Happynez is a warm butt

I can attest to that. It's been single digits here temperature wise right now and I'm so glad that I got butt warmers (also known as Dr Scholl's heated car seat covers) for Christmas! Especially on those bitter cold mornings as I'm leaving work wearing only thin scrub pants. Yeah, those are good.

Geeks and why it sometimes pays to be a smartass

Dan and I had a conversation at work last night that proved just how geeky we are.

Me: That was such a crazy snowstorm on the way in.
Dan: I know.
Me: It looked like you were getting ready to jump to hyperspace with the snow coming at you like that.
Dan: That's exactly what it looked like!


And sometimes it just pays to be a smartass. I was helping NICU with a computer/label problem so I told them that I'd take payment for my help in the form of chocolate. Totally unexpected, 5 minutes later a candy bar shows up with my name on it and a note from NICU thanking me!

This has been in my head latetly

Wisdom from Larry the Cable Guy

I have never heard my Grandma M laugh so hard as I did when I was having lunch with her and Judy today and Grandma burped, thus the smartass in me had to respond with this lil gem from Larry the Cable Guy:

"It's better to burp and taste it, than fart and waste it."

The post-Dancing with the Stars McDonald's Stop or how they were out of everything I wanted

This was just worthy of it's own post.

Everything at JLA was very overpriced, and since I was driving and don't drink pop, I was pretty much limited to water. Well, a bottle of water was $3.00. No way was I paying that. So we agreed that we would stop at McDonald's on the way home.

I wanted to stop at the one on Woodward Avenue as we were leaving Detroit. But I got outvoted. Mom wanted to get out of Detroit So we headed north. Kelly had Glinda find a McDonald's in Auburn Hills about 2 miles off the expressway.

I took everyone's pop and ice cream orders and I was planning on getting an iced tea. I order it. "We're out of iced tea." So I ask for a vanilla milk shake instead. I get told that she was just told that there was enough tea left for one more order. So I get tea. Then I go to order 2 apple pies because I knew that it'd be hard to eat ice cream while driving. Out of apple pies. At this time the lady goes. "Did you just hear me?" I said yes. And she started apologizing, apparently because she said "What else do you want lady?" So I change my order (and I firmly remember McDonald's having butterfinger) to a butterfinger McFlurry. There's no butterfinger. So I ask what they do have and end up getting a peanut butter cup McFlurry. I pull up to the window and we all get our food and my flurry isn't mixed. At this point I just give up.

We left McDonald's and Kelly mixed my flurry for me.

I'll never stop at that McDonald's again...

Dancing with the stars: LIVE!

On Saturday I packed 4 other people into my car and we headed off to Detroit. First stop was Saginaw to pick up Grandma P where we were surprised by the fact that Uncle Tom opened up his wallet and bought us pizza to munch on before we left. Very cool.

Second stop. Starbucks after we reached the highway by going past the "Wood" in the east side of Saginaw. Very scary part of town, many shootings happen there. So Starbucks was very necessary because I hate driving through that part of town and I just wanted another peppermint mocha. I also got my grandma a tall hot chocolate because she doesn't drink coffee and I could tell that she wanted a drink even though she said she didn't. So I walked out to the car, handed her the hot chocolate and she called me a jackass. I love my Grandma.

Third stop. Great Lakes Crossing. Seems like I've been there like every 6 weeks lately, but there's always different sales and stuff, especially with all the post-holiday clearances going on. Plus I went into the Bass Pro Shop for the first time, and that store is awesome! I ended up spending about an hour in there, got some new clothes, didn't get to look around nearly as much as I wanted to, but I got my mission accomplished in there.

After a few hours in the mall we headed down to the Joe. Now on this trip we not only had printed out directions, but we were trying out Glinda, Karen and Kelly's Garman GPS. I'm glad that we had both though, because Glinda was great for telling me how much farther to go, but sometimes she wanted to take whacked out ways, so we forced her to recalculate often.

Dinner was at Hockeytown Cafe, a favorite place, right across the street from Ford Field and Comerica Park. (What cracked out city planner planned that? There is absolutely NO parking in that area aside from an 8 story structure and a random lot a few blocks back.) Our dinner was a bit rushed so that we could make the show on time. Of course, the shuttle only runs from Hockeytown Cafe to JLA on nights that there are actually hockey games, so we had to walk the "couple" (read 5) blocks down to the people mover station, which only costs 50 cents to ride. All well and good except when trying to hurry and not kill my 82 year old Grandma with all the steps. But we made it to the Joe in plenty of time.

And oh my god. The dancing was amazing. Our seats were on the curve and though they were in the upper bowl, we pretty much had an unobstructed view, unlike the people who paid over $100 to sit in the front row and only get to see the dancers from the waist up because of the people at the table seats around the dance floor. But oh, the sensuality of the dancers. The skill. The costumes. It was all amazing.

Except for Wayne Newton. At least he didn't dance. But he either had vocal strain or was getting over bronchitis because he could barely sing. But while he was singing we had a romantic waltz to watch, so we didn't suffer too much.

It was just great.

Happy 2008!

Well, a new year is here, and as usual, it's cold! Even though I can't really complain because the lake levels need a hard winter, but I want to be warm again. But 2007 is over and the end of it was good.

Christmas was a chaotic time. I made the cinnamon rolls for Christmas dinner and was planning on making them with Grandma M because we always make them together, but I didn't realize what a job this would be as bad as her dementia has gotten this year. First off, we did them at my house because my aunt had the flu and I didn't want to be cooking food that many other people would eat when there's a flu virus running around in that house. So I told my aunt that we'd pick Grandma up at 10am. Dad calls over there shortly after 10 and Grandma had just gotten up so she wasn't ready yet. I didn't know this because I'd run over to the neighbor's house to show Jane the pictures that I'd taken of Cocoa because I knew she wanted to see them. I also wanted Chuck to make me a hair dryer and curling iron holder for my bathroom. I ended up trading the pictures of Cocoa for the hair dryer curling iron holder. I come back home, Jane comes with me and I find out that grandma wasn't ready yet. Mom and Jane visit for a while and then I start making the cinnamon rolls while mom decides to go get grandma. Mom is then gone for over an hour and I'm starting to get worried. I call over there and Mom's just getting Grandma out the door. Apparently Mom had to help her get dressed and everything.

So Mom and Grandma get here, I've got the cinnamon rolls rising already and I've got a batch of fudge starting on the stove. As I'm stirring the fudge, Grandma comes over and looks in the pot. "What kind of candy are you making?"

"Fudge." At this point I'm just boiling the sugar, milk, salt and butter.

She looks in the pot again. "Oh, white fudge."

Later in the day as the rolls are baking and cooling and I'm sitting stirring up frosting, Grandma looks in the bowl. "Is that for the gravy?"

It's funny, but sad at the same time. I find that if I don't laugh, I'm going to cry because it's so sad to see her memory going downhill like this.

Anyways, Christmas Eve was fun. I was baking some brownies for a dessert that mom was making and was feeding egg shells down the garbage disposal, one at a time, when the sink backed up. I told Dad and he checked it out and there was water shooting out a pin hole in the side of the garbage disposal, so he got to replace the garbage disposal before we got together at Grandma M's and followed the usual Christmas traditions. Including, rearranging the table setting to fit all 10 of us at the table, because every year my aunt insists on setting it only for 8 and having Ryan and Liz sit at the small table in the kitchen because the table seats 8. And every year we rearrange the table to cram everyone in to one table. And every year my other aunt brings Sasha with her and tries to feed her turkey. We all vetoed it this year because any bit of people food gives the dog the walking farts, and well, that dog can sure clear a room.

Christmas Day was just pure chaos. After sleeping in from going to midnight mass the night before, I got up and unloaded and loaded the dishwasher because the kitchen was in chaos from the garbage disposal disaster the day before. I'd handwashed some dishes and was wiping down the counter when the dishwasher started to rinse away the first time. Instantly water started shooting out of the back of the sink. I'm standing there hitting the 'cancel' button frantically on the dishwasher to get the water to stop shooting out. Dad came out into the kitchen and I told him what happened and he realized that he didn't knock out the knock out for the dishwasher before hooking up the garbage disposal, so once that happened, we didn't have water shooting all over the kitchen anymore. After all that we headed over to Grandma P's, and what can you say about Christmas spent in a house with 5 children ages 6 and under. It's loud. There's lots of toys. And Ella found Grandma's squirrel that sings "I can't drive 55" and started dancing to it. Except her version of dancing was jumping up and down in circles and waving her hands around. That was fun.

But we survived.

Now it's the new year. Time for new beginnings. We faced a lot of hard times last year, Grandma's cancer returning, her 7 week bout in the hospital with diverticulitis when we thought that we may lose her a couple of times while she was in there. But now she's home and gaining weight, when she's not trying to steal the car of the lady that stays with her during the day so that she can go get some cigarettes. This happened while Judy was pumping gas into the car. Luckily she caught grandma in time. Or when she got caught flushing her pills down the toilet. It's a new year and things will get better.

My resolutions for 2008:
1. Eat healthier
2. Lose some weight
3. Get organized.