Today was kind of a sleepy day. I found myself being completely zoned out and lost in my own head a few times, just from being tired. And I just took some Benadryl because I've been sneezy all night, so who knows what may come out of my mouth/fingers...
Random musings:
Dear McDonalds,
How dare you make a commercial claiming that an egg mcmuffin is a healthy breakfast option. I call bullshit. And the McRib is made of unidentified pork parts. What the hell RIB do you know that doesn't have, ya know, a RIB BONE?
xoxo,
Amber
How come in single stall bathrooms, the purse hook is so far away from the toilet? What if I need something out of there? What am I supposed to do, shuffle over to it? "Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground!"
Angry Birds, I hate you.
I work out of coffee shops a lot these days. There are 4 Caribou Coffees at various points in the city where my iPhone and laptop recognize their wireless signals.
Norah Jones, you're bringing me down.
I want to travel. Like really badly. And right now. But as that's not happening anytime soon, I will just be happy with the small things in life, like the sweet ass glass food storage set I just got!
Columbus traffic, you are a pickletwister, with all of your freeway entrances/exits being closed downtown!
Yup, pickletwister just happened. I made that up just now.
Adult footie pajamas. I want, nay, I NEED them in my life.
It makes me laugh when my dogs chase rabbits or squirrels in the backyard. Just last night, I let Bozz out and saw a quick flash across the yard toward the deck, with Bozz in close pursuit. Then another flash of bunny tail coming from under the deck as the rabbit ran for its life toward the fence and Bozz came scrabbling over the giant rock pile after it. There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that he was going to catch it, but it did give me a little chuckle.
Commercials suck. Not just because they are a giant time waster, but often, they are just terrible, contradictory and poorly made.
If you use the last of the toilet paper, it's your responsibility to put a new roll on. And pulling a roll out of the cabinet and setting it on top of the empty roll still on the holder doesn't count. Don't be lazy. What, you can use the paper, but now you're too good to touch the cardboard roll? Getouttahere...
And now it's bed time...
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Monday, November 7, 2011
Om Nom Nom: Honey Dip Donuts and Diner
This past weekend, the boy and I had an unexpected weekend where we both had Saturday and Sunday off, with no plans! We may or may not have gotten the dates of a birthday party mixed up, but at least it afforded us some much needed relaxation time! In my perusal of this week's Alive magazine, I came upon an article about Honey Dip Donuts and Diner. Since we're always looking for new brunch places, I thought this would be a great option because we both love donuts and small, homey, family-run type places, and I figured this would hit the spot.
When we got there, it looked packed, but it was really a gaggle of people at the counter either waiting to pay for their meals, or to buy some donuts. We quickly found a seat, and I was pretty stoked about the menu, nothing special, just some good diner num nums. We ordered drinks, they came. We ordered food. And waited. And waited. And waited. Three groups came in after we did, ordered food, drinks and donuts, and received all those things before we got our food. Then they got their checks and left. We still waited.
I got pissed. Danny got frustrated with me because I was pissed. Our waitress came to the table a couple of times and said, "Oh, they're really backed up in the kitchen. It'll just be a couple of minutes." After about a half hour of waiting, tapping my feet, fidgeting, staring at the kitchen window and giving a few incredibly harassed sighs, I finally went up to the waitress and asked if our food was almost ready. She rolled her eyes and said again, "They're just slammed back there. Your food will be out in a minute."
I almost cut her, for several reasons. 1) By this point I am starving, which kinda makes me grumpy, and watching everyone around us eat made it even worse. 2) I've been drinking coffee, which makes my tum hurt if I don't have some food with it. 3) Nine. NINE other people came in after us and have gotten food. Clearly the kitchen wasn't that slammed that those people couldn't get their food. 4) No, you did not just roll your damn eyes at me, missy, after I had to come ask you about where my food was!
Let me tell you about the food. We both ordered sausage patties. They forgot one of the orders of sausage. (Danny scooted the plate that came to the table towards me, because he could tell I was not planning to be pleasant if I had to say another word to the waitress.) Then they brought Danny a plate of sausage links, because they ran out of patties. Then the waitress says "We ran out of potatoes, so they had to slice up some more for you." That would have been nice...if the damn things were cooked all the way through! But they were good and crunchy, like raw potatoes. My omelet was exceptionally flavorless.
The one redeeming quality of the whole breakfast experience was the guy at the table behind us having breakfast with his family (parents, little sibs, the whole shebang). With multiple penises drawn on his face in permanent marker. He clearly tried to wash them off, but it didn't work at all. When I whispered to Danny, "Look at the guy over my shoulder with the dicks on his face!" we both giggled a little.
Danny did mention that since they had just been featured in Alive, that they probably got a rush of people coming to try them out, just like we were doing, which could account for why they ran out of things. Fine. I'll give them that. But don't tell me how backed up the kitchen is, and then serve 3 tables of people who came in after us.
The donuts were pretty good. We ordered a half dozen to go, because I was not going to be spending any more time than necessary in that shitshow. Honey Dip, you are a Honey, DON'T. I shan't be returning. And it's sad because you had so much potential...
When we got there, it looked packed, but it was really a gaggle of people at the counter either waiting to pay for their meals, or to buy some donuts. We quickly found a seat, and I was pretty stoked about the menu, nothing special, just some good diner num nums. We ordered drinks, they came. We ordered food. And waited. And waited. And waited. Three groups came in after we did, ordered food, drinks and donuts, and received all those things before we got our food. Then they got their checks and left. We still waited.
I got pissed. Danny got frustrated with me because I was pissed. Our waitress came to the table a couple of times and said, "Oh, they're really backed up in the kitchen. It'll just be a couple of minutes." After about a half hour of waiting, tapping my feet, fidgeting, staring at the kitchen window and giving a few incredibly harassed sighs, I finally went up to the waitress and asked if our food was almost ready. She rolled her eyes and said again, "They're just slammed back there. Your food will be out in a minute."
I almost cut her, for several reasons. 1) By this point I am starving, which kinda makes me grumpy, and watching everyone around us eat made it even worse. 2) I've been drinking coffee, which makes my tum hurt if I don't have some food with it. 3) Nine. NINE other people came in after us and have gotten food. Clearly the kitchen wasn't that slammed that those people couldn't get their food. 4) No, you did not just roll your damn eyes at me, missy, after I had to come ask you about where my food was!
Let me tell you about the food. We both ordered sausage patties. They forgot one of the orders of sausage. (Danny scooted the plate that came to the table towards me, because he could tell I was not planning to be pleasant if I had to say another word to the waitress.) Then they brought Danny a plate of sausage links, because they ran out of patties. Then the waitress says "We ran out of potatoes, so they had to slice up some more for you." That would have been nice...if the damn things were cooked all the way through! But they were good and crunchy, like raw potatoes. My omelet was exceptionally flavorless.
The one redeeming quality of the whole breakfast experience was the guy at the table behind us having breakfast with his family (parents, little sibs, the whole shebang). With multiple penises drawn on his face in permanent marker. He clearly tried to wash them off, but it didn't work at all. When I whispered to Danny, "Look at the guy over my shoulder with the dicks on his face!" we both giggled a little.
Danny did mention that since they had just been featured in Alive, that they probably got a rush of people coming to try them out, just like we were doing, which could account for why they ran out of things. Fine. I'll give them that. But don't tell me how backed up the kitchen is, and then serve 3 tables of people who came in after us.
The donuts were pretty good. We ordered a half dozen to go, because I was not going to be spending any more time than necessary in that shitshow. Honey Dip, you are a Honey, DON'T. I shan't be returning. And it's sad because you had so much potential...
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
World War 4 or...CRAMPOCALYPSE
All right, so clearly I am having some problems with terrible things waking me up at 6 in the morning. And here's the latest bed battle...
Since dogmageddon, I have been tucking the blankets in around the bed, to try to reduce the amount of blanket loss/dog toss during the night. It's been fairly successful, except for the fact that my feet are pinned down all night long (which, as we have already established, is one of my most terrifying torture possibilities) by the blankets, and if the dogs lay next to my legs, they are even more tightly confined. I feel like a mummy, and it's starting to make me anxious even typing about it. Moving on.
So this morning, at about 5:35, I'm trying to roll over, and of course Lola is right where I want my legs to go. Because I'm still treading gently when it comes to moving the dogs off my side of the bed, I decided to try to lever her over in stages by wedging my feet under her. I get my feet under her and start to move her, and that's when it happens...CRAMPOCALYPSE!!!
I was 3/4 of the way asleep and I could feel it coming. That tightening of the muscle, the knot starting to form, the drop in my stomach from knowing the impossible agony I would soon be in. The dreaded calf cramp visited my bed this morning, and IT. WAS. EXECRABLE. (SN: I definitely had to thesaurus.com it up to find a word that matched what I was feeling. I'm not even ashamed of that.) If any of you have had a random cramp rip you from sleep, you know what I'm talking about. I did the only thing I could think of in the moment. I screamed. Or at least I tried to, but because it hurt so bad, I couldn't get much more out than sad, half grunty whimpers. Which of course, woke Danny up...15 minutes before he had to get up for work. I'm sure I would have felt like a jerk for waking him up, but I couldn't think of anything beyond the boulder that had formed on the back of my leg.
He's asking me what's wrong, all I can say is "cramp, cramp, cramp." And his solution is, "Well, stretch it out!" Yeah, well, since I'm all mummified and pinned under the blankets and dog, that is a little easier said than done. After about a minute of flailing and shoving Lola, I finally managed to free the one afflicted leg and have it sticking straight up in the air, because that's really all I could reach to stretch. I kinda wanted to throw up because it hurt so bad, but I finally got to a point where I could get it back under the blanket (very gently of course, because I could still feel that crampy sumbitch threatening to come back if I even breathed wrong), just as Danny's alarm clock started to go off.
Cramp, you may have won the battle, but I'm stocking up on bananas today!
Since dogmageddon, I have been tucking the blankets in around the bed, to try to reduce the amount of blanket loss/dog toss during the night. It's been fairly successful, except for the fact that my feet are pinned down all night long (which, as we have already established, is one of my most terrifying torture possibilities) by the blankets, and if the dogs lay next to my legs, they are even more tightly confined. I feel like a mummy, and it's starting to make me anxious even typing about it. Moving on.
So this morning, at about 5:35, I'm trying to roll over, and of course Lola is right where I want my legs to go. Because I'm still treading gently when it comes to moving the dogs off my side of the bed, I decided to try to lever her over in stages by wedging my feet under her. I get my feet under her and start to move her, and that's when it happens...CRAMPOCALYPSE!!!
I was 3/4 of the way asleep and I could feel it coming. That tightening of the muscle, the knot starting to form, the drop in my stomach from knowing the impossible agony I would soon be in. The dreaded calf cramp visited my bed this morning, and IT. WAS. EXECRABLE. (SN: I definitely had to thesaurus.com it up to find a word that matched what I was feeling. I'm not even ashamed of that.) If any of you have had a random cramp rip you from sleep, you know what I'm talking about. I did the only thing I could think of in the moment. I screamed. Or at least I tried to, but because it hurt so bad, I couldn't get much more out than sad, half grunty whimpers. Which of course, woke Danny up...15 minutes before he had to get up for work. I'm sure I would have felt like a jerk for waking him up, but I couldn't think of anything beyond the boulder that had formed on the back of my leg.
He's asking me what's wrong, all I can say is "cramp, cramp, cramp." And his solution is, "Well, stretch it out!" Yeah, well, since I'm all mummified and pinned under the blankets and dog, that is a little easier said than done. After about a minute of flailing and shoving Lola, I finally managed to free the one afflicted leg and have it sticking straight up in the air, because that's really all I could reach to stretch. I kinda wanted to throw up because it hurt so bad, but I finally got to a point where I could get it back under the blanket (very gently of course, because I could still feel that crampy sumbitch threatening to come back if I even breathed wrong), just as Danny's alarm clock started to go off.
Cramp, you may have won the battle, but I'm stocking up on bananas today!
Thursday, October 27, 2011
World War 3...or DOG-MAGEDDON!
Okay, so every night in my bed, there are 2 adults and 2 dogs. While they aren't the biggest dogs in the world, they somehow manage to stretch out over the entire bed. And every effing night, I have a battle royale with Lola, because she stretches out between me and Danny, pulls the blankets off me, and flumps herself down on my legs, which hurts like the dickens (Side Note: The worst torture in the world to me would be having my hands and feet confined and not able to move them. The dogs do this to me every. single. night.). Also, today is Danny’s first day off in 2 weeks and he has had to be at work at approximately 5 a.m. every day for the past week, so he gets to sleep in today too. This is important.
So, at 6:05 this morning, I was awakened because I was freezing. Here we go with the nightly battle royale...
Me (scream whispering, so as not to disturb Danny): “Lola, move!” (try to yank the blanket from under her)
Lola: sits up and looks at me, without moving.
Me: “Dammit Lola, MOVE!!”
Lola: stretches out and rolls over onto my leg
Me: “Goddamit (shove) Lola (yank) Get (shove) Off (yank) The Fucking (shove) BLANKET!” Still scream whispering.
After the word "blanket" I gave one last Herculean shove. And she did get off the blanket. And tumbled off the bed onto the end table. And then knocked the change jar all over the floor. And then fell on the floor. In the split second that this happens, all I can do is sit up in bed, cringe and whisper “shit.”
From Danny's side of the bed I hear, "SERIOUSLY?!?" with a hint of amusement in his voice (I'm choosing to believe it was mirth, rather than ire.) He may or may not have been awakened by my little exchange with Lola before she went ass over teakettle off the bed. Perhaps my scream whisper wasn’t as unobtrusive as I thought. Or maybe it was from me trying to yank the blanket back over to my side of the bed. Whatevs.
So I turn on the bedside lamp and try to find all the change that has spilled all over the floor. And Lola jumps back on my side of the bed and stares at me crawling around on the floor. I can’t see anything, so I have to turn the overhead light on and Danny gets out of bed and says “Well, I guess I’m getting up at 6 this morning…”And I felt terrible. Then he says, “I’ll clean it up, you have to get up for work soon.” I felt like even more of a heel and my half awake heart melted a bit. So we both cleaned up the change together. And then he casually mentions “Look how upset Lola is…you shoved her off the bed and made lots of loud noises (which she hates) and scared her.” Aaaaaaaand now I feel like a super dick, because I thought she was looking at me and gloating about how she may have been shoved off the bed, but she won the blanket battle, because she was laying all in my space, and I was shivering on the floor cleaning up change.
I apologized to Lola and gave her a pat on the head and we got back into bed. Lola wisely decided to lay on Danny’s side of the bed. Until about 30 minutes later when she flumped back down on my legs and pulled the blanket off of me again. Since I felt so bad about what had happened, I decided to just suck it up, deal with the cold and let her stay there. That lasted for all of about 15 minutes, until we had another mini tussle, because she was pinning my feet down. Throughout this whole ordeal, Lola never made a sound, she wasn’t hurt, and I don’t even think Bozz woke up. But I felt so terrible about it, which led to me having horrific dreams when I fell back to sleep.
Here’s what I learned this morning…We need a bigger blanket. The dogs need their own bed. I don’t know my own strength when I am mostly asleep. Lola will be getting peanut butter and carrots tonight for having to deal with my crazy this morning.
DOG-MAGEDDON, round 1. I think we can call this one a draw…
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
WTF Wednesday?!?
On my way home from work yesterday, I decided that I really wanted something pumpkin (I made a delicious stuffed pumpkin last week and I'll share the recipe soon!), but I was almost home, and the closest grocery store isn't that great. So I decided to stop at home really quickly and grab a recipe for butternut squash soup and take it to this cute little gourmet market a couple miles away. I go in and love on all the delicious foodstuffs they have, buy what I need and head out. This is what I encounter in the parking lot...
WTF # 1 (at the car parked next to mine): I'm walking to my car and I see a little boy standing next to a car, with a woman, presumably his mother, next to him, and what looked suspiciously like a tiny wee wee hanging out of his pants. I thought to myself "no way this kid is just flashing in the parking lot like this. He can't be more than 3 years old! And why would his mother just be okay with that?!?" Well, I could not have been more wrong. Because what do I hear as I walk up to them? "Okay, you have to push your hips forward so that you don't get pee on yourself!"
Ummm, excuse me ma'am. You are not in the middle of the woods. This is a parking lot. With stores all around. With BATHROOMS in them. So I suck it in so that I can scootch by the little boy and not disturb his business time, when what do I hear, but...
WTF # 2 (at the car parked directly in front of mine): "HACK HACK, YARK, URK, KACK." (If you need a little reference for what that actually sounds like, think of a cat yorking up a hairball, or the scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, where Snot the dog is under the table choking and Cousin Eddies says "Oh, he's just yakkin' on a bone.") So I look up to find the source of this ungodly noise, and see a man directly in front of me standing next to his car looking like he was picking something out of his mouth and puking out whatever was bothering him.
I know I've mentioned my aversion to vomit before, so needless to say, I chucked my groceries in the car, jumped in the driver's seat and peeled out of there like I was running away from a burning building.
What. The. Fuck. And there you have it, friends. That was all the WTF I needed this week, all in the span of 5 minutes. Woof.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
What Is My Life?!
I'm going to take you on a little journey way back into time...8 months ago, I was working in a job that I really enjoyed with college students, but knowing that I needed something better. For several years, I had been kinda down because I didn't really have the opportunity to do anything creative in my life. I am GREAT at talking to people and helping them realize their potential/work through their problems/question why they are doing silly things/figure out what they want to do with their future/etc. But that isn't really tangible, something that I could look at and think "I made that! And it's pretty damn cool!"
I had known for a long time that I wanted to get into event planning, because the part of my job that gave me the most satisfaction was planning banquets and receptions, and dinners for students, faculty and staff. So, I started job searching, knowing that I would be leaving my job at the university at the end of June. I figured that 4 months would be plenty of time to find a job, right? Right?!? Well, we're not even going to get into my naive dreams of quick re-employment. We all know what the job scene looks like out there.
So, after two and a half months of funemployment, I got a job as the Catering Sales Manager with a catering company, but I realized that I was going to need a second job to support myself. Conveniently enough, the catering company shares a shop with a wine and chocolate shop. When I told my boss I needed to get a second job, she worked it out that I would be a sales person for the wine and chocolate shop. Ultra convenient that I don't have to go to two different places to work. I get a regular paycheck, commission if I sell any corporate gifts and I get to learn to make candy. Um, hello? How fricking sweet is that?!? I'm realizing that I have a pretty good head for business. Add that to my ability to talk to people, and I make a pretty good saleswoman.
Guess what I did today at work? I got to dip bottles of wine in chocolate. And they were beautiful. While they were setting, I looked at them and thought "I made those! And that's really damn cool!"
Welcome back to my life creativity. I've missed you.
I had known for a long time that I wanted to get into event planning, because the part of my job that gave me the most satisfaction was planning banquets and receptions, and dinners for students, faculty and staff. So, I started job searching, knowing that I would be leaving my job at the university at the end of June. I figured that 4 months would be plenty of time to find a job, right? Right?!? Well, we're not even going to get into my naive dreams of quick re-employment. We all know what the job scene looks like out there.
So, after two and a half months of funemployment, I got a job as the Catering Sales Manager with a catering company, but I realized that I was going to need a second job to support myself. Conveniently enough, the catering company shares a shop with a wine and chocolate shop. When I told my boss I needed to get a second job, she worked it out that I would be a sales person for the wine and chocolate shop. Ultra convenient that I don't have to go to two different places to work. I get a regular paycheck, commission if I sell any corporate gifts and I get to learn to make candy. Um, hello? How fricking sweet is that?!? I'm realizing that I have a pretty good head for business. Add that to my ability to talk to people, and I make a pretty good saleswoman.
Guess what I did today at work? I got to dip bottles of wine in chocolate. And they were beautiful. While they were setting, I looked at them and thought "I made those! And that's really damn cool!"
Welcome back to my life creativity. I've missed you.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Family Road Trip
This past weekend, I went on a road trip to Savannah, GA with my mom, 2 aunts and sister, to visit my cousin and other sister for my cousin's 21st birthday. A few things happened this weekend...
I have renewed my love of the south. I really want to buy a house in Savannah. It is the cutest little town, and I LOVE the houses down there. People were friendly, it's a great walking/biking town, it's near water, and I suspect the weather isn't too bad in the winter (even though it was rainy and/or gross while we were there). It's also one of the most haunted places in the country...which is a weird draw, coming from someone who is such a big baby about scary movies. But I really want to take a ghost tour in a hearse! How freaky would that be?!? (That was not a rhetorical question. The correct answer is SUPER FREAKY...and awesome!)
The amazingness of my family has been reaffirmed. The Waters/Wilkins women are a force to be reckoned with. If you can't hold your own in a conversation, take a joke, tell a joke, drink some drank, be a little snarky or are offended by salty language, we might not be the group you want to spend a whole lot of time with. Which is a shame, because WE. ARE. SPECTACULAR.
I spent a lot of time in the car. I rode in the backseat the whole way down with my aunts and drove the whole way back with my mom and sister. Thanks to my mom, I know all of the state capitals, I have a pretty good grasp on every state nickname and I can name each of the states by first letter. This may seem like a menial task, but really, when you think about it, when do you ever have reason to know all of this information? The real fun in this was my mom giving me hints when I didn't know the answer. I will forever have in my head "Oh baby, you...you got what I nee-eed. And you say he's just a friend..." when I need to know what the capital of North Dakota is. (Biz Markie sings that song. The capital of ND is Bismark...you see what she did there??) Car games like this just reinforce the second point that I made (amazing family!)
I realized how much random shit you find in truck stops. I always kind of knew it, because I have been a road warrior for well over a decade, driving across the country for school and work and whatnot. But it was really obvious when I saw these in women's restrooms in different states:
Not tampons or maxi pads or handi-wipes or something that might actually be useful on your trip. Nope, nothing like that.
I have renewed my love of the south. I really want to buy a house in Savannah. It is the cutest little town, and I LOVE the houses down there. People were friendly, it's a great walking/biking town, it's near water, and I suspect the weather isn't too bad in the winter (even though it was rainy and/or gross while we were there). It's also one of the most haunted places in the country...which is a weird draw, coming from someone who is such a big baby about scary movies. But I really want to take a ghost tour in a hearse! How freaky would that be?!? (That was not a rhetorical question. The correct answer is SUPER FREAKY...and awesome!)
The amazingness of my family has been reaffirmed. The Waters/Wilkins women are a force to be reckoned with. If you can't hold your own in a conversation, take a joke, tell a joke, drink some drank, be a little snarky or are offended by salty language, we might not be the group you want to spend a whole lot of time with. Which is a shame, because WE. ARE. SPECTACULAR.
I spent a lot of time in the car. I rode in the backseat the whole way down with my aunts and drove the whole way back with my mom and sister. Thanks to my mom, I know all of the state capitals, I have a pretty good grasp on every state nickname and I can name each of the states by first letter. This may seem like a menial task, but really, when you think about it, when do you ever have reason to know all of this information? The real fun in this was my mom giving me hints when I didn't know the answer. I will forever have in my head "Oh baby, you...you got what I nee-eed. And you say he's just a friend..." when I need to know what the capital of North Dakota is. (Biz Markie sings that song. The capital of ND is Bismark...you see what she did there??) Car games like this just reinforce the second point that I made (amazing family!)
I realized how much random shit you find in truck stops. I always kind of knew it, because I have been a road warrior for well over a decade, driving across the country for school and work and whatnot. But it was really obvious when I saw these in women's restrooms in different states:
But condoms, the French Freedom Tickler, and the 4 play New and Amorous series are definitely women's restroom necessities. What. The. Hell. I mean, when I think truck stop hook up, French Freedom Tickler is the first thing that pops into my mind. Because it's the patriotic thing to do.
Oh, America...
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