for my sister

From my 2009 calendar, Coffee Talk. I thought she'd enjoy Mr. October:

This message brought to you by the You Know You're Old When.... network

I finally used my exciting, new cleaning apparatus today:




Yes, that's right, my life today has been made complete by the Shark Steam Mop. (Well, that and LL Cool J on the iPod whilst steaming hard surfaces.) I have problems with my kitchen floor because it's ugly grey linoleum (it's true, I only live large in my mind). Quite frankly, it's difficult to tell when grey linoleum is actually clean. And I don't like chemical floor cleaners because they all aggravate my asthma and give me a headache. I can use all sorts of toxic cleaners in the bathrooms with no problem, but the floor cleaning gives me issues, maybe it's too much surface area for toxic goo or something since my bathrooms are the smallest bathrooms on Earth so the fumes don't stick around long.

This thing is so cool! It works way better than the Swiffer Wet Jet, and it's not stinky! Then you just throw the pads in the washing machine when you're done! I feel so eco-friendly right now, I expect Al Gore to show up at my door any minute to give me a new Toyota Prius for my trouble.

And now I have sparkly clean floors for our postponed Christmas tomorrow. My family won't know what's gotten into me.

The New Year Survey

1. Will you be looking for a new job?
God, I hope not.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?
No. Even if Erik dumped me (which he wouldn't...and if he did, he'd be dead), I've already trained one husband. I don't have the energy to train another one.

3. New house?
Of course. I'm going to win the HGTV Dream House, of course. (And then I'll have to sell it in order to pay the taxes on it.)

4. What will you do different in 2009?
Get on that damn treadmill!

5. New Year's resolution?
I never make them, but we bought the damn treadmill, so I will be getting on the damn treadmill.

6. What will you not be doing in 2009?
Uhhh...? Marrying Clive Owen?

7. Any trips planned?
No, but I'm hopeful for a Vegas trip and at least one Michigan trip. If we keep our jobs, I'll plan for two Michigan trips (provided my sister doesn't make me sleep on her treadmill).

8. Wedding plans?
Not my own!

9. What's on your calendar?
I don't know. I am a firm believer in never putting up the new calendar until January 1.

10. What can't you wait for?
I'm stealng from my friend, Carol, since it's spot on: George W. Bush moving the fuck out of the White House.

11. What would you like to see happen different?
Smart people running this country who actually want to do the right thing.

12. What about yourself will you be changing?
Hopefully a reduction to my muffin top.

13. What happened in '08 that you didn't think would ever happen?
Such deep layoffs.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?
Do I need to be nicer? I always try to be nice (unless they don't deserve it *g*)

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 08?
Not drastically.

16. Will you start or quit drinking?
I will never quit drinking.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?
It's already fine, I think.

18. Will you do charity work?
I always do. Typically once per quarter.

19. Will you go to bars?
Of course! I often eat in the bar now that smoking is banned. You always get your food faster and aren't disturbed by screaming children. And pubs always have the best food (not best for the muffin top, but oh well)

20. Will you be nice to people you don't know?
Yes. I always am (unless they give me road rage).

21. Do you expect 2009 to be a good year for you?
I'd like to think so!

22. How much did you change from this time last year til now?
I sure learned a lot, but I'm not sure it's entirely quantifiable.

23. Do you plan on having a child?
Nope. That ship has sailed.

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?
I hope so!

25. Major lifestyle changes?
I can't say that I have any kind of serious lifestyle, so the only thing that would be major would be a job loss for either of us, and we'll hope to heck that doesn't happen.

26. Will you be moving?
I'll at least spend a nice vacation in my HGTV Dream House in Sonoma, California. Other than that, I don't think so.

27. What will you make sure doesn't happen in 2009 that happened in '08?
I won't eat a whole pan of brownies in a weekend.

Right, who am I kidding?


28. What are your New Years Eve plans?
I'm quite sure I'll be asleep before midnight since we're doing our postponed Christmas on New Year's Day.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?
I've already warned my husband not to wake me at midnight just to tell me that it's January, and he simply replied with an evil cackle.

30. Wish for 2009?
Job security for both of us!

blame the cold meds

I just can't stop laughing at this.


Perhaps only Vivi will laugh.

Or maybe it really is the cold meds, and she won't.

good samaritans and stupid heads

One of our neighbors has been shoveling our street ALL afternoon. It was raining like crazy today, but as compact as the snow was from NEVER BEING PLOWED, it just wasn't melting and was creating giant pits of frozen quick sand that was very difficult to drive through. My husband has been out there for the past few days with his shovel hacking all this stuff to break it up and get as much off the road as possible.

And then the good samaritan neighbor did his good dead, out there with his garden shovel, moving all this gunk to the side of the street so we could all function as normal Seattle drivers again.

Not FIVE minutes after he was finished with this stretch of road, a freaking snow plow came through!

I heard this very loud rumbling and ran to the window because I could not believe that they'd have the nerve to send a plow through at this point when we'd already done all their work for them! In fact, I ran down and opened the front door to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me, and exclaimed, "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"

Yes, I know they never heard me, but it wasn't a planned exclamation. It simply erupted out of incredulity.

Stupid heads.

In other news, I have a cold now. How I caught a cold, I've no idea, since I haven't been able to leave the house in 500 years.

Actually, we actually left the house yesterday for a GLORIOUS (seriously) trip to Target and then to Border. We concluded by stuffing our pie holes at Claim Jumper.

But I've had a sore throat for 3 days, so I'm guessing it's some sort of alien DNA because I haven't actually had contact with another human being aside from my husband in quite some time. And he's not sick. Unless he's the alien. It's possible. He does like halvah and sardines (separately).

So I actually spent most of the day at home (aside from yelling at the snow plow and chasing after our recycle bin that blew away). I decided it was good opportunity to watch The Patriot. Only the Tavington scenes, of course, since the film is complete crap aside from his smokin' hawtness. Jason Isaacs needs to play another bad guy!

That is all for now.

crazy koo koo wacko

I can't take it anymore!!!

We were very excited to leave the house today. Have been trapped in house since Tuesday.

Until we discovered that my car can't actually drive through unplowed, slightly melting snow. A monster truck is pretty much the only thing that can drive through our neighborhood right now. Or perhaps a tank.

We had enough momentum to scrape through it down the hill and made to the grocery store. When we came out of the grocery it was raining! Hurrah! The world rejoiced! The snow will melt for real!

And then we went up the little tiny hill toward my house. At the top of the little tiny hill, the rain turned to snow.

And it's been snowing very large wet lakes for the past two hours now.

It was supposed to be 40 degrees today.

Mind is gone. Will never return. Will be trapped forever. Weather people lied. Cannot believe that cities are still refusing to plow residential streets. Would very much like cities to have stoopid pants sued off of them when an ambulance or police car can't get to where they are needed.

Am hoping that stoopid pants city officials have also been beaten with fugly sticks. It is only right for stoopid pantses to be fugly.

Purchased taco fixings and donuts at grocery store. Figured that was all we could carry. Am watching Highlander marathon on SciFi while eating donuts and potato chips.

Will no doubt turn into female version of Comic Book Guy by end of day.

Bah humbug

This ranks as Worst Christmas Ever! We got some very sad news from my mother-in-law on Tuesday that one of my brother-in-law's 2 month-old twins died on Monday. On a personal level, I'm more worried for my mother-in-law and father-in-law since I actually know them much better (I've only been around my BIL and his family a few times), and they've already maxed themselves out looking after the older two children for the past few months. Plus, these kids are their only grandchildren.

And while I really have no room to complain given what they're going through, I'm bored out of my skull! We're snowed in again, got another 4 inches last night and it's been snowing heavily all morning. We'd thought we might try to go out for Chinese since we had to postpone the festivities due to weather. But now we're just stuck at home watching bad TV and eating the remnants of what we have left in the house.

So yeah, Merry Christmas and whatever. I just put Bailey's in my coffee so I wouldn't go completely wacko.

But I thought our lights looked pretty buried in the snow, so I took a picture!

I needed a funny

I was reading the article in the Seattle Times about why the city doesn't use salt on the roads (WSDOT does because they have brains). Note that even the police can’t get around now because their cars are rear wheel drive. So they’re having to park at the bottom of hills and walk to incidents.

The city is trying to pull the environmental protection card again (they do this thinking we’re dumb and will buy it because we’re all a bunch of bleeding hearts here). They’re saying all this bollocks about how salt hurts the fishies. (But sand and chemical de-icers don’t??) This rare use of salt wouldn't hurt the fishies compared to all the other crap (literally) we put in the water system. And certainly not to the same measure that people who can't get to work or are crashing their cars or can’t get to their holiday destinations are feeling! Not to mention emergency responders or getting ambulances to hospitals.

A couple days of salt into Puget Sound has more weight than the safety/financial stability of humans? Errrrr, no. I think the real issue is that they can't afford salt compared to sand, and everyone would be screaming at them for spending money on it when the snow actually goes away and we forget the pain.

There are all sorts of comments to this effect on the Times website, but this one quoting some Seattle official made me snort:

"But here in Seattle, 'we're sensitive about everything we do that impacts the environment."

-An Alien, from Planet Moron

That pretty much sums up the Seattle government! They spent gazillions of dollars on self-cleaning toilets (fancy Honey Buckets, basically) that they then had to sell on eBay because they were frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers. (Gee, couldn’t have called that one.) But they don’t want to spend money on salt and can make themselves feel better about by waving a green flag around.

God, I’m so sick of these stoopidheads.

Bah Humbug

We have decided to cancel Christmas. Or at least postpone it for a while and see if a gathering is possible on New Year's Day or that weekend. We're supposed to get anohter 2-6" tonight and then more snow on and off through Saturday. Boo. My parents would never be able to make the drive over two mountain passes that are already treacherous before this next round of snow (which is sure to amount to more than 6" up there!)

And the way around the mountains through Portland is closed due to snow and ice storms.

So yay, good times. I don't really like Christmas anyway, but now I'm just annoyed that I don't even get to snack and drink all day! (Trust me, the two of us have been doing enough of that while snowbound!)

So we'll keep an eye on the roads and see if maybe we can get a reservation for brunch or dinner on Christmas day. But if we end up on the 6-inch side of the snow accumulation on top of all the compact snow and ice we already have, we'll be stuck at home AGAIN.

Boo! Boo and boo!

going KOO KOO

Trapped again.

Still trapped.

Still cold.

No melting coming. May have to cancel Christmas since no one will be able to get here if the roads don't clear.

Trappedgoingwackocan'tgetoutwillnotsurvivewithsanityintactsincedidn'thavemuchsanitytobeginwith.

Am now starting to clean out junk drawers. You know that life has become completely desperate when you take to cleaning out the junk drawers. Although this is probably a bad idea since it's garbage day, yet the garbage truck didn't come and nobody knows when it will return. So I have nicely sorted junk but no empty can in which to toss it.

Hubby's office is closed so at least he's home guilt-free. My office is open - we're like the postal service that way - so I fester in my guilt, even though I know I'd get stuck trying to get there and my boss already told me not to worry about it.

We have resorted to using the margarita salt on the front steps. I'm sure this must be a crime against all that is right and good in the universe. Margarita salt to combat snow and ice instead of on the rim of a glass? What perverse world have we fallen into?

We do have a genius plan for attempting to walk to McDonald's for lunch so we don't go stark raving mad. Yes, you know I live in harrowing times if I'm actually willing to walk to McDonald's for any reason at all since I don't actually eat burgers, let alone walk there on snowy sidewalks sans snow boots (note to self: buy snow shovel AND snow boots some day). But super-sized fries would pretty much make my day at this point. And if nothing else, there's a STARBUCKS in the Safeway next door.

I see stupid people

On what planet would anyone think that driving with chains on the de-iced, plowed freeway was a good idea?

Yeah, I get that they can't get back to their houses without chains. We're pretty much trapped at home at the moment, too. But going 50 on the freeways with chains on your minivan? Really, people. There were vehicles all along the side of the freeway, not because of ice, but because they blew out their tires with the chains.

And how come they're always minivans? Another chained minivan parked RIGHT on top of me yesterday at the library. You couldn't see where the parking spaces were, so I just sorta guessed. And this silly cow with her dumb chains on her dumb minivan sardined right next to me.

Oy! I'm not sure what's more annoying, being trapped by snow or dealing with the STOOPID once you can actually drive around.

Plus, I have to go to Target. But I can't go. What is a Sunday without a trip to Target? I'm starting to twitch from the Target withdrawal.

Oh well! Better to be trapped at home than at the airport for the past two days.

oops

Apparently our guardrails aren't designed for ice.





And then, of course, I had to read this in the weather forecast for the weekend:
But the big story is potentially catastrophic winds in the Cascade foothills, where wind gusts could reach as high as 70-90 mph.

Neat! Snow, ice, AND catastrophic winds. I'd better hit a liquor store tomorrow.

okay, fine, it's winter...no wait, it's not even!

Notice how they changed the term global warming to global climate change? So that when it snows 12 inches, we can no longer scream “I thought you said global WARMING??”

I have officially had it up to my eyeballs with this weather. If I actually wanted to live in snow and crash my car every other day, I’d move to the Midwest! And we’re supposed to get hammered again with snow and ice storms on Saturday night.

I’m actually quite glad that my husband couldn’t make it to work yesterday, as downtown froze over around midday, and he would have been stranded. I doubt he would have even been able to get out of his parking garage since it’s on such a steep hill. And then most of the downtown bus routes were canceled thanks to all the jackknifed buses (with chained tires!) stuck on the freeways.

But the worst part of all this? We are moving our company Christmas party to lunchtime today so people can get out of here early enough to get home safely. Which means NO BOOZE. Waaaahh. Oh well, a lot of people aren’t here today anyway since they can’t get out of their unplowed neighborhoods.

Oh well, this crap makes the skiers happy since it’s been so unseasonably warm up until last week. Now they can go up to the passes to ski, and I can go to the mall! (I hope.)

Or at least Starbucks! The best cheeseball moment of yesterday was seeing the poor news crews stuck in the Redmond blizzard all day yesterday when all of a sudden a Starbucks employee showed up with coffee for them. Wearing his red holiday Starbucks apron and Christmas tie.

And now, a photo essay.

I only post this so my sissy can see what it looked like here yesterday.



Just because it's fun to have photos of other people's misfortune at the bottom of a freeway on/off-ramp.



Just because this guy may be almost as crazy as Vivi's husband. :-p (That's Denny Ave, sissy.)



And because people make really cool things with snow.

stranded

Dude, it's snowing AGAIN. We were in this nice shadow of the mountains yesterday, and it was snowing like crazy about 30 minutes south and north of us where they got close to a foot of snow. When I left work last night, it was about 37 degrees and drizzling. When I got home - a mere 3 miles north - it was snowing like crazy. Yay.

And it's still going. It's not really deep, maybe 2 to 3 inches, but everything is icy. My valiant husband tried to go to work this morning, but had to get off the freeway and make his way back home since nobody could keep their cars straight with the snow, and there were all sorts of spinouts and jacknifed buses & semis.

I told him not to go out there, but he's much more brave than I am! (Or maybe he was just scared I'd make him watch Mamma Mia if he didn't try and go to work.) But I think the news of 10-mile backups on 405 and 17-mile backups on I-5 have convinced him to just park it here for the day.

So I suppose I should be productive while stuck at home. Do things like clean the bathrooms and dig out the guest room.

But that might mean I'd have to get off my arse.

this pretty much says it all

As to why we in Seattle don't cope well with driving in snow.



Just prepare to listen to me WHINE for the next couple weeks, as they're forecasting this cold crap is supposed to last that long. We ran to the grocery store tonight, and it was miserably cold! We're not equipped to handle this. I have no warm boots, and the only hats and mittens I own are from Target, which means they're only warm around 40 degrees. Nor do I have a coat for 15 to 20 degree weather. That's not so bad, except that any time it snows during the workday, I end up having to ditch my car and walk home since any route between between my office and my house is uphill (with a stoplight at the top of every hill, naturally).

Our office is closing the week between Christmas and New Year in order to save some money in these scary days. So I'm trying to figure out what to do with myself during that week. If it's still cold/icy/snowy and I'm trapped at home, I'll be running up and down the stairs like Bart Simpson on sugar.

If I'm not trapped at home, I'll be tempted to shop.

I'm not sure which situation would be worse. The latter would certainly be more fun but highly damaging to my bank account in these times of financial uncertainty.

But the former may result in my husband having me committed.

If I were responsible, I'd do all these projects around the house that I keep meaning to do. Like paint the bathroom. Or clean out the garage.

But I predict I will spend the week cramming my cake hole full of every unhealthy sugary/carby/fatty food known to mankind (after all, I'll have to be GOOD after January 1...or January 2...okay, I'll officially be good on January 5). And then I will catch up on my Netflix queue and read some trashy books. And maybe - just maybe - I'll go a whole day without actually changing out of my jammies. Oh nirvana!

This post brought to you by You Know You're Old When....

First flight to Vegas, please

It snowed last night.

Not only did it snow last night, but it's 30 degrees and windy and is supposed to be in the TWENTIES for the rest of the week. And then maybe snow again on Thursday.

That's not okay with me, man! If I wanted cold and snow, I'd move east.

Here's the deal. I live in the Seattle area. We're one giant hill. Actually, we're a bunch of hills. So imagine living on a hill and nobody comes to plow or even sand.

This is why I hate snow!

That said, nothing can deter me from going to Target, which is exactly what I did this morning! Plus, you can always count on the freeways being clear since they spray all that de-icer chemical that kills fishies or something.

But the upside is that I can finally wear my wool coat that I bought at Nordstrom in July! Yeah yeah, I heard all about my craziness when it was 85 degrees, but who's the crazy one now, eh?

Okay yeah, it's still me. Whatever.

And I can finally wear my boots. I hope my sister doesn't kill me for buying boots. But they're not UGG boots. I have enough sense not to buy those. But they're still kinda butch.

C'mon, sissy, you know that the cankles prevent wearing really cool boots. So I ended up with butchier boots. They're sort of equestrian-y. And they keep my legs warm.

I hear her chastising me from afar.

But they don't look like wearing slippers in public. I swear!

Discovery!

While in Starbucks, I noticed their holiday chalkboard (and do they have the same chalk artiste just go from store to store to draw these things?) featured something called Espresso Truffle.

Naturally, they had my attention.

“ohmygawdohmygawd, what is this espresso truffle goodness??” <-- Me

“Oh! It’s espresso with chocolate and steamed milk!!” <-- Nice barista girl

Uhhh…wha?

I decide to conduct a more extensive investigation on starbucks.com:

Espresso Truffle
We’ve combined Starbucks espresso with our premium European-style cocoa blend used in our Signature Hot Chocolate and steamed milk, and topped it with whipped cream and a touch of chocolate powder. This sophisticated beverage delivers rich chocolate flavor with a velvety mouthfeel balanced with a smooth coffee flavor.

This differs from the mocha...how?

Caffe Mocha
Rich, full-bodied Starbucks® espresso combined with our proprietary bittersweet mocha syrup and steamed milk. Topped with a cloud of whipped cream.

Kaaaaayy. So one is made with bittersweet cocoa powder and one is made with bittersweet syrup. Right. They differ from each other in that.... How?

Tall Espresso Truffle, no whip: 310 calories, 8 grams saturated fat
Tall Caffe Mocha, 2%, no whip: 200 calories, 6 grams saturated fat

So they differ in that the Espresso Truffle is made from whole milk and the regular mocha is 2%? There’s no milk option on the former, so this is my guess.

Oh, Bill Nye, where are you when the world needs you??

Can I get a marketing job at Starbucks? Please, somebody pay me to come up with the exact same beverage and put a posh spin on it so people will buy it by the gallon, and I can then buy an Infiniti G35 with my You Saved the Company By Coming Up with the Same Exact Beverage bonus.

I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking.

The power went out at 6 am. HELLO?? No storms, no nuthin’. Just that noise of a transformer going out and all went dark. And it was hair wash day. So yeah, on a Monday I have to go to work with dirty hair and put on my makeup by flashlight. I wasn’t sure if I looked like a showgirl or a crazy person (or both), so I ran straight for the restroom when I got to work to check myself in the mirror. Fortunately, I looked like myself, only severely bed-headed.

My back hurts like a mother scratcher. Why? Because I’m a moron. You’re familiar with Angry Vacuum Mode, right? When there’s crap ALL OVER THE FLOOR so you’re trying to pick it up as you’re pushing the vacuum. Yeah, really smart. Felt the pop and knew my rage had, once again, not injured the crap on the floor but injured me instead.

So, naturally, I went shopping after that. Found some books for the boy. Why are kids’ books so expensive? Yes, I know, they have hard covers and pretty pictures, but give me a break with 18 bucks for a book that has fewer words than this post will have.

And then I bought myself a handbag. Hey, I was injured! I’ve been on the hunt for a berry-colored bag. Obsessed, actually. Why? Because I have no life, that’s why. But this thing called to me from the shelf at Macy’s, and it was 30% off! I couldn’t not buy it. Yeah, I’ll be homeless in 6 months when we both lose our jobs, but I can stare at my bag all day. Everything will be fine.

Saturday night we watched Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang. I had never heard of this movie before, but it popped up as a Netflix rec when I gave Iron Man 4 stars. Oh my garsh, it’s HILARIOUS. It’s one of those stories that I wish I’d written (if I were that clever). My theory is that it didn’t do booming business because it’s a modern film noir, ergo, completely unfit for the lowest common denominator moviegoer.

So, to sum up, I’m a dirty-haired moronic film snob with no life. But only randomly snobbish since I watched Anchorman last night. “I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly”

Oh, and Zoolander. Only one of the greatest movies of all time.

blogger is buggin'

I'm diggin' the notion of this new blog follower function...except that I can't make it work! Blogger tells me I haven't verified my email address yet. YES I HAVE.

Okay fine, so when I click on the link to resend verification email, said verification email is eaten by the gnomes who run the internets. Or blogger is just mocking me. "Here, click on this and you can join our club. PSYCH!"

What. Ever.

I had a dream last night that I was married to Gerard Butler (except he was an architect), and we were vacationing at some mountain lodge with Dr. Drew and his wife (I've no idea who she is in RL, but she was quite an annoying yuppie housewife in the dream), along with some co-workers of mine. We girls were all baking cookies in a giant kitchen with Toby Keith, which was freaking out one of my friends whom I shall protect from incrimination since she lurrrrrrrves him, and I was getting annoyed because Toby kept screwing up the cookie dough.

All of this begs the question: If I was married to Gerry Butler, WHY was I spending every waking hour baking cookies with women and a big redneck??

And then I woke up and heard the NPR reporter bleating about Mumbai. So...yeah.

I told my husband (the actual one, not Gerry) that there needs to be a happy news station so I can wake up to happy thoughts. Actual husband said, "In today's news: Marshmallows! Penguins! Free shoes!"

I think he might be onto something.