One Gallon Of Three Idiot Plum

Progress is moving right along with the combining of the households – the two spare rooms are cleared out and are officially ready for paint - we’ve scheduled the paintin’ party for Wednesday and the movin’ party for Saturday. If you leave it up to two determined and independent women to get shit done, guess what? The shit will get done!

Being super cool and awesome we decided that we would let Ms. Sara pick out the color that she wanted her room to be on her own. So yesterday, we piggy backed our paint shopping extravaganza on to another shopping extravaganza that I had previously committed to…and we proceeded to Walmart where they carry - what for it - DISNEY paint.

After chasing the little rambunctious tater tot through Walmart, realizing that at some point somewhere she had removed and lost her shoes, finally getting her to tell us that her shoes were with the “dresses”, going back to search under all the dress racks and eventually finding them….we made it to the Disney paint display. We put her little barefoot hiney literally in the display, and almost immediately her little hand went straight to purple. Fairy Flight or Pixie Purple or something or another, I don’t recall exactly. But we made our way to the actual paint, grabbed a gallon of the brand that corresponded with the Disney stuff and went to the paint counter.

This is where the idiots happen.

At this point, our two shopping extravaganzas have combined, and we now have Ted with us posted up at the paint counter. However, we lack the presence of a Walmart Asshat….er, Associate. We wait there for a little bit and start to get frustrated, so I start banging on the desk with a paint mixer stick thinking that if I caused a commotion someone would notice that we were there and needed help. But no, nothing – there were like crickets chirping and shit. About the time we start considering knocking over a whole display of light bulbs to cause an even bigger commotion…an Asshat comes into view and Duran takes off to snag him.

She returns with not one but two Asshats and we get down to paint mixin’ business….only to find out that the Disney paint is only sold by the quart and the quart costs as much as a whole gallon would otherwise. Insane! And according to these Asshats, there was no way they could mix a gallon of paint that color for us, no way, not at all, and it was seemingly ridiculous that we even had such a blasphemous request. Like, no one would EVER need a GALLON of Disney paint.

As we are standing there having a moment, an Asshat Manager goes meandering by us. The two behind the counter holler at him, and he looks at them and says “There are two you of there, surely you got it.” and he keeps walking. They then ask, “Are you busy?” and he says – really shitty mind you, “I’ve got all kinds of stuff to do!” We all give him the same eyebrows up, wow you are a real douche bag look and he suddenly says. “….unless, of course, a customer needs my assistance.” and he walking comes back to the paint counter. Frustrated, and already having an obvious answer to the problem at hand, Duran grabs the Disney purple, walks over to the normal paint color display, finds the EXACT same color not even a slight shade different, only called “Lavender Flower” this time, takes it back to the counter and is like, “If you can’t do THAT one, then do THIS one.” and smacks it down on the counter top.   

There is a brief silence as they have simultaneous “duh” moments, and then Asshat Manager sends Asshat Cameron to cut fabric for an impatient rude lady, leaving us with half of our original Asshat paint mixin' team - and of course he’s the paint mixin' rookie. This dude, I shit you not, fucked up not one but 2 gallons of paint in 10 minutes! Feeling somewhat defeated, I decide to remove myself from the situation for a moment so I pick Sara up and take off briefly. After trying to stick her in a duct tape display and then a stack of industrial trash cans we chase each other around the isles and then come back to the paint counter to find that someone else is there helping and we are finally getting some damn paint mixed. The new Asshat’s explanation to the rookie Asshat of how to properly use the machine that shakes the shit out of the paint was the smartest thing I’d heard out of anyone in the whole place for over a damn hour and I had to stop myself from applauding.

As we are finally, and hour later, making progress toward getting this little girl some purple paint for her new room, we suddenly hear the Asshat Manager start yelling at some teenagers right down from us, and he comes stomping up the isle all swolt up and billy bad ass like…with a tire lube express technician body guard wearing 6 wallet chains for protection right behind him. As he screams at them because he’d had “two complaints on them from different departments”, and threatens to “throw them out if he sees them do anything out of the ordinary again”…I can’t help but think about how that manager must have been recently promoted, and that if we’d been there to get a gallon of idiot, we would’ve have already been well on our way to Cabela’s because there was definitely no shortage of dumbasses around us. 

I also think that instead of “Lavender Flowers”, we need to call the color that Sara picked “Three Idiot Plum”.  

  

    

Two & A Half Women.

I love when I end up with a Friday that doesn’t require strenuous brain activity! There will be no over-achieving for this girl today, and I ain’t even mad about it y’all! I got me some shit to say so its works out nicely! :)

After about 6 months of consideration, Duran and I have decided to combine households. It just kind of all makes sense, there’s no good sense in her trying to maintain a household that she will only see a handful of hours a week on top of being a full time nursing student, a full time employee, and an awesome mother. And there’s no sense in me having a whole half of a house that I don’t use.  So, after a little bit of rearranging and some painting, we are gonna move my girls right on into the Crow's Nest. It’s gonna be like a real life version of Two & A Half Men - except we are women. And I’m pretty excited that I get to be Charlie Sheen. (Duran isn’t so much excited about being Alan, and we may very well end up needing our own Berta!) It’s gonna help her out and help me out…and really the only real differences are that she won’t have to drive home to sleep, she won’t have to borrow and keep up with my clothes because hers will be there too, and I won’t have to investigate weird noises in the middle of the night by myself!

Now while this all makes sense, has all been worked out to our benefit and we are both pretty excited about it – it has been brought to my attention that there are some folks out there who frown upon this idea because “they’ve heard things about me that they don’t like”. So of course I am going to take the opportunity to make a couple things known to clear up some confusion.

Few random facts about the crow here: I graduated high school with honors. I worked my first real job during my senior year and kept it for 10 years, and I’ve been at my second real job for 4 years. I am very passionate about my current job and our mission, which is to serve and support adults with intellectual disabilities and I guarantee that a great deal of y’all don’t have the heart or the backbone that it takes to do what we do daily.  I've bought and paid off three vehicles on my own in my lifetime, and carried my own insurance on every vehicle I’ve had since I started driving too. I bought my first house, all by myself, with my own fantastic credit at age 29.  I work every single day, I pay all my own bills, clean my own house and mow my own damn yard.  My criminal record is a clean one less the few traffic tickets that might show their ugly faces, and I’ll be damned if I can’t piss clean as a whistle too! I don't ask nobody for nothing, and if I have to I am very quick make up for the inconvenience in any way that I possibly can.  There are tons of people in this world who absolutely love me, because when I am treated well I return the favor. I’m always the first to help people out when they need it, and I am always happy and smiling and having a good time. On the other hand, yes – I AM a bonified smart ass. No, I DON’T take shit from anyone except my mother. And YES, I do like to drink ice cold beer with my buddies when I get the chance to do so. With all that said, if you still think I am a “bad” person/influence for my best friend and her daughter to live with then I will ask you this… do you get at least 2 snapchat videos a week of Sara’s beautiful face saying she wants to see you? Oh, no? Well I do and I’ll have you know that she doesn’t just ask for me by name…she asks for “My Jess”. So, yeah – you carry right on with your judgmental shit because us three women are gonna be just fine together, and as long as we are happy then it’s really none of your concern. :)

Now that we have that out of the way – I’m sure you are all aware that I broke another damn finger this week. Just 2 weeks shy of the 10 year anniversary of breaking the one right beside it! SMDH, I’m a walking injury – I need a bubble and a helmet! Anyhow, my pretty little pitty is totally the culprit this time, no cool stories about rope swings at the swimmin’ hole, and passing out in water over my head and having one of my buddies save me from drowning…nah, none of that. You see what had happened was – I let the pups out of their kennels after work on Monday, they tore out to the yard and ran their 100 mph laps as they normally do. They came back to porch ready for their afternoon ration of kibble and were bouncing around all crazy, Loki bumped into the patio table all hard. I hollered at them to stop actin’ crazy, and Loki did. Slim, however, was still running wide open and decided not to listen. I went to smack her little ass to get her attention and as I reach down she spun around really fast, throwing her big ol’ thunder thigh into my hand, thus bending my ring finger backwards at the knuckle, and essentially breaking it the fuck off.

I always said after I broke my middle finger that it was a feeling that I’d never forget, and after 10 years I was made aware that I really hadn’t forgot. I mean, I saw it bend in a way that fingers don’t bend, but the feeling was all too familiar to me and I knew that it was broken. So after jumping and hollering, and kicking and bouncing around like a damn fool in the back yard – it went just about like it did first time. The tunnel vision set in, the dizziness and the cold sweat and all that….so before I passed slick out I sat down for a bit in the yard.  When I got my bearings straight I went directly  to my purse for 1 of 2 800 mg ibuprofen that I had hoarded for when I would need them. Thank the lord for that shit.

Tuesday morning, I took the 2^nd one and proceeded to work for an hour or so, and then I went on to Urgent Care. X-Rays confirmed that it was broken, and they gave me a shot of ibuprofen in my butt. That was a little crazy to me because I totally could’ve avoided the big ass needle and just SWALLOWED the OTC ibuprofen in my purse instead. Meh. But the bone was back where it belonged and all lined up nicely so now I just have to go see a specialist on Tuesday so they can check for tendon damage, just in case. But I think it’s okay – I haven’t had ibuprofen since the shot in the butt three days ago and it doesn’t hurt more than an occasional achy feeling, so I think that’s a good sign. (Look at me, not even asking for pain medicine with a broke ass bone – there I go being a BAD influence again. LMAO.)

Just realized when I was paying my own damn bills earlier that I only have one week until I kick off Staycation 2015! The summer is going by way too quick, but I really can’t wait for my 9 day escape from reality and responsibility. It’s always been my favorite week of the year, for damn good reason, and I guess it always will be. :) I guess I should start planning activities immediately if not sooner.

If I don’t update you next week, then it will be at least 2 weeks because I won’t be writing during Staycation. Just in case, I hope y’all have a good time celebrating your independence with all those fancy boom sticks, good grilled food and ice cold beers. I shall report back in due time, fuckers!

Don't Puss Out Before We Do.

I swear that sometimes me and Duran could really benefit from having a camera crew following us around at all times - to not only catch raw footage of our shenanigans as they happen, but to record our damn conversations when were out burning up the back roads late on a Wednesday night. With that being said…..

I’m sure y’all know enough about the two of us at this point to know that our lives have been nothing short of a country song – and I’m not talking about bro-country either. It’s not up to me to decide which country song she has lived – but mine would probably be “If That Ain’t Country” by David Allan Coe.  Seriously, change up a few details – and that’s how it was back on that ridge in Bethlehem. 50 holes in our old tin roof, at the end of the porch there were 4 stacks of wheels and tires for sale, yard full of hogs…..yeah, that was totally us. Being so far back in the sticks and an only child at that – my days consisted of doing one of three things: hanging out in the garage with Randaddy watching and learning as he built various ridiculous vehicles, riding around on, driving & wrecking several of those ridiculous vehicles, or watching the cattle graze and thinking about one of the other two things.

So, when it comes to hot-rodding shit, I have plenty of experience. I’ve been giving shit hell for years; Randaddy would always just watch & laugh, and then fix whatever it was that I tore up later. Be it a moped, go cart, golf cart, lawn mower, three wheeler, four wheeler, dirt bike, crotch-rocket, boat, corvette, jacked up chevrolet – it’s even been an escalade a once or twice - but no matter what we had at the time, he always let me drive it and he always encouraged me to give it hell. I guess from this point of view, my life may have been “Daddy Let Me Drive” By Alan Jackson. Either way – Randaddy created a monster.

One thing about Randaddy is that his shit never looked good, minus the escalade of the current times. Back in the day – the shittier the ride looked the better it was for him. There was nothing more rewarding to us than to be sittin’ in a 1969 part baby blue, part two tone orange and white old ass rusted out chevrolet c10 with the damn mirror bungee strapped down so at it wouldn’t flap back and break the window out at high speeds….and have and have a cocky little bastard in a new shiny truck pull up beside us at a red light, rev the engine, look at us and laugh. Oh, boy – it was my favorite when that happened! You can bet your ass that we all three smiled and me and Madre braced ourselves (I had to situate more than her because I was riding on a damn milk crate between bucket seats so I had to protect my noggin’ and get my legs out of the way of the shifter). You see, what folks didn’t know about this old busted up truck that appeared to be fresh out of a grown up fence row – was that Randaddy spent a good deal of time standing inside it, where the original motor had been, beating the fender wells and the firewall with a sledge hammer to make room for a dump truck’s big block to fit in its place. And it never failed…when we got that cocky laugh from a pretty boy in a pretty truck beside us, even if first and second gear were already torn out – Randaddy would bring old blue off the line right and we would leave that pretty boy feeling bad about himself behind us in a cloud of smoke…they never did laugh with us at the next light. J

Being Randaddy’s monster, I understand that I have a different point of view than most girls do - with the exception of Duran - but I swear, I can hardly stand to ride in a truck with a dude that is scared to drive it. Being raised by a redneck motorhead is the biggest reason I’m sure, and my opinion is probably a little tainted by the fact that all our trucks looked like shit and it didn’t matter it if we bounced it off something. Throughout my life, I’ve apparently been blessed by the grace of God to have encountered several people who were about the same, if not just as hot-rodding inclined as Randaddy, and they’ve always let me ride shotgun – or bitch – whenever I wanted to. And my stars, my most recent ex-boy (but still a) friend is the drivin-est motherfucker I have ever met – hell, I’ve had more fun with him in a 2WD in the last three years than I’ve had my whole entire life in a 4WD (with the exception of Mud Truck Roger, and he was driving then too.)...and even before said 2WD ever came into play, adventures with Christopher were always the best…there’s nothing like being at the top of Leadmine in a Comanche, and hearing, “I’m not sure about the brakes, put your seat belt on.” Lol, my adrenaline junkie tendencies run real deep and so do Duran’s.  

But here recently we have encountered several, what we refer to as, city trucks. Seriously y’all, let’s talk about this. Is that just what guys wanna do these days? Spend a shit ton of money to drive something that looks pretty but does nothing else? that doesn’t get muddy or go fast or climb hills or pull shit? We are struggling to understand what is happening here, it’s all foreign to us. Now, don’t get us wrong – we aren’t saying that we think y’all should be willing to go hard ass without the first worry of fuckin’ shit up at the drop of a hat… lol, we don’t expect everyone to be a Christopher. We completely understand responsibility and being smart about shit…but these city trucks, that are pretty but do nothing else,  have us like, really?

If we are in a truck with six damn tires that is 4WD (6WD?), and you’ve agreed to take us on an adventure – there is no reason what so ever that we should be stuck on a small incline the middle of a damn grassland.. And if we are, it’s because you aren’t doing something right. And if you aren’t doing it right, then you should at least listen to the girls riding with you – stop babyin’ it, cut left, give it hell, don’t puss out.

Even worse, if you have a truck, but you are scared to take it somewhere my Lincoln goes without trouble – then you shouldn’t have a truck to begin with. Sure, it’s pretty and the wheels are all fuckin’ shiny…but where can those wheels take you if you won’t drive down a gravel road? Fuckin’ LaGrange? Well, that’s no fun. You go to LaGrange, we’ll take the Lincoln thru the gravel all the way to the creek, and give it hell. Congrats, you just pussed out before you even left the gate.

You hear people say all the time that “country isn’t what you wear” and all that jibba jabba, and while that may be true…I’ve always thought to each his own, you know? If you wanna wear worn out jeans, a Stetson hat and alligator boots, or an $80 fucking Abercrombie t-shirt, then so be it. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than you like that style, and doesn’t have to reflect how you were raised or how you feel. Hell, I rock cowboy boots one day and chuck taylors the next – depending on what mood I’m in.  I think the same reasoning applies here too – a truck is just a truck, anyone can have one, and having one doesn’t say shit about your character. What really matters is what is on the inside… and throughout my life I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person’s character by the way they drive their truck. Like, how they react in a tight spot, how brave they are, how sensitive they are, how much fun they like to have, how much they value material things, how real or how fake they are, how willing they are to adapt and overcome….and most importantly, you can tell exactly when a person will puss out on you.

We know what we know and at this point we know two things about ourselves - if you park your city truck beside someone else’s country truck and give us choice – we’re gonna choose to ride in the truck that ain’t afraid to get dirty. And if you plan to be around us, there is one thing that you don’t wanna be….and that’s the guy that pusses out before we do. 

And we do not apologize for setting the bar real high... ;)