Monday, September 29, 2008

6 days and counting

You know when you go out and then in the beginning of your evening something happens to make you realize that life is just a big craptastic pile of crappy crap? And then you're so fed up you just say, "Fuck it" and begin to drink like they're reinstating prohibition tomorrow morning? And then you're all drunk at midnight and fall asleep in the taxi on the way home and it takes your friend 20 minutes to wake you up while the taxi driver is still letting the clock run and she ends up paying an extra $15.00 and has to spend the night at your house and sleep on your tiny couch because she gave all her money to the cab driver from hell? And then you wake up at 6am still in your clothes and wonder, "Where am I? What the hell just happened?" but then you get dizzy and thinking makes your head hurt so you go back to bed until noon and wake up with a death threat taped to your forehead from your friend who decided to take your car home because you couldn't be bothered to wake up? And then you just spend the day laying on the couch watching TBS until said friend comes back with your car, some excedrin and a cheeseburger? And then you curse red wine and declare never to drink again and then she makes a bet with you that your declaration wont even last until Monday?

YOU KNOW?!

I know good people and my weekend sucked. The end.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Awards - I has them!!!!!!!

Look! Look! Check this shiz out:

My awesome prism of greatness has come back to me! Oh how I love thee, beautiful prism. I have to thank Mike over at Ok, Crazy for bringing the prism back home to mama. His blog is SO F'ING FUNNY and if you haven't read it yet then you need to go do is asap before you get attacked by killer locusts. You really don't want the last thought you have before death to be about a blog, do you? Nope. So go, go darling readers. But you'd better come back when you're done, damnit.

I want to give this award to Sandee at Comedy Plus. Sandee's blog always puts a smile on my face and I look forward to dropping on it. And have you seen her awards page? Good lord! She is on a friggin' cruise right now, while the rest of us slave away at our respective jobs or homes, cooking dinner after dinner for our family without an OUNCE of thanks or gratitude for being the glue that holds this damn family together!!!!!!! Whoa. Sorry. I think I've been watching too much Lifetime TV or something.

Anyway, I was also awarded this from Ethan aka The Natural State Hawg:



Which totally caught me off guard. SO flattered. He writes about smart people stuff which is totally awesome, but my blog must be like mind cotton candy to him. Which is cool. I can live with that. Everyone reads Hawg's blog, but if you don't then you're missing out on some great stories from the perspective of an Arkie. Don't know what an "Arkie" is? Go read his blog and educate yourself, peeps.

And I tried, but I just cant pick any one single person to give this to. I love ALL your blogs! If I comment, that means I'm reading daily. And I don't read blogs I don't love. So consider it all of yours, babies.

And I'm done spending my BFF Gold Card on imaginary shoes, and I want to pass the fortune on to Chat Blanc, at Wit's Bitch.
I love her dry, sarcastic humor and she always comments on my inane tweets, too. She loves Fashion Week just like I do, she hates bugs just like I do, and we're both on the hunt of a new source of cizash. She's recruiting ghost busters today, so go sign up if your interested.

Also, Laura at A Junk Foodaholic tagged me for the "SIX UnspectacularAWESOMELY BADASS QUIRKS ABOUT YOU THAT YOU ARE PROUD OF AND NEED LOTS AND LOTS OF PRAISE AND REASSURANCE ABOUT" meme earlier this month. Sorry it took me so damn long, Laura! If you've been reading my blog for a while you'll definitely remember that insanity, but if you haven't, go here and prepared to be amazed at the amount of crazy.

Whew! There ya go. Thank you all so much for my shiny new awards! Have a great weekend, guys!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

How to look totally crazy just to win a camera - in three easy steps!

Step one:
Gather materials. You will need a sheet of paper, a marker of some sort, scissors, tape and a glass of milk.
Step two:
Use marker to write out your blog's URL on the piece of paper. Cut it out and apply a loop of tape to the back side.
Step three:
Attach the cut out piece of paper to your forehead. Take a huge gulp of milk, making sure that your milk mustache is on prominent display. Snap photo. Post to blog. Pray to all things holy that you win the damn camera so this humiliating moment will be worth it all in the end. Convince self you are not a woman on the verge of desperation, no, it is art.

Voila! However, there are a few things you should know beforehand: it is really hard to smile with a milk mustache, there is no way to look cute with a piece of paper stuck to your head unless you are like, Heidi Klum or a child or just not me, I guess, and be prepared to drink a lot of milk. Ugh.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

I'm not giving back the jeans, so screw you karma

Behold, my ugliest pair of shoes:

For the contest over at Barking Mad

And technically, these aren't even MY shoes!

My best friend and I have a very strange relationship when it comes to sharing clothing and shoes. We are lucky enough to wear mostly the same size (she has a little more "junk in the trunk" and I have...umm....I have "brighter headlights" I guess? Why are there no car analogies for bodacious tatas?) in said items, and when we lived closer together, our closets were practically interchangeable. The only problem with this situation: the borrowee hijacks the borrowed item and claims it as her own. My bff will go on and on and indignantly claim that she does not do this, but I accompanied her to class a few weeks back and what did I see on her feet? My white flip flops I thought went missing about 6 months ago. Huh! Imagine that.

However, this is not the case with these shoes. About 3 years ago, we were shopping together at Khols and she showed me the above pair of shoes that she "really loved". I thought she was insane and told her they were hideous, but she ignored my disgust and lamented that she did not have the money. It being very close to her birthday, I had the brilliant idea to come back and get these shoes for her at a later date. You might argue that a good friend would never let their good friend commit a fashion crime, but if I had that mindset, I would have donated more than half of her clothes to Goodwill a long time ago.


(KIDDING...just seeing if you're paying attention, lala)

Of course when I went back to purchase the ugly beasts, they were sold out. So after searching all over the city for these shoes, I proudly presented them to her on her birthday. She seemed happy at the time, but a few months later when I needed to quickly borrow some black boots for something or other, she thrust these at me and never looked back. Since I hate them, I've tried to return them to her a few times, but she's not having it, and further inquiry has provided me with the opinion I knew she had all along: she doesn't like them any more. So I ended up buying myself a pair of ugly shoes in the end of it all, really. Maybe this is karma's way of telling me to give her back her jeans she doesn't know I've had for 2 years?

Monday, September 22, 2008

I love you, Mr. Coffee

We've been in the market for a new coffee maker for a while now, and this weekend we went out and finally bit the bullet. Our previous coffee pot looked something like this:
It made - gasp - only 4 cups, and it had one button: off or on. Your only choice: Do you want coffee or not? It took me less than a minute to make coffee in the morning, and since I only drink 2 cups, it was perfect for me. Not so perfect for the other coffee drinking person who lives in this house, or if we had more than 2 guests over. Whatever.

So off to Target we went in search of our new liquid crack machine. When we arrived in the designated aisle, I couldn't believe what I saw - What were all these shiny buttons? Is that a...clock? On a coffee pot? And get a load of this - did you know you can actually set a timer on your coffee maker and have it start making coffee before you even wake up??? And guys, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I didn't even know that they had permanent coffee filters. As you can probably tell, I've been drinking my coffee back in 1979 or something. But I had no problem with our little Mr. Coffee from back in the day. I think it's nice to keep things simple sometimes, you know?

Somehow, this is the one we ended up getting:


Ho. Lee. Shit. This coffee maker does not fuck around. It has a timer, a program feature, an alarm and you can select your brew strength. This mofo cranks out 12 cups of coffee in like, 3 minutes! It has a permanent filter (just doin' our part for mama earth, ya'll), a water filter and this crazy little knob that lets you select the temperature on the coffee plate. The only down side? It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn this bitch on today. I'm pretty sure I heard the smug laughter from the old coffee pot we shoved away under the counter. Jerk.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Barking mad for the Cannon give away!

So you want to see a picture of the most organized "under the bed space" ever?



Well, maybe not THE MOST organized, but for me that's progress.

While reading Nik's blog, Prose & Converse, I stumbled upon a contest thrown by the lovely and generous Auds, over at Barking Mad. She's giving away a Canon camera with all the trimmings and ya'll - mama wants a new camera and I am not going to let this one pass me by.

Wanna play along and be my competition? Here's what ya gotta do: Go visit the site, snap a pic per her request, put your URL on that Mr. Linky thingy and that's it! You can enter up to 5 times, and the contest runs for nearly a full month. Easy! The above photo was snapped for the category, "Under your bed", and I promise I didn't spend 15 minutes furiously cleaning and straightening up all those plastic containers. Seriously. Promise.

Go do it!

Friday, September 19, 2008

I blame Monster.com for this

So this morning I woke up at 8am, showered, shaved my legs, put on make up and drove 22 miles both ways to go to a job interview that turned out to be FRAUDULENT.

I haven't had a whole lot of free time lately, but when I can I spend as much time as possible sending my resume all over town. I swear I've sent an email out to every business, shop, corporation and agency in town - short of oil companies, that is. I know you may be surprised to find out, but I do have morals! And since Houston is an oil town I am severely limiting my options, but I'd rather be poor than supporting environment killers. How could I take that blood money, anyway? All I could see when I put on a new pair of shoes would be a sad, baby seal face splotched in oil looking up at me.



But I digress.

I arrived this morning for my interview at five minutes before 10am. I put my name on the sign in sheet, and noticed that, what? 5 other people are also here at 10am to meet with the same person I have an appointment with. And then I thought, "Oh shit, probably not a good sign", but set to work filling out some preliminary paperwork anyway. After a short wait, I was called into an office where I was sat down face to face with the douchiest looking 19 year old child with bleach blond spiky hair and a smug smirk on his lips. He proceeds to tell me that the position I've driven 22 miles both ways to interview for has already been filled, but how do I feel about selling Kirby vacuums door to door?

OH. HELL. NO.

It was then that I turned into a crazy woman. I could NOT believe that me, at the age of 25, was tricked into driving across the city and then had to sit in front of this smarmy little punk ass with a smirk on his face, being offered to sell the DEVIL'S VACUUMS door to fucking door! I stood, and told him he was wasting my time and I didn't appreciate being led into a false application process, and has he seen the price of gas these days? After threatening to report him to the BBB, I then proceeded to the reception room, where I clarified the situation for the rest of the poor souls, and stormed out of the office with a satisfying slam of the door. All of this was done with a shrill kind of screeching voice and a pointed finger. I'm not exactly sure what happened...I think I might have been possessed or something.

I do not want to sell vacuums. Or Mary Kay. Or be in a pyramid scheme. People, all I want is a normal 8-5 position where I do my job, and go home to my real life. Is that too damn much to ask?!!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Two awards and a magic box

Well would you look at this:


The lovely and hilarious Ettarose gave me this award! Can you believe it?! Let me educate you a little bit on this particular award - it originated from Etta herself, and she created this award, to quote, " because words sometimes are not enough to show how much our blogger friends mean to us". So this award is like, extra special and important and did I mention that SHE gave it to little ole ME?!! SO flattered. If you are not reading her blog then you must be living under a rock or something. EVERYONE reads Edge of Sanity. Get with the program! Damn! Don't you want to be one of the cool kids?

Anyway, I want to pass this one on to my girl Petra, over at the Wise, (*Young*) Mommy. Petra was one of the first to become a regular commenter here, and she is totally sweet and non judgmental, and if we lived closer together I'm sure we'd start a Friday night "knitting club" which would really just be a front for drinking wine and bitching about kids and our insane neuroses or something. She's also up for one of the Dottie Awards over at Momdot.com, so go vote for her! What are friends for if not to pimp each other out?

Speaking of Petra, she gave me the BFF Goldcard Award a few days ago:

Which is awesome, except its not real and I cant spend it. THANKS PETRA! I kid, I kid, seriously, you CAN spend it, just in a different way. Like on fantasies and stuff. I bet you didn't know you needed a virtual visa to fantasize about buying blahniks, huh? Yep! Thats what its coming to these days. Blame the government. I'll give this one away sometime in the near future.

And I'm sure you guys may have seen this around the blogosphere the past few days:






Click on the magical black box and see where it takes you! Who did you guys get?

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

I'm officially changing my fruity drink of choice to a Pina Colada

So guess what? HURRICANES SUCK. I will never, ever be able to look at one the same way, again. If you're living under a rock, or out of state, Galveston was hit pretty hard - obviously. Houston sustained some minor damage, mostly from fallen trees. We were one of the .1% of people in Houston who never, ever lost power. Or cable. Or phone. Booyah, Ike! Cant hold me down. And lots of baby squirrels have been found all over the area:


How freakin adorable are these little guys? JP's family found this one in their front yard. And this is a bulletin to all Houstonians: If you have found a baby squirrel, please contact me and I will take it off your hands. I'm being totally serious!! I WANT A BABY SQUIRREL. I WANT ONE NOW!

Next time a hurricane decides to roll though, I'm evacuating - to the Bahamas. Fuck sitting around all day waiting for impending doom; I'll be sipping a margarita on the beach. I'm gonna start a hurricane savings account right now! Or as soon as the banks open back up, I guess. Whatever.

And all the people who came to my blog to wish me luck or comment just cause you were horrified in awe of my giant box of wine - Thank you all so, so much for all the well wishes, offers of prayers and good vibes from the bottom of my heart.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

HUNKER, DAMN IT!


Observe a smattering of our amazing Hurricane Ike essentials. Not shown: water, batteries, flashlights, floaties, noodles, flares, big sign that says, "TAKE A HIKE, IKE", dominoes, shot glasses, and defense baseball bat - for the looters.

Its about 1:30am and amazingly our power has yet to go out. Winds are at 70mph out there - yikes. But we're here, "hunkering down", keeping safe and enjoying the A/C - for now, that is. Thank you all so much for your well wishes, and I'll continue the blog to its regularly scheduled programming on Monday.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Ike, you suck

September 11th anniversary + Hurricane Ike + crazed Houstonians buying up all the water, gas, ice and cigarettes + mom's frantic 30 minute phone calls from across the country begging me to evacuate + noisy helicopters flying over my house constantly filming the traffic on the freeway +24/7 live coverage of the hurricane on internet and TV = a dazed, cranky, and anxious Athena

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. I need a drink.

We're about 50 miles from the coast, so we're not going anywhere, but if you live in the coastal regions of Texas, I hope you've taken all the precautions you need to keep safe.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Maybe Cosmo can use the the large hadron collider to go back in time?

I am in a pissy damn mood today and it wasn't made any better by reading this shitty, offensive article titled, "What Makes Men Fall In Love" by Cosmopolitan .

Now right, I know, Cosmo isnt exactly the Associated Press and its material is definitely lacking, but the magazine has been around for 112 years, is printed in 34 different languages and is distributed to over 100 countries, so there is no doubt this crap is being read.

If you're too lazy to click the link, the article goes through the "4 primal desires" of men that you might not know could be fucking up your relationship! I know, I had no idea either. See below:

The Desire: To Protect:

Summary: Give him a job (no, not that kind of job although I'm actually kinda surprised they didn't suggest this). Make him feel "useful" around the house. Wear soft materials to heighten his amorous instincts. Wear his clothes so he'll know you've chosen him over the other guys.

Sooooo...we're just humoring the men now? And what if you cant fit in his clothes? Will a hat suffice?

The desire: Freedom:
Summary: Blow him off once in a while (no, not THAT kind of blow...are you loving all the oral sex euphemisms?) Tell him if you're nervous about committing because it will put aside his fears that you are not a, quote, "baby-hungry-ring-hunter". Little changes in your appearance (like changing your hair) remind him that your have millions of facets to your personality.

I definitely think my hair reflects the complexity of my mind, so that's good.

The desire: To shine
Summary: Keep it light, let him take the credit for making new friends, and playing and being good at mental games like Scrabble or chess shows him you're a desirable choice for carrying on his genes.

Fuck. I am so not watching Jeopardy! with JP anymore.

The desire: To comfort
Summary: Let him watch you primp - but only cutesy stuff like powder and lipstick, not icky stuff like tweezing your eyebrows. Food, or course, feed him. And if you know he's not a murderer, fall asleep on him so he'll see you in your most trusting, completely relaxed state.

Uh..so are you telling me I shouldn't be flossing my teeth in front of JP?

So in total, Cosmo thinks we should just be treating our husbands and boyfriends like simple creatures who like soft things, food and chess. Gotcha. Well, Athena thinks we should be teaching our young women is that men are different like you and I are different, but we are all EQUAL. We should be teaching them to demand equality in the home and workplace, to be compassionate but not a doormat, and to follow their passions, not try to dumb them down or give them up completely for your significant others. It is just ridiculous that we, as women, have come so far and this ignorant, misinformed bullshit just keeps getting out. Its really such a shame, and whats even worse is the magazine is obviously is read by millions of teenagers across America, filling their youthful little minds with a load of shit that they're hopefully too smart to believe...or at the very least, too high to retain.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Halloween: it aint your mama's holiday no mo'. I'm actually not sure it ever was but I think you know what I mean.

So I've been putting in a lot of thought about my Halloween costume this year. I'm secretly a big fan of dressing up in costume, but I haven't done it in years except that one time my gay friend told me I'd look hot as a dude and made me dress in drag and then we went to Waffle House. It wasn't halloween or anything, but it still counts I think.

And ya'll. There are some crazy hilarious costumes out there. Did you want to be a like, a more girly, sexy gangster version of Robin Hood? Party City has got you covered. Or maybe you were like, "DAMN. I really want to be like, a sexy eskimo, but where oh where will I find a costume?"? Look no further, girl. This one, which claims to be Tinkerbell (maybe on acid?), will scare the shit out of you. Just click on it and see what I mean. Fuh-reaky.

Anyway, its just such a dilemma as a woman to dress in costume, don't you think? You have two choices: brazen slut or witch. And I've already done the witch thing. Remember that scene in Mean Girls where Lindsey Lohan goes to the party filled with scantily clad girls dressed as "kittens" and "angels" but she's dressed really scary and bloody? That was basically me a few halloweens ago. I pretty much spent the entire time in the kitchen doing shots and making little people out of vienna sausages and toothpicks. There was a minor incident when a few of the guests looked at my costume, and then at my vienna sausage army with toothpicks shoved through their bodies, and thought I was making voodoo dolls but it was all cleared up before the night was over. Sheesh. I mean, I thought it was common knowledge that you cant even make voodoo dolls unless its a full moon during a rising tide! People are so damn uptight.

Sigh. I just dont know anymore. What are you guys gonna be? Any tried and true costumes? I obviously need some help...otherwise, I'll just end up wrapping a sheet around myself and being a toga person. Which, probably wouldnt be that bad I guess...at least I could carry beer around as a prop! I'm pretty sure that would go over real well with all the families when we go trick-or-treating, huh?

Monday, September 8, 2008

This has nothing to do with erectile dysfunction, thank god

Have you seen that Cialis commercial where the couple is in the kitchen, all lovey dovey making out and shit, and they lean on the kitchen faucet (like that's normal) and it breaks? I tried to find the video, but no dice. So here is a photo montage for your imagination:


(imagine this is the kitchen)


Well technically that isn't how it goes, but my version is better and you know it.

Anyway, this weekend I had a very similar occurrence. The kid went to grandma's house on Friday and we had two days of blissful, quiet, relaxing naked alone time to look forward to. It had been a while since I did the shaving routine, and I thought it would be nice if my boyfriend didn't get cut while I was wrapping my legs around his back, so I went in the shower to take care of business. I took my time, exfoliating and shaving all the way past the knee, and when I was finally finished, I went to turn the faucet off but nope, wasn't happening. I twisted it to the left some more, then back to the right to turn it off again, but it was even worse. Fuck. Water was shooting out everywhere, at geyser force. I wrapped a towel around myself and went into the bedroom, only to be greeted by my ready and raring to go boyfriend. I was faced with a decision:

Bad girl: "Just do him! Be spontaneous! Its hot."
Good girl: "He'd be so pissed if I flooded the house, though."
Bad girl: "No, that's hot! Then you could writhe around all over the floor together, water streaming over the edge of the tub onto your bodies flushed with lust and need, making your bodies steam with wanton desire!"
Good girl: "Wow, that is pretty hot I guess."
Bad girl: "Girl, I know you so well. So do it, just go do it...you know you want to. Deb would. HappyHourSue would. Jenny definitely would, that bitch it crazy."
Good girl: "Welllll....."

And then the battle of good vs. evil was interrupted by JP asking, "Honey! What the hell is that noise?"

Unfortunately, it took like 45 minutes to fix. On the plus, I got to see my naked boyfriend wielding a screwdriver. And if you don't think seeing your significant other nude, using tools and fixing stuff is hotter than a June bride in a feather bed, then you are obviously not as fucked up as I am. Kudos.

Friday, September 5, 2008

And I'm only 25.

You know when you see something and you're like, wtf is this? but you're too cool to ask, then you start seeing it everywhere and then you really want to know, but it's been too long and you realized you should've found out a lot sooner, so you google it and google doesn't have the answer? You know you're fucked when google cant help you.

And I know you guys are smarter than google, right?

So, at the risk of looking like a n00b (isn't that what all the kids say?) I'm calling upon the infinite wisdom and knowledge of my 12 many readers to help me with a few answers. Yes, that would be you.

1. Why do people put a # sign in front of the events they're at when tweeting about them? I first saw this a lot when people were tweeting from blogher. I just don't know. Does this mean that you're at blogger but you cant use the @ sign because it will reply or something? If so, why don't people just post #coffeeshop or #nana's house?

2. Should I be on a social networking site for job searching? For the past few months I've been looking for a job, I kept getting re-directed to LinkedIn. What the hell? What happened to just sending resumes online? And when I do that, I keep getting replies from spam (thanks, craigslist). Is there a secret location I dont know about? Also, if you are on LinkedIn, throw a sister a bone cause I am embarrassingly without contacts.

3. How do you embed an image on a forward bulletin on myspace? I know, this one is a little weird and techy, but I keep getting these bulletins about animal shelters and requests to pass them on. I copy the whole thing, then paste in a new bulletin, but the images never show up. And since the pictures of sad puppies and kitties is really necessary to guilt you into rescuing an animal, I never forward them and I'm pretty sure I'm about to get a hit put out on me by a couple animal shelters.

So there you go, dear readers. Please help me in my quest to be...what is the opposite of a n00b? Oh, well, google answered that one for me and I guess its just as bad. What the fuck is wrong with the kids these days? Wheres the fucking love? If you dont have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all! Now go to your room!!!! Damn kids.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Slingin' sandwiches

So in our (seemingly) never ending quest to move to la suburbia (what I'm calling it in an obviously desperate attempt to make it seem more hip), it has been decided that I should get a job. A job outside of the home, that pays in actual cash money not just life experiences and colored pictures of Wall*E.

I've been searching for a job for a while now, without much luck. Because I'm picky and I don't want to spend 3 hours of my day commuting back and forth like the rest of this god forsaken city. My background is something along the lines of administrative work, so you may ask yourself how I ended up getting a job waiting tables.



Sigh. Desperate times call for desperate measures, no? I waited tables for years and years before my little kidlet came along, and once she did I decided that I needed a grown up job with better hours. Nearly 5 years have gone by since I laid my delicate hands on a server tray, and I basically got so frustrated that no one wanted to hire me that I went somewhere where I was assured to get hired - a restaurant.

Pros about waiting tables
Quick, easy money
Flexible hours
Tasty food within reach
Will definitely provide me with bizarre and probably gross stuff to tell you guys about

Cons about waiting tables
Waitstaff drama
I am a huge klutz and I break stuff a lot
Tasty food within reach
Sidework and tipouts
Bitchy customers
Cheap customers
Grueling work with no hope for positive reinforcement since everyone knows waitstaff are slaves to the community
Totally demoralizing

I am SO above this, people. The only reason I decided to even entertain the thought of waitressing is because we need to speed up the process of moving out of the city. I'm doing it for my family to better our situation. So really, I'm like a hero. AND NOT LIKE THE SANDWICH.