Crooked Pictures

Hey!  Did you see my new fab banner?  Check out the artwork.  That is a bonafide Munchkin original.  Shout out to my oldest baby girl who drew it for me, and to a super-duper friend who turned it into a banner for me, because there is no way, ever, I coulda done it myself.  I know because I tried.
This is what I got...

I called it "rubber band wife" and then yeah.  I had that 70's classic stuck in my head for like 12 hours after.  If you're my age you know which song I mean (annnndddd now it's back.  Oy.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to think when you have The Spinners spinning their disco dancing sparkly bell bottomed leisure suited way through the background of your mind?  "Hand me down my walking cane, hand me down my hat..."  You're welcome) and if you don't...never mind.  What was I talking about? 

Oh yeah.  Artwork.  Kid's a terrific artist (and if you ever want to know how to get crayon off plaster walls, wall paper, the stove, the baby's head...I'm your gal.)  When I posted this picture one of my friends asked how come I'm spilling the wine?  Duh.  There's a fecking tree frog on my hand.  Anyway, see how the edge of the banner doesn't line up with the main body of the blog?  I'll get to that in a minute.

People have asked me (ok, person. As in one. As in me, actually, because really, no one else asks us the truly tough questions other than ourselves) why I even started this blog. Well, truth is my throat chakra is blocked. At least that's what I've been told by two different people like 15 years apart. Also, my ascendant ruler is in the 12th...what's that you say? You have no fecking idea what I'm talking about?

Exactly my point.

**side note.  I have decided on exactly one New Year's resolution (which I'll probably blow anyway) and that is no more for real swearing here, as well as limiting it more  in my real life too. "Language, Mom" from your teen-ager is probably not cool.  Sigh.  At least my kids will know how to swear with the best of them.  But for the longest time I couldn't figure out why I was getting all these page views for searches about some seriously sick shi...stuff.  And let's just say thank God for spam filters on the comments.  Silly me that it took me so long to figure out when you use the words "zookeeper" "s*x" and "feck" in the same blog you're gonna turn up in places you'd rather not.**

For the sake of time (yours) and space (mine) I'll direct anyone who is unfamiliar with the back story here and here.  To this day when I meet people as tzkw they are always soooo excited.  "Oh!  You live in a zoo?!  OMG that's like my dream life!!"  Not long after comes the "You're not really what I expected.  I was envisioning someone more like <insert name of famous reptile hunter's wife here>.  Only prettier."

Now the thing about having a blocked throat chakra (actually, I know nothing about that, so this is most likely completely wrong.  Since I do know a couple of things about astrology, it totally makes sense to me, so I'm going with it) doesn't mean I can't talk, though I'm pretty sure the zookeeper, the heathens daughters and most everybody in the know universe wished that were the case.  No, what it means is that I'm no E. F. Hutton.  When I talk pretty much nobody listens.  Not even the dog, cuz he's too busy chasing the light.  Plus, I've spent most of my life keeping a lot of things I'd really like to say...well...stuck in my throat.  So with the help of a dear friend and fellow blogger who pretty much picked me up by my ankles and tossed me into the deep end gave me a nudge and encouragement I found a place where I could say allll the things that were really on my mind. 

You know what I want?  I want to live in a house that isn't like 1000 years old and has insulation and plumb walls.  I want to clean a room and have it stay that way for more than five fecking minutes.  I want to have nice things that don't get broken, or eaten, or peed on or pooped on.  I want stuff to magically find it's way back to where it belongs so I don't have to hunt it down like a bloodhound.  I want the pictures on the wall to be straight, not crooked.

Seriously.  There isn't a straight line in this whole house (well, except the downstairs bath because that room has been totally redone, floor joists to ceiling.  Maybe I should move in there.  If the daughters would let me.  Never mind.)  And I'm one of those people that crooked really, really bothers.  I thought the zookeeper was going to "have a moment" and take the drill gun to my head when we he was hanging the kitchen cabinets.

Me:  "The bottom of those two is crooked.  It's off by like a 1/4 inch."

Him:  "But the top is level."

Me: "I don't care about the top.  I'm short.  The ceilings are 9 feet high.  I can't see the top, but I can see the bottom.  You know this will drive me crazy every day for the rest of my life."

Him:  "You do realize that means I have to take the whole cabinet down and start over."

Me:  "Yup."

I used to straighten the pictures on the walls all the time.  All. The. Time.  Because they kept getting off kilter.  I drove myself and the rest of my little corner of the world insane trying to get things to be exactly the way I wanted them.  And then came this whole long time when I was just so upset that they couldn't be.

Then it dawned on me.  I live with three girl children, my mother, three cats, a neurotic dog, and a husband/zookeeper who is my polar opposite.  There is a fecking zoo in my backyard.  I have bats in my sewing room and giant porcupines under my desk.

Yes, that's me and Domino.  I'm the one without make-up.  Or quills.

 Those pictures are going to be crooked for a looonnnngggg time.

The zoo isn't my dream.  (Yay!  I think I just got the understatement of the year award!)  But it is the zookeeper's dream.  And while it may bother a lot of people that I'm "not what I expected" it bothers not the zookeeper.  So I'm keeping the banner that's not all lined up with the blog.  Because it isn't whether the pictures are crooked or not, but what's in them that matters.

~tzkw