Helk! Helk! Can you hear me Helk?!

Me and My Brit-Brit

One of my best friends Brittany is getting a puppy. I am happy for her. While I had an overwhelming urge for one of my own a while back, the feeling has passed. I now want a cat. I don't want a cat right at this moment. I'm quite happy to live with my children (animals) for the next few months, and then maybe adopt a little creature of the feline variety. We'll see...

So back to Brittany, or Brit as I like to call her... Brit's puppy-to-be is blind. Poor pup. He's rather cute. He's a bit too young for Brit to bring home, so she has conjugal visits with him now and again (:P). The bad thing is the pup isn't only blind, he's deaf too (and Brittany will have no idea with a conjugal visit entails or means for that matter.:P). I suggested naming the dog Helen Keller. Brittany was not so keen on this name choice due to the fact that the pup is in fact a boy. So I suggested Helk (short for the lovely Helen)... I think it's rather discreet, unless you know the reasoning behind the name, and it really doesn't matter what in the hell ya call the damn dog, cause he's can't hear your damn calls or read your blessed lips anyway. Bless his little heart.

Arm Candy

Later this evening, on our girls' night out, Brit broke the news that she would be getting a different puppy now. Helk will be going to live with a woman who will take him to nursing homes, etc. as a therapy dog. I will not mention the comments I made regarding this dog labor, due to upsetting the general, not so easily-amused public. It was quite funny though (to those of us with sick minds). Let's just say it had something to do with the dog not knowing where in the hell he is at the moment, is going in the future or has been in the past. What a sad puppy life. I realize that people manage to adapt to their surroundings and limitations (I am living proof!), but jeez!

Now don't think I'm evil. These are just my own very distorted, disturbed thoughts. I love pups and dogs. I happen to love blind dogs, deaf dogs, dumb dogs, evil dogs, loving dogs, shmooshy-faced dogs, poofy dogs, rat-looking dogs, mini-me dogs, striped dogs, spotted dogs, plain jane dogs, slut dogs, male-whore dogs, rabbit-chasing dogs, lap-swimming dogs, scrap-eating dogs, kid-friendly dogs, crotch-sniffing dogs, boot-eating dogs... but the one thing I can't stand? Poop-licking dogs. Anyone or anything who will eat their own dung? Disgusting! So if you partake in poo, you are not on my friends list. Delete me from your Facebook, your contacts, your life... cause I don't roll that way ;)The Innocents...

Brit, take good care of your dog with 5 senses. I pray Helk will have a beautiful life... *stifling very rude comments*... I wonder if laser surgery has been tested on dogs? Everything else has...

:P

Cryptic, I know.

Until next time,
Kell ;)

Happy Tears

As many of you know, we are moving. The garage is packed with bunches and bunches of yard sale items, which will be traveling with us to our new home (bigger town... bigger yard sale turnout). We also have a crazy amount of trash bags filled with items not even a 1 cent price sticker would make someone feel guilty enough to buy, and we have been adding these into our regular trash pile on Tuesdays when those hulk-armed trash truck guys, bless their hearts, come to visit our curb.

So we have a big section of yard sale items, a bigger section of black plastic & a medium-sized "keep pile" filled with trinkets and necessities and impulse purchases we have learned to love, and can't part with.

This "keep pile" gets me into trouble. I reminisce. I sit and look at old purchases and get weepy. The can is what REALLY gets me in trouble. No, I'm not talking about the commode, though that subject has ventured to the surface quiet frequently in my blog-life. I'm talking about the photo can. You know those popcorn tins you can buy at Christmas for people you a) really don't like or b) have no idea what to buy, and don't feel like spending any real amount of your hard-earned money on? Well, we have one of those tins, popcornless and full of old pictures.

I can't tell you how many times this week I have made excuses to go out to the garage. I go out there and pull up two of our extra-ugly old dining room chairs (yard sale pile, if you're interested). I use one chair to sit on, and one to pile photos on. They depress me.

I seriously used to be a bean pole... a tiny little thing with a nice rack (the rack remains), pretty blonde hair and a wardrobe I was proud of. Because face it, when you are a size small/medium, you can buy just about anything you dream of in the clearance section.

I felt truly depressed all day today. This should be one of the happiest times of my life. We are getting out of the renting cycle by buying our first real home, I'm going to Vegas in a couple of months with good friends, my babies are starting preschool and we survived a week of VBS, my husband is on day shift after many, many moons of thirds and on and on and on....

So why am I feeling so blue? I go through these phases. I suppose people who jump for joy at the mere glimpse of an oven mitt they haven't seen in ages, or an extra box of Christmas decorations they find in July, are gonna find a valley every now & then.

I decided to just let myself bask in my blues today... stay in my jammies, take a few naps, pack only when I wanted to pack and leave the mundane household crap to my husband. After all, every day isn't like this... but once in a while I think it's forgivable.

In all honesty, I would be happy to sit here & pinpoint my problems for the whole world (or at least my 35 loyal readers) to see, but I can't. I know the few problems I do have are nothing compared to the issues other folks are going through.

I'm going to post some of my pictures now... some of the photos that make me sad. It's my way of soaking it in, sucking it up and letting it go. Enjoy...

In Windsor, Canada... see Detroit?
This was my first real trip away from Joel after we got married.
I went with my friend Linda. We went to a strip club called "Danny's".
I'm still looking for the pic of me with my stripper.

This Santa was a perv, and I had bad hair... but I was happy...

What in the hell was I thinking?!?!?!



Teddy & I. I still miss Teddy... a lot.



This was me ready for my Junior Prom in my room at Mom & Dad's house.
My fascination with hot famous men started really young...
I loved this Prom dress.



Mom putting my veil on before the wedding.
CROCODILE TEARS..... Wahhhhhhhhhh!



Chris & I with our Cabbage Patch Kids.
I believe in the end, we probably all owned 25 Cabbage Patch Kids.



At my thinnest... a few years back.
Would ya believe I still thought I was fat?
Duh!



I thought I had a huge fat roll in this picture.
Double Duh!



On our honeymoon




Why didn't anyone tell me how terrible my hair was? :P




This was when I was running, doing the WW thing & in the best shape... oh, and orange from self-tanner :P



Joel with Teddy...
More sobs....... Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!




Fishing with Dad on vacation In PA.

I'm going to go burn the can now. Goodnight.

Pet Cemetery

I once killed my brother's sick iguana Damien trying to force-feed him kale with tweezers. He got me back by frying my hermit crab on top of his hot TV. Pay back's a bitch.

We had 2 bats out in our garage a while back. Joel yelled at me to come see them. I went to look, but with the whole blind thing going on, I could just see little black specklets. He did get the camera & zoom though, so I could see a picture of them. They were baby bats. I was amused and freaked out at the same time. Joel went at them with a broom. He managed to impale one, but couldn't find it to dispose of it. That freaked me out more than the living bat. Two weekends ago we cleaned out our garage (a 5 1/2 hour project) due to the big move coming up. I tip-toed a bit, just knowing I would be the one to find the dead bat (the live one has since escaped). No bat. I'm convinced the neighborhood bull frogs found him & carried him to safety. My question is... since we've had bats... if I call them my pet birds, does that make me goth? I have the skin for it... I had the birds for it... I'm pretty sure if I start wearing black, suck on a blue blow pop for a while and don't wash my newly black/purplesque hair for 3 weeks I'll be goth. Please advise if you are up to date on current 'dark' trends. I'd really like to sell myself as a goth chick.

Evil Cat

A few years ago, my parents had a cat, Callie. Callie was a calico cat. Imagine that! Callie was a cool cat... fat (the best cats are fat) and PSYCHOTIC! She purred persistently, and licked! She licked a lot! She liked to rub her head on our necks and faces (this is fabulous if you have allergies like I do). Callie would be purraciously rubbing herself on someone, and then Yeoooooooowwwwwwwwwshamalamabingboom... sink her claws right into ya. She liked to nibble too. Her nibbles were psycho nibbles, not love-me-tender nibbles. But mostly she loved to scratch. Damn cat. I believe she was shipped off to the farm. She had a pissing problem too... poor thing. I'm sure a coyote came along and ate her.

Innocent my ass

That brings me to Mittens. Mittens was a tabby cat. I was quite young when we had Mittens, but I believe I have a grasp on the Mittens story, or at least my own perception of it. You see, my parents, my brother and sister and I (along with our many living pets and the pet cemetery in our back yard) lived in the boondocks as some may say. If you are un-Ohioan or high-class, you may not understand that term... we lived in the wilderness... the country... a house between four corn fields. Basically, we could easily be described as The Children of the Corn living in Pet Semetery. Both movies... freaky as hell by the way. So, not to get off topic, at night there were coyotes around our house. Mittens took a 4-legged stroll one night and came home with exactly 3 mittens, 3 paws, 3 pads and a bloody stump. Mittens hobbled like a champ. If there were special Olympics for cats, she would've been a shoe-in, or a mitten-in more appropriately. Years later Mom and Dad told us that Ms. Mittens died behind the chicken coop (yes we had a chicken coop... with no chickens :( ... I believe another coyote toted Mittens off and ate her other 3 legs for dinner and she was unable to swim home, due to the drought. But that's just my version.


Matting... a common Persian problem... :P

One of my dreams, allergies and all, was to have a Persian cat... a cat with a face so smooshed and mangled-looking that people would ask if it hit a tree going 80+ miles per hour. The smooshier the better. After Joel and I got married, I saved money, in lieu of paying our electric bill, to save up for my dream kitty. We wound up with 3 of my dream kitties... Visa, the smooshiest of them all. Visa was a red-point Himalayan. If you don't know what that means, don't worry, I won't bore you with the details (just know that I know more than you do :P Anyway, Visa was beautiful, and smooshed to high-heaven! Then there was Bonnie, a grey Persian with a horrible attitude problem. She was gorgeous, so I didn't much care that she was a royal bitch. Angelica was the last. She was a cute little calico Persian kitten with a semi-smashed face (looked like her face had ran into something soft, like a couch or a bean bag chair at high speed). The one point I hadn't considered when we bought long-haired, high-maintenance cats... hairballs! Oh my, did we have hairballs! Excessive hairballs. Hairballs that stretched a good ruler-length across a room. The cats all had different color-points, so we could monitor who was puking the most. Sure, we could get the cats shaved, cut short or waxed, but that defeated the whole purpose of having a Persian, smoosh-faced mutant cat. I suppose I didn't brush them enough... I'm glad I've grown and learned... my kids wouldn't be nearly as cute as they are if I neglected their hair for 3 months at a time. We just shave their heads instead... much easier to maintain.

As to not bore my readers, I will tell you about my past pets, including my cat Jinx, in moderation. Mutt, Scruffy, KeeKee, Zach, Taffy, Snickers, Mama Cat, etc... rest in peace... and in pieces.

Will add pictures of my actual pets at a later date. :P

Twists & Turns, Moo-Cow Roads & Positivity

I went to a conference today. My friend & I managed to talk so much, we got lost on the way there, as well as on the way home. We had fun. Spoiling-wise, it came nowhere close to my last conference (see earlier blog post about my wonderful annual activity conference experience... already looking forward to next year). The seats were not of the swivel variety this time, and had no smoosh to them whatsoever. There were no decadent coffees to choose from... in fact, I didn't see any coffee at all. There was no dining room set up with cloth napkins, sparkling water glasses and a choice of 3-4 buffet tables (although the boxed Arby's lunch was rather good)... but the company was fantastic! I was a bit disturbed that the tables were so low, there was absolutely no way to cross my 5'10" legs... add a head & torso... you do the math. I always sucked at math.

I have always had a great fear of getting lost. If I had been alone today, driving through small towns I had only heard of (the conference was an estimated 2 hours away... hahahaha!), I would have had a complete nervous breakdown. This is no exaggeration... I would have freaked the hell out! You see, I am blind... of the legal variety... if you do not know me, you most-likely have no idea that I have a daylight-restricted license (due to vision problems, not legal problems). If I ever must drive to a town I've never been to, I either beg for a ride, or my husband... my wonderful husband... will take me for a 'run-through' the day before. The summers are fantastic! I can stay out until 9pm on the longest day of the year! Winters-not so much fun... curfew is at 5pm at best!

I'll share more about my visual impairment at a later time. It's really not important here... except to tell you that I do believe this is why I have such a fear of getting lost.

I remember odd things from my childhood. I remember a lot of funny, goofy times... but I also remember the times I got lost. I remember being at Sioux St Marie one year, staying in a cabin with my mom and dad, sister and brother. My brother was out fishing and a storm rolled in. I remember worrying about him, and running out to find him. When I looked back at the cabins, I realized they all looked alike! I had no idea which one was ours. My heart began to beat rapidly, and I had visions of being lost forever... on the beach... without my family. Then I heard my mom calling me. I couldn't see her, but I could hear her. Somehow I made it back to the cabin, as did my brother... it was a scary experience for me, but it also taught me to stay close to those who loved me.

During our 'lost' time today, I thought about the curvy moo-cow roads we were on, and how the twists and turns are just like life. My friend & I talked about how the swine flu began, and how it is becoming increasingly scary, not only for Mexico and the US, but now for many, many countries. We talked about our healthcare system, and the changes that are coming... we had wonderful conversation, and it swayed me to focus on our chitchat, and not the hills and curves that would normally scare me.

I was enlightened today. I think it's very easy to be afraid right now. There are so many variables... so many changes... I have not watched the news for years now, because of the depressive factor. I think the events and issues causing global panic, and citizens being scared out of their minds is largely caused by our peers. It was refreshing today to be with a friend with a positive perspective. I am not at all saying my circle of friends is negative... we tend to laugh off what we can't change, and I find that incredibly refreshing, too! It was just nice to have these circumstances explained to me in a way I understood... and in a way that did not make me grip my seat in panic!

I think it's extremely important to surround ourselves with positive people right now. Some negativity is a given... it's always going to be there. But as a whole, if we focus on our positive relationships, and the people who truly care for us, our happiness and the fact that we don't want to be scared shitless, the world, or at least a few of us in it, will be more positive and able to help others.

Humor is great. Realism not so much. But if we see our situations and our lives a little differently, I think we could make our part of the world just a little bit better.

Celebrities Poop

Celebrities poop. It makes me so happy. Earlier today I was reading a wonderful blog post from the one and only Jason Mraz. He was sharing a comical tale about his accidental fart in the gym. Jason referred to his fart as the escape artist, and talked about the many amps that were being pushed through a 1" speaker. The entire blog had me in happy tears.

Sometimes when I'm down, I enjoy thinking about the fact that famous folks do the same things we normal folks do... poop, fart, pick our noses, burp, pee in the shower... kudos to Jason for admitting his imperfections, and for helping us to realize that celebrities are just people... hot, talented people, but people all the same.

Now let's get back to peeing in the shower. I turned the radio to a popular morning show on my way to work this past week. The morning crew was talking about Kelly Clarkson, and her admittance to peeing in the shower. I did some research and found out this information came from Blender magazine. I know the article disgusted a lot of people. Now when they look at Kelly, all they will see is a stream of pee running down her leg.

I laughed when I heard about the article... not because I think Kelly's admission was disgusting, but because I was so amused that a celebrity admitted to doing something most people have done or do on a regular basis.

Yep, I'm admitting to the world that I have peed in the shower. I see it as killing two birds with one stone. I have also picked my nose. I've seen many, many people do the same... even you folks who roll your eyes and turn bright red when someone you know farts or burps. You probably pick your noses and pass gas through that ass more than anyone else. What is that saying? It's always the quiet ones...

I tend to find solace in the fact that "sexy" Elizabeth Hurley sits on the same toilets we do. I also think it is absolutely fantastic that Jason Mraz is proud of his flatulence at the gym. It puts the whole celebrity versus non-celebrity gap into perspective.

I hope next time you are feeling blue, you will visualize Patrick Dempsey picking his nose on the race track (in my mind, that's still hot!), or Britney Spears picking a wedge after a visit to the ladies room. It's very therapeutic!