Saturday, June 29, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Moseying Back Around
Hey y'all! Well, I'm finally back in blog world. Holy smokes, I missed so much! I don't think that I will ever catch up on all of the blogs that I follow so if something major has happened in your lives, do let me know! The time off was good but due to unexpected medical issues, I didn't get as much fun time as I did hospital time. Phooey to that! Mister Kitsch drew this portrait of me under anesthesia and about to have some cameras all up in my system.
I just love that sketch so much. It's a pretty good representation too. Except for the fact that in real life, I actually have ten toes. That's Peanut, my stuffed dog from childhood riding shotgun on the gurney with me. Those hospital people might make me give up my wedding ring but they'll have to pry Peanut out of my cold, dead hands. Wow, I just realized that using the term "cold, dead hands" isn't best used for situations where you're going under anesthesia!
Speaking of anesthesia, when I was waiting to be taken out of the hospital room and into the procedure room, I heard the anesthesiologist talking to a patient on the other side of the curtain who was having the same procedures done that I was. The patient asked to learn more about the type of anesthesia that would be used. And do you know what the anesthesiologist said? He said, "It's the same type that Michael Jackson used to use." Um, yes..the same Michael Jackson who up and died from it. I wanted to scream "Smooth move, Ex-Lax!" to the anesthesiologist. As if we weren't nervous enough without hearing that sort of business!
But of course, it got worse (as all of my brushes with medical science do). When my anesthesiologist came in to visit me, she went over my past medical history and in a very stern and serious voice told me that I probably shouldn't be put under because of a heart issue that I have. She said that my doctor should have never sent me for the procedure and then went on to tell me that I might not wake up if my heart did it's wacky Solid Gold spotlight dance while I was under. She also said that they might have to do the procedure with only a small amount of anesthesia and that I might be slightly awake. SLIGHTLY AWAKE! I told her that if they did that, I'd go apeshit crazy on the table and she said that they could strap me down. STRAP ME DOWN!
Then she called in two more anesthesiologists and they all acted really nervous and kept whispering outside of my doorway and looking at me as if they were trying to access their odds - would anyone sue them if I never came home? Did I look like the type that would be missed? I finally told them that if they thought it was dangerous, I'd gladly put on my duds and get on out of there. Instead, they decided to do the procedure (perhaps their boat payments were coming due). By that time, I was in ugly tears. The nurses were asking me what was wrong and I blubbered "I don't want to dieeeeeee!" Then they called Mr. Kitsch in as if he'd ever been successful at calming me down when I've gone off of the deep-end. Poor guy.
The next thing that I remembered, I woke up in recovery and the first thing that I stammered to the nurse was "I didn't die??". Before she could even confirm that I wasn't toast, I heard somebody passing some major gas and thought, "Oh, how embarrassing for them!" before the nurse told me that yes, I would be passing gas for a couple of hours because they had to pump air into my system for one of the cameras to work. It had been ME dropping the A-bombs! MORTIFYING. Southern women do NOT pass gas in public, people! It wasn't long before I realized that everyone in my ward had gone through the same procedure and one by one, you could hear monster cheese being cut behind hospital curtains up and down the corridor. I felt like I was at a tuba convention. I've never felt so one with humanity. Or at least THAT small gassy bit of humanity.
While I was recovering at the ranch later, I closely analyzed the set of glossy souvenir photographs of the inside of my colon that they sent me home with and before long, found myself engrossed in one of those scummy daytime "talk" shows where the day's topic was "Busted By A Butt Dial".
In other news, during the internet fast, I seriously missed Craigslist. I mean, sometimes a really bad couch ad can make my day. A friend has sent me posts of things that I missed snagging while out of touch with the "Free" section. Take a look:
Ain't nothin' but a seven foot tall ship! For free!
The ad asks that you e-mail them and tell them exactly what you intend to do with the ship if you pick it up. The mind reels with possibilities! As for me, it looks like a great opportunity to adopt a whole crew of little kittens, dress them in pirate costumes and put them in scenarios for photo-ops. If only. If I had a dollar for every time that a lack of kittens and a pickup truck have cost me a great time, I'd have solid gold rims on my car.
The ship is still on Craigslist so if you're interested, send the owner an email by clicking on the photo above. Also to be had for free on Craigslist right now: 600 pounds of bad potatoes. The ad says that the offer is "time sensitive" meaning that they don't want to know what 600 pounds of rotting potatoes is going to smell like after a couple more days. I imagine the odor would probably be something close to that hospital ward that I told you about earlier. I also missed out on getting a free stripper pole and these:
A ten foot long rock painted to look like a whale wearing sunglasses.
Another huge rock! This time a six footer painted to look like an alligator.
Still up for grabs is this pair of large rocks...
...that they say looks like a turtle. Hmm.....I was completely with them until this one!
Okay, I've wandered around aimlessly in front of you for long enough. I hope that you all are doing well! And remember - if I've missed some exciting news in your world, do tell me in the comments.
Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Trying to Put This Week Into Words
This week has been many things so far - triumphant, terribly sad and exhausting.
We found out last weekend that one of our dear friends had just been diagnosed with cancer. He was immediately sent to hospice at his home and unfortunately died this week. He was the Mister's best friend, mentor and in my mind, his second Dad. It seemed like he was here one day and then gone overnight. He learned he had cancer and then....was just gone. We're reeling here at the ranch. I'm still trying to put it all into words - to find the adequate way to honor him. He was an active reader of Ranch Dressing and such a cheerleader for my writing and always so encouraging to not only me, but to everyone that knew him.
Sometimes he'd send emails to me about what I'd just written here and would include funny photos or drawings that he thought might interest me. When the Mister and some friends were going through his emails after he passed, I learned that he had joined the email notification system so that he could read my new posts. I know that he had a million things going on each day so it especially touched me that he'd want my new posts junking up his email in-box.
He was always gifting us with things that he thought that we'd like from his magical mystery barn. Most recently he gave us some space age vintage vacuum cleaners, parkas from the now-defunct Opryland theme park and some old ray guns. I'll never forget him saying to me, "Miss Kitsch! I have something that you have GOT TO have" before giving me a beautiful old color wheel for a Christmas tree - and his childhood boy scout mementos. He loved encouraging people to love what they love and as an avid collector, he was quite excited to make sure that we all were collectors! We're going to miss him so much and I will honor him with a full post when I can get my thoughts together.
In other news, earlier this week another lady and I went undercover to buy a pair of puppy mill breeding dogs from a horrible family who was selling them. I'll never forget it as long as I live. We had to pretend that we completely agreed with the way that they were breeding these poor dogs into the ground. It went against every fiber of my being but we HAD to get those dogs to safety. I don't think that my childhood Southern Baptist Sunday school teachers would agree but I don't think that God would mind white lies told to save innocent creatures. I hope that's the case at least because I lied enough that day to put me in Heaven's penalty box for sure!
I'm still pretty rattled by that whole experience and even though I was a huge proponent of people adopting and not buying pets before, I'm going to be a true force of nature now to help people realize that when you see a cute clean pup or kitten in a pet shop (or in an ad in the paper or online) there is a large chance that behind the scenes, there are the parents of the dog suffering in horrible hellish conditions in tiny cages, being forced to constantly produce offspring until they are dumped to die. Trust me on this, folks. Even if you have your heart set on a purebred dog or cat, you CAN find these breeds - any breed - in a shelter or rescue just waiting to be taken to a great new home. There is no need to buy from a breeder...EVER. Do not help perpetuate this cycle of abuse. Let me put it to you this way: Even if kept in the nicest conditions, how would YOU like to be forced to have scads and scads of babies one bunch at a time for your entire life...one birth after another with each birth getting more and more dangerous, risking your life and those of your babies until your entire system shuts down? Not so much.
In good news, Metro Nashville has finally voted to stop breed specific legislation against bully breed dogs. As it was before, if a pitbull made it into the shelter, odds were that the dog would never make it out again. If an owner didn't come to prove that it was theirs, it would be swiftly killed. Nobody could adopt them even if they were the most gentle, loving dogs on the planet. Even little puppies were killed just because they were bully breeds. Even dogs that were bully mixes were killed because of their partial lineage. We have a long way to go here in Tennessee and have fully antiquated animal abuse laws but this was a HUGE day for those of us who work towards making sure that each animal is looked at on it's own accord and not killed simply because of it's breed. Starting on June 1st, our Metro shelter will allow puppies to be adopted and as soon as the staff is trained to do temperance testing on the adults, they'll be able to be adopted too. It's never okay for any group of people or animals to be judged under one swift blanket of thought. We all deserve to be judged on our own accord and given the chance to live a good, full life.
In other good news, Lucky the Chow that I told y'all about us finding a few posts back went to his foster home and reports say that he is now playing so much that they can't keep him off of his injured foot! Three cheers! I mean, not for his foot but because of the fact that he was so neglected and broken down that we thought it might be months before he'd ever know what "play" was again. Go Lucky...it's your birthday....
I know that I have some readers who aren't really into animals so I know that you are sighing like crazy at this post but helping the animals is a large part of who I am. If I have a great week, it's more than likely because I helped an animal have a great week. If I'm in a foul mood, it's more than likely because I couldn't do so as I'd wanted. I hope that you all are having a fantastic week and following your own passions no matter what they might be. Don't let anyone EVER talk you out of them. Even if you look around and it seems like you're the only one in the pursuit (or who understands the pursuit), go for it...no matter what. If we were put on this planet to be unfeeling robots that all do the same things, then trust me: we would come from factories and have much better knee joints.
I'll talk to you soon, sugar spoon.
Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha
We found out last weekend that one of our dear friends had just been diagnosed with cancer. He was immediately sent to hospice at his home and unfortunately died this week. He was the Mister's best friend, mentor and in my mind, his second Dad. It seemed like he was here one day and then gone overnight. He learned he had cancer and then....was just gone. We're reeling here at the ranch. I'm still trying to put it all into words - to find the adequate way to honor him. He was an active reader of Ranch Dressing and such a cheerleader for my writing and always so encouraging to not only me, but to everyone that knew him.
Sometimes he'd send emails to me about what I'd just written here and would include funny photos or drawings that he thought might interest me. When the Mister and some friends were going through his emails after he passed, I learned that he had joined the email notification system so that he could read my new posts. I know that he had a million things going on each day so it especially touched me that he'd want my new posts junking up his email in-box.
He was always gifting us with things that he thought that we'd like from his magical mystery barn. Most recently he gave us some space age vintage vacuum cleaners, parkas from the now-defunct Opryland theme park and some old ray guns. I'll never forget him saying to me, "Miss Kitsch! I have something that you have GOT TO have" before giving me a beautiful old color wheel for a Christmas tree - and his childhood boy scout mementos. He loved encouraging people to love what they love and as an avid collector, he was quite excited to make sure that we all were collectors! We're going to miss him so much and I will honor him with a full post when I can get my thoughts together.
In other news, earlier this week another lady and I went undercover to buy a pair of puppy mill breeding dogs from a horrible family who was selling them. I'll never forget it as long as I live. We had to pretend that we completely agreed with the way that they were breeding these poor dogs into the ground. It went against every fiber of my being but we HAD to get those dogs to safety. I don't think that my childhood Southern Baptist Sunday school teachers would agree but I don't think that God would mind white lies told to save innocent creatures. I hope that's the case at least because I lied enough that day to put me in Heaven's penalty box for sure!
I'm still pretty rattled by that whole experience and even though I was a huge proponent of people adopting and not buying pets before, I'm going to be a true force of nature now to help people realize that when you see a cute clean pup or kitten in a pet shop (or in an ad in the paper or online) there is a large chance that behind the scenes, there are the parents of the dog suffering in horrible hellish conditions in tiny cages, being forced to constantly produce offspring until they are dumped to die. Trust me on this, folks. Even if you have your heart set on a purebred dog or cat, you CAN find these breeds - any breed - in a shelter or rescue just waiting to be taken to a great new home. There is no need to buy from a breeder...EVER. Do not help perpetuate this cycle of abuse. Let me put it to you this way: Even if kept in the nicest conditions, how would YOU like to be forced to have scads and scads of babies one bunch at a time for your entire life...one birth after another with each birth getting more and more dangerous, risking your life and those of your babies until your entire system shuts down? Not so much.
In good news, Metro Nashville has finally voted to stop breed specific legislation against bully breed dogs. As it was before, if a pitbull made it into the shelter, odds were that the dog would never make it out again. If an owner didn't come to prove that it was theirs, it would be swiftly killed. Nobody could adopt them even if they were the most gentle, loving dogs on the planet. Even little puppies were killed just because they were bully breeds. Even dogs that were bully mixes were killed because of their partial lineage. We have a long way to go here in Tennessee and have fully antiquated animal abuse laws but this was a HUGE day for those of us who work towards making sure that each animal is looked at on it's own accord and not killed simply because of it's breed. Starting on June 1st, our Metro shelter will allow puppies to be adopted and as soon as the staff is trained to do temperance testing on the adults, they'll be able to be adopted too. It's never okay for any group of people or animals to be judged under one swift blanket of thought. We all deserve to be judged on our own accord and given the chance to live a good, full life.
In other good news, Lucky the Chow that I told y'all about us finding a few posts back went to his foster home and reports say that he is now playing so much that they can't keep him off of his injured foot! Three cheers! I mean, not for his foot but because of the fact that he was so neglected and broken down that we thought it might be months before he'd ever know what "play" was again. Go Lucky...it's your birthday....
I know that I have some readers who aren't really into animals so I know that you are sighing like crazy at this post but helping the animals is a large part of who I am. If I have a great week, it's more than likely because I helped an animal have a great week. If I'm in a foul mood, it's more than likely because I couldn't do so as I'd wanted. I hope that you all are having a fantastic week and following your own passions no matter what they might be. Don't let anyone EVER talk you out of them. Even if you look around and it seems like you're the only one in the pursuit (or who understands the pursuit), go for it...no matter what. If we were put on this planet to be unfeeling robots that all do the same things, then trust me: we would come from factories and have much better knee joints.
I'll talk to you soon, sugar spoon.
Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Parisian Nightsuit
After my last post about my funky little green polyester jumpsuit, my girl Sara reminded me about the "Parisian Nightsuit". Yesssssssss!
This will ring a bell with you if you are a fan of "Freaks and Geeks" but if not, I encourage you to check out the old episodes on YouTube or NetFlix. The show only lasted one season during 1999 and 2000 and its short run completely boggles the minds of fans like me. It has fortunately developed a cult following so it will continue to be passed down to new generations of fans.
The writing was brilliant and the acting top-notch and if you were like me and were a bit of an outcast in school ( a "freak" or a "geek" if you will) you'll especially appreciate the show. And for you "Mad Men" folks, Linda Cardellini who played Lindsay on the show is now Don Draper's mistress neighbor! You can see her before she was the temptress doctor's wife and instead a school "freak". Many other actors and actresses that are in popular shows and films today also had large roles on "Freaks and Geeks" including James Franco, Busy Phillips, Jason Segel, John Francis Daley and Seth Rogen. And if you need further convincing, Judd Apatow was the executive producer and Paul Feig was the show's creator. They are both brilliant. If you've never read Paul's book entitled "Kick Me" then put it on your Summer reading list.
Boy, I went off on a ramble! Anyhoo....back to the Parisian nightsuit! One of the main characters named Sam really wanted his school crush to dig him so he went and bought himself the ever-so-suave Parisian nightsuit after the studly clerk at the men's store told him that it was the cutting edge of cool. Behold his entrance into school the next morning:
Oh my gosh! Can't you just feel his pain as he goes from thinking he's the coolest thing around to realizing that he has just landed both bellbottomed legs in the lion's den? And wow, how perfect is Joe Jackson's "Look Sharp!" as the soundtrack to that moment? That was another thing about this show. The soundtrack was always dead-on and gives me serious childhood flashbacks sometimes when I watch the episodes.
If you want to see a montage of all the clips from that episode including Sam buying the nightsuit and how the fashion nightmare turned out, you can see them here:
So yeah, maybe my little jumpsuit WAS the cutting edge in fashion at the time. My Mom emailed me to apologize for the getup after my post about it but I told her that honestly, I think it was kind of cool. Especially that I could ride a bike in it. Though, I can't even imagine how long it took to get out of that thing when the old bladder got full. So many questions best left in the seventies...
A few of you have mentioned in the comments on the old post that you had similar jumpsuit getups...which I love. Do tell me about your most embarrassing childhood outfits! Were you a freak or a geek in school? A cool kid? Or something else altogether? I just realized that I wasn't studious enough to be a geek but not daring enough to be a freak. I'm going to have to think it through to find a term for what I was in school. "Hopeless" might describe my junior high and high school struggles best!
And if you haven't before, go over to Retronaut and scroll down the page to check out these incredible (and sometimes innuendo laden) ads for mens' jumpsuits here. My jumpsuit (and Sam's) were pretty innocent compared to all of that "this jumpsuit is going to help me get laid" business!
Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha "the funky chicken" Kitsch
This will ring a bell with you if you are a fan of "Freaks and Geeks" but if not, I encourage you to check out the old episodes on YouTube or NetFlix. The show only lasted one season during 1999 and 2000 and its short run completely boggles the minds of fans like me. It has fortunately developed a cult following so it will continue to be passed down to new generations of fans.
The writing was brilliant and the acting top-notch and if you were like me and were a bit of an outcast in school ( a "freak" or a "geek" if you will) you'll especially appreciate the show. And for you "Mad Men" folks, Linda Cardellini who played Lindsay on the show is now Don Draper's mistress neighbor! You can see her before she was the temptress doctor's wife and instead a school "freak". Many other actors and actresses that are in popular shows and films today also had large roles on "Freaks and Geeks" including James Franco, Busy Phillips, Jason Segel, John Francis Daley and Seth Rogen. And if you need further convincing, Judd Apatow was the executive producer and Paul Feig was the show's creator. They are both brilliant. If you've never read Paul's book entitled "Kick Me" then put it on your Summer reading list.
Boy, I went off on a ramble! Anyhoo....back to the Parisian nightsuit! One of the main characters named Sam really wanted his school crush to dig him so he went and bought himself the ever-so-suave Parisian nightsuit after the studly clerk at the men's store told him that it was the cutting edge of cool. Behold his entrance into school the next morning:
Oh my gosh! Can't you just feel his pain as he goes from thinking he's the coolest thing around to realizing that he has just landed both bellbottomed legs in the lion's den? And wow, how perfect is Joe Jackson's "Look Sharp!" as the soundtrack to that moment? That was another thing about this show. The soundtrack was always dead-on and gives me serious childhood flashbacks sometimes when I watch the episodes.
If you want to see a montage of all the clips from that episode including Sam buying the nightsuit and how the fashion nightmare turned out, you can see them here:
So yeah, maybe my little jumpsuit WAS the cutting edge in fashion at the time. My Mom emailed me to apologize for the getup after my post about it but I told her that honestly, I think it was kind of cool. Especially that I could ride a bike in it. Though, I can't even imagine how long it took to get out of that thing when the old bladder got full. So many questions best left in the seventies...
A few of you have mentioned in the comments on the old post that you had similar jumpsuit getups...which I love. Do tell me about your most embarrassing childhood outfits! Were you a freak or a geek in school? A cool kid? Or something else altogether? I just realized that I wasn't studious enough to be a geek but not daring enough to be a freak. I'm going to have to think it through to find a term for what I was in school. "Hopeless" might describe my junior high and high school struggles best!
And if you haven't before, go over to Retronaut and scroll down the page to check out these incredible (and sometimes innuendo laden) ads for mens' jumpsuits here. My jumpsuit (and Sam's) were pretty innocent compared to all of that "this jumpsuit is going to help me get laid" business!
Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha "the funky chicken" Kitsch
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