There's No Time for Her to be Afraid

Here is some more low art for you. I found all this stuff on Saturday when I was driving home from the mall. I went back the next day and shot a bunch of pics. I just remember three years ago when I photographed the girls in front of a really cool graffiti face that was cleaned up in less than a week. I wasn't about to take any chances.

Today was a particularly long day. Yesterday I had my annual and then today I had to go get my mammogram. If you'll recall, last year I had a bad one of those. So, they made me come back every six months to monitor the badness. What was at first a possible tumor, became a calcification. The rename didn't do a lot to assuage my fears. I didn't sleep all that well last night. Luckily, my appointment was first thing this morning, so I could get it over with. After they took a million different views, and a doctor studied them, he called me into a room and said that the calcification had suddenly started to dissolve. Hmmm. I mean, it's great news, but it seems kind of odd. Anyway, what it means for me, is that I can sleep a lot easier tonight - which is good, because I'm exhausted. Oh yeah, don't forget it's breast cancer awareness month. Timely, isn't it?

I much prefer graffiti pictures to words, unless it says something really prophetic.

Oh, did I mention that I'm all randomy again tonight? Or did I not need to, because I already said how tired I was? Anyway, while I was walking to my doctor's appointment in the rain yesterday, some stupid asshole sped up and drove really fast into a puddle in the curb and splashed filthy street water all over me and laughed as he drove away. It reminded me of reading The Grapes of Wrath in high school and my lit teacher talking about the turtle scene at the beginning of the novel. I can still hear her saying, "There are some people who will swerve to miss you, and others will swerve in order to hit you." Ain't it the truth.

Look. How festive - spray paint balloons on a retaining wall.

Right after my appointment, I had to go to a meeting to learn the new computer system they're loading next Monday. Because I was late, the only seat was by one of my bosses and my favorite IT guy. Man, I thought I had ADD, but these guys were even worse than me. The IT guy can not still still for two seconds and he sings songs to every sentence anyone says just like I do too. When the speaker was talking about rolling all the changes in on Monday, he started singing, "Monday, Monday" and when he kept making the same mistake, he went right into, "Oops, I Did it Again". It was just another example of how adorable it is when I do all those dumb things, and how annoying it is when everyone else does them.

I particularly like the old-fashioned boom box. Oh, 1984, I miss you so. Where the hell did I put my breaking board?

Tonight was supper club night. We went to a Chinese restaurant in Coralville. At first, I thought about laming out, because I was so tired and hung-over from all that unnecessary stress, but then I made myself go anyway. I'm so glad I did. Our little group is so awesome. Everyone is so funny and nice and full of witty repartee. It was exactly what I needed.

Here are some E's painted under the Hope signs. That reminds me, I need to go vote early for Obama at the library this week.

After eight days in a row and about 50 miles, I finally took yesterday off from running. I cleaned my kitchen and did a few loads of laundry instead, which was not half as much fun and didn't include any kind of endorphin rush whatsoever. Seriously, why even do it then, right?

This is the messy blue paint leftover from the graffiti. It seems a little excessive, doesn't it?

I got a Facebook profile recently. Earlier in the Summer when I was trying to find my old California friends, some people suggested looking them up on Facebook.They all had really common names and I didn't know where they lived anymore, so it was almost impossible. I use my real name on Facebook, which isn't all that common and I figure, if any of my friends are looking for me, I won't be that hard to find. Facebook seems a lot less creepy than Myspace. I've only had one friend request from a guy I didn't know and didn't have any friends in common. I told my daughters that I would understand if they didn't want to be my friend on it. Coadster added me right away, but Stinky didn't want to. I put up a bunch of really cute baby pictures of the girls and then tagged Coadster in all of them. After Stinky saw that, she said, "See? That's exactly why I didn't want to be your friend." What? What?!

Finally, here is a whole box full of graffiti. Somebody must really like elephants.

I think I'm going to make Thanksgiving dinner a month early this Sunday. The girls and I have all been craving it. I'll just have to get creative with the leftovers and make some turkey soup or maybe some turkey enchiladas and then some turkey cheese cake served up with some turkey ice cream. Mmmm.

You've Got to Roll With the Punches to Get to What's Real

These are my favorite flowers in the world. Erik very intelligently asked my friend K. what kind of flowers I liked and then bought what she told him. He's a good man.

Sooo, here's a little story and a little mush all rolled up into one blog post. Enjoy...Or not. Whatever.

Okay. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned this, but I had a bad mammogram last Summer. The kind that they make you come back and get another one and then a doctor comes out and tells you that you have to come back again even in a while to see if the bad thing gets any bigger and then instructs you not to worry for six months. Oh yeah. Because I'm not a total fucking spaz or anything...

Anyway, the six months was up this month and I dutifully made my appointment. It was for Tuesday of this week. I didn't mention it to Erik, because he was going to be gone anyway, and I didn't think I would bug him with it, unless there was actually something any of us needed to worry about. But then, through some glorious work SNAFU, Erik ended up staying an extra day, and so I told him what was what with that one thing.

I've been single for a long time and even when I was kind of sorta hanging out with a guy for a while this Summer, I was basically single and I'm used to taking care of my own shit. So, I figured I'd just walk from work, do my little test thing and then walk home like I did last Summer. But let me just tell you how fucking cool Erik was about the whole thing:

Not only did he insist on picking me up from work and driving me to my appointment, he also told me to call him when it was over and he'd come back and get me. Then, when he picked me up, he had a donut waiting for me, and you know how much I loves me some donuts. Okay, and now here's the best part, the very minute he was at The Dublin waiting for me to call him and watching TV and saw that Heath Ledger was dead. That very minute. He texted me to give me the news. He knew I'd want to know that, and who the hell wouldn't?

So, as it turns out, the scary stuff seems to be nothing - in hospital world they like to call it benign. Erik picked me up as soon as I called him and later that night I met him at The Dublin Underground along with S. my favorite bartender and his smokin' hot wife, K. and I had a much needed couple of beers. So, the story had a happy ending. The end.