My name is Sue! How do you do?! Now you gonna die!

I heart Mr. Johnny Cash. I heart him mucho lots.

With that, let's move on to:



Mostly worthless musings on the Winter Olympics

In general, I just don't get as excited about the Winter Olympics as I do their Summer counterpart. Cross-country events don't thrill me that much. Downhill is okay, though I haven't watched it much this year. Mostly because I think Bode Miller is a colossal ass, and I'm not really interested in watching him slum around and then act like he's above it all and that he doesn't really care about winning medals. Fine, dude...but why are you even at the Olympics? His whole "Olympic spirit" thing just sounds like a cop-out to explain why he's sucking big time on the slopes this time around. Halfpipe is fabulous fun, and Sean White looks like a Weasley brother. "Sno-bo-cross" is sort of cool, but sort of weird. Speed skating can be entertaining, but watching Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick act like snarky bitches after tonight's 1500 kind of soured me on the whole event. They made me extra glad that the Italian kid won.

All that said, I do love me some women's figure skating. I'm sort of 'meh' on men's and pairs. Not sure why. The throws in pairs are cool, and I like the powerhouse jumpers like Yevgeny Plushenko, even though almost all of the photos in his NBC Olympic bio are SCARY. SCARY, ya'll. I don't dig the fluffy artistry that much in the men, and I don't know why, because I tend to be pretty equal-opportunity when it comes to fluff. As for ice dancing...well...it's really the winter equivalent of rhythm gymnastics. Both are pretty, both are dull, both have goofy ass elements (giant balls vs. "twizzles"), and both seem kind of silly compared to other events.

MB is not all that into the Olympics. I think he might still be a little bitter about the fact that I made him watch quite a few of the 2004 Summer Games events from hotel rooms while we were on our honeymoon. Gah...I am a horrid wife. And he is saintly for actually still liking me after it was all over. Not wanting to watch tonight's skating program alone, I recruited the cat as my viewing buddy and fellow judge. Since neither of us really understand the new figure skating scoring system, Mr. Kitters and I decided to rate the skaters on their costumes and musical choices instead. Besides, what do we know about technical elements?


Best costume

ME: The gold goes to Sarah Meier of Switzerland, who wore the prettiest and most normal-looking dress. Make it black instead of canary yellow, give it 6-12 more inches of skirt, and you've got a hot, classy evening dress. It had glittery straps and none of that uber-scary semi-flesh-toned pantyhose-like mesh stuff. Also, I wish my back was half as sexy as hers.

MR. KITTERS: The gold definitely belongs to Elene Gedevanishvili from Georgia. Her costume had fringe. Fringe is fun to bat.




ME: The silver goes to Irina Slutskaya of Russia. She'd win it even without extra points for being an absolute powerhouse. She was the only featured skater to wear pants, and even though I wasn't crazy about the sparkle patterns, the cut of her outfit was flattering and made her look both sexy and totally badass.



MR. KITTERS: I'll give the silver to that girl who wore that half hot-pink, half very scary-flesh-meshy thing. It looked sort of like a flamingo, which is a bird, and birds are fun to stare at menacingly from my window.


ME: The bronze is going to Fumie Suguri of Japan. Gorgeous dress, absolutely stunning girl. Loses points for scary flesh-toned skates, cancelled out by her rockin' "sneaky-high" jumps.

MR. KITTERS: I'm giving bronze to Sasha Cohen. Her outfit had flowers, which I like to eat.




Runners-up: Yelena Liashenko, who rocked the best dress back, despite it being the color of a road cone. Anyone who wore skates with those funky gold-toned blades.



While we're talking Olympic outfits, there has to be a shout-out to those godawful jerseys the Russian speedskaters are sporting:



ME: I can see why the guys who were paired up with the skaters wearing these showed up on the track wearing dark goggles. Otherwise, they'd risk having this heinous pattern seared into their retinae.

MR. KITTERS: Damn. Just, damn. I'm colorblind and that's still painful. And what's with that freaky mouse-human-hybrid thing she's carrying?



Best Music

Gold: Sasha Cohen, skating to the lovely Russian folk song "Dark Eyes." I have a music box that used to be my mom's that plays "Dark Eyes," and I have always loved it.

Silver: Irina Slutskaya, whose music matched her kickassery.

Bronze: The girl (Canadian, maybe?) who skated to an instrumental rendition of Madonna's "Like a Prayer." She medals on sheer hilarity alone.



"Nice try, sparky, but I totally saw you two-foot that landing."



This entry is horribly long already, but one more thing

One of my close friends got married this past Saturday, and it seems that while I was off co-shouldering the terrifying responsibility of cutting and serving this gorgeous cake...



...MB and my cousin were making potpourri art:





A great column...
...on the continuing doubts and hopes of a woman who decided to choose children over her career.



Curse you, Blogger

For making me reconstruct this whole goddamn entry just to change the date. You SUCK. Thank God for cutting and pasting out of Word, because the original took me an hour to assemble, and otherwise, there would've definitely been vengeful thoughts going on over here.



Reading: Medicine Road by Charles de Lint

Playing: Within a Mile of Home by Flogging Molly and The Legend of Johnny Cash

Happy Poo-lentine's Day to you, too

My husband (I think I shall call him MB from now on, just for simplicity...because "husband" sounds too formal and anything related to "hubby" is kind of gross) and I had planned a pretty low-key Valentine's Day. I wasn't feeling too excited about waiting around forever to get a table at a packed restaurant, and he wasn't arguing with my logic. We were going to take a walk along the riverfront (because it was 63 degrees outside. Swear.), get groceries, cook, and probably watch a DVD. Notice I said we were going to do these things. Want to know what we did instead? Of course you do...

We shampooed our cat. And not for kicks...no, sir.

I was gathering my things to head home and change, collect MB and drive over to the levee for our romantic stroll. My phone rang.

Me: Hello?

MB: The kitty's ass exploded.

Me: Excuse me?

MB: The kitty's ass. It exploded. It's everywhere.

Me: *dread looming* In the litterbox?

MB: And on him. And a little bit on the carpet. We have to do something. He's in the bathroom right now. He's not happy.

Our cat is immensely fluffy, with these poofy fur britches (my mom calls them fancy-pants) on his hind legs. I feared the worst. When I got home, I was relieved to find that the cat, while suffering an embarrassing hygiene problem, was not as disgusting as I'd expected. I was not permitted to take photographs. While he was still poo-i-fied, he was just too pissed off and MB was too stressed out. Once he was (finally) clean and sitting around looking pathetic and bedraggled, MB put his arm around me and said, in all seriousness, "No pictures. I think Kitty deserves this moment of privacy." It was so hilarious that I couldn't argue.

MB had already run a few inches of lukewarm water into the tub, so I put on old jeans and a longsleeved shirt and volunteered to sit in the tub and be the cat holder. My mom laughed when I told her about this part. She seemed to have forgotten which feline we are talking about. This is no docile, harmless ball of fluff. This is a 15-pound, mostly-muscle, temperamental linebacker of a cat. He's strong, he's willful, and when he gets pissed, he bites people. He's opened a 24-ounce can of whoopass on me once before, and even though that was my fault, I was not eager to repeat the experience (nor the subsequent visit to the urgent care clinic for a tetanus booster and antibiotics when my arm turned red and swelled up. Gross.)

So for the bath, we swaddled his front half in a towel, but his back legs had to stick out. That was the main problem, because it left his strongest kicking legs and his claws free. He nailed me good right down my left wrist at the very beginning of the bath. I thought it was going to be pretty terrible, but it's not so bad. It looks kind of suspicious because of the location, but it doesn't hurt too much. (Although it's achieved that point in the healing process where it just itches all the damn time and tempts me to scratch it, even though it's not time for the scab to come off just yet.)

We would get the cat swaddled, I'd hang on to him, and MB would do his best to clean him up with a washcloth. Eventually, he'd get mostly free of the towel, and we'd dump him on the floor for a few minutes so everyone could regroup. We finally abandoned that plan when it became clear it wasn't working. MB swaddled him, held him securely with his booty hanging over the edge of the tub, and I used Dial soap to shampoo his tail and britches. I did have to cut out two really gross patches of fur, but at that point I don't think the cat even noticed. He was too busy freaking out over us pouring water on his ass with a pitcher.

We FINALLY got him cleaned up, and then he walked around the rest of the evening looking like a pitiful drowned rat from the hips down. Every time he got up to go somewhere, he'd kick-shake his back feet like, "Blecccchh!!!!" After a few hours, he'd groomed all of his tail except a few inches at the base, so he looked quite silly with his fluffy body, scrawny soaked back legs, scrawny skinny tail base, and fluffy, plumey tail top.

After that, we were too tired to do anything romantic or culinary. We ordered pizza (which was really late. And cold. Snarl.) and watched Ghostbusters. Good times, good times.



Reading: Jack of Kinrowan by Charles de Lint

Playing: one of my favorite playlists on the computer, Plans by Death Cab for Cutie, and the soundtrack to The Fifth Element because MB keeps putting it in the bedroom stereo (and the car stereo and the computer).

Scientists have discovered more than 20 new species in Indonesia

This rocks pretty darn hard, especially when they found cool stuff like tree kangaroos and frogs and neato birds and this adorable echidna fellow:





My Skepticism Surprises Me

I'm reading a book called The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. Here is a summary that was published in Rolling Stone last year. I'm pretty tree-huggery by nature, and so it surprised me how often I find that I disagree with the author's bolder doom-and-gloom pronouncements. I can believe that the supply of fossil fuels (and especially oil) could run out a lot sooner than the public expects. I have a hard time believing that the U.S. will break up into smaller factions and revert to a nearly-pre-Industrial way of life, after much of the world's human population is decimated by K-T style die-offs. I'm not very far into it, but so far it gives me the same half-interested half-embarrassed feeling that I get from Michael Moore films.

In a coincidence that's freaking me out a little (but maybe only because it's 1:00 in the morning), there is a Long Emergency blog that uses an identical template to the one I use: www.longemergency.blogspot.com.



Even as a Child, I Was Such a Geek

When I was little, I loved to look through my parents' rag-tag collection of non-sequential National Geographic magazines. One of my very favorites was an issue that had a feature on a shipwreck. A moment ago, I would've said it was about the Titanic, but now I suddenly suspect it was about a ship that sank in one of the Great Lakes during the War of 1812. I watched the documentary Ghosts of the Abyss the other day, and I really liked it. It was enjoyable for science/history geek reasons, but also because it reminded me of going through that old magazine, over and over.

I'm going to try to snag one of the public library's copies of Aliens of the Deep sometime this week, because the only thing better than geekiness is geekiness with a side of nerd.



Reading: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. I really, really loved American Gods, to the point where I'll probably buy a copy and it ranks somewhere in my top ten favorite books of the genre. Anansi Boys is not quite a sequel, but it's related enough that I think it'll be fantastic, too.

In other Neil Gaiman-related news, Mirrormask comes out on DVD next Tuesday. I was lucky enough to see it in Chicago at the one theater that was showing it the weekend I visited, and I liked it enough that I plunked down $20 at my part-time job to reserve a copy. If you dig Gaiman's stuff or dark-ish Henson movies like The Dark Crystal, I'd recommend renting or Netflix-ing Mirrormask.


Playing: You Are Free, by Cat Power

To celebrate the fact that we are lame enough to have 1.77 GIGABYTES worth of pictures of our cat, here are a few favorites:

A Festival of Random

This week has been an experience in the random side of life. Randomosity.

Random Thievery, Part One:

My mother-in-law bought me two plastic frog garden statues for my birthday last year. They, in themselves, were random. But cute. I put them out on our front porch around Memorial Day when we finally put out some flowers in pots. At first, I sort of worried that someone would steal them, but month after month, nothing happened. The flowers all died and then we brought in all the green plants for the winter, but the frogs and the flower stand stayed out. The frogs started to be my landmark to find our porch when I was pulling into our parking lot, not that it's that hard. Then, this past Thursday, I glanced out the window to tell a friend that she could find our apartment by looking for the frogs on the porch...and they were gone.

It's not that I'm heartbroken, though I am a little sad. It's mostly that it's annoying. I'd actually be happy about it if the person who did it would take the garden frogs on a trip somewhere and send postcards back to me, signed by the frogs, or take pictures of the frogs on vacation, like these guys did with a garden gnome. I really don't think anyone in our building is that creative. I doubt they were taken by someone who absolutely had to have them for their own garden. I have a feeling they'll end up in the garbage somewhere. That pisses me off.


Random Thievery, Part Two

On Friday, I brought a banana to work with me for a late breakfast. Usually I bring my lunch in a somewhat sarcastically overlarge insulated cooler thing, but on Friday my department director was taking me and our intern out to lunch, so I didn't need the giant lunchbox. I brought a plastic cup, a yogurt, a spoon, and a banana. I put the yogurt in the fridge, obviously, and put the spoon and banana in the cup, which I put on the shelf under the counter, in the same place I usually put my lunchbox. I went back to the breakroom about an hour later, and the spoon and cup were sitting on the countertop, no banana in sight. Now, maybe it's just the way that I was raised, but I don't understand how an adult can think it's okay to take someone else's food. Even if you don't know whose food it is, surely you know that it's NOT YOURS. No one's short term memory is so bad that they can forget whether or not they brought an item to work that day.

Being too nice to leave a nasty voicemail for the entire staff but being too stubborn to just let it go, I taped a note to the fridge--written in Sharpie on a full sheet of paper--that said: "Missing: one banana for breakfast. If found, please return to velocibadgergirl." Yesterday, the sweet and adorable cleaning lady came into the office and said she was sorry, that she thought she'd probably thrown my banana away. She found a banana on top of the snack machine, and figured someone had left it there and forgotten about it. I assured her that it wasn't my banana, unless of course someone had stashed it there...in which case it was their fault I lost the banana, not hers. This leads me to two conclusions, both amusing.

A. Someone else at work is thinking, "Dammit! Someone stole my banana! How random!" If we both begin talking about our missing bananas, it'll seem like a veritable crime wave.

B. The person who took my banana stashed it there, figuring they could eat it later. Only they were foiled when the banana was thrown away, and thus were not able to enjoy the spoils of their sneaky-snake behavior. I think I like this conclusion better, just because it has a certain element of poetic justice to it.

All in all, it doesn't really matter. It's not like I was starving to death and needed that banana. It's not like I have blood sugar issues and got sick for lack of food. It's the principle of the thing.


Random Useless Fact

I was born on the 200th anniversary of the discovery of the planet Uranus. Embarrassing name, quirky planet. It sort of evens out.



Random Biology Lesson

Where I work, there is a display window/alcove thing with a pond inside. The pond is nicely landscaped, with rocks and vegetation and such. Inside the alcove live two white and green birds in a cage (cockatiels, maybe?) and some turtles. I thought there was only one turtle, but last night there was an event, and I ran into one of my coworkers in front of the pond. He informed me that there are five turtles living in the alcove, and that sometimes the box turtles come up to the very front, right by the glass, and make sweet turtle love. I figured this was a once-in-awhile thing. However, it seems that the turtles are quite amorous. Today I walked by the alcove and the new security guard was peering in. He asked me if the lizard on the rock was real or a toy. I located it and said that I thought it looked pretty fake. Then I mentioned how supposedly there are five turtles, but I usually can only find one. I saw one sitting on a log, and then my eyes wandered to the front corner and lo and behold...turtle nookie. Two of the box turtles were in the midst of a romantic turtle moment. I just sort of trailed off and hoped the guard didn't notice the turtle tryst. Ah, nature. So beautiful and yet so ripe for somewhat embarrassing moments.



Random Overheard Conversation

Yesterday night, the husband and I went out for a late dinner. There was a pretty long wait at the restaurant, so we were sitting on the benches at the front, waiting for our buzzer thing to light up. At some point, this somewhat whiskey tango chick and her friends came in and sat down next to us. Well, actually, the subject of this random item sat ON me. On my coat, to be truthful. So when I tried to scoot over, I had to pull my coat out from under her. Nice. Anyhow, she and her friends were jabbering on about something, and one of them asked her if she "got it." I didn't catch all the words, but here's the gist. She had just gotten a tattoo. On the back of her neck. And the guy SPELLED IT WRONG. Yeah.

She lifted up her hair and her friend said, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, no...just keep your hair down. Just keep it down. Oh, God. Couldn't you see it?"

Tattooed Girl: "No, you can't see it while they're doing it. He can add an A to it."

Tattooed Girl's Friend:"Just keep your hair down."

Unfortunately, our buzzer went off and we went to our table before I could ascertain what the lacking-an-A tattoo said.


Reading: American Gods, by Neil Gaiman. Love it. LOVE IT. Engrossing, engaging, mysterious, just enough action, really good characters, and a good amount of humor. Love. It.

Playing: Speak for Yourself, by Imogen Heap; Happy Songs for Happy People, by Mogwai; One Way Ticket to Hell...and Back, by The Darkness.

"We're living Planes, Trains & Automobiles!"

So says my husband, in the midst of his very first business trip, which seems to be going slightly awry. They drove from here to South Carolina on Tuesday, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of an 8-hour trip as far as I know. The "we've checked into our hotel" call just didn't happen and didn't happen, so I finally called to see how things were going, only to find out that they were sitting in a repair shop. The truck apparently lost the use of its fuel pump. They ended up getting a rental car and proceeding to their hotel, and everything seemed to be going somewhat according to plan. Then today, they found out that the truck won't be fixed before Friday, so of course they attempted to extend their reservations for an extra night...and that's when they learned that the hotel was all full for the weekend. He seemed in pretty good spirits when I talked to him, but that may have something to do with the fact that his boss treated him and their other traveling companion to margaritas and Longhorn steak for dinner. Stinker.

This means that my official longest stay at home alone since we moved in together will be extended even further. I suppose it's really quite fitting, seeing how many times I've skipped happily off into the sunset tra-la, tra-lee and left my hapless spouse alone for days at a time. Not that I don't miss him when I'm the one who's away. I do...I just don't usually get lonely while I'm away. These past couple of days, it's just been me and the feline...and he's not exactly a party animal this week, being flea bitten (but recently flea-treated, so fear not) and possibly afflicted with a mild infection that makes one eye sort of watery and boogery. Poor thing. He's going to the vet Friday if he doesn't look more respectable.

Meanwhile, I have pretty big news of my own (as if anyone reads this. Ha!): After all my whining and pity-party-throwing, I managed to score a ticket on that bus after all. I won't say where I work now, because that's just irresponsible...but I can say that it doesn't involve retail, it does involve a pretty respectable salary, and it will allow me to indulge in two of my favorite things--being a science geek and teaching kids in a not-a-traditional-classroom type of setting. It's especially sweet because I've been teaching workshops on an extraordinarily part-time basis at this unnamed place for going on 6 years now, and I truly love the program and the work I've been able to do there.

I started my new job yesterday, and I can say that my brain is very, very full. I know that it won't be perfect, and I'm sure there will be days when I'm frustrated or tired of it, but I think it has the potential to kick ass in a pretty serious way. So, to life...cheers. I will try to make the most of this one.


One of my favorite Christmas scenes EVER:
(which I actually photographed in my own town)




Farking adorable!

Hippo and tortoise, one year later




Reading: Life, the Universe, and Everything, Douglas Adams
              The Art of Discworld, Terry Pratchett & Paul Kidby
              Tree: A New Vision of the American Forest, James Balog

Playing: The Legend of Johnny Cash.

You ain't got no alibi...2005.10.01

This is part two of my ugly car blogging fascination.

The 2005 Mustang



Let's start with a car that's not really that ugly, just to prove I'm not totally mean. The first few times I saw the 2005 Mustangs, I was appalled. I just could not see the appeal of melding new-Mustang-style curvy fenders with old-Mustang-style front and back ends. But the more I saw them, the more I liked them.

Now I can appreciate that they are pretty attractive--though nowhere near as sexy as the old school Mustangs...that kind of goes without saying. Still, for some reason when I look at one face-on, it makes me think of a puppy dog. Go figure.


The Dodge Magnum



This is the car that inspired my fascination with writing some blog entries about ugly cars. K.W. rented one for a trip, and the car ended up being dubbed "The Big American Penis." Previously, I had argued that only James Bond could pull off driving this car. Anyone else would just look ridiculous. This is a truly hideous car. It's so bulbous...like a station wagon without the quirky charm...like a sedan in need of rhinoplasty...like a...well, like a Big American Penis. There's really no other way to describe it.

Postscript: Laura Danger says, "The Dodge Magnum...giving soccer dads their balls back."


The Scion xB





This is the only vehicle on the planet that makes the Honda Element look a little less heinous. I appreciate the ecological significance of the Scion. I dream of one day owning a hybrid, but in my dreams hybrid cars look more like normal cars. They certainly don't look like the Element's homelier sister. There are 3 models of Scion, and I'll admit I chose the ugliest one to poke fun at, but then again, that's kind of the point.


Here's the Toyota Prius:



This is not an overly attractive car, either, but it's a lot better than the previous example. If you squint a little, you can almost imagine that the Prius is a space-age Volkswagen Beetle. Almost.

You so ugly...

A while back, I was inspired by a conversation with my friend K.W. to write a blog entry about ugly cars. I posted it on my first blog, which was set up on the webspace my husband and I have through our internet provider. In an attempt to go worldwide (because I lie to myself and say that someone other than three of my friends will read this), I switched to this blog. Alas, I never bothered to repost the old content. I think, however, that I finally have the patience to attempt it. Here goes:

The H2

The original civilian Hummer was not that bad. Sure, it was a road-hogging, gas-guzzling, small-penis-indicating monster of an SUV, but it had a special something. It was road-hogging and gas-guzzling and over-compensating in a way that reminded one of M*A*S*H and muscular action hero types. It had a certain virility to it, if you will. The Hummer was a bit ugly, but it was also a bit (a tiny bit) sexy:



Now let's consider the H2:



Same wide wheelbase. Similar body style from the dashboard back. The front? Oh, dear. The nose and grille look way too small. It reminds me of something you might see in a bad 80s sci-fi flick, where they were trying to make something look high-tech and futuristic, but instead made it embarrassingly bad. This homely face might be forgivable in a less gas-guzzling, less-over-compensating vehicle, but in an "I Am Manly" vehicle, it's just sad.

The Dodge Durango

How did something so wonderfully hot, the Dodge Ram, the epitome of sexy fullsized pickups...



...spawn something as ungainly-looking as the Dodge Durango? How does that wonderful silver grille look so out of place on such a similar body?



Alas, I think this will always be one of life's great mysteries.

Postscript: My friend Laura Danger says, "The only way the Dodge Durango could ever redeem itself would be if one ran over Paris Hilton, repeatedly."

The Honda Element



Criminy, what an ugly vehicle. The photos really don't do it justice. I've seen a few of them around town, and trust me...they're much less attractive in person. I find this picture especially amusing, because it's clear they want you to think this vehicle can go off-road. Have you seen the clearance on one of these bastards? Look at this!



It would get stuck trying to drive over a speedbump, let alone any kind of respectable obstacle. My mom's minivan had more clearance than this! You'd get about 50 feet into the forest, get hung up on an acorn, and have to call AAA to come tow you back to the highway.

You're not paranoid if they really are out to get you

Or, I might've been right about that whole American dream thing:

College debts and broken dreams

Sometimes, I'd rather be wrong...

Reading: Killing Bono, by Neil McCormick

Playing: Plans--Death Cab for Cutie, All That You Can't Leave Behind, U2

I love this article:

The Straight Dude's Guide to 'Brokeback'

'Brokeback,' of course, being Brokeback Mountain, the upcoming movie in which Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal fall in love with each other. I'm definitely going to see this one, even if I can't find anyone to be my date. It's supposed to be a fantastic film (review here). My only concern is making sure my dad does not see it. He will be quite traumatized if he goes merrily into the theater expecting horses and lovely mountain vistas and then experiences an altogether different kind of scenery.

Decking the Halls and Stuffing the Bird

To deter repeated episodes of this:


My husband devised this:



It has worked pretty well so far. **knocks frantically on wood tabletop** Living with an engineer ain't half bad.


Here are some highlights of the Thanksgiving experience:

>>Had dinner with my family on Thursday night. Got to spend time with my mom and dad, which was nice. Unfortunately, my sister spent the holiday with her boyfriend's family, so I didn't see her. Saw my cousin, her husband, and their two little girls for the first time in awhile.

>>Opened at work on Black Friday and didn't get completely trounced.

>>Spent Friday night through early Sunday morning with the in-laws, who I really like (weird, huh?). This involved:
>>>fabulous pancakes made by my husband's mamaw
>>>a trip to an outlet mall in which I actually convinced said spouse to buy two pairs of desperately-needed new jeans (total cost: $21.20. SWEET.)
>>>probably one of the best Thanksgiving dinners ever made
>>>a loudmouthed and absolutely freakin' hilarious marathon game of Bullshit with my husband, his brother, their two aunts and two uncles, and one of their cousins. I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long, long time.


Trying to be proactive

I sent in a résumé and application today for an honest-to-God grownup job that I'm vastly, laughably underqualified for, and I'm trying not to think about it anymore. :P


File this under "but he looked so cute and fluffy":

Why it's a bad idea to be 'huggy-kissy' with llamas

Someone needs to explain what the hell happened to November.

One minute I was coming to grips with the fact that it was almost Halloween, and the next, it was 3 days before Turkey Day. Not cool, this time warp thing.

Since I'll be working retail again this Christmas season, I'll be putting up all the holiday decorations on Thanksgiving morning. I'm looking forward to it, and expect that by dinnertime, my husband will be ready to toss me and my Christmas CDs out onto the lawn. No, I kid, I kid. He's a very patient man.

My real worry is that our cat might not be able to control himself once the tree goes up. He has a compulsion to get into everything he is strictly forbidden to touch. He also has a weird habit of drowning things in his water dish once they cease to amuse him. Last year, I lost count of the number of times I came home from work to find a Christmas ornament floating in a small watery grave. He had one particular ornament that he was OCD about getting his fangs on, but I can't remember which one it was.

Our tree is only 4 and a half feet tall, and we set it up on top of a small table. The cat had few difficulties plucking whatever he wished from the branches while he was home alone. Luckily, he kept the actual destruction to a minimum.

His last vestige of self-control vanished about a week after Christmas, however. El Esposo and I were eating dinner when the cat decided he wanted to sit under the tree. I pulled him out; he jumped back up onto the table. I pulled him out; he jumped back up. I finally decided to just let him sit there. Sure enough, as soon as I stopped watching him, he attempted to climb the tree from the inside. When I grabbed him around what I guess is his waist to pull him out, he went into civil disobedience mode. I swear I am not making this up. He flopped onto his side and threw out his front legs, hooked his paws around the base of the tree, and refused to let go. Meanwhile, he was thrashing back and forth a bit, so that he ended up underneath the garland but on top of the string of lights. He started to slip off the edge of the table, which was complicated by the fact that the tree was now securely tied onto his midsection. I caught him before he could bring the whole business down, but El Esposo had to assist with the extrication. We ended up having to lock the cat in the bathroom for an hour while I tried to stop laughing and we took down the tree. If there's a replay this year, I hope we at least get some pictures of it.

This cat post is funnier than mine.

Dammit.

A friend of mine had a link to an avatar maker on her blog, so El Esposo and I gave it a shot. It's us, except skinnier and with larger eyes:

I feel like I should stand up and applaud:

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama at the National Women's Law Center

This was the quote of the day on my Google page today:

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
- Ellen Goodman

How uplifting! Thanks, Google. Google seems to know that I've been especially brood-y lately about the lack of a "real" job in my life. I like both of my retail jobs well enough. I'd love to get paid a bit more, but for the most part I can enjoy what I do, and with very few exceptions I work with awesome people. However, I must say that working at these jobs was not what I envisioned for myself at 2 years past graduation when I started college. To be totally fair and brutally honest with myself, this is likely about 95% my fault. I have not aggressively--or even much at all--pursued jobs in my field. I'm going to be lame and offer a few excuses for this, to make myself feel better. #1: the area I live in is not exactly a hotbed of geological or editorial activity. My husband has a highly decent job which he likes, and I had suspicions that I'd want to go to grad school, so it seemed silly to look for a job that would require relocation. #2: I tend to work a lot of hours to make up for the fact that I make a pittance, so that doesn't leave a lot of free time for hard core job searching...though I guess I could do less socializing online. Like I said...95% my fault.

Anyhow, I guess I should be grateful to my retail slave status, because it has made me realize that I DO need to go back to school. I'm at the point now where I feel like I truly have to either get a real job or get the hell out of Dodge for a few years or I'm just going to crack one day and start picking people off with CD cases thrown like ninja stars or something. I do, however, have a slight bone to pick with society in general over this situation I find myself in (and which I see many of my friends in) currently. They (they being our culture, schools, "the man," whatever) lead us to believe that all we have to do is get good grades in high school, participate in some extra curriculars, choose and get accepted to a decent college, and then choose a major, and we're all set. Not so much. Once you're at college, you have to decide if you want to stick with your chosen major (if you even had one to begin with). Then you have to decide if you want to go straight into the job market or on to grad school. There is no class called "Getting A Job 101." I wish there had been.

Also, by the time you're 25, it seems like you should already be well on your way to the picket fence and the car and the 2.5 kids. Again, not so much. I'll be 25 in March. I've managed to snag one of the most important ingredients in the equation--the supportive, loving, decent man with a good work ethic, an education, and good prospects--and yet I'm still wallowing around in semi-adulthood wondering where the hell I missed the bus that was supposed to take me to Grownup Land. As much as I hate to admit that sometimes I hear a somewhat cheesy song on the radio and go, "Yeah, man! I know!" here's one that makes me do that:

This is for all you girls about twenty-five
In a little apartment, just trying to get by
Living on, on dreams and spaghetti-o's
Wondering where your life is gonna go

Every time I hear Martina McBride sing those lines, I know what she means. Not that there's anything wrong with spaghetti-o's...I'm just saying.


To close, because I am mean and horrible:
www.demonbaby.com

Let me soften this a bit by saying that I laughed less at the haircuts (well, most of them) than at the painstaking comparisons to Marvel characters. As someone who fancied herself more than a bit "alternative" in high school, I feel I must applaud these kids for being brave enough to go all out in their quest to give a big fat middle finger to conformity. That said, I do wonder if when they're 40, some of these people will wonder what the hell they were thinking to spend so much of their hard-earned cash on hair products. Also, I admire their dedication, since it probably takes some of them more time to fix their hair every morning for a week than it has taken me to fix my hair every morning in my entire LIFE, including my wedding day and the two formal dances I attended in high school. Snaps for that.

I spent the last two weekends away from home, and find myself immensely refreshed now. The first weekend away was spent in Chicago, a city I've been in love with since my first visit. I had a great time hanging out with two of my roommates from college. The second weekend was spent in Eastern Kentucky with a different group of college friends. We were in semi-mountainous terrain, which is a huge change from where I live. The leaves had started to change, and the weather was chilly and crisp. Fall is my favorite season, so this was paradise. On the last day, we went on a short and not-too-strenuous hike and saw a huge and incredible natural arch and a small, undeveloped cave. I was taking in all the leaves and the land and just the feeling of being in the woods, and the wonder of seeing little bats in the cave, and I realized that both trips had recharged my batteries, but in different ways. In the city, I feel energized and lively. I can feel Chicago living and breathing around me. In the woods, I feel peace. I can feel life living and breathing around me. If I could only see one of these things ever again--wonderful cities or wild places--I think I'd choose wild places. But losing the cities would break my heart.

Ah...I see that we are joining the blog trend after all...very good, minion...very good.

Who?

MB = the one I married

Kitters = the cat

Indy (aka Indiana Bones) = the dog

Little Sis = my sister (I wasn't feeling creative that day, apparently)

BoMB = Brother of MB

the bibliophile, evilducky, jdog, rabid monkey, teacher incognito, the apathetic one, Danger, MacGyver, basscomm = fabulous friends

Macduff = honorary nephew, son of teacher incognito

The Kid = little boy I've been kidsitting for since he was 18 months old

The Things About Me Memes

Six Weird Things

Six More Weird Things

Five Facts About Me

Eight Things

Seven Random Things

Seven More Random Things

Betcha Didn't Know

Dear Kammah -

The blanket was the item that inspired the Give Kammah an Internet Hug project. It's been out of stock until now, but I hope it'll still provide awesome huggability. The list of us just keeps getting longer and we're all cheering you on, you just can't hear us with this blanket over your ears.

The shirt is just because sometimes you have to represent for your favorite Doctor.

The journal is because sometimes you just need an analog blog.

The Soft Kitty socks are for comfort at times when the big Soft Kitty can't go along with you.

The cape socks are because we didn't know where to buy you a real cape, plus we didn't want to have to worry about you around any jet engines.

With love & hope,
@velocibadgerGRL
@rambleginger
@AnnabelleSpeaks
@ebj123
@shriekhouse
@HereWeGoAJen
@booksnchickens
@Andyouknow
@PolkaDotsPearls
@am_doingmybest
@wendryn
@PinkieBling
@gingermaxim
@SMMollohan
@Superjules
@dinsdaleatlarge
@notthatpregnant
@vandeblogger
@meanliving
@TubaSheila
@saly
@maraudererin
@BonaFideMelee
@antiangi
@aprilbapryll