If I were Queen of the World...

OK, OK, so It's been quite a while since I've blogged - and it's not that I haven't had things to blog about; but for various reasons I haven't - blogged that is. So now the pressure is on. I'm back, and of course I feel like I really have to wow, ya - so here's a little insight into me. First of all; I SO appreciate the people who have contacted me asking "Where's the blog?" and I mean no ones writing me saying "I need a blog and it better be good. I need a blog and it better wow me;" Nope, it's just the pressure I put on myself, because I am Queen of Worrying, I am Queen of High expectations, I am the Queen of Over thinking. Stop nodding your heads close friends - I know my quirks, believe me I do.
So I figured, since I'm putting the pressure on for a WOW kinda blog; I'd better come out guns blazing . (IS that the right expression?) And how better to do it then; If I were Queen of the World - tall order, but here goes...

If I were Queen of the world, I would be paid a lot more money for the job I do; ( I mean, I'm Queen of Collections for crying out loud. I make my company A LOT of money and they DO NOT pay me what I'm worth.)
If I were Queen of the world, I'd be able to figure out what kind of job I can do, to make more money and still feel personally gratified. If anyone has any suggestions for me, I would LOVE to hear them; because unfortunately being Queen of Everything doesn't pay much - haha.
If I were Queen of the world, Saturn would be the only car company in business; although they would sell all kinds of cars. See what I'm getting at is; I HATE car salesmen. I think that it is TOTALLY unfair for them to try and get you to spend more money than you can afford to (because we've already established that I don't make enough money;) JUST so THEY can make more money. Why are car sales the only business left these days where we do business in this manner. I mean, OK back in the day, we used to haggle a little over the prices of houses, so this was how it worked. Seller marked the house up a little higher, buyer bid a little lower than the asking price; and ultimately they wound up somewhere in the middle. This doesn't happen with cars. You pull up, and the sharks approach your vehicle before you even get the engine off. You tell them what you want to spend; oh yah, they can do that, no problem - until you get to the table. Then they try to convince you to spend more than you can afford. So last week alone, I had one smarmy guy come up and say "so what have we been looking at?" Well, I don't know about him and what he'd been looking at; I know what my husband and I had been looking at and HE is certainly not a part of WE. He then continued his questioning, WE, WE, WE, and I kept correcting him. We CLEARLY told him that we were not buying a car that night as WE had just started looking. He said "you wouldn't take this car for $10,000" and I said "SURE I would, let's go" and he said "Have a good night." Ha! I won. Round one goes to the Queen; but you know I didn't have a clean get a way, because as we're walking to our vehicle, laughing about Smarmy, here comes "the manager." He tried to be suave and I found him slightly down to earth, so I engaged in a conversation, in which I told him that I thought Smarmy was a word that starts with P and rhymes with Rick; but I said the word. I won't bore you with all the details of this experience, but suffice it to say that after TOO much time at this dealership, we left, we did not buy a car, nor would we ever go back there. Why do they think they are so much smarter than us, just because they'd do whatever they can do to rip US off?
Ultimately we bought a Toyota, and it did involve a lot of haggling and negotiating; but at least we didn't feel like we'd been anally probed by the time we drove off in our new vehicle. Yet, nothing is perfect - right. I went to pick up my kids from my friend Kara and my husband waited for our new car. While I was driving I thought, "I hope he remembers to get our garage door opener," but of course he didn't have his cell with him - I mean Why would he? So when my husband arrived home, I asked "Did you remember to get the garage door opener out of our car?" To which he replied (ladies say it with me,) "NO." I told him that he would need to call the dealership first thing in the morning; and he did. A gentleman (yah right, a guy) who I will call RR said "no problem, we'll get the opener and it will be at the reception desk; pick it up anytime." So, on my way to work I stopped to get the opener and guess what? After waiting there for a half hour, I found out that they had given my opener to the wrong person. When I had walked up and asked for my opener the feeble older woman at the desk handed me one and I told her it wasn't mine, and believe it or not; she said "yes it is." I said "NO, I know what my garage door opener looks like. It's rectangular with a long bar. This is round with a button." Literally a half hour later they found out that someone had come in and picked it up, so yup, the wrong person took my garage door opener because apparently THEY don't know what their garage door opener looks like. SO, RR says "what can I do, can I fill your tank with gas?" I said "NO, I have a full tank AND I need a garage door opener." He told me to buy one and he'd reimburse me. So a few days later my husband bought one, we call the dealership to make sure RR is still there because it's 830 at night. He's still there. We drive over, pull up, shark comes to the car, I say I'm looking for RR to which he says "Oh, I think he left." I said "I don't think so, I just called and he was here, and oh, there he is sitting right there." I tried to get away from the shark but he asked my name and went in and told RR I was waiting for him. I went in and RR had a look of recognition in his beady little eyes, but he didn't know why. I waved my receipt at him, and said "garage door opener." He said "oh yah." I asked if anyone had brought my opener back, and he said "no." Then he asked if he could cut me a check tomorrow. I said "no." Then he got loud and told me that he had no accountant there to cut a check tonight. I asked what else we could do. He said he could mail it to me and I asked how long that would take. He said he'd mail it tomorrow; but of course I didn't believe him. I said I'd go ask my husband what he wanted to do; and as I turned to walk away I said "You know, this really isn't right. You guys gave my opener to the wrong person. You told me to bring you a receipt, I brought you a receipt, and now you want me to come back again to pick up a check?" RR got up in a huff and said "I'll go see if I can get you $25. If I had $25 in my pocket, I'd give it to you." Oh, my god. I saw RR drive off in a hummer the night I bought my car and he wanted me to believe HE didn't have $25. I'm sure he had just robbed someone else of $25 - of course he had it, slimy piece of crap. SO , a few seconds later he handed me $25. I guess RR didn't know he was dealing with the Queen of Arguing - no one can beat me - not even a slimy sales manager. Round two goes to the Queen...

If I were Queen of the world, I'd have time to scrapbook everyday, blog everyday, exercise every day (YES, I said exercise - now if your mouth just fell open; close it.) I'd spend quality time with my kids everyday, quality time with my husband everyday, and show my appreciation for all of my wonderful friends and family everyday. But, since I'm not Queen of the world, and I can't yet have all of these things; I'll just take this opportunity to thank ALL of my wonderful friends for all the love, support and encouragement that they give me. I am TRULY blessed to have such an amazing and diverse group of friends and I love you all very much!! Especially all of you who take The Bumpy Ride; not only on my blog but with me daily.
Till next time...
Queen of EVERYTHING

Queen Bee

OK, so I just have to share this.
I think that I have previously mentioned that on certain days of the week my kids drive to work with me; then my husband meets me at my office and he takes the kids home. I know, sounds like fun huh? So, when I arrived at work today, my husband informed me that there was yes, say it with me "A HUGE bee hive" in one of the trees in the parking lot. What was he doing while he was waiting for me; scouting out hives? He's turning into the Bee Hunter for crying out loud.
Anyway, when I went in to my office I told my boss that he would probably want to let the building management know that there was a big bee hive in one of the trees. I should add by the way that I had brought my camera with me to work; so that I could show some co-workers the pictures of my husband and VaJJ and the whole Un-BEE-Lievable story.

My boss went and got one of the building people and then came and asked me to show the guy where the hive was since up till now I was the only one in the building who had seen it. My boss then said " So for now, you are the Queen Bee." Ahh, how appropriate that the Queen of Everything would now be the Queen Bee; especially after the whole Bee Slaying Spectacular; boy will my husband bee jealous - haha OMG I can't stop myself now - I'm out of control. But I digress.
So I was speaking to VaJJ on the phone and I told her about this new development, and boy was she excited. I swear I could hear her salivating over the phone, just thinking of the possibilities of taking on another hive. Gosh, I really hate to say it, but this hive was HUGE, I mean the size of a human head (and remember -I DON"T EXAGGERATE - you must clearly see now why I don't have to.) Anyway, like I was saying, as confident as I am in my husband and VaJJ's bee slaying skills, I fear that THIS hive might actually be too much for them; so the building maintenance guy plans on calling their pest control. Hmm, what a novel idea...
The good news for my husband and VaJJ is that after seeing the pictures from the other night; my boss did say "Now I know who to call if I ever have a bee problem." Why do I suddenly get a vision of the lonely Maytag repair man in my head. Just picture my husband and VaJJ sitting by the phone, just waiting for someone to call with a hive for them to tackle. They can even have a slogan for their business...Got Bees?
Till next time...
Queen of EVERYTHING

Bee-lieve It or Not

So falling under the category of, I can't make this stuff up...
Last night VaJJ and I were sitting in my playroom chatting while my girls fell asleep. My husband was doing his husbandly duties, taking out the trash etc. when suddenly he came in to announce that we had a bee hive in one of the trees in our front yard. He immediately began to look around to see what he could use to remove the bees, and came out with some big spray thing that he uses on ants and such. I told VaJJ that in high school he had considered becoming a bee keeper, so I'm sure this just thrilled him no end; not to mention that this was just the kind of project that he loved.

He came back in advising that the spray didn't do a thing. VaJJ offered up, "I get free Terminex; I can just say that I moved." To which my husband replied very nonchalantly, I mean as nonchalantly as Ricky Ricardo can; "That's OK, I'm just gonna smoke em' out." OMG one could only imagine what this man had planned.
I'm not quite sure what he was doing, or how his initial "smoking plan" worked, all I know was it was followed up by spraying some water at them, and this didn't seem to work either.

OK so now he was serious, he said "I'm going to fire;" and he was looking around the house for something to cover his face with because apparently he had come up with a big plan and he was convinced that he was going to anger the bees which would result in them swarming him; which is why he wanted to cover his face. So he found nothing and opted for a big, white towel ( as anyone would - right?) LOL
VaJJ had told him to put pantyhose over his face, and I was holding out for a football helmet with the panty hose, but we had no helmet and he didn't even address the pantyhose idea. He and VaJJ negated my suggestion to put a paper bag over his face and cut two eye holes in, a la Unknown Bee Slayer. (That was an unknown comic reference for those of you who remember the Gong Show,) alrighty, so VaJJ reminded me that the bag would be flammable and my husband added "and the bees could get through the eye holes." OY! - are you peeing your pants yet?

So he grabs a can of lighter fluid and takes off outside with the big white towel draped over his shoulders, (please remember for those of you who don't know my husband we're talking a BIG guy, he's 5'9" and weighs about 280. Basically he looks like a Samoan football player or something - don't ask me why b/c this is not a customary look for a Mexican but lucky me, he's all mine.) Anyway, so he' goes out with the towel draped around him and he advises us to keep the door closed so that the bees won't fly in; and he adds "Look out because, I'll probably come running in." Well this was too good to miss; so upon VaJJ's advice, I grabbed my camera and we went outside, and there it was - my husband had made a HUGE tiki torch, that he was planning to use to burn the hive; yes, while it was in my tree. My husband told us to get in VaJJ's car and then instructed us to move the car because we were gonna be in the way, in case he had to come running.

So we're sitting in the car watching as my husband, cloaked in his white towel, takes the tiki torch to the tree. The visual on this was just TOO good - I only wish I had a video to share.
I kept telling VaJJ "see, I told you he should be on Survivor, who else could think these things up?" VaJJ did concur that if she hadn't seen it for herself she wouldn't have believed it and this would have made a GREAT audition tape. Anyway, within a few minutes my bee crazed husband had the hive On the ground, On fire. We hopped out of the car and watched him burn those bees. My Discovery channel watching man, informed us that "these were African bees; they're really, really mean and it's a good thing that it's nighttime." (Why did I her the departed crocodile hunter in my head when he said this? LOL ) Well VaJJ kicked into pyro mode and took the tiki torch from my husband and started to get in on the act. So there's my husband squirting more lighter fluid on them, VaJJ burning them with the tiki torch and me photographing this whole thing; and I should add that it was about 10 O'clock at night and I was in my pajamas and had no bra on - and after nursing 3 kids my boobs hang so low I could nurse a snake. LOL So A few neighbors drove by and I'm sure they were wondering what the heck was going on, but I'm not sure if they were more astounded by the sight of me braless or the whole goings on with the tiki torch extravaganza. "Hello HOA."

Wow, that was some unexpected excitement for a Thursday night. Now VaJJ and my husband want to start their own bee killing business; so if any of you ever have a bee problem - you know who to call. I can send you instructions on how to make your own tiki torch in case you live too far away for the bee slayers to get to you - although I think they'd fly out (VaJJ and my husband, not the bees;) cause they were SO into this, they couldn't pass up any opportunity.

Like I told you at the start of this blog; this definitely falls under the category of I can't make this stuff up; Bee-lieve it or not.
Till next time...
Queen of EVERYTHING