At Some Point You Have To Laugh

 I kind of could not buy a break today. Very early on it became ridiculous enough that I just started to laugh. I record it here in hopes you, too, can find the humor in it.

I sometimes take extra work to pad the coffers. I do have a lot of pets and a singing habit to support. Today I was slated to work the Spoonable table at the Chili Pepper Festival. Just last night I signed on to go an hour earlier to help unload. Here's how that went:

Had my period so not feeling 100%.

Get up just after dawn and walk the dog.

Come back and turn on the shower. Stick my hand in to check the temp. Temp is freezing and not getting better. I proceed to stand at the very back of the shower and dip parts of me into the icy waterfall until the important parts are clean.

Take just one advil because I'm trying to be virtuous.

Get myself to my ride and proceed to the garden where we have help unloading and one colleague is waiting for me. We get to our station and start to set up.

The tent is missing part of one leg. It is unusable. It's warming up to the mid-80s, we're in a sunny location, and serving food. I call M and she goes shopping for a tent...amongst both Halloween and Christmas decorations in the local big stores.

While waiting to hear back from M I continue setting up, crouch down to pick up a box and riiiiiiiiiiip goes the very, VERY upper thigh of my jeans.

Well, it's sunny and mid-80s so I take off my long sleeved shirt and tie it around my waist. I didn't intend for anyone to see me in this particular tank top after my cursory shower but them's the breaks.

I put on my sunglasses and slap on some sunscreen because, wow, I am not fully exposed to the rays.

Our other colleague arrives, we finish setting up. M calls to say she's not having luck and I should ask the garden folks if they have a tent we can use. They say they'll see what they can do. 

We proceed to serve tastes and sell jars of caramel to the expected 11,000 guests. We do not stop talking to people or moving from 11:00am until the festival closes at 6:00pm. I did get a chance to take one bathroom break and didn't bleed on any of my clothing.

About noon M calls to say that she has a patio umbrella and she's on her way but we'll have to fill the base with water. When I tell L she points to the tent that the garden folks have just that second dropped off for us. M returns the umbrella and I flag down two maintenance guys who super kindly help us erect the tent and the surrounding crowd cheers. I pay those men in caramel.

Around 3:00pm, with plenty of product left to taste and sell L turns to me and says, "We're out of tasting spoons." We had 1 and 2/3 boxes of tasting spoons at 11:00am. Each box contains, I believe, 10,000 spoons. I am incredulous but she is correct. I call M. She is also incredulous. People still want tastes. M troubleshoots for a new tasting delivery device while....[description of what we did while we waited for her to come to us with a solution is redacted in case the health department is reading, it wasn't strictly against regulations but it wasn't strictly adhering to them either and I still can't believe people we cool with it, like everyone from kids to old grandmas, it was hilarious].

M arrives with a box of coffee stirrers and we closed out the day. She drove us home and there was some traffic but it was nice to be in the car with the AC so all was well.

My grocery delivery even came early...but with one item wrong. But they issued me a credit and didn't need that [number redacted] pint of ice cream anyway.

So now I'm sitting on the couch watching old episodes of The Young Riders and contemplating another advil. It's also becoming distractingly clear that I won't be able to reach the sunburned parts of me to apply soothing gel because I couldn't reach them to put sunscreen on them in the first place. Fortunately they're small sections of me and I'm sure I'll survive.

How was your day?

Photo Challenge: CHANGE

I think you're going to like this one. There's a lot of variety.

There's always a jokester in the crowd. Usually it's Our Janet's husband, Dave, but this time she took his place!

I used to walk by a building full of government offices on my way to the train. Now I walk by this.

I wonder if Our Bethany feels a special kinship with this costume changer these days.

Our Ana's community lost a key member. I'm so sorry to hear it.

The next prompt is CONTRAST. Nope, I don't know why, it just is!

Please enter by 9am Tuesday October 7th for posting on October 8th. Tag your photos with PHOTO CHALLENGE and CONTRAST. Check out the wonderful work in our Flickr Pool for inspiration. Also, let me know if you have any questions. The  appropriate email for that is Kizzbeth117 at gmail dot com.

The Only Time He Doesn't Bark

After a long period of hemming and hawing I subscribed to Barkbox for Ed. I am not being compensated in any way for this post. Honestly, I just want to make the folks at Barkbox laugh.

I knew this was going to happen. It's not worth lying about. I didn't get the subscription as much for Ed as I did for myself. I wanted to be one of the cool kids who gets neat new things for their dog and enriches his life through the discovery of the exact perfect treat or toy. It was to make me look good to...someone. Sure I told anyone who knew Ed it was so I could try out the service in case dog training clients asked me about it but that was just a convenient excuse.

Elvis Can't Read

Under this premise I carried our first box home laboriously on the subway just in case (just in case) Ed would tear into it joyfully like some other dogs plastered all over the internet. I had my camera at the ready when I set the box on the floor.

Elvis & Anna Hatching A Plan

I had to set the camera down briefly so I could open the box a little, just in case the closed box was too hard for him.

Anna Always Runs Point

Finally I opened the packing paper, too. Then I called him over.

Like A Toddler Anna Tastes Everything She Doesn't Yet Understand

Ok, not finally at all. I pulled out a toy and crinkled and squeaked it to beat the band! With all the excitement I could muster I tossed the toy directly in front of my precious precious pumpkin.

The Only Picture Of Ed In This Whole Post

It's still lying right there in the same place today.

Undeterred I moved on to unpacking the treats myself. I squirreled away the Etta Says Rabbit Chew because I know he likes chews and he already had a new one to work on. They take him weeks at a time. I knew that the chances of him tearing into any new treat right away were slim at best. More like a fairy tale. I have found, though, that if I give him a tiny piece and I offer it to him a couple of times he'll usually try it and often learn to love it. The Petsafe Indigo Smokehouse Strips (Bacon Flavor) looked complicated to open so I ripped into these crinkle cut squishy duck treats (Nootie Jerky Burger in BBQ Duck Flavor) and broke off a tiny piece to try on my picky eater. I have since tried to give him a tiny piece in several locations nearly every day for 5 days. He's just not into it. He has actually taken a couple of those tiny pieces into his mouth, chewed once, and spit them back out.

The cats on the other hand...

It's Blurry But You Can See Him Slapping Me

They'd have eaten the whole bag if I'd have let them. Considering what I had to clean out of the litter box the following day I'm glad I didn't give them more. It was sweet to see them loving it so hard. Just not sweet enough to justify a repeat performance.

Anna Doesn't Beg From The Floor Like A Peasant

At that point I packed everything up for the day. Put the treats in the pantry, tossed the 2nd toy on the table and left the box on the floor for the cats to sleep in. It provided hours of close-fitting rest until yesterday when something frightened the dog so he peed on it.

My Precious Baby Girl, Not As Tiny As She Used To Be

Also yesterday, though, I got out the scissors and hacked into those Smokehouse Strips. They are rubbery and, though they seem to be scored for separation, are impossible to break down into smaller pieces without scissors or a knife. I took a whole piece and offered it resignedly to Ed, barely even bending down enough to get to his level. He stretched his long neck up, sniffed once, gently grabbed the hunk of bacon and raced away. This is his MO for only the most coveted things, you run to the couch and eat them there in relative safety from ravenous cats. Sometimes, though, he'll think he likes it and when I go to sit down I'll find the treasure stuck to my pants. A minute later he was back in the kitchen door with a very expectant look on his face. Skeptical, I handed him another bacon hunk and SHAZAM he grabbed it and ran for his safe place. Gigantic win, whew!

Despite the tough customer I brought them Barkbox knocked it out of the park. They found something even this special special snowflake could fall in love with. Thanks you guys! I look forward to next month's adventure...and so do my cats.

On This Day We Only Wear Shoes We Can Run In

Soundtrack

Find the rest here.

 

Then go here.

Photo Challenge: COMING/GOING

Why did I find this one so difficult? You all did it up with flair!

Our Bethany has so much on the topic of coming and going that I can't begin to cover it in a caption. Let it suffice to say that something in this photo is a major step forward in all her plans.

There's something beautifully claustrophobic about Our Cindy's shot. If you're in this alley they've got you coming and going!

I took this picture minutes after officially graduating from high school and these guys acted as my bodyguards for the evening. If I ever have the opportunity to walk a red carpet I hope they'll be on my team.

This poem that Our Ana highlighted speaks to the prompt but the one fallen leaf intensifies that connection exponentially.

Our Sara embodied the saying, "Don't know whether I'm coming or going!"in this one.


I'm having a lot of trouble this week with the change of the light in the mornings and the change in temperatures. I'm going with the first prompt that comes to mind: CHANGE.

Please enter by 9am Tuesday September 23rd for posting on September 24th. Tag your photos with PHOTO CHALLENGE and CHANGE. Check out the wonderful work in our Flickr Pool for inspiration. Also, let me know if you have any questions. The  appropriate email for that is Kizzbeth117 at gmail dot com.

That Girl, That Life

When I was in New England a few weeks ago MamaKizz gave me some photo albums with the understanding that I would scan them so we could keep them safe and look at them whenever we wanted. Over the holiday weekend I scanned and posted what can only be described as a shit-ton of photos.

Last Friday night I also happened to go out on photo walk with Neil. For whatever reason, I think it was even my idea, we met in Washington Square Park. It just so happens those are my old stomping grounds from a lot of the pics I was scanning. Maybe I would have felt this way anyway but for sure the combination intensified my desire to re-discover the girl in those pictures.

I remember that girl. It's not that she doesn't seem like she isn't part of me but I don't have a sense of the path from her to me. This picture here is before England, before dogs, before single life, before so many of the friends I spend my day to day with now. The other woman was my best friend, my every day, my example, and my partner in theatre. I lived with that man, worked with him on theatrical projects, shared a cat with him. They're married now. While I'm not a regular part of their lives any more I think it worked out well. At the time, though, the moment this photo was taken, all of my tomorrows included dreams the three of us shared.

Yet here I am. I have different dreams and I'm no less attached to those than I was to the castles these three people built in the air. It's a lot to think about. I am always one to put stock in studying the past. This particular shot, though, makes me think about the future, too.

In 10 years or 15 or 20 what dreams will I be dreaming?