P-A-R-T-Y

Ryan and I threw ourselves a moving/going away party this past weekend!

BBQ from a local restaurant + GREAT weather + lots of terrific friends + waaaay too much drink leads to photos that look like these:



Photos that make no sense. Photos that are blurry. And a photo of someone drinking something vaguely known as 'hash.' (You don't want to know.)

My new rules for a party: The host should never drink so much that she becomes a sloppy drunk (too much laughter, to the point that I couldn't talk clearly. And let's not forget the last vodka shot...which I ended up wearing. on my face-I'm still cringing). Still, it was so much fun and I'm super glad everyone came out!

Let's do it again in DE...

Randoms

Really, what's the purpose of blogging if you don't have any news to spread? I feel like I should post SOMETHING, even if it borders the mundane. What do people want to know? About what I do with my time?

This weekend...we spent the weekend in North Carolina with my parents (a last trip before we head up to the Land of Silos), and we woke up to a winter wonderland. Except it's not winter. The juxtaposition of green grass & white snow doesn't gel (not that it's supposed to). I learned a little more about my parents and how they grew up and find it all fascinating (of course my parents probably don't).

Yesterday was a bore (except for the people coming to look at the house...they were more than an hour late).

Today I'm finally getting my hair cut. I can't stand it. It's been eons since I last had it cut (see birthday photo to understand why I'm super excited about much needed haircut).

And today I'm going to see my very first tennis match!!

More to come...

Looking UP?

A school in Delaware sent me an envelope with the word "Congratulations" written across the bottom edge!

The un-mentioned school is my second choice...I'm also in for my 3rd choice (a 1-2 year wait before starting classes though), and while I haven't received anything in writing yet, there was a verbal, "there's nothing stopping us from not accepting you" from my 4th choice school. (The 4th choice school is behind the 3rd choice school because it is a private religious school...ie $$$.)

No celebrating yet though...There's still school number one that I'm waiting to hear back from...Keep your fingers crossed!

WTF?

Can I anyone tell me why when I space between paragraphs, the spaces don't follow through on the published version??

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to me!

Last week (on Thursday March 22 to be exact) my friends SURPRISED me with a birthday dinner get together!! It made my day. Made me feel like the l-l-l-uckiest girl in the world to be truthful.

The days leading up to the birthday, Cassidy & Frances emailed to ask about what day/where to celebrate my birthday. Since I have class on Thursday nights, I obviously said that Saturday or Friday would be the best days.

Wednesday, the day before my birthday, I still hadn't heard anything about getting together on Saturday night for any sort of celebration. I started getting SUPER mopey (I'm always mopey the week of my birthday), and corned Ryan on Wednesday to say, "Is anything being planned for Saturday?" and he promised me that he had heard Saturday.

Aha! So there was SOMETHING being planned for Saturday.

Thursday morning, I was offered tickets to a private Hootie&theBlowfish concert for Saturday night...so I called Ryan and he was all excited about going. But wait a minute...if I accepted the tickets to a private concert, how could we go to my celebration downtown AND the concert?? After hanging up, I got all mopey and called him back, "so...SATURDAY...if we go to the Hootie concert then there's nothing going on SAAATURRRDAY." I made to sure to enunciate every portion of the word Saturday as possible.

Ryan's response, "Oh, Yeah! SATURDAY! Yeah, no good...we can't do the concert.

So Thursday I'm all excited because I scoffed another secret. Or so I thought.

Later I got home. Ryan and I arranged to meet for dinner after class...I went to class...I got out of class...I called Ryan and Ryan met me outside of the restaurant, led me inside and THERE IS A TABLE FOR TEN! My closest Charleston friends gathered on a THURSDAY NIGHT for a LATE dinner up in North Chuck! My friends missed a brand spanking new episdoe of Grey's Anatomy for moi!

I am the luckiest girl in the world :)

THANK YOU FRIENDS!

Up For Adoption

So I'm wondering if anyone out there has cats like ours. We have two-Raven (male) and Chloe (female). The one you see is Raven. They were cage-mates at the SPCA and we were only planning on taking one kitten home, but how can you leave just one kitten alone in a cage? That was in 2004. The cats are just over 2 years old right now-old enough that you would think they would be out of the kitten stage.

Not so. They have just recently ended the practice of licking our ears at 5am. I'm ready (Ryan's not) to give one of the cats away.

We often come home to find cabinet doors & drawers open. Once I returned from a weekend trip to find an un-used birth control packet in the 'great room.'

Selling our house with these two fuzzballs has proved somewhat more difficult than expected. Last week one cat got into the attic space, and the other got into the garage. Ever since then we can't open the door to the attic or even go near the garage door without the cats running to investigate. Especially Raven (the one I want to give away). Raven must have been the cat that escaped to the garage...He will spend many minutes just sitting & crying at the door that leads from the dining room to the garage. He'll jump and hang on to the door handle, so now the door must remain locked at all times.

Yesterday, during the second showing, the cats apparently were a little friendly. Here's the comment the real estate posted in regard to the showing:

House showed very well excellent decor. Somewhat of a challenge to view due to cats. Previewing attic storage and a cat got in, had to crawl in to get the cat out. They followed you around the house and tried to sneek out of every door.

It's a very South Carolina comment, complete with grammatical and spelling errors. (I can-but won't- devote another blog entry to those three sentences.)

So what I'm looking for are suggestions on how to take friendly, curious cats & turn them into the typical 'I don't give a rat's ass' cat. Or a set of loving parents for a fat and annoying fuzzball.

Much Ado About Dover...1

Almost two weeks ago, Ryan and I finally took a weekend trip to check out Delaware. With the exception of bumper to bumper traffic in DC (at 2:30 in the afternoon…aren’t people supposed to be at work at 2:30??), the trip was uneventful. We couldn’t get a hotel in Dover itself because there was some sort of church convention & bridal show going on, and we ended up staying in Middletown at the brand spanking new Hampton Inn.

Once we got to the hotel, the real fun began. We left the car underneath the valet/overhang, checked in, and took a peek at the room. Went back downstairs to take the suitcase and three tote bags out of the car (I travel in bulk), and as I opened the car door to grab my purse. Purse was not in the front, of the car, so I looked in the back. No Purse. I looked underneath piles of jackets and tote bags and there was No Purse.

“Ryan! My purse! My fucking purse isn’t here! I lost my fucking purse! It’s in a bathroom! Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.”

And Ryan, who I swear doesn’t have much of a pulse, much or less blood pressure, is just looking at me.

“Everything is in there! Oh my G-d! Where was that Wendy’s we stopped at in Maryland? What about that rest stop? Was that Virginia? I lost my fucking purse!”

“Ok, ok, we’ll get it. Let’s just grab some things and take them upstairs. We’ll figure it out there.” How he was so calm is beyond me. I was having a conniption, right there in front of who knows how many people at the Hampton Inn and he’s calm as can be.
“You need to give me your credit cards..we have to cancel EVERYTHING. Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I could be so stupid!” I’m still freaking out on the ride up the elevator, into the room. I’m already imaging identity theft, ruined credit scores just before we have to take out a mortgage for a new house.

We walk into the hotel room, and sitting on the bed is the fucking purse. Ryan starts laughing (not at me, he swears), but laughing none the less.

After I hit Ryan a few times for laughing, we drove around Middletown, Odessa, Smyrna (I think), & eventually Dover. Middletown’s homes are HUGE. We’re talking McMansions. The normal sized, modest homes are in neighborhoods with pimped out cars on the front lawn. The McMansions start in the mid 350’s-450’s. The homes with pimped out cars in the lawn are in the $280-325 range. We start to sweat.

Middletown has a brand new Lowes, a brand new Starbucks, a Dunkin Donuts, a few liquor stores and a brand new grocery store. I already located the ever-important Goodwill, but that’s about it.

Odessa has homes, farms, and wine & liquor stores.

Smyrna looks like the same as Odessa.

And Dover?

For my Charleston friends, Dover resembles Rivers Ave from Meeting up to well beyond the TridentTech, Barnes & Noble, & Kmart.

For my Miami/Ft. Lauderdale friends, Dover resembles 441.

There are things in Dover. Things that resemble businesses and shops, but they aren't places you want to go visit. It's certainly not pretty. The tallest structure wasn’t a building, but the stands for the Dover Downs Racetrack. I didn’t see Starbucks. I didn’t see Barnes & Noble or Borders. The only bookstore I saw was called “Atlantic Books,” which from the signs that I was able to see from the road, boasted “75% off all books!” A book warehouse.

It’s dark out. I’m getting tired. There is no appetite to speak of and I’m beginning to freak out.

I didn't see any of the Big Name Banks that are supposed to be nation wide. On nearly every block there is a Check Cashing Store, Title Loan shop, Dunkin Donuts, and Wine & Liquor store. But...

No coffee shops?
No Target?
No REAL book stores??
No restaurants to speak of…oh wait, scratch that, there was an Olive Garden sitting right next to a Red Lobster. Places we never visit…but when in Delaware…

Waiting for a table at Olive Garden. Contemplating a glass of wine from the bar. Ryan asks the hostess if there are any bookstores around, and gets the response, of, “Hmm…um, well there’s Atlantic Books…and I think there might be something in the mall, but I’m not really sure.”

So already I’m thinking Dover isn’t much better than Charleston. In fact, maybe Charleston isn’t bad at all…

We’re seated…and I can’t help but feel like I’m at a cafeteria. I have no appetite. I don’t want something big, but I don’t want just a salad either. We order. There is a party of 15 near us, with the smallest baby I’ve ever seen in public, and the poor thing obviously can’t hold it’s head up, but the mother(?) doesn’t seem to care or notice.

Dinner takes FOREVER, especially for Olive Garden which usually tries to get you in and out. Even the waitress is asking me if everything is OK.

On the way home I need something for my stomach. It’s going to be a long weekend…