I’ve been busy creating! Most of life has a funny side and I make a point of finding it. I especially love finding humor in the struggles. So here are a few of my latest humor memes.
And here’s one I did for my Life Beyond Surviving blog:
I’ve been busy creating! Most of life has a funny side and I make a point of finding it. I especially love finding humor in the struggles. So here are a few of my latest humor memes.
And here’s one I did for my Life Beyond Surviving blog:
Over the last month, Facebook has demanded that I prove I’m me in order to allow me to continue to post on my For the Love of Purple Facebook fan page I’ve had for almost 10 years.
I have almost 9300 fans over there who miss my purple posts. In fact, the number went up by almost 300 since I’ve not been able to post!
I’ve written the entire story out over on my For the Love of Purple blog site so you can click over on the above link to read the entire ridiculous story.
Meanwhile, I thought I’d just talk a bit about how ludicrous is it to have to prove I’m me. First off, I’m a 56 year old, chubby, post-menopausal, tiny woman with Fibro and Essential Tremors. Who else would WANT to be me?!
The purple Facebook fan page in question doesn’t talk about anything of a political nature so I’d have no influence of any value or threat to Facebook. The way they’re clamping down on several of the large purple fan pages over there, you’d think purple people were taking over the world!
Wait! Are we?
I may not be able to prove I’m me on Facebook, but here at home, my husband and son recognize me. Maybe someday Facebook will too. Anyway, I’ll keep you posted.
Believe it or not, the reason I ask is that I have two! The longer I live, the more I realize just how complicated life has become to the point where we are regularly asked questions I never in my wildest dreams would consider having to answer when I was young…you know, last century.
The most recent bizarre question I was asked was by a TSA agent in San Francisco. It erupted into an entire story of its own which I have recounted for you in all its hilarity here.
As odd as “What’s in your bra?” was, there is another even more bewildering question I was asked way back when my husband and I were merely dating, about 35 years ago, and here is that story.
My (then) boyfriend, his sister, and I decided to take a day trip from Southern California to Baja Mexico. Coming back across the border, we got stopped by Border Patrol. They asked to see our “papers” so Rich gave his green card, his sister handed him her California birth certificate, and I handed him my Colorado birth certificate.
Rich and his sister were asked some questions in English. They answered and then, turning to me, he switched to Spanish. After taking 2.5 years of high school Spanish, my understanding was minimal and all I could say was, “Donde esta’ el bano?” which does come in handy, but wasn’t helpful at the time.
I tried to tell him that I didn’t understand so he asked in English, “Where are your loyalties?” Where are my LOYALTIES?! What was that supposed to mean? I guess the look on my face resembled a cross between clueless and suspect because he began asking me in a decidedly more authoritative tone of voice. My husband muttered under his breath, “Say United States! Say United States!!”
“United States,” I said in vague bewilderment, at which point, I began to be questioned about my Colorado birth certificate. They were convinced it was forged. I’m the only person in the car NOT of Hispanic heritage and I’M the one they suspect?!
You see, back in the olden days…last century…Colorado birth certificates were black with white lettering. And the white lettering wasn’t the crisp clean lines you see today. I guess technology wasn’t that good back when I was born. It was all I could do to convince them that it was, indeed, my real birth certificate and I wasn’t feigning ignorance, I really WASN’T fluent in Spanish and my birth certificate, though odd by modern standards, was not doctored.
Where are your loyalties? I’m partial to purple myself!
Just a quick note to let you know that I’ll be taking some time off from my blogs and newsletter for the next several months while I concentrate on my health and a project my husband and I are working on together.
I recently added a few new diagnoses to the growing list. Last year I was diagnosed with Essential Tremors and just recently with an esophageal issue. It’s going to take me some time to find some treatments that can help, especially since my fibro has kicked up another notch.
I’ve been busy creating memes for my clients and my social media platforms, but I did create a few new JoJoisms this past month. Here they are in no particular order.
I created these three slightly differently. Which one is your favorite?
A Facebook friend of mine asked everyone to post how old they were. I, of course, was a bit creative with my answer and it sparked this JoJoism:
It occurred to me that there is always a silver lining. After my parathyroid surgery, the doctor actually told me to eat more ice cream. I can’t say this has been a difficult pill to swallow…
And that’s about all the new JoJoisms this month. I’ll be back next month with either funny story about my life or more JoJoisms because of funny stories about my life. Either way, as Arnold says, I’ll be back!
Apparently, a 56-year-old, 5′ nuthin’ woman with Fibro and Essential Tremors is a threat to national security! But don’t worry…TSA THOROUGHLY investigated me. Don’t you all feel safer now?!
Out of hundreds of would-be passengers in the San Fransisco TSA line, they singled ME out. After having taken my shoes and sweater off, put my purse in a bin and my iPad in a separate bin (cuz iPads apparently don’t work and play well with others!), AND going through the auto scanner thingie (on which, the 6′ 7″ tall agent didn’t have the capacity to understand why both of my feet couldn’t reach the outer edges of the foot stickers), I was directed to the second tier TSA agent with the attitude of Atilla the Hun and no desire to explain herself.
“What’s in your bra?” she asked. At this point, I’m both reflecting on the Capital One commercials and wondering what on earth women carry in THEIR bras these days! I said, “Just ME!”
She continued, “I need to know WHAT is in your bra.” I told her I didn’t understand the question. There’s only me in here. “What’s in your bra?” Then, I had an epiphany. Thinking the scanner picked up the underwire in my bra, I asked if that was what she was referring to. Unfortunately, Attila the Fun wasn’t in an explaining mood and continued asking… “What’s in your bra?!” Finally, I said, “There isn’t anything in my bra but ME!” I didn’t stuff a quiche in there! Good Lord what do women put in there?!
Then she asked if I want to be patted down in a private place where no one can see. Well, just as long as you keep the rest of my clothes on, I’m fine! So, she proceeded to “pat” me down everywhere but the bottoms of my feet. Little did she know I had a fuzzy on the inside of my sock that I managed to smuggle onto the plane!
And, by the way, they really should rename that procedure. It’s NOT a pat. They PUSH you as they feel for that quiche! And each “pat” gets harder until you eventually almost fall over, which is the signal of a job well done to their coworkers!
Just in case you think you’re done…they send you to the NEXT TSA Tier Level. That’s where they “swab your hands for explosives.” I wear children’s size gloves. My hands can’t hide explosives! They must have meant explosive residue.
* SIDE NOTE: I’m apparently mildly allergic to whatever that stuff is. My hands turned red and started tingling almost like a light stinging feeling. But they can’t tell me what it is or they’d have to kill me so I guess I’ll never know.
At this point, I’m wondering what kind of an idiot bomber would go through a TSA line KNOWING she had explosives in her bra and didn’t wash her hands?! But I digress.
After all of that, I was then free to try to find my belongings which had already been sitting there for five minutes with a “Take Me; I’m Yours” sign on them! I put my shoes back on and grabbed my iPad, sweater, and purse only to find my son and husband still hadn’t finished getting dressed. They had to take EVERYTHING out of their pockets and were holding their pants up with one hand while holding their stuff in the other and trying to put their belts back on. During that time another TSA agent, whose job it was to stand watch over the empty bins bunching up as they fall off the conveyer belt and scream, “PUT YOUR BINS BACK!,” looked on disapprovingly.
My only revenge is that my killer fuzzy had been successfully deployed. Somewhere someone has it attached to the bottom of their shoe and I’m currently picking up surveillance footage!
2018 wasn’t the year I thought it would be. I thought my husband would have a permanent job by now. I thought I had handled my insomnia, my Fibro, was done with surgeries, and wouldn’t have anything new until I was old. Well, oldER. But I was wrong.
Have you ever had so many weirdly not fun things happen at once that all you could do was laugh? Well, I did this year and I found it does help to just laugh so I created the following memes that not only helped me, but I pray will help you too to see the humor in just about anything.
My purple pen has turned to things punny as I have redesigned my entire Grape Stuff website. So this month I thought I’d bring to you the “grape” puns that now appear as sections of my website because there are some GRAPE things over there now…Pun intended. Here we go!
So the main page is, of course, called Grape Stuff.
The blog is called Grape Times.
The testimonials page is called…Grape Job!
Our contact page is called…Grape Vine.
Our email list is called…Grape News!
The About Us page that shares how the site began is aptly called…Grape Seeds!
The Frequently Asked Questions page is called…Grape Ideas.
And our new YouTube channel is….
Drumroll Please…
The Grape News Network hosted by news anchor Connie Plumb!
That’s all the pun that’s fit to print. I’ll bring you more of my writing as I write it. Until then…
Have a GRAPE Day!
I can’t believe it’s October 2018 already! Wasn’t it just June…1997? You know you’re getting older when the decades fly by. But seriously, life has changed a whole bunch since I began this blog and since I began writing JoJoisms so many years ago.
Now that I’m in my mid..ok, later, 50s, I find my attention turning to things of a more eternal nature. In talking with a friend about chronic illness and the physical results of living past your mid-20s, we found ourselves laughing about the things doctors ask you.
“Are you depressed?”
“Do you find yourself thinking about death?”
“Do you feel you’d be better off if you died?”
That last one had us pondering a bit. As a Christian, why, yes. Yes, we DO believe we’d be better off if we died. It’s a no-brainer. Would I prefer to meet the struggles of everyday life in a fallen world where we need to feel the aches and pains of getting older, the fatigue, the stress of making a living, the struggle that comes from strife and misery in the world? Or would we rather be with God, in heaven, in eternal peace?
Hmmm…
While I would much prefer to be with Jesus, I won’t be shortening my stay here on Earth to get there quicker. LOL But it did make me think about how you answer questions such as these when you get to the age when your doctor is required to ask. 😀