Brain Injury Rehab

This summer I did so well with keeping up with my posts, mainly because I had no life and had hours to spare with nothing to do other than to spit words at my readers. Then school started and life as I knew it was brutally taken away. Not because I'm 'Super Teacher' and work on schoolwork at all hours once I get home from work, but because my brain is a mushy pile of gooey nonsense when I'm finally able to sit down and take a breath. Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be school teachers.

 

When I finally wrapped my head around some topics that were legitimate enough to write about last week, my organized, chaotic life tilted on its axis even more when Mike's mom had a stroke Tuesday. I love y'all, but I love her more. I had to clock out from my day job as a teacher and my night job as a writer and clock in as a nurse. Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be nurses, either. I spent everyday at MCV (except Monday, or something like that, considering I don't even know what today is...) until she came home yesterday and I'm snuggly nestled in at her condo until she's cleared to be on her own. Or until Mike drags me home. Her community is the closest thing to a Floridian retirement home I can get. All the women are ages 65 and older and all the men are gay. And then there's me--and weirdly, I fit in perfectly. It's like a jolly 'ol episode of the Golden Girls, except it's the modernized version, and the only Golden Girls around here are the 2 gay couples in the condo across the driveway. I. love. it!

 

You'll be happy to know that not only am I a certified doctor of gynecology and fertility, I'm also now a neurologist and can explain the effects of a Transient Ischemic Attack in complete detail. Who goes to medical school for decades when you can get all the information you need from Google in ten minutes? I mean, the doctors at the hospital in South Hill diagnosed my MIL with "low magnesium" and gave her fluids...meanwhile, she doesn't know who she is, where she's at, has slurred speech, and her face is droopy. C'mon man. My 10 year old students could have diagnosed her better than they did. (And no, I will not apologize to anyone who I just offended by mentioning the incredibly ignorant doctor/experience we dealt with last week. However, I will state that the CMH ER nurses went above and beyond to give her the best care!)  

 

Since we did have sense to get her to the best care we knew in the short amount of time we had, we moved her very quickly to Richmond and even though her status was a roller coaster for several hours, she improved very rapidly and eventually ended up in the "Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit".

 

Did you know that if your brain becomes injured--from any internal or external source--you can go to rehab to fix yourself? I'd like to think 'internal' brain injuries come from the way your body handles something. I'd like to think 'external' brain injuries come from being surrounded by stupid people, or from your job. Had I known such a place existed, I would have checked myself into it years ago. (Namely around the time I decided to go into public education). There were people in the unit who didn't know who they were, who were perpetually angry, who were mentally unstable, and even thought they were somebody else. Also, these people don't stay in their assigned rooms in the unit. Oh no. They wander up and down the halls and make visitors of other brain injury patients feel extremely awkward.

 

My thoughts were, "you mean to tell me there's a place I can go to where I get to be whiny and pissed for hours at a time, and it's OKAY because I have an injured brain?" Or, "you mean to tell me there's a place I can go to where I can pretend to be somebody else for days at a time, all the while knowing exactly who I am and fake out people around me because I'm tired of being me?" UGH! Why didn't you people tell me of this magical place before now?! I guess to others a place of this nature would be considered a psych ward, annnnnnd it kinda was. One guy wore boxing gloves 24/7 (for unknown reasons) and another lady had horrible Turret's and screamed the F-bomb sporadically. And I don't mean the F-word that curly-haired people like myself use (aka FRIZZY). Another guy asked me "you gotta jacket on?" every time I passed him--which was like 7 times a day. I always wore shorts and a t-shirt, so unless 'jacket' is a code word for something else, I was assuredly surrounding by N-U-T-S.

 

In the midst of all this insanity (did I mention last week was the FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL?!?!), I started my period. Which was my third cycle since my last fertility appointment. Which meant I was supposed to call my doctor to in for "the next step". You'd think I would've called the day I started last week but frankly, I'm tired of waiting for "the next step". It will be 2 years this October since my first miscarriage. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of feeling the twinge that let's me know I better get ready because the cramps are coming.  I'm tired of getting my hopes up around every 26th day of my cycle because I'm having symptoms only to be let down when I realize it's only PMS. I'm tired of recording temperatures and days and flow and ovulation and I'm tired of avoiding Facebook because if I see another baby-related post, I may just flip my lid. People have been so kind to me and they always have the same advice--"be patient" or "it will happen" or "don't stress". You're right. I know it will happen. I'm just so tired of dealing with the pain that comes along with what we're going through on top of everything else we're going through. At the end of every day, I erase the stress from my job. I erase anything that causes me worry, yet I still carry the weight of not only the question of 'WHEN we will get pregnant?' but the question "will we even be able to keep it?"  We've both suffered long enough from this and I think we are way past due for some GOOD karma, dammit.

 

People are always dealing with bones they keep locked in their closets. This is my only bone. These past few weeks have been utterly INSANE for the people around me--whether with my family, my friends, or with my coworkers. I ask you...is all the stress you're dealing with really worth it? I think you should be allowed to carry around your 1 bone.  That's it. Choose the one that's really worth worrying over and throw the rest of them to the dogs. If not, then perhaps you shall find yourself at Brain Injury Rehab. And thankfully, they have large rooms...so I'm sure you can take a friend with you when you go.

 

 

Luke, I am your father.

Today was the first day back to work for teachers and I'll go ahead and save you from hearing me moan and groan about it paragraph after paragraph by wrapping it up with one short phrase: O.M.G.

Most would think being a lazy, overeating, oversleeping, procrastinator would reach sort of a limit after a few years but I'm hear to tell you, this lazy, overeating, oversleeping, procrastinator goes above and beyond to earn that description when you give her several weeks off with no set goals to accomplish. I mean, is it wrong of me to think it's WAY too much of a task that my supervisors expect me to get up before 10am? Or expect me to wear actual make-up? Or expect me to wear a bra? Because I'm pretty sure none of the three things I just listed happened to me simultaneously since June 8th. But I did get up before 10:00 today and I did wear full-blown make-up and I did wear a bra...even though it was my flimsiest one and was a baby-step up from what an average 11-year-old girl would wear.

Aside from the excitement of a new year starting (because I'm positive somebody out there is oozing excitement, just not me. Not yet, anyway.) it was nice to see all the people I work with. I can't say it at school because it would be inappropriate, but we are the shit, in case you didn't already know. Convocation, is when alllllllll the teachers in one county get together and...do stuff. Listen, I said I got up before 10:00 but I didn't say I was alert. Anyway, there were hundreds of thousands of people (or something like that) at our building today and I'd estimate that I saw about 100 pregnant women. While at the beach this summer in every restaurant we went to, I'm pretty sure every third random woman we saw was pregnant. And they all had like 4 small kids running around them and they looked exhausted and we almost decided to check into a clinic so I could go back on birth control. I also have to be grateful that God knew what he was doing this past miscarriage because I'm Captain Cranky Pants when I'm hot and GEEZ, LOUISE--I could NOT handle being pregnant during the summer. Well, I could probably handle it but for the sake and well-being of my peers, be thankful I'm not.

 

Our doctor's set goal for us was to be pregnant by September 1. I have about 10 more days left in this cycle to find out if I am or not. If not, we go back to the fertility clinic for whatever the next step is. I turn 28 in September and while I still consider that young, my other half is 10 years older than me...so his biological clock is ticking, hehehe. If you are a religious person, I'd appreciate all prayers for a SUCCESSFUL pregnancy beginning in late September (so I'll have all next summer to whatever it is you do with newborns) and if you could add in "a GIRL, with Kristin's hair, Mike's brain's, and let Mike allow Kristin to pick the name so they don't have a kid with the name LUCAS strictly so the first words their child hears is not 'LUKE, I AM YOUR FATHER'"...that'd be fabulous. Thank you in advance.

 

Have you ever had a particular food item that you were obsessed with that abruptly stopped being produced and went away from every store you had access to? I grew up with a fire chief daddy who worked 24 on, 24 off. This meant that many times, Mama would make stuff quick and easy for supper when Daddy was working. One of the things I grew up living off of was Armour Beef Stew. It was a short, fat, little can of stew on the bottom shelf of the 'soup aisle' and it was pretty much my favorite. For whatever reason, when I was in high school, it suddenly stopped showing up in stores. Over the course of a few weeks, I talked to store managers and they suggested I contact the company because if it wasn't in demand, they would stock the stores. One phone call and one sternly written letter later...Armour Beef Stew was back and I've NE-VER had a problem finding it since.

 

It's no secret that chips are my Achilles heel. If I could pick one food to live off of for the rest of my life, I'd pick chips. But not just ANY chip...Lay's Tangy Carolina BBQ. Hello, My Name Is Kristin and I am OBSESSED with Lay's Tangy Carolina BBQ chips. The past few years, the only thing I looked forward to when I got off work was coming home and snacking on TCB's. That is, up until a few months ago I decided to go cold-turkey from my addiction for about a month. You all know how the duration of my diets go, so about a month after that, I went to the store to get a bag. Huh. They were out. I went across town to the other store. HUH. They were out too. I went to Wal-Mart. OH HELL NO, WHERE ARE MY CHIPS?! It has been since May and I can NOT find a single bag of these things anywhere. I have been to every grocery store, every sketchy convenience store, and every supercenter from here to the bottom of the Outer Banks searching for this one type. I can't find them ANYWHERE! I was finally patient enough to ask a grocery store manager a few weeks ago and he didn't know anything about it. Which leads me to my almost-arrest attack and assault situation from this past weekend.

 

I went to Food Lion and noticed a Frito Lay truck in the parking lot. The rest of my list of actual needed groceries forgotten, I high-tailed it across the parking lot to the truck. No driver. I went in the store, (and be very thankful that no small children or elderly persons was harmed in the process), and jogged across the aisles in search of a guy in a Frito Lay shirt that would be my saving grace. I made it to the milk aisle at the end of the store and turned around, only to catch the tail-end of a guy toting a Sun Chips box on his shoulder going towards the exit. I flew--I literally do not recall my feet touching the floor--to the doors and back out into the parking lot. How the police were not called by the employees is beyond me. I bustled over to the truck, but no guy!! I'm starting to sweat by this point. I scoured the parking lot and think to myself, "Ain't no way in hell am I letting this man leave without some answers". He must've gone back in the store because I've circled the truck but no sight of the man. I headed BACK in again and low and behold, the guy was standing in front of a chip display with a huge box on his shoulders. Not thinking, I immediately rushed to him and managed to get out an "EXCUSE ME!" I must've ignored all socially acceptable 'personal space' rules because he jumped and the box of chips shook. Luckily, he saved the contents and turned towards me, with a not-too-pleasant glare. I said, word-for-word, "I have been looking for my favorite chips in the whole world, Tangy Carolina BBQ, and I haven't been able to find them. Can you PAH-LEESE tell me they haven't been discontinued? I will KISS YOUR FACE if you can get them back here for me!" And yes, this was rushed because I couldn't breathe and more importantly, it was said OUT LOUD.

 

In a nutshell, homeboy recovered from his crazy-lady attack and promised to work hard for said kiss on the face. He doesn't think they stopped making them, just stopped production for our area, yada yada yada. He is taking my complaint to whoever will listen to him because they were, get this, HIS favorite too. If your world has been off-kilter because of the absence of these chips like mine has been, have no fear. I won't go down without a fight, Frito Lay. Just call a little ol' company called "Armour" and drop my name...I expect I'll have my chips and all will be right with the world in the very near future.

Big Macs & Tampons

So I've been called out (several times!) on missing a post last week. Forgive me. I was vacationing for the second time this summer at the beach. Don't be jealous...we only had like 2 full days out of 7 that were actually SUNNY. But a rainy day at the beach is better than any other day anywhere else.

You are probably intrigued by the title of today's post. And rightfully so. I'm sure your mind is grossing itself out, trying to somehow connect the two random items I've listed...and coming up with nothing short of something nauseating. Let me sidetrack you for a moment. This post is about firsts. Firsts are cemented into our brains, whether they are horrifying or slightly insignificant or off-the-radar, tingly moments in time that will make you remember everything about them in ridiculous detail.

First concert. (Michael Bolton, baby)

First celebrity crush. (Jonathan Taylor Thomas, card-carrying fan club member!)

First kiss. (who I will not name because I'm positive he's a closet Kristin Connection fan)

First car. (1999 white Mercury Cougar)

First TIME. (night AFTER junior prom. Didn't want to be totally cliché)

First job. (Victoria Public Library, summer assistant)

First alcoholic beverage. (Brandy, straight...summer of 6th grade from a Disney
                                                                                             Pocahontas glass)
FIRST grade teacher. (Sally McLaughlin)

First time your spouse said the 3 little words. (During an argument while the FIRST  
                                      Pirates of the Caribbean movie played in the background)

These are just a smidgen of the list of firsts that I so vividly remember from years ago. While most of them are slightly insignificant, (basically all except for the '3 little words' first and the Michael Bolton concert), there are 2 things missing from my list that I just recently experienced within the last two weeks. Ladies and gentlemen, I am twenty seven years old and within the last 14 days, I JUST ate my first Big Mac from McDonald's and *successfully* wore my first tampon. (Although not simultaneously). If you weren't connected to me before, then get ready to be...

The week before vacation in my house basically means we save every penny and eat dust in preparation for all the money we know we're going to spend while away. This particular week, I was in full PMS mode. After eating boiled hotdogs and macaroni and cheese for the third night in a row, Mike & I decided we'd just get fast food. This is the point in the story where you're probably judging me and my continuous battle with weight-loss by the garbage I tossed into my body the last two weeks. Judge away; the first step is admitting the problem and I long ago admitted I have an intimate relationship with the word 'chunky'.

Because we not only gamble with our cholesterol levels at McDonalds, we like to play Monopoly when it comes around. We were both looking up playing items on the menu and I said out loud, "The only sandwich I see with game pieces is the Big Mac. I've never had one before." **Cue crickets**

Since Mike thought I was the only person on the planet NOT to have eaten a Big Mac before, we decided to spend the few extra dollars and pop my Big Mac cherry. Here is my conclusion:

1. Sit at a table when eating a Big Mac.
2. Before you take it out of the box, smush it down with the palm of your hand so you're able to bite into it at one time.
3. After about the third bite, you will realize that everything and it's mama is coming out the back bun furthest away from your face. You're going to have to reconstruct.
4. If you aren't used to a hamburger that size, you probably won't finish it. However, if you do finish it, don't look at the nutritional information.
5. If you're a nosey ass like me, look up the nutritional information. It's a 550 calorie cheeseburger with 29 grams of fat and like 90000000000 mg's of sodium.
6. Call yourself a fatty when you finish the burger, but go ahead and finish the fries that came with it. Wouldn't want to waste anything.

And now for what you've really been waiting for. It's no secret in my family that I had never used a tampon before and I'm a all-pad, all-the-way, kinda girl. I've spent every summer since I can remember at our pool and using the earache excuse gets old after about the third month. Rewind to last week...our beach vacation and the arrival of Aunt Flo on the second day. Because not all the women in my family are total babies like myself, one of them had quite the stash of supplies, aka tampons in every shape, size, and color (or 'flavors' as one of the boys said when he saw the clear bag with all the assorted treats inside).

It's not that I've never tried using a tampon before. I think I was 13 and I remember, CLEARLY, being in the bathroom with my leg propped up on the toilet and hollering to my mama on the other side of the door, "I DON'T KNOW WHICH HOLE TO PUT IT IN!" Hence, the first and last time I ever tried. Also, my middle school health/gym teacher told us the story about some girl having to have emergency surgery because she went like 7 days without changing it and it got stuck and ewwwwwwwwwwwwww I can't even finish the story. That's basically the psychological reasoning behind my decision to stick strictly to pads.

Because I didn't want to punish myself the entire week by not being able to swim in our pool nor the ocean, I got a tampon from the stash and announced that I was heading into the bathroom with it. Of course, because my family is awesome (or insane), they followed me.

I'm sitting in the bathroom and I unwrap the lime green paper. I'm thinking it could easily pass as Laffy Taffy. After several unsuccessful attempts, I hear a whisper through the door. "Is everything going okay?" "NO!" I replied. Every time I shove it up into the great beyond, it's painful. So that's what I tell them. My cousin says to hold on. My aunt starts giving me words of encouragement. "You can do it!" she says. "I'm so proud of you!" I hear.

I yank it back down and I hear my cousin back at the door. She's going to give me the step-by-step. Unwrap. Check. Shove til it stops. Check. Push the plastic til it pops out. WHAT? Christ on a cracker. I had no idea just the cotton part stayed there. I thought the whole plastic thing stayed there. BAM. We're done. No wonder I had so many issues. They should really teach this process to girls in school. I'm almost 30 and didn't know how to work one.

After yells of excitement and a round of applause from outside the door, I do a hundred string-siting checks and head to the pool. Slowly.

As  I awkwardly enter the pool area, another cousin (this one a boy) yells, "She's a WOMAN now!" I ease myself into the shallow part and all I can picture in my head is a clear pitcher of water with a packet of red Kool-Aid being dumped into it. Please God, let this thing stay in.  I stay in the pool for about 30 minutes until I psych myself out and retreat to my lounge chair. The rest of the week gets easier and easier though.

Here is my conclusion:
1. Do not leave the plastic part of a tampon inside of you. It's a cool rocket toy, if you think about it. This way, you can countdown from 10 if it's awkward for you while inserting.
2. Never divulge private information to your family members. No good can come from it.
3. Wear what is comfortable to you. Don't let a tampon be your stick in the mud.
4. If wearing a tampon, it's best not to sneeze. Ever.

Again, 'd like to end this with just a small statement. Ladies and gentlemen, I am twenty seven years old and within the last 14 days, I've eaten a Big Mac and I've become a woman. Although, perhaps I should rightly rename this post with my preferences from now on, "Nuggets and Maxi Pads".

Blah-Day Boyfriends

I'm having a major BLAAAHHHHH day. Chalk it completely up to PMS. I just want to lay in the recliner in my old-man, white V-neck t-shirt that has unidentifiable stains forever marking it and stretchy fatty pants. I have a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos in the kitchen, but getting them presents two problems to me. ONE: I'd have to get up to get them. TWO: My nails have no color on them right now and Cheeto stains are a bitch to get out from underneath fingernails. The birds chirping outside are grating on my last nerve and I got mad at the TV and turned it off. Whoever decided to name an infomercial "Pretty Women" should be slapped. Never tease me with a potential Richard Gere siting during the day.

 

UUUGGGGGHHHHH. Don't you hate days like this? Mike is sleeping because he's on midnights so thankfully, he's missing out on the July Festival of Whine taking place in my living room right now. I keep grumbling about it just being my upcoming period, but then I get mopey about that too because I'm supposed to get it sometime next week after I get to the beach. Vacation is supposed to be a joyous occasion. Who wants to spend it curled up in the fetal position while on a 7-Ibruprofen high? On second thought, every person who has ever had a hangover while on vacation can probably sympathize with me and it has absolutely nothing to do with shedding ovaries.

 

On a somewhat brighter note, I've been in contact with the design company that is going to make the ebook cover for my book. Check out her portfolio here. If you are an avid new adult romance reader like I am, you'll recognize her work. I basically freaked out when I got an email back from Sarah today (owner of the company). She's like a celebrity in my reading world. I've had many people ask me "what's your book about" and "when is it coming out". I don't want to give out any blurbs yet, but basically, it's a romance. BUT! A better description would be, "it ain't yo mama's romance novels". No, no, no. Nothing like 50 Shades. It's just a realistic love-ish story told from the twenty-something main character's POV. Hope that clears some things up for now. My cover designer is booked until February so I'm thinking I'll be able to release it sometime in late February, early March. The majority of my writing will be done by Halloween so the finished WRITING product should be good to go by Christmas. Y'all won't see it til after the first of the year. I have to set goals in the form of holidays to keep myself motivated.  

 

I'm thinking the only thing to make me somewhat chipper today would be to share my list of imaginary boyfriends. Technically, they aren't imaginary. They really do exist in real-life. They just don't know they're my boyfriends. Since I'm probably going to end up getting that bright orange bag beckoning me from the kitchen as soon as I finish this post and won't be able to type without leaving orange residue on the keyboard, I'll leave you with this. Be jealous. **Please note, there is a category for every sporting event I'm forced to watch every season. Hey, might as well make it worthwhile.**

 

Sexiest Man Alive Boyfriend AND Movie Boyfriend:
 

Chris Hemsworth

 

Country Singer Boyfriend:  

 

Florida-Georgia Line (the one on the right, NOT the long-hair one)



 

Redneck Boyfriend:

BAH-lake Shelton

 

Wrestling Boyfriend:

The ROCK



 

Black Boyfriend (not so much for his looks, but for his way with children. Also, because he has more money than the entire continent of Europe):

 

Jay-Z

 

My Not-Boyfriend:

Emma Stone

 

Quarterback Boyfriend (who I will be stalking out this Thursday in RIC):

 

Kirk Cousins

 













Longhaired Boyfriend:

Clay Matthews

 





Large & In Charge Boyfriend:

Rex Ryan

 

 

NASCAR Boyfriend:

 Kasey Kahne

 

Baseball Boyfriend:

Derek Jeter (DUH!)

 

TV Boyfriend:

 Chris Meloni aka STABLER

 

Sports Announcer Boyfriend:

GREENY

 

Comedian Boyfriend:

Bobby Moynihan (SNL)

 

Dead-Guy Boyfriend:

Fat Guy in a Little Coat



 









Old Man Boyfriend (IT'S A TIE between...

Bruce Willis

 

annnnnd

 

The guy from "Up"





 

Road Trip, Episode Two

The elevator dings open and we all rush out towards the courtyard. There is a sand pathway leading down to the beach and half of it is covered with a little bridge/walkway. You can't see the actual beach from the courtyard until you stand on the bridge, meaning, you can't see any dead bodies laying face-down in a sand dune unless you get up close and personal on the path. Somebody decides to call a husband at this point, because really, in the face of a situation like this, you want to call somebody from VICTORIA hundreds of miles away. Obviously, they're gonna do us a whole lotta good. I think the advice from them was to call 911 or something responsible like that.

 

Keep in mind, I've never seen a fresh dead body. I've seen a few cake-faces in caskets at family nights and visitations, but never one just randomly strewn about in public. Plus, whenever I awkwardly look over a casket, I departmentalize what I'm seeing and fake myself out by thinking it's just a mannequin or a wax figure. I can't cope with the whole "let's lean over into this box and see what's in there" because my luck would be "I'm leaning over into this box to see what's in there and BAM! the fake dead person jumps up and grabs my arm". Why do we do that, anyway? We all huddle around the casket, take baby-steps towards it, leeeeean over (without touching the thing because, well, ew) and stare into whatever or whoever is inside. Then we make some off-handed remark about "Oh, she looks good". WHAT?! Stop lying! You are looking at a person who is no longer livinnnngg!!! They can not possibly look anything remotely related to the adjective "good". Do yourself a favor and remember these 3 words when at a viewing: AVOID. AVOID. AVOID. Even if you find yourself in a line heading towards the thing, when you finally get there, nobody is paying attention to you so go ahead and find something else to focus on behind the casket instead of the actual non-living body. Do this and you'll save yourself the awkwardness of having to gaze longingly into the 'box o' dead' and furthermore, save yourself from sounding like a complete moron by making a ridiculous statement for the sake of making a statement. You're welcome.

 

Pardon my wandering mind. The 5 of us are walking towards the path. As we get closer, we see THE blue trashcan. This means Sandy Randy is laying somewhere in the vicinity. It's funny because we practically knocked people down to get down to this point yet the closer we get, the slower our steps are. We're inching across the path when one of us hollers out, "EWWWW there he is!" We stop in our tracks and lean across one another. Sure enough, our guy is laying in a lump a few feet from the path, just past the trashcan at the end of the bridge. Lynn, who is the Matlock, CSI, NCIS queen, boldly keeps going. The rest of us are kinda frozen where we are, making "ews" and "uggghss" and "gross" comments. Lynn turns back around and says something along the lines of "bring your @$$ up here" with that crazy-lady teacher face, so I shuffle up with her.

 

The two of us get close enough to the guy that if we had a yard stick with us, we could poke him. Both of our faces look like we just took a shot of tequila sans lime when we realize his britches are wet. Like...pee pee wet. Being the face of maturity that I am, I start giggling. Which makes Lynn start giggling. So the both of us are standing over this potentially seriously hurt human being giggling at the face that he's wet his pants in the midst of his impending death. Somebody whisper-yells at us "what's so funny" so I turn and whisper-yell back "he's peed his pants!" Ryann (I'm assuming, since she's the most medically-inclined person in our bunch) says "dead people excrete their bowels before they die". Which shuts us up pretty quickly. At this point, I think Lynn and I are holding on to each other as we lean a little closer to the man. We're watching...we're watching...and FINALLLLY we see his back move a little, like he's slowly inhaling and exhaling.

 

We realize he probably could've heard our entire conversation so we turn and haul tail back towards the courtyard. Once inside, we scramble towards the front desk. We see a guy working so I walk up to the counter. I explain to him that we saw a guy laying in the weeds from our room so we went down to investigate. We thought he could've been dead, so we came down to see. I tell him he's in fact NOT dead, but is just laying out there kinda sketching us out. Front desk guy replies, "Oh. That's just our friendly-neighborhood drunk. He hangs out around here all the time. He means no harm." To which I reply, "Oh." I turn back to my people, all of us looking dumbfounded. I say the only thing one can say after that 30 minute span of insaneness: "So where're we going for dinner?"

Amazon HATES Me

I figured I'd post this instead of blowing up everyone's FB newsfeed. Let's just say it's a MIRACLE I've even gotten published...because I have proven to God and everybody at Amazon that I don't know what I'm doing. I was over-the-moon excited to see my own Amazon page the other day that I made an author FB page and posted allllll sorts of stuff for my readers to do, then come to find out, I don't even know how to do half the stuff I told y'all to go do. LAWD.

Here's the info you need in a nutshell:

**You can only purchase my blog through Amazon at this time ONLY! ONLY! ONLY! if you have an actual Kindle.

**Even if you have the Kindle App on your phone (like I previously said you could do, putting foot in mouth now) you will NOT be able to buy it. Kindle Publishing doesn't offer a format needed to post blog articles. Which is INSANE, but what do I know? (Apparently, NOTHING.)

**For the many of you wanting to leave reviews, first of all, THANK YOU! Second of all, you can't leave one unless you purchase a subscription first...and remember, you can only buy if you have the actual Kindle device.

**Remember! You can always read my blog for free at www.thekristinconnection.blogspot.com and support me by "liking" by author page.

**I'm so sorry for any confusion I've caused. I obviously was so anxious to blurt out the word 'publish' that I didn't investigate for my people first.

I hope this clears things up for all of you who've sent texts and emailed me about wanting to buy/review. I'm so grateful for ALL of my readers and I'm so appreciative of the Amazon people I've talked to since Friday. Let's just say, a few days ago they had no idea Kristin Tanner Peebles existed...they are QUITE aware of who I am now, bless their hearts.

Road Trip, Episode One

Since I'm possibly taking part in an impromptu road trip at the end of the week, it's ridiculously hard for me to NOT reminisce on all road trips I've taken with the same group of people. Before I get into the actual story, I need to give a little background info so it's easier for you to follow along. My grandparents, Gregory Dean and Carol, or "GD" and "Kurl", aka Mammaw, aka "Mama Carol", aka "Mayor Watson" had three daughters.

 

Oh, you're wondering about the "mayor" in "Mayor Watson"? Yes, she's been the mayor of Victoria (my itty-bitty hometown) for 14 years. Is it an honorable or prestigious role? No. Do I tell people she's the mayor as my claim to fame? Yes. It's been a conversation starter for me for 14 years. "Oh, your Dad's the President of the United States? Well my GRANDMA is the mayor of a town! HOLLA." Does this embarrass her? Probably. Am I concerned about said embarrassment? No. Is she badass? Totally.

 

Moving on. Two of the daughters are twins. One of the twins is my mom. All 3 daughters had daughters first, then sons.  There have been many, many, many road trips (or Griswold-type adventures) when just Kurl, her daughters, and their daughters go off somewhere together for whatever reasons. This particular road trip, and probably the most memorable, took place in 2006 (I think) and included Kurl, my mom, my aunt Lynn, Ryann (who you should know by now if you've read other posts by me--if not, she's Lynn's daughter and my first cousin/BFF) and me. We were heading to Myrtle Beach for a long weekend in November. When we road trip, it's usually me driving, with my navigator (Ryann) sittin' shotgun, yelling at me where to go, turn, stop, etc. We never go to Myrtle Beach the same way twice, so all we knew about how to get there was to make it to the "Battleship" in Wilmington. (This was pre-Garmin, by the way). **Also, I must explain that as offspring of the Watsons, it's our natural behavioral adaptation to speak as loudly as possible in a group of people. AND! for the women in particularly, we have to "out-talk" each other which may involve increasing volume and dramatics while speaking all at one time. Now imagine all of that taking place in one vehicle with 5 Watson females.**

 

After being on the road for a few hours, a few missed turns, and a whole lotta hollerin' later, we knew we had to be close to the Battleship. If you go to MB this way, you know what the top of the ship looks like. It has a bunch of wires and poles and crap that I have no idea what for. As we all said, "we've got to be close!" multiple times, over and over, and still no sign of the thing, Mammaw starts randomly shouting out, "THERE IT IS!" whenever she saw the top of a cell phone tower hovering above the trees. Because this resulted in repeated eruptions of laughter inside the car, we were basically done before we even saw the damn ship. (For Christmas that year, I took a picture of a random cell phone tower and had it framed and captioned "Battleship at Wilmington" for Mammaw. (She was not amused.)

 

Once we finally reached the beach, checked in, yada yada yada, we were all standing on our 17th floor balcony gazing down at the beach. Driving for hours in a vehicle with the 5 of us is exhausting and stressful; thus we appreciated the calmness the breeze, sunset, and waves the beach provided. The next few seconds kinda went like this...

 

(The five of us standing side by side at the railing on the balcony, 17 floors up, mind you)

 

Lynn: What is that, in the weeds, near that blue trashcan?

 

Me: Yeah, I see it. What the heck...?

 

(All 5 at the same time)

 

Ryann: I think it's a...

 

Me: OH MY GOD

 

Lynn: Pretty sure it's a...

 

Kurl: What?! What is it! I don't see anything!

 

Lynette: IS THAT A MAN LAYING IN THE WEEDS?!

 

Me: YES! Is it moving?

 

Lynn: I don't think it's moving!!!

Ryann: Oh he's dead!

 

Annnnnd imagine about 5 more minutes of that, the 5 of us squinting down at the weedy part of the sand dunes where what appears to be a man laying down, hunched up, face first, into the sand. We were all watching silently and perfectly still to see if homeboy moved or not. After realizing that we were in fact seeing what we were seeing, we starting moving about, all aflutter, talking at the same time (surprise, surprise), about what we should do. The logical thing, looking back, would have been to call down to the front desk to let them know what we were looking at. But you see, you're dealing with the 5 of us. I mentioned before that Kurl was a badass. I neglected to mention that because we are all directly (and indirectly) the fruit of her loins, we too have the 'badass' gene. Naturally, we did the only thing badasses in this mysterious situation would do. We channeled Benson & Stabler (via Law & Order, SVU) and headed down to investigate. All 5 of us. Mama, Lynn, Ryann, me, and Kurl ('Mayor Watson' if you're nasty.).

 

Please stay tuned for Road Trip, Episode Two coming soon.