In the interest of fairness, I have made my share of trips to our local Wal-Mart less than fashionably attired and I'm reasonably sure at least one of those trips involved socks that did not match.
Our world is filled with diversity. No singular location demonstrates this more thoroughly than a trip to your local 24-hour Wal-Mart. Particularly if you are using the bottom end of that 24-hour period to make your visit.
Regular people and a few wingnuts go out during the day.
The wingnut parade and the oddballs go out at night.
These folks are more concerned with getting what they want with 24-hour convenience than with a dress code.
Because a dress code isn't a big deal, then by default their clothing IS a big deal. Or in some cases... their LACK of clothing.
I have myself witnessed a man in our local Wal-Mart wearing a woman's shirt (it was a frilly pink number) that bared his hairy middrift. MMMMM. Just what I want to look at while I'm considering which bag of salad will be going home with me that day. NOT!
I'm not sure if his late night clothing choice was simply an "oops" or something more serious. And frankly, I wasn't about to ask since he outweighed me by a good 75 pounds or more and my ankle still isn't up to sprinter speed.
Then there was the lady who was wearing an extremely revealing catsuit type of outfit for her trip to the pharmacy. Eartha Kitt she was not. There should be some sort of legal limit on weight and body shape when it comes to outfits like that. They are not meant for the eyes of the young! I took anatomy and physiology in school and trust me when I tell you NONE of the cadavers looked like this.
I promise, I'm not judging... I have my own body/fashion/dressing issues to deal with that take up volumes of time and space to discuss. But when these folks I've mentioned as well as the ones on the website go to the local Wal-Mart, did they manage to even drift casually past a full-length mirror... at any time?
Periodically, I find myself perusing the photos pictured there to make sure I'm not featured prominantly or exposing myself in some dire fashion.
Enjoy... or reel in horror.
May 7, 2010
May 6, 2010
Singing in the bathtub
Is there anything more rewarding than finishing a grimy, sweaty job that has to be done and hopping into the fresh, fragrant arms of a nice steamy shower or sliding into a sudsy tub of hot water?
It's like all of your work was worth it for those moments bobbing along in the tub or feeling the pulsating of the massaging shower head spray its magical watery fingers along an aching back.
Of course, while contemplating soaps, loofahs and various colors of washcloths from the stack brings up all kinds of thoughts that are normally pushed either to the back burner or completely off the stove entirely.
Can my voice echo enough reverb in the tile shower stall to equal the magnificence of Reba singing "Fancy" or will the tub offer a more mellow tune as I warble out a Gladys Knight number sans the Pips?
Sometimes, I have the window by the shower open to allow steam to escape to the yard and I have wondered what the neighbors think, if anything, about the song-filled ritual of cleanliness that goes on.
I've heard it said that cleanliness is next to Godliness and wonder if the addition of music adds or detracts from the potential Godliness? Does God like the Pips? Or would He prefer Aida?
Although my musical tastes are fairly eclectic and I do have a broad base from which to choose, I'd hate to know that when my time comes, that should I happen to be in the shower when the fateful tick of the clock arrives, my opportunity at a heavenly berth was unsecured because I was belting out my own rendition of a show tune that didn't pass muster with the Heavenly Chorus.
While it is true that I participate in church choirs and in my youth was in choirs from primary school through college, and even now enjoy the rich and beautiful music of a well rehearsed choir, I must confess to spending plenty of quality alone time singing into hairbrushes and combs while blowdrying my hair. I'll admit from time to time, I have also employed a hot curling iron as a microphone between roll-ups. I've been known to sing in the car as I drive along gathering the stares of the other people on the road who must certainly wonder why the license examiner would allow a mentally defective person to have a license to drive.
But far and away, it seems that the muse of music strikes the most often while I'm lathering up in a soapy, humid environment. I'm not exactly sure what creates the urge to bring on my inner "Lion King" while I'm shaving a leg or two. And frankly, if the neighbors ARE disturbed by the cacaphony of sound belting out of the bathroom window, they have, up to this point, been remarkably restrained in their response. No bags of flaming dog poop have appeared on my front porch... yet.
Perhaps it all harks back to a Tweety Bird cartoon I watched as a wee small gnat of a child. There he was in all his feathered and yellow glory immersed in a pint sized claw-foot tub with an oversized back scrubbing brush singing to the top of his lungs. The evil eye of Sylvester was spying on him necessitating a quick hop from the tub and a wrap in a tiny towel to clothes the window blinds for privacy from the prying eyes of a hungry cat. Although the rest of the cartoon has long since faded from memory, I can still hear that lispy, high-pitched Tweety Bird voice carrying his tune in the tub.
I have found the lyrics and post them here as a dip in the pond of warm memories.
If you find yourself singing along, don't blame me. I just provide the lyrics, I don't ask you to entertain your neighborhood from your own open bathroom window.
Singing In The Bathtub
Magidson/Washington/Cleary
1. Singing in the bathtub
Sitting all alone
Tearing out a tonsil
Just like a baritone
2. Singing through the soap suds
Life is full of hope
I can sing with feeling
While feeling the soap
3. Oh the ring around the bathtub
Isn't so nice to see
But the ring around the bathtub
Is a rainbow to me
4. I can yodel opera
Even while I scrub
Everybody's happy
While singing in the tub
5. Never take a shower
It's an awful pain
Singing in the shower's
Like singing in the rain
6. Oh there is dirt to be abolished
But don't forget one thing
While the body's washed and polished
Sing, brother, sing
7. Reaching for a towel
Happy once again
Watching all my troubles
Go swirling down the drain
It's like all of your work was worth it for those moments bobbing along in the tub or feeling the pulsating of the massaging shower head spray its magical watery fingers along an aching back.
Of course, while contemplating soaps, loofahs and various colors of washcloths from the stack brings up all kinds of thoughts that are normally pushed either to the back burner or completely off the stove entirely.
Can my voice echo enough reverb in the tile shower stall to equal the magnificence of Reba singing "Fancy" or will the tub offer a more mellow tune as I warble out a Gladys Knight number sans the Pips?
Sometimes, I have the window by the shower open to allow steam to escape to the yard and I have wondered what the neighbors think, if anything, about the song-filled ritual of cleanliness that goes on.
I've heard it said that cleanliness is next to Godliness and wonder if the addition of music adds or detracts from the potential Godliness? Does God like the Pips? Or would He prefer Aida?
Although my musical tastes are fairly eclectic and I do have a broad base from which to choose, I'd hate to know that when my time comes, that should I happen to be in the shower when the fateful tick of the clock arrives, my opportunity at a heavenly berth was unsecured because I was belting out my own rendition of a show tune that didn't pass muster with the Heavenly Chorus.
While it is true that I participate in church choirs and in my youth was in choirs from primary school through college, and even now enjoy the rich and beautiful music of a well rehearsed choir, I must confess to spending plenty of quality alone time singing into hairbrushes and combs while blowdrying my hair. I'll admit from time to time, I have also employed a hot curling iron as a microphone between roll-ups. I've been known to sing in the car as I drive along gathering the stares of the other people on the road who must certainly wonder why the license examiner would allow a mentally defective person to have a license to drive.
But far and away, it seems that the muse of music strikes the most often while I'm lathering up in a soapy, humid environment. I'm not exactly sure what creates the urge to bring on my inner "Lion King" while I'm shaving a leg or two. And frankly, if the neighbors ARE disturbed by the cacaphony of sound belting out of the bathroom window, they have, up to this point, been remarkably restrained in their response. No bags of flaming dog poop have appeared on my front porch... yet.
Perhaps it all harks back to a Tweety Bird cartoon I watched as a wee small gnat of a child. There he was in all his feathered and yellow glory immersed in a pint sized claw-foot tub with an oversized back scrubbing brush singing to the top of his lungs. The evil eye of Sylvester was spying on him necessitating a quick hop from the tub and a wrap in a tiny towel to clothes the window blinds for privacy from the prying eyes of a hungry cat. Although the rest of the cartoon has long since faded from memory, I can still hear that lispy, high-pitched Tweety Bird voice carrying his tune in the tub.
I have found the lyrics and post them here as a dip in the pond of warm memories.
If you find yourself singing along, don't blame me. I just provide the lyrics, I don't ask you to entertain your neighborhood from your own open bathroom window.
Singing In The Bathtub
Magidson/Washington/Cleary
1. Singing in the bathtub
Sitting all alone
Tearing out a tonsil
Just like a baritone
2. Singing through the soap suds
Life is full of hope
I can sing with feeling
While feeling the soap
3. Oh the ring around the bathtub
Isn't so nice to see
But the ring around the bathtub
Is a rainbow to me
4. I can yodel opera
Even while I scrub
Everybody's happy
While singing in the tub
5. Never take a shower
It's an awful pain
Singing in the shower's
Like singing in the rain
6. Oh there is dirt to be abolished
But don't forget one thing
While the body's washed and polished
Sing, brother, sing
7. Reaching for a towel
Happy once again
Watching all my troubles
Go swirling down the drain
May 4, 2010
All Creatures - great and small
Spring has finally decided to make a legitimate appearance and with it comes a plethora of fauna that was holding back due to the cold and rainy weather.
Bees of every conceivable variety are attempting to set up housekeeping on our property, and based on past encounters with these lovely creations of God, I am not amused.
Like my sister is fond of saying, "Who's idea was it to load up the ark and invite flies, lice and pests aboard?" I can alter that sentiment with one of my own: "Just who's idea was it to load up yellow jackets, hornets, wasps and borer bees onto my personal 'ark'"?
While standing in the laundry room (why this particular room is the magnet for stinging insects is beyond me...), I heard an uncomfortably familiar sound buzzing nearby. Trying hard to keep my control, I called out to Thomas who had come in from his college class just a bit earlier.
"Bring in the swatter thingy and come get rid of this wasp!!!!"
Leisurely hardly describes the lack of haste. Glacial would be more like it.
He came into the room and after a couple of experimental waves chased it into the LIVING ROOM. Not cool!
Expressing my fear that the nasty little critter would simply avail himself of the privilege of using the phone to invite other unwanted guests into this larger space, I asked Thomas to stop yanking around and just smack the snot out of the critter.
By this point, my adrenalin level was high enough to have made an epi-pen unwarranted.
"But Mom, I'm not even sure this IS a wasp..."
My shrewd rejoinder: "I DON'T CARE WHAT THE HECK IT IS, BOY, KILL IT!!!!!"
This is a mercy killing for sure and for certain, because if it doesn't get killed, mercy will be begged by the recalcitrant bearer of the swatter-thingy who refused and was derelict in his duty to save me without laughing at my distress.
I'm sure he didn't mean to laugh... but he did.
All of this spring has sprung stuff is wonderful and it's already wearing thin. If the idea of enjoying nature means that I have to also endure the presence of stinging insects that view me as a moveable feast, I'm thinking that being a hermit is looking better and better with every passing moment.
I guess the frustration of this entire Shakespearian tragedy is not so much the possibility of my demise. I'm reasonably sure they CAN get along without me. Rather, the frustration comes in the absolute certainty that what I believe deep within every molecule of my being to be important RIGHT NOW just doesn't register as even a fractional blip on the radar of the average man in my household.
Their understanding of NOW comes nowhere near my timetable of action for same.
Now to the average male in my household means:
1. When I have reached the next level on the game I'm playing
2. When I have indexed and added this most recent dead person who needs temple work
3. When the show goes to commercial unless the commercials are really good or maybe even better than the show I was not watching until you called me
4. When I know by the tone in your voice that not only will you do it instead of waiting any longer, but you will remind me of it for all eternity even if we don't end up in the same kingdom
Just to be fair, I'm quite sure I'm in the non-responsive category on a lot of their own personal checklists of 'ways I have failed to improve their lives'. But dang it, when my life is threatened by some buzzing stinging thing, I don't care if the show or the game is in the last crucial seconds of play, my life ought to count just a bit more than that cute commercial for bathroom tissue with the talking bears.
I love nature.
I just wish nature loved me back and respected my need for some of them to love me at a distance without the 'you'd taste good with gravy' look in their beady little eyes.
Bees of every conceivable variety are attempting to set up housekeeping on our property, and based on past encounters with these lovely creations of God, I am not amused.
Like my sister is fond of saying, "Who's idea was it to load up the ark and invite flies, lice and pests aboard?" I can alter that sentiment with one of my own: "Just who's idea was it to load up yellow jackets, hornets, wasps and borer bees onto my personal 'ark'"?
While standing in the laundry room (why this particular room is the magnet for stinging insects is beyond me...), I heard an uncomfortably familiar sound buzzing nearby. Trying hard to keep my control, I called out to Thomas who had come in from his college class just a bit earlier.
"Bring in the swatter thingy and come get rid of this wasp!!!!"
Leisurely hardly describes the lack of haste. Glacial would be more like it.
He came into the room and after a couple of experimental waves chased it into the LIVING ROOM. Not cool!
Expressing my fear that the nasty little critter would simply avail himself of the privilege of using the phone to invite other unwanted guests into this larger space, I asked Thomas to stop yanking around and just smack the snot out of the critter.
By this point, my adrenalin level was high enough to have made an epi-pen unwarranted.
"But Mom, I'm not even sure this IS a wasp..."
My shrewd rejoinder: "I DON'T CARE WHAT THE HECK IT IS, BOY, KILL IT!!!!!"
This is a mercy killing for sure and for certain, because if it doesn't get killed, mercy will be begged by the recalcitrant bearer of the swatter-thingy who refused and was derelict in his duty to save me without laughing at my distress.
I'm sure he didn't mean to laugh... but he did.
All of this spring has sprung stuff is wonderful and it's already wearing thin. If the idea of enjoying nature means that I have to also endure the presence of stinging insects that view me as a moveable feast, I'm thinking that being a hermit is looking better and better with every passing moment.
I guess the frustration of this entire Shakespearian tragedy is not so much the possibility of my demise. I'm reasonably sure they CAN get along without me. Rather, the frustration comes in the absolute certainty that what I believe deep within every molecule of my being to be important RIGHT NOW just doesn't register as even a fractional blip on the radar of the average man in my household.
Their understanding of NOW comes nowhere near my timetable of action for same.
Now to the average male in my household means:
1. When I have reached the next level on the game I'm playing
2. When I have indexed and added this most recent dead person who needs temple work
3. When the show goes to commercial unless the commercials are really good or maybe even better than the show I was not watching until you called me
4. When I know by the tone in your voice that not only will you do it instead of waiting any longer, but you will remind me of it for all eternity even if we don't end up in the same kingdom
Just to be fair, I'm quite sure I'm in the non-responsive category on a lot of their own personal checklists of 'ways I have failed to improve their lives'. But dang it, when my life is threatened by some buzzing stinging thing, I don't care if the show or the game is in the last crucial seconds of play, my life ought to count just a bit more than that cute commercial for bathroom tissue with the talking bears.
I love nature.
I just wish nature loved me back and respected my need for some of them to love me at a distance without the 'you'd taste good with gravy' look in their beady little eyes.
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