It Could Only Happen to Me

When strange things happen to me, they happen in clumps. I can go for weeks, nay months, without weirdness, then BANG. Weird.

This afternoon, I noticed a fly in my office.den.computer room. Not weird, you say? I have never had a fly in my house in the four years I've lived here, let alone upstairs. Not only that, I eventually noticed there were two huge ass flies instead of just one hyperactive fly as I had originally thought.

Weird number two was that my shower wouldn't drain. I grant you, that's not so weird, but it is out of the ordinary for my tub.

Here's the biggy. Before I went upstairs to get ready to go out for the evening, I went to close my front door and noticed one of my patio chairs was slightly off center. I'm anal about that sort of thing. So, I opened my storm door with the intention of reaching my foot outside to tilt the patio chair ever so slightly to the right.

When I pushed open the storm door, the whole door came apart in my hand. The handle and door frame it was attached to briefly stayed upright while the glass fell forward. It all happened in slow motion. As the weight of the handle and door frame became too heavy for me to hold, I watched the glass fall forward toward the concrete. I couldn't move. I stood there helplessly waiting for the crash of the glass on my patio and the inevitable pain of glass shrapnel embedding itself into delicate parts of my anatomy.

But, it didn't break.

The glass door fell in one big piece on top of the broken door frame. I stood there and looked at it and started to laugh. The part of the door frame with the pneumatic cylinder and hinges was still attached to my house while the other part, including the glass panel, laid ever so delicately on my patio. I've been Windexing that glass for five years and always assumed it was glass. I know it's not plastic, so I assume it's some sort of weird alien hybrid.

Don't you wish your girlfriend was weird like me?

Local Music Guide

Local Music Guide has a new site and it looks great. Go there for information on southeast Texas music events. If you have a musical act, contact them and get listed.

Tonight, check out Rodgers & LeMasters on the patio at Crazy Jose's in Beaumont from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. (Click here for Dick LeMasters' solo MySpace page and more original music.)

At Crazy Jose's, I highly recommend the Eduardo margarita. I'm not sure if that's the name of it but, if you say "Eduardo," the waitress brings you something magically delicious.

Yoga

Hatha Yoga

Otis Campbell Yoga

Good Name for a Band?

I just received a piece of spam mail with the subject line:

Nuclear Eggplant

CLICK HERE...THEN WAIT...THEN MOUSE OVER THE CIRCLE...THEN CLICK AGAIN

No wonder my feet hurt

I wore heels to work today which weren't nearly as high as the ones below, but still...

Yippie-Ki-Yay, etc.

Grand-Fabulous-Baby On the Way Rules

My daughter-in-law will be giving birth to my first grand-fabulous-baby any day now. Since Cory and Jamie live about two hours away from both Grand-Fabulous-Mother Laurie (me) and Grand-Fabulous-Mother Lisa (Jamie's mom), we have had to make a few rules.

• Because of caller ID, the first words we hear after answering any calls from Jamie's cell phone, Cory's cell phone or Cory and Jamie's house must be "Not yet."
• If Grand-Fabulous-Mother Laurie is out and about with friends, she must, at all times, have a driver on standby ready, willing and able to drive her to Houston on a moment's notice in the likely event that she is more than halfway through her second margarita.
• Grand-Fabulous-Mother Lisa has agreed to indulge in no more than two gin and tonics in any given evening while lounging by her new Grand-Fabulous-Pool.

That's it. Just your normal everyday Grand-Fabulous-Mother rules. Edina and Patsy would be proud.

,,,but they lie...

NOW you tell me?

I woke up Saturday morning with the intention of weeding the three small flower/weed beds on my patio. When I saw how many weeds there were, I decided it would be easier to drive across town to Lowes, buy several bags of pine bark, load the bags into my trunk, drive all the way home, unload the bags and spread them into the flower/weed beds than to pull all those weeds.

When I got to Lowes, I wandered around a while until I found what I wanted because I hate pushing those huge-ass flatbed carts around while I'm shopping. They're hard to handle and I feel like everybody's looking at me. After I decided on which pine bark, landscaping stones and trellises I wanted, I found one of those aforementioned huge-ass flatbed carts and began pushing it to the back of the garden area where they keep the big bags of landscaping materials.

I pushed the cart about one foot and immediately wanted to bolt from the store. This had to be the noisiest cart in the history of carts. Everybody in the garden area turned to look at me. I had no choice but to hold my head up and press on. The more I pushed the louder the cart became. It didn't help that I had to walk the length of a football field with my bellowing cart to get to the back of the store. Even little old ladies and children were giving me dirty looks.

When I reached the back of the garden center, I loaded the damn cart with four sacks of pine bark, three sacks of marble chips and one trellis. I thought these might stabilize the cart and make it less noisy. While the cart was a little less noisy, it was now almost impossible for me to push.

Even with my freakishly strong upper body strength, I had to push the still noisy cart with my whole body leaning forward at a forty-five degree angle digging in with my legs like a linebacker. I finally made it to the checkout area and paid for my stuff. However, when I tried to push the cart out to the parking lot, it got caught on a tiny dip in the concrete.

The cashier looked at my cart and said, "Oh, you got that broken cart. We've been trying to get rid of that thing."

"Yeah," added the other cashier, "I thought they put it in the back."

"The front wheels are broken," said the Lowe's guy who helped me get the broken cart over the dip in the concrete. "See, the right wheel doesn't turn and neither of them have any rubber on them."

"Well, slap my ass and call me biscuit. That's a little bit of information I could have used about an hour ago," I said.

I didn't really say that.

I wish I had said that.

But, I didn't.

I didn't say anything that I really, really, desperately, really wanted to say. There were too many little old ladies and children around.

Tone Loc Non-Review

For a couple of months now, I've been excited to see Tone Loc at Antone's. Before my sister left for a mini-vacation, she reminded me that her and her husband's 25th wedding anniversary was this week and for me to e-mail everybody to meet us out at Crockett Street.

I got to Rio Rita's at the appointed time and a few people eventually showed up with the guests of honor arriving about an hour later because of, let's say, complications. Since they got there so late and it had gotten so crowded, there was going to be an hour wait for a table. So, instead of the Mexican food I had my mouth set on all week, I ate a club sandwich at the Star Bar. If you ever want a club sandwich, go to the Star Bar. It was delicious.

At the Star Bar on Friday nights, there are usually trivia contests and an 80's dance contest. However, since Tone Loc was supposed to come up after his show at Antone's there was no dance contest and only three trivia questions were asked. According to the DJ, the main reason for the trivia contest is to keep everyone interested enough in what's going on that they enter the dance contest. Who knew?

All night long, I tried to convince people to go with me to Antone's to watch Tone Loc for even just a couple of songs but nobody would go with me. I have no problem with doing stuff like that by myself but I hadn't seen some of our friends who were with us in a while and that would have just been rude.

"Oh, well," I thought, "At least Tone Loc is going to come up here later." So, we waited. Then, we waited some more. At about 1:00 a.m. as I was coming out of the restroom, I had to stop as an entourage of people rushed by me toward the exit. I took a step back, looked up, and, by God, there was Tone Loc...leaving. He had, evidently, walked in, looked around and left. (I was only in the restroom about five minutes.) My sister and her husband and our friends, who were sitting at our tables near the stage/DJ booth, never even knew he had come into the club.

In summary,

• No Mexican food or margaritas
• No trivia contest or dance contest
• No Tone Loc or Funky Cold Medina.

However,

• One of the best club sandwiches I have ever eaten
• Good friends and lots and lots of laughs
• The Universe came through once again and let me have a very brief up close moment with Tone Loc.

He loves to do the Wild Thing, you know.

Sure, but only on Friday...

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

I have this picture on the wall beside my desk. Bill Murray points at me all day telling me how much I suck.

A co-worker came into my office in a huff a little while ago and asked me to e-mail her a copy so she could e-mail it to her husband.

I didn't ask.

Grand-Fabulous-Bib!

In about three weeks, I will have my first Grand-Fabulous-Baby. I decided early on that I would not be a Grandmother. I will be a Fabulousmother. That has sort of morphed into Grand-Fabulous-Mother.

Last weekend when some of us from the office were at Crazy Jose's drinking margaritas, eating Mexican food and listening to Rodgers & LeMasters on the patio, someone decided that Peggy should go into the business of making leather bibs for Grand-Fabulous-Babies. I can't remember whose idea it was or what even started the conversation. I do remember that the margaritas were very, very good.

Well, Peggy listens well and made me and my Grand-Fabulous-Baby the Grand-Fabulous-Bib you see above. I can't wait to fashion a Grand-Fabulous-Do-Rag for my Grand-Fabulous-Baby to match its Grand-Fabulous-Bib.

Thanks, Peggy!

Oops.

I went to CVS at lunch today to buy my sister and her husband a happy anniversary card because they're celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary this week. I love to buy cards so I always buy a few extra, if I think they're funny, and save them for later.

When I got back to the office, I had two cards and three envelopes. Fuck. I had looked at so many cards, I had no idea which card CVS charged me for but didn't put in the bag. I pulled out my receipt to see how much CVS had ripped me off and there was no charge for a third card.

You know what? I don't think I bought a third card. That's right. I only bought two cards. So, turns out, instead of getting ripped off by CVS, I stole an envelope.

Oops.

Hostess Cupcake 100 Calorie Packs

I LOVE these. I've heard and read that some people find them dry or tasteless but I think they're delicious. Maybe the ones those people tried weren't fresh or maybe their cupcakes were baked regionally and weren't as good as the ones we get here.

Or, maybe those people are just cranky healthy crazies who prefer peanut butter spread on a rice cake to soft cake-y deliciousness. Poor bastards.

I'm telling you, that's funny.

E-mail from HR this morning:
The air-conditioner man will be here shortly. Please let me know if you're having any problems.

Laurie's response:
Nah, I'm cool.

Guess you had to be there.

Haiku - Rockin' Men of the 80's

Inspired by the Wild Thing video below, I present you with the following:

Billy Idol
The curl of your lip
In all it’s deliciousness
Tempts me to bite it.

Jon Bon Jovi
Your eyes pierce my soul,
But it’s your smile I adore.
May I touch your hair?

Tommy Lee
Beat those drums, Wild Man.
Tear up the ass of those skins.
Got an extra stick?

Steven Tyler
Bright colorful scarf
Hints at your feminine side.
Show us your manhood.

Slash
Face hidden in hair,
Head down with blazing fingers.
Look at me and…breathe.

Sam Kinison

Tone Loc is going to be at Antone's this Friday (6/22) and, when I was looking for the video of Tone Loc's Wild Thing, I found Sam Kinison's Wild Thing which was much more entertaining. The second video is Sam Kinison's first appearance on Letterman.

In case you didn't know: Sunscreen and Bug Repellent Can be Harmful

I recently learned that combining sunscreen and bug repellent can be harmful to children. What? We live in southeast Texas where everyone needs protection from bugs and sun. This article explains the problem. I can't believe I've never heard this before.

Insect repellent should be applied one time a day while sunscreen should be applied often. Most parents reapply insect repellent too frequently. There are also studies which show that sunscreen might actually cause several times more DEET to be absorbed into the blood.

More Laurie Weirdness

Friday afternoon, after dinner and a couple of little bottles of warm sake with a friend, I decided I needed to go to Sam's which was right across the highway from the restaurant. I asked my friend if he wanted to go with me and he declined which kind of bummed me out because I thought nothing sounded like more fun after a couple of little bottles of warm sake than buying toilet paper and giant tubs of bubble gum with a friend.

Excuse the interruption:
For the sake of this post and to preserve his anonymity, let's pretend my friend's last name is Bowman. You'll need that pretend information shortly.

Back to our story...

As I walked around Sam's hither and yon, I happened upon the book aisle where I spyed a novel about the Civil War. I've been strangely attracted to all things Civil War lately and almost bought the book because it was only $4.17. Since I already have four books started, I decided I didn't need another book to add to that lineup and put the book back on its display.

I pushed my cart a couple of feet down the aisle, stopped and went back and picked up the book and opened it to a random page. The first words my eyes landed on, in the middle of page 42, were...

"All the while Bowman rode...."

I bought the book.

Toys for Troops

My blogging friend Gnight Girl has a son in Iraq. About a month ago, she did a post saying that her son requested toys be sent in the packages she was sending to him because the Iraqi kids love them. They especially like soccer balls and Beanie Babies.

Since that original post, the Toys for Troops project has taken on a life of its own. Click here to read more and send some toys to the troops.

More Ron Paul: Colbert and Maher

Go Astros!

My sister Bonnie, my son Cory, my daughter-in-law Jamie and I went to an Astros game yesterday. I usually get really distracted at live sporting events but this was a really good game even though the Astros lost.

I must say, it would help me a great deal if the ball was a lovely fluorescent orange instead of white. I'm just saying.

Don't Bogart the Contact Lens Solution

There's only one contact lens solution out there that doesn't make my eyes look like I've spent the afternoon in the van with Jeff Spicoli and it's been recalled. It's costing me a fortune to find another one that doesn't make my co-workers want to sniff my hair for tell-tale signs of doobage abuse.

My big fear is that, when Complete comes back on the market, it will be the one ingredient that kept me from looking like a pot head that they had to eliminate from the product to be able to get it back on the store shelves. I've had some success with rinsing the various solutions I've tried with saline solution before putting the lenses in my eyes after they've been soaking overnight. However, after a couple of hours, the redness returns.

Bummer, dude.

Swear Jar

Grandma's Blog

New Orleans: My son Cory, my sister Terry, my daughter-in-law Jamie, our best friend Melissa and me.

Someone asked me recently if I'm concerned about my future grandchildren finding and reading my blog and seeing all the pictures and reading all the stories about my escapades. I'll answer that question here for everyone to see.

I come from a huge fun loving Cajun family. In Cajun families, dancing, eating together, listening to music and being with your family and friends is not evil. It's what life is all about. Everything else is just filler.

The drinking issue has to be addressed and boundaries drawn, but to pretend like it isn't happening would be hypocritical and a lie. To pretend that your children are going to drink or not drink based solely on your example is a sure path to disappointment.

Set a good example and reinforce all the facts that your children hear every day about the dangers of alcohol. Let them know that you'll always be there for them no matter what. Teach your children well that family and friends and fun along with hard work and treating everyone with respect and kindness are the important things in life.

Then, with a little luck and a lot of prayer, they'll turn out just fine, regardless of what they find on grandma's blog.

Sopranos Series Finale

I suppose I should put in my two cents about the Soprano’s finale. I had recorded the program because, when one of your favorite people asks you if you want to go see George Carlin, you go see George Carlin.

So, when Meadow reached for the door to the diner (after ten of the most unbelievably suspenseful minutes I’ve ever spent in front of a television or a movie screen) and my television screen went black, I sat there. I just sat there. I didn’t immediately panic because the screen didn’t come up asking me if I wanted to erase the program like it does when the DVR stops recording before the program ends. So…I sat there. Then, the credits began to roll and I sat there some more.

When the credits were done, I pondered the final scene. I decided that I liked the non-ending ending. Life goes on. Just because we won’t get to see A. J. fuck up his new movie job or Meadow become an attorney for the Soprano family or Carmela fall in lust with a contractor at her new beach house or Tony make up with Dr. Melfi and fret over more possible indictments or the FBI guy continue to live a life of quiet desperation doesn’t mean it isn’t all still happening in some HBO parallel universe.

Yep. I liked it.

Oh! The Cat!
The cat was obviously a reincarnated Adriana. Period. End of story.

FYI

Rick Springfield = Dr. Noah Drake

Joey Tribbiani = Dr. Drake Ramoray

Second Annual Spindletop Spin 2007

Saturday was the Second Annual Spindletop Spin benefiting the Jefferson County Bar Association Pro Bono Program. Above is pictured our firm rest stop committee. For some reason, Shannon isn't in the picture. In the red t-shirts are Donna's husband Dennis and her granddaughter Tia. We couldn't have done it without them.

After the ride, everyone was treated to a spaghetti dinner at Antone's with music provided by the acoustic duo of Rodgers & LeMasters, one of whom is an attorney at our office. Our firm also had a lot of riders and workers who aren't pictured above.

Here's a link to more pictures.

Oh happy day!

Today is a day that shall go down in memory as a happy, happy day. Today, they fixed the flusher on the toilet in the center stall in the ladies room. Sure, there are three stalls in there and I could easily use either of the other two stalls, but the center stall is my stall of choice. The stall on the right is too close to the people washing their hands and the stall to the left is the handicap stall and my feet dangle. A person cannot do their business comfortably with their feet dangling.

Before the handle was fixed, to flush the toilet I had to hold the handle down for at least three seconds and sometimes longer. In recent days, it would only flush if you pushed the handle toward the back of the stall and held the handle down for a heck of a lot longer than three seconds. Tres annoying.

Moving on, what is the man in the picture at the top of this post doing, you ask? Why, he is toilet snorkeling, of course. Click here to find out exactly why that purple pants wearing fool is doing that.

There's a little bit of Broadway in...everyone?

There is a television commercial being broadcast promoting the upcoming Tony Awards. The commercial innocently, arrogantly, ridiculously states that there's a "little bit of Broadway in everyone."

No.

No, there isn't.

My Sexy Name

Stolen from Tom:

Get Your Sexy Name

It's Called Brown

Several years ago, a friend of mine asked me what the color of my hair was called. I said, "Um, brown?"

She said, "No, what's it called on the box?"

I said, "I don't dye my hair. This is just the color it is."

She said, "No, way."

I said, "Way."

Several months ago, a former co-worker (who, by the way, uses the same hairdresser as me) asked me if I dye my hair. I told her that I do not dye my hair. Not quite sure she believed my response, the former co-worker asked another co-worker (who also uses the same hairdresser) if I dye my hair. Co-worker number two told her she wasn't sure.

The next time I went to my hairdresser, she told me, "Hey, Becky was in here today and she asked me if I dye your hair." She freaking asked my hairdresser if I dye my hair! Before she quit working at my office, this Doubting Thomasina would occasionally bring up my allegedly undyed hair.

This afternoon, I showed up for my 5:30 p.m. haircut and who was sitting in the hairdressers chair but my former co-worker who accidentally showed up on the wrong date. We had plenty of time to catch up since her mistake caused me to have to wait an extra thirty minutes for my appointment.

While she was waiting for her new highlights to kick in, our hairdresser cut and styled my hair. Here was her perfect opening and, I'll be damned if she didn't go for it.

"So, Laurie, does Tina color your hair?" she asked.

We both told her no.

There we were, finally, all in the same room: Laurie, hairdresser, suspicious co-worker. You know what? I still don't think she believed us.

Which Sopranos Character Are You?

Which Sopranos character are you? Your Result: Meadow Soprano You're a goody goody. Good at school, normally pretty, listen to Britney Spears. You shouldn't be in this series! Dawson's Creek or somewhere else, maybe...
Tony Soprano
Carmela Soprano
Paulie Walnuts
Christopher Moltisanti
Anthony Junior Soprano
Adriana La Cerva
Which Sopranos character are you? Make Your Own Quiz

Ron Paul on the Daily Show

Slideshows from the Weekend

Ghost Hunters New Season Starts Wednesday

Ghost Hunters starts its new season on SciFi this Wednesday. I was at Cory and Jamie's this weekend and Saturday night we listened to Jay and Grant's radio show on WPRO 630 (7:00 p.m. CT Saturday nights).

This was an especially good show because they spoke to Yvette Fielding of Most Haunted. Fans of Ghost Hunters mostly feel that Most Haunted is entertaining but questionable paranormally speaking. Jay and Grant asked Yvette several questions provided to them by fans and Yvette got pissed. It was great. (Click here for some videos of Most Haunted possibly faking some of their "hauntings.")

On another note, Jay mentioned right at the beginning of the broadcast that the production company for Ghost Hunters wants him to shave off his goatee.

"What?" you ask. "Jay has a goatee?"

He sure does...

Well, if you put it that way...

I accidentally opened a spam e-mail this morning from someone named Merle who I thought might be Peter in Australia's sister. It obviously wasn't from Merle in Australia...

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