Often Wrong, Never in Doubt

Look Ma, No Brakes!

2010-07-08T21:07:00.004-07:00

I have a tendency to get into freak accidents. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before. I'm pretty sure it's a genetic thing from my father's side, and is likely exacerbated by our predilection for day dreaming and not looking where we are going. My grandfather cut off the tree branch he was sitting on. My father had three toes severed in a freak volleyball accident. I almost lost the vision in my right eye when I was hit in the head with a badminton racket. Do you see the trend? People laugh when I tell them that I don't play sports because sports equipment is attracted to my head, until I tell them I was almost blinded playing badminton.

But my accident prone-ness isn't limited to sports. I can harm myself doing almost anything. I got six stitches in my upper lip and took a chunk out of my nose while taking out the trash. I sprained my ankle feeding the dog (almost a year later and one ankle is still slightly bigger than the other!) Combine this freakish quality of mine with my husband's tendency towards death defying stunts, fires, and fast moving vehicles, and it's a wonder I'm still alive. To be fair, he's come across me covered in blood enough times that he's slightly traumatized and is generally more overprotective than under. But sometimes his stupid, dangerous ideas and my unintentionally self destructive tendencies align in a spectacle of calamity. Monday night was one such night.

Danny has developed a somewhat unhealthy obsession with lawn tractors. They're small riding lawn mowers that are slow and top heavy, and meant for lazy people to mow their lawns with. We have no lawn. We have rock, dust, and cactus. And two lawn tractors. He and his best friend spend their evenings riding around the neighborhood, trying to do wheelies, and inventing sports like "desert surfing". They, of course, remain unscathed in the course of these adventures. So, because the lawn tractor experience wasn't quite dangerous enough already, they decided to soup up the engines. I'm not sure how fast they can go, but I've been told they go "pretty fast". In this household that could mean anything from 15 to 200 mph. Danny asked me several times to take a trip around the driveway in the newly souped up lawn tractor. I was able to make credible excuses for about a week, but I finally gave in. As I lowered myself into the seat I reminded him "remember how accident-prone I am? Are you sure this is a good idea?" This is what we call "foreshadowing" but in real life. He showed me where the brake, the throttle, and the shifter were located. As I started to roll away he reminded me "if you need to stop in a hurry, just turn the key".

We drove around the driveway a couple times, then headed up the road to the cul de sac at the end of our street. I started feeling pretty cocky, riding my lawn mower like one of the boys, so I gunned the engine and shifted into fifth. Evidently fifth is actually hyperdrive on this particular model of lawn tractor, because I was suddenly flying down the road at an alarming speed. But it was fun! And I was beating Danny! I began the turn around the cul de sac, and realized I was going way to fast to make it all the way around without tipping over. So, I did what anyone who has been driving a car for over ten years would do. I stepped on the brake. The tractor slowed temporarily, then suddenly lurched forward and began to accelerate. Panicking, I pumped the brake, which if anything made the tractor speed up even more. As the tractor left the road and started racing headlong through the desert, I thought to myself "if you need to stop in a hurry OOOOHHHH SHIIITTT!" and decided to bail and let the lawn tractor pursue its dream of becoming a free-range lawn care vehicle. As I started my graceful flight through the air, I thought to myself, very distinctly, "this is going to suck." Then I ended up lying in a giant prickly pear.

It's awkward, getting out of a cactus. You can't put your feet down, because they're covered in thorns (I was wearing flip flops that disappeared as soon as I leaped off the tractor). You can't have someone pull you up by your hands, because they are covered in thorns. You can't move at all actually, because if you do the few areas not covered in thorns will quickly become covered in thorns. You really can't do anything, because of the fucking thorns. Somehow, Danny pulled me out and I was able to get enough thorns out of my feet to stand upright. I was all for walking home, but he pointed out I didn't have any shoes. And it was dark out. And we have a dirt driveway full of more thorns, and probably snakes and tarantulas. I couldn't sit in a car, because my ass was full of thorns. I was still shaking and dazed from the crash, so when Danny suggested that I take off my shorts in the hopes that the thorns would come off with them, it made sense to my rattled brain. So we pull off my shorts, only to discover that the thorns were stuck deep enough in my ass that they went straight through the shorts. Of course. So, you know those dreams where you're back in high school but you're naked? I have those dreams, but I'm always wearing a shirt but no pants, and I spend the whole dream walking around trying to hide the fact that I apparently forgot to put on pants. Do you see where I'm going with this? I am covered in thorns, bleeding, and now also living one of my nightmares. At this point I think Danny realized that my situation was starting to sink in, so he mumbled something about "going to get the car" and fled the scene. To summarize: covered in thorns, bleeding, not wearing any pants, standing alone on a dark street. Now I'm not only living my nightmare, but I'm also in a horror movie. I started slowly shuffling down the road, not really caring anymore that there may be rattlesnakes and actually kind of hoping one would be nearby in case a neighbor drove up and I needed to end my life.

Eventually Danny showed up with the car, and I perched backwards on one knee on the seat. We got home, Danny made me a large gin and tonic, and we spent the next two and a half hours pulling thorns out of me. You haven't really bonded with someone until they've pulled thorns out of your ass while watching Paris Hilton's BFF on TV at 12:30am.

The next night, as I lay in bed and tried to ignore the fact that it felt like I was lying on a bed of nails, Danny crept into the room and whispered lovingly into my ear "I installed better brakes." Let's just say he better hope I don't figure out how to cut those new brake lines.....

Yeah, posting other people's stuff is a cop out. Whatever, I'm not feeling creative.

2010-02-08T18:34:00.001-07:00

Perfect- Smashing Pumpkins
You know we're just like old friends
We just can't pretend
That lovers make amends
We are reasons so unreal
We can't help but feel that something has been lost

But please you know you're just like me
Next time I promise we'll be
Perfect
Perfect
Perfect strangers down the line
Lovers out of time
Memories unwind

So far I still know who you are
But now I wonder who I was...

Angel, you know it's not the end
We'll always be good friends
The letters have been sent on

So please, you always were so free
You'll see, I promise we'll be
Perfect
Perfect strangers when we meet
Strangers on the street
Lovers while we sleep

Perfect
You know this has to be
We always we're so free
We promised that we'd be
Perfect

Poetry....Thursday?

2009-12-17T21:58:00.002-07:00

I wrote this poem in 2007 apparently. I have no memory of writing it. But I re-read it, and I like it. So here you go.

You're crooked
he said, examining the differing spaces
between rib and pelvis.
And suddenly the daily fossilization
of the muscles of my neck and back
became, not the product of anxiety and stress,
but the fault of a spinal cord
that took a sudden detour to the right.
I saw myself as a negative
an x-rayed line of crooked bones
with limbs hanging haphazardly
like a shirt askew on a hanger.
My mind, always the culprit,
the careless driver careening down the road,
for once was not responsible for the pain.
I walked out of the office carefully
feeling that, at any moment, I may veer off course,
a fate for which I appear to be destined

This Is A Blog About Nothing

2009-12-17T00:00:00.004-07:00

It's a little pathetic, really. I have had no motivation to do anything for the past....oh, three weeks. I turned in my final papers of the semester and officially switched off my brain. It didn't occur to me until yesterday that Christmas is NEXT WEEK. We don't have a Christmas tree. No lights on the house. We didn't have any presents for anyone until a frantic trip to Walmart yesterday evening. I haven't been blogging, haven't been doing anything productive at work, have stopped running....hell people should be grateful I'm managing to shower every day. What have I been doing? Honestly, I couldn't tell you. I compulsively check facebook. I've been reading murder mysteries late into the night when I should be asleep. And for the last week I have been watching TV beamed into our house by our shiny new satellite dish. Prior to this magical "dish" we had a giant 1950s antenna shoved in our chimney, which picked up about 4 channels one of which would go out whenever a bird landed on the antenna. We solved this problem by yelling "GET OFF THE ROOF!!" whenever we lost a channel. Now, though, we have satellite. I am again one with popular culture. I can watch all of the hideous reality shows I can stomach (and that's a lot, believe me), and I have DVR which means that if Tough Love is on at the same time as Charm School, I can record one of them to watch later.

Once I get out of this funk I plan on trying to launch the Tucson chapter of the Idiotarod. I read about this many moons ago and immediately felt it was my destiny to participate in such a glorious event. It may have something to do with my affinity for shopping carts, a love affair that included a shopping cart I stole from the U of A campus, painted purple, and then was wheeled around campus in for an evening. You think I exaggerate??

Me and shopping carts, man. We go way back. And 2010 WILL be the year of the Tucson Idiotarod.

Poetry Sunday

2009-11-29T10:26:00.002-07:00

This Was Once a Love Poem
by Jane Hirshfield

This was once a love poem,
before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short,
before it found itself sitting,
perplexed and a little embarrassed,
on the fender of a parked car,
while many people passed by without turning their heads.

It remembers itself dressing as if for a great engagement.
It remembers choosing these shoes,
this scarf or tie.

Once, it drank beer for breakfast,
drifted its feet
in a river side by side with the feet of another.

Once it pretended shyness, then grew truly shy,
dropping its head so the hair would fall forward,
so the eyes would not be seen.

It spoke with passion of history, of art.
It was lovely then, this poem.
Under its chin, no fold of skin softened.
Behind the knees, no pad of yellow fat.
What it knew in the morning it still believed at nightfall.
An unconjured confidence lifted its eyebrows, its cheeks.

The longing has not diminished.
Still it understands. It is time to consider a cat,
the cultivation of African violets or flowering cactus.

Yes, it decides:
Many miniature cacti, in blue and red painted pots.
When it finds itself disquieted
by the pure and unfamiliar silence of its new life,
it will touch them—one, then another—
with a single finger outstretched like a tiny flame.

Christmas

2009-11-24T20:26:00.003-07:00

I think this is the most beautiful, melancholy Christmas song and it's been stuck in my head for days so I'm sharing it with y'all to get stuck in your heads. Because haven't we all wanted to be able to just skate away sometimes?

It's comin' on Christmas

Poetry Sunday

2009-11-22T19:25:00.002-07:00

Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Dance

2009-11-19T13:17:00.003-07:00

When I was little one of my most favorite things to do was dance. We had a huge living room with no furniture, which turned into a ballroom for me. I never took classes, but turn on Aretha Franklin, the Dirty Dancing soundtrack (minds out of the gutter people, I was 7), or Vivaldi's Four Seasons and I would be leaping and twirling for hours. Get me drunk now and you end up with similar results.

I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance as often as I can (stupid evening classes!) and it makes me wish I was someone who is flexible enough to at least touch my toes so that I could be the ballerina I planned to become when I was 6.

Fear and Addiction

Dreaming with a Broken Heart (this is my absolute favorite, it kills me)

Your Ex Lover's Dead

By the way, my last post was apparently my 100th post. Which is really pretty sad, considering I've been on here since 2007 according to my stats. I suppose I make up for my infrequent posting with my longevity?

Poetry Sunday

2009-11-15T13:57:00.002-07:00

The closest thing I have to church or prayer is poetry. When I am conflicted or sad or seeking answers I find myself turning to poetry the way other people turn to the Bible. Thus, Poetry Sunday- a new weekly feature. Well, perhaps weekly. Maybe bi-weekly. Actually it may never happen again considering my track record with regular blog posting. But we'll try and see.

The Meadow- Marie Howe

As we walk into words that have waited for us to enter them, so
the meadow, muddy with dreams, is gathering itself together

and trying, with difficulty, to remember how to make wildflowers.
Imperceptibly heaving with the old impatience, it knows

for certain that two horses walk upon it, weary of hay.
The horses, sway-backed and self important, cannot design

how the small white pony mysteriously escapes the fence every day.
This is the miracle just beyond their heavy-headed grasp,

and they turn from his nuzzling with irritation. Everything
is crying out. Two crows, rising from the hill, fight

and caw-cry in mid-flight, then fall and light on the meadow grass
bewildered by their weight. A dozen wasps drone, tiny prop planes,

sputtering into a field the farmer has not yet plowed,
and what I thought was a phone, turned down and ringing,

is the knock of a woodpecker for food or warning, I can't say.
I want to add my cry to those who would speak for the sound alone.

But in this world, where something is always listening, even
murmuring has meaning, as in the next room you moan

in your sleep, turning into late morning. My love, this might be
all we know of forgiveness, this small time when you can forget

what you are. There will come a day when the meadow will think
suddenly, water, root, blossom, through no fault of its own,

and the horses will lie down in daisies and clover. Bedeviled,
human, your plight, in waking, is to choose from the words

that even now sleep on your tongue, and to know that tangled
among them and terribly new is the sentence that could change your life.

........The last two stanzas make my heart stop, just for a second.

Need to learn how to turn off the blushing

2009-11-14T19:20:00.002-07:00

I am learning that being a therapist means that people who you have just met will tell you the most intimate details of their lives without hesitation. Things that I do not talk about with my nearest and dearest, much less someone that I met 20 minutes ago. I do not judge these people, but I struggle to control my tendency to blush, because I am a very pale person who immediately flushes to an attractive tomato color as soon as something uncomfortable is mentioned. Just the thought of blushing usually makes me blush. So, I need to find some "blush reduction techniques". I'm hoping my threshold will be higher as I get more used to hearing these things, but I'm doubtful. I'm keeping a list of some of the things I have so far heard as a therapist that challenged my "counselor poker face"

1. Various masturbation techniques
2. Detailed descriptions of stool samples and problems with incontinence (NOT urinary incontinence either!)
3. Detailed description of a particularly difficult prostate exam (it made me thank the lord I am not male)
4. Erectile dysfunction, difficulty sustaining erections, and a whole lot more information on a variety of men's penises (penii?) than I ever wished to know.
5. The sex life of members of the over 70 generation

That's a pretty significant blush-worthy list considering I've only been in this internship for a couple of months, right? Lord only knows what all else I will hear about before May. If exposure is the key to raising my tolerance level I should be blush-proof by graduation day.

Senioritis

2009-11-10T21:10:00.003-07:00

Wow, I can't believe it's November already! Perhaps that's because it has been July according to this blog for the last 4 months. I could say that it's because I've been busy with school, but I would be lying. I officially have senioritis, and have discovered that the benefit to going to a crappy grad school is that you can do the bare minimum and still get As! You think I'm exagerating? I got a 99% on a midterm that I didn't study for. Not, I only studied for a couple hours right before hand. I. Didn't. Study. At all.

Anyway, it's been an interesting couple of months. While I've been busy NOT doing any school work, I have been doing a lot of self reflection. By the way? I don't recommend it. Self reflection causes you to both become totally absorbed in your own troubles, and unless you are Gandhi you will not like everything you discover.

One of the more positive things that came out of this period was that I've started creating what some call a "bucket list". As in, things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Considering my intense fear of death I am not calling my list a bucket list. Instead, it's my "things to do once I graduate and have actual free time" list. Right now it's kind of a small list, but I expect it will grow.

The TTDOIGAHAFT List
1. Learn to play the cello
2. Train Siva as a certified therapy dog
3. Take a dance class
4. Go to Europe, and start prioritizing travelling over possessions
5. Start writing again (started this one)
6. Start rock climbing again
7. Create the garden in the backyard
8. Read poetry again (started this one too)
9. Reconnect with old friends

There have been a lot of pieces of myself that I have buried while I've been emersed in my career, marriage, house renovations and school. It just took too much energy to do everything at once, so I feel like I've become a bit two dimensional. But I've been woken up a bit, reminded of what I used to be like, what I used to love. And that's coming back. As soon as I finish slacking through my senior year.

Learn How to Stucco in 12 Easy Steps

2009-07-27T19:00:00.004-07:00

1. Purchase ingredients for stucco and dump into the plastic tub specifically made for mixing stucco. Discover that specifically designed stucco mixing tub is actually too small to mix stucco.

2. Drive to Lowe's, purchase second plastic tub. Return home, divide mixture in half, add the required 2 teaspoons of water, start mixing.

3. Discover that the cement mixer previously mocked at the store is now worth it's weight in gold as mixing large tubs of sand and water is not only agonizing but also takes forever.

4. Become frustrated and add three times the amount of water required in order to speed up the mixing process.

5. Stucco finally mixed, dump some on a trowel and smear it on the wall.

6. Watch all the stucco fall off the wall and onto the ground.

7. Repeat until sweaty and frustrated, then pick up stucco with hands and begin smearing on the wall manually, as a monkey might smear feces.

8. Continue to smear until the "may cause flesh burns" label is spotted on the cement bag.

9. Scream in a girlish manner and hop up and down frantically until a hose is procured.

10. Locate rubber gloves and continue to smear stucco on walls.

11. Once stucco is completely smeared on the wall look up youtube videos online on "how to stucco". Watch videos of Mexican laborers in America doing excellent stucco work, and American missionaries in Mexico doing shitty stucco work.

12. Decide to refer to the stuccoed walls as having a "custom hand applied finish", open a stucco company, and make millions because the only equipment needed is two tubs, a rake, and a pair of rubber gloves.

Dr. Livingston, I Presume?

2009-07-14T20:15:00.002-07:00

We have reached Threat Level Radioactive Killer Insects here in the Zamora household. At this point I'm waiting for the green ooze to start leaking out around the foundation because I'm pretty sure that we're living on top of a subterranean pool of nuclear waste. That's the only logical conclusion I can come to based on the size, variety and sheer number of insects and terrifying creatures that have been invading our house.

It started when I moved Hiccup's dog crate and what I thought was a very small and active worm started making it's way across the floor. Oh, how I wish it was a worm. But as I looked closer, I realized that there was something very, well, snake-y about it. I did what any young, independent, and strong female would do- screamed for Danny. He captured it, and we stared at it in horror for a while as it slithered frantically in the bottom of a glass, slowly realizing the implications of the baby snake. MORE. BABY. SNAKES. I pictured hordes of snakes everywhere we turned. Fortunately we only found one other snake a couple of days later, just as tiny, and also very dead courtesy of our cat. This is the only thing she is really useful for- killing things around the house. Except sometimes she doesn't even bother to kill them because she finds it more entertaining to bat them playfully around the house and then leaving them angry and vengeful.

Okay, so we had the plague of snakes. Then we had the horde of cicadas that spent their day hiding in the plants around the house and making the exact same noise that's in the previews for Texas Chainsaw Massacre (I don't know if that noise is also in the movie because the noise in the preview freaked me out too much to watch the movie. Little did I know I would soon be surrounded by thousands of little horror movie props predicting my imminent demise and transformation into a human skin lamp.)

Once the monsoon rains hit the cicadas migrated back to hell or wherever it is they came from. But the rains brought a far more terrifying creature. We first spotted one in the road, squatting menacingly and waving it's furry legs at us. The tarantula. The next night there was another one the size of a salad plate crouched by the laundry room door. We brought Hiccup inside because if this thing wanted to it would eat Hiccup for a midnight snack. All that would be left is a wagging furry tail hanging out of this things mouth. If spiders have mouths, that is. But I don't actively try to destroy insects as long as they stay outside of my house. And tarantulas are so large and furry that it's kind of like trying to squash a chihuahua, it's almost grosser to kill them than it is to make them leave (correction: have DANNY make them leave). But the worst was about to come:

So, I'm blind. Like, I can't see more than 6 inches away from my face clearly without glasses or contacts. In the morning I wake up and stumble blindly into the shower. Are you already thinking to yourself "No! Mia, don't get into the shower!" It's like the begining of a horror movie when the dumb blond gets into the shower while the creepy man with the axe hides in the bathroom closet. Anyway, I pick up my loofah, wash, then put the loofah down. Which is when I notice a dark blob on the side of the tub, next to the loofah. I immediately become concerned because anything big enough for me to see without my glasses is pretty freaking huge. I bend closer, squinting inquisitively ("Mia! Noooo!") only to find myself face to face with a baby tarantula. By baby, I mean the size of an average human baby. I leap out of the shower and sprint into the living room shrieking "Big spider! Big spider! Danny! Big spider!" (I'm very articulate when I'm naked and panicking)

People, this is getting serious. I feel like I'm in the jungle with vines and spider monkeys slowly creeping through the windows. I'm going to wake up to javelina curled up on the foot of my bed, rattlesnakes under the sink, and tarantulas in my bathtub. Oh, wait THAT'S ALREADY HAPPENED.

I'll be at Costco buying Raid in bulk if anyone needs me.

Namaste

2009-06-20T18:57:00.002-07:00

I have a love-hate relationship with yoga. When I started it a few years ago I had a very laid back gentle male teacher who led us through the poses slowly and deliberately. We spent a lot of time in poses like "child's pose" which is essential kneeling down and putting your forehead on the floor. It takes about as much strength as napping. So, I thought I was pretty good at yoga. Granted, I can barely touch my toes and "downward dog" was always a struggle rather than the resting pose it is supposed to be. But I enjoyed it, especially because it's the only exercise you can take where you are supposed to lie on the floor and "meditate" at the end. I quit going for a couple of years, until friends persuaded me to join their class. I had fond memories of lying peacefully in a darkened room, so I agreed. Turns out it was the hour and a half "power hour" they had invited me to. But the end I was a trembling blog of sweat and yoga mat grime. I went a few more times, and got a little bit better, to the point where I didn't feverishly eye the door in the middle of the "warrior pose" and try to calulate if I could vault over the other participants and dash out to my car. I didn't, mainly because I didn't have the strength to run.
Then, I quit going for a while. You know, life tends to get in the way, and the studio is across town. But I'm on a new health kick, and I invited a friend to brave a new class with me.

There's always an interesting mix of people in yoga classes. There are usually one or two sorority girls who got lost on their way to the rec center, one or two guys dragged in by the women they are hoping to sleep with and so are desperate to spend time with, a couple average to fat chicks who are hoping that yoga will be a less strenuous path to fitness than running, and then the rest of the class is filled with hippies. And I really don't like hippies. There are several reasons for my dislike. Now, I realize that I am making sweeping generalizations and relying on stereotypes, but it seems like every hippy I've come across falls into these characterizations. They talk about wanting to "save the world" or "end poverty" or "end capitalism" but their method of promoting that change is to join protest rallies or meet with groups of other people who feel the exact same way they do. They wear flowing skirts, dreadlocks, thai embroidered purses, and hang tibetan prayer flags in their yards. They refuse to "compromise their principals" which means that they refuse to change their appearance or method of persuasion in order to be taken seriously by anyone other than people who already agree with them. When was the last time you saw a legitimate hippy politician, lawyer, or anyone else in a position of power that was taken seriously by the mainstream media? Don't get me wrong, politically and morally I'm almost as hippy as I could be without wearing hemp sandals and getting a tattoo of "the goddess" on my back. But the hippies I see are lazy and illogical in their approach to change. They feel safer repeating the same dogma to each other so they never engage in a useful dialogue with The Others. The people I have seen who are committed to making real changes in this world wear suits, get a Master's degree in something other than "philosophy", and start working their way up the ladder until they are in a position of power. They aren't compromising their principals, but they're being smart about the way they act on them.

Anyway, that's enough of a diatribe on hippies. However, there is one more thing I hate about hippies. They are ALWAYS good at yoga. They are skinny and wirey and ridiculously flexible.
So when my friend "Selina" (name changed to preserve her dignity) and I walked into the room it was wall to wall skinny, smug, tattoo'ed and dreadlock'ed hippies. I was expecting this, it is a yoga class after all, so I lay out my mat and pretended to stretch. We began a simple cycle of poses and I thought to myself "oh, this isn't that bad, I must be in better shape than I thought!" But then the instructor started going faster. And faster. Pretty soon I was three poses behind everyone else. The hippies suddenly turned into hippy-robots and seemed to merely push the fast forward button. The instructor started giggling evilly, which I considered to be a bad sign considering we were only about five minutes into the hour long class.

That giggle was definitely a harbinger of doom. I have blocked out most of my memories of the class, but at one point I remember lying on my stomach, desperately reaching back to grab my sweat soaked ankles. I flailed for a while, praying that suddenly my arms would grow 6 inches longer so I could grab my ankles. All around me the hippies rocked as serenely as boats, hands firmly around their toes. Hippies don't sweat. I think perhaps my teacher sensed my growing hippy-rage because at one point, I don't remember what pose it was other than that it was extremely painful and I couldn't even get to the first part of the pose while everyone else was tied in a knot and suspending themselves in the air with their pinky fingers, she came over to me and gently forced my arms wider and my legs straighter. As my joints began to strain and pop she said cheerily "Everyone comes to this class at their own level. The most important thing is to put yourself fully into each movement" She then turns my head further past my shoulders. She looked into my eyes, and said in a stage whisper "You have a big smile on your face. That's the perfect attitude to have". I was clearly the special ed portion of the class. I didn't have the energy to tell her that the "big smile" was actually a grimace of pain, and that if I had been able to move my arms at all I would have punched her in the face.

The class continued for what felt like a week. Towards the end I was pausing during poses to pretend to massage a sore muscle or tend to a weak ankle when I was really just desperately trying to catch my breath. Selina was less subtle than I was, and at one point was just squatting on her knees laughing hysterically as the hippies levitated around her. She pointed out later that the woman next to her was visibly pregnant. We pictured her fetus doing the poses right along with her. Better than us, naturally. Because hippies are born, not made.

Can I get the accessories without the actual baby?

2009-06-02T14:07:00.003-07:00

Pretty much my one reason I want a child right now is so that I can finally buy all the wonderful baby things at Ikea. They have the most adorable stuff for babies and kids. Things like, bunk beds with tents over them. Not just any tent, but a tent with STARS ON IT! If I could pursuade Danny to sleep in the bottom bunk with half of his body hanging uncomfortably off the end, I would totally buy one for myself. Or perhaps I could just buy this leaf canopy and hang it over our current bed so that I could pretend to be a fairy princess lying in a bird's nest in an enchanted tree. Then I could gaze up at my sun ceiling lamp while playing with my blue giraffe
For a second today I got extremely excited because I realized that while I don't have kids, I work with kids! I could decorate my office with Ikea toys! And lamps! And we could play with the fantastic Swedish stuffed animals while we talk about feelings! Then I remembered how, as a fresh faced, naive social worker I brought some of my childhood stuffed animals to work, thinking that they could comfort my clients as they had comforted me for so many years. Instead, they sat neglected on a shelf in favor of the half broken plastic toys that came with my office. Neglected, until someone needed to sneeze, or drool, or take out their rage by punching something. Then Bearland Cub and Hobbes were the first creatures in their hands. I have since taken my animals home and run them through the washing machine. They still look a little shell shocked.

So, no Ikea furniture for me. I'll stick with my crappy plastic happy meal toys and my sturdy office lamp that is too heavy for anyone to throw at me.

The Homestead

2009-05-31T21:03:00.015-07:00

Now that the inside of our house has been, for the most part, completed I can start indulging my green thumb. Although I am planning on using only indigenous plants, so it's more like a "greenish-brown and spiky" thumb. I started with two miniature gardens this weekend, one filled with transplanted cactus from around our property:

and one filled with succulents we bought at Lowe's:

I've started taking pictures of all of our renovations, and am going to put together a big "before and after" posting. But here's two of the projects that have made me particularly happy. One was our front door, which was dented, dirty, and painted a very pale pink. It is also a very unusual size that has made it virtually impossible to replace. So we took it off the hinges and I repainted it with the image of brightly colored Victorian houses in my head, but to match a plate we got in Nogales:

The fireplace in the Arizona room was made with native lava rock, but unfortunately was sloppily installed and was covered with cement that couldn't be removed. Then the kids who partied in the house when it was abandoned set a fire in fireplace without opening the flue, so it was soot-stained. We built a frame around the existing fireplace and then walled it in with peacock slate and used glass tile accents:

The picture doesn't do justice to the slate which is full of beautiful colors and shimmery mineral deposits.

And, finally, the view from our front door. This view makes me feel very, very lucky every time I walk out of the house. We have our second generation of Gila Woodpeckers being raised in the saguaro on the right side.

Hard Labor

2009-05-17T18:14:00.002-07:00

I've spent the last two days helping Danny build a solar powered gray water system. This is his brain child and if you ask him about it he can tell you all about how it works, but really my only contribution has been manual labor. Well, manual labor and whining. An integral part of the system is a series of pipes leading from the shower and the washing machine to a 300 gallon container we have housed in an old chicken coop. Pipes that have to be buried. Buried in trenches that have to be dug. By me. Now, we live in the desert which means we do not have "dirt". We have sand, dust, and rocks. To make it even better, we live right by a solid rock mountain, which means that we live on top of solid rock, covered by a thin layer of smaller rocks and dust. You can stick a shovel about a 1/4 of inch into the ground before you hit rock. If you pound on it with aforementioned shovel you can break through another 1/4 inch. The last time I tried to dig a hole I ended up with a disabled pinky finger. But since I had no idea how to assemble the system of pipes, I was stuck digging the trenches. Oh, and it's 100 degrees out. I took a break to go to the hardware store with Danny, mainly so I had an excuse to be in air conditioning for a while. But I was tired, cranky, and dirty. So when Danny started showing me low energy lightbulbs and talking about how much less of an impact our house would have on the environment, especially with our new gray water system, all I could say was "the environment can go fuck itself." He suggested I go home and lie down for a while.

It's the Blanket....With Sleeves!

2009-05-16T11:33:00.003-07:00

This year I decided to be the loving daughter my mother deserves, rather than the absent minded one who calls a week late to wish her happy birthday, so I got her Mother's Day presents. I don't think I've done that since I was young enough to get away with a hand glittered card. My first gift was Dooce's first book, accompanied with a card that read "Happy Mother's Day! I'm glad giving birth to me didn't result in your institutionalization in a mental hospital". Touching, right?

My other gift was a stroke of genius. My mom used to wiegh as much as normal moms do, that is to say, as much as I do now without children (*sob*). Anyway, somewhere along the way she managed to lose a lot of weight. She says through diet and exercise, but I think that's a legally binding confidentiality agreement all skinny people have to sign after they get whacked with the Skinny Fairy's wand. The downside to being skinny is that she doesn't have enough insulation to keep her warm, and she unreasonably refuses to eat more cheeseburgers to remedy this. So I decided to send her the Snuggie:

This picture demonstrates the versatility of the snuggie, as it fits Teresa who is about 4 feet tall, and her husband Zac, who is approximately ten feet tall. For those who have not heard of the Snuggie before it is THE BLANKET WITH SLEEVES! Perfect for people who are too skinny to survive in the wild. Not that I am bitter.

Anyway, I went to the snuggie website and began the snuggie ordering process. I entered my credit card number, my address, and my mom's address. I clicked "order one set of snuggies", since it's buy one get one free (with free book light!). The next page pops up: "Do you want a free snuggie?" Thinking that the question was a bit redundant, I clicked yes. The next window- do you want a DELUXE snuggie, featuring adorable pictures of kittens or puppies? Although the fleece-y eyes of the kittens stared at me plantively, I thought I clicked no. Then a couple more windows popped up, and I apparently had something of a brain spasm and just began clicking the yes button to make them go away. Suddenly, my order confirmation page appeared. "Congratulations! You ordered 6 snuggies for the low price of $99.94!" I order $100 of snuggies in a variety of stylish colors. And I had to allow 24-48 hours for my order to process before I could call them to change it. This led to an embarrassing conversation with my husband:

Me: Um, I did something bad.

Danny: *sigh* What?

Me: You know how I wanted to order my mom a snuggie? Well, I accidentally ordered too many.

Danny: How many is too many?

Me: 6.

Danny: Oh that's not too....

Me: For $100.

Danny: WHAT?

And, of course, by the time I was able to call and attempt to cancel the excessive snuggies the order had already shipped. However, the snuggie people were perplexingly generous, perhaps because I was not the first person to accidentally order 6 times the number of snuggies they intended to, and they gave me ALL BUT ONE SNUGGIE FOR FREE! I got FIVE FREE SNUGGIES! And an unknown number of free book lights. The best part of this entire debacle was when my mom received an enormous box from the snuggie people, and opened two of the individually wrapped inner packages before she decided to call me at work to see if I had lost my mind entirely. She was pleased with the snuggie concept, but berated me for thinking she would want the "sage green" snuggie since she thinks green makes her look sickly, and one has to look elegant when wearing a blanket with sleeves. However, she then told me she has been wearing a fleece jumpsuit around the house when she gets cold, so I am still confused about how a sage green snuggie is unexceptable but what are essentially adult footie pajamas are the height of fashion.

Since then I have been thinking about other people I can bequeath snuggies upon. My officemate and I decided we are going to wear them at work, since our office is usually cold enough for us to see our breath. Danny thought maybe he could forsake clothing and just wear around a snuggie, and then I was thinking that Siva might appreciate a snuggie she could wear on cold winter nights. Does anyone else have some suggestions on innovative uses of the snuggie?

Faith

2009-05-10T21:58:00.002-07:00

I have two tattoos- the word "faith" on one ankle, and the word "practice" on the other. For some reason people tend to only see "practice", and always ask "practice what?". The whole explanation is too long for the daily explanation, so I usually say something like, "anything worth doing takes practice." But, for once, here's the long explanation:

My mother is from a Quaker family. No, not Quaker Oats. No, she's not Amish. The Quakers are pacifists, and believe that God exists in all people, and they have been around since before this country was founded. The book that their faith is based on is called "faith and practice" and is like a prayer book. I'm not Quaker, but I believe in a lot of the tenets of their faith. But that's only a tiny part of the reason for my tattoo- a little shout out to my Quaker ancestors, if you will.

My mother is Quaker (kind of, not really practicing any more) and my father is an atheist. Religion was never a big part of my upbringing. I didn't grow up being taught about God, or Jesus. I was taught that space was infinite, and no one knows what happens when we die. As I grew up the enormity of death overwhelmed me. I'm a strangely introspective and panicky person in general, so not having the comfort of the idea of a heaven or really any definitive answer other than the finality of non-existance was overwhelming and terrifying. I had something of an existential crisis a few years ago, and felt paralyzed by the idea that I was going to die, everyone I loved was going to die, and I had no idea what would happen afterwards. As much as I would love to believe in Jesus, or some omniscient being up in the clouds controlling everything and laying things out as a part of some master plan, it's never been an idea I could buy into. I am jealous of those people who have found some kind of faith that brings them comfort and serenity, but there's always the rational side of my brain, the atheist side, that mutters in the background "but that doesn't make any sense!" And there are so many truly terrible, tragic things that happen in this world that simply can't be the result of a loving deity.

In any case, I continued to be terrified of death, less my own than those of people I love, when Frank got sick. Frank was my father in law, although he didn't make it to my wedding. In six months, from when his shoulder broke as he tried to get out of his chair because the tumor had eaten away the bone until the time when he died, I learned a little bit about faith. I saw a man who always held grudges suddenly becoming loving, mending bridges that had been broken for years. He stopped being angry, started reaching out. Two days before he died he announced he was going back home, and made a trip back to his small town that he hadn't seen for months because he had been too sick to leave Tucson. He died in his own bed, exactly where he wanted to be. But I don't have enough faith to not still be angry. Not enough to not make me angry at the senselessness of his loss, of the fact that all he wanted to do was see us get married and he couldn't make it, or the fact that my husband lost the person he loved best, or that my children will never know their Grandpa Frank. These things still make me so sad, and so angry.

But I have faith in memories of him. I have faith in the fact that periodically when Danny and I are riding in his dad's truck the windshield wipers randomly turn on when we mention his name. I have faith in the fact that his grandmother, who has Alzheimer's and doesn't remember anyone, sees Frank and his father who died in the same year, periodically and tells them, "No, I'm not going with you yet. I'm staying here".

Faith shouldn't be easy. It isn't a platitude, a Hallmark card, or a bumpersticker. Faith shouldn't be defined by moral judgments. Faith should be the most difficult thing to hold onto, and the most important. Faith is constantly challenged, and is sometimes lost. I cannot always define what I have faith in, and sometimes I lose it entirely. On the dark days when I question everything, I remind myself- everything worth doing requires practice. I have to practice faith every day. And maybe someday it will get easier.

Anybody out there?

2009-05-08T17:20:00.002-07:00

Hi! It's been a while! (looks around nervously, listens to the crickets chirping). I could blame my lack of blogging on being in school and such, but really it's because I'm lazy. Fortunately I have funny friends to create blogs for me! Like this text exchange a while ago with my friend. We'll call her "Selina".

Selina: I had a hell of a time finding a size large at Forever 21. I'm drinking a smoothie for dinner.
Me: I'm going to skip dinner in favor of drinking later.
Selina: That's a good idea. I'm going to take laxatives before I eat meals so I can just shit it out but still enjoy eating full meals.
Me: Good call! Much better than vomiting everything up. Although that's a good ab workout.
Selina: It is. Another downfall is that if I poop too much I will damage the muscles of my sphincter and will crap myself suddenly and unwillingly throughout the day.
Me: It'll be hard to find a boyfriend if that happens.
Selina: I think it just depends- does a guy want a fat girlfriend or a skinny girlfriend that craps her pants?
Me: That should be one of the screening questions for match.com
Selina: That'll be the first thing I ask a guy I'm into.

So, it's the summer now. Maybe I'll try to come back a little more often :)

Truth is Stranger than Fiction

2009-02-19T21:50:00.002-07:00

Me, looking at Danny over my copy of "Twilight": "Was my love a blazing meteor across your moonless sky?"
Danny, looking simultaneously confused and suspicious: "............in my pants?................."

Karma

2009-02-15T21:59:00.003-07:00

I have never really believed in karma. I have seen too many bad things happen to good people, and too many people who deserve enormous comeuppances who never received them. However, after this last week I definitely believe that, even if karma never seems to catch up with anyone else, it caught up with me.

Frequently people at my agency are required to attend trainings at the organization that oversees our funding and state compliance. These trainings are usually intensely boring, infuriating, or both. At one of the last trainings I had to attend I spent the entire afternoon constructing "Cuppy" an action figure made out of my styrofoam coffee cup and various accoutrements that I gathered from my purse. Did I mention I was sitting in the front row? Other times I have engaged in surrepticious text messaging, 20 minute bathroom breaks, obsessive fidgeting, blank staring out the windows, and a game I call "Stump the trainer". This game has kept me the most entertained of all of my various diversions, and it consists of me asking complicated, obscure, or irritating questions to try to get a rise out of the trainer. I also enjoy arguing with the trainer or other participants, just to see what will happen. My co-workers dread attending trainings with me because I am always the obnoxious person who decides to start leafing through the training manual to find contradictions to what the trainer just said, usually right before we go on our lunch break.

Because of my hatred of trainings, I decided to volunteer to be a trainer. "Obviously I could do a better job than these morons" I thought. "It would be a good experience, and I could bestow my wisdom upon the masses". Unfortunately, when you volunteer you generally have to accept the first training they offer to you, and I got offered the worst one possible- a state mandated assessment, an exercise in redundancy and wasted time that brings out the homicidal ideation in the calmest social worker. It has an incredibly complicated scoring system that is full of exceptions, independent criteria, and more levels and numbers than the federal tax code. And I had to train people on it. Well, myself and a co-worker of mine who is possibly the only person employed at our agency who is more cynical than I am, and worse at hiding it. Did I mention she is terrified of public speaking?

We went to a two day "train the trainers" session in Phoenix, and reviewed the 100+ power point slides ad nauseum. We jokingly discussed doing the training only through interpretative dance or perhaps mime. But as the day drew closer we both became more nauseous. Once the day of the training arrived I began praying that the people in the audience would either fall asleep in the first twenty minutes, or would be so entertained by our incompetance that they would simply laugh hysterically for the entire six hours. Instead, karma sat down in the front seat, got out its styrofoam cup of coffee, its cell phone, and its large shoe to kick me in the ass.

Half the audience was too bored to fall asleep, and was content with staring at me with blank, zombie-esque faces the entire time. I began to be concerned that their eyes were going to dry out if they didn't start blinking more frequently. The other half? They were very, very angry. They were angry that breakfast wasn't served. They were angry that they couldn't take the training manuals home with them. They were angry that the practice vignettes weren't real clients sitting in front of them, available to answer all their irrevelevant questions. They were angry when I corrected them, and they were angry when I didn't know the answer. They were especially angry when it became blatantly clear that neither myself or my partner were able to score the effing assessment correctly, and, in fact, told them how to score it a variety of ways, all incorrect, throughout the training. One woman was so angry she started yelling all her questions at me, then turned deliberately to talk to the person sitting next to her when I tried to answer her questions. She didn't get a training certificate at the end because I finally lunged across her table and ate her whole, like a python consumes a goat.

People came to the training half an hour late, and returned from lunch an hour late. They stood up and wandered around the back of the room. They left for the bathroom with such frequency that I began worrying about the quality of the lemonade that was served with the afternoon cookies. They refused to raise their hands and participate, even when I threatened to make the training last longer. They yelled at my volunteer speaker just for being affiliated with me. And then, just when I didn't think it could get any worse, they turned in their evaluation forms. One person was so infuriated they actually wrote, in red ink, at the end of a long diatriabe enumerating my various incompetancies, "AAAAAA!".

In other words, every single irritating, disrespectful, obnoxious and inconsiderate thing that I have ever done at a training made an appearance that day. It was like staring at a roomful of my flaws personified. Karma, she is not a subtle lady.

25 Things You Probably Already Know About Me Because I Talk Too Much

2009-02-02T20:57:00.003-07:00

Blame Tara, she tagged me and I buckle under peer pressure

1. When my mom was pregnant with me her doctor didn't know I was breech, he told her I had really fat knees. It was actually my head.

2. I know how to crochet anything, as long as it is a square or a rectangle

3. I'm a super sensitive person, but I'm also probably the least politically correct person in social work.

4. I have always wanted to be in a musical, but I can't sing and I can't dance

5. I went rock climbing in the Tetons

6. When I was little and playing make believe my name was always Princess Rainbow Brite Tigerlily

7. I wanted to be First Woman President until middle school, and a professional poet until I graduated from college.

8. I started dating my husband when I was 19.

9. I've only had 3 1/2 real boyfriends

10. My face transforms when in front of a camera and I turn into a remarkably ugly stranger. Even my husband says so.

11. I freak out at the idea of doing any kind of math, including addition and subtraction.

12. I have to think carefully before I can tell my left from my right. Sometimes I still get it wrong.

13. I had a double major in creative writing and linguistics in college and wrote poetry about obscure linguistic concepts that no one understood.

14. I have met numerous famous writers, and I hit Robert Creely (former US poet laureate) in the head with a microphone.

15. I hosted an Open Mic night at Club Congress.

16. I am the great-great-great-great niece of the first prime minister of canada.

17. My first pet was a toad named Toadster.

18. I read obsessively, and will read the same thing over and over again if there's nothing else in front of me.

19. I wrote a short story called "Boris Yeltsin and the Chickens of Wisdom" in 4th grade.

20. I knew who Boris Yeltsin was in 4th grade because my parents didn't listen to anything but NPR on the radio.

21. I got into social work because I was a terribly administrative assistant.

22. My dog is sitting next to me and he just farted.

23. My husband proposed to me in front of a statue of Hippocrates.

24. I am either very outgoing or very shy and quiet, there's no in between.

25. I can't seem to keep track of where my body is in space so I'm constantly crashing into doorframes, walls, and other inanimate objects.

PANIC!!

2008-12-30T15:12:00.002-07:00

This should be the motto for myself and my family. We are a highly anxious set of people, and the smallest things spell doomsday and signify disaster. Child out of sight? Probably fell down a well. Not feeling well? Could be your appendix bursting. Forget to lock one of the locks on the front door? Thieves will back their vans up to your front door and rid you of all your earthly possessions. For years Danny has made fun of my for my PANIC! reflex, as he is the most laid back person on the planet who is not stoned. However, I have recently decided that I have managed to infect him with the PANIC! gene. My proof:

Danny, spying an empty milk carton on the counter: MIA! YOU DIDN'T DRINK THIS MILK DID YOU?
Me: No, it's expired so I dumped it in the sink.
Danny: IT'S EXPIRED! It expired a MONTH ago!!
Me: I just said that.
Danny: You didn't use it in the BATTER did you?
Me: No! It's expired and anyway you don't put milk in chocolate chip cookie dough!
Danny: Because it's EXPIRED! It'll make you DIE!

And, our phone conversation this morning after I had an "incident" with the motorized gate he installed at the front of our driveway.

Me: The gate hit my car and now the gate mechanism is making an annoying beeping noise. How do I make the beeping stop?
Danny: The GATE HIT YOUR CAR?!
Me: Yes, it's fine. Make the beeping stop.
Danny: Is the paint scratched?!
Me: NO. THE CAR IS FINE. MAKE THE BEEPING STOP!!
Danny: Can you move the car so the paint doesn't get scratched?!
Me: I have already moved the car. The car is fine. Make the effing beeping stop before I run the car into the gate again!
Danny: Is there a DENT in the car?!
Me: Danny. The car. Is fine. How do I make the gate stop beeping?
Danny: Oh, I don't know.

On the one hand I am pleased that I am not the only one susceptible to the PANIC! in our household, but on the other I am begining to discover how annoying it is to live with me.

I Should Have Added an Eighth Item

2008-11-16T18:12:00.004-07:00

I realized that, besides strange childhood obsessions, I could easily do a list of ways I have managed to maim myself with inanimate objects. I come by this naturally- my father has lost 1/2 a toe, given himself two black eyes (simultaneously), and 3 concussions since I've been a child. We are both somewhat unaware of where the boundaries of our bodies are, and are prone to walking around lost in thought and oblivious to our surroundings.

I have a dimple from hitting the corner of our tv when I was 3 or 4- fortunately I slammed my cheek into the corner of the tv at the perfect angle to produce an innocuous and normal looking dimple. You know, instead of a dimple in my skull. I used to have a scar in my eyebrow from falling off a slide in daycare. I had a partially detached retina from getting hit in the eye with a badminton racket. Don't let anyone tell you that badminton is a gentle sport- it can be brutal.

Recently I sprained my ankle by stepping on a rock. It was late, I was angry about a homework assignment, and my ever so charming German Shepherd had apparently gotten bored and decided to dismantle the stone wall by our back steps and helpfully leave the rocks at the base of the stairs. I don't know why she was trying to kill me, but ever since then I've kept my eye on her. Afterwards I lay in the dirt crying and getting jumped on by my darling puppy who was just thrilled that I had decided to lie on the ground and play dog with her. Oh, and Danny was out playing darts so I got to lie in the dirt for half an hour until I was able to hop my way into the house. My ankle swelled up, turned fun colors, and I got to gimp around for a month. I still can't wear high heels.

But I think this most recent injury is one for the record books. I spent the day raking up the dead weeds that are the closest we get to landscaping in our backyard and began dragging the bags through the house to the big garbage can out front. I'm going to have to explain what happened next very carefully because thus far the only people who have managed to understand have been my husband, who spent half an hour outside reenacting the accident, and my father, who understood immediately because it's only a matter of time until the same thing happens to him.

Try to picture this:
We have a big plastic garbage can with an attached lid. I opened the lid so that it was hanging down behind the can, then tipped the can back to wheel it closer to the front door. Unfortunately I didn't notice that when I tipped the can back it meant the lid was on the ground. Then I took a step forward, onto the lid of the can, causing the front edge of the can to swing forward into my face. Once again I found myself lying in the dirt trying to figure out what had just happened. I began screaming for Danny when I noticed the blood pouring from, well, somewhere, but he was in the backyard listening to the radio. I finally managed to drag myself to the bathroom where I discovered that I had a big flap of tissue where I used to have an upper lip and what appeared to be a hole in the side of my nose.

What followed was a stereotypical panicked drive to the hospital. Once there we were put in a little cubicle and periodically examined by various medical people who tried and failed to understand my muffled explanation of how it happened. One manly nurse assistant/competitive dirt biker showed me several of his 100 stitches with the reassurance "the doctor you're going to have will do a way better job than the one who did THIS one" and a nurse told me about the man who got both cheeks sliced through with a razor. I think both of these approaches were supposed to reassure me, but instead caused me to picture my poor upper lip deformed and hideous. I imagined myself unable to control my own saliva and having to carry around a hankie to wipe the drool off my chin.

All of my fears faded away when Dr. Woodman walked in. Gleaming grey hair- perfectly coiffed, icy blue eyes, bulging biceps, confident stride. He looked like he walked off the set of a soap opera. He whistled cheerfully as he prepared his needles, and murmured quietly "You can cry, you don't have to be brave" when he injected the anesthetic. I cried more because I felt that's what the script called for than because of the pain. When he finished he strode confidently away after saying, "now....you're pretty again".

His magic touch left me feeling confident about my face for about an hour- the amount of time it took to get discharged, walk to the car, and look at my face in the mirror. It's gross. I have a big crater on the side of my nose and six stitches on my lip. I have an overbite because my lip is so swollen, and I can't smile. Danny tried to convince me that my swollen lip makes me look like Angelina Jolie, but I think the resemblance is only fair if Angelina's upper lip had been gnawed on by Brad Pitt.

I don't mind the discomfort as much as I mind the fact that for the next 6 days I have to walk around looking like FrankenMia and trying to explain how I got my my ass handed to me by a garbage can. I'm thinking of drawing a diagram on some notecards and just handing them out so I don't have to repeat myself. Danny and I whiled away the hours in the ER coming up with plausible causes for my injury:
1. Bear attack
2. Ninja brawl
3. Knife fight
4. Tiny shark bite
5. Altercation with Chuck Norris

Additional ideas anyone?

Do you really need to know more weird things?

2008-11-10T18:46:00.003-07:00

I was tagged by my old high school friend Sara (no h, she feels very strongly about this) to discuss 7 weird things you didn't know about me. This worries me, because to disclose even more things that make me weird than you already know means that they have to be very, very weird. I realized that the only way to accomplish this is to talk about my absolute most weird stage of life- elementary school. I was a very strange child, with even stranger interests. Thus, I bring you:
Strange Things I Was Obsessed* With During Elementary School

1. Saints- particularly saints of bizarre things, or saints that were protectors of obscure people. For example, Saint Roger the Whoremonger.

2. Chopin- I blamed my nerdom on my parents, because in my formative years I listened to cassette tapes about the lives of classical composers. Then, I saw a PBS movie about Chopin and his romance with George Sand. I immediately developed a crush on the pale, malingering actor playing Chopin. Tuberculosis is HOTT.

3. South Africa during the fall of apartheid- this obsession resulted in me writing a first person account of a journalist in South Africa for a honor's english project with almost no research. When I read an actual book about the apartheid I was pretty impressed by my accuracy. Because it's so hard to predict poverty and racism during apartheid. Child genuis, I'm telling you.

4. Stigmata and weird religious phenomena- People who manifest the wounds of Christ. Did I mention I have never been religious? I attribute this to a weekend I spent sitting in a motel room in Zion, Utah watching some miniseries about paranormal phenomena while boycotting my parent's hiking excursions.

5. Nazis and World War II- This doesn't actually qualify as an obsession, but at one point I remember playing "Barbie rescues the Jews from the concentration camp" with my best friend and this is the perfect example of why my best friend was truly the most wonderful person ever. She was probably the only person on the planet who found this entertaining besides myself.

6. Serial killers- I got a book by a profiler who interviewed all the major serial killers in the US, and actually read the whole thing, and then read even more books until I got a little weirded out by my own interest. This obsession makes no sense because even at the age of 10 I was too scared to stay in my house by myself.

7. Monty Python and the Holy Grail- When I was little my parents would say "neeh!" when they were annoyed by something. I thought that this was something they made up, or was a common expression of irritation. When I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail (introduced by my best friend, another reason why she was heaven sent) I was astonished to discover the "Knights Who Say Neeh!". I ran home and told my parents that they weren't the only ones who said that! And they suddenly realized that I had been thinking they were crazy for most of life up until that point. I went on to memorize almost every line in the movie, including the subtitles in the begining (A moose named Erik!). It was like discovering the secret language of nerddom.

So there you go, 7 more ways I voluntarily allow myself to be embarrassed. Just....be gentle :)

*Obsessed being defined as checking out numerous books from the library that I never actually read, writing school reports full of made up information, and acting them out with barbies.

The thing is...

2008-10-28T20:18:00.002-07:00

...when you walk by my office on most days this is what I look like.

The Blacklist

2008-10-14T16:51:00.003-07:00

One thing I have recently discovered about dog ownership is that you are very easily offended when other people criticize your dog. And by "you" I mean "me". I learned this after my dog was blacklisted.

I should explain. Hiccup, my pomeranian, is not a dog. He is part human and part cat. He does not like dogs, does not enjoy spending time with them, and does not act like a dog. It wasn't until we got Siva that we were indoctrinated into the world of being actual dog owners. Siva is a relatively large dog, especially considering that she is still a puppy and her enthusiasm tends to outweigh her training and her hearing ability. But on the whole she would not hurt a fly. If Hitler came up to her she would flop on her back and wait for him to rub her tummy. People who meet her don't even get to see her face for more than a few seconds. Instead they get to see this:

However, I have a pair of friends who have a smaller dog, one that seems to be a bit, well, "delicate". This dog is like the child with the thick glasses and the strange food allergies who isn't allowed outside because he might get too much sun. Siva and this dog enjoy playing together even though Siva now outweighs him by 40 lbs, because Siva is used to trying to play with a 7 lb ball of fluff and indignation. These friends have already decided that their dog can't play with another friends' dog, because that dog is "too hyper" and "played too rough". I thought it was kind of amusing until I got The Call.

Friend: "Ummm....Siva hurt our dog last time they played together."

Me: "What? Really? He was fine when he left the house!"

Friend: "Yeah, Siva sprained his neck. She can't play with him anymore. Or at least, not until he gets better. You can come over, but you have to leave Siva in the backyard."

I was speechless. A sprained neck? A dog with a sprained neck? I pictured him lying on the couch with one of those foam collars they give accident victims. I half expected a call from Goldberg and Osborne. And MY DOG? My dog HURT your dog? I looked at Siva who was trying to subtly crawl into my lap without me noticing, and felt a rising swell of indignation.

I admit, my reaction may be a bit over the top. But everyone I have encountered who has heard criticism of their dog has reacted with personal outrage because to criticize your dog is to criticize your dog's training, which is to criticize YOU. I don't know how parents don't routinely come to blows on the playground because if you told me my kid is playing too roughly I think I would feel obligated to punch you in the face.

Fortunately, Siva is oblivious to her owner's drama. She is perfectly content to chase her tennis ball, chew on her tail, and continue to try to play tag with Hiccup, even though he usually leaps into the air and bites her nose. And, you ask, how is the other dog doing? I couldn't tell you. He's been counter-blacklisted for emotional distress and I am considering a class-action lawsuit.

Wait, I have a blog?

2008-10-13T10:50:00.003-07:00

Umm....hi! It's been a while, huh? Like, almost a month. Geez. It's not that I've forgotten to blog, it's just that every day that went by that I didn't blog, I would mentally tally up more stuff that I would have to add onto the "boring life update that no one cares about but that you feel obligated to write anyway", and I would decide that really procrastination is one of the few things I'm truly talented at, so I might as well go with my strengths, right? (Procrastination and run-on sentences).

Deep breath- here's the boring update:

Danny left town for a gazillion years (okay, three weeks) to help clean up Texas after Hurricane Ike. The first weekend he left I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest and stomped on by cleat wearing hamsters (that's not a metaphor. maybe it was heart burn). So then I overloaded my social calendar to compensate, then discovered that I had days and days of school work to do, and then I spent a night watching season three of Weeds while snarfing down cheez-its like there's no tomorrow, and then he came home.

The only really exciting thing that happened occured right after he left. I had just picked myself up off the couch and decided that I wasn't going to feel sorry for myself, and that I was a strong, independent woman who can function perfectly fine on my own. Then I realized my plants needed water. I don't have a watering can, just a measuring cup, which meant that I would have to trek back and forth across the house filling up my stupid little measuring cup for each plant. So, applying my critical thinking skills, I filled a huge mixing bowl with water and began carrying that and the cup over to the plants. You know how Lassie was always getting Timmy out of trouble? My dogs do the opposite- there's nothing you can do that my dogs can't make more difficult. In this case Siva, my large and ridiculously devoted german shepherd puppy decided that she wanted her ears scratched. So she gallumphed (she has big paws and gangly legs- she's a gallumpher) over to me and planted herself in my path, causing me to skid to an abrupt halt, causing the water to slop over the side of the bowl, making me slip and land flat on my back. I lay there in a large puddle of water and it occured to me that if I hit my head and was knocked unconscious no one would find me for days. My dogs helpfully started licking the water off my face. I am just not meant to live alone.

On Yoga

2008-09-16T12:55:00.003-07:00

I have been going to yoga. I like yoga for a couple of reasons:
1. There are always people fatter than me in there. It's not like LA Fitness where everyone looks like they are perfectly honed machines with no sweat glands. Granted, the fact that there are always fat people in yoga class who are clearly good at yoga and have been going for years should teach me that yoga may not be the best way for me to lose weight. But at least I can feel more confident about my own ass when staring at the enormous ass of the person in front of me during downward-facing-dog.

2. It stretches muscles that I do not actually use in real life and did not know that I had until I started doing yoga. Like, I suddenly have multiple muscles in my feet that I did not know about. I now know about them because they hurt like a mother-effer.

3. At the end of every yoga class you get to lie down for 5-10 minutes and recover. This is my favorite part of the class, because if I had my way all exercise would end with an approved period of time when I get to collapse on the floor and pant like a dog. The pod people at LA Fitness look at you funny if you are lying spread-eagle next to the treadmill. Technically you are supposed to use this time to "center" yourself and all that hippy crap. I use it to keep from dying.

Things I don't like about yoga:
1. The crazy instructors. The women are all usually hairier than I would like. The men try to lift me up higher into a backbend and I'm not allowed to punch them in the face. They say things like "the word of the day is 'reflection'" and then spend the rest of the class period spouting new age pseudo-philosophical enigmatic bullshit about putting yourself fully into the moment when all I'm trying to do is keep from falling into the person next to me while I'm attempting to balance on my head with my feet in the air.

2. The yoga mats. I don't dislike this enough to have bought my own (yet), but just judging from the amount of my own sweat that has fallen on each mat, these mats have got to be disgusting.

3. The pod people who seem to have lost their way to LA Fitness and found their way to the yoga center. Again, perfect looking and not sweating. But now they are also effortlessly levitating themselves on one perfectly manicured hand. Not cool.

4. The cloud of patchouli surrounding the building. I am always astonished by people who fit so perfectly into a stereotype, and the patchouli fumes making my eyes water from the parking lot just confirm what to expect when you walk in the door.

I forgot to mention that I can now touch my toes, I think for the first time ever. That's pretty neat. So while everyone else is tied in a knot on the floor, I'm the one in the back proudly bent over, clutching my toes.

Heard at Work Today

2008-09-09T21:34:00.002-07:00

7 year old boy: Sara! Sara! I know what I can do instead of hitting people!
Therapist: What can you do?
Boy (proudly): Throw things at them! That way I'm not touching them, the thing I'm throwing does!

It's a Mystery

2008-09-07T17:25:00.002-07:00

Me: Luv, why is there a pair of socks on our roof?
Him: It was an accident.
Me: But... how...???
Him (indignantly): I SAID it was an ACCIDENT!
Me: How did you accidentally get a pair of your socks on our roof?
Him: I missed.
Me: Missed what?!
Him: I was throwing them into a bucket or something and I missed.
Me: How did you miss so much that you got them on the roof?
Him: I missed REALLY HIGH alright?!

PS. We didn't win the backyard contest. Which is fine. We didn't need a water feature or a putting green. Instead we will patent the life forms that begin to crawl out of our own primordial ooze and earn millions of dollars that way. We'll show them.

Dilemma

2008-08-25T20:17:00.002-07:00

I am on call tonight, and I'm waiting for a doctor from Northwest Hospital to call so that I can bully him into admitting one of our kiddos. I was also planning on lightening my hair tonight (I prefer the term "lightening" to "bleaching" or "coloring" don't you? It sounds more natural and less like I'm about to pour a bottle of floral scented peroxide on my head). However, I know that approximately 20 minutes after I cover my head in chemicals, right around the time I have to rinse it off or risk going bald, the crisis phone will ring and I will have to argue with a doctor over the sizzling sound of my scalp burning.

Two Things I Love

2008-08-24T20:53:00.004-07:00

Babies and animals

About a year into my current job as a social worker I thought to myself "at least animals just eat their young. They don't torture and neglect them for 18 years and then set them loose to wreck havoc on themselves and society". This job has made me somewhat cynical. But apparently I was wrong- they take better care of our babies than we do.

But there are some stories that still give you a little hope that maybe we aren't all that bad.

Eh?

2008-08-23T12:10:00.002-07:00

Why can't I have normal injuries? A broken arm, a ruptured appendix, a sprained ankle- all normal and easily explained. A swollen ligament in my pinky finger? Not so much. A sprained wrist as a result of running away from an angry javelina? That note from my mother went in my permanent school file because my teacher was so entertained by it. And now I am deaf in one ear. See, Danny had to take a test in Phoenix in order to get a promotion, and he got a free hotel room at the Pointe Hilton. I had that day off, so I went with him in order to partake in unlimited free cable and swimming in their luxury pool.
NOTE: This is the point in the story where ear wax comes into play. If you are grossed out by stories about ear wax, you should probably stop reading.

I, in general, do not produce much, if any, ear wax. It has never been a major concern in my life, probably falling below changing the oil in my car and dusting the baseboards in the list of things I worry about. However, once I went swimming in the luxury pool at the Hilton, this all changed. Because I woke up the next morning and I was deaf in my right ear. Totally deaf. A trifle panicked, I went to the "Minute Clinic" at the local CVS, where the lady immediately sprang into action by taking my blood pressure and my temperature. I always wonder about this- why do doctors insist on taking your blood pressure when you're there for something that has nothing remotely to do with blood pressure?

However, she finally got around to sticking that little ear examiner-thingy into my ear, and proceded to try to insert the entire thing, handle included, into my ear.
"Oh, does that hurt?" she asked. I don't know what tipped her off, except maybe for my shriek of pain and attempt to punch her in the face. Clearly pain didn't concern her, because then she tried to insert the ear examiner thingy even further into my ear. By the time she was done I felt like that kid in the Freddy Kruger movie who had the four foot long q-tip shoved through his skull. And it was at this point that she announced that swimming had caused ear wax to get stuck to my ear drum. Oh, and she could have irrigated it and fixed the problem right there, but now it was looking "irritated" and I would have to put olive oil in my ear for a few days instead. Yes, olive oil. She has mistaken my ear for pasta. I bit my tongue, resisting the impulse to remind her that it certainly wasn't irritated BEFORE she inserted a 9 inch long instrument into my ear, and that I didn't care if it was irritated I WANT TO HEAR THINGS.

This all means that for the last two days I've been having to ask people to talk into my "good" ear like I'm an 80 year old spinster who is too proud to wear a hearing aide. I refused to use olive oil, and instead bought the most toxic looking ear drops I could find at the pharmacy.

Maybe I'll have people sign my ear with get well messages like people sign casts. Maybe then I'll feel more normal.

The Slime Pit

2008-08-11T21:05:00.002-07:00

The many readers of this blog (my mother, and my father when she prints out the entries and hides them in his newspaper in the morning so that he ends up reading them thinking, in his pre-coffee haze, that the New York Times is suddenly overly preoccupied with pomeranians) have followed the saga of our house renovations. From the initial excitement of having our very own domicile, to the entertaining discoveries of tiny skulls in the rafters and multiple layers of hideous linoleum, to the self inflicted injuries, you have been there. One thing you haven’t heard about? My backyard. My hideous backyard. My bizarre backyard, with the cement pit in the center and the square dancing area (yes, I said square dancing). We have two dead trees and a lot of weeds. I’ll bet that you’ve read my accounts and thought “gosh I wish there was a way I could help Mia with her house.” Well, guess what? Your dreams can come true. You can help us with our backyard without even raising (or maiming) a finger simply by going to

http://azstarnet.upickem.net/engine/Details.aspx?PageType=APPROVED&ContestID=2112&SubmissionID=139005&IncrementNumber=1

registering to vote, then going to pag 22 and locating our submission titled "The Slime Pit" and voting for us. We could win a $30,000 makeover of our backyard, which means that we would have a pool instead of a slimy ecosystem, and an outdoor kitchen instead of a greasy barbeque grill.

So has anyone else been watching the Olympics? We have been, primarily because we don't have cable so the Olympics are really all that's on. Thus far we have seen:
Water polo- Men playing soccer in the water. We were exhausted just watching it.
Fencing- Women dressed as astronauts with swords. They screamed an inordinate amount considering they weren't actually being stabbed with swords.
Gymnastics- Men who are more flexible and have less body hair than I do.
Swimming- This was interesting for me. We watched the now famous men's 4x4 relay race when the US beat the French by something like one stroke. Now, I'm not the most patriotic person, nor am I the most competitive person. But when I heard that the leader of the French team had said "we are here to smash the Americans" I found myself screaming at the TV like a full blooded Texan. I even referred to the French team as "frenchies". As in, "you show those smug frenchies!" And I laughed in glee as the French person bowed his head and cried. I felt like I was in an Olympic Visa commercial, high fiving my husband and bursting with feel-good US of A bloodthirsty competiveness.

And just think- in four years, if we win that backyard contest, I could be lying in a pool, eating a big bloody steak cooked in our outdoor kitchen, drinking a margarita, and cheering on our Olympic team in true American style. I will even be wearing a flag themed bikini, and possibly a cowboy hat. But only if you vote :)

Should Have Stayed in Bed

2008-07-26T11:14:00.003-07:00

Yesterday kind of sucked. It started with a battle with Cricket (the cellphone people) and ended with Danny having to pull yet another person out of an overturned vehicle (no, not me. No, we weren't in a car accident. )

Since we now live out in the boonies there is no cable service, and thus, no internets. Satellite is crazy expensive, so we've been looking into using a cellphone service for wireless internet, and decided to give Cricket a try. As we were driving to the store Danny told me that they have armed security guards there.
Me: Why??
Danny: Because of the fights that break out. And people trying to attack the salespeople.
Me: Geez, I've gotten mad at my cellphone company in the past, but that's just silly.

We show up, and sure enough there's an armed guard. We buy our modem, are reassured "5 easy steps to install. Super easy." and drive home.

And then the fun ensues.

The program won't recognize that we've inserted the modem into the USB port. I call the help line.
Automated menu: Please enter the phone number for the modem.
Me: What phone number? There's no phone number!
Danny: Try the account number
Me: Enters account number
Automated menu: Wrong.
Me, pushing random options until I get to a human.
Human: I need the phone number for the modem.
Me: There's no phone number!
Human: It's the number on your receipt that looks like a phone number.
Me: There's. No. Phone. Number.
Human: Oh, well I can't help you without the phone number.

I call the store.
Me: The program doesn't recognize the modem, called help desk, need phone number for modem please.
Salesperson: Did you put the CD into the computer?
Me: Yes.
Salesperson: So, click the little picture of the modem on the computer to open the program.
Me: I have done all that. I will call the help line, but I need the phone number.
Salesperson: You don't have the phone number?
Me: No.
Salesperson: It's the number on your receipt. The phone number.
Me: There's no phone number on my receipt.
Salesperson: There should be.
Me: THERE'S NO PHONE NUMBER ON MY RECEIPT!
Salesperson, muffled, talking to other incompetant salesperson: Dude! You have to put the phone number on the receipt! *Arguing continues for ten minutes while I wait*
Salesperson: Okay, here's the phone number.

Calling the help desk, and confidently entering the phone number.
Automated menu: That number is not valid.
I begin the random button pushing and get to a human. She fortunately, is very nice. Unfortunately, after an hour of starting, shutting down, restarting, shutting down, and cussing, we realize that it cannot work on our computer.

We return the modem.
Danny: We need to return this modem. It doesn't work on our computer.
Salesperson: Really?
Danny: Yes.
Salesperson calls over other salesperson. They plug it into their computer. It works.
Salesperson: It works.
Danny: Yes, on your computer. But not on our computer. We need to return it.
Salesperson: Did you put the CD in the computer?
Danny: Yes.
Salesperson 2: Hey! Look up that Youtube video I was telling you about!
Salesperson 1: Dude! Sweet!
They spend ten minutes watching a youtube video on our modem. Other salespeople come over to watch it. When it's done, the salesperson returns.
Salesperson: It works on our computer.
Danny: It does not work on our computer. It is of no use to us. We need to return this modem.
Salesperson: Did you put the CD in the computer?
Me: I'm begining to understand the need for the security guards.

Plus, on the way to the store, already fuming about the modem, the two people in front of us get into a car accident and one of the cars flips over. The other one takes off. Danny and some other guys have to pull the woman, covered in blood, out of the car. This is the second time he has had to do this- when I got into a car accident last year he had to pull the woman and her child from the other car out as well. He's getting good at it. I sit with her and try to keep pressure on her hand which has a huge gash in it, while Danny pours water on the car, which has started to smoke. Meanwhile the other car that took off apparently ran into a second car, parked, and the guy ran off. But someone got his license plate number, thank goodness.

All in all, a very bizarre and crappy day. But it did remind me that while I may still not have access to the internet, at least I'm alive.

Pup and Circumstance

2008-07-24T22:30:00.003-07:00

Guess who graduated from begining obedience school today! It was a stressful final exam- we had a scavenger hunt around the store and had to have Siva do her various commands that she learned at each stop. I wasn't expecting to get worked up over it, but Danny and I both suddenly became very competitive, mainly because we couldn't let the twitchy chihuahua win the prize over our brilliant puppy. So there we were, both sweating and clutching pieces of hotdog, saying "Sit! Sit! Sit!" in increasingly shrill and desperate voices. Siva wanted none of it. She didn't like our treats, she didn't want to sit, and she didn't like being dragged away from every interesting smell she encountered in the store. Eventually we finished, and split the prize between us and the chihuahua. We were all exhausted.

Dark Night

2008-07-19T11:32:00.005-07:00

We braved the crowds to see Dark Night (wait, is it dark knight? dark night? crap. I'm a moron.) on opening day yesterday. It wasn't actually as insane getting in as we were expecting. Even though there were seemingly thousands of people in line ahead of us, Zac and Danny's plan to charge the suited manager guarding the door, and Teresa and my plan of crying and talking about our periods/imminent pregnancies went unneeded.

To my disappointment, there was only one kook dressed up like Batman in the theater. When I saw the first Star Wars in the theatre a forty year old Luke Skywalker was having a light saber battle with a five year old Darth Vader before the movie. All of the previews looked pretty entertaining, except for the movie adaptation "of the best graphic novel ever in the history of everything" by the dude who did the last movie adaptation of the other "best graphic novel in the history of everything". That preview involved stylized shots of hot women with quasi-seductive but generally just bizarre sounding stripper names (Silken Floss??? Sounds like a thong that doubles as a dental hygiene device) saying dirty double entendres in artificially seductive voices. Danny and Zac were, needless to say, already making plans to go see that one.

The movie was excellent. I am generally impatient of 2 1/2 hour long movies because generally it just means the director was too conceited to edit his work, but in this case it totally needed to be as long as it was. Not surprisingly it was a very, umm, "dark" movie, but had enough humor to keep you from getting totally overwhelmed. Heath Ledger did an amazing job. Amazing. I would be saying that even if he hadn't died. He was creepy and funny and weirdly likable but totally fucked up. And the make-up artist who did his face should win an Oscar too.

The only two issues I had with the movie were with Christian Bale and Maggie Gyllenhal (or however it's spelled). Now, Christian Bale is yummy, I am the first to admit it. I swooned all through Captain Corelli's Mandolin, with the ridiculous plot and Nick Cage's laughably ridiculous Italian accent all because of Christian Bale with a full beard. I think he was even a bad guy and ends up raping someone, or killing someone, or kicking a puppy, but it didn't matter. Shirtless and bearded? I'm done. But there's something about the lower half of Bale's face that bothers me (hence the beard requirement). It's a little too anal retentive looking, or too prissy, or trying to hard. And in Batman you generally only get to see the lower half of his face under the Bat Mask, which is truly a shame. And his Bat Man voice is awful. It's like a caricature of a tormented super hero voice- all gravely and deep, but slightly nasal like he can't breath very well under the Bat Mask. It was very distracting.

My problem with Maggie was two-fold. She had dark circles under her eyes which made her look like she was an overworked housewife, rather than the beautiful childhood love of Bruce Wayne. And she never really got upset in the movie, just exasperated. Your fiance is going to jail? Your childhood love may be giving up being Batman for you? Pretty much everyone in Gotham City is being killed by a deranged clown? All she could manage was a disappointed frown and a furrowed brow. Even when SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT she was about to die it seemed more like she had discovered an accident on her rug by her new puppy. Irritated, but not the end of the world.

Other than that, excellent. I give it two thumbs up. And there was a preview for the next Terminator movie with Christian Bale, and guess what? Bearded. I'm so there.

EDIT: It's Knight. Durrr.

Why I Need To Hire a Butler Whose Sole Purpose Is To Deliver Me Coffee In Bed to Prevent Me From Causing Grievous Harm to Myself Or Others

2008-07-18T13:46:00.004-07:00

10 am: Wake up
10:15 am: Put bagel in toaster
10:30 am: Realize toaster is not turned on.
10:40 am: Realize house is filled with smoke and bagel is black.
10:50 am: After airing out house, put new bagel in toaster
11:10: Realize house is filled with smoke, and second bagel is black.
11:20: Drive to Starbucks before more damage is done.

Prepare for Mush

2008-07-16T22:01:00.003-07:00

With all of my kvetching about being an old married woman, I am continually reminded of all of the reasons my husband is an amazing person, and the perfect person for me. Thus

Reasons Why I Love My Husband *gag*

1. He has the same juvenile sense of humor I do, and if I say something outrageously politically incorrect he will laugh.

2. As soon as I begin to fume about something that he has/has not done he will somehow sense it, and I will come home to a home cooked dinner and a clean house.

3. Whenever I get up in the middle of the night he asks if I'm okay

4. He will get up early to take my parents to the airport so that I don't have to.

5. He gets me flowers "just because" and always tries to get me my favorite kind.

6. Periodically he will say something that proves that he is actually listening when I talk about work.

7. When I first met him I was in the process of an extremely messy break-up with a very nasty person. Danny put up with my indecisiveness, generally freaking out-ness, and abuse from the nasty ex.

8. He told me that a relationship should be fun, and shouldn't be work. While all relationships are work, he proved to me that it should be mutual, and should be outweighed by fun.

9. He does everything he can to make my life less stressful, which is challenging because I get stressed out by almost everything.

10. He encourages me to be independent and to have my own interests and friends.

11. He can fix or build anything. Literally. Nuclear reactor? No problem. Currently he's planning on an invisible edge pool and an elevated deck for our house.

12. He has gone from refusing to eat anything unusual to willingly going to an Afghani restaurant with me. If I could only get him to eat seafood....

He is the steady rock that keeps me from flying off into space, the one who puts things in perspective and keeps me as sane as I can conceivably be. Being married isn't that bad. Being married to him is the best thing I could have done.

Alter Ego

2008-07-14T23:03:00.002-07:00

I've had a secret desire for a while...one that frightens me, and yet thrills me at the same time.

I want to join the Tucson Roller Derby. I want to be a Derby Girl.

I went to one of their matches a while ago, and was captivated. Maybe it was the nachos, the beer swilling crowd, or the idea of skating around a rink wearing an adorable kickass outfit to hoardes of cheering fans holding posters of my derby alter-ego name. Whatever it was, I was hooked.

Until I went to the next match and saw a girl get punched in the face. I've never been punched in the face, and I'm pretty sure I would cry if I did. And then I logged on to their website and saw pictures of grinning, bloodied faces and enormous swollen bruises.

I am not a competitive person. At least, not physically. Put me in a battle of wits and I will beat you to the ground with my mind, or if I'm losing I will at least cuss you out vociferously. But I still have flashbacks of PE classes...we did those relay races where each person on the team had to run down the court, shoot a basket, and then run back and pass the ball to the next person. You know how there was always that one sad kid standing miserably under the basket, desperately heaving the ball at the basket and watching it fly off into space, nowhere near the net while everyone on all the other teams sit at the other end of the court muttering epithets? That sad kid was me. My parents had to have a conference with the PE teacher because of my overwhelming kickball related anxiety. When I found out we were going to be playing softball in middle school I didn't sleep for a week.

But recently I've been having the urge to join a sports team. Initially it was the company softball team, but I can't throw, catch, or bat so I don't think I'd be much of an asset. But roller derby? When I was a kid I literally spent whole summers rollerblading. Rollerblading in a circle which is essentially what roller derby is. That, and pushing other girls. I have a bit of an edge in that too- I have a much larger, stronger husband who I regularly try to tackle to the ground. Granted, I don't think you are allowed to bite your opponents in roller derby, but still.

Plus, with roller derby you have an alter ego. You get a clever double entendre name that you go by. It's like being a superhero!

Anyway, they have a meet and greet coming up, and I'm going to go. I think.

Happy Am-ur-ca Day!

2008-07-11T22:09:00.002-07:00

I've noticed that "Dubya" Bush pronounces America in the above fashion. It's truly charming, the idea that the president of our country can't actually pronounce it.

Our 4th was low key, but entertaining. We were planning on driving up to Phoenix and re-celebrating our one year anniversary, but my friend Jenny decided to come into town unexpectedly. So, we played host for the weekend. It was fun having her, but she's gotten a wee bit OCD since the last time I saw her. Before she drove down she announced to us, "make sure you clean the bathroom". My own mother knows not to say this to me, because it means that she will be spending her weekend peeing in the bushes or staying in a hotel. Danny quickly hung up the phone before she could hear the epithets being screamed in the background. On Saturday Jenny decided that our clean bathroom was not actually clean enough, and spent four hours scrubbing it with clorox. I found it insulting, but Danny physically restrained me in another room because he is all about the free labor.

Thursday night we stayed home and, well, drank. Actually Danny and our friend Jaime drank. An entire bottle of tequila. Jaime is a big beer drinker, but put some actual liquor in front of him and he passes out after his second martini. In this case he began screaming beligerantly, and then curled up like a baby on our couch. The next morning we took him out for breakfast, and showed him pictures of the penis we drew on his forehead when he was passed out. The penis that was still on his forehead in the restaurant. Jaime has since quit drinking.

On the fourth we had Dos de Azucar and Batman over, along with Danny's life partner, Phill. We had some margaritas and decided to build a bonfire in our empty koi pond/hot tub. We disposed of some old wooden doors and a dead tree from the backyard, then enjoyed the inferno. I also had a rave of one to that old nineties pseudo-techno song "Blue" by Eiffel 65. That was my favorite song in high school with the exception of the "We Like To Party" song, which was my theme song. Yeah for itunes and the ability to download crappy songs that you loved in tenth grade.

Saturday we did what has apparently become a Saturday tradition for us: going to Cup Cafe at Club Congress for a late dinner and cocktails, then on to the World Famous Golden Nugget for shuffleboard. This time we played against some very effeminate Hispanic guys who were much better players than I was, and more tolerant of my cussing them out than the last group. I failed to mention last time that across from the World Famous Golden Nugget is some store that has handpainted signs on the side entrance: "Look! We've caught you on camera now!" I'm not sure who they were catching, but so far they've been mooned by myself, Phill and Jaime twice. And hopefully the gay Mexicans if they listened to my instructions as we were leaving the bar Saturday night.

Sheila

2008-07-11T21:26:00.002-07:00

Names people call our dog because apparently "Siva" (SEEE-VAAA) is too difficult:
Shiva
Seeba
Sheba
Sihva
Sihba
Sheila

I haven't heard She-Ra yet, but I will shake that person's hand when I do.

We have been taking Siva (Sheba, Sheila, etc) to obedience school led by a passive aggressive puppy-nazi. Now, I realize that dog owners can be a little hyper-sensitive about criticism of their doggy parenting style, but this woman would ruffle anyone's feathers.

Our first day I mentioned that Siva was an outdoor dog. An outdoor dog when we are not home. As in, I don't keep my 45 lb puppy locked in a crate during the day when we have a large backyard she can run around in. The puppy-nazi blinked at me (she has a bizarre way of blinking very emphatically. I keep feeling like offering her eye drops) and gave me a lecture about how "outdoor dogs" never get enough attention. She painted a heart rending picture of Siva sitting at the backdoor, silently weeping as we frolic just out of her reach inside the house. My proverbial hackles started to rise, because Siva has an air conditioned dog house and a kiddie pool just for her in the backyard, and most of the time if we are in the house she is standing in her pool trying to catch imaginary fish. When she's not inside. With us.

For the next several sessions she managed to work in mentions of the plight of "outdoor dogs" in each lesson. Barking problem? Can't be fixed if she's an outdoor dog, because she's constantly distracted by the "traffic" she sees in the yard. Except we have two acres and the only traffic Siva sees are the lizards walking along the back wall. Housetraining problem? Can't be fixed if she's an outdoor dog because we can't monitor her when she pees.

Unfortunately Siva is the most well behaved and the smartest dog in the class. Our other classmates are a father and son team with an old and giant shepherd who spends the entire class period trying to eat Siva, and a mother-daughter team with a terrified chihuahua who doesn't do anything but tremble and look petrified. This meant that after the first few class periods the puppy-nazi couldn't deny that she was a healthy, well behaved dog despite the fact that her owners are neglectful bastards.

The irritating thing is that I'm always very polite, even when it's through gritted teeth. However, Danny and I like to call the daughter of the chihuahua owner Slutty McBitcherson (or Bitchy McSlutterson). Her wardrobe of choice are Britney style shorts that are so short the pockets hang out, a black lingerie style tank top, and a hot pink bra hanging out the top. And she's 13. She spends most of the class inflicting that particular brand of middle school angst that makes everyone want to separate the 13 and 14 year olds onto an island until they finish puberty:
Mother: Sit, doggy.
SMcB: That is not how you SAY it!! God! You're soooo dumb!

Because of this hopeful turn of events the puppy-nazi has decided that maybe we aren't the pond scum she originally took us for. So she treats me to stories about her therapy dog, who she routinely describes as being the dumbest dog on the planet.

PupNaz: Now I'll bring Penny out to show you how to do this next command. Although Penny's really bad at it. She's really kind of dumb, actually"
Yesterday she tried to show me how she could get her dog to "shake" by staring at her. What followed was ten minutes of watching her blink emphatically at her dog while the dog stared back at her, clueless. What Penny is good at is looking at her trainer empathetically while her trainer makes passive aggressive complaints:
PupNaz: No one showed up last week for class.
Me: I'm so sorry, with the holiday we totally forgot.
PupNaz: That's okay. Everyone was on vacation. But I don't get any vacations do I Penny?
Penny: Stares at her sympathetically and waits for treats
Me: Swallows a mouthful of bile and grits teeth to nubs.

But Siva has learned "sit", "stay", and a variety of other useful things. And she loves the class. She gets treats constantly for an hour and then all the employees at the store descend on her and rub her tummy. She's like the Paris Hilton of Petsmart. If Paris Hilton liked tummy rubs.

Belated Addendum to the Camping Post

2008-06-29T16:57:00.005-07:00

Remember when I went camping back in May? I finally found the pictures on Danny's laptop today, so I thought I'd do a visual re-cap of our fun wilderness experience:

This is what we started out with that morning: lots and lots of snow. Fortunately, we found a campsite without snow, and began to set up the Martinez Camping Compound. And the boys began doing manly activities:

Danny spent two hours trying to put up an enormous tarp by hoisting children into pine trees and making them tie the rope around the tree. The wind was so strong that at one point the tarp took flight and lifted Danny off the ground.

All that set up made them tired. So they cracked their first beers at about 11am. Phill didn't move for the rest of the day.

The infamous Cheesy Poofs in all their glory. Yes, I already ate a bunch on the drive up. Shut up.

One of the best parts of the trip was watching Siva discover snow. I threw snowballs for her and she would plunge through the drifts trying to find them. She's turning into a beautiful dog:

Taking Back The Night

2008-06-29T13:54:00.003-07:00

I regained my youth, people. I grabbed youth by it's silky straight hair and slammed it to the ground! During my youth bitch-slap I realized that it wasn't a matter of me being old, it was a matter of me being boring and bored. That's not being old, just stupid. And my angst might have been a bit of PMS too. Don't you hate that?? You spend a couple of days feeling like your life sucks and everything is really going down the drain and you start contemplating major life changes, and then one morning you wake up and you're like "Oh. It was hormones. Whoops."

But back to my weekend. It was a normal weekend for most people, and used to be a normal weekend for me until we bought the time-and-money-blackhole known as our house. So, Friday I went out with my wonderful friend Dos de Azucar (what does that mean, anyway? Two somethings of sugar?) and we had dinner at the trendy new taco and tequila bar. I had the best margarita ever, a blood orange margarita. I had to physically restrain myself from getting another one. Then we walked around and laughed (and quietly envied) the overpriced clothes at La Encantada. I almost bought a $50 pair of sweatpants because they had pretty embroidery on them, but where can you wear fancy sweatpants? Not to the gym or when working on the house, because you would ruin them. Not to work, because they're still sweatpants. It's a conundrum I couldn't resolve.

Then I took Siva to the park with my friend Rachel and her kids. I love her kids. They think I'm crazy and refer to me as "the loud friend". But they like me because I make fun of their mom. Siva spent the entire time trying to position herself in front of people so she could flop on her back and get tummy rubs. She isn't making much progress as a guard dog.

I went out with the boys (husband, husband's life partner, husband's friend) and went bar hopping. The twilight zone moment happened at a dive bar when I looked up and saw Danny's full name written on the wall. So either he was so drunk one evening that he doesn't remember somehow getting his name 8 feet up on a wall, or the other Danny Z (there's another in Tucson) goes to the same bar we do. How awesome/spooky is that?

We also went to The World Famous Golden Nugget, and it's the best bar ever because it has a pinball machine AND shuffleboard AND crazy chicks who come up and talk to you for an hour about your astrological sign. The second spooky thing? Even after I sobered up she made sense.

I've decided that shuffleboard is my sport. Why? You can drink while playing it, you are actually a better player if you use less physical effort, and the rules are super simple. Shuffleboard rocks.

The other highlight was that we introduced our hardcore beer drinking friend to martinis, and he was sweating and slurring after one. Take that beer!

All in all, we didn't get home until 3am. I was so proud of myself.

Mawwaige

2008-06-22T21:25:00.003-07:00

(Title to be said in the Princess Bride wedding ceremony voice)

My last blog was a little bleak, wasn't it? I think that just by reading about the quarter life crisis I managed to put myself into one, because before that I was actually pretty content with my life. Or maybe it's the fact that I keep reading reviews of the Sex and the City movie, and everyone concludes that it's such a depressing ending because everyone gets old and married. It's all, like, realistic and stuff. Geez.

To top off my contented life, I got into a fight with my husband today. We don't fight a lot. Not to say that I don't try, because picking fights over meaningless things is really my forte in life. However, since my mild mannered partner in matrimony informed me a few weeks ago that he was the husbandly equivalent of a citizen of Pompeii constantly waiting for Mt. Visuvius to erupt, I've been trying to be, well, nicer. A little less explosive. This lasted about two weeks, which is good for me. And I still contend (not out loud at home, but here in the safe haven of my blog where I am always good, nice, and most importantly, right) that this fight was not my fault. I have spent the last two weekends on my hands and knees scrubbing grout, an activity that is just about as fun for me as doing long division. So when I looked up and found my charming mate sitting on the couch watching Smokey and the Bandit, I merely suggested that he could, you know, work.

Granted, he had been working and was taking a break. Whatever. I didn't say it meanly, I just offered him a couple of items on our To Do list that needed to be completed. Hurtful words were exchanged, and I ended up storming out of the house and driving around the back roads of Tucson for two hours, fantasizing about driving to San Diego for a week and seeing how long it would take him to worry about me. By the time I returned to the house I was calmer, but had a list of very well thought out reasons why I was in the right. In the midst of fine tuning this list I noticed he had taken out the garbage. And scrubbed the grout in the bathroom. And grouted the empty spots in the kitchen. We hugged and I said "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings". Then I waited graciously for his own apology. It never came. "It's okay" he says. I wait another couple of beats, just to be sure. I contemplated prompting him, asking him, or pinching his ear lobe until he begged for mercy. I calculated how much gas it would take me to get to San Diego.

But then I thought about all the stuff he had done while I was gone, and how if I had been him I would have sulked around and defiantly not done any work. I would have probably laid in the middle of the living room floor just to prove that I wasn't going to do any work. But Danny is Danny, and he picked up the scrub brush I had thrown in a rage and tackled the shower. I decided that was enough apology for me.

Where's My Metamucil!

2008-06-16T17:32:00.002-07:00

I've been feeling old. We did a class exercise a few days ago, and discussed the pro's and con's of each decade from people in their 20's to people in their 50's. What was interesting to me was that the people who were already out of their twenties were talking about how in your twenties you party all the time, have no responsibilities, can eat whatever you want without gaining weight, don't have any health problems, and generally have wonderful, care-free lives. I also joined a "twenty-something" bloggers group, and most of the blogs I've been reading are by people who seem to have these carefree lives described by my classmates. Frankly, I think I belong in the 30 or 40-something group. Instead of drinking to excess with my fabulous friends and dry humping some guy on a dance floor in 5 inch painless stilleto heels, I spent the weekend doing the following:
1. Painting the exterior of the house
2. Scrubbing and then sealing the grout
3. Sleeping and whining about how tired I was after doing numbers 1 and 2.

Granted, I had my fair share of drunken debauchery in college. Nights spent passed out on a friends floor, waking up covered in obscene scribblings written by my more sober friends. Mornings spent in hungover misery with my roommates. The ninja-like theft of a shopping cart from the UA campus. But really, those years were pretty tame in comparison to most other people. I made it all four years without going to a single frat party, I never got arrested, I never even got in trouble with the RA's. I was only single for a semester in between my high school sweetheart and my future husband, and I didn't have a single one night stand. I never even got a speeding ticket.

At the age of 26 I am a married home owner with two dogs. I definitely can't eat whatever I want, and in fact even when I subsist only on salads and water I still can't lose weight. I get tired by 11pm, even on weekends. I have a real job that takes an emotional toll on my personal life. I prefer wine to shots. The guy who brings me home from the bar is my husband, and usually instead of having drunken monkey sex afterwards, I fall asleep and drool on him. I groan when I get up after sitting too long, just like my parents.

I wonder if I've missed out on an important period of irresponsibility and delicious recklessness, or if I am really just happier being old and boring. Maybe my wild and crazy days will happen when my future kids are off to college, and I'll start bar hopping. But shouldn't those days happen when you're young and can still wear a mini-skirt without being laughed at? Who am I kidding, I already have cellulite.

Sometimes, I think longingly about high school and kick myself for having two long term boyfriends and being a responsible student. I should have been out playing the field, because I just found my senior pictures and dude, I was hot. I gotta say. I weighed like 100 pounds and could eat whatever I wanted. I should have been ditching class and making out with hot seniors behind the bleachers. While eating my weight in nachos. Why? Because I could.

Goodbye Brain

2008-06-14T14:57:00.003-07:00

I spent most of yesterday trying to scrub several years of accumulated dirt out of the grout in the living room with clorox. That is, until the room started spinning and I couldn't stand up anymore. Danny found me face down on the bed and I still smell clorox every time I inhale so today I purchased actual grout cleanser which promised to be non-toxic. Unfortunately, it's too late for a few of my neurons which I'm pretty sure are toast. On the plus side I figured out exactly which ones I lost this morning during a discussion about a high school friend of mine and her pronunciation difficulties.

Me: I had a friend who couldn't say the word "wolf". She would say "woof" instead.
Danny: Woof?
Me: Right. Isn't that funny? And instead of saying "wolfs" she would say "woofs".
Danny: Wait, instead of what?
Me: Wolfs.
Danny: It's wolves. WOLVVVVES. You're making fun of your friend and you can't even say it yourself?
Me: Oh my god. I knew that yesterday.

So, the brain cells that knew the plural of wolf have bitten the dust. All in all, it could be worse. As long as I don't move to Alaska. With the wolfs.

The Joys of Not Being 13

2008-06-10T16:58:00.004-07:00

This weekend I spent most of the weekend being grateful that I am not 13. Because, at 13, if my father had spent the weekend striding around Tucson with me in this hat:

I would have died. Not figuratively. I would have hurled myself off of the nearest structure, or started swallowing the contents of my purse in the hopes that it would kill me. As you probably surmised my parents were here this weekend. My parents, and this hat. Every time we left the house: "oh! I forgot my hat!" Anytime I complained of the heat: "would you like to wear my hat?" If he saw me putting on sunglasses: "I don't need sunglasses, I have my hat!" At one point he was wearing baggy cargo shorts half hanging off of him (he's lost weight, but lord knows he couldn't use that as an opportunity to update his wardrobe) a demin looking cargo shirt (yes, they make cargo shirts. By "they" I mean minions of Satan) that was not actually denim but some space-age technologically advanced fabric (did I mention the shirt was unbuttoned??) thick hiking socks pulled all the way up, and his fabulous hat. Women were swooning in every direction.

As it was, I was able to laugh it off. At one point I even tried on the hat in public. I made sure that I was laughing while trying it on to prevent anyone from thinking that I had actually spent my own money on this combination sun bonnet-Lawrence of Arabia turban-Australian bush hat. But at 13 you would have found me under the table of the restaurant wearing dark sunglasses and reading a guide to emancipation of minors.

I should mention that he also had the audacity to mock my purchase of some tasteful plaid capris from Express. They are very cute and fashionable, even though my mother, father, and husband made simultaneous gagging noises when I brought them out.

Cute, right? I thought so. I'll bet if they a 20 pockets, zip off legs, 35 straps and a matching headlight he would probably wear them himself.

Cheesy Poof Update

2008-06-01T19:38:00.002-07:00

I had a few left, I just ate a couple. They tasted nasty. Apparently they are only good on road trips, which is definitely a good thing, because otherwise I'd weigh 500 lbs.

Also, I've updated my link list to include:

Sweetney- the owner of the most entertaining and aptly named pug- Truman. Hopefully, not the same one who peed on my cheesy poofs. Then we'd have to throw down.

Amalah- has the most adorable son ever, and gives fabulous make up advice.

Finslippy- tireless conversations with her son that sound a lot like the conversations I have with my "kids" (ie- clients). "AND THEN NEMO JUMPED OVER SPONGE BOB AND WENT PSSSSHSSBBBBBTH"

Klick-Here- one of my friends from high school! Also married. Also has cats, but not as evil as ours.

Fussy- creator of "yoga beans", where action figures do yoga. If I had action figures lying around...no, I can't lie. I'd never come up with that myself.

Tartraz- I randomly stalked her through Klick-Here, and she is hysterical. The most dedicated at weekly features I have ever seen.

Squirrel Legs

2008-06-01T18:47:00.003-07:00

We went camping recently with Danny's family to celebrate his birthday. The day before we left a cold front moved into Tucson and the previously beautiful weather became cold and windy, and by the time we got to Show Low there was 13 inches of snow the ground. I refuse to camp in snow. I have camped in rain, wind, on rocks, surrounded by cows that sound like bears in the middle of the night, and in a tent with my mother who insisted on peeing into a pot instead of going outside in the middle of the night. I will not camp in snow. So I stated, vociferously, that I. Would. Not. Camp. In. Snow. Instead? We smuggled 13 people and two dogs into two second floor hotel rooms. I stayed in the room and would hurl my body on top of Hiccup whenever anyone entered the room in order to prevent him from barking. As it was, I'm sure several people caught the glimpse of a long german shepherd nose peeking into the hallway and myself suspended, Matrix-style, in the air above a furious pomeranian preparing to defend his room. Danny was smart and stayed next door drinking tequila with his family.

However by the next day the sun came out and we headed to the mountains. The next two days were filled with fish, camp fires, and cheese poofs. Oh, the cheese poofs. Every road trip we take, I have to buy a bag of delicious cheese poofs to consume on the ride. This year Danny purchased the largest quantity of cheese poofs I have ever seen at Sam's Club. We calculated that I could eat only cheese poofs for three whole days and STILL be consuming enough calories to make me obese. It was heaven. Unfortunately, people began competing for the cheese poofs, especially when we started playing "pass the bottle of tequila around the fire" (It's a complicated game. You drink tequila and pass the bottle. Then you end up lying half inside your tent threatening your dog that you'll "break his little squirrel legs" if he doesn't stop walking on your face). By the end of the weekend, people were deliberately consuming my cheese poofs to annoy me. At least, until the pug from the campsite next door came over and peed on the canister. Then they were all mine! On the last day we began duct-taping small, eager children to trees to "test their survival skills". Their revenge? Duct-taping the cheesy poofs. Oh, the horror.

The weekend was a lovely escape from the never ending renovations, despite the fact that my hair still smells of smoke even though it's been a week.

Best Character Assessment I've Gotten in a While

2008-06-01T18:44:00.002-07:00

Danny and I were in Circle K today and a homeless looking guy came up to him:
Homeless Guy: She's got some red in that hair. Watch out! She might beat you to death!
Danny, turning to me: This guy has met you before, hasn't he.

10 We-ahd Things You Don't Know About Me

2008-05-14T20:27:00.005-07:00

...According to my husband:

I was tagged by Jenny (I do not know how link to her blog) to write ten weird things people don't know about me. And whenever I say the word weird in my head I say it "we-ahd" like my little cousin in law who can't say his r's. I don't know why, I just do. Maybe that's number one. Anyway, because I generally am not even aware of the odd things that I do, this list will be composed by my husband, as he is the first person to call my awareness to, and then laugh at, my we-ahdness.
1. "You do the pee-pee dance when you're bored or you think no one is looking". Yes, I do. I jiggle my knees and bounce up and down without thinking about it. No, I usually don't have to pee when I do this.
2. "You people watch so much sometimes you walk into things." People fascinate me. And I like to analyze their character based on their choice of outfit that day. Then I run into a wall.
......and that's all he could think of. Granted, he's working on the brakes to his truck and not focusing on me like he should be, but still. I'm weirder than that. I will continue with my own list:
3. I hiccup multiple times every day and have so since I was in my mother's womb. Usually after eating.
4. I have tourette's syndrom, but only in my head. I think of horrible sexist, racist, insulting, vulgar things to say in response to commercials on TV.
5. I hate the feeling of water drying on my skin. Danny tortures me by licking my skin and then blowing air on the saliva. One of those gross things they don't tell you really constitutes a marriage.
6. When hungover the only food I will eat is a sourdough jack from jack in the box with no ketchup and no bacon. If they mess up the order I won't eat it.
7. I'd rather drive a beat up old car than my current mercedes so I don't have to worry about taking care of it.
8. I can't walk over grates or bridges that I can see the ground through. Yes, just like a cow.
9. When I'm really, really tired I feel like sucking my thumb. One time I tried it just to see if it would be comforting and it felt strange.
10. I get random words stuck in my head and repeat them over and over in my head. Or phrases. I can get songs stuck in my head for days at a time. One time I had "Love Shack" stuck in my head for a week. I'm still paranoid about hearing that song.

And This Little Piggy Came Home

2008-05-01T20:42:00.003-07:00

Yesterday we went for a walk in the desert around the neighborhood with the dogs. We looked at all the cacti in bloom, admired the birds and rabbits, and generally marveled at our good fortune.

Then, as we lay snug in our beds, content in the serenity that comes with living in the middle of nowhere, someone knocked on our door. At 3am. Not an angry knock, a relatively polite knock, but still alarming considering the time of day. Of course I am the only one who hears the knock. Our trusty 7 lb watchdog, whose only useful function is the fact that he barks when someone knocks on the door, did nothing. I think my husband was slightly excited at this opportunity because he got to stride to the door, cock his huge pistol, and defend his property. He says he heard something or someone scurrying away from the door, but that it didn't sound human. We then lay quivering in bed, debating the animal who makes knocking noises vs. deranged axe murder who makes knocking noises. Meanwhile, the cat was busy making every possible "I'm breaking into your house" sound she could think of: thumps, scratching noises like a lock pick, crashing sounds, etc. And Siva, excited by the possibility that we might play with her in the middle of the night, starting throwing things around in the backyard. Every time one of our charming animals did something, we would lie perfectly still, and then analyze the acoustic properties of the sound:
Mia: That sounded like Siva throwing her water dish.
Danny: Or someone shaking the back door. It sounded metallic.
Mia: No, metal is higher pitched. That was a "thunk" like plastic.

And so on. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep. Today, I go to work and talk to one of my co-workers about our early morning adventure. And she says, and I quote:
"Dude! It's the pigs!"
.....huh? Apparently, her tia lives in the neighborhood and she used to think someone was harrassing her in the middle of the night. Turns out the javelina were going up to her front door and crashing into it with their tusks because they don't have good eyesight. As I thought about it, it made sense. Our trash cans are right by the front door, and are overflowing because we haven't been able to get our trash service set up. Danny heard a scurrying, not a running. And Hiccup simply slept through the whole thing, probably exhausted by having to fend off Siva all day.

Our first desert adventure....we're in for some sleepless nights.

Summer Resolutions

2008-04-30T20:26:00.003-07:00

It's the beginning of summer, and I'm getting that feeling I get every summer. The feeling that I will have time in the next three months to catch up on the resolutions that I slacked off on from January until May. But this summer I'm taking two classes and I have a house to finish and unpack. But I'm hoping that I can downsize some of our stuff, and finally make sure that everything has a place. I decided we have way too many little things floating around when I had to label a THIRD box as "junk drawer". When every drawer is a junk drawer you have a problem.

I know all of my readers (Mom, Teresa and Zac) (no, my husband and my father don't read my blog regularly) (yes this is a passive-aggressive way of trying to make them feel guilty if they ever do read my blog) are concerned about the state of my pinky finger. It's been a wild ride, I tell ya.

I went to see the specialist, who was a lovely man despite being only 5 feet tall and slightly crossed eyes. He looked at my finger for about thirty seconds, and said confidently "I can fix this". Then he gets a needle that's about as long as he is tall and jams it in my palm. Apparently, despite refusing to ever own, fire or even touch a gun, I gave myself "trigger finger" which necessitated injecting cortisone into the tendon. My hand began to swell like a balloon as the cortisone went in, and he merrily tried to chat with me about grad school as I tried not to howl like a baboon on fire. Afterwards, he did his best to make me feel really happy I'm a social worker.

Doctor: So, you're a social worker?
Me: Yep.
Doctor: They don't make much money, huh?
Me: Nope, not really
Doctor: I know a social worker. She barely makes enough to live on.
Me: That's too bad.
Doctor: Yeah, and that's in Phoenix. It's probably even worse here!
Me: I guess....
Doctor: I always tell her "you might as well be working for free!" hehehe.
Me: Well, it's not that bad...
Doctor: Yep, working for free. She might as well just be a volunteer.
Me: Seriously...
Doctor: I mean, she lives by herself and can barely pay the bills! What if you have kids?!
Me: So...can I go pay my copay now and you can bill my insurance company $1,000 for my 30 second evaluation?

My finger started getting better almost immediately, but it wasn't done punishing me yet. Oh, no. After I was able to bend it again I could take off the tape I'd been wearing. At first my finger was itchy, but I figured that was normal. Then, the skin start peeling off, and getting all red and gross. I ignored it, hoping it would go away. Clearly, I didn't learn much of a lesson from waiting a month to get the whole "trigger finger" thing looked at. But Danny noticed my angry, mutant finger after a few days, and announced that he was diagnosing me with athlete's foot. On my finger. If you are silently gagging a little bit right now, don't be ashamed. I did to, and it was my appendage. It made sense, though. Not a lot of air was getting to it, moisture under the tape and the splint...*gag* So I purchased "anti-fungal cream" and have been frantically applying it every 30 seconds or so. It seems to be working, as the redness, itchiness and soreness is gone, and the skin has grown back. I think my finger may have run out of cute little tricks to punish me for forcing it to do manual labor, but if a tiny face grows on the tip and starts muttering satanic phrases at me, I wouldn't be surprised.

Forget social work!

2008-04-24T11:38:00.002-07:00

When we visited Sea World last month, I decided I was going to quit my job and move to California to be the professional penguin feeder. The lady whose job I was planning on stealing got to sit on a rock and hand feed the penguins. And cuddle the penguins. One climbed into her lap and it sat there and let her pet it while she fed all the others. She was, essentially, a professional penguin cuddler. I wanted to do that.

Now? I have to find a way to get Danny to move to China with me:

Milestone

2008-04-17T22:48:00.003-07:00

Siva's ears stood up for the first time by themselves yesterday. Our baby's already looking like a grown up doggy.

More Random Tidbits

2008-04-14T21:15:00.003-07:00

I guess I've been too busy to formulate a comprehensive blog entry recently, but I keep thinking of little bullet points to mention:

1. The person I used to share my office with would tell me that her body would "know" what kinds of deficiencies it had, and she would get cravings to remedy those deficiencies. Her body was very helpful, and cause her to crave things like broccoli and bean sprouts. Either I have some very strange vitamin deficiencies, or my body wants to sabotage itself. My most common cravings are for cheese (usually chedder or bried), sour cream, or sour dough jack's from jack in the box. Most recently? I have been craving cocktails. I don't want to get drunk or anything, it's just that a margarita martini or a cosmo keeps sounding so yummy. Basically my body is trying to turn itself into a drunk, fat chick.

2. Danny and I have been listening to one radio station while working on the house because we keep forgetting to bring cd's, and we can't agree on any other type of music. I have now banned that radio station because they play the same five songs ALL DAY. There's a particularly annoying song by Three Days Grace called "Riot". It's a generic song by young, angry white men about how oppressed and pissed off they are. Because, you know, there are so many societal barriers that they have to overcome. And their creative solution? I quote:
"LET'S GO RIOT. RIOT. LET'S GO RIOT. RIOT" *repeat for five minutes*
Because society doesn't already have a low enough opinion about your problem solving skills. Way to be.

Pinky Update

2008-04-11T15:53:00.003-07:00

So, after making an appointment to see my doctor on Monday, I spoke with my dad who said to skip the doctor and see a specialist. I call my doctor, and the nurse tells me he doesn't just want me to see a specialist, he wants me to see a hand surgeon specialist. Great. So, I call the surgeon's office and have yet another embarrassing conversation:
Me: Hi, I need to make an appointment to get my finger looked at.
Receptionist: Okay, what is your concern?
Me: I think I damaged a ligament or tendon.
Nurse: How long ago was the injury?
Me: .....about a month ago....
Nurse: A month?!
Me: well, yes.
Nurse: And how did you injure it?
Me: (trying to figure out the shortest explanation). I....was hammering....and hyper-extended my finger.....repeatedly....
Nurse: Okay, we have an opening on the 17th. Did your doctor take x-rays?
Me: Umm...I haven't seen a doctor yet.
Nurse: (astonished pause) But you have it splinted, right?
Me: Yes. I didn't at first, but then it kind of started locking up when I curled my finger, so I figured I should put a splint on it.
Nurse (longer astonished pause) I will talk to the doctor Monday and see if he can fit you in.
Me: (sheepishly) Thank you.

I didn't tell her that my Walgreen's splint was making my finger all shriveled and funky smelling, so Danny broke off the end of a plastic fork and taped it to my finger. I think I'll put the regular splint on before I see the doctor. I'm not sure he'd approve of picnic-ware being used for medical purposes.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

2008-04-11T14:34:00.002-07:00

1. I was listening to NPR on my way to work, as I always do. However, I have proven myself so addicted to NPR that I will continue listening even when they do their pledge week, and spend all their time begging for money. Do I donate? No. Do I continue to listen and feel slightly guilty for not donating instead of changing the station? Yes. And I'm glad I did, because I wouldn't have heard The Worst Attempt at an Analogy Ever:
Radio guy, starting his schpeal for money: "So, in that last story we heard about how the happiest people on the planet live in colder climates. They say it's because you are forced to get along with each other because you're stuck inside most of the time. That's like the people working at the station. We're a happy family....because we're stuck here...inside...but you know, not because it's cold out. It's hot in Arizona.....it's not like we'd freeze to death if we left....(realizes he's gone drastically off script and launches back into the pleas for money).

Isn't that awesome? Public radio stations are like people living in Denmark in the winter! Except, they don't live together. And it's a radio station, not a country. And it doesn't get cold here. But other than that, exactly alike!!

2. Our new puppy is busy terrorizing the other animals. Hiccup is playing the "don't touch the floor because it's made out of quicksand" game that I used to play in elementary school, because Siva (we named her Siva by the way) can't make it onto the couches yet. Catsby likes to sit in the same room as Siva and make horrible snarling, meowling, hissing noises, but does not feel the need to leave the room. And Siva is living up to her name as the "Lord of Destruction" in the Hindu religion by trying to chew through everything. Like, arms and electrical cords. But she's still cute.

3. I saw a thug on the southside today walking a poofy little pomeranian. I would have taken a picture, but he probably would have shot me.

4. We are moving in a week, and we don't have the drywall done. I'm trying not to panic.

Just A Matter of Time

2008-04-09T18:31:00.003-07:00

I had predicted that by the end of our house renovation project, either Danny or I would end up with some kind of serious injury. I SHOULD have predicted that I would end up with the injury, because I am clumsy and seem to fall into freak accident situations a lot. Usually, these accidents are entirely my fault, and inexplicable to the general public. For example:

When I was 5 or 6 years old I ran into a parking meter while walking down the street because I wasn't looking where I was going. I was short, so the parking meter hit me dead on and I fell over. I'm sure the camp counselors were only in high school, but I remember them looking at me without much sympathy and with a lot of astonished amusement. But then, I probably would look at a kid who ran into a stationary object much in the same way.

When I was in 4th grade we were playing a spelling game that involved sitting on the top of our desks. I leaned back a little too far, and tipped right off my desk, head first, feet sticking up in the air. Again, viewed with now familiar looks of astonished amusement.

In high school PE, I bent down right as my friend was serving the birdie in bad mitton (no, I don't know how to spell that). The edge of the racket hit my eye, and I ended up with a swollen optic nerve and partially detached retina. The benefit was that I got to miss the majority of the rest of PE because I was on strict bed rest so I didn't go blind.

This history should have been a clue that, at some point while working on our house, I would manage to do something to injure myself in a stupid way. Which leads to my explanation of the splint on my pinky. In the desert the dirt is extremely hard, almost rock-like. Danny tells me to dig 5 big holes in which we are going to put wooden pillars to hold up the patio roof. I am not fond of manual labor, I have a short attention span, and I get frustrated easily. So by the fifth hole I'm getting ever so slightly annoyed. Then I hit a layer of rock, and my annoyance turns into a determined rage. I take the claw side of the hammer and start swinging it violently against the rock with all my might, not noticing that the reverberations of the hammer are snapping back my pinky finger with every blow. When the dust settles and the hole is dug, I notice a slight twinge in my finger. The twinge continues every day, and soon my pinky finger is getting stuck in the bent position every time I make a fist. Like, I straighten the rest of my fingers, but the pinky doesn't get the memo. I call my distinguished doctor father whose stellar advice is: "It's probably a tendon. Keep an eye on it". This is the same man who, after I complained about stomach pain while he was driving me to school said "It might be appendicitis. Have a good day!" and dropped me off in the parking lot. So I don't always have the most faith in his diagnostic abilities. I resort to the best doctor of all: Dr. Internet, and find a description of my pinky problem. Apparently it's an injured ligament, and if not corrected can result in a permanent condition called "boutonniere's deformity".

The last thing I need is a deformed finger, so now it is being safely held straight by an aluminum splint I bought at Walgreen's. I call it my bionic finger, and want to make it a James Bond-esque attachment. I was thinking about having a tiny knife that could pop out of the end so I could shank someone, or maybe a deadly laser. It could release smoke so I could make a quick get-away. It could turn into a phone, or I could store a capsule of deadly poison in it. The possibilities are endless. I may keep the bionic finger after the pinky heals, because a pinky finger is kind of useless, but a BIONIC pinky finger would be the awesomest thing ever.

But this incident wouldn't be complete without, yes, the look. I was in my favorite coffee shop today, and noticed that the cashier also had a finger splint. I remarked on it, and he asked how I injured my finger. I relayed the story, slowly realizing how crazy it sounded. When I was done there was a slight pause. Then he says "were you...drunk?" "No....just, well, frustrated". And there it was. The widening of the eyes. The slight smirk. He tried to cover it up, but I knew. And I'm used to it.

Things I Have Learned While Watching Daytime TV

2008-03-27T18:38:00.003-07:00

While my body attempted to expell all it's fluids and possibly organs today (sounds gross, right? It was grosser being there, trust me) I got to revel in the wonder that is bad television.
Some thoughts

1. Jennifer Garner in "Elektra" has not learned that if you are a hitman (hitperson?) you should perhaps try to blend in more with your prestine lakeside environment by not wearing a red leather jumpsuit and carrying a crossbow with enough attachments to also be a gun, sword, and cuisinart.

2. A good drinking game- take a shot every time you encounter pseudo-scientific language in a commercial. My favorites so far today have been:
-"Firms your skin at least one dermatological level!"
-"This revolutionary concept was cited in this scientific journal" Camera shows an article from "The Journal of Scientific Discoveries"

3. WWII veterans are not only NOT appalled by the Bret Michael's Rock of Love girls performing a strip tease/hula hoop show while reciting the preamble to the constitution AND pronouncing "posterity" as "prostrerity", they will actually vote them as the best performance and hobble rapidly off their chairs to be the first to catch the girls' camouflage tube tops.

4. Top models are about character, inner beauty, self confidence, and intelligence. But you're too fat, your muscles are too big, and you're too short.

5. If you are going to have Ellen Degeneres as a house guest, she will be expecting a home made body scrub, fresh flowers, ironed sheets, and a picture of you and her as a souvenir on her bed side.

Other than that, today has been really, really bad.

All's quiet on the western front

2008-03-22T22:52:00.002-07:00

My biggest worry was how our spoiled only-puppy would feel about an invader. Thus far he has sniffed her, walked near her without freaking out, and FALLEN ASLEEP NEXT TO HER!

If that's not a sign of her being a member of the family, I don't know what is.

New Family Member

2008-03-22T21:23:00.003-07:00

She's a 7 week old German Shepherd puppy. I told Danny we could get a big dog when we got a real house, and we've been keeping our eye out since we're going to be moving in soon. We don't know her very well yet, except that she grunts like a pig when we pick her up, and sleeps a lot. And she has enormous paws:

I was kind of hesitating until Danny took one look at the dog and said "you look familiar!" He had a childhood german shepherd that he adored and his parents gave away. I couldn't say no after seeing the look on his face.

Boring Dream Blog

2008-03-22T11:08:00.004-07:00

One of my pet peeves are people who write about their dreams as if they are interesting, because dreams are rarely interesting to anyone other than the dreamer. So, I'm mainly writing this so I remember it later.

Jung said that periodically people have more meaningful, significant dreams than usual, and they are the subconscience having a revelation. This might be one of thos edreams, but I haven't figured out what it means yet.

I dreamt that I was tricked into going into a church by a guy I know at work who is very religious. The church was white with wood trim, peaked roof, very simple. I felt very drawn to the building, and walked into the church. A pastor wearing purple robes was preaching, and she was a thirty-something woman w/ well coifed hair who looked like a realtor. The pulpit was much higher than the pews. I could hear her when I first walked in, but then when I walked directly in front of her I could see her talking but I couldn't hear her. The man from work said that because of the way the alter and the pews were set up, you can't hear her when you're right in front of her. I kept thinking, I can believe in the building, I can't believe in the pastor. Then I started walking around the grounds. The surrounding space was very dark, and I felt like there was a ceiling far above me that I couldn't see, and the structures on the grounds of church were white and glowing. There were reflecting pools and white archways covered in white roses. I looked in one of the reflecting pools and there were little white minnows swimming around in the pool. They were picking up white pebbles from the bottom of the pool and eating them, then turning into the pebbles and floating to the bottom of the pool. The man from work said something about "that's the pool of vengence". Then they took me to a warehouse full of different kinds of stone that they were going to add to the church. One pallet had some regular looking granite on it, but then the next pallet had slabs of translucent glowing crystal. I accidentally knocked over the stack of crystals, and they all shattered. I started crying and thought "I finally found a church I could believe in, and now I've broken something so they won't let me join". Then I woke up.

Music to Die By

2008-03-11T20:50:00.002-07:00

I am now 26. So far, it's no different from 25 except that I think I'm about 5 lbs heavier since Friday from all the EATING. But I'm glad. Because I've been working my butt off at work, on the house, and at school, and I deserved a weekend of eating girl scout cookies, hamburgers, popcorn and yes, AN ENTIRE BAG of cheese puffs.

I got to go to Sea World for the first time, since my childhood was not spent on traditional vacations to amusement parks, and instead was spent sleeping in frozen tents and peeing behind bushes, this was my first Sea World Experience. We skipped the various showes after watching a guy in a cowboy hat, short shorts and a guitar prance around the stage singing about dolphins. We did see Shamu, because you just can't miss Shamu despite the cheesy presentation. And I got to pet the bat rays which was awesome.

We also had some fun campfire times. They were primarily fun because Jenny was there, and Jenny makes every conversation entertaining, surreal, and x-rated. Some of the things we learned about Jenny over the weekend are:

1. She has 13 vaginas
2. They operate much in the way automatic sprinklers work
3. She can play approximately 1 1/2 chords on her guitar, but very enthusiastically and for prolonged periods of time.
4. The hearing of these chords by someone who knows how to play the guitar will cause the chords to be dubbed "music to die by".
5. She can fit 10 layers of clothing on her body but will not be able to hear you through ten hats/hoods
6. She is the only person for whom LA actually IMPROVED her driving.
7. When she buys a tent, she will buy a nylon antebellum mansion with a sleeping porch, dining room, and our tents will merely function as outlaying slave quarters.
8. When she farts, she farts $2 bills. She will forget this fact numerous times throughout the weekend, thus nullifying all of our brilliant jokes about money making schemes.
9. She does not like meat, because it bleeds. She eats fish. Because....it.....doesn't bleed?
10. She does not want children, but if she does she wants to adopt an older child that has already been fucked up, so she doesn't have as much work to do.

We were planning on leaving on Sunday, but I grew sadder and sadder as we drove through San Diego so when I saw a Motel 6 I sniffled convincingly and persuaded Danny to stay another day. On Monday I spent the morning standing on a beach in La Jolla feeling absolutely happy and at peace and like I could spend every day of the rest of my life right there. I'm usually kinda tired and ready to go home after a weekend but this time I was just depressed about having to go back to a dry, brown desert where I can't pick flowers and swim with fish and enjoy wonderful weather all the time. The traffic is terrible, the people are crazy, and it may fall into the ocean at any second, but jiminy cricket I'd love to live by an ocean.

I'm getting OLD

2008-03-05T11:33:00.002-07:00

I should be working on yet another paper right now, but I'm not. I'm blogging. And I'm turning 26 on Saturday. I know, I know, that's NOT OLD as everyone who is older than 26 keeps angrily telling me. And I'm not saying it's old, I'm just saying that I think this is the birthday where, instead of saying to myself "Yay! I'm getting older!" I'll start saying "Oh my God, I'm getting older." Maybe it's the biological clock thing. Lately I've been thinking about all the things I want to do before I have kids, and I'm feeling like I'm running out of time. Because, you should probably have kids around 30, right? I mean, I don't want to get done travelling the world, getting my Ph.d, starting my career, and then wake up one day and realize that my ovaries have given up the ghost. Personally, I would like to adopt, but Danny wants a little biological Zamora running around. And I don't want to be 40 years old and not limber enough to play with my toddler, because my joints already hurt at night and I can't sit cross legged for more than 10 minutes before I lose the ability to walk.

Why don't men have to worry about this?! They can produce sperm on their deathbed. It's like God intended them to go around planting their seed in nubile twenty year olds. We need to implant seahorse DNA into men so they have to carry the baby around themselves if they decide to impregnate a twenty year old.

Okay, onto other news: My first internship for school is at the children/adolescent pysch hospital, and I'm so excited! And scared. The person I interviewed with said that she almost never agrees to take on someone doing their first internship because it's such a tough placement. I'm trying to quell the thoughts that I will find myself in over my head. To be honest, my main concern is that I'm going to get attacked by some large teenager. She assured me that I generally won't be responsible to do holds, but you never know, right? My 70+ year old 5 foot tall boss told me that what you need to do is establish a reputation on the floor as being someone who's a really tough restrainer, and then kids will leave you alone. Apparently that's how she avoided having to restrain people in the past. Then she told me a story about doing an assessment on a kid who tried to puncture his jugular with the pen she just handed him. She's not very good at reassuring people.

Little Dog Syndrome

2008-02-22T12:30:00.003-07:00

There is nothing funnier than little dog syndrome. I'm watching the Dog Whisperer right now, and Cesar Milan is trying to cure a vicious two pound chihuahua. They showed a clip of the dog trying to attack a fifty pound pit bull, pulling on his leash and squeaking as angrily as possible. Hiccup has little dog syndrome, but only when there's a very secure barrier between himself and the other dog. I just think it's so charmingly optimistic that a dog that can be restrained with one hand (or eaten in one bite) thinks he can take on the world. One time my friend Geoff discovered that Hiccup had snuck onto our dining room table and was trying to consume an entire pizza. I heard the sound of a pommy apocolypse and walked into the room to find a snarling, foaming, writhing Hiccup being held by the scruff of the neck by Geoff. Held with one hand. Because Hiccup only weighs seven pounds. But he was convinced he could take down and eviscerate my 6 foot tall friend.

I think we could learn something from these little dogs. They don't let size or situation phase them, they are totally confident that they can take on whatever stands in their way. And I think it usually works because people are too busy laughing at them, and big dogs are too confused to do anything about it.

I May Sue

2008-02-22T09:46:00.002-07:00

I went to the communal printer at work to pick up my progress notes, and one of the bilingual therapists was sorting through the pile. She looks at me, then looks at the notes I just printed out:
Therapist: You are Zamora? (rolls "r" beautifully)
Me: Yep.
Therapist: Stares at me. Stares at the note. Stares at me again.
Me: My husband is Hispanic.
Therapist: Oh! Okay. (walks away, her sense of what is right in the world restored)

I think I just experienced my first racial profiling.

I. Can't. Move.

2008-02-18T21:38:00.003-07:00

We started the great renovations this weekend. All weekend. These are the things I learned:

1. Primer does not come out of hair

2. It doesn't really come off of skin too easily either.

3. If you are using primer in a closet, you get high really, really quickly.

4. If you put a 70lb. boy in a closet with primer, and he shuts the door, he almost dies (sorry bout your kid, Rachel)

5. Mortar does come off of skin, but until it does you can't move whatever part of your body is covered in it.

6. Putting mortar down is like frosting a cake, but it doesn't taste nearly as good.

7. My husband is able to tell if a tile is one millimeter off from the rest of the row, and he will tell you about it.

8. Having a mom around to make you sandwiches after you've fallen asleep in exhaustion in the middle of the day is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

9. If you have a desk job, doing manual labor for 8-9 hours a day for two days means you will be completely incapacitated on the third day.

10. It's better not to wonder about the bones that you find in the carport crawl space.

Back from the Dead

2008-02-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

I think I'm finally on the road to recovery. It seems like everytime I get sick, it's not just a cold, it's an epic battle in my immune system. This time, it started with the worst sore throat I've ever had, including the time I had mono and they made me gargle with lidocaine. Then my nose clogged up, beyond the reach of every over the counter antihistamine and decongestant. I know this because I tried them all, sometimes simultaneously. When I developed a persistant, throbbing pain in my sinuses I went to Walgreens for antibiotics. This assault made the virus angry, so it invaded my left eye. Now, this is the funny part. Remember how I went to Pennsylvania a week ago? Well, on the flight back, I took off my glasses when I was falling asleep on the plane. When I woke up, they were gone. But I was tired, so I thought I had put them in my backpack before I fell asleep, because I remember looking at them in my hand and thinking "I'm going to lose those, I should put them in my backpack", but apparently the part where I actually put them in my backpack was a dream. By the time I realize this, I'm on the next plane to Tucson. Now, back to the pink eye. When you get pink eye, you can't where contact lenses for five days. And I lost my glasses. To recap: no contacts. no glasses. I can see things in crystal clarity up to a distance of, oh... 8 inches. After that, it's all pretty much a big blur. And the best part? My prescription expired a week ago so I couldn't even get new glasses. It's now been five days of virtual blindness, and it's gone better than I thought it would. My back is sore from my crouching over to see everything, and some store employees around town think I'm a little stupid, but at least I can still read and Danny could drive me places. But I will be sooo happy to put contacts in tomorrow.

But the cold war isn't quite over. Danny got sick in the end of January, and has been coughing every since. Tonight? He has a fever. I'm doooooomed.

Colds, American Idol, Walgreens, Cashiers, Catsby

2008-02-05T19:16:00.000-07:00

I have a hideous cold, and I'm going to blame the fact that I just actually shed a couple tears while watching American Idol on my sleep deprived and congested state. But seriously!! This girl called her dad to tell him she was on her way to the audition, and he dies in a car accident half an hour later. So TWO DAYS later she auditions and sings that Le-Anne Rhimes song "How do I live without you" and is amazing at it until she starts to cry. If you don't get a little choked up over that, then you just aren't human.

Anyway, back to reality. I'm sick. And I went to the new Walgreens "Minute Clinic", thinking it would be faster than urgent care. And I suppose it was faster. It look two hours instead of eight hours. But Walgreens hours are like dog years, you have to multiply them by five. Have you noticed that Walgreens attracts the strangest and angriest people? Especially when they are people who haven't been taking their meds and just find out that their insurance doesn't cover that medication anymore. And every child is screaming, and covered in snot, and throwing things.

Oh god, back to American Idol- so they just showed an Asian chick singing that "Glamorous" song, but she couldn't pronounce the L's, so she kept singing "gramolous...gramolous..." awesome.

Sorry, moving along. My co-worker and I joke that we have "therapist" printed on our foreheads in invisible ink, because strangers have a tendancy to tell us things that we don't really need to know. For example: I now know that the nurse practioner I saw has been on anti-depressants for years, and worries she will have a nervous breakdown if she ever stops taking them. She got re-married last month and went on a honeymoon to La Paz and she had to take dramamine because she has a problem with sea sickness, but her husband didn't because he grew up by the water. My mother has this effect on cashiers- she knows their children's names and their birthdays, their various illnesses, hobbies, past employment. Cashiers greet her with cries of joy and open arms. She is the patron saint of cashiers, they probably have little effigies of her hanging around their necks.

In other news, Catsby has taken to carrying a foam pirate sword around in her mouth. And last night I got up for the millionth time to blow my nose, and she had placed the sword by the bedroom door, like a threat. Next thing you know we'll find beheaded mouse head at foot of our bed. Or a nuclear weapon in our bathtub.

Test?

2008-02-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

On the Lighter Side

2008-01-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

In between the eating and the sitting that took place at my grandparents place I stumbled upon the following description of a pair of pliers in a catalogue on my grandfather's desk:

"Thinner stripper nose. For those tight places where a regular stripper's nose gets in the way".

Heartbreakingly Lucky

2008-01-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

My dad once told me that very few people ever meet their soulmate, that finding that kind of love is rare and special. So many things happen between humans that I tend to write off as biological necessity- babies are cute because it's all they have to survive. People fall in love because they have to multiply to propogate the species. But one thing I can't explain are people falling in love and staying together. Monogamy doesn't biologically make sense. The pain and fragility that comes with being dependent on another person to be happy does not make sense. Love does not make sense.

My grandparents have been together for 65 years. I can't imagine being that old, much less being with someone that long. Until my grandfather started having trouble walking, he would open every door for my grandmother, and now she holds every door open for him. They call each other "darling" and tease each other like kids. My grandfather has had to move to a different unit because Grandmama can't take care of him at night anymore, and it's tearing them apart.

You are so lucky if you find someone to be such a faithful partner, but it can cause so much pain. We were looking at old photographs with my grandmother last visit, and there was a picture of her and Grandpapa in college, standing arm in arm in a doorway, smiling at each other. And she talked about how vividly she could still feel that day, how intensely happy she was. This visit my mom brought a picture of Grandmama from college to put in Grandpapa's room, and Grandpapa took one look at it and started to cry. That's the problem with love, you don't live for yourself anymore. And sometimes that seems to be harder than living alone.

Oh, Hai Teh Internets!

2008-01-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

I'm in Pennsylvania. Did I mention that? My grandfather is not doing so well, so my mom and I flew up to see him and my grandmother. He's actually doing better than we thought he was, but I'm glad we came. He's getting confused more often, and he's been falling a lot. They live in an assisted living community, and they have their own apartment, but now that he needs more help they've given him a room in the nursing home end of the complex. Mom brought a bunch of pictures and a cd player because he hates going to that little impersonal room at the end of the day. I think it helped. And despite everything they still have their sense of humor. Today Grandpapa was giving Grandmama a hard time about something, so she snatched away the paper he was reading and stuck her tongue out at him. Then he leaned forward in his slow creaky way and flicked water from his glass onto her. I tried to use one of the computers in their library today, and while I was waiting for it to turn on, I listened to a couple going over some list of people and trying to figure out who had died yet and who hadn't. But this place makes me feel a little better about getting old. When Frank was in a nursing home type facility it was really horrible and depressing. This place is very nice and everyone seems to be pretty happy. Plus, it's a Quaker community so everyone is very liberal. Coming from Arizona where it seems like everyone over 30 is republican, it's pretty funny to me to hear these white haired old ladies talking about how great Obama is. You would think I would lose weight coming here, since it's all cafeteria type food, but essentially the daily schedule is:

9am: breakfast
10am-12pm: sit.
12pm-1pm: lunch (dinner)
1pm-4pm: nap
4pm-5:30pm: sit.
5:30-6:30: dinner (supper)
6:30-7:30: sit.
7:30pm-9am: sleep.

Of course, this was my schedule on Christmas break too, so I can't really complain. I just can't fall asleep at 7:30, since that's like 4:30 my time, and then I have to get up at 8:30 for breakfast, so I've been feeling pretty groggy this whole time.

In addition to sitting, my mom and I have gone shopping. She decided that I was old enough that I needed an actual coat instead of my ratty, faded UA sweatshirt, so I'm now the proud owner of a black parka. I drew the line at a fur collar though. It's fun to pet, but I kept picturing the poor foxes who needed it more than I do.

I'll be back on Tuesday, and it will certainly be a shock to go back to 10 hour days of constant running around!

You Can Never Beat A Mom

2008-01-22T12:32:00.000-07:00

Danny's been sick. Not deathly ill, but phlegmy and coughy and tired. And every time Danny gets sick he calls his mother. The first time he got sick when we were living together, she actually came over with Campbell's chicken noodle soup, gatorade, crackers, and cough syrup. I tried not to be offended that neither of them had any faith in my ability to nurse him back to health, but it didn't work. We have made progress, though. Now he just calls her and she tells him what to tell me to get at the store. Last night the conversation went like this:

Danny: Mia, Mom says you need to get real Sudafed, Ibuprofen and real Nyquil.
Me: Well, we have Aleve, that's almost the same thing as Ibuprofen. And we have Benadryl, you could take that instead of Sudafed.
Danny: *stony glare* Mom says I need real Sud...
Me: *realizing this is not a battle I can win* Yes! Okay! Real drugs. Gotcha.
Danny: And soup. Campbell's chicken noodle.
Me: We have Italian wedding soup in the pantry
Danny: Mom says I need...
Me: Fine. chicken noodle.
Danny: Campbell's chicken noodle. And remember, you have to get the sudafed and nyquil at the pharmacy, not just the over the counter stuff.
Mia: right.
Danny: in the pharmacy.
Mia: I KNOW.
I gather my belongings and head for the door to go to Walgreens. I hear a faint voice as I'm leaving
Danny: Campbell's soup! And you have to go to the pharmacy!
And sure enough, as I walk in the door after purchasing everything on his mother's list.
Danny: Did you get the drugs at the pharmacy?

The joys of living with an only child....

The Most Destructive Force on the Planet

2008-01-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

This is a Pomeranian puppy. No visible legs, little fuzzy ear flaps, button nose, demonic look in his eyes. Picture this, but all white and you had the snowball we named Hiccup. I will always contend that pommy puppies are, scientifically, the cutest puppies in existence. When Hiccup was a puppy we would play tug of war with my socks. Eventually he would get so worked up I would pick the sock up off the ground and he would hang from it by his teeth, growling and lashing around like a fish.

My Distinguished Gentlepuppy

2008-01-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

We had a barbecue last night, and a dog social hour. We had three dogs in attendance- Daisy, the German Pinscher, a 20-30 lb wiggling ball of enthusiasm. Daisy immediately became so excited to see everything that she filled our living room with urine. Like, more pee than Hiccup can produce in a month. It was a bit overwhelming for us, since we are used to dealing with doggy issues on a very small scale.

Bryce is a 9 week old mini Australian Shepherd who has a delightful round tummy and nibble-able fuzzy ears. Bryce and Daisy immediately began chasing each other around the backyard, wrestling, nipping, and generally making a ruckus. Their internal dialogue probably sounded something like this:

Daisy: OH MY GOD THIS IS SO EXCITING ALL THESE NEW PEOPLE I JUST CAN'T STAND IT.....ahhhh, much better.

Bryce: Play? Play? Play? Play!! Grrr grrr! I'm like a big doggy! PlayplayplayPLAYPLAYPLAYzzzzzzzzzz....." (he crashed after 30 minutes)

Normal dog behavior right? Playing, peeing and sleeping. And then there was my Hiccup:

Hiccup: Who are these heathens? Why are they wasting time mauling each other when there is FOOD. HUMAN FOOD INSIDE WHERE YOU CAN GET FED BY LOOKING CUTE! These vicious creatures keep trying to sniff my genital regions! How outrageous! Seriously, get me away from these hooligans and let me go wheedle food from the civilized people.

I don't know what to do with him, I really don't. He was terrified of the dogs and spent most of the time hiding behind me, behind the furniture, or behind the pool gate that the other dogs couldn't squeeze through. He was so relieved when they left, and he's spent all day today sleeping on the couch.

2008 is going to be exhausting

2008-01-20T17:03:00.000-07:00

Goodness, where to begin?

We got a house! Like, we bought it. We can do whatever we want to it. It's on the southwest side, right up against a mountain on 2.2 acres of land. It's a 1960's house, 4 bedrooms, one bathroom. For a while it was an abandoned house, so there's some entertaining graffiti, including some well rendered pot leaves, and a penis-dinosaur with little men climbing on it. We're thinking about leaving that one up. There's an Arizona room with huge windows and a fireplace made out of native lava rock, and a backyard with a mysterious cement pit in the middle of it. There are a lot of mysterious things about this house, actually. Like the fact that the rooms are painted half dark grey, half baby pink.

And the little slate gravestone sitting in the backyard that says "Jace 1983". I'm assuming for my own peace of mind that this was a beloved pet, not a murder victim buried by a suddenly contrite killer with a chisel. And one of the little girls who lived there had written useful labels on her closet shelves (in permanent marker, of course): "Clothes I Will Never Wear but Want to Keep", "School Clothes" and "Regular". I may leave these up, since my clothes kind of break down into those categories too.

There are also a lot of weird little buildings or half buildings on the property. There's a three foot by three foot cement building with a little hole at the base. There's a cinderblock one room building with no roof and an old futon in it. Something that may have been a horse stable but is now four supporting beams stuck in a two foot high platform of horse shit.

But it's ours. It's our horseshit, our gravestone, our weirdly painted rooms. The two acres of desert around the house is ours. As we were driving away the other day, we saw a bunny hoping through the front yard (can you call it a yard if there's no grass?) Anyway, and Danny pointed out that we, technically, own that rabbit. Except, technically, the rabbit is still in escrow until Feb. 13th :)

I done fixed it all by myself

2008-01-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

I fixed the line breaks issue. I can't explain why it's still double spaced and the wrong size, but at least the line breaks are back. Yay!

Such a Drama Queen

2008-01-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

I'm terrible with goodbyes. Even temporary goodbyes. Part of it is just that I'm an overly weepy, emotional person in general. Personally I'd greatly prefer a person who you know is going to miss you because they are crying hysterically, than a person who says goodbye in a calm, dignified manner and you aren't quite sure if they'll notice that you're gone. But that's just me. I say this because Danny left for LA for a business trip, and I acted like he was shipping off to Iraq for a year.

I think part of the reason I get so emotional about this is because my mom kind of raised me to be aware of mortality. She told me once to say goodbye to people as if you will never see them again. She'd keep messages of my father when he was out of town, just in case. It's a wise lesson, but I think it's made me a bit neurotic. Especially since Danny's father passed away, I've been a lot more paranoid about death. On the plus side I'm much less scared of dying myself, which was a prevailing neurosis before. Unfortunately, I'm much more afraid of my loved ones dying. Turns out it's easier to lie awake at night wondering about your own demise than it is to imagine your loved ones dying everytime they leave the house. In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a wee bit crazy.

Erk!

2008-01-04T22:33:00.000-07:00

So, last year we got married. And, like, a month before our wedding we both forgot to renew our lease. Then Danny decided we should try to buy a house. A month. Before. The wedding. We frantically bid on three houses, gradually getting more and more expensive and out of our price range. As we were driving home from our realtor's house after bidding on the last house I got into a head-on collision and my car was totaled. At that point we decided that whatever divine deity is looking down on us did not want us to buy a house a few weeks before our wedding. Instead this deity wanted us to rent a house and move all our belongings two weeks before the wedding. Can you picture this? Stressed out bride. Planning a big wedding on a small wedding budget. And packing. And moving. And trying to persuade her beloved fiance that it was probably more worthwhile for him to help pack than it was to personally carving ice sculptures for each table.

We waited a year, decided that what we really wanted was a unique fixer-upper in a nice area that we could work on together. Today, we signed the paperwork to officially buy a house. It's a four bedroom house with an Arizona room and a fireplace on over 2 acres. It's close to work and to downtown. We somehow managed to beat out five other bidders. It's definitely a fixer-upper, with graffiti and walls painted half baby pink and half prison-grey. But the structure of the house is good, and we get to turn the house into exactly what we want.

Sometimes, life works out for the best. Even if it involves a near death experience and utter pre-wedding panic.

The Waiting Game

2008-01-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

I hate waiting for things. I am a very anxious person on a normal day, so waiting allows me to conjure up all kinds of hideous scenarios. If Danny is twenty minutes later than I expected, I start imagining fiery car accidents. If I don't get a return phone call right away, I picture the person staring at their caller id thinking "God, Mia called. I hate her!" And right now it seems all the things I'm trying to accomplish involve waiting. I made extremely, ridiculously belated efforts to reach out to some friends that through my own weirdness managed to avoid talking to. Now I'm waiting to see if I get emails from them, or if they have finally given up and written me off completely. We put a bid in on a house, and we're waiting to see if it's been accepted. I need to re-arrange my class schedule, but have to wait until school starts. In the meantime it feels like I have a thousand pounds sitting on my shoulders.

freaking blogger errors!

2008-01-01T09:53:00.001-07:00

Okay, blogger is on the verge of losing me as a non-paying customer. Every time I post the font, spacing, and formatting changes randomly. I posted this problem on the help bulletin board, and someone said I need to learn freaking programming and code stuff JUST TO POST A BLOG. It should not be that complicated. Livejournal manages to preserve font and spacing. Hell, MYSPACE manages to. That list I have below? It should be spaced out. LIKE A LIST. I should not have to dabble in computer science to make blogger do something that any word processing program can do.
ERG!!! (that erg of frustration should be on it's own line. After I push the publish button it probably won't be. )

Cliched New Years Post

2008-01-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that resolutions seem doomed to fail, I like to make them. In fact, I actually do a good job at keeping them, for the most part. Except the losing weight one. That one never works. For anyone. That having been said, my new year's resolutions:
1. Lose Weight (I wrapped it in a pretty package of "feel better about myself and more comfortable with my body. But that boils down to "lose weight")
2. Broaden my personal horizons. I need to have interests and activities outside of school and work.
3. Stop cutting people out of my life. I'm sensitive. My feelings get hurt, and I have a pathological fear of returning phone calls. This adds up to a smaller circle of friends for no reason except my neuroses.
4. Do the traveling we keep saying we're going to do before we have kids.

Not a bad list, right? I think it's manageable. Here's to a bright new year, full of possibilities.

The Cat

2007-12-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

I feel like our cat may be getting the short end of the stick on my blog. And while there's a few excellent reasons for this (she's mean, she's ugly, and I generally try to pretend she doesn't exist) she is an entertaining blog subject. I got her for Danny when she was 5 weeks old from a box of kittens someone left in the parking lot at my work. When I heard there were kittens available, I went into the medical records room and found everyone cooing over an adorable kitty. I picked up a blue eyed, white and black spotted cat that licked me and mewed soft nothings into my ear. I was all ready to take this little bundle of lovey fuzz home when I heard "they've all be claimed. Except the one in the box" at which point I hear a slightly scary ripping noise- and a bat-eared orange striped/black spotted cat climbed it's way to the top of the box and said "meerrrrrrooooowww".

This was Catsby.

I exaggerate when I say she is ugly. She's unique looking. She is primarily a tortoiseshell pattern, but with some patches of tabby thrown in. I think mama-kitty got around a bit, because Catsby also has the tone and vocabulary of a Siamese. She's quite the conversationalist, especially at 4 in the morning when she decides it's time to play.

She is not affectionate. She does not curl up in your lap on cold evenings and purr while you stroke her ears. Periodically she will get close enough for you to scratch behind her ears for a couple of minutes before she gets bored and bites you. That's her thing- biting. Sometimes she'll come up and bite you for no reason. Sometimes she'll roll on her back and expose her yummy furry soft tummy, and then lures you in close enough to bite you. She doesn't break the skin, but it's annoying. She also likes coming up behind me when I'm sitting on the couch and fighting with my ponytail or eating my hair. Yes, eating my hair. While it's attached to my head. Catsby and Hiccup get along pretty well. Meaning, Catsby sneaks up while Hiccup is sleeping and tries to bite his jugular. Fortunately he has amazingly thick fur so he usually doesn't even notice. Sometimes they chase each other from room to room and Catsby's tail gets all poofy. Before he was neutered he tried to hump her a few times, but you can just imagine how that went over.

But Danny always wanted a cat, and she would have been yet another homeless cat wandering around South Tucson if I hadn't taken her. And it's kind of fun coming out of a room and encountering a creature crouching on the floor, waiting patiently to pounce on you. It's a miniature "Wild Kingdom" with her around.

There's No Surrender in the Battle of the Sexes

2007-12-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

While driving around town yesterday, I studied for my upcoming final by telling Danny about each concept:
Me: Deborah Tannen's theory of differing communication styles states that women tell people about their problems to get empathy, but men think that women are looking for a solution, which often causes conflict.
Him: That's true. When you tell me about a problem, I'll give you a solution. Then you'll stop complaining about the problem.
Me: So the goal of your conversations with me is to ultimately get me to shut up?
Him: No, it's to get you to stop complaining and be more positive.
Me: So I complain all the time AND I'm negative?!
Him, finally figuring out he's on thin ice: ......no.......

So, later, while walking through the street fair:
Him: People keep trying to sell me cinnamon roasted almonds and they freak me out.
Me: I'm sorry, are you complaining?
Him: I guess I am.
Me (irritably): So ignore them. Now you can shut up because I've given you a solution to your problem and you can stop communicating with me.
Him (cheerfully): Hey! You're right! That's great!

Shooting Myself in the Foot

2007-12-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

I'm one of those obnoxious people who, if the teacher forgets to collect the homework, I'll raise my hand to remind them. Or, I'll complain because my teacher didn't grade me hard enough. I like to make life difficult for myself. For instance today: I was driving down the street and saw a little sign on the sidewalk that said "traffic being photo-monitored". 50 feet later was the photo-radar van. Normal people think "Whew! Thank goodness they put up a sign so I had time to slow down!" Instead, I became indignant. Why spend all this taxpayer money on a photo-radar system, when they publish the locations ahead of time, and even put up signs warning drivers right before the van. That doesn't prevent speeding. People will slow down for 20 yards and then probably speed more because they know they've passed one of the only vans in Tucson! The logic of it all escapes me.
My morals are too high for their own good, apparently.

Also, something unrelated: I don't like Jennifer Love Hewitt. She too cutesy, her boobs are too big and unnaturally perky, and she always looks like she's squinting. And her hair is always perfect. Blech. However, I admire her refusal to apologize for having a normal looking butt instead of a barbie butt. I just wish that instead of saying "a size two isn't fat" to "a size 12 isn't fat", because that's the size of the average American woman. So, Jenny Love isn't quite so bad anymore. But no matter what kind of social or political stance that other girl from Party of Five takes, I will always detest her. Remember her? The youngest girl who was adorable and precocious and a virtuoso violin player or something. God, she was awful.

Tucson vs. Polynesia

2007-12-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday was Geoff's birthday. We went to Kon-tiki, Tucson's Polynesian restaurant/bar. The decor consists of palm fronds stapled to the walls and sea shells hanging from plastic lamps. That, and an enormous monitor lizard that lives in an enormous glass case. However, the native species of Kon-tiki are scantily dressed women. Like, practically naked. Whenever we go there we end up whacking each other and discretely shrieking under our breath "look at that one!!". It's only a matter of time before we get punched in the face.

When I think of tropical isles, I think of relaxing beaches and friendly natives. Apparently Kon-tiki is more along the lines of a tropical isle that has been invaded by Nazi Germany. Because they have some mighty stringent rules in this paradise. Our three friends arrived about 30 minutes after us, and were within reach of our table when they got turned away by a massive bouncer. Now, at first I figured they mistook us for celebrities and were trying to protect our privacy. But when I went up to the front to rescue them, I got told by a snooty pseudo-Polynesian-whore-hostess (aka whorestess) started explaining something about how there were two different types of servers, and differences between dinner and drinks, and sometime about a rip in the space-time continuum that would swallow people whole if they attempted to sit with the "dinner" people when they weren't having dinner. Eventually a rather inebriated Geoff came over and charmed the whorestess into letting them sit with us, with a stern reminder not to allow anyone else to come to our table and spend money on their establishment

This was our general response to their decrees. We retaliated by becoming drunk and disorderly. Eventually Geoff psyched himself up enough, he decided he needed to channel the Ramones. He did a fabulous rendition of "24 Hours To Go", including waggling tongues, and exhortations to the various ladies to get in on the action. Eventually, however, he was ready to go home. And possibly vomit.

I had several entertaining conversations throughout the night:

Me: *talking about something intellectually stimulating*

Teresa: "You know who you remind me of? Buffy."

Me: "Why?"

Teresa: ""You know, she has....a face....and that high pitched voice....and blond hair"

Me: "Do you realize you just based that comparison on the fact that I have a face and an annoying voice?!"

Teresa: "I didn't say annoying, I said high pitched. You know, like you're from California."

Me: "That's even worse!!!"

While Geoff and I were standing at the gas station waiting for Danny:

Geoff, sounding outraged: "Mia, why are you not in Norway chopping down trees?!"

Me: "........"

At the Depot:
Phill: "Is it rude to stare at the waitress' tits?"

Me: "Yes."

Phill: "What if she doesn't notice?"

Me: "Phill, you're drunk. You may not be as subtle as you think right now."

Phill: "What do you think Danny would say if I told him you have nice tits?"

Me: "He'd probably say he knows."

Danny walks in

Phill: "Danny, Mia has a nice rack."

Danny: "Thanks, I know."

So, happy birthday Geoff. It was a pleasure driving your drunk ass home :)

Must Get Out of this Neighborhood!

2007-12-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here trying to study for my last final exam (okay, so I'm really on tmz.com getting caught up on all the celeb gossip) and I hear the following from our charming white trash neighbors.
Guy1: I want a beer!
Guy 2: I just had two beers, I'm trying to make my stomach ache go away
Guy 1: Did it help?
Guy 2: yeah, I think the beer helped. Plus, I just popped three percocets. Because that's how I like to par-tay! (this is at 2:30 pm on a Sunday)

These are neighbors that we've called the police on because they're screaming at each other in the front yard, and the mother threatens to beat up her teenage daughter. Even when they aren't drunk and fighting, they're constantly yelling. That seems to be their normal tone of voice. And they're always in their front yard, which means we're privy to all kinds of lovely conversations like this one.

Blue Vested Hell

2007-11-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

This blog is brought to you today by Danny. As a new effort on the part of my "PR people", I am including a reader request blog, if I ever get any reader requests. Danny isn't the most up to date reader of my blog, but he happens to be sitting next to me at the moment, so he got the first request. He said "write about walmart."

The Walmart at my house makes me crazy. It is constantly completely packed. No matter how early or late I go there, there are hordes of people with drooling screaming children in their shopping carts. They stand in the middle of the aisle and don't move, even when you are actively pushing yourself around them. They park their carts diagonally by a display and glare at you when you move it over so you can squeeze by. They push you aside if you happen to be standing in front of the item they want. They get up to the cash register and then argue about the price of each item they have. And they have 300 items. And after the cashier has finished ringing them up, they remember they need diet pepsi.

I can go into Walmart feeling calm and at peace with the world, and come out a raving maniac. I find myself getting more and more aggressive in there. I've started playing chicken with the people who walk two abreast and take up the whole aisle. When someone pushes me, I push back. One of these days I'll end up run over by a shopping cart. Or I'll end up one of those people you hear about on the news, who loses it when someone takes the last bottle of Pantene Pro-V and begins whacking them over the head with one of those pool noodles.

If you hear about someone taking hostages in a Walmart, please come bail me out of jail :)
Also, if you have a subject you would like me to blog about, leave me a comment and I promise to write about it.

YAY!!

2007-11-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

I took my stats final today, and am done with the class I dreaded the most this semester. Not only that, I got a 91% in the class! Makes me wish I didn't have to take it as pass/fail. Let's assume that the reason I did so well is because I have MAD STATS SKILLZ, not that the class was super easy. Once I calculated my score, I ran up on this mountain to proclaim it to the world:

Honey, How Was Your Day- the one-upmanship version

2007-11-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

Me: I'm so tired. I had to spend an hour negotiating snack time with a six year old today.
Him: I had to assess a $20,000 claim today.
Me: Did the person filing the claim scream and throw things at you?
Him: I haven't told her it's been denied yet.

Miss Doom and Gloom

2007-11-26T16:29:00.001-07:00

My last (first) post was a bit depressing, wasn't it? I didn't intend it to be, but sometimes things just come out and you don't expect it to. So today you get pictures of the happiest creature on Earth- Hiccup.

This picture is of Hiccup and his best friend, Catsby our ugly, evil cat. I like to think of this picture as the best example of the personality differences between cats and dogs.

The above picture is actually a low moment for him. We got him neutered, and then he kept scratching the stitches with his back paws (he's flexible) so I had to put socks on him. He had trouble walking in them.

He's an excellent snuggle partner...

And he loves car trips. We call him our Navi-Puppy.

That's more cheerful, isn't it? I certainly feel better. I'm going to go forcibly snuggle my puppy now :)

Welcome!

2007-11-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

Gosh, my first blog on my new blog site. How exciting! You will notice I've included a list of other sites that I visit on a regular basis, as well as an alphabetized list of interests that were generated totally through stream of conscious.

I've been thinking a lot about everything that happened in 2006, mainly Danny's father getting cancer and dying by the end of the year, and feeling like I had enough deep thoughts and emotions in that year to last me a while. As the anniversary of his death grows closer, I find myself thinking of him more and more. During Thanksgiving last year, he went back into the hospital for the last time before his death. My parents came down and saw him for the last time. We were all so happy because the infection in his throat had finally subsided and he was able to eat some of the food his sister made for Thanksgiving. He was insistent that my parents and I join his sister and her family for Thanksgiving dinner even though we wanted to stay with him. He wanted us to be a part of his family. I remember right after that I got a cold, and couldn't see him for a while. I remember feeling a little relieved that I couldn't, because it was so hard to see him suffer. One of the many things I will always regret. People who say they have no regrets in life, are either lying, are heartless, or are too mentally healthy to be allowed in public.
I've also been thinking a lot about forgiveness. We were talking about in class as an important aspect of growth and healing, and damn am I bad at it. I've always been too sensitive, and to protect myself from having my feelings hurt, I get angry instead. And I hold grudges for years. It takes so much energy to stay angry at someone, but yet it seems so difficult to let go of that anger. Maybe because I'm worried that letting go of the anger will leave me vulnerable to be hurt. In class we talked about how forgiveness is not about the person you are forgiving, it's entirely a process within yourself. By forgiving I'm not giving the person any more power over me, but it feels like it.
I think I segued from Frank to forgiveness, because I want to think that he would forgive me for not being there in his last weeks. But Frank was so much like me in that respect- he was sensitive, and his feelings were easily hurt, and he held grudges for years. One of the beautiful things I got to witness in his last months was his forgiveness. He talked to people he had been mad at for reasons they couldn't even remember anymore. He told people he loved them. He let us care for him, and he thanked us. So, maybe, he would forgive me. Maybe he would understand that the reason I had such a hard time was because I loved him. Because he called himself my dad, and I felt like he was in many ways. Maybe he would understand. I wish he could tell me if he forgave me, so that I knew whether or not I can forgive myself.