World War 3...or DOG-MAGEDDON!

Okay, so every night in my bed, there are 2 adults and 2 dogs. While they aren't the biggest dogs in the world, they somehow manage to stretch out over the entire bed. And every effing night, I have a battle royale with Lola, because she stretches out between me and Danny, pulls the blankets off me, and flumps herself down on my legs, which hurts like the dickens (Side Note: The worst torture in the world to me would be having my hands and feet confined and not able to move them. The dogs do this to me every. single. night.). Also, today is Danny’s first day off in 2 weeks and he has had to be at work at approximately 5 a.m. every day for the past week, so he gets to sleep in today too. This is important.

So, at 6:05 this morning, I was awakened because I was freezing. Here we go with the nightly battle royale...

Me (scream whispering, so as not to disturb Danny): “Lola, move!” (try to yank the blanket from under her)

Lola: sits up and looks at me, without moving.

Me: “Dammit Lola, MOVE!!”

Lola: stretches out and rolls over onto my leg

Me: “Goddamit (shove) Lola (yank) Get (shove) Off (yank) The Fucking (shove) BLANKET!” Still scream whispering.

After the word "blanket" I gave one last Herculean shove. And she did get off the blanket. And tumbled off the bed onto the end table. And then knocked the change jar all over the floor. And then fell on the floor. In the split second that this happens, all I can do is sit up in bed, cringe and whisper “shit.”

From Danny's side of the bed I hear, "SERIOUSLY?!?" with a hint of amusement in his voice (I'm choosing to believe it was mirth, rather than ire.) He may or may not have been awakened by my little exchange with Lola before she went ass over teakettle off the bed. Perhaps my scream whisper wasn’t as unobtrusive as I thought. Or maybe it was from me trying to yank the blanket back over to my side of the bed. Whatevs.

So I turn on the bedside lamp and try to find all the change that has spilled all over the floor. And Lola jumps back on my side of the bed and stares at me crawling around on the floor. I can’t see anything, so I have to turn the overhead light on and Danny gets out of bed and says “Well, I guess I’m getting up at 6 this morning…”And I felt terrible. Then he says, “I’ll clean it up, you have to get up for work soon.” I felt like even more of a heel and my half awake heart melted a bit. So we both cleaned up the change together. And then he casually mentions “Look how upset Lola is…you shoved her off the bed and made lots of loud noises (which she hates) and scared her.”  Aaaaaaaand now I feel like a super dick, because I thought she was looking at me and gloating about how she may have been shoved off the bed, but she won the blanket battle, because she was laying all in my space, and I was shivering on the floor cleaning up change.

I apologized to Lola and gave her a pat on the head and we got back into bed. Lola wisely decided to lay on Danny’s side of the bed. Until about 30 minutes later when she flumped back down on my legs and pulled the blanket off of me again. Since I felt so bad about what had happened, I decided to just suck it up, deal with the cold and let her stay there. That lasted for all of about 15 minutes, until we had another mini tussle, because she was pinning my feet down. Throughout this whole ordeal, Lola never made a sound, she wasn’t hurt, and I don’t even think Bozz woke up. But I felt so terrible about it, which led to me having horrific dreams when I fell back to sleep.

Here’s what I learned this morning…We need a bigger blanket. The dogs need their own bed. I don’t know my own strength when I am mostly asleep. Lola will be getting peanut butter and carrots tonight for having to deal with my crazy this morning.

DOG-MAGEDDON, round 1. I think we can call this one a draw…

WTF Wednesday?!?

Aaaaah well, it's about that time again...I haven't had a WTF moment in a while, and boy have I got a doozy for you today!! It's not even a list of things. This WTF is just one story that happened yesterday, and is enough to last me the whole week...

On my way home from work yesterday, I decided that I really wanted something pumpkin (I made a delicious stuffed pumpkin last week and I'll share the recipe soon!), but I was almost home, and the closest grocery store isn't that great. So I decided to stop at home really quickly and grab a recipe for butternut squash soup and take it to this cute little gourmet market a couple miles away. I go in and love on all the delicious foodstuffs they have, buy what I need and head out. This is what I encounter in the parking lot...

WTF # 1 (at the car parked next to mine): I'm walking to my car and I see a little boy standing next to a car, with a woman, presumably his mother, next to him, and what looked suspiciously like a tiny wee wee hanging out of his pants. I thought to myself "no way this kid is just flashing in the parking lot like this. He can't be more than 3 years old! And why would his mother just be okay with that?!?" Well, I could not have been more wrong. Because what do I hear as I walk up to them? "Okay, you have to push your hips forward so that you don't get pee on yourself!" 

Ummm, excuse me ma'am. You are not in the middle of the woods. This is a parking lot. With stores all around. With BATHROOMS in them. So I suck it in so that I can scootch by the little boy and not disturb his business time, when what do I hear, but...

WTF # 2 (at the car parked directly in front of mine): "HACK HACK, YARK, URK, KACK." (If you need a little reference for what that actually sounds like, think of a cat yorking up a hairball, or the scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, where Snot the dog is under the table choking and Cousin Eddies says "Oh, he's just yakkin' on a bone.") So I look up to find the source of this ungodly noise, and see a man directly in front of me standing next to his car looking like he was picking something out of his mouth and puking out whatever was bothering him. 

I know I've mentioned my aversion to vomit before, so needless to say, I chucked my groceries in the car, jumped in the driver's seat and peeled out of there like I was running away from a burning building. 

What. The. Fuck. And there you have it, friends. That was all the WTF I needed this week, all in the span of 5 minutes. Woof.

What Is My Life?!

I'm going to take you on a little journey way back into time...8 months ago, I was working in a job that I really enjoyed with college students, but knowing that I needed something better. For several years, I had been kinda down because I didn't really have the opportunity to do anything creative in my life. I am GREAT at talking to people and helping them realize their potential/work through their problems/question why they are doing silly things/figure out what they want to do with their future/etc. But that isn't really tangible, something that I could look at and think "I made that! And it's pretty damn cool!"

I had known for a long time that I wanted to get into event planning, because the part of my job that gave me the most satisfaction was planning banquets and receptions, and dinners for students, faculty and staff. So, I started job searching, knowing that I would be leaving my job at the university at the end of June. I figured that 4 months would be plenty of time to find a job, right? Right?!? Well, we're not even going to get into my naive dreams of quick re-employment. We all know what the job scene looks like out there.

So, after two and a half months of funemployment, I got a job as the Catering Sales Manager with a catering company, but I realized that I was going to need a second job to support myself. Conveniently enough, the catering company shares a shop with a wine and chocolate shop. When I told my boss I needed to get a second job, she worked it out that I would be a sales person for the wine and chocolate shop. Ultra convenient that I don't have to go to two different places to work. I get a regular paycheck, commission if I sell any corporate gifts and I get to learn to make candy. Um, hello? How fricking sweet is that?!? I'm realizing that I have a pretty good head for business. Add that to my ability to talk to people, and I make a pretty good saleswoman.

Guess what I did today at work? I got to dip bottles of wine in chocolate. And they were beautiful. While they were setting, I looked at them and thought "I made those! And that's really damn cool!"

Welcome back to my life creativity. I've missed you.

Family Road Trip

This past weekend, I went on a road trip to Savannah, GA with my mom, 2 aunts and sister, to visit my cousin and other sister for my cousin's 21st birthday. A few things happened this weekend...

I have renewed my love of the south. I really want to buy a house in Savannah. It is the cutest little town, and I LOVE the houses down there. People were friendly, it's a great walking/biking town, it's near water, and I suspect the weather isn't too bad in the winter (even though it was rainy and/or gross while we were there). It's also one of the most haunted places in the country...which is a weird draw, coming from someone who is such a big baby about scary movies. But I really want to take a ghost tour in a hearse! How freaky would that be?!? (That was not a rhetorical question. The correct answer is SUPER FREAKY...and awesome!)

The amazingness of my family has been reaffirmed. The Waters/Wilkins women are a force to be reckoned with. If you can't hold your own in a conversation, take a joke, tell a joke, drink some drank, be a little snarky or are offended by salty language, we might not be the group you want to spend a whole lot of time with. Which is a shame, because WE. ARE. SPECTACULAR.

I spent a lot of time in the car. I rode in the backseat the whole way down with my aunts and drove the whole way back with my mom and sister. Thanks to my mom, I know all of the state capitals, I have a pretty good grasp on every state nickname and I can name each of the states by first letter. This may seem like a menial task, but really, when you think about it, when do you ever have reason to know all of this information? The real fun in this was my mom giving me hints when I didn't know the answer. I will forever have in my head "Oh baby, you...you got what I nee-eed. And you say he's just a friend..." when I need to know what the capital of North Dakota is. (Biz Markie sings that song. The capital of ND is Bismark...you see what she did there??) Car games like this just reinforce the second point that I made (amazing family!)

I realized how much random shit you find in truck stops. I always kind of knew it, because I have been a road warrior for well over a decade, driving across the country for school and work and whatnot. But it was really obvious when I saw these in women's restrooms in different states:

Not tampons or maxi pads or handi-wipes or something that might actually be useful on your trip. Nope, nothing like that. 

But condoms, the French Freedom Tickler, and the 4 play New and Amorous series are definitely women's restroom necessities. What. The. Hell. I mean, when I think truck stop hook up, French Freedom Tickler is the first thing that pops into my mind. Because it's the patriotic thing to do. 

Oh, America...