Counting down the days

Lent, be over quickly! There's so much crap I want to say!

Lieutenant Dan, ice cream...

Tonight we had dinner at Jay and Shuana's house since my insanely busy weekend of working and studying forced me to miss their son Jack's first birthday party this weekend. I brought Jack some birthday presents (oooh, sensible clothes! Just what babies want.) and Jay made an insanely delicious chicken parmasean. As dinner was cooking we went outside to enjoy the last few minutes of a beautiful day. An ice cream truck was just leaving the neighborhood and Izzy didn't recognize what it was till her Mom said something to the effect of "Do you hear the ice cream truck?" At that point it was too far out of the neighborhood to get it. A few minutes later it was just Izzy and I outside and we heard the truck again. I picked her up and ran to try and catch it but 1) I didn't have any cash on me and 2) it was one subdivision over. Izzy was a good sport and told everyone our adventure of running to the ice cream truck but it being too far away.
Later on, John and I were preparing to leave, hugging, saying thanks, talking about future plans, all that. Izzy hugged me and told me that she would miss me, that she wanted me to stay, etc. It was after 8:30 so she was super tired. Like that whiny kid quasi-functional tired. As she walked away from me to curl up on the sofa I heard her say three words under her breath: "Ice Cream Truck."

Flats, do you really want to hurt meee? Do you really want to make me cryyyy?

Welcome to my cankly world. Do you see those sores? They aren't from heels or boots or sandals. They are from FLATS. FLATTY FLAT FLATS. I have no problems with heels. Well, minus 2 Steve Madden pairs I owned, but I don't really count that because 2 women have told me, without prompting, that Steve Madden heels are always uncomfortable for them, too. I'm 2 years late to the trend party and started wearing leggings. You can't really wear heels with leggings because, well, that looks too street-walker-er for me. Do you see what a cute pair of flats did to my feet? And this was while wearing little protective socks.

Tuesdays

Tuesdays this semester are always weird. I only have one class on Tuesdays, and it's in the early afternoon. By Tuesday the weekend cleaning that I've done is always quasi-undone and I'm itching to get my mitts around a Swiffer. My Tuesday class basically just breaks up my Tuesday of cleaning and doing homework.

Reunited, and it feels so gooood...

Last week Toonces ran away. I posted a little about it. He is all black, no ID on him, and scared of people. Gina and I searched for him for about 40 minutes outside. It was super frustrating. We could hear his bell, but as we called his name he moved further and further into the woods behind our house. I totally thought that cat was gone forever.

Friday night John went outside to see if UPS had delivered something for him and I heard him yell, "Oh my God, Toonces!" Toonces was outside our door. John tried to get him, but when John's hand was around him Toonces freaked out and dashed away. John ran in, instructing us to turn on all the outside lights. He got some cat food and a dog leash. Mike and I watched through a side window as John spent several minutes patiently sitting and coaxing Toonces to come to him. John finally got his hands on the cat and that animal freaked out. John had Toonces pinned to the ground and Toonces was surging and struggling to get away. I saw John get the leash on Toonces and start running towards the house. I opened the front door and kicked/ shooed the other animals (Cujo, Bodhi and Odin) who were highly interested in what was happening. Toonces seriously looked like the Tazmanian Devil. Because the leash was cutting off his air supply his hissing was desperate and otherwordly. He is all black and his eyes were rolling around in his head. His teeth were bared and all four of his paws were rigidly out and swinging from his body. I could see every claw. He was fighting John so viciously that the leash was more like a pendulum. Mike and I stood back from the door and John threw Toonces into the house in an area that wasn't too near other animals. Toonces had so much momentum that the first place he set foor in our house was the 6th stair to upstairs.

He's back! John is a hero!

Oh my Dog

Hey Cujo, your life would be so much better if you didn't think that ant poison was a delicious treat. You wouldn't run outside every 20 minutes to take an explosive dump and you could actually play outside with your other dog friends. I know that when you stand at the back door and dance and pant and get anxious and stare at me, it means that you either have a giant #2 locked and loaded or you are just jonesing for some more poison buffet.

Like a Japanese teenager at a Michael Jackson concert in 1987

That is the level of celebration and crying that I will have if Obama's healthcare legislation gets passed.

Sinking feeling...

Our roommate's cat just ran away. He is all black, afraid of people, and has no microchip or ID tag. She didn't even put his rabies tag on him so if people find him, they can't even call the vet. AAAND it's late at night. We're about to start a search party, but I don't see this ending well.

I don't get it

Usually I like South Park. I didn't like it for years and years, thinking to was too crude. Once I started watching it (read: dating guys who watch it) it grew on me. One of the things I like most is how the show never lets you forget that the main characters are in elementary school. In one episode the boys in one class are trying to get an item from a girl and one of them suggests kicking the girl in her balls. Another boy meekly suggests, "What if girls don't have balls on the outside? What if girls' balls are up in their tummies?". That's pretty funny, Trey and Matt.
There is one South Park episode that has been on repeat that I just don't get. The kids and their parents do something that makes them hallucinate and the hallucination is that they are riding in space with a really hot woman who doesn't say anything, who takes them to her planet where everything is boobs. Houses looks like boobs, mountains, birds, weapons, all of it. It's so crass and difficult to watch. UGH.

Gold medal in gloating

It pains me a little to say this, but I could totally gold medal in gloating and judging people. I would never do that to YOU, dear reader, of course. As a way to kill time I just googled one of my exes (a friend of mine referred to someone as THE ex and I thought that was perfect. You know the ex who was your first real love, who you thought you would marry, who almost always was a super jerk? That is THE ex) and one of my former roommates. THE ex's FB profile pic is over 5 years old because I remember him sending it to me when he was in Iraq with the Marines. It's him with a big gun in front of his base entrance sign. I know it's not that big of a deal, but this guy wrote the book on "truthiness". If you saw that picture, wouldn't you assume it was recent, that he was still with the Marines, or that he was in Iraq? Nope, you would be wrong. He just did little crap like that all the time. Every waking hour. He posted a picture of someone doing some snowboard jumping stuff and he captioned it with something along the lines of, "My return to the ground wasn't quite so graceful!" You'd think it was him snowboarding, right? Well, it was a stock photo and his defense was that he never said it was him snowboarding. Good to see things haven't changed. Also, my crazy ex-roommate was another life experience that I think everyone has. She was beautiful and manipulative as all get out. She was diagnosed as being rapidly cycling bipolar and didn't take her medicine because it made her "feel weird". 7 or 8 years ago her birthday gift from me was me paying for professional headshots of her. She totally thought she was going to be the next Halle Berry. If she would have taken her meds, maybe she would be. Those pictures are what she's currently using as her profile pic on FB.
Since I'm honest and not embarrased about what I look like, my profile pic is current. Gloating completed.

Shitty post

Oh yeah, that's my nephew! And his balls. And oh yeah, a giant first turd. It took three of us to change him. Babies are supposed to have one poop per day and AJ had three in his first 7 hours! Here I am, giving him a congratulatory high five for his awesome pooping.

Mom Mom mish mash

I effing miss Mom Mom so much. My uncle got me Dolly Parton's latest live CD for Christmas and I listen to it every dang day. One of her new songs is called Do I Ever Cross Your Mind? and here are some of the lyrics:
Oh sometimes I go walking through fields where we walked long ago, in the sweet used to be/ And the flowers still grow but they don't smell as sweet as they did when you picked them for me./ And when I think of you and the life we once knew how I wish we could go back in time/ Do you ever think back in your memory like that and do I ever cross your mind?/ Do you ever wake up lonely in the middle of the night because you miss me, do you darling?/ Oh and do your memories take you back into a simpler place and time/ Do you ever miss the feelings of the love we shared/ Do you miss me? Do you darling? Or do I ever cross your mind?/ Oh how often I wish that again I could kiss your sweet lips like I did long ago/ And how often I long for those two loving arms that once held me so gentle and close.

The part about waking up in the middle of the night was my life earlier this week. On Sunday I went to a relative's house who lives about 3 hours away. She is the oldest cousin on Daddy's (my Mother's Father) side of the family and just happened to retire to South Carolina about 15 years ago. She and her husband were so kind and welcoming to John and I and really made John feel like a member of our family. She is moving back up north and has been very generous in giving John and I household items. As I was helping her move on Sunday she let me go through her cookbooks and have whatever ones I wanted. There was a Good Housekeeping cookbook with a broken spine and missing back cover. She told me, "Oh, that was mother's cookbook." Her mother was Daddy's sister. I told her I wouldn't take it but she insisted, telling me that I would get more use out of it. What a gem!!! Here was the cookbook that someone I love used to cook for people who I love!!! I want to kiss every page. Later that night as I was going to sleep I thought, "I'll have to ask Mom Mom what some of Aunt Maddie's favorite dishes to cook were and see if I can find the recipes." Then I, you know, remembered Mom Mom died in July.

I'm doing a policy brief about mental health in rural communities for one of my classes and came across the statistic that more than half of children in rural homes that have a female head of household live in poverty. Mom Mom was so awesome, y'all. She faced so many difficulties but managed to do so much. I hope I get the chance to be half the woman she was.

Did you see "Saw"?

Of course I seesaw. Mose and I seesaw all the time.

I want to marry The Office.

Fudge fudge fudge fudge fudge fudging fudge

I only THOUGHT I was saving the 5 page paper I was writing. It's gone now. At least it's extra credit. Fudge.

Biostats, don't fail me now!

What are the odds that the middle of South Carolina, which usually averages a temperature of the mid-60s in early March, will get snow on the same night as my nephew is born or my SiL goes into labor? We shall see!!!

TMI

I like counting. I count change, I count the number of cars around me, and I count the number of times John and I have sex. I have one of those counter things you can push and it clicks to the next higher number next to our bed. Every month both of us put one dollar for every time we had sex that month into a savings account. We call it our sex tax and for our 30th anniversary we're going to use it to take a cruise around the world or whatever.
When I worked I had a desk calendar that I would write the number at the beginning of each month, and then I would know how much money to put into our sex tax for the next month. Well, I don't have that this year. For January and February I remember typing the number somewhere in my iPhone and when I go to look, for the life of me I can't find it. How will I know how much money to put in sex tax? YIKES!!!

GREAT NEWS!!!

John and I have REAL insurance as of today! That's right, we have actual good insurance through John's employer. No more pre-existing conditions BS, no more paying over $100 to fill one prescription, no more delaying going to the doctor because we can't afford it. We don't have to share pills anymore...life is so good. I just want to kiss everyone on the mouth today. After 15 months of being uninsured, being declined from insurance companies, paying hundreds of dollars a month for a policy with a $5,000 deductible and paying out of pocket for most medicial expenses (one doctor's visit and three prescriptions for my swine flu were over $300), we are in the land of the insured!!!