whales and other wildlife

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Our trip to San Juan Island was great. I’ve been having problems with my blog all day, but I finally got the pictures online. That might tell the story better than I can at this point. But to sum up: we saw a couple of bald eagles, many whales (I guess if you find one, you’ll probably find the whole pod, which is like 25-30 whales, and I think we saw at least two pods), we met a very friendly camel named Mona, and I personally encountered about 10,000 mosquitoes. The bed & breakfast where we stayed was very cool, but Dave and I were both happy to get home and sleep in our own bed last night.

And um… There’s other stuff to say, but I’m too tired and can’t think of whatever it was that I was going to say, so I’m just going to wrap this up. Go look at the pictures. Enjoy. The end.

vacation, all I ever wanted

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Somehow I forgot to mention that Dave and I are going on vacation tomorrow. I don’t know how I’ve managed to not blog about it, because I’m really excited about this trip. Our honeymoon, in which we were planning to spend 2 weeks in the UK, keeps getting postponed because, um, well, we’re broke. Originally we were going to go in June. Then we said maybe in the fall. Now we’re kicking around the idea of going for our one-year anniversary, because it just might take us that long to finish paying for the wedding. So it has been decided that we should take a little mini-honeymoon in the meantime, which won’t cause nearly the same amount of financial stress.

So, tomorrow we’re going to the San Juan Islands, which is a 2-hour drive and another hour-ish ferry ride away from here. It’s kind of amazing that for a place so close, they have totally different weather – the highs this weekend are going to be in the upper 60’s – as opposed to being in the 80’s around here (believe me, in the land of no air-conditioning, that is a WORLD of difference). I found a really cool Japanese-themed bed-and-breakfast where we’re going to stay. I have a feeling that I’m going to fall in love with the bathroom, since they mention on their web site that they have a “two-headed pulsating shower” and an “oversized two-person air massage tub” which supposedly fills from the ceiling. I may never leave.

I’ve also booked us a trip on a whale-watching tour on Saturday morning, which I’m really excited about because, orcas! In nature! How cool is that? Y’all may remember that we were actually going to do this last year when Kris came to visit, but it ended up not happening. I think it had something to do with staying out too late drinking, plus we were trying to make a day trip out of it, and 3 hours each way meant that we had to get up at 6 a.m. or something, and well, no. But no matter. I’m going to see whales this time! And I’m really excited about it!! Can’t you tell how excited I am by all of my exclamation points?!

So yeah. Vacation. Woo! Hope everyone has a good weekend. I’ll report back on Monday, with photos.

the spider bite and other afflictions

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The scene: last night, in bed. (Sorry to disappoint, but it’s not that kind of story.) I’ve been kind of sick for the past couple of days, so I was exhausted and fell asleep around 9:00. Dave was in bed too, using his laptop. He might’ve been working, he might’ve been playing a game – honestly, I was too tired to either notice or care. Around 10:45, I woke myself up because I was frantically scratching my foot. I started scratching it in my sleep, apparently. When I woke up, I realized that there was a bump on my foot. I told Dave that something bit me. He turned the bedside lamp on, and we shook out the bedspread and inspected the sheets. Nothing. I went to the bathroom to more closely inspect my foot. Indeed there was most definitely a bite mark of some kind there, on the side of my left foot, near my pinky toe. I got out the cortisone cream, sat on the bathroom floor, and started to put it on my foot, when I noticed a spot on the sole of my other foot (the right one, for those of you keeping track). Upon inspection, the spot on the bottom of my right foot turned out to be a very dead, very smooshed spider. Jesus God, that was gross. I washed both of my feet with antibacterial soap, applied the cortisone cream to the bite mark, and put some damn socks on (even though it was hot) before I went back to bed. I then proceeded to have nightmares about giant spiders all night. Fan-freakin’-tastic.

As for me being sort of sick for the past couple of days, I’m not sure what’s up with that, but I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon. Basically, I’ve had a headache nearly every day for the past 2 or 3 weeks (which I figured was probably just a sinus/allergy thing), and then for the past couple of days, my armpits have been really tender and sore. I know there are lymph nodes there, so I’m guessing that what with the headaches I’ve been having, it’s just some kind of sinus infection gone awry, which is why I made a doctor’s appointment. But let me tell you, it’s never a good idea to do a google search for “symptom headache and armpit pain,” because the only sites you’ll find will convince you that you have a brain tumor, or lymphoma, or breast cancer, or some other horrible affliction. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case here, and I’m trying not to be paranoid, which is why I’m going to the doctor.

Off-topic funny links: I love this complaint letter, which was apparently actually sent to the airline in question. (The diagrams really make it, no? Thanks to Flea at One Good Thing for the link.) And the English-to-Chinese-to-English translation of Revenge of the Sith is still making me laugh.

cooking meat in the backyard

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We bought a grill on Saturday. Or rather, Dave bought a grill while I was at home frantically cleaning the house in preparation for that evening’s cookout. It was fun, too. Although we perhaps bought a tad too much food for only 5 people (burgers, hot dogs and chicken – both white and dark meat), and we’re still working through the leftovers two days later. But hey, it’s a grill! On our pretty deck! And now we can have people over for cookouts whenever we want! And I don’t have to do any work because grilling is considered a “manly” thing! Yay!

It’s also been really hot here lately. It’s nothing by my home state’s standards; I realize that it’s in the mid-90’s in Mississippi right now, and they consider that to be cool for this time of year. In fact, I was talking to Kris the other day and when I complained about the heat, she informed that the heat index in Memphis was around 110 degrees, so I should just shut the hell up. But the primary difference is that everywhere in the south is air-conditioned, and no homes here have central A/C, so when it gets over 80 degrees, it starts to get really uncomfortable. Lately, Dave and I have been camping out in our bedroom with the White Trash Window Unit A/C most of the time that we’re home. I found out recently that our house has all of the ductwork and vents for central air, we’d just need to buy the compressor, which is not as insanely expensive as I originally thought. It’ll probably be next year before we can afford it, but still, we are SO going to be getting set up with that before next summer. I don’t like being restricted to one room in our house, and I’m tired of my sinuses freaking out because when we have all of the windows open, it aggravates my allergies. So, central air? Heck yeah. Bring it on.

I am an idiot

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So, I have a new boss at work – and for the record, this has absolutely nothing to do with that person I was complaining about last week – my old boss was a nice enough guy, and the new boss seems cool too. But, I have already made one HUGE mistake with my new boss. During our first meeting with each other, he was asking me how I got from a journalism degree into the IT field and then into this sort of IT/writing mix that I’m doing now. I mentioned how I really enjoy writing, but I sort of kept it just as a hobby for a few years, and that I’m glad to get back into it professionally. He asked me what type of stuff I write for fun, and I apparently lost my damn mind for a minute, because I just blurted out, “Oh, I have a blog.” I have no idea what the hell I was thinking.

Now, if he googles my married name, he’ll probably never find this website because there’s like 63 bajillion people in the world with my new last name. But if he happens to know my maiden name (which he might, I don’t know) and looks me up that way… um, hi! This site is the first thing that google brings up when you look for my old name. I mean, I suppose it’s fine if he reads this because I generally stick to that “don’t blog about work” policy, particularly since I started this job (I know I whined about my old job a LOT here), so it’s probably not that big a deal. And it’s not like I write anything too terribly graphic or personal here, either. Even the language stays relatively PG-13. So I’m probably overreacting by worrying about it. I just can’t believe that I admitted to having a blog so carelessly.

Oh, and I got my first bit of comment spam today! I feel so special. I deleted it, but I debated keeping it around just to make me feel important. Ha. Nerdy much?

I just don't get it

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Ok, I’m probably going to get bashed for this, but seriously y’all, the Harry Potter thing? Why?? I’m reading on so many people’s blogs that they’re reading (and loving) this book, and I just don’t understand it. The people I know who are into these books are all intelligent and well-read, and I have the utmost respect for their opinions on literature 99% of the time. (Case in point: Angie, I just bought “My Sister’s Keeper” by Jodi Picoult based on your description of it. And I often check out Sally’s recommendations, too.) But I don’t get why anyone over the age of 14 would want to read a children’s book. Yes yes, everyone says they’re fantastic, and I admit that I have never attempted to read one to see if it held my interest, so perhaps I’m just totally talking out of my ass here. I did watch the first movie, and I thought it was just ok. Cool special effects, but it didn’t do that much for me. Granted, I was on a really awkward date at the time, with a guy who kept trying to run his hand up my leg, and I kept trying to either push his hand down closer to my knee, or remove it from touching me altogether, so I was a bit distracted during my viewing of the film. But why am I, as a 29 year-old American female, supposed to care about a pre-pubescent English boy who wants to learn how to cast spells and be a wizard (or whatever the hell it is he’s learning at that school)? Can anyone explain this to me? The overwhelming crazed popularity of those books makes no sense to me at all.

However, I am crazily looking forward to John Irving’s new book, “Until I Find You.” There was a great interview with him in last week’s Entertainment Weekly (the one with Ewan McGregor & Scarlett Johansen on the cover; you can see the beginning of the article here, but you have to subscribe to read the whole thing), and I am so-so-SO psyched for that book. I have 4 books in my to-read stack at the moment, but they may all get postponed for Mr. Irving.

pro wedding photos

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We got our professional wedding photos last week, and I had quite a time getting them online. We opted not to spend however-much-extra to get all of the photos on a CD-ROM, which in retrospect we probably should have done. First, I scanned about 120 photos, and then I realized after the fact that the scanner glass was smudged, so well over half of the photos (any of the ones that had a lot of black in them – so basically, all of them with Dave and the other guys in tuxes) looked crappy, like someone had taken them through a window. Then we tried using the attachment that scans the negatives (yes, we have a very fancy, hifalutin scanner), but it took forever to scan them and they all turned out grainy. THEN, on Sunday, I realized that the scanner has a paper feeder attachment that allows you to quickly scan entire batches of photos. Um, DUH! So I got a ton of them scanned, and they’re all now posted in our online wedding album. They’re the photos numbered 3 through 144. Enjoy!