OMG! It's a Festivus Miracle!

First, to sketch in a little background, as it were... I moved into my apartment Sept of 2005. At that time, the woman who lives in the other first floor apartment was driving a white Plymouth Acclaim (or the Dodge equivalent) and around Christmas time, said white vehicle had a flat tire in our parking lot. After that, it NEVER moved. After about a year, I pointed this out to the landlord, stressing that it made the place look.. uh.. white trash. After two years, I'd given up. Frankly, I didn't even see it anymore, unless the parking lot was really full, affecting my ability to get into my parking spot.

Well, so tonight, I come home and uh.. something's wrong.. uh.. am I at the wrong place? No... the white car.. it's GONE!!! I felt like it was my birthday (July 22nd, BTW:) and Christmas all rolled together!! It's a Festivus Miracle! I've been airing my grievances about the stupid car for years and it was surely a feat of strength to get through the past 2 1/2 years of having the hunk of junk there. Whoo hoo!

I've Got the Happy Secretary's Day Blues...

Ok, this week has not been good. Yesterday, Steve (boss #1) yelled at me, and made me cry. Now I know that he's been in a mood and has been having a stressful week, and it wasn't really ME that he was yelling at, but the client whose crappy mess we were having to deal with, but I've been very hormonal and emotional, and it was all I could do NOT to burst into tears while he was standing there at my desk. Fortunately for both of us, he got a call and went back into his office to take it, and I was able to sniffle in private. Carrie (boss #2) noticed and came out to ask me what was up... Because he's generally very even tempered and never speaks a cross word. Thank goodness, he left early after that.

So this morning, I got to work, Carrie had a secretary's day (or Administrative Professional, whatever) card and gift for me. The card made me cry. Then mom called me to tell me it was a beautiful morning, and I started crying. By the time Steve got there, I was in dire danger of me bursting out in tears if he looked at me wrong. He brought me in some beautiful flowers. Of course then he tells me that he'd forgotten it was secretary's day until he was driving in (I gather he heard it on the radio) and he was surfing the net on his blackberry as he was driving in. And then it occurred to him ... oh, I guess THAT's why we're having a luncheon today... secretary's day.. DOI! My question is... why tell me this? Sigh.. Why do men have to be like that? Sigh..

Anyway, we seem to have made it through the day, he spent most of the day behind his closed door, so I was able to deal with my own issues. Then about 3:30 this afternoon, he comes out of his office and his mood is lifted. He's back to his usual self. I think the aliens must've returned him and taken his evil twin away. Whew!

Indiana's Primary - May 6th

Ok, so like for the first time since I remember, the presidential candidates may not be already decided before the Indiana primary. Of course, I realize that, as I'm typing this, people are voting in the Pennsylvania primary and it may all be moot by the end of the day. I'm sort of undecided. I'm rather a-political. I don't consider myself one way or the other, although if pinned down I'm independent with sort of conservative leanings. But then I have unconservative leanings too. Basically I waffle. Ummm... waffles...

Anyway, a few of weeks ago, Hillary Clinton came to town. She spoke at one of the local high schools. I didn't care. I can't explain why, I just don't like her. She's shifty.

But last night, I heard on the news that Barack Obama was coming to town tonight to speak at Roberts Stadium.. with musical guest John Mellencamp. Now first I find this amusing that Clinton speaks at a high school with what? maybe a 1,000 people? And Obama is speaking at the Stadium with the potential of probably 15,000, I don't know how many it seats. So I'm inclined to go. To hear what he has to say. I've really only heard the soundbites on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, so the responsible thing is to listen, right? But this morning, they announce that the doors won't even open until 7:30 pm, and you know he'll be late, Hillary was over an hour late, 'cause he'll be coming from Pennsylvania. So it would be a late evening, and I'm a slug. I like to be in bed by 9:30 pm so I can turn the lights out and go to sleep at 10:00 pm!

They're saying it'll be televised - I'm not sure where... hopefully CNN since that's the only cable news network I get. And why is CNN the only news channel I get? with the last cable company, I had more news channels than I had sports channels and it felt like I had a million of them! Where was I? Oh, so I'm thinking I'll watch it on CNN, either that or watch TV Land and munch on some waffles.

I'm with the Band

So Saturday, I got up early, fed the livestock and went on a road trip! I headed up to the Indy area. My brother-in-law's band, Right on Red, had a gig at the American Legion in Fishers, and my sisters and I were going to go be groupies for the evening. I'd gone up one weekend in October for my nephew's football game and we had a really good evening out with the band, talking, singing along. I've felt closer to my sisters ever since, so when Holly-butt called last week to suggest we have a redo, my only concern was the home-improvement loan I'd have to take out to pay for the gas! (BTW, I was pleased to find gas for $3.39 in Sullivan, IN on both the way up and the way back down.)

Anywho, I had a very nice drive up and got to Holly's house in Fishers about 1:30 pm. Haley-butt got there, we had dinner and set out for our evening. Things were a little slow at first. In fact, when the band started, we three hot, hip, happen' babes (and my nephew) were the only people in the audience. But a feisty crowd soon manifested itself.

After entertaining the bartender by ordering an amaretto and DIET Coke - under the theory that it tastes the same and why go for those extra regular Coke calories, am I right? where was I?

So the band was great - they're a cover band, playing a lot of everything from Elvis to Big & Rich, from the Eagles to Garth Brooks. My brother-in-law, Tom, has this thing where he changes hats frequently during the show. For Christmas last year, I found this hamburger, well.. I think it's a cheeseburger, hat. So I was very excited when he wore that hat. Although I think he needs a more hamburger-related song to wear it for. I suggested Cheeseburger in Paradise, but got a big "NO." I'm not sure why.

So after almost 4 hours of imbibing, talking over the band, and singing with the band, all in a smoky American Legion, my throat was raw. But it was worth it. A good time was had by all. And man, my nephew go to spend his entire Saturday night with FOUR hot, hip, happen' babes! (His sister showed up when she got off work.) I told him that he could boast about it at school on Monday... he didn't HAVE to tell his friends that the babes were his mother, 2 aunts and sister! :)

If the House is a Rockin'...

Ok, so about 4:30 am (CDT) this morning we had an earthquake (5.2 on the Richter). Well, the center was somewhere in Southern Illinois, about 66 miles from Evansville, but it sure felt like it was right here!

It woke me up and in the fog that is my brain at that time of the morning, it sounded like the cats were playing/fighting on the 6-foot kitty condo that is right beside my bed. I rolled over to yell at them to quit it, and I realized they were not ON the condo. In fact they were nowhere to be found. So the infamous sixth sense that animals have about these things obviously made them run for the hills. Now, if only I can convey to them the importance of warning ME before disappearing, then I'll be fine.

Anyway, after the fact that they weren't the cause of the noise percolated thru my brain, I realized that my bed was shaking and the closet doors were rattling. I decided it must be an earthquake. About that time it stopped, I rolled back over and went back to sleep. :) My last lucid thought before going back to sleep was that at least we'd have something to discuss at work today. I'm very brave at that time in the morning, obviously, nothing comes between me and my sleep.

So here I am, at work, and as predicted, we're talking about it, well that and sundry other stuff, when along comes ANOTHER quake! At least this one was much lower strength (4.5 according to the USGS), but its center was 6 miles from where the earlier one was. My bravery is gone, now. I'm sitting here and my heart is still racing over it. I'm not sure how easy it will be to make my mind go back to work-related things...

Whoo hoo!

I'm SO excited! I received my first blog comment from someone who ISN'T related to me! I worked late Monday, and when I got home and checked my email (I was so busy at work, I couldn't check it there!) and I had a comment. Tee Hee!!

Nim's Island - movie review

Ok, so those close to me will know that I am bonkers over the Scottish actor, Gerard Butler. So of course I took off early from work today to go see his new movie on THE day it came out! And I dragged Jennifer, who also has an appreciation of Gerard Butler's body... of work. :)

First, the movie is based on the children's book by Wendy Orr. I'd never heard of her or the book before I found out about the movie, but I have since bought it and it is very skinny. No, I haven't read it yet, but I will. I'm in the middle of a library book, but that's another post.

Basic plot, we have the Little Miss Sunshine kid playing Nim, a very precocious 9 year old (or maybe 10) who lives on an uncharted island with her widowered (sp?) father, a marine biologist, played by GB. Basically, the island is a modern day Gilligan's Island island. They've built quite a nice home on this island and they have the internet and all the modern amenities. Frankly, if I could be guaranteed to have internet and satellite TV, I'd live there in a heartbeat. Especially if GB is available to maybe teach me to swim. But I digress. So dad decides to go off for a couple of days in search of a unknown species of plankton and gets in a storm and wrecks his boat. And while I have seen plenty of GB movies in which his character dies, I was reassured by two things... 1) this is a kids movie, and 2) Jodie Foster's character, Alex(andra) Rover, is a writer of adventure novels and talks to her imaginary hero (Alex Rover) (also played by GB!) So this movie is a GB two-fur!

Anywho, Alexandra Rover sits in an apartment in San Francisco, never leaving it, and writes these novels about her fictitious hero's travels all over the world. She does a lot of Google-ing. She's agoraphobic. Nim loves her books, but doesn't realize that they're fiction. So she writes Rover for help, thinking she's going to get a hunky hero, and instead she gets this very scared woman who spends a lot of the movie arguing with her imaginary hero Alex Rover. It was fun and entertaining.

I should mention that Nim has pets. Not the usual cat, dog, hamster. She has a sea lion named Selkie and a big lizard named Fred. (And I know that it's a big turtle and NOT a sea lion in the picture, but I wanted to get Fred in here somehow, and I couldn't find a picture of both of them! I don't remember the turtle's name. I'm not anti-turtle.) These are very adorable pets and wonderful actors. Especially Fred. I think I'd like a lizard like Fred.. but I don't know how Gizmo would react. I'll have to consider that before I shop.

Again, because this is a kid's movie, based on a kid's book, I can't say the movie was heavy on plot, but it was very entertaining, and I will have no problem adding this DVD to the Gerard Butler wing of my DVD collection. Jennifer asked me if I preferred the father character or the Alex Rover hero character. That's a hard question because the father was great in that sexy intelligent way, but he didn't have GB's Scottish accent (and we all know that "if it's not Scottish, it's CRAP!"); the hero character was rather intense, but he had the accent. So we agreed that the father, if he had the accent, was our choice.

The final vote is 2 thumbs up (or 4 if you count Jennifer) for Nim's Island. Go see it. Take your kids.. or someone else's kids.

Just watching the bunnies and thinking about the week so far...

As I'm sitting here writing this, there are FIVE big ol' bunny rabbits hopping around the back yard, having a good old time. My cats, as usual, are missing it because they're asleep on the couch. Silly wabbits... uh.. cats.

This has been a busy week. Of course the party was Sunday, and it took a lot out of us. Monday, I required an IV of Diet Mountain Dew in order to make it through the day and I still had trouble keeping my eyes open! But never fear, I finally made it home and to bed.

Woke up Tuesday feeling much better and ready for the work week. Uh.. I hope my bosses didn't notice that I basically phoned in my performance the day before. Oh well!

One of the attorneys at my office was giving away his tickets for the Mannheim Steamroller performance Wednesday evening at the Centre in Evansville. I nabbed a paid and mom and I went. We had no clue what to expect, but it was very enjoyable. I'd only heard their Christmas music before, but I enjoyed it, so I figured it would be good, and it was. Although some of the videos they showed to accompany the music were rather offbeat.

When I got home after the show, I had to make brownies and a cheeseball because Thursday (today) was (is) Steve (boss #1)'s birthday. Since he'd previously fallen off a roof, and this week he broke a pinky toe, I figured we better make the most out of this birthday because the boy may not be destined to have too many more. And I'm glad we did. He's sort of quiet, and he probably would rather I ignored his birthday entirely, but I just can't! And my cheeseball was a BIG hit. Several requests for the recipe and people who generally don't even know where the second floor is came out of the woodwork looking for it! Such fun. Although to be honest, the recipe is one I obtained from Arlene (don't recall her last name) who was the receptionist at Bamberger when I first started there. She retired shortly thereafter, but she gave me her cheeseball recipe and now it is know world-wide (or at least in the Barger family) as Rosemary's Famous Cheeseball! It was gone in a little over an hour... and I'm wishing I still had some to munch on. Hmm.

Well it's getting dark, the bunnies are hopping off and the cats are waking up. It's that just the way it is? Tomorrow is Friday and I get to leave work early because Jennifer and I are going to go see the new Gerard Butler movie, Nim's Island. I'll report back on it later.