Ooh, the choices...

So, everyone decided they wanted dibs on the Amanda this weeked. On the one hand, we have a Dog Show I said I would attend first with one of my best friends. Second we have a family commitment to attend a barbecue with my brother's family. And third we have the Rockapaloosa, or however that is spelled, which obviously stands out as a rarer occurence with one of my other best friends. Now the Dog Show was something I agreed to go to before I was invited to the other two. The barbecue is a family thing and family with us is big. We're worse than the Greeks in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when it comes to family. And food. The concert of Rock madness and wonder, of course, is the one that I would love to say Hell Yes to. Alas, I cannot. In addition to our uncanny "blood is thicker than water" code, we have an honor code. Very old-world. We repay all those who have helped us. We protect our own. We honor commitments. I said yes to the Dog Show first, so that's where I'm off to. Luckily, it includes amusing company, if not a second mom who will lovingly lecture my sarcasm into a jar and then toss it out a window and the possibilty of spotting more of those leatherclad spiky guys that for some reason frequent dog shows. You would think they would be showing Rottweilers. I thought so. Apparently not. Small dogs, mostly. A terrier, a Spaniel. No "muscle of the dog world". Odd.

Digging up Dirt

Well, actually, there seems to be as much glass in our dig site as there is dirt. Not to mention rust. Plenty of that. Yeah, I guess this requires explanation. My friend Morgan and I are digging in my backyard. About five or so years ago, some of our local gophers pushed some pieces of glass to the top in an area toward the back of my property. My younger sister and I decided to investigate. Though most of what emerged were the broken pieces of old bottles, dishware and various other old things, several fully intact pieces came out of it as well. We continued our digging all summer but once school started up again, we gave up on it. The project lay unattended for all this time. Recently, another of our pesky little neighbors (I do mean the gophers) pushed a fairly large piece roughly 70 year old glass to the surface. When I noticed it, it reminded me of our long ago project. My sister had no interest in the dirty work of "excavating artifacts" and so I called my friend, Morgan. She readily agreed. And now there are buckets and buckets of glass, metal and pottery sitting in my bedroom. Its alot more slow-going this time as we are being much more careful and having dug in only two places so far, the pieces we are finding likely go together which will make it much easier to sort them out. Currently I am only missing a few pieces to a large white dinner plate. Its only about 80 years old as compared to some of the things I have that date to the 1880s but its still a really fun project. Lengthy explanation over, the point of this seemingly pointless little rant was to voice my excitement at having found a piece of a very old whiskey bottle with the label actually mostly intact, as well as a Rum bottle with part of the name still on it, (the labels on the buried bottles rarely survive) and a metal spring which also survived its stay in the ground. Yayness.

This might strike you as odd

Ok, maybe not odd for me, but I just had a thought. Oh, I know, shocking. Now, it is to be admitted that I am somewhat baised on the subject, considering my despisal of clowns but who was the genius who just suddenly came to the brilliant idea that we should dress a bunch of old guys in weird colorful suits, put them in some big ass shoes and a red nose, and paint their faces so we can't tell who they are? And then decided we were going to let them play with our children.

Ooh, scariness

Just about the most frightening thing you can hear you dentist's assistant say to your dentist: "Ooh, you wanna try that?" while they're drilling into your jawbone. The lady throws her hands up in excitement, ceasing to suction the blood out of my mouth, and says that. That was a pretty scary line all on its own. Then it was followed by the words "new" and "experimental", at which point I figured it was time to get nervous. Luckily, I didn't get to be the guinea pig because apparently my tooth wasn't quite large enough to survive the procedure. Goodie. I thought that was bad. At least until it occured to me that my arm was starting to get a little numb. They had just given me yet another shot to numb the pain and by then I couldn't feel anything from my ear to my elbow. This sent up a red flag or two. Just how much is this going to hurt afterward if you've given me enough drugs to numb me down to my arm? I found out later that the answer was alot.
I am ever amused by the irony of life. And just how much the Universe likes to mess with us. He's sitting up there in his bean bag chair, sipping on a beer and eating popcorn, all the while watching our lives unfold like a TV series. Some of us are more amusing than others. My show, I imagine, is featured on Comedy Central. The day before I went to the dentist for my appointment of scariness, I worked outside all day with my friend Morgan. Amanda, idiot that she gets to be for the sake of Comedy Centrals millions, forgot to reapply the sunscreen. You know what ten hours of sun exposure and bare skin make? A really red snowperson. Thats what I got to be. But not just any sunburns, mind you. Oh no, I get burns across my back and the backside of my arms. That way I can lay on them for my three hour dental procedure. Thank you, Universe, for all those little things that bring a smile to my face each day. Granted, these things aren't particularly funny at the time that they occur.
And yet my favorite part of this week is the blunder of the year. Now for someone who is generally perceptive, this is a serious blunder. And unlike most of my stories, this one was funny when it happened, as well as after. My beloved cat Artemis...is not a girl. Oh yes, I forgot to check my cat's gender. They told us when we got the kittens they were both female. Despite the fact that everytime I've been told my pets were one they always turned out to be the other, I just decided to ignore better judgement. So I called Artemis a girl for months. Then one day, earlier this week, Artie lifted his tail up to walk in his prancy prissy style and my sister goes, "Oh my God, she has balls." This, of course, immediately drew my attention to the cat. And sure enough, she did. So Artemis is still Artemis but now we throw in the occasional "boy" to make sure he knows we've corrected our mistake. I'm not entirely sure he's forgiven me yet.