I Bet This Has Never Happened to You...

So, this afternoon, The Girl and I had matching chiropractor appointments...

Mother/Daughter spinal adjustments are the next big thing...Just you wait and see. Mother/Daughter Spa days are très passé.

Trust me.

Anyway...

Today, as well as an adjustment, I was in the market for some orthotics.

You see, earlier this year, I went to see my family doctor because my feet were falling asleep...whilst I walk around.

It's rather distracting

My lovely angel of a physician(who just happens to be a devout Christian...but I love him anyway) took one look at the bottom of my foot and said..

"You're screwed."

...which totally cracked me up.

...because he is Dutch and a very VERY active member of the Christian Reformed Church ...and he had just told me I was screwed.

Hilarious.

Trust me.

Anyway...

In spite of the hilarity of the initial diagnosis, it turns out that my arches are non-existent. It's not the normal arch that's bad (of course it's not). There is an arch that I never knew existed that resides in the middle of the ball of one's foot. Apparently, it never existed in the balls of my feet and as such,  this lack of arch puts pressure on some nerves and my toes quite often go all pins and needly-like when I'm wandering about.

 AND...just to add insult to injury, because of my arch-less-ness, I am also developing some nice callouses on the soles of my feet...which is quite different than developing diamonds on the soles of my shoes.

ANYWAY...

Due to my malformed feet, I am in the market for some orthotics and my chiropractor provides such things and I figure with flip-flop season drawing to an end...f**k...I'm gonna have to start wearing real shoes again and my toes are going to start falling asleep again so I should probably start looking into rectifying this situation BEFORE this shit goes down.

I'm renowned for my pro-active-ness...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

No I'm not.

So, we get to the Chiro's office and, in compliance with the nice sign at the door, we remove our shoes...or rather...our flippy flops, and, with a growing sense of horror, it dawns on me that my former flippy flop wearing extremities don't smell so good ...the whole "bare feet/rubber shoe" combo generally does NOT work in my olfactory favour.

Crap.

What to do? What to do?

I spot the handy dandy hand sanitizer on the receptionist's counter and think to my Self...

"AH HA!! Problem solved!! I will over-power the flip flop smell with the smell of mediciney alcohol. Self, you are a genius."

Only, the flip flop/hand sanitizer smell combo is actually way way waaaaaaaay worse than the plain old flip flop/bare feet combo.

Crap.

What to do? What to do?

Another magnificent brain wave rolled over me and I realized that there was probably some sort of bathroom facility in the office and, typically, bathrooms have sinks with running water... and soap.

AH HA!!!

So, I legged it to the loo and, lo and behold, there WAS a sink with running water and soap...and paper towels.

Excellent.

So, picture this, if you will...

Me.... standing in the small little bathroom with one foot hoisted up into the sink, washing it thoroughly with vanilla scented Soft Soap.... following it up with a quick and thorough rinse. Hoisting said foot up and out of the sink and giving it a quick and thorough dry with the paper towels so graciously provided.

I imagine I cut quite a fine figure.

On to the next foot...

Hoist foot UP and into the sink...where the water is already running and ready to go...and...

OH MY CHRIST!!! WHEN DID THE NICE WARM WATER TURN INTO MOLTEN LAVA!! I THINK MY FOOT FLESH IS GOING TO BLISTER AND BUBBLE OFF MY FOOT BONES!!

I fumble and bumble my way around the taps, trying to get the temperature to something a little less than thermonuclear...which was way more difficult and took way more time than I am willing to willingly admit...

It probably would've been more sensible to perhaps actually remove my foot from the sink full of water drawn from the fiery pits of hell...but my crisis-handling skills aren't fabulous and, really, I was worried about getting water all over the nice bathroom...would hate to make a mess.

So...

Um...

Yeah.

I scalded my right foot in the bathroom sink at my chiropractor's office today.

What did you do??

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p.s. My foot is still red and ouchie from its time spent in Satan's bathtub...and this happened at 2:30 this afternoon.

It is now 6:37pm.

Kids...don't try that at home.

p.p.s. It may still hurt like a sonofabitch but it sure does smell purdy.

More Confessions from the Squirrel Cage

ok....

I'm going to share what just happened here, in my squirrel_e_world, during the last 20 minutes or so.

Quick Clarification: the last 20 minutes or so prior to my sitting down to write this pointless blog post...the writing of which will take a good hour and a half ... or so...Hey...you can't rush magic. Fact.

I'm not proud of this story.

It's rather ridiculous.

It makes me look like a complete dumbass but I think this sordid tale might make a few of you chuckle.

...at me.

...and that's ok.

It's not a bad thing to bring a little bit of laughter into this big ol crazy Universe...even if it IS at the expense of my dignity.

I'm good like that.

OK...

So, as some of you may or may not know, I have a little problem with stupid silly games I play on my iPad.  I am a wee bit hooked and it verges on being an addiction...and when I say it "verges on", I mean that it is totally an absolutely mindless addiction.

My current game of choice is the super stupid and super silly game called "Candy Crush Saga"

...even the name is stupid.

I've been stuck on this one level for the past week-ish. It's nigh on impossible to complete and I'm getting a wee tiny bit frustrated. That's why, today, when I got to the point where I had this level by the balls, and was soooooooo close to winning I could taste it (the winning not the balls), I was giddy with joy and relief...

All I had to do was shift one sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy down beside another sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy and I'd be VICTORIOUS!!!

VICTORIOUS, I SAY!!

Looking at the board, I had mentally mapped out the moves I was going to have to make in order to ensure my victory...but then...horror of horrors...I noticed that all I had left was ONE SINGLE MEASELY MOVE and there was no way in hell that I was going to do what I had to do in ONE SINGLE MEASELY MOVE.

SONOFABITCH!!!

I was so shattered that I began to think the unthinkable.

I began to contemplate breaking a solemn oath I had sworn to my Self.

A mighty oath that promised I would never ever, in a million years, spend any(more) money on this wretched game..

... yet,  there I was, actually considering the purchase, for $1.03, of 10 gold bars so I could visit The Yeti Shop and buy the 5 more moves necessary to guarantee sweet glorious victory.

In the name of full disclosure, I have on one other occasion, forsaken my pride... and common sense ... and purchased extra moves but that particular $1.03 came from my cache of banked  iTune dollars that were all gifts, so that transgression didn't really count...it was like a teeny tiny belated Christmas gift to my Self.

However, today I was playing through Facebook on the desktop and not, as I had been for my previous fall from grace, through the app on my iPad ... SO... there was no way I could figure out how to gain access to my iTunes Christmas present money.

If I was going to do this dastardly deed, I'd have to pay real money.

Damn.

I wrestled with the moral implications of using real money in this stupid game and after a couple of minutes of deliberation with my Self, I decided I was going to do it.

I committed to buying 5 extra moves.

BAM.

...

Damn.

I clicked all the way through the steps and got to where I had to decide what real money payment method I was going to use and I decided that I'd throw it on my debit card instead of my Visa...no use going into debt buying gold bars in the Yeti Shop.

I typed in all the numbers required and took a deep cleansing breath and hit "Enter"...

Where I expected my guilt-ridden gold bars to magically appear on the screen, I was met instead by a message in BIG RED LETTERS that said

DECLINED- This account is not authorized to buy Gold Bars in The Yeti Shop, You Dumbass.

It actually didn't say that but it did decline the payment because my account was not authorized to do online transactions... the very same authorization I revoked earlier this week when I got a new debit card because my other one had been breached...through online purchases not purchased by my Self (but THAT's a whole other somewhat baffling tale).

DOH!!!

Foiled by my own security measures.

I must've had some subconscious trip into the future and knew that I was going to suffer a Candy Crush break in sanity and want to buy Gold Bars and therefore said "Nah...better not" when the nice lady at the bank asked me if I wanted to authorize the card for online transactions.

Onto Plan B...

I decided I had sunk this low so I might as well go the distance and put it on my Visa....but my wallet was out in my car....damn...perhaps my card was in a pant pocket on my bedroom floor. So, in an effort to save myself a trip out to the car to grab my wallet, I rifled my way through my dirty laundry and discovered, as I had figured I would, that the Visa was NOT in a pant pocket.

So, I sighed and trudged the whole 30ish feet out to the car to grab my wallet.

No card.

And that's when I remembered that I had given my Visa to the kids for their flight to Hawaii, in case they wanted to buy a snack or a beer or something on the plane, and The Girl had yet to give it back.

Note to Self - When The Girl gets home from work, demand the prompt return of my credit card.

And, while I do have the actual Visa number, I don't have any of the important Gold Bar Buying enabling info like an expiry date or security number.(that card is new, too)

Damn.

I banged my head on the counter and looked at the screen and saw that another option was PayPal.

hmmmmmm....

I don't have a PayPal account, but they have a link to where you set up an account if you want to....of course they do.

So, in desperation, I clicked on the link so I could set up a PayPal account and buy some f**king gold bars and what does it ask you for right after the whole name and address part???

Your credit card info.

The credit card info that I had quite recently discovered I didn't have.

Good Christ.

I reluctantly and embarrassedly gave up my search for gold and decided to take that last futile move and finish the f**king game.

Then I noticed that I had a "booster" that had been given as a reward simply for being a Candy Crush Saga user...probably to get you hooked on the power of the "booster" so you buy the booster packs so you can take the easy way out of levels...and make the game-making people a shit ton of desperation money.

This free booster would smash a single candy.

Any single candy.

This free booster was EXACTLY what I needed.

I needed ONE single candy SMASHED...and then my one sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy would gently fall into place beside my other sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy and then I could use my one remaining move and make a sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candy combo and the level would be COMPLETE!!

SWEET VICTORY WOULD BE MINE!!!

Thank you, Lollipop Hammer.

I laughed at all the shenanigans and foolishness that had transpired over the past several minutes and tsk-tsk'd my Self for stooping so low as to even attempt to buy 5 extra stupid moves in that stupid silly game and then clicked on the "booster" and moused it down onto the game board and unleashed its candy smashing booster power and...

....hit the wrong f**king candy.

I smashed one of the sprinkle-covered super crazy exploding candies....

...not the candy below it.

And everything...

...including my already battered dignity...

....exploded in flash of sprinkle-covered super craziness.

Game Over.

Level Failed.

I am a dumbass.

At least I can laugh at my dumbass-ness.

And now you can, too.

The End.

Level Failed.

P.S.

HEY!!! Look what I found!!! A video explaining exactly WHY Candy Crush Saga is PURE EVIL!!

Well played, young man. Well played.

UPDATE....August 12th 2013

NAILED IT!!!

No Poorly Aimed Boosters OR Stupid Extra Move Purchases required!!

I am a bit of a purist.

If there's such a thing as being too good at growing tomatoes...

...then that's what I am.

Seriously.

My tomato plants are extraordinarily HUGE.

Too huge for their own good.

Too huge for my own good.

And prolific....holy crap!!

Last year my tomatoes were too big for their cages and they fell all over themselves and the res of my garden.

See:

This year, in an effort to avoid a repeat of last year's "success",  instead of buying regular tomato plants, I bought grape tomato plants.

Grape tomatoes are the size of ...well, they are the size of grapes....and the way I figured it, wee small tomatoes would logically have smaller, more manageable plants than the regular big tomatoes did.

I was incorrect.

These are my two grape tomato plants (there are no ripe grape tomatoes..I ate 'em. They were delicious):

I just went out to take pictures of my enormous tomato plants but photos alone could not do their enormity any justice...so I videoed it.

Real live veggie garden action.

You don't get that anywhere else but here, folks.

Here's my garden:

Oh, and in case you're wondering what my interloping gourds look like, this is one:

In keeping with the theme of insane gardens... here is a song:

Madness by: Muse

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p.s. This is how you pronounce "gourd"....http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gourd