Everything's Hotter In Texas...

supposedly.  Tell that to the SC/GA border, because it sucks balls to leave 104 degree weather to return home to 106 degrees.

I've long told people that the whole "dry heat" thing was bullshit: hot is hot. But oh, how I was wrong.  No, it really is different.  It really is the humidity that kills you.  And I am definitely feeling near death.

But I am home!  Finally, after a frantic near-miss of a connecting flight at Atlanta Hartsfield/Jackson, which my thighs are still screaming at me about after my two terminal sprint towards my final destination.  And I have to tell you...this business trip was much better than I expected.  It was, dare I say, actually fun.

I don't know if it's my age or my relatively "normal" weight which made this the most comfortable business trip I have ever taken but whatever the combination, I am grateful for it.  Never in my life have I felt so at ease meeting new people but this time I have felt a peace about it that I have never before experienced.  I think the weight thing definitely played a part because for once I have clothes that I am relatively comfortable wearing and I don't fear being in cramped spaces or having to squeeze into a desk or breaking a chair.  I would like to say age is a factor because I do not give a fuck what people think but I don't believe that could be completely it because let's face it: what is the age where a woman honestly doesn't give a fuck about her looks?  I don't think I'm quite there yet because as I sat with a 35 year old (who expressed surprise when I revealed that I was 40) and a 25 year old (who said "yeah no wonder you feel old") the age thing was obviously still a factor.

Whatever the reason I enjoyed myself immensely in the great state of Texas and I was reasonably relieved to arrive home to find that my own house wasn't in complete disarray after the Rottenator and the Nooge enjoyed a week of unsupervised bacherlorhoodness together.  Though there was an unsettling lack of tp that almost ended my relationship (when will boys learn that girls wipe EVERYTIME they use the bathroom?  And what do boys use as tp when they run out of tp?  I don't even want to know...)

Bottom line: I was social, I did not lock myself in my hotel room as is my usual habit, and I remained steely in my resolve to avoid any forbidden temptations even though I was surrounded by them on numerous occasions.

Oh, and the hotel...oh, the hotel.  With the 65 degree thermostat, daily cleaning, and king sized bed with adjustable mattress firmness...I think I shall miss you most of all.  *sniff*

I was also surrounded by mountains.  Who woulda thunk it?  Texas has mountains!

For your viewing pleasure:

Texas mountains!

Me photobombing a Texas mountain!

Me taking pics of mountains while on a social shopping excursion!

Me being social by taking dinner pics!

Me watching others partake at dinner and judging socially!

Me taking pics of a loud mariachi band while being social at dinner!

 

 

 

    

The Nooge, gazing at me adoringly upon my return to being anti-social.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cankles and Fat Rolls and Muffin Tops Oh My!

Perhaps if I'd stuck to my original plan of trying to limit my food intake for about a week before my flight, I wouldn't feel like this today:

Oh, well.  Woulda, coulda, shoulda.  The two sausage biscuits this morning probably didn't help either.  And now my jeans are screaming for mercy.  Oh, but if only this weren't a business trip and I could travel comfortably in my fancy pants.

But alas, I cannot.  So I will endure, and pray that I won't need a seatbelt extender.  And hope that I miss the Rottenator and the Nooge, because right now, they are both on my last nerve.  Kathleen needs a break!

Until next time, my Mood Ring(tone) of the Day (natch):

Oh, but if I could channel Audrey Hepburn today!  And I'd forgotten that John Denver wrote this song originally, but I felt it bad luck and/or karma to post a video of him performing it, no?

Silence Is Fucking Golden

It's really weird, I should be used to the Rottenator being gone at night being that he works most of them, but him being gone out of town overnight is much lonelier than him being at work overnight.           

And the Nooge is not so much a comforting presence as a god forsaken terror who's pretty damn lucky right now that he's too big to flush.

As I Sit Bleeding is the title of my next book.

Anyway, long day, tired, at least my feet will be happy that tomorrow is dress down day at work, hoorah!

Me: So, get some sleep, I love you.  Tell the hookers I said hey.

Rottenator:  I love you too and there are no hookers.  I'm too tired and I don't have money for hookers.

Me: So you're saying that the only things keeping you faithful to me are the fact that you're lazy and broke?

Rottenator: Pretty much.

Me: Works for me.

Who says romance is dead?

Meanwhile, Anderson Cooper is on Kathy Griffin's show tonight, and they are a hoot together, as my imaginary grandmother would say.



My Mood Ring(tone) Today:

                                                                                                                                                                            

God Doesn't Like Stubby

Every day when I arrive home and ease my bloody stumps out of my dress shoes, I am reminded of the following episode of Modern Family:

http://www.movieweb.com/tv/TEIT4dC4EJneLP/jay-gets-gloria-new-shoes

 

Why can't we all just wear comfy shoes at all times?  The world would be a much happier place.

But then again, the world would also be a place filled with eye sores like this:

And this:

Incidentally, it's scary how much that damn cat looks like the Nooge...very.

So, I ask you, is it really worth it?  On most days I would say hell no, but today...I'm torn.

But not that much. 

My Mood Ring(tone) Today:

Dedicated to the Rottenator.

 

My Day So Far...

I woke up, threw some shrimp & fries in the oven for the Rottenator's breakfast, then talked about how I really needed to clean my house today.

Then I took a nap.

Then I woke up, ate all kinds of chocolate and chips and drank soda (diet, natch), had a few cigarettes, thought AGAIN about how I needed to clean my house.

Then I sat down in front of my computer & started weeding through my backlog of recorded trashy reality tv shows that have been clogging up my DVR.

That was about 6 hours ago.  I thought again about how this freakin' house really needs to get cleaned**so I walked into the kitchen and stared at the sink of dirty dishes in disgust, then remembered...OMG, I have a dishwasher!  See, there's only two of us, and I wash dishes at least twice a day, so there's really not a need to run the dishwasher, but I'll be damned if I didn't load up that bad boy with one bowl, one glass, one pan, one plate (the Rottenator strikes again) and press the button!

And only felt a LITTLE bit like I was cheating.  I'll live.  Now, I'm passively-aggressively watching Nooge chew on the cords to the Rottenator's favorite headphones without administering any kind of corrective discipline.  This is payback for his "it's not the end of the world for fuck's sake!" comment when it appeared that El Diablo Gatito had broken my printer.

Really?  We'll see about the end of the world when it's your precious Xbox headset, buddy.  Good luck talking smack to all of your NCAA Football friends now.

Geek.

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure the rest of my day and night is going to continue on this path.  And let me just say...best day ever, quite frankly.

And needed.  I've been stressed the fuck out for the past three weeks between work and new destructive kitten at home, and I've not taken a day off which has made me pretty much an intolerable bitch and I was pretty much convinced that I would never be able to relax again.

Well, I proved myself wrong!  I am one relaxed heifer.  And I will probably go to bed early and snore so hard I will awaken only to find myself in a puddle of my own drool, and it will be awesome.

Now, I'm off to enjoy some pizza casserole, finish off a bag of fun-sized snickers for dessert, drink a huge glass of milk, and call it a day.

And get prepared for another stressful week.  The Rottenator's got some business to take care of out of town, and I need to start getting ready for the trip to the Lone Star State, so...I'll be glad when this month is over, lemme tell you.

I needed today.

My Mood Ring(tone):

You know how you hear a song and it triggers a memory?  A car driving past the house today was BLASTING this song, and it made me smile and also think of one of my favorite shows ever, hidden gem "Freaks and Geeks".

Embarrassing confession: this song also makes me tear up.

**Now before you go thinking that I live in a pigsty, let me just say that I'm kinda OCD about my house, meaning that a smudge or a dustbunny will make me scream filth, so it's probably not that bad.  See what I'm doing here?  Justifying my laziness to an internet full of strangers because I must be perfect and everyone has to like me.  Eh, c'est la vie.

Kicking My Ass...Life, That Is...

Between work and home, I am stressed and exhausted, but not unhappy.  Stressed, because work is...challenging.  Bottom line, the old adage "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is especially true when that old dog is me, and me is not good at math (or English, apparently).

Work is like going to school again...and I wasn't that motivated the first time around, but this time, there is a check waiting for me at the end of the day, so I suppose that is serving as motivation enough.

You know that other old cliche "it's not the heat, it's the humidity" well we'll see how true that is in a few weeks when I'm shipped off to Texas in the middle of summer.  I have a feeling that hot is damn hot especially since I've checked the weather and it's going to be 100 fucking degrees when I'm there.  I'm going to wilt like a delicate little southern flower...actually, I'm going to be a big beet faced sweaty middle-aged pig panting her way around the city, but the flower image is much nicer than reality.

In other uneventful news, because of this...

someone found himself in time-out.  No, not the Rottenator (though he deserves to be), but the other aggravating male in my life.

Now, before you get all "Awww, but he's just a baby" sympathetic on me, let me just say that mere moments after this picture was taken and I was washing the blood from my wound, I returned to my living room to find this:

Yeah...you can see how concerned he is about his mama's pain and suffering.  Little asshole.

How I'm Feeling Today...well, for no particular reason, this song just popped into my head.  So, maybe this should be entitled "My Mood Ring(tone)":

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Ahh, now THAT'S more like it.  This nail experience was much more successful than the last.

Oh, did you notice something else different about my hand?

Yeah...well, I forgot how much fun it was to have a kitten.

 But honestly...is it possible to stay mad at something so cute?

Mmmm...yeah, yeah it is.  But he will survive to see another day. Even though if there were a custody battle, I'd totally be Meryl Streep.

Meanwhile, work, yeah, that actually is going well.  But I'd forgotten how tiring it is to have a set schedule, the M-F, 9-5 grind.  It's satisfying, but I don't feel like running errands during the week, so I save those up for the weekends so by the time the house is cleaned, the clothes are washed, and the groceries are shopped it's freakin' Sunday night and time to get back to it.

But I'm definitely not complaining.  Things are going well.  So, since my life is thankfully blissfully boring right now (knock on wood, that's the way I like it!), I have to look for drama where I can find it.  I have been overdosing on outrageous reality shows, my most current favorite being "My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding".  Have you seen this?  It is endlessly fascinating, especially being that one of the largest gypsy neighborhoods in the US is right down the street from me.  It's called Murphy's Village and lemme tell you, the houses are reDICulous!  And the Bling!

And speaking of bling, yes I'm all about Kim Zolciak and her wedding, but I think that's because I'm missing Atlanta...but I'm also watching Say Yes to the Dress...Atlanta.... yeah, there's definitely a theme...

I think I'm in love with TLC and Bravo.

How I'm Feeling Today:

And Then There Were Four...

Yet ANOTHER addition to our family.  Man, we're multiplying like bunnies over here.  May I present...Trashotopolis!!!

Does it make me a bad person to say that I was more excited about getting a trashcan than I was to get a kitten?  It does.  Well, so be it.  Trashy gives me less problems and isn't nearly as bitey and clawey.

However, he isn't as cuddly, and is definitely more of an outside pet.

You know you're hitting a certain age bracket when you're happier about getting a new trashcan than you are about getting the new Coldplay CD.

How I'm feeling today:

All Together Now...

Awwwww!!!!

Yes, I'm afraid I've become "that girl", you know the one?  The Crazy Cat Lady who posts pics of their kitten's every move and has framed glamour shots of it covering the walls of her cubicle at work.

Yeah, I definitely see that in my future.

In other me news, I would totally get a new job every day if it meant receiving fantabulous gifts like this all the time.

Thanks to the Mom for the Piggybank...perhaps one day I will actually have some pennies to put into it.  J'adore.

This weekend went by really quickly, no?

How I'm feeling today:

Devil Kitten

Is this the face of pure evil?

Yes...yes it is.  It's also hard work, chewing all those electrical cords, and toes, and clothes and pantyhose.

I don't know, though, maybe I'm being pessimistic.  Maybe in this case the kitty is only half evil.

How I'm Feeling Today: