Don't let them hear you speak English. Dahlink.

First things first.  A couple of you asked why I haven't been across the street to go through the dumpster and trash bags to see what Sand's son is throwing out.

Last night less than 5 minutes after I got home from work I stampeded to the end of my driveway to take a picture so y'all can see how dark it is over there by the time I get home.  You can barely make out the garbage bags on the sidewalk and if y'all think I'm going all the way up into her yard by myself in the 'hood when it's this dark and climbing up and pulling stuff out of a dumpster, then you are crazier than I am!  And I have no desire to go over there at 7:00 a.m. before I go to work to dig through someone's trash.  And this should also show y'all why the EMTs went to the wrong house when they picked her up.  Who would think someone lived back in there?  Or that there is even a house.

Y'all said you wanted to hear about all of my crazy international travel stories, but it sounds like you wanted to hear about Brazil first.

Oh boy.

I'm not sure until I get going with this, but it might get lengthy and need to be broken up into more than one post.  We'll see.

I don't really want to go into a lot of detail about what HB is doing because I'd have to explain a lot about his background and I really don't want to get into all that, and there is just way too much to tell and it's not my place to put all of that on the internet.  But the shortest explanation I can give you as background to why some of the stuff happened that I experienced while I was there, is to tell you that he ran for political office (he didn't win), he has a lot of friends in some interesting roles, he's trying to fight some extreme corruption, and his ultimate reason for doing all of it is to help create a better future for the children who live in this particular state in the Amazon.  And I'm not going to say the name of the state for a number of reasons.

The entire trip was full of excitement, weirdness, and oddness.  I learned so much about how much I don't know about the world, and HB and I had great quality time together.  He was the only person I was able to communicate with for an entire week because I did not run into another English speaking person after I stepped foot out of the airport.  I honestly would not have survived had I tried a trip like this on my own.  He had to translate everything, order all of my food, get rental cars, arrange the hotel room, etc.  I was completely helpless since I did not know Portuguese.  At all.

He called me right before I took off and told me to have a safe trip and when I arrived at my final destination, the baggage claim would have a glass wall around it and I should look for him through the glass as he would be there to pick me up.  He told me that because he likes to play tricks on me which you will learn in a few minutes.

The weirdness started upon my arrival.

I had a layover for almost 9 hours in another city in the Amazon.  HB had warned me not to even walk out the front door of the airport since I don't speak the language.  He told me to wait until I got to Brazil to exchange currency because I would get a better rate down there than here, but if I needed money in the airport during my layover to only get a small amount because he could get me an even better rate in the final destination city where he would be waiting for me.

I happened to buy a bottle of water and a bag of trail mix at the Atlanta airport before I left and thank goodness I did.  It became my breakfast and lunch the next day because guess what?  While I sat in this airport overnight, I saw approximately 10 people the entire time.  There were maybe 4 other passengers, two people cleaning, a few airline employees and a person at a fast food restaurant.  No stores were open, no other restaurants were open, and no currency conversion places were open.  The counters for international flights did not even have employees working overnight.  And right then I knew, I was no longer in Atlanta's airport which is always crowded and bustling day and night.

But I need to back up.

When I was waiting at the gate in Atlanta, there was a group of people waiting for the same flight.  There were maybe 10 of them and a majority of them were wearing Arkansas shirts.  (University of?  Arkansas State?  Not sure.)  When we arrived at my layover city, I was getting my bags because after I finally found the one English speaking airport employee, I was informed my bags would not be sent on to my final destination and that I could not even check them yet for my next flight - I had to take them with me for the duration of my layover.  Which?  Fun.

Anyway, as I was getting my bag, this group of Arkansas people happened to be getting their bags and a whole bunch of giant storage bins.  They were sort of like the Rubbermaid big bins you store sweaters in and stuff except they were not transparent (they were dark gray and black) and they were duct taped.  And there were probably 15 or 20 of the bins, all of their suitcases and about 10 people.  Yet they were there one second and it was like they had disappeared into thin air when I turned around 5 seconds later.  It was very odd but I just thought to myself, "Well, I'm not observant of what's going on around me at all.  HB would know exactly where they went because he always knows what's going on in front of him, behind him, beside him, etc. at all times."  I couldn't stop thinking about it and couldn't figure out how that many people and that much stuff disappeared so quickly and quietly.

So there I sat for many hours munching on my trail mix and sipping my bottle of water all night.  I read, I did a gazillion Soduko puzzles, I listened to music, I dozed a few minutes here and there, and I was bored out of my freaking mind.

This is what I looked at for hours and hours and hours as I sat there from 4:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.  I actually took these on my way back home when I had another excruciatingly long layover in this airport.  This was around 4:00 in the afternoon in an international airport and you will see one other person.  Kind of different than Atlanta would be as far as busyness:

This is the counter for international flights.  So busy, huh?

About 5 minutes before I had been told I would be able to check my bags for my next flight, the front door of the airport opened (it's not a big airport so I sat in the only seats I found which happened to be right at the door) and a gigantic black SUV was sitting there with black tinted windows and a guy was opening up the back.  Suddenly, all of the Arkansas people came out of the vehicle and I heard the guy who was dropping them off talk and he was American.  He didn't say anything to help me figure out where they had been all night long, but they unloaded all of their bins and suitcases, etc. and brought them in the airport.  Turns out they were on my next flight too.

I was right behind them in line so I listened to their conversation like I was suddenly some sort of international detective and had to figure out what their business was, but it turns out I'm not a very good international detective.  I couldn't figure out anything.

We sat at the gate for another hour or more, and finally it was time to board the next plane.  I was a little nervous (not in a bad way) to see HB again because it had been a while, and I kind of wondered if it was going to be the way it had been when my ex-husband had been overseas and we had to "adjust" to each other again.  My last flight was a couple of hours in duration so as I boarded I told myself that I had a couple of hours to get myself to calm the heck down and get rid of the butterflies I was feeling.

I sat down and buckled up, a nice young man sat down next to me and buckled up, he said hello to me and we quickly realized we would be unable to communicate more than that because of the language barrier.

Suddenly, a head popped up between the seats from behind us and a man said, "What are you doing here, girl?" and obviously I was trying to figure out who in the hell could possibly know me on a plane in the middle of the Amazon.

I turned around to find myself looking into my favorite set of eyes on this entire planet.

It was HB.

"Holy crap!" I exclaimed.  That was right before I started crying.

"Why are you crying?" he asked.

"Because I'm so happy to see your sweet face.  But why are you on this plane?"

It turns out he had traveled to another city for some of the work he is doing the week before I came down and he had planned to fly back the day before my arrival and be there waiting on me, but the flights were full.  So he got a seat on my flight and decided to surprise me on the plane.  He actually tried to get the seat next to me but the best he could do was about 3 rows away.

I asked him why I never saw him at the gate.  His plane came from way down south in Brazil, stopped where I had my layover, some people got off the plane and then all of us got on.  So he was already on the plane.

Oh, y'all.  I know this sounds crazy, but it was just about the most romantic moment of my life and it made me feel like I was in a movie or something.

So I stared at the back of his cute head for the next couple of hours and then we arrived at our final destination.  We went to baggage claim to get our luggage and then guess what happened?

HB looked at me and said, "Dahlink" because he can't say darling with his accent, so he said "Dahlink, did you see that large group of people with those big plastic tubs?  Where did they go?  They just disappeared and I don't know how that happened.  They were right here and now they have disappeared into thin air and I am always aware of what's going on around me."

I said, "I KNOW!  They did that at the last airport.  It's so weird!"

You may be glad to hear that's the end of my stories about the Arkansas people and their bins with dead bodies in them or whatever they were toting around the jungle.  We never saw them again.

We took a taxi to our hotel where I discovered I was not in America anymore.  The hotel was the nicest hotel in the city but the hotel lobby had no walls.  And therefore, no a/c.  The hallways where the rooms are had walls but no a/c.  Our room had a window unit and we cranked that baby up high.  Because do you know what it's like in the Amazon?  It's hot, y'all.  It was about 105 - 110 degrees every single day I was there.  I drank about a dozen bottles of water and a couple of coconuts each day.  When I wasn't busy guzzling down fresh fruit juices every chance I got.

HB had asked me to bring him some stuff so I unpacked his new laptop, his 4 pairs of pants from Old Navy, his 3 bottles of cologne, his 4 CDs and a huge stack of his mail since it gets forwarded to me and I said, "Wow, I could have brought a lot more clothes if half of my suitcase wasn't stuff for you."  He gave me cash to pay me back for all of it and I said, "Didn't you ask me to bring one more thing?"  He could not remember anything else.  I reached in the pocket of my suitcase and pulled out a white matchbox car of a Hummer.  "Didn't you say you wanted a Hummer too?"

"Dahlink, you know I asked for a black one," he said laughing.

We had no rental car our first night there so we took a taxi to eat.  It was one of the freshest, tastiest meals I've had in my life.  And right then I knew, I was going to love the food in Brazil.  Steak, salad, rice, plantains, french fries, fresh fruit juice, oh it was good!  And it was at a straw roofed shack with plastic tables and plastic chairs on the sidewalk overlooking a river and cats constantly came up rubbing on our legs begging for food.  But it was one of the best meals of my life.

But I think it was mostly because I had this guy sitting across the table from me:

The next morning, HB said he was walking to get the rental car while I showered and got ready.  I offered to go with him but he said it was far and I would pass out from the heat so he went.  Turns out it was several miles away and he was drenched when he got back so I kind of loved him even more for not letting me go.  But guess what else doesn't have a/c in that city?  Most rental cars.  Ugh.

We also had a flat tire in ours one afternoon.

The city I was in was no tourist town and I would never tell anyone that's where they should go if they want to visit Brazil.  There's really not much to do at all for fun.  So I went around with HB and a preacher he is friends with while they worked.  I didn't care, 'cause I was with HB.

At some point our first day I asked him if he could take me to get some money converted and he said he needed to get some converted as well.  I guess he still had some American cash from when he lived here and converted it from time to time.

He pulled up to a strip of places that were advertising that they bought and sold gold.  As we were about to get out of the car he said, "Punkin" because he can't say pumpkin with his accent so he said, "Punkin, whatever you do, do not speak while we're in here.  Do not let them hear you speak one word of English.  Let me do all of the talking please.  And don't be scared."  Um, okay.  Sure.  Don't let them hear me speak English but try not to worry about it.

"Why are we getting money in a place I'm not allowed to speak?"

"Because this place gives much better rates than banks.  They don't like Americans but they like American cash."

As we opened the door, three men who had been sitting in various chairs around the office promptly stood up, folded their newspapers and stared at us.  One of them moved to the door and stood in front of it.  I'm not ashamed to tell y'all I was about to pee my pants.

We walked up to a man in a booth with a window which I assume was bullet proof glass.  There was a door behind him.  HB spoke got his cash converted and then held his hand out to me. I handed him my money, he got it converted and we walked back towards the door.  I shockingly kept my mouth closed.  The man by the door moved aside for us.

When we got to the car I asked, "Okay.  Are you going to tell me what that was all about?"

"They give the best rates in this entire city.  But did you see the door behind the guy in the window?  Behind that door they are doing arms trading."

"WHAT?!"

"The gold buying and selling is just a front.  Their real business is trading arms and that's part of why they give better deals for American cash."

Thankfully I converted enough that day that I didn't have to ask to go back.

Well, I think that's enough of this story for y'all to sit through for one day.  I'll pick it back up next time.

I'm bored today

Honestly y'all, I'm having quite a boring week with nothing worth blogging about.  I mean other than my 92-year-old neighbor dying of course.

One of the Lisa's, Tammi Five Five and I got into a discussion a few minutes ago on Facebook about foreign travel. 

It all started when Lisa posted this article which made me cringe and pee my pants laughing all at the same time.  It also reminded me of when I worked in the furniture industry for 13 years.  I did a little bit of everything when I worked there from helping unload trucks to eventually being the assistant to the CEO.   I know!  Me unloading furniture from trucks and I didn't break a single bone.  That was when I was working in a store where we had an alcoholic manager who would leave the store to go drink in a bar in our shopping center and we'd sometimes have to wait for an hour after the store was closed for him to come back and turn the alarm on and lock up.  He also made customers and employees use moldy toilet paper he found in the basement warehouse because he was a cheap SOB except for when it came to himself, and he wouldn't buy new rolls.  So we all kind of laughed when a huge piece of sheet metal blew off the top of the building during a storm one afternoon and landed on the roof of his Mercedes which he had just paid off the month before.  He was down at the bar so it sat on top of his car for hours until he came stumbling back to work.

And oh my word the stories I could tell you about the CEO I eventually worked for.  From the time he grabbed my friend's ice cream from her and started eating with her spoon and then handed it back to her, to the remote control opener someone had installed on his office door so he would stop slamming the blasted thing 89 times per day and then the time he got stuck in his office when the power went out during a bad storm so he screamed at me, to the time I had to go pick up his x-rays from his doctor, to the time I had to listen to him cursing when I was on the phone trying to teach him how to use an ATM for the first time even though ATMs had been around for a while by then and he was furious he had to have a PIN number and did not so he couldn't get his own money since it was after bank hours ("BUT IT'S MY DAMN MONEY AND I WANT IT RIGHT NOW!" he kept screaming - "YOU CAN'T GET YOUR MONEY WITHOUT A PIN NUMBER!" I kept screaming back at him), to the time he asked me to come in the men's restroom with him while he was on the toilet reading the Wall Street Journal.  I'm not making any of that up.

Before I worked for the CEO, I worked for his son briefly.  We had a unisex bathroom in that particular office and he always forgot to the lock the door.  And he went through his mail while sitting on the toilet.  OMG.

Anyway, at one point while I was with that company, I worked for a Regional Vice President and there was a lady in our office who took all of the customer complaint calls and that's what Lisa's article reminded me of.  (Yes, I'm finally getting back to the her article.)  We had a lady who threatened to sue us because her husband was divorcing her because she didn't like the mattress they bought from us and stopped sleeping with him and, therefore, also stopped having sex with him.  Honey, have sex with him and then go sleep somewhere else in the house.  We had another lady who was going to sue us because she said her hearing aid fell out while she was in one of our stores and went under a sofa cushion and she claimed the store manager stole it from her and wouldn't give it back. 

One day the lady who normally took the complaint calls was out sick so I had to fill in for her.  A girl called and cursed me out worse than any sailor on this planet and somehow she was trying to make it our fault that she got a speeding ticket trying to get home in time for her furniture delivery.  And guess what, y'all?  After she called me every single bad name in the book and said all kinds of other awful things when all I had done is answer the call and she had not let me say another word before she started screaming, she paused for a second.  And I asked her for her name. 

I knew her.

Oh, she felt awful for all of the terrible names she had called me and all of the awful stuff she had said.

And how did I get off on women not having sex with their husbands and me getting accidentally cursed out by an acquaintance when I was supposed to be talking about foreign travel?

Here's my question.  If I don't have anything interesting happen by tomorrow to blog, what would y'all prefer to hear about:

1.  My trip to the Bahamas with a bunch of family members while I was hiding the fact that my now ex-husband and I were even dating, much less living together, from my family.

h(45).  My trip to Cyprus, Egypt and Israel with my now ex-husband when I got engaged while very drunk and sitting half undressed in a hotel room on the top of Mount Olympus after a Christmas party with some Scottish people watching Cypriot men dance.  And it was the most anti-climatic moment of my life.  There was also an intense disagreement about a camel and some people picking their noses on this trip.  And lots of men with huge guns.

IVMC.  My trip to the Amazon with Hot Brazilian where I had to sit in a meeting with the chief of police and two other police officers and pretend like I was an attorney who understood everything they were saying even though the only words I know in Portuguese are for 'pineapple,' 'hello,' and 'okay'.  And I got some money converted by some arms dealers. And a priest wanted to take me into the jungle to meet an Amazonian Indian chief - until I found out it would involve the Brazilian air force, a nurse who works for the federal government and the chief could possibly take me as his sex slave and kill me.

And oh how I wish I was making any of that up but it's all the truth.

Sand

First of all, aren't y'all sweet talking about how young I look?

Here's the deal:  I'm actually only 14.  I just tell people I'm 45 so they will say, "You look really good for your age!" 

Honestly, I don't take great care of my skin or do anything special.  I (GASP!) sleep in my make-up sometimes.  I don't use products made from the placenta of a rainbow colored unicorn or anything like that.  I will say that I have only gone to the beach and purposely sat in the sun to get a tan one weekend in the past 20+ years but it's more because I'm scared of skin cancer since a couple of people in my family have had it rather than to avoid wrinkles.

I use this cleanser:

I buy it at the grocery store when I'm buying cat litter and chicken.

I use this astringent:

I buy it at the grocery store when I'm buying tampons and a box of pasta.

And I use this as my moisturizer:

I buy it at Trader Joe's when I'm buying hummus and a block of rosemary and olive oil asiago cheese.  And you have not lived until you've eaten half a block of that cheese all by yourself with some crackers and said, "Well, that was a nice dinner."

No extra stops at special stores.  No skin care budget that rivals the Pentagon.  Nothing special.  I have to tell y'all I was blessed with great skin genes.  My maternal grandmother started smoking when she was about 14 or 15 and did so until she died at 86.  Yet she had about 3 small wrinkles around each eye and that was it.  My aunt on that side was a sun worshiper, she went through the stress of a physically and emotionally abusive marriage for years, and she had cancer which spread all over her body and she went through surgeries and chemo almost constantly for close to 15 years.  She died at almost 70 with no wrinkles and her hands looked like they belonged to a 20-year-old.

My dad died at 72 and had hardly a wrinkle on his face.  His mom died at 95 (NINETY-FIVE!) and had only a few wrinkles.

Unfortunately I also got the gene from dad's side to have an ass the size of the side of my house.  It could be the rosemary and olive oil asiago cheese too.

I'm still trying to figure out where the gene came from that makes me fall down and break my arm a lot.

Remember when I saw the psychic last weekend?  Did I tell y'all that before I walked over to her booth my brother said, "Hey, why don't you ask her when you're going to break your arm again."  Oh, he's funny that brother of mine.

Last night something happened and I thought, "Well that's super sad but at least I have something to blog about tomorrow."  And then I felt horrible that I thought that.

Then I thought that y'all are going to think I'm trying to be just like June Gardens.  Let's compare here:

1.  I have plantar fasciitis like June Gardens.
c(5).  I have crazy hair like June Gardens and use The Curly Girl Method.
94.  I am divorced with no kids like June Gardens.
g.  I have a cat so I'm 1/4 like June Gardens.
IVIX. I've picked up some June Gardens language such as stampede, going pit on someone's ass, etc. but I did not pick up slapping people with my liver.  
7(g)(3). I work out a lot and am thin like June Gardens.  Oh.  Wait.

Anyway, guess what else I have in common with June Gardens now?

I have my own dead neighbor, y'all.

Remember at some point (I think it was Labor Day weekend when I didn't want to cut my grass) I mentioned that I had a really old lady who lived across the street from me who used a walker and her yard was a mess and she had her house painted really ugly colors?  (Light gray with black and fire engine red trim.)  This was the lady my aunt offered a chicken to and she got turned down.  I'll have to tell y'all that story sometime.

Last night I came home to this:

  

And don't say I didn't warn y'all I live in the 'hood.  I've told y'all that a gazillion times.  Part of the 'hood has transitioned but part of it hasn't (for instance, this ugly house across the street).  This lady has no driveway so these people had to park in her front yard while they piled approximately 2 tons of garbage bags on the sidewalk.  And that dumpster was brought while I was at work yesterday and I'm not sure why the bags weren't put in the dumpster.

Just as I pulled in my driveway, one of my neighbors sent me a message and asked what was going on over there and I told her I had no idea.

A few minutes later I saw a man carrying a couple of more bags to the street so I stampeded over there to get the scoop.

I said, "Excuse me, sir.  I live across the street and I know Mrs. _____ had been taken to the hospital a while back.  Did something happen?"  I asked very hesitantly because I'm not sure how you ask a complete stranger if someone died.  

My mom was visiting me last January when we saw an ambulance come to pick her up.  Her house sits back a little off the street and at night you could not even seen her house because she had her windows all covered with black and there were never any outside lights turned on and with all of those big trees surrounding it, it almost disappeared in the darkness.  The paramedics went to the house next door at first because I'm sure if they did see the house they assumed no one was home or it was abandoned.  (My neighbors were surprised when I told them once that I had talked to the lady because they didn't know anyone lived in the house.)  We saw the paramedics turning on flashlights and we could tell they were a little hesitant to approach the house because they didn't know what might be in store for them.  I honestly had not seen the lady since then.  

When I came home to this mess last night, I sort of assumed she must have passed away and figured it had been in the past few months since they were now cleaning out the house apparently.

The man responded, "Yes.  She passed away.  The funeral is this Thursday, I think.  Her son is inside and I'm a friend of his that came over to help him."

I said, "Oh, she just passed away?  I'm so sorry for your loss."

He told me she died this past Sunday and her funeral will be near Augusta.  And he said he hopes the city picks up the trash soon so that we won't have to look at it for long.  (I hope for that too if I'm being honest.)

I told him I had talked to her a few times and she seemed like a really sweet lady and I was sad to know she had died.  He said he would pass along my condolences to her son. 

I found her obituary online and it said she liked to be called "Sand."  I can assure you she was very clear to me that I was to call her Mrs. _______ since she told me that about 8 times in 2 minutes.  I guess the neighbors were expected to be more formal.  She would have been 92 this December.

I am sad for her sweet little old self. 

R.I.P. Sand.

I cannot believe I'm putting these pictures on the internet

This weekend I did not leave my house.  But have no fear!  I did something ridiculous at my house and took photos so that you can all laugh at me.  I meant laugh with me.

No, I was right the first time.

I blew leaves and worked in the yard most of the afternoon Saturday.  Hilarious, right?  That's not the ridiculousness I was talking about.

Then I took apart a bathtub drain (also not the ridiculousness, although me doing anything plumbing related is kind of ridiculous) and pulled the equivalent of a wig out of it because fake daughter and I both have long hair and we share a bathroom even though I have four bathrooms in my house and I know that makes no sense.  It's the only bathroom on the floor where our bedrooms are because I have a weird house.

I have two bathrooms downstairs and two bathrooms upstairs.  But I also have two upstairs sections and they don't connect to each other so that's why we share a bathroom because it's the only one in our half of the upstairs.  Again, my house is insane.

Fake daughter has hair down to her waist.  And even though I've been following the Curly Girl Method for a couple of months now, I have this:

I also have multiple chins.  And let's hope the partner right across the hall from my cubicle had a great time watching me take selfies this morning.

Anyway, all of that hair is a bathtub drain's nightmare and I got all pit on that drain's azz this weekend and tore it apart and cleaned it out and that is one of the most disgusting things I've done in quite some time.

But then I decided on Saturday night that I would really get the wild and craziness started and practice my make-up for my Halloween costume because that's how I party.  I don't do drugs, I am drugs - Salvador Dali.

So this is how it all started:

This is what it looks like when you are 45-years-old, have no make-up on but you do have a wig cap on, and you've worked in the yard for half the day, scrubbed your kitchen, vacuumed the downstairs of your house, and then done a quite disgusting plumbing job and it's now 9:30 at night.  That is straight up sexiness and beauty right there.  And it's about to get even better, y'all.

But before I get started, I know from June's blog how you people are.  I will show y'all my make-up and stuff and the only questions y'all will ask are:  (1) What is that a painting of in the background; and (2) what is that thing in the floor behind you.

That thing in the floor that you may see is a litter box.

And the painting on the wall behind me is a weird butterfly piece I did a couple of years ago and this is what it looks like so we can put that question to rest right away:

It says, "Let your wings unfold.  Fly with those who encourage you."

I don't know why the wall looks kind of gold in that photo.  It's actually green.  Here's a bonus picture of another butterfly painting I did which is also in this hallway but you can't see it in any of the photos.  I like to paint butterflies.  They are easy to paint.

Anyway, let's get back to Halloween make-up.  As you can tell from my crazy hair photos, I don't wear a whole lot of make-up.  My chiropractor once asked me, "What is your lipstick color?  It's gorgeous and I think it would look good on my wife."  And I told him, "Um, it's called Chapstick."  And that's what I have on in those pictures up above too.  

So when I painted on my extra thick, very black eyebrows, I freaked the heck out, is what I did:

Shit.  This is not a good look for me.

Holy crap y'all.  That is hilarious looking!

Then I had to put on bright blue eyeshadow.  And a lot of it.  And make tear shapes under my eyes:

This does not appear to be going well.

Then I had to get busy with the liquid eyeliner.  Guess what I've never used in my entire life?  Liquid eyeliner.  I'm glad this was only a practice session because I realized from this little experiment that I need to apply it with a much steadier hand next time.  This was also the point when I got hit with a major hot flash and had to go get myself a fan and plug it in the bathroom and blast myself with cold air: 

I have no words.

Believe it or not, I am not dressing up as a rabid clown hunting its next meal for Halloween.  And hello there, litter box.

After the eyes were semi finished, I had to use a black waxy crayon type thing from the Halloween store to outline my entire face, outline my lips, and OMG, put black in my nostrils which is something that is totally bizarre, and add some other random marks on my face.  This just keeps getting better and sexier:

 I'm not your average white girl.

And now it's time for bright, fire engine red lipstick.  On me.  The girl who wears Chapstick every single day of her life:

 Well, this is just getting worse by the second.

That lipstick is from the Geisha costume line of the Spirit Halloween store if any of you want to get some.  I'm also not dressing up as a sad Geisha girl for Halloween.  Or a rabid Geisha girl.

Have any of you figured out what I'm going to be yet?  

Me neither from the looks of how this was going so far.

It's official.  I need to be committed.

I love how my old man pieces of short new hair growth have now started coming out from under the lovely wig cap and are sticking out.  I've never worn a wig cap before.  Turns out I could have cut up and stuck some old pantyhose on my head because that's all it is. 

Now it's time to add my very natural looking red pageboy wig:

Sadly, this is the completed look.  Yes.  This is as good as it's going to get.

And there you have it!  I am a Roy Lichtenstein-ish pop art/comic book girl.  Except when I do it next time I'm going to have a steadier hand.  And I'm going to make smaller dots on my face.  And I have a comic book necklace and stuff to wear.  I'm also going to make a quotation bubble out of paper and pin it to my shirt that says something such as:  Oh Jeff...I Love You, Too....But.... which is one of his famous ones.

After I laughed myself sick and into a coma at how ridiculous I looked, I thought I should get that crap washed off my face pronto.

I scrubbed my face THREE times with heavy duty cleanser.  I still had black around my lips, all over my eyelids, down the side of my face, and all up under my eyes.

I then used an entire cap full of Vitamin E oil and half a box of cotton swabs and finally got that mess off my face.

And this is why I will never use liquid eye liner again.  Except when I dress up to go to the Halloween parade in a couple of weeks.  And when I dress up to hand out candy in my 'hood.

The End.

I'm a grown up. How did THAT happen? Damn it.

This is the story of how shoe inserts became a gigantic pain in my butt and how they wasted hours of my life I will never get back.

Once upon a time, there was an overweight lady who worked a second job at a paint studio for 5 years where she stood on concrete floors for about 6 hours per shift, 3 or 4 times per week, and she stupidly did it in flip flops.  The overweight lady developed plantar fasciitis that is so painful at times she can barely stand up.  Or walk.  Tears are often involved.

She went to Target earlier this week to buy a new coffee maker and bought some Walkfit Premium shoe inserts when she was there.  (Because the overweight lady can never go to Target to buy one thing and not walk out with several more things.)  They also have a cool buggy escalator so she always goes upstairs to look around and ends up buying stuff from up there even if she doesn't need a damn thing upstairs.  Because the overweight lady is, well, she's kind of a dork.

But the overweight lady doesn't put Scott toilet paper in her buggy.  She's an Angel Soft lady.

She took her new coffee maker and Walkfit Platinum shoe inserts home (along with her paper plates, crock pot liners, and face cleanser that she also had not planned to buy) and the next morning she put her Walkfit inserts into her Alegria shoes.  She has three pairs of theses shoes and wears them every single day even though they are not very cute.  But they seem to help the tiniest bit with her pain.

Now you might notice something right away but the overweight lady had to learn it for herself as she almost tripped and fell down on concrete as a start to her Tuesday morning and that is that by the time she got halfway from her front door down the driveway headed to her garage, there was a big ass problem.  The inserts don't stay in these shoes.  No.  They start falling right out of the back BECAUSE THEY ARE OPEN HEELED SHOES DUMB OVERWEIGHT LADY.  

So the dumb overweight lady put the inserts in her purse and went to work.  She put them in her shoes when she sat at her desk which obviously didn't do much but she hoped her feet would get used to the feel of them even if she couldn't walk around with them in her shoes.  Plus, the instructions say to start off only wearing them for one hour the first day, two hours the next day, etc. because if not you will curse like a sailor and throw them in the garbage because they will hurt your feet like a mofo.  Okay, maybe the overweight lady exaggerated that last part of their instructions just a bit.   Walkfit possibly said it a little more kindly.  It was more of a suggestion.

Tuesday night she left work and went to DSW to buy some shoes with closed heels.  So now the plantar fasciitis has cost her years of pain, $360 for three pairs of Alegria shoes because nurses swear by them since they are on their feet all day (but after wearing very little else for 3 or 4 years the overweight lady still lives with pain), $19.95 for Walkfit Platinum shoe inserts, and whatever the cost would be of a new pair of shoes with closed heels because the overweight lady has no other comfortable shoes to use them in.

The overweight lady tried on approximately 43057843058 pairs of shoes and even resorted to trying on Van's skater sneakers which are hardly acceptable for her line of work at a law firm, but she was going to wear them anyway.  Damn it.  The problem is that the overweight lady has very un-lady like feet.  She already wears a size 10 or 11.  I know.  Bless her heart.  The Walkfit Platinum insert instructions also say that you should not wear them in tight fitting shoes because if you do you will curse like a sailor and throw them in the garbage because they will hurt your feet like a mofo.  Again, perhaps the overweight lady exaggerated just a bit.  

The Walkfit inserts take up a lot of room in a pair of shoes.  And it's hard to find women's shoes in a size bigger than 11 in a normal shoe store.  The other issue the overweight lady has is that she has narrow heels.  A few of the shoes fit with the inserts but they were about two sizes too big in the heel so she might have helped her plantar fasciitis, but then she would have to live with heel blisters.  She would be off on the wrong foot again.  Shooting herself in the foot.  Taking a step backwards.  So after she tried on the 43057843058 pairs of shoes with the insert, the overweight lady discovered that there were no shoes that would work for her.  Two employees were asked, but they could offer no help.

The overweight lady left feeling very defeated and went home.

On Wednesday, the overweight lady decided she would have to spend another small fortune on another pair of Alegria shoes that have closed heels.  She went online to find local retailers and discovered the Belk's at the mall a couple of blocks from her office carried them and although the overweight lady really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really hates going to a mall, she decided to go after work.  

She tried on this style:

And she tried on this style:

 

And guess what happened?

She asked for the same size she's been wearing for the past 3 or 4 years which are very loose and yet with the inserts, these would not fit on her foot.

And then guess what happened?

The salesman made the overweight lady realize something:

SHE IS A COMPLETE MORON!!!!!!

Because guess what?  Just guess.

The inserts that are already in Alegria shoes to make them all supportive and comfortable and stuff for people who are on their feet all day, COME OUT OF THE SHOES.

They just come right out.

So guess what else?

When the overweight lady waited for the salesman to walk off for a second, she took the inserts out of the shoes she already has and it makes the shoes have a little lip at the back and the inserts don't fly out of the back of the open heeled shoes.

The overweight lady has had her Walkfit Platinum inserts in her shoes this morning (the shoes she already had) and has walked around the office a bit and they haven't fallen out of her shoes even once.

So instead of spending $120 on a new pair of shoes, she ordered this online this morning:

A pressure washer.

I think when a lady buys a pressure washer instead of new shoes it means she's totally screwed up and let herself become a responsible adult.  One with filthy dirty siding on her house.

Me and a pressure washer.  This should be interesting.

We were never a granola family growing up

First things first.  Here are the Music Tuesday results:

First place goes to Anita for Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolfe:

Second place goes to Karen for Heart's Magic Man:

Third place goes to Sadie for Fortune Teller by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss:

Here are some I came up with:

I'm going to practice shimmying my money makers like that belly dancer in the Santana video.  I want my milkshake to bring all the boys to the yard.

On to my boring nonsense now.

Monday night I went to Target and bought me a new coffee maker.  It has no carafe so 20+ years from now I will be stuck with this thing because I'll have no pot to break when I'm chasing a bug across the counter and no excuse to go buy a new one.

When did coffee makers get so dadgum expensive, y'all?  Well, I guess a lot of things cost more than they did 20 years ago.

This is the one I bought:

I mainly bought it because of four things:  (1) I went online while standing in the store and saw that it has good reviews; (2) there is no glass pot to break; (3) it didn't cost 9 million dollars like a Keurig;  and (4) it brews iced coffee, y'all!  Iced coffee!  My favorite kind of coffee.  Hot flashes and hot coffee are not a good mix and I've preferred iced coffee for most of my life.  My Mam-ma used to give us iced coffee as a special treat sometimes when we were kids and visited her down in Vidalia, Georgia (yes, where the onions are from and where it is so hot in the summer that you feel like you are standing on the surface of the sun).  She also fed us homemade ice cream, purple cows (ice cream floats made with grape juice), Whoppers by the carton, Coke by the liter, twice-baked potatoes, homemade biscuits, the world's best homemade potato soup loaded up with cream and butter, deviled ham, vienna sausages and fried fatback so I think we can safely say that Mam-ma wasn't so worried about healthy eating.  And had I known what on earth fatback was when I was a kid, I never would have eaten it.  Ick.

My grandfather also butchered a pig on the kitchen table once and I wouldn't eat anything pork for many years.   He was an inspector with the Department of Agriculture and inspected livestock.  That's how he ended up with a pig to butcher.  When he made his homemade barbecue with homemade vinegar based sauce, they would tell me it was something other than pork and I ate that stuff right up.  They also told me fatback was something else besides fried pork fat.

I've never claimed to be smart.

Anyway, and does anyone else feel stab-y when people say anywho instead of anyway?  I do. I'm also getting tired of the sudden onslaught of people posting camel photos on Facebook every single Wednesday for hump day.  We've called it that forever.  Why all the camels suddenly?  I'm also tired of all of the things people post on Facebook that tell me if I don't share them or like them or comment on them that I don't like Jesus or I'm not supportive of disabled people, that I can't think of a dog's name that doesn't have an 'a' in it, etc..  (Um, Fido?)

Anyway, when I got home Monday night, I took a picture of the coffee maker box and texted it to my mom with a message that said, "DO NOT PANIC!  NO STRESSING OUT!  I bought a new coffee maker and will figure out how to use it before your arrival."  She's coming the last weekend of October (possibly for the party but it's also possible she won't get here until the day after the party) and she MUST HAVE COFFEE UPON WAKING.  She called me yesterday and when I answered the phone she was cracking up.  She said when she first saw the message she thought, "Oh no.  What has she done now?  Do not panic?  This can't be good."  My mom apparently has little faith in me.

I also bought these when I was at Target to see if they will help my plantar fasciitis:

And this caused a whole pain in my butt type of situation.  Not literally.  My butt is fine.  I will tell you about it tomorrow.  No, wait.  I'm not going to tell you about my fine butt.  I'll tell you about the situation the Walkfit Platinum caused.

Baton twirlers, sore bodies, psychics and a guy who made me speechless. Just an average Sunday in Atlanta.

My boring Sundays normally consists of me cooking all of my lunches and dinners for the week.

This week I will be eating ham sandwiches and cereal all week because I cooked nothing this weekend.  I was too busy having fun.  Except for Sunday morning when I could have cooked but instead lounged in my pj's on the sofa watching my stories.

When we were at my neighbors' house watching football on Saturday, they asked my brother and I if we wanted to go to a festival with them on Sunday and we said yes.  The part I didn't realize is that we were going to walk there.  I'm not opposed to walking normally, but I have the horrible plantar fasciitis and it is a vicious cycle:  once you get up and walk for a little bit, it stretches everything out and it hurts a little bit less (but never goes completely away) but then you can go just over the line and walk too much and then it hurts like hell and walking a lot also makes it hurt even worse once you stop and sit for a little bit and then stand back up.  Apparently when you walk about 3-4 miles, it will make you cry because it hurts so bad which is what I learned yesterday.

My brother has it too and so when he got to my house I told him I was wearing my Nike Air sneakers to see if they would help and he suggested I throw a couple of cans of vegetables in the freezer and put my feet on them when I got back home.  So I did:

It felt pretty good and they were feeling a little better after 10 minutes of icing them.  But if I were you, I would not eat any cannellini beans if I offer them to you at my house.  By the time I got upstairs to my bedroom I was in severe pain again and I took some ibuprofen and went to bed.

At 5:00 a.m. I had to get up and pee and I honestly was unsure I could walk to the bathroom my feet were in so much pain.  I tried stretching, and then I just held on to the wall and stumbled slowly to the bathroom while a stream of curse words came out of my mouth.

As Monday went on, everything else started hurting.  My butt, my hips, my thighs, etc.  We were sitting on a steep hill on a lawn and trying not to slide down while we watched some bands at the festival and I looked at my two female neighbors at some point and said, "I have tons of padding.  But my ass is killing me.  And my right foot is completely asleep because I've had it dug into the ground in one spot to keep from sliding down the hill."  They said their asses hurt, their hips hurt, their feet hurt, everything hurt, so we decided to get up and walk around some more.  Which helped my plantar fasciitis is what it did.

When we first arrived at the festival and before we tried not to slide down the hill, we walked around and looked at some art.  And then we looked at Baton Bob standing in a fire pit in his flapper-ish get up and tiara:

Baton Bob is my most favorite local Atlanta celebrity of all and my brother and friends all looked at me like I was crazy when I suddenly exclaimed, "AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!  BATON BOB IS HERE!!!" and ran over and started snapping photos of him.  They had never seen him or heard of him and I had not heard my 7-year-old neighbor ask, "Why is that man dressed up like a lady?" right before I saw him and had my outburst.  He is the self-proclaimed Ambassador of Mirth for the City of Atlanta.  He marches, dances, sings, blows a whistle and twirls his baton proudly around Atlanta while dressed up in various costumes - on the streets every single day, and at festivals, parades, etc. - and he makes me so happy when I see him.  He is fabulous.  One of my friends gave me an artwork print that says "Live Every Day Like Baton Bob" for my birthday because she knows how much I adore him.  I am friends with him on Facebook and I posted one of these pictures and tagged him in it.  He commented that he was Rolling Down the River and another person commented that This Guuurrrrllll is on Fire!  Yes, indeed.

Later, after we tried not to slide down the hill and after I went to a psychic, I was standing with my brother and my friends and I happened to see this out of the corner of my eye:

And I almost lost it on the inside.  Almost lost the Jamaican meat pie I had eaten 15 minutes previously, that is.  I was speechless on the outside.

I was trying to sneak another picture from the front and just as I was about to take it, he looked right at me.  So I asked, "Do you mind if I take your picture?"

He very sarcastically responded, "Oh no!  Can't you tell I just hate attention?  I can't stand having people look at me and wanting to take my photo!  Wait just a minute and let me put my drink down so you can get a good one."  And then he put his drink down (no telling what was in his sports bottle) and started shaking his Shake Weight at us.  Oh yes, he did.

We have interesting folks here in Atlanta.  Yes, indeed.

At some point in the day, we walked past a booth that celebrated baldness.  So my neighbor bought my brother a new shirt but he would only buy it if my brother agreed to wear it right away:

This brother is a detective so I'm just waiting for him to investigate why I posted his photo on my blog.

And yes, at some point we passed a psychic booth.  I looked at my friends and said, "I've always wanted to do this.  I'm going to do it right now."

For $20, I had my tarot cards read.  One of my neighbors came over with me and asked, "Do you mind if I stand here and listen?" and I told her it didn't bother me at all.  The psychic told her she needed to back up some because her energy would get too mixed up with mine.  Yes.  Of course.  She backed up.  The psychic told her she was still to close.  So she left.  

She had me shuffle the cards and then she placed them in different piles in front of her and said, "Hmmmm.  Oh.  Hum?  Oh, yes.  I see," several times.

She then asked me to think of two wishes and I was to tell her one wish and keep one to myself.  She told me my verbal wish was a good one but then said nothing else about it during our session.  It was about my mom so it did not give this psychic any information about what she talked about with me.

The wish I kept to myself was actually what she immediately began discussing which was kind of weird.  Y'all know I'm in the oddest of relationships and situations with my boyfriend being stuck in Brazil right now, fake kids, etc.  She looked at me and said, "I see you are under an unusual amount of stress and this stress is from something that has recently started.  I also see you're in a relationship that you are having some doubts about.  You feel like you are putting all of your energy and emotion into the relationship but you don't feel like this guy is reciprocating and he's not putting the same amount of energy and effort in that you are.  You've recently begun having some doubts.  You should not have any doubts.  This is a very good relationship, he is a very good man, and he loves you very, very much.  The issue in this relationship is not him.  It's not how much he is committed to you or loves you.  He is 100% committed to you and loves you with all of his heart.  The issue is yours.  It has nothing to do with this man.  It is something from your past.  Someone left you and it's causing trust issues with you to this day.  Don't let it mess up this relationship you are in.  This relationship is very good for you."

She asked me if that made sense and I told her it did.  She then said, "There is someone that was a very important part of your life, it was a man and you felt like he let you down when he was the one person who should never have let you down.  You trusted him.  You loved him.  And he abandoned you.  Tell me what happened."

I told her my ex-husband walked out on me fairly unexpectedly.  She said, "I'm so sorry that happened.  But that's not it.  This goes back much further to when you were a child.  Someone special in your life abandoned you at a very critical time.  There was something very traumatic going on when he abandoned you and you are now having trust issues in your relationships because of it. Tell me what happened."

And I explained that my biological mom died when I was 5 years old and my dad emotionally checked out from all of us for pretty much the rest of his life.  And she said, "That's it.  You must figure out how to get past this because it's holding you back so much.  There is a part of your spirit that feels dead because you've never worked through this and you are not happy.  You can't find happiness in your work even though I see in the cards that you have a very good job and have had some accomplishments.  You can't feel happy about it because a part of you feels dead.  You aren't truly letting yourself go and open up in your relationship.  And you need to find a way to do that.  You are in a hole.  It's not a deep hole and it's not a horrible hole, but it's a rut in the road that is holding you back from complete happiness.  I see that you are a very good person.  You give to your friends and family whenever they need anything at all.  You are surrounded by good people and many blessings but you can't enjoy them completely because of this.  I see a very long and healthy life for you.  But you need to figure out how to move on from this thing from your past so you can enjoy it fully.  You are not happy."

She then said she wants to look into my birth date and examine things further and she will not charge me for it.  I gave her my birth date and phone number.  So we will see......

Before I got up she said, "Don't go over there and tell all of your friends here with you what we've talked about.  I feel a lot of gossip surrounds you."  She didn't say I couldn't discuss it on my blog....

After we walked away, I told them what she said.  My friend said, "We don't gossip.  We say stuff straight to your face!" They absolutely do.  In fact, she had just had a long talk with me the day before about my relationship and that she loves me and worries for me.

I realize the stuff this psychic said is somewhat general and probably applies to most of the population, but it did hit dead on for me.  I've never been one to totally believe in that kind of stuff, but I also know she's right:  I need to figure out how to move on from how my dad made me feel most of my life - emotionally abandoned and like I need to totally look out for myself and not completely trust people.

I totally forgot to do Music Monday yesterday so we'll have Music Tuesday this week.  The theme for this week is:  psychics!  The song(s) you submit must contain a word in the title that have something to do with psychics:  fortune, cards, tarot, magic, etc.