funny stories...animals and people
I've got a couple of funny stories, then some more serious stuff (which might go friends-only). But funny stories...I have a few of late. Animal stories, kid stories, funny-people stories.
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A few weeks ago, Dad got mowed down by a greyhound. Not the bus thankfully, but the dog kind! He was running on the track at his school, and he noticed this dog running around, he was watching it because he likes dogs, and the dog eventually ran right behind him and into his legs and flipped him up into the air! He came crashing down, and he had a bunch of scrapes and bruises, which is kind of miraculous, it could've been a broken hip or something (he's in good shape, but he is_ turning 73). The greyhound owners just mumbled an apology and quickly took off with their dog; I wonder if they realized my Dad was kind of older and might've needed a little more, "Hey, are you okay?!" etc, but he doesn't present as elderly (by running on the track) and also, they were high school age students and so maybe not that mature. Anyway, he was fine, and that was really random.
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The other day I took a different way home from work; I was driving up Boundary and I was in the middle of heavy three-lane traffic (3 lanes on each side). We were kind of inching along before the stoplights at a major intersection, and all of a sudden I noticed this bird flying really low in traffic, it almost hit my windshield and then almost flew in my drivers' side window, which was open. My initial reaction was, "That was weird, what is that bird doing?" and then I second later I realized, "That is a PET BIRD!" It was yellow, like a canary or maybe a budgie or something. I was like, OMG, but I was stuck in traffic and couldn't pull over, I looked back and couldn't even see where it went. I'm sure it got crushed like 2 minutes later, it had looked totally disoriented, obviously didn't have a clue where it was going, but when I got home I grabbed a big backpack and a towel and got on my bike, and went back and tried to find it. I couldn't, of course, I couldn't see it on the road either. I knew there was little chance of finding it, but as a pet owner/animal lover...? I had to at least see. I also quickly posted an ad on Craigslist, just in case...although I'm guessing the owner could've been elderly and wouldn't think about using Craigslist. That's so sad though...the poor bird :(
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More animal stories: my upstairs neighbors are a couple; the woman is my age and a paramedic (I see her at work sometimes) and the man is...retired? I remember thinking he was her dad when they moved in four years ago...luckily I kept that little thought to myself! and they are really good neighbors. They are really nice people and they like Andrea a lot, calling to her when she's outside and sometimes even dropping string or whatever down for her to jump at. They know how active she is, and Denise (the woman) suggested to me recently that they'd be happy to have to come up and visit with them, even like, "Greg is retired, and we know you work long hours... We'd be happy to have her come up and visit, if she's bored!" I said that would be awesome, but that she could be kind of bad (likes to fight, etc) and I felt like I should umm, pay them for that?!...I know they liked her, but I felt like it would be more of a service to me/Andrea! But we tried it today; Denise stopped by and I took Andrea upstairs to the second floor; at first she panicked, but when Greg opened the door and called her name, she got excited and trotted in to see him. She stayed up there for half an hour, and I could see her looking down at "her" porch curiously, like "new perspective, here"...I wondered what she was thinking. So we'll see how that goes.
I'd be happy to give them a key, anyway; my dad has one obviously but I actually feet *better* knowing people can get into my place, if that makes any sense. I've always liked having guests when I wasn't home (in NYC, here with the cat or not); I'm not sure why, I wonder if it's coming from a big family?? I can't explain it, but I've always had that feeling; it feels more secure to me somehow.
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So Zachary was invited to a b-day party at an art studio, where the kids were going to make certain kinds of artwork (splatter painting, it turns out). Little sister Jenna-Lynn wasn't invited (presumably because it was a pay-per-kid "activity" party, as opposed to a general one) and Carina was working that day, so the plan was for dad Joel to drop off Z and have another parent keep an eye on him. The night before Zachary was sobbing and saying, "All the other kids will have a parent who stays!" (LOLOL, how long does that attitude in a kid last?!) but Joel COULDN'T stay, because JL is 3.5 and she'd want to be involved. So Carina said, "What if Auntie Jen were to go to the party with you?" and Z agreed that would be good. So I escorted Z to the party, it worked out perfectly since Carina et al live in the town adjacent to Nana's, and I was visiting Nana over lunchtime.
Not having kids yet, I was a little uncertain about "picture politics", so I asked the birthday mom, "Will people mind if I take pictures? They're just to send to Carina, I can erase them off my phone." and she just laughed and said it was fine.
So everyone was nice and it was a fun way to spend two hours. The best part was when the girl who works there was outlining the rules to the kids; before they started she was holding the wooden paintbrushes and saying things like, "So, no throwing paint at each other...no hitting others with the brushes!" and one kid adds cheerfully, "And no chewing the paintbrushes like a beaver!" OMG, I thought that was *priceless*. It was a pretty cool place; they had an entire room dedicated to "splatter painting" which looked just as you can imagine. Zachary has a BFF named Cole; the two of them hugged and kissed each other upon greeting and saying goodbye...totally melted my heart; too bad that kind of thing doesn't last! (They're 5/6). For food, as well a a cupcakes-cake they had trays of chips, cheetos and licorice as well as a fruit tray (which mostly went untouched until the end); the birthday mom said, "I was going to make sandwiches...then I thought, 'what's the point?! As if they're going to eat them anyway!" I liked her :) I'm into healthy food, but when you're doing junk food, you might as well do junk food...at parties and stuff, there's probably no point in forcing a few carrots or whatever. It was also interesting to me, as Carina said... She turns 38 this year, and she is the youngest mom of the group; most of them were well into their 40's. I'd assumed I'd be an older mom but Carina said not in her experience... Interesting demographic; I suppose it depends on where you live.
Speaking of kids and junk food, I babysat Zachary and JL a few weeks ago, when Lady Gaga was supposed to come to town but she cancelled d/t bronchitis or something, so Carina and Joel just had a regular night out instead. I decided to do "make your own sundaes" with them for fun. I set out the bowls of smarties, m&ms, and gummy bears (on a sundae? GROSS, I know) and said, "You guys can eat some of this stuff, just make sure to save enough for the sundaes!" ...I could not believe it, those little hands were going between bowl and mouth at LIGHTENING SPEED. I'm not sure if it was simply unfettered access to candy or what, if they were each trying to eat enough to ensure their sibing wouldn't get "more"? but it was hilarious_. I said, "Are you guys even TASTING that stuff?!" They were like little german shepherds "bolting" their food. Luckily they tired of eating their sundaes after a short time, I guess they were full from all the candy (?!) Anyway, that was quite amusing.
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Carina is featured in another story here. Last week, she got up to find that three of the fairly-big shrubs/trees in the hedge of her front lawn were just...lying flat on the the lawn. She was like, "what, and how..." She lives on the corner lot, and of course there were tire tracks, someone had driven right into them and knocked them over. She then stepped over a crumpled license plate! She was like, "Nice of them to leave their calling card!" and she phoned her landlord, who called the police. Of course they found the guy, who was mortified. He has agreed to replace the shrubs by July 1st, and if so that's that. I saw it, it's going to be quite a job! Lesson learned: if you crash into a bunch of trees, check for your license plate before taking off :)
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As for a kind of "stupid-people" story, this one involves me. I cut my leg shaving so badly last week I thought I was going to BLEED OUT. I've been shaving my legs for 20 years and I've never cut myself this badly, WTF? It's on my ankle, right beside my tattoo (ugh) and it's 4" long. I am going to have a scar FOREVER. It's been over a week and it still feels like it happened 5 minutes ago, because I took all the skin off. OMG, so stupid. I've been putting polysporin and vitamin E oil and cream on it and still have a stretchy Ace-type bandage over it to keep everything together, I probably will for another month. AAARGH!!
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A few weeks ago, Dad got mowed down by a greyhound. Not the bus thankfully, but the dog kind! He was running on the track at his school, and he noticed this dog running around, he was watching it because he likes dogs, and the dog eventually ran right behind him and into his legs and flipped him up into the air! He came crashing down, and he had a bunch of scrapes and bruises, which is kind of miraculous, it could've been a broken hip or something (he's in good shape, but he is_ turning 73). The greyhound owners just mumbled an apology and quickly took off with their dog; I wonder if they realized my Dad was kind of older and might've needed a little more, "Hey, are you okay?!" etc, but he doesn't present as elderly (by running on the track) and also, they were high school age students and so maybe not that mature. Anyway, he was fine, and that was really random.
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The other day I took a different way home from work; I was driving up Boundary and I was in the middle of heavy three-lane traffic (3 lanes on each side). We were kind of inching along before the stoplights at a major intersection, and all of a sudden I noticed this bird flying really low in traffic, it almost hit my windshield and then almost flew in my drivers' side window, which was open. My initial reaction was, "That was weird, what is that bird doing?" and then I second later I realized, "That is a PET BIRD!" It was yellow, like a canary or maybe a budgie or something. I was like, OMG, but I was stuck in traffic and couldn't pull over, I looked back and couldn't even see where it went. I'm sure it got crushed like 2 minutes later, it had looked totally disoriented, obviously didn't have a clue where it was going, but when I got home I grabbed a big backpack and a towel and got on my bike, and went back and tried to find it. I couldn't, of course, I couldn't see it on the road either. I knew there was little chance of finding it, but as a pet owner/animal lover...? I had to at least see. I also quickly posted an ad on Craigslist, just in case...although I'm guessing the owner could've been elderly and wouldn't think about using Craigslist. That's so sad though...the poor bird :(
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More animal stories: my upstairs neighbors are a couple; the woman is my age and a paramedic (I see her at work sometimes) and the man is...retired? I remember thinking he was her dad when they moved in four years ago...luckily I kept that little thought to myself! and they are really good neighbors. They are really nice people and they like Andrea a lot, calling to her when she's outside and sometimes even dropping string or whatever down for her to jump at. They know how active she is, and Denise (the woman) suggested to me recently that they'd be happy to have to come up and visit with them, even like, "Greg is retired, and we know you work long hours... We'd be happy to have her come up and visit, if she's bored!" I said that would be awesome, but that she could be kind of bad (likes to fight, etc) and I felt like I should umm, pay them for that?!...I know they liked her, but I felt like it would be more of a service to me/Andrea! But we tried it today; Denise stopped by and I took Andrea upstairs to the second floor; at first she panicked, but when Greg opened the door and called her name, she got excited and trotted in to see him. She stayed up there for half an hour, and I could see her looking down at "her" porch curiously, like "new perspective, here"...I wondered what she was thinking. So we'll see how that goes.
I'd be happy to give them a key, anyway; my dad has one obviously but I actually feet *better* knowing people can get into my place, if that makes any sense. I've always liked having guests when I wasn't home (in NYC, here with the cat or not); I'm not sure why, I wonder if it's coming from a big family?? I can't explain it, but I've always had that feeling; it feels more secure to me somehow.
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So Zachary was invited to a b-day party at an art studio, where the kids were going to make certain kinds of artwork (splatter painting, it turns out). Little sister Jenna-Lynn wasn't invited (presumably because it was a pay-per-kid "activity" party, as opposed to a general one) and Carina was working that day, so the plan was for dad Joel to drop off Z and have another parent keep an eye on him. The night before Zachary was sobbing and saying, "All the other kids will have a parent who stays!" (LOLOL, how long does that attitude in a kid last?!) but Joel COULDN'T stay, because JL is 3.5 and she'd want to be involved. So Carina said, "What if Auntie Jen were to go to the party with you?" and Z agreed that would be good. So I escorted Z to the party, it worked out perfectly since Carina et al live in the town adjacent to Nana's, and I was visiting Nana over lunchtime.
Not having kids yet, I was a little uncertain about "picture politics", so I asked the birthday mom, "Will people mind if I take pictures? They're just to send to Carina, I can erase them off my phone." and she just laughed and said it was fine.
So everyone was nice and it was a fun way to spend two hours. The best part was when the girl who works there was outlining the rules to the kids; before they started she was holding the wooden paintbrushes and saying things like, "So, no throwing paint at each other...no hitting others with the brushes!" and one kid adds cheerfully, "And no chewing the paintbrushes like a beaver!" OMG, I thought that was *priceless*. It was a pretty cool place; they had an entire room dedicated to "splatter painting" which looked just as you can imagine. Zachary has a BFF named Cole; the two of them hugged and kissed each other upon greeting and saying goodbye...totally melted my heart; too bad that kind of thing doesn't last! (They're 5/6). For food, as well a a cupcakes-cake they had trays of chips, cheetos and licorice as well as a fruit tray (which mostly went untouched until the end); the birthday mom said, "I was going to make sandwiches...then I thought, 'what's the point?! As if they're going to eat them anyway!" I liked her :) I'm into healthy food, but when you're doing junk food, you might as well do junk food...at parties and stuff, there's probably no point in forcing a few carrots or whatever. It was also interesting to me, as Carina said... She turns 38 this year, and she is the youngest mom of the group; most of them were well into their 40's. I'd assumed I'd be an older mom but Carina said not in her experience... Interesting demographic; I suppose it depends on where you live.
Speaking of kids and junk food, I babysat Zachary and JL a few weeks ago, when Lady Gaga was supposed to come to town but she cancelled d/t bronchitis or something, so Carina and Joel just had a regular night out instead. I decided to do "make your own sundaes" with them for fun. I set out the bowls of smarties, m&ms, and gummy bears (on a sundae? GROSS, I know) and said, "You guys can eat some of this stuff, just make sure to save enough for the sundaes!" ...I could not believe it, those little hands were going between bowl and mouth at LIGHTENING SPEED. I'm not sure if it was simply unfettered access to candy or what, if they were each trying to eat enough to ensure their sibing wouldn't get "more"? but it was hilarious_. I said, "Are you guys even TASTING that stuff?!" They were like little german shepherds "bolting" their food. Luckily they tired of eating their sundaes after a short time, I guess they were full from all the candy (?!) Anyway, that was quite amusing.
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Carina is featured in another story here. Last week, she got up to find that three of the fairly-big shrubs/trees in the hedge of her front lawn were just...lying flat on the the lawn. She was like, "what, and how..." She lives on the corner lot, and of course there were tire tracks, someone had driven right into them and knocked them over. She then stepped over a crumpled license plate! She was like, "Nice of them to leave their calling card!" and she phoned her landlord, who called the police. Of course they found the guy, who was mortified. He has agreed to replace the shrubs by July 1st, and if so that's that. I saw it, it's going to be quite a job! Lesson learned: if you crash into a bunch of trees, check for your license plate before taking off :)
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As for a kind of "stupid-people" story, this one involves me. I cut my leg shaving so badly last week I thought I was going to BLEED OUT. I've been shaving my legs for 20 years and I've never cut myself this badly, WTF? It's on my ankle, right beside my tattoo (ugh) and it's 4" long. I am going to have a scar FOREVER. It's been over a week and it still feels like it happened 5 minutes ago, because I took all the skin off. OMG, so stupid. I've been putting polysporin and vitamin E oil and cream on it and still have a stretchy Ace-type bandage over it to keep everything together, I probably will for another month. AAARGH!!