Mama's cooking

Lately my mom has been cooking up some yummy, healthy dinners.

This is awesome, not just because we're eating healthy and eating good, but because my mom is cooking.

It takes her a while and she has to lie down when the pain gets too bad, but still she's doing it.

Monday on my lunch hour, we went into the bank on an errand, then to lunch where we had to walk a block down Main Street (because I can never remember where anything is) and back again.

She was able to do all of this with only a cane which she uses more for balance than anything else.

I realize most 66-year-old women can do these things, but for my mom it is monumental.

Last June, after suffering for months with debilitating back and hip pain, my mom was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer which metastasized to bones and had taken over larger portions of her spine. The prognosis was not good, not good at all.

She was suffering greatly. The pain prevented her from being able to do almost anything but lie on one side in bed.

When I brought her to Grand Junction to live with us, my mom could barely make it from the bed around the corner to the bathroom while using a walker. She couldn't sit for any length of time and walking was precarious and painful.

Luckily for us, she has a great team of doctors at the St. Mary's Cancer Center and was given effective treatments.

Now she walks around the house without even a cane, sits with her computer on her lap, keeps her room, cleans the kitchen and makes dinner.

It is glorious.

Her doctors are thrilled and as am I.

Mama's back and she's making us dinner.

McCraquette ball

I've been Googling and reading the rules of racquetball.

I think it's important that Bill, Margaret and I actually know something about this game because what we did at the racquetball court last night bore no resemblance to any organized game. Instead, it looked more like a 3-D version of the old video game, Super Breakout.

But we did have fun. The three of us ran around smacking the ball as much as we possibly could. We cheered each other on and I only yelled at Bill a couple of times for trying to detach our retinas.

And it was way better than doing what Margaret wanted to do.

She wanted us to move ourselves around the jogging track ... by jogging.

Jogging is not something that I aspire to do.

I should point out that I'd like to have the aerobic capacity to be able to run for some respectable amount time ... you know, in case I was being chased by some horrible monster or if the ice cream truck was getting away. But I don't really want to be running just for the sake of running.

There's a kajillion things I'd much rather be doing. Number one on that list is lying down ... in my bed ... watching HBO (we only get HBO free for one more month, so I'm trying to get my money's worth — OK, since I'm not paying for it, I'm not actually getting my "money's worth," but I don't want it to go unwatched. Plus have you seen that series "Big Love"? Because holy macarolli, that's a crazy show. )

Really that is the problem that led us to sign up for a membership to the Mesa State rec center — I've been lying down way too much. It's all I want to do.

Bill and I have had gym memberships before and, honestly, I really liked going to the gym. But I felt too guilty being out of the house so many evenings during the week.

Now Bill and I can take Margaret with us to play racquetball (assuming that we actually learn the game. In the meantime, we'll continue playing McCraquette ball with exuberance), swim or even — gag — jog on the inside track.

I shouldn't really make it sound so bad, 10 years ago while pregnant with Margaret, I was a full-time employee of Mesa State College. My assistant and I would use the gym several days a week.

She'd use the machines while I'd walk on the treadmill. Then we'd walk as fast as we could around the then-much-shorter inside track (believe me, having access to an inside track during the middle of summer here while pregnant was essential) for three or four miles.

And I really enjoyed it. I'd like to think that all that exercise was the reason I had such a quick labor and delivery. Who knows?

So now, while I have no intention of bulking up to my pre-birth weight, I would like to achieve my pre-birth aerobic capacity ... you know, in case the ice cream man tries to deny me an ice-cream sandwich.

In sickness

As I'm typing this, I keep pausing to inhale the steam wafting off my herbal tea in hopes that it'll open my clogged sinuses.

It's that a nice way to start a blog, by painting a picture of a nose full of boogers and sickness? Yeah, well, it's that kind of day.

But I'm trying not to complain.

Trying real hard.

Margaret got sick several weeks ago and it working her way through a second round of antibiotics to get the evil cough to go away.

Sunday, my mom came down with some serious congestion and a loose, phlegmy cough (pretty, eh?).

Bill's trying to avoid any contact with anything we touch, breath on or even look at just in case. I don't blame him. I should've been more diligent.

But for now, I've dusted off the old neti pot, found the SinuCleanse, I'm taking Zicam and drinking herbal tea.

What do you for the common cold?

P.S. On a completely different note, sometimes it's a very good idea to heed the PG-13 rating on movies.

Last night, Mar, my mom and I sardined on my mom's bed to watch Julie & Julia while Bill sat as far away as he could get from the triumvirate of illness.

While the premise of famous chef Julia Child and a young writer seems an appropriate one for 9-year-old, I was sadly mistaken. At one point I had to answer Margaret with a bland, "You don't need to worry about that" when, in reference to a comment made by Julia Child, Margaret asked "What is a stiff cock?"

That Julia was a saucy one on many levels.

Vegas is fun ... who knew

So I'm sure you all know by now, Bill and I went to Vegas.

It was fun, eat drank a lot (you can walk down the street with drinks, just like civilized people should), we ate a lot and I started out my family's Biggest Loser Challenge by gaining one pound (Bill reminded me that I should be happy it's only one pound considered all the eat and drink).

But because I can't leave well enough alone, here are some photo highlights from our trip:

It's better than a slap in the face

I'm clumsy. I trip over stuff, fall up stairs and start to skid if I even look at ice. Basically, I'm awkward.

Because of this, I decided a while ago to forgo high fives.

I didn't choose to not high five out of malice, but because I'm afraid of accidentally slapping unknowing person in the face.

Also, I used to miss a lot and that just made me feel stupid.

So now when presented with a palm to slap, I have to say, "Sorry, I don't high five."

And you know what?

It bothers people ... a lot.

I realize that by not high fiving, I am rebuffing a socially accepted gesture of affirmation. I'm sorry about that. But still, I should be allowed to not high five, don't ya think?

Many people do not agree. I have been chased down in a vain attempt to force me to high five and there are numerous people who try to trick me into high fiving.

Seriously.

Now, I don't high five on principle. I'll shake your hand when appropriate, hug you if I like you, but don't ask me to slap your hand or I might just miss on purpose.

I think, therefore, I Twitter

I like social networking. I blog (obviously, eh?), I Facebook and I Twitter.

I can take a picture with my BlackBerry and when I upload it via Ubertwitter, it automatically updates my Facebook status.

In short, I'm a bit of a geek ... well, I don't write code or anything smart like that, so maybe I'm just like everybody else who performs these now-mundane tasks.

Through Facebook, I've been able to reconnect and stay in touch with many family members who I'd normally see only at weddings and funerals, as well as former classmates and long-lost friends.

For me, social networking is fun. I like it — for the most part.

There is a basic code of etiquette to which we should all strive for our online presences. Click here to read Brenda Powell's basic list of dos and don't for social networking.

Here are a few of my guidelines:

First, my kid, my mom and my grandms are all on Facebook. So I do try to keep my posts, pictures, stories, videos, etc., acceptable for their viewing enjoyment.

I break this guideline often.

I have been known to spend a Sunday morning or two deleting unsavory pictures and/or comments that I had posted the night before when my good judgment was clouded by my beer goggles and readily accessible Internet.

I try to make my updates at least marginally funny (to myself, anyway) or informational. I try (and, again, often fail) to avoid posting mundane facts, e.g., "I had lunch with Bill today," "I'm working at my desk," "I'm walking my dog."

All those things are true (well, I'm not actually walking my dog right now. She actually hates the cold. Thank goodness our dear friend bought her a dog snuggie), but in the grand scheme of things, who cares?

If I'm dead set on pronouncing my lunchtime activities, I try at least to include some entertaining tidbit, e.g., "I dazzled the folks in the Chipotle parking lot by falling off the 6" curb today after lunch with Bill."

Still not the most interesting thing in the world, because if you know me, you know that the probability of me falling off each and every curb I'm presented with is pretty high. But at least there was some effort to craft a statement worth reading.

Now while I'm not that interested in reading about what you had for dinner, I am interested in seeing your pictures. I'm a visual person. Don't write that you got a new haircut/tattoo/snuggie unless you are going to post pictures of the aforementioned item. I want to be able to judge for myself whether the haircut/tattoo/snuggie is indeed as awesome as you suggest.

One of my social-networking pet peeves is when people use their status updates to count down to their awesome vacations upon which I have not been invited (Daniel, I'm looking at you!).

While I love to hear what people are doing on their vacays and see pictures of the places they are visiting, knowing that they have 3 days, 15 hours and 29 minutes until their plane lands in Hawaii, makes me hope — just a little bit — they experience a bed-bug infestation.

I post links to my blogs on Facebook and sometimes to Twitter, not because I expect everyone to be interested enough to read them, just so that those that I've "friended" can, if they want to.

Honestly, I'm always surprised when I find out that people actually read my scribblings. That fact alone makes me strive to be more interesting, more funny, more profound.

In the meantime, I only can hope to be less annoying.

From the list of "Things I Do Not Want"

There are a lot of things, stuff, doohickeys that I'd like to have. This is not one of them:



Why don't I want it?

Because it's a teddy bear made out of human placenta.

As a matter of fact, I do not want any object make out of any part of a human person. But thanks anyway.

2009: A recap odyssey

As I sit here attempting to sum up this year, 2009, I'm overcome by a few strong sensations.

First is happiness. I have two really good jobs that I really like (I never really understood that idea of working at a job that made you unhappy), a devoted husband (again never understood staying with someone who didn't make you happy), a stepson of which I'm immensely proud and a daughter who blows my socks off in oh-so-many ways.

This also extends to the fact that my mom is now living with us. But that happiness is clouded, of course, by the stupid cancer that has tried — without success, I might add — to take her down.

Honestly, my mom's illness, coming on the heels of my dad's death two years ago, was initially devastating. I remember crying on the phone to my brother and asking, "Why is this happening to us?"

I now realize that sometimes sucky things just happen. You can either sit back and let the sucky things make your life suck or pick yourself up and get busy living.

And that's just what we did.

I wanted to include a few pictures from 2009 showing the places we visited and that stuff we did, but it turns out we had a really kick-booty year. I had a hard time narrowing it down. So without further ado, here's a kajillionty photos I'd like to title:

The stuff we done did in 2009

We climbed Mt. Garfield.



Skied at Powderhorn.



We celebrated Easter with my co-workers here at The Daily Sentinel.



My band, Riveter, opened for Bret Michaels.



I saw my beloved stepson, Sean, graduate from Palisade High School.



We hiked to Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs.



Saw my daughter turn 9 years old.



We stood on the Four Corners Monument.



Visited the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco.



Climbed the ancient steps to the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.



Bill and I got to see our president speak on health care reform.



Took a motorcycle ride through scenic Gateway Canyon.



Visited the museums of our nation's capitol.



And I started the long and painful journey of getting a giant tattoo on my back.



Phew! Just thinking about it makes me exhausted ... and excited to see what 2010 has in store.

Happy New Year to all!

Coming to an end

I guess it's appropriate that as the year is closing change is afoot.

Sometimes it's hard to let go. But what remains is that the only certainty is change. It doesn't matter how much you give love, attention, affection, adoration ... sometimes you just have to let go.

But, 2010 is around the corner and new challenges are on the horizon.

It is with sadness and remorse that I wish the old goodbye, adieu, so long ... I wish you didn't have to go. But I understand it's time. Time for change. Time for new adventures.

And, remarkably, I'm OK with it.

So without further ado, I bid farewell:

Farewell Once-Giant Pencil/Now-Wee Pencil.

But fear not, for I have but a new giant pencil which I am calling Giant Pencil, Too.

The Giant Pencil is dead!
Long live the Giant Pencil, Too.

As Richie and her family begin their holiday traditions, our little family is continuing ours — with some exceptions and variations.





We found our tree at the Orchard Mesa Christmas Tree Farm, as we have for the last several years. We had to skip the hayride, which we always enjoy, because Margaret was had a cold and the icy wind hurried us back to our car.

We couldn't find our good Christmas tree stand and then argued over using the bad Christmas tree stand and whether or not the tree should be cut again once we got it home (I said yes, Bill said no. I acquiesced simply because my fingers were too frozen to stay outside and saw a new cut myself). This is not part of our holiday traditions and one that we hope we do NOT continue in the future.

Cutting our own Christmas tree is not something that we did when I was a child. I grew up in the San Francisco-Bay Area where parking lots vastly outnumber tree farms. Instead we'd go to the huge tree lots out by the Oakland Coliseum. We'd walk around, eat a hot dog and find a tree.

Eating a hot dog was almost as important as getting a good tree.

This year when we got home from the tree farm, my mom asked if we got a hot dog.

I think next year that will become part of our tradition — because hot dogs should be part of every tradition, as far as I'm concerned.

Our first Christmas together, Bill and I had no Christmas decorations at all. But we still bought a giant tree and pulled our pennies to buy some simple bulbs, a couple blown-glass ornaments, bows and an angel.

We still use them, but now we decorate our tree with ornaments that we've have accumulated over our 11 Christmases together as a family. I saved all the Hallmark boxes and plastic containers for each ornament and love opening each one. As we put them on our tree, we talk about how cute/pretty/thoughtful each ornament is, where it came from or who gave it to us.

I love this part of the holiday.

This year, I bought some picture frames, sorted through a box of old photos and put a bunch of pictures of my dad out on our piano.

He's the only thing missing this year.

Tattoo transformation: Mucha tattoo phase three

Those that follow me on Twitter and Facebook know that a week and a half ago, I had my third sitting for my Mucha backpiece tattoo.

It was only four hours and I sat much better this time than last. I have it down to a science now. Unlike all the fashionistas that show up on LA Ink, I come in my sweats and my sweatshirt. I fortify myself with my pain relievers, snacks, water (it's gotta be Fuji and lots of it) and my pillow — yes, I bring my own pillow to get tattooed.

Comfort is important to me, especially when I'm sitting for hours while I voluntarily let some guy carve into my skin with needles. (OK, not just some guy, but a talented and experienced tattoo artist.)

I've had many ask me the significance of the images I'm getting permanently inked on myself. It's not as easy as simply decoding the image's iconography. This tattoo is about the images and the process.

Coming up with the images was the easy part. I'm a very visual person. I love looking at images, buildings, people, pictures, artwork. And I'll look at the same stuff over and over again, because the world is so beautiful and interesting.

I knew I wanted something feminine, organic and beautiful. At first I though that I just wanted more floral elements, maybe a dragonfly or a swallow. But then while going through my dear friend Tracee's book on the artwork of Alphonse Mucha, I was moved by the grace of line work and the elegance of his figures and flowers.

I borrowed Tracee's book and spent hours pouring over the images. His graphic work was already two-dimensional and linear and would translate easily into a tattoo.

I looked at all his flowers trying to decide which ones I wanted to add to my existing, lower-back tattoos. But I kept coming back to one image, this one:

Mucha's personification of emerald. I love her beauty and confident gaze. I love the lines of her drapery and of the gargoyle upon which she rests. I love the stylized snake that twists through her hair and its manifold meanings.

I wanted her. But I've seen way too many bad tattoos of human faces. Instead of yielding to my fears, I found the best tattoo artist in the valley, Erik Campbell at The Raw Canvas and hit the go button. As luck would have it, he not only knew the artwork of Alphonse Mucha, but had been wanting to do a Mucha tattoo.

While my girl is from the emerald image, Erik has been borrowing flowers from the other three images in Mucha's Precious Stones series: ruby, amethyst and topaz. All symbols of grace, beauty, elegance. I love these images.

The image was the easy part. It's the tattooing that's the challenge. For me, this process is not just about transforming the skin on my back into a work of art. It's about coming to terms with who I am inside and out.

I've never been happy with the way I look; too fat, too bulky, too lopsided, too big, too lumpy. And it's taken every ounce of will power to post the photo above and below as they show my flaws — my ugliness along side my self-inflicted beauty.
I so wanted to crop off the bottom of this picture. Showing my stretch marks and love handles sends my anxiety into overdrive.

But this is what I look like. This is my woman's body. This is me. And through a regular, not-media-tainted lens, it's not so bad.

But I'm forcing myself to write this. There's still a huge part of my scarred psyche that wants to temper these remarks, make fun of myself, because I know I could look better, more like the women on TV. But I don't.

And as much as I want to be fine with it, I'm still working it out.

As I say to Bill quite often these days when I flare up over tiny things and have a hard time coping, "My dust it up."

All my feelings of insecurities, all the pain and sadness, feelings of loss and inadequacy are floating around my brain, taking over. I usually keep them watered down, but now I'm forcing myself to keep them up and active. I keep shaking them around like snow a Christmas globe, hoping that I can learn and grow from dissecting them and ultimately learning to love them.

Throughout my life, I've thought that if I'd just lose weight, I'd feel better about myself, I'd be happy with who I am. Never once thinking that my problem isn't 25 pounds.

Now I am. And this process, through its physical and mental pain, is proving itself to be transformative in ways I never thought possible.

Perspective

I have a blue sticky note sitting on my desk with a list of words written on it. The words are intended to remind me of blog posts that I want to write.

But this one is coming first.

This may not be as important as sharing with you all the state and condition of my dearest stepson or as funny as the fact that I almost always have at least one accidentally self-inflicted bruise. Nor as compelling as that I’ve discovered people are seriously disturbed by my decision not to high five.

Over the past couple of years, my perspective on life has changed, or I should say is changing. And my family dynamic is changing as well.

The relationship I have with my husband, mother, daughter and stepson are so much more than I ever thought they could be.

And it’s because I’ve changed and so has how I view the events of my life. Oh, I still blow up over missing iPods and dog pee on the carpet. But I know now that that’s a luxury and also stupid.

This blog entry written by a former-San Francisco lawyer, now Detroit, stay-at-home dad illustrates exactly how one’s world goes from little to big as fast as it takes for someone to puke.

And that’s no joke.

Thoughts on the boob vise

As I've mentioned before, my mom has breast cancer which had metastasized to her bones. Thanks to the great doctors and staff at St. Mary's Cancer Center, she is improving. For that I am very thankful.

My humble opinion is that cancer sucks and we should all be doing what we reasonably can to prevent it and/or detect it early.

For women that means yearly pap smears combined with, after age 40, the boob vise.

But now, researchers have said that women needn't have their breasts flattened in the mammogram torture machine until their 50th birthday and that self-exams are not that helpful.

I have mixed emotions about these findings.

First, since I have cancer in my family, I'm not one that can be spared the yearly mammogram until I'm 50. And as much as I want any cancer I might have to be detected early, the idea of having my womanly bits ironed flat like a linen skirt doesn't appeal to me much.

Is this really the best we can do? Clamping breasts into machines to look for cancer?

I bet if that's the way testicular cancer was detected, they'd be a whole poop-pot full of doctors and researchers looking for new testing methods.

Why girl bands are awesome: Reason 386

Girl bands (or in our case, "mostly all-girl" or "all-girl fronted") are awesome because we care so deeply for one another.

Yesterday I woke up with an issue. My head was not correctly attach to my neck. It was listing to the right, painfully.

I've had this before. Been to the doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists, physical therapists and ultimately ended up at the neurosurgeon who told me I've got some arthritis in my neck.

He suggestion was to go about my enjoying my life as usual.

Well, that was helpful. Because literally having my head on crooked was great and no one ever made fun of me.

Anyway, I started doing yoga and exercising regularly and I haven't had much problem with it since.

Until yesterday.

I saw Laurena yesterday morning and complained about my neck.

Her response?

"Oh no, not your guitar playing neck!"

Husband of the year

I know, I know, I've expounded on my husband's virtues before. But this weekend's events prove without a doubt that my husband should be 2009's Husband of the Year (and honestly, having to deal with me and all my issues, the dude should be Husband of the Millennium).

Bill's bromance, Cy, was having a housewarming fest Saturday night (for those not in the know, a housewarming for a 20-something bachelor is very similar to a frat party only without all the lame-ass frat dudes ... so I guess it's not like a frat party at all, but a regular party just without furniture or some PMSing wife making everyone go home).

About a hour before we were to leave, we noticed a catastrophic failure of the sump pump in our basement.

In. The. Basement. The basement that is now our bedroom.

Y'all know what the sump pump is and does right? There's a vat into which the downstairs sink, washer, shower and toilet drain. Then when it gets to a certain level, a trigger turns on the pump and pumps all the shitty water up to the sewer line for the rest of the house.

The pump is in the vat of shit, toilet paper and bum water.

If I were left to my own devices, I'da gotten on the telephone wildly dialing numbers until I could hire some fixer person to come deal with the issue.

Bill, being a man of fixing tendencies, opened the shit vat and extricated the pump while I stood in the bedroom watching TV and hoping to not have to help.

But I did need to help.

Bill stood there with this giant pump attached to a PVC pipe breaking his back asking me to cover the new carpet and help him wrap the thing in plastic bags.

My response, "Wait, I have to change my shirt and put up my hair."

Because I'm helpful. Needless to say, Bill pulled a muscle in his back.

But I did help. And I am scarred from it.

All in all, Bill got the pump out, unclogged and back in and I only cried a little once.

After the whole poopfest was over, he showered, scrubbing himself with acid and we went to the party.

It got drunk out that night and we slobbered home around 3 a.m.

Sunday morning, Bill and I were feeling less than chipper made less so by the fact that the sump pump was again not working.

So after a quick run to McDonalds for hangover breakfast, Bill once again breached the seal of poopland and fixed the pump again.

This time, I laid on the sofa too hungover to even pretend to help.

When I finally ventured downstairs (after watching the newest episode of Top Chef and fighting off nausea and a migraine). The pump was fixed, the bathroom was clean and the husband laid panty-clad on the bed ... and he wasn't even pissed that I didn't help him.

See? Husband of the Year.

Confessions of a budding addict

Hi, my name is Robin and I'm an addict.

My husband and I thought that together we'd just use a little. You know, to help us out, to be more productive. But now it's all he wants to do and I'm just about as bad.

I can go for lengths of time without my addiction and I can stop whenever I want to.

But I don't want to.

And I'm starting to feel the effects, like when I'm driving or watching TV ... I'm distracted. Always glancing around to see if I can get a quick fix.

I can't seem to help myself. I've been googling ways to use more and faster.

It's time that I come clean.

My name is Robin and I'm addicted to my Blackberry.

Yes, I even sicken myself.

Smarter than a speeding bullet

I'm sure I've mentioned before that Margaret likes old movies. Unfortunately, by "old" I mean movies from the ’70s and ’80s — those prehistoric times when I was young.

There's something about those movies that appeals to her. I think it's because they aren't really scary and tend to be a bit silly — and that works just fine for her.

Last night we finished watching the 1978 Superman movie with Christopher Reeve. And I have to admit that after not having seen it in 30 years, I really enjoyed it (even if I did not quite understand the flying part — I mean, what exactly propels him?) and so did Mar ... for the most part.

At the moment when Superman pulls Lois Lane from her car which had fallen into the San Andreas Fault and discovers her dead, Margaret utters matter-of-factly, "Doesn't he know CPR?"

Yes, he could fly so fast as to turn the planet backward, rewinding time. But he doesn't know basic life-saving skills such as CPR? Huh. Some Superman.

Vibrating mascara ... 'the hell?

So I mentioned briefly last time that I was in the market for mascara.

I don't know if you've been shopping for mascara lately, but your typical, drug-store variety costs about $8 a tube.

Eight bucks.

That's two, happy-hour beers.

So I don't like to go throwing around my hard earned 8 bucks all willy nilly. As I mentioned, I tried to get Bill to help me, but he was on the hunt for a Mississippi mudflap and was no help.

Well, I should say that his response was, "Eight dollars? Just pick a cheap one so we can go."

He's so helpful.

I looked at all the applicators, then all the colors, then started to get anxious because what if I bought one and hated it. I'd have to do this all over again.

Just as I was about to buy one of each, I noticed this:



Mascara with a vibrating, pulsating applicator.

Um, I hate to sound daft, but I don't get it.

Why would someone want their applicator to vibrate?

I have enough trouble trying to get the mascara on my lashes and out of my eye without having the thing tremble on its own.

And how could a pulsing applicator make the whole process easier? Would it shake the goop on my lashes?

I think this whole "vibrating applicator" is just a beard and that it's not intended to be used for mascara application at all.

I'm just sayin'. We could see a lot more happy women with messy mascara.

The one that got away

Last night I needed a couple of things from the drug store and recruited Bill to go along.

This is a good thing and a bad thing.

It's good because he's great company and keeps me entertained — even if it's only for a quick trip to the store.

It's bad because what should have been a 5-minute trip down two aisles and out, turned into an unsuccessful "hunting" trip.

Why? Because we just can't act right — even after 10 years of marriage.

I needed conditioner and mascara. We started in front of the Biolage products where I began expounding on the virtues of Biolage's Smoothing Conditioner.

Seriously people, if you have have frizzy, unruly hair, go right now (I'll wait) and buy yourself some Biolage Smoothing Shampoo and Conditioner. You'll thank me for it.

While I was claiming that I'd have to shave my head if they ever stopped making Smoothing Conditioner, Bill was kicking my shoe and glancing repeatedly over my shoulder. Finally I realized he wasn't trying to get me to shut up, instead he was trying to direct my attention to the next aisle.

And what did I see? A fem-mullet of colossal proportions.

Bill was completely entranced.

I tried to get him to help me pick out a mascara, but he couldn't take his eyes off the Kentucky waterfall. In desperation, I decided to just believe Drew Barrymore and selected the mascara promising bold lashes.

But we weren't done.

No. Bill was insistent that we capture of photo of this hockey hair in the wild. So we started stalking this poor woman around the store. At one point, I studied the Chia Pet display while Bill faked a phone conversation so he could take a picture with his Blackberry.

I was finding it harder and harder to maintain a normal composure and we were running out of things to "shop" for so we gave up and headed to the cash register.

And guess who walked up behind us?

I heard Bill's Blackberry's camera snap a picture as I was signing the debit receipt.

As we walked out of the door, I asked him half giggling, "Did you get it?"

Bill looked down at the screen and frowned, "Naw, I just got a picture of a bunch of candy."

I bet this is how Big Foot hunters feel.

Jokes on ... uh, who?

From the Holy Crap files: A radio show was playing a prank on a woman and it goes ... uh, terribly awry.

Make sure you listen to the very end.

Boss Tells Woman that her Husband's been Fired sound bite Humor sound bites