Dancing Elephant

THIS is ingenious advertising.  I hope that someone got a stinkin huuuuge raise for this!

Fun with sleeping cats

There's something about the way that the kitties nap that just makes me want to mess with their cuddly, comfy worlds.  The amount of joy I get from disturbing these cats does not bode well for my future children.

Joe + hat = unperterbed

Joe + hat + pen = still snoozing

Joe + hat + pen + remote = blissfully unaware of these stoopid hoomans:

Joe + (hat + pen + remote + shoe) = Huh?

Joe + (hat + pen + shoe + 2(remote) ) = what the hell?!

Fuck you.

The Post New Years Lull

There's something about the New Year that causes people (bloggers in particular like to put it in writing) to catalogue the achievements of the past year.  As is indicated by the lack of blobette, I did not have that inclination this past year.  In all honestly this past year has been all but devoid of remarkable achievement

Two years ago I started this blog in the hopes that it, in combination with my other life endeavors, might be a pathway to being a guest at The Daily Show by the time I'm 35. OK so maybe it was by 30 but I honestly don't remember and that's looming closer and closer each day so 35 it is! So, I watched the Daily Show yesterday and I was struck by something: I'm still not on there. Not only am I still not on there and honestly I don't think I'm all that much closer to being there than I was two years ago. What's a girl to do?  Seriously, what's a girl to do?

What's for Breakfast?

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully.  "It's the same thing," he said.

Baby Boom (aka an excuse to post pictures of snuggly babies)

"You should feel happy, homes. I'm giving you and Vanessa the gift of life: sweet, screaming, pooping life. And you don't even have to be there when it comes out"

- Juno

When all of my friends were starting to get married someone warned me that my friendships would change after they got married.  I'm thankful though not surprised that they were pretty well wrong all the way across the board.  Babies on the other hand ARE the real game changers (though not necessarily in a bad way) and there is a baby boom going on amongst my friends. Primarily it's seriously damaging the variety in my happy hour friends.

I have friends who just love aaaalllll kids regardless of familiarity or cleanliness, and if there's a snotty nose or stinky fingers or poopy diaper to be changed within a 3 mile radius they are chomping at the bit to wash, wipe and re-cover.  While this may result in demerits against my hypothetical woman card, I've never really understood this.  I like to snuggle with baby-smelling tiny humans as much as the next person but when they require cleaning or feeding I like to hand them back over to their parents.  I limit that kind of activity to munchkins with whom I have the utmost familiarity. Specifically it's the ones whose parents I know well enough to be sure that they will still be my friend when they find out that Fun Aunt Anna let their toddler put chocolate sauce and caramel sauce on his ice cream while we watch our fave cartoons from the (horror of all horrors) new couch until the ungodly hour of 9 pm. I mean - what's the point of being Fun Aunt Anna if you don't get to break a few rules in the pursuit of fun-ness.

Two newbies have joined the ranks of chillin's I'll gladly snuggle and even clean if it becomes necessary.  

Grayson (aka G-man): 

Olivia Grace (aka Oli-G):

There are several more on their way and I'm excited to meet them.  Excited to meet them, snuggle them and then hand them back to their parents and then grabbing the Wes for a vodka drink in a smokey bar surrounded by people using foul language.  The more f-bombs the better!

Quote of the Day

"There is literally, nobody in the world that I don't hate right now"

Toby Ziegler - The West Wing 

This isn't EXACTLY true but it does feel as if I'm getting the raw end of a lot of deals lately. 

Christmas in Florida

We're quite a bit past Christmas, as is proven by the fact that I breathed a huuuge sigh of relief when the Christmas tree was finally taken down last weekend.  It's a chilly day, far, far away from Christmas when the Christmas decorations start feeling like clutter and my squeaky compulsive soul heaves a hug sigh of relief to have the living room back to rights.  So it's a bit belated to be writing about Christmas now but apparently my coping skills have declined since graduate school and it's taken this long to screw my head back on straight. 

The Seven Hours of Solitude was quiet and lovely:

It was quiet and lovely but I have to admit that it didn't really feel a whole lot like Christmas.  Maybe it was maybe it was the functioning heater, maybe it was the notable absence of traveling but I strongly suspect that it was the lack of family.  Thankfully that was soon rectified and a mere twenty-four hours later I had spent a portion of Christmas with almost every person on this plant that I love.  Almost, which in this case I count as more than good enough.

I could run you through the weekend blow by blow but lets face it, another person's holidays are only entertaining if they're played by Chevy Chase or Sarah Jessica Parker. So I'll just stick with the take-aways, which I'll warn you are all rather corny, perhaps bordering on trite. 

I got to have coffee with my Mom almost every morning.  I'd wake up and there'd be coffee and a Mama sitting on the couch with a book.  It was a bit like being a kid again, my mom and I used to spend a lot of time quietly reading in one room or another but it was better than being a kid.  It was just...comfy and familiar.

My mom and I made pie. :)  I made pirogi all by my lonesome the other week but Grandmother's pie crust is still a bit beyond me and there is truly nothing as lovely as my Grandmother's pie crust.

I talked my Papa into taking cold medicine and while he'll never admit it, it worked and he knows it! This is a triumph that those of you who received cold medicine as children can never understand. 

I was reminded (for about the 80 billionth time) that I am more comfortable being myself around my sister than just about anyone else on the planet.  She's known me my whole life and while I can't guarantee that she still likes me, I suspect she isn't repulsed by me. 

People talk about their parents, siblings, boyfriends etc being their best friends.  These people aren't my best friends, they're my family and to me that's something unique and holds its own special corner in my heart.

The Simple Life

"It hit me, I've got everything I need. And I've got freedom and my youth!"

-The Distillers 

It's been a rather rough past few days both at work and in my own head.  I do wish that I had more control over what goes on in my head though I suppose that's a skill that one masters over time.  I also wish that I had more control over certain things at work, that however is left up to a higher power and those much smarter than I.

Despite this, my life feels delightfully simple and uncomplicated this morning and I can't help but smile over that fact.  I feel the need to write about this here in the hopes that tomorrow or in 3 months, 5 years or even 10 or 20 years from now when life is not so simple that I can take a deep breath and just remember right now.

Some days

"Some days you're the windshield, others you're the bug"

-- Mike Rowe, Dirty Jobs 

At least that was yesterday. Here's hoping that today will hold less sorrow, more internal calm and more laughter than tears.