Happy Birthday To Meeeeeee

Well, today I turned the big 2-6, which is only slightly less underwhelming than discovering on my 21st that the bathrooms in bars I was newly permitted into were just as horrific as those found in bars that had previously admitted my underage ass. I would like to beseech bar-going ladies worldwide to stop decorating the stalls in Early Modern Gastric Violence, and to ask if anyone has ever gotten a call-back on a number scrawled in lipstick across the soap-splattered mirrors.*

I would like to thank everyone who made my birthday so lovely, for ignoring my variety of attempts to downplay my day. It usually surprises people that I don't make a big deal out of my birthday, since I talk a lot (perhaps you noticed) and I like to tell everyone everything that's going on (perhaps you noticed). I just don't like to throw out my princess day to everyone, everywhere,** because I don't want anyone to feel like they have to make a big deal out of me, just because I said so. However, it is perfectly acceptable for me to rub the tiara of my Annual Princess Day all over Lawyer Boy, because he signed up for a lifetime of my ridiculous antics when he said I do. And no, I did not make him. I just told him what to wear and where to wear it and what to say and when to say it, is all.

LB had gotten me my big birthday present, a pink vintage bicycle, a few months ago. I wanted a bike so I could show the whole Greater Richmond Metropolitan Area what an unrepentant dork I am by riding my bike to the grocery store, shiny purple helmet complementing the shiny pink paint on my trusty steed. However, the bike didn't come with a basket, so until this morning, when I unwrapped my present, I looked like this gentleman, trying to cart all my necessities back from Kroger:
Clearly my hair has more volume than his, but the idea is the same. Now I have a basket, which magically compresses my 14 refrigerator boxes full of strawberries and organic milk into a compact load. I feel so much safer traveling now!

Thanks to the firm-wide birthday list, my coworkers knew it was my birthday, and they came out in full force. Particular thanks are in order to Ghost Baker's mom, for the cupcake-art birthday card, Sharon for the alarmingly abundant amount of fresh-baked doughnuts, and Melissa for the pan of gooey, underbaked brownies. (Please note that Melissa is apparently my only friend who is not a hyperlink.) I would also like to thank my boss for walking into my office at 9am and groaning his way through "Happy Birthday," in its entirety, by way of celebration. That is far and away a much better present than letting me leave an hour (or seven) early on my princess day. Totes.

Mom and Dad came over to hug me in celebration of the fact that they spawned me, and to give me my present, which I will tell you about tomorrow, when it will make much more sense. Suffice to say that it is a further extension of my personal rampant dorkery. While they were here we drank wine, stood in my backyard, and freely donated our blood to the local mosquito population. We're so kind.

My birthday dinner was crunchy beef tacos, which LB was more than happy to produce as a surprise for me. I've eaten at some of the best restaurants in the world, I make up my own recipes, and I've even single-handedly catered several events, but few things make me happier than the results of an Old El Paso Taco Dinner Kit. I can't explain it; it's just happiness in a crispy browned shell. Add to that a glass of wine, a cup of ice cream, and the man I love, and that's a recipe for birthday bliss.

I will fill you in on more birthday festivities tomorrow, after the big family celebration at my grandmother's. For now I am too sleepy and happily relaxed to do much more than curl up with the cat, the man, and a glass of Zinfandel. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who made my birthday so wonderful.

And for those of you who haven't yet found a way to celebrate me--now is an excellent time to start. You still have a few hours till midnight.

*Sidebar to 540-956-2345: You never returned my voicemail.
**Apparently I had forgotten that Facebook reminds everyone, including the unborn and the socially dysfunctional, of the anniversary of my debut.

Projects I Will Soon Tire Of

I love a good project--craft project, not sketchy government housing. While I do consider myself at least somewhat creative, and start a variety of intriguing craft projects throughout the year, I am not exactly known for an unyielding tenacity* to stick with it till the end and finish the job. This explains the four half-scarves, one half of a baby blanket, and one sleeve of a sweater that I started knitting, only to get bored, go looking for snacks, and return to the projects six months later to discover that it was no longer scarf season, the baby was now a toddler, and I no longer felt that my wardrobe required a sage green sweater.

My completely ADD lifestyle wouldn't be quite so problematic if I didn't insist on starting every project that scampers through my brain like a deranged Martha Stewart, crooning siren songs of nubbly knitted blankets and hand-stamped monogrammed stationery. Do you know what concentration and skill it takes to create hand-stamped monogrammed stationery? Yeah, me neither. I totally bought the supplies, then lied down for a nap and awoke to a new me, one who did not give a crap about notecards any more. Whatever. Post-Its get the job done, the new me stated lazily.

So when I told Lawyer Boy last weekend that I wanted to sand and refinish our bedroom furniture, color me blown-away blue when he actually agreed to letting me take an orbital sander to the oak furniture his parents had given us. Maybe he's excited that I'm getting into power tools. Maybe he's thinking that this time, I'll stick with it till the touchdown dance in the end zone.

Maybe he thinks the furniture is as butt-fugly as I do.

Not that there's anything wrong with your bedroom looking like it belongs to a nine-year-old boy who loves camp-outs and digging for worms--if you are a nine-year-old boy who loves camp-outs and digging for worms. LB's parents had bought this furniture for him when he was in elementary school, and when he started Lawyer Boy School and had zero furniture to his name, they gave it to him for his apartment. As much as I'm not a huge screaming fan of this furniture, I have to admit that it was a step up from LB keeping his t-shirts rolled up like sushi in a Tupperware bin.

The furniture is boxy, chunky, and varnished a dark oak color. No, it is not the ubiquitous 80s-kids-bedroom cargo furniture that deserves only to be used for firewood. I stared at it, silently hating it and vowing to burn it like a witch at the stake, for years, until I finally realized: The furniture itself is not ugly. I don't like the color at all, but structurally, the furniture has an old-fashioned, wooden trunk-y look to it, which could play very well into the "French country romantic" theme that I'm allegedly using for our bedroom. I say allegedly, because right now all I've got is a chandelier, a fantasy, and a working knowledge of the words for many pieces of furniture in French.

So I thought to myself, "Grace, we are a crafty being. We have, at summer camp 12 years ago, painted picture frames with tempera paint and only gotten paint under six of our fingernails and on four other campers. We are, therefore, completely qualified to attack real furniture with violent weapons, and finger-paint colors onto it." I figured out what colors I would use, if I had grown-up paint skills, and took my proposal to LB.

No, I did not get him drunk before I asked him. Even sober, he was surprisingly amenable to the suggestion--probably because we are too cheap to buy entirely new bedroom furniture. We decided we would complete the entire project -sand, prime, paint, and crackle-coat paint- on the mirror that goes with the set first, so that if it wasn't actually a good idea, we could just set the mirror on fire, scatter the ashes to the wind, and pretend the whole thing never happened. If all goes well, the furniture will be painted espresso brown, with an ivory crackle-coat overtop that only vaguely resembles peeling sunburn.

If all does not go well, we'll have to confess to my mother-in-law, whom I love dearly, that we maybe-sort-of-on-accident ruined all the furniture, which she loves dearly. In that case, I will blame the whole thing on LB, since I will likely only be interested in this project for another .16 minutes of the 47 remaining hours of work we have left on it. Actions speak louder than words, amigos: If he was the one who carried out the bulk of the destruction, then the fact that I was the one to verbalize the plan in the first place means nothing.

I'm telling you all this so that, should you not hear from me again this weekend, you will know that the orbital sander won the battle and I am no longer an animate being with working fingers. Either that, or I sanded for five minutes, got bored, chased a butterfly through the yard, and headed off for a picnic, returning home later to the realization that I would much rather throw my own pottery than refinish furniture. I think we have some clay in the basement...and pottery wheels are on sale at Michael's right now...

*Dear Everyone Who Uses The Linguistic Abomination "stick-to-it-iveness": I would like to introduce you to the real English word that means the same thing. It is tenacity. Stick-to-it-iveness is not only cumbersome and annoying, it is unnecessary, as we have a word that has been blessed by Pope Merriam-Webster and legitimized into our language.

End grammatic rant.

Balls--Lots of Tiny Balls

Last week my coworker Sharon commissioned me, likely against her better judgment, and possibly after much pleading on my part, to make the cake for her son's end-of-season baseball party. In my free time, when I'm not harassing the cat, harassing Lawyer Boy, or making fart jokes, I love to bake and decorate cakes. I've mostly been commissioned to make them for showers at the office, either bridal or baby, and frankly, I would like some credit for politely abstaining from writing "Way To Spawn!" on the cakes for the fetus-themed fetes.

Last summer, my girlfriends asked me to make a cake for our friend Erin's lingerie shower, and I obliged by baking up a full-figured corset, slathered in creamy frosting and practically bursting from real womanly curves, made possible by my mad skills in creating 3-D cake-boobs. I was so proud of her, my delectable lingerie, that I named her Tammy Sue. Seriously, can you blame me?
In case you're curious, "EK" would be Erin's new monogram after her wedding. It did not stand for "Extreme Kurves" or "Extra Klassy." Clearly I am not so fantastic at drawing with frosting, but I am extremely skilled at frosting rosettes, and also very enthusiastic about cramming as many of them into a given space as possible. Poor Tammy Sue apparently has chicken pox. Or, more appropriately, the herp.

This time around, Sharon had told me that her son's team was the Yankees, so I tried to work around that. I looked up the professional Yankees' team logo...
...and immediately nixed that as a design option. While it would be very authentic, it would more likely than not look like a big gum-paste penis sporting an Abe Lincoln top hat by the time I had recreated it, and no parent wants to explain that fumble to their 10-year-old son. And that just does not scream CELEBRATION, unless you are a patriotic porn star. I pondered the design some more, even contemplating borrowing the 3D boob effect from Tammy Sue to produce a 3D baseball, but I had to nix that idea after I determined it was impractical to make an entire batch of cake batter for one 3-inch-round ball. It was impractical, because I would have eaten the remaining cake in one sitting.

I finally decided to keep it simple and write "Yankees 2009" on top of a white cake, bordered by baseball stitching and blue dots. I know, it's simple, but the less I had to screw up, the less I could screw up. I frosted the cake smooth, piped a long border of blue dots around the bottom, and wrote the words across the top in a script similar to the logo, being careful to actually spell the words right. Sharon said she had dreamed before I gave her the cake that I had horribly misspelled YANKEES, which, knowing me, is a somewhat reasonable fear. I took extra precautions to ensure that I did not write YANKLES or YANKIES, because blue writing on a white cake is like giving birth--once it's out, you can't take it back. I carefully stitched red piping along the top of the cake for the baseball stitching, and I was done!


Because it's so cute, and because I know how much you're just dying for more glamour shots, here's a side view:I was so proud of myself, I just had to share with someone, and it was completely impossible for me to wait 26 more minutes before I would drop the cake off to Sharon. So I called my mom and squealed a lot.

"Mom, it turned out so well. It's so cute! And I didn't smear blue icing anywhere!"

"That's great!" she replied. "What does it look like?"

"Well," I wound up for my dramatic monologue. "It's white, and it says YANKEES 2009 in dark blue across the top, and then I used red frosting to stitch all around the top edge like a baseball, and then I bordered the entire bottom with blue balls. Oh God." I am what is known as an external processor, meaning things do not often fully register to me until I have said them out loud. Therefore, all the time I had spent conceptualizing "blue ball border" and then thinking "careful with the blue balls" as I had piped them onto the cake, it had not actually occurred to me that I was ringing a cake with blue balls. As soon as the words left my lips, though, I realized exactly what I had done.

"So you're giving blue balls to an entire baseball team?" Mom said. I could hear her starting to laugh, hard, at my blunder. "Way to go, Grace!"

Adding to my discomfort over my foul ball(s), when I dropped the cake off to Sharon, she had brought along her ten-year-old son, the Yankees player himself. He thought the cake was sooooo cool, which was extremely gratifying, until he said, "and look at the blue balls!" I could see Sharon's face over her son's head, and she was making that "do not laugh do not laugh your face can explode but you cannot laugh" face that moms are so good at.

In keeping with the baseball theme, do you think this was a home run, or a strike out?

Fumbling at the DMV

Three states and my own beloved Dammit-We're-A-Commonwealth-Not-A-State recently passed legislation that banned smiling in driver's license pictures. I'm so glad that while the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on illegal aliens, and the war on kids who wear their pants too low continue to rage, our legislators are taking the time to craft legislation governing the really important things in life. They claim that smiling in license pictures obscures certain points on your face that facial recognition software uses to...recognize...your face.

What, were you expecting it to whip you up a frappucino to turn that frown upside-down?

Seriously, between my name, social security number, fingerprints, address, and complete personal history, they still felt it necessary to frump me up for a picture in order to figure out who I am. I would rather they take gallons of my blood, at once, through a clear twisty straw, than force me to look dour in a photo that I cannot do over for ten years.

Then the more I thought about it, I realized they aren't telling me I have to be sad or boring. They're just saying I can't smile. Just that one thing, smiling, is banned like real nipples in a topless bar. (Welcome to Virginia, where the Puritans are still penning the laws with a quill and a vengeance!) There are many expressive faces I can flash for the camera, ensuring that my license photo adequately reflects who I am.

Thus I have created for you Grace's Guide to the DMV, a handy reference for anyone who might be forced to go hand over six hours of their lives while waiting for a shiny new license.

Grace's Guide to the DMV
A Handy Guide for Navigating Those Pesky New Rules

Let's begin with a sampling of what is no longer allowed: Your Friendly Neighborhood Grace
Don't you bring that tricksy tramp 'round these parts again. We just can't trust those teeth.

Next, let's move into the examples of expressions that ARE allowed. Exhibit 1: Twilight Vampire Action Figure Grace is not banned.
Proof of familial relationship to Edward Cullen required before license will be issued.

Exhibit 2: Emotionally Fragile Grace is not banned.
Sugar, we didn't mean to say that you look fat. We just meant that maybe you should suck in your chin. And neck. And five jowls.

Exhibit 3: Grace Grace Beaver Face is not banned.
Please check large bags, backpacks, and residual pieces of dam that you may have on your person at the front desk.

I hope this brief guide will help you breeze through your next adventure at the DMV, jaws clenched against any possible glimmer of a smile, beaver teeth at the ready.

***
I'm vaguely concerned that I staged and posed for any/all of these pictures, but apparently not concerned enough to NOT publish them for the perusal of the whole wide Internets. Shame and I broke up a few years ago, and no way am I going back.

Bring On The Sea Breeze

Lawyer Boy and I spent last weekend, Memorial "Sunburn Kick-off" Weekend, at my parents' beach house with my parents (you didn't see that coming and I know it), my sister and brother-in-law, and their two kids. The peach-and-white sand palace, appropriately named "The Beach Peach,"* lives four hours from Richmond on the Outer Banks, so LB and I tore out of work Friday afternoon so we could get home, pack nine times more clothes than we would need for a trip twice as long, and fire up the crane to hoist our Labradozer, Breeze, into the back of my Jeep.

If you've never encountered a Labradozer before, I highly recommend the breed. They're a high-energy, Cadillac-sized crossbreed of a Labrador Retriever and a bulldozer, and Breeze is really exemplary of the breed. At eleven years old -freakin' geriatric in dog years- she shows no sign of slowing down in trying to meet her goal of sniffing the crotch of every animate being in the tri-state area. We had another Lab, Amor, and she and Breeze were Bee Eff Effs in a way that made the Olsen twins look like frenemies. Three weeks ago, when Amor went to the Big Backyard In The Sky, we became worried that Breeze would slip into a deep doggie depression, so we decided to take her to the beach with us to keep her occupied. Our fears were apparently unfounded, since plenty of animate crotches still abound for Breeze to discover, and she hasn't missed a beat.

And so last Friday, an hour outside work, we had everything packed, loaded, and placated in the back of the Jeep, and we were off to show Breeze her first glimpse of the ocean!

Y'all, we got no more than thirty minutes outside Richmond before the ominousness (ominosity?) hit. We were heading through Prince George County on our way deeper into the eastern nether regions of Virginia, when we came upon a gas station so overrun with cops, squad cars leaking out of every exit and oozing across parking spaces, that we could only assume that Al Qaeda had been discovered, hunkered down over lemon chess pie in a back booth at the adjoining Stuckey's.**

In actuality, this was nothing more than a bored local police force out trying to raise funds for the annual Spring Fling by ticketing as many come-here's as possible over the holiday weekend. Guess who had been chosen in the Lottery O' Life to pay for the six trays of chicken wings doused in SHIT THAT'S HOT sauce?

As soon as we had cleared the stoplight directly in front of the gas station that had been marked for death, blue lights flashed obnoxiously in my rear view. LB and I exchanged puzzled stares. They couldn't pull me for an overdue inspection; that was current. For the first time in two years, my registration tags were actually current, so that couldn't be it. And how do you pull someone for speeding when you discovered them at a dead stop?

Dutiful, and fully huffed-up, citizen that I am, I steered the Black Sheep into the first available parking lot. The young officer, overseen by a much more senior officer riding shotgun, already had my license and registration in his hand by the time he drooled the words "liiiisnce 'n' rej'strayshin pleez." Confusion as to why I had been pulled had led me to act quickly in procuring the documents; confusion as to where he was, and what day it was, had caused him to black out the basic functions of his job.

"Ma'am," he drawled, losing points instantly for calling me ma'am when the license trapped in his sweaty palm clearly indicated that I'm all of 25. "We cawt ya on the lay-zah doin' sixty-two in a fawty-fahv. This's a fawty-fahv, heeyuh."

"What??!?!" I practically shrieked, losing all sense of manners in the heat of the moment. I am normally unreasonably nice to people I don't know, particularly anyone in a uniform. But apparently, when I feel my life and dignity are at stake, I'm a complete asshole. "Officer, I know I wasn't going that fast. Where was this?!?!?!?"

"Under th' overpass, ma'am. Th' lay-zah cawt ya at sixty-two. This's a fawty-fahv, heeyuh." Thank you, Officer Rainman. Speed limit is 45. Roger.

Several frustrated syllables that cannot be expressed within the confines of the English language hiccuped out of my mouth before I could finally sputter, "Officer, I hit the underpass right after a STOP LIGHT! This car will not get up to sixty-two that fast! It just can't! I was not going that fast!!!" And would you like one of the cookies I have in the back?

Officer Rainman shrugged noncommittally. At this point LB, ever the peoples' advocate, stepped in. "Officer, is there a chance your laser caught someone else, and you pulled my wife by mistake? I know she couldn't go that fast, right there." I noticed his Virginia Bar card casually protruding behind his driver's license.

Officer Rainman paused. I guess he was thinking; he was staring off into the distance and either counting gnats or considering LB's question. Either way, his eventual answer did not exude decisiveness. "Naw. I'be raht bayck." And off he ambled to write the first speeding ticket of my life. Do you hear me? Exactly one month, to the day, before I would have hit my ten-year anniversary of being a licensed driver with a perfect record, Officer Rainman breaks my streak. Oh, the wrath. Ohhhh, the fury!

A few minutes later, having written my ticket and eaten six chicken fingers, Rainman wandered back. He bumbled through the standard assignment-of-blame language, then decided to try small talk.

"Y'all headed to th' beach th'sweekend?" No, Officer, scenic East Jesus was our destination.

"Yes, Officer," I replied.

"Well," he drawled, visibly fighting the urge to spit. "I hope I din' ruin y'all's weeken'." No, you didn't. I just hope your wife cheats on you with Jon Gosselin, is all.

"No, Officer," I said calmly. "You're just doing your job."

"Y'all have a sayfe trip. Drahv slow!" he called out in farewell. I used my most ferocious ESP skills to beam rays of Jon Gosselin into his wife's head.

Thoroughly incensed and more ready than ever to burn the road to the beach, LB and I got back on the road. Not two miles of monitoring speed limit signs like ravenous hawks later, I saw something glistening and black in the road. It looked like a plastic bag blowing across the asphalt. All too late, I realized the plastic bag was a thick black snake, stretched so long across the road that it had sealed its own slithery fate.

"OMIGAAAAAAAAOOOOODDD!!!" I shrieked as I felt the almost undetectable bump of my wheels flattening the snake's tail. "I KILLED HIM I KILLED HIM OOOOHHHH NOOOO!!!!" I saw the poor snake's body curled up in the middle of the road, slithering no more.

I carried on like this for five minutes, thoroughly disturbed that I had killed something so violently, while LB tried unsuccessfully to convince me that the snake had felt no pain, and that if the snake had met me personally, he probably would have bitten me on the face. Hell, the way I was carrying on, I would have bitten me on the face, too.

Four hours later, we finally made it to the beach, and had a fantastic time. I'm not worried about the speeding ticket, because I'm married to Lawyer Boy. Have I mentioned he's a lawyer?

Have I mentioned he's a real estate lawyer?

Have I mentioned the fact that the only crime he could really defend me for is if I were charged with painting my house too fast?

Maybe I'll get off on a technicality. Maybe the officer won't show due to severe emotional trauma. He just found out his wife was having an affair with Jon Gosselin, is all.

*Complete with its own personal sign sporting a peach painted like a smiling woman's face, which they had to send back after it was first painted because the cleft in the peach looked indisputably like a big beachy buttcrack.
**They were only discovered when Raylene, the perennial pie-server, asked after their mamas. Rather than answering, they went back to their pie and coffee, causing Raylene to yank them straight up by their ears, at which point she realized they weren't the Jenkins boys. Ain't nobody go'n ignore Raylene, y'all.

Tiger Beat, Chapter 1: Road Trip Necessities

And now, at long last, with great fanfare and much squealing of kazoos, I bring you Chapter One in the Tiger Beat Chronicles, an epic tale of my trip to Clemson, Scarolina to watch Questicle embark upon adulthood, drink my weight in Frathouse Special brew, and eat my Very First Ever Chicken Biscuit.

Now what, I ask you, could be more exciting than tales of the loss of my chicken biscuit virginity?*

Thus we begin on Thursday morning, when Mom arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule to collect my duffel bag, tote bag, garment bag, shoe bag, food bag, handbag, giftbag, windbag, bagpipe, and self to cart down to Scarolina. As usual, I was running no less than fifteen brain cells behind, so I fluttered about like a hummingbird trapped in a shoebox, simultaneously drying my hair, packing my makeup, and hugging the cat goodbye. Finally, twenty-five minutes and six Mango scratches behind schedule, we were off, guided by the comforting voice of the GPS who assumed, from the moment we lumbered off the curb, that we were complete morons in need of guidance, both geographically and philosophically.

All was well in the Tahoe powered by disco music and girl talk, until we both became hungry enough to consider eating at some roadside establishment whose kitchen output was rivaled only by its bathroom intake. Scanning the blue signs that littered the interstate like tattoos on a hairy redneck, I had an epiphany of epic proportions: WE SHOULD EAT AT TACO BELL.

Something I may have never disclosed, but which is a huge part of my personal being, is that I'm an obsessive foodie. There are three things in life that I take very seriously. The Three Fs. They are:

• Food
• Family
• Fart jokes
  

I think about food more often than thirteen-year-old boys think about boobies, and I spend about half of every weekend playing Dr. Jekyll/Chef Hyde in my kitchen, flinging spices and hoping to strike culinary gold before I accidentally puree my own knuckles. So for me to suggest we eat at Taco Bell sounds as strange as Jessica Simpson asking Marilyn Manson if she could open for him while slaughtering a family of pigs. But when I suggested T-Bell tacos, Mom must have been delirious from watching 350 cow-speckled miles of our lives bump past us, and figured it couldn't be half bad. Or at least, we likely would not die.

And oh, it was so good, good like cheese fries on a hangover, or aloe on that sunburn that you kind of want to heal, but kind of want to peel because peeling sunburn is so grotesquely delightful. You might have lost respect for me after this Ode to Fresco-Style Crunchy Beef Tacos, but I just don't care. T-Bell and I are tight, and there's nothing you can do to come between our love, unless our love results in my contracting the herp from T-Bell's special parts.

Fueled up in an ominous way that would ensure we drove as lightning-fast as possible to our destination, Mom and I hit the road again. We had gone about a hundred miles when it became crucial that we stop again: There were forces at work that we, mere mortal women with fabulous handbags, were powerless to stop. Did the car run out of gas? Did a rock hit the windshield? Did T-Bell come roaring to the gates in a way that demanded we screech to a halt immediately and dart behind the nearest tree?

Would you believe me if I said I saw a sign for an exit that had a HomeGoods AND a TJ Maxx in one giant building, and I shrieked like a middle schooler at High School Musical On Ice until Mom pulled over out of fear for her life? Smart lady, my mom.

I don't know if you've ever been to one of these magical Meccas, but there is nothing more wondrous to me than a store where I can buy both tart pans and tarty sandals, both with matching earrings. Never mind that Mom and I had each packed six pairs of shoes. Never mind that we only had two dressy events to attend that weekend. I am powerless against the song of the Shoe-Sirens, and I've got the overstuffed shoe rack, shoe bags, and eye-rolling husband to prove it!

Half an hour later, after happily stuffing six completely necessary and in no way superfluous shoes in the back of the magic Tahoe, we were on the road again, racing against time to Clemson to make sure we'd have enough time to choose the perfect shoe for dinner.

***

Thanks for tuning in to the first installment of the Tiger Beat Chronicles! Stay tuned for our next episode, coming soon: Let Me See That Pong.

*This phrase banned in countries run by theocracies, monarchies, and common decency.

Run Like The Wind, If The Wind Were A Loser

I have never been what anyone with any remote command of the English language would call "athletic;" my greatest sports-related accomplishment as a child in Little League was striking out so many times that it was downright astounding that I still managed to be disappointed enough to cry each and every time. My parents signed me up for every single country-club popped-collar sports clinic that would enroll my damaged ass, with mixed results, but only if an alternate definition for "mixed" is "catastrophically loseriffic." A sampling:

• At tennis camp, they video taped each of us so we could watch ourselves and critique our stroke. My shiny-special-star sequence was played over and over, in slow-mo, fast-mo, and all other versions of mo, so that everyone could laugh hysterically at my throwing my racket, tearing around the court like a sugared-up preschooler, and all but shedding my clothes to get away from the bee the coach told me was chasing me. IN FACT THERE WAS NO BEE.
  
• I was signed up for "beginner gymnastics" when I was 9, and was placed with the five- and six-year-old class. Apparently my bespangled rainbow leotard with silver hearts and matching headband-legwarmer combo did not convey my inner Mary Lou Rhetton as strongly as I had hoped, and the ankle-biters leaped clear over my dreams...at least during the two classes I suffered through. Quitters R Us, cleanup on aisle 5.
  
• And ballet. For those of you who may object to its inclusion here as it is "not a sport," I defy you to argue that with the ferocious midgets who always jacked the leading roles in our overblown, long-winded recitals. In my last recital, my capstone performance after eleven years of honing my craft, I was cast in a role that graciously allowed me to remain seated for the duration of my own performance, at the end of which I pranced, gracefully (or not) and on-cue (or not) offstage. I just can't be sure--I think my bitterness may have gotten in the way of the stage directions.
• I played varsity (?) field hockey my freshman year of college, and with four games left in the season, the coach unabashedly told me that I was the worst player on the team, explaining why I had ridden the bus to a variety of Division XIV colleges only to ride the bench upon arrival. Also? We lost every single game without the benefit of my magnificent participation, so maybe the skills gap wasn't all that extreme. When your recruitment efforts consist of trolling the freshman dorm the day of move-in, asking stunned newbies if they've ever played skirt sports before, you really can't set your standards any higher than you can whack that ball.
  

Of course, all these rigorous physical challenges took place back in my glory days, when I could chow an entire pizza and not awaken the next morning to find that same pizza jiggling at the backs of my upper arms and battling fiercely with the waistband of my jeans. (Please note that yes, I do consider the ability to chow an entire pizza an accomplishment.) Now that I'm trapped in an adult's body, I find myself struggling to ensure that January's pot pies and February's truffles don't spend bikini season in a matrimonial relationship with my thighs. I have to do something to burn off my bad decisions, and so I run. Kinda. With great fervor, and much dying of the lungs.

It took me at least four years of running before I stopped hating it like Batman hates Joker. The only reason I kept at it, frankly, is because my college roommate/BFF/lovemuffin, Shelley, is a badass physical fitness genie, capable of running long distances in a single outing without having to bum oxygen off the elderly lady with the tank waiting for the bus. After a long evening of pounding shots, winning drinking contests, and finding our roommate in bed with the Mr. Goodbar Du Jour, Shelley would get up, spritz on her eau de Reebok, and bound off into the sunrise, only to arrive a sweaty hour later to proclaim, "I just kept running to see how far I could go, and I ran seven miles!"

Hell, I don't even like to drive seven miles, but guilt is thicker than vodka, and so I'd think to myself, "well, the worst that could happen is...I could pass out in front of the Sig Ep house, and they do have Miller on tap..." strap on my tennies, and stagger out into the sunlight, to bound approximately 10 feet before slowing to a light prance. I pranced, daintily, for about three years, before I determined that if I had the right music, I could up my shuffle to a moderate jog, and I was off! Never to run to the "Titanic" soundtrack again!

My current running playlist is a chronicle of high-energy embarrassment, but it really keeps me moving, mostly because it makes me picture the music videos full of dancer-chicks with waists like Pixie Stix and legs longer than War and Peace, and I feel the need to compete (losing is inconsequential, apparently). It's lame, and I know, but it burns off the wine. In case you're wondering, here's a short sampling of what keeps me hobbling along:

• Flo Rida's sample (cover? do-over?) of "Right Round," which is either about blow jobs or stirppers, the former of which is disturbing and the latter of which reminds me that tennis shoes are always more comfortable than thigh-high plastic boots. Also, someone pointed out to me that Flo Rida is just "Florida" with a space, so I spend the entire song snickering at the grammatic goof-up.
  
• A selection of Britney Spears songs, from her newest vocal vomit, Circus. In her latest release, Ms. Spears, with glitter-coated boobies bigger than her glitter-coated voice, has collaborated with a variety of high-end producers in order to disguise, as much as possible, the fact that she is actually singing. This doesn't bother me in the least, because honestly, were we ever really paying her to sing? I don't know about you, but I was there for the washboard abs and sex for free.
• Kevin Rudolph's "Let It Rock," featuring Lil Wayne being generally and unabashedly obscene. I love this song for the dance beat, but Lil Wayne's voice is like a middle-school smartass with braces and socially awkward jeans running his teeth down a chalkboard. If this kid had a voice, it would be Lil Wayne's.
  

So I tie on my ipod and bound away, hoping no one notices that I'm dragging at least three loose sphincters behind me in my daily death march. If you happen to drive down Grove Avenue and think you may have spotted me, I'm the one with an inhuman amount of red hair and a stride like a dying golden retriever. If you happen to be my boss and drive down Grove Avenue, you already saw me, mid-death spiral, and then made fun of me for it the next day at the office--specifically, my pink shorts.

Just add that to my list of athletic failures, and we'll call it a day.

Red Headed Slut: The Drink, or The Chick?

Let me begin with a statement of fact: I do not go to bars very often. I’m married, so I’m not biting at whatever slick-smiling bait the guys might be dangling in my direction, and I’m insanely talkative (who knew?), so having to yell over a crowd and an endless loop of drunken karaoke “Livin On A Prayer” really cramps my style. That said, what happened a few Saturday nights ago does not happen very often, which is cheery good news for my girlfriends, my husband, and my liver.

The weekend before St. Patrick's Day of Drinking All Things Dyed Green and Regrettable, my girlfriends Martha, Lauren, and Melissa and I had decided to get together for a girls’ wine night, our standard celebration for all of us being in the same place at the same time, which happens less often than Joan Rivers gets laid. So once every fourteen years, we converge on Martha’s house to chow spreadable cheese products and plow through the supermarket’s finest vintage offerings—preferably the ones sold in the largest authentic vineyard jugs under the NEW LOWER PRICE sign.* Martha’s house has become my personal binge-drinking black hole: Every time I leave to head over, I say to Lawyer Boy, “I’m not going to drink that much, and I’ll probably be home early,” which we now understand is code for, “Show up after midnight with the snow shovel to scrape me off the sidewalk, and load me into the back of the car like a slaughtered hog.”

So we hug and squeal hello and OMG WHEN DID YOU CUT YOUR HAIR I LOVE IT!!!, top off our glasses, and chat about our lives, a group of lively young professionals embarking on their meaningful careers and life journeys...and me. We (they) are all busily engaged in doing productive, important things with our (their) lives. Here, let me show you:

• Lauren holds a degree in Biomedical Engineering from Duke, and is currently pursuing an MBA at Darden Business School.
• Martha is a CPA, which means she passed that horrid Triple Frown of an exam, which I hear is like being butt-raped by an adding machine except for less fun.
• Melissa just finished an RN program and is now a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at a big hospital. She's also planning her wedding, which we all know involves more blood, sweat, and tears than saving babies.
• I, meanwhile, frequently make cupcakes.**

I started out the evening very proud of myself, because I only upended three glasses of wine in three hours, and had refrained from chugging from the chunky bargain bottle of alcoholic antics.*** I should have seen the finger-painting on the wall and gone home when the girls started talking about going out, but ever the social sheep that I am, I followed the herd through the rain to 3 Monkeys, a bar I only see the inside of when I'm too drunk to remember that I suck at bars, and usually humiliate myself in ways that embarrass my gender as a whole. Melissa, however, is really good at bars, and within two minutes of seating ourselves in a booth covered in someone else's spilled drinks and social failures, she had two random upstanding gentlemen who were in no way looking for a one-night stand, leaning over our table and begging to buy us drinks.

Immediately upon our arrival at the hooch hut, Martha had bought us a round of red-headed sluts, which taste like messy college nights spent pretending to be old enough to drink in public, and then we had the good sense to order a round of beers. By the time a dude shorter than me named Michael Doyle, Our New BFF Du Jour, was slurring over our table about buying us a round of Irish Car Bombs, I was far enough down the road to Bourbontown that 1) a drinking contest seemed like a great idea, 2) a drink that mixes beer and liquor seemed like a great idea, and 3) continuing to drink heavily seemed like a great idea. I was the only one of our pretty party who felt it necessary to try to drink a stranger under the table, so "Michael Doyle" and I went toe-to-toe with the car bombs, frantically chugging before they curdled into slippery pint glasses of baby vomit.

AND I WON. Me beating someone at a drinking contest says less about me than it says about him, and what it says about him is that he drinks like a toddler with a sippy cup. As much as I wanted to bask in the glow of my victory for the rest of the evening, the alcohol and my bud Michael Doyle had other ideas, and I spent the rest of the evening trying to pretend that I could still drink like I pretended I could in college. The events of the rest of the night are based largely on conjecture, since none of us left the bar able to remember what exactly had happened, as the Demon Liquor had stolen our memories, dignity, and my most favorite purple sweater. What I think happened was this: I beat Michael Doyle at car bombs TWICE more, I continued to gloat, I lost my sweater, we went to another bar, I bragged and drank and hopefully did not dance, and all the sudden I was on the bar floor, which is nastier than falling into a Port-a-John at a Billions O' Burritos Festival. It was at that time that the bartender casually suggested that we depart for the evening, whereby "casually suggested" I mean "told us in no uncertain terms to drag my drunken liability-laden ass out of their establishment."

One-what-the-hell-thirty in the morning found us (well, the rest of the girls and my body) standing outside the bar trying to hail a cab, stay out of the rain, and prop me up on the curb like a wasted Lindsey Lohan at an afterparty/in a club/on a movie set/in public at all. The cab drivers, traitors to my quest home, refused to take us since I looked like an ominous threat of a vomitous nature, so the girls ring-a-linged Lawyer Boy from his peaceful slumber to come scrape me off the sidewalk and load me into the car like a slaughtered hog, per my earlier encoded promise. As soon as the car began moving in the direction of home, the Mount Vesuvius of used drinks erupted all over Lawyer Boy’s car, which I tried to argue was the “upside” to the whole situation, with LB firmly insisting that his car covered in the contents of my stomach was, in fact, a “downside.” I settled the argument by proclaiming it an “upside-slash-downside,” and either the debate ended there or I passed out, whichever happened first. I stumbled into the house, fumbling as I shed a trail of failure-soaked clothing in my wake (otherwise known as my front yard).

I woke up the next morning on the bathroom floor, under a snuggly fleece blanket, wearing my socks, one contact lens, and the previous night’s makeup smeared all over my face a la “Braveheart.” I had no idea how I had gotten there, where my other contact was, or why I felt like I’d been hit upside the head with a dead ox. LB filled in most of the blanks for me, but Martha summed it up best in an email the next day: “Lauren said that when she went to your house to drop your purse off, she saw a pile on your front porch that she thinks was your shirt. Well done!”

Well done, indeed.

*Sadly, and much to my surprise, they are still not selling neon twisty-straws taped to the sides of wine bottles.

**If you know of any jobs that make use of my particularly impressive skill set, I'm also really good at making up new lyrics for songs on the fly. Favorites include my version of Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl," which is henceforth "I Kissed A Squirrel." (and I liked it/the taste of his nuts and berries/I kissed a squirrel just to try it/I hope my cat friend don't mind it/It felt so wrong, it felt so right/I might be up in his tree tonight.)

***Yes, I CAN have fun without alcohol.****

****Sometimes.*****

*****Only if you make me.

My Papery Green Thumb

Today I came into the office with a renewed and unprecedented desire to charge through my work, impress everyone with my wicked-cool productivity*, and make my office a veritable buzzing hive of legal activity and research, immaculately organized and ever prepared to address the pressing legal issues that land on my desk.

So far, all I’ve come up with in terms of real steps to help me achieve this goal is to grow orchids in my office.

Did I read somewhere that keeping plants in your office promotes better oxygen flow and thus increases productivity? No. Did I read somewhere that orchids bring the soothing calm of the Orient inside, helping to alleviate stress and promote rational thinking? No.

Did I happen to read on foxnews.com this morning that President Obama is taking flack for keeping the Oval Office** “so warm that you could grow orchids in there”? CHECK.

This off-hand metaphorical suggestion planted itself deep in my consciousness like Christina Aguilera into the annals of Hollywood’s Tackiest, and I’ve been obsessed with the idea of growing orchids in here ever since about 9:30 this morning. Probably because planning my Orchidopolis beats the crap out of answering emails, organizing files, and actually doing any of the work The Orchids would help me accomplish. I have yet to figure out how to install heat lamps or a humidifier in here without my boss noticing, but please. The day is young, amigos, and I am motivated. And also wily.

Oh, incidental to this whole scheme, I’m the Morticia Addams of gardening. If it’s not dead when I get it, it’s roots-up within a week. Maybe if plants would be a little more annoying when I don’t feed them, like the cat, they’d get their way. Squeaky wheel gets the oil, bitches.

*Apparently, just like in high school, I’m still confused as to what constitutes being “wicked-cool.”
**If I lived in the White House, I would be unable to walk into the Oval Office without announcing to anyone within a 15-foot radius that I was “going into Ovulation.”

Definition: The removal of a muffin

Today I had to make an important decision. (I know, right--who let me?) I get one precious hour of jailbreak for lunch every day, and today I had two options to occupy this time: 1) Read the 647-page stimulus bill, which Lawyer Boy had already read, outlined, and emailed to me for perusal, helping me to stay informed and knowledgeable about the procedures and policies that impact my life as a tax-paying American, OR 2) Blog about names I call my cat.

Frankly, my concern in picking up the stimulation* policy was that it would be so riveting, every word gripping my imagination and pulling me through page after page till the dramatic conclusion, that I wouldn’t be able to put down the congressional Harry Potter 7 until I was done six hours later.

And thus we find ourselves here, where logic took a left turn away from reality and crashed into a swamp of dysfunction. Ladies and gentlemen, the halls of Congress!

Ahem. Onward!

I have a socially awkward habit of nicknaming everyone, almost as soon as I meet them, from the babies of people I don’t know, all the way up to my boss. After enough sideways stares and tight-lipped cautious chuckles, I learned to keep these gems to myself, except with those who know and love me, including Lawyer Boy, my family, and the pope. My favorite victim is the cat, Mango, who not only doesn’t stare at me carefully, trying to memorize my features to reproduce on a police sketch later, but who seems to love me regardless of what comes out of my mouth. Here, for your disapproval, is a short list of names I most frequently call the cat:

Mangocat
Man-o
Mongoloid
Mango Lloyd Webber
Mango Q.
Q-Bear
Mangostein
Mancat
CatMan
TallMan
SmallMan
CatFriend
Best CatFriend
Kittenduck
Duckie
Duckily-doo
Ducksworth
TankyPants McChunkyButt
Kittles
Kittles McSkittles
Muffin Man
Muffinpants
Muffinopolis
Muffles
Puffles
Fluffles
Fluffington Puffles

Additionally, my mom calls Mango “Mongolio” and my dad calls him “Magnito,” so good news! This disorder appears to be genetic. Scientists can eventually eradicate it from our DNA, just like Down’s syndrome and that gene that makes some people grody close-talkers.

Lawyer Boy, by comparison, has just one nickname for the cat: Skab, an acyonym for Shitty-Kitty-Ass-Bag.

I don’t have as many royal titles for the dogs as I do for Mango Q., but it’s only because we haven’t had them as long. I’m sure that in time, I’ll have damaged their psyches as well. For now I usually stick to derivations of the ever-endearing “Muffin,” but the other day Lawyer Boy caught me calling one of the dogs “Muffinectomy” and finally put his foot down on the madness. Apparently it was all fun and games with “Doggley O’Drools,” but “Muffinectomy” defined the line between sweetly ridiculous and frighteningly maniacal.

I’d be interested to know if other people blanket their pets with a deluge of dumb like I do. If you can give me one that beats out “Muffinectomy,” I’ll share it with everyone.

I still have some time left, so I could go read about The Stimulation, but I’m going to save that one for Saturday afternoon and a cup of cocoa.

*You totally know they call it that in secret meetings.

There's No Cure For Ridiculous

Today I had the distinct pleasure of visiting my family practitioner's office. If this office advertised, they would really be best served by using the slogan "Total Care: From Pap Smears to Papaw's Goiter." I wasn't actually there for an exam, but to have a pricey little chat with my PCP about my completely irrational and nonsensical fear that my heart is constantly about to burst, and/or that my stomach is going to explode and shoot acid at my heart.

That, right there, I really wish I could say I made up for the sake of posting something funny. The second part of that fear, about my stomach sniping off my heart, has now caused no fewer than four doctors to bite their lips in a feeble attempt not to laugh at a patient. So feeble.

Because checking in at the doctor's office requires a full NSA background check and subsequent fingerprint scan, I was left to marinate in the cauldron of communicable disease that is the waiting room for almost an hour, surrounded by sticky, sweaty mouth-breathers oozing this season's cold. In between slathering my hands with sanitizer that smelled like Pez, and snorting the sanitizer that smelled like Pez, I observed my fellow inmates. There was the woman ten feet away, swathed entirely in black velour, clutching something that looked like a baby booty, staring at it intently, and flicking her fingers at it rhythmically. For the first few minutes, I thought she was crocheting the end of the sock; then suddenly, I realized that she was meticulously picking off one of her fingernails, bit by freakish bit. The Black (Velour) Widow looked up from her handicraft and stared me down, the sock dangling menacingly off her tusk of a hangnail. I moved on.

Next to me was a little boy, sitting across from his mother. He was of the enchanting age at which kids are old enough to hold a coherent conversation, but not yet old enough for anyone who hasn't had a lobotomy to want to converse with them. After five minutes of shrill banter that the mother finally recognized was torture commensurate with watching "The View" for everyone around them, she switched the kid into sign language. I don't speak sign language (and really, who does?) but I can read words when they're spelled out, and for a few minutes, the mom spelled nothing but s-t-o-p i-t and c-a-l-m d-o-w-n. Then, she switched to harder fourth-grade words, and the kid began spelling the letters out l-o-u-d-l-y and o-b-n-o-x-i-o-u-s-l-y as she signed them, ruining the stealth aspect of the whole game and flicking the nerves of the other captives. I desperately wanted to sign over w-e c-a-n- h-e-a-r y-o-u, but I was terrified I would get the kid's attention, and give him the impression that I wanted to converse with him. In either language.

An hour and forty-five forms later, I was finally called back. (I'm pretty sure I filled out one of the forms wrong: I either designated my husband as authorized to pick up meds for me, or I designated myself as my own husband.) Then I had another half-hour to veg on a crunchy paper-topped exam table and think of ways to freak out the good doctor.

I could be completely nude when he walked in, which would be a double surprise, since I wasn't there to be examined or sketched by art students. I could remain fully clothed, but pull the stirrups out of the rodeo table, lay down, and put my feet in the stirrups. From this position I would greet him, carry out our entire conversation, and give thoughtful feedback. My favorite idea was, at the end of our encounter, to ask, "can I have a pap smear?" in the same tone as a little kid would ask "can I have a lollipop?". I really liked this one for the unpredictable possibilities it held.

In the end, I had to rule them all out. Option 1 was off the table because it was cold, and I don't like being naked. Option 2 bit the dust because I was worried that my three-inch heels would get caught in the stirrups and I'd die trying to dismount my steed. Option 3 failed because one of the unpredictable possibilities inherent to it was the chance that the doctor would say yes, and that was a chance I was just not willing to take. Not for you, beloved readers, and not for anyone else.

Oh, and also nixing all my carnival ideas? The fact that I grew up with this doctor's kids, a block from his house, and I'm pretty sure he still golfs with my dad.

All that just to learn that my heart's fine, and that another upstanding member of the medical community knows I'm crazy.

Will Work For Fun

Generally speaking, and generally disregarding the days when I try to strangle myself with redaction tape, I enjoy my job. I work by myself, I get free herbal tea, and I have my very own office, complete with a real working door that opens and closes at my whim.

It should be noted that I would perform much less savory jobs, including “examiner of whale bladder function,” “Yankee Candle wax taste-tester,” and “personal assistant to Paris Hilton,” as long as I was guaranteed my own office.

Most of the people at my office are smiley, bland, and dazed enough to keep me on the functional side of spazzed out, but when the more aggressively ridiculous cubicle clowns ding my nerves one too many times, I can just close my aforementioned door and work in peace, prepare important legal documents, and bring forth a new creative masterpiece. Behold, legal work product!

I'm so glad that instead of troubling myself to learn Power Point (The Devil) or Excel (The Devil When Power Point Is Unavailable), I dedicated myself entirely to the mastery of MS Paint. Just the other day, proving that my employer had hired me for a reason other than to provide a continuous supply of cupcakes and pointy shoes, my skills finally paid off: The firm had put together a team to run a 10k this spring, and was taking suggestions for a design for a t-shirt we could all wear.

Alright fine, maybe they weren't actively soliciting suggestions. Maybe I just saw an opportunity to flex my creative muscles and bring joy to those around me. Whatever. I had a great idea for a t-shirt design, so I submitted it to the powers that be:

It was denied in favor of "Running From The Law." Clearly the committee needs to learn some MS Paint.

*While I did add the words to that picture, I did not create the picture itself. It came from the funniest blog ever written.

Stay-Puft Sinuses

Demonstrating that 2009 desperately wanted to come in with a bang and show me how awesome it’s going to be to live out the next 358 days, I have been smacked down with a cold in the first week of the New Year. I’m pretty pissed about this, and not just because it involves the inevitable debate between “suffer at work, thereby saving vacation days for something more fun than blowing the entire Amazon River and its fauna out my nose,” and “throb on the couch at home, blowing the entire Amazon River and its fauna out my nose, watching TV and wondering when TLC and HGTV will partner so that those fashionistas on ‘What Not To Wear’ can work their spangly magic on Suzanne Whang and Karen McAloon, who have not been told that no one wants their house decorated by someone wearing hammer pants or aloha prints.”

I’m pissed about this because I get every single cold that comes my way, where by “comes my way” I mean “is smeared on me by the secretary who deploys a mass offensive against humanity in the bathroom, doesn’t wash her hands, and then pretends nothing happened.” I can’t protect myself from having the rhinovirus practically air-gunned into my nostrils, but I feel like I do an above-par job of making sure my inner army is trained and ready to fend off invaders. Or at least making sure they’re not drunk all the time. I eat lots of fruits and vegetables (case in point: the pineapple incident), I choke down a multivitamin that tastes like Flipper's groin, and when I don't come home feeling like the workday sat on my head and farted, I manage to clock in some exercise.

My fruits and vegetables are many and varied, and sometimes I even wash them. I try to make them organic, except organic produce consistently and violently angers me. Here's why. When words are put in front of product names at grocery stores, it's all for one reason: To say "I am more tasty!" Fresh spinach. Crisp pickles. Hot bread. Get my drift? They are eager little children of adjectives screaming PICK ME I TASTE NICER!!! So when I see ORGANIC splashed across displays of arugula and apples, smugly crowning a price tag rivaled only by the GDP, I assume "organic" means "tastier," dig a little deeper, and cough up a lung to pay for the organic goodness.

Then I get home, and instead of tasting like rainbows and sunshine like I had assumed it would, the organic produce tastes like mediocre supermarket disappointment. And I want my lung back.

So I do what I can to keep myself healthy, and Mucus, Fatigue, and Achey still come to visit. Mid-way through a conversation with one of my bosses today, she realized how sick I was, and said, "Oh God, everyone's a petri dish right now." I almostalmostalmost replied, "And I made tender love to your keyboard before you got in this morning," but I didn't, of course, because I have no balls and also I like having health insurance.

Battlestar Galactica: Now In Polish!

In the course of stumbling through the drug-hazy coma that I’m calling my workday, I just had to type into a form that someone is from a place called “Subcarpathian Voivodeship.” Subcarpathian Voivodeship, Poland. I swear I’m not making that up. In reality, I wish I COULD make up something that funny. It sounds like the sequel to Battlestar Galactica. “Battlestar Galactica: Subcarpathian Voivodeship”!!! Thus, I put a note on the form assuring the reviewing attorney that I had not made that up; that it is in fact, a real place with its own culture, traditions, spirited folk music, and maybe legalized weed.

If I’m the only one who finds Subcarpathian Voivodeship hilarious, it’s because I have a cold and am hopped up on enough Alka-Seltzer cold to kill an elephant, or at least make him hallucinate Pixar movies for a few hours. Here, as a winning example of my current mental state, is the entire body of an email I just sent to my mom:

"HAPPEH BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your present from us is cool. What are we having for dinner tonight? I have a cold."

I’m gonna be so much fun at dinner tonight. "Happy Birthday, Mom! Sorry I sneezed on your cake and made rhinovirus the party favor."

Flakey McFlakenstein Reporting For Duty

Yesterday, my first day back at work after my ten-day sanity hiatus/Christmas vacay, will go down in history as one of the longest days of my life. The only thing that can possibly compete with it for most interminable duration is the entire televised run of “Little House on the Prairie,” only with fewer bonnets and more profanity.

Before we proceed, let’s just for a minute picture Pa Ingalls dropping the F-bomb.

I know, right?

While on sanity hiatus, I had gotten a new cell phone. It’s a vast improvement over my old one in that it takes video, has a QWERTY keyboard, and actually makes and receives calls. In hoping that someone would call me so I could relax to the soothing sounds of my new rainforest-creatures ringtone, I had kept my new child on my desk all day. No one called except an apparently misguided yet psychic computer at the drug store, to inform me that a bottle of a drug I no longer take was waiting for me. Our conversation was deep and meaningful, but all too brief to offset the mind-numbitude of the rest of the day.

By the time I called it a draw at 5:30, my little brain was beyond fried. I hurriedly grabbed my coat and purse, and vacated the premises with my friend Gray (of Christmas Party Pâté Challenge fame). I had locked my doors, buckled my seatbelt, and effectively safeguarded myself against any remaining vestiges of the workday, when I realized I had left my precious, shiny new child on my desk. By itself. IN THE DARK!

I froze. I choked back panic. I struggled to breathe—but that was most likely a side effect from the fact that I was breathing into a plastic bag to try to alleviate the panic. Manic thoughts raced through my head faster than hippies fleeing a bath. What if someone stole it? What if someone tried to call me and I wasn’t there to be soothed by the rainforest creatures?

Happily, I came up with a solution by the time I was driving out of the parking deck. It was actually NOT to walk back and get the phone. Please. It was a two-block walk in cold rain, and I knew that Lawyer Boy and the cat were eagerly awaiting my arrival. Also my cute, cute pointy shoes felt like aliens were sitting down to a cheerful family dinner of my toes. I decided I would call Dan, one of the attorneys I work for, who was the only person I could think of who would still be chained to his desk at that hour, and I would ask him to put the phone in my desk drawer for protection. I knew he would do this for me, but not before he had plastered a post-it note that said, “this is NOT cute” over the phone’s front screen, a digital picture of the cat in a cardboard box. Whatever. I could deal with him hating on my cat in return for the safekeeping of my shiny baby. I had a plan! Hurray! Long live my mad skillz!

So I reached over and fumbled in my purse, looking for my phone, so I could call Dan…to ask him to put my phone in the drawer. It took me a good 10 seconds to realize the only way I was making that call was if my wallet spontaneously picked up a signal.

A Thoreau-ly Bizarre Christmas

A recap of the Thoreau family holiday celebrations, spanning two states, several species, and a dozen bottles of wine, shall be presented in a seasonally-appropriate Twelve Notes of Christmas format, so as to combat my desire to ramble, and ease your ability to comprehend the insanity. And thus, we begin.

1) Twas the night before Christmas, and it was not a mouse, that my aunt and uncle showed up with at my grandmother's house: It was actually a Labrador retriever, a stray cat, and a profanity-spewing African Gray parrot. That's right, for a one-night stay, my aunt and uncle insisted on traveling with their very own menagerie, as if the zoo-like atmosphere created by my family wasn't enough of the animal kingdom for the eve of the birth of Christ. The dog was pretty tame; the cat created minimal havoc beyond attacking and conquering all holiday foliage placed around the house; and the foul-mouthed parrot actively tried to assassinate my brother Jordie throughout dinner. He sat on top of his five-foot-tall cage (the parrot, not my brother), and whenever Jordie would walk by, look at him, or take a bite of his own food, the parrot would rear up all Dracula-like, spread his wings, and shriek obscenities at him, not unlike my boss. Apparently he understood the meaning of the middle finger, because Jordie's sole response of flipping him the bird would send him into a renewed parrot frenzy. It was not festive.

2) My aunt and uncle, who are awesome people but who are loud beyond the human range of hearing, became so raucous during our Christmas Eve Greek Feast that my dad began singing "Away In A Manger" and NO ONE COULD HEAR HIM. I could see his lips moving, and see him swaying to the beat, but he may as well have been Milli Vanilli-ing his chosen carol. It was at that point that Jordie texted me "we have to get out of here N.O.W.!!1!!!!!!"

3) When we finally departed the menagerie (the literal and figurative menageries), Lawyer Boy and I were unable to exit my grandmother's neighborhood due to the fact that the police had blocked off the only road out in response to a shots-fired incident. Oh yes. Baby Jesus, away in a manger, no crib for a bed, and while the angels are singing hark! SOMEONE STARTED A GUN FIGHT. We didn't know what was going on until we realized the police officer with the megaphone was yelling, "DROP THE GUN AND GET ON THE GROUND!" not "Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good night!" They were not, in fact, a blue-clad caroling group out for a holiday stroll-and-sing. However, if they had been, I would have fit in perfectly in my shiny blue cocktail dress. (It should also be noted that my grandmother's neighborhood is more suited to shiny blue cocktail dresses than gunfights, so we had not brought our Kevlar vests that evening.)

4) My favorite Christmas present was the Miley Cyrus Christmas card my brother got me, which plays a real recording of Ms. Cyrus herself singing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" whenever I open it, which is extremely frequently. It lives on our fridge and I think if I open it one more time, the cat is going to take it to his litter box and do nefarious things to it. I'm summoning all my will power and trying to prevent this, so that in 18 months when pictures of Ms. Cyrus with a crack straw in her nose surface, I will have a real live Hannah Montana artifact. And bleeding eardrums.

5) The day after Christmas, LB and I packed up and made the six-hour drive down to Charleston, SC to visit his family for the holidays. The only noteworthy event from the trip down was when we stopped for gas in Emporia (aka Armpit Township, Virginia) and at a red light, sat behind a giant truck with the license plate CLETUS. The CLETUS plate sat proudly atop a trailer ball crowned by a shiny silver skull with glowing red eyes. This was immediately before we stopped at an Arby's noteworthy only for its musical selection, which sounded like a circus monkey raping a pipe organ while humming "Carol of the Bells." I somehow feel CLETUS was responsible for this.

6) My sister-in-law's husband surprisingly showed up with her for Christmas, and also surprisingly, was a pleasantly festive presence. This is surprising because for the last three years, he has hovered on the spectrum of humanity somewhere between "manic asshole" and "eternal douche," so even a journey into the territory of "marginal dillweed" would have been a welcome improvement. But since he all but candied his own yams and built keepsake toys for the wee ones, we were all happy. To quote Clark Griswold, that epic Christmas elf: "If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I would not be more surprised than I am right now."

7) When we arrived in the rather boring, rural suburb outside Charleston, we were forced to pile into the family Tribeca to take a suburban tour, at night. AKA, in the dark, AKA, after we had just driven for six hours. Apparently when LB told his parents repeatedly, "Grace gets carsick," what they heard was, "Grace loves to be folded up like an origami swan with seven other adults in a car that claims to seat seven, but only if those seven are Snow White's dwarves, to drive around East Jesus in the dark to glimpse the occasional Craftsman-style porch lantern. Also she likes to barf on your shoes/upholstery/children." That trip was not a merry dash through the snow.

8) The majority of our Christmas presents were gift cards to Lowe's or Home Depot, owing to the stupendously ugly nature of our house right now. On "Christmas morning" with his family, LB opened a Lowe's card that had a hammer festively attired in a red bow on the front, and his five-year-old adopted brother Tyler became so excited that he shrieked, "Mommy! LB got a HAMMER PRESENT CARD!!!!!" We have henceforth referred to all gift cards as Hammer Present Cards, and so it shall be forevermore!

9) A grand debate ensued around the Christmas tree when my youngest sister-in-law began debating with her mother whether or not her bee-hind was a Medium, per what the underwear my mother-in-law had bought her stated, or whether it was an Extra-Small, per the fantasies dancing like sugarplums in her head. This was an uncomfortable debate for everyone involved, including a moment when my mother-in-law challenged, "I dare you to get one buttcheek in an extra-small once you wash those!!" It culminated in all of us agreeing by secret ballot that the bee-hind in question was, in no way, an extra-small. Despite the conclusion, it remained awkward.

10) Speaking of bee-hinds that are no longer extra-small, in retaliation for having been abandoned to the care of the neighbors for a traumatic forty-eight hours, the cat chewed three holes in his bag of Meow Mix and devoured approximately four times his own weight in Mix in two days. We returned to find him awash in a sea of his own greed, yet thoroughly pleased with his exploits. Consequently, we have yet to be able to pick him up comfortably since. He could easily feed a family of twelve.

11) In the ten days I have been on vacay from work since Christmas, I have managed to stare at, rearrange, and kick around our bedroom (literally) the same overfilled basket of clean laundry, without ever putting them away in my closet or drawers. I couldn't be more proud of my own laziness if I had laid on the couch until my joints grew moss. I'll save that task for summer vacay when the higher humidity will facilitate quicker spore growth.

12) My New Year's resolution is to be more green, and reduce, reuse, recycle. Based on the amount of alcohol bottles that have already accumulated in the shiny new recycling bin, we may be getting a call from Central Virginia Waste Management regarding a possibly more productive resolution: AA.

Fa la la la left to my own devices...

I had high hopes for this weekend, really and truly. With the kickoff of the apple-bottom lawyer Christmas party, and the prospect of the entire weekend to do things at my own (totally ADD) pace due to Lawyer Boy's absence, I had visions of myself decking the halls, tying beautiful bows the size of a baby on all my precious gifts, and decorating cookies so beautiful they would sing their own Christmas carols.

Let's be real here. At least, I wish I had been when all those sugarplums and whatnot were dancing in my idiot head.

Friday night I did not sleep AT ALL, which is the kiss of death for me. While I'm normally the smiley happy elf of any event, anywhere, my jollitude largely depends on the quality of my sleep. If I don't sleep well, my elfish good nature morphs into Bitchy, the eighth dwarf, as well as the ninth and tenth dwarfs, Cranky and Shitty. Saturday morning, with LB having been up at the crackhead of dawn to leave town to help his parents move, I woke up with the aforementioned headache I had not earned, and downed a pot of coffee (that is real, people, I am NOT exaggerating) in my first attempt of the day to be human.

Before I continue, a word on helping people move. I fully comprehend that LB's parents gave him the gift of life, and refrained from beating his ass/leaving him outside overnight when he was crappy, and all that, but asking someone to drive four hours to help you move is on par with asking someone to assist you in giving yourself an enema. Everyone's glad when it's over, but no one is happy. Or smells nice.

Anyway, when I finally walked my groggy-yet-well-coiffed self (snaps to my friend Hayley, who did my hair so well for the party that the magnificence was in effect for over 28 hours of radiance) out of the house to finish shopping, I was fully expecting the mall to resemble The Apocalypse, or at least be uncomfortably jammed with The Velour-Cloaked Soccer Moms With Chicklet-Sized Cell Phones Driving a Chevy Mammoth Full of Aspiring Prostitute Ten-Year-Olds Dressed Like Rihanna With a Lisp and Muffin Top. But seriously, and I guess this is because I lit candles to St. J.C. Penney, Patron Saint of Retail Misadventures, it wasn't any worse than any other velour-cloaked Saturday at the mall (which is still no tray of cupcakes, but better than The Apocalypse...I think).

My first stop was to buy presents for my eight-year-old nephew, five-year-old niece, and nine-year-old Angel Tree giftee. My goal with buying gifts for my niece and nephew (aka my Rent-A-Babies) is to get something that they will love, that won't make my sister and brother-in-law hate me till the end of time. I may still be in the dog house for the gift I gave my nephew when he was three: It was this bad-ass saxophone kit, made of a bunch of separate made-for-small-hands pieces, that you could put together in a million different ways, and still play it like a saxophone. Unfortunately, no matter which way you put it together, it still sounded like a three-year-old playing a plastic saxophone. I think they would have appreciated a Komodo dragon more than that.

Oh yeah, and my other goal, which gets progressively harder each year, is to buy something that my niece will love, that won't encourage her to sell herself into prostitution by the age of 10. Bratz Dollz, I'm looking at you, with your tiny shiny skirts, LIFE-SIZE BOOBS, and vaginas for sale.

What I ended up finding for them was, as usual, something I want to buy for myself but exceed the weight limit for. I found blow-up sofas, one with the Batman logo, and one with the Disney princesses, all covered in allegedly flame-retardant yet still beautiful plush velvety goodness. CHECK! Even though I could technically fit if I put two of them together, I knew it wouldn't be a practical furniture investment for our living room since we sometimes have guests who need to sit down too. Also they were $10 each, which is steep compared to all the free stuff on Craigslist. And the stuff from Craigslist comes with free included health hazards.

The rest of my shopping was exponentially less awesome. It's never as fun to buy a grown-up sweater as it is to buy a gift that allows you to sit on Sleeping Beauty's face.

Before you have time to process what I just accidentally said, let's move on.

The zenith of my day was, without a doubt, when I got home and took the dogs for a walk. We have two labs, Breeze and Amor, who came from LB's parents' farm, who live in their own specially engineered house, complete with climate control, weather protection, yard, and beds that (apparently) double as late-night snacks. We walk them every day at least once, for the joy of seeing them romp, and the delight of clawing their poops into plastic bags. Amor is old--she's 16 and kind of slow, but way sweeter than most people I know. Breeze is 9, and she's an entire rave packed into an 85-pound bag of fur. Seriously, she's like walking a NASCAR. I let them out of their yard, and once I was able to manhandle Breeze off the roof, I leashed them and we set out. We walked along, fa la la, no problems, until calamity struck.

The only way I can describe what happened is this--picture this all happening AT THE SAME TIME. We happen to stop in front of a little old lady's house, the owner of which steps out of a car in front of it. Prancing out behind her is a Chihuahua tinier than a dinner roll dressed in a holly-printed blazer fully trimmed in white fur. Bear in mind here that together, Breeze and Amor weigh more than I do. SO, at the same time as Breeze lunges forward to go make aggressive friends with Sir Tinkerdoodle, Amor chooses RIGHT THEN to drop what can only be described as a full gallon of HOLY LIVING HELL on the little old lady's front lawn. Meanwhile the little old lady is eyeing my dogs, eyeing me, checking on Dinner Roll's general wellbeing, and suddenly decides to start a conversation with me about how nice the neighborhood is. All this while I'm holding off Breeze from loving the canine cornish hen to death with one hand, holding back Amor from rapidly vacating her recent calamity with the other hand, trying to scoop up said calamity with the toes on my left foot, and making pleasant conversation with my remaining 3.7 brain cells. Two minutes, one dislocated shoulder, and THREE plastic grocery bags later, I left the scene with two large dogs, zero dignity, and Cheeseball's holly blazer, which Breeze is keeping as a trophy of her love.

Last night was the cherry on top of a creamy delicious day. It was the first time I had ever stayed alone, overnight, in our super-old creaky-freaky house. I do not believe in ghosts per se, except I'm afraid of them, which makes no sense until it's midnight, you're by yourself, and you mistake the cat jumping off the bed for a crazed maniac stalking your virtue. My tolerance for all things "scary" has not evolved at all since I was five and was afraid of E.T. (Srsly, the scene where he runs shrieking out of the cornfields haunts me to this day.) I am extremely jumpy and do not watch anything scarier than "Casper." So my master plan was (surprisingly not to get so drunk I passed out dead) to fall asleep in front of the t.v. till I woke up incoherent and could stumble into bed, and right back to sleep.

This master plan was genius, really, until I happened to wake up on the couch at 12:17 during a commercial break, during a commercial for that movie "The Strangers," during a shot that was one of those scary sock-headed murderers peering in at Liv Tyler, during which she shrieks like a banshee. It rattled me to my core, causing me to tear upstairs, neglecting to brush my teeth or turn off the Christmas tree, before I leapt into bed, pulled the covers over my head, and remained in that exact position, breathing my own recycled air, until 7:30 this morning.

Needless to say, I woke up this morning the psychological equivalent of a hungover Dick Cheney. With a to-do list and a vendetta. And no staff. I fidoodled around the house, made a pan of baklava, and cleaned, before LB got home with a U-Haul full of heavy stuff I couldn't identify but still had to help unload (why I'm a magic wife: I had a bowl of homemade chili, and a plate of corn chips, cookies, fudge, and hot chocolate waiting for him when he got home). He was practically delirious from having worked at moving till 1am, slept on the floor, moved some more heavy crap, and then driven home. I was practically delirious from having not slept and the noise of the vacuum. Except he was wearing a beanie that made him look like a gnome, and I wasn't. It took us THREE HORRIBLE HOURS to unload all this ugly heavy crap like "table saws" and "lumber." After that I had to go to the grocery store, where I was in such a ridiculous mental state that had someone told me baked beans were essential to good pound cake, I would have bought a case. Of beans, not cake. Well, probably cake, too. I was pretty far gone.

FINALLY, we were done, there was delicious, delicious wine, and my aunt surprisingly brought over a half-dozen Christmas ornaments, which coupled with LB's safe arrival home, absolutely made my weekend. Lawyer Boy, sparkly ornaments, and wine. What else could I need?

I'll talk to you again once I've regained full mental function.

Check Your Dignity At The Door

Amigos, I apologize for my absence. I’ve been off doing big important things, like decorating the cat for Christmas, and trying to get in the holiday spirit without getting any on the rug. Related to both getting in the spirit AND spilling it on the rug, tonight is the Law Firm Christmas Party. I’m so excited! I love getting dressed up, making fun of the festive outfits of my coworkers while challenging them to tequila shots, and watching the drunken receptionist karaoke. And also drinking till I am capable of talking to my boss.

For all the flack they receive, company Christmas parties are really pretty predictable: If you work for an uptight, structured company, you’re going to have an uptight, structured Christmas party, with two drink tickets apiece and a cheese centerpiece shaped like Santa (the nausea factor inherent to man-shaped food is apparently lost on mid-brow caterers). It’s also probable that the secretary whose workday outfits most closely resemble a blood clot will make a splashy entrance in a holiday outfit most closely resembling a sequined blood clot. The two-martini-lunch CEO will inevitably show up five martinis into a seventeeni-martini-evening, hobnobbing with all the eligible cleavage in the room. Really, there are never surprises. Just Kodak moments for future reference and blackmail.

If there’s one wild card factor in the whole Macarena-infused evening, it’s the Shocker Drinkers of the party. Every company has at least three—the mousy individuals who look like the hardest beverage they ever kick back is WILD Berry Crystal Light, who morph into hard-swilling martini fiends (not vampires) under the mirror ball and down enough liquor to KO Ted Kennedy. Then they do such delightfully festive things as leading the conga line (being sure to include the waitress with the shrimp cocktail), raising a Christmas toast in jolly limerick form, and in an act that would make PETA proud, puking in the coat closet on the boss’ wife’s 67-pound mink jacket.

Ah, the Shocker Drinkers! How I love them! They bring joy, surprise, and hilarity to any holiday gathering. They’re also my people. I love them because I am one of them. Because I’ve never worked for a company that didn’t have an open bar Christmas party, each year has afforded me the opportunity to drink like I stole fourteen coworkers’ drink tickets at a tamer party. (If I were to attend a tamer party, damn straight I’d steal coworkers’ drink tickets. I don’t get dressed up for free, people.) So this year, to try to keep myself a bit more in line than Pauly Shore at a keg party, I’ve come up with a list of Do’s and Don’ts for myself.

Don’ts
Drink so much that a heartfelt chat with the Chairman of the Board seems necessary and appreciated
Drink seven glasses of champagne before realizing that there is actually food at the party—then eschew food in favor of seven more glasses of champagne
Ask the bartender to screw the “wimpy” champagne flute, save everyone time, and just serve yours in a beer stein
Do the Macarena, under any circumstances whatsoever
Stalk the waitress carrying the bacon-wrapped scallops until she gives you the tray
Tell your boss that “everyone would love you more if you just chilled the eff out. And I just love your shoes!”


Do
Not drink so much that all chats become “heartfelt,” then “emotional,” then “completely incoherent”
Not drink so much that the Macarena seems de rigueur
Not, under any circumstances, talk to your boss, the Chairman of the Board, or that fierce-ass divorce attorney who hates all people worldwide
Not tell the rotund attorney that if he just sat down, you’d spread the word that he was playing Santa that evening and find someone to sit on his lap

So with me largely (hopefully) sober and not picking fights and/or causing mayhem, calamity, and frogs to rain from the sky, this should be a pretty tame evening. I did get one awesome challenge for a party activity, which some well-hidden part of me had enough common sense to turn down: My friend Gray told me he’d give me $100 if I could eat a pound of pâté in an hour. This seemed like a good idea for two reasons. 1) I LOVE PÂTÉ, and 2) I would love $100! I could see myself smoothly cruising around the party, chatting with all the nice folk while nibbling pâté off a cocktail plate. Then! Every ten minutes or so, I’d do a lap back by my table, where a bedazzled poinsettia discreetly concealed my brick of animal mousse, refill my plate, and continue around the party circuit till an hour had passed, my pâté had been eaten, and Gray gave me my victorious $100 right before my heart screeched to a halt, my abs exploded, and an entire pig leapt, squealing, from my stomach. It was a foolproof plan! Then Gray had to go and rain destruction on my plan, when he said the only way he would agree was if I did it while seated at a table by myself, behind a velvet rope. It never even occurred to me that he probably couldn’t procure a velvet rope, but despite his offer of letting me keep the rope if I won, I had to turn it down. How could I hobnob effectively if I were stuck at a table by myself???

It should also be noted that Gray told me he once ate a fried seahorse only because “I for some reason thought it would taste like a cracker.” Apparently it did not, unless your usual crackers taste like salt and King Triton’s armpit. Maybe I should not take Gray’s money. I will, however, take another glass of champagne!

Off And Running...Finally!

Word to the wise: If you create a blog, and then because, say, you move, get a cold, have someone in your family die (not on purpose), and then also coincidentally forget to post an inital entry for a few days, Blogger locks you down like a candy bar at fat camp. NO POSTS FOR YOU until they review your blog and realize you're not spam, but are in fact just a very nice person trying to write a heartfelt blog about the enchanting wonders of this sun-dappled world. Or you're me, and have more words to say than you can fit into any seven conversations, and so turn to the internet looking for an innocent ear to accost. So, after 14 days of waiting for them to free me, I now spring forth like a beautiful butterfly! BIENVENIDOS!!