Lola Pie

So yesterday I went to get a facial. It’s part of my attempt at getting my body ready to look its best at the wedding. The working out hasn’t so much caught on, but I can surely handle laying in a dark room with Enya playing while someone massages my shoulder and scrubs and buffs my face.

Or can I?

The minute I walk into the place, they ask me if I nee to use the restroom before I go upstairs to the "facial room." I say no, I do not. But as I’m walking up the stairs, I think about it. What if I do hve to pee in the middle of the facial?

They sit me down in this room where I fill out a form about my face. I fid it weird, because wouldn’t they be able to see what’s wrong with it, if anything? They are professionals–I am just a vessel here. I don’t know anything about it. Still, in an effort to people-please, something I cannot break away from, I scribble "uneven tone" on the paper (even though I know that the uneveness is caused by bdialated capillaries on my cheeks and according to my dermatologist, there is nothing anyone can do about it.)

Finally, my facialist comes to get me. I introduce myself and she asks if I need to go to the bathroom. Again, I say no, but then I start to wonder if i actually do. Maybe these ladies know something I don’t? The power of suggestion can be so real sometimes that it started to plague me.  What if I became so relaxed that I peed all over myself? Has it ever happened before? Is that why they double-teamed me on the pee issue?

I couldn’t shake it from my mind. What followed after I slipped under the sheets was an exercise in self control, since Earthsavers was doing everthing they could to make sure that I did pee all over myself and ensure that I would never return or show my face around town again. 

Throughout the entire procedure, a CD of a waterfall was playing in the background. And then at one point, the facialist massaged both of my arms, covered them in plastic and slipped them into warm mitts. It reminded me of that game you play when you are at sleepovers with one cool cup of water and one warm cup; place the poor saps hands in them and supposedly they will wet themselves. I never had that happen to me–I always made sure I wasn’t the first or the last to fall asleep at slumber parties. But I couldn’t help but wonder if it could work with two warm mitts.

Throughout the entire hour, I could hardly relax, I was far to fixated on urine. I know that talking is supposed to be minimal in a facial–in order to add to the relaxing environment, but I really wanted to ask her if anyone ever peed the facial bed. In fact, I was anything by relaxed–I had pee on the brain and if you know one thing about me, know this: I have the worst one-track mind in the entire world. I am impossibly and perpetually 8-years-old about it. I thought I would grow out of it, but alas…I think it just got worse with time.

Eventually we finish and I zip home to pee. Except I don’t  because I didn’t have to in the first place. And I’m slightly crestfallen.  

So, screw hurricanes? Am I right? 

I have totally neglected The Pie. Treated The Pie like a pesky chore, like hanging up laundry. Typically, I drape my laundry over chairs. When I run out of chairs, I use my hamper (something that, even at 24, I still can’t figure out how to operate), when the hamper is chock full, I resort to the TV.

Yeah. The TV. I drap clothes over the top of it. Sometimes at night, an errant seeve will slip out and block the screen as Rodney and I are trying to watch "Extras" on DVD. Rodney will let out an exasperated sigh and I’ll leap up to flick it back in its place.

I can just see my mom reading this entry, shaking her head in disbelief. Mom, thanks for hanging up my clothes and always having built-in hampers in the homes we lived in. I guess my adult self didn’t get the memo.

Anyway. I digress. The point is, I don’t hang up my laundry for weeks. I can’t wrap my head around it. I know it will suck up a chunk of time and I prefer to spend that time procrastinating about something else. Like The Pie.

So to recap…The Pie = laundry these days.

But, after my recent evacuation in which I rushed around, trying to pack and navigate my piles of laundry, I realized I need to do some life-housekeeping.

In an effort to become a better adult before I reach the age of 25–a married person, aged 25–I need to learn a few simple life lessons:

1.) Do what makes you happy. IE–try to bang out at LEAST a blog post a week. I like to write. It’s not a chore, I have no idea how it became this way.

2.) Buy a bedroom set which includes a dresser and put clothes away–no more clothes on the floor, hamper, chair, TV, etc.

3.) Wash dishes immediately after cooking…this is my biggest problem. My sink is typically piled with dishes after Rodney cooks dinner.

4.) Have some semblence of a consistent skin care regimen.

5.) Get over my obsession with breakfast.

Ok, this last one is kinda ridiculous. I have been eating cereal since I was a wee tot. And I have loved every single bit of it. When I was little, I remember eating Rice Krispies while a tornado was whipping around our house. I was three and have always been very sensitive to loud noises. However, this is how deep my love of cereal goes. I sat at the counter, covering my ears with my hands while my mom fed me my cereal.

As I got older,I become obsessed with Grape Nuts. My sister and I used to let the cereal soak up all the milk until it was essentially mush. We actually called it that and ate it as if we were eating dog food–but tasty dog food.

When Rodney and I were "talking", I would get a big bowl of Grape Nuts and a big cup of coffee and sit at the computer, chatting over instant messanger since he was in Lafayette and I was finishing up my last semester at Loyola. We both sacrificed sleep and woke up early for these typically 2-hour long exchanges.

Once we lived together, we developed a morning routine where Rodney makes coffee and while I’m preparing my bowl of cereal, I’ll pour two cups of coffee. And he would go back for the refill.

i realize it all sounds inane and boring, but this is how fundamentally attached I am to this routine. You can imagine my dismay to discover that there is absolutely no milk to be found in this city thanks to Hurricane Gustav. You know what…I’m not even going to capitialize that because it doesn’t deserve it. gustav. How do you like that, bruh?

Anyway, at 8pm tonight, panic set in and I drove around for 20 minutes in an attempt to find milk. Looking for empathy, I called my sister.

"Go to the gas station and get Pop-Tarts," she said–but only after I whined and made her feel sorry for me. She typically glosses over my melodramas and no-so-tactfully switches topics. I wasn’t having it tonight.

After wailing that she needed to join my pity party, I took her with me to the Circle K, via cell phone.

"No Pop Tarts!" I cried, very much in public.

"Well, go look for the individually packaged kind." she said.

"Oohhh, good idea!" I replied, finding both strawberry and blueberry, "what about coffee, though?" 

"What about powder creamer?" she offered.

"Ohhh, I don’t see any…"

"Check near where they brew coffee…" she said. 

"You are truly a problem solver. This is why I keep you around." I said, sighing with relief.

"I just know gas stations."

Ladies and gentlement, my sister, the gas station scholar.   

I get really frustrated when I type out a long, eloquent (for the most part) blog post and then POOF! My internets get taken away! 

It happened two days ago. I wrote a fabulous post editorializing about my upstairs neighbors who are moving out. They are gay and had moved here from Indiana. Recently they broke up and are now moving out of their fabulous place. I stayed confined to my apartment because I was convinced that someone cheated on someone and it was somehow my fault that it happened. 

Hello, Guilt Complex. 

I always think everything is my fault.

Anyway, yesterday I got into a car accident. i know, it’s not something that you just kind of segue into like that. But it wasn’t my fault so it doesn’t stress me really. My car is smashed in on the front but the girl admitted fault immediately to me and the police, so that’s really a best case scenario.

And then? Today at work I had to make an emergency eye appointment where I realized that I have given myself an ulcer in my eye and have deep scratches. Fun, right? No contacts for a week. So I get to be all super nerd for a week. 

Speaking of super nerd…this is going to be short because the Democratic National Convention is on..yeah. i’m a nerd, but I love that stuff.

Just wanted you to know that I’m not being neglectful on purpose. But my eyeballs are falling out, the gaybors are moving out, my internet is being hormonal and people are running into my shit.

Aaaaaand scene.  

I am alive! Unfortuantely the only real update I have is about my cats…Cat Pie would be a much more appropriate name for this blog some times. 

Kibby, our three legged princess, just suffered a terrible bout of flea dermatits–she is very allergic to their saliva. And even though we treat them monthly, some how she just broke out really bad and was covered in scabs. She was miserable–when she doesn’t feel well, she holes up in the computer room and only comes out to eat. Being the doting cat parents that we are, we took her to the vet immediately. 

He gave her 2 shots for the itching and put her on a new diet and flea medicine–the vet thinks it may have been a food allergy too. Then we got the bombshell…

Kibby is gonna need surgery.

We aren’t exactly sure how she lost her leg, but we think it was a car accident. Whatever it was, she was hit pretty hard–hard enough to give her a hernia in her abdomen. It went untreated for so long that by the time she came into our lives, she had a huge swollen underbelly. Our first vet told us it was no big thing–that it was just a hernia and nothing to be alarmed about. But this new vet? This new guy says the hernia caused a tear in her muscles and her intestines have seeped through that tear.

The swollen part of her underbelly? Yeah…those are her intestines. Just hanging out.

The vet says she could be fine for the rest of her life. Or they could twist tomorrow and she could be in trouble. 

Someone throw this cat a benefit concert! Save the Kibster!

Seriously though, even with the flea dermatitis, the special diet, the missing leg, the missing teeth and the hanging intestinal problem….I wouldn’t give this girl up for the world. She is the sweetest and most grateful cat in the whole world and anyone who meets her knows how special she is.

Next stop, Paranoid Pre-Surgery Cat Pie.  

So remember when I swore that I gained 10lbs. from a switch in birth control pills? Well, I switched back to my old birth control last Sunday and lo….I LOST 6lbs in THREE DAY!

It was totally the slutty pills.

Be ye warned, Yaz = good. Ortho Tri Cyclen = baaaaad. Sure the Ortho is like $35 compard to Yaz’s $85, but if you have good insurance (or a sister with Army insurance, holla!) then it’s totally worth it. Nothing is worse than uncontrollably gaining weight. 

Anyway, I thought you would want to know that I sorted that all out. But Intervention is on, which Rodney and I think is the best show ever. We would get so excited every time that it came on and we pumped it up for Burt, telling him how amazingly awesome it was. We would always run out and get some beer or wine and settle in to watch Intervention. We convinced Burt to come over one Friday night to watch it with us.

It wasn’t until Burt came over, expecting greatness, that we realized how sick Rodney and I are. Intervention is basically a show about how screwed up someone is on drugs/alcohol/etc. and their family surprises them with an intervention and treatment. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So poor Burt was expecting this great, uplifting show, but unfortunately what he got was this soul-sucking, depress-fest.

Sorry, Burt. I still love Intervention, but I don’t tell people because I don’t want them to think that I’m a heartless Crazy! 

It’s Prince. I just heard “Party like it’s 1999″ and I love Prince. I will always leave im on when he comes on the radio. This time was especially delightful because as I was driving home, thinking about 1999, I saw a woman dancing and doing the Carlton in a gas station parking lot. I’m 100% certain that she was listening to Prince too.

Anyway, today was a weird day. I was emailing with a good friend that I haven’t spoken to in awhile and she gave me a list of updates going on in her life. A bulleted list. It seemed innocent enough, surely I could fill up a bulleted list with my exciting life, right?

So I hit reply, I responded to her updates and then began a bulleted list of my own. I typed “My Things” with zest and then sat back to think. And think. As the time ticked by, the blinking cursor morphed into the equivalent of a toe-tapping sales person waiting on me to dig out change because I have to pay in exact change. Of course in this case, I was digging out the correct change of my life. Ohhh how deep is that??

I contemplated writing work stuff, but then I realized that no one is interested in that. Then I thought about writing about my cats, but if she reads Lola Pie then she’s already caught up. Kibby still has one leg and George Michael is still bat shit crazy. I then though about writing a wedding update…but then I thought against it. Nobody cares about wedding stuff except me and my mom.

What was I supposed to write about? How sad is it that my whole life has become work, cats and wedding? I guess that’s why I haven’t posted as much…I really don’t have that much going on. Certainly nothing that would necessitate a lengthy, fun blog post. I guess that’s why I ran for the hills and tested out Tumblr, so I could hide my pathetic life for you guys.

But instead of running and hiding, I got called out by Cece. So I’ve come back to The Pie. And in an effort to convince myself that I’m not all cats, wedding and work…here’s a list that took ENTIRELY and PATHETICALLY TOO LONG to conjure up…

1.) I am going to Needles for my cousin’s wedding for Fourth of July weekend and I get to see Cece, SAP and my sissy. Hopefully my vagina will learn a new tune to impress Cece with!

2.) I’m going home for my second dress fitting and then Rodney’s cousin’s wedding. Family Wedding Bonanza this commences (Shannon and Michael then Rodney’s sis and then us–all a month apart!!)

3.) I am going to learn how to make a cheesecake soon as part of a personal goal

4.) My car smells like mildew because my washer and dryer broke and I had to tote all my sopping wet clothes to Meems to re-wash and dry.

5.) I have become addicted to Mojitos.

Well…from my internet space, that is! I having become so DREADFULLY AWFUL at updating my blog, it seems t be a crying shame to have it sitting all empty like that. So, I decided the only thing to do is to try to make it easier for me to update…

So, with that, I am temporarily setting up shop over at Tumblr…It’s Lola Pie Redux 

If you guys make the move with me, I’ll start forwarding my domain…but until then, typing "lolapie.com" in your address bar will take you right back here.

Let’s see how this experiment pans out… :) 

I remember the first time I saw her. It was Mardi Gras and I was pretty drunk from shotgunning Bud Lights and drinking Crown out of the bottle. We were sitting on the porch of a friend’s house when she came out behind a car. She was hobbling toward a porch across the street. She had three legs and she was beautiful.

"Rodney! Rodney!" I shouted.

"Whoa! Is that a three legged cat?" he replied.

"Yes!! Go get her! Let’s take her home!"

He ran across the street and scooped her up. She didn’t resist, she let him take her back over to our friend’s.

"Oh, that’s Kibby. She used to belong to our neighbor, but then he moved to Oregon." our friend said.

We insisted on bringing her home at once, but she wanted to check with her neighbor in Oregon first. Considering he basically abandoned a three-legged cat on the street, I doubted he would mind. But we couldn’t bring home another cat any way because our house was already full with George Michael and Bogie. We knew we were moving to New Orleans within a few months time and decided to wait until we left to scoop Kibby up so she wouldn’t have to move as much.

We even tried to rename her by referring to her by other names in the months that passed. We kicked around "Maybe" as a throw back to the Arrested Development theme. We tried "Dawn Piano" as a reference to a YouTube video of a talking cat. Nothing stuck. She was a Kibby and nothing could change that.

Three days before we were set to move, we decided to take her home to get used to George Michael. We prowled the neighborhood for over an hour searching for her and encountered every other stray cat known to man.

"This street is like a Stephen King novel," I said to Rodney, after remarking about all the strays.

I was convinced that they were cat people–you know, people by day, cats by night? Totally plausible and the only explanation to the sheer number of homeless cats.

We returned the next day–Rodney was in all-black, having just come off a shift at Starbucks. He looked like a burgular, tip-toeing into strangers’ backyards and sideyards. From across the street, we noticed a larger creature  meander out of the darkness. It wasn’t graceful or even remotely cat-like, so naturally we thought we had found our lady. It turned out to be a possum with a taste for cat food.

Exasperated, we returning the next day–it was Friday morning, the morning before we were leaving. I had already scheduled a vet appointment for Kibby that I now feared I had to break. I was worried that after all this waiting and all this anticipation, she could very well be dead or taken in by another family.

30 mnutes passed and I started to get nervous because I had to go to work soon. Rodney was clear down the street and I was hanging back around the house we first saw her at. I was strolling towards Rodney when I saw something black move in the corner of my eye. I turned and saw this tiny, jet black cat with striking green eyes hobble out of a bush. All this time we were looking for her around other  cats and it never struck me that this little girl was a loner.

I bent down and extended my hand. Kibby stuck her neck out and hobbled closer. Gently, I picked her up and started to walk toward Rodney, not wanting to yell because I didn’t want to startle her but not wanting to wait because I wanted to get her home as soon as possible.

Aside from the missing leg, a few missing teeth and flea dermatitis, she was a completely normal and healthy cat–according to the vet. Over the past month she has been with us, we have seen every side of her personality. We’ve seen Kibby, the Sweet Young Girl. Kibby, the Ruthless Street Cat. Kibby, the Defiant Foster Child.  

She loves to cuddle and she hates to be moved. Not once has she tried to go outside and she seems more than content to lay in one spot all day long. Everyone who sees her always has the same reaction: "Whoa! That’s a three-legged cat!"

George Michael tends to sneak up on her, causing her to hiss and swipe at him–I don’t think he understands that she is a sassy older sister-type. Though there are a few sweet moments…the other day we caught him licking her fur and she seemed totally ok with it.

Having Kibby makes everything feel more complete and we love to talk to the cats as our little children–plus now we each have a cat to cuddle with and won’t get jealous. I never thought I would ever become a cat person, but now I’m that lady who has pictures of her cats as the wallpaper on her computer at work.

But with cats this cute, how could you not?

Meems: Sigh….

Me: What?

Meems: I’m just thinking about something…

Me: Ice cream?

Meems looks shocked. 

Me: Creole Creamery?

Meems: Ohmygod…

*Please note that we haven’t even talked about Creole Creamery (which is amazing, by the way) in months and we hadn’t been talking about ice cream. We’re just freakishly interconnected like that.  

I used to be much better at this, yes? I’m sorry…I’m adjusting poorly to the no-blogging-at-work thing. And I really am tired when I get home, but once I get into a routine, hopefully you’ll be seeing more than a post-a-week out of me!

Actually, this is coming to you kind of late…but I do have a good story. A Jazzfest story. Odd, because if you know me personally, you know that I don’t care for live music because I dislike crowds and loud noises. I especially hate music festivals because that means that I’m outdoors. In New Orleans. And therefore hot as a mofo. Last year, I got so overheated that I almost passed out and Meems vowed never to go to a concert with my again. And I can’t say that I blame her–I was miserably.

BUT…then this year’s Jazzfest lineup came out and guess who was playing last Sunday? AL GREEN. The King of Cheesy Lovefest Songs! How could I possibly pass up an opportunity to see such a Chick-Flick Soundtrack legend. Plus, rain was in the forecast and Meems quickly learned that while I’m a bitch when it’s hot, I’m absolutely delightful when it’s raining…and I’ve been drinking.

The air was breezy and cool and when the rain started, I didn’t say a thing–I was preparing to get wet. In fact, Rods, Meems and me were probably the only three people that I saw without umbrellas. We even Cajun-danced in the muddy rain–totally sober at that point too. But we didn’t stay sober for long…nope, free beer was plentiful, especially after the rain drove the crowds away. We ended up getting drunk and taking our muddy selves back home. We ate sushi and I sobered up a bit…and then experienced the most nonsensical moment of my life thus far.

You see…Meems has always been the accident prone one in our friendship. Throughout college, we visited the ER a whopping total of 6 times because of her various injuries and ailments. Spinal taps, falling down stairs, fracturng her wrist in a flag football game…you name it. But Sunday, it was my comeuppance apparently.

I was sitting on the couch when I realized that I had left my engagement ring in the bathroom. I had taken it off when I went to go shower. I was walking back into the living room and started to go horizontal in preparation for a crash landing on the couch. It was one fluid motion…and I missed the couch by a good five inches.

My face broke my fall. My hands didn’t even fly out in front of me–I was so ready to sink into the highroller beach sofa and my body was ready for it’s velvety comfort…but instead I had beached myself on the linoleum floor. Blood was coming out of my mouth and I initially thought that I had lost a tooth.

Quickly, I recovered myself and clammered onto the couch–laughing along with Rodney and Meems who could not contain themselves. Luckiy, I had only cut the inside of my mouth with my tooth–and that is what was bleeding. Unfortunately, I also was starting to get a fat lip from the swelling and by 4am, I looked like a battered woman.

It had gone down enough by the next morning, so I went to work but decided to tell my co-workers a different story. See, I had also banged my knee up so I was walking stiff and my face looks like someone smashed it into a wall. So I told them that someone hit me in the face with their fold up chair at Jazzfest and that it was a total accident because the only thing they know about Rodney is that he has 7 tattoos–one of which is a woman shooting herself in the head. And saying that you “missed the couch” is basically saying that you walked into a door–it reeks of domestic abuse.

The fat lip has gone down in the past four days but my black eye is in the gross yellow-bruise phase. Here’s a pic and please ignore my unkempt eyebrows (mom!)