Adventures of Pip Pip

All of my life I thought a notary was called Notary REpublic. All my life meaning 30 years. Those 30 years include the 6 years I worked at Court TV with lawyers and the year I bought my apartment. Notary REpublic.

I only learned the truth of it when I actually had to become a notary.

In my defense…people don’t call it notary public…they just say notary.

So… a friend of mine and I get into her car, parked in a parking garage. We had been out for the night so we were a little, hung over. Chatting away she goes to start her car. It won’t turn over. She freaks out a little bit, why won’t my car start…oh no…my car won’t start. 30 seconds later she realized that she had put her car into reverse before she ever started it…hence the no turn over. She then started to laugh and said in that 30 seconds I scared the shit out of myself. She thought… oh god, what will I do? A tow truck can’t get down in this garage. I can’t leave my car here. Will I have to push it out? How will I get out past the post behind us? She said her thoughts just kept coming.

hhhmmmm this sounds familiar.

My 30 seconds to terror.

I go tanning. Yes, I know the health risks I know all the horrible things about it and yet I still do it. I’m sure there are things that you do that are bad for you too and yet you do them anyway, right??

A few things you know first…

I hadn’t been in a long time; so long in fact that tanning went from lay down beds to stand up closets. The closet was new to me and it took me while to get used to it. The stand-up closet is two rooms. The first room is empty, 3 feet by 3 feet….if that. It’s not large enough for me to spread my arms all the way out. This room is used for undressing, and then you open the door and move into the tanning room, even smaller than the other room, shaped like an octagon. Each wall is a line of bulbs, with a metal guard over the light bulbs. Even the door between the empty room and the tanning room has bulbs and the protective metal guard. 360 degree of bulbs.

You have to wear protective eye wear. I choose to wear these sticker things that prevent me from opening my eyes.

The”bed” only allows you to tan for 8 minutes total. The lights are so intense that on a normal day I would only tan for 5 minutes. On a normal day.

This was not a normal day.

I undressed, put the stickers on my eyes, hit the button, stepped in the booth and pulled the door closed. The problem starts right away but it goes unnoticed by me. Usually stepping into my left so that if I need to make a quick escape I can, and I know the door is to my left. This time, I don’t know what I did. I also chose to go for 7 minutes rather than 5. Why? I don’t know.

By 5:30 I’m about to die. It is too freaking hot. I need to get out of this room…I can’t find the door. I’m running my hand up and down, pushing the bars, shaking them. Where is the door? I am a girl stuck in a prison trying to shake my way out… I’m spinning. I can’t see. I can’t find the door. I’m burning up. Oh.my.god. I’m trapped. I can’t find the door.  I’m never going to get out of here. The outside door is locked too; if I call for help no one will be able to hear me. They will have to call the fire department to get me out. I’m trapped, I’m naked and they are going to have to call the fire department. oh.my.g……zzzztttt. The lights turn off. It is no longer as bright as the sun…I rip the stickers off my eyes….I am, in fact, facing the door. Yep, 30 seconds to sheer terror.

Is this thing on?

It’s a getting a little dusty in here…. too many cobwebs…better get to cleaning.

Season 2 is just around the corner.

I’ve been given a lot of grief lately for not posting any blogs. Although I have plenty of stories to tell, I just haven’t been inspired to tell them. That is until today when something happened…I split my pants, again. Again for the third time I have split my pants in public. Although thankfully this time it wasn’t on a date…like the other two times. Yeah, I’ve split my pants twice on two separate dates with to separate gentlemen. And now, I’ve split them in Home Depot, man central. There must be something about me and splitting my pants around the male species.

The first pants split I had some warning…some. You see I had this really great pair of jean that I loved…they made my ass look fan-freaking-tastic. The problem was, I loved them so much I wore them all the time and well, as jeans do, they started to wear out a bit…you know you get a bit of a hole, still covered with white strings but no “denim” to be seen, I like to call it the almost hole. There is still “fabric” there but the reality is, it’s just a bunch of white strings that happen to be close together. The almost hole on these jeans was right below the back pocket, just on the outside, closer to my hip rather than my butt. I got ready for the date all happy to be wearing my jeans… he picked me up, we drove to the theater, I got out of the car and felt a cool breeze on my butt. I remembered the almost hole and thought….oh no…. so I quickly checked, with a swipe of my hand across my backside felt the strings and thought, oh it’s just colder than normal so noticed it more no worries, my pants are okay. We go into the theater, I still remember the movie…Varsity Blues… we get to our seats and I do what everyone who is 19 and in a movie theater does, I put my legs up on the chair in front of me. And that’s when I hear it. The tell tale sign of ripped cloth. rrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiipppppppppppppp. I dropped my legs felt the back, started to laugh and couldn’t stop. My date asked me over and over what was wrong, but this had happened right as the movie was starting so I couldn’t tell him….but I couldn’t stop laughing. Once the movie was over I was forced to confess, especially since I refuse to get up from the seats until everyone behind me had left. I took off my sweatshirt and wrapped it around my waist and we left the theater. It wasn’t until we got back to my apartment that I knew the full damage… the rip went literally from the outside seam to the inside seam, and my entire butt cheek hung out in all it’s glory. There is a hole and then there is the assless chaps I was wearing…

The next date and the next rip, surprisingly more embarrassing. Everything about the date was normal…I wasn’t wearing almost holed jeans, I had learned my lesson…normal clothes…normal date, different guy. We went to a rock show, came back to my apartment and were hanging out with my room mate and friends again. I decided that I wasn’t comfortable in my jeans, so I would change into my pajama pants, for comfort. I, like most people, wear my pj pants 3 times bigger than necessary for extra room. I came back out into the living room and sat on the couch. I heard this strange tearing noise when I sat down, so I stood up and turned around looked at the couch, saw nothing, sat back down again and heard it again. I thought it was strange, so I looked again. Nothing. I sat again. The noise again. This time I didn’t get up, I figured it was something coming from the underside of the cushions that I just couldn’t see. Time passes, everyone is sitting in the room hanging out…I get up to go to the bathroom, turn around walk away from the crowed and I hear… OH.MY.GOD. What are you doing?!?… who me? Yes! You! My roommate screams. What? She, along with 10 other people, including my date start to laugh. I have no idea what they are laughing at but it has something to do with me. I stand there confused…they are pointing telling me to turn around…I start turning around in circles like a dog chasing it’s tail…and after what seems like 10 circles I finally see what they are talking about. I have a rip from the top of my pants halfway down the backside, almost to my knee. So that’s what that noise was…I had ripped my pants 3 times, I assume that each time I got up to look at the couch I made the tear even bigger. Whats embarrassing about this torn pants story, is that it was pajama pants. How does one tear into pants that could easily fit 3 people inside?

I always thought those were my pants ripping stories, I never thought it would happen again. Until I went to Home Depot… My sister has asked me to do some home improvement on her house, so I went to check out what I needed to get. I find the materials and I bend down to check out the merchandise and I hear that rip I have heard so many times before. But this time, totally unexpected…there was no warning, no almost hole, no thoughts of why am I wearing these jeans they are too tight? None of that. You know why? Because they weren’t too tight, they didn’t have a hole and there was no reason for the tear. And yet…I heard it, I know I just ripped my pants. But to make matters even worse, I have no idea where the hole is, I can’t see it. I’m bent over in, ass in the air head looking at the crotch and I see no hole…I know one is there…but I don’t know where, it must be on the butt side, the side I can’t see… great is all I can think because now I have to walk  ALL THE WAY across the store…with out a shirt long enough to cover the hole…a hole that I have no idea how big it is but based on my other experiences with ripped pants, it could be huge. I then remember I have blue underwear on, so I shrug my shoulders hope it’s not that big of a hole and that the underwear give it the illusion of being jeans and quickly work my way out of the store.

As it turns out the hole wasn’t that big, but it could totally be seen…that is if you were checking out my ass in Home Depot today.

I needed a new TV…. Well I didn’t really need a new TV so much as I wanted one.  Mine was old, with busted speakers and it weighed close to half my body weight. So I saved my money and I went out and bought a new entertainment center for my soon to be new TV. The entertainment center I bought was one of those special ones for the flat screen TVs, the directions said that the TV couldn’t be bigger than 41 inches. I can handle that, right? Apparently not. Below is the email I sent to my sister…I’ll let it tell the story.

I’m so mad at myself! I knew it was too big but I got it anyway. Greedy Gladys won out over Common Sense Karen. I went in there with every intention of buying a 37”, and not spending more than $1500. I missed that mark by $500. But at the time Gladys convinced me it was ok because I didn’t know the wires aren’t included and you have to have a special fancy power strip because of the amount of power these things suck. I wanted the 1080p. But the lady told me that the 1080 isn’t worth it on anything smaller than a 40’. And I want the technology, and there was that giant wall of TV’s and they were black and shinny and I couldn’t take my eyes off of them and Greedy Gladys is in my brain chanting I want it I want it. While Common Sense Karen is saying, I don’t know. But it’s my precious I must have it, surly Ikea said no bigger than 41” they meant screen, not actual TV size, right…that’s what they meant. Get it get it get it get…it’s so pretty.

And now I have buyer’s remorse… I went way over budget and over size. I’m a retard. So I’m currently kicking Common Sense Karen’s ass for not being loud enough and Greedy Gladys, for being greedy. Gladys tried to justify it by saying, look it fits if you tilt it towards the back, yeah looking at TV on an angle is like trying when you try to watch a video on your laptop, and the screen is distorted because it’s either tilted too far back are too far forward. And Karen is trying to justify it by saying at least you turned down the $400 blue-ray disk machine that the sales lady tried so hard for you to get. Yeah, if I hadn’t gone so far over my budget then I would have actually been able to get it, not that you need it. I’m like my very own Dr. Phil Show.

So I’m grounding myself. I’ve put the TV back in the box and I’m not watching anything until I get the correct size, which is more of a challenge than you think because I just got the last disk of Entourage season 4. So could you help me take it back to the store on Saturday? I’m an idiot but I don’t need to go without TV all weekend, right? I’ve also decided that because I’m an idiot I don’t deserve at 37”, I’m downgrading to a 32”. That’ll teach me. Besides it’s what I should have gotten in the first place.

I don’t know how we could do this, the box is really big, and the seats don’t go down in Bill’s car, right? The box is at a little less than 4’. It’ll probably fit in the back seat, at an angle, but I don’t know. And I don’t know if it’ll fit in the bug, we could put the seats down but we might have to move the front seats all the way forward, like on the dashboard…and could you not just send Bill to help? I’m really mad at myself and I need someone to make jokes at my expense so I can get over this and laugh. Bill doesn’t know how to joke that way. Bring the whole family… or just come yourself…but don’t just send Bill. Please.

Blah……………..kicking myself.

As it turns out, the whole family came to help me, I came close to convincing Bill that they too could use a new TV, but Lisa stood firm on the no. When we took the tv back,  it didn’t fit in the trunk, it fit at an angle in the back seat, and we did have to push the front seats up to the dashboard. And I was told numerous times at Best Buy…”Never of anyone returning a TV because it was TOO BIG”. Yup, that’s something that only I would do. Oh well, live and learn…with my 37” TV rather than the 32”…I mean after all I think the traumatic experience was punishment enough.

I’ve been gone from my blog for awhile; I was going through a writing dry spell. But after having spent a few weeks in New York I realized I have lots of stories from living in New York for 10 years.  I have so many stories; I’m not sure where to start…I’m thinking I’ll try the beginning.

My life in New York.

I interned at Dateline, NBC. I was Stone Phillips assistant. I sat at the desk to answer the phone, in case anyone called…incase…not a single phone call came in and on top of that, he was in his office the entire time, and I never met him…not even a pass by in the hallway. But I did get see Jennifer Lopez rehearsing for Hosting SNL. I went to a weekday taping of an SNL show. I looked like a crazy person as I rode in an elevator with Chris Katan… I wanted to go down, hit the wrong button…was stuck riding an elevator all the way to the top with him, he got off and I stayed put. If he hadn’t been a celebrity I probably wouldn’t have felt so foolish…but I felt like I looked like a stalker…of Chris Katan…could that be anymore pathetic??

When I first moved there, I only knew how to ride the subway from Lisa’s apartment in Queens to the 49^th and Broadway stop, very easy commute, one train that goes into the only subway stop in Manhattan that had orange bricks. Lisa suggested that I get to know the city better, and I should walk to another subway stop and try to get home that way. I walked to Times Square of all places, the largest hub in the city…I tried to follow the signs but I for the life of me couldn’t figure out where my train platform was, I was too afraid to ask so I just climbed out of the Subway walked the 9 blocks back to the station I knew and went home.

A week later, Lisa and Bill moved to Forest Hills, further out in Queens. She had taken me to the apartment once but I didn’t really remember much about where it was. Forest Hills is a very dense neighborhood, where all the buildings look exactly the same, all of them are named after presidents and to each numbered street there is also an Avenue and A Drive…63^rd street, 63^rd Ave, 63^rd Drive. Forest Hills is a very nice neighborhood. Lisa said…”it’s an affluent neighborhood, but don’t let your guard down, a few years ago a woman was raped and stabbed on the street, she called for help people heard her but everyone thought that someone else would call the police…and apparently the guy came back and did more to her…she yelled no one called 911.” And if that wasn’t enough she goes on… “But that’s the only real bad thing that’s happened here….oh and the Boulevard of Death.” The.Boulevard.Of .Death. The main thoroughfare in Queens is Queens Blvd. At its widest it is 12 lanes. Why is it called the BOB? Because…well I’m sure you can figure it out, lots of people die on the BOD. Usually it’s old people who can’t cross fast enough. I forget the statistic but something like 80 people died in like 10 years or something… I’m sure. It got so bad that there are signs at every intersection; cross with care…but if someone died there, the sign says someone died here cross with care. Seriously.

So we are living in Astoria, I get up to go to work, Lisa and Bill move to Forest Hills. Lisa takes my cell phone for the day, because she doesn’t have one…which means I have no way of communicating with her. I am to ride the subway out to Forest Hills after work. Lisa say take the express, it’s just one stop past where you get off normally. I did just that, I walked the correct street, Yellowstone Blvd. But there was a problem…nothing looked right, where are all the matching  buildings?  What I didn’t know, was that Forest Hills had something that is unusual for New York, single family unattached homes.  I started to flip out, did I remember the address wrong? Why were there no stores where I could stop and ask someone? Where are the buildings?? I found a random pay phone, I didn’t have enough money to call my Illinois Area Code Cell Phone that Lisa had with her (just in case)…. I thought about calling my parents collect to have them call her on my cell phone to tell her where I was, if I was in fact, somewhere… Then I realized that it wouldn’t be a good idea to call my parents and tell them one daughter lost the other daughter. So I kept walking in my heels / unbroken in work shoes…and an hour later…I find the Boulevard of Death and all the buildings that look exactly alike, and I realize I’m on the wrong side. I have to cross 12 lanes, rush hour, and my feet KILLING ME from all the walking. The light turns and I bolt across the street like my ass is on fire. Obviously, I made it. So did the other 30 people behind me….that walked….at a normal rate. I finally get to Lisa’s apartment. I come in and she says, “where were you? we were so worried!” I’ve BEEN LOST!! And all I want to do is take my shoes off and sit down…she follows me into my room awhile I’m regaling her with my story of fearlessness as I  I plop down on the bed, and flip off my very loud, very heavy shoes…she says to me, “SSSssshhh we have neighbors!” Really?? I mean really? I just managed to survive the city they call the jungle all on my own and she’s worried about her neighbors. And that’s the way it always goes…

These are my Grandparents as I knew them:

James and Helen Dailey

They were married for 69 years. Not bad for two people that eloped…here is their story.

Helen Rowland and James Dailey were introduced by Helen’s sister in Nebraska in the late 1920′s early 1930′s. Helen’s parents died when she was very young, her sister was her guardian. At the time of their meeting, Helen was in nursing school and James was attending the University of Nebraska, later he drops out to join the Army (the sect of the Army that he was in eventually became the Air Force). When they went on dates James would pick up Helen on his Harley Motorcycle, she would ride in the side car.

I’m not sure how long they courted before they ran away to get married, but we know why they ran away…

Back in those days, when you were in nursing school you couldn’t be married. Also Helen’s sister, her guardian, the woman who introduced Helen to James, did not like James. He was not good enough for her, he did not come from money. She wouldn’t let them get married. So they had to wait… wait for her to graduate school, and wait for Helen to no longer be legally controlled by her sister. So she graduated from Nursing School and then the day AFTER Helen turned 21, they drove 3 counties over and secretly got married. They had to go 3 counties away because at that time your engagement had to be announced  in church over a 3 week period. They wanted to avoid anyone knowing what they were doing so they went as far as they could to get away.

The story doesn’t totally end there though… James and Helen were too afraid to tell anyone that they got married, so when went back to Lincoln, they lived apart for 4 months before it was discovered that they were married and they were outed in church by James’ Aunt who had some how found out.

Recently I found the wedding announcement in the Dailey Family Archives.

I’ve always loved this story, so much so that it’s pretty well known that I want to elope too…

They were married for 69 years, they both lived to be 93. They had 3 kids: 1 boy, 2 girls (one is a nun), 8 grandchildren and at the time of their death, they had 14 great grandchildren. Now that number is 16 grand kids, and one great great grand child (yeah that’s right my cousin is a grandpa).

And if all that were enough…James was a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force, in his retirement they were giving all the family papers, which included Helen’s birth certificate…as it turns out in her 5o’s she found out that she was a year older than she thought she was. Like I said, her parents died when she was young…so as it turns out, they didn’t have to wait for her 21st birthday, because in reality she was already 21. Irony…Isn’t that they way it always seems to go?

Love you and Miss you Grandma and Grandpa!!!

I’ve been gone for toooooooo long… but not I’m back… and shortly I’ll be coming to you with a story of love, fear, and motorcycles.

I don’t like LOL. ROLF. TTFN. FML. LKJFDKUI. PIOUF. But I do, BTW WTF and FYI but the list ends there.

I don’t like ;P…. I in fact hate it…but I’ve learned that my sarcasm doesn’t always read well so sometimes I am forced to emoticon it up, but it always under protest.

I don’t like Katy Perry. But I do like Ke$ha…or at least her pop bubble gum music, not her style. Or Justin Bieber…I just decided that.

I don’t like freezers on top. When at the fridge which do you look in more? I’m not going to grab a drink from the freezer…unless of course it’s a Smirnoff Ice. But really… I don’t want to bend over to look at my fridge.

I love my small dishwasher, first one in 10 years, I don’t understand the giant silverware holder though, it takes up too much room in the tiny machine, you’d think that the people who designed it thought that everyone would use silverware and no plates.

I don’t like bed bugs. So please people, stop sending me links about them. I already know all about them. Having been traumatized TWICE, I’ve got the whole bed bug thing down.

I don’t like Sarah Palin or Dick Cheney or Glenn Beck. Enough said.

I don’t like roller coaster. Or the middle seat on the airplane. I can’t stand passive aggressive.

I don’t like onions, mashed potatoes, or basically anything mushy.

I don’t like airshows. But I enjoyed jumping from a plane, go figure.

I don’t like being the short one of my sisters, but I like that I’m usually the tallest out of all my friends, go figure.

I don’t like being lied to, but really? who does?

I don’t like being hot but I don’t like cold so it’s lose lose.

I don’t like being disorganized, which is funny because I was one messy kid.

I don’t like messes but I can’t stand dusting.

I don’t like bad cell phone etiquette. If you are in a conversation with me and you get a text message, is it really necessary for you to answer right away?

I don’t like McDonald’s, Burger King, or Wendy’s. But I do like Arby’s which my sisters ask, “Why? It’s so….meaty?”

I don’t like being told what to do.

And I really don’t like women calling themselves or other women, bitches. What’s up Bitches! Makes my skin crawl.

Now that I know what I don’t like I have to work on the list of what I do like….hmmmmmmmmmmm….

I liked beating Scott in golf!

I am Aunt Kathy. I never wanted to be Aunt Kathy but that is what I am, and I have finally come to terms with it. You see, I have had a love hate relationship with my name since I was a little kid. I don’t like my name, I think the name Kathy sounds like an old woman with bad graying hair, and an ugly suit with too big shoulder pads…think Melanie Griffith in Working Girl. I despise the Cathy comic strip character. She gives Kathy a bad name. Eek! CHOCOLATE! She is a whiny little bitch. And yes I truly HATE a comic strip. And as it turns out…she’s leaving the comic strip world forever! Whoo HOO! Yes, I’m excited about a comic strip ending…is that wierd?

My name isn’t all bad, I mean when I moved to New York I wanted to go by Katherine…classy. But I went into the same business at my sister and I failed to inform her that I wanted to change my name so when she got me my first job, she just called me Kathy…and it stuck. I came to terms with it by thinking Kathy is easier than Katherine.  Katherine sounds like an 80 year old waspy member of the D.A.R. Full head of gray short permed hair that is shampooed and styled on a weekly basis.

Finally I was okay with Kathy. Then my sister had a baby…no way was I going to go by Aunt Kathy. No way. They could just call me Kathy. If my Dad was going to insist on the boys calling him GrandFather, rather than pa, I was going to get being called Kathy, never Aunt which has worked out just fine with my boys.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out with my friend’s kids.  Oh NO…to THEM I’m Aunt Kathy! Yippie! It started with Olivia, David and Julie’s kid. They introduced me to her as Aunt Kathy, Liam’s aunt. And that is what she started to call me, when they would see me she would say Aunt Kathy! If we played hide and go seek she would yell for Aunt Aunt! Aunt Kathy!! I love Olivia, she’s one of my favorite little girls ever…so  what can I say….I’m a softy. So I let it go.

Next came Aiku. Aiku is 6, only a few months older than Liam. His mom, Masayo, is one of my best friends. Masayo and I worked together all through her pregnancy, so I think I got to Aiku early on…like he knows my voice from hearing it in her tummy. While on my trip I would send him postcards. When I came back for a visit, the morning of the visit he asked him mom what I was to him, she said what do you mean, he said…well…is she my Aunt or my cousin, or…Masyao being Masayo said, she’s my friend! And he said, oh? She’s not my friend? When she told me this story I asked him what he wanted me to be and he said, is Aunt okay? Yup, I can be your aunt. What’s what one more??

While riding in the car with an old friend from grade school, I heard her say to her children…say Thank you to Aunt Kathy…followed by, oh I hope you don’t mind. Oh no…I’m really starting to not mind.

And then while at my sister’s house, she had some friends over that I had never met. They brought their two boys, who wanted to play a game. I said I would play with them while the grown ups talked. And the mother said, oh cool! Go play with Aunt Kathy…I hope you don’t mind that, Aunt Kathy…

At this point I guess I don’t mind Aunt Kathy. I can’t fight it. It’s who I am. I have a large posy of kids that all call me Aunt Kathy and love me, so I guess I can’t fight it. It could be worse…people could call me Katrina, a name my 8^th grade teacher called me that got me sent to detention when I answered her with attitude that it.was.not.my.name.

But I guess Aunt Kathy is now my name…she says with a smirk.