Escape to Wal-mart

Today was a stressful day for the BB. I've had a stressful few days...but today like put the icing on it...you know it was a kind of day under normal circumstances I could bounce back from...but under these...I just got pissed...

It all started out nicely. I was lying in bed thinking "How nice it would be to be snowed in today". When I got out of bed...what luck! It was snowing. Yeah!!! It was falling fast too. But then it all settled in. I had promised to take a friend to an appointment...and that's where it all went downhill.

The boob didn't get much of a nap and while she wasn't overly cranky, she was hyper and clingy. Not two good combos. I was scatterd and disorganized today. Then finally came the biggie...

Tiger Direct must die...Jerk offs totally screwed up the serial number on the bros new computer and it turned out Gateway couldn't start working on fixing it until the 22nd. Which means the bro won't be getting a new computer until 7-14 days from THEN. Fuckers...(bro should have taken me up on the 'my computer' offer). Anyhoo...I was just mad...mad at my friend, mad at Gateway, mad at people that are computer retarded (another story)...so I said "Wal-mart take me away"

I left the boob, with the hubby, stopped at Dairy Queen, got comfort food and went off to shop at Wal-mart for my food for the week. (so sad I escape to Wal-mart and not Lord and Taylor or the local bistro). I did my weekly food shopping and playing "clearance rack whore". I got myself a new pair of sneakers that I desperately need at $10, looked for Brita filters with no luck (where are they in that friggin store???), and shopped for clearances clothes and toys for my daughter (spoiling her makes me happy). There were times I went back and forth, spun my cart in circles and sang along with the muzak system. I'm sure the patrons and employees at Super Wal-mart in Culpeper think I'm insane, but I'll tell ya...I had fun.

I got the boob a Polly Pocket toy for $1. I spied a Little Touch book for her at $7 but I am going to pick it up on another day...if it's meant to be, it'll be there. I also got her a Disney cell phone toy at half price of what it is at the Disney store. It's almost like mine. It's a flippy phone and it makes noises like it's taking pictures, has different messages, and makes all kinds of noises. I'm hoping it'll keep her busy for 2 minutes tomorrow while I work.

I found love...at the Wal-mart store...hehe.

-The BB

Gerald Ford, the correct answer is Gerald Ford

Ok...I HAVE to post this. Just to give you an idea of the mindset of the people in this area...or the brainset that is...

My mother-in-law called me after Gerald Ford died to read to me something that was in the paper. It was in a section of "Heard About Washington". It basically went like this:

A father and his son are walking around DC. The boys goes "Daddy, why are all the flags at half-staff?" The father answers, "Because James Brown died son." Um...man was the godfather of soul, I do love him...but I think running the country kinda trumps the musician thing.

Another story:

My friend Wazis was at Wal-mart and she ran in to a few other of our friends there. It was New Year's Day and they were just doing some minor shopping. They were talking at the checkout about Gerald Ford dying. Suddenly the cashier at the register cuts in and says, "Ah don't see why they all making such a fuss over this guy dyin'. I mean he only invented the car..."

NOT FUCKING kidding you people. She said that. And that is why she works at Wal-mart. If I was there I would have strangled her ass while saying "It's Henry Ford you asshole. Henry Ford invented the Ford automobile and the concept of assembly production which our country adopted as a major form of employment during the early 20th century. GERALD Ford was president of the United States. Probably not even related to Henry Ford. But he was fucking president of the United States. That's why they are making a big fucking deal about it." (Honestly they didn't make enough of a big deal about it). Alas, though, I couldn't choke the little bit of brains out of the cashier because I was at Gerald Ford's lying in state...like a good American citizen. (1 hour in and out people...beat the 6 hours waiting to see Reagan's casket).

-The BB

Excuse me, my hay's on fire

This just really only happens to me I think. Seriously, a few weeks ago I break my ass to get out of the door EARLY for my 'club' board meeting. Traffic was flying, thus far and I was confident I would be there EARLY. What a concept. Yeah well the fickle finger of fate had a different idea for me.

I get to the 17/15/29/let's just put all the streets together junction and it STOPS. Crawling slower than a snail down the road. Of course there are like 50 million trucks so my short ass self can't see past them. I'm getting pretty antsy after five minutes because my EARLY window is closing in. I'm sitting, and sitting, and sitting...getting pissier, pissier, and pissier. I HATE not knowing what I'm sitting in traffic for.

So I call hubby.

"I'm stuck here at (you know where) and it's stopped, barely moving, check out WTOP online and see what's going on for me, please." (I would have listened but I really didn't think it would be on the radio. I didn't think they reported on the middle of nowhere on WTOP. Hubby checked, nothing. No big surprise to me, but I was frustrated. So I sat it out. I called my friend Wazis to tell her I was running late and didn't know why. She understood.

I sit and sit, crawl and crawl. Then I finally pass the big hold up. I see a pick up truck with hay in it, then a fire truck and of course like a bunch of cop cars (exciting stuff in this area). I finally get passed the traffic and start breezing on through. Of course by now, I'm like 20 minutes late.

Wazis called me back.

"Girl i found otu why you are stuck there."

"I just FINALLy got through, what was that about?"

"Carter heard on the radio that a hay truck caught fire by the Fauquier Motel. They guy went to get help and no one spoke English".

Now first off, I was pretty surprised it was on the radio. I would have LOVED to hear that report:

"Yes breaking news coming out of Opal, VA. A hay truck has caught fire, we have "Someone Radio like" on the site. "Yes Tom I'm speaking with the truck driver right now, can you tell me what happened? 'Ah'll tell ya what happened, I was driving my truck. Son of a bitch caught on fire. So I go over at the Faquier Motel and no one be speaking English over there. Mighty annoying what this country is coming too. All the Spanglish over there and not one of them speaks English. Took me forever to get help. Now my truck is ruined. The hay is alright though..."

Well...possibly in the future, the Fauquier Motel, the motel that advertises "Color TV" can try to get some bilingual staff. Until then...watch the hay on your truck.

FERRETBREAK!!!

The hubby and I have two cute ferrets. We used to have four in our hey day but nature took many of our ferrets to the ferret mecca in the sky. Sadly, the hubby and I have yet to recover from the loss of our 'main man' Ty, but we do still love the two we have left over.

I mean...how can you not love them...their ferrets...

I can think of a few reasons why...

Right now we have two 4 1/2 year old boys named Tiki and Duece. They are black and chocolate sables (respectively). Tiki is my mild manner boy with insulinoma and gets two shots daily. Duece is my wild, mischevious nut. We have had to alter the ferret pen many times because Duece's hobby is breaking out. It usually involves him climbing and taking a wild leap out of the pen. Many times this leap includes what looks like a painful landing on the wood barrier around the pen...but hey, he's unfased by the pain to freedom.

The other day the boys were especially wide awake when I went to do their morning routine (medicate Tiki, feed them, clean their paper, check their water level). Feeling bad about being an absent mom since giving birth to a human baby, I decided to let the boys run around the basement. They both did a war dance as they were let out of the pen and went streaking across the house. Anyone that doesn't know anything about ferrets, please note this: Ferrets are like kittens their WHOLE lives. There is no off button. They are always hyper. Hence the need to entertain them.

I went about the morning routine with all the animals. I also took time to check my email and do a few other things. Later that day I had an appointment with the hubby at the bank so I went to get ready (you soooo see where this is going now don't you?)

About an hour later I'm at the bank. I had a full schedule ahead of me. Close account with hubby, return a Christmas gift at Best Buy, use gift certificate at Burlington Crap Factory, do some more shopping. Suddenly, as I'm going down the list, something dawns on me...I don't even turn to hubby, I just blurt out.

"Oh crap, I forgot to put the ferrets back."

Instantly the hubby and I have flashes of a destructed basement. We also realize there was no paper laid down for them to 'do their business' on...oh crap literally...

I had no choice but to go about my day and worry about ferrets later. The drive into Manassas is a bit for me and not worth it to just turn around and go home. So I shopped. Enjoyed myself. I went home and went right to the basement. I knew exactly where the buggers were. They were cozied up together on the water bed under the cover. Not much damage was done. They got a hold of a bag of pillow stuffing, very much enjoyed that. I'm still finding stuffing in various places. Also they surprised us all by 'doing their business' in the corners of the bathroom (GOOD BOYS). Thank god for litter trained ferrets.

So far I'm not noticing anything missing...except a peek a block...

-The BB.

Oooooo, Pie Jesu...Jesus you got alotta kids..

Ok, so I did a rare thing about a month ago...actually over a month ago...I went to church. It was a moment of divine guilt and being Catholic, I gave in and went for my obligatory once every few months.

It had been a while since I'd been in a church. We went for the boob's christening, but we were fortunate enough to schedule a christening on a non-service day...so no big service. It was in, poor water on the baby, and out. Ok so not that quick. It was a nice ceremony just without all the sitting, standing, kneeling, and giving money.

I had never been to the church in my area. Well I had been there, but not for service. It was pretty interesting to see 'country Catholics'. I'm a Jersey catholic. Now we've all heard the Catholic jokes...you know...Catholics don't use birth control (we do), Catholic guilt (yep I get that), Catholics are crazy (yup) and a whole list of others. I can say growing up, even though we weren't big on church, there was definitely one thing I noticed...in New Jersey, very few Catholics feel the need to have a million children. You may have one or two, maybe three families with three/four kids. That's considered alot. Then there's always that ONE family that's insane and has like eight or ten. But their nuts and everyone talks about them behind their backs.

Well, in Virginia...it's not like that...these people are serious die hard Catholics...which surprises me...

I went by myself without the boob. I left her to be a heathen with her dad. There I was sitting in the pew by myself. Instead of trying to figure out the best way to use the hymnal book as a pillow during service, I found myself counting the number of children the people around me had...

Woman to my left...four kids...
Woman to my right...five kids...
Woman in front of me...six kids...
Oh here comes my friend...she's got eight, crazy nut...(god bless her I love her, but seriously)...
Oh here comes my other friend, she just had her fourth...
Woman two pews up...five kids...
Woman three pews up...six kids...

Now my friend with eight kids, she's no dummy. She brought her three youngest kids. I guess her husband came to an eariler service with the other five. Good...sucker...Well I see another woman come into the church. I swear there were so many kids walking in front of her they were quacking...'quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack'...seven quackers quacking in front of her and she was carrying the eighth...a baby in a beautiful white dress...

Then word started getting around how one family that WASN'T there just welcomed their tenth child into their family. TENTH...I have to tell a friend of mine that just had her fourth that 'at least you don't have ten'. She'd probably say "I'd have to shoot myself". Don't get me wrong, I love kids...but there becomes a moment when I think...it's just too much. And while I'm sure these mothers can spread their love around...I can't see me being able to spread my love around so much. And I don't find that fair to any child.

I began feeling that my fertility was way way behind. I began to thing "How dare I get my life together before I had a child. I should have gotten it together way before or just gave up and had babies before my fertility abilities died down..." Then I thought, I should get home right away and start on that next child...Then Jesus bitch slapped me and I came back to reality. Spoiling this child now...another can come when I am damn good and ready. And I'm not ready ya'll...

I noted during that trip the lowest number of children anyone there had was four. Four...boy am I behind. I could only imagine how much this increased the amount people put in the little envelopes that you throw into the collection plate. Me, I get those little envelopes every month...they go right into the garbage...so I just throw in a dollar for Jesus. He's a single guy, he can go shopping at the dollar store...or Wal-mart.