Vacationary

Straight up, straight down.

I know. I've been gone for a while. Well, I was recovering from our three day road trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I picked this spot on a lark since neither HUBS nor myself had ever been there. And, I can honestly say that I wouldn't have picked it had I known that the whole cute little town was exclusively UP HILL.

We arrived on Tuesday two weeks ago after about a six hour drive. We headed into their historic downtown, which was blissfully empty due to the semi-late hour. We walked and took pictures a bit. It was kinda hilly, but not horrible. I was hot but since the sun was going down the heat wasn't that bad.

But then there was Wednesday. We got out right at the peak of the day, noon, when the sun is high in the sky and the universe is trying to kill me. First, let me say that this is NOT a town to drive in. They have a trolley that'll take you from most of the major hotels around the sites downtown; use it people! We didn't and paid for it by getting lost on their winding, hilly, embarrassingly narrow, not-laid-out-in-a-grid-at-all-albeit-pretty streets.


Most streets are 1/3 of this size. I'm not even playing.

Also? We went during the middle of the week thinking it wouldn't be that crowded. Um, it was like freakin' 4th of July down there. There were that many people. Hence our trouble parking and finally having to settle on a paid lot ($5 for 3 hours). Hi, Arkansas, I know you don't know us, but we don't have much money and HATE paying just to leave our car somewhere. Dammit, Arkansas!

So the first thing we did was go to this pizza place I'd researched. It was really hard to find, we were both hungry and since HUBS was driving this means he got really frustrated while I remained fairly calm. All the parking spots on the street were either taken or marked NO PARKING. (That's right, obvious parking spots in parking lots were actually labelled NO. PARKING. Fuck you Arkansas.) So, we headed for the paid lots we saw the day before.

Here's where things got hairy for me. In case you don't already know, I'm not in very good shape, I sweat a lot, I dislike heights, I abhor being hot and/or sweaty and I do not like to climb. In order to get back to the pizza place I had to: get hot, sweaty and climb heights. This lead to a copious amount of cursing on my part while HUBS remained fairly calm. There are several sets of stairs you can take from the parking to the higher streets where the pizza place was located. The one we took had (I counted) 89 steps. Jesus. Then we got inside the place, which had a bar and a restaurant, and guess what? Yes! The restaurant was up another 25 steps. I yelled out something like "Jesus' Ass!!" and soon realized that the people sitting in the restaurant heard me pretty clearly. Oh, well. Sorry, Arkansas.


Stairs like this were literally all over the place. Clearly the town was carved out of a mountain...and not very well.

Pizza=Awesome. Really some of the best we've ever had. Homemade herbed crust, huge slices, cheesy, and a good Parmesan spill courtesy of HUBS. We ate, cooled down, had two huge sodas, asked our helpful server dude for directions to our next site seeing adventure and took off.


HUBS dressing up our pizza.

We hit more steps (up, of course), walked up hill a bit and then things leveled off. I was grateful and could relax enough to take pictures as we walked. Then, we hit this:



I don't know if you can really grasp the height and scariness from the Polaroid, but that little wooden path on the right was about 2 feet wide, it went almost straight up (so much so that you had to lean forward when walking so as not to fall backwards), and to the right of the path was a straight drop onto the roofs of several houses (maybe 30 or 40 feet, definitely a kill-worthy fall). By the time we reached the top I was dripping with sweat and my t-shirt was actually soaked through. Yay! Wet t-shirt contest! You're welcome, Arkansas!

Then we had another challenge, a walk through the woods. Almighty God, that state really tried my nerves. There were anonymous houses to the left of the stone path through Jasonland and scary-ass woods on the right. There were spots in there where I thought I was going to just die, people. Thank God it was at least daytime.

We went through all this to get here:



An old church where you enter through what used to be the bell tower. It was kinda pretty but not exactly worth all the trouble. After our Lord of the Rings like journey to get to the place I expected there to be free gold or something that would end the coming apocalypse there. No such luck. We really should have taken the trolley...

Then we had to make our way down. When we hit the main part of downtown again, I had walked and climbed so much that I felt weak and my legs were rubbery, like I was going to collapse. We ducked into a souvenir shop for cool air and the lady behind the counter took pity on me and my wet shirt and offered me paper towels. Finally, thank you Arkansas!


Down was scarier than up. I had to lean back to not roll face first down the hill.

Even with all the trials I have to say I had a good time. We ate good food, saw new things, I got lots of good pictures and I challenged myself without knowing I was going to.

What else happened while we were there? We went to WalMart Tuesday night and got caught in the strangest electrical storm either of us had ever seen. Ran inside the store once we realized the noise we heard was sheets of rain slowly coming toward us. Got trapped inside WalMart while the hellish rain died down. Went without reliable internet access for two days. Changed hotel rooms to get one with a fridge/microwave combo and a better toilet (the toilet was still crap). Had hotel sex. Saw a deer just hanging out at the entrance to downtown. Ate awesome BBQ, ice cream and funnel cake. Sat on our balcony and watched a woman play catch with her dog down below. Walked a scary wooden bridge over the street. Tried to get to an all-you-can-eat catfish place before they closed, but the stupid street numbers were wrong so we ended up eating leftover pizza, tacos and fries for dinner. I walked through a spider web at a restaurant, found it on my neck a few minutes later, killed it with my utensils and then pretended I found the squished spider on my napkin to the waitress so she'd get me another one. Drove a half hour out of our way (while eating funnel cake) to get to an attraction that turned out to be closed that day.


A whole shop devoted to funnel cake? Yes!

Yeah, that was pleasantly eventful. Where are you going this summer?

Dammit Summer!

I think the sun hates me right back.

Oh fuck, here we go. Yesterday when I went out to feed the cats at 9am it was already 83 degrees outside. All hot, heavy and sticky. We are now officially in summer. No more cooling down at night and then getting ridiculously hot during the day, oh no. It will now be ass-the-fuck tropical damn hot 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Joy.

My deep hatred for summer is well-documented on this blog. I literally cannot stand it. Yesterday morning's heat sent me into a deep, summer-is-here related funk. I had things to do, but couldn't. All I could think was "Jesus' ass, it's hot out there!" I took a nap three hours after waking up because of it.

Summer just takes the life out of me. I can't concentrate. I want to move even less than I normally do. The very idea of things makes me tired. Anything other than sleep is exhausting. It's a miserable way to live.

Really, can't we stagger the heat? You know, have an 85 degree day on Monday and then a 65 degree day Tuesday. Wouldn't that make more sense? I bet less people would kill and be murdered during summers if we worked it like that.

Oh. That Finally Makes Some Sense.

I bet HUBS looked like this when he got his allowance as a kid. Then he went and blew it all on his first Playboy.

Somewhere around May 7 I got another call from the unemployment people. I have to say this was the first conversation I'd had with them since they took my benefits away where the person on the other end made the whole situation make sense.

Here's what the guy told me: I had two pools of money available that they could give me benefits from, and part of the investigation process was to see which I was eligible for. One stash was from an extension on my original claim, that I was eligible for immediately (YES!!!), the other was government money that I'd only be able to get if I was actually an employee somewhere (as opposed to doing freelance work). To get that money I'd need to make $1300 as an actual employee.

Another thing I didn't know? You can only file for unemployment against a company one time, and get those benefits for one year (unless you qualify for an extension of those benefits). If you're making a new claim, it has to be with a new company.

It took a while for me to really understand what he was saying to me. But he was blissfully patient. It all boiled down to HUBS and I getting a huge deposit (from all the weeks we got nothing) on the day we did BOWL STROLL 2009!!! We'll actually be ok for a little bit.

Thank God.

Are We Alcoholics Yet?

We drank all these and more, y'all! The one in the lower left corner? That's absinthe and it was outlawed for 95 years and only recently became legal in the states! It made HUBS' tongue numb!

Back in early April I got a $100 a week job reviewing bars and clubs for an entertainment website. They want me to focus on booze, which is not my strong suit. In fact, until I got this job I had never had a full drink of any sort in my whole life. I never liked the taste of alcohol and didn't see a reason to booze it up just because other people did.

Well, maybe you can chalk this up to my recent high stress levels, but...um, I've been drinking. A lot. Like, sometimes, two whole drinks a week. That, my internet friends, is a ton for me. And, guess what? I kinda like it. I never finish anything I end up not liking, but when I get something good (for me that means sweet and light on the booze) drinking the whole thing makes me feel very adult. Like I know exactly what I want (I don't), how to get it (I wish) and how to act once I reel it in (I couldn't possibly).

We each have to have at least two drinks for my editor to be satisfied we tested enough of each bar/club's spirits. This has meant a lot of mixed drinks for me and HUBS. And since we don't get reimbursed for food and drink on top of the hundred they pay me, we usually feel the need to finish everything. Which means if I don't like something HUBS will try to drink it all, along with his two drinks...Which also means HUBS sometimes comes away rip-roaring-rootin'-tootin-thinks-peeing-in-the-alley-is-fun drunk. Let's all pray my sweet HUBS doesn't become a lushy hobo because of this, ok?

Thank God for small jobs. Now, if I could only rack up about five or six other small gigs that each pay $100/week. Fuck, you guys. HUBS and I would be set!

Bowl-O-Rama!!!

Turned out to be more fun than I thought.

HUBS has been bugging me since the beginning of the year to go bowling. I was not enthusiastic about this at all. The last time I bowled was when I was a senior in high school. There was a horribly boring week (but a blissfully sweat-free one) where they made us bowl for gym class. So, each day we'd hop on a school bus and head to a bowling alley down the street and around the corner. I hated it. I never knocked any pins down. It was boring. I had to wear other people's shoes. And I hated every single minute of it.

Somewhere around early March HUBS bought some bowling shoes in anticipation of us bowling, and it only took another month and a half for us to actually get ourselves to an alley. But, when we did...HOLY GOD DID I EVER HAVE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNN!!!


I love neon signs...

We went to a relatively new and very trendy alley downtown called Flamingo Bowl. I kept getting strikes and picking up spares when I needed to! The shoes fit fine! I brought my own Lysol to sanitize them! I found the perfect weight ball with the perfect size finger holes for my massive digits! There was pizza! It was good! We gave the leftovers to a homeless guy who promptly threw it in the trash because he really wanted cash for booze! It was a great night!


My ideal bowling ball will look like this...Pleasantly girly.

I think I managed to do so well because of all the no job/no money/no unemployment cash stress I've been under. There have been so many times lately where I really, really wanted to do damage to something (someone) and simply couldn't. Throwing a heavy ball into unsuspecting pins seemed to relieve a lot of tension for me. And HUBS. Our entertainment budget mainly consists of Netflix/Redbox rentals and Taco Bell. We were both dying for an outlet.


The last place we hit was the closest to our house. They have the perfect alley size, good eats, are pretty clean and they issue coupons...Swoon!

This past Saturday we took the experiment a step further by implementing BOWL STROLL 2009!!! It's our bowl-a-rrific version of a pub crawl. See, HUBS had compiled a list of alleys he wanted to try so we could decide which would be worth our time long-term. So, in one afternoon we bought me a pair of bowling shoes and then proceeded to bowl one game at two different alleys and two games at a third. It. WAs. AWESOME!!!!!!!


Funnel Cake in french fry form? Yes, please!

There was cool food (Funnel fries and deep fried cauliflower, anyone?), old alleys, trendy alleys, giant sodas, wild colors, birthday parties, people bowling worse than me, bowl ephemera, pin up girls and a ton of exercise. I think I'm still tired from all the activity and it's kinda fabulous. I didn't bowl as well this time, but I can honestly say that I now want my own bowling ball. It shall be in the fuchsia/purple family. And it will be stunning.

The Rule of 3s

My uncle, middle, at 18 and my mom, in the red, at 16.

Ok, I haven't written in a long time, and the seeming law of nature I refer to in the title is why. In the past month, HUBS and I have had three family members die. This is the tribute post I kept meaning to write. Every time I seriously thought about publishing it, someone else died. So, now that we've gotten to the magic number...Here goes.

My uncle Jerry died one month ago today, Sunday, April 19 2009. He was 60 years old and had at least 32 health problems (more than anyone in the family knew about). He had been home one day from the physical therapy center he had been in for about a month after having a serious set of heart attacks back in February. The abiding feeling in the family is that he knew it was coming and wanted to die at home.

Things he did:
- When my mom was 5 he hid her from the police when she hit a boy in the head with a baseball bat and knocked the kid unconscious. Jerry was 7 at the time.
- Had mostly white and friends at a time when there wasn't a lot of mingling between black and white people.
- Would tell you not to mess up his hair.
- Sat me and my two cousins in our grandmother's easy chair back in the '70s (when all three of us could fit in one chair) and played his guitar for and sang. He left me his guitar.
- Was the requisite cranky, dirty-old-man uncle (even when he was young), who would still do anything for you.
- Told my aunt, during my parents divorce, "If he (my asshole father) makes that baby (my mom) cry one more time I'm going to kill him."
- Literally kept track of every cent he ever spent. When we descended upon his house to try locating his insurance papers, we found boxes and boxes filled with old ledgers, receipts and cancelled checks. How much did he pay for that Domino's pizza on December 3, 1990? Wait, what was the cost of those cigarettes on June 21, 1977 again?
- Didn't believe in owning things. He bought a new car about every three years, and whenever he got close to paying off his house he'd take out a new mortgage on it. To him, if you didn't own anything, nobody could really take anything away from you.
- Made the two hour drive to get me from college when I had my nervous breakdown. Bought me Burger King on the way home.
- Dated one woman for 27 years and helped raise her daughter from a previous marriage, but never married himself.

HUBS' grandmother died almost a week later on April 23, 2009. She was 92. She had Alzheimer's and had declined rapidly in the weeks leading up to her death.

Things she did:
- Was the requisite cool grandmother.
- Told HUBS dirty jokes when he was a kid.
- Survived The Depression, when her mom left her and a couple of her sisters in a children's home. Her mom took her sisters home eventually, but never came to get her.
- Vowed never to leave her kids for any reason.
- She reportedly had a "spaghetti dance" which included lots of hip shaking and arm waving while the noodles were cooking.
- Was game for camping and canooing.
- Helped her husband build two houses.
- Was quite spunky and fashionable in her day.
- Always waved and smiled at me while she was in the extended care home, even though she never knew who I was.


I should have made her tea cakes more often.

My godmother's mom died the Thursday before Mother's Day on May 7, 2009. She was 95. She was the 7th of 14 kids. Only three are left now.

Things she did:
- Mothered all of her younger siblings, without prompting from her parents.
- Wanted to be a nurse, but there wasn't enough money for her to continue her education at that level. Her daughter and one of her sisters each became nurses.
- Studied cosmetology and did the hair of the sick and shut in.
- Ran a store with her husband and daughter (my godmother, when she was a kid) called The Three Nichols (their last name), that my mom went to as a child long before she and my godmother were friends.
- Said "And that is that!" when she was done having a conversation with you.
- Hated the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. Forever.
- Hot combed my hair a few times when I was little.
- Loved jewelry, but still parted with one of her gorgeous, pearl clustered, gold rings to give me for my high school graduation.
- When one of her younger brothers came home from college complaining about how hard it was and how he might quit, she gave him $5 and told him to take his butt back to school.

We miss you all.

Easter Sunday

To my absolute horror.

I hope everyone out there who celebrates Easter had a good one this year. Especially since mine kinda sucked.

I was up early, trying to get some things done before HUBS and I had to leave for the two hour trip to his folks in mid-Missouri. I could have sworn we should have some cash in our account left over from his last paycheck. I looked at our account. Not only did we not have anything left over, there wasn't enough to cover all our bills until his next pay day.

We'd be about $400 short. Having already paid some of last months bills with one of my credit cards I felt absolutely desperate and panicked. I called the only person I could think to: my mom.

I called on the pretense of only wishing her a Happy Easter, just so I could back out of asking for money if I needed to. She asked how I was and I broke down. I told her about not getting unemployment for the past 6 weeks and that we had no money to pay our bills and that we've been living off my credit cards and that we never have money for groceries. Stuff I had been avoiding telling her because I was hoping it would get better; hoping it wouldn't come to this.

PT told me it would be ok and to stop crying. She asked how much I needed and I told her. She said to calm down and come over.

I didn't feel like putting on clothes, but I knew this unplanned trip would make us late for HUBS' parents, so I did. HUBS was still in bed, I told him I was running to my mom's, kissed him quickly and left. I cried most of the way there.

PT hugged me when I got there. And, I started crying again. Shit, it was days ago now and I'm crying again thinking about the fact that I'm 34 and married and had to ask my mom for money.

She gave us far more than the 400 bucks I asked for. I protested, but took it anyway when she kept counting money out to me. PT tried to cheer me up by telling me that everybody goes through hard times and that right now this is just what I need to deal with. She also revealed that she was without a job for 2 years in the '70s. I figure this was when she was still at home with my grandmother but basically grown.

I thanked PT a lot and left about a half hour after getting there. I cried on the way home, then put a large portion of the cash in the bank.

All of this is a long way of saying that my Easter felt totally fucked. I then had to go to HUBS' family and pretend to be happy that Jesus was risen and I was with his folks, even though all I wanted to do was scream and curl up into a little ball and cry myself tired.