Thoughts on a long and totally wasted weekend

SO my sister visits in like 20 days. I need to clean my apartment. I apparently am incapable of actually doing this. Sigh.

Lyday and I went to Thanksgiving dinner at Black Angus. We did not eat turkey but had steak instead. Yum yum. We did have the worst waitress ever possible. The people in the booths around us came got served so much quicker than we did and not all of them were doing the Thanksgiving special. Lyday's friend paid which was very nice. We went and saw Four Christmases after. It was pretty funny. I enjoyed it.

Yesterday Lyday and I hit the sales. We were out at 4:45 in the morning. I finished everyone's shopping except Michelle, Kenna and Bryan and my parents. My parents are difficult. My mom actually provided a list this year which is refreshing. She rarely does. My father's included one thing - slippers. Crikey. I did get a few things for me. I picked up this scrap book that I've been coveting for a long time. I had a 50% off coupon for Joann's fabrics. Now I actually have to do the project. Sigh. :)

After a nap and a shower, Stephen and I went to get him a tattoo. I liked his artist. I may let her do my next one. I haven't figured out what or where it will be though. Although I still want to get one in Ireland so maybe that'll be my next one. Commemorate turning 35 with a tattoo. :)

Tomorrow I have to get up at the ass crack of dawn and bundle up and go to volunteer for The Seattle Marathon. I did that a few years ago and didn't really enjoy doing it but I got an email that they needed like 200 volunteers or next year they wouldn't get to do it and I felt sad for them. I do enjoy watching the marathoners, but the organizers never have enough people to do breaks for people or to end our shifts at reasonable times. I think this year I will bring with me a book, perhaps my nintendo, my chair from the basement and definitely enough snacks.

Brownie Fail!

Well I just got notification that I'm losing two more of my brownies. That means I'm down to two girls. You can't have a troop with only 2 girls. That just doesn't work so I'm trying to figure out what to do with those two. I've contacted my person at GS to see what she says. I'm a little sad but at the same time not so sad. It has been exhausting running two troops. And although I liked the activities the little girls had to do, they just wore me out. Plus, can you imagine the money I'll save...

Two thousand two hundred thirty seven posts...

You could sing that in your head like that Rent song Seasons of Love. Two thousand two hundred thirty seven poooosts. Two thousand two hundred moments so dear... two thousand two hundred thirty seven poooosts... that's how you measure ... measure 5 years.

Yes people, today is the 5 year blogiversary of my life. Isn't that exciting? And while I've been doing Peeves of Yore over at the Peevery for awile now I'm not doing a Joanne of Yore. I'm pretty sure there are a few things I would rather not remember but I will provide a few links to posts I love. :)

Here's my first ever post. Wherein I realized it was 113 days until I turned 30. Now... 113 days until I turn 35. Should I be freaking out? (That does mean it is 113 days until my birthday... mark your calendars.) (Although I could be celebrating it in Ireland. I haven't figured that out yet.) (Also I don't really love this post, but it is the first one ever so that's kind of cool). I used to drink a lot then, and I'm a little horrified by my early posts.

Five years ago, I also gave up my beloved car. Sigh. Also notable, I had, albiet for a brief time, a guy to be seeing. That was kind of nice. I met his parents which was a first for me. It is better to not have relationships go that long I think. :)

My most favorite post ever came three years ago in 2005. I'll just let you read it and revel in its total awesomeness. I've never tried another April Fool's Joke because none could ever touch this one. It is the comments that make it. :)

In rereading old posts, I spent many months (years?) pining over a crush that didn't pan out. Dang.

Some of the old posts make me sad. Sigh. some don't. Yay. But whatever. Hopefully I'll do this another 5 years. Or maybe not. :)

More Music I love

I had a gift card to Barnes & Noble burning a hole in my pocket so after dinner on Sat, I went with Lyday. I made good work of that $50.00 card.

I picked up 2 Pogues CDs. I love Shane McGowan's kind of scratchy throat singing style. I started listening to them in college because I had a crush on a guy in one of my classes who loved them. I started listening to them so we had something in common. Little did I know I'd like them. :)

I also picked up some books. Yay books! I bought the book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It is a YA read and really good. I saw a preview for the movie when I went to see Happy Go Lucky (I think). I looked it up on IMDB and discovered that it does end the way the book does which makes me happy. I hate it when movies change books significantly and I think changing the ending could be construed as a significant change.

I also picked up In The Woods. We'll see how that goes. I'm only a short way in.

Sunday I volunteered at the Winter Pineapple Classic. I'm totally volunteering for that again next year. It was fun. (Although I grew hoarse cheering on the racers). I spent a few minutes before the race chatting with a totally my type guy... who volunteers. How awesome... that is until he said he was volunteering with his girl friend. Such is the story of my life. :)

Wistful

This morning I was having a great dream. I dreamt that I had met, fallen in love with and was engaged to a guy. I think I was at least somewhat aware that I was dreaming but I was enjoying it a lot. It made me a little sad when I woke up this morning. Although one weird thing about the dream... he owned a lizard he walked on a leash.

ODing on Blue October

Remember a week or two ago I mentioned how much I think I love Blue October and was going to acquire more tunes by them? Oh sure you do... think back... :) Well I did! I was out with Stephen like two weeks ago and I picked up their double CD Foiled For the Last Time. Since I bought it all the way through Election day I've been listening to it as I fall asleep at night and as I get up in the AM. I had to foresake Adam Corolla in the morning because every commercial break had stupid election ads and it would just make me mad and I would turn off the radio anyway. I'm developing a pretty hardcore set of songs that I LOVE by them that I can listen to on repeat for days and be happy... on that list: You Make Me Smile (c'mon how awesome is that for a song title in general.), Sound of Pulling Heaven Down and She's My Ride Home. All in all good CDs I'm going to have to acquire more.

Totally unrelated sometimes I hate people. In general. None specifically. Ok well one specifically. Ok well I don't HATE him but he massively irritates me. It's a work person not a non work person so don't get paranoid Stephen. :)

Happy Go Lucky - A review

I went and saw Happy Go Lucky instead of election results last night. I initially thought I'd be the only one in the theater, but about 10 people ultimately showed up. It is usually hard for me to tell if I liked an indie film or international film. They don't pack that punch that I think American films do... Not punch exactly... Ok I think popular American movies (which I love so I don't consider what I'm about to say slamming them at all and yes I'm generalizing about a type of American movie, and I'm generalizing about the type I watch so maybe it would be easier to say the movies I watch are kind of designed for the ADD in us.) are kind of designed for the ADD in us. And by that I mean that things happen. There's a distinct arc. I know one of the reasons I generally don't like Indie films (besides the weird lack of affectation that I think I frequently see in them) is because they usually feel to me like we're just wandering through a story with no real place to go and then it is done and you're sitting there like what the hell just happened. Oh maybe I mean subtlty. There's a lack of subtlty in mainstream popular American films of the variety that I watch. Christ that's a lot of disclaimer isn't it...

Anyway, I liked Happy Go Lucky. I liked that British film makers don't use such uberhot stars the way we do (although her love interest, Tim, was pretty yummy). I liked Poppy's infernal cheerfulness, but also that we got to see her heart. She wasn't one sided or naive. (I especially hate the types of movies that show the eternally happy person as naive as though only bitter cynics have any kind of head on their shoulders). I relate to Poppy. She is making a conscious choice to be happy and let things go. I can appreciate that. Even though I sometimes fail at it, I try to be as happy as I possibly can. The reviewers talk a lot about character study and all the onion peeling of the movie, I just say I liked it and it was well worth the 10 bucks I spent to see it. (Although I will concede that at one point it did get a bit too wandery for me and I did start to wonder how long the movie was) One thing I did think was that I really wanted to find a trampoline class to take. I don't think we have those here.

My Current Fear (and the only political post I'll do this year (I think))

So while I believe Obama is the better candidate for president based on a variety of things, I don't think he's quite the messiah that the rest of the Democrats seem to think. In fact, I have a very real fear that he is going to get into office and do his 4 years but since he is only human and our government is not a dictatorship, he's not going to have as much power as they think he will. As a result of this, he is not going to end up being our great hope and in 4 years a disgusted country will vote a Republican back into office. That's my current fear. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

In a wholly only sort of related thought, I would like to start an initiative to ban attack ads from playing on TV and radio. I'm going to have to study Tim Eyeman (I know that's wrong I don't feel like looking it up) and figure out how to do this. I'm sure it will be unconstitutional (that never stops Tim Eyeman), but somehow I bet I could get it passed easily.

Massively disappointing

So this place Pizza Fusion is opening up near my work. They offer Gluten-Free pizza. Since I emailed them with a question, I got invited to their free preview for Saturday night. I was so excited. We had a seating time so we showed up within the 1/2 hour we were supposed to. I was starving. I hadn't had much to eat most of the day so I was completely ready to gorge myself on GF pizza. As I go and check in, I get told it was an hour wait. Are you fucking kidding me? An hour?! The worst part is that the young lady didn't seem too apologetic about that fact. That was the whole purpose of having a seating time... to avoid this. We declined and were getting ready to head back out when another person, who seemed to have more power than reservation chick, offered me a free pizza and wrote it on a menu. Now I just hope it gets honored when I go in. I was really disappointed since I had been looking forward to it for about a week. We ended up at IHOP because I couldn't think of anywhere else to go and was just hungry. Sigh.

On the not disappointing front, Lyday and her friend S and I went to PYOP. I still love PYOP and I think I am actually getting better at it. I painted a cute bowl with a snowflake inside and just little white dots on the outside. I hope it turns out well.