Insanity Laughs Under Pressure We're Cracking

Cassie
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

Today, I got to work and saw a little white Volkswagon. Normally, I like Volkswagons, but this one belongs to a certain person we call an auditor.

The auditors are the folks who stop by now and then to see if we're doing every single little thing correctly. They then rate the bank on a scale of one to ten, ten being awesome. So we're always scared when the auditors come.

It's kind of like when you're a little kid and you can't have your sleepover until your room is super clean. Having your parent come in to see if you've reached that perfect cleanliness is what having the auditors around is like.

The tension in the building was horrible. Everyone is looking at each other, trying to make sure nobody screws up, while also attempting to be perfect themselves.

Luckily, it was my half-day and I got to leave at one o'clock.

I left my phone in the car and when I finally remembered to go get it, I had a message from Nadia.

"I just wanted to let you know we got a ten! A ten! A ten a ten a ten!!! We've never gotten a ten!!!"

Phew!

Would I Still See Suspicion in your Eyes?

Cijay
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

I'm a bad person. I'm sure I'll have PETA yelling at me.

I've scheduled an appointment for Cijay to get declawed.

I know I know! It's like taking a person's fingers off at the tip! I've read all the information!

The difference is, if Cijay were a human, I could get him to stop tearing up the furniture. I could get him to stretch his fingers on something else. But Cijay just won't use a scratching post. Or a scratching anything.

So he's getting his front claws removed next month. That's a long time away. It's a long time for me to feel guilty and get scared.

But everything will be fine, right? He won't hate me forever, right?

I Don't Need a Support System

Dentisto!

Scene: My pad. Youngish nerd sits in front of computer with an Italian ice in her hand, mobile phone to her ear.

V.O.: I looked at your website, again, today. My favorite was the one about Darth Vader.

Aunt Bee: Thanks. I'm glad your favorite is the one post I didn't write.

Sixteen Candles Make a Lovely Light

Lights don't impress him, anymore.
It's all about the cars and computers.

Today is Mitchell's sixteenth birthday.

I think that's right. Sixteen??? I think I'm having a panic attack.

I knew I was getting old, but to say Mitch is sixteen just breaks my heart! My little poomonger is old!

Mitch was born into our family at the perfect time. Marcus was just growing out of the "cute little snuggly kid" and my cousin Jill and I were entering the "we love babies!" phase in life. So this baby was doted on, to say the least.

It's more like he had his own personal slaves. Mitch never had to walk when he came to visit Grandma. Jill and I would trade off hauling him around the house.

On one Christmas visit, Mitch was totally fascinated with Christmas lights. Every few minutes, he would remember there were lights in the trees and run to the window to point it out to us and yell "Yights!" Mitch hadn't quite learned his Ls.

Even better, Mitch found he could use his personal slaves to hold him next to a light switch. He would turn the lights off, then back on and scream "Yights!" He really did have the cutest little voice. Especially when he was excited.

And that was all sixteen years ago? Really?

Happy Birthday, Mitch!

It Was a Mess of Good Years

I found this website that totally freaked me out!

It's a site that's supposed to tell you what you'll look like in ten to forty years. You upload a picture of yourself, tell it where your eyes and mouth are and voila!

I'm telling you, I must be doing some hard living because I'm going to look like crap in just a few years!

In my "Age 35" picture, I look about 20 years older than my parents look now! That's not fair! What do they expect I'll be doing? Living outside during sandstorms in the desert, drinking vodka and punching myself in the face?

There's also an option to see how you'd look like as a member of the opposite sex. I'd make a totally hot dude, if I do say so myself!

I figured since it's Mitch's birthday, we'd have a look at his age progression. Boy, you really need to start saving for plastic surgery right now!

Click here to check it out for yourself. Beware!

She's the One that Keeps the Dream Alive

Mine wasn't as pretty, but it was yummy!

I used to cook a lot. Even when living alone, I'd cook myself meals.

Pasta, grilled chicken, beans and rice, french toast; I was especially fond of zucchini and squash stir fried or sometimes steamed. I'd even eat my food at the table. I'd even eat on real plates.

Somewhere along the way I got really lazy. All I seem to eat these days are quesadillas, which are not all bad. But eating one every night isn't anyone's idea of paradise.

Today, I discovered Delicious! Delicious!. This website incorporates the site owner's work and hobby and had me interested while I was defrosting my freezer.

The site also made me hungry for real food. Since my freezer project was taking so long, I had chicken thawing. I decided to make my favorite Indian dish, Chicken Tikka Masala.

It turned out totally delish! The chicken was cooked to a perfect tenderness and the rice was just al dente enough for my taste. Plus, unlike when eating it at a restaurant, I knew the chicken was all breast and not odd poultry parts.

I think I'll start really cooking all the time, because it was really nice to spend more than five minutes preparing a meal. Even though I did use a jar of prepared sauce and Minute Rice.

Defrost, Your Charms

This stuff came out of my freezer.

I'm in the process of defrosting my freezer.

Yes, Dad, you read correctly. I'm defrosting my freezer.

I really should have taken a "before" picture. Several of you have seen the castatstrophe that is my freezer. For those of you that haven't, let me explain . . .

My kitchen is approximately 3ftx1ft. And that just might be overestimation. My appliances had to be small to fit, including my refrigerator.

Instead of paying the extra $10 to get the fridge with a separate freezer, whoever was in charge of buying the appliances got the one with the freezer inside. So my refrigerator is basically like those mini-fridges you have in your dorm rooms. It's just on a slightly larger scale.

And like those mini-fridges, my freezer doesn't have the whole snazzy auto-defrost feature. So, in what seems like minutes, the ice just builds and builds, making my already limited freezer space even smaller.

Over at eHow, they say you should defrost your freezer when the ice gets 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Mine was probably five.

So all afternoon, I've been boiling water and putting the pots in the freezer. It was quite a soggy adventure, and it's finally over.

This is pretty much my daily diet. This and quesadillas.

What sucks is that the ice will be 5 inches thick again within a week. That's how crappy my refrigerator is.

At least right now, I have plenty of room for all my Hot Pockets!

You Can Make Real Your Dreams

More photos from last weekend here.

I heard "Y.M.C.A." on the radio today.

This song always evokes many memories; countless wedding dances, school dances, thinking I'm funny by doing A.C.M.Y. There's one memory that always makes me laugh, even though nobody actually did anything.

The University of Kansas has a really nice bus transit system to haul the college kiddies to class and all around town. It's really great for those off-campus because there is absolutely no parking at KU. It's great for the kids in the dorms, because they're too lazy to get up in time to walk to class.

One particularly lazy morning, I hopped on the bus with Raw. There's not much talking on the bus in the early morning hours.

We were lucky and got on the bus that the crazy young guy drove. He was like the only driver to have a radio, though it was never on a decent station.

So we're bouncing along in relative silence when "Y.M.C.A." starts playing on the radio. I half-expected a few people to start jabbering about how they love this song. Since it was Friday, and the weekend always starts Thursday night, nobody was even up for that.

Then, my crazy mind conjured up an image of the whole bus suddenly bursting into dance. It was like a movie, this image; everyone at the same time, jumping around and throwing their arms up to form the letters.

It was such a funny vision that I started chuckling to myself. You know, the earthquaking laugh. Raw got a little embarrassed.

I'll be on Your Side Forever

Hey, remember my eggbeater? Can I have it back?

Today was Michael's birthday. He turned the big quarter century mark.

Michael is one of my greatest and oldest friends. We've known each other since he was born.

Together, we've lived days good, bad, hard, fun and itchy.

Michael and his family lived in the country. Once, when my brother and I went out for a sleepover, we all decided to walk through the "canyon." It had recently rained so the canyon was muddy and full of mosquitos.

Michael, his brother Matt, sister Lindsay, Marcus and I were being eaten alive by the giant mosquitos. I decided I had read somewhere that if you covered yourself with mud, the mosquitos wouldn't be able to detect you.

Obviously I had confused mosquitos with the Predator and not only did the pests continue to feast upon us, Michael's mother also nearly had a heart attack when she saw us, muddy and swollen, trying to walk into her clean house.

Michael has been there for me whenver I need him. He always lets me ramble on and on, sometimes incoherently, about everything from politics to dreams to any troubles I may have. I can only hope I've been half as good a friend to him.

I bake a mean pie!

We had a BBQ on Saturday night to celebrate Michael's birthday. I baked a pecan pie, Michael's favorite, and topped it with birthday candles. I baked it from scratch, I swear!

It was quite a fest! There was enough food to feed . . . well, a lot more people than were at the party! There was a little dancing and a lot of singing. A little Anna yelling instructions to people standing right beside her and so a lot of me yelling instructions to people standing right beside me. A little bocce ball, a lot of frisbee, including smashing the dog point-blank in the face with the frisbee. There was a lot of fun and probably even more zaniness!

Zaniness? Well, more like complete insanity. Michael got his own "band" together to sing along with The Violent Femmes.

Raw chained me up with the dog's leash. The result was me breaking free and tearing through the house, knocking things over as she chased me as if I were a loose dog.

Yeah. We're quite a bunch.

The evening ended with not one, but three rousing renditions of Happy Birthday; traditional, "You Look Like a Monkey" style and even en Espanol!

Happy Birthday, my dear Phredd!

My Soul is Sound

Mass St. is totally exciting!

This weekend, I'll be heading North to Lawrence. I'm sure I'll annoy everyone with my constant camera clicking.

I might upload some pics to WebShots. I'd be more likely to upload some phone shots to Flickr.

Most likely, I'll post pictures a few months after I get back.

Come to the Ogre Sight

*Names have been changed to protect the jerkfaces.

I seriously just can't believe the people I deal with every day.

Today, a woman walked into the building and started talking to me. "I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Helga Gooch*."

Helga comes in often, so I knew her. "Of course I remember. How are you?"

"Well, I bought a Malibu from you awhile back. There's some kinda poppin' sound in it so I want to get an estimate."

At this point in the conversation, I am totally confused. Did she get a car loan from us? And she expects us to fix it? What is she talking about??? All I can stammer is "Um . . . you need an estimate?"

"Yeah," she replies. "I wanna know how much it's gonna cost me to get you to fix it."

I'm freaking out, trying to figure out what I'm going to say to her when I look up and realize she's got an earbud in her ear and she's talking on her mobile phone!!!

The whole fact that she's talking on her phone and how it totally annoys me when people do that is a whole other story. But that gives you an idea of how annoyed I was with this person already.

Oh, man. She did mean the green one!

When she's finally done talking on her mobile, she looks at me and says "I'm sure you've been told this twenty times, but you look like that girl from Shrek."

. . . ? . . .

"You know! Shrek's girlfriend, Fiona! Not ugly green one, but when she's pretty!"

Are you kidding me??? I don't know if she's trying to insult me or compliment me! I really don't!

I had no idea how to respond to this comment. I finally came up with "Well, I certainly act like a cartoon character, that's for sure!"

I turned to look at Chris. Her face was red and her eyes had a look of "Did she really just say that???"

As soon as Helga walked out the door, Chris practically fell on the floor in hysterical laughter. Word got around and soon everyone was practically on the floor, laughing.

When Allie heard what Helga said, her response was much more positive. "I love that movie! Fiona is so pretty and she's a princess! That's awesome!"

Did I tell you how much I love the new kid, Allie?

And Feed Them on your Dreams

Momma and Daddy Fed, pre-Bun

Jacque is one of my greatest friends. She doesn't mind and actually caters to my eccentricities.

You'd think that if she was such a very good friend, I'd have already written about her. I mean, come on! I've written about her dogs, so why not Jacque?

Well, Jacque has been keeping a "secret" for the last few months. She's a mommy! She was planning to keep her pregnancy a secret until she heard the heartbeat and was confident things were going well.

Jacque's never been very good at keeping secrets and dropped hints at me all the time. Finally she burst out with "I just can't keep it from you! I'm pregnant!"

I've been trying to keep the secret and everytime I come across a picture I want to post of her, I can't think of anything to say. All I want to type is "She's having a baby! Look at her belly! There's a baby in there!!!"

So I just had to keep her off the site until today. Today, I talked to Jacque and not only does she not have to work any more overnight shifts, she has heard the heartbeat and all is well. The heartbeat is on the fast-side, which is supposed to indicate a girl. But that theory has never worked with anyone else I know, so I'm thinking it could still go either way.

And either way, I'm going to corrupt it like crazy! Baby Fed is going to be the biggest spoiled brat, courtesy of her/his Aunt Bee! I've already bought the kid several presents. Because I'm eccentric like that!

You Light up my Life

The only people wearing white at the party.

Last Halloween, I was planning on going to a party I had gone to in the past. One of Daddy Fed's friends always throws a big costume party. Cassie and her husband, Isaiah, were going to come with me.

Jacque and I had found my costume a few days before. I was going as a bank robber! It was really only funny if other people knew I worked for a bank. And even then, it wasn't really very funny.

Cassie and Isaiah didn't have their costumes until about five minutes after we were supposed to leave for the party. On the phone, Cassie said she was dressed as an angel and Isaiah was still trying to fit a lampshade on his head. He had painted his face yellow and was dressed as a lamp.

Isaiah's choice of costume made me laugh. Once I saw him in person, I laughed even more. But it wasn't until I took a picture of them that I really started rolling on the floor.

Isaiah reached behind him and pulled a cord up. You can't be a true lamp without an electric cord and plug!

Isaiah is a creative guy and talented artist. You can click on the image below to view his ebay auctions. Just don't buy "Midnight Explorers" I'm saving my money for that one!

Happy birthday, Isaiah!

Predictable Errors and no Identity

We have no excuse, now!

Raw and Casey just got a brand new super duper crazy deluxe computer. They finally got their DSL hooked up and they're already fighting over the thing.

Casey called me tonight and was telling me about all the things he's looked up and all the funny emails he has already received. Casey didn't have to work today, so he'd been busy finding everything there was to find on the internet.

Fifteen minutes into relaying all he had been looking at all day, Casey says "Oh! I should look at your website!" This is last on your list?

Thanks for the support, pal!

Is she Ultra-Violent?

She sometimes thrusts her lower jaw out
when she's mad, but never has my mamacita
spit her teeth out at me.

I wasn't going to write anything here about my customers.

There are several obvious, valid reasons. Others are just weird little reasons from my weird giant head.

There are customers I absolutely adore and those I really really dislike. I never had any intention of writing about any of them.

My intentions changed yesterday.

Yesterday, I asked my customer a question and he spit his teeth out at me!!!!!

As I was looking at him, patiently awaiting his answer, he opened his mouth and his giant dentures flew out of his mouth and clattered on the desk in front of me.

"Thorry!" he muttered.

My head is full of horrified disgust and screaming EW GROSS! Holy crap!!! What the hell is that??? What just happened??? EW!!! Polident Polident Polident!!!

Professional that I am, my face betrayed no horror. I didn't even flinch. I simply averted my gaze by looking at my computer and patiently awaited his answer.

Don't T-R-Y Me I'm Outta Y'all Leauge

I'm totally goeing shoppeing there!

Some of you haven't noticed, but things are a little bit different over on the photos part of this site. I've moved things around.

I also changed the photo index page a bit. You still click on a thumbnail to get to a slideshow of pictures in that category.

The big change is that I'm posting all the pictures on a site called WebShots. The slideshows won't be as pretty, but they're a heckuva lot easier for me!

There's also a TagBoard on the photo index page. So now you can posts comments on each individual site entry and the photos page. You know, general things like "Man you are so lazy!!!"

Pictures from my phone will be uploaded directly to Flickr. These probably won't be linked to from the photo index page, but will probably pop up time to time on the main page.

Now that I have you thoroughly bored, head on over to view some new photos.

You Want Me to Teach Thee

I couldn't bear to reveal the whole bunchy area.

Tuesday was my one-year anniversary at work.

I can't believe it's been a whole year. It seems like so much less, yet so much has happened.

The staff is almost completely different from when I started. There are only five of us left from those who were year on April 5, 2004. Perhaps I'm scaring people away!

Christine made an arrangment of red things in celebration of my time there. I don't know if you all knew this or not, but red is my favorite color. What's that? You knew, you could tell and shut up about red already? Oh okay.

This mass of red included some silly string. Yeah I know. What was she thinking? Me with silly string??? Dangerous!

Christine was the one who discovered the sticker on the can of string: SHAKE WELL BEFORE EACH USE. She also decided it would be hilarious if stuck upon my bum.

Of course I made her take pictures of my new directions and we giggled like 8 year-olds.

When I looked at the pictures, I was horrified! My butt looked all bunchy and weird!

Pants that had just looked great on my cheeks--or so I thought!--just a year or less ago were now slouchy and icky! My hind didn't fill the pants out at all!

I'm not quite sure what to do about it, so I thought maybe walking would build some muscle back there. Anything to make my pants look decent!

I started my walking today. I took my camera, of course, so there's several photos for you to see.

There certainly is a lot of stuff going on between six and seven in the evenings. There were several people in the park, including a guy running around with his metal detector.

I walked past several dogs. At one house, there was this tiny little dog that saw me and then seemed to ignore me. He went to the door and barked as though he wanted be let back inside.

Suddenly *CRASH* a giant something came blasting out of the front door and slammed himself into the fence to bark at me. It was only when he had his bodyguard with him that the tiny dog would bark at me. Pansy!

What was maybe more interesting than the sights were the sounds. A lot of the houses in my area are built very close to the sidewalks. Without headphones, I could hear lots of the goings-on inside several homes.

It's not like I stood right outside with my ear pressed to the window. With the homes that close, it's very easy to hear the crash and clatter of the dinner dishes being dropped and shattered on the floor. Much more heartwarming was hearing a male growl and roar and in response, the delighted squeals and giggles from children from another home.

If someone would just buy me an iPod, I wouldn't have to feel like a Listening Tom!

I Didn't Know How Much I Loved You

Go you Clay Center Redcoats!"

Last weekend, I went home to see my family. I made my brother drive me around town so I could take pictures of stuff.

We drove by McKinley School, which I attended for my sixth through eighth grades. The gym went up in flames awhile back. Most of the structure went relatively undamaged, but the whole gymnasium burned clear to the ground.

It was sad news for me. That gym was the site of a lot of memories for me.

In that gym, I had my first dance with my boyfriend ("One More Try" by Timmy T). I showed my class the perfect football stance. I danced around like a goober while spinning discs as a DJ for the dances. I yelled cheers at the top of my lungs, knowing it would help our teams to win.

I spent a good deal of time there before sixth grade, since my mother taught art at McKinley. Marcus and I spent a lot of time playing "Win Lose or Draw" on the chalkboards. Of course, it wasn't all play. We would also help to set up the art shows in the gym.

Riding the bus on the day of one art show with my best-friend-since-pres-school, the tornado sirens sounded.

I remember how quiet and still everyone on the bus was. Our normally unruly group of kids was scared speechless.

The bus driver got us to McKinley and we were herded into the locker rooms. My mom found me. My friend and I were kept close by her side. That meant we were practically in the doorway to the locker room. I remember not feeling too terribly safe there, but luckily the tornado didn't tear through town!

U-Rah-Rah-Rah!

On many of my bus rides, a boy named Jimmy Koontz picked on me relentlessly. It was just one of those kid-things, I guess. I gave as much lip as I got, so it was usually pretty two-sided.

Jimmy had these nice pointy cowboy boots. He was wearing these boots one day when he chased me to the side doorway of the gym at McKinley.

I can't remember why exactly, but Jimmy decided to kick me squarely in the shin with his fancy schmancy boots.

I was just as stubborn then as I am now and told him "Ha! That didn't hurt!"

To which Jimmy replied with a swifter, harder kick to the same shin.

"That didn't hurt, either!" I cackled as I threw myself into the doorway then promptly sat on a bleacher and bawled my eyes out.

Ahh . . . memories!