Hey little sister, who's your Superman?

Bridget and Heebie's wedding was stunning. We knew it would be, and it surpassed all possible expectations.  

Weekend Highlights:

John and I setting aside our "IHATEYOU" because we found a mutual enemy: Codename Pocahontas Boots.

The best Bloody Marys EVER (they're better when they're on somebody else's tab at the rehearsal dinner.)

Our lives becoming a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book without the benefit of suggested page numbers.

Squid wanted to go have a classy cigarette... really. Pinkies up!

Taking Jeanie to Target in pajamas

Cards Against Humanity

Winning card: A windmill full of corpses. Because really- when is that not a winner?

"Goin' to the Fair" Hair

The most gorgeous bride to ever walk an aisle and a groom with tears in his eyes:

a 90 lb bride's bouquet made of edible plants

A 7-year old ring bearer with a black eye and more game than any man I've ever seen on a dance floor

Inappropriate dancing with a Christmas Tree

"Do you have a tuxedo, can you do the Electric Slide?" and other Craigslist postings that never actually happened.

The ladies' stirring rendition of "Love Shack." Rusted tin roof provided by: Jordan

Finding a sunbeam and a friend to lean on like a lizard rock

And throughout it all, we kept our pinkies (mostly) up!

My family is not "textbook" perfect.  

We're irreverent.

Sometimes a little too loud.

Sometimes, it's hard to keep up...

But dammit, this is MY family, and I have never been prouder to be a part of it.

Sabine says my ADD is ruining her feng shui today. OH LOOK BUNNIES!

Actual excerpts from our Google Chats today:

me: I am taking the MOG MY LIFE SUZCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! today.
YOU'RE WELCOME.
Sabine: I am so stupidly happy.
STUPIDLY HAPPY
me: GOOD.
YOU DESERVE IT.
I LOVE CAPITALS TODAY.
Sabine: I LOVE EVERYTHING TODAY
me: Who put glitter in your cheerios?

---

me: Ok. "Bri and 4 other friends are attending Pre-Rapture Orgy" made me LOL.
Sabine: NOBODY INVITED ME TO THE ORGY.
me: ....
Bri is inviting you to the orgy.
Sabine: Having Bri invite me makes it EVEN BETTER.
I LOVE TODAY

--

me: subcontractors eating my brain
Sabine: you haz subcontracted ZOMBIES?!?!
me: YES.
AND THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND WORKERS COMP
Sabine: Must be cheap labor at least.
me: true...
Do you want to know what just happened to me?
Sabine: YES
me: Remember that thing...... several months ago? Last summer?
<cutting out all the good stuff. But it was REALLY funny. And awesome.>
Sabine: I just have to say it, I love us. Really, I do.
me: I love us, too.

--

me: http://www.patspapers.com/story_stack/item/baby_cakes_offer_up_proof_in_the_frosting/
Sabine: I blame my inability to comprehend that on my lack of wubby as a young child.
me: right.
Sabine: My Mother failed me.
and because of that she will never find out the sex of her grandchild via Skype.
so really she failed herself too
me: hopefully she'll never find out from cake, either.
Sabine: Pink cake always tastes like ass anyway. I can't imagine what blue cake would taste like...blue coconut?
me: COCONUT IS NOT BLUE WHY THE FUCK DO PEOPLE DO THAT. Didn't we JUST have this conversation????
COCONUT DOES NOT TASTE BLUE.
Sabine: Right, cause that is after all your favorite tampon scent.
me: Coconut doesn't even smell blue. MY blue tampons are BlueBERRY scented.
Sabine: blue raspberry?
me: sure.
Sabine: You totally just broke my brain.
me: Hey! I just got good news. I think that means I'm probably going to step on a rusty nail or something.
Sabine: Dammit, Sarah. Your ADD mind is fucking with my feng shui today.
me: :D "Rapture" by Blondie just got added into the bout playlist.
me: Ok, so I bought a package of Hanes boyshorts. And they're the MOST COMFY UNDERPANTS in the world. It's like a 16 hour hug for your ass. LOVE them. Can't find them online to order more. Iz SAD.

<Sabine is unavailable for chat>

It's kind of like a roller coaster, but without the lap bar.

So- I had an a really great vacation. A friend hosted me in San Diego for 2 days of beach walking, Mexican food, seals that didn't seem interested in going clubbing at all, and lots of downtime.  Downtime seems much easier to accomplish when the company is good and the air smells like the ocean, I'm telling you.  Usually I epically fail at relaxing and it starts to feel like work but that wasn't the case.  California is gorgeous and I totally get the appeal of the west coast now.  The trip to and fro, despite being long, was easy.  Sabine's great suggestion of Tylenol PM and a stiff drink before boarding to come home was a great one (file under: Sabine is Still Not a Role Model).

Annnnd then I came home and reality kind of jumped up and said "HI!!!!!"  On Easter, Max was killed in a motorcycle accident.  Now, Max is not one of my close friends. I've known him for 15+ years, and he's always been around, but we never got cozy.  That being said, he was really close with a lot of the people I do consider close enough to want to be able to tend to their needs and - big surprise - situations I have no control over don't exactly set well with me.  I'm doing what I can do to help make things easier for those that I can but it's still rough to see my people hurting and not being able to fix them. So instead, I'll make up the beds and get out the skillets and do some cooking and fawning.  Sabine and I are going to hang blinds, too... because nothing distracts people like wrenching the power tools away from Sabine and I and hanging up the blinds for us.

Basically, I'm thinking that when you add together a really good weekend and a really harsh Monday, you get something that feels a bit like being hit by a truck with some pleasant tones.  And this is why I don't write Hallmark cards...

--

Puppies napping.

Keepin' it classy.

me: http://blogs.shreveport-bossier.org/blog/post/2011/04/12/Town-South-Food-Wine-Pho-Slush-Puppies-andLive-Bait.aspx
.... are you feeling any better?
Sabine:  my kind of place. I'm maintaining. I haven't gotten sicker. Sinus congestion is being handled by meds and the scratchy throat hasn't turned into a full blast sore throat. I'm taking this to mean that the emergen-c powder I snorted is doing some good.
me:  did you really snort it?
Sabine:  How do you take Emergen-c?
me:  You put the powder in the vodka, jackass.

So now another thing that I am seriously desperately looking forward to is going for pho in a place that sells Slush Puppies. That may be the last Slush Puppy machine in Shreveport. Or in the WORLD. 



.... Woah.  "Bait Shop Pho" would be a righteous punk rock band name.  Somebody get some talent and get on that.

Feel better soon, Sabine.

I was planning on writing about shoes.

I have no wish for a spartan existence. It's important to me that my home be homey and comfortable and unassuming, but I want to find the chord between the two that allows for the things that I have to be seen and loved and used without the white noise of Things Just Taking Up Space.  This is new to me. I come from a long line of pack rats. TIDY pack rats, mind you- but my family has long held the beliefs that if it belonged to somebody deceased it must be kept forever, and if it came from someplace else it must be preserved as proof that you were there.  My home has been said to be decorated in "1970s Al-Qaeda Chic" because of my parents' travels around the Middle East and my father's fondness for brass "little things."  I have my grandmother's bedroom suite, my mother's dining set and living room furniture, my great-great-great grandmother's hutch, another Grandmother's sewing machine, and pictures hanging on some walls of ancestors that I honestly cannot identify without pulling the frame apart to read the writing on the back of the photo.  This has been just fine for a long time but I've kind of gotten over some of the excess that happens when you try to blend your own identity in with the remnants of yesterday.  Some of those remnants are very important - but some, honestly, are not.  It is not a sign of disrespect if I let my Nanny's bathroom towels go away.  Yes- I inherited towels 7 years ago and they've lived with me ever since. I know. Don't judge.

With the exception of my shoes, I've completely overhauled my bedroom closet to contain only clothes that fit me or that are still be one size too small, thanks to EvilSara's generosity. My bathroom is organized and tidy, and I've done a decent job at my bedroom - I now have 3 empty drawers in my grandmother's writing desk and removed an entire dresser.  The pantry is done, and no expired or stale goods remain.  The Frightening Monster of Dad's Bedroom Closet has been tamed, and I donated probably 15 sheets, 20 pillowcases, 3 comforters, and eleventybillion towels to the animal shelter while retaining enough bedding to reasonably outfit every bed in the house twice (including the airmattresses and cots.).  As for the Study.... well, Rome wasn't built in a day.  The study's closet is good, though.  Next up on the list of things to de-clutter and organize* are the Spice Cabinet (!) The Utility Room (!!) and then we'll see where we're at. Baby steps, ya'll.  This project is challenging enough to be difficult but taken in chunks is not so overwhelming that I want to drop it.  I'm actually really kinda digging it a lot.  Who figured?

Anyway- I've told myself that, within reason, there shall be no shopping** until I am fully satisfied that my house is in a state that pleases me- whatever state that is.  This isn't about "clean" so much as being about divesting myself and my abode of excess weight- and things are easier to not bring home than they are to make go away after the fact.

Old habits, though, are hard to break. Witness the internal conversation I've been having with myself for three days:


"Girls' Night Out! New Dress!"
"Seriously? You have like... 5 dresses."
"Yeah, but I've worn them all before. Downtown, even!"
"Wear the black one."
"Don't have shoes."
"Wear the other black one. It goes with boots"
"Wore it last tiiiiime....."
...."I can wear the other one if I go buy SHOES!"
"NO NEW SHOES."
"We never get to do what I want to do."

The kicker here is that I probably could justify new shoes. I've gleaned out about half of my shoe collection, but I still have at least 30 pairs.  Unfortunately, most of them don't fit me, because one of the untold truths of weight loss is that your feet shrink, too.  In the past two years, I've gone from a size 10.5 to an 8.5, but I haven't made myself settle down to the entirely depressing task that would be trying on all of my shoes and honestly evaluating which ones fit and which ones don't.  Until I do- and thus, have a reasonable idea of what I have and don't- I'm not going to buy any new shoes.  If this means that I end up wearing Nikes with a ballgown***- so be it. That might be the motivation I need to weed through my damn shoes.

So here I am, 4 hours before I have to be ready for Girls' Night Out. I have no idea what I'm wearing, and I'm finding that I really don't care. I'm going out with my lovely derby ladies who don't care what I wear as long as I show up.  They've seen me sweat. They've seen bad after-practice helmet/pigtail hair. Whatever I'm turning up in, it will be ok.

Let's see if I still feel like that in 4 hours, shall we?

Happy weekend to you!

*tempting though it may be, Beekeeper's room/bathroom are safe.  I'm trying VERY hard not to let my crazy invade on my roommate's territory.  So no- I'm not going to try to sell his Chessboard collection on Craigslist nor convince him that his Concrete Blonde bootleg CD collection should be burned to a hard drive then given to the YoungStarvingEmos charity organization.  You can feel free to taunt him with the belief that any of those things are going to happen, though, because it will be entertaining to watch the twitching.


**Since making this determination, I did buy new bathmats.  And a replacement DVD of Fight Club because mine died.  Both of these were replacement purchases, though, and the thing being replaced was immediately disposed of.  I also bought a new fancy schmancy bathroom scale, but justified that as being the same thing as other health equipment like running shoes.  I'm not going all crazy on this and I won't be trolling Freecycle if I need a shower curtain. I'm going to go buy a damn shower curtain.  Yes, this makes me a lesser person. I'm perfectly fine with that.


***I don't have a ballgown.

My feet are so cold. So, so cold.

I'm freezing. I've been freezing since about Halloween, I think.  My iron is fine. B12 is fine. Nothing medical should be making me cold, but I'm incapable of getting warm.  I think I may be part lizard. Maybe I just need a big electric rock to curl up on. If I don't find one, I'm just going to resign myself to never being warm again.

---
Sabine said very recently, about getting back into blogging:

" It is hard to get rolling again... but once you do it becomes sooooo much easier. Find some prompts to write about until prompted writing pisses you off, then your inspiration will come.

Worked for me."

I've got about 7 drafts of posts started, and none of them are based on the 30 Days of Truth prompt list. I wouldn't say that it is prompted writing that pisses me off so much as it's that list that pisses me off. There's an awful lot of Eeyore going on up in that list that wasn't apparent until it was my list to do.  I'm still going to finish some of them, but if anybody (like, all 1.4 of my readers) had any ideas about that list being finished up this month, well... get bent. It just ain't gonna happen.

Derby practice was good last night, for the most part. There was some weird energy (and I swear, there was a skunk in the building, somewhere), but it was good. I'm getting happier with my stamina but my speed still doesn't make me happy.  I blocked in 5-6 scrimmage jams and did ok.  I got a few hits on but despite my child-bearing hips, didn't have nearly enough power in them to do much.  One of the best ass-whackers on the team is going to give me some much-needed one on one time later this week in that arena, though, so maybe I'll get there.  We've got a busy month-or-so coming... a rules meeting, a parade, at least one bar fundraiser, an away practice, the normal practices, and our opening bout on March 12, which probably means that all that stuff I'm going to make in February is going to be Derby-specific.  OH. I decided I won't be buying any new materials for that challenge.  Those who have seen the contents of my sewing room won't be impressed at all by that statement, but hey- there it is.

Sometimes it's tough to be a CoolKid...

 

Fine.  I'll play.  I did get two Bedazzlers for Christmas, after all.