I named a chicken!!!

Sung to this tune:

I am currently prancing around my office singing:

Named a chicken

Named a chicken

Named a chicken

Named a chicken

Named a chicken

Named a chicken

Named a chicken

Named a chicken

OH OH OH Named a chicken!!

Penny, I am so glad to have helped you! And I'm even MORE glad that helping you didn't involve chicken poop!! I am just FULL OF WIN today!! Ya'll be sure to visit Penny and Bernie!! I have tons more fun playing at their Farmtown than the one on Facebook.

Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed fowl guests, I present you Earlene of Dork:

Trust me, with that name AND those breasts.....her milkshakes bring ALL the boys to the yard.

Setting Examples

This photo makes me laugh like a hyena every time I see it.  I’m the clown, clowns are funny.  My witch friend is Cassie, we pretty much grew up together (at least from about 1 to 12).  We are four in 1975.

I’m not sure why Cassie is looking at me and smiling other than I’m a clown and clowns are funny.  I have no idea why I am smiling so intently.  We are four so I’m guessing our camera hog gene was firing pretty rich back then.

When I found this photo last night, I laughed and laughed and laughed.  It’s just so goofy.  This photo is early evidence that I spent the majority of my youth living in overalls.

My laughter eventually breaks into tears.  While I am happy Cassie and I had such rockin’ Halloween costumes and make up, I can’t help but think about our mothers who got us all dressed up.

If I remember the story correctly, our mothers met in a laundry mat.  They were close in age, Cassie is a month older than I am and behold!  Cassie’s mom and I share (as well as a very dirty, dirty democrat) the same birthday.  Alas, being a young child, I didn’t really care about their womanly relationship, I was just glad to have someone to play with.

I too have known the joy of finding a friend, a best woman friend when I was a young mother.  Her daughter is a year older than Elder Spawn.  We met when they were about 4.  We did lots and lots of stuff together when they were young and still liked us a whole lot.  I think they still like us now but they keep us at a teenager’s arm-length.  At all times.  Unless they want something. 

When I see this photo, I don’t really see us kids.  I see past the children and look at two long-haired hippie-ish women sitting at the kitchen table talking about how to dress us up, what they have on-hand to dress us up with and which neighborhood they would walk us thru.  They were probably listening to some kick ass music on the stereo I was never allowed to touch and maybe even drinking a glass of wine. 

I did/do these same things with my best woman friend!!!

My heart bursts with pride and gratitude when I think about all four of us:  at that same age, at that same period in our lives.  I am so thankful for the example Mom and my other mom gave to me. 

I am so thankful I was glad to find that kind of friendship as well.

GAME ON SUCKA!!

The winter ping pong season has started.  Being a bit fluffy and allergic to most things known as "exercise" I dig the pong.  Pong makes me move, jump around, curse, sweat and think.  The crushing of small plastic balls with paddles is really good for a girl's (is ego appropriate here?) (let's settle for something nice instead) winter exercise needs.  

The husband and I play at the neighbors' house.  Our neighbors have the best toys.  There must be some kind of toy quality/quantity ratio that becomes greater the older you get - directionally proportionate to your children growing up and move out/away.  OH MAN!!!  I can't wait to have awesome toys too!  

The women got off to a good start, despite being R-U-S-T-Y.  We won the first night of play but haven't done too well since.  The ladies don't play as often as the men folk do.  The men compete often because that's what boys do ya' know?  The women usually have their bitch-asses in the kitchen making pies.  Or not.  

We usually play women versus men because it's more fun that way and there's no fighting afterwards - just gloating.  The men are rather husbandly about their wins, just enough gloat to say "We won!" (and Please don't poison our dinner because we did win, please!?) Wives show no mercy.  Copious amounts of gloating ensue if the women win.  Us women tend to go for the throat (or lower) when we win.  

I can't think of many things that are more gratifying than busting their collective asses so when the ladies do win, it's awesome.  And quite often, in the middle of a match, if we're winning - I can hear "FINISH HIM!" in my mind.  And I just go crazy.  I get full-on possessed by the pong demons.  Sometimes they let me win but sometimes they get all backed up in there and I beat myself with very bad and greedy plays.

January and February are pretty damn drab at the beach.  Coldest time of year (for the beach - it's a real bitch compared to Minnesota, or so I hear.  Ha!).  I'm so glad it's pong season so we don't go stir crazy!  So what are YOU going to do for the next two months?  

Making new friends

When I was a Camp Fire girl we used to sing this song:

Make new friends but keep the old;
One is silver and the other's A NASCAR DRIVER

Well, it didn't go exactly like that, but you get the idea.

I've been thinking about some friends from long ago and I finally started a Facebook account. I thought maybe I could find my old friends and maybe someone is actually looking for me.

Don't laugh - but I currently only have three friends.

1) She who brought the crazy from the first day I met her. She was the ONLY person who talked to me the day I was the new kid at school.

2) She who's parents live on the end of my street. And married one of the hottest guys in our class. Way to go sister!

3) He who drives fast.

That's right. I'M TOTALLY FRIENDS WITH CHAD MCCUMBEE!! How kick ass is that?

(And how disappointing - even at Nascar.com the truck drivers continue to get the shaft. The cup drivers have snappy photo links, trucks just get a text listing. GGRR!!!)

The trucks are WAY more exciting than the cars (cup or nationwide) and as a fan of said racing, they're ALWAYS getting the shaft from the publicity team.

When I saw him in the "friends of your friends that you may know" list I was psyched.

This is going to be long and complicated but stay with me. My neighbor lady's first husband (and oldest 2 children) are somehow related to Chad's wife (I think). The children went to Chad's wedding last year and I got to see their photos. Freakin' awesome.

I thought about saying something about the wedding that in my "hey I want to be your friend" comment but I thought that might be too stalkery. So I told the rest of the truth: We dig watching you race trucks, we get psyched when you're driving cars and thanks for making Brunswick County proud.

When he first started in the truck series I begged, BEGGED for our company to toss him some sponsorship money. The company entertains clients at a lot of races and I figured they'd love it. I figured wrong and I was SO disappointed.

If I ever hit the lottery I know where my money is going...ON CHAD'S TRUCK. Even if it's only enough for one race.

OMW: Child

Today's prompt: What affect has a child, whether yours or someone else's, had on your life?

I am a god-mother. A Fairy God-mother on good days. I had a good day Sunday. My godchild had her ears pierced ... again.

Her birthday party was the weekend before Halloween. I try to never buy her clothes because I want her to wear what she wants to wear, not what I pick out. She was getting a Nintendo DS thing from her parents so I opted to go with a $50 gift card from Walmart for her gift. I'd also cleaned out my jewelry drawer this summer and had collected a small bag of trinkets I was finally OK parting with as I think she's at an age she'll start caring for things a bit better.

One of the items in the jewelry was a pink and blue necklace and earring set from Avon. Every time I would wear it she would always comment on how much she liked them. I thought her ears were still pierced so when she opened the box and saw what I had given her she was sad that she'd let her ears grow over.

She managed to score a few more gift cards and some cash as well. This past Sunday we all headed to Wallyworld and she had her ears re-pierced. I even go to help her pick out which studs she was going to get. She got the nice sparkly ones that seem to flash a bit of color, even though they're white. What a tough girl, she didn't even cry. She did flinch and give a surprising "OH!" face when the second ear was done.

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I would post the photo but I still don't have a mini-SD card in my new phone. Also, I have not yet received my Woot! crap yet. It's scheduled to be delivered to the office Saturday (how convenient GRR!). Some folks have received some mini-SD's in their boxes so I'm holding out hope that my seven pound crap will contain said goodies. Everyone seems to be getting the Tornado water sprayers, old-as-dirt PC joysticks and some kind of USB phone thing that makes your phone jacks make a network to share Internet access. Can't complain for what $8 is going to buy you, even if it is from 1992. Some of the folks have received letters from the Woot! Gods in their crap. One of them is expecting a 250 lb shipment to be delivered! How exciting!!

Love Your Friends

The weekend is over thank goodness.

Saturday, I went with some CBA folks to visit Ms. Sandy's grave. I wish I could say we were visiting with Ms. Sandy but she was killed while she was riding her motorcycle five years ago. Sandy was killed when a car turned left in front of her. She was wearing her "magic helmet" like all the safetycrats demand you wear. Kind of hard for a magic helmet to save you from your guts being squished up under a car. Her lipstick was not even smudged. But she had on her helmet dammit. Sandy's husband still lives in their marital home - right across the street in the church's yard, Sandy is buried there. So every single day, Mr. Ray sees his wife's grave and when he comes to meetings, he gets to drive over the same stretch of road where she was killed. It's about a quarter mile from their home. And the driver of the car (a.k.a. killer) got off scott free. Well, except for the $25 fine of course. How in the world is this fair?

Saturday afternoon my friend's wife died of liver disease. I'm not sure which one, it had a really weird name and was a genetic thing, not a drink thing.

Sunday we went to the visitation and tried to comfort him the best we could. Which meant a whole lotta motorcycles riding up in your yard. I was so appreciative of the folks who showed up, many of them driving hours and hours away from home just to give him a hug. Bikers kick ass.

Love your friends while they're here.

OMG! Senior photos!!

Dear former member of The Class of 1989 WBHS Anti-Conformity League:

My parents are getting a new house - HOORAY! I've been on and off helping Mom packup and trash the past few weeks. What does this have to do with you, you ask? Absolutely nothing except for one tiny photo in a tiny frame.

During my senior year of high school I came into possesion of a small set of cheap-ass "lead from China" kind of picture frames. There were only a couple of them and they were just right for the wallet sized senior pics of my homegirls. The frames were perfect because there weren't too many members of the 89WBHSACL. And of course, your lovely 18 year old face was placed into said frame.

So jump ahead 19 years (HOLY SHIT! 19 years!!??) into the hallway of my parents home. Mom and I are sorting, tossing and sneezing dust out of our noses and she hands me a small picture frame. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT WAS YOU and I really did have a good giggle. Good times. I can't believe I'd left you behind when I moved out of there. You were probably stuffed in some corner under a pile of my sister's clothes which is why you didn't make the move with me. Don't worry though, I still have lots of pics of you and us back then. Yep, I got plenty of those!

I decided I had enough lead and did toss out the frame but I would keep the photo inside. I take apart the frame and noticed you'd written a nice little message on the back.

"Can you believe it? Six years and all the things that have happened. Somehow, it was always me that caused the trouble - the 8th grade, the mustang, the beer in the school parking lot, etc. I'm glad you thought I was worth the trouble!"

I moved here in the 7th grade, making our friendship 6 years old when we graduated.

I'm not positive what the 8th grade incident was but it must have been the forgery incident. We were in band and had a pretty kick-ass instructor. Often, he would write us notes to get out of class for a practice session. I decided I didn't want to spend the afternoon in Ms. Springs' class so I wrote myself a note (this was his M.O. - we wrote, he signed) and signed it with my best Band Teacher handwriting. It worked until Ms. Springs confirmed said band jam with the instructor the next day. I think I spent 3 days in ISS (school jail) for that one. I think my friend got away though. She was in the super-smart classes and probably made up some story about going to the library or something.

When I was 15 I was dating a guy who was from the country, was 16 and had a car. It was a Mustang but the NG was broken off so we always called it the Musta. He is the first guy that bought me jewelry, small 14k gold heart earrings. Talk about BLING! tee hee!! Anyway - if you spent the night at my house on a Saturday night, you went to church the next morning. No excuses. Mr. Musta picked us up and drove us to church. On the way back home from church she decided she wanted to drive and he let her. We came home "the back way" and as I point out, "You're missing our road!" she jerks the wheel to make the turn, overcorrects and we end up in the VERY STEEP ditch. I had a concussion, a busted lip and a busted up knee. She bounced off the steering wheel pretty good and Mr. Musta came out of it fine - physically. His car wasn't busted up that bad so he didn't get into too much trouble.

Which brings us to the beer in the school parking lot. Being a member of the 89WBHSACL, you had to be somewhat nerdy, poor, social outcast kind of thing. And you had to do that stupid thing with your jeans...taper fold and tuck down into your hightops or boots. A few of us got our nerd on with the Band. The Marching Band. With Mandatory Attendance at all football games. We had a new band instructor by then and he usually let us go after the halftime "performance." (Keep in mind this was his first year and we were a very young band with no marching skills whatsoever. I'm so proud of the real marching band he did build and my sister got to be involved with. They've come a long way since '89!)

So I had put away my band uniform and went to hang with my homies. At this time I was dating no one so I can't remember why we were out in the parking lot, but we were out there. Outside the safety fence of the football field where children do very stuipd things believing that those things are cool. We were out on the backside, farthest from the school. The dark area. I believe her very cool and beautiful boyfriend was in his/someone's car. He was a year (maybe two) older than us. Someone busted out with a six pack of Bud and we all passed around the ONE CAN as we're standing near the car. The can makes it to me and she starts making those eyes at me - the ones that say "DANGER WILL ROBINSON!! DANGER!!"

It was the fuzz!

Of course, the can was in my hand. Of course!

But at least it was friendly fuzz, a sherrif's deputy that I knew. And he let me (and everyone else) go as long as I went home and told my folks what happened. Shit. Now I had to go home and tell on myself. Because a cop told me to.

And I did do it. I went home and told on myself. I don't remember what (or if) I was punished. I just remember getting busted and having to tell on myself. I remember walking into my parents' bedroom and saying, "I gotta tell you something...." Couldn't tell you what the hell I said BUT I DID IT. I DID NOT LIE ABOUT IT.

The beer incident was on a Friday night. I passed Mr. Sherrif Deputy on the stairs at church on Sunday. He asked me, "Did you tell 'em?" And I said, "Yep." And his reply was:

GOOD FOR YOU BECAUSE I WASN'T GOING TO TELL ON YOU!

At the time I immediately wanted to push him down the stairs. But I didn't. I'm glad he made me do it. It was a good lesson - or rather a couple of good lessons:

• Don't be trying to do things you're not old enough to do.
• Don't be trying to do things you're not old enough to do in public.
• Don't think someone is NOT watching you. Somebody saw you do it.
• Tell on yourself if you get caught. Honesty is the best policy.
• Dont' be a liar. Liars suck.
• Your friends always say they're sorry, or they are in trouble with you (giggling madly!). Other people don't give a shit what they did to, with or about you.

And you know who you are my dear. If you contact me, with your permission I'll post your senior photo and my goofy-assed band photo on this here blog-0-matic.

In the final laps of Sunday's race...

I was not in the pool. The race was in Callie Fornie so it was a late start. Too much cold water, overcast skies and intermittent sprinkles made it hard to swim. In fact, we didn't get to swim all weekend.

But we did talk during the final laps of the race, Her and I. She did not have good news. She laid down her Shock and Awe on me. I kissed baby goodnight, hugged Husband tight and drove to Her.

I stayed for about an hour. She filled me in on what happened and we began to make a game plan. We were interrupted by a phone call and a visit and at Her request, I left. She had business to tend to.

I can't believe what just happened. Completely out of nowhere and everywhere at once. Very close to home, my fingers are tracing old childhood scars. I know I came out of it, on the other side, the good side - well maybe the OK side on a bumpy road. I shamefully repeated the cycle to my own child. I sure am worried about my girls.

It will not be easy but it will get better. I will be a good friend. I will be a good godparent. I will be a good marksman if need be.

Tiger Woods is no Dr. Phil

It's 4:25ish and the work phone rings. TV goes on mute, it's now "safe" to answer the phone. (I was watching CNN like a good little girl.)

Me: Good afternoon, NAME OF MY WORKPLACE.

Her: Are you watching TV?

Me: Yep, it's on.

Her: Are you watching Tiger Woods?

Me: Why would I be watching Tiger Woods? He's not a race car driver.

Her: They're playing today, the playoff!

Me: Ok, channel 6, right? (I know this because Dr. Phil is not on today. Stupid golf.)

Her: Yep.

Me: Some dark guy in a red tshirt is on the green. Wait, both guys are dark...AND wearing red shirts!!! (Again, if this was racing, they'd at least be wearing different numbers!!!)

Her: That's probably Rocco.

Me: No, it's Tiger. He's fake swinging his putt. He fake swings again. Ok, he hit it this time...and .... it's going to be JUST SHORT!

Her: NO WAY!

Me: Yes way! And he's ON HIS KNEES in anguish! (Could golf be any more exciting?)

Her: Has the other guy shot?

Me: Nope, he's up next. But they're showing the replay of his reaction to Tiger's play and he and his caddy both laughed when Tiger missed. Golf asses!!

Her: Bastards!!

Me: Ok, here he goes. Fake swing, fake swing, HIT! OH, he waaaaaaaaay over shot!

Her: Oh no! I wonder if they're still tied?

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This is where the light bulb finally switches ON and blinds me with ... science.
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Me: The damn TV is still on mute. (unmute TV) Yes, Tiger won.

Her: WOO HOO!

Me: Damn, I'm an idiot. If I realized the TV was on mute I could have let you LISTEN to what was going on the whole time instead of relaying a play-by-play of a NASCAR fan watching golf.

Her: Well that's been bothering me since my lunch break, thanks for checking it out for me.

Me: You're welcome, talk to you later!

Ahhh...the benefits of friendship. I am SO calling her from the swimming pool on Sunday with 4 laps to go in the race. Let's hear golf girl make the play-by-play on the race!!