F Is For Factotum

Factotum: A lackey, person who does a variety of jobs, a servant.

Today’s word reminded me of when I first moved to Oklahoma and I was looking for a job. I knew I didn’t want to teach high school anymore (largely because our community doesn’t pay high school teachers enough to keep a goldfish alive) but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. So lo and behold, one day on Craigslist (I know, I know, that's like looking for a job in Serial Killer Monthly but I couldn't help myself) I found an ad for cleaning and care of small dogs.

Hey, I thought, I love animals...perhaps dog grooming is just the career change I'm looking for.

Then I met the woman who posted the ad and I thought “Hey, it’s Miss Havisham!”

Because not only did this poor pumpkin LOOK like the crazy old lady from Great Expectations, she was every bit as nutty. I mean, no, she wasn’t wandering around in her wedding dress plotting revenge but she was definitely a few degrees right of center.

A situation not helped by the fact that she left two very important words out of the job description: “up after.”  The job involved cleaning UP AFTER small dogs.  15 small Yorkies, Chihuahuas, and Bichon Frises that roamed freely in this old office building that Miss Havisham had inherited from her mom.

“Well, kind of inherited” she said when we met at a local coffee shop for what I thought was going to be a job interview.  “Except my mother isn’t dead.  But she has Alzheimer’s so the building is basically mine.  And I also own the building behind it, the old jail.  That’s where I live, in the old jail.  It’s so interesting!”

“It sounds lovely,” I said sarcastically.

But she didn’t hear me because she was busy telling me about the cancer that she’s pretty sure she’s had for ten years or so that she’s managed to keep in check with Vitamin C—then she interrupted herself and said “Wow, are you dressed nicely to clean up after dogs!”

Which is when I expressed my own confusion about those two rather critical words “up after.”

“Well, cleaning the building,” she explained.  “I inherited it” she reminded me and launched into the whole story again. “Anyway, the city lets me sell my dogs out of it, isn’t that nice?”

It would have been nice if it had been a PET STORE but it wasn’t.  It was an office building and these little dogs run around there all day and night.

How do I know about the inside of the building?

Because I am a complete sucker for slightly broken people who are in clear need of help and when I told Miss Havisham I wasn’t interested in a POOP SCOOPING CAREER, she actually started to cry. 

“I just don’t know what to do,” she said.  “I need help with these dogs!”

And somehow—probably to stop her tears AND to check on the physical condition of the dogs in question and IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT I WAS WEARING MY GOOD SUEDE BOOTS—I heard myself agreeing to at least help her THAT day. And we went down to the office building and I spent 2 hours shuffling around trying to clean up while keeping my boots feces free.

(It is interesting to note that, when I was relating the story to Opie, this was the exact moment when he began surreptitiously looking around to see how many puppies I had snuck home.)

On the bright side, the place didn’t smell nearly as bad as I was imagining (though it didn’t smell GOOD) and the dogs were super cute and obviously happy and reasonably well cared for (why wouldn’t they be happy, they had the run of the whole building, the gated courtyard behind it, and, of course, the old jail!)

On a not so bright side, at some point Miss Havisham wandered away and the “helping” became a solo endeavor and when I went out into the courtyard to find her, the door locked behind me…and all the gates and doors out of the little courtyard were also locked so I was basically trapped between the building and the old jail.

And, because I'd been watching too much American Horror Story at the time, I immediately began imagining some rubbersuit wearing freak jumping out of the bushes with murder on his mind...I even had a plan in case that happened: I was going to dial 911 on my phone (let's be honest, I had 9 and 1 already dialed), then throw it over the fence and scream my location over and over...and just pray the 911 operator understood "Behind the old jail!" as a location.

Luckily, Miss Havisham shuffled out a few moments later and said “Ohh was that locked?”  And I managed to escape with my life.

And yes, fellow animal lovers, I have made several surreptitious trips back to check on the condition of the dogs and have placed a few discreet phone calls to animal control…

But thus ended my career as a factotum.

The Great Cupcake Search -- Jilly's Cupcakes

Opie and I don't have any children.

It's not that we don't want kids of our own, it's just that we reconnected and married somewhat late in life and we haven't been blessed with kids.

We have pets instead.

Which means that, like all childless couples, we know exactly how other people should raise their kids.

But it also means that we don't always fully grasp the sacrifices parents make for their children.

Like not stealing their cupcakes. Even when they're Jilly's Cupcakes.

Jilly's is located in St. Louis but I didn't discover it until after I moved to Oklahoma---which is a little sad considering it's right down the street from my friend Martha's and I've probably driven by it about 4365 times.

But then I saw them on Cupcake Wars--which they won! A while after that, when I went back to St. Louis to visit Martha, she happened to have a fresh 4 pack because her daughter loves them.

I'd like to say that we were strong and resisted the urge to steal a toddler’s favorite dessert.

I’d like to say that but I don’t like to lie on my own blog .

The thing is, the whole reason I was in town was to see Martha's band play...which just naturally translates into a late night, little food, and lots of alcohol.

When we got back to her house at 2:30 a.m. and there they were on the counter. Just sitting there, taunting me with their chocolate and peanut butter goodness.

In the interest of holding on to some shred of self-respect, let’s all just acknowledge that fresh cupcakes were purchased the next day.  Not by me—I was on a plane back to Tulsa first thing in the morning—but they were purchased, that's the point here, and Martha’s daughter never knew the difference.

And don’t lie, most of you would have a hard time resisting their Reese's Chunkage:

  

First of all, they're HUGE. About twice the size of other cupcakes. We could have easily shared one.

The cake was great, light and moist and just the right amount of chocolate.

The icing is the extra fluffy style that I usually don’t like as much but stick that many pieces of Reese’s Peanut Butter cup on anything and it’s automatically fabulous.

Final Verdict:

Size: Enormous

Price: Free ,when stolen from a small child, Higher than average when actually purchased $4.75.

Cake: Good, moist and chocolatey.

Icing A little too much on the fluffy side of light and fluffy but packed with enough Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to compensate.

Overall, good enough to steal from a toddler...which is why it's probably a good thing Opie and I just have pets.

E is for Eldritch

Today’s word was an easy choice…which is why I have inadvertently created a POUS (Post of Unusual Size – Feel free to skim!)

Eldritch – Adj. Weird or eerie

An easy choice because every year my friend Eric and I take a vacation to an eldritch destination. We’ve been to the NationalMuseum of Funeral History, to Roswell, New Mexico’s Annual UFO Festival, to the Villisca, Iowa  Axe Murder House and so many more!

It’s not for the faint of heart, let me assure you.

The year I got married (to Opie, not Eric) we had a little trouble planning our annual trip. though, oddly, NOT from my husband to be. It was my friend, Martha, who objected in the most strenuous terms.

Which—when considering all the other wacky destinations we’ve been to—has to have some of you questioning what on earth could cause this kind of reaction—or overreaction, if you will.

Nothing major…We were just going to Zorb.

Zorbing, for the uninitiated, is rolling down a mountain in a giant hamster ball.

For some strange reason, Martha found this disturbing. “Are you out of your damn mind?” She screamed (but she says that every year). And then “You’re getting MARRIED this summer!” (but I already knew that). “You could break an arm or a leg,” she finished dramatically. “Or your stupid neck!” (but I really think the Zorb waiver of liability is a formality…and probably an exaggeration of the dangers…)

“We’re going,” I told her. “And the night before we’re staying at the Indian Village Motel in a concrete teepee. And it’s going to be FULL ON AWESOME!!”

Which is when she pulled out the big guns. “I will call your mom,” she threatened. “And tell her how dangerous it is, and how much you’ll be drinking and…and…EVERYTHING!”

Well played, Martha. Well played.

Back to the drawing board…or Ouija board…or, to be completely accurate, Travel Channel’s Most Haunted Destinations…which is where I found the Waverly Hills Sanotarium, a former hospital for tuberculosis victims—particularly those who were terminally ill and/or insane from the disease.

A place in which so many poor people died that they installed a “body chute” to get the bodies out quickly and discreetly (yes, like last season of American Horror Story, though no Leatherface in residence). It is, I’ll have you know, considered one of the top five most haunted places in America…and for a nominal fee, they let you explore the entire abandoned, electricity free, building ALL NIGHT.

It was awesome! (As awesome as rolling down a mountain in a giant hamster ball? Jury’s still out…guess we won’t know the answer to that until NEXT SUMMER).

In any case, the overnight excursion is truly an OVERNIGHT excursion; it starts at midnight and ends at 8AM. And the managers are brutal about punctuality…the building is huge and the managers wander through all night, making sure everyone is OK; they don’t have time to run back to the main gate and let in people who are so inconsiderate and stupid that they can’t arrive on time.

We basically flew into the building 1 minute before the lock down started.

Flew in and immediately realized that two giggling, ridiculous, amateur ghost hunters had NO BUSINESS in the group of freaks who routinely gather in the Waverly Hills Sanotarium.

First of all, everyone else had ghost hunting equipment…and REAL ghost hunting equipment, not just a little voice-activated tape recorder but Spirit Boxes and EMF meters and other things I’ve never seen before….and types of people I’ve never seen before, at least not in real life. There were several people with backpacks full of equipment and strap on headlights, there were a lot of grim, unsmiling people all in black, there was a couple who refused to leave each other’s sides for a second—even crowding into the single stall bathroom together, and there was this huge guy who looked like a bearded, bad ass biker dude—until I realized he was wearing a SKIRT and a rhinestone hair clip.

And then there was the jackass couple who arrived at the last minute, lost their entry pass in the confusion, laughed throughout, and actually brought a sleeping bag like there was going to be time for napping—

Wait, that was us!

But far worst of all were the people who LOOKED sane on the surface, and then they get in your face and start furiously telling you to stop laughing because the haunting of this place is REAL…it’s REAL! And you realize that they’re crazy too.

We had one of those couples in our group.

This woman and her husband (who’s a COP by the way and therefore licensed to carry a GUN), come to explore the sanitarium on the last day of EVERY SINGLE VACATION they take. And when they explore the place, they enjoy scampering around the top floor kicking a ball to the ghosts and waiting for them to kick it back.

“And you know what?” Officer Freak Show asked, pointing at his wife. “The ghosts love Jesse. They pull her hair, and push her, and one time we even took one home with us. IT’S REAL!”

I would like to repeat, this guy OWNS A GUN.

Later in the exploration, they very excitedly showed us a picture they took inside the building of a picture on the wall that, if you looked very closely and had:

A. Been experimenting with Hallucinogenic drugs

OR

B. Suffered from a deep-seated psychosis

Then you could see the outline of an angel in one picture and an outline of a devil in the other.

Or, as I mentioned a little too loudly to Eric, the reflection of their flash on the plastic protecting the picture.

I think it’s safe to say, those people HATED us.

I think it all started when we were exploring the top floor where there had been several questionable deaths. Eric and I were hunkered down in the room where a suicide had taken place, trying to get in tune with the spirits (difficult with the amount of giggling and whispering we were doing) when I decided we needed to go out and make friends with the other 2 couples exploring the floor with us….largely because they had an EMF meter and other cool ghost hunting equipment that I was hoping they would share. As I was walking out into the hall, my iPhone burst into sudden life, playing 80’s music at full volume. At first I was just embarrassed because the music was freakishly loud and it did surprise the crap out of all of us…then, as I fumbled to turn it off, it occurred to me that there are a number of steps that have to occur for music to play:

Turn on the power. Slide the key lock to off. Choose the iPod function. Choose the playlist (we weren’t listening to 80’s in the car). Choose a song or hit shuffle.

I didn’t do any of those things, my phone was in my purse…and the odds of all of these happening by accident are pretty long.

Which I mentioned to the group, thinking this would be a bonding supernatural type experience. One couple agreed. The Freak Show cop and his wife looked at me like I was a moron and the guy snapped “Well, OF COURSE…look where you are!” and shook his head in disgust.

And EMF or no EMF, I can’t handle someone talking to me like I’m an idiot…so I spent A LOT of the rest of the night sarcastically yelling out “Look where you are!”

I think this is just one of the reasons that couple decided to switch groups at the half way point, sticking Eric and I with the annoying teenage girls who were exploring the place with their mom.

But this ended up working out fine because the thing about teenage girls is that most of them really want to be liked…so, sure, they were even gigglier and chattier than Eric and I but they had NO PROBLEM sharing their ghost hunting equipment…or leading the way on the trek to the bottom of the body chute…or climbing in morgue drawers…or asking the manager of the place to stay with us and try to call up ghosts, leading to some freaky temperature changes and strange sounds.

In any case, this is getting crazy long so I’ll wrap it up by saying yes, it was freaky. Not as freaky as the Axe Murder House in Iowa but freaky just the same. It could have been our imaginations, but we did see things moving in the shadows and heard strange whistling in the distance. Our borrowed EMF meter did go crazy in the morgue and that “energy” stayed with us until we got to the body chute…and then was gone when we returned to the morgue. The temperature in one of the patient rooms did drop two degrees in less than a minute and we did both get weird, icky feelings in the same places. In addition, there was the iPhone issue and the new batteries in both my video camera and the voice activated tape recorder went dead the first time we used them in the building.

So, while we won’t be storming up to strangers yelling “IT’S REAL!” we’re definitely checking the “successful vacation” box and considering getting an EMF meter of our own—though we’re still leaning toward Zorbing next year!

D Is For Daedalist...and Dipsomania

D was a hard one for me to narrow down, largely because there are so many great words that begin with d.

I mean, who knew that a deckle was the frame used to make homemade paper? Or that it can refer to the ragged edge of homemade paper? Or that defluvium refers to the medical loss of hair or nails? I mean, again, who knew there was a word for that other than balding?

But then I read daedalist (an aviator or pilot) shortly followed by dipsomania (an abnormal craving for alcohol) and I knew I had a couple of winners.

Because, honestly, nothing gives me an abnormal craving for alcohol like the thought of flying.

Seriously, I hate to fly.

And yes, I know it’s all very safe, and you’re more likely to die in a car wreck and blah blah blah.

But none of that matters because as soon as I get on a plane, I’m convinced that we are going to be the exception to the rule and plummet to our fiery deaths. I have been known to grip my grandmother’s rosary during take-off and moan to the person next to me “We’re going to die, sweet Jesus help us, we’re all going to die.”

Which is upsetting when the person next to me is my husband, good friend, or other family but I think it’s probably really disconcerting for complete strangers…although I personally think they should feel grateful for all the time I spend praying us into the air.

Drinking helps but only very little.

Another thing that I hate about flying are all the security measures.  Which probably seems contradictory—I mean shouldn’t someone who is afraid of flying be glad that we’re taking extra care to keep dangerous subversives off the plane?

Yes.

Unfortunately, whether it’s because I always look nervous or because I, apparently, am a dangerous subversive, 90% of the time that I fly, I somehow get called out of line to get the extra pat down. I’ve had my hands swabbed to test for dangerous chemicals, I’ve had my carry-on luggage searched, and I’ve been “hand-scanned” more times than I can count. Coming home from Sarasota a few weeks ago, something on MY HEAD set off the body scanner and the poor TSA agent had to run her hands through my hair.

It is interesting to note that my naturally curly mop top does NOT take well to being stroked with standard issue rubber gloves.

When she got done, I basically looked like a chia pet.

The worst time, though, was a few years ago when I went to Vegas with my friend Martha.  I got pulled out of line by yet another security checkpoint supervisor because I had somehow set off the weird body scan thing they use now.

“It was probably triggered by the metallic threading in your shirt,” she said.

I agreed as politely as possible and even managed NOT to make any sarcastic remarks because TSA officials aren’t exactly known for appreciating humor on the job.  And even I am not stupid enough to antagonize a person who could sign me up for a body cavity search.

“That’s really sensitive equipment,” I said.

She nodded and was almost apologetic when she explained, “We still have to check.” And then she said we could go into a private booth, if I wanted.

Which I thought was weird—and a possible invitation to the aforementioned body cavity search-so I said “No, here’s fine.” And waited for her to get out the wand and hand scan me.

The woman sighed to indicate I clearly wasn’t understanding her.  “Ma,am,” she said patiently.  “We have to search the area that triggered the alarm.”  And then, since I wasn’t picking up on her hints, she decided to just be blunt.  “Ma’am, I have to touch your breasts,” she said.

And, because I frequently have an inappropriate reaction to awkward situations, I started cracking up.  “Oh,” I laughed.  “I see…well, go ahead.”

“We can,” she reminded me “go to a private booth.”

I almost said “Why?  So we can make out a little first?”  But I stopped myself just in time and shook my head and said, “No, that’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” I said raising my arms.  And then, because I can only suppress my sarcastic side for so long and I am, apparently, stupid enough to antagonize a person who can sign me up for a body cavity search, I grinned and added, “Go ahead.  Feel me up.”

But, dipsomaniac that I am, I kind of wish she had bought me a drink first.

C is for Caudle

Caudle -- a noun, a drink made for invalids usually made of warm ale or wine mixed with bread or gruel, eggs, sugar, and spices

Which sounds revolting.

But I've been under the weather for a few days and am almost willing to try anything to feel better. PlusI'm pretty sure Opie would make me a caudle if he thought it would help because I am a CONSTANT DELIGHT when I’m sick.

First of all, I refuse to go upstairs and go to bed. I have to sleep on the couch—because when I was sick as a kid, my mom would always have me sleep downstairs on the couch, closer to her.   “So you can keep me company,” she’d say.  “And so I can take care of you.”

“GO TO BED!”  Opie keeps insisting. 

“I should keep you company,” I say.  “And don’t you want to take care of me?”

And, since he is a wise man, he hasn’t mentioned that as much as he might like to take care of me, he’d prefer to do it in a way that doesn’t involve breathing in a constant influx of germs. 

A situation not noticeably helped by the fact that, at random intervals, I yell at him to take some Vitamin C and wipe everything in the house down with Clorox wipes.  “I don’t need you getting sick too!” I shout.

If you think THAT is entertaining for him, you should have been here when HE got sick a few weeks earlier.  He had a touch of fever so he came home from work early and went immediately to bed (he didn’t care about keeping me company AT ALL). 

Unfortunately for him, later that afternoon, as I was sitting down to have a cup of tea and watch the birds congregating around our feeders, I realized that Bubba had killed a squirrel in the yard.  Right in front of the window.  Which meant that instead of the soothing sight of cardinals and crackles and the like all I could see was carcass.  Dead, bloody carcass and a circling dog who thought it was the best toy ever.

Clearly, a husband-waking emergency.  So, instead of brewing him a caudle, I tiptoed upstairs, touched him gently on the shoulder and said “Hon?  Bub killed another squirrel.”

“Ok,” he said.

“I can see it from the window,” I told him then.

“Ok,” he said again and closed his eyes.

Some people probably think I should have left the poor man alone and dealt with this problem myself but there are 2 big problems with that theory:

1.       I have a firm rule about handling freshly killed, possibly vermin infested creatures.

2.      Bubba has a tendency to think freshly killed, possibly vermin infested creatures make great gifts and has been known to go so far as to PUT THEM ON MY FOOT when I step out of the house.

So, I gave Opie a gentle poke or two…and maybe a teeny-tiny shake.  “Hon? Did you hear me?  About the squirrel?  And Bubba?  He’s still outside. With the squirrel.  You need to get it away from him.”

And he got a little surly about the whole situation, “You need me to deal with this NOW?” he demanded. “You can’t do something?”

“Did you hear the part where I mentioned the squirrel is DEAD?” I countered. 

Seriously, I don’t know how he and Bub survived all those years without me here to put things in their proper perspective.

But that's life in Oklahoma...I watch birds and am considering brewing caudles, Opie takes care of dead things, and Bubba is a squirderer.

B Is For Bisontine

B is for bisontine -- pertaining to bison.

Which is completely relevant because last weekend Opie and I went back to St. Louis for a family birthday party. And if you didn't realize that the Lou was a steaming hotbed of bison activity, don't worry neither did I--and I lived there for years.

But his sister's family lives near Lone Elk Park and our nephew talked us into going to see the animals before the birthday party. And not only are there elk all over the park but there is this whole bison preservation area too.
And right before you drive in, there is the best warning sign ever:

The only downside is that, after reading it, no matter what I said, when we found the herd, Opie refused to take our new car off road and investigate the intricacies of bisontine behavior.

"But I want to get a picture,” I said. “And just think of the story I could tell on my blog if a bison ATTACKED OUR CAR!"

Oddly, this didn't move him at all. And he wouldn't even let me get out of the car to take a single close up picture of the bison.

Spoilsport.

It was perhaps to make up for this that he held off for a few minutes when one of the elk got interested in us. 

“Hurry up,” he said. “Take the stupid picture!”

“Just a second, just a second,” I said. And then I realized that objects in the viewfinder might be closer than they appeared. “Go!” I yelled, frantically rolling up the window. “Go, go, go!”

Which isn't as good a story as an unprovoked bison attack but probably better for our finances and our relationship.

Who knows what C day will bring?

A is for Absterge

I’m participating in the A-Z blog challenge for the first time ever.  If you want full details,click here, but the abbreviated version is that the challenge is to write a blog post every day of the week, except Sundays, and the posts need to correspond with a letter of the alphabet.

I work better with a theme so I picked vocabulary—each day I would learn a new vocabulary word and try to come up with a brief (always a challenge) post about it.

Which took me forever because then I got all into reading long lists of words and saying “Hey, I didn’t know there was a word for that!”

Like abacinate. Which means to blind by putting a red hot metal near the eyes. Who knew we needed a word for that particular practice? I didn’t even know that was a thing. I didn’t even know you could blind someone in that fashion. I mean, it says NEAR the eye. How near are we talking? How close do you have to get to the eyeball with hot metal to blind someone.

Honestly, considering my issues with eyes, I’m getting a little sick just thinking about it.

So, after working my way through list after list, almost feeling a sense of aboulomania (pathological inability to make a decision), I decided on absterge.

Absterge – A verb, to wipe clean; expunge; purge.

And the last time I really had to absterge was when Opie and I were engaged and we were combining our households as I moved to Oklahoma.

At which point, I made the insane decision to have a garage sale.

Which may not sound like an insane decision…if, perhaps, you have never had a garage sale or seen the kind of people who frequent garage sales.

I mean I go to garage sales and I'm fairly normal but apparently I am in the minority (or maybe I'm not as normal as I think.)

I'm talking about people like the woman showed up at my house at 9:45 PM the night before the sale said she'd seen a sign on the corner and was wondering if she could get come in and "get an early peek at the merchandise."

"No," I said.

“Why not?” she demanded, edging closer and closer to the front door like she was trying to get me to back away.

“Because I you don't even know you,” I said. “And I'm generally opposed to letting strangers come into my house and go through my things.”

And she got really offended. I mean not so offended that she didn’t stand there saying “Oh come on, please” three or four more times. And not so offended that she didn’t show up ten minutes before I opened the garage door the next morning, knocking again on the front door and asking again to come in early.

Then she started pointing at things that were CLEARLY marked Not For Sale and saying “What about that? I’ll give you a dollar for that.”

And it was only because I had two friends with me and we’d fortified ourselves with mimosas for just such a situation that I managed not to throw caution to the winds and punch that woman in the face.

She was the worst of the lunatics but not the only lunatic.  We had a couple of would be shoplifters, a lot of people who tried to bargain down from a quarter, a couple of realtors who thought this would be the perfect moment to aggressively try to convince me to list with them when I moved...basically, even though we got rid of a lot of stuff and made a little cash, it was a lot more trouble than it was worth.

So, the next time I need to absterge the house, I think we’ll just take everything to Goodwill.

Stay tuned for more letter related posts!