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Still Here Visiting

August 13, 2006 By

I’m still at my mom’s house trying to figure out how I’m gonna get to spend time with everyone before I leave and of course eat all the awesome food that I can’t get back in Vegas. The food might have to wait, unless I want to gain 20lbs on this trip, and to my friends and family, if I can’t get to you all, don’t worry, there will be a next time.

Yesterday we had the party for the kids, which was pretty good. Bubba and Messy J liked the stuff they got, and we watched Benchwarmers after everyone left. It was funnier than I thought it would be.

This morning Boo woke me up early and of course my mom said I should have just left him there, but I was sleeping in the same room and I can’t sleep with him looking over at me and laughing. So I got him up, changed his diaper and put his slippers on. Then we went over to see if Bubba was awake yet, which Boo had to test by sticking his fingers up Bubba’s nose. Bubba wasn’t awake, so we went downstairs and had some juice. Boo watched age appropriate television while I read the Sunday paper – only the good parts, of course. Then I got ready for church, and since my mom suddenly decided to go, we had to wait for her, which meant that we were late because my mom is never on time. My uncle said he has never been on time going to church with my mom. So we were late, but we made it so I got most of the important parts of the service, then got to catch up with my old Pastor and some old friends at church. Mom had to take the scenic route home (what she calls a “shortcut” but it involves more twists and turns than the shortest, most direct route).

After church I headed out to visit with my friend Officer Friend. Haven’t seen him in a year, so that was nice. We’ve known each other for 14 years now, way too long. He’s got a 2 year old! His kid is so big, and really really cute too. He also has Dad’s receding hairline. Mommy stayed with the kid and Officer Friend and I went to Vinnie T’s for some awesome fettuccine alfredo. We called my mom and teased her about it, but I brought her some leftovers. And the garlic and bread – mmmmmmm! A whole head of soft, sweet roasted garlic that can be spread on fresh focaccia bread. Oh the love. After we stuffed ourselves silly on ‘fredo, we checked out the mall, which Officer Friend criticized up and down. He used to be maintenance director there, and since he left things are so not up to his standards. We shopped a little bit, and I found some paintballs in the sports store that were on sale so I picked those up for Bubba, since he’s really into paintballing. After the shopping we went to the movies and saw World Trade Center. I thought it was done really well, just a very human story that focused on the confusion of that day and the hope that everyone had coping with the unknown. After we left the mall I got to drive Officer Friend’s new Outback that is definitely not standard issue. He’s got it so tricked out, I got it up to 90 on the highway without any effort at all, and you can barely feel it. My little car, on the other hand, starts to cry when I get it up that high. After that I got into the Mustang that Dad let me drive during my visit and took a bit of a scenic route back to my mom’s, checking out all the changes along the way.

So now I’m back, Bubba really liked his paintballs, Messy J is just about to go to bed, Boo is in bed already, and Mom and Sis are watching Blue Collar Comedy. I’m not really feeling like that sort of thing right now, so I’ll probably hang out down here by the computer for a little while longer then go to bed. I think I’m finally on Eastern Time, thanks to Boo getting me up at 6:15 this morning.

Tomorrow I’m taking Bubba to see the Ballad of Ricky Bobby, then going out with Belching Biker Babe in the evening sometime. Tuesday I don’t have plans yet for during the day, but I am going to visit a very good friend that I kinda lost touch with over the years. We talked for about an hour last night, which was really nice. We were really close friends in high school and college, then life happened and we fell out of touch. But my mom ran into her one day and gave her my email address, and we have been slowly catching up since then. She got a blog, so keeping up was easier, then I got a blog, and thanks to the internet we’re getting back there. So Tuesday night will be dinner to catch up, meet her husband and of course her handsome little man, whom I’ve seen so many pictures of on her blog. I can’t wait. Then Wednesday I’ll head home, without any liquids or gels in my carryon bag. That ought to be interesting – I just hope I can get my chapstick on board.

Filed Under: Family, Food, Friends

Refunds and Ice Cream

August 1, 2006 By

Wow, 4 posts in one day. I am addicted!

I found the receipts and tags I was looking for, so I decided to run right out and get those returns done, since my schedule the rest of this week really is crazy. So here’s a rundown:

$2.14 gained at the crap store
$14 gained at the souvenir store. This return brings my vacation fund up to $270.91.

Then I had to get some ice cream, since I was so seriously craving some. I stopped at the grocery store and found my 2 favorite guys, Ben and Jerry, on sale at 2/$5. So I picked up 2 pints and went to the self checkout, scanned my store card and the ice cream when suddenly one of those coupons popped out of the printer. It was for 75 cents off 2 pints of B&J’s, so I ripped it off the printer and scanned it. Score! I paid $4.25 for 2 pints of ice cream. Joy!

Filed Under: Blogaholic, Food

Never Grocery Shop With PMS

June 12, 2006 By

I have no further comment regarding the title of my post.

When I got home from the office tonight, there was a note taped to my door from management. It reads:

Dear Resident,
In an effort to improve our community we will be power washing and repairing stucco on the buildings to prepare them for painting. This will start tomorrow June 13 and continue until the work is completed. Please remove everything from your patios and balconies and keep them empty until we are completed. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
Sincerely,
Resident Administrator

Dear Management Office of My Apartment,
Since I have no patio or balcony, just like the rest of the apartments in my building, I will kindly disregard your note. However, I will be sure to remove the welcome mat from the carpeted 2nd floor landing that I enter my apartment from, just in case you want to pressure wash that. I’ll also be sure to keep my windows closed until you are finished with this. Although you failed to mention the effect that pressure washers have on open windows, I am well aware of the consequences, which thanks to your oversight, many of my neighbors will find out about the hard way. Thank you for your irrelevant advance notice of upcoming cleaning of my non-existent patio/balcony.
Sincerely,
Apartment ###

Now, for the rest of my to-do list. Besides the few things I still have to get to increase the functionality of my apartment (like a lamp for my computer area so I can see my keyboard), there are many things I need to do to minimize stubbed toes and make it look a bit more inviting. So, here goes.

*Finish contacting people about my change of address
*File stuff and finish organizing desk area, since it’s all unpacked
*Get out the instruction book and attempt to figure out my stereo
*Failing that, get a friend over here who knows about stereo stuff
*Properly make my bed so I don’t have my comforter and blankets on the floor
*Organize closet since I haphazardly hung everything when I moved in
*Keep up with cleaning and chores
*Start unpacking my decorations and figure out where they will go, then put them there
*Continue to purge unnecessary items
*Email Helen at church and tell her that when she changed my address, she added me to the mail merge twice, so now I get 2 newsletters
*Go thru my inbox, print/save what I want to keep and delete the rest
*Call cable company when they are open and tell them again to add my email address to my new account. It’s only my spam email address, but still!
*Go through my favorites/bookmarks and clean those up
*Re-learn meal planning so I can better plan and budget for meals so I don’t have to rely on so many hastily purchased crap food meals (and PMS related junk food binges)

Is that all? I hardly think so, the list seems awfully short for everything I feel like I need to do, but then again with the hours I work (nearly 60/wk) I guess it IS a huge list. I’m starting to feel like my end-of-summer goal date for being settled, with the above-mentioned hominess, is a bit ambitious.

I’m really looking forward to my visit back to New England in just under 2 months. My mom will be holding a birthday party for Bubba and Messy J, since my visit will be right in between their birthdays. I can’t wait to see them. Bubba, being the pre-teen that he is, is online a lot but can’t quite hold a conversation with his Aunty, since his typing skills are similar to that of many people his age. You know what I’m talking about – the kind of internet-speak that leaves literate adults like myself saying, “WTF? R u stupid or wat?” Messy J, on the other hand, is more interested in the physical world around her and is still a bit too young to grasp the virtual world, and therefore talk to her Aunty. I give that one a few more years before I start getting incessant messages from her in the same kid internet language I don’t understand. Being a girl, I’m sure I’ll get many more messages from her than I do from Bubba.

My mom is looking forward to that favorite New England pastime, antiquing. Seems every time I come to visit there’s an antique shop or fair she wants to visit. Now that I’ve been away for awhile and and starting to suffer the effects of too many big box stores and not enough old anything (and no, old people in the line at the buffet don’t count), this time I’m actually looking forward to it. But even though the town she has in mind is rather small and isolated, I fear it will take about 3 times as long as I want it to, so I should try not to make any plans for that day. I also have friends to visit and food to eat.

Oh yes, food. I mentioned in a previous post that one never things about being able to find their favorite foods when they move to another part of the country, and it’s one thing I’m looking forward to when I go home. Cheap lobster. Top-split hot dog buns (there, I said it – I’m from Massachusetts!). Good Italian food. Mom’s cooking. Dunkin Donuts and Au Bon Pain. Farm stands. Roast Beef Sandwiches. Newbury Comics. Oh wait, that last one isn’t food! But I still need to stop in for a wicked good time and cheap CDs that are hard to find at the big box stores. And yes, I wear my Toothface T-shirt proudly!

Ok, now that it’s getting late and I still haven’t relaxed yet today, I should probably do that so I can get a halfway decent amount of sleep. I have to work both jobs tomorrow, and apparently a higher up manager will be in the store tomorrow so I’ll need to be prepared – dressed 100% according to dress code, perky and ready to sell sell sell! Joy.

Filed Under: Family, Food, Shopping

My Thursday

May 18, 2006 By

Ok, so first of all, I’m feeling a lot better. After I posted the last time about not feeling well, I woke up in the middle of the night with intense pain on my right side, and since it woke me up and made me cry, I decided to visit the Urgent Care facility. Luckily it was a slow night so I got a lot of attention. The doctor at first thought it was my gallbladder, which had me more upset than anything, because I don’t need any more issues. I already have acid reflux that developed last year, I don’t need gallstones on top of it. So 3 1/2 hours and many tests later, it turns out that everything looks normal, I was given some pain meds and sent home. I went into the office late, called in at the store, and was mostly annoyed because this is appearing to be nothing. Yesterday and today I feel back to normal, so I stand by my original theory that it was the heat. Just gotta be careful with my upcoming move.

Last night I was seriously craving ice cream, so I headed down to the local market and lo and behold, I found it. You may remember me complaining in this post about not being able to find my favorite ice cream, Edy’s Cherry Chocolate Chip. Well, Edy’s has it in their regular ice cream formula, but Dreyer’s, the west coast version of Edy’s (why do they name things different like that?) has it in the Slow Churned Light formula. Not the original, but it certainly gets the job done. Now I just have to keep from bankrupting myself by purchasing it, and keep from getting really fat eating it.

Today was a really fun day at work. We closed up shop early and went to The Drive, which is a really cool track here in town where you can drive off-road vehicles or performance vehicles. It’s sponsored by GM, so it’s only their cars, but boy was that fun. I was a passenger with my co-workers before I decided to try my hand at the very scary off-road track in a Hummer H2. I seriously thought we were gonna tip over, and going up that hill and seeing nothing but sky was freaky, but the beast handled well and there are professional performance drivers in the car with you to talk you through it. Then I was feeling the need – the need for speed – so I got behind the wheel of a 2006 Corvette. I didn’t go nearly as fast as I wanted to, only because they have a really weenie performance course. I drive faster than that in parking lots! (If you’re a cop reading this, I don’t really.) What I’d really love is to take that Vette up to the Speedway and redline it. That would be a serious adrenaline rush!

The waters are going down at Dad’s garage, he’s retrieved the cars from their hiding places around town, and business is starting to trickle back in. He lost the furnace in the cellar, a week’s worth of business and a lot of sleep, but other than that he’s in pretty good shape.

So that’s the news for now. I’ll be keeping busy at the store since I’m the only person there at the moment, besides the 3 members of management, and of course things are busy as always at the office. All that on top of moving. Oh yeah, busy is good.

Filed Under: Food, Health

I Feel Sick

April 13, 2006 By

Well, it’s been well over a year since I’ve been sick, so it was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Last night I started coughing – a deep, shred your throat, chesty cough. Not very productive, but it will be soon. Plus I currently have a low grade temp. I don’t want to be sick, I hate being sick. I get whiney, food doesn’t taste good, I can’t sleep well, I sweat and freeze at the same time. It just sucks big time.

I’ve heard the advice – take Airborne! Take Cold-eeze! Do this, do that. Honestly, as much as I hate being sick, I’d rather just ride it out instead of buying all these remedies and taking everything under the sun. Some comfort food and rest is all I need, and if it gets to a certain point then I’ll see the doc. But hopefully it won’t get to that point.

Ah, comfort food. The ONE thing I can always eat no matter how I feel is Smiles. It’s one of those things that you have to have grown up on, I suppose. My mom makes it all the time, and it grosses my stepdad out. I don’t understand how, this is a man I refer to as a human garbage disposal. Most people clean out the fridge with gloves on and a trash bag in hand. He cleans out the fridge with his ratty bathrobe on and a fork in hand. But he gets grossed out by Smiles. Three simple ingredients, and he likes them all, just not together. Elbow macaroni (that’s where the smile comes from), hot dogs, and condensed tomato soup. Simple. And they taste much better as leftovers than they do fresh, not sure why exactly. I’m gonna have to go shopping on my way home.

I think I’m gonna have to pick up some club soda too. I love water, I drink it all the time. Good thing because I live in the desert. But I can’t stand water when I’m sick. I’ll get some club soda to mix with orange juice. That one’s weird, because when I’m sick I want foods with as little flavor as possible, but for drinks, I can’t stand the most flavorless drink there is. Figure that one out.

So I’m still at work until this one little thing is done, which has nothing to do with how fast I can go, and then I’m out. Hopefully this little chest cold won’t affect my holiday plans at all. I have the day off from job #2, and I wanted to do something other than lay like a slug all day. Time will tell.

Filed Under: Food, Health