For those of us who are lucky enough to be home...
Happy long weekend. For those of you who had to work today... my condolences.

Hope everyone had a Happy turkey day! Mine was spent at the inlaw's, which was fun. I am lucky in that I really enjoy my inlaws, and get along with them really well. There was a bit of tension because my sister-in-law brought her boyfriend, who, as she proceeded to pull aside and inform me, is her soon-to-be-ex. At least that was the plan yesterday. They have broken up and gotten back together more times than I can count. So who knows.

Wow-- my cat just came out of the closet, literally. Scared the shitcakes out of me.

Anyhoo. I actually have the day off today, and so I have spent it by being utterly and completely lazy. My poor Fed Ex husband is working. I watched some soaps that I haven't seen in a while, and -- shockingly, I know -- I was able to figure out what had happened in the months of plot that I missed.

I took a trip to CVS to refill a prescription and since it took so long, I ended up with a lot of stuff in my little shopping basket that I really didn't need. Like a lip gloss that I just had to buy.

I don't know what's on tap tonight, but tomorrow, no more fooling around: the wallpaper is going up.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Johnny Foulplay
What a rat bastard. Lying about his grandmother dying is about the shadiest, most disrespectful thing I've ever seen. And what did he gain from it besides a visit from his dork friend? He is the tooliest tool from Toolville, that ever tooled.

Fun with banner ads, part 291
The banner ad over my blog this evening was for a Candy store... but the related search words were "fools" and "awesome." I'm not sure whether to be offended, or thank the Googling gods that it's finally off the dreaded Halloween banner.

Survivor Speculation
I'll bet on Jon's dead grandma that the Big Lie is about Jon's dead grandma. That's the word around town, at least.

Who will get booted off tonight? Some say Christa. Some say Tijuana. Some say Burton. Some say Jon. Seems like everyone but Lillian and Darrah are at risk this evening.

I can't wait to see Rupert scowling at everyone. This is gonna be grrr-eat!

First date
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving marks a special time between my husband and I: the anniversary of our first date. Four years ago, we went on a date to the Olive Garden, and we saw the movie "The Insider" which starred a then-no name actor, Russell Crowe.

So tonight, to celebrate, we are going out to eat at the Olive Garden, as we have done every year since that first time in 1999.

After Survivor, of course. Priorities here, people!

At the Cheesecake Factory...
We had an awesome waiter. His name was Ryan R. He was hilarious, and I have decided that I want him to be my gay sidekick. I think every gal should have a gay pal. I don't have one. And I want one.

Oreo cheesecake rules. And I have resigned myself to the fact that my husband will eat the rest of it today, particularly because it's his day off, and I told him that he could. But, if it was still there when I got home, I wouldn't be upset. Just sayin'.

Two weeks from now...
the company holiday party. I must prepare myself for drunken coworkers.

I just spent the greater part
of a minute looking around on the floor for the fragment of a Sun Chip (mmm) that eluded my chomp. Not that I was going to eat it off the floor (ten second rule) or anything. But it has disappeared and I'd like to know where it went.

Tonight: Cheesecake Factory part 2. And, going shopping at Legacy Village, ah-gain. Destinations include Ann Taylor Loft, Crate & Barrel and maybe their swank bookstore, Joseph Beth. I need new reading material (see below). What kind of cheesecake should I get? I'm already contemplating. The rasberry chocolate truffle was stellar last time. Maybe I'll try the key lime. Or the Oreo. Maybe I'll skip the meal and just eat the dessert.

Two Advil have not helped the muscle pain from turkey lifting. Both of my forearms are killing. Who woulda thought that 10 pound turkeys could kick my ass so bad?

Mid-morning report
I can't get into work today. Not feelin' it. I'm such a wuss; I'm sore from hauling turkeys yesterday. Which, by the way, was fun, but as I expected, a lot of bah humbug moments as well. Plus it was hella cold. We're talking, bloodshot eyes, chapped face, numb butt cheeks cold. Despite being wrapped up like an eskimo. It took me hours to defrost.

The amount of people at the office is dwindling; tomorrow it will get worse. I tend to need a bit of background noise to be productive. Silence makes me crazy. It's pretty damn quiet here -- the phones aren't ringing, there's no chatter, everyone is keeping to themselves.

In other news, I just added another Friendster friend! That brings my grand total to a whopping three. I am probably really not the target user of Friendster, since it seems like most of the people on there are looking for luuvvve, and by luuvvve I mean casual sex, but I still like to look at who I'm connected to via the six degrees of separation principle. Whether it's someone named Sven who lives in Iowa or Katie from down the street, it's fascinating.

Book report
The book I'm currently reading is Spy Girl by Amy Grey. It's one of those books that I knew nothing about prior to picking it up while browsing at Borders. But I'm totally the "judge a book by its cover" kind of person. If the cover is striking, I pick it up. Spy Girl is bright, hot pink with big black letters. The title kind of struck my fancy, too, as it's always been a secret dream of mine to be a private investigator.

Anyhow, the book is kind of a disappointment. It's your typical, mid-20's woman living in New York City, experiencing the bar scene, dating disasters... peppered with some interesting anecdotes about her job as an investigator. The book doesn't so much have a plot, as much as it just rambles from one anecdote to the next.

I'm about halfway through and I can't say I'd recommend it.

Read any good books lately?

Oh, the weather outside is frightful
Snow blowing sideways can't be a good thing, can it? This is what I'm looking at right now. And lucky me, I get to be outside in it all afternoon. One of the nice things my company does each year is get involved in a local campaign that provides coats to needy children in the area. Today, a few of us from my department will be outside Browns stadium giving away turkeys to those who come down to donate a coat.

You'd think this would be a nice, heart-warming event, right? Well, for the most part it is, but there's also a darker underbelly, which always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The rule is "one turkey per car." We get the greediest, pissiest people down there, who want two turkeys because they gave two coats. Or 5 turkeys for 5 coats. You get the picture. They don't seem to understand that this is a charity event, that the whole point is donating the coats to help the children. So then they get all torked off and will actually take the coats back, drive around the block, and try and get another turkey. It's despicable.

There are also the good stories though; last year we had a little girl come up with her mom and she had her entire piggy bank full of pennies and nickels that she wanted to donate to the Salvation Army (who is one of the sponsors of this event). Or the people who don't take turkeys at all. Or the people who anonymously drive up and hand us a check for $200 and drive off before we can thank them.

So while I'll be freezing my ass off, it's definitely for a good cause. And I'll feel good that I was a part of it again this year.

More stories from the night the band played
As if the hamster story weren't enough, and the crazy dancing guy in the bar, here's another tidbit from Saturday night. We're sitting at the bar before the show, and this guy comes up to my husband and says, "You look familiar to me, did you go to [name omitted] High School?" My husband says that he did, but doesn't recognize the guy. So the guy introduces himself as "Chad, the guy who broke into the school and fucked shit up."

That indeed rings a bell with my husband, and he laughs. So they talk about high school for a little bit. When Chad excuses himself, my husband tells me the story. Apparently, in his younger days, Chad stole some different acids from the science lab at school and then attempted to blow up the school safe by mixing the acids together. Chad was not a chemistry whiz, however, which I would assume would be of utmost importance for such an operation. So he mixed the wrong kinds of acid together and it started smoking so much that it was choking him and he had to abort the mission.

Smart guy. So that's his claim to fame. I can't believe he actually introduced himself to my husband that way. You'd think he would want to forget that particular episode in his life. What do I know, though?

Son, be a dentist
Nothing more uncomfortable than sitting in a dentist's chair with your mouth pried open, having two people jabbing at your with metal prods and water squirters and suction thingies. That was me, bright and early this morning. And I didn't get off scot-free, either: I have a cavity, and so must return right before Christmas to get it filled. I didn't even think I had any real tooth-type material left that I could get more cavities; my mouth is comprised mostly of metal and porcelain now anyway. Yeesh.

My mom, the Wolverines fan
Always true to form, my mom had several altercations over the weekend with unwitting Buckeyes. First, the fifteen year old bagger at the grocery store got an earful when he started giving her shit for her maize and blue sweatshirt. She told the checkout girl she was going to rip up her $100 check she was writing unless the kid shut the hell up.

When she got to her office this morning, someone had plastered pictures of a kid decked out in OSU regalia flipping the finger to a U of M person. I'm sure she is being ultra obnoxious this morning.

You know it's bad
When the Steelers suck, but we suck worse. Not a fun game. I excused myself from my husband and his friends during the third quarter and fell asleep on the upstairs couch with Domino, watching the Real World marathon.

Cultural phenomenon
Here's a piece we all can enjoy: the cultural phenomenon wherein, whenever you're at a bar listening to a band, there's always that one weird guy who dances when no one else is. And he's usually an older gentleman who's had a few too many to drink.

That guy was at my husband's show last night.

Tuna noted this phenomenon when she spotted Gene Gene the Dancing Machine while she was out and about the other night.

The guy who I saw was doing a dance move that I'd like to call "The Crane." It involved the flapping of arms to simulate wings, and moving up and down, not necessarily in tune with the music. Mixed in with a little Russian leg kicking. It was quite a sight.

After the show I was introduced to said gentlemen, and it turns out that he is in the band that is going to be headlining the New Year's Eve show that my husband's band is playing at. So I have not seen the last of Crazy Dancing Guy.

Nor have you. Because he's everywhere.

Off with their heads
(Not for the faint of heart -- don't say I didn't warn you)

...

So, I'm at this party last night. And all these scientific types are there. They're saying words like "neurotransmitter" and I'm feeling incredibly out of place and stupid. While we're all sitting around eating pasta salad, one girl nonchalantly tells us all, "I decapitated like, 5 hamsters yesterday."

Um. Excuse me?

Yep. She wasn't bluffin'. She does some kind of research on Hamster brains. And they have to use live hamsters for the experiments because apparently they need to study a certain part of the brain that shuts down after death. Gross huh?

Meanwhile, I'm grossed out, but at the same time, I'm sitting there thinking, heh, hamster brains. I'm picturing Jee with his head in a guillotine. Maybe that's wrong of me. But oh well.

It was a disturbing conversation nonetheless. I'd like to believe that that stuff doesn't actually happen. But yeah, it does.

Ok, here's a joke...
Since so many Buckeyes fans have stumbled upon this site looking for anti-Michigan jokes, I'll tell you one that my husband told me last night:

Him: Did you hear Lloyd Carr is only dressing 22 players for the game?
Me: Why? (I actually thought it was real for a second; shame on me)
Him: Because the rest of the players know how to dress themselves.

HAW HAW!

There. Hope you're happy, Bucks fans.

Go Blue.

Keep it in the closet



Thanks Jonesarelli, for the laugh.

Sorry, Buckeyes fans
No anti-Michigan pictures or jokes here. But I got three hits on this site yesterday from individuals looking for such things. As if. But I hope you enjoyed the blog nonetheless.

Hot in Herre
(not a typo; spelled correctly according to rapper Nelly)
It is honestly hotter than Hades in here. And me with my warm sweater. You'd think in November, wearing a sweater to work would be safe. But noooooo.

But the kid is not my son
Michael Jackson's mug shot. Dude, that shit is scary. You could sell that pic instead of those green alien head posters that are popular with the college crowd these days. I had to cover my eyes when, during each commercial break, they would show that horrifying image. Not sure what's worse. The snake eating the iguana or that mug shot. I know that when I have the nightmare, it's going to be the snake but with Michael Jackson's eyes.

So this whole MJ thing. It sounds like he schnookers the entire family into thinking he's wonderful. They were interviewing parents on the news and they were all saying that even after all this, they would still send their children to Neverland Ranch. Say what now?

I'll never understand.