Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Car Talk

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Back in the spring of 1997 when I was driving to meet my husband for a camping trip, my little red Ford Mustang, the car my parents gave me when I turned 17, the car that was completely paid off, began smoking from the steering wheel.

So we took it into the dealership to get serviced, and being the young, inexperienced, newly married twenty-somethings that we were, we accidentally gave off vibes that said, “we might, at some unspecified time in the future, be interested in purchasing a new car,” and thus we became magnetically bonded to a salesman named Rocky, who did not leave our side for the next six hours, until we departed with not just a newly repaired Ford Mustang, but also a new Ford Explorer.

The next day we of course COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT because that was the biggest purchase we had ever made in our lives, and holy cow, what in the world had we just done?! But eventually we calmed down and realized that we could still afford to live in our apartment, and we would not have to stop eating, and everything was just fine.

Fine for us, that is. Apparently, in the Explorer’s mind, our little episode of Buyer’s Remorse was STRIKE ONE against us. [Read more…] about Car Talk

Thursday Thirteen #2: 13 Things Overheard At My House Last Weekend

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Thirteen Things about Jenny Ryan

Some have to do with playing video games; others, not so much.

1. What is that? Is that a fart cloud?

2. Jenny, do you wanna see my bra?
(upon coming into the kitchen) Oh, man! You need to tell me when you’re on the phone!

3. I didn’t want to call the store and tell them I spilled my spam all over my computer.

4. I hear snorting!

5. He wants to give you presents of fire.

6. Person #1: I’ve gotta put something on my pants.
Person #2: To make them magical?

7. Who doesn’t like to walk around their house naked?

8. Person #1: (makes a semi-obscene gesture to Person #2)
Person #2: Apparently he wanted to try and get me to honk my own boob.
Person #3: Yeah, it’s just like when you do this (makes the ‘honk your horn’ motion) to a truck driver.

9. Person #1: I think you’re killing everyone.
Person #2: (heavily sarcastic)Yes, I can make people burst into flames.

10. Oh, let’s break the men. If there are more men, let’s break them.

11. Bow before me!

12. I forgot how your ass shakes when you run.

13. Your adventure has ended.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

8 Week Check-In

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I never thought I would be writing these particular words about myself, but this is my 8th week of working out with a trainer. This, despite the fact that when I went in last Thursday for my lower body workout she greeted me by saying, “I don’t know if it’s because I’m in a bad mood or what, but I am TOTALLY gonna kick your ass today!”

Me: (totally lying, with giant fake grin and two thumbs up) “GREAT!” (because if I don’t at least fake happiness, she will just make the workout Even. Worse.)

I can say that I have seen myself make a lot of progress over the past eight weeks, and I think that is due at least in part to my setting the bar of expectations as low as is humanly possible in our first session together.

(Sample conversation from our first workout.)

Me: “And what did you say these were?…Legs, huh?”
Me: “And what do they do again?”

Unfortunately however, sometimes my previous exercise experience gets me into trouble. Because then my trainer discovers that I can do a bit more than I let on. Like the time she had me lay face-down on a balance ball and then curl my torso up, like a backwards sit-up, to work my back.

My trainer: “OK, go ahead and try this. You probably won’t be able to…”

Me: (curling up to almost 90 degrees)

My trainer: “Holy s*&%!””

Me: “Oh by the way, I’m really flexible.”

Or times like this.

My trainer: (hands me a couple of really heavy weights)
Me: (I am able to lift them.)
My trainer: “Wow, your triceps are really strong!”
Me: “I have no idea how that happened!”

But it is definitely worth it, because now I can go up to my husband, accost him with a random body part, yell, “Feel this!”, and there is actually something muscle-like for him to feel. (And he enjoys this much better than being accosted with random mystery items from the refrigerator and having to, “Smell this!”)

So anyway, I just wanted to check in here with this update, because the more people who know about this, the harder it is for me to weasel out of going. And also to say:

Yay me!

Do You Think My In-Laws Are Trying To Tell Me Something?

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Here’s why I ask. My husband just called them because he just remembered that it was his dad’s birthday 2 days ago, and we did not call or send a card, and now we are totally on their *&%# list.

So he came out into my office after he got off the phone and he was wearing the face you’d expect on someone who has discovered that, even if you’ve been married for 10 years, and are a responsible, hard-working, law-abiding, home-owning grownup, you are never to old to be in big trouble with your parents.

Then he said, “My parents have a new pet.” So I thought that maybe he was looking down because their dog, Riley, had died.

But no. Riley is just fine. Instead, it was that he was responsible for breaking to me the news that, “They have adopted a snake.” (Snakes only being, to my mind, The Most Terrifying Things In Existence.)

Apparently they had some people working on their lawn, and these people brought them outside to show them the snake they’d found.

“We need to get rid of this snake,” said the lawn people. What an excellent response.

Other appropriate responses:

“Bring me the flame thrower!”

or, “Why the *%$@ don’t we have a flame thrower?!”

My father-in-law’s response? “Wait. Let me look that snake up on the Internet.”

Long story short, the snake is now living in a special snake spot in their backyard, almost directly touching the outside of the room that my husband and I stay in when we go to visit my in-laws. And I just can’t help wondering, is there a message in that for me?

Overheard

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Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Yesterday we once again played host to The Gamers,and dedicated as I am to bringing the world entertaining stories from my everyday life, I decided to listen to what they said during game play and take notes for my blog.

So today I present to you, “The Best Things I Heard This Weekend: The Gamers Edition”.

1. Gamer 1:I just got donkey punched by the abominable snowman.
Gamer 2: That’s not the abominable snowman. That’s the abominable WTF?!

2. Gamer 2: Say no to ice-wielding zombies.
Gamer 3: Say no to zombies, period.

3. Gamer 1: OK, take the bone-studded choker.
Gamer 3: Yes, pick up the boner.

4. Who else needs to be slayed?

5. (Earlier in the evening someone had expressed their belief that having sex steals your soul. Later during game play someone’s character killed a wild boar and we all watched as the boar’s soul left its body.)
Gamer 1: Hey, that pig had a soul.
Gamer 2: I guess it didn’t have sex today.
Gamer 3: Or else it was a virgin.

Chain Reaction

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Have you ever had one of those days where you have clearly mapped out everything you need to do that day, but Thing #2 depends on Thing #1, and Thing #3 depends on Thing #2, and everything is woven together in an interlocking chain of Stuff That Is Not Getting Done because you can not, for the life of you, figure out how to complete Thing #1? Well the other day was like that for me.

Normally this is entirely my fault, since Thing #1 is usually something like, “Put on clothes.” (Dammit, you mean there’s no naked grocery shopping today? Well, forget it. There’s no point in even showing up for this day then!) But this day was a bit trickier, because Thing #1 was, “Make The Vacuum Cleaner Not Smell Like Poo”. [Read more…] about Chain Reaction

Trying Something New

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In the spirit of having a lot of free time because school hasn’t started yet, I have been experimenting with different things in order to increase the traffic on this site.

The “Blogs of Summer Awards” were a smashing success, as participation there quadrupled my traffic for that week. (Notice how I’m not listing any actual numbers here, because somehow to me no number sounds quite as impressive as the word, “quadrupled”.)

This week I decided to participate in the Thursday Thirteen, something I learned about from the Blogs of Summer. I get to link with lots of other bloggers, and I get to make lists. So it’s all good.

Enjoy!

Thursday Thirteen #1: 13 Things That Make Me Laugh

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1. All the characters in Janet Evanovich’s “Stephanie Plum” mystery series.

2. Anything written by the Sweet Potato Queen, Jill Conner Brown.

3. Almost anything written by David Sedaris.

4. Anytime I can work the words “monkey” or “weasel” into a conversation.

5. Every time my cats slide across the kitchen floor and crash into the back door and then go, “I totally MEANT to do that.”

6. The scene in the movie “Moonstruck” where Cher’s character and Nicholas Cage’s character finally confess their love for each other to her family.

7. The scene in “Soapdish” where soap opera writer Whoopi Goldberg has to write a way to reintroduce a character onto the show who had previously been killed off through decapitation.

8. “The Princess Bride”-too many good lines to choose just a few here.

9. Everything Eddie Murphy’s character, “Donkey” says in the Shrek movies.

10. All the dialogue between the crew members on the short-lived TV show “Firefly” and its movie “Serenity”.

11. The “Friends” episode from Season Six entitled “The One With All The Thanksgivings”.

12. Heather B. Armstrong’s blog, “Dooce”

13. The blog of “Miss Doxie”.


Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

(leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!