$100 Well Spent

Scott and I hit the outlet mall today. I was in desperate need of new sneakers (the old ones are stained and now holey, leaving me with just the pink hi-tops, which just don't go with capri pants), and was hoping to pick up some more cheap t-shirts from the Old Navy Outlet.

Well, the new sneakers I ended up with were maybe my 6th choice style-wise. I'm still on that pink kick, and these have blue accents instead. But they were the only ones in my size and width. And they are Nike, which has always been ok for me in the past. And they were *gasp* $50! Oy, that's a lot of money. On the bright side, they'll probably last me for 5 years because I never wear them!

And then the unthinkable happened: everything at the O.N. store was 60% off. EVERYTHING MUST GO! Yep - they were clearing out. Luckily, I managed to get some of the solid color fitted tees that I like so much. The choices were pretty picked-over, but I managed to get a new white one, a pinkish-mauve, and a brown v-neck (just like the one I was wearing today). I also got a polo shirt, a tank top, and a pair of casual pants. Grand total: $30. Woo!!! I asked the guy why they were closing, and he said they are turning the outlet store into a regular Old Navy. That's ok with me - they have good sales sometimes too.

After the outlets, we went over to Target and bought a whole bunch of random stuff including Puffs tissues in Halloween boxes, lighter fluid, gum, and a pink dress on clearance for $9! The dress is really really cool. It may not look like it on the hanger, but it's contemporary (which so rarely happens to me - I tend to buy clothes from the Old Navy Outlet!), and so cute and flirty. I thought I could put my white cardigan over it for work, but I tried that on and instantly broke into song, "summer lovin had me a blast, summer lovin happened so fast..." But aside from that, wow! Check out the kick-ass pleats on the bust:

That same pleating repeats at the bottom of the waistband, and the skirt poofs out when I spin around. And in case you were wondering, the dress is more the color of the first picture.

I'll make sure to get a couple of pictures when I wear it the first time (hmm... maybe next week?). Sure, I have to go strapless. Sure, I have fat arms that are better suited for sleeves. But every girl needs to let her inner diva out once in a while. Right?!?

Is It Time for Bed Yet?

I'm tired and my day hasn't even started yet. That's probably not a good sign of things to come.

Oh well - 4ish hours of work and 2 hours of rehearsal, and then I can come home and stare at the TV.

I think I'm just mentally tired from thinking about everything that needs to be done in the next 6 days. Today is going to be one of those "take things one day at a time" days, or my head is going to explode!

Shopping for Free Furniture

I can't remember how much I've talked about our office renovation. I know I mentioned putting together our shelves. Well yesterday Number Two and I went over to the warehouse of used office furniture - yes, there is such a place - and were given run of the place to pick out whatever we wanted. Well, we ended up deciding on two gorgeous desks that don't even look like they were ever used. And they will be delivered next Friday.

I am thrilled!

Of course, this means packing up everything off the desks Thursday night and being there Friday morning when the crew comes to pick up the old desks, and when the other crew comes to bring the new ones. Between being out of the office for 2 hours yesterday and having my hands full with other projects on Thursday, I am officially behind on my work. Plus, since I'm not counting on getting any actual work done next Friday, and since I'll be out of the office the following Sunday, I figure I should work on Monday just to get us caught up on everything. Maybe 4 hours before my first Candlelight rehearsal(!!!).

And then The Boss comes back from almost 3 weeks out of the office on Tuesday. I can't even imagine what he's going to say when he comes in. I sincerely hope it isn't, "I hate everything - put it back the way it was," or "no, you can't have the new desks." I might cry. I'm hoping for something along the lines of, "the office looks great. and I brought you presents from Europe."

Oh Yeah...

If you were wondering where I've been for the past few days, I discovered Peggle.

Am addicted.

Send help!

No, don't bother, I probably wouldn't answer the door when the help showed up!

Poll Dancing

Scalzi's Weekend Assignment: Make up a poll for people to play with. The poll can be on any subject you want -- it can be serious or funny or silly or whatever (although funny's always, you know. Funny).

Here's the link to my poll. I tried to embed it, but Blogger thinks there is an error with the code they supplied.

I don't need a poll to tell me what's going to win. In the last 10 entries, the ones with the overwhelming majority of comments are pictures of my pets. Oh well... I guess I know who y'all are really here to see. Thanks for tolerating me too ;-)

Extra credit: Have you ever participated in a political poll? I'm going to have to say no. I've never really participated in anything political - except voting.

Mugging for the Camera

Scalzi's Monday Photo Shoot: Take a picture of one or more interesting coffee mugs you might have. Because it's my experience that people have coffee mugs with interesting stories behind them. At least, I do.

I think that interesting mugs are things you accumulate over time. Growing up, it was fun for me to pick a mug off the mug tree for hot chocolate or the occasional tea. There were lots of fun ones to choose from. Here in the ParkHopper household, we collect pint glasses and have some cool ones, but we don't have a whole lot of interesting mugs. Maybe that's more a symptom of living in Florida than of a young marriage. Check back with me in 20 years!

Anyway, I do have some interesting mugs:

The mug on the left is a hold-out from my college days (further enforcing the theory that lack of mugs is a Florida thing). I used it back then mostly as a cereal bowl. Obviously, the center mug is current. It's my most recent travel mug purchase, and I carry it to work most days because it brings a smile to my face. Who wouldn't want their imaginary boyfriend on a mug?? And the one on the right is Scott's. He's had it since before we were married. I asked him what the story behind it was and I was informed, "it came with a pair of underwear."

So there you have it. Three examples of the ParkHopper family collection of mugs.

No Celebrity Endorsement Implied

I am by no means endorsing Alltel Wireless. I've never used their product, and can neither confirm nor deny that their customer service is better than the competitors (though it would be hard to be worse that Sprint/Nextel). However, any company that uses a cute, sweet guinea pig on their commercials can't be bad, right?

Part of This Balanced Breakfast

I just got through explaining to Scott that chocolate-covered caramel corn is actually a complete breakfast. (do you even have to ask why I was explaining it? of course not! I had extra after I finished loading up the container for the pot luck, and I was munching on it when he woke up)

The Fruit Loops commercials "complete breakfast" used to include toast, a glass of milk, a glass of juice, and a banana, in addition to the bowl of cereal. That's great, but the dairy, fruit, and starch food groups were there without even including the cereal. So next time kids, just have a peanut butter and banana sandwich with your glass of milk!

....or just have some of Jamie's Special Breakfast Mix:
* chocolate = dairy. calcium builds strong bones!
* pop corn = both a vegetable and a starch... and when was the last time you had a vegetable for breakfast? see! it's a health food!
* peanuts = protein. and better for you than bacon
* Pair this with a glass of fruit juice, and we have a complete meal!

Of course, I believe I have perma-chocolate under some of my finger nails. But that's the price of healthy eating! (and yes, I plan to supplement with a bagel in about an hour)

Poor Mrs. Bush...

Her husband couldn't even take one day off from ruining - oops, I mean running - the country to be with her while she had surgery.

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And in completely unrelated football news, I was sad to see that Notre Dame scored during Penn State's first possession this afternoon. However, that was the only TD that ND scored, and PSU totally killed them 31-10.

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And in completely unrelated work news, batch #4 of caramel corn has been chocolate drizzled (except where the ziploc bag busted and the chocolate plopped out - there it's pretty much smothered) and is setting up on the stove. I'm looking forward to my contribution to the pot luck.

Most Improved

It turns out the candy thermometer was all this recipe needed to bring it to life. It was so good I was burning my mouth picking off pieces as Scott was smashing it out onto the parchment paper. Actually, the candy thermometer wasn't all that changed. Obviously, there's chocolate drizzled on the top (way less than the recipe called for... but I wanted to have lots of chocolate when I do my hypothetical batch for the pot luck). And I also doubled the caramel recipe and used the same amount of popcorn. Oh - and I had Scott mix the popcorn into the caramel. He has the magic culinary touch!

I was telling Girl Chef about my harrowing experience with the first batch, and she looked at me and told me to go to Publix and buy brownies from their bakery. Oh, how I was wounded! The last pot luck, I wanted to bring something made by professionals, and was told that I had to make it myself. And we all know how that turned out! So then I was absolutely determined to make this work. And I think it did. I'm bringing this batch in to work today, mostly so that she can taste it, and I bet it doesn't last through pre-meal. (of course, I'll probably eat 3/4 of it!)

ASIDE: I don't think I mentioned that Girl Chef recently came back from her benchmarking trip to NYC bearing gifts! I couldn't believe I actually got anything! She brought me a little container of caramel corn from Thomas Keller's Bouchon Bakery. Anyway, that stuff was the best caramel corn I've ever had - it's so rich and buttery, one tiny bite satisfies my sweet tooth. My stuff isn't that good, but it's also not as rich, so you can eat giant handfuls of it. Plus, it's drizzled with chocolate!

AND BACK-TRACK: Anyway, when I was making this stuff last night, I asked Scott if he thought our family members would mind if I made this instead of pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving this year. And then I had a revelation. We're about 90% sure we're moving into a two bedroom apartment when our lease is up (November 30). (and please, Mother, don't get any grand-maternal jolt from that sentence... we just need more space) This means the weeks before are going to be filled with packing, throwing away, and not filling our fridge with leftovers. I think maybe Thanksgiving this year will fall somewhere between then and Christmas. Or maybe in January. Or we can all just go out for pizza or Chinese!

Office Update

(or Why Jamie Smells Like a Horse)

Our office renaissance continues. The new taller & deeper shelving unit was delivered a few days ago, and Number Two and I put it together and loaded it up tonight. The office looks so much neater already. Not ones to sit on our laurels, we immediately launched into the next phase. This included him ordering another matching unit for another section of the wall, and me using a box cutter on many many many pieces of poster board.

See, we have a whole bunch of posters of various wine regions (Alsace, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Italy, and Napa to name a few of the 10+) taking up space in the office, and Number Two decided we should hang them up in some of the empty wall space to "decorate" the office. Well, the poster board is 2' x 3', but the actual posters mounted on the board are closer to 1.5' x 2'. So I'm trimming off the excess poster board. I got 3 done before I left tonight, and should be finished in the next few days.

Oh - but back to the shelving unit - it was a pain in the @$$ to put together. It required a hammer and lots of muscle power, and the shelves are nothing more than 3/8" particle board, which caused me a bunch of scrapes and gouges as I installed them.

Another facet of work is also really exciting to me right now: the search for the new part-timer. Apparently I write one helluva job description. Last time (before I worked there), the job was open for many months with no applicants. This time, our one-week posting yielded about 7 applicants. Number Two got their resumes today, and they actually seem (gasp!) experienced (double gasp!) maybe even competant. He isn't sure what the approved time-line is for scheduling interviews, and is worried he'll have to do it before The Boss returns from Europe. Either way you slice it, I hope that I'll be included in interviews again. I was when we hired G, and if there's a choice to be made, I ought to at least know the players involved.

So work was eventful today. And though I need to buckle down and get some serious calling done in the next three days, I'm not stressed about it. And did I mention that help is on the way? And that the office project is more than 1/2 way done? I'm so excited I could just pee myself!

Not Quite Idiot Proof

So it turns out caramel corn isn't really that easy to make. We have a pot luck coming up at work on Sunday, and I have a chocolate-drizzled caramel corn recipe I wanted to try out.

Good thing I tried it out!

Batch #1 never even got off the ground. After adding all the ingredients, the pot came to a boil before I was ready for it and I burned the peanuts. Yikes!

Batch #2 didn't burn. But I learned that when they say "large pot," they mean it. I was supposed to stir the popcorn into the pot, but there was too much corn to even attempt to mix. So the popcorn wasn't covered evenly. And then it didn't get crunchy. I ended up with something that was really tasty, but was more like a Snickers bar with popcorn than Cracker Jacks. We ate almost all of it in giant sticky handfuls over the cookie sheet.

I was thinking about making a third test batch today, since we still have almost a whole bag of already-popped corn getting stale in a bowl on the counter, but Scott is sick (food poisoning... but not from this!) and I don't want to risk burning another batch of caramel (doubled, for greater popcorn coverage) and having to evacuate him from the apartment. Maybe I'll try the microwave or (gasp!) actually using the cooking thermometer.

Any other pot luck ideas? If nothing else, I'll just have to fall back on peanut butter-banana bread.

Affirmative CATion

After yesterday's ZoePig love fest, Milo wanted in on the action. It just so happens that his picture slides nicely into this week's Monday Photo Shoot: Present a picture that clearly shows a particular emotion. Happy, sad, thrilled, bummed, anything in between.

In this picture, Milo is clearly tolerating us. He allows us to use his favorite napping spot (the man chair) when we want. He permits us to pet him. And he was kind enough to look straight at me when I took this picture.

(if only he knew what a ridiculous position that is to sleep in!)

Time for 1,003 Words

Isn't she precious?

Surprise!

I got a call from Rose and Gary yesterday afternoon saying they were in town and wanted to come have dinner at The Restaurant. So I booked them a table and then ran around to everyone who would listen telling them, "we picked up a two-top. it's my favorite aunt and uncle. whee!" (in my defense, at least half of the people needed to be told that we added the extra guests. and I wanted to make sure they got a good table)

Well, I think it's safe to say that they had a good time. The sous chef (who was running the show) hooked them up with tastes of some extra items, and the servers treated them like gold. I set up a kitchen tour for them, since a) Aunt Rose has some culinary background, and b) that way I could say goodnight to them without going back into the dining room. And then the sous chef came over and told them how wonderful I am and the manager told them the place would fall apart without me. I think I'm still blushing.

It turned out to be a really great night for me. And like I said, I think they enjoyed it too.

A Fun Quiz You Must Take!

Sure, the quiz is titled "What Kind of Liberal Are You?" Sure, it's on a website called www.fightconservatives.com. Sure, most of you aren't liberals at all. But you should still take the quiz and see what you come up with.

C'mon... it's only 7 questions... what do you have to lose?

My Liberal Identity:

You are a New Left Hipster, also known as a MoveOn.org liberal, a Netroots activist, or a Daily Show fanatic. You believe that if we really want to defend American values, conservatives must be exposed, mocked, and assailed for every fanatical, puritanical, warmongering, Constitution-shredding ideal for which they stand.

Take the quiz at http://www.fightconservatives.com/Inside-the-Book/What-Breed-of-Liberal-Are-You.html

And yes, this is TOTALLY me! Most accurate quiz EVER!

News Flash

It's September!

How the heck did that happen?

We now return you to the rest of the blog.

Sniglets

I'm sure my mom did a happy dance as soon as she saw the title of this entry.  When I was little, we loved sniglets (words that should be in the dictionary but aren't - check it out on Wikipedia if you don't believe me).  The one I still use most often is sloopage - the stuff that falls out the back of a thick sandwich or burger.

Anyway, I came up with a sniglet of my own tonight: Socksex - what my big toe has been doing all day with that new hole in my sock.  I don't think it's really good enough to be a sniglet, but at least it should get points for sounding like a real word.

Anyone else out there have a favorite sniglet, or one you have made up?
(yes, this is a blatant ploy for comments… please don't let me down!)

blah blah Headache blah blah blah

The headache seems to have gone away. Notice that I said seems. I still think it's going to come back for day #4.

Work last night was interesting. The Boss and The Chef are leaving for their European "benchmarking" trip this weekend, and last night was The Boss's last night of work. So he spent 1/2 hour going over all of the things I'm supposed to keep up with in his absence. Yep, I'm the go-to girl for all things random, including his voicemail and his e-mail. Usually it's just voicemail. Apparently now I am to be trusted with his LAN ID and password. Anyone want to send hate mail to the CEO?

Just kidding. I'm really not in the mood to search for a new job!

And by the way, in case anyone was wondering what digital cable has brought to our lives, Ren and Stimpy is on late at night. I hated that show when I was a kid, and getting older hasn't made it any funnier. Scott, keeper of the remote, disagrees. However, Pants Off Dance Off - it's like a train wreck. We just can't force ourselves to change the channel! It's ok if you think less of us now. I certainly do!

Cure for Headaches

I'm pretty sure I've had a low-grade migraine for the past 2 days. I'm also pretty sure it's still there. It's not so bad I can't function, but I don't appreciate taking copious amounts of Motrin to no effect. Dammit, I want relief!

Finally last night before bed I dipped into my stash of prescription painkillers from the tooth ache days. I figured I was about to fall asleep, so being high wouldn't be much of an issue. And I woke up this morning feeling more refreshed than I have in the past few days.

Yes, I am planning on taking a few pills to work with me, just in case the headache comes back. And considering I do still have some spots dancing in front of my eyes, I think it's likely I'll need them.

Still Progressing

The cable guyS were here yesterday to hook up the digital cable. Now we have hundreds of channels and nothing on. And even The Daily Show is in repeats, so there's no point in trying out the DVR.



On the bright side, Milo certainly enjoyed the visit from strangers yesterday. Especially since one of the strangers came with a box full of tiny plastic and metal things to bat around. I spent the entire time the guys were here trying to a) keep Milo out of the box of cable bits, b) trying to keep Milo out of the bedroom (since the guys were unfamiliar with the concept of keeping closed doors closed), c) checking to make sure Kilo was still alive and hadn't died in the corner from fright, d) keeping Milo out of the box of cable bits AGAIN!





Now that the cable is hooked up, we got the bookshelves and the TV where we want them. Of course, now we have to fit all of the books, photos, tapes, etc. back on the shelves. And I'm going to move the brown chair to the other wall to open up the entry a bit.

For now though, I have a headache. Again. Blah!

Work in Progress

We tore apart the living room. Now it looks an awful lot like one of those "find the ____" pictures. Find 2 cats. Find the Nittany Lion statuette. Find the belt. Find 2 places where Milo has clawed the crap out of our furniture. Find Dumb & Dumber. Find the vacuum. Find the pineapple candle.

Isn't this fun???

Actually, we had to move the white bookshelf from its position in the corner because it was blocking the cable jack. Yep, the cable guy comes tomorrow! Since we had to move that one out of the way, we decided it would be a good time to rearrange. The white shelf is in its new home. Everything else, however, is in flux until after the cable guy leaves. We think we're going to angle the TV in the corner where the white bookshelf used to be, and put the bookshelves on either side of it. If we decide against that, the TV and the one shelf are going to stay where they are, and the other shelf is going to move in on the other side of the TV. That would certainly be easier, but Scott doesn't like the view from the man chair.

More on this story as it develops. For now, we're off to straighten the living room a bit, and then to tackle the clutter in the bedroom.

Happy Birthday Scott!

I hope you enjoy the new sunglasses I bought me!

OK, so I didn't buy my husband big pink shades for his birthday (but aren't they fabulous???). I also didn't buy him a lime green purse on clearance or a new blue dress shirt.

I bought him digital cable, which won't be installed until Tuesday afternoon. I also bought him a Pirates beach towel (which he doesn't like... c'est la vie) and a Pirates flag that hangs from a sword.

The sunglasses and the purse came from our afternoon of shopping at Target and Sears. Scott got a new video game, and we got 7 boxes of risotto (the Target brand mushroom risotto is amazing... 5 boxes of that was a compromise. Scott wanted to buy all 11 they had on the shelf. we also got 2 boxes of the tomato-herb), roach baits (trust me... this was NOT an impulse buy) and a bunch of other random crap.

We're heading out for dinner at Raglan Road in a little bit. Bangers and mash anyone?

Time to Cut Back? Probably.

 Will I? Probably Not!

I printed out the ABC fall primetime line-up to see when my old favorite shows will be premiering, and which new ones I'm going to watch.  It's a good thing I don't have a social life, because all this TV watching is certainly going to get in the way!

Sunday (2 hours): Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters
Weds (2 hours): Pushing Daisies (new) and Private Practice (new - Grey's Anatomy spin-off)
Thurs (2 hours): Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy

That's 6 hours of TV per week, not counting The Daily Show or any show on other networks I might be interested in.  Though I think the only other show I watch is Heroes. 

It looks like I'll be spending many late nights watching my taped TV.  And maybe my primetime obsession will lead me to finally break down and get digital cable (for Scott) with a DVR (for me).

Seriously… I need another hobby!

4 Years Ago???

After all of yesterday's excitement (and yes, I finally did get some sleep - from 8 pm to 8 am), I was quite glad to see that the Monday Photo Shoot for the week wouldn't require much effort.

You may or may not know that today marks the fourth anniversary of By The Way, which was started on this date in 2003 (here's the first entry). To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to have a historical-themed Photo Shoot:

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Find a picture from 2003 and post it. Any picture is fine; it just has to be from the now-oh-so-distant year of two
thousand aught-three. Surely you have pictures from then? Yes?

Gee... 2003... what happened that year that I might have some pictures of?

Actually, 2003 was a big year for "big deals" in my life. Besides getting married, we also got engaged, my dad got married, I got my first job promotion when I went to the Comm Center, etc. However, I was without home internet access for much of the year and therefore many of the big deals were never actually put into the computer. I started blogging the year after, so many of my activities since then have been better documented.

Big Deal!

I've witnessed a lot in the past 24 hours. I watched a baby being born, held her when she was just minutes old, and I even saw a placenta (which they don't show you on A Baby Story!).

Mike and Reyna were nice enough to invite me along for the birth of their fourth baby. We went in last night and they induced her around 10 p.m. After some scary moments when they thought she might have to be born by c-section, she stuck it out and was born at 7:19 this morning. She's 7 pounds, 9 ounces and absolutely beautiful. She didn't even have that squished-face thing going on. And I was the third non-medical person to hold her.

I still haven't slept, and am pretty much delirious at this point, so I'm not even going to attempt to describe what it was like watching her go from a blip-blip-blip on the monitor to a live human being in just a moment. It's crazy to even think that I watched another human being start. I saw her first breath, heard her cry for the first time, and watched her make her first mischief - getting the black footprint ink all over herself and the baby nurse from kicking and squirming on the table.

Welcome to the world, Cadence Katherine (I am so calling you Catie Kate forever!)! Thank you for coming out the natural way. And thank your mommy and daddy for letting me tag along and be a part of your birth day. I hope you've stopped crying by now...

Confession

I hate Crocs. I really think that they are the ugliest, most ridiculous fad of the past decade. Whoever came up with giant multi-colored rubber shoes - and whoever popularized it - should be severely punished.

But yesterday Scott and I were talking online (which is what we do when we're not together) and I ended up on the Crocs website trying to prove a point about how ugly they are. That's when I found these and these and these and even these, and thought they were actually pretty nice.

I'll be off now to dress for the inevitable arrival of the fashion police. I suspect they will take me away for some time to detox my brain.

Pick a Day, Any Day

Scalzi's Weekend Assignment: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: of all the days of the work week, which is your favorite? Yes, I know a lot of people will default toward Friday, because it's an easy one, but I hope you will actually put some thought into your response and give each day its due. If you finally settle on Friday, fair enough. But even Monday has its good points, you know?

Well John, I've got you on a technicality here. I work a goofy shift - four 10-hour days with Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday off. So of the days you mentioned, Monday is definitely my favorite. Because it's my day off without Mr. ParkHopper, I get to sit at home and just vegetate all day. I even get to control the TV remote (which never happens otherwise)! Occasionally I'll do a load of laundry or wash dishes, but for the most part I just watch DVDs and play on the computer.

Of my own work days, Sundays are my favorite. But not because it's "my Friday." Friday and Saturday nights are quite busy at The Restaurant, and most of my energy is focused on making sure the tiny details of the day are taken care of. Sundays are my get-things-done day. I catch up on my paperwork, order supplies, and generally leave feeling like I've accomplished quite a bit. In fact, this Sunday promises to be quite exciting. A crew is coming in to yank some pre-existing countertops off the wall on Wednesday, so Boss #2 and I have to clean all the stuff from under and on top of the counters so that the office is ready to go on Wednesday.

Extra Credit: Name a song you like with a day of the week in it (you can include Saturdays and Sundays for consideration here).

In high school, our concert choir was at a choral festival and heard another group performing some weird song where they were basically singing the days of the week. The really weird part is that they started with Tuesday! However, I pick Friday I'm in Love by The Cure, which also lists all the days of the week. But at least they started with Monday!

Bullseye!

I packed the world's worst eat-at-your-desk dinner tonight: 2 pieces of fried chicken and 2 ears of corn.  And I somehow managed to get through all of it without so much as a greasy smudge on the keyboard.

Of course, that doesn't make the quarter-sized yogurt stain on my sweater any less embarrassing!  I guess the stain was to be expected - I just got it from an unexpected source.  Thank God for Tide-to-Go!!

Big Day

I had a follow-up doctor appointment today (got to see my "beautiful" empty uterus live on a TV screen...that was thrilling!), so Scott and I took the opportunity to hit some of our favorite spots that are a ways down I-4:

* Sweet Tomatoes for lunch: Tomorrow ends their two weeks of Italian specials. Lucky for us, we went today and had pesto pasta salad and caprese pasta salad. Both were superb. And of course, sweet potatoes, cooked to a tasty mush and topped with honey butter. mmmm

* Then we went to Books a Million to pick up some books. I picked up Sammy's House for only 10% off the list price. Would've been cheaper at ANY other bookstore. But that's ok because Scott got some true crime book, and I picked up two old library books (actual library books with the stickers from their actual libraries inside) for $3 each. I could've spent $100 on those $3 books, but exercised restraint.

* Then we went to Bass Pro Shop because Scott wanted bullets and a holster for the gun that I pretend isn't in our apartment. That whole trip was quite traumatic for me. The whole giant store smells like pipe tobacco, there are giant dead animal carcases around every turn, the employees demonstrate laser sights when you're not expecting to see a red dot appear, there is a "Shootin' Arcade" where Dad can teach his son to kill without the noise, recoil, or blood, they sell living room furniture with tacky "woodsman" patterns, and there is an entire section full of camouflage tops, bottoms, boots, hats, and ghille suits. (with serial killers possibly hidden among them) And don't bother looking for the country-fried bathrooms - they're camouflaged too! Oh - and of course there's all sorts of guns and gun-related equipment. The worst part? I only went along because there's a Cold Stone Creamery in the attached mall. Which has recently closed. No ice cream? Talk about traumatic! I practically had to be sedated in the car on the way home.

Tomorrow should be a little more subdued. Scott has a meeting, and we have to grocery shop. And last I checked, there were no furry dead animals at the grocery store!

Blink and You Missed Me!

Have I mentioned that I got into Candlelight this year? Well that was last week's exciting news from the home front. This morning I got up just in time to sign up for rehearsals online.

The last time I did Candlelight, the rehearsals were Mon/Weds/Fri over a 10-week period. You were expected to make 10 rehearsals. It worked out well, even for people who work nights, because you could do rehearsal on your night off. This year, the rehearsals are allll over the calendar. And since I'm skipping the first week (it's all organizational "welcome to the show" crap and not a lot of actual singing) and the third week (because I'll sort of be out of town), two of my weeks have 2 rehearsals scheduled. I have mostly Monday nights, with some Tuesdays and Wednesdays sprinkled in where there was no Monday (or where a double-up was required) (or both).

I can't wait for the time when we get to pick up our music. I'm going to get my hands on the rehearsal CD and immerse myself in the soprano part of all those great Christmas songs.

Yippee! I'm so excited!

Post Secret Video

I love PostSecret. It's my Sunday morning must-read. And Frank has put up a video and asked us to share it with others. So I am.



Ironically, the video points to the website, which has no new secrets this week because it has the video instead.

Ring Tones

I was on the Sprint website this morning trying to upgrade Scott's text message plan (who knew 300 per month wouldn't be enough??) and instead came across an ad for a "free ringtone… just use this code." So I went browsing for ring tones.

This process is quite overwhelming to me. In general, I think that phones should RING. They shouldn't talk. They shouldn't sing. And they shouldn't play the Mexican Hat Dance. AND I can't believe there are about 4 zillion different ring tones out there to choose from.

In the end, I chose this one. Why the lame obscure song from The Wizard of Oz? I don't know! I guess because it made me laugh! And because they didn't have the guards singing "OREO COOKIES."

I still need to find a good call tone, but that will wait until another day. For now, I will just have to settle for being embarrassed every time my phone starts singing, "the wind began to switch… the house, to pitch… and suddenly the hinges started to unhitch… just then a witch, to satisfy an itch… went flying on her broomstick thumbing for a hitch." And I'm guessing my friends from Encore! would appreciate the humor as well.

Stupi-Demic

I was originally going to draw a diagram and go into great detail about the REALLY STUPID act I saw today. Instead, you're getting the abridged nearly-midnight version.

I was waiting to turn out of my apartment complex this morning (to go South), and a guy driving northbound turned right halfway into the Wal Mart road and came to a complete stop - diagonal - blocking anyone else from turning right (a particular problem since there is no right turn lane due to the road construction). I thought he had broken down right there.

A minute later, the sliding door on the van slides open and a woman pops out the door. With a camera. She proceeds to take a picture of the Shamu Mobile, which is waiting at the light to turn into the apartment complex. Once the picture is taken, she slides the door closed and the van drives off.

You know, at least when people pull over to take a picture of the Disney World welcome sign, they usually leave the roadway! I'm just not used to seeing that kind of touron behavior so close to home. The worst part: this was an older shabby-looking minivan. Definitely not a rental. Which means either that was a judgement-impaired local, or a really cheap tourist! Dufus!

Brain Fart

So here's me confirming a reservation for someone with the last name Van Huren:

"that's 2 words, V as in victor - A - N, H as in... umm... H... U - R - E - N"

I barely made it through the rest of the voicemail without laughing.

A Big Blob of Nothing!

I had all three of my days off this week. And you know what I did? I did minimal laundry, minimal other chores, and barely left the house. It was great!

Don't think too little of me though. Next week Scott and I each have doctor appointments scheduled (on two different days). The week after that, we each have functions to go to (more on that another time). And the week after that is Scott's birthday.

It's quite a busy month, though not as busy as July! Pardon me while enjoy my last glorious day of R & R (and help Scott with the laundry...).

The Outhouse in the Cemetery

Scalzi's Monday Photo Shoot: Take a picture of, or in, a cemetery. Your local cemetery is good, but if you've been to, say, Paris, to see Jim Morrison's grave, or took some arty shots of an ornate headstone elsewhere, something like that works, too.







Yes, that's me, standing in front of an outhouse in a cemetery.



WHAT?!?!?



This picture was taken during a trip to Alabama when Scott and I were dating. Being a closed-minded Yankee, I declared that I wanted to have my picture taken by an outhouse during the trip. You know - because it was my impression that there would be lots of outhouse photo-ops during the trip. You know - because it's "The South." (please don't hate me - I don't really believe all the crap that comes out of my mouth)



Anyway, it turned out that this outhouse was the only one I saw up-close during the trip. It happened to be inside the cemetery you can see on the left side of the photo. No, the outhouse was not the purpose of the visit. There are some lengths to which even I won't go for a photo.



I'm pretty sad that I don't have possession of the album of my family's trip to the UK when I was little. We spent a lot of time in cemeteries, and in some of the churches, where people are buried right in the floor. But my favorite gravestone picture was the grave of Gelert - a dog - around whom the town of Beddgelert is named. (sure, the story is a legend. but so are Robin Hood and King Arthur)

I'm a Winner (again)

This time, unlike last time when I won the Desperate Housewives PC game, I didn't win a contest. This time I won an award.

It's just a quarterly award from work - basically awarded to whomever the managers want to nominate. But still, it's nice to be recognized. I pointed out last night to one of my bosses that my company record card has NO notations for the past 13 months. There's no call-ins, no reprimands, no guest compliments... Nothing!

Hopefully my little quarterly award shows up!

Also, is it a good sign that someone was thinking good things about me during PIE nomination month, or is this a consolation prize? Well, notifications are this month. I guess we'll know soon.

time for lunch!

Note to Self:

You know your nails are too long when the nails on your ring and pinkie fingers stab the palm of your hand when you write.

…or maybe that just means you should type everything!

Maybe Meth Would Help?

Sudafed used to be my go-to head cold relief medicine. I would pop two of those tiny red pills and very shortly would again be able to breathe normally.

Then came the bad bad people making methamphetamine in their own homes, out of the very pills that gave me such comfort. And what did the drug makers do? They punished me. They changed active ingredients. And now Sudafed doesn't help me one bit. Apparently, you can still buy original Sudafed from behind the pharmacist's counter, but who has time for that? Perhaps I should make time for that...

Anyway, I am feeling a little better today. I got over 9 hours of sleep last night. Glorious Nyquil-induced sleep! The Boss didn't come in yesterday. He says he has bronchitis. Pardon my lack of sympathy. Let's get a doctor to listen to my chest right now and see if I have bronchitis too. I guess it's to be expected. Men have a lower threshold for discomfort than women.

August? Since When?

Well, July seems to have come and gone before I had a chance to wallow in the 100% humidity! And I only managed 22 posts in July. I promise to try harder this month.

Currently I'm sick with a sinus issue (left sinus and both ears - figure that one out!) that I'm sure everyone who came to hug and kiss me after a performance will probably be suffering from before long (what can I say? I'm a giver!). Don't blame me though. Scott is sick. And my boss (whom I hadn't seen in over a week until last night) is even sicker than Scott. I'm still pretty sure I got this from Scott though. I don't kiss my boss nearly as much. (tee hee)

But I have a ton to talk about, and obviously have some pictures to share. The pictures are from our work party last night. As you may have noticed, there was wine. A random assortment of reds and whites, and instead of a proper champagne, Rosa Regale (my favorite - and I had a lot of it!). When all was said and done, I think I had a glass of red, a glass of white, and 2-3 glasses of the sparkling during the four-course meal. I managed to keep myself from dancing on the table, but I was awfully giggly. And the food was pretty spectacular. The highlights were our entree: 2 lamb chops, a small filet, and lobster risotto - and dessert: a trio of tiramisu, chocolate mousse, and lemon cheesecake. And as you can tell, there was also a lovely chocolate scroll on the plate that said Congratulations.

Then there was the unofficial after party upstairs at the lounge. My plan: drink Coke to sober up to drive home. Of course, you know what they say about the best laid plans! One of our servers ordered a margarita that somehow went into the computer twice. So I, being the kind soul that I am, drank the one that he didn't want. And then the manager of the lounge sent out champagne for everyone in our group. So I had a little glass of champagne. And three glasses of Coke. Fear not though, I ended up there BSing with other people until around 12:30. By the time I got in my car, I was perfectly safe to drive.

In other non-alcoholic news, my visit with Jackie was way too short and over before it really began. And I didn't get one damn picture. But we sure kept ourselves busy! She and I spent Monday and Tuesday park hopping. We did all the rides that she can't do with her small children - Mission: Space, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Dinosaur, Rock n Rollercoaster, and Tower of Terror. Everest was closed when we were at Animal Kingdom. That's the only one we missed that I'm really sorry about.

We also ate lots of junk food during her stay, but I believe we walked it off in the parks. Don't believe me? I'll post a picture of the blister on the bottom of one of my toes!

Today I'm back to work. I feel sick enough that I really should call in. But considering that everyone I work with saw me all happy and smiling last night, that might not be such a good idea. I will probably leave early though. I think I deserve that much!

...and I'm Spent!

Now that the curtain has fallen on Encore 2007, I am off to spend a couple of days of R & R with Jackie (after work today). I'll be back on Wednesday. Try not to miss me too much.

Thanks to all the friends and family who trekked here to see the show. It means so much to me to know that I am so loved and supported.

Here's some pictures of me with my new Encore friends Jessica and Scheherezada, and my old friend Brian (of Beth and Brian).

The "Mighty Mighty Chorus"

I have a handful of pictures from last night's concert up over on Photobucket. And if you go back after tonight, I'll probably have some more up as well. Woo!

And Now, Some Hot Tea

Opening night of "Hollywood..." was awesome. Everything that could sound good did (there's a small handful of soloists who must be good at fellatio... not mentioning any names or songs), and the audience clapped and laughed in all the right places. I'm high on applause right now. This is good, because I'll be able to talk about my afternoon without gritting my teeth and clenching my fists.

I threw my performance dress in the wash last night with some other dark clothes, and we left in in the washer over night so that it wouldn't sit in the dryer and wrinkle beyond redemption over night. I ended up pulling the dress out of the dryer and hanging it up right after Scott left for work, around 2:00. At that point I noticed 2 things: 1) the dress isn't quite as thick as I thought and I wasn't sure whether I was giving a peep show up under the stage lights, and 2) there were lots of strings hanging from random places on the dress.

So I grabbed the closest pair of scissors and started snipping threads. I got to one thread right on the boob dart, pulled it taut to snip it close, and ended up pulling a good 8" of thread right out of the dress, causing the dart to pop. And it was noticeable. My internal monologue went something along the lines of "shitshitshitshitshitshitshit." So after my shower, I made an emergency Wal Mart run.

I know that somewhere in the apartment we have tan thread and we have a pack of sewing needles. I didn't know where they are, but I did know myself well enough that had I called Scott to ask where the needles were I would have ended up yelling at him. So for the sake of my marriage, I bought not only black thread, but also a pack of 45 needles (for $2). I also bought a black dressy(?) shirt just in case I couldn't fix the dart. I figured I'd just wear it with a black skirt. And I got a black full slip just in case I could wear the dress.

Well, I was able to fix the dart with about 20 minutes of work (5 of that threading the needle and knotting the thread, and another 5 trying to stop the remainder of the original thread from unraveling). The seam is puckered and not pretty, but it's presentable. And I'm in the back row, so it really doesn't make too much of a difference. The dress is back in the wash now. I'll be checking my handiwork in the morning to make sure it held.

So anyway, crisis averted. By the way, for anyone planning on seeing the show, I recommend getting to the parking lot by 7 pm. Thursdays are historically our slowest shows (or so I hear), and we were about 2/3 full tonight. Plus, there's an amusing slide show and fun music beforehand.

Opening Night

I'd feel a lot better about this whole 'opening night' thing if our dress rehearsal had gone better. Of course, I fully expect my mother to make a comment about how bad rehearsals lead to good performances. Let's hope that's the case!

Well, I'm off to study two songs from Act 1 and most of Act 2.

Yet Another Post Entitled 'Seriously?!?'

These rehearsals are exhausting. And last night I totally lost my voice right at the grand finale high note. Lovely! Let's hope that doesn't happen again. Today will be spent drinking lots of water and hot tea. But enough about that. I need to discuss ridiculousness (real word? oh well - like I care!) in Oregon.

Two middle-school students in Oregon are facing possible time in a juvenile jail and could have to register as sex offenders for smacking girls on the rear end at school.

Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13, were arrested in February after they were caught in the halls of Patton Middle School, in McMinnville, Ore., slapping girls on the rear end. Mashburn told ABC News in a phone interview that this was a common way of saying hello practiced by lots of kids at the school, akin to a secret handshake.

The boys spent five days in a juvenile detention facility and were charged with several counts of felony sex abuse for what they and their parents said was merely inappropriate but not criminal behavior.

WHAT?!?!? Slapping someone's bottom is a felony? You know, in the workplace, that's called sexual harassment ("and I don't have to take it"). I wonder if there has ever been an adult convicted, or even charged with a felony for this very action.

When I was a senior in high school, I got groped by a guy acquaintance on a newspaper field trip. Out of nowhere, he just reached out and grabbed himself a handful of boob. And I did what I think most of my contemporaries would have done: I slapped him across the face hard enough to leave a hand print. And then he and I got over it. And had I told a teacher (actually, I think one may have witnessed the slapping... good thing I wasn't charged with felony battery!) I seriously doubt the police would have been involved. I don't even think he would have been suspended.

It's only been 11 years, so please don't try to tell me "the world is a different place." Does anyone out there actually think this matter is being handed appropriately? And slightly off-topic, click on that news story if you have a second. If it were your son on trial, wouldn't you iron his shirt before his hearing? You know what they say about first impressions!

Off!

For the next six days, I get to sleep in past 9 am. I get to watch the noon news. And yet, to my chagrin, I won't get to watch any prime time TV at all.

I'm off from work because there are Encore rehearsals and performances for the next 6 nights. I have a 6:30 call for each of these nights. And given that the show is at Epcot, and there is a bus involved, I'll have to leave here by 5 to make sure I get there in time. And I probably won't get home until 12:30 (again, with the darn buses). It's almost like I'm working more than 40 hours and not being paid for it.

But I'm not complaining. I'm quite certain I'll be exhausted by the end of the week, but I'm ok with that. I'm just excited about waking up without an alarm clock!

Comments Are Sometimes Unnecessary

I have lamented to Scott recently that I feel AOL's practice of allowing comments on all of their news stories is just ridiculous.  The news does not need comments.  The true crazies will call up the news organization (or e-mail them, I guess) and make their comments that way.

It seems that there are an awful lot of people in the world who spend their days leaving comments strewn across the internet.  Why?  Maybe they are people who don't feel they get enough attention in the real world.  No, they don't have an opinion worth sharing on the crisis in Darfur, but they will happily make fun of the guy 5 posts ahead who misspelled Darfur.

Never more has this been more apparent to me than this evening during my lunch.  I was reading AOL News and clicked on a story about the St. Louis Arch power outage (http://news.aol.com/story/_a/power-outage-traps-200-in-st-louis-arch/20070722100709990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001#cmntbgn).  The top 5 comments in a row had been added by the same person (the same comment 5 times) - Tips for Giving Great Head.  And it was step-by-step instructions, as a later commenter pointed out, like they were copied from The Joy of Sex!

WHAT does that have to do with the Arch being without power?  A suggestion, perhaps, on how to kill time while waiting in the tiny tram compartments for 2 hours?  Or just another indicator of society's decline?  Or maybe just a hopeful, lonely guy.

And Tonight, I Sleep!

I finished the book at 3:00 this morning. It turns out that chapter 20 is the point where it gets good, and from there the last 350 pages just sort of swoosh by. I'm still annoyed about the first half of the book. It really read like she refused to let an editor touch the book. I passed the book to Scott, and I just can't wait for him to finish it (luckily I have a few other things to keep me occupied for the next 10 days) so that I can finally talk to someone about it.

And here's the flowers I got at work the other day:

Ooh...Pretty...

Note: I attempted to send this entry last night, but it didn't take.  Let's try that again, shall we?
************************************************
I apologize in advance that there is no photo to go along with this long story.  I will add one in the morning if I have time before work. 

So there I was on the phone with a guy booking a private party for this December (dude - I want SO BADLY to be invited to their party!  It's a group of 18 friends who live about an hour away.  They're going to rent a couple of limos, come up here and look at Christmas decorations at some of the local hotels, and then have dinner here.  "Please, mister? Can't I be your friend too?") and one of the servers came in and dropped a bouquet of flowers on my desk.

I thought it was yet another example of something left in the cooler or otherwise unwanted that was being given to me.  Well imagine my surprise when I looked at the card and it had MY name on it!  Who could possibly be sending flowers to ME?

It turns out that the arrangement is from a guy I first spoke to about a month ago who called me up yelling and screaming demanding the highest manager available (which was, at that moment, umm… me) because he wasn't able to book our kitchen table (I believe the word "conspiracy" was mentioned) .  He was a classic example of the "let them get it out of their system" philosophy of conflict management.  He just didn't want to believe me that the one table per night books that quickly.  By the time he finished his rant, I knew about his family, how much money they spend on family vacations every year, and he was threatening to not renew his annual passes because of the crappy customer service at The Restaurant. So I finally got him calmed down and offered him the dates that we had available at the time that had cancellations and no wait list.  I also offered to put him on the wait list for every day for the rest of the year. 

At that point, he was trying to book for Thanksgiving.  I could have booked Christmas for him right then and there, which wasn't open to the public yet, but I was holding my line of "this is when we can book and we don't make exceptions because it's just not fair."  Well, that first phone conversation ended ok.  He had a list of dates to consider, and we agreed to speak in a week.  None of those dates ended up working for his family, but I promised to keep in touch if anything else opened up.  And he was going to try to book the table the old-fashioned way for a date around the holidays.  I called him since 3 or 4 times with various dates, and each time he declined the table, but thanked me for keeping him in mind. 

A strange fluke ended up occurring and the table on New Years Eve didn't get booked.  Of course, he was my first phone call.  I left him a voicemail, and then on my days off I got an e-mail from another girl in the office saying that he had accepted the table and was very excited and thankyouveryverymuch.  Yay!  Mission accomplished!

And today, 2 weeks later, this absolutely gorgeous tropical arrangement shows up on my desk with a card that says, "NEW YEARS EVE, WOW!  THANK YOU SO MUCH" from him and his family.  I nearly peed myself!  And ever since then, I've had a steady stream of people in the office asking if it is my anniversary, if I have a secret admirer, if my husband is in big trouble, if I'm up to something I shouldn't be…  It's great fun.  And I'm still in shock.  This is no bouquet of daisies (which I still would have been shocked and thrilled with). 

When it comes down to it, I was doing what I have done for lots of other people.  In this job, I'm lucky when I get a thank-you e-mail.  Little does this guy realize, but he's given me motivation to keep plugging along and busting my butt for our new and repeat clients.  Oh - and he's also given me a mandatory OT shift.  NYE is a Monday, and I've already been told that I'll have to make an appearance and thank him in person.  And really, I have no problem with that at all.  I called him tonight and gushed at his voicemail, but I think a personal greeting is certainly appropriate.

So anyway, I'll try to stick in a picture tonight or in the morning, but no promises.  I'm going to Wal Mart tonight with Cat to buy Harry Potter 7 at midnight, and my posts will probably be pretty minimal for the next few days until I finish the book.

***************************************************
So that's yesterday's entry.  I took a picture this morning, which is safely stored on the camera.  I was up until just about 5:00 reading HP7, and woke up at 9 for work.  I'm just about halfway through the book (finished 18 of 36 chapters) and so far, I'm not loving it.  Yep - 363 pages of "meh."

The Week of Potter

Well, most die-hard Harry Potter fans have already seen the movie (it premiered last week... I think). I just finished re-reading book 5, so Scott and I are going to see it today. Right now, I'm in the process of re-reading book 6 so that I'm fully refreshed when book 7 comes out this Friday at midnight.

Of course, I'm still looking for someone to go stand in the "loser line" at Wal Mart with me. Scott is working late that night.

Sometimes it's fun to be swept up in the hype. And I doubt that, in my lifetime, there will again be this much hype over a series of books. Besides, I can't risk not reading the last book right away, because I don't want to hear who dies or how it ends from anyone else before I can read it for myself.

In other book news, one of my favorite non-Potter books in recent years, Sammy's Hill (by Kristin Gore... yes, that Gore) has a sequel out called Sammy's House. I'm really excited about reading it - the blurb seems to have all the elements that made the original book so funny. Oh - and according to Amazon.com, Sammy's Hill is now under film development. Yay!

Off to the movies...

The "Super Secret Project"

As you may remember, I spent a few days last week at work with my camera taking pictures of everyone that would hold still long enough for me to focus and click the button. Whenever asked what I was doing, I would just smile and say I was working on a Super Secret Project. This basically tipped people off a little of what I was doing - something related to our party on August 1. (oh yeah - there's a party on August 1 - we closed the restaurant for the night. more accurately, I closed the restaurant - I had to call the people who already had reservations and reschedule them for other nights.)

They all assumed I was working on some sort of slide show presentation for during the event. Nice thought, but I didn't have time to take a year's worth of candid pictures, and I doubt our managers want to spend the extra bucks for a projector.

The SSP was actually nothing more than invitations to the party. It seems that everything involving The Restaurant is (on the surface at least) formal and stuffy. And I had to beg The Boss to let me try an invitation design that wasn't boring. In the end, we both got what we wanted. I got an invitation that was fun and inviting (and with a bonus collage of everyone on the inside), and he picked the color for the background - shades of a beige-ish, olive color.

So far the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive (Girl Chef told the cooks to say thank you to me, and they obey her every command. ha!). And hey - taking pictures and designing something on the computer is a great way for me to blow time at the end of my shift.

And did I mention there's a party? That will be the cap on quite a strange week here in the ParkHopper household. I took vacation days for the Encore! show (tickets on sale now), so I'll be off Mon-Sat, I work Sunday, off Mon-Weds, party Weds night, and then back to normal on Thursday the 2nd. And in the midst of all of those days off, Jackie is flying down on Saturday and I'm spending my days off with her.

Meow! (the sound of cattiness)

Scalzi's Weekend Assignment: Humiliate your pet! Show a picture or tell a story that features your pet doing something that's goofy or silly, even for dumb animal. If you don't currently have a pet, you can tell a pet story from a previous furry pal of yours, or pass along a pet humiliation story someone once shared with you.

Gee... it's awfully difficult for me to pick just one "stupid pet trick" here. After all, while the most ridiculous thing I see regularly is Kilo sucking on his back foot (we think he was weaned too early), I don't have any photos or video of that. Same for ZoePig running laps around her cage at 1 am. What I do have photos of is Milo's penchant for squeezing himself into places he shouldn't be.

Especially boxes. The box he is sitting in here (pretending to be comfortable and casual) is the length and width of a standard DVD case. What is that? 5" x 7"? He eventually managed to curl up and take a nap in this particular box. I don't know how - or why - he does it!

It's not just boxes though. I've shared my picture of him in the fridge in the past, and I may have already published this one of him in the basket. That particular photo session got much funnier when he tipped over and it took him a few seconds to get his footing and get out of the basket. This is what makes housecleaning so much fun!

And Milo often helps me see the silver lining in a crappy situation. Last spring when my Wicked Step-Mother sent me most of my childhood (you know... everything that wasn't valuable or desirable to her), she sent a total of around 20 boxes. And in the time it took for me to invest in plastic storage bins and sort through 25 years of mementos, Milo certainly made the most of the situation!

Extra credit: Do you think your pet is actually humiliated? Umm...no! In fact I'm the one who should be humiliated. After all, I turned these pictures and a bunch of others into a "Cats in Boxes" calendar, which I then gave to family members for Christmas. Because who doesn't want picture of someone else's cats hanging on their wall right above their important reminders?

What's in the Picture?

No, the camera phone isn't equipped with a flash. Yes, the picture was taken at night.

Can you tell what you're looking at there? That would be my back left tire, or what's left of it. There was a screw in it (well, it's still there) and somehow this caused the tire to fail catastrophically. Then I drove on it for about a mile, trying to identify the new thump-thump-thump noise in my engine.

WHAT??!? Don't judge - I've never had tire problems before. I have however had really strange engine noises and car shakes!

So the car is at Port Orleans. It turns out I do have a spare, but I don't have a jack or a lug wrench, and Scott's lug wrench doesn't work on foreign cars.

I called the over-priced Disney mechanics, who quoted me a total cost of $86 all-inclusive. Sure, that's a bit much for just one tire, but the other option is to buy a lug wrench, put the spare on, and drive it to Wal Mart for service tomorrow. Given that I work at noon and Scott has a super-late night, we CAN'T car pool tomorrow.

Needless to say, I'm cranky already. It's going to be a loooong day!

Geometrically Speaking...

Scalzi's Monday Photo Shoot: Picture something that shows off something geometrical. Squares, cubes, vectors, right angles, tangents and so on; basically, any picture that shows geometrical forms and shapes in an interesting and obvious way.

OK, so the theme is geometry. Is anyone at all surprised that my photo choice is a close-up of Epcot's Spaceship Earth?


Amazingly enough, I couldn't find another picture of the whole sphere in my archives (but here's one from Photobucket.com for reference - a pretty night shot). But that's ok - because this particular picture shows off many of the triangles that make up the surface. Here's some facts for you about the structure:

• Spaceship Earth is 180 feet high
• It is a geodesic sphere
• 11,324 triangles make up the exterior
• The exterior was designed so that when it rains, no water pours off the sides onto the ground. (All water is "absorbed" through one inch gaps in the facets and is collected in a gutter system - and finally channeled into World Showcase Lagoon.)

And possibly the best news of all, the ride is currently closed for refurbishment, during which time they will remove that eyesore Sorcerer Mickey hand from the outside.

Celebrity Treatment

As I mentioned yesterday, Scott and I went over to The Hotel today for a free portrait session. This is a service they are going to start offering to Hotel guests at the end of the month, so this week they were seeking employee guinea pigs. In exchange for trudging across Hotel grounds for 20 minutes with a photographer-in-training (already knows how to take pictures of course - just learning which places make the best pictures), we received a free photo CD with our pictures.

Our session ended up yielding 21 pictures, and of those pictures, 20 were really good (3 are already in frames). Of those 20, here's a sampling of the images:


(if you can't get this to play, click here)

After our session, we had lunch and despite the bad service (thank you, Javier... and you should thank your employer for that automatic 18% gratuity), we had a really good time. I would definitely say today was a good day. And we have all of those photos to remind us of it!

Behind the Scenes

My poor blog has become quite the victim of neglect in the past month or so. And it's a shame, because there are lots of things in my life that I find fascinating and exciting (or at least worth writing down and remembering) but those things take a lot of time and energy - my blogging time and energy.

Encore, of course, is a huge piece of that. Rehearsals take up 11 1/2 hours a week, not including travel time. It's mentally draining - I'm starting to freak out about all of the music needing to be memorized. We only have 3 choir rehearsals left, then 2 choir/orchestra combo rehearsals (1 of which I probably won't be able to wiggle out of work), then 2 dress rehearsals. And we still have one song we haven't learned yet! Physically, it's also draining. For popcorn movie music, it is some of the most difficult I have ever learned. It's definitely the highest I've ever had to sing.

Work is actually slower in the summer (something about 90-degree weather makes people not want to eat for 3 hours straight... go figure!), but my special project workload has gone up. The Boss has given us the green light to have engineering pull some countertops out of our office built into the wall from when our office was the cash control office and do a little rearranging at the same time. Little Boss and I are really excited about it, even though it's going to require coming in on a day off in jeans and doing lots of manual labor. The goal: a neat and streamlined space that looks more like an office than a supply closet. Dare to dream!

In ScottLand, he's almost able to see the light at the end of the tunnel of those super-late shifts he's been working. It'll be fun to see which newbie gets stuck with those late-night closing shifts. This is good for me as well, because if he's not home, I rarely fall asleep before 2.

In cringe-inducing news: I almost ripped the nail off of my left pinkie toe today. I was sitting cross-legged on the bed, and when I went to straighten out my legs, the nail somehow snagged on the seam of my jeans. It didn't come off. It did, however, bleed. I am going to refrain from posting a picture. You're welcome.

Tomorrow Scott and I are going out to The Hotel for a fabulous portrait session (a new service they're rolling out, free this week for employee guinea pigs) and then to lunch (not free). Perhaps I'll have some pics to show off tomorrow.

1,000 Words

This, as you can tell, is a picture of me. It started out as a picture of me and one of our servers, but I figure I'll keep him anonymous, so he got "the crop."

Anyway, back to the picture of me. This picture totally encapsulates the fish-out-of-water-ness of me and The Restaurant. There I am, messy hair, casual twin-set made even more casual by pushing up the sleeves, crooked name tag, sitting at the table with 3 pieces of crystal stemware, gold-embossed charger plates, and real silver. It's an even better contrast with the server, all dressed in his vest, tie, and tails.

I was wandering around taking pictures of everyone I could today at work for a "super secret project" I'm working on. The Chef let me interrupt his 3:00 meeting to take pictures of all of his minions, and then I busted into the servers' pre-meal meeting and The Boss let me pester everyone there. Anyway, the only reason I ended up having my picture taken at all was because the one server was sitting apart from everyone else and I made the comment, "that's because he wants his picture taken with ME!" So there we are.

Also since I had my camera today, and since we had a proposal in The Restaurant, I got to get a really good picture of our ring-in-the-rose proposal set-up. Our seater sets this up. I'd never actually seen it before tonight (though I describe it an awful lot), and I just thought it was the most beautiful thing ever. We didn't have the guy's ring yet, so we just used mine in the picture.

They send this out to the table under a silver dome so that it looks like just another course... until they lift up the lid and voila!

By the way, the girl said yes. How could she not with a presentation like that?

What Is He Wearing This Time?

Mom asked if I was still going to see Dr. Ponytail. Well, the short answer is yes. The longer answer is "yes, because I would like to go through life showing the inside of my hoo hoo to as few people as possible." Besides, he's really nice. And I love his black scrubs and goofy Converse sneakers.

Well my last office visit was July 3, and the whole office was decked out in red white and blue. And rather than wearing his usual black scrubs, Dr. Ponytail was wearing this ridiculous American flag button-down shirt (like you'd see at a chili cook-off only with the US flag instead of the Texas flag). I mentioned this to Scott, and he asked if the good doctor had flag-pattern Converse to match.

No... not quite...

His Converse sneakers du jour were covered with a $100 bill pattern. I guess the picture of Ben Franklin tied it all together with the holiday?

(I'm sorry for the crappy picture, but this is the ONLY one a google search and a Photobucket search turned up.)

Short & Sweet

Scalzi's Weekend Assignment: Share a joke. Make it funny.

Why does the Little Mermaid wear sea shells?

Because "B" shells are to small!

Yes, I know, that one works better when spoken. But it really is one of my favorite jokes. Anyone else have a short joke? Leave it in the comments.

Fireworks and Other Randomness

So I learned some things last night about my workplace:

1) The second floor gift shop (home of the "cheap" $5 batteries) is an excellent place to watch fireworks from. Of course, I was only in said shop at fireworks time because I was leaving work early to beat the firework crowd out of the area so I didn't stop to watch.

2) The lot where I park my car: also an excellent place to watch the show. Plus out there you get the bonus symphony of 18 car alarms going off at once every time a large shell explodes. Nothing says "God Bless America" like an 18-car salute!

3) A lot of people park in very stupid places (along a 6-lane highway? sure... why not?) to watch fireworks. Why not just park in 30 minute parking and go down to the lagoon? Duh!

So I really only caught a couple disjointed seconds of the big fireworks last night. That wasn't such a big deal to me - they're the same every year. Of course, then I pulled into my apartment complex and it was exactly as Scott had warned me ahead of time - like a war zone. There were 4 or 5 different people around the complex shooting fireworks up into the sky (I was under the impression that anything that launches is illegal... but what do I know? I grew up in a state were sparklers were illegal). Our actual street was filled with delightful sulfur-tinged smoke. And Scott kept watching the drunken morons across the street waiting for them to blow up their own truck. It never happened.

Since I worked yesterday, I have a bonus day off today... until 6 when I have to leave for choir. I started today with a little blog-cleaning. I added and removed some of the blogs on my side bar and did some other minor tweaking. Also on my agenda: trip to Wal Mart to buy cat litter. Stat!

What a thrilling life I lead!

My Gynecologist Likes My T-Shirt

...and I'm rather fond of it too!





Yes, that's actually all I had to say. I just thought the title of the entry was worth actually taking a picture to go along with it!

Elvis Has Left the Kitchen

Does anybody know what today is? That's right, it's pot luck day! My plan was to make 2 loaves of banana bread to bring to work, but then Scott made a puppy dog face, so I got enough bananas for three loaves.

Last night on my way home, I stopped at Wal Mart for a secret ingredient. That trip was mercifully quick. Thank God for self check-out! No waiting if you're willing to "beep your own."

I got home, changed into shorts, pulled my hair back, and commenced the baking process. Three batches worth. That's 6 cups of flour, 6 eggs, 9 bananas, and some other stuff. Also, because I wanted to make sure everything was even, I used 3 bowls to keep the batches separate. Please don't judge - this made sense to me.

By the time Scott got home, the three loaves were in the oven. Two had the secret ingredient and one didn't. And all of my dishes were in the sink. Whosagoodgirl???

Well, something went wonky with my bread. One, despite the Clean Toothpick Seal of Doneness, was clearly not. I left it in for another 10 minutes, but was concerned that the cheap disposable loaf pans might cause the bottoms to burn. It turns out the only real problem with the disposable pans is that there are two in the pack and it turns out you should use them together as one because they're flimsy and don't support a full load of batter. Both pans buckled/bulged in weird places.

So that one with the clean toothpick? I waited 15 minutes after they came out of the oven, turned that one out onto a plate, and cut into it. And it thought it was a lava cake! Ooze! Damnit!

I'm fairly sure that the center of the loaf in the other cheap pan is also not done (note the dent in the top). I figure I'll slice up both of those and put them in a container to take to work - that way I can trim out the un-done parts.

So what was the secret ingredient? Peanut butter chips! I have to say, the chips elevate the bread to a whole new place. Really, ask Scott. It's fabulous. The bread is so much richer, and is definitely more suited for dessert than for breakfast. Not that I didn't have any for breakfast... but I probably shouldn't have.

Next project: figure out how to incorporate bananas into peanut butter cookies. But for today, I feast!