Lucille Ballsy

It’s long folks, but it’s probably worth the read if you need to feel like a winner today.

I’m clumsy, and ridiculous, and things just happen to me. No, seriously…picture a movie scenario and I bet ya that has happened in my real life. I constantly get told my world is like a sitcom and I’m that bumbling comedic actress with poor spatial awareness and my foot in my mouth. And a beloved ginger to boot!

Picture a scenario where you have a fling with your ex’s best friend…and he tells him at the bar…with you there. You are literally standing in a line as this real-life horror movie telephone plays out…and then he puts his arms around you both and says, “Ya, that really just happened”. Imagine that in all the bars in a city of over 5 million people your common-law ex walks into your very bar with his birthday party, only weeks after breaking up, annnd he doesn’t even live in that  town. Break up on New Year’s Day only to have your car die on the way home in a snowstorm and because of that hallowed day there’s not a gas station open for miles, so your tow truck driver and his son dry your salty tears and obviously, offer you homemade chicken nuggets and fries too.

Stories like this just seem to go on and on. Ridiculous stories. Funny stories. Awful stories as long as they don’t happen to you. You eat Chinese food and you faint at the foot of your Asian co-worker, you get a flu shot and almost land in hospital (oh the irony). You tell your boss that he looks too young to have a 14 year old daughter and he answers “I am, and she’s 17…and I was 17 when I had her. She was an accident, but thank you.” You leave your purse on a subway and end up in a month-long battle with a hooker for its return. You order a cab and walk away with a proposal. Even more insulting? A friend of mine was offered two camels for her pretty little hand…and my cabbie didn’t offer me anything but arranged wedded bliss.  Aw shucks.

Not long ago, the funniest of all comedic moments happened to me. Warning, this may not work in writing the way it would on TV, but do your best to make a mental picture as we go. Trust me, like Nike says, just DO it.

I was trying to throw a load of laundry in at a friend’s place while she was at work, but we had partied like it was 1999 just the night before. She seemed cool with this arrangement, so long as nobody was there when she returned, she was tired, she was cranky, she was hungover. So, I threw in the load and headed triumphantly out the door to tackle some errands. Well, one thing led to another and like is life, everything took longer than expected. By the time I got back to her house I figured I had enough time to toss the load in the dryer and then mysteriously sneak out like I was never there. Like a ninja. Except…..it had stopped. The goddamn washer had stopped.

So, like a pregnant teenager, I furtively tried to convince myself it had finished the cycle, but as I continued to pull sopping, dirty, clothes out of the washer…I realized in horror, it had stopped about a minute after I left.

I just wasn’t in the mood to explain it wasn’t working or see her disappointed face when she got home, stupid people pleaser that I am. So, I did what any logical person would do, I continued to load the clothes into the dryer, literally dripping wet. As more and more water sloshed onto the floor, I naively convinced myself I could get them dry enough to still sneak out in time. It was going to work, it had to work.

But, the closer I got to the bottom of that basin, the more pooling water there was.  Pooling, brown, dirty water. I started frantically searching my mind trying to figure out how to get out of this mess. Soooo, I started scooping out the water with a cup, but, Martha Stewart washes her freaking dishes by hand (even with a dishwasher), so I needed to wash the damn cup to hide the evidence. But, there was not a dry dishcloth in sight, so I had to use a clean one and then refold it in the drawer as though it was never used…sneaky, sneaky. To get rid of the last little bit of water in the bottom of the basin, I was going to use paper towels, but she was out, so Plan B, toilet paper, but that was down to one roll too! Plan C – I used her hand towels. These became drippy, dirty little messes and no matter how much I tried to ring them out…they just didn’t appear dry. So, I threw em in the dryer…with the very, very, very wet, still-dirty clothes.

In the meantime, the inside of the washer was hairy and gross, so I ended up using a bit of the toilet paper to clear this new problem up. And yes, once again, I did what any rational person would do. I tried to flush the wad of dirty toilet paper down the actual toilet (can’t leave the evidence in the garbage can of course). However, as is my fate, the toilet overflowed…annnndddd she doesn’t own a plunger.

So, what now you ask? Well, I ended up having to fish it all out by hand and resort to Plan D, just toss it all in my bag to bring home. Still, there was now water at the top of the toilet bowl rim, so back to Plan A, out comes the now clean cup again to be rewashed. Saga over you think? Now I’ve poured toilet and dirty basin water into her sink…so mother fucker, the sink too you ask?  Oh yes, the sink too.

After all this is said and done, it gets even better…she texts me that she’s on her way back, EARLY.

So I go to grab my now not-even-remotely-dry clothes and all I’ve managed to do is cover the inside of her dryer with hair and animal dander. Ugh, so NOW, I’m shoving wet clothes into my bags, using more toilet paper to wipe out the inside of her dryer and trying to use her shower towel to get the water off the floor. Big sigh and heavy-hearted I hung all her wet dirty towels back in the guest bathroom and hoped by the time she went in there they would be miraculously dry.

Well, turns out they were. And a bit discoloured. And a bit oddly wrinkled. I guess she noticed a couple of weeks later. Also, those errands I went to do? Well, those errands were driving a third friend to a neighbouring town. So, as it turns out…weeks later she did go to use that bathroom…and discovered the toilet was indeed plugged. She blamed it on our friend (I knew she would) and oddly enough, she also wondered where her toilet paper went. So, when annoyed she told me that our friend had plugged her toilet and used all the paper, I burst into laughter. Damn, and I was so in the clear….ish.

Either way, as I sit here writing this, tears are streaming down my face. As they have been for the last hour or so….from laughter. The whole reason I started writing this entry in the first place was because tonight I was painting. Painting something for this very friend. And I used oil paint, which I never use. Bright, neon orange, oil paint. The more I tried to wash this off the brush, my hand and out of the sink, the thicker and more stuck it became. It just kept spreading and was becoming a gelatinous mess and in the meantime, a scab on my hand had peeled off…and I was bleeding…and eventually I didn’t know what was blood and what was paint. Soon it just looked like a murder scene…but, as I stared at my bright orange, gooey, blood-stained hand I laughed and thought…yes, a clown’s murder scene.

So, I hung my shoulders, shook my head, giggled and thought….sigh…this could only happen to ME…or….Lucille Ball.

Ricky, get dinner ready, because I’m coming home.

The Ginga Ninja

Sorry, What Day did You Say it Was?

So this year I didn’t write a Valentine’s Day post.  Not because I’m bitter, not because I actually have a Valentine, but because I’m kind of…well, nothing over it.

As it turns out this past year things have been up and down…because, well, that is life.  I had a brief international fling, a ridiculously busy Christmas and a fairly relaxed January.  Since glowing about how much I love unemployment, I have now found myself fully employed again and am running myself ragged to maintain all that I’ve taken on.  Funny how that works, but finances run the world (even though Beyonce may have referenced ‘girls’) and time is once again at a premium.

Either way, I’m pretty okay with or without a Valentine.  Two years ago I was just learning to be independent, last year I was knee deep in health scares and this year, well, I barely noticed it even came.  I didn’t see many store fronts, am now chocolate-free, I’m happy for my taken friends and very few of my single ones are bitter or planning sad nights in. Single or taken, busy or relaxed, male or female, rich or poor…Valentine’s Day comes and goes and so we close the door on Valentines 2014.

But….I really do love those old vintage cards…and I really love this  post by a fellow blogger.  We are the same age, have the same poor spacial awareness and funnily enough sometimes pick the same titles for our blogs.  www.jentalkstoomuch.com/2011/02/happy-valentines-day-to-me

I think not just this year, but every year, you should feel this way.  Happy Valentines to you, your family, your friends, your pets and most importantly, YOU!

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.                                                                                                – Lucille Ball

The Ginga Ninja

The Rubix Cube that is Me

It’s amazing how our dynamic can change dependent on who we are with.  Really, we should all be ourselves regardless of who is by our side – but we aren’t. Or are we?  Is being ourselves a matter of always being the same way no matter what, or are you influenced by those around you?

The reason I wonder is because I catch myself changing all the time.  Or at least I think I do.  I’m honestly trying to decide if I’m changing for those around me or what has really changed is exactly that – those around me.

I have some great friends that I feel like a million bucks around.  Charming, funny, put together, but still flawed and human.  In fact, I can tell them almost anything and we can laugh together, cry together, gossip together, and poke fun at each other constantly.  Just the other day I had the most wonderful afternoon with two old friends.

(Okay, self-admittedly I may poke fun at one friend a little too much, and god bless her, she puts up with it because the things she says are nothing short of hilarious without ever meaning to be), but this is my public admission and apology to her. I love you just the way you are, even if just by repeating the things that come out of your mouth provides endless hours of entertainment. You know who you are, Ms. Baby Duck Feathers and how I love you so. But getting off topic...that version of myself, the courageous, funny and self-assured-to-the-point-of-teasing-others girl isn’t always there.

Sometimes, I am a self-deprecating, sitcom-life comedian who has people in stitches, other times I am an oh-so-wise confidant, others still a Debbie Downer, a motivational speaker, a combative drill sergeant, an insecure little girl, a blubbery and worried mess, a Buddha Zen Master and then there are even those people who get me scared, silent and cowering in a corner about what other below-the-belt thing they are going to say or do next.

How can there be people who make you feel oh so good about who you are and others who encourage you to throw in the towel on life?  Better yet, how can there be so many versions of me….

I guess I’m not the only one out there who has more than 1 side, as so eloquently put by the poet Ayumi http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/misc/poems.php?id=1115131, and if you believe in the power of Google there is a whole whackload of people out there wondering the same thing (or at least bored and commenting on) http://answerology.seventeen.com/index.aspx/question/515812_Does-your-personality-change-for-different-people.html, but I still can’t help but wonder…

Is it me with all the sides, or just the reflections of those around me?

I was a personality before I became a person – I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven. – Barbra Streisand

The Ginga Ninja

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