Category Archives: humor

light-hearted posts

It’s an Inside Day

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I’m sorry that I’ve been so absent, but the weather has been freaking awesome, so I’ve been trying to spend as much time outside as I possibly can.  Today the weather sucks, so here I am.  Yes, “April showers bring May flowers.”  Whatever.  What does April snow bring?  Depression.  If I didn’t have a dog to walk, I would stay inside all day.  It’s one of those blustery, wet days that make you want to curl up on the couch and watch a movie.  Of course I would be watching Bridesmaids.  Why? Because this movie is fucking hysterical!  I can quote nearly the entire movie and yet I still want to watch it like every single day.  I mean how awesome is it that one of the Bridesmaids (Melissa McCarthy – the most hilarious one) suggests “fight club” for the bachelorette party?  And when everyone looks at her like she’s crazy she goes on to explain, “Yeah female fight club. We grease up.  Lillian doesn’t know, so we pull up and yell ‘Surprise, we’re gonna fight’ and we beat the shit out of her.” Please do yourselves a favor and watch this movie whether you’ve already seen it or not.  It will make you happy.

I could also just spend ridiculous, unjustifiable amounts of time on Pinterest.  Then I could pin recipes that have the words “three cheese” and “healthy” in the same sentence on my ‘Food, Glorious Food’ board.  I’m still trying to figure out how something with three types of cheese in it can be healthy.  I should probably stop looking at the recipes altogether because they just make me want to stuff my face with gooey, chocolatey things.

Speaking of not giving in to eating crap… my grandma told me she wanted to lose weight (she is so little though, so this is a silly statement), but then she said, “It’s not like I have anyone to lose weight for though.  Will’s (my grandpa) been out of commission for years.”  Yep, that’s exactly what my grandma said to me.  She never holds back, and I love her for it!  Of course I’m also scarred by it.

Oh, and since I’m on a roll of changing from subject to subject, I have something very funny to share.  My niece, Stevie, whom I’ve mentioned on a number of occasions has started spreading rumors about me.  The other weekend my sister and her husband went away for their anniversary, so Grandma and I were on duty.  At school on Monday her teacher asked her how her weekend with Grandma and Aunt Sonie was and Stevie responded with, “Aunt Sonie kicked my ass.”  I actually didn’t (that weekend), but I’m sure I wanted to on a number of occasions.  Listen, she is very cute but very rotten.  You may have figured that out by the language she used. Isn’t she awesome?

Worn Out

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After some intense “wrestling,” the boys conked out on the bed.  For some reason Jack was full of it and went absolutely crazy after we gave him a bath.  He does not like getting a “tubber” as I like to call it.  A treat doesn’t even lure him into the bathroom.  And once we get him in the tub he stands there frozen the entire time, scared to death.  As soon as he’s able to taste freedom again he starts running up and down the hall like a complete lunatic until I insist that Rob do some serious playing with him.  So, naturally, he wore himself right out. What he clearly doesn’t understand is that if he would stop rolling his head in poop, we wouldn’t need to subject him to said baths.  Hellooooo.

No Big Whoop

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Last night I had a little pedicure party with the gals I get together with every month. It was time to get my toes worked on and enjoy some food and wine with the ladies. Anyway, my sister was asking for restaurant suggestions in Park City; restaurants where you can get a good steak.  And it reminded me of the good steak I had in Paris last week so I said, “I had the best steak in Paris last week.”  Of course everyone gave me total shit for acting like I’m such a big deal, but I was honestly just remembering the phenomenal steak.  I am kind of a big deal though.  Look what I saw up close and personal!  Hello!

Jet Lagged – Part 1

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After having been from Salt Lake to DC, DC to Salt Lake, Salt Lake to Paris, Paris to Detroit and Detroit to Salt Lake, I have no fucking clue what day or time it is.  Ok, that’s not true.  Salt Lake and DC only have a two hour time difference, but then you add in Daylight Savings and my clock starts to get out of whack.  Add lots of stress and then a quick trip to Paris (seven hour time difference) and it gets ugly. Here’s a sort of play-by-play of the first leg.

Washington DC –

Tuesday, March 7th 9:30am: Fly direct to DC.  Smooth plane ride with the exception of the rotten smelling man sitting directly behind me.  I mean rotten!  It was a mixture of stale cigarettes and pee.

After finding something to smash my nose into I decided I would try to take a little nap (thanks to my husband for the great neck pillow!).  Nap did not happen because rotten dude was obviously having some sort of nicotine fit and kicked my chair repeatedly as he did God knows what.  Wait a second… Why do I always sit by the smelly people?

I was lucky enough to have the seat next to me empty.  I was sitting by the window, however, and the girl on the aisle seat had me climb over her both times I had to get out to pee.  It was very awkward.

4:00pm arrival into Washington DC: Grab a taxi with one of my cohorts and head to the Gaylord National Convention Center/Hotel.  Yes, it’s really called the Gaylord.

4:30pm: Check into hotel.  Make video of self to send to Rob so he can show Jack. You know, “Hi Jack!  Mom misses you!  I love you!”   What?  I don’t want him to forget me.  By the way, Rob said he totally watched it and loved it.  I knew he would.

6:00pm: Meet up with fellow facilitators and CEO to do a “dry run” of the training course.

7:30pm: Meet in one of the many hotel restaurants for dinner.  The Gaylord is seriously its own city!

8:30pm: Head back to room for another practice of the training material by myself, a shower, some reading and an attempt at a full night’s sleep.

Ok, this whole hour-by-hour thing is getting lame.  Let’s do this….

Wednesday, March 8th:

Breakfast, set-up training rooms, watch CEO give keynote, lunch, train 3 hour training session, meet up for debrief and birthday celebration for cohort, retire to rooms to change and recoup, meet up for drinks and stay up way too late talking.

Thursday, March 9th:

Wake up at the butt crack of dawn to catch a taxi to the airport.  Fly home on a miniature plane, which ends up having a broken seat.  Delta sends maintenance dude in to fix the broken seat, delaying us.  When we arrive at JFK (connecting flight), we have to walk down precarious steps rather than a jetway and then through a series of tunnels before arriving in the airport.  The whole time I’m wondering why in the hell my flight cost $700?!

Made connecting flight which took me safely home where I was greeted by the world’s cutest dog.

This trip home was very short lived.  Stay tuned for Part 2 where I am awake for 24 straight hours, am nearly detained at passport check and have to endure a major tweaker seated right behind me for an 8.5 hour flight.

Au Paris

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Things just got really crazy in my life.  At least for the next couple of weeks.  I knew that there would be a lot of travel coming up with work, which is a good thing, but I totally didn’t expect to be flying to Paris in a week and a half (two days after I get home from DC).  Don’t be jealous.  I will be by myself, so I doubt I’ll dare do too much venturing out.  Plus, I won’t have a lot of time.  I have been to Paris once before, but it was a quick stop on a backpacking trip.  It went something like this:

Five girls in their early 20’s arrive by train.

We are immediately lost and no one wants to help us.  In fact, I’m pretty sure they actually pretended not to know English.

We finally arrive at our hostel, which is not so fittingly named ‘The Love and Peace Hostel.’  The entire time we were there we felt no love and definitely no peace.  In fact, drunk people crawled in and out of the window all night over our beds.

The evening we decided to venture out to the Eiffel Tower, we got lost on the way home.  We ended up in a stereotypical dark alley and are thankful to be alive today.

The Louvre was closed.

While traveling on the Metro, my best friend used what little French she knew to make friends with two random dudes.  One of the girls we were backpacking with had fallen off another train (another blog) and twisted her ankle, so one of the guys offered to give us a cane he had at his apartment.  Being really intelligent and worldly, we followed him.  Britt (my best friend), who was the most intelligent of all of us followed him up the stairs to his nasty, scary apartment where he proceeded to give her a big french kiss.  No pun intended.

That’s pretty much what I remember from Paris.  Oh, and I think the crepes were really good.  Well, bon voyage!  Oh wait, that’s what you would say to me, right?  I am not prepared for this.

Taking the Edge Off

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I am totally not the pill popping type.  I mean I can’t really take anything even if I wanted to.  When I got my wisdom teeth out they prescribed Percocet.  I took half of a pill and within three minutes the room started to spin.  I spent the entire night on the bathroom floor.  The only thing that stopped the heaving was an anti-nausea that Rob got for me by calling the doctor and saying, “I’m pretty sure my wife is going to die.”  If you’ve ever had the opportunity to take an anti-nausea you know that it’s not something you swallow.  Figure that one out.

A year or two later I was having some jaw pain.  My psychotic, anorexic, pill addicted boss offered one of her Vicodin.  Half pill down and, well, you know the story.  I mean I can’t even take Nyquil for hell sakes!  No, there is no vomiting, but I sleep for like days and then when I wake up I feel like I’m in a dream-like state for another day or two.  I would not make a good drug addict.

I’m feeling the stress the last couple of days though and keep thinking it would be nice to have something to take the edge off.  God, I sound like a drug addict though! Relax.  My drug of choice tonight is Bruno Mars.  I know, what am I 16?  No, because I’ll probably also mix in a glass of wine.  The strange thing is that the first line in the song I’m listening to talks about morphine.  What is going on here?

Oh, speaking of Bruno Mars though… You know his song ‘Grenade?’  Well, some of the words are, “What you don’t understand is I’d catch a grenade for ya, throw my hand on the blade for ya.  You know I’d do anything for ya.”  Last week Rob was singing this song for whatever reason, but his version went like this, “I would drink lemonade for you!”  How selfless.  You would drink lemonade for me?  Now that is love.

Proof

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Remember those tweaker neighbors I talked about that used to live next door but now live across the street?  You know, these ones. Well, sometimes I think you guys might think I’m making this shit up.  So, yesterday when one of the robe wearers emerged, I snapped a photo.  No, it’s not a great photo.  I had to take it from across the street, in between our shutters.  It could still be submitted as evidence when I’m on the stand and being asked the question, “Is it true that these neighbors of yours never came out of the house without a robe on?”

The Good, the Bad and the Funny

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I am on a roll today.  I mean I’m getting a lot done.  Or as Rob would say, I’m “settin’ ’em up and knockin’ ’em down.”  I’m traveling to teach a new course the week after next, so I’ve been working to learn the material, and I have to say that I’m very proud of how disciplined I am.  So, to reward myself I thought I’d indulge in some chips.  Bad, bad move.  These particular chips are impossible to stop eating.  I challenge you to try eating just a handful.  There is absolutely positively no way you’d be able to do it.  Here are said chips.  You can buy them at Costco, but I strongly suggest you don’t, because you will eat half the bag in one sitting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The good thing is that while I was mowing down half a bag of chips, Jack and Kitty were just chillin’ together.  The photo is a little blurry, but you get the idea.  I’m pretty sure he’s just trying to kiss up to her so she’ll let him eat all of her food.   Pretty sure that’s exactly what he did this morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, chips: bad.  Jack and Kitty: good.  The funny?  Yesterday Stevie had a treatment at Primary Children’s Hospital, so we were there all day.  We had to share a room with another patient (you know, there’s a lovely curtain in between but you can hear every word they’re saying).  The little girl was not behaving so her mom told her, “If you don’t start minding me, Grandma’s going to spank you.”  Apparently Grandma’s spanks are scarier than her own?  Anyway, on our way out of the room for a little walk, Stevie turned to the mom and yelled, “YOU SAID SHE WAS GOING TO GET SPANKED FROM GRANDMA!”  Jess and I were like, “shhh.”  But Stevie was so proud of herself for saying something and quickly responded with, “I remembered!”  She was really happy with herself for remembering what the mom had said so she could remind her of her terrible parenting.  She’s one of a kind.

Predictive Text Fails

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If you use predictive text, you know that it’s not always so predictable.  It tries its best, but sometimes its best isn’t good enough.  Ellen often showcases predictive text fails and they are effing hilarious.  There’s a whole website dedicated to these, and it makes me happy.

Rob’s predictive text is not doing its job at all.  Half the time I can’t even decipher what he’s really trying to say.  Personally I try to proofread my texts before I hit the send button, but Rob obviously doesn’t understand this concept.  Let me give you just a few examples of what he’s texted me in the last couple weeks.

Rob (texting me on a Saturday about playing with Jack): I played ball out back.  I’d their the balks on the roof and he would try and catch then when that can’t down.

Me: Your predictive text made that really hard to understand.

Rob: Oops.  Out basically said Jack and I are having fun.

New text series…

Rob: Hired your day?

Me:  What?

Rob:  Oops.  How’s your day?

Me:  Haha good.  Totally going to write a blog about your predictive text fails.

Rob:  Have you heard from Em?

Me:  No.  How come?

Rob:  Just sovereigns.  Getting a little worried.

Me:  Just sovereigns?  Dude, read back your texts.

One time we were babysitting for my sister overnight.  Stevie, our niece, woke up at 3:00am.  I went downstairs even though the nurse was still there because she was screaming at the top of her lungs, “AUNT SOOOONIE!”  Anyway, I had set an alarm on my phone for 4:55am to head down there when the nurse left but forgot to turn it off.  Rob couldn’t figure out how to turn it off and ended up calling my sister.  He quickly realized what he’d done so he hung up.  She texted my phone to see if everything was OK though.  Rob sent back a text that looked like it was written by a first grader.  Good lord!

Oh, and as I was typing up this blog, here’s what he sent me.

Rob: It’s margo and rita day so let’s mix in a catchall.

Me:  Huh?

Rob:  Margarita

I’m assuming catchall is cocktail?  Get it together man!

Unleashing the Danger

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We bought Jack one of those flexi retractable leashes so that we can practice having him come back to us in a wide open space.  One day, fingers crossed, we’re hoping to be able to take him off his leash completely without him a) running away or b) attacking some stranger.  So last Sunday we decided to try it out.  I took it out of the package and noticed the pamphlet titled ‘special precautions & directions.’  I thought I better peruse it in case there were any important safety tips.  Holy shit, that is one scary leash!  For example, this particular leash can totally cause finger amputations.  One of my favorite lines in the pamphlet is, “If you want to further reduce the risk of finger amputations and fractures, you can take off any rings and wear sturdy gloves.”  IF you want to???  Is there anyone that doesn’t want to avoid finger amputation?  Jesus Christ.  They’re like, if you care at all about your digits, lose the jewelry.  If you don’t really give a shit about your fingers, wear all the bling you want.

Obviously I had Rob hold the leash.  What, I am not losing a finger over this!  Plus in addition to finger loss, you can also suffer “serious eye damage, broken teeth, cuts and bruises.”  That’s right.  The leash or collar might break and the cord and hook can snap back with enough force to cause you to look like someone from the demolition derby.  I did not sign up for this when I adopted a dog.  Don’t be surprised if you see me with woodshop glasses and three pairs of gloves on next time I’m out walking Jack.