working amongst engineers

Most offices would just post a note reminding you to make another pot if you drink the last cup of coffee.

Dewrinkled

Last weekend my sister and brother in law came down to pick up the Butt Ugly Boat's furniture so Jim can take it back to his shop and reupholster it.

He wanted to see how all the parts and pieces fit together in their native habitat and how they attach to the hull, so we paid a quick visit to the BUB. Unfortunately it was too darn cold and windy to take a cruise, not to mention the boat is currently a total wreck--we're having new shifters and cables installed in the pilothouse and flybridge and there are boxes and hatch doors and wires and boat parts scattered everywhere. It really is a disaster area these days. Egads.


So while the guys hung out admiring loose wires and gaping holes on the BUB, my sister and I paid a little visit to my favorite spot in Buford, the Blue Lotus Spa, where we signed up for facials and reflexology treatments.

The facial lady took Loretta first, so I headed back with the reflexology therapist to a room with dim lights, soothing music and a fluffy soft table with piles of cozy warm blankets. For the next hour she massaged my feet and ankles, putting pressure on specific points on the soles of my feet that stimulated various organs.

"This point will stimulate your pituitary gland"

"Ahhhhhhhhh....mmmmm"

"And this is your heart"

"Ahhhhhhhhh...mmmmm"

"And this is your thorax"

"Ahhhhhhhhh...mmmmm"

"And this is your right ovary"

"mmmmm....." (I don't even have a right ovary but I was totally going with the flow by this point)

"And this is your left ear canal"

".....purrrrrrrrr....."

...and so on until I was a puddle of buttah lying on that table. After an hour it was time for Loretta and me to switch places, so I lumbered off the reflexology table and slithered across the hall to the facial room while Loretta slithered in the opposite direction on her way to the reflexology room.

As I struggled to stay awake on another soft fluffy bed with warm cozy blankets, the facial lady slathered me with all sorts of creams and wonderful smelling lotions. After awhile she brought out a big magnifying glass to inspect my skin on the cellular level.

She pondered my skin for a couple of minutes and then suggested a Glycolic mask to tighten up my pores and smooth out my wrinkles. By that time I was so relaxed that I would have agreed to an amputation of the limb of her choice, so I roused from my stupor long enough to say okay. And as she disappeared into another room to prepare the mask I laid there in a dream-like, semi-conscious state, a boneless mass of mellowness with my mind drifting about in outer space.

Soon she returned with her magic bowl of Glycolic wrinkle-removing goodness and commenced to applying it to my face. The mask immediately felt wonderfully cool and tingly. And then it felt quite refreshing and slightly invigorating in a tingly kind of way. A moment after that, it felt tingly in an insistent, slightly disconcerting way. And then that tingly feeling morphed into the sensation of having a thousand bumblebees jacked up on crystal meth stapled to my face and neck. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.

My mind instantly returned from its leisurely orbit around the planet Saturn and snapped into high gear as I excitedly mumbled from underneath the blankets something about being burned alive in a vat of searing acid. The facial lady chortled and said Glycolic acid is acid, silly, and the burning sensation is what would excite my skin and remove my wrinkles.

Oh. I see.

My face was under chemical attack but I was being de-wrinkled. Whole different perspective. So I laid there with my face on fire and silently ordered my pesky brain to knock it off with the urgent telegrams about imminent death and disfigurement.

Later after she had removed the acid and applied a few more creams and lotions, and after my adrenalin level and heart rate had returned to normal, she handed me a mirror to inspect my skin. It looked soft and smooth and noticeably less wrinkled.

She asked me if the pain had been worth it and I said yes--no pain, no gain. The facial lady commented how funny it was that my sister had said the exact same thing.

Shea and Sean Hannity

Be sure to listen to Sean Hannity's radio show today--my neice Shea is going to be on the air with him talking about...well, I'm not exactly sure what she'll be talking about but I know it will be wonderful and interesting and the best part of the whole show. You're a great American, Shea.

PS: Sorry, I couldn't resist the chance to say that

PPS: I hope you get a LobsterGram

stimulous nightmare

Bravado

I was on my way to Kroger after work yesterday because the only food in the house is a can of beanie weenies and a jar of Karo Syrup to buy a few final ingredients for the gourmet dishes I will be serving when my sister comes to visit this weekend when my husband phoned me.

He told me to head home because there was a big storm headed our way and he didn't want me to get caught in it. Although I was disappointed to miss out on grocery shopping (snicker), I turned the car around and was home within a couple of minutes.

A minute or two after that, the storm hit. We got pelted by hail stones:

...big 'uns:

As it rained and hailed like crazy outside we were glued to the TV and Channel 2 with its fascinating new technology that gives a dimensional view of storms. There were tornado warnings issued for the counties south of us--always exciting to watch--but the weatherman was making a really big deal of how much hail was inside the storm (the white part of the photo below).

I joked about how freaked out people here get over a little wimpy hail storm compared to the real hail storms we experienced in Texas. I regaled Morley with stories about those big storms with hail stones the size of watermelons and how blase we former Texans are about big storms. WIMPY GEORGIA WEATHER, I MOCK THEE.

I was very cool and sophicated in a knowledgeable, world traveler kind of way as I passed the time snapping photos of Shelby and the cats staring out the window at the hail coming down, and scoffing at the wimpy Georgia hail storm.

And then the storm outside suddenly intensified and the sound of hail beating down on the house was almost deafening. And then this message came on the screen:

Tornado warning. For our exact neighborhood.

So I dropped that sophisticated world traveler bullcrap and shot towards the foyer like a missil headed for Bagdad and huddled in this closet until the big scary Georgia storm passed.