75 Degrees and Raining...

Overeating MISERY

2004-01-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

Oh my God. I think I am going to explode from the misery of overeating! Yes, I know I haven't been around as I promised but I've been...uh...well....busy? Not exactly. Tired and recovering from the big Holiday trip? Something like that. More likely I've just been lazy and have had trouble getting back into the spirit of blogging. Kinda like going back to work after a vacation. It's just hard to get back into it, but once you're there it's ok.

Anyhow, back to my original complaint. I'm full beyond any kind of normal fullness. This is just plain old miserable!

I started working a temp job today that supposedly will last 3 weeks. It's a data entry job that I believe will last me just over a week maybe. Hey I'm just good. If there was any way I could stretch this job out I would, but it's just too boring to type slower than I am. The day is long enough now with me whizzing down their list of accounts for data entry. I guess we'll see. Anyhow, due to the fact that I left the house today (which I havent done much of this last week) and actually WORKED for a change (first temp job I've had since early November!) Oh and Bryan and I have been really good this week and eaten at home every night since we got back, so we decided to go out tonight. We went to a place called the Melting Pot. It's apparently a chain of restaurants across the United States selling FONDUE! God, it was endless food too! We got a meal for 2. This included melted cheese fondue that had garlic, wine, a shot of cherry whiskey (brandy? Kirsche something or other) swiss cheese of course and a few other goodys too...this came with chunks of bread, pieces of apple, and raw veggies to dip in it. The second course was a salad that was to DIE for. Had nuts on it and a rasberry vinagrette and pieces of blue cheese. Then the next course was a bullion base with some wine, mushrooms and a lot more garlic in it. It came with raw veggies, and raw pieces of duck, pork, steak, chicken, shrimp and potstickers. You put it in the boullion and cooked it yourself. Then there were all these great sauces that you put on it after it came out. Wow. And as if that weren't all enough, we got desert. Now I've been there before and I believe I blogged about it back in November about the chocolate fondue! It's absolutely the BEST thing I've ever eaten to date! Well no matter how full I was from all that other stuff mentioned above, I wasn't about to miss out on the chocolate! We had something called the yin and yang (dark chocolate swirled with white chocolate and melted in a fondue pot at the table. YUM. No other word describes it!) It came with pieces of pound cake, brownie, strawberry pieces, pineapple, a piece of cheesecake, bananas and marshmellos with nuts on it...God. I was in heaven!

But you see. Now I'm paying. Im MISERABLE. I can't move. I can hardly BREATH. Was it worth it? If I could do it again I could probably forgo everything EXCEPT for the desert. I'd like to have TWO of them!

Do you remember me telling you about Bizarre Barb a month ago or so? She and I had lost touch for a few years and then she found me and emailed. If you read me regular-like, you'll remember her being the girl who in the middle of the night called me screaming into the phone that she'd found a crab - DOWN THERE and then forced me to go with her to the all night pharmacist back when we were teenagers! Well she's coming either tonight or tomorrow morning and staying until Sunday sometime.

Problem is, I don't know what to do with her. She and I are so not alike these days and she's on some diet where she can't eat potatos, pasta, white rice, anything with wheat, and no cheese or anything that would have candida in it. What will I feed her? I geuss we'll see. She's also a born again Christian. She called me yesterday afternoon and bluntly asked me if we go to church. I said, no, we don't go to church. I didn't want any misunderstanding with her. She needed to know. Problem is that now I expect that she's going to try to preach the gospel to me and convert my ass. Bry is not looking forward to this. I have an appointment with my friend R to get a massage at the Red Door Spa on Sunday, and dammit! I'm looking really forward to it! I told Barb that I have this appointment (she's leaving that day anyway) and I got the response, "well how long do you think you'll be before you get back to your house?" I was surprised because I thought she would just be ready to leave anyway to go to Phoenix for her conference. Bry is REFUSING to stay at home alone with her on Sunday. Very unlike Bry, but I think he just wants to watch football in peace. LOL. I can hardly blame him, she's really nice, but odd too.

Well I guess I should go because she MAY or may not be coming tonight and I have to do a little straightening up before she gets here. I'm just procrastinating AS USUAL. Hey I guess it's not all bad, it got me back here FINALLY!

I AM ALIVE

2004-01-06T22:08:00.000-07:00

Said the girl with the big blue eyes.

You probably thought I'd forgotten about you. Well actually it's just the opposite. I have been ill. I have been besotted with illness for the entire holiday season. I caught the strangest flu ever. One day I'd feel awful, the next better, but not healthy by any means. Then I'd have a day where I felt good. Ahhh...I'm better! The next day it'd drop me on my ass with a whole new set of symptoms. Must have cycled through 4 cycles of this shit and it was no fun! Wasn't on my deathbed sick, but certainly didn't feel good or like celebrating being with relatives I haven't seen in so long or the joy of my little niece! I had no enthusiasm for ANYthing. It just SUCKED! Between that fact that I was sick, and being out of town, spending time with relatives, and fighting with my father's windows 95 slow-assed computer I just haven't been able or felt up to getting here.

I feel terrible and I'm sorry. Hopefully a few of you will still check back and I haven't dropped to zero readers again. Well if I have, I'm sure I'll get a few new people from some weird-assed google searches! Maybe I should say a few strange words so that I'll get a few hits. Hmm...like maybe nipple, sexy, oral, member, and oh how about screw. THAT should do it. Well as this is the slowest computer on EARTH, and I've been fighting with it for awhile tonight, I better go and save some of my frustrations for another day.

One last thing. We leave Thursday morning to drive the two day drive back to Tucson. If you see a silver infiniti with Arizona plates in Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico or Arizona that has a man, a woman and a big black dog in the back seat...honk and wave! If you see us broken down stop and help us wouldja? We need all the help we can get. And if you're some axe murderer? Don't bother stopping, we could do withOUT your kind of help! So I'll see you lot back here on Saturday or Sunday at the latest!!

Christmas blahs...

2003-12-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

Well here I am, safe and sound in the land where Elvis is King and crisco is put into EVERYTHING and mmmmm...doesn't it just taste so much better?? Unfortunately the answer is yes! My waistline will be reaping those rewards before long!

We made a 2 day drive to Memphis to spend the holidays with my father and my sister and her family will be arriving on Friday. It should be nice to have everyone together!

I met Dad's new girlfriend and she's VERY nice. Very sweet woman! I'm afraid Dad will be walking all over her before long. He's already got her rubbing his feet EVERY SINGLE DAY. Ugh. Not a job I want! No thanks! Also, he had her wrap ALL his Christmas gifts. This is a job usually given to my sister or myself. Hey I'm not complaining, not like I want to go and rewrap anything for the pure JOY of it. She's just so nice, and I hope he doesnt run her off!! I don't see that happening any time soon though. She seems smitten and so does he. I even heard him tell her on the phone in baby talk that he loves her! "I Looooove youuuuu!" Eww! Didn't need to hear that! My sister and I are halfway expecting to hear a "big announcement" once we're all together. Guess we'll see.

So I'm STILL sick! I spent all day long today sleeping and taking medicine. When will this illness go away! I feel terrible! Head's all full and my voice is all messed up and my sinuses are pounding, sore throat, and my head hurts! SUCKS! OH and Im starting to develop a nice little cough in my chest! NICE! I just want to enjoy the holidays and I feel lousy so it's not happening! Maybe tomorrow will be the day I start to feel better! Please keep your fingers crossed for me!

Tomorrow we're going to the girlfriend's house for a meal with her entire family. I get to be the resident photographer for them. That should be fun, I just hope I feel up to it! She's apparently cooking everything for a traditional Christmas meal. Should be good considering southern women are supposed to be FABULOUS cooks! She is good too because she made us baked spaghetti tonight and God it was good! I found out that the secret ingredient was some red cooking wine! YUM!

Well I hope everyone out there gets what they want for Christmas or Hannukuh and that the holidays are just very merry and all that jazz. Please be safe and don't drink and drive and don't let the bastards at the mall get you down!

I have a cold, and it SUCKS!

2003-12-19T00:34:00.000-07:00

Im sick. Probably too much stress over the holidays and money! Oh well. I'll live. I just want to feel better so that when we drive out of here at O'Dark Thirty on Saturday morning I don't feel like HELL. 2 full days in a car when you don't feel well and are expected to participate is no fun. Well I feel better today than I did, but am still up and down. One second I feel as though Im about to DIE and the next I'm full of energy wondering what the fuss was all about. Ugh! SiCK SuCKS!

We leave, by the way, Saturday morning and will be in Tennessee until we return here at the latest on January 11th. Could be earlier though, we'll just have to see. We're driving because our elderly dog Sasha has nowhere to go. I have no doggie sitters and I won't kennel her, she's too old and spoiled to go there. Normally I take her to my sisters (in Sasha's eyes it's Club Med) where she can frolick in the Black Dog Club (My sister has a black Lab named Bear who is Sasha's boyfriend). Anyhow, my sister and her family are also going to Memphis for Christmas so therefore we have noone to take care of Sasha. So we're driving 2 full days with a dog, a big dog at that! Should be interesting. We've done this before, but it was when Sasha was a younger dog. I hope she doesnt get too stiff and sore from not moving around in the car. Guess we'll see. May have to double up on her joint medicine or something.

Anyhow, it should be a great time if we ever get there! I wonder if we'll see any snow? I hope we don't while we're traveling, but other than that, bring it on! I know you folks on the east coast are saying NOOOOO! But being an AZ girl it'd be nice to see some, even if its just for a few minutes!

Damn I think all the cold medicine has made me lifeless and boring. Sorry people! I just don't write very well when under the influence! I guess my main point is that I may be here and I may not depending on if I can log onto Dad's computer or not over the next few weeks. Keep checking back and I'm sure there'll be some interesting stories to blog about. Hell, we're talking my family and retarded gift tags and almost 3 weeks together. Beyond that I'm also meeting my dad's girlfriend for the first time. Not only is it the first time meeting her, but the first time meeting any of his girlfriends. Ugh...this is stressing me out a bit I have to admit! My sister K and I both kinda are worried he may be announcing an engagement, in which case I'll REALLY freak out. As I was saying, there should be PLENTY to blog about. You may be my saving haven of non familial matters where I can pour my heart out about how it's all driving me crazy! Dont miss this! Keep your ears open and you may hear my screams of agony all the way from Memphis, Tennessee!

People have lost their damn minds!

2003-12-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

The day I got back from San Antonio, I flew into Phoenix. My sister picked me up and when we were loading up my stuff into my car, she told me that one of my tires looked flat and I should check it out before leaving.

I checked it out and with her husband's help, we got it reinflated and I decided to go to costco to have the tire looked at to make sure I wasnt about to have a blow out in the middle of the desert when it's dark and beyond that I had no charge on my cell phone. It'd gone dead. Could have made for a terrible situation!

So after getting directions to Costco (which by the way is where I purchased the tires, and thus the reason for going to them to have them looked at because they were under warranty!) I headed out. I'm pretty familiar with my sister's area of Phoenix, but this costco area was a new area for me. I found the shopping center and turned in, but had to drive across the parking lot for at least 5 major stores before reaching costco. I got behind some putz who was literally going 2 mph which drove me crazy. I just wanted to get my tires looked at so I could go home. I turned up a lane and cut up past where the slow poke was and when I cut back over I accidentally went down a lane that was a one way parking lot lane. I realized my error almost immediately, and me being the person I am, didn't want to get in anyone's way.

I'm a rule follower. I really am. So when I realized my error and that another car was coming up the lane, I pulled over to the right. There were about 15 empty parking spots that I drove over onto so he could go by. I did not want to be in his way since he did have right of way and then after he went by I planned to get out of the lane ASAP! So picture this. I am completely off of the part of the lane where you drive, and pulled over onto these parking spots and am in no way bothering, hindering or in this guys' way! Also, there are other spots on his other side if he is wanting to park. He just sits there in the middle of the lane and doesn't move. I wave at him to let him know that he can go. And he just sits there! Now he's keeping me from moving and I'm just sitting there feeling more uncomfortable by the minute because A. I'm pointed the wrong direction in the parking lane and B. I'm parking across several parking spots waiting for this extremely boobered man to move! Finally after I wave at him to move again, he starts flailing his arms around, pointing to the lane to his right and the lane to his left. I look at him and shrugged my shoulders and again made a motion for him to go, I think I even mouthed "I'm sorry" to him. He keeps sitting there and making his gestures and screaming at me! I don't get it, I wasnt in his way and he had somewhere to park that was just as close on the other side! He was just freaking because I accidentally went down the wrong way? That man needs to get a life! So finally I made a few "gestures" myself and screeched out of there, pulling into his way, making a three point turn. JESUS help me what the HELL was his problem? He spent more time blocking me than it would have taken him to pass on by or park either one. What was the FRICKIN POINT?

Anyhow, so I get away from ASSHOLIO and FINALLY get to costco, and I walk into their tire center. Noone there, not even a clerk. So I wait by the register. While I'm waiting, this older woman comes in. When she's about 5 feet from me, she BLOWS a HUGE FRICKEN FART! LOUDLY! PROUDLY! What does she do? She looks at me and says in a small voice as though it was just a small burp, "excuse me". Not even a nervous "Oops" laugh or giggle. No red face, no embarassment! I couldnt believe it!

So here's the set up. I am standing at the far left end of the counter. The register is at the far right end. Older woman walks in and puts her things down at the left end, near the register, so now it looks as though she's been there longer than I have! So the clerk walks in and says "Hi can I help you?" I VERY loudly and quickly say "yes you sure can!" and explain the problem. He rounds the counter and says to me, "I'll need your costco card". No problem, I pull out my wallet and while I'm doing that, OLD WOMAN HANDS HER COSTCO CARD TO HIM!! He goes to scan it, and I finally get my card out, and she starts telling him her sob story about how her daughters birthday is today and she's supposed to be at the party but she's got a nail in her tire, blah blah blah...I go to hand him my card and he goes "Oh, are you not together?" The lady says "No" He looks at me strangely and says "well I'll need your card to fix your tire" I said "well of course, we're two separate customers". It was very odd! She tried to jump in front of me!

First she farts and then she tries to jump the line!!!! BEYATCH!!!! The worst part is that when I came back, HER car was ready before my car was! GRR!! Traffic and people this time of year certainly bring out the BEST in me don't you think???? Or maybe it's the WORST in them that I am seeing. Yeah, that MUST be it because I'm a patient kind of person, I'm oozing with patience! Ha! Yeah...ok! What've I been smokin?!

Sadam Hussein

2003-12-15T00:55:00.000-07:00

One last thing before I go to bed. (My brain is on overdrive tonight). Earlier my mother in law called me up and we were talking. She wanted to wish us a happy anniversary. So she asked how BK's graduation went. I told her that BK wouldnt be able to talk about this, but that I would anyway, but that the truth of the matter is that he hadn't been in San Antonio at school at all! That in truth he'd been in the middle east taking care of business and hunting down Sadam Hussein because no one else had been able to find him they came to the guy who could! And that I'd not gone to San Antone to see him graduate, but that the military had flown me to the middle east to see him be presented with a special medal for finding and capturing him!

My mother in law wasnt expecting this from me and she bought into it fully! She said, "well? Now he was just really good. He gave us a phone number and everything! We had no idea! What kind of a medal did he get?"

I went on and on and on and then finally told her that I was kidding. Her response?

"YOU ASS!"

Hee hee hee! I crack myself up sometimes!

Fake clapping

2003-12-15T00:50:00.000-07:00

I forgot to tell you about my fake clapping!

At my hubby's graduation of 231 students, each time a student would walk up and get their diploma, you had to clap. This was later repeated at the banquet with all the speeches and presentations, and awards for distinguished graduates. Anyhow, after you've clapped what seems like 50 million times your hands start to feel hot and just uncomfortable!

But I found the solution!

Do the FAKE CLAP!

You do the hand motions as though you're clapping, but you don't let your hands actually touch! The only time this doesnt work is when people stop clapping suddenly and the guy next to you realizes you're hands are moving together but not making any sounds! Hey it worked for me 95% of the time! I got a couple of odd looks but who cares! My hands didn't hurt as much as theirs did I'm sure!

Hmm...on second thought, maybe I shouldnt have shared my fake clap story with you. If this catches on, pretty soon everyone will look like they're clapping and it'll be silent! That could make for dramatic non-effect! Could be a bad scene!

Poodle for a day.

2003-12-15T00:44:00.000-07:00

Howdy y'all! I'm back from San Antonio where I went for my husband's NCO Academy graduation at Lackland AFB! We stayed an extra day as well so we could celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary (the 14th) a few days early, and stayed down at the riverwalk in the fabulous Marriott Rivercenter hotel. AMAZING! Beautiful! Man if I had more time and a million dollars I'd live there permanently! The riverwalk is all decked out with Christmas lights in the trees that hang over the river and there's luminarios all along the riverwalk's banks (paper bags with sand in it and a candle inside lit at night). It was FAB-U-LOUS!

Anyhow, back to the reason I went out there. BKKay's graduation. It was great, got me all pumped full of patriotic pride for my husband and people that do his job. After the graduation in the morning of the 11th, there was a banquet that evening where we got to dress up in our formal garb. BK got me an appointment at the base beauty parlor to have my hair "done". I walked in, she asked what I wanted done, I looked through a book of "up do's", picked one out that was elegant, conservative, and just pretty. I show it to her and tell her the only difference is that I'd like only the front and top to be up and back, I'd like to have the rest down so that SOMEthing frames my face. She says she knows exactly what to do and I let her go at it.

I wasn't too concerned when she rolled EVERY SINGLE HAIR on my head in a roller and stuck me under a dryer for an hour. She's the expert after all, right? She knows what she's doing, right? I'm paying her $35 to do this so it's going to be done properly and I shouldnt worry right??

WRONG.

Oh Lord was I wrong! She takes down the rollers and I start laughing immediately because I look like Shirley Temple. I'm serious! I really did! So I go and get BK so he can have a laugh too, and bring him back to where she's going to "do" my hair. I'm STILL not too concerned because I trust that she knows what she's doing! To really give you the experience of what I looked like, just think SUPER PERM HEAD! So I let her do her thing and really the point where I got scared was when she asked ME if I had a ponytail with me. SHE is the one who does up do's and she's asking ME for something to put it up with? So then she puts it up in a ponytail on top, but leaves this enormous DENT in the hair that goes from my temple up to where the ponytail was. It should have been smooth! It was a mess! So she pulls out some tendrils to frame my face with. It looked awful! I looked like a girl ready for her quienciniera (mexican sweet 16 party) or for my first holy communion or even a bridesmaid! It was soo ugly!! THEN she kept telling me that it would relax a LOT, and started taking all the tiny curly ringlets and trying to pull out the curl and make it into bigger curls which didn't work!

Why can't I be stronger? Why couldnt I have looked at her and said this is awful! I'm not paying for this? Ugh! I didn't. She knew it was as ugly as I did because not only did she not tell me it looked good, but she didn't ask me what I thought of it either! She knew! AND STILL HAD THE NERVE TO CHARGE ME $35 for it!

I actually had to go back to our room and take it out and fix it myself! It ended up looking really nice, but you know what? She was wrong! Those curls stayed with me and with me...I totally brushed out my hair at the end of the night and they just did not want to leave me! I wish I had a good photo of the event. Oh I've got photos, but they all SUCK! Would do no justice to me or the dress. All I can hope is that the professionally done photos that we ordered turn out good.

Now I know how poodles feel...I was one for a day and hey, next time you see one, give it a little extra pat. It's not easy being a poodle!

500 anyone?

2003-12-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

PEOPLE! LISTEN UP! A momentous occasion is about to happen! 75 Degrees and Raining is about to go over 500 viewers! Who will my 500th visitor be? Well hell I dont know, but if its you, leave a comment if it says you're number 500. I was 499 when checking out the page, so let me know if its you, wouldja?

Praise God and all that jazz.

2003-12-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

Please folks, leave your religious rantings at home, I've got enough being stuffed into my mailbox without yours thrown in as well!

So, the holiday season is upon us and as much as I thought I was ahead of the game this year, I'm really not. You see, it's just occured to me that there is SO much to be done that I will NEVER catch up without undo stress and aggravation!

Christmas cards! I've been concentrating on gift giving and wrapping and tagging and have forgotten all about stupid BLOODY Christmas cards! Here we are, December 8th and I have not even BOUGHT cards, not to mention started filling them out, addressing them, stamping them and then mailing them! Oh God! When will I find time for this? I've got so much going on that I am beginning to doubt that I will get them done this year! I guess we'll see!

What's brought on this rant? Well you see, I got my first Christmas card in the mail. It came from a dear friend who was my neighbor when we lived in Germany (talk about white beautiful Christmases!). She's always been such a nice girl, and one who loved to sit out in front of our stairwell housing and smoke her cigarettes and tell dirty jokes to me until late into the evening. We spent hours each evening just goofing around! It was the best. Something has changed in her household apparently though. She's found God.

I got her card and when I opened it, I could tell that there was something enclosed. One of my favorite things about Christmas cards is when they have photos enclosed so I got all squiggley and excited inside anticipating the photo!

Have I mentioned I'm into anticipation? I am. Anything I can do to put off the exciting gift giving and receiving, I will do because I LOVE the anticipation of what the gift I receive will be! I get that feeling of being on a ride when it catches your stomach! It's the BEST feeling EVER!

Anyway, so saving the best for last, as always, I let the photo slide out of the card without me looking at it, and I read the card first. Card doesnt say much, and is just signed by the family. On to the photo!! I look at the photo sitting in my hand and the disappointment hit me like a boulder over the head! What the Hell is this????? Cuz it certainly is NOT a photo! It's a frickin religious tract pamphlet!!!!

GRRRR!!!! Not only did I manage to NOT save the best for last, I managed to save the biggest pet peave out there for last!

I HATE pushy people with their religions!!! How do they KNOW I haven't already given my heart to Christ or that I'm not a devout church goer? Why do you feel the need to try to save me? One thing if you know me, but another altogether for someone who talks to me once a year! How can you make assumptions like this? OK, and before those of you who do talk to me with regularity get all into saving my soul. Don't bother! Cuz you're just going to piss me off! I'm not an atheist. Lets leave it at that!

I talked to Bizarre Barb of this recent post a couple of nights ago. I'd forgotten the annoying things about her apparently. Yes, being the total optimist I am, I wanted to believe that she was just a little odd but a nice person. These things by the way, are true, but what I had forgotten about was that she can yak and yak and yak! And this is coming from someone who herself can talk and talk on the phone! But not only does she yak, but she is very self centered, doesnt really want to know about you and your life. I got trapped into a 4 hour phone call. By the end of which I was crying with relief to have hung up the phone and returned to normalcy. Believe me, I won't be making this mistake again! Not anytime soon! Also, she's become a member of a cult. Not a true real cult, but the way she was talking, her church is a serious cult! She talked about how she was having people over for a party the next night. I asked her what the party was for. She tells me that its a game night. I said how fun! Then she tells me that it was meant to be one of those parties where people coming (all members of the church) bring a non-believer with them. Then she proceeds to tell me how it was meant to be something to help encourage people into joining the church! I can only imagine the people like me who got trapped into thinking it was just going to be a fun night out (my first clue should have been that we were all just going to be playing games and I don't mean drinking games either!). It just all sounds like entrapment, like you would arrive all innocent and eventually everyone there would be asking you pointed questions like, "Have you given your heart to Jesus, Lara?" , all the while smiling at you. I HATE THAT SHIT!! Could you PLEASE ask me a MORE personal question?

Anyhow, so I was stuck on the phone listening to Bizarre tell me how she has been testifying to people for years and how she wants to go to Israel. I say Go Bizarre! Will they have phones over there? Please God, don't let it be so!!!

A new photo to share with you!

2003-12-06T01:49:00.000-07:00

I have finally figured out how to get a link for a photo of me on here! I put one on my fotolog a week ago or so. It's not the best quality picture because it was taken with my webcam, but its me none the less! Yay for me! If you're at all curious go take a meander at my fotolog...see the link on the side bar, the one that says MY PHOTO, it should take you directly to me, do not pass go, do not collect $200! Please let me know if this link does not work. I'm not as computer literate as I look! (which is not saying a whole lot!)

A week and a million words behind!

2003-12-05T16:58:00.000-07:00

I'll never catch up so why even try?

I've been gone from you for a week. I had company and we were doing important shit! Like what? Ummm...well? Like taking pictures of Ostriches! Sounds nuts I know, but that's one of the many things that we did while J came to visit. There's an ostrich farm that's just up the road. It's called the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich ranch! You get off highway I-10 at the Picacho Peak exit and go out there and for $2 you can buy a cup of food and go out and feed the cute little critters!

OK, there's a couple of things about that statement that are inaccurate.
A. Cute they are - UNTIL that is you attempt to feed them and then you realize they are VICIOUS creatures!
B. Little they are NOT! These birds are SO big!

I am totally intrigued by them though. They have long feathers on their bodies but not their necks or legs and then they have little tufts of hair on their heads. They are full of expression in their faces though and I couldnt help but say "HOW CUTE!!!!!!!" about 50 million times the day we were out there! I also took a whole roll of 36 exposures of nothing but OSTRICHES!

Have you ever seen an ostriche's feet? Can we say PREhistoric? It looks like it has 2 toes and that's it! Very odd looking!

HEY another observation that my friend J and I made was that we were wondering where the old addage that Ostriches buried their heads in the sand because they were timid creatures came from? These were absolutely AGGRESSIVE birds! You better not stand too close where they can get you because you'll get goosed! Well...maybe I should say you'll get OSTRICHED! I leaned too close to the ostriches side of the fence to get a photo and all of a sudden I felt ostrich beeks grabbing the side of my shirt!

There were these trays where you could just toss in some of the food and they'd peck it out. Then if you were REALLY bold you could put a bit into the palm of your hand and hold it out flat and they'd come up over the fence and snap it up. If you were lucky you still had all your fingers after that! A few times my fingers ended up inside their beeks! Hurt like hell to have them attempt to bite a digit off, but it was all for the greater good. Ostriches need love and food too you know.

J tried to kill me with her farts and then magically threw one in Dillards!

2003-11-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

I spent the day at the mall. TODAY. The number one shopping day of the year! What was I thinking? There were freaks everywhere and it just wasn't cool at all! Pushing, shoving, screaming children, screaming and swearing adults - OK, so I did a LITTLE screaming and swearing!! So sue me!

My friend J is here...it's been a long day and I think we're both ready for a little alone time, maybe even a nap! I'd sure like one! I already hit the Appfelkorn and had 2 shots...I'm now quite happily warm and buzzy inside...trying to forget about the hell day at the mall!

J though did something worth mentioning. We were in the women's section of Dillards today. I was looking for a fancy dress for BKKay's graduation dinner in 2 weeks. While perusing, J tells me that she smells something FOUL. Suddenly I get a full whiff and I swear to you it nearly knocked me over! Someone needs to have gone to the bathroom and dumped! It was TERRIBLE! I just wish I knew what died in who's ASS so I could stay away from them! Well J is notorious for this type of behavior and then blaming anyone but herself. She's actually quite proud of her farts, but this one she's not claiming. So she walks around me and just as she does, from BEHIND ME, where NOONE was standing we both hear loud as day the sound of someone blowing gas out of their ass loudly and proudly! She of course, being on the other side of me from the sound is blaming me for it. It was NOT me. I tell you that emphatically because it wasn't! If I know her as well as I think I do, she's learned how to not throw her voice, but throw her farts! Amazing talent...too bad there's no money in it!

Memory Flashback #3

2003-11-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

Bizarre Barb

So I have this friend. She and I went to high school together and she's a little bit different, thus the nickname Bizarre Barb. She's a bit short (probably shorter than 5') and has some health issues (diabetes). The entire time I've known her she's always told me stories about how she would have low blood sugar and because of it, crazy stuff would happen while she was operating a car! (SCARY!) And she's not the prettiest of my friends, she and I tended to stand in the shadows of other girls in our high school, but she was my friend! She's nice to me, though at times she could be a bit self centered. Anyhow, then there's all the other stuff. The stuff that makes her bizarre! All the hot guys that liked her. Supposedly. I had a hard time believing it. You KNOW what guys you can get and can't. And I'm telling you that the guys she told me liked her were always the HOTTEST guys in school! PEOPLE, its just NOT possible that was the truth! Anyhow, I think there were self esteem issues (duh! Who didn't in high school!) and I just tried to overlook it because she was my friend!

She's also gotten very religious in the last 15 years. She's now a jump up and down hoot and holla speakin in tongues kind of girl! It's great for her too because she needs the comraderie of a church. The family feeling of her church is something she's always kind of needed.

Anyhow, I'd lost touch with her. In fact she didn't even know I'd moved from Florida to Tucson and I've been here for three years. Kinda strange, but just this week, she popped into my mind. She kept popping into my mind too, and I was like What's up with Barb!? Haven't thought about her in years! Well then last night I logged into AOL and there's an email from her! Out of the blue! I must be psychic! Isn't that crazy?????

OK, so this memory flashback is all about her...and it makes me laugh!

One night, Barb and I had been out cruising (this was definately pre BKKay days). We got to the end of the night and I dropped her off and drove the 15 minute drive to my house from hers. I no sooner walk in the door when my phone rings. Now this must have been nearly midnight and it was my parents house, so it wasnt normal for me to get calls that late! Anyhow, I answer the phone and she's screaming into the phone.

Barb: "OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!"

Lara: "WHAT???!!! WHATS WRONG!?"

Barb: hysterical crying

Lara: "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHAT HAPPENED?! I LEFT YOU 15 MINUTES AGO AND YOU WERE FINE! WHAT HAPPENED??!!!!"

Barb: "After you dropped me off I came in and I we we we went to the bathroo roo rooommm and started getting ready for bed!"

Lara: "And then what?"

Barb: "Well I got an itch! Down THERE!"

Lara: "Umm Hmm..."

Barb: "And so I scratched! But see the feeling moved and it freaked me out!"

Lara: "It moved?"

Barb: "Yes, it moved and started to itch somewhere else nearby, so I put my hand down my pants to really scratch and when I brought it back out of my pants, there was a CRAB ON IT!!!! YOU HAVE TO GO WITH ME TO THE PHARMACY RIGHT NOW!!!! I MUST TALK TO A PHARMACIST ABOUT WHICH MEDICATION I SHOULD TAKE TO GET RID OF THEM BECAUSE I'M A DIABETIC AND CAN'T BUY JUST ANY MEDICINE!"

Lara: "You found a CRAB? IN your PANTS? It was ALIVE???" (at the time I was horribly nieve and didnt know this could happen)

Barb: "YES!!! CAN'T YOU SEE WHY I'M FREAKED OUT? I'VE GOT LIVING CRABS IN MY PUBIC HAIR!!!!!! PLEASE GO WITH ME TO THE PHARMACIST!!!"

I think it was at this point that I started laughing hysterically and couldnt stop! She didn't think it was so funny though!

Needless to say I went with her to the pharmacist and felt like I had walked into the store with the lice kid from school! I kept giggling the entire time she was talking to the pharmacist too, and she kept throwing me dirty looks! (Hey what do you want, I was 18 years old and totally nieve and had led a totally sheltered life up to this point!). Turns out that she got it from her brother and sister in law who'd slept in her bed when they visited, and left her that nice little present! I can still hear her screaming and crying and begging me to take her to the pharmacist in the middle of the night!

LOL

Glad she never slept over at my house!!!!

I am really glad to hear from her! You can never have too many friends! :)

The Army's not being all that it can be for me!

2003-11-26T01:08:00.000-07:00

About a month ago, I finally got on the ball and decided to take care of this MONSTROUS crack in my windshield. It'd been there for a good long time and wasn't getting any smaller, in fact, it was only getting bigger! It was almost half way across my windscreen at this point and it was making me a bit nervous. I had visions of driving down the highway at 90mph and one tiny little pebble bouncing up and barely PINGING off the windshield and the entire thing busting in on me all at once!

Anyhow, BKKay also had a crack in his windshield. Damn Tucson highways are so full of rocks that when you get car insurance here, they always ask if you're interested in the $5 a month additional glass insurance, so that WHEN and NOT IF you need to replace the windshield you have no deductible whatsoever. Thank heaven we said yes to this insurance!

So when BKKay told me he was driving to Texas, we decided it would be best to get the windshields both taken care of. We called the insurance company, made a claim and Ta Da! They were fixed within a day! My insurance company ROCKS! USAA you are the BEST!!!

So then BKKay realized that he needed to get a new sticker for the car so that he could get on base in Texas. He took both of our registrations and insurance proof and all and went to the base pass and ID who sent him onto some Army desk that now does the car stickers. At some point or another the Air Force stopped guarding the gates to our base and the Army took over. Anyhow, BKKay was unable to get my sticker because it's only registered in my name.

The day my mother died, I was in this mad rush to get to phoenix to get to the airport so I could get to the hospital in Albuquerque as fast as possible. While enroute, my car took a great big old crap between Tucson and Phoenix. What sucky timing! Anyhow, I blew a headgasket, had myself, car and my dog towed all the way up to Phoenix only to find out that it wasn't a quick fix. Essentially I was car-less. After Mom died, my Dad told me that he had no use for two vehicles and he gave me my mother's Infiniti I30 which I love. BKKay was stationed in Korea for that entire year so when I registered it I just wasn't thinking and I only put it in my name. DUH.

So I went up to the base today, to try to get my sticker. Now there's one other pertinent fact you need to know. The old stickers from our old windshields had been removed by the window replacer guy and given to us. They are accountable items. I made sure we got them back because we'd get into trouble if we didnt' turn them in, or so I thought. BKKay got his new sticker and when he came home he left the old ones on the counter. He told me he didnt have to turn it in.

So back to today. I arrive. I plop down my proof of insurance, military ID, Drivers License and registration and explain the situation that I've replaced my windshield and need new stickers. They ask me for the old sticker. I tell him that I did not bring it with me, that BKKay had gotten his stickers and came home with the old ones which caused me to believe I did not need to have it with me when I came for mine. They give me this big song and dance about how they're accountable items blah blah blah. Well Duh! I understand accountable, but if someone had done their job properly last time I'd be here with the old stickers too! I explained that I live clear out at the edge of town and that it's 45 minutes away and are they seriously not going to give me new stickers? Are they really going to force me to drive all the way home and then make ANOTHER trip? Well apparently they were.

Not so much as an apology out of them for it either! I am, pretty generally a rule follower, but this really irked me! If the person who dealt with BKKay had only taken his sticker I'd have thought I needed mine. DAMMIT! The army people really aren't doing it for me! I understand why they did what they did (or rather didn't do). If they had just acted like they cared one IOTA I wouldnt be so mad!!! Harrumphh!

Then I went to the Class Six store. Or for you non military people, the base liquor store. Well that's not ALL you can get there, you can get a whole lot of other things that you'd find at a 7-11 or Circle K, in fact that's what its like, a great big convenience store that sells liquor at reduced prices and often has imports you can't get anywhere else in town too! OH, and you pay no tax on anything at the base either! BONUS!

So NO the Army dudes did not drive me to drink (at least not on base while still operating my vehicle! Oh no I saved that for when I got home!) What I went to the Class Six for though was this German liquor called Apfelkorn! It ROCKS!!!! It's like really smooth Jolly Ranchers sour apple schnaaps! SO GOOD! I have big plans for this stuff when J gets here. Me and her and R are probably gonna kill this bottle! Yeah!!! heh heh heh...

So I've decided to head to San Antonio for a few days in 2 weeks to see BKKay graduate from his school. His squadron commander and his first sgt are both going, so I think its appropriate for the wife to go and get all dressed up, don't you? Our 13th wedding anniversary is on the 14th of December, which is the weekend after he graduates. So I think I'll go and we'll stay for an extra day after graduation on the riverwalk in San Antonio! Nice place for a little wedding anniversary action don't ya think?

I wrapped five presents today.

2003-11-25T01:11:00.000-07:00

That's ALL I DID.

My head hurts from trying to think up the freaking gift tags, and they're just not so clever! Oh well.

I did do 2 loads of laundry too. I have zilch in material for the old blogspot though. Lame.

OH and I watched a beautiful mind. FINALLY. Yes I'm behind the times and it was a BRILLIANT movie too. I can see why it was oscar nominated. OK so I'm really behind...did it win anything? LOL Anyhow, its one of those movies that you cant explain to anyone what it is about because it'll ruin the movie. I was dumbfounded though. Folks that doesnt take much probably, but it happened, and I'm still shocked. The movie twisted where I didn't expect. Plus it's a TRUE story!

So my friend C and I are getting together tomorrow for lunch. She's got some questions to ask me about my penny squishin obsession. She works for a local magazine and has pitched a squished penny story idea to her editor/publisher and they went for it! So I'll be officially interviewed tomorrow! Should be cool, unless she makes fun of me and my squishin! Nah...she wouldnt do that! I hope. Guess we'll find out next Feb or March when it comes out! **Note that I have full faith in my friend C and her abilities to write a story about penny squishin and it not make fun of me. All observations are to add to the creativity of my blog and not to undermine her writing styles in any way shape or form! heh heh heh

My friend J comes to visit me from Philly on Thanksgiving day for a week! I can't wait to see her! I think its been almost 2 years since she was out last! She hasnt seen my new house that we bought last year yet either, so of course the procrastinator in me is already screaming that the house isn't THAT dirty and doesnt REALLY need to be cleaned that much. It really isn't so bad, but for someone who has never been here before I definately need to do some stuff. I'll probably wait til Thanksgiving morning to do it though! I've decided not to cook this year. We're gonna do a non traditional thanksgiving with plenty of drinking and sillyness and maybe something like lobster for dinner! Orrr...perhaps we'll go out to eat. I just aint cookin! Bkkay is still in Texas and the rest of my family isnt coming over and I'll be lucky to see my friend R during the day. Hopefully she'll be able to stay and hang out with me and J! Then the real party'll get started! Come on everyone raise the roof! It's gettin hot in here! So take off all your clothes! WHAT? No. Not THAT kind of party! Any nudity involved will be margarita or Apfelkorn induced and one of those things that noone remembers the next day. WHAT? Again I say there will be no nudity at this party! You people keep insisting there's gonna be nudity and there really isn't! Another thing I can PROMISE you is that there will be NO FOOTBALL at my party! Strictly girls holiday at my house this year, no boys allowed! The threat of no football should be enough to keep all of you away!

Well so that's what's up with my life today, nothing too exciting, nothing too crazy. I promise I'll try to do better in the next few days in the excitement department, but no promises!

Micro Derm-a-what?

2003-11-23T01:08:00.000-07:00

Ohh yeah. It's a good thing!

So today I went and enjoyed a freebie microdermabrasion. What is that? Well they take off the top layer of your skin on your face. Sounds terrible, but its great! It's not quite as dramatic as I made it out to be.

My friend C gave me a gift certificate for $50 for one free treatment and this lady was wonderful! You lie on a massage table with a massage thing on underneath you while you lay on it. She then does her thing, and then applies vitamins and then kills off all the germs on the face which kills any up and coming zits as well as the ones present and accounted for, and then finally puts essential oils onto the face and massages them in. Before that went on she let me double dip my hands in the parafin wax. It felt GREATTTTTT!!!!

According to her (and I think its one of those things she tells everyone) my face was glowing when I left. I'm not sure about that, but it sure felt good! Silky smooth and exfoliated and a little bit pink!

She works out of her home and so can afford to not charge you an arm and a leg and the price for this treatment in the future would be more than 1/2 less than you'd pay in a clinic somewhere! We're talking $50! In the dr's office it would be $125 or $150! She also gave samples to me of her essential oils and her exfoliater and her cleanser! She makes all of these things herself and charges WAY less than MAC or Clinique! I'm all over going back to her! It was SO GREAT!

I also managed to get the last few things on my Christmas Wish Lists bought. So now I only have to suffer through wrapping hell and then buy for OTHERS. Others means people not in the family, or those who will not be at the family gathering in Tennessee. This list is kinda lengthy too, but its gifts that you can get them A gift for a married couple, or only ONE gift (unlike my family where we get multiples for everyone...we can do that cuz we're a small family!) It's kind of a relief to have this much done already! But I know that it'll sneak up on me and I'll suddenly realize I've forgotten 15 of the most important people in my life 2 days before seeing them!!! Or even worse, 2 days before Christmas and they're in a different state!

The only other thing I did today was read my book. It's fascinating and anyone who is a reader MUST read The Da Vinci Code. It's written so well that you don't know what is fact and what is fiction. It's based on facts, but he's woven into the facts a story which is fiction. It's all about what the Holy Grail is, and symbolism in art, secret societys and all this craziness that happens one night in Paris. I'm not a huge art fan, but art plays an important part in this book...and for me, the not so in the know art person, its still REALLY interesting!!!! Totally fascinating and I can't put it down!! There's probably a good reason it's been on the best seller list forEVER!

OK, I gotta go...there's a book I gotta...um...I mean there's some presents I've gotta wrap. Yeah...I need to go wrap! Nite!

ps-tomorrow is the meeting with the Mary Kay lady. Wonder if I should let her do a facial on me after having the MDA today? Hmm...I might get out of it yet!

2 Malls and a Home Depot later...

2003-11-22T01:22:00.000-07:00

...here I am pooped!

Today I continued my quest to get my Christmas shopping done early and even wrapped! Yes, many of you are probably saying that I'm one step ahead this year! Highly unusual for me I know, I'm usually the LATE one who works well under pressure! BUT NOT THIS YEAR IF I CAN HELP IT!

I've already wrapped the first lot as described in yesterday's blog and even mailed them off to Tennessee where they'll be opened by us and my sisters family and my dad on the usual day in December.

Today I went out and bought round 2 of gifts. UGH. I seriously did go to 2 malls and a home depot. What I failed to mention is that I also went to Costco. Anytime you go to Costco or Home Depot alone you're gonna be tired when you get home because these places are HUGE! And I'm usually tired after going to ONE mall. I went to TWO and then these other two warehouse stores! My feet are screaming at me for the abuse I applied to them today!

I did make a huge dent in the gift buying department. Now I need to make a huge dent in the gift wrapping department. Oh Lord, which leads to the GIFT TAG DEPARTMENT. (sigh) Unfortunately I also made a huge dent in the checkbook department too.

Christmas is ONLY a month away people!! Get ready to PANIC!!! And you men out there reading this? Do your wives a favor and HELP them to christmas shop! Do you think we LIKE to shop or something? OK, so don't answer that one! But shopping for Christmas gifts is DIFFERENT! Grumpy people at the mall pushing and shoving, long lines, NOONE wants to go through that! Don't force HER to be the ONLY person buying gifts for YOUR family and hers! HELP HER WRAP AT THE VERY LEAST! Offer to help anyhow! She may tell you to go away because you'll only buy a stuffed singing fish on a plaque for your parents. (Of which SHE'd be blamed for, forevermore by your parents accused of being a BAD gift buyer! Because REALLY, who knows you better than your own parents? They KNOW you don't buy the gifts in the family! Dude give it up! They know!)

So anyway, my pooped ASS is headed for bed. I've gotta get up tomorrow and enter wrapping HELL and I need my sleep if I'm gonna come up with better gift tags than:

To: Poopyhead
From: Your Beauty Queen

(aka To: BKKay From: Lara)

It won't fly on Christmas morning, believe me!

I don't care if your 8 year old son snatched the number first or not! I WAS HERE FIRST!

2003-11-21T00:57:00.000-07:00

Well here I am. I'm trying to download an MPEG fiile from Charlie over at Where the Hell was I? right now and it's taking forever!

Not really complaining as I WAS the one who requested for him to film his comedic debut! And in fact I AM REALLY excited to see it! I just can't help the fact that I'm on a crappy dial up connection.

Lets see how long is left right now! 18% downloaded (the winzip file at that!) and ONLY one hour to go! Woohoo! Hey whatever! I can't wait to see it cuz the dude is HYSTERICAL in his blog. How can the video clip really go wrong? Check him out, as funny as his blog is, the download time is I'm SURE certainly worth it! I'll keep you posted at the end of the blog as to how much time I have left on the download, not to be confused with the downlow you understand, which is a whole other matter. We aren't keeping any secrets HERE! Well just a few, but I mean come on I did blog about dropping a key into a content filled toilet bowl and getting a leg cramp in the middle of DOIN IT! See? Very few secrets here! I believe in share and share alike! Don't be a hater.

So today, I took the first of the wrapped Christmas gifts and went to the post office and mailed them. I hate going there! It's ALWAYS busy, and now we're starting to get into Christmas HELL at the post office time of year. So I go walking into the P.O. this afternoon. As I'm walking up I realize there's a few other people headed in and of course I stepped it up so that I could not be at the COMPLETE end of the line. So I get there, and there's 2 doors to go through. The entrance to the building which leads you into the room with the PO BOXES and then off to one end there's another door that has the place where you mail packages. So I head that way and go through that door.

In one of my hands there is a gift bag full of wrapped presents and in the other there's one big wrapped gift. Basically my hands are full. So as I walk in I realize that people are holding numbers. I've only stepped maybe 3 steps into the room when I realize this. So I turn around. Behind me are the other two groups of people who followed me in from outside. As I go and attempt to reach for a number this little boy from GROUP #3 (I'm group 1, another lady, directly behind me is group 2 and this boy and 3 other siblings and their mom are Group #3) reaches up and GRABS the number that SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE!

If you were this mom, who immediately grabbed the number from the child and definately knew I had been reaching for it and had walked into the place with 2 people (one of which was me!) ahead of her, what would you have done?

The courteous thing would have been, "Jack Jr? Give that to the nice lady with her arms full. She got here first, it's her number! We're after the nice lady right before us!"

What she did was NOTHING. She immediately looked at me after grabbing the number and SCREAMED at her children to follow her out of the way of the door because they were standing in everyone's way.

I was so PISSED and SHOCKED. I couldnt believe it! If there'd been 2 people in there OK, whateva! But the number they were on when we walked in was #45 and I was #66! I think that I even grumbled something OUT LOUD about how RUDE people could be, and this was while still standing right in front of her with my arm out because I thought she was going to hand it to me! She had TWO OTHER PEOPLE who walked through the door directly ahead of her. Lady number 2 after walking through even held it for her because she was that close to us! So basically there's no excuse for this and it REALLY pisses me off!!! (Can you tell?)

It essentially equates to getting into a long line and someone walks up and just steps in front of you even though you were there first. LAME.

Download Update: 41% downloaded and only 46 minutes to go! Dial up connections SUCK! I knew I should have gotten a connection through my cable company!

So after the Post office from HELL (POFH) incident, I headed to Target to load up on more Xmas gifts that I can get wrapped NOW instead of stressing over it later! SIXTY dollars later...I came out with a few gifts and nothing else. Amazing how fast things like that add up!

My family is a little bit odd when it comes to Christmas traditions. We send out wish lists to everyone in the family (which is very small). Then everyone else gets together and discusses the lists and who will get what from the lists. This isn't probably very odd. The odd part is coming right up.

Gift Tags. Yes, that's the strange part of us. I've come to Love them and also to Hate them too! This is what we do. Instead of your traditional -

To: Dad
From: Lara

We have to go through this whole ordeal of writing funny or usually stupid gift tags.
Example from a tag that I wrote for a gift I mailed at the POFH today:

To: Wayne the Nose
From: Bug Eye Kunkle

My father's name is neither Wayne nor is my last name Kunkle. Weird? Yes. I told you! OK, so the explanation is that the gift tags have become something that either makes fun of something, someone or something that happened to you and also usually serves as a hint of what the gift is. Almost riddle like.

Wayne the Nose is what my father used to call a kid we went to school with because he had a big nose.

Bug Eye Kunkle is what my dad called a kid that lived next door to us because he wore big goggly glasses.

And no NOT to their faces!

Now the gift I was giving him is called "The Nose" and is shaped like a nose too. It's one of those things that you put your glasses on when you go to bed. He likes to read before bed so it'll be perfect for him! So see? Wayne the Nose ties to the gift and Bug Eye relates to his glasses. It all makes sense now doesn't it?

Here's a few other examples:

To Quatziheetwa Mama
From Kwan

This would be to my sister. Quatziheetwa is a San Felipe Indian saying meaning hello. I knew a girl from this tribe back in Albuquerque and she taught me that. BTW Qwatza is the short less formal version. My sis and I used to say it to each other all the time. Kwan is just a character from a much loved book we read by Amy Tan.

To Flippin Fingers
From the white Bobby Brown

This would be a gift to my sister from my husband. Flippin fingers goes back to an incident that happened to my sister K a year ago or so. This man thought she cut him off with her car, and she did, it was an accident. The lane ended and she didn't realize until it was too late. She tried to apologize to him, but he stopped his motorcycle in the middle of the road (after passing her dangerously on the left) thereby stopping traffic and proceeded to scream at her to call the cops and just pretty much freaked out about her cutting him off. He was flipping her off and screaming obscenities at her. She was terrified and the baby was with her and still VERY babylike at the time. He wouldnt stop it and just got louder and louder and kept flipping her off and finally she snapped! SHE JUST FLIPPED HIM OFF OVER AND OVER. When she came back to her senses, and really? This isn't something she'd NORMALLY do...the circumstances were extreme as I hope I've fully expressed to you. She finally managed to get around him, but then he hopped on his bike and continued to follow her like a FREAK. Finally he turned off. She was so scared though because she thought he was going to follow her home and pull a gun on her, he was that scary! Anyhow, that's where flippin fingers came from and The white Bobby Brown? Well that's my husband. When we lived in Germany, my sister came over and stayed with us for a year (this was pre husband era) and somewhere during that time Bobby Brown was in his prime and when she looked at BKKay one day as a Bobby Brown video was playing on MTV Europe, she said to him that the looked like Bobby Brown, well except white!

Problem is that it gets harder and harder each year to come up with new ones! There's classic ones that get used each year (qwatzeeheetwa and Kwan) but there's always new ones to come up with. Often when wrapping I just sit there for HOURS trying to think up good ones. Lame. It just HURTS MY HEAD!

So I guess this explains why I like them and hate them too! They're funny on Xmas morning when we're reading them (well sometimes!) but a pain in the ass too! You know what I'll be doing for the next month! Trying to think up good ones! Wonder if Charlie'd mind if I use Assbag for one of them? heh heh heh...somehow don't think that'd go over too well!

Speaking of Charlie...the download is done. One hour and ten minutes! Hey it was really funny too! Everyone go check him out! Of course the fact that most of you (OK ALL OF YOU) came to me probably FROM him is something we don't need to discuss! Remember...share and share alike! That's how I like it!

Mysterious voice mail?

2003-11-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

So I try to keep up with the many MILLIONS of comments I get. HELL, I may only get one a day if I'm lucky, but it's better than a few months ago when I had NONE, right? Anyhow, where was I? OH...comments.

Anyhow, a friend left a message indicating she'd left a message for me on my answering machine and did I get a new service cuz it didn't sound like the normal one.

I use a machine, not a service and I haven't changed the message. The one I have now is the preset machine message with the computer dude's voice that says in a resounding booming voice...HELLOOO! NOONE IS AVAILABLE TO ANSWER YOUR CALL. PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE (pause) AFTER THE TONE!

I use it because the machine is a digital machine that's supposed to sound so awesome but doesnt. When you leave your own outgoing message, it ALWAYS sounds like you're talking through water or have a mouth full of marbles. Anyhow, their preset message is very clear and works fabulously.

PROBLEM is that when I am online, I only have the one phone line. So when I am here, blogging my heart out, I always thought that people got a busy signal.

So after the above mentioned message, I called her up and we discussed it and she told me its a womans voice. Totally baffled me. I thought perhaps she was calling the wrong number but she said no, she listened very carefully and it was definately my number they played back in the message.

After we hung up, I logged on here and called my home number from my cell phone to see what would happen. Sure enough! I got a voice mail system! What the hell??? There were THREE messages in there! I don't know what happened, but its kind of nice because now I will get messages from those who've tried to get through to me!

Why do I have this? I don't know. I do uh vaguely recall getting paperwork recently saying something about my NEW phone plan. But it was from my old company, so I dunno! Did I read this? NO. I for some reason thought it was something rehashing what I have. I havent been with the company except for a few months, so who knows.

It's a mystery! I better watch closely to my next bill from them! Could be they've hooked me up with something I didn't ask for and are going to charge me through the nose for it too!

Damn. Is nothing free anymore? Guess we'll see!

Memory Flashback #2

2003-11-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight I thought I'd blog about something that happened to me a few years ago. It's an adult memory and therefore anyone who is under the age of a consenting LEGAL ADULT should leave.

Hmm...I feel the stares of perked interest. And YES it's gonna be one of those stories!

But don't get all excited, I ain't giving up the REALLY interesting stuff, just what's pertinent to this story. I think you'll get a great laugh out of this. And perhaps it's happened to a few of you before. Probably not, I may be the ONLY one, who knows! People don't normally share these kinds of stories, so for all I know I AM the only one it's happened to.

OK, this is where the kiddos depart and only the adults remain. Hell I'll probably tell this story in such a way that its very G rated, but maybe not and I ain't takin any chances here!

So here goes.

One night, when BKKay and I lived in Florida, we were getting a little frisky. I'll pass all the foreplay and anything else of interest to most of those staring eyes at my blog and just get onto the point here. While in the middle of doing "IT" I had a seizing, pain searing charlie horse! My leg shoots up into the air and is seizing up to the point that I can not straighten it or make the cramp go away without standing up and walking around.

So I jump out of bed, leaving my husband looking bewildered because he thought it was just getting interesting when I started screaming! He thought my leg in the air was....well we don't need to go there, but it was a good thing for him! ANYhow...moving on...I jump out of bed and start marching around the house - totally NAKED - trying to walk the cramp out. By now Bkkay has realized that Im in pain and something in his plan for the evening has gone askew! I think for him the first clue was when I suddenly jumped out of bed...everything before that as I've said, has just added to his experience! hee hee

So I suddenly realize that it's 2am, Im naked and behind me is BKKay, also butt-assed naked following me, and behind him is the DOG!

The house we lived in has a circular pattern to it. The house of course was square, but from the living room you can get to the kitchen which leads to the front door/hallway to the bedrooms OR to the living room again.

So there we were marching around and around and around and all I can think is I HOPE none of our neighbors saw us because

A. We were both naked

B. It was 2am and we're just Marching around the house Naked?

C. We'd just been getting busy and BKKay wasn't back to um...well you know...he was still in "DOIN IT" mode!

and D. Yes we had curtains, BUT not on the door from the kitchen out onto the carport!

So all of a sudden I start laughing picturing what it must look like to anyone who DID happen to catch the show! I don't know if this will amuse those reading or not, but it's pretty funny to me, at least looking back it is!! At the time - not so funny. Of course if you know me you are probably saying "oh my god...I didnt need to have this kind of picture in my head...just a little too visual thank you!!! Heh heh heh you're welcome!

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty! I'm free at last from the sleep bonds that held me!

2003-11-16T00:32:00.000-07:00

After blogging last night I wanted to go right to bed as I said in yesterday's blog. Well I got in there and then realized I had washed the sheets and featherbed cover but had not put them on the bed yet. UGH. I was so tired! So then after making up the bed, I went to shut down the house and it was at that point that I realized I could not find the phone to hang back up in the charger.

I'd seen it just before making the bed, and I looked on all sides of the bed and even under it to no avail. I looked under the comforter. Nothing. I looked under the pillows. Nothing. Now the bed and the room aren't that big. It can't have gone too far! And yet the phone still eludes me! I even felt all over the mattress trying to see if I'd left it under the comforter and didn't feel any odd or strange lumps. I did feel all the normal ones though...they haven't disappeared. Kinda wish they'd go the way of the secret phone black hole, but I digress.

So then I got smart. The base has one of those pager things for instances just like this! Problem is that it's in the kitchen and the phone, presumably, is in the bedroom! So when I hit the page button it only pages for about 10 to 15 seconds, IF that long before stopping. So I had to hit the buttom and RACE into the bedroom to try to get an idea of where the damn thing was!

So I hit it, race in there, and I do hear it. But it's VERY faint. The beeping stops and I'm back to square one without a clue as to where it is. I try the page thing a few more times and then I REALLY got smart! I got my mobile out and called my home number on it! Admittedly I had to call a few times because the damn answering machine kept answering on ring three, but I did indeed find the phone.

Where was it? It was under the comforter, under the fitted sheet, and under the feather bed. I'm a brilliant one aren't I?

So I get the phone back where it goes to charge up each night and head to bed. I ended up staying up watching 2 episodes of Friends I'd taped and then fell asleep. The dog woke me up, right on time, at 7am. I fed her her breakfast and then instead of going back to bed, I did it! I broke free of my sleeping pattern! I stayed up! And boy did I have energy!

This morning I vaccuumed, I mopped, I washed my pillows (who knew they really could be washed, but Lord they needed it!!) I washed the dog's bed cover and I even washed my bathmats! Then I got the kitchen straightened out and the dishwasher emptied and then refilled with dishes from the sink. I feel so accomplished! Just as I was about to shower I had a call from the mary kay girl and I did NOT answer it! Ha!! I'll have to deal with her tomorrow, but that's an issue for tomorrow, so I ain't worrying about it today!! THEN my friend J from the HOA from HELL called me and wanted to go shopping! So I quickly showered and dressed and headed to meet her. Having not been outside of the house in three days I was anxious to get moving!

While on this little shopping expedition I discovered a few things.

#1 They miss me! (It's always nice to know they miss you after you're gone!)

#2 The new girl is driving them NUTS! (It's always nice to know that the one who replaced you isn't as good as you were!!)

#3 R the REJECT has apparently STOPPED with all the sexual jokes, however, now he's started in on the gay and lesbian population making derogatory remarks! For shits sake! He's been accused of sexual harassment in the past, and as recently as one week ago was all down and out because of the email that he felt accused him of it again! You'd think he'd stop with all the crazy remarks he makes. Wouldn't you think he'd have learned to keep his mouth shut??? Did he sit there and say to himself, "Well? If I can't tell my sexual jokes, I guess I'll just make nasty remarks about a group of people I probably know nothing about!" As a manager he's really asking for it! Hell as Joe Schmoe regular bottom rung employee he's asking for it!!! I have a feeling he won't be in this position for very long at all. He's started to do things now that oppose the homeowners decisions, and they are finding out about it and asking who it is that did it. OHH and one last thing on this subject. I found out that he was put on a 30 day notice to shape up just after I started working there!! Yeah and all the crazy crap that I've told you about him has happened since then. Just HOW STUPID IS HE?

Tomorrow I get to see my friend R!!! I havent seen her in what seems like MONTHS! She's been working for this new hoity toity mall that just opened and they've been killing her with hours! She's been working 9 1/2 to 10 hours days (some days around the opening were like 16 hour days!) and six day weeks for weeks now! Needless to say she's not had a lot of socializing time! However it's been to her advantage. Her company GAVE HER A TIFFANY DOGTAG NECKLACE! Do you know how much those run? LIKE $250!!!!! She also got a lot of other goodies and free meals right and left!! Her job ROCKS! She's coming over tomorrow afternoon and we're gonna just hang out! Yay!!!

OHH and I forgot to tell you. When I was shopping with J today, we came across this arts and crafts type fair and all of a sudden I hear this girl say "hey! where do I know you from?" I look up. Guess who? Not the stalker Mary Kay lady, but her district manager who'd also been at the arts and crafts fair last weekend! ANDDD she started talking to me and I thought she was going to try to pressure me into letting her do a facial on me, for free of course! But no. She actually asked me to take her family's christmas pics! OMG! Will I ever be free of these mary kay ladies?

And when did I get pegged as the Christmas portrait lady? My sis K tonight told me her sis in law was asking about me and if I'd be interested in doing theirs!!! I guess it's all good, oh and K wants me to do theirs too! Lordy! hey whatever! It's better than sitting in an office somewhere isn't it? Hell yeah!!!!

So my last rambling thought of the night. I was talking to K earlier and as usual I asked to talk to my neice. She's 19 months old. I've been talking to her on the phone from the time she was about 4 months old. K would hold it up to her ear in the early days and now she'll hold it herself. Well she never says anything to me unless K prompts her in the background. Well tonight K asked her (as usual) if she'd like to talk to her Auntie? and that Auntie's on the phone for her! Well she grabbed the phone and ran off into another room and shut the door so she could talk to me! So me, unaware of any of this, starts with my usual stuff.

ME: Hi Hallie! How are you?

Hallie: Silence and a little heavy breathing.

ME: Are you playing?

Hallie: More heavy breathing.

Me: Where's Bob Bob? (spongebob is one of her obsessions!)

Hallie: Silence.

Me: What does a doggie say?

Hallie: Silence.

Now up to this point, things have gone pretty much the way they always do, and I'm not realizing she's run off with the phone into another room and shut the door.

Me: What does a cat say?

Hallie: Meow!

Me: What does a cow say?

Hallie: Moo!!!

Me: Very good! What does a snake say????

Hallie: Ssssssssss!!!

And quite suddenly without any reason, she starts to laugh really hard! This is apparently when K finally worked her way into the room to find out what she was up to. K said she heard her actually talking back to me and this was apparently her first ever phone conversation with anyone! And even if it was only about what animals say, who cares! It still made my day!

Tonight I break the cycle!

2003-11-15T00:26:00.000-07:00

In the last week I've been off work. I chose to not take any jobs this week after a month long temp job. I planned to straighten my house, do chores I'd overlooked, SCRUB THE DISGUSTING TOILETS, get caught up on the bills, you know, the stuff I haven't had time to do because I was working full time and preparing for the arts and crafts fair. It all pretty much took up all my time.

Well here's a little bit about how the week has gone in comparison to my plans from above.

I've been so lazy. I've watched TV. I did manage to SORT OF straighten, I DID pay my bills so the electricity won't be turned off anytime soon, nor will the phone. I had to make sure I was able to get to you, as I'm sure I would have been missed! I also did manage to scrub the toilets. I was becoming afraid that there was something living in there and that's just not right! Bryan is not even here to blame for the grossness! All in all I've been sitting around doing a lot of nothing though. Such a great big lot of nothing that I'm in my pajamas. Yes it's nearly midnight, but I have been in the pj's since I put them on 2 nights ago. Yes. TWO complete days in my pj's.

What else did I do? Well I managed to get myself into this awful cycle! So I get through the day resting on my laurels, then I watch my nightly TV shows, then about 9 but probably closer to 10pm I log onto the internet and post a photo to my fotolog (check out tonights photo! It looks like the sky is on fire!!!) and then I come to you and blog my heart out!

Problem is that at that point I say to myself, "self? You need to catch up on your blog reading! you need to peruse the other fotologgers and bloggers sites!" So off I go, reading Charlie, Cocoadeath, Em, Belle de Jour,Kenny and Kelly and then probably checking out some of their links to other blogs.

Ugh...by the time I'm done I look down and it's nearly 3am! What the hell! So then I RUN to bed. The dog wakes me at about 7 requesting her breakfast by pressing her cold wet nose into my hand and nudging it. Oh god...4 hours of sleep! You'd think I'd be ready to crash by dinner time which would break the cycle. But no. I feed her and go back to sleep. THEN I wake up at about 11am! All in all its not cool. I hate sleeping the day away! This used to be my normal sleep pattern when I was a young thing of 21. It was all cool then! Hell I could hang with getting up at 7 back then after 4 hours of sleep. It was within my norm to do that (because often I had to after partying all night go to work by 8am!) Once you turn my decrepit age of 36 it becomes a bit harder to do!

Oh yes I know everyone sleeps in once in awhile. Have a lie in on a Saturday morning, no biggie! But my idea of sleeping in these days is around 9, 10 at the very latest! And then ONLY if I was out late! I like to get up around 7 or 730, or even 8. So anyhow, all this blog reading must stop when it's late at night! I purposely logged on earlier today and did a lot of my blog and flog catchup, so tonight once I post I'm BREAKING THE CYCLE! I'm headed to bed at a reasonable hour.

Of course then the problem will be will I be able to fall asleep? Dunno. With BKKay gone for six weeks on a TDY to San Antonio, I get nervous to be alone at night, so I sleep with the TV on as it blocks all those house settling, noone's really there, but it sure sounds like it, noises. The next dilemma is that if the channel is on a program (as opposed to a music channel) then I will listen and therefore stay awake. It's so lame! But I guess that's better than staying awake because I'm scared due to hearing noises!

Well I better go. Dunno if I'll sleep this early, but I'll be there, doing the right thing. You know, the thing that puts me back into my regular, routine, 36 year old sleep cycle. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

PS

2003-11-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Carrot Top, you aren't far behind. Actually you may be ahead and I've just become numb to your retardedness.

OH. And by the way, I don't think anyone is believing the Carrot Top is hot angle. Give it up man!

Award for the TV Commercial presently bugging the SHIT out of me!

2003-11-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

And the winner isssssssss? John Stamos who USED to be hot and his stupid 10-10-987 commercials!

Does the man have nothing better to do? I'm sure he does. Is he that hard up that he must sink to these levels of annoyances? Could be. Why would ANY damn one be bugging the shit out of people to discuss 10-10-987 as he is portrayed as doing in this ad!

For shits sake man...are there NO acting jobs available? Maybe you need to talk to the Olsen twins and get a job in one of their movies!

Something's bugging me!

2003-11-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

It used to be that people would stick up for you if you were in the right and someone else was in the wrong. Is that my perception or is that how it really used to be?

These days it seems that if you're being mugged right in front of 50 onlookers they'll just keep on walking and act like nothing's happening.

OK, so here's the thing that REALLY chaps my ass about this entire subject. Let me take you right to the point! These days, if you have 2 friends who are also friends with each other, and one of the two does something REALLY crap-assed shitty to you, it seems to me that the other friend will usually tell you how they think it's awful that it happened to you, but will never say anything to the other person; or will say something to the affect of "that's between you and her/him and I don't want to get involved because I'm friends with them too". THIS IS ABSOLUTE SHIT!

In the old days (I'm 36, how old could the days be?) OK dammit, in my days of yesteryear...my childhood, whatever! If this same scenario happened, I remember the other friend taking the side of the one who was in the right. I'm not talking about scenarios where its a spat and both sides are equally wrong, I'm talking about one person is clearly in the wrong. People would step up and say "HEY YOU ARE WRONG! WE WON'T PUT UP WITH THIS TYPE OF BEHAVIOR! YOU'RE BANISHED FROM THE GROUP UNTIL YOU A. APOLOGIZE OR B. MAKE AMENDS FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE". Seems as though people had to take responsibility for what they did, instead of this silent lets not talk about it BS that happens today! Oh people may have talked about it behind your back but they'd also say it to your face just as often!

And while I am afraid of confrontations in a major way, this is still my preferred way of being. I always knew where I stood and there seemed to be justice in the world.

I really HATE when something terrible is done to you by another so called friend and the rest of the group just lets it and never says a THING to the person, or even give you any kind of support because they don't want to get involved or make waves! Why would we want to be friends with people who will do terrible things to others? Why not make waves and say HEY! I don't think so! The worst that can happen is you lose a friend who is a shit to other people!

Why am I blogging about this? I really don't know! It came to me and has been on my mind. Nothing has happened to put this train of thought into my head, well not lately. Things like that happen all the time.

I think really I just got to thinking about why the world is the way it is today. All the children who have no manners, teenagers who also have no manners (product of a "put your child in time out instead of spanking" society I say!) and show disrespect at every turn. Perhaps if their peers and their parents made them responsible for their actions as it was done in my childhood (at least within my family) then maybe things would start to improve. I don't know when we got off track, but something needs to be fixed within our society, in a major way!

Of course, there's the rare diamond in the rough! My friend R? She's said diamond. I don't care if I am being utterly ridiculous about something stupid and completely WRONG. She'll back me. She's my girl and she's got my back! All I have to say is "HE/SHE/IT IS A BASTARD AND A JERK!" and she's the first one to say "WHAT AN ASSHOLE!!" or "MOTHERFUCKER!!" I think she was raised the same way I was...and its a rare thing these days! It's good to have a friend like that. No matter what the situation I know she'll always be in my corner! So thanks R, I appreciate you and your endless support of whatever my situation of the day is!

There's something about Mary - Kay.

2003-11-13T00:16:00.000-07:00

And it's REALLY getting on my nerves!

Last weekend I shot this family's Christmas pictures. They didn't turn out as well as I would have hoped, but oh well. I'm still learning and not every photo I take will turn out. Anyhow, this family also happens to be BKKay's boss and his family. (BKKay is Bryan's Black girl name...in case you wondered...which now you're probably REALLY wondering considering he's a DUDE--and as white as you get! Long story short, he goes by BK as a nickname and something about it made me think of ShaNayNay from that old sitcom Martin...thus Bryan's black girl name is BKKay. He Hates It.)

OK, so where was I? Oh yeah...well anyhow, the boss's family is really nice. However, when I met the wife, we got to talking and I asked her what she did. She said she was an independent beauty consultant or something like that. I must have given her a confused look because then she she went on to say that she did facials and make overs. Oh and while we're at it, would I like to have a free facial? She's got a certain amount she must do to reach her goals, and it would help her out! Well later, when she gave me her card, I realize what she REALLY does. She SELLS MARY KAY! This is their new thing! They don't come right out and tell you that they sell it, they go on about the free facials etc, and THEN when you're good and excited about getting a spa treatment (in your head anyway...never in theirs!) they try to rope you into buying their products! It's so LAME! I HATE THAT SHIT!

First of all, come right out and TELL me. Don't try to trick me. I'm much too smart for that! Second of all, I HATE THAT SHIT! Not the make up per se, but the whole pressure to do the facial, pressure to buy the products which are ALWAYS expensive!! Just the PRESSURE in general!

So until this weekend I'd managed to avoid her and her free facial. But now she's after me! She and her district manager (who also happens to be her bests friend) showed up at the arts and crafts fair. It's my own fault because I told her about it while trying to plan the christmas card photo shoot. So they get a table and arrive looking all made up the way Mary Kay girls tend to! So they start telling me how I should come to their friday night event. There's gonna be some great speaker. See they're trying to fool me into thinking that they only want me to go because supposedly ANY woman should go who wants to go into business for herself. The woman is totally motivating and wonderful! But see? I got their number now! They want to corner me into buying their complete line of make up OR joining up and start selling myself! SOMEONE PLEASE SHOOT ME THE DAY I PRONOUNCE IM BECOMING A BEAUTY CONSULTANT FOR MARY KAY. PLEASE? NO DUDE, I'M SERIOUS!

So I've given her the excuse that my sister may come to town with the baby. That gets me out of the Friday night (no babys allowed!) but now she wants to come to my house and give both of us facials. Of course my sis had mentioned some time ago that she MIGHT come to visit this week, but has since changed her mind and isn't coming. I don't know how I'll get out of this! Maybe I'll just get her free facial and buy one thing and then move on! I'm on a serious budget, I don't need to be buying makeup and shit for me! Christmas, for those of you who have not hit panic mode yet, is a mere FIVE weeks away! With me not working full time I REALLY need to concentrate on getting xmas gifts! So this is really bad timing, it really is. The whole thing makes me grumpy and mad that I am succombing to this type of pressure!

However, there's not really any graceful way out of it now is there. First of all, the boss thing. Second of all, there's the whole she's supporting me and my craft, so I feel obligated to support her in her thing, right? It's just SO lame. What should I do? Any suggestions from the peanut gallery? Please! I'm desperate! I'll do almost anything! HELP!

Full Scale Hermit Mode

2003-11-11T01:49:00.000-07:00

Well after a month of working for the HOA from Hell I finally got a day that I did not have to do ANYthing! Even the weekends were full! This weekend I had the arts and crafts Saturday, and a photoshoot on Sunday. Last weekend I was in Phoenix with my sister. The weekend before that I was in Bisbee with my friend C and the weekend before that I went down to Nogales with R and her mother in law. Not only all that, but in the evenings during the workweek, I was working on making my notecards. See? I was needing a day off in a REALLY bad way. It's no wonder I slept like I did on Saturday afternoon!

So when I got up today I didn't even get dressed until 4pm. I very nearly didn't shower, (hermit mode hit me hard today!) but then, as I was going to meet my friend R at her place of business (the newly opened very hoity toity, upscale and SUPER FABULOUS mall - La Encantada) for dinner, and due to its status on the list of places that you probably want to dress a WEE bit nicer, I decided a shower was in order! I did wear Jeans, however they were boot cut. I swear I did not look like a bum! Well, maybe a little bit, but things could have been much worse had the shower been skipped! Lets just leave it at that!

I had such a nice day of doing nothing much! I did finally get to sort through my mail and straightened things. Tomorrow the plan is to actually CLEAN the house. Nice concept. A clean toilet and shower would be really in order about now, cuz I don't even have a man in the house to blame the filfth on! He's been gone for 2 weeks, and things are getting nasty in the Kelley household! Ugh. Why did I allow things to get into this state? LAME. Well, I guess I just have to bite the bullet and do it. No sense whining about it here right?

Anyhow, back to hermit mode. It was pure selfish enjoyment of a monday. I even sat there smiling for a minute or two thinking about how everyone else in the working world was sitting at their work station wishing they were me sitting at home! Great moment by the way...it felt really GOOD! Oh this won't become a trend, the temp agency is already after me to commit to some dates. I'm avoiding them this week as much as possible as I don't want to work this week. I need some space between the month at the HOA and the next assignment!

And tonight I met R at La Encantada. Have I said how FABULOSO it is? It's just BEAUTIFUL. It's an outdoor mall and there's a lot of statues and color and flowers and tiled stairways...I could sit there all day long and enjoy the fountains! A MALL shouldn't be this nice!!! Oh but it is. It's so nice that almost all the shops in there are high falutin pricey joints! It's the kind of place you'd go to get something EXTRA special to wear for an important evening out. And of all things there's a gourmet grocery store in there, and of course, it's the place you'd go to buy those EXTRA SPECIAL steaks for a birthday supper. BTW it also had a sushi bar in it! We ate there tonight and it was TASTY!! There's another sushi bar in the mall. It's called of all things, RA. Pronounced RAW. Go figure! We went in there and it's kind of hard rock like. Lots of loud music and young people. We sat there for at least 30 minutes and STILL had not been given water or a menu. The waitress came by once (about 20 minutes into our wait) and said she'd be right back however, she never did! We left feeling as though we weren't served due to our geriatric status (at least compared to the rest of the young ones in the place!). We headed to AJ's (the gourmet grocery) and ate their sushi which was GREAT!

Anyhow, it was a non productive but good day. Nothing too exciting, but good none the less.

How was your day? Were you sitting at work jealous of me sitting at home relaxing??? Cuz that's the way I pictured it...heh heh heh...still smiling about it too!

Exhaustion does reap a few rewards because today I feel GREAT!

2003-11-09T23:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday after the arts and crafts fair I came home and CRASHED. I don't mean I took a nap, I mean at 3:30 in the afternoon I crashed and burned and didn't get up until 7 this morning! I did wake up breifly when the phone rang and my friend R told me there was a lunar eclipse that I attempted to go out and photograph, but immediately following I went to sleep again and slept til morning.

Today I feel GREAT! I must have really needed that sleep is all I can think because today I feel fan-effing-tabulous!

So the Arts and Crafts sale. How many cards did I sell? Was I a raving success? Was it worth all the hard work? Well the answers are in order - zero, no and maybe. I sold no cards whatsoever! I was very disappointed! However, I am not completely down and out because we didn't get a good turnout and I wasnt the only one who didn't sell anything. The crocheted and knitted sweater lady sold nothing (and said that was a first for her!) and one of the artists who was there only sold a $2 drawing and that's it. Oh and the silk flower arrangement people only sold one or two things. See? I'm not SUCH a loser now am I? Can't get over it...there was very little response. Surprising, but oh well. I'm looking at it as I have stock now for other things. OH and I had people coming by looking at my photos and ooohing and aaahing right and left...no one bought though, or even asked me how much they were! Then I had a guy come by and give me his card telling me that if I ever wanted to create a website he'd help me. THEN he came back and asked if I did stock photography. I told him that I didn't contribute to any sites for that, but that was the direction I wanted to go. He told me that he wanted to look at some of my work because he likes to support local artists and also the photo libraries he buys stock photos from are being used by everyone! So I gave him my fotolog address and my email address and I guess we'll see what happens! That could be promising!

Today I met a couple (to take their pics - you PERV! NOT THOSE KIND OF PICS! FAMILY CHRISTMAS PICS!) and also their children near the zoo to do a photoshoot for their christmas photos. I was very nervous about this because it was Bryan's boss and his family. I will turn in the film tomorrow to develop and I'm praying they will turn out! Don't know why they wouldnt, but if they do they could be just BEAUTIFUL pictures! I'm excited but trying to not be too overly optimistic!

Well so that's all that happened to me this weekend. Kinda boring but true. So Im headed to bed...maybe this week will prove to be a whole lot more interesting. Lets hope so! I do get to see R the Reject tomorrow when I turn in my key they gave me for the arts and crafts fair, maybe he'll make an inappropriate gesture or try to grab me from behind or something...lets hope for the sake of this blog he does! On the other hand...maybe not! I don't need no rejects grabbing me! Uh...NO THANKS!

Sexual Harrassment at it's finest hour...

2003-11-07T23:16:00.000-07:00

I was right! I was right! Wait a minute. Slow down Lara and explain to the nice people what in the Hell you're talking about.

OK.

So today at the HOA (my last day! Yahoo!! I'm FREE!) R the Reject starts acting very quiet and in a bad mood. I'm thinking how nice it is that it's so peaceful and quiet, but then I catch on that he's in a bad kinda way. I have no clue what's going on because you can hear every conversation in the place because there's no real walls...only a bunch of partitions and I haven't heard anything unusual going on.

THEN I hear 2 of the girls talking when noone else is around. Apparently the owner sent out an email this morning to all HOA employees that said essentially, "It has come to my attention that there has been some inappropriate behavior. This will STOP today, and it will stop immediately. There will be no swearing, no sexual harrassment and nothing except professionalism". While this seems very vague as to who the offender was, HE is the only one who is down and out. So one of the girls went on a nasty cancer sucking break with him. He told her that he was being accused of sexual harrassment! I asked her if he was taking the email as the accusation or if there was another issue. She didn't know. THEN she told me that he'd told her how he'd been accused of Sexual Harrassment before. I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!! I knew it the second I walked out of the toilet to see his little sick face standing there listening!

I found out later that another girl had merely asked a question about his behavior and mentioned him being inappropriate with a board member (she was signing 2 signature checks and he asked her if she would like to be on top or on the bottom all the while waggling his eyebrows at her. She's in her 60s and apparently did not appreciate his leering at her because she said, "I don't think I'll touch that". He laughed and said he wouldnt either. This is NOT the way to behave with a member of a board that determines if you are the company to continue managing the HOA or not!). Anyhow, the girl she mentioned it to mentioned it to the owner and thus the email.

Thing is that I am the one who heard the whole thing go down with the board member! ME! I told her about it and she passed it on! I got that MOFO back!!! See what happens when you spy on girls in the toilet???????

Memory Flashback #1

2003-11-06T22:25:00.000-07:00

I'm six years old. My father is in the air force and we live in Hawaii. We are at the beach and my four year old sister is there too. Dad is laying out on the beach while K and I play.

I know how to swim and I love it! My sister does not know how to swim and I get the bright idea to teach her. So listen to my six year old logic. I tell her to take five steps backwards into the ocean. Then when a wave comes in I'm going to have her sort of body surf in on the current. So she does (at this point she hadn't wised up and still idolized me and did whatever I said). One....Two...Three...Four...Fi--! OH SHIT. My sisters head has disappeared under the water!

Now dad is the disciplinarian of the family. I'm afraid of the wrath of my father! I look around. Pfew...he hasn't seen what's going on! I walk casually back up the beach to him and sit down. He says to me, "where's your sister?"

FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR FEAR..."Um...she's down the beach playing." He believes me. I occasionally see K's head pop up and get some air. Of course I'm worried that noone will get her, but I'm afraid of being in trouble and getting spanked, so I say nothing. (before you lot get mad at me, remember that I was six years old and didn't really know what the terrible implications of this situation are!)

K's side of the story goes something like this. "I take the steps backwards and on the fifth step it suddenly drops off. I go under water and land upon a rock. It's not sturdy though and when I jump up to get some air and then come back down it wobbles a bit. I was scared that I would lose it. When I pop up for air I can see Lara sitting on the beach by Dad. Suddenly I lost the rock"

Suddenly (thankfully!) a man with a cast on his arm jumps into the water and snatches her out. I remember her spitting up water and then she was ok.

To this day she's got a phobia about people dunking her head under water in a pool. I don't blame her!

ps-I never did get in trouble.

Could murder be made to be legal for just five minutes?

2003-11-05T23:11:00.000-07:00

THATS ALL I NEED!

I swear that today I was riding the hormonal rollercoaster and R the REJECT was the object of my FRUSTRATIONS!

After working for 4 days on preparing this really detailed project, I came to realize that after doing what they asked me to, it was going to be costing them more than they expected. By about $700. So I tell R (he's the manager) and he lectures me on it as though I'm a child and didn't know any better about how I need to shorten this and abbreviate that, blah blah blah while I'm sitting there impatiently because I didn't tell him this problem so he could explain how to correct it. I KNOW how to do that! I told him because I was going to have to change what he'd ASKED me to do in order to fix the problem. SOOO...after I worked on this project for 4 days, he lectures me endlessly and then gives it to the other girl H who works there. They butchered what I wrote and in fact, scrapped it and he had H just rewrite the entire thing, using NOTHING of what I'd written. I was PISSED! Essentially because it was my "baby" to work on and then he just passed it off to someone who had nothing to do with it. GRR!! MOFO! Wasted the last 4 days of my time on this damn thing just so they can rewrite it in 2 seconds!

My hormones are in RAGING mode and R was really about to get it! But I somehow pulled it together and didn't go all premenstrual on him! LUCKY FOR HIM! PMS Psychobitch isn't pretty folks. It really isn't. My husband is laughing all the way over in San Antonio tonight because he got to miss it!!!!

PMS 101
Seems as though while in this mode, which I realize is foreign to the male gender, so listen up and maybe you'll learn a little something. So anyway, it seems like NOTHING goes right. For one thing we chicks are on a rollercoaster of emotion. So one second we're ready to RIP YOUR HEART OUT AND EAT IT IN FRONT OF YOU for a mere look the wrong way (which in actuality is probably a look of fear of the pms psycho bitch but which we interpret as something offensive to the maximum degree!) Lets face it, you may as well have slept with our best friend right in front of us and then bragged about how good it was. THAT is how bad it seems to the PMS psycho bitch!

Then there's the other extreme, which is the crying jaggs and sadness. Everything is so sad and miserable. We don't feel well, and everything hurts our feelings. Sensitive. We just want love and a little compassion. Some hot tea with honey would be nice as well and then falling asleep while cuddling you, and everything would be fine. Just be CAREFUL. Joking around with us to cheer us up will probably NOT work. It will only serve to ANNOY. And then you're really on the wrong path. Sensitive, caring, compassion, quiet and out of our way.

TREAD LIGHTLY

There's a fine line between the two sides, and a lot of times we will be at one extreme just to, within .03 seconds, flip to the other side. Often it's best to just give us our space and to let us get through it alone. Sometimes that's just what we want anyhow.

So guys...really, I've got your best interests at heart. The pms psycho bitch cannot be controlled nor can she be tamed. She's wild and you should just STAY OUT OF HER WAY until the worst is over. You'll know because she'll start smiling again, and acting normal! But even then, let her approach you. Put your hands out slowly so she can sniff your hands and know you're friendly. If it's all good you might get a kiss, if not she's gonna rip your hand to shreds!

THREE DAYS!

2003-11-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

I only have three days left at the HOA from HELL!! Yahooooooo!!!!

I got my Bisbee pics developed and there is not even a hint of a ghostly appearance in any of my pics!!! Bummer! Not even orb one! I did however, get quite a few other decent pictures. Somehow I'm not too excited about these pics though. Wonder if C's pics are any more exciting than mine are?

Day from hell. Homeowner hell! They must have ALL been in our office at one point or another today! All 3000 of them!! The phone rang off the hook and the front door was opening every fifteen seconds! Maybe tomorrow will prove to be a bit quieter!

Jennifer got her new camera in the mail today. She's been doing her homework and looking for a good SLR and she finally ordered it online. I'm jealous! It's so fun and exciting getting a new camera! All those possibilities for great shots! And all you can think about is how your camera is new so it's all high tech and up to date! Which of course means you'll get the BEST shots EVER! OK, well sure. We can believe that. However, I have to admit that getting great shots is a lot easier with this new camera. Maybe my class just taught me a lot or maybe cameras are just better as is film and so everything seems better, but the talent isn't? Who the hell knows! If you wanna check some of my photos out, click ME. Would love to hear your opinions!

Well that's all for me, long day means I am tired and also that I've got no brains (right now! I've got none right now because I'm TIRED! Don't be so mean! I'm a smart girl! I really am!) to be able to think up something great to blog about! Next week I'll get back to normal. Really I will. I'll be out of the 8-5 M-F regular working girl mode and back into temp worker/photographer extraordinaire mode! Then I'll be so much more creative you won't even be able to stand me!

No daylight to save here!

2003-11-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

So I just realized that daylight savings fell back an hour over a week ago!

What happened? I used to be very aware of this event! And no I have not been very early to work or appointments I've had to go to for the last week. Now THAT would really be a first!

I live in Arizona and we have the distinct pleasure of NOT celebrating this tradition. It is GREAT. There's no jetlag feeling to worry about, no panic because you forgot to change every damn clock in the house and now aren't sure if the alarm clock is correct or still on the old time. And did you really turn the alarm on? Am I late or am I OK? Oh Shit! Panic Panic!

I remember daylight savings time as being really disruptive to a methodical person like me. It bothered me that I had to go to sleep at what used to be 9pm and now is 10pm. Try convincing my body of that. IMPOSSIBLE. Finally about the time it readjusts the old bodyclock, daylight savings kick in again and I'm screwed all over again! But finally I found a place that does it right! NO DAYLIGHT SAVINGS! It ROCKS!

The only thing that's bad now is trying to figure out what the time difference is between me and my dad, but we figure that out eventually, it's all good.

Im tired tonight so this will be a quicky.

My HOA job is coming to an end. I'll be back safely into the irregular working patterns of a photographer again by the week's end! Speaking of photography...my Bisbee pics are coming back tomorrow from the lab. Wonder if I'm gonna be all freaked out when there's a pic of me sleeping in there that the ghost took? I really will freak. Wonder if I've captured any other ghostly images...guess we'll see!

R the Reject tried to get me again today. He blamed me for leaving a $5 bill out on my desk when I went to lunch. Then he showed me what it was for on the log. I said well R, that's not my handwriting. Someone else must have taken it and left it there while I was at lunch! HA!! BASTARD!!!

Is it really necessary...

2003-11-02T23:20:00.000-07:00

...to be a complete idiot on the highway?

The Nascar race this weekend was at PIR (Phoenix International Raceway) in Phoenix, AZ. Coincidentally I went to Phoenix this weekend to visit my sis. I left Halloween night, dodging trick or treaters all the while making trips from the front door to the garage with the light off. They still trick or treated me. Ugh...no candy. Lame.

Anyhow, tonight as I drove home, there were SO many people on the highway. I think a large number of them were folks heading back to Tucson after the race. Well I think some of them got the idea that it's fun to be a nascar driver and try their luck on the highway. Geez I was like HELLO, I'm SO not racing!

Red sports car you really pissed me off! I'm driving along. Minding my own business. Cruise Control on, set for 83mph. I come up on a red sports car going slower than I was. What usually happens at times like this is that I allow my car to get as close as I comfortably can to let them know I'd like to pass, then touch the break to stop the cruise control. If they don't get over when they can, I usually (illegally of course) pass them on the right.

So little red not a corvette, made no move towards getting in the slower lane. I get into the slow lane, and am attempting to speed up enough to get ahead of him and then get over. Now remember that he was going slower than I was for a good long while. All I want to do is pass him and go on my way. As soon as I hit the gas, and I have to hit it hard or I'll get stuck behind the semi that's a quarter of a mile in the distance, he hits his gas! To the point that I do indeed get stuck behind the semi. BASTARD.

So he starts playing the game with me. Speed up so that I can't get in front of him, and when I get behind him to get around whoever is in front of me, he slows down to the point that I'm not going my 83mph anymore. If there's someone in the slow lane he would slow down so that he's going the same speed they are so that I'm blocked in. God damn people! Leave me alone! All I want to do is mind my own business and go my 83mph. Let me pass and I'll be out of your hair!

On a lighter side, my neice said Happy for the first time today. She said it over and over and over...happy happy happy happy happy while we were in the Sephora store. My sister said it made her heart practically melt to hear her baby say that word. It almost sounded like she said Hallie Happy once or twice, but we're not sure she can say her name yet. So cute!!!

Counting Rejects on the wall, doesn't bother me at all...ok yeah. I'm lying!

2003-10-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

Stepping out of the schitzophrenia and into the doldrums.

I MUST update you on R (stands for REJECT?) and his managerial skills! Today we discovered that he speaks fluent Spanish and also worked in Mexico for several years. I just don't know where he's getting all the years for all of his careers!

Something happened today that I want, no I NEED to discuss. Today I was sitting at my workstation actually working (OK smartypants! It happens once in awhile!) when I hear my mobile ring. It surprises me everytime it rings because I don't get many phone calls on it. I've been at the job for over 2 weeks now and have gotten approximately 2 calls (including today) while at work on my cellphone, so it's not as though it's a habit I need to break. Anyhow, I answer and it's my sister. K tells me she needs my opinion about something and I talk to her for about 3 minutes before I have to cut it short as homeowners came into the office and needed my assistance. So after I do what I do with the homeowners, I went to the ladies room and took my mobile. I figured I'd kill 2 birds with one stone. And I was VERY careful NOT to drop my phone. I've learned THAT lesson thank you very much. So I'm talking to her and I'm getting poor reception. I walked out of the bathroom, thinking that if I walk towards the pool I might get better reception.

Let me explain how this place is set up, it'll all make better sense if I give this info to you. There's our office in the front of the building, and in the back of the building is our party room. It's just a rental folks, believe me, we're not partying down between 8 and 5. There's some serious shit going down at the HOA, believe me! Anyhow, if you go from the office to the backroom, there's another exit that leads to the bathrooms. From the ladies room you either walk directly into the party room or you take a left and head towards the pool.

Getting back to the story at hand now that you know what's what...so I'm headed out of the bathroom and instead of going straight back into the building, I take a left so that I will hopefully get better reception. What I see as I walk out of the bathroom though is REJECT, and he's standing at the door of the party room. FACING the ladies room. The door's are literally 2 to 3 feet apart. As soon as he sees me, he turns quickly around and heads back to the office.

Now as I see it, he was doing one of three things.

1. He's doing the creepy thing and standing there listening to me use the toilet!

2. He's doing the asshole thing and standing there listening to my conversation with my sister because he thinks I'm abusing my time there by chatting the day away in the bathroom. (oh and by the way? I was only in the bathroom for MAYBE 3 minutes, not like I just disappeared from the office never to be seen again!)

or 3. He himself used the toilet and was returning to his office, was closing the door as I walked out, but when he saw me he didn't so as not to shut the door in my face.

I doubt #3 is the explanation because I never heard the toilet flush in the mens. Also, you kinda know when faced with a situation if they're moving (as in moving to shut the door). He was just standing there. SPYING on me.

CREEP.

So what does everyone out there think? I'd LOVE to hear some opinions about this!

Bugged!

2003-10-29T22:36:00.000-07:00

OK, so it's really nothing new. Someone is getting on my nerves! But that's just me, if I stay somewhere long enough, someone IS going to drive me batshit! I've been with the HOA now for over 2 weeks and the manager is making me NUTS.

He's a really nice guy that I wll refer to as R. And when I say he's really nice, I mean he really is a nice person. I don't think he means to make me nuts! However, I think he also has issues.

Maybe its just how he is, or maybe he's picked up on me not being so crazy about him, but at every chance he gets he puts the screws to me. Tells me I'm doing something wrong or that I'm not doing the "BEST" procedure to accomplish whatever it is that I'm doing. I should have known this was coming on day 2 when he came to my computer and sat down and just stopped and bugged his eyes out and turned around and asked me if I had changed the ICONs around on the desktop. Yes I told him, I also changed the wallpaper. I just essentially put things in an order that works for me. Now this temp job isn't one that I was there for a day while someone was on vacation, don't think I'm taking libertys like that or anything. This is an open ended temp job that could last over a month potentially until they hire someone to replace the girl they fired. So when I took the Icons from two rows running vertically on the left and put them along the bottom and then started them up the right side, its my perogative. It's not as though there were 100 icons either. There are maybe 15. So after I tell him that yes I did move them around, he tells me that it's best to have the entire office computer desktops EXACTLY the same way so that no matter who sits at who's desk they can find anything they need. Yeah ok whatever! There's FIFTEEN icons...how much longer is it going to take to find what you need??? PLUS the girl I report to told me that her computers icons are totally different too. There's only 5 of us...ooohhh people are running amuck!! There's icons all over the joint!

Beyond that, he gives me a lot of subtle passive aggressive suggestions. Things that say "I AM KING! I AM IN CHARGE...YOU ARE MY MINION!" UGH. Bleck. BARF! Example: After opening all mail for a week he thinks its necessary to remind me that I need to date stamp everything that comes in. This wasnt after forgetting to timestamp something, it was plain old just telling me because I couldnt possibly know that now could I? Example 2: At 12:30 each day he says to me, "Lara, have you gone to lunch?" Now he knows good and well that I haven't because my scheduled lunch is at 12:30 each day. He's pushing me out the door as though I'm a naughty teenager who needs that kind of direction or I might get overtime! Example 3: After a homeowner came in and explained to me that Jill (the girl I report to) had told her they could come to me to be let through to the back room instead of going around the normal way, I led them through. After closing the door, I turn to find that R is standing there looking confused at me. He says, "can't you use the side door?" I tell him what they said and that it was Jill's call and he goes "OHH...OK...DIDNT MEAN TO MICROMANAGE YOU." Yeah WHATEVER!!!! Example 4: Today we opened all the windows and doors as it was a nice day. This was not my idea. This was the other girls ideas. He came back from his meeting and walked in looking confused at me saying, "is the door open for a reason?" The way he says these things is like I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to tie her shoelaces, not to mention manage to do any real work around there without supervision (which by the way they are working me to death! Lot of work in that joint!). Could be that a lot of the above won't sound bad in just reading it, you might have to hear his tone...it's extremely implied. Believe me!

Then there's his little pearls of wisdom. He's got tons of those. Things like, "You should NEVER hold a job interview for longer than 15 minutes!" AND "You should NEVER interview more than 4 people for any potential job." Give me a FRIGGIN BREAK! Maybe if you want to find the BIGGEST idiot on earth! Yeah...that might be the way to go, eh?

Oh and by the way...HE has DONE EVERYTHING! It doesnt matter what your subject is, he's done it! Jill told me that her brother had raced cars earlier in his life, and she no sooner got into it, then R who was listening over the partition pipes in about how HE had raced cars, and guess what? It was even the same type of racing! No we're not talking about standard go out to the raceway each weekend with the locals type of races...we're talking about big time racing. Jill's brother had been Paul Newman's partner, so its whatever type of racing that is! Well R has been a racecar driver, and also a professional photographer as well as a landscaper, a computer programmer, etc etc etc...ohh and he's a FABULOSO COOK. Well hey...you bring something up, he'll have done it! Drives me CRAZY!

Lastly...you want to REALLY make me crazy? Well all you really need to do is have an annoying laugh! This guy is a smoker and he's got one of those laughs that whistles in his throat. THEN it just stops because he's out of breath but he keeps laughing anyhow...know what I mean? I need to escape! I'm trying to remember that my bank account loves this job, and I've committed to staying there until they hire and get someone started in there, so I'm stuck for at least 2 more weeks, probably 3. Lame. That's longer than I've been already! I'm screwed! It's gonna be a Looonnngggg couple or 3 weeks!

Sorry for missing last night. The haunted house night has really messed my internal clock up. I fell asleep in the chair last night at 8:45. I woke up at 1:30am with the TV blaring and all the lights on! My dog had already gone to bed withut me. I found her sleeping in her bed in the bedroom when I stumbled in there. My husband has gone to Texas for six weeks to a school so I'm on my own. Normally he'd have woken me up at a DECENT hour and helped me into bed. Sigh...it's gonna be a long six weeks without him. OHHHH! DANGIT! I missed the last FIFTEEN minutes of 24! I can't believe it!!!!! Anyone out there wanna let me know what happened?

I better get off of here and get into the bed...I'm late for bed tonight! My poor bod's not gonna know what time is bedtime after a few more days of this! I feel jetlagged! Nighty night!

New and Improved Shit-free Blog!

2003-10-27T21:43:00.000-07:00

A whole lot more flavor with a whole lot less shit.

And really people, what could be better?

So I have returned from my trip to Bisbee and I can actually truly say that I am shit free. Yes...I have officially had the SHIT scared out of me!

For those of you who read me regular like (I've been spending a lot of time with my hubby who is from GA in the last 24 hours...can you tell?) now where was I? Oh yes...for those of you who read me...um...REGULARLY...you'll know that I spent the weekend in Bisbee, AZ.

I had an adventure! The entire trip was somewhat surreal. Kinda dreamlike and weird! I went with my friend "C". It was a quick trip down and she even put up with my penny squishin in Tombstone AZ at the OK Corral and Boot Hill and the bird cage theatre!

It WAS cooler down there, but I found that I was so worked up over the haunted hotel we were to stay at that I stayed warm and couldnt cool down! See...I'm a big talker, but when it comes to doing I become a big scaredy cat! My friend "C" however, who had trepidations beforehand, had no problems at all when it came to staying at the hotel. Hmm...weird! She and I are both into photography, so after getting some lunch we walked Bisbee's historic district and shot film. Then we went to the Smithsonian's exhibit which was kinda neat, but not all we expected it to be. Then we went to the hotel and instead of making us fill out any forms to check in, the owner just took us upstairs to our rooms. We only asked for one room, but requested 2 beds. The rooms all had one bed and I snore TERRIBLY so we REALLY wanted 2 beds to put a little distance between the two of us, for C's sake so she offered to GIVE us 2 rooms for the price of one if she wasnt full. And she wasnt. Oh boy she wasn't.

Let me tell you about this hotel. It's called the Oliver House (formerly the Haunted Hotel). It's been around for awhile and there's been a few murders there. Well plus I think at some point Grandma died there because Grandma is one of the ghosts. Those who were murdered there, haunt it because their murderers were never caught. These things happened back in the days of the OK Corral (and that was only six miles down the road by the way) in a time when gunfights were often and murders within the norm. Hang on...that sounds like today in East LA! And people THINK it's wilder now...maybe it's only a perception thing!

Anyhoo...so I know all this before going into the hotel. We get there, they take us upstairs and I realize that it's very quiet in this hotel. There's no people! Just us and the owner! We found out later there was only one other couple staying there, down the hall next door to one of the hotspots (site of one of the murders). My room was directly across the hall from Grandma's room which is another hotspot, and in fact the complete entire other side of the hall is one huge hotspot for some reason. Lots of paranormal activity. When we arrived it was nice and sunny out and I didn't feel anything weird in the hotel. We walked all the rooms, even the hotspots, and I usually get a weird feeling when there's otherworldly shit around! But I felt NADA. We met the other couple staying at the hotel a little later and she was telling me she'd come up with a group from a college the last time. She told me also that one of the people on that trip was a real skeptic, and little did he know but he was put into a room that was Grandma's room. He woke up in the middle of the night and saw Grandma staring at him through his mirror! He said he just stared at her and she eventually faded away. Another woman was staying there with her husband, and he went down the hall to the toilet while she brushed her teeth in the room at the sink. She felt a hand grab her by the shoulder and sort of go down her back. She assumed it was her husband coming back...wrong. He came back a couple of minutes later! So after hearing all this, we went to dinner, and when we returned it had gotten dark. Very dark. And the hall outside our rooms was not lit! THAT is when I started feeling weird shit! No, nothing touched me. Nothing spoke to me. Nothing like that. BUT I could sense stuff around and it scared the Bejezus out of me! I couldnt get my key into the lock fast enough so I went in through C's door. One of my goals was to take photos of the house after dark to see if I could capture any ghostly images on film. So I hooked my camera up on a tripod and set it out in the hall with the doors open and took a few pictures each way with flash and without flash. I'll probably end up with several pictures of NOTHING but empty hallway, but oh well! So then we watched some TV and C decided to go to sleep. So we left the door open between our rooms because honestly neither one of us really wanted to feel THAT alone in this place.

I was nervous about just sleeping in that room on my own. Even knowing that C was in the next room I was still scared. I'd talked about it all too much and I was all worried and nervous and a little excited but still just plain old frightened and scared of the dark! So I left the TV on, it gave me a little added light, and a little noise to muffle any sounds that I did NOT want to hear. I tried to sleep, but I kept thinking about waking up finding a ghost at the side of my bed staring at me. And because of all that I did not sleep a wink. I tossed and turned and felt my heart pounding and several times during the night I felt like I wasn't alone but I was afraid to open my eyes. Then I'd hear something while in a half sleep and my eyes would fly open to find NOTHING. This happened all night long. I was afraid to move because if I did I might draw attention to myself and they might come and get me! I was afraid to hang my feet over the edge of the bed at all because I was afraid a ghost might grab me by the toes. At one point, I must have fallen into a deeper sleep (for at least a few minutes) and I started to dream. In my dream, I was asleep and my camera's flash went off and I thought "OH MY GOD! THERE'S GONNA BE SOME WEIRD SHIT ON MY FILM!" I started to scream out to my friend, "C! C!! THERE'S SOMETHING REALLY BAD HERE!" And then I smelled something REALLY bad. I dont know what it was, and I can't quite describe it, but at this point my eyes flew open to find nothing in the room with me. This dream hasn't faded, it's stayed with me, I don't know if its my imagination or if the dream has any significance, but it was wild. C tells me that I did not really yell out to her either. The minute I saw the first bit of light in the sky I was so relieved that I passed out and started to snore!

I tell you what folks, I won't be a bit surprised to find that I have a photo come back on this roll of film of me sleeping on the bed. It would just freak my shit out, but I won't be surprised!!

The only other strange thing that happened that from that night is that when C went out of her room into the hall the next morning, her door wasn't locked. She locked it alright, I watched her do it. But the next morning, it was not locked.

The rest of Bisbee was lovely, and there's a lot to tell you...but the adventure of the night really took priority in blogging tonight.

Well I am off to bed. My husband is leaving for six weeks tomorrow. He's going to San Antonio for a school so I supposed I should go spend a little time with him eh? Who knows! Maybe I'll get lucky!

Spooky thangs!

2003-10-24T22:09:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning I'm heading out bright and early to a town called Bisbee, Arizona. It's near the Mexican border and is a higher altitude than Tucson and therefore will be cooler. MUCH cooler. Can we get a HALALEAUIA in the house?!

AMEN SISTA!

It was STILL over 100 degrees last weekend here in Tucson. IN THE MIDDLE OF DAMN OCTOBER. This is really unusual for us. We're normally down to the 80's by now. Anyhow, I'm going to a cooler place this weekend! (that's my current mantra)

Also a spookier place! We're staying at a hotel that is actually referred to as "previously the Haunted Hotel". I asked the owner what that was about when I made the reservation and she told me that people feel cold drafts where there shouldnt be one. They feel pushes or hands on their backs and noone is there. She also said that a little boy yelled out OW! And then yelled MOM! That old lady hit me! Later he had a bruise on his head. Perhaps he was being naughty and getting into something he shouldnt have eh?

I plan on taking a lot of photos while there, perhaps I'll have a spooky presence on my photos!!! Broooooahhh ahhh ahhhhhh (supposed to be a spooky laugh, but whatever!)

The real reason we're going is because there's a Smithsonian Institute exhibit that's there this entire month on what people 75 years ago thought the future (our present) would be like. Should be interesting!!

You won't hear from me tomorrow...don't be scared! I'll be back! UNLESS the ghosts REALLY thump me! Then all bets are off. Then it might be ME thumping YOU from the other side if you don't behave and act right!

9:30am

2003-10-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Have already eaten 8 cookies (STILL left over from the board meeting) AND a can of orange soda.

I think I've LOST MY DAMN MIND! Won't someone stop me?

Hot Diggity Blog!

2003-10-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

It's the FLYIIINNNGGG ELVISSESSSSSSS!
Da na NUHHHHH duh nuh nuh nuh nuhhhhh Da na naaaaaa! Duh nuh nuh NUH nuhhhhhh...

My favorite movie of pretty much all time is Honeymoon in Vegas with Sarah Jessica Parker and Nicholas Cage. My favorite scene of said movie is the flying Elvii scene! WHY am I bringing this up after all this time? Is there a reason?

Um. NO.

I believe I've got writers block. Writers HEAD CRAMP something bad. Last night I said I was taking a night off. I couldnt think of anything to blog about, so I didn't! Tonight I'm here again TRYING because Lord knows I can't leave here for too long. Not NOW when I'm starting to see that people DO read this! You LOT must be DEPENDING on me to write!!! It's a matter of life or death Wonderwoman!! Perhaps there's just a WEE bit of pressure. Think?

So from what I've heard one of the best ways of getting rid of writers block is to just sit down and write whatever comes into your mind. This blog will be just that. It may ramble (what else is new!) it may go somewhere unexpected! It may even be boring or make no sense at all! I guess we'll all just see. Won't we? STOP IT! I hear those clicks! It's the clicks of people blogging off of my site!!! GIVE ME A CHANCE WON'T YOU? BASTARDS!!!

The first paragraph is the start of all this...so I'm just continue from there and start again, I'm gonna let it fly folks! Hang on tight! I PROMISE when it's over you'll arrive right back here safe and sound. I don't need any lawsuits for unsafe blogging ok? I'm not going THAT wild!

OK, BEGIN.

.......

right. Now BEGIN.

(crickets)

LAME. One last chance. Here we go. BEGIN!

I was born a poor black child. What? No I wasn't! I was born a white child in Florida. The pan handle to be precise! Where the beaches are like white sugar. Mmm..I need some sugar about now. I'm tired and sugar would give me the lift I need to finish this blog so that I can go to bed! I've got a sugar addiction, have I mentioned that before? Yeah...before noon today I ate approximately 387 cookies left over from some special board members meeting from last night at the home owners association I'm temping at. They were gooo-ooood! I wish I could give up sugar, I really do. My weight might not be such an issue if I could. But I was good tonight. I had a salad to make up for the lunch that I had at Popeyes chicken (well plus all the cookies too). Popeyes chicken is REALLY good, but REALLY greasy and REALLY REALLY fattening! I had a fried popcorn shrimp po boy sandwich. EXCELLENT.

I have just reread the last paragraph. I sound like someone who has taken a LOT of drugs and is ultra hyper from them! Still...its also kinda fun! Continue!

So I met a woman at work. WAIT. All those suddenly interested stares at my blog are making me uncomfortable. Don't get any wise ideas...there's not gonna be any girl on girl action here! PERVS! Anyhow, this woman is brittish and as I've mentioned I lived in the UK. She and I got to talking and she's a fan of my FAVE brit soap, "Eastenders" which BBC America (BASTARDS!!) have taken off the air recently! By the way, there's now over 13,000 signatures on the petition to save Eastenders. If any of you read my blog and went to it via my link and signed, THANK YOU. A few years back I went to London with a group of fellow fans. My buddy that I was meant to pal around with was a girl who I had talked to online a lot. She seemed nice enough, and she worked for a major airline and when I told her I could not afford to go on the trip, she offered to give me a buddy pass so that I could get a cheap flight. I was all over this of course, and took her up on it. Now I had talked to her on the phone many times and knew she was really hyper and a little goofy, but I thought it would be allright.

(HEY! I think I've found my subject tonight!)

I was wrong. It was FAR from allright!

I flew to where she lived in Texas. When I got there she had not told her husband that I was coming! I was meant to be staying with her for 2 days and he did not speak to me the entire time! THEN SHE, the FREAK that I soon found her to be, SCREAMED at him at the dinner table, in front of me and all three children that the "least you (he) could do is talk to her (me)!" I'm sure he really wanted to after that!

The next day she packed her bag for the trip, and I sat in her room with her while she did so. She gets to her panties and she tells me, "I am only taking TWO pair of underwear with me. I have A LOT of underwear, but I only LIKE these two so I'm only taking them! BUT ITS VERY SANITARY, I'M ALSO TAKING MINIPADS WHICH I'LL CHANGE EACH DAY!" Yeah OK sure. GROSS! We were on a 7 day trip. TWO Pair is not an accepted amount to take! AND if you have to take only 2 pair? Don't be telling anyone! PS-not only did I NOT see any pantyliner trash while there, I KNOW she did not wash any panties out in the sink at the hotel either!

Then we flew to London. She managed to hook us up with first class seats. Which admittedly ROCKED my world! How I ever went back to flying coach after that I'll never know! Unbelievable food, twice as many TV/movie/music channels and my own private monitor, my seat would recline totally with a footrest too! AND I got a full length blanket and slippers...AMAZING. So I'm excited to be in 1st class and she turns to me as we're taking off and points to her cheek and says "who got you in first class...give me a kiss!" WHAT? Yes...its true. AND ME THE DIMWIT DID IT. One of those I'm so shocked that I did it without really thinking things. I told her we needed to try to sleep on the plane because jet lag would kick our asses (I've lived that before and it SUCKS!) I slept, guess who did not. We get to london and she was a psycho bitch. When I pointed out a youth hostile that we could stay at next time she looks at me as bitchy as she gets and says, "Lara I am spoiled. I will not stay at a place like that. YOU can stay there if you want, but leave me out of it! I'm too good for that!!!" Yeah whatever BEYATCH!!!

So then we get to the hotel and we check in and meet all the other girls on the trip. That's when I met one of my best friends Jenn. Jenn is HILARIOUS. We all hooked up the next morning for breakfast and Jenn had gotten a full english breakfast including mushrooms which she does not like. FREAKSHOW and I decided to split the shrooms (mighty tasty!). The next day I decided I wasnt in the mood for them and when I told her to take them, she tells me, "NO, if YOU'RE not taking them, I'M NOT TAKING THEM! Harummph!"

One of the things we'd discussed before going was the fact that I didn't have a camera and wanted one for the trip and planned to buy one use cam's. She told me that she had just bought a new point and shoot camera and that we could share. We went out and bought 10 rolls of film together so that we could do just that. I made the point of saying I didn't want to inconvenience her when I wanted to get a shot that was quickly disappearing. She told me, "don't be silly! Just ask me for it and I'll pass it right over!". On a double decker bus, going through piccadilly circus I wanted a photo. I called to her and asked and she glanced at me and went, "uhhhh......hmm.....uhhhhhh......." and didnt pass it to me. I got pissed and was determined to buy a one use at the next stop. But before we got to the Tower of London's gift shop, after we departed the bus she thrust the camera into my hand and said, "HERE. YOU TAKE A TURN CARRYING IT!" Like I was some SLACKER not taking my turn!!!!

Ohhh so many things happened on this trip, I can't possibly name them all...but I'll give you just a few more of the nightmare that it was!

At every turn she would in her loud Texas accent say things to the Britts like, "CHEERS!" "CHEERIO!" "WHAT'S FOR TEA LOVEY!" Not in an american accent. OH NO...in a FAKE...BRITTISH...ACCENT! and then there was things she said to all of us that she had only known through the computer before. Prime example, "ELL OHH ELL!" OK, it was really kinda funny the first time. But the 100th time on day three it got a bit tiresome and not so funny.

We had high tea at the Ritz. THE RITZ in LONDON! So beautiful, ornate, gold, a place where you dress up and speak in hushed tones and use your best table manners! And under no circumstances to you take photos as they are EXPRESSLY forbidden. Make that mistake once and one of the waiters will come up and quietly request that you refrain from photos. Yeah but what happens when you do it THREE TIMES. LOUDLY. AFTER BEING TOLD NOT TO. It was a close call folks. We as a group were nearly asked to leave! Almost kicked out!!!! THANKS FREAK!

We went to a play. When we got to the underground (trains) the door shut before I could get on. She got on with another woman. I told her just meet me at the other end!! So the next train came and I got on. I get off (only 2 stops down) and when I get there, FREAK isnt there! I think well maybe she went out of the station and is waiting on the street. NOPE. Guess who got to walk in the dark alleys of LONDON by herself all the way to the theatre? ME. Guess who didn't even have the decency of waiting outside of the theatre for me? You got it! She went in and was seated when I arrived! (sigh)

Things got so bad that we weren't speaking at one point, and we flew back on the same plane but separately (I was terribly sick, caught the flu in the last day or so). She did not even once come back and check to see that I was even alive in coach while she lived it up in First Class...THEN we deboarded back in texas and she did not wait for me after getting off. I was still really sick and waited for EVERYONE to get off the plane thinking I'd passed her some how and she was still on there. She wasn't. I went to customs, not there either! I got through customs and there she was getting her bag at the baggage claim.. Her husband met us, got out of the car by the curb and hugged her, grabbed her bag and threw it into the trunk. The two of them got into their car, leaving me with a high temperature to deal with my heavy bag. Not even a courtesy "do you need help?". I got into the backseat and slept the rest of the time away in her sons bed, the fever broke sometime during that night thank heaven.

Oh the MISERY!!!

So now you know the story of the Crotch greaser that could. Crotch Greaser is something that my good friend Jenn and I call her now (not to her face...oh no! I don't even speak to her!) because of the panties thing. So gross...yet so fitting somehow!

Vacation Day

2003-10-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

I need one. Yes, from my temp job! I've been there six work days so far and I'm ready to take time off again! I NEED money for my bank account, for Christmas and for my sister's birthday. But I WANT time off! I feel as though I don't have enough time to even make prints of my photo notecards photos so that I can participate in a arts and crafts fair and maybe sell some cards!

So far they havent done one interview on my replacement! I'm screwed man...but then again my bank account isn't. That really probably needs to be a priority for me right now...I'll get the prints made somehow.

Amazing how we all feel we don't have enough time to do what we need to but we all manage to get by anyhow.

Im tired. I got bubkus tonight to blog about.

I'm taking a day off!

There's no such thing as a free lunch!

2003-10-21T22:13:00.000-07:00

So today I was graciously offered to join the group to pizza they'd ordered for lunch. It was a really busy day and the group was having to stay late for an annual home owners meeting. So as many employers will do at times like that, they ordered pizza, I assumed on the company.

This is a small office. My position plus four others. One girl is very anti social. Keeps to herself and goes out walking at lunch. She's nice, she just keeps to herself. The other three were involved in the pizza order. THEY ordered it and they ordered the amount they got. (THREE LARGES for FOUR PEOPLE. What were they thinking???)

So one of the girls comes out and says to me, "Hey Lara, it's a crazy day and with the meeting tonight we're all gonna be working late and so we are ordering pizza so everyone can work through their lunches. Would you like to join us for some pizza?" I was thinking...HOW NICE! and said SURE! All smiles!

So when time came to pay, one of the girls came to me and gave me 2 $20 bills and told me to give it to him and let him keep the change. He arrives, and I do what she said even though the bill is only $32!

We all dig in and when I'm finished eating I hear the manager (who's idea the pizza was!) saying to the girl who gave me the cash, "well don't I get any change?" GREAT (sigh) FABULOUS!

A few minutes later she comes to me and asks me how much I can chip in for the pizza.

Well then I'm sitting there looking like a schmuck! I have no cash on me! I told her that I had intended on debiting at lunch and had no cash but I'd bring some tomorrow!

Can you believe this? So now I've had 2 pieces of cheese pizza and I'm going to have to pay $10 for them! $5 a slice is CRAZY!

When people say there's no such thing as a free lunch...BELIEVE IT!

He's a little bit country...I'm a little bit OCD!

2003-10-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

It's true...and I can admit it a little more each day. I'm a weird-o!

So do you have weird things you do? Maybe you don't tell people that you do them because then they'd KNOW. The truth would come out that you are by and far a weird-o! Well I do have weird things I do. I think that everyone has them, they just don't talk about them! Hmm...maybe that's what makes me weird! I will talk about them!

So what do I do that's so weird? Well one thing that's getting to be not as weird the more time goes by is that I won't touch bathroom sinks or the handles on doors out in public. Too many germs. I'll put my hand under my shirt and pull the door open with it enough that I can pull it open with my leg, or I'll get a paper towel (if there are any) and pull it open with that and then throw that away, but touch the door? Uh no. I'll pass! I KNOW what goes on in places like that! (Just look at my blog from October 18th. THAT's enough to make EVERYONE who reads this turn to my way of thinking!

OK, so what else do I do? I'm very rhythmic and methodical. If I do something that involves tapping the table twice with the left hand, and the right hand is involved in this at all...I will then HAVE to tap the table twice with the right hand. That balances it out you see? That's my whole deal. Everything has to be EVEN or BALANCED. It makes me happy!

When I drive along in my car, if I'm on a sunny road and come to a shady part, I have to blink my eyes (at the same exact time) as we enter the shade, and again when we enter back into the sunshine. Somehow it equates to not stepping on the cracks cuz it'll break your mama's back or something like that. Weird! That's what you're all saying! It's true!

But I know I'm not alone!

There's a blog that I read regularly, and as I recall, he has a thing about how many steps there are going up to his front door...39? I think that's the magic number he came up with! And as I recall, it BOTHERS him a LOT that there's not 40! (Am I remembering this right Charlie?)

My sister has a thing where when she gets into bed, she sits down and both of her feet MUST come up off the floor at the exact same instant or she has to start over. She can't swing them into the bed unless this event happens!

I can't stop reading in the middle of a paragraph. I MUST read to the end of the chapter. It really bothers me if I don't! The whole well where was I? Have I read this page or not? Then you end up rereading shit you've already read! It wastes time! Throws me out of balance don't you see??!!

Know how you drum your fingers on the table when you're bored? I do that too. But when I do it, I have a ROUTINE for drumming. I must keep track of it too. All five fingers from left to right, only the first four from right to left. The middle three, ring finger to middle and just middle, then I do it in reverse, except for I do it opposite because that makes it be balanced! Index to middle. middle three, thumb and middle three and then all five. IF I should lose track of the order, I must start over!

Then there's meal time. I generally can't eat everything all together. I eat certain things in certain order. Rule Numero Uno is that I save whatever in my head is considered to be "BEST" "CHOICE" or the "PRIMO" part of the meal (usually whatever meat we're having) for last. You should always save the best for last! Eat the veggies first, or salad if you're having one. THEN you have your starch (potato noodles etc) then Breads or rolls and finally...the meat! People are constantly bugging me about the way I eat. I've done this for years! I did it in high school, and it really bothers people that I don't mix it up! I do on occasion, why it's ok then I don't know, but it happens! However, just so you know? I'm not to the extreme of not allowing my foods to touch each other, I'm not THAT much of a freak!

I have to pee!

2003-10-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

I can have gone to the bathroom just before departing work for home, I can have gone five minutes ago, but as soon as I drive into my driveway and pull into the garage, I have to go. I think it might be a psychological thing, because it only seems to happen when I have a LOT of things to carry and I'm alone, and therefore have noone to help me with keys in the door.

So I get that feeling like I REALLY gotta pee and start to do the "dance" as I'm walking up to the door. Once I really get walking it goes away, but the second I stop walking I HAVE to pee! I'm squeezing as hard as I can and its working for me, but then when the key doesnt go right into the lock I panic and it gets really bad!

Usually I FINALLY get the key in and door open, but then my dog is there wagging and happy to see me. I THROW EVERYTHING in my arms into the tilt back chair and am running to the bathroom, all the while attempting to get AROUND the dog who only wants to be in FRONT of me to get some pets and to say hello after a long day without me!

While I'm getting around her I'm trying to get the button undone to my pants, or as the case may be, my skirt hiked up, because the SECOND I actually can lock my eyes on the toilet, the feeling I gotz to go TRIPLES!!

If at this point I don't have the pants half way down or skirt mostly up, I'm sunk! It's a sad sad day in the world of grownups when we foresee our old age and at the age of only 36, pee our pants!

(sigh) So how was your day?

I'm a Daddy's girl...

2003-10-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

It's saturday and today BK and I spent a good bit of the day doing yard work. My neighbors were probably looking out the windows at us and saying things like, "Honey! I don't believe it! They're out there working on their yard!!! The CLAMPETTS are cleaning up the yard!!!!!!!! HALLALEAUIA!!!" Yeah whatever! We get to it eventually! We've been waiting until it was less than 150 degrees to do it! Anyhow, the rest of the day was spent in recovery from being out in the 100 degree weather and exerting ourselves so much! Yes the yard looks great but we need to finish it up tomorrow. I can only imagine what they'll be saying about us then when we've been out there 2 days in a row! What I'm trying to say is that I dont have much to blog about, so I thought I'd tell you a story about something that happened to my sister when we were little.

This story involves my father! He wasn't a bad or a terrible dad. He has his moments where we feared him as much as we fear the wrath of God! But he also is funny and a jokester!

I think I've mentioned that my dad LOVED when things would happen to us (me and K) that made us uncomfortable or embarassed. He'd LAUGH and LAUGH! But I don't think I've mentioned that he has a crazy sense of humor!

Even though this story didn't happen to me, it'll be a good start for why I'm the way I am. It will begin to put you on the path of understanding! It also might explain just a few things about my warped sense of humor!

When I was in sixth, seventh and eighth grade, my father was the squadron commander at a base so small that they only had one squadron. This base is in England. One of the perks of being the only squadron is that dad got to act as the base commander in a sense and there were base commanders quarters. The home we lived in was a six hundred year old Priory. St Margarets Priory is what it was called and it was supposedly haunted. So the story goes a nun who lived there found herself pregnant and when they found out they walled her in alive! And because of this she haunts the house! I don't know how true it is, but it sure felt scary! The link I've added to this has a link in it that takes you to another version of who haunts it. Its one I've never heard before but comes from the pre military owners family. Hmm...the part it mentions about footsteps from above when you're alone in the house rings true. I remember that happening! Anyhow...the link will also show you a picture of the priory which is why I've included it! Any house that is that old, drafty and creaky is going to seem haunted. So many people who have lived there over the hundreds of years too, so it makes sense that a spirit or two is hanging around. One last thing before I get on with this story. When you look at the picture, look for the room on the second floor far right side. THAT is the room where the below story happened. It's not the best of pictures, but you can at least see and get the idea of the place.

Anyhow, the house was pretty scary as I've mentioned and not a lot of bright lighting either, so at night it was particularly scary! My sister is 2 years younger than me, so she was pretty little. And she was, well actually we both were afraid of the house after dark. Anyhow, my sister was afraid also of what was under the bed at this stage of the game. So what she did each and EVERY night was turn off the light by her bedroom door and then take a running LEAP into the bed, so that her feet wouldnt get too close to the underneath of her bed where SOMEthing could be waiting to reach out and grab her!

Somewhere along the way Dad found out about this nightly routine of hers.

One night, she leapt into bed, and had taken that deep breath that said, "I'm safe", and had closed her eyes and was just getting to that I'm only half awake stage where you dont know if its dream or real when all of a sudden she hears, "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" and feels hands reaching up and grabbing her from under the bed!!!!

It was dad of course!!

But imagine the scenario, its dark, you're in a house you think is haunted, you're afraid of what may be under the bed, and then you hear screaming and feel hands grabbing you! She didnt sleep in her bedroom for the remainder of our time in England. She took over the guest room between my room and my parents rooms. Dad STILL thinks this is a hilarious story! I kinda laugh too to be honest!

Of course dad's not all jokes. I can remember when we'd get into trouble, or be too loud, or just be bothersome, all dad had to do was give us the "Look". One eye is all we needed to know that we'd be in major trouble if we continued and we stopped! Oh yes...believe me we stopped! He was definately the person who punished us when we were bad. I remember him threatening the belt. However, maybe he wasnt as much a hard ass as previously believed, because while he threatened the belt, I don't remember EVER getting it! And I was a trouble girl, believe me!

I also remember that when my dad would lie in his bed at night before going to sleep, I'd crawl up into it with him while he read his book and I'd just curl up next to him. I always felt safe and happy. I also remember his scar on his belly that I would trace while laying there from when he had surgery for an ulcer he had when I was just a little thing. So the story goes, as they wheeled him into surgery, I spotted him and was yelling and crying, "You leave my daddy alone! Bring him back here!" I was probably all of 2 1/2 or 3 at the time.

He's a great dad! But believe me, there's a lot more to tell. I could turn this blog into stories just about my dad and I'd still be here writing this time next year! So yes, I can admit it...it's true. I'm a daddy's girl!

Hey! Anyone need the bathroom key?? I've got a nice clean one right here!

2003-10-18T01:17:00.000-07:00

Well it's friday! Yahoooo! Let me tell you that while it was a good day I did have something happen that was decidedly NOT cool. Hey C, I KNOW this won't be your cup of tea. Just turn away! Don't look! Any of you with weak stomachs over the least little thing just don't even read this. It's DISGUSTING! (And yet I choose to share with you! My devoted readers!)

Yes, I'm a girl, and girls don't normally discuss things like this but whatEVER! This is MY blog so I can say whatever I want, right? You lot don't even comment so what do I have to be embarassed about by telling you my most intimate disgusting details? Nada mucho as far as I can tell!

AGAIN - C - I know you're reading this...you REALLY might not want to read what I'm about to tell the world! Oh well, don't say I did not warn you! You might just think it's funny and laugh! But if you start gagging or barfing don't say I didn't warn you! In fact, when I see you? Really - we don't even need to mention this ok? heh heh heh...

To use the restroom at the HOA I'm working for, you have to take the pool key and go around through the pool area to the public restroom. So I go and do my business which is decidedly NOT number 1. I'm sitting there happy as a clam playing with the key, flipping it around on its keyring (for some unknown reason this was my form of entertainment at the time!) and all of a sudden I dropped it. I look down between my knees at the floor. Huh? Where is it?!

CRAP!

LITERALLY!

And Um..NO, I did not drop it on the floor!

Now tell me this. What would you do? I can't return without the key because it's a community used key by the entire office of 4 people. They all know that I have it. I can't flush the toilet because they'll be flushed down the toilet! However, to get to it you have to reach your hand into the depths of the toilet below the...err...contents. (EWWWW!)

I did it. My hand did the dive (while wrapped in toilet paper as thick as you could imagine to form a seal between me and the above mentioned contents of the toilet bowl! It was gross! I of course washed my hand, the key and the keyring with soap about 15 times before returning to the office, so no I'm not gonna feel guilty about the others using the key in the future. Of course I won't be sharing this story with them either...they don't really need to know, right?

As I see it I had no other choice. So if you think this is disgusting, then sorry! Remember the warning before the story began? Just tell me what you would have done differently? And please no comments saying, "I'd have never blogged about it, that's what I would do differently!!" Because hey...I've got guts and for some of you this will make for an interesting read! It may have even happened to you at one time or another! And for some of you? You're STILL laughing at me and my bobbing for the toilet key story! And if I've gotten a laugh out of even one person...then it's all been worth it!

Super Strange!

2003-10-16T22:25:00.000-07:00

I'm working for this Home owners association (HOA) at the moment. It's an open ended temp job until they hire someone for the position I'm sitting in. It seems to be a great office! However, because I also have my own HOA I know how these places work. There's tons of strange rules that you have to abide by, because they believe it'll keep our value on the properties going up.

Example one (from my own HOA). You may not leave your garage doors open unless you are entering/exiting or working in said garage.

Example two (also from my own HOA): If you do something to your house that your neighbor deems inappropriate or even just plain UGLY in his or her opinion, they can ask you to take it down and you HAVE to. Doesn't matter if the entire rest of the neighborhood likes it, if your neighbor can see it from his place and doesn't care for it, it's toast!

Third of all, you must have all four tires of any vehicle parked in your driveway on the DRIVEWAY. While this one doesnt sound too crazy, because you don't want the clampets moving in and parking all over the yard, but still folks, there's that and then there's us, let me explain. My husband would park his truck to the far right of our driveway so that when I backed out of the driveway, he wouldnt impede me from leaving. His two right side tires were BARELY in the rocks to the right of the driveway, and we received a letter from our HOA telling us that we were out of REG and must change our parking ways! We even pay these JERKS $60 a month for this!!!

However, even with these strict rules, I have come to realize that mine is not so bad!

The place I'm temping at has even crazier rules!

They will not allow anyone to park next to the curb!!!! NO ONE! Someone just stops by to see your neighbor and parks in front of YOUR house? YOU WILL get a letter telling you that you're in violation and will have to pay a fine! IF you know someone is coming by to see you, you have to CALL the HOA and let them know that someone may be out front. If its after office hours you call and leave a message! What the F??? All day long today we received calls from angry homeowners because they'd received letters from one of the girls (the one who looks like the ogre princess in Shrek!) with their fines! Of course SHE called in SICK today! I think she knew the public rage was coming! Part of her job is to drive around 2 nights a week and take photos of the cars parked on the curb and also of any weeds (because yes, you will get fined if you have any visible weeds from the street!) I'm sure that's just the beginning of the craziness at this particular HOA, but for now it's an amusement to me!

The seniors had their weekly meeting today too. They rent out a room each thursday morning for a few hours. They all get together and play games, bingo, plan outings, go to dinner, hit the casino or whatever! Kinda cool! However, the room they rent is right behind (actually attached to) our offices and they all come on through there before and after the meeting. They love to come in and complain and just plain old JAW for awhile in our office! Some of them were really nice but then some of them were crochety too! I guess that goes for any age though.

Also today we had a home owner come in with his sample of our pool water. Claiming that it's not good enough to swim in! Went on and on about it, even when we told him our pool people had been there that morning and tested it and it was fine!

I swear I bet this is nearly as bad as what you'd find in an apartment complex! Still...makes for good people watching!

Better hit the sack!

Good night!

ps-thank you Blogger! 2 nights in a row of no problemos with the blogs! Yippee!

Happy Happy! Joy Joy!

2003-10-15T22:07:00.000-07:00

God Bless Blogger!!!!

I'm so happy I could cry! Well not literally...I'm just thrilled to death that my blog is up and running as it's supposed to be! I had a small crisis the other day...Oh...well yes, I guess you did read my last blog then didn't you? You KNOW that I threw a Small tantrum then. Just a WEE one. OK, well anyhow. We don't need to mention that unpleasantness now do we? I didn't think so! Cuz you people can really just go somewhere else if you need to mention the below blog and my cussing like a sailor! SOME people just have NO couth! heh heh heh...anyhow.

So AFTER the below mess happened, I rebuilt my entire site AGAIN (twice in the same day). I was up until 3:30am that night working on it. THEN the blessed thing decided to do tha FREAK and wouldnt publish! I wrote a quick email to blogger customer support and those wonderful people checked my site out and EVEN fixed my problem with the archive links (the first 2 weren't working!)! Blogger is SO GREAT! Have I kissed ass enough now? I screamed about them in my last post so I thought I should make it up now that it's all working. OHHH and plus I got smart finally! I copied my entire template, so that if the thing does tha freak on me again, all I gotz to do is cut and paste it back in! TA DA!!! Yahoo! Lara finally gets it right!!! Yay for me!

So today I started an open ended temping job. It's not the long term job I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, that seems to have fallen through for the moment. This is to fill a spot for someone who was fired yesterday. I will be sitting in her chair until they hire someone else (or until they realize that they don't have such a great thing sitting in the chair temping for them! But we won't give them the link to this blog...we'll let them figure that out for themselves won't we!) However, this one pays pretty well and is actually close to home! I'm working for a home owners association, answering phones and doing admin work for them. It was actually fun! I get these home owners association calendars each month from my own HOA and today I got to put one together! It was fun!! Tomorrow I will be typing in more of the text into the newsletter for December! I'm gonna be a FAMOUS newspaper writer! ha ha OK I have been in the newspaper bidness...no thanks! I had enough thank you! But it's still fun to play once in awhile isn't it?

So the people that I worked with today were nice. One of them though looks like the princess in Shrek. It's that cartoon movie with the ogre and the donkey (played by Eddie Murphy). She is a really pretty girl, but her ears stick out and she looks a LOT like the princess when she was the ogre at night! It was bizarre! Except that she wasn't green of course!

Kinda funny though, about five minutes after arriving today the girl I report to had probably noted that I had a half a brain in my head and was already urging me to apply for the job! I told her that I'm not looking for a job, that I'm a photographer and she resigned herself to that fact. THEN later on in the afternoon when I asked her if there'd been a lot of response to the ad that they'd placed for the position, she asked me again if I would be interested in applying! The pay is pretty good, but I told her I really did not think it would be fair to them to apply for it and get it and then want to travel as much as I do! I might be missing out on a great job that's close to home (I can leave at 7:45am and be there by 8! Now THAT's AWESOME!), but I have to risk it in order to stay on what I feel is the right path for me for right now!

So anyhow, I must get to bed now that I'm a working woman...no life of leisure for me! At least not until they hire their new person! Later kids! Be good! Do the right thing ~ you know what that is. It's the thing that your conscience is nagging you to do but you don't want to because there's something better, or at least more SINFUL, that you'd rather do! Oh hell...do the fun thing! Life is too short!

I DON'T F*#%#@G BELIEVE IT!!!!!

2003-10-14T02:37:00.000-07:00

I know that noone beyond me will see this, at least not until I FIX this bastard again! But at this point in time my blog is COMPLETELY BLANK! HOW FRUSTRATING!!!!!!!!! I worked for hours today to add back my counter, my comment box, and a few of the powered by boxes and links to blog rings...HOURS! When I left it was all cool and working! Here I am tonight, ready to give you a real blog and now THIS BULLSHIT HAPPENS!

AGAIN!

If you've been reading my blog you know that I've been having a LOT of trouble with blogger. I think I'm just seriously not meant to have anything complicated with this blog. I can probably manage a comment box and a counter, but that's it. I shouldn't even try to expand my audience, I shouldnt try to link to blog webrings, I should just NOT EVEN BOTHER!!! All that happens is that half my template goes missing (AGAIN!) and I have to rebuild the entire FRICKING THING! If you want to see my head explode, let me rebuild it one more time and then have it happen again! I'm about to leave blogger! I'm so upset and mad!!!

WHYYYYYY!!!!!!!! MotherF*#@#%@!!!!! Son of a BITCH!!!!!! God damn asshole shitting blogger!!!!! Whew! So ok I feel some better now that I've thrown a few curses around...man you should have heard what my husband got to hear...it was BAD! He popped his head in mid rant and quickly told me he was headed to bed early if I needed him. I think he was trying to stay out of my way in case I went after him in a fit of FURY!

I learned to cuss from my dad. And let me tell you...Dad knows how to cuss like a sailor!!!!

We used to live next door to a minister and his family. Good decent church going people! I babysat for them, as did my sister. They were nice. Sunday afternoon football would come on (or whatever sport there was at that time of year) and my dad would just go to it! SCREAMING at the TV! SCREAMING obscenities like YOU'VE probably NEVER heard! Mom would slide by the TV and close the back door (which was cracked for the swamp cooler to be able to work). Then she'd go and close each window in the house.

I'm SURE that my neighbors STILL heard the torrential RANTINGS of my father screaming things like you DIRTY MOTHERF&*#(%NG CO#*%@(()%@#ING GOD DAMN N*(^@@#$!!!! These were words he never used at any other time! These were SPECIAL occasion Offensive words! Reserved only for the finest sporting events gone wrong! I'm ashamed to admit that it happened, however it was great training for me when things like this Goddamn bullshit F*#()NG happens!

ARRRGHHHHH!!!!!!!

Almost a week!

2003-10-12T20:04:00.000-07:00

Well here I am.

My pouting is over, though I havent yet recovered half of my shit, I'll just have to deal with it! Every night I've logged onto the computer and said, "Hmm...shall I blog? NO! I'm STILL PISSED!" and then I'd just do all my other computer stuff. Day after day I was still angry! I don't think I'd be quite this upset if a few weeks ago my blog hadn't been all messed up and I had to get help from them again. I swear...I leave and everything is fine...I come back the next day and everything's a FREAKING MESS!

ONTO NEW SUBJECTS!

So I've been gone for 5 days. What in the world has happened to me in that time? Incredibly, very little. I worked on Friday for a company where my friend R temped for 6 weeks. I had heard so much about these guys, that I felt I already knew them! Kinda bizarre! Beyond that, I picked up three more rolls of film. The last of my San Diego pics ~ Yay!! They turned out great! My sunset pics are AWESOME!!! You can find the ones I have posted at www.fotolog.net/koolchick/ I post a new photo each day there, so check back and see what's new!!

Today I went to Nogales, Mexico with R and her boyfriend's mother who is visiting for a week. It was fun! Mexico always is! Got all the usual, "Supermodel!" "You want a mexican boyfriend?" and to R's mother in law "Are you three SISTERS?" These mexicans! I tell you! They totally know how to make you feel good! Even if you do know that they're just saying it to get you to buy from them! Still all the haggling was great! I love that! Somehow I ended up spending WAY too much on this Talavera salamander. It's really cool, but I'm sitting here looking at it wondering now why I bought it! Ugh! I've become a tightwad! This time last year I would have bought it and never given it another thought! Of course this time last year I was RAKING in the bucks. That's ok, I'm so much happier now that I'm not working full time! Temping is getting me by and it gives me time to work on my photography!

Speaking of which...I've got SO MANY prototypes now! I'm really loving these notecards I've done! I've got to narrow it down now to only the BEST ones, and then make a LOT of them so I have them ready if someone decides they do want to sell them in their shop for me! R gave me another great idea. There's always arts and crafts shows in town. I should get a table at the next one and sell them! I could make a KILLING! Also, she suggested that I get either the same size (4x6) or blow them up to 5x7s and add a mat and a frame to them and then sell those too! I probably could sell them with a matt only! Let them get their own frames!!! Great thoughts!

Well this is probably a cop out blog, but I've got some powered by boxes and a few other things to find and figure out how to put them in again!

And Yes I do realize...

2003-10-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

...that blogger is a free service, but if free means that every 3 months they're gonna dump half of my blogs, links, counter, comment box and all other shit then I may have to find another free service that doesn't! I'm FURIOUS! AND FRUSTRATED! AND FURIOUSLY FRUSTRATED! <--ok does that even make sense? I DON'T EVEN CARE RIGHT NOW!

Early blogs are GONE!

2003-10-07T22:23:00.000-07:00

OK, so blogger lied to me! They said all my archives were there and my early ones are GONE! This really ticks me off!!!!! The links are there but when you click them, they say that the pages don't exist! GREEEAAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm too pissed to blog tonight! I've been sitting here for an hour and a half trying to fix something that I didn't even mess up! (trying to put back my links and my comments and my counter...an hour and a half later I've got the counter back. UGH!) I'm HTML Illiterate and this is a pain in my ASS!

One positive thing happened today, it rained! Yay for rain! But it doesn't make me happy enough to continue to blog, I'm mad at blogger today and I just won't do it!

The joys of blogging!

2003-10-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

So I received a message from blogger today. Hoorah! My archives are there, they are just missing from the template! They told me that SOMETHING must have happened to delete HALF of my template. GREAT! They told me to just go back and pick a template again and itll all show up again. EXCEPT that my links and my comment box and probably my counter box are gone AGAIN! I will have to put them in AGAIN! So so so very lame!!!! HOWEVER, at least my archives are back...that's the really important thing!

I did nothing today. OK I did a little, but it's essentially nothing! I'm still recovering from club crawl I believe. One night being up til all hours really takes it out of you! So I finally ventured out this afternoon and went to a scrapbookers store very near to me. It's actually a really nice store, and very close by too. I got to talking to them about my adhesive issue. My notecards look fab except that the adhesive doesnt hold on all of them and I dont know why! Anyhow, I showed them my cards and they got me pointed in the right direction adhesivewise, and then I told them that while I'm not quite there, I eventually want to sell them. They told me that I should talk to the owners of the store when the time comes because they support local artists on occasion. Then one of the people who owns it arrived and they introduced me. I showed her my cards and she agreed about which adhesive they pointed me towards and then she said nothing. I guess one of the girls had told her what I was up to and how I want to sell them eventually, and she said NOTHING. I'm not going to take that as a negative as she did tell me that they were really very nice, beautiful even. I'm just going to have to believe that she was waiting for me to bring it up with her. Which I will when I've got them really ready to go!

Anyhow, I've had a thought on a completely different subject. This is something that's bothered me for YEARS! Why is it that when someone with an accent, whether it's english, scottish, irish, australian, or whatever starts to sing, they all sound AMERICAN? Where does their accent go? Why would it change when they start to sing? Do you know why? Me neither.

Another day...another day without a sidebar, links or archives!

2003-10-06T01:23:00.000-07:00

OK, so when did I bitch about my sidebar going missing? THURSDAY? I emailed the folks at blogger and explained my predicament. "I wrote a blog on Wednesday night and my sidebar was there after I published, everything was fine, and I logged in on Thursday and it was gone. All of it gone! Panic! Panic!" I get a message from Blogger saying they've received my message and will get to it as soon as possible. Usually this is followed with a note that says to be patient because paying customers come first. HOWEVER, its now been since THURSDAY, FOUR DAYS and I've not heard another word. I think I'll be patient for a few days more. I'm sure these folks are busy and as I'm a non paying customer, I'll just give them a few more days before bugging them with a repeat email.

So today was a day filled with complete hermitness. Except on the phone. I slept until after noon. I only woke up then because Bryan woke me up to tell me how late it was (what a guy! He didn't want me to mess up my sleeping schedule by sleeping too long!). I remained in my pajamas and actually stayed in the nice dark hole of my bedroom with the blinds closed and the tv on and in the darkness I remained like some sort of odd nocturnal animal! I have noticed that as I've gotten a little older that if I stay up to some ungodly hour I feel like SHIT the next day. I feel like I partied all night long last night, when in actuality I only had 2 beers well before midnight! And yet I feel hungover! Crazy!!!

So I have looked up miss Candye Kane and she is indeed a porn star! She also starred in HBO's sexflicks or Sexsomething or others, 3 episodes even! It wasnt reel sex but I think HBOs reel sex pulled from this sexflicks or whatever it was called for a few of their segments! She's even been on a lot of TV shows and radio shows and is currently touring the world!

So my show that was cancelled so rudely by BBC America last week, Eastenders, is no longer on the air. This was the first Saturday without it and I lived. People aren't giving up though! Our little internet fan club has managed to get 2 of their advertisers to pull their advertising from BBCA! We've also managed to get written up by the LA Times and also Seattles newspaper, not to mention 3 or 4 brittish magazines/newspapers. **note if you go to the link attached to written up, look for the link to fanatics for the letters. This website is not my group, its a smaller group within our group but they have the articles posted** We're being noticed! Our petition now has over 9000 names on it too! The girl who started that is going to drop off the petition in person to the powers that be in London this week apparently! I sure wish we could get over 10,000 names on there! Please sign it if you haven't yet. Even if you don't watch, do it for me! You can be my new best friend ok?

So after a day of pure hermit behavior, I'm now WIDE awake at ONLY 1:20am! Crap! Oh well, the cash I earned yesterday was worth this! Better go and try to sleep...peace out!

Club Crawl Lesbo Action

2003-10-05T04:18:00.000-07:00

I have not been here since Thursday. Wow. Well there's a very good reason for this! Honest! Friday night I was getting ready for the twice yearly yard sale. We aren't allowed by our HOA to have yard sales except for twice a year, and the entire community does it at once. On the one hand it's kind of a pain because you can ONLY do it on their dates and if you miss it you're screwed! On the other hand, you get a LOT of people coming for it because it's advertised as a community yard sale and people come by the droves! We managed to make $250! I couldn't believe it!! And that's NOTHING! One lady came from around the block and said that she'd made $700 in the first hour!

So anyhow, this morning was the yard sale, and we did pretty well. It was hot, but that didnt stop us! We sat in the garage in the shade and chilled! Then when we finished up, we cleaned up the yard sale mess and came in the house and took naps. Both of us had to work tonight. Bry had to work a regular shift at the base, and I had to work Club crawl.

I just got home from Club Crawl and it's like after 3am. I'm freakishly tired, but I feel the need to purge myself of my little adventure. It's always freakfest at club crawl. There are people with mohawks and every kind of piercing or tattoo you can imagine! There are old people, young people, fat, thin, HOT, pure SKANK, and tons of hoochie mamas! So as you can imagine there's tons of drunk people too. Plenty of people watching opportunities!! So towards the end of the night, I realize there's a band check that hasnt been delivered and that the band is playing so I take the check to the band, and stand there for the last 15 minutes of the set so I can pay them. They're from out of state so I don't want to hassle with getting their check to them after the fact. The band name sounds curiously familiar. It's the name of the woman who is their lead singer, and her name is Candy Kane, or some other variant of the spellling of those two words. She looks familiar, but she's singing, which doesnt seem right for her. I keep thinking she's a porn star, but I don't watch porn, so how would I know? There's a show on HBO called Real Sex and I keep thinking that she's been in one of their little sections of that show, now that feels right! So anyhow, I don't really know, that little discussion keeps happening in my head over and over and honestly I still don't know the answer to it! Let me tell you what happened though...crazy!

So the band finishes up. What a last 15 minutes it was too. Singing about how god is a woman with a sense of humor, and AMEN to multiple orgasms! And how PUSSY is the new buzzword for awesome and how Club crawl is really PUSSY! And how It rocked so hard it's just a JUICY PUSSY!!! And I notice that there's this general theme to all her songs about women! Hmm...and sure enough as I look around there's TONS of butchy butch types of girls around. Let me describe her to you too. She's got long brown or blonde hair (sorry...i'm THAT tired that I can't remember which!) and she's a heavy woman. She's wearing a bustier and folks, I saw her put the microphone down into her cleavage and then proceed to fake fellatio on it!!! Her boobs were hanging all over the place too...she practically fell out of her bustier! So anyhow, the show ends as I said. They say that there are CDs for sale and you can buy them from her at the side of the stage. So I take this chance and get to her before her ADORING presumably lesbian fans do, so that I can give her a paycheck. I say hi and tell her where I'm from and that I've got a check for her. She tells me that she needs to cash her check. A. We're not a check cashing place, and B. her check is in the four digits! So I look at her and she goes JON said I could. Jon is the promoter of this event, so what he says goes. I tell her that's fine, but I can feel the irritation in my body towards this woman because she was SNOTTY. I go back to our headquarters and cash the check and take it back to her, but now I need a signature on the back signing the check over to us so we can deposit it. So when I get back to her, she's surrounded with adoring fans of most genders, well ok, one in particular, but I'll let you just GUESS which one. I see her shoving cash down her bustier, I'm guessing for a CD someone bought from her.

THEN SHE SEES ME.

She stops what she's doing between customers and says, "Hellooo Beautiful! I suppose I should take care of you." Then she smiles and she's acting totally different from before when she was so snotty. She's acting like she's still in character, and on stage (surrounded by fans is enough for that I suppose) and she tells the audience that she LOVES them but she must take care of me first, because, after all I have her paycheck. So I tell her that I would like for her to count what I gave her to make sure it's correct before I walk away. She goes, "well beautiful, if its wrong we can get together later to correct the problem!" But the way I've written it doesnt tell you how it was said. You know how you watch TV and there will be a scene where a woman is overly dramatically sexy and you see her slide her tongue over her teeth or lips and practically orgasm while talking to whoever? Well that's how she was talking to me...I was like hello beautiful?

Not that I don't think I'm beautiful (OK, I have my doubts, but I know I ain't BUTT!) but let me just explain to you what she saw when calling me beautiful! She saw a girl who is all sweaty and red faced, hair sticking to her head in a ponytail that's not in very tight and half of it's fallen out! Also, this same girl has been in several super hot a million degrees clubs and now probably also smells like sweat or pot because of being in said clubs. So when she said Helloooo beautiful! All sexy and then continued like that I was like HUH? Complete and total confusion on my face! First of all, its a chick hitting on me, second of all, I'm married so these things don't happen to me, or at least not nearly so often! Third of all my appearance is something other than what you would expect ANYONE to find appealing, and Fourth of all, IT'S A CHICK HITTING ON ME! Yes I said that one already, but it's a major one, you gotta admit! Oh and the last thing is that she was SO SNOTTY when it was only her and I talking and her adoring fans weren't around!!! No she wasnt just being sarcastic when she said it either! It was "I want to have a one night stand with you" kind of talk. Or at least that's what I would be thinking if it was a man saying it to me that way.

I'm gonna have to look her up and see if I can find out exactly who she is, and if she really is who I think she might be! Not that I'm interested THAT WAY you have to know. Oh no. This is closer to freakishly fascinated gotta find out more kind of interested.

Bizarre night!

Where is my sidebar?

2003-10-02T22:58:00.000-07:00

I got an email from a friend today. "Hey did you know that you have no links?" Umm...NO I didn't! I check out blogger and they did have trouble this morning and took out our archive pages, but also say that they have corrected the problems and they should be back! This doesnt explain why MY LINKS aren't there. Archives not being there I'd understand, but half my template is gone too. GRRRR!!!! I don't think i"m blogging tonight, not a real blog that you're all salivating for I'm sure. I also checked out everyone else who I read. THEY ARE ALL THERE, in their ENTIRETY! It's just that I'm tired and half my shit isnt here! (And apparently I'm a bit whiney too.) Maybe it'll be fixed tomorrow. I did write to the support folks.

I dont feel very creative tonight. Can you tell?

The SNAKES! They're CHOKING ME!

2003-10-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

When you feel them tightening around your neck, you realize you should never have gone there!

Well today I walked into the newspaper that I used to work for, and returned to work. Can you believe that? I walked out of there last April as HAPPY as I could be to escape and today I walked back in to go back to work!

Do you believe me?

Well you shouldnt! I did return, but I didn't return for good! Twice a year they hold an event that I have been asked to come back to help them with. It was strange walking in there though, and sitting down at a computer and using all the same passwords and working in their accounting system again. It was almost as though I'd never left. It felt as though a day had not gone by, and that some strange person was inhabiting my desk and had moved all my stuff around! Very odd!

I did have a lot of people coming to see me to welcome me back! I was like, "Whoa nellie! I wont be here long, don't get too used to seeing me here!"

So much has happened there, and people are turning on each other, and within 15 minutes the happiness of being somewhere I felt so welcome and comfortable turned to relief that I don't work there every day of the week! Even the NICE ones have gotten some of the poison! It's the poison that the only remedy is to get out! Get out while you're still alive!!! I had the poison once. It makes you angry, and ugly and unhappy! That's the sign of either too much work, too much corporate pressure, or just management not taking care of their people.

I remember those days! I do! I also remember smiling as I drove out this afternoon, knowing that I am not a permanent member of this team any longer! I am IMMUNE to the poison!!!

Fancy Schmancy!

2003-10-01T01:41:00.000-07:00

Sir, please don't eat directly off your knife!

So today was a lunk day. I did nothing, nothing productive at least. I didnt work on my cards, I didn't do ANYTHING unless you call staring at the tube productive. Well I guess it was productive! It WAS! It helped me to shrink the smart part of my brain just that LITTLE bit more! I'll be brain dead before long and I think we'll all know why!

So it was lunk day until about 6pm when we got all dressed up and went out to eat. We didn't go to our usual "you can wear anything" type restaurant. Oh no. We decided to go all out and go to the REALLY fancy fine dining establishment that Tucson is proud to have. Well I don't know about proud, it would have had to have done something GREAT to be proud of it, right? Well WHATEVER!

So we got dressed up! We had 6:30 reservations at a place I'll just call Kanos (sounds like it but one letter is changed, anyone from Tucson will know where I mean). So I think I've mentioned that Tucson is a casual kinda city. We don't get too dressed up for too much. It's not quite as casual as Florida was, but it's a close second. So we get to this place and I walk in and it's VERY formal. Beautiful artwork on the walls and the staff are just SO DRESSED UP. I'm already having flashbacks from last week's ALS graduation and feeling pains in my stomach! However, we're seated and we're psyched because we have a $50 gift certificate that we won last year in the monthly drawing from our mortgage company! We're thinking that $50 is gonna get us far and we're gonna just CHOW down! Right??? Remember, if you live in NY City OF COURSE this isnt gonna get you much, you're east coast! I'm talking podunk tucson! I've never been to a restaurant in this town that you can't get dinner for 2 plus probably desert and MAYBE a beer or two for more than $50!

Well, I have now been totally corrected. When we opened the menus our jaws hit the ground! We've been on a bit of a budget due to my lack of regular work, we make our bills and have a little left over, but we still need to be, umm - careful. Know Whu Ahm Sayin? And when we saw that the LOW END of the menu for the dinner entrees was $30 we were like UH OHHH. We chose not to have the $9 glasses of wine! I bet it would have been fab! Oh yesss! I'm sure it would have been just as smooth as you please! But not for $9 a glass and up! We drank water. And I'm sure our waiter was saying to himself, "great! I got the losers who can't afford to be here but are gonna fake it anyway! There goes any hope for a tip from them!" So anyhow, have I mentioned that the $30 does NOT include a dinner salad??? AND the dinner salads, the small ones are ONLY $7.50! DAMN! That's as much as a LARGE lunch around here!!!

I felt compelled to try to remember all my best manners. I caught myself telling Bryan (poor bry!) things like, NO! Don't just get a dob of butter and then proceed to butter your bread and come back for more. You need to get enough to butter your entire piece of bread and place it on the plate so that you don't have to double dip! And when I told him that something tasted good, something that he had very near to his knife, he stabbed it and ate it off his knife. I almost fell over! I'm such a nag! Oh and when the waiter asked Bryan if he was interested in a glass of wine with dinner, Bry said, and I quote, "No, I think I'll just HANG with the water!" I had to laugh at that one! Then of course Bryan seemed to feel the need to speak in hushed tones and I (being half way to deaf!) had to say WHAT? and make him repeat himself the entire meal! Oh this was very much like the Beverly Hillbillys walking into a fancy restaurant! (sigh) Well I guess we tried!

I do have to say, that while it was expensive, and hoity toity, it was also FABULOUS! We ended up spending an additional $50 beyond our gift certificate, including tip, which I think was getting off easy considering the service. These people would be right there to fill our water glasses as soon as we took about 2.5 sips! They placed a napkin in my lap for me! They removed our dirty plates as soon as we had the last forkfull half way to our mouths!

But the food...ooh myy godddd! Orgasmic!!! In the salad was pinon nuts which I love! Then the waiters assistant came to the table and brought us, compliments of the chef, duck breast with some sort of a sauce on it with pasta salad that looked like rice. (It kinda rocked my world!) Plus the best part was that it was free - err - complimentary! For my main entree, I had the swordfish which was served on a banana leaf, with bananas that had been marinated in some sort of a rum coconut sauce and then there were fried plantains too. It was very different but EXCELLENT! Bryan had salmon with shrimp and some sort of a pesto in the middle of his salmon...he ate every bite and he's not a huge fish eater either if that tells you anything! They brought bread to the table and the blue corn rolls were so good I would have done anything to have received a basket of NOTHING but them! And then after we quietly declined desert (each desert ONLY $9!) they brought us little complimentary bite sized desert bites! Couldnt even tell you what they were, but chocolate was involved and it was great! Ahhh...it was soo good! I would love to be pampered like that again some day, but it's gonna be awhile! We've gotta pad up our savings account a little bit more before going back!

But here's the thing that's been nagging at me. We felt as though we were jumping through hoops just to eat there. Why? Did we not pay $100 (well it would have been had we not had a gift certificate)? Shouldnt it be the other way around? If we're paying for this wonderful food and service, why do we feel the need to cater to them, the workers of Kanos, the WAITERS and BUSBOYS. Seems kinda dumb doesn't it? There comes a time when you have to say that the guy standing in front of you wearing practically a tux, that you're trying to act a certain way around is ONLY a waiter. You are paying him to serve you, so shouldnt they be kissing our asses instead of what we were doing; which was a pretty good impression of ass kissers so that we wouldnt be thrown out like the Clampetts from their fine dining establishment! Hmm...points to ponder!

Work? I thought I was a bum!

2003-09-30T00:16:00.000-07:00

The temp agency called me today. I think I must be getting used to my life of leisure because the job they've got for me is a longer term temp assignment while someone is on maternity leave. It'd take me up to at least Thanksgiving presuming I start next week. When I heard the message I got a lurch in my stomach and got all freaked out!

That means I'll be working an 8-5 M-F gig for a couple of months. NOOOOOOO!!!!!

On the other hand, I've been wondering where the cash for the holidays was going to come from, and this would be a virtual cash cow for me until then, would get me going on xmas gifts and money would be good for awhile. Hmm...what to do?

I see no other option except to take the job and become a regular working gal again for awhile.

Just the thought of working for WEEKS and WEEKS on END makes me feel all claustrophobic and smothered! I'm sure I'll live, I'll probably even get used to it and then be all stressed about money again when the job is over! Ha! I'll laugh the day that happens!

In the mean time I'm still working up my photo notecards. I saw the one being sold in a local photolab and it's practically identical to what I'm doing! I also bought envelopes today so the next thing I need to do is get a bunch of photos printed up so I can start making cards! Will anyone buy them? We'll see, I may take them around to some local touristy attractions or the botanical gardens and see if they would sell them in their gift shop. Who knows.

Not feeling particularly witty tonight. My favorite of all favorite brittish soap has been taken off the air by BBC America! I'll never see Alfie again! (see August 24ths blog) For that matter I'll never EVER get to see my show gain! I've watched it for YEARS! I've actually been watching since 1991! Very sad day. BBCAmerica also gave us no notice, they put a note on their website (yeah like who checks that on a daily basis!) ONLY TWO DAYS before it last aired! THEN on the day of, they made a quick announcement that it would be the last show. MotherF&#@*#$!!!!!! There was a chat today with the director of programming who said that they knew as early as LABOR DAY that they were cancelling on 9-27-03 and STILL did not announce it! There's even a petition (please sign!!!) and letters and faxes and people in my internet fan club in a major uproar!!!! Some of them are a bit out of hand. Last I heard there was even talk of a class action suit! I'm like yeah ok you need to take a prozac and get over this! Class action suit worthy its not! Still, it doesnt make me happy in the least. Good thing I'm behind AGAIN on my tapes and I still have about six weeks left before the end of Eastenders is over as I know it. :(

Scrapbooking must be the modern woman's prozac!

2003-09-28T22:56:00.000-07:00

Well I went to the scrapbooking store today to load up on some card stock. I went with my friend C and it felt GOOD to buy so much for so little. Well it wasn't so little, not really, but if hadn't had to buy the paper cutter I would have been feeling like I got a WHOLE LOT for only a little!

Now the next question is did I buy anything that I can do anything with? I didn't have any photos with me to match up and say HEY that works! I just picked out a bunch of different colors. I guess this is just how it goes though as I don't know which of my photos I'll try to turn into note cards. I'm excited though to play with my new paper cutter, however I'm holding off making anything until I know if I can get the right sized envelopes for the size of card I'm wanting to make!

You should have seen the scrapbook ladies! They were having a meeting or a scrapbook party or something. Maybe a class? In the next room. Anyhow, once in awhile one of them would come out and grab a piece of colored paperstock. They all seem so happy. I think scrapbooking must be their prozac! You should have seen the happy gleam oozing from their eyes! Of course what can I say as I too was in colored paper heaven! I too had the happy gleam coming from my eyes!

After I got home I was so excited that I just HAD to show Bryan what I got! He was like YAY TEAM ~ BASTARD! But I'm sure that might have something to do with the fact he worked from 7pm until 7am this morning and was tired. Yeah...that MUST have something to do with it! I bet he'd get the happy glow too if he had a full nights sleep! All the rest of the day I kept glancing into the kitchen and seeing the bag on the counter, and I'd get the happy glow all over again and the excited feeling in my stomach!

It's amazing the things they have for scrapbooking these days too! You can buy little stained glass windows, and little old fashioned looking dresses (in miniature of course) you can buy things to emboss, paint, stencil, stamp, cut designs with, make cutouts of...its amazing and it doesn't end there. There's a whole OTHER world of stickers and beads and wires too...my paper purchase is just the tip of the ice burg! Ohhh yesss, this is the creative person's MECCA.

I loved it! Got major excited pangs in my stomach! C was in her element as well, I think she got the happy gleam too, but I'm not sure as I had eyes full of happy gleam and saw nothing but what I was buying!

Suzie homemaker washed the happy gleam out of her eyes after getting home, and had to put on her chef's hat to make the casserole for the little girl in the hospital's family. What did I make? I'm so high class! I made something called white trash casserole! I made 2 of them as I couldn't take this to them having never tasted it before. We had it for dinner and I think there'll be enough for several more days worth of meals. I even made it in a 2 quart casserole dish which isn't as big as what I normally cook in, but it's deep. This thing must be 3000 fat grams per serving! It has macaroni and cheese, ketchup, a package of liptons onion soup mix, a can of corn (small can), ground beef (I used turkey) brown sugar, tomato sauce, and a TON of cheese in it! Oh it was CRAZY delicious! But I think I already feel my clothes getting tighter! Yummmmm! I'm sure this isn't a meal that even weight watchers could justify in any way shape or form! Oh well, you gotta splurge once in awhile. I've been really pretty good for the last week too and eating lots of salads and slimfast! What the hell right?

Well that brings us to a close of this weeks episodes. Tune in again to find out if the happy gleam continues to ooze from my eyes and will Bryan feel it too when he's had some sleep? To find out tune in NEXT TIME toooooooooo 75 Degrees annnd Raining!!!!!

A Great Day!

2003-09-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

Bryan and I went to breakfast today. Actually it was more like lunch, but it was to a pancake house (Millie's Pancakehaus), so it feels as though I should call it breakfast! After that, I went to the International Wildlife Museum and squished pennys so that I can trade them with a girl who lives out of state. Then I got to the really good part of the day!

I met my friend C, at a favorite local restaurant for a desert and a coffee and we just sat and chatted and discussed photography and making cards that we can sell. She's like this master card maker, but had never considered making a card with her photos. Well until recently. About the time I started to think about it while I was in La Jolla, she saw one in a photography store here in town and thought, "I could do that!" Weird coincidence that we both thought of this at about he same time wouldnt you say? Well we both brought the cards that we put together and compared them and guess what? They are very similar in composition! Very bizarre! We must have a psychic link at the moment! I do that sometimes with my friends and my sister, I just wish I could control it or KNOW that I'm having it when it happens!

So back to this afternoon...after talking about them at the restaurant, we decided to go back to her house so she could show me some of her card making things! I've received a few of her cards and they are SO COOL! It always meant something to me when I would get one from her, knowing she'd made it; but now that I see a little bit of what she goes through to make them, I realize that her creativity and ability is amazing and the cards mean even more!

OK, so this isn't a kiss ass blog about C, I was just REALLY amazed! It was such a good night, one of those nights when conversation really flowed and time went by too quickly! I love it when that happens!

Tomorrow we're going to visit the little girl in the hospital and her parents. I'm supposed to be making a caserole or lasagna or something to take to them. Have I bought ingredients for it? NO. Have I even figured out what to make? NO. Instead I sit here blogging about it! Whyyyy oh why MUST I be such a procrastinator????? Yesterday's laziness is taking over again too...BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD!

Poor Bryan has to work tonight from 7pm until 7am! I don't think I could do this kind of shift! How will he stay awake? I just really don't think I could do it. They'd find me sprawled out over the keyboard or sleeping under the desk or something when the next person came in to relieve me!

OK, I'm off to fotolog to post tonight's pic. I'll blog at ya tomorrow!

Sloth - one of the seven deadly sins? Aww Well!

2003-09-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

It's only 9pm!
Can you believe I'm even here this early? Am I sick or something?

Who knows. What I do know is that I was a total lunk today. I'm sitting right now in my pjs, a pair of black shorts and a photographers vest. Sounds weird doesnt it? Well it looks a bit odd too. Let me explain.

I feel lazy. I didn't feel like getting dressed this morning and thought I'd have a hermit day and just not get dressed! However, last night I slept in a wifebeater tank top. My favorite type of PJs! So when I got up this morning I was feeling (correction...AM feeling, AMM feeling) lazy like I said. I didn't want to get dressed, but I felt the need to be dressed so that I could do things like oh I don't know...go out on the backporch and read, water plants, check the mail etc. I look really PERDY let me tell ya! OK, so I threw on a pair of black shorts...good enough!

Well my birthday was last Tuesday and Bry had ordered something for me for my birthday that didn't come in until today. He went and picked it up and it was a photographers vest! Its really not a fashion accessory, well I guess it COULD be, but I wouldnt suggest it! Not if you want to be in the IN crowd anyway! Although I guess it COULD be part of what the IN crowd wears if they're hunters or fishermen! Anyhow, this is a gift of functionality! When I go somewhere to shoot film I don't want to hassle with carrying around the camera bag EVERY DAMN WHERE! and this thing has SO many pockets and perfect places for film, filters, and even extra lenses! I'm PSYCHED! Plus it is lightweight and I can wear it when it's 150 degrees without much additional discomfort!

But that doesnt explain why I'm wearing this now (Keep up! 9pm remember?), when he gave it to me at lunch time. Well I was so excited about it and wanted Bry to know how much I liked it that I told him I would wear it the rest of the day. I know he thinks I'm kidding, but he'll laugh when he walks in after work at 11:30pm and I'm still wearing it. See? It's all worth it if it makes him laugh. Beyond that, who am I trying to impress? The four white walls (I really REALLY need to paint and get some color in here!) or maybe my dog? Nahh...she loves me no matter how stinky (probably more when I smell!) no matter how ugly or fat or mean I get...so I'm just in it for the laughs. Plus remember I told you how lazy I'm feeling? Well I guess I'm really just too damn lazy to take the damn thing off and hang it up. Hanging it up is the major problem, it means I need to find a hanger and also a place in the closet, which means I have to walk to the closet. Shit it just goes on and on!

Hmm...maybe when he comes home from work I'll ONLY be wearing the photographers vest! There's all these cool little holes through out it...it's MESH...hmmm...ok...umm...yeah well anyhow!

Can't a girl just be plain old lazy and a little bit weird? Well I am, and right now you're all anonymous so who the hell cares what you think! You don't even comment! Go on...prove me wrong!! I dare you!

Survival of the UNDERdressed!

2003-09-26T00:07:00.000-07:00

Unta Glieben Glouten Globen...tick...tick...tick...ALLRIGHT!

I think I must have OD'd on my NEW BEST OF Def Leppard tonight...ya think? Well Hey...it's better to burn out, da da da da da daaaa, then fade awayyyyy! ROCKS!!!! Thanks R!

So I managed to survive the three hour dinner from hell, which wasn't quite as hellish as I expected. As a matter of fact, it was kinda nice. Oh and there's plenty to talk about folks! PLENTY. First of all, the fella that graduated. He's so goofy! He's a sweet guy, but goofy as HELL! He was so proud and excited and it reminded me of Bry when he went through something similar way back when. Amazing how people grow up!

One downside was that I WAS SO UNDERDRESSED, it wasn't even funny! The other women were wearing spangly formal dresses!!! There I was in my long skirt with a white cami top and a light blue long sleeved over blouse that just ties in front. OMYGOD! I was horrified! I expected casual Tucson, when they say semi formal, that they mean a nice dress, something that will look nice with the guy's dress blues. NOT! I have been living the civilian life for so long, away from the military stuff because I don't work on base and I don't live on base any more, and I'd forgotten that they are a whole different element of people with different rules than the local society. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb, but I finally told myself that I was wearing a dress, and that it would have to do. I wasn't the star of the show so I needed to let it go or be miserable. I got a beer and chugged about half of it and then I was relaxed enough to mello out!

As we walked into the joint, we walked between two rows of an honor guard. I guess we, the enlisted folk, don't rate, because when an officer would walk in, they'd raise their SWORDS and yell something, and then the officers and their wives would walk in under the swords. That was kinda cool, but I was so freaked about the underdressed thing that I didn't get to really watch too much of that. When we (the enlisted folk) walked in, we just walked in. Our goofy little graduate-to-be ran right up to us and said, "Hello Sir! I'll escort you to your table!" Then he looked at me and said, "I'll be sitting next to you!" Thank God he didn't call me ma'am! I was cracking up over him calling Bryan Sir though!!!!!

One good thing that came of this evening. I met another wife. I don't have many friends here, and this girl seems really nice. I don't know if we'd become friends, but who knows. Anyhow, we got to talking and I told her that I'm a photographer and she told me that she just had a baby and wanted new family photos made. She was willing to just hire me on the spot or so it seemed, but I told her that I wanted her to see some of the portraits I've taken already and so we're going to get together to review them. For all she knew I REALLY suck at photography!! Anyhow, it's a potential job!! Woohoo!!! Makes me nervous though. What if I F&#@ them up? I think what I'll do is I'll show her my work, and then if she likes it, I'll suggest that I shoot film of her family, and then afterwords we can review the photos and if there are any that she likes we can talk price then. If not we'll just settle on a small for my time kinda fee. It'll also give me a chance to check out how much prints will cost me to make so I can add some to the price and actually earn something! It's kinda exciting!!!

The little girl in the hospital is doing a lot better tonight. Bry heard from her dad, and she's very alert and they have also run a few more extensive tests and discovered that she took something with Ephedra in it. A diet pill. All natural ingredient in many over the counter diet pills. Well they don't know if she took too much or if she just took the normal amount. I've heard very negative things about Ephedra, and there's been a few pro athlete's who have died from its use! Anyhow, now that they know what she took, they will know how to treat her! Thank heaven! Looks as though her kidney's are working again too, which is good because they weren't working at all when she was admitted. I'm so glad to hear that things are looking up for them!

So I am really wiped out...I'm going to bed at a NORMAL time tonight! Nighty nite!

Forced to wear fancy garb and sit through dinner with folks I don't know isn't my idea of fun!

2003-09-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

The life of an air force wife sometimes takes me places that I would ordinarily not go. I tend to be a hermit. I LIKE being at home. I LOVE watching TV and wearing my bum around comfy clothes! Tonight I am doing an obligatory dinner because it's what is expected of me.

I support my husband and everything that he does for our country whole heartedly, but tonight I'm being forced to sit through a Semi Formal Airman Leadership School graduation dinner.

A. I don't know the guy who is graduating.
B. I will not know anyone else being forced to sit through this three hour dinner from HELL.
C. I have to dress up and miss the second episode of the new season of Survivor!!

Can I take my book? I only wish.

The little girl I mentioned in last night's blog that is in the hospital, is now seeming to be holding her own. She's not comatose now, but she's still got tubes down her throat. Still, it's an improvement! Thank heaven!! Her mother, bless her, is at the hospital and is not leaving. I don't blame her, I can't even imagine what this whole ordeal must be like for her! Talk about stress. Perhaps I should just shut up about my whole "I don't wanna go to the ALS graduation dinner" BS because my stresses about that are NOTHING in comparison.

I joined a couple of blog/link rings which you should see the links for in my sidebar. I am a web whore is a cool one and so is blogsnob. Blogsnob in fact will always have an ad for a different blog each time you load up my page! Kinda cool...and just maybe I'll get a few readers! The other one is obscure logs. All three are pretty cool and we'll see how long I remain a member of them. One expects you to use TV acceptable language and I occasionally rant and throw out language you would NOT hear on TV except in the bleeped out form, and the other requires you to provide really GOOD/COOL/ECLECTIC stuff, which is always in question with my blog! Beyond that noone comments,which leads me to believe that I must not be giving you anything really good/cool or eclectic!

Hmm...well anyhow, I know this is a mini post, however perhaps the ALS dinner tonight will give me something to really talk about! I'll be on the lookout!!!

It really is 75 degrees and raining!

2003-09-25T00:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a hurricane in the gulf of California, we've gotten rain 2 days in a row! I like to think that God's giving me an extra special 2 day birthday present! I love the rain!!! It's so much nicer than 150 degree swealtering misery that is our norm!!

I woke up with mega energy for some reason and immediately went out in the rain and did a bunch of yard work! I scooped poop and picked weeds (waist high on the side of the house! UGH!) and even cleaned up the porch and swept it off! It looks SO much nicer out there now!!! Then I went to Michaels and got supplies to attempt to make photo note cards! I got them finished and planned to mail them out tomorrow (thank you's to people in California), but after Bryan got home I went to show them to him and the photos fell off the cards!!! I think the photo paper doesnt hold the adhesive as well! :( What will I do now?? I'm sure I'll figure it out...only a minor problem! They're really cool and if they work out I plan to try to sell some of them on Ebay sometime very soon!

So I said yesterday I would tell the tale of Tijuana. The adventure. The minor catastrophe! I went to squish pennys down there! I heard there was a penny machine and all I had to do to get to it was to catch a bus on the american side, which would take me directly to the bus station in Tijuana (TJ) and then I could squish and catch the next bus to come back to the good old US of A. So I've never been before, and my sister refused to go with me. I am on the highway and I am in the fast lane of an 8 lane highway. I see a sign that says last USA exit 1/2 mile. I start to get over but can't fast enough because there's so much traffic! So I miss it! I'm sweating it, now in the second lane from the right when I see another sign that says UTurn here, last chance, but I need to be all the way to the left now and again can't get over that fast and miss that exit too! So now I'm in Mexico in my 99 Infiniti I30 and I'm FREAKED OUT. And I'm ALONE! It wasnt as though as soon as you enter you can just turn around and go back out either. Oh no, it can't be that simple now can it? Hell no. I ended up LOST in TJ. People there drive like maniacs too, and get far too close to your car too. Oh and most of those cars are pieces of CRAPOLA, so they don't care if they hit you anyway. Beyond that, all the way in, there are signs for Mexican Insurance. I have heard from other people too that you really should get that or you're screwed if there's an accident. I was sweating my ass off about this! I'm in Mexico with this nice car I inherited from my mother and I have no Mexican insurance...And I'm lost! Well finally after mucho stress, I find my way back to the border and manage to get to the other side and even find the parking lot where I catch the bus which will take me to my squished penny machine! I catch it and all goes smoothly, I get to the penny squisher and squish to my hearts content! Then I reboard the bus, and everything is fine. I see that there's a sign that tells you what to do when you get to the border. Everyone gets off the bus, goes through customs, then reboards the bus and they take you back. Simple right? Wrong! I got off the bus and through customs alright, however, once I'm out of the building I start to head where everyone else did, and also the way that our signs on the bus had said to get back to the bus. However, there's construction! Fences blocking our way. "How do I get back to you?" I yelled to the bus driver who I could see standing there waiting on us. He points back towards customs and I start to head that way, thinking I'm following others from our bus. Suddenly I realize I don't know where I am, I can't find the bus, I don't see anyone else from the bus either! So now I really get smart. I pull out my ticket that told me where I had parked. Should be easy enough to find right? I can walk there! It says its only 1 1/2 blocks from the border!Who needs the fucking bus!!! So I start to walk...five minutes later I see this big red bus go by! MY BUS! I think, I will just follow it as far as I can and it should be easy to find my way back to the parking lot. After all...1 1/2 blocks, right? No biggie! So I am walking, and walking, and walking...it's friggin hot! It's so much warmer there than it was in La Jolla! I AM NOT in walking shoes of any sort! Now the bus is so far ahead I can't even see it anymore and don't know where it went. Well I see a gas station. By this point I've walked for a good 45 minutes. I'm hot, sweaty, red faced and my feet REALLY hurt. I go into the gas station and ask directions, showing them my paper from the parking lot that says the streets its on. They look at me like I'm a freak and say they don't know where this street is. HUH? Now come on, I can't be that far! So I leave and ask an old woman. What a mistake that was! She had no clue..."It's by a Just for Feet Store!" I tell her. "You need a store for your feet?" She says? Somehow I manage to get away from her and take a left and then another left, I follow this road until I see an outlet mall which has the just for feet. By this point it's been a good hour and a half. I finally find my car and I sit in the A/C for a good 10 minutes before I even back out and drive away...it was misery! Was it worth the pennys? Damn straight!!! I don't think I'll be going back! Good thing I got a bunch of extras to trade with other penny collectors!!! Oh and I forgot to tell you the best part! When I got back to my car, I found out that if I'd just taken my first left, and crossed the bridge I would have seen on my right the parking lot with my car! You should have heard the curses coming out of my mouth!!

Oh and one last thing about my birthday. My friend M who now lives in Colorado sent me a birthday package! It was 12 SQUISHED PENNYS!!!! I have a couple of favorites! Bush Compound, Kennebunkport Maine!!! YEAHHH!!! and the other favorite is a tractor with Indiana Farmers Feed the World! These things are so silly! While on my trip to San Diego, I got 2 cool ones...Yin and Yang symbols! No words!! And another one is a cross that simply says "Jesus Saves" It ROCKS!!

A coworker of my husband's just got back from his father's funeral a week and a half ago. I know how that is, and its not easy. Well ever since they got back, his daughter who is in 10th grade has been ill, throwing up sick. Over the weekend she got so sick they took her to the emergency room. She had kidney failure. Poor girl, she's so sweet too. I met her last summer she's a really cute girl and does not appear to be a sickly either. They don't know what's wrong with her except that she had kidney failure for some reason. She was finally downgraded and put into a regular room (she'd been in ICU) this morning. This evening she was put back into ICU because she went into a coma which she's gone in and out of ever since. Poor family! They could use some prayers if anyone can spare them. I'm not overly religious as I've said before, but I think the power of positive vibes in the form of prayer of otherwise can't hurt!

With that I'm outta here, have to hit the sack. I'm used to going to sleep at about 10pm, this 12:30 - 1am shit's gotta go!

I'm Baaaacckkkkk!!!

2003-09-24T01:26:00.000-07:00

So the vacation is over. It was a GREAT one too! La Jolla, CA - the place Rocks! It was so beautiful and most important? It was SO nice and COOL. I even had to wear a sweater a couple of evenings! Beautiful sunsets and beautiful beaches and beautiful flowers. Sigh...could anyone ask for anything more?

My niece was a joy, well sometimes. She is going through a clingy I ONLY want my mommy stage and while she'd make pretty eyes at me, and even give me kisses once in a while, the second I'd put my hands out to tell her to come to me, she'd run screaming in hysterics, grabbing my sister's legs as though the boogey man was about to get her. (big sigh). At first it did not bum me out too much because I saw that she was doing it to her grandmother as well. But then all of a sudden on day 2 or 3 she'd go to grandma but STILL would not come to me coupled with the screaming as though I had an axe and wanted to murder her! This REALLY bothered me! THEN, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. On thursday (only my SIXTH day with her) she suddenly was onto me like white on rice! I don't get it! What changed? I was with her 24/7 up til that point so what was so different that day? Oh well, I'm not complaining, it's overwith! At least for now!

So the other thing that's new with my 17 month old niece, is that she's now got a name for me. My sister K always calls me Auntie when referring to me to her. I know she knows that's me because when K asks her where Auntie is, she turns her head and looks directly at me. However, she calls me MY-MAE. Not Mommy - oh no. My sister K is called Ma - Ma, very clearly, very distincly Ma - Ma. She calls a few others Ma - Ma in error, but this is different. My MAE. I thought perhaps she was saying it because it was her word for something else that she was asking for, but no, she was going through her little vocabulary one day and was naming off things, and she started to name off who was near her. I heard her say Ma-Ma, Da-Da, MY MAE. Hmm...very curious, but as my sister K says, "don't complain, at least you've got a name!" Many others in the family don't have one yet by my niece H's standards!

So it was so relaxing, and my sister's mother in law footed the ENTIRE bill. I am 36 years old (today actually, thank you very much! Happy Birthday to me!) and I'm not so sure how I feel about someone paying for my every meal, my hotel bill, my any and every-thing! Yes, they've got plenty of cash to spare, but I still feel kinda weird about it! I mean, who am I? I'm nothing to them except for their daughter in law's sister. I guess I should just accept it and enjoy it because it's not as though it's gonna become a regular situation or anything for me! Oh but La Jolla was FABULOSO...if ONLY I could win the lottery and move there! Cuz folks, that's the ONLY way that's happening! Homes there were SO friggin expensive, it was seriously out of control!

OH and by the way, the house we housesat for the first half of the week? FAB! Oceanview! Pool! One very cool dog and just a beautiful home! The man who owned it is the son of a famous lyricist. His father (Ted Kohler) wrote songs for a shirley temple movie and there was a photo of him on the wall at his piano with shirley sitting on it! The movie was Animal Crackers in my soup! He also wrote lyrics for MANY other movies you'd know...but I'm so movie fact retarded I can't remember them! You'd know them though! I did, so you would too! (Unless of course you're only 10 years or younger in which case you probably should not be reading my blog ~ I cuss way too much for you young people!)

I took millions of photos and was slightly disappointed that they didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. Not nearly as good as others I've taken, that's for sure, but then I did have one thing against me, the ocean layer! Or is it the marine layer? Either way its fog and it made it overcast each day! No sun means the photos don't turn out as good as I had hoped! I did get a few good ones though...you can tune into my fotolog to check some of them out. KOOLCHICK'S WORLD

So anyway, it was a very nice week all in all...I loved it and I'll go back ANY time those people need a house sitter!!! More than HAPPY to!!

Oh and one other thing...we drove up to LA for the day to visit K's friend and drove to Phoenix from there. This means that I had to drive home on the I-10. This also means that I had to drive within 5 miles of PSYCHO Girl's Trailer park!!! OH MY GOD was I SCARED! I just KNEW I was gonna get busted!!! However, I'm here to tell the tale, so therefore it didn't happen. Whew! It was seriously a close call! For those of you wondering who Psycho girl is, read my blog around the last week of August, it'll explain everything!

Ohhh...and as for my birthday, it was LOVELY. Very quiet, and even though Bryan had to work tonight, I got to spend time with my friend R, who took me out to dinner and tried to (OK, successfully managed to) get me drunk on Margaritas and then got me a great mexican meal! I got some great gifts, books I've been wanting to read and some gift cards towards a digital camera I'm saving for! Yeah!! Quite a good day all in all! OHH and the best gift of all...R got me this huge frog who is sitting there with its hands up over its mouth and it's smiling. It's like it knows something and its not telling! It's just giggling! I love it!!!!! It's silly but it's just SO me! As R said, WHAT'S IT LAUGHING AT? It's the kinda face someone makes when you know the guy next to you has his fly down and his willy's showing but you're not telling! I love this frog!!

Tomorrow I must remember to tell my tale about Tijuana...quite an adventure!! Tune in tomorrow to find out what hapenned!

Talk to ya later!

Yay!!

2003-09-13T14:33:00.000-07:00

I leave today...and what a wonderful world it is!

OK, so this is my form of procrastination! I SHOULD be packing so I can get out of here...but NO. I am so sad for all of my daily readers because I won't be here for a week, so I thought I'd give you one more mini blog for the road. OK, yeah right! I just don't want to pack! I want to just magically BE THERE without the BS of packing up the car and driving up there!

Im tired. I stayed up like 3 million hours too late last night JUSt so I could blog for you. Happy? I'm not. I need a nap but I ain't getting one! That's ok, it'll help me to sleep tonight when I HAVE to sleep before the drive tomorrow.

Our goal is to leave around 630 or 7am. Yeah, ok whatever! I guess I just have to say I'll believe it when I see it. When I make plans like that it turns out to normally be like 9 or even 10! Well I'm gonna give it the old college try, but we'll see.

Oh yeah, and I need some help. Can someone just pray for me? Pray that when I finally DO get out onto the road, that there are no cops to witness me going my normal 95mph (to make up for the late start?) and if he does see me and stop me that he'll go easy and not ticket me!

OH yeah...and also PRAY that the drinks are cheap and strong and that I get a LOT of them!

On the road again!

2003-09-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

Well tomorrow begins another journey. This one will include "typical" vacation stuff...eating, beach, pool, PENNY SQUISHIN, and probably a lot more eating! Just what my waistline needs!

I survived a week of the alarm going off at 5am and me not getting up til 530 or later! I'm gonna get a REALLLLYYY big paycheck next Friday too! OK, REALLLLYYY big these days equates to something a LOT smaller than I used to get, but about 35 times larger than I have been getting the last month or two! It's all good...anytime anyone puts cash in my account it's all good!

I leave in the morning for Phoenix. I'll spend the night with my sis and her family (including the light of my life...17 month old tomorrow Hallilula aka Hallie). K and I are planning on seeing the movie Thirteen tomorrow and then we drive out very early on Sunday morning to good old San Diego! If you are going that way Sunday and see a silver infiniti...honk and wave! We're a friendly bunch and we'll do SOMETHING back...OK, so it probably won't be honking or waving...well at least not an entire hand! heh heh heh

So this morning I woke up to the news that Johnny Cash and John Ritter died. So sad! Johnny Cash I grew up with, he was ALWAYS cool, all the way to the end! And John Ritter. He's the one I can't seem to forget about. I thought about him and his family all day long. It happened quite suddenly to him, he felt terrible and went to hospital. Heart attack. Then he had a rupture or a tear in his aortic valve or something. Ugh...it's exactly what happened to Mom. She was there one minute talking to me on Sunday on the phone excited about me coming to visit for Mothers day weekend the following Thursday, we were going to try out a new recipe she'd found for cinnimon rolls and she'd bought all the ingredients for them. The following Wednesday morning I got a call at 5am from my dad at the hospital telling me she was in surgery and had only a 50/50 chance to make it. She was vegetarian, she exercised regularly, she was not overweight and did not drink, smoke or do anything else that was bad for your health. It's all just so unexpected and surreal, even now, over 2 years later.

I think the similarities to my mother are what is making John Ritter's death so hard to drop. I keep thinking about his family and his children and how shocked and freaked out they must be, and how even if I could get to them to talk to them somehow, nothing I or anyone else could do or say could help because the only thing that could would be to bring their dad back to them and it's just not possible. In fact the only thing I could tell them is that as hard as it is to believe it now, in time they'll be able to remember him and smile at the good times. I know I do all the time.

So have I mentioned I'm going to San Diego?????? OK, so that would be a yes! (Maybe, just maybe I'm just a LITTLE excited, ya think?) Just remember folks, I won't have access to a computer, therefore no blogs! Oh I'll be thinking about you, yessirree bob! I'll be here in spirit YEAH RIGHT! I'll be too busy on the beach drinking umbrella drinks and chasing after my niece to be thinking about you lot! GET REAL! STAY REAL! BE REAL! <--the sign of lunacy after all this is the LATEST I've been up in about 8 days!

PEACE OUT!

Work is HELL!

2003-09-09T21:41:00.000-07:00

The life of a socialite really sucks doesnt it?

I ONLY WISH I WAS ONE!

Ughhhh...5:30am is getting really old to be hearing the old alarm go off! I just need to suck it up and get over it! It's WORTH it to be getting off at 330 to go in at 7 and take only a half hour lunch! PLUS, it's only for three more days! AND it means I'll be getting a paycheck approximately 20 times greater than what I've been getting the last few weeks only working a few hours here and there! OK LARA...suck it up and move on!

Remember that attitude adjustment someone needed last night? Well I did not get it! GRR!!

At that sucky job today I was told that I could peruse the net if I wanted to because they didn't have anything for me to do for a few minutes. I went to my fotolog to see if anyone had made any comments on my latest foto. While I was there, a group of the salesmen came out to our area and were talking to someone who had come to visit. Apparently one of them told the person I report to that I was LOOKING AT PORN WHILE TEMPING FOR THEM!

OK, so the picture in question IS a naked picture of Bryan. Yes, it's true! OK, so stop bugging out!! Yes, he was naked, but it was also ONLY his knees and shins and part of his butt, but not even his crack showed! Click Here if you want to see the picture in question! You are going to laugh because it's SO PG-13 artsy fartsy!!

It totally got straightened out, but how embarassing! And can you even imagine me? Super straight laced perfect temp (I always get good comments from the clients) ACTUALLY looking at porn while A) temping and B) millions of people are standing around? YEAH RIGHT!

OK, well it's early to bed week...gotta go...so have a laugh at the porno picture that I was examining while temping and I'll catch up with you later! OH YEAH, and if you want to look at the rest of the pictures on my fotolog, go for it...you can even leave a comment if you like them...I live for the comments, so go for it!

blogger grump

2003-09-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

I'm tired and I'm not feeling sociable. UGH! I worked today. Maybe that's the problem? No...I worked last Thursday and Friday and didn't feel this way. Oh well, tired is tired, right? Anyhow. I don't feel like blogging and it's my bedtime too. I have to be at work at 7am tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next! UGHHH! Why can't someone just pay me to not work? That sounds like a MIGHTY fine idea!

I found out that the girl I'm working with, C, wanted to hook me up (until she found out I was married) with some guy who works where I am temping. His name is RALPH. The name doesnt even sound like my kind of guy! She described him as a tall blonde guy. Sounds nice! Then I saw Ralph. What she forgot to tell me is that his gut is hanging way over his pants and his face is REALLY red and he's got one of those peewee voices. OH MY GOD! THANK GOD I'm married!! Hey Ralph! You make me want to ralph! heh heh heh to hell with being unsociable! Of course the last few sentences sound really anti social. Hmm...I'm just a contradiction in terms!

My mother in law sent me squashed pennys from Atlanta and Cherokee NC! My favorite one is of some guy in a suit with a bubble that says "Don't tell noone I never gave you Nothin!" Why is the dude in a suit?? Put him in overalls or something! Little things make me happy...like a non red face and a normal guy voice! Sorry Ralph!

I am now two days closer to my San Diego/La Jolla trip! yahoo! My sis told me today that her mother in law is going to have us stay a few extra days on her in a hotel next to her apartment! Instead of leaving on Wednesday we'll be leaving on Saturday! RIGHT ON! Neither one of us is working full time so every little thing we can do to not spend money we don't have but still extend out the vacation is a GREAT thing!

She got so lucky with her mother in law...I'm serious. The woman is clearly generous, but it doesnt end there. She's just a nice wonderful person to be around, always! My sister has no bad stories to tell about her at all...unlike...ahem...some of us around here. NOT ME! OK, so it is me...what are you gonna make of it???

Well it's now bedtime for real. I gotta run kids...been nice chatting with ya! See ya tomorrow! Same time, same bat channel!

ps- Why don't you have an attitude adjustment before you come back here now OK? No one wants to see that kind of an attitude! HUH? Oh...that's right. That was me with the attitude. Yeah well screw you! :)

Miss me?

2003-09-06T17:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I was here. I really was!

I know what you are thinking. She had a few days off due to Blogger difficulties and now she's getting lazy! OK, I am SO not! I was here last night, I really was! And you know what? I couldnt even get my computer to bring up www.blogger.com! I couldnt get to anyone's blogs! Lame!!

Oh well, I posted a new picture to my fotolog and then went off to bed. I was tired! I've been working for the last 2 days. And I believe I've found my DREAM temp job! The title company that I was working for was the BEST! Not only was it the easiest phone system in the ENTIRE world, but I didn't have to screen anyone's calls and I didn't have to handwrite anyone's messages! YESSS!! But that's not all! Day one they FED me. I got a brownie...YUMMMM! THEN on day 2 it was cake! Oh ho...but it doesnt even end there! The best part was that at 4:30 they came around and asked if I wanted a glass of wine or a rum and coke! RUM AND COKE PLEASE! It was that spiced rum...malibu? DELISH! I'll temp for them any day or the day OR night! (hey guys? Just leave the Capt. Morgans under my desk! I'll be here all night long...or at least until the booze runs out!)

I also have another job next week, all week long working for the joint that changed their hours JUST for me from 6-3 to 7-3:30. They requested me! It's wonderful to be loved!

So Bry's on an exercise now and I won't be seeing much of him until after I get back from San Diego. Oh well, it's the air force way of life. :(

I leave next weekend to go to Phoenix. Then my sister, neice and I will be driving to San Diego...oh...excuse me...LA JOLLA (if you know SD you know LJ is the snobby wealthy area! I personally don't know as this is my first trip...but I've heard things.) to house sit for my sis's mother in laws friend's house and dog. It'll be cool! Like a vacation without the hotel cost! I'm so excited! All I keep thinking about are all the picture taking and penny squashing opportunities that I'll have while there!!!! And it'll be green! AND IT'LL BE COOLER!!! It just gets better and better! Do I have to come back?

I don't know if I'll have access to a computer while there...so there may be a gap in my blog. Get prepared people! Better go check out some other fairly regular blogs because I'm gonna be gone! Lets consider this last few days that I have not been here a mini test getting you ready for the real thing!

So anyway...I had written this fabuloso blog about being a big boobed girl. When I hit post and publish it just disappeared into cyberblog space never to be seen again. I don't know if I can replicate the wonder of it, sometimes there's just no flow if you force it, but I can try. So here goes.

I -- AM A BIG BOOBED GIRL

Yes, it's true, I am. I know all you little boobed double A bitchez out there are really jealous of the cleavage and sometimes wished you had big ones, but I'm here to tell you it's not all fun and games. The fact is that this is an affliction that runs in my family. My sister K also is a big boobed girl and my Nana had them too.

How often in my 20 years of being a big boobed chick (I'm 35 but have only been a big boobed chick for about 20) have I met a man who didn't just stare at my chest when meeting me or shaking my hand. UGH. Umm..hello? My face is up here! Do you even know what color eyes I have? Oh sure it's nice to get some male attention once in awhile, but not ALL the time. And no this did not make me more popular in high school than other girls. As a matter of fact I was a late bloomer and shy to boot. All having big ones did for me was that men think its ok to stare at them instead of looking at me. AND then there's the innappropriate comments.

Let me tell you a bit about K. I am in general a...ummm....bigger...girl, so you're not so surprised to find that I'm a big boobed girl. My sister K is not. She's as skinny as anyone would want to be! She's a little girl everywhere except for the boobage. And she was as flat as a pancake her entire life until one day at about the age of 15 she developed practically overnight and someone forgot to turn off the supply cuz she got way more than her fair share! It's so much that she talks about getting reduction surgery one day. Anyhow...back to what I was saying. When she developed overnight suddenly people, who were before this happened normal people, started to make comments. My dad had a friend who would make comments and just leer at her..."hey K, look at you...you're not such a little girl anymore are you?" "Hey K, good lord! You better not run or jump...you might hurt yourself!" All kinds of crap like that! AND it would be said in front of my dad and then he would just LAUGH. Anything that caused my sister or myself to be embarassed and red faced was something that made Dad laugh! LAME! My family has a great sense of humor.

Then there's the backache that these little babies give you.

Lets not forget about the fact that if you do choose to go running they're bouncing around and you feel like the world is staring at you for jogging.

PREGNANCY. I have not done this, but from what I hear from you smaller endowed broads it gives you good boobage! This frightens me. I have ENOUGH! When K had her baby, she went from her normal 36 D to like a II. Not roman numeral 2, Double letter I! THEN when she had the baby they became engorged and were seriously the size of basketballs. That's all well and good for a porn star who is willing to pay for that, but K said it really HURT and was more than a little embarassing!

No one wants to wear a bikini when you're as big as I am. It's awful! OK, so I wouldnt wear a bikini anyway. Yes, I can face it, not only WOULDNT I wear a bikini, I SHOULDNT wear a bikini. However, my sister can. And she does sometimes, but there's always this oggling factor to consider. It's so LAME!

Have you ever had the problem of trying to buy a top, shirt, or any other form fitting shirt and it fits EVERYWHERE except for the chest? This isnt cool! It means you end up buying a top that's too big everywhere else except for the chest. THEN it looks way too big! SUCKS!

Hmm...maybe its not the Double A bitchez that are jealous of me and my bodacious tata's, maybe it's ME jealous of you double A and B Bikini wearing Bitchez!

Hey guys out there...stop oggling me an my girls. Let me tell you now so that you don't have to bother figuring it out...My eyes are BLUE.

DAMMIT!!

2003-09-04T22:52:00.000-07:00

I just typed this incredible blog. It was the best one yet! It was all about being a big boobed girl and after I finished typing it, I hit post and publish and guess what? It disappeared! Unfortunately for all of you who are clammoring for more of my blogs after so many days of not having one, you're going to have to wait one more day. I have a temp job tomorrow so therefore I can't stay up to retype the fucker! Sorry...I'm just pissed! Let me just tell you that this was the BEST blog I've ever written! It probably doesnt take much to be able to say that, but whatever! Just suffice it to say that nothing on this computer seems to be cooperating today...I think I better just hang it up and go to bed.

PS-it's also quite possible that I'm only saying that it was the best blog ever because noone will ever get to read it now and so noone at the same time will be able to say, "eh...it was just OK". YOU'LL never know now will ya??? Maybe Blogger did me a favor!

Blog Trouble

2003-09-04T01:09:00.000-07:00

The last 2 days I've been STRESSED to the HILT because my blog wasn't working!! I dont know what changed last night until right now when I logged on, but it's working again! Also, somehow I managed to get test blog in there. Is that this? I don't know...guess we'll see. If this is in Thu Sep 04 then I'm in the test blog.

Silly? Yes...VERY

2003-09-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

I got this from someone elses blog. I know you want to be sorted too...isn't everyone a Harry Potter fan???

be sorted @ nimbo.net

LABOR DAY

2003-09-02T01:12:00.000-07:00

A day of BBQ and American Chopper!

Well what a holiday it was! After waking up starving, Bry and I decided to go and eat at a local BBQ joint which was FABULOSO! We even lived in the south, hell Bry is even FROM the south and this stuff was just as good as Sonny's BBQ any day! Right on Metro Restaurants! Smokin' ROCKS!

So anyhow, after that we came home to our VCR recording the MARATHON of American Chopper!!! Nothing quite so exciting as watching bikes get...um...chopped! ha ha This is literally all I did all day until my normal Monday night TV shows came on and even they weren't that exciting. It was just a quiet day with nothing to report. My updates are the same, meaning there's nothing to report and oh yeah...it was FRIGGIN HOT. When does this mutha called Tucson start to cool down?

So I have a question for all you male readers out there. And of course this won't apply to all of you. Anyhow, today I was reading my email and I got a message from a guy and it was just so typical. Do you guys really think that with names like NastyServiceMan that all you need to say is HI and like your picture and hey i live where you live...lets get it on! Do you really think we WILL? Are the women of this world really so hard up that you don't need to do anything except for think up a dirty name and give me your stats? (I'm 28 M Tucson) OK, so 28 M your mom was really mean to name you that! Is Tucson really your last name? OH and I forgot the BEST part. I love to service BIG women orally! This guy said that to me! REALLY! I'll cut and paste the entire convo to this because it's a classic. I of course being my smart ass self said some stupid stuff attempting to be funny and then let him have it. After which there was just plain old silence! (sigh)

Its bad enough that its now OK to tell a woman 3 seconds after meeting her (a convo that she has neither requested nor implied in any way that she's interested in having!) that you like to "service women orally" BUT SHIT...do you REALLY think you'll score by saying you ESPECIALLY like to do that to BIG WOMEN?

IN OTHER WORDS YOU'RE IMPLYING I'M BIG BECAUSE YOU'VE SEEN MY PICTURE AND ARE NOW TALKING TO ME THIS WAY. (sigh...) Read below...what is this world coming to?

nastyserviceman: hi

kutipye30: hello

nastyserviceman: how are you?

kutipye30: I'm fine, how are you? Do I know you?

nastyserviceman: no i just saw your pic

kutipye30: where?

nastyserviceman: i think u are very pretty

nastyserviceman: in your profile

nastyserviceman: you have one posted

kutipye30: thank you, ohhh...that's a very old picture, but glad you like it.

nastyserviceman: i am 28 m tucson

kutipye30: what a coincidence! I'm in tucson as well!

nastyserviceman: cool

nastyserviceman: very pretty face

kutipye30: thank you again

kutipye30: why are you called nasty service man?

nastyserviceman: just came up with it onthe spot

nastyserviceman: lol

kutipye30: does it mean you're not a clean person? as in that's nasty! Or what?

nastyserviceman: i like to serve women

kutipye30: you mean dinner?

nastyserviceman: i am slim build but love serving big girls orally

kutipye30: you serve dinner out of your mouth? Why not just use a plate?

nastyserviceman: lol

kutipye30: Now I understand why you're called nasty service man

kutipye30: couple of things...

kutipye30: one. I am married so not interested.

kutipye30: two. telling me or any girl she's "big" does nothing to make us want you!

kutipye30: three. going right into I'm 28 m tucson isnt even a sentence, and if it was, its not wooing words. You should take a little time to find out who you're talking to. Do you even know if I used to be a man??? NO you don't. I could have been....STILL INTERESTED?

crickets chirping...

Ah well, I guess at this point I only need to make one last statement. I am so glad I'm not single anymore. If this is the type of guys out there now, married is the only way to be!

Singing Fools - a teenagers HELL job!

2003-09-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

Well here I am. I survived getting up early, which ended up being like 10:30 or something insanely late! We did go to breakfast, but it certainly wasn't any beauty contest! I felt hung over!!! Anyhow, breakfast was great, Millie's pancakehaus...if you're ever in Tucson, there's two locations and I'm sure they're both as good as the other! My sis left around 2pm and I took a nap in the leather recliner. It felt SO GOOD to sleep! I'm still tired, so this will probably end up being a mini post again, but at least I'm here right?

Tonight, Bryan forced me to get out of the leather recliner and go to the movies. I guess it is a movie kinda weekend! Of course I may have complained initially about having to get out of the chair, but going to the movies is always a good thing! I didn't complain for very long! We went and saw OPEN RANGE . We sure know how to pick 'em! This was another beautifully shot movie that other than being a little (OK a LOT) too long, was just a great cowboy flick! It was filmed in Canada, but was probably meant to be Montana or some other wide open space (as opposed to wide open brown tucson!). Kevin Costner is not my favorite actor either. I was kinda worried going in that his monotone, almost robotic voice would bother me like it normally does, however that didn't happen. And when he said, "I intend to kiss you at least 1000 times before I'm through" it actually did something for me!!! One downside is that there were a few characters that something happened to and I was supposed to feel bad for them, but we didnt get to know them or like them well enough to feel justified in shooting up the town! One character was great and you felt good about what they were doing for him, but the youngest one I was like he's a pain in the ass...why are you bothering? Anyhow, overall I had a good feeling for this movie...I liked it a lot!

So back to the topic of this blog. My family is really big on ice cream. While Bry and I don't often go out for ice cream after dinner, whenever I have a family member visiting me, we seem to fall into the familial routine of going out for some cream! My sis got here on Friday and so that night we went to Cold Stone Ice Creamery after dinner. It's your typical ice cream store. You pick a flavor out, and a filler and they mash it all up together and you get it in a bowl with a spoon. I personally don't tip ice cream clerks for doing their job. Waitresses yes, they can either go out of their way to be attentive and to treat you right, or they can just not even bring you water after you've asked for it three times. How they treat you makes a big difference in how much you enjoy your meal. Tip them yes. Ice Cream folks are standing there scooping ice cream and mashing something into it. That's what they're paid to do. WHY would anyone tip them unless they did something extra for you? So anyway, as I said, we went out for some cream and when we got there, my sister told us she'd treat because we'd bought dinner. So she pays for it and I guess she threw a buck into their tip jar because all of a sudden ALL workers in the store begin singing ZIP I DEE DOO DAH! ZIP I DEE AY! BOY OH BOY WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!! And then someone else tipped and it was THANK YOU FOR YOUR BIG TIP!! and they had a song that went along with those words. Or some other nonsense! My head jerked around like WHAT THE FUCK!? Then I realized as my sis is walking towards me not looking at them and they're singing to her for tipping them! At the end of their little song they always end it with the little lady who is either the manager or the owner or just the person in charge for the night with a voice that sounds as though she's one step away from being in the wizard of oz's munchkin scene saying THANK YOU. All the teenagers in the place HAVE to sing, you can see that its something they're forced to do! If I was working there and they all started singing I'd be headed for the back room...Um I think we're out of vanilla, be right back. You can see the pained looks on their faces...how do they keep a straight face? I would be laughing so hard at being forced to do these songs!!! I can hear it now. Congrats! You got the job! Now here's a songlist...know these by tomorrow when you report for your first night! Um what? HUH? I signed up to scoop ice cream!! My friends would also start showing up by the truckloads and intentionally tip me so that I'D HAVE TO SING. BASTARDS!

I feel for you kids...I really do. Stick it out until you have another skill and then make your move! Or run run as fast as you can to the closest pizza place...they're always hiring teenagers. And MOST of them don't require you to sing! The ice cream shop is gonna be a job that one day you look back at and say Did I really have to do that??

Speaking of jobs that you ask Did I really have to do that? While she was here, my sister told me about a job that she applied for in Laughlin Nevada years ago. I somehow never was told this story, it's such a good one too...I laughed until I had tears running down my face! Anyhow, she was looking for a job and went to this well known hotel and casino there in Laughlin. They told her that before she could apply she'd have to get through their initial interview that all employees have to do. It's a group interview. Anyway, she gets there, they give her a number and then they look at her and said, "Now get in there and get Active!" That should have been poor K's first clue! She went into the next room and there were all these people and all these things lying around. So she goes and picked up a hoola hoop and starts to hoop! There was another old couple who were there and they were playing maracas. This was just the beginning! Oh yes...the story gets better! THEN they tell everyone to get in a circle facing inward. They put on Michael Jackson's beat it or Thriller and tell them all that when their time comes each of them is to go into the center and DANCE. DANCE I SAY! There's K when her turn comes up in the center doing the roger rabbit! (this was the mid 90s!). My sis is not some wild and crazy girl who does wild shit either! THAT is what made this story so funny to me! Imagining her usual conservative straightlaced way of life having to do this stuff!!! And the worst part? After the interview they told her that she'd passed and asked where she wanted to work in the hotel. She told them and they go, OH...well sorry, we have no jobs open in that area, but we'll keep your app on file for a year in case anything comes up! She went through all that to find out there's not even a job to apply for! BASTARDS!!

Oscar Potential!

2003-08-31T02:40:00.000-07:00

Hey just get ready...Whale Rider will probably be getting nominated for multiple Oscars. It was amazing! Beautifully shot in New Zealand and had me drooling over the scenery wishing I was there so I could take photos! Also was a good independent film. I loved the story and am anxious to find the book so I can see how much better it is! (The books are always better I think.) Anyhow...we went to this instead of Sea Biscuit which everyone is raving about. I'm kinda glad...it was just such a great story. I'm sure Sea Biscuit is great too...and I'll get there eventually, but this was just a good quality movie. Now, the critics are always on the opposing side to me...they'll probably hate it! And now because I've publicly said I think it's oscar material it's probably going to be shunned by the nominating committee! Oh well...it gets the academy award of Lara!

UPDATES
I have not heard from psycho girl...I think by not calling her I fell into a psycho girl trap as I suspected the other day!

I also have not heard from my classmates.com friend yet. UGH! She read the email I sent her...I told her multiple times I HAD TO KNOW who it was...didn't fill her in on my little crush of high school though. Oh no, she doesnt have a need to know. YOU can know because you're my anonymous readers. YOU don't even comment! The ONLY way I know that I even HAVE ANY readers is because I see my counter number going up! So there's probably one or two of you. Probably my friend Jenn and maybe some anonymous reader who fell into my blog when it was listed as most recently published blogs or something.

Ah well...feel free to comment, feel free to email me when there's something you think I need to know, something I have wrong in my blog or something you think I'm being foolish about that I've mentioned here! I like getting other views on situations I'm in!

Well, my sister's been here this weekend and it's been such a nice one. We've eaten pizza, gone to the movies, gone to the mall, played multiple games of skip-bo (I just want to know who Bo is and why they skipped him? Anyone who has played this game knows there's no skipping anyone involved!). Oh and we laughed. We always laugh! My friend Rene came over and spent the day with us too, and between her and my sis, we were laughing fools! Poor Bry was just surrounded with women laughing and making dirty jokes. He gets so embarassed! He's such a good guy and I think deep down he really was laughing with us, but it just made it all the funnier that he'd get embarassed, so THEN, OF COURSE, we'd have to rub it in and make him even more embarassed by saying the dirty things, laugh, dirty things, laugh, over and over all the while! All in all it was a fabuloso night! It's now 2:30 which is so beyond my bedtime I'm about to fall over here at the keyboard. UGH...tired! Everyone will be up early in the morning as my sis leaves tomorrow and we're going to breakfast first...I think tomorrow will be a really kickback day after being up so late and getting up so early tomorrow!

So when I come here tomorrow remind me to tell you about the singing ice cream shop! All I can say is those poor souls!

Nite!

Lunatics and Drug Addicts!

2003-08-29T01:02:00.000-07:00

If that doesn't have you clammering for more I don't know what will!

SOOOOO....whew! What a friggin day!!! Last night I went to bed kinda late. OK, very late! It was 2am by God! Bry works nights, so when there's no temp job the next day I wait up for him. Anyhow, after I logged off here, spent a little time with him, then I watched some of my taped realityTV shows. You know the ones...You can only watch one tv, but there's more than one show on at the same time, so you tape the other one in the bedroom! Good plan eh? (pointing to head) It's not just a hat rack!

Anyhow...so while I am a morning person (stop laughing!! I can be!!) and if I'm going to bed at a normal hour (between 10 and 12) I'll be up usually 7ish. Well, because I was up late, I didn't get up until about 10. No sooner had my feet touched the floor when the phone rang. It was the temp agency. They needed me! Hoorah!! I'm getting out of the house!!! Yahoo!!! Not only will I be leaving the house for reasons other than I need eggs and milk, but I'll also get paid for it!

All I know is the place is called KODAK. HEY...I'm the photographer...this is a good sign to me! I get there and its not KODAK, it's CODAC. Codac behavioral health services! I walked my ass into a METHADONE CLINIC! Talk about an interesting setting! Folks, if you're into people watching, this is the place to be! You shoulda seen all the people who were out there just smoking cigarettes in the courtyard anxiously staring at me like I'm the girl bringing the Meth to the clinic for them! Pavlov's dog's were drooling let me tell you!!! They had hungry eyes. It was actually a bit disconcerting! Anyhoo...while they waited their turn for the meth, I cut in line and found the person I reported to. We didn't actually work in the meth clinic, we worked in the building next to the meth clinic and answered the phones for the meth clinic as well as the other half which brings me to the Lunatics.

There's one side called SMI and one side called something like MCI. I believe MCI stood for methadone clinic something. The girl told me that SMI, at least in her mind, stood for SERIOUSLY MENTALLY ILL. Great! Anyhow, their phones rang a LOT and the day went by very fast! I saw a lot of people who really anyone on the street would be able to tell they weren't all there, or were out of wack. I know I sound as though I'm taking it lightly, but its pretty serious when they're all standing in front of you and you're seeing a constant parade of this type of people all in one day. Makes me realize how lucky I am to have complete control of all my faculties. Well, um, MOST of the time anyway! I spoke to multiple people on the phone having Emergencys and needed to speak to a doctor RIGHT AWAY. Some of them in complete hysterics! It was very sad.

This was really an interesting temp job, but not really anything that I'd want to work at every day! I even had one guy come up to me and say, "do you have a dime and a nickel for fourteen pennys?" Reading what I just wrote doesn't do this situation justice...maybe it was the delivery of the line from this guy...but it was an unusual moment.

OH YEAH...and there was this one fella who came up to me, stared at me, said "take it easy" to which I said you too! He continued to stare at me like he was lost in thought. OK, so I KNOW I'm BEAUTIFUL, but take it easy fella!!! I'm married!!! (again I say STOP LAUGHING! It COULD happen!!! It really could!!!) So where was I? Oh yeah...so then he looks at me and says, "Is it Thursday or Friday?" I say to him, "It's Thursday". He goes OH. so after some more staring (my overwhelming beauty again) he finally goes, "well see ya...take it easy". It was such a strange thing! But quite interesting none the less. Very Bloggable!!

Psycho Girl Update ~ Have not heard anything back from her. I fell into her evil trap and now we're probably on the outs again! DAMMIT! She's trying to force me into calling her! It's her way of showing dominance by telling me to call her. If I do, she wins. Rene read the stream of emails between psycho girl and I tonight, and she thinks the whole thing is ridiculous. She realized that while it looks as though we're back to being friends, psycho girl has still not once said HEY, it was a misunderstanding and I was kind of a shit about it! I'm sorry! Not for anything! I, up to my usual standards, have apologized for my part in what happened. I've said it once, and I'll say it again...Why can't we all just be friends?

Classmates.Com Friend Update ~ Curiously enough have not heard back from her either! Will I EVER find out if she's seeing the ex love of my high school life? Maybe she and psycho girl have somehow met and are in on this together and trying to make me crazy by not answering my emails!!!!! GASP! STOP THE PRESSES!!! Maybe they're conspiring together with the temp agency and are trying to somehow make me CRAZY! Yeah that's it! Get me all comfortable with CODAC and let me make a few "friends" there, and then get me committed!!! Now it's all falling into place...well it won't work! I'm too smart for them! And the voices told me it would be OK if I worked there too! Told me no one would be out to get me there. Humph! Last time I listen to THEM!

psycho girl

2003-08-27T22:48:00.000-07:00

Well psycho girl wrote back and instead of the customary punch out through cyber space that I expected she was very calm cool and relatively collected. I was impressed. I think we even got things ironed out! Turns out that the last time she was here I told her that "next time we'd come to her." I meant that to be, "next time, instead of you coming to me, I'll come to you." She took that as "next time I go anywhere I'm coming to you." Well then I am talking to her on the phone last october and she got so mad because I'd gone to vegas. Part of it was cuz I didnt invite her the other part was because I didnt come to her place as promised! Who knew? She just didnt talk to me for a year because of that! We got it worked out, I THINK. I may have fallen into a psycho girl trap though. Her last email today said, "I work until 5pm, my new work number is 123-4567 and my home number is the same." I did not call. I wrote back to her instead which she hasnt responded to. I'll probably be on her bad list again because I did not call her. UGH.

Also have nothing to report regarding my classmate's.com friend's boyfriend. It's killing me inside! I NEED TO KNOW!!!! Maybe she'll email me tomorrow. Here's hoping!

So tomorrow I have to prepare the guest bedroom for my sister's arrival. She's coming to visit for a Hallie Free Weekend. OMGOD! She's coming down without the baby??? HOW COULD SHE? Just for that I think I'll NOT wash the linens...let her sleep on a bed someone else slept on that I have not washed yet!! Truth is that she was probably the last one here! She's getting a haircut friday and then the rest of the weekend we'll be just hanging out and going to movies (Chicago at the dollar theater and seabiscuit) ! Yay! Girl time!!!

Another fun filled action packed day in Tucson!

2003-08-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

What a busy day!

First of all I got an email from my classmates.com friend of yesterday! She REALLY DID remember me! YAHOO!!! Apparently she was just really loaded at the reunion and thought she remembered talking to me. She's probably sitting there now going well if that wasnt Lara I was talking to, who was it? By a strange coincidence, she lived in the city I live in up until three years ago, which is about the time I moved here! AND she lived only about 1 city block over from where I'm living. VERY ODD!

Second of all it rained like a BITCH today. I don't mean it just rained. I love the rain! But when I have to be out in it, I'd like to think of my car as a car, not a BOAT. At one point as I made my way across Tucson, my car was lifted from the ground and floated for about 3 seconds. THREE SECONDS of pure fright for me! Tucson has a way of flooding anytime the rain really comes down for thirty seconds or longer. And the floodgates opened up today because it REALLY rained! When I had to get out of my car at my destination, I stepped down into rain that was up over my ankle. Now keep in mind that when I left my house this afternoon, it was clear and sunny. Only 30 minutes later I was stepping down into that much water. It was CRAZY.

So back to my classmate who remembered me. She told me that she's divorced and seeing someone who was our classmate. OH GOD. What if its my Richard??????? Wouldnt that be a CRAZY TWIST? Shit, she said "I'm sort of seeing someone who was our classmate, but I'll save that for another email". I was like BITCH! Don't leave me hanging!!! hee hee. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. Believe me YOU will be the first to know if it is!

So I picked up 2 rolls of black and white film today and I didnt really know what was on them with the exception of a few lightning pictures I'd taken recently. There were NAKED pictures of Bryan! NO, nothing seedy, nothing that even showed anything, but naked they were! Very Artsy FARTSY nude photos. OH and a very very cute photo of Sasha, and 5 or 6 photos of some black and white puppies I saw in Little Rock Arkansas back in June! They turned out GREAT!

What a day. There's more. My psycho friend in CALI who hasnt spoken to me in a year decided to email me a 3 word thank you for a birthday card I sent her. That's turned into a total discussion of what happened and why. Now when I say psycho, I mean this girl knows how to fight, and honestly she kinda frightens me. But I stood up to her (in email). She'll get that email tomorrow and I'm sure there's gonna be some bruises on my body from what is flung back at me through cyber space! Dear lord...can't we all just get along? It probably doesnt help that I actually said the words, "I didn't ASK you to come out to visit me all those times. I'm sorry I didnt come to see you, but you came of your own volition." She came out and helped me move in. As I said, I never asked her to and she did come because she wanted to. It was really nice of her, but honestly I didnt ask her to. She actually came out here a BUNCH of times, but not once did I invite her. She always called me and said HEY what are you doing for Memoial Day? What are you doing for Labor day? I was thinking about coming out! If she hadn't been here every other weekend for the last 3 years I might have thought about going to see her. She never gave me a chance to miss her though! So when an opportunity came up to go and visit her or to go to Seattle or somewhere else, of course I'm gonna pick seattle because I JUST SAW psycho girl! So beyond the fact she's been here three million times and I've never been out there, the other reason she was mad and hadn't spoken to me in the last year was because I went to Vegas last year with Rene for 2 days for a girl trip to lie by the pool and just relax, and we didnt ask her to go. Now all the times she's gone somewhere and didn't invite me to go (which I can tell you is more than a few times) I had to throw back in her face tonight. Why because I'm going on a trip last minute to relieve some stress does that mean that I have to invite her? I don't. This is how it went. Rene: Lara,we should go to Vegas for a weekend. After the last month we both deserve it! Lara: Hey that's a great idea...I could use some down time...no clubs, no noise, no nothing except for lying by the pool. Lets go next weekend! I ordinarily wouldnt have told anyone that I didn't HAVE to invite them, its rude. However, she seems to have forgotten that I'm an adult and because one of my friends has suggested something doesnt mean she ALWAYS gets the automatic invite to go. She's loud and she would have wanted to go to the clubs and party. We wanted quiet. We didnt invite her. I'm sorry! She needs to get over it! Can someone who reads this (if there is such a person) please comment and tell me if from what I've written here I sound like a jerk?

~sigh~

So tune in tomorrow for the continuing tale of the friend who hates me! And don't forget to tune in to find out if my classmates.com friend, Erin, is seeing the ex love of my high school life, Richard! All this and more...here at 75 degrees and raining!

Someone remembers me! -maybe.

2003-08-25T13:05:00.000-07:00

What was in my email this morning? An email from Classmates.com telling me that I had a note from an old classmate of mine!

THIS IS EXCITING NEWS! You see, I am the one who always does the staying in touch, I am always the one who searches for and makes contact with people I've lost. People I remember as being wonderful, kind, fun loving people! People I really enjoyed! People who were imporant enough to me to try to stay in touch. And for once, SOMEONE REMEMBERED ME!

So then I read the note sent to me. Here's a direct excerpt.

"Hey Laura! How are you?! Do yo remember me?! I know we saw each other @ the reunion, but that wat 8(yikes!) years ago."
Isn't that nice? Yes, it is great, until I realized that she said, "I know we saw each other at the reunion." HELLO...I did not go to the reunion!

I did know this girl, and she is one of those people you always remember fondly because she was so nice. I think she even took me to my first concert. (Loverboy and Joan Jet and the Blackhearts ~ It ROCKED!) So she does know me, but is she remembering ME? Did she mean to write to someone else and not me? Man...it kinda let me down. But hey, I'm nice, and wrote back to her and told her that I thought she might be remembering a different Laura (ahem...it's LARA) <--No I did not tell her that. But she might be remembering a different Lara because I wasn't at the reunion. We'll see what she's got to say, IF she writes back once she realizes she meant Laura Vogel or some other LAURA. I did also make the appropriate noises that I would have made had she ACTUALLY been writing to me too, and she IS one of those people I would like to be in touch with too as mentioned above. Her mistake could be a good thing! Besides...the love of my high school life. My serious high school crush who never knew I had a thing for him for three years is HER FRIEND. Well he was anyway when we were in high school. While I'm happily married to Bryan, there's still a little bit of me that says, "hey whatever happened to Richard?" Because, as many of you may realize, Richard was a Babe 1/2! Do people still say that? Should I be saying Richard was a FOX? Oh I remember those days...I even went to Camp Foxtail...for Foxy Ladies! I was 10 when I went there...and boy did I think I was something! I was after all...a Foxy Lady!

I have horror stories to tell about Richard though. I, first of all was a late bloomer. I didnt have a boyfriend until much later than everyone else. I had no clue about what to do about boys. I was terrified of boys!! In 10th grade english, Richard was in my class. My friend Kim sat in front of him. She came up to me after class one day and said that he liked me and if I liked him I was to talk to him at the locker after class. Which conveniently enough was directly next to mine. Well I needed to go to the locker after class and then had to catch my bus. BUT being the FREAK I was back then, I was AFRAID of talking to him, so I raced to the locker, grabbed my things and then ran for the bus. I had this absurd fear that someone was playing a huge joke on me! And I was terribly shy too. Anyhow...this event started a THREE YEAR LOVE of Richard.

At one point, two of my SO CALLED friends who knew of my love, were in detention for the day together. They got an early lunch, and I was on late lunches, so being the nice people they were, they took PERMANENT marker and wrote across BOTH of our lockers a HUGE heart with the words LARA LOVES RICHARD AND RICHARD LOVES LARA. So picture ME. Shy, embarassed easily, unsure of herself ME walking up to my locker and seeing PERMANENT marker like that ALL OVER MY LOCKER -- AND HIS TOO! HOLY SHIT! I didnt carry pens with me at the time, everything was pencil, and I can remember taking my pencil and scribbling through it (as though that would cover the marker up! NOT!). And writing things like NO! Not TRUE! I nearly feinted and I was SO RED and embarassed I did not know what to do, so I moved lockers.

I was so obsessed with him that I knew what his class schedule was, I knew his phone number, and I knew where he lived. I even had favorite pants that he would wear (white OPs! Yeah baby!!!). So I would on occasion drive by his house. Just to drive by. I could always feel my heart hammering in my chest because what if he was outside of his house and he saw me? I would ultimately end up blazing past his house so fast that I didnt even see it! Seems so silly now as an adult, but I'm sure there are a few of you out there who can relate to this type of behavior! So this one time as I blazed past in my mom and dad's 1980 Pontiac Station Wagon (I was SO COOL) after I went by with my sister in the car with me, I realized someone had run into the street after me and was waving their hands. I nearly CRAPPED MY PANTS right then and there. THEN I realized it was my friend Erin! You know...the girl who sent me the note that caused this million word blog to happen!

So get this. I BACKED UP. ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN THE STREET. IN THE STATION WAGON, or as I had affectionately come to know it...the FAG WAGON. And there she was....saying hello to me! With Richard right behind her! Where are you going she said? I was like Uh...to my friends house. Yeah...she lives just on the next block. PRAYING she wasnt going to say WHO? Erin's popular, she knows everyone. She would probably have known! Fortunately...Richard didnt say anything to me (though I was drooling over him inside...I ignored him like he wasnt there, like he was gum under my shoe, like there was nothing of importance standing behind Erin!)

All this nostalgia...the good old days! I was such a retarded teenager! Anyone got anything that tops my retardedism?? Please feel free to comment!

Where have I been?!

2003-08-24T20:35:00.000-07:00

OH NO! People may have missed me...better check my comment boxes...they're probably protesting in Brazil and London and about every other place on earth because I haven't been here. Hmm...curiously the police haven't been around to query why I have not blogged as I am such a good blogger. Such a faithful blogger.

Well to be honest I've been busy. I have had a lot on my plate you see. WHAT? WHAT WAS I DOING? Umm..well...you see...have I mentioned my curious addiction with the BBC's soap to end all soaps...EASTENDERS? I tape it so I can save it and then I can savor it later! I tape it every weekend when they show a whole weeks worth of episodes at once. 2 1/2 hours per week that is! So I've been taping and taping and taping and then suddenly the tapes get out of control. Which tape is for which week? Am I missing a week? HOLY SHIT! WHERE is August 2d's episode???? WHERE IS IT????? THEN I realize that I am making a huge mistake. I need to be watching them, not saving them! But you see, that's where the savoring comes in. It's not a mistake after all...once I've got the tapes in what I THINK is the correct order, I can sit down and watch. I have been on an Eastenders (herein after called EE) marathon this weekend. I've watched until their cockney starts to sound american...or at least that I've listened to so much that I don't notice it anymore, and I also started to use words like SARNEY for sandwich and GLAD RAGS for your dressin up clothes and going for a pint sounds mighty good (oops...STILL using some of that good old Georgia slang!)! Good old English fry up anyone??? BEANS ON TOAST? And guys named, of all things, ALFIE, are starting to look REALLY FRIGGIN HOT to me! I don't know what it is...but I NEED Alfie in my life! OK...um...it's just a soap RIGHT? Yeah...I DO realize this. right. Alfie is just a CHARACTER. SURE HE IS. What's wrong with Kat Slater?? (I'm not totally caught up so if ANYONE actually reads this, yes that's a longshot I realize, who watches EE, and feels like telling me that they're together in the recent episodes I'll just kill you! Keep it to yourself!!!! THANK YOU!!)

So anyway, that's where I've been. I'm all caught up in Albert's Square and jumping Alfie behind the bar of the Queen Vic! I MEAN...watching him serve PINTS behind the bar of the queen vic...right! OF COURSE.

Have I mentioned that I don't have a lot going on these days? I am bored out of my mind. I have literally nothing to do. Yes I could and probably should be painting my house (white walls are starting to really get to me). Oh and I need to get all the wallpaper off the walls of my master bedroom too. Have I done any of that? Um...no. But I am thinking about getting a part time job just so I have a reason to leave the house more often.

I DID manage to win $50 at the casino playing nickle slots on Friday at my monthly casino lunch with my friend Marcy! YEAH!! I also managed to go penny squashing at the zoo and the international wildlife museum which was REALLY cool. When it's about 15 degrees cooler I'll go back to that zoo. It was awesome! Not so big to be overwhelming, not so small that it was gay. I even had a MOMENT with a giraffe. Did you know they have hairy lips? Now why are you giggling...it wasn't THAT way. Ya PERV! I was just THAT close that I could see them! Very cool!

What am I doing tomorrow? I dont know. Temp Connection please call me with a job for a few days! PLEASE!!!! I'm SO BORED!

:( No photos...

2003-08-22T20:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not so brilliant it appears. I've tried to add photos but with my limited html it's a no go. If any brilliant html people out there can help me, please PLEASE comment or email me. GRR!!

RIGHT ON!!!

2003-08-22T00:12:00.000-07:00

It works! I AM THE MOST TALENTED WEBMASTER BLOGGER YOU KNOW! OK, so that's a slight exaggeration...but I am psyched!!!! Now if I can only figure out how to add photos I'd be a TRUE master of my blog!

Comment Box...

2003-08-21T23:48:00.000-07:00

Uh oh...I'm not seeing my comment box. It was JUST there!! I was so impressed with myself too! OK, so lets try this again...it said I had to republish to show the changes. Maybe it just didnt publish correctly.

Blog Addiction

2003-08-21T23:18:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing!

So I think it's finally happened. No it didn't take much, but it's true. I'm blog addicted. Is there a 12 step program for this? It doesn't take much for me to become addicted to a lot of things. Lets see...um...current addictions...sugar...squashed pennys...anything with high fat grams...anything with peanut butter AND chocolate...Janet Evonovich books...Photography...reality TV...OH! Oops! What was I saying? I got off track! Blog Addiction!

So my friend Kenny Parker told me a month or two ago that he'd become a blogger. I had no idea what Blogging was and when he told me I thought it sounded kinda cool, and thought I'd at least check it out. Now he's a FABULOSO writer, he's really got some serious skills in this department. And after reading his wife Kelly's blogs I know that this is one TALENTED family as far as the writing department goes. Anyhow, it inspired me. I thought SURE I can write. I can be entertaining! I can produce thought provoking blogs! I guess I just keep wondering if anyone reads it though! Hmm...maybe I can wrangle a comment box and then I'll know if anyone reads. OK, so after the HELL of getting my counter installed (safely and securely down at the bottom of the page) I'm a little nervous about attempting this. Blogging is supposed to be simple and it is until you FUCK with its template, then all HELL breaks loose! Wish me luck...

Reality Heaven or Hell??

2003-08-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

Blah Blah Blah...It was a wasted day. I did nothing except for veg in front of one TV or another. I did nothing productive at all. How exciting is that? What's on the schedule tomorrow Lara? Absolutely 100% more of the same. Man do I need to do SOMETHING.

Lets see, there must be SOMETHING to blog about. Got it. Reality TV. Yes!! I feel inspired already! And after all, TV is one of my favorite subjects so I should be able to write about that! Right? So my husband SWEARS that reality TV is dead. He says its just STUPID now with a few exceptions. Everytime a new show is advertised he rolls his eyes to the ceiling and says with his Georgia accent, "ohhhh Goooddddd!!!" I try to remind him that my reality tv is his sports on TV. He doesnt hear me complain about them so I expect the same courtesy from him. PLUS my reality tv has only been around for a few years...his sports will be around FOREVER!!! He again rolls his eyes and then moves to the bedroom tv where he can watch the braves play in a more manly testosteronish atmosphere (aka minus me and my reality tv!)

One of the shows he still likes is Survivor. I don't agree with him there. Of all the reality shows on TV, Survivor just doesnt change. Same show, different people, exactly the same show. It's lost my interest. HOWEVER, other shows that havent changed much really still do it for me!

He also loves Big Brother and the Amazing Race. He swears though that sports and also Chopper (where they build motorcycles) are not reality tv. Is he HIGH? He better not be...the military will be after him for a piss test quick as nobody's business!

Big Brother! ROCKS! (I hate Ali!)

The MOLE. Yes this one didn't do well with the viewers, but probably because its one of the few reality shows on TV that actually requires you to do some thinking! One of them is the mole trying to wreck everything, but noone knows who it is. Clues each week that are hidden clues so you really have to watch. It's a well done tv show. I wish they'd bring it back again! We'll see...they only did 2 seasons and I've not heard anything about it ever sinse.

Real World and Road Rules. MTV was so SMART to create these shows. Even though they're all the same I will still watch them, every minute of them, and I'll watch it 20 times over! I'd even be happy to watch the bits that they don't show like them sitting on the couch taking a nap doing nothing...I'm that hooked!

Paradise Hotel. This show ROCKS. The worst thing they could have ever done was allow Toni to be voted off. Yes yes yes...don't get up in arms. She annoyed me too, but she created drama, she made it interesting because you never knew when that powder keg was going to explode!!! Amy has tried to take her place but between her screaming at people and hearing others tell someone else as they got the boot that they needed to take care of her, its just confused me. Is she a poor little waif who needs someone to take care of her or is she the ruthless bitch that she portrays the other half of the time? I hate her!! And she's a zoni too! I should be state loyal right? NOT! Do you realize that FOUR of those people are from arizona? Not only from Arizona but from the phoenix area! Beau - radio dj from scottsdale, Amy - pro cheerleader from Chandler I think, Alex - student from Tempe and finally Kristen - hairdresser from Scottsdale. Kinda funny...I don't care for too many of those four either. I think Beau is the only one who I don't hate. Keep in mind I dont hate him, but I dont really like him either!

Temptation Island is coming right up and I can't wait! White trashy tv ----yeahhhh buddy!

Amazing Race! This is one show that I always say that I could do! My friend Rene and I always say we could be on there and kick other teams asses! We've traveled Europe! We know our way around and we would have an advantage! We say that until they do their first task that involves A Bungying or B running. Usually means that as of five minutes into episode one we put down the video tape we were going to use to video ourselves to apply for the next AR.

I am an avid fan of Shipmates and Blind date also. I group them together because it feels as though shipmates IS blind date, just a longer version! I love the special affects they add too! Really hilarious!

Hey we can't forget about Cheaters!!!! Yeahhhh....I apparently REALLY love the white trash tv! Nothing better than a Saturday night at midnight turning on the tube to watch cheaters get busted on national TV! And the cheaters ALWAYS have the NERVE to get pissed because it happens on TV! Umm...HELLOOO!! YOU'RE the CHEATER! YOU'RE the one who's giving it up to someone other than your supposed girlfriend or wife or husband or boyfriend!!! Never fails!!!

Well I guess that's it for a day on reality tv with me. I'm just waiting for the Reality TV channel...its coming folks. You know it is. It'll be a cable special channel and believe me I'll have it! I'll be watching Big brother 1 again! I'll be watching the amazing race and temptation island and everyone else in the world will be happy that it's being contained within one channel...while I'll be in heaven just watching and watching and watching all my favorite reality shows in reruns!

Comments?

Happy Birthday Mom

2003-08-18T21:27:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Mom

I hope it was a wonderful day floating on clouds drifting from place to place and visiting with each of us. I thought I felt you near me, thought I caught a whiff of your favorite perfume. You would have been 64 today.

I wonder if Nana made you a cake?

I lit candles today for you and thought of you often. All in all its been a day of remembrance and I want to tell you that I miss you.

In recent weeks, you've been in my dreams often. You weren't the star of the show, but I'd catch you on the sidelines, just hanging out with us.

It rained today. Somehow that's appropriate. I know you could have appreciated the rain as I do.

Are you proud of us? Things are so changed, yet they feel the same as when you were here. Dad is surrounded with friends in a new city. My sister has a beautiful baby girl who looks like your baby pictures. And me. Well I quit a job to pursue my dreams. And at this point I haven't gotten too far. Are you proud of me?

I love you.

Happy Birthday Mom

I guess 2 years and 3 months later I'm still grieving. I wish she was here to talk to so often, and I can still hear her laughs and her voice when she would console me over something silly that I was upset about. "Oh come on honey, don't cry." I need someone to tell me that right now. Have to go, I need a kleenex.

Blog Humbug

2003-08-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

I don't feel creative. I don't feel like writing. I don't feel as though anything I write matters to anyone in the world in anyway. Does ANYone ever read this? I just feel tired. And unappreciated and as though I'll never get my photography off the ground. Discouraged. Maybe I just need to go to bed and sleep. Tomorrow is another day (Thanks Scarlett, but right now I don't give a damn!).

Don't mind the above pity party, I don't really think I feel as bad as it sounds. I think I just have the photography on my mind and don't feel as though I'll ever get anywhere with it. I just need someone to give me a chance! How many artists, actors, models out there have said those exact words. I feel your pain brother, I feel your pain.

Tomorrow I MUST do something. Something to make myself feel better about all this. Sign up for another photo class or one on how to use photoshop (a program I dont have because it costs about 3 million dollars to buy it!). It would be a move in the right direction. My ex photo professor suggested I call pro photographers in town and ask if they need a photography assistant. If I got a job with one it would be invaluable. I'd gain the knowledge and expertise on how the pros do it. I guess I pull out the phone book and see who has advertised in the yellow pages under the words photographer and just go down the list.

Blog Humbug
Comments?

Boring Saturday night...

2003-08-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

...if you have a good story to tell, email me.

I have a need to be entertained!!

This MUST be a dream?

2003-08-16T21:08:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had one of those days where all these crazy things happen and when you think back on it, it takes on a sort of dreamlike weirdness? I had a day like that on Thursday.

First of all, while temping, one of the clients who works in the building I was receptionist for started talking to me between cients. This guy works for one of those companies who help guys who have a little less hair than they would like to better their allotment through surgery. You've probably seen ads for it on TV at 3am. Anyhow, I didn't realize this initially. So we get to talking and when he tells me what his company does, I tell him that I believe that a family member of mine used them a few years back. He goes who is it? Maybe I know them. I said well they live in a different town. He goes so who is it? I tell him and he goes YES! I do know him! I said are you sure? He goes yes, it was in 2000 right? And it was. What a strange coincidence eh?

Second of all, a little later, I'm sitting at reception talking to the lady I reported to. I was sitting at the desk, she was leaning on my counter and between us on our left was a supply closet with a door that was wide open. It wasnt propped open, and there was no breeze or draft. Anyhow, in the middle of our conversation, the door suddenly just swung closed. I looked and then looked at the lady and said, "have we got a ghost?" She then proceded to tell me that there were 2 ghosts in the building that they know of. One is around when you smell BARF. The second is around when you smell POOP. I was like huh? Anyhow, a little later I had to go into the supply closet and that door was very heavy. A breeze or draft couldn't have blown it closed, and its not one of those doors that has the contraption at the top that will pull it closed either. Very strange. And NO I did not smell anything strange.

The third strange thing of the day was also at this job. About 330 in the afternoon, one of the clients comes out to my desk. He's a nice man, probably in his 60s, and is probably a good catch financially for some lucky lady out there. Anyway, he thanks me for coming and thanks me for my professionalism. Then he goes on to tell me that I'm not too hard on the eyes either!!! I was like HUH?? I think the world's gone crazy!

The last unusual thing that happened was when I got home. I checked the mail and there was an envelope addressed to me. When I looked at it closer, I saw that one of my photos was printed on the paper inside the envelope! Its the picture of the bird taking off from the bird feeder in my backyard (see my photo website - Critters page). I submitted it to an online photo contest a month or two ago and this was a letter telling me that I'd made it to their semi finals and that they also wanted to publish my picture within a coffee table book this winter! Now this is my serious DREAM COME TRUE. It doesnt feel real...and after all the other things that happened that day I started to have that "I'm dreaming and I'll wake up any time now" feeling.

I didnt, it really happened! All in all it was a good day, it was a good temp job and it even rained that night (my favorite weather). Perhaps God was smiling down on me and giving me an interesting day to live through!

Never get pierced by a dude named Nasty.

2003-08-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

So the last two days have been back to normal, "Lara is a working girl" life. I've been temping this week, and the boss of the company that I've been working for must have heard my prayers about not wanting to report to them at 6am because they called me last thing on Friday afternoon and said they'd changed their hours to 7 - 3:30 instead of 6-3. So the week started off great! I put 16 hours in and next week I'll get a paycheck! Yay for me!

This morning though I got into the shower and then realized I had not taken my nosering out of my nose yet. Normally I will take it out before getting in and wash it and then wash my nose while in the shower. So I took it out in the shower like an idiot. The thing is TINY. I was standing under the water when I did it...can I get a DUH?? Yes...idiot girl strikes again and it was washed away down the drain! All day long I had no nosering and I wondered if it could possibly be closing up while I temped today. Of course that's ridiculous! Ears don't close that fast, so why would noses right? After work I decided to go to my favorite piercing parlor, Halo Precision Piercing, and get a new ring. They ask me how long the ring had been out. I said since this morning. He tries to put it in. He said to me, HOW LONG has it been out??? (sounding quite puzzled) I said again, Since this morning. He tries again and then calls another person over. She asks me how long its been out. I tell her, "sinse this morning". She tries and then says to me, "well Honey, your nose likes to close up unusually fast!" I said is it closed? She says no, but it's smaller than what we're trying to put in there. She then tells me to close my eyes and take a deep breath. I do and then she says now BLOW IT OUT. I did and she RAMMED that ring into my nose! I feel as though I got it pierced all over again!!! I think the official word for what happened today is STRETCHING. Doesnt even sound fun does it?

My friend Kenny Parkolbert wrote something in his blogg in the last day or two about things in your life being like episodes of a tv show or a cartoon character. Todays STRETCHING incident certainly fits into that category. Well and I would also say the time when I got my nose pierced would as well...

The first time I got my nose pierced I was in Las Vegas for 4th of July 2002 with my friend Jennifer from Philly. I got drunk and at 3am we went in a taxi looking for all night piercing parlors. We found one and the piercers name was Nasty. Nasty was a good guy. He understood about my phobia of needles and kindly didnt show it to me until after the damage had been done. Nasty also overlooked the fact that I was quite inebriated which a quality joint would have NEVER overlooked. Anyway, the way I see it if it hadnt been for Nasty and his not so reputable joint I'd have never gotten my nose pierced which is something I've wanted for YEARS and YEARS (ever sinse way back when on my brittish soap I'm addicted to called Eastenders had a character named Gita who had one I have wanted one! We're talking since probably 1995!). However, the downside is that he also put a ring into my nose that is the size of what you put into your belly. THATS HUGE in the nose piercing world! You just don't do that! When I got back to Tucson, I found Halo and they took it out (after taking a picture of my nose to add to their book of things to NOT EVER DO WHILE PIERCING SOMEONE) and hooked me up with a small diamond nose ring (which is really not a ring, but a stud). My nose healed up just fine and 13 months later I dropped my ring in the shower. After all that work I did to get drunk that night so I wouldnt feel it, I had to feel it today and quite sober too. It HURTS! I dont know if I'd do this again if I had to do it sober! So maybe I should change the title of this from Never get pierced by a dude named Nasty, to "DUDE, Nasty was the SHIT!"

Baby Love

2003-08-10T00:29:00.000-07:00

Baby love rocks! My niece was all over me today. She just could not get enough! It made me feel sooo good too! I fed her crackers with PB & J on them for her snack while Mommy took a quick nap and she got it all over her face and she laughed and laughed and laughed with me. All day long she kept running (literally!) up to me with her arms up in the air because she wanted her auntie. When I was online checking my email she wanted up in my lap to check out my emails with me. She's got this face she makes where she scrunches up her face, opens her mouth really big and it looks like she's laughing so hard that she can't make any sounds. It's all a big fake, she's enjoying herself but she's not really laughing that hard. Anyhow, we had a blast and I feel so relaxed...everyone needs one of these. They give so much love and life is so simple to them. Perhaps this is one of those life lessons teaching me not to make so much out of things. Nothing has to be complicated or twisted. Hmm..with that I'll head to bed.

Smilin...

2003-08-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

woofwoofwoof and kisses from a fifteen month old...life gets no better than this...

Brain Dead

2003-08-08T00:21:00.000-07:00

Ugh. It's midnight! How can it already be midnight? I'm so tired yet I really want to put something here today. I worked on my website for the photography stuff, and it's up and running as best I can tell. It's my first efforts EVER to put a webpage together...and I'm pretty proud of it! My photos look awesome! I'll link it in the sidebar for any readers who want to check it out! Do I even have readers???

The temp agency stalked me today! Yess...I can already see the dollar signs in my bank account!! I have a second job for next week now for Thursday and Friday. I'll actually be working for three days next week! Nothing like a three day work week! They also called me and asked me if I'd be interested in a longer term temp job. It's near the newspaper which is a major drive, but it's only 30 to 40 hours a week for a construction company. I think I could hang with that. Plus it's only til the regular girl gets back from maternity leave! That's my xmas money right there!

The newspapers editor wrote back to me in email and told me that the majority of their freelance photography stuff is going to the owners son who is interning at the paper as it's "his thing". UGH! Owners son is stealing my gig!! Before I left the editor had told me he planned to use me a LOT as he was losing one of his freelancers. THEN the owners son started...there went that little moneypot! And that dude doesnt even need the money! I did payroll for him and he hadnt turned in a timesheet one week and I had to hunt him down and you know what he told me? "Next time just don't pay me." I almost fell off my chair!!! Must be ROUGH!!! Oh well, theres not much I can do about it. I put a feeler out to another friend of mine who works for a different publication in town to see if they use freelancers. They might not, but if I don't ask I'll never know, right?

I am so dreading monday. I have to work from SIX AM until 3pm. Three PM rocks! The 6am not so much. Well its only for one day. I can deal with it! I just have to get a mindset that I'm doing it and that's all there is to it!

Tomorrow I'm headed up to Phoenix. Chuck is going out of town leaving my sister with a baby and a car with no AC for the entire weekend (in 105+ temps). Its no big deal, but she also doesnt like to stay by herself because it creeps her out. So this gives me an excuse to see my 15 month old niece! She's 15 months of hell on wheels too!!! Her newest thing...What does a doggy say? "woofwoofwoof!" She calls Sasha, YaYa. Yaya stayed with them while we were in Atlanta and with her boyfriend Bear (their black lab). Hallie has become a major mimic here of late and so she heard Kristel calling her Sasha and it came out of her mouth Yaya. After we took yaya home, she asked for yaya all day long for three days! Can she get much cuter??

Well I have to go and put some ear drops in Sasha's ears (ear infection)...poor girl hates to have it done but she needs it. Besides I'm about to fall asleep at the keyboard!

Later!

LUNK

2003-08-06T01:16:00.000-07:00

So I got a call today from the temp agency! They've got a one day job working for some company that works with the Federal Aviation Administration. I'll be answering phones. From 6AM until 3PM next monday. UGH! Those hours are gonna kill me, but I'll manage somehow, its only for one day after all. Hey when it's nothing but zero's in the bank account beggars can't be choosers, right??

Im feeling good because I have finally done a little something for my photography career. First of all, sent an email to the editor of the alternative weekly I used to work for and offered my services as a photographer to them for a special issue that is coming up. That could mean some decent money coming my way in September if they use me. Also, would mean I'd have photos actually published! Second of all I sent off to the New York Institute of Photography for info on their self paced home school. It sound like a great deal and would teach me how to get my foot in the door to my career in photography. I wonder how much it costs to take it though? Well I guess we'll see when the package comes in the mail. Lastly I created a webpage today for my photography. It's still in its fledgling stages or I'd post the web address here. I'll finish it up in the next few days and then I'll post a link to it here.

I must do SOMETHING productive tomorrow. The webpage makes it sound as though I really did something today, and I did, but not for very long. I've been sitting on my ass for days now. I swear to you my ASS hurts from just sitting on it. MUST MOVE TOMORROW. Shit at this point, if I just got out of the house and went to the pool it'd feel productive! HEY...tomorrow night is Paradise Hotel AND Big Brother 4! So much for leaving the house tomorrow night! I better at the very least do something around the house tomorrow. Just call me LUNK.

Nothing but Zeros...

2003-08-04T23:28:00.000-07:00

Well here I am, another day another -- well I can't say a dollar because I didnt earn anything today. UGH. Back in April I was an overworked and miserable employee of a local alternative newspaper. When I say I was miserable, I mean I was miserable. Always angry, always moody, always pissed about the way things were going at the newspaper and I brought it all home with me. I was a joy to live with, believe me. I talked it over with my husband and then I quit. I gave them a months notice because I'm not a bastard and I got a glowing recommendation and the publisher pulled me aside and told me that if I ever changed my mind and wanted to come back that all I had to do was tell him and he'd create a position for me. This is something big from a place that is constantly talking about how can they cut costs! So anyway, I decided that I would temp for a living. That way I can pursue my photography and further my craft, perhaps even make some money from it. I can also go to school. I didnt have time for school before. It was overtime every night. Weekends were for vegging out and doing nothing like a zombie. Imagine how much fun I was to my husband?

So I am a much happier person now. I am traveling a lot more which I love, and I'm taking a lot of photos, but I havent made any money from that. I get temp jobs now and then which is great, but I havent had any lately. I'm needing one though because my bank account is saying ZERO ZERO ZERO. Happy? Money? Happy? Money? I'm thinking happy is better at this point, maybe when I've been at zero funds for a bit longer I'll change my mind. Until then....it's happy happy happy!

PS-anyone out there with any ideas on how to make money taking pictures let me know by writing to kutipye30@aol.com.

I did it!

2003-08-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

The counter is safely put into place...whew! Sometimes it just takes starting over to get things the way they're supposed to be! No problems, no stresses, no complications, no publishing 8 times...just smooth sailing! Yahoo!!!

Do Over!

2003-08-03T23:41:00.000-07:00

I've had to start over with my blog. The attempt at adding my counter did nothing except for mess up my blogs! They all were published four times and then each time I'd add a new entry it would be published one more time except that the new blog wasnt listed! It was crazy so I've moved everything over to this new blog. Ugh! Who would have thought it would be this complicated! I'd really love to have a counter, but now I'm afraid to try it!