Don't Look! (while I stand right here in front of you)

Sorry I haven't updated this in a while. I've been busy and heck and keep forgetting the details of the conversations to share them. I have a bunch of stuff I've put in the group on Facebook (I wish I had made that a fan page instead of a "group"... I suppose I could do that when I think about it... but not now!).
Where was I?

Oh, this conversation. I said on Facebook that this conversation would include anatomy and it would be using a euphemism. Well, it will. And it does. The Euphemism in question comes from an episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer runs outside naked and Flanders calls out: "Hey, Homie! I can see your doodle!"
(go on, click the link. I have it all cued up to that point and you can hear it happen).

We have one bathroom in this house- because the person who designed it was insane, that's what I think- anyway, because of this, we try not to monopolize the bathroom with things that can be done elsewhere. In my case, I blow dry my hair in my bedroom. And having spent all those years in pain, I got in the habit of sitting on the bed and not using a mirror.

DG has been sick (a lovely case of "waaah, I have a cold! Oh now, now it's become a chest cold!") lately and while the mix of Disabled Guyisms and Nyquil has been entertaining, the conversations were short and usually when I was otherwise occupied and couldn't take notes (Yes, I take notes sometimes).

Today, I was blow-drying my hair and he came into the room. He proceeded to whine about being sick briefly and then took off his sweatshirt and PJ pants to go take a shower. As he started to leave, he stopped and took off his boxers too.

He stood in front of the TV (which is where I was looking) and took a Superman stance. "Stop staring at me."

Me: "I can see your doodle."

He turned slightly, still in front of me and said, "No! Stop looking at it!"

Me: "If I keep looking at it, will it do tricks?"

DG put his hand up, thinking he was blocking my view, but he wasn't. "Don't look at it! He's shy."

Me: "Shy? Really?"

DG: "Yeah, he's shy and he doesn't like it when you stare. He feels self-conscious." He turned around more and then blocked his, uh, doodle, with his hand. "There, now he's safe."

Me: "Safe from what?"

DG: "Your eyes with their looking."

Me: "Maybe your doodle should tell you to move the hell outta my way."

DG: "Don't talk about him like he's not here!"

Me: "Maybe he should leave the room if he's so shy and self-conscious."

DG: "He wants to leave, but he can't. He's got rollers and can't even use them." As he walked out of the room, slowly, sideways, he said: "He's got two flats! Two flat rollers and he can't go nowhere!"

He shuffled to the bathroom and I finished blow-drying my hair. When he came back in, he put on new boxers, took the Superman stance again, and informed me: "He's safe now. He feels safe. He's at home."

Oh, and totally random... we have a new pet rat. First we had Mittens- who was pardoned after living here for a month and a half and not being eaten by the snake. Then a while later, we got Boots.

Now we have Tuxedo. Yes. Tuxedo. She's black and white, hence the name. We've got Boots, Mittens, and Tuxedo.

We Revisit the Guy who was in the movie with another guy

This is one of my favorite conversations, because he actually brings it up once in a while and laughs about it still.

You know that movie with that guy who does that thing?

DG is watching "Red Tails". I told him I liked that movie back when it was called "The Tuskeegee Airmen". He said: "Har-har."

But this is what just happened.

DG: "That guy is in this movie."

Me: "What guy?"

DG: "That guy... you know the... that guy... Designing Women?"

Me: "Which one?" (I knew who he was talking about, but I wanted him to say it).

DG: "The one who married that lady." (he sort of stumbled over the word "major" here).

Me: "Major Dad?"

DG: "Yes!"

Me: "Gerald MacRaney. I get it, he's in this." (I have to go because I have stuff to do, so I was trying to walk away and he kept talking).

DG: "He's a colonel in this." He looked at me all smug for some reason and said: "One star."

I stared at him. He stared back. I narrowed my eyes slightly. He repeated: "One star. You know... just one." (He nodded, so sure of himself. I still don't know why, it wasn't like we don't know military rank. We're both Army brats).

I narrowed my eyes a little more. "One star?"

DG: "Yeah, you know [motioned to his shoulder]- one star."

Me: "He's a one-star... Colonel?"

DG: "What?"

Me: "You said he was a colonel and that he had one star."

DG: "I did not. Did I?"

Me: "You did. I was waiting on you to catch it."

DG: "I wasn't listening to myself. [he pointed at his head as he said that]. I must be SPECIAL!" Then he sighed heavily. "I don't know what's wrong with me..."

It's a pretty good movie. You should see it.

Hair talks to Me...

It's no secret that I'm a woman over forty. Forty-three, to be exact (had a birthday 28 days ago). I started having issues with menopause when I was thirty-four. Yeah, sounds fun, doesn't it?

Well, it isn't. But, that's not what I'm here to share. You see, I sleep with a fan blowing on me. I have the fan directed at my head. Mostly because that's where the bedside table is, partly because when you get hot flashes at night, they're called night sweats and they aren't very fun. When I started doing this, my hair was a lot shorter. (by "a lot shorter", I mean I had really short hair, almost a pixie cut). Now my hair almost reaches my waist. So, after I settle into bed, I lift my hair and move it over to the opposite side of my head from the fan. If I choose to lay on my stomach, I do this by flipping my hair to the fan side, then flipping it back the other way quickly.

That's when the fun began last night...

I did the hair flip and DG said: "Whoa! It's a good thing your hair didn't hit me!"

I flipped it again and said, "Did it hit you that time?"

DG: "Almost. I could feel the breeze as it went past my face. Whoooooshhhhhh..."

There was a pause.

Then he said: "Your hair is a part of you and it don't want you no more. It escapes in the shower."

Me: "What?" (I was laying on my good ear)

DG: "Your hair is tired of the abuse. It told me."

Me: "What abuse?"

DG: "The shampooing, the blow dryer. I heard it talking."

Me: "Why can't I hear it talking? It's on my head."

DG: "Because. You can't. It's talking about you behind your head."

That phrase sent him into a giggling fit that he actually "oohed" at because he couldn't stop.

DG: "They whisper. Like the hair whisperer. So quiet you can't hear it. It's a hair thing."

After a short pause he asked: "Am I drinking?"

Me: "I don't know."

DG: "Only drunk people think that. [scoffing noise] Good thing I'm not drunk!"

Me: "Are you talking to yourself?"

DG: "Are you listening? Then NO! You're hair is like a big whip... [he made a whip-crack noise]."

Me: "If I didn't know you, I would think you were drunk."

DG: "You don't know me."

Me: "Yes, I do."

DG: "You just think that, don't you? With your whip hair [whip-crack noise] and your talking head."

Me: "What does that even mean?"

DG: [whispering] "I don't know. Help me... help me! Hhheeellllp meeeeee!"

Me: "Good night, dear."

DG: [heavy sigh] "Good night."

Ducks in Disguise

We had some errands to run on Monday and I had to drive. Even though DG wanted to drive, his truck was blocked in by our son's car. Our son works nights and sleeps in the daytime (you know, because that's what night-shift workers do). DG can't get into the boy's car, its too small and low to the ground for him. And I have difficulty getting into the car for similar reasons, but in his case, its because of his right-side paralysis. In my case, its because I'm overweight and my legs don't enjoy the contortionist act I have to do to get behind the wheel of a small car. At any rate, I was driving my truck and he was looking out the window.

You know what's weird? My parents had two cars for most of my life. My dad had a truck (we used to go camping every weekend from April till October when I was a kid) and my mom had the car. But if we went anywhere, Dad drove. Even if we were in the car. And DG has his full-size pickup truck (because its the only type of vehicle he can drive where he has the room to move his paralyzed leg out of the way). And we have the four-door, mid-size pickup truck. It was always "HIS truck" and "the truck" when we referred to the separate vehicles. But, when we go somewhere in my truck, I'm driving. Even if he's with me. (he CAN drive my truck, but not as comfortably as he can his full-size pickup truck).

Weird.

But back to the conversation. We stopped at stoplight and it turned green almost immediately. DG exclaimed: "Oh, look at that sad tree!"

I just caught a glimpse of a small pine tree that was all drooped over and quite Charlie Brown-esque. I agreed, it was indeed a sad tree.

DG: "It looks like Charlie Brown's tree."

Me: "It sure does."

DG: "Sad, sad tree..."

Me: "You keep saying I'm the weird one and yet you come up with things like 'sad tree'."

DG: "You ARE weird." and without taking a breath he exclaimed: "Look at all those ducks!"

Me: "Those are geese."

DG: "No, they're not."

Me: "Yes, they are! Those are Canadian geese."

DG: "They're ducks. They're just wearing disguises."

Me: "They're ducks? Dressed like geese?"

DG: "Don't you know? They're spies. Nobody will suspect the ducks."

Me: "Not when they're dressed like geese."

DG: "Of course not. Halloween is coming. They're ready."

I brought up the fact that he avoided the "I'm weird, but you say..." topic again. I said: "You say shit like blankets attacked you in your sleep and then you tell me I'm weird."

DG: "Hey, that actually happened. And I taught them a lesson."

Me: "Rats with little Nike shoes."

DG: "THAT is an actual historical fact! They teach that in SCHOOLS!"

Me: "Of course they do."

DG: "Rat schools."

We reached our destination and he went in to do what he had to do and I sent myself an email text with the key parts of this conversation in it. Because, well, Ducks wearing Geese disguises. Because Halloween is coming.

And something completely unrelated- a few weeks ago, my dad asked for a photo of me with DG so he could put it in a frame. The most recent one he had was over ten years old. So, for three weeks, I reminded DG that my dad wanted a photo of the two of us together. He whined about it, made a fuss, and decided that since he needs a haircut, he wouldn't let me give him one, because then I wouldn't want to do the photo. On Monday, October 8th, I gave him no choice. "That's it, we're doing the photo today. I don't care that you need a haircut." DG was uncooperative and it took almost two dozen attempts to get this one photo to turn out. So here you go- a photo of me with the Disabled Guy where neither of us is pulling a face.

My dad liked it, by the way. And the first thing he said was: "Jerry needs a haircut." (because he doesn't call him "the Disabled Guy").

The Absurdity that is US.

It's no secret, I'm not "normal". I like to laugh, I (quite obviously) use humor to help deal with things. When I get together with my daughters (Kat, 23; Christine, 19), we usually end up cackle-laughing like big, goofy doofuses. Even with my son (Jason, 20)- we go off on bizarre tangents that make no sense to other people. He does voices, I do voices back. He has this one voice that I find hilarious and never get tired of hearing.
This was done in one take and completely off-the-cuff.

And my mom was the same way. When she was with her sisters, nobody was safe. The laughter always killed us and we always loved it.

A couple years ago, my mom was on IV antibiotics following a surgery and three times a week, a homecare nurse came over twice a day to give her those antibiotics. And the rest of the time, my dad did it. I was the backup-backup person (being that my dad was the "backup person"), so I had to learn how to do it. I seriously took notes because I didn't want to screw up the steps. One of the steps was to swab one of the doo-hickey thingies with an alcohol pad for a certain amount of time (don't worry yourself, those are technical terms). Anyway, we're sitting there, Mom is looking at me, because where the hell else is she going to look? I was sitting right in front of her. So, I started up with: "So I says to Mable, Mable, I says..." and that was it, we were off... we did an entire conversation about Mable, her husband, some other woman that I think was Mable's sister and "the ladies group from church" (I don't go to church and at that time, Mom wasn't either). We were even doing it in our best Midwestern "Fargo"-esque accents.

The nurse was aghast that we were having such a conversation in front of her. She thought it was real. Of course, soon she was taking part in the absurdity, because what else can you do?

So, today, among other things, I picked up a pair of slipper socks. It turned out to be two pairs of slipper socks, one pair is red, one black. Well, of course I'm wearing one red sock and one black one.

Upon seeing the state of my footwear, DG said in a scoffing way: "Gawd, you're weird."

Me: "You married me, what does that make you?"

DG: "I dunno, but I'm not weird!"

Me: "It makes you lucky. Do you know how BORING 'normal' people are? Yeah, think about THAT!"

Just before I started to type this up, I said: "Hey, you told me I was weird, right?"

DG: "Yeah, you are."

Me: "I'm weird... but you're the one who came up with rats and their little Nike shoes."

DG: "Hey! That's a true story!"

Well, it must be, because you read about it on the Internet.

By the way, wearing one red sock and one black sock isn't even the weirdest thing we've done today. We did the heavy-metal headbanging to a song while driving around and doing our usual payday errands.

Big deal, you say? The song in question was "99 Luftballons". Yeah, the German version. And to prove that we were indeed being badass heavy metal beasts, I texted this photo to my friend, Erik. We were already having a text-conversation, so it wasn't quite as random as it seems. Don't worry about Erik, he gets us. He's pretty much one of us.

While we were shopping at Sam's Club- because who doesn't need 240 pizza rolls- I learned that people live on the Moon. I don't recall what he said, but I said: "On what planet does [whatever he said] happen?"

DG: "On mine."

Me: "What planet do you live on?"

DG: "The Moon."

Me: "The Moon isn't a planet."

DG: "What?! Of course it is!"

Me: "No, the Moon is the 'moon', it isn't classified as a planet." (I was prepared to go into something about Pluto, but I didn't have the chance, he kept talking).

DG: "That's not what they said."

Me: "What 'they'?"

DG: "The Moon People."

Me: "What 'Moon People'?"

DG: "The people who live on the Moon."

Me: "Where, on the Moon, do they live?"

DG: "Places. Probably houses."

Me: "Wait, there are people who live on the Moon, probably in houses, and nobody has ever seen them?"

DG: "They haven't been looking in the right places."

Me: "We went to the Moon. There were people from Earth, ON the Moon, and they didn't see them."

DG: "You went to the Moon? You didn't go to the Moon!" (he was trying to deflect).

Me: "No, not me, WE.  As a nation, you know, went to the Moon. I don't recall learning about Moon People in school."

DG: "Of course not. They wouldn't teach that in school."

Then he broke off for a second, to ask about the price of something in bulk, so I did the math and told him... then we went back to this:

Me: "Don't stop now, finish telling me the story."

DG: "What story?"

Me: "About the Moon People?"

DG: "What about them?"

Me: "Finish telling me about them."

DG: "They don't exist."

Me: "That's not what you said sixteen seconds ago."

DG: "I was mistaken."

Bonus- on the way to Sam's Club, I was trying to take a mobile phone pic for Facebook and he kept making a face by puffing his cheeks out with his breath and making little weird hissing noises. I finally reached over and pushed his puffed up cheek and said, "Stop doing this, I'm trying to take a photo for Facebook."

He replied, "I'm not making any faces!"

I turned back to my phone to take the shot again and he made the exact same hissing sound as before, which made me laugh, hence the cheesy smile.




So, there you have it... there are people on the Moon who probably live in houses and he doesn't make faces or weird hissing sounds. (despite the fact you can see in the photo he appears to be blowing out his breath as opposed to, you know, just breathing).

We work hard for no money...

Sorry. I'm sorry again for the delay in posting. There have been many short conversations (in fact, there was a hilarious one we had today, but I got busy and forgot what the hell we were talking about when we both ended up laughing like idiots), and most of those are in the Facebook Group. I was reminded on Tuesday that it had been a while since I updated this by some random student at our daughter's college (she's a sophomore this year, but she just transferred to that college). So, hi there... welcome to the blog. I know you weren't really just some random student, you've got some kind of title, but I have no idea what it is. Feel free to laugh... one of the most popular posts is Rats with their Little Nike Shoes. Also, thanks for the use of the tools. Did you notice the Disabled Guy organized your socket set? Yeah, he does that.

And, in re-reading my last post, I see that I haven't updated the whole thing with the Queen. I was in the Garden during her second visit during the feast. I took tons of photos of the whole thing, but as I look at my Pahz Photography blog, I see I didn't update there either. Let me assure you, the Queen loves the benches. Jane the Phoole loves the benches. Even the Earl of Leicester loves the benches. EVERYONE loves the benches.

RANDOM UPDATE- as I was adding the above paragraph, DG came inside and had a deep gash in his thumb. It wasn't a bad one, but it was a chunk of skin pulled out, so it bled in the most spectacular fashion. No pics, he wouldn't let me take any. Maybe later. He's quitting work for the day because he'll just bleed through his Band-aids if he continues without letting it properly stop. He'll be back at work again tomorrow.
END OF UPDATE 

You all know that the Disabled Guy builds things out of wood. We've tried selling a few of these things, but it doesn't always happen. So he mostly does it for his own enjoyment and to make things for friends or family.

Most of you know I'm a photographer. I mostly do macro and fine art stuff, but during the summer, between July and Labor Day (September, for those not involved with that holiday), I go to the Bristol Renaissance Faire and take photos there. I'm what's considered a "playtron", in that I pay to get in (season pass this year was a gift) and I dress up and "play"... but I also do photos.

Today, I had a rough night with my pain issues and didn't fall asleep till well after 2 AM, so I got a bit of a late start. DG found me in our room after I'd showered and was blow-drying my hair. He made a big scene about getting his clothes out of his dresser. I asked him what he was doing.

DG: "I gotta go to work."  (building a fancy wooden trunk for one of our kids)

Me: "So do I." (finishing up the last of my Closing Day photos- I had three days worth of photos to get through).

DG: "That's not work!"

Me: "How is it NOT work?"

DG: "You don't get paid!"

Me: "Neither do you!"

DG: "So? I enjoy it."

Me: "So do I!"

DG: "No, you don't!"

Me: "You're telling me that I don't enjoy taking photos? Editing photos? Creating art? Sharing art? You're right... I hate it. I hate it when people tell me I've done a good job and that they like the photos I take of them."

DG: "Yeah... well... I'm building a box."

Me: "Good comeback, Sparky."

I don't get paid by the faire or the people I take photos of, but those people and the powers-that-be at the faire appreciate what I do (I've been told some wonderful things by someone in charge of the media things at the faire). And, by doing what I do, it might help open doors to paying photography gigs. (and, the jousters gave me an awesome gift this year, which I love and DG has to make me a framed plaque so I can hang it up- which he will not be paid for doing. I love those guys and they don't need to give me a gift for what I do, but they always come up with something I would never think of myself). By the way, I also take photos of DG's carpentry projects, but I don't get paid by him to do that either.

And because you know you want to see them- here's the set with most of my ren faire photos. I'm still adding to it. So keep checking back, if you're into that sort of thing.