Oh, just go to hell

Remember that weekend, over a month ago, when I looked all cute in my little black skirt and the girls and I went out to D'ville first, and then WC to the dive bar where K knew the bartender? And I met a guy there, and we shared a few kisses, and I called him like I said I would and expected that I'd hear back from him in a couple days?

Well, I didn't. He didn't call me...until today. And he called my friggin' WORK phone number, which is crap, because I am never in the office and I TOLD him to just email me - or he could've called me back on my cell, because that's what I called HIM from. But no. He called the office. Freakin' idiot. So Coworker IMs me and says, "You got a call from JG, here's his number. He said he was returning your call." And I'm like, WHO? Because this was OVER A MONTH AGO. And God, it's not like I have a life or anything, I was just sitting at home waiting for his friggin' phone call. [/sarcasm]

So here I am thinking that this must be something work-related and I'm racking my brain; I just can't figure out what client this is, because...seriously, a MONTH! So I call back and he's like, "Yeah, I just wanted to apologize for not calling you back. I was really busy." FOR A MONTH??? "You're at work aren't you?" Yeah, dumbshit, I am at work. You called me AT WORK. From my business card! After I told you not to! "So, I just wanted to let you know that I hadn't forgotten about you...and you can call me sometime if you want." Yeah, I'll get right the fuck on that, buddy.

Jesus, how desperate do I look?

The anti-fang

When Rugrat was about five months old, he got a tooth. One little bitty tooth, on the bottom. And that was it...he didn't get any more teeth for five months. We called him "Fang."

So on Saturday, he finally lost his first tooth. That one little bitty fang he sprouted when he was a baby. Most of the kids in his class are already growing in half a dozen adult teeth, but my little Rugrat held on to those itty bitty pearly whites for the loooongest time. And then Saturday, it was so loose - he'd been wiggling it all morning. I gave him an apple with his lunch, and halfway through his lunch it was obvious it was coming out really soon (because it was practically horizontal, barely hanging in there) so we went into the bathroom to wiggle it and monitor the progress. The quesadillas got cold, but we stayed in the bathroom, moving it back and forth until it was only held in place by a couple little bits of gum-flesh on the sides. Ewww, that's a gross visual. Anyway, I went upstairs to get the camera and WHILE I WAS GONE Rugrat pulled it out. Dammit. But anyway, it was done, and he was thrilled ("It didn't even hurt at all!"), and we put the tooth in a little box to stick under his pillow for the tooth fairy (who brought him a nice gold dollar coin for it). I took pictures of his gappy little-boy smile but every one I took had him squinting his eyes shut, so I don't think I'll post them here.

I gotta say, though, I don't think he's going to lose another tooth for five months. The one next to it is a little bit loose, but not so much that it's coming out anytime soon. And all the others are very firmly rooted in. Probably in six months or so he'll have a smile that's more "little old man without dentures" than "little boy with buckteeth." They'll all fall out at once, just like they all came in at once, five months after that first fang.

Mosquito Lounge

I tried a new restaurant last night: Mosquito Lounge, in Brentwood. First impression was good - yes, it's located in a tacky stripmall (not even a good stripmall, like the one with Barnes & Noble), but the decor was AWESOME. I absolutely love the atmosphere in that place. Unfortunately, the food sucked. First of all, they don't have any hard liquor, so my cosmo was made with sake, which...okay, it wasn't disgusting, but it wasn't great. Second, the actual food: I ordered crab cakes to start with, and then dragon prawns. Big servings, but ewww. The crab cakes were just warm, not hot. And they were all mushy like they'd used 90% bread crumbs and 10% Krab and seasonings, and then fried those lumps. The sauce was yummy, and the salad served with it was fine. But the "crab" cakes themselves were horrendous. Then, the shrimp. Dear God, is everything in this place fried? Because they were thinly covered with some kind of fried tempura batter or something. And they were overcooked (but at least they were hot!). Again, the sauce was yummy, but the main focus of the dish? Not so much.

So...I won't be going back.

It's like there's some kind of mental block here - the restaurants in the area are all either 1) boring and kinda gross chain restaurants or 2) great atmosphere, lousy food or 3) great food, lousy atmosphere. I went to Strings with Babydaddy and Rugrat last week (again, strip mall location), and the food was fantastic, but it felt like I was dining in a cafeteria. Babydaddy said he'd gone another day and sat on the other side of the restaurant, which was much more atmospheric. Whatever. It's not something I'd take someone to for a fancy dinner, but it's a damn sight better than Chili's.

Disney photos

Here they are!

This first photo was taken during breakfast on Monday morning, at the Storyteller's Cafe in the Grand Californian hotel (where we stayed during this trip). Really nice hotel. Really bad food at this restaurant though.



This next photo was taken in New Orleans Square.


Look at all the gorgeous decorations up for the holidays!


Here's Rugrat with his favorite character (albeit just a statue) - Jack Skellington.


Look how beautiful Sleeping Beauty's castle is! They repainted it and added lots of gold accents, including the five lovely crowns, representing the five decades of Disneyland. (This photo was taken during our Early Entry morning - the park wasn't always this deserted! LOL)


And here's the Haunted Mansion, all decked out in its Nightmare Before Christmas finery. I tried taking some flash-free photos inside but they didn't turn out well at all. :-( You really can't get a feel for how amazing it is without seeing all the fantastic changes they made inside. It was just incredible. My favorite part was the singing jack-o-lanterns.

Jack Skellington

My little monster-child, prior to trick-or-treatiing downtown on the Saturday before Halloween. (Click for a bigger photo.)

Disneyland & date recap

Rugrat discovered the joy of roller coasters on this trip. He was apprehensive about Space Mountain and wanted to "work up to it". So, the first roller coaster we went on was Big Thunder and he loved it. Then we went on the Matterhorn (which I despise, because it's 40 years old and has no padding in the seats anymore and is bumpy as hell). He loved that one too. Finally he felt ready to tackle SM. When it was over I turned around to look at him (he was sitting behind me with Babydaddy) and he had this look of absolute terror on his face and then as I watched he broke into a huge grin and said, "That's the best ride EVER!" So we rode SM a bazillion times. He wouldn't ride California Screamin' (the big roller coaster at California Adventure, with a loop) until the very last day, a few hours before the park closed. He finally decided to ride it, and then THAT was his new favorite ride and he rode it about a half dozen times more before the park closed. LOL

Not a whole lot of people there (Monday-Wednesday) so the lines were short. Haunted Mansion (all decked out in Nightmare Before Christmas finery) was incredible. We went on all our favorites, usually multiple times. We hit Fantasyland on Tuesday morning, when we used Early Entry (you get in one hour early), so we walked right on all the FL rides. No waiting for Peter Pan; no waiting for Dumbo. It was excellent. The weather couldn't have been better - sunny and hot, perfect t-shirt & shorts weather. It actually hit 95 degrees on Monday!!

We had a nice time visiting with Mom & Stepdad too. They left at about mid-day Tuesday, so we had about a day and a half there together. As usual, our visit together was too short and we didn't get a whole lot of time to just catch up & hang out (because we were so busy going on rides!) but it was fun nonetheless.

The only downside was the food. It was terrible. Cold and horribly overpriced. There were a couple of bright spots: the bakery next to Carnation Cafe on Main Street sells great croissants and coffee (all our "real" breakfasts were pretty awful, with cold eggs and "icky" - Rugrat's word - waffles and pancakes). The Napa Rose in our hotel (Grand Californian) was excellent, but incredibly expensive so we only ate there once. White Water Snacks was good - the food is actually cooked when it's ordered, and it seemed less expensive than in the rest of the park (chili cheese dog & lots of hot, fresh fries for about $6). Mostly it seemed like the food was cooked and then left under heat lamps all day, so you'd get chicken strips that were cooked an hour ago and barely warm from the lamps. It was just gross.

Now....Monday night! My date with GG went REALLY, REALLY well. So well, in fact, that I am not going to jinx it by giving details. Let's just say that the chemistry and attraction was definitely still there (but I was a good girl and restrained myself). And he is coming up to the bay area to visit family at Thanksgiving. :-D

P.S. Pictures coming soon!

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.