What were they thinking?????

You ever just scratch your head and think "What were they thinking?"  Let me set the stage for you.  It is 3 year old precious little Jocelyn's birthday.  Jocelyn, like your normal three year old wants to be a princess.  Enter a large clubhouse, lots of decorations, about 100 guests, a three tiered princess cake and beautifully set tables.  Jocelyn is so excited she is asking all day, "when does the party start mama, when does the party start daddy?"  OK, your with me up to this point right?  Here's where things get a little crazy and a whole lot of unsouthern-like {Is that a word?} Oh well, you know what I mean.  All us southern women know how to throw a great party.  We have the gracious party chromosome.  {They haven't exactly identified it yet, but I am sure they are getting close!} We love to entertain and to gather a wonderful assortment of lovely friends.  A southern girl will have the best food, wonderful atmosphere, clean house and even candles lit and music playing in the back ground for the perfect time.  She'll also greet her guests at the door looking like she hasn't done a thing all day but go to the spa and have her nails done.  She looks forward to serving and welcoming each of her guests.  This party is for them.  She wants them to leave relaxed and full of contentment after a wonderful evening of fellowship and celebration.  Am I right here?  OK, back to our story.  The party is for Jocelyn's birthday right?  IT'S ALL ABOUT JOCELYN!  Mom and dad are there to celebrate sweet little Jocelyn's big day.  Here is where we start to blend a recipe for disaster.  In comes mama's boyfriend--yep that's what I said mama's boyfriend!  To this lovely little mixture we're gonna add enough liquor to have supplied the entire country during prohibition!  {It's looking like quite the evening right?}  For some reason that I just can't for the life of me figure out, the daddy and the boyfriend get into it.  A fight starts that includes all of the 99 proof guests and a beer bottle throwing contest. Seven police departments {yea, that's right 7 police departments} have to be called in and hospital ambulances arrive to take 5 to the hospital where one requires surgery {probably the boyfriend as the father has tried to remove his right eyeball with the broken part of a Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill bottle.}  I saw pictures of the "clubhouse" after the party on TV.  World War III took place in there!  All I have to say is that we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief that this little "social event of the season" took place in the great state of Ohio.  I'd like to get a hold on a couple of parents and a boyfriend!  I'd also like to get my hands on a group of guests.  Lastly,  I'd like to get my hands on little Jocelyn--my arms that is-- around her as tight and loving as I could, and tell her I am so sorry that she showed more sense and better manners than her guests and her parents.  At the end of the party, the camera pans around the room showing drink, food, trash, broken bottles, blood, and finally a pretty pink 3 tiered princess birthday cake that wasn't even touched!  Need I say more?

Lucy goes camping!

I've blogged about camping before.  I hate it!  My idea of roughing it is an old Holiday Inn.  But Labor Day falls around my sweet husband's birthday--Sept. 5th so I go to make him happy {or wait, I may be making him miserable!}  Anyway, we went to Smith Mountain Lake in Roanoke, Virginia.  I feel when I am being tortured that something fun should be thrown in for good measure!  So, we were camping!  I had to "have me some Stein-Mart!  My son-in-law very patiently puts in the info of Stein-Mart into his GPS which he swears by, and I hate because it is a piece of technology which means that I am doomed before I start!  I set out going down the road.  Everything is going fine.  IN 4 TENTHS OF A MILE, TURN RIGHT ON CROWLEY GAP ROAD.  I turn and find myself on a one lane country road that is at least black-topped.  I think that this road must never be used or it would at least have 2 lanes. Another 1/2 mile down the road it is no longer black topped but gravel.  Another quarter of a mile it begins going straight up.  Within 100 yards, it is not only going straight up but has 1 1/2 foot washed out trenches.  Because I am as determined to get to Stein-Mart as an ugly old maid is to get down the wedding aisle, I keep going.  All of a sudden the van will not climb the hill.  It is too steep.  I start to back up a little to get a running start so to speak and the van begins to slide down the mountain sideways.  I put on the break just as the rear end of my vehicle starts to slam into the 12 foot sides of the mountain.  I try to go forward again and start spinning.  Here I am stuck side ways on a God forsaken excuse for a road with nothing and no one anywhere.  I put on my emergency break to steady the van on the side of the hill, promptly open the driver's door and fall into a 1 1/2  foot hole.  As I am scrambling out, I look down at my very impractical little black and white strapped sandals on my feet.  My husband always says that I should wear more practical shoes.  Well, they were VERY practical for going to Stein-Mart, as I had no intention at the beginning of my day of climbing Mt. Everest!  I think for a split second that I will once and for all buy some practical shoes!  Thank goodness I return to my senses within a short period of time and decide not to go to extremes or anything just because I got caught out on a mountainside in a cute little pair of shoes with kitten heels!  I call our oldest daughter on the cell phone as my mind has gone blank and I can't remember my husbands new cell phone number.  She says she will call the guys and then after learning my location, she and her friend set out to find me also.  I decide to do what any other woman that has found herself in this very scary situation would do.  I go and find a place to hide in the woods.  I go over the side of the cliff and sit quietly in an area where I can't be seen from the road.  I am imagining that every pervert on the east coast got up that morning and decided to hike Crowley Gap Mountain!  As I am sitting there, I see the heel of a shoe sticking out of the side of the mountain.  I check to see if there is a bone in it!  I suppose that is what happened to the last nut that came up this road!  Shortly, I hear a truck, but I know that the guys haven't had time to get to me yet.  I sit there still as can be as a large truck stops, turns off the engine and I hear 2 or 3 male voices outside of the vehicle talking about how are they going to get out of here when the road is one lane and they can't back their truck up the mountain backwards.  I begin to tremble and shake.  The cell phone rings.  It is Ben saying they are almost there.  I whisper to him that there are men there, and I am hiding from them.  My husband tells me that they are probably there to help me.  No thanks, I will wait on someone I know and not the local Deliverance movie characters.  The phone rings again.  It's my daughter.  They are almost to me but stranded on the mountain and can't get any further.  I whisper, "please don't call me again.  I am hiding from some men and they will hear the phone ring."  Just then one of the men begins to walk toward me up the mountain.  I know that he can't see me unless he comes over the hillside of the road.  He's getting closer and closer and closer.  My heart is beating faster, and faster, and faster!  I turn around to look up and there he stands.  "Ma'am, are you alright?" "Yeah" I say.  "What are you doing ma'am?"  "I'm hiding."  "Who are you hiding from ma'am?"  "You" I say.  "Me! I'm just a best buy deliveryman, ma'am.  I wouldn't hurt a fly!"  I say I'm sorry.  I guess I watch too much CSI on television.  "Here, let me help you out of that hole ma'am."  As he is helping me climb out, we hear a truck.  "Someones coming."  "Is it a blue truck", I ask.  "Yes ma'am", he says.  "That will be my husband.  We all meet up at the sideways van on the road and all 5 men discuss how to get it down off the mountainside. The Best Buy men say that their GPS led them this way also and after a guess that the road hasn't been used in 4 years, we proceed to try to get both of our  vehicles down off the mountain. With much guidance, Ben is able to back my van down and then the delivery truck proceeds on down the rest of the way.  Ben has to get back to a job site in my van, so he has my son-in-law and his best friend John take me into town to the girls who have now been informed that I am safe and sound and have not been molested by any backwoods crazy man!  My family thinks this is all so freaking hilarious!  My son-in-law points out several items of note about the situation.  #1 He says never be afraid of men wearing "GEEK SQUAD" tee-shirts! I say everyone knows that perverts hide behind geek squad tee-shirts! #2  If a GPS tells you to go on a gravel road, something is wrong and you should go back! {Now that would have been a handy little piece of info to have BEFORE I started out.}  As we are going into town, we pass a large sign on the side of the road that says "Caution, Do not trust GPS in this area."  Another nice little piece of info to have had BEFORE I started out.  When we get to where the girls are located, my daughter meets me at the door with, "Well Lucy Ricardo, I hear you've been on another adventure!"  Everyone is laughing hysterically. I can't believe that my family is having so much fun out of this!  I am told that at my fist phone call, my 3 year old grandson Corben sighed and said, "Come on, let's go rescue Mimi" as if this is a 3 times a week occurrence.  It takes me 2 days of constant teasing by my family to get over my "terrifying"  experience.  I try to explain to the kids that I haven't been that scared since 1973 when I talked a friend of mine into picking up a hitch hiker in Little Rock, AR.  They ask me if I have learned a lesson about going shopping when I am suppose to be camping.  Yes, I say.  Never trust a GPS--get your directions to the local Stein-Mart from an old fashioned map!