Now Isn't That Special

Last week I went to church.  Yes, I went in the building and No, it did not catch on fire.  Lightening bolts did not hit the roof and the pits of Hell did not open to devour me.  Although I did manage to scare the crap out a little old man when I accidently walked in the men's room.  Since I think that was what he was there for in the first place, that doesn't count.

After the pre-ordained* hour of listening to our Pastor telling us about the meaning of having a giving heart, the Christmas season, and being charitable to others, it was time to go.  

I got into my car and proceeded to start backing out of my parking spot.  Now, before I started backing out, I did my safety checks.  I looked Left Behind** ~ check. I looked Right Behind ~ check.  And I looked straight behind ~ oohhh nice Aaasss..... Uh, Check.   I even fixed my lipstick in the rear view mirror before I completely committed to putting the gear in the reverse position.  

Now, I took driver's education about the time that law makers started requiring set belts to be worn all the time, so my knowledge on the legality of the speed limit in a church parking lot might be a little hazy.  However, I did take defensive driving a few months ago and now know the laws regarding the right of way.  (And yes, I know the legality of driving 10 miles over the posted speed limit on the interstate, thank you very much Mr. I-Would-Give-A-Ticket-To-My-Own-Mother-Police-Officer.)  

Anyway, I am about 2/3rds of the way out of my parking spot when this Soccer-Mom-Pimped-Out SUV comes hauling ass around the corner and slams on the brakes.  By this time I am fully committed to getting out of my parking spot and was not about to throw it into drive just to tuck my Toyota totin' butt out of her way.  Especially since I have THE LAW on my side.  Yep, thanks to my newly minted defensive driving knowledge, I know I have the right of way in this situation.  Check it people, once you are over half way out of the parking spot, Ms. Soccer-Mom-SVU has to wait on you!  So there!!!

When I continue with my reversing process, Ms. I-Go-To-Church-And-Am-Obviously-A-Much-Better-Christian-Than-You proceeds to lay on the horn and flip me the bird!!!!!  Wellllllll, isn't that sssspeciahhhhhhhl!!  Being the much better person (of course), I just smiled, waved and mouthed "Merry Christmas............

B*tch" as I finished pulling out and drove out of sight.*** 

* Oh here I go, getting funny... Get it? Pre ordained Pastor.  Somebody stop me.

**Get it???!!! Oh Christianity & Armageddon humor is too much

***Let's just say I am a work in progress on that whole being good to ALL God's creatures.

Houston, We have a Mouse

As Promised Several Blogs Ago......

When I was coming back from the second best holiday EVER...

~ The BEST holiday EVER was the year I spent Christmas with my less than favorite side of the family.  The night before, BFF & I had engaged in our now annual Christmas Eve Sushi Feast and I had gone to the liquor store in order to stock up on Santa's Little Helpers (Jim, Jack and Smirnoff).  I was three feet from the liquor store door when I slammed my hand in the car door.  (So close, yet so far away.  Story of my life!)  I got to spend the next four hours in the ER with a fat-assed nurse who could not be bothered to get me some ice and a man who wanted a tetanus shot for a cut he had received three days earlier.  The ER doctor was obviously less than please to be working the holidays and dosed me with enough pain killers to keep Rush Limbaugh happy for a few years.  What made this the BEST holiday EVER was that I got to spend the entire Christmas Day drooling on myself, demonstrating that hand-eye coordination is not key to demolishing freshly wrapped gifts, and generally getting away with telling the less-than-favorite-family-members what I REALLY thought about them; then getting to blame it all on the drug induced haze.  Loved it!!

Anyway, back to the Second Best Holiday Ever.  Which was brought about in part by my Dad's superior Apple Martini making skills.  After spending a few days with the family and my shaken-not-stirred new friend, I was headed home via the Houston Intercontinental Airport.  I had decided to sit apart from the crowd at the gate when I looked down and saw a pair of black eyes and whiskers poking out from under a newspaper.  WHAT THE??!?!?!?!!?

It was a little mouse. No shit!! A mouse.  In the middle of a major international airport. A small, grey colored, cute as a button, little field mouse.  Complete with whiskers and a little tail that were moving like he was in the great quake of 1906.  How in the world he got there, I have no idea, but he defiantly took a wrong turn somewhere in the maze.  And now this little guy was shaking for dear life under a chair in the Continental gate 23 lounge of Houston Bush International Airport.  About the same time that I noticed Mr. Jingles, Bubba the Redneck comes running up to him like he is going to stomp the living daylights out of the poor mouse.  I mean, this man was hell bent on doing something to this poor mouse.   

Now, anyone will tell you that Ms. Tastrophie is a softy for the furry.  Not so much for people. Especially not so much for people who don't have a soft for the furry.  And had Bubba gone through with his mouse stomping plans, Ms. Tastrophie would have been spending the end of her Thanksgiving break in a Houston jail cell.  (And I do NOT look good in orange!)  

Since Bubba was on a mission, I quickly got up and scooped up Mr. Jingles and whisked him over to my seat.  After a few minutes of soothing whispers and gentle stroking, I tried to figure out what to do with this newest edition to my travel plans.  I think there was a little divine intervention for Mr. Jingles, since I just happen to have a little plastic container to put him in.  (Gammie had packed me a lunch for my trip; thus the container.) Although I think the excitement might have been a bit much for the poor fellow.  He was scared stiff and looked like he was going to die from fear alone, not Bubba's size 22 boot.  

After a few minutes of pleading with the nice man from customer service, Mr. J was on his way to the field outside the airport.  At least that is what I made the man swear to me was going to happen.  I did not want ~ and do not want~ to know if Mr. J was going to meet any other fate.  (I would have brought him home, but Elsa would have made it a very short homecoming for Mr. Jingles and I think he preferred the fields anyway.)

I'd like to think that Mr. Jingles is now off somewhere in the green fields of Houston Intercontinental Airport.  Maybe with his own little Cirque du Souris.  And if Karma likes to give it out to others, like she has been givin' it to me lately, Bubba is experiencing a few little boot stompings himself.

P.s. for my germaphobic readers:  YES, I washed my hands. And used the Purell. 

Life Changing Choices

As some of you know, my life has gone through some really big changes in the past year.  The biggest one comes from a change of careers and the income that comes with that change.  Basically I went from trying to keep up with the Joneses to trying to figure out how I am going to make $50 last three weeks when I still have bills to pay.  

Last week I had a nasty viral infection that spread across my face like wild-fire (from the left bottom corner of my mouth, across my lower lip to the right upper corner of my eye.)  It wasn't pretty and could have caused blindness if it had spread into my eye.  The doctor was nice enough to send mega drug prescriptions to the pharmacy for me.  Mega drug prescriptions that come with a mega drug price and no generic equivalent.  I get paid once a month.  I bring this up because once I have paid everything I can for the month, I am rarely left with more than $200 to pay for food, gas and anything else Murphy decides throws at me during the remaining 29-30 days of the month.  This month, I had about $100 left and Murphy is having a field day throwing curve balls at me.  This was only one of his pitches.  Got to love Murphy and his timing.

I go to pick up the Mega drugs along with some routine medication and the clerk tells me the price is $158!!  AND I HAVE INSURANCE!!  I don't even want to know what the price would have been had I not had insurance.  I had $30 in cash in my wallet and about $100 left in my checking.  Math skills check:  100+30 = 158??? Nope.  Not even close.

For the first time in my life I experienced what it felt like to have to choose between a true rock and a hard place.  Not a "oh, do I have McDonald's even though it's really not in my budget" choice, but a "will they cut off my electricity if I get choose to get medication that might save my life with this money instead of paying the electric bill?" choice.  I can honestly say that if you have never stood at the Walgreen's pharmacy counter with a line of people behind you that can hear every word spoken and ask the pharmacist which medication you can live without; you have no idea the humiliation and hurt that comes with this choice.  I stood there fighting with every ounce of courage I could muster, trying to retain what little shred of my dignity I still had as I paid for what I could afford.  It took the sheer strength of God to get my feet to carry me out of the store without collapsing, crying into a fetal position.  As I walked out, I put my last fifty cents into the Salvation Army kettle.  Somewhere, someone will need that 50 cents as much as I just had a few minutes earlier. 

I now know what it feels like to lose your self worth and try to retain some dignity; and it's not a warm fuzzy.  I have a feeling that until I can recover from the changes that have been occurring in my life, I will have a more than a few of these moments.  It sucks.  For lack of a more mature adult term, it really sucks.  It's like having the wind knocked out of you, and the person who delivered the punch is someone you know and love.  And it feels like the world is sitting in judgement of you and finding you guilty even though you know you are innocent.

So this Christmas season, when you go to buy another needless thing for that Great Aunt Sally you never really liked and don't talk to except once a year.  Take a moment to be grateful you have the ability to make that choice and aren't faced with the decision between a Maslow's need and a Macy's need.  That the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come will show you "God Bless Us Everyone" and not the feted face of Jacob Marley in your dreams.  I was not mindful of the spirit of my choice to keep up with the Jones.  I wasn't grateful that I had the ability to choose. I never was grateful and now I wish I had been.

So to all, I wish with a grateful heart a Merry Christmas.  

God Bless Us Everyone.

How Do You Like Me Now?

Last Sunday, I met a Blog-friend!! You guys, this was sooooo cool.  There is so much to tell you'all, so don't lose me here.

First, I met Caps through our blogs and Ravelry. Oh and she is a way better knitter than I am!  Not to mention the girl kicks Martha Stewart ass when it comes to getting the Christmas decorations done, cards mailed, presents knitted (yes, I said knitted), crafty decorations made and her own personal four disk set of rockin' Christmas carols.  Me? Yeah, not so much.  If you get your card before Valentine's Day, think of it as my way of extending the holidays just a little bit longer.  

Anyway, after many moons of blog-talking and my joyful winning of a personal copy of the said four disk Christmas set, Caps and I thought it would be great to meet IRL.  Being that we are both residing in the same town and all. 

First off, you all, it's kind of weird to meet some one you know, but don't know, but want to know, but are afraid they won't like you, but don't really know.  And what if you don't like them? And what if they are really just a front for some psycho-cyber-stalking ring that withholds Ho-ho's and xanax from unsuspecting first year teachers??  And did I mention, I was REALLY afraid she wouldn't like me?

I mean, it's kind of like a blind date that your mutual friend sets you up on.  And has told you all the details about the person, but forgets to mention the really important things...like the name.  True story, I didn't know Caps' name!!  I only knew her as Cappydoodles!!  (Which makes for an odd moment when you first meet.)

Well, it turns out that Caps is way too cute and cool.  (And I don't think she would ever withhold any Ho-ho's or Xans, thank GAWD!!)  We chatted, knitted, and ogled yarn.  She told me where she was from and I told her about my mouse adventures in Houston.  Turns out Caps has a handbag problem as well.  I KNEW I would like this girl!  Although we were good and didn't buy any new knitting bags, or yarn.  (Damn you, Budget!!)  She did try to convince me that knitting socks was easy, but I am not too sure...  

So, how did it go, you might ask?  Did she like me?  I think so and I made her blog for the day! That must be a good sign.  Ms. Tastrophie has to say that she has never been that confident when she meets people for the first time.  Honestly, I talk a blue streak out of nerves and people have been known to gnaw their own arms off in order to escape.  Me?  Did I like her?  Oh Hell Yeah!! She knits, she decorates, she makes jello-shots in actual syringes.  What could you not like?!?!  (Cappydoodles ~ can't wait for the next time! I have to try that jello-shot idea.)

Now, all I have to do is meet:

Mjenks and Wizard Cat

IHOB and Fernando

DG

Chemgeek

Reenie

Vanessa

... And many more (but it's late and I need to BS my way through another lesson plan.)

Two for Tuesday

Being a woman of few words, I thought I would share how my day went with you.  I hope you had a wonderful day :-)  Besides, the real post for today is below.

P.s. Not really THAT bad, but I giggled my rear off at this and wanted to share it

Fancy That

Dear Makers of Fancy Feast Wet Cat Food:

As my eldest cat ~ Toothless is, well, toothless (save for the four little things masquerading as teeth in the front of his mouth), I have given into the guilt and purchased your fine wet cat food for several years now.  (Truly, you should be thanking the Jewish relatives somewhere in my family tree, because this guilt thing is totally making you bank!)

Recently Toothless has upped the guilt ante and I have been purchasing your Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys. As I am fairly certain that neither of my fine feline friends can read, and since they also lick each other's ass (as well as their own), I am sure they don't care if it is the Tuscan Blend or Florentine Delight they are savoring as long as it is wet and in the cat bowl.  Which leads me to ask, "What the hell do you put in this shit"?  Because what goes in smells NOTHING like what comes out of my cats.  

OH MY GAWD PEOPLE CAN YOU SMELL THIS SHIT??? No really.  SMELL. THIS. SHIT!!!  I have no way of describing it.  I have been to third world countries that use a hole in the ground as a public toilet and that smelled better than what my cats mass produce after eating your product.  I have three year old paint peeling off the walls around the litter box from the fumes this shit emits.  The Special Forces are petitioning Congress to fund my kitten's shit as weapons of mass destruction or at the very least a form of Biological Warfare.  Ohhhhhh MMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYY GAAAAAAWWWWWWD!!! 

You would not believe the power of this shit.  I have been in a dead, xanax-and-hoho-overdose-coma type sleep and one little drop of this shit has been enough to wake me.  It brought tears to the UPS man's eyes the other day as he was delivering a package.  The litter box is two rooms away and has a cover on it!!  Not to mention, I had to "blame it on the cats" in front of a complete stranger, who by the way, would not take me up on my offer to come in and smell it for himself.  (Note: recently learned that the UPS man has requested another route ~ preferably one without crazy farting cat ladies.)

I only bring this up because, seriously, the odor is beginning to make me wonder if I should be whisking the kitties to the vet for some sort of emergency bowl surgery.  Really?  Did something die in there? Or is this what you intended when you did the R&D on culinary wet cat food?  Is this some sort of sick twisted lesson you are trying to teach us about spending more money on cat food than on human food? And since I have been such a loyal customer, would it be too much to ask if you put a little sprig of mint or something in there?  Maybe a touch of pine?  Hell, I would settle for Country Linen at this point.

Sincerely

Miss Tastrophie

P.s. The Shit count is this is high and if I offended your delicate sensibilities... I apologize.

Sunshine on my shoulders....

Thank you to everyone who made a comment on my post . You have given me a little hope in what has become an utterly hopeless never-ending chain of days. If I can come to my senses sometime before I come to the end of my rope :-) I will resuscitate Ms. Tastrophie.

Plus, I really do have some killer stories to about kids, Yosemite and some Karmic-bitch slapping I have been getting lately. 

Thank you to all

Ms. T

My Hero

It's Veteran's Day and it is oh-so sweet for me. My grandfather has dementia and while he has his good and bad days, I am saddened by the knowledge that all those great war stories he used to tell me are forever being locked away, one memory at a time.

When I was younger, I spent the weekends at the Lake of the Ozarks. Every weekend, he and I would take a ride to the "top of the hill" for something we inevitably forgot to bring. On these rides, he would tell me little "tales" of his life when he was a boy or stories about being in the Army during World War II. Nothing horrific, just the fun things you could tell a ten year old and still have them gaze at you in wide-eyed adoration.

My Grandfather met my Grandmother at a dance hall and just 10 days later, they were married. Papa says he was a lover and a fighter; he just couldn't be both at the same time. So he married my grandmother and then left for the war.

My grandfather was in the Cavalry. In fact, he first trained on horses at Ft Riley before the Army trusted him enough to let him ride the Harley-Davidson WLA motorcycle. (Guess they wanted to make sure he could stay in the seat.) The Army did finally get around to sending my grandfather to war; he landed at La Harve on D-Day +1. I don't know much about the fighting he saw; just that he saw it. When Saving Private Ryan came out I asked him to go see it with me. He shook his head and said "No, I think seeing it the first time was enough for me". Later he would tell me that bullets sound like bees when they pass by you and that your hearing tunes out the cries of people, but not the sound of bullets. From La Harve, he did a tour through Italy, Germany and France. By the time the war ended, his company was in Germany and living the high life in the Austrian Alps.

My Papa also holds the distinction of being promoted and demoted 13 times during the war. Seems Papa and trouble were quite the couple. And trouble followed Papa everywhere. Like the time he called the Lt.'s wife a whore and the Lt. was standing right behind him. That cost him his Sergeant's stripes. Or the time he and the company Sergeant went on the mail run and came back with a friendly pretty young Fraulein who was more than either of them could handle. (I was sworn to secrecy to keep that one from my Grandmother.) That cost him those newly re-issued stripes again. Papa went in the Army as a Private and got out of the Army as a Private; although according to Papa, the Army did its damnedest to keep promoting him but trouble wouldn't let them.

There are more stories he told me. Some as I got older, got more realistic. Like how the people in Europe were so starved that when a horse was shot, before they could go back to get it, the people had butchered it for food. Or what it was like to have a grenade explode in your face and spend months having your teeth, jaw and nose rebuilt. Of having your buddy next to you one minute and then gone the next and how it made making friends seem pointless in war. Mostly he told me the "good" things about the war. How the dance halls cost a dime, and that he and his best buddy "Peanut" could bring down the house doing the jitterbug.

Today he spends most of his time watching t.v. Although I don't know if he sees everything he is watching or if his thoughts are tuned to a different time and place. If the faces he sees are the ones of friends and family here today or the ones gone past; or if he will really remember me the next time I call. All I know is that my greatest hero sits so far away and I would give anything to go back to a summer day and take a ride up a hill for one more story...

You Can't Agrue With Logic Like That

My students had a test a few days ago covering their comprehension of the story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. One of my all time favorite stories and a heck of a good cartoon, if I do say so myself. Since I also teach Language Arts as well as messing mathematicly with the minds of youngsters, we had read the story... and watched the cartoon. Because using the tv is still the best way to get some down time from dealing with a room full of over diagnosed and under medicated kids. (The kids laughed when I screamed from the back of the room "Don't go in the cobra hole, Rikki!!! Seriously, don't they know he might not come out?)

Anyway, after our week of study, the class got the test. I was good and used Bloom's Taxonomy of educational objectives. I covered all the key points and vocabulary for the first level of knowledge, then moved on to the deeper cognative understanding questions. The last question asked the students to pick the best of two answers, then explain why they DID NOT chose the other. It was ment to be a short answer response. This is what I got:

"Duh, that other one sucked"

Yeah, it's hard to argue with logic like that.  (Just like he is not going to be able to argue with the "F" he earned on the test.)

This is Some Scary Knit, People

The other night me and one of the best girlfriends (AW) got together for a night of movies and knitting. (Yes, Ms. Tastrophie knits and she has some mad cable knitting skills, thank you very much. http://www.ravelry.com/) Now, I love to knit. I am not a lover of all things scary movies. But this is the season and Best Girlfriend does love her some scary, so Ms. Tastrophie does what every good friend would do... watches and closes her eyes at the scary parts. (Which means I close my eyes pretty much from the minute the movie starts until the credits roll, because well...I'm a chicken sh*t.)

Now, I really can't yip too much on this because the movie and knitting was my idea. When I suggested the movie and knitting it was 9 a.m and I was thinking more about day-time movie viewing. For me, watching scary movies is done in the brightest part of the day with all the shades open and every light in the house on. The last time I did the scary with the shades closed and lights off was when my sister convinced me that it would be FUN to watch The Ring (http://www.ring-themovie.com/) with no lights on in the middle of the evening. Did I mention my sister is mean? Then she thought it would be funny to call me on her cell phone from the bathroom right after scary-wet-black-hair-creepy-girl comes climbing out of the well and through the TV set. Did I mention I am now an only child?

Yeah, I had a $200 electric bill that month after sleeping with my entire apartment looking like the Crank house at Christmas time. I also lost a month of TV viewing since my TV was unplugged and hidden in the back of the closet for three weeks before I could bring myself to take it out. (I also had the closet door wedged shut with a chair, 2 stacks of BIG @$$ books and a dresser... just in case.)
Back to the story. AW & I rent the typical suspense-horror movie. The one where the Japanese version was so good that Hollywood tried to capitalize and re-make it. Yeah, it fell flat and was pretty bad, but it had just enough scary to get me all weirded out. We watch. We knit. I hid my eyes. Apparently not enough though because after Best Girlfriend leaves to return to here abode, I am left alone in a semi-dark apartment with two of the worst guard cats. One day someone is going to break in and those two morons will fall over themselves trying to make it under the bed in time.

I go to bed. Thing 1 and Thing 2 park themselves on the end of the bed dutifully keeping one eye opened for anything that should go "bump" in the night. Did you know cats can sleep with one eye opened? Yeah, they do. So that they can look like this when the boogie man comes creeping down the hall:

BIG PUSSIES!!! About 3 a.m. one of my neighbors decides now is a good time to go slamming doors and making all sorts of go-bump-in-the-night noises. I sit straight up. Cats jump straight up. My heart races faster than the Indy 500 lead car. Cats race faster across the bed and under the covers. Fur and blood was everywhere. Little brats forgot to pull back the claws in their mad dash under the covers to protect my feet. I scream like a little b*tch. OK, it was more like a blood curdling, bone chilling, OH-MY-GAWD-HE-IS-GOING-TO-KILL-ME-SCREAM. I kept it up for about 5 minutes (it felt like five minute, come on, work with me here). And thanks to the lovely after-market set of lungs I am now packing, I scream VERY loudly. When I finally wake up from the hyperventilating pass out, I grab the closest thing to a weapon I could find: My copy of the latest Twilight Series Breaking Dawn. (I don't know what I was going to do with it: bore the intruder to death?) After a very careful search of my apartment, I kicked Useless and More Useless out of the bed and went back to sleep....

Until the cops banging on my door woke me up and I started screaming all over again. My neighbors heard me screaming, called 9-1-1 thinking I was getting the business end of an axe or something, and the town's finest took 30 minutes to come rescue me. Let's just say they were not too happy to hear my explanation for interrupting their late-night donut run. And I won't be watching any more scary movies in the dark.