If you’re looking for a christmas gift for a sports mom or dad, or for someone who loves softball, this is a great link. There are designs for football dads, basketball moms, and lots of different youth sports. You can get t-shirts, bags, stickers, buttons, magnets, license plate frames, water bottles, calendars, cards, and lots of other cool stuff. Check it out:

http://www.cafepress.com/sportygifts

‘Twas 15 nights before Christmas, when all through the orchard

“snow might fall from the sky,” was the rumor most heard;

“It’s not going to happen as long as I’m there”

Said the party-pooper brainiac without any hair.

The customers all left with knowledge in their heads

While visions of dock icons danced in their heads

And Jaqui with her webmail and I with my bubble wrap

Had just settled down for a quick breaktime nap.

When at the back door there arose such a clatter

I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter

Away to the back door I flew like a flash

Mama D tore open the shutters and threw up the sash

The students were back for their bushel of apples

and I yelled something you’d never say sitting in chapel

“Holy shit,” I said loudly with my eyes all aglow

“What the eff is this crap, is this actually snow?”

The little old driver, so lively and quick

Drove off with their fruit and I ran in real quick

More rapid than eagles my coworkers they came

they said, “Is that dandruff on your shoulder or are you insane?”

“Now Jaqui! Now, Diana! Now Adam and Hector!

I have no scalp condition, get me a lie detector!

I’m out of this place! My children, I must call!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

You know what they say about years hurricanes hit

Who knew you could really believe in that shit?

So out to the parking lot so fast I flew

With my laptop and keys and my iPhone, too.

As I reached the mall exit, that’s when I knew

Emo kids were all jumping around and yelling, “WOO HOO!!”

As I pulled out my iPhone and drew a face on my car

I realized that this was really quite bizarre

I opened the door and jumped in the front seat

I pulled out my phone and posted a tweet!

I backed out of the lot and called the old man

to ask if the snowing at home had began

He did not believe me, I said, “check your twitter”

He said I was crazy. I think he was bitter.

I drove home on the freeway, 10 car lengths behind that Lexus

You know, people can’t drive in snow down in Texas.

Some snow stayed on my car throughout that long trip

So I showed it to Johnny and called him a dip.

The kids jumped for joy, as jolly as elves

And they all wondered if they’d get to see it themselves.

We waited for hours, bedtime drew near

When was the snow going to make it down here?

I spoke not a word while the kids went berserk

and finally at 9, we got quite a perk!

Look mom, here it is! It’s not rain, yes I mean it.

Come out and take a picture of me trying to eat it!

I threw on my slippers and because I’m a giver

I took lots of pictures all in between shivers.

Snow was falling from the sky, it was quite a little flurry

And I was so flippin cold all my pictures were blurry!

Daddy came out and griped, “you will all end up sick!”

I said, “come on now Johnny, quit being a dick.”

The kids settled in for a long winter’s nap

But they wanted snow, not that bedtime crap!

We said it would be there tomorrow if it snowed in the night

Now go to bed before you get grounded, all right?

While visions of iPods danced in their heads,

I tricked silly Johnny and jumped out of bed.

Away to the front yard I flew like a flash

Grabbed my camera and PJs and looked like white trash

Down the sidewalk, snap snap!

to the street, snap snap snap!

Brought my camera to Johnny and said “Look at this crap!”

He finally believed me, but looked at me funny

and asked, “did you check on the kids or were you lying to me, honey?”

Lying’s such a harsh word, I was simply distracted.

I saw lots of white stuff and over reacted.

I heard him exclaim as I uploaded photos to my site,

“Merry Christmas, Shana Rae! Tell your bitches good night!”

I am:

a Trainer

I think:

that I was drunk when I took this picture

I have:

cheap sunglasses

I dislike:

The bitch driving this white truck

I miss:

My favorite uncle

I fear:

Public speaking!

I feel:

Lucky

I hear:

iTunes

I smell:

Sex and candy :o)

I crave:

some yummy ribs

I cry:

Happy, blue tears

I usually:

Drive people around

I search:

iGoogle

I wonder:

About the sanity of my children

I regret:

Ever calling Comcast

I wish:

my friends could stop fighting

I love:

My 3 stooges

I care:

about my grandma

I always:

find random pictures of shoes when I give Courtney the camera to play with

I worry:

about when she starts driving

I am not:

welcome in the "man cave"

I remember:

How much I loved this trip

I believe:

that I can use some more junk in my trunk

I sing:

when I drive

I don’t always:

I write:

In my blog

I win:

these headphones

I lose:

papers

I listen:

to audiobooks on my phone

I don’t understand:

hypocrites

I can usually be found:

with my nose in my macbook pro

I need:

My kids

I forget:

Numbers!!

I am happy:

that I finally finished this post!

Is that the name of that Dr Seuss book where the kid makes up all kinds of crazy things that happened on his walk home? That’s how I felt this morning as I was trying to get to work. I was running late and I just texted, “stuck in traffic,” to my boss because she would have never believed my crazy story.

This was the first day back to work for a lot of people, plus only half of the traffic lights work, so traffic was going to be bad. I left an hour early for that reason.

At first it was ok. It was slow getting out of town, then there were police everywhere, so I had to take it slow. No biggie. I was taking in the sights of disaster relief everywhere which still seem a little surreal.

I got on the freeway with plenty of time to kill, driving north towards Houston, and I saw the longest caravan of 18 wheelers going to Galveston! There must have been 50 of them with a police escort. I reached over to grab my phone to take a picture and DOH! I realized that I’d left it at home. I was already halfway to work, but I thought I’d have plenty of time to turn around and get it.

I turned around on the freeway and almost immediately get stuck in the traffic from the Galveston caravan and the congestion from people trying to get on the island. Hmm maybe this was a bad idea.

I got off of the freeway and got stuck behind a national guard Humvee and some moron who drove right beside it for 5 miles.

I finally passed him and I was back in the place with the police. Could I claim that I didn’t see the speed limit because the sign was blown down? Naah, better slow down.

Blinking red lights, intersections with no power, the ones that work that people stop for anyway, because they’re not paying attention… It’s getting later and later!

Finally, I made it home. I turned the corner on my street and down at the end where my house is, the biggest monster of a garbage truck is turning the corner! It hardly makes the turn because it’s so big! It was one big truck towing another huge trailer that made it as big as 2 garbage trucks. It had a crane with a claw that grabbed brush from the side of the road and hauled it off. Anyway, after seeing that monster, I quickly turned down an alley to go the back way to my house. I’m hauling ass around the corner, and whadda ya know… there’s a guy on a flippin bobcat thingey clearing shit out of the street, totally blocking it from that direction. AAAAHHH!! He saw me and moved out of the way (at a snail’s pace), and FINALLY I make it to my driveway.

I ran inside, grabbed my phone, got back in the car, and now somebody’s blocking me in the driveway because they’re stuck behind that monster garbage truck.

Breathe, Shana. Breathe….

So finally he moved, I rushed back through the red lights, police are still pulling people over, oh wow… the Hobby Lobby parking lot with 100 million bucket trucks is clearing out. Nice.

At one intersection, the woman in front of me went from 30 mph to zero and stopped in the middle of an intersection with a green light for no apparent reason. I didn’t hit her, but my laptop went airborne and I cried at the thought of what might have just happened to it. I’m glad I broke down and bought the padded case for it a couple of weeks ago. It was fine.

After that, Johnny called to tell me that there was a huge accident on the freeway at the intersection right before the mall. So instead of freaking out one last time I thought, “there’s my excuse. That’s easier to explain than all of this nonsense.” and I text, “stuck in traffic” to my boss. I was 10 minutes late.

50 18 wheelers, National guard trucks, 100 bucket trucks, monster garbage collectors, bobcats on the street, intersections out of order, pileups on the freeway, maniac women at stoplights…

And to think that I saw it on I-45.

Today our store opened back up and I went to work. I really love working there and it was nice to see everyone again (even little Jewel, even though she wouldn’t get out of my face! ha ha). I’m not supposed to blog about work, so I’ll stop… after I say again that I couldn’t dream of working for a better company or a more genuine group of co-workers.

So Shana’s bitchy meter is back down to around 1 1/2. I read Emily’s blog this morning. One word came to mind.

It’s a good day. I’m still staying at my mom’s house because the power is still out at home, but somehow it seems better than yesterday.

Oh, for those of you who know Julie… she has power today!! I was happy to hear that.

I stole this from Laura. She didn’t actually tag me, but it’s fun to pretend. LOL

20 years ago….
1. I was a sophomore in HS, I think
2. I lived in Dickinson, TX
3. I wanted to drive so badly!!

10 years ago….
1. I’d just had my second child
2. I decided that I’d rather do freelance work and be with my babies
3. I told myself that I’d definitely not have any more children!

5 years ago….
1. I was getting ready to give birth to my 3rd child! (so much for that last statement!)
2. Had no idea that my OB-GYN would want to arrange some freelance work while looking up from between my legs and asking about it as I was pushing. (akwaaard) LOL

3. Arranged for the tubal ligation before I left the hospital. :o)

3 years ago….
1. I was evacuating for Hurricane Rita
2. I was on the road with all 3 kids for 24 hours straight
3. I vowed I’d never evacuate again

1 year ago….
1. I was trying to get a job with Apple
2. I was pretty content with life, but working too hard for too little
3. I was about to get a great surprise the next month.

This year so far….
1. I love my job so much I don’t freelance anymore
2. I sent my baby to preschool
3. I moved to a new house, and with my grandma, so she won’t be alone anymore

Yesterday….
1. I went to work
2. I couldn’t stop watching the weather
3. I decided it would be stupid to stay home and risk my babies lives and made reservations to evacuate

Today….
1. I ran from Hurricane Ike
2. I understood completely how someone could commit a crime of passion, and go completely insane in a moments notice, as I stood in the lobby of the La Fucking Quinta and was told I had no reservation
3. I am thankful that my parents were here to save the day, and that Johnny is on his way here and out of harm’s way!

Tomorrow….
1. I’ll watch the weather constantly
2. I might take the kids to see the Alamo
3. I hope none of my friends at home get hurt.

Next year….
1. I will pay the home insurance another year and say fuck it if a storm comes. I’m gone.
2. I will cry when I put my baby on the bus for Kindergarten
3. I will cry when my oldest starts to drive!

I tag….
Whoevah! :o) I don’t think anyone reads anyway! LOL

Next week, we’re getting a little garage thing built in the new backyard and then we begin the official move!!

This weekend, I’m trying to get as much done at the house as possible, because I have some really fun plans with friends next weekend that I don’t want to miss!

So this is going to be my children’s bedroom in a week or two:

Cozy, huh? LOL

All of those cabinets and shelves were full of stuff this morning. Lots of stuff! My parents came over and helped me box it up and move it to the attic and the patio. It’s out of the way and I can go through it after we’re all moved in. Now I can start priming and painting the cabinets and shelves. Then we’re gonna paint the floor with that speckle stuff, close in the other door, put A/C in, make some kind of closet, etc etc etc… It’s gonna be pretty neat when it’s done. We’re going to have no use for our current couches and big screen TV, so we might put it in there. They are going to have the coolest room evah! Check out all of those plugs on the wall. I’m thinking computers & video games all the way down!! The downside is that they’ll all have to share the same room, but I’m trying to make it where they can have their own little spaces in there.

Mom and I also primed the outside wall. I can’t figure out what color to paint it. The original color of the house trim is faded so nothing’s really going to match. I’m going to have to paint it all the way around to make it the same color. I thought about a contrasting color for those walls, but there’s already some contrasting colors in other places and I can’t match that, either! UGH. Oh well. I love to paint. Maybe I can save that project for the fall when it’s cooler.

Before:

After:

Behold.

It will be mine today or tomorrow.You may ask yourself, “Why the hell does Shana need another computer?” That’s one of those questions like, “Why is there air?” or “Why is there life?” Well there just is, and Shana just does, OK?

I’ve wanted another laptop since I killed my last one with a glass of water about 6 years ago. I haven’t been brave enough to get one since that traumatic event. It was only recently that I was able to let go of the dead one and give it to a coworker and as soon as I did that, the following series of fortunate events occured one after the other:

I’m gonna “share” it with Johnny, which will be hard, I know. I’m going to go check the FedEx tracking thingey one more time before bed and get a little tingle. he he he he he he he he o o o o o o o o

“She’s always grinning, this one. Every time I look over at her.” 

That’s what one of my coworkers told a customer, referring to me.

I can’t help it. Life is good. 





I just wish my house was clean. 

Life is good. Actually, life is rockin my socks. The problem is that I’m just so flippin tired.

Blah. That’s how I feel right now. I could clean out the dishwasher so the guy could come fix it, but blah. I could do the freelance work that I should be doing, but blah. I could go gripe at the neighborhood kids (which is usually one of my favorite pastimes), but you guessed it… bla-fucking-ah!

I get up at 5:55 am every day now. No, not 6:00 am, but 5:55. ALWAYS 5 minutes before the alarm goes off. It’s starting to piss me off a little. That’s just not a natural thing, in my opinion, and it really blows my mind. What IS that?? Sometimes I try to close my eyes and get that extra 5 minutes in. I’m such a sleep whore. 

I used to get the kids up and get them to school in a half-conscious state, then come back and sleep for another hour until Courtney woke up. Now I have to be at work at 8 am, so mommy’s nappy-time has gone bye bye. Mommy needs her morning nappy time and they won’t let me sleep at work. Yes, I asked. :o)

I tried some coffee a few weeks ago when we had a special thing at work with free coffee. I poured a lot of white stuff in it so that it wouldn’t taste like anything like what it was supposed to taste like, and I managed to drink almost half of a cup before I couldn’t stand it anymore. A few minutes later, I thought that I was going to have a heart attack! My heart was pounding out of my chest. With the amount of excedrin that I take on a daily basis, I thought that coffee would be no big deal, but I was wrong. That shit is evil. Almost as evil as Cinnabuns. Oh, those are the devil!!

Comcast just called me asking if I knew about the virus protection they offer. I just laughed. Silly Comcast, I have a Mac. 

EGADS! Now it’s the doorbell again! Flippin kids!! “She’ll be out when she’s finished with her homework! Pass it down!! Go away!!!”

They should make smoke detectors sound like doorbells. I slept through the smoke alarm once, but that doorbell scares the beegeezus out of me every time I hear it. Now I’m awake. Yay.   

I have had a BUSY week at work. Holy cow!

One afternoon, I was at the office working by myself. Everyone was out running errands. A lady called while I was there alone and she was aking if the invitations for her husband named Don B were ready to pick up. I didn’t know, so I had to pass on the message. I’d just finished working on a business card for a guy named Don Crecalis or something.

So the boss comes back and asks if there were any messages for him. As he’s walking down the hall I yell, “Yeah, Don Cornelius called about his invitations. Can they pick them up?”

He stops what he was doing, walks back into my office and says, “Shana… you did NOT just say Don Cornelius called, did you?”

I’m like wha? Yeah, he called. It took me a second. :op “NONONO! Not Don Cornelius!!”

By that time he’s already walking back down the hall yelling, “Sooooouuuullllll Traaaaiiiiinnnnn!!!”

Oh dear, I need a break!! You know I’m never going to live that one down.

Yo, is this the Pressroom? Hey it’s me… Don. Are my invitations ready, bitches? I’m coming to get them. Peace out.

Oh wow, I just can’t get motivated today.

We’ve been installing a tile floor in the kitchen since Saturday and I’m still obsessing about it. It was so much work - the concept was easy enough, but I just thought I would never get off of my hands and knees. Right now I feel like a hooker who just finished a week long “buy a hand job, bring a friend for free” special. OK, I feel how I THINK she would feel. HA HA My knees are scuffed up, my neck hurts, and my knuckes are sore from squeezing that damn sponge for 6 hours. When I finished last night, I stood up, every bone in my body popped, and I swear that I had a floorgasm when I realized I was finally finished!

All I want to do today is paint my cabinets. Second on that list would be to just sit in the entrance to the kitchen and stare at my beautiful floor all day long. LOL Does anyone else do that? Clean a room or redo something and find yourself going back a million times a day just to stare at it? Here, now I can come here and stare at it if I have to leave for some reason. he he:

Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh. That’s better.

I’m supposed to be doing some work before I run my grandma around and go to Kristen’s Easter party, so I guess I should do that. I just took some excedrin. Maybe the caffiene will motivate me to at least put some clean clothes on. Enjoy my floor while I’m gone.

I have nothing.

Lately I’ve been asking myself, WWJD, as in “what would Julie do.” It’s working pretty well for me so far. If you know Julie, you should try it sometime. :oP

I had to walk into Taco Bell in my fuzzy black and silver slippers today.

Johnny and I had a discussion about Lisa’s Cooter.

What the hell is a Diddy-BAH? My daughter is going nuts because I can’t figure it out.

I’m really sick :COUGH COUGH: but I will have to drag my ass to work tomorrow. I’m hoping for a miraculous recovery tonight.

I could lock up now and they’d never know!

could 3:00 just get here already??

and end this long frustrating work day??

I’ve been running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. I thought I was going to get off easy today being here all by myself. Boy was I wrong!!

Courtney is forcing me to eat Spongebob cookies, but I have to say, “aaaah, don’t eat me” before I eat them (they’re in the shape of the characters from the show).

The boss lady is supposed to show up to sign some papers, and bring us some caca to eat, but it’s 2:00!!

She can’t take any more captain! She’s gonna blow!

I just got yelled at over the telephone by a woman who couldn’t figure out how to email a file to me. My coworker called me at home, basically told me that she was nuts and he couldn’t figure out what she was talking about, so I called her back. She was screaming at me from the moment I told her my name, telling me that she was trying to attach a file to our website, naming off 3 different website addresses that weren’t even our website address… so I told her, “go to your email.” She kept telling me how she was on our website. I said, “go to your email.” I was so calm… you’d be so proud of me. I gave her the address to type in and what do you know… it’s here.

…and it’s a G-d Dammed Microsoft Publisher file!

Why do people who don’t understand computers get so mad at me when I can’t understand what the hell they’re talking about?? And why are they so attracted to our company? And why do they insist on designing their own layouts?? And why do I start so many sentences with AND?

I’m FORWARDING this one to a guy in Houston to do it for me! I wash my hands of it! I’m not even going to try to open it on Nikki’s computer.

BE GONE, Publisher file! BE GONE!

That you could use photoshop in real life?

“Eeew, honey… look at that pimple. Get me the rubber stamp tool, quick!”

“Do you want to take the kids to the beach today?

Sure babe. Just give me a second to find a high resolution bikini model to stick my face on”

A girl can dream.

—

Today my teacher from college emailed me to ask if I wanted a certain freelance position that someone called the school about. She said that she’d already called the guy to tell him that I might be contacting him, gave him my name and all of that good stuff.

I read the description and guess who it is? The guy that I’ve been working with for about 8 years, who I finally told that I didn’t want to do that sucky job for anymore! (Basically it’s tracing logos in illustator to clean them up and emailing them to the vendor.) He needs things done quickly, and we all know that I don’t do “quick” anymore with 3 kids, unless there’s some serious CHEDDA involved.

It was quite funny. I emailed him asking if the position was still open and if he laughed at his phone message or crapped his pants because he was cold busted! LMAO

Actually, I’m quite happy that he was searching for someone. I’m really really tired of doing that job.

—-

Since I have nothing else to say, I’m going to be a dork like Laura and Cam and Holly and occasionally Amanda and gosh everyone does it, don’t they? I’m gonna put songs at the end of all my posts, too. Even the old ones that you probably don’t read anymore. So ENJOY!! ha ha

Imaging printing, can i help you?

The Daily Show, followed by the Colbert Report = the BEST hour of television, EVER!

“the most compelling fake news hour in basic cable”

Stephen Colbert’s new show is awesome! It’s “trustigous.” LOL If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out. He comes on right after The Daily Show. It’s kind of like The Daily Show on steriods. I love how he is so full of himself.

Please, for the love of all humanity, Comedy Central, please take Adam Corolla off of the air! What is wrong with his face when he talks? Something is not moving like a normal person’s face. It’s not any funnier when you get LOUDER, Adam. It’s just more annoying. He’s a prick, and he’s rarely funny, and he doesn’t deserve to be on right after a great hour of television like that. Right now I’m forced to either watch him or find my clicker and that’s just not right.

Nikki had a choir concert tonight and it was GREAT! It was the best school production that I’ve been to. They sang 50’s songs and the kids dressed in poodle skirts, blue jeans and white t-shirts, etc. It was so much fun. They had kids riding on skateboards down the aisles for surfing songs, dancing on the stage, running into the audience and dancing. Nikki’s dance was in the aisle of the audience. It was so cute! I’ll post some videos tomorrow.

Now back to the grind! (I’ll let you guess what kind of grinding I’m doing tonight. What you’re thinking will probably be much more exciting than what I’m really doing.)

I guess even God can’t make the mail get here faster.

I FINALLY got that check I was waiting for.

In my “count” voice: ONE! ONE car payment!

Now come on check number 2!

Telemarketer: Hi, my name is blah and I work for blah web something or another

Me: hi.

Telemarketer: I assume that I am talking with the office manager?

Me: No, she’s not in this morning.

Telemarketer: so when would be a good time to call back?

Me: She’s on maternity leave.

Telemarketer: Well is there anyone there who can make decisions about your something or another?

Me: No, we stopped making decisions when she left.

Telemarketer: Silence

*Click*

A man just came by selling banana bread for his church. Unfortunately, I only have 2 dollars. I told him that I was broke, but that it looked really good so he could come back again some other time. He said he would. I said, not TOO soon, though. LOL Then he told me that Jesus would bring me some money and he seemed pretty sure of it. I’m so excited! I’m going home to check my mail right now!

KRISTEN’S JAGUAR PROJECT:

I asked her how she did and she said that everyone LOVED her project. Her teacher asked her if she did it all by herself and she said, “No, my mommy and my daddy helped me.”

DOH!

Really - I only cut rectangles out of felt because she couldn’t get it to the right size. Really. (Oh, and suggested that she use the stuff I bought rather than tissue paper, beads, and tampons)

NIKKI’S SOFTBALL GAME:

They actually WON the one that I went to! Woo hoo! They’ve only practiced one time in a month, so I thought that was pretty impressive.

Nikki hit the ball right between pitcher and first base, and she was SAFE! Barely! Whew! Then she stole her way to third. She kept leading off of third base to try to steal home, but would run back when the catcher got control of the ball (their pitcher threw some pretty wild balls).

After she went back to third base the second or third time, THAT momma had something to say. Her husband was third base coach and she yelled at him, “***! You KNOW we need a run, don’t you??” and then she laughed. Coach *** looked at her and laughed and then looked down the bleachers to see me rolling my eyes at his retarted wife. I am such a calm, cool and collected person. (har *snort* har)

My baby stole home when it was the RIGHT time, not when she would have been tagged out. She knows that her coaches are on the FIELD and not in the STANDS.

My friend at work said that I should have jumped up clapping and screamed, “We GOT the run! We GOT the run!” LMAO

HAIR:

My hair still looks retarted, even after going at it with the straightening iron. Now it looks kind of like Pat Benatar.

RETARTED CUSTOMERS:

I spent 15 minutes on the phone and 30 minutes writing an email to the customer that I was griping about the other day, trying to explain to her why she can’t just get a couple of printouts from the PRESS of her THREE COLOR job. A press is not like a copier… you have to put the ink on, run a color through, let it dry, clean it, put another plate and ink color on, run it through, let it dry, etc. I’m sure you guys get the gist of it from that one sentence, right? Or you at least understand that it is not easy to just print a couple of copies, right? And if I told you that your red and blue would look exactly like the ones that you picked out of a swatch book when it comes off of the press, you would believe me, right? And if you didn’t really believe me, you’d probably take my word for it and make me reprint it if it came out differently after I said it wouldn’t, right?

Well if you agree with me, you’re just living in fantasy land, missy! Cause it’s got to be more complicated and costly than THAT! She’s also still questioning why I have to redo parts of her artwork that won’t color seperate. I don’t EVEN want to go into that with her, so I just charged it under misc instead of to her.

(BTW, we do press proofs sometimes like she’s suggesting, but it’s for customers who are running thousands of copies, not for a card that she wants 50-100 printouts of.)

Never trust your printer. I’m sure you know more than them about the printing process.

HALLOWEEN:

If you haven’t seen extremepumpkins.com, go check it out! Some of them are hilarious! So are his “candy traps.” I want to make the puking pumpkin.

I have a funny idea for a halloween costume for me. I don’t know if I can pull it off, though. Don’t ask… I’ll never tell!!

QUESTION:

If you’ve actually read this far, I’m so so sorry. :oP

But I have a question…

Seriously, what is so WRONG about a kid having a cell phone? Perhaps they might CALL someone? Oh my GAWD, perish the thought!!

Does it suggest that they have a drug deal going down or something? I’m just wondering, because I never understood the big controversy. My kid has a cell phone because I want her to be able to call me whenever she wants to when she’s away from me.

(It’s also good when you are in a mass evacuation and your husband forgets to charge his phone.)

So really, what is so taboo about it? I really want to know.

OK, I think that’s really it for now.

PUKE

Let me start by letting Holly know that the preggy pops I ordered are not for me! LMAO!

My uncle has a blood disorder and they are giving him chemotherapy. Today was his first dose and he acted like he had a stomach virus… it was so sad to see him that way, especially since he’s already lost so much weight. I’m hoping that they’ll give him something other than little pills that he is going to throw up, and that the preggy pops might ease some of his nausea. He loves sweet stuff.

FLIES

My Martha-esque tip of the day:

Vacuum cleaners work even better for flies than they do for ants. Especially if you put a big nozzle on the end, or trap them in the window.

TMI warning: We have what I’m referring to as the Rita Flies. :oP The trash cans sat right up against the house (so they wouldn’t blow away) for the storm / evacuation and the city missed 2 trash pickups during that time. So we have new friends, who keep having new friends. It’s really lovely. I’ve been spraying the crud out of them outside but I hate spraying that stuff in the kitchen.

HAIR

I finally got a haircut today. I’m about to go after it with the straightening iron, just to see if I can do anything with it before the light of day. It looks pretty butch to me. I finally decided to nix the bang growing out thing. It was driving me CoOcOo!!

Possibly a baby

My boss was admitted to the hospital today. No, not on the floor for the mental patients, but the one where you have the babies. I am happy for her. I can’t wait to see him!!

Look “un-named Houston area print shop” customers of mine… we were gone last week, too. We weren’t here printing and designing your jobs while you evacuated. Therefore, no, they are not ready. I do not care that you placed your order 2 weeks ago. Take a week off of that complaint, bitches! We weren’t here!! This is not — Printing, “where miracles happen every day.” It is — Printing, where you’re just lucky to get your shit at all, the way this place is run!

On that note, no, I can’t print your file if you do not send the file to me. Also I cannot do it in one day when you finally decide to send said file. I told you that it was going to take me an hour to troubleshoot your file. Don’t tell me that it shouldn’t take that long to figure out what the heck you did to this mess! And for God sakes, you have no room to bitch since you haven’t even put down a DEPOSIT! Sheesh!

And to you guys - what’s up with Internet Explorer? Can you see my sidebar or is it waaay down at the bottom??

Day one of the “I survived Hurricane Rita Mass Evacuation”

Let’s start with a little Green Day to set the mood:

“This is a public service message, this is only a test…emergency, evacuation protest”

I *told* you that they have a song for every occasion - mood - thought - obsession :cough:

Back to the Future Wednesday

So anyways, let’s all jump into in the way back machine and go back to Wednesday morning. Don’t forget to bring your extra flux capacitors. Stock up quick, cause there’s a hurricane a comin’! It’s coming right for you, unless you take into account…

“The cone of uncertantity” or “The cone of confusion” or “The cone of mass hysteria” whatever you would like to call it. It means that they don’t really know where it’s gonna go, so they drew a cone.

Call it what you want, but the thing is, we as a human race (with the exception of my boss and her super future telling powers) cannot predict where a hurricane is going to make landfall. They draw these pretty little diagrams and tell you where they think they’re coming in, but they don’t know for sure.

So we’re back at Wednesday morning. School has been cancelled for the kids because hurricane Rita is gonna kill us all if we go to school. We must prepare for the mandatory evacuation instead. If my Kristen never learns what 15-7 is, or if Nikki misses the social opportunity of a lifetime that was to happen in the lunchroom that day, well we’ll just blame it on that bitch Rita.

I’m joking, but at that time it was predicted that Rita was going to hit about 100 miles south of us in Matagorda Bay. This means that we were going to get the side of the storm with a lot of the rain, wind, and storm surge. The storm surge was going to be big. I think they were saying 12′ at the time. We live about half a mile from Galveston Bay, about 10 minutes from Galveston Island. Our area is not the lowest in the county, but we would be flooded from a 5′ storm surge.

Here’s the thing - there are still a couple of days until the storm is predicted to hit, but because the area that the storm would affect was so populated, it would take about 3 days to get everyone out. After seeing what happened after Katrina and with the conditions in the Gulf being even more favorable for a bad storm, there weren’t going to be many people taking this lightly.

They Blinded me with Science!

The mayors of Galveston and Houston began getting on the news and scaring people with charts and graphs. Officials in Matagorda Bay were telling people that if they stayed there for the storm with their kids and they were caught, that CPS would take their children!! I’m serious - this was on the news several times as we were packing.

Apparently there is supposed to be an organized way of getting people out in spurts so that the roads don’t get congested, but it’s kind of hard to scare the bejeezus out of people and then say, “you guys can just sit tight until *these* guys leave, then you leave.” I didn’t understand it at the time. They told us that there would be a mandatory evacuation at 2 am that night. I assumed that meant that we were supposed to be out by then, but it really meant that was when we were supposed to leave. So we left around noon, along with about 2 million other confused people, when people from Galveston Island were supposed to be the only ones on the road. We were to follow them later that night, then counties north of us were to follow the next morning. OOOOOOHHHH. OK. Makes sense now, I guess.

Pack it all up and head on out

We took both of our vehicles for many reasons. We packed as if we would not have a house to come back to. That’s what we were being told could happen. We didn’t want to leave a car behind, and we wanted to be able to pack things other than clothes (i.e. photos and my favorite toys) and still be able to move around. We wanted an extra vehicle in case one broke down and so that Johnny could come back afterwards ahead of us if he needed to (if there was a lot of damage to our area). I just thought I’d explain that because people keep asking me.

I know that I didn’t take you back that far in our way back machine, but Tuesday night I filled up the car and got money out of the bank just in case. This was a very very good thing in hindsight, since the entire bank apparently grew legs and ran out of the county on Thursday morning. Any attempt to use the ATM card just spat out a nasty little receipt that said, “Bank unavailable.”

Last One to Dallas is a Rotten Egg!!

As I mentioned, it was shortly after noon on Wednesday that we left. We immediately saw that there was going to be a problem when we pulled off of our street onto our assigned evacuation route of Hwy 146. There is NEVER traffic on this road. NEVER. And today the traffic was stopped all the way to our street. There’s only one other main way to get out and that is I-45. We were hearing bad things about that, and since we were supposed to take 146 anyway, that’s where we went.

I wasn’t even on the highway yet when the first crazy incident happened! We were trying to get on from the ramp and I had to stay behind Johnny, who drives like a bat out of hell, and this dickhead in a red SUV did NOT want me to get in front of him. I stayed right on Johnny’s bumper and motioned to the guy that we were together but for some reason he was just dying to get in front of me. He kept trying to bully his way in there and I wouldn’t budge. Even after I was completely in front of him, he kept revving up and acting like he was going to run me off of the road. I mean COME ON! We’re all going to the same place and we all need to be there at the same time. WTF is the race all about? (This is something that I’ll ask my dear husband several times before the trip is over… in my head, out loud to everyone in the car, or in angry cell phone messages to him.)

Holy Flying Debris, Batman!

So we’re in our lane and traveling a nice 40 miles per hour for a while. OK, for a minute. Then that bubble was bursted. It took an hour to get to my mom’s road, which usually takes 10-15 minutes. Right around where my mom lives we had a little speed burst. We were going about 40 again and an old rusty paint can flew off of the back of a trailer in front of Johnny. (Why this dude felt the need to evacuate his paint can is beyond me.) Johnny dodged it and I swerved to dodge it, but it bounced and came flying back in my direction. It hit the front of my car with a big BOOM and then I ran over it with my front tire. Nikki looked at me not knowing what to say, and I said, “well shit.” She asked if she could hop out when the traffic stopped again to see if it damaged the car (people were getting out and running around) and I said, “hell no! I don’t know exactly what happened but the car is still moving when I hit the gas, so over my dead body will you be getting out on this road with these idiots, stopped or not.”

Tin Cans and String Would Have Been Handy

I sent a couple of messages to my blog during this time. I could usually send an email or a text message, but it was very hard to actually make a call because people were overloading the circuits. I could tell you guys and Amanda things in the next state, but I couldn’t tell my husband, who didn’t know how to retrieve a text message on Nikki’s phone who was in the car in front of me (his phone was already dead - way to prepare!! LOL)

Like Herding Cattle. Moo.

For the next 8 hours we were trapped in this gridlock on a 2 lane highway. There was a center lane and 2 other lanes that almost nobody was driving on. At one point we wanted to pull into a store so Johnny could get some smokes. We pulled into the center lane so that we could turn left up the road a bit at the next light. The police stopped us and told us that we couldn’t drive there, even if it was to turn, and then stopped traffic so that we could get back in the line. There were ass holes that were flying down the center lane and then cutting in front of people at the lights. We just wanted off of the road, not to cut, but the police made us cut back in regardless. At least we got a little ahead of the line! LOL

It was HOT. We had the a/c blowing full blast, but if you notice next time you drive, it doesn’t really kick in unless you’re actually moving. Every now and then we’d get a blast of cool air. The rest of the time it was pretty warm.

As it was getting dark and we’d been on the road for about 8 hours, we finally passed I-10. Normally that drive would take about 45 minutes. After we passed I-10 the traffic was MISERABLE. We went 2 miles in 2 hours. We were going stir crazy. People were getting out to pee on the side of the road and walk their dogs. I let Kristen switch from J’s truck to our car once, but I didn’t want them getting out. I thought about changing Courtney’s diaper at that time, but I thought that it would only be a matter of time before we came upon a place to stop. I also knew that if I took her out and gave her that little taste of freedom that she would start screaming to get back out. Heck, she was the lucky one with the diaper. We had to hold it!

Screw This!

After our 2 hour wait, Johnny called (at the same time that I was telling Amanda that I was about to go nuts), and suggested that we go back to I-10 (to go west) until we got to I-45 N, because they were talking on the radio about converting the southbound lanes to go north. ANYTHING would be better than the complete stop that we were at. So we FLEW down the opposite lane passing that 2 mile long line of people in about a minute flat.

Click here for a picture of the line as we passed by it giving up

I-10 was the same way. We went about 70 mph until we got to I-45. We got on and later learned that the ramp that we entered on was one of the only ways that they were letting you enter the freeway. After you were on, you were ON that mutha. If you got off for gas or food, you were banished to the feeder road for the rest of your trip.

Livin Large (and trying not to get shot or fall asleep at the wheel) on I-45

So we drove for a few minutes at about 40 mph, then we stopped. For the next few hours we were going about 4 miles every hour. It was a bit better than 146, so we continued. The kids were being insanely good up to this point. I was so surprised. Even Courtney was happy, and she’d been in that car seat forever. We had snacks and drinks in a cooler, but they did not like the idea of eating sandwiches for dinner, especially when we were just passing all of those fast food places. They just didn’t get the gravity of the situation, which is good in a way. Eventually some of us ate sandwiches, and one of us just got hungrier and whined (hmmm who could that have been?? Starts with an N…)

I-45 has concrete barriers that divide the northbound from the southbound sides, so they were trying to keep the left shoulder clear for emergency vehicles and the right for people who were breaking down. But you can’t just push your car through 4 lanes of crazy people, so people were pulling over every few miles when their cars overheated or ran out of gas. There were still the idiots who would fly down the shoulders until they came to a broken down car, then cut in front of everyone. We were in the left lane, so everytime someone did that, it slowed us down even more. Johnny was getting angry about it. He called me and said, “don’t you dare let those people get in front of you who are doing that.” Then soon after, a group of 4 or 5 pimped out cars came flying down the shoulder beside us. Johnny pulled onto the shoulder a bit so that they couldn’t pass him (that’s my man, ya). Well one of the little gangstas driving pulled out a gun and pointed it at him. He promptly scooted back over to let them through.

We kept on driving, if you can call it driving. My foot was on the brake most of the time and rarely did I get to hit the gas pedal when we moved. My legs were killing me, my shoulders were stiff, I was getting a migraine, and I was tired…so so tired. A guy next to us drifted off to sleep during one stop. The honking finally woke him up. I was getting pretty good at “driving” with my left foot. (It’s harder than you think.)

I Can’t Take It Anymore!

Soon after that, we decided that we just couldn’t take it anymore. We got off of the freeway around 3 a.m., 18 hours since we left the house. We were just north of Houston in Spring, I think (on Louetta Rd). There were people who just pulled over to the grass on the freeway and “camped” there (i.e. parked their cars in the grass and fell asleep there). They were leaving their cars parked on the side of the freeway and walking across the feeder to the Whataburger, hoping to get something to eat and to use the bathroom. Instead of using this as an opportunity to sell a shitload of hamburgers to some very hungry people, these idiots at WB locked the inside doors and would only serve people through the drive thru. They also stopped letting people come in to use the bathroom. I tried to explain to the all mighty “keyholder” that we were buying food at the drive thru and that my kids just needed to use the bathroom. She said absolutely not.

So I asked her if I should just piss on her sidewalk instead.

It was a proud moment.

The girls and I loaded back up in the car and went to the Walmart right behind it and used their bathrooms. Courtney was NASTY. It had been 15 hours since her diaper was changed. I just never saw a safe place to do it. It was so embarrassing walking through that store looking like scum, but we did, and we peed, and there were nuns peeing too. (But they looked pretty good compared to us. Nun outfits must be permanent press. That, or they were driving around nekkid.)

We bought a map and some smokes for my poor hubby, and ate the burgers in the Wallyworld parking lot. I threw away the clothes that courtney was wearing and let her finish the trip in a new diaper, sitting in a car seat lined with diapers so she didn’t have to touch the wetness of the last 15 hours. I didn’t see the point of putting another pair of clothes on her to ruin.

We considered getting gas at the station next to Wataburger and drove in to wait in the long line. There were people camping out in the parking lot of the station and were letting their little kids run all around the parking lot! Johnny decided that we could go a bit farther without gas so we started to back out. I was so scared that I was going to hit one of the kids because I couldn’t see that well in the dark and around all of the stuff in the back of my car. I backed up very slowly. Johnny was already out and waiting for me at the intersection and I was still backing up. I hit something and people looked at me. It scared the crap out of me! A little girl ran up to my car and pulled a box out from behind my wheel. Good lord I would have never forgiven myself if that would have been a kid! A few minutes later, my heart started beating again and I caught up with Johnny.

Banished from the Freeway, and Lovin’ It!

Now we were banished from the beloved freeway since we’d exited. Johnny looked on the map for a new route. We drove down Louetta to some highway that I’d never heard of and there was a huge, open gas station! I only had to wait for one person in front of me, and I put $25 in, which I thought would fill my car up since I usually fill it up with $50 at the same price. It was nowhere near where I thought it should have been when I drove off, which made me wish I’d actually looked at the price on the pump before I paid. I’ll bet that it was higher than what the sign said.

This traffic was great for a while, then was stop and go again. It was between 4 and 5 am, we were still somewhere in North Houston, and I was having a lot of trouble staying awake. We felt that we needed to continue for as long as we possibly could because there was just no end in sight. It felt like we were never going to get out of Houston. We pulled over into a parking lot to sleep for a few minutes. I woke up about an hour later thinking that it had been about 5 minutes. Johnny said that he tried to go to sleep too, but that some guy was knocking on my window and he jumped out of his truck to see what was up. I was so out of it - I had no idea. The guy needed a jump, so Johnny gave it to him and then talked on the phone to his Aunt in Dallas and they figured out some back roads to take. It was almost daybreak and we were off again. I was still very tired and I couldn’t wait for the sun to come out so that it would be easier to stay awake.

We’re Not in Houston Anymore, Toto!

I don’t even remember the next few hours. Johnny was really on top of it…we took some crazy ass back roads… some really back back roads… most of them had no names and I was sure that we were lost until voila! I realized that we weren’t in Houston anymore! Woo hoo!!

It was around this time when the news was predicting that Rita was going to hit Galveston as a category 5 and then move up the ship channel through Houston. So we were very motivated to continue on. At the time I felt like our lives were never going to be the same again. We were going to lose our home, or at least be out of it for months. But I was so friggin happy to be away from Houston that I felt that it would be OK. We were safe, and my relatives were all going to be safe.

I was cracking up at the names of the towns that we were passing through in the middle of nowhere… Carlos, Keith, Personville… Nikki and I were picturing the early Texas settlers trying to figure out what to call their new hometowns. “Well Carlos, you get that town over there…we’ll call it Carlos. Keith, you’ll get that one over there. Call it Keith. That one.. well I don’t remember that dude’s name, so we’ll just call it Personville.”

Carlos People Rock!

We stopped at a convenience store in Carlos to pick up some breakfast and go potty. This was a very small town, and it was apparent that they all knew each other and hung out there for breakfast every morning. I was listening to a conversation and one guy said that he had no idea that there was a hurricane in the Gulf and he was trying to figure out why all of these people were driving through his town. They were in awe of the “traffic.” I thought that was pretty funny. They didn’t have any gas, but they called all around the area to see who did, and were telling people where they could go to find some. I thought that was so nice of them to go out of their way for strangers, especially after all of the asses we’d encountered the day before.

Johnny was standing outside of my car window going over a map with me and a woman walked up and offered us rooms in her house to nap, wash up, or whatever. She said that she had 3 extra rooms and that she’d already invited 2 other ladies over. We declined, although the offer to shower and sleep was soooo tempting. We had to keep going. She asked us what route we were taking and even told us about a road that would save us a good hour. What a great woman…she really got to us.

Ignorance on the Airwaves

As we got closer to Dallas the attitudes started changing again. Some guy called in to a radio show complaining about all of the people coming into the Dallas area. He said that he didn’t care if there was a hurricane coming. People shouldn’t live in areas where hurricanes come, in his opinion. Then he proceeded to say that he didn’t care when people had floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, (and several other natural disasters), either. People just shouldn’t live in those places. Which left me thinking, where the hell does he want everyone to live? Almost every place has SOMETHING. Surely he doesn’t want them moving to Dallas with their perfect weather. We were causing him enough stress. Imagine if all of the blizzard people and earthquake people came down here to live with him. Idiot. I would have called if I could, but I just changed it.

We Made It!

24 hours from the time that we left home, we finally made it to Johnny’s aunt’s house in the country outside of Dallas and she was great. She fed us, let us sleep in her bed while they slept in their travel trailer, and couldn’t have been more hospitable. I about lost my mind not having internet or even cable TV while we were there. I had to wait for the regular news to come on to see what was going on in our area, and the coverage wasn’t that great. You guys probably know more about what happened than I do!

I see that I’m getting pretty long-winded here. I don’t know if anyone will read if I continue to write!! LMAO! The bottom line is, it is HELL to be stuck in a car that long with 3 kids, eating and drinking out of an ice chest, holding in your pee, trying not to lose your temper, hoping that you’re not going to die on the highway, either from the crazy people driving around you, the exhaustion, or the storm that’s coming. And thinking the entire time that you would not be coming back to your home. It really bites the big one.

Tune in next time for…

The Long Windy Scary Road Home

We’re here in dallas. I can’t remember if i updated yov on that or not. They don’t have an internet connection here so i can’t see what you gvys are saying or if anyone is actually reading this. Ill just assume u are. My mom, dad, gma and bro also ended up in dallas but they are staying with my aunt. I may see if i can still work on my ads here and take them to my aunt on a cd and use her internet connection to send them in. If so ill check in on everyone. I can read mail that you send to shanabrumlow@yahoo.com on my phone. Tonight it looks like tc will get wind and no surge if it goes in above us. Thats good for us. I hope everyone gets off of the roads tomorrow. What a nightmare. It was very hard to get out of town. We found our way off of the crazy ass freeway and to dallas on back roads with no gas stations with gas for many miles. I feel like we got lucky there. Gotta go to sleep. I miss home already and cant wait for this to be over!

I took Kristen to the doc this morning and her O2 level was 92%, which is not good. They gave her 2 treatments while we were there which brought it up to 96% and they consider that acceptable. She agreed that it would be better for her to be getting her medicine through the nebulizer instead of an inhaler. I said, “some doctors…I guess they think that mom doesn’t know anything.” She laughed and said, “ya! SOME doctors!” lol

We went and picked up her million prescriptions. Ok there were only 4. ha ha. I have to make a chart because they all have to be taken at different intervals. 2 are inhaled and 2 are taken by mouth.

I was making my chart, hoping that in the next few days I’d actually come to remember the names of the medicines without looking… xopenex, budesonide, prednisolone, zithromax… Why do prescription medicines have to sound like something out of a Star trek episode?

“Captain! The Budesonide are approaching the rear of the ship! They’ve come for the Zithromax! We cannot attack without risking our treaty with the people of Xopenex!! We cannot escape them with our dwendeling supply of Prednisolone for the warp drive! What do we do, Captain?? What. do. we. do?”

If they were smart, they’d name them something that we could all understand and remember. Like: clearsupyourchest and clearsupyourchestbutwillscrewyouupifyoutaketoomuch. Ya, I guess that’s not a good idea, is it? Too many letters. OH WELL!

Gotta go do some work!!

People are just annoying the hell out of me today.

Actually, when I say “people” I’m referring to one person in particular and I just can’t talk about HER here. GRRRRRRRR

Anyway, here’s what Courtney did to herself in the car on the way to work this morning:

Notice the artistic features: one leg has straight brush strokes and the other is circular. LMAO

I gave her a bath in the sink at work and now she’s clean but her clothes are all blue. he he

Thank you so much to everyone who is helping me out with this hurricane relief!!!

I could NOT fall asleep last night! I was up until 5 am and then got up at 6:30 to take the kids to school.

A little nap from 8:00 to 10:00, and I was off to a meeting.

Now I’m at the office. I wasn’t gonna come in but I made the mistake of calling to check in. Why the hell am I here??

I’m ssssssssoooooooo sleeeeeeeeeeepy. zzzzzzzzzz

OH SORRY! Wake up! ::slap, slap!:: I’m so tired that I am seeing things on my desk and on the wall moving around, although they are not. Either I’m seeing spots or I’m being possessed, I’m not sure. I’ll tell you later. (Or do you really KNOW that kind of thing when it happens? ::shrug:: )

You’re getting ::emotions:: cause it would take an hour for my blinkie page to load on this damn computer.

ANYHOO, at that meeting, I met the owner of one of the magazines I work for and her head design chickie. They want to publish a small 12 page magazine for teens in their area and they asked me to design it! YAY! It’s up to me to figure out how much to charge, which I have no clue on how to estimate. I might ask you to ask some certain hubbies later.

I forgot to tell you that yesterday when I went to McDonalds, there was a guy driving out of the parking lot in a red Ford Taurus that looked just like…

George W. Bush!!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

I’m glad I wasn’t ordering the coffee cause I’d have a crotch burn for sure after seeing that! ::hee hee::

Something else… there was something else…

OH! I have to post the story later about Courtney stacking cans and trying to send my underwear off to school with Kristen. You’ll have to check back tonight for that.

trying - not - to - fall - asl

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429gare990emklgdg g90dg90ge80ydsghnkds (head hits keyboard)

The kids going back to school, I mean.

I’ve been a walking zombie all week. Johnny is off this weekend and I think I’m going to sleep for the ENTIRE WEEKEND!

I think I’ll revise my previous statements and say, it will get easier when the kids are back in school AND the Sept. issues of the magazines that I’m working for are at the printers! I can’t keep working all night AND getting up early to take them to school! (OK, I have to say it, “Wake me up, when the september issues end”)

Between all of that working and not sleeping, there’s this thing called LIFE that I seem to be missing out on.

The lesson that I learned this weekend was:

Never put off for Sunday night between the hours of 7 pm and 3 am, and then early Monday morning after you take your kid to school late, what you could do on Saturday morning, at a normal hour, when you don’t have to get up early the next day.

You’re welcome.

Really. You know that I’m here at work all alone today. But if I turn on that yahoo, I’m not going to get anything done. It’s down there in my toolbar just beckoning me, smiling at me with that silly little yahoo grin. But I’m not going to push it!

Not. going. to. push. it.

God help me

Showing me how to fix the TV:

Playin with the lite brite and not eating the pegs:

So whatsherface’s kid who is my kid’s age can count to 12 in english and spanish?

Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass! :oP

My kid:

Can do a pretty good job of lipsyncing to every song on the radio

Can dance and draw at the same time

Can sense that I am eating a bowl of cereal and wake up from a deep sleep to ensure that it will be soggy before i’m finished

Scratch her head and her bootie at the same time

draw a million pair of eyes on a piece of paper while saying, “I, A”

play with a lite brite and never even consider eating the pegs (although throwing them is great fun)

do cheers at a softball games as well as the big girls

not pronounce many words, but can pronounce curse words perfectly

tell my coworker “NO NO” when he tells her to say those words

pick the yucky pieces out of the party mix that she knows mommy thinks are yucky and insist that i eat them, but not the yummy ones

make a phone call

find my wallet and give it to a stranger

take a photo of her giant eye

…i could go on all night. Point is, I don’t care if her friggin kid speaks Spanish! Teach her to order me a margarita en espanol and i might be impressed.