Ol' Blue

As some of you may know, (and if not I'd sure like to remind you) I was in a terrible car accident a couple of weeks ago. As a result my poor little Acura was totaled, leaving me quite carless. My insurance agent told me that the man who hit me had liability insurance and that they would cover my rental car, but that once I received a check as payment for my car, I would probably lose the coverage for the rental. In other words, hurry up and buy a car.

 

I went to Acura and promptly fell in love with the new ILX, which is the new sporty and smaller TSX (my old car). Well they wanted a million dollars for it. 2013 is the first model year of the ILX and so I hesitated. Also the salesman was really pushing a lease even after I told him that no way in a hundred years would I ever lease a car. I've never had a car for less than six years, I said. And I had my recent Acura for eight. And I would have had it longer if the Pizza Man hadn't rear-ended me. Yet he still kept pushing the lease option. I left.

 

 

 

I thought, 'I better buy a car that's a few years old'. So I went to Poquet Auto, a joint that came highly recommended by more than a couple of my friends. They hand-pick used cars with low miles and no scratches or accident history. That's where I fell in love with a 2009 BMW 335xi. It only had 12,000 miles on it. But it was the same price as a brand new ILX. (One million dollars!) Again I hesitated.

 

 

 

'Maybe I ought to go back to Volkswagen', I thought. I loved my little Golf I had before this Acura. Surely even their new hatchbacks would be much cheaper than the other cars I had been looking at. Nope. The GTI is the same price. (One million dollars!)

 

 

This went on for ten days. I drove new and used Subarus and Volvos and Hondas. I couldn't commit to a car payment.

 

Then I went to my niece's graduation party up north. My brother-in-law mentioned that he knew a guy who knew a guy who was selling his deceased father's pickup truck. It was a 1987 Dodge Dakota and I could have it for $1000. Ultimately I decided that all those other cars were nice and all, but none had the faux wood trim, the towing capacity or the terrible gas mileage of my new truck, Ol' Blue. It came recommended by Ol' Hal, my brother-in-law, and another dude with a flashlight, all of whom have offered to buy it from me if I ever don't want it anymore:

 

 

 

As if I would ever sell.

 

 

 

Hal-isms, Vol. 37

"You tell your mother there is no snow in the living room. We are not moving to Cancun where a gerbil will crawl up your neck while you're sleeping."

"Everything has to be pronounced SO perfectly around here."

"Call up the obituary. What do you call the guy who after you die he cuts you open, fills you up with sand and puts you in the coffin? Oh, the mortician!"

"Change a dog's name. That's a sin."

"I unlove you."

Japolite

I fell in love with Japan almost immediately and I still haven't figured out if it was because I had just come from India which makes Japan seem even cleaner, and more sanitary, and more polite. Do you know why the Japanese wear surgical masks? Not because they're afraid of getting sick. But because they're sick and they're afraid of getting YOU sick. Lovely people.

 

But this? This takes it too far:

 

 

It took me three stores to figure out that these cloth bags go over your head so when you try on clothes you don't get make up on them.

I Put My Finger On It

I was very underwhelmed when I saw the Spring 2013 Chanel Campaign in Vogue. Something about it didn't feel "fresh" or "new", and I couldn't help but feel that I had seen it somewhere before.

 

 

 

Then it hit me. The image is startlingly close to a Campaign that Summer and I did in Winter 2012 when we had to sleep on a table in a train station in Northern India:

 

 

 

Chanel is going to hear from my lawyer. (1-800-Ask-Gary.) What do you think, do I have a case?

A Most Horrible Feeling

So this is Miyo. In the tub. Isn't she cute???

These photos were taken up at my sister Kim's several years ago. We were all partying in the kitchen and it was getting to be bedtime, so Uncle John filled the tub all the way up to the top and we added a gallon of bubbles and threw Miyo and Murphy in there. It was so fun and the kids loved it. 

It was my turn to sit on the toilet and watch them. But all of my sisters and my mom and dad were in the kitchen and I could hear their laughing and merrymaking. You know I hate to miss the party or the conversation. The kids in the tub were totally fine and happy and laughing.

I thought about leaving for "just a minute" to join the party in the kitchen. But then I decided I better not. So I kept on knitting and just craned my neck to hear the fun fun conversation that was happening without me. Probably I yelled my two cents from time to time.

And then! Miyo slipped and fell. Under the water. I had to jump up and reach both my hands in the tub and search around to find her. It was so scary! Even though she was three years old, she couldn't get her footing and stand up. I pulled her out of the bubbles and got her up on her feet. She was fine of course, but to this day when I think of that moment and the grown-up decision I made to stay in the bathroom, I get explosive diarrhea.  

Sunday Favorites: 5 Countries in 10 Weeks in 7 Minutes

New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. This video originally appeared on March 1, 2013:


Have you watched Summer's video of our trip to Turkey, Sri Lanka, Maldives, India and Nepal yet?

WHY NOT?!?!?!  YOU KNOW I WAS ALMOST KILLED ON TUESDAY.




Seriously, I couldn't be more proud of this seven-minute video than if I had been the one who spent fifty plus hours learning how to use iMovie and then trimming, cutting and editing literally hours and hundreds of video clips, adding music, looping that music and then doing it (!), but then accidentally deleting the whole thing and having to do it all over again like Summer did.

Anyway, here's our three month trip, in seven minutes, set to the perfect song.

Bad Girls from Summer Grimes on Vimeo.

It Was the Pizza Man!

On Tuesday, I was very ironically on my way to a massage appointment when BAM! An off-duty pizza man rear-ended me. Then my car hit the car in front of me.

And then, my sturdy little reliable eight-year-old-never-had-a-scratch-one-owner 2005 Acura TSX was no more.

It's funny. I left work for the massage appointment, long overdue and very anticipated, missed my exit and then took several wrong turns. I was going to be twenty minutes early and ended up losing 30 minutes in bad traffic. It was bumper-to-bumper. There was time to notice people and I noticed the pizza man. I smiled at him because I liked his sun hat with chin strap and also how his long, long beard was braided. I got in front of him in a fit of competition at a stop light and then several blocks later the sun got in his eyes and he didn't see me and now I don't have a car and my back and neck really hurt. Life is funny sometimes.

It happened so fast! One minute nothing and the next, I looked in my rear view mirror after a horrible crash and saw a braid, a beard, and a deployed airbag. I pulled over and got out to make sure everybody was OK. They were. We started exchanging insurance info and then suddenly I felt a strange feeling...I left my drivers' license with the bearded man and RAN across the street to a children's center where I begged for a bathroom and then had a bout of explosive diarrhea. I ALMOST DIED, OK?!?

The sun really was blinding.

I was able to drive home by propping a taillight where I thought people could see it. The next day, my sweet little basement neighbor man texted to say he saw my car and would help with whatever. We cleaned out the car because I had a feeling it would be totaled (which made me cry) and he followed me to my favorite mechanic Dave Halverson at my favorite body shop in Minneapolis, Halvey's on Chicago. Dave was pretty sure it was totaled too, so I gave him my keys (which made me cry). I guess I'll never take that solo road trip up to Alaska I've been dreaming about. I was gonna put a mattress in the trunk, and now there is no trunk. 

My neighbor drove me home and then a rental car was delivered by Halvey's people. Slightly painless. Pun not working in that scenario.

Injury back stance.

A comment on how I always get people to stage photos: I make them! Do you think Dave wanted to be in this photo? No! But I reminded him about how I almost died and how my unborn children almost didn't have a mother and he was forced to oblige.

I also never got a "sexy lady pose" with the car. Well, it's better late than never!

Where is the sexy lady though?

Look at this sweet "sorry you got in accident and here's a return on that butter we borrowed three weeks ago" gift from J & K:

Since the accident, I've been somewhat emotional. OK, I've always been emotional. But now maybe even more than usual. I have been insisting that everybody give me a hug, even like, all the loan officers at my office. All I want in my life since the accident is hugs. Then, today I got a voicemail from the insurance adjuster and he said, "Wow. I can't believe you're OK. He really blasted you," and I started bawling, because. Yes. The pizza man did blast me. And it hurt. And somebody agreed. And I don't know if I'm OK. I'm happy and alive, I guess. Dramatic much? I get to be. I almost lost life and limb in that three-car pileup.

Enough negativity! I like to look at bright sides. For example, my neighbor found a sock I had been looking for FOREVER! And then Dave found the OTHER SOCK TO THAT SOCK! 

Tune in for more poop stories. This blog is about poop, after all.

Summer-isms, Vol. 53

 

"You are SO jealous of my allergies."

"...and I was wearing this really cute baggy T-shirt..."

"I don't want to accuse people of stealing, but I'll do it if it gets me what I want."

"If you don't chill out I'm going to stop thinking out loud with words."

"I don't think I like juice!"

 

Bed Wetter

So I wasn't a Bed Wetter. (Even though I erroneously admitted to it one time).

But that doesn't mean I never "wet the bed".

Take that time I was 12, for instance. Sleeping over at my friend Maija's cabin. I've explained my relationship with Maija, haven't I? Well, one night we stayed up WAY too late laughing and drinking Mountain Dew.

I woke up somewhere early-morning and realized I had accidentally peed in Maija's bed. At age 12. While Maija was sleeping peacefully in the bed next to me. What would you do in a situation like that? I'll tell you what I did: I froze. I panicked. I lied.

I snuck out of the bed and changed my underwear and pretended to be asleep when she woke up and inquisitively asked what the HUGE, YELLOW wet spot was in between us. I was just as confused as she was. Was it sweat? Maybe...hmmm...it's doesn't smell like sweat...etc etc etc.

We decided to wash the sheets before her mom found out.

I threw my underwear in the machine when she wasn't looking.

The perfect crime.

 

More Like "Blunder Party"

When I was a little kid, I went to a slumber party with my sister Kasey and several other similarly-aged friends. It was so much fun! There were tons of snacks and the mom of the house was a real nice fun lady so the party was a total hit. AND there were tons of activities, including a fun trivia game where you had to pop(!) a balloon and the trivia question was inside and then you had to answer the question. I loved that game because I was a super smart little kid and probably got all of my trivia questions right.

When it was time for bed, the nice fun lady mom had us change into our pajamas. She lined us all up, got our attention and then solemnly asked the group if there was anybody who was still peeing the bed.

Nobody raised their hand. Silence. This made me feel real bad for the nice fun lady mom who was having this party for us and here nobody was showing her any respect by answering her question. I wasn't quite sure why she wanted to know, but that awful silence was killing me. I was ashamed of our group, greedily taking snacks and prizes but then not participating when it mattered most. Even my friend Bedwetter Betty* didn't make a peep.

I raised my hand. Never mind that I hadn't wet the bed for years. I never wet the bed. But I didn't want her to feel bad!

Then, right in front of everybody, she knelt down in front of me and held out a pair of plastic underwear. I dutifully stepped one foot in, and then the other, and then she shimmied them up, on top of my real underwear. I had to sleep in them all night long and they were very sweaty.

 

 

Taking one for the team since 1977.

 

 

 

 

 

*her real name.

 

Selfish Selfies

My friend Teri got married last night. (yah, I know. Another travel buddy bites the dust. But I'm happy for her. I really am.)

Anyway, they had a first dance, and everybody crowded around the dance floor with their iPhones and cameras and somebody even had an iPad and they were snap-snap-snapping photos of the happy couple. I thought it would be wildly hysterical to go and stand next to the dance floor, hold up my iPhone and take photos, but not of them. Of myself. I turned the camera on me, and snapped away.

 

Savannah got confused, and then involved.

 

 

And then I really didn't get a very good picture of Teri and her new husband. Crap.

 

They Call Me Curly

I got to go curling on Friday for a work function. Very fun. Very very fun. It's kind of hard to get the hang of, actually. You put your left foot on a "slider" and your right foot on the starter and then SHOVE OFF! And try to get your rock in the bullseye. The end.

 

 

 

One of my coworkers is a competitive curler. So she gave us lots of tips and told me when to sweep sweep sweep and when not to sweep. (I might be a hyper over-sweeper.)

 

 

There are hazards to curling with coworkers. In fact it's not all it's cracked up to be:

 

 

 

I don't usually let any buttcrack upstage ME...










 

 

Mostar, Bosnia

Take a look at this great video about the Stari Most bridge in Mostar, Bosnia. It connects two sides of the town, historically Muslim on one side and Christian/Jewish on the other. It's such a great little town with such a sad, horrible history.

 

Flight of the Mostari from DGA Productions on Vimeo.

 

Ross and I visited Mostar last year.

View from the bridge. Mosques on one side, churches and synagogues on the other.

 

It's very exciting to see the jumpers. If you hang around long enough, somebody eventually does it. It should be mentioned that silly tourists try it all the time and a lot of people die. It is very dangerous. Our host used to jump but he and his brother quit some years ago when his brother cracked his nuts on the water and couldn't walk for a couple of weeks.

 

Speaking of nuts...

Ha ha!

A jumper!