too much information

am i the only one who's noticed a rather alarming trend at my local gas station? there i was, minding my own business last week, trying to top off my tank (and by "top off", i mean "put in just enough to get the little red needle back above "e""), when suddenly, i heard a tinny-sounding semi-masculine voice behind me.

i had the bosses' kids in the car at the time, and they were nearly as startled as i was. (i'm proud to report that the car seat has almost completely dried out- who knew those liners could be so darned absorbent?)

it took me a few seconds (about the time the voice started telling me about some fabulous specials the gas station was offering on "the necessities: bud light bottles, hot dogs, and tampax") to realize what was going on, and a fraction of another second to whip my head around and notice the handy "mute" button on the speaker box.

i thought the experience was just a fluke, but then SO and i stopped for gas before heading off on a local hike (there's a 2-mile trail at sesquicentennial state park, which we hiked twice), and this time, he was the one who jumped. however, instead of the voice coming from a small box with a mute button, some sort of motion sensor had been rigged to a speaker on the corner of the quikie-mart's roof. the effect was something akin to that scene in "real genius" where kent can't figure out the origin of the voices he's hearing and becomes convinced that he's having a conversation with god.

except that it was a very one sided conversation.

and i lean more towards atheism, myself.

and i'm pretty sure that god wouldn't play bad gangsta rap and tell me about the specials his quickie-mart was running on "the necessities" (that'd be bud light, hot dogs, and trojan 12-packs, for you folks who've been deprived of these sorts of experiences.)

so, it's not enough to get cemmercials on the radio, in my magazines, popping up while i'm downloading porn (kidding)- i can't even stop by the gas station without being prodded to buy more crap i don't need?

what's next? voices in public restrooms, besides just the folks who wander in, talking on their cell phones?

i can hardly wait to wander into a public restroom, settle in and hear, "let me tell you about some of the fabulous specials we're running on the necessities: bud light, hot dogs........."

got junk?

i recently read something interesting- it seems that a new surgical procedure has gained popularity lately- women are actually wandering into their doctors' offices and requesting that a little extra junk be packed in their trunks. the article didn't say anything about recovery times or anything of that sort ("how long before i'll be able to sit again, doc?" and "if i'm out ice skating and fall on my butt a little too hard, will the padding move and give me hips like venus de milo?") i am quite thankful that i'll never need to go through such a procedure.

more of that in a minute.

last week, while the bosses were out of town, i took it upon myself to swing by target and drop off a couple of disposable cameras i'd found lying around their house.

i never know what to expect when dropping off a random disposable camera for develping. sometimes, i can actually identify the main subjects, though usually i wind up staring at vaguely familiar scenes and wondering if maybe this was one of those "drunken party" cameras from a weekend of debauchery in college or some such thing.

i recognized one camera from our recent trip to florida, but the other was a complete mystery and quite frankly, i was a little fearful that it was filled with pictures of my bosses, snapped during a weekend of post-college debauchery.

as it turns out, the second camera was quite innocent- mostly pictures my five year old sidekick took of her parents, albeit at odd angles and sometimes with portions of her right hand making an appearance.

on the other hand (pun quite possibly intended), the known camera, the one she toted around typhoon lagoon....well....

i remember her yelling about taking a picture of my butt while we were wading around in one of the pools. little did i know that it was actually one of several. (note to the faint of heart, as well as any of my relatives: you probably want to leave now and go look for webkinz on ebay instead or something.):


this is the portrait of my derriere that i actually knew about. (however, i obviously did not know that my tag was hanging out.)


...and the butt shot i didn't know about. (thank goodness it's not that bad.)

as a public service, i'll spare you the other photos. for some reason, direct sunlight makes my butt resemble jabba the hutt's more than it does heidi klum's....and i don't need either of my readers to suggest the other, more popular surgical procedure for that general area.

over the river and through the woods.....

...not quite, although we crossed a small stream on yesterday's hike.

the bosses weren't getting back into town until last night, so i packed up the kids and SO, and we headed up to caesar's head state park for a long-overdue hike to raven cliff falls, near the north/south carolina border.

since the park is a good two hour drive from columbia, i took the kids on a "test hike" at congaree national park the last time their parents were out of town- to make sure the five year old could handle a 4 1/2 mile hike without pooping out somewhere in the middle.(she passed with flying colors and very little whining, i'm pleased to report.)

we'd packed a variety of snacks, our national park passports (we were hoping to have enough time to boogie across the border to the carl sandburg home but, alas, we ran out of time), our gnomads, and the nine year old's webkinz (a current obsession).

all were hauled out at one point or another, as you can imagine, though we had to settle for the caesar's head state park address stamp on our passports. (the kids were still excited, which is the important part.)

i'll spare you the mundane details regarding our root beer floats, SO's recurring belching (much to the five year old's delight, as each explosion was followed with a spot-on steve martinish "excuuuuuuuuse me"), and the lectures regarding the (lack of) wisdom of running near the mountain's edge.

however, i will make you suffer through some pictures :)

the webkinz claimed shotgun


hot dog, who's taken over bodhi's blog while he's on his world cruise, with caesar's head


raven cliff falls

i suckered SO into buying two hiking books for me at the caesar's head gift shop- he's already been tipped off that i'm planning on dragging him out to frolic in the wilderness when i get done with my radio shift next weekend....assuming he's walking normally again by then.

sadly, nevermore.....

cell phone boycott: day one
calls missed: one (damn)

i've had a peculiar blend of "why can't i be you?", "roam", and various songs from the my best friend's wedding soundtrack running through my head. i'm not sure what all this means, but i'm sure it'll lead to some sort of bizarre julia roberts/robert smith dream this evening. (wait- perhaps that's the connection....but what about the b-52s? did they have a member with "robert" somewhere in their name? i should google that later.)

however, i'm not here this evening to pound out various connections between random songs in my head. i'm here to....to......well, to give myself something to do while i run the bathwater- which i'll top off after getting in the tub, just because i learned a rather chilly lesson the other night. (go ahead- scroll down and read it- i can wait.......)

speaking of water, it is with great sorrow that i must report the passing of a dear friend, whom i never actually had the pleasure of meeting. it seems a close college friend of mine is preparing to bury her close friend and roommate.

i asked if there had been any warning signs. perhaps he wasn't his usual happy-go-lucky self? had she overheard him quoting the raven and listening to joy division more than usual? maybe she'd come home from class one day and found him writing bad poetry in his journal. did she catch him practicing various mopey shakespearean monologues? was he sobbing uncontrollably in his room in the wee hours of the morning, when he thought she'd fallen asleep? was he sleeping more than usual?

simply put, the answer to all of these questions was "no" (though i noticed a long pause before receiving an answer to that final question, though i suppose that one might have required a little extra thought, considering it was sometimes hard to tell when he was actually asleep and when he was just staring into space.)

however, now is not the time to ponder how/when it all went sour. it's time to recount happy memories (which i'm sure i'd have, had i actually met him), and lend support to the bereaved (i already offered to fly out to montana and hand her kleenex during the burial ceremony....still waiting for an answer on that one.)

so, raise a tall glass of water to a dear friend and loved one, who brought my former roommate such joy. his life was far too short, but he lived every day to the fullest.

r.i.p count cosmos
september 2006- april 2007

don't call me- i might call you (when i'm good and ready)

was looking for inspiration this evening, and interestingly enough, it comes from my bosses. (actually, i could probably write a book or two about them, but for once they've given me something to work with that i think i can share.

we're currently battling over my distaste of the "electronic leash". it was bestowed upon me while in miami, and for some reason, it just won't go away....which is not making me happy.

i know i'm alone on this one, but quite frankly, i like being unreachable. with a cell phone comes the impression (of others) that suddenly they can reach you, no matter what time of day. if the phone rings and you don't answer, for some reason, then you have to field questions about why you didn't answer. (every time i'm asked about this, i have to suppress the urge to say "because i don't feel like talking while i'm in the can"- though as we all know, that doesn't stop most folks.)

since the phone i use rings my boss's phone if i don't answer, he's decided he needs to switch the forwarding on it....and i'm supposed to set up voice mail so people can leave me messages.

i can already smell the storm brewing. the way i see it, if something's that vitally important, it can be taken care of before i wander off, or sent to my email, or left on my answering machine at home, or, heck, i'm always at work- might as well dial that number. therefore, the voice mail is unnecessary.

i'm playing along this week, only because they're out of town and i've got their offspring. however, i figure by monday or tuesday, the battery should be tapped and maybe i can be left alone.

call me old fashioned, but don't expect me to answer if you're calling the cell.

aaaaiiiieeee!!!!

there's nothing quite like running a warm bath (while trying to clear out the ol' inbox), letting the water cool (while ordering new pajamas, then pondering how exactly "free shipping" translates into an $11.99 "handling" fee), and finally setting a toe in the tub and realizing (rather quickly, i might add) that in many states, one could now qualify to become a member of the "polar bear club".

perhaps i got a little out of hand with the multitasking this evening......

uncle sam is my gigolo

i've come to the conclusion that word must've gotten out that i was a decent lay or something, because today i found myself, checkbook in hand, bending way over for uncle sam.

given that i was not taken out for a nice dinner beforehand, handed a dozen roses, or even given a peck on the cheek, this distresses me.

year after year, i find myself spending april 14th (or 16th, this year) listening to SO gloat over his huge refund ($12000 this year....or something to that effect. perhaps i accidentally added a zero as some sort of subconscious slip referring to the number of times i'd like to hear his gloating) while trying to suppress the urge to hurl my checkbook at him.....right after i write the government a check that, in ratio to my earnings, seems just a tad exorbitant.

for my money, i'd like to be wined, dined, and perhaps a small thank you note from the government is in order. while various actors, who shall remain nameless (cough cough cough wesley snipes) and reality tv stars (like that dude from survivor- did he honestly think that no one from the irs watched survivor and therefore no one would notice if he "forgot" to report his winnings?) pretend not to be gainfully employed, here i am, shelling out better than 10% of my earnings (and that's after socking money away in a 401k and an ira, folks) just so our fearless leader can buy his daughters another round of frosty beverages.

(actually, i should probably take that last comment back. after all, i don't recall seeing the girls teetering around with tara reid or lindsay lohan recently, so i should probably assume they, like many of us who've made it out of college, have sobered up at least a little.)

with that in mind, perhaps i'm simply paying for mark foley's lap dances, which actually doesn't distress me nearly as much as having to actually pay the state government this year for the first time ever.

yes- you read that right- no relief from anyone. instead, i'm forking over the equivalent of three nights at a fancy hotel to the feds, and paying the state of south carolina for a mint-flavored condom on the pillow.

perhaps i should get out more

i'm restless, and a nine year old is partially to blame.

since our return from miami, i've found myself in three different conversations with the nine year old (my sidekick's big brother) about how lucky i am that my parents liked to travel with us so much and how i'm always going cool places and he wishes he could travel that much and so on and so forth.

apparently, sometime between our first conversation on the topic and the brief one we had earlier this evening (as his dad was contemplating where in the world they should travel using his 600000 marriott bonus points or whatever they're called), he'd brought the topic up with his mom (my boss). as he told me earlier, she told him that once they retire (i think she's got a five year plan in place for such an event), they'll travel even more than i do.

is it just me, or does this sound like it's evolved into some sort of pissing contest? furthermore, why do i find myself with not only this window open, but also windows for expedia, orbitz, and travelocity, trying to figure out whether or not i want to go adventuring in seattle, alaska, or the caribbean by myself?