Aliens? Elves? Alien Elves?

Something weird is going on in my house.  At first I just thought I was going crazy or something, but now I’m beginning to suspect “outside forces.”

It started a couple of days ago. I woke up and went into the bathroom to wash my face.  But, when I looked into the mirror, I got a shock.  My bangs were standing straight up! Let me clarify why that was so odd.  I have the kind of bangs that are relatively thick and are the kind which lay down straight just by the force of gravity.  Still, it would be normal if I got up and they were messy, as in tousled or disarranged or even swept a bit to the side.  But, in order to achieve the look I found, I would have had to wet them down, apply hair gel and then comb them straight up to dry that way!  Sure, I’ve been on pain pills for my back, but come on!  I would never do that to my hair in a million years!  As I gazed at this totally unfamiliar me, I began to get seriously creeped out. I started looking around to make sure there weren’t hidden cameras somewhere.

Then today when I woke up, I noticed that one of the bottles of e-juice (for my electronic cigarette,) that was on the nightstand was missing.  I had used it before I went to bed and it should have been right there with another bottle.  It was gone.  I’m the only person who lives in my house.  I got up and checked the bookcase, my vanity table and the bathroom counter and it was nowhere to be found.  Once again, creepy feeling.  After a cup of coffee, I was making the bed and, out of curiosity, looked under it.  I saw the bottle cap first and then the bottle, but not at the edge of the bed where it would have been if I had knocked if off the nightstand in my sleep.  It was way in the middle under the bed, so far under that I had to crawl to get it! Now, how could that have happened?  How could it have fallen off and rolled way under there?  The floor is carpeted.

It was about now that I began to wonder about elves or maybe some other-worldly sort of beings.  After all, I’m known to be alien-friendly.  But still, I decided to let it go as some sort of inexplicable fluke…until now.

I was in the kitchen drying some dishes, using the dish towel which I took off the rack.  As I was drying a bowl, I felt something round and hard in the dish towel.  When I tracked it down with my fingers, I saw it was one of the little rubber feet from the bottom of one of my iBooks!  Huh?  I went to check the iBook.  Sure enough, one of its little feet was missing.  But here’s the thing, at no time have those two objects ever been in the same room.  Never.  So how did the little foot make its way into the kitchen?  Not by human means, I can tell ya that!

So yes, my house has been invaded by elves or aliens or alien elves or something.  I’m sure they have a great sense of humor and are, even now, circulating a picture of me with my bangs standing straight up on their little Facebook pages.

So it starts out funny, but who knows where it goes from here?  All I can say is that if I don’t appear on this blog in a couple of days, you might want to notify the National Security Council or the folks at Area 51 or something.  Just sayin’

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Joke Break #1

No matter what you’re doing or what’s going on in your life, it’s always good to be able to take a break and enjoy a good joke.  And, what better way to end your weekend and/or start your Monday than with a smile?  This one was sent to me by a friend and it makes me smile each time I read it!

DEAD COW LECTURE AT VET SCHOOL

First-year students at the Vet School were attending their first anatomy class, with a real dead cow. They all gathered around the surgery table with the body covered with a white sheet.

The professor started the class by telling them, “In Veterinary medicine
 it is necessary to have two important qualities as a doctor: the first is that you not be disgusted by anything involving the animal body.”

For
 an example, the Professor pulled back the sheet, stuck his finger in the butt of the dead cow, withdrew it, and stuck his finger in his mouth.

“Go
 ahead and do the same thing,” he told his students.
 The students freaked out, hesitated for several minutes, but eventually took turns sticking a finger in the butt of the dead cow and sucking on
 it.

When everyone finished, the Professor looked at them and said, “The
 second most important quality is observation. I stuck in my middle
 finger and sucked on my index finger. Now learn to pay attention. Life’s tough, but it’s even tougher if you’re stupid.”

 

 

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The Rogue Bath Mat

You know, sometimes I think that this little world I inhabit is really just a situation comedy God set up for His viewing pleasure.  Seriously, I do.  Okay, here’s what happened.

The day after my birthday (last Thursday,) I was in Wal-mart picking up some necessities and, since I was still feeling some residual birthday vibes, thought I might also pick up a little sumpthin’ sumpthin’ as presents to myself.  Reasonable, no?  So, I got a new rug for my entrance foyer, some of that new stick-on nail polish (in glitter!) and…a luxury bath mat!  I’ve always longed for one of these long poofy bath mats, but since they’re over TWICE the price of a normal one I never thought I “needed” one.  But that was the day!  They even had it in a beige that matched my master bathroom tub.

Now to many of you a bath mat may be something totally inconsequential, especially if you are a shower person.  But me?  I LOVE my baths!  I always have good bubble bath, soap and loofahs.  So I absolutely COULDN’T WAIT for my bath that night so that I could stretch out in the sheer luxury of this padded mat.  The thing is three feet long!  Here’s a closer shot so that you can see how poofy it is.

So, I cleaned the tub very well and read the directions which just said to smooth it down so that the suction cups could catch while the water was running in.  I started the water and began to smooth the part nearest to the drain.  When I thought I had it down, I moved my hands down the length of it, smoothing all the suction cups as I went.  When I got to the end of it, the first part was floating up!  I pushed it down and the back floated up!  On and on I played this game until I wanted to scream!  The thing was floating!  As a raft for a Barbie doll, it would have been great.  As a mat for me, useless!  I could not figure out what was wrong.  Finally in frustration, I pulled the dripping thing out of the tub so that I could go ahead and take my bath.  But I was determined to look up this problem on Google.  Surely I wasn’t the only person this had happened to.

I’m not.  Finally I found a similar mat on Amazon and began to read the reviews.  A good half of the reviews talked about how wonderful the mat was, how luxurious, how comfortable!  Pigs!  The other half was in my camp, complaining that the thing only floated, wouldn’t stay down, was useless, a waste of good money!  As I continued to research, I found a bath mat company which suggested people wipe their tubs down with alcohol before using the mat in order to rid the tub of any cleaning products.  Ah!  I grabbed a handful of cotton balls saturated with alcohol and rubbed down not only the tub, but also the bottom of the mat and all the suction cups.  Now I was sure it would work.

The next night as the water was running in, a couple of the suction cups appeared to actually be holding, so, optimist that I am, I got naked.  I figured that by sitting on it I could weigh the rest of them down.  The minute I sat down on it, THE THING ATTACKED ME! Oh yes it did!  The front and back of it both started curling up with my body caught in the middle!  I was pushing down suction cups like a mad woman and whatever part of the mat I was ignoring was closing in on my body.  I think its ultimate intent was to roll me up like a sausage!  It would not stay down, no matter what I did.  Some very colorful language ensued and I ended the encounter by wrestling the squirming thing up and hurling it across the bathroom!  I felt like the captain in “Jaws.”  Happy Birthday to me, indeed!

So, there you have it.  My plan was to enjoy a little birthday present of luxury like a true lady of leisure.  God’s plan was to send me into manic action, like Lucille Ball eating chocolates on the conveyor belt.  Guess who won?

I was disappointed, but I can only guess that God had himself a great big old belly laugh.

Well, you’re welcome, God.  I’m sure glad somebody enjoyed it!

 

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Just A Cautionary Warning

I came across this and thought it was worth sharing.  If it offends you, sorry about that.

I can’t help it!  I think it’s funny.  Have a great Sunday!

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You’re Getting Older When…

I know these kinds of lists are floating all over the Internet, but I recently received one I think has some pretty funny (and true!) points.  If I knew who wrote it, I would be glad to give them credit.  Meanwhile, enjoy!

You know you’re getting older when:

1. You find yourself beginning to like accordion music.

2. You’re sitting on a park bench and a Boy Scout comes up and helps you cross your legs.

3. Lawn care has become a big highlight of your life.

4. Your underwear starts creeping up on you … and you enjoy it.

5. You tune into the easy listening station on purpose.

6. You take notes during commercials for laxatives and motorized wheelchairs.

7. When you light the candles on your birthday cake, people form circles and sing “Kumbaya.”

8. Someone compliments you on your layered look … and you’re wearing a bikini.

9. You keep repeating yourself.

10. You start recording daytime game shows … if you can figure out how to operate the DVR.

11. At the airport, they ask to check your bags…and you’re not carrying any luggage.

12. You wonder why you waited so long to take up macrame.

13. Your insurance company has started sending you their free calendar a month at a time.

14. At cafeterias, you complain that the gelatin is too tough.

15. Your new motorized chair has more options than your car.

16. When you do the “Hokey Pokey” and put your left hip out, it stays out.

17. One of the throw pillows on your bed is a hot water bottle.

18. Conversations with people your own age often turn into ailment one-upmanship.

19. You keep repeating yourself.

20. It takes a couple of tries to get over a speed bump.

21. You discover the words whippersnapper, scalawag, and by-cracky creeping into your vocabulary.

22. You’re on a TV game show and you decide to risk it all and go for the rocker.

23. You begin every other sentence with, “Nowadays…”

24. You run out of breath walking down a flight of stairs.

25. You look both ways before crossing a room.

26. Your social security number only has three digits.

27. You keep repeating yourself.

28. You come to the conclusion that your worst enemy is gravity.

29. It takes you all night to do what you used to do all night.

30. You go to a Garden Party and you’re mainly interested in the garden.

31. You find your mouth making promises your body can’t keep.

32. The waiter asks how you’d like your steak … and you say “pureed.”

33. At parties you attend, regularity is a popular conversational ice-breaker.

34. You start beating everyone else at trivia games.

35. You frequently find yourself telling people what things used to cost.

36. Your back goes out more than you do.

37. You keep repeating yourself.

38. Cafeteria food starts tasting good.

39. You refer to your $2500 stereo system as “The Hi-Fi.”

40. You attend all the RV shows that come to town.

41. You realize that a stamp today costs more than a picture show did when you were growing up.

42. You actually call movies “picture shows.”

43. Your grandchildren don’t know what stamps are.

44. Your childhood toys are now museum pieces.

45. Many of your co-workers were born the same year that you got your last promotion (as it happens, the last time I was in a traffic accident, the woman who ran into the back of my car was born the year I got my first driver’s license).

46. The clothes you put away until they come back in style … are back in style.

47. All of your favorite movies have been reissued in color.

48. The car that you bought brand new becomes an antique.

49. You keep repeating yourself.

50. You find this list tasteless and insensitive.

Number 16 is my favorite.  What’s yours?

 

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More Snow? No!!!

After having a brief reprieve for a couple of days of above-freezing temperatures, thus enabling some of the snow to melt, they’re calling for another onslaught today and tomorrow.  Of course they are!  It’s winter, and the midwest must be punished!  And the icing on the cake is that my appointment for a tooth extraction and oral surgery is Tuesday morning and I have no idea whether or not I’ll be able to make it up the driveway to get there, what with the freezing sleet and all.   But hey!  I don’t want to sink into a snow funk.

No, I thought I’d focus instead, on the “lighter” side of snow by sharing some funny snow shots sent to me by my friend Francie.

For example, here’s a guy making the best of a cold situation.  Pretty cute!

And, there ARE good uses for snow…

Personally, I really like the creativity of this next one.  It’s cool how just two pairs of sunglasses gave this snow personality.

Snow or not, the weekly poker game must go on.

And of course, drinking too much of that beer can only lead to one thing…

So see?  Snow isn’t always a bad thing!   Of course, I might need you to come back and remind me of that tomorrow if I end up shoveling! I have a feeling it won’t be nearly so charming and funny then!

And hey!  Be careful out there!

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Iris Strikes Again!

Question:  What does the U.S. Mail and debris throughout my house have in common?  Hang on, because that’s exactly what today’s post is all about.

It started with Iris calling me on a frigid gloomy day saying she was in the neighborhood getting her car fixed and asking if she could stop by afterward.  I was delighted.  About an hour later she called again, saying, “I’m in the driveway!”  I told her I’d be right down then ran through the basement and garage to open the garage door, only to find…no Iris!  I stood there totally confused for a moment, then glanced over and saw that she was parked in my neighbor’s driveway!  It’s funny how old habits take hold without our realizing it.  She used to live in that house and automatically pulled into her old driveway.

After she re-parked, we climbed basement stairs into the house and as she began to walk down my hallway to the kitchen, I saw that she was leaving really dark muddy footprints on my long runner rug with every step!  “Iris, STOP!” I yelled.  As she looked back inquiringly, I pointed to the floor.  She hurried back to the utility rug that was at the top of the basement stairs.

“Goodness gracious!” she said as she started to slip her boots off.

“Where did you get all this mud?” I asked as I ran to get a dustpan and broom.

“Well,” she said, “I guess I got it in the parking lot at the garage where my car was.”

I’ve been to that garage and I couldn’t figure where she had found mud.  “Do those boots have really big treads?”

As she turned her boots over, she exclaimed, “Oh my goodness me!  The soles of my boots are rotting!”

“They’re WHAT?” I asked, even as I could see the black rubber crumbling – not coming off in strips, but crumbling!

Well, it turns out that she bought these boots from a uniform supply company about a million years ago when she first became a mail carrier.  She wore them constantly “through rain and snow and dark of night.”  When she finally retired many years later, she stuck them into a closet and more or less forgot about them.  Then on this particular day, when we had ice and snow outside, she decided to drag them back out and wear them.

So, she spent the rest of our visit in her sock feet and I didn’t give the situation much more thought, except for the fact that I’d never seen shoes do that before.  When she was getting ready to leave, I said, “go on over to the sofa and put your shoes back on.”

“Oh, I think I’d better wait until we get to the basement.”

Good thing she did.

That’s when the hilarity of the whole situation got to me.  As we went down the basement steps, I suddenly noticed little black “crumbs” on every step.  As she sat down in a chair down there and picked up the shoes, big CHUNKS of rubber started falling off!  As she walked from the basement to the garage door, she left this whole trail of little rubber “poops” with every single step.  It reminded me of a time when I briefly had a pet rabbit.  The first time I let him out in the living room he hopped across the room, leaving little poop pellets in a trail behind him.  As Iris went out to her car, dropping more chunks of her shoes behind her on the driveway, I was overcome with hysteria, laughing so hard that tears came into my eyes.

From her car, she looked up and saw me having a laughing fit and said, “You think THAT’S bad?  You ought to see the floorboard of my car!”  This set me off again and I could hardly wave goodbye as she drove away.  Much later that night I thought about it again.  I know she went to the license bureau after she got her car fixed and now I wondered if she left her little “rubber trail” in both places.  I can just see the people there staring behind her as she walked out, oblivious to the fact that she had become an environmental hazard.  Even as I write this, I’m laughing again, like I haven’t laughed in a long, long time.

Iris says she’s going to try to get her boots fixed.

I say, “Rest in peace, little postal carrier boots.  Rest in peace.”

 

 

 

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Incognito!

Well, not to overreact or anything, but I may have to join the Federal Witness Protection Program.   Seriously

Right as I reached the end of taking the deadly steroid, Prednisone on Thursday, one of the side effects finally kicked in, giving me a puffy face.  And when I say “puffy face,” I don’t mean some little sissy bags under my eyes.  No, I mean I look like I sucked on a bicycle pump while someone kept pumping and lost track of what they were doing!  It’s horrifying!  I drew this picture to give you some idea of what I’m dealing with.  See how big my head is in relation to the rest of my body?  That’s due to the puffiness!

I’m the kind of woman who needs to look the best she can at all times.  It’s important to me.  I even put on make-up on days when no one is going to see me but me.  It’s vital to my self-esteem.  Now that I look like an official Freak of Nature, I feel like crying every time I look in the mirror.  I wear a mask (see my illustration again) every time I go out to the mailbox because I can’t bear the thought of someone seeing me and saying, “Is THAT Star?  Good Lord!  What HAPPENED to her?” Instead they probably just think I’m Zorro’s wife…

So I figure if this doesn’t go away, I may need the Feds’ help to start a new life somewhere where no one knows me.  Of course in that new life I’d probably be called, “The Puffy-Faced Woman” and would be a figure of pity and maybe scorn, but hey, what can you do?    Of course I’ve only been off the pills for a few days, so I’m praying that my face will go back to the way it was.  I was thinking of maybe poking one of my cheeks with a straight pin and see if a bunch of air comes whooshing out.  Gross, but it would be a fast solution.

Anyway, until I start looking like a normal person again, I’ll keep writing but you probably won’t see me.  I’m going incognito.  And now you know why.

 

 

Er, I mean, Sadie Zorro.

 

 

 

 

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Old? Me? Well, maybe…

Well, it’s official!  I am now an old person.  You know how I know?  This week I bought a pill-splitter. Yes, you heard me right.  The doctor changed the dose of one of my medicines from two a day to one and a half.

Now, when I was young and my life was one mad adventure after another, I’d often try to split a Valium (which were rare as hen’s teeth) in two with a knife and would always end up smashing them to smithereens.  So, when I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription, I actually asked if they sold something to split the pills.  They did, and pointed me toward a little gizmo that cost $5.00.  And you know what’s really sad?  I love this thing!  It works like gangbusters!  It cuts pills exactly in two with a sharp little blade.  It was so neat to use that I had to stop myself before I split all the pills in the bottle!

And that’s when I knew.  “Star, old girl,” I said, “do you realize that you’re actually getting excited about a pill-splitter?  That’s something your grandma would have done.”  I hung my head in shame for a few minutes and then snapped out of it.  After all, grandma also made vases out of liquor bottles with a machine that would cut the tops off.  Then she painted them with a kind of frosted paint and everyone would receive vases for Christmas.  I’m not there yet, thank goodness.  But, hey, the month is young…

The truth is, age for me represents an appreciation for the best, most efficient way of doing things.  Maybe there’s something about having a limited time left on this earth that makes me loathe to waste any.

These days, when I’m about to run upstairs, I always look around to see if there’s anything else that might need to go up at the same time.  When I’m ordering a book for my Kindle, I shop around while I’m in the Kindle store on-line and pick up several books at the same time.  That way I don’t  have to do it so often.  And I’m never far from my Franklin planner, in which I write down everything I plan to accomplish each day.  Not only does that help me remember everything I want to do, but on days when I feel that I’ve been a lazy slob, I can always point to my list of checked-off things and say, “See?  You did a lot today!  You’re a human dynamo!”

Outwardly, age seems to be winning the battle.  Gravity is having a heyday with my body, especially my face.  And what with the random age spots, wayward gray hairs and whiskers in places they have no business being, I can pretty much guarantee you that no one is going to mistake me for a twenty year old.

But inwardly, it’s a different story.  The me inside still has pigtails, freckles across her nose and scabs on her knees.  The me inside still loves puppets, a good story and finding new and interesting toys and gimmicks, especially robots.  I love pulling tricks,  making people laugh and laughing myself until tears come to my eyes.  I love being totally silly and am drawn to people who accept that about me.  The me inside is the me that I love. And that me will never grow old.

So, back to the pill-splitter.  I guess that, alone, doesn’t totally categorize me.  I mean, seriously, if you could see this thing and try it, you’d see it really is a neat invention.  What does worry me, however, is that I just noticed that I actually used the phrase “as rare as hen’s teeth” earlier.  Whoops.  Where did THAT come from?  Who says that anymore?  And what the hell are hen’s teeth anyway?  Oh well, I give up.  I think I’ll just bring this to a close and go split some more pills.

Later,

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The Great Bra Dilemma

We can send a man to the moon.  We can cure polio.  We can invent the Internet, You-Tube, iPhones and iPads.  But no one in this entire world seems capable of creating The Perfect Bra.  By “perfect,” I mean “comfortable.”

Men have no idea.  They have no idea at all of what we women must endure to harness our little fillies so they don’t go flopping around in the world, embarrassing not only themselves, but us.  It’s absolutely horrible.  I know few women who don’t long for that moment in the day when they can come home and shed their current instrument of torture.  Oh, and I can just hear the men now, “Why do you need bras at all?  Go without!  It’s okay with us!”

We need them for all sorts of reasons.  Some women have breasts so large that, unrestrained, they either head for their feet or else spread out halfway around their sides.  This is not pretty in clothes.  We need to corral those little ponies so that they stay where they’re supposed to appear on the front of the body.  Some, like me, need one to keep my nipples (or, as my baby sister called them, “nibblets,”) from poking someone’s eye out.  Yeah, I know, it sounds good, but nobody likes men talking to their nipples rather than them!

So we go bra shopping, trying on one style after another until we find one that might, just might, feel good.  We buy it.  We might even buy two.  So far, so good.  When we get home, we try it on again and feel like this time we might have actually found a good one.  We didn’t.  By 3:00 p.m. the next day it’s either riding up, riding down, cutting into our shoulders, too tight, too loose or scratchy or all these things at once.  It’s so sad.  I have a drawer in my dresser that contains, oh, maybe 20 bras that tried and failed.  I call it my Dead Bra Drawer.

My friend, Francie, and I were talking about this the other day and she told me she has the exact same problems I do.  Even her favorite bra is not totally comfortable, but she does what we all do.  She makes do.  So, she suggested that I look into this problem for my blog.  “You could do a study,” she said, “research the subject and find us the perfect bra!”  So, being the sucker that we all know I am, I told her I’d look into it.

The problem is that on the Internet there are hundreds of bra manufacturers that will tell you they have the perfect bra.  And you can also find hundreds of women who will tell you why that particular bra is killing them.  We’re not dummies.  The one universal fact seems to be that 90% of women are wearing the wrong size bra.  It is recommended that you be measured professionally.  Well, I actually did that at Macy’s.  I let some strange women with a tape measure take my dimensions and measure the girls.  She recommended a size and I bought three bras in that very size.  I remember them well.  I was determined to make them work until I got so sick of trying to “adjust” them that I finally tore one off in a fit of frustration.  Fortunately I was home at the time.  Unfortunately, I was out in the front yard.  (Kidding!) Those three bras now reside in the Dead Bra Drawer.

After Francie’s challenge, I also found a number of bra calculators on the Internet.  Here in the privacy of your own home, you could take measurements, plug them into the calculators and hit “Find My Size.”  I tried four different ones and got four different sizes…different band sizes and different cup sizes.  I kid you not.  How can that be?  It’s a conspiracy!

I was in Kohl’s not long ago and decided to give it another try.  File that under “Glutton for Punishment.”  I took five different styles of bras and sizes into the dressing room and began the ordeal.  With each bra, I adjusted the straps, fixed the band so it wasn’t too tight or too loose and organized the girls so they were snug in their cups.  Then I raised my arms and stretched this way and that.  I think the problem is that you can’t simulate what it will feel like after five or six hours.  Nonetheless, I finally picked the best of the lot and took it home.  At home I tried it on again.  It was good.  The next day I wore it.  After five or six hours it was bad.  Just like the others.  I kept trying to wear it.  I even tried it again on different days, to no avail.  It has since joined the other losers in the Dead Bra Drawer.

So what to do?  I honestly don’t know.  Wait until some brilliant woman inventor gets a clue and creates the Perfect Bra?  Meanwhile I shall keep the hunt going and let you know if I find the prize.

But if I were you, I wouldn’t  hold my breath.

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