Congratulations, Nanodance, LMT! (Happy Hour Friday #3)

Nothing can make me happier at this hour on a Friday morning than the news that my BBFF Nanodance over at Callithump Thunderblog is now a Licensed Massage Therapist!  

Now I can become her palpation slave with impunity since she's all legal and everything.

To celebrate we went over to Cherie's house to raise a glass of wine in Nanodance's honor as we enjoyed soaking in the hot tub.

It was a clear night. The stars were shining.  The wine was flowing. It just doesn't get much better than that.

And see how happy it made her friend, Sondra Stinglash:

Congratulations, Nanodance!  

Fortune Cookie Friday + Happy Hour Friday = Perfection!

Wouldn't you know, I wrote the post below and then went over to Otin's blog and noticed he was doing Happy Hour Friday, which coincided perfectly with what I had written... so I decided to link the two, which makes me happy!


Okay, so it's Friday and I clicked on my fortune cookie widget, which provided me the following words of "wisdom":

Remember, being happy is not always being perfect.

Hell, if that's true, I should be ecstatic. I should be gleefully floating on air. I should be dancing on happy feet. I should be cavorting in the meadow with Hickory the Wonder Dog.

Because I'm never perfect! I mean never! Really, I'm serious! I know you must find that hard to believe. But, the good news is... that means there's hope for happiness at the CatLady's house.

In a perfect world I would stay happy forever, but now I'm worried that the truth is exactly as the fortune says. If everything was perfect, would I know that I was happy? Would happiness be diluted if I was never UN-happy? Oh, no! WTF? This is beginning to sound like an exercise in Zen philosophy... ack!

My problem right now is that I actually am very happy. I'm happy not going to work. I'm happy reading blogs all day long. I'm happy drinking gallons of coffee in the morning and mainlining Dr. Pepper in the afternoon. I'm happy watching Dexter and other mindless drivel on DVD. I'm happy playing Apples to Apples and other games. I'm happy hanging out and drinking wine with Nanodance and my other friends. I'm happy having pajama day every day.

Sooner or later, though, I'm going to have to go out and seek gainful employment, which means there will be hassles and stupid people to deal with and long hours and waking up at night worrying about some project that's gone wrong. And then I won't be happy anymore. I can't help myself. Because I'm so disorganized, I have to over-compensate by being uber organized at work, which means I have to keep up the facade of being a competent person, which is so very exhausting.

Plus, I really hate perfect people. I hate people who have perfect hair and perfect children and perfect spouses and perfect houses and perfect pets and perfect jobs. They're just so annoying! It's like Lance & Melanie. We used to get Christmas letters from these distant relatives, whose kids were always perfect. They used up two pages of paper, telling us all about the awards and good grades and perfect teeth and perfectly polite manners of these perfect children. It got to be that at our house the names Lance & Melanie were synonymous with obnoxious prigs. (And since Lance & Melanie are so perfect, they would never condescend to read a blog like this, so I think I'm relatively safe from slander suits.)

So, why do we spend so much time and energy trying to pretend we're perfect, when perfect people are such obnoxious prigs? Happily, the answer is, I don't try to be perfect anymore. And none of my friends do either. Which is why I like my friends so much. And why I like my cyber-bloggy-friends so much. Because we're rude and irreverent and obnoxious and fun! That makes me happy... and happily less than perfect. Which means I'm probably going to hell, but that's okay. I'll have lots of friends there.

Playing With Fire

I went camping again this week, but this time just to add novelty... I actually camped with some other people I know. Imagine that! 

I had posted a "World's Worst Camping Trip" contest several months ago and my friend Wendy won for her story of little Jacob's suitcase floating out of their tent during a flood many years ago.  

Nanodance also won, but she "claimed" to be sick this week so she couldn't go.  Likely story.  I know she was really staying home watching stupid shit on YouTube and trying to sneak cats into my house.  See what you missed, Nanodance! You could have been relaxing with Wendy and me in the idyllic setting shown to the right.  But, NOOOO!  You had to be sick!

Anyway, Wendy not only participated, she brought her entire family with her!  Yes, Big Bill, Sweet Natalie & Jacob (who's not so little anymore) also risked life and limb to camp with me.  Wendy and I go way  back to when I was Natalie's kindergarten teacher. Since I already warped Sweet Natalie beyond repair, Wendy must have figured she had nothing to lose by allowing her family to spend additional time with me.  And her trust in me was proven to be sound.  During the course of their two-night stay, no one was injured or carried away by bears.  (I swear, Jacob's toe was mangled before we went camping!)

We had a good old time together, though.  We shared stories around the campfire and I turned them on to the "roll-o-roaster" and other camping delights. They shared some of their favorite camping traditions with me as well.  

Turns out they do stupid stuff, too!  For example, they introduced me to the thrill of melting aluminum cans in the campfire.  Fascinating!  (And here I was wasting all that time and energy returning the cans to the store.) Before you knew it, we were scouring the campground looking for all sort of crap we could melt... just add fire and voila!

Pyromaniacs!  I LOVE these people! 

The next morning, Big Bill stopped by my campsite to give me his latest example of pyro-art. Seems he has his own tradition of staying up late and enjoying a little nip of tequila around the old campfire.  And he drank the entire bottle, just so he could contribute the glass container it came in to the cause.  What dedication!  Anything for pyro-art.  I was so proud I almost cried.

Here's what a pint of Jose Cuervo looks like after being sacrificed to the flames:

It used to look different until Jacob started messing around with it and broke a couple pieces off.  But, no worries, that just gave me more reasons to experiment the next few nights with re-fusing the broken parts onto the original glob-o-melted-glass.  All in the name of science, of course.

Now it almost looks kinda naughty... like what Vulcan's poop must look like... or like something that should go into Miss Yvonne's "For Your Nymphomation Adult Toy Chest."*

Given more time and a truck load of firewood, who knows what it could look like.

And here I've been wasting my time with a cheap "box-o-wine" when I go camping.  Next time I'm taking this bad boy with me...

I bet that a bottle of Jose Cuervo and my new found dedication to pyro-art could even entice Nanodance to go camping with me. (And if she isn't sick before she goes, odds are she sure could be afterward!)

Cheers!

 

*Miss Yvonne's blog is not suitable for all ages, but if you're looking for something a little different.... 

Congratulations, Nanodance!

Congratulations to my friend Nanodance, who's graduating from massage school tomorrow! Maybe that means we'll be seeing the return of Callithump Thunderblog soon... it has been sorely missed!

In the meantime... I've got this crick in my neck that maybe she can work on....