International Falls

The Daily Journal, our newspaper in International Falls, has a column called "Looking Back". They post news items from older Daily Journals from 10 years ago, 25 years ago, etc.

One day I was browsing through it, and found the following "News" item about my dad:

"Walter Hexum has been hired by the International Falls School Board to be junior high locker room attendant."


You heard it here first!

My teenage car accident story

When I was 15, my friends Krista and Maija and I went to the beach. On the way home, Krista got a little over-zealous on one of the gravel road curves. She lost control and we ended up in a swamp. Fortunately, we didn't roll; I have no idea how we did not. Water slowly seeped into the car. We were screaming like teenage girls as it covered our feet, then our ankles, our knees and so on. Scary! Maija had trouble getting her seat belt off. If we had been upside down in a roll situation, she may have died. But -- all's well that ends well, am I right? (Too soon?)

I don't know if I've ever told anybody this (who am I kidding?), but since I was already wet, and waist deep in the swamp while we were escaping the wreckage of the sinking car... I peed.

Krista had a box of tampons in the back pocket of one of the front seats. Somehow, in the confusion, the tampons escaped and we found them floating near the car on the surface of the murky water. We had to get help. But, we couldn't just leave the tampons. So, naturally, we found the best plan was to shove them -- one by one -- under the car. Perfect solution, huh?

But, when the tow truck came and pulled the car out... you guessed it, one thousand tampons floating EVERYWHERE.

Good Ol' Brian Hartman

I saw Brian Hartman tonight at my work going away party. He is my friend Tammy's husband, and I used to work with him about 12 years ago. One time we were playing "Best Ball" golf at a work function, which means that everybody plays, but you just advance to the furthest ball hit and go from there. Of course my ball was never the 'best', and so we always had to pick up my ball on the way to the best one. Since we were in a golf cart, Brian convinced me that, in the interest of saving time he would just drive next to the ball and I could lean out of the cart and just grab it. So I complied. I grabbed onto the rollbar with my left hand, crouched down low, and prepped myself to grab the ball with my right hand. Brian must have counted on all of this, because just as I had my hand all the way to the ground, ready to impress him with my on-the-go golf ball grabbing skills, he YANKED the steering wheel to the left and I went a-tumblin'.

'Ha Ha Kady, the joke's on you', he must have thought, but as he looked over his shoulder to see his horrible trick come to fruition, he noticed that I looked as if I was going to pull out of it. I somehow landed on my feet, and tried to run as fast as humanly possible to stay upright. When he tells the story, he explained at that moment that he was actually rooting for me, and for a while it looked like I would just run right out of the situation. But of course, the inertia of having been so rudely tossed out of a golf cart caught up to me and I took a tumbler. A 'header' as he describes. And he laughed and laughed.

I agreed that it would have been funny, if it hadn't been me.

Tonight I reminded him of this story and we laughed again. And then, as he left, he said, "Well, see ya, have fun on your trip, blog me or something."

That same day, (on the golf course) I had to go to the bathroom really really really bad. There were no port-a-potties anywhere near, so I made an executive decision to go in the woods. I had it in my head that if I could just find a fallen tree, I could sit on it, like a toilet and go to the bathroom that way. So, I found a fallen tree. I didn't realize until I sat on it that it was actually more like a twig than a tree, and of course it snapped right out from under my naked butt. Unfortunately this fallen "tree" was chosen also because of it's choice location on a downward slope. My logic was that the pee would run downhill, backwards away from me. Anyway, when I fell, I fell backwards. And continued falling backwards, in a sommersaulting motion, all the way down the hill. Peeing all the way.

Allowance

My family managed an apartment building when I was growing up, in exchange for free rent in a 3 bedroom/1 bathroom townhome. There were 8 of us. But I digress. We also got paid for things like painting between tenants and such. Our duties included cleaning the common areas in the buildings, mowing and shoveling, collecting rent, etc. And my dad ran a tight ship. I rememeber being very tiny and picking up litter like cigarette butts to keep the grounds nice and clean. This place was huge too, it took days to mow the lawn. Once it was finished, it was time to start up again. And the shoveling. It pains me to think of the miles and miles of sidewalks that needed clearing, at ungodly early hours in the morning.

One day when I was like 7 or 8, an old man found me shoveling sidewalks. He was surprised at how little I was, and exclaimed, "I hope you're getting paid for this!"

"Yes, TWO dollars." I answered. He must have decided that really wasn't worth it.

Misreading his reaction, I added, "Yep! And I get it EVERY MONTH!"

This was after our family meeting where mom and dad sat us all down at the dinner table and explained that we were about to start receiving allowance. Imagine our excitement! No longer performing slave labor, but actually being compensated for our hard work! Kim was to receive $30 per month, Keri $25, and on down the line, ending with me and Kasey receiving $2 each. "But," dad continued, "Kim, you'll pay the electricity bill. Keri, you'll pay the water bill," etc. I swear you could actually hear the sound of our hearts being crushed.



Now THAT'S good parenting.

Today

So, I had this amazing precursor to unemployment today. I woke up at 9ish. (No different than any other day to be honest). But what came next gave me this amazing taste of what it might be like to *not* have a job. I had a 'To Do' list on the fridge, that contained the following:

• Fold laundry
• Make brownies
• Make bars
• Brine Chicken
• Clean house
• Lay around
• Watch movies

By noon, I could already cross off 'Fold laundry' and 'clean house'. I made bars and brownies around 3pm~ish. I definitely layed around and watched movies...but the amazing part was that I got to watch TV. Namely Judge Alex. A graphic designer from Florida somewhere designed cards, envelopes, etc for a motivational speaker who agreed to a $700 price tag. He didn't end up paying her of course, which was the reason for the lawsuit. But the interesting thing was that she put him on something like "rippedoff.com" and posted that he hadn't paid his bill. Once he googled himself and saw that he was on that website, he sent a lot of nasty f-word-laden emails to her, which of course were then posted on the website also. He claimed that he had lost $100,000 in income, because he was cancelled by 35 speaking engagements at $3500 a piece. He was countersuing for $5000. (Probably the max in small claims court.) I guess I sort of want my motivational speakers to pay their bills. He lost. Anyway! Then I watched Giada, and she made this amazing goat cheese/ricotta cheese with lemon zest and basil dip and crostini bread. Yum. After that there was a TLC special on people who won the lottery, you know the smart ones who don't blow the money? This woman on there bought herself a used Cadillac Escalade when she won $18.2 million. It made me cry.

After that I had this natural high of getting lots of stuff done and so I opened the front door, and I had to push it hard to get it open, due to the FOOT of snow that we got last night. I yelled, "MARRRRRYY CHRISSSSSSSSSSSSSsmas!!!" to no one, which is funny and ironic in MY mind, because I don't celebrate Christmas. But then when I realized that my neighbor across the street was shoveling her steps, and was now looking at me, I got embarrassed, and then yelled, a little more softly this time, just to her: "isn't this crazy?" and gestured to the snow. She not only did not reply, but just turned right back to the shoveling of her steps. Crabby.

Oh, and one of the movies I watched was Up. I haven't cried that hard at a movie in a long time. Spoiler: He saves the bird.

A very special Thanks to Darin Heller, co-owner of the company I work for until next Thursday, for suggesting that we should probably close the office today due to the impending snowstorm. Usually I think it's him that insists that we always stay open, so yay for him.

I Think I'm Ready for that Baby Now, Ryan Gosling

I had to send my nephew Murphy to school one day, and here is the email I sent his teacher:

Anne, Murphy doesn't have his backpack because I was unable to get into his house this morning.  I sent him with my backpack. (I threw in some underwear and fresh socks/flip flops just in case.)  That dress he is wearing is not a dress.  In fact it's my sweatshirt.  It is acting as a coat, as I forgot to grab his.  He doesn't have to wear that huge thing all day if he wants to take it off.

The blank piece of paper in the backpack was supposed to be a note to you, but I had no pen.

Signed,

Super responsible Kady Hexum




What's with the face Ryan Gosling?  I'm serious.

A Dream I Had

I had this dream about a friend of mine, and emailed her (still going through old emails):



So, you and all your sisters had on nude nylons, the ones that are actually like brown and you had open-toed shoes on. So I pulled you aside and I said, "K:, I'm sorry but you know, that's not really in fashion to be wearing nude nylons with open-toed shoes." and you said, "Yes but we do it because we don't make rules." And I said, "I understand all of that. But you know if you're going to insist on wearing nude nylons you should at least just wear closed-toed shoes." And then suddenly a monster awakened in you and you got really angry and you started marching towards me with your two thumbs in the shape of somebody going to pinch a zit. And then you said, "If you're going to insist on being so rude as to tell me how to dress, I'm going to pinch that god awful zit you've had on your forehead for the last three days and we'll be rid of it finally!!!"

Another Miles funny

AcornA
french head
with a beret
small brain inside
squirrel scoots along
Uh-oh
by-bye world
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Munch! Munch! Munch!
MMMM!


Miles Hanson12-21-09

Miles Murphy and Miyo

This picture is classic, and illustrates perfectly the relationship between Murphy and Miyo:

Remember the story of Miles, yelling to Kasey from his bedroom that he shares with Murphy? And finally she went in there and was like, "WHAT?!" Then Miles said,

"Murphy's acting like 8 monkeys with 7 bananas!"

Going through Old Emails 2

Again, from J.:


I nearly had a heart attack a few minutes ago...

On my way to the college, I passed a pond as I walked trough Loring Park. I had my sights set on Starbucks and was oblivious to my surroundings. Suddenly there was a fluttering around my head and I felt this scratch and peck on my head! I flailed my arms wildly, and crouched down to get away from my attacker. When I looked up, I saw this little Red Winged Black Bird sitting on a reed.

I thought of Hitchcock's "The Birds" and got the heck out of there!

Going through Old Emails

This came from my friend J.:


This morning on my way to work, I decided I needed to know what time it was. As I approached the stop sign at the end of my street I quickly glanced in my rear view mirror and saw no one behind me. So I decided to dig through my bag for my watch while I sat at the stop sign.

I then realized it had been days since I had applied lip balm, so I rummaged in my bag for Burt's, found it, and started to put some on without looking up around me. Out of my peripheral vision I see a car to my left. Evidently the driver had pulled up behind me, and then decided to go around. I looked up and made eye contact with this guy while holding a tube of lip balm. He glared at me as if to say, "what the H-E-double-hockey-sticks are you doing?!"

Ode to me

From an old pal:

She's not much to look at, this friend of mine,
kind of ugly and fat, much like a swine.
Her legs are like Jell-O, her hair is like hay,
she looks like someone you'd see at an Old Country Buffet.
Her teeth are as yellow as the bright morning sun,
her skin is a pale as a snow flake bun.
She is as wide as she is tall,
she's not very big but she sure ain't small.
Your eyes will tremble with pity and fear,
As you see this grotesque sight coming near.
But let me assure you she's a harmless lady,
She's my friend, and I love her, Her name is Kady.

Expired, Schmexpired

When cleaning out my house in preparation for my trip, in other words trying to compact the contents of a 4 bedroom home into one neat little back pack, I realized that I have a hard time "letting go". This can clearly be seen in the medications I hang onto for no apparent reason. I do not have allergies. However, every time I travel, I bring along the same Wal-Dryl capsules that I have had for one hundred years "just in case". Expiration date? 3/04. Meaning they were probably manufactured sometime in the 20th century. Since I don't have allergies, it's even more unclear why I have a single Zyrtec tablet, packaged in a 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" aluminum foil cartridge. Expiration date? Sep 06. My drawers are filled with Acyclovir cream that went bad in June of 2001, HomeBest's generic version of Antifungal Cream which "Cures Most Athlete's Foot!", expiration date: 10/05. The weird thing? I've never had Athlete's Foot. Also, I wonder if I'll ever need this unopened Monistat Vulvar Cream that went bad in April of 2007, or the Claritin Hives Relief, expired in August of 2005? The worst part is that I have moved these medications from several apartments and now finally they reside, unused, in the drawers and cabinets of my home.

The only medication around here that seems to still be good is the Chewable Lactaid, which expires August 2010, but is of no use to me, since I am quite lactose TOLERANT.

I don't think I ever actually purchased any of these items, and yet I feel the need to keep them on hand in case my non-existant allergies act up, or if I ever get a tummy ache from milk, which will never happen. "Just throw them away!", you might say...I can't. Something is wrong with me. Am I a hoarder?

Yo Yo Afrikka

Tonight the most amazing thing happened. Beata made pizza dough at my house. The only ingredients that I had were some old flour that I had in the freezer from last time I moved 7 years ago, salt, oregano, olive oil and water. No rolling pin? No problem. Use a glass from the cupboard. I guess that's how they do in Africa. I was SO impressed. Then we basically cleaned out the fridge and made the most amazing pizza you've ever tasted, with cracker crisp crust. YUM. We had artichoke hearts, olives, mushrooms, cheese, spinach, vodka and tonic. Well, she had already taken out the glass...

Then, a funny thing happened when Beata and Summer realized they were wearing the exact. same. socks.

The other thing that happened today is that Summer and I cleaned out my basement of enough trash to fill my Minneapolis-sized garbage container and then some. It looks pretty good down there, and made me feel so much better about the fact that I'm leaving in two months.

Did I mention I quit my job and am going to travel for a year? Well now that the cat's out of the bag...my last day of work is December 31st. I can't believe I actually quit. I have worked at my company for 9.5 years...and with most of my coworkers for 12. But the truth is my heart has always sort of ached for travel, and now I'm going to do it full time. So, very soon this blog will be less about my exciting Minneapolis life of making pizzas with friends who wear the same socks and more about exploring the world and visiting friends in other countries, who make sure that they don't show up to the same pizza making event in the same socks. Hopefully, anyway. How embarrassing.

Working out with the Intern

I don't really like to work out alone. I don't want to walk ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE PARKING LOT to my Lifetime Fitness and so when my regular work-out buddy Felicia couldn't make it to the gym today I was a little depressed because I knew that meant I wouldn't go either. But I'm fat right now and I'm going to Mexico in about a month, so I casually asked the hot, young, 23 year old college-graduate intern that I have been sexually harrassing for the past 6 months if he had a membership to Lifetime, knowing full well that he did. "I'm going at 3pm," he said, and so of course I told him I was going with him. I also told him I'm a social exerciser and need somebody to at least walk over to Lifetime with me. I agreed to work out on the treadmills.

We walked over and when I got out of the changing room, he was already running, with a quarter-of-a-mile on the display at a pace of 8 mph. I walked for about 5 minutes and then casually sped up my machine until we were stomping, right. left. right. left. at the same pace. Depressingly I realized that my machine was only at 5.6 mph to his 8. These darn short legs! We ran "together" for about a half mile on my machine and then he left to go 'lift'. Lift. Doesn't that sound amazing and gorgeous? I saw that he had run 1.38 miles on his machine. In his absence, I ended up run/walking because it's been a while since I have run, and so I was glad when he came back by for a drink of water, I was on my short little run section of the run/walk.

"You really picked up the pace!", (6mph) he mentioned and then walked toward the water fountain. Thank you for noticing...and thank goodness he hadn't come by 10 seconds earlier, as I was on the 2.8mph walk that lasted about 8 minutes. When I finally reached 2 miles (30 minutes), he asked if I wanted to do an Ab Set.

"YES PLEASE", I answered, not really knowing what that was, but it sounded romantic. And it was. Until we did side planks, me facing the wall and him facing my clenched, shaking butt. Wonder if he'll want to work out tomorrow?

Tom Liden, Fox9 News

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eiG5FCYJ8k

Cleaning up the front closet

So for some reason when the man who brings the phone books by, I don't immediately recycle them like a reasonable person. Instead I throw them in a pile up on the shelf in my front closet. Tonight, at Summer's behest, I took them all down and brought them out for recycling. Here are SEVEN years' worth of Minneapolis/St. Paul phone books. I brought one of them down, ONCE, to look up a phone number. It was my dad's cousin, Selvyn Meland of Lakeville. We found his home number. Other than that these books have been completely useless to me in the past.

And then I found a NorthFace coat that I insisted Summer use while reading meters outside. Right now she's using her dad's unwarm sweatshirt to walk 9 miles per day in 20 below weather. She tried it on. With the neon green vest. We decided it makes her look like a morbidly obese sumo wrestler and then the bright idea to sit on the pile of discarded useless phone books naturally came up.

"Does this coat make me look fat?"

Keep your phones close

I got the following text from sweet little Teri:

"Sometimes I like to dress up in trucker gear, call myself Duke Nukem, spit chew at imports, and ask where the restroom is at cuz I gotta rip a growler."


Turns out her brother-in-law steals her phone and sends mass texts, supposedly from her. Not her.

Ramona Day

I probably haven't mentioned this on my blog yet, but Beata and Nancy and I started a band about 2 months ago. It all started at a party that Ben was having at his place and Nancy slipped down to the basement to practice the drums. Beata and I went looking for her and then sort of just played all the boys' instruments and right then and there, that first night, we wrote two songs. They were awesome, and so are we. So we've been practicing every weekend and now we have five songs. Originals. Make that four and a half songs. The 5th song is sort of in process right now, but it's coming along. anyway I think it's pretty awesome that we have already made T-shirts. Actually, Nancy made the T-shirts in her Print Media class. So because we got together and wrote two songs the first night, somebody was making a joke like, "what, no more songs?" and I was like, "Rome wasn't built in a day." And then we named the band Rome in a Day, but spelled Roman A Day, because we are AWESOME. And then Shawn and summer convinced Nancy and I that Ramona Day is cuter, and we went with it, but couldn't get a hold of Beata for her opinion, and then suddenly the T-shirts were already made. And that is the history of my band. Nancy plays drums and guitar and sings, Beata plays guitar and drums and I play bass and sing.

Suck it.

That's pretty rock star, right? How I said, "Suck it"?

Text Received from S.

I received the following in a text from my very good friend "S.":


When I got up this morning I saw my loofah has mysteriously unraveled.

"Dad, What happened to my loofah?"

"It unraveled."

"Have you been using it?"

"Yeah, I always use it."

"DAD!!! THAT'S NOT SOMETHING THAT YOU SHARE!!"

My new favorite website

Ashley hipped me to an overheard in Minneapolis website.
click here for more HILARITY

Preteen girl #1 coming out of Harry Potter: That was waaaay better than Twilight.
Preteen girl #2: Yeah, Twilight was like eating poop and Harry Potter was like eating gummy bears!

Snowy day

So some people were snowed out this morning...(thus the comment about the closet and the sweats).

Here's what it looked like at my place:















Sorry Summer...if you're going to borrow my camera, you risk showing up on the blog. In your hat and thrift store boots.

...Overheard at the Office today

"Were you snowed out of your closet?"



~coworker to my boss, who wore sweatpants, a sweatshirt and UGG boots to work.

Overheard From Summer N. Grimes

"What if you hated Mexico and Mexicans? You would be racist."

This makes me Miss my Mom

This is my mom's fantastic easy breakfast. Do yourself a huge favor and make this immediately:




Start a fry pan going with some olive oil and saute:

Carrots
Celery
Garlic
Mushrooms
Whatever other veggies you want, just start the carrots first, they take the longest. You can get them started while you chop all the rest up.

In that order, and when it's all sort of nice and sauteed, cover completely with lots of fresh spinach. Then crack four to six eggs on top of the spinach layer and spread fresh chopped parsley on top of that. Cover and fry on low for around 10 minutes~ish (or until the eggs are cooked.)

That's the vegetarian version...she makes it with deer sausage on the very bottom, which is fantastic but I don't have any deer sausage because my mom and dad forgot to SHARE some with me. Hint Hint.

Overheard at Girls' Night...

One time, a friend's friend's mom went to Europe. She didn't want to pack lots of underwear. You know, to save space. So her brilliant idea was to pack two pairs of underwear and a bunch of pads. Then just wear the pads and throw them away and keep recycling the underwear. I know.

Anyways, because she was past menopause, she hadn't worn a pad for years, and didn't realize that you need to remove the sticker to expose the adhesive backing and then stick it to your underwear. She just placed it there. And so, while on a museum walking tour, her pad of course worked its way down her leg, and out the bottom. She kicked it, hoping no one would notice. But the tour guide did, and he said, "is that your pad?". "No", she said, and then he said, "yes it is, I saw you kick it out of your pant leg."

Burt's Bees

My good friend J. and I went out last night and I found myself, oddly, without Chapstick. I never go anywhere without it because I am addicted and so my lips were all dry. I knew I had a tube in the car, but that was a block and a half away and it was freezing out. "Ask J.", you might say. Well, J. doesn't share Chapstick. I know this. I don't agree with her stance, and I think she's crazy, but yet I accept it because I love her. But I need Chapstick. Bad. So instead I say, "J., I know you don't share Chapstick. Perhaps we could find an alternative solution, because I'm dying, so like would you allow a dab on my finger? Can we roll it all the way up and I'll take some off the sides?"

Well J. wasn't sure those options would work for her and so in her infinite kindness, she said, "I'll tell you what, you can just have this tube because I don't really like it anyway, and then you can shut up about your dry lips already." (She didn't really say that). But she did give me the Chapstick. It's the Honey Burt's Bees. I have to agree that it's not very good. There's this weird after taste to it. Despite that, I felt really bad about taking it. But that didn't stop me from applying it 6,000 times slowly last night in front of J. and rubbing it in that now it was mine and due to her phobia she was going to be the one with chapped lips. Then we got the conversation going about how Honey really isn't very good. And it's not. At all.

Here's another one that sucks. It makes your lips all white. Lifeguard's Choice:

J. said that she will apply her regular Beeswax Burt's Bees all day long and it just feels so smooth and luxurious on her lips and so the act of applying it becomes pretty cathartic. I agreed.

I think that the Pomegranate is the absolute best, but I feel like it's only for a special treat and I purposely don't buy it all the time to keep it special. One time I had a party and the door gift was Pomegranite Burt's Bees. I thought I was going to have about 20 guests and so I bought 20 tubes of it, for $60. When I left Target I had a panic attack because I had just spent $60 on CHAPSTICK. But it's good stuff and everybody was happy to get not one but two tubes because I didn't have the turn out that I expected. And then I forgot to keep one for myself and that's all I wanted was just one for myself. But listen, this stuff tastes SO good and it's the best best best Chapstick in the whole world.

In the end, while I was applying the Honey Burt's Bees for the hundredth time to make J. jealous, and by this time her lips were super dry, so I got her to take some off the sides of the roled up tube. And you should have seen her face. Like she was doing something really bad, but she liked it.

This is only a Test

Last night, some friends and I stayed out WAY too late and as a result Summer and I crashed at my place somewhere around 4am. (I know, I know, I'm not 19 anymore. Summer's just been in Vermont for what seems like forever and nobody wanted the night to end.) I forgot my keys and so I had to go and get the spare out of the garage. During this time I noticed another car on my street. "Hmmm...That's funny". Then the car got closer to my place and as I was opening the door with the spare and Summer went in ahead of me, two men RAN through my yard within 20 feet of us to the neighbor's house and I panicked. I screamed, and then hurried into the house and shut and locked the door. With the key still in the lock on the outside. "Hey rapers! Come on in! Here's the key!"

Summer and I got really shaken up and we were looking out all of the windows and I even went out to the front steps and yelled "HEY!" into the yard to see if they would reappear. The point of the story is that now that I have slept on it, I think they were innocently distributing those annoying flyers that I get on my door every day. This was only a test. Should it have been a real emergency I would be dead.

Old Roommates

I was just reminded of a story about an old roommate...the one who said "gotiate" instead of negotiate, "taminated" instead of contaminated, and "seya" phone instead of cellular phone. One morning she said she felt as if I "belitter" her, instead of belittle. "Lungs" instead of Lunds, and she spelled Ryan's name Ronnie...what a laugh a minute that girl was.

So anyways, one day I was down in the laundry room, and moving my white bed sheets from the washing machine into the dryer. As I reached into the machine for the last items, I found an unidentified black item. "No big deal," I thought...the sheets didn't appear to show signs of color from a black item...but before I threw said unidentified black object into the dryer I kind of looked closer to find out exactly what it was. As I looked closer, I recognized it less and less and then finally realized it was a pair of my roommates' underwear. I screamed and cried and freaked out imagining the crotch part of her underwear rubbing up against the part of the sheets that my face touch, and then I calmed myself down, no doubt rationalizing that at least now that they've been washed it's not that bad that I've got them in my hand. Then I rechecked the washing machine for any last items to put in the dryer. And there. Stuck. To the side. Of the inside. Of the machine. Was a pad.

I called Kasey and FREAKED out. "What should I DOOOO????!!!?!", I screamed into the phone.

"THROW THE SHEETS AWAY!!", she replied.

Here's why I save every email

I like to go back through old emails and re-read them. Because they're funny. Here's one that I sent to my friends on December 14, 2007:


p.s. I yelled at two loan officers today. One of them innocently came into my cube to ask a question, and took too long to get to the point. I said,

"WHY DOES IT ALWAYS TAKE YOU 15 MINUTES TO ASK YOUR QUESTION?!? CAN WE SEND DOCS TO CHICAGO? THAT'S ALL YOU NEEDED TO SAY! I DONT CARE ABOUT THE BACKSTORY. MY BRAIN IS TOO FULL TODAY. I AM TRYING TO LISTEN TO ALL THESE DETAILS YOU'RE GIVING ME ABOUT CLOSING IN MARCH, THEN FEBRUARY, THEN JANUARY, AND IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ACTUAL QUESTION! YES WE CAN SEND DOCS TO CHICAGO. GET OUT OF HERE!"

Then one of my coworkers went into his office and told him that everyone thinks I am being a hag today.

p.p.s. I am not exaggerating.

p.p.p.s. So I'm spending some time on YouTube to calm down. Is it OK to drink at work?

This makes me think my family is not so bad...

For a Thanksgiving story that makes Hexum seem like the Cleavers,:

click here

The Favorite

Last night Kasey was again trying to get dad to admit that she is his favorite, and he said (yes!),

"You have always been my favorite KADY, I would never forget that!"

Hal. Again

My dad can never get anybody's name right. It's a problem. He used to call the store where I worked "Green Briar". The actual name? "Sweet Clover."

So here are some doozies from this weekend so far:

"Murph!...Sally!" (Miles)

"Tina!" (Miyo)

"Methuselah!" (Miyo)

"T-Shirts 'n' Muffins" (On Cue, another store where I worked)

How could anybody be this happy?

I love when I go to the grocery store and I tell them that I live alone. It's my favorite. The guy tonight said that I could feed an army. (I had the same guy who helped me out to the car last time. Remember, he told me that my car had that new smell, and was it a new car? And I said no it's 4 years old, but, "I try not to fart in the car.")

**To be fair I have family coming this weekend.

United Colors of Benetton

Guess which one is me?

Always with the cuties

I have a way with the elderly folks, it's true. Ever since I was a little kid. Once when I was about 12, my parents were wondering where I was, since they hadn't seen me all day. They eventually found me, a-swinging on the neighbor's swing, in between ol' Mr. and Mrs. Nicodemus.

This guy loved me. And I loved him too. But, I had a hard time looking away from the 40-year-old blackhead under his left eye. I kept wondering how I could convince him in broken Spanish and hand gestures that I needed to 'help him out' with it. In the end I left it alone, but it's still kind of haunting me.

Vegetarian Salad

Apparently in South America, if you are a Vegetarian, you just don't eat Red Meat. I ordered this vegetarian salad and was surprised to find not only eggs, but ham!!

The Andes

On the flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago I was seated by the window. Normally when I make my own travel arrangements I choose the aisle, because Im just a tad claustrophobic. This puts more space in front of my face. But, this time I´m at the mercy of the travel agency and I was seated by the window. Anyway, I was just minding my own business and the flight out of Buenos Aires is a little bit brown, since the countryside is mostly farms. Imagine my surprise when I happened to wake up from a little snoozer to see this:

I couldn´t help but wonder if I was prepared to eat someone in the event of a crash.

Swag

Check out all the gifts I received at the convention. Almost covered my whole bed! Such wonderful, warm, loving people. I felt like a celebrity and was mobbed just like one. People waited in line for a photo and gave me handmade presents. It was so much fun.

The obelisk

Kidnapped in my birth year

Thousands of people were arrested, kidnapped and disappeared in 1977. They were either protesters, or completely innocent people. Some were imprisoned and had children, who were then illegally adopted out. There are news stories all the time now of grandchildren being reunited with grandparents they didnt know they had. These kids are about my age. We saw a camera crew interviewing a woman in an area of the town, and she was walking with what looked to be her grandfather. On the ground there were paintings all around in a huge circle of white handkerchiefs (shaped like they were tied around a womans head). Apparently after the kidnappings and for years the mothers would come down to this area and wait for their children or get together in solidarity at least...a plea to the government for an explanation of where their children were.