WELL, IT SEEMS I DIDN’T HAVE TO GO THE EXTRA MILE TO EMBARRASS MYSELF WITH THAT LAST POST. My dad emailed me a photo of even better arsenal.

Let me repeat: MY DAD EMAILED ME.

And because of the magnitude of that event (well, that and the fact that the email was titled, “Blog This!”) I had to post it.

Internet, I would like you to meet me, at age oh seven or so, being what we affectionately call a “picky eater”, or alternately The Girl Who Thought She Was Dying When We Held Her Down And Forced Her to Eat Jelly.

Did I sound bitter about that still? Sorry.

Anywho. This is almost worse than my Hanson photo. I’m guessing by my expression, puffy red cheeks, the ear of corn, and teeny tiny piece of ham that it is Thanksgiving.

Or pretty much any night eating with me.

There’s times my parents thought it was funny, like when I mentioned above that they had my sisters hold me down and Dad shoved a tablespoon of strawberry jam into my mouth. Or the time when they replaced my peas and carrots with fake candy. But I’m sure there were other times that weren’t so much fun, when I was hissy and whiny and pouty all over gross foods that I probably still wouldn’t eat spilled milk. And for these times Mom and Dad, I am truly sorry.

I can only hope that posting this photo was some sort of retribution.

But I need to ask you one last thing: Did I have a mullet?

Much love,

- Your Picky Eater

NOW THAT I’VE EMBARRASSED GRANDMA B, (Sorry Grandma.

Grandma? Grandma! Are you still here?

Rach?

Jackie?

Anybody?)

I figured I’d post something embarrassing about myself. Kevin already stated it on his Facebook when he updated his status as, “Just found out my girlfriend can touch her nose with her tongue.”

Kind of like this:

Except even more gross because I’m a human and not a dog.

I can’t help it. My tongue is so big that when I stick it out, it reaches the bottom of my chin. It can do the roll and the wave, and because of it’s size  I probably snore at night and would be a great backup for that guy from Kiss. Add to the fact that I’m already a walking freak show – I’m extremely double jointed in the arms, fingers and thumbs and I can fit my entire fist in my mouth – and you can pretty much call me to any birthday party if you’re looking for cheap entertainment.

The problem is, most people don’t ask to see these things.

I volunteer them.

I realized this probably wasn’t the best thing to walk around advertising when Aspen looked at me from her car seat and made the accompanying “mmmmph!” noise as she stuck her tongue out and tried to lick her tiny nose.

I only made it worse when I poked mine out and stuck it up my left nostril.

I know. I know.

I’m gross.

But you know you kinda wanna see it now.

A PACKAGE WAS WAITING FOR ME ON MY PORCH TODAY WHEN I GOT HOME.

But I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t Ramen.

There were three little jars.

And a note.

It reads:

Aub –

Aftermath of an elk abortion : ) One is an antelope. Read on the lids.

Don’t want them back.

Best Gram

You read that right. In the jars, preserved and floating around in alcohol were three tiny animal babies. I know I blog about Grams a lot – the one that I live with. But my dad’s mom should also get some recognition. The conversations I have with her are hilarious and always worthy of their own separate posts. We butter each other up and tell each other that we’re the best and we’re each others’ favorites. (Which we pretty much are).

But the conversation we had last Saturday takes the cake. It was one of those rare moments when I wasn’t with Kevin – which means I was a lost puppy and wandered over to my moms house for comfort.

And to eat her food.

Which in turn makes Machelle mad and makes both Mom and Dad tell her how I’m a guest in their house and can eat all the Doritos I want.

And I do.

So I’m sitting there stuffing my face and gloating in Machelle’s general direction when “Grandma B” shows up. And I don’t know what got us talking about it, but she brought up the fact that she put in for a Moose tag this season.

“I didn’t know you hunt!!” I blabbed.

“Oh of course I hunt, I even have a baby elk that I preserved in alcohol from one of the first elks I shot.”

“Grandma, that’s gross. That’s blog worthy!! I’m going to come to your house and photograph it and post it on my blog. “

But she trumped me. “I’ll give it to you! I’ll leave it on your porch. So if you ever see a little freaky, dead thing in a jar on your steps just know it’s from me. Treasure it – I’ve spent many years freaking people out with that.”

And I can see why.

They have ribs.

They have creepy caved-in heads. And the top of this jar said it was from ‘89 – which means it’s been dead for as long as I’ve been alive.

And this baby elk has hooves and a mouth.

But the oddest of the bunch has to be the antelope.

It was just so developed. from the split hooves to the lungs, ribs, eyes right to the tiny little tail. Now before you think my Grandma B is some heartless baby mammal killer, you should know she had a permit to kill these animals, which means that the babies would have died regardless of if she’d have kept them or not. And you should also know that they used the meat for steaks and it didn’t go to waste.

But they’re still creepy.

After I took some photos I ran the box upstairs and showed Grams. Her reaction was along the lines of, “what the hell!?” and “there’s the garbage outside”.

But I’m not throwing them out. They are a family heirloom that will be scaring kids for generations to come.

Thank you Grandma B.

PS I claim your buffalo head you have hanging on your wall.

Just kidding.

I don’t think I could sleep with that in my house.

HAVE YOU EVER seen a day that looks like this?

Cloudy.

Unclear.

Can’t focus.

We’ll that’s me today.

Better luck tomorrow.

Post edit: Whenever I’m in a sad, quiet mood, I listen to this song.

Post-Post edit: If I’m in a sad mood and want to cheer up, I listen to this song.

Which one should you listen to?

I’ll let you be the judge.

ASHLEY AND I ATTENDED A CLASS TOGETHER LAST THURSDAY. We got lost and wandered the high school campus where it was hosted for about twenty minutes, nineteen of which Ashley spent threatening to go into early labor if we didn’t find the room and stop wandering around. But being the shy gals we are we are we didn’t want to ask anyone where it was at. Can you blame us?  The only guy we saw was riding a massive floor buffer right behind us like a creeper.

Eventually we walked past a classroom where two ladies were talking and Ashley pushed me in their direction. “You go ask them, I can’t be social like our mother”. Did you know our mother is social? Well she is. And we envy her for it.

“Hey excuse me, where is the community educa—” from the corner of my eye I see Ashley diving out of the door frame in a fit of laughter. “—-tion building?”I chuckled my way through the rest of my sentence. The ladies pointed us in the direction of the front of the building, and what do you know, it’s the room we walked right past three times already.

Our class?

It was a coupon clipping class. Go ahead and laugh. I’ll wait.

Niel and Kevin sure found it funny. “It’ll probably be hosted by some old lady”, “what’re you going to learn, how to use scissors and cut paper?”, and “someone will forget the scissors and the whole thing will be called off. ” were only half of the phrases we heard from the pair of them. But we had no shame. We are girls. We craft. It’s what we do.

Frankly I didn’t know what to think of the class when we walked in. I don’t use coupons. Hell, like I need any excuse to spend even more money, but Ashley invited me so I went, skeptical and all. It turned out to be a pretty interesting class (beside Ashley mouth-breathing on me the entire time through her cold). The coupon lady told us that last year alone, she’d saved over $1,000 at one store. I didn’t believe her, but that’s probably because my other sisiter someone I know shops at discount stores and brags about how much she “saves”, while ignoring how much she spends.

I’d say don’t repeat that to her but we’re not talking anyway.

Where were we, coups? Oh yes. Coups. The lady teaching us said she lives on a budget of $300 a month which includes food and cleaning supplies. She never buys a box of cereal for more than $.50, and she only buys brand name. She taught us how to get Goldfish crackers for $.18, and razors, deodorant, and other samples for free. Now I can proudly claim to know the best time to buy condiments (hint: it’s right about now, look for the good coups because they only come around this time of year). I know that dish washing fluid goes on a really good sale about two times a year, that the beer isle has the best coupons (and you don’t have to buy beer with it) and I learned the biggest trick of the trade: Get a coupon, wait until the item goes on sale and THEN buy that item. Double wammy if you have a few coupons that you can combine, or “stack” to use on that item. Yes it’s possible for the store to wind up owing you – they credit however much they owe you towards your entire purchase.

But.

But.

This was not the highlight of my night. No, not even close. The highlight of my night was about half way through when Ashley burst out chuckling next to me. “What?” I hissed. “I can’t. I can’t,” she chocked through silent sobs of laughter. A minute later I get a text from her that states,

“The lady next to you has a MOLE on her head”.

I thought she meant a beauty spot on her upper lip or a witches wart by her nose. But oh, contrair! I found out I was wrong when Ashley elbowed me in the ribs and told me to look to my left, and staring me right in the face was this ladies raised, hair-sprouting, ugly, bumpy mole smack in the middle of where her hair parted in the back of her head.

Our attempt at silent laughter was ruined when Ashley stopped me from taking a photo of it on my phone. Coupon lady? I’m sorry for disrupting your class. Maybe I should have paid more attention to find that lady a coupon for some Compound W Wart Remover.

*I know this post sounds mean. I do. I just thought it was funny to have one of those high-school-I-can’t-stop-laughing moments. Mole lady, if you read this, I still think Rosco the Mole Rat wins the ugly award.*

LASIK HAS ALWAYS BEEN SOMETHING I’VE WANTED. I’ve worn contacts since I was in the beginning of eighth grade. So eight years ago.

EIGHT YEARS AGO.

Moment of silence please for my first, “I’m getting old” moment.

Thank you.

I finally looked into getting lasik last December. After staring into all these funky, high-tech machines they decided I was a good candidate and we set a date to get it done – January 28th. I was excited, and nervous as all get up. I mean, dude, it’s a laser. A beam of light, cutting into my eye, magically fixing it with all it’s beam of lightness and I have get to stay awake for the entire thing.

Let’s do this.

First I had to get my eyes dilated. They have to do that to enlarge my pupils to make sure there is still a brain in there making conscious decisions – or something. But getting your eyes dilated also means you wind up with super crazy Night Vision/Cat Eyes so you have to wear special shades all day.

The kind that come with a complimentary unibrow.

And kind of cool dark eyes.

You don’t think those photos are impressive until I tell you that I couldn’t actually see the camera. And my eyes stayed dilated for two days.

Night Vision/Cat Eyes have their trade-offs I suppose.

Surgery day came and Kevin went with me to document the event and be my chauffeur home. I was pretty excited.

They gave me a personalized name tag! (When are they ever non-personalized?)

And someone came in and scrubbed my eyes for me and gave me this fantastic bonnet.

They gave me a sedative and waited patiently for me to pipe down and shut up. Then the doctor came in, talked about how I’d see bubbles during the surgery – this appealed to me greatly – talked a little bit more about random things – something about a suction? Yea that’ll be important later – and then told me we’re good to go back to surgery.

Now. Here is where I type in bold.

IF YOU DO NOT LIKE CREEPY PHOTOS OF EYEBALLS THAT WILL MAKE YOUR EYES HURT, STOP HERE, CHECK BACK IN A FEW DAYS FOR A POST ABOUT DOGS OR SOMETHING. THE FOLLOWING PHOTOS DEPICT MY EYE SURGERY AND SUBSEQUENT BLOODSHOT EYES AND ARE NOT FOR WUSSES. BASICALLY IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN AN EPISODE OF DR. G, GREY’S ANATOMY, OR ANY OTHER CREEPTASTIC HEALTH RELATED SHOW, LEAVE.

And make sure you come back on happier post days.

You’ve been warned.

Kevin was led to a two seat alcove where he could watch the entire surgery from a screen, while I was led back to a freezing room full of nice lady assistants. They gave me a blanket and a squishy star shaped stress toy. By now I could tell the sedative was working. I was still worried, but mostly just curious. They laid me down and told me they had to put the suction on my eye. Apparently the suction holds my eye in place so the laser can make a perfect flap. Then they flip this flap up, and shoot a different laser in my eye which corrects my vision. Then they push the flap back down and viola! Insta-eyes.

I was excited/nervous about the laser, but they kept saying stuff about this suction-thing.

Suction, shmucksion.

I’m tough as nails. I’ve had my tonsils out.

I was just wondering where the camera was. I wanted to give Kevin a big thumbs up, a look at me! I’m so tough. No big deal, I handle things like a champ type of a grin. I didn’t find out until after that the camera was in the machines they use, so the only thing he could see the entire time was my eye. MY FLINCHING, ITCHING, WATERING, FLESHY, SENSITIVE, PRECIOUS EYE BALL.

Sorry. I get a little teary when I think about my vision.

Back to the real story. They positioned the suction above my eye and lowered it on.

After an insane amount of pressure (but no pain due to numbing eye drops) they got the suction on, and well, suctioned. My vision went dark and that’s when Dr. Lady decided to say, “take the suction off”.

Um.

No.

No. No. No. You don’t do that to me and take it off. You do that and get it over with. She explained that while they had it perfect, they needed to reposition it because the machine didn’t like it.

Well you know what machine? Neither did I.

Then they decided they needed to stretch my eyelids open further, so they put a little metal device up under my eyelids and slowly pulled it open. It only looks painful. That part didn’t hurt.

The suction? Well. It sucked. A ton.

(HUZZAH that’s my second good joke of this post).

The photos below is the laser cutting the flap in my eye. The bubbles is where oxygen is getting under the flap.

Okay. Here’s my second disclaimer.

If you have a weak stomach or if you’re disturbed easily, don’t scroll further. I’m okay viewing it because I am weird…and because I know it’s my eye. If I’d have been shown this photo below prior to surgery, I probably would have yelled eff that or the mormon appropriate freak no and ran away screaming, cradling my boxes of contacts and cherishing them for life.

That’s the metal eye stretcher thingy. My eye is upside down because I’m laying down. The foggy part of my eye is the flap that’s just been created, and it’s 100% normal.

And 100% freaky.

This next photo is a little freakier, because the doctor is putting a sharp object under the flap of my eye to lift it. Looks bad, but it didn’t hurt one bit.

This is the laser locking in on my eye to fix it. My eye appears grainy because that’s how your eye looks underneath I guess.

After staring at a blinking light (the laser) for twenty seconds, they pushed the flap back down, rinsed my eyes out, stood me up, walked me out and handed me to Kevin.

“I don’t know how in the hell you just did that,” was the first thing he said to me. To be quite honest, I don’t know how I did either. All I knew is I couldn’t see worth a darn, it looked like I was looking through a foggy window pane, or a used milk cup. When before I’d dreamed about reading and blogging when I got home, my thoughts changed to sleeping or clawing my eyes out with rusted nails. They hurt.

They hurt real bad.

(Enough of the bad jokes. But my lips are chapped right now and they do hurt real bad. But I’m scared of the dark. I’ll just stick to blogging).

Now you’d hope this has a happy ending, that I’d wake up and exclaim, “I can see!!!” for the whole world to hear. And you’re right, I can see. I can see so darn good. I can see the alarm clock in the morning like I’ve always wanted, I can see cars at night. I can see Kevin when he’s sitting across the room from me, I can see everything.

Do you wanna see something?

Really?

Okay. I’ll show you.

That’s my left eye post-op.

And this is my right.

Is that a wrinkle I spy?! Just kidding. I had to tug on my cheek pretty darned hard to get that shot, since my eyes were sensitive and I still couldn’t see very well. The blood is normal, apparently the suction sucks so bad (man, does it ever) that it breaks the blood vessels on your eye.

It rocks.

It’s just too bad I didn’t do this around Halloween, those red eyes would have made the perfect zombie get-up.

I SKIPPED MADE ME LAUGH MONDAY BECAUSE I HAD NOTHING FUNNY.

Whoa boy, was I ever wrong on that account. I had something absolutely hilarious happen to me tonight, and that is how I almost set the kitchen on fire. I almost set the KITCHEN on FIRE.

Kevin and I have a favorite food called Chicken Roll ups. It’s chicken mixed with cream cheese and butter, wrapped in croissants and rolled in breadcrumbs. Pure deliciousness. Well, I decided to be Little Miss Helpful – a recipe for trouble all on it’s own – and preheat the pan he was going to use to cook the chicken, so I poured in some vegetable oil and cranked the heat up to high. But I forgot to turn the heat down before I moved on to the next task, MULTITASKING FOR THE WIN, and the next second I turn around to find the entire back side of my kitchen covered in smoke that was rising from the burning fluid. So naturally, I did what any freak of nature would do and I grabbed the pan and turn off the burner.

What was left of the oil instantly turned into flames.

At this point, it was safe to say it was a two foot high, spitting, hissing fire, in a pan that was half a foot away from me. I yelled “Babe!” which is a much better alternative to the unladylike words that easily could have slipped out instead, and I rushed the pan to the sink.

Mistake number one: leaving a pan of vegetable oil on a hot stove. Mistake number two: Putting the pan – which was now on fire, under a constant stream of cold water.

Yea.

Don’t do that.

Wanna know why?

Because you wind up with a flame that goes from a measly two foot flicker to a four foot roaring fireball straight up to the ceiling…while you’re still holding it. And you can say it, I’ve said it plenty of times. I’m surprised those ugly, 1970’s curtains didn’t catch on fire in the process.

I was pretty much lost for what to do at this point. Stop, drop and roll don’t really work unless YOU are on fire.

“Take it outside,” Kevin opened the door and covered his face with his arm as I walked past, awkwardly holding the pan out at arms length. I stood for a good two minutes like that, arm outstretched trying to figure out how to get this pan to stop hissing at me. I finally guessed the cold pavement would be my best bet, so I dumped the remaining fluid in the middle of the driveway and fell to my knees by it.

“Are you okay?” Kevin asked from the bottom of the stairs. I shook my head no and realized I was shaking all over. The odd noise I could hear was coming from me. It was somewhere between a laugh and a half-sob. He wrapped me in a hug and then coaxed me back inside to survey the damage. The entire downstairs was coated with a thick, nasty smoke that burned our eyes and noses. We used blankets to attempt to air it out. It’s one of those smells I’m sure will stick around for weeks. “We’re lucky it didn’t spread…Gram’s has oxygen tanks! Boom! But in the end, nothing can replace a life. I’m just glad we’re all okay.”

I was busy at this point taking photos of the damage and also of this warning label.

“But you got to admit…” he added a few minutes later as we both flapped blankets in the middle of the kitchen, “this’ll make for an awesome Twitter post!”

Postnote: I may have ruined our appetites and scared us a bit, but thankfully in my own defense I didn’t ruin dinner.

I just made him cook it.

Post-Postnote:

I have a confession to make, Internet. On Christmas Eve I came home to realize I’d left my hair straightener on all day, only two inches away from the wall. It left a burn mark on the counter (MOM I’M SORRY AND I GOT THE MARK OFF *thank you Magic Erasers*).

This all goes to prove that I shouldn’t be allowed to use electronics of any type, specifically those that generate heat.

Send help.

THIS POST WILL BE A RANT, IF YOU WILL. A rant because I hate dealing with car problems, what with all the awesome mechanical skills I have you can imagine that troubleshooting is a joy.

So.

My car started making this odd noise a few days (if I put weeks here, would you judge?) ago, and I ignored it just like I do winter – if I don’t wear a coat then winter isn’t really here. Finally today the noise got to me and I went to my favorite spot so I could check things out without anyone bothering me. Turns out my car was extremely low on both oil and power steering fluid. Thankfully my dad bought me power steering fluid a few months ago because he knew I’d need it, and I had a few spare quarts of oil so I popped the trunk and dug out my stash.

So there I am, parked next to this field minding my own business, with my head holding up the hood since the hydraulics won’t work, trying to unscrew this cap that is literally frozen on, when a guy in a maroon car started heading over my way. Please don’t be coming over here. . .but he kept coming. No seriously dude. . .leave me alone. And he pulled closer and parked. He gets out, stares at me for a minute and then right when I start thinking he’s going to offer his services he plops down on the back of his trunk, whips out a cigarette and watches me work like fixing my car is a freaking concert and he’s got front row seats.

I’m just standing there shivering and trying not to get my clothes dirty while silently FUMING that this guy had the gall to come that close and not offer help. Not that I wanted or needed it, but I didn’t want or need an audience either. And I knew I shouldn’t park in my favorite spot, but I didn’t want the whole office seeing me under the car with a big sign on my forehead stating “Aubrey is a retard”.

As if they don’t know that already.

In summary: Don’t watch me do things, it makes me angry. Thank goodness for the local Big Lots, who’s generous supply of cheap stuff increased my mood tremendously.

THIS IS OLIVER.

And he is not an Iams dog.

Matter of fact, he is a you’ll-eat-whatever-dog-food-I-give-you-and-like-it kind of dog.

He doesn’t mind.

Ollie cracks me up. He stole my stuffed animal and packs it around the house. He steals my socks and hides them in his cage, but this isn’t a bad thing — it means that all the missing socks in my house now have a home and I don’t have to round them up myself. Kind of useful really. Ollie jumps at the word “go” and knows the name Rosco (his brother). He can sit, lay down, crawl and shake. And according to Grams, he can also scare off visiting teachers and the occasional mailman. He has many names, Oliver Twist being the official one, Ollie for short, and then Chaweenie, Jaws, Mutley, Hoover, Pumpa, Dog, Hey You and GET OUT OF THAT GARBAGE.

There are times when I’ve had a long day (for example yesterday, going to work and then back to college for the first time in two weeks) when all I want to do when I get home is crash on the couch and not bother to turn the lights on, when just ignoring everything for even twenty minutes sounds divine. I’ll drag my feet up those steps to Grams’ and knock on the door to pick up Ollie, and he will come bounding out the door and jump on me, and the energy level and excitement from that little dog is enough to keep me going for the night. It’s nice to have something so happy to come home to.

But I think I look grumpy today.

So I have to ask . . .how are you feeling?