Words of Wisdom, by Jimmie

19 Mar 2012 1 Comment

by Love, Jimmie in Imparting Wisdom, Outings Tags:

If someone offers you kim chee, say no.  They might tell you it is delicious.  They are delusional.  Pickled, fermented, rotting cabbage ≠ yummy.    

If someone offers you a sample of maple bacon ice cream, say yes.  You won’t be saying yes because it is tasty.   You will be saying yes because it is terrible.  Why, you ask, do you recommend maple bacon ice cream when you think it is disgusting?  Because, I respond, after tasting maple bacon ice cream and realizing that it tastes like a cockroach threw up in your mouth, you instantly realize that the only way to get the taste out of your mouth is to purchase and enjoy a whole cone of red velvet cake ice cream.    Because you will eat the entire cone of red velvet cake ice cream in an effort to rid yourself of essence of cockroach, you will feel no guilt at all and only relief that the awful taste no longer lingers.  You’re welcome.

If someone offers you a free hockey ticket (Nashville Predators, woo!) which includes a pass into the all you can eat buffet and really sweet seats, say yes, even if it is raining outside.  I know I’ve explained to you that I don’t really “get” hockey but it doesn’t mean I don’t like to go to a game on occasion.  It’s quite exciting really.  If you can ignore the men (rabid fans, woo!) who sit directly behind you, you know, those men that give their expert and loud opinion on every single play of the game and also those men that teach you new curse words that you never dreamed existed, you will have a fabulous time.  The music (John Denver, woo!) is fantastic.  The mascot (Gnash, woo!) is rowdy. The fans (bunch of strangers, woo!) are devoted, so devoted that they paint their beer bellies with their favorite player’s number (Jordin TooToo, woo!) and will show you those bellies if you cheer loud enough for them.  Brave, brave men.  Good hockey players (Ryan Suter, woo!) make the game look easy.   It is a joy to watch and by the end of a game, you might just “get” hockey a little better. 

Men, if someone offers you a pair of skinny jeans and exclaims that they will look awesome on you, say no.  They are lying to you. 

If someone offers you a volunteer position driving a gaggle of senior citizens in a big van to dinner once a month, say yes.  You guys, I love these people so much. This month we went to the Omni Hut which is a kitschy place that serves Polynesian food.  The wait staff dresses in muumuus and Hawaiian shirts, the menu relies heavily on pineapple and teriyaki sauce, and all décor is enhanced by black lights so that everything takes on a nice neon glow.  My group has been waiting for this trip for months so I was a little surprised that for the first time since I took this position, I suffered from a few moments of embarrassment when each person at the table had an issue of some sort: 

  • “No spices of any kind on my chicken, please, no not even salt.  Especially not pepper.  I like my food plain.  Really, really plain.”
  • “This coffee tastes terrible – I can make better at home.”
  • “What is this?  Fried rice? Are you sure? I’ve never seen fried rice like this in my life.”
  • “I just killed a cockroach.  I know you can’t see it but it was here.  Okay, yes it was small but it was here, right here on the bread plate.  Would you like some bread?”  (Editor’s note:  There was no cockroach.  There was only a drama queen who was suffering from lack of attention, bless her heart.) 

I had new guy this time.  His name is Mark and he is from the Ukraine.  It was 70-something degrees outside and Mark came to dinner in a button-down collared shirt, a sweater, a jacket and a jaunty beret.  He was, in short, adorable.  After dinner, we shuffled out to the van and had a small scuffle over who would ride in the front with me.  There was a small mishap with some of the leftovers which left a pungent odor in the van. The woman who was unhappy about the cockroach was disgruntled all the way home, a 25 minute drive.  But as the seniors filed off the van, Mark adjusted his beret and said in his heavy accent, “Thank you, Jimmie.  I had a nice time.”  And he gave me a hug.  First time I’ve gotten a hug from one of my seniors.  It made the horror of the kim chee taste test fly right out of my brain.   

Heartburn

06 Mar 2012 4 Comments

by Love, Jimmie in Aack!, Family, Health, Imparting Wisdom Tags: ,

That title is not a euphemism for a romance gone awry.  Nothing that complex here. This post really is about heartburn and since it’s the only thing of note I have experienced lately, this is what you get. For those of you who have gently reminded me that I have not written anything since Feb 20th (and I luff you guys for it), you are welcome.  We now all get to hear about my stomach.

To begin, I’d like to present a list of things that cause Martie heartburn:

  • Little Caesar’s pizza
  • Beans
  • Krystal’s
  • Do-si-dos and milk
  • Mexican food
  • Chinese food
  • Olive Garden
  • Alcohol
  • Grandma’s spaghetti
  • Meatloaf

As you can see, Martie suffers from heartburn a lot.  Because she suffers from heartburn a lot, she generally has a nice supply of antacids stashed at every home she regularly visits (much like me and my toothbrushes – I have one at every house I regularly spend the night in).  My house is no different which is lucky for me.  See, recently I found myself in need of an antacid or two which is really weird because my list of things that cause me heartburn is as follows:

  • Bananas

I have eaten no bananas so I’ve been a little concerned about my new condition.  Maybe I have some underlying stress that I’m not fully cognizant of or maybe there has been some profound hormonal shift in my body, but whatever it is, I’m now a proud sufferer of heartburn.  (An FYI – the first person that suggests to me that my excess acid production is a symptom of getting old gets a box in the kisser.) I’ve raided Martie’s stash these last few days which has helped tremendously but I remain puzzled.

Used to I suffered from heartburn all the time.  I spent lots of days feeling burny and uncomfortable, and I took lots of over the counter remedies for it.  My list of heartburn causes back in those days consisted of:

  • Bananas
  • An unfortunate combination of 75 pounds of excess weight and an unwise choice in marriage partner

Eventually I ditched the weight, both 50 pounds of fat and 180 pounds of husband, and eventually all things seemed to regulate.  But before that, there were days of acidic agony that I just never seemed to conquer. 

One day in particular, I could feel the acid bubbling around in my stomach.  It felt black and lively, and I distinctly remember thinking “Oh, so this is what hydrochloric acid feels like as it eats through your stomach walls.”  I was miserable.  We had no money and I had no remedy.  I tried milk, water, everything.  You know what I remembered, though?  I remembered that Poppa had a home remedy for acid indigestion.  I’d seen him use it a thousand times and it always seemed to work.  See, Poppa’s list of thing that causes him heartburn includes:

  • Everything

Poor man.  He’s always got something rumbling away in his tummy and when you find yourself awake in the middle of the night with no easy access to a store, you find what works in your house.  His remedy was to mix baking soda and water into a thin watery mixture and then suck it down.

Now baking soda is used for loads of things.  It makes cakes bake up nicely.  It whitens your teeth when you brush with it.  It cleans out funky smells in your refrigerator.  All of these things relate in some fashion to stuff that goes in your mouth but generally the taste is masked by sugar or minty toothpaste or something.  Drinking it mixed with water is  . . . . interesting.

Yep, interesting.  But let me tell you, that stuff works.  I mixed up a batch of Poppa’s home remedy and I swilled it down.  The absolute moment it hit my esophagus, I could feel it start working.  I felt it go all the way down into my stomach and I could feel it surrounding all that acid in there.  It was the strangest feeling, like the bubbles were racing to the top of the liquid and those bubbles were ANGRY.  It only took a few seconds for my baking soda to make its way all the way down to the bottom of my stomach and for me to feel like something big was going to happen and happen soon.

Suddenly, I burped.  That sounds so innocent and small.  Let me tell you, it wasn’t.  Not this burp.  It came up from the very depths of all my internal organs and made its way forcefully and urgently all the way through my body and out of me.  It literally felt like I had ingested an entire Coca Cola and shot the full acidic, bubbly can of liquid out my nose.  I thought my head flew off and was never more shocked in all my life to find it still intact when the belch ended.  My eyes were watering and my nose was running and my stomach . . . . well, my stomach was completely settled.  Nary a drop of acid left.  Not one.  It was amazing. 

So there, boys and girls, is my story about heartburn.  I hope you all enjoyed it immensely and learned something new today.  Clearly I am having some writer’s block issues but I’ll be back just as soon as those clear up.  Anyone got a home remedy for that?

 

Musings and Amusings, by Jimmie

20 Feb 2012 5 Comments

by Love, Jimmie in Family, Friends, Pets Tags: ,

It’s Monday.  It’s felt like Monday all dang day. 

Why is it that on the weekends I leap out of bed at the crack of daylight when by rights, I should be lounging around in the bed, sweet talking my pillows for hours?  I love my bed. We are very close.  Yet on the days when I can demonstrate how much I love it by spending quality time with it, I’m up moving around and giving it the cold shoulder as if it forgot my birthday or something.  And then on Monday mornings, when I don’t have time to demonstrate how much I love it (because I have class with Lynnette, y’all and she’s a demanding mistress), I cannot leave it.  I cannot tear myself away.  I give up friends (Lynnette and Jane and Body Pump and Spinning) for it.  I give up quality time with my razor (I should be spending time shaving my legs even though it is winter) so that I can cuddle up with my yummy duvet.  I give up my easy drive to work even though I know that the longer I lie around, the smaller the window I have of “good traffic drive time”.  Why is it so hard?

Eh, it’s a conundrum.  I should be wiser and all that now, now that I’m facing forty.  Unfortunately, the biggest change that comes with age, I’ve noticed, has nothing to do with wisdom but everything to do with the fact that now that I’m older, the longer I lie around being lazy, the puffier my eyes are.  Yay. 

For your Monday, which I hope was less blah than mine, I’ve included some pictures of things that made me laugh.  It will look like Christmas threw up in here, but trust me, these pictures are worth it. 

This here is my neighbor’s tree.  We had a big old windstorm come through a few weeks ago and I noticed his newspaper up in the tree afterwards.  He blames it on “those damn kids” in our neighborhood, but I disagree.  You see the newspaper way up there in the top?  It’s still up there and it’s been two months.

 

This here is a ceramic pig Phranke and I saw when we were out shopping one day.  It was just too cute to ignore.

 

Speaking of pigs, this here is the only Christmas decoration Madre has every year.  She has no tree. She has no wreath.  She has no bows or lights.  But you see how she put a hat and beard on that big old concrete pig?  That’s how Madre rolls, y’all.

 

And speaking of Christmas, will you believe that I took this picture just days ago? This here is my neighbor across the street and every night when I come home, it still looks like this.  Y’all, it’s nearly St. Patrick’s Day.  I am going to see how long they keep these lights blazing.

 

And speaking of holidays, I got a Valentine!  It was the only one I got this year, so I cherish it.  One guess who it’s from . . . .

 

If you were to guess Dammit Todd, you would be correct. 

And finally, this here is a lazy Sunday afternoon, where it seems that Murphy and Seamus have no issue spending quality time with my bed All Day Long. 

 

Lucky little varmints. 

Girl Meets Boy – A Love Story

14 Feb 2012 7 Comments

by Love, Jimmie in Family Tags:

Once upon a time there was a little girl.  We will call her Girl.  When she was in the third grade, she fell in love with a little boy.  We will call him Boy.  He was a nice boy and lots of girls in the third grade liked him.  We will call those other girls Others. 

Boy took turns “going out” with Girl and Others.  He would “go with” one for a while, they would break up and he would “go with” another one for a while.  He wasn’t being mean, he was being fair.  It was the third grade after all and he was very popular.   

Girl would take it particularly hard when Boy wasn’t “going with” her.  Sometimes she would come home and cry, saying “Boy doesn’t like me.  He’s going with one of the Others.  That hurts me.” Her sister, called Sister, would say, “Don’t worry, Girl.  One day you will knock his socks off.”

That year for Christmas, Boy bought Christmas presents for Girl and Others.  He bought necklaces.  One of the Others got a Strawberry Shortcake necklace, another got a CZ chip necklace and Girl got a Smurfette necklace.  Girl was overjoyed with her gift.  She called Mother at work and worried the mess out of her until Mother agreed to take Girl shopping for a Christmas gift for Boy.  They had to go right away.   

After much deliberation in the toy aisle of Wal-Mart, Girl decided on a Donkey Kong piggy bank.  Girl got home with her gift and insisted that she wrap it herself.  She labored over it for a long time, her tongue poking out in concentration.  There was a lot of tape on it, a lot of air between the layers of the wrapping paper, and she finished it off with a Styrofoam glitter-covered heart that she ripped off one of her headbands. She stuck it on the gift with a stick pin and was determined to leave it there even though it kept popping off because of all of the air in the wrapping paper.  Mother drove Girl over to Boy’s house very late because Girl would have it no other way.  Boy loved the gift and all was well.

Time marched on.  Boy and Girl would “go together” for a while and then would break up and then “go together” again.  Eventually, though, Boy and Girl grew up and moved on to other boys and girls.  They became interested in other things and although they were friends, they no longer “went together.”   

One day, after Boy and Girl became Young Man and Young Woman, someone threw a party. We will call the party a Class Reunion.  Young Man and Young Woman both attended the Class Reunion and while there, discovered a mutual affection for each other.  They began dating and from the first date, were inseparable.  After some time, Young Man bought a ring, offered it to Young Woman, and Young Woman accepted the ring.  They began planning a wedding.

Young Woman made sure that she had something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue for her wedding day.  They said their vows, Sister cried, Mother cried, everyone cried, and as Young Woman walked down the aisle a married woman, she showed Young Man her something blue.  She had kept the Smurfette necklace Boy had given her in the third grade.  It was in her jewelry box the whole time.  The chain had broken and the metal had tarnished but Girl pinned that Smurfette to the inside of her dress and wore it proudly to say “I do.”   

Sister cries every time she tells that story. 

This is not my story but I am Sister.    Martie and Coach, Girl and Boy, will be married 13 years next month.  I guess you could say now they “go together” all the time.  Isn’t that the best love story?  Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!  I wish you a nice love story of your own.

Happy Belated Birthday, Kindle! Now With More Photos.

09 Feb 2012 2 Comments

by Love, Jimmie in Friends, Guest Post, In Which I Throw Myself Under The Bus Tags: ,

Kindle had a birthday on Monday.  I wanted to write for her then but I had to be mad about my physical first, plus I had just written another birthday post and I was a little woozy from all that sugar so many days in a row. 

I work with Kindle.  She was a surprise, much like Freddie was, when I moved to a new company.  I had no idea a Kindle even existed but she’s turned out to be one of my greatest assets in the friend world.  When I went through a nasty breakup, she was there for me every day.  I would come to work with eyes that looked like two peas in snow, I was so puffy from the crying. The thing is, we didn’t know each other well because we were new to each other yet she would take one look at my wonky eyes and say, “You okay?  You need to talk? Want an ice pack?”  She’s very matter of fact and she won’t let me get away with crying for long.  It’s perfect. 

It also helps that on particularly bad days, she would send me this picture.   

So I give her this one in return for her birthday.  Happy Birthday, Kindle!  Meow!

Also, some of our other friends wrote guest posts for you. 

Kindle

 K is for the kindness she always offers

I is for indigo (I like purple)

N is for the nice things she does for everyone

D is for the dozens of people she makes smile every day

L is for the love she spreads

E is for everyone who is lucky enough to meet her. 

The first time I met Kindle she talked to me without hesitation.  She’s always been friendly, warm, and kind to me from the start.  It was no problem being friends with her instantly.  Have a wonderful burfday!!!! 

Hugs,

Spike (Editor’s note: totally new character.  You’ll hear more of her later.) 

I so enjoy working with my cubicle buddy back here in this black hole of an abyss that is known, only in select circles, as Transportation.  We have certainly had our share of trying to solve the world’s problems, and the company’s as well.  And thanks for being that occasional listening ear and YOU ARE WELCOME for the times you’ve needed me to do the same.  And I won’t even go into all the craziness about the “blonde one” they call Jimmie!  There’s not enough medication on this planet to correct “all” that is wrong there!  LOL.  

Hugs,

Felix

Kindle is a rock!  Regardless of what is going on in her life, she is a steady place that you can depend on.  Some days she’s the smack in the ass you need to get back on the playing field, and some days she’s just an ear to sound off to.  She’s the welcome break in the middle of the work day when she stops by my desk just to say hi and shoot the breeze for a minute.  And she never asks for anything in return. 

You all may remember the amazing blueberry cake that Jimmie made for my birthday last year.  It looked a lot like this…

 

But tasted amazing!  You may or may not know that Jimmie and I share a fondness for baking, and sometimes take turns baking our coworkers and good friends’ birthday cakes.  Kindle’s request this year was the amazing blueberry cake…the very same one that Jimmie made for my birthday last year that looked like this… 

 

Kindle, my gift to you is this: I will make the same cake that Jimmie made for my birthday, but I’m going to up the ante a little and whip the hell out of the frosting like Jimmie was supposed to do, so that instead of your cake looking like this…

 

Your cake will look like this…

 

Hugs,

Freddie

Venting – A Customer Service Story.

07 Feb 2012 4 Comments

by Love, Jimmie in Aack!, Health Tags: ,

I’ve waffled a little on writing this post.  I don’t want to be unfair to a business because of my one bad experience.  Also, the service industry I’m going to discuss is rather an emotional one for me so I realize that I may not be entirely fair.  However, they have gone and ticked me off for the last time and I’m not going to be nice to them anymore.  I feel like they have fully earned this.  Congratulations, LifeSigns.  This is for you.   

Back story:  I signed up for a new type of health coverage this year.  I went with an HSA plan which, to make a long plan short, means only one thing of importance here:  1) all preventive care is paid at 100%.  Yearly physicals are considered preventive and I heard about a company who classify all of the tests (ie: blood work, pap, mammo, vitamin levels, etc.) as preventive.  As a matter of fact, that company has often visited our office to give Lunch and Learns, participated in our health fairs and regularly brings us general healthy information.  I liked them a great deal and the representative who visits with us is great. You can see why I was swayed.

I was excited as one can be about having a full physical when I made my appointment.  What I was really looking forward to was getting it all done in one fell swoop and working with the staff that I had heard great things about.  Unfortunately for them, I need great staff.  Actually, I need exceptional staff. 

See, I have this issue about going to the Cookie Doctor. (Think about it for a minute.  You’ll get it.)    I’m not a fan.  If you want to know the truth, I’m an emotional hot mess about it and have been known to curse like a sailor, throw a tantrum, cry until I burst a blood vessel and say horrible, horrible things like, “No YOU calm down!  If you would get naked, too, and put on this damn paper towel and let me position the headlight and the platypus and the mile-long q-tip near YOUR nether regions, I would calm down!  I don’t give a rat’s ass that it would be unprofessional for you to do that.  You do it and then you can tell me to calm down!”  I’m such a joy to be around.

Next up, though, are all the reasons they failed and truly, have nothing to do with my bad behavior.

  1. They lost my appointment.  This is why I never received a reminder call or the emailed paperwork I was to bring with me for my appointment. I was relieved, honestly.
  2. They called me 30 minutes before my originally scheduled appointment to ask me if I had indeed fasted.  I was bewildered, seeing as how the day before they admitted that they had no appointment for me.
  3. We rescheduled my appointment and they asked me to bring a check for the services I was to receive.  I was indignant.  All the information I had received from them indicated that my tests would be considered preventive and thus, covered 100%, no co-pay, no deductible.
  4. I lost the argument and promised to bring the $35 it would cost me for the appointment, an amount we had debated at great length and an amount they assured me would be all I would ever need to pay. I was resigned. 
  5. I arrived for my appointment and was asked to pay $45.  I was angry.  Turns out they forgot to tell me about the administration fee despite my asking repeatedly if there would be other charges.
  6. All exams were performed, all veins were stuck, all ultrasounds of vital organs were completed and I left, exhausted, cried out, and without any lingering mascara.  I left it (along with my pride, my dignity and my good graces) on the  roll of coloring paper they let you lie on as a nice sanitary crinkly table cover. I was a mess. 
  7. The physician (who, even after experiencing the loveliness and calm and raging blood pressure that is me when they hand me the paper towel to put on for the exam, handled me beautifully and never once felt compelled by my arguments or cursing to don her own paper towel while performing all my exams) assured me that I would have all results within the week.  I was gullible.
  8. I did receive my results.  I did.  But only after being promised that they were mailed twice, emailed once, emailed again, and then found in some long lost archive that IT had managed to institute with the implementation of a new program.  It seems that only my results had been sent there, though, and no one could figure out why I could never get them.  Boy howdy, I was ticked. 
  9. Turns out I’m not slated to die any time soon but apparently, I could use an attitude adjustment.  I was thankful.   
  10. Yesterday, and this will be a complete shock to you, I received a bill for the services LifeSigns performed.  You know, those services that fall under the 100%-paid preventive care and also the services that I paid for in advance.  I am speechless.   

Possibly speechless is the wrong word.  There was lots of this: @##%^$%!!!!! And some of this: &^%**$##@@#!!!!!!! And then more of this:  @#$$%$!#@#$$%%)*! And then I calmed down and wrote it all up for you. 

Really, I feel as if I’m being noble and merciful by giving LifeSigns an F++.  Don’t you?

Reposted In Honor Of My Best Friend: Happy Birthday, Martie.

03 Feb 2012 2 Comments

by Love, Jimmie in Family Tags:

Happy Birthday

A million memories are not enough to cover the expanse that is sisterhood.  I’ll share a few today, in honor of one of my favorite people. 

I don’t really remember when Martie was born.  I was too little.  But I feel like I remember it because someone took a picture of us:  me sitting up in an armchair holding this tiny baby with gigantic eyes and a shock of black, explosive hair.  I was grinning like a loon and you can see someone’s arms hovering around me to prevent me from dropping her I guess. If my feelings about Martie now are any indication, there is no way in the world I would have ever dropped that baby.   

I remember when Madre took Martie to the beauty salon and had that explosive hair permed into an afro.  It was the cutest afro you’ve ever seen on a tiny girl. Her kindergarten picture shows a little girl with giant eyes and a curly mop wearing my favorite Winnie the Pooh dress that I handed down.  I love that picture. 

I remember having a fight with Martie in high school.  We were mad at each other (I think I’ve told this story before), and I was grandstanding in front of our friends.  I spit my gum in her face.  In retaliation, she went into the house, grabbed my purse, stuck it under the tire of her VW bug and ran over it a few times.   

I remember when Madre married Poppa and we got two brothers.  (Let me say in aside here that my family is complicated.  I have step siblings and half siblings and full siblings and four sets of grandparents plus some grandparents that we adopted.  But you know what?  My family is only complicated in terminology.  They are my family – full blooded, fully loved, full hearts, all the way.)  At first, the transition from three females living alone to six people living together, three males, three females (we were the Brady Bunch, sort of) was tough.  We had growing pains.  I had always been the peacemaker and the quiet one.  That was until one of the brothers took Martie’s sand dollar and broke it open after she expressly told him he could not do that. Her eyes teared up and as the youngest of us, she got trampled on a lot.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  I was so mad.  So I hit him, really, really hard.  And I think I knocked him out a little bit.  Apparently you don’t mess with my little sister, I don’t care who you are or how much I like you.

I remember seeing Martie’s face when she was in the OR and they put Pooh on her chest, right after she was born.  That is one of my favorite faces of all time.   

I remember graduating from high school and after I got my diploma, I looked up and saw Martie’s face covered in tears.  It was the end of an era – we would no longer share a room.  We would no longer share clothes.  We would no longer fight over the radio or the light in our room or our makeup.  We would no longer stay up all night talking about boys.  We never again listened to Thriller in our pajamas and ate giant Hershey’s kisses.  I was leaving for college and that moment, when I saw her face, my heart broke a little. 

I remember the moment that I realized that there was nothing Martie could do, ever, that would make me stop loving her.  Of course I probably realized it early in life but this particular moment was one that I could articulate.  Right then I called her. I told her that.  I told her that there is not another person on this earth who knows everything there is to know about me and loves me anyway.   I know everything there is to know about her and I love her anyway, love her because of it, love her because she’s Martie and she’s awesome.  I can’t imagine my life without her.   

I remember Martie calling me once.  She was so upset, so heartbroken.  Someone had hurt her badly and I remember the anguish in her voice when she said brokenly, “I don’t love a little bit.  I love all the way.  There is no little bit for me.”   That’s who Martie is.  She is full of life.  She does nothing halfway.  When she’s in, she’s all in.  It’s beautiful. 

So I say this:  I don’t love you a little bit, Martie. I never did.  There is no little bit here.  I love you all the way, as full as you can get.  A million memories for us.  A million smiles.  A million tears.  A million hugs.  A million of all good things for your birthday because you deserve it all, as full as you can get, and once we get to the end of a million, we’ll start all over again.  Happy Birthday, my forever friend.  I love you. 

Laugh

 

Vegas, Baby!

Martie

Pop Quiz! Or, There’s Nothing To See Here, People. Everyone’s Virtue Is Intact. I Think.

31 Jan 2012 6 Comments

by Love, Jimmie in Aack!, Imparting Wisdom, This Will Probably Get Me In Trouble Tags: ,

1.       Lynnette’s husband is a handsome man.  He is tall and has no unaddressed dental issues.  He’s also a snappy dresser.  He fully and faithfully belongs to Lynnette.  Jimmie met him once and treated him with respect and friendliness, talking to him and including him in the conversation and festivities.  What is your assessment of Jimmie’s behavior with Husband-of-Lynnette?

          a.      She was being true to herself by being friendly and chatty, hoping to include Husband and make him feel welcome

          b.      She is a dirty filthy skank who was clearly hitting on Husband and is the reason why Lynnette never brings him to parties and such

2.      Freddie’s husband is a handsome man.  He is tall and has no unaddressed dental issues.  He’s also very generous in lending his bicycles out to his friends.  He fully and faithfully belongs to Freddie.  Jimmie met him once and treated him with respect and friendliness, talking to him and including him in the conversation and the festivities.  What is your assessment of Jimmie’s behavior with Husband-of-Freddie?

          a.      She was being true to herself by being friendly and chatty, hoping to include Husband and make him feel welcome

          b.      She is a dirty filthy skank who was clearly hitting on Husband and is the reason why Freddie never brings him to parties and such

3.      Martie’s husband is a handsome man.  He is tall and has no unaddressed dental issues.  He’s also one of the nicest men you’ll ever run across.  He fully and faithfully belongs to Martie.  When Jimmie first met him she treated him with respect and friendliness, talking to him and including him in the conversation and festivities.  What is your assessment of Jimmie’s behavior with Husband-of-Martie?

          a.      She was being true to herself by being friendly and chatty, hoping to include Husband and make him feel welcome

          b.      She is a dirty filthy skank who was clearly hitting on Husband and is the reason why Martie never brings him to parties and such

4.      Casual Acquaintance’s date is  . . . .  interesting looking.  He is tall and has loads of unaddressed dental issues.  Loads.  For starters, the teeth he does have are not a normal color but more blackish. He’s also greasy and shy.  He fully and faithfully belongs to Casual Acquaintance as far as Jimmie can tell.  Jimmie met him once and treated him with respect and friendliness, talking to him and including him in the conversation and festivities because he seemed intent on holding up the wall for the duration of the evening and she felt kind of bad for him.  What is your assessment of Jimmie’s behavior with Date-of-Casual Acquaintance? 

          a.      She was being true to herself by being friendly and chatty, hoping to include Date and make him feel welcome

          b.      She is a dirty filthy skank who was clearly hitting on Date despite the fact that unaddressed dental issues turn her off completely and the fact that men who are already romantically attached hold no appeal for her.  Her behavior was so bad that she deserved an email stating that she is the reason why Casual Acquaintance never brings him to parties and such. 

If it helps, you can do this test Open Book.  The Book reads like this:  All husbands and attached men are 100% safe around Jimmie, even the hottie ones like Dwayne Johnson and Tom Selleck and Denzel Washington.  No exceptions, especially for ones with very bad teeth. 

BONUS QUESTION:  Jimmie was at her café, writing and being quiet and obviously busy.  A man who smelled quite strong although not unpleasant arrived and set up shop near her.  He worked diligently at his computer for a while and occasionally peeked back at Jimmie.  He asked a question or two of her, and when she was packing up to leave, he started a full blown conversation.   

“Can I get your help with something?” asks the man.

“Sure, what’s that?” asks Jimmie. 

“Come look at this?” he says and points at his computer screen which is emblazoned with the header for DATEHOOKUP.COM.  A profile has been started.

“Oh,” Jimmie says faintly.   

“You see what I’m doing here?  My wife, well she left, and I don’t want to be alone.  What should I say here?”  he says, looking up with hopeful eyes.

“You see what I’m doing here?” he says again. 

“Ah, put your picture on it, leave out the baggage because no one wants to date someone who talks about how their spouse did them wrong all the time, and talk about what you like to do. Those are my suggestions. Good luck.”  says Jimmie.

“You see what I’m doing here?” he asks. Again.

“Yep,” says Jimmie and she left. Quickly.    

What say you – was she hit on?     

          a.      Yes, of course.  Stop being so naive.

          b.      No, of course not.  Ego is out of control.

For real, Jimmie has no clue.  Please weigh in.  

You Can Now Eat Off My Floors

26 Jan 2012 4 Comments

by Love, Jimmie in Aack!, Home Improvement Tags:

I just did the laziest thing ever. Or the smartest thing. Depends on how you look at it but I’m going to say it’s a little of both.   

I hired someone to clean my house.

Normally I’m not a very messy person.  Normally I’m very neat.  This was not always the case.  When Martie and I were little, we shared a room.  You could tell which side was hers and which was mine.  It was almost like tape had been run down the center of the room – the floor to the right of the “tape” was pristine and held Martie’s bed and dresser.  The floor to the left was chaos and held my bed, dresser, every outfit I owned, magazines, books, nail clippers that I borrowed from Madre and then had to search for in a panic when she asked for them back, stuffed animals, shoes, hair accoutrements, school books, notebooks, craft books, trophies, ribbon, and a lot of dust.   

Martie learned the neatness lesson the hard way.  Madre always said that we could do whatever we wanted in our room as long as it didn’t creep down the stairs (remember, we were in the sweatbox called the attic bedroom). Once it crept down the stairs, though, whatever was on the stairs and the bedroom floor was free game.  We were in high school, full of angst and daily drama about our clothes and hair, and one week our room became unmanageable enough that a bunch of crap ended up on the stairs.  Madre swept through the stairs and room with a few garbage bags and within 15 minutes Martie and I lost everything we had to wear, only excepting the clothes we had on and the unfortunate, unflattering, ill-fitting wardrobe choices still left in our closet.  Oh, you’d have thought the end of the world had come we were so dramatic about it.

It took us a few weeks to earn back everything we had lost and we eventually stopped looking like homeless people in school.  It was embarrassing and one would think after that sort of experience, one would learn to keep one’s room picked up.  If one were Martie, one would have learned it after the first time.  If one were Jimmie, one would not.     

After a few years of losing clothes due to stair creepage, I learned lessons and now like a home that is clutter-free and clean.  I don’t mind cleaning.  Some days I find it relaxing and kind of enjoyable.  However, judging by the state of the dust in my house, I have not found cleaning to be relaxing or enjoyable in recent weeks.  Evidence:

 

Eek!

I heard a rumor about a cleaning crew in Nashville that does such excellent work that you can eat off their cleaned floors and that they do this work for not a lot of money.  Needless to say, I called them up and begged them to come out and give me a quote. 

Want to know what will send you to the floor with embarrassment and shame?  When the cleaning man comes over and makes comments like this:

     “Ooh, look at all that dust!” – said with genuine excitement. 

     “Wow, that is some nice dust – do not worry.  We can get it.” – said with a certain amount of glee.

     “Maybe we should come more often at first, just until we get established.” – said with a slight look of panic. 

     “How many cats did you say you had?” – said in disbelief whilst looking at the accumulation of cat fur on everything.

     “Do not worry.  We can manage this.” – said reassuringly, as I melted in a pool of shame.   

Then you know what else will send you to the floor with embarrassment and shame?  When the cleaning man sends you an email after he is done cleaning your house detailing everything he had to do:

     1. Clean the carpet

     2. Dust the blinds and clean windows in every room

     3. Dust furniture, pictures, pictures frames and a big bed upstairs.

     4. Clean both bathrooms

     5. Dust the fan located in the living room

     6. Clean the main glass door at the entrance

     7. Clean the kitchen floor including microwave, stove and the white trashcan.

     8. Dust the AC unit vents.

     9. Clean baseboards and handrail.

     10. Play with the cats (just one) 

You know, I felt almost a compulsive need to clean last night before his arrival today, yet I restrained myself.  It wasn’t all that hard. I’ve practiced restraining myself in the cleaning arena for quite some time.  Plus I don’t really understand why women feel the need to do that – clean before the cleaning people come.  What is that? 

When I got home to survey my sparkling clean house, I noticed that all of my toilet paper had been folded into a point.  I suppose I’ve just hired myself a permanent housekeeper.  I luff him. 

A Rant. Oh, Goodie.

22 Jan 2012 3 Comments

by Love, Jimmie in Imparting Wisdom Tags:

Hey guys.  I know I wrote a small post last week but before that, I was absent for a while.  Nothing’s wrong.  I just didn’t have anything to say.  I know it is difficult to believe, but it does happen.  Now, however, I have something to say and that something is a direct result of two things I recently did. 

  1. I watched television.
  2. I read a magazine.

 “Ooh,” I can hear you saying.  “Racy. How adventurous of you.” Let me explain. 

There’s a back story for the television part. It is important so pay attention.  This will surprise some of you and some of you will recognize this as old news but I don’t have a television.  I grew up without one for the most part.  (Not for any weird religious reason.  I mention that because it is my most often asked question as to why. My mom simply wanted us to go outside and play. So we did.)  In my adult life, I’ve owned a television but a few years ago, I realized that when I turned it on, I became a zombie and was completely unproductive.  I cancelled the cable, moved the t.v. to the garage and only got it out to watch the occasional dvd, but soon that got old too, so I donated all that stuff to Goodwill. 

Now because I’m not really used to watching television anymore, I find that I am easily fascinated when one is on near me, like at the gym or at a friend’s house.  I’ll catch myself staring with my mouth open, ignoring people that are talking to me.  Also, because I’m not used to televisions, especially the newer technology ones, I sometimes find myself in a position of not knowing how they work or more importantly, how to turn it off. 

It was this position I recently found myself in at the gym, on the treadmill.  Someone before me had not turned the treadmill television off.  I couldn’t hear anything but I did watch the morning news and all the commercials that come with it while I listened to my iPod on my three mile trek.  That explains thing one, sort of. 

Here’s thing two.  My neighbor, Luke, asked me to pick up his mail for him while he spent the week in Hawaii. (He’s a sorry dog and I don’t want to talk about how jealous of him I am.)  One day I gathered his mail and happened to notice that he gets Men’s Journal.  I also happened to notice that this month’s featured artist is Mark Wahlberg and while I agree that his 9/11 comments were way out of line and deserved an apology, I’ve often admired his arms, so I read the magazine.   

Wow.  Men’s magazines are very different than women’s magazines.  Oh, I couldn’t make fun of it enough!  There were ads in there for bean bag chairs in “righteous” colors that you could “groove” on.  All the food ads were for some kind of red meat (grunt, grunt) and there was at least one bone poking out of every piece of meat on every plate pictured.  The testosterone fairly oozed off the pages.

It was when I saw the ad in the back of the magazine for testosterone supplements that something in me clicked and started a slow burn.  The ad used words that were jumbled and jargoned and scientific-sounding but it felt like they had no real back up or meaning.  I imagine that they leave every man feeling slightly stupid and more than a little weak and like they are getting way less sex than every other man out there.  A second ad all but stated that men are to add pheromones to their cologne because obviously they cannot lure in the ladies with their personality alone.  The question loomed – why in the world would a woman want you for you?   

I got mad.  Really mad. 

You know what pisses me off? What happened to real people?  Where are they?  Where are the wrinkles that are not strategically placed but real?  Where are the people with hair that is just hair and not some glossy horse tail woven out of twinkly lights and sparkles?  Can we stop with the photo shopping and the sex in everything? 

You want to know why we have all of these self esteem issues?  We define ourselves the wrong way.  Everything we see on television and in magazines and on billboards and in music videos is fake.  It is glorified and glamorized and tweaked and snipped past the point of recognition.  We are not seeing reality.  We are seeing fantasy but that fantasy is promised to be your reality if you just buy this dog food or eat that square of chocolate or pay for this nice home gym equipment.  So we do.  We shell out our hard earned dough and place our hopes in a dream that someone else gave us.  When our reality does not change because of what we bought or did or ate, we feel defeated and somehow less.

You know what?  I don’t want my cats so refined that they only eat parboiled shrimp out of a crystal serving bowl.  I don’t want them to delicately dance with a butterfly in a rainforest.  I want them to be cats who sleep most of the time and occasionally play in a frenzy with the bathroom rug (or Christmas tree).     

You know what else I don’t want?  I don’t want my man to be so cut that I could shred paper on his hip bone.  I don’t mind if he only has to shave once a day instead of five because his testosterone levels are through the roof.  I want him to be human with human skin that is going to wrinkle and droop like mine will. I want him to age like I’m going to age.  I don’t want him to feel less because we don’t have sex like rabbits until we both keel over from old age like it seems we are supposed to do.  I don’t want to feel less because I am never thin enough, fresh enough, have long enough hair, know enough sexual tricks or because I can’t frost a cake right.  Also, I have cellulite so you might as well just shoot me now.  It’s exhausting.

Also, I’m sorry, but if you have a cactus growing out of your butt, a tiny tube of Preparation H is not going to help you.  You have got bigger problems. 

I began this min-rant at work.  I said all of this to my co-workers in probably a voice that was too loud.  I was upset and it was on my mind.  I yelled out, “Food is not magical!” among my other rants and the guy who sits next to me, usually quiet and unassuming, piped up.  He said plaintively, “My wife’s food is magical.”  He was sincere and sweet and defending her honor.  And that right there? That is what we should look for.  A normal human man, loving a normal human woman and praising her for cooking in a way he likes to eat.  I could have hugged his neck. 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  I am here for a purpose.  I am loved beyond all measure. How about I define myself that way from now on instead of by what’s on the newsstand this week.  You in with me?    

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