Riiicola!

God bless the woman next to me in Chicago for sharing her cough drops (and tissues!)  There might be nothing worse than not indulging the physical urge to cough for hours on end.

Thinking..

Thinking that I'm just not okay with the toe sock / shoe hybrid. I'm all for the "science" behind it but I'm just not okay with the lady next to me on the plane wearing these:

Call me closed minded but seriously, they just kinda creep me out a bit.

I stole a vacuum and then the cat tried to remove my hand

A few months ago Wes and I went out of town and like the questionable parents that we are, realized about 30 seconds before departure that we needed someone to check in on Senior Chang .  He's a pretty low maintenance feline but I don't think any domesticated pet is low maintenance enough to go 5 days without some kind of assistance in the food/water/feces disposal area. Thankfully Erica came to the rescue and agreed to periodically check in on Captain Thunderpaws while we were out of town.  In return for this favor (and the loan of a spiffy vacuum cleaner) I am feeding and checking in on Pickles Kukulka-Blake while they are out in Texas.

After my adventure at the Kukulka-Blake abode last night, I'm about 96% sure that their neighbors are going to call the cops on me next time I show up there. It all started you see with my initial approach to their house, which I admit may have been a bit unorthodox.  It's not really a good excuse but I haven't been there for a while and may have driven past the house the first time and then I MAY have enjoyed the thrill of rolling downhill in neutral the second time.  In light of later events I fear it may have appeared that I was casing the joint. So pass number 3 I pulled into the driveway and I climbed (and when I say climb, I mean climb.  Their house is on a decent sized hill and their driveway slopes up steeply perpendicular to the road, no matter how you cut it you're CLIMBING) out of the car.  I then meandered my way (a burgler wouldn't meander right?)  up to the front door where I try, not once, but TWICE to insert the house key into the incorrect lock.  I blame the cold medicine.

Once inside I was greeted by the frustrated screams of the precious Gherkin who had been alone for a whopping 9 hours.  He meanders over to me and proceeds to be absolutely adorable, meowing, leaning into my legs, even adoringly gazing up at me with his head on my foot.  It was a trap.  No sooner to I lean down to give him a scritch behind his ears, the talons and fangs came out had it not been for my lighting fast reflexes, I might have lost my hand.  Thankfully while my cold medicine has impaired my mental processes it hasn't hurt my reflexes and I escaped the decapitating swipe of The Pickles.  He is a feline whose love and cuddles you must EARN. 

Lesson learned. 

On I went with my duties, refreshing water, refilling dry food and putting out wet food to satisfy the carnivorous cravings of the The Pickle.  After double checking to make sure the guest room doors were closed I then made my way out of the house: loaded down with a gouda sandwich, vacuum (both authorized to be removed) and a diet coke (unauthorized but hopefully excusable.) Into the driveway where I propped the trunk of my car open with my head and proceeded to load in my booty.  Had anyone been watching from their front porch, saw the approach, heard the screams from my battle with the guard cat and then witnessed my departure loaded down with the goods...well I'm carrying ID with me next time I go is all.

Seriously? Seriously!?

If you're going to call something or someone retarded, please don't spell it "retarted" because it makes me think that you, are in fact retarded.

I generally try to avoid the use of the term "retard" as an insult.  My mom worked with physically and mentally handicapped  kids when I was growing up and throwing that word around our house as an insult was unacceptable.  Also unacceptable was the use of God's name in vain (apparently 'gosh' is a much more acceptable term for us unswervingly secular folk) or describing your mood as 'pissed.'  (It sounds trashy.)  Shit on the other hand was overall an acceptable expression of frustration.  Regardless, the use of any of these terms never bit me on the ass like the use of 'retarded' did.  You see, this one time in graduate school I got a little punchy and cavalierly threw it out at a classmate.  Turns out this classmates younger sister has Downs Syndrome and needless to say, he wasn't very amused.  That might go down in my biggest foot-in-mouth, moment of all time and if it's not at the top, it's in the Top 10.  Thinking of it in those terms, it's definitely worse than asking a non-pregnant lady when her baby is due and so as of this moment, elevator lady receives a formal pardon for her transgression.

'Retarded' as an insult has been seeing a bit of a comeback lately, a comeback that I attribute almost solely to The Hangover.  REtard is making a comeback and I have to admit that with the inflection on the first syllable, it kinda becomes amusing all over again.  Nonetheless, this is an tweeny bopper, middle school era insult that should seriously just die.  Even the Black Eyed Peas took it out of their song because it just sounds...well, mean and wrong.

All this being said, if you're going to throw down the R word and THEN SPELL IT INCORRECTLY...well that might just mean that YOU are a bit delayed and slow in the brain power area.

Snot and boogers, boogers and snot

Being sick sucks.  I woke up this morning fully convinced that the stars had aligned, Jupiter was in the 2nd house and that the germs causing this most recent sickness developed a consciousness overnight and might be trying to asphyxiate me.   What a way to go - suffocated by snot and only Joe Lewis to bare witness.  Admittedly this is less depressing than the first time I had heart burn, thought it was a heart attack and realized that with Meredith in Bermuda, nobody would know I'd died until my body started to get smelly.  THAT was moderately disconcerting. 

Last week when I got all positive about life and talked about my lovely weekend, the Universe found it necessary to smite me.  Nothing THAT bad (I still have all my fingers and toes) but suffice to say I'm sitting at home with a fever, a box of Kleenex and some hot tea today.   I'm HOPING that we won't need a repeat of said smiting should I venture back into the land of positivity.  Despite the germy smiting, I'm going to banish cynicism (Coco DID tell us that there's nothing so deplorable as cynicism) and hope that no karmic smiting will follow.

So while it totally sucks to be sick and I respectfully request that it stop soon, it is awfully nice to have paid sick time at work.  It's nice to have coworkers (hi Nurse Leslie!) who cover your work without making you feel guilty for having succumbed to toxic nuclear strength germs.  It's nice to have a comfy couch to curl up on and a cuddly kitty to curl up with.  Granted, it requires that your cuddly feline isn't a chicken shit like mine who runs every time someone coughs, sneezes, snorts, sniffles or twitches a toe. 

Still, if I have to be sniffling, sneezing and snotting - at least I get to be HERE while  I do it.

FTR / For Randall

They're not a tranny just because you don't like them.

Is it weird?

Is it weird that I kind of REALLY like the waiting room at the Doctors office?  It's like...recess from life.

I was sitting in the waiting room today reading a giant book that I borrowed from my dad's collection (one perk to living in this house - residual library!) and this guy behind me, smacks his gums, spat some tobacco juice into a spitton can,  shifts the straw chaff from the left side of his mouth the right and says: "thar shud be a tee-vee in here."

Are crap magazines not enough?!  There's People, Sport Illustrated (though not the ever illusive Swim Suit Issue) and newspapers galore.  Must we have TV's everywhere?  

The waiting room at the doctors office is a haven of silence and nothing better to do but read.  I hope they never get a TV in the Dr's office waiting room - it would completely ruin it for me.

The Weekend of the Chicken

This past weekend was a lovely weekend.  Come to think of it, most of my recent weekends have fallen under the category of lovely. There's been this amazing balance between the things that I want to do, the things that I have to do and then all that time in between when there's nothing but enjoyment of life to be had.  I keep catching myself being ludicrously, shamefully and gleefully contented.  It's a fate-tempting kind of happiness but I just keep telling myself that some day in the far (or even the immediate) future when I'm running ragged, when I'm confused or heart broken, frustrated or just plain unhappy, I'll look back on weekends like these and be glad that I spent two blissful hours watching Food Network, drinking iced coffee and just being pleased with my world as a whole.

Thanks to my amiga Kelly who popped my Farmers Market cherry a few weeks ago, I've become a huge fan of going to the Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings.  One thing about the Farmer's Market though is that it requires getting up reasonably early, and for those of us without munchkins 8 am on a weekend counts as reasonably early.  For this reason, my Friday night entertainments have been necessarily a bit lower key and earlier ending.  This weeks laid back activities included some live music, beer and pizza Satchels with some friends (and very sadly) sans a sick Wesley.  You just KNOW that when you walk up and see one man with three keyboards that it's gonna be good!  And good it was, good food, good company and in bed by 1030.  That's the kind of Friday nights I be rockin'.

Thanks to the early cessation of shenanigans on Friday, I was bright eyed and bushy tailed for the Farmers Market.  It's a good thing that I was fully awake and coffee-ed because once we got there Kelly proceeded to purchase a chicken with it's head still attached.  One must be caffeinated to endure such things.  Said chicken was organic, all natural, frozen, AND STILL IN POSSESSION OF IT'S HEAD. I am a meat eater, I like steak and chicken and all that falls in between, yet I was reluctant to purchase a chicken whose head I would have to remove.  Kelly on the other hand, a long time vegetarian seemed to be more intrigued rather than the disgusted and proceeded to purchase said chicken.  I stuck to veggies and some delicious baked goods.

So after our adventures with chickens at the Farmers Market, imagine my surprise when that very night I met...wait for it...a chicken farmer!  I know, unbelievable?  Believe it!  I went out to the Swamp for an after-wedding celebration for two friends (congrats Lindsey and Dennis!) and while there struck up a conversation with Jesus.  Okay, maybe he wasn't Jesus but he had a Jesus looking beard and he is a farmer.  It was like being stuck in a Jud Aptow film with all the jokes but not knowing the guy with a beard well enough to actually make them.  However, I digress.  Said fellow (whose name has completely escaped me) works on a primarily diary but also chicken and vegetable farm in New Hampshire.  Needless to say I had some questions regarding chicken decapitation and was comforted greatly to know that it is a fairly simple, WHAP kind of process.  Once all the pesky chicken business was out of the way we had a rather delightful conversation about 50Cent and his ability to take 9 bullets to the chest and THEN come out with something like In Da Club.  Talk about triumph. 

Sunday was far less eventful than Saturday, there was a hammock and a few beers.  Thankfully there were no chickens on Sunday.

FTR

It's not tyranny just because you don't like it.