Random: I just walked out into our dimly lit living room and discovered a blanket person sitting on our couch. Do you see it’s profile, too?
Category Archives: Weird is Fun
Parade Musings.
A random something that I think about every time I watch a parade is how difficult it is to get a good picture of it. They never look right. There’s always too much in them, which makes them too busy, which means you just don’t know where to look.
When I’ve gone to the Rose Parade in Pasadena, the floats I photograph look flat and uninteresting, yet the reason I took the picture is the exact opposite, I thought the floats were amazing and beautiful. City parades are the same, although I’ve come to realize that city parades are really just local businesses advertising themselves while riding in the back of a pick-up truck waving flags.
Disneyland’s parades are even more busy, MORE lights, MORE people, MORE things in the picture. What were we looking at? Where did it go? And the electrical parade is at night, so even more tough to take a picture of. Plus, I think at least half of the experience at Disneyland’s parades is their music, which of course you can’t capture in a picture.
Is it just me?
Pictures are original content from the Pasadena Rose Parade, circa 1983 or 1984… a unicorn float, a smurf float and a cottage float.
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Filed under Tidbits, Weird is Fun
Mini Chuckle Moment
In case you wanted garden soil without poop, here’s your brand.
– Posted from my iPhone
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Filed under Sometimes I have to laugh, Tidbits, Weird is Fun
Jiu-Jitsu Moment
Sunday evening, I was organizing William’s bathroom. I had purchased a new square basket (square!!! I love square things) to replace the oval one I had been using to store his bath art supplies. Yes, he has bath art supplies. Like bath crayons and paint. Why didn’t we have this stuff when I was a child??
That inspired me to organize the other bath toys he has, like his 33 duckies and 7 squeezie trains and 4 plastic vehicles (from the Target $1 aisle!!) and his innumerable Disney character bath toys that I plugged their intake holes with aquarium sealant to keep out that nasty ass mold that seems to grow inside of them.
So, there I was, bent over the edge of the tub, organizing things in there. As is the normal way with most projects, I start something small and all of a sudden it looks like Armageddon is going on. There wasn’t a space for a foot, and everything was in the way of everything else. My swimsuits are hanging in there, as well as William’s swim trunks, and various towels and flip-flops and the ornamental shower curtain (no one takes showers in there right now).
Then I decided to organize the things sitting on the counter, because what’s a disaster without making it a complete disaster? Why leave something untouched? So, I started moving things around on the counter. I had two tubes of toothpaste and a toothbrush in my left hand. I stood up and felt a tickle on my collarbone area. I figured it was just my hair escaping from my hair clip, but for some reason I glanced in the mirror … and there was a huge spider sitting right there. I thought about this for about a half a second and, of its own volition, my right hand came out of nowhere and slapped that spider dead.
I had a hand print on my collarbone for about a half hour after that. I guess, even though my brain didn’t tell it to, my hand went into survival mode. You’ll be glad to know that I used a square of toilet paper to dispose of that nasty thing. No need to get my fingers dirty.
Filed under Weird is Fun
Weight on my Shoulder.
How about something random today? Like, things I have in my purse:
-purple plastic spoon
-small plastic bottle of Hershey’s syrup
-pink lipstick
-small bottle of lotion
-Nikon camera (point & shoot variety)
-small pink hairbrush
-wallet
-credit card holder
-small notepad & pen
-Cover Girl compact
-Neutrogena stick sunblock
-small dental floss
-small bag holding Advil, Tylenol and Claritin
-several packets of Splenda
-nail file
-flash drive
-cell phone
William and I were using a food scale to weigh each item in my purse, and then the entire purse. We discovered that somehow, all these tiny little items all add up to 5 pounds that I lug around with me everyday.
If that’s not random, I don’t know what is…
Filed under Tidbits, Weird is Fun, Who I am
Inspiration
I’m sitting here painting my fingernails. It’s Saturday night, the child is sleeping and the husband is upstairs with a messed up back trying to sleep. He threw it out Thursday night picking up a basketball. You know, you never mess up your back by doing a crazy, wild something or other. It’s always the mundane thing, like picking up a basketball or getting a roll of toilet paper out from under the sink that does it. If someone says they did hurt their back by doing something they shouldn’t, I’m not sure I’d believe them! ha
My community is heating our pools again. I think my favorite time of year is right now as a result. Every April, it’s too early in the season for most people to go swimming, or maybe not everyone realizes the pools are heated. Whatever the reason, it’s typically just me and the birds and planes overhead. I get a little giddy feeling each time I head out on my bicycle for the pool, which is a nice change from forcing myself to go to the gym and trying to find something redeeming about swimming in a cesspool of germs blanketed by chlorine.
Another recent highlight — for the first time in a long time, maybe since I left the other company (so four years ago?), I was given something for Admin Professional Day. Given by the newest boss I’ve taken on just a couple months ago. I kind of think it’s one of the Hallmark holidays, but if someone wants to honor it, well, I won’t scoff at it, that’s for sure. Plus, the card he gave me was really pretty.
Aaaand, my fingernails are nearly dry. No clever ending here.
Filed under Tidbits, Weird is Fun
Random Bathroomness.
A few months ago, the management company replaced the toilet paper dispensers in the restrooms here at work. This travesty was wrought one afternoon and, had I known, I would have removed one of the keys and saved it when they were available, sticking out of the dispensers the afternoon they were installed. Then I could have been known as the Bathroom Hero and rescued the toilet paper rolls out of there when needed.
Now we have these dispensers that are ineffective… the toilet paper breaks off (double ply, even) before you get even a couple squares off. To be somewhat efficient, you pretty much have to start wrangling and wrestling with the thing, while it clangs and bangs in protest, the second you sit down. In my estimation, that kind of defeats the purpose of taking a bathroom “break.”
In frustration I vented to a co-worker one day about them as we were leaving the restroom. She nodded in understanding and commiserated that she hated them, too. Which makes it amusing then, to me, is that sometimes the janitors leave extra rolls of toilet paper outside the stalls on top of the feminine hygiene dispenser and, inevitably, those rolls of toilet paper always end up in the stall, sitting on top of the toilet paper dispensers. And those extra rolls of toilet paper are always used up first.
Moral of the Story: One should always test drive toilet paper dispensers before installing them.
Filed under Money Hump Building, Time Consumers, Weird is Fun
Gym Humor.
I arrived at the gym last night for my swim, and as I opened the door to enter, the gal behind the desk looked up from her conversation with her co-worker and exclaimed, “I love how you always come in and have such a big smile. It’s SO nice.”
I didn’t say anything, but answered by smiling again and laughed a little.
She said, “No, really. I mean, so many people come in and they’re all grumpy and mad, but you always come in with a smile. It’s nice.”
What I didn’t tell her is, first and foremost I’m there to do something I love — swim — but more than that, I wear a ratty old Jeezus-blue bathrobe to and from the gym. They say if you wear a bathrobe in public, you’re either incredibly rich or you’ve escaped from an insane asylum. I know I’m not rich, so I simply hope that my smile distracts from my ridiculousness.
Apparently, it does.
Filed under Weird is Fun, Who I am
Not a Quality Post.
The news in these parts is the hot, hot weather this week and the weird rain storms we had for Labor Day weekend. The rain storms were great for me and my lap swimming — no one but me swims in the rain. My theory is, I’m already wet, what difference does it make if it comes from the sky or the pool?
This week, the temperature has been up over 100° at our house during the day. We live inland, and I work coastal, which means that on my drive home I can literally feel the temperature rise the closer I get to home.
I’ve even started aggressively seeking out shady parking spots at work and weighing the risk of bird crap against having a hot car that takes 5 minutes to cool down at the end of the day, even with the top dropped. The risk of bird crap is winning.
On one particularly hot day with higher than normal humidity, we decided to just run the air conditioning all night. That decision was a big deal for us, because I’m totally cheap and hate giving away one more cent than I should to utility companies. I slept fine that night, but poor Tony was miserable… apparently, our thermostat is one of those “smart” ones that requires programming. It programmed itself to turn up to 85° at midnight, and Tony woke up in a pool of sweat. So much for our splurging, oops.
Now that we’ve thoroughly discussed the weather, I can share some weird, randomness… always fun. We went to Walmart the other day and we parked next to this car. The woman who drove this car has an extreme affection for all things Stitch related. She had Stitch dolls for occasions I didn’t even know they made Stitch dolls for, like Easter, for example. I was really impressed and might have had just a touch of Stitch envy.
We had family over for a Labor Day BBQ and pool fun (had it all to ourselves because of the wonky weather). When everyone came back from the pool, I kept thinking there was a creepy Super Hero waiting and watching us by our front door. But it wasn’t, nope. Just a strange stacking of pool towels.
Also, because it was really, really good? California Pizza Kitchen’s tiramisu. Doesn’t that just scream cardiac arrest? ha
Filed under I have Family, Mermaid Envy, Weird is Fun
Blogabilities – Week of 06/05/2011
* My right ear has been weirdly blocked for last couple of days. I mean, I can hear from it, I don’t have any pain, but when I chew anything — apples, gum, nuts — it sounds like I’m living in a drum. Even scratching my head makes it all echo-like in there. I’d say it’s like having water in my ear, but it’s not. *grunt* Very hard to describe and very weird. Hoping it goes away soon. I’m thinking it may be related to allergies, since my eyes have been really irritated lately, too.
* My boss is back in the office. The one who has the strange stuff happen to him when he travels. But not without a last hurrah of weirdness. So his travel day went well, his flights were even early. His flight landed and he was informed that the airport shut down minutes after his flight was on the ground, as well as all the freeways surrounding the airport (where my boss’ ride was), due to a suspicious unclaimed package. So, he sat on the tarmac for an hour, then they moved him and his fellow passengers, and everyone in the airport, into a quarantine area. For FIVE hours. The bomb squad finally blasted the package with high-powered water and then the package was deemed “harmless.” Apparently, some dude had forgotten to claim his harmless package and offered apologies. No arrests were made.
* My husband followed me home in his car from an outing this past weekend and told me that one of my brake lights was out. So he took that part of my car apart (and cleaned any remaining cat barf from the inside of my brake lens) and we headed off to Walmart to buy the appropriate replacement light. That little outing then turned into a spontaneous journey of getting paperwork from his doctor, then picking up a late lunch, eating that lunch at the local duck park, going to the grocery store to buy a cheap loaf of bread to feed the ducks at the duck park, and then back home again to fix my brake light. It was a beautiful day for spontaneous time spent with my husband… and ducks.
* While we were at the duck park we witnessed an inter-family fight. There was this whole family of people there, and two of the women and one of the men got into a physical fight. It was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. It consisted of a lot of hair pulling (so cliche) and jewelry pulling and clothing pulling with a couple of attempted slap swipes, a pathetic attempted choke hold by one of the women, and then everyone marched to the car, crying, got in together and the main woman who seemed to have started the fight was the driver, and she drove away all wild and swervily with all those people in her SUV. Maybe it’s because we’d just seen the new X-men movie, or because one of our neighbors is a recently retired UFC fighter whose fights I’ve watched (ouch!), but I kept saying to Tony, “Should I call the police? Is that really a fight?” Word of advice: It’s always best to talk things through like adults, but — really — if you feel the need to make a spectacle of yourself at the local family duck park, at least learn how to properly fight. Because you NEVER know. Someone like me could be sitting there eating my lunch and totally judging your fighting abilities. And then blogging about it later.
* One of my favorite performers, Shania Twain, is coming back to the stage in December 2012. I’m so excited! I’ve been watching her show, “Why not?” on OWN, and while much of it is frustrating and seemingly repetitive, I also know that’s the best way to work through the heavy emotional stuff. Especially if the heavy emotional stuff has never been worked through before.
* My new printer arrived a week or so ago. I finally took the time to install the software this past weekend and I’m building a relationship with it. So far, it’s meeting and exceeding my expectations, although there are still a few functions I need to test out. It’s definitely not a trial sized printer and it LOOKS like it means business. There were stickers on the side of its box pronouncing it to be a “team lift” project. Hopefully the UPS guy had a helper to lift it. ha
* When we go to the movies, sometimes I like to get a soft pretzel but I really dislike salt on it. I’m a mustard girl. After the movie, I was surprised to note that they had given me the salt packet separately. I know I’ve always been curious what’s in my pretzel salt, so I thought you might be, too. Let the mystery now be solved…
Jammie J's Quest 