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.

Soccer, Summerfest, and Ben Franklin's Sex Life: Reasons why I feel old.

It is no secret that I enjoy the music of Rick Springfield and Pat Benatar.  I've documented my trips to Rick concerts many times in this blog, and last summer I was able to see Pat Benatar in concert for

the first time and had a blast.

So, when the world's largest music festival opened its doors last week (That's SUMMERFEST in Milwaukee, for those of you not in the know) you can bet I was going to go see one or both of them. Unfortunately, due to TERRIBLE scheduling on the part of the Summerfest planners, both 80's icons were playing on the same night at the same time...but on stages on opposite ends of the park from each other.

Sigh.

What to do, what to do?

Well, Father's Day rolled around a couple weeks ago and Hubby is not super easy to shop for.  He really doesn't collect much, unless you count records, and I haven't a CLUE what he doesn't have or what he wants. He reads a lot, and I've gotten him books, but he can only read so much and his "to read" shelf is overflowing.  He doesn't collect movies like I do.  So, I did what every good wife would do:  I got him Pat Benatar tickets. 

See, he's a bigger fan of hers than he is of Rick.  And, I had to purchase actual tickets because the stage she was playing actually had a reserved seating fee for only some of their acts. (Generally, if you pay the admission fee at the gate, any act playing on any stage is then free.  Seriously, if you haven't been to Summerfest, it's AMAZING.)  Since I didn't want to just leave it to chance that we'd get a seat I bought some.  But, in what I can only assume was a spasm of old age, I also bought ticket insurance.  You know...outdoor venues in Wisconsin are subject to Mother Nature's whims.

The concert was last night.  How was it, you might ask.

No idea.

We didn't go.

See, I did the Waukesha Farmer's Market on Saturday, selling my books and meeting readers in person. (LOVE doing that!)  Wisconsin has been trapped in some sort of Hell-inspired heat bubble since Thursday of last week. We can handle cold. But when it's 95 with a heat index of well over 100, we Wisconsin folk hide in our basements.  That's what I should have done on Saturday instead of working the Market because I got home and pretty much dealt with heat exhaustion the rest of the day.  (Fluffy girls don't do well in extreme heat.)

Yesterday Hubby and I got up, did brunch at the The Gingerbread House and church and then went home.  Looking at the weather predictions we were not just looking at hot and humid for the day...we were looking at some seriously stormy, tornado-y type weather.

And that's when Hubby turned to me and said, "So...how does that ticket insurance work?"

Yes, friends, Hubby and I bailed on seeing a favorite act because it was hot and the weather guys said it was going to storm. AND we had ticket insurance to cover us in case we didn't make the concert.

We are either getting OLD or we've developed common sense and I'm not sure I'm loving either of
those choices.

I mean, who wants to be known as a person with a lot of common sense?  Besides Benjamin Franklin, I mean.  (And he balanced common sense out with a ridiculously not-at-all-sensible sex life over in France.)  Everyone wants to be remembered as a free spirit who lived life to the fullest and moved
around the world on his or her own terms.

No one is going to remember you if you stayed home and didn't lose any money on the thing because you bought ticket insurance.

Everyone is going to think you're AWESOME (or stupid but still cool) if you brave the storm and ROCK OUT to some great 80's music while trees are being uprooted and cars are swirling around you in a cloud of dirt and wind.

Instead...Hubby and I took naps, watched some FIFA world cup, and then at night we saw "Twister" which was on TV.  This was all some time after all the worst of the weather passed over us.   Yep, we watched soccer and a movie that was on TV, not even one from my collection or one on a streaming service.

We watched an "edited for time and content" movie on TV like...OLD PEOPLE!

I mean, I make fun of my mother for stuff like this. Next thing you know I'll be calling the kids to come up and fix "the Netflix."

Although...Netflix hasn't been working well on my living room blu-ray player lately.

Kids?

Holding out for a (Anti) Hero.

Good morning everyone!

So last night Hubby and I were binge-watching a Showtime TV series on Netflix and I realized something fairly disturbing about our favorite series:  The heroes are actually the villains.

Going all the way back to my childhood I've loved a good hero.  It started with Randy Mantooth, TV's "Johnny Gage" on "Emergency!"  Now, Johnny was hardly perfect...and had 1970's television been a touch more graphic it's doubtful my parents would have allowed me to watch a show featuring a fireman who had a bed in the back of his personal vehicle.  That said, Johnny Gage was my first love, and my first hero.

Over the years I've come to realize I have a type:  Tall, dark, and heroic with just a touch of bad boy.  Tom Selleck, Mark Harmon, Scott Bakula were all my dreamboats through the 80's and into the 90's (and oh yes, I'm all over Mark Harmon and Scott Bakula on their NCIS shows on Tuesday...it's the highlight of my week).  All of this culminated with the ultimate hero (with just a touch of bad boy) David James Elliott as Harmon Rabb on JAG.

With the exception of NCIS, however, I I realize that the "hero ideal" is sort of...non existent in TV today.  Instead, we've replaced the slightly bad boy HERO with a completely decent BAD GUY.

Not sure what I'm talking about? Okay, let's look at just a couple of the biggest TV shows in the last decade:

Don Draper.  Tall, dark, handsome, rich.  Completely amoral.  Smoker-drinker-womanizer-complete jackwagon at work.  Oh, and let's not forget the whole stolen identity thing.

Walter White:  Family man. Endearing father.  Faithful husband.  Dedicated High school teacher.  Meth kingpin and murderer.

Dexter Morgan:  Mild mannered blood expert.  Family guy.  Devoted brother.  Crime fighter.  Serial killer.

Marty Byrde:  Husband, father, all around good guy played by the ultimate all around good guy, Jason Bateman.  Oh, but Marty is a mob money launderer who also, if memory serves, stole a strip club.









These are the TV shows I can't put down. These are the heroes, if you can call them that, that I'm cheering for.  Yes, I wanted Walter White to make the "good meth" and I'm cheering for Dexter to slaughter people because he only kills the really deserving.  And I want Marty to succeed in laundering all the money he's hidden in the walls of the resort he also sort of stole.  And as for Don Draper, well, yes, he must drink all the Scotch and sleep with all the women so he can be brilliant and save the ad campaign.  

Sing it, Bonnie.

What has happened to our heroes?  When did we decide evil criminals were the guys we were going to cheer for?  Does the right motivation truly cover a multitude of sins?  It must, because I fill my TV time with hours up hours of just this kind of material.  

It can't just be about the lead being good looking.  I mean...let's face it, Bob Odenkirk is many things, but good looking he is not. Yet, when I sit down to watch "Better Call Saul" or "Breaking Bad" I'm truly cheering for this sleezeball lawyer to win at all costs.  (The same goes for Brian Cranston of "Breaking Bad".)  The key is that they are compelling and sincere, even at their worst. 

It doesn't hurt the antihero movement if the guy in question is good looking. I mean, Jon Hamm (Mad Men), yes please!  (Although if my husband started acting like Don Draper, I'd show him the door.  So I guess money and ridiculous good looks do count.  I'm not proud that I'm admitting that.  But I know I'm not alone.)


Where are the good guys?  Where is the balance to all of the dark-souled evil we see in so many male characters now?  Where is the 

Oh, wait...maybe we just don't want them....

Are we simply getting what we deserve?  Have we gravitated toward the "bad boy" side of heroes so far that we've lost the "hero" and just gotten the "bad boy?"



I would love to see another pure hero type all around good guy back on TV.  A nice guy who is just out to "put right what once went wrong."  You know, someone I could sort of fall in love with without feeling dirty.

(This one's currently fighting crime in New Orleans on Tuesday nights.)






Maybe I'll mount some kind of protest, you know, demand that TV bring back a true "knight in shining armor" kind of guy.  Demand that we walk away from hot criminal and celebrate the "good guys" who are truly "good."


Wait, what's that?

TABOO season 2 is coming out soon?  

Never mind...

Sarah stars in her own weird after school special.

Good evening!

It's been quite the couple of weeks here.  I released a new book:  Superhero in Superior, the second book in the Nora Hill Mysteries.  

I've been sick with some sort of mystery illness that makes it impossible for me to do anything other than drink Vernor's and binge watch BBC mini

series on Netflix between naps.

And last week I broke every fashion rule I've set for myself and those around me.

I bought purple leggings.

Here's how this went:  Because I've invited everyone in the world to more Partylite parties than I can count I get invited to a lot of in home parties. A LOT of parties.  

Seriously...I get invited A LOT.

It's a normal thing, I get it. I invite, people come, they shop, I benefit with free candle stuff. In turn, they have a party, they invite me and fully expect me to show up and shop so they can benefit.  It's how those in home parties work.  

So when an adorable daughter of a church friend of mine bounded up to me wearing THE MOST ADORABLE piano keys leggings, and invited me to a Lula roe party, how could I say no?  Besides, the young lady said, "It's fun clothes and I know you're fun, and you'll love these!"

How can I turn down an invite when I'm told I'm fun?  My kids don't tell me that.  Sometimes it's all about the ego!  

So last week Friday I headed off to the party.  Hubby came along because, well, my friend lives out in the country and I can never find the driveway in the dark.  We weren't alone. When we got there, it was clear that a lot of the women couldn't find the driveway in the dark, given how many husbands where in the dining room.

Lula roe, if you're not familiar, is an in home clothing company that is all about comfort.  With sizes for children as well as fluffy girls like me, I have to admit there was a lot of cute stuff there.  We walked around the various rooms of the house where the clothes were displayed, chatting with friends and acquaintances along the way. As in home parties go, this one was great!

Until...

"Sarah, aren't you going to get some cool leggings?"

Now, I can see how my church friends might think I'd be all in when it came to leggings with splashy flowers and prints.  I mean. I have pink hair.  How can I not get excited about loud clothes?

Regular readers will know, however, that my fashion rules for myself and others include this:  NO PANTS for adults should be any color other than black, blue, all shades of brown, and grey.  White is allowed only rarely and then only on women over 60.  And leggings should never, ever be worn as pants by anyone over the age of 9.

And yet, here I was.  after some cajoling, walking up the stairs to try on (and thereby breaking another fashion rule for myself, "Never try clothes on anywhere but at home") a pair of leggings that were ORANGE and had big, bright triangles all over.

Worse yet, I put the leggings on, put on a long gray top, and emerged to model for my friends.  (Breaking yet another rule, "Don't model clothes for anyone but Hubby and Peaches and if they say it looks good wear it.")

From the base of the stairs, all the women in the room cheered!  "They look SO CUTE ON YOU!"

(This from a group of women who, by the way, did NOT buy any leggings for themselves. Except for Kirsti, who looks fantastic in leggings and who can wear a maxi skirt upside down as a full on halter dress.   She's just awesome in fashion.)

I was unsure, and normally I would have called Peaches up to make me see sense.  But Peaches was working. So I had Hubby look at them.  All he said was, "I like orange, but I don't like big patterns."

Okay, I put the leggings away. But then....

"How about these? The pattern's not that big!"  

Purple, with yellow flowers.

I tried them on. Everyone cheered about how cute they were.  Ever the people pleaser, I bought them.

I got home and the next morning I explained to Peaches about the party and the leggings.

"Mom, you bought leggings?  For yourself?"

I showed them to her.

"Oh mom...you're not eight."

(This is funny because when she's shows me clothes I say, "Oh Peaches, you're not 22."  I've been saying this since she was 12.)

And so, I decided I had to return the leggings. I couldn't were them, I'd never get the idea out of my head that I looked like a second grader.

But, lucky me!  Kirsti asked about the leggings Monday at choir rehearsal. I told her my issues.  She said she wanted to buy them from me. After a bit of friendly haggling over Face Book this week we agreed on a price and tonight I will be, once again, legging-less.

The moral of the story, kids, is that peer pressure is a real thing.  Those after school specials told the truth! You have to be careful and be strong, otherwise you might find yourself owning a pair of purple leggings.  That or, you know, you'll have a drinking problem or start smoking or something.  It's all peer pressure.  

The cruel thing is, Kirsti is going to wear them and look like a super model in them.

But she's got normal colored hair, so it's a trade off, I guess.

Meanwhile, enjoy your weekend. I'm off to do a craft fair where I will be signing and selling Superhero in Superior.  Stop on by....10025 W. North Avenue, Wauwatosa. Saturday, November 19, 10-2  Our Redeemer Lutheran Church. I

I'll be the one with pink hair and regular pants.

And then there was this conversation with my mother...

Good evening!

I'm taking a break from watching my beloved Green Bay Packers lose because...well, I can't bear to watch them lose.  But also because I have one announcement and one funny thing to tell you this week.   First the funny thing, because this is why you read this blog, right?

My good friend Marie described our generation as the "sandwich" generation. You know, kids are still home, and now you have to start taking care of your parents?  Well, I thought to myself, this is true for Marie.  Her son is in college but still living at home and her mother lives near her but Marie stops in several times a week.  Now, my kids are still home, that's true, but my parents are healthy and living in their own home a blissful 30 minutes from my house.  (Close enough to visit on a regular basis, but too far away to just drop in without calling first.)

Ah, be careful what you think your life is because God has a magnificent sense of humor.

Thursday night I got this text from my mother:

Mom S.:  We can't get net flick.

(She has a flip phone and getting the words all correct is a lot for her.)

Me:  Pull the cord out of the back of the blu-ray player and then plug it back in.

Mom S. :  We don't have a blu-ray player.

Me:  Yes you do.

Mom S.: No we don't.

At this point I dial her number because texting her takes too long.  "Mom," says I. "You have a blu-ray player. I bought it for you for Christmas two years ago when we also started your subscription to Netflix."

"No, we don't have a blu-ray player. We have a VCR/DVD player combo TV downstairs. That's where we watch most of our movies and such."

Clearly both the blu-ray player and the subscription to Netflix are not being used to their capacity.

"Mom, you have a blu-ray player.  Hubby connected it the week before Christmas two years ago.  We had to get it so you could get Netflix."

"Well we've never used a blu-ray player.  We just turn on the TV and Netflix is there."

It's at this point that I realize something that could only happen to my parents  (you didn't think I came by this magical life by accident did you) is happening.  "Mom, go get Dad."

I hear her yell for him downstairs.  My father, since his retirement, all but lives in the basement. My mother has no idea what he does down there, and it bugs her.  I suggested she ask him.  She said she didn't want to disturb him. Then I, in a moment of unbridled snark, suggested he was watching porn.  She, of course, pooh-poohed this. I mean, of COURSE he's not.  But still...it's a joke worth carrying around a while, especially since she complains that she doesn't know what he's doing but she refuses to ask him.

Anyway....

As I listen to my father stomp up the stairs I tell my mother to look at her TV set up.  I say, "What do you see?"

"The TV.  The Direct TV Box...and oh....there's a little box right there!"

"MA!  That's the blu-ray player!"

"Donny!  Look at this! We had a blu-ray player!"

"We don't have a blu-ray player!"

Then I hear them mumble some sort of disagreement.  When that breaks up my mother says, "But there's no place to put a DVD or a blu-ray."

"MA...you have to open it with the remote."

"We don't have a remote."

"Yes, you do.  Go check on the table by dad's chair."  I know full well they have several remotes on that table.

"Oh yes, here we go.  But it's not working."

"Are you pushing the eject button?"

"Yes."

At this point Hubby has arrived home. Now I would normally just drive up there and fix this myself, but given how technology NOT INCLINED my parents are, there's a good chance they've done something to their WiFi in the process of trying to get Netflix to work, so I know I'm going to need him.

As I'm explaining the situation to him, I hear laughing on the other end of the phone. It's my mother.  "We figured out why the remote won't work!"

"Let me guess...no batteries?"

"Right!"

As we drive the 30 minutes to their house, hubby and I decide that they knew, at one time, about the blu-ray and that they removed the batteries, probably to put in some other remote because Hubby set that thing up to WORK batteries and all.

When we get there it takes us about four minutes to sort out the problem. Apparently, for the last two years my parents have had the blu-ray player ON and so yes, when they turned on the TV they had the option of Netflix.  But at some point all good technology must hiccup and thus theirs did.  Had they been aware of their player, they could have simply unplugged it and plugged it back in I could have eaten dinner at a normal hour.

While Hubby is sorting through the pile of remotes on my dad's table, and instructing him which ones to throw out, I'm resetting my parent's Netflix password because, my mother, several months ago, forgot the password and CALLED Netflix to change it.  (First of all...called? ) Then she wrote the new password down and forgot where she put it.

I introduced her to the "forgot password?" button.

Now, my mother's reasoning for this complete lack of...I don't know, what do you call it when you completely forget you own a piece of equipment that's sitting six inches beneath the TV you watch every day?...is that her life is so busy with stuff.  Then she read a list of things she "HAD" to do the month after we gave her the blu-ray player.  (Now, first of all, she was able to put together that list in the 30 minutes it took us to drive up there, but she didn't remember she HAD the thing in the first place?  I see a problem in priorities.)

That started a big argument between her and my father about why he takes naps during the day. Hey, he's retired.  He should be able to eat when he wants to and sleep when he wants to. He's not the one who bogged his schedule down with church and social activities, most of which involve driving someone to a doctor's appointment.  (Seriously, her whole list of stuff for one week was driving half a dozen people I barely know to appointments.)  I suggested that he be allowed to stay up all night if he wanted to and sleep all day. It's what I would do.

My mother said, "NO!  It's annoying!"

I said, "To whom?"

She said, "TO ME!"

Okay then.

With the password updated...and written down...and the useless remotes tossed and the blu-ray player fully functioning, we got in our car and headed home.  On the way home I told Hubby about my secret book of passwords, a book I use to keep track because I swear I need a password for everything.  I also informed him that when we are retired (which will be about three months before we die of old age since given our current political and economic climate we'll never get to retire) I'm going to stay up all night if I want to and nap all day.  I do now, anyway.

And now the announcement!

Today I've released the second in my Nora Hill Mystery series:  Superhero in Superior in print form. Those of you who read things on devices will just have to wait one more week!  

I'm very excited about this book and where this series is going and I hope you enjoy it too!

When Chinese food attacks! (This counts as a Pilate's workout.)

This blog contains graphic depictions of bodily functions as they can only happen to me.  

You've been warned.


Good afternoon!

So Hubby headed out to see his folks this weekend.  Skippy had to work pretty much all weekend, and Peaches is having one last fun weekend with her friends before most of them go back to school out of town.

In short, I pretty much have a three day weekend with no one around.

Ahhhhhhh.

I should be writing.  I should be stringing words together like a mad woman.  But, of course, I'm not.  Instead, last night, I thought it would be a great idea to top off a day of basically crappy food with some take out Chinese food.  Peaches and I love Chinese food, so we order it whenever we can.  Last night I go sesame chicken. Not a dish I order often, because it's sort of pricey, but hey, I knew I would have leftovers, so really I was ordering enough food for a couple meals.

Anyway, after eating dinner, I was feeling a little...bloated.  Fluffy girls know this feeling.  It's that feeling you

get when you've been even more bad on your body than normal and you just really need to do something healthy.  So between binge watching episodes of "Parks and Recreation" I told Peaches to fold a load of laundry and I was going to walk around the block.

We don't live on a perfectly square block, so going around the block is actually a pretty decent walk, especially if you go right out of our driveway instead of left, because then everything is slightly uphill.  Feeling really like I needed to sweat out some of the fatty food I'd eaten, I went right.

I got to the end of the block and felt worse.  (Mostly because I was sweating and breathing heavy...I'm that fluffy.)  But something stirred in my gut.

I ignored the feeling because I was determined to do this walk and turning around was NOT an option.  But by the time I reached the end of the next block I realized the stirring in my gut was the first rumblings of an intestinal attack, the kind of complete clearance attack that is on a very short timer and will not be denied. 

At this point, I was pretty much halfway around the block, except I wasn't.  Turning around would be the shorter, and smarter walk, because continuing around the block meant at least double the distance.  But standing on the corner, trying to measure the amount of time I had before complete internal combustion, I just knew, I KNEW I had enough time.  Besides, I reasoned, if things really got bad, I could always cut through our backyard neighbor's yard, and get to our house.

So I turned the corner and started walking.  Another hundred feet and I realized that I'd sorely misjudged the amount of time I had before detonation.  But by this time I was at a point at the walk where that back yard short cut was closer than turning around and going back the other way.

The thing about battling a time release explosion like this is that you can't move quickly.  Running is RIGHT OUT....why?  Because so many of the lower body muscles are busy contracting to hold back the floodgates.  Short steps is about all anyone in this state can manage, short slow steps because anything as jarring as a quick pace will jolt loose the iron grip the rump muscles have on the internal muscles.  Those of you who have been in this position know exactly that I mean. 

So I traversed the next five hundred feet with slow, careful steps.  At this point I was sweating, but not from movement so much as from the tension I had to keep on every muscle in my body between my armpits and my knees.    I counted every step out loud.  (Counting steps tends to calm me and take my mind off the ache in my feet or knees.)  

There I am, walking stiffly, counting out loud, sweating.  Thank goodness I live in the suburbs where everyone is inside playing video games or binge watching Netflix.  There was not one single person outside.  I finally reached my back yard neighbor's driveway.  I was sixty feet from my own private bathroom.  (I should remind readers at this point that, yes, I probably could have knocked on some one's door...but as you all know I have issues about using other people's bathrooms.  Admitting to a complete stranger that I was in dire need of their bathroom...and also knowing they'd be unable to ignore the kind of Armageddon I knew I would produce once near a toilet, well, that was right out.)

I took a step onto the driveway and stopped.  That's when I remembered that these are the people who struck a deal with Hubby to grind out some stumps on the lot line and then split the cost, our portion being $200.  The day the stumps were ground out, neighbor dude handed Hubby a bill for $1000.  Hubby asked for a receipt.  We haven't spoken since.  In fact, this past spring, they put up a lovely privacy fence between our yards.  Not AROUND their yard...just between our yards.

Yeah, I didn't feel right about cutting through their yard, around their fence, no matter how urgent things were getting in my gut, which had moved into some sort of red zone churning furnace about to blow.

Nope, I was going to risk going the long way.  That involved basically going around another complete city block.  (I was really at the halfway point, and would have kicked myself for not turning back sooner except that particular motion would have released the floodgates.)

At the far end of the block I ran into people, adults, children, all who stared at me.  Oh yeah, I was some kind of sexy beast, sweaty, baby stepping, counting out loud, gritting my teeth, doing everything in my power to NOT create any motion near the middle part of my anatomy.  Finally I turned the last corner.  Six houses to my front door.  Head down, I moved as quickly as I dared, doing some horrible countdown at the edge of every yard.  (Six houses!  Five houses!  Four houses!)

The good news was that the front door was unlocked. Peaches finished her task and was patiently waiting for me to start up another episode of "Parks and Rec."  I said nothing to her, I couldn't.  Everything inside me was quickly turning to a hot semi liquid and I wasn't going to risk even a quick greeting because I simply did not have the muscle control to say, "Hello" and hold the hot lava brewing inside.

You'll be relieved, (I sure was) to know I made it.  Barely, but I made it and was able to expel the toxic Chinese food in an appropriate receptacle.  Better yet, I get to count this as a solid Pilate's workout.

Still, this experience simply reinforces my thought that going outside does no one any good.

Wait, what?  Give up Chinese food?  That's the lesson I'm supposed to learn?

Please. No. The lesson we learn here is that nothing good comes from going outside.