Idiopathic Fears, Elevators

Elevators.

First of all, I have overcome my fear of escalators by not using them and if you will notice by my not using them they are becoming obsolete.

Anyway, elevators scare me big time. It isn’t the stomach-lurching ride equivalent to the worst thing Six Flags has to offer. And it isn’t the cable-grinding noises of metal grating on metal while it stretches trying to determine if we’ve reached maximum capacity. I am not worried about being trapped between floors and doing gymnastics of Olympic proportions while scaling to safety.

I worry about being the designated caregiver to those that are left behind once the elevator fails. Selfish? You bet. My role as Perpetual Rescue Woman (ta ta ta da) might become apparent in the event of an untimely emergency.

I can’t help but picture the following scenarios:

Hey Perpetual Rescue Woman, stay here with Dying Man That Doesn’t Have Enough Oxygen To Make It Out Of The Elevator Shaft. We can’t save him so maybe you could pray with him and you both will know you are riding the big elevator to the sky. Ba-Bye.

Hey Perpetual Rescue Woman, please stay here with my son. He is Obese Wheelchair Boy and there is no way we can both make it out. He’s tied me to that wheelchair long enough and I want to be free at last, free at last. I’ll tell everyone how brave you were today. Ba-Bye.

Hey Perpetual Rescue Woman, you like animals don’t you? I can tell because you have cat hair all over yourself. Don’t lie to me Perpetual Rescue Woman, I know you like animals. I’ve seen your blog. I’ve got cats to feed and a dog to let out so bend over, I can use your back as a ladder to safety. Ba-Bye.

Hey Perpetual Rescue Woman, you have six kids right? Cut the crap, I’ve read your blog and I know you’ve got six kids. Now stay here with my sextuplets and their big ass stroller. If the seven of you get out of here alive it will make a great blog post in the future. Look me up, my name is Doe. Jane Doe. Ba-Bye.

And this is why I take the stairs.

And I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

Two Dairy Queen spoons

A McDonald’s straw wrapper

Old french fries underneath my car seat

Three pieces of gum with the foil attached

Four Tic Tacs and one dryer sheet

 

The swim suit bottom my daughter had lost

When she was only a size 6 X

Four pencils

One pen

Two Lego men

A Tinker Toy and three K’NEX

 

Este Lauder Lipstick

Had melted real quick

Earthen Nude, Limited was the shade

Twenty dollars a pop, in a sweet little glop

Nothing left but the stain that it made

 

Nineteen Kleenex balls

Seven Tootsie Pop wraps

An Addidas sandal, navy blue

A Nike golf club

A parking lot stub

A dead wasp, no wait, make that two.

 

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta, 2010.01.29

Brace yourself for the sweetest homemade Valentine you’ve ever seen!

 

I told you so!

Directions are super easy.

1. Let your kid pick out what ever clothes they think make them look their best.

2. Print your Valentine message from your computer.

3. Have a super fun photo shoot!

4. Print out as many wallet size pictures you will need.

 

 

 

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta, 2010.01.22

I miss green.

I miss sweaty kids.

I miss being on the swing set.

(Don’t judge me, I like being on the swing set.)

 

And I miss letting my alpaca roam.

(Alright, I don’t have alpaca, but if I did this one would be my favorite.)

Remember when it was warm enough that you could

actually take your snake for a walk?

Yup, I miss green.

 

What do you miss?

Friday Foto Fiesta Friday, 2010.01.15

During late November’s warm-ish spell, Travis took the rest of the kids to the sunny shores of Lake Michigan while his friend took pictures.  My two favorites are the ones on the bottom, their hand prints and a sand angel. Least favorite part is that when I told Trav to grab a hat, he grabbed a girl’s hat. I know, if I wouldn’t have said anything you wouldn’t have noticed.

 

 

If David Copperfield Were Incontinent*

* I wrote this late October, 2007. It has always been one of my favorites and today seemed like a great day to run it for all of you. At the time I wrote this DavidCopperfield (one word) was being investigated for allegedly sexually assaulting a young woman in his warehouse. Today, the investigation has been completed and you can read about it here or here.

It must really be horrible to be famous and have people wanting a chunk of you. I’ve always thought of David Copperfield as a well-groomed man of mystery. I also imagined that he would smell good when he wasn’t working. If he would smell good on the job you would be able to tell where he was going to be next and that would ruin the entire illusion. He would leave a fragrance trail that could expose the exact path he took to get from Point A to Point B.

I’ve got a really good sniffer myself. We’ve got a couple of cats and I can tell as soon as someone takes a leak in one of my VERY clean litter boxes. I am able to detect urine in a baby’s diaper within seconds after its appearance. Basically, if David Copperfield was incontinent I could totally destroy some of his phenomenal illusions.

So back to David Copperfield, which is one of those names where you always have to say the first and last names together every time he is referenced. He is not a David and he is not a Mr. Copperfield. But he is very much a David Copperfield, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, much like David Copperfield, I like stuff. I don’t have warehouses of stuff like he does, but because I don’t have a garage right now I do have a storage unit of stuff.

So the feds have been sifting through David Copperfield’s stuff because he is famous and somebody said something crappy about him. From what I have seen on CNN highlights, our international man of mystery has some way cool stuff. Much more cool than my stuff, but there is no way I would want the feds rifling through my stuff either! I would look suspicious for just about any crime they would want to pin on me. I would be a profiler’s easiest day at the office.

** Hmm, she’s got a decapitated Barbie doll. It appears to be one of the originals but why would she have a naked Barbie with chewed off fingers wrapped in one bag and the head wrapped in a totally separate bag?

** Hmm, here’s a monkey with it’s lips colored brighter red than the original lips were intended.

** Look at these baby dolls, they all have holes punched in the sides of their heads.

If a stranger looked at my stuff I would come across as a self-maiming baby-mutilator with mommy issues where in reality I am less colorful.

** Yeah, Barbie’s head is off. She’s almost fifty and her neck is shot.

** Sure, I tried to recolor my monkey’s mouth once its lips faded from me washing it’s little monkey face.

** Big deal, I tried to pierce my babies’ ears. Who hasn’t?

But peoples’ stuff in storage is private. If there is an investigation going on within David Copperfield’s warehouse I don’t think it is my business to be invited along in for the once over. If given the opportunity I would gawk and stare and tell my friends everything I saw, but I don’t think I should be given the opportunity in the first place. I love my friends dearly, but invite them into my storage unit for a look see? I don’t’ think so.

Stay strong, David Copperfield. I think it must really suck to be you right now. I’ve never been in the spotlight to the degree that you have been, in fact the closest I’ve ever come to a spotlight is the light that goes on when you open the refrigerator door. However, I have had my private life scattered around in a somewhat public manner and it is a miserable thing to have to go through and. I can appreciate the tremendous amount of stress that must be in your life right now. I have no words of wisdom to offer you except that this will pass. Perhaps once the authorities are done with your warehouse and you think there is faint urine odor where some chief of something may have whizzed on your biz, call me and I can help you determine the exact site of contamination.

 

An Open Letter to Tommy K

Dear Tom,

My staff informed me that you left a comment on this post and it needed to be addressed personally.

I remember it all. Even more than you do.

Roses on Valentine’s Day, always. Your smile made you look like a school boy but your bad ass silver Porsche said otherwise.

Lunches on Tuesday, yes. Remember when I showed up at your store, confessing everything and you thought you could fix it by making a confession of your own? Apples and oranges, Tommy. Apples and oranges.

Let me win in card games? No. But remember when I was encouraging you to institute the asterisk that became GFA?

Better yet, remember that one time I was really drunk? Sure you do, it was after a Rotary Christmas party and we were at the table with four other couples and I had a revelation … I clearly stated, “I am the only one at this table that hasn’t slept with Mary Jane.”

This was the same night I robbed Steve the Banker during Liar’s Dice. Depth Charge, baby. I don’t think I’ve played Liar’s Dice since that night but I can’t think about any game of dice without seeing Mary Jane clenching a quarter between her front teeth. Oooh, and before we had dinner do you remember when you twirled Lizzy Belle with so much enthusiasm she fell flat on her ass on the dance floor. Gotta love a live band. And you’ve got to love Lizzie. She popped right up, danced some more, and never skipped a beat of the song she was singing.

Of course, I remember our pact and I will always be your Care Bear, didn’t we just enter our third decade of friendship? And your Happy New Year’s message from Champ will never, ever be deleted from my cellphone. Can’t share it with anyone, but it’s too sweet to delete. In fact, I was just telling a friend about you a few days ago. Remember the time I asked you, “So what’s the point of anything happening in the woods if no one ever knows about it?” You said, what happens in the woods stays in the woods. My friend disagreed with you. Don’t make me choose between the two of you.

I know why you are here, Tom. This is about Elvis, isn’t it? It’s been a few years since you’ve sang Blue Christmas in my ear. You were so close, your whispered singing gave me goosebumps.  Your rendition of A Very Merry Karen Carpenter Christmas, not so much. And now Elvis just celebrated his if I would have been alive, I’d be seventy-five birthday. Time flies.

Remember when you bought the vintage Elvis book? You wrote a beautiful dedication in the front of the book, pretending you were Elvis revealing for the first time that I was LisaMarie’s sister.

And speaking of books, I know you want to borrow my book for Lizzie. Go ahead, she’s not going to read it anyway. You can borrow it and can make notes in the margins. Hell, use a highlighter if you must. I’ll consider your edits.

Welcome back.

 

 

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta, 2010.01.08

Monkey see, monkey do.

None of this is even my fault.

My friend Chris had this on his facebook page.

I think they found it when they were facebook stalking.

Nice going, Chris.

Let’s just hope none of them end up blind.

 

 

Now tell me what’s been going on in your home?

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta, 2010.01.01

I love a good deal. And even if I don’t need the item, well I still love a good deal. And I love decorating, not like a total over hauling of an entire room, just rotating my stuff makes me really happy.

Two years ago I picked up a set of three candle stick holder things at T.J. Maxx.Marked down after the holiday season, they were heavy metal with some greenery woven through, couple of frosted red berries, little bit of grapevine. I decorate largely in botanicals so I thought this would be a perfect fit with the rest of my holiday decorations.

My original plan was to use these along the fireplace mantel, which would be very unlike me.  I am a big fan of even numbers and symetrical settings so to plan on using three of these on my fireplace was a foreign thought, like a brain fart I guess.

And on a side note, brain farts are important. They must be released quickly. If allowed to build up the can cause shitty ideas.

Back to the story at hand. When I returned home with these Stellar Sale Price candle holders the bottom tripod was too wide to fit on the mantel, I hadn’t even thought of that little detail. I hadn’t imagine these suckers anywhere but above the fireplace.

I parked two of the candle holders on the dining room buffet. I’ll admit they looked unsteady on that tiled counter so I positioned a few metal birds in front for protection.

And I put the other three-legged candle holder in the dining room on the corner table.

Incidentally, the corner table serves no purpose other than to hold some fake fruit and the vintage sewing basket where we keep the rechargable batteries and battery rechargers.

At this point, I will let the pictures tell the story.

At some point, one of the resident idiots quickly and carelessly I went digging for a battery.

Never in my widest imagination did I anticipate a result like this:

What’s happening in your home ?

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta, 2009.12.18

At age five . . .

At age fifteen . . .

1. In your Phriday personal post, include a phavorite photograph (like how I did that?) and a brief description of why it is your phave. Anything at all works for me … one picture, more pictures, a video … even if you participate it another blogger’s Friday event you can double up as long as you link back to me within your post.

2. My advice is that you jump on board now bephore everyone in the nation gets involved and there are no mega-giga-y2k-bytes lepht phor you!

3. As always, if you have any questions or just want to chat about cats or kids or what I am going to do with the ten spare hours I now have every Phriday, you can contact me at candidcarrie at gmail dot com!

5. Try to remember to link back to me, if you don’t know how or would like some help, I’ll gladly assist you!

Let the Phestivities begin!

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