They lied. There were no Tastykakes at Kroger (at least the Kroger on Richmond Road. I'll try Alexandria next week.)

I'm now officially out of butterscotch krimpets. :(

It says here on the Tastykake website that they sell Tastykakes in Kentucky at Kroger. Sam (who happens to be another Philly native) said he used to get them at the Kroger on Alexandria.

I will have to research this further.

I forgot to mention my fun at the dentist (yes, again) yesterday. I was supposed to go in for a few fillings on the left side of my mouth. When I left last Tuesday, he took an x ray of my infernal crowned tooth, to try to figure out why it was still hurting months later. When I came in yesterday, he showed me the x ray. There was a big abscess at the root. My tooth was dying (which is why it'd actually stopped hurting in the last few days.) So what did I get done yesterday? Half of a root canal (called a pulpectomy. They drill through the tooth (easy for me, since they just took off the temporary crown), take out the offending pulp, put medicine in there to kill the infection, and then put the crown back on. I get to have the fun part done next week, where they reopen the tooth and put a rubber putty type thing in the canals where the pulp was. I knew the tooth would eventually die, it'd been through too much. Jesus, I make my tooth sound like a person. Anyhow, the professor actually drilled the holes so my dental student (Peter) could take out the pulp, and he said a live tooth would have bled, but mine didn't.

RIP, #30.

I did the Find Your Spot quiz that Liz has on her site, on where your ideal place to live is.

My list:
1) Rocky Mount/Stony Creek, North Carolina
2) Greenville, North Carolina
3) Hampton, Virginia
4) Kent, Washington
5) Chattanooga, Tennessee
6) New Brunswick, New Jersey
7) Greenville, South Carolina
8) Durham, North Carolina
9) Hickory, North Carolina
10) Lexington, Kentucky
11) Tacoma, Washington
12) Bowling Green, Kentucky
etc, etc.

Why so much North Carolina? It's pretty and all, but really has never been one of my favorite places.

Ok, I'm all caught up on my timesheets, and I just had a butterscotch Krimpet (oh, I will be so sad when there are no more Tastykakes. I simultaneously bless and curse Beth/Nathan.. bless them for introducing the wonderfulness that is Tastykakes, and curse them because now I have known pure goodness, and have no easy access to more.) It is time for me to blog.

This weekend Jay and I went to Florence to see his mom and Catherine, his lovely geriatric cat. We played Monopoly (Jay won, damn him), (travel) Sorry, saw Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, had Indian food (yum!), went to a cool 99¢ store, and held a Bengal kitten (I really want one. Badly.) We came home Sunday, and on Monday went to Jay's aunt's farm in Paris (Kentucky, of course.) It was very beautiful out there. They have an 82 acre farm, with about four horses. I pet two of them. One of them snuffled my legs. Jay and I were both in allergy hell, though, being out near so much unadulterated pollen.

Ok, my take on Star Wars: Attack of the Clones: It was a good movie. However, the two lead "actors" (I use that term lightly) really were crappy. Christian Haydensen was just a leery teenager (John Williams' score did all his acting for him. Just listen to what's going on behind him when he's turning all Vader: The Imperial Death March. I mean, it's like there were big 10 ft letters on the screen: ANAKIN TURNS INTO VADER. Duh.) Natalie Portman had no regality about her, and she seemed to just speak her lines. However, I really liked the rest of the cast, and the fight/action scenes were great (I usually despise action/fight stuff.) The light sabres were great.. Yoda kicking ass was applause-worthy. In general, I haven't been too into the Star Wars phenomenon. My brother liked it when he was young, and I saw the movies around the time they originally came out, but I really remember very little from the original trilogy. I saw Episode One, and wasn't too impressed. It was ok, kept my attention, but I wasn't compelled to research anything further. However, Attack of the Clones makes me want to learn more about the entire story. I might even go and watch the original trilogy again, and I look forward to the next movie. I only hope that the leads learn how to act in the meantime (if they will indeed be in them.)

When Jay and were out Sunday, we came back to his house to pick up our stuff and head out. We get there, and the door's locked. Gah! His brother's car was there, but his brother was not (his mom was out doing Memorial Day things.) That's the third time his brother has locked us out of the house. We left him a note, went to Burger King for a few minutes, came back, and he was there. So I drive back to Lexington, drop Jay off, and then get to my apartment. On Friday, when I left, I had double-locked the back door (which has a less secure lock), and single locked the front door (which we usually don't use.) I carried my stuff up to the door, and went to unlock it to realize: I don't have a key for the front door. I had given it to Scott so he could check up on Anastasia when I was gone over Christmas, and I didn't find it where he said he put it. So I was locked out (as Aimee was in WV.) I sat on the railing of my deck and contemplated jumping into my open bedroom window for about 10 minutes before wimping out (it's offset about two feet from our deck, and we're on the second story. I wouldn't have been able to do it by myself, I don't think.) Finally, I went downstairs to ask if I could use their phone to call my landlord, so he could let me in. (to which the lady remarked, "Good luck. He isn't supposed to have a key, anyhow." I've never known of a single landlord that didn't have keys to their properties. I think they have that right. They're renting you their property, they should be able to get in in case of emergency, or if they need to evict you.) Anyhow. So the guy downstairs said, "Well, let's look at the windows." We do, and he decides to try to get in mine. I helped him, and he got in (he's got to be pushing 50, at least). Then he hinted that he needed to borrow $10.. I didn't know what to do. So later I went out and got him a $10 gift certificate to Wal Mart. If he can't get it at Wal Mart, he doesn't really need it, I hypothesize. hehe. The man is nice, but creepy. I mean, I'm very grateful for him having helped me, but not necessarily happy that he knows that my bedroom window is unlocked. I feel bad for thinking that way, but it's true. He kinda gives you the "he's being too nice and now I feel icky" feeling.

Anyhow. I digress.

I think that's all I have for today. I wish more people would comment on my stuff. hehe. HINT HINT. I like dialogue.

Summaries for the day:
1) Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was actually pretty good.
2) The internet is full of weird coincidences, as stated last week sometime. I will go into this further into detail soon.
3) White Barn Candle Company (an offshoot of Bath and Body as far as I can tell) has a really yummy scented oil thingie for the wallflowers, in Blackberry.
4) indeed, it's possible to be locked out of two separate places on the same day.

Why do people insist that I do, in fact, want to have children? No, I don't. It's ok that I don't. The world has enough of a population problem. But I shouldn't have to convince people of my own feelings. You can say anything you want about me, that it's selfish, that I'd be a good mother, etc., etc., but that doesn't change the fact that I don't want to have kids, and that's all that really matters. There's no requirement that I procreate written into my biological contract with whatever deity might be up there. And that's just fine.

My birthday yesterday was nice. At work, I had a cookie cake (which was good, but the bright pink icing tasted bitter.. for some reason I can really taste red/pink food coloring), and then later in the evening I had a potluck. Jay, Aimee, Anne-Marie, Liz, Patrick, and Jill came by, and we had a lovely cake that Jay made, along with other stuff (such as Liz's excellent muligitawny soup.. mmm. Even Aimee liked it. She's the pickiest eater ever!) For my birthday, my parents + grandmothers gave me money, Jay gave me Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and his mom got me Clerks (all on DVD. I think that doubles my DVD collection.) Aimee got me Little Plastic Castle by Ani Difranco, which is wonderful. Beth and Nathan sent me the stuff I said earlier, the two boxes of oh-so-yummy Tastykakes and a cute Cabbage Patch Kid toy (because Beth knows how I love Cabbage Patch Kids. Someday, I will bring my entire collection back with me, and probably my sister's.. I'll have a scary room full of about 40 Cabbage Patch Kids. hehe.) I haven't had a chance to watch any of the DVDs yet. I at least wanted to watch some extras last night, but after I took Jay home, cleaned up the apartment, and took a shower, it was really too late. Bah. hehhe. I'm going to FLorence until Sunday today, so I guess I won't get the chance to watch them until Sunday. But that's ok.

Yesterday I was very bored, so I looked up names in Google. I found my friend April Goshorn (now married, with the last name Robinett), and emailed her, and she answered, which was very nice. I will have to write her a longer letter soon.

Ok, so I'm listening to the new Counting Crows single, American Girls via Real Audio, and it sounds surprisingly like the stuff off of Great Big Sea latest album. This is odd for several reasons, which I will now list:
1) Great Big Sea's latest album, Sea of No Cares was largely co-written by Chris Trapper, of the Push Stars
2) Chris Trapper's voice sounds a lot like Adam Duritz's.
So now, Adam Duritz's music sounds like Chris Trapper's.

Happy birthday!
Now you’re one year older.
Happy birthday!
Your life still isn’t over.
Happy birthday!
You did not accomplish much.
But you didn’t die this year, I guess that’s good enough.
(.....................From the Arrogant Worms song "Happy Happy Birthday")

As of 7:35 a.m., I am one year older. heh.

Where the hell did I get the idea that making devilled eggs for my potluck tonight (and the work picnic tomorrow) would be easy? Over two dozen eggs to boil, cool, shell, and cut up, and then mashing the yolks, adding the ingredients. Somewhere down the line I got the idea that a pastry bag (like for icing) would be easier. I found one at Kroger by luck (in the "Dollar Days" section), and it was near impossible to get all the yolks in the bag. (once they were in, however, it was way easier to fill the eggs than with a spoon.) It took me over an hour and a half, from start to finish.

But now I have about 50 devilled eggs and a kitchen that smells of sulfur.

YAY! I got another Threadspotting on The Straight Dope (my username is "phoebestar"). Go there and look a bit down the page. It'll only be up for a few days. If it's not there, click here to see what it looked like.

I'm such a geek.

Beth (and Nathan) rock more than I can state on a blogger. hehe. They sent me two boxes of Tastykakes and a wonderful Cabbage Patch Kid toy (actually, Aimee even has the video that this one is from, I think.) It is a very happy pre-birthday-to-me! I love getting packages!

This is my attempt to republish my page and get it up again.

I went to the dentist this morning and had a tooth filled. Oh, it was fun. SO FUN.

This is stolen and adapted from Liz's blog. I am "Me", she is "Her".

Lemme sum up:

Me: hehe. My nephew called me an "HTML goddess" on his messageboard.


Her: awww


Me: I found his site yestrerday. This is really twisted and weird how I got there. Lemme explain.


Her: No, is too much. Lemme sum up.


Me: My cousin Shelly is living with a pro soccer player. I was curious, so I looked up her name. It came up on a log for # porn, the IRC channel that Scott and Aleks (Remember ALeks? Beautiful long black hair?) and Craig used to frequent. On the channel, Craig's cousin Adam mentioned their names as "his bitches." The irony: Craig is my cousin's cousin' cousin. Which makes Adam a cousin's-cousin's-cousin's blah blah blah.


Me: Anyhow, so this archive was on castrate.org


Me: I look, and it's Aleks' new domain.


Her: brain... owie... that is twisted


Me: I'm looking through the site, and I notice that Aleks has subdomains hosted on his site. like goat.castrate.org


Me: I go t hrough them, and get to lod.castrate.org, and it's my nephew's website. hehe. And how does he know Aleks? Let me explain. hehe.


Me: My nephew Patrick (he's 18) is friends with Andy Burns. Andy Burns is Sean Burns' brother. Who is Sean Burns? This asshole I had a thing for in high school (we held hands at a party once, and that was a big deal to me back them. Later in the summer, he knocked up some girl and she had a kid. Well, they thought it was his. Turned out it was her stepdad's. That's irrelevant. And gross.)


Her: yike!


Me: Sean Burns is friends with Aleks. hehe.


Me: Although that is not how I met Aleks, myself.


Her: ok, usually the Rabid Librarian wins the "Why the hell did you tell me that story?" award of the day, but today it goes to you!


Me: hehehe.


Me: There is no reason, I just felt like sharing. And that is why I will not live there again. Everyone overlaps so much.


Her: Lexington is getting like that.


Me: I mean, I knew my nephew before my brother knew my sister-in-law. I dated his cousin.


Me: It is, but it's not nearly as bad as home... hehe. At least I have no family here.


Her: uuugh *twitch*


Her: Can I put this conversation on my blog?


Me: hehe. Go ahead!


Her: maybe it will help someone understand why I am the way I am.

From Tara's Blog:
"last night i had a long dream about the backstreet boys and a few of my co-workers. (i was snubbed by brian in one part of the dream. how humiliating.) when michael started playing a backstreet boys song (i know) i shot up from my chair and told him my dream. he said, "you're really freaking me out now." hell, he was the one playing the backstreet boys cd, not me. :P"

hehe. The fact you dreamed specifically about Brian Littrell amuses me. Everything about the Backstreet Boys amuses me. I know Harold, Brian's brother. We worked on a play together (well, he was in it, and I was the assistant stage manager), and he was a lot of fun to be around. I remember in about 1996 that Harold was passing out everything BSB stickers to try to promote the band. What's even more amusing: A few weeks ago Jay and I were in one of the K Mart's going out of business, and I was looking at some cds. There was this straight-to-video movie called "Olive Juice" that was used as a vehicle for Brian's wife, and the soundtrack was in the bin of cds. Harold had a song on it. hehe. I've done a web search, and it turns out that Harold even has his own fan pages. I remember when he worked in the AV section, and if you stood just right, you could see his brother's album on one rack, and him working about 15 feet away at the same time. (You know, I'm not all that sure that he doesn't work there anymore, actually. I haven't seen him for awhile, though.)

I don't know if that makes me envious, or glad that my brother and sister will never achieve fame. May imfamy, but probably not superstardom.

Methinks I only blog to get excited about concerts anymore.

Anyhow, Dar Williams at the Southgate House in August! Kickass!

Kickass. Cracker is coming to A1A in Lexington!

Congratulations to Jay for another 3.75. Three As and a B! He rocks. :)

And congratulations to my tomato seeds for finally sprouting. I will have my own tomatoes this summer.

Now on to Saturday, when Aimee and I went to King's Island. (I refuse to call it "Paramount's King's Island" on principle alone.)

We had stayed overnight using one of Aimee's glorious Marriott discounts at a Marriott Courtyard about 10 miles away, so we got up to an early start (for us), ate breakfast in the dining room, and headed over there. We wanted to ride Tomb Raider first, because we knew the lines would be long, etc. We get in line, behind these 3 obnoxious teenagers, and begin our wait. After we've been there about 15 minutes, they tell us that the ride is temporarily closed, while they fix something or another. We opt to wait it out, since a ton of people are leaving line. We wait some more. And some more. Eventually, they tell us we can stay or leave, but it'll probably be down for awhile (you'd think the thought of a ride being liable to break would stop us, but no..) We'd been waiting for an hour (behind the obnoxious girls who talked for 45 minutes about dying hair, I swear), and decided to cut our losses. However, we had no problems with lines the rest of the day. They were all pretty short. We waited maybe 20 minutes for The Beast (my favorite roller coaster of all time), 15 for the Vortex, and walked right on to Adventure Express 2 times at the end of the night (it's a cheesy little ride, but Aimee and I have always had an affinity for it.)

It seems they took out King Cobra, the standing roller coster. I always liked it, that kind of makes me sad. Really, it was pretty short, and I'm sure there were other things to focus on in the park.

Anyhow, I digress. Aims and I never did get over to the side of the park with Face-Off (a GREAT roller coaster.. supershort, but it's very intense) and Son of Beast (which liquefies my insides anyhow.) We were in Coney Mall most of the day, which has a lot of the carnival type rides. Finally, towards the end of the day we got back in line for Tomb Raider (after another hour wait.) Wow, it was really neat. It was a huge raked platform with three rows of seats, that you got harnessed into. Then the entire platform moves, and suspends you upside down, and does all sorts of cool things. The attendant had made me scared that my sunglasses would fall off (I could have taken them off, but then I wouldn't have seen anything. They're on pretty secure, but next time I think I'll take some sort of head attachment or something. heh.) Anyhow, when they took the middle of the ride picture, it looks like I'm flipping off the camera, because I'm holding my sunglasses on. They wouldn't have fallen off. Hrmph.

In line for Tomb Raider, we had to deal with about four fifteen year olds. Gah. This girl was pushing all of her friends around, and kept bumping into Aimee and I. What really pissed me off was the fact that her mother was with her, and didn't say a word. No, "Stop bumping into those people" or "Calm down." Grr.

Another incident.. Aimee and I were in line for the Scrambler, and a group of (mostly) boy teenagers were two or three groups in front of us. Sorta redneck, but not really. There was an attendant doing the ride that was a little chubby, and the waist of her khakis were too tight, creating some bulge. Well, this little dickhead in front of us kept very loudly yelling out, "You've got Dunlap's Disease" (you know, "Your waist dun' lapped over your belt". SO funny!) The attendant was trying her hardest to pretend to not hear him, I think. He said it one more time, and I finally said, "Why don't you shut up?" He said, "Oh, I wasn't talking about you." I said, "I don't care if you were or weren't. It's rude." He kinda muttered something, and shut up. If you're going to stay stuff like that among yourselves, to your friends, fine. It's still crappy, but at least that's among yourselves. That really could have hurt that poor attendant. I was half afraid they'd follow Aims and I off the ride and follow us or something, but they didn't. Aimee also heard them yelling to some chick that she had cellulite. It makes me so angry. What makes a person think it's ok to do that? What little mental button are they missing? I'm glad I said something, though. If someone doesn't to those kinda people, they think they're getting away with something.

All in all, however, it was a fun day. I got an uneven sunburn (I had on sunscreen, but I didn't put it on evenly around my shoulders, I suppose.) We got home at about midnight, and I slept for about 11 hours. I know, that's a long time. hehe.

Ok, so I'm not getting contacts.

I went to the fitting yesterday, and after about 20 minutes, I got both of them in. At first the right one felt fine, I could see most of the time, but the left one felt like there was something in my eye, and I couldn't see well. When he went to test my eyes, the right one kept going in and out of focus. One minute I could see, the next minute I couldn't. The left one was slipping about 10º, which is bad (I have a very bad astigmatism in my left eye, evidently.) To get a contact that would have worked in my left eye would have been $295 for my left eye alone. (the right one was funky, too). He said hard contacts would work for me, but I'd pretty much have to wear them every day. Blah. I didn't want it to be that much trouble... I just wanted something to pop in occasionally when I was playing soccer or going somewhere where glasses wouldn't be possible. I guess I'll just get the LASIK surgery in a few years, after I've bought a house and have a little extra money/credit lying around.

Bwahahaha!

Aimee ordered pizza tonight. The pizza people always deliver to our front door, which we never use (we have a ghetto hallway with shag carpeting that smells like cigarette smoke.) When she went out there to get her pizza, she saw this big box with my name on it. We have no clue how long it's been there. I open it up, to find out I won a sleeping bag from pepsistuff.com, when I entered their second chance sweepstakes for unclaimed prizes. That very much amuses me. I don't camp. But I'll put the sleeping bag to good use, one way or another. hehe.

Ani Difranco was AMAZING on Friday night. Completely, utterly, absolutely AMAZING! It was one of the best concerts I've ever seen, and that means alot coming from me (in my estimation). I mean, I was emotionally spent by the end of it. She's so tiny (5'2"), yet she has such a stage presence. The lighting was wonderful, it made me want to take pictures (but alas, I had no camera.) We were in the 6th row, center section, aisle seat. We had a very good view of the stage. The Taft in Cincinnati is a great theatre, too. I haven't seen a bad show there. (Ben Folds Five in 1999 is among one of my favorite all-time show.) Anyhow.. I got to hear "Little Plastic Castles", and Ani did an amazing poem (as mentioned below) about the 9-11 crap. I was about to bawl. It's not so much written on the page, but live it was incredibly moving. I've never heard such loud applause, ever. She only did one encore ("Every State Line"), which she did acapella, with a dumbek (I think?) and the drummer doing some little hand drum. It was interesting. I didn't realize I knew the song until later, it sounded so different ("Smile pretty and watch your back.") I think one of the things that's cool about her show is that she doesn't have any "hits". There's no "Istanbul" to perform every time, no "King of Spain." She has such a large body of work that there's a ton of stuff to pull from. Certainly, some songs in her catalogue stand out more than others, but I think you can go to a lot of Ani's shows and not hear any two setlists that are very similar. (A certain someone who I will not mention by name because I don't want him finding this page through a search engine would be happy with Ms. Difranco's setlist. Some of you know who he is.)

I just really can't explain how much the performance got to me... so many of the problems I've had in my life seem to get addressed, in one way or another. I've had that happen with Tori before, but the two styles are so incredibly different. Ani Difranco is so confrontational, while Tori kinda snuggles up to you and then bites. I more directly relate to Ani's music, while Tori speaks more in metaphors and evocative images. As Beth said, though, Tori Amos has more replayability than Ani... I can see that. Her music is more art, possibly, than Ani's. I never really understood Ani Difranco describing herself as "folk" before, but I think I do now. There's no hiding behind metaphors, it's all directly addresses, to one person from another. Hmm....

Anyhow... neither Aimee or I cared for the opening act, Drums and Tuba. Drums, tuba, and a guitar. And it was incredibly loud. So loud that I couldn't handle it (with an earplug in one ear), and had to leave about halfway through. Technically, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and was actually thankful for the long line. Not only was it loud, but it was also pretty boring. It all seemed like trance to me. I like instrumental music, don't get me wrong. Just not that instrumental music. And there was this man dressed in a red plush tube, with a big (3 feet or so?) black plush penis (picture a stuffed animal. Now picture a stuffed penis) that came onstage to introduce Drums and Tuba. I think it was Ani from offstage that did the introduction, but the man pretended to say it, while poking his head through what looked to be a large fluffy white hula hoop. I was at a total loss.

The rest of the weekend... to be continued.

A poem by Ani Difranco

This absolutely brought me to tears the other night at her concert. The written word doesn't do it justice. Only Ani Difranco herself on stage can. More about the weekend tomorrow, I'm tired for now.

Might I note that IE 6.0 SUCKS?

It's not displaying the OL (Ordered List) I have below in my goose and lawnmower story.

why can't a browser display basic HTML? How ridiculous.

Mama Goose (and Papa Goose) now have baby geese (or goslings, if you prefer.) I guess it was possibly Papa Goose who did the attacking yesterday. There are three or four of the little downy creatures. They are very cute. I'd love to go take a close-up picture, but I value my life. Those geese are the epitome of overprotective parents. Kay got a few from up here, if they come out I'll post them.

Baby animals are cuter than baby humans.