So, I’m officially 30 today. I’d like to say something all deep and philosophical for you, but I’m afraid I don’t have nearly enough caffeine in my system yet. Instead, pictures from our little bowling party this past weekend can be found here. Enjoy.
Author Archives: Cindy
I'm going to start commuting via canoe
The weather lately? Sucks big time. I’ve pretty much gotten used to Seattle’s rainy winters during the last 4 1/2 years that I’ve lived here, but lately it is outta control. We’re setting records, and pretty much everywhere around us is in a flood watch or warning state. This morning, the main road that I use to get to work was flooded, so I had to go on a 8-mile detour. It’s worth noting that I only live 11 miles from where I work in the first place. It took me over an hour to get here. Good times. Thank the lord in heaven for my iPod and its FM adapter.
In other news, I have five days left of my twenties. Holy sh*t. I’m trying to let that information sink in, and I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I keep saying the number in my head. Thirty. 30. Three-zero. I know it’s not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it feels really strange to think about it.
And on the subject of my birthday, this weekend we’re having sort of a little party/shindig thang. My friend Linda just turned 30 last Saturday (the 7th), so we decided to combine our parties into one big 30th birthday bash for both of us. We met up last Friday to try to pick a venue. That actually took a lot longer than it should have, but we had a very specific requirements list. My number one requirement: the bar must have vodka. (Translation: a big fat NO on the wine bar Linda picked out, which literally only serves beer & wine. Why bother?) Linda’s main requirements were that it be cheap (which I fully supported) and that there was some activity to do other than sit around a table and drink all night. Oooookay. That last part was the challenge. We thought about pool halls, dance clubs, karaoke, and finally settled on bowling. I know that sounds sort of white trash and sad, but here’s the thing: Saturday night is X-Bowling, which is all dark with neon, blacklights and loud dance music. It’s fun in a cheesy “aren’t we too old for this?” kind of way. Plus they have a few pool tables – and since we all know that I suck at bowling, that will probably be my activity of choice. (For the record, Linda used to be in a bowling league, and owns her own ball & shoes. She’s pretty hardcore. I will not bowl with her, for I know she will kick my ass.) They also have a relatively nice bar, with a good selection, and which is in its own separate room away from the loud music. Oh, and the whole place is smoke-free! Bonus points!
So there you go. I’m sure there will be many drunk photos, just wait & see.
weekend statistics
* Number of items on my home improvement to-do list: 22
* Items that were completed this weekend: 2
* Approximate year that all items on list will be completed: 2018
Task item #1
* Stupid, leaky, stinking, broken garbage disposals removed and thrown out: 1
* Shiny, pretty, new garbage disposals installed: 1
* Number of times I had to ask Dave for help installing the new garbage disposal, thereby ruining my whole “I am Miss Handywoman, hear me roar as I handle all plumbing issues with ease and grace” image of myself: 4 or 5
* Instances of profanity involved in the removal/installation of garbage disposal: well over 100, probably
* Unnecessarily bitchy comments directed at Dave for no reason other than the fact that I was frustrated with the m*&#erf*@$ing disposal: at least 20
* Number of times a stupid garbage disposal reduced me to tears: 1
* Person who actually finished the damn installation of the garbage disposal because after the crying, I was ordered to go upstairs and lie down: Dave
Task item #2
* Broken toilets that were fixed: 1
* Pipe snakes that were thrown away after the toilet was fixed, because ew, that thing just cannot stay in the house: 1
* Person who did the entire toilet-repairing and wouldn’t even allow me in the bathroom because he’d had quite enough of my tears & bitchiness for one day: Dave
To sum up:
* Big whiny crybaby: me
* Rock-star husband of the weekend: Dave
I think he wins. Oh, and even after a shower, my fingernails still smell like plumber’s putty. Gross.
hey, it's my first post of 2006!
New Year’s Eve turned out to be pretty fun. We stayed home so we didn’t have to worry about either of us being designated driver, I cooked us a lovely dinner, we rented a movie (“The 40-Year Old Virgin,” which was surprisingly funnier than I thought it would be), we got silly drunk on cheap champagne, and we watched the midnight countdown on TV. We flipped back and forth between our local “New Year’s at the Needle” and “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve”; speaking of which, did anyone else see that? I guess the stroke Dick Clark had last year really affected his speech patterns, it was very sad. Anyway, midnight rolled around, and we made out ferociously for a while because… well, because we were tipsy, and because we’re married so that’s totally allowed now. Of course we never did anything like that before we were married. Nooooo, never. Yeah. Moving on.
Oh, for those of you were wondering from the last post, I’m not pregnant. I may not write about it immediately if/when I am, but I think I can safely say when I’m not. And I’m soooooo not. Hence the heavy alcohol consumption on New Year’s. Please don’t fear for my as-yet-unconceived children.
Last night, Dave and I went to the gym for the first time in ages. I’m not going to call it a New Year’s resolution because those almost never last longer than a month, and I’m really trying to make this part of our daily routine like it used to be. For me, the hardest part is just getting myself into my workout clothes, out of the house and into the car. Once I’m there, I’m fine. But honestly, I’m just tired of feeling uncomfortable in almost all of my clothes, and I don’t like the fact that I’m winded after I walk up the two flights of stairs to my office. So it’s time to make some changes. I think my sudden motivation probably has more to do with the fact that I’m turning 30 in (gulp!) less than 2 weeks than anything.
And, there’s not much else going on. I was thinking about trying to make a resolution to post every day like Sally is doing, but seriously? I just don’t think that’s possible. Within a week, I’d be reduced to writing things like, “Today I got up, ate breakfast and went to work. Then I came home, Dave and I had dinner, we watched ‘The Daily Show’ and went to bed. The End.” I suppose it could be a great creative writing challenge, but I’m just worried that I would bore y’all to tears. And I’m already paranoid that no one ever reads this as it is. So yeah, I think I’ll just stick with the every-few-days-or-so posting frequency that I’ve been doing all along.
waaah, poor me
I’ve been trying to think of something to write all week. Something funny, something light, something… eh?? But unfortunately, I have been in the absolute foulest of moods for the past several days, and I got nothin’. I think it can be chalked up to a particularly severe case of PMS, or maybe I’m pregnant and don’t know it yet. Actually, I won’t know about that for a couple of days, and it got me thinking about whether or not I’m going to blog about it if/when I do get pregnant. On one hand, my blog is sort of like my journal, and I do write a lot about everyday stuff that’s going on in my head, so it makes sense to write about it since it’ll obviously be taking up a good chunk of my brain space. On the other hand, first pregnancies = higher risk than normal, plus miscarriages run in my family, and I really don’t want to have to write about it if that happens, so… I honestly don’t know what I think about that. I guess I’ll wing it and figure it out if/when it happens.
So to showcase a total lack of creativity, I present to you a list of things that are annoying me this week:
* Every other driver on the road, particularly that stupid red VW EuroVan that I keep seeing that has “WNDRLND” as its personalized license plate. I don’t need any pot-smoking hippies going ten miles per hour in front of me when I’m trying to get to work, thanks. Pull over and take another hit off the bong, why don’t you?
* I have a headache. Also, even though I’ve been sleeping at least 7 or 8 hours every night, I’m still so exhausted during the day that I can barely keep my eyes open. It feels like the tiredness is in my muscles and bones, everything just aches.
* Going through the salad bar at lunch today, I thought I was putting ranch on my salad, and it was actually bleu cheese. Gross.
* The cats got mad that their litter box wasn’t cleaned according to their precise schedule, so they peed on some blankets that we had left on the futon. I don’t know what it’s going to take to get the smell out of the den, but I’m not sure there’s enough pet stain remover and Febreze in the world.
* Speaking of cats, this story made me cry. I’m glad it has a happy ending, because too many of them don’t. But reading articles like that reaffirms my belief that there is a special place in hell reserved for people who abuse animals and children. Oh, speaking of the children part, this one also made me feel like crying, although mostly it makes me want to gather up an army of angry militant feminists and unleash them on Pakistan. Hell, I might even join them.
* Apparently the milk in the company kitchen went sour over the Christmas holidays, and hoo lordy, it stinks in there. The smell is reaching all the way out into the hall and into the ladies room, which is unfortunately located next door to the kitchen. It’s so bad that it makes me cough and my eyes water every time I walk past there. It reminds me of when I was 16 and worked for the summer at a grocery store. (For you Jxn residents, it was the Kroger on County Line.) There was always one of those gallon milk jugs in the case that would leak and cover all of the others with foul, stinky milk. And because I had to pick them up to run them across the scanner, my hands smelled like sour milk for that entire summer. That was long before I discovered that I’m lactose-intolerant, but the experience put me off dairy for at least 2 or 3 years.
* Dave didn’t load the dishwasher the way that I like it. This one obviously points to a case of PMS combined with my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I load it a certain way to allow for the maximum possible number of dishes in there, and he just sort of casually tosses things in wherever they fit. I actually bitched at him for doing it “wrong,” as if it’s an algebra problem instead of a freakin’ dishwasher. Wouldn’t most women just be happy that their husbands were doing the dishes at all and keep their mouths shut? I think so.
* Ok, this one might actually be a legitimate complaint: it looks like my trip to Memphis to drive cross-country with Kris is going to get delayed, because her boss is yanking her along about exactly when her end date is going to be. He originally told her mid-January, now he’s trying to make it the end of January. It sucks, because I booked my plane ticket weeks ago, and we’ll have to pay to change it. Plus, I just want her to hurry up and get here already.
* We have no plans for New Year’s. I suppose it isn’t really that big a deal. I have Dave, so the issue of who I’m going to kiss at midnight is pretty well settled. We were trying to get a group of our friends together to do something – I liked the idea of getting a table at a restaurant so we could all just hang out, talk and have a few cocktails – but we can’t seem to rally a group together. So we’ll probably just go to the little park in our town to watch the fireworks and call it a night. Ho hum.
So… yeah. I’m sorry this is so whiny. Just call me Miss Crankypants. I do hope that all of you have a good New Year’s, though. See you in 2006.
merry christmas
I wrote a long post a few days ago about our plans for the holidays, and never got around to posting it because I thought I’d wait until it seemed more time-appropriate. And as it turns out, our plans? Didn’t so much happen. The top item on my agenda was that we’d go to church on Christmas Eve, even though I haven’t been to church once in the 4 1/2 years that I’ve lived here. I’m not a huge fan of organized religion, and it’s hard to find a church that that jives with my particular brand of laid-back liberal Christianity (read: no hellfire & brimstone). But, I love the Christmas Eve service, and it’s one of the traditions that I have with my family that I thought I would really miss this year. So I did some investigating and found a church: Methodist (of which I am half), in the middle of downtown Seattle, and one of the oldest buildings in the city (very cool). And they mentioned tolerance and acceptance on their website, so I was totally down with that. Then, since we were going to be downtown anyway, after church we were going to walk around and look at the lights, and have our nice little romantic Christmas Eve, just the two of us.
Yeah. How that played out? Early last week, Dave came down with some sort of cold/flu thing, so even if he could’ve stayed conscious for the entire hour-long church service (which was doubtful), he also has this incredibly scary cough that sounds like he’s dying of TB. We figured it wouldn’t have been too cool for us to subject the other church-goers to such horrifying sounds, so we stayed home. No downtown walking/looking at the lights, either. And probably no going to the movie theater today, since he still has the horrible cough. Darn it. I really wanted to see Narnia, too.
What we did do, instead, was have a ridiculously huge meal (some I cooked, and some that came ready-made from the supermarket), the leftovers of which we’ll be eating for the next week. My grandmother would be so proud. Well, she wouldn’t have been proud of the ready-made items, but I used her recipe for stuffing, and it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. Meanwhile, Dave drank enough Bushmill’s that he was not feeling too shabby by dinnertime. (Alcohol kills germs, right?) And we watched the first Lord of the Rings movie. I’ve never seen any of them, so we rented the whole trilogy for the weekend. As for the first one…. hmm, I’m not sure what I thought of it. It was good, I guess, but toward the end I was getting antsy, like, “could we just wrap it up already, please??” Maybe it was all the festive holiday egg nog I drank (and by “festive,” I mean “containing large amounts of bourbon”), or maybe I just don’t have the attention span for 3 hour movies. It’s definitely making me re-think the whole idea of seeing King Kong in the theater.
Anyway, even though my plans got scrapped, and in spite of Dave being sick, it was still a very nice Christmas. I like that we spent our first Christmas as a married couple alone; and particularly in light of how sick Dave is, I’m really glad we didn’t have to fly anywhere. But I talked to everyone in my family last night, and Dave talked to his today, so it’s not like we’re totally disconnected out here. Overall it’s been really cool. Now if we can just figure out what the heck we’re doing for New Year’s…
Hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday weekend!
dream analysis
This morning I had a dream that Dave and I had a baby. Not that unusual, as I’m sure most of you know that I’ve had babies on the brain a lot lately. But in this dream, we had a little girl, who we decided to name Grace. (Honestly, it’s not one of my top ten baby names, although I do think that Gracie is sort of adorable. Reminds me of George Burns and Gracie Allen – I loved watching the reruns of that show when I was little.) Anyway, since I had just given birth and was all caught up in checking out this new baby that I just had, Dave and I asked my mom to fill out the paperwork for us, including the birth certificate.* My mom decided that she didn’t like the name Grace, so she would put it down as her middle name, and give her the first name Joanne. Obviously, my dream self totally flipped out. I remember screaming at my mother that Joanne was a name for a middle-aged chain-smoking divorcee who has crispy bangs and wears frosted eye shadow, not my beautiful little baby.** What’s weird is that my mom is totally not the passive-aggressive type at all, and even if we did pick a baby name that she didn’t like, she’d keep her mouth shut about it. So that was odd. And I was in the middle of the dream when I woke up this morning, so it’s sort of been looping around in my head all day. Moral of the story: yes, my brain is a very strange place. Thanks for noticing.
* I have no idea how birth certificates go about getting filled out, but this seemed totally plausible in dream-land.
** I’m sure there are many young & lovely Joanne’s out there.*** That was just my dream self talking. Honest.
*** Although I did used to work with a Joanne who pretty much fit that exact description, so I’m guessing that’s where it came from.