Ruby Slippers

I love The Wizard of Oz!

Follow The Yellow Brick Road.

I have owned this movie in every form possible. VHS taped from TV, Beta-max, DVD and now Blu-Ray but I've never seen it on the big screen. I'm going to get a chance soon though. It's coming back in IMAX.

I'm going to take my kids. I've made them sit through it at home but it's not the same. Movies are still special on the big screen even if the sound and definition is probably better on the flat-screen in my living room. The popcorn isn't the same.something to do with the butter or the salt?

My love of this movie (and book) caused me to spoil some things about the musical Wicked when I went to see it with some awesome ladies. Which was an amazing musical by the way, made all the more amazing by my level extreme nerd love of all things Oz.

The Ruby Slippers aren't really Ruby. They changed them to red for the movie to take advantage of the new color technology. (Good Lord I am a nerd!)

Fun Fact: When Triple S and I sat down to put together our wedding album I wanted all the photos from before the ceremony to be black and white and all the ones after to be in color. I thought it was genius. (This was before Pinterest people.)

Sadly this was also in the days before digital photography and although my photographer used both black and white and color film there wasn't enough of either to make the idea work without leaving out some of my favorite shots. He offered to covert the black and whites but it would be at a steep change as according to him 'it wasn't easy'. I have no idea how accurate that statement is as I'm not a photographer but at the time I had already laid out a pretty penny for my wedding and wasn't willing to increase the number any higher.

I know I'm a paragon of fiscal conservativeness.

So I didn't get my Wizard of Oz homage but I did get Triple S so I guess it was a fair trade.

I have a pair of red shoes but they aren't as cool as these.

How do I escape the Devil?

So I moved!!!(More on this later.)

Thanks to some great friends we were able to get everything from the old house all the way (.68 miles) to the new house. I am so lucky and grateful for how awesome everyone has been to us.

Not really surprising though. Based on my level of awesome one could only assume that everyone who would associate with me would be similarly awesome.

Two and a half days of back breaking labor where the only sustenance provided was pizza and beer.

Pizza and Beer you say? I've worked for less? I hear that. But this wasn't Brooklyn pizza. This was North Carolina pizza and although the South has a lot of culinary brilliance to offer pizza isn't one of them.

Back to the subject at hand though.

So as we moved every thing to the new house one wonderful person made sure there was toilet paper in all the bathrooms. She's a detail kind of person and no one wants to worry about if there is TP after carrying my ridiculously large green chair up a flight of stairs.

I was thankful to have so many people helping right up until I had to use the bathroom myself.

Dear God In Heaven how did I not know we had a anarchist among us?

I had let her get in close, trusted her, shared my home with her. All the while she was just waiting to set the world on fire. Now I'm in deep and I don't know how to get out.

I need help.

I can't continue to pretend that this okay. I can't keep quiet and just ignore it. Someone has to speak up!!!!


PS Obviously this is sarcasm. To all of my wonderful friends who helped me this past weekend I say thank you a thousand times over. You are truly awesome!

PPS If that door makes you wonder if it's bigger on the inside you are my people.

I'm my own worst enemy sometimes

When I get stressed I have two options. Since I'm me though, it isn't as easy as that.

Option one is I go to the gym and sweat.

Option two is brownies. Although really any chocolate will do.


Since I'm sitting home waiting for a phone call option one is out.....

Damn you sweet tooth!

Damn you straight to hell! 

I try not to self sabotage but sometimes I just really need a brownie!

How come salad doesn't taste like chocolate? Or kale chips? Or some other such healthy treat. And don't start in with your list of substitutes. Sure there is stuff that will curb my sweet tooth on a regular day but nothing tastes as good as a brownie. Nothing.

Yum?

I feel myself calming already.

I need to add to that list before my kids get to be teenagers or I'm going to be pulling a Sisyphus.

Customer Service Roulette

Have you ever played this game?

It's super fun and not stressful at all. Seriously! I swear. You can trust me.

"How do you play?" (I'll assume this is what you are thinking right now.)

Excellent question.

First step is to have a problem.

 "Oh My God! I have one of those right now!" Of course you do. Who doesn't?

Next you dial the 800 number clearly found on your Credit Card/pop tarts box/instruction manual.

Punch 0 over and over again in the hopes that you will get a real person.

Realize that punching 0 disconnects you and then start all over with dialling the number (you can't use redial because of the gratuitous pressing of the number 0)

Actually listen to the robot voice prompts and press the numbers that best describe your problem.

Listen to ridiculous 70's hold music/company promotion/PSA about heart health.

"I love the Bee Gees and I eat Cheerios." See how much fun we are having already?

When a human answers the phone, repeat to them 5 times all of the information you were previously forced to try and enter via the numbers on your phone.

Explain your problem/missing piece/question.

"I'm sorry ma'am but without paper blah blah blah I just don't see how I can help you."

Now comes the really fun part!!!!

Start all over and hope the next person who answers the phone has a different answer.

"That's ridiculous! and fun." (Again I'm assuming this is what you are thinking.)

I couldn't agree more but I don't make the rules nor did I invent the game so I can't take all the credit for it's awesome powers of calming.

So happy dialing.

Girl's Weekend

It was a lot more Lord of the Flies than Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants.

So basically, perfect.

So far the awesome ladies from the gym have talked me into some entertaining stuff.

There was the Zumbathon.

 

The Spartan Race.

The Warrior Dash.

Basically all things that could have killed me. Or at the very least made me extremely tired.  So when the idea of a girls weekend came up I jumped. Who doesn't want to spend the weekend with a bunch of awesome ladies eating and enjoying the view?

I imagined relaxing and movies and maybe a nice walk in the woods. Cake. I was sure there was going to be cake involved somehow.

What I got was 2 spit takes.  How is it possible that these ladies are still shocked by anything I say?

A collaborative dinner. We turned cooking into a team sport like on Iron Chef.

And a 6 mile hike up a GOD DAMN MOUNTAIN!!

Seriously it was straight up. Stone steps placed into the side of the mountain! Plus I was carrying a backpack with water bottles and cell phones and a gun. Apparently there was a chance of running into a bear. This was only going to be possible if that bear was deaf or had been hand raised by humans and was looking for his adopted mother.

Still a chance. Plus it helped lend some credibility to my frequent yelling of:

"I'm loaded for bear."

There was also some other colorful language as it became clear my gentle walk through the woods wasn't going to be quite as gentle as I imagined.

All was forgiven though because there was cake, and steak, and chocolate covered strawberries, and bubbly water, and lots and lots of laughs.

Oh and I got to rewire the DVD player because that's just how I roll.

The ladies are talking about going away to the beach next summer. In my head I'm imaging chilling on the sand with a good book and a cold drink. I think the reality is more closely going to resemble swimming the English channel.

doll tuxedo -ken

So blogger keeps track of what key word searches lead to visits to your blog. (cool right?)

Most of mine are pretty boring.

The Real VD

Citric Acid

Zumba

Doctor Who

All things that make sense based on the crazy stuff I've written about.

This week however some typed doll tuxedo -ken into the google window and somehow ended up at this blog.

I just tried to recreate what they may have been looking for. I tried to get into their mind like I was some kind of Internet profiler. Tried to imagine what sort of person might need Ken to wear a Tuxedo.

I quickly stopped that though because it got really scary. Seriously, nightmare inducing.

The only thing scarier than the google search results are the google image search results.

What the hell am I looking at?
 Just because you have photoshop doesn't mean you should use it.

I'm going to go watch cat videos on YouTube to cleanse my Internet pallate.

12th Doctor

In one hour the BBC will air a live special to reveal the new doctor. I CAN'T WAIT!

Seriously. I am so excited.

It's just a TV show you say.

SHUT UP.

It isn't just a TV show. It's pure awesome distilled into an hour long format.

I'm not the only one though.

If you Google '12th Doctor' right now you will get a scary number of in depth speculations and wild guesses.

People are also freaky good at photoshop too.

It's that guy from Lost.

I don't want to talk about real predictions or the fact that Vegas Bookies have actual odds. Let's just chat about this awesomesauce!

It's the ROCK! He is pretty much the definition of "the oncoming storm"

Obviously there is a good chance this would make my brain implode.

Can you say 'Glorious Purpose'?



 35 minutes and counting.

I only need to distract myself a little longer.

Anyone know a good book?