Resolution Schmesolution

I don't usually make New Year's Resolutions. They're such -to quote Mary Poppins- "pie crust" promises. Easily made, easily broken. Who's ever really stuck with theirs? I'm sure you might be able to name one or two folks, but I probably don't know them so it doesn't count.
Normally, I tell myself quietly in my head that I'm gonna do something grand for the year, or even make a few short term goals. That way I only have pressure coming from me to accomplish my goals. Which can sometimes be worse than pressure coming from other people. Although, there is facing the disappointment coming from your closest friends when you fail or when you're as fickle and change your mind as often as I do. This year, at one point, I was supposed to quit my job and go get my massage therapist license.
I have done neither.
This leads my friends to shrug and say things like, "That's Karen....". I'm still not sure what that means. I know I'm me. Is that to be an insult? Using my first name to chalk up my bad habits? If they were to say, "Man, I really pulled a Karen last night...." I know that means they got completely shitfaced and puked. I guess I'm ok with that.

So here are my plans for 2009:

1. Create. Anything and everything. Something every day. Writings, paintings, drawrings, sewings (since I got a lovely new sewing machine for Xmas).....
2. Calm my head with good workouts. It really is amazing how good you feel after a decent gym trip. Keep track of workouts and food intake via www.caloriecount.about.com (thanks, Anna!)
3. Set aside [more] money on a regular basis. I do this already - but can always do more.
4. SO I CAN TRAVEL MORE!! Already have a trip booked to go to NYC in January. We'll be going to Chicago in May. Alaska in July. That's 3 so far - have the rest of the year to fill up!!
5. Go to the beach more often when its nice out. I live in FL - I should take advantage of only being within an hour of the ocean. Besides its good brainstorming time that will help with #1.

I really think that about covers it.
Attainable goals. Nothing unrealistic.
Here's to 2009!!!

2008 in a Nutshell

January - Crowne Plaza party on the 15th floor for New Year's Eve. during which Martha, Jess, & Casey made a toast to get knocked up. some folks got bathroom busted. there were panties on a lamp, and pressed meat on elevator glass - and I don't remember going to bed. We went to Kobe Steakhouse for Chad's birthday where we were grilled by Yoshi and his endless sake bombs. My hair was black.
February - full of Rockband nights. I think I hardly left the house for 4 weekends in a row due to band practice. Cavernous Ass swept the charts. I tiled a bathroom. We had a superbowl party. My hair went to a burgundy color.
March - For St. Patrick's Day we had a movie night at Chadstal's with the sheet screen/projector on the deck and watched Boondock Saints. had our first camping trip in Blue Springs for one night. Matt got attacked by a manatee. Went through first degree Reiki. Served my first jury duty. heh...doodie.
April - went to Vegas for a week on company dime. where I rec'd an award and a raise. sweet. had Mick & Laureen in town to hang out with us. My hair was a reddish brownish color.
May - saw "Wicked" with my mom. went camping with the folks for Mother's Day. Had a work trip to Philly. Went to NYC with Pannacakes and got rowdy for 3 days. saw "Chicago" there and visited the Museum of Sex. Went paintballing and to Odin's Den for my 30th. Didn't go skydiving.
June - Spent 4 glorious days with the crew in Clearwater. One of the best weekends ever. Joined Toastmasters. Fish died. Went to Universal Studios and got drenched. Had to buy cookie pants. Decided to go to a lighter reddish blonde hair color.
July - 4th of July on Chadstal's lake. went to Warped Tour with Licia sorta last minute like. had a kick ass day. hosted the Summer Bomb-Altamonte Gladiators - during which I busted my coccyx & Willie jacked his shoulder -and after which Casey & John got with kid. Got new fish.
August - work trip to Philly. gave my first Toastmasters speech. redid April's bedroom. went to Aquatica. got my Macbook. Hair was SUPER copper red.
September - had our guest bathroom remodeled. went through 2nd degree Reiki class. saw Henry Rollins. found out Tom & Martha are breeding. got my 8th tattoo. Hair color was like a honey brown.
October - trip to Green Bay for m.i.l.'s birthday for Packers/Colts game. found out Jess & Clint are with spawn. (making it 3 for 3 on their 2008 resolution). went to Halloween Horror Nights. made a panda head. dressed up like a vampire. scared small children. discovered I had a good blood-curdling scream.
November - went to the NKOTB show with Licia and acted like 12yr olds (who were allowed to drink beer). voted. watched Jason do the Chicken Dance at The WillowTree. finally DID something with my macbook. surprised Matt for his birthday with a surprise bar night. went camping for 2 nights at Tomoka State. spent a week in Scottsdale, AZ with the in-laws for Thanksgiving. got hit up to become the Prez of our Toastmasters club. Went back to black hair. Black is good.
December - saw "Avenue Q" with Matt. went to the Jags/Packers game in Jacksonville, where I magically won an autographed football in a raffle. got new floors and baseboards upstairs. bought a fake white tree. hosted Christmuhannukwaanzaakuh Margarita Jam. spent Xmas with the family and had an absolutely wonderful time. spent a night in Siesta Key with friends and then an evening of great food, drink, conversation with the crew and Jacquie's wonderful family. jumped on their trampoline. Hair is still black.

Day of Me

Sometimes I wish I could do this...

Tis The Season

As I'm taking Xmas decorations out of containers, the lid to one of the plastic tubs is laying on the floor and I notice this sticker. And I think, how funny (warning stickers are one of my favorites cuz the little stick people falling or getting something cut off always crack me up). But THEN I think....jeeeeeez how many kids died in plastic tubs to warrant this sticker being adhered to all plastic tub lids nation wide??
So don't put your kids in plastic tubs this holiday season. And if you do, leave the lid off.
But if you do put the lid on, give them breathing holes.

A December Declaration

Thanksgiving just came and went. 5lbs came with it.
So, I'm coming up with a way to do a complete overhaul of myself.
Since drastic change is the only sort of change that really appeals to me, I would like to cut out the following things from my current routine:

1. Poor eating habits on the weekends. Just because its Saturday/Sunday - doesn't mean grease topped with cheese is ok.....with beer.
2. Lack of discipline in keeping up with my gym routine.
3. Weekend drinking. (especially when most 'weekends' start on Thursday and don't end until late Sunday night).
4. Inability to wake up early in the a.m.
5. Fat pants.
6. Beer.
7. Rum.
8. Bread....of any kind.
9. 4+ hrs of tv/movie watching.
10. Drunken munchies.

I will replace those with these:
1. Good eating habits on the weekends. Make better choices. Salads, chicken/fish, veggies, fruit. I like these things. Why don't I eat them more when they're NOT battered and deep fried. mmmmmmbatter and ...NO!! STOP!!
2. Go to the gym atleast 5 days a week. No. matter. what. Even if its 10pm. Our gym closes at 11pm for a reason.
3. Drink water...with a lemon in it, so people will think I'm drinking vodka and not just assume I'm pregnant.
4. Wake up at 6:30am every morning. Even on weekends. (this makes me cringe even just typing it out)
5. Clean out the closet.
6. Water
7. Water...maybe juice if I get a wild hair.
8. Veggies, nuts, and fruits. mmmmsweet potatoes just came to mind.
9. 4+ hrs of reading or doing something creative.
10. Sex....

I think those are pretty good trade-offs.
We'll see how it goes.

Weekend Camping Trip

Jess really wanted to go camping before all the preggers got too big and uncomfy - so a camping we did go.
Just over to Tomoka State Park which was about 15 mins away from where the Mehegans live....so Tom's first camping trip really didn't count. Sarah's did though - since it was over an hour away for them. Friday night half of us got there and set up in the dark. That was fun. It was cold and windy and we went to bed pretty early that night just so we could get warm in our blankets. Sleeping on an air mattress is much better than sleeping on the ground. The next morning the Mehegans woke us up, followed by Lewis and Sarah, and then Shannon completed the group. We had 6 tents on one site and you're really only supposed to have like 2 or 3 on each site. The cars were parked in a tetris on the site next door. A cute park boy told us "for future reference" that there were to be fewer tents to one site next time. We went wandering around lookin' for water and found the river....along with some raccoon poo and a gift shop with ice cream. Casey demonstrated her talents on a bomb pop and gave her self a blue tongue. The walk back was rewarded with grilled meat and chili. Scary stories were read, rum was killed, beer was chugged, jiffy pop popped, smores built, and yes....of course I puked. I am That Girl.
Chili looks exactly the same in a puddle on the ground just outside of the tent as it does in a foam bowl to be eaten with a plastic fork. A shovel and the dogs helped with cleanup. The morning was bright and headachey and our tent city came down within minutes.
Impact nothing.

These are the presents I get from our cats.

Elevator of Evil

So I'm goin' up the stairs after lunch and TR is standing there and I say, "How ya doin'?" and he says, "Pretty fuckin' freaked out...." which is very unlike TR so I say, "Why?", genuinely concerned. He says, "Fuckin' Texas Chainsaw elevator right here.....the doors opened and its all dark with a dirty cone..." so he got on the other elevator that was lit up and I hit the button when his closed and waited for the scary one to come back up. I listened at the elevator door to hear the beeps as it came back up to the 4th floor. The doors opened and a sweaty bald fellow got off saying, "I wouldn't take that one - its all dark." and I laughed and said, "Glad you made it..."

My mind is teaming with all sorts of scary stories ideas.

For my nonfacebookers

Michelle - here's the vid from Friday night.

This is me right friggin' now.

This is me when I was skinny.

For my non-facebookers

Posted these over the weekend and wanted to share with my non facebook havin' friends. I won't name any names (ahem, Anna, Cedric and Michelle):

Poor Jesus

We just watched a couple episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia that we had on the DVR. When those were done - we started flippin' through the HD channels and landed upon Showtime HD showing The Passion of the Christ. Right at the scourging scene. The skin effects make-up is phenomenal. And no wonder the movie is so long - half of it is in slow motion. Matt told me the actor that plays Jesus got struck by lightning during filming, so my curiosity sparked and off to imdb I went and found this:
"James Caviezel spoke about a few of the difficulties he experienced while filming. This included being accidentally whipped twice, which has left a 14 inch scar on his back. Caviezel also admitted he was struck by lightning while filming the Sermon on the Mount and during the crucifixion, experienced hypothermia during the dead of winter in Italy. He also experienced a shoulder separation when the 150lb cross dropped on his shoulder. The scene is still in the movie."
and this:
"Assistant director Jan Michelini was also hit twice by lightning during filming."

So do you think maybe Someone didn't want this movie to be made??

After reading through some of the stuff on the imdb page, I said to Matt, "That's amazing..." and his reply was, "You know what's even more amazing? We flipped over to The Passion of the Christ after watching It's Always Sunny."

God Given Right as an AmeriCAN

So there was the dream I had. And about 10 or 15 mins later we got through the voting line. Once inside and in our section of the alphabet, we got up to the nice lady with her book o'names. She asked for my ID and I handed it over and a flippin' she did go. She found a Barbara Stephenson and a Matthew Stephenson (who happened to be standing next to me) but no Karen Stephenson. HA! Shocker. So, I say, "oh well." and start to step out of the line. She hands me a card with "Name not in precinct book" checked off and tells me that the ladies on the other side of the room can help me out. I wait at that table for about 10 mins and while I'm waiting, I start to think back to 2004 - when I initially registered. I'd registered for the primaries which would've been February. Matt and I moved to our townhouse in July and then married in October. So my dim light went off that I wasn't up to date. 5-10mins later, Matthew was done voting and they'd found my name in the book - still under my maiden name. They tell me I'm ok to vote and let me cut back into the S-Z line and then I was on to do my deed. The language in the amendments is ridiculous. Why they can't cut out the bullshit and double negatives boggles my mind. I had to read each one at least twice just to make sure I comprehended it and didn't accidentally vote the way I didn't mean to. I filled in all the ovals with my black felt tip pen (not a #2 pencil) and then took my new fangled ballot, held it up in the air proudly, slid it into its top secret card stock folder flap, and then handed it to the lady who was feeding them into the machines. TA DA - I DID IT!!! Wow - part of the process. I wish I was in the Electoral College. Then I'd REALLY feel like I was a part of something.

N.K.O.T.B.

I posted a picture of my tickets for the New Kids Reunion Tour at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa when they came in back in July and had not much excitement about going since November 2nd seemed slightly far away at that point.
Back in the day, I was a Danny Wood girl - even though my friends called him "monkey face" - which was actually what appealed to me since I tend to be more attracted to cromagnon features. Licia was a huge Donnie Wahlberg fan. April loved her some Joey McIntyre. I think Licia's obsession with them lasted longer than me and April's did. My BOP and Tiger Beat pinups came down after about 6-8 months. I think April's were down maybe a year after they went up. Licia was still going to shows in 8th grade. She's hardcore.
When we heard about the reunion tour, I went ahead and grabbed tickets thinking it would be reminiscent dorkish fun. It was that but sooooo much more. It was truly an adventure.
A day before I'd printed out directions to the St. Pete Times Forum. Then left them at work. So printed out another set from home. Had those with us and ended up gabbing so much we missed our exit which didn't exist due to construction. After 2 turn arounds - we eyeballed our way to where we figured the Times Forum and got there quicker than if we'd followed the directions. So glad I printed them out.
After parking at an honor box, we wandered to a bar which was close by and FULL OF WOMEN. Total clam fest. There were leg warmers, crimped hair, big buttons, stupid glasses, the whole 9. I thought it was funny cuz weren't the New Kids big in the early 90'S?? Is the 80s style line blurred that much? Apparently. After a basket of fries, some cheese sticks, and 6 vodka & flat tonics - we headed over to the Forum.
We learned that when you laugh at someone's outfit they give you a dirty look. We also learned that if you have a purse with you that the stick lady has to go through, she gives you a dirty look, too. Not quite sure why that is.
We made it up to the turnstiles and they scanned out tickets and told us we had to go to the box office. I started to get a little miffed thinking there was something wrong - but then, while standing in that line, I was thinking, "oooo maybe Danny Wood saw the picture I tagged him in on MySpace and wants to hang out with us!!". It wasn't that, but our tickets got upgraded to a lower level because they'd used our area for a "Party Zone" which we were not invited to.
We grabbed a couple of beers and went to find out seats. The 2nd level bowl in the Forum can not be found on Floor 2. There is no floor 2. You have to go to Floor 4 to find seats in the 200 sections. When we did find out seats, they were the very front row of the upper level. It was a fantastic view!
Natasha Bettingfield (she did that Book song and that I love you I love you I love you I love you song) opened for them. She did ok - for a girl singin' to a bunch of girls. Frumpy dress, but who cares when you're singin' to girls? Every time she said, "New Kids" there were squealing screams. Screaming rules.
When she was done we had to get new beers. The beer on the 4th Floor - level 2 aren't as big as the beers on the lobby level - which was disappointing. Beer tastes better when its big.
The guys came out on stage with big puffs of smoke around them and started singin' all the old stuff. The songs are still really gay - but they nailed all the notes and the moves and they're pushin' 40!! At one point they disappeared from the main stage and reappeared in the back of the crowd on a rotating stage with a piano and a girl with stretchy gold lame pants on. She had a bubble butt and danced on the piano while the guys did their thing. I think it was Jordan playing the piano. Then they ran back to the main stage after a couple of songs and did more stuff up there. They had this thing where the big screens took a still of them posing and Joey was doggin' himself for making his head look like it had disappeared. That was pretty damn funny. For the encore the screen showed a bunch of Boston sports team logos and the intro to "Shippin' up to Boston" by DKM started playing. Jumping ensued. When I told Matt about that he was completely shocked and a friend of his said that "NKOTB is to DKM as Israel is to Palestine". I was like - ya never know, they might be friends. Doesn't everyone from Boston know each other? So the fellas came back out for Hangin' Tough and Danny was break dancin' and Donnie did Cover Girl and Jordan did some high pitched song and then that solo song he did where he was at a carnival in the video (I like that song) and Joey did some other high pitched song and Jonathan sold real estate. They waved goodnight/thank you at everyone and that was pretty much it. GOOD NIGHT TAMPA!!!

I give good Panda Head.

6 Things MOST People Don't Know About Me

1st - I can't believe it's been a whole entire month since my last post. I'm a horrible blogger.
2nd - Licia - this one's tough, but here it goes (if you even remember this from 25 days ago):

1. I like the smell of my own armpits after 12hrs of no deoderant.
2. The thought of having kids completely scares me. (most of you know that I don't WANT them - but you don't really know that the thought scares the shit outta me).
3. I hate silverfish.
4. Someday I will commit to getting my pilot's license.
5. About 3 yrs ago, I asked for bigger boobs....and then I gained 25 lbs.
6. If I could hookup with any celebrity, my list would be:
1. Robert Downey Jr.
2. Jeremy Sisto
3. Nathan Fillion (although they're all tied for 1st in my heart).

I reckon that's about it. Oh...and sometimes I wear glasses when I'm working on spreadsheets. But that would be 7 and that's not what Licia asked for on the blog challenge/chain mail thing.

This is Turk yawning.

I got a new tattoo

and it makes me happy.

Friday Night with Henry

Matt's a big fan of Henry Rollins since Black Flag days. I became aware of Henry in Rollins Band days, but don't really consider myself to be a fan. He's ok. Most times I think he's a cornball who likes to hear himself talk and occasionally makes really good points. Good points, I am a big fan of.
Friday night was about our 3rd, maybe 4th Henry spoken word show.
Here are a few highlights:

1. "What I don't remember, I just make up. Impressive none-the-less, right?" --Diamond David Lee Roth
2. We were standing at the bar with a running tab and listening, and this fella came up next to us and asked, "What's your cheapest well whiskey on the rocks?" $4.50/4.75 He ordered one and left. I leaned over to Matt and said, "He's on a hard budget." About 15mins later the same fella came back and asked, "What's your cheapest whiskey on the rocks?" DIDN'T YOU JUST ORDER ONE?!? He gets the same answer as he did 15mins ago and says, "OK, what's your cheapest beer?" Eyes roll.
3. Right next to where that guy kept ordering cheap drinks was a fella with a ski hat on that kept snorting during the entire show. He sounded like a pig. Either coke nose, a sinus infection, or an itchy throat. Whatever it was it was annoying as hell.
4. Henry was telling a story about Burma and asked why the most oppressed people are so soft spoken and nice. My answer to him is: Because they're oppressed and beaten down....and I would think a world traveler would kinda pick up on that.
5. A new way to say "take a piss" when you're out in the wild - "Put the biologic to the tree."
6. Henry went to the killing fields in Vietnam and was commenting on the war and said something about there having been a war on the intellectual there and how that wouldn't happen here. I disagree - let's not forget the witch trials. America is still a young country compared to the rest of the world and there are plenty of phases she hasn't gone through yet.
6. It bugged me a little bit when Henry was telling stories about going to the middle east and gaining more knowledge of other cultures by traveling. The stories he told of going over there were fascinating - the people he met there were interesting and he asked them really good questions about life there. Later, he told us a story about doing a show where he went down to New Orleans to interview Katrina survivors. I was completely disappointed when one of his questions, to a fella who'd been flooded out of his house, jumped in his fishing boat, and boated to his buddy's house, where his friend was stuck up on his roof was, "Why did you go back and pick your friend up?" Seriously....?

After the show we went to Virgin Mega Store and I bought these books cuz they entertained me:
1. Goodnight Bush - An Unauthorized Parody by Erich Origen & Gan Golan. This was particularly hysterical to me because Goodnight Moon was my favorite book as a bitty kid. And I loathe W. http://www.goodnightbush.com/
2. 30 Days of Night: Beyond Barrow by Steve Niles and Bill Sienkiewicz
3. All About Us - A Question Book for Couples by Philip Keel. Thought it would be fun for me and Matt to fill in every once in a while. If we could only decide who gets to be A: and who gets to be B:.
4. Movie Icons: Dean by FX Feeney. This one is a mini coffee table book of James Dean photos, quotes, and nuggets of trivia. Its beautiful and I love him.

"Ignorance Is A Cancer"

A few months ago, after coming to the conclusion that public speaking would be a requirement for world domination, I decided to join Toastmasters at work. I paid my dues and received a Practical Guide to Becoming a Better Speaker, some other leadership guide that I haven't looked through yet, along with some other general info. The Practical Guide is like the Toastmasters text book. When it came time to deliver my first speech, I flipped through the book and a section about rhetorical devices caught my eye. The sample sentence for "Simile" was: "If we deny our children an education, ignorance will grow like a cancer." The sample sentence for "Metaphor" was: "Ignorance is a cancer that must be cured." And I thought how odd of a sample sentence. The words are so in your face....for a freakin' SAMPLE sentence. Pretty intense opinion to waste on a damn sample.
Anyway, I threw together my first speech and this is how it went (theme for the meeting was "Back to School"):
You all should see what you all are wearing...or not wearing...in my head right now.
I struggled a little bit with our theme this evening. I'd written something when I first joined about facing your fears and getting out of your comfort zone. I used to work at Disney in characters and being the center of attention is a lot easier to do when you're hiding behind fur and a big fiberglass head.
Going back to school is sort of like being the center of attention for everyone whether we want it to be or not. All eyes are on you - "How was your summer?", "What did you do?", "You look different since last year", etc.
There's so much lead up to the first day of school. Shopping to be done, supplies to gather, first day outfits to plan, and bus schedules to follow.
When my brother was in elementary school, every single year on the last night of the summer before the first day of school, I'd be getting ready for bed and could hear my brother sobbing in his room. I'd duck my head in and ask him what was wrong. "I....I....I...d-on't want...t-to go t-t-to......t-to school..." I'd holler for mom and she'd come upstairs to talk to him and then head to bed myself but without crying.
It was sad and cute when he was in K-2nd grades. By the 3rd, 4th, & 5th grades, it was just silly and we'd laugh about it - sometimes while he was still crying.
He was always scared of the first day of school.
I was kinda the opposite. It was new and exciting - A DAY TO CONQUER!! And weapons for battle on that day were new shoes, a different hair style (and/or color), makeup!, and in high school, if you'd gotten a job over the summer, it was your first car.
The summer before 12th grade, I'd started working at Disney and found myself in need of reliable transportation. My dad, being the car guy he is, took me out shopping for an old beater Mercedez Benz. My reliable transportation was a 1979 240D in robins egg blue. It had the best diesel engine ruckus ever and was a complete tank.
The first day of my senior year and we were all sitting in our first class getting settled and saying the Pledge.
There was a PA announcement for a "blue Mercedez Benz with its lights on in the student parking lot". One of the guys in my class stirred in his seat and half way stood while saying, "Ha...that's MY car.", joking as if he were a baller with a Benz. I quietly stood up and walked past him to leave the classroom and go turn my car lights off.
That was my only truly victorious first day of school story I could recall.
So, when I think about today's theme, I also think about the original speech I wrote out about over coming fears. A lot of us are sort of like how my brother was - crying the night before they have to step out of their comfort zone and do something like this or having to present during account reviews. But then there are those of us that just sort of jump in and get it done and over with, which is pretty much why I'm standing up here this evening. After over coming my fear of clowns a couple years ago (therapy for that was Halloween Horror Nights and lots of rum), I decided I should overcome the next thing on my list - which is speaking infront of an audience. So, here I am and I hope I did ok with minimal "uhs".
****
And my fellow Toastmasters were kind enough to vote me Best Speaker of the evening.

Box Cleaning

I have a trunk in my office that had another box inside of it - full of random crap I haven't been through in years.
After going through 2 moves, finding a spot in atleast 3 of the rooms in our current residence, and walking past it for a few years - I decided it was time to crack that sucker open and see what surprises awaited.

Items found inside include:

1. 3 of Matt's "cool guy" magazines (soccer, rugby, and obscure creativity)
2. 1 Dead Lizard
3. 2 "The Masquerade" presented by Executive Source, Inc. Benefiting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, programs from 11/12/1999.
4. 2 3 ring binders.
5. notebook paper
6. Disney's Animal Kingdom field/training guide from 1997.
7. Set of 7 Retard Math text books from non-accredited pre-college algebra VCC class.....one is missing.
8. Mt. Dora High School Varsity Award for Football Manager from the 1993 season.
9. McNeese State University catalog for 1997-1998 (when I thought I was getting married to a golfer from Louisiana).
10. 1 picture of golfer from Louisiana
11. Graphics Technology workbook from VCC Summer 1997
12. 3 VCC Retard Math class tests - graded 83, 75, & 90
13. Peel-n-stick holiday gift tags
14. 1 dead AA battery
15. 1 tablet of 11x14 bristol board
16. 1 tablet of 11x14 medium weight tracing paper.
17. 2 Mead Comp books - 1 from Engligh class Jan 1995-May 1995
and 1 from Eng 1101 VCC Nov 1997 with a test inside: grade 88
18. Animal Kingdom Entertainment Pride Guide 1998
19. 1 brown accordian folder containing 3 VCC english papers (maybe I'll post those later), 2 English tests: graded 88 and one ungraded, 3 blank english test booklets, 1 Graphic Communication final exam: graded 81, and 1 Graphic Communication project grade sheet: graded 90. All from fall semester 1997.
20. Taxes from 1999.

Block, party of one.

Matthew is completely engrossed in Packers/Vikings MNF. Which made me think of this thing I wrote during preseason a few years back (and thought it might help my current creative bottleneck). Wrote this back in 2004. Matt & I had just moved into a place we bought together. Were 2 months away from our wedding. And Hurricane Charley came through Central Florida while we went on vacation....to Wisconsin.
Entitled, "A Country Girl Turned City Girl's Observations of the Country....in Wisconsin."
A vacation to Wisconsin. Cheese & beer. What else in there in Wisconsin? Beautiful weather and a lake front cottage was what I was told. 2 weeks before leaving I checked the weather.com. Rain and cold was the forecast. Aprehension set in. The whining soon followed. Who vacations in Wisconsin anyway?
30 mins before our plane takes off, we get to the check in counter. On edge, we get our luggage checked and hoof it to the gate. We get in our seats, and in 10 mins the plane starts moving. Without Matt's Reese's Pieces. $5 sammich on really good bread settles his beast within and then we fall asleep for the last 45 mins of the flight. We land in Midway and exit the aircraft through the marked exits located (here, here, and here) at the middle of the aircraft. Waited about 20 mins at the baggage claim. Found our bags and head to the Avis counter to claim our rental car. A round woman named, "Debbie" said she'd be able to help us. She referred us to other rental companies who were completely sold out instead. She will feel the wrath of Karen and Matt, for we are truly the Customer Service Super Heroes (future note: I'll explain later). Justice shall prevail in form of email complaints to Avis HQ. A yellow shirted man asked where we were headed and offered to give us a ride for $38 and talked about guns the whole way to Lincoln Park. We stayed that night with Matt's college buddy, Jay. Beer until 4am. Sleep until 8am. Showering in a bachelor's soap scum. Off to a rental car company who will take our debit card business. Classic in silver. City driving. Onto expressway. Off to a great start. Everything going smooth, then... STOP. Traffic congestion out of Chicago. 1hr to get about 5 miles away. Need breakfast. No stops. We finally get into Wisconsin and stop for snackins. Vacation/road trip junkfood. Little chocolate donuts and a real coke are bliss. Corn. Lotsa corn. Bong Recreational Area was noted. Drive switch. A polka radio station was found and lost. More corn. Green fields and blue skies. Aaaaaaaahmericana. Ripon & Duck Days street fest leads into Green Lake. Pop. 1100. Clean air and yelling at cows turns into following signs to Heidel House and lake air. Reminding me of summers on lake Ontario and road trip to New Hampshire. We catch up to the Parents Stephenson and the MegaMondos. The Mondos not feeling well but sweet and staying around just to have lunch with us. The Marina on Green Lake has a bar made to look like a wooden boat sliced down the middle. Dad would dig a town like this. The weather's cool and sunny. My burger had more blue cheese on it than burger. Iced tea is truly a southern thing. Homemade potato chips aren't as good as you'd think. When women men get separated-women get lost and don't return for about 15-20mins. Ripon Good Cookies are not like Archways. We said our goodbyes to the Mondos and followed the Stephensons out to the lake cottage. 100 yr old house w/one bedroom downstairs and an attic-looking upstairs that had been separated into 4.5 bedrooms. Beautiful wood and antique furniture. And one...single...lonely bathroom. And an outhouse in the front - with 2 seats. For sweethearts who share everything together. The lake is busy with boats and jetskis. Greenish murky water that you can see down about 5ft deep with weeds swaying. Not as many fish as I thought I'd be able to see but they say that the lake is about 270 ft deep so they're probably all down there. Speakin' of fish - The Friday Night Fish Fry is FABULOUS! Met up w/some fabulous people as well. Diane & Larry. Much fun. Lotsa beer. Tarter sauce that doesn't get eaten gets put back in the Tarter Sauce jug. Wisconsin recycles. Matt's dad got tackled by a large bartender. He went for a handshake and received a forceful bearhug. She could've taken him, I think. He started it though. He usually does. "Jeepers, no." oh, Jeepers, YES!! We learned that everyone here in the 70s got it on with everyone else. The Country Kitchen has great scrambled eggs and cheese sauce. Even GREATER waffle strips that taste like donut batter. Mullets run rampant in Wisconsin but I pretty much knew and expected that going in. If I didn't see any, I'd be very disappointed. K-Mart in Ripon has a very limited selection of shorts. I tried on a 6...too small. So I bought an 8. Turned out to fit exactly like the 6. Evidently I should've bought a 22W. No shorts in Wisconsin. A pathway through the woods isn't always a trail. 45degree angles are hard to walk down gracefully and are a great legs/butt workout going back up. At big family parties all the men sit outside and tell dirty jokes while the women sit inside and talk about health problems and dying. Jerry and his wife were very cool people and he was related to everyone along the street. The eggs/cheese/waffle strips at Country Kitchen are still really good when you go back the next day. Fox River Outlet Store has cheap leather, gloves, & hats. Sometimes the windows on the wallets for your ID to slide into don't have openings for your ID to slide into. Great antique shops but no thimbles or old ash trays. Naps on the dock in the sun are the greatest. Wisconsin grass is soft and fuzzy under barefeet. ou can't get cheese curds every where in Wisconsin but someone will offer to find them and sometimes they'll even get them for you. The Fine Art Fiar is really an Arts/Crafts Fair and if you say "jackass" over the loud speaker you'll get flipped off so its good to pick things back up by singing a David Gray song with a Dave Matthews song following. There are lots of flowers in Wisconsin. And CORN. Plants can grow out of roof shingles. If you go down a country road and stop to take pictures of someone's farm, you won't get shot. Pigs get REALLY big and have big pig balls. Horses lips make fun noises when they eat. If you take a picture with a horse, make sure you're standing up straight. Baby pigs are cute. There are lots of great pictures to be taken when adventuring down country roads. Sometimes mullets will follow you and try to scare you by passing infront of you and slowing down. Get ready to take them and then turn down a different road. Deer will stare back at you before running for cover. Take 3 steps and jump - just to show them you're one of them. Cheese burgers for breakfast is good. Leaving at 11am for a 7pm football game on a Monday night makes for a long day of tailgating. Beer. Lotsa beer. Most people will get up and leave when drunken chatter turns into drunken political arguements. Stimulating. The skinniest women in Wisconsin are pregnant and putting together a tailgating cookbook. Lambeau Field is pretty. Making the rain stop is fun. Cute boys sitting 10 rows up like to thave their pictures taken and are fun to play with. The Lambeau Field Pro Shop also has no thimbles. Rednecks are proud and fly their flags high. 9-10 beers will leave a funky taste in your mouth when you wake up at 4am to pee. I can only imagine what Mrs. Trojanowski's mouth must've tasted like after that handful of onions she shoved in, topped with ice cream that she ate before going to bed.
-the end-

"Have you posted anything?"

Matt asked me that just a few minutes ago.
"What second?" was my reply.
I decided to take last Friday off - sort of last minute. Figured it was best to take a 4 day weekend before EOQ madness starts.
Woke up with muscle spasms in my neck - great. Ran some errands that I needed to get done and then decided to go to Aquatica over by Sea World. That place was awesome!! We went down a 2 person rider slide and I made Willie sit up front cuz he's bigger than me so we'd go faster. We almost died!!OK - maybe not almost. Willie says we almost died but he's a pussy. When I did my assflip off the tube, I felt my hat lift up off my head so I was lookin' around for it in the water while it was still on my noggin. dork.

Hello, My Name is ______ and I'm a junkie.

My favorite way to watch tv is on dvd. You don't have to wait for a week or 2 for a new episode, there are no commercials, no stupid pop ups for what's coming on next...ALL bonuses.
I've been addicted to watching Rescue Me from season 1. I'd not seen an episode before and RRB (recently retired blogger) Willie had let me borrow his season 1 on dvd months ago to watch and I tried it at that time and but had a hard time paying attention to it - shiny things were distracting me. Brought it home and lost track of it. Then one day a couple of weeks ago, I was impatiently awaiting my netflixed 6ft Under Season 3 disc 3 to arrive and went scrounging for something else to fill the void and Willie's copy of Rescue Me jumped out at me. I went through those dvds like they're the free sample, leaving me a complete fiend. So, I tell my fireman friend, John, that I've been watching it and he says, "Oh, here, you can borrow season 2." John is an enabler. Since I've been tellin' Matt that he needs to watch it too, he goes and downloads season 3 and 4 and I went through those over the course of the past three days. Matt walks in tonight, while I'm watching the last episode and says, "Would you love me more if I were like Tommy Gavin?" My reply:
Yes. Yes, I would.

Fay is Gay

Anyone not in Florida thinks we're going through some Katrina type situation during this piddly ass storm. Sure, we have tornadoes to be concerned about - but that's the most of it. The power going out sometime in the middle of the night will certainly make things uncomfy. We, personally, might have porch flooding. Matt went to the gym and picked up Tijuana Flats for dinner. Just like we would any other non-tropical depression/storm night.
So, why does it feel like a "snow day"??
Oh, because they closed our office building and schools.
Its always good to be prepared - ABSOLUTELY!!, but if you watch the cable news shows - you'd think we were about to die. Everything's in red and bold face and it all looks so urgent. Even on the local news, is no other news - just storm coverage.
I'm sure we'll be receiving food rations and jugs of water pretty soon.
For Floridians, the level of seriousness we apply to a potential hurricane and being prepared for it (based on category level) can be measured by what we do with our community pool furniture.
If the pool deck furniture is merely stacked in short towers.....the storm isn't going to be that bad and we can take things casually.
If the pool deck furniture has been thrown and sunk in the deep end of the pool....get your goggles & fins on, jump in, and pretend you're in a reef. When the wind starts to kick up and the clouds roll in, get your Jacques Custeau lovin' ass inside, get your flashlights and radios and time killin' essentials together and get comfy for the ride. Try really hard to ignore the wind thrashing your roof top and the creaking of the buiding studs and the rain slashing all windows from all directions. Wear the least amount of clothes possible when you finally have to open up the house because its gotten so stuffy inside without the a/c since the power's been out for the past 6hrs and the air is so humid, your book pages curl up. Make sure you have enough beer and rum. Maybe just rum. Rum and munchies are important. Toilet paper is too.
I went to Lowe's this afternoon and there was hardly anyone in there - but a TON of water, batteries, flashlights, generators, radios, plywood, charcoal, etc. Mountains of it.
If this was a real storm - there would be no place to find that stuff.
So I bought my new bathroom paint color and tile sealant and went home to "hunker down" for the night.
The paint color has really turned out nice.

Have you ever had that dream....??

During one of my recent trips and after having a few drinks with dinner and a couple with the fellas afterwards, I crashed in bed around 12:30am.  I wasn't completely hammered - just had a good happy buzz and crashed out instantly.

Suddenly, I woke up and was walking down the hallway outside of my room.  I remember the slight & blurry feeling that there was a reason why I was going down the hall and I was ok with it.  Then I woke up even more and realized I was two things:  1. Locked out, and 2. Completely naked (since I don't wear pjs).  If anyone had been out in the hall with me, I'm sure they would've seen the panic wash over my face right at that moment.  I scurried back to my room door and tried to jimmy the lock with the "no service/later please" door tag like I've been able to do in the past to other, less secure doors.  No dice this time - room doors in chain hotels are like vaults.  So - I duck my head out in the hall to see if the coast was clear and started to make my way - quickly - toward the front desk (on the same floor, luckily for me no elevator ride).  On my way in that direction, there was a conference room door slightly ajar with the lights off.  I slid inside, thankful for the dark room.  There happened to be a phone right inside so I called the front desk.  They picked up instantly and I asked if I could be let back in to room 205.  

Him:  "You have to come to the front desk, ma'am." 

Me: "Please don't make me...."

Him:  "I'm sorry, ma'am, but you need to come to the front desk to get another key."

Me:  "But I'm naked and locked out...."

He made a noise like he laughed in his mouth and said, "How the...I'm sorry - I didn't know that.  I'm on my way."

I peaked my head out the door and saw him walk past on his way to my room.  When he turned the corner I checked the hallway again, looking both ways to make sure it was just me and him in the hall.  He was a door away from my room when I snuck up behind him, holding my boobs with my right arm, grabbed my new room key with my left hand, quickly unlocked my vault, and slipped inside the door thanking him very much.  Completely mortified and finally able to breathe again, I went back to bed, checking the clock that read 2:30am.  Which meant that I'd been asleep for a good 1.5-2 hours before waking up in the hallway - upright.  I went back to sleep and woke up in the morning so hoping that it really had been a dream.  Then I saw the extra key sitting on the desk next to the bent up "no service/later please" tag.

I've never sleep walked before in my life - to my knowledge.  First time for everything, right??

Office Bound

Its Thursday, right? This week's been a blur and I'm not typing this from my pretty red macbook.....which doesn't make me happy. This week has made me happy - but the lack of time I've had to spend with my new mac is making me cranky. I was only able to take it out of the box, turn it on, and listen to it say hello to me with its pretty starry night desktop. We were amazed that it had a charge right out of the box. Usually new toys need to sit plugged in and you have a 24 hr waiting period before playtime can commence. So it found our wireless - I got it signed on, yada yada - and then turned it off and plugged it in because I had a guest to pay attention to. Thought it would be kinda rude to nose dive into apple world while a friend was sitting on the couch wanting to be entertained.
I think I need a name for my new laptop....
I also need to find the camera cord so I can post one of the greatest stories to have happened to me recently. Luckily this temporary setback will help to build anticipation for both of my readers. One of which already knows the story. HYPE HYPE HYPE!!

NEW TOY DAY!!!

My apologies for not having any recent posts. When I got home from my trip last week, my laptop decided to give me the finger and not connect to the interwebs. I haven't been able to fix it yet - even though its probably something very simple - I just ran out of patience and slammed it shut and really haven't picked it up since. Actually I did pick it up last night to go through some pictures, and then shut it down and put it on the floor.....where I kicked it this a.m. That'll learn it for giving me the finger.

So I bought a macbook. YAY!!
And it just came in today - like 20 or 30 minutes ago. YAY!!!

I can't wait to go home and play with it.....AND THEN I WILL POST - POST LIKE THE WIND!!!

Philly Wandering

Here's the map of the city my field rep gave me for wandering around while the men were in an executive mtg:

Movin' on up

So yesterday I was invited to tag along with one of my field reps to visit one of our accounts and we're high up in the Comcast Center building in Philly. The building is like the FUTURE - brand new. Huge video screen walls in the lobby that people are just stopping in to watch. Visitor's passes include pictures, with a barcode that gets you through the gate, and the elevator. It was like Minority Report....minus the stolen eyeballs for the retina scan. The Comcast bldg is the tallest in the city and there's a fantastic view from where we were on the 51st floor so I snapped a few pictures all sneaky like before we get escorted up to the conference room. We all sit down and start our meeting and are talking about contracts and new ways to utilize the monotized product set for prioritized projects that have been bucketized for each business unit. (seriously...this is how they talk and half the time I have no idea what's being said - I just smile and nod and chime in when I can.) Behind me, I hear my phone's rec'd a txt msg but of course I politely wait until after the meeting's adjourned to check and see what bit of goodness has come through. I flip open my phone and see its a picture message. I patiently wait while it loads and I see this:

And the message with it says: "pimple between my eyes - YAY I'm a unicorn!!"

Awesome.

These are not my fish.

Mine always die before they have a chance to get that big.

Maybe I'll ask what the ancient chinese secret is of how to keep them alive that long.

I wish Florida had yummy grass

feels good on my feets.

Airport People

On my way to Philadelphia (again) for work stuff and I missed my 5:00pm flight and ended up getting another that left at 7:00pm. So I head over to the terminal and belly up to the new fancy black quartz bar and miss the line up of beer they had sitting over the wine taps. Yes, I said wine taps. No draft beer. I settle for Miller Lite in the bottle and stick my nose in "Cabal". I'm aware there's a woman eating Wendy's to my right and another fella has sat down on my left. I glance up and he's wearing a white hanes t-shirt, a black blazer, a very long string of hippie beads and a big fat pair of diddy shades. He has one of those snooty "very important people" accents and asks for a Belvedere on the rocks, straight. Then changes his mind and says, "Actually, lets make that a Stoli, if you can believe it...rocks with a splash of soda." Oh, buddy, I can certainly believe it. And what's wrong with Stoli?? We learn that the company that brews Stella Artios bought out Budweiser. He makes a joke about the economy. Then he tells the bartender that he owns an "ultra lounge" in LA. What the hell is an ultra lounge? He says he only sells Cristal for about $600-800 a bottle but buys it for about $150. His ultra lounge is called "Seven" (apparently a very common club name). His "girls" make about $1500 per table per night. He said his "thing" was that he'd rather buy a club than spend $3000/night to go to one. I gave him a cool point for admitting that "everything in/out of LA is bullshit". He keeps brag- I mean talking and then he says he's in town doing some consulting work for a client and lives above a cigar bar in Lk Mary and actually says "being in the action" when he's describing it. Lk Mary is hardly action and I seriously doubt anyone that does the amount of business this dude is braggin' about is going to say something like that about Lake Mary. He tells us about his $25,000 platinum phone that he bought used for $7500 that he says he keeps at home cuz he's afraid of losing it. His Blackberry gives him a look from the countertop in front of him and doesn't ring once the whole time he's sitting at the bar. As I pay my tab and gather my crap, he shakes my hand and tells me to "have a good trip, enter pet name here". I reply, "Maybe I'll see you in Lk Mary." He says, "I don't really blend in that well there."
He was right - EVERYTHING out of LA is bullshit.
Bet he didn't even get to fly first class like I did. :) Upgrading rules. So does free rum.

Red Dawn

We were watching the last 20-30 mins of Red Dawn last night after we had a FANTASTIC dinner at Antonio's (best MoonFish - EVER!!). I was telling Matthew about how Dirty Dancing was my favorite movie in 5th grade and how Patrick Swayze was my movie crush #3. I even came to the realization that Dirty Dancing is the reason behind why I think a man in black pants - and ONLY black pants - is the sexiest thing ever.
And then this scene where Patrick Swayze is cryin' in the snow takes place:

This sums up my Saturday night.

Willie says I have the worst comebacks:

Unfortunately I had a happy finger and cut this one off just before the grand finale:

My feeshes.

Those of you who read my other site know about my fish thing. I just recently had a really cool fish die and after mourning - went shopping for new fish. I got 4. Muppet, Whitey, and Jibba Jabba. Jibba has since died at an early age. So, here are pictures of Muppet, Whitey (White Flour), and Jabba....

One of my favorite commercials

The guy in the mustache is the best.



There's another one - for Orville Redenbacher popcorn - where a group of women get together for a girls night and it shows what would happen if the women were partyin' with popcorn vs. what would happen if they were partyin' with chips or some other snackin' food.
I can't find it right now - but it cracks me up.

Will keep searching.

Hell Yeah

Oki Kinoki Dope

I'm an idiot. I didn't really READ the instructions for Kinoki footpads - I just saw in the commercial that there was 1 on each foot and the person slept and eventually the footpad turned cleaner.

There really is a 2 week supply. 14 pads to each box.

Per the instructions - apply 1 on one foot each night, alternating feets night after night. And I had'em on sideways - atleast according to the picture on the box. But then they're wrong too for having 2 feet on the box and both have a kinoki footpad. And both feet belong to the same person.

Here's my day 4 anyway - maybe I did end up giving it a jump start.

One Is The Loneliest Number

Kinoki Day 3

I wonder if a person can get addicted to Kinoki footpads. The box is a lie - there is truly only a 1 week supply. I should be pissed off and not want anymore but now I'm obsessed with the hope that one day - my footpad will be clean when I wake up in the morning. If I put 2 footpads on each foot - will that make the process go faster?? If I had bigger feet - would that help? Willie asked me if I've been dreaming and after a moment of thought, I realized that I've been sleeping so hard the past few nights, there haven't been any dreams. Except the short one this a.m. where I dreamt that upon kinoki footpad removal - it was clean!! Oh maybe someday....until then - ANOTHER VISIT TO WALGREENS IS IN ORDER!!

The Great Kinoki Footpad Experiment of 2008

This is Day 1.
This is Day 2.

The other night we went to Walgreens and they had a huge pile of Kinoki foot pads. After seeing the commercials a few times I was curious. The front of the box says, "Includes 14 pads!!" in one spot and in another, "A 2 Week Supply!!!". If you have 2 feet - wouldn't 14 pads be a one week supply?? When you put'em on, there's a warm tingly sensation. Its kinda cool. And I've been sleeping really really well the past 2 nights. And after I took them off yesterday a.m., I went to have a cig with my coffee and felt like shit immediately afterwards - to the point where I don't want another cig.
Kinda interesting. We shall see how long it takes my toxic body to unload through the soles of my feet. I wonder if I had bigger feet - would it funnel through faster? Maybe if I double up on Kinokis, we can speed up the process. But that would cut down my fake 2 week supply.

Comfy Sunday Night

Just got back from seeing The Dark Knight. It kicked ass.
I want to see it again cuz I know my head was foggy and I missed a buncha stuff at the beginning.
I miss Heath Ledger.
Damn shame.
That was the BEST 2Face ever and the creepy climaxing sound effect that went along with whatever chaotic crap Joker was doing was AWESOME!!
I still love Tony Stark so far for superhero movies this year.
This is the first time I've had Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey.
Damn this shit is good.
Instead of Zombie Prom this year we're doing Superhero Happy Hour. We haven't decided what bar the happy hour will be at but we thought it would be funny to have everyone dressed as super heroes/villians who were in character and taking the night off from crime and fighting it. The challenge is to stay in character. The other challenge is to get kicked out for a bar brawl between hero and villain.
Yeah - haha - bonus.
That will fucking rule.

If these walls could talk...

They'd say, "HOLY SHIT, THERE'S A LEAK!!"
From 3 to 4pm this afternoon I was on a work call. During which my bladder reached its maximum capacity. When the call finally ended, I did the pee belly shuffle to our downstairs bathroom. While I was sitting there in urinating induced euphoria, I noticed this faint hissing sound. It was behind me. And there was a puddle under the magazine rack. Being my father's daughter, I must find out where the hissing noise and puddle is coming from. The puddle is reflecting a slight ripple so I put my hand out to feel what's making it do that. My hand follows a misting coming from behind the water line going to the toilet tank. Not a good sign.
I turn off the water to the toilet and its still hissing and misting like a hole in a hose. I holler for Matt to come down from his office and supervise what's about to happen and help me make sure that the water main is actually where I think it is.
We shut the water to the house off.
I tug on the toilet line and a pipe pops off. eesh. So I reach up into the soggy wall to find what it had been connected to. I find that pipe and pull that one down to try and connect it back to what had separated from it. About a 7 inch pc of pipe pops off in my hand. Mother. fuck.
Our plans of going to see Mongol at the Enzian are now turning into wet and moldy drywall.
We grab a hammer and a wrench. The wrench to get the toilet tank off the bowl. The hammer to bust into the wall to find the connecting piece of the now incomplete plumbing. I just finished the wall tile about 2 or 3 months ago. I slam the hammer into the wall and the head of it sinks into the drywall as if it were mashed potatoes.
Apparently this isn't a new problem.
I break of parts of my new tile job and break apart the mold spore ridden plaster to give us a good size hole to work in - but not to big that it can't be hidden behind the toilet tank later on. We go to Lowe's and get some pipe cement to fix the shit back on. The pipe cement did absolutely nothing except stick my fingers together. I called my plumber girl, Krackwhore, and give her the scoop. She says what we have is polybuterol pipe and that there's currently a class action lawsuit against the makers because of leaks and flood claims. I'm signing up tomorrow. We go back to Lowe's and find Greg. Greg is our friend and tells us there's a class action lawsuit against our 7 inch piece of pipe we brought in with us. He also recommends replacing the elbow joints with these super cool, super easy new fangled pressure release elbow joints. We don't even need glue or cement or purple primer. So we take that shit home and Krackwhore is there. We go in, install our new fancy elbows, curse a few more times, get that shit tightened up and the toilet tank bank on and no more drips when we turn the water main back on. HUZZAH WATER RETURNS TO OUR VILLAGE!! OH GLORIOUS DAY!! So now we have a big moldy hole behind the toilet tank which is currently being aired out with a fan aimed at it. And the closet under the stairs will be in need of a new coat of primer once its dried out. And I need some tilex or a spray bottle for bleach to kill those mold spores. Hope I don't die in my sleep from mold inhalation.

Thus ends how I spent my Friday night.

Altamonte Gladiators 2008

So, I'm supposed to blog about Altamonte Gladiators. And the way I was going to do it is taking too long and I don't have the patience to sit down and really focus on it to do it right. I figured by the time I got it done and all the kinks worked out - it would be a week or more after Altamonte Gladiators even took place. And who the hell would care about it then??
Plus my head hurts right now.
First, a little history.
Way back in 2006 we held our very first Summer Bomb party. It was supposed to be a massive May baby birthday bash but kept getting pushed back - until it was in July. We just really wanted to have another reason to have a party after our Christmahannukwaanzaakuh Martini Jam was so much fun. And who wants to wait a whole friggin' year?? So Summer Bomb it was. At first I'd wanted it to be a "make your wildest dreams come true" type of party with anything anyone could possibly ever have wanted to do available at the drop of a hat. We lined up a 30 ft inflatable slip-n-slide and another water slide, but it was the climb up and slide over kind with a splash pool at the bottom. We didn't really have a theme but I knew I wanted to blow shit up and pirates rule - so I did party favor bags like what you got when you were a kid. We made them purdy with a Jolly Roger and war stickers and filled them with pirate crap - pencils, super balls, fake tatoos, stickers, eye patches, teeth, etc. We had a keg (which only got about 3 qtrs killed) and had a ton o' yard toys and food stuffs and fireworks. The last person left at 4 am. It was a DAMN good party.
So last year we kicked it up a little bit and did Cops-n-Robbers. Matt and I built a jail cell. We had Personal Effects envelopes full of badges, whistles, tiny handcuffs, etc. We had the same 30ft slip-n-slide, but 2 of them, and then a full bounce house. There was a smiley face pinata I made to look like a robber. Robble Robble. Another keg (which only got about 3 qtrs killed) and a bunch of chik-fil-a. At around midnight, our neighbor came over, smacked me, and said we needed to have more food out. She went home and came back about 20mins later with a big platter of spaghetti. Last person to leave was at about 2/2:30. It was a damn good party.
Because we had such a good time with those - its something we really look forward to every year now. Its a chance for us to hang out with all of our favorite people and act like complete and utter fools.
This year we decided to do a play on American Gladiators (one of my guilty pleasures) and encourage everyone to wear spandex and really throw down. We got crap to play powerball, we had an Eliminator Course set up between the 30ft slip-n-slide and this random octopus bounce house slide thing. The bounce house was pretty damn funny. It was like an undersea adventure with an octopus looming over head and dolphins on the outside. Inside there was a basketball hoop (cuz that's a very popular game down in the deep blue depths) and a seahorse that looked more like a big letter "J". I guess kids like to ride it but it doesn't really hold up well for adults - we just fell off it or crushed it repeatedly. To get into the bounce house there was a bounce ramp leading up inside. After being on the slip-n-slide and going through 2 bottles of dish soap, this ramp, along with everything else inside got very very slippery and I swear I had the best time for about an hour in there all by myself when it got late. Just slidin' around in circles and trying to stand up and floppin' around like a feesh. Getting out, I slid down the ramp thing and landed square on my tailbone. Which made Sunday very painful. Anyway - along with the slide in the bounce house that I think only 3 or 4 people actually made it up ,and the "J", and the 30ft slip-n-slide, we also decided to play beer pong. We'd gotten a pony keg this year since we hadn't finished the ones years past. We killed that poor little pony keg in about 2 or 3 hrs. The boys left to get another one. And that one ended up floating. Matt says there's about half left in there. HA! We killed 3 qtrs of a keg. Atleast we're consistent!! There was a late night pool venture and I heard (maybe saw) a man-on-man chickenfight. I remember swimming from one end to the other. And I remember running back to the slides. I really do make a point to get our money's worth while they're here. Infact - when I finally got off of them, most people had gone for the night. I remember boxing a couple of guys. Yes, I hit like a girl. Last folks left around 2ish.

It was a damn good party.

Maybe I'll start either Gladiator or boxing training soon. Maybe next week - after my coccyx is healed.

Now all I need to do is post something.

My ass is sore. I think I broke it after Mayor McCheese gave birth to me.

Must be nap time. Mine eyes are gettin' heavy.

Currently watching Live Free or Die Hard or Whatever.

Wish it was raining.

There's a blister on my big toe. Been there since Thursday.

I really don't want tomorrow to be Monday.

You know what sucks about having a bruised tailbone?

Sitting, coughing, bending over....

You don't realize how often you use your ass until you break it.

Don't take your healthy ass for granted.