Giving My Immune System the Finger

This weekend was awesome and not-so-awesome, in a you can have your cupcake, but you can’t eat it, too kind of way. My parents celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary on Saturday. My brother and his wife were in town, so we drove up to the mountains and met them (after a gorgeous day of skiing, apparently. We got an insane amount of snow on Thursday.) for a mind-blowingly delicious four-course dinner. And given the fact that I have inherited my fondness for the pressed, fermented grape from the ‘rents, we were not without Very Delicious Wine for the entire weekend.

Or, so I deduced from the miniscule sips I pilfered in between feeling woozy from the Superman-strength cold medication I was taking and a heedful of snot. (Note: Superman-strength medicine and alcohol still do not mix in a happy way, for me.) I also heard the food was excellent, and it certainly looked pretty, although I really couldn’t taste much due to the fact that my taste buds were swimming in mucus.

Anybody still reading?

I am not letting any lady-like tendencies get in the way of my descriptions of agony and want. I need you to know how crappy my immune system truly has been this winter, if I am to garner an appropriate amount of sympathy.

Sunday was another ski day, and while the plan was to ditch the un-skiing-inclined Funasaurus in the hotel room and make some glorious, glorious turns with the fam, I instead spent Saturday night hacking up a lung, and could barely make my ears pop going down the stairs. I decided jumping on a ski lift might make my head explode, and so instead we went to the movies while my family skied without me.

I Love You, Man was about as funny as the previews led us to believe, so it wasn’t a total waste. But it was hardly a powder day on the mountain, either. Sunday night was a repeat of Saturday, with another gourmet dinner and some incredible wine. Which I again heard was divine. Le sigh.

But once again my father proved his awesomeness by tipping heavily and procuring the restaurant’s jar of honey so that I could take it back to the hotel with me after I spent the whole meal pounding tea. I seriously chugged that shit straight out of the bear’s head, it felt so good on my throat.

The Funasaurus again proved his awesomeness by not divorcing me after I snotted out the window of his car when I ran out of tissues.

But all sickness aside, we had a blast with my family. There was laughing and surprises and talks of the future, and there may even be a chance that my brother and sister-in-law will make it out for a holiday this year. Which would be really, really awesome. Here’s hoping.

It's Not Hard to Entertain Me

Today I invented hats. As I have gotten quite used to the 70 degree weather we’ve had around here the past two weeks, today’s sudden drop to 50 degrees felt like an arctic blast. On my way to the store, I was lamenting the fact that neither my sweatshirt nor my jacket had a hood. “Wouldn’t it be nice,” I thought, “if there were such a thing as an independent hood. Something that I could put on my head to keep it warm when none of my apparel came with a hood attached.”

Then I realized I had just invented a hat, and swore to myself never to tell anyone the story of how stupid I could be. Clearly that resolve lasted about five hours.

This weekend I took a photography class with my boss. It was not a work-related thing, so much as a we just found out we have the same camera and no real concept of how to use it-thing. I’m not sure what I was expecting from a class called “Photo Safari” but it somehow came as a surprise to me when the teacher explained that we would be spending the afternoon walking around outside taking pictures. I was not wearing good walking shoes, and I had not applied sunscreen. Nor did I have a hat. (But you can’t blame me, there, I hadn’t invented those, yet.) So I am now sunburned, blistered, and sore, because I also didn’t think to leave my heavy purse in the car, so I lugged it around on my shoulder (along with my makeshift camera bag) and now my back hates me.

Bonus: my boss thinks I’m a big, fat pansy because I kept having to sit down and rub my shoulder and feet. Brilliant idea, all around.

In better news, another good friend of mine had a baby on Friday, so I have been scouring Facebook all weekend for pictures of various newborns. I think the part I like the most is how deliriously happy all the parents look (if you can see past the dark circles under their eyes). It’s nice to see your friends so blissed-out, even when they’re exhausted. Congratulations, H, N, and M. Little S is darling.

Your First Lesson: Do Not Eat Lysol

Some of our very best friends in the whole world just had a baby on Monday. I still cannot believe we are now of the age where people are getting knocked up intentionally. But if any two people should have ever procreated, well, go K & E. She’s the most darling squishy-faced thing I’ve ever seen. At least from what I can tell in the two pictures on Facebook. I am desperate to meet her, but am not holding out good odds that it will be anytime soon, because The Funasaurus is sick AGAIN and I am not sure a) he will be completely well by the time it’s convenient to visit or b) that I won’t have caught whatever variation of the plague seems to be mutating around our house these days.

Every day after my darling husband leaves for work, I Lysol every doorknob, light switch, and handle in our house. I love him, but I do not kiss him these days. I feel we are both slightly grumpier for this alteration in our habits. (But I’m not sick! … yet.)

Meanwhile, I don’t think it’s a good situation for Tatum, either, as the knucklehead is fond of chewing on our toilet handles. I imagine he’s consumed more than his fair share of Lysol recently, as much as I try to keep the bathroom doors closed.

He’s developed an interesting habit, though, and I’m not sure if it’s a Lysol-induced trance or just his own newest quirk, but I’m still trying to decide if it’s endearing or annoying. It’s a fine line with that cat. He is still obsessed with his faux mice, and has become deeply interested in playing fetch at the most inopportune times. (Try EVERY SINGLE TIME I’m on a conference call.) He brings me the mouse, and when I do not respond in a timely enough (1.6 seconds) fashion, he starts howling, and pawing at me. Then the pawing turns to clawing. And soon enough, he finds himself caught in the fibers of whatever pants/shirt I am wearing. But instead of backing off and trying again, he goes for the lazy (?) way out and leaves his claws where they are and just hoists himself up to them. Which usually brings him to my lap, wherein he immediately is like, HEY! SOFT! and throws himself down and falls asleep. So Tatum has turned uber cuddly, and takes about 20 naps a day in my lap. Which is cute. Until the howling and clawing start again. Fortunately, it doesn’t take him long to get caught again and then excited about his next nap, so I’ve learned to just wait for it to cycle through until he’s snoring peacefully on my knees so that I can unmute my line.

Welcome to the world, EGM. I’m totally o.k. with it if you ever want to chew on my stupid cat. I’m not sure he’d notice.

God Bless You, Buddy!

I Was Almost Waiting for the Bunny to Gag from the Ridiculousness of It All

There is nothing in the world more adorable than kittens. Except maybe baby deer. I am a sucker for those really oversized eyeballs. Thus, I give you something so sweet it will rot your teeth:

Who Have We Become?

I spent Saturday scrapbooking and playing cards with my mother because I’m apparently skipping my young adult life and jumping straight into middle age. Today I drowned the loss of my youth in cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory with a girlfriend, and felt oddly happy about the whole thing…there wasn’t even any wine.

Shit, supposedly I’m not even thirty for another month.

I am, quite seriously, contemplating a nose ring. I feel as though working from home would allow me the flexibility to experiment with this typically questionable workspace-appropriate form of self-mutilation. I’m thinking a little blue sparkle above my right nostril. Something a little more permanent than the aftermath of sniffing my blueberry scented glitter pen. (As unintentionally effective as that is.)

I am also feeling robbed of an hour of my weekend with this whole spring forward B.S. Why can’t they ever do it at, like, 4:00 on a Monday afternoon? Because then it would *POOF* magically be time for happy hour! That would be ideal. I shall put a letter to Mr. Obama on my to-do list, as I’m sure the nuances of daylight savings time comes a close second to our tailspinning economy on his list of priorities.

In other less-exciting (to me) news, The Funasaurus beat his post-apocalyptic game tonight, wherein he has spent the last many nights and weekends of 2009 attempting to liquefy half-naked people wielding small knives with his super-soaker-esque automatic weapons and heavy artillery. I did not…approve, although it seems to make him quite happy, and he’s still trying to convince me they were out to kill him. He told me he saved some children somewhere along the way, so I let him continue to play. The win was bittersweet, though, as somewhere in the excitement and remote-hurling the sound function was lost on his Playstation, and so the ending came in silence, and if there was a song of victory, he missed it. I would ask for a moment of silence for his loss, but I think The Funasaurus is OVER silence, and is looking for some action-packed soundtrack music, already.

Baby, this one’s for you.



You really should read my blog more often.

Eastern Philosophy

I spent Saturday meditating with my boss. We actually drove to Boulder for a little retreat thing-y. I feel as though it would have gone better had I not A) fallen asleep and B) thought to eat something before I went. A rumbling stomach in a room full of Very Serious and Very Silent Hippies is akin to a frat party in a graveyard. I was a little nervous Buddha himself was going to come back for another life just to sush me.

Happily, my boss is forgiving, I think the fact that she had a raging case of pinkeye led her to be slightly less judgmental overall, and the day was deemed a success. I sped home with all of my newfound nirvana to hit the bars to celebrate a friend’s birthday that night. Gotta ying that yang.

Global warming is upon us here in Colorado, and as I read the news about all of my beloved East Coast being blanketed in several feet of snow, I have opened up the windows to let some of this glorious 70+ degree sunshine right in. The house was getting a little stale. While this is devastating for our snowpack and mountains, I have decided to be very zen about the whole thing (maybe Buddha did make an appearance?) and embrace this t-shirt weather. It makes it easier knowing that I have been too busy throwing baby showers and channeling Buddha to ski recently. I think if I was up in Summit County I’d probably cry.