Secondhand Sunday

Sundays are my Secondhand day. I'm basically too lazy to think of anything new to say so I re-post a "vintage" entry.

If you aren't in the mood for repeats, please feel free to change the channel.

"My what big teeth you have!"

Original Post Date, July 9, 2009

I was eating an apple tonight and bit my lip. In the same place that I've bit my lip at least three other times today and twice yesterday. I know people who occasionally bite their lips or tongue. I, on the other hand, do it constantly because my bite is so misaligned. I've even considered having my jaw broken and reset.

When I was young, the dentist suggested that I get braces.

"There's nothing wrong with her teeth, Jean, we aren't doing it," my father argued.

"Maybe there is, though," my mother replied.

"Ridiculous! They're just trying to make money. Crooks!"

Here's a picture of me as a child.

My parents were both Depression era babies and still think a loaf of bread should be a nickel. My mother isn't as bad as my father who thinks everyone is out to screw him. When I told him about Bernie and how much the tests were to diagnose her, his response was to get a second opinion to be sure the vet wasn't just trying to make money off us. Crook!

My father's frugality brings us back again to my continually swelling lip caused by my ridiculously uneven bite. I've always been a voracious masticator so it generally doesn't take more than one chomp to do damage. Once, I had bitten down so hard that I thought I was going to pass out from the pain of my self-inflicted wound. My lip swelled so large and turned so purple that when I went to work the next day, I lied and told everyone that my neighbor's dog had bit me. Woof.

Each time this happens, I touch my finger to my lip to check for blood, mutter "son-of-a-bitch" and then hold my finger out to gaze at my latest DNA sample. My father will still argue to this day that I have beautiful teeth because I never had braces.

Yes, I am glad that my teeth look relatively normal from the outside since all the damage lies inside where no one can see it.

Sort of like what happened to my soul. Thanks, Mom & Dad.

What am I supposed to be doing?

I'm inherently lazy.

Now it didn't take any sort of deductive reasoning to come to this conclusion. Just 30 days of not working. I have a HUGE list of all the things that I want to do and yes, the first few weeks I was home, I was sick as a dog so those don't really count.

But the two weeks I've been coherent and drug free (okay, coherent....), I haven't been very productive. Don't get me wrong, I have accomplished the basics for a number of things that I wanted to get started with but I've come to realize that I need a schedule because if I don't have one, I do nothing or I half-assed do what I started.

Yesterday, a friend called me at 5:00 on her way home from work and asked, "So what did you do today?"

My response was, "I gotta be honest. This one got away from me."

I spent the entire day watching People's Court, Divorce Court, Judge Judy, Judge Joe Brown and The Steve Harvey Show. I had no idea there were so many of these court shows! The arguments are always the same and yet, I found myself watching them for 4 hours.

So I bought myself this daily chalkboard to plan out my weeks and give them more structure.

Well, unbeknownst to me, chalkboards require "prep" before you can use them.

Wha??

Needless to say, it sat for another week before I used it.

The directions said that you had to rub white chalk all over it to, sort of, break it in. They suggested taking it to a place where you could make a mess, so I took it the patio and rub rub rubbed the chalk in and then erased it.

NOW it was ready to use.

 

 

But I was tired. So I took a nap.

 

See?? Lazy.

 

I'm hopeful that the board actually will help me to focus on individual tasks knowing that tomorrow I'll be working on that so I don't have to think about it today.

 

Fingers crossed!

 

ADDENDUM: George suggests that I listen to this as well. Why didn't I think of it?? Thanks! :-)

 

Can you smell me now?

It was around 11:00 on Saturday night when I took Maddie and Dino out for their last potty stop of the night. It had actually cooled a little from the heat of the day so I sat on the front steps while Maddie sat on the grass and Dino sniffed around the bushes. Dino was on a leash but Maddie wasn't.

It was such a quiet, still night that I held Dino's leash really loosely, thinking we would be back inside in a few minutes. All of a sudden, Dino's head shot up and in a split second, he took off running and I lost hold of the leash. Maddie, not wanting to be left behind, started running, too. You know, as fast as Maddie can "run".

I concentrated on catching Dino since he's the fastest and I saw him coming up on something dark in the neighbor's shrubs across the street.

"Please be a cat. Please be a cat. Please be a cat.", I kept repeating to myself.

But, OF COURSE, it wasn't a cat.

It was a skunk who was spraying Dino right in the face. I tried pulling Dino away and  felt my leg get wet from the spray while I inhaled a lung full of it. I grabbed Dino and Maddie, who had finally made it across the street, and dragged them both back home.

I know they tell you not to bring a dog back in the house after they've been sprayed but I couldn't leave Dino out there to disturb the whole neighborhood so I brought him in and attempted to corral him into the bathroom. He slipped away ONCE AGAIN and ran right onto my bed where he proceeded to rub his oily head all over my pillows to get the spray off his face.

I was finally able to pick him up, toss him in the bathroom and shut the door. I went under my kitchen sink where I was sure my "skunk kit" was; one quart of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and Dawn dishwashing liquid.  But I had no baking soda and no peroxide.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I called my sister and after what seemed like an eternity, she brought me my de-skunking supplies by tossing them on the front steps and running back to her car.

I yelled out thank you as she waved her arm back over her head.

I read that apple cider vinegar is supposed to absorb the smell so I have about 2 quarts of it in bowls all over the house. I think it's working but I'm not sure. I mean, skunks can't smell themselves, right?

Poor Dino's head is still a little stinky so when he lays next to Millie, this is what she does.

 

Bottom line, I think we all know what needs to happen here.

The skunk has to go.

I've hired the best hit man in town for the job. 

 

 

Mr. Skunk will never know what hit him. 

Monday Morning Chrissy

 

My hair was getting so long and I found that all I was doing was putting it in a ponytail or headband. I decided that it was time for a change so here's my new shorter summer do~

 

 

One man's trash

I was running late to meet some friends last night and on my way I got a text from one of them.

"Running late. Traffic"

I responded back.

"Me, too. Hoarder."

Let me explain. You know I LOVE flea markets and garage sales and resale shops. And, I'm learning how to turn that rush of a hot find into a business.

My friend, Angela, is equally enthralled with trash picking and she's turning her love of great furniture pieces into a money making venture by refinishing and reselling pieces. She likes to peruse the ads on Craigslist.

In case you don't know what Craigslist is, it's a website that allows you to regionally search for items for sale. It also lets you list your (ahem) services. And then there's the Craigslist killer. Which, by the way, was in Ohio. He lured men to a job opportunity that never existed and then...well I think we know how that one ends. But I digress.

Angela tells me where she's going, just to be safe. She had gone to this guy's house about a month or so ago and came back with a crazy story. She had walked in, not knowing what to expect, and was greeted by an obese man in a wheelchair and another skinny guy who later revealed himself as "the man's caretaker". Wheelchair guy told her that she was welcome to go in the other room and take a look around so Angela peeked her head around the corner to see a ceiling to floor hoarder's heaven. The whole situation was kind of odd so she decided to take a pass and not venture any further into the house, lest she became one of the collectibles herself.

I got an excited email from Angela on Monday with a link to the Craiglist ad that said this guy is moving and clearing out his WHOLE HOUSE. He was only taking people by appointment so we went yesterday at 3:00, leaving what I thought would be plenty of time to get to my 5:30 dinner.

We had some storms in the past week and there were still some branches in the roads as we were driving. Suddenly, there was a huge BOOM and Angela screamed and looked at me.

"Oh my GOD! Did you see that? Did you see that huge branch that just missed the car?"

I shook my head, "No. I just thought it was a gun shot."

Ah...the excitement begins.

We pulled out front of the house and climbed the uneven brick steps to the big, old colonial and were greeted by the man in the wheelchair. I looked around and didn't see much. Framed pictures leaning against a wall, a stained glass parrot panel and a few mirrors.

The caretaker directed us to the basement and we were both given a pair of latex gloves.

"It's pretty dusty down there."

This is what we saw when got to the bottom step and turned left.

 

 

 

Piles and piles and piles of STUFF. We started going through things but I was afraid to go to far into a pile because there had to be animals or bugs or Jimmy Hoffa in there.

 

We did come out with some cool stuff, though.

 

Coolest urn ever

 







Look how this awesome tray came back to life with a little hemp oil!

 

 

NYC souvenir ashtray. It features the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building in the middle and Coney Island and the NY skyline along the sides.

 

 

There's just a little polishing to do!

 

 

1954 Anscoflex II camera

 

Since I'm such a nosy Nellie, I just had to put this camera in my pile.

 It only had about 7 pictures taken on it. Now I don't even know if anyone can still develop it but I'm way curious to see what's on it.

Angela looked a little worried, "What if he's killing someone on it??"

"Well then," I replied, "We'll cross that bridge when we get there."

All in all, a good take of stuff for $80 total!

It did make me a little late to meet my friends and I felt bad because I felt so dirty leaving that place and I really wanted to do small stuff like curl my hair and bleach my mustache before I saw my friends, but I don't think they even noticed.

 

 

 

Hellloooooooooooooooooooo

I bet you wondered what the heck happened to me.

Well, my last day was May 18 and that morning I woke up with a really sore throat. The next morning I felt like a truck had hit me and that lasted for 2 and a half weeks. I joked that my body was purging itself of my job but I honestly think that's what happened.

All the stress and bullshit that I had been holding in for so long was finally being released. The first week I had planned to play Cleveland tourist and hit some of the museums but I could barely get out of bed. By the second week, I decided to go to the doctor and I was diagnosed with a sinus infection, bronchitis and fluid in my ear.

No wonder I felt so bad!

Believe it or not, it was hard to do nothing when I was used to doing so much all the time. The dogs and Vinny were completely confused the first few weeks but they've gotten used to me being around. I've fallen back into my natural body clock so I'm up until 1:00 or 1:30 and I get up at 9:00.

My initial plan was to get a part time job for about 20 hours a week. It was funny, because the Monday after I left, I got called for an interview.

NO!! I wasn't ready to work again yet.

I decided to go in and see what it was about but the 25 hour/week job turned into almost 30 with no benefits. Um. No.

Instead, I opened an eBay store again and I'm pursuing some writing opportunities. Some of it's freelance, some is my poor website that I've neglected and another is a partnership with a friend that I'm really excited about.

Do you know what I'm most excited about?

I'm happy.

And stress free.

And I've missed you guys.

So, what's been happening since I've been gone? Tell! Tell!