Alls well that ends well.

So... Saturday was my last day at ACS. I know. Sad. Unfortunately for me, I could no longer work on Saturdays and they couldn't accommodate me because it wouldn't be fair to the other girls. Sure, I'm freaking adorable and that should have tipped the scales in my favor but what are you gonna do? 

I mean, I always gave 75% and was punctual and sweet and helpful and looked great in their clothes and shopped a lot and, um, did I mention I'm adorable?

Andy has breathed a sigh of relief because I will no longer be smuggling clothes into the house in the middle of the night while he's trying to defend the universe from some dude named the Lynch King (which they supposedly defeated but for some reason they keep battling?). He's also happy he won't have clothes tumble towards him as he walks by my dresser because I have towers upon towers upon towers on my little tiny itty bitty dresser. In all fairness, I think he should just get me a bigger dresser.

In all seriousness, I am going to miss working at ACS. It helped me so much when I had my mental meltdown 6 months ago, which I just hit the 6 month mark on Thursday, and kept my mind from focusing too much on what I thought was going to suck my brain dry.

I went in there thinking I was a shlumpy housewife and came out of there knowing that I'm not that at all! Part of the shlumpiness I felt was because I was not wearing clothes that fit me properly. I would go in and buy big loose shirts and stretchy pants and granny panties so of course I felt like an unattractive hag!

Thanks to the insistence of the women I worked with at ACS, I expanded my wardrobe horizons. I learned what type of shirts/blouses flatter my body. I learned that jeans could be your butt's best friend. I learned that I shouldn't be allergic to wearing light colors just because I always heard black was the only slimming color.

Most importantly, I learned that most women are kind and supportive and will verbally beat you up if you call yourself *fat*.

Working at ACS was a welcome distraction and I was able to put on pause the all consuming stress of working at the Asylum, my unhappiness with myself and it basically helped me not focus too much on my dark thoughts.

I believe that the activity also helped in my weight loss and *that* in turn helped transform my blood pressure from mercurial to steady. And honestly, I loved being out of the house. I mean, Andy has his hobbies and I felt like this was mine. It was somewhere I could go and interact with people that were closer to my age while at the same time help out women who were in the same imaginary position of shlumpy housewife I used to be in.

I also learned to accept *the booty*. No matter how much I try to outrun it, it's always gonna be right behind me (I crack myself up!) so I might as well make it work for me. Maybe I should even buy the Brazilian butt lift exercise. . . not that I'm gonna be doing booty pops or anything because who needs that image?

I was sorta depressed about the ACS situation but I have to admit I neglected a lot of the things I love doing because I always ended up too tired from working 2 jobs. I haven't hosted any family get togethers this year. I haven't been able to keep up with friends via email, facebook, blogs or phone. I mean, I went a whole week without seeing my little Isabella! Talk about heart breaking!

Sadly, one of the things that has suffered my neglect the most is my garden. Or, more accurately, my weed garden (and by weed I mean "any undesirable or troublesome plant, esp. one that grows profusely where it is not wanted" not maryjane weed).

Look! So pathetic!

And also, my blog. I haven't blogged as much as I'd like too. Blogging has always been my outlet and I find myself typing posts in my head but then when I get home, all I can think of is having my Coco Pebbles, because I'm 12, and then going to bed.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that the Sheriff is back so no more loitering at my street corner! No more coming over here and borrowing my things and then leaving them dirty and broken because I've got my eyes on you!

And to those of you who have kids who like leaving stray toys in my garden? They will be donated to a charity near you!

Oh! This means that the "Bee n' Andy" comic strip will be back too! Andy said "yay!" but he did it while shoving a pillow in his face so that confused me a little but he's always been a little odd so no worries.

Drawback?

::sigh:: No more 31% discount.

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! ANDY ATTACKED BY BEE'S MINIONS!

I was having a great day at ACS last week, happy to be inside an air conditioned place instead of melting and leaving puddles in my wake, when I suddenly received a frantic text message from My Andy.

See if you can figure out what happened.

"Illustration" by Bee

If she bends over, you'll know what year she was born. Also, see a duck mooning the crowd.

We went to the Laundromat again on Monday. I think we all know how much I detest that place. Every time we go, something happens that infuriates me!

This time it was a stupid washer that didn’t let me select any other cycle other than ‘woolens’. Normally I would have just taken my clothes out and found one that had its entire workable buttons but the ones that weren’t being used, had little out of orders signs. I decided to just leave it there, what could go wrong?

Well, it turns out that the soap compartment wasn’t working properly and so my clothes received the same cleaning my uncle Ricardo gave himself when he was 10 and he pretended to shower by wetting the top of his head but not bothering to remove the dirt stains from his face.

The options were to rewash them which would mean spending more time in the demon’s armpit or just dry them and call it a day. My uncle Ricardo would be proud.

Next up, a lady set her basket on my table. Some of you may remember the near nervous breakdown that caused the last time. This time I remained calm (as calm as a teeny tiny raft on a raging river), cool (as cool as a walrus in a sauna) and collected (as collected as the hippo stamp)(I don’t know what that means either but I couldn’t come up with anything anti-collected). I decided not to say anything until it was time for me to use the table. When her husband went to move the basket without me having to say anything, I heard her say “leave the basket there”

It. Was. ON!

Unfortunately, she left the L’mat (that's what we cool non washer having people call it) to have dinner while her clothes were in the wash so she didn’t see me grab her basket and throw it on a washer. I told Andy “Don’t worry babe. If she comes in here and says something, I’ll take her outside!” but my Andy, being the kind hearted person he is said “uh Bee? She and her husband are both bigger than we are…” so I told my man he could wait in the car while I took care of them both.

I really thought she'd say something when she came back because she was also a Latina and I know I would have said something but she didn’t. She must be one of those higher plane people with normal blood pressure I keep hearing about.

Things at work are a little better since OZ is on vacation yet again. Boy, the economy hasn’t hit that dude one bit! Anyway, he still has peculiar requests when he calls. His most recent one was odd even for him. He wants me to Google ‘why we should send a refund to an insurance company’. When I asked if I may just CALL the insurance company themselves and ask them directly why they’re requesting the refund:

“No! JUST GOOGLE IT! I want a full report when I come back on Monday!”

Um okay? While I have my googler out I will also ask “why does my boss think google is a magic 8 ball?”

That man cracks me up. He cracks me up like a baseball bat to the head cracks me up.

We took my mom and Natalia to the Botanic Gardens on Sunday and while Natalia, my mom and Andy tanned, the sun left its mark on my scalp, chest, arms and feet the way a soccer ball did to my thighs when I tried to stop a goal (what a fun memory! The imprint of a half moon on each thigh was an awesome thing to explain to people). I remember being able to tan just by standing near a window now I have to cover up like I’m 106.

I love going to the gardens. I was happy to see that a lot of the plants/flowers they planted are the same ones I’m trying to encourage to grow in my garden. Sadly, mine got too much water earlier this year so they’re struggling but I’m hoping they come back healthier next year.

Of course, plants aren’t the only things you see at the botanic gardens.

There was also a woman in a sheer maxi-mini dress in 5 inch platform stripper shoes. I didn’t take a picture of her, even though I could have, because I worry about the content I put on this here blog. I certainly do not want to corrupt/offend anyone with delicate sensibilities so instead I drew a picture of her.

censored for your protection.

Yeah I know! Ewwwww!

So anyway, later alligators.

"Bee n' Andy: Married and sometimes, still in love..." - I heart Home Depot!

  

So there we were, sitting on the patio enjoying the afternoon WHEN ALL OF A SUDDEN...

... I saw a frog leaping happily from hither to tither! Everybody was absolutely fascinated with the little creature and we were all oohing and ahing because it jumped right into Andy's hands!

(the bruises on Andy's arm are not from me... maybe)

I'm not into frogs or anything but that was the cutest little croaker I've ever seen!

  awwwwww

All the hardened 30 year olds (and a couple of of hardened 20 something year olds) turned into little kids who wanted to look at it, pet it and hug it and then there were suggestions of keeping it as a pet. I had to shoot down that idea because our fish population is now down to one sad little chromis. Killing stuff just isn't as fun as it used to be.

We also debated whether we should walk it to the river and let it find some new buddies but somebody argued that its family could be somewhere near here and we'd probably launch the next version of Finding Nemo. Only I named the froggie Richard because it had spots. Because then we could nickname it Spotted Dick. So the title of the movie would be Finding Spotted Dick which I guess could be misinterpreted somehow.

Instead Andy set it free in our yard so it could go wherever it was headed before the humans interfered, again! After Andy let Spotted Dick go, I realized I have a lot of frogs in my garden. hmmmm

Anyway, I've been pretty busy beautifying my garden and I think I'm finally at the point where I'm satisfied with my beginner's attempt at landscaping. Unfortunately, the nights have been cold here in Chi-townland so some of my flowers aren't blooming as I'd hoped but I'm sure they'll be okay once the sun finds us again.

Here are pictures of what I've been doing while neglecting my bloglife.

Here is the grass.

Here is the grass with edgers.

Here is the grass minus grass.

Here is the grass with plants minus grass.

Now, I don't know if you know this about me but when I become obsessed with something, I generally don't half-ass it. No, anything that catches my fancy deserves the full attention of my ass in its entirety. I have studied up on what plants would be best for my region. I've wrinkled my brow in thought, made notes while tapping my pen, consulted nursery specialists, tasted the soil, hugged the earth to my bosom... Okay, I may be exaggerating a bit but I did do as much research as I could before selecting the perennials I planted.

Some will attract butterflies and humming birds. Some will be fragrant and others will be colorful but more importantly, some will grow along my fence so that I don't have to look at my neighbor Wilson's makeshift dumpster everyday!

I've never understood why people amass unusable junk. Are you saving the broken toys for spare parts in case you need to build Crapenstein? Is that also why you keep bleach bottles full of what might be blood and urine? And you think the holey tarps will protect your "" treasure ""???

For a couple of summers I had to put up with his grankids peeing on the side of their house, but they stopped when they realized we would laugh hysterically every time they started peeing. Cruel? Do they now probably have issues peeing in public urinals because they are now traumatized? Maybe but this here is war!

Well, that's about it for today.  

Yesterday, while gardening, I realized it was hard to be the creator.

I was digging up patches of grass yesterday and as I was pulling it up piece by piece, I found out why it had begun to brown. Our side yard is infested with grubs. I would post a picture but those damn things are the ugliest looking insects I have ever seen. They are the Benicio del Toro of bugs.

As I was throwing the diseased grass into a container for future storage (to throw at my enemies when they piss me off more than usual), I thought about how the rest of the insects were going to suffer because I was removing their habitat. The poor earth worms I was accidentally chopping in half due to my shovel. There was one in particular that made me think about the injustice that is nature (survival of the fittest- or in my case, survival of those with bigger digging apparatuses).

I had just lifted a big chunk of grass when I noticed the poor little worm trying to move the other half of its body. Unfortunately, I must have smashed it when I inserted the shovel to get better leverage because the other half was just not moving.

It kept lifting itself up and it almost seemed like it was looking back at its limp tail(?) and wondering what the hell was going on. So I stood with my shovel debating if I should put it out of its misery or just leave it be. What do I know about worm injuries? Will it live on to be 200 in worm years without the use of its full body?

Then I started wondering if it too was asking why this was happening. I was basically ending the world as it knew it and making it suffer because of some stupid grubs that spoiled it for the rest of them. The grass was no more and in its stead were barren pieces of dirt because a destructive species abused the natural resources and decided to suck the life out of the lawn which was home to so many creepy crawlies.

Creepy crawlies that love climbing up women who stand around pondering too much. Creepy Crawlies that are slimy and icky... BAM! I cut the sucker in half and good riddance!

As vengeance for my version of the apocalypse, when I went to bed, every time I closed my eyes I saw an army of worms, spiders and ants coming at me. It was scary-gross but a little awesome because they did look cute in their army hats.

P.S.

We have treated some of our lawn with grub killer but I'm removing chunks so that I may expand my garden. I'm telling you this so that I don't get a comment that says "Uh why are you removing your grass one blade at a time when you can just kill the little bastards, you dumbass??" and really that's uncalled for.