There's a post at the bottom of all the pictures... seriously.

These have to be two of the world's craziest statues.

This one, a little too much love between the frog the turtle.

And really, who decided it was time to Bedazzle the Laughing Budda? Seriously?

I'm not so excited by the idea of hanging my stockings by the chimney, even with care (and it's a gas log fireplace anyway) so they're hung from the Spiderman room entry.

And finally, a little festive garland and lighting for the spiral staircase!

Edit: Posted without pictures 'cause Blogger's being an asshat, so you'll have to look above to see them!!!

My seester warned me. Actually, she warned me, and Shawn SCREAMED in the background. TheKnot.com is the devil. Amanda told me not to let it make me cry, and Shawn yelled that it's run by Satan and the Webmaster is Rush Limbaugh.

The day I registered I was 57 items behind scheduled. According to TheKnot.com, I was 6 months behind schedule the day I got engaged. Fabulous. So I've been a wee bit busy trying to catch up. I'm now 56 1/2 items behind schedule. Jason's got his half of the guest list complete. Mine is "mostly" complete. Whatever. One friend pointed out that I'm a 4th-quarter kind of quarterback. It's true.

Work's been intermittently busy and not so busy. Such is the way in healthcare. It's given me time to shop and decorate the house for Christmas, which totally snuck up on me this year. Between the whole apartment el flameado, moving into the new house, going to Aiken for Gram's 80th birthday, spending a weekend at a continuing education class, and having Thanksgiving here, Christmas has just kind of shown up without much time for proper pomp and circumstance! (I mean, I'm still working on finding the right spot for a lot of stuff around here, and putting the final touches on things. And let's not forget the fact I haven't finished putting up the curtains and just started pinning the thermal backings on them... Oh, and George Jetson has to make ANOTHER mid-week trip to the dealer (an hour away) to get fixed because "warranty work" doesn't get done there on Saturdays...) But now it's looking more festive around here. I've got a tree up and decorated, garland on the spiral staircase, lighted garland on the lightpole at the head of the driveway and on the porch... and an Otis in a Box. It's his favorite spot.

The best possible way to have Thanksgiving in your new house with your new fiance and his entire family is to let your mother do all the work. Seriously.

It was not the plan, you see, but it is what happened. I worked longer than I thought I would need to on Wednesday. Mom had made pumpkin cupcakes and cream cheese frosting (though not fully assembled) while Dad did phase 1 of the cat-in-the-wall patch. I came home at 4 to meet PB and The Force at my house so The Force could finish assembly on the cupcakes. Well, it turned out he wasn't too interested, but did manage to put M&Ms on 3 before throwing in the towel and just eating the M&Ms. He watched a little television, did a little Spiderman training, and then was off.

Mom, Dad, and I went to dinner. I ran back to work to finish up and make my annual benefits elections (which had to be done by 11/30, and what were the chances I could get them done on a Monday morning when 48% of the other employees of the hospital system were also trying?)

Anyway, after having bought a sh*t load of groceries earlier in the week, then working more than I thought I would have to, Mom just kind of took over. She's good at these kinds of things.

I came to the kitchen on Thanksgiving morning, and I swear Mom had sprouted 4 extra arms. She was whisking, frying, stirring, greasing, bagging and stuffing simultaneously. Dad helped me hang a curtain rod over the big window that was left (the smallers had to wait). In the end, I cut the broccoli.

I invited everyone to my house for Thanksgiving dinner, let my Mom do all the work, and I cut the broccoli.

At least I didn't cut the cheese.

How to get breakfast for dinner on Friday, and breakfast for breakfast on Saturday... This will be even better when it's not done by phone texting!

Funny: Leading The Force in a revolt to demand more pancakes and bacon in our lives.

Funnier: Getting The Force to free-style his pancake and bacon demands during the revolt.

Funniest: The Force going off on his own foot-stomping, fist-shaking tirade demanding more pancakes and bacon. Hee hee!

My insurance company does not pay for birth control pills. I get a slight "discount" on the regular retail price, but that's it. No copay, just straight up have to pay for them. It costs me just over $2 a day to ensure my uterus stays vacant (for the time being). I buy all of my medications in 90 day supplies because the copays are less, and my "discount" on my trike-motor-prevention-plan is better. All in all, coughing up 90 days worth of cash for drugs at a time hurts, but it's cheaper that way.

Every time I have to buy the birth control pills, the pharmacy tech lady becomes very concerned at the price of my pills. There's no generic available, of course. She bends over the counter, points at the price, and whispers...

Lady: Are you sure you still want these?

TK: I'm sure I still don't want a baby right now.

Lady: But this is a lot of money.

TK: Not as much as a baby costs.

I thought she was going to pee her pants she laughed so hard. It was awesome. Happy Thanksgiving lady!

And I hope you all have a wonderful Turkey Day too!!!

Yep, so my cat was behind the wall.



At about 1:30 I was about to turn right, which would have carried me away from my house and toward another patient's home. At the exact moment I put on my right blinker, PB called.



"Don't freak out, but I think you need to come home right away."



Yeah, that's a good way to keep someone calm.



My first thought was that something was horribly wrong with Pooh King. I mean, the dog is nearly 13. But before I could get the next question out I heard...



"Oz is in the heating ducts."



WTF???? "I think she got in through the old dryer tube."



Oh yeah. I forgot about that. You see, I've had the cats' litter box in the guest bathroom upstairs since I moved in, but always with the best intention to move it downstairs. For reasons known to nobody, including me, I decided to do this on a Wednesday morning just before work. Go ahead, shake your head in disbelief. When I picked up the litter box, I saw the hole in the floor. The owner had previously had the washer/dryer in this bathroom, and had cut a hole in the floor to vent the dryer through. I looked right at that hole and thought to myself, "Self, you need to cover up that hole before a cat gets in it!" But do you think I did that? Oh no! By the time I had gone down the stairs and back up, I forgot all about it.



Hence the call. I knew as soon as he said it what had happened.



I took off the right turn signal, put on the left turn signal and headed home. I called the office and explained. God bless 'em, they're so understanding. PB thought she was just above the heat pump, in which case, all I could think was, "at least I turned the heat off before I left or she'd be slow roasting by now."

So when I got home, PB showed me where he thought she was. If I stood on the top step of the little step-ladder thingy, poked my top half through the drop ceiling, and bent 45 degrees to the right, I could hear her clear as a bell. She was in the 45 degree elbow of the vent system. Oh hell. There are only 2 ways to get into that vent. One is through the hole Oz went through, and the other is with a knife. I know this, because I tried to gently lift the tape at the joint and separate the pieces. No go. I was going to have to cut it. "PB, get me a knife." Ironically, this is the second time I was calling for a knife to get this cat out of a tight spot in the last 6 weeks. So I very carefully cut through the joint of the vent, making an L shape, and pulled back the flap. Oz was wailing the whole time. I stuck my arm in, imagining her hanging on by her little claws and... NOTHING. No cat. I shoved my arm in further. I twisted around, I torqued my body forward to try to twist in for a better angle and? Oh, there's no cat in the vent, but as I'm staring down at the floor about 15 feet below me? There's Oz staring straight back. She's stuck in the space between the vent and the wall. Apparently all that wailing was cat for "Hey, 2-legger! Don't cut that vent! You'll get fiberglass in your arm!!! You're stupid!" She was right on all accounts.

Apparently, the landlord had been venting the dryer through the hold in the floor and into the dead space between the walls. Tell me that's not a fire hazard. I'm NOT SO FREAKIN' COMFORTABLE with that! Now the dryer's downstairs, but anyway... There's about a 6 inch triangular space to try to get Oz out through, and a 15 foot shaft to get her up from. No bucket will fit, no basket can be mashed. I tried lowering a sheet and coaxing her to climb up to freedom. The best I got was her sitting on it and bellering at me to lift her out. At one point, I decide that if I just stepped onto the top shelf in the cabinet, I could probably reach down a little further and Oz would understand she was supposed to climb up the sheet.

Well, let's just say that was a bad idea. Oh, I got on the shelf alright, but it turns out it won't hold my body weight for more than about, oh, 6 seconds. And when that shelf gave? My elbows punched through 2 of the drop-ceiling tiles and I was left hanging from the very thin metal supports that hold such things in place. Meanwhile, PB's trying to hold one of my legs, and I hear the dreaded "glug, glug" of the giant 64 ounce Downy bottle as it empties on the floor. I don't know if you can calmly state "LET GO OF MY LEG. LEG GO OF ME! GET THE DOWNY BOTTLE OFF THE FLOOR BEFORE IT GETS ON THE CARPET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Thank goodness he did let go in time for me to get my foot on the step-ladder and get down before the metal supports gave way, and PB got the Downy bottle up before too much got on the carpet. (Just a little on the edge, and we're working on that.)

Problem? Oz is still in the wall. In rushes Paul, my buddy, my friend. My friend who's a custom cabinet maker and owns a jigsaw. Paul very carefully cuts a 4" square hole in the drywall about 2 feet above the floor to allow Oz to jump about without potentially cutting her cute furry little head off. As soon as that square dropped out of the wall, you should have seen that cat fly out of there! Her tail was the size of a feather duster and you would have thought her ass was on fire. But she's okay.

There's a hole in the wall. There are 2 ceiling tiles missing. My arms are bruised to hell from hanging from that ceiling. PB barely escaped with all his teeth intact after trying to grab the leg of a woman dangling from the ceiling. I had to leave directly afterward and get my hillbilly teeth worked on. Again. And they're still not fixed. But later that night, I got to sit with PB, Paul and his wife , and laugh hysterically about the events of the day while we ate wings and drank beer.

That freakin' hole will get patched this week while my Dad's here visiting, you can be sure of that.

And like I said, the Balloon Boy's father can suck it. Some of us just don't have to make this shit up.

Like I said

Tonight's blog... in which I will tell the story of why having my fiance call me in the middle of the day and say "I need you to not freak out, but you need to come home right away. Oz is stuck in the heating ducts," is only going to end with having to cut a hole in the house I just rented, and buying my friends a lot of buffalo wings and alcohol... or maybe the alcohol was for me.

Seriously.

The Balloon Boy's dad can suck it. Some of us wish we had to make this shit up.

Okay, so, driving across the pond wasn't as bad as I thought it would be... really it was more like driving across a dike (but not in the angry lesbian kind of way). But the old lawn chair marking the turn? It was everything I thought it would be and more. I have to admit I was a little disappointed that I took Tough Lucy Dodge thinking I was going to get to go all bad-ass 4 wheel drive through the pond, then just drove across a dike. But fear not, there was a little promise of more adventure...


TK: Okay, well, now that I know I don't have to be afraid of sliding into the pond, I'll see you on Wednesday. (insert trademark sparkling smile, complete with still temporary fake hillbilly teeth)
Lady: That will be good. But can you come in the morning? I'll do better in the morning.
TK: Let me check my schedule. (Looks at very important schedule.) Yep! I can come in the morning, that won't be a problem.
Lady: Good. But watch out, because the goats will probably still be on the porch in the morning.
TK: Goats?
Lady: Oh yeah, my son has some goats. They like to stay on the porch in the morning.
TK: Okay, that's going to be a problem.

Someone on Facebook commented that she thought of goats sitting in rocking chairs when she heard this. Now, if THAT happens? I'm totally taking a picture before I run like hell.

My Mom wrote me a note earlier today asking when everyone was going to get the story. The answer? When I get a minute. Seriously. This was the first weekend since I moved into the house that I've been home to take care of anything. The first weekend was spent moving, the second was Grandma's 80th birthday party in SC, then last weekend was spent at a continuing education course for work. It's really hard getting things done only at night after work, and I hadn't touched anything I got out of the apartment. So that's where I've been.

Part of my job is to call the patient and tell them I'm coming out to see them that day. It's best that they're aware, plus if they're not home, it's best that I don't drive out to see someone who isn't going to be there anyway. If it's a new patient, I have to get directions to their home. If you know me, you know I usually have to turn around at least twice when I go anywhere new. I have NO sense of direction, and little to no faith that I'm going the right way even if I have directions. Hence, I usually turn around the first time because I think I'm not going the right way, then the second time because I was wrong about the first time. Don't you judge me.

I called a new patient last week. She was sick and didn't want me to come that day, but went ahead and gave me directions for when I go this next week. I swear, these are the directions...

Lady: So you go out to where that yellow house is, and take a right.
TK: Yep, I know where that is.
Lady: Then you're going to go about 1 or 2 miles and turn left on XYZ road.
TK: Okay, I've got that written down.
Lady: Then you're going to go down XYZ road until you see an old lawn chair on the side of the road. Turn right at the old lawn chair and go across the pond and right on up to the house.
TK: I have to drive ACROSS A POND?
Lady: Oh yeah, we do it all the time. You just stay up by the edge of the bank a little bit.
TK: I drive a little tiny car!
Lady: Well, if you're afraid, you can go on up the road a little further and turn right at the old rusty mailbox. Then you just have to drive down through the pine trees to get to the house.
TK: Through the pine trees?
Lady: There isn't really a road either way. But make sure to blow your horn when you get here 'cause we got kind of a mean dog. You blow your horn and I'll roll (the wheelchair) out on the porch and holler at him so he won't bother you.
TK: So I need to either turn right at the old lawn chair and drive across the pond, or turn right at the old rusty mailbox and drive through the pine trees, but either way I have to honk to be sure you holler at the mean dog so he won't bother me?
Lady: (Obviously pleased with herself for giving such fine directions) Yep, you've got it!
TK: See you next week.

I go in to tell my boss lady these directions, and she says, "I think you should take water wings and shove them on your car's mirrors in case you don't make it across the pond!" Great, thanks, that's very reassuring. Other suggestions included that I take a hand mixer that I can hang out the hatch to act as an off-board motor. Thanks y'all. You're a ton of help. Since Thursday we've had like 10+ inches of rain. I bet the pond is more like Lake Superior now.

Maybe I'll just take a canoe.