Cuteness

These are 2 of my nephews, sons of my youngest sister.
This is James
And this is Dero
and that second pic is just way too cute. Made my day perk right up so I wanted to share. Now I just gotta figure out how to get out of sending pictures of me.

My new pretty

New tattoo - finally! I've been procrastinating, then made the appointment. First time I showed up, Inkman didn't have power. Soo, rescheduled for today. Got there about 2 didn't leave till 5ish. The guy, btw, is a total sweetheart. At one point I had to tell him "Wait, let me stop giggling!" And of course, he does incredibly awesome work. He said he'd make my butterfly look like it could flutter its wings and fly away. And dammit, he did.
Toward the end, he somehow dripped some ink on me. I hear him say "Hang on, I've dripped all over your back." Before I even started laughing, he said "Stop that! Dirty minded!" Pitbull said he was grinning and twinkling too. He told me he knew I was gonna laugh as soon as he said it. Considering everything else that had come out of my or Pitbull's mouth by that point, I'm sure he wasn't too surprised. (The remarks about how/why I could smoke a cigarette so fast were fairly typical me.) Anyway, I'm thrilled, in case you can't tell.

Slightly strange day though. After getting this done, we headed back for the store. I changed clothes, picked up my car and headed for the funeral home for Uncle George's wake. Well, second wake, I didn't make the first one and I'm gonna miss the funeral tomorrow. No way I could not make an appearance, especially given how much I loved the man. So I went, and of course everydamnbody just had to hug me and try to pat my back. I lost count of how many times I said "Don't pat my back" but it was way too many. I didn't really feel like explaining why to most people so I just said my back was really really sore. (Small town in the South, everybody will mind your business and give you their unsolicited opinions) I did tell my dad why and showed him the pic from my phone. His reaction? He rolled his eyes, shook his head and then took a closer look at the pic. Told me it was beautiful and he was glad I was happy.

Long day

This is what I look like after sorting through 6 large boxes of funky, dusty used books. At least I'm smiling.

Sunshine and a friend

means it's time for a smoke break!

Happy weekend honeys!

The tackiest gift I've ever given

It all started with an e-mail from Amy. One of those nickname ones. This one was stripper nicknames. Of course, once I figured mine out (no, I'm not telling), I passed it along to a few more friends. Because I'm sweet like that and I wanted to share the joy.

Mz Pitbull was one of the people I sent it to and she made the mistake of telling me her new stripper name. And since we are such good friends and I like her sooo much...

Ta - daaahh! Merry Christmas Montana Glitterthong!!

(Yep, that's her name written across the butt!)

And kids, you can't buy tacky like that. You gotta go to Wal-mart and get the fixins and put it together your ownself. Which is just what I did. One pair of shiny hot pink panties, 3 feet of beaded fringe, pink skull iron-on appliques and a whole bottle of silver glitter paint. Add a hot glue gun and voila! you got some serious tack goin' on. The only thing missing is feathers, but only because I couldn't find any.

God only knows what she'll come up with as revenge but whatever it is, this is worth it!

Let it snow, Let it snow

It snowed! Not all that unusual for some people but definitely not the norm here in south Louisiana. It wasn't a lot and it didn't stay long but it was pretty fun while it lasted. And I got a day off from work out of it. *grin*

Skye, of course, was less than pleased with the whole ordeal. She wanted to go out for her morning walk. Until she realized that a walk involved actually stepping in that cold, wet stuff on the ground. Miss pampered, prissy princess decided at that point that no walk was worth getting her feet wet and back inside she went. She spent the rest of the day lying in front of the fire, sighing pitifully. I did eventually manage to convince her to go outBut she wasn't happy about it. She was outside maybe a minute when she came running back to me. Can you tell she was ready to go back in? I'm pretty sure she is even less of a fan of cold weather than I am. And yeah, I spent the entire day in jammies. Snowflake patterned jammies.

There's a squirrel at the end of that video that made me laugh. He went running out of my yard and then slid in the snow out into the road. Then he picked himself up, shook off and looked around like "Hmm, did anyone see that?"

Skye's great, thanks dearhearts (you know who you are)

Thanks for caring, y'all are the bestest.
Skye's surgery was yesterday. So it was a get outta bed, throw on clothes mad rush to the vet's office before heading off to work. And waiting to hear back.

She did just fine. Spayed and two lumps removed. Kinda scary to find out that 2 lumps had come up in the short time since the last surgery. Definitely made me think I made the right choice.


I picked her up this morning (did the mad rush thing again). Had to leave her at home while I went to work, and of course I felt horribly guilty. I really don't think she cared though, since she was drugged outta her little head. Min-pin on pain meds, kinda funny akshully.


And yeah, I'm keeping her a little doped up because she is so damned hyper. When I came home tonight, she tried doing her usual dance routine. Never mind the 3 sets of stitches, happy dance is a must. So, another pain pill and another chew treat (as a distraction).


And I wanted to share this pic:

Yes, I left a note.

Not too bad

Gustav wasn't too bad for me, other than the week without power. Taking ice cold showers by flashlight was a pain.

I took a few (fairly bad) pics. If you want to see some great pics, go over to Amy_D's flickr page. She's an awesome and incredibly talented photographer (she's also a great friend).

(That's not a river, that's the ditch alongside the highway)

(The trail riders' pavilion, the day after the storm)

(One of the many trees down)

That's the closest anything came to falling on my house - the end of the big branch in the background ended up a few feet from the back corner of the house. Guess that wind was good for something.

The bug that got in my house while the power was out. Creepy lil bugger, took me forever to catch him and put him outside.

I missed a week of work because of Gustav, so I've put in extra hours and brought work home to make up the time. Since I had that as an excuse, I haven't done the stuff around the house that needed to be done. Like yard work, which I hate. It worked out pretty well though. My younger brother, Toothpick, called me this morning and offered to do the yard work. Yay! So he cut the grass, hit the corners and such with a weed-eater, cleaned the porch and even helped pull down and untangle the windchimes. Thank heavens for my little brother with the big heart.

(Toothpick, hard at work)

I've still got a box and a half of audio books to work on, not to mention the other stuff. Guess I'd better get back to work.

And, yes we did have to push the wedding date back because of the storm. So now the big day is September 30th. Unless something else happens.

Ya think?!?

It was a little wet at Grandma's house. Her front yard: The turn off to Grandma's house - can you tell she lives in the boonies?

We had a birthday party for my Grandma today. I don't see my mom's family much, but I showed up for this. Not everyone could make it so it wasn't too bad. I had a good laugh watching my cousin's 6 year old daughter try to teach her great-uncle how to play "Rock, Scissors, Paper." He kept messing up and misunderstanding on purpose so she would get mad. She's a pretty intense kid and very dramatic, so it's funny to watch her roll her eyes and sigh in exasperation. Determined lil thing, she never did give up. When they left she told him "That's okay, we'll work on it some more next time I see you."

My first customer today

Well, I guess he wasn't really a customer, since the bastard didn't buy anything. Just ran around, scaring the shit outta me.

Need a better look? Here ya go -

I opened the store this morning and had made several trips back and forth down the front aisle. Never saw the sonuvabitch. Walked around the counter to pull a book from the new paperback rack and there he was. And then he RAN at me. Next thing I know, I've levitated 6 feet in the air and come down sitting on top of the counter with my feet tucked under me. First time I've prayed all friggin' year.
And, of course, no one else is there. NO ONE. Any other morning I'd have had 3 people waiting for me to get there, bitching and moaning and wearing boots. But not this morning. Oh no, my life doesn't work that way. I'm stuck sitting on a counter while Spidey there patrols the front aisle. Every time I tried to get down and sneak to the back he'd run at me again. Back on the counter I'd go. I finally was able to reach the phone and call BL to find out where the bug spray was. All we have is roach spray. "Does that work on spiders?" says I. She says she doesn't see why not. So I wait until he is at the far end of the aisle, jump down and do some running my ownself. Grab the big can of Bengal and walked veeeerrrrryyy slowly back. Spidey is sitting at the front, giving me the evil eye. Waiting...
I sprayed him with Bengal, he walked away. I sprayed again and again and again and... You get the picture. Not only is he an oversized arachnid from Hell, he's a fucking Bionic oversized arachnid from Hell! Damn thing wandered away from a half a can of Bengal like I was flicking raindrops at him.
I couldn't even stomp him, I was wearing flipflops. One of those obscenely long and disgusting legs would have touched me. Or, my luck being the way it is, I'd have missed and the creepy would have run up my leg and chewed out my throat. Not the way I want to spend my morning.
The funnest part? Spidey kept hiding under shelving and then running out as I walked by. Sadistic lil fucker!
Finally a customer wearing boots came in and stomped the disgusting thing. This wonderful man even took a broom and swept the remains out the door and into the parking lot. I wanted to kiss him (I didn't, since he was married and all, but I wanted to)

When BL finally showed, I shared the pic with her. She freaked just from that. I told her I didn't have anything better to do while sitting on the counter. Plus I thought she wouldn't believe how big the thing was unless I had proof. I sure hope this one's big brother isn't waiting for me when I open tomorrow. I just don't think my nerves will handle it.

So go ahead and laugh at me being a big fraidy-cat. Because I was.

And I've had the creepy-crawling wibblies all day. Guess what I'll dream about tonight?

Happy Easter

My buddy

This is Ears, a red-nose pit bull who lives at the vet clinic where I worked. One of the sweetest, goofiest dogs I've ever met.
Ears is a Katrina refugee. I started working for Doc shortly after Katrina. She was already involved in the rescue/shelter operation, providing veterinary services and helping to locate owners for all the animals who ended up here. I don't know if anyone saw (or remembers) the story one of the news stations did about the animal shelter set up in a Louisiana prison with the inmates doing a lot of the daily care for the animals. That's the one Doc helped with and that's how I met Ears. We thought he'd had a home at some point since he was in pretty good shape and obviously accustomed to being handled. As a matter of fact, Ears insists on being handled, played with and loved on. He doesn't mind men, but he absolutely adores women. Needless to say, he enjoys living at Doc's clinic, since her staff is usually all female. After taking care of him for months, none of us wanted to let him go so Doc kept him. He's survived Katrina, living on the streets of New Orleans in the aftermath, lots of upheaval and a pretty bad case of heartworms.
Being around Ears is one of the things I miss about working at the clinic. He thinks he is a lap dog so he's constantly trying to climb up and sit on someone. Sometimes he would come and sit under my desk, resting his chin on my feet. He's quite an escape artist, he figured out how to get out of kennels pretty quick. There were several mornings I walked in to the clinic to find him sitting on my desk or laying in front of the door waiting for someone to arrive. He bounces around like a puppy if he sees a tennis ball and he's one of the few dogs I've seen who is happy to jump up on an exam table. To him it means lots of petting, a few pokes when he gets a shot, and then more loving and treats. He's a little spoiled now, but as sweet as ever. When I took Skye to the vet the other day, he ran right up to the fence to say hi and get some pets and scratches. He also wanted to see Skye, since the two of them got along pretty well. She doesn't much care for being licked head to tail in one swipe and he always looks as if he's laughing when he does it.
All of my life I've heard horror stories about pits. Ears is nothing like that. He's just a great dog, big hearted, loving, sweet, mischievious and funny. And a reminder (to me, anyway) that judging a book by its cover and living a life based on assumptions is a good way to miss out on too many wonderful things.

Princess, Pampered

I've already introduced my min-pin Skye. And I'm pretty sure I mentioned that she is incredibly spoiled and pampered. Somehow I get blamed for this. Dad brings her bags of Cheetos every time he stops by and T gives her cookies slathered with peanut butter. Sarge and Wench have been known to feed her steak. Everyone else babies her outrageously but it's my fault she's rotten. Yeah, right.
Skye is an indoor dog, has a nice little bed with a blanket on it, plus a blanket on the couch and another under my computer table. T insisted she needed a house. Why? Because she needed "her own little space". I said okay, figuring we'd get a carrier. Wrong. That wasn't big enough or good enough according to T. And carriers don't look like houses. (spoiled, remember?) So we looked for dog houses that looked like people houses. And found one at Hell-mart. I read the description on the box and tried to talk T out of it, since it was for dogs up to 70 lbs. Skye weighs 7 lbs. "That's going to be too big" I told him. Not to mention, it would take up a lot of room in our very small house. But he really, really wanted to get it and since I have a hard time saying no to him we bought it. (Okay, okay I'll admit I thought it would be kinda cute for Skye to have this huge house)Anyway, we bought it, brought it home and put it together. T stuck her bed in there then decided she wouldn't like walking on plastic. He took her blanket, folded it and used it to cover the floor. She now has wall-to-wall carpet. Since he'd used her blanket for the floor, he took one of my fleece throws and gave it to her for a blanket. Needless to say, Skye loves it.

The sight of this tiny dog lounging in this huge house makes me smile.Pretty darned cute, huh?

Southern charms

One of the things I enjoy so much about living in the South is that warm weather comes earlier and stays later here. So, for all my friends enduring icy, dreary weather, here's a little sunshine for y'all.

Tulip magnolias from two different trees. The one above is from the zoo, below is near my home.

Kumquats. Soo good. Right around the corner from my house. I just liked the contrast of red berries and green leaves against that drab, gray wall.

Hope y'all enjoyed this. Wishing everyone warm winds and blue skies. Hugs.

Does the first post of the year set the tone?

In my case, probably not. Unless you count random thoughts and silliness. Anyway, I'm semi-recovered from the holidays. Now if Boss Lady will just stay in town and come in to the store occasionally, I'd be just fine.
Since I haven't posted in 2 weeks, I've got all sorts of stuff whirling around in my head. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to work everything in under a single topic. Owls, T, presents, barbarians, and theft. Just for starters. Nope, I just can't see a way to do it. So, before somebody starts making wild stories up to cover all those, I'll go ahead and throw it at ya.

Theft isn't usually amusing, especially to someone in retail. We really, really hate shoplifters. And of course, the holidays are wonderful opportunities for the sticky-fingered. Boss Lady was pissed, steam coming out of her ears, when she realized someone had stolen a couple of hardback books the Saturday before New Year's. I just tried very hard not to laugh, since I didn't want Boss Lady to go off on me. But really, it struck me as funny. This woman stole Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Commentary and Halley's Bible Handbook. Somehow, I don't think reading religious material you stole will win you any points with Jeebus. "For it is written, vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord." Hey, is that ozone I smell? Just kidding!

Presents are good. I love getting presents. My Christmas present from T came in early and since he's the impatient type, I got it a few days before Christmas. Which left me without a Christmas present to open on Christmas Eve. T decided that needed to be fixed, so this is what I found when I came home from work Dec. 24th: Note to self: Don't let T play with the camera anymore.

Owls. Now where was I going with owls? Oh yeah, the owl incident. If you look back a bit, you'll see pics from my ride to work. Obviously, I'm out in the boonies. Coming home after dark on these back roads is always great fun. Deer, raccoons, opossums, rabbits and the other night an owl. It was late, I was going slow (for me anyway) and got the hell scared outta me. I came around a sharp curve, headed across a little bridge and thought a deer was about to run out of the bushes. Instead a HUGE frickin' owl swoops out of the trees on one side, down into the middle of the road and back up into the trees on the other side. My first thought: Oh shit, brakes!!! My second thought: What was THAT? A fucking pterodactyl? Boys and girls, real owls do not look like Big Mama from The Fox & The Hound! So, lesson learned, no more doing 75 m.p.h. at night on curvy little country roads.

Lastly, barbarians. I took the local members of the Horde their presents the day after Christmas. Everybody liked their books, even the mini-barbarian. Of course, little Genghis used his books to beat on the floor, his sister's head and any other handy surface. But, hey, what's a holiday without a minor concussion for your nearest and dearest? I wouldn't know how to handle it if we didn't have to take someone to the doctor every year.

That's little Genghis. Cute little monster, but of course I could be a wee bit biased. The arm belongs to his older brother, Porkchop. (And yeah, that's my voice, are ya happy now? You know who you are!) This vid may not stay up long, if I can figure out how to move the other one from the camera to the computer I intend to replace it. Enjoy it while it lasts.

OK, enough for me now. I'm tired and I have 5 more very long days to get through before Boss Lady gets back to town.

One damned thing after another

Let's see if I can do this. First, there was Thanksgiving. The Barbarian Horde decided to play football about 8 p.m. Since they didn't have enough barbarians for even one full team, it turned into Tackle Tag fairly quickly. I had a blast watching them, only took a few pics, I was laughing too hard. Here's one:Then it was Shadow's birthday on Nov 28th. Then T's birthday on Dec 1st. My dad's birthday is Dec 4th. Some of my family got together for Dad's birthday, and I took a few pictures. This one is my younger brother (aka Toothpick), his girlfriend and her son. My dad and his wife, the same day. Continuing the birthdays, Sarge is today, AC was yesterday, Toothpick is the 15th, Wes is the 18th, JJ is the 25th......I know I missed someone, I just can't remember who it is. In the midst of all of this, I am trying to get ready for Christmas, working waaay too many hours, and dealing with T. He has a torn rotator cuff which requires surgery. Soon. So, he is home for a while, with nothing to do. That's a bad thing. The gods only know what he will decide to fill his time with, but I can guarantee it's going to be unexpected. I'm just hoping he doesn't decide to reorganize my books again.
Just for grins, I thought I would include this picture to prove there are advantages to living in the boonies. This is part of my route to work: Pretty nice, huh? I think I am one of the few people who enjoys driving to work. When I compare my commute to my friends' all I can do is smile. I get to speed down empty back roads lined with trees and you guys get wall-to-wall, bumper-to-bumper traffic. It takes me 20 minutes to go 23 miles. Plus, I see things like hawks sitting on power lines and deer meandering across the road. By the way, there is so little traffic that I was able to park my car and stand in the middle of the road to take that picture.

One last thing. For fellow PAN fiends, here's my latest ugly chef sighting. Found this in Hell-mart and then tried to explain why I was giggling my head off to T. The funniest part was realizing that this is a FRENCH chef! Ugly chefs go international:Ok, I think I am as caught up as I can get. Maybe I will be able to find some time to actually post something good, but I am not counting on it.

Distraction found

OK, HERE ARE YOUR WORDS OF ADVICE FOR TODAY...
Never,
Ever,
Ever
~EVER~
Under ANY Circumstance

Kiss A Monkey!!

Thanks Mz_Pitbull, I really needed that! (I always wanted a self-fellating monkey!)

I'm not the only one who likes these

Boss Lady has decided to carry a small selection of T-shirts at the bookstore. I thought it was a great idea when I saw the catalog. There was enough variety to have something for everyone. I saw multiple designs for every animal imaginable plus Native American, butterfly, funny and fantasy designs. So what does she get? Ten different tiger designs. I know they'll do well, this is LSU country, but I was hoping for more. She also ordered (in children's sizes only) puppies, kittens, seals, penguins and pink horses. Yeah, pink horses. So we now have 15 different designs and none of them are all that interesting.

She did offer to add any I wanted for myself to her order. So I ended up with a couple new ones:I wore the fairy one the other day, and every one I met asked where I got that shirt. When I said I got it through work, the next question was did the store have any more like it. So, I guess the next time Boss Lady makes it to the store, I'll let her know that there are quite a few people around here who would like fantasy or Celtic themed T-shirts. Maybe she will change her mind. Maybe.

a week in pictures

Just because I can, I'm posting some pictures taken in the last week. I've gotta do something to justify all the playing around with a camera we've been doing! This is what has been going on since last Thursday: I hang out at Wenchy's house a lot. Wenchy is my best friend, mainly because she is more throwed off than I am. It's nice to be the normal one in a relationship! (Just joking girl, you know we are about even!)

My dad got married Saturday night. That's my dad (first from the left), his new wife Margie, and the Reverend and his wife. Rev and his wife are very sweet. That man is 89 and still preaches every Sunday! The next one is (from the left) me, Dad, Margie and Margie's grandson Colt.

Photo removed, sorry.
That's T. I've known him since I was 18. My older brother was married to his younger sister back then. After Shadow and JJ (his sister) died within months of each other, those of us left became closer. We all started making an effort to keep in touch. Somehow this developed into T and I dating. For the last two years, we've been a couple, and when he's not off working on pipelines, we live together. Which brings me to the last picture:

Yep, that's the ring T gave me last night! So, I'm getting married again.

I've gotten some pretty varied reactions from my loved ones. Wenchy-woman (the girlfriend)said "No fucking way!" over and over and then laughed her ass off. My brother (the one who was married to T's sister) said to tell T "Quit stalking me!" My dad laughed and my mom doesn't know yet. Haven't told the rest of the sibs yet either. Boss Lady got excited, and my friends say I should keep him just because he picks out pretty jewelry. Also, according to the friends, I should hang on to anyone brave enough to volunteer to live with me!

Anyway, that's the highlights of my last seven days. I've got more pics, but I think I'll save them for a day when I feel like talking about my family, in all their glorious weirdness.

Things that made me smile today

This is Skye, my min pin. Doesn't she look sweet and innocent? On my pillow, in my reading chair. Like she owns the place of something. Gotta love a dog that's so convinced she is queen of the universe.

And this is the Tshirt I got. I collect shirts with slogans. I know, weird. But it's fun. Plus, I get to offend or amuse without ever opening my mouth. "Ascend Until Your Wings Catch Fire" Sounds great, but it also brings to mind Icarus. Maybe I should be cautious of large bodies of water.

Anyway, the best thing to make me smile all day was hearing from T. The Marion job is nearing completion and they may get some time off. Maybe, if everything works out. So I'm crossing my fingers and toes, hoping T's company decides to give him at least a week to come home. Also hoping T's time off doesn't coincide with Boss Lady's 10 days at the lake house. That would suck.