Maria broke her foot, the Cube went to Nashville, and Sarah was assaulted by her own bra.

Good evening!

It's been quite the week!

As some of you know, Hubby left last weekend on his annual trip to Colorado to see his sister and hike in the oxygen free air of the mountains.  As some of you also know, this two week span is generally when some sort of life changing, or disasterous,  thing happens at Bradley Manor.

Well, I was optimistic. I mean, Peaches is working, her classes at WCTC  started up again, and on weekends she's interning at Good Harvest Market where she is making wonderful things like gluten free vegan blonde brownies that taste AMAZING.  (Seriously, they are awesome!) Meanwhile, Skippy was spending Labor day weekend in the Twin Cities with friends, and then turning around and heading to Nashville with his lady to meet up with other friends for a few days.  (He's taking some well earned vaca time as a celebration of his promotion to driver manager who gets to hire AND fire drivers and conduct performance reviews at our local Toppers Pizza)

I, personally, had a number of projects involving the many plastic bins in our basement, and a very messy candle closet.  Plus, some of you know, I'm procrastinating on writing the fourth and final installment of my Nora Hill Mystery Series.

With all of this going on...how could any of us get into any sort of trouble?

Which is exactly what I told Hubby's buddy, Joachim, when he asked after us at Choir practice on Tuesday this past week.

"Everything is great," says I.  "I just had the best weekend and it's all smooth sailing."

And then, not 24 hours later...

See, here's what happened:  Skippy was getting ready to leave for his trip to Nashville. He'd loaded up his car, the faithful Maria, the red Ford, and was on his way to see his good friend Moxie before he left.  He pulled out of the driveway in the pouring rain (last week was BRUTAL for much of Wisconsin.) Three minutes later I receive the following text: 

Do you know why my wheel isn't straight?

There's something you should know about Skippy. He words things a bit differently from other people.  It's probably why he's a poet. (check out his third collection of modern poetry here)  So when the boy asks if I know about his wheel, he's not asking me to solve a mystery. He's telling me there's something wrong with his car and he thinks I'm the one who did it.

Well, I was the one who pulled the car out of the driveway an on to the front lawn Wednesday morning. I did do that.

Why did I pull the car onto the lawn?

Well, simple: we have four cars in the driveway. The last person in at night is NEVER the first person out in the morning, so we start every morning by pulling at least one car out of the driveway and putting it on the street. Except Wednesday was garbage day.  Normally Tuesday is, but with the holiday on Monday our pick up was delayed so Wednesday morning was garbage pick up and hubby doesn't like having a car parked on the street on garbage day so I put it on the lawn. Hubby would have done it differently, but he's in a different time zone.

My point is...I didn't do anything to Skippy's wheel.  Certainly not something that would make his car look like this: 

Fortunately, Skippy was just around the corner from our house. Also fortunately, I work from home.  

Unfortunately it was pouring rain (Like God was trying to empty heaven or something) and Maria was in the middle of traffic.  (Could have been worse, he could have been in Chicago.)

After several frantic texts and calls to Hubby (who is in charge of all things car related) and to my mother (to work out the logistics of getting my books and her art to this weekend's Waukesha Farmers' Market (Where we have a booth and where I sign and sell all of my books six months out of the year.)  poor Maria was loaded on to a flatbed tow truck and off to to shop.

Before that little bit of joy happened, however, we had to unload a few items from Maria, things Skippy planned to take on the trip, things that couldn't get well in the deluge. Skippy was already drenched and looking quite sad standing there holding his umbrella.  (I maintain that umbrella's are pointless, but we all have one.)  So, being the mom that I am, I took off my lovely new rain coat and wrapped it around the blankets and other items Skippy needed to keep dry and I moved them from his car to mine.

With Maria on the way to the shop, I took Skippy home where we then unloaded all my book stuff from my car (I keep it loaded with my Market stuff all summer).  We did this, again, in the pouring rain, and I have no rain coat on.  I was, as they say, soaked to the skin.

Skippy and I agreed he would take the Cube to Nashville. I had Hubby's car to drive if i needed it, since Hubby flew to Colorado, and there was always Peaches to help out in a pinch.  So, with everything settled, Skippy took the Cube and went to get gas.

I, in the meantime, went to change out of my wet clothes.  And here's where it gets funny.  (I know, you've been waiting for this.)

Being a bigger girl, I have issues with bra straps.  Apparently if you're a 46 anything, bra makes assume you also wear NFL linebacker shoulder pads and therefore need straps that are made to stay on the shoulders of a large man.  It's my middle that's fluffy, my shoulders are normal. So straps slip off all the time. Hence I recently purchased some "racer back" bras.  (This is the type with the X straps in the back.) I don't love them, but at least the straps don't fall down. (Rendering the whole point of wearing a support garment, you know, pointless.)

The particular bra I was wearing on this day was unlined. This meant there was no padding, no extra anything in there to make me more shapely or attractive. A couple of thin hammocks of satin and and X in the back and that was it.

Or so I thought.

In the privacy of my own EN SUITE (yeah, I watch "House Hunters") I removed my wet shirt and tossed it over the shower rod. now, we have a really long shower curtain, so I had to give the shirt a good heave ho to get it up over the rod.  I did the same with my bra.

And here's where my life goes sideways.

In giving my bra a heave, I missed the shower rod and the thing fell back, hitting me in the face. That's when I figured out that unlined didn't really mean no lining. What it mean was there was a mystery lining that expanded when wet. Like those swim diapers or a feminine punctuation pad.  (If you ever left one of those thing in your back pocket of your jeans and then tossed said jeans into the washer, you find out pretty quick one of two things 1) those pads are absorbent! 2) those pads have a breaking point and when they explode they release some sort of alien gel all over everything.  You'd think that would happen once and I'd check my pockets every single time from then on. You'd be wrong.)

Whatever the mystery stuff was inside the bra, it had expanded, making that garment heavier and thicker.  Like getting hit in the face with a satin covered swim diaper.

I swung again, a little harder, this time over shooting the shower rod completely, hitting the ceiling, and, again, getting hit in the face.

If you're thinking the third time was the charm, you'd be wrong.

After the fifth attempt to gracefully drape my foundation garment over my shower rod, and after getting hit in the face five times, I decided to opt for plan B.  I draped the thing over my hamper.  (I could have just taken it down to the laundry room I suppose. Funny, I didn't think of that until just this minute.)

How did it all turn out? Well, there's no bruising from my bra's assault on my face. Skippy and the Cube are having a great time in Nashville and due to return on Tuesday, and as for Maria, well, her foot got fixed. The guy at the shop said it was a broken right lower control arm and damaged axle.  (That's for Joachim and all of Hubby's other car buddies.)

The guy at the shop also said he'd never seen an arm just break like that, that he was amazed and surprised.  I said, "Well, Hubby's in Colorado. Stuff like this happens to us all the time."

Hubby comes back a week from today. I can't wait to see what adventures await the kids and me this week.  Or maybe we'll all just say home and watch "The Office" on Netflix.

Sarah goes out in public and we all know how this will end.

Hello everyone!

Whew!  It's been a while, I know.  And I'm still not quite ready to emerge from my NANOWRIMO fury.  I've got some 14000 words I have to come up with between now and next Sunday, and frankly, I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but it's going to happen!

Anyway, I have to share this with you because, well, why not?

Couple Sundays ago it was my birthday. Yes, I got older.  And make all the comments you want about fine wine...I got older. 

My b-day bash was held here...

One of my fantastic birthday presents was a trip up to Lambeau Field in Green Bay Wisconsin to watch my beloved Green Bay Packers take on the Philadelphia Eagles.  (For those of you who don't know, this is American Football.)  I was very excited because 1)  I love the Packers and 2)  I've never been to a game at Lambeau  Field.  (I know, how did I get to be this old...)  Granted, I was NOT excited about sitting outside on a cold November day, (and by cold I mean below 25F) but I was going to put on enough layers of clothing and it was going to be fine.

I had it all planned out. Two pairs of socks, one of them wool.  Snowboots. Long underwear, heavy jeans.  Long underwear, longsleeved shirt, light jacket, hooded sweatshirt, heavy coat.  Wool mittens, headscarf and ear muffs.  Yes, my legs were a little undercovered, but I figured it would be okay,

I'm ready!  Bring on the game!

since I was going to be jumping up and down plenty.

The minute we entered the concourse, I knew I was in trouble.  I was so cold...and we were forty-five minutes away from kickoff!  And that's why I now have a year's subscription to the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel...see, the guy there was giving away fleece blankets if you signed up for a six month subscription.  I wanted two blankets, one for my front and one for my back.  And thusly, I now get the Sunday and Wednesday paper...which promptly goes into the recycle bin because honestly who has time to read an actual newspaper?  But I got two nice blankets, so I was a bit happier about sitting on a metal bench with 76,000 of my new best friends.

Well, except for the woman behind me.  The woman who kept dropping her stupid mitten and then she tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I dropped my mitten."

Do you get how stiff and clumsy I was in all those layers?  Bending down to pick up a mitten and then reaching back to hand it to her involved shifting blankets and removing my own mittens.  I was about to go all Cheri Oteri on her and yell, "It's mine!  I keep this now!"

Shoes, mittens, whatever.  If you drop
it again, I'm keeping it!

I'm pretty proud of myself, I made it all the way to halftime without going inside.  Actually, it didn't matter because "Inside" meant the concourse, which was just as cold, if not worse, than the stadium itself.  But by the middle of halftime I was pretty frozen and besides, the call of nature was to the point where I couldn't ignore it.

And that, as my faithful readers know, is the whole point of why I took time out of NANOWRIMO to tell you this story.  Ah yes, Sarah has to use a public restroom.  What could possibly go wrong?

Oh let me count the ways!

First of all...remember the GROSSEST STORY I'VE EVER TOLD? (If not, click HERE and read it.  We'll wait.)

Anyway, so once again, my two least favorite things:  Using a public restroom and my female punctuation come into play. Now let's add multiple layers of clothing and stadium full of freezing cold and let's see what happens...

Halfway through halftime I knew I had to get into to restrooms. Not so much because I had to, you know, GO, because those who know me know I can make it many, many hours without using a restroom...but I was frozen solid and the only place that had heat was the restroom.  No problem, thinks I, I'll get into the bathroom and warm up in there for half an hour. It'll be great. 

No, no it won't be great, but it will make a great blog.

See, I wasn't actually expecting my punctuation to be so...forceful that day.  Ladies, you know we have the cycle within the cycle where you have days that are fine and then there are days where you should probably just put on plastic pants and lie perfectly still for about 9 hours.  And that commercial years ago where the woman stood up and looked horrified because, as the announcer shared with us, a woman's flow can increase 200 times when she stands up?  Yes, all true and oh yes, all happening to me right there in Lambeau Field.

Now a normal person in normal circumstances would simply hustle to the restroom and take care of things.  But I am not a normal person, and I was not in a normal circumstance.  I was, instead, in a very long line in a very cold concourse waiting to get into a very small restroom. Nope, there was no time saving clothing removal for any of us in that line.  I honestly believe the powers that be were purposefully blowing cold air on us.  Why I do not know, but it was way colder in the concourse than it was on my metal seat in the stadium.  So we're standing there, thirty of us, waiting outside in line to get into the restroom.

I finally get into the blissful restroom to wait in line there.  But at least it's warm.  So warm...so lovely...  I look around and I realize people are HURRYING.  WHY?  WHY IS EVERYONE IN A HURRY TO LEAVE HERE?

I actually said that out loud.  "Hey ladies,"  says I, "we can hear the game here, and it's warm, why don't we just stay here?" 

Yes, see, there are just days
a woman should not leave
the house.

The restroom attendant was NOT on board with that idea.  And she gave me the stink eye the rest of the time I was in there.

So okay, I'm not going to just camp out in the rest room and listen to the game as planned. Nope, I'm going to have to go through the motions of using the restroom.  And the problem with that is in the process of using the restroom, I'm going to dislodge certain punctuation protections that won't, and probably shouldn't be easily relodged.  My best hope was to just stack more protection on top of what I already had.  Which would amount to a mattress between my legs.  Which is attractive.

So I finally get into the stall and I would like nothing better than to strip down to my long underwear and just sit there for an hour.  But I'm not going to be that girl, the one the restroom attendant already has the stink eye on.  So I feel like I have to rush just like everyone else.  Which means I don't remove a lot of layers. Which means my reach isn't exactly as long as it might be without layers and layers of clothing.


I don't need to go further, because those of you who know where this is going, you're already choking on your coffee and those of you who don't know where this is going...well, go put a heavy coat on, and then try to use the toilet.  Good luck.
By the time I got out of the stall I'd given up any hope of hygiene.  I was sweaty, I was disheveled, but I was, hopefully, protected against a punctuation leak, what with the Temprepedic wedged between my underwear and my jeans..  I managed to kick my one coat across the floor  (The one layer I did remove.)  and I washed my hands.  Looking over my shoulder I saw women reapplying makeup. 

The PACK!  The PACK!

That was one of those moments when I realized I'll just never be what people think of as a beautiful girl.  I just won't. I can lose weight. I can learn to be more graceful.  I can even maybe curb my impulsive sense of humor. All that will take a mountain of work, but it's possible.  But here's the thing:  I'm one of those women that sort of put it together once a day and then it all deteriorates so that by the time we get up the next morning, we're something out of a freak show.  I'm not one of those people who can simply be remade in the mirror of a stadium bathroom.  I didn't even look in the mirror because I knew two of the following three things would be true:  1) portions of my hair would be standing straight up while other portions would be hopelessly flat and the only fix for that would be a complete wash and redo.  2)  The makeup I was wearing was long gone and it would require a complete redo of that...and possibly some added spackle for good measure, to reach any level beyond horror film. 3) given the amount of clothing I was wearing, what was happening from the neck up didn't matter because from the neck down I looked 70 pounds heavier than I actually am and honestly the only person attracted to me at that point would be the team from Biggest Loser trolling for contestants.  In short...watching the girl fluff her hair and reapply lip gloss, I knew it was pointless for me to try because I was at Quasimoto stage anyway. 

Self reflection is good...right?

Anyway, I did enjoy the game, cold and all. And the Packer won, which was great.  And, once home, hubby and I had a good laugh as we stripped off layers and layers of clothes and got clean and looked human again.

Great day, overall, great birthday.  And, of course, something to share with you!

Happy Thanksgiving my friends...and remember, be thankful for what you have, and be thankful you don't live the comedy that is my life!