And the Sun Shines on the Bay

Nighat
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

This morning, we got slammed with customers.

Sure, Mondays are always busy, but this just seemed a little out of control.

Turns out, our Derby branch had lost electricity. A lot of their customers decided to come to our branch.

At about four o'clock, our bank suddenly went dark. We started locking everything up and a customer walked in and asked "How long do you think it will be?"

We all just looked at her in a bit of disbelief.

"Does this mean your computers are down, too?"

Blink.

I seriously wondered if she was going to ask us to turn on the lights.

Then, Nighat came around the corner. "What? Did the bank forget to pay the electric bill?"

Living in the Past

Jordan Catalano
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

Today, I'm going to see Jordan Catalano in the flesh!

Calling All Angels

Bath Time
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

So it's time for Sophia to be baptized. This means Raw and Casey have been planning to go to church.

Casey, like most dads I know, wasn't looking forward to it. "I'm not going to church!"

On the Sunday they had first planned to attend a service in Lawrence, I called them. "How was church?"

"It was okay," Casey answered.

"You mean you actually went? Did you burst into flames upon entering?"

"No. I was wearing my flame-retardant suit."

I Like Toast and Jam

The Future Homestead
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

"What was that in the road?"

"A big foam pad."

"It looked like a giant piece of bread. Where did it come from?"

"Your butt!"

"Yeah! I love Butt Bread! It tastes great with a little BUTTer and Toe Jam!"

HAHA!

It's Just a Stone's Throw

Evan
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

Let me tell you a tale of a stubborn little turd named Evan.

Evan would get up on his hands and knees. You would see him start to move a knee. Then he would notice you seeing and he would cry. He would cry like being on his knees was killing him.

On Monday, I called Jacque and she says to me "Well, Evan's officially a crawler, now."

Jacque and Chris had left Evan at her parents' home on Sunday. When they returned, her parents were gushing about how he had been crawling all over the floor.

But would he do it for Chris and Jacque? Of course not!

On Monday, Jacque went to the store. Chris went out to the front porch and peeked in on Evan in the living room through the window. Can you guess what Evan was doing?

The kid was crawling all over the place but as soon as Chris came back inside, Evan held up his arms and cried.

Apparently, Evan finally got tired of waiting for people to transport himself from one place to another. Now he crawls all over. And in a very unique way. I can't decide if it's lazy or ingenious!

And Know When to Run

Poker!
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

Awhile back, I saw on our company's internal website, that there was a casino trip planned to Harrah's Prairie Band Casino.

For ten dollars, a bus would shop everyone up to the casino. Once there, the casino would give you free lunch and ten bucks to play. So they're basically playing people to gamble!

I had never been to a casino and thought this would be a nice cheap first time at it.

So I got entirely too excited and started telling everyone until I finally saw the date. It was on a Saturday. Most of us have to work on Saturdays.

So, I packed up my excitement, returned my "Gambling for Dummies" books and sulked. I also sent a suggestion email to the woman in charge of the trip.

A couple of months ago, I noticed another casino trip posted. I crossed my fingers and took a look at the date . . . A Sunday!!!

So around the bank, I ran; with a crazed look in my eyes, waving consent forms.

Several of the girls signed up and I marked the date on the calendar. Then it was back to the "How Tos."

There was only a short week left before the big day when I started trying to make plans. I got a lot of "Oh that's this weekend?"

I should have known then that I was in trouble.

Two people had already backed out, due to difficult issues, when I started getting phone calls on Saturday. Other people weren't returning phone calls.

So at 5:30 am, when my alarm went off, I was pretty sure I was going to be sitting solo on the bus.

I'm a little socially shy, so riding a bus with a bunch of people I didn't know didn't sound exciting. And who wants to hang out at a casino alone?

When Nighat called at 6:00, I nearly jumped through the phone to kiss her. I would have some gambling buddies afterall!

The casino overwhelmed me. So many lights and noises. No windows. It was really too much when I first walked in.

It doesn't take too long to start tuning stuff out. You have to. It's pretty creepy in there. With all the people with bags under their eyes like they've been playing that same slot machine for three days straight. And with the lady carting around her oxygen tank and taking a breathing treatment in front of her machine.

It probably helped that my first stop was the bar.

"You're drinking this early?" Nighat asked.

"I've been up since 5:30. It's basically like drinking at noon!"

At 10:39 am, we all had our Total Rewards Cards. At 11:15 am, we were almost out of money.

Yeah.

So we decided we'd spend some time at the buffet. Since the bus wasn't leaving until four o'clock, we needed to kill some time.

Our afternoon went a little bit better. I made twenty-six dollars on a penny slot. And Nighat and Masum managed to stretch three dollars into three hours worth of gambling.

Of course, I lost the twenty-six dollars. And more. But I did win 2500 reward credits. So I can get like twenty dollars in gas. At their gas station.

I guess that means I walked out a winner, right?

You Are So Lucky on Your First Day

Mitch
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

Today is a big day for my boy, Mitch.

Today, he starts his job at Gamestop.

I guess I really shouldn't call him "my boy" anymore. All he needs is a few bills and he'll practically be a man.

I've got a few you can pay, Mitch!

Good luck!

Word to Your Moms, I Came to Drop Bombs

This is What Happens When You Jump Up and Down
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

It is hot. So incredibly, ridiculously, out-of-control hot.

I can't take it!

"Well, whaddya gonna do?" you may ask.

I'll tell you what I'm gonna do! I'm gonna jump!

Today is World Jump Day.

The theory behind it is that if so many people jump at the exact same time, we can knock the earth off it's orbit. With any luck, that will stop global warming.

And hopefully that means it will be cooler around here.

I don't think it can get warmer, anyway.

I'll see you for a good jump at 11:39:13 GMT!

It Runs Through Me Like Rain Through Silk

Ditto
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

Okay, Okay. I'm guilty as charged.

It has been brought to my attention (several times) that people really related to my last post.

But in a sad twist, it turns out the person they find disappears often is me.

I know. I'm horrible at returning phone calls. And emails. And text messages. And . . .

Man, I'm a jerkface.

But It Hasn't Happened Yet

Ducks
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

Did you ever have a person whom you spoke with all the time?

Did that person ever just kind of disappear on you?

Did you think that maybe something bad happened to them and worry?

Or did you worry that you finally bored them away?

I Can't Take It, I Can't Shake It

Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

Sunday night, I was watching Family Guy. The episode, Petergeist, was one I had never seen.

Except for the time when the Kool-Aid Man busted through the wall, I don't think I've ever laughed harder at an episode of Family Guy.

See, this particular episode is all a big spoof on the movie Poltergeist. Which is funny, but to really understand why I found it so funny, you would have to know my history with the movie.

Back when I was a wee one, if you fixed our old cable box so that the dial was set right in between two channels, we got free HBO. I watched Willy Wonka and Poltergeist about a thousand times each in those days.

Throughout my whole life, I've been curious about the paranormal. So you can imagine a movie about a house built on Native American burial grounds which results in a child getting sucked into her closet and lost within the house would interest me.

But the interest didn't stop with watching the movie.

The girl next door, Jolie, was five years older than me. We "played pretend" quite often, but once we saw Poltergeist, we started to "play Poltergeist."

Jolie's front porch was our set. Now and then, there would be other kids around to fill in the cast of characters, but Jolie would always play the older sister, Dana.

This gave her the dramatic scene of running up to our "house" while pulling at her hair and screaming "WHAT'S HAPPENING???"

As the youngest (and of course cutest) of the cast, I played Carol Anne.

My acting was really quite sublime. I really dove into my character.

Unfortunately, I had no way to disappear into the house, so I crouched behind the porch swing and delivered such lines as "mmMommy? mmmMommy where are you? iiiI can't see you Mommyy!"

This is where things get a little fuzzy for me. I remember having nightmares. I remember waking up and seeing figures standing in my doorway.

It turns out I was having a lot of nightmares. I was waking up, screaming, most nights.

I wasn't allowed to watch Poltergeist anymore. The Poltergeist play stopped. And still my parents seriously considered getting me some counseling. Which I'm sure is something they still think about doing.

At some point, I got better. Though I've never really stopped having crazy nightmares. I think the frequency just decreased.

Last Thanksgiving, I saw Jolie at one of the hometown bars. We were talking about the past and I asked her "Do you remember when we used to play Poltergeist? Man, did that screw me up!"

"Poltergeist? What are you talking about?"

I tried explaining everything to her, to remind her. I couldn't believe she could forget something like that. But she did.

She almost ruined my whole childhood, and what does she do when she finds out? She laughs.

Evil she-devil!

Some Friends? What Friends?

Ol' Gimpy
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

On Monday, a customer told Laura that I am hateful.

I kept thinking about it all night. I decided it's not that I'm so much hateful, but guarded. Guarded may be the right word.

And of course I'm going to be guarded around this guy. He is a total perv.

His problem with me stems from the fact that I charge him for services I'm supposed to charge him for--these are banking services you dirty minded fools!

Ali and this customer get along well, since they speak the same language--literally. In their language, Ali said to the customer "So I heard you said something about one of the girls."

"Oh you heard about that? You tell her it's true!"

And now, eighty hours later, I'm still bothered by that word.

Or maybe what's eating at me more is the fact that neither Ali nor Laura backed me up. No "You're wrong about that." Not even a "I think she's a good chick."

It seems I may need to think about how I view myself.

We Play Out Our Last Scene

Taco Taco Burrito
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

I've been doing a lot of sitting lately.

Babysitting, catsitting, housesitting, just general sittingonmyasssitting . . .

So you can see why I haven't posted for awhile.

During all this sitting, I watched approximately three thousand movies.

I watched several films I had already seen (Sixteen Candles), some I'd been meaning to see (Danny Deckchair), a few I never thought I would see (White Chicks) and a couple I had never heard of (Pyrokinesis).

Now, I'm back to staying at the penthouse full-time and I think I'm going through movie withdrawal.

Maybe that means I'll start getting some use out of my Netflix membership!

The Doctor Said I Had Blood Clots but I Ain't Jamaican Man

Flower
Originally uploaded by YourAuntBee.

So I'm reading through the BBC News and seeing all the normal bad news.

Israel PM warns of 'escalation'

Indonesian bird flu toll hits 40

'Thirty dead' in India monsoon

And then I see this:
UK stroke victim wakes up with a Jamaican accent

Guess which story I decided to read.