I can haz Adreeen? Plz? Kthxbai.

Ha, my friend Marianne (who I'm going to see in a few short days) just sent me that title in an email and cracked my shit up. I'll admit it right here: I dig some LOLcats. I do. It's seriously stupid but makes me laugh. I also dig Marianne so that works out nicely.

Today was the first official day of my vacation and can I just say this: it was a weird fucking day. Not weird-bad, just...weird. For one thing, there were critters EVERYWHERES. I saw:

- outside the door of the Dillards at the mall a mama duck and a whole flock of her tiny babies, all of who freaked out when I opened the door. The mama quacked angrily and the babies all fell over themselves to waddle away and I felt bad because I scared them and what the ASS were they doing there? I'm sure there's a man-made lake nearby but they were hiding in mall shrubbery! It was weird. And pretty cute.

- two different chipmunks! One I spotted while stopped at a red light; it was busy scampering around some trash cans. The other I saw when riding my bike home because it ran right across the street in front of me.

- two seconds after that I saw a raccoon casually hanging out in some one's front yard.

Weird, right?

I spent my morning running errands and then was at a loss because what the hell was I supposed to do with an entire unplanned day off? My problems are immense, I know. Nearing lunchtime I was wracking my brain about who I could call to have lunch with me and thought of my friend Christina who I haven't seen in ages. She lives nearby but I thought it might be rude to call two minutes before noon for a lunch date.

I went to have lunch at Ukrops (alone with Harry Potter clutched to my breast. Yes, I caved.) and who did I run in to? Christina with her toddler son, Aidan. Weird! Fabulous! Not only that, but we'd both bought the exact same thing for lunch and had parked right across from each other without knowing it. Fantastic. We had lunch together after all and it felt like it had been preordained or something. It was that kind of day.

Now, I have to stop writing because Harry Potter awaits and I love him more than I love you. That's just the way it is, bitches.

The Day, The Day, The Day With No End!

In an hour and a half my vacation starts and it's a good thing because I've started hugging my Swingline and mumbling about squirrels and windows. Here are the things I plan on doing for the next two weeks:

- going to Tennessee for Internet Dork Camp! This is the third year. You can read about the first two years here and here.
- riding my bike
- going to see movies: Harry Potter and Ocean's Thirteen
- a house project. Last year I refinished the coffee table, this year I'm tackling the horrible plaster faux-finish and muddy purple paint on the bathroom walls. Any ideas on the best way to remove crappy plasterwork? I could kill whoever did it with my bare hands, it's so awful. KILL.

God, I only wasted eight minutes writing this? BLAAARGSHGKH;kaHa.ds.

I Live In a Sitcom

Pass the haterade, people, because the Mailroom Guy has replaced "have a blessed day" with "hot enough for ya?" He really is my Don Knotts, y'all, except I don't want him to be my anything so I'm just ignoring that fact altogether.

I went to the library today to pick out some books on CD to listen to while I drive to Tennessee next week. Books on tape (CD, whatev) are only good for me if I'm in the car because otherwise I get too distracted and my mind wanders and suddenly I realized I've just been tuning out the very thing I'm trying to hear. I also kind of like the voice in my own head, thank you very much, so I'm hesitant to listen to a book I know I already love in case I hate the narrator. It's like having your favorite book being made into a crappy movie (what up, Harriet the Spy.) Anyway, I chose the following:

Selected Short Stories by P.G. Wodehouse

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

Make Death Love Me by Ruth Rendell (how is there a Rendell mystery I've never hear of? I was so excited to find this.)

So a little fiction, a little non-fiction, and a loaded iPod should get me through to Knoxville just fine. I know all the excitement right now is about the new Harry Potter book and I want to read it too, but I have no problem waiting a little while until someone lends me their copy because I just don't have energy to have to know RAHNOW. That said, I think it's a sign of the downfall of our stupid asshole society that there are people spoiling the end just because they can. Who does that? The kind of person who does something like that is the same ilk who throw garbage out their car window, knowingly park in a handicapped spot, or still drive around with Bush/Cheney stickers on their car. Who are these people? These spoilers of all that is good and pure?

Mailroom Guy would probably love to tell me the ending. Dude was born to spoil.

Wednesday's Child is Full of Woe.

I'm not, really. I mean, not any more than usual. I'm actually jumping out of my skin with potential excitement because starting at 5pm on Friday I have TWO WEEKS OFF. IN. A. ROW. I am all falling over myself trying to figure out what to do with that much vacation time. It's giddy-making. In the meantime I'm full of job-woe for various reasons, mostly that I need a freaking vacation because last week wore my ass (and brain) right out and I'm feeling punchy (not happy-punchy, but more like I'm gonna punch you inna face, punchy. Watch out, mail room guy.)

As a whole, the conference went really well and our guests were extremely nice. However, remember my bitching about the cab company and how worried I was that they were going to screw me? Well, guess what? They completely screwed me. I set up reservations in advance, paid in advance and even paid extra to have them meet the various guests with a name sign. In return they just neglected to show up. At all. When I called to find out what happened I could actually hear the reservations person shrug. Nice service! They had no explanation for why the driver failed to show up other than that they suck and are all morons. Maybe I added that last part, but still.

In the meantime, with me all busy working 15 hour days, Kenny has been valiantly trying to hold back the swath of weeds and greenery that makes up our giant back yard. That shit is huge and it will not stop growing. Our sad garden plot, which we brilliant planted in the middle of the yard, has been overtaken by the lawn which has been growing back in faster than we can control by stare meaningfully at it and wish it to stop. Mind power doesn't really work on weeds, apparently.

So yesterday I got brave and put on long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, gloves and half a bottle of DEET, and went at those weeds. The mosquitoes are smarter than me, though. First they buzzed around and surveyed my area, and then they had a little pow wow. Finally, the first brave soldier went in for the only portion of my body that was not protected. My lips. No lie, that little motherfucker bit me on the LIP. I CANNOT PUT CANCER SPRAY ON MY MOUTH! What the ass! After that, they discovered that they could just bite me right through my pants and went to work. I ended up with welts on my ass. Both sides. I can't really blame them, though, because I know my ass is sweet.

Why Rich Kids Suck.

I was walking across a parking lot earlier today and two rich kid dudes were walking towards me. One of them dropped a shiny quarter and, hand to god, neither of them stopped to pick it up or even paused in consideration. I know they heard it too because I was ten feet away and I heard it! Those fools left a quarter lying on the ground because they simply couldn't be bothered. Rich kid jetsam! I was shocked but you can damn skippy bet that I picked it up and put it in my pocket.

My husband sweats change, I think. He leaves a shower of coins behind him everywhere he goes and, crow-like, I pick it all up. Mostly it gets dumped in one of the large coin containers we have around the house but any change I find while vacuuming I consider payment and keep for myself. I've also been known to scramble around on the floor near where Kenny empties his pockets if I need change for lunch or something. It's a goldmine up there! Last weekend I finally had gotten tired of our retirement money being scattered hither and yon and I collected it all into a large bucket. My plan is to take it to the bank (they have one of those coin sorter machine thingies) and buy a pony with the proceeds. Kenny doesn't know about the pony yet but I'll let him ride it too. I'm not a complete bitch.

Skeert.

8 Random Things About Me (as tagged by Mim)

1. Mim's son Noah is my oldest friend - we'd known each other since preschool.

2. I was completely obsessed by England and all things British when I was a kid. Now I'm just obsessed with well-built young British princes.

3. The sound of ripping paper is my nails on a chalkboard.

4. I think Angelina Jolie is a creepy junkie baby-collector and I hope she and Brad break up. (Sorry, Molly.) I mean, did everyone forget about the vial of blood and Billy Bob and the knives-as-sex-aids? Did we forget about crazy Angelina who frenched her brother? Because I didn't and I'm confused as to why everyone thinks she so great and glamorous when it's clear to me that she's the same brand of crazy wearing a nicer outfit. She's pretty, though. I'll give her that.

5. I think Andrew Zimmern is sort of hot because who doesn't find something a little bit attractive about a dude who will willingly eat anything?

6. Nothing excites me more than a coupon. The first thing I do when the Sunday paper arrives is remove all the coupons and go through them with a pair of scissors. After that, I might read the news.

7. I realized the other day that you never, ever really feel like a grown up, not really. Everything you ever felt is still in there, you just (hopefully) get better at dealing with it. I walk around every day with shadows of my seven year old self, my twelve year old self and my twenty year old self and I am glad for the company.

8.If the freaking peaches don't hit the grocery store soon I am going to lose my MIND. I cannot eat another apple, people. WHERE ARE THEY, UKROPS.

I'm sleepy so I'll only tag a few folks: Claudia, Bunnyrock, Dawn and Suzanne.

I Might Need a Vacation.

I've been spending a fair amount of time in and around the back yard lately because the weather has been beautiful and the tomatoes (TOMATOES) are starting to ripen. When I say, "a fair amount of time" I mean 30 seconds at a stretch. Any longer than that and the mosquitoes have time to organize a group plan rather than just randomly attack me.

I took one for the team, however, when I saw this little rabbit out back eating the apples that had fallen from our apple tree. He's so cute and conveniently pocket-sized. I know! Who wouldn't want a pocket rabbit? I didn't scoop him up, though, I just took his picture instead and he didn't seem to mind. Afterwards I looked down at my feet (the only skin I had exposed) and saw giant red mosquito bite welts on both of them. West Nile, here I come. It was worth it though for the cute bunny picture.





I'll be the first to admit that I'm fonder of the cute critters than the non-cute ones. I like squirrels better than birds. YOU HEARD ME. Squirrels trump birds! Totally cuter. There's one bird in particular who's not doing anything to change my mind about this. It's built a nest in the tree in our yard and spends every waking hour bitching us out and dive-bombing the cats. I did a little Internet research and I'm completely scientifically convinced that it's a Tufted Titmouse. Tufted Jerkmouse, more like. Man, that bird does not quit. I get home from work or take out the trash or go to pick a tomato, and she's waiting for me, tweeting and tut-tuting and warning me away from a nest that's 20 feet off the ground. I don't want your eggs, dingbat!

I'd finally had enough Tufted verbal abuse the other day and Kenny came outside to find me jumping up and down shaking my fist at her and yelling,

"I should punch you right in the beak! Right in the ole' tweeter! RIGHT IN YOUR SEED HOLE, BIRD!"

This earned me another "God, I can't believe I married her" look but really, that bird is an asshole and somebody had to say it.