Friday, October 31, 2008

Fresh Out of Vigor

I’m home. For a couple days. No rest for this royalty. I leave for Philadelphia tomorrow. (Go Phillies!) Tonight we’re just hanging in, handing out candy to all the kiddies, and trying not to get shot, because apparently we now live in the ghet-to, what with all the shootings in the neighborhood, recently. I am running oodles of loads of laundry while scrambling to stay on top of work.

And I am trying not to think about how I am going to miss The Funasaurus and my book club and my own bed. On the other hand, it will be fun to see my grandmother and other assorted friends and family, not to mention the gorgeous leaves. If there are any left. After that last storm, I just don’t know. There are leaves left here in Colorado. It was in the 70s today. And you wonder why I am reluctant to leave.

This is the first year in many years that I have not dressed up to go out for Halloween. It’s kind of sad, although it is quite hard to top our Kermit and Piggy year. We’re getting too old to have fun. I know this is true not just because we’re lame-ish this holiday season, but because one of our friends (who went to school with The Funasaurus) has gout. GOUT. Like what you imagine 80-year-old men with long ear hair getting.

At least there will be trick-or-treaters tonight to remind us of our youth. Ah, youngins. With all their costume-making energy. Those were the days. Pass the wine, time to start pickling myself.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Coming into My Rightful Title

The dream.

The dream is coming true.

I am believe this trip is turning me into the royalty I have always known myself to be. First, there was much discussion today about being behind castle walls. About sending manuscripts out into the scary world “out there” and behind able to retreat behind my safe, grammatically correct castle walls.

Then, after debating with some coworkers as to whether I’d be deigning to come down a floor to visit them or if they’d be coming up to see me in my temporary cubicle, I get this email from one of them, “Oh, I can come up there. I’m not THAT lazy. I just thought maybe it’d be easier for you to see everyone here than to continue to be interrupted. But if you’d rather us come to you, like you’re a queen or something, so be it.”

Ho ho! Buddy. You don't even know. I figure if I can fly to Indianapolis they can damn well take the elevator up a floor to meet me the rest of the way.

They have now taken to calling me Princess Cat. And they don’t even know about the blog! It’s awesome. I’ve been basking in the glory of my newfound kingdom. Baby, I think we’re moving to Indianapolis. The cost of living’s not so bad out here! We could buy… well, we could buy a palace.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Princess Chips a Nail in the Midwest

Aloha from Indianapolis! So far I have seen the inside of my hotel room, the mall, and a man-made lake. I am pretty sure I could be in any small town, USA, but the taxi had an Indiana license plate on it, so I’m pretty sure I ended up in the right place.

I’m here for work. The next few days are going to be busy, and hopefully not humiliating, as I worry about chewing through all that I have proverbially bitten the fuck off. I am here trying to impress people, and goodness knows I am not really so good at that. I brought my new flat iron and have let my hair go greasy for the last couple of days so that I can wash it and style it to perfection (er, somewhat closer than normal, anyway) first thing tomorrow morning. And I also decided that since this is such a short trip, I should try and fly with just a carry-on. Having learned nothing from my honeymoon just a few short months ago when I was forced to go back up and check my carry-on and go through the whole security line again because I somehow thought jumbo bottles of shampoo totally qualified as clear plastic 5 oz. bottle, I got stopped at security again. They did not laugh at my all friendly-like and ask, “Is this some kind of test?” again. Nay, this time they just confiscated my shampoo and toothpaste with nary a friendly word.

To top it off, I broke a nail getting into the jerry-rigged taxicab. Side note: if you are ever in Indianapolis, let me know. I can give you the plate number of a cab I might avoid taking at all costs, if I were you. So I decided I deserved a manicure once I got here, instead of, I don’t know, getting ahead on all this work that I am so stressed about.

And off I trotted to the mall. Nordstroms beckons me no matter what state I am in. There I found exactly no place to get nails done, but quite a wide range of helpful sales people who all gave me different directions on how to get to a nearby strip mall that might indeed have a nail place. The one bit of direction that they could all agree on, unfortunately, was that I would need to cross a Very Large Road. Otherwise known as A HIGHWAY. So off I went, running across a highway with no crosswalk in the Midwest with my hoodie drawn tight around my face because I was battling the very same wind that just a little earlier shook my bitty plane like a fucking Polaroid picture, and managed to not get run over. Then I twisted my ankle walking in the grass because Indianapolis apparently doesn’t believe in sidewalks any more than it believes in crosswalks.

Naturally, the nail place was closed on Sundays. So I went to P.F. Changs and drowned my sorrows in chicken lettuce wraps, and bought a nail file on the way back to the hotel. Hours after I started out. So far, this trip is intimidating me.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Politiks

Not to go post-crazy here today, but whaaaaaaaaaaaat?


http://view.break.com/592648 - Watch more free videos

Proof

Like I said: uncanny

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Glass Half Full (Of Wine.)

I’m ready for it to be Friday already. Today didn’t start off super great. First it was cold on my morning jog. Then the wind blew my hat off. Then I had to soak pots and pans from last night’s dinner because we were too lazy to do it last night. Mostly because it didn’t turn out so well, so we never returned to the kitchen for seconds. Stupid Campbell’s soup recipe.

Then I had weird G-rated dreams about Playboy bunnies. (Is that an oxymoron?) I think those were induced by the story we saw on E! last night about Hugh Hefner. Like many bored Americans, I went through a phase where watching The Girls Next Door was my guilty pleasure. I finally quit watching it, because I really despise everything the porn industry stands for. That, and they only show the same four episodes over and over. So while a couple years ago I would have gone straight past any story about the creator of Playboy magazine with barely a condescending sneer, I actually watched the whole damn program last night. And my heart kind of went out to Holly Madison, because I think it really sucks that her “career” probably peaked while she was depicted as one of many vapid clone-like girlfriends of a geriatric pervert. I’d like to think she’s a really nice person in real life, with perhaps an affinity for a really good chardonnay. When she did finally pose nude, it was for an ad for PETA. I support PETA! I hope things turn out o.k. for you, Holly, though we’ll probably never get to know.

But the day’s gotten better. I discovered a stash of Cheetos in the cupboard. Yay lunch! I’m going to a movie night at a friend’s house tonight. And some of our best friends just found out they’re having a little girl, and we’re really hoping they might name her Funasaurusette. Le sigh.

Also, I’ve just been assigned to go on a work trip NEXT WEEK that may bring in some more of the type of work that I actually want to do. (I know it’s surprise, but I really, really loathe the spreadsheets. Anything that’s not spreadsheets is great.) So I went and got myself a plane ticket on a stupidly small plane, and will need to procure some sort of legal knock-me-out-so-don’t-go-batshit-crazy-on-said-bitty-plane drug in the meantime.

Monday, October 20, 2008

His Nickname was Captain Oblivious. And It Served Me Well.

So I can finally breathe… I had a big secret last week and I almost posted it, but then I didn’t because every other month or so The Funasaurus does actually check in and say, “Hey, you’re still writing about nose-picking for the internet?” and it would have been just my luck for him to check in just when I told the booger-hungry internets about throwing him a surprise birthday party. So I refrained. But it was hard to think of material when I was busy obsessing about how to get a cake shaped like a football. (Note, apparently they make such-shaped molds, and a friend happened to own one, so I bribed her with lots of promises of owing her one.)

It went off fabulously, I think. I had grand plans of whisking him away to a cute little B&B in Santa Fe, or perhaps the hot springs up in Steamboat, and then I realized that The Funasaurus does not really like B&Bs, nor hot springs. He’s more of a burgers and karaoke kind of dude. So we surprised him with a barbeque with a bunch of his friends and karaoke. He sings a mean, mean, “Hungry Like the Wolf.”

That’s the man I married.

We slept in Sunday and then went to see Sex Drive, which was terrible and horrible and I strongly urge you not to waste your money on such crap. I’m not quite sure how it didn’t go straight to DVD. Much like American Pie it completely objectifies women and has no substance to speak of, the main goal being sex and occasional scenes involving teenage humiliation. Unlike American Pie, it’s not funny.

Besides that, I watched Futurama for the first time… and holy cow. I KNOW one of the characters!

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The likeness is uncanny.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

I Stay Awake Contemplating Denim

It is quarter after 11, and I am up and about right now. I am up and about right now not because I hate sleep, because I don’t. I actually adore sleep. I would happily sleep ten hours a night every night. No, I am up and about because Sugar slept her damn princess-disturb-me-and-feel-my-wrath sleep all day, upside down in the cat tree. And now she is awake. And ready to play. And make noise. Rrrrr? Poke. Poke. *ominous sound of important papers being walked upon with litter-encrusted paws*

Then I stumbled across a googly-eyed Tatum who had a bit of paper towel hanging out of his mouth. Paper towel? Seriously? Damn goat.

I am going to feed him some rusty cans tomorrow, like they do in the cartoons.

This afternoon I took some clothes that needed to be altered to a tailor. The only tailor I know, who happens to live, like, 45 minutes away. I took a brand new pair of jeans that I love but have never worn because they are just too long. I once put them on and thinking I could roll the cuffs, but I just can’t get away with the hipster look. So they have been sitting, unloved and unhemmed, on my dresser for over a month now. Finally this evening I fought the traffic and took them to this tailor, dreaming of a perfectly-denim-clad posterior, only to have her say, “Have you washed these, yet?”

No.

“Well, I think you should wash them, first. They might shrink and I wouldn’t want to hem them too short.”

noooooooooooooooooo

I tried to convince her I would trust her pre-washing-hemming judgment. I got ushered out the door with a, “just come back next week.”

I sulked all 45 minutes home, and made myself an enormously large cup of hot chocolate for dinner to soothe my trendy denim-less ego. Then Sugar woke up, Tatum started eating bits of garbage, and the night has kind of gone on from there. Happily, The Office was hilarious. It took about two and a half seasons, but I now love that show. Deeply.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Horton Hears a Hypodermic

I got a flu shot on Monday. Now it is Wednesday, and I am still walking around with a rotting Band-Aid on my arm, feeling the ache of getting punched by a tiny, needle-fisted midget.

What’s funny is, if you are a betting kind of girl (or guy. Whatever. I’m playing to my fan base, my friends) you should still bet on me getting the flu. It’s what I do. I consider antibiotics a vital part of the holiday season.

I also had our sprinklers blown out today. Just in time for the temperatures to soar into the 70s for the rest of the week. I noticed the dude looking at me oddly when I greeted him at the door, and again when I wrote him a check. I thought nothing of it, seeing as how he couldn’t possibly be judging my appearance given he was wearing an orange vest and very tall socks with struggling elastic.

Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I closed the door behind him, and noticed that a piece of my hair had gotten stuck in my headband and was sticking straight up. I looked like I had walked straight out of Whoville. I have benevolently forgiven the dude his orange vest.

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All Roads Lead Me Back to Norway

We went to a Hungarian restaurant for book club tonight. (That was as close as we could get to Transylvanian food in Denver, Colorado.) Budapest Bistro was fabulous. If you live in the greater area, find a way to get down there. Pearl Street is darling, and the food was yummy. Our waitress told us about one special, a spicy pumpkin soup that “touched her soul.”

Well!

You don’t just get THAT highly of a glowing recommendation every day. Naturally, soul touching soup was ordered, and the order-ee confirmed that she did, in fact, think her soul was touched. I had goulash. It was awesome.

A random man came by our table with a note written on a napkin. I thought he was very indiscreet, what with his wife sitting just two tables away. “Any book club should read this book,” he said, peering over his glasses at us very seriously. Apparently we were not very quiet in our discussion. Uh, o.k.

Kristin Lavrandatter, by Sigrid Undset.

I looked at the squiggly blue ink on the napkin, and thought to myself, “That sure looks familiar.” Which, mind you, is not a thought I have just everyday about random Slavic book names. So I got home and went through my bookshelves, and wouldn’t you know, I happen to own the damn thing. I got it from my dad, who apparently bought it in, like, 1961 if the aging of the cheap yellowed paper is accurate. (I just checked the front matter… it was actually 1978.) Still, the book is older than I am. I have never read it. I liked it as a kid because the girl on the front had long blond hair. I had shunned it as a college kid because it appeared to be romance-novel-y, what with the literal excerpt about rolling in the hay under Erlend’s strong arms (I kid you not) and I was so above that.

Having settled comfortably into my twenties (only a couple of months left, le sigh) I have totally accepted my deep-rooted fondness for trashy romance novels, and am now curious that it has been recommended as having some sort of literary value. Was the weird dude in the Hungarian restaurant right about the Norwegian novel? I will let you know. It’s moved right up to first place on my to-read list.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Dirty Old Bird

http://www.slate.com/id/2201944/

Miss Emily! I had such… preconceived notions of you. But I kind of like the dirty, pre-victorian wenching in daddy’s living room version, too.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.—Emily Dickinson.

Aye. And the word today is debauchery! I say we all have a naughty little tryst tonight in honor of Miss Dickinson.

Also, since I seem incapable of letting the vampire thing go, and we’re talking about repressed sexual intentions anyway, this is some funny shit:

http://www.avclub.com/content/hater/how_to_be_the_perfect_pre_teen

And for those of you out there with any sort of cooking skeelz… how big of a turkey am I going to need to get if, in a fit of generosity and extreme stupidity, I offered to have 17 people come to my house for Thanksgiving? Forget that our table holds eight. Max. And when should I start cooking said gigantic poultry specimen? Last April?

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Regret Means You Remember Which Means You Didn't Drink Enough

It’s Tuesday night and I’m drunk. That is something I would typically say about five years ago, when I was young and wild and bordering on alcoholic. However, it is also true tonight. Though less so with the alcoholism than boredom.

Although I can say, the presidential debates are SO MUCH MORE FUN when you are drunk! You yell, “RED LIGHT RED LIGHT, ASSHOLE!” at your own candidate! Jeebus, but those boys like to hear themselves talk. And the pointing of the fingers! It was not even metaphorical. There was pointing. Hello, second grade. Can’t wait for you to bring the world’s superpower out of a devastating international financial crisis with the fucking finger pointing.

I like this season. Fall is great. But I think it also makes people introspective and gloomy, even when it’s sunny. I have decided not to succumb to that morethansixhoursaday and went for a run this morning to shake off the blues. I switched up my normal path, and went down into a little greenbelt, and back through the neighborhood in a meandering way. I saw an entire park I did not know existed. I saw what I thought was a coyote but turned out to be some sort of yorkie mix. (It was far off. Shut up.) I saw yellow houses and Halloween decorations galore. I went down steep hills and back up, and felt pretty good. I was pretty proud of myself, sure that I had added on about 20-25 minutes to my normal run. (Which is 18 minutes.) I got back and discovered I was gone for exactly… five more minutes. WTF? How is that possible? The only reasonable explanation is that I ran very, very fast and am a demigod or something.

That, or I have a shitty grasp of the passage of time. I’m going with demigod.

Goodnight.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Wasting Time Is Fun!

I spent the weekend at a friend’s house eating her food and having her chauffeur me around since it was her birthday. Also, she’s pregnant. I’m an awesome friend. I also managed to eat sushi and drink wine in front of her. (Hi, K! Can we still be friends?)

We also managed to take a nice little walk into downtown Louisville, only to have the heavens open up on us and we had to walk/jog home in the freezing rain. Taking a walk in the rain is not quite as romantic as one might think, particularly if one has recently applied sunscreen to one’s exceedingly pasty face and the rain proceeds to rinse said sunscreen straight into one’s eyes. After a while I was all but completely blind from the burn and unsure as to whether it was raindrops or just tears streaking down my face.

Like I said, unromantic.

I also got through a good chunk of my book this weekend. And despite my recent poo-poo-ing of vampires, I naturally suggested to my book club that we should read Dracula this month. So here I am, deeply entrenched in Transylvanian lore and dreaming about coffins and bats and whatnot. Fabulous. It’s actually a good read. Much better than True Blood, anyhow.

We also squeezed in time to go get pedicures in there. That was lovely, because we went to Ten20, a spa that focuses on feeding you Diet Coke and M&Ms instead of herbal water, or whatever. My kind of spa. While we were there, I went for it and had them paint my fingernails dark purple. If you ask The Funasaurus, they are black. But I know there was purple in there somewhere. In any case, I feel infinitely hip, like my fingers could totally fit in on The Hills. (Shout out to Wickedly Scarlett! She is quite versed on all things The Hills-y.) Not the rest of me, mind you, my hair’s kind of a disaster these days. But the ends of my digits are totally hip, baby.

I did not get any cleaning done this weekend, as I had hoped. Wouldn’t want to scuff the gothic finger look I’ve got going on, now would I? Also no getting ahead on work. It’s been a less-than-productive fall so far. I really need to suck it up and get on track. I’ve fallen into a slump. A nap-taking, Tatum-tormenting slump. (Sugar says, “hi!” She is on board with this slump, entirely.)

Any refocusing techniques out there?

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Why It's Bad to Be Bored

I stayed buried in my little house today. I shouldn’t have, it makes me all anxious and stir-crazy. But I couldn’t find a reason to get out. So instead I called The Funasaurus to harass him at work. I took a nap. I practiced my grande jettes across our living room. Then I had to work until 9:30 (with a time-out for the debates, which left me, once again, underwhelmed) because I was so behind.

Tomorrow I am getting out of the house. More than once. Even if it means walking around the block.

I am also going to do the laundry, because The Funasaurus came home from volleyball sporting a blister on his foot the size of Canada, and I am cringing in fear of the potential bodily-fluids-geyser that could erupt in our bed at any time.

I just gagged a little.

Trying to think of kittens and cupcakes and rainbows covered in kitten shaped cupcakes. Sending the goo (ACK! GOO! YEEEEECH!) your way. Oh well. I almost made it.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Torturing the Innocent (?)

It has been a busy week already, culminating in a trip to the vet’s this afternoon. You can understand, then, why I just woke up from a nap. At 6:30 at night on a Wednesday.

I was also working until 1:00 AM last night. I don’t DO 1:00 AM anymore. For any reason. Including tornados. Just come and take me away, just try not to wake me up. But there has also been yoga and cake (though not at the same time, but what a class that would be) and so not all of my schedule has been horrid.

The capper was just the vet today. I have been unhappy with the vet I’ve been using recently, so I took the cats back down to a sweet little cats-only place south of the city. Of course, it meant a longer car ride for my two darlings, who took it upon themselves to sing the feline death march the whole way down. They were all but hoarse when we got there.

The vet got to Tatum first, and he unleashed The Eyes of Sadness and oh! But I was ready to cuddle him and promise him nothing but mice forever more. Fortunately, the vet had her Doctor Googgles of Imperviousness and still managed to stick a needle in his (apparently overweight, but are we surprised?) butt THREE TIMES. Tatum was… displeased.

Then there was Sugar. After her last trip to the vet, she had figured out really quickly that a vet’s office is not a place she cares to be, and in no way was coming out of her carrier. That kitty should be a rock climber the way she can hang onto nothing when turned upside down! With multiple hands and a lot of “Here kitty kitty”’s, she was finally on the table. And began her Sugar Moan of Hatred, which sounds a bit like a fire engine. Dying. Teeth were bared, hissing was the backup to the hatred moaning, and Sugar gave the vet what for.

Then we went home and things are back to normal, although The Funasaurus is getting more love than usual while I am being rather ignored. I get the message. We shan’t be going back to the vet anytime soon. Well, except in December. When they go in for teeth cleaning. Mwah-ha-ha-ha.

And you wonder why I’m exhausted.