Step Right Up!

A new contest comes and goes here at Home Fires. I know I wanted to have some creative something or another but yesterday as I was checking out my sitemeter, I saw that it was one measly click away from 66,000 visitors. So I waited. I refreshed. I waited a little more. I tapped my fingernails. Then I hit refresh again.

DING, DING, DING! We have a winnah!

Patricia doesn’t know she won, unless she is reading this now. What should her grand prize be? I was going to get her the house she can’t afford across the river, which is what her profile has listed as her only item on her wish list. But then I realized, I couldn’t afford that either.

If you know Patricia, what would you suggest? If you don’t know her, what would you suggest? If it was you, what would you want?

If you are reading this Patricia, e-mail your address to me at Home_Fires@comcast.net and hopefully, I won’t have my head in my ass, and I’ll get your grand prize out in the mail soon.

I don’t know why one of my biggest pet peeves is going to the post office. My dad worked at the post office for over 30 years. One might think it would be a comforting place for me, but it isn’t. So my lack of love for the post office makes me a lazy gift sender-outter. Just ask Mark or 30K Todd, our last two winners.

---

Today’s Dino-Mike gems:

“Auntie Lois, you look tired.”

Smiling over the rim of my coffee cup, at 5:30 a.m., I said, “I am. Thanks for noticing.”

“You don’t look that bad.”

“Thanks.”

“You should see my dad when he wakes up in the morning. There’s nothing pretty about it.”

I am so glad this kid has a good sense of humor. He has a couple of weird but funny things he says when he goes to the bathroom. As he runs for the bathroom, he yells, “I’m going for second place!” That means he needs to go number two.

The other day we were in the car and something wasn’t smelling so good. From the backseat I heard him say with his hand under his butt, Lane 1’s famous bathroom humor line, “Fire in the hole!” Without skipping a beat, he added, “Hurry Auntie Lo! Drive faster! There is an emergency on the poop deck!”

---

This added extra is because I am not going to blog tomorrow. Remember when my family went to the wedding in Michigan last month? Remember how I said if anyone sent me pictures of me there, I would share them with you? Well guess what? Auntie Vie sent a thank you card (yes, handwritten Patricia) and a few pictures. One of which is of me and the old man dancing. This is the one and only picture in our 17 years where we are dancing. As a matter of fact, we have very few pictures of us together.

No scrolling, I’m getting there. First I have a back story first to set the stage. As many of you read, there were some folks at the wedding who wore non-fancy clothing for the event. For example, the tattooed lady with the camel toe jean shorts, tank top and a bow tie.

Although my attire wasn’t that bad, I was actually embarrassed of how I looked. I never tan intentionally. So I sport a prominent farmer’s tan. The only decent dress I had for this wedding didn’t have sleeves. Knowing my farmer tan is dark and oh so very redneckish, I brought a black shawl to throw over my shoulders to draw attention away from my glow in the dark white biceps. I thought it was quite ingenious. Beats the hell out of a spray on tan, or going to a tanning bed to even things out, or heaven forbid, actually laying in the sun.

The day of the wedding, it was roughly 100 degrees. Black shawl plus 100 degrees, equals really fucking hot! I ditched the shawl as quickly as possible. I kept crossing my arms in an effort to hide my whiteness. Eventually I realized you can’t dance with your arms hugging yourself. Unfortunately, I wasn’t drunk so I did care. That is until my old man took me onto the dance floor and sang loudly in front of everyone, You’re Beautiful, by James Blunt.

And for the moment you have all been waiting for, Lois and Mr. Lane dancing in all of her farmer’s tan goodness.