Saturday, August 18, 2012

FLASHBACK march 2009

"something's watching over me like sweet serendipity..."
serendipity: the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way (a happy accident.)
in march of 2009, queenie and i were planning her migration east. it was decided that her friend, bird, would tag along. bird and i had never met but facebook conversations made it obvious we would be great friends. i wake up one morning to 45,000 facebook notifications. what? i've been asleep for at least 8 hours?!! and i'm pretty sure my status is not that interesting?!! bird had an entire conversation with a guy i went to high school with. a guy that i had seen once in the past 27 years (although he did console me during the infamous pink hair incident...yet another happy accident). in june she would fly to ohio and meet him for the first time. she would also meet my mother before i had even met her (bird). this is not fair!! he would fly to california, in july, and meet queenie before i even got to reunite with her. THIS is really not fair!! tommy and bird had fallen in love. completely by accident. on my facebook status. serendipity.
tommy would make the journey to california, to live with bird, at the same time that i would make the journey to ohio to live with jamie.
FLASH FORWARD june 2010
a wedding was planned for july. bird and tommy had decided to make it legal. one little hiccup, bird's niece was due to have a baby on the very day of the wedding. jamie and i had plans to go to vegas in june. problem solved. the west coast birds would go to vegas and bird would get married at graceland wedding chapel. fittingly, queenie was the matron of honor. I was the best man (or bird).
*on a side note...ashlyn would be born the very next day!
TODAY is national serendipity day. celebrate life's happy accidents!!


 


 







"when love feels like magic, it's called destiny. when destiny has a sense of humor, it's called serendipity"












Friday, August 17, 2012

FLASHBACK halloween 2008

"karma karma karma karma chameleon..."
as long as i can remember i have preached good karma. i remind everyone "you get what you give so give good". treat others the way you wish to be treated. this is what keeps me from punching people in the throat. not that i haven't had a moment of weakness. snapped a few heads off. talked A LOT of smack. usually with disastrous results. a flat tire. the flu. or worse, grabbing that one cart at the store that squeaks and rattles and makes you want to punch you own self in the ovary, and inexplicably not being able to find one that doesn't. 94% of the time i try to do the right thing. buying that homeless lady a cup of coffee and a muffin (at the same diner every single time i went to philly...i sure hope someone took over for me). letting that person, who has one item in line at the grocery store and decided NOT to get in the express lane, cut in front of me. and smiling and saying hello to the one person that would love to see me get hit by a bus. 
so, in 2008, i went home, dragging along two of my boys and one of the girlfriends,  to visit family and go trick or treating with my niece. she wanted me to be a witch and she would be my cat. we were lovely. the next day, we went to the halloween haunt at king's island. i grabbed my debit card and driver's license and stuck them in my pocket. don't you just hate lugging a purse around an amusement park? ugh. the worst! at the ticket counter, i hand the cashier my debit card. "can i see some id?" "sure".  wait? what?! i didn't grab my driver's license? really? "there is an atm around the corner". they are all out of order. i go back to my circle of family and begin to explain that i will go get cash and be right back. there is a tap on my shoulder. "i have these extra tickets and they will go to waste. could you use them? they are free." what? did that just happen? good karma.



 

 













"it's about love. it's about compassion. it's about kindness and faith. you get what you give, so give good."




Wednesday, August 15, 2012

FLASHBACK august 11, 2012

  "and who woulda thought, it figures"
i know, i know. that was only 4 days ago. but...still a flashback. every night i go upstairs and wash my face before bed. maybe i do it a couple hours before. maybe just a couple minutes. every night i reach under the sink and grab an up&up clean cloth (target version of olay...works just as well and less than half the price) to remove my makeup. every night. this night is no different. pull the hair back. grab my clean cloth. take a swipe across my cheek. this feels weird. this smells weird. O...M...G!! THIS IS NOT MAKEUP REMOVER!!! i just wiped my face with a disinfecting cloth i use to clean my counter and toilet! epic. fail.
FLASH FORWARD today
today is national failures day. today is a day to embrace all your epic failures. everybody has a moment of failure, even some of the most successful people: babe ruth struck out 1330 times.  michael jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.  jerry seinfeld froze and was booed offstage the first time he performed. marilyn monroe was told she wasn't pretty enough to be an actress/model and should become a secretary. elvis was fired from the grand ole' opry (after one performance) and told he was going nowhere. and cardinal attempted to wash her face with a disinfecting wipe.

  



     


Tuesday, August 14, 2012

FLASHBACK october 2009


 "love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet"
in october of 2009, i decided to join the twittersphere. i simply tweeted "can't wait for alice in wonderland". okay. i'm bored now.
then, sometime in june 2011, i was on the phone with queenie and the subject of twitter came up. we had both been tweeted by one of our birds. we spent an hour learning the ins and outs of twitter. queenie became obsessed with getting re-tweeted by celebrities. she was pretty successful. if you consider pauly shore a celebrity.
i was in the midst of moving south so didn't have time to keep up with queenie. as soon as we were settled, i was determined, not only to get celebrity re-tweets, but bigger and better celebrities than my bird.

FLASH FORWARD august 15, 2011
i had noticed that alec baldwin was really good about tweeting his fans. i also noticed that most of these fans asked the same questions. "what's you're favorite movie?" "what's your favorite book?" "dude, you are so funny in schweddy balls!". i wanted to be different. i wanted alec baldwin to laugh at my tweet. after days and days of opening up my twitter and not tweeting i finally just said screw it, and tweeted "should i or shouldn't i?" i had no idea what i meant by that. no thought went into it at all. within seconds i had a re-tweet. a re-tweet from THE alec baldwin!! he said "you should. but then feel slightly guilty". O...M...G...THAT. IS. AWESOME!!!! queenie is gonna be sooooo jealous. seriously. that was my goal all along. but then the tweets kept coming. people i didn't know were getting into the conversation. it went on and on all day long. then queenie called. before i could even tell her i got re-tweeted she knew. q "bish, what did you do?" me "huh, what do you mean?" q "you're tweet is the top tweet!" me "what? i don't even know what that is?" well, it's exactly what it says it is. my tweet was the number one tweet for that day. alec baldwin even made it a favorite (sadly, when he left twitter for awhile, he unfavorited it...is that even a word?). SUCCESS!!!

FLASH FORWARD today
i have had some other celebrity successes. ben and jerry's ice cream liked a tweet so much they sent me jimmy fallon's book "thank you notes" and two coupons for free ice cream. and bruce campbell (burn notice and the evil dead trilogy) re-tweeted me when i asked him what i should do in the north carolina woods that were eerily reminiscent of the evil dead ("say the words correctly this time"~you understand if you are a fan of the trilogy. i am.).
i am not an expert on all things twitter (i only have 63 followers because i am neither a high school girl nor a celebrity), however, i would like to offer three pieces of twitter advice.

don't be set to private. the whole point of twitter is to see what is going on with the rest of the world. if you are a private  user you limit your voice. why do that to yourself. worried about spam? i check my followers periodically and block all the porn stars and spammers.

think before you tweet. too many times people put out thoughtless tweets. they think that, since they mention no names, people won't know who/what they are talking about. actually, then, EVERYBODY thinks it's about them and EVERYBODY gets their feelings hurt. i always ask myself "is this something that really needs to be out there?"

don't be offended if you don't get a re-tweet. i've had so many people tell me that "blah blah blah is a jackass" because they didn't get a re-tweet. let's face it, celebrities are busy people. and celebrities are getting 45,000 more tweets an hour than the average person gets in a year. there is no way they can re-tweet everyone. how did i get alec baldwin, ben and jerry's, and bruce campbell, you ask? well, ben and jerry's asked their followers to tweet something they are thankful for. and, they have someone to handle their social media (i think. or it's just ben. or jerry. 'cause wouldn't it be hard for both of them to run the same twitter account?). alec and bruce were tweeting when i sent my tweet. if you see that a celebrity's last tweet was an hour ago, they aren't tweeting and therefore your tweet is going to get lost in 45,000 other tweets. increase your chances of a re-tweet by waiting until your celeb is actually online. 

have fun and happy tweeting.

 



     

Monday, August 13, 2012

FLASHBACK june 1975

"i think we need a bigger boat"
in june of 1975, a little movie about a little shark by a little known filmmaker came out. queenie's parent's took us. that movie was "jaws" and it would become the first summer blockbuster. it was terrifying. it didn't even matter that we knew the shark was a robot. fishermen up and down the california coast were bringing in great whites every day. we were riding our bikes to the marina to see them. we weren't scared of them...until we saw jaws. the first few nights after, i made my german shepherd sleep on my feet. what better way to keep a shark from chewing off your feet? 
on oxnard beach, all the people would bring their stereos out onto their decks. all on the same station. kacy~port hueneme. bah....dum....bah....dum....bah dum bah dum bah dum....that music would start playing while queenie and i were out in the pacific, way over our heads. we would fly out of the water. we were 9.
FLASH FORWARD august/september
selachophobia is the fear of sharks
jamie and i were hanging out on the sandbar at lake wylie on the weekends. we stayed back where jamie could stand but i couldn't. one day, my feet are in the water off the back of the boat. i'm planning on getting in. it's hot and i really need to cool off. i lose sight of my feet in the murky water and that's when it hits me. i don't want a shark to eat my feet off. jamie "why aren't you getting in?" me "i don't want to get eaten by a shark" j "haha...this is a lake!" me "i know...don't pick on me" j "chrissie, there is NO SUCH THING as sharks in a lake". i got in...but i was not happy about it.
so on labor day weekend, we have visitors. we spend thursday on the lake. i don't get eaten by a shark. it doesn't even occur to me that there might be a shark in the lake. the next day is bridgette's birthday. the boys have a beer or two while the girls shop at a really great outdoor mall. we meet up for dinner. sushi, yum. we decide to see a movie. it's bridgette's day so it's her choice. "crazy stupid love". we're too late for it, and this is where things go horribly wrong. danny says "i have never seen a 3D movie". uh oh. the only 3D movie playing (and still 15 minutes before it starts) is "shark night 3D". wait? what? why are we seeing this? well, because it's going to be horrible and fun. literally seconds into the movie and a girl gets eaten...by a shark...in a lake. it will be a year before i can get in a lake again.

shark week started last night. week long programming, on the discovery channel, devoted to sharks. enjoy :)





before my selachophobia
i think they need a bigger boat







Sunday, August 12, 2012

FLASHBACK june 2011



"i move on to another day, to a whole new town with a whole new way"
charlotte
in 2010 we were told that jamie's job would be relocating us to charlotte (seems i cannot get away from the carolinas). i had just moved back to my home town and was loving it. jamie still had two kids in high school. we did not want to leave. at least we had until june of 2011. what? it's june already? the time flew. the good-bye parties began. the packers came. yes. packers. we didn't have to pack ourselves. or move ourselves out. or move ourselves in. it is the only way to move. if you move in your future, i highly recommend it, if your name is bill gates. or donald trump. or "insert rich person here". how did we afford it, you ask? well, remember how i said the company was relocating us? plus, i invented the trendy top (that bottom band of a tank top that hangs out of your tee so you don't have the bulk of layers, as seen on tv, $9.99 but if you act now....). i may or may not have made that up, you decide.

FLASH FORWARD today
we weren't excited about the move but decided to make the best of it. rented a nice house in a cute town. bought a boat (that's what you do when you live next to a lake). made some new (old) friends (turns out a few people from our home town had relocated to this area). we said this would be an adventure, a lot of things to see and do. then, in may, jamie got a new position within his company. a new position that needs him in....CINCINNATI! we were being sent home. whaaaat? that's crazy! of course i'm excited. i wasn't. i had finally gotten comfortable with this being home. turns out, so had jamie. what do we do? accept the position and move? decline the position and stay? we chose to go home.
remember how i said there was a lot of things to see and do here? well...we hadn't done any of them. no one ever does. all the things you would do on vacation, you never do in your hometown. you should.  now we were down to a few short months to get it all in. one of the coolest things to do, in the charlotte area, is the national whitewater rafting center. this is where our olympic athletes trained for rafting and kayaking. they held the time trials here in april. you can raft, kayak, zip line, do a canopy tour. you can have lunch or dinner while watching all the action. did i have fun rafting you ask? wait? what? did i say i rafted? nah. i enjoyed a turkey wrap and a pint of north carolina's finest brew while i watched people brave the man-made whitewater. i walked, leisurely, as people scaled the rope course. 
when we get back to lebanon, we will make it a point to see more of what our home has to offer.  the cincinnati zoo, fort ancient, glendower (i've been once and it was really cool), the air force museum. we will get up off the couch and see it all. well...except on sundays when we will be curled up on the couch watching football. who dey!!


hot dog pontoon on lake wylie

   




and stuff to do in cinci



above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you~raold dahl