mysterioso

Stupid photoshop isn't opening. No pictures. Instead, 2 mysteries:

1. Kara and the Guy in the Red Car. This mystery involves Kara, the girl we hired last summer, who broke up with her fiance this past winter cause he cheated on her with her roommate. Kara got into a car accident this past weekend and fucked up her car completely. It's totaled. (Pretty sure it was her fault, too.) On Monday she told us what happened, I asked her how she had gotten to work, and she said she walked. One of my bosses later asked me how she got to work and I told her what Kara had said. However, my other boss said he saw Kara getting a ride from a guy in a red car. Liar! Then yesterday I saw her walking in as a red car, driven by a guy, pulled out. Unfortunately, I can't remember what her fiance's car looked like. But I bet he's giving her rides, and she doesn't want anyone to know. The fact that she lives in our bosses' backyard makes it difficult to hide things. This mystery is basically solved, I just want to gossip about it more at work. I like gossip. Which brings us to mystery number

2. The Disappearing Employee. There's a guide who has worked at the museum about as long as I have. In the past he has had occasional issues with showing up to work on time, but nothing too drastic. A couple of weeks ago, he did not show up for a tour. No call, nothing. The next day, same thing. Then the following morning he called me to tell me that he had been in jail, he was sorry and would be there that evening. So naturally I was nosy and asked what the hell happened. All he would say was that he was with some people who had some things they should not have, but that he didn't have anything and hadn't been charged. Ok. Everything's fine for a few days. The following week, he again does not show up. Doesn't come in or respond to our multiple phone calls over the next 2 days. Every day I'm having to replace him as he doesn't call back to confirm that he's coming in. Finally I just took him off the schedule for the rest of the spring. In the midst of this I get a text message, from an invalid number, saying "I can't work anymore, I'm sorry." No name. I asked around, consensus was it was fake. He now has 2 paychecks sitting in the office, still hasn't called. I checked the FL Department of Corrections website, he's not listed as an offender. I called the local sheriff's office, no arrest record. And he last signed into his Myspace page.... today. Fucker! So I'm extremely curious about what the hell is going on, and pissed off that he's fucked me over at work. Jerk.

We were hoping to go buy a car for Alfred today, but it didn't have cruise control, so no go. Instead we stayed home, I cleaned the bathrooms, we finished up a bunch of leftovers, and made some chili. Rockin'

explanation of the white trashiness

(Mike, I timed it, it took me a total of 39 minutes to complete this post, start to finish. Drunk blogging, which you have seen, is totally different from my normal, sober blogging. Although I am about halfway through a Kahlua and cream (aka skim milk) right now.)

So we spent another weekend as vagrants. After work on Friday I headed up to meet Alfred and his parents for dinner near the house we've been working on (the one we've been painting and staying at here and there, not the model.) We spent the night at that house, then spent all morning and early afternoon Saturday looking for dining room furniture for the model. We were sort of in a hurry because I had to head back to work that afternoon, hence Alfred slurping down some leftovers for lunch as we sat in traffic in the truck. It was total class.

After work I did some shopping, then headed back up to pick Ellery up at work and meet Alfred at his parents' house. Max and Robyn had tickets to see Wicked (which I'm totally jealous of) so we were in charge of getting Ellery home. We ended up staying for dinner and then spending the night. By the way, if you ever wonder if there's anyone out there who actually watches the NFL draft, wonder no more. Yes, Ellery recorded and watched (though with some fast forwarding) the entire thing.

Sunday we did a little more furniture searching, found a great table at Walmart that they no longer carry, then headed back to the model with all of our loot so I could set things up. We also got to meet up with Ilya and Mercedes for lunch at 5 Guys. And so, without any further ado, I present model pictures. First, the bathroom downstairs:

The master bedroom:


Master bath:


Kids' bedroom (fun fact: the bottom bunk has a mattress, the top bunk has a box spring. Total bitch to make it):

There are several toys in the toy box, and a couple of Dr. Seuss books on top of the dresser.

Baby room:

We plan to add a couple of pieces of furniture to this side, I forgot to get them at Ikea.

And my personal favorite, the kids' bathroom:

How cute is this set?? I would like this for my own bathroom!

I also found a set at Walmart that had sea creatures on the shower curtain, the soap dispenser has an octopus on it, the soap dish is a turtle, and the toothbrush holder is a lobster who holds the toothbrushes in his claws and tail. Freaking adorable! I need kids so I have an excuse to buy that shit. Or maybe not. Also, there's no attic, so no, we're not living here.

So that's where all the Ikea stuff went. Keep in mind, all of that furniture cost about $2200. Not bad. I bought a bunch of knick knacks for the kitchen, so I'll take a picture of that when I set it all up. Unfortunately Hobby Lobby doesn't carry aby fake fruit bowls in which to hide boxes of cereal. We still need to buy a table for the eating nook in the kitchen, and either a table or couch for the living room area. No one has quite decided on that yet. But thank God, we're almost done. As much fun as it's been to spend other people's money, it's getting to be a bit of a pain in the ass.

White trash

It's sad.
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happy birthday Mom!

She was actually here for her last birthday, so she got a special Tracy-Katie combo birthday dessert. This year, I didn't even send her card until yesterday. I'm a terrible daughter. Happy birthday, Mom!

3 weeks later

I guess it's more like 2 1/2 weeks, but whatever. Here are some pictures from our trip to Orlando with Ilya and Mercedes. I posted pictures I took with my phone but actually hadn't looked at the pictures that Mercedes took until just now. There's some good ones! Check out our color scheme. Alfred didn't get the memo.



A reenactment of sorts. Surprisingly, we didn't run into a single other group of people drinking around the world this time.

Apparently I was a little backwards for this pair of pictures.


And Ilya made a friend. How nice.

On Sunday we went to Gatorland, which we hadn't been to before. It was fun, and good for a morning visit since we didn't want to get back home too late.

When we were still in the parking lot we could hear this weird sort of bellowing, roaring noise. It sounded like a sound effect from Jurassic Park. Once we got inside, we found out that it was actually the alligators making the noise. Weird. And interestingly, no pictures of actual gators here. Just some other pals that Mercedes and Ilya made. The baby goats were pretty damn cute.


and.... the end!

non-smurf pictures

I've been attempting to write a post for like 2 hours, but I've been so busy sitting on my ass and watching mindless tv/reading mindless drivel online that I haven't gotten around to it. I even uploaded pictures like half an hour ago. So without any further ado, here are a few pictures from our trip to Ikea last weekend.

Yes, all 3 carts are ours. I even forgot 2 pieces of furniture. Luckily we manged to cram it all into the car.

But with no seat for Mike.

No, he didn't actually ride back to our house like that. We just barely managed to talk him out of it, though. And the most fun part of the trip, for the boys at least: the carts.




I worked on setting stuff up in the model house yesterday, but have some more things I need to buy and bring up. I'll try to remember to take some pictures. It's been fun spending all this money on furniture and stuff!

Alfred's been working his little butt off today. Last weekend he and Mike cut down a couple of palm trees in our backyard, and today Alfred's been working on cutting up the trunks and branches. He's making me feel guilty about being such a lazy ass. But I did some dishes and cleaned up the kitchen a little and swept the floor.

A chainsaw and beer: good combination. The beers are from last Friday. As in, a week and a half ago, not 2 days ago. That's how we roll: disgusting.

One of the trees they cut down. This one fell the right way. The other one is floating in the water. Our neighbor said that someone in some sort of government agency boat (he told me but I forgot) was going by the other day and stopped and checked out the floating tree. It's now tied to the dokc so it won't float away. Cause it's too heavy to pull out of the water.

One last picture, in case you wondered what happened to our Christmas tree:

riding my second wind

I was texting Mike on my drive home from work and he just told me to stop texting him and go blog. Cause he's demanding like that. Luckily I'm buzzing hard on M&Ms, but I have a feeling I've got about 10 minutes before I crash. Clock's ticking. I don't even have the camera to post pictures to go with what I write, so that sucks. Anyway. Our weekend was fun. I realized just now that the picture with my post from Easter is awfully strange looking, what with the blanket on Mike's head and him jamming a pole into a lightbulb. Goes well with the title. He was actually painting the ceiling.

On the Monday after Easter, Jesus ran into some friends of his. "Hey Jesus, how was your weekend?" they asked. "Well," he replied, "Saturday was hell."

We also drank a bunch. Surprise! We only did one power hour though I think, after which I blogged from my phone while sitting on the back porch. I think that was Friday? Yeah cause then I made my cake. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, was that tasty. I wish I could find those damn cookies here so I caould make it again. I made a few ice cream sandwiches with the leftovers and we had them for breakfast on Saturday. Delicioso. I guess since I can't buy them here, it makes it more special when I do have them. Mike bought them at Fort Benning before he came down.

Oh right, drinking. I was tipsy twice on Easter. Once when I blogged when we were on our way to K Mart, and then again when Robyn forced me to drink lots of strong Eastery drinks. She had Mike triple fisting at one point. He and Alfred did Irish car bombs.

We also went shooting, bought a bunch of shit to furnish a model house, ate enough sugar to fell a donkey, took ice cold showers due to an extremely slow water heater, and decorated Easter eggs. And right now it's almost 11:15, I still have to pack a bag for tomorrow night, and I'm getting up at 6:30 for work. My car is jammed to capacity with more stuff for the model house and 7 cases of water for work. Cause our internet there has been down for 2 days so I haven't been able to order it to have it delivered. Curses! Tomorrow after work I'm heading up to do some more painting, then Saturday I'm working on the model in the morning and working in the afternoon. Oh yeah, I only worked a half day last Friday and took last Monday off! It was rad!

When you search google images for the word "radical" you get these radical cheerleaders. I smell like sunscreen. Ok, I hope this holds you over for a few days, Mike.

He is risen

Happy Easter, friends and family! I've had half an eclair and 2 beers for breakfast. Guess which one's winning. I just opened a third, I'm gonna take it with me in the car to k mart to buy a shower curtain.

Ok, change of plans. I drank a bunch of it before we left and left the rest of the bottle with Alfred at the house. Ok, we're here already. It's closer than I remember.

Success! We now have a shower curtain and hand soap. My buzz is wearing off already. Have a happy Easter!

Mother of pearl, we're up late!

Fire!

Mike is apparently burning everything but the house and the kitchen sink. We burned our Christmas tree a little while ago. Yes, you read that right. Now we're eating nabisco famous chocolate wafers with whipped cream, which is fairly delicious. I have some in the freezer too. I totally just made my Easter dessert drunk. In case you had any doubt, we did a power hour tonight. My white t shirt is covered in chocolate crumbs and purple food coloring. Mike smells like fire. We dropped $2200 at ikea today. We're furnishing a model house. I need to go make use of the facilities. Man, learning how to blog from my phone is the best accomplishment of the 21st century!

back in the day

I'm all nostalgic and shit about college right now. So, 2 posts in 1 day! It's like Christmas!

Alfred took the picture on the left. I used to work in the building at the bottom right of the picture for one of my jobs. At the bottom left is the campus store. I'm really excited to go back and see Cornell when we're up there for Katherine's wedding this summer. We haven't been back since my graduation almost 6 years ago. Jesus, I'm old.

So we were eating dinner and somehow got onto the subject of me doing terribly in statistics in college when Alfred got a call from a 607 area code. It was Cornell! Not literally the university itself calling him, because that would be sort of science fiction-ish, but a student from the Cornell Fund. For those of you who don't know, the Cornell Fund is the part of the Alumni Relations department that solicits financial support from alumni. They call alumni and ask them for money. It just so happens that I worked for the Cornell Fund all 4 years that I went there. I've seriously been looking forward to this call for years. Well, I was really excited about getting a call the first couple of years after I graduated, since I still had friends working there. When I was a student, once in a great while we'd get a previous employee to call and it was always really exciting to talk to them after they graduated. But the bastards never called. They've started calling Alfred this year, but I've never been around him and in the mood to talk until tonight. And boy howdy, did I talk! I was on the phone for over 12 minutes with this poor girl. And yes, I donated. But I made her work for it. I actually used to really enjoy the alumni who would talk to me for awhile, even if they didn't donate, because it meant I had to make fewer phone calls. And it made your average call time go up, cause on the computer systems that we got sophomore year they kept track of all sorts of interesting statistics like that and used them later in your evaluation. And 1 nice person generally made up for the dozen or so rude ones you'd talk to in a night. So I hope I wasn't too weird, and that she enjoyed talking to me too.

One more picture, because I was looking through Slope Day pictures and found this one. This was taken on the day that I met Alfred for the first time, although I don't remember meeting him. I know I did though because I remember meeting Ilya and their other high school friend Andrew, who were both visiting and both extremely drunk by 10:00am. Apparently Alfred was not drunk or loud enough for me to remember. And it's too bad that I only have his pictures from that day on the computer, because there are some doozies that I took on a regular camera. Ah, 2000. We were so innocent then. Only the nerdiest of the nerds had digital cameras. Also, the Pussycat Dolls are performing at Slope Day this year. Alfred's super jealous.

Oot and aboot

Alfred said I should take a picture and send an email as a blog post since I hadn't blogged in so long. Maybe if someone hadn't gone out of town and taken my laptop with them I may have blogged earlier. Not that I'm naming any names. Anyway, I'm out running errands for work. I'm currently sitting in the bank drive through waiting for my deposits to be finished. Fun. I've also been looking for these cookies to make an icebox cake for dessert for Easter, and have not had any luck yet. Stupid hard to find cookies. I haven't gotten to make a dessert in awhile so I'm looking forward to it. Mike's coming down this weekend, so that will be fun too. And I'm taking a half day on Friday. All good things. Well my deposits are apparently done, wish me luck on my cookie quest, and maybe I'll post again soon.

City walk

We're at some karaoke bar at universal city walk. There's a live band playing and live backup singers. It's loud as shit. I'm too old for this stuff!

Canadia

Victory is ours! And labatt blue light is so, so tasty

Engaland

Yes, I realize there's an extra a in there, thank you. We're on our second to last country, next I get a labatt blue light and then we win. Mmm, then I want a burrito.

Morocco

Are there 2 r's in Morocco? I guess not cause my phone keeps capitalizing it like it's correct. If Alfred would work it we Could move on. We played a few rounds of uno here. I think I won once. Yeah pretty sure. We're doing well, 3 more countries and 3 1/2 more hours, and really we only have to buy that last beer within the 3 1/2 hours, we can drink it after that. We have it in the bag. Except that so far me and Ilya have been not such champs. But we're hanging in there.

America

It seems I've missed a few countries. Alfred and Mercedes are getting ice cream, Ilya is getting ice for his beer, and i'm sitting on my ass. In almost the shade. We just had a burger-ific lunch. 7 down, 5 to go! (we think!)

African outpost

Africa is fun because of the drums. People play the drums and there's recorded music playing, so it seems like the people playing the drums sound like they're part of the CD. Apparently none of this alcoholic stuff here is from Africa. Lame

China!

These are the most deliciously creative frozen drinks ever. Peach, which really is quite standard, and mango ginger, which is awesome.

Norway

Alfred is philosophising (I wonder if that's spelled right) about beer. I think. I didn't like the carlsberg so i'm done, but these two are nursing their beer (and a half) like no one's business.

Mexico

We're sitting by the lake, drinking margaritas and dos equis. In this picture Ilya is talking to Max after calling Alfred to test his call forwarding. Also, I think the picture I put with the last post was not the right picture. So hopefully this is the right one. I have no idea how the pictures post when I do this from my phone.