I wish I was always on vacation...

So I haven't written anything in like two months. What's been going on? I went on my vacation which was totally awesome. Then I bummed out for like a week when I came back because real life wasn't as awesome as being at the Grand Canyon. We started turning the spare room into an office which required a lot of really heavy moving and an extremely frustrating attempt to hook up the cable internet that took several days. The whole office thing is still a work in progress so there are piles of paperwork behind me next to a half-built desk. I got free tickets to Martina McBride and Patti LaBelle concerts. Both were amazing. I'm boycotting Big Brother until Dick is kicked off because he's loathesome. I think that's all the major things.

Here are some pictures from the big trip:


The Grand Canyon. The picture really doesn't do it justice. It's beyond beautiful.



Beautiful Bedrock City, Az. Like Disneyland if it were made of paper mache and all the attractions had hornets or some other stinging insect nesting in them.


Grand Canyon Deer Farm outside Williams, Az. You buy feed and the deer come up and eat out of your hand. They also eat you shirt and your purse. It's way more fun than it sounds.


Wildflowers grew all along Route 66. I loved them so much that when I got back home I had a dream that I was dating Desmond from "Lost" but he wouldn't tell me he loved me so I left him and when I came back to pick up my stuff he had planted a whole garden of these flowers in the backyard and proposed to me next to them.



The Hackberry General store was out in the middle of nowhere and there was a rooster crowing and one of those metal signs was creaking and it was almost like you'd driven back in time.


Cool Springs used to be a happening place everyone would stop at before heading off to Oatman but it was bypassed by a new route, and then burned down and then blown up in a Jean Claude Van Damme movie. For a long time the rubble just sat there but then this family bought it and restored it to it's original coolness.


It also had what was surprisingly one of the better bathrooms of our journey. Which is saying a lot about the other ones we used.




Oatman is an old mining town in the middle of nowhere. The main draws seem to be that wild burros come down from the mountains every day and block the street to eat carrots that tourists feed them and that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard spent their honeymoon at the Oatman Hotel. The burros are very cute and the hotel is very old (and very hot inside). The rest of the town is just your standard tourist gift shops.

These last few minutes are killing me...

Six day vacation starts in 15 minutes!!! And today has been a fairly horrible workday so I'm looking forward to getting out of here even more than I was before. Grand Canyon Thursday and Friday; Williams, a deer farm and Bedrock City on Saturday and Route 66 on Sunday. I've never been to the Grand Canyon before so I'm really excited. Yay for me!

Bellagio! Flowers! Route 66! Yay!...

I'm rich...

I was looking in my wallet for some stamps and I found $60 that I can only assume I hid so I wouldn't gamble it in some casino. Yay! Found money is the best.

I wasn't even staying at the nicest hotel...

I was pricing imaginary vacations last night on Expedia and it was cheaper to fly to Rome and stay in a 4 1/2 star hotel for a week then to go to DisneyWorld for a week. That just seems so wrong.

Yay!! Jericho is saved...

It just makes me so happy.

If only I could say it to their faces...

As a little followup to that last post from Julia Sweeney’s blog I just want to say that I’m sick to death of all of the people at my job who made a big deal about voting for Bush for the second term and now complain constantly about him and how we have to get the troops out and blah blah blah. If you voted for him so that he could have a chance to “clean up his mess” then don’t sit around and rant about how awful everything is now. It’s mostly your fault. So just shut it.

This is exactly how I feel...

From Julia Sweeney's blog:

"You know, I can’t even hear him anymore. When President Bush is on TV, or on the radio, I almost always instinctively change the channel or the station. I can tolerate listening to Bush in post script – I mean, I can hear people making comments about his speeches or “quips” or whatever he does that constitutes talking. I can hold by breath and just barely take it when there is commentary about his speeches, but I can’t actually listen or watch them as they occur. I just hate him too much.

And it doesn’t feel like a cerebral, intellectual choice. It feels like it’s instinctive, and I am repulsed. Like he is not just a president who I really don’t like, but instead spoiled milk in my fridge, milk that I innocuously lift to my nose and then recoil from and nearly gag. I can’t help it. When I am in the car and his voice invades my otherwise thoughtful sanctuary, I watch my hand change the station even before I am aware that he is speaking! Yes. It’s that bad. It’s below the level of awareness, and I cannot control it and I don’t want to control it. Usually, if it’s an important speech, I will read it in the paper the next day. Then, I can digest it -- nearly. But I cannot hear his voice, I cannot watch his cocky arrogant teenagish demeanor, I cannot peer into his chicken eyes and I cannot stomach his permanent smirk. I hate how he rests his body weight on one foot and leans in with one shoulder, like the smart aleck in junior high (see how I’m making him less mature with each analogy?) and I hate his superior snicker. I hate him. It’s beyond anything rational, I just HATE HIM SO MUCH.

Unfortunately, yesterday, at the gym, I was on the stair master and Bush was in the middle of his latest speech (which I think was actually given the night before) and the spectacle of him was on both the TV channels right in front of me and I have no idea how to change them and other people were watching, so I really couldn’t. The sound was off, but you could read the text of his speech below him.

All I can say about this is, every time I write off this last eight years or bemoan how we have injured the world by electing this pig, or worry, worry, worry that we will never regain any sort of respect in the world, and every time I think of other president’s blunders and think how bad Bush is compared with even the worst other presidents we’ve had and then I just think I’ve settled that in my mind: Bush is the worst, he’s taken us closer to the brink, blah blah blah end-of-story: every time I’ve done this, when I am confronted with the man afresh – when I can’t avoid him – when he is there before me as I step up and on the stair master for example…I am again shocked and flabbergasted that the specter of him is so ghastly. So much worse than I had thought before; before when I thought he was the WORST POSSIBLE. How does he do that? It’s like he had broken some physical law or something."

I love rickey.org...

This guy freaks me out in the best possible way. How does he do that with his arms??

This guy just makes me happy.

I'm exhausted...

Liza Minelli was interesting. I've seen people do impersonations of her and I figured they were just goofing but they were pretty close to how she really acts. She's kooky. She certainly has a lot of fans though. I'm glad I went just to see what it was like but it wasn't really my cup of tea.

I spent all day today cleaning out the spare room. We already cleaned half of it a few weeks ago and donated a whole trunk and backseat full of stuff to Goodwill. We just got rid of that much again. We still have probably a day of cleaning out to do, though. We need to tackle the kitchen and the half of my closet that I'm afraid to go through. I already did the clothes but I haven't touched the side filled with stuff I've had since I was a kid. I know that I need to get rid of most of it. It's just toys and stuffed animals and blow up stuff and magazines that I saved when I was a teenager. I think I'll probably be able to part with everything but the magazines. And maybe some stuffed animals.

I seem to hurt myself a lot...

I was looking at my keyword activity to see why my numbers skyrocketed from my usual 0-1 readers up to 26 yesterday. The View snub seems to be the big draw with an assist from a Liza Minelli searcher and someone who searched "sayid kills with feet". (Sayid is awesome). I don't generally look at my keyword activity so I was surprised to see that back on May 11th someone found my blog searching for "blinder than a billy goat". I've never used that phrase. I don't even think I've ever mentioned billy goats. Weird. On May 10th some poor person found me by searching "I slammed my thumb in a drawer". Apparently I did that back in January of 2006 and it hurt so bad I thought I might throw up. I hope the May 10th searcher didn't have such a severe reaction.

So You Think You Can Dance was on last night. This guy named Jamal Weaver auditioned and I love him. I thought for sure he wasn't going to make it through but he totally did! Yay him! If you go here you can see both his auditions. I've seen the swing one four times and I laugh out loud every time.

Random thoughts...

The Lost finale has me all confuzzled and excited and I can’t concentrate on work today. Future Jack all bearded and crazy? That’s awesome. Unfortunately future Jack was still hung up on future Kate which sort of wrecks my hope that Kate gets killed on the island and Jack ends up with Juliet. I did have a little aww moment when Jack told Kate he loved her though so maybe I’m not so anti-Kate after all. When Sawyer told Hurley he couldn’t go with them because he was too fat I almost cried. It was such a sad After School Special moment. But then Hurley saved the day! Yay! And then Sayid broke some guys neck with his feet! Sayid is awesome. And Jack beat up Ben and Locke tried to kill Jack and Charlie drowned and Penny called and some dude is either going to save everybody or kill everybody and some future person died and no one cared and it was the best finale this year easily. Maybe the best Lost episode ever. And now I have to wait until January for another one.

Lost and Heroes are the only shows on tv that I don’t read spoilers for and I end up enjoying them so much more. I’m going to try to remain spoiler-free for all shows from now on. Even the reality ones. I gave up fast food so surely I can give up spoilers.

I think I can officially say that I gave up fast food. I’ve tried several times in the past but this time it’s been since November and I don’t even consider it as an option anymore so I think it’s going to stick. I used to eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner some days so it was a pretty big deal to stop. Now I have to figure out a way to get rid of all the weight that eating it put on me. Stupid fast food. It’s what they serve in Hell, I’m sure of it.

I’m going to see Liza Minelli this weekend. I got the tickets for free. I have no idea what I’m in for but at least I can say I saw Liza Minelli once.

I really don’t like Elizabeth Hasselback and I love that Alicia Silverstone snubbed her. I wish everyone would snub her. I decided to quit watching The View because Elizabeth annoys the bejeezus out of me but if I could be assured of a daily snubbing of her I would start watching again.

Stumbled upon...

I can't read this website at all but the pictures are super cool.

Don't mess with the man in black...

We were watching Kris Kristofferson get some sort of Johnny Cash achievement award on the tv at lunch today and Kris was talking about how great Johnny was and how he was his friend and mentor and blah blah. I was at the coffee maker pouring hot water over my tea bags (which I have done a thousand times before without incident) when I questioned why no one ever gave a speech about what a jerk Johnny Cash was and how he never helped them at all. At that exact moment I spilled the whole glass of hot water on my hand. That’s the reason why you never hear anyone say anything bad about Johnny Cash. He’ll get you if you do. Don’t mess with him. Just a little cautionary tale for you.

I think that’s one head butt, one curb fall and one hand scalding so far this month. Odds are good that some part of me is going to end up in a cast by May.

The Hucklebuck hurt me...

So I'm leaving a restaurant last night all happy and singing The Hucklebuck and all of a sudden my left ankle flopped right on the curb and I fell off the curb onto the parking lot. All of my weight landed on my left shoulder and for a second I couldn't move and I thought I had dislocated it and I waited for the horrendous pain and started to think about the episode of Lost where Kate had to pop Juliet's shoulder back in place and how much it hurt. Luckily I hadn't dislocated anything. I still couldn't move though and my mom was standing over me trying to help me up but I was just laying there in between two cars for a while. I finally sat up and right then this guy came over and asked if I was alright and I just started saying in this really fake way "Yeah! I'm fine! I'm OK! Thanks! I'm fine!" Which I clearly was not so I have no idea why I said it. My mom told him I fell and he was all sweet and said that he had fallen many times before. Which was nice of him. He was cute too. Maybe I should have written my phone number on his ankle while I was down there sprawled at his feet.

Anyway, I finally got up and in the car and my whole body was hurting and my left foot was getting sort of numb and my mom was insisting we go to the doctor but I just wanted to go home. On the way home I got the chills where my teeth were chattering and my insides were shivering and my hands and my feet got icy cold. I stayed that way for like two hours. It was freaky. What was up with all that? I went to bed at 9:30 and slept for ten hours and I feel surprisingly ok today except my shoulder hurts and I can't really put any pressure on my left foot. You would think that would be ok but I could never really put any pressure on my right foot because I had hurt it a few times in the past. Which leaves me with no feet that I can really put any pressure on. So I'm walking kind of crazy.

In honor of my fall I present to you The Hucklebuck:



A bonus Hucklebuck!

I didn't have a camera at the Bellagio...

I'm not quite sure how it happened since I intended on just staying at home all day watching stuff on the DVR but I somehow ended up going to the Bellagio Conservatory of Flowers, Red Rock Canyon and the Dolphin Habitat and Secret Garden of Siegried & Roy at the Mirage today.

Here are a few pictures that I kind of liked from the Secret Garden part.

I'm a spaz...

I just leaned over to pick something up and hit the top of my head reeeeeally hard on the light switch. It hurt so bad I almost passed out. Now there's a big bump there and it only happened like five minutes ago. Ouch.

There is now a big stuffed pink bunny in another tree in the parking lot at work. It's even higher up then the bear. I'm 99% sure that it wasn't there at 7:20 this morning but it was there at noon. So someone had to put it up there while we were all inside working. Awesome.

Such a litte mystery...

There is a big stuffed bear in a tree in our parking lot at work. I first noticed it last Friday and no one has any idea who put it there or why. It's pretty high up so someone had to really make an effort to place it up there. I love that.

Melinda is still my favorite though...

Krispy Kreme brought us free donuts and a sample of this new lemon square that they’re selling. I thought the lemon square was really good but every other person who tried it thought it was disgusting. They actually spit it out as soon as they put it in their mouth. What’s up with that? How can I think it’s yummy and they find it so repulsive that that would rather have a chewed up ball of it in their hand than swallow it? I’m going to go with the idea that I have a highly evolved palate.

I saw Stomp Out Loud at the Planet Hollywood (formerly the Aladdin) on Sunday night. I think it may have narrowly edged out Blue Man Group as my favorite show. It’s funny and interesting and loud and extremely entertaining. Plus the guys are all quite attractive. There’s a locals special until April 16th where the tickets are only $50. I printed mine off Ticketmaster and nobody checked to see if I was actually a local so I would imagine anyone could do that. It’s worth it even at full price though. So much fun.

I’m really hoping in a couple of weeks Sanjaya just busts out and becomes like the coolest singer American Idol has ever seen. That would be some awesome tv right there.

Just stuff..

I’m finding office politics very irritating today.

I’m going to the Grand Canyon in July. I wanted to stay at the old lodge on the rim but you apparently have to book a room like a year in advance so I’m staying at the Yavapai Lodge. I’ve never been before so I’m really looking forward to it. I won’t be hiking to the bottom or anything. I think that would be a very bad idea and I would most likely die coming back up. I’m nervous enough about falling over the edge while trying to take a picture.

I finally bought an mp3 player. It’s a cheap Ilo brand 1gb one I got for $70 at Walmart. I started ripping songs from all my CDs to put on it but I started with the back row of CDs which are all the ones I bought for one song and then didn’t like the rest so I just have a ton of random songs on there like “Are You Jimmy Ray?”, the Mandy Moore version of “Have a Little Faith In Me” & “How Do You Talk To An Angel”. That and a ton of Barenaked Ladies. I’m aware that my mp3 player and the songs on it are probably the uncoolest things ever.

I signed up for the Bank of America “Keep the Change” program finally. I’ve been thinking about it since it first started a couple of years ago but I just never got around to it. I’m going to attempt to save enough to pay for a fancy Disney World vacation for my 40th birthday making no effort whatsoever. That’s four years away so patience is the key with this project.

My reality tv viewing is getting out of hand. I’m watching American Idol (Yay Melinda! Yay Jordin! Yay Blake!), Grease (Yay Max!), America’s Next Top Model (Yay..Nobody?! Yay Tyra!?), Australia’s Next Top Model (Yay Gemma?), Top Design (Yay for not really caring!), Survivor (Yay YauMan! Boo Rocky!) &The Amazing Race (Double Yay for Danny & Oswald!! Double Boo for Mirna!!).

Seriously, Danny and Oswald are the greatest. I wish I had the power to get them their own travel show. I totally want to watch Danny and Oswald travel the world together and be cute and fabulous and make me smile.