A Case of the Tuesdays

The weekend seemed kind of beautifully endless and the weather was gorgeous and...dang. I think I'm in mourning for my long holiday weekend. We didn't really do much, actually, but that was kind of nice. Very few plans overall. We did do some mountain biking, some drinking with friends, some grilling out, some napping, that kind of thing. We also helped my mother move The World's Heaviest Metal Table back upstairs and down The World's Narrowest Hallway, because her sculpture exhibit closed. I hate that table so very much, a fact that seemed to hurt my mother's feelings. She might feel differently if she had to lift that fucking thing over the banister. I'm just saying. (Note to Noah and Mim: THIS IS ALL CHUCK'S FAULT).

Anyway, I'm sort of drowsy and brain-stunted today because I do not understand work after a weekend of sloth and I sort of got drunk last night. I forget how. Something about "a glass of wine or two" while cooking dinner. It ended with us watched a movie and me, a little surprised to find myself drunk, possessively hugging a bottle of Guinness Stout to my bosom and call it "my precious" in a croaky voice. Then I spilled some of it down my front and laughed like a hyena while my husband looked on quietly with a, "Jesus, I'm married to her" look on his face. Oh, the shame. (But really, if you can't get drunk in your own house, where can you?) It was funny to me, anyway.

PICHHHURES:

This is seriously our back yard. It's sweet.

This is the other half of our gigantic back yard.

Kenny is manly with the grill.

Zephyr dares you to pet her stripes.

Fuzz is a cat of leisure.

Stella is unamused.

I am in for the ass kicking of my life.

We are so beneath her.

Happy! Sad. Happy! Sad.

How to Piss Me Off

Be the tacky woman who goes to my favorite restaurant, sits at the table next to me, and orders the truly delicious SHRIMP PIPÉRADE CRÊPE w/ tomato, fennel, onions, peppers & Sauce Américaine, and then! Asks for it to be topped with cheddar cheese. (Sad face! This is not Chili's, lady.) Then get totally, flailingly, bitchy with the waiter when your request fails to be fulfilled. Then, when the waiter does bring the stupid cheese, snap, "It's too late." Finally, when the waiter clears your empty plate and asks how your meal was, snarl, "It would've been better with the cheese." Biotch!

And see? This is what happens when you suck - I write about it on the Internet.

Other than that and some work fuckness that I dast not discuss publicly, I'm doing okay, I guess. The work stuff is really driving me insane but I CAN'T. I'll just say that my job and someone else's job are pretty much the same job and that other person is getting paid a lot more. It is continuously infuriating.

Wait! One more:

Be the shrill, defensive edge the President's voice gets when he's making any kind of public speech. How did we get such a redneck chucklehead as our Commander in Chief? Why am I still wondering about this after seven years?

How to Charm Me:

(Shit, you know what? I don't even know. I'm kind of in a bad mood, to be honest, and the list of things that have charmed me this week is pretty short. I'll try anyway.)

Be the weather. The weather has been illegally charming and beautiful. This is my favorite time of year: before the mosquitoes but after the cold. I've eaten lunch outside every day (which is not something I normally enjoy) because it's been just right. Not too hot, not cold, not windy, not bitey.

Be a Furminator. Now this is one product that truly is worth every penny. I could make a new cat out of all the fur I've brushed off our three (not that I'd do that because three ungrateful cats is a LOT of cats already.) This thing is really spectacular and I enjoy telling the cats to shape up or be Furminized. Zephyr likes it for a while and then gets over-stimulated and starts biting me. Fuzz gets really worked up and hissy but will continue to lay like a helpless slug while I comb her, which I think is hilarious. Stella is fine as long as the comb is being used in pre-approved sections of her fur and NOT IN OFF-LIMITS AREAS OMG WHAT ARE YOU DOING LADY. She will let you know. She basically lets us know from the minute we walk in the house until we go to bed. She never stops talking and is pretty clear about what is acceptable touching and what is not. Barring understanding, she will cut a bitch. (How I got Kimora Lee Simmons in cat form I will never know.)

Be the LOST season finale because last night just ROOOOLED. I can't even talk about it because I'm not sure I even understand what what the hell happened but I sure did enjoy watching it. All kinds of ass-kickings happened last night and I got all kinds of fist-pumpingly worked up. Now if they'd just move it back to 9pm next fall I'd be extra happy because I'm old and can't stay up that late.

Okay, that's all.

The Best Song I've Ever Heard.

A while back my cousin's husband John sent us a boatload of CDs. There must have been thirty of them! We've been working our way through them a few at a time and it's all pretty dang good listening. Yesterday, while driving out to ride mountain bikes at a state park, Kenny popped in a CD by a band called Joaquina and said,

"You're going to really like this one song."

He was not kidding. I liked it so much I had to write about it first thing this morning because WOW. It was as if the song was written just for me. I had a mini-seizure in the truck while listening to it because it was SO F'ING GOOD. And funny! I mean, it had all the classic Amblus elements of a really perfect song:

1. drunk cowboys
2. an El Camino
3. booze
4. the word "fuck"

The song is called El Camino and you can buy it on iTunes or Amazon.com. Joaquina's other songs are really good too, but this one is the best. THE BEST. EVER.

You be me for a while, and I'll be you.

Okay, hi! It's Friday afternoon, that magical part of the week when times stops dead. I'm in a good mood, though, it's sort of hard not to be. I drove to work listening to a "back in the day" mix that Kenny's friend Brandon made for us. It's full of old punk, rock and ska. The Clash! Madness! The Stranglers! The Replacements! I love that stuff.

The big news (to me, anyway) is that I finally am free of the clutches of my old salon. I'd been going there for years and they kept fucking me. Like, I'd find The Perfect Stylist and then, boom, that person would get promoted and my $40 hair cut was suddenly $80. le sigh. Each time it happened I'd be shunted off on someone else and the most recent time I just wasn't feeling the love anymore. Wah.

Then a few months ago I saw a girl at the gym with the cutest-ever messy razor cut, exactly the kind of cut I was looking for. I stalked her and finally got up the nerve to ask her who cut her hair. She told me that her friend Jerrod cut it for her and gave me the name of the salon where he worked. I immediately pictured a very cute gay boy with fun hair who'd chat with me about what a whore Angelina Jolie is while whipping my hair into perfection. Yay!

I made an appointment. I cancelled it (because of the CA trip.) I called early this week and rescheduled it for yesterday on my lunch break. I was a bit nervous, not having gone to a new salon in YEARS but I kept reminding myself of how cute that girls cut was and soldiered on.

In the salon I started to get unnerved again because none of the stylists looked anything like the Jerrod picture in my head. He wasn't that guy working over in the corner (who, incidentally, goes to my gym and who I think I've mad fun of more than once), it wasn't the buttoned up preppie looking guy who kept walking by me without even glancing in my direction.

And then! I saw him. The tiniest little super-cute gay boy. He was like an Olsen twin in gay man form! I wanted to put him in my pocket and take him home. We chatted and I found out that he'd actually been trained by a stylist I loved from from my old salon. She broke my heart first by being promoted and then by moving to Florida to live with her girlfriend (who was also her AA sponsor. Oops.) Anyway, he gave me a really cute little razor cut and was happy to discuss Angelina Jolie with me. It was great. We bonded over our disdain for the whole "I need to keep my hair long enough to put it in a ponytail" cop-out. (You know who you are. Break free!)

And now, sort of blurry pictures:

Havarti-Like Cheese Food Flavored Goodness

Before I continue my travel woes, can I just complain about a small minor tiny insignificant detail? First, I want you all to look at the calendar month of May, 2007. Okay now, which week would you consider to be the third week in May? This one, yes? Me too. That's why I was expecting my letter from HR telling me if they're going to continue to under-pay me or not. However, though they said the letters would go out this week, they aren't actually going out until next week which is wrong because THIS IS THE THIRD WEEK. One two three, I can count the weeks on one hand, and I'll be damned, this is the third one. It's like they're torturing me very, very subtly.

- Shuttle drivers are crazy

Sincerely, what the HELL. Where do they get these people? Now, I understand that 5:00 am is not the most amazing part of most people's day, but when a bedraggled girl says good morning and struggles to drag her giant suitcase onto the shuttle, why would you, the driver, just sit there with a face like stone acting like I'm interrupting some grand plan? I mean, if I say "good morning" the least you could do is acknowledge that you heard me, jerkface. Then! Then you had the nerve to yell, "WHAHAHRLIIIINE" at me (without actually looking at or anywhere near me) like I can even understand what that means. Actually, it was so random and garbled a statement that I sort of assumed you were speaking into a walkie-talkie or something and didn't pay any attention. You didn't like that at all and angrily yelled, "WHUT! AIR! LINE!" which made me jump about a foot out of my seat. It's FIVE AM, DUDE.

- If you park in the economy lot, take the parking ticket with you

Please do this because otherwise you get off the plane after 12 hours of being hit by the travel stick and you have no clue at all which of the three giant economy lots you parked in. A? B? C? Luckily I was told that B was closed so I picked A and wandered around for a long time before stumbling across my car. Hooray.

- Delta is just alright by me

Every flight was on time. I didn't have to go home and come back, I didn't have to stay in some weird hotel overnight, I didn't have to shake my fist once. Now, my itinerary was totally fucked, but that's what happens when you buy a ticket the night before you leave.

- Onboard movies RULE

Best $7 I've ever spent. Delta now has little built-in screens on the back of each seat so you can watch satellite TV or pay-per-view movies. For $7 I got two movies and 3 1/2 hours of entertainment oblivion. I barely noticed the two dudes on either side of me which is awesome because:

- Men take up too much space

Okay, I know at least ONE of those armrests was meant for me but that's too bad because dudes have this habit of just spreading out all over the place. They don't cross their legs so it's all knees and elbows OUT. Ugh. They were both nice enough but needed to stay out of my $400 worth of airplane real estate. I paid good money for those inches!

- Airplane food is so incredibly stupid

Snacks are not food. Snacks are not food. Snacks are not food. It's so pathetic because when you're on a plane for a long time you'll take and eat almost anything out of sheer boredom. You're never quite hungry but you're never full either. It's really strange. Even when I didn't want the snack I took it anyway and added it to my sad collection of "Snack Foods I'd Never Normally Eat But I Might Be Stuck Later In An Airport And Want Those Cheez Crackers Really Bad." Delta does these ridiculous "snack packs" that include crackers, cheese-food product spread, a tiny container of raisins (ew) and some cookies. It's better than a lame bag of peanuts, but still. I'll bet they gave first class an ice cream sundae and crispy waffles so it's not like they don't have the good stuff stashed somewhere. Jerks.

Reading List

Books I've Read in 2007Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy

Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda

The Divide by Nicholas Evans

Stealing the Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen

I Feel Bad About my Neck by Nora Ephron

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

Dark at the Roots by Sarah Thyre

Bidding for Love by Katie Fforde

Austenland by Shannon Hale

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

On Agate Hill by Lee Smith

Louisa Elliot by Ann Victoria Roberts

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres

Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle

Smokescreen by Dick Francis

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

She Got Up Off the Couch by Haven Kimmel

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

Mrs. Hudson and the Spirits' Curse by Martin Davies

The Sleepers of Erin by Jonathan Gash

Lisey's Story by Stephen King

My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'Homme

Kick Me by Paul Feig

Top marks for not trying.

Oh my baby jesus, the things I've seen this past week.

I'm not so much going to talk about the actual events of the week because it was really awful and sad. I will say, however, that if you can find a Vietnamese nail salon and the owner finds out you're in town for a funeral, you'll get free bejeweled flowers painted on your big toes. This decoration is 100% not me but cracks me up every time I look down. My toes are fancy, y'all!

Here's what I am going to talk about: air travel. I have some issues. Big surprise, I know! I've had issues in the past too, but this is more subtle stuff than "Delta totally fucked us" or "What constitutes an act of God, exactly?"

Airport bathrooms, by disgust level (1 being very bad - 10 being very luxurious)

Richmond International- 6
New York, JFK - 4
LAX - 6
Sacramento - 6
New York, LaGuardia - 0 is too generous, so -1
Atlanta- 5

I haven't seen a public bathroom as disgusting as those in LaGuardia airport for a long time. I think the JC Penney bathroom comes close, but damn. The whole place smelled like stale pee, the floor was both wet and filthy (which begs the question?), toilet seat was cover in pee (not necessarily LaGuardia's fault, but still), toilet paper was nonexistent, there was no hook on which to hang my carry-on bag. This is a big one for me because WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH IT? If I put my bag on the floor I might as well leave it there, you know? That floor was toxic. The terminal was also pretty filthy and sad looking. There was discarded garbage everywhere (why, people? Why is it so hard to clean up after yourselves?) and the seats were all saggy and split open.

New York JFK was a bit nicer, but the Delta terminal was really dank. It was cold and dark and boring but does have the added strange charm of many tiny birds who seem to have gotten trapped in the airport and survive by cutely hopping up to you and asking for a bit of whatever you're eating. I'm sure I looked like a complete rube feeding muffin to the birds, but it was funny and cheered me up.

LAX was, by comparison, clean and bright but still managed to be a complete and total disappointment. You would think that three hours in a Los Angeles airport would net you at least one celebrity siting but I am here to tell you that famous people do not fly Delta. At all. Not even d-list! Nothing. Weird folks wearing Crocs and Disney-themed clothing do, however, just in case you were looking for some.

Atlanta is Atlanta. It's neither here nor there, but does have the best people watching and one or two non-disgusting food options. I'm still bitter, though, that I flew from Sacramento to Atlanta and then had to take a plane to NEW YORK before being flown home. They plane flew right the hell over Richmond! I swear I saw my house, people. Why could they not just strap a parachute on me and let me go? Stupid ridiculous broke airline bullshit, that's why. Hmph.

More travel bitching to come:

- Shuttle drivers are crazy
- If you park in the economy lot, take the parking ticket with you
- Delta is just alright by me
- Onboard movies RULE
- Airplane food is so incredibly stupid
- Men take up too much space

Not according to plan

Sorry kids, I didn't mean to start a new blog and completely abandon it right away, I thought it would take a few weeks before I wandered off and let it get dusty. But I have a good excuse. The kind of excuse you never hope to have to make. My uncle, my stoic-yet-funny genius of an uncle, died suddenly on Monday. I got the call and the next thing I knew I was spending 15 hours on planes and in airports. Yesterday was the funeral and it was 800 different kinds of sad. I have stories to tell about my stay here and my journey but not yet. I'm still working through my own sadness and everyone else's. My sister wrote a bit about him:

http://freshhell.diaryland.com/070507_69.html

And here's my favorite picture of him, which Kenny took last fall:

I'll miss you, Uncle Rog.

Do me a favor.

Oh hoo. I just realized that when I sent notification out about this journal change I sent it to my Keen mailing list by mistake. Apparently it was saved in my cookies earlier when I sent out craft show notification and I just hit "send" without thinking. Whoops? Which means that my Mom probably is reading this now. Hi Mom! Stop reading. No really, just stop reading. Nothing to see here. I'd like you keep your mistaken assumption that I'm well adjusted.

Ah, when Internet worlds collide.

I don't really care if Keen folks start reading this but I do care about sending them unwarranted blog spam. Sorry guys! Pretty jewelry for sale! Whee? What I really don't want to do is send ANOTHER email explaining my mistake because that will, 1) draw more attention to it (seriously mom, you can stop reading now) and 2) bring the tally up to three emails that the Keen list unwittingly got from me today. Three in one day is pushing it, I think.

I'm tired.

So scary and new

I'm still reeling about this. It feels weird to not be on Diaryland after all these years. But, this is free. And look at my super-cute masthead! It was made for me by my friend Suzanne who is a crack hand at photoshop. I love how evil the Fuzz looks in that picture. Fuzz is really a sweet cat unless you happen to be standing in the way of her food. Or any food. Then she will cut a bitch.

I still haven't done all the site-switchover housekeeping (links and whatnot) and won't be shutting down my D-land account, I'll just not be posting new stuff or paying for the gold privileges. Screw that monkey noise, I need that money for beer.

Speaking of drinking, Arts in the Park this weekend! It's going to be two fun-filled days of looking-but-not-buying, sneers, weirdos and boredom. Or! Perhaps our customers will find us and be delighted to snap up the newest and shiniest offerings from Keen. We could really use a good show, I'm telling you that. See also: funnel cake. FUUUUUNNNNEEEELLL CAKE. There's a reason that funnel cake starts with FUN.

God help me.

Professional Smartass?

Professional Smartass? Amateur Smartass? I'm no professional, that's for sure. I'm not getting paid to be a grumpy bitch, though if I was I'd be RICH. RICH, I TELL YOU. I don't even know why I picked "Professional Smartass" when I originally started my Diaryland journal. I wanted something snarky and fun and it seemed appropriate, but it's really kind of stupid and has been bugging me for a while. I'm just going to get rid of it altogether. Hmm.

I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this potential move, but I am sort of sick of paying for Diaryland for shit I get free here. Free is awesome, kids. I love free. We'll see. I'm still dicking with it.