cautionary tale

Hey folks, you know all the evidence that shows that using a cell phone while driving is dangerous? (Not that I would ever personally do something like that, no way). Well, unfortunately, this morning my Honda Civic was the victim and the agent was the perp. By a twist of fate, the agent asked to use my car to go to a doctor's appt b/c her work car was out of gas. I drove the big dog truck to the train. As I was walking into work this morning, she gave me a jingle to tell me about said drs appt and as we were talking, she apparently pulled out of a parking lot and into the passenger side door of a van.

Honda Civics, at least the front end area, are primarily fiberglass. So unfortunately, I no longer have a bumper or really much of anything up there left. My beloved Chiefs license plate is gone. I have a fear the the frame might be bent which would be bad. It was drivable, at least back to the house, but it's pretty much screwed. This is why we pay for insurance. Who knows if it's totaled (I was only about 9 months away from paying it off), but it will require a fair amt of work. Heck, once someone backed into the front bumper of it and put a little indent..their insurance co paid me $500 just for that. That's what makes me think it might be totaled. We shall see, huh?

So let this be a lesson to you! Pooch says: If you're going to talk on your cell phone, make sure you're driving a golf cart and not a car!

ps. The voting starts now on what kind of car I should get if my Civic is a goner. Vote early and often!

pps. Ms. Snarker, does this look familiar?

not dead yet

I have returned to Dumb City with a cold and a shitty attitude, therefore I shall only say a few words so as not to come off as the bitter, sick shrew I feel like today:

1. Happy B-day (yesterday) to my literary girlfriend and Promises bunkmate, Miss Vivian Darkbloom. Who shall ever forget the soiree we had for her in 1978? It rivaled Capote's Black and White party, only we called it the Sequins and Nude party. Were it not for a ridiculous call to the fire department and an unfortunate misunderstanding between María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza de Rasten (aka Charo) and George Hamilton, that party would have gone down in history. C'est la life. (Also a happy belated bday to Pip and Winny! Libras will rule the world one day, I am convinced.)

2. My visit to my dad's was lovely. Perfect weather. Pontoon. A sunburn. Fishing. And I had the pleasure of having breakfast in what some people would call a small-town diner, but I would call a bait store/gambling parlor that serves eggs and fried potatoes on the side. Good times. I also drove a practically blind, speech impaired, hard of hearing drunken old man around on his golf cart. His name was Pooch. One time, Pooch, after a long day and many Natural Lites, mistook the gas for the break and drove his golf cart into the porch of his trailer, narrowly missing the propane tank. Pooch was also wearing shorts that no man of his age and/or weight should wear. Good times, good times. Gotta love the Hoosier state.

3. I am just now reading the last Harry Potter book which has been making my Metro commute falsely appear shorter. Somehow I've remained unspoiled and am enjoying it. However, not to sound all sunny-happy-days-are-here-again, the 8 mile drive down I-95 is going to kill me before the end of this week. Every day, morning and night, it has inched along. I have lost all patience with people and their stupid cars and their stupid whatevers -- I engaged in some primal scream therapy this morning when I saw the backup again. Somehow, shouting the MF word over and over again did not help. I wonder if I should try shouting something more positive? Any suggestions?

And thus, I bring the shrew full circle. I wish I could get it up to be excited that today is Wednesday or that I had finally worked for and achieved world peace, but alas and alak, all I can do is buck up like a good soldier! Enough of this bullshit! Come on now!

deep dish

Well, 12 hours later and I feel better. Thank you baby jesus!

So I have one more work meeting tomorrow and that will close out what is feeling like a very long week. We'll be going downtown for this one so I'm hoping to get view of the lake. I'm hoping it will end early so I can get on the road and beat the traffic.

Instead of going right back to DC, I extended my stay for the weekend and am heading over to my dad's lake place in Indiana to do a little fishing and relaxing. How about you drive the pontoon around the lake, I'll sit in a lawnchair up front with a beer, we'll stop here and there to throw a line in and not care if we catch anything, and you can wear a floppy fishing hat. Sound good?

Here fishy fishy...

lake shore drive

What is worse than being at all day acronym business meetings? Being at all day acronym business meetings hung over.

Hello, Chicago!

I need a nap and it's only 9am. Wish me luck.

sweet home chicago

Ah Chicago..who doesn't love this city? So I'm here for work, getting ready for a bunch of day long meetings. I considered liveblogging it for you, you know like how Wonkette et al liveblog shit like senate hearings and whatever. However, dang it, I forgot to create an acronym glossary for you all and well, really, if you can't have easy access to what PBC means, then that ruins all the fun. Because quite honestly, there is nothing in this world that contains more entertainment value than PBC. Seriously. It is going to be RIVETING! and I'm sorry you all can't share that with me. I will, however, post periodic updates about this and that while I'm here. You will be at the edge of your seat.

Instead, you can share the awesome view I have from the 13th floor of this swanky fancy hotel. The room alone was worth the trip. Take a look out that window...can you see all those people down there, the horizon? It's nice, isn't it? Wish you were here.

I go for the hotdogs, stay for the beer

Well, as you know, I do appreciate my sports. Heck, right now I'm drinking my morning Diet Pepsi and flipping between the Solheim Cup and the women's soccer World Cup. It has been established that I will watch almost any sport involving women and a fair amt involving men.

Except baseball. My friend Vivvy of course is a huge Yankees fan. My dad is a big Cubs fan since forever. Apparently alot of people like it since the season lasts, what, 10 out of 12 months of the year. I am not one of those people.

And yet, I will be going to the Braves-Nationals game tonight down in the city with that also newly-moved here gal I met a while back in the city. I'll let you in on a little secret. The only reason I am going is to sit in the stands and look at green green grass, have a stadium hotdog and some beer and chit-chat. It's a beautiful day out today and tonight will be lovely, so why not spend it outside looking at grass? I would imagine that it won't be that crowded, I know enough to know that the Nats (as they call them) aren't good so I'm hoping it will be like when I went to a few Royals games. Empty and plenty of room to stretch out. That is my kind of baseball game. Do some crowd watching, be entertained by the jumbo screen antics, have a dog, drink some beer, and occasionally look up to make sure a fly ball is not coming towards my head. I can do that.

Metro-bitch-of-the-week: It's been awhile since I posted a Metro bitch (not that there hasn't been much to bitch about), but on Thursday, my prescription sunglasses apparently fell out of my stupid "tote" bag and before I realized it, were on their way to Vienna. So I check in on the Metro website to see what to do about it. Apparently, there are so many glasses and sunglasses lost that they don't bother to do much about it, you just have to go to Silver Springs and sort through what I am imagining to be this huge barrel/bin in the off chance you will find your glasses there. If they weren't prescription, I'd write them off but you know. Fuck. So a possibly fruitless trip to Silver Springs is on the to-do list today as well. I can't wait. (ETA: Nevermind. The lost and found office is only opened "conveniently" between the hours of 11am and 6pm on weekdays. When most people who might lose things on the Metro are, you know, working.)

She knows everything

Man, if you are trying to pull yourself up from being out of sorts, you do not want to be listening to Elliot Smith, trust me. And yet. Twilight has been on my ipod non-stop on the way to work this week. I can't help it, I'm a sucker for songs of the self-destructive.


Haven't laughed this hard in a long time
better stop now before I start crying.
Go off to sleep in the sunshine
I don't wanna see the day when its dying.

she's a sight to see
she's so good to me
but I'm already somebody's baby
she's a pretty thing
she knows everything
but I'm already somebody's baby

you don't deserve to be lonely
but those drugs you got won't make you feel better.
pretty soon you'll find its the only
little part of your life you're keeping together.

I'm nice to you
I could make it through
but you're already somebody's baby
I could make you smile
if you stayed a while
but how long will you stay with me baby?

because your candle burns too bright
well I almost forgot it was twilight.
even if I think that you are right
well I'm tired of being down. I got no fight

you're wonderful
and it's beautiful
but I'm already somebody's baby
and if I went with you
I'd dissapoint you too.
well I'm already somebody's baby
already somebody's baby

JeanCon 07 = Be There/Be Sqaure

Thank god, it's not too late to sign up for Jeansperience 07!

Hi Lady, lovely cape you're wearing!

Well, thanks to Madame Ovary, I've been angsty and all out of sorts the last week or so. The days have been long and fraught with rollercoastery ups and downs, which I do not appreciate or celebrate. In fact, I will playa hate...on myself. Enough of this!

As a result, I have little to report except that I have turned the corner and tomorrow shall be a new day. Hello, fellow Metro commuters, you're looking good..sit closer! Good day to you, DC, love all 3 million of you! Top o' the morn, I-95, moving nice and slow I see! Never mind, the sun will come out, tomorrow...

Why yes, I do miss drugs, thanks for asking!

ps. Completely unrelated, but separated at birth?

Reverend Kane from Poltergeist:


and presidential candidate/L&O actor, Fred Thompson:



Scary, right?

Kitchen sink

Well hello there. Bonjour. Good morning. Happy Saturday. Welcome to September!

So clearly, I needed this week to fully enjoy last weekend, which meant catching up on sleep lost due to late nights and such as well as adjusting to work/life again. While I wasn't much looking forward to coming back here, it was easier after a big big dose of home (I'll tell you more about it in another post). Even after this week of hellish I-95 delays every single day, my head is still out in that big field so it's ok. I now know the secret of making it through here for a while - getting out when I can. Duly noted!

I will actually be traveling again in a couple of weeks to Chicago for work. I'll be there the whole week and while it's for business, I love that city so it's all good. I've spent many a good time there; a bunch of my friends from undergrad (fellow euchre players unite!) lived there so there were frequent roadtrips plus it was close to IN obviously so it's the Midwest, you know? I intend to go to my favorite Italian restaurant in the entire world, Tuscany on Taylor St. Definitely check it out if you're ever there. So yeah, I'm looking forward to the trip even though there will be an abundance of acronym-speak.

Let's see, what else? Thursday I wanted to go to the Black Cat and see Midlake, but I didn't want to have to drive in and go by myself. Yeah, lame excuse, but I don't know this city well enough yet to know the safe spots and plus also? Going to shows by myself, while I've done it, is no fun and in a city I'm still a little leery of makes it less appealing. Yeah, I'm lame, especially when so many good bands come through here. No excuse on my part. Go with me next time and we won't have this issue, now will we?

So the big things happening this weekend? Eyebrow wax today at noon and (hopefully) finding the Chiefs game on the tee-vee. Woo! Now that is what I call a weekend. Actually, it's good by me, I don't care to do too much so a lazy weekend works. There was some talk of going into the city later today but we shall see. I think we may catch up with our Small World Friends we met a couple of weeks ago. If beer is involved, that would be fine too. Trust me, the amount of good beer I consumed last weekend is just now wearing off, time to restock!

Finally, in completely unrelated news, we're not better, they're just differently abled. Interesting read nonetheless.

That's all for now. Goodday!

per aspera

Ahhh..this is what made me sane again: