They say the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem.

My name is “Sandy” and I’m a cheese-a-holic…

I tell my husband not to bring cheese into the house. I just can’t stay away from it; it’s my one addiction. When I see the words, “aged Vermont extra sharp cheddar” I begin to get heart palpitations.

Have you ever heard those women that say, “When I eat a piece of cake it goes right to my ass”? Well, when I gnaw on my cheese one of the side effects that I’ve noticed is “back fat”, really nice, huh! Why don’t they list that on the label, that’s what I want to know.

I was listening to Rosie O’Donnell in the car on the way home from work. All right so maybe it was after my friend and I went to happy hour, either way I was listening to Rosie, don’t hassle me about the “minor details”.

She was talking about when she first started doing standup and kind of put her foot in her mouth. She was trying to make a joke about a guy and his crutches, but when the guy stood up he was missing a leg. Not so funny then. This made me think of a funny incident that happened to me when I was about 19 or 20 years old. I’m sure my mother and also my biggest “blog fan” is reading this and laughing or will be soon when she recollects this amusing “predicament” I found myself in. One in a long string, I’m afraid.

I was going out on a date with a gentleman, lets say for shits and giggles his name was Berbie Benzil. I laugh as I write this because my family will know who this is; just substitute the B’s for H’s.

He picked me up at the house, met the folks and we proceeded to go out on our date.

The next morning at breakfast, my father, never being one to mince his words says, “Was that guy missing fingers”. Annoyed I said, “What the hell are you talking about Dad”. “When I shook his hand it felt like he was missing fingers”. At this point I had to walk out of the room.

Fast forward, it’s the next night or at least I hope it is or I’m really “stupid”. Don’t answer that! So, we are sitting in a booth at a local bar, he has his arm across the back of the booth.

All right, get ready, here it comes. I say in a sort of disgusted voice, “you wouldn’t believe what my father said to me this morning”. He looks at me with a questioning look as I continue to speak. “He said he thought you were missing fingers when he shook your hand”. I’m kind of laughing now at what my stupid father said, what an idiot I think.

You know where this story is going. The guy holds up his arm and of course he’s missing two fingers, how could he not be, right? Talk about “open mouth, insert foot”. God, I wanted to die on the spot.

I recall the next morning telling my folks over breakfast. They were like, “Oh no you didn’t”. Needless to say, we laughed our heads off. And before you wonder how could I have not noticed this affliction. He would always keep his hand in his front pocket with a few fingers sticking out. How was I to know it was all his fingers!

Writing this makes me think of so many other funny “predicaments” I’ve gotten myself into.

Do you want more?

My husband is pretty good about getting regular checkups from the doctor. He had a colonoscopy scheduled for today and while he was under anesthesia the doctor was going to look down his throat to check out something that’s been bothering him. Me, being the jokester that I am sent him the following text message from my phone, “please remind the doctor to use a clean instrument when he goes down your throat, because there is nothing worse than having your breath smell like ass”!

Sorry I haven’t blogged anything lately, my spell check took a vacation on my word program. I am now up and running again. Lets see, what interesting, amusing or embarrassing situations happened in the last ten days.

I was washing my face before bed one night last week and as I studied my face in the mirror I thought, “Where the hell have my eyelids gone”. I think they were there a couple of weeks ago, weren’t they?

My father, rest his soul had some funny “predicaments” occur in his lifetime. Sometimes I feel like I’m a bit like him, just kind of “bumbling” through life.

Before, I tell this story I must say that although my father was not born in a turnip patch, he wasn’t exactly “worldly”. He was a simple man.

My cousin Peter was having a small stag party and my father was part of their posse. After their dinner my Dad wanted a beer so they ventured into the bar next door. It didn’t take long to discover that this bar was in fact a strip club. I can totally see my Dad trying to act like he’s “down with that” but he was so out of his comfort zone. There were the “dirty girls” as my Mom calls them doing their “dirty dancing” on the bar. It’s a wonder we girls were ever conceived.

At this point in recounting the story my Uncle Paul is laughing so hard he can barely speak. My Dad is also smiling as we’re begging… “Then what happened”?

A rough looking “stripper” scantily clad with three-inch stiletto heels sashays over towards my Dad and asks him, “Would you like a lap dance”. When I tell you what his response is you’ll understand why I said he wasn’t experienced in the “ways of the world”, hence the turnip patch analogy.

His response was, “no thank you, I have bad legs and my feet hurt”. The girl just gave him a baffled look like, “are you kidding”, and stumbled away in her rickety ass shoes. The funniest thing is he really thought she just wanted to dance. Uncle Paul laughed so hard his drink shot out of his nose. What can I say; we Hallenbeck’s are “cheap entertainment”.

It’s Mother’s Day but for some reason my mind is drifting back to so many memories of my Dad. I’m missing him so much today. I don’t know how much I believe in the afterlife, or if we ever get to see our loved ones again, but I guess I have the hope of it. I do believe that my parents are both a part of me and that they made me the stable, grounded, always seeing the glass half full kind of person. I am truly a fortunate soul. Thanks Mom and Dad for making me the person I am today and for supporting me in any and every endevour I have tried. I am truly blessed.

Sometimes I will admit that I’m electronically challenged with all the new gadgets out there. My husband always says that women shouldn’t touch anything with buttons; in my case there is a lot of truth to that. I just get confused, what can I say. There are so many times that Dale will come home and I’ll say, “I don’t know what happened but the tv, phone, computer, anthing that plugs in just stopped working”. And his response always is, “what did you do”. “ I didn’t do anything”, I’ll say. But in truth I always do. I like to try to fix things but I don’t usually know what I’m doing. That’s one of my “cute qualities”, isn’t it? He doesn’t think so! Come on… its adorable.

Anyway, I rented my first movie from Redbox two days ago. I was a bit apprehensive as I looked at the screen but it was pretty easy. I choose my movie and proceeded to drive home. We rented Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey; don’t waste your time, “total snore fest”. I thought wow, this Redbox is pretty easy, only $1.00, what a deal.

It wasn’t until it was time to return the movie that I remembered why I hate renting movies. I can’t stand having to return them. Allright, so the best part of this story is coming up now.

“I’ll be right back, I’m just going to return the movie”, I say. So I drive down to Walgreens where I rented it. I’m feeling a bit aprehensive, again, because it is the first time I’ve returned a movie at Redbox and they have that touch screen where I’m going to have to answer all “those questions”. I’m thinking, “am I going to have to slide my card in again”, “how will they know its me returning the movie”. I take a deep breath as I look at the screen. Printed largely it says, “Return Movie”. That seems easy enough. I tap my finger there and a picture shows up of how to insert the DVD into the slot. There is an arrow showing which direction, that seems easy enough. I proceed to insert my DVD. I wait a minute and my movie pops back out, “what the hell”. I look at the screen; again I follow the instructions and out pops my movie, again! I do this like four times. Then I’m just standing there, thinking, shit, what do I do now. I hear Dale’s words in my ear, “women shouldn’t be allowed to touch anything with buttons”. Amen to that brother I think.

Then a car pulls up and a guy about my age gets out with a young son. They are heading towards the Redbox to get a movie. “Have you ever rented a movie here, it’s my first time”, I say. “For some reason it won’t let me return my movie”, I say. He reaches out his hand and takes my movie. He turns over the DVD and there is a huge arrow that instructs any “moron” that this is the direction of how the DVD is returned. He slides it in with a smug look on his face. I know what he was thinking, the same thought my husband has. Well I was so embarressed; I could feel the heat rising to my face. I looked at the ground and mumbled “thanks” and slinked away to my car. Why do I even leave the house, I thought.

Dale’s response when I got home was, “why didn’t you just look at the backside of the DVD”. I don’t know was all I could say, that would have been too easy. “I guess you better go turn your computer on, you’ve got a blog to write”, he says.

Have I always been such a ditzy blonde, its kind of cute, right?

I was listening to Rosie O’Donnel on sirius satellite yesterday. I know many people find her a bit “abrasive”, but when she is not ranting and raving I do find her very entertaining and quite amusing. Well, anyway she was interviewing Melissa Ethridge who’s music I really love. There was a guy who called in, lets just say he was very “feminine and highly emotional”. He was crazy for Melissa, almost bordering on “lunatic”. He was saying that when he was feeling really down that Melissa’s music just made him so happy and brought him out of his “funk”.

It was what Melissa said that I thought was really awesome. I tried to find the interview online so I could put down what she said exactly, but it was something along this line. “You’re supposed to feel good and happy with life, when you find something that brings you joy, you need to embrace it and bring it into your life. And when you surround yourself with these types of things, eventually you feel happy all the time, and isn’t that what life is really all about”.

I don’t know, her words just kind of hit me. It’s just that simple.