I pierced the toast!

I can't get Holly Jolly Christmas out of my head. Dang it!

I watched Bionic Woman last night, and my reaction was sort of "Meh." It wasn't that much fun. And if there's one thing I want to feel when I'm lying completely still staring blankly at the tv, it's that I'm having fun. Heh. I thought the evil bionic woman was actually a lot more interesting than the main character. It's funny, too, because she's blonde and the good one is brunette. Back in my English major days, my one professor pointed out that in literature, if there's one good female character and one bad one, it's the blonde one that's good. Wuthering Heights, for instance. But I think modern people have a lot against blondes anymore. It's the bleach thing and pretending you're blonde when you're really not, I think. Anyway, I'm mostly just excited to watch The Office tonight anyway. Now that show is fun.

Bill O'Reilly is just plain racist

I woke up at precisely 4 a.m. this morning and could not fall back asleep. But the weird thing is that I don't even feel tired. It's like my body wanted to be two hours ahead today. Which means I'll probably fall asleep at 7:30 tonight. Super.

So J is starting to think I'm coming down with either pregnancy-dementia or epilepsy. I keep smelling something weird in our living room. Sometimes it smells like garlic to me, then it'll smell like burning plastic, then it'll smell like Chinese food. I can't figure out where it's coming from, but it's driving me nuts, and J says he doesn't smell anything. I even put it out there that perhaps Wubby had grabbed a pork chop and hidden it under the couch, so we checked under there, and nothing. I'm perplexed. But, apparently, smelling burning plastic happens sometimes to epileptics, so now J's concerned. This is why the internet is a dangerous thing. One minute you're browsing WebMd and the next, you're shoving a wallet into your wife's mouth.

I'm a gummi bear racist--I like the white ones the best

I'm going to stop pretending and just admit that I have no idea the difference between Ciara and Rhiannon. To me, they are interchangeable.

So we watched Heroes last night, and I'm happy to report that I'm right back where I was when last season ended: completely lost. Heh. It's just that so much happens in every episode that I have a tendency to forget where I am. Had we already seen Maja and Alejandro, or were they completely new? I don't remember them, but it's entirely possible I missed 'em somewhere along the line. It was interesting that both Nathan and Matt lost their wives, too. I can't say I'm going to miss either one--they were just more characters whose names I forgot. Anyway, I'm excited to watch the new House tonight. That show pretty consistently cracks me up. It's nice to live vicariously through a character who isn't afraid to tell people they're idiots.

How I learned about organ rejection

We rented Death Proof (the Quentin Tarantino half of that double-bill movie, Grindhouse) yesterday and watched it. I must say, Quentin's getting almost Merchant Ivory-esque in his advancing age--the blood and guts didn't really get going until about an hour into it. So restrained! No, it was a really entertaining movie. Gruesome in parts and I wouldn't recommend any elementary school doing a screening of it for kids, but the end, in particular, was pretty awesome. I like action movies in general, and I like how Tarantino injects some humor into his. Plus, he's not afraid of showing some seriously tough women. Speaking of which, I'm hoping that new Bionic Woman show is as good as I'm expecting. I used to love the original Bionic Woman. Even when I was 10, I can remember thinking how much better that show would have been with more special effects of Jamie Sommers actually fighting and doing more action sequences, but I guess they spent most of the budget on slo-mo shots and that weird "ee-ee-eee-eee" sound when she jumped over a fence. The 70's were a simpler time.

Toto rocks

Our next door neighbors have a granddaughter who's about 5 or 6, and she's just about one of the cutest little girls I've ever seen. She's very friendly and polite, too, which is nice to see. They've been taking her to school every morning about the same time J and I are leaving for work, so this morning she said hello to us and asked if we have a baby coming (I think Grandma must have explained that to her). So we told her, yes, we're having a little boy and she can come over to see him when he's born. And she replied "We don't have a baby. We have a dog and a fish." Ha! So we started laughing, and then she started laughing too (although you could tell she didn't know what was so funny about that). It was great. It reminds me of the time Nephew #2 bonked his head on my Mom's living room wall so I asked him "Are you ok?" and he looked a little stunned but he replied "I'm fine." And then I told him "You are tough!" and he just looked at me like I was a little clueless, shrugged his shoulders and said "I'm three." Heh.

A soda has ice cream in it

I'll tell you something, I think this whole thing about pregnant women having weird food cravings is something of a myth. Not once in this whole thing have I craved pickles or sardines. Not a once! I'm sure it might be different for individual women, but, for me, I basically seem to want all the stuff I wanted before I was pregnant. The only difference now is that I am giving myself more leeway to actually eat 3 doughnuts at a time because I feel like I deserve it. I have pregnancy-related entitlement issues! Now, having said that, I will admit to having suspicious yearnings for Faygo red pop. They might actually be considered cravings, even. I don't know what it is. Sometimes I'm sitting here at my desk, and the thought pops into my head "Mmm...Faygo red pop would taste really good right now," and then I think I can actually taste it in my mouth. I've bought a couple two liters in the past few weeks and had some at night. I even tried buying grape pop to see if that would squelch the craving, but it's not working. I still want the red pop. And, seriously, what flavor is Faygo red pop supposed to be anyway? Cause it doesn't taste precisely like cream soda or strawberry/cherry. It's its own unique blend of sugary magic is what it is.

Glazed donut with white icing and sprinkles...mmm

I actually stayed up until 11 last night watching reruns of The Office on TBS, but as the second episode was ending, I got up to get ready for bed, and apparently Sex and the City came on afterwards. I know this because J started screaming and running to grab the remote so he could turn it. You don't see women reacting that way to Sex and the City. There's something about that show that terrifies and disgusts men. But then I had an epiphany--if I can figure out a way to bottle whatever it is that drives men away like that and apply it to mosquitoes, I'll be rich! I wonder if I could get Sarah Jessica Parker to sneeze on a petri dish for me. Hmmm.

By the way, has anyone seen the footage of the college student getting tased at a John Kerry speech? I know this is awful of me, but I still can't help laughing every time I watch that. I don't get a kick out of anything the way I get a kick out of somebody getting tased. It's comic gold. Karma is so going to get me for this.

Because of your actions, you scorpion woman!

It was a good football weekend for me. The Browns, Buckeyes and Gamecocks all won. Sweet! I may have overdone the football watching, however. When you start telling your husband that he needs to "execute fundamentals" when he's taking out the trash, you've crossed a line. But he doesn't pay as much attention to football as I do, so he just chalks it up to me talking weird again. Which is true, too.

I didn't watch much of the Emmys last night. Mostly because Ryan Seacrest was getting on my nerves. One day that dude is going to go missing, and it'll turn out he got lodged up some star's hiney. What a suckup. Ugh. I did see Katherine Heigl win an Emmy, and I thought her reaction of saying "S*^&" was incredibly classy and charming. Seriously, what is wrong with people? If I ever even said "damn," my Mom gave me dirty looks. Now we've got Sally Field yelling "G*"d#!%" on live awards shows. Next thing you know, Dane Cook will be picking his nose at the Oscars. Fantastic.

Mmm...s'mores

So we went to CVS last night to get my Mom a birthday card, and in my usual perusal of the candy aisle, I spotted the Halloween stuff already out. Score! So I got a bag of candy corn. Love that stuff. Frankly, I should probably start stocking up on big bags of candy because we've run out on trick-or-treat the past two years. And last year I think I bought something like seven pounds of candy, and it still wasn't enough. Remarkable. We really do have a lot of kids in the neighborhood, and then when you factor in all the 18-year-olds who have kids but trick-or-treat for themselves, too, the numbers really add up. Sigh.

Check this out--our high temperature today is 82 but tomorrow it's only supposed to get up to 65. I'm definitely going to have to go buy a big coat to keep J Jr. warm this winter. It occurs to me that there's an Eddie Bauer outlet store up the street from my house, so I might just go there and buy some massive tent of a coat and not have to pay too much for it. That might work. I went in there one time and noticed their coats on sale 70% off. I'll just go buy a man's XL and then if we ever get caught in a snowstorm, I can keep me, the baby AND J in there. We could build a campfire in my coat. I'm all about disaster readiness, people.

Play with you no fun, Dr. Jones!

I just saw on the news this morning that George W. is going to be making a speech at 9:00 tonight to talk about his troop reduction plan. Dude, you could not have picked a worse time. All summer, I haven't paid one lick of attention to network tv unless it is to watch the reruns on NBC on Thursday night, and not only does he pick that day to make his speech, he picks the time that The Office reruns come on. Son of a! I swear, that man exists to annoy me. This is just another thing that he and Mariah Carey have in common.

I did a little experiment last night and tried on my winter coat to see if it would fit around my protruding belly, and I just got it zippered up. So I'm figuring that in a couple months, I'm going to be lucky to even get it on and not zippered. Hmmm. Perhaps we'll get lucky and it'll be a really mild winter. Otherwise, I'm going to have to get strategic with my scarves or something. See, THIS is a quagmire, George. But you don't see me interrupting people's favorite tv shows to make a big whoo about it. Jerk.

Yertle the Turtle

Daaaang, I just read a news story on cnn.com about a bar fight between a Texas fan and an Oklahoma fan that resulted in the Texas fan almost getting his privates ripped off his body. It required 60 stitches to reattach them! They won't be calling him a "Longhorn" anymore. Zing!

It feels like such a Wednesday. It's all chilly and brisk outside, which makes me want to take the day off, get some breakfast and then take a hike in the woods. I find very little to be as relaxing as a walk in the woods in the fall. I told J that I wanted to go down to Hocking Hills sometime when the leaves start to change color, and he reminded me that it's going to be hard for me to get around what with the protruding belly and all. He instituted a rule that I'm not allowed within 5 feet of any cliffs. Which seems fair. I have a tendency to want to look over cliffs, so I can see why that would be a little worrisome for him. Heck, even I will admit that I can't get around as well as I used to. I sat down on the floor in the stacks yesterday, and it took me about 5 minutes to get up. I am graceful no more.

Everything's coming up roses

I did a lot of sleeping and watched a lot of football last night, so I'm feeling much improved today. Phew! I got one of those short but powerful naps after dinner last night, and that made a huge difference in how I felt. The brain really amazes me sometimes. It can be sleep-deprived and exhausted, but one little power nap can recharge it for hours. I wish my cell phone battery was that efficient. Did you know, however, that if a person is deprived of REM sleep long enough, they can actually go crazy? It's true. They've done studies where they hook subjects up to sleep monitors and let them sleep but wake them up when they're going into the REM phase, and after a few days of that, the people start to hallucinate and think they're Ethel Merman. Tragic. So the lesson here is that we all need to try to dream at night or we're going to turn into a population of hammy show tune singers. Nooooo!

Go Gamecocks!

I am in a surprisingly good mood for having been up since 2 a.m., I must say. I just couldn't make myself sleep last night. I had trouble falling asleep, and then I woke up early and couldn't fall back asleep. Ugh. Finally, I just gave up trying and attempted to play with the cat. Unfortunately, he wasn't in the mood for playing because he just wanted to sleep. Like, hello! He's home all day by himself, where he can sleep for 8 hours if he wants to. All I ask is that he become nocturnal the nights that I am. Geesh. He's so selfish.

I gotta find some video of Britney Spears's performance at the VMA's last night. I hear she did a really bad job, and if there's one thing I like to do when I'm tired, it's wallow in the failures of people who have more money than I do. I just hope she didn't resort to flashing the audience when things weren't going well. I sincerely believe you only need to see a fading pop star's genitalia once. That is sufficient.

220, 221, whatever it takes

J and I took a delightful walk after dinner last night, and, fortunately, we were able to get home in time for me to watch the Colts vs. the Saints. That was a good game. I was sad to see the Saints look so outmatched, but I'm a big Peyton Manning fan, so it was great to see him throw some long balls. J Jr. was also kicking up a storm while I was watching the game, so I think I've already got me a football fan here. Whoo! Somebody to watch the Super Bowl with me! Of course, then I had a dream last night that I was hanging out with Peyton and Eli Manning and trying to help them track down their alcoholic mother. In my dreams, everybody's got an alcoholic mother. I've seen too many Lifetime movies. But that dream also reminded me that Peyton and Eli have another brother who's not as into football as they are. Can you imagine how much that poor jerk's life must suck sometimes? All that taunts he gets for not being an NFL quarterback, knowing his little brothers make $30 million a year, that can't be easy. If I was him, I'd change my name to Sven Gustafson and move to North Dakota. It's his only chance for a normal life.

Will milk be made available to us?

I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but I am still amazed by the amount of people our new neighbors know. Again yesterday evening, there were all new people stopping by with half a dozen children that I hadn't seen before. The kids were riding bikes up and down the street, the neighbor's puppy pit bull was attempting to eat the kittens across the street, it was anarchy. I don't think that if you added up all my friends and acquaintances that it would equal half of the number of people who have been on our block since this weekend. Remarkable. I cannot WAIT to see what this weekend will bring.... (and, in case that sarcasm wasn't clear enough, I absolutely can wait to see what happens this weekend. Ach du lieber Augusta).

I just noticed that somebody is in the library bathroom (which is about 15 feet from where I'm sitting) hacking up a lung. Charming.

Now this is happening

Wow, I'm having one of those mornings where I woke up super-cranky, and it's not showing any signs of easing up as the day progresses. I don't even know why I'm ready to smack anyone and everyone who talks to me this morning. I was actually quite lucky because when I was in the shower this morning, our new neighbor's car alarm started going off, but I missed the whole thing. Normally, a car alarm before 6:30 a.m. would make me want to throw a trident in the car owner's chest, but he got off easy today. J's way too sleepy at 6:15 to throw anything at anybody. Heh.

I just read that Halle Berry (who I consider to be the prettiest woman in movies) and her model boyfriend are going to have a baby. That child is either going to be supernaturally attractive or incredibly weird-looking. There's hardly ever an in-between when you've got parents like that.

Homo Barechestus

So I've been doing an anthropological study of our new neighbors. Apparently, this family of four is related to the family that rents the house directly across the street from us (the father is somebody's sister, something like that). And I have noticed a definite clan mentality among this group. Now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's definitely different from how I grew up, where it was just me, my Mom, Dad, brother and sisters and we'd occasionally see our extended family for holidays and such. These new people on our street are much closer than that. But I really can't keep track of who's who and whose kids belong where and which car is driven by people who actually live there or if they're just visiting. If I had counted, I would guess I've seen about 30 different adults on the front porch and over a dozen different children over the weekend. I asked J if he'd noticed this, and he had and said it's pretty common for our neighborhood to see this sort of clan gathering. Apparently, the common traits of this type of event include 40-ounce bottles of liquid, cooking over open flame, albino snakes and not wearing shirts. Fascinating.

I look AWESOME

Just once, I'd like to have a day off work and actually be able to sleep in. Bah. Oh, and we got new next-door neighbors yesterday. The monster truck people moved out a couple months ago because the landlord wasn't making the repairs they wanted, so the house had been empty since early this summer. But we've got a new family over there. They seem very nice, and they have an attractive St. Bernard named Hank (love that!), but they were also unloading their moving van until 1 a.m.. Oy.

Anyway, a happy result of me being up so early is that I have nothing else to do besides post pregnant pictures of myself on here. Voila!