My ass got rubbed by a woman. I painted a bride's face. And I took way more photos than I planned on of a super hot cop.

Imma catch y'all up on the craziness that has been going on over the past few days.

Last Wednesday night I went out to dinner with some girls I worked with at a previous job.  I had forgotten how much we used to laugh when we spent time together.  I think we're going to try and get together once a month or so.  We covered a lot of topics and, as these types of get togethers go, we discussed some of the more interesting people we worked with.

And at the top of the list was a "lady" I will call Jay.  "Lady" in quotes because we were not convinced she was really a she.  And Jay because her name began with J but Jay would have been a better name for her than the rather girlie name she had.  She was the size of a linebacker, y'all.  Nothing about her was feminine - her size, her face, her voice, or her personality.  A friend of mine who worked with us has very nice calves and she wears skirts or dresses most of the time.  She was standing in the copy room one day and Jay walked in.  Jay got down on one knee and rubbed her hands up and down my friend's calves and told her how hot she was.  Another friend was in the copy room one day and had a skirt on with a slit up the side.  It wasn't a slutty slit, it was a professional slit.  Jay ran her hands up and down her thigh and said, "You know men like a girl with meaty thighs, right?"  And one day we were at a group lunch for someone's birthday and as much as I didn't want to, I wound up sitting next to Jay.  We were sitting in ladder back chairs and suddenly I felt her hand rubbing all over my bum through the opening in the chair.  I leaned over and whispered to the person on the other side of me, "Please scoot over.  Jay is rubbing my ass."  Sadly, it did not seem to be a surprise statement.  We scooted over.  Jay scooted over.  We could only scoot so far so I just let Jay rub my ass during lunch that day and somehow managed to never sit next to her again. But her first week there she told my two friends I had dinner with last week that she had helped her horny dog by giving him, um, you know, manual assistance.  Y'all!  Seriously!  It's bad enough she did it but keep that kind of weirdness to yourself.

Thursday was not fun.  I was just slammed with work so I couldn't blog.  And Friday was more of the same.  I got to work an hour late because I went early for an oil change and to get a headlight replaced in my car and they told me I needed new brakes - front and back.  So the $65 I expected to spend turned into almost $350.  He told me my rear brakes were at 2%.  I told him that didn't sound good at all.  "No, it's not. But your front brakes are worse.  They're at 1%."  And then he showed me that one pad was separating and about to fall right off of my car which probably would have been kind of bad.  So Karen, be glad my brake pad didn't fall off when I was driving you around Atlanta last weekend!

Now get ready for a lot of pictures.  Because Saturday was the L5P Halloween Parade. 

My neighbor and her daughter asked me if I would do their makeup for them so they came over to my house and we got ready.

Here I am with the zombie daughter:

And here is her mom, who says she's a good witch.  You can't really see it in this photo, but she had a spider web off one eye and a black widow spider on one cheek:

Here's a close up of how my makeup turned out for showtime as opposed to the practice version y'all saw recently:

 And off we went with some other people to L5P for the day.  The parade was so much fun!  This was my second year going.  They estimate about 35,000 people attend and that sounds about right because it is packed with people in the area.  It's not a kid's parade and sometimes the families from the 'burbs come down and they are appalled.  And we laugh at them because if you're in Atlanta you should know L5P is not going to be a kid's parade.  My neighbors are friends with the owners of a bar so we get a table and camp there for the afternoon and evening to watch football and watch the parade when we aren't busy watching all of the awesome people.

There was an awesome dog wearing wings:

When I was first taking pictures of the crowd, I realized I also happened to take a picture of the super hot police officer who was working crowd control right where we happened to be standing:

Seriously.....let's crop in a little closer and check his cute self out:

As the parade started, people moved in front of me and I ended up just holding my phone up over people's heads and taking photos not knowing what on earth was going to end up in them.  Turns out the cute cop ended up in a whole bunch of them.  That's okay with me.

Hi scary dude with pointy ears.  And oh, hello Officer McHottie:

Here comes Godzilla!  And hello again, Officer McHottie:

Hi random parade people who I don't remember what you were representing.  And could it be?  Is that also Officer McHottie?:

Disco is dead.  But Officer McHottie is very, very much alive.  And well:

Grunge and Mumford are also dead.  But Officer McHottie is still alive and kicking!:

I don't know who this is made of cardboard boxes.  But, wait!  Where is Officer McHottie???:

Oh good.  Here he is!

This was one of my favorite parts of the parade (besides Officer McHottie).  The building across the street with the black awning is the Corner Tavern.  They recently had a fire so their parade float was a fire truck.  SO AWESOME:

I think Officer McHottie liked it too.  The girl dressed up as a firefighter made me laugh until my stomach hurt:

Some cool band but I don't remember their name.  And Officer McHottie:

Clearly these photos are in no order whatsoever because here is another cardboard box character.  And Officer McHottie.  And neighbor's daughter is the little blonde.  She had given up on her zombie wig:

Seriously Officer McHottie.  Did you get in 95% of my photos or what?

Yes.  Yes, he did:

I almost missed him, but the guy with the batman pants and the yellow thing on top of his head is a guy I've talked about before.  It's Baton Bob and I adore him:

These creatures are some of my favorites:

I think Officer McHottie agrees with me:

And I think these creatures agree with me that Officer McHottie is hot.  This one came over and hugged all over him.  Get your voluptuous hot pink breasts off my man's head!

This is the Seed & Feed Marching Abominable Band:

 

WAIT JUST A MINUTE!  Another creature wants to hug all over my man, Officer McHottie?

I don't think I approved of this:

 

Goodbye, Officer McHottie.  Until we meet again.....

We then went back into the bar and hung out for a couple of more hours.

And thank goodness we did or I might have missed Hulk Hogan in the flesh!  Lots and lots of flesh:

This random girl was sitting quietly with her friends at the table next to us and suddenly she jumped up and started flapping her cape/wing things.  And just as soon as she started it was over and she sat back down.  And I still don't know what made her jump up and do a 10 second flapping show but here it is (and please ignore my neighbor stuffing food in her mouth):

 

As she sat back down she turned and looked at me and said, "I wanted to be what you are but instead I am this."  

I had 4 people come up and ask if they could take photos with me, y'all.  

But eventually we decided to leave so we were all paying our tabs and then my neighbors wandered off for who knows what - one went to one part of the bar, the other went outside, and so I sat at the table with a couple of our other friends waiting for them and their daughter since I rode with them.

Little did I know that the best part of the entire day was about to happen.

My neighbor came stampeding in the door (no, really - she was actually stampeding) and she had a couple right behind her.  She walked up to our table and flung her arms out in a very dramatic fashion and said loudly, "I'VE BROUGHT US SOME NEW PEOPLE!"

 And oh she had.

She told us they had just gotten married the day before and they were celebrating their honeymoon.  At the L5P Halloween Parade.  Let that just sink in and settle in your brain for a minute.

And y'all, I am not sure if I've ever looked at a couple and thought they were more mismatched than this couple was.  He had half of his face tattooed, with dreadlocks and a long goatee.  She looked very plain jane with her hair in a bun, wire framed glasses, not a bit of makeup on her face and looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

The other two friends sitting at the table with me just stared at them so I decided to try and make conversation:

"Y'all just got married yesterday?  Congratulations!"

If y'all come to the party on Saturday I will have to demonstrate their accents because there is absolutely no way to write the way this couple talked.  At first I honest to goodness thought my neighbor was playing a joke on us.  Or that Candid Camera was right around the corner filming us or something.  Seriously.  There is really no sense in me writing out the conversation because the accents are what made the entire thing so side splittingly funny.  I could not even look at my neighbor when I was talking with this couple because I knew I would burst out laughing.  But please remind me on Saturday because it was the most hysterical thing I've experienced in a long, long time.

They were absolutely as sweet as they could be but the minute they opened their mouths I thought I was on a set being filmed in a sequel of Sling Blade.

Before I knew it, the bride asked me if I would do her face up to look just like mine.

Um.  No.  I will not.  

I told her my makeup took over an hour to do and we were about to leave.  So she asked me if I would just put polka dots all over her face.  But first she wanted to know how much I charge.  Ha!  She was completely blown away when I told her I would do it for free.

And that's how I ended up sitting in a bar in L5P after a parade dressed up as a pop art character and putting polka dots all over a brand new bride's face

I need a vacation stat!

I haven't forgotten to blog, I just haven't had time because work has been insanely busy.

So go watch at this so you'll know I'm not the only one who falls down a lot:

And then go watch one of my favorite videos of all time.  And if you have to ask me what you're supposed to watch in it, well, I don't even know what to say:

I will try to blog on Monday to tell you about all of the dumb things that have happened over the past couple of days.  And tomorrow is the Halloween parade in Little 5 Points so I'm sure there will be some stories about that.

Have a great weekend!

Please, girls. Take a shower. Brush your teeth. And don't bother me with emails.

I was going to write about my trip to Cyprus, Israel and Egypt today but Kristine asked in the comments on yesterday's post about how HB and I met so I decided to write about that instead.  Mainly because the trip post is photo heavy and I'm kind of tight on time today.

My ex and I's divorce was final the Friday of Memorial Day weekend in 2004.  We had been separated and living apart for just shy of a year at that point.  About 6 months into our separation and while negotiations were ongoing and there was no question of us not going through with the divorce, I met a guy in a martini bar one night.  He lived in D.C. and was a flamenco guitar player and cantaor (singer) and had come to Atlanta to perform.  He was out with some friends after his performance, I was out with a friend, and we met by the piano listening to a blues band.

We went and had coffee together that night, exchanged numbers and got to know each other through phone calls and emails.  Oh, the craziness that went on in that odd relationship.  Perhaps I will blog about it in the future.  There was a crazy ex-girlfriend of his involved.  He had to sneak me around D.C. so she wouldn't find out about me which created some great stories (like the night I had to sneak to take a shower and almost fell in a koi pond outside a mansion).  I had to sneak him around Atlanta so my parents wouldn't know he ever came down and stayed at my house because even though I was in my mid 30s and had been married I was not allowed to have men over in my own house apparently (which led to me yelling at my mom for the first time ever in my life and she cried and I felt like a schmuck).  He is one of the most intelligent (book smarts) men I know, but also much older than me and one of the most irresponsible people I've ever known.  He was so much fun and we had such a good time together even though I knew he would never be anything other than my transition guy.  We are still friends to this day.  But eventually I got to the point that I knew I wanted to find a different relationship.  One that didn't make me almost drown in a koi pond because that's an important trait in a good relationship, I think.

So I joined match-dot-com.

I met some completely certifiably insane men on there like the guy who gave me a present on our second (and final) date - a sex toy in a grocery store bag which he handed me in the parking lot of a pizza place.  I am not kidding, y'all.  He gave me a dozen roses on our first date and a sex toy in a grocery bag on the second one.  There was the guy who had lost his twin brother 5 years previously who broke down crying in the middle of our first (and only) date and also informed me that he and his ex still went out 3 nights per week and I would have to be okay with that.  Another guy told me that 2 nights a week he would be unreachable because he would be at his AA meetings and that he still lived with his parents since they had custody of his kids due to his alcoholism and that their mother was in prison.  Another guy told me within 5 minutes of meeting him that I had met my angel because he was going to help me lose weight, criticized our server because he limped, proceeded to demonstrate how his dog foams at the mouth after eating frogs, and then told me his ex broke up with him because he and her mother had slept together back in the 70s but had kept that info to themselves for the 7 years he dated the daughter.  He called me later and told me he's surprised I can fit my truck-sized ass through my front door, then called me the next day and asked me out again.  One guy broke up with me and blocked my emails two different times before we ever met in person.

Oh.  I could go on for hours about the nonsense.

I did date one guy for about 6 months but then he said he was going to Colorado for a month or two and while he was gone he wanted me to lose a bunch of weight so he could marry me when he got back.  And then sent me a diet.

Dumped him.

And I dated another guy for about 9 months who I was completely crazy about but then he moved to Ohio for his job, he had me visit him up there, 2 months later he moved back here and told me he didn't want to see me anymore because he loved me but would never be in love with me.  And then for the next 3 years he called me and said he had been unable to meet anyone else like me and would I go out with him again. 

No.

Finally I decided I was over the online dating thing.  I was actually completely over dating in general.  I had discovered every man in Atlanta seemed to be crazy and I was tired of it making me feel depressed and bad about myself.  I decided I'd much prefer to be single.  I had about one week left on my membership when I received a "wink" from HB.  If you're unfamiliar with Match, that is how someone lets you know they are interested in you.

I sighed heavily when it popped up in my email and then clicked on his profile.  Within 30 seconds I thought, "There is no way I would get along with this guy."  But I kept reading.  And it reinforced my initial reaction.

He said he expected a girl who brushed her teeth and went to the dentist.  He expected a girl who showered each day.  He said he is not a bank account and not to ask him what he does for a living.  He would not chat back and forth on his computer because his computer is for work, not socializing.  That initial contact that way would be it and then we needed to meet in person and not waste time emailing.  Y'all, it went on and on like that.  He sounded like a giant ass. 

But he was cute.  Damn it.

I winked back at him to be nice knowing my Match days were numbered and nothing would come of it.  Within an hour he sent me an email.  He thanked me for winking back and asked if I would meet him for coffee that Friday or Saturday.

I kept looking at how cute he was.  Damn it.

I finally thought, "What the heck.  Let's have one final hoorah on here and go out with a Brazilian guy for a final date."  We arranged to meet at the Starbucks in a Barnes and Noble that Saturday afternoon.

As the week went on I started wishing I hadn't set the date up.  On Saturday morning a friend of mine called and asked what I was doing that day.  I told her I had a stupid first date that I regretted agreeing to and that I absolutely didn't want to go.

"What are you going to wear?" she asked.

"I have no clue.  I don't even care," I replied.

"What time do you have to leave?"

"In 20 minutes."

"YOU'RE GOING ON A DATE IN 20 MINUTES, DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE WEARING AND AREN'T GETTING READY?" she screamed in my ear.

"I DON'T WANT TO GO AND DON'T CARE!" I screamed back.

We hung up a few minutes later, I still sat there and then realized I had 10 minutes until I needed to leave.

I sighed most heavily and got off the sofa.  I was so unhappy that I had to get dressed and leave my house.

I threw on a pair of khakis, a tank top and a denim jacket and brushed my teeth since he expects that of girls and not because most people do that anyway, grabbed my purse and trudged along to my car and then to the book store.

I stood near the Starbucks waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

He was 15 minutes late.

Strike one.

He apologized profusely and his accent made me think, "Okay.  1/2 a strike tops." 

And his tallness and handsomeness made me think, "Okay.  Let's do away with that strike completely."

We got in line, I ordered a coffee, he ordered a hot tea because he's not a coffee drinker, and we found a table.  And then we talked for 3.5 hours with no awkward silences and I was pretty much head over heels.

Damn it.

He finally said he needed to leave because he had work to do and as much as I wanted to ask him what he did I refrained because he specifically said in his profile not to ask him.  And I really, really liked this guy.  We walked out the front door and he asked if he could hug me and I said that would be very nice.

Y'all.  I was done after that.  He gives the best hugs in the world that swallow you up whole.

He then asked if he could see me again the following weekend and before my knees collapsed from the hug, I said I would love to see him again.

When we went out again he said one of the many reasons he asked me out again is because I was the first girl he had met from online that didn't ask him what he does for a living and he knew I had read what he wrote and respected what he asked.

November 11th will be the 7th anniversary of that hug that rocked my world in the Barnes and Noble parking lot and changed my life forever.

Please just walk off and never look back.

Today I will continue talking to y'all about my trip to Brazil.  But before I do that, I know there are a couple of you who are not on Facebook and/or not in the Pie on the Face group page so you may not have seen this.  June Gardens (through Talu) posted the following and you may want to help out:

Momz friend charlee, the one who cant walk, is askeeng for people to take picture of self with "I heart you Charlie" or "I love you Charlie" or "Go Charlie" or whatever and send to him. He having bad time lately. If you want to do that, take picture and email to mom at byebyepieblog@gmail.com.

 I sent the following photo:

I told June to tell him I am sending him a kiss, not a duck face.  And I made it blurry on purpose so he would concentrate on the message and not my kiss that looks like a duck face.

And let's see how many different fonts and font sizes can be contained in one post.  It won't let me change the font on what I copied and pasted from June.

On to Brazil.

As I told y'all in my previous post about the trip, there is nothing tourist-y or fun to do in the city we were in (and I use the term "city" loosely).  There are some wealthy people (the government employees who are corrupt) but pretty much everyone else is very poor.  I saw no middle class to speak of.

We went to a farmer's market (and I know what some of the stuff is, but not everything so you probably should not ask me.  Especially the mystery liquids in the bottles and the bumpy green fruit.  HB told me people with cancer eat the bumpy green fruit a lot and it helps them.  But I don't know what it is other than bumpy green fruit):

This is HB on the left and his friend on the right is a preacher HB was working with a lot at the time:

Y'all, I am no raving beauty, but I kind of stood out in the middle of the Amazon jungle with my pasty white skin.  After the second day of us going around with the preacher, HB said, "He is getting on my nerves talking about you."  I asked what he meant and he said, "The first time he told me he finds you beautiful I was flattered.  The second time he said it I asked him to knock it off.  But now I'm pissed because he won't stop talking about how attractive he thinks you are."  I was just upset that I couldn't understand him when he was saying it.  I kid.  I was just different to him and I think that's what he found attractive.  Not many Americans come to their city.

In fact, the preacher is married and his wife is a nurse for the federal government down there.  She goes into the jungle and treats the tribes who live in the jungle rather than in civilization. They have two sons who were middle school aged at the time.  HB has known the preacher for 10 or 15 years, and we had to stop by their home late one morning for something.  HB and I sat out in front of their house while the preacher went inside.  As we were getting back in the car when he was ready to go again, his wife came running outside and yelled to HB.  Obviously I could not understand a word she was saying.  He told me that she was inviting us to eat lunch with them and asked if I was comfortable doing that.  I told him that sounded great to me - a homemade authentic Brazilian meal?  Yes, please.

He explained that we would need to go buy the groceries because they cannot afford much to eat and we would drop it back off, she would cook while we did some more work related stuff and then we'd go back to eat.

When we went back later to eat, the wife's sister was there helping her cook.  They have 4 people in their family and the house was three rooms:  one bedroom, a bathroom, and an L shaped room which consisted of a teeny tiny kitchen and a teeny tiny living room/dining room.  There was no sofa - only a dining room table and 4 chairs.  They had a couple of pillows on the floor.  They had HB, the preacher, the two sons and I sit at the table where they had made rice, beans, beef, salad, and fresh fruit juice.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  It was one of the best meals I've ever put in my mouth.  The wife and her sister stood against the wall as we were about to eat.  I told HB to ask them to join us so he did.  They said the tradition in the Indian household is for the men and children to eat first and the women ate whatever was left.  Well, y'all can imagine how I felt about that.  He asked her if they would consider making an exception for one meal and they said they would but first they wanted to prepare a little more food for us, etc. so they never ate with us.  I felt very awkward eating with the men and boys and being the only female after knowing their tradition.

Once we finished, they took our plates, washed them, and then came to eat.  It turns out they couldn't eat with us because they did not have enough dishes for everyone.  It made me so sad and I felt awful for trying to get them to join us because I am spoiled and I assume people have enough plates.

After the wife and sister finished eating, HB said they wanted to know if it would be okay if some of their family came over to meet me because they had never seen an American in person before.  I said okay.

Before I knew it, there must have been almost 20 people packed into that tiny house standing in a circle staring at me, y'all!  OMG.  There were aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.  And they were all talking while they stared at me and I had no clue what they were saying.  HB was cracking up because he could tell I was so embarrassed.  He said they were amazed to see a "pink American" in their small, poor village.  I kept insisting that I am not pink.  But when I downloaded my photos later, I realized they were right.  It was so hot in the jungle that my face was hot pink the entire time.

As we got in the car to leave later, HB told me they were so honored that I would allow them to cook a meal for me and eat inside their home.  Then he told me that even though he had known them for 10 or 15 years, they had never invited him inside until I was with him.  He had always sat in a chair outside the front door.

Before we ate in their home, the preacher had told HB over and over that he wanted to take me into the jungle to meet a native tribe and I told him that sounded like an incredible experience.  HB kept making excuses not to do it because he didn't want to scare me.  While we were eating, the preacher told his wife he thought I should meet a tribe.  She quickly shook her head no and told HB that was a terrible idea.  She then had HB translate what would happen.  As I said before, she is a nurse who works with the tribes.  She would need to go to the Brazilian Air Force base and get permission to take me in.  She would then have to go in and seek permission from the chief.  Then she'd return to the Air Force Base where I would have to fill out a lot of documentation, leave copies of my ID, etc. so they knew who I was and she would then take me to meet the chief.  But after that, she would not be able to guarantee my safety.  She said if he liked me, he could decide to grab me and run off and take me as his sex slave, y'all!  And most of the time when they are done with you they kill you rather than release you.

No thank you.

And that is why I did not meet a tribe or Indian chief in the Amazon jungle.  I am not a fan of being a sex slave for an Amazonian Indian chief or dead.  Amen.

The food was TO DIE FOR every single meal I ate and HB said the jungle was not the best food in his country.  This was our complimentary breakfast every morning in our hotel.  No individual box of cereal and container of yogurt like American hotels:

 One night, HB said he wanted to take me to a place that had really good hamburgers.  But he couldn't remember exactly where it was and we drove up and down streets for a while until he finally found it.  We had only eaten a snack at lunch, then we had stopped by the hotel to take one of our 3 or 4 showers a day (because we sweated like crazy and would get stinky and need a shower) and by the time he found the place it was around 8:00.  He told me we would get one hamburger and split it.

"Split a hamburger?  I am starving!"

"Trust me, punkin.  They are big," he replied.

"I can't have my own hamburger?" I asked in a slightly pissed off tone of voice.  "I will pay for my own hamburger if you're just trying to save money or something."

He laughed.  "No, dahlink.  It has nothing to do with money.  They are big.  Let's split one and if you're still hungry we'll get another one.  But you won't be hungry."

Um.

He was right.  I hate when you have to admit a man is right.

This was ONE hamburger at this place cut into four pieces, y'all:

It was the size of a dinner plate.

How 'bout seeing a Brazilian pizza?  Because they are delicious.  It was dark outside when we were eating so these photos aren't too great.

Can y'all tell I'm writing this post when it's almost time for me to eat?  I'm hungry.

So when I wasn't eating delicious food, avoiding being taken as a sex slave, getting money converted by arms dealers, and being stared at by a group of villagers, I went around with HB while he worked.

We went to banks.  We went to government offices.  We went to a couple of newspapers.  HB used to work for the federal government and he does nothing illegally.  He would announce in the newspaper what he was going to do before he did it. 

And one night HB told me he needed to meet with the very corrupt police chief and a couple of his officers.  He said he would like for me to join him.

And he said he'd like me to pretend I understood everything they were talking about and pretend that I was an American attorney.

Um.

So we met with these people at a restaurant and the police chief was kind of an asshole.  Even though I don't know what he said.

While HB talked, from time to time he would pick up a newspaper and open it up, hold it in front of him and read so we couldn't even see his face.

I just sat there and looked back and forth as they each talked, nodded my head from time to time, sometimes I'd lean my head to the side and make a face like I was contemplating something that had just been said, etc.

But I'm not afraid to tell y'all I was slightly scared out of my mind.  I know HB would never have asked me to be there had he felt he was putting me in even the smallest iota of any danger whatsoever, but it was still very weird to sit at a table with your boyfriend, a couple of police officers, and a corrupt police chief in the middle of a city in the Amazon jungle while you have to pretend to be an attorney.  I'm not going to lie.

Anyway, other stuff happened - we went to parks, lakes, we took a trip to a very remote village, I saw things I'll never see again in my lifetime probably, but this post is getting too long to talk about them all in detail.

Eventually, my week in Brazil was over and it was time for me to head back home.  HB and I shared the first flight back to the place I had my layover each way and then he was continuing on to his hometown to go visit his family for a few days.  He did not have to get off the plane.  I cried for the entire two hours because I didn't want to leave.  As we were landing he looked at me and said, "Please do me a favor.  Try to stop crying.  Usually I'm the one leaving people behind when I'm going somewhere, but now you're leaving me and it feels awful.  If you don't stop crying I will start myself.  When you walk off this plane whatever you do, do not look back at me.  I will completely lose it.  Please just walk off and never look back.  I love you."

I didn't look back as much as I wanted to. 

I miss that man so much.

Internet hook ups, dumpster diving, a high guy in my car, and hiring a guy from the 'hood. Yes. It was quite a weekend, y'all.

The rest of the Brazil story is going to have to wait because today Imma tell y'all about my weekend because it was full of fun, frustration and total crazy.

Karen from Virginia Beach was in Atlanta this weekend and she wasn't sure she was going to be able to escape her family to meet up with me but she told them they needed to get over it and they got scared of her so they let her go.  I'm kidding.  I have no idea what their discussions were like.  I think her daughter was a bit freaked out that her mom was going to go jump in the car with some crazy lady from the internet she had never met before, but Karen did it anyway.

Only she did it 30 minutes later than we had agreed on and this is going to sound confusing but I knew exactly how to get to her hotel, however, I was one lane over from where I needed to be on Freedom Parkway and there was a lot of traffic and no one would let me over so I ended up going in the opposite direction from where I needed to go and got on the expressway instead of Andrew Young International Boulevard.  I got off on the first exit and got myself good and lost because I might be a native of Atlanta, but that doesn't mean I go driving around in the middle of downtown very often.  I actually live 2 miles from downtown.  But I get lost downtown.  I keep telling y'all I've never claimed to be very smart. 

But my biggest problem is that if there were a contest for World's Biggest Lack of Any Sense of Direction Whatsoever, I would win without question.  I have to blame my biological mom since she died when I was young and I have no one else in my family to blame, because she apparently did not give me the sense of direction gene.  My dad (when he was alive) and both of my brothers could be in a city they've never been to in their life and you could tell them you need to find a laundromat next door to an Episcopal church built out of stone with a red front door and within five minutes they would find it.  And if you asked me to do the same thing, I could drive around for 4 days and never even find a laundromat.  I got out my GPS and put in the street address for Karen's hotel.  But my GPS is an asshole and took me to the bus station which is not even on the same street.  And yes, I double checked what I entered and I had entered it correctly.  Then I searched by lodging, chose her hotel and started out again.  This time I got held up by a long and very slow train.

I also saw this salon while I was lost and thought, what the heck?  That seems rather offensive to me. 

Eventually I made it to her hotel and she jumped in my car and we hugged and we didn't stop talking until I dropped her back off  about an hour and a half later.  I drove around and got lost again so she saw all kinds of stuff in Atlanta.  I got out my asshole GPS again and drove her through Little 5 Points since I mention it a lot, and then I took her to Virginia Highlands for lunch.  I decided to take her to Manuel's Tavern, not because they have the best food in Atlanta because it's basic bar food, but because it's kind of an institution in Atlanta and has been around since the 1950s.

And because they have this hilarious sign in their parking lot:

This is the only photo either of us took the entire time we hung out.  But I will tell y'all that Karen is gorgeous.  And sweet.  And I felt like I had known her half my life.  I hope she'll come back to Atlanta sometime and hang out and leave her family at home.  She can stay at my house and I can show her the parts of Atlanta I don't get lost in.

Sadly, I then had to take her back to her family because she had to go with them to her son's show where she was delivering homemade baked goods to the rap stars and I hope she leaves a comment to let us know how that went.  It made me love her just that much more that she baked for some really famous rap guys.  She baked for Kid Cudi, y'all!

After I dropped her off, I stampeded back to my house (I miraculously did not get lost) where I met my brother because I told him I needed to borrow his manliness at my house before we went to my neighbors' house to watch the LSU-Florida game.  Yes, I watched football again.  No, I still don't like watching football.  My brother laughed when I asked if I could borrow his manliness and said, "Um, I don't know.  It depends on what exactly you are needing."  I just needed him to climb a ladder.  I have 7 pot lights (Tee loves it when I call them pot lights) in my kitchen which has 10 foot ceilings.  5 pot lights had dead bulbs so it was kind of hard to see in my kitchen.  The first bulb he worked on started falling apart as he took it out and it cut his hand and then he started bleeding like a stuck pig.  And I had one teeny tiny band-aid in my whole house because I'm only a fake mom, not a real one.  The second light was an easy change.  The third light?  You have to take the ring out of the ceiling but with the third light the entire can inside came out with it.  So anyway, we had a bit of a time (don't y'all like how I said "we" when I was sitting on a bar stool watching him?) but he eventually got them changed and then I asked him to move the ladder into my living room so he could change a bulb in the ceiling fan because those ceilings are probably about 13 feet.

Then we went and watched football and ate jambalaya and potatoes and a cake that had scary Halloween icing on it that a 7-year-old picked out at the store.  The icing looked like Dijon mustard.  It was a gross color for a cake. 

My neighbor had thrown out her back really bad so I told her I was planning to be at home on Sunday pressure washing my house and to let me know if she needed anything.  She said if their daughter was really antsy and wanting her to be really active she may ask if she could come to my house and "help" me pressure wash. The husband told me what y'all told me:  don't spray yourself or it will peel your skin right off.  He also told me not to use an extension cord with it because it would blow fuses, etc.

The wife and daughter did stop by for about 10 minutes while I was attempting to get the pressure washer assembled and working.  I tried not to say too many curse words while they were there.  I had everything hooked up, but I was not getting any pressure.  It was the pressure of a garden hose.  I have 3 hoses and I had tried all 3 of them because the instructions said if there was no pressure I could have a leak in my hose, etc.  None of them would work.  I had been trying for over an hour and was just about to give up when I saw a part/accessory/thing stuck in a hole on the actual machine itself and thought, "hmmm, maybe I'm supposed to attach this to something somehow" and I was standing there looking at it when a man stopped at the front gate and asked how I was doing.

"Fine.  I think.  I'm trying to learn how to use a pressure washer for the first time."

"Where is your nozzle?" he asked as he looked at my situation.

"Is this it?" I asked as I held up the part thing I had just discovered.

He told me it was and that he would put it on for me so I opened my gate and he came in and attached it and just like that, I had pressure!

"Do you need help washing your house?" he asked.

"No.  I bought this thing so I can do this myself.  But maybe when you come back by you can see if I'm having problems then."

"If I keep walking, I'm going home and I'm not coming back.  Look, I just lost my job and I'm not going to lie.  I need money.  I will pressure wash your house for $25."

"Does that include moving the 90 gazillion things off my front porch and putting them back too?"

He looked at the 90 gazillion things and said he would move everything for me and do all of the washing for $40. 

"Deal!" I said as I shook his hand because moving all of that stuff was what I dreaded most of all.  My porch is big and I use it as another room of my house and a lot of people sit out there with me.  So I have a set of wicker furniture, 4 other chairs, a bakers rack, an antique chicken coop, two small tables, about 30 bird houses, some candle holders, an old window, and a whole lot of pots for planting.  It was well worth another $15. 

While he was cleaning he said to me at some point, "So that creepy old lady across the street finally died, huh?"  I told her she had passed away within the past couple of weeks and he said, "She JUST DIED?  She was old when I was a kid.  I thought she would have been dead a long time now."  He proceeded to tell me that he lived right up the street, his grandmother lives around the corner, and one of his aunts walked by while he was there.  He grew up in the 'hood and told me when he was a kid he and his friends were completely terrified of the old lady and even more scared of her creepy house.  He said they would go the long way as they walked home from school because they were too scared to walk by her house even in broad daylight.  He said even now as an adult, he always walks on my side of the street and will not walk on her side.  I told y'all it was too creepy for me to go over there in the dark by myself and look through her trash!

He did a great job, my porch and siding are spotless, he swept all of the water off my porch, moved everything back, and he even said he was bored so he would wash the front gate for no extra charge before he left.  I asked him if he would be interested in raking and bagging up leaves in my yard this fall and he said yes.  He said even if he gets a job in the meantime, he just wants to work so he'd work something out with me to do it around whatever job he might have.  I asked him how much he'd charge me and he said this:

"You tell me what you want to pay.  I want the job so you tell me what you think is fair.  I don't want to lose a job because you think I've quoted you too much." 

I told him I had no idea because I've never had anyone do that job before because I had been doing it all myself.  He left me his number and told me to ask my friends what they pay and then call him and tell him what sounds fair and he'll do it for whatever I say I'll pay him.  So do any of you in Atlanta pay someone to rake and bag leaves in your yard and, if so, how much?  My lot is only 1/3 of an acre and my house and garage take up about 80 - 90% of it.  My yard is tiny but there are TONS of leaves that fall in it.  Last year I think I bagged up approximately 30 or 35 of those big paper yard bags.  Which is why I don't want to do it myself this year.

After he left, I pressure washed some more of my white picket fence but after being out there dealing with all of this for over 5 hours by that point, I was completely tuckered out so I didn't do all of the fence.  So now part of it looks white and part of it looks dingy gray and if you come to the party in a couple of weeks, please pretend like you don't notice that.

I went inside and cooked my lunches for the week and then realized I had a headache because it was about 6:30 and I had not eaten anything since 8:30 so I sat on my nice clean porch and ate some dinner.  As I sat there I kept looking at the trash bags and overflowing dumpster across the street at the old lady's house and I saw a stool on top of everything and decided I wanted to check it out.

I walked over there and grabbed it and brought it across the street and I did it in a huge hurry because being up in her yard was creeping me out so much.  Y'all, that house is 100 times creepier up close.  I put the stool on my porch to use as a plant stand.

A little later I noticed two young guys over there and one of them was up in the dumpster looking around.  I walked back over there and asked if they were finding anything good because I didn't want to get in the dumpster but if they found something good and didn't want it then I'd take it.

The guy in the dumpster had crazy cool dreadlocks and the one on the ground looked like he was high as a kite.  The dread guy said he knew she had died at 91 and he loved learning about people's personal history.  He asked me if I wanted her old Samsonite suitcase.  Um, no.  He said they were looking for furniture they could use in their recording studio.

I walked back across the street and about 10 minutes later a car pulled up with two of their friends.  So now we had one pretty average looking guy, one slightly nerdy looking guy, the dread guy, and the high as a kite guy.  They had pulled a 3-piece sectional out of the dumpster and were trying to fit it in a Ford Taurus.  And as we all know, that is never going to happen.  I heard the dread guy asking if between all of them they could scrounge up enough money to rent a truck and they all said they had no money.

I yelled across the street and asked them how far they needed to move it and they said about 30 seconds up the street.  And before I knew what my mouth was saying, I had offered to let them load it in my SUV and drive it to their recording studio.

I asked fake daughter if she wanted to go on an adventure with me but she was busy working on something and said no.  I told her if I wasn't back in 30 minutes to call the police. 

We put two pieces in my car and the high guy jumped in with me to show me where their house is with the recording studio in the basement.  It was super close.  A couple of minutes later, the Taurus pulled up with a sectional piece hanging out one of the doors and they unloaded everything.  They offered me a few bucks but I told them not to worry about it because honestly, I was glad I could help out some young guys struggling to get their own business off the ground.  I was also just glad I didn't get killed doing something which was honestly kind of stupid for a female to do.

And then I got back home and went inside to take a shower.  And when I got undressed is when I finally realized I had my neighbors over for a few minutes, a 'hood guy pressure wash my house, and had helped four young strangers move some furniture out of the dumpster of a super creepy house to their recording studio in my SUV.....and I had never put a bra on.