A blog about Personal Journals, Neighborhoods, and Relationships.
|
Sunday Breakfast With The Girls Mother of the Year Viagra Users BEWARE! Something Stinks In China Random Things That Made My Day! No Cell Phones Were Hurt In the Making of This Blog Post Rainbow Brite Lady of the Night "Answer A Question No One Has Thought To Ask You" Robert Fulgum Secrets lurking at every corner? In God We Trust? April 07 May 07 June 07 July 07 August 07 September 07 October 07 November 07 December 07 January 08 February 08 March 08 April 08 May 08 June 08 July 08 August 08 
RSS 2.0    |
|
|
*(revisiting this old post originally posted on bakotopia.com February 27th, 2007 and getting ready for a new Dorpalicious adventure this Sunday!*
This past Saturday was Dorp’s birthday so we decided we were going to hang out all day. We started at Perko’s in Delano, for breakfast. Then we headed to Goochers house. We had a couple of glasses of wine while we talked about anything and everything. Whatever came up. That’s the great part about best friends. It doesn’t matter what we talk about. It doesn’t matter where we’re at. All that matters is that we are together.
Me: “Hey you know what would be soooo cool? Girls road trip. We should take a road trip somewhere.”
Dorp: “Yeah, that sounds cool. But when? Our schedules are always so different.”
Goocher: “Let’s go right now. Today. We already planned on spending all day together, might as well go today. But where?”
Me: “Well, you guys have never been wine tasting. How ‘bout if I take you guys wine tasting? Paso Robles is soooooo close. We could make there and back in one day.”
Me, Dorp, and Goocher: “wonder twin powers, ACTIVATE” and we were off.
At this point it was about 3:00pm, so we had to hurry. We get to Paso Robles and stopped at my FAVORITE tasting room, Tobin James Winery.
 Not only is their wine great, but the atmosphere is so much fun and laid back. Other than the mom and pop places you can find if you dare take those long windy roads, Tobin James is the perfect place to taste if it’s your first time. Some of the other places are stuffy and intimidating. Meridian Winery comes to mind. Great wine but a little stuffy. Eberle is also fun. And they do cave tours!
   this is me, and my sisters at Eberle.
While at Tobin James we find out that Andrew Firestone has just opened his winery down the road, and he’s there doing the good ol’ “Meet and Greet”.
 The lady next to us was so excited as she was describing how hot he is, how sweet and unpretentious, while showing off the picture she took of him. We had just started tasting, but Dorp got excited about meeting Andrew that she insisted we leave right then and then. Dammit. That’s my favorite place to taste. Crap. Well, ok. After all, it IS her birthday. I rushed to the register and bought my husband two of his favorite bottles of wine: Sangiovese, and Syrah.
We get to Firestone Winery and guess what? They are closed. Dammit.
Me: “Awww Dorp, I’m sorry you didn’t get to meet Andrew Firestone for your birthday trip!”
Dorp: “No biggie, I don’t even know who he is.”
Me: “Are you kidding me? You made me leave my FAVORITE wine tasting place and you don’t even KNOW WHO ANDREW FIRESTONE IS?” grrrrrrrr.
Dorp: “Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? He looked cute in the picture. Besides, the lady seemed so excited about meeting him. I wanted to see what the big deal was.”
Me: “Oh well, no big deal. Let’s move on to the dinner part of the trip.”
We decided if dinner ran too long, we’d stay the night in Pismo.
Goocher: “Hey let’s stop at Ross Dress For Less to buy a change of clothes. In case we stay the night.”
Sounds good to me. When we first walked in Dorp got a shopping cart. I thought to myself, “That’s weird, WHY does she need a shopping cart? This isn’t a grocery store. Why would ANYBODY need a shopping cart at a clothing store? Hmmm”
Little did I know I was soon to find out.
I bought two Lucky brand T-Shirts, a set of three chonies (undies), two bras and a sweater for $58.00! Not bad hu? AND I did it in UNDER thirty minutes. Then, I had to wait for their shop-a-holic booties to get done with THEIR shopping… TWO HOURS LATER… my feet hurt, I’m tired, I have a headache. I’m thinking who’s great freaken idea was it to stop at this godforsaken place anyways? Grrrrrr.
I went to pay then sat at a table near the front of the store, set my head down and took a nap. Hey, I ain’t shy. I’ll nap anywhere. Finally I decided to call their cell phones and tell them I had been waiting for them at the front forever… and are they going to be done anytime soon? They both finally came up to pay. It was then that I realized WHY they needed the shopping cart. I’ll be damned if they didn’t fill that shopping cart. WOW! Amazing, is all I have to say. Actually a few choice bad words come to mind, but I’ll stay with amazing and leave it at that. (can you tell I’m not a shopper?)
I was so pissed! As they were waiting in line to pay I was telling them off for taking so damn long.. and they just kept laughing at me for being so grumpy. Thank God for best friends, right? Who else would forgive you after you went off on them like a raving lunatic for SHOPPING!
As we were walking out of the store where I had just made a huge ass of myself by yelling at them and nagging like a bitchy wife, Dorp looks at me and says, “Ummmm Norma, WHY is your sweater on BACKWARDS?”
Ha! What a dummyhead. I’d walked around all day with my tag sticking out. I laughed so hard I almost peed my chonies.
At this point we were all tired. Me from waiting, them from shopping. So we decided to call it a day. We stopped at a mini mart to use the restroom. I bought a Twinkie for dinner, they bought Hot Cheetos. We headed back home. Two bottles of wine, a Twinkie for dinner, and another adventure with my two best friends. Life just doesn’t get any better than that!
Has anybody else noticed that MAS is going a little cukoo? Not the magazine, but the website. I logged on this morning and was browsing the site then all of a sudden my profile wasn't there anymore. At first I thought maybe a ghostie had eaten my member profile. But then other stuff started happening. Pages took longer to refresh, then went back to normal, then went back to sluggish. My first thoughts were "OH CRAP!! My computer was infected by a virus!" Then I noticed all my other morning web surfing on other sites was completely normal. My other thought of course immediatley went to the obvious. A GHOST! A REAL GHOST! You know, one of those webpage ghosts. ha. OH OK, I only thought that half jokingly before emailing MAS asking what the heckles was going on. Well, it turns out that they are doing some back end changes. They call it "server tuning".. whatever THAT means. Well, I mean... I KNOW what it means. It just sounds all "fancy" tee hee. "May I tune your server?" hee hee. Or is that, "May I serve your tuner?" *snorts... OK OK enough silliness. Basically from what I understand they are doing upgrades for the next week or so! From what I understand the worse times will be from 8:00am to 11:00am. Anyways... why does this matter to YOU? Well, I guess maybe it doesn't. I just wanted to give you a heads up in case you decided to browse through MAS or trying to get to my book club stuff or my blogs to leave a comment or trying to blog your own stuff or whatever and noticed some funki-dellic happenings. OH I almost forgot. IF you do happen to notice anything weird feel free to contact Olivia at MAS by clicking HERE and report what happened so they can fix it ASAP. Once all their updating stuff is done the site should be back to normal! While walking down the street one day a US senator is tragically hit by a truck and dies. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance. "Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you." "No problem, just let me in," says the man. "Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity." "Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the senator. "I'm sorry, but we have our rules." And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises... The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him. "Now it's time to visit heaven." So, 24 hours pass with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns. "Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity." The senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell." So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above. The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder. I don't understand," stammers the senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?" The devil looks at him, smiles and says, "Yesterday we were campaigning..... I'm either the luckiest girl in the world. OR the unluckiest when it comes to car trouble! Seriously! I was going to pull into a busy gas station one day when POP! I got a flat tire! My little car barely made it in and I pulled next to this nice Lincoln luxury car. It was driven by this handsome, very well dressed Hispanic man and sitting in the car with him was a classy older Hispanic lady. She was talking on her cell phone and you could tell she didn't want to be bothered. I looked up at him with my pleading eyes and I didn't even have to ask him. He took his coat off, rolled up his sleeves and changed my tire for me. It turns out he was a politician of some sort. The lady got off her cell phone long enough to say, "Don't forget to tell people SO-AND-SO changed your tire. And remember him when you go VOTE!" *I forgot his name, sorry. Similarly a different time I was driving through Los Banos to get to Pleasenton for some training. I was going with the flow of traffic when it happened. My check engine light came on, and my car started jerking hard. Putt PUTT... my poor little car went. So I quickly merged into the slow lane. I looked into the rear view mirror to make sure it was clear to go when I saw him. A red car was pulling over too. "NO WAY! How crazy would it be if that car was breaking down at the same exact time as me? SOoooooo weird!" I thought to myself. It turns out the dude saw my car putt-putting so when he saw that I was pulling over, he felt compelled to pull over too and make sure everything was ok. He let me use his cell phone and we called a tow truck. He then waited with me until the tow truck got there and made sure I was ok. Another time I was driving on HWY 65 when my car died (again). A guy in a white work car (It said laboratory something-or-other) pulled over and said, "Are you out of gas?" I replied, "I don't know? I think I might be." Lo-and-behold the guy had a GAS CAN in the trunk of his car. He put some in my car. The car started and I was on my way. It turns out he drove a lot for his work. Sometimes there wouldn't be any gas stations for miles. So he'd keep a five gallon tank in his trunk. Yeah, I KNOW! How random is that? Lucky me, right? The other night I was FINALLY able to repay the favor. My friends and I were hanging out when my friend decided it was time to go. She got up and said it she was heading home. I stayed a few minutes longer before I headed out myself. I wasn't even five minutes out when she called. "Twinkie! I just got a flat tire! I don't know what to do!" my friend said. "I'll be right there!" I replied after getting directions to where she was at. I immediately called the Roadside Assistance phone number and they dispatched a tow truck out. I sat there and waited for her to make sure she was OK. We joked about how we hoped a cute SINGLE Highway Patrol would stop to make sure we were OK (well to make sure SHE was OK) then we joked about how she would have to "repay" him for his kindness. ha. he. hee. ho. Anyways, I was glad I was there and it actually provided us with more time to talk. It also was nice to feel like I somehow repaid everyone else's kindness when I was in need of it. Nowadays it's scary to pull over to help someone that's broken down though. Would YOU stop to help? Does it make a difference if it's a guy in need or a girl? Why? "You know what you should make this year, honey? CRAB LEGS and STEAK," I told my husband the other day. Of course I didn't need to explain myself any further. He knew exactly what I was talking about. Every year for Valentines Day Mr. Twinkie goes all out and makes a romantic candlelit Valentine's dinner. For six. Yes! You read right! For SIX. Mrs. Twinkie, Mr. Twinkie and their four little Twinkies. You see for us, Valentines Day is a special family day. Mr. Twinkie and I have been married for over 9 years. I love that man more than I could ever express. So for Valentines instead of buying each other stuff we splurge on a nice dinner at home. Oh sure, I could go out and buy him a power tool. Or some sort of sports memorabilia to "show him" how much I love him. Yeah, he could buy me flowers or expensive jewelry that we can't really afford and stick ourselves with yet another monthly payment. But why? When we first got married every year he'd ask, "What do you want for Valentines Day?" And every year I've replied, "I want you to make us a nice dinner. Something we wouldn't normally cook at home. Something we typically can't AFFORD. It will be our own little splurge!" He'd say, "Well wouldn't you rather go OUT to eat?" To which I'd respond, "WHY? To sit there and wait for a table for over and hour? Then another hour before we even got our food? NO THANK YOU!" I mean, don't get me wrong. I like eating out. But when you're a working mom and then you come home and make dinner for your four kids and your husband going out to eat on one of the BUSIEST DAYS of the year does NOT sound like a great Valentine's evening. I'd be tired from working all day, starving, then I'd STILL have to wait just to get a table? OH NO! Nuh-uh! I don't think so. And so, that's how our tradition started. Every year he'll make a nice dinner. He'll stop at the supermarket and buy a flower arrangement. He'll get a vase out and put the flowers in it. Then he'll put the flowers on the table. He'll open a nice bottle of wine and set the table. He'll even light some candles around the house. Then when dinner is ready we sit as a family and have an awesome, out of the ordinary (for us) delicious Valentines dinner. For six. "Why don't you guys ever go out to eat, mom? Just you two?" Teen Twinkie asked this year. *GASP!!! Mr. Twinkie and I looked at each other in disbelief! I mean, what kind of crazy question is that? "Because Valentines Day is a day of LOVE! And we love you all. So why not spend a nice loving holiday together? Splurging in a nice expensive dinner for us and you kids?" I responded. "OH! OK!" Teen Twinkie shook her head as if she was thinking, "Crazy mom." Then again, who in their right mind is going to turn down CRAB LEGS for dinner right? Oh wait, she's vegetarian this year. I guess we'd better make some good veggies for the side dish.
|
