Dana Brown

THURSDAY THOUGHTS: Locked Out

Thursday Thoughts

I
had coffee with friend and fellow blogger, Wendy, last Saturday morning.  Here is a link to her blog http://partofmystory.blogspot.com.
 I mentioned since I started blogging
again, after a rather lengthy absence, the few posts I’ve done have been
serious and I missed the funny me.  Cuz I
am a funny one.  And when I say funny I
don’t mean funny Ha Ha, but funny in that I do and say stupid things.  Like this episode a while back with my
equally funny sister, Chrystal.

 
During
my basement dweller days Chrystal and I would occasionally go grocery shopping
together.  (She lived upstairs in the
main part of the house and I, and my two cats, lived in the cute little basement.  Cute, if you could overlook the
spiders.)  We came home from one such
shopping trip to find I was locked out of my apartment. 

“No
problem, just go through my house, through the garage and laundry room and use
the connecting door,” Chrystal suggested.

“Ok.”  As I said that I was trying to remember if I
had left that door unlocked or not.  I
usually locked it even though she was the only one with access, because I’m a
fraidy cat.  What if the bad guys come
through her house, rob and kill her, and then decide to check out the basement
dweller!

Sure
enough, it was locked.

“I’ll
get a screw driver and hammer and take it off the hinges,” said one of us.  I think it was me because I remember being
the one to actually UNSUCCESSFULLY take it off the hinges. 

“Well
since that didn’t work just use the hammer to break the lock.”  I distinctly remember it being Chrystal who
came up with that idea.

After
about 20 minutes of the two of us taking turns trying to break the stupid lock,
which of course wouldn’t break because it was doing its job, we gave up.

“This
door is not the sturdiest of doors.  What
if we use the hammer to chop a hole right next to the door knob, and then reach
in and unlock the door.”  Again, I credit
Chrystal with suggesting another brilliant plan.

So
chop we did.  And we chopped some
more.  We got a lot of aggression out on
that stinking door!

 
“Wow,
these doors are sturdier than they appear,” I said after another 10 minutes. 

Another
few minutes of chopping and we had a hole big enough to reach through only to
find out that, in our earlier attempt to break it, we had damaged the lock
beyond use.  So locked it stayed.

We
stood there for a few minutes staring at all the wood chips on the floor with nothing
to show for it.  It was then that
Chrystal decided to give it a shot with the hammer and screw driver to take the
door off the hinges. 

It
came right off. 

What?!?!?  What had I done wrong?  I have taken doors off hinges many times to
move large furniture in or out or to paint or something.  What?!?!?

We
discussed if for a bit and decided it was because we were tired.  And maybe also needed some therapy time to
hit, punch, yell, and destroy an inanimate object.  Poor little door.

Since
we rented the house from our church we thought the most Christian thing to do
would be to hide it and get someone else to come put in a new door before the
elder in charge found out.  Which is what
we did.  Unfortunately the elder in
charge was mowing our backyard when the chopped up door passed by.  He laughed, shook his head and said he didn’t
dare ask what happened.

So
that is how my single sister and I solved the problem of being locked out.  Would a husband have gotten it off the hinges
on the first try?  Or would he have not forgotten
his key in the first place.  Either way I
think our plan worked out just fine.  I
got in didn’t I?

Question:  Ever been locked out?  Have better luck in getting in than we did? 

The Lap Dance

Dana's Blog

Friday night my friend Stacy and I were two wild and craaaazy single gals out on the town to hear our friend’s band play. They are called Opie and if you ever have a chance to hear them you should go. However, I hope you have a more pleasant experience than we had the other night.
When we walked into the bar we saw a couple exchanging saliva rather rigorously, so we steered clear of their table. It was somewhat difficult since it was smack dab in the middle of the floor. They didn’t seem to care that their tender moment of intimacy was being played out in front of everyone. I attributed that to all the empties on their table. And those made me wonder if they had just met.

Now being somewhat of a good girl (I say somewhat cuz I did have my twenties) I couldn’t help thinking this behavior was a bit, well, embarrassing; disgusting; crude; high schoolish; gross! Soon their make out session began to progress more into the realm of a lap dance. Having never really seen a lap dance before, I can only assume this was one. I can also see why a man would enjoy one. This man certainly was anyway.

He was quite a bit older than his lap buddy so I’m thinking she may have been playing out some Daddy issues; which is really pretty sad when you think about it. There were also some girls dancing in front of the band. I’m sorry, but there is just not enough alcohol in the world to get me to do the “drunk white girl dance” in front of a crowd.

After standing for quite a while and spilling my drink on my shoe we finally gave in and took the only two chairs left in the room. I say gave in because they were at the lap dancers’ table. There were three chairs and since they were only occupying one, we moved in. I thought if I just kept my gaze toward the stage I wouldn’t notice the X-rated action on my right. But it was really hard to not look. Like when you see an accident and you just can’t look away.

It was just amazing; arms were flying around and clothing was all askew. I can’t really tell you what her shirt looked like but I can describe her bra in detail. I was shocked they were behaving that way in front of everyone. But then again I don’t get out much.

She was in every position possible on his lap that there could be (or at least that my imagination could come up with). She was up, she was down, she was all around. She would do him in a house; she would do him with a mouse. She would do him in a box; she would do him with a fox.

We moved the table closer to us, not to give them more room, but to make it more apparent that we weren’t with them. At one point he was reaching for his beer and couldn’t find it, I assume because his eyes were otherwise occupied. I nicely slid the table over for him to grab his beverage. I’m nothing if not polite. After his refreshment he went back to business.

It was then that things really started to heat up. With the table further away, it gave her the leverage she apparently had been missing. She put her hands on the table and went to town. Somehow his arm came up under mine and it was then that Stacy and I grabbed our purses and joined the fans storming the stage.

I guess I am just too sheltered. And I’m okay with that. Other than the two of us no one seemed to give the lap dance couple a second thought. Or at least they didn’t stare like we did. I couldn’t get outside fast enough once the music was over. Ewwww.

I prefer my sheltered church girl life over public displays of lap dancing. But the music was good. Maybe I’ll just stick to their CD’s.

Question: My goodness, I can’t even come up with a question for a blog focused on lap dancing! Got any?

Another Jack Reacher is Born

Dana's Blog

Spoiler Alert!  If you don’t want to know a tidbit of information about the new MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie, don’t read any further.

So I went to see the new MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie the other night, even though I knew Tom Cruise was in it, for the sole purpose of watching Sawyer from LOST. Well, he dies within the first 90 seconds! Are you kidding me?!?!? Oh wait, here comes a flash back with him. No, sorry, only another 90 seconds long. Great. Juuuuust great.

All of this brought me back to how much I DO NOT want Tom to play my Jack Reacher in the upcoming Ian Child film. And then it hit me who would be another better choice for Reacher over Tom: Sawyer from LOST. Yes, that’s right, the guy who gets killed off in the first 90 seconds! Jack Holloway.

Am I right, Reacher fans?

All in all, the movie was a good action movie, if you like non-stop action movies.  But then, I went to see SHERLOCK HOLMES and that action was much less, well, “Tom Cruise-y.” Holmes’ action was creative which made for a more entertaining film. And Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t run as funny as Tom Cruise does.

Question: Did you see either movie?

Rose Bowl Monday

Dana's Blog

I start out watching today’s Rose Bowl game with my dad at his house. I’ve been watching football games with him for as long as I can remember. Wisconsin and Oregon both score on their first possession; gonna be a good game. Midway through the second quarter Daddy starts feeling badly so he heads back to bed and I head back home.

I’m one-half block from my house and can’t figure out why the car in front of me is stopped. Has there been an accident? Is someone crossing the street? No, it’s a tree. A big, beautiful Oregon Fir tree sprawled across the busy four lane street. Surrounded by this sight, I feel like I’m in the woods and a wee bit confused. Once I realize what has actually happened I detour around the block and pull into my driveway where I find my sister, Chrystal, on the porch cleaning her windows. I tell her about the tree and she goes into full on Diane Sawyer mode for the duration of the “tree event.”

During my journey home both teams seemed to have scored again. Go Ducks!

The tree has fallen on power lines which leaves some folks without the ability to watch the game. I decide to watch the rest of the game next door with a bunch of dudes.

At some point I look out the window and see Chrystal on the street chatting it up with police officers and neighbors. She texts and calls in periodically with breaking news about the status of the tree. Soon after halftime is over she reports that the fire department has arrived and chain saws have begun clearing the area of the tree. Both teams score again.

Good news, at approximately 5:14 p.m., sometime during the third quarter, traffic on the busy street resumes and life for Chrystal goes back to normal.

Towards the end, the Quarterbacks trade interceptions and the Ducks pull ahead for the rest of the game. Yea Ducks!

So now the Oregon Ducks have won their first Rose Bowl since 1917, the very year my dad was born, who, by the way, was kept up to date on the game by my mother. Maybe that’s where Chrystal gets it.

Question:  Did you watch the game?

Survivor Finale

Dana's Blog

A great tradition I have is watching the Survivor Finale with my friend Linda and the wonderful Stewart Family. We’ve shared countless snack food filled finale nights cheering on our favorite survivor who out played, out witted and out lasted all the others.

This season my favorite was Coach. Now granted, his other two seasons I found him rather annoying, but I gravitated towards him this time around. There was something different about him on his third try for the million even though I did find his use of the words integrity, honor, family and Christian rather hypocritical.

To me Survivor is A GAME and if you have to lie, cheat and steal to get to the end then so be it. I’ve had many a scratched hand and nearly broken finger while playing a rousing game of spoons, so a little dishonesty would be nothing in a game for a million buckaroos.

I auditioned for Survivor back in the spring of 2009. I was a children’s minister at the time and I said in my audition tape, “My biggest fear is that I will drop some f-bombs or that my bathing suit top will go askew on national television and I will have to quit my job.” I did tell my senior pastor, since I considered Survivor to be a game, I would stop at nothing including lying and cheating to win the million dollars. He said as long as I planned on tithing he saw no problem with my tactics.

One of my least favorite contestants this season was Edna. That was until she spoke up during the final jury. Then she rocked and won my respect. To summarize, she basically told the jury, all the ones who had been voted off, you should be prepared to be duped when you sign up for a show like this. So, hats off to the final three cuz they did the duping and out lasted all the rest. And after all, isn’t that the point?

I think I will audition for the show again. If I get on maybe I can meet Coach. Because you see, unfortunately I now have a crush on him.

Question: You a fan? If yes, who was your favorite? Do you think Coach and I would make a good pair?