lol

Do you ever have those moments when something strikes you as totally hilarious and you cannot stop laughing about it? You try to tell someone what you are laughing about and they just look at you like you've totally lost your mind? It's so funny and you're the only one who gets it. It's often embarassing becuase you're just standing there laughing and you can't stop!
I had a few of those moments last night at work. When I was on break I was playing with the little word magnets on the fridge and using up all my creative energy to write interesting sentences. I saw one that I wrote last week and I could not stop laughing. Mary walked back to the lounge to tell me something and she found me sitting on the floor in front of the refrigerator giggling uncontrollaby.
"Do you see your hand? It is full of fire!" she read aloud. "I don't get it," she said. Well, I just thought that was the funniest thing ever.
I was still laughing when I went back to work and everyone looked at me like a had a screw loose, so I told them what I wrote. They didn't think it was funny, either. Now that I think about it, it's really not that funny, but at the time I couldn't get over the hilarity of my creativity. There aren't very many good words and it took me a long time to think of something funny. I thought I was absolutely brilliant. I wrote another one that I can't remember something about an ear...

I had another moment of uncontrollable laughter when I made the closing announcement. I extremely dislike making announcements over the intercom. I always forget to breathe and by the time I get to the final selections part I'm practically wheezing.
Anyway, I picked up the phone and pushed the buttons and then Linda looked at me, so I was forced to hang up and try to gain my composure. After I was okay I picked up the phone and began,"Attention please..." Then Linda put a paper over her head so that she would not be able to look at me and of course that just made me laugh and then Josh walked by me really slowly, looking at me the whole time, silently daring me not to laugh. I made the announcement, but no one could understand me, I'm sure. Mark always used to do that, too. Usually he'd sneak up behind me and say something or just stand there over my shoulder and I would totally lose it. I don't know why I always feel so goofy when I make the announcements. Perhaps it's because I know everyone is listening.

JD Fortune is the new lead singer for INXS, by the way. Why did that not surprise me? Mig totally should have won. I am now boycotting all things INXS.

Softball Part Two

I don't think I could have been more embarassed last night if I had shown up drunk in my underwear and started doing Polka at home plate. It was so awful.
Phil had me all over the place. First I played center field and I was okay there. Next inning,"Michelle! Second base!" I had NO clue what I was doing. It was so awful. He switched me to short stop mid-inning.
Third inning he put me as catcher and I totally screwed that up. I made a really good catch and would've gotten the guy out if I had been touching the plate! The other team was all,"Awesome! Great catch, Michelle!" I could have died.
Both times I was up to bat I struck out. The pitcher sucked. We played no walks and you started with one strike, so two strikes and you were out. So that was not working in my favor at all. IT was just awful.
Before the game Josh (a.k.a. Groovy Dude) asked me if I was single and would I like to meet his friend, Chris. "No," I said to the meeting friend part. Then Albert introduced me to everyone that wasn't there last week by saying,"This is Michelle. She's single."
"She's single because she wants to be," I told him.
Later he apologized, saying he didn't mean to offend me and told me that I could beat him up or something if I wanted to. I declined the offer, but I told him that I could beat him up if I wanted to. He said,"Ooh. So you do have some fight in you..." Hell, yes, I have some fight in me. I'm not a freaking door mat any more.
Then later when we were talking about the team colors and everything I said that I wasn't sure if I should be wearing red or what and Albert said,"No, you can wear whatever you want. Why don't you wear a red bikini next week?"
I said,"Uh, no."
He said,"Well, it was worth a shot," and shrugged.
Man, I tell you. I have never in my life heard anyone talk like he does (not in real life, at least...movies, yeah...). When he and Josh were talking before the game I just kind of stood there, open-mouthed thinking,"Holy shit!" First he was yelling at Josh for trying to chat up "his chicks," meaning Angel and me. Then they were talking about some other stuff I should not mention. Then as I was leaving Albert said something to Josh about a threesome. I had some really clever-ass remark planned, but Phil had pulled in and I didn't want to ruin my good-girl reputation in front of church folks.
Anyway, it was just really, really embarassing. I am totally gonna practice LOTS more.

Adventures with Electricity

Dad has been working on re-wiring the house for the last few days. I helped out a little, but only in the areas I believed to be fully safe. He nearly electrocuted himself last night by accidentally touching a hot wire. It reminded me of near near death experience. [Editor's note: Yes, I did mean to say "near" twice. It was not a typo.]
This past winter we purchased a new refrigerator after remodeling the kitchen. There was about a foot of snow on the ground. Dad wanted to back his truck up to the kitchen door so we wouldn't have far to move the fridge. Well, our house sits on a hill. We had to dig a path in the snow since his manly truck is lacking the most important manly truck feature: 4-wheel drive. The path didn't do anything but make the ground icy and slippery.
We tryed a new approach. This approach involved backing the truck up a different side which was less inclined. Unfortunately, this side of the house had wires going from the garage to the telephone pole. The bottom one was safe, Dad assured me. The top two were hot.
The truck was too tall with the refrigerator in back to go under the wire. Dad handed me a 2x4 and instructed me to hold up the ground wire and if I happened to accidentally touch one of the top wires to drop the plank and run.
So yeah. That was scary.

Basement From Hell

This morning when I went downstairs to do some laundry ("do some laundry") I was all of a sudden filled with an overwhelming feeling. It was the I-just-can't-take-it-anymore feeling. Our basement is the messiest, filthiest basement in all the world. I admit, I have not seen all the basements in the world, but this has definitely got to be the worst ever. It's bad. Really bad. Here is an actual conversation between me and my mother.
Mom: "Hey, Michelle, do you know where that one thing[I don't remember exactly what is was] is?"
Me: "It's in the basement."
Both: *look of fear and loathing*
Mom: "Oh well. I'll buy a new one."
So, yeah. It's bad.
Our basement is separated into three parts. Left of the stairs is the "storage area." This is the place where the big freezer lives and drips and where everything that "we might need someday" is stored.
The second section is the only part that is finished. At one time it looked really nice. My father does construction for a living. He drywalled and carpeted the whole area. Of course, it never leaked down there until he finished it. Now the walls are moldy and gross and the carpet is no longer gray, but multi-colored due to the mold and the heavy usage of bright-colored Playdough directly on the carpet*.
Anyway, the middle section was originally designed to be a bedroom. That never happened. It gradually morphed into "playroom" and now is "non-natural disaster." This is the place where all the toys and crap from the girls' room is dumped when cleaning the room. Betcha can't guess who usually cleans that room, can you? There is no floor in the basement. At least, that's what I thought before I started cleaning. Before cleaning, the basement was a sea (seriously! A sea!) of toys, papers, crayons, pencils, moldy books and other gross stuff including, but not limited to, mouse shit, clay and dirt.
The third section is the laundry room/Dad's "work area." Both are also used as storage areas because in my house there is an unlimited supply of storageable crap that we don't need at the moment, but will come in handy some day. We used to have a toilet down there from Grandma's house. Dad wanted to keep it since it was a very expensive stool and thought it might come in handy. Turns out that it did! He sold it to a lady for her rental house.
My task was a big one. I knew what I had to do. I was not looking forward to it, but the thought of being able to walk down there without screaming,"Ouch!! Damn it!!" the whole way to the laundry room was what kept me going.
I feel that I must add that I am highly allergic to the mold and, I think, everything else in the basement. I spent the whole day sneezing, coughing and wheezing after my last Benadryl tablet wore off. Ah, the smell of the basement on a beautiful day.
Did I mention that Mom was in Supreme Cleaning Mode today? I needed something to do, so that was another motivating factor.
I am not anywhere near done, but at least I can walk through there now. I even hooked up my old computer so the girls would free this one so I can use it (And they thought I did it to be nice!). I quickly ran out of toy receptacles, so I had to resort to piling the toys up against the wall on top of the full trash bins. Dad bought three ginormous trash bins to put toys in and I need about four more. So yeah...it's A LOT of toys. I had a very big breakthrough: They have way too may toys.

*The Playdough is never picked up. Never. That is one of the golden rules in the How to Be an Evil Daughter/Sister Manual : "Never pick up anything when you are done using it. Your parents and oldest sister are only here to be your personal maid/butler. They are paid good money and you would not want to take away from their income by picking up after yourselves, now would you?" I'm serious. It really says that. I've seen the manual. It's THICK!
Oh and something else about Playdough. You know how when you leave it out it gets all hard and dry? Not true in our basement. After being left out for many days or weeks it actually gets softer. How gross is that?!

Rock Star:INXS

I am officially obsessed with this show. I am totally in love with Marty. I think J.D. will win, however, due to the simple fact that J.D. is more INXS than Marty. Marty, unfortunately just isn't fit for INXS. He has a Creed kind of sound, he's more heavy. INXS, though I'm sure they would never admit it, is on the border between pop and rock and they need a singer that is in the same place the band is. I will totally buy Marty's first album. I love his song..."It'll be you and me/up in the trees and the forest will give us the answer (or as Hannah says "and the forest will give us cancer")/ it'll be you and i up in the sky/ it's a combination for disaster..." It's just such a great song. I could sing it all day (if I knew all the words and didn't have to ask my sister, Emma,"How does that one song go again? The one with the trees and the sky and you and me...? Cancer...?")
OMG!!! Guess what! Marty is the only safe one tonight! They just put MiG in the bottom three. MiG is awesome, too. He should win. Not J.D. He is a bad word (J.D.)... bad attitude person. This is the first time MiG got to sing an INXS song and he is kicking ass!
Susie is still in. I really don't think they'll pick a woman. It's a guy's band. It just doesn't sound right when a woman is singing some of the songs, you know? In this day and age, it's okay, I guess, but it's just a little wacky.
Man, I totally wanna be a rock star. I am so incredibly sucky on the guitar and I totally cannot sing except in the privacy of my own home. If I sing in front of people my voice just gets all weird and different and ugly. I'm beginning to wonder if it is always that way and I just think I sound good, but I have no confidence in front of the people, so the loss of confidence shows myself what I really sound like. Maybe.

Softball

Yesterday I took a chance and did something new. Phil asked me a couple weeks ago if I wanted to be on his softball team. I was kind of iffy about it, especially since my mom's number two enemy is on the team, but I looked past that and went ahead and did it, anyway.
I took Hannah and Hayley with me (and NOT because I didn't want to be alone...okay, well, maybe that was the reason...) and they sat in the score booth with Jenny. Phil handed me a glove and told me to warm up. Okay...So I warmed up and pretty soon the game started. He yelled out the positions to everyone as we took the field. When he said,"Michelle, right field!" I held out my arms-right...left...um...Then Albert pointed and told me which way was right. Oh. It made no sense when I got out there, because I was on the left side...Oh well.
I stood where I thought I was supposed to stand and yelled to someone,"Is this good?" Then Albert said he would tell me when to move. Basically, I just stood there the whole time.
I got to bat third in the second inning. The first pitch almost hit me. "Ball one!" I swung at the second pitch and hit the ball really high. It was caught before I even had a chance to run. Dang it! The catcher from the other team smiled and said,"Good hit." I tried...
The next inning, when we had two outs Rhonda was next on the line-up and Phil yelled,"Michelle, you're up."
"Huh? I thought..."
"You can hit," he said. Bet that made Rhonda feel good...
I hit a grounder on the first pitch. Didn't go very far. I started running and didn't even make it halfway before the ball beat me to first base. One of the Rachel's on my team said,"Good hit," and gave me high five.
Third time I did the same thing. "Good hit." I think everyone was glad that they had someone that could at least hit the ball.
I didn't score any runs, but at least I hit the ball everytime I was up to bat. We lost 5-11. I have to say that our team wasn't really that great. Yeah, okay, we sucked. Albert was the only one who was actually good.
I really had a lot of fun. I'll definitely be there next week. It's too bad the season is almost over, though.

My Labor Day Weekend

Once again this weekend I was reminded why I never want to get married. If Mom and Dad weren't fighting, then Aunt Lori and Uncle Steve were. It was so awful. I felt like shaking all four of them by the shouldres and asking what the hell was wrong with them. "Can't you just get along for three days?" I wanted to yell. The kids were remarkably well-behaved. The adults whined and complained enough for all of them put together.
Other than the constant bickering and whining amongst the "adults" it was a great weekend. We spent all night Saturday at the festival, went back to the hotel and enjoyed the game room and pool. The parents went out at 11 and the kids and I had a great time watching the Disney channel until 3 am. Actually, I put on my headphones to drown out the whiny cartoon voices and wrote in my journal and read a book since the girls insisted on watching the same channel in both rooms. It was actually kind of peaceful.
Sunday we went shopping at Max 10. I didn't buy anything for myself but I totally should have. We spent about an hour at the beach since it was too chilly to spend all day and went to the festival. Aunt Lori and I went on all the rides (all three of them, twice. The festival wasn't very big this year). Then we ate some delicious and fattening festival food and headed back to the room for another night of swimming and games of pool. I suck at billiards, by the way.
Yesterday was the best day. We spent all day on the beach after eating at IHOP. There was a really cool band playing on the boardwalk and I got some pictures of the hot drummer. Dad said I should go for drummers as opposed to guitar players, for some reason. He would know, I guess. He used to drum and play guitar. The guitarist was old, anyway, but he sure did jam.
It was really hot yesterday, so the water was wonderful. I spent just about the whole time in the water (when I wasn't drooling over the drummer, that is. He was giving me just as much attnetion as I was giving him, by the way. Even Aunt Lori said so) with Chayse. It was great. Then I had the girls bury me in sand. That was fun. I'd never done that before. I had Emma ttake pictures for me.
You know what I love? I love getting out of the water and not brushing my hair and just having beach hair all day. I feel better after a day at the beach than I ever feel. It was great. We went on some more rides and I won Hannah a $10 dolphin at the dart-throwing thing. It was a nice weekend. I wish festivals lasted longer than just three days. It would be so awesome to spend a whole week there.