Another Working Day Has Ended

Here are me and some of my girly friends. Check out the stalker guy in the background.

Booda Baby asked me once to warn her when reading my post would make her tired. So, here's your warning.

On Friday, I sprinted home after work to tidy up before my co-worker and her husband came by to look at my counters. She had told her husband that I was kind of a hot tamale and she didn't trust him alone with me. She said that made him really interested to come over as soon as possible to help me out. Whatever works, right? I laughed with her about how stupid guys were and she agreed. She said it made it so much easier to manipulate them. Anyway, he's going to check his schedule and probably get my counters put in sometime this week. He's also going to rewire something in my kitchen so that I can trade spaces for my fridge and stove. Right now, my fridge is in this tiny little cubby and it doesn't really fit and makes it so I can barely open one of my very few cupboards. So, that will be another wonderful thing.

This was as close as I could get to the goods.

I did end up going out on Friday night too. I went to the burlesque show and it was okay. It was so poorly planned and that kind of put a little damper on the whole thing. It sold-out by 9:30, so half of my friends couldn't get in. Then they had a bad surf guitar band play what seemed like the same song over and over for at least two hours. I thought I'd get to see the girlies at like 10 and be home by 11:30. The girlies didn't even get started until 11:40 and by that time, I was so tired, I only watched a couple of minutes of it before I had to go home. Plus, it was so packed, I could barely see what was going on. Oh well. It was a fun idea, and I'm always up for seeing good spectacle.

My girls with my their youngest cousin.

I hit the ground running on Saturday. I got the girls to play practice and track practice and I went home to clean. I've been trying to be better about taking my recycling and Goodwill and bottles and cans every week to their respective places, so after Stinky got done with track she went with me to run a veritable shitload of errands. When I got back, I helped Coadster with some more of her college paperwork. She fought with me a little more about how she thought I should just do all of it for her and I told her I was here to help her and she wasn't particularly happy with my response. Thank god I'm not a people pleaser.

After that, I went for a nice long run and it was wonderful. I came home and cleaned gutters that hadn't been cleaned for years and let me just tell you how good that DIDN'T smell. Yeesh! Then I chipped at ice on the shady parts of my driveway and sidewalk. Then I fell down and went into a coma....Just kidding.

I really thought about staying home, because I was exhausted. But G. made a good case for me going out and I went. As usual, I was glad I did. I'm happiest when I go out, if I can just sit with one or two friends and shoot the shit, and that's how it worked out on Saturday. G. and D. were out, as well as this married couple. The husband was buying us all drinks and the wife was cracking us up with stories of her lonely childhood. She said she used to play school by herself, because her siblings were too old and wouldn't play with her. So, she had to be the teacher and the student and she would fill out worksheets and purposely write down exactly two wrong answers, so she could use her red pen to correct them. We laughed so hard at her sad childhood that we were crying. Mostly because we were all such weird kids in our own ways and we could relate.

Coadster singing her solo.

Today was another crazy day. I did a little work in my kitchen and then cleaned before my family came over. They hadn't been to my place since the first weekend I moved in, so they saw the before and finally got to survey the after'ish. Then we met my friends G., D., and K. for Coadster's last show choir extravaganza. She was amazing, as usual and there were jazz hands aplenty.

So, now I'm going to try very hard to plan a mellow, stay at home kind of week and work on projects and read as much as possible and hope upon hope that my counters get installed. Wish me luck.

I Felt Almost Demure

Here is a photo of The Golden Gate Bridge that we took on our road trip two years ago. I would love the promise of a great vacation right now.

Oh, thank god for the weekend. Today was kind of a weird day. The guy who was going to put my counters in, got back to me while I was at work. He apologized for how long it took him and said he was insanely busy and didn't know if he'd get to doing them next week, or next month. He also told me he was worried that I'd be disappointed in him. I told him not to worry. That I had a couple of other options, but I would see if I could get someone else who could do it sooner. Then one of the women I worked with said that her husband might be able to just come over and do it for free. She was going to check with him and get back to me.

After work I went to give plasma and got another hematoma. This time, the blood stopped coming out, so they caught it right away and it was a million times better...That was, until they were starting to put fluids back in me and I was so dehydrated that I almost passed out. They brought the nurse out and she checked my vitals and my pulse was under 40. Hmmm. I drank water at the same time they pumped me full of saline solution and I was much better in 10 minutes, but that was more than enough drama for one evening.

Okay. And now it's the weekend. As usual, there is a ton going on. Originally, I planned to go to this burlesque show tomorrow night. A lot of my friends from all different groups are all going to be there, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to see many different people at once. Then the woman who said her husband would put in my counters, said he might come over tomorrow night. I'm not sure if that would be just for a minute, to check things out, or if she meant that he'd actually put them in then. If that's the case, I'm sure I'll just stay home tomorrow night. I guess we'll see.

Saturday will be a day that I try to get as much done as possible. I have tons of paperwork and bills to pay and a new tax form to fill out to try to get my first time home buyer credit, on top of a bunch of projects.

Sunday is Coadster's very last show choir performance. She is also singing a song for the special acts portion of it. My sister and her family and my aunt, as well as a few of my friends are all going, so it should be a lot of fun.

...And now it's your turn. Will you be recovering from an old-fashioned fainting spell this weekend, or watching some old-fashioned, fun and raunchy burlesque acts?

Friday Nights Have Been Lonely. Change Your Plans and Then Phone Me.

Every time I find a fan, I feel the need to try and do the Stevie Nicks Dance in the Stand Back video. You'd think one of these days I'd get tired of that lame-ass bit, but I never do...

So, after such a busy week, I'm facing an even busier weekend. Welcome to Spring. Now, if only it would feel like Spring outside, I'd be all set.

I'm actually going out for a bit on a Friday night tomorrow. I always say, if I don't have anything going on with my kids and someone asks me, I can be talked into it. A friend sent out an email to the girls in my main social circle. She thought it was high time we all met together and the plan is to go to a bar called Martinis at 5:30. Of course, it's almost impossible for me to go out that early, but I told them I'd catch up to them as soon as I get my kids fed and sent off to their own little events. I will definitely be home early, though.

Saturday is Coadster's last show choir competition in the Quad Cities. Stinky and I are going to watch them perform in the afternoon and zip right back home. Don't worry, I promise to get several pictures of poofy haired girls in ridiculous sequined dresses. That's how much I like you all...

Saturday night I'll probably head down to the Dublin for a bit. Really? How strange. I have no idea how long I'll last, since I won't have had much rest beforehand, but I'll give it the old college try.

As usual, I will be trying to work in house projects and running into all of this. It should be interesting to see if anything actually gets done.

What about all of you kids? Will you be stepping out when you normally don't or will you be watching girls with poofy hair and sequins stepping out on stage making with the jazz hands?

Then Again the Same Old Story

Here is a picture of a crazy person doing exercises downtown.

I'm trying to stay positive, but it's getting tougher and tougher. I put up well over 30 fliers around town the last few days and all it got me was one phone call. ONE. The girl came and looked at it today. She had a story...Because everyone has a story, don't they? She was trying to break her lease, since she didn't get along with her roommate, but she wasn't sure how that was going to go down. She was going to try to resolve it by the end of the week and let me know one way or the other then. We'll see. So, now I'm going to be forced to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a classified ad in our college paper. Whatever. If it worked, it would be so much cheaper than paying the $5,000 of rent I'm responsible for from now until the end of July. Man, I hope it works.

Sooooo, yeah. Obviously I'm a little stressed about all of this and I still have to work all day and come home and be a mom and go to all the girls' stuff and not get to run because I'm busy hanging fliers and waiting around for people to look at my apartment. It all makes for one, big cranky mom cocktail. I did warn the girls last night that I have a bad combination of factors going on and not to take my attitude personally until I can find a renter. Then right after that, I was dropping Coadster off at the high school and this kid was driving the wrong way and almost hit my car. It's possible that I may have called him a dumb ass outloud, in front of Stinky, but who can remember now. Stinky started laughing and before I could say anything in my own defense, she covered for me by saying, "I know - that bad combination". Exactly.

And we all know that life is never all bad or all good. It's a confusing mixture of everything... Sometimes all at once. So, tonight when I went to Coadster's show choir concert, I sat next to the cutest couple. They had been married forever and were still sweet and funny and flirty with each other. They introduced themselves to me and it turned out that their daughter was in Stinky's grade and we had a great talk before the show, and it was such a nice way to take my mind off of my stupid, dumb subletter trials.

But Friday, Never Hesitate

Coadster during her show choir performance.

I cannot wait for tomorrow night. I'm really embracing my Friday night couch potato movie night. It's been a busy, busy week. Tuesday was the only night I didn't have to go anywhere, except to run at the rec building.

Coadster after the show. Still smiling.

Tonight was the second show choir performance of the week. I have to get up at 6:30 on Saturday morning to take Coadster to the bus for their first competition in Wisconsin. They stay the night there, so I won't see her again until Sunday afternoon. Wah.

I think this has been the best year for them. They finally seem to have it all together and with as kitschy as it is, I thought it was pretty damn entertaining. They had a photo shoot after the performance and it seemed to last forever. I got bored waiting, so I just kept taking photos. As I said in the last post, Coadster is extremely expressive and I tried to capture as many of those expressions as I could.

She's starting to get a little fidgety here.

I already said that I'm vegging out and watching movies with Coadster tomorrow night. (Stinky almost always has plans, so I'm assuming she'll be at a friend's house) I wanted to stay home on Saturday night as well, but a friend that I didn't get to hang with on NYE, has the night off with her husband to go to a belated Christmas party. She wanted to get a drink after that, since they already had a babysitter. We've both invited other people, so if everyone shows, it could be crazy good times.


Her patience is wearing thin.

I might also go see a movie at FMDM's place before that. He he has a documentary that's a counterpart to King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters. He said it's more about everything surrounding the first video game olympics and the Life magazine photo shoot with all the gamers in the early 80's. I guess there's a lot of film of Twin Galaxies and interviews with the gamers in the competition and the cheerleaders in the photoshoot. Since I graduated with all of those girls, I think it could be pretty interesting. I also want to see if they show the Centipede machine I always used when I was in high school.

Completely and totally over the photo shoot. Can I go now? How about now? Can I go now?

So, that's the plan right now and the plan usually changes some between here and Sunday. How about you? What's your weekend plan? Will you be watching documentaries about your hometown or going out with your crazy hot friends or both?

It's Not Enough, It's Just a Habit

Stinky went to the show choir concert and all she brought me was this blurry photo.

So, here's what went down. On Friday I was feeling just a little wonky. I did my thing, I took care of the girls' needs, I went out and had fun, but I was just a little off. On Saturday I woke up with a bit of a headache, and was exhausted, but I bucked up and took Stinky to basketball. Then later took Coadster to show choir rehearsal and tried to pick Stinky up from basketball, but she wasn't where she was supposed to be and I forgot my phone. I drove home and called her. She said her dad was coming to get her. Then I ran to find a bowl to throw-up into.

Yup, I got sick, sick, sick. I also had a fever and the chills and I would have been ever so grateful had you stopped over to shoot me in the head, thank you very much. I kept thinking that at some point before Coadster's performance, I might get better. At around one o'clock, Coadster called me to see if I'd bring her some lunch. I started driving and then had to pull over, open the door and barf. I did that almost every block on the way to the high school and back. It was puketastic!

Once I got home, I told Stinky there was no way I was ever going to be able to sit through a two and a half hour performance. So, she called her dad to see if he could drive her and then called a friend to sit with her. I definitely did appreciate my ex-husband on Saturday. You heard it here, folks, and you may never hear that again.

I felt so awful I had to miss Coadster's show. Then Stinky came home and said the choir director had the same thing and had to leave before the first show was half over. He was the accompaniest, so it was harder to do without him. I started feeling better around 10 o'clock at night and I took it easy on Sunday, but that flu definitely kicked my ass while it was raging.

Now, we all know what I had. Let's take a little look at how I could have contracted it. It may have just a little bit to do with this very, very, uh, funny thing some of my friends and I do when we're getting our photos taken.

We stick our tongues out like we're licking the person standing next to us. It's best if you can pull it off, so the person you're with doesn't know you're doing it. The other guy will be all smiling and sweet, while you're next to them acting like an idiot. My friend Brooke and I were getting our photo taken two weeks ago, and I stuck my tongue out toward the bottle I was holding. After Brooke saw it later she said, "Hey, you were being dirty," and she swatted at me.

Sure, it's a barrel of fun, but it never occurred to me how unsanitary it could be. Thank god I'm not a germaphobe. Will I stop from now on? Probably not. It's too much fun to see the other person's reaction after they find out. Besides, I've already had one bad cold and the stomach flu. I'm thinking I just fulfilled my sick girl quota for the season. Wish me luck on that one.

And I'm Oh So Tired of Running, Gonna Lay Down on the Floor

Here are some people wearing hats and hugging each other on my favorite tree.

Well, kids. This was quite a week. I finally feel like I'm recuperating from the holiday. I would love to say that I was going to lie low all this weekend, but that's not going to happen.

Tomorrow night, I told my friend Libby I'd show up at her thing at Vito's of all places. Some guy just bought it and is trying to attract an older crowd (I'm assuming that's why I was invited). They are having some kind of party there to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition. I'll drink to that.

On Saturday afternoon, Stinky and I are going to Coadster's show choir Winter show gig. It's usually a little long, but still fun. We'll see if we can't get some goofy photos of all the hair and the make-up and the sparkly costumes.

I really, really want to stay home on Saturday night and watch movies. It's supposed to maybe snow, so it would be a good excuse to hibernate, drink a beer or two and let myself be entertained. I'll let you know how that goes.

Let me know what all you all are doing this weekend in the comments.

I Ain't The Worst That You've Seen

So, in addition to bathrooms and fire escapes and old barns, I also like to photograph train tracks.

Friday night was fun and all, but I was still sick, even though I tried to pretend I wasn't. I had the worst sore throat ever when I woke up on Saturday morning and I was weak, weak, weak. I dropped the girls off at their job and I went straight back to bed and slept until after one in the afternoon. Jaysus, but that was a lot of sleeping. The rest of the day for me involved more sleeping and lying around. Luckily, the weather cooperated and was sufficiently cold and shitty, that I didn't even have to feel bad about not leaving my house or changing out of my jammies the whole day.


Here are the tracks for that passenger train that goes to Kinnick Stadium.

Around 3:30'ish the girls came home from work and they were freezing after standing outside for however many hours hawking Hawkeye stuff. Coadster went straight to her room to take a nap, but Stinky wasn't quite that tired yet. The friend of mine who burned those movies for me, also gave me a gallon jug of really good apple cider, so I made Stinky and myself some toast and heated some cider and put cinnamon sticks in it and we did some lying on my bed with lots of comforters and watched the first Adams Family movie together. Then she fell asleep.

Here are the stairs closer up that lead to the parking lot at Kinnick. I guess I should also mention our win to Penn State this weekend. The kids in town seemed to be really excited about it.

On Saturday night I was still sick, so I made some soup and had more hot cider and watched The Hulk movie with Edward Norton and Liv Tyler. I never saw the other Hulk movie, so I don't know what that was like, but this one seemed a lot like the series from the 70's. I loved that show and Bill Bixby. There was even a scene where Ed Norton was watching The Courtship of Eddie's Father on TV and Lou Ferrigno played a security guard at one point too. Very cool.

Here are the steps on which to board said train.

Today was a little better, but I still wasn't 100 %. At around 2 I went to see Coadster's show choir thingy. It's called works in progress, and it's really more like a dress rehearsal for the two high schools in town. Coadster is really good at the dancing and smiling and singing all at the same time. Can you imagine me trying to dance on bleachers and smile, instead of making that horrible dance face I always seem to have? I guess it would at least be funny.

Speaking of funny, the other high school performed Van Halen's "Jump" as their closer, and it cracked me up on so many levels. I tried to imagine going back in time and taking the band aside and saying, "Hey, guys? You may be flying high now (some of you in assless pants) but you might want to see what you can do to make this song more show choir friendly, because this is your last album together and 25 years from now, high school kids will be dancing around in poofy hair and sequined outfits and actually flashing jazz hands to your rock. That's right. Oh, David Lee Roth? You'll have a lounge act in Vegas eventually, and Eddie, your hot young wife will be in a series of Jenny Craig commercials. Okay, have a nice day, dudes..." It would probably be almost as bad as if I told them they had to pick the brown M & M's out of the candy dish by themselves.

Well, I better try and hit the hay. I've been used to getting hundreds of hours of sleep in a day and I'm sure going to work tomorrow will kick my ass all over the place. Night, night.

All Our Friends Will be Drinking All the Beer

Kids, this weekend ended up being an odd mix of fun, migraine pain, and then, when I'd get the headache under control, I'd have these weird bursts of cleaning and organizing energy (and you know that's very unusual, so I had to go with it).

Anyway, I'll start with Friday for this post and be about 2 days behind all week, because I wasn't on the internets most of the weekend.

Okay, let's begin. I got off at noon and did a bunch of stuff, but not all the crap I wanted to get done. The girls got home from the Quad Cities earlier than I thought, and it seems the minute they get home, the running them all over hell begins.

I got to the cookout at A.'s house about eight. I brought guacamole and refried beans and some corn tortillas I had fried. They grilled fish and we made fish tacos. I've been hearing about them forever, but never actually had them. They were amazing. The whole cookout was great for many reasons. I was sad to leave, but I had J.'s birthday to attend, and so I took my leave.

I didn't take any photos at the cookout, but I think I have to have a beer or two in order not worry about how obnoxious my documenting is. Luckily, by the time I made it downtown, I was at that place. The fun started even before I went down to the Dublin. J. and some other friends were sitting on the bench in front of Pizza on Dubuque smoking.

J. was also being serenaded, or more accurately chanted to by these three, very funny Yea-hoos. Someone must have told them her full name because they just kept chanting her first and last name over and over again. All through the night, they would disappear and reappear and you would always know they were there, because of the birthday girl's name chant. It was charming until it became annoying to some of my friends. I thought it was hilarious the whole time, but you know how I feel about things being run into the ground. After another hundred times, it starts getting funny again.

While I was standing outside, some guy I'd never seen in my life, stopped me and asked me if I walked to work down a particular street everyday. I said, I did. Then he said he drove past me every morning on his way to work and he kind of considered me his imaginary going to work friend. It wasn't creepy at all. He was just being friendly and dorky and I can appreciate that more than anyone. He told me what kind of car he drove. I told him I couldn't promise him anything, but if I was alert enough that early and before I had any caffeine to notice, I would try to wave to him when I saw him.

My favorite thing about Homecoming Friday, is that the alumni marching band comes back into town for the parade and then they go from bar to bar drinking and playing either "In Heaven There is No Beer" or our school fight song. It's good dorky fun and everyone dances around and sings like jackasses. It's the one night of the year when I'm not the only jackass at the bar, and that's why I love it so much.
When I spied the marching band guys, I ran up and asked if I could take a picture of them. They said, sure, as long as they could take some photos with me. "Um, okay." I have no idea why, but it was only fair.

Here's me pretending to play the trumpet. See? I wasn't kidding about acting like a jack ass.

When I told the birthday girl about the photo op, she wanted in too. So, we went back up. This time, the woman sitting on the other side of the trupmet player got a little territorial. I'm sure if she could have gotten away with it, she would have peed in a circle around him, but instead, she insisted on being in the photo. What the hell. We didn't care, as long as J. got to hold the trumpet. We certainly weren't trying to stir up any shit, we just thought it was funny.

Here is the group of girlies in the middle of the fun and spectacle.

Later in the evening, I got a text from DJSass. She was at the Deadwood and needed a reprieve from silly boys and wondered if I was at the Dublin. Why, yes I was. She stopped by and we were able to pay homage to her lovely PBR tallboy. Her fiance joined us and a little later, the Wedding Date guy showed up too.

It was great fun, but then I started seeing scenes like this.

And this. Then I knew it was time to go home. Saturday was going to start early and involve me running around like that chicken with my head cut-off most of the day. So, I took my leave and went home and fell straight to sleep. Night, night.

Nothin' Is Really Wrong

Only in Iowa City do people use barns as places to store their paintings.

Hey, I figured I'd try to be a little more wholesome in this post after yesterday. I guess I am someone's mom after all. I should try to straighten up and fly right every once in a while, right?

Tonight I went to the very last activity of the school year for the girls. Stinky had her band concert and it was very long. I know you'll all be shocked that the percussion kids kept squirreling around and dropping their cymbals, as if the audience might forget what drummers were like in general and needed a refresher. With my ADD, I thought it was hilarious, but as I'm figuring out the older I get, not everyone shares my sense of humor. Whatever. Anyway, I went, I supported Stinky and now I've got a few months before we start all over again.

This long weekend, I got to spend some time with the girls. Since Coadster had her grueling show choir workshop, I didn't see her as much. I did go to the very rough performance for the parents to show us what they learned. Their choreographer, as you would expect, is very much a diva. Coadster loves him, but I think he'd start grating on my nerves in about a half hour of exposure.

Last night, Stinky got sad. I think it's hormones, because I remember Coadster going through that at 13 and 14, but it could be an extra special holiday version of the Sunday sads on Monday. She started crying and couldn't put a finger on why. She was supposed to be at her dad's, but there are times in a girl's life where she just needs her mom. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's being reassuring and helping someone when they're sad. We did a lot of lying around and watching movies and eating cupcakes, while I rubbed her back. That combination of comfort and escapism seems to work every time. She was a million times better after about an hour, but that didn't stop us from spending the rest of the night doing the same damn thing.

A Smell of Wine and Cheap Perfume

So, this will be short because I drank early and now I'm very, very sleepy. Here are some show choir pictures I promised you. Of course, Coadster is the girl with the darkest hair.

I met some friends at George's tonight after I dropped Coadster off at the basketball game. The minute I got there, my friend I. informed me that we were heading over to the Dublin Underground. I texted Erik to tell him where I was and that I was drinking with my favorite bartender S. Erik texted me back to tell me that he was watching me. There is a picture of his face in a deep sea diving helmet that hangs from the wall at The Dublin and we always joke that he can see me.

Most of the owner's family came down to the bar. I've known them all since I was about 18 and I am always happy to see them. My friend T. let me take a video of her singing to a Journey song and it was just about the most adorable thing I've ever witnessed. At about 9:30 we were all ready to go and I made it home around 10. And now? Now it's time to go to bed. The end.