Stories from the Stalls

Is there anything more humbling in life than being compelled to  hop on one foot while trying to prepare a public toilet seat for occupancy when you REALLY GOTTA GO???

Men of the world rarely understand the anxiety of the female species because for them, the average restroom trip can be accomplished with a zip-a-dee-doo-dah and away they go. Women, however, endure something more akin to a strip tease but without the sexy music and applause. And frankly, there is nothing RESTFUL about that restroom visit. Talk about false advertising!

Having endured a few quality moments of trying to do all you can to keep from actually touching a toilet that may have been contaminated beyond all reason, I can fully appreciate the text I got from my sister Xan about the need to prepare, prepare, prepare with a capital "P" before you get to go pee or poop.

Public restroom peeing is bad enough, but public restroom pooping is an adventure not for the faint of heart or the weak of legs and arms.

Xan sends me the following text while I'm in the doctor's office waiting to get jabbed for a thyroid panel: "I just have to say that it is SOOOOO frustrating when you have to poop in a public potty!!! You take all the time to arrange your little toilet paper nest/shield from germs and death plagues. Then, just as you are about to poop on YOURSELF and hastily snatch your pants down, the toilet paper gets caught in an air current [created] from you yanking your pants off so fast and it falls into the floor OR into the potty!!! GRRRRRR!!"

Of course, I can COMPLETELY understand the horrors she describes because at that point, you are compelled to then gymnastically arrange yourself hovering over the toilet low enough to keep your butt, your undies and your pants from the "splash zone" when the aerial bombardment begins, but high enough so that your delicate skin is microns above the offending toilet itself.

It should be classified as an Olympic event.

Seriously.

The muscle control, the complete concentration, the amount of practice over years of visiting wayside potties, port-a-johns and outhouses of the world developed within a type of strength that would put Hercules to shame. Because he is a dude and well... you get the drift.

While women don't like to discuss this kind of tragedy so openly, we've ALL been there.

Of course, the reality of trying to be "a lady" and still get the job done factors into the equation as a variable. It is a complete game changer depending upon whether you've eaten beans and cabbage, or a diet of starches. Or if you recently altered your tastes to include salads, salads and more salads.

These all factor into the delicate balance between close enough and "DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!" when it comes to applying self to surface.

Naturally, someone kind has been through this and decided that not only was the torture of positional physics enough to be getting on with, some woman now boldly advertises a spray that can help with the ... uh... um... lingering aroma of what shouldn't be discussed at any time anywhere.

"Poo-Pourri" is gaining traction (if you will pardon the pun) as a means of eliminating and/or masking offending odors that make you seem more longshoreman than lady when you exit your stall.

They advertise their product as an attractive blend of essential oils guaranteed to "virtually eliminate bathroom odors". My only question is "Why didn't someone think of this before NOW?"

Happy trails, ladies, and let's hope that your trail isn't a trail of toilet paper stuck to your shoe or tucked down into your slacks on the way out of the bathroom.

Taking a little walk

Bluebirds were out in numbers today while Jared and I took our morning constitutional. They were dipping and soaring around the flowering bushes and plants that are around the cemetery just down the road from our house. We like to walk there because there isn't any traffic other than the wildlife that comes through to eat in the quiet of the setting.

There were also some killdeers as well.

I can push Jared for at least a mile most days and some days we go up to two miles on a fairly regular basis. The longest route I've done was 2.24 miles with Jared. I paid for that bit of reckless bravado for days.

We try to stick to two or less. Some days the spirit is willing but the flesh is beyond weak. It's non-existent.

Once in a while, we speak with our neighbors and wave to passing cars who are filled with friendly folk. Sometimes there are people who are so intent on the road ahead of them that they do not glance in either direction with eyes fixated on just the road. I worry about that because I'm not sure they are actually awake.

I'm thankful to be able to get out with Jared. It's been just about a year and a half since my wreck and at the time I wasn't really sure I'd survive, much less be able to walk again. So every day we can go out and about, we do.

May not compare to marathoners distances and likely will never win any medals, but I'm betting most of them are in better shape physically than I am. It's all good.

I'm not really competing with them anyway as much as I'm competing with time. I don't want to go before I wring every drop of living out of the time I have been given.

Crouching Pine Cone Hidden Spider Web

It didn't start out to be a martial arts epic.

I was simply going outside to help clear up storm debris in our back yard that was bountifully spread across our lawn from the next door neighbor's pine trees. They have two great whacking specimens that dump their needles, branches, twigs and pine cones of every shape, size and color onto our yard after each and every west to east storm front.

Normally, I don't think about it much because that's just how neighborhoods are. The neighbor trees giveth and the other neighbor taketh it away.

Today, I went out with my handy little grabber that I got during my stint in the rehab unit. It allows me to pick up things on the grass without falling onto my face on the uneven ground. As it is, it is hard enough to walk out there amidst the pine cones, branches and divots in the yard - said divots that are the direct result of various hound related landscaping tips. You need to be on your toes walking out there lest you become part of the debris instead of the cleanup crew!

I found the grabber to be most helpful as it would grab hold of a pine cone or a small branch and allow me to fling the offending pine cones to the debris pile we have in the southwestern corner of the yard. It also allowed me to practice my golf pitching wedge "onto the green" work as I lofted a few back into our neighbor's yard. Just enough oomph to get it over the fence, but not enough to hit their sun porch.

As I backed around a small area looking for pine cones, I managed to accidentally discover the spider web artfully draped between the red oak and the neighbor's overgrown flowering ornamental that is now part of the chain link fence.

Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li have NOTHING on the sweet ninja moves I was throwing down in the yard. I am certain I was employing muscles I don't even have. I'll probably feel that tomorrow.

But back to the danger...

Had that spider and its lethal web been part of a deployment of a trained fighting squad, it most certainly would have come out looking second best as I whirled and kicked and punched my way through the sticky entrapment which lay in wait for me as I simply tried to clean my yard.

I'm sure the neighbors were about to choke to death on whatever they were drinking while they snorted and laughed as they watched me fight off the arachnid assassin with his eight limbs of death.

The good news is that I've had a complete cardio workout in addition to the walking I did earlier today.

I think I'll sleep well tonight after that exercise... or scream my way through nightmares of ginormous ninja spiders of doom...

Wait... what is that by the corner of my eye...

EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

That is a piece of the spider web!!

I'll have to get back to you later... this may not be over yet.

That spider may be lurking behind a pine cone after having delivered a sticky calling card to invite me back out for round two!

Is it cheating to take Raid to a ninja battle?

Is THAT lemonaid?

A penny pinching and frugal sort of people we are in our household. By design we are careful with money and do all that we can to prevent waste of any kind. It is in our nature both personally and as a couple to be less extravagant and more careful. Having had families that shared these traits and taught them to us from the time we were babes on the knee made it an ingrained fundamental.

But sometimes, fundamental on savings just becomes mental... and I'm talking rubber room, white jacket with extra long sleeves mental.

Witness our latest moment of frugality gone awry.

With the disposition of worldly goods from my father's life estate, there have been many things among the carefully saved items that have blessed our life and most certainly the lives of my siblings and their families.

We have stored up dry packed foodstuffs against the lean times and in recent memory due to Rick's job circumstance we were thankful to have them upon which we could lean. I know food storage isn't big sexy Hollyweird glamor to most people. But in this house there isn't much sexier than being able to eat more than once a week.

As part of the stocks of foods carefully shepherded to our storage fold was some dry beverage mix in various flavors with the indicated and expected contents color and taste displayed on the label.

The other day, Rick brought in a container boldly proclaiming its status as "lemonade". We opened the container to find that the sugary mix had become the hardened consistency of a mortar round. It was roughly the same color as well. I was not amused.

Rick said we should get it chipped up and see if it was salvageable. Not being enthusiastic about this venture, I mentioned that as it didn't look right and as I was extremely certain that dish washing liquid contains more lemon based upon the sniff test that this might not be safe to drink.

After about two days of "working at it" to produce anything resembling a powdered drink mix, I was ready to call it a day and, in the words of the current popular Disney movie Frozen, "Let It Go!". Rick was not there yet and tenaciously hoped to save a few pennies for our family.

Sometimes the mental part of the fundamental equation is truly a hilarious addition to our marriage relationship. I admire that pioneer spirit. Really I do. I am appreciative of it every single day because it is how we survive in a very expensive world. What I am not too sure of appreciating is BROWN lemonade.

That's right happy campers - the lemonade was BROWN. B - R - O - W - N. Brown.

Now, I do not know about you or what kind of lifestyle you may lead in your zip code, it really isn't mine to judge, but in THIS little Alabama gals experience lemonade is most assuredly NOT brown. Not even a brownish tint. Lemonade is YELLOW. Cheerful, ebullient, inviting YELLOW.

Alas, that was not the color in the pitcher.

Most happily, Rick said "you come taste this!".

Looking upon the pitcher's contents, my stomach rolled as if on the high seas in a gale and I said "Uh, NO!"

I REFUSE TO BE THE SACRIFICIAL GUINEA PIG!!

I REFUSE!!

He plunged in for a quick taste test. Pronouncing that there was "not quite enough of the mix in it yet", he added more and stirred anew. He took a second furtive sip and then brought me enough for my sampling pleasure.

Fair enough, I've drunk band camp swamp water and scout camp swamp water and McDonald's end of shift swamp water for a sufficient number of years to be relatively immune to odd colored beverages.

I took the tiniest sip that all creation would allow.

Let me tell you brothers and sisters, I was thankful - THANKFUL I TELL YOU - that I keep a garbage can by my desk.

Why, you ask?

Because I spit that foul, wretched faintly lemon scented brown swamp water right into the trash!

I demanded that he throw it all out.

Rick wanted to simply add more of the mix because it "tasted kind of flat". Campers, there was not enough of the mix in all of Christendom to have made that palatable!! GROSS! NASTY!! YUCK!!!

Upon further reflection, and as he viewed the dismal coloration of the offending beverage, he reluctantly agreed.

Children, the moral to the story is this: when you have to apply so generous amount of the powdered mix to have created TWO complete batches instead of just one and are STILL contemplating the addition of even MORE of the brownish chunkage, and when the heretofore mentioned amount STILL does not create anything worth drinking, it is time to call it a day and turn out the lights on this attempt at saving money.

I am not even convinced that the application of the entire container would have produced anything resembling a drinkable beverage but instead just a brown slurry of sticky goo unfit for human consumption.

Rick dumped the chunky mess of what was alleged to be drink powder into the field next to us. To have put it into our garbage would have been an invitation to every critter in nine counties to come taste it and perhaps die on our property. I can't handle that kind of mess.

So, as a recap, lemonade should be YELLOW, not brown.

You aren't saving money if you have to use an inordinately larger amount of ANYTHING to produce the results the package says you can get with a lesser amount.

And sometimes you have to learn to let it go.

But, because I know that there are born skeptics out there, I promise that I will save the very next can of alleged beverage mix for you.

You may conduct your own experiment on its value and taste.

Just do one thing for me first.

Make your life insurance policy out to me, because when you croak from drinking it, I'd like to be able to bury you more decently than I have buried frogs, lizards and a hermit crab. My back yard is running out of funeral space and our garbage men will only take so many dead bodies to the landfill before even they will become suspicious.