What Really Happened In That Fairy Tale

Once upon a morning I was standing outside by the bayberry tree--bleary-eyed, hair a-tangled, dressed in old jammies and wearing a mismatched long-sleeve grungy shirt (squirrel armor), still in my chewed-up bunny slippers--shaking down the teeshirt and doggy peepad from the squirrel manor.  It's become known throughout the feathered and furry community that at this particular time of day, food is available near that tree because of the leftover nuts, leafs, bark, branches, moss that a VERY SPOILT squirrel hasn't eaten.

This squirrel leftover is the main morning attraction and if I stand very still after doing the shaking thing, squirrels and birds will move in on their breakfast.  So, within a few feet of my bunny slippers, little animals hop around and fly in and out, sometimes even coming close enough to peck at those bunny noses. 

And if it's cold enough that the angel birdbath is frozen, I even bring out, much to my dogs' indignation, the big dog bowl, filled with water, so the birdies can eat and drink and be merry.  I enjoy the show enough to stand out there in inadequate warm clothes even during those really cold mornings.

Sometimes we get interrupted.  My neighbor and their cute terriers would cause an instant racket of barks and back-and-forth scolding from my animals as they rush off.  But if I time it just right, I'm all alone in my little animal kingdom.

Who would show up unexpectedly but my grumpy friend who don't care much about nature?  The driveway was far enough from the tree that my little friends couldn't see him.  He stood there watching the scene for all of ten seconds--the rumpled hair, the bunny slippers, the cute little creatures around me.

"Well, what do you know," he drawled.  "It's that crazy Snow White and her 100 squirrels."

Charming.

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF

Request For Gennita's Funniest Adventures

A new reader emailed me, saying that she's been trying to go through all my blog entries, all the way to the beginning (gulp), because she wanted to read my funny posts like this one:

Gennita's Suspenseful Massage Incident

Quote:

"I suffer from insomnia and spend most of my nights reading. I just discovered your books and some of them were damn funny. So I decided to google you and it gave me a link to the massage incident you wrote about. It was so funny that I had to check your blog out for more of your humor. Surely you have more than that post to keep me laughing. I really enjoy your sense of humor and was hoping to find more Adventures of Jenn. Can you give me the links to some of your more memorable funny moments so I can have a good time laughing during my sleepless nights? Please?"

Wow. Thank you for buying my books and I'm glad you enjoyed them. I think going back through all my posts (from 2004!!!) would be totally insane. I can imagine all the Sexy Veges keeping you up!

Anyway, I'm not sure whether Jenn's Adventures are that interesting, but hey, maybe the following will jog some of my regular blog visitors' memories and they can laugh along at my silly moments. And of course, a source of amusement for new readers who haven't read them before:

Gennita's Play About The Plagiarised Black-Footed Ferret

Gennita's Identityless Nightmare At Atlanta Airport

Gennita's Head Kissed The Concrete

What A Girl Learns With Her Eyes Closed

Gennita's Guide To Swinging Your Ass Fifty Feet In The Air

Gennita's Annual Adventure With The Bugman

Gennita Says No To Sexy Vagi

Gennita Discovers Porcupine Porn

Gennita's Scary Uber Bunny Story

Gennita And The Uber-Screaming Frog Incident

Gennita Learns About Auras

Hopefully, the ones I've picked are funny to you, Shona. I don't know; most of these stories seemed so traumatic, I'm sure it explains my brain damage ;-).

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF

RT: Yes, I Mushed A Spartan's Package

This is the infamous party hosted by Deidre Knight, who was promoting her Midnight Warriors series. She had a very memorable way of making us remember her heros ;-).

First, the Spartan Warriors gathered, proclaiming their need for maidens to break a long-awaited curse. Or something like that. I don't know, many of us were just staring at the skirts.

The game began. The warriors sat in their chairs as the maidens started to dance around them, sizing their warrior strength ;-).

Everyone jumped onto the warriors as the music stopped. One maiden is left without a warrior and is sacrificed to the dragon (I made that up). Then one Spartan warrior became free from his captivity and he ran off with his maiden.

Below, I became overzealous in my quest to win the game and literally squashed on top of a Spartan. He went, "Oooooooofffphfff." I turned to him and said, "I'm sorry, did I mush your package?" "No," he replied, but his voice was a bit higher than usual, I thought.

As you can see, my new editor was a bit more lady-like in her warrior seat.

I did quite well, samplingsaving many warrior seats.

I didn't win, but I thought it was quite a fun game ;-). Sometimes it's fun to have no shame. Hey, I'm an old lady. Cute young seats are hard to find! Heh. The above young Warrior went on to become Mr. Romance 2009.

This one below--I don't know--Alpha Male thinks I was smiling a bit too cheekily because my hand was too near the guy's thigh or something. Tsk. He has such a overworked imagination! *eg*

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF

How To Swing Your Ass Fifty Feet In The Air

I'm getting pretty good at climbing that five-storey straight-up ladder. Not even a pause today! I find that, if you just concentrate on the act of climbing, and not think about how high you really are, the anxiety of not being able to make it to the top doesn't show up.

I know what you're thinking--Jenn, it's not the reaching the top part I'm afraid of; it's the FALLING off the ladder part. See, the height doesn't scare me. I just get a bit nervous when my arms get tired and I start to doubt my ability to hold on to my weight as I pull myself up each rung. Then my mind starts playing tricks on me, telling me that I have twenty more feet and boy, what if those arms don't have the strength to go that far. It's similar to holding one's breath underwater and thinking "thirty more seconds." Those seconds suddenly seem to take forever to count out.

Coming down is another exercise altogether. First, I have to climb over the railing to reach the first rung which is about two feet below. Basically, that means I'm in mid-air for a fraction of a second as I hold on to the railing, one foot balanced on the board and the other trustingly reaching down. Trustingly, because really, I can't look downward too long because that would unbalance me.

Then there is the problem with the hardhat. Because it makes my head a couple of inches taller, I'm always bumping into steel joints as I duck down. My brain can't tell that my head is "taller" so I'm just bending down low like normal to avoid a head injury, then WHACK! my hardhat hits the darn rod and I go OW! So, anyway, when I step over the railing to take that first rung, I have to also remember to lower my head enough as I slip between the railings. If I forget and whack my hardhat, I might panic and lose my concentration.

Am I scaring you? ;-) Don't be. It's not as complicated as I make it, but it IS definitely something one has to learn.

Anyway, the best method of climbing down 50+ feet is to swing your ass left and right the opposite direction of the arm holding the rung above you. Pretend you're a pendulum. Got that? In my opinion, going down a long way by holding the sides of a ladder is not conducive to speed or agility. The hands get tired from gripping and then I start to wrap my forearms around the sides, protectively pulling myself in. Nothing wrong with that, but it slows the climb down a lot when your arm is wrapped around a rung.

My ass-swinging method, on the other hand, creates a momentum that takes me less than a minute and a half tops to get back on solid ground. Don't look down for any reason, for heaven's sake. I'm not talking about being panicked by the height, but the sight of all the avid male faces gazing up with their mouths open might set you off into a giggly fit, and that's really no way to fall splat on your ass.

Hmm. I think I'll make an exercise video.

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF

Gennita Goes Wild West

That Comment Widget Update Update:

Blogger is looking into it, according to the Blogger forums. It's affecting many blogs, so there, it's NOT me and my "cowboy style" of coding, as one funny reader tells me ;-).

Speaking of that funny reader, she related an anecdote about Keanu Klaatu that had me choking on my pistachios:

The sad part isn't that his acting is so stiff and robotic. That's bad enough, but it's not acting. o_O I was on a flight with him several years ago. I spent the better part of seven hours watching him flirt with the flight attendants in that stiff inflection-less voice from the opposite side of the aisle. Swear by all that's holy, the man actually laughed in monotone. I still have nightmares about it. I wonder if his voice changes in pitch during sex... Probably not.

SEVEN hours watching Keanu Klaatu flirt in monotone. Man. That's worse than a noisy baby three aisle down.... I feel for you, my funny reader, so much so I won't let myself be insulted by being your source of amusement for my "slap-dash wild west coding approach for your blog." Ha, I say. It works, doesn't it? Eventually....

You know how I started "understanding" the coding? By looking at it like a foreign language. When I was eighteen and my then boyfriend and his nerd brother started yakking away about ancient and dead computer coding stuff (let's see, COBOL, Commodore, even Basic), my eyes would glaze over after about twenty minutes of listening to their secret language. I was forced to try to understand computers and how they worked after our breakup because I didn't know how to do much with the Apple IIe other than typing a paper into it and hit CONTROL P. So sad. The realization that I depended so much on that bast...I mean, boyfriend...disturbed me.

LOL. Okay, TMI territory. Where was I?

Conclusion: Being alone and working among people who wasn't computer savvy forced me to be smarter than I really am. Hahahahaha. But it's true. If not for people shrugging at me and my inability to understand any techie over the phone, I wouldn't have braved the world of secret computer coding on my own, to stare at HTML and say (with a deep breath and a prayer), "Okay, I can do this. Pretend it's French in hieroglyphics, only much much more difficult."

So voila! You see the results.

Hmm. Now that I think about it, I use this wild west approach in everything I do, including learning how to roof without first knowing stuff like...toolbelts, utility knives, or, umm...the different hammers. I was hungry, so I took a deep breath and said, "Okay, I can do this. Pretend it's like writing an essay, only with a lot more sweat than inspiration involved."

And voila! Here be your uber roofer author.

This is my roundabout way of saying that when Amazon.com puts Big Bad Wolf on their site (still waiting), it'll be official. I've also ventured into the Wild West of self-publishing. I've basically done it without much knowledge or talking to anyone. I do have the advantage of understanding enough about how the publishing business works, though, but that's also founded upon my past business experience of being an independent contractor. So yes, I'm a novice and yet, I'm not.

Many people will laugh, like they did when they saw my crazy coding or the sight of me on a roof (that's me, spreading amusement everywhere I go *grin*), but I'm hoping that, like my first tentative steps at understanding the computer and at trying to compete with men swinging and twirling hammers like drum sticks, I'll learn from it and be successful too.

In the end, it's just that part of me that refuses to let myself lie down because of excuses like

a) (computers are) too complicated
b) (roofing) is too hard
c) (computers, roofing, POD self-publishing) is too untraditional

because if I've done that, I wouldn't be where I am now. To me, it's always fun to know that I can do it, have done it, and even though my ways might be a bit "wild west," I'm still able to achieve what I set out to do, i.e., be able to talk computers and do something with them, be able to take care of myself with my brain or my muscles, and lastly, in this venture, be able to give my readers those stories that they want but my publisher has rejected.

CAN I SAY DIAMOND AND T's STORY? They've been rejected enough, dammit! :-)

Okay, I must be high on Christmas candy. Forgive me. Listen to Bing Crosby's White Christmas instead. There is no other voice on earth perfect for Christmas songs than Bing's.





I'm sure you're all busy with family and I appreciate your dropping by at this crazy woman's blog to read in between festive fun. Merry Christmas to you and yours and may you get everything you wish for, even if you've been a bad girl or boy all year ;-).

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF

Don't Do This Near Roofs

Do not use blowtorch to clean roof eaves.

Really. Not a good idea. This dude looked at the cobwebs up there and thought, "Hey, a blowtorch would work!" And then...yeah, fire. I kid you not.

Sometimes, when the tar is really, really hardened, and we have to get the shingles off without destroying them, we use a heat gun. It looks like a little hairdryer. Not a blowtorch.

Still, one must be extra careful. One of my workers, in the heat of summer, once thought he could melt the tar faster by putting the gun right against the tar and heating it non-stop for five minutes. Yeah, you guessed it. Sparks flew.

Sometimes we do things without thinking, out of habit for quick results. I used to pull my toast stuck in my old toaster with my fork. Yes, I know. I really did it. Stuck my fork into the thing and wiggled around. NUMEROUS TIMES. It took ONE TIME to remember why I shouldn't touch metal to live-wired machinery still connected to electricity. Guess which time. :-)

That's why writing is good for me. I can't hurry the process, can't "get" the toast quickly. If I engage in "lazy writing," I get burned too, although the probability of it being fatal is a lot less.

Have you ever done anything dangerous without thinking/out of habit?

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF

I Bet You Wanna Know...

...why my refrigerator is sitting next to me and my laptop in my living room. Perfect place, I thought--I barely need to move my chair to get to my cold snacks.

Any theories? ;-)

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF

Post #2: What I Was Trying To Post

It's Thursday. That's garbage day in my neighborhood. I ran out this morning because it's customary for me to chase the garbage truck in my nighties and sleephair. Well, today, I had to run pass a cop car, dragging my trash behind me, shoeless and out of breath.

The garbage dudes were laughing. Of course they were. They live to see me do this almost every Thursday. The cop leaned out of the window and said, "Are you the bag lady these guys are always telling me about?"



No, he didn't look like this pic, but this cop was eye-candy. Killer smile. Pretty green eyes. Too bad I didn't have my camera with me. Too bad I LOOKED like a bag lady. Can one get arrested for wearing holey nighties? I have to remember to go to sleep dressed better on Weds. nights....

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF

An Uber Valentine Story

This is what you can get for your dude, if he hates chocolate. Yummy.

Bad Puppy was so sorry for his book-nabbing attempt that he bought mommie Nalini Singh's newest, Mine To Possess, through Amazon. I got a little gift e-card this morning with a coupon from "Jiggle Low with puppie kisses." Awww. I didn't know Jiggle Low has an Amazon account!

Maybe I'll buy him a Valentine pizza....

*******************

So what's the most romantic thing you've ever done for Valentine's? Most of us get hearts and flowers, but I had a friend who WAS FLOWN to France for the dinner, flowers, and engagement ring. Now, THAT. WAS. ROMANTIQUE.

The most romantic thing I ever did for a boyfriend was fill the bed with little colored paper hearts that I cut out while he was at class, then lie in bed in my sexy red negligee to wait for his return. Unfortunately, he came home with a buddy and I had to pick paper hearts out of my hair all by myself. My first boyfriend--he didn't understand romance at all, as you can tell.

I learned my lesson. No more cute little paper hearts for ANY OCCASION.

************************
Here's one thing you should never do before you go out on a (pre)Valentine's Day date.

NEVER EVER help your friend spud cemented-down floor tile with a jackhammer.

That's exactly what I did all yesterday evening. It was noisy, hard work, and unbeknownst to me, the tile dust and the sticky stuff that hardened underneath combined to become Invisible Aquanet in the air. I didn't notice till I was in my car that my hair was stiff as Amy Winehouse's beehive, except that mine looked like the nest of a hentai sexwitch, sticking out AND not moving. Even in a convertible. It was just like anime-hair, and at every stoplight, all the neighboring drivers stared.

When I got home, I couldn't drag a comb through it at all. Parts of it was scrunched and sticking out sharply like porcupine needles. Then my date arrived and I had to answer the door looking like I could kill someone.

He waited while I showered, but that made it worse! The water added to the Invisible Sticky Aquanet and made the tiledust into some kind of InvisiPaste. My hair, as you know, is very long and there's a lot of it. I now had a Tangled Nest of Horror on top of head. No amount of conditioner helped. With both hands, I gathered the nest and piled it on top of my head and it STAYED. Why? Because conditioner and melted tile gunk made a perfect hairsetter, of course.

I stepped out of the shower. Peeked into the mirror. Yup. I looked like Elvira without the cleavage. Since it was not Halloween, I couldn't actually pretend that was my intention either.

My date. He patiently waited.

I told him my problem. He didn't understand, since hey, you just wash the stuff out of your hair, what's the big deal? Long locks is the same as short male hair, right? I gave him the look that kungfu dudes always had before they started swinging their braid of doom to cut off the enemies' head. Except that my STIFFENED TENTACLES OF DEATH wouldn't SWING; it would just spike the person to death, I suppose, if I wildly thrust my head around like some maddened bull.

It did not help when he suggested shaving it.

It did not help when he suggested going out with an Elizabeth Taylor hair scarf.

It did not help when he suggested that he go and buy me a wig.

I think he got the idea that his suggestions weren't appreciated when I started to fly through the air using my Stiffened Propellers Of Evil towards him, shredding clothes and skin. I warned him that any moment now, and the hair was going suck his brains out for Valentine food.

Finally, I calmed down and told him to go on out by himself. I didn't feel like going out any more. The Hair had exhausted me.

Left to myself, I soaked in my really, really scalding Jacuzzi tub for forty-five minutes, applying a little baby oil to the shards on my head every once in a while. Hey, the Aquanet started dissolving. My tentacles actually felt like hair again.

Finally, I got out and combed my hair through with that glazy stuff that magically smoothed out tangles. I dried my hair and swung it around like I was Cher. I didn't look fabulous like she did on the Grammys, though, since my body at that moment resembled that of an over-boiled lobster. Forty-five minutes in scalding water isn't so good for tender flesh, you know.

The date called to make sure I was okay. I can't remember what I said to him because I'd decided to consume the whole bottle of wine I bought for our date all by myself after the hairy ordeal. I think I told him I had taken his advice and had gone bald.

You know I'm going out to buy a Carol Burnett hair cover for the next time I go jackhammering tile floors.

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF

Ten Uber Things I've Done

One of my favorite writers, John Scalzi, posted "ten things he'd done you probably haven't" then asked for ours.

I thought it'd be fun to post mine on my blog too and ask for yours. Since I have never done one, this will be my first official meme:

Ten things I’ve done You Probably Haven’t:

1. Shingled John Travolta’s roof. A few months later, saw his bedroom through the skylight when we returned to check on something. (I have lots of roofing stories so it wouldn’t be fair to use them all in the top ten!)

2. Rolled in ice naked with a bunch of Finnish men, also naked.

3. Clean bird’s spit, an essential ingredient of bird’s nest soup.

4. Taught college sophomore English Composition in a bikini.

5. Climbed the Alps and hiked to see a glacier.

6. Crossed Roman traffic and survived.

7. Chased by a cow and a dancing bear in India.

8. Made a $2000 bid on a paperback book for charity.

9. Spent three nights scrubbing hardened grout footprints on a brand new 15X20 foot tile floor with a wire scrubber (I still have nightmares).

10. Partied with drunken Swedes and helped them saw the top of their car off because we wanted a convertible.

Your turn!

Bear with me while I learn. The first button likes the POST. The second button likes the BLOG site. Please help me by "liking" me. Thanks!
NO NEED TO CLICK TILL I TELL YA: RESERVED FOR NOT SAFE FOR WORK STUFF