First Annual Frog Pond Holler Easter Parade

I hurried with the mowing yesterday so that I'd have time to run and take a shower before heading to town for the big Easter Parade SPECTACULAR down in front of the post office.

The first clip is the slow gathering crowd, before the streets street was closed. It's pretty boring, but if you turn up the sound, you can hear the sad, mournful, Southern funeral music they were blaring from a boom box in front of the welcome center.



After they closed the road, the organizers tossed some balls out into the road and encouraged the little children to play in the street. In this clip, you'll notice a large, frightening looking woman towering over the children. She's the ignoramous that used to work at the dollar store that I got in a.. um.. "disagreement".. with when she began loudly sharing anti-Muslim jokes she'd received on her cellphone in between ringing up customers.

Also, notice all the onlookers peering down the road in anticipation of the big event. They CAN'T WAIT!!!



FINALLY! It took me a minute to get my camera situated. I thought I was recording, but wasn't at first, so you have to kinda squint to see the bagpipe player dude. (I even flash a little thigh, if you look really quick.)

They made the oldest living virgin in Hee-Haw county the Grand Marshall. She's in her 90's.. I think. She served as the town librarian for most of her life, never married, is super dooper religious and I'm sorry... I was a little creeped out by her being paraded through town in a white carriage pulled by a white horse. I half suspected them to toss her in the river as a human sacrifice when it was over.



Yeah.. that was the WHOLE PARADE. I'm pretty sure our Easter Bunny made Jesus cry. And pour himself a Jack and Coke.

And who's that HICK commenting on the sadness of the bunny?
*cough*
Nevermind :)

Bunnies, chocolate and crucifixions are all fun and stuff, but tomorrow after the ham is digested and the smell of that forgotten egg begins to linger behind the rose bush, make an effort to just be kind.

Do it for me, kay?

Have a Happy Easter ya'll!

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....Waiting for me when I got back from lunch. (may have been slightly edited..cough..)
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Edith Bunker, Earth Mother and My Hussy Dog

I think Lulu is suffering from anxiety. Isn't it funny how once you're diagnosed with something, you become a self proclaimed expert on the subject?

Or is that just me?

Anywho...

Lord love her, but she's about to talk me to death. If I end up fired, it'll probably be because she stood in my office for 20 minutes explaining how I'm related to some random person who died "suddenly" at the age of 102 over the weekend.

She can take a simple one word answer and stretch it out into a 30 minute explanation. She reminds me alot of Edith:



But.. bless her heart. I listen. That's what friends do, right? Lord knows she's listened to me ramble and moan and carry on for the past 15 years.

~*~

Pupzilla's visit to the vet didn't result in any casualties, but we did discover that she'll let the (male) vet do whatever he needs to, but not the (female) technicians.

My dog, she is a hussy.

Also? I would have bet money she weighed in at at least 90lbs. Instead, Miss Ayla, ginormous hairball of wonder, is a puny 78lbs.

~*~

Me and Tyrone kicked ass Saturday. I found my long lost wheelbarrow buried beneath a mound of English Ivy. All the wooden bits are gone and I didn't find the wheel, but the rest of it is intact. Two handles and a wheel cost more than a whole new wheelbarrow, so maybe it has a future as a goldfish pond or something. I remember when Aunt Moses tossed it to the side when it got in the way of Uncle Clarence and his drunk mowing on the riding lawnmower. (No kidding, he keeps a pint of blackberry home brew tucked in his sock while he races around the yard. Reason number 586 why I need to cut my own grass.) She slowly let the English Ivy creep down the bank and in to the yard, mowing less and less yard as she went.

I've had a mess ya'll.

It still kinda irks me that Ma was paying her to cut the grass but Aunt Moses goes all over town acting like she did us a favor. And that Ma GAVE her my last lawn mower. I used it ONCE. But I try not to think about all that. I try hard. Sometimes it doesn't work.

As if pushing Tyrone and his sexy red self around the yard for an hour, taking down wild rose bushes, ivy vines and ... oh yeah... grass.. wasn't enough, I decided to move the wood pile off the porch.

Surely to goodness we won't have to build a fire between now and next fall.

After that was done, I went ahead and cleaned off the porch. You can now enter and exit the trailer without turning sideways and stepping over 20 feet of water pipe that The Amazon bought to make her own hula hoops.

The craftiness... it runs in the family.

Now I've got room to put up a clothesline on the porch, in true hillbilly style. By the way, the homemade powdered laundry detergent and dishwasher soap are AWESOME.

Clothesline on the porch, making my own soap, selling arts and crafts on the innerwebs... OMG I'M GOING ALL HIPPIE EARTH MOTHER AND CRAP!!!!

I know... you're thinking this:

But it's really more like this:

Some days, I could use a fancy shmancy walking stick with some fabulous white feathers.

Anywho, Bossholio still hasn't recovered fully from his farce attack. When people ask how he is, he says, "Well the doctor SAYS I'm fine, so I MUST be FINE. There must not be ANYTHING WRONG with me."

No, "thanks for asking" or "turns out I'm ok, thanks for your concern." Just his standard "I AM ANGRY BECAUSE I'M ALIVE" bullcrap.

Must suck to be him.

Ya'll have a good week. We'll talk again soon. I gotta get back to work.

Later Taters!!

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Bones, Shots and Riding the Drama Llama

It's a pleasant 50° in the holler this morning. The sun is shining, but dark clouds have been spotted easing over the top of the mountains over towards Scary Hillbilly Town, right where I'm headed this afternoon. I get to haul Pupzilla to the vet for her shots.

Oh joy.

I am kinda looking forward to it, I'm anxious to find out how much she weighs. I know when I wake up at 2 a.m. with the need to pee, it feels like a 200lb gorilla laying across my legs...

Oh she has her own bed. She has a nice, new crib mattress that I drag out every night and put away every morning. She lays on it approximately 5 minutes before she leaps into my space, flailing about like a big hairy toddler, dragging beef knuckles and the occasional shoe into bed with her.

It's a little scary what I find buried in my bed sometimes.

Anywho...

So I'm leaving work at noon. Bossholio was off a couple of days last week, then came in for about an hour on Monday before having an "episode." I'm still not sure what happened other than, everything was fine, I went to the bathroom, came back and he was gone. They said he thought he was having a heart attack and took off to drive himself tot he E.R... all the way over in Greenville Tennessee.

He was out for two days, then came back and said nothing was wrong with him and acted pissed off that he didn't have a heart attack and die.

He's such a high strung little drama queen.

My plans for the weekend involve some mowing, some tilling (I finally bought a baby tiller. That's a small cultivator, not something you plant babies with,) cleaning off the porch and getting my Sister Wives fix on Sunday night.

I know how to live it up ya'll.

Ya'll have a kick ass weekend. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

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It's like The Stepford Wives, Without the Wife Part

It's after midnight on Sunday here in the holler, meaning it's actually Monday, but that would just be way too sucktacular, so we'll just try not to think about it, kay?

It's been a busy weekend. After work on Friday I cranked up my new lawn mower, I named it Tyrone.. my personal trainer... and mowed, chopped and mulched everything that dared rear it's little chlorophylled head in my path. I had a little more to do on Saturday and when I was finished, I found myself peeking out of the kitchen window, admiring my accomplishments for the rest of the day.

That's a big assed yard to be cutting with a push mower ya'll.

My plan (and that right there should be your first clue that the following did not happen) was to stop at Lowe's to buy that tiller (Tyrone gets lonely on the porch all alone) after I did the hunting and gathering, but I woke up this morning to find that Aunt Flo had stopped by in the middle of the night and had brought along her cousins Oma Achingback and Crampastella. It was all I could do to get through the wally world without impaling a screaming kid with a chocolate easter bunny.

Diabetes and PMS are a dangerous combination. If I can't have chocolate... NO ONE ELSE WILL.

*cough*

Also this weekend, I made my own laundry detergent and dishwasher soap (clearly I've been watching too many of those uber fertile religious wimmens on TLC,) made my own sew-in labels for the pillow covers in my Etsy shop and some complimentary refrigerator magnets to send out with the packaging.

Sweet baby Jesus... someone stop me.

The other day I caught myself watching a craft show on BYU (that's Brigham Young University... you know.. The Mormon channel) and we won't even discuss my obsession with Sister Wives.

As we speak there's a crock pot full of steel cut oats with cherries, almonds and flax seed on the kitchen counter, which I'll separate out into individual containers before placing them in the fridge in the morning.

WHAT THE HELL?

I think I'm gonna go crank up some Ozzy.. maybe AC/DC. I need to reprogram my brain. Something.

Ya'll have a killer week. We'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

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Things That Won't Suck

First, let me say I'm still haunted by yesterday's lunch. I ordered a spinach salad. When bacon and egg were included in the ingredients list, silly me thought bacon bits and a hard boiled egg. When I opened the box to find two strips of thick, salty bacon and a fried egg on top of my otherwise lovely salad, I was dumbfounded.

Seriously. Did these people not watch Sesame Street when they were kids?

Bacon and eggs = breakfast (or 3 a.m. drunken stupor snack.)
Spinach salad = healthy lunch

Ima need the extremely masculine woman who cooks down at the campground store to have at least as much sense as friggen Cookie Monster.

Anywho...

Ma chickened out about going to check out Shady Pines, but The Amazon and I had a long talk the other day and we agree that it's going to happen sooner or later and that Ma would probably be much happier. A Facebook friend sent me a link to Medicaid regulations (God bless the innerwebs) which explained that if you're the child of the senior and have lived in the same house, providing care, for at least 2 years, you're exempt from the having to turn over your home to the government.. thingie. I contacted an attorney this morning (thanks b.fez) for a consultation so that I can find out exactly what I need to do, cost, etc.

At 45.. it feels weird to have to be the grown up.

Once I accepted the fact that it will happen and that it's not because I'm not good enough or that I could have worked harder, etc.. I found myself trying to come up with a positive spin on things, compiling a list of:

Things That Won't Suck If Ma Goes to Shady Pines:

1. I'll get the big, grown-up sized bedroom, with a private bath. I'll have room for MORE CRAFT STUFFS!!! And to WALK. And for Ayla's bed without having to rearrange furniture every morning and every night. 
2. I'll be able to cut the grass myself, without waiting for Aunt Moses to get a wild hair up her arse to come cut it, usually after it's turned into a black snake wildlife refuge, so that Ma can give her $30 for the pleasure. I'm going in the morning to buy a lawn mower. BOOYAH! 
3. I can expand the dog lot.
4. I won't have to worry if The Amazon and I want to go somewhere together, that there won't be anyone at home with Ma.
5. I also won't have to stress out every time I buy groceries, wondering what Ma will eat, if she can get the package open herself, if she'll understand the directions. I'll know she's getting fed regular meals.
6. The Amazon can move from her tiny, closet sized bedroom to my room. If you've ever lived in a trailer, you're familiar with the tiny bedroom. She has a full sized bed with a computer desk facing it, blocking the closet, about six inches away. You can't walk between them. She has to turn sideways to get through her door then dive on her bed.

Of course, there's just as many, if not more, things that WILL suck, but I'm trying to stay positive.

For now, I guess I'll run. We don't wanna get Bossholio's panties in a wad.

Ya'll have a good one, we'll talk again soon.

Later Taters!!

P.S. I ate the whole thing

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