Royal Baking Lessons

Apparently if you leave shit in the oven too long, it not only cooks to be very well done, but it mutates into something brand new, entirely. I was…not expecting that, when I discovered the oven had been left on yesterday. Who’s hungry for overcooked rolls? Apparently I wasn’t, as I had forgotten all about my damn baking project, and only realized perhaps something’s wrong when an odd smell finally made me gag, whilst sitting in my office.

Crisis somewhat averted. The damage to the oven is still unknown, but it appears to be in normal working order, so that’s good.

Meanwhile I’ve taken to eating string cheese and microwaveable things. Fortunately, The Funasaurus is a good sport and just laughed at me, instead of divorcing me for nearly bringing the house down with toxic fumes.

We are strong, if somewhat ill. At least it was warm enough today to open some windows and get some fresh air in the house.

Tatum and Sugar seem to have not noticed, happily, and continue to be obsessed with a new toy I brought home from the pet store. It kind of looks like a raccoon tail at the end of a string. What’s funny is Sugar has gone all jungle cat on it, and pounces about frantically, and gleefully drags it all over the house, raccoon fur flying everywhere. Tatum, on the other hand, has gone metrosexual on us, and when he manages to extricate it from Sugar’s Fangs of Death, he just wraps his legs around it and washes it and washes it and washes it, until the colors are just so and the tireless grooming finally makes the raccoon rings line up neatly. I’m debating getting him a man bag the next time I’m at PetCo and/or Nordstroms.

I Had a Life This Weekend. That's Something.

How is it not still Friday afternoon? This was one of the fastest weekends of my life. I’m not quite sure where all the time went, and I’m pretty sure I was awake and sober (enough) for most of it. I went out for dinners, I went to game nights, I went to surprise parties, I hosted a baby shower (no chocolate was injured on my watch), and all-in-all, had a nice time. I just wish I could have sat down somewhere in there.

My cold is mostly gone, my back is feeling much better, I just now have some wretched, wretched cramps. So help me but if you try to tell me that PMS is a social construct I will cut you.

In happier news, I ate at an awesome restaurant on Friday. Fresh, affordable Indian food—super yummy. If you live anywhere near I-25 and Arapahoe, I highly suggest going to Bombay Bowl. They are basically an Indian version of Chipotle, and I haven’t been so excited about a new restaurant in a very long time. Go! Thank me later.

Mmm, Wine

As I headed into week three of my head cold, I decided that I could no longer use The Sniffles as an excuse to be a complete and utter lump, and finally made it over to run on the treadmill at my sister-in-law’s house. About seven minutes into my jog, I felt an odd sensation. My entire back was seizing up. I jumped off the treadmill (and here I use the term “jump” loosely, because what I did really more resembled “bailing in an exceedingly ungraceful way”) and limped home like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, were he more petite and muscle-less.

By the afternoon I had exhausted my supply of people to whine to in the middle of a weekday, so I sucked it up and went to the store for some extra-strength Alleve. Which I’ve been popping like candy ever since.

I have taken this as a very serious sign from the universe that I am not to jog ever again. I wish the sign wasn’t so painful and long-lasting.

Um. Mostly that’s it. This week has mostly been about whining and canoodling back rubs out of my husband. I took a break from the pills yesterday to go to a happy hour with a girlfriend, and found that enough Pinot Noir can hold its own against any sort of OTC painkiller. I was relaxed and happy and more flexible than ever last night!

Sadly, hangovers are kind of not really great at all for back pain. I found solace, again, in the Alleve this morning.

Also, this I decree: I think I am giving up on The Office. It’s a funny show, but I’m really fucking sick of them only bothering to air a new episode every third week. I don’t love it that much. I hear 30 Rock is better, anyway.

Cuteness Prevails

Further evidence that the handful of functioning synapses in Tatum’s brain don’t always connect: today Tatum fell twice and ran into at least one wall. Once fall was this morning, into the shower, while it was on. Tatum does not like it when we get in the shower, and makes his disapproval known by sitting on the bathtub edge in between the shower curtain and the liner and pawing at your shadow. And then licking the liner. As I don’t feel this is the most nutritionally sound decision he could be making, I often yell at him, which causes him to pause momentarily and then go back to pawing harder. Today he pawed so hard I felt him land on my feet, just as I was rinsing shampoo. He was gone before I could rinse the suds from my eyes.

After I screamed, I peeked around the curtain to find him looking very surprised and a little damp. It took him about ten seconds to recover before I felt him pawing at the shower curtain liner again.

This afternoon he fell off my desk while attempting to clean himself while balanced on my day planner. It was not a normal cat fall, where they somehow manage to land on all four feet and sulk away to wallow in their I-meant-to-do-that recovery. Tatum fell on his butt, taking a mess of papers and day planner with him, and then sat there looking surprised, again, for the second time today.

At least he’s cute.

Speaking of awesomely cute, I saw Coraline this weekend. I am a sucker for gothic-y, stop-animation movies anyway, (love me some Tim Burton) but this one was one of the best I’ve ever seen. I was nervous about getting vomit-y with the 3D glasses, not having the best equilibrium in the world, but my eyes adjusted quickly, and I am excited at the advancement in 3D technology from the blue and red glasses days. The movie totally tapped in to some long-lost little girl fantasies, other worlds and all that. I loved it. And I love the animations. And I love a heroine who doesn’t need a romance to make a good story. (As much as I like romance, I’ve read enough Twilight recently to get my fill.)

I will also admit that I saw Confessions of a Shopaholic this weekend. It was…not great. The book was only o.k., and the movie was nowhere near as good as the book. It was choppy, the romance was not very well developed or understandable, and I don’t understand why they kept dressing Isla Fischer in dead bits of Muppets. Even she looks horrified. She knows she’s prettier than that. The clothes (dead bits of Muppet aside) were fun to look at though, and Jeebus but let’s put THIS GUY in more movies with lots of slow close-ups, hmm?

Why I Love the Internets

If you like to watch good commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM

If you are a word nerd:
http://savethewords.org/
(There was a stiricide incident on a recent episode of the office. I just had no idea there was a name for it!)

Mostly I love this site for their usage of the words in a sentence.

Perantique: adj. very old or ancient
ex. Your momma is so perantqiue, she knew Burger King when he was just a Burger Price.

HA! So. Awesome.

If you are looking for more koalas and or news-ish stories, (although this one made me cry):
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25038852-2862,00.html

Um. That’s it. I thought I had more, but I am still weepy over the little thirsty koala. Also, I can't shake this cold, and am kind of digging day 12 of the Dayquil. It just gets better and better.

Stories That Would Be Better with Less Explanation

I got an email today that I really wish had not been a “reply to all” so much as “New Title"d because it would have been way awesomer out of context. It came to me from somebody I don’t know (Did I mention I joined the homeowner’s board for my little corner of the neighborhood? Because I did. Which vaguely translates to a watered-down version of high school student council for everyone who was so not cool enough to actually get voted into a nominal, gossipy position of almost-no-power-at-all 20 to 40 years ago.) and the entire email read:

Thank you Jeannette.
Thanks you! Mark.

It was a thankful email, full of names I don’t know. It just made me feel like the universe was encouraging the appreciation of random strangers. Hello, you, person! Thank you. Thank you Ginny, Alistair, and Edwina! (Apparently the strangers in my brain are all about eighty-nine.)

In truth, it was a thank-you note to a contractor sent from a person who’s also on the board, whom I have yet to meet, who forgot that his automatic email signature would provide a nice parallel structure to his message.

Totally not as awesome a story as the universe's sudden interest in gratitude.

I also feel like I was violated a bit by not one but TWO cats today. First, I went for a jog on my sister-in-law’s treadmill. Being worn out from almost ten full minutes of doing something that looked like a drunken power walker, I sat briefly to cool off. Her normally aloof cat came running over to stuff her nose into all my sweaty bits, including my crotch. After four years of running in crazed fear if I got within her twenty-foot comfort zone, I felt like this was maybe rushing our physical relationship just a tad.

Then, as I sat here typing, I felt the gentle kneading on my scalp that The Funasaurus knows to break out as foreplay because it feels so good it’s practically orgasmic. Except then my giddy little brain was like, “Um, Funasaurus = not at home.” So I glance at the back of my chair and come weirdly close to the uber-dialated, googly eyes of Tatum, going nuts in my ponytail with his paws. It felt so wrong. And I had to re-do my ponytail, so double loss right there.

This post took a weird turn. Come back next week.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeee

http://jezebel.com/5146381/happy-hump-day

That does it. I'm moving to Australia.

Don't Worry, I Read the Second Book This Afternoon

It was a busy weekend from going to jewelry parties (no thanks, I’m here for the free wine, quit with the sales pitch, already) to going to baby showers (anyone who thinks that it’s a good idea to waste a perfectly good candy bar in order to make it look like fecal matter in a diaper that will only end up in a landfill anyway does not share my affinity for candy bars… or my affinity for not discussing poop) to watching the Superbowl (yay for good friends, I did not even have to bust out book #2 of the Twilight series to keep myself entertained) to playing bridge with my parents (Jeebus, I’m old) to kissing The Funasaurus.

That last item may not seem monumental to you, but I typically do a lot of Funasaurus smooching, and I have cut myself off for the last WEEK because he came down with a bit of a sore throat and a cold and I had no desire to partake in that crap. Sunday we deemed him “fine enough” and got back to the kissing already. Monday I woke up with a sore throat. Happily, this germ has not been debilitating so much as annoying, so I’ve been chugging tea and eating soup for lunch. Wheee. My life is awesome.

Actually, it did get pretty awesome last night when I went out for Ethiopian. Good lord, but I love Ethiopian food. It was really well prepared, too. I wanted to go back tonight. But we’re refraining, and waiting until next week to go back. My friend who joined me for dinner was headed to trivia night at a bar afterwards, and I was invited. Because of the annoying cold-ish like thing I have festering in my throat, I decided to decline. Also because I suck at trivia and hate feeling like a moron who does not retain useless (nor useful, really) facts. Then I found out that one of the categories last night was The Muppets.

Opportunity came knocking, and I turned it down for tea. GAH.