You Know Its Thursday When...

The house is wreck, the fridge and the cupboard are empty and you almost want to stay on the couch and watch Will & Grace. Almost. It's been a rough week and I'm glad it's almost over. The constant problems with allergies along with various problems large and small have left me completely wiped out. I just want to crawl into bed and wake up Saturday morning; skipping right over Friday.

That sounds like a great idea. I think I will go crawl into bed right now. Of course, I won't be able sleep all of Friday away as I should go to work. But I think a night of turning in early will do me some good.


Peace
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April Brings Bridal Showers

The F had her bridal shower in Philly this weekend. It was splendid, we got lots of presents, and she was pleased. I'm not going to go into details here since she has a blog and can write about it there. I'm just going talk about the weekend, which swung between being quiet and hectic - but in the good ways.

The trip up was rather unpleasant. My allergies acted up most of the way and we followed a storm that traveled north for the duration of the trip. By the time we got to Philly I was tired and zombie-fied (from the allergies) which caused me to forget my manners when we shared a bit of news with the future mom-in-law and I didn't get the response I expected.

However I tried to make up for it the next day by being extra nice. While the bride-to-be and her mates went shopping I let the mom-in-law hide in the basement with me when her parents harangued her too much, as they are wont to do from time to time. I switched between the NFL draft and re-runs of SG1 and Babe.

Sunday was the day of the shower but before that the bride, her mates, and I played a few rounds of frisbee golf down at the local park. Then come the shower and all the hectic-ness of having to be re-introduced to relatives I'd meet at some point before. I wonder how many times I can get away with not remembering if someone is an aunt or a cousin before they start punching me in the face.

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An Explosion of Spring

It's warm. It's sunny. Everything is green. Why, it must, of course, be spring and with spring comes pollen. Pollen that coats my car, that gets in my eyes and my nose. It makes me sneeze and hack and look miserable. It also makes me sound like a grouch because I hate pollen, therefore I hate spring. I hate that pollen is everywhere; making my allergies go nuts. I like summer and fall much better. Of course, winter is the best since nothing grows at all.

The F and I are off to Philly tomorrow night. She is having one of her two bridal showers. The showers required splitting up so all of her friends scattered across the east coast could be present for the event. It works out rather well the F will be busy at the shower. This leaves me plenty of time to watch the NFL draft with her brother-in-law and grandfather. Good times!

"Some days the line doesn't move at all....we call those days weekdays..."

The DMV gets a lot of flack for its astounding incompetence. I'm here to say that it is 100% justified. Everyone has their horror story about a terrible DMV experience and I'm here to throw mine into the mix (I've actually got two stories but that's for another time).

Last night in New Jersey my sister's boyfriend was driving my sister's car when a cop pulled him over for expired tags. After running the car's information through the Virginia DMV database they concluded that the car was unregistered. Thus, they impounded the car, fined my sister's boyfriend, called him a cab, and left him on the side of the highway. It turns that when my mom sold me her 96 Accord the DMV took it upon themselves to mark both my mother's 96 and 94 Accord (the one my sister has) as sold. Miraculously, the DMV still saw it fit to bill my mother for registration and property tax every year since then. The woman at the DMV counter admitted this much to my mother. However, when my mother asked her for the documents that supported this explanation the woman refused. She even told my mother that all the managers are not working at that particular office today.

After a lot of calls to the Richmond office of the DMV (with some assisted phone-bullying from me) my mother actually found a person at the DMV that gave a damn (I know, I was shocked to hear it as well). The woman wrote up a letter explaining how the error was the responsibility of the DMV, not anyone in my family) and faxed it to my mother. Hopefully this letter will convince the NJ police to wave the $200+ fines against my sister's boyfriend. Oh, and get the car out of the impound lot.

As my sister said this afternoon, “You’re not ghetto until you’ve had your car impounded”.

Gorgeous Weather

A rogue bratwurst had me in it's death gripe all of Monday which prevented me from blogging. However, that was then. Let it be known that a mere bratwurst can not keep me from my loyal readers.

Finally some gorgeous weather has arrived in DC. As a bonus I managed not to squander it by playing computer games all weekend. Instead I took a walk over to the local Blockbuster, jogs through the neighborhood and plowed through a bit of "About A Boy" while lounging in my backyard.

I finally got around to watching "Matrix Revolutions" which was ultimately disappointing. My favorite part of the movie took place in the 1st 30 minutes. When Morpheous, Trinity and Serif went into the Frenchman's night club. Like RocketManYeah had pointed out a few weeks ago it could have been a great cap on the overall storyline but just fell flat.

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Top Five

The following records have experienced high-rotation on the stereo. This isn't a top five records of the year. Just a top five records that I've immersed myself in, that I can not escape, that get repeated the moment they finish.

1) Jim Guthrie - Now, More Than Ever [2004]
2) The Shins - chutes Too Narrow [2003]
3) Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People [2002]
4) The Wrens - The Meadowlands [2003]
5) Supersilent - 6 [2003]

Now, not all of these records are for everyone. However, I strongly encourage my readership (all 3 of you) to seek out the Jim Guthrie album. It is a pop album framed around lush orchestration and folk flourishes. I highly suspect that this album will become my #1 driving home from (x) event this summer.

Okay, I promise not to do a 'Top Five Record' list for a while. I know it's lame.
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"No Phone Home"

Last night I discovered that my cell doesn't work anymore. By 'doesn't work' I mean it can't hear anything coming out of the little speaker. However, if I plug in my ear piece/headphone thing I can hear just fine. My assumption is that I've dropped it one too many times. What I can't figure out is why did it break just now. The last time I dropped it was a few days ago. So.....crap. Now I have to buy a new cell phone.

At first I was bent out of shape having to spend all that money on a new cell phone. However I've decide to take a zen approach to it. Granted, I still don't want to spend the money but I've come to the realization that you only buy something to wait for it to break.

...Tree falling in the woods...
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"You Are What You Eat"

I do apologize for the lack of posting last week. A couple of pressing matters reared their heads and had to be slapped down. Some of them make for interesting reads which might be posted this week. In fact, here is a good one:

Community regulations 'forbid' taking the trash out to the curb until the morning. Still most people take their trash out the night before, once it is dark. We fall into the latter category, typically. However one night/day last week we did not. So with coat on and bag lunch in hand I head for the door when I remember I forgot the trash. I head into the kitchen and grab the trash bag. As I head out the door for the second time I notice that "F" has kindly bagged up the bathroom trash (but selfishly not taken it out when she left). So I re-shuffle kitchen trash and bag lunch to accommodate bathroom trash. Then I notice the stack of out-going bills on the table. Again, I re-shuffle kitchen trash, bathroom trash and my lunch bag to make room for the mail. Finally, I'm out of the house. I stick the mail in the mail box, and to my relief, drop all the trash which has gotten damn heavy during my walk to the curb. I hop in the car and I'm off to work.

As I grab my workbag & gym bag out of the backseat I realize that I'm missing my lunch. In fact, I had thrown it out with the trash! Cripes! So I drive back to the apartment and rummage through the trash bag piles on the curb. Right as I find my lunch bag, one my neighbors exits his house. So I do my best to pretend that I didn't just dig my lunch out of the trash - and that someone witnessed it - and drive back to work.

On the positive side, I was only 30 minutes late for work that day.
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"Not The Face!"

The F and I went kitten shopping this weekend. One of the first stops was at a Pet Co / Pet Land / Pet Something in Falls Church. We found ourselves a nice 2 year old cat. The history was a bit sketchy since he was found, wounded, along the side of the road. Still he was adorable; he had some wild tiger-like markings. We got to hold him and play with him for a bit. We were about one minute from taking him home when a minor hell broke lose.

Like most stores, this Pet Something allows owners to bring in their pets - like dogs. Well, two dogs started barking at each other which freaked out the cat. What did it do? Well, it sunk both it's paws (with claws) into my face. One of the claws came alarmingly close to my left eye. While slowly taking each claw out of my face the owner tried to make the most of a hopeless situation. Ultimately, F decided that we should not get a cat that goes for the face. To which I agreed. Even though we left without a kitten, I didn't go home empty-handed. I walked out of the store with four evenly-spaced puncture marks on both sides of my face which I wore for the rest of the weekend.

So, if you are a cute kitten that does not go for the face, please deposit yourself on our doorstep. Otherwise, sod off!

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Hurdle Hurdled

And so, a milestone of the wedding planning has been hurdled. We have sent our invitations to the printer. Of course, the next task, which will be gargantuan, is to label and mail the invites. It is nice to have the invitations finalized, however. I took us (me) a while to get the designs finalized. Of course, that might be due to my meager design skills. Ha!

I'm just going to stop this post now. I don't have much to say today. I blame the crap-tastic weather. And I apologize for this crap-tastic post.

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Seven Years

Yesterday marked the seven year anniversary of my father's death. I never know what to do when this day rolls around. Obviously I'm sad. What I mean is that I don't know how to act? Do I stay at home and not go to work? Go to church? I doubt my Dad would want that. After all, he demanded that I stay at college - 4 hours away from home - even while he spend months in the hospital battling cancer. He never wanted us kids to disrupt our plans on his account.

I do regret not putting college on hold and returning home. What I regret more is that my Dad was only alive long enough to witness me being a punk-ass teenager. I wish - at the very least - he had the chance to enjoy all the effort and love he put into raising me. Then he would have been able to hang out with his son as a man rather than an ambivalent and angst-y teen.

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