Crazy Clown Man

My boss and I went to go pick up some cookies from a hotel today. (No this was not business related. She likes the cookies from the Doubletree Hotel so we went and bought a bunch.) We parked and as we were walking across the street Cathy stops dead in her tracks and goes, "OOOhh, be careful! Don't go over there, there's a crazy clown man over there!" As I looked across the street I saw a slight variation of this...

On any other week it might be scary to see a man dressed in a nurse costume with clown makeup and a red wig but this week is Comic-Con in San Diego so these jokers are a dime a dozen. I said, "Cathy, it's Comic-con remember? He's just dressed up like the Joker from The Dark Knight." Cathy responded, "Oh well, it's not every day you see a crazy clown man waiting for the bus."

Happy Birthday Laura!

My sister Laura had a birthday earlier this month! We hope it was great. She is exactly 10 years older than me so I can always remember how old she is! It was so cool having older siblings. They could take me places and they were also really fun to embarrass. One time when Laura was getting ready for a formal dance she and my mom were trying to get her ready and she was having a problem with her dress and her bra. I remember sitting there watching them deal with this. When her date arrived everyone was taking pictures I blurted out in front of everyone - "Laura, are you wearing a bra???" I don't remember much after that,just her stunned face. She was pretty pissed. For some reason I have lots of pee stories associated with Laura - I don't know why. Once when I was about 6 I did something to her and she threaten to "tickle me until I peed!" I just laughed in her face and so she grabbed me, threw me on the floor, and sure enough, she made good on her word. All that was left on the family room floor was a little "W" wear my butt had been. She was very satisfied. I got her back though. Another time I was sitting on her lap and we were watching TV. I distinctly remember having to go pee but I was really comfortable. So I decided to just let it go... Once the warm moisture hit her, the next thing I remember is flying through the air! Laura has always been so much fun and I have lots of fun memories with her. Happy Birthday! We love you!

We put the FUN in dysFUNctional

We recently had a hotel call us to try and help them with an event they are putting on. They were running into trouble with some permits. My boss had gotten the initial call for help and was describing the issues with the rest of us. She goes, "They are having an event on their rooftop pool deck and they are having a band play...he said something about a blowfish and a hootie?" The rest of us immediately burst out laughing and one of my co-workers goes, "Cathy, that's the band's name: Hootie and the Blowfish!"

BBQ

A few weeks ago the poor Kansas City BBQ burned down. What? You don't know what the Kansas City BBQ is? Well it was the bar featured in the movie "Top Gun" where Goose plays the piano and sings Great Balls of Fire. (I know , it's ironic.) The owner had acquired lots of memorabilia from the director when they shot the movie here almost 25 years ago. Their most prized piece of memorabilia was Tom Cruise's maverick fighter pilot helmet which they displayed in a big plexiglass box. Man, did we covet that piece! We found out the restaurant was burning when the local Fox News called to interview my boss about it. I went home and watched the news that night to see what they used of Cathy's interview. In the footage of the burned out building there was a pile of rubble which included a blackened helmet with burnt plastic melted around it. As Angelo and I watched the news story I yelled, "See! If we had had the maverick helmet it would still be safe!" Angelo looked and me and said, "Didn't you guys almost burn down your office last week with macaroni and cheese?" What else could I do but shut up?

Fire!

"Something is on FIRE!" These frenzy inciting words were uttered by one of my co-workers today. At about noon my boss inadvertently tried to catch our office on fire. It was great! Recently Cathy has been on a diet kick which has been great for me because it has cut down on the amount of pie and carbs that were constantly being paraded around the office. Today she brought in a low carb mac and cheese microwave dinner for lunch. She mentioned that she had found it in the back of her freezer and it had lots of freezer burn on it but she was going to try it and see if it was still good. So she goes and puts it in the microwave and comes into my office to chat while it was “cooking.” That’s when the shouting started… “There’s something on fire!” Cathy and I looked wide-eyed at one another and then ran down to the kitchen. Cathy yells, “My lunch!” By then we could see smoke billowing out into the hallway and my co-worker Lynn trying to tame the smoke. Cathy beat me to the microwave and once it was open even more smoke filled the room. So the whole kitchen is smoky and I am doing my best to waft the smoke away from the smoke detector, flinging by body in the air and wind milling my arms about. (Ironically, we had had a building fire drill on Tuesday. We passed with flying colors. In a real fire I think we would all die.) So now Lynn has run into our boardroom to get the new fans we had just purchased for when the offices got hot. (Even with the air conditioning sometimes it gets stuffy in a high rise. We hadn't anticipated this kinda hot though.) Unfortunately, all three of them were still in the boxes and so while I’m jumping in the air Lynn is furiously dissecting the packaging to get to the standing fan. It turns out fans aren’t really an “out of the box” item. There were components to put together so Lynn just took the head of the fan, laid in on the floor and plugged it into an outlet near the kitchen. So while Lynn was battling the fan and I was jumping in the air, Cathy was standing at the microwave in the smoke filled kitchen. Her eyes were blinking vigorously trying to stand the stinging smoke and she was attempting to wipe up the charcoal mess with paper towels. So I’m shouting at her, “Cathy, get out of the kitchen! The smoke is bad for you, get out of the kitchen! Now is not the time to be cleaning the microwave!” So Lynn comes running down and starts yelling at her too. As soon as Cathy stopped cleaning the microwave, I started working on the other box of fans which ALSO required some assembling. So after we were able to blow most of the smoke out in the hallway we were able to assess the damage. There were piece of fan boxes, Styrofoam, plastic and fan parts strewn everywhere. The microwave was a mess and the mac and cheese – well, see for yourself…

We all stink too. We smell like a bonfire where the kindling was burnt microwave popcorn. I can’t believe the fire alarm didn’t go off. Apparently, my fire dance had helped. That's all we would have needed is a bunch of firefighters laughing at our blackened mac and cheese. (Ironically, their offices are in our building too!) There hadn’t been any real flames but the smoke had been pretty heavy. Later we presented the petrified lava rock (aka mac and cheese) to Cathy for lunch. Yummy!

Earlier Cathy had told me the mac and cheese had been in her freezer since the last time she was on weight watchers. Lynn and I examined the burned up packaging and found a date from 1999. Um, yeah! I would not advise anyone to attempt to eat anything that is almost a decade old! Besides not tasting good it’s a fire hazard!

Do you need diapers?

Yesterday Angelo's mom called to give us an important message. After chatting with Angelo for a few moments on the phone she added that she would be willing to pay for us to have a diaper service when we have a baby. This would seem like a normal conversation if, A) we had ever talked about wanting a diaper service, and B) WE WERE ACTUALLY PREGNANT! (Which we are not.) What does she think, "Well, maybe if I just talk as if there is a baby there will be one!" These occurrences are happening more and more frequently. This is almost as good as when she gave us a garden stake about 6 months ago that read "Grandpa's Garden." (It kinda looked like this one...) When I took it out of the brown bag it had been delivered in, Angelo explained that she got it for us so that when we got pregnant we could announce it by giving it to my father-in-law. As my eyes got bigger and bigger Angelo tried to diffuse the situation but to no avail. He got an earful of "We will announce we are pregnant the way we want to! Why doesn't she keep the %*@$ sign and give it to her husband when he finds out he's a grandpa?" I don't know, that one really got me going.

And just for the record I have no desire to use cloth diapers. Even if you (mother-in-law) used them, I will be filling up the landfill just like everyone else with poopy diapers.

(So this post had been taken down because someone had thought it was too mean. I edited it a bit and just for the record, I do love my mother-in-law, and this is just meant to be funny. So just shut your face Angelo. :) See, if you put a smiley face after something it makes it alright!)

Top 10 signs U R a n00b

The other day Angelo and I were driving some of the young men from our church somewhere. One asked honestly, "Why are gas prices so high?" Before we could say anything another kid said, "Because they are n00bs." We can thank all the online gamers for this new gem added to our lexicon. My husband is an avid nerd, I mean, online gamer (World of Warcraft is his vice of choice at the moment.) I call him a n00b all the time. It's kinda like a term of endearment now.

So here are my Top Ten Signs that U R a n00b: (Husband - I'm looking at you.)

#10. You want a license plate frame for your car that reads, "My other mode of transportation is a flying Gryphon."
#9. Your wife asks you if your going to be playing WoW with your "online friends" tonight and you smile and answer in the affirmative.
#8. You are heard shouting, "Need more aggro!" while pounding on your computer keys pretty much every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night.
#7. You can decifer what the acronym MMORPG means. (For us non-n00bs it means: Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.)
#6. When someone asks where you're from you proudly state that you hail from the Eastern Kingdom of Azeroth.
#5. Your "friends" don't have real names. Instead you call them Scraggs or Beltor.
#4. You complain about setting up your online schedule and how hard it is to balance all the other players needs.
#3. You judge others by their class. No, not that class, but whether they are Mage, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Warrior, or Warlock. Priests are sooo much cooler than mages.
#2. Your avatar just upgraded to some new armor and you are totally stoked about how cool it makes you look.
#1. You can't hear your wife grumbling about what a n00b you are because you have noise canceling headphones on.

So if you don't understand any of the above, be grateful - you are n00b-free. If any of that sounds familiar well...you're probably a n00b (or live with one.)