yeah, yeah, I'm slow

There have been a couple of comments from those who say I never update my blog- well, um... I have no comeback. The truth is I started a new job, moved in with the man, and have been a bit overwhelmed with facebook lately. In that order.

Between facebook-ing for work and researching social media plans all the time frankly the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was post. I also think that I had super high expectations for myself, like every post had to be long and well thought out. Well- no more of that! I suppose I could post more often if I just lower my posting standards a bit.

So, tada! here's my post. You all must check out this blog. And before you ask- no I don't hate babies, or parents (most of the time) but this stuff is hilarious!!! Scroll down until you find that someone has actually posted a pic of their kid's butthole on facebook, not the cheeks, mind you, but the actual hole. You can't make that stuff up.

BTW, happy pre- birthday to Andrea who would never put a picture of her daughter's buttholes on the internet. Andrea, as a reward for your awesome-ness I have a present waiting for you. It's wrapped and everything.

That's my post everybody, until next time! Oh, I also bought Ollie pet health insurance today and I seem to enjoy reading Cat Fancy, but that's a story for another time...

Spolier alert: it was not a beanie baby

Have you ever picked up a glass thinking it was milk, only to take a drink and realize it's orange juice instead? It's disgusting, right? because your expectations were one thing, and the reality another.

Now imagine that the milk was a beanie baby and the orange juice a dead rat. That's pretty much what happened to me the other night in my bedroom.

There I was sitting on the floor putting on my shoes when i leaned back and put my hand on the floor just underneath the bed. I felt something soft, (yes, soft) and thought to myself, "oh, I must have dropped a beanie baby down here," This was not a strange thought since I had just gotten rid of a bunch of stuff, including beanie babies. So, instead of screaming, I pulled the furry thing towards me0fully expecting to see a cute little stuffed animal.

As you have all guessed, it was a dead rat. Freshly dead by the looks of it. I screamed so loud my rommates came running. Then I washed my hand four times. Then I freaked out trying to pick that thing up while keeping as many layers of paper towel between my hand and it. Then I washed my hands again-twice.

You may be thinking, but wait, isn't this the cat who once threw a dead bird in the air bouncing it from wall to wall in the hallway? The cat who once left what I called a 'mouse buffet' of no less than five dead mice in a row for me to find just inside the front door? The cat who frequently eats a mouse and then throws it up, leaving a cat trachea sized tube of mouse entrails and bones on my bedroom floor? Yes, this is that cat.

I believe it was the element of surprise that threw me off, because as you see, I am used to finding dead things in my house. Why he hid it under the bed I will never know. Perhaps he was saving it for later? All I know is, as traumatic as it was, I'm just glad I found it before it started to smell.

P.S. did you look at that Ollie photo closely? If you did, you'd have noticed the tiny tail hanging out of his little mouth....

Shelly is totally showing me up

Have you guys been following Shelly's posts over at These are the Salad Years? She is totally showing me up. She is hi--larious, and prolific at blog writing and insightful and she tells you things that I'm not sure I'd put on the internet and -in short- she is a rocking blogger and I'm jealous. I haven't posted in forever. I get sick of the internet at work, and frankly I think twitter is taking over the brain space once reserved for useful pursuits.

I am also weak, because everyone time sit down to do a blog post Oliie gets upset because I'm not paying attention to him and I get up and give him attention and abandon my post. Shelly posts things and she has ACTUAL children. How does she do this? Ollie is meowing at the door right now and giving me kitten eyes. I am ignoring him.

Would it be a cop-out if I start making lists? It would be a lot faster. Here is a list of the new things in my life.

1. I hired a friend of mine who just actually happens to be a trainer to train me for my yosemite trip and bathing suit season, respectively. After my first session with her my pecs hurt so badly that it was painful to go bra-less.

2. Dena and I are hitting the gottschalks going out of business sale today before other people with common shoe sizes such as our own get all of the cute shoes.

3. My parents and little brother Chris will be in town sunday and monday. yes it is a weird time for a trip. Chris has a tennis tournament in SLO. While they're here I'm going to make them dinner at Anthony's house, get my dad's help buying a new pair of tennis shoes (hes' an expert) and give my mom the earrings i got her for her birthday from etsy.

4. Ollie is now waiting patiently outside my bedroom door. He does the same thing when I'm in the bathroom.

5. I can hear my phone ringing and it is Dena's ring. She's expecting me to be ready to go and I'm not. Better get dressed.......

Minty

Have you guys ever been on Mint? It's a website that helps you keep track of all your money, what you have and what you don't have. I recommend it, but only if you can handle seeing EVERYTHING you spend your money on.

I won't even get started on how depressing it is that Mint calculates your net worth. The money you have minus everything you owe (including student loans) yeah, it's not cool.

But that's not really the most enlightening thing about it. It's the little things that are really amazing. The pie graphs- those are best part. so colorful. Also, the bar graphs. Those show you how your spending compares to others. So, let's get down to the good stuff-- what I spend money on. Wait, I'm looking for examples that won't make Anthony grind his teeth... hair? .. no.....pets?.... eh...

Ok, here you go: in the last six months I spent only $18 on fast food. ha! I am awesome. Fast food also makes me puke, so you know...

Ok, maybe this post wasn't such a good idea....

Just kidding, Anthony! I am super responsible with money. It just all seems like so much when you see it all gathered together. $89 bucks at Starbucks? Ok, that was for six months, but still. $100 on Netflix? totally worth it. So ok, I'm not so bad.

yes, it did kill a few brain cells,

.. and no I'm not talking about wine, I'm talking about the bachelor. At the risk of being totally frivolous and lame for a minute- which I'm about to do- gfvbgvbhhhyyyywsrfedtgh, oh sorry about that, Ollie stepped on the keys. back to the frivolity!

did anyone catch the finale of the bachelor last night? ? I only watched the 'after the final rose' special but it was pretty damn ridiculous. the guy picked one chick, proposed, frolicked with her and then came back in six weeks, dumped her on national television and then asked the runner-up to take him back- and she did! It was ludicrous. I couldn't look away. Oh, and how much of a tool does this guy look like btw? he couldn't be toolier if he tried.

So anyway, this second chick comes on, talking about how she still has feelings for him, yada, yada, and how she dreams of him coming out on stage and changing his mind..... I don't know about you guys but I've had similar thoughts after break ups, the 'he'll call and tell me it was a big mistake dream'. But in my version I told him to go f**k himself. This is the difference, I suppose between me and this dumb chick:

if you have to have more info, check out this piece in TIME: it's called Why do tools fall in love?

Bad kitty

If Ollie were really a kid (instead of just getting treated like one) he would be sitting in the corner right now. That little bugger is having quite the night.

I just pulled him off of a pile of fancy dresses that I had placed on the floor for literally two minutes, (ok, overnight) and he chewed into my arm like a snake injecting venom. You know- when they grab and don't let go but keep pumping their little fangs to get the poison in there deeper... yeah like that.

But that was just the topper, that was after I found the present that he left for me. Based on smell and mold growth I'm dating this little puke present at last Sunday night- the night that my roommate Claudia had her little birthday party and I left Ollie alone in my room to fend for himself rather than pretend to want to hang out with a bunch of 20-year-olds. I should have known he'd get back at me.

I just didn't see this one coming. Ollie is way less vindictive than he used to be when I was shooting medicine in his mouth every other minute. But, he must have felt that I deserved a well-placed puke present in my closet, under clothes, where I wouldn't find it until many days later when the smell gave it away. Speaking of smell , my g-d damn roommate just left the house, which means that he has sprayed a crop duster amount of old spice and the smell is wafting though every room of my house and getting into my pores. If given a choice I would take the Ollie puke smell over this.

In fact, I think I'm not mad at Ollie anymore, I feel my anger shifting towards old spice and all the 'I'm stuck in the late '9os when I was young and full of promise and actually had a chance at getting a date ' sadness that it represents. If I never smell old spice again it will be too soon. Did I mention that old spice makes a body spray, deoderant and a body wash in addition to their cologne. Oh, and Diego owns all of them.

Nay a stray strand of baby's breath in sight

Anthony has great taste in flowers and now that I have two cameras at my disposal I'm going to give him props for my valentines day flowers which lasted a whole week and a half before the roses, alstromaeria, and other pink and red things all died on the same day. But what was left was still beautiful: orchids, button mums, and spider mums. Take a look:

lost and found

I cleaned out my closet this weekend and found the horribly ugly yellow sweatshirt that Anthony thought he had lost and was bummed about- but that I was secretly glad was gone-but is now back and I'll have to give it to him because he'd see it in my face if I didn't. Here is a photo of the back of this sweatshirt-it's only saving grace is if I wear it while riding my bike there is no way anyone will hit me. Trust me, it's even brighter in person.

Now the only reason I could show you this sweater is because I also found a brand new camera while cleaning out my closet. I think this is a sign that you really needed to clean out your closet if you're finding brand new, unopened, totally useful things in there. I almost threw away the box, but it was heavy so I opened it and tada! new camera.

This is what I've pieced together. Three years ago I bought a new camera, I know it was three years because I bought it for Joe and N***a's wedding. One year later I broke the screen at Downieville. Here's where it gets murky. I THINK Anthony took the camera back to Best Buy and got me another one. At the same time I he also kept the old broken one, ordered a new screen and fixed it. Hence, two cameras. I believe the plan was he would keep one and I would keep one and we'd have two, but then his old roommate gave him his old one, Anthony kept that because it was old and good for taking on bike rides and I had two cameras, one for now and one for later.

Here is photo evidence to back up my theory: I found this photo on one of the cameras.

I almost feel guilty posting this pretty bad photo of Anthony, especially when he's always doing nice things like fixing my electronics, but c'mon it's funny. Here's another one take at Anthony's house. it must be right after he put the new screen in.

I also found these shots which I apparently took to test out the new camera. That's Ollie trying out the 'Wheelie Beast' my xmas present from Anthony two years ago. It's a rolling bag thing from rei that will fit a small child inside, or at least five Ollies....
Disgusting side note: I think that's Ollie puke on the floor in the background. I'm sure I cleaned it up right after this shot was taken....


Here's the even crazier part: I was fiddling around with my 'broken' camera and it turns out all it needed was a reformatting of the memory card. Now it works again. I have two cameras- again. This time I'll give one to Anthony.

day'o' nothingness

Dena and i both had the day off yesterday and we went downtown and did nothing and it was great. I even made two very smart purchases that I'm already feeling really good about. The first purchase was two tiny balls of rabbit fur surrounding nuggets of catnip. Ollie loves these things. He had one already that he had chewed so often it was starting to fall apart, but petco refused to re-stock the damn things.

He now has two and when he sees those little balls of fluf sitting on the carpet i swear he looks like a kitten on christmas. It's like he forgets he has them until, oh my! is this rabbit fluff surrounding a nugget of catnip? bliss.

The second purchase I made is the reason that my two-buck chuck tastes just as good today as it did yesterday-awesomeness. It is the vinu-vac, made in some slavic state of course, or else the netherlands. Actually, never mind, it's the vacu-vin.

Now I can spend two dollars on wine and make it last longer too-so recession friendly it hurts.

Twitterific

I was part of a 'webinar' last week at work. I learned all about social networking and how to use it for good and not evil ;)

Long story short- the web expert was in love with twitter. So I joined up. I gotta keep up with the young'uns, and let me tell you- facebook i kind of get, it's like gossiping without actually having to talk to anyone, like stalking without getting into trouble with the law, but twittter? Twitter is weird.

What you do is write tiny little updates of 140 characters or less. You could say what you're doing, put a link to soemthing cool or wax poetic. You follow other people's updates and they follow yours. I can see how this would be cool if my friend and family were actually on twitter, but there is no one, I repeat no one I know on twitter. You people aren't as cool as me. So instead I am following Barack Obama, Tina Fey, and Rainn wilson from the Office.

Obama hasn't posted since he got elected, Tina Fey had a caramello for lunch yesterday and Rainn Wilson had an amusing rant about how every npr reporter has a weird name. He is right- npr reporters have weird names. my theory? They were all teased, became nerds, which led them to a career at NPR.

But I digress, I was about to tell you the absolute weirdest part about twitter which is the moment when people start to follow you. Some folow me because I'm following them. (Like the Onion) Some are obvious- online marketers looking to schmooze. Others are obviously collecting followers- they have tens of thousands.... but then there are a few who are totally random. Just normal people who, for some inexplicable reason, want to follow my tweets. (That's what it's called when you post on Twitter)

I find this odd. Why do they care what I'm saying? They don't even know who I am. Sure, I'm witty, and smart, but still- what is their motivation? and how did they even find me?

I bet N***a is cringing while reading this- she's a little internet shy, but I'm going to carry on. It's a new frontier out there- one of tweets, and microblogging, and other assorted odd-ness and I an going to explore. Incidentally, if any of join twitter- let me know!

gettin' old

I was just thinking the other day that man am i getting old. It all started with one incident, and it is this: I came home after a long day at work and my roommates were watching Ironman-loudly. What did i do? Did I drop onto the couch, pull up a beer and relax wile watching robert downey jr tear it up in metal?

no. I did not. I went into my room, put in earplugs, and starting reading the ny times online. This, my friends, is what old people do.

I am not walking around dripping

I've often thought that reporters who cover health issues must be very unsettled people--if they follow all of their own advice. It gets very confusing.

Coffee is bad for you. Coffee is good for you. Dirt is bad for you. Dirt is good for you. the list goes on and on.... BTW, what does it mean that the first two examples I thought of were coffee and dirt? I think this says something about me....

Anyway- the latest news is that blowing your nose is bad for you. Well, if blowing my nose is wrong, then I'm gonna take the old cliche and say that I don't want to be right. What is this crap?

The claim is that blowing your nose creates so much pressure that it actually forces boogers and germs into your sinuses, which can then get infected. Hmmm, so my choices are blow my nose and risk possible infection or walk around sniffling every two seconds, dripping snot and instantly making myself a pariah everywhere I go.

I think I'll take option A.

This is just an example of what I think is some of the worst traits of the news industry- there is space to fill and damn if they aren't going to fill it. Though the piece the ny times did on coffee and caffeine and how good it is for you? That one is totally true.

Trader Joe's cashiers have dodged a bullet

I was out of coffee so after wok I pulled into the trader joe's parking lot. After getting cut off twice, almost hit once and generally pissed off countless times within a five minute time period, I thought to myself, "fuck this place," and then I drove to vons

Traders and I have a love/hate relationship. I love their wine selection, their salads, the little yogurt parfaits...I hate the parking lot, people who hover in front of the cheese section for 20 minutes, and the damn talkative cashiers. Some of you may know of my past history with these cashiers... Dena is the only one who has witnessed it. She swears they have a photo of me in the back room that says 'beware' and she might be right.

I don'y know what it is about the traders cashiers- but they piss me off more than anything else in the whole wide world except for people who say dogs are smarter than cats, which is totally not true. long sentence.

I have, in the past, let my feelings be known to these cashiers. Anthony is starting to think i have a traders-centered anger management probelem, but he just doesn't understand that they're all asking for it. I know management tells them to be friendly but these people are obnoxious mixed with intrusive.

Here is a normal conversation between me and a traders cashier:

them: hi, how are you?
me: fine ( I don't like to encourage them)
them: did you find everything you needed?
me: yup
them: have a good day (at this point most of them have sensed that I don't want to talk)
me: thanks

Here is a conversation that is destined to piss me off:
them: hi, did you find everything you need?
me: yup.
them: so, how was you day?
me: fine
them: just, fine? (said with what they think is a charming smile)
me: yeah
them: but the weather was so beautiful, didn't you get to go outside?
me: i was at work.
them: oh, that's too bad, i woke up, went to the beach and class and then came to work (meanwhile they are ringing up my groceries slooowwwlllyy)
me: uh-huh (in my head: I don't care, I don't care, I don't care)

The time I got really snarky with a cashier he was talking, and flirting, and talking and flirting with everyone in line in front of me- even the men, I swear to g-d. When dena and I got up there he tried to chat us up and I just snapped.

I can't remember exactly what I said- though dena might cuz I think she was horrified- I think it was along the lines of, "Why don't you spend less time trying to chat us up and more time rining up our groceris and then maybe you line wouldn't be the slowest one IN THE ENTIRE STORE. "

I swear, if it was a movie the people in line behind me would have broken out in applause. I think they were thinking about it.

So, Vons was ok, btw. in case you were wondering. even though the guy in front of me tried to argue the price on the ENORMOUS container of bleach he was buying (?) and the console has way too many buttons to push before it gets to ringing in your damn card.....but you know, I guess no store is perfect ;)

I only watched the 4th quarter-turns out that was enough

There's something to love about an underdog, and we sure do. David and goliath, Rocky and the Russian, the rebel and imperial forces..... and for a short time today- the Arizona Cardinals.

Of course, they didn't end up winning, but it was a good fight and i found myself rooting for them just a little bit. There's something sort of exciting and romantic about being an underdog and i think that's why we're so obsessed with them. When you're the underdog you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You can walk away with your head held high either way- as long as you do your best.

I'll admit, I only caught the fourth quarter. Anthony and I weren't that into the bowl this year. We were going to watch it at Pat's house but a sick baby derailed that plan. so we went on a hike..got a snack.. showered.. changed.. and by the time I got home at 7 the game was still on. Man, are these things long.

And I found myself yelling at the tv like i'd been watching the whole game and had a couple beers in me, instead of what i was really doing at the moment- sitting on the floor in front of the tv rubbing Ollie's tummy with one hand and punching the sky with the other- and then when i thought the cardinals couldn't lose- the steelers scored on an awesome pass!

I think I'll only watch the 4th quarter of super bowl games from now on. There's less ads, more atual football, and come on, admit it- everything truly exciting that's going to happen will happen in the fourth quarter. I'm glad I turned it on.

Enjoy.

Back from Berkeley, ...uh Richmond

I keep saying Berkeley, but I do know that Joe and Nitza now live in Richmond, in their brand new house with the awesome yard. This last weekend they were cool enough to let us stay over at their place even though it's not quite finished (very close though), actually now that I think of it- perhaps they had ulterior motives since Anthony helped put together some of their furniture. I was useless and did nothing to hep except get buzzed on wine and then flop on their new bed/bedframe. I was testing it's strength under impact.

We were also there to visit the Ikea in Emeryville and get Anthony his new bedframe. mission accomplished, and though I didn't technically get lost in Ikea this time, I did get really annoyed that they make you walk through every damn department whether you want to or not. While walking through the gigantic store Nitza overheard someone saying that it reminded them of a casino. I've never been in a casino, but I think they're right. No windows so you don't know what time it is, and it's a maze so you can't get out even if you wanted to. Then there's the money you end up spending...for that I have Anthony. He doesn't let me spend a dime at Ikea ever. On any trip. It's not that he forbids me, he just says you don't need that, you don't need that, you don't need that, over and over and over again and then gives me dirty looks if I do happen to pick something up. I think if I got really close to the register an alarm would sound in his head and he'd start shouting "danger, danger, put away your wallet.. you don't need that!"

Anthony thinks I'm susceptible to the Ikea brainwashing, and he might be right. Though he didn't know it, at various points I had my eye on a frame, some dishes (for his place) and a rug for my office. And a couple of vases, and a wine rack.

Joe and Nitza's house= Yosemite

Going to Joe and Nitza's new house this weekend where there is no internet reception. It's just like camping, but with toilets, which makes it just like my memorial day trip to yosemite last year. That was also camping, but with toilets.

In fact, the toilets were the warmest, dryest place in the whoooolllleee campsite that weekend.

It's funny, the bathrooms at Yosemite. They're in the weirdest places. You get the feeling that the park staff was just sick of all the whiny unprepared tourists complaining, so they were like, "well, you know this is the wilderness, but fine, we'll build you some f-ing toilets."

anyway...... also headed to Ikea this weekend, let's hope I don't get lost. Last time I was there I left Anthony somewhere in kitchen and went to go pee. When I got back kitchen had disappeared and been replaced by bedding. It was like a wormhole had opened up in the time/space continuom (sp)? and left me there. I swear I passed the same made up living room 20 times before I found him.

Lesson learned? Ikea is not a place for novices and one shouldn't go wandering off alone.... also just like yosemite. Man, this post wrapped up nicely.

But my favorite shade's been discontinued...

My problem here is that I'm too fickle to wear the same shade of eyeshadow every day. So, when it came down to throwing out my makeup after I had pink eye, getting rid of all the eyeshadow that could have been exposed was akin to throwing away at least $100 worth of makeup. Yeah, I said it. My face likes quality, thank you very much.

But now I have pink eye again. And, yes, I am retarded-thank you for asking. I just couldn't let go. I may have to take a moment after I dump it all.

So I sneaked off on my lunch break today to the doctor and get another prescription, becasue while T think it's possible to live down being the new girl who got pink eye, I don't think it's possible to live down being the new girl who got pink eye twice in one month.

Attention Shelly!

Ryan has informed that you were sad that I didn't send you notification of my new blog. In thought I did. oops. I assure you that I was not planning on writing snarky things about you, au contraire. I think I will start a 'things I like about Shelly section on my blog, as long as you're not sad when I eventually remove the list. :)

STUPID. STUPID. STUPID

damn you facebook and your wiley ways. After all that talk about secrecy i just had to go and do something stupid. I was on facebook and thought 'gee it's a shame more people don't have access to my blog, especially now that it's goign to be chock-ful of sarah musings'

so what do i do? i post my blog adress on my facebook profile. Damn you hubris!

You see, i was thinking only of my 'friends' only my friends will see it I thought. but there are others on facebook, oh yes. Young, impressionable relatives, people I don't really like, and many many more. I'd never be able to post anything mean about anyone again. I might as well shrivel up and die.
I took it off right after i realized what i had done, but it was too late.

For those of you unfamiliar with facebook, this is what happend. all of my 'friends' got a message saying, " sarah has updated her contact information" and another, " sarah has removed her contact information,' both times it would state plain as day what had been removed. ie: my blog address. dumb. dumb. dumb.

I can only hope that people forget, or don't really care. sigh.

How blank is this blog?

Well, my secret is out. My boss has found my blog and it is all Andrea's fault.

Yes, that is right Andrea, it is your fault. You see, my boss has a little thing called a google alert. As it happens Andrea once put my full name on her blog with three little words that shall never be blogged here again. I can tell you this, they rhyme with Rallin Jancok Collige and yes I know that spelling is absurd. These are the steps I now have to take.

The mention was actually made on you-know-who's blog a while ago, adt apprently the boss has been following it ever since. Luckily I've been to busy to put anything super de duper incriminating on my blog so no real damage has been done. And luckily I happened to have this blog address saved away for a rainy day, but as you can see it needs some work.

But though I will give Andrea crap for a while, I'm glad this came about. My new blog will be more writing-centric because, I'll admit it, I miss writing my column soooooo much.