egg sack

i had to perform a mass murder last night. it was a spider and her 2 sacks full of millions of babies. i didn't like doing it but it had to be done. i knew it was going to be a struggle for me, but i also knew that i didn't want millions of spider babies all over my life. the basement was the scene of the crime. i was down there running on the treadmill and decided to inspect her web a little closer, which is when i discovered the egg sacks. and i hate killing anything to the point where i actually ran an extra mile to push the murder off for that much longer.

in lighter news, it was a good night for early 80s movies; national lampoon's vacation, animal house, and 9 to 5. i feel asleep to these after the massacre.

is it possible that my tropical kitchen tree has life in it - i mean like, flys/little worms. i caught a few inch worms making a break for it over the weekend and i've had a fly problem for weeks now. the tree moved into my kitchen in october so i would've imagined that the lifeforms should've started their migration already. is it possible that there are now worms/flys in that pot due to spontaneous generation?

what if i have a breakdown and end up looking like this lady:

as busy as a one-armed paper hanger

that was me on saturday night. busy. i had a small party at my mansion and it turned out to be an extremely lovely evening - very quiet, very tame, and i know my neighbors with small children didn't mind the singing of 20 'in-eebs' at 1am. now this singing part, i can't substantiate it. my next door guy (who so kindly lent us wood for my firepit) mentioned that the people behind us said they liked the song we were singing at 1am. i don't remember this taking place so i can't believe it's true.

more than a few people tried to discourage me from burning my firepit on the dry lawn in the middle of july. we had a need for fire and pits so what could we do? obviously, the patio has not yet arrived and i'll just say that i'm more than frustrated with the cement guys in the area who won't come pour it and/or return my calls. (actually, a good side bar for ya - the patio guy just called to say that's gonna be another 2 weeks...i don't believe a word he says but he's all i've got. i don't really understand why, but cement guys must not need any more business at this point in time.) the party was to celebrate my new patio but since there wasn't one, we had a party anyway and it was a good one, my friends - one for the history books. the moon was out. it had an orange tint. good buddies were there. GOOD alcohol was there. it was a beautiful summer night and i couldn't have asked for more (well, ok. i could. i could have used a patio but that's neither here nor there.)

i don't remember too many highlights because i guess i was pretty drunk. i remember the night fondly, but i don't have a lot of details. i do know this; more than a few people had to spend the night and that's always a good sign. i remember telling the guests that i had locked the windows and doors really tight so no one would come in and steal them. see that, i care about people. deeply.

there will be another party as soon as the patio shows up... and probably one before that as well. i still have way too much of the hard stuff in my refrigerator. oh, and to whoever drank my 'prop' wine that sits on kitchen counter beside the oven - i am so sorry. i opened that bottle of zinfandel in like february and didn't end up finishing it. i really liked the label though because it coordinates with my kitchen's theme and colors, so i left it as a prop. i have to imagine you were too drunk to know that it tasted like sour ass, but my apologies nonetheless.

stay tuned for patio party, the sequel. or, let me know when you people wanna come over again because there's seriously an unreal quantity of beer, margaritas, daquiris, wine, and 1 mike's light hard lemonade being very aimless at my house.

boom, boom, boom - let's go back to my room

first off, i had to cut my lawn for the first time on sunday morning. for those who aren't sure why that would be newsworthy, i had a lawn guy, 'kenny', who was hired to cut my lawn twice a month. he cut the lawn a total of 4 times since early april and then just stopped without warning a month and a half ago. some little birdies told me that he had developed a thing for me, so i believe his strategy then became 'i'll only cut the grass over there when she calls me after i haven't showed up for a month and then i'll also take that opportunity to ask her out on strange dates'. well obviously, he's history. i'd also like to report him to the better business bureau but i'm slightly worried he'll start cooking rabbits atop my stove. anywho, cutting the grass wasn't THAT bad but i really hate cutting the grass so it just reaffirmed my predilection for a grass cutting service. i borrowed my sister's lawnmower and set out to reveal no less than 150,000 different types of grasshopper species. i know that grasshoppers are harmless and they don't bother me, but they're still bugs and i don't like bugs so i found them to be gross and annoying. i was after all cutting grass and that's where they live so what could i do (but run them over). before you go berating me on all the joys of grass cutting (like my neighbor), don't. some people like to cut their grass. i'm just not one of them. when the boy moves into my home for permanent residence, he will be assigned all lawn mowing tasks (if you know what i'm saying). done and done.

the second thing about the extra long holiday weekend that i feel the need to explain, i drank a lot. and when i say a lot, i mean A LOT. it was that new ruby red absolut. i couldn't resist it. coincidentally, neither could the raspberry lemonade i whipped up. i spent much time lounging on my neighbors patios and they probably really enjoyed that - i certainly did. and something else that's fun about my neighbors, they like to make their own fireworks. i live in a neighborhood that's surrounded by a somewhat rural area. there are locals and they make their own fireworks and probably moonshine as well. long story short, i didn't have to move an inch to see fireworks this past weekend. i looked anywhere and saw pretty decent starbursts everywhere and i'm pretty sure it was the man who's been constructing the lazy river in his backyard for the last year. hey let me know if you want visitors at the hospital, lazy river guy. i'm sure you blew off a finger or a toe or your face.

up shit creek

when the warm weather hits cleveland, my bosses like to make everyone in the division go out and bond almost weekly. they plan it during the work day and call it 'team-building' and clients love it. during these off-site events, we've been known to eat, drink, picnic, putt-putt, go-kart, batting cage, driving range, whirly ball, booze-cruise, and finally for the first time this past friday, canoe. i've never been canoeing and i have to be honest, i wasn't really looking forward to it. i did convince myself to partake however due to my lack of interest in being in the office anymore and also because it did happen to be a really beautiful, sunny day.

the first few hours in the morning were (and always are) spent on actual team-building or relevant work discussion. we then have a little lunch and then start playing. i decided early on to team up with RML and brian from my team. RML is effing crazy and brian is like 23 and one of those extreme sporting types so he's effing crazy, too. for some reason, i didn't really take this into account. i said to myself, 'i will probably be good to go in their canoe'. i'll tell you the story of how it went. try to guess where this is going to end up.

the place was called 'camp hi-canoe' and it really couldn't have been any further from my house. strike 1. once we all signed our lives away and suited up with life-vests and paddles, they loaded us onto a dark green school bus that much resembled one that hauls prison inmates around. strike 2. they shuttled us to the start of our route so we could easily board the canoes and get some tips. it took 15 minutes. strike 3. RML, brian, and i loaded into our boat and the journey began.

so we set sail down the cuyahoga river - except without sails and the c river is pretty much a really skinny lake that just happens to wind around for miles with zero to no current. there we are, paddling and ruddering down the "river". RML was "stern". brian was "bow". i was in the middle. port and starboard don't apply to my story because there's no right and left in a tiny, aluminum ship. anyway, we were paddling and ruddering and it was kind of peaceful. a few of the other boaters pulled away right from the gates because they were outdoors-y and it appeared that canoeing was their life. i say this because they brought homemade paddles and life vests. you make the call. my boat was not full of lifers because it was swaying right and left and running into the sides of the river. RML is a little retarded. she was ruddering so damn much and always in the wrong direction. obviously brian started yelling at her because we really didn't have anything else to do. we all agreed that we did not need any more rudder.

hey guess what. RML kept ruddering. guess what else. brian kept yelling. obviously i couldn't not be yelling at that point so i started yelling, too. i shouted - "rudder!" and "i gotta have more left!". this was all still in the first few hundred yards of the trip and we hadn't even tasted a drop of an adult beverage.

we started to get the hang of the paddles. here's my expert canoeing tip: paddle on the side you don't want to be on. if you're heading towards a tree on the left, paddle on that side. this sounded like a workable plan except for the part where brian is like hulk and RML is like not. i was in the middle trying to stay in sync with brian but his paddle strength was too powerful and we were all over the "river" ramming into everyone and everything. everyone was passing us with their beer and super soakers and we were all just yelling aimlessly at each other.

we actually started making a little progress and were feeling better about this trip until brian started getting playful and tipping the canoe from side to side. our boss, cig lips, started egging him on from another canoe (that he had strapped to a second canoe so they wouldn't tip. he's real tricky this guy. he also finished a full hour after us due to the case he was able to house in the 3-hour tour.)

i can't really tell you why, but brian so wanted to get in that murky, brown water, which ended up being unusually warm and i know this because brian accidentally capsized us around this time. hey know what? canoes are pretty effing heavy when they're on dry land so try to imagine how heavy they are when you're neck deep in the brown water and trying to flip it back over so you can get your ankles out of the disgusting-ness river bed that felt like poo. i feel like taking a shower every time i re-live the river bed. it was 4ft of brown water and you couldn't see the bottom. needless to say, i was livid the moment i hit the water. i was expecting to get wet but i was never going to be submerged in the brown goo. it literally took us 10min to get the canoe in place and another 10 for me and RML to climb back into it. a few canoes were still passing us but they were the end of the line and laughing at us. we thought we were the last official morons just sitting there dead in the water, but that's when our boss' boss along with wendy and kreitzer slowly paddled up. brian was still in the water because he wanted to capsize them as well. the higher level bosses are not as dumb as we like to think because right away they started asking where brian was. guess where he was - he was behind them in position to tip their drunk asses into the mushy goodness. fantastic. now they were out of the boat and obviously comin for RML and me. we screamed for dear life. we begged for mercy. there was no way we were going back into the brown water we worked so hard to get out of...but down we went.

so we were stuck in the mushy, brown sludge yet again and this was still the first mile of the course. i'm talkin like, 30min into it. i might now like to take the time to mention the length of the trip. 6 more to go friends. 7 MILES OF CANOEING AHEAD. we didn't know this when we started. i wouldn't have canoed had i known this prior. we were soaked and muddy and we had zero beer. i decided that we needed to regroup so we docked at a calm little bank and dumped all the excess water out of the canoe because while we enjoyed sitting in it, we didn't.

finally we climbed back in and started our journey once again. i made brian switch places with me because his strength was better distributed in the center. i also started calling the paddle which actually helped quite a bit. and after a while, we all knew how to switch sides based on which direction we were headed.

7 grueling miles later, we see the most glorious shitty little canoe dock we've ever seen in our entire lives. we could barely walk when our feet hit the ground. 7 miles is insanity. we were expecting a very cute canoe ride, 2-3 miles tops. i had to throw away my favorite pink underpants along with the rest of what i was wearing. it was sad. behold, my aftermath:















and you just had to review my crack..."butt" this is the internet and i think it's high time i distribute the porn and finally start doing my part.

anywho, cute little canoe rides don't end this way. this bruise gets darker and uglier with each passing day and then i discover a few new ones. i don't even know how i got them - but they hurt. my butt hurts. my arms hurt. it hurts to breathe. so for the sake of everyone, everywhere, my canoeing will be now be limited to zero trips a year going forward.

thumbin' your way to vegas, dirty

since horface is taking my whole life to post this, i'll give it a shot. let's see if i can provide an inkling and help perpetuate the glory because this place is glorious and i'm trying to find a way to get back there once a month. the one thing i don't have a picture of is our hot group of chicks enjoying a meal in the oldest restaurant in vegas, at none other than old blue eyes' table. that's right - we dined in frank's old hot spot at HIS table. there was a tiny, older gentleman with an accordian and he told us. we believed him because this establishment provided free wine. other highlights include; everyone being engaged to like, everyone on the trip, kim napping for 15min then leaping up and chugging beer on ice from a wine glass, me being a blackjack moron/genius and then me picking up 2, 50 year-old married guys and 1 ethiopian cabbie, new edition as guest hosts on knight rider, the magical water show at the bellagio, the scary, anorexic, half-naked, mannequins with ginormous bird wings at the victoria's secret in the caesar's forum shops, cook e. jar, multiple $27 red bull and vodka yards that meg dropped serious cash on, the england dan sing-a-long that horface and i had at tha pool, and the drunk brother/sister/couple at the pool who were probably loud enough that you could hear them from wherever you were but luckily didn't get to actually see their strange "pool rides" and child molestation. we think they were siblings (because they said so) but then they were like riding around the pool on top of each other................................ with no further adieu, for your review - vegas through the eyes of my 1.3 megapixel camera phone snaps. they should pretty much say it all. if you need more info however, let me know.

she's come undun

there are a couple things on my mind that i must share with you at this time. if you are familiar with my yogurt lid issue, this is tied with that. i do not like ice-cream trucks - the old-fashioned kind that you may or may not recall from the days of your youth. i don't recall them. apparently, my neighborhood wasn't good to go. we didn't have them. now that i'm 28 and ice-cream gives me heartburn, i have them. fuck that. that's the first two-part reason why i loathe them.

second, they remind me of a sinister treat wagon that's capable of stealing children, like in chitty-chitty bang bang. i was forced to search my soul for these answers yesterday because my cousin's in town and she was over for dinner last night when the cream wagon was trolling around the gate. i expressed my idiosyncratic weirdness toward the vehicle and she didn't understand how someone could hate a van that sells door-to-door frozen creamy snacks. long story short, i had to figure this out last night.

the other topic i would like to get off my giant chest - the girl that lives behind me (sara) just tried to get me engaged to the 'single man' in the gate. here's the deal: there's a woman named valerie who lives 3 doors down. she has a brother who lives 3 streets over. his name is dave and he's single. i guess it's rare for single people to build homes so the others are on the lookout for these scenarios and ensure that the 2 single people know of them as well. which, i'm fine with. i'm up for a single-dave scenario. he has a house in my neighborhood and i know that's not too shabby for rachel. i'll keep ya posted. by the way, i had known sara for approximately 40 seconds when she came up with this idea. why is america obsessed with marriage?

oh. another thing, i have major spider fright. there are 2 more breeds of spider on my property. i discovered them today. originally, i thought i just had giant wolf spiders that have a body the size of my thumb and those long legs that have a bend (much like your traditional, black halloween spider that they all depict for my xmas, which by the way makes for good irony. halloween is my xmas but spiders scare the bejesus out of me). these 2 new guys are MUCH furrier and MUCH blacker. they also include white markings on their hourglass shaped bodies. one is a jumping spider and the other, i can't find on the internet. it's furry black with an hourglass body that has a white hourglass marking. i'm serious, they could take out a mid-sized village if they got angry enough. i think we'll be able to cohabitate if they just stay on their side. i told them about the agreement i have with spiders, that they need to stay outside or there will be a bloodbath. i know they understand what i'm telling them. they must because they are constantly in the garage and that's a grey area. see how tricky they are?

don't read me if you haven't seen it...

i can't stop watching the final 15 minutes of grey's anatomy. it moves me. i'm addicted. it begins with george asking for more time and ends with izzie and boys descending the stairs. "i hate that i'm so into you." i can't scratch the surface of alex being human and the mer/der f, which was a a total f by the way. there was nothing was soft about it. that was like, an old fashioned, raw, eff. shame on you, shonda rhimes. however, based on what she's done to me in the past year and a half, i'm now unable to live without these very 'real', fictional characters (because i live in a dreamworld). i'm up. i'm down. i'm all around. this show is like crack. i seriously can't help but hope addison finds happiness. i love 'er, but not with derek. i kinda hope it's with alex. der, he and mer need to just do this already. finn is unusually charming and a great match for her, but derek's the one. i think my happiness in life depends on their being together. guess what i do now - i think of derek's face when i'm signing into a conference call so that my voice is all smiley when i say my name because i've closed my eyes and i see derek's face. [inappropriate PAUSE] and i'd be lying if i said i wasn't concerned for next season. the mer/der/finn cliffhanger isn't my issue. it's the burke hand, izzie resignation stuff that hits me where i live. dr. hahn - agressive bad-ass female cardio-thoracic surgeon, i would totally do you. (and so would you). denny - holy crap. he proposed. she loved him. he died. gut-wrenching. i mean literally ripping me apart.

waht else. i literally sliced my thumb open on monday. it was nasty and i can't stop replaying the incident in my head. UGH. so disgusting. blood everywhere. now i'm fine. i've been wearin a lot of the sponge bob & dora band-aids so it's fine. YOU try finding regular band-aids. it's impossible.