Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Sunday, December 22, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 24





This weekend I... finally saw "Catching Fire." I saw "The Hunger Games" with my friend, Amanda, so we planned to see this one together too. But Amanda recently had a baby and has been busy keeping it alive, so it was a little tricky for her to find some free time. I know, some people have messed up priorities.


This weekend I... went to Bar La Grassa with the boyfriend for our annual Christmas dinner. Our families live several hundred miles in opposite directions, so we split up for the holidays every year. It's kind of sad, so we make up for it by having a fancy date night before opening presents. 

And speaking of presents, holy mother of God, the boyfriend got me a diamond ring. (Not the diamond ring, just a diamond ring.) It's shiny, and sparkly, and pretty, and I love it. 


This weekend I... started reading "Game of Thrones." The boyfriend read them a while back and I gave him lots of shit for being a nerd. But then there was nothing on tv Saturday morning, and I was desperate, so out of curiosity I grabbed the first volume of the bookshelf. And now I'm hooked. 

It's the worst when you end up liking something you thought you hated.


Tuesday, December 17, 2013

I Never Met a Cookie I Didn't Like


As I mentioned in my last post, I did some drunken baking with my friends this weekend. I used my grandma's recipe for chocolate chip cookies. They've been my favorite since I was a little kid. But originally getting that recipe from her was like prying secrets from a Russian spy.

It's not that my grandma is particularly secretive or anything, she's just really old school. She doesn't use recipes. And since she's been baking those cookies for over fifty years, she doesn't even use measuring cups. Doesn't even have to think about it.

So this is how that conversation went:

Grandma: Then you'll want to add some brown sugar.

Me: How much?

Grandma: Well, not too much.

Me: Oh, okay. So, um, how much?

Then she'd shrug and hold out her hand as rough approximation. Like I'm supposed to write down, "Add 1 Grandma's handful of brown sugar."

It's weird to feel insanely frustrated with your own grandmother. I think that was the only time I ever felt like swearing at my grandma instead of with her.


Sunday, December 15, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 23





This weekend I... did some drunken baking with my sister Amy, and our friends, Jess and Megan. We went to Jess's house intending to spend the day baking Christmas cookies. But that's not exactly how things worked out. 

I got there early, so Jess and I decided to have a champagne bottle's worth mimosas while we waited. Then, when the other girls arrived, we went to the bar to get some dinner (it's a really small town). We were only going to have a drink or two, but then some guy bought us another round. Then someone suggested a round of shots. And then another one.

We did eventually get around to baking our cookies. At midnight. Turns out baking with your friend while you're hammered is hilarious. 


This weekend I... spent several hours recovering from a booze and cookie dough hangover. Once again, Netflix saved the day.


Friday, December 13, 2013

I Want Things


I still make a Christmas list every year for my mom. It's full of practical, reasonably priced things that I will be extremely happy to receive. However, there are a handful of things that I really, really want but I had to leave off the list. Because they are not practical. And they are certainly not reasonably priced. But I still like to look at them and imagine having them.


1.) An aqua Kitchenaid Mixer To be honest, I'm not even a hundred percent sure what you use a mixer for. But I feel like if I had one of these then everything would be perfect, and I would be perfect, and all of my problems would be solved.

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2.) A cashmere hoodie Like this one from J. Crew. I could be fancy and casual at the same time. So it would really be a timesaver, mostly.

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3.) An emerald cut engagement ring I told the boyfriend we don't even have to go through with the wedding. I just want a ring that will make all the other girls jealous.

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4.) A fur-lined coat Winter has been brutal this year and I can't stop thinking about cold weather gear. This one from Burberry looks warm as hell. Classy as hell, too.

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5.) This bookcase Exorbitant price tag aside, the columns in my condo mean I could never feasibly have one. But I don't care. I want it anyway.

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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

You Have to Fight for What You Believe In


I got into a color fight with the boyfriend a few days ago. As in, we had a fight about colors. And it got pretty heated. We almost broke up over the color red.

The boyfriend (and Wikipedia) says that cardinal is its very own shade of red, with no connection to the bird. He thinks that the color and the bird exist completely independent of each other and just happen to share a name.

I disagree. Vehemently. I say cardinal is a color the way eggplant is a color. The name offers a comparison that serves to describe the color. So when you say the name, you picture a cardinal, and then you know exactly what shade of red we're talking about. Obviously. It's so blatantly logical that any argument against it is maddening. Like arguing against science.

Anyway, the shouting eventually devolved into ignoring one another for the rest of the evening. Neither of us is willing to concede the point. We're going to have to put cardinal in the "off limits" category for now. We should probably just avoid any discussions about colors and shapes for the near future. It's still a pretty sensitive topic.

Such is life, I guess. All grown up relationships have their ups and downs.


Monday, December 9, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 22






This weekend I... was freezing! With temperatures hovering around zero for the last few days, I spent most of the weekend wearing wool socks and a winter hat.



This weekend I... had Sunday Funday. My friend Nathan and I decided to bundle up, brave the cold, and get daytime drunk at few bars in my neighborhood.



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This weekend I... finished up my Christmas shopping.

I also got a little something for myself. I was walking through H&M was literally stopped in my tracks by this number.

The boyfriend warned me that people will think I'm going to an ugly sweater party whenever I wear it. He may have a point, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for clothes with animals on them. I now have a deer sweater, a deer t-shirt, a horse sweater, a raccoon tanktop, and a great dane t-shirt. I may dress like a four year old.




Thursday, December 5, 2013

The Day Disaster Struck


Someday I will likely be one of those ladies downtown pushing around a grocery cart full of my things. For the time being, I just carry a whole lot of shit in my purse. I carry so much shit around with me that I used to go through two or three bags a year. They would just wear out and fall apart after a few months.

So a few years ago I decided to get a really nice purse, one that would hold up for a while. I kept my eye on Neiman Marcus, saved up for a couple months, and splurged like a mofo.

Then one morning, like six months later, I was using the purse precisely as intended. I was carrying all my usual junk, plus the stuff I brought to work for the day: a can of pop, a frozen lunch, and a thermos full of chocolate milk.

When I got to the office I set down my bag and settled in. I reached for my breakfast, the chocolate milk in my purse, and was met with a swampy, cold mess. The top of the thermos had popped open somewhere between home and work leaving and inch and a half of sticky ass chocolate milk sloshing around the bottom of my fifteen hundred dollar handbag.

I pulled out all of my dripping wet things (leaving faint stains in the carpet that remain to this day), then went to the bathroom and poured out fourteen ounces of catastrophe. I spent about twenty minutes scrubbing, and rinsing, and fighting back tears. But miraculously, I managed to save my precious baby. By the time I was done, you couldn't even tell that the unthinkable had happened.

A few months later, I set down my purse to dig out my keys and a can of Dr. Pepper exploded inside it.

Despite what people say, I refuse to stop carrying liquids in my bag. I don't think that's the problem. I think the bag cursed by the ghost of a still living Marc Jacobs. But I also refuse to stop carrying the cursed bag because, you know, pretty!


Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Rappy Rirthday (That's supposed to sound like Scooby Doo)


Gordy's fourth birthday was on Sunday. Well, approximately. We just know he was about ten weeks old when we got him. And that was in early February. So we decided his birthday is December first since it's easy to remember.

His actual birth date was not the the only thing the boyfriend and I were totally clueless about that night. (As you may recall, we got him while we were drunk. At a rodeo.) The lady told us he was a blue heeler, but neither of us knew a thing about the breed. We had to Google it when we sobered up and got home.


Puppy's first Google

Every single website we saw stressed that blue heelers are extremely high energy dogs. They said they need to be on farms or ranches and are certainly "not suitable for apartments." The boyfriend and I live in an eight hundred square foot condo in the middle of the city. Which means we accidentally got the worst possible dog for our living situation. Oops.

But it's turned out surprisingly well. I guess I took all of those warnings as a challenge; sort of "like hell we can't." It helped that the boyfriend has a home office. And it really helped that there's a dog park about fifty feet from our building. (Something we barely even noticed when we bought the place.)

Also helpful? Gordy was f-ing adorable, so I was less inclined to drown him in the bathtub when he was acting like a total shit. Which was often. He was a god damned monster as a puppy.


I fell for that look every time.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 21





This weekend I... went home for Thanksgiving, and I mostly just ate and napped the days away. Every time I go home I spend an absurd amount of time sleeping. My mom thinks it's because I feel so comfortable there. I think it's because they may have a carbon monoxide leak. Either way, I'm not complaining.


This weekend I... celebrated Gordy's fourth birthday with him. I tried to make it festive with a sparkly birthday tiara. It lasted about a half a second on his head before this happened:


Come on, Gordy. You're almost thirty (in dog years). Start acting like it.

This weekend I... read Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder by Kent Nerburn. It was a really good book that I finished in two days. But it made me feel super guilty about a bunch of things I had nothing to do with. It's so hard being a white girl.


Wednesday, November 27, 2013

It's the Little Things


With Thanksgiving just a day away, I can't help but think about all the wonderful things in my life for which I am thankful. This year, I think I'll focus on all of those everyday, easy-to-ignore, little things that make me smile inside.

  • Cracking that thin layer of ice on the sidewalk
  • Shuffling through piles of fallen leaves
  • When dogs growl and run in their sleep
  • The smell of coffee
  • The smell of books
  • Waking up and seeing that there are still several hours before the alarm goes off
  • Flipping the pillow over to the cold side
  • Getting the new issue of National Geographic in the mail each month
  • Getting anything in the mail that isn't junk or bills
  • Licking the spoon after baking
  • Watching my dog lose his mind every single time I come home
  • Realizing it's a pamphlet, not a parking ticket

Now that I'm thinking about it, there are literally a hundred more things I could add to this list. I'll just stop here and be thankful for how generally awesome life is most of the time.


Sunday, November 24, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 20





This weekend I... went out for drinks with some of my old co-workers. It was so good to see everyone again; it's a lot more fun to down vodka with them than work on orders. It was admittedly kind of weird and a little sad at times thinking about probably never seeing some of them again. Plus, I'm not really crazy about other people's feelings, but we mostly kept it cool, so that was good.


This weekend I... spent nine hours at the bar in my home town. The highlight was bar bingo. First my sister won, then the boyfriend won, then I won. The boyfriend and I figured we were having a lucky day, so we bought some pull tabs. And then we promptly lost a third of our bingo winnings.


This weekend I... watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas (and was shocked, as I am every single year, when I saw that it is only 30 minutes long). But I am now officially in the holiday spirit. I might jump the gun by a few days and put up Christmas lights tomorrow. Then it will only be a matter of time before I start asking the boyfriend if we can open presents early this year.


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Thursday, November 21, 2013

My Inner Glutton


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I have a confession to make. My absolute favorite food of all time is Hostess Sno Balls. I know, I'm gross. But oh my God, they are so good. My whole mouth is seriously filling up with saliva right now just thinking about them.

But sadly, I almost never eat them. It's been years since I've had a Sno Ball. (Though sometimes I stand in the snack aisle at gas stations for really long time and and just look at them.)

Anyway, I refuse to eat them as an adult because I'm fully aware of how gross they are. I'm pretty sure the main ingredients are cellulite and diabetes. Okay, that part was an exaggeration, but two of these delectable little angel pillows do have eleven teaspoons of sugar in them. (So I guess the diabetes part wasn't too far off.)

They are, however, dusted with toasted coconut, so... protein?


Tuesday, November 19, 2013

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things


Remember how you spent so much time with your best friend in high school that their parents basically became your parents, too? For me, that was my BFF Jess and her mom (whom we call Lil' D).

So one afternoon back in the day, I attended a BBQ with Jess and Lil' D for the hospital where Lil' D worked. Jess and I spent most of the day being awesome and detached teenagers. We sat on the lawn, probably talking about American Eagle, trying to look bored. Picking through the grass, Jess stumbled upon a four-leaf clover and plucked it out. I was excited too, and asked if I could see it.

"No," she said. "I don't trust you."

Those might seem like harsh words for a best friend, but she was totally right. I'm kind of a fuck up sometimes (I've lost things in my own pockets before), and I am really not to be trusted.

Anyway, Jess decided she wanted to keep her four-leaf clover, so we went to Lil' D's car to find a safe place to keep it. In the car Jess found an envelope in which to store her find. She was about to seal it up when I just could not take it anymore. I wanted to see that fucking four-leaf clover.

So I snatched the envelope from her hand. Jess tried to take it back, so I flung my arm behind my head. And then I dropped it. I dropped the still open envelope out the window and into the grass. And of course the clover fell out. I tried to find it, for a really long time, but it was a lost cause.

I guess the moral of this story is don't ever let me hold your baby.


Sunday, November 17, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 19







This weekend I... went to a friends-giving party on Saturday. The boyfriend made those seasoned oyster crackers Friday night for us to bring. But on Saturday morning we had to go out and buy all the ingredients again because someone (me) ate over half the batch the night before.


This weekend I... did some target shooting at Bill's Gun Range.

The boyfriend recently got a .357 from his dad and we needed to break it in. I was really worried about the kick since that's a bigger gun than I'm used to, but it wasn't bad at all. Plus, they had zombie targets.

I LOVE shooting guns. (I guess I probably shouldn't write that on the Internet. Hi, NSA!)


Wednesday, November 13, 2013

How I Know My Parents Never Loved Me


As a kid I was constantly complaining about one of two things: being bored or being hungry. And for as long as I can remember, whenever I whined about being hungry, my parents would automatically suggest a grilled cheese sandwich. Every single time. (I bet if I went to their house right now and said I was hungry, it'd be seconds before someone would recommend one of those pseudo sandwiches.)

This in spite of the fact that I had told them, at least a million times each, that I do not like grilled cheese sandwiches. A grilled cheese sandwich is like a fake out meal. It's an almost sandwich. Bread and cheese; okay, you're off to a good start. But why, for the love of God, do you stop there? Why would you purposely leave out the turkey, or the ham, or the bacon, or the spinach, or the onions, or the avocado, etc. ad infinitum?

I clearly feel strongly about the issue. And yet my parents refused to acknowledge life choices.

There is another travesty from my childhood that involves food. On more than one occasion when I asked what was for supper, one or both of my parents would get all excited to tell me we were having tacos. Then I would have to remind them that they were confusing me with my sister. She was the one who likes tacos, whereas I find them to be the only meal worse than grilled cheese.

I know, I know. I've traveled down some pretty dark roads in my life. But try not to feel too bad for me. Those experiences have made me who I am today.


Monday, November 11, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 18





This weekend I... turned into a 1950s housewife. I was home all day with nothing to do on Friday, so I cleaned the house, got prettied up, and had dinner ready for the boyfriend when he got home from his business trip. It would have been better if I had martinis. Damn it. I should have had martinis.


This weekend I... headed up to my dad's hometown for a family get together. We had a couple of birthdays and an engagement to celebrate. I love my family and any excuse to drink on a Sunday, so it was a good day.

Me and some ladies with whom I share varying amounts of DNA. Love them.


Thursday, November 7, 2013

Security Breach, the Prequel; I Guess


So, on Tuesday I told you about the time that weird ghost guy popped in through our balcony door. After that post, my sister reminded me that we actually had another security breach at our place one time.

This one happened shortly after the boyfriend and I moved in. It was, like, 2:00 in the morning and we were both asleep. Then the boyfriend suddenly woke up; he thought he heard a noise. He listened for a second and then heard footsteps in the hallway. Then he saw someone walk past the bedroom door.

He got up and shouted something to the effect of, "What the hell are you doing here?"

Turns out it was just some drunk guy. He was trying to stumble to his way into his buddy's condo to sleep it off, but he got the numbers mixed up. Totally harmless.

And, yes, the front door was unlocked. I assume that was my fault. The boyfriend probably asked if I had locked it, and I probably said yes without one hundred percent paying attention to what he said. That's a pretty common explanation for a lot of the crap that happens to me. Though I contend that ghosts could be responsible for some of that stuff.


P.S. I am such a freakishly deep sleeper that I only found out about both of these events the next day when the boyfriend described them to me. So who knows how many times similar things have happened when he was out of town.


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Security Breach


The building I live in is haunted. There's this guy on my floor who is undoubtedly a ghost. He's strange, and quiet, and never makes eye contact with anyone. I've ridden the elevator with him almost every morning for the past four years, and he has only spoken to me twice. So he is obviously the spirit of dead man. Obviously.

And his powers must be getting stronger because he's not just lurking around his own apartment anymore.

One night a little while back, the boyfriend was sitting in the living room watching tv, when all of a sudden the dog perked up and starting barking like a crazy person. That's when he saw a figure out on the balcony. The boyfriend jumped up and threw open the door, ready to protect his cave I guess. Luckily, he recognized the mysterious intruder before throwing a punch and ending up in jail or something.

Yup. It was our weird ghost neighbor. He walked in, mumbled something about his keys, walked right past the boyfriend, and went down the hallway and out the door.

Weirdest breaking and entering ever.


Sunday, November 3, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 17






This weekend I... think I might have become white trash. I quit my job on Thursday. (It's a good story. I'll tell you someday.) So I am officially unemployed right now. Also, one of the headlights on my car is currently burnt out. I know, right? I am a trashy person now. It's just a matter of time before I'm shopping for oversized Garfield t-shirts.



This weekend I... went up to my home town. One of the bars we frequent up there waited until this weekend to have their Halloween party, so some friends and I got drunk in costume. Fun.

I dressed as a ballerina. My sister told me to look graceful like a dancer. So I went on my tippy toes and tried to keep a straight face. She managed to take this picture half a second before I rolled an ankle and fell to the floor.


Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Sunday, October 27, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 16







This weekend I... went to a Whole Foods market for my first time ever. It's always seemed like such a pretentious and affected place to get your groceries, so I thought I would hate it there. I really wanted to hate it.

But I did not. Everything looked real and delicious, and I totally fell for it. The whole thing. From now on, I only want free-range chocolate and cage free burritos. Also quinoa is my favorite food now, and gluten is the devil for some reason.



This weekend I... FINALLY felt warm. It had been cold every day this week. And apparently I'm not ready for winter yet because I was freezing the whole time. By Wednesday I felt like  my fingers and toes would never be warm again, and I asked the boyfriend if we could get a hotel room with a hot tub. So he got us a room at The Graves for the weekend. It was awesome, and super fancy, and I spent an obscene amount of time getting drunk in the jacuzzi.


Fancy pants 1st floor lobby

Fancy pants 4th floor lobby


Thursday, October 24, 2013

Lying is Fun, but Risky. Like Guns.



One of my coworkers went to see a financial advisor a while back. And when she left, she gave the guy my name and number for a referral or whatever. And now I hate that bitch. (Just kidding. Mostly.)

So this financial advisor guy eventually called me up, and I fucked with him the entire time. When he asked about my current assets, I told him I only felt comfortable disclosing what I report to the IRS. When he asked what my financial goals are, I told him my plan was to pull the plug some day soon and go completely off the grid. He thought that might limit my investment options a bit.

At the end of our conversation, he asked me to set up an appointment to meet with him in person. While I clearly have no problem lying to strangers, I cannot, no matter what, say no to them. But I obviously couldn't meet with this guy, since I had just spent a solid twenty minutes telling him nothing but lies. So I told him I'd call him in a week or so. I did not intend to call him, and I figured he might try back once or twice, and I would ignore him, and that would be that.

Fast forward six months and he is still calling me. And I am still avoiding the calls. Most of the time. Every once in a while he calls me at work and I accidentally answer before I recognize the number. Then I get caught in a painful circle of excuses and more lies, and tentatively scheduled appointments that I always cancel.

When my coworker recently went back for a follow up meeting with him, I begged her to tell him that I died. She would not. I know; some people are just the worst.


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

A Lot of My Friends Get Mugged



As I've mentioned my good friend, Jacob, lives out in L.A. He lives in a nice enough neighborhood, one where it's perfectly safe to walk down to the burger place, or the liquor store, or wherever. So imagine his surprise when totally got mugged one night.

He was walking home when all of sudden some guy comes up to him and demands his money and phone. Jacob was completely caught off guard, so much that he wasn't even sure he'd heard the guy correctly. So he asked, "What?" And again the robber demanded his stuff. And because Jacob is a wiz under pressure, he responded by asking, "What?" again.

By now the robber was losing his patience so he said something along the lines of "I have a gun and I'm not fucking around," which finally got Jacob to start following directions. But the thing is, Jacob doesn't always take very good care of his things. So what he handed over was a scratched-to-hell iPhone with a shattered screen and gouged up corners. It was so bad that the robber didn't even take it. Just shook his head and walked away.

I'm sure this was a very traumatic experience for Jacob and I don't mean to sound insensitive, but I kind of feel bad for the robber. Jacob was probably the most exasperating robbery that guy ever had. Like, I feel like he probably went home that night and complained about what a shitty day of work it was
.


Sunday, October 20, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 15






This weekend I... got drunk with the boyfriend at The Parlour, the basement level bar at a new-ish restaurant in our neighborhood. They have a burger there that changed my life. They also have a pretty impressive cocktail menu. Each drink seemed to have a minimum of six ingredients and at least a couple kinds of liquor. I was drunk before we finished our first round.


This weekend I... went to a friend's house warming party and totally fawned over their closets. I love where I live, but an eight hundred square foot condo definitely fosters storage envy. During the tour she kept pointing out things like the paint color, or the floors, or the appliances, but I didn't even notice those things. I just walked along like, "Wow, this is a huge closet. Is that another one? Sweet Jesus, it's another one. What are you going to put in here? You could put so many things in here. Can we look at your pantry again?"


This weekend I... baked pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and they are f-ing delicious. I like to pretend I'm girly and good at stuff every once in a while. But I have absolutely no self control, so I made sure I only set aside eight of them to keep at home (in addition to the four I ate right out of the oven). I'm bringing the rest to work where they will last approximately forty seconds.

If you're at all interested, you can find the recipe I used here.



"Why are you ruining my life?!"
That's what the boyfriend said when he found out I was putting pumpkin in the cookies.



Thursday, October 17, 2013

Wisdom Through Pain, I Guess?



Since Tuesday's post, I can't stop getting sad about poor little baby slow lorises getting their teeth pulled out. Maybe I'm just extra sensitive to the idea because I once experienced a painful, horrific tooth extraction myself. So I can relate. Getting my wisdom teeth out was one of the most dreadful things that has ever happened to me. 

As I've mentioned before, I come from a super small town. And the dentist my family went to (who was my dad's third cousin or something) was in an even smaller town. And it was located in a building that was also a library part of the time. Maybe you can see where this is going.

Obviously, this particular dentist did not offer general anesthesia. But he did shoot me up with novocaine and provided a steady stream of nitrous oxide. And I had my iPod. And for some reason I only had two wisdom teeth (my top two have just never existed). So I figured it couldn't be too terrible. I was wrong. It turned into a gory, tortuous ordeal.

The tooth on my right side slid right out, but the one on the left put up a fight. The dentist pulled at it, and pried at it, and yanked at it. The novocaine did nothing against what felt like the dentist wrenching on my jaw with his entire body weight. Tears were rolling out the corners of my eyes and into my ears. And that's when it got worse.

"It looks like this tooth is growing sideways," My dentist told me. "It's sort of wedged beneath the one next to it. I need to get at it from another angle."

"Yes! Do whatever it takes to just get this over with!" (I screamed this inside of my head. Since my mouth was propped open and filled with cotton, I most likely just nodded wildly and grunted a bit.)

"Okay. I'm going to get my saw and cut away about a quarter inch of bone."

And that is what he proceeded to do. He took a saw to my mouth and cut out a chunk of my jaw bone. While I was awake. And barely drugged. 

The fucker finally came out, and I rode home drooling blood into a bucket on my lap. 


Tuesday, October 15, 2013

I Want to Rub My Nose on Him


Last week I started wondering why every single person on earth doesn't have a pet slow loris.

Don't know what a slow loris is? A.) That makes me feel bad for you. And B.) These are slow lorises:



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I know, right?! Hands down the cutest little creatures that have ever lived. So why wouldn't everyone want to have at least sixteen of these little guys living in their house?

Well it turns out the slow loris is both adorable and deadly. (I'm not even joking.) They're one of only nine mammals in the world that are poisonous. They secrete a substance from their elbows that, when they lick it, mixes with their saliva to become a potentially lethal venom. 

So that is why people don't have hundreds of pet slow lorises. Well, some people do. Illegally. In Japan, mostly. And it's the saddest thing ever. Because in order to prevent these fuzzy little chemists from sinking their poison soaked fangs into you, the pet dealers pull out all of their teeth when they get them.

Long story short: First they're cute, then they're scary, then they're sad.


Sunday, October 13, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 14







This weekend I... spruced up my blogger digs a bit, as you can see. Well, I didn't actually do anything. Corrine, The Blog Decorator, did. She was awesome to work with and I think she did a great a job, and I am in love with my new site. My favorite is the umbrella. It is f-ing adorable.


This weekend I... went for a hike in the woods with Gordy. He's fairly trustworthy, so I let him go off his leash and he loves it. Those canine instincts kick in immediately and he turns into a little hunter. He goes crashing through the brush like a god damned bull at the slightest rustle. So far, it has not been an effective method. If his life suddenly depended on his hunting skills, he'd be dead in under a week.

Fall is my absolute favorite


This weekend I... bicycled along the river down to Minnehaha Falls. The weather was beautiful and the leaves were gorgeous. It was the perfect way to kill a couple of hours. Seriously, I love fall. Fingers crossed that global warming means that someday it will never end.






Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Thoreau Would Probably Have Something to Say about This


Does every high school yearbook have the "Senior Hall of Fame?" You know, where a bunch of seniors get named things like "Most Likely to Succeed" and "Class Clown?" Well, our high school did.  And at our school a lot of people took it surprisingly seriously, giving all sorts of thought to our votes. Which is what makes this story awesome.

I happened to be on the yearbook staff my senior year, so I was in on all of the vote counting for the hallowed Hall of Fame. And, therefore, I saw that my sister won "Best Dressed." By a landslide. I also saw that I did not get a single vote for that category. As twins, we shared all of our clothes. (Like, we literally only had one closet.)

I am fully aware that this does not say good things about me. I was, however, voted "Best Sense of Humor." So luckily, I was able to laugh it off.



Sunday, October 6, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 13






This Weekend I... went to a slumber party at my sister's house, high school style. She invited a bunch of our high school girlfriends over to drink and eat and sleep at her place. I'd like to say it was different from high school because of all the booze that was there, but that's just not true.


This Weekend I... took down the flowers on my balcony. It was the worst. There were million little vines growing in and out of every opening in the railing, so it took forever. Things eventually turned into a rage spiral that culminated in a solid two and a half minutes of audible swear words. It got pretty creative by the end. (Yes, people have told me I might have anger issues. No, I don't believe them.)


This Weekend I... got sucked into warm, shiny feeling I get from buying all sorts of things at Target. Again. That place gets me every time. I go in just needing mascara and toothpaste and end up walking out an hour and half later with a hundred and fifty dollars worth of stuff I didn't even know I needed.


This Weekend I... was pretty boring, I guess. Sorry.


Friday, October 4, 2013

Happy Blogiversary! Part 5




This week marks the one year anniversary of me consistently posting nonsense on the Internet. Hooray.

To celebrate my very first blogiversary, I'm going to re-post some of my favorite and most read posts from the past year. Yeah, it's a pretty lazy celebration, but I'll use any excuse to not do stuff.

Today it will be Happy Stabiversary. Enjoy.







Happy Stabiversary

Every year we celebrate my buddy John's stabiversary. It's exactly what it sounds like.

Three years ago, John was walking home from the bar, just minding his own business, when all of a sudden some hoodlum showed up and demanded his wallet. Being pretty drunk, and therefore brave and strong, John declined. That's when the hoodlum whipped out a kitchen knife and stabbed John in the arm, shoulder, and head. (Seriously, just totally stabbed in the head.) But the joke was on him since, being the end of the night, John probably had a total of three crumpled up one dollar bills in his wallet.

Anyway, John passed out from the blood loss and the drunkenness. And the hoodlum went a couple blocks up the street and stabbed another guy over his wallet. Luckily, that guy must have been less drunk, because he maintained consciousness and was able to call for help. John eventually woke up and staggered toward the flashing lights, and then asked if the ambulance could give him a ride home. Luckily, the EMTs were less drunk too, because they brought him to the hospital instead where he got a shit load of stitches.

Then he called his sister and said, "So, I guess I got stabbed. Don't tell Mom and Dad, okay?"


Thursday, October 3, 2013

Happy Blogiversary! Part 4




This week marks the one year anniversary of me consistently posting nonsense on the Internet. Hooray.

To celebrate my very first blogiversary, I'm going to re-post some of my favorite and most read posts from the past year. Yeah, it's a pretty lazy celebration, but I'll use any excuse to not do stuff.

Today it will be Make Them Boys Holla. Enjoy.








Make Them Boys Holla


This weekend I went to a bachelorette party for one my very best friends, Jess. We rented a bus and went to a bunch of tiny farm town bars up north. And in some sort of Mary Magdalene miracle, one of the bars we went to was holding a bikini contest. It was ridiculous, and gross, and awesome.

First of all, we were in a town called Nimrod, population 69. So I'm sure you can imagine the caliber of talent we were seeing. Also, if I remember correctly (but with all the vodka sloshing around that night, there's a good chance I don't), the stage was made of plywood and round bales.

Seven or eight contestants came out all slicked up in baby oil and showed of their sluttiest dance moves, grinding all over each other in front of a bunch of people who probably know their parents. One girl flashed nipple. She didn't win.

I mostly just wanted to talk each and every one of those girls into enrolling at community college.


Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Happy Blogiversary! Part 3



This week marks the one year anniversary of me consistently posting nonsense on the Internet. Hooray.

To celebrate my very first blogiversary, I'm going to re-post some of my favorite and most read posts from the past year. Yeah, it's a pretty lazy celebration, but I'll use any excuse to not do stuff.

Today it will be Kirby the Kidnapper. Enjoy.








Kirby the Kidnapper



When my sister, Amy, and I were seven or eight, we went through a phase where we were convinced that we were going to be kidnapped. Our parents tried to talk us out of it, but we knew it was just a matter of time before a stranger came to abduct one or both of us.

One day the two of us were walking to the grocery store down the street. On the way, a car pulled to the curb a few feet ahead of us. A man stepped out and walked toward us. This was it. Standing before us was the man who was going to take us away from our parents, our home, and our sweet scrunchy-making machine.

We screamed, and cried, and dashed to the front door of the nearest house. We threw our fists against the door. "Help!  Someone help us!" we pleaded. There was no need to look back, I could feel our abductor advancing upon us. We kept pounding against the door, but it was becoming clear that no adult was going to swoop in to save us this time.

We ducked around the corner to the alley behind the house. I'm not sure if or how long the man chased us, but we ran for our lives back home, into our bedroom, and threw the covers over our heads. We couldn't believe that we had looked into the face of evil and managed to survive.

Later that evening, we heard the doorbell ring. People coming to the front door and ringing the doorbell was rare at our house. We're from a small town and we knew everyone who came to our house. And they came in through the side door in the kitchen. And usually without knocking.

We crept down to investigate. And there he stood. The kidnapper was at our door, talking to our parents. Jesus Christ, it wasn't over. We thought we had escaped, but our abductor had managed find us and was back to take us away.

Somehow our parents were able to drive him away. "Who was he?  What did he say to you?" we asked when he was gone.

"The Kirby Vacuum salesman."

Amy and me.  Lucky to have lived into adulthood.
"Fuuuuuck," we groaned (or whatever the childhood equivalent of that word is). Turns out our evil kidnapper was just a door-to-door salesman, probably trying to ask us for directions. And our natural reaction was to cry and scream in his face, then run away as fast as we could. And that shit is embarrassing, even when you're seven.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Happy Blogiversary! Part 2



This week marks the one year anniversary of me consistently posting nonsense on the Internet. Hooray.

To celebrate my very first blogiversary, I'm going to re-post some of my favorite and most read posts from the past year. Yeah, it's a pretty lazy celebration, but I'll use any excuse to not do stuff.

Today it will be The Day My Boss Realized What He Was In For. Enjoy.







The Day My Boss Realized What He Was In For


Not long after I started my current job, the boss offered to take me out for lunch. On the way over to the restaurant, we drove past a homeless man. He was standing on the corner, holding a cardboard sign, and he had a scruffy dog next to him.

I turned to the boss and said, "I almost always give money to homeless people when I see them, but I wouldn't give any to that guy."

"Why not?"

"Because he has that dog."

"Really?" he asked. "I thought you liked dogs."

"I do. But how hungry can that guy be if he hasn't even eaten his dog yet?"

And then the rest of the ride was pretty quiet.


Monday, September 30, 2013

Happy Blogiversary!



This week marks the one year anniversary of me consistently posting nonsense on the Internet. Hooray.

To celebrate my first blogiversary, I'm going to re-post some of my favorite and most read posts from the past year. Yeah, it's a pretty lazy celebration, but I'll use any excuse to not do stuff.

Today it will be the very first post I ever wrote: Curiosity Made the Cat Flash her Boobs to the Class. Enjoy.







Curiosity Made the Cat Flash her Boobs to the Class


When I was a senior in college, I took a class called Wilderness Survival Skills with my roommate, John. The first day of class was held at a lake outside of town where we spent the day tipping over canoes to practice rescues. After class I needed to change out of my soaking wet clothes, but the only bathroom was a cinder block shack with no door and no roof. I decided not to set foot inside for fear of tripping over a dead hooker and falling onto a pile of used syringes. Instead, I waited for everyone else to leave so I could just change outside of John's truck, where I was far less likely to contract hepatitis.

I got my jeans changed and everything was going according to plan as I peeled off my wet shirt and bra. And then it happened. John, standing watch at the back of his truck, shouted "Oh, shit!" Naturally, I turned around to see just what John was "oh shitting" about. The shuttle van that was carrying about 70% of the class was pulling back into the parking lot.

For a second or two, I stood frozen like a deer in headlights. A deer who was butt-ass naked from the waist up. I finally snapped out of it and scrambled to cover myself. I grabbed my dry t-shirt from the truck and threw it over my head. But because I was both wet and stupid with panic, I got stuck. In my t-shirt. So there I was bending and lurching as I tried to wriggle my shirt over my face. It was not at all graceful, and I'm sure my boobs were flopping around in the least attractive flesh ballet of all time.

On the drive back to town, I tried to convince myself that this was not grounds for suicide. "There's a chance they didn't even notice me, right?"

John, who is always terribly honest, told me the truth. "No, they stopped to watch."

Moral of the story? Flashing a large group of people won't always make you as popular as you might expect.


Sunday, September 29, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 12






source
This weekend I... watched The Bling Ring. It's that movie by Sofia Coppola about those kids in LA who broke into a bunch of celebrities' houses a few years ago. 

It was a really good movie. But it made me feel kind of sad about the pervasiveness of consumerism, entitlement, and status in our culture. And also a little bit like I want a Birkin handbag. 






This weekend I... tried to go camping, but it rained all day long on Saturday so we had to call it quits. Every (real) camping trip I have planned this year ended up getting rained out. Sad face. 



Gordy's first canoe ride
This weekend I... learned that skinny jeans are not a good choice for canoeing. I needed to get my outdoorsy fix since my camping trip got rained out, so I met up with my parents on Sunday to do some hiking and canoeing. 

While we were cutting across the river we got hung up on a sandbar, so I had to get out and drag the canoe about fifty yards. And since skinny jeans can't be rolled up very far, that left me hiking around for the rest of the day in soaking wet pants. 

Super comfortable. And obviously super hot for anyone who had to look at me.




Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Fear, Much Less Fun Sans Marky Mark


The world is a scary place. Disease, terrorism, Mexican drug cartels. Terrifying things are happening all around us, all the time. Here are some of the things that keep me up almost every night:


  • Birds. I never drive with my windows open more than a couple of inches because I'm afraid a bird will fly into my car, and we'll both panic, and it will end in flames and carnage and bloody feathers all over my car.
  • Choking. I'm horrified at the idea of choking at a restaurant someday. It's not so much the asphyxiation itself that scares me, but making a scene in front of so many people. Everyone would stare and tell their friends about it later. Some d-bag might even bust out his phone to record my puffy, contorted face. Tosh.0 would love that shit.
  • Jaywalking. I hardly ever jaywalk. This is mostly due to the message boards on news sites. Do you ever read those things? Those people are f-ing vicious. As soon as the article mentions jaywalking, those posters would instantly jump to debating whether I was crossing the street to pick up a welfare check or buy some crack.
  • Sinkholes. Am I the only one freaked out by the fact that we can't trust sidewalks anymore? What a world.


How about you? Anything that keeps you up at night?

Monday, September 23, 2013

This Weekend I... Volume 11



I know, this is late. It is due to drunkenness and a hangover.





This weekend I... went to my first ever Vikings game. Which is surprising, I know, considering what a huge sports fan I am. (Sarcasm is difficult to convey in print. That was it.)

I had lots of fun with my friends at the bar before the game. And also at the bar after the game. But the game itself, not really.

I gave it about twenty minutes before I asked a guy at one of the concession stands if there was anywhere in the stadium I could get a newspaper. He just laughed and then called over the girl by the register to tell her what I asked. I think that meant "no." So my sister and I spent the rest of the game watching and critiquing the cheerleaders.





Thursday, September 19, 2013

My Old Dog's New Trick


My family had a pomeranian named Tiki for like fifteen years (you can read more about him here and here if you'd like), and he was awesome. I especially liked him because he was cunning, and manipulative, and a little bit of a bitch. Example:

He hurt his hand pretty badly one time. (Hand/paw, whatever. Shut up.) I think he tore his dew claw or something, so he limped around for about a week. And everyone was super nice to him the whole time. We all gave him lots of attention and extra treats, and generally just babied the crap out of him.

Then, for the rest of his life, whenever he got in trouble and we yelled at him, he would get a really pitiful look on his face and slowly lift up his hand like it was hurt again. Like he could distract us from being mad and trick us into feeling bad for him instead.


Conniving little bastard. Much respect.