Pollen-drunk and Proud of It

In the category of "Kimberly Is Amused By The Most Random Things" we have the following:

This bee:

That I followed around like some 

weird bee paparazza, snapping pictures

 as it zoomed from azalea to azalea 

with reckless abandon:

(It is interesting to note that "paparazza" is actually  the singular FEMININE form of paparazzi.  I originally 

told Opie I was a paparazzo which he thought was ridiculous and a made-up word.  He was right 

about the ridiculousness but only because  paparazzo would mean I was a man.).

Until he got so pollen-drunk that he

 fell, face-first, into the azalea:

(Pollen-drunk is a made-up word  but I totally think it works in this situation)

Then stumbled out again, trying to

 pretend like nothing had happened:

I know it's silly but I haven't stopped giggling since it happened.

Car Drama Round Two

If you read yesterday's blog, you know that my day started a little rough.

It got worse.

If you didn't read it yet, this blog will make much more sense if you read this first.

Anyway, here is the long-anticipated (at least in my mind!) Round Two of the Car Drama:

After calling the AAA guy TWICE, I let the car run for 20 minutes, planning to let it charge up a little then go to the store and get a new battery.

It is interesting to note that the AAA guy said “Ma’am, you know you need to leave the garage door open, right?  You can’t just leave it running in there.”

And I couldn’t even get upset that he clearly thought I was a moron because, after the whole car key conundrum, I felt like a moron.

Anyway, I eventually backed out sloooowwwwlllly, then stopped because I had to put the garage door down. 

Unfortunately, we only have 1 automatic door on our garage, the other one has to be shut and locked from inside the garage. So, not thinking, I turned the car off, ran in, shut the garage door and ran back out.

At which point the car wouldn’t start.

The amount of cursing that accompanied this is really too horrifying to share.

Luckily there was a guy in the neighborhood who quickly offered to jump the car--thus saving me from a THIRD call to AAA, or my head might have popped right off.

He jumped the car, I drove to Walmart. However, ever the foresightful little bunny, I pulled into the auto repair lot and--instead of turning the car off again--got out my phone to call the auto department so I could pull right into an empty stall.

Which is when my stupid phone--in spite of its alleged 30% battery--went dead in my hands.

I then spent two or three satisfying minutes comparing my phone to excrement.  Which, thanks to my fabulous career in online moderating, I can actually do in 4 languages.

I shut off the car, went into the auto department, told them what was happening and they got out their big blue auto book only to find that they don't stock the battery for a 2005 Miata.

“You have to be kidding,” I said.

“I wish I was,” the clerk said sympathetically.

“Not as much as I do.”  I replied.  “Can you order it in?”

“No,” the clerk said. “We don’t carry it at all.”

And then I just stood there and stared at him in shock, utterly speechless.  I mean, I try to avoid WalMart as much as possible because I kind of buy into the hype that they are evil corporate giants who squeeze out little mom n pop operations by carrying everything under the sun.

Except, apparently, a battery for a 2005 Miata.

The clerk then suggested I go to O'Reilly's.  I suggested that this was going to be challenging as I was pretty sure the car wasn't going to start again.

And I was right. I got it, tried it, and it didn’t start.

They hurried out with some little hand-held jump machine, got me started and I drove to O'Reilly's.

At which point I learned that O'Reilly's stocks the battery but the local store was out.

That’s when I knew that one of two things was happening:

A.   A government conspiracy was in the works.

OR

B.   Opie had been in cahoots with all the local retailers, somehow pressuring them into not selling me a battery, because he hates my car.

Either way, I was once again speechless.  And I think I kind of creeped out the clerk because I didn’t say a word, I just  kept staring at him with this slightly hostile, shocked expression.

“We have one at our Glenpool store,” he said after an uncomfortable pause.

“Where,” I asked, “is the O'Reilly's in Glenpool?”

And then they gave me a bunch of directions that included words like "West" and "North" and other nonsense and—after some more slightly hostile staring—we all decided that it made more sense to leave the car at O'Reilly's, walk the mile and a half home, let them get the battery sent over from the Glenpool store and call me when they had the battery installed.

So, I waked home assuming, based on how my day had been going, that O'Reilly's would put the battery in completely wrong, the car would explode, and an entire city block would be leveled.

In any case, they were supposed to call around 12:30. At 2:00 I called them and then started walking the mile and a half back.  Then, when I got in the shop, the clerk who had been helping me was gone and there was only one woman who knew what was going on with the car.

“She’s eating lunch,” the other clerk told me.

I wanted to tell the guy if he thought that I was doing another 3 mile round trip hike because they couldn’t get their act together, he was out of his tiny little mind.  However, since the hostile staring had been so effective earlier, I just went with that again.

“I’ll go get her,” he finally decided.  “She’s just in the back parking lot at our customer appreciation picnic.”

The irony of that was nearly overwhelming.

So, the female clerk came in, hotdog still in hand, and got all snippy with me, complaining under her breath etc.

This was an unwise choice.

“Honey,” I said with deceptive calm and what I assume was a creepy smile. “I used up the last of my ‘nice’ around 1:00 today. You should probably rethink your tone.”

The other clerk laughed and the woman opened her mouth, took another look at my face, and muttered “Sorry.”

Which was the only real victory of the whole day.

In any case, a mere SEVEN HOURS after my original attempt to leave the house, I had the first errand of the day done.

And, almost worth it because, no matter what Opie says, I still love this car!

Emails To Opie

In case anyone is wondering how my day's going...and why Opie considers himself the luckiest man in the world, here's a copy of the email I sent him this morning after calling AAA to jump start my Miata.

The car has been started.

"Wow," you might be saying to yourself, "that took a lot longer than usual."

You're right, it did....it has been one of the most frustrating days of my life.

Here's what happened:

The guy got here 20 mins or so after I called. I went out, got in the car, and only then realized I had the wrong key.

"Half a second!" I yelled and dashed back in the house.

And then spent a frantic ten minutes running around the house, trying to remember every curse word I've ever heard, as I threw things around in a desperate search for the correct key.

A desperate yet futile search.

I will not give you the full details of the tantrum that accompanied this key catastrophe but it's possible that Bubba will be spending the rest of the day under the bed.

So, the guy had to leave for his next appointment, I had to take Sassy to the groomers...and lo and behold, when I got home, the key was right on the coffee table.

We might need a security system because I think it's fairly obvious that someone broke in, hid the key, waited for me to leave, and then put the key back in order to mess with me

So I called AAA back, explained the situation and they agreed to send the guy back. I asked them how many times I could call with the same problem in the same day before they flagged my account but the operator didn't think I was funny AT ALL.

"We're always happy to help," she said in all seriousness.

In any case, please note that I  am only sharing this story to prevent the epic meltdown that would occur should you happen to ask "How did it go with AAA?" tonight.

Please also note that you might be feeling inspired to say something like "this is why I always tell you to put your keys in a specific place" or "There might be a lesson in this."

This would be an unwise choice of conversation starters.

EXTREMELY UNWISE!!!!

These situations are not remedied with advice, no matter how well-meaning. These are situations best remedied with vodka and Girl Scout cookies.

Heading out to get a new battery in a few minutes. However, if anything else goes wrong with the battery or car or ANYTHING, it's entirely possible that the next time you see me, it will be on the 6:00 news underneath the tag line "Local woman goes on murderous rampage."

Love you!

Some of you might think "Well, at least your day couldn't get any worse." You, however, would be wrong.  This was only ROUND ONE of the car drama and the first email of the day....stay tuned!


**UPDATE** To read Round Two of the most frustrating day ever, click here.

Wordless Wednesday

Fences, Fur-Babies and Future Felonies

If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you may remember a little incident Opie likes to call Turtle Gate 2013.  If you're new to this blog, no worries, you can read about it here or I can sum up it up in a couple of sentences:

The neighbor kids found a turtle. I freaked out.

In any case, I think poor Opie is longing for the carefree days of Turtle Gate because this week things with the neighbors took an epic turn for the worse.

Tuesday night the neighbors got a dog.

Which probably doesn't seem that dramatic to most of you. I mean lots of people get dogs. Opie and I have two dogs. And considering this is Oklahoma some of you might think I should be relieved that it’s just a dog and not a tiger.

It is interesting to note that my previous comment is not an exaggeration. Friends of ours who live a little further out in the country have a neighbor who has a lion.

A LION!

But I digress...

The point here is, our neighbors got a dog.

There are many reasons this is a problem.

First, these are people who can't be trusted to keep a turtle alive.

Second, I have no idea where they're going to stuff a dog into their house. It's the same size as ours (two or three bedrooms) and it's already occupied by at least eight people:

The woman who owns the house,  her daughter, the daughter's new boyfriend, four of the daughter's five children, and upon occasion, the oldest child's little boy.

Seriously, it's a little crowded over there.

Now don't get me wrong, I think it’s great for kids to have pets. 

But I also love dogs…so much so, in fact, that Opie is probably the only thing keeping me from being the subject of a really horrifying Animal Hoarders episode.

And these are people who are not good with dogs. The kids and their friends tease our dogs through the chain link fence to the point that before I let Bubba and Sassy out in our yard, I go out on the porch and do a quick reconnaissance to make sure the neighbor kids are inside.

And I know some of you are thinking “Well, now that they have a dog of their own, they’ll learn how to act around dogs.”

This is a great theory but completely unsupported by history. You see, the neighbors have already had three other dogs in the last ten years, all of which they have had to get rid of because the dogs started exhibiting behavior problems and couldn't be controlled anymore.  The last one attacked one of the girls and bit her in the face.

So, I don’t think this poor 4th dog is going to fare any better.  Especially since, in light of their history of animal control, they made the questionable decision to get a Bullmastiff.

(This isn't their actual dog, this is what it will look like when it's fully grown.
 And I'm not violating copyright, it was labeled for free use on Wikicommons)

A fact poor Opie became aware of when I stormed in the house screaming “Bullmastiff!” at the top of my lungs.

And then I spent a really entertaining hour looking up Bullmastiffs on the internet and yelling out interesting tidbits at random intervals.

“130 pounds! That dog’s going to weigh more than I do!” and “Needs a firm master who is consistent with the rules!  The only thing that's consist over there is the police presence!”

Not an exaggeration, by the way. The police have been frequent visitors next door. The last time they came, there were not one, not two, not even three, four or five, but SIX police cars on the scene.

“Aggressive toward other animals if not properly socialized!”

“Any dog can be aggressive,” Opie pointed out. “It’s all about the owners.”

“That,” I agreed “is the whole problem: the owners.”

Because I have nothing against Bullmastiffs; they are beautiful dogs and from what I've read, incredibly loyal and usually very sweet. And I'm not against people owning big dogs.   Our Bubba is half Rottweiler and he’s a sweetheart (unless you're the Tru-Green guy). One of our neighbors has a Pit Bull and another has a Doberman. Those dogs are huge yet I still have no problem with them because they’re clearly WELL-TRAINED.

In any case, you might still think this is none of my business, but here's why you're wrong. This, my friends, is the neighbors' fence:

They have since stuffed a pink Halloween pumpkin in between the missing boards but that fallen over wagon wouldn’t even keep my six-pound Maltese in the yard.

"We're getting a new fence!" I screamed at Opie. "We need to replace our chain-link fence with a huge privacy fence that their untrained monster of a dog won't be able to get over!"

Opie calls this kind of announcement "over-reacting" (although usually not out loud) so he sighed and said, “They get a dog and we need a new fence? Why don't we wait to see if there's a problem before you get all worked up?"

“I'm already worked up!" I told him. “And we need a new fence because you don't want to be here the day their dog breaks through their piece of shit excuse for a fence and hurts one of my dogs! You don't want to be here that day because that's the day I'll be going to PRISON!"

And he allowed as how he thought that, in a physical fight with the mob next door, I was much more likely to end up in the hospital.

Which just goes to show you that he has no appreciation for my Ninja skills and cat-like quickness.

“Besides,” I continued. “We don't need to get a privacy fence around the whole yard, just that side.”

We can't only do the one side,” he said in genuine horror. “It’ll look like we're just trying to block them.”

“We are just trying to block them. I've wanted to block them since the day I moved in.”

“It's obnoxious.”

“THEY'RE obnoxious.”

We continued in this vein for awhile but the long and the short of it is, Toby the Handyman came over yesterday, took some measurements and is going to give us a bid for a fence—actually he’s giving us two bids: one for a fence between us and the one side and one for the whole yard because I suspect that Opie is going to put his foot down on this one.

And as soon as it’s finished, I can stop worrying about my dogs and go back to worrying about the neighbor kids themselves and worrying about the welfare of this poor little puppy who is absolutely adorable and deserves a good home.

“Brace yourself,” I told Opie “and start planning because if they start mistreating that dog we might have to, you know, rescue and re-home it.”

“We are NOT stealing the neighbors’ dog,” he said.

“Not if they take care of it,” I agreed.

But I'm not going to lie, I'd kind of like to know how much they paid for the dog so I know if I'll be looking at a misdemeanor or a felony.