Place to go Up or Down

The other day I was looking at the giant pile of shoes at my front door and I thought, "Boy, I really wish that I had a place to put these shoes." Then I realized that I do. They are called closets and I have two of them up in my bedroom. But my shoes never seem to make it that far. I blame my childhood. You see, when I was a kid, I lived in a house that doesn't have a floor on the entry level. There is just a small, tiled area with a coat closet and then two flights of steps, to the right if you want to go upstairs, to the left if you want to go down. In fact, when I was a kid, I gave this area a special name "the place where you decide to go up or down (witty, I know). The only good use for this place is to stash your shoes upon entering. (I also grew up with a distinct, mother-influenced hatred of wet shoe prints on the carpets.) Now that I live in a real house that actually has rooms attached to the entry, it is really hard to give up the "open door, shoes off" routine that I had as a child. I'm trying to create new habits though, since the first floor was turning into the sea of shoes.

Blerg! Been home too long two.

What happened to my post before this one called "Been home too long?" Blerg! Erased? Aw, it was funny too (by the way, completely random, but I just tried to write the word "it" seven times because it kept on coming out "ti." One of these days, I'll give you post with no corrections. See if you can make sense of it.)

OK here goes Been home too long take two:
I've been home for three days with strep throat and I have seen some really strange things on TV. These things might seem like they are jokes, but they are not, they are real things that real people are trying to sell.

Example one: 3 minute legs.


Excuse me, who came up with the idea to work out your legs by putting something up your hoo hoo? OK, I'm not crazy, because Ellen thinks it is weird too.


Example 2: Slap Chop remix (is this guy still employed because he beat up a prostitute a while back, maybe this is the solution, autotune the old commercials)


"Watch this, you're gonna love my nuts." Hilarious!

Amanda’s Vaccine

I'm going to tell you a story, boys and girls.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Amanda who lived in her grandma's 100 year old house. Amanda had many problems breathing in her grandma's house. Yes, that little girl was me (although this really only happened about three years ago, so little? Not so much).

I went to the allergist, and surprise of surprises, I have mucho allergies. I believe I've told this story before where the nurse did all the little pokes on my back and then came back and nearly screamed in fright, then ran out to get the other nurses saying, "You've gotta come and see this one." Oh yes, but it didn't hurt my feelings, only confirmed what I already knew: that I am a freak. (The nurses decided, by the way, that my back looked like a Christmas tree, all lit up with red, irritating dots instead of twinkly lights). They also discovered through blood work that I have no natural immunity to many common things like strep, flu and pneumonia. So, they called me back in to the office a few weeks later to have three shots: flu vaccine (not the one you get at Kroger, a different one, and this was before H1N1), pneumonia vaccine (usually given to the elderly) and a tetanus booster. They gave all three in generally the same place on the same arm.

Next day, my arm feels really terrible. I call the office, and the nurse who gave me the shot was like, "Buck up, lass, tetanus shots always feel a little sore. It's normal." (She wasn't actually Scottish or anything, I just made that up.) But I'm pretty tough, and this pain made me want to cry. So I went home, took my temperature and it was a whopping 104 degrees. My arm was red and swollen going up to my neck. I went to the doctor again the next day, and he gave me major antibiotics because the shots had created a cellulites situation. Yikes! And he said that they were changing the "shot-giving" policy because of me: he figured it was common sense that if you were giving more than one shot, that you would alternate arms, but now he would put it in writing.

So, because of this issue in my past, I am a little scared to get shots, you can understand why. (If you don't, then stop reading my blog, just kidding! I am desperate! Keep reading even if you think I am a wimp…please…) This past Tuesday, I went to get the H1N1 vaccine. My dad has been bugging me non-stop about it. I went in and got the shot. The Kroger guy gave me the shot and it bled like crazy. He was not really prepared for that and was kind of running around the room looking for some gauze or something. He said, "That is so strange, these never bleed," and I said, "I'm strange," (like a dork).

That night, my arm has a bump and bruise where I got the shot and I was a little freaked. Turned out to be nothing (although, when I started to feel sick about five days later with a high temperature, I wondered if this was a delayed reaction… turned out to be strep, as in the other thing that I have no natural immunity to, as mentioned above, were you paying attention?). I still have the bruise though.

(Boy, I just told that whole story, and it really seemed to go nowhere. Sorry if you were disappointed by thatJ)

One more thing I found funny about getting the H1N1 vaccine. Every time I would see my dad, he'd be, "Get the vaccine, get the vaccine, get the vaccine." (He wouldn't say it three times consecutively, but at least three times every time I saw him.) So when I did finally get it, I had this (short) text conversation with him: (real conversation here people, my phone saves these things!)

ME: Got my H1N1 shot u should be happy 2 know. I bled like a stuck pig; he said it was weird

DAD: Good, now you don't have to worry

Me worry? Now HE doesn't have to worry about me. Cute.

Teaser

Can I tell you two things that are completely random and unrelated (except for the fact that they are both, probably, extremely inappropriate and could cause me embarrassment?) Wow. That is a great teaser. What I really should do now is say, "Never mind," and you would be so intrigued and wonder at what I was about to say. But I'm much nicer than that.

1: My cats love paper. Any kind of paper at all, they love. Well, they have a special favorite. They love tampon wrappers. Not tampons, but the crinkly paper they come in. My cats will actually dig in the trash and take out all the tampon wrappers. Then they drag them all over the house so that I am constantly finding wrappers in the most bizarre places. This could lead to embarrassing moments, but, lucky for me and my tampon wrapper-loving cats, no one comes over to my house.

2: I get cold sores. They are painful and embarrassing; I hate them! Well, when we were at sweet adelines international competition in Nashville this fall, I felt one coming on. What a bummer; I was mad. Then, one of the ladies from my chorus, who is a nurse, told me of a natural remedy that is a sure thing: earwax. Yes, I thought the same thing, "Gross! You're telling me to put gunk from my ear onto my lips?" But, desperate times call for desperate measures and the last cold sore I had looked like I had a grape stuck under my lip, so I tried it. Guess, what? I completely worked! So, next time you feel one coming on, do the ear wax thing. Just don't tell anyone. (Unless you have a blog, in which case, it is OK).

Making promises I can't keep

I was reading through old postings and I realized that I used to be much funnier. Whoa. I have really been slacking lately. I mean, I was super witty in some of my posts. I need to step up my game big time (did you put a Jamaican accent with the words "big time," like they do in "I Love You Man?" I mean a Jamaican accent that sounds like a leprechaun? Just checking.)

I blame winter. I mean, who can be funny when it is cold and snowy? It is a challenge.

Heard this great quote in a movie. It in no way relates to my life, but I wish it did!

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

Am I Crazy?

I just had to start a new counter on this blog. It was driving me nuts that it said 12,000 when I knew that couldn't be right. Is that too weird? It was bugging me, so there…it is done.

By the way, I just watched Julie and Julia today and that made me feel really bummed about my blog. I am so not famous yet for this one. I need a gimmick. I need something that will make me become rich from this vortex into which I pour my (sometimes disturbing) thoughts.

I Need a Hobby

(this has nothing to do with this post other than the title of the thing: did you ever hear my story about the cahsier at Wal-Mart (excuse me, Wal-Marts) who looked at me when I was checking out of the store and said (and I quote) "you look like a lady in need of a hobby."!!!)

One of the many wonderful things about me, that you may not know, is that I tend to take pictures of my medical maladies and then show them to others. I think that this must be a by-product of living alone. I must feel the need to have some proof that this actually happened to me. For example, when I had the worst case of pink-eye ever? Took a picture (that is a lie, I actually took several just to give the time-elapse feel to the experience). Want to show people that two of my surgery scars look like little pink worms? You guessed it, take a picture and send it via text message.

Today, I found this patch of dry skin on my leg and I was telling my mom about it at rehearsal tonight. Then I said, "I took a picture," and for some reason that cracked her up. She had to hide her head in her music while she was laughing. At least she accepts that I am strange.

Moral of the story . . . I guess be cautious when you get a picture text from me. You never know what it might contain!

Avatar

My mom's birthday was last Thursday. Since there was a snowstorm, we couldn't do anything that day. Sooooo, the next day, my mom and I went to Bonefish Grill and saw Avatar at the Rave movie theatre at Polaris. I guess it was a night of firsts because I've never been to Bonefish Grill before. It was pretty good. I have also never seen a movie in 3D before. Unless you could Capitan EO which I saw at Epcot in, like, 1988. That was one with the glasses where one eye is red and one eye is blue and is pretty lame. But this 3D was so awesome! Way better than seeing a red/ blue Michael Jackson.

Memories from one who is a tad bit obsessed with food

I was snacking today at work. It was one of those new girl scout fundraiser things where they sell snacky-type items in little tins. This was something like Cajun Snack Mix. In Cajun Snack Mix, there are these little sesame nugget things that remind me of the sesame-cracker-nugget things that they had as a salad topper on the Wendy's salad bar. Remember the salad bar at Wendy's? I loooooved eating at Wendy's and getting the salad bar because it made me feel so grown up. I'm not really sure if it was a truly quality salad bar because I was, like, eight, but I did love that thing. Oh, whatever happened to you, Wendy's salad bar? I miss you so awfully much.

Dishwasher Dilemma

I broke a chopstick the other day. Did you know that chopsticks fall through the little holes of the dishwasher really easily? I usually just hand wash them, but decided to put them in the dishwasher. Then, when I was pulling the rack out, the chopstick that had fallen halfway through snapped right in half! So, lesson learned, I need to put them upside down so that they can't fall through.

Now I have another dilemma: I have an uneven number of chopsticks! I'm pretty sure that I won't be using all six pairs at once anytime soon, but this odd number of chopsticks is really bothering me. (I've actually contemplated throwing out one perfectly fine chopstick so that I'll be back to an even number!) If only all of life's problems were so mundane!