I have this really great story to tell about getting the inside of my thigh painted in New York, only my brat kid-sister, whose bed I am sharing, won’t stop bugging me. Seriously it’s like we are kids again. I can’t get a thing done because she is so A.D.D and it is rubbing off on me and to be honest, I think I have enough A.D.D without her rubbed on share.

“Summer, how do I make Twitter work?”

“Summer, what profile picture should I choose?”

“The weather right now is 82 degrees.”

“I found another picture. Just look at this one, I promise it’s the last one.”

“I can’t believe you post pictures of my daughter on the Internet but don’t send them to me.”

“Look at my belly, I am so bloated.”

“Did you just call my phone dumb? Not all phones can be labeled ‘smart phones’, Summer.”

“Check out this boy on Facebook. Yeah, his posts about vaginas and honey are so funny.”

“What do I write for my Twitter bio? La de da de, we likesta party? Men suck vaginas rule? Looking for a sugar daddy?”

AHHHHHHHHH!

This one time, when I was about 10 years old, my sister wouldn’t leave me alone so I jumped on my bike and took off at full speed down the hill we lived on. At the bottom of the hill was a sharp turn. I hit gravel, slid, crashed, and skinned up my knee and busted my bike. A neighbor took me home in the back of her truck. When I got home and walked through the door, knee all bloody, my sister ran upstairs and got me a handful of band aides.

After that I quit running away from her.

Sometimes it’s just nice to live in the moment and laugh out loud with your sister. I think it’s therapeutic. And honestly, it really doesn’t matter if you are 10, 30, or 130. Laughter is good for the soul.

Guess the story of the wetness between my thighs can wait another day.

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Loved One(s), Random

All my life my family has teased me that they don’t know where I cam from. I have an older sister and a younger sister who both look like, well, sisters. I, on the other hand, look nothing like them.

This was taken a month ago, on Fathers Day.

My younger sister and I used to stare at ourselves in the mirror trying to find a resemblance. Eyes? No. Mouth? No. Nose? No.

Nothing.

Even still, I don’t particularly look like my parents either. A fact my nephew recently brought to my attention.

“Summer, stand next to grandpa. I need to see if you’re related.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“You just need to stand next to him and I’ll take a picture and my Nintendo DS will say what percentage you are related.”

“This is so not going to end well for me.”

Resemblance: 1%. Unrelated.

“Look Summer. You’re not related!”

“Imagine that.”

“Let’s take your picture with grandma now!”

“Do we have to?”

Resemblance 9%. Unrelated.

If that’s not solid proof right there, I don’t know what is.

Hmm… maybe that’s why my mom is so religious – she is making up for the sins of her youth!

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Loved One(s), Random

The best part of drinking wine with a group of gay men is not their incredible sense of style, their lovable nature, or the witty conversations – although those are all on the list.  No, the very best part of drinking wine with a group of fabulous, cultured gay men is the fact that they completely validate me by having the EXACT SAME FAVORITE movie as me!

A movie that ED thinks is, ahem, dumb.

If the cultured gay community agrees with me that Moulin Rouge is one of the all time best love movies EVER, then obviously you, Mr. ED, are in the wrong.

I’m right, and I win.

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Random

Olé!

Holidays, Random

Creatives work better in a creative environment.

Nobody understands this better than my work. I’ve been working here less than a month and we’ve already had three company parties. One of which was a vegetable carving competition. No set rules per se, just use a fruit or vegetable to create a face, or person or animal.

The results were just too good not to share.

First place winner. Obviously because sex sells.

A sad unicorn.

Mr. Potatohead's inbred relatives.

Orange you glad to see me?

And what did this little medal winner create?

I call her Mrs. Peppersworth. She is an ex-Vegas showgirl afraid to let go of her youth.

Clearly, working at the circus has it’s perks.

My third place prize?

Pink dryer balls. What else?

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Circus life, Random

After months of my sister asking to bang me, I finally caved.

I got banged.

By my sister the hair stylist.

What do you think?

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Random

Over the weekend, along with doing things like drinking wine with the girls, getting my butt kicked in a country-style training session, going to a free Utah JAZZ game (8th row, baby!), being tortured at a piano bar, going up on the perfect powder ski day only to be turned away because the “resort was full” AND doing homework; I dog sat.

It’s like babysitting, only without any poppy diapers. You simply play with them as much as possible, feed them the correct amount and get puppy snuggles all night long.

Dogs have a great way of making people happy.

These two girls put a smile on my face after returning home slightly scarred from more than “off-key” drunks singing Journey, Ice Cube and Garth Brooks at a piano bar.

Now THAT’S saying something!

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Out and About, Random

In my career, there are certain parts to it that I absolutely LOVE. One of which is the ability it affords me to help out non-profit organizations like the Therapy Animals of Utah or TAU.

TAU (previously known as Utah Animal-Assisted Therapy Association or UAATA) is an organization that focuses on the healing power that animals bring to those in need. They take their therapy animals to childrens cancer hospitals, rehab center, hospices, assisted-living centers and so on. The joy that these animals bring (and not just dogs mind you, they have cats, miniature horses and guinea pigs too) is so incredible. There are stories after stories of disturbed patients who hadn’t spoken in years that once they had a non-threatening animal come nuzzle up to them that they began speaking again. Children who have been through traumatic events who start to smile again because a dog licked their face. I’m telling you, it’s heart wrenchingly good stuff here!

I first got involved with TAU about six or seven years ago. A very good client of mine, Beehive Bail Bonds, requested my help to promote a fund raising event, “The Squatters Chasing Tail 5K Fun Run”, that they hold annually. I was a radio sales rep at the time and was able to get a few stations to run commercials promoting the event free of charge.

Since that time, Beehive has continued to be my client and I have continued to promote their event, but in a slightly grander scale. I am proud to say that each year it has grown and if my efforts had something to do with it, I am absolutely thrilled about it.

This year we had an additional fund raising event where we locked a local radio personality, Jay from 107.9 The Mix, in Jail and had to raise $1079 to “bail him out” with all proceeds going to Therapy Animals of Utah.

Our Reno 911 Beehive employee and Jay, our imprisoned DJ

Jay interviewing one of the therapy teams

Little man Tate, the Chinese Crested Hairless therapy dog

Even though I had to be there at 6am, I still forced a smile and answered the phones. Chairty will make you do the damndest things.

I’d like to say that raising the money was simple, but that would be a lie. It took a long time and quite a few donations from radio employees, Beehive employees, myself and my agency to really get the ball rolling.  I fully understand that times are hard and asking people to give up any of their discretionary income is a tough thing to do.

That said, if you do have tons of money and no where to donate it, consider Therapy Animals of Utah.

OR

If you live in Utah and want to participate in the Fun Run, it is this Saturday (11/7/09) at Wheeler Farm. You can walk or run the course and dogs are welcome (of course) on leashes. This will be my first year actually running the course. If you hear a funny weezing sound coming from the bushes, it’s probably just me trying to remember why I thought running would be more fun than walking (seriously though I have been training… which means I’ve gone running like 3 or 4 times. Yeah, I’m totally prepared).

Anyway, you can find more information HERE.

Hope some of you drag your fannies, and your puppies fannies out there. There is food and a raffle drawing too!

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Random, sometimes I get on a soap box

My days are spent not talking.

Let’s examine this a little bit, shall we? I work full time. At work I sit alone in my office and write things for clients like news letters, press releases and marketing plans, I research the latest marketing trends, responding to emails and attend meetings. I then go to school where I listen to teachers lecture and take notes. In the evenings I am reading my text books, studying and doing homework.

Oh the exciting life I lead. It’s an rare night in deed if I can find the time to work out or watch TV.

I spend so much time reading and listening that when I finally do get placed in a situation where I have to use my audible communication skills my words fail me. They just flat out disappear. I have no backspace, cut and paste or delete keys to rely on and I can’t just “Google” what I am looking for. I find myself simply listening to whatever conversation I am in and not really speaking up too much because when I try to contribute or tell a story I simply can not get through it without help. “You know that one thing with the four wheels and you drive it? Yeah, a car! So I was in the car and I was listening to, oh crap, what’s the name of that one band that sings that one song? Remember? We saw them in concert that one time?”

You get the picture. And heaven forbid you ask me my opinion! Because that answer will leave you so lost you will think you have just been talking to mentally challenged person. I swear, it’s still me! I am just out of practice at… talking?

Maybe I just need to get more sleep or take some ginkgo biloba or whatever vitamin makes your brain work more better. I’ve seriously  got to do something though because all this learnin’  and edumacation is making me unsmart.

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Back to School, Bag full of complaints, Random

I took my car to get the oil changed on my lunch break. It’s only about 5,000 miles over due for one, yeah,  I’m a responsible car owner like that. So I am sitting in the little waiting room by myself when another patron walks in to join me. This guy, let’s call him Gus, has had too much coffee, or possibly crack, for breakfast and can not sit still. I’m playing solitaire on my phone to avoid eye contact and the chance of having to engage in conversation while Gus sighs exhas…..

You know what I hate? I hate when I can’t think of the right word. Normally I can’t think of it because it’s a larger word that I don’t use in my everyday vocabulary, but I know it exists because I’ve heard it used before, normally by my father. It’s not so bad when I am writing because I can Google that shit. It is bad when I am having a conversation and end up sounding like a moron. For example, I’ll say, “Gus sighed exhasturbatedly” and then whoever I am talking to will say, “What? He was masterbating?” and I’m all, “NO! You know when you sigh and you blow air out your mouth really hard and it makes your lips bounce off each other? Yeah. What’s that called?” and I then I get BLANK STARES for a good 15 seconds. Then they are all, “you mean he was annoyed?” and I’m all “yeah, that works.”

EXASPERATEDLY!!!!

Yep. That’s a real word and everything.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Gus was… annoyed and/or bored and/or on crack and/or exasperated. Come to think of it, I don’t really like that word anyway…

So Gus decides to throw the rules of waiting room etiquette right out the window. He starts to sing a tune that is only playing in his head. Then when one of the air powered machine thingamabobs starts to click at a metronome pace, Gus starts his own drum solo on the plastic chairs. By this point I am too distracted to even play my mind-numbing game of phone solitaire when the Jiffy Lube employee walks in.

“Summer? We are ready to go over your invoice with you now if you will just follow me to the register.”

THANK GOD! Not a minute too soon. I smile politely at Gus as I make my way out of the waiting room. Gus, being the complete stranger yet cracked out gentleman that he was, did a giant air drum symbol crash and gave me a wink as I left the room. I’m not sure if I should be flattered. I mean he was a pretty decent chair drummer after all and apparently his performance was, in part, for my entertainment too. I think I may have blushed a little.  Really I suppose I should have thanked him for making my lube change an interesting experience.

The world is full of peculiar yet interesting people like Gus – helping to make the drab tasks of day to day life entertaining. I guess our job is to recognize them as such and avoid being put off or irritated by them. Because after all, wouldn’t the world be a boring place without the Gus’ of the world?

Blogfully yours,

Summer

Random, Story Time