FGF-A Crow To Pick

I know it’s Friday and that whole “Feel Good” thing but I have got to answer my pal Murrey who called and left a message wanting some commentary on the brilliant move by those Corporate Tools/Suits/Pinheads/Weasels/Or Whatever Favorite Adjective You Might Have That Would Insult Somebody, over WSM’s decision to “relieve” Keith Bilbrey from his duties from their station AND from his gig as the Opry announcer-AFTER 34 YEARS.

When Keith’s wife, Emy Jo emailed me the other night about the news, I thought I was seeing things. It is wrong on so many levels.

I’m not married to my First and Second Husband anymore so I don’t guess it will hurt him for me to publicly say right here and right now …Hey YOU! Yeah you spineless, ballless, butthead at WSM who decided that Keith’s services were no longer needed….YOU SUCK.

So in honor of the Honorable Mr. Bilbrey…

And since I missed last week’s FGF….this too.

If you get the urge to let Said Buttheads at Gaylord know of your displeasure with their decision, have at it…
mailto:Chris@wsmonline.com) General Manager

(mailto:Joe@wsmonline.com) Oper. Manager

(mailto:pete.fisher@opry.com)

This Is Wrong

Hey Mister…yes you.  The guy who was on the treadmill next to me at the Y about an hour ago.  You ran 5+ miles while I was on the Elliptical/StairStepper/New sorta contraption that I really like….

Anyway, you looked the kinda guy that was probably raised right.  You probably have a good job.  I imagine when you’re dressed and ready for Sunday School and all, you probably clean up good. 

Why in the HELL did you walk away from the treadmill and not spray the stuff and wipe it down? What’s the matter with you? 

I thought for sure you went to find a cloth and would come back and wipe it off but you di-int. 

That is wrong.

This unsuspecting lady came up a little bit later to get on the treadmill after you left and I warned her of the Gross Guy That Was On Before.  She thanked me profusely.

I will remember you next time I see you cause of the weird way you hold your hands when you run.

You should know better.

Oscar Babblings

People from India are not Americans, but, I suppose they are natives of some sort.  The question is, is it “proper” to call them “Indians?”  Or will the PC Poo-leece come after me?   (Not that I care but you know…)

My boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel brought up a really good point last night on his Post-Oscar broadcast…they brought those kids that were in Slumdog Millionaire to Hollywood for the ceremony but can you imagine how hard it will be for them to return after that????

I love Hugh Jackman.

I wanted Mickey Rourke to win.

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Doo Rag should’ve disqualified him for even being nominated. 

Oh and speaking of PSH, I’m not gonna point fingers but did notice on one of our local news channels (:cough: WKRN:cough:) they were running graphics on nominees and they spelled “Seymour” wrong.  Don’t mean to split hairs but if you’re gonna do a job like that, it might behoove one to do the homework?  Or am I just being silly?

I was a bit comforted to see Sean Penn whip out his “cheaters” to read his speech cause anymore, I can’t read nothing without mine.   He’s older than me, yes, but,  it made the whole Cheater thing ok to see Jeff Spicoli needing some help reading.

Sophia Loren and Shirley MacLaine make Senior Citizenry not look all that bad.n  And Meryl Streep too.  Dadgum.

The In Memoriam segment was kinda lame.  It lacked the “awwww” factor because of the way they timed the clips and photos. They should’ve asked me to do the Power Point on that.  Gah.

 

Discuss.

Bye Y’all

Boss Chris cuts my Goodbye cake…yes, that’s dental floss.

Maybe I’m petty but this woman crashed my Goodbye Shindig.  This woman that used to work there came to visit right in the middle of MY cake.

I wouldn’t be so pissed about it if this woman didn’t think she was abducted by aliens and lived on a spaceship for a time.  Yeah, you read that right.  She even wrote books about it.   And she crashed my Goodbye.

If Da Glove Doesn’t Fit…

Maybe now that O. J. Simpson is gonna have some “down” time in the Penitintiary, he can work on finding Nicole’s killer.

Misty Watercolored Memories…Or Something Like That

Call me a whiny baby all you want, but, stories like this make me want to cuss.  Why couldn’t Michael McDonald have done a benefit for the Franklin High School Band back when I were one of them? That’s cause Franklin wasn’t swanky back in the days when Yo Sista cruised the square in the ’79 Grand Am.  (Do the rednecks still sit on the Square on weekend nights and holler at  people as they pass?  Doubt it. Shame)

 The new FHS looks like a stinkin’ country club now.  Please take notice of FHS then…the front of the building.

If I remembered those kids’ names, I’d tell you who they are.  (Oh Chez Bez?  Do you know?) I remember the girls’ faces (and hair) but not their names.
And the front of FHS now…

I bet instead of Lunch Ladies, they’ve got May-truh-dees.  I bet instead of Mr. Hankins and his “coffee” cup, they have a Starbucks.  Betchya they have concierges, too. Gah.
Ironically, this last coupla weeks has seen a frenzy of reunions on Facebook with kids I went to school with, all the way up from elementary school to the FHS days.  We’ve been reminiscing like crazy and trying to put together some meet ups.  Good times indeed.  People like Bailey Leopard (isn’t that a great name?) Tricia Baker, Marni Gruel, Denise Williamson, Yvette Minton, David Rice (who was one of my goodest buddies)…good folks all of them.

I was at my kids’ high school last night and had to stop for a minute and watch the band practice.  They may not have P. Wayne Simpson and his cigarrettes and megaphone hollering “You’re on your own time, People” and making CERTAIN people pick up trash cause they had had enough of that little dweeb, who shall remain nameless, and opened up a Can of Whoop Ass on him.  (I don’t know who that was, but, it weren’t me. HAR)  but high school band practice still sounds the same with the tom-toms and bass drum in the background, flags a’twirling….ah…

Just for grins…

According to Web, this was a 1984 configuration of the award-winning (are they still award winning?) Franklin High School Marching Band.  I was not in it til the next year.  Web is more of a Rainman than I am.

Quit It

I don’t give a rats behind that Sarah Palin’s teenage dawta is pregnant.  I mean, as a mom of teenagers, I think I’d shit and fall back in it if that was my kid so on that level, I give something of a rats behind.  Just shows to go ya that even rich girls named “Bristol” can get caught. 

The thing about the whole thing that drives me insane is that people are saying “Sarah Palin’s daughter is PREGGERS.” 

There should be a law against using that word.  I hate that word about as much as I hate “Turkey Day” , “Thunderboomers” and “Yeppers.”  Ack.

Knocked up sounds much more dignified, doesn’t it?

Fermez Votre Japper

I have this co-worker who talks about nothing but her son.  Her son who is the same age as my son.  Her son…we’ll call him Colin (that aint his name) and my Manchild actually know each other.  I’m not gonna say how cause somebody will be trying to piece it together.

Anyway, I work with Colin’s mother. This woman puts everything into this kid.  I can understand pride in your chilluns and all that but she has millions of pictures of Colin at her desk.  One that is frankly, disturbing.  Almost like Colin is her boyfriend.  Every conversation the woman has, Colin is brought up. I mean, every single conversation.  Colin is an athelete and to talk to her, perfect in every way. 

 Colin has a big brother (that I know as well) and their mom never talks about him.  If she does, it’s with a tsk tsk tone and it drives me nuts.  The Brother…we’ll call him Tim.  Tim is adorable.  He is very bright, funny, ridiculously handsome.  I’ve know Tim since he was a little boy, about the same age as #2.  Tim has ADD and is obviously a disappointment to Asshat Mother.  I had a conversation with AM a few weeks ago, or rather, SHE was having a conversation with me about Colin.  I couldn’t stand it no mo.  I told her that Tim was every bit as wonderful as Colin was and that Colin was going to be in for a rude awakening someday when things didn’t always come so easy for him and at that point, Tim will probably be a bajillionaire and Colin will be borrowing money from him. 

I doubt very seriously she heard me.  Why? Because she continued talking about Colin as though he were the second coming of the Good Lawd Himself. 

A week or so later, I was in another co-worker’s office…one I don’t ever go in and sit down and talk with, but, this rare moment I did.  We were chatting it up, and in the door burst my favorite Asshat Mother. Didn’t say “Pardon me for interrupting” “Kiss my butt” or nothing….starts in on …you guessed it…COLIN.

When I am happy, you know it, for I smile or laugh.  When I am disgusted, I may not say so, but, one look at me and you can tell, right?  I was disgusted. Totally.

About an hour later, Asshat Mother comes to my cube (I didnt invite her) comes in and says “Are you ok? You seem down.”  I wanted to say “I’m not down but you get on my last nerve.”  I didn’t.  I didn’t say nothing cause she wouldn’t have listened nohow. 

I got to work this morning and I swear to you, it wasn’t five minutes and she opened her mouth and out came “Colin”.  I started laughing uncontrollably.  I am a mean person. 

And people wonder why I wear headphones and listen to music while I work?

Can’t Take Me Anywhere

My camera had gotten sickly about a month ago.  I sent it back to the manufacturer and they promptly fixed the problem (some sort of jam somewhere) and sent it back to me in a pretty quick turnaround.

I am happy to have my camera back.  I had missed it a lot.  I keep that thing with me most of the time and I felt half nekkid not having it on me there for a bit.  I just love my camera.

So, it came back Wednesday.  Yesterday, I returned from a goodbye lunch (6 people in our office had their last day yesterday) was putting the camera back in the case as I was walking up the sidewalk into the building and what did I do?  Just guess.

I dropped the damn thing. Right. On. The. Concrete.  It’s still working beautifully, it just made me mad. 

It’s like I can’t go anywhere all dressed/fixed up without something being amiss.  I’m just one of those people, I reckon.

A Family Discussion

It always goes back to sex. Here in this short little clip, you will see my cousins Cindy, Vicki, Judi and my Aints Joy and Lady.   I’m the one doing the interviewing and wetting my pants laughing so hard. Do keep in mind that my Aint Joy is 88 years old and the “quiet, refined” Collie. There’s only one and she would be it.

Sista-Your Action News Reportah

We had a thing at the church this morning to kinda kick off the summer.  It was all lots of fun (even though it was hotter ‘n Hades out there). There was people jumping Bungees…Cute kids stuffing their faces with cotton candy…

The Holy Tara’s feller even showed up.

Just one of them All American sorta events where everybody’s happy and all is right in the world.

Until….

You hear what sounded like a fender bender.  Then you think an animal got hit by a car.  Then you hear a human scream from the ditch and you realize that was no dog that got hit by a car, but, a real human.

Even more disturbing was that 911 was called and I bet it was 10 minutes before the first police car and firetruck showed up.  The ambulance didn’t show up til probably another 10 minutes after they got there.  Somebody explain to me why I see tons of ambulance types at the Chik Fil A nearly everytime I’m there and where in the crap were they today?

The yellow firetruck there?  That’s the Shackle Island Volunteer Fire Department’s truck.  THOSE guys were the first responders to this situation.  Why?  Because they were at the church giving rides to the kids.  I’m glad they were there and they jumped into action waiting on Hendersonville’s Finest to get there.  Gah.

The poor man was hurt pretty bad.  I know his leg was jacked up and they were fearful there were some internal injuries.  I heard him moaning and hollering and I just felt horrible for him.  There he was, walking on the street, beautiful day….hit by a Gold Explorer that DID NOT EVEN STOP.  The poor man flew through the air and the asshats didn’t even stop. 

THEN, I get home from the shindig at the church and there’s po-leece in front of my house and people standing around.  Obviously, the DRAM-uh was not contained to Indian Lake Rd. today, no sirreeee. I asked the Po-leeceman what had I missed in front of my house?  Apparently, a tree decided to fall, hitting power lines, knocking out some people’s power.  Our power stayed on (praise you Jesus) but all my  neighbors weren’t so lucky with that. 

The people standing in front of my house, watching the Cumberland Electric guys do their thing were a little more of the variety of “Pardon me sir…did you see what happened?  Yeeeeeeeuh, I deee-ud…..”  Boogity, boogity.

 

 

 

 

Reason #3,875 Why I Hate Cancer

I hate cancer.  It’s always been lurking in the background, which I guess, it does for a lot of people.  My mom was the latest family member to have a round with it of late. 

Back in January, I did a post on the cool fundraiser, Driving For A Cure, to raise money for Breast Cancer research.  In that post, I talked about my Aunt Junie and her gallant battle against breast cancer and that’s part of why I’m so interested in the whole thing.

I found out this morning that Junie’s daughter, my most wonderful cousin, Judi, is now facing the same damn battle.  It pisses me off.  It just does.  In fact, I emailed Judi this morning after I found out what’s going on with her and instead of throwing some heavy, Jesus-y stuff at her, this was my greeting to my beloved cousin:  “Well, shit.  This sucks.”  It does.

I know that Judi is going to be fine.  She taught Middle School for 30 years and survived that.  She’s always been an independent, free spirit…heck, she raises mules.  Me and Judi can get on the phone and just babble for hours, solving problems of the world and what-not.  I wish there weren’t something like 1500 miles between us or I’d be hanging out at Judi’s farm in Texas all the time.   Hers was caught during a routine mammogram and she’s always been pretty diligent about matters of health.

I know Judi’s gonna be fine.  Still, it pisses me off that she’s got breast cancer. Why?

I guess it was about 1972, her mother, Junie…was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She was diagnosed after being mis-diagnosed for a long time.  I don’t know how long it was, but, it was awhile.  I also realize that in 1972, they didn’t have all the stuff they have now to diagnose, treat BC. 

Junie fought that danged cancer.  I swear….8 or 9 years.  She fought that sucker tooth and nail.  She died in June of 1979…I will never forget that day…we went to Opryland with my Louisiana cousins.  I heard my mother’s name paged over the loudspeaker and even though I was 10 and was not told a lot of details about Junie’s illness (it was kinda whispered…like in that movie “St Elmo’s Fire” where the girl’s mother whispered anything negative like “cancer”) but I KNEW that Junie was probably gone and dadgum…a little later, me and Buddy walked up to Mom and her sister sitting in that theater there in the 50’s part of Opryland and she blurted out that Junie was gone.  Weird how some things stay with you.

Anyway…it makes me so mad that my Uncle Wesley, who is 80 years old, in the last year has dealt with the death of a grandson…he watched his wife suffer and die with cancer and blast-it…now his baby girl has to confront the same thing.  I’m more worried about him than Judi, really.  Stuff like that’s  hard on a Dad. 

Judi, though…she’s gonna be fine.  She’s having surgery next week and I have no doubt she’s gonna be an octagenerian on her farm with all her various and sundry critters and will outlive all of us.  She is blessed with two sisters, who will stand with her through this whole ordeal, the rest of us in her family, lots of friends….she’s gonna do fine.

I still hate she has to even deal with this at all. 

 

Sista Doodles With The Po’-Leece

One would think after my soapbox speech about the importance of having your CURRENT proof of motor vehicle insurance on you some months back, that I would be near ’bout obsessive about it, right?

Heh. Wrong.

I have been driving for 23 years.  I have only been pulled over three times in my entire driving career (never for speeding, mind you).  Today was the time I was thrice pulled over and it was for a brake light being out.  Ok…fine.  Got a warning. 

I think the Po’-leece-man,  young and cute as he was, is perhaps kin to Barney Fife.  Being called “Ma’m” is something…I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it (unless it’s partly in jest or something) but when he said “Do not driiiiiiive off far any ray-zun”….like I was gonna? I was a tad insulted.   I guess they have a problem with peoples doing that sorta thing.

My other favorite part of the whole experience was when Doogie Fife said this to me…he came back to the car and I was trying to find the current insurance card…he said “M’am..if you could just pay attention to me for just a minute.”  HA.  Ol’ Doog’ picked up on what’s up with your Sista, didn’t he?  I guess I underestimated the Po’leeeceman.  Do they train them in the Academy to spot hard-core drug dealers, child molesters AND those with ADD?

I hand him my insurance card…all proud and stuff and Barney, Jr. points out that the damn thing expired March 21, 2008.  So, I have the HT call her father and he says “I thought I put it in there.”  If it was there, I didn’t find it.

I still got off with a Warning.  Have to send them a copy of said insurance card.  Still aggravated me.

Oh…and I’m watching that movie Juno?  I’m not even halfway through it and dadgum, I love this movie.  My favorite line so far, courtesy Rainn Wilson/Dwight Shrute:

That’s one doodle that can’t be undid, Homeskillet.

 

Sinking To A New Low

Shhhhh….

We have this new guy up here in the office.  Young…23 years old.  He got hired in a pretty good job, especially for a kid just out of college.  He started last week.  Remember that.  Last week.

Dude shows up this morning….comes into my cube and shows me a note that says “Can you call Donna and see if she needs me to pick her up?”  I said “What’s wrong with your voice? You lose it or something?”

Then, he points to this sign on his person:

Now…lookie here…I don’t think we need to discriminate against our Gay and Lesbian bretheren and sisteren.  I am for real about that.   I hope that this observance today accomplishes what they want it to.  We don’t need to discriminate against nobody.  This is not the point.

He’s been here a week.  A week.  His job involves lots of talking.  I’m stunned that he actually thought he could come in here this morning and get away with that?  Especially since he and Donna have to go out and about and do official bidness. 

He came back over here a little later and wrote down “They told me I can not participate.  So I have laryngitis.”  I told him “I knew that wasn’t gonna fly.”

Now Donna….she is an RN.  She has seen and done everything.  She is slightly jaded and a lot cynical.  I so wish I coulda seen the look on her face when this guy communicated that he would not be speaking today.  HA and HA.  Even funnier, she has to spend the day in a car with the guy.   I bet she’s gonna talk a lot during that car ride.  About her baby chickens she’s fixing to get.  I wish there was a video surveillance camera in that vehicle to capture the hilarity that will surely ensue.

My prediction…before the day is out, he won’t have a job.  I’ll keep you posted.

Something else funny just overheard in my office by the RN that sits on the other side of me…”Well look..I have a drawer full of stomachs, diapraghms and cervixes.”   As if to say….”The sky is blue.” 

Didn’t none of this sorta stuff go on when I worked for the Baptists.