Is it just me.....

Or are there other houses in America that have a bottle of rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide with a Q-tip floating around inside?

We interrupt this vacation blog (that is taking a month to produce)...to bring you these important messages..

Ok, it's been a few weeks since my return from Europe and all one of you have been waiting patiently for my stories and pictures. I JUST got the pictures off of Rebekahs computer last week and I have been very busy going through them, sorting them and I'm just now starting to edit them. Hopefully next week I will start my vacation stories...

But for now...here are a few things I've seen and done since I came back from London...(in no particular order..)

A while back I mentioned "Stella" on Facebook and my reader asked me who she was....I have been remiss in introducing my newest feline room mate, so lo and behold...this is Stella.

She was born to Ashleigh on March 30, 2009. I think her daddy is a Maine Coon or at least part Maine Coon because she is huge. In this picture she is only about 5 months old and she is already much bigger than Nort and Matilda. She is actually bigger than Ashleigh. Below is a picture of her playing with her Uncle Lorenzo. He took very good care of her when she was a tiny baby and they still have a very strong bond. I have seen Stella bite his ears and yank on his tail and he just sits there and takes it.



Yes, I know Ashleigh is far too prolific and I do have plans to get her spayed. I'm embarassed to say that on my first day of vacation...I hadn't even left LAX when my pet sitter called to tell me that Ashleigh had just given birth to 5 more kittens. The instant she is done nursing this litter she is going in to get fixed. I have done everything short of nailing her tail to the floor in order to keep her in the house. (11 cats in a single wide mobile home is just insane.)

In other news...At the Huntington Beach street fair that is held every Tuesday night I saw this:

A YORKIE IN TENNIS SHOES!

He was wearing shoes on all 4 paws and he was just prancing around looking fabulous. He was far too busy to pose for a picture so I had to take this on the run with my cell phone.

And lastly, Rebekah and I take pictures of cute guys...on the sly... and then send them to each other. This was the last one I took:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to win a Pulitzer for that one....

Anyway...stay tuned...Europe pics and stories are right around the corner.

An answer to the question.....

Sunday, June 28, 2009 1:07 PM
From:
"Jason, as himself"
Jason, as himself has left a new comment on your post
"So have you abandoned your blog for Facebook? :) ."

Dear Jason and Kathy, Mother and Tori,

You are my 4 most ardent readers and you have no idea how happy it makes me to know that even 4 people in the blogsphere miss me. I have not given up my blog for Facebook. I do have things to write about and pictures to post and I'm glad that I haven't lost all of my readers.

While I'm 98% better than I was, pertaining to my bout with mono...I still have many days where I come straight home from work and go right to bed and sleep for 13 hours. I'm trying to do things to create energy, like not head straight to the couch upon my arrival home, but it's a long, hard road.

Thank you so much for checking up on me. I'll be writing again very soon.

Love,
Tanu

More of the same...

Jason's comment on the entry below caused me to think of another mispronounced word that drives me nuts. I'm very lucky that I don't have to hear it on a daily basis any longer because I don't have the pleasure of being an attendance clerk for a high school these days. I swear that I would cringe every time I had a parent call in and tell me that their student wouldn't be at "skoo" for what ever reason they made up at that very moment. "Skoo"? It gives me the willies even to write it!

On the subject of being an attendance clerk the couple of memorable excuses I received from parents that I remember....

I was completely taken aback the first time I got a call from a parent excusing her son from school that day because he was witnessing the birth of his son. What a green horn I was!

In the 14 years that I was an attendance clerk I got several calls from moms telling me to excuse their student simply because they said so. I tried to explain that I had to have a reason, no matter how vague, so that the state could determine if it was an allowable excuse and thus still pay us for the student. These moms all apparently went to the same school of etiquette because they were not to be deterred. They all stuck to their "because he/she is my child and I said so" declaration. I just love it when people cooperate.

I will never forget the "harumph" of indignation when a parent would call in or write a note to excuse a student because they were needed at home for baby sitting purposes and I had to tell them that not only did the state not consider that a valid excuse for being absent but it was also illegal. Of course suddenly these students would all of a sudden have many appointments with the doctor or a sudden rash of illness. High school grades be damned.

Anyway, just in case any one is still reading at this point...I saved my most memorable phone call for last. One morning I had a very nice lady call in and tell me, "My daughter won't be at skoo today because she's...you know..."atministrating". I was gracious. I didn't laugh. I just took her excuse, wrote it down and knew that I would remember that call forever.

Taking care of old business

I didn't post anything in December because I was si-i-i-i-i-i-ck. I had some un-named virus that knocked my socks off. I missed many days of work and I sounded so bad that my boss actually came to my house to make sure I wasn't on death's door step. I went to the doctor 3 times and each time they said that it was a virus and that they couldn't do anything about it other than to treat the symptoms. So I spent a huge amount of December laying on my couch. I was sick for Christmas and I was sick at New Years. While everyone else was toasting in the New Year with champagne I was toasting with Delsym. Mazeltov!

Anyway...I have a few things that I wanted to write about really quickly.

#1. I read a very funny blog that is written by Craig M. (http://puntabulous.com)
A while back he asked his readers to draw a self portrait using a template that he had created. (If you would like to see the pictures go here: http://puntabulous.com/2008/11/21/puntabulous-people-on-parade) (if you visit...let him know I sent you!) Anyway...after I had so much fun with the template I sent it to my family and asked them to make me a Christmas card. I was going to make that my Christmas post but then I was too sick to write anything on Christmas so that went down the tubes. However I wanted to share my Christmas card with you:



In case you can't tell...this is a rendering of Ashleigh flying in to the Christmas tree. I haven't had a tree since she was a kitten, but this is a pretty good explanation as to why I don't have them anymore.

#2. Several posts ago I wrote about the debacle that was my first and last product review. When I wrote the review I wasn't able to post pictures to my page. So without further ado...here's a picture of the faboo Pinhole Glasses:





#3. One of my ongoing series in this blog is a little ditty I like to call "Free Paint". I am always in awe of houses that I see that are painted odd colors. When I see them I can only think of one reason why anyone would paint their house this color...and that would be...Free Paint! This house, as most of the houses in this series, is in the neighborhood where I grew up. Salutations from La Puente, Ca...



#4. On my to work I saw this license plate. I know what they were trying to say but I think they missed the mark:




I'm sorry but I see "Sweat Pee". Am I the only one?

Cleaning up

I was just going through my archives tagging my old postings and I came across 3 posts that I never published.

There is no time like the present so please enjoy 3 old posts that are completely not relevent to anything.

Happy holidays...

Tami

Ruh roh! There's trouble in River City.....

Unearthed treasure!

Well, maybe not a treasure but I just found a post that I started to write and then for some reason I never finished it.....

If both of my readers have any interest in reading it ...go to the archives and click on March 2007. It is entitled "Long lost post".

Weekend review from two weeks ago, with no pictures. How boring is that?

This last weekend was a good one. On Saturday, while on my way to meet The International Man of Mystery at a rendezvous spot, (we were going to the cabin and I don't like to drive up the mountain so he picks me up at a Starbucks that is still in the flat lands.), I stopped at the Tyler Mall Nordstroms. I was going to buy new "unmentionables", (isn't that a little nicer than saying, "a new mastectomy bra"?), but as soon as I walked through the door I discovered that they were having a big gala cosmetics make-over event. They had make up artists from just about every cosmetic company known to man kind. I got a make over from a teeny weeny size 2 "esthetician" from "Bobbi Brown Cosmetics" and I wound up looking quite amazing if I do say so myself. She cleansed, softened, toned, moisturized, protected, highlighted and low lighted me within an inch of my life. She colored in my eyebrows, she shaded my nose, she deflected the dark, puffy circles under my eyes, she applied eye liner which was touted as almost permanent unless you remove it with their eye make up remover. In the end it was all worth it. I bought some of the skin care products but I didn't get any of the make up. The prices for their little pots of eye shadow are simply outrageous. I was in shock and awe as I watched the people in line before me buy these little tubs of color and glitter for $45.00. Don't they know that you can go to any .99 Cent store in the world and many a palette with 6 contrasting colors for just under a dollar?
The make up girl asked if I wanted her to apply mascara on me. I told her if she could find any eyelashes on my eyelids then she could just go to town. I told her about going through chemo and the residual problem I have with keeping eyelashes in my eyelids. She told me that she had heard many, many wonderful things about a product called "Revita-Lash". (not a Bobbi Brown product.) It is supposed to really magnify any lashes that you have and then somehow encourage new growth and it is supposed to help them stay in longer. I told her thanks for the advice and I'd check it out the next time I was in a beauty supply store. When I was done with the make over I walked through the mall and lo and behold...I saw a display of "Revita-Lash" in the window. It had a pink ribbon on the package and that impressed me immediately. I went in to the store and asked the sales girl to tell me about the wonders of "Revita-Lash". "It, uh, makes your eyelashes look bigger..um.." Thanks for that glittering hard sell endorsement. So I read the box and of course it sounds like a pretty fabulous item. I thought it would be nice to give this beautiful make over the perfect finish and see if this product was as good as it says it was. Please follow the link and see if you can guess how many tubes of this miracle make up I purchased. www.revitalash.com

When I met up with my guy I asked him how he liked the make over and he said that it looked so natural that he just thought that I had had a good nights sleep and had spent some time in the sun. He also noticed that I had my hair "low lighted", (and now it's more of a normal color instead of the yellow hair I've been rocking for the last month.)


When I got home on Sunday I discovered that Andrew, who was at a baseball game, had left the house in a total state of disarray and I chose not to stay there and clean it up or look at it so I took myself to the movies. I walked to the Pierside theater and I saw "Super Bad". It was a tad vulgar at times and the humor was very sophomoric however I laughed and laughed in spite of my so called maturity. When the movie was over I walked up main street just to see what there was to see. There had to be at least 45 bajillion people out there. With it being the day before the first day of school for a lot of the population I guess they decided to give their last hurrah to Huntington Beach. All of the bars and restaurants had lines waiting to get in. Ah youth. I no longer have the patience for such madness. But maybe if I looked as fabulous as most of them do I'd join the parade, too.

Skinny Bones Jones

When I was a senior in high school the dark blue jeans were my very favorite pants. They are size 0 Chemin De Fer jeans. They are sitting on top of my current size 8 jeans. Back in 1978 size 0 clothes were hard to come by so when my mom found these I thought she had struck gold.


I'm the 3rd one from the left. Yeah, with the goofy hair, standing on my toes.

I weighed 89 lbs and had 0% body fat. I also had very low blood pressure. I thought those were both very healthy situations until my doctor told me that if a paramedic were to take my blood pressure and see how low it was...the paramedic would pull the sheet over my head.

I have been thin all of my life. I only weighed 4 lbs when I was born. They didn't make preemie baby clothes back then so my dad went out and purchased doll clothes for my twin sister and I to wear home. The little shoes were made out of satin and had cardboard soles. You'd have to know how much my dad hated to shop in order to know how special that story is.

When I was in grade school my mom made a lot of our clothes. She made my dad's "Ace Hardware" vest, she made dresses and pants. She even made us bathing suits one year. This was all well and good until the sewing revolution that rocked the world in the late 60's came to our house. It was called "Stretch & Sew" and this method of sewing enabled sewers of all abilities to sew any garment they wanted...as long as it was made out of double knit polyester. Even as a 9 year old I had to draw the line. I hated polyester with a venomous hatred that I still harbor to this day. I made the mistake of telling my mother that I didn't want her to make my clothes anymore. She took this request very seriously and wouldn't make me something even if I asked. I had to go back to wearing clothes that didn't fit. If I could find a pair of pants that fit in the waist then they were a foot too long. If I found pants that were the right length...Tori and I could fit in to them at the same time. I tried to renege and asked my mom to resume making my clothes but just not out of polyester. Nope. That door was closed.

As I got older and more fashion conscious it became harder and harder to find clothes that fit. When I was a teenager I simply did not want to be buying my clothes in the Winnie The Pooh section and I was not tall or heavy enough to shop in the Juniors section. It was a happy day in the Wyatt house when draw string pants came on the scene. My mom relented and made all of us draw string pants. Tori and I had them in every color and style. She made us draw string shorts and I even had draw string "dress pants". Black satin. With pockets. Good times.

It was in the late 70's when I first heard the word "anorexic". Back then people just thought "anorexic" was a situation where you refused to eat and you lost weight. They didn't know it was a mental disorder and that people died from it. People thought nothing of asking me, "Are you anorexic?" "Why are you so skinny?" "Let me lift you up and see how light you are!" I remember asking my mom why people thought it was ok to say these things when no one would ever dream of walking up to an over weight person and saying, "Are you morbidly obese?" "Why are you so fat?"

This was a double edged sword. I could eat and eat until the cows came home but still not gain a pound. Carbs, candy and starch were my best friends. I was fool hearty enough to think that I was going to be thin for my entire life. I hated my body. I was short. I was skinny. I was bony. Clothes didn't fit.

And then I turned 30. It seemed like the minute I turned 30 everything I put in my mouth caused me to gain weight. I went straight from being too thin to being too fat. My skinny minnie ankles were suddenly replaced with cankles. Is there no justice in this world? I went to bed last night and all was well but when I woke up this morning I was walking around on my grandmothers legs! "Waiter? I'd like to return this...this isn't what I ordered. I wanted the long legs, not the log legs."

At my heaviest I weighed closed to 150 lbs. Nothing fit me. If I found pants that fit in the waist they were a foot too long. If I found pants that fit in the length then the waist was enormous. Does that sound familiar? When I was thin I had no perspective. I have perspective all over the place these days and I have to say that I'm glad I've found a happy medium. I'm a teeny bit heavier than I want to be but I'm not even near 150 lbs. nor am I teetering on 89 lbs. I'm ok in my body. My weight is fine.
And that's the way I like it, uh huh, uh huh.

Now if I could just get my eyebrows to be on the same level...

Got my hair did!

I have had blond hair for most of my life. It has gotten darker over the years but then the grey came in and voila!..instant highlights. As the grey got more predominant I decided that it was time to color my hair. Over the last 2 years I have colored my hair every few months and pretty much no matter what color I asked for I wound up with, what nice people tell me is strawberry blond, hair. However, when I look in the mirror this is what I see:


Bozo the Clown had nothing on me! I finally decided that going to the illustrious house de beaute otherwise known as Super Cuts, Fantastic Sams or JC Penny was not in my best interest. I bit the bullet and went back to a real live, (read: expensive) beauty parlor and I walked out with this:


I am a blond again. This shouldn't require too much maintenance considering that my natural color is about one shade off of black.
I don't know how that happened, but I saw the swatch match myself. I would look like Wednesday Addams if I had black hair. I'm going to blame this on the chemo from 14 years ago.

Easter Saturday

Hey, did any of you see that odd ball dressed in 4 different shades of black, with white cat hair all over her clothes, wearing a pink baseball cap with a breast cancer ribbon on it, with her iPod plugged in to her ears, laughing all by herself until she had tears in her eyes, walking on the Huntington Beach Pier?

Yeah. That was totally me.

I put on clean clothes right out of my closet and yet when I got out in to the sun light I found that I was covered in cat hair. It looked as though I had been rolling on the floor before I left.

I don't own hats in any other color than pink and I had to wear a hat because it was really windy and my hair would have been looking like a bush monkey and I really didn't want to scare anyone.

I was listening to my iPod on shuffle mode and my play list went from "My Chemical Romance" singing "I'm Not OK" to "Veggie Tales" singing "The Cheese Burger Song". Two songs that couldn't be any more opposite from each other and it just struck me as funny. And the more I listened to which ever vegetable it is who is singing about his need, want and desire for a cheeseburger ... the funnier it struck me. The more I laughed the more I realized how stupid I must look. The wind was making my eyes water so I had tears rolling down my face.

As usual, it was very pretty and I'm just sorry y'all missed it.

Long lost post....

This post was written way back in March when I was participating in the weekly questions posted for bloggers who needed something to write about. I did a few of them but got no comments or feedback so I stopped using that format...but as I go through my archives I hate to leave anything I've written unpublished so here goes.....


Do you like or dislike change?

Getting a new job or rearranging the furniture, taking a different route to work...that kind of change I enjoy. I color my hair and that is always an adventure in change. For some reason my hair is never the same color two times in a row. If I didn't enjoy change something like that would have probably driven me nuts by now. However, I am the person who has had "Million Dollar Red" finger nails for over 10 years. I am the one who will go to The Spaghetti Factory and order the "manager's special" every single time. If a family gathering takes place and my mom doesn't make macaroni salad I am bent out of shape for days. I hate looking like I don't have a firm opinion on this subject so after giving it much thought I decided if I had to chose between being stuck in a rut, day after day, week after week, or have my life be a whirl wind of change...I'd take the change. And just to show that I'm serious I just might walk out of the nail salon with PINK finger nails next time. I don't know if my mom, the QUEEN of routine, will be able to handle it. Have the oxygen ready.

How many times in your life had you had a broken heart?

There is a line in a song where the singer is talking about having his heart broken in 56 places. I have used that quote many, many times in regard to my own heart being broken. I was an emotional, moody child. My demeanor was only slightly better as a teenager. My heart got broken on a daily basis. As a child it was the big things that got to me; not getting my way...having to go to bed... somebody making fun of me...yeah, the big things. Then as I got older and my interest in boys grew...THAT'S when I really knew what a broken heart felt like. The fact that I wore my heart on my sleeve made it very accessible for breaking purposes. Instead of making this entry a "who's who" list I will just say that I've had my heart broken many times and it does not get any easier with age. In fact I actually think it gets harder. The last time my heart was broken it was broken in to such little shards and tiny pieces that I don't know if it will ever all get put back together completely. I truly hope my last heart break is, in fact, my last heart break.


Name a book that you'd like to see made in to a movie

Every book I read, as soon as I have embraced all of the characters and settings, I immediately cast the movie in my head. I wish every book I read was made in to a movie. I have read all of Janet Evanovich "Stephanie Plum" novels. I have a circle of friends who have also read them and we played a game where we wrote down who we would like to see play all of the recurring characters. It was amazing in that we all chose the same person to play the lead character, Stephanie Plum. Sandra Bullock was our unanimous winner. It was also amazing in that not one of us chose the same person to play any of the other characters! If anyone who reads this blog also reads "Stephanie Plum" books, let me know who you've cast as Stephanie, Grandma, Lula, Ranger, and Morelli.

If you could thank one teacher for what they taught you who would it be and what would you thank them for?
I think this will come as a shock to those who have known me since high school. Most people will assume that this post would be all about Mr. Smith, my journalism teacher. He did teach me a lot including how to maintain my dignity at an awards ceremony where I was not given any awards. I digress... This post will be about my drama teacher, Mrs. Harrelson. She was the only teacher in my life who allowed me to be me and she celebrated me. Even though I spoke up in all of my classes I was never encouraged to let the guard down and just be me. In drama I was not a stand out student. I wasn't fond of learning dialog or reciting poems or attempting to choreograph dance scenes..however...when our class got to the "Improve" section, I. ROCKED. THE. HOUSE. I stood up in front of my classmates and I made them laugh. Somehow it happened again and again. It wasn't a fluke. I was funny. Mrs. Harrelson said that she had never been so shocked. While I was never a wall flower I was not one of the typical drama students who idolized the rock band "Queen" nor did I live in the drama room or attempt to date Bobby Oliver. It was a wonderful new awakening and I'm very sorry that I waited until my junior year to take the class. So, thank you Mrs. Harrelson, for laughing at/with me and for celebrating me.

If someone made a statue of you, in which pose would you like to be?.

I would like to be in the following pose: completely ensconced in Jackson Browne's arms with him peering lovingly in to my eyes. And I would have to insist that we posed for the statue for hours and hours and hours just like they did in the old days. If Jackson Browne isn't available then My Keanu will do just fine. That sounds like so much more fun than a typical Tami pose. A typical Tami pose would be with my hands on my hips and one hip cocked out of joint and my eyes rolling in disbelief.