The other day I posted a poem that I first read in high school. It has been on my mind a bit since then, mostly because of the one line:
Did you look for a rose
Or just gather a weed?
I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I do, in fact, gather weeds. But not the way the poem makes them out to be negative things. Quite the contrary, I find certain weeds incredibly positive. Specifically dandelions.
Yes, dandelions. I think they are beautiful. Simple and pretty. Yet just because they are hearty and desire to grow anywhere people hate them. If they were fragile and rare, people would lovingly care for them in greenhouses. Instead the dandelion is sprayed with poison and cursed.
When I first bought my little house I did what I thought was the right thing and hired a company to come spread chemicals on my grass in order to make it green and lush. Towards the end of the first year of monthly chemicals my grass was gorgeous. I called the company to make a payment over the phone and I happened to mention to the lady on the phone that my “boys” (boys = dogs) were already out rolling around and playing on the grass. She got very nervous and asked if they were wearing shoes. Of course I could honestly answer no and I was immediately told that I shouldn’t let my children play shoeless on the grass.
Well what the fuck? I can’t put shoes on my dogs. And what about my beloved robins…those happy little hunters who were eating worms right out of my gorgeous grass? Was I accidentally poisoning my dogs and favorite birds? Fuck that. I canceled that company’s services right there on the spot. Keep your fucking chemicals, bring on the brown spots and weeds.
It was a little while after that when I realized that I actually prefer my yard to have dandelions. Dandelions are welcome at my home. They remind me to be tenacious, to bloom wherever the hell I want, regardless of what others think. Some might call dandelions weeds, but I call them flowers. I have a collection of small bud vases and in the summer I will actually pick dandelions from my yard and bring their sunshiney happiness inside, just the way I did as a child, before someone told me they were weeds and pests.
Actually, I have a little of their brightness inside all year long. This watercolor hangs in my kitchen, on the door:
So do me a favor. Next time before you get angry when you see a dandelion in your yard, ask yourself why it bothers you so. Ask yourself what is so wrong with a small flower fighting to survive and show you the color of the sun. Try to see the beauty in the simpleness of the dandelion.
I just ask that you pause to consider beauty in a manner that is slightly nontraditional. After you take that moment, I won’t be terribly upset if you don’t see my sweet little sunshine in the same way I do, but I will truly appreciate that you gave the dandelion a chance.
Today I wore a tank top under a sweatshirt and jeans to work. (Yay for casual winters!) Getting dressed took practically no time at all, which was a good thing because I was running late as usual. When I run late it really isn’t much different than when I am on time…I don’t spend a lot of time fussing in front of the mirror. So long as my teeth are brushed and I am wearing deodorant, so long as I remembered to put on pants and shoes, I’m content enough to head out the door. So this morning was no different and out the door I went.
Around 9:30 it started to get pretty damn hot at my desk (our HVAC unit is the worst) so I unzipped the black hooded Maker’s Mark sweatshirt rather low without even thinking because I always have a tank top or t-shirt under hoodies.
About an hour later I looked down. Damn, my boobs looked great. Turns out the tank top was a Yummy Tummy brand tank and it pushed the ole girls together in all the right ways. Later in the afternoon I realized I had been distracted all damn day by my boobs. I don’t know how you men do it when beautiful breasts are around. Honestly!
Anyhow, I sent a message out on Twitter that said something about being distracted by my boobs. Instantly I had a few replies about sending a picture to TwitPic or saving a good picture for HNT. One of the folks who replied was Marty and I told him I was pretty much done with HNT, but he could guest post for me. Didn’t take too much before I received an email…
Your HNT needs some boobies, even if they are covered up by coconuts. :-)
It cracked me up that so many people immediately think of HNT when I mention my boobs. I figured what the hell, I’ll try to capture an image like nothing I have ever posted before. Thought it might be cool to show the view I was having when I looked down all day. Problem is my Blackberry was oh so not cooperative. It just wasn’t doing the view justice. So I snapped a photo like you are accustomed to seeing:
Nothing too out there, but still a little flashback to my HNT days. If you want to see folks revealing a lot more, head over to where it all started and check out the comments. Happy day!
Tuesday after work I went on a photo hunt. Through OLD albums. See, a wonderful invisible internet friend, Kristy, started a fun little site called Promtacular! and she’s eagerly accepting everyone’s prom pictures. Of course I found a massive amount of non-prom pictures, but only two that were taken on prom night and neither is with my actual date. (So yeah, sorry that you have to wait a little longer, Kristy. I’ll find em, dammit.) Regardless, if you have those fantastic prom pictures that you wanna share with the internet, please upload them to the site. Also? Check out Promtacular! (Some funny stuff.)
But back to me. I started thinking about high school and all the angst, drama and hormones. Even dealing with it all I remember being a fairly happy individual. Sure there were days that the parents did something parental that I didn’t agree with (translation: I didn’t get my way) and I cried as though I lost my favorite puppy, but for the most part my days were filled with happiness. Going through those photos a piece of paper slipped out. I am pretty sure Zwehla wrote the wonderful little poem out for me, but it might have been Lia. (Let’s be honest, I have killed *many* a brain cell over the years and does it really matter who did the scribing?) There is no name written down on the paper so I have no clue who the actual author is.
Somehow I have managed to keep this well over 20 years. The paper isn’t as white as it used to be, but I love it all the same. Hope you enjoy…
Have you made someone happy
Or made someone sad
What have you done with the day that you had?
God gave it to you
To do what you would
Did you do what was wicked
Or do something good?
Did you hand out a smile
Or just give a frown
Did you lift someone up
Or push someone down?
Did you lighten some load
Or some progress impede
Did you look for a rose
Or just gather a weed?
What did you do with your Beautiful day
God gave it to you
Did you throw it away?
The words came rushing back and I practically spoke them out loud from memory, yet I was reading a paper I haven’t seen in years. And tonight that simple little scrap of paper made me smile knowing that even in high school I was trying to look for the good in the situation. I don’t always succeed, but yay for reminding myself to lift someone up instead of pushing them down.
Happy Wednesday, internet. Hope your day is tremendous.
A friend wanted to go to the museum and I was oh so excited to join her. LOVE This town’s museums. Pittsburgh is truly blessed to have had Andrew Carnegie love this place enough to present to us quality museums. His gifts to the city bring me great joy. (Say “great joy” out loud. Does it make you smile the way I do EVERY time I say it?)
This trip was a quick one, though. The gold medal hockey game started at three so we picked the top “must sees” and wasted no time getting to them. (I know, I know…it was like picking your favorite child or meal: damn difficult.) We saw the “new” dinosaurs, the whale exhibit from New Zealand, the Egypt exhibit, the birds, the North American mammals, the Hall of Sculptures and the Hall of Architecture and Casts. I’ll have more photos later, but I wanted to show you something.
Yes, I went to the museum and what am I sharing with you? A photo of my red hair that no one believes is redder than before. You have to be able to see it in that photo, right?
And yes, I was totally horizontal on the floor of the Hall of Sculpture. The ceiling is cool and I was trying to get a decent photo. Finn would have walked away with spectacular images. Me? I failed. Exhibit A:
Failure Exhibit B: 
All the photographers of the world breathe a sigh of relief that I am not out to take their jobs. Yeah, I know I suck, but at least I have fun with it. Like laying on my belly and taking this shot:
Photo might not be great, but damn did I enjoy taking all of these from the floor, even if my friends did think I was crazy, laying there and taking pictures of myself. And perhaps giggling a bit.
I colored my hair Tuesday night. The guy who does the coloring, I call him “The Hedge” is good, fast, great fun and reasonably priced. I love going to see him and I used to HATE, like crazy white hot passion hate, going to get my hair cut or colored. The coloring started the month I turned 30 when someone let us three drunk women loose in Wal-Mart. All that tequila impacted our thinking and I woke up a redhead (as opposed to my natural light brown, blonde, red mix). I liked it so I decided to keep it. These days it hides a bunch of silver hair so there is that added bonus as well.
Anyhow, back to the other night. I sent the most unflattering photo up to Twitter while the color was still on. Several folks wanted to see after photos. My Blackberry took a way crappy photo and shot it up to Twitter. A few people didn’t think it looked any redder than I normally take it. So I tried to take a few more. Proplem was it was a rather brutal day at the office, I’m exhausted and only have a little mascara on so these photos are ROUGH. But for you, gentle readers, I’m posting them anyhow. (Even if I am wishing I had photoshop to somehow make me look better in em.)
Can you see the red now?
Maybe closer? 
Closer? 
Fuck. Why am I posting these again? Hit publish before I change my mind…
I usually carry a Swiss Army knife in my purse. Another is in my makeup bag (such a joke since I rarely wear make up, but that doesn’t stop me from packing up that fucker and schlepping it along when I travel). My SUV’s glove box has one hell of a utility knife.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not into cutting or bleeding or whatever people do to harm themselves. I just like to have a knife handy. Whether a box needs to be opened, fake tattoos simply must be cut apart, my Volvo’s air compressor belt must be immediately removed because I’m alone in bumper to bumper traffic and the fucking compressor seized up causing my little car to smoke while bouncing and bucking, a package of those Cheese on Wheat cracker thingies simply must be opened without braking a fingernail and opened right the fuck now, whatever…it is just so often handy to have a sharp knife around.
Especially if the knife is cute. While Christmas shopping in 2008 I found the cutest little knife made out of a bullet. Just a little thirty-aught-six (.30-06) with a single small blade that folds out. Cute, unique and only like $11 or something equally budget friendly considering it was a Christmas present from me, to me. It travels with me in my make up case and has really come in handy when I am in a hotel room and need a sharp object. Look, sometimes I just don’t want to break a nail and a knife opens things quickly. I realize these are not personal protection devices, I just find them helpful. And cute.
Seriously. How cute is this: 
Adorable!
ANYhow, back in January I was in an adorable little shop, the very same one where I bought the bullet knife actually, when I found an equally affordable lipstick knife. Oh yes, a small blade concealed in a lipstick container. (And get this…the blade twists up like lipstick would. Awesome!) Perfect for me since I don’t wear lipstick and won’t confuse it in a dark movie theater or anything. Thing is, everyone who sees it thinks I am crazy for owning it and even crazier for carrying it. Like somehow I am double crazy because of this little thing:
Wait, here it is opened: 
Dammit, that was all kinds of blurry. Let’s try that again:
Fuck it, I’ll never get the hang of my little Nikon CoolPix P4. And honestly, the images aren’t the point of this post. The point is I am wondering if you guys think I am crazy because I carry this little thing in my purse. So, do ya?
P.S. I just realized that in the link to Dave2’s site I’m also wearing red nail polish. Let’s not make fun of me for only wearing red nail polish, k? Especially since in his photo I was wearing “I’m Not Really a Waitress” and in all of these here I have on “An Affair in Red Square” (both by OPI, but completely different colors. No, really they are.). Maybe I shouldn’t put this post script and no one would even notice the nails but me. Hmmmm. Ah, fuck it…it is already typed.
Rumor has it that Pittsburgh isn’t done with winter. Phil was correct in his shadow prediction, the calendar is right and winter is planning to throw some more snow and brrrrrr chilly wind gusts at us. And I’m cool with that. I mean, it isn’t even St. Patrick’s Day (all bow your heads for a second in appreciation of the High Holy Day) yet. Sure, we aren’t really dug out from the last snow, but fuck it, let’s add a bit more to the winter most of us will never forget.
Although the awesome guy who colors my hair (I call him the Hedge) told me the Farmer’s Almanac says we are going to get one hell of a storm around the 6th or 7th of March…more snow than we have ever seen. As I was driving home tonight I started thinking about the Almanac. It is something I never read so maybe this is a simple answer, but is it geographical or just for the entire country? I mean, maybe that huge snow is gonna be in Montana or Maine or something. Ount know. Regardless, I have the Sam’s Club toilet paper bundle so I’ll be safe if I get snowed in for a few days. And really, who can’t use another day off from work?
~~~~~~~~~~~
On a totally different note, I COOKED THE OTHER DAY! Go me!
Saturday K forced me to join her in the adventure that is the new Market District grocery store out at Settler’s Ridge. I’m not a fan of the joint. Put all the fucking crackers together, quit having them in three locations so I have to go through your stupid store several times. Assholes.
As I was saying, we were at the grocery store and I just got this crazy idea that I would use my crock pot thingie. After the brand new, still in the box crock pot was ruined in the flood of 2004 that took most of my shit I made sure to buy another one. Five years later and that bitch was still in her box, sitting in the basement. Well dammit, I was about to change that. Yes, the woman who doesn’t cook at all was going to feed herself something other than chips and salsa with Kraft American cheese slices. Whooooooooooo!
I had no idea how to buy a roast to K picked one out. She also had to pick out the potatoes and the garlic. Seriously, I live under a rock. Thankfully the Chinese guy and the Italian guy know how to deliver food to me. How did I not starve before now?
So last night I threw more carrots and onions than a one pound roast could possibly need into the crock pot. A few garlic cloves and some leftover garlic pesto dressing from Mad Mex went in as well, along with a bunch of potatoes and some broth. All spice and pepper. Cook on low overnight.
Except I woke up at 2 AM ravenously hungry. Now I know why people cook that shit when they are at work. Damn! Good news is I survived and packed it up for lunch. My coworkers all ohhhhh’d and ahhhhhhhhhh’d over the fact that I cooked. All around fun.
So my first attempt at cooking red meat was ok. Next time will involve more seasonings, but I was afraid to be heavy handed. Actually, next time will probably involve chicken since I actually like chicken, but still, I am all about happy with me and my crock pot adventure.
Please note that this post would have had a photo, but when I accidentally sent it to TwitPic instead of myself a few people thought a carrot looked like a penis so I pulled it from this post.
Oh hell, who am I kidding? If I read a blog who pulled a photo I would ask for it. So here ya are:
Looking back through my drafts folder kinda made me giggle. Wonder why I never wrote more or why I never published this, my favorite draft:
Love this…
On Dasher! On Dancer! On Vodka and Tonic! On Whiskey! On Bourbon! On Sloe Gin and Mixer!
This daughter of a teacher turned nurse and her k-9 cop husband wasn’t brought up with a lot of money, but we were happy so I never coveted material things. I don’t make a lot of money and I am ok with that. As a single woman I have my own home that I share with two of the world’s most loving and kind dogs, a SUV that goes in the snow (and two cars that I don’t run at all) and a job that has kept me happy for a little over 11 years now.
That being said, I do love nice things. So I’ll save when there is something large I desire to acquire or a trip I want to take. I’ll do without some stuff in order to secure other things. Credit cards were cut up back when I was in my 20’s so I am not tempted to over indulge on fun stuff. (And we all know how much I *love* the fun stuff!)
But here’s the thing…in between when I splurge, I love tricking myself into thinking I am spoiling me, even when really am not. Thursday I went grocery shopping at lunch and picked up something I don’t think I have ever purchased before. While I really like cucumbers in salads, I don’t make salad at home so I never really had a need to buy cucumbers. So why now? To slice and float in water, like they do in the fancy spas.
Oh yeah bitches, my home is now a spa.
Well, in my head it is. I loved the way I felt in Cabo San Lucas after my massage when I sat in the spa, sipping cool cucumber water. Sitting on my couch with a huge cold glass of the slightly flavored water makes me feel indulgent, when it literally cost pennies to have the feeling of the high life. (Lots of folks ask me how I can almost always be happy. Some people think I am fooling myself, pretending to be someone I am not. Personally, I feel like I just choose to enjoy the little “good things” in life instead of concentrating on the stuff that I don’t have.)
Happy Monday. Now go find the little things that make you feel like you have all the money you could ever want or need, even while you live on a budget. And tell me about them…
Fuck my life is fantastic.
Fuck my life is fabulous.
Fuck my life is fun.
Yeah, I don’t get the “FML” folks who want to seriously complain about their lives. Life is just too short and too precious to harp on the negative. Life is truly comical. And there is all kinds of sun stuff around you, you just need to know where to look.
I haven’t posted in entirely too long and what brings me out of hibernation? Meeting a porn star’s husband. No shit. Well, that is not entirely why I am here posting. I’m avoiding running the suck machine and putting away the clean laundry I did. Those always send me searching for better stuff to do.
Today at lunch a coworker and I ran errands together. A stop at the grocery store and me joking with the produce guy had her making fun of me for talking to anyone and saying trips with me were never boring. Then the same coworker and I hit the hotel bar close to work for happy hour. (Dude, $3 glasses of chardonnay certainly make my hour happy. Wheeeeeeeee!)
Anyhow, we were laughing and having a great time. An attractive regular bought us each a drink and we WAHOO’d as though it were a $14 cocktail (he’s bought me plenty of those over the years, too…great guy). As we were preparing to leave we struck up a conversation with the adorable guy at the end of the bar who had been on his lappytop the entire time.
Turns out his wife is a porn sta (her site HERE, their reality site is still in development), in town filming a few things. He races motorcross and we got to talking about the sex industry, sports and websites. Cool conversation with a really nice guy. I gave him my blog business card with my ass on the back. Seemed fitting.
Whole point of this post is to say that I really enjoyed talking to the produce guy for a brief moment (the smile on his face was priceless) and the motorcross racing husband of a porn star, each for different reasons. They both made me smile. They both made me laugh.
And really, isn’t laughter what it is all about?
Happy Half Nekkid Thursday. I’ve missed you, Internet.
xoxo
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