Month: December 1999

So we ended up watching Arlington Road last night. It was still pretty good the second time around, but I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. In fact, I started to doze off several times, but was so horrified at the thought that I’d start snoring, that I would jerk awake and force my eyes open. The kitten, that traitor-bitch, sniffed around Fred’s parents for a good twenty minutes (they have three cats – two female, one male) then settled smugly in Fred’s stepmother’s lap for most of the movie. She stared smugly at me as if to say "See? Yours is not the only lap in town, bitch."

I spent a good deal of time online yesterday (I bet you’re surprised, eh?) doing some Christmas shopping. I ordered music, books, videos, and an alarm clock from Amazon, and a gift certificate from TJ Maxx. Most of the purchasing I did was for Debbie and Brian. Fred was ordering movies last week, so I had him add a few movies on for my parents. I’m also getting my mom an Eloise book, and I want to get them both a gift certificate, but I have no idea for where to get it – maybe The Olive Garden. I haven’t got a clue what to get for my grandmother, no one ever buys anything for my uncle, my brother Randy will probably get a picture of the spud and a spud-made ornament, my ex’s family will all get pictures of the spud and spud-made ornaments, my brother Tracy will most likely get an Amazon gift certificate, and I haven’t got a clue what to get Tracy’s kids. (Yes, I’m aware that that’s one long damn sentence)

Hell, I’m practically done with my Christmas shopping, aren’t I?

Speaking of movies – kinda – we watched Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me Thursday night, and to my surprise I thought it was pretty damn funny. I particularly liked the part where Austin and Felicity were driving around what was supposed to be the English countryside, and he said (this is paraphrased, of course) "The amazing thing is how much England looks nothing at all like southern California." The other part I liked was when Fat Bastard started singing the "Chili’s baby back ribs" jingle. Of course, that part wasn’t nearly as funny the second time we watched the scene. And, of course, we had to watch both of the "That looks like a giant.." "Willie! Could you sign an autograph for me?" scenes with Fred’s parents last night. I love it when famous people pop up unexpectedly in cameos like that. After all the bad reviews I heard and read about the movie, it was better than I expected.

I slept until 8:40 this morning. 8:40. I don’t think I’ve slept that late since I’ve moved to Alabama. Fred, I don’t think I’ve mentioned, is a serious morning person, so by default I’ve become a morning person also. I was a night owl in my high school days, and continued to stay up until about 11 every night (I know! How incredibly wild and crazy of me!) until I got my first computer almost 4 years ago. When I figured how to use the piece o’ crap to get onto IRC, I would stay up until 4:20 every morning, when my ISP kicked me off to do some sort of administrative something. Then I’d give it up and go to bed, and dream about IRC. That lasted until I got a job and met Fred, which seems to have happened simultaneously, and since then I’ve considered sleeping until 7 to be a total waste of the day. —–+63310

1111111111111111 NM2MQWWWWWWA

The above is a secret message to you from Scrappy. I’m sure it says something like, "Let’s kill the Mommy bitch and eat all the canned cat food in the house, then lay around and lick the litter out from between our toes."

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The kitten is feeling tons better these days. She’s like a whole new kitten – she plays, runs around, sticks her nose into everything, and tolerates being sniffed by the Boys. It’s only now that I realize how much she wasn’t acting like a kitten. She must have been feeling pretty rotten those first few days, ’cause all she did was lay around and allow me to pet her. Now, it’s amazing if I can get her to stay still long enough to be petted and kissed. My baby’s growing up!

Yesterday, I was petting and talking to her, and I thought to myself, why am I lisping at her? I mean, there’s baby talk – and you know you baby talk your pets too, so don’t look so smug – but why the hell am I going the "Ith a good baby? Ith a baby hunnnngy? Oh, yeth. Oh, yeth. Thuch a good kitty! Yeth it ith! Yeth it ith!" route? How is it that Fred and the spud can listen to me lisping like a big idiot at the kitten and not clock me over the head with a cast-iron skillet?

I could eat you in two bites

Speaking of weird quirks o’ mine, I noticed another one on my way into work yesterday. On the drive into work, there are about six traffic lights I have to negotiate before I pull into the DI parking lot. There are days when I hit every red light, and there are days when every light I approach is green, and of course there are days with some greens and some reds. The odd little quirk I noticed comes into play when I’m approaching an "old" green light. If I’m afraid it will turn yellow before I get close enough to safely get through, I avoid looking directly at the light. I mean, I can still see it in my peripheral vision, but I have this vague fear that if I look directly at the light it will certainly turn yellow and I’ll be stuck there forever, waiting for it to turn green again.

I’ve never failed to make the light stay green using the Bitchypoo Method.

Of course, I use this method when avoiding the people wanting money outside of Wal-Mart, but there it never works. "Would you like to contribute to the Mothers Against Drunk Driving?" they chirp, running over to me and making eye contact whether I like it or not. Well, what am I going to say, "No, I think mothers should keep their damn nose out of drunk drivers’ business, damnit!" Instead, I dig around in my wallet for a buck or two so they’ll go away and let me continue on in peace. At least they don’t try to get your name and address. Once upon a time – at least five years ago, I’m guessing – I got an envelope full of address labels and a "Won’t you help our blind, paralyzed, brain-damaged, divorced, wife-beating veterans? They made these address labels just for you!" letter. Being a softy, I sent them five bucks. Five dollars. FIVE DOLLARS. And for the rest of my life, I will never be free of these people. They took my five dollars and spent it making forty bazillion more address labels, which they send to me at regular intervals with letters begging for more money. Through three moves and a name change, they’ve managed to keep up with me, sending address labels all the way. The solution, I’ve decided (although it’s not a solution for the address label people; I don’t think there’s any way to get rid of them), is that when you give your money away, you have to do it anonymously. Pay with a money order, give them a fake address. Once they get your address, it’s all over, ’cause you know they sell your address to other charities looking for money, and pretty soon all you ever get in the mail are solicitations for money, address labels, and let’s not forget the packs of free greeting cards. I always save the cheesey greeting cards, but I’d never send them out to anyone. Well, not anyone I liked.

Last night, for the first time in a few months, instead of ordering pizza from Domino’s or Papa John’s, Fred made homemade pizza. His homemade pizza kicks serious ass, even when it’s just pepperoni and sausage pizza like we had this time. Sometimes he makes pizza with sausage, pepperoni, black olives, green olives and onion that is just to die for. Have I mentioned what a great cook he is? Somehow, I feel that that’s come up before.

i am weak from hunger…mother? i can’t see you…

Fred’s dad and stepmother are coming over to watch a movie with us tonight. I’m not sure what movie we’ll be watching, but it will be one I’ve seen before. I’m not a big fan of watching movies over and over, unless I like them a lot. When Harry Met Sally…, Sleepless in Seattle, Flashdance, Fame – any of those I’ll stop to watch when I’m flipping channels. Our choices tonight will be The Mummy, Big Daddy, or Arlington Road. Out of the three, I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing Arlington Road again, but none of them really cranks my tractor. Fred just loooooves to watch the same movies a thousand times in a row though, and as a result we’ve watched the same three or four scenes from The Matrix about six times now.

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told him I loved him, which served to do nothing so much as freak him out. That didn’t stop me, though. I wrote him love poems and followed him around school gazing adoringly at him. He was the worst kisser, ever, and I say that out of honesty, not because I hate the way he treated the 16 year-old me (though of course I do hate the way he treated me, as well as the fact that I took being treated shabbily with no qualms whatsoever). He’d come at me with his mouth wide open and his tongue at the ready. No slow, gentle kisses to start us off; his tongue was down my throat no matter where we were. He was a senior, and he was under the impression that the other senior boys considered him a big stud when he backed me up against my locker and tickled my tonsils with his big nasty tongue. He was mistaken. On Halloween night, at a party we were attending, he told me he thought we should see other people. I agreed calmly, instead of bursting into tears – which is what he obviously expected – and went back to the party. Peeved, he left. The next day at school, in the hallway, he broke up with me. Nice guy, huh? In tears, I called my mother, who came and picked me up at school. Once home, I climbed into bed, wrote amazingly bad poetry about my broken heart, and cried a lot. Two hours later, I climbed out of bed, got dressed, and went back to school. I am obviously not one to wallow. It took about a week to get completely over the three-month relationship, and once I was over him, I was only mortified that I’d ever thought myself in love with such an ass. Though, to be fair, he wasn’t as much of an ass as he could have been. I’m betting I would have put up with pretty much anything back then, just to have a boyfriend, just to have someone to hug and kiss and call my own. Pretty pathetic, eh? I’m not nearly so much a doormat these days. I’m sure you find that hard to believe!]]>

I was awakened at 4:10 this morning by a couple of loud, scary, thudding noises. I sat straight up in bed and immediately began calling "Little kitty? Little kitty?!" I peered around the room until I saw her a foot or so from the side of the bed in a pile of Fred’s clothes, under a big, heavy hardcover book. She’d apparently tried to jump up on the bookcase near the bed, and hit the one double-stacked shelf near the top and knocked a few heavy books onto the floor, including the one that landed on her. She was just laying there quietly, which scared me. I picked her up and checked her out – her heart was pounding a mile a minute, but otherwise she seemed fine. After a few minutes, she starting purring.

Speaking of the kitten (and it seems I always am, doesn’t it?), she’s apparently feeling much better, and today for the first time since we got her, she was playing. I bought a laser light at Office Depot today and she chased that around for a while. Now she’s playing with a toy mouse. She’s been eating like a pig since yesterday, and she’s developed a round little tummy.

I’m feeling incredibly lazy today (like that’s something new). At work, instead of straightening up my office so it would look like an office and not a room with piles of crap everywhere, I spent most of the day web-surfing. I made Fred make dinner tonight – he made shrimp sauteed with onions and garlic in olive oil, with angel hair and parmesan. Have I mentioned that he’s truly a kick-ass cook? Never fails to impress me. As further proof, I’m not going to move my November entry links over to the archives page tonight, even though I should, because I’m just that slothful.

The lady who owns the company in charge of cleaning our office dropped by today. As I’ve mentioned, our office space grew by three offices and a conference room, so she was going to check out the new office space and give us a new weekly price. She’s only charging us $5 more per week, can you believe that?

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