FTW… (that’s “For The Win” for you non-slangers)

In the long list of things Stephanie Doesn’t Like to Talk About (mainly because this particular topic infuriates her so)…
Setting the wayback machine for Spring 2004
*wavy lines signifying time travel*

I’m planning my wedding.
Our parents have decided that they’re going to split the cost of the reception and thanks to my college fund, Steve and I are able to pick up a number of other wedding related expenses.
The call comes when Dad and I discuss who shall be invited from his side of the family.

Let it be known across the land that I have never been close to Dad’s side.
Sure, I went to visit his brother in California, but it’s not like we’re sending each other photos and emails…
His younger sister (Herein refered to as The Most Evil Aunt) used to babysit me. She’d make fun of my speech impediment and for not knowing words that weren’t in a 6-year-olds vocabulary (“Are you and Mindy bosom buddies?!”). And in an instance that is too weird not to be true, she sat me down in her guest room and insisted I hot glue tacky decorations for her craft business… a mini-sweatshop if you would.
His older brother (a lawyer) finagled a way to screw Dad’s share of grandma’s will.
His older sister would mock me in front of the family, asking me to read junk mail to prove that I could in fact read.
Don’t even get me started on Dad’s mom.

I digress.
Dad is insistent that I invite his family to the wedding.
“Dad. I do not want them there [at the wedding].”
“Stephanie, I am paying for half of it and if I would like my family invited, I think they should be invited.”
“I don’t like them.”
“They’re family.”
“It’s a wedding reception, not a fucking picnic.”
Eventually, I relented and agreed to send out invitations to his jerk family.
The brother in Cali couldn’t make it, but sent me the Pier 1 kitchen table I registered for.
The Lawyer couldn’t make it, but sent a gift.
The evil sisters RSVP’d that they would be attending (The Most Evil Aunt +2 kids and a husband, Evil Aunt + husband).

When the time came to put together the seating arrangements, I made sure that Dad’s family was seated at Table 9… you HAVE seen “The Wedding Singer”, right?

The week of the wedding arrives and I’ve decided that I’m going to extend the olive branch one last time.
I went to the hotels in the area that I listed for out-of-towners to drop off welcome baskets of wine, snacks, etc.
However… there’s no one with any of Dad’s family at any of the hotels… nor, does anyone with that name have reservations.

Thursday before the wedding, Dad is sitting at my kitchen table.
He’s upset.
The Most Evil Aunt EMAILED him to tell him that they were no longer coming to the wedding. Not only were they not coming, the evil aunt was not coming either.
In a fit unseen by the East Coast (until that Saturday, “You get to the store, you get a shirt and a fitting tuxedo, I AM GETTING MARRIED IN FOUR HOURS!”) I told Dad in no uncertain terms that I was done with his family and I do not and will not have anything else to do with them.

*Tunnel vision transporting us back to today*

I log onto facebook.
“OH! A friend request! *click* ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?! HAHHAHAHHAHA. Denied.”
It’s true.
The Most Evil Aunt wanted to be Facebook friends.
And I said no.
AND IT FELT GREAT.

Wordless Wednesday: hunting

Further Proof That We Have No Life

Five years ago, little Bailey Bean was plunked down onto this earth to melt hearts and make me question my sanity.

WHAT is that?!

And seeing as Aunt Elsie was over, it only seemed fitting that she would get to partake in the annual tradition.
The candles were rather hot, so I think that scared Bailey (the same dog who smoldered when an ember popped from a camping fire onto her fur) and I’m pretty convinced that Elsie knew that there was food under the flames.
I’d like to mention that the “attendees” (read: stuffed animals) were Steve’s idea.

"I hate you guys so much."

As we were snapping away, I had one of those things I never get- an idea- and ran upstairs to get Tres’ hat.
And then I put the hat on the dog.
CLEARLY, she LOVES it and Elsie is very proud to be in the same room.
Figuring we’d tortured them enough…

om nom nom nom

(don’t worry, it was white cake and vanilla frosting, colored)

Bestest Birfday Eva!

How to Recognize: Someone Giving you the Brush-off

I’m walking back from picking up lunch (which was actually breakfast, but that’s a story for another time) when I hear this women hollering, “Hey! HEY! HEY! You, go get her attention!”
And of course, I am Stephanie’s latent paranoia.
I hear footsteps.
***
At this point, I would like it to be known that I AM NOT racist. Just tellin’ it how it is.
***
“Hey.”
I keep walking, thinking how thankful I am that I didn’t pack my purse.
“Hey.”
walking walking walking
“scuze me miss?”
Meanwhile, I’m thinking “fuckin’ hobos…”
“Miss, scuze me.”
I turn around with The [soon to be] Patented Look of Death. “Yes?!”
“Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Meanwhile, I’m thinking, “fuckin’ Scientologists!”, but nicely mention, “Sorry, on my way back to the office!”, and smile and increase the pace.
“Well, I can walk and talk to you.”
“I’m in a rush… gotta get back…”
“What’s your name?”
“Britney.” (ah, the infamous go to name)
“I’m Remy. You got a man?”
Great, now I’m thinking, “Heaven help me if he asks my rate…”, but answer, “Yes. Yes I do.”
“Oh.” he says, pouting. “I see. Jus’ wanted to tell you that you’re looking fine.”
***
At this point, I’d like to point out that I have not one, but two monstrous blemishes on my chin, I’m in a heather/purple polo and a pair of jeans that are just a bit too loose. I am wearing my glasses today and my hair isn’t keeping a part. My eyeshadow has loosened over my lower eyes, pronouncing my bags. Let’s stop there and say that I know I do not look fine today.
***
“Why thank you! That’s very flattering!”
“Flattering?! Shit, I ain’t heard that expression in a long time!”
“Ah. ha.ha.ha.”
“You must be married.”
“That I am.”
“Yeah, only married chicks use words like ‘flattering’.”
“Ah. ha.ha.ha.”
“So can I call you sometime?”
“No. Thanks though.”
“Can I give you my number?”
“Aw. Gee. You know what, I don’t have anything to write on…” I’m still walking, BTW.
“How ’bout I give you my digits and you can hit me up and we can go out sometime, you know, as friends, out of respect to your man.”
“Yeah, see, I have nothing to write on and I can’t really take personal numbers on my work phone.”
“Well, here, I got a pen, I’ll write it on the bottom part of my bonus check here…”
“Aw. well, gee. Um…”

As I commented on Facebook, “I didn’t realize my ass looked THAT big in these jeans.”

Scene around town

I made a company sponsored run to the Post Office (sorry, Tony, no Margarets). The Post Office isn’t very far from the office; we’re talking about a mile round-trip.
And oh, what a trip it was..

Scene 1)
Guy and girl walking together. He’s wearing one of those baby-backpack things.

Good for catching crumbs

She’s got an ID bracelet on.
He says, ever so causally, “I told them I wasn’t on coke anymore.”

Scene 2)
I’m behind someone who isn’t walking very fast, so I pass her.
She’s on my right, a tree is on the left.
A squirrel runs down the side of the tree.
“OH JEEEESSSSUUUSSS!”, she hollers. “WHAT WAS THAT?! DID YOU SEE THAT?!”
I cross the street.
“OH MY GOODNESS! WHAT WAS THAT THING!?”
I am about 100 yards away.

Scene 3)
There’s one person in front of me at the post office.
She hands off her letter and the employee takes it in the back.
I figure he was hand delivering it, because 3-4 minutes later, he returned.

Scene 4)
Random noises from the holding center.

Scene 5)
While trying to cross a traffic circle, I am cut off by a woman in a sports car who must have heard that stop signs with while borders are optional.
She then stops in the intersection because traffic in front of her has stopped.
And then she looks annoyed at me for walking around her car.

Puppies in the Pool

I have the pure joy of watching Elise again (last time she was over, naw).
The two of them had some kind of “Excitement Show-Down” yesterday, as they damn near barreled me out of the door last night with love and toys and jumping and barking and tail-chasing and running back-and-forth.
I’ve pretty much decided that this is what it would be like with twin toddlers. Thus, when the time comes, I’m certain it will be the payback for dropping rocks down my neighbor’s sewer pipe.

After mowing the lawn Saturday, I decided that perhaps throwing the kids outside would be good for everyone.
It was about a billion degrees. Okay, that’s a bit of a hyperbole, but it was about 90 with high humidity.
When it gets to be that hot out, I take out the pool. (not to mention, more time to play with the camera and an HD filter)

One of my favorites... currently my desktop at work

Somedays, it's just enough to have your paws in the water

And this is how Elsie enjoys the pool

"An you puts yur paws in da watta and sploosh like dis!" "Yeah. No."

And other days, you need to just put your face in

Sometimes, that water is just too cold and you need a run to warm up

I was going to use this as my Wordless Wednesday contribution, but it’s too cute to wait.
—————-
Now playing: Benny Goodman Orchestra – Sing, Sing, Sing
via FoxyTunes

The Cool Side of the Pillow

(Once again, That Girl provides blogger fodder.)

Good Night

While I know I dream in color, most of the time it’s a sepia wash (like it’s always dusk or dawn).

In DreamLife, it’s the same place that almost all my dreams take place in; an entire city. I have a knowledge of where things are, where to go to get other places, structures denoting what area I’m in, how far it is to the waterfront, how many train stops it’ll take to get the the restaurant that I always want to take people to but has the wackiest hours thus no one believe that they have the best grouper. (note: have I ever even had grouper?)

It’s documented that I read in my dreams as well.

Sometimes, I don’t remember my dreams, but something during the next day sets off a trigger.

Often, my dreams are so vivid I can’t recall if something happened in real life or while I was dreaming.

RealLife often seeps into DreamLife. For example, when I worked for companies that sucked out my will to live, I would dream of vampires. And just this week, I dreamed that Annoyance was a closetalker because he was a zombie. When he opened his mouth to talk, it was a black chasm.

I keep a blank book and pen next to the bed, so when I have nightmares (often preventing me from getting a “good” sleep for days) I can write down what happened. Lately, I’ve taken to drawing maps/scenes/buildings.

back off sucka

Part of me thinks I’ve always had disturbing/vivid dreams and that’s why I don’t sleep very well.
However, the B-12 therapy has helped signficantly. Sure, I still don’t sleep well and I have borderline insane dreams, but it’s markedly better. Just wish someone would have noticed that before hand… on the plus side, is calms that voice in my head that’s been suggesting MS for years.
ANYWAY…

* Recurring Theme Dreams: Being unable to get where I need to go. Like the train is late, the door is closed, there’s traffic, blockages, places moving (this always happens in “The Mall”, I will have to get to Penny’s and it’s at the other end of the mall from where it was last time), staircases disappearing…

* Nightmarish Recurring Dream: Being chased and being unable to find my way out. Lately though, I’ve been dreaming that my teeth are loose and falling out.

* Recurring Character: Thugs. Just thugs in general, people making easy tasks difficult.

* Geeky Dream: I was Big Alice [in Wonderland] in a little bathroom.

* Non-sensical Dream: Emperior penguins nibbling at my fingers. Tin foil is the only thing that keeps them away.

* Disappointing Dream: Thinking I’m awake and making coffee and showering, only to realize I’ve slept through the alarm.
When I was a tween, I used to wake up in the middle of the night thinking it was time to wake up so I’d be in the shower at 3am.

* Naked Exam Day Dream: Often find myself topless at inappropitate times. But no one, including me, seems to care/notice that I’m not wearing a shirt.

I swear that someday my “Book of Death” (as Steve calls it… frightens him) will make me millions of dollars because truth is stranger than fiction.

A Journey. Into. SPPPPAAACCCCEE.

“Central Control? Buzzy McBuzzington here. Do you copy? over.”
“Buzzy McBuzzington. This is central control. We copy you. over”
“Okay Central, I’m going in.”
“Godspeed McBuzzington.”

“Central Control?”
“Buzzy.”
“I’m closing in on the target. From this range, the deposits do not look as plentiful as on the original read outs.”
“Alright Buzzy, we did some recon, if you head behind you, you should find a larger cache.”
“Oh my way. Over.”

“Sirs?”
“Yes Buzzy?”
“You were correct about the rations here. Proceeding to dock.”

(sounds of miniature rover disembarking)

********

"Human. From here, you look like you're not feeding me and that makes me melancholy"

Adventures in Marriage: Episode 82

In light of the recent deluge of rain in the area (just waiting for the frogs and locust), he’s decided that we’ve “dodged enough bullets” and with a recent endowment from the “Here’s a Check for Completing Your Masters!” from the in-laws, we end up at Lowes.

Of course, I don’t understand any of the jargon on the generator boxes (except the price tag part), so I take to looking at All The Neat Things You Can Do When You Buy Your Generator!
me: Hm. According to this photo, I can make and bake entire trays of chocolate chip cookies. Because, you know, that’s what I REALLY worry about when the power goes out.
him: Maybe you should worry about stuff like that.
me: I only wish I could solve of our problems by baking.

him: Yeah. Hmm. Gee, I don’t know which ones of these to buy.
me: Just ask yourself, “What would Steve do?”
him: I know! I’m trying!
me: You are? Because I’m thinking, if I was shopping alone and picked out a generator, which one would elicit an “AWESOME” or an “Oh.”
him: Yeah…
me: Seriously, you’re still thinking about this? Get the better one.

me: AND we can totally bring this camping so we can make coffee*!
him: Do you have any idea how loud this thing is?
me: No. But we’ll have coffee
him: (imitates a generator)
me: But. Coffee.
him: ba-rum-rum-rum-rum-rum.
me: COFFEE.
him: We’ll wake up the entire campground.
me: But I’ll have coffee… are we even debating this?

* Last year, we brought a power converter with us. The Plan was to plug the coffee pot into the converter and then Stephanie and Melissa wouldn’t skin the other campers from caffeine withdraw. Ends up that a coffee pot takes too much power and shorts out.

Wanted: Ark

For those of you not in the area, we were hit with a deluge of rain yesterday.
It stormed pretty much all night and it’s supposed to storm pretty bad today too.
Meanwhile, yesterday’s inundation allowed for use of my new telephoto lens and I stayed inside, dry and electrocution free.
These photos are from the afternoon barrage.

As seen from my living room sofa

as seen from my dining room

Without the beer, natch, this is what the general area look(ed)(s) like

although it's blurry, here's a view of the swampland from our bedroom room (through window and screen)

From our front window, that would be our lawn and the street

I know they’re blurry, but with the splash-back on the windows and screens, not to mention that I’d melt if I got wet, these were the best I could do.

Most of the water seeped into the ground within a few hours, I think it was a matter of quantity vs. time.
So, who has an ark they’re willing to rent out?