A plethora of stuff.

This is one of those posts that are going to cover eleventy gazillion topics which have nothing to do with one another.  Some of it is to answer questions or comments y'all have made.  Some of it is my normal rambling.

First of all, I think the stomach thing finally went away Monday night.  THANK GOODNESS!  I met two friends for dinner that night at Sweet Tomatoes and had a gigantic plate of salad because that's kind of their thing at Sweet Tomatoes and I figured it might kill me dead later with all of the roughage and fiber.  I also had a bowl of soup.  Shockingly, I felt fine afterwards.  I ate normally yesterday and my stomach has not hurt at all.  So I think I can safely say that it was 9 days of awfulness but it seems to be over now. 

Second, a couple of y'all have asked if my plantar fasciitis socks have been working.

YES!  They have been working wonderfully!  I did try to wear some cuter shoes one day.  And I tried taking the Walk Fit inserts out of my ugly ass shoes another day.  On those days my feet hurt a decent amount.  Apparently it is the combination of the ugly ass shoes, the inserts and the sleeves that work for me.  When I wear all 3 I only have foot pain on very rare occasions in the morning when I get out of bed and even then it is nowhere near the severity it was before.  Not that I wear them all to bed.  That's just when I notice any pain.  I still can't walk barefoot without pain, but maybe we'll work up to that eventually if I keep wearing all of this stuff on my feet regularly.

So yes, my stomach and feet don't hurt anymore so I have much to give thanks for tomorrow on Thanksgiving.

I mentioned that I went to dinner with some friends on Monday night.  One of the friends is someone I've known since we were 5.  And Oh Em Gee that means I've known her for 40 years because girlfriends, I am old.  The other friend is someone I met through her at a Pampered Chef party.  For whatever reason, everyone canceled and I was the only guest who showed up at my friend's house so we had kind of a private party and then guess what happened?  The PC lady convinced me to have a party.  And then guess what happened?  She convinced me to start selling Pampered Chef.  Me.  Who hates cooking.  And hates selling crap.  It was a rather short-lived career but I'm still friends with the PC lady.  I remember when I was doing one show and the homeowner's fireplace screen fell on top of me right in the middle of my presentation.  It was an awesome job for me - cooking, washing lots of dishes, selling and getting hurt. 

One Saturday she reserved a booth at a small town festival and asked me and some other people if we wanted to work it with her to try and get new parties/shows booked so I volunteered.  And I stupidly volunteered to be there for the early shift of the day.  What that meant was that I had to meet my friend there at 7:00 a.m. so we could unload all of the Pampered Chef products, set up a tent, and set up the booth.  The best part?  It was in Loganville which is about an hour from my house so I had to leave at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning to get there which meant I had to get up at 5:00 a.m.  I was still not completely awake when I got there.  A cop had the road blocked where the festival was with his car and one of those barricades that looks like a sawhorse with a sign on it.  I politely asked him if I could get through to unload my car and he said I could and then told me where to park after I unloaded, etc.  He moved his car and I proceeded to drive right into his barricade thing with my car. 

Do you know what I would not advise?  Driving into a police barricade with your car right in front of a cop.

He laughed at me as I sat there with a completely mortified look on my face because that's the kind of look you get on your face when you plow your car into a police barricade. 

We both got out of our vehicles and that's when I saw the huge and horrible scratch on my bumper and the giant crack in his police barricade.  He told me not to worry about his barricade and I rambled on and on and said a whole bunch of stuff that made me very surprised he didn't give me a field sobriety test on the spot and then I went on my way.  I unloaded at our booth spot and then went and parked my car in a lot.  The PC friend got there and for the life of us we could not get the tent up so some man had mercy on us and came and helped, we ran the booth until the afternoon crew showed up, and then she and I walked to our cars.

I got to my car and there was a note on a scratch piece of paper stuck under my wiper blade that said, "Call me about your car" and had a phone number.  I told PC friend about hitting the police barricade that morning and she said I should probably call in case it was the police officer.  I thought he might have something more official looking to leave me a note written on than a piece of ripped off paper, but agreed with her that I should probably call.  But I was exhausted after getting up at 5:00 a.m., driving an hour, hitting a police barricade, unloading a car full of stuff, trying to set up a tent, and working a booth at a festival most of the day AND I was meeting the friend I've known since we were 5 for dinner before I went home.  So I decided to wait and call the next day.

I was hosting a cookout at my house the next day because I like to torture myself when I'm already exhausted, and Hot Brazilian was coming over for it.  When he got there I told him about my Saturday and showed him the note.  He showed me how to call on my cell phone while hiding my number and I dialed the number on the piece of paper.  A guy answered and I told him I was calling because of the piece of paper he left on my car the day before at the Loganville festival and he said he had no idea what I was talking about.  And that right there is the very anti-climatic end of that story.

Completely unrelated story coming up now......

My mom and her husband live in Texas and they decided to go to Illinois for Thanksgiving to see some of her husband's family and some of my mom's family.  My mom is kind of over flying anywhere.  She hates having to pack for flying, security checks, waiting and waiting, being crammed into tiny seats, etc.  So she decided they should take a train.

Oh.  My.

I told her my ex and I took a train during a leg of our honeymoon trip because I thought it would be very romantic like in the movies but in reality it was more like riding a Greyhound bus and seeing some of the grossest towns I've ever seen in my entire life.  But our train trip was not an overnight one so we had no sleeper car and I told her that her trip might be way better.  She was excited about the dining car and I told her on my trip it was more like a concession stand with hot dogs and vending machine quality sandwiches.  But that hers would probably be better.  At least she won't arrive in Penn Station in NYC in the middle of rush hour wearing overalls and carrying a week's worth of luggage and then have to get on the subway and get off at Grand Central Station still with a week's worth of luggage and wearing overalls.  Because I will tell you that native New Yorker's don't like that shit and they get a bit irritated with you.

My mom and her husband left Texas last night so I texted her around 11:00 this morning and this is how the conversation went:

Me:  So....how is the hobo train life?  Love you!

Mom:  Oh my goodness.  Ready?  Cause you're not going to believe this adventure!!  Left Longview 1 hour late.  Dinner on train.  Tried to use upper bunk - too small!!  Then......at 2:00 a.m., stopped in Little Rock.  Rail issues there, soooooo, got everyone (several cars full) off, onto buses.  Rode 2 hours to Walnut Ridge.  Got back on a train.  Now heading to Bloomington - only 8 hours behind schedule!  But we are still laughing - meeting nice people and truly having an adventure.  Love you!

Me:  Oh wow.  Sounds like glorious fun there, Mom.  Glad y'all are still laughing!

Mom:  The Griswalds have nothing on us.

So see, y'all.  My whole family has craziness happen.  It's not just me.

Another unrelated story coming up now......

I think I mentioned in a recent post that my cat is about to be eating a more expensive and healthier diet than I eat.

I've told y'all she has tummy issues.  What she has is irritable bowel syndrome and it makes her poop all over my damn house.  I am tired of cleaning up cat diarrhea up to 6 times per day.  She whines a lot sounding like she's in pain when she poops.  Her fur looks awful.  Medicine has not helped.  Prescription canned cat food did nothing.  She's lost a ton of weight.  She's not healthy and it's driving me to the edge having to clean up after her.  There is an entire room in my house that will have to be re-tiled because apparently the tile was not sealed and her poop stains it.  OMG.

A friend I work with has a cat with the same issue.  She has spent a buttload of money on different things and taken her cat to 6 different vets and no one can give her any treatment that works.  She found a company online out in Washington state that makes raw pet food with no grains, chemicals or preservatives.  It comes frozen in pouches and you thaw it out and give them a small amount twice per day.  She started feeding it to her cat a couple of months ago and said while he's not 100% better, she can actually walk in her house at night and not almost vomit from the smell.  He makes it to the litter box most of the time now.  She can stand to have him sit next to her because he doesn't smell awful anymore.  He has more energy.  His fur looks way better.

This food is Bailey's last hope.  If it doesn't work on her I may have to consider having her put down because I can tell she doesn't feel good and nothing else has worked.  But my word is this stuff expensive.  The shipping alone is $30 because it has to be shipped frozen.  My friend lives on a farm and has tons of cats and dogs.  She said most of her cats eat it now.  A few of them don't like it but the majority of them gobble it up.  She said even the healthy cats look and seem even healthier now.

So yes, my cat is about to eat raw chicken organs from chickens that are free-range and hormone free with kelp, salmon oil and catnip mixed in.  Yum.  Tasty, huh?  It just got delivered to my desk and I will start her on it tomorrow morning.  This should be interesting.

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I will be hanging out with my brother, fake daughter (at least I assume - she told me she wants to join us but she hasn't stayed at my house in a week so we'll see if she shows up) and my awesome neighbors.  We will have one vegetarian and two vegans there and I looked for vegan recipes to make my two casseroles which are sweet potato and green bean.  And I decided they just won't be able to eat my stuff because I had no desire to go through everything required to make vegan cream of mushroom soup.  Soaking nuts, expensive almond milk, etc.  No thank you.  

What will all of you be doing?

OMG! I met OFM! And I picked up a turkey from a police officer at Starbucks.

I still don't feel all that good y'all and it's been 9 nine days with this crap.  I feel a lot better than I did the first 3 days of it, but I still don't feel like myself.  I hope none of you get this.  It's awful.

To answer some of your questions from the comments on my last post, no it was definitely not food poisoning.  I've had food poisoning twice and this was totally different.

No, neither of my friends who came to my house to paint got sick.  Neither has fake daughter.  I've tried to stay in my bedroom a lot and not spread my cooties all over the house.

All I know is, I still can't eat much.  I haven't gotten sick or anything, I just can't eat much before I feel disgusting.  I ate a sandwich for lunch Friday which was the first "real" meal I had eaten in 6 days and I felt gross the rest of the day.  On Saturday, I had a piece of toast around 8:00 a.m. and then I had a normal dinner and I felt gross all day yesterday.  In fact, I went to bed at 6:00 last night and slept until 4:00 a.m. which is not like me at all.  Hello, insomniac here!  I had half a piece of chicken and some rice for lunch today and I feel kind of horrible now.  There are no other symptoms though - no fever, no vomiting or the other stuff.  I just feel really gross and disgusting after I eat.  Maybe my stomach just shrunk a ton from not eating for 5 or 6 days so now I can't eat as much.  I'm going to be disappointed if I can't eat much for Thanksgiving though.

And hey, my pants are getting looser!

Let's talk about something besides being sick.  Because on Saturday I went and did something kind of awesome:

 

That's right, hookers!  I met One Fabulous Mama!  If y'all are not following her on Facebook yet, you need to really consider doing so.  (She also has a blog, Sadie who isn't on Facebook.)

She just published a book and is doing a little road trip for book signings.  I happened to be on Facebook right before I was going to bed on Wednesday night and saw one of my childhood friends write on her page that she was going to her book signing on Saturday.  So I popped on there and asked if she wanted some company since my friend and I had not seen each other in at least a couple of years and OMG, I WANTED TO MEET OFM!  My friend was thrilled so we made our reservation at the quaint little Italian restaurant where the book signing was being held and I drove out to Covington, GA which is about 45 minutes from Atlanta.

For those of you who have no idea what on earth OFM is about, she is a light in the oftentimes dark world, she is a rock star superhero goddess, she is amazeballs, and she is all about loving yourself no matter what anyone else thinks about you.  In fact, a huge part of her message is that it's none of your damn business what other people think about you.  She also is spreading love and peace and all that is good after coming back from the brink of wanting to kill herself a year ago.

After meeting her, I can tell you that she is even more amazing in person.  She is so warm and accepting, humble, she is honored that people share their broken pieces with her, and she is truly amazed that she is making a difference in people's lives.  She took time and wrote meaningful messages in each book she signed.

She is also not nearly as pasty white as I am.  Good grief.

There were 3 different reservation times and my friend and I went for the last one.  Do you know what that means?  That means we also got to meet one of her Littles and her Mister because they came to help her load books, OFM wine, t-shirts, etc. up in their van when the day was over.  We met the college-aged Little.  We also got to meet Pam who is one of the admins on her Facebook page.  They were all just so nice, y'all!  Very down to earth.

After I left the book signing, I went to Starbucks in Conyers, GA to pick up a turkey from a police officer.

As one does.

My brother, fake daughter and I are going to my neighbors' house for Thanksgiving.  They have a good number of people over each year (we went there last year too) and they fry two turkeys.  My brother had told them he would get one of the turkeys, and I'm bringing a couple of casseroles and a couple of desserts.  He told me last week to remind them he was getting a turkey to bring so I was texting with the wife about some stuff and I mentioned to her that my brother would bring a turkey.

She told me her husband said it couldn't be more than 13 pounds to fit in the fryer and then she said her husband needed the turkey at least 40 hours ahead of time to prepare it.  I guess he injects them and brines them - I'm not really sure what all he does to them.  She seemed to be a little stressed about making absolutely certain he was really bringing a turkey so they would have enough food.  So I told her the guys needed to talk and leave us out of the turkey situation.  I texted my brother and told him to contact the husband so they could discuss The Great Turkey Situation of 2013.  I never heard back from him.

On Friday night I texted my neighbor and she said her husband had not heard anything from my brother.  I called him and he said he had been really busy, blah blah blah but he was definitely bringing a turkey.  I told him the neighbors would need the turkey by Monday night and he said, "Okay, I guess I'm driving a turkey to Atlanta on Monday" which would be about an hour or more round trip.

Then I told him I was going to be in Covington on Saturday night with our mutual childhood friend meeting a rock star super hero goddess who sells books and peach wine and ninjas and is covered up in awesome tattoos and I could meet him after that and pick up the turkey since Covington is very close to where he lives and works.

My friend had not seen my brother in probably 30 years so when I told her I was going to meet him to pick up a turkey she asked if she could join us because apparently picking up a turkey on a Saturday night is our idea of a wild time out on the town.

I called my brother and he suggested meeting at Starbucks so we met him there and he was on duty (he's a police officer).  He's a supervisor so he gets to drive around in a super fancy police SUV so we stood out in the parking lot and got the turkey out of the police SUV and put it in my boring and plain SUV and then I stood there while he ran down the bank and through some bushes to yell at some guys sitting at a red light who had their stereo turned up so loud we were all vibrating.  And then I went in and treated my friend and the turkey toting uniformed police offer to coffee.

I have never typed the word turkey so many times in my life.

At some point, my brother had to leave to go out on a call and my friend and I sat and talked for so long that he eventually came back so he could talk to us for a few more minutes.  Then he had to leave for another call and my friend and I left to go home.

My friend is going through some stuff so we talked about it quite a bit.  Later that night as I was getting ready for bed she sent me a text and said she was so thankful for my friendship and that I had saved her life Saturday night.  I told her I didn't know about all of that, but that I'm always here for her and that I love her tons and hope she's okay.  She wrote back and said, "No.  Seriously.  You don't know what you did for me tonight.  You saved me."  It's amazing when you can just listen to a person and help them that much, isn't it?

Blech

Um.  Hi.  I'm back.

I didn't mean to be gone for a week but here we are and I've been gone for a week.  I was gone to the land of sick people.  In fact, lunch today was the first real meal I've had since last Saturday.  Oh yes people.  It was a stomach sickness which I have not had in years and years and years other than when I got food poisoning ON MY BIRTHDAY in 2011.  Happy birthday to me from some lasagna.  But this was a bug or virus or something.  Which means it wasn't gone in a short 24 hours. No.  That would have been heavenly to have only been sick for a short 24 hours.

But I was not sick last Saturday which is where I will start. 

A friend of mine contacted me a month or so ago and asked if I was still teaching painting classes at the studio I used to work at part-time.  When I told her I wasn't, she asked if I would consider teaching a class in my home studio to her and a friend for their birthdays which are a few weeks apart and I told her I would.  Then we discussed possibly going to lunch before painting and the last thing she sent to me via a Facebook message was that we would all go to lunch and she wondered if sometime between 1:30 and 2:00 sounded okay.  I told her that was great.  The last time she had come to my house she arrived almost an hour and a half late so I was planning on closer to 2:00.

I got up Saturday morning and did some laundry, cleaned and straightened up the house, and then went upstairs to rearrange stuff in the studio to fit three of us in there, etc.  About 12:15 I headed back downstairs and happened to pick up my phone to see what time it was and thought I was doing great because everything was ready and I still had over an hour to shower and get dressed.

Then I saw she had sent me a Facebook message 10 minutes earlier saying, "Hey!  We're on our way and we'll pick you up at your house for lunch!"  She lives quite a long way from my house so I didn't really panic.  But I immediately wrote a message back and said, "What time will you be here?  I'm jumping in the shower now" because for whatever reason, I didn't have her phone number to call her.  I waited a few minutes and she didn't respond. 

I had to take a couple of bags of trash out.  As I was walking back up onto my front porch they pulled in the driveway.  OMG.  Y'all.  I had not showered.  I had not even brushed my teeth.  I had no bra on.  I had on capri yoga pants, a t-shirt, my hair up in a scrunchie on top of my head, no make-up, and I was sweaty from cleaning house and moving stuff around in my studio.

I screamed at her when she got out of the car:  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?  IT'S ONLY 12:30!!!!  YOU TOLD ME 1:30 OR 2:00!!"

"Well, I meant to paint at that time.  But we're going to lunch first, right?"

Oh, I could have killed her. 

The friend that came with her grew up in our old neighborhood when we were all wee kids but I didn't remember her and she didn't remember me.  I told her to wait until I was showered to pass judgment on what I normally look like because what I looked like right then was not good.  She said our mutual friend had no concept of time and she is always late or early showing up for everything they ever do together and that I should not feel bad.

So they sat in my living room while I stampeded up the stairs (no seriously, there was actual stampeding) and took a shower, put on make-up, brushed my teeth and got dressed in 18 minutes which I should win some sort of award for if you know me.

We then went to The Vortex in L5P to eat hamburgers the size of our heads.  This is the entrance of The Vortex for those of you not in Atlanta.  It's a cool place with great burgers and incredible people watching.

After we stuffed ourselves, we went back to my house and then they each decided they wanted to paint different things. So I taught two different classes within one.  I'm so talented, y'all.  It's really not that big of a deal.  You just have to be able to paint two paintings in the time it takes other people to paint one.

They left my house around 8:30 or 9:00, I ate half a bowl of cereal and went to bed a little later feeling totally fine and planning to be very productive around my house the next day.  I was going to do more laundry, blow the gazillion leaves in my yard and driveway, cut back dead plants in my yard, etc.

At 3:00 a.m. I awoke and felt like I was about to die.  I had the worst nausea I have ever had in my life.  TWELVE HOURS LATER it had not let up for even a second and yet I had not actually gotten sick.  At 3:30 p.m. I finally threw up but guess what?  It didn't phase the nausea even a little bit.  I was still doubled over in pain.  Little did I know that was only the very beginning because I went on to feel the most extreme nausea of my entire life for FORTY-ONE STRAIGHT HOURS.  It never eased up for one second.  I stayed out of work on Monday.  The nausea finally went away after 11:00 p.m.  That's when something else started and I can't even explain it exactly because it was a weird feeling I've never felt before.  It wasn't quite cramping.  It wasn't quite like sore stomach muscles.  It wasn't nausea, but it was very unpleasant.  When I breathed in even a little deeply it sent horrible pain all through my stomach and around through my back.  And that all went on non-stop for three and a half days until it finally went away in the night last night.  I could not keep anything down other than broth, hot peppermint tea, ginger ale, Sprite and I ate about 10 crackers over the course of 5 days.  I finally ate a sandwich at lunch today and things seem to be mostly okay now.  But that's why I haven't written here.  I've been moving rather slowly as it is and we've been swamped at work and when I got home at 7:00 or 7:30 I honestly would eat a little broth and I've been in bed by 8:00 every single night.

One good thing to come from it all?  I think it broke me of my caffeine addiction so I am going to try to stay off of coffee, Diet Cokes, regular iced tea, etc.

Anyway, that catches you up on my really boring week of sickness.  How are all of you?

Tomorrow afternoon I have something fun planned so hopefully I will have something better to talk about next week instead of throwing up and nausea.  And I'll tell y'all how my cat is about to be eating more expensive food than me.....

Atlanta. You so crazy.

Ever since Fay and I went to The Colonnade on Monday night, I've been thinking about all of the places in Atlanta I've heard about for many years and yet have never visited even though I've lived here my entire life.  I decided to talk about some of them on here and since a few of y'all who read are locals, I would love to visit them with some of y'all.  Let me know if you're interested and we can figure out our schedules and meet up after work or on a weekend.  Or for those of you who don't live in Atlanta come and visit me!  Look at all of the cool stuff we can do while you're here!  Boobs!  Ribs!  Dead people! 

First let's start off with the food places.  Because.....FOOD!  I've never been to any of these places and I really want to:

Fat Matt's Rib Shack - I once had jury duty with Fat Matt.  We both got out of serving.  He got out of it because he's Fat Matt and owns a restaurant and convinced the court it would be a hardship.  I got out of it because it was in federal court and a convicted felon had been caught with a gun and my brother is a cop so the defense didn't want me.  None of this has anything to do with the fact that I love barbecue and blues music which is why I want to go to Fat Matt's.

Woody's CheeseSteaks - I used to love the cheese steak sandwich at Three Dollar Cafe when I lived near one of their locations.  I haven't had one in years.  I've driven by Woody's for almost my entire life and have never been.

Majestic - That's right, hookers.  I've never, ever been to Majestic Diner even though it's been open since 1929.  I know it's supposedly gross.  I don't care.  I want to go.

Sundial - I want to go to a restaurant that rotates so that when I go to the bathroom I'll come back and have to hunt and see where my table has moved.

Taverna Plaka - I see it every night on my way home and I have wanted to try it for a while now. 

Now on to tourist type stuff........

Clermont Lounge - I am DYING to go see old strippers, y'all!  I want to see Blondie smash beer cans between her boobs!  Who will go with me?  My neighbor said she wanted to go until she found out there were strippers involved.  My other neighbor has offered to drive me there and pick me up because they want to see me drunk because I very rarely drink.  But no one will go with me! 

Margaret Mitchell House - I used to live less than 2 miles from this place and never managed to go.  I think I live maybe 5 or 6 miles from it now.  She managed to write Gone With the Wind so I could probably manage driving that far to see where she sat and wrote.

Tour of CNN - I want to see the all of the behind-the-scenes stuff.  Maybe Fay can give me a tour of Cartoon Network????

Tour of Oakland Cemetery - In the interest of full disclosure, I've been on an abbreviated tour of Oakland and saw the most interesting stuff.  A friend of mine used to be a tour guide and took me on a shortened version one Saturday morning because it was cold (to everyone but me) and rainy and no one else showed up.  He has since moved to New Jersey and I never went back for the full tour.  It's a super interesting place!

Sweet Auburn Curb Market - This would kind of be a cross between food AND tourist attraction. 

I wouldn't mind going to this after the Sweet Auburn Market since it's right in the same area:

The Martin Luther King Center - It's shameful really that I've never been even though I've lived nearby for many years.

Jimmy Carter Library - I might get a little bored doing this (just being honest!) but I live 5 - 10 minutes away so I should probably go at some point.

Starlight Drive-In Theater - I haven't been to a drive-in since I was so young that I don't remember ever going to a drive-in. 

Medieval Times - I've heard this is awesome.  I've also heard it's ridiculous and awful.  I want to go anyway.

Roswell Ghost Tour - because why not?

Dad's Garage - Improv.  Comedy.  Why would I not want to go watch that?

Monastery of the Holy Spirit - Full disclosure on this place:  I've been here but it was about 100 years ago and I don't remember the first thing about it so I would like to go back.  My mom went and stayed there for a weekend when she and my dad were in the middle of their divorce so she could have peace, quite and prayerful time.  I didn't even know you could stay there.  I just want to visit for a couple of hours.


So y'all let me know if you want to join me for any of this stuff.  Do any of you have other suggestions of things I should try?  I need to write a post about Blondie's boobs, y'all!  Come to the Clermont with me......

It's really not that cold here.

I would have posted earlier today but I've been busy at work and then I got busy posting on Anita's Facebook wall where we were having an exciting discussion about loose meat and pork tenderloin sandwiches in Iowa and trying to explain to Amish Annie that Boar's Head is just a brand name and then we discussed Coke and Pepsi and that's why I'm now going to have to write a really quick post on here and it's probably going to be kind of boring and not very good.

It's all Anita's fault because she started talking about oatmeal this morning.

It was approximately 28 or 29 degrees here in Atlanta this morning and that's my favorite weather of all the weather.  I still slept in a tank top and with my ceiling fan on last night.  I threw two quilts on me and throughout the night I threw them off, then pulled them back on.  Threw them off, then pulled them back on.  I did actually wear a lightweight wrap on my way to work this morning but did not use the heat in my car.  When I tell y'all I like cold weather I am not lying.  I still drank my one cup of coffee iced.

There were people walking into my building and you would have thought we live in Siberia.  Seriously, they are outside for less than 5 minutes getting in and out of their car.  Why do they need all of that stuff on?  Gloves, scarves, wool hats, heavy coats.  I live around a bunch of wimps is what is going on.  It's 49 degrees now and I can promise you I won't be wearing my wrap when I walk out to my car.

Having said all of that, I never want to go to NYC again when it's cold as long as I live.

My ex and his family were from New York and one year we decided to go visit his sister who lived on Long Island for Thanksgiving.  A dear friend of mine had never been to NY and she decided to go with us.  This trip involved a layover in Pittsburgh and having to fly over a bunch of water in a teeny tiny airplane with a propeller on the front of it to get affordable tickets.  And let me tell y'all a type of plane I never want to step foot on again.  I think the plane held about 20 people total.  I was scared out of my mind.  Anyway, one day while we were there we planned to take the train into the city and my friend is a shopper, y'all.

It was f*ucking freezing.

I wore tights, leggings, and jeans, three layers of shirts, a heavy coat, two pairs of thick socks, hiking boots, two pairs of gloves and a scarf and I still thought I might die from cold.  I also thought I might not be able to stand up each time I sat down because I was weighted down with so many clothes.  We stopped almost every block or two if there was a coffee shop so we could get something hot to drink and get out of the wind and cold.  We had to stop and buy my ex some warmer boots because he thought he was getting frostbite on his toes. 

And my friend would not agree to get back on the train and go back home.  She wanted to keep shopping.  My ex and I were ready to kill her before the day was up, because not only did she want to shop, but she wanted to buy knock off stuff which is not sold inside where it was warm that we could find - it was all on the sidewalk in small booths with roll down metal doors that they can quickly close when the cops come.

I bought two DVDs of movies that had just been released in the theater and they were only $5 a piece.  Boy did I think I had something special.  When we got back home we decided to watch one and basically a guy had sat in the theater and video taped the movie so you could hear people eating popcorn, you could see silhouettes when people got up to go pee, etc.  Oh it was awful!

Fake daughter posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago that she was in trouble.  One night it got down to 48 degrees and she slept in her jeans, two pairs of socks, gloves, ear muffs, and two sweatshirts.  And I had the heat on, y'all!  I told her she is going to need to toughen up if she still wants to live here in January and that it's not even that cold here in Georgia.  She keeps telling me that she hopes it snows a lot this winter.  I'm not sure why if she can't handle it when it's almost 50 degrees.  She is also dumbfounded that eventually all of the leaves are going to fall off of the trees.  Oh does she have so much to learn about America still.

And don't worry.  I've told her not to ever go to NYC unless it's August.

I told y'all I like cold weather and I wasn't lying.  I told y'all this was going to not be a very good post.  I wasn't lying about that either.

Gay and Gray

Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of the day I managed to drag myself off the sofa and drive to Barnes and Noble to meet Hot Brazilian for the first time.  As most of you know, Hot Brazilian and I are living in different countries right now so we could not go out and celebrate.  Do y'all know what I did?

I found myself a hot date and went to dinner last night!

That's right.  I went to dinner with Fay!

We originally planned to go last week but Fay dumped me for her mom and rescheduled.  We decided to go to a staple of Atlanta which opened way the heck back in 1927:  The Colonnade. 


Otherwise known as Gay and Gray. 

I learned that in person last night and I read it on the internet today.  Some people call it "God's Waiting Room" as well.  If you are ever in Atlanta and feeling old, go to The Colonnade and if you are under 90 you will be the youngest person in the place and feel much better about yourself - especially if you get there for the early bird special which Fay and I did.  I think all that means is that I got a free piece of butterscotch pie which we could not even eat because we were so stuffed from all of the food they give you.

It is also full of groups of fabulous gay men. So this is pretty much my dream place to eat.  Surrounded by fabulous gay men and I look really young?  Win win.

I do not know how I've lived in Atlanta for 45 years and never been to The Colonnade.  But I can assure you I will go back.  As soon as you step through the front door you feel like you've traveled back in time to the 70s because of the decor.

There were a couple of things I didn't tell Fay last night.  The first thing is that I got lost trying to find it.  I knew exactly how to get to Cheshire Bridge Road from my office but I was so busy looking at the fabulous Onyx club which is across the street that I completely missed it and drove almost to Lavista before I realized I had missed the restaurant.  Onyx is a strip club y'all.  The Colonnade is right in the middle of sex shop, tattoo parlor, and strip club central which is what makes it just that much more fabulous.

Do you know what else makes it fabulous?  The side dishes:

Seriously, y'all.  They offer tomato aspic and cottage cheese & peaches as side dishes. 

I did not get tomato aspic or cottage cheese & peaches as my side dishes.  Mostly because the only part of any of that I might have enjoyed would be the peaches.  I got onion rings and macaroni and cheese because I'm trying to lose some weight.  Fay got a salad and fried okra if y'all are keeping score.

This reminds me of one time when my dad invited us over for dinner and this was not too long after he had started dating the lady he eventually married a few years ago, who then turned it out be evil to us after my dad died last year.  But at this point we still thought she was sweet.  My dad went on and on about what a fantastic cook she is and my brother and his family and I were kind of excited to eat her cooking.  She came to my dad's house and said she was making her specialty:  fried chicken.

Y'all.

I could hardly chew it she had overcooked it so much and it was so salty.  And she served as a side dish a lettuce leaf with cottage cheese and pears on it.  She also had brought over some sodas and my niece took a drink of hers and said it tasted weird.  She looked at the bottom of the can and it had an expiration date of about 4 or 5 years prior.

And that's when I knew my dad was so in love his taste buds had died or something.

Anyway, when Fay and I first sat down in The Colonnade last night I looked across the room and there was a guy at a table and I thought from the side of his face that it was a guy I work with.  But then when he got up and left later I realized it wasn't anyone I knew.

So the other thing I didn't tell Fay is that when we got up to leave there were two men sitting at a table diagonally from us and I know I knew one of them from somewhere but I have been trying to figure out since last night how I know him.  I still can't figure it out.  I don't know if it's someone I actually know or if it's someone who is on TV or something.  But since I already thought I knew the other guy I didn't want Fay to think I thought I knew someone else so I didn't say anything to her.  I wish I had just asked that guy who he was though because it is driving me crazy today. 

Not too long after we arrived, a table full of little old ladies next to us started getting ready to leave and Fay and I loved this lady's shiny fur coat:

After Fay and I ate so much we couldn't breathe, we walked out to the parking lot and I decided to take a photo of the sign to show y'all.  My picture was terrible so the one below is the photo Fay took and texted to me.  Right as I took my picture, some random guy had walked up behind us without me knowing it and he looked over my shoulder asking, "Did you get a good photo?  Oh.  You need to center it a little more."  Thank you, stranger.  For scaring the bejesus out of me and telling me my photo was bad.

Fay's husband often goes to a restaurant near my house to play games.  So Fay and I are going to have another hot date soon and go there but I think we will play cards (Hand and Foot).  She'll probably kick my arse.

Anyway, Fay and I hugged a few times which is more action than I've had in a while and then we got in our cars and went our separate ways.  About half-way home I suddenly had to pee so bad I was scared I was going to have to pull over.  But I soldiered on.  I was about two blocks from my house and I think one of the 90+ year olds from The Colonnade was driving in front of me because they were going about 15 mph and I was screaming bad words because I was really scared I was going to pee myself.

I finally got to my house and I pulled in my driveway, stopped at my front porch instead of going all the way behind my house to the garage, jumped out, ran inside and set my alarm off trying to get to the toilet in time.  And then my toilet wouldn't flush so now I have something else to fix at my house.

Anyway, thanks for being my hot date, Fay!  You give good hugs!

Fire drills. Pain. LOTS and LOTS of cops. My weekend in a nutshell.

Last Wednesday afternoon, we had a fire drill here at work.  I was finally able to get out of bed this morning without gasping in pain.  And I owe it all to some meds.

I am one of the fire wardens for my floor.  As soon as the alarms starting going off, my phone rang and it was the other fire warden for the other end of my floor telling me she was in our accounting department which is 6 floors below and so I had to clear the entire floor by myself.  Do y'all know what's fun?  Telling a bunch of attorneys they need to walk away from billable hours to evacuate the building for a drill.

Then I walked down what I think ended up being 37 flights of stairs because I'm on a high floor and then there are extra flights down into the loading dock and then another flight from the loading dock down to the ground.  We then had to walk through part of the parking deck and then up a big ramp and by the time they let us back in the building, my right foot and ankle were shimmying like a belly dancer and I was a little afraid I was going to fall down.  I expected that of my left foot because the plantar fascittis is worse in it, but no.  My right foot was shaking like my butt fat jiggles on a treadmill.  It was like the washing machine on the spin cycle.  A maraca making music.  The security guard told us if we didn't want to wait for the elevators they had the stairwells unlocked and we could walk up since there was, you know know, an entire 18 story building worth of people all trying to get on the elevators at the same time.

Walk back up?

Was he actually being serious?

Dude, I couldn't even stand up.

Now, we've had fire drills before.  We even had an actual bomb threat called in one time and we had to evacuate and walk a couple of blocks away and the entire area was cleared out, the police and bomb squads came in, etc.  And I always get sore after them for a couple of days but it just feels like I worked out a lot and I can stand up and sit down okay, it 's just a tad painful.

But this time it was way worse and I was almost in tears for 3 days.  Whenever I had to pee I wanted to cry because I knew I had to stand up, walk down the hall, sit down to pee, stand back up, walk back to my desk, and then sit back down.  The lady in the cube next to me was laughing because I would actually groan in pain every single time I got up or sat down.  When I did walk, approximately every 10 - 15 feet both of my legs would do this weird lurching type thing and almost collapse from under me.  Oh it was annoying.

I honestly think it's because I had these stupid inserts in my shoes.  They are hard plastic and when you go down that many stairs with feet that are screwed up and have hard plastic in your shoes, I think it's not good.

On Thursday after work, I had to go get a birthday gift for my cousin's son and he wanted something sports related so I went to Dick's Sporting Goods and while I was there I decided to pick up a new pair of Under Armour slides to wear around my house because my last pair was completely worn out.  And that's where I met Norm.

After I found my slides, I was looking at the shoe inserts they have to see if something caught my eye because I kind of hated the ones I have been using after that stupid fire drill and Norm, the salesman, walked up and struck up a conversation.  I told him I have PF and he made the icky face people make when they know how awful it is and he said, "Go downstairs and buy the socks."

"The socks?  What socks?"

"The plantar fasciitis socks.  People swear by them."

"Okay.  What exactly am I looking for?  What will it say?" I asked.

"Plantar Fascia socks," he replied as though I was an idiot.

"I've never heard of such a thing."

"We only have a couple of them left so go get them tonight.  Every person who has bought them and comes back says they have made their pain level go way down.  People love 'em!"

About that time a man and his young daughter walked by and Norm said hello to them.  The man said hello but the daughter didn't.

"I said hello!"

The daughter just looked at him.

"Hello," said Norm again.

"Hello," he said again.

"I said hello," he said again.

Finally the sweet girl said hi back to him.  And then she and her dad kept walking but I was stuck listening to how rude children are and they have no manners and no respect and Norm went on and on for a good 10 minutes while I'm standing there with PF and the most hurting thighs in all of America.  He then told me how he has whacked his nephew upside the back of his head for his entire life to teach him how to act and now he's working on the rest of his nieces and nephews and how they respect him more than they respect their own parents.

No, Norm.  They just don't want to get whacked upside the back of the head so they do what you say.

Anyway, I eventually got the heck away from Norm and went downstairs and found the PF socks (they're actually sleeves - your toes stick out of them) and this is what I bought:

Isn't that the sexiest thing you've ever seen?  They can even be worn while running.  So if something chases me when I have them on, I'll let you know how that works out.

They aren't super cheap ($24.99 a piece and I have PF in both feet so I had to buy two of them) but I decided to take Norm's word for it that people swear by them and give this a try.  I've already tried inserts, cupping, massage, frozen cans of vegetables, $120 shoes, etc.  What's another 50 bucks, right?

I got home that night and eventually crawled upstairs since I couldn't walk up the stairs and took a hot shower and rubbed and massaged my sore thighs under the hot water.  I could still barely get in and out of the shower.  I crawled to my bedroom and over to the bed and sat down and in screaming agony I pulled my foot up and put a sleeve on one foot.  And then I repeated on the other side.  Then I cried a little bit, took some Aleve and read until I fell asleep.

Because I'm 100-years-old, I normally get up at least once or twice to pee in the night.  I had to get up around 3:30 and when I stepped out of bed, someone could have dedicated the song, "Shake, Rattle and Roll" to my thighs but honest to goodness I didn't notice a lot of pain in my feet.  I still had a hard time getting up and down off the toilet (stupid fire drill) so I thought maybe my thighs were just taking my mind off of my PF.

I wore the sleeves to work on Friday and I just wasn't noticing foot pain so much.  They still hurt, but not nearly as bad as they have for the past 4 or 5 years.  On Friday night after my shower, I happened to open a drawer up in the bathroom.

Angels sang.

I forgot I had muscle relaxers from when I fell down the stairs and broke my wrist and got whiplash.  I took one when I went to bed and I slept like a log all night long.  So I got up Saturday morning and I could still barely walk or get down the stairs.  I ate breakfast, took another muscle relaxer, grabbed a blanket and pillow and got on the couch.  I slept until about 2:00 or 3:00 Saturday afternoon.  Oh, it was wonderful y'all!  But my thighs still hurt.

I eventually got up, went upstairs and took a shower, did some laundry, then went in the kitchen to cook my lunches and dinners for the week.  As I was standing at the kitchen sink around 10:00 p.m., I saw 3 cops go flying past my house.  I live in the 'hood and that's not abnormal to see.

Then 3 or 4 more went flying past.

Then a couple of more.

Then 3 or 4 more.  And that's when I knew, there were a lot of cops going by my house.

A couple of ambulances went by.  A couple of fire department SUV's sped past.

And the cops just kept coming.  At one point, they blocked the cross street right by my house so cops could just speed through the intersection without having to slow down.  I bet by the time they stopped I had seen 40 or 50 emergency vehicles go by.

That's when I heard the helicopter start flying over my house so I knew something bad had happened and they were searching for whoever did it.

Fake daughter was upstairs so I texted her and asked her to please not go out that night and told her what was going on.  Sometimes she leaves late and goes out around 10 or 11.  She told me she wasn't going anywhere, I made sure my front gate was closed, the alarm was on, security bars under all of the doors, etc.

Suddenly a cop came up and stopped right in front of my house with blue lights flashing and I may or may not have freaked out a little bit because I thought maybe they thought the bad guy was right by my house or something.  Turns out he was there because an ambulance being escorted by 6 police cars was coming through about 2 minutes later.

At some point I saw a news crew van go by so I started looking up stuff online and turned on the television and that's when I found out that ONLY A COUPLE OF BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE a police officer had been ambushed by a guy with a shotgun and the officer had been shot in the face and leg and they had used rolling road blocks to get him to the hospital in a hurry.  They also confirmed they were searching for the suspect.

As of today, I don't think anyone has been caught. It happened at an apartment complex and there has been a history of altercations between police officers and the residents there.

So if I greet you at my door with a bat, don't be surprised at all.


I took more muscle relaxers on Saturday night and Sunday night and I've been wearing my PF sleeve.  I was on my feet a lot yesterday.

And guess what?

My thighs finally weren't hurting this morning after 4 days.  But more importantly?  My right foot has only minimal pain and my left foot is probably reduced by 80 - 90%.  From a sock!

Let me tell you the best thing to go with a nice bottle of red wine: the trashiest junk food you can find.

I am still swamped but I just had something happen here at work that has me so pissed off I can't see straight right now so I'm taking a break anyway to write.  I'm hoping it will get my mind off of what happened.  And I know I need to let it go because I'm just letting this person hold power over me by affecting my day, but I am fuming I am so angry. 

I'm going to try and let it go now.

Let's think happy thoughts and go back to last week when I was in Blue Ridge instead of being fuming mad.

After my mom and I got off of our feet after our wasted walk to the stupid Black Sheep and slept a few hours and could walk again, we got up the next morning and leisurely got ready to go out and then we had coffee and a cupcake in our suite as an appetizer before going out for breakfast just because we could.  We walked (slowly and painfully) two doors down to the Blue Ridge Grocery which really isn't a grocery store and had a wonderful breakfast after our cupcake appetizer and before we hit the shops again.

Here is a photo of the Grocery.  It's really cool:

We went to the Blue Ridge Olive Oil Company where you can sample more olive oil and vinegar flavors than I think I ever knew existed.  My mom and I each got a small bottle of an oil and one small bottle of a vinegar and they draw it, bottle it and seal it for you right out of the vats (or whatever they are called) to order.  They have recipes on their website and I think you can purchase online.  It is super good stuff.  And I wasn't fuming mad at all when I was in that shop.

Here's the guy sealing my oil and vinegar.  Another lady bought all of the ones on the right.  I'm only one person - I can't use that much.  I did go to the June Gardens School of Photography for this special blurry shot:

At some point we stopped in Huck's General Store and the guy working in there?  Well he was a talkative kind of fellow.  By the time we left we knew all about his old neighborhood up in Connecticut, the celebrities that have bought homes up there, all about where his wife grew up, etc.  But mostly I learned that there are some really weird soda flavors out there in this great big ol' world we live in:

In a million years I could never drink something called Kitty Piddle. Or Bug Barf.  And I'd rather eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich than drink one.  And I cannot imagine drinking buffalo wings.

At some point, my mom had a great idea.  We had a late breakfast so we didn't really want lunch, but she decided we should stop for dessert and coffee.  We had heard good things about a place in town that I'm not going to name here so we went.  Apparently their dessert specialty is homemade pie.

We sat outside at a small table and my mom was looking across the street at another place that had a sign out front that said they serve Greenwood ice cream.  My mom is a huge fan of Greenwood ice cream (I don't know that I've never had it even though they make it 15 minutes up the road from my office).  I think they only serve it in restaurants but I'm not sure.  I just know I've never seen it in a store around here.  We had already ordered coffee but my mom said we should go over there for the ice cream.  I convinced her to stay for pie.  I probably should have listened to her.

Our server said she was only the beverage person and the pie guy would be out shortly.  Y'all, the pie guy was kind of odd.  My mom asked him what kind of ice cream they had to go on the pie and I think she was asking about flavors but he replied, "It's just the basic ol' Ingles store brand."  So we shared a slice of blueberry pie with the basic ol' Ingles store brand ice cream on top.  While we were sitting there, an elderly couple walked up and we quickly discovered we had just met Mrs. Bossy Pants and her poor husband.  There was a bench right next to our table and she decided she was going to sit there.  She had a rolling cart with her and she said, "I always bring my cushion for my tushie with me.  I know how hard these benches are."  And she pulled a pillow out of her cart, tossed it on the bench and sat down.  She then ordered her husband to walk to the car and put bag A inside bag D and then take bag B and put it in the back seat and then take bag C and stick it up his rear end.  Y'all she was so dang bossy!

The poor man never said a single word.  He just stared at her, then sauntered off slowly.  She looked at my mom and I and said, "Bless his heart.  I don't think he hears a word I say."  No lady, he is just sick to death of hearing you talk so he's ignoring you.

Then she just kind of talked and I guess she was talking to us but her back was to us so we ignored her just like her husband did.  Suddenly she got a little animated and excited when a couple of women walked past and one of them was wearing a vest.  She turned to us and exclaimed, "I am paying attention to these women who are wearing vests today!  So I'm watching them!" 

My mom was wearing a vest......

The lady didn't seem to notice.  We just ignored her mostly because I had no idea how to respond.

She continued to just sit on her pillow on the hard bench just talking out loud (to us?  to herself?) and a few minutes later I looked at my mom and I suddenly burst out laughing.  Y'all, I couldn't help it.  She didn't seem mentally ill.  She just seemed to think she had a lot of important stuff to say and order people around about.  She was also dressed kind of like 1970s Grand Ol' Opry.

After I started laughing I could not stop.  And then my mom started and couldn't stop.  So we decided we should leave.  We walked a few doors down to a used book and wine shop.  My mom wanted to buy a bottle of wine made in Georgia, and I decided to buy one as a joke to someone because of the name of it (it's called Blood Mountain Red and I have a friend who got lost hiking on Blood Mountain). 

As I was checking out, the cashier said, "You know, this wine goes great with junk food!"

"Um, okay.  Good to know."

"The best thing to eat with this wine is a nice bag of Cheetos.  But make sure you get the crunchy hard kind and not the puffy kind.  It's much better with the hard crunchy Cheetos."

Y'all, she was being completely serious.

I then went on to buy a Himalayan salt inhaler and I will let y'all know how that goes and whether it helps the breathing problems I've suffered from since childhood.  Last night I bought some sleeves for my feet to help my plantar fasciitis, and I'm already supposed to let y'all know how the WalkFit Platinum shoe inserts work which I've been wearing for a month or two now.  What else would y'all like me to try out and review for you?  Please make it not something super expensive.  Apparently I am the experimenter now.  I do prefer to experiment on all natural types of remedies for stuff so keep that in mind.

We also made sure to stop in Glitzy Chix because they sell some of the best lotion I've ever used in my life.  We each bought a bottle two years ago and I had saved the empty bottle so that I would not forget what kind it was the next time I made it to Blue Ridge.  It's called Shine Shea Butter and the smell is awesome.  It says on the website that it's a vanilla scent but I don't think it smells like vanilla.  We each bought two bottles this year.  It's not super cheap, but it only takes a little bit each time you use it.  So yes, I spent $70 on lotion and salt to sniff.  And another $15 on a bottle of wine.  I still have to go spend money on hard crunchy Cheetos though.

The next morning we sadly left our awesome suite, went and checked out, then stopped for breakfast.  On our way out of town we stopped by Mercier Orchards where you can buy healthy stuff like apples.  Naturally I bought chocolate honey, several kinds of jams, and an apple fritter.

It's really gorgeous at the orchards:

Then I threw my mom in the car and we peeled rubber out of the orchard parking lot because I could not wait to get back to Atlanta and all of it's traffic. 

Just kidding.

We leisurely drove home, my brother stopped by that night and we went out to dinner, then my mom and I shuffled cards til the cows came home while we played our last night of Hand and Foot.

My mom had to head back to Texas on Thursday and I enjoyed a pajama day until my brother came over and we dressed up and went to my neighbors to hand out Halloween candy.  I only made two kids cry this year.  Highly disappointing.  My wig was a little jacked up.  My brother went all out and wore a tux.  I wore a t-shirt and jeans.

Well, this is a day.

I can't blog today, y'all.

I've been assisting one of my bosses with a huge deal that is closing today and we just had a blasted fire drill.  I had to go down 17 stories, then on down to the loading dock, through the parking deck, up a big hill, and then stand waiting on an elevator along with 50 bazillion other people.  By the time I was standing in the lobby waiting on an elevator, my right foot and ankle were shaking so bad and my thighs were burning so much that I was honestly scared I was going to collapse right there in front of everyone.  And security said the stairwells were all unlocked if we wanted to take the stairs back up.  Really?

I'm sweaty, and I'm not feeling so good due to walking down 17 stories in a highrise with plantar fasciitis that already had my feet hurting today.  And I have too much to finish for this closing.

So watch this video instead of reading about the rest of my trip to the mountains.  The little girl at the 2:30 mark breaks my heart.  The girl at 5:16 is probably how I would have been - a total drama queen.  And the very last girl is what I want to call whoever decided we should have a fire drill today:

My mom is full of great ideas. Or not.

Last Monday, I shoved my mom in my car and peeled rubber out of my driveway because I couldn't get out of Atlanta fast enough.

Then we stopped 5 minutes up the road from my house and ate breakfast.  But THEN we got the heck out of town.

We jumped on I-75 and kept going like we remembered how to get to a place we had been to only once before 2 years prior. 

Then I turned around and went back a few exits and got on 575 like we were supposed to.

Getting lost is kinda my specialty.

We drove a couple of hours and entered the mountains.  Or as I like to call it:  heaven.  I posted at some point about the last time my mom and I went to Blue Ridge, Ga. for a couple of days and we had a cabin deep in the woods and how we were scared to death our first night out there 4 miles down a dirt path into the forest.  But after spending 2.4 seconds looking for it to link to that post, I have given up.

This time I found a place to rent right smack dab in the center of downtown Blue Ridge.  Tee, we were three floors above Christy Lee's since you're familiar with Blue Ridge.  As we were parking and walking into the rental office to check in and get the keys, my mom saw a cute little car zipping around town.  It was an antique convertible car and it was advertising a restaurant called Black Sheep. 

I hate that stupid car with it's stupid advertising and the stupid, stupid Black Sheep. 

We stopped at our suite where my mom ooh'ed and aah'ed over all of the extra special touches like the fancy air freshener in the bathroom.  Seriously.  She said for 2 days that she wants to find that air freshener.  I think I'm going to order her some for Christmas and I can't wait to tell her the websites I just found it on:  stupid.com, GagGifts.com and PerpetualKid.com.  I'm not even joking.  That's where I found it and she thought it was fancy stuff.  It talks about Abe Lincoln's logs y'all.

Anyway, after we discussed covering up any foul smelling poop we may deposit while staying in our suite, we jumped back on the elevator and went next door to a quaint little coffee shop where my mom asked the guy working the counter about that stupid Black Sheep.  He told her it was a new place, that it's good, he would recommend it, and then my mom asked how to get there.

The guy drew her a little map and she asked if it was within walking distance and the guy said, "Well, that depends on what you consider walking distance.  I would definitely drive but it is possible to walk there." 

We had our coffee (and possibly a cookie too since we were on vacation) and then we walked through half of downtown Blue Ridge to shops and stuff. 

My mom suggested we go out for an early dinner and then we would have our evening to chill out in our suite. 

My mom decided we should try the stupid Black Sheep.

My mom decided we would walk.

If I didn't have really bad plantar fasciitis in both feet and she wasn't suffering from severe pain due to the fact that she is only putting off a hip replacement because she wants to get through the holidays first, it might have been a lovely little walk of about a mile or more.

But instead, we were both close to tears by the time we got there because our pain was so great after walking through a ton of shops, standing all afternoon, and then walking to the stupid Black Sheep.

So when a girl came out and said the following to us, I wanted to punch her right in the nose:

"Are you with Coldwell Banker, ladies?"

"Um, no," I replied.

"I'm sorry but we're closed for a private event this evening." 

Right then I wanted to tell her I was just kidding and I was the owner of f*ucking Coldwell Banker. My mom and I later discussed how bad we felt about the 'why don't you just eat shit and die' look we each gave her when she said that.

My mom looked at me and said, "You have GOT to be kidding me."

And off we went to walk back to town.

About 32.4 seconds into the walk back to town I asked my mom if she didn't want to sit down.  She said her hip was actually moving kind of good at that moment and she needed to keep going.  And I gave her a 'why don't you just eat shit and die' look from behind that she doesn't even know about because my feet were making me want to scream and cry in pain.  I sucked it up and kept moving.

We decided we would try to make it back to the restaurant right under our suite so we wouldn't have far to walk after dinner and could go right upstairs and cry our little pain filled hearts out.

By the time we got there, I honestly wanted to chop my feet off they hurt so much.  And I reached out to the door handle of the restaurant, and.....

THEY WERE F*UCKING CLOSED!

I think I actually said right to my mom's face, "You have got to be f*ucking kidding me!" without the asterisk and she didn't even get mad because she probably wanted to say bad words too.

Luckily, we discovered there was another restaurant next door and we crawled on our hands and knees over to it and then we asked the hostess if she could find a cart to roll us to a table.

As we were eating, a couple sat down at the table next to us.  The lady had apparently gone to the worst hair colorist in all of America and my mom and I tried not to laugh out loud.  Then an old man came in with 3 old ladies and sat right across from me.  He had totally white hair that was blown out straight, it was collar length, and it was all slicked back and hair sprayed so much it was never going to move.  That wasn't even the worst part.  No, the worst part was his completely white, super bushy mustache that looked like it was only attached in the center point right under his nose and so the rest of it just kind of bopped around in the air loosely and he was sitting so that I was looking directly at the side of his head.  So I had to watch his mustache bopping around and going down into his wine glass whenever he took a sip, and I honestly was about to pee myself I was laughing so hard at him.

And that was just the first day in the mountains, y'all.

I didn't forget to blog. I've been busy, yo.

Oh, hi there.

I didn't forget to blog.  I just didn't want to for the past week.  Well, actually I got super busy at work for a couple of days.  I spent 12 hours working on a single document one day and I was feeling kind of stabb-y by the time I left work at 8:30 p.m.  Then I turned it over to our night assistants and they worked on it for several hours and it was so jacked up they got permission from someone to pay our outside help desk company to fix the entire stupid 80 page document.  They sent it to me at almost 3:00 a.m. saying it was fixed.

It wasn't fixed.

So I dealt with that stupid mess all day again Friday before last and then I had to rush to the grocery store after work and try to get home so I could be there when my mom got to my house after driving from Texas (I got home at 7:40 and my mom arrived at 7:45).  And I was having a little party the next day that some of y'all may have heard about.  And I had to pick Laurie up at the airport Saturday morning.  And I was a little bit stressed I wouldn't get everything done.  So I didn't blog.

Then I had the party.  Then I was on vacation last week and I took a vacation from everything:  work, blogging, checking emails, I mostly avoided Facebook, etc.  And it was awesome, y'all.  Until I opened up my email this morning and I had approximately 150 emails at work to get through and as of right now I still have well over FIVE HUNDRED emails in my personal account to get through.  650+ emails in a week is a little bit ridiculous, right?  I know there are people who get tons more than that, but I am feeling crazy right now about it.  It was nice to be semi unplugged for a week though.  But if one more person nudges me in a game I'm playing with them I will scream.  It's a game people!  I will play when I have time or want to play.  Stop nudging me because it really makes me want to punch you in the junk.

Anyway, almost 150 work emails and that's why I'm just now getting around to blogging and it's already after 5:00.

I wish all of you could have come to the Pie party last weekend.  We had so much fun!  Tee brought her famous hot chicken salad and we ate that up.  Tee also brought some dates with cream cheese and pecans and we ate that up.  Fay brought her family recipe salad and we ate that up.  Sadie brought rum cake, a spinach/cheese casserole, Texas caviar (I think that's what she called it - it was delicious that's all I know) and OMG it was over a week ago and I think she brought something else but I'm drawing a blank, and we ate all of that up.  I provided cheese and crackers, caprese salad, some chocolate chip bars with Reese's on top and OMG it was over a week ago and I think I provided something else but I'm drawing a blank, and we ate all that up.  What I'm trying to say is, we ate a lot.

And I remembered to offer wine this time so I call that at least one success.

My fake daughter was there for most of the party, two of my neighbors came by for a while, my mom was there for a bit of it, my brother and my niece were there for a bit, and so it was just a revolving door at my house of various people.

Tee brought me a gorgeous little plant.  Sadie is thoughtful unlike me, and she brought us all a gift.  (Okay, I guess that means Fay, fake daughter, my neighbors, and my family are also unthoughtful because none of the rest of us had gifts for anyone.)

Sadie brought us all a Bye Bye Pie "I drink from my everyday mug every day" coffee cups and Laurie is holding up my very filthy looking tea kettle as a prop in this photo.  Seriously, I do wash that thing but it's all burned up by my fake kids - it looked almost brand new before they came even though I've used it a crap ton of times over the past few years:

l to r - Sadie, yours truly, Tee, Laurie, Fay (who came straight from the salon and had fabulous looking hair and the cutest shoes I've ever seen).  (Not that the rest of you don't look cute/fabulous too.)

We took several photos and I chose this one because I am holding my mug so that it covers up my eleventy billion chins.  There is not a coffee mug in the world big enough to cover up all of the stuff going on below that.  Or my graying, flat, awful looking hair.

We ate and talked.  And talked and ate.  My neighbor and I told the whole story about the hillbilly couple I told y'all about who were celebrating their honeymoon at the L5P Halloween parade the weekend before (the bride who had me put polka dots all over her face in the middle of a bar in case you've forgotten).  Well, mostly I told that story because my neighbor had been kind of drinking that day and didn't remember as many details as sober me managed to remember.  And then I was trying to talk the way one of my relatives in Mississippi talks later that night and I was talking like a hillbilly instead.  Trust me, there is a huge difference between southern and hillbilly mountain accents.

After everyone left, my mom and I roped poor Laurie into playing cards with us.  Do any of you play Hand and Foot?  That's what we played.  We use 5 decks of cards and do y'all know what is fun?  Shuffling 5 decks of cards after each round.  We kept eating leftovers from the party and I didn't even feed a proper meal to them.

The next morning one of my aunts came by because Laurie said she wanted to meet all of my family while she was in town staying with me, and then my mom and aunt drove up almost to South Carolina to meet another aunt.  Because the 12 hours my mom drove from Texas two days earlier had not made her hip that needs replaced hurt enough.

Laurie and I went to eat.  Because we didn't eat enough the day before apparently.

This is Laurie's yummy breakfast.  Mine was kind of boring so I didn't take a photo:

Then I drove Laurie to several different areas of Atlanta she had never seen.  And guess what Karen in VB?  I didn't get lost.

At some point we were driving through Cabbagetown and some artists were working on a mural on the side of a building.  So we got out and chatted with them a bit and they let us take some pictures.  Isn't it beautiful?

Later, we were in Buckhead and Laurie wanted to stop in the Halloween store.  My brother and I were planning to go to my neighbor's house to hand out candy to the trick or treaters and I had decided I didn't want to spend over an hour doing my pop art makeup again.  So I bought a mask for $3.99 while Laurie put together a nerdy nurse costume.

Sadly, I eventually had to take Laurie back home to pack and go to the airport since her flight was leaving at 5:00.

My mom and aunt got back from visiting my other aunt and we decided to play cards for a while (we played cards every night for the past week).

I sat down at the table across from my mom looking like this:

And my mom cracked up after she yelped in surprise.

Tomorrow I will tell y'all about the road trip my mom and I took to the mountains last week.  Someone told us what junk food to pair with a red wine.  And we almost punched a poor innocent girl in the nose our first night there.  Because we had ourselves a little adventure of pain.  We met an odd pie maker, and we ate cupcakes for an appetizer before breakfast.  Just because we could.  We met the world's most talkative (AND ANNOYING) sales clerk in a general store.  And I took pictures of some very interesting sodas.  And we played cards.  And shuffled those 5 damn decks over and over and over and over.