DLand - A Real Sharp Tomater

If you stall your car twice in 10 minutes do they impound your vehicle immediately and make you walk back to your office after lunch? No. I know this because if they did I would still be hoofin' it back to my desktop. The first time was all me. I was waiting to make some deposits at the bank and my left leg just decided that trying to keep the clutch down wasn't fun anymore so it just stopped. I swear I was about to fall asleep from the basking through the sunroof until the whole car bucked and I whirled around trying to figure out who kicked me. The second one was not entirely my fault as I was again waiting in the drive through at Burger King and looked over at another drive through to see a young man and his female life partner pulling up in their minivan. The fellow at the wheel had on a black t shirt and had pink hair much like a radioactive porcupine. No, it was more like he was a baby flamingo who was molting and just coming into his new set of feathers for the winter. At the sights of those locks I stopped the mindless rocking I was doing with the clutch (yes I know it wears out the clutch) and just stalled. Doo doo doo. Nobody saw that. But, come on, he was molting pink!

Last night we went to the library and didn't touch a single book. Jeremy found a good book on tape that is by the same author of my Lonesome Dove book I was reading. (I finished it, by the way. Almost everyone dies. I cried. Excellent book.) I found 6 cd's. I had forgotten all about this great feature of the library. I used to get cd's from the library when I was a young teenager because I didn't have money to buy them. I was stunned and pleased to find out that the Virginia Beach library limits you to 20 (!) cd's that you can check out at once. I had to restrain myself to not get the allocated 20, noting that it was 5 minutes before they closed. My bounty for this trip included Kingston Trio, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Terri Clark, two Lyle Lovett cd's and a Burl Ives greatest hits. I didn't even touch the rock and roll section (pats self on back).

The inside of the Burl Ives cd jacket talked about his long history as a musician. They said that his voice is one of the most distinctive in America. Most of you probably remember him as the guy who sang "Frosty the Snowman" and "Have a Holly-Jolly Christmas" on television for all those specials. He actually sang lots of other things too, though.

Burl Ives died in 1995 at the age of 85. The cd jacket writer said he had the chance to interview him the year before he died and asked him how he felt about having a voice that may transcend generations. Ives just smiled and said, "That sounds nice. It makes me think that I haven't lived my life in vain."

I would hope to be able to say the same thing when I'm 85.

"I got a hot rod Chevy with a twin carburetor. And I know a gal that's a real sharp tomater." - Burl Ives

DLand - But They Sparkled ...

I was in the bathroom at Best Buy this evening while my Sweetpea was exchanging his new cell phone. As I was rummaging for my chapstick, I spied something sparkly at the bottom of my bag. Ah, yes. I have been carrying around blue sparkly panties in my purse for almost a week. Let's go back to two weeks ago when I wandered into the undie store. I bought some new undies and one bra in particular came in ice blue sparkly material. Well, who could pass that up? Not me, no! The sales lady said I could get the matching panties for it. Sign me up, girlfriend. I'm a slave to undie fashion. She pauses and says - no whispers:

\"They only come in a thong.\"

I'm a hip woman of the 21st century. I know how to operate a tampon. I'm not scared of the gynecologist. I read my fair share of porn. What would a tough gal like me have to fear about a little cotton in the ass crack? Did I mention they matched my new bra and that they sparkled?

For only an additional $14 I had my - whisper it with me - thong underwear neatly tucked in the pink shopping bag with all my other innocuous undergarments. Once arriving home I tucked them all away and decided I would save the color coordinated ensemble for a special occasion. This was not Tuesday kind of underwear. Saturday rolls around, I have freshly shaved legs and as I get dressed for the day I think, \"yeah, this could be a thong day.\"

It started out okay. They feel kind of strange but look cute. Did I tell you yet that they sparkled? I cloaked my sexy get up in some plain jeans and a t-shirt. Now it's just my little secret how cute and sparkly my ass is. The day was looking good.

Ten minutes later I'm rethinking this whole thong idea. Maybe it's like the first day you ever wore a bra and you wonder who created these torture devices. But I couldn't get over the idea that I had the biggest wedgie of my life. This was not sexy. This was irritating. I resigned myself that as soon as we got home, I would change into some non sparkly undies and try this little project again another day.

Four hours later, we're in Best Buy and nowhere near going home. Jeremy is now picking out his cell phone (the one we just took back today to exchange). I'm trying to look nonchalant as I shove my hand down the back of my pants to snap the sparkly string from my ass crack. That works fine for about 30 seconds or until you take two steps. Repeat as necessary. Perhaps I should have tried a thong that wasn't so sparkly. I think my ass is allergic to sparkles or maybe just the stuff that make up sparkles or maybe just the sparkles being so close to me. But I was about fed up with my lingerie getting a little too personal with me.

Sweetpea asked why I was so sour. I tried to explain my dilemma. As I elaborated on the sparkles and the uber-wedgie effect and the pants groping in public and the hopping around he smiled and then snickered and then began a full fledge guffaw. Have you ever gotten in an argument with your husband in an electronics store about your underwear? I almost did. I stormed off to the bathroom at about warp 6 to fix this situation once and for all.

Have you ever tried to get your underwear off when you're wearing pants and shoes and then get those pants and shoes back on in a public restroom. I chose the handicapped stall thinking I could use some orchestrating room and I'm glad I did. I was hopping around like a drunk salsa dancer and almost took a nose dive into the toilet or out the stall more than once. In the end I was left holding my blue sparkly panties in my hand and had nearly broken into a sweat.

The panties almost were flushed down the toilet but I couldn't bear to dispose of $14 worth of color-coordinated sparkle quite that quickly. Maybe I just wasn't ready for them. So they went to the bottom of my purse. And there they've been since Saturday. I'm still not sure what to do with them. I'm up for suggestions.

Cute thing Sweetpea said today: \"Those two get along like oil and water. Like fire and ice. Like smoke ... and a smoke detector.\"

DLand - What Do Stupid People Do?

My old boss Harry used to say when we were stuck with some problem, \"What do stupid people do?\". He has a doctorate in physics and I'd like to think I'm no moron. So if we were having that much trouble with something, what did the stupid people of the world do? That's how I've felt the past few days. Even just making an offer on a house is more complicated than it ever needs to be. It must be something about me or my family. My father says that the rest of the world can do things that we can't do just because that's the way it is. I wish I could just sign something and go on about my business. But I had to get plats of the property and comps for the neighborhood and the coup de grace this morning was when I called the city planning office.

The house we're looking at has been built by the owners over several years. I called to confirm that all building permits were closed. After 30 minutes on the phone with the woman downtown and a 28 page fax, I found out that almost none of their building permits have been completed, including the furnace and the gas fireplace! Am I the only one who sees a problem with hooking flammable gas up to something that hasn't been inspected? I'm sure they're all fine, but open work permits are an issue when you sell a house. And after all that we find that someone has beaten us to the offer and counter offer (because we \"wasted\" time finding out how this house came to be) so we may not even get the place. If only we were blind and clueless, we could have made a hasty offer days ago. And probably been screwed. Ugh.