I promise I won't talk about this movie forever

All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us

It runs a little long, but it's funny in a really random, bizarre way.



Also, if you fear snakes on a plane, how will you handle bears on a submarine?:

I think my cat has anger issues.

Last night, I was poking around on the internet, reading blogs and generally minding my own business. MB was sitting on the couch behind me, watching a movie on TV. Suddenly I heard this weird howl-y noise that didn't sound like it came from the TV. I said, "Was that you?" and MB replied, "No, it was the cat." I turned my incredulous stare to the cat's backside, which was sticking out between the curtains that cover the sliding door to the tiny patio and backyardlet. Just as I said, "Kitters, was that YOU?" he let out another howl. It was sort of a mix of sounding like a dog and sounding hella creepy. I knew, just knew, what I would see when I opened the curtain. Sure enough, I flipped on the outside light, whipped the curtain aside, and saw The Nemesis sitting in the grass just beyond the patio.

The Nemesis is a scruffy orange tabby tomcat, somewhat smaller than Kitters. I feel sort of bad for him, because he's all scruffy and lives outside and shit, but this guy must talk some mad smack when he comes around, because whenever he does show up, Kitters becomes absolutely incandescent with rage.

The Nemesis was also involved in a scene that I can accurately say ranks in my Top Five Stupid Moments of All Time. On August 1st of last year, Kitters was at the sliding door, freaking the hell out, just like last night. When I opened the curtains, I saw The Nemesis sitting on the patio, mere feet from the glass, and he was hissing at my cat. I was PISSED, let me tell you. Coming in my cat's yard? Sitting on my cat's patio? Hissing at my cat THROUGH HIS OWN WINDOW? Hell no! (Ahem. Sorry. My mom says I attribute too many human feelings to my cat, but shit, dudes...how unfair is it that he should have to put up with this disrespect simply because he's not allowed outside?)

So I, great genius that I am, decided that I'd slip out the door and chase the cat away, after waving, yelling, and banging on the window didn't work. I figured that Kitters wouldn't even notice me opening the door, since he never tries to go outside. (I can hear your mocking laughter, by the way. You could at least try to stifle it.) You can probably guess what happened next. As soon as the screen door was open a few inches, Kitters went barreling out into the yard. The only thought in my mind as I saw him shoot by me was, "Oh my God, I've just lost my cat." I was horrified. Our building and back lawn abuts a busy street and we're buffered by one building in the front from the damn highway, so I instantly figured Kitters was either going to get mauled in a fight or run out into the path of a car.

As soon as Kitters came roaring out, The Nemesis jumped the fence and took off. Luckily, blessedly, Kitters didn't understand the fence, and dove into the bushes at the base of it, where he stomped and thrashed and yelled for a few minutes. I was shouting at him the whole time, yelling stupid things like, "No, bad Kitters! Bad! You are NOT allowed outside!" (I really wonder sometimes what the neighbors think of us.) He came over to me and looked up at me with an expression like, "Oh, shit. I'm in trouble," so I figured he understood. I reached to pick him up, and he bit me on the arm. He had turned his head away and didn't see me reaching for him, and so when I grabbed him, he probably figured I was the other cat, attacking. It hurt SO DAMN BAD, too. I'll post a picture at the end, if people promise not to ralph or anything. It's not that bad. Or it wasn't, until it turned all pink and infected a few days later and I had to go to the urgent care clinic to get antibiotics and a tetanus shot. Ooooops. Gah.

So, lesson learned: Cat + Rage + Yielding Flesh = bad, bad things.

Tonight I managed to chase The Nemesis away with exaggerated (and probably painfully comical) arm-waving and foot-stomping. I think Kitters was embarrassed out of his anger. I don't even know why I'm typing this all out. I have a feeling it'll be one of those entries that no one really reads because it's really not that interesting, except in my head. Ah, well. At least you all will know that you'd better not come around my house, sitting on my back porch and hissing and shit! Cuz if you do, boy-howdy, you'll GET IT! From KITTERS! Or from me! Waving my arms and stomping! Take that!



I think Snakes on a Plane is a terrifically awful movie title.

But this made me laugh:

"So what will happen if this “animals on a vehicle film” really takes off? Here are some predictions:

‘Badgers on a Hovercraft’

At some point Hollywood is going to run out of either vehicles or animals and that's where Roger Corman steps in, executive producing this “we'll never be out of animals or vehicles” knock-off. Did anyone besides me see “Dinocroc”? Corman can do anything. Besides, badgers are both mean and dangerous on land. Hovercrafts make them extra angry."



I hope you're still reading, because this is so beyond fabulous:

My favorite bibliophile sent me a talking greeting about Snakes on a Plane.

OMG I LAUGHED SO HARD.

I got it right after I finished typing the part about the cat and while I was writing the part about the movie. He said, "Quit obsessing over your pet," and I was like, "It's true! Samuel L. Jackson IS God!"

So, anyhow. Snakes on a Plane, everybody! And my grody arm!

So, Project Runway.

Don't read this if you haven't watched this week's show, obviously. Or if you don't care about Project Runway.

This episode was a little bit brutal, I thought.

As much as I've liked Kayne in the past, his catty bitch act is kind of wearing on me. Don't get me wrong, I'll gossip with the best of 'em, but he's just been mean-spirited on the last few episodes. I did have to say I appreciated his relieved bolt from the runway at the end. Maybe he'll dial back the drama next week and make me like him again.

As much as I really REALLY dislike Jeffrey, I was surprised he didn't win. He acts like he knows better than the judges. I just want him to SHUT UP. But his dress actually was a bit more impressive than Michael's winning piece and definitely illustrated a good understanding of the materials he chose. He can keep his attitude, though. I don't really want to see him rolling his eyes and acting all shitty when the judges compliment the other designers.

I dig Uli, but I don't think she has demonstrated much range. I'm sort of surprised the judges haven't called her out for it yet. Granted, she produces absolutely stunning halter dresses...but what would she make if pants were required? Or sleeves? I'm interested, but cautious.

I've just started to really like Laura lately, so it was kind of unpleasant to see her being sort of bitchy. Not that I totally disagreed with her, but I don't feel like she really needed to call Kayne out to his face about his style or harangue Vincent about his (yet again) awful dress (though I wonder if Vincent was talking shit about Alison before Laura went off. Oh, and Kayne? You don't want to be "degraded" on camera? Suck it up, princess...you spend every moment outside the workroom talking smack about somebody. If you can't take it, stop dishing it.)

I feel bad for Alison. She seemed very sweet, and most of the stuff she did in earlier episodes was really nice. I guess it was just her bad luck that the judges weren't quite creeped out enough by Vincent to send him packing. That Minnie-Mouse-looking bow was TERRIBLE. She really should've found a way to make her original striped paper idea work. It also pisses me off that the judges were ragging on Alison for being a female designer and yet being "so careless with the female form." Pot, Kettle; Kettle, Pot. To a show that calls (with tones of regret) that stick of a model "larger" and says (somewhat disdainfully) that the dress makes her look "like a plus model," I got a finger for you. Guess which one.

Vincent. Dear God, make him stop talking. I eventually would've recovered from him saying twice that he "got off" on the dress during his pre-runway voiceovers. I could've convinced myself he was being metaphorical. But when he told the judges that the model's geisha-shuffle turned him on, let's just say the look on Nina Garcia's face pretty much said it all for me. He's a serious freakazoid.


I have decided that I want Michael to win the whole thing. I'd like Laura to make it to the top three for sure, but Michael really and truly seems like a nice guy. He's funny, he's extremely talented, and he isn't catting around behind everyone's back every second of the day. He may yet have reserves of untapped Asshole Potential, but I'm hoping not.


I am insanely impatient for next week's episode. Is it Wednesday yet?




P.S. Happy Birthday, Rabid Monkey.

Apparently, there's a leak.*

Edited to add this helpful timeline:

6:45-ish AM Discover puddle. Replace sopping towels. Fume a bit.

6:50 - 7:10 AM Photograph puddle. Transfer, resize, and upload photo.

7:13 - 7:15 AM Post photograph in two different places on the internet.

8:00 AM Arrive at work. Reflect on the absurdity of posting a photo of the puddle in two places on the internet before actually calling the landlord to fix the cause.

8:12 AM Call landlord and leave a message.

3:15 PM Talk to MB on the phone. Learn that the puddle above was caused by the cat, who knocked over the bucket that had caught most of the water that leaked in during the storm last night. Think uncharitable thoughts about spoiled felines.

3:24 PM Talk to MB again. He has spoken to the landlord. Apparently there was a tree branch on the roof that was "channeling the water" down the side of our building. Surmise that nothing was actually done to fix the leak. Look forward to the next time we get to do this.

8:15 PM Edit this entry.


The day wasn't a total bummer. I found out this morning that a pair of dress pants I assumed I'd become too chubby for not only fit, but made my ass look spectacular. MB cooked dinner and it was delicious. We had baked chicken, shells 'n' cheese, green beans, and corn. It really started with the corn, because:



I finished the ninth book for my reading project today, which means I'm five reviews behind. Good and bad.

Henna feet are just plain good:






Reading: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett (starting tomorrow)

Playing: Celtic River, Plans by Death Cab for Cutie, the Garden State soundtrack



And last of all:

Which Sesame Street Muppet's Dark Secret Are You?

Look, everyone knows you two are lovebirds. Why not do the brave thing and admit it to the world? The times are kinder nowadays. There may be the odd ultraconservative bigwig or overprotective mom, but so what? Piss on 'em. Come on out of the closet. It's ok.


Take this quiz!

Does this happen to anyone else?

Any time I hear or read a word that I've never heard before, I look it up. (Hi, my name is Velocibadgergirl, and I'm a huge dork.) More often than not, I'll see the word again at least once within a week or so of learning it. I used to explain this away by telling myself that the word of the week was actually common, and that I'd just never noticed it before. That didn't really make sense, though, because Hello, I'm a huge dork, and I would've noticed and looked up the word if I'd seen it before. So there is some kind of phenomenon of weird words appearing twice or three times.

Then there's the fact that certain street lights in town and fluorescent lights in stores will go off EVERY TIME I walk or drive under them, no matter what time of night / day it happens. Upon hearing my theory that I somehow cause this, some people will try telling me that many lights are set to go off at intervals. Sure, but I find it hard to believe that 1. they're on a completely random schedule and 2. their completely random schedule coincides perfectly with my completely random schedule.

I know, neither of these are very impressive. This entry isn't really about large, impressive things; it's about a whole string of little things that, taken all together, seem sort of peculiar.

Over the last week or so, there have been a lot of these inconsequential coincidences (Damn, it's hard to spell "coincidence" right after slogging through "inconsequential.").


#1: The Random Song

My car is old enough to legally drive itself, and thus does not have a CD player. The tape deck, sadly, doesn't work. I have to listen to music while I drive or the ADD takes over and my mind starts wandering, so I never drive without the radio playing. Talk radio and commercials are more wander-inducing than silence, so I have all the stations I like preset, and all the second-tier stations memorized so I can flip down to them...Nothing on 103.1, 107.5, or 97.1? Click down through 102.3, 101.9, 107.1, and 96.9. It's not unusual to hear the same song twice in one drive, because so many radio stations play the same stuff (especially currently hot, sometimes crappy stuff). However, if I hit the random satellite station and hear a song that I loved when I was in 8th grade and that I usually only hear once every few months, and then flip to the small-potatoes non-Clear Channel country station and hear a cover version of the same song playing at the same time...that's weird.


#2: The Random Artist

Last week during my night shift at the record store, a guy asked me and a coworker if we knew who sang this song that he couldn't remember the name of, but went something like this. (This happens all the time. At least he didn't offer to hum.) I could almost hear the song in my head, and I knew that I'd looked it up before, but I was drawing a blank. It suddenly clicked, and I figured out that it was the song "Mad World," from Donnie Darko. The other guy working remembered who sang the version in the movie (Gary Jules), and I made a mental note to see if the public library had a copy of they guy's album. They (it?) did, and I checked it out. Three days later, I went to check my MySpace page and there's random Gary Jules as the featured artist on the log-in page. I wouldn't have even recognized his name, if not for the record store guy asking about him.


#3: The Random VHS Tape

A friend of mine is expecting a baby girl in September. She and her husband have a (fabulous, bright, adorable) two-year-old son who is growing up speaking English and German at home. Today I found out that when the soon-to-arrive girl and her brother are older, my friend plans to teach them French as well. I went to my record store shift tonight and saw a copy of Pooh's Grand Adventure on the 3 for $12 video table, alongside a copy of E.T.. Since I have Issues and stockpile things for the children MB and I have yet to conceive, I began looking for a third movie. During my search, I stumbled upon a copy of Disney's Beauty and the Beast on sale for $7.99. A sweet find! And then I noticed that it was the FRENCH version of Beauty and the Beast. If I'd found this tape last week, I'd have been disappointed. Instead, it felt sort of like serendipity.



The Random Observation With No Segue

Sometimes I really feel sorry for Pluto. I was under the impression that scientists had already voted and decided to keep Pluto on the list of planets. Apparently a conference convened in Prague today to discuss that very topic. This article does not paint a very bright future for poor Pluto.

Continuing the theme from above, here's an interesting coincidence. The photo they use on the first page of the article is on my business cards. I think it's mis-captioned, though. They state that this is an artist's rendering of the solar system, including Pluto. Clearly, Pluto is not represented:



In fact, if you asked my friends about this, they'd tell you that when I got my business cards, the first thing I did was show them to everyone. The second thing I did was issue a disclaimer stating that I was not in support of the exclusion of Pluto from the card.



Insert Inappropriate Joke Here

"Frozen Sperm Revive Jurassic Park Dreams"

The best part: "The researchers also tested whether frozen male sexual organs could be transported internationally via shipment on dry ice. In most cases, the extracted sperm produced normal offspring."

How do you explain that one at customs?



Playing: rock playlist on the computer

Reading: too much into things

Gah: Redux

So the alternator was bad. The old battery might've fucked it up when it died. $222 for parts and labor. Worse than we hoped for but way better than we feared.

OH! But surprise...the front tires were so bald that they were basically riding on the steel belts inside. That'll be another $200, please.

And the alternator burned out our 2-month-old battery with a 3-year-warranty.

BUT the mechanic knew a guy at Auto Zone where the battery came from, so he drove MB to Auto Zone, where MB got our money back for the killed battery and then bought a brand-new one with a 2-year warranty and I think saved 5 bucks on the whole deal. So THAT was really good.

And MB asked them if they could fix the driver's side window, which hasn't worked in like two years.

Oh, AND? There was some problem with the rear "castings," whatever the hell that means. Wear and tear and unsafe and not up to specs and blah blah blah mechanic-speak blah.

We either go to the most conscientious auto shop ever or we have "SUCKER" tattooed on our foreheads. I don't doubt that the tires were bald and I knew about the window, but I can't help but feel a tiny bit suspicious when they managed to add not one but THREE things to our list of repairs, to the tune of $644 over two days. Somebody's baby got new shoes! And probably a pony, too.

We so did not need to spend almost $700 on the car right now. I will say that I'm immensely grateful that we actually had the money to fix it. We didn't have to put it on the credit card like we probably would've a year ago. THAT feels good, in a sick way.



This is super cool, but so very weird.

Roadkill as art.

Here's my favorite piece, Gilded Squirrel:


Click the site's links at your own risk. Some of them are pretty icky.




And then I became a character from a chick-lit novel

After I dropped MB off at work this morning (at six-fucking-thirty), I went to my favorite donut place and picked up breakfast for me plus some for my parents and sister. I also picked out a few things with the specific intention of sharing them with someone else.



In case you can't tell what he's eating, here's another shot:



Dudes, I totally picked out donut holes for the CAT. (Because he likes donut holes, obviously.) As I stood in the bakery mentally tallying up donut holes, I think I knew in my heart that I was having a Crazy Moment: "Six vanilla...so that's 3 for Little Sis, and 2 for me if I just give one to the cat..."

Tell the truth, though...could you say no to this face?


I didn't think so.



Reading: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Eric by Terry Pratchett

Playing: Plans by Death Cab For Cutie

Obsessed With: Project Runway! Last night's episode was FAB. Also, somewhat: Zach Braff. Blame her.

GAH!!

We put a brand new battery in MB's car on June 23rd.

This evening, as I was driving out to the country to kidsit, the battery light came on for no apparent reason.

As I drove home, the indicator lights came on one by one until the dash was lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. When I parked it outside our apartment, turned the engine off, and tried to restart it, it wouldn't start. MB got it to start five minutes later, but the battery light is still coming on so he's taking it to Pep Boys tomorrow afternoon.

At this rate, we'll be lucky if we get a house before 2010.

I'd cry if I wasn't so pissed off.

The best part of all? His car is the GOOD CAR. It's the one we're counting on to last another five years at the very least.

I'm crossing every appendage that this turns out to be a very simple and very cheap problem to fix.



P.S. This makes me feel a little bit better:


Don't tell, but I totally heart Zach Braff.

Holiday! Celebrate!

It was a big weekend for celebration around here, and it seems a good time was had by all. On Friday night, MB hung out with one of his friends and I went out shopping with some of my friends. It was fabulous and I managed to escape the Target Vortex mostly intact. Score! On Saturday night, one of my best friends celebrated her 25th birthday with a make-your-own-sundae get-together followed by group gallivanting at the playground while wearing glow bracelets. I had SO MUCH FUN. I sometimes think that the world would be a better place if everyone took time out to swing every now and then. Somehow the frolicking ended with the whole group sitting around on a piece of playground equipment and telling ghost stories. I can't rememeber how that even started, but once the cops came around and booted everyone out of the park (what party animals we are! Woooo!), we went back to her place and continued with the spooky stories until 1 AM.

I had arranged to have the whole weekend off from work. Originally, I was supposed to go to an outdoor festival with my dad on Saturday, and spend the day with MB on Sunday for our anniversary (observed). Then my dad's work schedule got completely FUBARed and he wasn't going to get off work until 15 minutes before he was planning to pick me up for the festival. It felt sort of like serendipity, so even though I was disappointed that I didn't get to spend the day with Dad, I plucked the carp*, bailed on the festival altogether, and spent the whole weekend hanging out with MB. It was a very laid-back celebration, but I think it was just about perfect.

We ended up lounging on the couch a lot. Over the course of two days, we watched the first season of Scrubs (on DVD; LOVED IT.), The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Better than we expected, but our hopes were not high. More of a legal drama than a proper thriller, and definitely not a horror movie) Dark Water (oh, mercy...it was terrible. TERRIBLE. Boring and not even remotely spooky, even to a wuss like me, AND the almost-end felt like a cheap rip-off of The Ring. I say "almost-end" because after the cheap-ass resolution, there are like 5 fake fade-outs and a cheesy twist that I didn't even care that much about after being bored for at least 2/3 of the movie.), and finally The Replacements, which is not a brilliant film, but was a lot better than I remembered, and definitely helped salvage the evening, movie-wise.


It's been 2 years since we got married and 6 years since the day we met. To my hero, my rock, my lover, my very best friend, my husband...Happy Anniversary. Here's to forever.

I was going to post a sappy yet non-identity-revealing wedding photo, but I think this better conveys the depth of wonderful of this life we've made...goofy, frequently hilarious, sometimes bizarre, not for everyone, but perfect for us:



"My Nintendo."

(Yes, there is a backstory, but I somehow doubt
anyone really cares. Just enjoy the cat photo, ya'll. ;) )

Reading: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

Playing: Drunken Lullabies by Flogging Molly, August and Everything After by Counting Crows

*According to MB and his Latin & English dictionary, carpe diem actually means "pluck the day," as carpe apparently comes from a word meaning "to pluck, pull off, select, choose out; and so to enjoy." For some reason ever since he told me that, I translate it as "pluck the carp." Maybe it's best not to ask.

Alive, Smelly, and Decidedly Overbooked

In backwards order. First, am I ever over-booked (har har har). Every few months, I find myself with towering stacks of library books to read and no time for them. Here's what I've got checked out right now:

>>Maybe Baby: 28 writers tell the truth about skepticism, infertility, baby lust, childlessness, ambivalence, and how they made the biggest decisions of their lives (it was on the new book shelf next to Mommy Wars, so I grabbed it on a whim, even though MB and I are definitely in the Babies Someday camp.

>>All the Clean Ones Are Married: and other everyday calamities in Moscow, sent to me by one of my favorite bibliophiles (P.S. Happy Birthday!).

>>In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner

>>Getting stoned with savages: a trip through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu, which I picked up because the title caught my eye.

>>Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z: a novel. Apparently I'm all about books with subtitles right now.

>>The Devil Wears Prada

On top of this, I've got a stack of used books I've purchased (but not yet read) over the last few months, plus a half-dozen borrowed books, and I just signed up for the online Barnes & Noble discussion group for The Lovely Bones. Oh, AND I'm three book reviews behind on my summer / fall / possibly-into-winter reading project. Oogh. Must try to catch up soon.



Heat Wave + Personal Hygiene = Not the Best Bedfellows

Recipe for sexy deliciousness:

1. Put on flip-flops at beginning of 8-hour workday, to avoid irritating obnoxious mosquito bite-horsefly bite extravaganza (more on that later) with the indignity of a sock.

2. Take flip-flop-y feet to second job at 5:30 PM. Slather bug bites with ammonia-based itch eraser to compound the fragrant-ness that already exists. Swaddle feet in socks and hot shoes. Remain on feet for next 4 1/2 hours.

3. Dress in black pants and non-breathing polo shirt.

4. Stand in direct sunlight filtered through westward-exposed floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows while the sun blazes in from arrival until about 7:30 PM. Sweat profusely.

5. Marinate until 10 PM.

Aaaah...scrumptious. I hope no one stood close enough to me to notice. I swear, I just took a shower last night!



And Finally...

MB and I survived our camping trip, despite the weather's best attempts to the contrary. BoMB (Brother of MB) didn't get to go with us, but we had a good time in spite of it. The first evening was downright pleasant. It was a bit drizzly when we got there, but the rain stopped before we'd even set up the tents. I got a really fantastic campfire going with just one match (okay, okay...so I used one of those firestarter bricks. You would, too, in 85% humidity), and the guys cooked chicken breasts and some fantastic steaks. Even I liked the bite I tried, and I'm not much for big slabs of beef. Both MB and his friend agreed the steaks were better than the ones they usually get at restaurants. The chicken was delicious, the sweet corn was highly decent, and we were too full to care that the potatoes refused to cook.

It rained that night, but our new tent held up beautifully, and it was actually very relaxing. It was still gray and a little bit cool in the morning as we got ready for our scheduled 12 mile hike, but it got hot fast. And humid. Oh dear Lord, the humidity. About 2 miles in, MB's friend decided that we shouldn't really go 12 miles. Obviously no one argued. The first half of the hike wasn't awful. It was beastly hot, but we had plenty of water and the terrain wasn't too rugged. Just before the halfway point, we ran into some guys who'd spent the previous night catching bats in mist nets and putting radio transmitters on a few endangered ones they'd caught. Pretty cool.

As we reached the part of the trail that was going to cut our 12 mile loop down to a 6 mile loop, we moved out of the forest and onto a gravel road with very little shade. If I'd known that the rest of the hike was going to be like that, I'd have suggested that we turn around. Unfortunately, I had no clue, so we slogged along miserably for three miles in the horribly hot sun. Poor MB was wilting, since (unlike me) he lacks the capacity to produce gallons of sweat and because he was carrying something like four full Nalgene bottles in his pack AND wearing jeans. We all made it back to camp, miserably hot and tired, and sat around for about half an hour before we could muster the energy to take cool showers and change clothes.

The fire didn't light so well that night, but it went well enough. MB's friend made the BEST DAMN BURGERS EVER by slathering them with barbecue sauce halfway through the grilling process. The few other campers at the campground seemed to be in high spirits despite the heat. An RV down the road on one side blared a rock radio station for a few hours, while a guy down the other way broke out his electric guitar. Seriously, though...who brings an electric guitar camping? Acoustic, sure..."Kumbaya" and Joni Mitchell and all that. But "Smoke on the Water" and "Stairway to Heaven" with an AMP? He was pretty damn good. I still regret not having the balls to yell "FREE BIRD!!"

That night, there was a bat program down at the little tiny open-air amphitheatre, so we all went. It was so much fun to be with three other people in their mid-twenties, and to have all of them glad to go to a bat program with me. I actually learned lots of cool things about bats. For instance, bats are the only flying mammal. (Flying squirrels don't count, due to the fact that they actually glide, as I hazarded during the True or False portion of the program.) Bats also can live to be 30 and only have about one baby each year.

I think MB and I went to bed around 10 PM. Our friends had to leave at 6 the next morning, but we didn't wake up until 10:30, when it was already miserably humid. We were in foul moods and pretty much bitched and moaned through the entire duration of camp-breaking. Thank goodness no one else was there to hear us. At least I hope no one was around, especially while I, always ladylike, cussed out the horsefly that kept biting me on the legs. (Motherfucker. Bit me on top of a mosquito bite, too.) Then we got into the car, turned the AC on full blast, and felt pretty sheepish about our behavior. Apologies all around, except to the damn horsefly. He can burn in hell for all I care.



Reading: Mommy Wars (Nearly a month after starting it. Go on and mock me if you must. I deserve it.), Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

Playing: Stabbing Westward (warning: there is sound), Modest Mouse (more sound), and my latest damn earworm

This made my brain go "boink!"

Instead of reading the words, say the FONT COLORS as you go through the list.

I found it on a science website (www.astc.org), and the caption with it said:

"Although we see both the color and the meaning of each word, experience has taught us to pay more attention to the meaning. James R. Stroop called this the “interference effect.” "


I don't know who James R. Stroop is, but I'd bet he was better at reading the font colors than I am.



Announcing the best yogurt ever invented:



It's almost as good as ice cream, and for me, that's saying quite a lot.

You're either in, or you're out.

I always look forward to Wednesday evenings, because that's the night that I meet up with one of my best friends at the Barnes & Noble to drink chai and hang out and ogle all the shiny new books we wish we could buy. But now I have another reason to look forward to Wednesdays, because after I get home from "chai and chat," as MB likes to call it, I get to watch the night's episode of my new favorite obsession on my poor girl's Tivo (aka the tape from the VCR that I set to record before I left for work that morning).

Here's a clue (a big fat clue):



I don't know why I love this show so much. I think it's because it combines a reality formula that actually works for me (I also love to watch America's Next Top Model, even though Tyra Banks gets on my nerves.) with actually making something. It's sort of like HGTV mixed with just the right dose of drama, and then they throw in Heidi Klum and her damned adorable accent.

MB may think I'm nuts for watching this show, but I'm so not alone. Dude, even Jennifer Weiner likes Project Runway!



Playing: August and Everything After by Counting Crows and the soundtrack from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie

Reading: Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late, a sequel to one of my favorite children's books of all time:



Both by Mo Willems. It's probably a bad thing that I now know I can purchase a pigeon poster or T-shirt. A very bad thing indeed.

The Long-Promised Story of Getting My Ass Kicked on Land & Water, Courtesy of the State of North Carolina

In the middle of nowhere, a few miles from the Alabama-Tennessee border, there is a place that you almost have to see to believe, a place that combines explosives, alcohol, and culturally-inappropriate knickknacks under one roof.

Oh, and it looks like Vegas threw up:

Warning: Shoots Flaming Balls

Look! A cat head full of grenades!

Onward to North Carolina, where we camped out on property owned by a guy from the kayak group. He had a great place up in the mountains with a fabulous view and the biggest, ritziest garage ever. I saw these lizards there:

I went out to North Carolina planning to kayak the Nantahala, but ended up going down the (easier) Tuckasegee instead. It kicked my butt so bad. I flipped over twice and freaked the holy fuck out. It occurred to me later that the two experienced boaters / instructors I was with didn't know I was freaking out, because they couldn't see me. They just thought I was chilling underwater, happily holding my breath and waiting around. That sort of scared me even more...knowing that I was panicking and no one knew I was panicking. After the second time, I had such a strong fight-or-flight thing going that my muscles felt like wet concrete afterward. It SUCKED. But I made it down to the end, and I didn't cry or give up...so that's good I guess. I also heard later that the boat I was using is a bit of a squirrely boat to start with, so that made me feel a lot better about my lack of skill. If the Kid Who's Good at Everything (Except Snakes) had trouble paddling that boat, I don't feel like such a lame-o for having issues of my own.

A few friends have asked me if I would recommend the sport. I would recommend it in a heartbeat IF you are comfortable in the water and IF you find a really good instructor. Take a class...don't just go out there with a friend who's done it a few times.

I SHOULD be fine. I should NOT have panicked on the Tuck when I flipped. I've been through the training. I've practiced rescues. I should be able to thump the sides of my boat, wait while calmly counting to 15, and then escape the boat and swim to safety if needed. Instead, I panic, forget what I'm supposed to do, and start desperately trying to get to the surface...without trying to get out of the boat first. It's stupid and dangerous and not right.

So, until I have better control over my boat and better control over myself, I'm probably not going out on whitewater again. No one from the whitewater group knows this, but it's a decision I feel I needed to make. I'm going to try to do some roll practices and stuff, and see how it goes.


Luckily, the only lasting damage from the kayak trip was this wonky sunburn:


If I had the capacity to tan, I would've ended up with the weirdest reverse ring tanline ever. But since I don't tan, no worries.


The next day--because apparently I needed to rectify the fact that only my feet and thighs didn't hurt--MB and I went on what was probably the longest and hardest hike of our lives. We hiked from the camp where we were staying to the top of Wesser Bald. It's important to note that Wesser Bald is about 4725 feet above sea level. The average elevation of our hometown is 387 feet. Yeah.

Allegedly the old Appalachian Trail signs claimed the trail to the summit was three miles long, but there are suspicions (mine foremost among them) that they were measuring three miles if you stretched a long ass ruler from the peak to the trailhead. Since the trail switchbacks constantly up the mountain, I'm sure we hiked at least twice that far. Unfortunately, we didn't score a gently used GPS until last weekend, two weeks too late to use it to find out how far we really walked.

To add a final layer to our cake of fun, we'd carpooled out to NC and didn't have a vehicle to use to get to the trailhead, so we had to start our hike by walking two and a half miles or so on hot blacktop before we even got to begin the real work. I probably still owe MB a few more apologies, because man was I whiny during this part. Kind of embarrassing in retrospect, actually. I was sweaty and grumpy by the time we got to the trailhead, and it was only going to get worse. Good thing I didn't really realize how much worse, or we probably would've turned around.

This is a giant washout scar that we passed near the start of the trail. I think the guy we stayed with said 12 or 13 inches of rain fell in an hour and washed out the side of the mountain. I wonder if he meant 12 or 13 inches in a day? Anyway, quite impressive. The dark-colored logpile in the center of the photo is taller than me, and I'm 5'5".


Not too far from the washout, the serious hiking started. It was hot and humid, I was sweating buckets, and we only had four Nalgene bottles of water between us (4 liters). By the time we got to the rock in the next picture, I was really worried that we weren't going to have enough water or daylight to get to the top and back.

While we were sitting on this rock pondering what the hell we'd gotten ourselves into, two fit-looking hiker chicks came down the trail from the top. We asked them how far it was to the top, and they said we were halfway there and had about another hour to go. They lied. It took us another two hours. But I'm glad we talked to them, because the guy who recommended the trail did not mention that we'd have to take a left on the Appalachian Trail to hit the firetower. Useful information, yeah?


At this point, I should insert a few comments I promised I'd make. (MB said to me on the way back from the summit, "I look forward to reading on your blog how I was the hero of this trip.") Truly, I never would've made it to the top without him. MB and I are great complements to each other in many aspects of our lives. The things that I'm high-strung about, he doesn't sweat; likewise, the things that make him twitchy are things about which I can be totally Zen. This worked in our favor on this hike. During the early parts of the hike, when I was whining and pitching small hissy fits over my glasses fogging up and how damn tired I was, MB encouraged me and insisted we could make it to the end. When we got further along and MB wanted to turn around, I insisted we'd gone too far to back out. He stuck it out with me, and when we got to the top of the mountain, the first thing he said was, "This was worth it all." And then he called his mom to say, "Guess where I am right now!"

At one point, he told me that if I wanted to turn back we could, and that I could tell everyone at camp that it had been his decision to do so. It's hard to express how sweet of an offer that really was. I think MB knew that probably half of why I wanted to press on was a blend of being too stubborn to let the mountain beat me and being too proud to go back and tell all the badass kayakers that not only was I not tough enough to hit the river twice, I was too wimpy to make it to the top of the mountain.


We kept walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and...well, you get the idea. At times, the trail seemed positively neverending. At one point, I remember thinking to myself, "God or Gaia or whoever...please just let us make it to the top...SOON..." and then wishing there was a waterfall or something to stick my head under. And wouldn't you know it...not five minutes later, we rounded a curve and there was a waterfall. I stuck my head in it, and I cannot remember feeling anything that refreshing in my entire life. But maybe I'm being a little dramatic. I don't know if you can see it, but it's a gorgeous little waterfall with three tiers coming down off the rock.

We sat on this log to eat lunch. MB wanted to turn around, but I refused. I was pissed off! How dare the trail be this damn long? I insisted that we had to be getting close to the top. I was wrong, but luckily by the time I figured that out, we'd gone so far that I really didn't want to turn around.

This photo also shows how narrow the trail was in places. At some points, it was barely wide enough for one person to pass through without the vegetation brushing your shoulders and arms on either side. There were also steep dropoffs on a lot of the switchbacks. Treacherous, but beautiful!

I think this snail lapped us a few times.

By the time we got to the point where the trail made a T with the Appalachian Trail, we'd finished off half of our water. And lo, we saw a sign that said "water." MB practically RAN down the trail. We ended up at a little stone cistern thingie that had been built to catch spring water coming right out of the side of the mountain. We filled up our two empty bottles and I decided to adopt the theory that if the water wasn't safe to drink, surely some hiker would've left some kind of warning by now.

Given the chance, I'd do the whole thing over again, but I won't lie and say that there weren't parts that totally, completely sucked. The last probably quarter mile, from the T to the top, seemed to last forever. I stopped about 15 times and just stood there thinking, "I cannot fucking do this," and then I'd just start walking again (because, really, what choice did I have?). This is going to sound dramatic and princessy, but toward the end, I seriously felt like a horse that was about to founder and go down...I had just been plodding on and on and on, like a grouchy little mule, for what felt like forever. I knew we were close to the top, but I just wished the whole thing was done.

Once we got to the top of the tower at the top of the mountain, we decided it was worth it after all...and it was really rewarding to know that we pushed through all that self-defeating bullshit and just forced ourselves to accomplish what we set out to do. From the tower, the view alone was worth every step we'd taken to get there. In the foreground, there were mountains covered with thick green forests. We could see two or three lakes, far off, half-hidden in the haze. And in the background, marching off until they faded from sight, we saw row after row after row of mountains. It made me feel small and infinite in the same breath.

All in all, not a bad way to spend a weekend. MB and I agree that we'd do it again, with a few changes. We'd definitely pack more water, avoid wearing jeans, and make sure MB had better shoes. And I'd wear my contacts so as to prevent foggy-glasses-induced whining.

A week from tomorrow, MB and I are going to try to hike a 12-mile loop in the middle of the nastiest, most humid and sticky heat wave in years, along with MB's brother and a friend of MB's from work and his wife. Let the record show that this hike is NOT my idea, and that I'm hoping the lack of altitude saves us from experiencing another Wesser Bald ass-kicking. In fact, I'd have to say Wesser Bald sets the bar for level 10 on my personal scale of Ass-Kicking-Ness. I'm hoping this ill-advised lake hike only merits a 6 or 7 in comparison. I'll let you know how it goes.

To distract myself from the dread, I'm thinking instead about how MB's brother and I are going to spend the hike looking for geocaches along the trail. There are supposed to be twelve of them along the route we're taking, and I think BoMB (brother of MB...I think he'd appreciate the abbreviation) already has the coordinates loaded into his brand new spiff dandy GPS unit (one guess as to who we bought our slightly used, slightly less spiffy GPS from).



Reading: Mommy Wars, which I'm really enjoying, and Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

Playing: my country and rock playlists on the computer, which include songs like these. And like these.

Lame Excuses at 2 AM

I know I promised that I'd write about North Carolina. I actually have wanted to write about it for over a week, but life has conspired against me. Cue lame excuses:

1. MB and I have spent all of our free evenings watching House on DVD (Dude...Dr. House...¡Te amo!). We finally watched the last episode at 11 PM tonight, so I can finally take the set back to the library tomorrow, 12 days after it was due. There was no freaking way I was returning it until we'd seen every episode.

2. From sometime on Saturday until Tuesday afternoon, our shower didn't shower so much as dribble in a slightly embarrassed way, so I had to go over to my parents' house whenever I felt the need to practice personal hygiene. My usual M.O. is to shower in the late evening, throw on my pjs, and plop down in front of Blogger a few moments later. Instead, I would drive over to my parents' house (about 3 minutes away), chat with whoever happened to be home at the time, shower, chat with whoever was home / had turned up since I got there, and drive home about an hour and a half after I arrived. The shower is fixed now, though there are still a few eccentricities. The new showerhead is a little bit strange (and probably a lot bit cheap), and somehow whenever I adjust it to pour directly down on top of my head for maximum hair rinseage, it manages to send a trickle of water directly up my left nostril and into my sinus cavity. Cheap and gravity-defying!

3. I have been thinking Deep Thoughts lately, which made it hard to sit down and write what I planned to be a lighthearted, amusing tale of our adventures. Stupid Deep Thoughts! Jeez.

4. When I finally did get in the right frame of mind and have the time to sit down, Blogger started getting lippy about uploading photos. It took 2 1/2 sessions to get all the photos I wanted uploaded, and by the time I got the last one added last night, I was too tired to add text.

5. I've somehow managed to have quite a few nights of actual plans involving other people--sometimes involving other people, out in public!--over the last two weeks, so that's assisted Dr. House in keeping me away from the keyboard.

6. Um...that's all I've got, other than: I am lame.

Hopefully, the trip recap and the Deep Thoughts posts will follow shortly.




Reading: Mommy Wars, edited by Leslie Morgan Steiner (yes, still...see above excuses for explanation of crappy reading progression of late), Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

Playing: Delta Momma Blues by Townes Van Zandt (This version. It seems there might be two albums with the same name but totally different track listings.)

Coming soon: Our North Carolina Weekend

Or, How I Got My Ass Kicked on Land & Water

Reading: Mommy Wars, edited by Leslie Morgan Steiner

Just Finished: Twelve Sharp, by Janet Evanovich

Playing: some good bluegrass up in the mountains of North Carolina

Word of Advice to the Cute Clerk at Barnes & Noble

First off, snaps on the outfit. It's cute, flattering, and I might consider trading a pinkie toe to be a tan, elegant-looking size four with great taste in clothes (ok, not really). Howevah...you may want to reevaluate your decision to wear a black thong under that basically-transparent floaty white peasant skirt.



I Didn't Know He Was Serious

I finally got around to checking out Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. I've heard / read them mentioned enough in the last few months to pique my curiosity, and the public library had a few of their CDs. I took Murder Ballads to work today (my boss was out) and got through two or three songs before I decided to check the lyrics sheet. Sure enough, every damn song on the CD is about murder (except for the few that are just about death, with non-specified causes). Some are sort of rollicking and fun in a fucked-up way (like "Stagger Lee") and some are sort of enjoyably melancholic ("Henry Lee"...no apparent relation to Mr. Stagger Lee). Some are creepy, like "The Kindness of Strangers," which features a woman quietly crying in the background. And some are just plain disturbing.

I guess I was warned. I mean, the title of the CD is Murder Ballads. But I didn't realize he really meant it.



I'm Not a Vegan, But Yum:

Vegan Lunch Box



Goodbye, Old Friend

Until last Thursday, this was my phone:


Oh, how I loved my tiny yellow phone. It was very me, and I had carefully entered all bazillion phone numbers I could never remember into it, and downloaded all the games I wanted, and found the perfect Led Zeppelin ringtone. I had all the settings adjusted properly. Then, my phone started dropping calls. I let it go for a few weeks, but then one day I received five phone calls and couldn't answer a single one. I vented to MB about it, and the next thing I know, we're at the Cingular store looking for anything that's not a flip phone and doesn't cost more than $100 (because, seriously, when I drop it and it bounces under my car in the parking lot, I don't want to think about that much money skidding across the asphalt as I crawl under there to retrieve it).

We picked out the ONLY non-flip, non-mp3-playing / internet-eager / camera / hookah & coffee maker phone they had. MB calls it a cellphone for idiots since it's bare bones with no bells or whistles or Bluetooth bits (Blueteeth?). It does not come in yellow. My Led Zeppelin ringtone, lovingly selected and never-tired-of, is no longer available. I weep, yellow phone. I weep for thee.



In Fact...

We went on quite a spending spree last Thursday. It was rather unnerving. Usually MB is the careful one who saves as much as possible and keeps TWO budget spreadsheets and balances the checkbook to the penny. I'm the one who hasn't balanced a checkbook since, oh, 2001, who falls victim to the Target Vortex every time, and who says things like "A hoodie that says GEEK across the front? That is SO WORTH $25!"

However, on Thursday, I was the one fretting and MB was the one taking us not only to get new phones, but to get a brand spanking new tent. Apparently he was harboring a grudge against the tent we already owned because it leaked (a lot) during the Noahtian Deluge (is that even a word? Hell, it is now!) of 2006 that he experienced in Missouri while I was kayaking on the St. Francis.

So we laid down almost $300 for these spiff-dandy new digs (with accessories):





Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for our bank account), the sticker shock seemed to snap MB out of his temporary lapse. I should've acted more quickly and secured a few more bookcases, or at least some of those modular shoe shelf things for behind the couch, because good Lord:




















I still lament my decision to be responsible and forego the hoodie.





Reading: Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich, Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

Playing: Show Your Bones by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (which isn't even about skeletons. Psshht!)

Don't drink the Kool-Aid!

Can anyone tell me why these things


have apparently set up a migration route across our patio and (somehow) through the sliding glass door, only to die by the dozens on our living room carpet?



It's not that I find it creepy...who could be creeped out by a roly-poly?

See, roly-poly:


It's more that I'm completely and utterly mystified.

I've known for awhile now that the roly-polies of my childhood were actually called something else, either pillbugs or sowbugs. Turns out they're probably pillbugs, though the two are very similar. Pillbugs are not bugs at all, but isopods, which are actually terrestrial crustaceans. (Who knew?) They are sometimes also called woodlice, and the common pillbug enjoys the official nomenclature Armadillidium vulgare.

Because, clearly:




Thanks to Google, I now know a lot about roly-polies. I know that they breathe through gills known as pseudotrachea, and therefore prefer moist environments. I know that if you want to get rid of them, you need to remove the mulch from flowerbeds. (Of course, I also know that as soon as I remove the mulch from my flowerbeds, the yard-care men will wage holy war on my roses...so no thanks. Maybe if I didn't live in a place where trimming the verge is modeled after slash-and-burn agriculture, I'd think about it.) I know that roly-polies are quite beneficial to the soil, as they feed on and break down decaying organic matter.

But I still don't know why they've decided to go lemming in my apartment. Is it a misguided mass migration? Is it a crustacean version of the mythical elephant graveyard? Is it a mass suicide, an isopod Jonestown (I did find one tiny rolled-up corpse on top of the ant trap)? Do they simply like the décor?

If I set up tiny little detour signs, do you think they'll stop?

Ten Reasons Why My Dad Rocks

One day late, but it's going to count for Father's Day...because I say so.

1. Besides being a good dad, he's a good man and a good person. He has worked at the same job since before I was born to support his family, even though it's not glamorous. He never hits, he never yells, he barely ever swears. He doesn't drink to excess, smoke, gamble, or see other women. He helps people. I cannot count the number of times people have said things to me along the lines of "Your dad is the best guy! He's always willing to help out!"

2. He really appreciates the simple things in the world. I never feel embarrassed to tell him about being geeked out about stuff like seeing a lizard in my yard or going on a moonlight canoe paddle, because he totally gets it. He'll come right back and say, "I know! Sometimes I'm driving along and I see something like a horse rolling on his back out in the field and I think, 'Thank you, God, for letting me have this moment.' "

3. I've never thought of myself as a daddy's girl in a princessy, prissy way, but I definitely am in the will-always-be-fond-of-him way. When I got married, I thought about keeping my maiden name as my middle name, but I didn't because I just couldn't stand the thought of dropping my given middle name. My main childhood nickname from my dad was my first name followed by an abbreviated version of my middle name. The thought of him never "officially" being able to call me that again made me tear up, so I quickly abandoned that plan. FirstName MiddleName MaidenName MarriedName was a bit ungainly, so I dropped my maiden name and hung onto my middle name. All because of happy memories of my dad.

4. Even though he never ceased to be scandalized by the cost of textbooks, he was very supportive of me while I was in college. He never acted like I was wasting my time. Any time I needed something--from a rock hammer to a mineral guide to a ride home from campus--he was there for me.

5. He cannot tell jokes. He usually gets halfway through and forgets the punchline and has to backtrack. It's adorable.

6. For my sixteenth birthday, he wrote me this amazing, sweet letter about how proud he was of me and how special our relationship was to him.

7. If I had to make a top five list of memories from my wedding, this would be one of them: looking up from talking to someone to see all of my friends holding hands and dancing in a giant circle to "Brown-Eyed Girl," with my dad as the ringleader. The joy I felt in that moment was almost overwhelming.

8. This would be another: for our father-daughter dance, I had my uncle play and sing "Catch a Falling Star." When I told Dad that I picked it because it was the first song I can remember him teaching me to play on the piano, his eyes filled up with tears. I've never seen my dad cry. Now every time I go to a wedding and see the father-daughter dance, I almost lose it and start bawling.

9. Dad and I haven't always been great at expressing our feelings for each other. My mom always said, "I love you" when she'd tuck us in at night or whenever we'd leave to go somewhere. I don't know if Dad just didn't grow up saying it or what. He'd say, "I love my girls" in general about me and my sister and my mom, but we didn't really say "I love you" to each other. When I was about thirteen or fourteen, I started to worry that my dad wouldn't know that I loved him, really, if I didn't say it. I don't know why it was so hard, but it took me weeks to get up enough courage to say it out loud.

My room was in the basement of the house, and my dad came home from work pretty late in the evening. Usually, we'd be the last two awake, and he'd be sitting in the living room watching TV as I went past and down the basement stairs. The night I finally had the guts to say it, I waited until I was practically already down the first few steps, probably with the door actually swinging shut behind me before I called out, "Good night, Dad. I love you!" I will never forget the expression on his face as he looked up at me in amazement and said, "I love you, too." We're not shy about that anymore.

10. I know that in his eyes, my sister and I will always be the smartest, prettiest, most awesome daughters in the whole wide world. He is the greatest dad, and I am so lucky to be his kid.


Even though you are as internet impaired as Mom and will therefore also probably never read this...I love you, Dad! Happy Father's Day, one day late!



Reading: Sourcery by Terry Pratchett, Good in Bed by Jennifer Weiner

Playing: Stadium Arcadium by the Red Hot Chili Peppers

How embarrassing

Apparently I live in one of the ten least-educated states in the country. MB's state of origin is on the list, too.

But...but...but...

"We have four college degrees between the two of us," I feel like shrieking. "Three of those are bachelor's degrees. THREE!"

Alas...it seems Encarta / MSN is not listening.