Stoked

Observe, if you will:

Chandler, Arizona five-day weather forecast:

Average temperature - a hundred and FRICK.

Griffith, Indiana five-day weather forecast:

Average temperature - ahhhh...

I’ve got a more-than full day, getting ready to go hang with Heather. After I write this I’m writing an entry for No Butts, and I did an entry for UpTake a few minutes ago (which is a Wordless Wednesday contribution, so easy-peasy). Then I have a twenty-five minute date with Jillian, followed by cleaning out the snake’s vivarium, cleaning out the beardies’ tanks, cleaning out the litter box (dang, I deal with a lot of poo in this house), cleaning the kitchen, and getting started on the laundry. A shower will be followed by a visit to Costco, a visit to the regular grocery store, a visit to our cable company to exchange a buzzing cable box, a visit to the bank, and a visit to the drug store. Then home to finish the laundry, pack what I’m taking, and fold/hang/put away what I’m not taking. The beardies need to be soaked and fed worms so Calvin only has to do it on Friday. And I need to pay the bills.

Le pant. Le huff. Le gasp.

Also, EEEEEEEEE!!!! (That’s for you, Heather!)

———-

Yesterday I met with my friend Jen for lunch at CPK. You remember the whole layoff debacle, and how she and another lady from our group got let go? Yeah, well, AcronymCo decided to give them BOTH their jobs back. Jen is back this week, and the other lady comes back later in the month. I am ecstatic for them, of course, but there was SO MUCH DRAMA, that ended in things just going back to the way they were in the first place. I don’t pretend to understand the Muckety Mucks of Corporate America.

After lunch Jen and I browsed the bookstore, as is tradition. I bought FOUR books since I’m going to be early for my flight tomorrow (Calvin is dropping me off at the airport at around 7:00 on his way to work, and my flight doesn’t leave until 9:50), and the flight there and back is, like, three hours long. Now I’m starting to wonder if four books is enough… I do tend to eat them up in a hurry.

After we parted ways at the bookstore, I went shopping at TJ Maxx, using the AcronymCo-provided gift certificates. I came away surprisingly not traumatized by the experience, which is an entry I’ll be writing about over at No Butts, next.

———-

Two other things of note, unrelated to this post or one another:

1. Please go wish Robyn of Bitchypoo your condolances – they lost their cat Mister Boogers today. That cat was such a fixture in their household and such a character in her blog… I’ll miss him!

2. Who here knew that Avitable had lap-band surgery earlier this year? Did he keep it a secret or am I just woefully unobservant? Anyway, he wrote an entry about it, and for us No-Buttsters that have been tossing the idea of a before/after picture set on the site, we need to take a page of bravery out of Adam’s book! Dude’s a rock star. A nekkid, hairy rock star.

———-

Okay, kids, I’m off for a few days. Behave yourselves until I get back. And check my Twitter feed every now and then to see what Heather and I are up to!

Blessed.

Calvin and I got married seven years ago today. To say that I love this man is to utter the largest understatement the universe has ever known. I love him for his sense of humor and his ideals. I love how he just does what is right because it is right. I love him for his faith, and I love him for his irreverence. I even love him for his temper, and for the things that we disagree about.

I love him, of course, for all the happy, wonderful memories we’ve shared over the past seven years, and the four years before that. The vacations we’ve taken have created a stockpile of cherished memories. The conversations we’ve had have enlightened and entertained me. The experiences we shared raising the kids, and becoming grandparents together, made me grow in ways I never anticipated. The quiet nights at home on the couch watching movies are equally as sustaining as the glittering nights out on the town. The day to day life we lead is my comfort and my joy.

What you might think is strange, though, is that I love him even more for the not-so-wonderful times. The times we’ve fought, the times we’ve struggled to understand one another, and the times we’ve gone to bed with stony silence between us. This past year or so has been a challenge to our relationship. As with all things alive and healthy, our marriage, and we as individuals, has grown and shifted and changed. That growth and change has not always been comfortable – it hasn’t even always been recognized for what it is. What at first we regarded as negative we are now both realizing is just evidence that we are truly dedicated to one another. We’re growing and flexing and adapting, but are still firmly rooted in the foundations we began with. We understand that compromise is not defeat, growth doesn’t mean growing apart, and we can each give of ourselves and to one another without worry that the effort will not be matched.

That, my friends, is a real marriage.

I am incredibly lucky in love, blessed in life, and fortunate beyond all measure to be married to my best friend.

Worthy

Hello gentle readers! My good friend, fellow blogger, and No-Butts sister Crisitunity has found herself with, well, a crisitunity (that’s a crisis AND an opportunity) on her hands. She’s being laid off at the end of July and has decided to make a very brave leap into making a cherished dream come true. Please, visit her site, and contribute to her cause! You’ll be raking in mad Karma points with the universe in general, and brownie points with me specifically.

Thanks!

Let the party begin!

Only a couple more hours to go before I’m free of work for a week!

Our plans for the weekend had to undergo a slight adjustment. I was planning on going shopping for a new dress for Sunday’s Yanni concert, on Saturday. And I was planning on getting a trim and highlights/lowlights today. And we were planning on going out to eat before the concert on Sunday.

However. Having spent $400 to fix the garage door yesterday (when I tried to leave for work yesterday morning the door would NOT budge), those plans are now slightly changed. I’ll be getting just a trim, making do with the contents of my own closet, and cooking dinner before the concert. Ain’t no thang, we get paid on Tuesday, but it did make me annoyed. Especially since the original quoted price for the repair (the springs sproinged) was around $180. I guess that’s IF you only need one spring replaced (we needed both) and IF the bracket was salvageable (it wasn’t).

Guh. Rowl.

There was kind of an upside – I was only in the office this week on Tuesday, and today. Monday was my usual work from home day, Wednesday I had jury duty (didn’t get selected), and yesterday my truck was trapped in the garage. Not a bad way to spend the week before vacation, I gotta say.

You should see my coverage document for the poor girl who’s handling my desk while I’m gone. The damned thing reads like War and Peace.

Anydoodle. I’m watching the mail for a $120 gift certificate to TJ Maxx, which was awarded to me by a few folks here at work. The way it works is, I do a good deed for which someone here at AcronymCo is grateful. They go into a web tool and “award” me. There are different levels of awards worth different monetary values. I hoard the awards until I’ve accrued a few, then I go into the web tool to choose the retailer I’d like to spend it with, and voila! Vacation clothing shopping goodness. I may even share it with Calvin. Perhaps he’d like some shorts, or a new shirt or two.

I can share. I caught that episode of Sesame Street.

Next week I shall clean the house, get Calvin as prepared as I can for my four-day-long absence, get a couple of books for the trip, maybe go to lunch with Jen, and hopefully do the aforementioned clothes shopping.

Then it’s OFF TO HEATHER-LAND on Thursday, and the squee-fest will begin!

Oh, hey, Heather? Since MJ was from your neck of the woods, how’s the mourning going in Indiana? Streets lined with flowers? Block party vigils? Anything?

Okay, loves, I’m out. Have a lovely Friday, catch ya later on in the weekend!

Drunky McDrunkerson

Today, I have a happy. Jen’s laptop STB this morning, so she had to come into the office to have the IT guys replace it. Since she’s technically still an AcronymCo employee for two more months, they have to make sure she has a functional laptop with which to do her job hunting. I downright SQUEE’D when she popped into my cubicle. We went to lunch and got caught up on all the gossip, and we’ll be repeating that next week while I’m on vacation, a couple of days before I go visit Heather.

Speaking of Heather, she’s been periodically sending me, “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!” text-squee’s as the date of my visit gets closer (a week from Thursday!). It’s seriously cute.

Speaking of travelling and texting and whatnot, I activated my Twitter device update functionality, so I can tweet from my cell phone. This is in an effort to keep all of you guys up to date on the shenanigans we’ll be getting up to, both in Indiana/Illinois and on our Epic Roadtrip this summer. I’ll be communicating from the road, so be sure to either check my Twitter feed periodically (that link up there, or in the left-hand frame of this blog), or “follow” me if you have Twitter.

Anticipate a lot of drunken tweeting. A. Lot.

Speaking of being drunk, I was. For most of last weekend.

There’s a rated G description of our weekend on UpTake if you want the “acceptable for polite company” version…

I got SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP at the beer festival, a condition that was helped along by the fact that we visited TWO BARS before we even got to the festival. We had some time to kill before the festival opened, and there were all these bars around, so…

(I added some more pics to the set that I told you about on Sunday, by the way. And hover over the pics in this entry to see captions.)

Then we went to the actual beer festival, where we got sunburned and drunk at the same time…

And THEN, driving back down 89A to Sedona and our hotel room, Calvin stopped along the way to personally inspect a “sunshiny meadow”. And I was all Stumbleina and couldn’t make my feet work right and kept yelling, “Hold me up! Hold me up!” at Calvin as I grappled onto him and tried to get my balance (never happened) and he was all, “I can’t! I have to hold myself up!” And we crashed through the pretty ferns which turned out to be entwined with some sort of thorny plant and I cut my foot pretty bad and bled a lot but the whole thing was so damned funny that I laughed until my stomach hurt. All I could imagine was somebody observing us from up on the road, watching us crashing around and practically falling all over each other and laughing our asses off.

And Calvin was all, “QUIT TAKING MY PICTURE!”

And then I took a picture of my feet because they weren’t working right and I needed evidence:

And then, back on the road, I took, like, fifty of these kinds of shots:

And a bunch of these out the sunroof:

And, oh, this unfortunate shot:

And by the time we got to our hotel room I was REALLY ready for a nap.

An hour later we got up and out again, grabbed some dinner, and wandered around for a while looking for something to do. Which is how we ended up at Olde Sedona. Because of the aforementioned drunk-fest, I declined to drink any further that evening, so I got the happy opportunity to be the only sober person, watching a club full of not-sober people do their thang. We grabbed seats out on the patio, just off the bar and dance floor, and watched the antics of the crowd.

You guys. There was this woman that was making a total ass of herself. She was single, she was there by herself, she was desperate, and as the night wore on and the drinks were applied, she gained more and more chutzpah to start approaching any and all of the single men. Who did their best to avoid her, and exchanged “help me out, here” glances with each other when they did get trapped into conversation. Said conversation took place more and more inside the guy’s bubble space, with the leaning in and playfully smacking the arm and all that kind of crap. She even reached up and mussed one guy’s hair, and I saw him check an impulse to smack her hand. At one point she came out on yet another of her patrols of the patio, and three of the guys HID BEHIND A TREE together when they saw her coming. My hand to God.

Then she went back into the club and started writhing around on the floor. ON the floor. Like, on her back. We knew something was up because the attention of all the guys on the patio was suddenly arrested at the view through the doorway, and cell phones started coming out to take pictures and video. We couldn’t see from where we were, so I got up to go over and peek in. I walked back to our table and said to Calvin, “Well, I know what color undies she’s wearing.”

“I Kissed A Girl” came on, and of COURSE she had to find some chick on the dance floor to make it with. Then she started dancing with some poor schmuck in the club, at which point the guys on the patio figured it was safe to go back inside and refresh their drinks, now that her attention was on someone else.

We figured the show was over, then, so we headed out, too. On our way out the door we passed the woman, who had trapped some poor guy on crutches up against the wall outside the bathrooms. I said to Calvin, “Poor guy, he couldn’t hobble fast enough to get away!” To which he replied, “Predators always cull the weakest away from the herd.”

Anyway. Mad fun weekend. And, no hangover! That right there was a miracle.

In closing, I adore my husband.

My favorite picture of the weekend…

The rest of the set is here.

Sigh. Back to reality.

And now, the news.

I have the CNN gadget on my Google homepage. Just now I glanced down and saw the headline, “Air France bodies had broken bones.” All I could think was, “Uhhhh, yeah? Their plane crashed, didn’t it?”

Also, the whole hype about President Obama killing a fucking fly just pisses me the hell off. He killed… a fly. A. Fly. How the hell is that newsworthy???

———-

I just finished another entry for Uptake. One of my better ones, I think, about the summers I used to spend as a kid on Sebago Lake. Go, read, enjoy.

GAAAAAH, I’m so fucking HOMESICK.

———-

In an act of spur-of-the-moment planning, Calvin called me from the road (he’s on his way “back down the hill” from Flagstaff – for the second time this week) and asked if I wanted to head up north tomorrow for an overnight getaway. Didn’t have to ask me twice – within a half hour I secured us a hotel room. Everything in Flagstaff (our true destination) was booked or exorbitantly priced – the Made in the Shade Beer Festival AND the Flagstaff Music Festival are in town, which is one of the reasons that we, too, want to head North – so we’re staying in Sedona. It’s only a quick jaunt via 89A and cheaper, for once. Like, for this weekend only.

Phoenix weather for tomorrow? A high of 103 and mostly sunny skies.

Flagstaff weather for tomorrow? A high of 74 and mostly sunny skies.

Which one would YOU choose? MAN, I wish we had a motorcycle trailer.

Look for pictures and entries early next week! I’m a hour away from getting the FLIP outta work, after one (hundred) hellish week(s). Tonight I’ll clean a bit, do some laundry, and pack an overnight bag. Probably get some shopping in, too, since we’re planning on having Michael and Marie (and their significant others) over for Father’s Day dinner on Sunday night – we’ll probably get home by two or three, and they’re coming over at six. I still don’t know what I’m cooking.

Feh. The details will work themselves out. Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Just plain bitchin’.

I officially scheduled my Sabbatical yesterday, so there’s no take-backs. June 7th through August 1st, 2010. Yahfersheryoubetcha I updated my Google Countdown Gadget to reflect this date. 353 days and counting…

You guys, I tell you what, that Sabbatical can’t come fast enough. Thank the GOOD LORD I have vacation from 6/29 – 7/3, and again from 7/30 – 8/7. If I didn’t have that to look forward to on the near horizon I’d be bawling my eyes out at this very second.

Because bawling is what I do when I’m pissed.

Work. Is. Killing. Me. Every day – EVERY day – since we deployed that new system I’ve been talking about, I’ve been getting phone call upon phone call, e-mail upon e-mail, people plopping meeting requests on my calendar because, “HALP! I don’t know what I’m doing!” I respond to them in the exact same way every time: “Did you take the training?” 95% of the responses (and I WISH I was exaggerating) have been, “No.”

And so I put together a form e-mail to just send to anyone who needs help, instead of re-typing the same e-mail over and over (AND OVER). The VERY FIRST STEP is to take the training. Then I added some tips and tricks for how to navigate through the new system, in response to the recurring themes of the requests for help. There’s only three issues that everyone keeps asking for help on, and I put step-by-step instructions for how to get around those issues in the e-mail. In very. basic. language. With screen shots. And arrows. Like, “SAP for Dummies.” And yet they STILL want to set up a “quick” meeting (hah!), or just arrive at my desk, laptop in hand, wanting me to hold their hand and walk them through the process.

No joke, a half-hour ago I had SEVEN IM conversations going on at once, all from different people who couldn’t FUCKING READ, apparently, because if they HAD read the instructions I sent them, they wouldn’t need my help.

And then… OH, AND THEN… they just bitch and bitch and BITCH that the new system sucks and why couldn’t we keep the old system and who was responsible for how the new system works and WHY DIDN’T I MAKE SURE THEY MADE A USER-FRIENDLY SYSTEM?!? AS IF it’s MY fault that their poor little lives just got a little harder??? AS IF it was MY responsibility to make sure that a CORPORATE-WIDE piece of software was USER FRIENDLY?!? Are ANY of them????

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

:: FUME ::

On top of all of this is my actual, you know, DAY job. I’m covering for a co-worker for two weeks while she’s on vacation, and wouldn’t you know, AS SOON AS SHE LEFT THE BUILDING, the shit hit the fan. So add four more IM conversations to the seven I was dealing with: “Where’s my parts?” “Where’s this PO?” “We have lots on hold waiting for this shipment!” And I’m all, “I CAN’T MAKE DHL DRIVE THE TRUCK ANY FASTER.”

huff… puff… huff… puff…

There. I feel better, now.

The Pop Culture Princess is In.

Kim and I have been IM-ing back and forth in Google today. I didn’t realize how much I use current and past pop culture references in my daily conversation until I met someone whose pop culture education is greatly different than mine.

(Spelling and grammar mistakes are forgiven in instant messaging conversation. It’s, like, a rule.)

Case #1:

(We’re discussing Maine, and I mention Bar Harbor…)

kim: i read “bah habah” with the accent!
me: Heh. So do I.
kim: (big stephen king fan)
me: Yes, i remember hearing that about you from somewhere…
kim: my parents spent a summer up there not long before my dad passed away teaching at a golf camp and their first day off they went to bangor to take pictures of SK’s house for me!
me: The ultimate souvenier!
kim: god, i’d love to go there to visit
yes, i was more excited about that then the leather purse!
me: Kind of like Leonard Nemoy’s DNA for Sheldon.

My darling readers, spot the reference! Bonus points if you can find the scene on YouTube.

Case #2:

(We’re discussing the possibility of having a NoButtsCon:)

kim: i hate that all of us are so spread out when most of the time i like you guys more than my friends in real life
me: I was just lamenting and observing to Calvin that some of my best, closest friends are the ones I’ve never met in person
kim: haha, good words! but yes, it’s gotten to that point for me too
it’s like you almost know when you find “your people”
me: “kindred spirits”, to adopt an Anne-ism
kim: which is so weird – how i found you was through reading weetabix – i can’t remember, but i think she linked your name in an entry
do you know her IRL?
me: Love the Weet.
Nope, never met her!
kim: i love her too and would LOVE to go to one of the weetacons!
me: I know. They’re Legen(wait for it)dary

That one’s an easy one. But you begin to see how much of the way I express myself is couched in terms that are only understood if you watch the same exact television shows I do. It’s a wonder I’m understood at all.

Case #3:

(Now I’m starting to become concerned for lack in Kim’s television viewing life… so much she has missed… here we’re talking about How I Met Your Mother):

me: The main protagonist (Ted) is kind of lame – I watch for NPH and Lilly (Alyson Hannigan – gotta get me a Willow fix!)
(PLEASE tell me you watched Buffy)
kim: um…
BUT I KNOW WILLOW!!!
me: fortheloveof…
kim: hahahaha
i know – what kind of friggin geek am i?
me: It’s like we don’t even speak the same language.
kim: i am saddened by this
me: I, too.

At this point I’m almost speechless and stricken nearly paralyzed by the overpowering need to FIX KIM, FIX KIM NOW.

Case #4:

(In which I try to rectify the situation:)

me: First. GET THEE HENCE and rent Season One of Buffy. It’s campy (it gets better as the seasons go on) but the dialogue is SO FRICKING GOOD
Also, watch S1 of Big Bang
every other priority in your life can wait.

(We talk about how we’re better than our sisters for a few exchanges, then…)

kim: but i love culty things – i would’ve watched Carnivale until the end of time if it wouldn’t have gone off the air
me: Firefly? Serenity? Anything Joss related?
kim: nope
but i know of it all
me: GEEZ, woman. Okay, scratch all of the above. Rent Firefly – there was only one season. Then watch Serenity. THEN watch Big Bang, and Buffy.
kim: i think my problem is that i read too damn much when i should be watching tv
me: Ha! The opposite of what our parents used to say.
kim: really?? i thought buffy was the originator
me: Buffy and Firefly have nothing to do with each other, other than that they were both created by Joss Wheden.
kim: ohhh
me: Firefly is more appealing to grown-ups
kim: didn’t buffy have a spinoff though?
me: Yes. Angel.
kim: yes, the dude, right?
me: David Boreanaz = NOM
He’s on Bones now
kim: omg, i must go get my yogurt out of the fridge – this is THE WORST TIME OF DAY FOR ME FOR BEING HUNGRAY!
oh yeah, hot dude!
i’ll brb
me: “Kim is AFK.” (And if she’d been watching Big Bang Theory that would be funny to her.)

Oh, the horror. I mean, the sheer lack of anything Joss in her life is enough to bring me to tears. The dialogue she is missing! The opportunities to adopt lines as her own and throw them into conversations in a pithy and witty way! She’s never asked anyone, “What’s your childhood trauma?” She’s never told anyone, “I aim to misbehave.” She’s never had the occasion to say, “”I bet you’d let a girl go off to her doom all by herself,” or, “”I laugh in the face of danger! Then I hide until it goes away.” She doesn’t understand why, “”We will rule over all this land, and we will call it… ‘This Land’,” is funny. She doesn’t understand why a man named Jayne gave me faith in sidekicks again. She doesn’t know that you can’t stop the signal. For the LOVE OF GOD, she doesn’t even know who the Scooby Gang is (hint: there are no dogs).

For these reasons I am hereby embarking on a Save Kim campaign.

Kim’s Pop Culture Princess Primer:

1. Watch Firefly first. There is only one season because of the Cancellations Nazis. First, it’s appealing to adults – or more-so than, say, Buffy. Second, it’ll get you used to the cadence of Joss-style dialogue (aka Whedonesque). Third, Nathan Fillion is hot.

2. Watch Serenity, the “Firefly” movie spinoff. It makes more sense to watch the shows first, and then the movie, though the movie is technically a stand-alone work.

3. Watch Season One of The Big Bang Theory next (Season Two is out, too). This will give you a much-needed influx of current pop culture into your dialogue. At the very least you can use this as a Laura-to-English translator in future instant-message discussions.

4. Next, start on Buffy with Season One (one day I’m going to own that collectors set). There are seven season to get through, so while you’re getting caught up in all the Jossy vampirey goodness, you can take breaks to watch other, current television shows. How I Met Your Mother is good if only for Neil Patrick Harris. Two and a Half Men also comes highly recommended – watch to see just how much they can get away with before the censors crack down on them (seriously, as the seasons go on they get away with more and more, until even CALVIN is left gasping and saying, “I can’t believe they got away with saying that!”)! Also, once you’re caught up and watching current episodes on TV, don’t forget to be on the lookout for Chuck Lorre’s vanity cards, which are displayed for, like, 1.3 microseconds after the airing of each episide of BBT and 2 1/2 Men. They’re always a treat.

4b. It’s optional to watch Angel, as this show didn’t infiltrate the pop culture scene as much as Buffy did. As David Boreanaz is MAD eye candy, you may want to watch at least the first couple of seasons for that fact alone.

5. PLEASE GOD, Kim, tell me you’re watching True Blood or reading Charlaine Harris???

This primer is the merest tip of the iceburg toward Total Pop Culture Princess status. I have every confidence that Kim will breeze through these requirements with the greatest of ease, and will be gracing us with dialogue gems in no time whatsoever.

Now. I end this entry on one final note – if you don’t know why the water tower image is funny and impossibly appropriate for this entry’s subject matter, I’m not sure I can be friends with you. It is the ULTIMATE in pop culture references. Come on, babies, make mama proud.

(Kim, you know I’m teasing you. I just had WAY too much fun chatting with you today. Feel free to smack me. You know I clock ‘em that way.)

(And here’s the song that goes with THAT reference. Dear God, it’s like I don’t even speak straight English anymore.)

And we’re off!

Alright! The collaborative health and fitness site, No Butts About It, is up and running. Kim and I have been having way too much fun putting this together. We’re looking for more contributors! So if you have WordPress or are willing to create a WordPress account, I can make you a contributor and we can all be in this together – just drop me an e-mail. There are no rules, we’re just blogging about our own thoughts and experiences in trying to make ourselves healthier. You can contribute as little or as much as you want. You can post about your most horrific dressing room experience, or what you’re planning for meals for the next week. You can crow about your triumphs, or whine about the hassle of it all. You can curse Jillian Michaels, or dedicate your life to following her every move. And, there’s no such thing as TMI!!! Come on, you know you were just WAITING for this kind of opportunity to come your way.

Feel free to steal the badge I put on my left-hand frame to put on your own blogs, if you’re so inclined! Oh, and any health and fitness oriented blogging that I did over at Operation::Goddess will now be happening over at NBAI.

~mwah~ dahlings!