letting go

When I was 5 years old I thought my grandfather was the biggest man that ever existed. He was tall, fat, and strong in my 5 year old eyes and I was certain no other man could possibly be bigger. I was also certain that he was as goofy as he was big and continually proved me right with stupid songs that were better than anything Barney can teach kids these days.

But as much as I like to think he was all play, he worked harder than I can ever imagine. PawPaw was a railroad man and worked weeks full of long days to provide our family with everything we could ever want. He worked weeks away from the house and would return to us exhausted. Those nights we had a ritual where we would eat dinner silently while watching the 5 o'clock news. I loved those nights of silent meals, filled with the news of the day because it meant my PawPaw was home for a few days.

The best days were the ones when he was home and rested. Besides singing, his favorite thing to do with me was to scratch off lottery tickets. It may not sound like the best activity for a 6 year old and her grandfather, but I swear I had the best luck when he bought me the tickets and we scratched them off together. I've tried in the past few years to pick up scratch off lottery tickets and I've never won, not even a dollar. I've discovered it wasn't my luck that did it, it was his. I should have taken him to a casino the day I turned 21, I could have been a very rich girl.

I grew up loving PawPaw despite his extreme hatred for animals. Hatred might not even be a strong enough word for how he felt about four legged things. I never would have thought that he could honestly like an animal, yet he loved the dog he gave me in a surprising way. When I had to move to California I knew I would be able to come home for visits, but the fact that I was moving Lily away from him really upset me. I mean, I had never known him to tolerate an animal, but Lily, with her infinite cuteness, had won him over. Nothing could have surprised me more.

But surprised was how PawPaw always left me feeling. Surprised by gifts he would give me. Surprised by winning lottery tickets. Surprised by how much he loved all of us and took care of everyone before himself.

The only thing that's not surprising was how much it hurt to lose him today.

i made it home

I realize now that I posted a rant about getting bumped from my flight into New Orleans, but then never stated that I did make it onto the plane. It's amazing what a teary eyed girl can accomplish.

I've been home for about a week now and I've been busy running around, seeing family, and visiting some places I miss greatly. Here's photographic evidence:







And here's the best picture from the whole trip; jparks getting his ass beat by his younger brother:

merry christmas

or generic happy holidays greeting to you. I hope Santa was good to everyone.

I'll be home for Christmas (maybe, if I'm lucky)

Jparks and I bought plane tickets home for the Holidays months ago. Today we got to the airport to use those tickets, only to find out that I've been bumped from our flight to New Orleans. And there are no open seats on any other American Airlines flights. And, according to every travel website on the internets, no other airline has a open seat on any flight. Jparks finds this all very funny. In fact, when he realized that he checked both of our pieces of luggage under my name, and that they are going to end up in Who-the-fuck-knows-land, he started laughing even harder. His chances of getting a Christmas blowjob are getting slimmer and slimmer by the minute.

So here I am, sitting in the San Jose airport with a seat on a flight to Dallas and a useless ticket from Dallas to New Orleans. With every minute that passes, my blood pressure rises and my fuse gets shorter. I know the following is a pointless statement, but I fucking hate airlines.

I better have some awesome gifts waiting for me after this ordeal.

an early resolution

My new year's resolution for 2007 is that I will continue my shoe sobriety for the whole year. Yup, no shoes from now until January of 2008...

I had you going there for a minute, didn't I? Did you really think I could go a whole year without buying shoes? Oh, hell no! I'm not ever half way through the 90 days and I'm wondering how I'm going to make it. So far, I've only had one pair of shoes I've seriously thought about breaking down and buying, but I somehow managed to walk away. But, that's all beside the point.

My early new year's resolution is to record and make comments about every book I read, album I buy, and movie I see next year. Sound silly and like I'm going to be making very boring blog posts for the next year? Yeah, maybe a bit of both, but the point is that when 2007 ends I'll be able to accurately create a best of list (best movies I saw, books I read, etc).

Right now I can't tell you what the best movie I saw this year was, simply because I can't remember half the movies I saw. And don't get me started on music. I buy more music than I should, it's as simple as that.

I don't plan on overloading my blog with all of this information on a daily basis, maybe I'll have a side page with the most recent comments and stuff. I haven't really worked out the specifics yet.

Anyway, stayed tuned for that.

what's the hottest gift this holiday season?

If you said PS3 or Nintendo Wii, you would be wrong. The hottest gift this year is obviously Dick in a Box. I mean who wouldn't want one?

Hep Alien

Last night, at the Guns N' Roses concert (hell yeah, you read that correctly, we went and saw Guns N' Motherfuckin' Roses and it ROCKED!) Sebastian Bach was one of the three opening acts. Before he took the stage everyone in our suite was discussing where they know him from (generally Skid Row) and what songs they hoped he would sing. As this discussion went on jparks seemed to not recognize any of the song titles people suggested and he also seemed to have a serious deficit of Skid Row knowledge. It wasn't until Mr. Bach took the stage that a light bulb went off over jparks' head:

"I know that guy! He's on Gilmore Girls!"

Ah yes, that's my husband; seriously lacking hard rock knowledge but very up to date on chick television shows.

leading everyone to believe I have an addictive personality

I remember when I got my first Nintendo for Christmas. I probably only wanted it because my older brother so wanted one and whatever he wanted, I wanted too. I think it was 1988 and I'm still not sure how my grandparents managed to get their hands on, not one, but two Nintendos for my brother and I, but they some how did it. I remember Justin and I spent Christmas day glued to the tv shooting ducks and running on the Power Pad (by running I mean using our hands to hit the pad. You go faster and burn less calories this way).

I might not have understood before receiving the Nintendo why I needed it, but once I got my hands wrapped around a controller I understood perfectly. I could be an Italian man running into tubes and battling owl-looking goombas all to save a princess! This rocked my world like you'll never know.

After Christmas my Nintendo migrated to my house and into my bedroom. This was probably the worst possible place for it, as I loved playing it more than I liked anything else. Go outside?!? Are you kidding me? My Nintendo is in here.

At this time my bedtime was early, as it should be for an 8 year old, and I remember shutting the bedroom door and then, being super sneaky, turning on the tv with no sound and playing Mario for god knows how long. One night my mom walked past the door when I stupidly forgot to close it all the way and caught me, controller in hand, eyes glazed over, happily playing games all night long. I'm pretty sure that's why the Nintendo relocated to the living room and I started to play way less and my Mom got hooked on Zelda.

Jump ahead 18 years and I've given up on game systems. I have a PS2 but other than Guitar Hero, I don't really play it. I have a PSP but have been greatly disappointed in the games available for it. I'm a simple girl, I like Mario style game, not games where I get a giant dildo to hit people over the head with in police stations. I figured I had just finally out grown all the game systems on the market.

That was until jparks bought me the Nintendo DS Lite for Christmas (I know it's not Christmas yet, but he buys things and just gives them to me early). I am now hopelessly addicted to video games again. It seems that the system was possibly created for kids and has lots of game titles that interest me. I haven't even had it a week yet and I all ready own New Super Mario Bros., Super Princess Peach, and Big Brain Academy.

The thing about my rekindled love of video games is that I've transformed back into a clammy handed 8 year old that can't put the DS down for fear that when I pick it back up my mad Bowser killing skillz will have disappeared. Must keep playing or else the Princess will never be free!

Once I realized I was growing a game dependency, I decided tried to be better about playing it at stupid times. Stupid times include: while waiting in the checkout line at Target, while I'm eating lunch, while I'm on the phone with people, and while I'm sitting at red lights.

Other than those times, you can probably find me with the DS clutched in my hands, eyes glazed over, with a dedicated look on my face. Save the Princess, Save the World

and he was totally serious

me: "I'm tired of thinking about my birthday party. I think I'll jut have people over to the apartment for drinks and snacks."

jparks: "Do you want me to plan your party? I know! We could all go sky diving!"

sigh

the craft of hooking

A few years ago I decided to pick up knitting as a way to keep my hands busy while I sat and watched tv. I've gotten wicked good at knitting long rectangles, i.e. scarves, but nothing else. The idea of increasing, decreasing, and knitting in the round scares the crap out of me and therefore I've never tried it. Or rather I have tried, failed miserably, and like to pretend I've never tried.

Recently I was thinking about how much the flight back to NOLA sucks and how jparks hates when I bring a big stack of magazines with me on the plane. And this got me thinking how I better find something new and exciting to bring with me when we fly back for the holidays to replace all my magazines. I thought knitting might be a good idea, but the thought of navigating two knitting needles, yarn, and the required book for help in the tight space of an airplane seat was not appealing. Then I started thinking maybe crocheting would be better for these space limitations.

So, of course, I went all gung ho and ordered The Happy Hooker and bought some hooks and yarn. Then one night I settled in to teach myself the art of hooking. And, that same night, I also (almost) threw the hook and book across the room in a fit of frustration. Hooking is hard!

Okay, maybe it's not hard, but it is hard for me to teach myself. Okay, maybe it's hard for me to teach myself with a book written for adults. Feeling rather beaten, I went back to amazon.com and ordered Crocheting: Kids Can Do It. I used the knitting version of this book to learn the basics of that craft, so I'm hoping I can do the same thing for crocheting.

Keep your fingers crossed that I can figure out how to crochet in time for our flight. Otherwise jparks and I will have yet another huge argument over the stack of magazines I have in my backpack. You would think he would see the bright side of my stack: if the plane crashes I'll have enough paper products to make a fire AND allow him some for toilet paper every day. Boys, they are just so illogical.

yet another addiction to break

Saturday morning jparks and I woke up and headed to San Francisco for brunch. By the time we got on the road my head had started to pound and I figured I just needed food. After much mayhem (jparks' check engine light came on, we couldn't park anywhere near the place we wanted to eat) we gave up on food in San Francisco and headed over to Berkeley for crepes. As we drove over the Bay, my headache increased from a dull pounding to a throbbing so painful I could no longer keep my eyes open, much less tell jparks how badly I wanted food and that if he didn't feed me soon I would perish in the passenger seat. And my ghost would come back to haunt him since I died because he would not feed me.

After arriving in Berkeley, jparks' and I ate and then parted ways. I figured I would give my body some time to get the blood sugar flowing and then I would feel better. But after half an hour my head was still throbbing, and I figured coffee would help. I grabbed a latte and figured in another half hour I would feel human again. But the latte was beaten by the headache and I continued to feel crappy.

At this point in time I wandered to the store where jparks was playing Warlord and pouted and moaned and generally was a pain in the ass. Hey, why should he have fun when my head hurts? He suggested I go buy some aspirin or excedrin or please just go away so he can play cards. I decided not to heed his advice.

I walked to another coffee place, plunked down $3.65 for another freaking latte and waited. I knew in another half hour I would feel better. This second latte was magical, it was going to work!

And it did! Not long after I finished it, I felt better and was ready to get on with my day. But this got me thinking; had I recently built a caffeine addiction so strong that it would take 2 lattes to keep it in check? Could I not skip my morning coffee without wanting to rip my head off?

I didn't think I was consuming enough caffeine to warrant such a strong addiction. I had a latte or cup of coffee in the morning and sometimes a second in the afternoon, but that's it. I try to drink water during the day and try not to drink unnecessary caffeine, but somehow enough had been sneaking in to make me a junkie. It was officially time to admit I had a problem.

But I wasn't ready to do something about it just yet. I mean I could stop buying shoes for 90 days, but no way in hell could I go cold turkey from caffeine at the same time. Come on, give me at least one of my two vices.

But this morning, when I went to Whole Foods and ordered my normal latte, the barista asked me "You know that comes with four shots of espresso, is that okay?" It's like she knew I had a problem and needed a slap to bring me back to reality. 4 Shots! Who drinks 4 shots of espresso in the morning?!? Apparently me! And that's why I'm feeling like a big pile of flaming dog crap after it's been stepped on, when I skip coffee in the mornings.

So now I'm ready to admit I have a problem. But I think, unlike the shoes, just cutting caffeine out of my life is not the solution. I think I'm going to have to slowly lower my consumption down to a normal level. Maybe starting by only consuming 3 shots of espresso per day. Yeah, that can be tomorrow's goal. And I'm fine if I need to hover at that level for a bit. Baby steps with this addiction. Otherwise I might kill a person and I bet in jail I won't be given 4 shots of espresso daily.

where did they go?

If you're wondering what happen to my list of links, well I'm sorry to say but I deleted them all.

Okay, I didn't really delete them, I just deleted them from my main page. I've been wanting to add more links, but didn't want the list to get long and take over the page. So last night jparks moved them to their own page which is why it's now crossed off my wish list for Santa.

The link to the new page is up towards the top and is called "people" (which is inaccurate since I'm linking to nonpeople types as well). I'll be adding links frequently, so check back often.

Anyhoo, that's what's going on.

dear santa,

This year I have been really good. I moved to California and I married jparks, both with minimal bitching. If anything earns me a sweet present that second thing is surely it.

See I'm not really feeling the Holiday vibe this year. Last year I really wanted a tree and had to settle for an ornament tree. This year I don't have any desire for a tree; I haven't even brought out the ornament tree. I was tempted to buy a hot pink tinsel mini tree just for the awesomeness of it, but Lauren stopped me (you should check her as naughty on your list because of that). I had the best plans of decking Lily out in Holiday attire and taking a picture of her for some Christmas cards, but that idea died quickly.

I'm not sure why I'm feeling so unfestive, but that shouldn't stop you from bringing me gifts. In fact, my unfestiveness should motivate you to bring me more gifts than usual, you know, to help get me in the Holiday spirit. To help you out I'm including a list, in no particular order, of things I would like to receive.

1. Fleur de Lis Silver Charm bracelet from Mignon Faget
2. Nikon SB-600 speedlight flash
3. a sewing machine
4. Banana Republic gift card
5. I need some stuff moved from my main blog page to its own page. Could you hook me up?
6. A bookstore gift card
7. I guess a Wii, which is more of a gift for jparks, but once he gets one, he'll shut up about not having one and that sweet, sweet silence will be a gift for me.
8. ummm, cash for all the things I'm forgetting I want

So there you have it Santa. Now get to work on that list and make me feel some joy for this blasted Holiday season.

Bah Humbug,
Regan

why I'm not a party planner

Back in October I threw jparks a bitching birthday party. We had a wine tasting and picnic at a vineyard in Saratoga and much fun was had by all. Now my birthday is creeping up and trying to figure out what to do for it is really becoming a pain in the ass.

Originally I wanted to have a climbing party but it is going to be way more expensive than I expected. So that idea has been scrapped, which sucks, because that's what I really wanted to do.

Next I was thinking bowling party. Except in my head all bowling allies are Rock and Bowl which means you can't NOT have a good time. In reality no other bowling ally is Rock and Bowl and I'm thinking bowling is going to stink.

Shouldn't planning a party be easy? In fact, since it's my birthday, shouldn't someone else be planning it for me? I should just be required to show up somewhere, someone should hand me a cocktail, and much fun will be had by all. Why can't it be that easy?

hmph, figures

Awhile ago I was telling a friend of mine that I really needed some black ballet flats. The problem was not finding them, it was the fact that I didn't want to pay $60 or more for ballet flats. I mean, come on, a ballet flat is not much of a shoe, how is it okay to charge more than $25 for them? I never bought black ballet flats because I never found a decent pair, at a price point I could live with. And now to tease me the universe has created the perfect black ballet flats, in patent leather!, for only $14.99.

$14.99 people! That's even less than I think these shoes should be priced.


But since the universe hates me, these shoes have been sent to me during my 90 days of shoe sobriety. And to make matters even worse, these shoes are from Payless and they are doing Buy 1, Get 1 Half Off. I could potentially get two pairs of shoes for under $25. I know Payless shoes are not the greatest things in the world, but ballet flats are ballet flats are ballet flats. Who cares if the inside doesn't say "Steve Madden", I only paid half of what he charges!

So there it is, my first hurdle into shoe sobriety: the shoe I've been hunting for 5 months or so, sitting right within reach. And I'm going to have to resist. dammit.

jparks is sneaky

Lesson Learned: When jparks randomly asks if I want to go see a movie, before accepting the offer, ask what movie he has in mind, otherwise you mind get conned into going see a crap movie.

Tonight I'm going to see Casino Royale. Ugh.

post NaBloPoMo burnout

I think I burned myself out in November with NaBloPoMo and I now, officially, have nothing to say.

N-O-T-H-I-N-G

I'm going to see Aimee Mann in concert tonight. She is playing at a club called Bimbo's. This name makes me giggle. Bimbo's.

See, I got nothing.

dudes, seriously...

I am not a shoe whore! I can live quite happily with the shoes I have. I'm not buying shoes for 90 days to show that I can be an adult and save money when needed. Not because jparks and I have been living on government cheese and ramen noodles, that we have to heat up over candles because I bought shoes rather than pay the energy bill. Trust me, we have not hit anywhere near that low of a point in our lives. Our cheese is still name brand and we just really like ramen noodles.

On another note, we have agreed that as long as I don't spend money from our checking account, then gift cards and gifts are fine after January 15th (otherwise known as the halfway point). Jparks and I feel this is a fair compromise between our sets of rules. And it's long enough to save the money to get our energy turned back on.

working towards sobriety

Jparks has decided that [number edited out until the Guess the Number of Pairs of Shoes I own game is over] pairs of shoes is too much and that I need to work towards 90 days of shoe sobriety. I agreed to this at first, but last night, as we laid down the rules for this test of my willpower, I had second thoughts. Jparks' rules were unreal, there was no way I could stick to them. Basically, I wanted out before we even started.

Jparks' rules state that I was in no way allowed to acquire shoes over the next 90 days. My rules state that I'm not allowed to spend our money on shoes, but if presented with a Nordstrom's or other store gift certificate I can use that, but only that, to purchase shoes. Likewise, if a friend says "Hey, I have a pair of size 7 shoes that don't fit me, would you like them for free?" I'm allowed to take those shoes.

I thought the whole point of this 90 days with no new shoes was about saving the money that I would normally spend on shoes. Jparks thinks the point is about breaking an addiction. An addiction that I don't mind breaking, but realistically the holidays and my birthday are coming up and its pretty likely I'll get some gift certificates. I think I should be allowed to spend those gift certificates as I please, as long as I don't spend more than their amounts on shoes.

So I'm putting it to you folks: Am I wrong and it should be no shoes, not even if they are free from a friend? Or is jparks wrong and I should be allowed to accept gifts of shoes and gift certificates around the holidays.

you can dress me up, but don't try to take me out

Tomorrow is jparks' company's Holiday Party and I reluctantly bought a new dress for it. Why reluctantly? Because I had a dress that I've only worn twice, that would have been fine, but jparks decided he has seen me in it too much and I should get a new dress. And his preference was one that was not strapless and a-line, which is the basic design of every dress I own. (when you find a fit that works you tend to stick with it).

One day, while wandering around various stores, I found this dress:

It was cute, but not something I would normally buy, which I knew would make jparks happy. Empire waisted with cream trim on the arms, all cut from velvet, I knew I was going out on a limb when I brought the dress to the register but, dammit, I was determined to try something new!

I waited until I was home, in the privacy of my own apartment, to try it on. It turns out the dress fits, kinda. It fits in a way that makes me look knocked up. Or like I'm wearing a tent. And a whole troop of kids could camp out under me and have plenty of room to play campfire games and tell ghost stories. So basically, it does the exact opposite of what my tried and true strapless a-line cut dresses do, it makes me look pretty big.

So here's the dilemma, do I wear the dress and make jparks happy (he has seen me in it and hasn't commented one way or another about it) or do I dig through my closet and find an alternative?

At this point, since the party is tomorrow, I think I'm just going to wear it. It's got a little girl look about it, so I'm going tonight to hunt for some tights and patent leather, high heel mary janes to wear with it. And to complete the look I'm going have Lauren make me a little sign to wear that says "this dress is supposed to make me look pregnant"

Or maybe I'll tell everyone at the party that I am pregnant, and could they swing by the bar and grab me another martini, please?

save me from divorce

How are you saving me from divorce? By buying this for me:


I neeeed it. I waaaaant it. I am utterly and hopelessly in lurve with it. And if I buy it jparks is sure to divorce me immediately.

Don't get me wrong, it's not overly expensive (it's a little expensive, but not overly), and jparks won't understand or see my need for it. He'll say "You have enough cardigans and sweaters, you don't neeeed that one too."

But he'll be so wrong. And every night I spend without it in my closet I'll cry a single, sad tear.

So come on, click here and buy me this sweater in a size medium. Because you don't want to see me get divorced over something so trivial, do you?

hairy situation

Can we talk about my unshaven legs for a minute? Yes? Great!

I can't remember the last time I shaved my legs. I know it's been a while but the exact date of the last shaving eludes me. Maybe it was when we went to DisneyWorld, so the end of October. There is no reason why I've held out on shaving them, just a combination of laziness and laziness. I have to wake up an extra 15 minutes early to shave and 15 minutes is a lifetime when we are talking about sleep.

But its been so long since I last shaved that if I were to shave my legs in the morning I would easily have to wake up an extra 45(!) minutes early. No way in hell is that happening. Why 45 minutes? I'm assuming the thick leg hair would be too much for a normal razor and I would have to use jparks' head shaver first to thin the field. And then chase that with my regular razor. Hmmm, is 45 minutes even going to be enough time?

I could just shave at night, but then I've got stubble in the morning and I might as well not shaved. (this is actually not true at all, I shave and don't have stubble for a few days. I'm just to lazy to shave at night)

I guess I'm lucky because jparks doesn't care much about the length of hair on my legs. I think as long as it's shorter than his he's okay with it. And mostly I wear pants to work and that contains the hair so my coworkers aren't scared. If I have to wear a skirt (as I'm doing today) I wear knee high boots and make sure the skirt and boots overlap.

I think I'll have to break down and shave on Friday for jparks' company's Holiday Party. I can't show up in a super cute cocktail dress with hairy legs. That would just ruin the look.

saying thanks

Jparks and I are home from NOLA and as a thank you for letting us stay with him, we left Jeremy, jparks' brother, some new man panties. And took all of his boxers back with us to California. And boy, are those man panties something special. We left an assortment in lavenders, pinks, neon yellows, oranges, and teals. Some had unicorns on them, some rainbow colored butterflies, and some had cute sayings like "I love my mom" or "Just call me tiny" right across the crotch.

Man, when Jeremy goes to get dressed in the morning and finds his new man panties he is going to be sooo grateful. I bet he won't even be able to come up with words for how happy he is.

i'm ready to go home

...because waiting for me at home are my Moo Cards. I'm tragically unhip since I'm currently without Moo Cards. oh to be cool, it's all I ask for out of life.

I'm also ready to go because I'm tired. Being here has worn me out more than our trip to Disney. It's been a constant go go go of visiting friends, seeing my grandfather in the hospital, and hanging out with family. I'm sure last night's trip to the Quarter, where I consumed more alcohol in one night than I have in the past six months, has nothing to do with me being completely and utterly pooped.

I'm so tired that jparks has had to resort to other women for loving. And if I'm going to be perfectly honest, his new women are real bitches.

i was supposed to take pictures

One of the things I wanted to do while in NOLA was walk around town and take pictures. Uptown, City Park, the French Quarter, all places I wanted to visit. So far I've been Uptown, but the only pictures I took were these:



Today we are going to the LA Renaissance Festival and, while I'm sure I'll take plenty of pictures there, they won't be of things I think are uniquely New Orleans. I have enjoyed everything I've done, nothing beats talking with friends about shoving frozen Twinkies up your loved one's butt, but maybe next time I visit I need to come without a to do list.

just say no to drugs!

Last night Bill gave my niece and nephew the best worst coloring book ever created.

Look kids you get to color some marijuana, a crack pipe, and a razor blade! Awesome!

Seriously, what kid would not want to color this?

a day in the life

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for having the day off from making a post. What? I have to make a post? Damn, you people are slave drivers.

A few days ago I saw this on dsandler.org and decided that I had to do it as well. The pictures were taken on Tuesday, the last day I worked this week. Some pictures are on the blurry side, as I was using my camera phone some hours. (read as: I was too lazy to dig around under my desk and get out the D80)


9am: I overslept and am only leaving for work, rather than actually being at work on time.


10am: It was my boss' turn to bring coffee and he didn't show up with it until 10. We are going to need to discuss this arrangement if he wants to keep trading off days.


11am: Looky, I went to a secretive, private, exclusive establishment known as our mailbox.


noon: Getting my NaBloPoMo post for today completed.


1pm: I went to Stanford mall during my lunch. yay for shopping during the work day.


2pm: Time to check my email and to have another cup of coffee. Iced this time.


3pm: I had to run out to my car and stop to take pictures of myself. You know, because I'm so pretty.


4pm: I had just finished a phone call to one of our venues to discuss all the problems we've been having with service. Is it really too much to ask for juggling albino midgets, riding on unicorns to be in our suite for every event? I think not.


5pm: Stopping to get dinner, which was a mistake as every person in the South Bay Area was shopping for Thanksgiving


6pm: Dinnertime. The chicken doesn't look very appealing, but it was tasty.


This was fun, maybe we'll do it again soon.

to do list, NOLA edition

Since I'm flying out of San Jose at 4:30 in the morning, I'm again, pre-writing my post for the day.

I'm heading home to NOLA and in honor of that I'm creating my to do list while there:

1. see family (duh)
2. see friends (again, duh)
3. eat red beans and rice
4. eat gumbo
5. eat beignets
6. go to a Saints game (I know this is impossible since the whole season is sold out, but darn it, I want to go to a game)
7. drink iced coffee from PJ's
8. drink iced coffee from CC's (NOLA sure does love its two letter coffeehouses)
9. visit Magazine Street
10. eat a praline
11. eat at Slice
12. go shopping at Chi-wa-wa-ga-ga (small store for dinky dogs)
13. take a ton of pictures

So, apparently I'm going to be eating a lot while I'm home. hmph.

shoes a'plenty

Today jparks and I counted the number of pairs of shoes I have. It's bad. Really really bad.

On Sunday I went to the Container Store and bought some more of their shoe boxes. My shoes boxes now stack up to the bottom of my clothing. And my clothing hangs about 3 1/2 feet off the ground.

I've vowed to not buy anymore pairs of shoes until the end of the year, but I see now I'm going to have to break that vow as I need shoes to go with the dress I'm wearing to jparks' company holiday party. I figured I would even out buying this new pair by ebaying a few pairs I currently own. But it seems there are maybe only one or two pairs I can actually imagine parting with. I'm pretty sure I need to get rid of more than that to balance out my next shoe purchase. Unless I can find a cheaper pair than the ones I am currently ohhing and ahhhing over.

In case you're wondering, I'm up to 52 pairs of shoes. Doesn't seem like a lot? Remember, 1 year and 2 months ago I lost all my shoes, except for 2 pairs. So yeah, I am ready to admit that I have a problem.

clothes for sale!

The other day jparks mentioned that maybe I should go through my closet and get rid of some of the things I don't wear. My face must have fallen into a look of pure horror because he immediately assured me that he knows I have things in there that he never sees me wearing.

Normally when it's time to purge the closet, I just pile everything together and bring it to Goodwill, but recently some friends were discussing selling clothes on ebay and thought I might give that a try. So last night I laid some shirts on the kitchen floor and took pictures of each one. I then did the same thing for some pants and skirts. It turns out photographing clothing on your kitchen floor is harder than I thought. Most of the pictures had my shadow in them, or Tangi appeared in the corner. I'll just have to make it clear in the item description that the cat is not included. Or can be included for the right price.

After getting the pictures to come out halfway decent I realized I had another hurdle to overcome: pricing. Most of the things I'm selling are nice, normally expensive things. Shirts from Eddie Bauer, American Eagle, pants from Ann Taylor Loft and skirts from the Gap. I don't want to overcharge, but at the same time I don't want to sell stuff for $1.00. The one shirt I have listed (which I shouldn't have done, because the auction ends while I'm in NOLA, making it impossible for me to ship the item out quickly. ooops) has a starting bid of $3.00. I don't think that's too high, but no one has bid on it yet, so maybe it should be lower. Or maybe I just did such a lame job describing the shirt no one thinks enough of it to place a bid. Or maybe I described the shirt just fine, but it's too ugly for anyone but me to buy. Or maybe people do want to buy it, but they are waiting until the very last minute to start bidding and this will escalate into a huge bidding war and the shirt will end up selling for way more than I paid for it.

This selling stuff on ebay is hard. My friends made it sound easy, but now I see that either they are liars, or I'm a moron. Damn, I hate having it pointed out that I'm a moron.

I'm lovin' it

Today I treated myself to a Happy Meal for lunch. I know I'm a bit out of the Happy Meal's target audience, but they really are the perfect McDonald's selection. It's not so big that I feel all greasy and disgusting afterwards, but still enough food to fill me up. Plus, you get a toy!

What, you don't see the appeal of a toy? I find that Happy Meal toys are (mostly) the perfect thing to take pictures of. You can pose them in all kinds of stupid ways and they don't complain. You can take a million shots of the same pose and they won't get whiny about being tired.

By the time I got home tonight with my new toy, the sun was setting and it was almost too dark to take pictures. Most of the ones I took came out really blurry but I did have one where I placed the camera on the ground and got a halfway clear shot. Maybe tomorrow I'll get to take Sid out for another photo shoot.

I don't think I have a post in me

I'm not particularly feeling like blogging today. I guess I just want to relax and enjoy my weekend without having to find something creative to say.

I could tell you about how I went to the Dixie Chicks concert last night and found out that I don't mind them as much as I thought I did. Or I could tell you how jparks is out of town this weekend and my goal is to clean the house, bring some clothes to Goodwill, and put away the huge pile of shoes that currently live on the bedroom floor. Or I could tell you how I saw this on dsandler.org and thought "I need to do that." Or I could tell you how I'm going to my first hockey game tonight and will be in a fabulous suite.

But I'm just not feeling like it. Call me lazy, but I need a day off from NaBloPoMo. Or two considering I really phoned it in yesterday.

you know what I love?

I love that 2 people got to my blog when they searched for "nyquil shits".

There were some other good searches that led to me, but that was by far my favorite.

sew close to being done

Remember my sewing class? Remember the cute, easy clutch everyone was going to get for Christmas? I'll be lucky if I can have one completed anytime soon, much less Christmas gifts for all. It turns out I picked a really bad pattern with really bad instructions. Our instructor told me I get a medal if I complete the clutch. I'm not holding my breath for that damn metal.

This is eventually going to be the strap that keeps my clutch closed:


All I have left to do is attach the guts of the clutch (check it out, I made a pocket):


To this, the outside of the clutch:


As much as I dread going to class I am actually thinking of buying a sewing machine. Maybe for Christmas next year everyone will get a cute clutch. Because, you know, by then I'll have become a sewing master.

halfway done!

Here we are halfway done with this stupid NaBloPoMo and I'm still going strong. Is it weird or wrong that every time I use the Randomizer and discover a blog where someone missed a day, I want to report them to Fussy, great leader of NaBloPoMo, protector of our sacred month of posting. I want them shamed and banned from playing our reindeer games. I mentally shake a finger at them. But I'm not mean enough to actually report folks.

I'm so not mean that yesterday when a moron parked so close to me at work that I had to enter my car through the passenger side door, I decided to write him a note expressing my gratitude for this. I called this person an idiot and said just how much I appreciated him parking on top of my car, when the rest of the lot was empty. I put said note on his windshield and went to grab dinner. While at dinner I decided that I needed to go back and get the note because it was really rude of me to leave it. (never mind that it was rude of the moron to park that close to me) When I got back to the lot the guy was gone. Which means he got my note and I felt really badly all night. And into today. And I'll still feel baldy about it tomorrow. And for a while after that. Stupid guilt.

I could only get squeeze between the cars sideways and the door would only open a little bit, not nearly enough for me to fit in:


And see how empty the lot was! He could have parked at least one spot over:

trying to cut the cord

Since the hurricane I've had a hard time adjusting to the fact that I no longer live in New Orleans. I pause when people ask me where I'm from; do they mean where do I currently live, or do they know I'm not local and want to know where I came from? The past few times I've been asked this question I just stood there with my mouth open, puddle of drool gathering around my feet. People assumed I was from Mississippi, based on that puddle of drool and my inability to answer a simple question.

I've slowly started to accept that in certain ways California is home. I voted here, I've got a CA driver's license, and I drive a yuppie car. I'm very Californian in those aspects.

But in other ways I'm having trouble becoming Californian. Whenever jparks mentions buying a house here, I clam up and won't even discuss it with him. I think that some part of me isn't ready to own property in this ridiculously over-priced area. Or maybe it's just that as long as we don't own property here we can leave at any time; head back to a land below sea level where I feel more comfortable.

Right now we think nothing of heading back to NOLA for the holidays. But once we have kids, flying halfway across the country will no longer be an easy feat and holidays will have to be spent here. But without Celebration in the Oaks, Cajun Night Before Christmas, and Benny Grunch and the Bunch I'm not sure how the holidays will ever feel right.

And at what point in time do I need to stop feeling like it's my right to have time off of work for Mardi Gras? When will I stop feeling like something is not right if once a year I don't stand in the middle of a street with a beer in one hand, cold Popeye's chicken in the other, and yell at men on floats to throw me some long beads?

I guess what I'm wondering is how long do you have to be gone from a place before you stop thinking of it as home? I need to know so that just a day before I hit that amount of time I can move back to NOLA.

the drugs have failed me

Remember when I thought I was getting sick? And that mean doctor told me to just take over the counter drugs and drink lots of water? Well, he's a moron.

I've been so hopped up on various cold medicines that I woke up on Saturday morning and wandered around my apartment wondering what had happened to the past week. I knew I had done things, but they seemed really distant and vague. I had to check my blog to make sure I had been posting all week. After confirming I hadn't slept thought the past week I felt a little better, a little more human.

The thing about taking all of the OTC drugs was that none of them were making me feel better. Yeah, Nyquil knocked me out and I slept, but it didn't make my congestion budge. The Mucinex didn't make the mucus form a conga line and dance out of my chest the way the commercial promised. The Sudafed would have been better used if I had made a meth lab instead of taking it as directed.

And then last night I started feeling worse than I had all week. The sinus congestion had become so severe that I felt like I had been hit in the face with a baseball bat. And then this morning the snot started. The green snot, which screams "Ha, you have an infection and can't get to the doctor today!" The snot that goes shooting across the room when I sneeze. The snot that makes me clutch a Kleenex so tightly it's shredded in my hands before I can ever use it.

When I get sick, it's not a small thing that shall pass with a little chicken soup and some rest. No, when I get sick, it's a long drawn out illness that makes me scared to venture out in public for fear I might sneeze and drown people in the sea of snot that I'm sure to produce. It's an illness that comes with a cough so loud and menacing people run from me, scared I'll hack my lung up onto their shoes.

I have another doctor appointment tomorrow morning, with my normal doctor. I have faith he'll give me some drugs to kick this infection onto its ass.

croc attack

Man, aren't those croc shoes ugly? Who in the hell wants to wear them?

Me! Me! Me! I want to wear them. I like to think of them as my winter flip flops. Lily needs to go out and it's too cold for flip flops? Crocs! Need to run to the store at the front of our complex? Crocs! Need some shoes so ugly jparks cringes every time he sees them? Crocs!

I'm now in love with my new ugly shoes. (they're pink. a light pink thanks to some white swirled in) Sorry croc haters, I'm now converted.



Did I mention jparks told me I could order a pair for him? Surely that is a sign of the coming apocalypse.

early to bed, early to rise

Am I the only one that is getting really thrown off by this getting dark early thing? Tonight I thought "Sheesh, it sure is late, what am I doing out?" And then I looked at the clock and saw that it was only 6:30pm, and felt like a fool for thinking it was much later.

The other thing is since I always assume it's MUCH later than it actually is, I'm ready for bed by 8pm. Which could explain why I keep waking up at 5:30am. Who knew the setting and rising of the sun could affect me this much.

the reason I don't have people over

I have a confession that my Mom will read and think "I knew she would grow to be that kind of person."

My apartment is a mess. It's such a mess that a maid would walk in, disappear into the abyss of crap all over the floor, and never been heard from again. Well, that's assuming the maid could even get in the door.

Since we got home from vacation the apartment has gone from mostly clean to every closet and cabinet exploded and their contents landed on the floor. My hallway looks like a graveyard of bras, they're all thrown of the floor, waiting for me to stumble out of bed one morning, hook my foot in a strap, trip, and give myself another concussion. The kitchen in a wasteland of empty soda cans waiting to be carried down to the recycling bin. The bathroom is home to a hairball that's so big, I thought it was one of my pets and tried to pet it the other day.

I bet you're wondering why I just don't clean up. Why I don't just hunker down and get it over with. If it only were that easy. Life keeps getting in the way of me cleaning. Sewing class on Tuesday night. Book group Wednesday. Warriors game last night. Book signing tonight. Maybe on Saturday I'll have time. Maybe.

i am such a liar

You remember when I said that was the end of the Disney pictures the other day? I totally lied to you. My bad. But I promise you want to see these.

Our first day in Disney I was amazed by some of the outfits people were wearing. Maybe I'm a prude, but I would never leave the house in some of the shorts (were they even shorts or were they just denim panties?) people were wearing. Or worse yet, go to the Magic Kingdom with my 14 year-old daughter dressed like a whore. Hmph, I sound like a grandma, oh well.

I'm vowing here and now, in front of all you readers, that when I have kids I refuse to raise skanks. I'll make fun of skanks, teach my kids to make fun of skanks, but I will not raise skanks.

After a day of these outfits I decided that the next day I would take pictures of every horrible outfit I saw. These are the pictures I took.

Chick on the left, you have cottage cheese legs. Please stop spending money getting your nails done and buy some real shorts. Thank you. (the best part about this assignment was I didn't tell anyone else what I was doing and still when my sister-in-law saw this girl she turned to me and said "You got that picture, right?" She just knew that this bit of skankyness had to be documented)


Sweetie, isn't that metal bench cold on your ass since you've hiked that skirt up? Just take a moment and imagine the view people got when they walked up the bleacher stairs, because at one point she uncrossed her legs.


This picture came out disappointing. She was wearing a yellow thong under this white skirt. YELLOW.


I wanted jparks to go ask if she for $5 would do a pole dance, but since her Dad was right next to her I didn't think it was the best idea. Please check out the pockets on the back of these shorts. Yeah, the shorts are so short they are only like half pockets. You know, cuz full pockets are sooo frumpy.


I'm so confused. The torn, raggety shorts with a rope belt say redneck, but the backless shirt says slut.


I have seriously saved the best for last. It's so good, you should really click here to view it at orginial size. Brace yourself.

Let me point out some things to look for: scary long fake nails, dangling jeweled navel ring, bare stomach, arm tattoo of baby daddy's name, flip flops, which just make her outfit complete.



After I took these I saw many many many other horrible outfits, but I found this assignment too tiring. If I kept taking pictures of the clothes I would not have taken pictures of anything else or been able to ride any rides.

I'll know God reads my blog if this happens

Now that Brit has finally signed up for one of them fancy divorce things from K-Fed, I can only hope and pray that Justin Timberlake leaves Cameron Diaz, rides in on his white horse, marries Britney, and becomes the father that those two babies deserve.

I'm sorry Cameron, but I think you look like E.T. in a blonde wig and everyone knows Justin has always had feelings for Brit. It's their destiny to be together, you've just been the rebound woman all this time. I'm sorry to be the person that you hear this from, but someone had to give you a warning of what's to come. You can try to make Justin jealous after he dumps you by dating other people (hey, I hear K-Fed's available) but don't expect it to work, Brit and Justin are the real thing. Their love is a classic love, a beautiful love deeply rooted in all things good and pure like the Mickey Mouse Club and unicorns.

If Kirstie Alley can do it, so can I

Now that I'm back from vacation it's time to face reality and admit that I need to go on a diet. I've been avoiding this subject for a while because who wants to admit that they're carrying a few extra pounds, but one thing happened on vacation and it pushed me to see the truth. Abby, as cute as could be (except for in that picture I linked to. There she is screaming bloody murder because, dear god don't say it, we took her to Disney World and made her go see a show! Such horrible people we are, we should be tortured.) walked up to me, rubbed my belly, and asked if I was having a baby.

A moment after Abby did this I laid down on the cobblestone streets of Disney and died as Cinderella and Snow White pranced around me singing about how great it is to be a size 4. Skinny bitches. It was the smell of freshly roasted turkey legs that brought me back to life.


Now that I'm back home it's time to take action. Diet, diet, diet, but which diet to pick?

Jparks favors South Beach because you have a list and you eat anything on that list you want. If it's not on the list, you don't eat it. Simple, right? Except for the part about how you want certain things like you've never wanted them before just because now you can't have them. Beets, not on the list, but you want some. You want some so badly you would consider selling off family heirlooms to get a beet salad. Good bye Grandma's pearls, hello beets! My other complaint with South Beach is that I've never made it through the first two week phase without getting sick. I'm sure that I'm missing vital vitamins and nutrients by only eating things on the list, but who needs to be healthy if you're skinny? Look at Nicole Richie, she's doing fine.

Next diet up is Weight Watchers. Yes, I know Weight Watchers is a life style change and not a diet, blah blah blah. I'm going to call it a diet because that's easier to type than life style change. With WW you have two options: meetings or online. Online is great because you have access to tons of advice, recipes, and info that when you attend meeting you can't use. But with online WW you have no one but yourself to be accountable to. No one but you has to see the scale. At meeting you don't have all the cool online features, but you do have many other sets of eyes to watch you weigh in every week and notice if you're not slimming down. But with the meetings you actually have to go to the meetings, which means you have to find time to get there and spend an hour with women you don't know talking about being fat. (I don't honestly know what happens at meeting, the only experience I have with them is a Sex and the City episode where Miranda joins WW and meets the Over Eater) That, in itself, seems like a boatload of work.

Of course I could always just try and watch what I eat and workout more often. But really without limitations I'll eat okay one day and then horribly the next. I need boundaries, limits, rules. Rules, glorious rules! And whatever diet I finally decide on I'll workout while I do it. I know that cardio is the key to weight lose, even if I hate to admit it.

Now excuse me, I'm going to grab a cookie carrot from the fridge.

the last of the Disney pics

I promise this is the last of the Disney pictures. Unless you want more. I mean, I only took about 700 pictures; I could keep going down this dark road. Disney World pictures from now until the end of time.

Or maybe I'll just stop after this post.

According to Disney dinosaurs have nipples, making them mammals. Weird.


This was a dessert from Norway in Epcot. It turns out jparks and I liked Norway a lot and think we might need to visit there soon.


The kids wore jparks out just about as much as they wore themselves out.


Here's jparks lifting the baby to show it to the Gods before we sacrifice her. You've got to make sure the Gods like the sacrifice before you just go killing babies.


Yeah, the baby is cute and all but what the hell do you do when they are this young (2 weeks old)? Me, I make yucky faces, mainly to hide the fact that I'm terrified I'll break it him.


Looky, it's my new friends and me.


During the Stars and Motor Cars Parade at Disney MGM Studios the green Power Ranger stopped right in front of me and posed. I wasn't going to take a picture of him, but I felt so badly that he posed and all, well I felt like I kinda had to.

drinking lots of fluids

I figured out that the blahness yesterday was due to illness. I went to the Urgent Care Clinic this morning and found out it's not a bacterial infection, so no antibiotics needed. It's a viral invasion, so lots of over the counter drugs, fluids, and rest were prescribed.

Now the drugs and fluids are not a problem but rest, well rest is something that's unheard of when married to jparks. He tries to let me rest and relax but it just doesn't work. Today my plan is to lay on the couch, watch tv, and not do anything. Jparks has planned to try to keep to himself today, but I sense the breaking point coming soon. He's played on the computer, shuffled his game cards, and watched tv on and off, there's not much left for him to do but to come over here and annoy me for attention. I guess I should rest while I can. (I can guarantee that as soon as he reads this he'll come over and annoy me for saying he's annoying. I guess I'm creating my own destiny.)

On another note the doctor at the Urgent Care Clinic was not the best doctor I've ever had. I have a history of finding doctors that lack in people skills and this guy was no different. After performing the exam he told me I had a viral infection and there was no reason for me to come to the clinic. Thanks doc, I feel like crap, I had no idea this didn't require antibiotics so I came to you for help. My bad. But after rattling off the list of OTC's I needed to buy, the doctor said "It's best to take all of the medicines I suggested because if you don't it could turn into a bacterial infection and you would need a prescription." Oh, wait, if I don't take your advice then I might need a prescription? Your advice that I had to come here to get? But I thought I didn't need to come to the clinic for this. Stupid asshat doctor.

it's been one of those days

Today was our first day back from vacation and I don't know if I have post-vacation blues, PMS, or am just starting to get sick (there was a guy in the row behind us on the plane that kept coughing, snotting, and doing that gross thing people do when they snort to rake the snot from their throats and hack it up. I could see the germs floating in the air. I've since taken about 3 Airborne tablets in the hopes that I won't catch his disease, but I'm starting to think it's not helping) but today I've been feeling a little blah.

I tried to remedy this with a trip to the post office to collect our week's worth of mail, but the post office was closed. I then traveled to the mall to visit the new Lush that was supposed to open in October. I figured I would grab a few bath treats and that would help brighten my mood, but apparently I was confused and "Opening in October" means opening in November, or whenever the hell we get around to it. I then went to Banana Republic, Old Navy, the Gap, and Ann Taylor Loft only to discover that none of them had a single item that caught my attention. Eddie Bauer, also known as the store for 45 year-old women and lesbians, did have some skirts I liked, which depressed me far more than the other stores not having anything.

After that much disappointment I knew I needed a surefire pick me up. So I drove home, grabbed jparks, and we went to see Borat. A couple hours of extreme laughing fits later, I still feel kinda down, but at least I was able to laugh through some of the blues.

there's no place like home

Oh god, is this vacation over yet?

just a short little post

Part of NaBloPoMo is delurking from blogs and actually making comments so posters, like myself, can feel loved. Since it's 6:30 in the morning and I'm short on time for posting today, I'm going to make a statement and then you're going to delurk and finish a statement.

My statement: If I were super rich I would build a soda fountain in my house.

Your statement: If I were super rich I would...

happy NaBloPoMo

All right folks, let the record show that it's November 1st and I’m now making my first NaBloPoMo post. Except I’m tired. Really really tired. So, my post is going to be in the form of pictures because it’s too much work to try to be witty when you’re this freaking tired. It’s even too much work to string together sentences that are coherent and fit with one another. Jparks burped in my general direction and it stunk. See, can’t make my mind wrap around any one subject. Frozen lemonade eaten too quickly gives you brain freeze, which sucks.

Enjoy.

Kids cry a lot. And that gives me a headache. While kids are fun, headaches are not.


I wish I had a pink car with whitewall tires with purple stripes.


Sulley from Monsters, Inc might be my new favorite character.


I really liked Disney-M.G.M. Studios.


jparks carrying a baby is kinda sexy. Maybe I can deal with all the crying after all.


I loved this billboard.


The girls were so cute when we took them trick-or-treating at the Magic Kingdom.