Mice, Mouses, Meese?

My brain is all over the place lately. Scattered, unfocused, distracted.

Ideas dart through my mind and I’m unable to get hold of them.

Like mice running this way and that.

Job Offer?

In 1976 I was offered an unusual job.

Well, not unusual really, it’s often referred to as the ‘oldest profession’. But unusual in that it was offered to me!

It all started when an insurance salesman I dated briefly talked about me to a client of his. Heaven only knows what he said to this guy, but it was enough to prompt the client to start calling me.

Incessantly!

At first, I refused the calls. Then he started making them person to person. Considering it was a local call, that kind of got my attention. Which was the point. He even had his ‘clipping service’ send me his bio!

Okay, I admit it; I’m weak, and curious.

I started taking his calls. Mostly the conversations revolved around how vastly rich he was. I was intrigued. I mean the guy owned his own TRAIN! (I’m not talking model trains here, I mean a REAL TRAIN!)

The Freedom Train. It was painted red, white and blue and it was touring the country in 1976 to celebrate the bicentennial.

He finally wore me down and I agreed to go out with him for a drink to discuss a job offer he had for me.

I gotta tell ya’, if the front door hadn’t been glass I wouldn’t have answered it! But he had already seen me so I was stuck.

Not that he was bad looking or anything like that (I may be shallow, but I’m not THAT shallow!) No, it was more his choice of attire.

He wore baby blue polyester pants that were six inches too short paired with a paisley rayon shirt with a white CRAVAT and black patent leather loafers! I kid you not!

And it went downhill from there!

We went to a dive bar located next to the railroad tracks (not the best area of town.) It was quite obvious that his intentions weren’t exactly honorable so I refused to let him buy me anything. I paid for my own drinks. I wasn’t taking any chances this guy could say I ‘Owed’ him anything.

At some point the conversation turned to the ‘wonderful opportunity’ he had in mind for me.

What it boiled down to after all his fancy tap dancing around was he wanted me to be a ‘companion’ to all the politicians and big wigs that would be using the Freedom Train in the coming year.

I would get to keep all but a ‘small percentage’ of what I earned.

I tried to be polite in my refusal. But after an evening of his insistence I finally just called a taxi, told him off and went home.

He kept up his ‘campaign’ for a few more weeks.

I finally had my mother tell him I had died and to stop calling!

Just Call Me Rapunzel

Not that my hair is long or anything, but it seems to be the one thing total strangers feel compelled to compliment me on.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a compliment, but what is this fixation everyone seems to have on my hair?

In the last week three separate people have admired my hair!

I’m beginning to get a complex!

Watching TV

I tend to snack at night when I watch TV.

Oh, who am I kidding? I stuff my face uncontrollably while sitting in front of the boob tube!

So I’ve been trying to come up with activities that will keep my hands busy and therefore unable to put food in my mouth while I sit with Husband and watch TV.

Thanks to Jennibellie and her generous videos! She gave me the idea to make some paper beads.

I feel like I’m nine years old and back in camp!

These are seriously addictive!

I can’t stop! I love the serendipitous way they turn out.

I’m using found papers and magazine pages and old Atlas maps. Cut into loooong triangles and rolled around a wooden skewer. A little dab of glue and it’s done. I let them dry and then dip them in some Polycrylic to seal them. Easy peasy.

And when I’m done rolling for the night I feel so productive I hit the kitchen for a celebratory snack! LOL

Mistakes?

I don't make mistakes, I just have happy accidents! 

Snort!

So After the ‘Trooper’ Incident……….

You know you’re in big trouble when your parents are so mad at you they can’t even give you a reasonable punishment, and sputter while trying!

My mother grounded me for life.

It was the very beginning of summer vacation.

The entire summer was looking very grim. Until I came up with a scathingly brilliant idea!

Our house was on a slight hill. The front yard sloped so that one corner of the yard wasn’t visible from the house. It just so happened that THAT part of the yard was at the road heading towards all my friends’ houses.

I decided to be a good and obedient daughter and offered to rake the yard to get back in my parents good graces.

I would work my way down to that corner of the yard and when I thought my mother wasn’t looking I’d run down to my friends and play (leaving the rake on the lawn, duh!) I’d come back several hours later and resume raking like I’d been there the whole time!

The yard never did get completely raked.

Do you think my parents ever caught on? LOL

And Then There Was The Time…..

I was arrested.

Well, not really arrested, but brought to trooper headquarters where my parents had to come and get me.

I won’t go into details. It wasn’t our fault; we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But it was a fifty mile drive TO trooper headquarters, and fifty LONG and lectured miles back home! (My father was a world class lecturer!)

Big Brother still revels in the fact that he got to say, “Robin’s in jail,” to my mother when the police called!

I think I still might be grounded from this one!

Stuck Inside a Box

I'm stuck inside a box. A box of my own creation, but a box nonetheless.

And I'm having trouble finding the exit! LOL Ever feel this way? 

The Seven Stages of Hospitalization

I write this as a public service. So if you are ever faced with a hospital stay, you’ll go in knowing what to expect. You’re welcome!

  1. Admittance: This stage can occur in several different ways. If it’s an emergency and you’re in pain you pretty much don’t care what they do to/with you as long as they give you drugs. If it’s a planned admittance you’re so anxious you don’t care what they do to/with you as long as they start the drugs. It’s actually pretty much the same!

  2. Procedure: The only thing you’ll remember about this stage is the masked face of the anesthesiologist before he puts your lights out.

  3. Waking up: This stage can be summed up in one word PAIN.

  4. Recovery: Recovery consists of lying in bed, pushing the morphine button as often as humanly possible between drifting off into a semi comatose state.

  5. Convalescence: Convalescence is when they wean you off the morphine and onto pills for the pain. This makes you ambulatory since you have to get up to go to the nurses’ station to ask for more pain meds.

  6. The First Meal: The first meal usually consists of ‘soft’ food. After all, you’ve just had surgery and anesthesia and your poor tummy isn’t itself. So what do they feed you? Green jello! Whose sick, sadistic idea is this? In my opinion, the only place for a lime is in a gin and tonic!

  7. Discharge: You know you’re ready to go home when you stop looking forward to meals and recognize the hospital food as  the true tasteless dreck that it is.

I must add here that the nurses are truly (as my Grandfather used to say) angels in disguise. They do all the work and the doctors grab all the glory. Totally unfair! The nurses were the only good part of the whole experience! Well, along with the morphine! LOL

(Disclaimer: No, I'm not in the hospital. This is just a remembrance. Long enough ago to be able to make fun of it.)

Black & White

I seem to be in a black and white mood lately.

New Toys

I finally got to the art store!

The REAL art store.

Not a chain store but the art store where the students from the WORLD FAMOUS ART SCHOOL shop!

Nirvana!

I was under a time constraint so I didn’t really have too much time to wander (plus Husband was with me and I didn’t want him to get too bored, LOL.)

But, OMG!

I was in heaven!

REAL art supplies. No Crayola markers (not that there is anything wrong with Crayola) but honest to goodness brand name art supplies.

Two floors worth. Plus a lower level dedicated to framing!

Handmade papers!

More watercolors than you could shake a stick at!

Copic markers! Copic multi-liner pens!

Every Golden product listed on their website. All right there for me to touch!

Charcoal, pastels, every pencil type under the sun!

Art pads and papers galore!

Sketchbooks in every conceivable size.

Canvases in all sizes.

Air brush systems.

I could go on for pages! LOL

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I was limited by my budget.

So I only got a few more Copic markers and two of the multi-liner pens.

I’ve been practicing my ink work with the 0.03 pen. I LOVE it! 

I Have Been Remiss

I have been remiss in my blogging duties. And I am sorry.

I apologize for not keeping up.

But I have been feeling ‘fuzzy’ lately. I am trying to keep my activities to simple, mindless endeavors that don’t require stringing thoughts and words together.

Like…..sitting on the couch and watching stupid reruns of forensic shows. Somehow they don’t seem to help my mood. Go figure!

I just seem to be in a perpetual bad mood.

There’s nothing good on TV.

No good old B&W movies.

No Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart or Joan Crawford to be found anywhere!

The radio stations suck and when I try and program Pandora to sooth my savage breast it just pisses me off! 

It’s obviously me.

I realize that.

But I better find something to yank me out of this funk soon. I fear for Husband’s safety! LOL

Sketchbook Challenge--March

I’ve been up to my eyeballs in journals lately (I will post them ….um, someday, if they ever get done!) and haven’t been spending any time sketching, drawing or painting.

Which could very well explain my crabbiness recently?

Since it’s a new month and a new theme for the Sketchbook Challenge I thought I’d just toss off a flower or two.

Funny how you start off with an idea for one thing and it turns into something entirely different! LOL

So this is my first (and possibly only) contribution to the theme ‘Flowers'.

Micron pens, watercolor on really cheap (terrible) paper, combined in Photoshop (because the images were too far apart IRL) printed out on better paper and finished with pastels and charcoal.

Soft Kitty

Husband was singing this all day yesterday and now I can't get it out of my head! 

(He likes to do this to people. At work meetings he starts to sing or hum quietly, just to see how many people will pick up on it and start to sing or hum too! And he always picks the most ANNOYING songs he can think of to drive you crazy! It's amazing how many people will comment that they can't get a song out of their heads days later and it's all his fault. They never notice the wry little smile on his face! His own form of personal entertainment! He's just slightly twisted! LOL)

The Time Machine

The idea of time travel has always intrigued me.

The movie THE TIME MACHINE is one of my favorites.

When Son1 was younger we used to have wonderful conversations about what we would do if we had a time machine. Where we would go, what it would be like. The possibility of changing history.

But the part of the movie that intrigues me the most is the ending.

Rod Taylor goes into the future to stay and he brings three books with him.

The movie never says what books he brings and I’ve pondered this.

I think he would take the Bible, and probably a dictionary. But what would the third book have been? What book would you need to shape a whole new world?

What books would you take?

Okay, So I Didn’t Win $1,000,000

But, it was still my lucky day!

I won $20!

Not quite enough to spread the cheer (sorry Ann! LOL)

You win all 10 prizes listed if you get the little money bag symbol. Whoo Hoo! LOL

(Still 'better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick', as my mother used to say!)

BTW The winner of the Publisher's Clearinghouse was Jason Clark of Pocahontas, Arkansas