September 24, 2008
· Filed under don't understand this category thing · Tagged beauty bloodbath
I’m pretty sure it’s fall now because after my shower I was all, Hmm maybe I’ll dry my hair! I don’t blow dry my hair in the summer. It’s just not worth it. So, obviously it’s not summer any more.
So I pulled out my hair dryer and turned it on and was perplexed by the dial that controls the amount of ions I shoot at my hair.
What the heck do the ions do? Do I want extra ions going very near my brain? Am I going to have to eat more blueberries to battle the free radicals that getting shiny hair will possibly cause? These are questions I can’t answer before coffee.
Please educate me!
Also I didn’t get very far. I lost interest pretty quickly as Pica was downstairs and I couldn’t hear her over the ions. But my hair does look better. More polished or something.
September 22, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged home sweet home
I’m laying low today. Waiting for UPS, waiting for my slow ass scanner to scan, waiting for the people across the street to finish up their roof. And I feel like I never really woke up this morning. There’s a haze over everything.
I was going to work out in the yard. Or work on work (if the UPS girl would get here). I wore a skirt today so obviously I can’t work in the yard. Duh. And Pica and I ran errands this morning. I used to always kind of laugh at women that said they spent all their time running errands. I mean, really, how much errand running does one need to do?
Apparently quite a bit. I went to the bank. I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond to return an ill-fitting shower shelf for which they would only give me store credit. Because everyone needs $32 of store credit at BBB during this economic awesomeness. I went to the pharmacy where, I shit you not I almost lost it. I was pushing for a Pica meltdown because it was almost noon (the hour of dread aka naptime) and she wanted to go play with the toys and I was trying to make sense of what the pharmacist was saying, but it was like she was speaking a different language. She wanted me to talk to someone named Jan or Annette or something and then take one of her business cards. Told you. I only have room in my life for one person with poor communication skills and that position is currently full. There were two more stops on my list. I made a good decision to forgo them until later. I have to buy stamps and a shelfish thing to go in the up up stairs. Ha. Not clams, I mean a shelf-ish thing to hold the tv and my 4 in 1 office miracle. I will try and get the Librarian to go with me. It’s more fun. And more manageable when I am having a poor communication day.
Hmm, the UPS girl still isn’t here. What to do. What to do. Maybe I should change out of my skirt and go work on the back yard. Our warm days are numbered and I need to do some pre-frost prep work.
Ok yes. Will go outside and wait for UPS. And make dinner. And maybe have something with caffeine. My good friend Kathy visited this weekend. Apparently she wore me out. I didn’t think we did that much. Ran errands of course. 
It was so good to see her. I love my friend Kathy! And Pica was a huge fan- but of course she was, we all are!
September 13, 2008
· Filed under don't understand this category thing · Tagged home sweet home
warning: this post will contain much whining and swearing
We went camping this week! It was fun and soggy and we didn’t even fight when we put up the tent or took down the tent in the torrential downpour. I am proud. Pica did wonderfully. She obviously hearts camping; the flannel, the campfires, the marshmallows, the flock of Canadian geese. You know – all the normal stuff. She didn’t even mind that it rained substantially more than it didn’t rain.
We packed up a day early (because water resistant is not waterproof in the realm of tents) and drove to a nearby town to stay in a hotel with an indoor pool and, you know, dry things. It was fun. We had a great time.
Then we came home.
To a dead mouse in our upstairs hallway.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The cats were SO proud.
What the fuck? This makes wildlife number 3 in our house. I think it’s a conspiracy. Or at least someone’s grand idea on initiating us to homeownership. The first was a random bat in the attic. Animal control came and got it for free and it was substantially less horrifying than it could have been. And then following night we saw on the news that all of Quad Cities has had bat problems. I guess we got prideful or something and needed to be taken down a notch because the second was the effing chipmunk that desperately wants to squat in our house for the winter. This was his second foray into the house. The first time I caught him sneaking up out of the basement we scared each other enough that he ran back down to the basement. The second time I came home from running pre-camping errands and had left the basement door open. BAD IDEA. Zoe, the only cat we own that apparently still has some instincts had cornered it under the buffet in our entry. An hour later I chased it out of the attic. THE ATTIC (three floors up) window. I was pissed. Lt. O’Riley – the less instinctual cat hid in the closet the whole time. What an asshole.
Then this fucking mouse. Are you kidding me? I’m so not up for this. I’ve got 85 post-camping loads of laundry to do and things to dry out. And now I feel compelled to wash everything we own that might have been touched by a mouse. At least another 150 loads of laundry.
The thing is we’re not filthy people. At all. I do fly lady for fuck’s sake. Granted it’s been a little lax since well, summer and all the canning and such. But it’s not like I’m all hey I just dropped a whole bag of popcorn on the kitchen floor- I’ll leave it for the mice to clean up. And we have a messy toddler, but still. This does not warrant an onslaught of animals.
And I know we bought a house in Iowa and I know living on ex-prairie next to the Mississippi River comes at a price. But, really? After vacation?
I’m going to go make some tea… whiskey tea. And contemplate how best to tackle the downstairs and weather or not Pica needs to leave the house before I douse it in Mr. Clean. I feel like Mrs. Meyers isn’t going to cut it. And where is my trusty Librarian in all of this? Umm, he’s napping. I love him very much, but dude he’s fucking napping.
Told you. Much whining and swearing. Should go check on Pica. I left her downstairs watching The Incredibles. She’s probably been abducted by a racoon.
August 30, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged the 'rents
why is labor day weekend synonymous with family visiting?
the in-laws are here.
if they are at your house too then i wish you well…
tuesday’s comin’ baby
August 21, 2008
· Filed under don't understand this category thing · Tagged small small world
I’m on Facebook. I have been for a year or so. And I’m on MySpace and it’s fun; I like them. I like stalking people and looking at pictures. But then something weird happens and the social networking aspect of the site actually comes through. This month in particular. I don’t know if it’s just summer and hot and so more people are on the computer or what, but high school friends have been coming out of the woodwork.
And THEN this week it just all came to a head- friends of friends of acquaintances and all that.
On one hand it’s very cool and I’m again reminded that the world is small and kind of getting smaller. At least I know that maybe at my funeral people will know people and all will not be awkward and sad. Well, I know that it won’t be total doom and gloom because L just told me that he’s going to put up that self-portrait I did in college. I will be mortified in my death. But giggling slightly because people will totally pretend to like it and won’t get the joke.
When I was in college we used to play this game called awkward dinner party. It was ridiculously fun. Pick 7 – 9 people in addition to yourself (dinner parties must come in 8 or 10 – otherwise what will you do with the cutlery?) who either don’t get along or used to hook up or are just those kinds of people who are unbearably awkward and host a dinner party. Of course we never actually did it because dude, that would be torture. But it was so much fun to imagine. That guy who used to smell my notebooks in Philo Relo was always a popular choice.
I’m getting the feeling that our awkward dinner parties might not be so awkward anymore. Have we grown up too much? Honed our chit chat skills? Listen to too much NPR? We’ve got kids and jobs and yards. We’re not the starving artists (or if we are we know it’s so much less glamorous than we thought it was going to be) we used to be or at least hoped we were. And I know I’ve gotten softer. Not that I’m not passionate about stuff, but that hard edge is fading. TL might disagree. I’m still a little pissed off about stuff, but it’s changed. It’s become finite anger, I think, instead of that righteous 19 year old angsty angst. When I was just finding out about the world and myself and myself in the world and man I was so angsty.
I digress.
On the other hand I feel weird about being so connected to everyone. My phone has been, well it was rusting from the inside out. Literally. Thanks Pica, I will add phone to your list of ‘things eaten.’ And so for like 2 months I haven’t been able to have more than a 3 minute conversation and frequently miss or lose calls. As I got my new phone today I was a little I don’t know what, but it is kind of nice to not be able to be found all the time. It’s all just a little suffocating sometimes.
So go talk amongst yourselves. Who are the 7 or 9 people you would invite to create THE most awkward dinner party ever? If you should find yourself in need of an extra person there are several I would be willing to loan out from the philosophy department. It was years of awkwardness let me tell you.
