Since You Put It That Way

(Instant Message from) The Hoff [Tuesday, 2/15/11, 2:48 PM]: i find your balloon to be very needy in a passive aggressive manner

I, too, had scratched my head at the meaning behind the balloon message that arrived attached to my flower delivery from My Valentine. It was rather demanding, with the exclamation point. Desperate, even. Desperate and Demanding.

I was looking for a comma, some sort of punctuation to change the intent behind the message, but the LOVE ME VALENTINE! bursting out of the sharp-edged word bubble offered no soft relief.

I asked My Valentine if he had indeed hand-picked the balloon that accompanied my red roses. He seemed perplexed by the line of questioning, but then said yes, he had chosen it, but it simply said Be My Valentine. They must have been out, so they just substituted as they saw fit.

I'm left to ponder the societal irresponsibility of florists who just switch up balloon messages all willy-nilly. One can only guess at the amount of strife and discontent they cause - it's probably why Egypt is in turmoil AND why Charlie Sheen has to turn to hookers. One misused word balloon and the whole world could go to hell in a handbasket.

Move Over, Taylor!

My friend's 18-year old daughter wrote the lyrics and is the lead singer:

Really pretty amazing. And she's smart, too!

If Charlie Sheen Was Here....

Always on the hunt for The Best Home-Brewed Coffee (at a reasonable price), we tried this one, based on a random recommendation from a Sam's Club shopper:

It's fair-trade coffee. Roasted in small batches. Something like $11 (or maybe $8? I don't remember, why am I making up numbers, but it wasn't MORE than $11 because I wouldn't have purchased it) for a giant-sized bag (2.5 lbs., maybe "giant" is hyperbole).

We threw it in the cart, along with a new Hazelnut-flavored brand, for "Sunday Coffee." I like a little treat on The Lord's Day.

The verdict? We LOVE it. It does not taste like pussy (referring to a past post on a brand of coffee we tried, a post I cannot link to because I don't/rarely tag, and it's not worth the effort to find it because the whole post said: "Kenny just announced our new coffee tastes like pussy." Consider yourself hyperlinked back, without the hassle of clicking something). It's robust, but not acidic, awakening, but not a thick jolt like Starbucks. So there ya have it. If you're looking for a small-batch-roasted, hand-selected, fair-trade-ed, mild-but-yet-a-little-wild coffee, this is a winner.

In addition to trying new coffee, I've also jumped on the latest trend for nailbeds, which involves a whole new way to manicure: Nail Shellac by CND. It gives the hard finish of acrylic nails without the fakeness. It's a 3-step process - base coat, color, top coat - with a "curing" under a UV light after each coat. Nails are dried instantly, you can walk out of the shop without the worry of a smudge. Claims state that color will last 2 to 5 weeks without a chip. Five weeks is just ridiculous, but I'd be happy with a 2-week, chip-free manicure.

So I tried it on a Sunday afternoon. The salon I went to (a new place close to home) had a terrible bedside manner (seemed disinterested/disengaged) and the 21-year-old bleached blond, while pleasant enough, fucked it up. Don't know what she did, but I left the salon with my $40 manicure, went home and washed dishes (as touted, engage in regular activities with no harm/no foul) and my nail color peeled right up off my nails, in sheets.

I called them right up. They didn't even sound surprised, just rescheduled me for the following Tuesday after work. Didn't even apologize or make any concessions for my inconvenience, which ticked me off, and had me cross it off my mental list of places to frequent. Not to mention, a different girl did the correction, so I felt obligated to re-tip, since it wasn't her fuck-up to begin with, so now I'm in the hole $44 for this little adventure.

But the polish lasted. Yes indeedie, it lasted just about 2 weeks - 12 days to be exact - before chippage began. They looked great, the polish was shiny, and I was tough on them. I cleaned and scrubbed and even used a new floor wax that got on my hands/fingers and burned and started to fuck up the nail polish, but a quick rinse off helped save 'em. I don't know what the heck is in that floor polish, and question whether or not I should be using it, but it did make the floor shiny.

So the verdict: Worth it. Sort of. If you have $40 to blow every two weeks.

My friend The Hoff asked if we were going to "keep this up" (we tried it together). I did a quick cost analysis and determined that it would be close to a thousand dollars a year on my fingernails, which equals a vacation in my mind, and therefore think I can save it up for special times only. Now it's off and my nails are weak, and chipped and torn down so much that my skin is actually longer than my nails. I tried to come up with a Charlie Sheen analogy, but failed. Murdoch, bring it.

Is it worth spending a cheap vacation (or, a lasered cat-asshole) on my fingertips? To have 'em look 'polished' and nice? Are raggedy nails that unacceptable? My instinct says yes, it is worth it, but on the other hand, maybe I can just polish them myself every Sunday night and keep 'em looking decent enough. Life is full of tough decisions. Egypt ain't got nothing on the shit I have to consider Every Damn Day.

.....my coffee WOULD HAVE tasted like pussy.

(get it, Reader? You have to read the title, then follow the dot-dot-dots to the end. Keep up.)

Kitten in a Box

If folks happened by my home they could be inclined to wonder why I have boxes and clothes baskets and whatnot strewn about the place. They'd chalk it up to dirty dirty housekeeping and lazy lazy ways, I'm sure. But they'd be wrong.

Twinkle Toes has claimed this shoebox for his own and you can find him tucked inside just about any evening of the week. It would be plain rude of me to toss out his box just because it muddies up the decor.

He thinks it fits just fine.

Pork Revenge

We paid for the bargain on the pork. The PorkKarma Gods saw to that.

Kenny shit about seven times the following day. In fact, he got out of bed at 3:00 a.m. and had to shit.

I tasted like I smelled like garlic. All. Day. Long. No one was closetalking me on Monday. My coworker told me I didn't stink, but I think she was just being polite.

We both had to take a Zantac Monday evening.

I don't even want to think about The Other White Meat. For a long, long while.

However, I'm hosting a baby shower at work on Wednesday, and made shredded pork with black beans & green chili's to balance against the normal-order-of-business ground beef.

It sounded like a better idea when I bought it on Sunday, prior to the consumption on the garlicky pork.

I don't have the gumption to even taste the concoction I created. We're going to go in tomorrow and hope for the best.

Me Put Wee-Wee In Your Coke

I've got very little to offer you this week, Reader. I do have a ton of product reviews, but wanted to give them more than a cursory nod one way or the other, but that may be what we're left with tonight. It IS Superbowl Sunday, the game IS on, and I'm SORTOF watching it. I'm keeping an eye on the score because I've got some Benjamins riding on the digits (ahem. who AM i?? all street-sounding). I thought I had some good numbers - 7 & 7, but it wasn't to be.

We've got a pork roast in the oven. A garlic & parmesan flavored one, which I have to ask, did we steal this? Because it was $3.89 per pound, and it's a 5+ pounder, and had a close-to-$21 tag on it. But the dude who rang it up, rang it up for $3.89. He even commented, "You're getting a heck of a deal on this, it must be on sale or something." And I nodded and said, "I guess so." Is it my responsibility to insist they charge me more?? I thought to myself, "WWSD?" (What Would Sophie Do?) and I could feel her orgasming in her cremains at the thought of a 5lb pork roast for $4.

We'll probably get worms or something from it, a reward from the PorkKarma Gods for screwing The Man. Even though I did nothing to contribute to his screwing, other than paying the price they told me to pay.

I got screwed later that afternoon when I paid $62 for insulin for Twinkle Toes. Now that's just ridiculous. I wish I had the balls to put that on my health club account, I really don't see why I can't pay for all his people-medicine through it, but I somehow think the Gov'mnt would screw me back. And believe me, I get screwed enough. Which leads me to the perfect segway of More Conversations With Kenny:

Scene: Saturday afternoon, in the kitchen, standing at the sink washing dishes.

Kenny, grinding up behind me with the hard-to-resist proposal, "Hey, how about a little kitchen rape?"

I know, you're jealous, right? Because this is the Sexy that goes on around my place.

I didn't fall for the kitchen rape proposition, but I let him play Inappropriate Teacher and Awkward Schoolboy later that evening.

Ah, didn't ya miss this stuff?? I bet you're wishing things woulda remained crickets from me.

Anyhoo.

In deference to my latest Lesbian-But-Not-Really-Because-I'm-Not-A-Lesbian crush (not that there's be anything wrong with that), I two-tone died my hair a little. I made my bangs darker, and then a little on the sides, too. It turned out quite dark:

It doesn't look this dark in person.

Kenny told me I photograph Asian. My eyes get more slanty in photos, and now, coupled with the photographs-dark hair: Asian. Pair it with pasty-white skin and I'm downright Geisha-like.

So enough of that.

In response to my post about the Soft Hands Challenge, Meggan gifted me with some Kiehl's hand cream. I am definitely softer, I think. I've been diligently slathering myself with greases and potions and layers of stuff, but I'm still not Ridiculously Soft like my friend The Hoff. And on the sides of my hands, near my thumbs, the skin looks a little bit like chicken skin. I don't know. Maybe it's just the look of 44-year-old hands. But I can tell a difference in my cuticles, they aren't as raggedy as they normally are, so the greasing is paying off somewhere.

In other news.

The diet of 2011? So far, I believe I've gained like 3 lbs. in January. Suck.

It's not like I wonder why. I know why. Oh yes, I sure do. It's been a month of cake since the New Year started. I haven't said N. O. to any of it. We'll try for a better day tomorrow. Again, poor Tomorrow. All the shitty stuff lands on Tomorrow's shoulders.

I've tried the Zumba tape. Finally. It's pretty stinkin' fun, actually, although I am absolutely uncoordinated. I just sort of hop all around, waving my arms over my head, hoping to catch a beat now and again. Twenty minutes will work up a forehead froth, to be sure. But I've only done it twice last week, because I've gone to bed too late and then can't get up early in the morning and in the evening I'm too tired and well, it's just a vicious cycle.

I'm going to save my other product review/news for another post. I've been trying things, Reader. Good things! Exciting things! Things that involve my nailbeds. Patience. Good things come to those who wait. Someone said that once. I don't think it's going to be true in this case, however.

**p.s.** I know it's not politically correct to joke about rape - kitchen or otherwise - but I don't really give a shit about being politically anything. And it's probably a faux pas to even say "slanty eyes" so this is just insulting all over the place. In the words of J. Peterman, "Here's to a job, done."