Absence...Did It Make Your Heart Grow Fonder?

Hi all y'all! Well, I've been absent from this here bloggity, but for good reason...

I'm living with a dear friend of mine in a beautiful condo in Salem, MA. And, well...there was a bit of an issue with one of the pipes in the sprinkler system. The issue, you ask? Well, due to the ridiculously cold temperatures we experienced last week, the pipe froze and then cracked.  And then when the temperatures moderated last Saturday? Well, let's just say deluge might begin to cover it.

The water was GUSHING out of the ceiling in my friend's bathroom and closet (she has a huge walk-in closet off of her bathroom). So, the gushing water (seriously it was coming down gallons per SECOND) went all over the bathroom, the closet (all of her clothes, shoes, files, paperwork, mementos), and then started just flooding her bedroom, then it crept under the walls and flooded my bathroom, my bedroom, the laundry room and office...It was UNSTOPPABLE!

So, I called the fire department, they came and shut off the water and then quickly determined that it was the faulty sprinkler pipe.

After about seven thousand people came - the clean up people, movers, electricians, contractor, alarm people, fire inspectors, sprinkler people, insurance adjusters, and on and on and ON - well, it was determined that the entire floor and some of the walls are going to have to be torn out and replaced. It's gonna take a long, long time. A month? Maybe two?

Oy.

That means that for the past week, we've been packing all of our clothes, belongings, linens, bathroom necessities, ALL of that stuff - all had to be removed from the lower floor of the house - including furniture, artwork, chairs...Really a giant pain in the tookus.

So, I'm leaving tomorrow to go stay for a while at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Georgia. I've been visiting them there at that same house for 25+ years, so it's very much a home away from home for me. PLUS they have three dogs, two cats, a very friendly cockatiel and even some fish! I'm seriously in animal heaven when I'm there! (And I sorta like my Aunt and Uncle too).

I'll probably rent a car at some point and drive down to visit with my Mom and then my Dad lives over on the Gulf Coast of FL, so I'll try to get over there to see him, too. And, very exciting news - my best friend over there at Bye Bye, Pie is either gonna come down to visit me, or I'll drive up to visit her (and to see her doggies and kitties that I happen to adore). I'll make the best of the crazy inconvenience of having to leave!

That's my saga...I'll try to blog as often as I can while I'm away.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a giggle sent to me from my good friend, Hank:

Grammy Awards Round-Up

Ok. Is it just me or is there such a thing as over-producing a show? The other awards shows, I don't know, aren't as slick somehow. They seem a little more...I don't know...spontaneous? Even though I know that's not really true, the Grammy's just seem a little too contrived? Is that the word? I don't know. Maybe it was my mood or something. I just didn't really enjoy them all that much.

Some of the performances were amazing, though.

I really, really, REALLY loved the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performance and all the couples getting married during the show. It was touching and the song was VERY poignant. The only weird part of that was the appearance of Madonna. WTF with her? She looked AWFUL. And I'm being kind.

Did you get a gander at her? Here she is arriving with her son in a matching get-up:

That poor kid. And here, get a gander at Madonna during her performance at the end of Macklemore & Lewis' awesome song:

If you click on her picture, it will enlarge and you might notice the overly-botoxed face. Her face. Ugh. Madonna looks like her own Grandmother! Honestly. And she seemed wobbly and kind of "off" as she was onstage. I don't know. It all just made me feel really old.

Other highlights for me were Pharrell Williams (whose recent song I LOVE) and his riDICulous hat. In my notes, I wrote "Look, it's Smokey the Bear's younger cousin!" He looked dumb in that hat and his Run DMC track suit. Jeez. Dress up for a minute. He was trying SO hard to look cool that he utterly and completely missed the mark:

His outfit is dumb, but his song, Happy, is just that! SO happy. The official music video is below. It's well worth watching and hearing:

And I was not all that familiar with the Daft Punk group. Apparently they are from France and they CLEANED up last night. If you are not familiar with them, they look like robots and they don't speak. Very strange. Apparently they guys under the costumes want to sort of remain anonymous and lead normal lives, so there's that. Here's what they look like:

Really freaky. And you can't see a speck of skin when they're in their get-ups. It's odd.

The fake 1/2 time show with Deion Sanders, Terry Bradshaw, Shannon Sharpe and Ditka was pretty funny. It was basically a Pepsi commercial, but it was a cute theme. Here  it is if you're interested:

Other highlights and lowlights were:

Katy Perry. Boring.

Robin Thicke & Chicago? Nope. Chicago shoulda been out there by themselves. Robin Thicke is a major dufus.

Keith Urban and Gary Clark, Jr. was AWKWARD. It didn't work.

John Legend and piano. Perfect.

Kendrick Lamar and Imagine Dragons - was very cool, indeed.

Taylor Swift. Yaaawn. And what's with the head-banging? Jeez.

Pink. Cool, but a repeat of last year's Cirque de Soleil-ish performance. Kinda lame to repeat it.

Ringo and Paul. I liked seeing them together. It wasn't awesome, but it WAS two of the Beatles!

Carole King looked amazing! She hasn't aged in the last 20 years!

Steven Tyler did his very best Jack Sparrow look last night!

Smokey Robinson? Please. Enough with the plastic surgery. Yikes.

The Lang Lang tribute to Van Cliburn was gorgeous.

Did you see Alisha Keyes? She had PECS last night. It was very distracting:

You can't see it all that well in this shot, but it looked like a man's chest. It was really strange.

There were other performances and of course, the awards, but that's all I got! I have a million things to do today and have to skedaddle in a few...

Ciao for today!

Sick sick and then some!

Hiya.

I realize I have not been so bloggy of late. Well, I got pretty sick there for a while. I'm still left with a nasty head cold, but am feeling MUCH better after sleeping and sleeping and then I slept for a while and then I FINALLY got some sleep.

Yesterday was also a bit of a crazy thing - I awoke to the sound of the fire alarms sounding in the building (I'm living in a place with 5 condos that are all inside one of the prettiest historic buildings in town). Anywho, the fire alarms were going off, and there was no fire LUCKILY, however the alarm went off because there was something amiss in the alarm system.

What was wrong, you ask? Well, it turns out one of the pipes in the system had broken - ruptured from freezing with the ridiculously cold temperatures we've been having. And because yesterday was relatively warm (it got up to 38 degrees), the ice inside the pipe finally melted and let me tell you:

Broken pipe + melted water = FLOOD!

The entire contents of all of the pipes in the entire building emptied onto the floor of the lower level of this condo. Yep. Gallons of water per second, GUSHING from the ceiling of my roommate's bathroom. Oh, yes! It was a fine time.

Needless to say, the fire department had to come, shut off the water, check for fire everywhere and then the reality of what happened settled in! Let me ask you to imagine - every single thing that is on your floor right now? Furniture, bags, shoes, boxes, rugs, vases, decorations, plants, whatever...ALL of it has to come up off the floor! Oh, it's a smashing good time!

So, I was sick and pooped and had to help with whatever needed to get done. I was pretty lucky. My room was the least of it. My roommate lost LOADS of paperwork, files, ALL of her clothes got soaked (her main closet is part of the bathroom and the leak was centered right there in her closet). It basically sucked the big suck.

A cleaning crew came in and sucked up whatever water they could, and there are currently three GIANT dehumidifiers and about 12 giant fans all over the lower floor attempting to dry everything out. It's sort of like being in a windy sauna!

Anywho, it could have been far worse. No one got hurt, nobody died, we have heat, electricity and running water - they only had to shut the water off to the sprinkler system, so it's really okay. Not fun, but okay.

So, that's my world for the last few days. Wheee!

I'll leave you with some fine puns that my good friend Hank sent me today. He's always good for a pun! Enjoy:

·  I tried to catch some fog.  I mist.

 

·  When chemists die, they barium.

 

·  Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.

 

·  A soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

 

·  I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time.

 

·  How does Moses make his tea?  Hebrews it.

 

·  I stayed up all night to see where the sun went.  Then it dawned on me.

 

·  This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.

 

·  I'm reading a book about anti-gravity.  I can't put it down.

 

·  I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words .

 

·  They told me I had type A blood, but it was a type-O.

 

·  This dyslexic man walks into a bra .

 

·  I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.

 

·  A cross-eyed teacher lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils.

 

·  When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.

 

·  What does a clock do when it's hungry?  It goes back four seconds.

 

·  I wondered why the ball was getting bigger. Then it hit me!

 

·  Broken pencils are pointless.

 

·  What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary?  A thesaurus.

 

·  England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.

 

·  I used to be a banker, but then I lost interest.

 

·  I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.

 

·  All the toilets in London police stations have been stolen. Police say they have nothing to go on.

 

·  I took the job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.

 

·  Velcro - what a rip off!

 

·  Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.