24 hours left....

man, what a week.

first, let me apologize for not checking in very often this week. it was a busy one, to say the least- i think i made it home before 11 p.m. a grand total of once.....and by the time i stumbled through the front door, getting to the bed before passing out was a higher priority than hopping on the internet.

maybe i'll make up for it this weekend- after all, i can think of a lot of stuff i want to write about.

anyway, back to my week:

monday: first day of my current, slightly hectic schedule. headed to work half an hour early (after waking up half an hour earlier than usual- ugh. i am not a morning person), then left an hour early so i could drive to the station to pick up tk's 15 month old. after he arrived home a couple of hours later, drove over to my evening gig and worked until 11:30. (this repeats on tuesday and thursday.)

tuesday: mama's birthday. if i don't do the math, i still think she's 45. (then again, if i don't do the math, i think i'm only 23. it's hard to believe my little sister's older than that.)

speaking of birthdays, i found out that i'm getting the tickets to the duran duran concert i asked for.....and apparently i'll be meeting the band, as well. naturally, i'm petrified. i placed a midnight call to my sibling to appeal for bodhi's speedy return to SC for a possible photo op with *swoons* john taylor.

you know that scene in wayne's world where wayne and garth meet alice cooper? i can only hope to be that composed. no matter how many intelligent, witty things i think of to say to these guys, i know it will all fly right out of my head as soon as they're standing (or sitting- whichever) in front of me. eek.

(yes, i'll have the digital camera with me so i can document the whole thing- perhaps we can make a video of yours truly standing there, mouth agape....so nervous i'm actually vibrating.)

wednesday: since my driver's license expires on my birthday (this sunday- i'm guessing the dmv is not going to be open), i explored the nifty online renewal system available to south carolina drivers. a couple of mouse clicks (and the low low price of $12.50) later, i've got a brand new license, complete with my correct address.

took the night off from my post-after work babysitting gig so i could finally take care of the avon order that was spread out all over my living room. somehow, i still didn't make it to bed until after midnight.

thursday: woke up to the horrifying news that one of my coworkers at the radio station had been shot in the station parking lot that morning. needless to say, i was more than a little nervous about coming to work this morning. the police presence in the parking lot calmed me down immensely as i pulled into the lot. as far as i know, the fools who did this are still on the loose.

friday: since we'll be on our way to maine less than a week from today, i figured it was a good time to drag my car over to my fantastic mechanic in elgin, sc. at the advanced age of not-quite-four years old, my chariot has racked up nearly 64,000 miles. (don't cringe- that's nothing- i'm still breaking it in.) anyway, with the big trip coming up, i figured there was no time like the present to take care of a much-needed oil change and get the timing belt replaced a little early. (better to take care of it now than have something go SPROING! while we're on the road.)

note to self: next time, apply bug repellant before visiting the mechanic. i think maybe four square inches of my skin remains unscathed. *scratching furiously*

my assistant and the little people in my classroom sent me out to write the weekly letter after naptime was over. when i returned, i was treated to grapes, blueberries, strawberries, and cheesy poofs while being serenaded by the little people singing "happy birthday". my assistant (with help from the little ones, of course) made a "card" with each kid's photo on a background created by the little ones themselves. very cool.

as for my weekend plans- i'm working. (i know- big surprise.) someone told me yesterday i need to take a day off. i will- 8 1/2 of them, in fact- starting next weekend. until then, however, my nose is firmly attached to the grindstone.(except for my brief encounter with one of my favorite freaking bands....maybe i should pack a depends, just in case.)

mindless amusement

first, let me start off this post by wishing mama a happy birthday. so, uhm, happy birthday, mama. this link is for you. (i mean, i got you actual gifts, too, but if i scan in pictures of them it'd spoil the surprise, don't you think?)

okay- onto other matters.

in an attempt to get in touch with myself, i have learned that apparently i've crossed party lines. eek. (in the code for the button below, it says, "There is nothing more ignorant than the religious right.")


How Dumb Are You?
A Rum and Monkey stupidity.

not only am i ignorant, but it seems i'm an impure kisser as well:

Your Kissing Purity Score: 17% Pure

For you, it's all kiss and no talk. You're in a permanent lip lock.

Kissing Purity Test

i'm afraid that one wasn't a huge surprise....and neither was this:

I am Girl Next Door Click on the picture below to read more: >

Take the 'What Kind of Girl Are You?' quiz at CookingToHookup.com

thank goodness SO is a "girl next door" kind of guy.

which reminds me- does anyone else remember the guys next door? no? just me? damn. guess that's not going to be a topic for conversation anytime soon. *sigh*

finally, while we seem to be stating the obvious here (uh-oh...the royal "we" has come out to play):





*looks at the current world's population* You must have a lot of frustration then.

What pisses you off?

Created by ptocheia

okay- that's enough fun and frivolity for one day.

gee...you shouldn't have.....no, really

one of my sunday rituals is to work my way through the sunday edition of the state newspaper during my wnok shift. sometimes, i manage to finish before i switch stations at 3....and sometimes i'm still clipping coupons and pondering the disappearance of opus during my last shift of the day, which ends around midnight. anyway, before i can settle down with today's paper, i need to share a couple of newsworthy items from yesterday's edition.

first, a selection from elsewhere in the south:

Parents hire stripper for son's 16th

man, i didn't even get a party for my 16th birthday, let alone a male stripper. now, i feel even more deprived than before. the thing that gets me is the last line:

"We even had grandpa there," she said.

maybe they'd have been better off claiming the stripper was for grandpa and that the kids just "happened" to wander in.

as is, i'm sure that sixteen year old's "awesome" parents were the talk of the school on monday morning.

"hey, man- did you hear what jimmy's parents got him for his birthday? i'm totally going to his party next year!"


and now, something a little more local:

(this is from the "police blotter" section of yesterday's paper. a link is not yet available on the state's website, but i'll try to remember to check again in a day or two and link to it, if possible. in the meantime....)

LEXINGTON

Sunset Boulevard, 5600 block: A woman called police at 2:50 p.m. Wednesday after a potential customer in a tanning salon exposed himself to her. The woman told officers that the man had come into the salon asking to see the standing tanning booth. She showed it to him and gave him the price list to look at. He went to the end of the counter in full view of the employee and exposed himself, making comments about getting burned there during the tanning session.

discuss.

twenty things.......

it's been far too long since i was last on bricotrout's blog. so, after checking in with the blogs on my sidebar (after all, i've been out of action for nearly a week- a lot can happen in that amount of time!), i cruised on over to satori designs for a long-overdue visit......

........and there it was- inspiration!

ten things i'm a sucker for

1. blue-eyed boys with a good sense of humor
2. dvd sets of tv shows from my youth (defined as anytime from my birth to the present)
3. tacos
4. "buy one, get one free" *of equal or lesser value
5. "add a side salad or a taco to your entree for $1"
6. rubber duckies
7. "i'll pay you......"
8. absolut vodka ads
9. travel- especially if there's a potential for outdoor adventure
10. 80s pop culture references (refer to this and you'll see what i mean)

ten things i would do well to change about myself

1. my temper. i will resist the urge to throw things when frustrated. scratch that. i will take up some sort of hobby where throwing things could be constructive.
2. learn to say "no" more often- even if a money earning opportunity is at hand- because sometimes sleep and personal time are more important than fattening up my bank account
3. eat fewer tacos
4. since #3 is highly unlikely, i could stand to get a little more exercise
5. spend less, save more (i do pretty well, but could stand to improve)
6. procrastinate less
7. unclutter more (or is it "declutter"? either way, i need to go through my worldly possessions and figure out what to keep and what to donate/recycle/toss)
8. decrease the number of times i hit "snooze" in the morning
9. get caught up on my journal- it's been months, and i've forgotten the details of most of the personal reflections/events i was going to scribble about.
10. resist the urge to hop out of my car and give slow drivers a push. in fact, instead of getting frustrated with them, and suggesting they wind the rubber band/feed the hamster, i will keep my mouth busy by singing along with the first song i hear on the radio (unless i don't like it, in which case i will pop in kick and sing along to it, instead.)

how about you?

setting the footwear free

after a busy week, i'm taking the easy way out. screw the pedicure- i'll just paint over the top of my old nail polish with something glittery.....which will certainly disguise the fact that i'm trying to camouflage about five different shades of nail polish, all in various stages of chipping.

my newly painted toes would go nicely with the abandoned sandals i keep seeing on my way to work in the morning. no- i don't pass any stores on the way to school.......this particular pair of shoes has been lounging in the middle of the road, like fearless, aggressive hitchhikers, for at least the past month. i assume if no one has claimed them by now, they're not going to.

many mornings, as i've waited at the busy intersection to turn onto the school's street, i have sat and pondered at length the origins of these giant sandals. (there's no left-turn signal, so i usually wind up sitting until the light turns yellow and then scooting across before the other drivers' light switches over to green. i hate doing it that way, but if i wait for an opening during a green light, i'd be about fifteen minutes later to work than i already am.) are they there by accident? did they fly out the window, seeking adventure? or were they flung out of the window after their owner found something new and improved at the shoe store down the road? did they fall off the foot of a passenger classy enough to prop their feet up on the car windowsill during a road trip? were they hurled at a passenger after commenting that the driver's butt looked big in that dress?

anyway, i've had ample time to wonder about these shoes. they appear to be fairly large black shoes- the sort of sandals that feature a wide band across the top of the foot to hold the sole (and footbed and midsole, for you technically-minded shoe geeks) onto the foot. i must say, after sitting in the middle of the road for the past month, the shoes are still in pretty good shape. (i mean, it's not like they can be dusted off and resold or anything like that, but they look like they have some life left in them.)

how often do you see a pair of shoes on the road? usually, it's just one shoe abandoned at the side of the road....but two? (perhaps i'll tackle the mystery of the single abandoned shoe in another post...unless someone else beats me to it.) you almost never see two matching shoes at the side of the road. (or at least i never do- though maybe i'm just not looking closely enough.)

did anyone else see the movie identity? didn't amanda peet throw a pair of shoes out of her convertible at the beginning of the film? i've been wondering about this lately- though not enough to go out and buy the dvd.

perhaps she's the culprit. yes- that's it. amanda peet has taken time off from her acting career to drive around the country, throwing pairs of used women's shoes out of her car at 60 mph while laughing. giddily.

isn't that a mental picture?

oh say can you see.......

first and foremost, happy fourth of july! (13 days left until my birthday......and perhaps the launch of something new.)



(i found these nifty fireworks here.)

while we're on the subject of "borrowed" things, i stole this from kal.


somehow, i was not surprised by this result at all.

by the way, if you scroll down and notice that you're my 10,000th visitor, could you please do me a favor and leave me a comment? i'll give you...something. (how about bragging rights and a link in my next post?)

wild kingdom

guess who was on the other end of the line during my first phone call this morning?

radiofan-apology

i guess he was bothered that i hung up on him yesterday. hope he didn't spend all night agonizing over it- i sure didn't.

actually, my night was spent dreaming of snakes- lots of them. i can trace this back to yesterday's visit to the zoo after work. riverbanks zoo is less than a mile from the radio station, and since i'm a member of the zoo, i can visit anytime i want. (yesterday made twice in two days, which i can't say i've managed before.)

in january 2002, our zoo acquired a pair of male koalas from a japanese zoo. unfortunately, kei was put down (he was quite ill with some sort of intestinal malady) a couple of years ago. (if you follow the link, the one on the left, mirai, still resides at the zoo.) however, before kei's passing, plans to bring female koalas to the zoo had already been made. two females, lottie and killarney, arrived at the zoo in september 2003, so mirai didn't go long without playmates.



and play he did- lottie became pregnant, and gave birth late last year to a baby named karoo. karoo was riding on lottie's back when we last went to the zoo in april- i was lucky enough to get a few pictures (which of course, i cannot locate right now- but i swear they exist) during our visit. unfortunately, karoo was found at the bottom of the koala enclosure in late may.

on a positive note, however, our other female, killarney, is thought to be pregnant.



why bore you with all this? well, when i go to the zoo, the koala exhibit is always the first place i head to, and yesterday was no exception.

aside from the koalas (pictured above), this was one of the sights i beheld:


(i know, i know- it's a little hard to make out, but i was trying to discreetly capture the two-tone mullet, which was a vibrant fuschia on top, and black on bottom. even my haircolors haven't been that adventurous. you're lucky i didn't get a shot from the front....this woman had those pawprint tattoos like eve, but believe me- she was no eve.)

outside of the "koala knockabout" exhibit, there is a palmetto tree. several years ago, local artists painted these large metal palmettos (south carolina's main symbol) and then they were auctioned off for charity. apparently, as a symbol of our sister-state relationship with queensland (which is how our acquisition of koalas was arranged), we sent a palmetto decorated with symbols of south carolina over to queensland, and also shipped over a blank palmetto, which was decorated by an aboriginal artists and returned to us......it now stands outside the exhibit. (the exhibit has been open for three years, and i never knew this interesting little tidbit.)

anyway, here are some other shots from my trip to the zoo........



i thought he was stuck....and that the grunting was how he expressed his pain. then i realized that wasn't a rock under him.



who is on exhibit here? after about fifteen minutes of observation, i really had to wonder.

when a couple of the gorillas were lying down on the ground with their butts pressed up on the glass, the little girl in blue kept smacking the glass- mama encouraged her to "spank" the gorillas. i'm afraid i was more than a little appalled at how many folks were ignorant enough to beat on the glass of various exhibits.....



.......like this guy. he was also at the gorilla exhibit during my visit. he did the glass smackers one better- kicking the glass behind one of the gorillas (he was tired of staring at people, i guess, and had turned around) with his cowboy boot. had he not been twice my size, i would have said something. instead, i followed him to the bird house, where he tried to get the attention of both the hornbills and the penguins by emitting an odd high-pitched whistle. (needless to say, the birds were not impressed.)

i should go to the zoo more often- if only to people watch. not tomorrow, though. my shift is early enough that i might be able to kayak after all.....assuming the weather behaves itself.

i'm ba-ack!

see? i didn't fall of the face of the earth....i've just been standing on the edge.

before we get to my excuses for not posting, let me remind you that live 8 is taking place today. here are a couple of things for you to peruse while you wait for coverage to start on mtv and vh1 (noon-8 p.m. est).

thing one.
thing two.

so- where have i been all week? working- a lot....and sleeping...not so much.

monday: went to work at the preschool, spent 4 hours after school housecleaning (not my own, mind you- i don't get paid for that.) crawled into bed around midnight. (this was after finally falling into bed around 2:30 a.m. monday morning.)

tuesday: went to work at preschool, spent lunch break redesigning a bumper,

floated rubber duckies in a giant puddle of rainwater at school

(let's hear it for clogged drains!), spent five hours cleaning/filing after school, sorted and bagged avon orders, and collapsed on the bed around 1:30 a.m.

wednesday: preschool, dinner at keith and rhonda's, posted my previous entry (which i actually wrote last weekend), called mama (who had left three messages in four days- each sounding increasingly worried about my well-being) finished bagging avon orders, and made it to bed early- about 11:30.

thursday: played in a downpour at preschool, six hours of babysitting/filing after work....too tired to do anything else. got home at 12:30. asleep by 12:32.

yesterday: preschool field trip to riverbanks zoo,

followed by a short, but necessary lunch break (had to get to the bank so my bills would be paid), lounged in the pool with the two year olds (my daily summer ritual), then made a couple of avon deliveries after work......one of which was at the mall- right next to old navy, where i picked up a new bathing suit for lounging in the kiddie pool....as well as a couple of other suits.....despite being absolutely horrified by the way my thighs look in the dressing room lighting. (where are my rollerblades?) after resolving to get to bed early, wound up cooking for two hours and finally fell into bed around 11:00.

so, basically, i'm worn out, but i have a little extra money in my bank account. (well, i did, but old navy wound up with a small chunk of it, and my credit card wound up with a decent payment.)

i'm off from preschool monday, and right after i found out there are kayaking opportunities in the area, i opened an email notifying me that i'm working monday. so much for that master plan.

it's enough to make a girl look forward to vacation. originally, i was going to go out of town this week and visit mama in maine. however, due to some scheduling conflicts, my vacation was shifted to the end of the month. so, if you're on I-95 on the 22nd or 23rd of this month and you see a green ford zx2 in your rear view mirror (with a red devil duckie air freshener dangling from my rear view mirror), move. thanks.

of course, i've already looked into adventure options for our little trip. here's my rough itinerary:

friday, july 22nd: after the school field trip, attempt to head out of town and get to d.c. before midnight.

saturday, july 23rd: wander around either baltimore or d.c.- possibly both. (or, if i couldn't manage an early departure from school on friday, drive up to d.c. today. arrive with plenty of time to gorge myself on blue crabs.)

sunday, july 24th: drive up I-95 to maine......a route i have not taken before. arrive in time for at least one lobster roll extra value meal at mc donald's. (is it the number 5? number 6? i can't remember- a sign it's been too long since my last one.)

monday, july 25th: break in mama's new wheels with a road trip to vermont. (this just in- mama has been playing with her atlas again, and now we may even make it to sherbrooke, quebec....which means i'm going to be exercising my weak french abilities. uh......pardonnez-moi- je parle un peu de francais. parlez-vous anglais, s'il vous plait?)

tuesday, july 26th: three options here.

option one: drag SO to moosehead lake for hiking on mt. kineo......wait a minute- do they have kayaks there? i bet they do.

option two: leave SO with mama's tangled pile of wires.....tell him if he can connect vcr, dvd player, and tv set together without blowing anything up, he may spend the day in front of various sports channels while mama and i drive to ellsworth, maine, where i will undoubtedly add to the local economy......or sit in traffic while creating new combinations of various swear words whilst referring to the road construction efforts in ellsworth. (i guess we'll work on our french.)

option three: sleep. a lot.

either way, i'd like another lobster roll extra value meal for dinner......maybe two.

wednesday, july 27th: leave before dawn for a three day road trip to prince edward island. stop at hopewell rocks (here it is in french, if you're feeling adventurous) on the way. (i'm trying to figure out how to convince mama we should stick around and kayak around the rocks for a little while. so far, it's sounding iffy, but at least she hasn't given me a flat-out "hell, no".) we'll spend the night in new brunswick. we may possibly drive over to nova scotia, assuming we arrive early enough to stop at the visitor's center before it closes. (perhaps the bagpipers will be out and about.)

thursday, july 28th: explore prince edward island. we're planning visits to east point light house, point prim lighthouse (my first canadian hike!), crapaud (mama's point of interest....don't ask), and one of my college professors found a couple of metal potato sculptures during a biking trip across p.e.i......though i can't remember where he said they were. (last time, we wound up at the potato museum.....which, i have been informed, we "simply won't have time to revisit" during this trip.) however, we will have time to stop at cows before crossing confederation bridge into new brunswick.

friday, july 29th: drive back to maine......we'll probably spend two hours trying to get through homeland security. have another lobster roll extra value meal for dinner.

saturday, july 30th: drive back to d.c. area, using the trusty inland route. stop at roy rogers on massachusetts turnpike for early lunch. arrive in time for more crabs.

sunday, july 31st: drive back to south carolina. arrive in time to work 6pm shift at the radio station.

any other suggestions? other points of interest in new brunswick or p.e.i. that you can recommend?

new words of wisdom from my #1 fan.....

radiofan-sunnyday

in the meantime, i suppose i should chase down a tv and see if we get mtv here at the station.......



rock on.
(i've been saying that a lot lately- perhaps i should add that to my previous post.)