Merry Christmas

Well, I am still in wait for your fantastically promised Christmas gift/blog, so Dod, GET ON IT!

While I wait, I will put a bit of filler on our blog since our followers have probably given up on us.  We are the epitome of the people who are so excited to start a blog, and then within 6 months have neglected it like an old pair of tapered jeans from 1994 (which I would love to have back since they would tuck nicely into my target boots serving as surrogate skinny jeans).  So I challenge us to improve our blogging, although we are both so busy this more a hopeful dream.

I had a great Christmas day as my family and my in-laws all gathered at my townhome (or "the box" as my mom calls it) to surprise me after I got off of a 12 hour shift at the hospital-how amazing!  Definitely my best gift!  Among other fantastic gifts, my family and I participated in a dirty Santa as-seen-on-tv/regift gift exchange.  Needless to say, I was excited.  I made a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond to secure my purchases.  I gifted others with Billy May's slider station (makes perfect slider burgers, also on clearance for $9.99-a sign of it's uselessness) and some other random things. The slider station was the hit and resulted in many "owners" trying to give it away to others.  The best gift was not seen on TV, but it was a set of thumb wrestling character covers for your thumbs.  One was named "El Diablo." I think it goes without saying that I HAD TO HAVE this thumb wrestling kit.  Unfortunately my Grandma stole them from me and left me with a cats-in-clothes stationary set.  Two (naked) thumbs down.

Well this will do it for my short blog update, but I hope you had a wonderful Christmas too.  I love you Dodster, always have, always will.  Oh yeah, I forget to tell you that my mom revealed to me that my Aunt has blocked both me and you from her facebook updates because she says we communicate too much on Facebook and clog up her updates. AHHAHAHAHAHAHA! Gotta love her honesty.  Hope she isn't reading this and is offended by it, but I consider that so funny.

P.S. Tell Cody that I noticed he is participating in an online pillow fight via Fb.  Now you know I don't participate in these games due to my hypochondriac online computer virus fear, but I just saw that he was "hit" with a memory pillow and Dod I just can't help but think that is a terrible pillow fight choice of weapons because if anyone was really hit with a memory pillow in real life, they would be unconscious.  Sure, a big noggin like ours could sustain a blow like this, but Seth's smaller head would be bashed in by such a weapon.  Play it safe Cody, wear a helmet, I don't know how large his head is, but better to be safe than sorry (motto of my life).

Love you,
Burl (please enjoy fake small head photo attached courtesy of photobooth!)

Dear Dod,

You are not gonna believe what I found in Cary, NC...a childhood prodigy.  His name is Reese and he is a balloon art salesman.  He makes balloon animals and takes tips (he strongly encourages you to leave a tip--a little pushy for my taste, but hey I don't know the going rate is for balloons these days).  There I was: at The Loop, waiting for my takeout because Seth and I are just lazy enough to go all the way to the restaurant, order takeout, wait for 15 minutes, and go home to eat it on our couch like ill-mannered slobs.  So back to The Loop.  I saw a little gentleman, about 4 feet tall, give or take half a foot, he was clad in a tuxedo minus the jacket.  I have to say at this point I observed him from a distance because I was intrigued by what on earth a little man in a tuxedo would be doing in The Loop (grill and pizza).  Apparently, he was drumming up business.  I begged Seth for a dollar since I never have cash (sshhh, don't tell Dave Ramsey, but I still use my debit card) and I walked over with a big grin and asked the little penguin-suited boy for a balloon animal. Well, turns out he is a confident little sucker and he nonchalantly held his hand out (with a half-smile, half-eye-roll) to guide me to his workstation (AKA: a booth) for assembly of the balloon art.  I could tell that he was thinking in his smug little business boy head, "man this woman is sad, asking a kid for a balloon animal, get a life."  He was all of 8 years old and I could tell he thought he was 32.  Once we got to his business booth, he asked me what type of animal I wanted.  I requested a dog and pointed to my sweet baby Wilbur who was in the parking lot hanging out of the car window waiting on us.  Well, Mr. Entreprenuer said, "OK, I can do a dog, what colors to want?"  He pulled out a plastic box with 100 balloons of varying colors, and I picked a few.  All of the sudden, 2 little girls, who must have been family friends or relatives, came over and started picking up his gear (balloon pump, balloons, business cards, etc.).  He sternly looks at them and says, "please do not touch ANYTHING that is PLASTIC on this table!!"  So then, they (and I) thought it was funny to touch his tip jar, which admittedly was not plastic.  So then he looks up from structuring my balloon art to glare are them and state, "PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ON MY TABLE!"  I was holding back a giggle.  I could tell he was peeved that I had laughter in my eyes, so I tried to make him feel better by talking business with him.  I asked him how long he had been doing this (since age 6), where did he usually "perform" (all types of functions, he had a 100 person birthday party booked in Wake Forest next weekend, he charges extra for an event that far out, since gas is so expensive...).  Uhhh-yeah, I and everyone else OVER 16 who drives know that, but how do you know that kid??  Well the dog was eventually finished and not to be mean to a kid/adult in a child body, but that was a sorry looking balloon dog.  He even threw in some sharpie-drawn eyes, but it looked like crap.  I thanked him and stuck my dollar bill halfway in the opening to his tip jar, it didn't fall down, so he takes his little hand and pops the dollar on top right into the tip jar in front of me.  I almost peed my pants laughing at this whole spectacle.  It was fantastic.  I wish the dog-balloon had not shriveled up in one day or I would have a picture for you to see.  However, there is hope, I was at The Loop again this week and that little business rascal has put up a set of his cards by the register.  He apparently appears there every Thursday night.  I might just go back and talk business with him. 

You are welcome for all of the southern phrases/words I used in this post.  I hope your Cali friends don't think I am 100% redneck.

Love you always,
Burl-Womble

Family Van Ride

Dear Yogarapstar...I mean Dod,


Well let's just start things out right...there we go, no TNR for me Dodster! I loved that very true observation and I will try to buck the TNR trend whenever possible. This past week when I submitted a grad school paper and had to grudgingly change the font to TNR, I felt to guilty letting you down--but a grade is a grade and these professors have no humor for reading a paper in gigi.

 I apologize for my absence, I have been super busy with Burleson girl graduations, PASSING MY BOARDS (!), and light traveling. So with that in mind, today I want to recognize a man whose birthday was this week and who has provided endless amounts of humor throughout my life (both with and at him)...my dad. A man who made fanny packs fashionable, demanded my high school boyfriends take their hats off to view their eyes and also told them to turn their music down when entering "his neighborhood."  A man who once painted my finger nails from the front tips inward leaving horrific polish streaks, and who has proudly driven a mini-van from the time they manufactured them to the time when both children have now been out of the house for close to 10 years-aka NOW.  The reason I bring him up is that it is amazing that I am alive to post this as I saw my life flash before my eyes 10-20 times on the trip to and from Savannah for lil' burl's graduation. And so the trip began, we all loaded into the merlot/orange minivan (mom, dad, seth, and me) for the start of a family vacation.


I would just like to note that the day we arrived before the big trip was coincidentally my birthday, unfortunately, my mom forgot to pick up a birthday cake (which I didn't mind) but the best part was that she made one in 10 minutes out of items from her freezer: frozen angel food cake, defrosted cool whip for icing, and then (this is the best part) she cut a straw into candle sized pieces for mock candles...hilarious! I loved it of course.




Now, as you know my dad is an early riser and I have determined he is on a continuous race with life. I mean this is a man who I once observed plant a full container vegetable garden in 1.5 hours. He literally did two chucks of the shovel and threw the poor abused plant into the shallow holes and just threw a little pine straw over them. Amazingly they survived and did produce vegetables. Although he says each tomato is worth about $20 according to his spending for the garden.




So early riser insists that we leave no later than 7:30 am. I informed him I would leave at 9am in my own car if this were the case. We negotiated 8am--I think I lost the negotiating. So we pile up into the van and off we go. I think what my dad likes about my mom is that she has cut down on any unnecessary travel stops by keeping the van stocked like a mini-mart. You need a tissue, wet wipe, eyeglass cleaner, chocolate meringue puffs, cooler of water and diet orange drinks, small metal baby spoon (??), or grapefruit...just flash your lights at us and we can distribute it to you from the electronic van doors. Now, Dod, we rode about 2-3 feet from any given bumper at ALL times. Tractor-trailer included. Seth and I gave each other looks and at one point he held up his crossed fingers and just closed his eyes. Early riser was in a race with life on the highway. I mean what would the benefit be to arriving in Savannah pre-hotel-check-in?? Well, to say we had done it and brag to others about our ability to beat anyone's travel time. I think he senses that others don't respect him driving a mini-van, so he raises his ego by bragging about all he has done faster than anyone or traveled to in his van the past 24 hours--noting the amazing number of passengers his van held. At one point I remarked that the children riding in the jeep with the unzipped window, whose tail we were currently riding, might be run over were they to fall out. Seth informed me that they would just bounce off of our front hood.


Now I love my father and he is a great person, but he is also not allowed in most Wal-Marts.


One time "someone I know and love" kept going down an aisle where a person was on one of those mobile riders and they were overweight so he couldn't get by, so he goes to the next aisle and encounters another "Wal-Mart easy rider" at this point he remarks loudly that he will be heading to the gun section and will be right back--don't panic readers I'm sure he was just going to get a bb gun--that "person" who I am referring to that is. The funny thing is that his co-customer banished him to the van and the Wal-Mart easy riders were completely unfazed. I guess they are used to fellow customer commentary and don't appear to be bothered by it.


Another trip, this same person waited in a ridiculously long line to pay for an item at the Wal-mart only to have the crazy lady in front of him begin to pull $1 bills from her shoe to pay! He tells me (and basically her since we are 2 feet away) that some people should not be allowed in public. I just sent him to the van.


Best part of my whole trip was seeing a beautiful big head on a billboard reminding to "I can afford to get my annual appointment." Check this beauty out:

Sorry I am too computer challenged to make it bigger.  Also in other news, have you ever seen this terribly disturbing show called "toddlers and tiaras"??? Crazytime times 10.  They dress these poor spoiled brats up in slightly streetwalker-looking clothes, fake teeth, and wigs, pay $500 for them to parade around on stage to win a $5 rhinestone crown for the most adult looking 3 year old.  Shameful.  The moms are always lacking in looks too...hmmm.  With that in mind, time to get my big booty to the gym-I mean garage-I am trying Seth's p90X--I feel kind of like a whitetrash qvc tv shopper that we even own this workout video system, but I don't feel like driving a lengthy 10 minutes to the gym since they cancelled the workout class I was going to last night and I am kindof boycotting them for 24 more hours. OK, so I will let you know how it goes GILAD!

Love you miss you,

Burl-Womble

Stranger than Yoga, is being Geena Davis' Daughter

Dear Burl-Womble,

I wonder why the universal font is Times New Roman?  Being the kind of women who can hand write letters in more fonts than Word even bothers to offer, this decision to use TNR made by Bill Gates or whoever it is at Microsoft making such huge decisions, is border line offensive.  Why not Curlz?  Sure, it hurts your eyes after one paragraph, but at least it has some personality.  Why not Lucida Sans Unicode?  The straight lines that end in pentagon like edges are soft enough for a woman's use and militant enough not to make a man feel like a pansy using it (unlike aforementioned Curlz).  I suppose some things we will only know in the after life, but if you see Bill or Melinda in the Piedmont area, please take the time to make the big ask:  Why TNR, why?

Moving forward, last night I took a yoga class (not yogalates, so tell Bray to put her hysterics on hold, there will be no saying yogalates out loud today).  Now, mind you, I have been clocking in at the gym once or twice a week.  Long gone are the days of kickboxing, weight lifting, and toe touching, but since I noticed my buttocks starting to hang low, September is my renewed attempt at dedication. 

I enter the room, 5 minutes late of course, from the nap I just woke up from (not to mention in LA, we have to park in a ridiculous structure on Level 3 and walk 5 minutes through a restaurant row, up an escalator, into the gym, where there is a long line of willing torture participants, across the top floor of the gym, through a meat market where a woman has to wear tight pants at her own risk, down another set of stairs, beyond the trainer corner and into the 12 x 12 yoga room that is so packed with people you can practically smell your neighbor).  I park it next to the door between a bald man with an adorable pot belly and a grandma who seemed to be reliably "zen".  We started the class pretty normal-you know, lights low, poor choice in music meant to relax you, down dogs, plank poses, Warrior 1, 2 and 3, teacher who half sings, half speaks in low monotone voice saying things like, "You're not here to kill yourself...take your time...listen to your body".

Side note:  Actually Miss Yoga Teacher Never Gets Pissed Off in Traffic Person, I AM here to kill myself-that's why I came to the gym-because my butt is going South at the ripe old age of 28 years and 7 months and the only way to up the ante, if you know what I'm saying, is to kill myself in this stupid hot box yoga class set in the middle of the grossest meat market in LA County.  Second, no, I am not going to take my time, I am going to push myself to the limit in as little as time as possible and if a tendon snaps, then by God, it will have snapped while whipping my butt back into shape.  Finally, I will not be listening to my body, which thanks to the time of the month and the tension I feel from trying to fit 30 hours into each 24 hour day, desires only salty things like cucumbers with tamari and sesame seeds, sea salt and black pepper potato chips, spicy sweet potato fries, sweetened carob raisens... and let's be honest, anything else in the house.  Your advice is bad.  Tonight, I shall not take it.

Anywho, we were in the middle of the Warrior Vinyasas, but I was craving a little triangle pose.  She would get so close...and then let me down by putting an elbow on the knee, arm over my head pose.  When we finished a few, she said, as she walked over to the stereo system, in her monotone, soothing, half-singing voice, "Now, my students, you are on your own."  Great, I think to myself, just great.  I came to this lady's class to repeat these dang warrior poses and teach myself-what kind of cl... wait a minute, is that DMX?

Yes, Burl, it was DMX and I went right back to freshman year, when 1) we used to see him party hard around the NCSU campus and 2) started bouncing to "Ya'll gon' make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here".  Monotone Teacher voice began to giggle softly in her headset microphone, "I hope there's not cursing."

Well, well, well, maybe she does have a temper on the 405 freeway (10,000 times worse than the Raleigh Beltline).  As we all know, DMX does nothing but curse, so after a few f-bombs, she scurried like a wild dog to the stereo system to change the song to TuPac's "California", as if that would be better or have less cursing. 

Bursting with joy because this is the kind of music gym rats all over America kick their own butts too, I got busy with my Reverse Warrior into Triangle Poses into plank into that hurt your tricep as you hover above the ground pose, into up dog into down dog, walk or softly jump your feet towards your hands, long leg stretch into hands over head stretch, then REPEATEN POR FAVOR on left side.

It doesn't end there.  She busted out some moves I have never seen in my young yoga life, but apparently needed a little Neo-Soul to do so, and cranked up Floetry's "All ya gotta do is say yes... all ya gotta do is say yes..."  I can't even type the rest of the song without blushing-what kind of yoga class is this anyways?  She went on to prep us for splits...which you know I haven't done since Senior Year Cheerleading when I had to do my version of a cartwheel (looks more like a 5 year old kid doing upside down karate kicks two different ways) into splits, so you can imagine, this exercise along with my forcing myself to excel in every posture, was quite frustrating.  Then she did this and suggested we join her:

Kathryn Michael Burleson Womble!!! (do you see how the font changed back to TNR when I inserted this picture!  Dangit Bill and Melinda!  I am going to change it back) Post her rap/neo-soul movement, I realized she had completely lost her mind and I began to laugh hysterically as I attempted to put my elbow underneath my leg that refused to engage in the sideways split pose.  It wasn't too long before my pot bellied bald friend began to do the same, soon followed by Grandma "Zen".  So now that half the front row had fallen over sideways in pain and hysteria, she singed songed, "Yessss, that's right, yoga is fun."

Yessss, Strangest Yoga Teacher on Earth, Yoga IS fun... because you are crazy.  But I'll be back next Tuesday, giggling with the others in the class who work out because we have to and not because we enjoy this kind of sick medieval buddhist torture.

These are the moments I miss you most Burl Womble.  When you visit, we'll take her class together. 

Love you forever,
Dod

PS  I have no idea why you are fretting over Charlene.  She has some of the most gorgeous stems I have ever seen on a woman (so do you).  She dressed so well and she certainly had the best (sweetest and warmest) personality (her only competition was Annie, whose sarcasm was a fan favorite).  Plus, she was beautiful to boot (so are you).  FYI, Lately, I have been compared to Geena Davis (they keep saying in our work meetings whenever she comes up, that she could be my mother... Unfortunately, this is the picture that reminds them of me...And yes, they certainly do put it up on a huge screen for all the men to enjoy).  I also do not find this photo very complementary when it is in direct relation to me.

PPS  Well, I ended up taking the 3rd part of Yoga Teacher's advice late last night.  Carob raisens, tamari almonds and sea salt and black pepper chips were my late night snack.  Dangit, she won Burl, she won.

Unfortunate Celebrity Look-Alike

Dearest Dod,

I was doing my clinical rotations in eastern NC this week and the most unfortunate thing happened. 

A patient's wife tried to compliment me by telling me I looked like someone famous.  Hold on, she said, let me think of her name...then it came to her.  Brace yourself Dod, an insult was hurled like no other I had received (including when Mr. Perry told an entire class I was cruel to a fellow student on HTN).  She smiled at me all proud and told me I reminded her of Charlene from Designing Women.  Really.  Really???  Being full of southern manners on the outside, I graciously smiled and thanked her after confirming with "the big tall one with blonde hair right?"  Yep, that was the one.  I of course had a mini meltdown with my fellow adult roommates that evening at our shared apartment in Greenville (my vacation home for the year during the week for school).  They had to spend several hours telling me no, I didn't look like Charlene, but they also found the entire incident full of humor.  Since you know I am ridiculously vain, I stared at myself in the cheap wal-mart vacation home/cheap apartment mirror trying to tell myself that my excessively dyed blonde hair must have been why she said that.  Yeah, and my ridiculous height, and probably my twangy accent, which Seth calls "redneck valley-girl".  I guess I am pretty much a shoe-in for Charlene.  I do not say this with pride or excitement at the prospect of playing her in a resurrection of Designing Women (even though my secret dream is to be a soap opera actress!!).

Well, I guess Charlene is better than Barbara Jean from the Reba McIntire show.  I have always been concerned that someone would tell me I looked like her.  I ask you Dod, have you ever had an unfortunate comparison to a celeb?  This may have happened to you since you live in California...Oh I hope so (for my sake to laugh at) but hopefully for you this has not happened.  I guarantee no one compared you with Charlene.  I am going to color my hair back to my original mousy brown to avoid future "incidents."

Love you from NC,
Burl

Eden Peebles Offers Salsa Lessons

Welp, Burl got rid of her Razor.  Don't worry, she is still shaving... I meant the phone. 

 You remember these, right?  Some of us still have one.  No shame-I kept my Nextel Brick, I mean phone, for a few years too many as well.

Thank God she upgraded to an iPhone (Thank her hubby Seth, not her), cause now she can send me pee our pants emails like this one (Enjoy!):

Dod,

That was a hilarious email.  Now attached to this email is a picture I took while in Eden yesterday when I went to have my teeth cleaned. Claudine gave me a little van tour of e town and apparently the mall is now a go-cart track/ childcare center with a new Latino club in the old peebles. I was intrigued by the spelling on the signage and took a pic for you (potential blog material), enjoy. I think the funniest thing is that peebles is now a club!

Love ya-kbw

Sent from my iPhone