Your Strongest Sense?

Of the five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing, which is your strongest? They say that everybody has one sense that's dominant. In my case, it's definitely my sense of smell.



My eyes suck -- I've worn some form of corrective lenses ever since I was 15 and failed the eye portion of my driving exam. When I finally got my first pair of glasses, I was shocked at how badly I had been seeing the world previously! Trees were just big green blobs; seeing details like leaves and bark was a new experience.

My other senses are all perfectly fine; my sense of smell is simply noteworthy because I can do crazy things with it. Seriously... it's practically bionic.

When I was in LA recently, my friends and I were standing on a street corner (shut up) talking, when all of the sudden I got a horrible whiff of dog poop. I wrinkled my face up and said, "Ugh!" but no one else smelled a thing. A minute later we noticed a police dog about half a mile away quietly copping a squat on the sidewalk. No lie.



I often smell things that no one else does, but that burning scent is totally normal, right?

Anyhoodle, that's my big claim to fame: I can smell a fish fart from fifty paces. I suppose it could be worse:

What about you? Which one of your senses is super?

Mmm, these drugs are delicious!

Heyyyyy, whussup?



So guess who landed in the ER on Friday morning with Acute Appendicitis? Yep, yours truly!

After suffering through crazy abdominal cramps all night on Thursday I drove myself (!) to the hospital and found myself scheduled for emergency surgery faster than you can say, "WTF." While in the ER I managed to find every staff member who was having an off-day; first was the head nurse who stuck me no fewer than four times while trying to start an I.V., then came the CT tech who didn't attach the contrast dye to my I.V. properly so it burst open and drenched my hair, face, and arm in sticky wet liquid. (Don'tcha hate it when that happens?)

Talk about adding insult to injury! I had to spend the next 24 hours looking like this:



The surgery went really well, though, and they were able to do it laparoscopically so I have hardly any wounds to care for and the scarring will be minimal. That's a relief, since you all know how much I love to rock a bikini in the summer. (HA!)

I stayed in the hospital overnight on Friday and endured the world's most annoying roommate. You know how my crazy coworker talks me ear off at work all the time? Well, this was her in "overweight, disabled drug-seeker" form. She had her gall bladder removed, a surgery which our mutual surgeon said was almost exactly like my appendectomy, but according to her she was in excruciating pain and needed something from every person who walked through the door. The woman even complained in her sleep. I'm not kidding!

By Friday night I was dutifully shuffling around with my I.V. in the hospital hallways. Meanwhile my roommie needed two nurses and an orderly just to go to the bathroom, which I only saw her do twice in 24 hours. What a character! She's totally going to end up in my novel someday.

My friends and family blew me away with how helpful and kind they were. Everyone pitched in to take care of the kids, call and visit, make us dinner, drive my car home, send flowers, and I had countless wonderful messages on Facebook to read when I woke up from surgery. I am so, so, SO grateful for every single one of them. I was feelin' the love from all over! Maybe I should have extraneous body parts taken out more often.

Naaaaaah... that part still sucked. ;)

Anywho, I'm home now and will take the next couple of days off from my "real" job. I have a few pretty big writing assignments to complete this week but hopefully by tomorrow or Tuesday I'll feel up to tackling those, too. I'm trying not to stress out (for a change) and just rest and recuperate, but anyone who has obnoxious kids knows that that's easier said than done.

The doctor gave me pretty powerful pain drugs so I'm a happy camper. Let's just say that I'm not one to "suck it up;" if they give me good meds, I take 'em. My plans are to kick back, dose up, and watch the Grammy Awards show tonight. Hopefully I will be able to stay awake long enough so that tomorrow I can entertain you all with a post featuring my semi-coherent ramblings about the show.

See? Everything I do, I do for shoe. Er, um, you.

Aaaaaanyhooters. We'll talk more later. For now, it's time for a nappy-poo.

The Skinny on My Spray-Tan

My commute this morning

 Greetings from the frozen tundra!


It is officially Stoopid-Cold(TM) here in the Granite State.  The weather forecasters are saying that today is the coldest day we've had in over two years and I believe them!  This is the kind of cold that takes your breath away; in fact this morning I was out in it for no longer than thirty seconds before I felt like my hands were going to fall off.  Any exposed flesh is just begging for frost-bite.

"Feels like -19." Uh, yup, it sure does. The bank sign I pass on my way to work read, "-17."  It's my choice to live here so I try to take our sometimes shitty weather in stride.  But this?  Well, this just plain sucks.

Last week my friend Laurie was having a case of the winter SADs so I suggested a chick-date with some faux sun time. Since my natural winter skin tone looks a little something like this ----->

I decided to go for a Mystic Tan. 

Fuck yeah, I got a spray tan, bitches!  And since you know I have to report back to my bloggy buddies every time I subject myself to a bizarre spa/torture treatment, here's the 411.

Self-tanners and I go way back.  It's not that I don't like my albino creamy skin -- I do.  But sometimes I don't feel like looking like Wednesday Addams when everyone around me has a nice, healthy summer glow. I have tried every single product on the market, and there are some really good ones out there, but the problem I always have with them is THE SMELL.

I hate that Tan-in-a-Can odor!  They ALL have it, you can't mask it with other scents, and it lingers for days. Plus, with the DIY lotions and sprays it's hard to get your back and avoid streaks and smears.

Of course I kept thinking about the Friends episode where Ross gets a spray tan.  (YouTube won't let me embed it, but watch it if you get a chance--it's hilarious).  At the worst, I expected to look something like this:

Or this:

When I arrived they had me watch a short instructional video, then the girl took me to the tanning chamber and told me what to do.  It's a little bit like gearing up for surgery--you put your hair up and in a shower cap and you use a barrier lotion on your hands and feet and wear little booties.  She told me how to stand and hold my hands.  Then she left me alone, so I took a deep breath, stripped down to my undies and took the plunge.

It was a little bit like being inside an electric car wash: the sprayer is cold, shocking, and it starts at your feet and sprays the front of your body from bottom to top in two or three passes, all in less than a minute.  Then you turn around and it does your back.  The whole thing took under three minutes, and as I stepped out I was already almost dry.  Once you towel off (it rubs the lotion on its skin), you're done.

It was easy, and I've gotta say, it looked pretty good!  It wasn't orange at all.  I took before and after shots just for you--the lighting in there wasn't very good, but you get the idea.

Before, in all my pasty glory

Immediately after, slightly Snooki-fied.

I did have the self-tanner stink lines coming off of me that evening, but it wasn't overpowering. I went out to dinner and didn't even notice it, and the color deepened overnight. The next day I noticed some weirdness on my feet from the booties and a few small streaks on the insides of my arms, but nothing noticeable. Now that I've showered the color isn't as dark but it's still there, and the streaks are gone. They say it lasts 7 days, but I doubt it. We'll see! All in all, I liked it. I think I'll do it again before I take vacations, etc. It really did make me feel better!

Much later that evening I drove Laurie back to her car, and that's when we saw this:

Yes, it's a flaming taxi! So random.  When we arrived the back door was open and smoke was pouring out of the car, and within minutes the whole car was engulfed in flames.

It was an odd ending to the night.

That's what's new with me... just getting hosed down with (hopefully-harmless) chemicals and stuff like that.  How about you?

Snow Day!

Howdy, peeps!  As promised, I did absolutely nothing yesterday and it was everything I'd hoped it could be and more.  I sat on my butt while the boys watched a movie and a Nor'easter dumped a foot and a half of snow on us; I read If I Stay, the Young Adult book that Entertainment Weekly has been touting as the YA version of The Lovely Bones.  I liked it even though I wept like a baby throughout -- I seriously went through a half a box of tissues while reading it.  It was very simply told but very moving, and I zipped through the 230 pages in about three hours.

Technically it's still only a glass.

We did make it outside for a little "swim" through the snow, though my three-year-old was NOT a fan.  It's just no fun to frolic in the snow when it comes up to your chest, I guess!  The dog and the big kid and I had a good time, however, and I felt that I earned my big glass of vino afterward.

Yes, I know the pics are blue.  I brought my camera outside only to have it tell me that its battery was too exhausted to go on, which has been happening more and more.  I used my cell phone to take these shots and apparently if there is some sort of white balance feature on the cell camera I don't know where it is or how to use it.  Le sigh.  Definitely time for a new camera!

Danny decided to clean off Daddy's car.

We almost lost the puppy!

 

Snow angel

Yes, that's me... getting up was ridiculously hard.  Getting old sucks.

Ignore the fact that the snow around me looks like some sort of crater, please. Hope you all survived the storm (or the Wednesday, if you live somewhere warm)! I'm back at work today. Boo. Thank goodness tomorrow is already Friday.

*muah*

The end of days?

Okay, so maybe I'm being overly dramatic--it has been known to happen from time to time.  But still.

What's the dealio with all these birds dropping out of the sky, dead as doornails?  Hundreds of birds all at once, in different parts of the world, just THUNK - dropping mid-flight.  Now there are reports of tons of fish washing ashore in the Chesapeake Bay and in Brazil, many of them without eyes.  Without their eyes, people!

Poor Alabama fishies

This is some straight-up Stephen King shit, right?  Sure, the scientists have come up with a few theories about the birds being startled to death by fireworks on New Year's Eve, but the fact of the matter is that they're all grasping at straws here.  Nobody knows what the heck is going on with this wacky planet of ours, much less how to stop or control it.

These are the things I'm thinking about as I lie here recovering from the GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING PLAGUE.  Okay, there I go getting all dramatic again, but still--I'm recuperating from the worst flu I can remember having EVER.  Sunday night I woke up shivering and achy, and by morning I was so ill I couldn't even call in sick for myself.  I have spent the past three days lying flat on my back (and not in a good way), hacking up a lung and wondering how I'm going to get anything done this week.  And honestly, I have SO much to get done this week. 

I also realized how utterly dependent my family is upon me being a functional adult since everything in the house pretty much went to shit immediately.  The laundry exploded, the dishes went unwashed, the puppy found new and creative ways to sneak off to foul my carpets.  Considering the fact that opening a bottle of Tylenol proved to be too challenging for me this week, getting the kids up and off to school was no mean feat.  Last night as I lay on the couch and wondered if this is what dying feels like I found the energy to scratch out a list and send the Jim to the store.  I honestly wonder if the man would ever think to feed himself or the children if I didn't remind him.

At some point during one of my lucid moments I caught 15 minutes of Kendra, which made me want to kill myself.  In this episode this half-wit, no-talent dingbat is kvetching about having to pack and move from Philly to L.A. because her rich husband got cut from the Eagles.  As she's complaining about how hard it is for her they show an army of movers who come into her apartment and do everything for her while she sits and eats a sandwich. Why does this chick have a television show? 

I'll tell you why: it's the end of days, dudes.

Anyho, that's what La Bev has been up to lately, since I've clearly not been blogging.  Hope you're all doing well, and oh yeah - Happy New Year!  Hopefully things will get back to normal around here soon enough, my darling BOOBHs.  Whatever that is.  :)

Thankful for "high-class problems."

Wow, what a crazy month this has been! I'd like to thank the Snow Gods for keeping the storms away from New England so far--I don't ever remember a dryer December--but it's definitely not beginning to look a lot like Christmas up in here!  We wouldn't say no to a nice big snow storm at the end of this week, mkay?  Thaaaanks.

Today is the annual holiday potluck lunch and Yankee Swap at my crap job. You know, the day when I have to grin and pretend to like my coworkers, pretend to like their crappy cooking, pretend to like the ceramic snowman spoon rest or whatever-the-fuck I'll pull in the swap, pretend to be interested in their annoying, self-gratifying stories, and most importantly, pretend that my job doesn't make me want to shoot myself in the face every fucking day.

That's a lot of pretending, and I'm exhausted already.

I'd much rather be home cuddling with the new puppy we got this weekend!

Wouldn't you?  Look how cute!


I'm comforting myself with the knowledge that it's a 2-day work week for me, so by Wednesday morning I'll be able to finally clean my house and START my holiday drinking wrapping!  Wednesday cannot come soon enough.

Until then, I'm doing my best to shut off the nagging voices in my head (What - you don't hear them?) and be thankful for my "high-class problems."  No more feeling sorry for myself, no more worrying about what everyone else thinks of me.  No more.  Time to grow up and be more appreciative, goddamn it.

I've got a job, a home, and a family that loves me.  There will be presents under the tree on Saturday morning and we always have food on our table and a safe place to rest our heads each night.  I have friends to call when I'm sad and a hilarious and smart sister who has known me longer than I've known myself, and still likes me!  I have a brain in my head and a (relatively) clean bill of health.  It truly is a wonderful life, and I'm so grateful for it.

I'm really hoping that 2011 is a fabulous year for us all.

And now, so you won't all think I've gone entirely soft and mushy, here's a message from our friends at IKEA about cleaning up your toys.  As someone who once experienced a moment of abject humiliation when my two-year-old wandered into the kitchen holding a familiar vibrating object, I can relate.




I'm not sure what the week will bring - maybe I'll blog, maybe I won't, so just in case, I'll say this:

Happy Holidays to all of my beautiful, bouncing BOOBHs! You're spectacular and La Bev loves you.

Wow, That's Random!

Hey there, Hump-Diddies!  Hope you're all enjoying this Wednesday.  It's gray and rainy here in Nouveau England and I am not wearing any pants.

WOOHOO!  It's my day off, bitches!  Pants can suck it!

Anyhooooo, aside from that fact, my head's a'swimming with randomness today, and the only thing that can be done about it is to barf it all out onto my blog and hope it amuses someone.  Yes, that someone is you.

Now, on to the random!

My new oven gets delivered today!  YESSSSSSSSS.  I've been cooking on a broken oven for so long now (9 years!) that I am going to have to learn how to cook all over again, but that's okay by me.  What I'm looking forward to the most:

1.  Being able to set the temperature to anything over 400 degrees F without reducing my food to charcoal briquets
2.  Following package directions instead of viewing them more as "suggestions."
3. Making my family a Thanksgiving feast next week without worrying about stuff coming out burned on the edges and raw in the middle.
4.  Knowing that if I set the timer for 20 minutes I won't return to find the kitchen filled with smoke.

It's National Unfriend Day according to Jimmy Kimmel, but I won't be participating because I think it's kind of mean.



Though I admit that I cleaned out my Friends list just last week for the first time ever, I didn't get rid of people just because they "wouldn't help me move" or anything.  Let's face it, moving sucks!  I wouldn't even ask my friends to help me move because it sucks so much.

No, I only deleted people that I honestly don't know and 1-2 businesses/web personalities. There were about eleven people who got the ax through no fault of their own, but I still felt kind of bad about doing it. Then I realized that I had hidden about 4 of those people from my news feed and wondered why I give them access to MY personal info. when I have no interest in seeing THEIRS.  You know I'm a "Show me yours" kind of girl!

I do have the OOBH fan page, and no one is turned away there. Besides, that's where I post the good stuff that I don't want my family to see. *wink*

Like this:

If you're still on my Friends list today, you can be sure that I like you, I am interested in what you have to say, and I'm grateful for your friendship!  *smooch*

Boy, I was in the pissiest mood yesterday!

I have no idea why, but I had a case of the Christian Bales like nobody's business.  Everything anyone at work said to me irked me (more than usual), and everything I read online rubbed me the wrong way too.  I finally realized that I needed to just go home and hide out for the night, so that's exactly what I did.  A few hours on the couch with Jim and my boyfriend Daniel Tosh definitely cured what ailed me, as did going to bed at 10:15 PM.

Since unpaid product endorsements are kind of my thing, I have to take a second to rave about a service.  I recently rejoined Netflix because of their ads saying you can stream unlimited movies through Wii for $9/month.  Holy smokes, this is awesome!  This service paid for itself the first week we had it because of the Children/Family section alone.  We all watched Up last week (loved it), and Jim and I have watched some crappy movies (like 2012 - I fell asleep) and a pretty decent one (Zombieland was suprisingly awesome).

AND I got a hard copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in the mail, too, which was cool because I forgot I added it to my queue like a year ago before I canceled Netflix.  This week's DVD shipment is The Mothman Prophecies, which Cary recommended to me.  Yay!

I highly recommend Netflix.  (Now where's my check, guys?  Ha ha)

Oh, and thanks to their relentless (but effective!) advertising, my son now asks me, "Mom, can we watch a movie instantly through Wii?"

That's my little budding consumer.  *patting his head*

Okay, that'll do for now.  I'll leave you with one last utterly random funny:

Have a great day!

How My Torch Was Extinguished

My absolute favorite teacher was an English professor I had when I was a wee lassie of twenty years old.  I was spending my first ever summer away from home.  A good friend and I stayed in our rented shit hole of an apartment in Burlington and sublet our two roommates' rooms to two very hot Harvard guys.  The place was the dive to end all dives, but we were incredibly happy there and had one of the best summers ever.

One of the ways that I had justified spending the summer away from home was by getting a full-time job at the medical library and by taking a couple of classes.  I'm sure that my parents knew I was up to no-good shenanigans 90% of the time, but as long as I earned my own money and got decent grades they turned a blind eye to my hard-partying ways.

The class I had selected was called, "Beauty, Sublimity, and Epiphany," and it turned out to be the best class I ever took in my four years at UVM.  I loved the books, I loved the laid-back feeling of the summer class, and above all... I loved the professor.  Oh, my... did I ever love my professor.

He was young (mid-30's), attractive, soft-spoken and relaxed, extremely intelligent, and funny.  He was a published author; in fact, one of the books he'd written was about following the Grateful Dead.  Twenty- year-old Bev was a'swoooooning, let me tell you.

The only thing that kept my crush from reaching full-blown epic proportions was his hair.  It sounds superficial, I know, but the man had a mullet down to the middle of his back.  Very tidy, very well-maintained, but... a mullet is a mullet is a mullet.

Because of the hair, I never allowed myself to think of him "in that way."  Weird, I know.  Plus, he was my professor, and I was busy sowing my wild oats and being supremely immature, so I just never officially crushed on him.  I just kind of, you know, idolized him.

Some of the books he selected for us to read and discuss are still my favorites to this very day.  He introduced me to Raymond Carver, Don Delillo, and the concept of writing with a growing undercurrent of foreboding that is palpable yet hard to pinpoint.  Learning how and what to read helped me become a better writer, and I still think of things he said and taught me to this day - 15 years later.

In my Senior year I ended up taking another one of his classes, but that one was a very small honors class about Restoration comedies.  We ended up in powdered wigs, waving fans, and speaking like fops, which was fun and all, but nowhere near as deep and meaningful to me as the first class of his that I'd taken.

The last time I saw him was just after I'd graduated.  We bumped into each other while browsing in Barnes & Noble and he told me that his girlfriend was pregnant.  I congratulated him and was sincerely happy for him, and less than a year later I moved away and began my life as a "grown-up."

Over the years I've thought of him often. 

In short, after all these years, I'd put him on a pedestal and always imagined that he was still at UVM wearing cardigans with leather patches on the elbows, still writing, still molding young minds, still rocking his mullet.

The other night, for some odd reason, I decided to google him.  I don't even know why.  His name came up immediately, and it brought me to what I first thought was a blog.  I smiled - oh, the irony!  My beloved professor is also a blogoholic just like me!

Then I read a little bit more, and it turns out it's a political blog written by him to document his campaign and new job... in politics.  As a politician.  A state senator, to be exact.

See you on deck, Senator!

At least he ditched the mullet.

I'm not sure if you guys know this about me or not, but I'm not a huge fan of politicians.  Sure, maybe my old prof is trying to do "good," and I know I would have voted for him if I lived in the state (because praise Jebus, he's a bleeding heart like me), but the mere fact that he is now a schmoozing, fund-raising, potentially-two-faced politician makes me uneasy.

I hope he still has a severe case of, "Stickittothemaneosis."

The good news is that he has published a few more novels since then, some of which have even won awards.  He still teaches at UVM.  He writes so beautifully -- I just hope he uses his powers for good and not evil.

I'll bet that he is one of the "good ones."  I couldn't bring myself to read too much of his political blog, but it's clear that he has been a very busy guy over these past 15 years.  I am happy for him and proud of his success, but my initial (admittedly rather baffling) reaction was disappointment.  Weird, huh?


I don't understand it myself.

Read this Halloween post... if you DARE!

Muahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

It's Halloween weekend and this witch is ready to party! Today I sent my little Anakin Skywalker and Iron Man off to their respective schools, and I've finally perfected my own costume for tomorrow night.

Yes, I'm going to be Elvira.

After posting that video last week of the fantabulous 51-year-old who makes us all look like piles of pudding, I decided to take the plunge and go to the party tomorrow night dressed as "you, 'cept with bigger tits."  Of course, Elvira has a 21" waist and clearly works out fastidiously, but whatevs. I'm not a tiny person like she is; in fact in the heels and beehive wig I'm probably about 5'9", and no one has ever accused me of being overly skinny. *cough*

I'd say the odds of me looking like the drag queen version of Elvira are fair to decent, but who gives a fuck? It's Halloween!

Btw, while searching for photos of Elvira for costuming/make-up purposes I came across the nudey pics that Elliott mentioned last week in the comment section.    

Ho-ly crap!

Needless to say, they're extremely unsafe for work, so DO NOT click this link unless you're alone & don't mind looking at Playboy-like nakey pics, ok?  I'm serious.  Here's a link to the best one because I love you so. Don't say The Bev never gave you anything, fellas!

(I'm probably gonna lose a follower or two for that link.  Boo!)

Jim was all set to be Alan from The Hangover but then he got a nasty cold and pulled a muscle in his back while searching for our Baby Bjorn in the basement, so now he's decided to be lazy and be a boring old (Dracula-style) vampire.  No sparkles or southern accents for him, sadly.

Other than that, we'll just do the trick or treat thing with the kidlets.  Tonight we're watching It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but once the little monsters are in bed I'm hoping to watch a scary movie.

What kind of Drag Queen Elvira would I be if I didn't give you a list of my favorite frightening movies?

The Shining

All work and no play....

 Psycho

Mother wouldn't like that.

Halloween

Makes me want MY Mother

 Poltergeist

Oh, they're here alright.

The Changeling

Proof that you don't need CGI to be terrifying.

American Psycho

You like Huey Lewis and the News?

And now, to lighten things up, here's one of my favorite Looney Toons clips of all time.  Very few people seem to remember Witch Hazel, but I always loved her!  The way she leaves behind a cloud of bobby pins in her wake?  Hilarious!


Check it:



So there it is! Everything you never wanted to know about La Bev's Halloweenie!

Now, what are your favorite scary movies of all time? Spill your guts, my ghouly-BOOBHs!