2 months

If there's one thing that I've learned about myself over the past two months, it's that having some sort of goal or project ever day helps keep me sane. I found that to be the case even during my (almost) 2 weeks off of work before Tabby was born. I'm not talking anything big - my goal most Fridays is simply to watch the episode of Vampire Diaries from the night before - but it definitely helps my mental state. The point of this is that I think I'm going to start posting here again, if only to give myself something to do on days when I have nothing else planned.

So! I have a two month old. She's generally pretty cute. She has a well developed gag reflex; I have managed to gag her and make her vomit twice this week. Once by trying to give her a pacifier (hopefully our next kid likes them because this one certainly doesn't, and we got like 10 of them as gifts), and once trying to give her medicine. We're talking projectile vomit here, it's like something out of The Exorcist. It's gross. She's a great sleeper at night, has always had 1 longer stretch of sleep right from 1 week old. She typically sleeps 6-7 hours in a row when she first goes to bed now, which is awesome. Her daytime naps are not so awesome, but we're going to be working on that soon.

Tabby had her 2 month check up the other day and had her first vaccinations, which were not fun. She didn't quite get a fever, but her leg was all red and sore the rest of the day, and she was cranky the next couple of days. She seems to be pretty much back to normal today, but we'll see how she by tonight. Before her shots she was getting really smiley, but since then we haven't been getting as many smiles out of her. Baby smiles are like crack, you get one and it makes you do some pretty stupid things to get more.

I'm becoming more familiar with daytime TV. No soap operas yet, thank God. Lots of TLC and Discovery channel so far. I spend a lot of time on the internet, too. At least now I'm talking to Tabitha instead of just talking to myself all day though. I guess that about sums up my life these days. In closing, a funny baby picture. She gets enthralled with the pattern on her little activity gym sometimes and gets all cross eyed as she stares at it. Cracks me up.

the swim

Last Friday we spent most of the day cleaning our old house for our new tenants. That's right, our old tenants broke their lease and moved out 6 months early. Punks. Luckily we were able to find someone else to move in, and we had 2 days in between tenants to clean everything and get it ready for the new people. Also luckily, those 2 days happened to be my days off for the week. Yay for me! They did a pretty good job cleaning the house actually, so it wasn't so bad, except for the guest cottage. The girl who lived out there sort of trashed the place, including smashing one of the windows. Jerk.

That night we went out to dinner with a whole gang: Ilya, Mercedes, Kevin, and Gara, with Phil, Lucy, and Ellie joining us after the meal to say hi. We feasted on barbecue and attempted to listen to some bluegrass from the band playing there, but they weren't very loud and we couldn't really hear it. The food made up for it, though. After dinner we went back to Lucy and Phil's house for some drinks and water sports. Their new house is right on the water, so they have a paddle boat. We attempted to fit all 6 of us on it (Ilya and Mercedes had to go home so they weren't there) and very nearly sank. As you can see by the picture to the right, even 4 people almost sank it. This was all leading up to Kevin swimming in this less-than-sanitary water to earn $31 from Phil. Which he did, with flying colors. He may have almost died, but he made it, and earned Phil's money fair and square.

In other news, I am happy to report that I have spent most of my last 2 days off of work gearing up for the return of The Vampire Diaries next week. I believe I've mentioned my love of this show before. The second season starts a week from tomorrow, so I'm re-watching season 1 in preparation. I've gone through 15 episodes so far, 7 more to go. I can't wait for it to come back, it's seriously the show I'm most looking forward to. Mock me if you will, I'm not ashamed. I just feel sorry for those of you not watching it.

deli of the gods

We spent last night in a less-than-luxury hotel in Summersville, WV. Quite charming, but I think one night was enough. This morning we managed a free breakfast at Chick Fil A (got there just after they stopped serving breakfast, so when I asked if they had anything left she just gave me the last couple of things of Chick Minis.) And on into Pennsylvania. Less snow here so far.

For lunch we stopped at Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh. They've been on a few Food Network shows, including Alfred's current favorite, Man vs. Food. They've got these big delicious sandwiches that are served with cole slaw and fries right in the sandwiches. I got a cheese steak (pictured) and Alfred got corned beef and pastrami. His was better. They were big, but not too big. We both ate ours comfortably. As in, I don't feel like I'm going to puke. The table of guys next to us were a bunch of wussies though. 5 guys, all in their early 20s, and half of them had to wrap up their leftovers. And then they gave the guy a $2 bill for a tip. Even we left more, and we had less than half the amount of people. Jerks.

Anyway, back on the road. About 3 more hours to go!

pie recipe

I hope you've all been over to Mike's blog and voted on this week's poll. Usually his polls are opinions, but this week there is very clearly a correct answer.

Nothing much has been happening the last couple of days. I'm mostly feeling better, although I had a coughing rampage that lasted for a good hour this morning. I've been watching more TV. We have over 72 hours free on our DVR right now. This is the most we've had since we got the thing. Usually we hover around 20, breaking 30 was a big deal a couple of weeks ago. The new TV should be delivered tomorrow, and our new HD satellite service is set up on Thursday. Alfred's a man with a mission, he's not messing around. Right now he's heating up milk to make yogurt. He's asking me what I'm writing about. Not much, obviously. Today's picture is from when we went to Ichetucknee with Mercedes and Ilya back in September. I was making bread dough sticks like we used to make when I went camping with my family. I was drunk from my multi-colored Russians. You can see some of the bread dough on my toes. Also, there are about 20 pictures of me with that flashlight wedged under my chin like that.

So, the aforementioned pie recipe. A couple of people commented on my last post asking for it, so here it is. It's the one my mom uses and that my grandma and great grandma used to use. History, people! Anyway, use 3/4 cup Crisco, 2 cups flour, and 2 tablespoons sugar. Mix it all together, adding a tablespoon or so of ice water as you need it. Then just roll it out and bake it at 375. I used to go wrong with the water, I never added enough, then I watched my mom make it and saw that she adds at least a couple tablespoons. It's simple but oh so delicious. I can eat it plain by the pound. This recipe makes 2 crusts, although I usually need to add a little more of each thing to make sure I have enough. Mmm, pie...

black friday and beyond

Alfred made a pretty good purchase this year for Black Friday: a new TV! It's a 46 inch Samsung flat screen, and he got a really good price. He actually bought it on Wednesday night, but that's just a minor detail. It apparently already shipped, so we should get it this week! Very exciting! In order to rationalize spending the money on a TV, Alfred returned his fancy camera last week. He hadn't really used it since our trip, and we'll probably use a TV a little more, so I guess it all works out.

I had to work on Friday, unfortunately. It kind of sucked not having the day off, but at least we had quite a few customers so I was busy outside doing tours almost all day. It made the day go by quickly, that's for sure. After work Alfred and I met up with Kevin and Gara for the evening. We started out at Claude's, which is always awesome, and then went to a wine bar for some dinner and drinks. This place was a total cougar den, we were the youngest people in there by far. Alfred liked that, seeing as how he's getting all old and stuff. (kidding, honey!)

This weekend has been the epitome of laziness for me. I've had a bit of a cold, and Alfred informed me that I need to watch and delete everything on the DVR that I care about before he gets a new HD one this week, so it was like a perfect storm. I have literally been sitting on the couch watching TV (and occasionally knitting) all weekend. There's probably going to be an imprint of my ass on this cushion for quite some time. I did manage to step outside today for approximately 1 minute, so that was good. I've been following my usual regimen of Cold Eeze and orange juice for 2 days straight, so hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. I actually really like to have these totally lazy weekends sometimes, and it was probably good since I'm sick, but Alfred has definitely reached his limit.

we're hip. we're with it.

Yes, I totally used that title today simply so I could photoshop a picture like this. I'm awesome. Anyway, the "we" I'm refering to in the title is really the museum in general. We've apparently become the cool hangout for a bunch of the kids who live in the neighborhood. Somehow they never saw us before we moved across the street. Now they come hang out a lot. There's a couple in particular that come and talk to us a bunch, but there's a whole little gang that apparently comes around once in awhile at night too. They're probably in middle school if I had to guess. A bunch of them came in today just before I closed and wandered around for awhile. One of them tried to get me to let her volunteer for 15 minutes so she could go inside by herself. Yeah, it totally worked. Another one harasses me for free candy. It makes me feel kind of bad for being so annoying like that when I was that age. In other words, I do not enjoy the museum being a hangout.

Speaking of the museum, we had a little boy there today whose name was Cullen. For those of you who have been living in a cave, or are over the age of 17, that's the last name of the vampire family in the Twilight books. The kid was about 5, so it's possible his parents (mom) liked the books, but probably more likely that they now hate the books for making their kid's name so popular among teeny bopper vampire loving weirdos. And speaking of vampires, I'm totally into this new show in the CW, The Vampire Diaries. I read the books when I was in high school or so and really liked them, so when I saw they were making them into a show (since vampires are sort of hip right now, in case you haven't noticed) I recorded the first one to see how it was. It started out kind of cheesy but has actually gotten really good. I'm hooked. I have one still on the DVR and can't wait to watch it when I exercise tomorrow. Part of the appeal, I must admit, is the super hot vampires. Like Ian Somerhalder (on the right in this picture). The other one's not bad either (neither is the lead actress, actually). Maybe women wouldn't be so into vampires if they didn't cast such freaking hot guys in those roles. (disclaimer: I do not find the twilight guy attractive. I'm not that much of a loser.)

we've found a better maid

This maid only comes once a week, and the day he comes tends to change from one week to the next, but today when I came home from work all the dishes were done and a delicious dinner of fish ceviche was waiting for me! Someone's laundry hasn't been put away yet, but the ceviche made up for it. Plus he watched last night's So You Think You Can Dance with me (which was not great, by the way). What a guy.

In other news, it's Veteran's Day. Here's a picture to dispel the solemn, honorable mental image that phrase might conjure up for you. Yes, this fine young knight is off defending our country. Go visit Mike's blog for a up close and personal view of his life in the army. This picture makes me want a beer.

On another totally unrelated note... one of the reasons we live in Florida is no longer alive. Back in summer 2002, Alfred moved to Washington DC after he graduated college. I was all psyched to join him after I graduated the next year. And then the sniper thing started. You may remember the month or so that fall when people living in the DC area were basically terrified to go outside because of the random sniper attacks taking place. It was one of the things that made Alfred decide to move back to Florida. Well, last night one of the snipers was executed. The other one is serving a life sentence. And I didn't get to move to DC. Jerks.

tales from the road

As you may have guessed, there was plenty that happened on our trip that didn't make it into our travel blog in much detail. The other day, Alfred and I were talking about one evening that was sort of glossed over at the time, mainly because we didn't want to worry our mothers. The particular night we were remembering the other day was the night we spent in the Grand Tetons. We had arrived in the park and attempted to find a campsite (such a common theme of our trip). Since the official park guide paper said that at least 2 of the campgrounds rarely filled up, we were rather shocked and dismayed to find that there were no spots left anywhere. At that point, I had a bit of a breakdown. I was done. Just done with camping, driving, the trip, everything. I don't even remember if Alfred had a breakdown, I just remember being on the verge of tears and hating everything. I believe the two of us exchanged some heated words.

Eventually we agreed to drive down a dirt road into the forest to try to find a place in the national forest to camp. The road wound up a hill and ended up overlooking the valley and mountain range in the distance. It was perfect, except for one slight little tiny thing: there may have been a homicidal maniac camping nearby. You see, we had driven past a rather suspicious looking van and campsite parked in the middle of the woods. Just beyond that was a clearing with an abandoned looking tent (it had blown upside down), another tent with no one there, and a broken down looking camper. Clearly, we assumed that the owner(s) of the van were murderers who had already killed the occupants of at least one other campsite. Plus, this was still bear country. But despite the potential killers, both human and mammal, we decided to set up camp.

After dinner we came back to our tent and were somewhat relieved to see signs of habitation at the camper near our site. By this time a storm was rolling in: there were masses of dark clouds, lightening, and reports of hail from what internet we could get on our phones. So in an effort to take our minds off of the violent-looking weather, impending bear attack, and van-dwelling murderers, we decided to watch a couple episodes of Weeds. We shared my earphones so that no one outside could hear it. And yeah, we spent close to an hour watching TV in a tent on top of a cliff next to a mountain range. Looking back, it was actually kind of awesome.

friends!

First of all, I apologize to my thousands of readers who have had nothing to read for days on end. My internet had been stolen for days on end. By the most nefarious villain of them all: Alfred. Well, and time, to be fair. On with the post!

Saturday we were house sitting. It's kind of a long boring story, but we weren't going to and then we ended up doing it. I'm sick of the whole ordeal and want out, but Alfred caved. It is a lot closer for him to go to work, so it makes sense, it just makes me mad. I don't like feeling taken advantage of. They asked Alfred to come pick them up at the airport tomorrow night. At 9pm. We live over an hour from their house. So he wouldn't get home until probably after 11. Ugh. He should say no. Hopefully he'll stay strong. Anyway, we were here on Saturday. We were doing some painting at a house Alfred bought through work and took a little break for lunch with Ilya and Mercedes. Lunch turned into drinking some beer, which of course meant speed Uno, which meant less work got done at the house than intended. But we got the painting done, with some assistance from a slightly intoxicated Ilya and slightly more intoxicated Mercedes. They may have been singing the national anthem for a stretch of time. There may be a video or 2. I imagine if there is, it's hilarious.

Sunday was pretty low key. I insisted on going home and then ended up not feeling so great, so I spent a good chunk of the day on the couch. Monday I braved spending the night alone at the house, and lived to tell the tale. (Have I mentioned that the police officer did come by on Thursday and have me ID the guy in a photo line up? I think I got it right, he said our neighbor did so that's good. Still haven't seen that he's been arrested though.) Then last night I came back here to see Alfred and hang out with even more friends! We went to dinner with Lucy and Phil (and Ellie, though she didn't eat much) and their neighbors, Kevin and Gara. We enjoyed a lovely Mexican meal, along with some frozen margaritas for the real women of the group (that would be me and Lucy). Very nice. No pictures. Sorry.

Tonight we're house sitting for the last night. I came back because a) we can watch Weeds episodes on their TV from our laptop, which we cannot do at home, and b) I'm a big old wuss and was scared at home by myself on Monday. In other random news, today was supposed to break high temperature records. Heat index was predicted to reach 99-103 degrees. I was out doing tours for 2 hours straight. Awesome!

a pair of Guys

So, you all know my dad, Guy.

And you may know the Food Network personality, Guy Fieri.


I don't know if anyone else has ever noticed this, but.... don't they kind of look alike? I mean, take away the Guy Fieri's hair, and













Or you could give my dad a little hair













It's uncanny! And has anyone ever seen the 2 of them in the same room? I know I haven't! The mystery deepens...

I'm so firing my maid

The lazy bitch has seriously been slacking off. I just washed a bunch of dishes that have been sitting in the sink for (let's hope only) 2 days. There's a pile of laundry staring me down from the other end of the couch, waiting to be ironed. There's one item in particular that has been there for at least 2 1/2 weeks. It had company, but they eventually gave up and went back to the closet unironed because I had nothing else clean to wear to work. (Luckily it's been raining for the past 10 days so everything I wore was wet and muddy within minutes of me arriving at work anyway.) The bathrooms haven't been cleaned in weeks on end. The pile of mail is slowly taking over the counter top. BUT - the dishes in the sink are clean! And the laundry we did on Monday is folded, upstairs, and half put away! Someone hasn't gotten around to putting their half away yet. Not naming any names, of course. In case you were wondering, no pictures today. I can admit to this in writing, but photographic evidence is going too far.

Anyway, Alfred just texted me that he's still working and will probably just spend the night up there. I guess that gives me more time to get some crap done. I do still have half of last week's So You Think You Can Dance to watch, so that's some incentive to iron at least. Which reminds me of Katherine (the SYTYCD part, not the ironing part), which reminds me to mention that if anyone else is interested in guest blogging, just let me know. Just email me the post along with any pictures or anything else that needs to be included, and I'll put it up for you. And use it as an excuse to be lazy and not post for a couple of days. I mean, leave your post up longer for more people to see. Yeah, that's it.

hurricane-esque

I feel like that picture I posted from my phone is weird. My feet look weird. And you can't really see Alfred, he's in the pool with a beer. We had a good Saturday, in other words. Lucy, Phil, and baby Ellie came over for lunch and to hang out for awhile. We cooked some burgers on the tiniest grill you've ever seen. I got lots of baby time in, too. Good stuff.

So, this deluge of rain we're having. That's what weather.com is referring to it as. It's been raining almost constantly since Sunday evening. It's been windy too, rather reminiscent of hurricanes and/or tropical storms we have been through in the past. Thus, this post's title. This morning, the water in the intracoastal was as high if not higher than we'd ever seen it. The camera was in Alfred's car though (I think) so no high water picture. So, here's a completely unrelated picture!


Aw, we're cute.

So we've been catching up on our TV the past couple of days. Season finale time is a very sad time. We always run out of good stuff to watch on our DVR over the summer. However, I must say I'm quite pumped for the beginning of So You Think You Can Dance. Oh, how I have missed it! Oh, and I found this very convenient website today. Just in case you were wondering about the status of any TV shows for next fall. You're welcome.

happy mother's day!

Alfred's family just left about an hour ago; they came over for dinner tonight. We had hummus, pizza, and chocolate mousse - all homemade, of course - and it was pretty awesome. So most of the day today was spent cooking and cleaning, which was actually kind of fun. Not the cleaning part necessarily, but I like cooking. And now the house is damn clean.

(We're watching the 30 Rock from this past week, and Liz Lemon referred to the Sims! It was awesome!)

Yesterday we spent a lot of the day outside. We decided last weekend that we need to hang out outside more often, so yesterday we actually did it. We went canoeing on the intracoastal and explored some of the canals that branch off of it. The people who live back there really like those statues of little boys fishing.

We also played with some crabs for awhile, freaking them out and making them run like hell. It was fun. We also sat and watched a lizard go about his life: he surveyed his land, found a lady friend, had a romantic experience, was confronted by a challenger, and got into a rumble. Watching 2 lizards fight was probably the coolest thing I've seen all month. It was hilarious.

In other news, Alfred went tanning at the gym the other day and the girl didn't set the timer right, so he got a bit pink. Then yesterday he forgot to put sunscreen on his arms and legs, so he's a little red today. He's been quite diligent about putting aloe on, at least. First sunburn of the summer!

happy birthday Tony!

Yup, my favorite oldest brother is another year older. He is, in fact, damn old. We lamented the fact that we're old and fucking boring when I called him earlier. It could be worse, though. We could be dead. If he read this, he'd probably like this picture. The rest of us will just have to enjoy it for him. Happy birthday!


We have a new guy at work who has the same first and middle name as Tony. I told him that, and he said "I knew that, because you're my sister." The Tony at work I mean, not the Tony who's actually my brother. In other words, it was kind of weird. Mike met him last week, he pointed out that he looks kind of like Dad. I had noticed the same thing earlier that day. But only when he's wearing a hat. So he looks like my Dad and has the same name as my brother.

We're watching the SNL from a couple of weeks ago, where TV on the Radio performed. Alfred corrected identified the lead singer as the guy in Rachel Getting Married. I just assumed he was being racist. Cause that guy's black. But nope, he was right. It's now official, he's not racist. In case you were curious.

colin farrell just made fun of Florida

I am proud to announce that our Christmas tree is still up. Yes, we've scraped by for another week. We did take down a few lights (only so we could return them, though), and I took down all of the other decorations around the house. I haven't put any of them away, of course. They're all sitting on the table in the kitchen. It's just too sad to take it all down at once. Plus I think we're going to need another Christmas box to store it all and I just don't feel inspired to find one and pack everything up. I was riding a wave of productivity when I took everything down, and once that left me, that was it.

Our Sunday was rather productive overall. I packaged up a couple of boxes to mail to Katie, we made a bunch of food to get me through the week, (Alfred's taking a real estate class and is spending several nights this week at his parents' house) oh and we had a freaking awesome dinner. We grilled a couple of steaks, cooked some swiss chard with parmesan cheese, and made some cranberry chutney to go along with it. Oh lordy, was it good. I could eat that chutney plain. Actually I could, we have a little left over. But anyway, it was good.

Right now I'm watching the Golden Globes from last night. This Steven Spielberg thing is awfully long. I just went upstairs to turn on Alfred's computer and came back down and he's still droning on. I mean, he's made some good movies and all, but come on. Hell, most of this post was written during this section. I really need to watch Slumdog Millionaire. Ok, it's over. And so's this!

I'm sort of famous

My regular readers (the thousands of you) may have noticed a slew of new visitors today. I counted 27 just now. Seems someone over on thenest.com was asking about someone who has a screen name that includes T&A, someone found this here little blog, and posted a link asking if I'm that person. Alas, I am not. I feel sort of sorry for all those people who trek over here, hoping to find someone they know and miss, and only find me. I used to frequent a couple of the boards there for awhile, though not the particular board that had this post, and my screen name didn't have T&A in it. Plus I didn't actually post much. Sorry, ladies.

Big TV news: Scrubs is back on! I think it was on Monday night, although with DVR it's hard to remember. 2 episodes though, and both were pretty good, I thought. The last couple of seasons have only been so-so, but these were much better. This is supposedly the last season, although there are rumors of a spin off, in Cheers/Frasier fashion. I'd watch. I watched Joey, after all.

Speaking of TV... I think I've mentioned my love of the show Ghost Hunters here before. (Yup, I looked it up and linked to it in case you were curious. There's 2 separate links there, folks. Just doing my job.) The girl who worked in the store today (Chrissy) also works at the wax museum downtown. She's told me (and others have told me) a few creepy ghostly stories about the place before. Anyway, she told me today that one of the guys from Ghost Hunters (Jason) and his wife came into the wax museum last month! She met them and talked to them and stuff! They were just in town on vacation and stopped in. They went through the museum, then asked her if there were any ghost stories about the place. So she told them a bunch. Then they asked if they could stick around after she closed and turned off the lights, so she said sure. They brought in one of their cameras and she walked them back into one section where there are a bunch of presidents set up. She was telling them a story about the wax face of Abraham Lincoln, and about how it was made from one of his death masks. After she finished talking, Jason's wife told her that during her story, a light came out from behind her, where the wax head was, swirled around her head, then went back behind her toward the wax head. Kind of weird. The wife said she'd post it on her myspace page, but I just looked and it wasn't there, but she hasn't logged in for a few weeks. Chrissy gave them the owner's card and told them they should come back and investigate. If they do, I am SO there! I'll be such a dork, I'd totally just stand around and grin like a goofball. It would totally make my day. No, month at least.

Ok, now that you've read all that drivel, here's a fun little series of pictures of me getting my tattoo. First, the last picture ever taken of my un-tattooed back:

Now a couple of action shots. Look how hard I'm holding onto that seat back. It hurt, yo.

And finally, the finished product. I think it took about an hour. I was considering a butterfly until I saw this little guy, I'm so glad I found him. He's my Swedish souvenir. If he had a name, it would be "Chompers" in Swedish.

work junk

I worked until 10:00 last night. That's why there was no blog, in case you were wondering. I'm sure everyone was devastated. It kind of sucked, especially because I ordered dinner from IHOP and they got rid of my favorite salad. I was 15 minutes late picking up my dinner, because of an issue with lights, then a kid had an asthma attack and I ended up having to sit in the store with him and a teacher for the rest of the night, so I had to eat half of my dinner 2 hours after I got it. But it could have been worse. Our group for today canceled so I got to sleep in until 6:50 this morning. Bitchin.

I got bitched out at work today by a woman that I just offered a job to. Apparently we pay slave wages, she's worth twice what I offered her, she doesn't take prescription drugs or do cocaine so she shouldn't have to do a drug test, and we have no standards because all of our existing guides are constantly giving incorrect information. I got an earful for a good 10-15 minutes, then she finally left once she realized I wasn't falling all over myself to offer her the salary she wanted. So that was fun.

We're watching Kath and Kim right now, it's kind of crappy. We weren't sure after watching the first one, but I think the second one has sealed the deal. It's not overtly awful, I don't think, I'm not really sure to be honest. I'm sort of doing three things at a time and can't fully concentrate.

breaking celebrity news!

It was a big day for me, celebrity gossip-wise. Let's get right to the nitty gritty.

1. You know it's big when 3 different people contact me before noon to make sure I know about it. Mike texted me, Allison (friend from work) called me, and Alfred emailed me, all to tell me that Holly and Hef have broken up! And - shocker of shockers - she broke up with him! Now, for any of you poor souls who do not watch the fine program "The Girls Next Door," this is quite a big deal. This girl has been deluding herself into thinking that Hef is her soul mate, that he's going finally to divorce his wife and have babies with her and she'll live happily ever after with all his money when he finally kicks it. For some reason, she has finally come to terms with the fact that it's never gonna happen, and has left him. Well, not really left him, but moved out of his bedroom at least. It's a start, I guess. I mean, who is she without him? Just some blonde with a fake nose and tits. Seriously though, this is pretty earth shattering stuff, at least for some of us.

2. Guess who's in town auditioning skanks/potential soul mates for a few days?

Yup, Bret Michaels. His busses were parked in the TSA lot (our downtown office) so I pulled a stealth paparazzi move to take a couple of pictures. Either he's eternally optimistic about his chances of finding true love on a reality show, or he's just trying desperately to hang on to the last shreds of his fame. I'm guessing the latter. But then, I'm a cynical bitch. The women in the TSA office got to see a bunch of girls coming off of the bus earlier today. As you might guess, they were not the most demure looking bunch.

3. Perhaps the most important finding of my day. Apparently parts of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 were filmed at the Fountain of Youth, and apparently parts of the 4th installment will be as well. Last time they were filming there, Johnny Depp moved into a house nearby so he wouldn't have to travel very far. So, if all of this is true, which I believe it to be, Johnny Depp will be living within 2 miles of my place of employment. You better believe I'll be pulling plenty of stalker-paparazzi moves if I find out when he's in town. I mean, he is one fine looking man. And he's cool, which is very important. So I'll let you know when I get rich from selling candid photos of him to Us Weekly.

dinners and not much else

We've been on a roll with good dinners this week. With Alfred on this low carb kick, we've been mostly eating salads with either chicken or fish. Which is fine, but it was getting a little old for me. Well, the other night I made catfish with a garlic dill marinade and dill sauce, with a red pepper and squash salad. Then tonight we had some ham (which is actually about 3 years old, we got it for Christmas one year and it's been in the freezer ever since) and I made a pineapple-red pepper-red onion combo, plus cut up some tomato and avocado to go with it. I should have taken a picture, it was pretty. And delicious and healthy and just lovely.

We hired that girl the other day and she started today. I now realize how much I liked being alone in the office. She's very nice, but it's just a lot of work to have to talk all day and teach someone and all. Basically, I'm lazy.

Eh, I can't seem to come up with anything else today. I'm watching South Park and it keeps distracting me. They made a boy band called Finger Bang. Awesome.

some random disconnected comments

I'm going to call in my first picture-free post here. Please refer to Monday's post if you're upset about this development.

Bush is on TV right now, talking about how screwed up the economy is. It's a little scary to think that things happening right now may make history books in the future, like the Great Depression. It's scary because of where we are in our lives right now: just starting out, getting ready to start a family, etc. Our lives could be very strongly impacted by this. There was a report on NPR this morning about how with the government taking over such big chunks of the economy (I'm sure there's a more technical way to say that) is making the US so much less financially free, and how Canada is much more free in many ways than the US. Bush just said "God bless." What the hell happened to separation of church and state? Honestly, I don't know if I just never noticed how religious the country/government was, or it's become more so. The whole shoving religion in people's faces really makes me dislike it more and more. I went off on a rant about it once to Alfred. I think he secretly thinks I'm going to hell. Bush is done. Thank God. Ha!

Speaking of Alfred, he came home tonight! This is his first night home in over a week. We get to catch up on some important TV, such as How I Met Your Mother. Ah, I love it. It's a good one so far. I love Neil Patrick Harris. "I caught feelings. I caught feelings bad."

I sort of accidentally finished the Legend of Zelda again. I was on level 9 and stumbled onto the last room, so I killed Gannon (the little bastard) and that was that. I didn't even finish getting all the stuff I was supposed to get in that level. I'm just that damn good, I guess. Gosh, I'm a wienie.

It's too hard to concentrate with a good show on. I missed our regular shows! So I'm out.