Ah...Can you smell the rubbish from here?

Lots of rubbish roaming around in my head tonight so here goes....

Today I was behind a lady at McDonald's who was very concerned about how many calories were in their iced coffee. All the while puffing on a cigarette. I am so glad you are worrying about getting fat and not about the state of your lungs. Ah well....

I then saw a truck that proudly announced the name of the business as Redeemed something or other. Now...don't get me wrong here...I am happy that he is happy that he is redeemed and all but I am puzzled about using it as a business name. Is he just happy and celebrating his redemption? Is he bragging about his redemption and thumbing his nose at those who are less redeemed? Is this supposed to make me believe that he will do better work because he is redeemed? If he screws up the job will Jesus make it right? It's a conundrum. I think I will never call him for a job just because he is too confusing.

I would like to make an announcement to my fellow Americans. As you can tell by my photo I am not a small and girlie woman. In fact...I am a 5'7''...300 pound...hunk of human being. I am built like a small truck. This is not because of a lot of effort on my part. I come from a long line of stocky females. I also have no control over the fact that I have PCOS. This means that I have cysts on my ovaries that do not allow me to have the proper hormonal balance. Thus...I have too much androgen and not enough estrogen. Aside from not being able to lose weight easily and having to shave every morning I don't notice it all that much. However...I would like you to TRUST me to know which bathroom is the correct one for me to use. I realize that I don't look like you. I realize that I choose to live my life the way I feel the most comfortable so I do not wear a lot of feminine clothing. Trust me...you would not feel any safer when I walked into the bathroom in a girlie outfit...you would definitely think that someone transgender had walked in at that point. Think...sailor in drag! It's not pretty. So...when you see me walk in...don't panic...it's just me and my original equipment. I am still sporting the vagina God gave me without alterations so you can relax. Rest assured I have no interest in what you are doing in the bathroom. I am there to use the toilet and move on. So let's just trust one another that we can read a sign and use common sense and go into proper bathroom and go right back to ignoring one another as much as possible. Because...and trust me on this...I am old and cranky...and if you say something to me or decide you want security to remove me...you are not going to be happy with the resulting conversation. Thank you!

Let's just make everyone mad while we are at it. Here in America you can pretty much say whatever stupid, misogynistic, racist, homophobic garbage you want. That is your right. But you must understand that society collectively sets our social norms on what is acceptable and unacceptable. You have to realize that most of us have moved on. So...when you say these things you must understand that there could be consequences for your behavior. You might alienate friends and family, you might lose your job, you might get your butt kicked. So spew all the rubbish you want but understand there could be a steep price tag. Oh...and if you feel free enough to fly that piece of Confederate bull shit and expect me not be offended by it then I expect you not to be offended by the finger I salute it with when I drive by your house. Fair is fair.

You might be asking yourself...Karen...where is all this anger and bitterness coming from? Well...I blame the Republicans and the internet. Now...I am going to go watch nonsense TV and eat food that is bad for me. Carry on!

Flat Squirrel Buffet

Mother Nature has put on quite the show this evening. Evidently one of the neighborhood squirrels lost a race with an automobile today and wound up squished in the middle of the street. I did not notice said tragedy right away. However, as I sat here on the couch, diving into my Popeye's chicken I saw a rather large shadow come across my front yard.

Holy crap! It's a Turkey Buzzard!! Now I live a block off a very busy road and I can see the Kum N' Go from my front windows so it's not like I am out in the country. So...said Turkey Buzzard, completely oblivious to the fact that he/she is ruining my appetite, plopped down and started doing what buzzards do...you know circle of life crap. Next thing I know here comes one of the neighborhood cats...of which there seem to be a multitude...and he/she decides to challenge the buzzard to a duel over the squished squirrel.

The Buzzard won that battle with a stretch of the wings, which convinced the cat that, yes, that buzzard is twice as big as me. The cat still hung in there though even though he/she retreated to a safer distance. Finally the buzzard lost interest and wandered over to the curb. Then the cat got all saucy and ran right at the bird...which just flew off making sarcastic anti-feline comments. The cat sauntered over and checked out the flat squirrel offering but decided that was just a bit too gross for him/her.

I finished my supper and came back into the living room and walked over to the front door to check out the naturalistic tableau and what should I see...a gopher...seriously people. It was running around the front yard and then would scoot back under my neighbor's house. I wonder if it is a relative of the gopher I wrangled out from under Martha's car at our old building. It is really close. Anyway...a gopher.

So I am going to sit here on my couch and keep an eye out for the next chapter. Who knows what might come roaming down the street next. Stay tuned....

For the love of God...make it stop.

Now this sentiment could refer to a lot of different things...and with my brain it does...so we are going to discuss things that need to stop.

1.  The annual Spring of Karen's angst. March is a very tough month for me and end of April is no peach either. Every year it starts off good with my friend Julie's birthday and then it just goes downhill from there. March 9th brings mom's birthday and this year would have been her 90th so that brought all sorts of angst with it. Then the 19th brings dad's birthday with all it's different sort of angst. All sorts of reexamining the cause of his douche-ness. Then the 31st is my anniversary. 21 years this year. But even that is sad because we are living 12 hours apart. Partly due to circumstance and partly due to choice and that brings all sorts of life choice angst. Like...what the fuck am I doing? I am wasting my life...you know...that sort of fun.
Then we have Easter. Now...I know Easter is supposed to be a joyous time but I have never been able to warm up to that feeling. To me it's just another year of marking the time things got so bad that God sent his only son down and we STILL DID NOT LEARN A DAMN THING! Yes...I am bitter.
Then comes the pollen that plagues my brain and the storms that make me hyper, or should I say, more hyper and it all comes crashing down at the end of April with the anniversary of mom's death. Yea me! This is why I prefer the Fall quite frankly.

2.  People need to understand that other folks do not process information the way they do. No one listens anymore. Especially if you are JUST an admin. They feel free to talk over you and not really listen to you and then have the gall to be upset when you get upset in return. No one person's time is more important than another person's time. Stop...and listen...and when you ask those of us with ADD a question...STOP...and let us process the question before you stalk off thinking we are idiots. Some of us need time to process the question before our brain will let us answer. Have patience with one another people.

3.  The other day I was driving to my dentist appointment when I saw a truck with a personalized Arkansas tag. Now...I get it...I really do...I lived in Fayetteville for five years...I understand your love for all things hog related. But seriously dude...driving around with a truck tag that says piglvr...that just needs to stop!! Scary place in my head now. I have never recovered from Deliverance.

4.  Today a squirrel met me in the driveway and proceeded to climb straight up the brick wall of my house. This needs to stop because quite frankly it freaked me out a little bit.

5.  Baker needs to stop obsessing over Kitten Face's whereabouts...especially if he is going to be dorky about it. This is how the conversation goes..."Baker...you JUST saw the cat in the kitchen two seconds ago...you looked right at her and barked...you JUST saw her so why are you standing in the spare bedroom staring at the armoire?"

6.  Girl Scouts need to stop selling Thin Mints because I have no self control.

7.  People need to stop hating one another...end of story!! Just stop!!

I was going to do 10 things but my ADD is so bad that I lost my train of thought. Maybe I will get back to it some day...oh look a chicken....

It's all awhirl tonight folks!

Yep...that's right my brain is rampaging out of control tonight with all sorts of rubbish running around in it and it's about to spew.

Why is it that my 3 legged Baker can see the cat in the kitchen, can whine at said cat in the kitchen, jump up on the cabinet door to annoy said cat and yet still run straight back to the Armoire and obsess about the cat he has just seen in the KITCHEN??  And why does he try to open closed doors by banging his nose into them? That has got to sting a bit.

And why is my neighbor choosing to stand out in her yard and yell at the woman across the street about whatever drama they are choosing to have today? This isn't the trailer park sister. Either go over there and duke it out or shut up about it and go inside. Because oddly enough...I don't give a damn!

When I go out to see my friends' band play I like to call it going to the Drunken Olympics. The Drunken Olympics has many great events. One of my favorites in the Dirty Dancing portion of the program. If I could wash my eyeballs I would sometimes.

Then there is the Toilet Expedition portion that is open to all contestants. There are many phases to this event. There is the where is the bathroom investigation...followed by the is it remotely clean check out...rapidly followed by the question portion of the evening. Does it have doors or shower curtains? Are there anything remotely resembling locks and if I lock said door can I unlock it to get out? Does it have paper towels or those air thingies? I hate those air thingies. Does it have a handicapped stall so I can get back up? Why does it have a sissy bar for a handicapped person but the toilet is so low a dwarf would have issues getting back up off it? This is closely related to the if I shut this door it will be right up against my knees but I REALLY have to pee and now that I am down here how on earth am I going to get back up? Panic can strike at this moment but you must remain calm while you try to figure out how you can get up without EMT assistance. Men...this is why we go to the bathroom together...it's all about a potential rescue.

Another great event is the I play guitar too and I can tell you what you are doing wrong portion of the evening. Always an awkward favorite of mine. This is closely related to the Play "Freebird" portion of the evening. The more advanced competitors even offer bribes but the band remains true to their ideals and pretends like they don't know it. Big points for denial right there.

Then there's the two drunken girls dancing event. You don't see this every time because they travel in pairs and it's hard to coordinate their schedules I do believe. There's the I started the evening out being normal but now I just keep getting louder and louder event. This is not a gender specific event. Both men and women can compete on an even obnoxious field. Ah..fun times right there.

Why does the media insist that I must care about what "celebrities" are doing every second of the day? I REALLY...REALLY...don't care. I don't care about ANY of the Kardashians. I don't care about who Kristen Stewart is dating. I don't care about rumors of divorces and breakups. I don't care if Justin Bieber misses Selena Gomez. Seriously...I really don't care. None of this has anything to do with living my life. Strangely enough I do not need the details of their private lives to distract me from mine.

Okay...I think my brain is tired now. I had a whole political diatribe typed out here but I deleted it. I am just too tired to play the hate game right now. Just make it stop people. Just STOP!

Bird Shenanigans...we are not so different

I was sitting out in the backyard with the dogs this morning trying to wake up and at least appear alert. I was watching Baker run around looking for a new escape route that might have somehow appeared overnight. Owen is just running around aimlessly trying to figure out what dogs do outside. Fiona is navigating her way across the yard to find a spot she can get stuck in. The usual morning exercise.

As I sat there trying to put together some form of coherent thought I heard a ruckus and looked around for it. It didn't take long. There was a full-on bird brawl in my back yard. The participants were 3 Cardinals. One male and two females. I watched trying to figure out just what the drama was about. They looked like young birds. At one point they took their brawl to the yard but I yelled...hey three dogs in the yard...you might want to move on...which they did ever so politely.

At some point I noticed the prime combatants were the two females. Well...one was aggressively after the other one. The male seemed to be just enjoying the brawl. Then it suddenly occurred to me. He was trying to corner one or both and have sex while the one female was trying to drive off the competition. Who knew birds had "that bitch is tryin' is trying to steal my man" moments?

So then I paid more attention to see what the fuss was about but ladies I didn't see the attraction. He wasn't a large and fluffy male Cardinal. He was a nice shade of red but nothing special. I think it was more like teen bird drama. So...I decided it must be that he is a "hot mess" and the girls want to fix him. I am not sure who won the battle but I would assume that determined female won because her aggression was something to behold. That girl was pissed! And I thought...wow...we are just really not so different. Hmmmm...who knew??

Riding the Rollercoaster

Well...hello there...I have been gone for awhile I see. Life has been rather chaotic these last couple of months and I am just now to the point where I feel that I can write something coherent.

First my beloved cousin passed away just before Christmas and then my Christmas vacation was a mess. I had to cut it short due to a blizzard warning and then came home to a biblical flood and four feet of water in the basement. Nine days without hot water. Shuttling back and forth from the hotel to the house. Dogs in the vet. Me still trying to work amidst the chaos.

Made the decision to try and look for a house to buy. Thought I had found the perfect one the first day only to find out it had been sold and the internet had not been updated. Gutted! I kept looking but could not find a good house in my price range in Carthage so expanded to Joplin. Then another cousin died. We were not as close as myself and Connie were but it was still distressing none the less. Trying to shop for a house, dealing with grief, trying to pack in anticipation of moving, working, worrying about Fiona's decreasing mobility...life was a mess.

I found a house and was (and am) overjoyed with it. It is ME. My little hobbit house. But now came the stress of moving. Packing, inspections, paperwork, phone calls, having to ask for help moving...all the stress and excitement one girl could handle. Especially one who is not all that adept at handling a lot of change all at once. Not to mention the patience of a gnat. My poor realtor was SO patient.

The house closed a week early. I moved that weekend trying to take advantage of the day off on President's Day. My new house looks like the old house threw up in it but I am working on it slowly. I finally got the kitchen put together. It took forever to find my silverware for some reason. It was quite the adventure trying to get that huge turkey platter I bought my grandma up in a cabinet. It is wedged in an unnatural fowl position but I never use it so it should be fine. Why do I still have it? No clue.

Hopefully I will get more stuff cleared away this weekend. It's beginning to bug even me. My stress levels seem to be returning to normal. My homicidal impluses from earlier this week seem have abated. My hormones must have shifted back to their normal dysfunction. Aside from my brush with death at lunchtime today I seem to be doing much better. Oh...lunchtime death interlude...I will steal the story from my FB post rather than retype it here...

I went home for lunch and took the dogs out and then came in to eat my double quarter pounder with cheese. Whilst eating I choked like I do and went into a really horrible asthma attack. Nasty! I ran to the bathroom with my arms in the air trying to clear my airway. Sat there on the toilet thinking this could possibly be it. I am going to die on the toilet like Elvis. Every time I coughed I got an unbearable pain in my arms. I was on the verge of tears when it finally calmed ...down. At this point I realized two things...Baker was in my lunch and I had to change clothes to go back to work. I come out of the bathroom and sure enough he had eaten the other half of my burger. I almost cried and then I almost killed him. It took a great deal of self restraint to only smack him on the ass with the McDonald's bag. Both scary and infuriating at the same time. Now he will probably poop all over the house since I can't be there to let him out when it hits. Can this day be over now please?

We all survived and hopefully we shall get off this rollercoaster soon. I am too old for rollercoasters and I am out of Dramamine.

Trying to find the light switch

When I was a kid there was some sort of unwritten and unspoken code in my house. Once the lights go out and we are in bed the lights do not come back on for any reason until morning. I have no idea when or why this policy started. I suspect it had something to do with three people living in tight quarters together and trying not to wake the sleeping, angry father. So I have always navigated around the house in the dark at night. Some nights my bladder is crankier than others and I make a lot of trips to the bathroom. All the while...trying to navigate sleeping dogs and a lurking cat. The point is...that even as an adult I don't turn on the light. Even though there is no one else to wake...I still walk around in the dark.

My life has been a fine example of this lately. I am still trying to find the humor in my Christmas holiday from hell but I'm just not there yet. Right before I was supposed to leave for my lovely week off in Colorado my darling cousin passed away. I would never leave without saying a final good bye to her sweet soul so I waited to leave until after her service. I got to Colorado on Tuesday. By Thursday they were issuing blizzard warnings so I had to come home on Friday. That is a LONG way to drive on such a quick turnaround.

I get home safe and sound and the Biblical deluge begins. By Saturday evening I had 4 feet of water in my basement. I was sitting here Saturday night minding my own business when I realized I smelled smoke and there was some smoky type substance floating in the air. I hopped up and tried to find a fire thinking I should do so BEFORE I called the fire department. Don't ask why...I have no clue. It finally dawned on me that it must be my furnace so I raced to shut if off and the smoke cleared.

Sunday my landlord brought over two more sump pumps and got the one in the basement working but it still took a couple of hours to get the water out. Meanwhile I am trying to keep the house warm with a space heater and the oven. As I went to bed Sunday night I plugged in my other little heater and it promptly blew a breaker. I have no idea where I set my flashlight down so I am walking around in the pitch black using my cell phone to try and find the flashlight. I find it and head outside into the pouring rain to check the breakers.

Because you see...for some brilliant reason unknown to me my breaker box is on the OUTSIDE of the house. I surf down the hill in the mud. Get to the box and cannot remember how to open it. I get it open but because of where it is on the house, the slope of the yard and my lack of height...I cannot tell which breaker it is so I just flip them all and try to make my way back up the slope sliding in the mud and rain. And no...I have no idea why I thought it would be a good idea to touch an electrical box in the pouring rain. I was not thinking at that moment.

So I piled on blankets and went to sleep on the couch. I use the term sleep very loosely because it was very chilly and miserable. Nothing can be fixed right away because so many people are in the shame shape or worse than me. So by Monday I make the executive decision to take the dogs to the vet and I move into a local hotel. I shuttle back and forth to take care of Kitten Face. By Wednesday I get my heat back on. But still no hot water. I moved back home because I had heat and well...I could figure out the hot water thing later.

All in all I was 9 days without hot water. My wonderful friend Catina not only allowed me to invade her sacred space and take a shower but she also made me a great dinner and sent me home with leftovers and a bag of cookies. I am very blessed to have countless people offer me their spare rooms and showers but I...of course...am an introverted...anxious mess...and put it off as long as possible. I really am better off by myself in times of stress.

Then to add to my joy I caught a cold. At this point I was having concerns that I had REALLY pissed off the universe in some way, shape or form. Things at my house are fairly back to normal...except for the fear it might collapse in on itself at any time. The basement is a little dodgy you see. So I have been struggling to find the light switch. The house in my heart is still dark you see. I try and pretend that things are all honky dory when they are not. I miss my cousin's joyful existence. I miss the comfort zone I used to have in my house. My head is pounding from my usual sinus issues. I am worried about my dog that cannot walk. I am worried about my 3 legged dog who likes to chase the cat around. I am stumbling around in the dark...trying not to step on anyone as I seek whatever it is I am seeking. So...if any of you know where the light switch is can you please flip it on for me because I am having trouble finding it on my own.