I've got a date!

With GG - my first "boyfriend" from high school!

I found him on myspace.com a few months ago & we've been emailing back and forth for a couple of months. He lives down in LA and I haven't seen him in FIFTEEN YEARS, y'all! So we're going to meet up on Monday night - Halloween - to catch up and have drinks. Can I just say...I am SO excited about this! (Yes, I've seen pictures...and YES, he is still totally my type and smokin' hot to boot!)

Dizz Knee Land

We're getting really excited here about our Disneyland trip next week...yesterday I spent way too much money on eBay - but I got four tickets to Mickey's Halloween Treat! It's a special trick-or-treat party they're having at California Adventure. It's three hours, from 7:30-10:30 on Sunday night (after regular park hours; it closes at 6 PM that day). There are several "trick or treat" stations where you get candy, and a bunch of photo opportunities with the characters. Some of the rides will be open, and I heard that you can play the carnival games for free (they give out candy as prizes, rather than toys). Whee!

Grout!

OK, tile is finally grouted. Yay!

My weekend

Friday night I had a craigslist date. I'm not really sure why I keep putting myself through this, it never turns out any differently. The guy was nice, polite, not hideously ugly or anything, but there was no spark at all. Our date was over an hour and a half after it began, and that included dinner. But no goodnight kiss. (WTF?)

Saturday night I went out with the girls. And if I say so myself, I looked pretty hot: tight black skirt, lavender and black patterned cami with a black v-neck cardigan and a lavender sash at my waist. And my hair was all big bouncy curls, kind of 40's but without the shellac. We went to a dance club down in D'ville, but left after a couple hours because the crowd was almost completely made up of couples. Kind of useless, when we were looking so good. So we headed back to da Creek, and went to a dive bar. My friend K knew one of the bartenders (whose parents own the bar), and after some wrangling with the asshole bouncer, we got in for free and got free drinks. I met this adorable boy - and I do mean boy. I can't remember how old he said he was (ok, so I was a wee bit tipsy) but he was at least 6-8 years younger than me. That's ok, I just want a boytoy anyway. Anyway, I got his card (and a few kisses) and told him I'd call him the next day (yesterday), which I did. Now he'll wait the requisite two days and then call me back. *sigh* I really hate the game.

I woke up on K's couch with a glorious hangover and spent most of the day recovering from that, and then getting a pedicure. :) But the very best part of my weekend actually occurred early this morning, when I had the most fabulous dream. I dreamed I was Kendall (from All My Children - and yes, I am a total dork), and Zach had me pinned up against a wall. Unfortunately I woke up before it was...*ahem*...consummated, but even so - this was the hottest dream I've had in years. I really need to get laid, y'all.

The end of babyhood...

I finally gave up the last little teeny tiny part of me that thought that MAYBE someday I might have another child. I sold my glider (rocking chair) on craigslist tonight.

I had no problems getting rid of Rugrat's crib, his changing table, his stroller (well, actually, that filthy thing is still in the garage because I couldn't even GIVE it away). Baby clothes? Gone, for the most part - I kept a few things for sentimental reasons, but handed down the rest of his barely-worn, gorgeous baby clothes. I was the first one to have a baby in my group - everyone else came after. And almost all of those babies were boys, so my hand-me-downs were always in demand among the sisters-in-law and friends. Baby toys were disposed of too, given to cousins or donated to charities.

But I held on to the glider. I had such lovely memories of holding my little infant Rugrat, nursing him, rocking him, singing to him. Sitting upright, rocking in the middle of the night, asleep - both of us. It's amazing that you can actually continue to rock the chair and be sound asleep at the same time, but I'm sure I'm not the only mother who's done it. When he got a wee bit older, we'd snuggle up in the chair to read bedtime stories.

Time marched on, and Rugrat got too big for us to share the chair anymore (without my legs falling asleep, that is). So the chair sat, unused, in his room until we moved two years ago. Then the chair migrated to MY room. I had some fleeting idea about it being a "reading chair" because it's so comfortable. But when I read in my bedroom, I read in bed. And the chair ended up just holding stacks of clean clothes.

Why did I keep the chair for so long? I kept thinking that someday I might meet someone and get married. And someday we might decide that it would be totally cool to have a baby together. And if that happened - if I somehow changed my mind and thought, "OK, it would be fine to have another baby. I could totally live through another twelve months of being a braindead zombie. I could totally put up with a few more years of diapers and tantrums and whining and picky eating and the nonstop physical and emotional drain," if I REALLY TRULY believed that...then I'd want to have a glider. So I held on to it for way longer than I should have.

And now it's gone. That last little bit of Rugrat's infancy. That last little link to breastfeeding, which was totally the best (and worst) part of the first six months of his life. So I'm a little sad. But still, it's good to move on.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Rugrat, Babydaddy and I went to see this movie yesterday. I love W&G - I've seen all three of the earlier movies - and I wasn't disappointed with this one. It was really cute. My favorite thing was Lady Tottington's very veggie dresses. I didn't notice it until near the end of the movie, but some of her dresses were meant to emulate vegetables: at the competition she was dressed as a carrot, and in the final scene she was dressed as an ear of corn. Adorable!

Zippity doo dah

Dad & stepmom came over on Saturday for my birthday. I ran off to a seminar at the library on starting your own small business, and while I was gone, they started changing the switches and electrical outlets in the house. I don't mean that they started rewiring them so as to completely confound me, but that they switched the actual switches and outlets from nasty almond to a lovely, clean white. So...whee! I have all new outlets & switches, including GFCIs in the kitchen & bath (which were not there before, despite the violated building codes). Bitchin' birthday present, even if dad nearly gave himself a heart attack doing it all in one day. Seriously, I was hollerin' at him to TAKE A FRIGGIN BREAK ALREADY by the time he started on the upstairs rooms. He was turning purple and huffin' and puffin' every time he had to get back up off the floor.

I also got a fabulous birthday dinner of boeuf bourgignon and garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach with pine nuts and sultanas (golden raisins). And dessert: creme brulee. Who can resist that? In addition, I marinated myself in pinot noir and a good snort of that fabulous $200 scotch. Amazingly enough, I was NOT hung over the next day (may have something to do with the fact that I basically passed out at 9 PM and slept TWELVE HOURS).

And now I am 32. I was thinking the other day about how I could be on that old television show Thirtysomething now.

Haircut tonight! Will celebrate with something a little different - very long bangs (or very short layers) and at least four inches off the ends. My hair has gotten unwieldy, y'all. The last time I actually styled my hair (blow dry, curling iron, etc.) it took forever. I have at least four inches of incredibly dry ends that resemble straw. AND I woke up in the middle of the night a few times with my hair wrapped around my neck and trying to strangle me. I don't want my hair to be so long that it's strangling me. Seriously. And when I'm not laying down, the hair occasionally will wrap under my armpit and my head gets yanked to the side. That's just too long.

My favorite day of the week

...is now officially Wednesdays. Between Lost and Veronica Mars, plus a healthy helping of my newest favorite train wreck, America's Next Top Model...I am just in heaven.

Saturday...meh. Wednesday is the new IT day!

Yum!

Mmmmm...made the greatest dinner tonight! Roasted tiny potatoes and butternut squash soup. Thank god for Williams Sonoma!

Oh, and La Bicyclette merlot. Cheap and tasty, at $10/bottle!

"Spring" cleaning

Today I spent three hours weeding in the backyard and planting spring bulbs. Almost 250 spring bulbs, actually. I planted:

• 90 crocuses
  
• 88 tulips
• 36 daffodils
• 22 hyacinths

I'm exhausted. And I didn't even do what I was REALLY supposed to do, which is to grout the tile in the entryway. Why didn't I do it? Because my friggin' drill doesn't fit the whirlygig mixer-thingy I got to mix up the grout. How is that possible? Aren't they a standard size? I dunno, but Babydaddy said I would need a corded (as opposed to cordless) drill anyway, because you have to mix the stuff for five minutes. Yeeeaaahhh.

So, no grout yet. But I will have an abundance of spring flowers this year. :-)

Lost...Arrrrggghhhh!

OK, seriously. What fresh hell is this???

#1 - Michael's whole flashback stuff. Why? What was the point? I thought it was spelled out really clearly last season that 1) he loves his kid, 2) his ex was a raging bitch and 3) eventually she manipulated him into giving up his parental rights so her new hubby could adopt him. So what was the whole frigging point of this flashback? That he gave Walt a stuffed polar bear? Jesus H Christ.

#2 - WASTE OF TIME, folks. All the little bits they re-showed from last week? Why couldn't they have just made the season premiere last week be 2 hours long? Oh, yeah. Because they wanted to have 23 (!!) episodes this season.

#3 - Waiting all damn hour to see Jin. I was getting pretty worried about him, actually. And the tailaways? Not exactly stunning, y'all. Not when it's been spoiled left, right & center.

#4 - Jack is still an unsufferable ass.

But on the plus side:

#1 - Numbers resetting the countdown thingamajig. How much you wanna bet that if Dezzy doesn't reset it in time, Lostzilla starts yanking trees underground?

#2 - Ooooh, what's with the patch? Eagle-eyed TWoP'ers saw the exact same logo ON THE SHARK!!!! WTF????? (I totally missed it, but will re-watch tomorrow.) Must be more of that loverly "island security system." Shark scenes were very tense overall; I liked that bit.

#3 - Kate & the Kandy. I was hollerin' at her to "go on, girl, get your chocolate on!" Hee!

The decline of literacy

I'm disgusted. I've come to expect poor spelling and grammar from the vast majority of online personal ads. I cringe at (but am not particularly surprised to see) the horrible spelling and poor sentence structure in the little local community newspaper. But I found at least three spelling errors in a single article on CNN.com. CNN!! I am just...aghast. I cannot believe how far the level of literacy in our country has fallen.

Dammit, pick up a freakin' book and READ, y'all! Expand your brain a bit!

My little artist

Rugrat is such an amazing artist. He just keeps on surprising me. Kid has got some mad skillz! This is one his most recent creations:



Seriously - check out the gnarly skeleton on the flaming skateboard! I love his expression - the hand position, the forked tongue sticking out...it just rocks. And the angry sun & moon in the upper corners - so cool! Not sure what to make of the flying/boarding dragon/cobra though, LOL.

Carpet is done!

Looks FANTASTIC. Feels silky soft and super-cushy too. Yay!

God, I'm so freakin' tired. I just want to sleeeeeeeep. I have been having serious insomnia the last week or two, and haven't been able to fall asleep until at least 1 or 2 AM. I'm just exhausted, y'all.

Stinky

My carpet is being installed. Dude, it smells AWFUL. What is that crap they use to glue down the pad? Toxic waste?

Sittin' outside on the patio trying to squint & see my laptop screen. Glare sucks.

Lost!! Squeee!!!!

OK, how big a dork am I? I am so excited about the Lost season premiere tonight that I am literally bouncing around the house. Yes, I need to finish moving stuff out of the bedrooms before the carpeting guys come tomorrow. Yes, I should be working for the next half hour. But all I can think about is...just a few more hours 'til Lost!!! God, I am SO that show's bitch.

OK, here's my wish list for this season:

• Kate gets ripped to pieces by Lostzilla so I don't have to look at her whiny bitchface anymore
• Sawyer has RHMS with someone (but not Kate, because she'll be teeny tiny bits of gore splattered around the jungle)
• Jin & Sun get jiggy
• We find out how Locke ended up in a wheelchair
• We find out what is down the hatch...REALLY SOON
• We find out what the deal is with the Others
• We find out what the deal is with the Numbers
• We find out what the deal is with Craphole Island in general
• We get answers...any answers...to any of the big questions. And we don't have to wait all damn season for those answers.

Please, God, let it be so.

Tile is done!

Well, it's not grouted yet (we decided it needed grout after all - the tiles are way too irregular to try and do it groutless). But it's all stuck to the ground. And it looks freakin' fantastic! Here's a picture of Babydaddy laying the tile yesterday.

Carpet is being installed on Thursday. I am so excited! My house is going to look SO much better. :) Of course then I'll want to gut my kitchen...

Rest in peace

A good friend of mine died last night. I never met him in person, but for the last seven years he's been a part of my life, each and every day. He maintained a bulletin board that I visit almost daily. For seven years, this board has been a constant source of comfort, joy, support, love and hope. When Rugrat had his toothbrush accident, I got cards from people all over the country (and Canada), as well as gifts and prayers and good wishes. Whenever there is a tragedy, the board rallies around and takes care of the person in need. When something wonderful happens, we tell the board, and everyone rejoices with us. Daily frustrations, parenting questions, recipes, television show recaps, movie reviews, high-profile criminal trials, jokes, games, pictures, poems, songs...we share it all. When our "board babies" pass a milestone, everyone marvels at how fast time flies. When politics is the dominant topic of the day we all choose sides and argue - sometimes getting a bit out of hand - but we come back "home" after we've cooled down and taken a breather. In other words...we're friends. We're there for each other. We are a huge "virtual" support network and I am blessed to have found the board. MikeyD made it possible for us to have a place we could come to online, anytime, to find a friend.

RIP, Mike Helton. Your RT HO's will miss you every day. :'-(

New carpet!

I ordered new carpeting this weekend, finally. And what the hell is wrong with me that I needed to get the absolute most expensive carpeting in the whole freakin' store?? Over $5 per square foot! Thank goodness for the Home Depot 20% discount sale -- but even that didn't bring down the price too terribly much, because I've got stairs to carpet (you know they charge extra for each one) AND I asked them to move the furniture. Do you know how much they charge for moving furniture? For two bedrooms? $350! I couldn't believe it! I'm going to call back and tell them I'll move my own damn furniture for that price, and give me back my $350.

Sheesh.

On the plus side, me finally ordering carpet has galvanized Babydaddy, who (in a fit of generosity that I never expected or asked for) offered to install new tile in my entryway. So last night he took out the old tile. Only took about half an hour - I would've thought it would take longer than that, but he was lickity split. We're going to install the new tile this weekend, which means I better get my butt out and buy it. Heh. I'm doing slate tiles, since it's such a tiny area (about 30 sf) - and that means we won't have to grout!! YAY! No grout! That's the most irritating part of tile installation anyway.

Whew! No evil spirits...

...in my garage. ;-)

Turns out it was a problem with the remote control that was hooked to the visor in my car. There's a little metal thing inside it that sends the signal to the opener when it's pressed down. Since the opener & remote are so darn old, the metal thing isn't as "springy" as it used to be. The garage door guy bent the little metal thing and put the remote back together and now all is well.