Thanksgiving

Sorry it has been a while...I think everyone's sort of slacking on the blogging front. I tend to do most of my communication on Facebook, so hit me up if we're not friends there yet. I also started a private blog a few months ago, but my use for that is over. To get you up to speed, I'm having minor surgery next Tuesday and I'm moving out on my own in January. I was using that blog as a place to gather my thoughts.

I went out for dinner with a friend from high school last Tuesday and then went to dinner with Rusty and her family on Wednesday. Thursday was Thanksgiving dinner with just my parents due to some extended family drama. Rusty and I huge out briefly after our respective family meals, but we were both in a tryptophan-induced haze. On Friday I cleaned and stayed as far away from malls and shopping centers as possible in the morning, then Rusty and I went out to dinner and to some stores...things calm down in the evening. On Saturday I cleaned, did laundry, watched movies, and did some school work. Sunday was more of the same and then I took yesterday off and ran some errands. Today was total insanity at work and I was NOT glad to be back. December is going to be completely crazy starting with bloodwork tomorrow (they can NEVER find my veins), dinners out with friends, surgery, transferring from the Harrisburg office to the York office, post-op appointments, Rusty coming home, Christmas, New Year's, winter semester... I would love to crash in January but there's moving and even more class. I don't think I'll have a chance to relax till June, but it's ok...idle hands are the devil's workshop.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and I'll try to check in as much as possible throughout December!

I'm Alive

Rest easy, blog peeps; I'm alive and my hiatus is over. March wondered WTF happened to me. I finished my Cataloging class (got a B, one point away from an A, dammit) and have been taking two summer classes. One is already over (A) and one will be over next Thursday. Rusty came to visit, but we didn't do too much since I was busy and she had to spread herself around. I was cat-sitting for her two little bastards and they managed to pee on my floor, and steal a chicken breast and shortcake that I stupidly left on the counter. Rusty's coming back in July though, and I'll be class-free (in both senses of the word), so we'll get to do all kinds of fun stuff. I was looking forward to having life go back to normal after Rusty left with the cats and my weekend class was over, but our fridge broke this past Monday and was finally fixed yesterday. Being without a fridge totally sucks ass! That's pretty much all that's going on right now, considering my summer hasn't officially started yet. I've only had one week without school since January and I spend part of that week in D.C., so I've been pretty busy. I don't have any plans for the 4th, except maybe going to Hersheypark on Friday. My friend at work and I are waiting to see what the weather's like and trying to decide how insane it is to go to Hershey on a holiday that falls on a Friday. I'll update more frequently if anything cool goes on, but I've been reading your blogs even if I haven't been commenting. I hope everyone's having a good summer!

The little bastards, in a rare moment of not being little bastards:



Shortcake carnage:

Where Have I Been?

March was wondering this the other day; I can only assume it's because he's secretly hankering for more Idol Thoughts. May is usually my busiest month because that's when I come out of hibernation and there are always a lot of birthday dinners for myself and a couple of my friends who share May birthdays. This May has been no exception. As you all know, I've been having nervous breakdowns over cataloging since January. I handed in my final paper in the end of April, then headed off to Mooresville to see Rusty. Two weeks after that, Chris and I went for a long weekend in Washington, D.C. and then right after that, my first summer class started. My second summer class starts June 3; yes, they overlap. And the birthday dinners haven't even started yet! The first one is today, I'm still waiting to hear back from L. (If you're reading this, thanks for ignoring me!! :)) and another friend, there is a breakfast pending with some old co-workers, and an outing to see Sex in the City with a current co-worker coming up. That's a lot for someone who is as adept at sitting on her ass as I am.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. D.C. pics are forthcoming; I don't have too many because the weather was horrible. Steady rains and temperatures 25 degrees below normal sort of marred my big plans, but I had a good time nonetheless. I ended up getting an 88% in Cataloging. I'm usually not happy with a B in a class for which I did so much work, but that was hell and I had D at one point, so I can't complain about a B. Especially since he ripped my paper apart... It's also a little annoying that he considers an 89% an A, so I just missed it. But, as one of my co-workers told me (remember what I said about working with therapists?), I need to let go of the negativity and move on.

I had my first session of my first summer class this past weekend and it was the best class I've had so far. I adore the professor (and I think she really likes me) and only looked at my watch about 3 times, compared to 3,000 times in my other weekend classes. I'm actually considering switching the class I chose in the fall to have her again. On a side note, I just found out that someone else will be teaching cataloging next time it's offered. Arghh!!!!!!! If I had waited, perhaps I could have had a professor who doesn't have such an arbitrary grading system. Sorry; letting go of the negativity... I'm dreading having these two summer classes overlapping (the first one is three weekends and the second is online) because we have to do as much in 5 weeks as we would normally do in 4 months, but by July 3 I'll be 6 credits closer to graduating. By Christmas I'll have 7 out of 12 classes and all I'll have left to take is electives, so I can take things that actually interest me.

There aren't any Idol Thoughts for last week because I worked Tuesday night and my Ti-faux is still out of commission, so I taped it and only watched David Cook's performances. No surprises Wednesday night; Syesha should have gone weeks ago. The Office season finale was Thursday and it was great. Pathetically, I'm glad that I'll have my life back after Wednesday. I rarely watch TV in the summer, and I won't have time to until July anyway. I even bumped my Netflix subscription down to 2 at a time.

Work is still insanely busy, compounded by the fact that I've been off so many days in the past month. I'm off again on Monday, so next week will be crazy again, but I'm hoping that things will calm down after that. Obviously we're closed on Memorial Day, but there's a huge difference in the amount of work required when I'm off on a vacation day compared to a day we're closed. It hasn't helped that they were switching the servers, so our MIS has been down a lot and 95% of what I do requires the ability to use it. The only other thing on the work front is that we got new computers (our old ones were castoffs from the state, so they were probably about 10 years old).
Now it takes less than 2 minutes to open a new window and I have a flat-screen monitor so I have free space on my desk! Woot!

So, with everything that's going on, I'll be posting D. C. pics and Idol Thoughts next week and then probably won't be around too much till July unless something awesome or stupid happens. I expect it'll be the latter. I hope everyone has a good beginning of the summer!

Mooresville

I just got back yesterday from a 4-day weekend at Rusty's. I also realized I never posted my pics from Philly in the beginning of April. They're on the way!

Rusty:


Fred and George (I have become a crazy cat lady):


Chris insisting on taking my picture when I got home (I was not amused):


Narcissism:




Not from Mooresville, but just for fun:

For Maaach

March wanted to know where the picture of him was, so I searched in my camera and found it. Notice how he's holding a CD (which is helpfully labeled) and a hockey stick. The little black thing levitating is not a turd, but a puck. Don't get caught high sticking, March!

Thankful

I am thankful (or at least I should be thankful) for many things in my life, but since this is a blog post, I wanted to give a shout-out to my blogworld posse. Don't worry if I've left you out; I still love you, but I'm mainly shouting out to my regulars (and people who are still posting!)

Karen listens to a lot of diverse and cool music and is my biggest competition for the love and affection of Jim Halpert. She has also befriended me on LibraryThing and I'm totally jealous of the books she has read.

RC has been going through some tough times lately, but she is seriously one of the coolest people I've ever "met." I never thought I'd get along so well with a Mormon :). She's artsy and an awesome writer and shares my love of Michael C. Hall.

Nomadshan writes! And swims! And rips up trees in her yard with her bare hands and some power tools! And has a husband who makes incredible food! And posts pictures of said incredible food that make me drool!

Dim, as they like to say in the world of message boards, owes me about 1,000 new keyboards for all the drinks I have spit out while laughing at his posts. Whenever I go to a concert I take along his list of concert rules so I can be sure that no one is writing acerbic posts about me the next day.

Funky might end up being my partner in crime at school. She also posts recipes vegan/vegetarian food that even this member of PETA, People Eating Tasty Animals, that is, finds yummy.

Feather has a knack for writing whatever is going on in her mind at the time. I have a feeling a political debate between the two of us would not be pretty, but I admire anyone who says what he or she feels.

Hotwire is finally back from hiatus and is writing posts that are breaking my heart and making me want to drive up to "somewhere in New England" and knock some sense into a certain girl.

Renee is a strong woman who makes (or at least used to make) beautiful music. She has also gone through some trials lately, but I'm definitely glad she's back from hiatus as well.

We haven't heard from Mr. A for a while, but I have rarely not agreed with what he has said in his blog, and later his podcasts. He also sent me some e-mails during a dark time in my life that really helped me out, probably more than he knows.

March has a special place in my blogging heart because he's one of my first readers and because he keeps me abreast of John Krasinski sightings. He's a great dad, loves hockey, and knows more about music than I could ever hope to know.

J. is actually my very first reader from waaaay back in May '05. I have no idea how he has the energy to do all the things he does. I've also informed him that I'm moving to Canada after watching Sicko the other weekend.

And, the people I know in real life...

Rusty, who has been my best friend for over 20 years and whose family is like a second family to me. We lived together for 4 years and managed not to kill each other, which is an amazing feat for her, because I am not an easy person to live with, by any stretch of the imagination. She knows pretty much every horrible thing I've ever done and doesn't judge me (too much) and still loves me for some reason. I'm horrible at expressing my feelings, but I'm fiercely loyal and would gladly rip out the still-beating heart of anyone who fucks with my girl.

...and last, but certainly not least, B. Enjoy B.'s blog while you still can because she has a little B. on the way and will probably not have much time for blogging! One of my favorite college memories is when Rusty and I spend the night at B. and J.'s apartment and we all got drunk with B.'s mom.

Este y Eso

Noooooooo!!! Noah Wyle is coming back to ER for 4 episodes. I hate Dr. Carter!

I wish I had something interesting to talk about. I'm a little tipsy because I was cooking with wine, and when you cook with wine you have to drink some. It's the law. So I drank half the bottle, and I'm a lightweight. Rusty, I'm totally sober! Ask me anything! I had all sorts of things I wanted to write about, but now I forget them. I even perused CNN.com to find something to write about and couldn't find anything to rant about. I do know I wanted to mention how much the Doobie Brothers started to suck when Michael McDonald joined the band. I was listening to their greatest hits CD while I was making dinner and I was rocking out to "China Grove" and "Long Train Running" and then "Takin' it to the Streets" came on. Shut up, Michael McDonald.

I've been in a really good mood lately and I'm not as stressed out. I'm not sure why, but all I know is that my skin has cleared up since I stopped being stressed. I'm also using tea tree oil, which is the best stuff in the world, and clears breakouts up in about a day. I love the fact that I have zits and I'm getting gray hair. My body can't make up its mind.

I hate that that we missed out on good fall weather. It went from 90 degrees to 50 in one day.

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this, but it's something Oprah wrote about how she took the month of July off when she found out she had hypothyroidism. It must be difficult for you to take a month off from working, fly to Hawaii, eat only fresh foods, and sleep when you want to. My heart is breaking for you. Shut up, Oprah. Guess what? A lot of people have diseases and have to continue going to work, cooking, taking care of their children... I don't know how people can read this shit and not feel condescended towards.

I was cleaning out my filing cabinet today and I came across a "newspaper" we made in Spanish class our senior year called El Gran Flan. Here's a picture of our class. I'm sitting at the table in the middle and Rusty is on my right. We were so young! I would make a pact with Satan to look like that again. The guy on the far right holding the Spanish dictionary died about two years ago of a brain tumor. He was in the popular clique, but he was the sweetest guy you could ever hope to meet, and I know Rusty agrees with me. I don't believe in an afterlife, but if there is one, he's being rewarded.


I leave you with one of my favorite Stephen Crane poems, since my Stephen Crane sampler was in the same folder as El Gran Flan:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter--bitter," he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

My Trip to Rusty's

I haven't been good at blogging lately, but I have to talk about my trip to Rusty's. I left at the asscrack of dawn on Saturday morning. The airport was 10 times as busy as it was the last time I went. I accidentally forgot to take my lighter out of my bag which caused the security guy to hold it up and yell, "Whose is this?!" Oops. Incidentally, they started allowing lighters on planes THE DAY AFTER I CAME BACK!!


I arrived in Charlotte at around 10 AM and Rusty and I went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant. It was seriously the best Mexican food I've ever had. After stopping at Rusty's place to drop my stuff off, we went on a brewery tour. The tour guide was really bad, but it was cool to see the brewery. I tried some strawberry beer and some beer with no carbonation. They were decent, but as I said a few days ago, not a big fan of beer. After that we went to a drive-through safari. We bought a bucket of food to feed the animals and it was a total clusterfuck. The animals all acted like they hadn't eaten in years. An ibex shoved his head in my bucket and I couldn't get it away from him, so he proceeded to eat all my food. Rust was pretty pissed because she had just washed and vacuumed her car, which was now covered in dust and animal pellet particles. Later that night we went to see Ratatoille, which was adorable.


On Sunday we went took a boat tour of Lake Norman and saw some more of the expensive houses, including a house Burt Reynolds once owned. It was nice and relaxing. After lunch we went down to discovery place in Charlotte and saw the Body Worlds exhibit and an IMAX about the human body. We looked around the science center a little more, but Body Worlds and the IMAX were definitely the most interesting parts. After that was dinner and then some HGTV.


On Monday we went to Grandfather Mountain. The trip included a trip over the mile-high swinging bridge, which made me feel like I was in an Indiana Jones movie. The view was gorgeous. We went on a little hike and then headed home. We went out to dinner and then watched Hell's Kitchen.

I had to leave in the early afternoon on Tuesday, so we just went to breakfast at Denny's and went to Sterling Marlin's race shop. I decided Sterling was going to be my driver because he does and says dumb things. He was fired about 2 days after I chose him as my driver. Sorry, Sterling!

Sorry for the 2nd grade level writing in this post, I just really need to get it posted and am not in a writing kind of mood. Maybe I'll have some things to write about later!

This and That

I'm getting increasingly excited for The Simpsons movie to come out on July 27. Their website has launched. Here's the trailer:

The Simpsons Movie - final trailer (fdb.blox.pl)
Uploaded by pietruch

As if I didn't want to go to London badly enough, Ricky Gervais and Mackenzie Crook are going to be preforming Free Love Freeway at a concert for Princess Diana on July 1. Here's the clip from the show:



I had a pretty good weekend. I took Friday off and Rusty and I were supposed to go hiking, but I got hives from my meds again (including on the bottom of my feet), so that pretty much ruled out hiking and I had to make a doctor's appointment at 8 AM anyway. I'm all roided up and doing well; this round of hives wasn't one millionth as bad as the last time. I went to the Amish farmer's market with Rusty and her parents in the afternoon and then L., Rusty, and I saw Knocked Up and went out to dinner.

On Saturday we went to a baseball game. York decided it was a good idea to kick people out of their homes and waste taxpayer money to build a stadium; thus the York Revolution was born. We left around 11 PM at the end of the 10th inning and my dad turned on the radio in the car while they were in the bottom of the 12th. Apparently we scored one run to win it at the bottom of the 13th inning. It was a long game.

Sunday was a leisurely day spent reading and relaxing. I finished Keeping the House, the book I was sent for the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. It comes out July 10, and while I wouldn't necessarily pay the $25 list price for it, I would check it out at the library or a used book store. Here's my review:

Keeping the House, Ellen Baker's first novel, intricately weaves the stories of two families, the Mickelsons and the Magnusons, before allowing them to collide. The story takes place over a period of time from the late 19th century until 1950, spanning several generations. Baker has a knack for story-telling and her background in American Studies and as the curator of a World War II museum helps to add authenticity to the story.

When Byron and Dolly Magnuson move to a small town in the mid-west, Dolly has trouble adapting. She admires a grand but dilapidated house on a hill and hears stories from the town gossips about the Michelson family who once inhabited it. She secretly enters the house to fix it up, hoping that her husband will buy it for her, thus solving all of their problems, only to be discovered by one of the family members who gives her a more accurate, if not entirely truthful version of his family's story. It is said that the house puts a curse on one's love life, and Dolly finds her marriage unraveling in a self-fulfilling prophecy as other relationships did before hers.

Some of the characters in this novel are a little wooden, but this could be due in part to the expected submission of women of the time. The story becomes a little soap opera-esque at the end with everything wrapping up in a somewhat unrealistic manner; that said, this novel is a solid first effort by Ms. Baker.

That's pretty much it. I hope everyone had a good weekend. A photo journal of Rusty's and my trip to Centralia will hopefully be up soon!

Potpourri

I've been out of the groove for the past week or so and am now just getting back in. Hopefully I'll be a little better at updating LG&E.

L. and I had tons of fun at Rusty's place. We crammed a lot into our four days in Mooresville! On Saturday we visited Lowe's Motor Speedway and took a tour. While we were checking out the track some people were out doing laps on it, and you really get a rush of adrenaline when they drive by where you're standing. I can see why Rusty likes it! In the evening we went to Rusty's church and then out for dinner. We went back to her place and I crashed since I had been up since 4:30 that morning.

On Sunday we bought tickets for a luxury home tour. Most of the homes were awesome, but one in particular was the most incredible house I've ever been in. It was $3.2 million, although in York it would cost twice that. The first thing you notice when you walk in the door is a big plate of glass (etched with grapes, no less) in the floor that looks down into the wine cellar. That's the point when I knew this wasn't a typical York County McMansion. The house boasted a walk-in beer cave (it's exactly what it sounds like), a hot tub with a lowered edge that allowed water to cascade into the pool below, and a fireplace and big-screen TV in the master bathroom above the jacuzzi tub. I don't know about you all, but I would be afraid that the TV would fall off the wall and into the tub, electrocuting me. The sinks in all the bathrooms were gorgeous and one of the bathrooms had pebbles inlaid in the floor which looked nice but hurt my feet. The kitchen, of course, was awesome and it had one of those faucets on the wall behind the stovetop that you can use to fill pots. The attention to detail in this house was incredible. I must say, however, that the decor was HIDEOUS!! Apparently you can't buy taste.

That night we had dinner at Chili's (no, I didn't get Awesome Blossom with extra awesome) with Rusty's friend Vanessa. She's British and I could listen to her read the phone book. We headed over to Sonic where I got a chocolate malt which is my favorite sweet food after tiramisu. When we got home from that we sat outside and shot the shit for a couple hours and learned that L. is a quarter Jewish, which Rusty and I think is cool, but she doesn't. If I had to belong to a religion, it would be Judaism. I'd want to be a ethnic Jew though, not just a convert. I definitely have the guilt part down and I love the Old Testament God; he was such a bastard.

On Monday we went to a race shop where they work on the cars that are used in NASCAR. It was much cleaner and quieter than my garage, and they probably don't forget to put the oil cap back on when they change the oil like mine did. After checking that out, we drove to Charlotte, which is the cleanest, nicest city I've even visited. It seems like everything is more well cared for south of the Mason-Dixon line. I loved the tree-lined freeways and the flowers planted in the median down there. Up here our median is usually a concrete barrier. If we have grass in the median it's covered in trash. Flowers? Forget about it. I don't know how they would have the manpower to take care of things though, considering we have more roads per square mile than any other state and you can tell because they're crap. If you were driving down I-83 with your eyes closed you'd be able tell when you crossed the Maryland line because the bumpiness stops. Anyway, I digress. Back to Charlotte. We checked out the Panthers' stadium and even though football is probably the last sport I would ever want to watch, even after curling, it was sort of cool to see the field. I was amazed at how small it was (that's what she said!).

On Tuesday we went to Rusty's school and got to meet her class. I would have like to have more time with them, but unfortunately they had a boring-ass orientation for 6th grade. I wish those little bastards luck; 6th grade was the worst year of my life. I couldn't be around 10- and 11-year-olds all day; they would drive me up the wall! Most of them were cute though. After school we headed straight to the airport, where security went through my bag of dirty underwear, and started our less than one hour journey home. It's pretty amazing that sometimes it takes me longer to drive to work than it took us to fly to Charlotte.

I can't forget the most important part of our trip! We ate a lot of good, fattening food, and I ingested more sugar in four days in sweet tea form than I ingest in a year at home. I majorly need to detox!

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I almost got pulled over this morning going more than 90. I was passing some dumbass on the right. Luckily I knew to look for cops in this particular spot and as soon as I saw the top of those lights I slammed on the brakes. The dumbass was in the passing lane going about 75 which should have gotten him pulled over for A. speeding and B. driving in the left lane without intending to pass someone, but of course he didn't. There's no justice in the world.

I should probably be more cognizant of how I drive. I watched Murderball yesterday, and while those men are amazing, I would rather die than be paralyzed. I don't have the strength, physically or mentally, to deal with that. It's really disconcerting that one moment can change the course of your life forever. I almost cried at the end when the rugby team was explaining the game to the wounded vets. Damn PMS!

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Speaking of wounded vets, Laura Bush said on the Today Show that concerning the war in Iraq, no one is suffering more than she and George. What. The. Fuck?!?!?!?! I'm sorry, but haven't 3,300 American soldiers died? Haven't over 20,000 Americans been injured? What about Iraqis who have died? Here's what this source says about total deaths (US and non-US) from the war: "Counting all civilians, military, contractors, insurgents, and non-Iraqi civilians, at least 70,000; to as many as 655,000+ total excess deaths due to the war (second Lancet survey of mortality)." Hey, Mrs. Bush. How about sending your daughters to Iraq, having one of them die and one lose her legs, and then you can tell the American public that your suffering is worse than theirs. Furthermore, there has been little to no outcry about this. I first read it in a little blurb in our paper. When John Kerry "insulted" (one of my feet is in the camp that he was trying to insult Bush but didn't get it out quite right) the troops it was plastered all over every media outlet.

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I'm going back to my psychiatrist this Thursday. I don't think I ever mentioned this, but about a year and a half ago I went and was put on Wellbutrin. I was happy for the first time in ages, had no desire to smoke, and had no appetite (I know that's not a good side effect, but I was fine with it.). Life was good. But life's not allowed to be good, so my body decided to give me hives that made me want to kill myself. I had them in my throat, on the bottom of my feet, my thighs were one big, red welt; it was horrible. My doctor asked me if I wanted to try something else, but at the time I didn't because I was afraid of having another reaction. For some reason I've been in a pretty bad depression since about the beginning of this year, so I decided I should try meds again. I know it's the easy way out, but it's not like I haven't tried therapy and self-talk and all that other stuff. Therapy doesn't help me. My insight is good and I don't need to be told obvious things. I know that if I hate my job I should get a new one or if I'm unhappy about my weight I should eat better and exercise more. I don't need to pay to be told those things. I have a couple minor situational things going on and I'm hoping this will help me deal with them better. I've been in a really dark place for the past couple of months. That sounds a lot more melodramatic than it is, but I'm tired of being on the verge of tears all the time, having no motivation to do even the things I like, and feeling like I want to die.

I'm Leavin' on a Jetplane...

...but I do know when I'll be back again.

As you may have read on Rusty's blog, L. and I are going to visit her this Saturday through Tuesday. I'm so excited! I have all my clothes packed (after sitting around thinking about how stressed I was about having to pack I decided to get off my ass and do it), my 3-oz. or less bottles of gels and liquids are in their FAA-approved quart-sized baggie, my anal-retentive list of things I need to pack is saved on my computer with the things that have been packed marked off, my confirmation page is lying under my work bag so I can take it to work on Friday and do online check-in, the 10-day weather forecast has been checked (10 degrees warmer than it will be in York--woo hoo!), and I'm pretty much ready to go!

I'm looking forward to getting a tour of the racetrack, riding around in Rusty's new pimp mobile, drinking sweet tea and eating fried pickles and hush puppies (mmm...hush puppies *drool*), meeting Rusty's students, looking at expensive houses that I'll never afford, and going to the movie theater where you put your own unknown liquid referred to inaccurately as butter on your popcorn.

There is one catch though: I have to pick L. up at 5:30 A.M. on Saturday--boo!!!

I hope everyone has a good weekend!

On the Road

Ok, enough procrastinating. I left York at around 8:30 AM on Thursday morning. Traffic was pretty light, but it was drizzling, so it sort of sucked. I was excited for my adventure but not looking forward to sitting in one position for 8 hours. I've ridden in a car that long before, but I've never driven. The scenery on the way down was gorgeous. The mountains down there are incredible! I'll never move to Virginia though; the police there are Nazis! I saw more cops in Virginia on the way down that I see on my 60 mile round-trip drive to work in 6 months. Plus, radar detectors are illegal. I don't have one myself, but it's the principle of the thing! I, of course, was pulled over by Officer Cletus for going 80 in a 65. Thank god, because I was going a whole hell of a lot faster than that earlier! Now I'm pissed because I have to drive sensibly for 2 years. It'll take a year for me to get rid of my points--I guess. I haven't been able to find out if I actually got any points or not and Officer Cletus didn't know. Then after another year any ticket I get after that will be considered a first offense. After some other minor mishaps I finally made it to Mooresville around 5 PM and got to see Rusty for the first time since Labor Day! She had made a delicious Thanksgiving dinner so we ate that and then relaxed. We went to bed fairly early because there was a sale at Lowe's Motor Speedway. We planned to leave at 9...

...Which didn't happen considering Rusty's alarm didn't go off so we didn't even get up till around 9--oops! At the speedway Rusty spent enough money that we were able to take a couple spins around the track. Guys, I couldn't possibly care less about NASCAR, but it was so cool to be out on the track! You're at a pretty steep angle and you feel like you're going to tip over. In between laps we went to get lunch and I had fried pickles for the first time; they are more awesome than they sound. After our day at the track we went shopping to get Rusty's Christmas decorations and went to see Stranger Than Fiction. The movie got bad reviews, but I thought it was pretty good. I'm not even a Will Farrell fan.

On Saturday I got the grand tour of Mooresville. I saw Rusty's school and some extremely expensive homes. We did some more shopping and then went to lunch at a BBQ joint. I can't remember what the hell we did between lunch and dinner besides watch a horrendous cable access high school news show. We went to a seafood place called Big Daddy's for dinner (fried catfish and sweet tea...mmmm....). After dinner Rusty put her Christmas tree up while we watched some Office episodes.

I got a later start than I wanted to on Sunday morning, and the drive back was horrendous! We randomly stopped on the interstate at least 10 times and it took me over 9 hours to get home. I only stopped twice to pee, once for gas, and once to go through the drive-thru at McDonald's, so my back and legs were killing me when I got home. I also almost got killed twice too. Once was because I forgot how short one of the on-ramps was and almost went in front of an 18-wheeler and once was when some dumbass in front of me was driving down the highway straddling the center line. The person behind me passed him on the right and I guess it startled him because for some reason he stopped in the middle of the highway. Thank Jebus there was no one behind me! Incidentally, there was some dumbass straddling the line on my way home from work Tuesday night. I'm not talking just drifting over the line for 2 seconds; I'm talking the middle of these dumbasses' cars we over the line for several miles. Did the driving rules change and I wasn't notified?

I get to see Rusty again in about 3 weeks! Stay tuned for more accounts of our misadventures.

I'm Back!

Hey everyone! I'm back from Rusty's. I'll share my adventures from the weekend later; I'm beat and my computer isn't working so I'm using Chris's. Among other things I had a run-in with a Virginia state trooper and got to ride on the racetrack at Lowe's Motor Speedway. I'll update when I get a chance. I hope my US readers had a good Thanksgiving and my international readers had a good weekend!

Happy Birthday!

Happy 26th birthday, Rusty! I love you and I'll see you in 3 days! Here's your blog present:

Elliott discussing how badly he wants to jump your bones with Dale Jarrett (Looks like Dale is in agreement!).

Luke Wilson making a booty call to you.