Have a Spooky Halloween!

Ahhh, we had such a fun time in D.C. this past weekend! The weather was nice, we got to see some good sights, and the costume party was a real kick in the pants. Picture it: Chaka Khan, Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, Punky Brewster, Indiana Jones, Jem, Michael Jackson, Freddy Krueger, Stevie Nicks, Flavor Flav and Teen Wolf all in one room. It was truly a summit of awesomeness. Even Magnum P.I. made it. And he came all the way from Hawaii!

Can I also mention that the drive between Columbus and D.C. is really beautiful this time of year? We took 68 through Maryland, and it was just gorgeous with all the leaves changing colors. The only bad part of the drive occurred as we were approaching Columbus, and we almost got run over TWICE by a band of vicious, middle-aged, suburban motorcyclists. We got so frustrated at one point that J considered throwing a golf ball at one of them. Fortunately, we decided against reckless endangerment, and they went on their merry way, but they have given me an idea for next year's Halloween costume: dead biker with golf ball in skull. What do you think?

Wubroy was here

Due to the fact that I probably won't get a chance to post tomorrow, I shall present the Friday Wubby J. picture today. Rejoice and be glad! This picture cracks me up. Why, you ask? Because of the Wubby's truly withering look. Please note that there is a good amount of catnip on the Wubby's chair. He loves catnip. He eats some and then runs around the living and dining rooms like a maniac for a good two hours. Wait a second, I think I may have just come up with an excellent idea for a weight loss plan. Can people eat catnip?

Seeking pillows and dollar bills

I had a feeling of foreboding this morning when I woke up at 4:52 a.m. that I would, in fact, get to be very tired and lethargic today. Lo and behold, it has come true. Shocker! I know nobody wants to hear someone complaining about being tired because we're all tired, there are worse things in life, blah blah blah. It just stings a little bit extra today because I have not a dollar on me with which to go buy a diet pop or a coffee from across the street. Sigh.

Anybody else notice how complicated my sentence structure becomes when I'm sleepy? If I'm ever in a coma, I'll probably wake up sounding like freaking James Joyce or something. Except that I'll focus a lot more on candy than narrative voices.

Oooh, you know, I do have some tea in my desk that I could drink. That might help. Unfortunately, it's just a melange of tea bags without tags, so I have no idea if I'll be drinking oolong or plain old tree bark. This is an adventure! It's tea roulette! Whee!

Oh, Justin, you skinny, pansy boy

I've been doing this project here at work that's been taking up the past week or so. I'm cropping and color-correcting this set of images that chronicle the history of costume/fashion. It's pretty fascinating...well, probably only to women and gay men, but still. I have concluded that I would have been very self-conscious in Egyptian clothes, I would have preferred to be poor during the powdered wig years and I think I would have thrived in the empire-waist gowns of the early 19th century. Sure, they were gauzy and you'd catch consumption once a month, but at least there was no corset. Freaking corsets. Who came up with those?

Anybody else miss hats? Sometimes I wish we lived in an era of hats. I particularly like the look of men in the mid-20th century and those fedoras. There is nothing not cool about a dude in a fedora...unless you're a 22-year-old former boy band dweeb who thinks he's Michael Jackson. Then it's just obnoxious.

P.S. in case anyone is tempted to leave a comment about Michael Jackson himself wearing a fedora, please note that I referred to "men" above, and he certainly does not qualify. Zing!

I love the Tweekie

We watched the "1980" episode of I Love the 80's 3D on tv last night. Oh, I just love those shows. My favorite line: "How can it be that this is the third I Love the 80's we've done, and we're just now talking about Tweekie?" Hilarious. We used to watch the Buck Rogers all the time when I was a kid. I'm starting to realize just how much sci fi I regularly watched as a child (Buck Rogers, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica). I blame my brother. But I guess it's better that we watched more sci fi than wrestling because if we'd gone too far the other way, I'd slip into reveries about the Junkyard Dog and Rowdy Roddy Piper, and that would be just plain pitiful.

Speaking of pitiful things from the 80's, I saw part of the Friday the 13th on AMC last night that featured a young Corey Feldman. How in the world did we ever think he was cute? And did you see that Crispin Glover is also in that movie?!? He's a teenage victim who gets a corkscrew in the hand and a machete in the face. That's what you get for suing Back to the Future 2, buddy.

A message for all the hippie obstetricians out there

We got some very exciting news here at work this morning. My coworker had her baby yesterday! Yay! Apparently, the tyke was 23 inches long at birth. That's almost 2 feet. That's almost a roll of Bubble Tape. Daaaang. But I'm so happy to hear it went well and that the mom is feeling good. She's been a wealth of information for me over the past few months. I have 4 nephews, but since my sisters live in different towns, I've never really been around a pregnant woman this much. I'd heard that it's a lot of changes to a woman's body...AND HOW. I'm with my coworker on this one: it's an amazing thing, but if any doctor out there thinks I'm going to grab my own baby out of my uterus and heave it onto my chest once it's halfway out, they've got another thing coming. I mean really.

...the fruit-flavored Tootsie Rolls maybe

I made it into work this afternoon without being late or anything. Whoo! Now I have a mere 3 and a half hours to go until I can go home. But having the Ohio State game on tv will help time pass. Plus, I brought a book and a brownie. Does anyone really need more than a book and a brownie on a cold and rainy afternoon? I think not.

I did make it to Target yesterday and was very disappointed to see that only the crappy Halloween candy was on sale. Even I don't want to spend $1.25 on a bag of Tootsie Pops. C'mon! I am so excited for Halloween this year. By this time next week we'll be in D.C. seeing some sights and preparing for the costume party. Nice.

And a note for my mother, who I don't think actually reads this, but what the hey: please stop trying to get our attention by throwing up on I-675! It's not going to work anymore! I kid. I'm so glad you feel better now!

Rowr!

Look at this vicious puma! Does he not strike fear into the hearts of people everywhere? He may not be able to take down a sprinting gazelle or anything, but he will scratch up your wrist like a mother. So look out! (It's so ironic to me that he has that fuzzy, soft belly that just begs to be touched, and he can't stand it when anyone comes near it. The Wubby's belly fur is a cruel, cruel temptress. It is like the Siren song of myth, and his claws are the rocky cliffs).

I'm in a good mood this morning because I'm getting the afternoon off. Sure, it's because I have to work tomorrow afternoon, but I refuse to think about that right now. Let us instead focus on the fact that I only have 2 and a half hours left to work today. Right on.

Ignorance is bliss

Interesting. I've been working all day on cleaning up this big batch of digital images that were scanned from slides that were, at best, 30 years old. So not only do they need to be cropped and rotated, but the color is waaaaay off. I've been color-correcting for so long today that I'm actually starting to see a pinkish hue on everything. I am essentially looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. Huh. Humanity DOES seem better.

I know I should probably go home tonight and do something worthwhile like doing dishes or insulating the attic, but I have a really strong urge to go to Target and buy the bejeezus out of some Halloween candy. My ESSP (extra-sensory shopping perception) is telling me it's on sale. I sense a bag of fun size Snickers for $1.50...

Anybody else hear that news item about the woman in San Francisco who threw her children off a pier and is charged with murder? Just awful. I saw on the news that she was 23, and she had 3 children, the eldest of whom was age 6. That means she was pregnant at 17. I don't want to sound indelicate here, but wow. WOW. You know what I was doing at 17? Going to high school, working at a frozen yogurt store, and dreaming about marrying Sting. Good grief.

Suck it, Bennifer

Happy Birthday to my brother, Sven! I won't divulge how old he is because that would just be cruel...but I will say it's nice to have an older brother and sister so I will always have someone more elderly than me in my life. Mwa ha ha!

Today has been one of those days. My only consolation is that Lost is on tonight, and I read this morning that Alias's ratings are in the proverbial crapper. Yeah, that's right, Jennifer Garner, I'm rolling around like a pig in the muddy pigpen of your misfortune. Take that! I had such high regard for you at one time...you went to Denison, you never got a breast augmentation, you played such cool characters. And then you hooked up with Fathead. That has never been good for anyone.

A fudge rippple in time

There are not a ton of perks about working where I work. Sure, we get an occasional free tshirt or bagel for breakfast, but it's not overflowing with swag. I mean, it's a non-profit, what can you expect? The nice thing is that in my department, we do celebrate employee birthdays once a month, so everybody brings in a snack and our 82-year-old coworker makes a homemade cake. Today we had lemon cake, ice cream, candy corn (candy corn!) and pretzels. I was so stuffed that I couldn't even finish my small Quizno's sub at lunch an hour later.

I should also point out that we do not have a refrigerator in here, so the ice cream is just sitting on the lounge-area counter, melting down into a pool of butter pecan goo. I would try to make the supreme sacrifice of rescuing the ice cream by going and eating it all, but I really don't think my tummy can accomodate any more. A tragic waste of ice cream, this is. Won't somebody please think of the children?!?

Home is where the Walmart is

Yesterday, J and I went to look at houses in this town nearby called Canal Winchester. Aside from the "anal" jokes that would inevitably come with living there, it looked like a delightful place to live. It just saddens me that all the lovely towns around here are so full of expensive houses. I know, I know, you just have to bite the bullet and go for it...and we definitely need to as the number of hookers per capita in our neighborhood rises. It's just going to be hard to swallow writing out a mortgage payment that high every month. Unfortunately, none of my friends are going to want to hear it, because they live in D.C., Charleston and Boston, and they would be spending twice as much for the same house, maybe more. I need to find a penpal in Yokeltown to complain to.

In other news, I believe that even though I've been here almost 7 hours today, I've managed to only be in my office for about 3 of them due to various meetings and such. Nice. It's surprisingly pleasant to get out of this concrete-block dungeon every now and then. Ahhh.

Ay oh, oh ay

This morning, I was on a mission today to find some costumes for the Halloween party we're going to in a couple weeks. Arisa came up with the genius idea for it to be an 80's costume party, and when we (the triple threat of A's, that is) sent out the invitation we were very clear in telling people that you had to come as someone specific, so the bar is set very high. So J and I are going to go as Angela and Tony from Who's the Boss. Awesome. Unfortunately, I don't have much in my wardrobe that says "Hello. I'm an advertising executive from Connecticut circa 1988." So I went to a couple thrift stores today to see what I could find. Goodwill was a total bust (all their clothes were from the 90's. Jerks), but the thrift store a couple doors down was a GOLD MINE. I don't think they've gotten anything made after 1991 in there. And that's me being generous. I haven't seen so many paisleys in quite some time. But it was really exciting to have my pick of big-shouldered blazers to choose from. Ahhh, I just cannot wait for this party.

Sacre bleu!

Ahhh, feast your eyes upon the quiet grace of the Wooby J. My friend, Poppy, took this picture, and I think she did a marvelous job of capturing Wooby's essence: his tranquil demeanor AND his propensity to spontaneously attacks ankles. You can totally tell that he has caught sight of a passing foot and is seriously considering clawing the daylights out of it. He is both beautiful and terrifying...much like the French.

The Great Bangs Debate

Here is an excerpt from an email conversation Arisa and I have been having:

Arisa: "Do you miss your bangs?"

Me: "Ok, here's when I don't miss bangs: when I'm working out, when I'm trying to put my hair into a ponytail real quick, when I slap on a hat in cold weather. Here is when I miss bangs: when my forehead breaks out, when I want to look young, when I notice how boring my hair is. It's tricky. "

Arisa: "That is tricky situation. Sometimes I’d love to have bangs but my hair isn’t naturally straight so they end up looking crappy two minutes after I have them just how I want them. They suit you but no bangs suits you too. We’re lucky in that we look OK either way. We have blessed foreheads."

Anyone care to weigh in on this issue? Feel free to share your own trials and tribulations.

A snapping turtle trapped in the body of a nurse

Is being a nurse practitioner a tough job? I mean, I'm sure it's not easy, but if you're just giving check-ups in doctors' offices, that can't be as stressful as, say, being on a S.W.A.T. team, right? I'm just asking because I had a check-up today, and I was apparently an hour late. I thought it was at 10:30, but when I got there they told me it was 9:30. I don't know how that got mixed up because I called them from work for the appointment and wrote it down on my calendar as soon as I hung up the phone. Maybe it was me. Bah, I don't know. Anyway, the receptionist lady was really nice about it and told me not to worry because no other patients were there yet, but the actual nurse practitioner read me the riot act in the exam room. "It's not our fault you were late! Next time you're late, you'll be rescheduled! Do you understand? It's not fair to the other patients!" Whoa. Don't get me wrong here, because I understand how frustrating these things can be, but I can't imagine I would ever yell at somebody over something so stupid. It's like those people who wig out about being charged a dime for a cup of water. Let's try to maintain some perspective here, folks. It's not like I ran over her puppy...YET.

In other news, I've been up since 2:49 this morning. And because of that I am going to eat a Little Debbie fall brownie this afternoon with no compunction whatsoever. I figure if I'm going to be awake an extra 3 hours a night, I'm burning more calories than I would if I was sleeping. How's THAT for some logic?

Shatner Tiberius

Let me preface this by saying that I am not pregnant. Not that anybody really asks me if I am a lot; I just don't want anybody to get the wrong idea. When it comes to reproducing, right now I'm leaving that to my sisters. Ok, so we're watching a few minutes of Boston Legal last night, and it occurred to me in a blinding flash of genius that we should name our first son Shatner. How awesome is that?!? If you're like J, you're going to say "not awesome at all," but this is the same guy who wants to name his firstborn son Brick.

Fizz

Just so you know, the chili at Wendy's today is excellent.

I'm reading a new book by Anne Perry called "Angels in the Gloom." She's one of my favorite authors. She writes great mysteries set in distinct periods in English history. This series takes place during World War I. And, people, we should all gather together, hold hands and chant our thanks to whatever god we believe in that we were born after the discovery of penicillin and anesthesia. I'm not kidding. Yeow.

J and I are currently having an email conversation about me getting something to drink (we are ALWAYS working on important work-related business), and I just told him I wanted something "fizzy." I love that word. Fizzy. Is that a real word or is it just onomatopoeia? Anyway, it's practically impossible to find a diet, carbonated, caffeine-free beverage around here. We blame that on all the students demanding as much caffeine as their bodies can possibly handle, but it makes it tough on those of us who don't want a lot of calories but are into something more exciting than water. Sigh. My life is full of hardship. Somebody bring me a diet root beer! I need! I need!

Follicle Fun

It's Monday. It's cold, gray and rainy outside. But I'm still loving that I can wear corduroy without apology now. Corduroy!

We settled on seeing A History of Violence yesterday. Excellent movie. No animal birth scenes, but it was still good. Makes me think that having a husband who can kill 4 mobsters with his bare hands would come in handy from time to time. Especially at the mall around Christmas. I also caught the end of Crazy/Beautiful on cable yesterday, and I have noticed a disturbing trend from these two movies: giving the female lead a sense of "reality" by making her hair look really greasy. I'm pretty sure that Indiana lawyers and Malibu brats take showers every day. Would they not wash their hair whilst in the shower? Look, I'm all for de-glamourizing Hollywood actresses, but I get far too distracted by gross hair while I'm watching a movie. Instead of concentrating on plot, all I can think is "Thank goodness she doesn't have dandruff." And then I wonder if they actually made Maria Bello and Kirsten Dunst not shower, or if they showered and then the makeup people combed Wesson through their hair. I just don't know.

Cats and dogs living together

Yesterday, J and I met my Mom at the Yellow Springs street fair. It's really a hippie festival, replete with bongo-playing, hundreds of different kinds of incense to buy and people walking their dogs on "Vote for Kerry" leashes. Good times. It's also nice to go to the street fair in October (when the temperatures are in the 50's and 60's) so you don't get hit with as much body odor. It was good scarf-and-corduroy-jacket weather. Ahhh. This year, the theme for us was really "How much sugar can we eat in two hours?" We had fudge, apple crisp and those cinnamon-glazed pecans you buy warm. Mmmm. I tell you, the world is a better place with fair food. So good.

Unfortunately, we came home to watch the Ohio State game versus Penn State at night. Let us not mention it again.

Today the plan is to go see a movie. We're trying to decide between Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and that Viggo movie A History of Violence. Tough call. There appears to be hideous scarring in both, so I can't use that to decide like I usually do. Hmph. I wonder if one has animal birth scenes?

A Big Box of Wooby

It's Friday, so you know what that means: another picture of the Wooby J.! As you can see, he enjoys sitting in boxes. I suspect he may have been a death-row inmate in a previous life.

Wooby's wonky left eye in this picture reminds me of a dream I had last night. I was trying to get away from a killer who was trying to stab me, so I ran into a house, and there was this yellow-haired man in there who I thought could help me, but it turned out the killer had already gotten to him (even though M. Blond was still walking around and talking like a normal person, his left eye was all white and he had a gaping gunshot wound in the side of his head). So I figured he had enough to worry about, and I kept on running.

I did work out last night and felt much better afterwards. I also went to Target and found a delicious green shirt. I also bought a few things for J since he feels like he wears the same 5 shirts to work every week. It's really hard to shop for a guy. They want you to think they're low maintenance, but they're not. J, for instance, really only likes to wear blue and black, and I have to try very hard to make sure things I buy for him are not "gay." He's actually ok with homosexual people; I think he's just trying not to look "metrosexual." Which is understandable. Even I have a tough time relating to a man who coordinates his accessories better than I do.

What happened to Jack's wife?!?

I am not in a great mood today. I think it's the combined effect of being woken up a few times last night, not having had cheese in 4 days and getting outbid on a pair of Gap cords on ebay last night. That jerk outbid me with 40 seconds to go. That's just mean. It seemed like I made a few people mad this morning, too. Sigh. Well, it just goes to show that not every day can be a Wooby day. It's true.

I have found, however, that when I'm feeling sort of down, working out usually helps my mood considerably (and I was planning on doing that tonight anyway, so, you know, right on), and if I can squeeze in a trip to Target, things will be gravy.

Dang it, I just ran my knee into the corner of my desk. Son of a! That hurts! Ok, this may call for a trip to the vending machine. I believe in the healing properties of Skittles.

How Jessica Simpson is like spiders

Ahhh, such a sad day. Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson are breaking up. As if we couldn't see THAT coming. I wish I could pull men aside and tell them "Look, I know this girl is very pretty, but the prettier a girl is, the less she has to be nice. Just remember that." It's true. And it goes for intelligence, too. I know it's a cliche, but think about this: Cameron Diaz is a millionaire. A MILLIONAIRE, people.

And it's just as bad with men. If a dude is incredibly hot, just be prepared to spend a lot of time not laughing and talking about calf muscles. Because he doesn't HAVE to have a sparkling wit...women will sleep with him even when he says things like "That ho at Dave's party on Saturday was weird. She was really quiet. She must be a lesbian." Sigh.

Man, a lot of celebrity couples are breaking up right now. In this trying time, I think we should find solace in the fact that the more successful Jessica Simpson is in her "acting" career, the less likely she is to have lots of children. And if she's not reproducing, I, for one, am sleeping better at night.

WEIRD DREAM ALERT

In the three hours I managed to sleep last night, I had a dream that my boss here at work cleaned all the extra boxes and papers out of the library and turned it into an ice cream/gift shop. So all of us had to take turns staying late and serving people ice cream at night. And there were two homosexual men who were regular customers, but they didn't like me and wouldn't buy ice cream from me. What does that mean??

You really do learn something new every day

I think I got my first confirmed sighting of a hooker and her pimp this morning on my way to work. It was about 7:30 a.m., and we were driving down the street when J pointed out a lovely scene to our right. A blonde woman was standing on the road about to get into a van, and there was a man standing closeby watching it all go down. He was resplendent in head-to-toe purple, and she looked like she had washed her hair in french fries a couple days ago. And you might be saying "Well, maybe she was getting a ride to work and that man just happened to be there waiting for a bus." You are so naive. That presupposes they have actual jobs. You make me laugh.

There was also a bomb scare in a downtown building this morning that made us late to work because they shut down part of Broad Street. Makes me wonder...do they have to call in the bomb squad every time someone finds a bag sitting alone in a building? Does it have to be ticking? How does that work?

I am still full from dinner with J's family last night. That is a fun bunch. When we were leaving, the manager said "Come back next week! Usually, I tell people to come back tomorrow, but you..." and he grimaced. Heh. You can't handle us, Buca!

What an oddly-shaped coffee table book

Just to add a little more sunshine to everybody's Monday...Wooby J.! Doesn't he look soft and fluffy? He is! He got into a little trouble this morning for sharpening his claws on the new carpet. Bad Wooby! I don't understand this instinct in cats where even the best-behaved of them are sometimes driven to completely destroy something. Sometimes I think that if he thought he could get away with it, he'd pull a Toonces and drive my car into a gully. Just cause.

Really didn't do much this weekend other than lie around and get over my cold. I saw the most interesting thing on TLC last night though. It was a special about this Asian 5-year-old boy named Novemthree who had massive tumors in his mouth that had pretty much taken over his whole face. So the hour-long program was about the Taiwanese doctors who performed all these surgeries to help him, and afterward he seemed to be doing really well and his prognosis looked good. Then, at the very end of the show, there was a written note that the boy died a couple weeks ago from an infection. I believe that warranted just a touch more explanation. Like "here's this heart-warming inspirational story of a boy's courage, fortitude and grace. Love it, hug it, make it a cup of hot chocolate. Oh yeah, and he died the other day. Peace out!" Whaaa?