Monday, October 31, 2005

final weekend observation

I need to add one more observation from my weekend, which occurred after my last post.

- can there be a "worst" place from which to observe your cat projectile vomit the canned fish/rice catfood she just ingested, from your bathroom sink to the bathmat below?
- yes. i truly believe the worst place from which to observe such a thing is from your position of relaxation in your just-drawn, just LUSH-d, candlelit bath.

that is all.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

thinking

so as I've been surfing/watching tv tonight, I have been getting increasingly annoyed when I check my favorite blogs repeatedly and they HAVEN'T UPDATED, HOW DARE THEY??? Then it occurred to me that I haven't either. Oh. Yeah. So rather than continue to feel hypocritical, I thought i'd write something, even if it's not riveting or entertaining.

So. My observations from the weekend, perhaps? Hey, it's something.

- candy corn is only good for the first 5 minutes, then it just makes you sick.
- there is such thing as "too much pizza"
- and "too much sleep"
- I still have that cold from two weeks ago, the one I was all proud of kicking with Zicam; so i'm back on the zicam, even though logically it doesn't make sense since it didn't technically work the first time...
- I LOVE Grey's Anatomy. It is officially my favorite show this season, over Nip/Tuck, ER, everything.

That's about it. Although this weekend wasn't a complete bust; Friday night I had a visit from BT, wherein we made out like bandits and ate pizza and watched the last half of the third Excorist movie, which sucked (the movie. the movie sucked.). And as Babs said, that's better than my typical Friday night...heh. Then last night I went to dinner with the Alaska gang, then we went **bowling** -- which, two times in a week? I think I'm done for another 10 years or so! Oh so here's my final weekend observation:

- the minute you begin to think you don't suck at bowling is the minute you begin rolling gutter balls.

Hmm.

Friday, October 28, 2005

On patheticism...

(I don't care if it's a word - it works here)

How sad is it, really, that two days after bowling for all of two hours, my body is sore in weird places?

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

What's in a name?

Today I only have time for a silly blog post, but it'll have to do. I was pondering my sizable gray cat this morning as he tripped me in the kitchen on my way out. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that his name is Jess, and he is the "Jessie" to my "girl". So as I cursed him, it started me thinking of all the different names I call him, and wondered, is this normal? or does everyone give their pets different "pet names"? (get it? get it? oh, wait... is that where that came from?)

Anyway, I have called, or others have called, Jess all of these things at some point in his 9 years of Jess-ness. Some are obvious, some...not so much.
Obvious::
-Jess
-Jessie
-Jesstifer
-Jessito
-Jester

Not so much:
-RatCat
-Rodent
-Whiskerfish
-Violin face
-My handsome
-Buster Gray
-Pumpkin spice
-Little gray man
-My boyfriend

Piper can also be Peeps, Peeper, Peeper-leeper, Pretty girl, Silly girl or Scaredy-cat. Meggie is also Megs, Meggers, Megster, Meggie-Lee, Megorama, Gorgeous girl, The Good Cat or Geriatric cat.

And of course, any of them can be Dammit, MOVE!, STOP!, Knock it off!, GET DOWN NOW or SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssssssss.

Entertaining, no? If you're not asleep yet, feel free to share some of your pet names...

Sunday, October 23, 2005

In blows hope

It's another lazy Sunday for me -- generally my favorite kind. But my Sundays are also tinged with guilt, because by Sunday afternoon I always feel like a loser for not accomplishing what I wanted to for the weekend. Usually household chores. We already spoke about my love for those.

So I awoke from my Sunday afternoon nap, stretched, and let the guilt set in. Then I noticed something -- the curtains were all blowing crazy-like in my kitchen and living room -- in front of the windows I'd opened... wait... I vaguely remember something about a cold front... on Sunday... wait, it's Sunday ... sqeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I jumped up and pranced through the kitchen to my back patio, and stepped outside into the glorious wind. Then promptly got hit in the face with my hanging chair that was blowing every which way, but I didn't even care. I did a Titanic Dipu and thrilled in the cool breeze, watching the trees sway and listening to the [broken] windchimes [not] chime ... three sets of feline eyes watched cautiously from the kitchen table, as their usually sluggish FoodSource was OUTSIDE, and this was a sight to behold. They were afraid. Very afraid.

I stood out there, arms outstretched, until I got cold. Which was probably under a minute, in fact I'm sure of it. But in that precious 60 seconds, I felt a tiny sprig of joy and hope spring up in my heart. Like it does every fall, at the first real cold front. I love cold weather, people, and no I don't fully understand why i'm still in Texas but that's another topic. The cool weather brings with it my happiest memories, of playing in the snow in Kansas; sledding down Snake Hill (and into a pile of rocks -- again, another post); high school football games snuggled up next to my HS sweetheart; making out down at the rec center wearing his jacket; summers in Colorado at Spring Canyon (ok, that's not officially fall, but the cool weather still counts); and on and on and on. The annual Thanksgiving Parade in Comfort, snuggled under a blanket on my sister's MIL's front porch, holding the youngest nephew in my lap. Breaking out the sweaters. The cool weather brings me to my happy place, I suppose you could say. While the hot weather that exists the other 10 months of the year here sucks it all out of me. Another post.

I stepped back inside, hair wild, eyes bright, toes cold, and confronted my feline audience:
Good times are on the way, my kitties. I think I'll give you canned catfood for dinner in celebration of fall.


And they rejoiced.

Here I sit now, typing a blog, upright for the longest period so far today, planning out how i'm now going to go clean the kitchen and perhaps even do laundry. Or...vacuum. The possibilities. They are endless. I must seize this hopeful burst of energy before it warms back up to 90 later this week.

...and good times were had by all.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

A lesson for young girls; or, the jade-ification of a divorcee

One of the first things my mother taught me about boys was this:

If you ignore a boy, he’ll like you.

I am 35 years old, divorced for 8 years, and childless. Obviously I’ve done something “wrong", but it wasn’t until recently that I realized what it was. If I had just followed the simple guidelines laid out for me when I was 7, who knows where I’d be now—or with whom.

As a young girl, I thought my mother was insane. I found it impossible to ignore a boy I really liked. This was counter intuitive – why on EARTH would I want the boy to think I Didn’t like him when I DID?? If I wanted nothing more than for him to pay attention to me, shouldn’t I then strive to capture his attention? Doesn’t it make sense that I should let him know how I feel, so the pressure is off him and he can adore me out in the open?

WRONG.

I can safely say now, that after much, MUCH, trial and error, that is not the case. NEVER admit you like a boy until he has already put it all out there and proven himself vulnerable and smitten. You will not get what you want by throwing yourself at him, by being so obviously available. You must act aloof. You must get up afterwards and go home. You must not always answer the phone when he calls. I hate to say this, but you must “fib” sometimes about what your plans are. He mustn’t know you will clear your calendar at the mere suggestion of the possibility of seeing you “later”.

If he does make this empty promise, then, for the love of God, don’t try and pin him down. If he says, “maybe I’ll see you later” do NOT, under any circumstances, ask, “when?” If you try and pin him down, the boy will not call. If you say “whatever” and go about your business, 9 times out of 10 he will. And when you get this call, act blasé. Do not act excited, or under any circumstances, relieved. Oh, and DO NOT CALL HIM if you don’t hear from him. And to carry this a step further: if you don’t hear from him, resist the almost unbearable urge to email him the next morning and casually ask why he didn’t call. This is a complete turnoff to boys. Boys are, I’ve found, counter intuitive.

If you do get a reply to an email you should not have sent, do NOT reply to his reply unless he has left it open ended. If the email goes like this:

I was out late last night and really tired when I got home.

Don’t reply. However, if the email goes like this:

I was out late last night and really tired when I got home. How was your evening?

Then reply, but be equally vague. Resist the urge to detail your entire evening in several paragraphs of scintillating, witty prose, hoping he will read your words and realize just how precious and funny and perfect-for-him you are. Just don’t do it.

Let me back up right here and state the obvious: Yes, this is stupid. It is stupid that boys are wired so backwards that they respond to these little reindeer games. But in my VAST experience, it is true. The more you act like you don’t want him, the more he will want you. Just trust me on this one.

And why should you trust me, you wonder? After all, I’m divorced. And single. Yes, true. But. I have honed this art during my 5-year involvement with a certain BT, and practice makes perfect. So if the “right” guy ever comes along? I’m so set.

Um, yeah. I’ll keep you posted.


p.s. while my mother was right about this one, the sticks and stones one? NOT TRUE. But that's a whole other post...

Monday, October 17, 2005

House cons

I would say that at best, I'm a reluctant homeowner. By that I mean that yes, I "own" a home, and I know how fortunate I am to have accomplished this. I also enjoy the tax break I get every year, as well as the "no pet deposit" part. But so many other things about it? Annoying.

For example, maintenance. I H.A.T.E. having to deal with things when they break. Usually, in fact, unless there's water spewing everywhere a la Storyteller, I just don't deal with it until there IS water spewing everywhere. This drives my father insane. He doesn't understand why my garage door has been broken for more than a year now. And I'm like, it works if I press it down real hard, with continuous pressure, and recite The Lord's Prayer backwards in Arabic, so like, why would I bother to take off work and PAY someone to come fix it when it WORKS? Sheesh. So what if it only closes from inside the garage, so after backing out I have to run inside, close it, and come out the front door? This perplexes my dad even further because BY GOD, WHAT IF SOMEONE STOLE MY CAR in the two seconds it takes me to go around and come back out??? (my general response: Dad, I don't live in S.A. Things are different here…).

I also H.A.T.E. maintaining my lawn. I know I've moaned about that on here before, and I do pay someone to take care of it, but I still have to orchestrate THAT. And the really annoying thing about it is that I personally don't care b/c I don't go outside. But if I let it go at all, my HOA starts leaving me nasty notes and threatening to have their OWN PEOPLE come do my lawn and charging me for it. I'm like, is that actually your idea of a threat?? Bring it on! That works for me! Right now I'm trying to ignore a flier my lawn guy left on my doorknob this weekend that says, "Call me, Lisa". I can't ignore it forever, b/c he used my name and all. I wasn't even sure he KNEW my name. Well, I guess I do sign the checks I leave for him under the doormat. (yes, Dad, I leave a CHECK under the DOORMAT :O). I'm sure he wants me to call him so he can berate me again for never watering (it's WINTER, it's turning to straw anyway, geez) or to inquire again about when I'll let him fill the empty tree pit in my backyard. And people, there is just never a good time to fork over several hundred dollars to have a HOLE filled, am I right? Coming up is the holidays, which means presents and plane tickets; there's my recent shoe spree; and gosh, I'd rather pay to have the garage door fixed than fill a HOLE in my backyard. I mean, REALLY.

These are reasons I have seriously considered moving back into an apartment when I sell the house. Besides the flexibility and location advantages, I would no longer have to think about the yard or even a backed-up drain. NOT MY PROBLEM! Disadvantages: pet deposits; no tax break; noise. I do like being separate from my neighbors so I rarely, if ever, hear signs of life on either side of my house.

This is a home maintenance rant, I suppose. In which case, I guess I'm finished. Mainly I was just putting off the call to my lawn guy for a few more minutes… thanks for that.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

The Boyz

At last, pics from my weekend in Denver! Behold the nephews...


#2


#2


#1


#1


#3

I know. MUFFINS. All of them. Cuteness runs in the family, y'know.

Ick update

More than halfway through the workday and still holding steady at feeling like minimal shit. In other words, it could be a LOT worse, granted I'd still rather be in bed right now. Here is what has transpired since my last entry:

1. Slept sitting up til 6am.
2. Awoke with a massive, throbbing headache.
3. Self medicated and slept til 8am. Sitting up. Surrounded by cat.
4. Took another dose of Zicam.
5. Got to work almost on time.
6. Workworkwork.
7. Another dose of Zicam.
8. Ingested "Airborne", this mega mixture of vitamins and amino acids designed to kick a cold in the ass.
9. Vegetated and pondered the mega vitamin I just ingested. Imagined I could feel the cold getting its ass kicked.
10. Blogged about it.

Any sympathy you want to send my way is still much appreciated.

I dreamed disturbing dreams last night, including my recurring college dream: the one where I am here and now in my life, but am hiding a secret that I never **quite** finished college, that I need to go back and finish one more class to get my degree. This stress dream entails having to quit my job and go back to school for a semester, including trying to find a cheap apt. to hold all the crap and kitties I've accumulated since I was in college, for no money, since I'm no longer working. On especially special occasions, like while on cold meds, I even throw in a couple of old roommates to complete the nightmare.

I can't wait to get home and nap; perhaps that crappy history prof will make an appearance...oh, goody!

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Return to the Sea of Ick

Warning: I am medicated and this might be ever so slightly incoherent. You have been warned.

I mentioned this morning that I had the beginnings of a cold. Well once the high from my chicken biscuit wore off, by lunchtime my head was starting to feel really cloudy. Finally I surrendered and made a pharmacy run to stock up on cold remedies. Um, yeah. I spent almost $30. Overkill, anyone? But at least I felt i was fighting the cold and not just succumbing to the misery... and I really think the Zicam stuff (which claims to cut your cold time in half) cleared up my brain so I could actually function for the full work day.

But. By the time I got home this evening I could no longer hold it together, so i crawled into bed and slept for a couple of hours. I hate how having a cold, or any kind of upper respiratory condition, screws with your sleep. Because people? I am a notoriously GOOD sleeper. I can sleep anytime, anywhere. But tonight I slept from 8:30 - 10:30, then got up and forced myself to take a shower -- which helps, but only temporarily. Now I've been back in bed for over an hour and I'm wide awake. DAMMIT.

So instead of using this time to do something productive, i'm instead writing my third blog entry of the day. i guess you could say that being sick makes me more open to "sharing"? Maybe? My working theory is that because I live alone and have no one to complain to about being sick, I have turned to you, the Internet. Bring on the sympathy! Let me wallow in it! And maybe the effort of wallowing will make me sleepy again and I'll be able to sleep despite the fact that no air is passing through my nose at this time and my ribs hurt from coughing.... good times.

Bring it.

On hope

I sent my friend Matt this link. His reply:

It's only a matter of time before they finds the precioussssss.....

Happiness

So I have a cold. I started sniffling yesterday, and by late last night, as I finished up some work, I was sneezing my head off and talking with a croak. Sleep helped marginally. However? Happiness is Chick fil a in the morning. Seriously. Stopping to pick up a chicken biscuit and mini tots added 4 minutes to my commute and probably hours to my producitivity.

That is all.

If only all joys in life were this simple...

Monday, October 10, 2005

Things to do in Denver….

… with three boys under the age of 6.

Well, you can

1. Go to the park.
2. Go to another park.
3. Drive the scenic route into mountains.
4. Eat at mountain restaurant with creek view.
5. Hike in mountains, wrangling bebes.
6. Watch cheesy DVDs (including, but not limited to, Xanadu).
7. Shop (sans bebes).
8. Eat, eat, eat.
9. Float in giant bathtub.
10. Snuggle with bebes.
11. Nap.
12. Bond with bebes.
13. Nap.
14. Eat.
15. Chill and pray for snow.
16. Miss the snow by mere HOURS.

I'm baaaack! I am tired, but not in a debilitating way. The weather was gorgeous this weekend, but it seems I just missed the first snow of the season!! Ack! I'm so sad about that… we were hoping it would happen sooner so my flight would get, you know, postponed…

And despite a frantic call from my pet sitter Sat. night informing me that she'd found [something gross] and didn't know from which cat it came, I still had a great time. Despite thinking all the way home on the plane, through turbulence and darkness, that I'd have to take all three cats (that's 50 lbs. of feline, my friends) to the emergency vet at midnight, I still enjoyed every moment of my vacation.

(Luckily, when I arrived home, bedraggled and grumpy at 11pm last night, all three cats met me at the door in high spirits, not one of them acting the least bit sickly. Much to my relief. I saw them all eat and drink and jump and no one seemed uncomfortable, so I'm going to chalk it up to weirdness and just keep my eyes on them for a couple days…so far so good…)

(let me emphasize, though, that I was WILLING to take them to the emergency vet at midnight if the situation warranted such measures. If any of them had so much as yeowled when I squeezed them from head to tail I would have packed them up in a heartbeat – but I swear, they all seemed just fine… I'm a good mom, really!!)

So. I'm back at work today and it feels like I was gone a lot longer than three days. That's good, right? I think so. A little perspective always helps. A little detachment. Today I'm playing catch up.

That is all for now, but I will post adorable nephew pics very soon…

And publicly, I want to
THANK YOU SISTAH!!!!!

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

a scaly solution...

and I don't mean the kind that you step on first thing in the a.m. naked, after peeing, sucking in your stomach even though you know, intellectually, that it won't help, only to be once again devastated... no, i'm talking about scaly skin. My sister just emailed me to bring lots-o-lotion to CO this weekend b/c she was getting "scaly"; and for some reason my mind veered off down this weird path...like that NEVER happens.

So I was thinking, hmm, Nicole has a hot tub; what if there were a way to drain it and fill it up with lotion for the winter? warm lotion, at that? then you could just dip yourself in a couple times a day and ensure total coverage, much faster than rubbing it in inch by inch! Isn't that a great idea? Or, they could have an "anti-scale spray" service, much like the spray tans -- you strip down at a spa and they hose you down with lotion that coats you everywhere and leaves you with a nice glowy sheen....

Next thought was, wouldn't it feel nice, actually, to sit in a hot tub-o-warm lotion? Maybe I'm on to something here... THEN (and you can stop now if it's just too much) I remembered this bath jelly I saw once, and started fantasizing about that...

mmm-yeah. that is all.

hump day

This week is moving along so quickly! (now, when's the last time you heard me say THAT??) I'm glad, because tomorrow evening I'm finally flying to Denver to visit my sistah and les bebes! I'm excited. I need a break. And I haven't seen them since July. That's CRAZY talk! I hope Cooper remembers me... the other two will, but he's so young... The good news is, I'll see them again at Thanksgiving and probably at Christmas too. Woo-hoo! Anyway... that's probably why I'm freaking out that it's already Wednesday.

Not much going on, other than work and more work. Last week I had social/work engagements almost every night, and this week is the opposite, which is fine with me. Sometimes I just need "me" time and it wears me out going out on school nights. (I know, I know. sad.)

Sadder still is that I can't think of one witty thing to write about at the moment. I just wanted to pop in and say "I'm alive" and if something interesting unfolds today, I'll be sure to write a scintillating blog just for your amusement. :)

Sunday, October 02, 2005

It's okay to dream

I want to comment on a dream I had this afternoon. Yes, afternoon. When i was supposed to be working. Anyway.

I was having the best dream evah about being at a wedding (or something) and there was this huge-ass buffet. So I kept getting in line and getting behind really slow people, so I kept jumping around from line to line and finally I found myself in front of the desserts. At first I felt guilty because I hadn't yet put any "real food" on my plate. But as I continued through the line, the desserts kept getting better and better, and it wasn't long before I blew off "real food" completely and was loading up on desserts. And OMG. It was AWESOME. My favorite things were the huge, pie-sized OATMEAL CREAM PIES - like the Little Debbie ones, only HUGE and homemade. HOMEMADE. I'm not sure what it means that every time I tried to reach for one someone else would take it. Hmm. Anyway, that's okay because my sleeping brain kept inventing more and more delightful concoctions so everywhere I went in this mythical buffet there were increasingly more awesome and plentiful desserts (now that I think about it, there never was any "real food" to speak of.) There were all sorts of gooey cakes and non-fruit pies; large, flat, chewy cookies with no nuts; vats of creamy pudding; ice cream with yummy candy swirled in; and lots of different types of neon-colored sodas, not anything that actually exists, but all made up in my fevered brain. It was like... Willy Wonka's factory on a buffet. On crack. Yeah, that's exactly what it was like!

I woke up suddenly, hot and thirsty, and immediately went for the freezer and the last Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich I had in the house.

it's sad. you don't need to say it. i already know.