Grape Did It

Morning routines always take a little while, especially when one of your dogs rolled in something dead the day before

Yesterday evening:

"Sniff! Sniff, sniff! I smell..."

"Butt?!"

"No, but something...something...you know, in that gross arena of smells,"

We had no idea what is was. We went on our merry way of me practicing riding the bike while Bud called out over and over, "USE BOTH BRAKES! USE THE FOOT BRAKE!" and I muttered rude things under my breath.

And so this morning when I went to snuggle Copper, that impossibly cute dog who's tail is wagging when he thinks maybe, is she? starting to get up? I had no idea what my hand was about to meet.

"What is this crust around your neck, Copper?"

But, you know, it could've been he nibbled a dropped brownie chunk from the ground and, somehow? Please God somehow, it was dried sugar?

I wet a paper towel and started scrubbing at his neck which only, and how should I say this? REFRESHED the smell. By the time I noticed the paper towel was turning yellow I was gagging and dragging him into the bathroom.

The best part is that he slept all night in THIS house with CRUSTY FUNK on his neck.

Give me something that would be expensive otherwise

Yesterday I drove to the coffee shop to catch up on email and see if I couldn't hop myself up just a LITTLE more on caffeine. It worked. But also by an hour into my visit I was experiencing visions of food, anything, anything to fill this caffeinated, but empty, belly.

So, what would you do? No, wait, let me rephrase. What would you do if you lived near a WHOLE FOODS and this happened? If the coffee shop in question put you CLOSER to the Whole Foods already dangerously near your apartment? I think you see where I'm going with with: FREE SAMPLES! I also needed some, uh, asparagus. It's healthy. Very, very healthy. Dinner would not have been complete last night without it.

I drove over, parked far away because see above comment about healthiness and also because I cannot swing those heavy truck doors without inevitably dinging someone's car and then I have to make that ethical decision of, do I leave a note? Or just lick my finger and rub the spot really hard?

So now I park in practically another state which is my way of saying I LOVE YOU OTHER WHOLE FOOD PATRONS, THANK ME LATER. Or whatever, I might not LOVE them all, what with their, Well the door wouldn't be so heavy if you bought a Prius like me-attitudes, but generally.

And here everybody, is the reason you had to read five paragraphs down. Five paragraphs about coffee shops and parking lots. THEY WERE OUT OF SAMPLES. I mean, well, they had the French bread olive oil tasting center, with plenty of bread bits but really, I come for the cheese.

Tweet update

If you'll look to your right, you will discover my new tweeting portion to GDI. It will allow me to blog short sentences from my phone, or other computers, or whatever, without the time involved for an entire post. I realize the tweets up now are lame but I am three cups of coffee in this morning and was just so! excited! to get something technological figured out! Can you blame me?

I still don't entirely understand Twitter, and tweeting, and QUIT USING WORDS THAT BEGIN WITH TW. But we can all learn together! I think there is a way to sign up for my tweets - on your phone or by email. Let me know if you find out more than I know. Because that is not only entirely possible but extremely likely.

Mount up

Friday night did end up being all that I had hoped it would be and more, if you count the fact that I danced on a nearly empty dance floor and every time the waiter walked by, I'd be all, sure, why not, bring another. The band kind of sucked, kept playing hip hop songs in the style of ultra-slow jams and we'd look at each other and say, wait, are they playing Warren G, Regulators? That slow? I don't know, artistic license and all, but that is only succeeding in giving me the creeps.

It was a cleeeearr bllacck niggght? Ok, now you're just scaring me. Put those guitars down and we'll forget you ever covered that song that way. BECAUSE THAT IS A CRIME.

I'm not sure what all the other patrons thought of the girl who kept walking up to the dance floor with her friend and then flailing her arms around. Kind of like, hey! I am finished with the billing job from hell! Holla, wave your hands in the air! Or not, ok, not. Just go ahead and inch farther away from me, because I'm going to be here a while. This beer has ensured that I DO NOT FEEL STUPID. Just watch me get my swerve on.

All of this meant that Saturday morning when we drove miles and miles to get somewhere, I was so very aware of those miles because nearly the entire time I was holding onto the sides of the door, delicately placing saltines in my mouth to stop the world from moving so fast. Are you going the speed limit? Because it feels like you are going about twice the speed limit. Could you slow down so I can  place myself under the wheels of this very large truck? Because it JUST MIGHT MAKE ME FEEL BETTER.

After a long night of imbibing

"The world is moving a little too fast for me this morning."

Friday at Five: Margarita

Inspired by the talk about tequila (for breakfast!) and something about being skinny (though PRETTY SURE this one isn't it), I mixed up margaritas last night. These are not your ordinary Mexican restaurant fare.

I found this recipe in a book years ago, a book I think was called, shoot I may need to run to the bookshelf and find it now. Ok, here it is: The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love and yes, mom, that punctuation is correct because I am right now looking at the cover. And now I am really wanting to re-read this book. I would recommend it highly to those of you who have not read it already. The author, Jill Connor Browne, was a blogger before there were blogs. It is one of those books where you actually laugh out loud and don't just think, well, you know, I'm thinking of laughing. If I were in a better mood, I probably would have.

Wow, ok, this was not intended to be a book review. Here is the unconventional, and at first you might not love it but then it will grow on you like a wart, margarita recipe:

1 can limeade (obviously if you are not making a huge amount you can make the ratios smaller)
7-up to taste - for an entire can of limeade you would probably use a half liter
Lots of tequila
1 Corona

I know, sounds weird, right? Why the Corona? I don't know, but THEY ARE WORTH IT.

In college I would mix up a batch of these and then haul them to the river in a sun tea container, so you could use it like the Magic Spigot that pours out drinks and good God thinking about those days is giving me a hard lump in my chest, not unlike feeling sad or nostalgic.

This is a short one, I know, but I don't want to be late on my last day. Wouldn't want to make a BAD IMPRESSION. Not now, not while I'm SO CLOSE to making a good one.

PS - STIR, do not blend, these ingredients together. And even then don't stir fast. Bud said my face went all weird as I just watched the drink overflow out of the pitcher, until he finally yelled, DON'T JUST STAND THERE, GRAB A TOWEL. The foam, as it spurts faster and faster over the rim, it is so pretty.

I don't know, might go to Cancun and audition for Girls Gone Wild

Yesterday it actually got hot here. Not warm, warm, but hot. And so when Bud came home and asked where his greeting committee was - generally the dogs rush for him, eager to see who can dart a tongue in his mouth first - I answered that we were all too hot to run to him. Also could you fetch us some popsicles? And yes, that is exactly why I'm not wearing any pants.

I am having a case of delayed spring fever and I think that is because I know I will be free after Friday, at least for a short time, and I also know I've promised not to write about THAT on here anymore. So I'm not. But you know what THAT is. And it is going to be over, and I will feel like a kid who is reinforcing her name in pencil on the desk because it's Friday and it's hot out and that DAMNED CLOCK WON'T MOVE.

Even THAT has become lighter somehow, those stacks of...papers...no longer worry me like they did because they will become someone else's problem come Monday and I'm thinking maybe life in general should be like a temporary THAT. Stressful and hard sometimes but then like SPRING BREAK when it's over.

The LAST ONE, I promise

I found out today that Friday will be my last official day with the lead company I have so lovingly given my time these past two months. Let me say, equally lovingly, COULD NOT BE SOON ENOUGH. I know the past few weeks you have mostly heard complaining from me, on here, this website that you come to perhaps out of boredom, perhaps to check and see if there are any pictures of my, let's face it, incredibly hot husband, but all you've heard is bitch, bitch, bitch. I don't know what to say except for thanks for listening and it will be over soon.

Friday afternoon, if all goes according to plan, you may find me at a variety of bars in this city. Doesn't matter the name, doesn't really matter how good the drinks are, I just hope to be self-medicating heavily, in the name of a boss who said something today like, MAN I NEED A VACATION. This, people? Comes after a three day weekend and JIBBER JABBING ALL DAY. YOU NEED A VACATION FROM TALKING? A VACATION FROM TALKING RUDELY ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO WORK MUCH, MUCH HARDER THAN YOU DO? Here, let me fix that. I know I saw duct tape around here somewhere.

So, you know, raise a glass wherever you are Friday. We'll call it "Duct Tape Bosses Day". And only we'll know what it means as we giggle into our drinks.

PLEASE BEWARE!!!!

Yesterday at work I did something I have been meaning to do for a long time. Wait, let me back up and begin with this comment. I have always been...charmed? horrified? amused? shoot, I can't pin the emotion perfectly, but I do think I'm safe in using the word ENTERTAINED, by office notes. When I say office notes, I mean the kind that I found above the sink in my first job out of school. Someone had designed a "Friendly Note", complete with a clipped picture of a fairy, that read something along the lines of, "THE DISH WASHING FAIRY WILL NOT CLEAN UP THESE DISHES. PLEASE WASH AND REMOVE OR THEY WILL BE THROWN AWAY AT THE END OF THE MONTH!!!"

Since these notes go out to NO ONE IN PARTICULAR (except you Tony, you rat, I SAW you leave a dish last week! And it's still there!) the sentences are always chock full of "someone's" and "those of you(s)" and other passive grammar. And exclamation points. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH, SOMEONE IS LEAVING THE COPIER ON AT NIGHT!!! You'd think each of these notes hinges on a problem that is in actuality leaving the world a crappier, much harder place to live in and if the perpetrators would ONLY STOP, we might have, say, world peace or something. Or at least Barbara could get some sleep at night, instead of lying awake wondering who keeps removing the scissors from the lunch room when she CLEARLY taped a note to them that read, "LUNCH ROOM SCISSORS" Why? Why would someone ignore that?

And so I snuck into the girl's bathroom yesterday (here is a moment I am happy for my teeny little camera) and snapped a picture of this sign. This sign that should really have you thinking today.

Have YOU been leaving urine on the seat?

And while I appreciate the four exclamation points and the bit about "showing respect," my HANDS DOWN FAVORITE PART, the part that just makes me feel all tingly inside EACH TIME I use the bathroom, is the request to, "PLEASE BEWARE". Beware? Beware that if I DO leave urine on the seat I'll? Have my office coffee privileges removed?

And for added emphasis, on top of the emphasis already being emphasized!!!! there are not one, but TWO of these warnings. One as you first walk in, and one above the toilet itself.

Just in case you were TEMPTED TO IGNORE THE SIGN THE FIRST TIME.

The kind of conversation that I find REALLY annoying

"Well, you know, this generation, the one growing up now, they don't know how to spell,"

"Of course they don't! They have spell check! We didn't have spell check! Shoot - we had to KNOW how to spell!"

"Yeah, I know. I told my son that. I said, listen, when I was growing up, there was NO SUCH THING as a word processor. Certainly no such thing as THE INTERNET! They can find anything on there! We had to actually look things UP! in AN ENCYCLOPEDIA!"

"I don't even think my kids know what an Encyclopedia is!"

"They hardly know what a library is anymore!"

Which is about the time I sharpen a GOOD OLD FASHIONED PENCIL and jam it straight into my ear.