Yeaaaah…..

So, I got really lucky the other day.

REALLY LUCKY.

One of my jobs is a personal assistant for a rather busy, Christian businessman— actually, this guy is so busy, I’m his personal assistant’s assistant. He gets more done in one day than I get done in a week, and that’s really not an exaggeration.

One of the projects I’m helping him with is preparing some photo albums for him. He’s using his Mac and a program called Aperture to design printable photo albums that he will give away as Christmas gifts. It’s kind of a fun project, and I really enjoy it. The only downside is that until this project I had never even touched a Mac computer, much less used one, so I’ve had to do quite a bit of learning in order to be proficient.

So, now that you have that backstory, let me introduce the other part of a backstory.

In order to supplement my income, I sell things for people on Craigslist. They drop it off at my house, I take the photos and do the marketing, and deal with the flaky, flaky public. In exchange, I keep a percentage of the sale.

This all sounds like a nice, fun little side job, until you hear the next part:

Right now— right this very second— there is a stripper pole and stage in my front patio.

I’m serious. It’s got a sturdy, black and white checkered stage, and removable little sides so you can put mood-enhancing LED lights and whatnot under it.

You know, I’ve had a lot of random crap in my yard at some point or another, but I have to admit— this is a definite first.

When you combine the fact that this is in my front yard:

with the fact that my mom is staying with us for awhile, well to put it politely there has been some tension.

The stripper pole (and stage!) was delivered while she was gone during the weekend, and I couldn’t figure out how to break it to her. Dear Abby never gave out advice like this! Do you call, and try to drop the bomb during the conversation?

“How was your weekend? I’m out sweeping the front patio– you know how hard it can be to get the areas behind the stripper pole and stage— huh? Oh, yeah. Stripper pole and stage. What? I didn’t tell you about that?”

Do you send a text message? Leave a little note? Seriously, how do you break news like that when you’re living with your very uptight, uber-conservative, status-conscious Mexican mother?

I don’t know how you would do it, but I took the chicken way out— I turned out all the lights and pretended to be asleep when she came home. Yaaay for cowardice!

Anyways, yesterday while I was working on my boss’ photo albums, whenever the computer slowed with a heavy task I tried to work on a very, very convincing sale ad for the

that is living in my front patio.

I had a gmail chat with my husband, The Bean, up as a pop-out. We were laughing and commiserating about the situation, because my mortified mother had just texted me about her humiliation in having to tell the gardener how to trim the bushes around the stripper pole.

The Bean: Did the stripper pole come up in conversation again?

Me: She sent me a text message telling me the story she told the gardener trying to explain why it was there. I realize that she will not be able to rest until it’s gone…. We have a very limited time for that thing to be there without straining the relationship. And I don’t want to throw down the gauntlet over a stripper pole. It’s just too much for her. Some things I can expect, some things I cannot. She flipped out when someone saw her messy studio over the weekend. She now has a stripper pole in her entry way that she has to explain to everyone, including the gardener.

The Bean: What she should have told the gardener about the stripper pole was “you should have been here for the party Friday night..It was OFF THE CHAIN!!!!”

And then the computer froze.

The computer froze with my giant Stripper pole— and stage! Craigslist ad right there in plain view.

It froze with my giant gmail chat box with my husband right there, taking up the majority of the space on the computer screen.

It froze with the words STRIPPER POLE repeated over and over, dancing about on the screen, and screaming for attention.

Horrified, I tried to “Alt + Tab” my way back to the Aperture screen… to no avail. Apparently “Alt+Tab” doesn’t work on Macs like it does on PCs. I texted my computer friend, begging for her help.

You have to help me! The computer is stuck and won’t respond, and there is a giant Stripper Pole for sale ad on the screen! I’m at my job with the Christian boss! What do I do?”

“Ha, ha… Becky, you always have the best stories.”

“No, I’m serious! This will be funny later! But it’s happening right now! What do I do?”

“Control, Alt, Delete?”

“This is a Mac! All fancy, with a wireless mouse!”

“Is the mouse not connected? Try turning it off, and then back on…”

Eureka! Problem solved! I restarted the mouse, fingers twitching anxiously as I waited for it to respond. I actually felt little beads of sweat creeping up at the back of my neck.

Naturally, right then was the moment my nice, Christian boss stepped into the office to check on the work. All I could think was:

As he made his way over to the desk, someone called him from the hallway. He stepped back to the doorway, and began to talk with them briefly.

Thankfully, the computer screen was facing away from the doorway. I began furiously texting The Bean.

Help! The computer’s frozen, with our STRIPPER POLE chat right there, and the boss is coming in. Type something else REALLY fast, before he comes in and notices it! Make it about computers, and resizing photos. PLEASE!

I love my sexy, quick-thinking husband. Almost immediately this popped up in our chat:

The Bean: It is easier if you take the redeye out first and then do the grayscale balance. It will save you a lot of steps in having to revert to old changes and whatnot. Remember that if you save the changes you cannot go back and undo them, so only save once you are sure you want to keep the changes.

The mouse finished reconnecting with the computer, and I clicked out of the Craigslist ad, just— and I mean JUST as my boss finished his conversation and came over to take a peek at the computer screen. The screen now showed a nice, innocent little Aperture program, slowly saving a large file over into PDF format, and a chatbox with a loving, helpful husband full of loving, helpful, innocent suggestions.

“How’s the project going, Becky?”

“Oh, you know… computer’s a bit slow in responding. But it’s going well. The program’s a nice program! Lots of photos to look at, ha-ha! Photos, photos, photos! Just tons of family photos, ha-ha!” I’m sure I sounded manic, and more than a little unhinged. He mumbled something in sympathy, and wandered back to his office, and I slumped down in my chair.

Stupid, Stupid, STUPID.

Oh, well! Lesson learned.

Now, does anyone out there want to buy a stripper pole and stage? Please?

Back when I was a wrangler at a central California dude ranch, the Head Wrangler decided that what the stables are really needed was a petting zoo. It was a great idea, and the whole staff launched into project with enthusiasm. We created an outdoor/indoor enclosure area, and within a week the Head Wrangler was pulling up into the stables area with a veritable barnyard in the stock trailer.

We had a potbellied pig named Boomerang. Boomerang was so named because even though the shelter had adopted him out in the past, he always ended up returning due to one issue or another (usually because he did NOT like to share his food with other animals).

We had a baby emu we named Edward… who later became an Edwina after she fell in love with me and continually followed me around, thrumming her love song and continually sinking down in a “Welcome home, sailor!” gesture, inviting me to make little bitty emu babies with her. What can I say? I’m just that attractive.

We had some ducks that I eventually set free in the lake because their constant quacking was annoying the horses—- and by annoying the horses I mean annoying me. And by constant I mean CONSTANT. From 5:30 am to about 8pm at night, they never stopped. EVER.

“QUACKquackquackquackquackquackqauck. QUACKquackquackquackquackquackquack. QUACKquackquackquackquackquackquack. QUACK!”

They even kept it up when we set them free in the man made lake that was on the property. We offered them shelter, and tried to bring them in at night, but they wouldn’t have it. They sat there in the middle of the lake like a bunch of retarded ducks, quacking non-stop from dawn till dusk. I’m ashamed to say that I was secretly relieved when they slowly disappeared, one by one, during the week that the bald eagle chose to visit us.

We had a guinea pig and a pair of bunny rabbits who lived in separate cages. Whenever the kids were there, they were free to pet/play with the smaller animals (as long as they had adult supervision). The animals all had a pretty good existence, except that after awhile I started to feel sorry for caged animals. When I was a kid, I dragged my poor guinea pigs with me everywhere. These animals, although they had a wonderful cage, plenty of fresh nibblies, and lots of attention… well, they never got a chance to stretch their legs. I felt sorry for them, and decided to remedy the situation. Once—and only ONCE— did I attempt to give the bunny rabbits (Caramel and Latte) some “free time” in the outdoor enclosure.

I put down some carrots and set them down, smiling down benevolently. Look, little rabbits! I have provided you with freedom and yummy things to eat! Frolic and be free!

It turns out that when you set two male bunny rabbits free they don’t care about free space. They also don’t care about carrots. All they really want to do is see who can rape each other the fastest.

Bunny rabbits are kind of creepy.

My sounds of dismay drew Edward(Edwina) out of the indoor area…. and do you want to know what else I learned that day? Emus not only like to eat emu food, they apparently like to eat little bitty rapist rabbits. Edward(Edwina) began flying about the enclosure, hissing angrily, and doing her darndest to stomp the rapist rabbits to death. I’d never really respected his/her leg talons in the past, but let me assure you— emus can be nasty if they want to be. S/he’d chase one of the rabbits down, then raise his/her foot up reeeeally high, and bring it down with a sudden stomping/stabbing motion. The photo below is of a cassowary, but you kind of get the point:

Anyways, every time I’d manage to scare the emu out of her attack mode and try to herd her back inside, the bunnies would immediately start trying to rape each other again— complete with disgusting little bunny grunts and EVERYTHING.

Of course I had invited some of the parents and their young children down to the stables that morning to watch Caramel and Latte get some free time. So as I’m darting about trying to do damage control, I can hear the cries of the alarmed parents and the frightened children in the background. GREAT. It was like having my very own sitcom soundtrack.

“Come bring the kiddies!” I had cried gaily. “It will be fun! They can watch the bunnies frolic freely! They can see them nibble yummy carrots! They can watch them bounce sprightly about the outdoor enclosure like little baby Thumpers!”

“Mommy! The rabbits are fighting! MOOMMY! The EMU IS SCARY! DAAADDDY!!!”

They can watch the deviant rabbits rape each other repeatedly before they get stomped into a quivering bloody mess by a sexually confused emu with gender issues……

Of course the other wranglers weren’t helping me in the least. Oh, no. Those of you who have been around bonafide cowboy-types know exactly the kind of help I was getting. They were all lined up against the fence, hats tipped up against the bright sun, occasionally offering out bland, humorous advice. I think they were actually disappointed when I managed to corral Edward/Edwina back inside and deposit the stupid rabbits back inside their cages, where they spent the rest of their miserable, horny little existence. Stupid rabbits.

And don’t EVEN get me started on the llamas. I really, really, REALLY hate llamas. But I’m going to save that story for another day.