I Should Just Let It Air Dry Anyway

So, I have this hair dryer that I got about ten years ago, right before I moved to Arizona. It's all duct taped together because I lent it to someone in 2001 and they broke the heck out of the plastic but I still needed to use it and it survived all this time. Until, you know this morning when I was blow drying my hair and the thing caught on fire about three inches from my head.

(I didn't have a camera with me, but this is pretty much what it looked like)


It took me a solid five seconds to realize what was happening as I kept the sucker running and just looked around me like, what the heck is that smell? Then I caught a reflection of the flames and smoke in the mirror, dropped it into the sink, and luckily had the good sense not to turn the faucet on to put out my plugged in electrical appliance.

(Again, this is exactly what it looked like)


Yesterday I literally said to it, "You're the best blow dryer ever. You'll never die." And there are two things I learned from that, a) apparently saying that is like saying, "Wow we're making great time, we haven't hit any traffic at all!" and then you get stuck on the 405 for like ninety million hours, and b) I need to start hanging out with people more if I'm talking to my appliances.

I just tried it again to see if it would catch on fire again. It did. In other news, I should not be allowed to operate heavy, or semi-delicate machinery, or maybe even babysit if I'm trying to see if things will burst into flames again.

Not Just All Night Long, But An Entire 24 Hours Of Loving

Last night just after I'd gotten off the train at the Thorndale stop (someone peed on the train so I got off a stop early to avoid it rolling toward me - I don't wanna hear it brown line riders!) a guy, and what I'm imagining was his crew, stepped in front of me and said, "Hey baby you need some hot loving tonight?" I did, but declined with a polite "No thanks" because I already knew it would never work between us - he had glittery pants. "Hot loving? I will hold you for 24 hours." Which I thought was really nice of him - to specify the amount of time. 23 hours, too little. 25 hours, forget it I'm bored already. But 24 hours of being held by someone who I just noticed also had glittery shoes, well that would be the perfect amount of holding. But again I declined because, well because he was most likely a drug dealer, b) I don't just let anyone hold me, c) the glittery pants and shoes, and d) I had the sinking feeling the crew would want to hang around.

So I walked around them and started on my way home with the crew muttering, "Damn" and "That's some shit", and then just before I was out of earshot glitter pants said, "Just the holding then?" and I turned the corner totally giggling, and totally glad I live off the red line - you just don't get propositioned like that off the other lines. You don't get that, and you don't get pee on your trains so I guess we both sort of win.

Are We There Yet?

Seriously. Where else is it ok for the police to ride around in a golf cart chasing down people high on meth and then pepper spraying half the crowd while trying to wrastle said meth guy into the cart, then the pepper sprayed crowd decides the ice cream place is more interesting and leaves to wait in line for something gigantic and covered in whip cream and caramel, only to wash it down with margaritas half an hour later.
Catalina: where stomachs go to die.

New Habits

Did I ever tell you guys about the time I went on a road trip to my grandma's wedding and on that road trip is when I discovered my mom's arms were broken? No, I didn't? Well, it's true. That's the only explanation for why she never carried her own bags, opened her own car doors, or cut her own meat. (Ok, she doesn't eat meat. But if she did she wouldn't have cut it herself I can tell you that much.) Lucky for her, she's got a boyfriend who can do all that stuff for her, otherwise she'd just be stuck in that car forever.

Upon arrival to the hotel Bub and I walked up to the doors behind our mom and then slammed into one another when she stopped suddenly at the glass doors. Once I pried my nose out of Bub's back, and she disengaged from the weird mother-daughter sandwich we had just made, we turned to look at our mom who was just sort of eying the door suspiciously, like it was some alien life form she'd never seen before. I half expected her to start sniffing it to see what it was made of.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Why aren't you opening the door?"

"Oh my god," Becky said. "She doesn't do things for herself."

"Excuse me?"

"I had to carry all her luggage in the airport."

"Why?"

"She doesn't carry things anymore."

"Shut up."

"Yeaup."

We carried on like this for a while, talking about our mother like she wasn't standing right there with her arms crossed, smiling at us, amused we were noticing her new weird habits. I don't know why exactly but somehow she's decided Eduardo being chivalrous and opening doors and stuff for her has turned into something her daughters have to do too. Suddenly my tough, jeans-only wearing, here-let-me-carry-that-you-big-baby, dirt-digging mother has turned into a pretty little princess. There's nothing wrong with guys doing nice things, I'm pro everyone doing nice things for each other, but there's opening doors and then there's turning my mom into someone who will stand at a door waiting for someone to open it for her, even though her boyfriend is halfway across the parking lot still. Like a maniac.

"Eduardo likes to do those things for me," my mom said starting to laugh (I hope) because she realized how crazy she was sounding. "Isn't that right baby!" she called, and Bub and I turned to see Eduardo still at the car, piling himself with duffel bags, and trying to figure out how to balance one on his head while he walked.

"I know that's right!" he called back.

She laughed and then he started to laugh. At least I think he was laughing, it was too hard to tell with that strap in his mouth. Bub and I just stared at her shaking our heads.

"I miss normal," I said opening the door and letting Bub in.

"No you don't," my mom said. "Normal would mean I'd have my chore list out by now."

"We're in a hotel!"

"Your point?"

"You don't get to come in this door after me. You can open it yourself," I said pulling the door shut behind me.

"That's fine," she called through the glass. "Eduardo will be here just as soon as he picks up those bags!"

And so went the trip. Becky and I got everywhere five minutes faster than my mom because we can open doors for ourselves, but she couldn't care less. And she's right. If she's so happy she's not making me use the dust buster she brought along with her to vacuum the hotel room floor, then who am I to judge. I should just let her be spoiled and live in the peace that comes with a giggly, happy mom - it's totally worth all the crazy.

Two Pitchers of Sangria

I sort of drunk dialed my mom last night. Which was weird. She didn't seem to mind and/or notice so that's good. Chances are she was a few drinks in herself and was trying to hold her shit together while I tried to hold my shit together. Technically I wasn't really drunk, I was more like very happily tipsy, but still it was enough to loosen me up so that I'm pretty sure I said:

"That Star Trek movie rocked my fucking socks off. I want all the seasons of Star Trek for my birthday asap!"

She then informed me my birthday was ten months away.

To which I replied, "You think I'm gonna stop loving it?"

Yes, she did.

"Never!"

Turns out I woke up this morning and I'm suddenly re-thinking my position on the whole Star Trek love thing. She might be right. I liked it, but I didn't like it that much. Not enough that I was willing to commit myself to it for long enough that we'd get to the point where we would have to start talking about where this was going, and whether or not we wanted to move in together. The Sangria on the other hand . . . that stuff I will love forever.

Doing It

James just ate something crawly. Apparently whatever it was is incredibly tasty because he keeps licking his lips and scanning the walls for more of them. The good thing about having a cat is I always know there's a spider in the house before it's crawling on me. He's like a guard dog for all things under three inches. So, watch out tiny, little murdering men! My cat will most likely bat you around for a while and then get bored and eat you right before he decides it's time to give my shin a good licking.

So, my grandma got married this weekend! Yay! My mom, Bub, and Eduardo all flew out to Chicago first and hung out for a night before we rented a car and drove to Battle Creek, Michigan for the ceremony and so many meals consisting of 90% cheese I might be producing milk soon.

Battle Creek is where the Kellogg plant is, and from the looks of the town that's pretty much the only thing there aside from a few heavily bearded dudes offering my sister and me pitchers of their "special brew". We took a chance and they didn't end up to be roofied so that was good. Plus we drank it and then left immediately so we figured - well, if we're drugged at least we'll be drugged alone in our hotel room, the only bad thing about that is if one of us doesn't have the strength to turn off The Hills we're definitely leaving stupider than we arrived.

The cool thing about the town though is that the air smells sweet from all the cereal making going on. Like, you walk outside and it smells like waffles and syrup, and the people smell like powdered sugar. Ok, the people don't smell like that, but you'd think some of it would sink in after a while. It makes normal air smell real boring.

The lake we had a picnic at was really pretty.


For some reason (lots of beers) I didn't end up taking many pictures (except of my mom drunk), but we had a really good time (lots of rum punch), and the ceremony was really sweet and love-filled (except for the awkward getting communion my sister and I were planning on skipping but then somehow ended up in the line and got the bread but missed the dang wine!), and my grandma seemed so, so, so happy and that's what's important! Plus she probably did it! At 83 she's doing it! I hope I'm doing it at 83. I hope we all are.