Wonder Woman

Yesterday was quite the adventure for me and a friend of mine that I've mentioned on here before. We've been trying to spend more time together to see what happens(and prolly both praying it doesn't blow up in our faces), instead of constantly running from each other. Anyway the evening started out by him having to carry our favorite very drunk bartender, prince charming style, to bed. Pretty funny in itself. After I left he calls and asks me if I could please bring him a needle and length of thread when I come back. Wouldn't tell me why but the first thing that came to my mind was stitches. Turns out he broke up a fight between the two of the other inhabitants, large Akitas, and got bit in the process. Not a very long wound, maybe 3/4 of an inch, but it was deep, gaping and gross. Honestly it did need stitches and the local ER was not an option. Amazed me how tough the skin was to try and poke thru, and how tough he was, just stood there and allowed me to. Then he finished running it thru while I held the skin closed. A few knots and a little vodka later, both drank and used as a sterilizer, the finished product looked very professional. We settled in to watch a movie. That didn't last long. The two remaining residents came home drunk and arguing about an incident that happened earlier. We stayed out of it until it was brought to us, I don't want to get in the middle of a husband and wife fight. The arguing continued in the living room as the husband tried to lay down on the couch. She announced that she was so mad she should shoot him in his sleep. We both advised her that she can't do that. Wrong choice of words. My husband, my house, my gun and I can shoot him if I want to. With that she went in the bedroom with my friend right behind her. Could hear her arguing with my friend about a gun. Maybe against my better judgment, I went in the bedroom also. Found her standing there with two .38's, holding them with her fingers away from the trigger guard (my focused stayed on the position of her hands). My friend looked a little freaked but was still calm, explaining to her that this wasn't the answer. She said she knew that, she wasn't really going to shoot him but she could, she's just choosing not to. She wanted to show us she could. So, I told her I would feel a lot more comfortable if she would please hand me the weapons. In the back of my mind, I was thinking before something happens that we can't stitch up. She told me the same thing, I'm not going to do anything. Still, please? Accidents happen, and I'm sure we would both feel better. Are they loaded? She started crying again and handed me both revolvers (God she gave them to me barrel first). Checked the cylinder, both loaded. So that potentially bad situation averted, we were back to talking for the next...god knows how long.

After it was all said and done, the couple had gone to bed and we were left alone again, he turned to me and said "Movie night was effectively ruined. You know no one will believe this right? I carried a drunk bartender to bed, we stitched up my arm and you disarmed a drunk woman in the same night. You must be wonder woman or something. You did it all without hesitation. Still can't believe you stitched my arm without puking." Yeah me too.

In all fairness to the above couple, not once have I witnessed them fight before. The coolest lesson from last night (other than alcohol and guns don't mix)? Under pressure we work well together and are both cooler heads when needed.

Good Stuff

Meaning to put something on here for at least a week but somehow I managed to be very busy. The creators of the website Zen Moments stopped by here in the last few weeks. Asked to me if I felt there was anything I might be able to contribute to the site. Being super critical of most anything I write, it took days for me to figure out what may be appropriate. After weighing thru things posted here and not, I settled on two. One turned out to be what they were seeking. Nothing could explain how flattered and proud I was that they connected with the piece and posted it on their site. Follow the below link:

Zen Moments: The Road Not Taken

Seven Blunders Of The World

Not sure who to attribute this to but it's dead on... *Update* Apparently this was spoken by Gandhi.

"Seven Blunders of the World


1. Wealth without work

2. Pleasure without conscience

3. Knowledge without character

4. Commerce without morality

5. Science without humanity

6. Worship without sacrifice

7. Politics without principle"

Amen.

Hopeline

One of my favorite sites to visit is Post Secret. It's sort of like being able to read someone's innermost thoughts and secrets, I've both laughed and cried there. Stepped back and felt not quite so alone, not quite so weird to see that sometimes other people feel the same. Some of human nature is shocking, some of it really is very common but we are all too chicken to say anything. At the bottom of this weeks selected postcards was this video about Hopeline, a privately funded suicide prevention hotline. The founder of this hotline lost his wife to suicide. Right now he is fighting to keep it out of our government's hands and basically needs help paying the phone bill. I'm sure they are helping someone as you are reading this... someone can get that low, come that close and no one knows. Watch the video below and donate whatever you can.

Castles

So a friend told me this story a few nights ago. We were talking, joking, and somewhere along the way the conversation turned serious. At that exact moment it fit my frame of mind and almost brought me to tears. No way can I capture that moment but I can tell the story...

A man gets up on the soapbox in the middle of the town square. He shouts to the passersby "Would you like to see the most beautiful heart in all the world?" After a crowd gathers to view what he was speaking of, he unbuttons his shirt. There on the man's chest was the most beautiful heart, bright red, luminous, perfect in every way, no scars or bruises. The crowd oohed and awwed over this vision in front of them. They approached him, wanting to touch his beautiful heart. The man quickly became guarded, closing his shirt and yelling at them to get back. 'No one can touch me there, you'll fade it, scar it. It's beautiful, but no one can touch it.' He runs away before anyone gets too close. A feeble old man walks to the front to take the young man's place. He says to the crowd "Would any of you like to see the beauty of my heart?" Everyone stares as the old man unbuttons his shirt to reveal his heart. They gasp, it's faded, covered with nicks and scars, a large piece is actually missing. He points to the scars "My heart was not guarded. Allowing people to touch it they left there marks, I've loved and lost and loved again. This piece that's missing? I gave it to my wife when she died." He invited the crowd to him and let them touch his scarred, battered, beautiful heart.

When he told me the story I knew which was better, which was right. At that moment I knew, and friends are funny to say the thing you didn't know you needed to hear. After careful examination of my own heart and over thinking it like I do everything, I know that I'm that latter of the two. You know us, the one's who wear our heart's on our sleeves and stupidly let go. Still I'm having a hard time anymore believing that the first guy isn't better off.

This was on a friend's Myspace page, in quotes, and I thought it sounded so cool...and so true. Don't know where it originally came from so I can't attribute it to anyone, but it was too perfect not to share.

"love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not spent, it is not excitement, it is not the issue of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and tis is both an art and a fortunate accident. It contains roots that have grown towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom falls from the branches it's found that the ones in love are one tree, not two."

Deep. Beautiful.

Random act of kindness

So I've been going through the hiring process for a government job. Had the courage to apply, went through the testing phase, working on the SF86 background check form. I researched and researched this job and it seems to fit in every way. Today they called for the next phase, some kind of interview. The guy went through this ten minute spiel on the requirements and expectations of employment, most of it quoting verbatim from the website I already read. No surprise. Until he got to the part about visible tattoos...wtf? All the crap I read NEVER mentioned that, and I was looking for it. So I agreed to the interview anyway, not mentioning the red, white and blue butterfly on my hand. Then frantically began googling ways I might be able to cover it up. Found something called dermablend sold at Dillard's. Not someplace that I can afford to frequent but I went there anyway. My first trip to a make-up counter. So I explained my plight to the make-up magician. This woman worked and worked on me with a product she was not familiar with. Not her counter. Wrong color, wrong coverage, wrong this and that. She was hellbent on getting it to work though and brought in help. With the expertise of the new woman we finally got it covered up and it looked great. Dottie, the new woman, turned to the first and said "I know we just got all this new stuff in, just give her the color tester to take home, she shouldn't have to buy this stuff for an interview." She palmed the little jar and acted like she was shaking my hand, the jar disappeared in my pocket. The first woman brought me over to her counter to put powder on their creation and set it. She went over how important the right powder was, then got this puzzled look and said something about the jar being too big. Ducking behind the counter, she dumped a bunch of the powder from the tester in some kleenex. Folding it into a makeshift envelope, she taped it closed and handed it to me. All I could manage was 'thank you' when she wished me luck. I could feel the tears coming. How did they know? I never said a word. Unless they could see it on my face, this random act of kindness meant more to me that they could ever know.

Here's Your Sign

Watching one of my favorite comedian's (Bill Engvall) tonight reminded me of this incident... The morning I was to have that minor surgery, after Thanksgiving, I woke up with a raging headache. Not a migraine, but one that I could probably get rid of with some tylenol. Having been instructed not to eat or drink anything after midnight, I couldn't take anything. Driving to the hospital I was starting to feel like I was going to hurl. Outpatient surgery informed me that my surgery wasn't actually scheduled until 3:45, not 9am like the doc had told me. I still had to stay because of all this other crap they had to do to me. My friend Kim, who was there with me and has probably forgotten more medical crap than I have ever known, told me just take the pills with a sip of water. It'll all be out of my system long before the surgery. I'm a caffeine and breakfast kind of girl, so I'm already spiralling into a foul mood. After being assigned my room, the nurse starts asking me questions while I'm filling out some forms. Have I eaten or drank anything? Sure, see this bottle of water? I have drank this much (maybe 2 ounces). She was aghast, and proceeded to condemn me for doing such a horrible thing. "And we might just have to cancel your surgery and schedule it for another day and..." Hehe, really??? "Nothing against your staff, but the doctor and his staff have already pissed me off and if we could start over another day because I had a sip of water? Fine, let's do that. Can I go now?" She would have to check with the doctor. Well apparently the bit of water was A OK with the good doc. About a half hour later the same nurse came running back in..."Has anyone done a pregnancy test on you?" Hmmm don't think so? She handed me a cup and I lost it, completely lost it I was laughing so hard I could barely stand up. My thought was "Here's Your Sign" but instead I managed to say, through the bursts of laughter "If I wasn't supposed to have anything to eat or drink after midnight, how do you purpose I fill this? I bet you're glad I drank that water now!" The woman in the bed next to mine lost it...

Chocolates

I don't know whether to laugh or cry reading this.... it's funny but not, taken at the surface it's only funny. When you get the depth to it...weird.

"Life is like a box of chocolates: A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for, unreturnable, because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup or English toffee, but they're gone too fast and the taste is fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers. "

My addition... You will get wiser in your selections as you pick thru the box. You will still end up picking the crappy stuff on occasion. The real hard pieces will make your teeth stronger and appreciative of the softer ones. It's still chocolate. Even when it's bad, its still pretty good and better than no box at all.

credit to the widow