Step Kid Pride

You know I'll be honest - when I married Zach and two teenage boys fell into my lap, I was terrified of the homework/attendance/schedule crap that comes along with kids. But through some stroke of luck Zach got them into a fabulous community school where there IS no homework, and the boys actually like going. I'm so thankful for PPL and LNAS.

 

Check out this video, in which Micah (misspelled in the video as "Micha") is interviewed at 3:01 and 4:27!

 

LNAS student film from Project for Pride in Living on Vimeo.

Zach-isms, Vol. 5

Zach told me that I snore a lot. But only when I drink. (But I drink a lot. So anyway that was the conversation we were having and I was mortified.) And so he consoled me: "I don't mind your snores at all. They're like a bouquet of decibels."

 

Hal-isms, Vol. 72

"I don't shower at night. I wake up curly haired."

 

"I'm in a pissing match with a skunk."

 

"I ain't cookin' I'm just gonna eat hard tack and mushrooms."

 

"If you're in denial, it helps!"

 

"You tell them to get some Clamato juice or close their doors."

 

 

The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

Occasionally, at my fancy lady business job, I am asked to speak to prospective recruits to convince them that our Company is the best, and the way we do things is the best, and they should really, really come and work here!

 

A few months ago, I had an appointment with one such man, and might I add he was very sharply dressed and even maybe a little bit on the handsome side. Of course I was embarrassed of my outfit, but that's not the point of my story. The point of my story is that during the appointment, he and I sat across from one another, with no desk in between us and we chatted and chatted and I crossed and uncrossed my legs eight hundred times and this went on for about 30 minutes. And then he left, and I considered the meeting a success.

 

Later, and I don't remember why (I probably dropped an M&M) I saw/felt in my crotchal area and was horrified to discover a two-inch GIANT hole at my upper upper thigh.

 

 

(*&*&^$&^%$&^%$(&^%^)(&)(*&

 

 

 

 

 

Later still, I was running late for softball, and so I quick quick quick changed from the above outfit into my softball outfit really fast, and that included an underwear change. I threw the above outfit plus underwear into my gym bag which is just an old tote bag and RAN into my boss' office for a quick commiseration about the hole in the crotch story and then off to softball.

 

While I was in there, the cleaning gal for our office approached me with her gloved hand outstretched. "I think these are yours", she said and instinctively I put out my hand, into which she dropped my DIRTY UNDERWEAR which must have fallen out of the tote in my haste. In the middle of the office hallway.

 

**What a nice human. I was glad for two things: 1) she was a woman and 2) she had gloves on.

 

And then at softball later my windshield got smashed by a softball. The End.

Sunday Favorites: A Cryptic Message

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. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on August 26, 2011:

Summer arrived in New Orleans just two days before me.  I got a text from her that said, "btw I have a piece of info about some of our neighbors.  I'm worried you might die."  I was like, "what?" and she said, "It's too good.  I wanna see your face."

When I arrived, Ashley and Summer took me into our bathroom and had me look out the window.  "Over there is the convent.  There are real nuns living there."  etc.  "And, see that pink house?  With the green shutters?  OK.  See that little grey one to the left of it?  With the black shutters?..."

She wasn't getting to the point fast enough and so I was like, "who lives there?"

Summer looked into my soul and asked, "who would make you die?"

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.

I am living less than one block away from the Jolie-Pitts.

I don't even know what to do with this information.

I think Summer was pleased with my reaction, as I hyperventilated and collected myself and then hyperventilated some more.  Here is a photo out of our bathroom window.  Their house is the little gray one in the center.  With the two dormer windows.

I swear I saw Brad watching me go pee last night.  What a creep!  (Just kidding.  They're not home.)

Here's a picture of the front of their house, which I walk by every morning and every night when I go to and from my car.  I stole it from another website, since I will not be caught dead photographing their place (in the open).  I only keep my face straight ahead while my eyes stare the whole way by, looking for signs of life.

Photo stolen from bittenandbound.com

If you know me, you know that I think of Brad and Angelina as personal friends and frequently have daydreams of running into their family by Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis, asking them "what are you doing in town?" and then inviting them over for dinner.  Of course they come.  In my imagination, we laugh and talk.  The kids get a kick out of my made-up-on-the-spot poop songs, such as Fishing in the Toilet for Poop and Pee.

LOOKS LIKE MY DREAMS ARE ABOUT TO COME TRUE, FOLKS.

"The View! The View!"

I hope this story is as funny typed out as it was in real life...

My mom's been having a rough week. My dad and I had to get her out of bed together the other morning and help her into her chair. And when she was settled, she used what little breath she had to ask my dad to get her "my-hearing-aid-my-phone-my-whatever-else-is-on-the-nightstand!" 

I knew he could never possibly remember all of that and so I followed him into the bedroom to help. Because of the way my mom said all of that, and because it was almost 10am, I added "The View! The View!" to indicate that in addition to all that stuff we better turn on her show too.

Well my dad didn't get the joke, obviously because he stopped dead in his tracks, squinched his butt and put both of his hands in front of it. 

He thought I was telling him his robe wasn't covering all.

Oh, how we laughed.

Said robe. Also --- what the heck is he eating for breakfast? A giant chunk of cheese that's what.

How We Cool Down with no A/C

Sunday Favorites: Flush and Brush!

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. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on February 1, 2013:

In Kathmandu, Nepal, Summer and I contacted some friends of friends and were invited for dinner. We hit it off and stayed up laughing and talking way too late and ended up spending the night. In the morning, we had to get back to our hostel and get Summer off to the airport for her flight to London.

But somebody was knocking at my back door. Hard. I didn't want to use their toilet, because their bathroom had a one foot space on top of the door and so even with the door shut, it was technically open. And everybody was just outside the bathroom finishing up breakfast. But, I had no choice. It was urgent.

Actual photo of their bathroom.

 

I did my best and deepest squat and against my preference proceeded to make embarrassing toilet noises. (When that happens to me my defense strategy is to laugh, in case anybody heard and then at least they'll know that I thought it was funny and am not trying to hide it.)

Then I flushed. The slow trickle of water was no match. Nothing.

I flushed again.

At this point I had no choice but to yell out to my hosts: "What do I do? It won't go down!"

Their response, in unison: "FLUSH AND BRUSH!"

I looked in the corner and saw the blue brush next to the toilet. (You can see it in the above photo.) I flushed. And I brushed. And I washed the turd down.

Sunday Favorites: Bathroom Incident

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. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on February 10, 2009:

So, I will try to describe this incident as hilariously as it happened in real life. Keri, Nancy, Andrea and I had dinner at The Fish Market in San Diego. We had a great time. Believe me. We ordered a bottle of wine, there were Bloody Marys, Gin and Tonics, sushi, Wahoo, incorrectly placed plastic trees that tickled my hair all night, the works. Everything you need for the perfect dinner out. So we leave our table, happy and smiling and ready to pee our pants. We head single file up to the restrooms. I'm in the lead and Keri is behind me. Andrea is behind her and Nancy is in the rear. As we approach the bathroom door, another woman comes up from a different direction, and looks as though she may split our group by going in behind me in line. And so I say, "After You!" She looked at me a little strangely and said, "Thank you!" a little too much like I was doing her some big favor. So I said, "Well there are four of us...hahahahaha HAHAHAA HHAAA!!! AHAH!" Like I do with strangers. And so she went into the bathroom and I went in behind her, followed closely by Keri and Andrea. Nancy was yelling "NO!" in the back and then I saw why. The three of us were SMACK DAB behind this woman, almost pushing her into a ONE. STALL. BATH. ROOM. As soon as I saw the toilet, sink and garbage, and realized this was not a multiple stall room I looked at her in horror. She looks at us like we are crazy and then says,

"I'll just be two minutes."

image stolen from the "internet"

The Bathroom Door

Hexums. We don't do doors. We don't shut doors. Everybody who has ever been to my parents' one room shack of a cabin of a home knows you don't go in the bathroom without calling out ahead. And if you're in there and your modesty is compromised and you hear footsteps you call out "I'M IN HERE". That's our "door". Most of you "privacy" people from much smaller families will struggle to understand this.

Anyway, tonight my mom and sister Keri and I were watching a movie while my dad push-mowed his couple-acre yard, me knowing at some point he was going to need my help getting under the pine trees my mom refuses to allow him to cut the branches out of the bottom blah blah blah...anyway, I knew this, and I saw it coming and so I yelled outside to my dad that I fully planned on helping him mow under the pine trees, but not until after our movie was done. So anyway I also, for good measure yelled "your belly is big" (it is) and then I ran to the bathroom for sanctuary, knowing my dad would NEVER NEVER NEVER go into the bathroom if I were in there. So I sat, (peeing, yes) but also afraid to not be peeing because I was in TROUBLE, and then I looked up to see my mom's biggest butcher knife, brandished, around the corner. 

A warning.

Hal-isms, Vol. 71

"I'll have a cup of coffee...try to say something to your mom before she tells me to shut up."

"My God, I can't take my hand off your shoulder without hitting your butt on the way down. I gotta swing wide. Like gettin' off my four wheeler. Swing my leg wide."

"Is everything in China about sitting on a stump somewhere, meditating?"

"Do them Irish people ever stop singin'?"

"When I get dementia and start wanderin' up by Sheriff Gary Fish's place and you guys'll hafta put out an LMNOP on me."

Sunday Favorites: Chewing Gum

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. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on April 4, 2015:

The resort where we stayed in Cancun had a fancy Italian restaurant where we ate most nights. After a long day of reading books and doing nothing on the beach, we'd all head up to our rooms, shower and meet back downstairs for a delicious meal and drinks. There were eleven of us, and so we had to be split up at two tables.

We wore our best dresses and drank wine and were very, very fancy.

Look how fancy!

After dinner the first night, I stood up to go and chat with the other table. We discussed what they ate and how good it was. An older man who worked at the restaurant came up to me and grabbed my arm and dragged me back to the table where I was sitting, to the spot where I was eating. He seemed very agitated when he said to me, "PLEASE DO NOT PUT YOUR GUM UNDER THE TABLE CLOTH." 

The staff were changing out the linens and sure enough, at my spot, under the table cloth was a piece of gum.

YOU GUYS. It was NOT MINE.

We were eating fancy! I would never put my gum under the tablecloth! It was seriously way up underneath, so whoever did it had to pull up three yards of fabric and shove it up under there, on the pad underneath. 

I said, "Sir, that's not mine."

He poked it and said, "FRESH."

I poked it. 

It was fresh. 

But you guys!!! It was NOT. MINE. I repeated myself. "Sir, I am telling you that gum is NOT MINE."

He was so disgusted with me and so finally I just shrugged my shoulders and walked away.

Does this look like somebody who just shoved GUM under her fancy tablecloth?

The story doesn't end here, unfortunately.

The next night, I was nervous to go back there, but I decided to get over myself and just do it. I sat down and out of the corner of my eye I noticed the man. Out of the corner of my other eye, I noticed one of my friends putting her gum on a little plate next to her dinner plate. I didn't have any time to warn her.

Here comes the waiter (not the same man, but he came straight from talking to the man). He handed her a paper napkin and said, "please put your gum in this paper napkin. And anyone else at this table *here he looked STRAIGHT AT ME* needs to put their gum in a paper napkin right now."

ENOUGH!

I threw my cloth napkin down on the table and half stood up to say to that poor innocent waiter, "OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!! I DID NOT PUT MY GUM IN THE TABLECLOTH! YOU TELL THAT MAN I DIDN'T DO IT! AND WILL YOU PLEASE ALSO TELL HIM I AM 37 YEARS OLD!!!!!"

He looked really hurt and said, "yes, I will tell him". 

And then he came back later to take our order and I said, "I'll have the seared tuna. With extra gum."

And then the poor innocent waiter said, "please. I am on your side."

And then I really felt bad. 

But for Pete's sake, can you imagine being accused of a heinous crime? Twice? When you were 100% innocent of it? Now I know how Cameron Todd Willingham felt.

Hidden Treasures

Look at the sweet wallpaper we unearthed in one of the bedrooms at the House Across:

Zach

"Is that your husband with the crazy hair?" asked the 3-year-old, and everyone else. Ever. When I told my mom he proposed, her first question was, "are you gonna make him cut his hair?"

I wouldn't dream of it.

What do you mean "crazy"?

Wanna peek at little Zachy Poo Poo from 1992 when we met in the 9th grade? I'd sooner ask him to cut off his right hand.

Technology

Zach and I have spent a lot of time apart since we met - we both move around a lot: he takes long jobs in Vermont from time-to-time and this summer I've basically been living at my parents' place. 

Imagine how proud we were (at the ripe old age of forty) when we finally figured out how to video chat! 

Of course inevitably he falls asleep (10:27 AM dontchaknow) and then I just look at myself in the mirror camera.

Sunday Favorites: Fanny

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. Enjoy! This story originally appeared on August 20, 2014:

A good friend of mine was recently photographed and subsequently mocked for his choice in hands-free gear-carrying:

According to my source:

The Oscar winner, 44, laughed off his style choice with a big grin during an interview with CSN Houston's Julia Morales. He attended the game with his 6-year-old son Levi, and topped off his retro bag with a white T-shirt, khaki pants, a baseball cap and sunglasses.

"I'm not afraid of the fanny pack. You gotta kinda put it on the side to make it look a little not as nerdy, but still, practicality wins out," the Dallas Buyers Club actor said. "I got so much gear in here that I don't want in my pockets."

You know what, how many times have you been around someone and they're like, 'Aw, man, I forgot so and so and I gotta go back to my car.'" Pretending to take something out of his hip pouch, he added: "I got mine right here."

I couldn't agree more, Pal. That is SO TRUE.

And I do want to go on record and state that it was me who very probably single-free-handedly started this trend:

As snapped by the paparazzi, April 2011

And again, January 2014

Telecommuting, Redneck Style

My mom is in hospice, and so I have spent most of this summer at my parents' place up in Roosevelt MN. My company has been wonderful - they're allowing me to work remotely so that I can be with her. I brought my home office computer and two monitors and set them up in my old loft bedroom. I love it! I wear my overalls every day (and to bed) and work work work and sometimes I go down the ladder and vacuum, or do laundry, or get pills or make meals and it's been working really well.

Today I was on the phone with an insurance agent following up on a binder that I had ordered. My mom was downstairs with HER NURSE, talking about vitals and pain management and this weird pain in her head and could that be another tumor?

...when all of the sudden BANG!!!

My dad shot a squirrel. From inside the house.

I pretended nothing happened

Solar Eclipse......cont

Solar Eclipse

Hal-isms, Vol. 70

"I guess if I get mesothelioma I"ll just have to deal with it."

"Did I tell ya my last encounter with an Indian?"

"I spent my whole life being the bad guy so my family could get along."

"You've become more than a feminist. You're almost like an anarchist."

Minnesota-Shaped Forest

I read this article a few years back about a "secret" Minnesota-shaped forest and have been fascinated by it ever since, mostly because it is located near very-north Williams, Minnesota, a few miles from my parents’ house. I was also skeptical that it was still around, even though you can totally see it on Google earth. 

I thought about driving to it, but knew I wouldn't really be able to see it from the ground. But - it was still on my list of things "to do". 

Fast forward to today – I flew up to see my Mom and Dad -- and I asked the pilot if there’s any chance that I could see this supposed forest out the plane window? And he told me, “yah, we fly over that all the time!” So I totally stayed awake (impossible) and stared at the ground for one hour and fifteen minutes, desperate to spot it.

And look! It’s real! And I saw it!

Busted...

Left to Right: Kim, Kelly, Keri and Pete

This picture was taken the day my four oldest siblings got rubber band punching balloons. The best day ever, they tell me (I wasn't born yet).

Later Keri's turned up popped. She accused Pete.

My mom took Pete aside.

"Pete: did you pop Keri's balloon?"

"NO. But there's a knife in the sink."

Disgus-Tea

The neighbor brought over a gallon jug of Lipton diet green tea citrus a while back because she knows my dad loves iced tea. 

He's been drinking it for several days. He's also been complaining about a funny taste, which I attributed to it being a different brand than he normally buys - also green tea tastes different than black tea. Whatever. I ignore most of what my dad says.

Today on his one millionth complaint about the taste, my mom suggested that maybe it's expired? I figured it was worth checking into, who knows how long neighbors keep their jugs of tea before realizing they're not going to drink them and then decide to generously give them away?

...And that is the story of the first time a Hexum wasted food by dumping perfectly good diet green tea citrus down the drain. 

Everybody REEL In

My mom has an old family fishing story starring my Auntie Cheryl.

My mom and Cheryl have five brothers and so anytime they went fishing with their dad there were boys around. And Grandpa Dick is a boy too. So one time Cheryl had to go pee and she refused to use the bucket to pee in and made her dad take her to shore.

"Everybody REEL IN, CHERYL has to go to the BATHROOM!!"

And that's our family quote for anytime you inconvenience others for your convenience.

But that's not the point of my story. 

The point of my story is that I went fishing with my dad and two of his friends the other night and I should have peed before we left the dock because I already had to go. But I didn't. So I suffered and fished for like three hours. Finally I realized I was going to have to pee in the boat and ask three men not to look.

But! We were in my dad's friend's boat! And I didn't even see it but there was a cabin under the deck! With a door that shuts! He let me go in there and pee into his little blue plastic fish rinsing bucket!

And you know how when you have to pee really really bad and so you pee for like 67 seconds and that 67 seconds feels like an eternity? It was one of those. I thought I was going to overflow the bucket - seriously. 

But I didn't. And then I took the walk of shame out of the cabin with my bucket of pee and very carefully and quickly dumped it over the edge and rinsed rinsed rinsed it a million times. I threw the bucket on the floor and resumed fishing.

...and nobody had to reel in.

But I had this to taunt me the rest of the night. The beating of the tell tale pee bucket.

It's lake water!!!! I swear!!!!

Hal-isms, Vol. 69 (hey! he's 69 years old!)

"I have to pee. It changes the octave of my oracle chords."

"Try to be paying attention to things that make sense instead of frog turds and butterflies."

"I can walk through a cow pasture but I don't have to step in brown."

"Shut that door. ...And your mouth."

"Your mother's got the cancer, not me. I survived it."

The House Across

Zach and I have another major remodel project underway, at the house across the street from us, forever forward referred to as "The House Across".

It's a team effort really. Zach definitely needs me to "loosen up" the trickier demo items...

The Romper

I feel like the universe really wants me in a romper. They're everywhere. I gotta say, though, I was worried that the idea of it would be so much better than the reality. I'm 39 years old, and I'm not sure they're 'age appropriate'. I decided to go way out of my comfort zone and get one from ASOS. Out of my comfort zone? Am I crazy?! This thing is the most comfortable thing I have placed on my body in a really long time. And, it's cute! I texted the photo below to my boss with the caption: "I HOPE YOU LIKE ROMPERS BECAUSE I WILL BE WEARING THIS UNTIL SEPTEMBER 30TH." 

I call it my 2017 Summer Romper

Versatile!

On a recent trip to my parents' place, there wasn't much to decide in the way of packing:

But that's not the point of my story. The point is that when you go to your parents and basically spend the entire day Saturday and Sunday drinking alcohol (mostly to forget your mom has cancer AGAIN but really just because that's what you do every Saturday and Sunday) and you have all those bathroom breaks --- a romper becomes a somewhat complicated apparatus. I got it down though. I left the straps tied and just shimmied my arms up and out of it to go pee 8.6 million times per day. 

It was at 4am, though, when Rowdy woke me up to be let out of the house that I sleepily untied my romper (YES I SLEEP IN IT TOO) and used the toilet. When I went to retie it, the strap in the back was WET. 

It FELL IN THE TOILET. Determined not to let the romper-toilet-strap incident get me down, I rinsed it, did my best to get the bar soap involved, tied it up and went back to sleep. 

Later that morning, I needed to use the toilet urgently, but my dad was in there (13 people, one bathroom) and so I was forced to use the outhouse, except for the fact that I hadn't yet gotten to  item number clean out the outhouse on my chores list. I opened the door, frantic, only to find 432 spider webs and the world's most giant spider covering the outhouse seat hole. I swiped it with some toilet paper but had no time to clean it properly and so I disrompered and did my thing, naked and standing up. 

Of course I hadn't shut the outhouse door, one because it was too spidery in there and two because I never shut a bathroom door. I looked up at some point to see both my sister Kasey and my Mom waving to me from the kitchen window.

Microblading

Did you/have you noticed in previous posts that I have absolutely no eyebrows of my own? It's OK -- I just draw them in with a pencil. 

But that's irritating and almost free, so why not spend $600 on a semi-permanent solution that will fade in about 2-3 years? 

I'm talking about microblading. It's like a tattoo, but less permanent. AND I LOVE IT. 

Don't ever let anybody tell you it doesn't hurt. Because it really hurts bad. And it takes two hours. Twice. So just prepare yourself for that fact and never mind anybody else's opinion on the subject. 

Also for about a week you're going to look like two chocolate-y brown caterpillars crawled on your face and died. But that fades and they look amazing again after you pick all the scabs off. 

You'll regret it for like 5 days.

But don't worry, you'll go back to lookin' like yourself again.

Cancer

Well, it's back again. The lung cancer, I mean. That lump in her leg turned out to be lung cancer as we know, but it never really went away and plus she had been having major pain in her chest so she went in for her three-month checkup and they took a scan. Lung cancer. In lots of spots. 

That's the bad news.

The good news is we have been hanging out a TON lately. I'm typing this up from my old loft bedroom in tiny Roosevelt MN with a vodka squirt in my hand. 

Living with Teenage Boys, Vol. 2

"Throw your dirty laundry down the stairs!" 

I forgot to say "...and make sure they land. down. the. stairs."

Zach-isms, Vol. 4

"I try to be easy on the eyes."

"I'm not laughing at you OR with you."

"I do toot kind of a lot, but what happened this time?"

"Old people have oatmeal every day."

"Whatddya mean 'have I pooped?' Do you think I'm new? I'm the king of bowel movements."

Sylvia

Kelly's Yorkie Sylvia is 832 years old. She has zero teeth and it's sort of my fault. You see, Sylvia's breath stunk so bad that I refused to hold her or pet her or babysit her and then finally Kelly took her to the vet and every single one of her teeth was rotted out of her head and so they pulled them. I'm not suggesting it was 100% my doing, but I definitely was a huge hag about it. Kelly was probably sick of hearing me crab.

Anyway, now Sylvia has a stuck out tongue all the time. There's no teeth to hold them in. 

She pees everywhere and she loves to ride in my pocket on a bike ride.