Hi. You probably know me as hellohahanarf from my years of commenting around the world wide internetz, yet never having a blog. Well my friends, that has changed. Welcome to MY site.
My Mom used to save all kinds of stuff to give to me when we would get together again. Maybe magazine articles, feathers she found, little items she picked up in her travels, etc. Didn’t matter what the pile contained, Mom called it her A Drive. When we would get together the first thing she had to do was “dump her a drive” and give me everything, telling me about each item. It usually drove me nuts because there was fun to be had and dammit she was slowing us down. Now? Wellllll, I miss it desperately. Which, of course, means that I am now picking up where she left off…prepare to be dumped upon…
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The other day the fantastic Heather (Coal Miner’s Granddaughter) wrote a post about breast milk cheese and cooking with breast milk. Human breast milk. I kind of surprised myself when I realized that I wasn’t all that grossed out at the concept. Not really grossed out at all, actually.
So while washing the dishes (I don’t have a dishwasher, I *am* the dishwasher) my mind started off on its own. That is usually a dangerous thing, but I tend to do some of my best thinking while doing dishes or showering. Maybe it is the water, maybe it’s the solitude with no tv or music. Ount know. Point is I started thinking of stuff that grosses me out. The highest on the list? Someone else using my toothbrush or me using theirs. BLECH! Even if I were on Survivor and the gorgeous Colby Donaldson offered to share I would have to turn him down. I’d rather use a branch and gnaw on that for a bit than share a toothbrush. Just can’t handle the idea. (Although Colby, if you are reading, I’d fuck you even without the toothbrush…call me.)
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I read about a guy who is going to be in the hospital for a long time and how his friends are trying to get him lots of mail. Immediately I grabbed a card and had coworkers sign it, addressed it and dropped it in the mail. Over the coming weeks I plan on sending this dude all kinds of silly stuff. You should consider it, too. Read about it HERE.
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On a totally different note, soon I will be on a plane to drink myself into a gutter for the HHD (High Holy Day = St. Patrick’s Day). My early AM flight will have me hearing the crack of dawn the morning of the 17th, but I plan to sleep the whole way to Alabama. The completely awesome Kim (from Live at the 205) will pick me up at the airport and then Birmingham should just look out because we might drink our faces off. The next day, once we find our faces, we shall drive south to Florida. I’m really looking forward to the getaway. She is truly an amazing woman and rumor has it other bloggers will also be joining us. Should be terrific. BUT, I’m not taking my laptop so who knows if I will be able to post. Sure, she is bringing hers, and it is a coveted Apple(!), but since I don’t know how to work it you might not hear from me for a few days.
Also, I can’t find my bathing suit so please send names of nude beaches.
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So, my friend Earl posted a video that cracked me up. Seems his friend made it. They want others to see and enjoy. So here ya go:
And if you have a blog, maybe consider posting it?
I have no musical talent. We are talking *none* as in we are lucky that I can play a radio. Seriously. And I am cool with that.
Anyhow, last Saturday Fab and Turn took me to the UK – Florida game. After a little tailgating in bed and a little tailgating in the parking lot we were walking towards the football stadium when we heard the band. Perhaps it is because I can’t even bang on me drum all day, but I get all excited for marching bands. Just as they arrived in our general vicinity I had pushed made my way to the very front and whipped out my camera. Instead of paying attention to the photos I was clicking off I just danced along to the tunes.
After I returned home from Kentucky I got all the photos downloaded and took a moment to check them out. This one made me laugh out loud:
Since I have never been in a marching band, can anyone tell me why they make the members wear those awful hats with chinstraps that don’t keep the fuckers on?
And also, why don’t folks just use their hands to adjust a strap gone wild? Not like he was banging on his drum all day.
I am a computer moron. Seriously challenged when it comes to doing much more than powering the fucker on. This lovely little site that I adore so much is maintained by my Bloggy Godfather, Jester. Sometimes it is serviced by the wonderful Hilly (that sounded a little naughty, but I don’t think Hilly would mind). Recently the kind and patient LeSombre has even stepped in to lend a hand when hackers attacked.
So when my blog stopped sending its feed out naturally I freaked. Sure, it took me a damn week to notice the issue, but still, I was all about upset that September 3rd was the last time http://feeds.feedburner.com/MidnightCliff seemed to work. Seems it is now http://www.midnightcliff.com/?feed=rss2 (I think!).
ANYhow, this post is a test to see if the fucking thing works again. Jester did some magic juju and thinks it might have worked. If this showed up in your reader, would you please leave me a quick comment that says so? Thanks!
When I was in elementary school (maybe third grade?) I couldn’t ride a bicycle, yet I was sitting on my stepbrother’s bike in our front yard. For some reason I lifted up my feet and down the hill I went, into the neighbor’s yard. In an effort to not hit the huge bushes that were quickly approaching my face, I turned the handlebars and went down the steep hill towards the street. Right about the time I got to the three or four feet high wall that marked the end of the neighbor’s yard, I let go of the handlebars. Like a little scared Evel Knievel, I jumped the entire sidewalk and landed face first in the gutter. Lifted my head, looked down and saw my front tooth in a pool of blood. Picked that “adult” tooth up and raced up to find my Mom on the phone. Just held my bloody little hand out to show her my tooth.
Next thing I remember was the ride to the hospital. A neighbor had given me a bicycle reflector to hold out the window and told me to holler “Woooooooooooooo” out the window as though I were a siren. Dad was a cop so we broke all kinds of traffic laws getting my still gushing blood from my face self to see a doctor. All I remember is the laughter in the car as we drove. Everyone was making fun of me for not holding the icepack to my face. It was more fun to holler “Woooooooooooooooooooooo!” out the window.
For years after that I had a variation of a recurring dream that I was losing my teeth. Basic gist of the dream is that my teeth would crumble in my mouth, like melting sugar cubes. Finally, for Christmas 1993, my (now ex) boyfriend bought me a new front tooth. A real, grown up cap instead of the terrible fake front tooth I received all those years ago at the hospital. And the bad dreams stopped for a long time.
Turns out the life of a cap like I have is only about 10 years. Seeing as howI am waaaaaaaaay past that time frame, I don’t want the dreams to come back. My dentist never seemed to care that I should have replaced the cap and I don’t know why. He always brushed off my inquiries.
I have a new dentist now. Met him on Saturday. First appointment is on Tuesday evening. Cross your fingers that this guy is good and will take great care of my face. I’ve never been thrilled with my smile and I would like to change that. Even if it means that he will have to do a root canal on me before replacing my front tooth. You know me, I’ll keep you posted.
Small aside…although I mentioned never being happy with my smile, it is mostly my fault seeing as how the parents invested in braces for me while I was in high school. Unfortunately I was unsatisfied with the not instant change and hated the pain so I took wire cutters and pliers to the braces. Popped those fuckers off myself. One would think that I would have stuck with the braces to build a better smile. I have never been incredibly logical about simple stuff, eh?
Huge aside…think the number of times I smacked my head as a child might be the reason I took this photo and called it art?
New Bond flick is out today. Don’t care how crappy the reviews are, I need to be there tonight. Love me some Bond.
I’m back from Charleston. Had a great time. Of course I miss my drinking buddies and my friends, but my liver is thankful to be back in the Burgh. My dogs are glad I am back as well.
Remind me to tell you about grabbing some stranger’s butt in a bar and how that turned out. hehe
For those who have blogs that I have ignored for over a week, I’ll be around this weekend. You are still loved. xoxo
I am home. Ten days was a long ass time to be away. Fortunately I was able to pick up the dogs before the kennel closed so all three of us are snuggled up on my couch. They are good little nursemaids and I feel better already, just being home.
There are 430 posts sitting in my feed reader. Instead of reading them or unpacking, I am going to enjoy doing not a damn thing. Trying to get rest. Folks seem to always give me shit about the fact that I don’t know how to rest. (So not true. If there is one thing that I can do it is sleep. Problem is there is just so much fun stuff going on. Sigh.)
Hi. I safely arrived in Vegas Friday early evening. The Denver trade show was a smashing success and I am trying desperately to get caught up from that show as well as prepare for this one. Which means I am more than swamped. And exhausted.
So of course it would be NOW that the stilettos of the deliciously devilish Dutch Bitch would decide to pimp me out. Of course her sending folks over here is appreciated (BIG TIME), but I am so not prepared. Nuttin funny to say, no great photos to post, whole lotta no time to post. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Hopefully after a decent night’s sleep I will be able to post. Really post, not some fly by “Hi” before I pass the hell out. Just as I am about to do now. More soon.
In yesterday’s post I mentioned playing a card game that makes me all kinds of happy. Guts really is much easier to learn while sitting at the table with a bunch of people, but I figured I could sort of try to explain it here.
Each player puts the agreed upon bet into the center of the table to start the pot. (We always play with one dollar, but you could use one quarter, five dollars, paper clips, bottle caps, wooden nickels, scraps of paper, whatever you want. The pot gets really big really fast, so be careful what you agree to be the bet. We just use dollar bills.) One person shuffles a single deck of cards and then deals each player three cards. For the sake of argument we will say that there are ten players.
Winning hands are based on poker hands. Three of a kind is the best hand possible. No straights, no flushes. Just three of a kind, a pair and high card, where Ace is high. Really simple. Which is a good thing at 5 AM when I have consumed more beer than should be humanly possible for a girl.
After everyone looks at their cards, the person to the left of the dealer either says they are “in” (wanting to continue play, thinking their hand could be a winner), says they are “folding” or “out” (knowing their cards stand no chance of winning and they don’t want to be responsible for more money on a losing hand) or “knocks” (saying they aren’t sure if they are in or out and want to see what others do). If every player at the table knocks or folds the cards are collected and given to the new dealer (the person to the left of the original dealer) to shuffle, every player puts another dollar into the pot, the cards are dealt and everything starts again. (Assuming it was a dollar to play, the pot for the second round would be twenty dollars in this example.)
However, if at least one person is in, everyone who knocked is asked one more time if they are in. They can either go in or out, there are no other options. If two or more people are in, those people turn their cards face up and the player with the best hand takes the pot. A new round begins at this time by having the losers of the previous round match the pot and all other players simply putting in one dollar to be a part of the new round. If only one person is in they do not have to show their cards, they take the entire pot and the game is officially over. A new game begins with every player putting one dollar into the pot and players wishing to join may do so at this time. (New players can’t jump in during any round except the first one.)
Example time! Round one has ten players who each put in a dollar. Cards are dealt and everyone knocks. New dealer shuffles and deals while everyone puts their dollar bills into the pot, increasing it to $20. Round two has four players who are in. One person wins and takes the $20 pot and the three losers match the pot (put in $20 each to the new pot), all players who were out place only a dollar into the pot and round one’s winner does not need to pay to enter round two. Round three would now have a pot of $66. If, in round three, three people stay in, the winner will take the $66 while the two losing hands match the pot and the seven players who folded their hands buck up. Round four now starts with a pot of $139. Assuming that again three people stay in, the fucker who won would take the pot, the two losers match the pot, the seven chickenshits buck up and the pot for round five would be $285.
It is right about here that I either go (proverbial) balls to the wall and stay in or total chickenshit and fold. Drunk girl learned the hard way that having to pay over $250 for a stupid mistake sucked. Fucking misleading pair of Queens. Next night I got smarter, quit wearing my emotions on my sleeve and cleaned house. Won back much, much more than I had lost. It was great.
The game gets more fun the more sleep deprived the group gets. Imagine exhausted people who have played cards for two nights in a row. The third night the players have had next to no sleep, barely any food, have a bunch of beer in their bellies and get a little cocky. First round, without looking at their cards, they throw them into the center of the table, hollering, “Imma innz!” One person takes the ten bucks and eight assholes have to put ten bucks each into the pot. Round two starts with $81 and again half the table doesn’t look at their cards, instead slurring, “Any of you pussies got guts?” Seven people have to add $81 to the pot and then the mind screwing begins. Looking at a pair of aces with a king high, I still don’t know if I should risk $569 in the even that one of my drunken friends has three fours. Bluffing is out the window at this point, they know I won’t go in for such a huge amount unless I have decent cards. The guy with three fours hesitates and folds. I WIN!! Yay, Guts! Yay for calling my potential customers pussies!
Click HERE for the rules according to Wikipedia. I probably should have searched for that link before typing this all out.
I just want to start with a gigantic thank you to the lovely Sybil Law for this:
Way cool of Sybil to bestow such an award on me. Thanks, pretty lady! I’m looking forward to drinking entirely too much with you. Soon! Even if you do like Cincinnati football coz you are related to a cheerleader, Sybil you are more than alright.
Speaking of Bungles cheerleaders, I sorta got in a fight with them last year at a trade show. A company hired several to smile and sign autographs on the show floor. I was walking around towards the end of the first day, cold bottle of water in my Steelers beer coozie, looking for a friend who worked at the same company who hired the cheerleaders. Ignoring the women, I asked for the friend. Someone asked if I wanted to get my photo taken with the cheerleaders and I laughed out loud, recovered and said, “No thank you.”
Seems they didn’t appreciate my gut reaction to not care about them. They had the audacity to start babbling some crap about the Steelers coozie in my hand and kept trying to give me crap because Pittsburgh doesn’t have cheerleaders. I whipped around and barked something along the lines of, “We don’t need cheerleaders because we can actually play football, bitch. Steelers are four and one, how are those Bungles of yours? Try one and four. Yeah, you wanna talk football or short skirts?”
The guys kept me away from the Cincinnati cheerleaders after that.
