting every single file folder bar coded and boxed up to send to our off-site storage warehouse.  One of my bosses has been with my firm since 1999.  I have been bar coding and sending off files from way back in 1999 that the 2 assistants he had before me did not bar code.  In addition to packing up every single thing down to every single paper clip in my own office, I work for two partners and an associate and I have to help all three of them pack up every single thing in their offices.  I have been packing for almost 4 weeks already.  We only have one more week to pack.  And this is what my office still looked like when I left at 7:00 tonight.  I wish this was photoshopped but this is honest to goodness what it looks likes right now because I have been packing almost 15 years worth of files.  And my boss never throws away a piece of paper:

And this is what it looks like in the hallway outside of my office and our file room has already picked up about 5 or 6 times in the past month and this is what my office mate and I bar coded and packed up today.  And there are 15 more boxes off to the right of this photo:

And oh yeah, by the way, we still have to get our regular work done too.  And this is how much space I have on my desk to work right now.  Yes, I have that 5 square inches in front of my keyboard to work from:

And by regular work, I mean those stupid, stupid, stupid huge overnight mailings I get to do all the dadgum time.  We've sent out 160 overnight packages in the past 3 days.  This is only about 45 of them:

And on the weekends when I'm not having all of that crazy fun (although I did go into the office and pack boxes all day one Saturday and didn't even get paid for going in but I had to do it for my own sanity), I go to my dad's house and try to work on getting it cleaned out.  And his mean, greedy wife hasn't moved out yet.  My brothers, one of their wives and I were out there weekend before last to sort and clean out my dad's tools from the garage.  Where the bag of charcoal is sitting?  This is how much space we had to work in.  All four of us were in here.  All of those boxes are my dad's wife's stuff:

This is from the driveway looking into the garage.  Those are all the wife's boxes.  And yet she's upset we took a couple of pieces of pyrex because she says she's, and I quote, "lacking in furniture and stuff".

And this is in my dad's office/studio area in the basement where we've been trying to go through his things.  His things are all behind all of this incredible amount of shit:

And this is actually a fairly large and nice sunroom.  When it's not full of all of her shit.  Since she's "lacking" in stuff, you know:

And this is the state of my dad's dining room right now:

Now do y'all see why I might sound completely mental sometimes?  Because this is what my life is full of right now.  Piles of shit everywhere. Except when I go home at night.  I'm super glad I come home to this where I can be at peace:

Only right now there is a helicopter that has been buzzing over my house for about 10 minutes.  Some cop cars went flying up the street super fast about 20 minutes ago, so this means there is probably someone dangerous wandering my 'hood that they are searching for.  So that's awesome.  Because yesterday did y'all hear about the guy who walked into the megachurch here in Atlanta and shot someone dead who was leading a prayer group?  They arrested the murderer one block from my office yesterday afternoon.  And today they arrested an armed burglar about 1/2 mile from my office after shutting down a highway and bringing out the helicopters looking for him.

Yes, it's just always peace and calm in my world lately.  I am in serious need of a vacation far away from anyone who knows me.  And as far away from packing boxes and helicopters and police cars as a person can possibly get.  I am going on a trip soon but I don't really want to announce when and where on my blog.  But trust me.....it's somewhere you've most likely never heard of and I can assure you that you wouldn't go there on vacation in a bazillion years.  I have to go there for a family wedding.

 I don't know what in the heck is going on with blogger tonight (particularly under that last photo of my bedroom).  First it wouldn't let me hit enter to start a new paragraph.  Then it did let me but even though I hit enter only once, it put about 50 blank lines in but it won't let me take any of them out.  Because apparently blogger thinks I don't have enough nonsense to deal with in life right now.

Okay, winners of the song contest.  Y'all, after this post and the last one with all of the pictures, and the fact that it's 10:30 and I still have to clean out the litter box (because as hard as I try I cannot convince my cat to stop taking so many dumps), I'm just going to list the songs but not go look for the videos to post, okay?  Do y'all understand?  If not, ask me if I care at the moment because I do not.  Also, I just heard something that sounded like the bar on my front gate hitting the driveway.  But the helicopter went away so I'm going to pray they caught whoever they were looking for and didn't just give up and he's not hiding in my backyard or something right now.  I did go look out the window and I didn't see anything.  But honest to goodness, if a bad guy is behind my house or under my back deck, could he have picked a more exhausted person's house to hide at?  Right now I am honestly thinking, "Fine.  Hang out in my yard.  Just don't come in my house and be gone by the time I have to leave for work in the morning please.  I really cannot handle one more thing to deal with at the moment."  Also, did I mention the power went off down my whole street around 8:30 tonight?  TWICE within a minute?  I may or may not have been sitting on the toilet peeing when it happened.  Y'all, my bathroom is very dark when the power goes out. 

When do I get a vacation????

First Place:  Sadie for Madonna's "Dress You Up"

Second Place:  Mary Lou for Mitch Ryder's "Devil With A Blue Dress"

Third Place:  Just Paula for Shakira's "Costume Makes The Clown"

Bananas. Pirates. Super heroes made of cardboard boxes. It was an interesting weekend.

I started off this weekend working almost 2 hours late on Friday night, but thankfully things got much better after that.

Saturday morning consisted of boring stuff like cleaning house, then I went to a nearby town and had something appraised, and then the fun began.

As I told y'all I might do, I went to the Little 5 Points Halloween Parade with my neighbors.

Little 5 Points (or L5P as we call it here in Atlanta) is by far the most eclectic area in all of Atlanta.  It's known as a hangout for the bohemian crowd.  It's become a little more hipster than it was back in the 80's and 90's, but it's still full of some of the most interesting people around.  Halloween brings out people of all kinds.

We went down a couple of hours before the parade started to get a little ahead of the crowds and we grabbed a table at Brewhouse Cafe to watch the second half of the LSU game (my neighbors are HUGE fans) and then we walked outside on the sidewalk for the parade.

Y'all.

I think 80% of the Atlanta population was there.  It was packed.  And y'all please remember, I am a legal assistant and part-time painter.  I am not a photographer and I take sucky pictures on my phone.  And if they don't suck enough for you this small, I think you can click on them to make them even bigger and suckier.

I'm not a fan of gigantic crowds, so I was not particularly a fan of all this:

 My word, there were so many people there!  My neighbors were not fans of all the people from the burbs coming down and invading our 'hood.  Ha!  They commented several times and you really could pick the suburbanites out pretty easily.  It didn't bother me, but apparently my neighbors weren't the only ones noticing it.  I heard someone in the crowd next to me complaining about it too.  And he was talking about how many people bring their young kids down there when, if you live in Atlanta and know anything at all about L5P, you should know it's going to be a bizarre crowd and not a kiddy type parade.

My neighbors' daughter came with us though.  She's lived in the hood from birth so she's used to the craziness.  A lot of people in the crowd come dressed in costumes.  My neighbors' daughter was no exception:

 There were Super Mario characters in the crowds (with their butts hanging out of their little tan costume)

There were Angry Birds:

And there was Mitt Romney drinking a beer:

 I don't tend to talk politics much on here or on Facebook, but let's just say I'm not the most conservative person.  So I think it's funny that Mitt Romney's wife or girlfriend was dressed up as Big Bird.  You can kind of see her here in the middle of the crowd:

There were guys dressed up as a bunch of bananas.  They ended up standing next to me during the parade.  They yelled a lot.  Right in my ear.  They were a loud, drunk bunch of bananas.

There were daddy pirates with cutie patootie baby pirates:

And all of that craziness was before the parade even started.

My neighbors' daughter was getting a bit impatient for the parade to begin.  So she stood in the middle of the street waiting for it:

Here is the beginning of the parade.  Finally!

I could not begin to tell y'all what some of these groups were there representing, but here are some random parade marchers:

This bloody guy was kind of scary!

The Seed & Feed Marching Abominable band.  I saw this drummer girl walking through my 'hood a few hours before the parade started.  She must have been tired of walking and rolling her drum by the time the parade was over:

I have no idea what group these things were from, but they were really cool!  And really, really tall.

Spy vs. Spy:

The Box Hero Corps.  I had never heard of these before, but they make costumes out of cardboard boxes painted to look like superheroes:

This blond woman with one of the worst hairdos I saw all day got in all of my pictures after a certain point.  She and her husband who looked vaguely like Eric Clapton were really getting on my nerves.  They started out beside us on the curb but just walked down into the street in front of us and then a whole bunch of people followed their lead so we couldn't see as well or take photos as well.  They were already in the front of everyone!  Why did they have to be even closer?

Apparently this group either didn't plan ahead very well or their transportation had problems so they had to rent a UHaul for $19.95 to be in the parade.  Or maybe they were just trying to be funny.  I have no idea.

There was a group of these little bitty cars.  And someone behind me said to his wife, "BMW's!  Those are really, really old BMW's!"  Y'all.  They said they were electric on the side and they looked brand spanking new.  I don't think BMW has really, really old electric cars.

This guy looked awesome as Johnny Depp/Jack Sparrow:

Remember the Mitt Romney/Big Bird couple?  L5P is not exactly the epi-center for Republicans.  This group came by and the girl was holding a sign that said "Democrats Vote on Tuesday" and the guy's sign said "Republicans Vote on Wednesday".  Big Bird ran out into the street and hugged the girl.  It was pretty hilarious and the entire crowd around me roared with laughter!

The Mayans came with signs telling us "The End is Near!"

About an hour after the parade, we were leaving to head back home.  As we were going down a side street, this band from the parade was apparently not ready to quit, um, parading.  So they were driving through the surrounding neighborhoods in their pick-up truck still blasting some music:

And now I remember why I don't do posts with a lot of pictures.  They take forever!

So, in honor of the Little 5 Points Halloween Parade, the theme for Music Monday this week is:  Costumes!  The song(s) you submit must contain a word in the title that is associated with costumes (pretend, make up, dress, disguise, mask, etc.)  Can't wait to see what y'all can come up with!  I have a few songs in mind already......