It's Always Something!

Have you ever noticed the width and breathe of Murphy’s Law? Or as Rosanne Rosanna Danna wisely said, “ It’s always something.” Life is filled with the little epiphanies written by Mr. Murphy.

The day you are running late to work is always trash day, which you realize is today, right after you dump the dog’s food in his water dish.

Computer systems never break on Monday, they always break on Friday… of a three day weekend… after 5pm.

It’s the final day of August and the third or fourth day we’ve had some sort of precipitation. I like a rain day that cleans the air and lets you enjoy the rest of the warm weather… not that we get much warm weather on the Oregon Coast. Usually one to three days between May and mid September that hits the upper 90’s maybe even triple digits. This year, not one day in the 90s. I kind of miss that, it always reminds me of why I love Florence.

Really my day wasn’t that bad. Yes, it was trash day. Yes, I dumped Arlo’s dry dog food in his full water dish. And no computer systems broke down, but then it is Tuesday. I did, however, have to take out an old CD player and install a new fangled two-piece duel deck. Not hard in concept, it just took an act of Congress in reality.

Exhibit A – electricians designed the control room they would
1) never have to work in
2) never have to fix things in
3) never have to listen to me scream at because they both went their separate ways after the new station was built.

Exhibit B – I’m allergic to dust
1) electronic equipment attracts dust
2) electronic equipment creates dust
3) electronic equipment kills, the hand that feeds it, with dust. Thankfully I remembered an allergy tab this morning.

It still took me the better part of two hours to uninstall (the really it's not broken folks but I get tired of guys whining their scratched to batshit CD's jump-ump-ump-ump-ump), remove all the excess cordage, stuff the huge plug-in through a tiny hole in the counter already filled with too many wires. Install the new multi faceted, oooh that’s way kewl, two-piece dual deck.

In that time my intern did all my afternoon work and then the work that would have taken up the rest of this week's afternoon, too. He rocks. I like rainy August afternoons after all.

Sith,
Cele

Ack! It’s a Tuesday in August

Ack! It’s a Tuesday in August, worse I think there’s more than one.

I had all these wondrous ideas about last Thursday’s Talk Thursday topic. It was a stroke of genius – 7 topics, one week. Well I let that one slip by. Maybe yet.

Today is Burp’s ninth birthday. Nine, can you believe it? It’s blown by and that scares me. Psam’s childhood seemed like a fleeting moment and I miss it so much. But as the Beatles would say, Ob la de, ob la dah, pass the bong. Except please don’t, I’m allergic. Really I need a new saying. Ob la de, Ob la dah, I’ll take another margarita isnt’ catchy.

So, anyway, today is Burp’s ninth birthday. My thing is to call family and friends in loving hit and run episodes of the notorious Birthday Cake Polka. Except, I only sing part of the song that I remember from my childhood. Aren’t people lucky? Lately I’ve begun playing the Sheriff John mp3 where he sings the whole thing with the correct lyrics. Burp was my most recent victim.

I adore him. Saturday night he gets to have a birthday sleep over. Oh, Psam you gutton for punishment. A living room full of sugar addled seven, eight, and nine year olds – what joy. They are having a movie marathon – Toby Tyler or 10 Days in the Circus and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. He borrow those and the Last Starfighter from Ducky the last time he was here. All three movies are Ducky’s favs, Burp seems to love them too, he said Willy Wonka was better than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Sadly, Burp’s grandma hasn’t figured out what to get him for his birthday, besides tickets to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and I get those for free. Back to school clothes seems like a cop out, needed, but a cop out.

I know Ob la de Ob la dah. Life goes on – onnnnnn - la la how the life goes on.

It’s Tuesday night and in a total stroke of stupidity I went to Grocery Outlet to find what tasty dash of hell I could eat to make my thighs and butt fatter. Who came up with the Dove Ice Creams that have the layer of solid dark chocolate on them? I bought one and stuck it in the freezer. When the munchies hit me I pulled it out. Deviously chuckled to myself because Ducky wouldn’t be able to catch me eating it.

And, what the bloody hell?

Who’s friggin’ bright idea was it to freeze a layer of unbreakable dark chocolate on top of the ice cream? I suspect a dieting guru. Truly. A diet genius. It was rock hard. While I was hit by a wave of late summer-spring-cleaning I let it thaw. An hour later the chocolate layer is still hard as a rock and the ice cream is less than milk shake consistency. My hips and butt have been saved to blossom yet another day.

Ob la de, Ob la dah, life goes on brah! La la - did you know John hated this song?

Life at work has been crazy. We have just finished our huge Summer Entertainment Giveway (tickets to everything we could get our grubby little hands on, given away everyday, with a massive grand finale drawing on the final day – which would be why it’s called the finale drawing.) You know what thirty drawings are followed up by? Thirty phone calls – and you know how I love the telly. Then I get to address and lick thirty envelops. Oh what joy and fun. No wonder I’m fat. Now were are in the final leg leading to Friday’s Hot 100 Radio Auction. You know what that means? I got to put 100 (plus warm up) items on the station’s website. Turn it all into reams of paper work and then sniff dry markers until they are all sold (the hot 100 - not the dry markers – really who came up with those things they reek?). This is all followed by thank you letters to our Summer Entertainment Giveaway venues, and FOOTBALL SEASON!

I’m taking vacation in September. I think I will be really, really tired.

Paul said it best, “Ob la de, Ob la dah, life goes on brah! La la how my life goes on!

Sith,
Cele

The Reality of TV

Since China Beach, rarely do I stick with a television show for long. Okay, I take that back, there was Babylon V, Farscape, Joan of Arcadia, and West Wing. But in truth if I like it on network TV it usually gets canceled. Underscoring my argument… Sports Night (with William Macy and Felicity Huffman), Moonlight (with that hot guy in the new J-lo movie),

I’m in shock that Big Bang Theory has lasted two and a half seasons, it’s a great TV gem. But now that…

* * * * Spoiler Alert* * * * * *

Will Wheaten and the premature “L” word has broken up Penny and Leonard the show is doomed. Remember Moonlighting. Okay, you understand.

A week or two ago I saw a comment in the paper that there are few family friendly programs on television. To their dismay they could only name three: the Simpsons, some show I forgot, and Two and A Half Men. OHMYFUCKINGSTARS! The Simpsons is the footpath that leads to the dumbing down of America. And Two and A-Half Men family friendly? You’ve got to be kidding me. Two and A Half Idiots is disrespectful, rude, condescending, ignorant, did I mention rude? Oh and that’s only half of it – really I should have written a list.

When reality TV hit the airwaves I was fairly resistant. I’m not sure why. Then I went to England during the second season of Big Brother (a show miles different from the American version) I was hooked (this was during the Jade Goody season.) I came home and watched the second season of BB US style. Four seasons later the ignorance and the hatful personalities finally did me in. Wow, four seasons. I think that might be a milestone.

BB lead to Survivor, lead to American Idol. Then I found Ghost Hunters, which lead to Ice Road Truckers, which lead to DEADLIEST CATCH. I could watch this show forever. I have come to realize I adore characters.

Sadly I have degenerated into the deep bowels of the Reality TV abyss. Now I’m hooked on Cash Cab, Mythbusters, Pawn Stars, American Pickers, and all those trashy Housewives. Well not the Atlanta ones, but hey I have to watch baseball and football sometimes. Don’t tell my mom she’d be appalled. Psam on the other hand has sadly been forced to sit through a Housewives marathon.

So now I have to come out and say,

“Hello, my name is Cele and I’m a character addict.”

Sith,
Cele

Bathtub Inanity

To quote an ex husband, “I felt like a hundred pound sack of hammered assholes” an extremely over weight sack at that. I know, graphic, but gracious that is exactly how I felt. So I started a fire, fed Arlo, and then squeezed my ample butt into our standard size bathtub – running the water as fast as I possibly could.

I know you’re saying, “But Cele you have a hot tub.”

Yes I do, it rained over two inches here yesterday and we have neither pergola nor canopy over the hot tub. Have you noticed bathtubs are skinner than they use to be? When I was a kid my grandmother had a French Tub. Wow, what a luxury. I would fill it up and go for a swim. Now I have to use a come-a-long pulley system to get unstuck. Holey Moley. Besides the nice molded spots for my behemoth tushie, my tub does not have endless hot water, nor a timer that tells me when I’ve been in for thirty minutes.

Maybe I have mono. Can you get mono at 53? Under the weather? I can’t say sick, but defiantly not right – as you know, for weeks. I feel pretty good when I get up, but as the day grows long I wear out, feel as though I’m running a low grade fever, and by 9pm I am ready for bed.

My Grandmother (the one with the French Tub) had this God awful name, Effie Frances Shonhardt Cowie Reynolds. Really, you can’t make that up (she hated me.) My other grandmother’s name was Calista Dena Yerky Furby –serious you can’t make this up. My mom goes by a middle name that wasn’t even hers when she was born. Why? Her middle name was Ross. Who the heck names their female baby Ross? Well they changed it after he was tried for treason (and found guilty.) So my mom changed her middle name to Victoria and has ever since been called Vickie. My aunt on the other hand was given the middle name Hughes (after my great grandmother’s maiden name,) she thinks this makes her a Hughes (yes folks she is really that dense.)

So when Psam was born I had this really kewl name figured out – I didn’t want her saddled with a crappy name like FeeFee (and that whole sentence is filled with an inside family joke.) So I decided to name her Bryanna Sky or Elyce Danielle. I did, I thought they were both great names. Her dad was livid. Now when I was preggers I was 100 percent certain I was having a girl, so when butthead threw a fit I said, “Fine, if the baby is a girl I name her. If the baby is a boy you name him.” He chose Joshua Amos. I can feel my family ghost crowding around – aroused at such a fine name.

He went off to the Proving Grounds for AIT, I laid in a hospital bed screaming for 36 hours. When it came time to her name. We were mid Olympics. In 1976 the German team had a down hill(?) skier named Krista Hess. The rest is history. Except Psam’s still annoyed.

More hot water.

Weird names run in my family, Pinecone has a fairly common name for a child of the sixties, but apparently I had this undying need to change it. Now my mom doesn’t go by her first name, I don’t go by my first name, why should Pinecone? So I kept coming up with these nicknames for her. It could have been worse, she could have been named after a beloved aunt – Addie, Lillian, Frieda, Mary, Barbara, Jackie, Hughes. Lord I named Psam with a great middle name, Doniene, she goes by her first.

I on the other hand go through changes constantly. So now the question begs, which name do I use when I get my numbers done?
Sith,
Cele

31st March Another Month Down and Other Rampant Thoughts

There are those moment through life where most of us realize time is flying by, today is one of those days. It’s March 31st, I am itching to get in to the garden, I’m half way through my latest critique, and Rhody Festival starts next week and I’m no where ready. The reality is Rhody Festival isn’t until May 15th, but crap with how time flies it will seem like I was thinking these same thoughts just last week when Rhody rolls around.

What I have realized is that we have taken down the Christmas tree (in a timely manner for once.) Rung in a new year that is almost gone. Celebrated a trio or more of birthdays, visited the Vet numerous times, warded off uncountable nameless colds, and are not farther progressed in our accomplishments, it appears, than I had hoped to be. Not that I know where I should be accomplishment wise or what I’d hoped to accomplish, but some how I am behind. Clueless in 2009 and voted most likely to be clueless in 2010.

What I have decided so far is that we will be vacationing this year in Las Vegas… probably October, because I am working on a neighborhood reunion. In my developing years (ideals, morals, and Id) I lived in La Mirada. Tanfield is a small double cul-de-sac neighborhood of approximately sixty houses, houses full of the people who make up a large chunk of my childhood memories. This autumn we shall meet and find out if we like the people we turned into. I’m excited.

Last April I traveled to San Francisco for Sid’s birthday and was treated to not just a week with an awesome couple (Sid and Scott,) but with their extended family. I also got to meet JulieAnn (whom I love dearly) and her wonderful Wanker, but also Julz & her Bill, Lyn Blossom and Jenniphur, Eddie, and Steve. This April I will get to meet the wonderfully talented Pompy, who moving north of me. Life offers up the most splendid opportunity and I am eager to meet each and everyone of them. Last year I got to meet Jazzy, this year I get to meet Fii. It is a wonderful life.

Over a year ago, hmm about 18 months, Sacred Sister started Talk Thursday. Yes, the group is still alive… barely, but we are. This week it’s Jenniphur’s turn to pick the topic. Sadly I’ve been having problems writing on the topics, I’m not sure why, I just seem to be losing inspiration. If you’re reading this and interested in Talk Thursday let me know… you’re in and your topic will be next week. Just warning you – Jenn’s the turn-around.

Hmm, well now I am off to close out March for the FCC… argh the hoops you must jump through. Until April.

Sith,
Cele

Weekend Tidbits

I love Oregon, I love Florence, darnmit I just love life. This past weekend was the 13th annual Florence Home & Garden Show. It’s an event that my boss started, duh, 13 years ago. A small to-do that draws vendors from across the state and always offers the inspiration to kick start my gardening season. This year I bought pots from down under – way kewl, one for me, my mom, and my sister-in-law’s birthday next week.

You know my dear, dumb dog is a retaliatory pisser. There is no other way to say it. So I always worry about odors between carpet shampooing every four to six months. I bought an Eco egg. That’s my name for it at least, so far so good. It’s a little oval plug in thingie that whirls quietly purifying my living room air. I smell something I can’t put my finger on, but it’s not my dog or vacuum cleaner. Possibly $50 well spent, time will tell.

One of my clients for the Home and Garden show is a little nursery south of town that specializes in Rhododendrons (the city’s blossom of choice,) Azaleas, and their companion plants – that includes Camilla bushes. My mom bought me one years ago, which I promptly killed in ignorance. I’ve no clue why it died but I’ve always wanted one since. So I spent $20 and bought this beauty. One of my few warm memories of my grand mother was the water bowls of floating Camillas she had all over her house.

Florence has a few claims to fame: the movies Sometimes A Great Notion, Four Seasons, and portions of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Five Easy Pieces we filmed here; we are home to one of the most photographed lighthouse in America, Heceta Head – a haunted one at that n(really it’s the Keeper’s House that is haunted.) And whales decide to beach themselves here on occasion, 41 in 1979 and of course the infamous exploding whale of 1970. So it was no surprise Friday night to find that a undersized, juvenile Fin whale was caught in the surf just north of Florence. My heart always breaks for whales. My love of cetaceans made me erroneously believe I would grow up to be a Marine Biologist (no one told me it would take eight years of zoology – and a boat load of money and ambition.)It was the dream that died right before the I’m going to be a professional dancer dream bit the big one.

Jonah (as he was named prior to his impromptu burial) Sunday morning was interned in an eleven foot deep trench on the beach below that haunted lighthouse, the third and final place the ocean brought him on his three day death trek. Marine Biologist from OSU took their tissue and organ samples to determine what killed him. Backhoes and bulldozers dug the trench and then rolled Jonah in. A wife of one of the crew created a make shift cross and quietly wished Jonah a happier afterlife.

And then it snowed.

Sith,
Cele

T’isn’t The Season

First, my mother’s Maple tree is turning red. Second, the first back to school sales insert arrived in this morning’s Siuslaw News. My head is spinning. Normally this would harbor no ill thoughts for me, except it’s JULY 12th. My lilies haven’t even bloomed. I’ve not had a chance to spring and now Mother Nature and the advertising calendar are stealing summer from me?

Except for a trip to Portland for our oldest daughter’s wedding, our vacation is going to be a stay-cation. The upside is I will get some projects done; the down side is we save gas and airline dollars. Okay, so there is no down side. But school shopping already? Ouch.

I don’t have a school age kid, so I won’t find myself placing extra neon post-its in the shopping basket for my desk. No, cool gel pens; no glittery, ombre’d, character embellished pencils; no psychedelic book covers – bummer days.

Hours can be spent at the nursery pondering which annuals, bulbs, perennials, and bamboo for my yard. Hours can be spent toting pavers from pallets to pick up bed, truck to back yard. Whereas some women can spend hours drooling over shoes, purses, and lipsticks - I will spend life times dreaming at the nursery and on the post-it note aisle (you have noted that at Staples post-its have their own section, right?)

I will lament having to make a choice,”Hot pink or neon green? (When in truth I want them both,) Ah what the heck, they’re just post-it notes. Hearts (rapid head bobbing) or stars? (heavy hmmms,) Ah, what the heck, they’re just post-it notes.”

And the envelope aisle? Have you seen the plastic envelopes with the stringie tie things? I have been doing more and more sales in the last two years. The plastic sheet size envelopes are perfect for the Oregon weather. Bright blues, kiwis, and the little black envelop that is a must for every smart business woman (pearls are optional – ah what the heck, ditch the pearls, this is Oregon.) My clients must like them too, because I never get them back.

Kewl, I’ll buy more.

Now hearts or stars?

Filling The Corners

There are days when I am not as good as I should be. Not even as good as yesterday, sometimes falling all the way to less than I was last week. Where my angles don’t fit the corners of my life. Where I am at odds with this person inside my skin, living my life, holding true to my ideals. Try as I might I can’t step outside of me to look at it from another angle; look at it from your angle, my husband’s angle, my daughter’s, mom’s or even Arlo’s perspective, so I have to ask, “What in the hell happened to me today? I was standing there fine yesterday and today it’s a train wreck.”

Suddenly I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have my mental health numbers checked.

I have the love of a good man, the respect of my mother, my daughter, but I am sure my dog questions my intentions. I have ideals, but do I have the balls to back up the tenets of my life? The dogmas that make up me, can I stand on them without fear that someone will question why I am – me? It galls me that I even have to justify my whys and wherefores, and feel intense fear that I will find myself lacking. I am thrilled that I rise to new challenges. To embrace new thoughts, chew them up, spit them out, and regurgitate the cud to paste in to my nook on the right. Only to find that others can’t accept that minute change in my thoughts.

Menopause can make you crazy.

Standing on pins and needles I wait. Wait for the moment I will fit into the angles, fill the expectations of others, and exceed my own limits. Where my skin will feel totally right – without benefit of enhancements. That single moment in time where my hips won’t be too big, my brain too little, my mouth too loud, and my manner to ostentatious.

The moment where being me is hip.

That moment where I won’t worry about what others will say, or wonder even if they care enough to have something to say…about what I write, believe, say, embrace, and accept. When I will fall down and they will applaud because I didn’t quit trying the new and unusual. Where I stepped out of the box, even if it was to only slide on a banana peel. Where my laughter is infectious enough to over come the inanition of polite society, causing everyone to step back and rethink and believe the odds can be over come.

Someday I want to grow up, but do I want to be a grown up? I don’t know. Because some days it still feels like the school playground.

Sith,
Cele

Random Hit And Run

What else would you call a post that is about nothing and everything? So this weekend we have Burp. Both Ducky and I worked today so I took Burp to work with me, on the contingency that he’d let me take him out for breakfast. I know, the inhumanity of it all.

I know my six year old grandson, he’s a bottomless pit, and when he grows up he will be tall and thin (but hopefully not scrawny as his worthless biological donor.) Right now he really resembles’ Ex number 1’s son, that’s a good thing. But he eats like there is no tomorrow. So at work he ate a bowl of dynabites, aka Cocoa Krispies, a fruit roll up, and a bunch of grapes – that was between 6 and 10am. Then we went to breakfast where he ate two and a half sausage links and an entire adult size pancake – that was between 10 and 11. Then we went to the local Catholic church’s holiday bazaar, which really should have been labeled a rummage sale. Grocery shopping, and home for the Ducks game.

It’s 2pm and Burp is hungry for lunch. He’s had another fruit roll up, an Otter Pop, because grandma’s house without Otterpops is a sad grandma comment, and graham crackers. So I made him half a peanut butter sandwich and a can of Batman noodle soup. The kid is a bottomless pit I tell you.

Have you noticed how the chicken soup part of the soup just isn’t as good as it was when we were kids? I give Burp all the noodles a bit of the broth and keep the rest for myself. I only use half a can of water when I make it, and the broth just isn’t the same. Bummer Dude.

I’ve been kind of bummed. No not so much over the soup, because I can live with that, but over the huge gap in my life since late February early March. I’m one of those people who doesn’t collect a lot of friends that I let in close. I’ve always been that way, because have you ever noticed, three really is a crowd? What’s up with that? So anyway, no matter what I say to the person who is now a gaping hole in my life, it comes out wrong. I’m bummed about that. She’s recent started coming back into Friday night chat, but I have to wonder why, because it’s not to renew our former friendship. She has said she’s quit writing (which is a shame) so what gives?

Have you noticed how many people stop by a blog and totally tank the author? Jesus Fucking Christ, what is up with that? Certainly a blog is a place of give and take, but honestly I am shocked by how many people just dump their crap on the author. My blog is about nothing and everything. I ramble and rant at will, sometimes it is random, some times I’m thoroughly lost in the desert, but hey, it’s my blog. I was utterly shocked to see some of the crap on a friend of mine’s blog recently that was a blatant attack on her and totally ungrounded. It was petty, without merit (apparently a lot because I’ve said that twice now) and under the guise of Anonymous. Chicken Shit. If you have something to say sign it with either your name or your handle.

Now Natalie gets this crap all the time and I love how she deals with it. But my blogging friend this happened to yesterday doesn’t get this crap. And what did JA get raked for? A Metaphor, a metaphor about her passion for writing. Sheesh, Anonymous probably couldn’t spell Metaphor, wouldn’t understand the definition of Metaphor unless they went back and read the comments on said post, because Christie ever so nicely gave Anonymous the definition and link just to prove it. Good girl Christie.

By the way, neither Natalie or JA deserve this blatant bottom feeding hit and run. But just like the world, the Internet is full of large foreheaded low lifes, suffering God complexes.

So I am watching Oregon take on USC and hoping, hoping, alright yes, they win. But I have to ask… Why is it okay to spike the ball to stop the clock, I mean it’s a blatant act? But a team will get penalized if the QB throws the ball away. What’s up with that? Spike/throw, who came up with those rules? And why do my Ducks always have to make it suspenseful and nail biting in the last quarter? Arrrh.

Why do I always think up a poetic run, right when my sleeping pills are kicking in, I’ve begun my prayers, and I’ve got an airshift in six hours? I had this great beginning running through my mind last night as if it was problem riddled anxiety. I repeated repeated, repeated, repeated every word, thinking kewl I’ll remember this in the morning. Nada. Sucka. Zilch.

No airshift tomorrow morning, tonight my brain will be empty, a bottomless pit like Burp’s tummy, blank as new fallen snow. So is the addle pated ability of this poet.

Sith
Cele