alive and kicking and flying to L.A. in the morning ....

I never, ever play hookey like this - really, truly - I was the girl who went to school every day even on picture day when I had somehow managed to slam my lower lip into a closing car door and had 6 stitches the size and color of a fuzzy caterpillar - the creepy, crawly, huge, black gypsy moth kind - across my face, got teased and ran into the girl's room in tears until my bestest friend painted a magic marker gypsy moth caterpillar on her own face to make me feel better.

I am flying to L.A. in the morning

(yes, I like the sound of that - it is so not me, to be flying to L.A. in the morning, maybe driving to Camden in the morning, that is more like me - but I admit I like the sound of it and I found many occasions to say it today, it is really quite amazing how often it came up

- at the post office - when the girl asked me if I was mailing anything hazardous, liquid or fragile

girl - "are you mailing anything hazardous, liquid or fragile?"
me - "no, but I am flying to L.A. in the morning."

- at the grocery store when the old lady accidentally banged into my ankle with her cart

old lady - "oops"
me - "I am flying to L.A. in the morning"

- to the pizza delivery boy while stopping Olive from knocking him off the front steps

pizza boy - " uh, does she bite?"
me - "no, but I am flying to L.A. in the morning"

it just sounds good, doesn't it and I think it only works with L.A. because next week I am going to Chicago and it doesn't have the same kind of bling about it, you know)

So tonight while I should be pouring shampoos and conditioners and liquid whatnots into little plastic bottles and then putting those little plastic bottles into a one quart clear bag which I am pretty certain I do not have anyway - I have spent the evening staring at my hairline and eating Bagel Bites, periodically opening the empty Bagel Bites carton to see if maybe more cheese stalactites were forming on the underside of the lid ... yum.

There is a little bit of a problem with my hairline - and by hairline I mean the "part" in my hair which I guess is not really my hairline, but it sounds less confusing than saying "part" somehow because I made the last minute decision to color my roots ... myself.

So, I bought one of those root touch up kits that actually GUARANTEES it will match your haircolor - how is this possible I wondered, but I knew they wouldn't say it if it weren't true, right - so I bought the medium blonde, brushed it onto my roots, waited 10 minutes, washed it out and I now have ... red roots, actually orange roots, I have orange roots, not medium blonde roots, orange roots ...

and I am flying to L.A. in the morning

Wish me luck folks - I will post pics from the California Gift Show - if you are in the neighborhood - I am in the Olive Bites booth, I will be the girl with the orange roots ....

xo all

forewarned is forearmed - a little heads up to the fish of the Atlantic Ocean

Nah, I haven't really gone fishing.

(you can exhale now Mr. Big Billy Bass)

I am getting ready for Beckman's Handmade Wholesale Shows in LA and Chicago and needing to exhale myself a bit before I head into that - yikes!

Have a great week all - enjoy your summer!

xo

*gone fishin screenprint by dmeyerdesigns

Happy 4th of July - from one firecracker to another ...

I am going to put the giveaways on hold for the summer and revive them after Labor Day! The final 2 winners are:

Cubit's Winner is (chosen at random.org):
True Random Number Generator
Min: 1 Max: 405 Result: 11 = Kaytee!

and the winner of the Inbook giveaway is:
True Random Number Generator
Min: 1 Max: 514 Result: 403 = Resolute Twig!

Congrats and thank you to everyone else who took the time to enter!

* photo by Grundlepuck

the last 168 hours ... - part ll

... sooo, I'm heading for Brooklyn and just about get to the Garden State Parkway which is about 10 minutes from my house when suddenly the skies turn black and a storm of pretty much Biblical proportions hits out of nowhere.

(a blinding rain, hail, end of the world type situation where sensible people pull over somewhere and wait it out, note - I am not a sensible person)

Actually pulling over is not really an option so I just inch along blindly with everyone else, hoping no one is dumb enough to actually stop and cause a 20 car pile up.

Within a few minutes either the skies have cleared or I have driven through the storm HALLELUJAH! - because the sun is shining again.

I relax.

I try to remember how long the Panera Bread ice tea in my console has been in my car and whether or not it is still safe to drink.

I recheck my mapquest directions and keep driving - thankful to be heading north when all the Friday traffic is heading south ...

until the traffic isn't anymore and I am inching along again.

I get on a highway somewhere at exit 5 or 7 and my mapquest directions tell me to get off at exit 28A, which I am thinking sounds pretty far since I am already passing a Welcome to Brooklyn sign but at least I'm in Brooklyn

(ex-home of the Dodgers, the bridge my great-grandfather once bought - for $17 and a pack of Lucky Strikes, Prospect Park, Coney Island, Junior's Cheesecake, Nathan's Hotdogs ... and Etsy)

so I feel some relief, but am still a little uneasy because the traffic looks endless and I have alot of exits to go before I hit 28A - by now it is about 6:00 (so much for girl math).

After another 30 minutes or so I am at about exit 15 and pass a Thanks for Visiting Brooklyn sign or a You Are Leaving Brooklyn sign or a Welcome to Queens sign or it may have just said You Have Gone Too Far Idiot - Turn Around NOW.

(if I was a cartoon, you would’ve heard the sound of a single percussive tinkle as I blinked at that sign)

I call my daughter and ask her to sign onto twitter and tweet the team that I will be late. I take the next exit, cursing out mapquest, pull into a parking lot and plug the Etsy address into my GPS.

(yes, I have a GPS and I know you are thinking, uh, why didn't you use that - well because #1. it screws up in cities and #2. it can't be programmed until the car is turned off - I guess the designers at Ford never stopped to think that one of their vehicles might have a person in them besides the driver who could safely program the thing while the car is moving, not that I had such a person, of course)

The good news is that I am out of the bumper to bumper stuff and moving along - the bad news is that sometimes my GPS is telling me to make a right when there is no right and sometimes it is telling me to make a left onto a oneway street going right and I have no phone number to call anyone and I am not exactly sure I am in Brooklyn anymore.

(where's Toto or wait Olive ... where's Olive ...)

I get stuck in traffic again at the Pace University graduation, where groups of tall, gorgeous women in blue graduation gowns are all over the street - if anyone knows where this would be let me know. Then I am in Chinatown, which even I know is not in Brooklyn, I think, and on Canal Street and seeing signs for the Holland Tunnel. It is 7:30.

I am now sitting in traffic for the tunnel and feel some strange sense of calmness surrounded by the other New Jersey license plates. I call my daughter and ask if anyone has tweeted her back (not that I thought anyone would be checking twitter messages). She says no so I tell her to just delete her tweet as I inch my way into the tunnel.

(back to New Jersey and into another traffic jam heading to the shore for the weekend)

I got home around 11:00. Hubby asked how the meeting went without glancing up from his book, which kind of annoyed me, so I just said fine, pretend strangled him behind his back and went to bed.

(plus I was a little pissed he hadn't insisted on playing Hoke to my version of Miss Daisy's declining years and prevented this entire fiasco)

So, that is the story of how Cat almost got to visit Etsy -

(and yes, I like to talk about myself in the 3rd person, except I usually say 'the Cat' ... drives Olive crazy)

the next day hubby had a breathing problem and chest pain at work and we ended up in the emergency room where he would spend the next 2 days - well, not in the emergency room although it felt like 2 days in the emergency room, but in the hospital, having every test in the book including a stress test that he totally aced - he is 100% OK thankfully - and being waited on hand and foot ... poor Olive ....

Have a wonderful weekend everyone - I will post the winner of the last 2 giveaways of the season on Monday morning! (to steal one from Sherry - kiss the ones you love)

xo

* wounded and abandoned umbrellas by cat eye photography
* traffic jam by lolas room
* let's find some beautiful place to get lost by I screen you screen