Cause for Alarm

Posted on February 1, 2013 by The Sugarlump

This week has been full of surprises. Tuesday evening, I went to ladies’ night at a shooting range and got second place in our bullseye competition. Everybody watch out.

Early the next morning, at approximately 3:00AM, I awoke to tornado sirens. This was the first time I had heard them in person since moving to Tennessee so it took me a minute to figure out what was going on. My weather channel alerts on my phone confirmed that we were under a tornado warning and needed to take cover immediately. I grabbed my phone, the cats, two cushions from the sofa, and my laptop and closed us in the bathroom as I set up a little fort with my cushions in the bathtub. I then decided I needed a flashlight and a bottle of water. Maybe I should have thought through my tornado plan a little bit more. In my defense, it was JANUARY(!) and tornado season doesn’t usually start until spring.

Anyway, as we waited out the very strong winds and tracked the radar on my laptop, the cats could not have been more confused/annoyed. They kept looking at me like I was crazy and tried to dig a hole under the door to get out of the bathroom. Apparently tornado safety does not apply to them.

Thankfully, other than some seriously violent winds, we were alright. There were, however, a few tornadoes within 50 miles of us that damaged several buildings and pulled roofs off of homes.

Less than 48 hours later, the temperature had dropped nearly sixty degrees from the low seventies into the teens and it was snowing.

It’s a beautiful, sunny day here as long as you’re indoors. It’s a whopping 17 degrees at the moment and with the wind chill, it feels like single digits.

There is still snow on most roofs and school was canceled, which I thought this was pretty silly, given that we got about 2 inches of snow. New Englanders wouldn’t bat an eye at that kind of snowfall. But then I discovered that there was still some dangerous ice lurking around as I tried to speed out of the gate at my apartment complex earlier this morning. I spun in place for about 10 seconds until my Jeep finally slid forward, narrowly avoiding the gates as they began to close.

Like the weather, my garbage disposal has been acting backwards this week. The other day, as I ran the water and turned on the disposal, instead of the water easing the food down the drain as the disposal ground it up, all of the food and water spun violently up and out of the drain and onto me and the counter. The maintenance man just found a metal spear approximately the size of a chopstick jammed in the pipes, courtesy of the previous tenant.

It’s been a strange couple of days.

In other (likely related) news, I’m back to drinking coffee, but just a small cup. Hopefully, things will now return to normal.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Shooting Range

Posted on January 11, 2013 by The Sugarlump

I’m really getting into this recreational shooting thing. The other day, I went to an indoor shooting range where we shot 9mm handguns. The guy told me which particular type of gun I was shooting, but I promptly forgot because I don’t know anything about guns except that they are fun to shoot (safely).

I did, however, remember what I learned in class before we went out to the range:

1) Always keep the gun pointed towards the target in the range (and away from living beings).

2) Don’t load the gun until you’re ready to shoot.

3) Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

Once we got out into the range, we had to select a target. We had our choice of pink or blue. Naturally, I chose hot pink to make up for my tomboy years in middle school when I shopped exclusively in the boys’ department at the GAP and refused to acknowledge that pink existed. The man running the place said the pink was actually easier to see. I think he just wanted to see a bunch of guys shooting at hot pink targets.

I had never shot a handgun before so I needed a lot of prep on what the heck I was doing. I finally got the gist of it but the gun kept jamming because I didn’t keep a firm enough grip on it after I pulled the trigger. Towards the end, I had a death grip on that gun. I was holding it so tight that my ring made a serious impression in my finger.

The hardest part was not wobbling with my breath. Thank goodness I wasn’t hopped up on caffeine or I would have had no hope for hitting the target.

Turns out, I hit the target pretty well for a newbie. I never got the X, but I got pretty darn close 49 times.

I was so proud that I hung my target on the refrigerator. Even grown-ups can display their accomplishments on the fridge. I can’t wait to see the look on the cable guy’s face tomorrow when he comes to fix my cable (that has been broken since NEW YEAR’s EVE!).

I was pretty pleased with myself.

A few more rounds and I would have blown this guy’s (girl’s?) heart to smithereens.

I’m glad I tried the handgun indoors thing, but I think I prefer rifles. I like being outside and having more distant targets. Too bad I live in an apartment complex with 0 yard. I need to make a trip back to Kentucky to go shoot on the farm.

Now, on to my next task with the slightly more difficult moving target: skeet shooting.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Inherited Mischief

Posted on January 7, 2013 by The Sugarlump

I’ve recently taken an interest in target shooting. Most people who know me find this surprising/troubling. Not to worry, you skeptics, I only care to shoot inanimate objects.

Uncle Santa gave me, my sister and cousins each a box of shells and some targets for Christmas. I think it’s one of my favorite gifts ever. Maybe next year I’ll ask for a gun. Watch out.

I was so excited to go out shooting the day after Christmas, but the weather was most uncooperative. A nice rotation of rain/sleet/snow carried on all day so my box of shells is still unopened.

Christmas night, as we were discussing our plans for the following day, Granny shared with us that she didn’t want her girls shooting guns. My dad called her out on this immediately because she shot guns all the time growing up. She said that didn’t matter; she still didn’t want us shooting guns. My dad overruled her on a count of hypocrisy.

All four of us are also adults and can shoot a gun even if our Granny doesn’t want us to, but we didn’t dare bring that up. We are and always will be her “babies” even though we’re no longer 2, 3, 5 and 7 like she thinks we are.

It’s no secret that my Granny was somewhat of a mischievous child. Shooting guns was just the beginning. We asked Granny to tell us some stories that night and it wasn’t long before we were all laughing so hard it hurt. There were some really good ones that involved playing hooky.

We asked Granny what she did when she skipped school one day for an entire day.

Granny: “Well, we had never seen a trial.”

Family in unison: “You skipped school to go to the courthouse?!?!”

Granny: “Yes, and we sat there all day and there wasn’t even a trial so we just went back to school.”

After we all died laughing, we just sat there for a few minutes processing Granny’s rather unusual item on her bucket list that warranted skipping school.

The next story was even better.

One day in high school, several couples who were “courting” decided to leave school without permission.

Granny said, “Now, our principle was a mean old man and he stuttered. “

Upon being caught, the couples were ordered back to school. They walked down the hall, past the principle, who had a habit of pulling up his britches when he was mad.

Granny stood up and hiked up her pants in the front using her forearms, imitating the principle.

We all just about lost it and waited for the punchline with the stutter.

Granny said, “He was so mad, he didn’t say a word.”

We all sat there for a minute and then questioned Granny as to what the fact that he stuttered had to do with the story if he never even said anything.

She just wanted us to know that about him, evidently.

That made us laugh even harder.

Granny always calls us the craziest bunch of young’ins. I wonder where we got that from.

Y’all mind your Grannies,

Sugarlump

Leopard Shoes and a 22

Posted on November 25, 2012 by The Sugarlump

I discovered something about myself on Thanksgiving this year and surprisingly it has nothing to do with food.

It has to do with weaponry.

I like to shoot guns.

But only at inanimate targets.

Don’t worry, I didn’t shoot a turkey.

I don’t even like turkey that much.

I’m more of a side dish kind of girl…

…Who likes to shoot guns.

I’m not really sure how we got on the topic, but I asked Uncle Brian if there were any guns I could shoot for fun. After our noon Thanksgiving meal, he came back with a 22 rifle. We piled into Papa’s truck and headed to one of the farms to do some damage.

Figuratively speaking, anyway.

When we got to the farm, my dad set up a very sophisticated 100ft target: a bucket on a stick.

We like to keep things simple in my family.

My cousins Lauren and Kristen shot first as I had not a clue what I was doing and thought I would benefit from watching them shoot a few rounds.

When it was my turn, I picked up the rifle, spent about 5 minutes trying to get my grip/stance/hair (joke) just right and then slowly pulled the trigger.

Click.

There were no shells left in the rifle.

Man, was that anti-climactic.

Uncle Brian reloaded the gun and I took a couple of shots. In all of the shots we took, the bucket never moved. We went to check it out and discovered several holes in the bucket (dear Liza, dear Liza), but the mystery remains who actually hit the target.

I asked for a different target that I could actually tell if I hit so my dad set up a small, empty water bottle. Having had some trouble getting comfortable shooting with my right hand given that my left eye is dominant, I decided to test out shooting lefty even though I’m right-handed.

Please take note of my highly appropriate attire for this activity.

I set up the shot amidst a cloud of skepticism from my family.

I pulled the trigger and wouldn’t you know I hit that dang bottle on my first lefty shot?

Here’s my trophy shot. The bullet hole was right smack in the middle of the bottle. I nailed that sucker.

Cousin Lauren nailed another sucker.

We set up some more targets and I managed to continue with a decent success rate shooting lefty.

That was fun.

Watch out. I’m armed and dangerous and fabulous now.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump