Writer's Workshop: Rusty

*

(img source: Google Images)

He was massive.

He was dependable.

When he hydroplaned around the bayou and drove into oncoming traffic hitting the jeep driven by the drunk janitor, there wasn't a dent.

When his owner forgot to have both feet on the brake while waiting for the senior parking lot to empty out and he rolled into a student's brand new Neon, he punched two holes in the bumper of said Neon but didn't have a scratch on his gleaming metal bumper.

When his owner was driving home at 4am on US19 from meeting up with a guy she would fall hard for, he may have caught a wheel on the inside edge of the road, fishtailed, spun several times across all lanes of traffic, the 5-foot median and stalled in oncoming traffic. But he still managed to putter back into the median before his owner ... died.

When he blew a tire going 90 mph over the Howard Franklin bridge he managed to slow to a stop while not letting his owner ... die.

Obviously his owner had a lot of lucky saves in her early driving career.

Bench seats sat 8 comfortably (the seatbelts didn't work, so it was safer to squish in). 3008 lbs (said so on the title). Best car I've ever owned, and the only one worth naming.

*I lost the gas cap and my best friend promised that he would get me one. We trolled the neighborhoods looking for one but I've never gotten my gas cap. Rusty's been gone for 10 years now, but I wish I had my 1976 Ford Maverick, or at least the gas cap for him.

The one where I am told I should be taking 1-900 calls

I've been telling people I sound like Estelle from Friends (Joey's agent), as I lost my voice at Relay for Life on Friday night and I STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN IT BACK. I spent a lot of time on the phone at work, and it's just not good that I can't really talk. Today I'm to the point where while I don't sound anything like myself, I can at least verbalize. It's exhausting trying to project though.

Couple this with the fact that I had some sort of allergic reaction to SOMETHING, and one of my eyes has swollen up and nearly closed. Ick. Better not be pink eye - I've got too much to do.

They worked on putting the floor of my deck down today, and this is where it's at:

Tomorrow they will finish the flooring and then we will evaluate ordering the railing which will go around the raised portion. Then we'll think about my bench along the left corner of the raised portion, and the pergola will be topped with 1x1 cross beams (and we need to paint it). We also will add shutters to the windows ... and will clean that greasy stain on the wall from the grill. It's coming together! And it doesn't really look it from this photo, but it's huge!

Ten on Tuesday - movies!

1. If you could watch only one movie for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Newsies, no question. Although I have a number of other movies that I'm obsessed with, if there was a rotation.

2. Let’s say someone wrote a screenplay about you; what actor/actress would you choose to play you and why?
Christina Ricci

3. What’s the first movie you remember seeing in theaters?
Nuns on the Run, I was about nine. Don't judge.

4. Did you ever make out at the back of a movie theater in middle school/high school?
Not in middle school or high school, but I had some hardcore makeout sessions in college in the movie theater.

5. Are you a Netflix-er, Blockbuster-er or a Redbox-er? (Or none of the above?)
Netflix, all the way. I'd love to be a redbox-er, but I never think to do it when I have a chance.

6. Name one actor/actress who you would give anything to have a dinner date with.
With no time and space continuum, Jason Lee in the time of Mallrats. Rory Cochrane or Johnny Whitworth from Empire Records. Alan Ruck in the time of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Heath Ledger in the time of 10 Things I Hate About You. Obvs.

7. What’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen?
My husband's answer to this is Jury Duty. Ted Mosby would say Manos, Hand of Fate. I ... crap, I have no idea.

8. Do you sneak snacks into the theater when you go?
Sometimes, but usually we've already eaten dinner by the time we go.

9. Movie theater popcorn: love or hate it?
Love it, but no I don't think I've had it in more than 5 years. There are better things to spend calories on - like a Mocha Coconut Frappachino, holy deliciousness.

10. What is the all-time best Disney movie in your opinion?
Hubby says Lion King. Second is Robin Hood. I don't think I have a favorite. Hmmm, The Little Mermaid. Love that movie. Love the music. Great stuff.

for more, visit Chelsea

I hope you know ...

I really have nothing you need to know, except that this sandwich that I just made for dinner was one of the most awesomist things ever.

I had a great weekend, I hope you did too. Somehow I stayed up for all of Relay for Life on Friday. Then I got a few (3) hours of sleep and spent the day with the family doing nothing. Lots of nothing. I think - honestly, I'm sitting here trying to remember what I did and I can't remember. Oh! trying to find a birthday gift for my MIL, eating Chick-fila at the mall, picking my car up from Relay, reading Sarah's Key, and going back to bed.

Mother's Day I woke up to a breakfast scramble and biscuits, a pretty bougainvillaea for the backyard and a funny card. I took a latte and potted tulips to my mom and later a couple potted flowers to my MIL. No time for rest here, but still for a good time.

Today I saw this post by Stacie with fantastically delicious avocado and this post on Foodlush with egg in a basket and this post from Molly with a lovely fried egg Benedict. All of these fantastic things put me in the mood for eggs ... for dinner tonight. This sandwich is toast, pepper jack cheese, a fried egg, leftover baked chicken and sliced avocado. If you have the parts, please do yourself a favor and make it today. Give yourself a mother's day gift - whether you're a mom of kids, or dogs, or cats or goldfish. Dooooo it. Yum.

Hodgepodge-isms

My lovely husband (no sarcasm) knows how much I’m struggling with the Easter chocolates in the house. Monday night he came home with some skinny cow ice cream bars and rounded up the rest of the Easter candy and said he would get rid of the whole lot. Skinny Cow=awesome. It probably would have been better if he would have done this two days after Easter, because by now all that’s left is a small packet of pastel m&ms, a chocolate bunny and a bunch of marshmallow things that I could easily leave alone. All the chocolate eggs … gone. But I do appreciate the sentiment.

It would also be awesome if he would actually get rid of it all. I'm still staring at it. Excuse me while I go get an ice cream bar so I stay away from the chocolates. I'm pretty sure that eating a whole box of Truffle bars defeats the purpose.

Yes, I know I could do it myself but I just can't bear to.

Also on Monday, I came home to an empty house and felt like doing something, so I went out back and gardened. Seriously, I spent 1.5 hours digging grass out of my main backyard flower bed. Is this a disease, and is it catching? This is the first time in my entire life that I voluntarily did gardening as something that occurred to me and I didn’t do just because I got annoyed at how things looked. I don’t see that flower bed while in my house (like I do the front beds). The backyard is shaded in the evening so it wasn’t overwhelmingly hot, but still. TV? Book? Nope! Let me yank grass out by the roots until my legs shake, and then let me keep going for a little while longer.

Now that I have an empty flower bed, I have a long stretch of emptiness that I feel obligated to fill up with something before remulching. I think I might want another rose, but what do you think? The left is my rose bush, and the right is my gardenia. What would you put between those?

Henry got sick early this week and went to the doctor and he had a bronchial infection. Like bronchitis. They gave us a nebulizer and capsules to give him breathing treatments several times a day. Let me tell you how fun that is. Let me also clue you in that we are ALL sick - Spencer still has a cough and Hubs and I both have head colds, terribly scratchy throats, and chest colds (yep, all together now). Thankfully that has been all it's been (so far) but we've missed all the sicknesses that have made the rounds at all our friends' houses and I'm worried that it's all going to come back to bite me in the ass.

I’m participating in Relay for Life tonight, and I’m so worried that I will not last the whole night. It’s all night! I go to bed at 10pm or thereabouts, sometimes earlier on Friday nights when I’m getting caught up on all the sleep I missed out on throughout the week. And I'm still sick!

I finished all the Truffle bars. What?? They were good for my throat!

Writing Prompts: Where is he now?

I've been following Mama Kat for a few weeks now (thanks, Suz) and I've wanted to join in on the Thursday writing prompts but I just haven't found something that speaks to me ... until now. You need to hear this story (although it will probably not be as amusing for you as it is to me).

So.

In sixth grade I fell in love ("love") with this boy name Jeff. His name was sequential to mine so we were in homeroom together, and every class we were in together, we sat next to each other. I thought he was hi-LAR-ious. I'm pretty sure I snorted with pleasure every single time he said anything. Everyone knew of my love. I did all the silly sixth-grade nonsense: I rode my bike passed his house constantly, called his house and hung up (ahem, I still remember his phone number and I'd recite it now to prove it except that I'm pretty sure his parents still live there). I wrote his name with little hearts all around it and my first name joined with his last name all over my Trapper Keeper. At school dances I shadowed him while friends tried in vain to get us to dance.

My love didn't falter through the rest of middle school either. Seventh grade = pure love (I had one boyfriend for a week but I didn't forget). Eighth grade = continued love. I went to a different school (I moved 10 miles away) and had boyfriends (two) but I rode my bike over on the weekends, ostensibly to see my friends but really truly to see if I could possibly see Jeff outside so we could catch up.

High school I wasn't nearly as Jeff-central. We again didn't go to the same school and I had real boyfriends then, but there was still that nagging yearning. A love unrequited. When I was in the area, I still drove by his house. Occasionally I stopped by. I no longer crank called his house, but I did call with nothing really to talk about, and we'd catch up in a few minutes and then sit on the phone in an awkward silence until one of us made up some excuse why we needed to get off the phone.

So where is he now? I lost track of him after he went off to college (yes, I know what college, he was outside his house one day when I drove by the summer after senior year), and every once in awhile even through my twenties I entered his name into the social networking sites until one day I struck gold ... there he was! Yes, I'm married (happily) and a mother (happily) but I still wanted to know what was going on with the boy that I never EVER got up the courage to ask out on a proper date (although I'm 99% sure that he knew how I felt - everyone in the tri-county area knew how I felt).

He's a bartender. And an entertainer. At a gar bar. And in a long-term relationship with a guy named Bob.

And yes, by entertainer I mean a drag queen.

And I still Facebook-stalk him. At least I'm not driving past his parents' house anymore. Anyone up for a trip to a gay bar? I'll totally buy you an appletini.

My poor baby

My sweet boy has a tooth (and two more that I can see right under the gum line), but he also has a bronchial infection and has to have breathing treatments with a nebulizer. Mr. Man hates the machine - he cries the whole time, which I'm sure doesn't make the treatments as effective as they could be. Here's to hoping he feels better soon, and also that Hubs and I don't feel any worse than we already do (both have scratchy throats).