'Cause I got my hair did

I love my patients.

Him: You got yo' hair did since the last time you was here.

Me: I did.

Him: Is that 'cause you is goin' to yo' family reunion?

Me: Yep. You can't be having people talk about your hair at the family reunion.

Him: Now, don't you be goin' and makin' fun of yo' fat cousin just 'cause you got yo' hair did and you lookin' good.

Me: How do you know I have a fat cousin?

Him: Honey, everybody got a fat cousin. You just be good, you hear?

Me: Yes sir, I will.

These people crack me up. I do have a fat cousin, I am a fat cousin, and I do look good. But my hair? Nobody can make fun of my hair!!!

It's hair day, it's hair day!

Woot woot! Can you see me doing the happy dance? 'Cause I totally am.

Now I have to get ready for work or I'm going to be late and miss my hair appointment.

And that would make me very sad and there would be no more dancing.

First off, happy Father's Day to my Poppy. Seriously, Dad, you're the best!!!

The Force and I had a 2 day Father's Day Extravaganza with PB. Yesterday was big-time pool day. The Force is a crazy water-boy and loves him some swimming. He can spend hours paddling around the pool, jumping in and out, and loves hitting on all the ladies that step foot inside the pool gate. We had a great time. Then it was pizza and a movie. After The Force went to bed, PB and I stayed up to watch "Defiance" (which is very good and based on the true story of a Holocaust resistance movement led by 3 Jewish brothers), and well, I stayed up to watch it while PB watched the inside of his eyelids. Turns out all that swimming wears him out as much as it does The Force! Today we went to see the Disney movie "Up". If you're my friend on Facebook you know that it made me a little sad. It was a good movie, really it was, but it deals very frankly with life and death, and with reality versus the things you dream about. It just made me sad that for about 3/4 of the movie the main character missed the point that his life WAS the adventure. I did LOVE LOVE LOVE the hero dog, though. Very much a Pooh King type of dog. Actually, I'm pretty sure if Pooh King could talk he would sound exactly like that dog and say exactly what that dog says. Exactly.

Speaking of what Pooh King would say, guess who can speak now? Ummm, that would be one Pooh King. Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks? It turns out that The Force is practically a dog whisperer. He loves the movie "Bolt" and frequently acts out various scenes. Yesterday he was in the apartment and says, "I'll be Penny and you (points and Pooh King) be Bolt." I'm pretty sure Pooh said okay. They were working on Pooh's "super-bark" when The Force held his hand up in perfect "evil-hand" style (anyone who has ever seen Pooh and me play the evil hand game knows exactly what I'm talking about) and said "SPEAK!" and Pooh King barked. The Force shrieked and giggled. Well, that's all the positive reinforcement that dog needed. They practiced like a million times. And now, he speaks. My apologies to the neighbors.

3 posts in 1 day? WTF?!?!?!

This is The Great and Powerful Oz's favorite morning spot. She lies in the window in my bathroom and watches the world outside, or me as I get ready... or sometimes the floor.

Sometimes she just sleeps. It's her favorite time of the day, I'm sure of it.

And this is my jug o' pee. Seriously.

I've been to another doctor to figure out some of my mystery fatigue illness and weight loss difficulty and such. She changed some of my medications and ordered some new tests. On eof them was a 24 hour urine collection for some special pee test they do at a lab. The doctor's office said to keep the urine container in my refrigerator. Oh, hell no! Of course, the nurse gave me very specific directions about how to complete the urine test.

Start it at this time, dump this urine, keep that one, etc, etc. DON'T PEE DIRECTLY INTO THE ORANGE CONTAINER!!!

Check.

NO, SERIOUSLY, DON'T PEE DIRECTLY INTO THE ORANGE CONTAINER!

Okay, I get it.

IT HAS ACID IN IT! YOU'LL BURN EVERYTHING IT SPLASHES ON!!!

OKAY!!! I WON'T PEE DIRECTLY INTO THE ORANGE CONTAINER!!!

Needless to say, I bought a special cup that now lives in the dumpster. The orange pee container went to the lab this morning, and during the collection time it lived in a styrofoam cooler full of ice that now lives in the dumpster. Sorry Mother Earth, I just couldn't put that in my fridge with my food. I'm sure you understand.

In Otis's earnest efforts to catch a hummingbird to love forever ('cause surely he doesn't want to eat it), he tried a running leap at my corner plant stand on the porch. This did not end well. The plants and plant stand came crashing down and broke to pieces all around him. Otis, of course, remained unscathed. I made a mad dash to WalMart just before midnight to so I could repot the plants and set out on a quest to find a new corner stand. I wound up with two that are much better than the first.

My window box.

My table.

Corner #1

Corner #2

Imagine whirled peas

This was my first pea. My sugar snap peas were growing like crazy then just kind of crapped out. One vine is still going wild, but the others are midget vines. Good thing we love midgets.

These are the first blooms on my tomato vines from a few weeks ago. Now I have about a dozen small green grape tomatoes. I can't wait until they ripen!

Basil... Yum!

While we were at Virginia Beach we saw a pimp on a bike. Seriously.

During the fantastic drag 'o stuff back and forth to the beach, I had seen 2 women DEFINITELY walking the street in search of some business time. Oh my. There was no missing it. After we had left the beach and were taking The Force from shop to shop in search of his perfect "I was at the beach and got this awesome t-shirt that I'll outgrow in 3 months" vacation memory t-shirt (which, by the way, took us 4 beach shops to find because we looked at all the shirts in every shop only to have The Force say, "No, none of these, let's keep looking." He's 3. But I digress.) We came out of the last shop and headed across the street to get some ice cream. Mmmmmmmmmm, ice cream. And there they were. At Virginia Beach, lots of people rent these bicycle-cart thingys that look kind of like a carriage but you still have to pedal. There sat Big Pimpin' and his Girls having a little conference on the corner. Even The Force noticed. PB about busted his gut. I shook my head in disbelief that I didn't have my camera. My Ninjarazi skills could have been really put to the test... as could my recent gym skills as I may have needed to outrun a carriage-cycle pedalled by a pimp, or outrun two hoes in 6 inch hooker-heels.

Can you picture that?

It's no secret to anyone around here that I like food. Good food. Sometimes it's hard to eat good food when you have a 3 year old in tow. PB and I picked up burgers from Red Robin on Thursday night after the grand key adventure. The Force had peanut butter and jelly. We ate al fresca on the play room floor while watching "The Secrets of the Furious Five". The Force and I enjoyed some tasty Lunchables on the beach and snacked on grapes and such. Friday night we braved a torrential downpour to go to Friendly's, where ice cream makes the meal! The menu hasn't changed since I was a kid and we used to have our big family night out there because that's where a family could afford to eat out and that's where KIDS LIKE TO EAT. And there's lots and lots of really good ice cream.

When it came to dinner on Saturday, PB and I looked at each other trying to decide what to get. We needed a place that was child friendly but would suit adult tastes too, and neither of us could bear to leave the beach without having real seafood. REAL seafood, like NOT Joe's Crab Shack or some other chain restaurant. We consulted the GPS, "The Drover" if you will, and came up with The Pirates' Cove, only 2 miles from our friend's house. We didn't know if it would be good or not, but The Force is a big fan of pirates, so we figured we would at least have a shot.

Sure enough, the place is done up in full pirate regalia and The Force was thrilled. There was plenty of "aaaargh"ing and pirate talk, and The Force was convinced that eating pirate food was a great idea. Success! He got pirate fish sticks, and PB and I ordered a calamari appetizer and our respective fish dinners. The Force has never been much on trying new foods, so when he asked what our calamari was and I offered him one, we were shocked when he took it. PB warned him it might be a little chewy (definitely not his favorite) but he went forth with gusto. And much to everyone's surprise, he liked it. He liked it a lot. And he kept eating, and eating, and eating. Oh, he ate some fish, but every time he was out of calamari, he would look up at PB and say, "Can I have some more of my favorite?"

And just like that, the peanut butter and jelly kid became a calamari eating fool.

My work here is done.

Oh, what an adventure we had.

Going to the beach with a 3 year old is quite a trip. PB and I loaded The Force up on Thursday. We took Tough Lucy Dodge to be sure we had enough room for all the accouterments a 3 year old requires for a 2.5 day trip to the beach. There are a lot. First there was the huge cooler of food. The Force can be a picky eater, and since we're trying to vacation on a budget this year (as is the whole U.S. of A.) we figured a PBJ from the cooler would be easier to find and cheaper to make than finding a $6 PBJ on the beach. There was another cooler for drinks. Then there's the beach bags full of towels, toys, noodles, sunscreen, buckets, shovels and sandforms. 3 beach chairs. And 2 beach umbrellas. A car seat, of course. Oh, and don't forget the DVD player. Let me tell you, that is a sweet, sweet invention since I was a kid. I may never, NEVER want to hear the sound of the original Batman and Robin movie again, but not hearing, not even once, "Are we there yet?" was music to my ears.

We took off in pretty good time, all things considered. About 30 seconds before we left it started to rain, and it didn't stop until some time Friday morning. We stayed at a friend's house about 25 minutes from the beach. When we pulled in Thursday night, the door that was supposed to be open was locked. That led us on an almost 2 hour long "key-hunt adventure" (no, really The Force, it IS really a REAL game! Even Dora knows about it!) trying to get the spare key from our friend's sister. Anyway, when we got out of the truck The Force promptly declared that, in fact, we were NOT at the beach, that he couldn't even see the beach, and he was not fooled. It took a while to convince him that we were a lot closer to the beach than we had been when we left FarmVegas.

When we got to the beach parking lot on Friday morning, The Force was finally convinced that we had not been lying to him all along. PB tried to take him into the ocean, and you should have heard that kid scream. Holy Toledo, has that kid got pipes. From that point forward, any time the word "beach" was spoken, he would immediately say "I only want to play in the sand, not get in the water" as fast as his little mouth would move.

Tomorrow? How the PBJ monster turned calamari into "my favorite". Seriously.

PB and I took The Force to Virginia Beach this weekend. I intended to sit down and write a great big post about all of the great stuff we saw (including a pimp on a bicycle- no shit) but alas, real life things like getting groceries, walking the dog, and cleaning the bathroom took precedence. But I promise, I'll write a post tomorrow that will be worthy of the wait.

And seriously, a pimp on a bicycle? I wish I had my camera for that.