I stopped in to drop some bpal stuff off for Karinne on the way home from work today, and as I was walking back to my car, a guy rolled down his window and asked if he could tell me something without me getting offended. After a quick check to make sure I didn't have my lights on or a flat tire, I said sure, and he proceeded to tell me that I was "absolutely beautiful" and that my boyfriend was a lucky man. I guess my wedding ring isn't visible from 20 feet away.
November 2006 Archives
Miss Doxie has a store for her super-awesome wiener dog art and various other goodies! And to make it even better, 10% of all proceeds from the site are donated to Dachshund Rescue of North America.
ETA: I have decided that I can't live without one of her tiny cameos. The wiener dog one, of course.
I got my Bitter Moon shirt yesterday, and I puffy pink heart it. Also, Nintendogs came in handy yesterday morning while I was stuck in traffic; instead of gnashing my teeth while I waited to get through the stop-and-go mess, I fed Jax, gave him water, and took him on a walk.
Mike gave me an early Christmas present last Tuesday - a black Nintendo DS Lite and a case for it, and he had me pick out two games. I chose Nintendogs (Dachshund and Friends, of course) and Sonic Rush for my two games and ended up getting Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 and Brain Age myself. I like all the games, but Nintendogs and Brain Age are the two I've been playing the most.
Brain Age is a lot of fun. The sections I've played so far aren't challenging by themselves (basic math, reading out loud, counting syllables), but you're timed on how long it takes you to do them which is what makes it a challenge for me. My current favorite sections are Calculations, which gives you either 20 or 100 various math problems, and High To Low, where you're shown numbers in a random pattern for a second or two then have to remember where the numbers were and click on boxes in the appropriate order.
I love Nintendogs. Mike said all along that it seemed like a game I'd enjoy, but I wasn't sure. I thought it seemed a little gimmicky until I actually played it and realized that it's a lot more fun than I thought it would be. The game lets you have more than one dog at a time, but the only one I have right now is a black and tan dachshund named Jax. The game has you give the dog food and water, take it for walks, and teach it tricks so you can enter it into agility, obedience, or disc catching competitions. You have to pay for the food, water, grooming items, and accessories, and you can earn money by placing in the competitions or by selling things at the secondhand store. As you go on more walks, your dog's stamina increases and it interact with other dogs along the way. Sometimes during the walk your dog will bring you presents, which are usually items for them (Jax has brought me a Mario hat, various colored collars, a rope toy, a bouncy mushroom, sunglasses, and a lion's mane) or various items like a statue, vase, or tissue box, all of which can be sold at the secondhand store.
We had the kids for Thanksgiving this year, and since we weren't going to my parents' house for a celebration until Saturday, we spent Thanksgiving Day at home doing nothing that didn't involve cooking, eating, or playing video games/on the computer. There was some cleaning up too (particularly mid-way through the Thanksgiving dinner preparations when I realized that I had used every mixing bowl we had and needed clean ones so I could continue preparing the food, not to mention to serve said food in), but that wasn't the main focus of the day. It was nice to be able to relax at home and not have to worry about running around visiting people.
I got up when the dogs started their "it's morning, we have to go OUT" prancing, and after they were through, I started prepping the turkey. There was a moment of near-panic when I realized that the turkey was still a little frozen, even though it'd been defrosting in the fridge since I'd bought it on Sunday, and then another when I couldn't find the giblets. I knew they were supposed to be in the turkey, and hell if I was going to start cooking it until I found those things. Finally, after a couple minutes of staring at the inside of the turkey wondering where the giblets'd gone, I noticed a blob peeking out from under the turkey that hadn't been there when I set the bird down. Further inspection revealed that the giblet bag had come open and was hanging out of the other end of the turkey. Having solved that mystery, I retrieved the rest of the giblets, threw them away, and finished prepping the turkey. I made a phone call to my mom, put the turkey in to start cooking, and then went back to bed, happy in the knowledge that I had a couple of hours before I needed to start on the rest of the food.
Dinner included turkey, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, peas, corn, olives, cranberry sauce, rolls, cornbread muffins, apple pie, and pumpkin pie. Getting everything together was more time-consuming than I would have liked even though I'd made some things the night before, but since we were able to sit down and eat around 2:30, I was pretty happy with the way things turned out. Afterwards, we spent the rest of the day puttering around the house, occasionally going back for more food or pie as necessary.
I've mentioned the neighbors being loud before, but this time their music was loud enough that it pissed Mike off too. I woke up at 3am when Mike got out of bed fuming. Whoever was in the room on the other side of the wall as our office was playing their music so loud we could hear it from anywhere in our whole house. After 30 minutes or so of this, I threw on some clothes to take the puppies out and to ask the neighbors to turn it down. Their windows were open, and as soon as I went outside I could hear the All American Rejects blaring from one of the upstairs rooms. When I rang the doorbell, the guy I talked to was very nice, and they did turn the music down, but playing music that loud in the early hours of the morning is seriously inconsiderate.
Mike and I went to see this yesterday, and I really liked it. I've become a Will Ferrell fan anyways, but this was a funny feel-good movie on its own. It reminded me a lot of Bruce Almighty.
We've had American Psycho for a while, and yesterday we finally watched it. It's an interesting movie, that's for sure. I'm still trying to figure out of the end was a huge cover-up or if Patrick Bateman just imagined that he did all that stuff. I dunno. I did have to cover my eyes and ears when he killed a dog and then later a kitten, but it wasn't really scary. At several points during the movie I found myself thinking "Holy shit, he's insane," (or some variation on that theme), then I remembered that the movie was called American Psycho for a reason. Oops.
After the movie was over we had a round-robin dinner, but not the "Chic-Fil-A (or La Pizzeria) + cherry coke eaten at Wendy's" version seen frequently during high school. This version involved shrimp and key lime pie from Bonefish Grill + chicken caesar salad and sirloin marsala from Carrabba's. While we were finishing up our food, we watched the remake of The Omen. I liked it better than the original, but there are a couple of things I wish had been done differently, primarily the casting of Julia Stiles as Damien's mother. She was fine in 10 Things I Hate About You, but she was not believable at all as a twenty-or-thirty-something-year-old mother, especially since she was paired with Liev Schrieber, who did such an excellent job as Damien's father. Also, I wish the dog had been consistent throughout the movie. I was happy when we first saw the black German Shepard in the birthday party scene because that was much more fitting than the Rottweiler from the original movie and was then let down when the dog that Mrs. Baylock brought into the house was a Rottweiler. For me the German Shepard was less physically menacing and more ominously so. I really enjoyed the rest of the movie and, aside from the two things mentioned above, think it was a pretty good remake. I particularly liked how the Church did a presentation of how current events fit with the angels from the book of Revelations.
I had a shitty night last night courtesy of a particularly vivid vampire nightmare. There were slashed throats complete with detailed gaping wounds and gushing blood, changed personalities which made it hard to know who was safe to talk to or trust, and the feelings of danger and being pursued that seem to be prevalent in most, if not all, of my nightmares. When I woke up I was terrified, but thanks to the changed personalities part of the dream, I wasn't sure if it was safe to snuggle up to Mike. I need a fucking nap.
That sounds so dramatic but it was just a visit to my dermatologist for my first routine check-up. This visit was prompted by a cyst on my back, but aside from some sun spots (thank you, sunburns), a little patch of dry skin (thank you, intermittent winter weather), and some genetically inherited little red spots (thank you, Mom), that was all that was noteworthy on my skin.
Highlights from this weekend include going to Chuck E. Cheese with a friend and his kids and having a family night watching some Third Rock episodes and playing games (Scattergories). The downside was that Sunday was cold, miserable, and rainy, and the library was closed when N and I went to get some books.
The nightmare I had this weekend was about zombies, and it was very graphic and detailed. I can still clearly remember the bloody meat from the bodies and the way the dead flesh looked. Yick.
Mike and I went to vote for the first time in our new area today, and while I was able to vote without problems, once again Mike's voter resignation hadn't gotten updated, so we had to go back to our old polling place for him to vote. (He could've voted with a provisional ballot, but the lady we spoke with told us that more often than not, those don't even get counted.)
I've voted every year since Mike and I have been together, and it's a good feeling. Every year I tell myself I'm not going to wait until the last minute to read up on the issues and the candidates, and every year, I put it off till the last minute. I need to stop with the apathy already. The one issue I did know about well in advance this year was the proposed marriage amendment. I understand that gay marriage is a hot topic for a lot of people, but I just don't see it as the erosion of religion or traditional marriage that some view it as. Hopefully the majority of the people who vote today don't vote for this stupid amendment either.
I heart this shirt. That is all.
Since last night was such a late one, Mike and I spent most of today sleeping with occasional interruptions to take the puppies out, get online, or get some food. One of my online ventures was to look at some BPAL stuff, and while I was browsing through the LE scents, Mike commented on my interest and asked to smell the imps Karinne gave me. We sniffed our way through all of them, although I think his nose wasn't the same for quite a while afterwards.
We showered and went out for some dinner around 7. The original plan was just to pick food up to go from Bonefish, but a couple of frustrating phone calls changed that to going in for a sit-down meal. The first two restaurants we tried were packed with a minimum wait time of an hour, so we ended up at another restaurant in the area. As far as I'm concerned, the experience there was mediocre, at best. To begin with, we had to wait for some menus to free up - there were plenty of seats, but not enough menus to go around, I guess. When we could sit down and look at a menu, our waitress was too distracted to remember things the first time we asked for them - Mike asked for ranch dressing, but by the time she came back out, not bringing ranch, he was already almost through with the wings. And to top it off, my food had to be sent back twice because my "medium-well" steak came out first medium-rare, then medium. Ick. Mike was already through with his food by the time mine came back cooked the way I'd requested, so we just got what was left of my dinner in a box to go. On our way home we stopped by the first restaurant we'd tried to go to and picked up some shrimp (for Mike) and a piece of key lime pie (for me, of course) to take home with us.
Now we've settled in with our food and the puppies, and we're getting ready to watch The Warriors. Mike picked up the movie shortly after the game was released, so we've had it for a while, but tonight's the first time I've felt like watching it. Even if I don't like it, I'll understand Mike's references.
We picked N and H up after school, and when it started getting dark, we got ready to go trick-or-treating. H wanted to be a scary bride, but we didn't have any face paint since Mike and I hadn't known about that until the last minute, so we had to improvise. I put a couple layers of baby powder on her face to make it pale, then used several layers of brown eyeshadow to create dark circles around her eyes. I put some gray eyeshadow on top of that to make the circles even darker and gave her a couple coats of mascara to add emphasis. I finished up with red lipstick, putting a super dark coat on her lips and dotting it lightly from the corners of her mouth down to her chin to give the illusion of dripping blood. She was pleased with how it all turned out, and after a couple of pictures, we headed out into the neighborhood. The weather was perfect. It was right in between being warm and cool so we were very comfortable as we walked to the house. We only had about half an hour to trick-or-treat because the kids' mom wanted H back in time to take her to an event at church, but even with the limited amount of time, we still went to enough houses that H got plenty of candy. Her pumpkin bucket was so full that she was having a hard time carrying by the time we stopped at the last house for the night.
After we dropped H and N off, we went to Karinne's house for a Halloween party. This was the first time I'd seen their new house, and from what I could see with the black light, it's beautiful. I also got to see her ferrets and new puppy and am a little bit in love, although I don't forsee adding ferrets to our household any time in the near future. We stayed there for a couple of hours and hung out with Karinne, her husband, and his family. Right as we were leaving, a large group of her husband's co-workers got there. I have anti-social tendencies, so as far as I'm concerned, that was perfect timing. Mike and I had a great time at the party, and it was nice to be able to spend time with Karinne just hanging out again. On the way home Mike commented that watching the two of us interact was like seeing me in my natural element, and he's right. I've been friends with Karinne since I was in 9th grade almost twelve years ago, and after being friends for that long, there's a familiarity that's unmistakeable. I talk with my mouth full around her without worrying about what she'll think of that. I know that she'll not just listen to my nerd stories, but will understand them because we have similar interests and personalities. Her responses will be as sarcastic as mine, if not more so, and we won't have to worry about making sure the other knew how the comments were intended. It's nice to be able to stop focusing on various things and just be myself.
If you want to back out of your driveway but put your vehicle in Drive instead of Reverse, you will go towards the garage door instead of away from it like you had in mind.
