an experience with amber

I was sitting on my couch last night (walked for 8 hours yesterday, exhausting!) watching the red riding trilogy (pick up something new every time) when I heard this horrible noise that sounded like those weather alerts you hear on the radio (boop beep beep screeeee scrEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE). I was like where the fuck is that coming from? Then my blackberry lit up and started vibrating.

Of course my first thought was did one of my brothers hack my phone to fuck with me???? Then I realized it was an amber alert. Soon after my phone stopped making that horrible noise I received a text and then an email with the amber alert information. It was not very clear from an informational perspective (something about amber alert, Oklahoma, what I think was a license plate number, and then the rest was just gibberish). I tried to save it but it automatically deleted off my phone.

Minutes after receiving the text / email helicopters started circling my neighborhood and that went on for about an hour.

This is what the amber alert was about. Maybe the alerts we receive in Colorado aren't as good as those in Oklahoma, or maybe mine got garbled somehow. This was a comment on the linked story:

Amber Alert Indeed! Yesterday morning driving on an Oklahoma freeway, the Amber Alert signs lit up. Then last evening around 8:30 pm my cell phone started beeping like a tornado was enroute. What popped up was a very specific Amber Alert for this baby, with the license number and specific description of the car.


Another commenter on the story said the kidnapped kid was found...

my crazy neighbor steals my toothbrush

Last week I ordered a new electric toothbrush because my TMJ is causing some problems with my teeth and my dentist suggested I get a better electric toothbrush (I constantly grind my back teeth which is bad).

I was expecting my new toothbrush yesterday, and was probably more excited than a normal person would be about its arrival. It has settings so it's gentler than my existing electric toothbrush. It doesn't have the smiley face feature where a little smiley face displays when I've brushed my teeth for over two minutes (I know it;s strange, but I normally brush my teeth for at least four minutes) but it does have what the toothbrush maker calls a "sector alarm" to alert the brusher when she's brushed one area long enough.

Anyway, I was in a meeting, walking on my treadmill (14 miles today), looking out the window when I saw my crazy neighbor walk up to my door. Then I saw him walk away with an amazon package which I knew was my toothbrush. I was like WHAT THE FUCK, THAT'S MY TOOTHBRUSH!!!!!!!!! Before I could text him he texted me "I saw a package in your security door and brought it to my house. Let me know when you're home". I was like "I am home now." I wanted to say "BRING ME MY FUCKING TOOTHBRUSH POST HASTE OR I WILL RIP YOUR BALLS OFF!!!!!!!" but I was trying to be polite.

A few minutes later he rang my door bell. The package had been partially opened. But the toothbrush was all sealed up so I was willing to let it slide. I was like "why did you take my package out of the door?" and he said "I just assumed you weren't home" (funny, because I've had packages too big to fit in the security door sit in the snow and rain for days without any of my neighbors taking them in - and this package was in the door - and I'm always home these days).

Then he said "oh, while I'm here, can I see your crawl space redo?" So I showed it to him. He said "how much would you charge me to do mine?" and I said "a million dollars" and he said "all kidding aside" and I said "I'm not kidding".

So, I wonder...did he steal my toothbrush in an attempt to get me to redo his crawl space?

And people say I'm weird...

my doctor thinks he's me

I had an early appointment with my doctor today to take final measurements for my new jaw parts. When he first walked into the exam room he said "good morning, how are you?" and I said "good!" Then he walked over to the exam chair and said "how are you?" again. I was like "You just asked me that!" and he said "you didn't answer" and I realized he hadn't heard me. But he thought it was really funny to ask me, every 5 seconds, how I was until I finally yelled "GOOD!"

I now realize why people get so annoyed when I do that to them.

Then he told me that I would be proud of him because he ran to his pilates class, did pilates, and then ran to his office. I was feeding him shit during my last visit because he's 10 years younger than me and out of shape. We started talking about pilates and I found out he hasn't gotten to do the cadillac yet (the exercise the woman is doing in the photo is like an upside down push up, except that you can't let go, otherwise you'll fall - I used to be great at the cadillac when I did pilates and hardly any of the other students got to use it) so I decided to spend the next few minutes asking why he hasn't tried the cadillac yet. His assistant ratted him out (they take the same class) and said he was whining about his back hurting and spent most of the time stretching instead of doing pilates. He said "well, I was doing some really hard arm moves while I was stretching that you didn't see."

Then he made a sketch of my jaw and I laughed at it because it was so bad. He said the picture was bad because I always make faces when he's staring at my jaw (I do that involuntarily). Then he had to take measurements of the area that he's going to replace and I couldn't stop laughing because he kept accidentally poking me with the measurement tape (he claimed it was because I would make a horrible face as soon as the measurement tape touched my face). Finally he said "can you just pretend for 2 minutes that you are a normal person so I can finish this? and then you can go back to being your old weird self". So I made my robot face and his assistant started laughing and he accused us of ganging up on him.

He's been talking to other surgeons and feeling more confident about the surgery, though I may be missing part of my lower right jaw for a while if the bone isn't in good enough shape to put in the prosthetic. He said "well, you aren't one of those people who cares what you look like anyway." Which I thought was interesting. I always try to look somewhat presentable when I go to the doctor's.

Finally he said he could go and that he would do the rest of the measurements on my x-rays since I was (not purposely) not being cooperative.

So, I guess I'm all set to go with the surgery. Hopefully it will relieve my TMJ.

snakes, squirrels, soccer, and all that entails

Things have been crazy busy around here. So busy that I went almost three weeks without mopping my floor with a real mop (I consider the swiffer surface cleaning).

On Saturday FH and I did a hike at Herman's Gulch. It's shocking how much water is up there, and how green everything is, given that it's July. Odd summer in Colorado...glad for the rain but miss riding my bike in the evenings (I have too much metal in my body to go out when it's lightning).

forgot to bend my monkey arms - FH took this great pic of me and then I took a pic of him and he was like "that's terrible! it looks like a first day at school photo" - I tried to explain to him that I made him so tiny in the picture because there was a cloud behind him that looked like a penis that I wanted to get in the photo...anyway, I probably won't get to take any more pics of him on our hikes

Nothing crazy happened on our hike except for when he suddenly yelled "snake!" and I jumped on his back because I didn't want to get bitten by a snake. Turns out he was just fucking with me. And then, driving home, there was a torrential rain storm (we literally got back to the car right before the sky started dumping) and I had to drive 15 MPH and still couldn't see the car in front of me. It was a great day.

Sunday I worked with my friend Jess at the last world cup game. From the get go I was tired and fucking stuff up. I didn't check the propane stove to make sure it was turned off when I attached the canister so when I went to light it a bunch of flames came out and almost scorched my face. Then I burned my hand on a pot handle. And then I dropped about 30 packets on the ground. Jess said "Oh Franki!" Ech. But we did sell out of food and I got to meet a crazy drunk Brazilian woman who uses the f word more than I do.

Then Monday I was working at my dining room table (I am trying to not go totally overboard with the treadmill this week) when I heard a horrible noise. I looked at the back door and there was a fucking squirrel trying to gnaw through the screen door. Fucker. Why would a squirrel do that? It's not like it smelled food or that my door is dirty (I disinfect it every Friday night).

instead of chewing on my screen door why don't you go fuck yourself?

other people might see you as cute - I see you as a target - POW

 I think that squirrel must be the grandchild of another squirrel who terrorized my house in 2008. It would jump up on the screen door and make a loud chattering noise. No idea why. That was the same summer a raccoon was nesting somewhere on the roof. I would look out my bedroom door and see the raccoon sleeping on a chaise lounge that I usually sit in in the evenings while reading. The raccoon got taken away because the city of Denver said it had rabies. My neighbor drowned the troublesome squirrel because it attacked his dogs.