R&TQAC Festivus Photos

So this is why I'm not quitting my day job to become a photographer. These are a hot mess - blurry, poor color - the usual when I'm behind the camera. But regardless, it's what we have to commemorate our First Ever R&T Activity Club activity. Actually, the shitty quality is an adequate reflection of spending a Saturday at a bowling alley. It's all just a little bit hillbillied-up.

Hang on, here we go - the night in (quick) review:

The Man of the Hour, Mr. M himself, in all his bowling glory:

Fresh-faced Beth noshes on her fancy-schmancy grilled chicken salad and glass of the Alley's finest Merlot. Which, by the way, she deemed rather acceptable.

The Swartz's:

This is How They Roll. Literally.

Sandra's fine, fine form. She copied me, by the way. The photo is blurry because she was FAST - just like me! The ball had lightening-like speed. Thunder was crackin' when I bowled. And Sandra thought to copy that, ha ha :)

And that, my friends, is all we have to commemorate the night of bowling. Perhaps someone else needs to be in charge of photos! Next activity will be some sort of Summertime Fun - I bet ya can't wait!!

A Moist Hard Drive

So I made a pot of coffee this morning, went back to bed for more...rest....., and when I got up to get a cuppa freshly made coffee, I saw a disaster had again ensued with that touchy, tumultuous coffee maker. The filter wasn't in "just so," and coffee - and grounds - were all over the countertops, puddling onto the floor. Now, under normal circumstances, it would be a moderate annoyance, to be cleaned up, bitched about, and moved on from. This particular Sunday, I had my work laptop at home with me - in case I needed it for my presentation Monday morning - and it was in it's bag, resting up against the kitchen cabinets. Which happened to be the final destination for a large amount of the spilled coffee. Right in my computer bag. In my computer. Where all my work resides.

Now, the only thing that is keeping a total panicked meltdown staved off is the fact that I actually thought ahead and printed a hardcopy of my presentation before I left work on Friday, and I have that with me. It is laden with coffee, but definitely salvageable. Otherwise I would stab myself in the heart with a large kitchen blade today.

I've got the computer drying out, and I'm going to call ISD ASAP Monday morning before I turn it on, and hope for the best. WTF. WTF. WTF. So that's my Sunday morning.

Besides that little slice of drama, it's been a good week. I have fresh hair from an appointment on Saturday at a new salon. Now, considering the November Hair Incident of '07, I'm frankly surprised - and perplexed - with myself for even considering another salon. But my girl has just gotten so hard to get into, I need another solution at hand. It's pretty good, I'm not in love with it, but I wasn't crying. It seems....darker. And redder. Funny, how I say "blonder, lighter" gets translated into that. It's not bad. But ... worthy of the cost? The verdict's still out on that. I won't even get into that number, but it's definately a plane ticket to somewhere exotic. Kenny had a good reaction to it when he saw it - and made a friendly, nice complimentary statement which is just nice that he acknowledged my haircut. He's good that way, he's just kind in general.

It was a pretty busy week at the office, getting ready for my presentation, et al. I need to read through it tonight a few times. That, and I have to find all my tax documents, I have an appointment with the tax guy on Tuesday and don't have my stuff rounded up yet. My tax guy is HOT - bow-chica-bow-bow HOT. I saw a shirtless picture of him. We have a "date" on Tuesday, at least in my mind that's what it'll be. It's more fun that way. I owe the goverment a shitload of scratch if I file the "easy" form. I've got to now account for the Avon bidniz, as well as round up all my charitable contribution stuff - and thank Fucksteve for some of those deductions - our 'marital' shit was good for something! Mimi is starting a little business this year, and I may decide to go in on it sorta with her, but I haven't fully decided - but I'll need something for next year and frankly I'm sick of selling Avon. If you can even call it "selling." I mostly buy the shit and use it myself. That is one business that definately costs me money.

My volunteer commitments are finally wrapping up a bit. I'm happy about that, I certainly overcommitted myself and will know better for the future. Maybe. I don't always learn from my mistakes, and I have a track record to prove it. Two marriages; Two divorces. Countless bad hair decisions, yet continue to stray from the usual. Crafting - knitting, cross-stitching, cake decorating, sewing, painting - the list is endless. Again, I think it's just eternal optimism on my part. Stupid half-full glass!!

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Saturday night we played cards at our friend's house. I won! I won! I must have perfected my poker face - or they were transfixed by my cleavage - and I ended up coming in 2nd place. I think I won eighty large, but I don't rightly recall. I had two dirty martini's and a couple of beers. The Kid was there. He opened my beer for me with his forearm. Well, he tried to, anyway, but was unsuccessful with his attempt to impress. I asked him if he liked my new hair color. He replied, "I didn't even notice you had hair." Then we capped off the night running race cars around this cool-ass track Pete has built in his basement - complete with working lights and a "nighttime" track - it's the coolest thing and every boys fantasy. It is fun.

Well, I thought I could end the post with some pictures from bowling, but the blog host isn't working properly for some reason. My computer just started reading my memory card again, so I was able to pull off the pictures. I'm hoping it's that kind of computer magic that happens in the morning with my coffee-laden laptop.

Twinkle is napping so deeply on a chair in the living room, I can hear him snoring across the room. It's pretty stinkin' cute to listen to. In fact, everyone is curled up for the usual Sunday afternoon nap session. Except us. But we slept in til 10 since we didn't get home til 3:00 a.m. It was a late night for us.

We just got back from an early matinee, we saw 21, based on the true story of the MIT card counters in Vegas. Those types of movies make me want to book a trip and go to Vegas immediately. I told Kenny to work on his card counting abilities, make us some money fast. I told him so what if he gets beat up in a backroom, a few knuckle sandwiches are a small price to pay for a half-million dollars of fast money. Take it like a man! He told me to suck it. I could never do that, I seriously couldn't remember what I had in my hand from one bet to the next during the Hold 'Em game - I had to check every time. Was that a ten and a two? Or a King? Whatever, I couldn't remember. Some of the crotchety old guys there had an issue with it, but they can go fuck off - we're not in Vegas, we're in Brunswick. They need to get over themselves just a little bit.

Peace. Happy April! We (almost) made it though March - another X thru the calendar. Think up some good practical jokes for the 1st. Just leave my computer out of it.

Jesus, Eggs and Chocolate

The First-Ever Rob & Tracye Activity Club kicked off Saturday night at Cloverleaf Bowling Lanes. While we had many complaints about the activity of choice (including my own complaints, and I suggested it!), we had a good turn-out, with ten of us showing up to play. Everyone's sick of winter in Cleveland and any excuse to get out of the house sounds like a good one, including bowling. Course, the majority of those who showed up have children, so maybe that was the real driver for saying "yes" to bowling.

Ever the lady, Beth dined on a chicken salad with a glass of Merlot. At the bowling alley. I bet that's the first time they've EVER served that. I'm surprised they didn't make an announcement on the PA system: "Attention Bowlers: Lane 34 is dining on Grilled Chicken Salad and a glass of our finest bowling alley Merlot. Commence finger-pointing and general mockery." You can take the lady out of the Suburbs ..... The rest of us ate the required bowling-alley fare: pizza, deep-fried cheese sticks, big giant doughy pretzels and ice-cold beers.

To set the right mood for bowling, Beth arrived sans makeup and I myself hadn't washed my hair since Thursday. It had the appropriate layer of hillbilly grease to give us the look of "regulars." Man, are we stereotypical or what?? I had a slew of photos of the extraordinary bowling event, but unfortunately my computer seems to not be reading my memory card - which is going to cause me to throw my computer in the trash and buy a Mac, which is Mr. Anderson's suggestion. SERENITY NOW.

Anyway, it was a fun night, with the Divley's (two sets), my friends the Swartz's, the Murdoch's and ourselves. It was a lot of fun and now we have to pick the next event - hopefully one that will be more embraced by the girls. All the guys were happy with the bowling choice, it was the ladies who didn't enjoy hefting a 12-pound ball around quite as much. Beth declared she'd rather give birth than bowl again. In fact, she had a rather expansive list of Things She'd Rather Do Than Bowl, including a Brazilian Wax.

My friend Dawn did ask me if I'd had a boob job, and I caught her gaze lingering on these massive bajongas throughout the evening. I think she's regretting never taking the opportunity to "experiment" with me back when we were youths. Now she's thinking she might have missed out on something. That's just my theory and not based on any facts whatsoever, by the way. I really don't know why they keep getting bigger by the day, but they do. I think I need to stop eating, everything I eat seems to turn to boob.

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I have yet another item to add to the Island of Unfinished Crafts. My tote bag remains incomplete, the four-hour class not providing nearly enough time to create a finished item, contrary to the published declaration during sign-up. Meggan managed to finish hers up at home on her new/used sewing machine; I, however, do not have such machine and instead have an unlined, un-handled, unfinished tote riding around in the back of my car. Perhaps I can store my unfinished knitting items in my unfinished bag.

Meggan's tote turned out really nice, below are pictures I was able to download just yesterday off the memory chip, apparently before my computer decided it just wasn't going to participate in photos any longer.

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These pics were taken in my office, man alive, is my desk a mess. I need to clean up the place. It looks like my living room. Yes, that is a Kermit the Frog stuffed animal in the right-hand corner. WTF. I need to clean up.I apparently need a Work Wife as well as a Home Wife.

Cake decorating is going the way of most of my crafting attempts. I made an Easter cake for today, and frankly, if I never see frosting again it'll be fine by me. I believe that after all the time spent baking and beating and layering and icing, I'm so grossed out by the whole thing I don't want to even look at it. That, and I have to admit, I made the most disgusting-looking color concoction imaginable for my cake: deep golden yellow with juniper-green decorations. I was trying to "Think Easter" and had planned on creating a slew of colors to make it festive, but the frosting only went so far, so I ended up with yellow and green only. It looked like moldy sprouts coming out of the top of the cake.

I've only had one lesson to-date, and believe me, it shows. I'm supposed to go tomorrow, but I can't even stomach the thought of fucking around with more Crisco-laden frosting. Everyone said the cake tasted good, once they got past the looks of it. I didn't have any of it, I opted for Marge's jello treat and a little square of her homemade cheesecake. Sure things, those desserts. I left the green globs of cake at her house. If I only had pictures to share....:( Anyway, I'm done with cake decorating. I can store my $100 worth of supplies in my unfinished tote, next to my knitted blanket/scarf/potholder - whatever it's big enough to be called.

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Easter weekend winds down, with the prospect of a busy workday ahead of me. It's going to be a busy week, and I have no business complaining. I spent a little too much time last week checking out the happenings on PuddleBlog, which tracks the life of a puddle so big, it deserves it's own blog. I'm sure there's a lot going on with that Puddle, considering the vast amounts of rain we've been having.

On a last note, Linda treated Easter like a mini-Christmas for us once again - we received a lot of gifts. I got a portable clothes steamer/sanitizer, pajama pants that are super-soft and comfy (if you remember my Christmas gifts, I was laden with pajama pants then, too), body lotion which smells heavenly, money and chocolates. I feel like a five year old kid who is spoiled beyond reason. And we had my favorite strawberry jello treat, so it was quite a day.

Peace, and I hope you got your Jesus on for the weekend.

Some Things (Never) Change

I don't like pizza as much as I used to. We still get it occasionally, but leftovers rarely get eaten. Funny, during the time I lived alone after I was separated, that was how I grocery shopped: Sunday night I'd order a large pizza from Marcos and have a piece a night until the following Sunday. They knew me and my routine at Marcos. Maybe I just miss my pizza shop.

Burger King hamburgers gross me out - hot, greasy, slimy hamburgers. Used to be my favorite. I choose a Big Mac when a fast-food hamburger is the meal du jour. Smaller, drier patties. No large tomato slices to slide around the meat, where it will inevitably push the condiments to the edge of the bread, eventually coming to rest on the cotton spanning the chasm between my breasts.
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I called my friend Becky today, it's been a year since I last spoke to her. She turned the keys to her Slavic Village home over to the mortgage company, packed her bags and moved to where her family lives in Crossville, Tennessee. The neighborhood - where I, too, had lived during the first years of my married life - had deteriorated to the extent it has become a dangerous, run-down infestation of crime. Becky had gotten robbed at gunpoint. The value of her home had depreciated even further from the $22,000 she paid for it back in the early 90's. She left. She sounds really content and just happy to be with her family. I found her number by snooping on the Internet - thought maybe I'd be able to locate her daughter, Desiree, on My Space and wouldn't ya know it, there she was! She sent me her mother's phone number and I used my Good Friday day off work to reconnect with her. I miss her, but we lead vastly different lives. I love her, despite our differences. I miss and love her, and that will never change, regardless of where our lives take us. She and I are tied at the heartstrings for some odd reason. Very different life paths, to the extent I won't get into revealing for a bunch of others to read about, but it felt so....stable....to hear her voice on the other end of the phone. My touchstone to my past, Becky.
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I hate volunteering. Have always liked the thought of volunteering, but the truth is, volunteering is overrated. Or maybe I'm just too selfish with my time, which is rather ironic seeing how I waste such a vast majority of it doing nothing of value or contributing to the greater good of society in any manner. Yet, that's what I like to do when given the choice. Surf the Internet, reading useless information, blogging, rearranging my webpage, taking photos of cats in various stages of nap, watching Judge Judy lambaste Society's Losers.

I forget how much I hate volunteering until I find myself involved with volunteering, committed. I'm on Go Green committee at work, God knows what possessed me to think that was a good idea. One person on our team quit before we even got started, now all the responsibility is on the shoulders of three. Then they gave us another area of responsibility, because an entire team quit. Now I find myself with "Eco-Homework" this weekend, putting together a PowerPoint presentation for the April event. What was I thinking? Additionally, I've got some responsibilities with Toastmasters, but fortunately that's a good group that I enjoy doing things with, so it shouldn't be such a strain. But it is still additional shit I have to do, with deadlines. My Toastmaster friend Kym told me that she believes I have commitment issues - I reject having to do stuff that "pins me down" to dates. I have thought about that and believe she's right. I like being able to do stuff on my own time, when I want. Which may be why I enjoy blogging. I can sit around and do it on my terms. Whenever I want. So I do it all the time, with glee. Me, with commitment issues. A strong possibility.

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We picked Linda up last night and took her to Whitey's with us for hamburgers and liquor. I enjoy a Whitey's hamburger, they have really good buns. Firm enough to not fall apart, but soft enough to not be a strain on the jaw. And they put a gallon of mushrooms on 'em, which makes a good burger just that much better. Linda had a couple of Screwdrivers, I enjoyed a couple Sour Apple Martini's. Straying from my normal beer, changing it up. I really like spending time with Linda, she's a good mom who loves her son. She did ask when we were getting married. Which may reflect my commitment issues. Not that I'm exactly being proposed to, but there's just no reason I need to be married again. I like knowing I'm here by choice. Maybe Kym'll help me work on my issues. She's a psychic, she probably knows about my issues before I do.

Saturday night is Rob & Tracye's Activity Club. We'll see who shows up. I have a feeling it will be a small group - think we're going to have dropouts before we even get started. Seems I don't own the rights to Commitment Issues.

Winter offered a beautiful evening sky, the setting sun providing an ethereal effect. I have plans to see Sophie on Saturday, but Winter is supposed to give us another roar of March's Lion and dump 3-5 inches tonight. I'm going to remain uncommitted to driving to Columbia Station in the afternoon, and opt to play it by ear. Even the obligation of visiting makes me a little tight in the chest. Hm. Smells strongly like commitment issues.

Kenny's at the movie theater working tonight. I had thought about driving down and seeing a show, but was unable to commit to a showtime. So I sit here blogging and watching House.

Well, it's a new day in a few short hours. Maybe it'll bring change. Maybe not. Peace, and enjoy the Easter weekend.

Fuck a Leprechaun

Not really. But have a Happy St. Patrick's Day, no matter how you choose to celebrate it! I bought my very Irish boss a bag of Irish treats for Monday: a potato, a box of Lucky Charms and a six-pack of Guinness. Is it St. Patty's Day, or St. Paddy's Day??

I just finished writing up my speech for Toastmasters, which I'm slated to give on Tuesday. Nothing like the last minute - again. Hence the nearly non-existent post. I'm off to bed. To fuck a leprechaun ;). Really, I don't believe any of that is necessary talk from me, but chalk it up to two very full glasses of wine to get my speech-writer juices flowing, and a 1/2 of a Mexican Ambien (more than likely much more dangerous than the US prescription stuff). I foresee a wee spot o' trouble falling asleep tonight (all hopped up on words and wine) so I had to drug up a bit. Drugged up Kenny as well - I don't need him trying sitck his shalaily in the pot o' gold later on (damn, I'm an Irish pun over user) while I'm trying to get some shut eye. He's been having a dickens of a time sleeping for the past week - his internal body clock is all messed up. Maybe the time change. Maybe it's just old age.

Speaking of the time change, I am LOVING these sun-filled later evening hours!! I truly hate the Spring-Ahead-Lose-An-Hour-Of-Sleep change, but as much as I hate that, I've been equally loving the sunlit evening. I feel so much more revived when I get home from work! Like there's hours to actually DO stuff. Huh.

I'll post a longer, highly-anticipated (I'm sure) blog later this week. Gotta dash off to bed, to Kenny and Cats where I can rest in soothing slumber through the night. Oh, one last thing. Kenny and I went to Erie Saturday and ended up spending the night at a Quality Inn since we were up til 4:30 a.m. Well, I always sleep fitfully in any hotel room, and last night was no exception. We had his & hers beds (heaven!) and sometime during the night, Kenny burped SO LOUDLY, it woke me out of a sound sleep and I raised up yelling, "SOMEONE'S IN THE ROOM!!" He sat up and said, "Uh, I just burped really loud, go back to sleep." Just thought you'd want to know about a burp so loud, it sounded like we were being burgled. Or something.

Peace, and Kiss Something, even if it's not Irish.

Naked Saturday

Snowed in.

Might as well make the most of it. I had been mentioning having a "Naked Saturday" event at the house, where we just lay around naked all day and watch television, and whatnot. Once the perfect opportunity was presented for just such a day, I determined that was more crazy talk and instead practiced my cake decorating homework. Good thing, too, because I was a disaster at it. I didn't have my icing recipe handy - it's in my car and there was no way I was venturing outside - so I was going from memory and totally forgot to add one of the ingredients. Long story short, the cake turned out really good - lemon with raspberry filling - and I got some frosting practice in, but it certainly wasn't the best batch for decorating. I think I got carpel tunnel from squeezing that pastry bag. My frosting may have been a little on the thick side.

With the major snowstorm rolling in on Friday, we were let go from work early Friday afternoon. Kenny and I spent that "bonus time" shopping Friday afternoon for some "snowed-in" groceries and we're fully stocked up with yummy goodness for a change. We had a very fun day snowed in. I had a full day of nesting, making some really great french toast for breakfast, using King's Hawaiian Bread, which was just so good. I also whipped up a pan of homemade lasagna with garlic bread for dinner. Days like today I really miss having a dishwasher! I believe we're going to rework the kitchen next year, I'm going to look into new cabinetry from Kraftmaid and see what we can figure out. Kenny told me he had a dream that he came home and I had knocked out the wall between the kitchen and living room. Who knows :0) - he might come home to that one day!

We spent the better part of Saturday watching movies, refreshing my memory on Raiders of the Lost Ark in anticipation of the new release in May. Tim and his girlfriend decided to drive to Atlantic City on Thursday so we're on dog-duty, which Kenny has taken over for the day. I haven't had to tramp around outside at all. I did tramp around a little bit inside the house, though. Even though it wasn't a full-out Naked Saturday, there was no sense in wasting a perfectly good house-bound day without a little bit of raunchy nakedness.

Thursday night Meggan and I had our first sewing session. I'm shaping up to be the next Martha Stewart at this rate. I ended up purchasing all my sewing supplies at good ol' Wal*Mart. Meggan and I are the only students, so we got some one-on-one attention. I find it hard to believe that I'll actually have a tote bag created after next Thursday, but time will tell. I don't think I'll become some great sewer, whipping up cute little jackets and such, it took us two hours just to cut out our patterns. In fact, we didn't even get all the cutting done in a two hour time span, we both have to finish that up as our sewing homework.

Sunday Update: Well, I ventured outside today and spent two hours shoveling my car out of the driveway. We did enough on Saturday for Kenny to be able to get out for work on Sunday (he had to work at Cinemark, not his normally scheduled day) so I headed outside around 11 a.m. and started shoveling. Two hours and one blister later I was second-guessing our decision to do it all in one fell swoop rather than throughout the day on Saturday. I had to shovel my car off - I hope hope hope we're parking in a garage next winter! Our driveway is really long, much longer than a driveway with an attached garage, so it just seemed like the shoveling would never end. And there was really no place to put the snow since the houses are so close together - you have to carry the shovels to the back of the house at some points in the driveway. I'm impressed my 41 year old heart held up.

Anyway, by 1:00 p.m. I was back in the house and absolutely unable to warm up. I had to take a shower and was promptly besieged with another bout of whatever cold I've been fighting off for the last week. I have officially relapsed and haven't moved from the couch all afternoon, other than to drink some Theraflu. I haven't even made my cake decorating homework for tomorrow, I'm too run down to even consider baking. I'm rather disappointed that I'm going to be a cake-decorating dropout so soon, I just got my tackle box of stuff assembled on Saturday. Well, sometimes that's just the way it is. I'm grossed out just thinking about a batch of Crisco-laden frosting right now. I'll call them tomorrow and let them know I'm under the weather, and try to pick back up on it the following week. Good thing the class was only $21.

Kenny just got back from taking my car to the gas station to fuel 'er up for me, he's good that way. I was too cold on Friday to stop, and I was nearly on "walk." Not enough in there to make it to work in the morning. I sure hope I'm feeling better by morning, I have to go to work, there's an Executive preview for Valentine's Day and I don't have my notes done yet. My info wasn't supposed to be presented, then Friday afternoon it was decided to present. Then we were told to go home because of the weather, so I'm really under the gun Monday morning to whip something up. Ah, good times.

I have some fun pictures from sewing class, but I'm too under the weather to download. I'll save that for next week - I know, you're waiting with baited breath for that. I had planned to finish writing my speech for Toastmasters, but it's all I can do to finish this nonsense up today.

Oh, one last note: Kenny found out his old acapella group have officially disbanded. I'm so happy that they imploded on themselves! Guess there were massive creative differences of who was going to be in charge, etc. Plus, Kenny used to pay for everything and haul around all the equipment. Guess they didn't realize how much he actually did for them. Life's sometimes like that. You don't know how good you had it til you fuck it all up for yourself. Well, I think Kenny got some satisfaction out of hearing they broke up. Sometime's you can get some satisfaction out of someone else's misfortune. Right or wrong, that's just the way it is.

Peace, dose up on Vitamin C - it's tough to keep the germs at bay.

Frosting Flowers

Cake decorating is going to be the most fun class I've ever taken. I am FINALLY getting over my flu bout and managed to make it for my first class Monday night. We learned a lot of fun tips and I purchased a giant tackle box full of all sorts of little gadgets to make frosting even more fun that it already is. My homework for next week is to make two batches of frosting and bring in a baked cake. This is the course work I've been waiting for my entire life.