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The Bang Bang Theories

Best Thing At The Party

- Trixie Bang Bang

First, Reader, let’s talk about THE MOST IMPORTANT THING RIGHT NOW.

Swizzie’s 24-hour release of You’re Losing Me.

Stop. You’re getting me all in the feelings, Tay! Like 17-year old me going through her first heartache, and I don’t even care about you breaking up with Joe, because you’re T-Swiz and are going to be just fine, but yeah, this song I care all about it now and he should have just stopped because you probably WERE the best thing at the party because I wasn’t there.

Shew.

Now that we’ve covered that.

Let’s look at how the foliage has covered in my backyard so far.

Pretty obscure, TG (thank garth).

I ordered and just received a giant curtain rod to install on the downstairs patio because I really do not like to wear clothes in the hot tub and while that was all well and good in February and March when it was dark o’clock and no one could see me from across the ravine, this time of year may hit it a little bit differently.

We have our Hillbilly HotTub emptied and need to give it a good scrubbing and clean up that patio a bit. There is just never enough time in the weekend and I’m getting a little anxious feeling that the SUMMER IS GONE ALREADY and I’ve accomplished NOTHING!

I need to get out my big calendar and start planning out my months like a crazy person; it will be the only way I don’t squander my summer doing nothing.

This Memorial Weekend has been filled with a lot of people-ing. I enjoy people, but I’ve had a lot of it and that’s why my mulch isn’t fully spread in the front flowerbeds yet.

But a couple of my girlz and I went to a new brekky spot yesterday, to celebrate their upcoming June b-days…

…and I saw a building I’ve never before seen with my very own eyes, and lemme tell you, those Olden Days Folks built some rather majestic buildings.

That’s just a simple ol’ library with it’s fancy columns to hold up all the Things That Are Gonna Get Banned If We Don’t VOTE These Nutz Out!  Fahrenheit 451, Reader!

Stop. You’re losing me, Nutzo’s who wanna ban books but not guns. I haven’t heard kids being required to take active book drills, yet here we are, afraid for the youth maybe reading about olden day 1970’s girl’s periods and haffing to understand a menstrual belt.

Girls need to understand how good they’ve got it nowadays and protect their rights, before they lose all control of their v’s, and can’t even file for a damn no-fault divorce when they make a bad mistake and need to rise from the ashes and just should stick to not being the marrying kind, like me and T-Swizzle. We’re same-sies.

T-Swiz got me all rattled up this morning, apparently. I don’t ever even know what I’m going to type up here, and today it’s just a bag of mixed nuts.

At the beginning of 2022, I created a vision board and plopped a photo of a pontoon boat on that board, as that was part of my Summer Fun Visions and it never came to fruition last year because see above, how if I don’t plan out my time, it runs right ahead without me. But TODAY! It’s a new day! And our friends who apparently know how and where to Pontoon, have rented a boat and we are getting our asses out on it this afternoon. I’m up earlier than my usual on a day off to plan for that accordingly. I may go throw two bags of mulch down beforehand, just to feel I’ve checked off a chore. That’s actually one of my personality issues (one of many, I know Reader, I know), where nothing feels important unless it’s a Task or Chore and those have to get accomplished before anything else.

While I hate to blame the parents for that, it really does stem back to your raising, and what was praised and rewarded. Cleaning my bedroom, doing dishes, dusting, vacuuming – all those things received a lot more noteworthy mention than oh, say, when I wrote a short story in sixth grade and it was selected for a writing contest entry by my teacher.

That was just glossed over, and to this day I can’t even tell you how that story did – I think it was 2nd or 3rd place – but it was just a flick of passing in my middle school life and that’s what I blame on not being a writer now, so thanks a lot Dead Mom & Dead Dad, and why instead I’m obsessing that I need to get up and mulch right after this.

I can buy all the coffee mug reminders I want, but if I don’t actually prioritize doing something CREATIVE, it’ll all just be mulch and messy floors.

Because let’s face facts, while I grew up getting Chore-Rewarded, somewhere in my adulthood it’s become less rewarding and more just chore and also I blame my six three a-hole cats who #1. throw up somewhere every day #2. pee somewhere not in their litter box every day #3 kick all my stuff off counters and tables every day #4. may or may not run and poop because he needs momentum to get his constipated ass in gear #5. leave their hair everywhere and #6. generally just create filth and mayhem.

It’s a full-time job, and I need to make a Chore List for the ones who will be left behind starting next Saturday, when I set sail to the Caribbean with my friendie. I don’t believe deep in my core that the two men who live here know exactly how much tidy-ing and scooping of the poop and generally wiping up I do on a daily basis. It’s going to be on a list with their little names written next to the chore board and I don’t give any fucks if it crushes their creativity because mine was crushed and I’m doing just FINE. Ahem.

On that note, I’ve gotta Stop. You’re losing me. To the mulching and the general floor cleaning before I havta get ready for the pontoon.

 

May Days

- Trixie Bang Bang

Finally, finally, we are moving into Patio Season here.

And like the Early Riser* that I am, I’m up and at ’em this morning to write some things.

Things I actually started several evenings ago, but never seemed to circle back.

*Early Riser being the thing I’m the opposite of, and I’ll need a nap at 9 a.m. as a result of this bold move. 

I don’t even know what I wrote the other night so I may as well begin anew.  I do know I was going down another Dead Dad path, because I apparently have a lot lot lot of anger stored up at the folks on the peripheral of this sitch.

In the meantime, I’m practicing my positive morning mediations – which has been a giant struggle, quite frankly. I enjoy me more when I fill my jelly donut of a head with Good Vibes, but I’ve been inconsistent, which should be my middle name because being inconsistent is the one thing I’m actually consistent about.

I’ve signed up for an online writing course, beginning in June. Let’s see where that goes, Reader. I’ve got a bajillion stories bottled up in my brain, but ya know, I read so many awful books that I figure why contribute another awful book into the world. Except why not.

I’ve been working – slowly – on flower pots and herbs and shaking the storage off of the Outdoor Things. I’d like to be Done with all the Outdoor Things before I go on vacation in 2 weeks, but that’s a tall order. We have forty bags of mulch lining the front flower beds, and need to scoop up another forty more. I wanted to write a check to just have it done for me, but that warred with my cheapskate-o nature and I figure I can use the exercise anyway except I probably won’t be able to move for six days after because I’m Old and Broke Down in the knees and general below-the-belt areas.

I’m slowly working through some of my father’s things. I make a goal to do at least two things a week on that, and yesterday I did those two things.

I wanted to have a memorial service for him on Father’s Day, however that is $3000 and I do not have $3000 spare dollars lying about and so we as a collective agreed to skip that for now. He’s resting comfortably on the mantel and just watched the whole 1883 series with us and we all really enjoyed it.

I’m still pretty tweaked about the whole Florida Experience and The People Who Suck.  “Friends” of my father’s and his shitty lady friend, her son and her son’s bitchass wife. Who had the actual fucking NERVE to get thisclose to my face at the funeral home and scream at me while I’m making plans for my father’s body, because I wouldn’t allow them to take my father’s body to their mother’s cemetary and bury him NOT WITH HIS WIFE and OUR FAMILY.

Yep, it’s a real thing that happened and for fuck’s sake, who does that?? These are grown people, Reader, and also the people who willfully kept my father’s things from me. He’s an ARCHITECT partner at a firm in Chicago. Behaving like that in the face of my loss. The Son, Tim, recently Fed-Ex’d an envelop of shit mail to me a couple of Sunday’s ago. I mean, literal junk mail. And a few interesting things mixed in, such as an inquiry from one of my father’s credit card companies explaining why they denied the request for a new credit card. Because I closed his account immediately, the day before they requested a new card. So they were planning some nefarious shit. Rack up $10,000 in charges that his estate – a.k.a, Me – would be responsible for.

Luckily I used the one moment I had while in my father’s house to take photos of every piece of paper I could find in his office, anything that looked like it may be important for me later, and had enough info to begin cancelling things.

I don’t know, Reader. My dad would say, “It takes all kinds of people to make up a world,” and that is a true story.  You just don’t want to think you’re bringing the super shitty ones into your inner circle, which proved to be the case here.

I don’t believe in Karma. I’ve seen in my own life far too many times where the Shit Humans end up just fine. My ex-husband is one of those examples, with no remorse or even apology so it’s not as if he ever got out of the situation and looked back with regret for being so shitty. Also, I don’t believe in asking Karma to extract any revenge. To me, that’s super negative and just trying to avoid owning the being a negative b-hole yourself, but putting all your ill wishes onto Karma’s shoulders.

People don’t always get what we think they deserve. Bad people aren’t all bad. Bad people win.  Good people aren’t all good. Good people lose.The best that we can hope is to make it through while keeping your head faced towards the light.

Would You Like Fries With That

- Trixie Bang Bang

When my father died last month, I was glad I had been in the habit of practicing my morning meditations for the past couple of years.

Because I surely did need it, on so many occasions.

One very minor instance was my motel, advertised with a pool.

That dirt pit, I’m assuming, was maybe once a pool.

But ya know, onward. No big deal in the scheme of things like my dad just died.

What did require every single ounce of my patience happened directly after my father died, in his room. It’s so fucking absurd, had it not happened to me, I would find it a story hard to believe.

But it did happen. I was there.

The morning that my father died, I had just arrived back at his hospice room with my sister-in-law. I always stopped at the front desk and got the over-night report, and I was informed that he was progressing towards his final breath.

Without getting too far into the weeds, I’ll sum it up by stating that by this particular morning, my father’s “lady” friend Penny – lady being used in the loosest sense of the word – she is no lady – she is no friend of mine. She was extremely irrational the entire time I was down there and had to deal with her, and the main reason I spent little time actually at my father’s bedside. She is a very miserable person and is more so with possibly some dementia happening in her head.

But anyway, that’s not the story.

The story happened about two minutes after my father died. I watched him take his last breath, called the nurse back into the room who had just left, and one of Penny’s friends waltzed into the room carrying McDonald’s breakfast for both of them.

That’s not the story.

My father had just been pronounced dead, and the nurse shut off the oxygen machine. The friend, Rod, asked, “How’s he doing?” and the Penny stated, “He just passed,” or something of that nature. So Rod reached over, put his hand upon my father’s shoulder, said something about playing cards up in heaven with a jovial attitude, and then turned back to the lady and they started carrying on a conversation about where he had dinner the prior night – followed up by a story about shenanigans at a tiki bar on the beach – all the while getting both of their coffee’s stirred and generally carrying on.

While I was standing there at my freshly dead father’s bedside.

The nurse came back and I grabbed her and said, “You have to do something about this, please do something about this,” and she told me she’d be right back, she was getting another nurse.

In that short span, Rod opened the McDonald’s bag and passed out McMuffins for Penny and himself, and began to unwrap them.

They were going to eat their breakfast right next to my father’s body, with me standing there looking at them.

I couldn’t wait for the nurse to come back, so I asked Rod, “Can you please eat your breakfast out in the family area.”

And he looked at me, completely offended, and said, “If I’m being FORCED to, I will.”

The backstory on that comment was from the previous day. The previous day, I had to have three nurses force Penny to leave my father’s hospice room so I could spend 30 minutes alone with him and say what I wanted to say. Penny had flat-out refused to willingly leave and it was a whole scene. But she did leave, because I made her.

So now Rod – who I’d never met until that morning – had the audacity to direct his fucking attitude my way, because I had the nerve to ask him to eat his breakfast somewhere other than over my father’s dead body.

When he responded with his snarky “forced to” comment, this is where my mediative grace came in, Reader.

Because without all the work I’ve done in my brain over the past few years, I may have not responded quite so kindly. My response was merely to look him in the eye, wave my hand over my father’s body and say, “My FATHER JUST died,” while never breaking eye contact.

I would like to report he sheepishly gathered his things, but he did not. He gathered, but it was not at all contrite, and he still had an attitude that I had dared to ask him to leave my father’s hospice room.

The nurses came in shortly after and kicked me and Penny out so they could do their thing with his body. There is apparently some preparing that needs to happen. And believe it or not, I don’t think eating an McMuffin over the body is part of the prep work. But maybe in Florida. Florida is crazy.

Reader. I had planned to write this absurd story with a humorous slant, but that did not come out of my fingers. I think I’m still mad about it and would like to punch that Rod right in his McMuffin-eating face. I do not have the good graces completely mastered, Reader. I still have the instinct to be an asshole when I’m pushed. It’s hard being the person you want to be sometimes.

So many things happened during that one-week trip. People can be extremely disappointing. I was and have been very disappointed by some of the behavior directed my way. I feel betrayed by so many things that happened.

Death often brings out the worst in the people. And in some cases, I guess it brings out the breakfast sandwiches.

In Like a Lion.

- Trixie Bang Bang

My father died two weeks ago.

He took a sudden turn and there was no coming back from it.

Overall, he’d been healthy-ish, for someone who spent too many years drinking too much, supporting Little Debbie and her baked-goods friends, and had prostrate-turned-to-bone cancer.

Other than that, he was healthy.

For all the shit he did to his body, he also believed in a host of natural cures, such as apple-cider vinegar, gin-soaked raisins, whiskey-and-honey-and-lemon to cure any sore throat (or at least make you forget you had a sore throat), and a pharmacy of other longevity potions.

I believe in a past life – or future – he would be/will be a medicine man.

Going through his things, it’s been interesting to find what he felt was important.

A $5 bill he won in a card game. A $1 bill gotten the same way.

My ex-husbands CPPA get-out-of-jail-free card, appointed to “Father.”

Photobook upon photobook of arial shots of his property. Photos of us. Photos of his family.

It’s been a wild couple of weeks.

Trying to figure shit out.

Trying to figure people out.

Feeling betrayed.

Feeling mad.

Making good decisions for our family.

Spending an unexpected trough of money on hotels, airfare, meals.

But. There was a bright spot in all of the chaos. And I am going on the record, calling her out for being my bright spot.

My ex-sister-in-law. She shined a little bit of light for me during all of it.

My love language is Acts of Service. I appreciate and value things being made just a little easier for me. For some of the burden to be lifted.

I’m terrible at gifts. I’m terrible at birthday celebrations, card sending, Christmas gifting. Because that’s not my love language. But mop my floors? Vacuum? Empty the dishwasher? I’m in love.

My sister-in-law met me at the Orlando airport, and drove me everywhere I needed to go for 5 days.

The day that my father died, that night we bought cheap wine at Walmart and ate cupcakes in an overpriced hotel room. My dad died during Spring Break. Not a rental car to be found in the city, and hotels were exhorbiant. But as my cousin advised, just get the room. We needed our own space to work through the days we’d just experienced.

It was a good decision.

We ate delicious seafood and bought bathing suits and spent the following day swimming around in the pool, feeling the warmth of the Florida sunshine.

We didn’t have to talk a lot. She’s a lot deaf from a disease that steals your hearing.She did her thing, I did mine. But she was right there next to me.

You never know who your lighthouse is going to be, providing that little pillar to lean on just a little bit. Speaking my love language without even knowing it.

Those are your people, Reader. When they show you who they are, don’t forget it.

 

Blame It On The Moon

- Trixie Bang Bang

Stop.

That’s the word that’s been bouncing around in my brain for the past several weeks.

It’s tough to work on yourself when you’re busy distracting yourself – and distractions are just oh so easy to come by. And usually a lot more fun – for the moment anyway.

Planning get togethers seems to be my number one go-to thing I do, because I do get a payoff out of it. I generally enjoy hanging out with people, having them over and doing stuff. But ya know, that also comes with a price – not doing other personal growth things, and the actual cost of having folks over – groceries are ‘spensive, in case you haven’t heard my grandmother rolling over in her grave recently.

Because Meta knows every thought we’re thinking, of course I’ve been seeing ads about disconnecting and working on yourself for six months – a whole “What if you disconnected and really worked on yourself” app thing and I’ve gotta say the intent has intrigued me. Spend that time working on your fitness goals, health overall, goals and dreams and actual things that can make a difference in your life vs. spending six hours a night watching The Mindy Project and planning date nights.

I haven’t bought that app, because it seems counter-intuitive to encourage disconnecting by CONNECTING even more with an app to track all the crap I’m going to be doing. I mean, huh?

But again, I’m tickling the idea. To just stop.  Stop distracting myself and work on the things I keep not doing because…. well, because ~ insert no good reason here ~ .

Let’s see how February shakes out. I’ll share with you my new goals tracker board I created next time I stop by here. It’s kinda super helpful with keeping me on track with doing things each day that I want to do – and letting me easily see what I think I want to do, but never seem to do it (Go To Gym, I’m talking to you).

Time to re-think how I’m spending my time, STOP distracting myself, and make my life actually add up how I want.

Inventing.

- Trixie Bang Bang

So… here we are in the middle of the first month of the new year and where actually are we?

My Mister and I jumped on a plane and took a quicky little trippy to Atlantic City last weekend, and I managed to feed my soul with a little bit of Sunset on the Beach, which should be a cocktail because I need that a whole lot more than I need Sex on the Beach, quite frankly.

What would a Sunset on the Beach drink actually contain?

OF COURSE A SUNSET BEACH DRINK EXISTS, ME.

I asked Almighty Google, because I thought for just a really cute minute that I came up with something original, but of course I did not, there ARE NO ORIGINAL IDEAS LEFT, EVERYTHING YOU COULD POSSIBLY THINK OF HAS ALREADY BEEN THUNK.

Sunset Beach recipe: 1 oz Mailbu Coconut Rum, 1 oz Blackberry Brandy, cranberry juice and pineapple juice to your liking. Garnish with orange slice and cherry.

I actually am naming my take on this to Sunset ON THE Beach and it would have a base of Carrabba’s Blackberry Sangria swirled with possibly something firey orangy and maybe a dash of pink, and blue curacao at the bottom to represent the ocean and now I have a brand new Resolution, to concoct the perfect Sunset on the Beach drink and you shall all be invited over to try them this summer.

I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, but creating a brand new drink recipe is not what I even came here to tell you about – these blogs just create themselves, all organic from the hopscotch thoughts in my brain. Not Impressive, right? They seem so well thought-out.

What I did want to talk about is this:

For some damn reason, I downloaded the image above as a JANUARY RESOLUTION GOAL GETTER to get my life and home organized AF.

Now, where on that calendar does it list “Trip To AC to Lose $ and Eat Delish Food and See a Sunset on the Beach?”

Where does it note, “Invite a friend over for dinner and spend a random Thursday evening together?”

Where is the, “Write some stuff so your Reader has something to do other than Clean Out a Backpack or Wash Car?”

…”Play Cards with Friends on a Friday Night?”

…”Take a EFFING WALK OUTSIDE and get some fresh AIR, even in the cold?”

… “Call Your Dad.”

….”Meet a co-worker you haven’t seen in 20 years for lunch.” Which is what I’m doing in an hour.

What I’m getting at is the calendar above? Should be titled, “Resolutions That May Make You Slightly More Tidy For a Minute Before Everything Gets Messy Again, But Will Bring Your Month Zero Joy, Unless Your Name is Marie Kondo, Who Lives to Tidy.”

I have spent this moment with coffee re-evaluating my month of goals because the shit I download to try to focus on (see calendar above)? Sucks a dick.

Now, I did get busy with reorganizing and cleaning out my clothes closet. Because for Christmas I received The Best Gift Ever from My Mister and well, since I’m meeting a co-worker for lunch and I still need to shower, we can talk about in a bit.

But I will say one thing about that.  They allot that task to ONE day. One, Reader. Like we’re some kinda Hercules or something.

I started on my closet re-invention the first weekend of this new year and I still have bins of crap around my bedroom that haven’t found their new home yet. BECAUSE see all the other HAPPIER MAKING things I’ve been doing, such as friending and traveling and eating and cooking and right here, this.

Dumb calendars should not be allowed to rule your month, Reader. I think as soon as I’m done inventing my cocktail Sunset on the Beach, I’ll write a GOOD calendar of goals for February.  If I’m drunk from my SOB (I’ve already shorthanded my un-invented signature cocktail), all the better. Remember, we’re a no judgy zone. Kind of. Don’t judge ME, is really the zone I’m talking about.

 

 

 

 

Resolved.

- Trixie Bang Bang

If you’re reading this, it means we made it. We made it to 2023, the time of flying cars and robot maids.

We did get robot sex dolls, but i’m still waiting for my robot maid, which needs to be a step up from the Roomba because it needs to have a smart sensor to avoid all cat fluids.

Yes, I realize my photo at the top has some swirls and I’m not caring about the small things on the first day of this new year. We’re here, focused on the important stuff, like THIS HERE BLOG, words for you on this new day.

I usually take the New Year pretty seriously. I have a different life I want to cultivate, and so I set these goals and then I usually may do a couple of things which is better than nothing. I enjoy the thought of “there’s still plenty of time, let’s set some goals,” like I’m not on the backend of my life just yet (I am, but ssshhhh…).

I recently read an article that talked about planning your life out in chapters. There’s the birth chapter, school chapter, marriage chapter, house chapter, location chapter, blah blah.  I think t’s kind of interesting, and I may take this approach, at least for this coming year. I’m in a “I still have to work but one day want to retire and then where do I want to go and also if I don’t write a book now at what chapter am I going to, and also let’s make this the chapter where I get my twenties body back and also just do some yoga already, so let’s figure out our chapters” chapter of my life. I think I just need to figure out this next short chapter, from now until summer.

Which leads me to the other good tip I received from Dragontree, which I’m really into and had my burning all bad things in the moonlight virtual party with.  I know you’re not supposed to end a sentence with “with” but I don’t know how else to end it so … I’m just going to let it dangle out there. Let the Withs fall where they may. It’s an official slogan. They said to pick ONE THING. One resolution only. Not to get crazy. Make it focused around who you want to BE this year.

Last year I wanted to be outdoorsy, and never even got my pool out of the box. This year I’m going to be Summer Pool Girl.

For Christmas this year, I received this lovely gratitude jar and unboxed it today to get started filling it up with all the things for which I am truly grateful.

As I took the styrofoam from around it, I promptly hit the pedestal base against the wood table and cracked part of it cleanly off.

I’m not sure if this was a predictor of how my new year is going to try to go, but it had better know who it’s messing with.

Because I glued it back together and plan on hot-glue-gunning some costume jewelry gems to this pedestal and making this crack just a stepping stone on the way to dazzling. Kind of a metaphor for my life.

Alright gotta go….I did make a pact to get a movie-star ass by May, doing curtsy squats throughout the day, because I am nothing if not grounded in reality and think that Kelly Ripa and I are twins, or at least we will be after I do twelve exercises once.

That’s my 2023 Ass Goal. Again, grounded solidly in reality over here at Chez Bang Bang.

Bite Size

- Trixie Bang Bang

Let’s just get down to business.

The Cookies.

In the name of RESEARCH, for YOU, Reader – I stopped in at Stosh’s Kolachkes in Parma and shelled out seven large for 12 small.

Seven bucks for a dozen cookies is just….spendy. Very spendy.

It’s like…..stops to do some quick math…..like almost $3 a cookie!

It’s midnight o’clock, and that’s the closest we are getting to math at this hour. The only other math I usually do at this hour is calculating the 600 lb lifers that I’m addicting to watching as my bedtime snack. Every. Single. Night.  I drift off, cheering them on to victory. Or I’m annoyed by them, because frankly some of those folks have horrible personalities and aren’t likable at all.

Regardless. We’re talking Cookies right now.

Stosh’s.

These dreamy sugary melt-in-your-mouth confections:

That’s all that’s left from the million-dollar dozen.

Raspberries were the first to go.

These cream cheese ones aren’t second place, lemme tell you. They are all first place flavors. They ALL get a trophy.

So there really is no point to this post, other than the Folgers coffee link kept linking, when it should have gone to cookies, but here we are. I solved this. Except you can only get them if you’re in my local area, so this is really just a mean tease. You’ll have to take my Christmas Cookie word on it.

You can purchase these by the pound, which runs $15, but it’s a part-time biz for ol’ Stosh and he has limited weekend hours and we happened to be there right before he was closing at 2:00 p.m. and we purchase the very last 12 cookies in the shop.  You have to get an order in with them if you want cookies, and that level of difficulty in obtainment, Reader, is what will keep me from entering a sugary cookie coma this holiday season.

Because I can barely call ahead for important things like eyeglass appointments and I seriously doubt I’ll be making a cookie appointment. Because part of the splendor of Christmas cookie-ing is the spontaneity of it all. Otherwise you’re literally planning your fat, and I like mine to unsuspectingly creep up on me. As it should be.

 

 

Things I Like Right Now

- Trixie Bang Bang

Let’s do A Thing, Reader. Well, I’m the one who’s going to be doing all the doing.

It’s the first day of the last month of 2022, and I’m already doing my “year in retrospect” and frankly I’m not too happy with what I see.

Tonight I’m …. meh.

I don’t want to be meh. I want to be YAY!

But I can’t fight the Darkening, and the sluggish personality that accompanies it.

So instead, let’s just talk about things that I do like and maybe you’ll want to try them and like them, too.  It’s a Cheater’s Blog. Or a Blogger’s Cheat. Something is cheating on something with this and I’m too damn meh to figure it out.

Things I Like Right Now, in no particular order:

  1. 1. Sex Lives of College Girls. A Mindy Kaling HBO Max thing and it’s funny and adolescent and I like all of it.
  2. 2. Folgers Black Silk Coffee. I buy the k-cups. The whole house likes this. It’s out-seated my fave Kirkland bold coffee as my morning go-to, but day-um, it’s pricey.  And I have officially become my Grandmother and bitch about the price of groceries, my water bill, my $141 sewer bill, and just the expense of life in general because of this damn economy and I’m mad at Putin and Biden over it, but mostly I still hate Trump, so there.
  3. 3.  Stosh’s Kolaches Cookies.  Thanks for the pounds we are going to gain together, Cookies. Because you are so damn good in my mouth. My Grandmother would roll over in her cremains if she knew I paid $7/dozen, but on a good note I guess, I’m not entirely like Sophie just yet. There are no good photos of these delicious triangle sugar wows, however you need to take my word for it. The best. Better than my mama’s. And I do not say that lightly, as she made what is now my second favorite of these.
  4. 4. Tostidos Restaurant Style Salsa. Hands down the most tasty commercial jar salsa I’ve tried. It’s my new “eat chips and salsa while watching Sex Lives of College Girls” routine.
  5. 5. This damn pizza. It’s cheapish and the best frozen pizza we’ve ever tried and also I think it might be my dinner tonight.
  6. 6. I realize I’m mostly mentioning the things that go in my mouth, and I’m not sure if that’s because very little else makes me happy at the moment or if I’m just to meh to think of other things I like. I don’t know.
  7. 7. I’m going to mention something not food.  Thinking…  Oh! Substack! I read some people on here and I like it, although there is a paywall for a lot of it and the Sophie in me bristles over that but maybe I could write paywall-worthy content (this is not that) and make $7 to pay for my cookie habit. I read Jill Krause on there, she had a bad breakup that put her in the nervous hospital and it’s good writing about a sad topic.
  8. 8. That’s pretty much it at the moment. I feel like I had more things, but this is all that’s on the tip of my fingers and I’m going to go to the gym so I can’t sit here all night thinking about it.

9. Yes, you read that last sentence. I’m getting up offa my b- and going to the gym and doing some stuff because did you see all those food items listed above? That’s why.

UPDATE 12/2/22:

  1. 10.  More things I love! Going to the gym cleared my cobwebs out of my brain and I have more things I love!
  2. 11.  ALLBIRDS sneakers. I don’t even know I have broken feet filled with arthritis when I wear these shoes.  Now, they did take some getting used to. A lot of getting used to. I think because they mash all the bones in my feet into the position they are supposed to be in. I have to be honest, I thought I was going to send these back after the first week. I could only wear them for short bursts of time for a good couple of weeks. But I had read good things and I kept wearing them, and now? I could dance all night in them and not even cry about my aching feet in the morning. In fact, my always-aching foot feels zero pain right now and I don’t even take my medication that I used to take to manage it. Worth the $100+ price tag for me.
  3. 12. The Wild Herb Company. Their Magnesium Cream is bananas for solving leg cramping issues.  Because guess what? Bananas don’t work on a 3 a.m. thigh charlie horse.  This cream? Resolves the issue in about 30 seconds and also they don’t come back just as you’re trying to fall back into dreamy delicious sleep.
  4.  13. Yes, I for some fuck of a reason get a lot of goddamn leg cramps. It’s been going on for years. It’s a DEFINITE YES, YOU WILL BE WRITHING IN PAIN BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 2 A.M AND 4 A.M. IF YOU EVEN THINK OF HAVING AN EVENING COCKTAIL. No matter how much water I drink during cocktail hour and before bed. It’s coming. Be prepared. So I now got smart ::taps finger on temple to note my big brain::, I slather myself up before bed if I’ve had a drinkie and it works. And also, when I get on an airplane. Because a thigh cramp at 35,000 feet is just going to happen and it’s awkward when I start contorting myself in that teensy seat, especially next to a stranger. So get some of this if you and Charlie Horse are in a complicated relationship.  My friendie used some at my house once and bought it for herself and she corrobrates my story on how quick and great this works. Nature for the win!
  5. 14. I think it goes without saying that I am not compensated in any way for any of my product endorsements. I would like to be. Send me cookies, Stosh!
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Falling For It

- Trixie Bang Bang

The ravine is full of song this morning.

We Fell Back an hour last night, and I do enjoy it on the morning side of things; however, i may as well just leave my pajamas on today as it’ll be dark by 4 p.m. and it’s the season of All-Day Pajamas because the whole country just goes to bed five hours after they get up.

This is not a directed ramble. It’s more of a, “well, I’m up and it’s not noon yet, let’s chitty-chat.”

My coffee and I have been in an “it’s complicated” relationship lately.  You know I’ve been struggling with my pumpkin spice coffee creamer, and I did add another to the mix – International Delight – and it was fine. Fine. The same fine as the Starbucks brand. So I think it’s not you, it’s me, Coffee Creamer.

I mostly have uneasy feelings about my coffee creamer needs because I switched to the dark side and just drank it black for so long and now I’m sucked right back in to sugary creamy coffee, and that would be FINE if it met the needs of my mouth. So I may just have to switch back to black.

Last night while shopping for Cat Needs, I succumbed to the allure of some Harry & David seasonal flavored coffee. I ALMOST bought the pumpkin spice flavor, but then told myself, “no. just no with all the pumpkin spice things.” If the coffee creamer can’t deliver on it’s own, I’m abandoning that quest. So I bought a maple pecan flavor, which sounds nice and Fall-ish, and it, too, is Fine. Is my mouth singing like the birds in the ravine? No.

These are back-to-back posts about coffee and I guess it’s revealing the story about what’s important to me. That life-giving magic bean.

Because my nephew has been staying at my home for the past couple months, and he’s kinda bossy about desserts and also sort of told me, “You don’t eat much at meals, but you eat too much baked goods and that’s why you’re fat,” only it wasn’t said quite like that but it’s the gist of it, I set out to prove a point and deemed October “No Bake October.” And I didn’t purchase cookies and cakes per my usual “fill up the house with yummy things.”

Now. Let’s tell the truth here, Me.

Did I purchase not one but two pies at Sam’s Club? Yes.

Did we purchase and eat an ice cream cake for nephew’s bday? Yes.

Did I eat some dessert at book club? Yes.

Did I go to the bakery at the end of October and purchase a cream horn and a teensy-tiny-pre-birthday-month cake? Yes.

This was the skinny-downed month of no baked goods.

Stop judging me, Reader!

I did not make things – as much as I wanted to bake. I did not buy Oreos, as much as they tried to tantalize me with new flavors. I did not eat the frosting off of that kinda meh bakery cake. I shared the pies at a neighborhood event.

And guess how much skinnier I was by the end of the month?

Two pounds, or eight sticks of butter.

Which quite frankly, doesn’t actually sound like it was worth the sacrifice to my mouth.

Not to mention, we rarely eat out any more – I have to Mom it up around here and have dinners kinda planned out since it’s not just me and My Mister who can fend for himself.

So. Two pounds seems frankly very rude.

I am exactly like a Dr. Now patient who sits there explaining away their two-pound weight loss with, “But I followed the diet! The scale must be wrong! I don’t know how this can possibly be!” and he’d tell me, “The scale doesn’t lie. People do!” and fuck you for judging me, Dr. Now! Sacrifices were made!

It’s a little disappointing, but I’m going to kinda try to keep the mojo rolling at least until Birthday Cake, because maybe I can wean my sweet tooth off a bit.  I have been paying some kind of attention to my overall well being, by ADDING things to my day vs. all the subtracting.

I try to start my morning with a quarter of a cup of beet juice. Most mornings this is my before-coffee thing. It’s supposed to be good for stuff like energy and opening your blood vessels and shit like that. I don’t know that it’s helping, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting and I like beets and can swig down a third of cup.

I’ve also mingled that beet juice with tart cherry juice sometimes, just for added kapow.

I eat a shit-ton of fiber. I’m fiber-focused, and my neighbors mentioned I’ve lost weight and I very lady-like tell them, “I’ve just been pooping a lot.”

I have, kind of when I think about it, added a turmeric tea to my afternoon beverage consumption.

Taking my medication on a regular, daily basis vs. doing it as when I think about it, and sometimes days go by when I forget. This goes down with my beet juice now. I read my friend’s book, Chronic, and she actually says right in there that if you need to take medication, taking it daily and as a scheduled thing is the kindest thing you can do for yourself, and she’s right.

And this month, for November’s addition, we are doing squats every day and have incorporated (so far) a pretty thorough bed-time stretching routine.

So yeah. Two pounds. Maybe it’s the coffee creamer I’m not even fully enjoying.

Life is hard. I mean, first-world-problems hard here.

That’s what’s doing over here on the back deck at Chez Bang Bang.  Thank the time change for this; I had morning time to write as I was up and at ’em earlier than my weekend usual. And there you were, bad-mouthing the clock. You didn’t know the treasure it would deliver for you today.

 

 

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