Weekend in Review
After driving around with only a printed out temporary drivers license, I finally forced myself to go to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) on Saturday to get my new license. Going to the DMV is a special kind of torture for me. I don’t know why, but it seems like only the dregs of society ever need to get their licenses renewed when I’m there. I stood in a line a good 30 people long to be given a number and told to go get my picture taken. Thank God for the internet, in that I could renew online and skip the first very long step involved with getting a renewed license.
My number came up and I trudged on in to the cubicle. An unsmiling young man greeted me and made me answer all the questions about voting registration and organ donation. He told me to sit down and look at the camera. He spoke in complete monotone. He took the first picture and wouldn’t even let me see it. He started shaking his head "no" and then asked me to remove my purse strap from my shoulder. Apparently, my shoulder strap was preventing him from getting a good shot of my face.
Whatever.
I removed my purse and he took the picture again. It wasn’t my best, but it wasn’t my worst either and I told him to just print it. Standing at the counter was awkward and my license was taking forever to print. I noticed that the young man was missing part of his name tag. To make small talk I said, "What happened? Did your dog chew up your name tag?"
He didn’t crack even a hint of a smile before responding in a monotone, "It just broke. I told them I need a new one, but they didn’t get me one yet. So I just wear this one."
"Oh," I said.
Then, I had to bite back laughter and tears as I read the leftover bit of his name tag. "Ken Pew." That is one man who seriously needs a new name tag.
After surviving the DMV, we decided to treat the girls to lunch at Friendly’s before hitting the museum. The other night our Realtor asked what we do with the girls for fun and Mr. BBM and I just sort of stared awkwardly at each other. We haven’t done anything in a really long time. With a Mommy who can’t walk for long periods of time, "fun" just doesn’t happen.
We had an enjoyable lunch and then it was time for dessert. Mr. BBM had ordered a meal that comes with a sundae as did the girls. They ordered their ice cream and Mr. BBM asked the waiter what type of sundae he was allowed to get with his meal. Before the server could answer, I figured I’d save the waiter the trouble since I had read the menu and said, "You get a ‘Happy Ending’."
He got fire engine red and started cracking up laughing. I blinked back at him and asked him what was so funny, but he was laughing so hard he couldn’t even speak. Meanwhile, the girls are staring at him, as is the waiter.
"What is your problem?" I asked.
"A happy ending" he blurts out, still hysterical.
The waiter started laughing as I told him to get his mind out of the gutter already. "We’re in a Friendly’s for God’s sake." Mr. BBM finally recovered enough to tell our waiter the flavor of ice cream he wanted and I was ready to smack him.
The museum went much better than the first two locales of the day, right up until Lil C threw herself on the gift shop floor and told us "going home is dupid (stupid)."
Fabulous.
She thrashed like a bucking bronco as Mr. BBM strapped her into her seat and them promptly fell asleep while we perused piles of dirt for our potential new home. Yes, we definitely needed to go have some fun.
That was Saturday.
Today we had two showings of our house. They were at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. We cruised the neighborhood for the first one, and brought back fast food for lunch as yet another treat for the girls. Mr. BBM and I both drank super-sized diet cokes and then we headed back out to an open house to make sure our house didn’t get messed up before the 5 p.m. showing. These girls are little destructors.
We made the mistake of not using the bathroom before leaving and by the time we were finished walking through the open house, Mr. BBM and I were both in agony. We were in the middle of nowhere and thought we were going to die.
Big I started bugging us to change the DVD in the player and I was afraid that if I bent down to get another movie, my bladder would burst. So Mr. BBM told Big I that "Mommy and Daddy can’t concentrate because our teeth are floating." It was the worst possible thing he could have said.
We spent the next 20 minutes trying to explain what that saying meant as we maneuvered a ton of crazy back roads. On the home stretch for a brief bathroom stop at the house, Mr. BBM burped, sighed, and said, "I think I just burped up a little pee."
Usually Mr. BBM’s humor is completely lost on me. I just give him a look and we all move on. This, however, struck me so funny that I could hardly contain myself. Tears streamed down my face and I doubled over in pain as I tried to keep from peeing in my pants.
Needless to say, I insisted on getting in the house first.
We quickly exited in advance of our second showing and drove around the neighborhood again. Because Big I and I can get car sick by driving only one block, and because the liquids had been flowing freely all afternoon, we decided to stay sort of put for this showing. The apartments across the street from our house have parking spaces that face our house, obscured by some shrubbery. We spent 25 minutes remarking to each other, "They’re in the kitchen now. They just left the bedroom. They’re outside now," but truly it wasn’t good enough.
I think I’m using my Best Buy gift card to wire our house Jack Bauer style and we’re totally bringing our binoculars next time. Who says we don’t have any fun with the girls?
Carnival of Great Martial Arts Books
Scroll down for new entries.
When you are unable to train for months at a time, you need as much good reading material as you can get! It is with great pleasure that I bring you the Carnival of Great Martial Arts Books.
Amanda from Amanda Takes Off presents Martial Arts Book Review posted at Amanda Takes Off….
John Vesia presents Martial Arts Madness posted at Martial Views.
Patrick Parker presents Richard Strozzi-Heckler’s Warrior Spirit posted at Mokuren Dojo.
Marks presents Great Karate Biography posted at Marks Chat.
Black Belt Mama presents My Journey with the Grandmaster posted at The BBM Review.
Dave Shevitz presents Stepping Off the Mat in Angry White Pyjamas, all In Search of the Warrior Spirit posted at AikiThoughts, No Blog of Significance: Book Review: Ultimate Jujutsu: Principles & Practice posted at No Blog of Significance, No Blog of Significance: Book Review: Okinawan Karate: the Secret Art of Tuite posted at No Blog of Significance, No Blog of Significance: Book Review: The Secrets of Okinawan Karate: Essence and Techniques posted at No Blog of Significance, No Blog of Significance: Book Review: The Way of Sanchin Kata: The Application of Power posted at No Blog of Significance, and No Blog of Significance: Book Review: Bokken: Art of the Japanese Sword posted at No Blog of Significance.
Jason Couch presents The Cane as a Weapon posted at Martial History Magazine.
Other off-topic posts of interest:
Marks presents Vital Point Striking for all Martial Artists posted at Marks Chat.
Frederic Patenaude presents Staying a Step Ahead of Aging posted at Frederic Patenaude Talks.
Rob Moshe presents Live Your Best Life By Serving Others. posted at Rob Moshe.
Anmol Mehta presents Free Online Hatha Yoga Poses Galleries posted at Mastery of Meditation, Enlightenment & Kundalini Yoga.
Enjoy! Hope to see you all back for the Admired Martial Artists Month!
To submit a post to next months Carnival, go here. Next month’s theme is "Spread the Love." Tell your readers about a few martial arts blogs that you read yourself and why you read them.
Quirks
You make your friend start a blog and then she tags you. . .
Sigh.
I’m just kidding of course. I’ve been tagged by Renovation Girl and here are the rules:
The rules:
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting that you did.
Six non-important things about me:
1. I can drink iced tea or soda out of any type of cup or glass. However, give me milk in a plastic cup and I could seriously gag. I have to drink milk out of a glass or it just makes me nauseous. My Mom is the same way. Nature or nurture?
2. My feet are claustrophobic. I can not ever sleep with socks on my feet. Once I tried to slather my feet in emollient lotion and wear special socks to make sure it soaks in. When I woke up in the morning, my socks were on the other side of the bedroom. Apparently I ripped them off and threw them in my sleep.
3. When I get nervous, I pick at the skin on my thumb by my fingernails. You can totally tell how stressed out I am by the condition of my hands. Let’s just say that this week, my thumb started to bleed.
4. It doesn’t matter what type of hairstyle I have. It is almost always tucked behind my ears. It drives my stylist crazy!
5. I get extremely grossed out by poor table manners. People who lick their fingers, double dip and shove food in their mouths make me physically sick. I also get this from my Mom. We could both gag over any of these or other related issues.
6. When I find a house I like, I arrange my furniture in it in my mind while I’m falling asleep at night. I also grieve over losing a house I want like I lost a close relative. (No, I’m not over it and I’m not feeling any better about it or my stupid virus.)
Tagged are:
If you’re interested in submitting a post for the Martial Arts Carnival that will appear here on Friday, please get it in NOW! If you don’t, I will totally cough on you. See the left sidebar for the link. I’m too sick and lazy to link it here for you.
Old Friends, Good Times & Cooper Marketing
Mr. BBM will often come home from work and have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner or afterward. I rarely do this. Iced tea is my beverage of choice. Although I enjoy a glass of wine or a beer from time to time, I just really don’t drink that much, especially since I hurt my knee back in October.
When you’re around old college friends, however, all of that can quickly change. One of our good friends from college married a lovely guy from England and we always have a blast when we’re with them. Saturday night was no exception.
Because everyone tends to do things for me since I hurt my knee, Mr. BBM or one of my friends were constantly refilling my wine glass. The conversation and wine were flowing quite freely apparently. When someone is constantly refilling your glass and you’re just hanging out and gulping sipping, it’s difficult to know exactly how much you’ve had until you get up to pour yourself a glass.
I quickly found out as I surveyed the room and realized that everyone else was drinking mixed drinks or beer. I was the only wino, literally.
"Will someone please have a glass of this wine so that I can’t claim to have kicked the entire bottle by myself?" I asked.
My friend happily agreed to share the blame and we did what many tipsy people decide to do. We went downstairs to throw pointy objects at the wall, i.e. play darts. By then, the damage was already done. We were all feeling fairly silly. We started playing three different dart games and each one got cut short because one of us hit the wrong button and restarted the game (you should know that I did not do this, despite having almost an entire bottle of wine). You should also know that I was totally winning 501 and was down to only 9 points. Granted, I was more likely to be throwing darts into the wall than hitting a 9 at that point, but you get the idea.
So, with our dart game waning and our jolly English man dozing, my friend recommended that we get some markers and write something clever on his forehead. This sounded like the most fabulous idea ever to me, so I quickly went and raided the girls marker collection and brought down a variety of colors. The only problem was: what do we write?
Mr. BBM couldn’t really think of anything and neither could my friend. I, however, can come up with marketing slogans and rhyming fun in my sleep (or after almost a bottle of wine). Because his job is selling mini-cooper cars, I knew I had to incorporate that into my clever marker slogan.
"I know. I know!" I yelled energetically!
"Buy a cooper, or kiss my pooper!"
There was a brief hesitation as everyone realized the genius that was my statement, and then there was an eruption of laughter. Our English car salesman quickly realized that with markers in hand and a slogan ready for public consumption, he had better sit up, stop dozing, and NOW.
Tipsy or not, that slogan is pure genius. I imagine my friend will be using it quite often while at work. One thing I won’t be doing often? Drinking that much wine again.
Old Friends, Good Times & Cooper Marketing
Mr. BBM will often come home from work and have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner or afterward. I rarely do this. Iced tea is my beverage of choice. Although I enjoy a glass of wine or a beer from time to time, I just really don’t drink that much, especially since I hurt my knee back in October.
When you’re around old college friends, however, all of that can quickly change. One of our good friends from college married a lovely guy from England and we always have a blast when we’re with them. Saturday night was no exception.
Because everyone tends to do things for me since I hurt my knee, Mr. BBM or one of my friends were constantly refilling my wine glass. The conversation and wine were flowing quite freely apparently. When someone is constantly refilling your glass and you’re just hanging out and gulping sipping, it’s difficult to know exactly how much you’ve had until you get up to pour yourself a glass.
I quickly found out as I surveyed the room and realized that everyone else was drinking mixed drinks or beer. I was the only wino, literally.
"Will someone please have a glass of this wine so that I can’t claim to have kicked the entire bottle by myself?" I asked.
My friend happily agreed to share the blame and we did what many tipsy people decide to do. We went downstairs to throw pointy objects at the wall, i.e. play darts. By then, the damage was already done. We were all feeling fairly silly. We started playing three different dart games and each one got cut short because one of us hit the wrong button and restarted the game (you should know that I did not do this, despite having almost an entire bottle of wine). You should also know that I was totally winning 501 and was down to only 9 points. Granted, I was more likely to be throwing darts into the wall than hitting a 9 at that point, but you get the idea.
So, with our dart game waning and our jolly English man dozing, my friend recommended that we get some markers and write something clever on his forehead. This sounded like the most fabulous idea ever to me, so I quickly went and raided the girls marker collection and brought down a variety of colors. The only problem was: what do we write?
Mr. BBM couldn’t really think of anything and neither could my friend. I, however, can come up with marketing slogans and rhyming fun in my sleep (or after almost a bottle of wine). Because his job is selling mini-cooper cars, I knew I had to incorporate that into my clever marker slogan.
"I know. I know!" I yelled energetically!
"Buy a cooper, or kiss my pooper!"
There was a brief hesitation as everyone realized the genius that was my statement, and then there was an eruption of laughter. Our English car salesman quickly realized that with markers in hand and a slogan ready for public consumption, he had better sit up, stop dozing, and NOW.
Tipsy or not, that slogan is pure genius. I imagine my friend will be using it quite often while at work. One thing I won’t be doing often? Drinking that much wine again.
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