Category: Melissa’s life (Page 14 of 20)

No kitten left hungry.

June 1, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

My family grew up in a 100 year old two story house with a porch and a cellar. The porch was about 3 feet off the ground and as a result, there is about a one and a half foot space between the bottom of the house and the ground. This housed among other things, the heating and cooling system and some wiring. It also proved to be fertile ground for all the knocked up cats in the neighborhood to come and give birth to their broods.

Each time there was a cat hanging around the house, my brother would go outside with a bowl of water and a plate of food. In the beginning it was whatever leftovers he could scrounge up. Eventually, he began to buy some bonafide cat food.

Over the years, my brother has probably fed and housed close to a hundred cats and their kittens. Some made it to be inside pets but most just stayed outside until they got bored with us and moved on.

After last week’s box of kittens episode, my brother was so sad that he went to the shelter and adopted a gray kitten. She’s a little girl cat about a month old. He hasn’t named her yet.

Sunday Mishmash

May 31, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

A special thanks to Blake’s Think Tank for this hilarious rap from some Dartmouth conservatives. Oh yeah they have their own website . Oh, they’re not TRYING to be funny which only makes it more funny.

Athletes at the U of A cheating? hrmmm. Via Arkansas Times

All the drama and stress surrounding sick and dying kittens wore me out. I did, however, get some running in this weekend as well as a substantial amount of sleep. So for me, I guess the weekend was a good one. I signed up for National Blog Month (or whatever its called) so dammit. You folks get daily post for the month of June. OH ROCK!

Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal WOW. Just WOW! I’m not sure what to say about that. (thanks to Blonde Justice)

Cat photos!

May 29, 2009 / melissa / 1 Comment

I love taking pictures. It’s fun to look at something and then capture it with a camera. Since digital makes taking multiple shots inexpensive, I have been fearless in my snapping abilities and have managed to get a decent eye for a good shot.

This is my cat sitting in the front yard. Isn’t it awesome? I like how it’s all green foliage with my cat in the middle.

These are some kittens found in a box in my parents old house. The house itself is empty except for boxes of stuff. They moved from a 2 story house with a lot of square feet to a fairly small one story house. I needed one of my old law textbooks and heard this loud cat noises and found these kittens in one of the empty boxes. They appeared to be days — maybe weeks old. A couple of them still had shut eyes. They appeared to be fed so I left them there and was going to check on them daily. The next day one of them was very weak. It died later that day. Today, there are only two left. They are with my brother now.

oh

May 26, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

I do not like public restrooms. In fact, you could say that I have a slight fear of them. You know know when you open up the door, what you are going to find. Also, you never know what is going to happen when you pull the little flush lever. Also, you never see a plunger lying around in public restrooms either.

But sometimes, you gotta go. This was the case en route to Riverfest. I stopped at what will be known as an unnamed location en route. This place has tasty snacks and is usually very clean. I noticed that the ladies restroom had an “out of order” sign on the front door and since this is a one toilet per restroom set up, I decided I was going to be a man for 10 minutes.

Y’all. The mens restroom is not like the ladies at all. Somehow the bowl of the white porcelain sink had been stained to a very scary looking beige color. It was scary. Then… OH LORD. Apparently all was not right with the toilet. It appeared to have pap towels in the bowl. I had no where else to go. My bladder was screaming. So I decided to hover, not flush, and tell the cashiers that something is wrong with that bathroom.

So I do just that and as I stand up, I hear this click. I turn around to realize it is an automatic flushing toilet. I then hear this bubble forming like the bowels of hell just farted. This moment still seems to me in slow motion even though it was only two seconds. I watch the bubble as it comes from the bowels of hell to the surface, then I see the water rise and then…

*splash*

THE HORROR

THE HORROR!!!

I quickly pick up my borrowed from someone else messenger back so it won’t be tainted by the hell stew and run outside.

It’s quiet and pleasant just like any old store.

I go to the front to pay for my beverage. There are two people at the cashiers.

I state, “excuse me but there is a problem with the restroom.”

One of the cashiers rolls her eyes and says, “we’ll get to it when we caaaaaaaaaannnn” I can’t properly write out the whine combined with a Southern drawl that turned a three letter word into fifteen syllables. You’ll just have to use your imagination.

I looked at Miss Thang with her hand on her hip and her eye rolling and her “how dare you tell me to do anything than sit my butt up here behind the counter” countenance and I paid for my beverage and walked out of undisclosed location.

For any persons who managed to come upon the bathroom from hell between the time Miss Thang pulled that spoiled brat stick out of her butt and actually did her job cleaning up that shit, I’m sorry.

For Miss Thang. Well she who lives by slinging the shit, dies by cleaning it up.

or something like that.

TIN ROOF RUSTED

May 25, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

This weekend was the outdoor music festival, greasy food, carnival/farmer market style gifts filled extravaganza known as Riverfest. Of course, some people mock Riverfest and think they’re too cool for it. My response, whether or not you go to Riverfest, you still live in Arkansas and as a result, get an automatic -150 X e to the 200,000,000th power added to our cool points scale. Oh and trying to be cool when you’re over the age of 15 screams desperate and sad. So you might as well have some fun.

My main draw this year was my chance to see the B-52s for $12.50. That’s gold right there.

The B-52s have been a mainstay in my CDs and mp3 lists since college when they came out with Cosmic Thing when I was in high school. “Love Shack” was a staple for any party. Their songs are bright, happy tunes (or they at least have a happy beat) that are good for running.

IT’s hard taking a photo in the dark.

It was a great set. It had songs from the really old days like “Rock Lobster” to brand spanking new like “Fun Plex” and everything in between. (that means “LOVE SHACK”) I was in the pit and danced like only a thirty something obese white woman with no rhythm could. It was a damn good time. The interesting thing was the wide range of ages. You could tell that there were people who discovered the B-52s when Rock Lobster came out (late seventies) to the COsmic thing Groupies (90s) to the teenagers who were reintroduced with the release of “FUNPLEX”.

I ended up driving back home and drove back the next day with my brother to check out the festivities again. We went shopping at the farmer’s market in the space that is the farmer’s market at the River Market. Yes that is a lot of “market”s for one sentence. He ended up buying a sterling silver ring.

We walked around the entire thing once for a look see. Immediately, he noticed the crawdad cart.

Of course, this was 3 in the afternoon and he did wait until suppertime.

I have no Riverfest food stories. I think Riverfest bucks are a ripoff and had a good ole gyro from Layla’s.

We walked and talked about things. We usually don’t hang out that much. We’re older and everything. Our lives are in quite opposing paths and as a result, our paths probably wouldn’t cross if we weren’t family. It was a nice time.

We went to see Hinder while we waited for Heart. I discovered that I am not really a Hinder fan and got bored about thirty minutes into the set. Of course, we discovered that the Riverfest bathroom logic is “hey I might need to go pee thirty minutes from now, let me go stand in line” so that worked out A-OK. The upside of the bathroom waiting is that we ran into this man who lived across the street from us when we were ten or so.

Apparently, a lot of other people didn’t like Hinder either.

See this picture. This is the mass exodus of people leaving DURING the Hinder concert.

Hinder ended their set around 8 o’clock. Heart wasn’t set to play until 9:30. This was a LONG excruciating wait. No really. It felt like forever.

Finally Heart came on stage and gave a good show. By this point, I was tired and my feet hurt. My brother was tired and his feet hurt. We ended up admitting we were older than dirt and left early. Yeah we’re losers. Oh and it was raining, too.

Tidbit: Saw Ned Perme. Of course, me being a total dork says “HEY NED PERME” Because people like being called out by their entire name. He waved. har har har…. Celebrity starfucker moment #205.

I’m a total goofball.

I kept seeing people I knew and having little chit chat. It’s amazing for a place that was supposed to have some 200,000 in attendance over the course of three days how small that number really is. It also surprises me how many people remember me. In my mind, I don’t see myself as that memorable. (oh the irony of this blog’s existence) so when someone I haven’t seen in a while says “hello” I’m surprised, especially if it was an acquaintance from years ago.

These festivals are as much about community as anything. Going out as a town or a state really and doing the same thing. It’s one of those rituals. Go out for the weekend to listen to music and eat carnival style food and then get serious about remembering the troops and spending time with your family. So even if you were too cool for Riverfest (you probably weren’t, you just thought you were), I hope you had fun.

another day closer to death.

May 18, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

“Remembering that I am going to die is the best way for me to avoid the trap of thinking I have something to lose”. — Steve Jobs

Get busy living, or get busy dying. — Andy Dufresne The Shawshank Redemption

Many colleges and graduate schools had their graduations this weekend. As a result, many graduation speeches were heard. Other blogs commented on great graduation speeches. One that was mentioned over and over again was Steve Jobs’s speech at Stanford University.

When I was a teenager, I was quite a morose kid. I guess you could call me an EMO child– reading Sylvia Plath, thinking about teenage alienation and cliques and the cruelty that goes with it. I went to college and eventually out grew it but it did leave me with a tendency to be drawn to the darker things in life.

Later when I became an investigator, I was exposed to the bad things in life with crime, drugs, desperate poverty shaping a person’s decisions. I learned very quickly that there is no guarantee that when you walk out of the house in the morning that you will walk back in the house later that evening.

As a result, I try to make each day count. It is the explanation for many of my actions. It is what lead me to DC. I always wanted to live in a big city. It makes me grateful to be here in Arkansas spending time with my parents and grandparents because they are old and someday much sooner than I want to consider, they will be gone. I have this tension between myself wanting to do big things like travel to great places and stay here to be with my family. It is also part of my discontent with where I am now. I don’t feel like I am making a difference. I don’t feel that I am experiencing any great new experiences. I feel left out of the small town scene (also known as the “good old boy network”) and that life just might be too short to make it worth my while to try to break it down or change it.

It’s also why I keep a big bold “bucket list” with things I want to experience. I’ve always been a reach for the stars type of person. I have found that even if you don’t achieve the stars– well the moon is pretty cool.

Still excited about 21st Century Breakdown, even if Belle hates Green Day. blargh.

Mother's Day Musings

May 10, 2009 / melissa / 3 Comments

I love my mother. She is my hero. She somehow managed to raise me and my brother without killing us. That in and of itself is a major accomplishment. She drove us to Brownie and Cub Scout meetings, Swimming lessons, piano lessons, band practices, and whatever else that we needed to do.

She taught us compassion. Everytime, my brother or I would say something bad about somebody, she would reply, “Well, they probably think you’re weird/silly/stupid or whatever insult you laid into them, too” For some reason, it managed to teach us that your opinion is only an opinion and to be wary of what you say about others because well, they might be saying it about you, too.

She is the person that tends to sick. She is the one who offers to stay with the friends and family members in ICU so that the immediate family can go out and eat or take a nap in a comfortable bed. When her neighbor was rendered legally blind due to macular degeneration, my mother drove her to all her appointments, took her grocery shopping, helped her clean her house, and helped her with her checkbook. My neighbor was so impressed with my Mom, she said, “If I had know how great Gwen was, I would have hung out with her more often years ago.”

My mother is a quiet woman and as a result, not everyone “gets” her. She’s the best listener in the world. Sometimes, she’s so good at listening that a lot of people get wrapped up in their own lives and story telling that they forget to ask. I learned the perils of self centeredness from that.

In fact, my mother was so good at nurturing that when I was in college and I found out that my brother and father were going away, I asked her “what are you going to do?” and offered to come back home and stay with her. She laughed at me. I’m sure she laughed at me a lot harder when she got off the phone but she was so good at it, I could only ponder what she could possibly do.

So today I thank my Mom for all that patience and hard work. I hope I’ve made her proud.

Snippet of the day

May 9, 2009 / melissa / 0 Comments

Last night, I got pulled over by my local town’s law enforcement. I had pulled a “California rolling stop” as opposed to actually stopping at the stop sign and my rear brake light was out. I didn’t know my brake light was out. THANKS Officer.

So he asks for my license and proof of insurance and I give it to him.

He looks at my license and proceeds to talk to the person at the station via walkie talkie.

This is Officer. … I got a License with 873.. oops.

He begins to laugh. My license number has none of those numbers.

He starts again. He gets the second number wrong. By this point, he’s about to totally lose it and giggle like a kid who farted in church. He calms himself down and starts reading my license number. He gets the fourth number wrong and starts laughing again.

“Lady, I’m just going to let you go. Get that light fixed as soon as possible, OKay.”

“Okay officer”

If I had been laughing like that, I would have been on the sidewalk saying my “ABC’s backwards while touching my nose”

Guess who's back?

May 6, 2009 / melissa / 1 Comment

Breezy

Originally uploaded by melissathegoofy

Yes, it’s another couple of days with the best dog in the world. Puppysitting again. OH joy.

So my blogging post will be a little more sporadic.

illness

May 6, 2009 / melissa / 2 Comments

I feel like poop. I got crazy sleeping irregularities, sore throat, and a digestive system that manages to make noises that I’ve only heard in horror movies. Usually in those movies, the person explodes or an alien comes flying out of their stomach right after those noises are made. Sleeping is downright scary when you think you’re stomach is going to explode.

I am alive and hanging in there and have read the Oxford American issue on race. I have some thoughts about that. When I am not weary from sleep and keeping my stomach from exploding, I’ll put them here.

THE HORROR

THE HORROR!!!

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