Best photo of the year

I like how this just looks natural.

No Cold

Andy has a cold.  He states that this is from the air conditioner running in the bedroom during the summer.  So far I have not caught this cold, or am denying that I have caught this cold.  I like to believe that all the orange juice I drank this weekend has preventing me from catching it.   I also think that it is besides the point that the orange juice was mixed with champagne. 

I wish I could be in a cocoon right now

So the powers that be have decided that although I am absolutely exhausted, I am not allowed to have a sleep in this Sunday morning. I shuffled downstairs at 5:30 AM and finally gave up and turned on the TV at 6. It was all dark and quiet and 'Cocoon' was on. If you are like me, you probably have not seen this movie in a really, really, long time. I couldn't remember how it ended.

Let me enlighten you.

Bunch of old geezers get on a boat driven by Steve Gutenberg. The get chased by the Coast Guard. Fog comes in and a big spaceship comes down to get geezers. Instead of using a space ladder or space stairs, the aliens suck up the entire boat into the spaceship. Steve Gutenberg jumps out to dingy with a pile of money and a goonie look on his face (not a huge stretch for Steve Gutenberg). Spaceship takes off into the sky and we attend the funeral for all the old geezers as the family doesn't know that they are now space geezers.

Now I know this a Ron Howard film and we are suppose to assume that the aliens who took the geezers away are actually going to give the geezers this everlasting non-pain life that they promised. I personally am not so sure. Are we really suppose to trust this man to give these geezers rainbows and skips through fields? I don't think so. Brian Dennehy is evil. I think Alien Brian Dennehy took the geezers to Evil Alien Planet and chopped them up. Experiments with the aging humans. I think Evil Alien Brian Dennehy made hats out of the geezers.

Maybe I just need to get some more sleep.

Nothing but the kitchen sink

Speaking of pet peeves, I actually have another one...  Oh, who am I kidding?  My pet peeves are endless.  There is another one that I have that I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the universe who is bothered by it.  For this reason alone, I never bring it up as I know it's stupid and petty and bringing it up may make think I have OCD but...

OK, listen.  You have the kitchen sink, right?  And it has two, um, sinks in it.  On the left hand side, is the sink with the garbage disposal.  On the right hand side is the sink with the round metal food catcher thing that you can also use to plug up the sink to wash dishes in.   No matter what apartment I've lived in that has this dual sink setup, I always keep the tap over the disposal side.  It just makes sense.  I have a dirty dish, so I rinse it off over the disposal in case there are big chunky things I can grumble up (yes, grumble...that is the action verb that garbage disposals do).   If I'm too lazy or too busy at that time to put said dish in the dishwasher (oddly, not a pet peeve of mine...I know, right?), I will put said dish on the non-disposal side so that when I next use the tap, I don't have to bang my new dish (dirty or otherwise) against the old dish that is now sitting on top of the disposal. 

But that's not all!  If there is already a plate on the disposal side, for example, and I go to rinse off another plate, then 2 things happen:  

1. The chunky bits become wet chunky bit that are now floating on top of the plate in the sink
2. The existing plate will block the entrance to the disposal causing all those wet chunky bit closer and closer to my hand.  I don't like touching wet chunky bits. (sounds dirty!)

My pet peeve is obviously when I reach the sink and there is a dish...or dishes (usually pots and pans, and those irk me more than anything) in the disposal side area.   To be fair, when I'm in the physical act of cooking, I will do that.  But it's only because I'm going to be rinsing them and most likely, washing those items right away.

Drives me mental and I know it shouldn't.  I'm working on it.  I guess by "working on it", I mean "complain about it on my blog".   Hello, passive aggressive.

Ordinal-Linguistic Personification (a.k.a. I'm not a freak!)

Ever since I can remember, I have always associated gender types to letters and numbers.  In my mind, 1 - 9 can be classified as such:

1 - Male
2 - Female
3 -  Male
4 - Female
5 - Male
6 - Male
7 - Female
8 - Male
9 - Male
0 - An old fat bald guy who plays video games all day long in his smelly apartment

I never understood why I did this, and I rarely brought it up to anyone else as the few times that I did, I was called weird.  I suppose it is weird in a way, but today I finally have justification that not only am I not the only one who does this, but it's a fairly common trait.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8248589.stm

A-ha!  I can finally come out of the closet (in a sense) about my ordinal-linguistic personification!  Now I can finally explain how when 6 (male) is multiplied by 7 (female) to make 42, in my head 6 swings around to 7's apartment and they drive off to attend a party at 42's house.  42 have punch and 7 drinks too much and 6 has to carry her home mumbling the entire way that he'd rather hang out with 4 as she's got a Corvette.  24 is an awesome tree house by the way and whenever 6 swings by, 4 always wishes she was with 8. 

I. Am. Not. Weird.  Read the article people!  I'm normal!  NORMAL.  In this sense anyhow.

I'm so lazy, I'm giving you an entry from 8 years ago

The Arctic Monkeys show was fantastic but not much to tell about it as nobody got stabbed and I didn't get to go back stage and give Alex Turner a back rub (not that I'd want to Andy!). I am glad I got to see them finally though next time I really wish they would play Mardy Bum (Are you listening Alex Turner? No back rubs for you!).

Because it's the end of the day and my brain has turned off, I've decided to give you a entry I wrote (no longer available at the Diaryland site, at least not to you) 8 years ago when my roommate, Articulate Tom, and I went to Vegas 4 days after 9/11. I think I might be posting this as evidence that 1) I may have been a bit more exiting\excitable than I am now and 2) Damn! Look how thin I was!

Enjoy.

(cue going back in time music)

09/16/2001

How was everyone's weekend? Mine was great. It really was.

I Went To Vegas.

Vegas baby.

The rundown was as following:

On Friday, we raped New York, New York. So much in fact, that we had enough for another night's stay in Vegas, enough spending money for another night, and enough for two new outfits at the Gap as we didn't bring enough clothes for a two nights.

On Saturday, Mandalay Bay raped us. So we turned around and raped the Luxor. But then Paris, MGM, and Aladdin raped us back.

(2009 Editor's side note: I had used the word 'rape' to be shocking. Did it shock you? Exactly)

On Sunday...well, I don't even want to talk about Sunday, I'm too ashamed.

(2009 Editor's side note: I honestly don't know what I did on that Sunday that was so shameful after admitting to all the raping that was going on.)

But all and all, it was fun. We dressed up on Friday and just got stared at all night long. We learned how to play craps at 4 in the morning. We fell down flights of stairs, we spilled full drinks on ourselves. We went to dance clubs and decked-out restaurants. We stayed up until 7 in the morning and had 3 hour naps in the afternoon. We stalked cocktail waitresses for free drinks. We made friends at the Roulette table. We made enemies at the all night cafe. We blew hundreds on Double Diamond Delux, we won hundreds at Blackjack. We rode trams, taxis, and roller coasters. We giggled until our sides hurt.

We had fun.

And once we got back from all that fun...I got sick.

I thought it was a hangover...

Nope. It was a serious throat infection. My doctor (and I'm not kidding about this) actually jumped back from the examination table after viewing my throat.

"Well, let's see what we've got in ....AHHH!"

JUMPED BACK, people. As in, it was so hideous to look at that the DOCTOR had to shield her eyes from it. Talk about feeling like a leper.

I've still got it too, and it's a pain in the ass. I haven't been able to eat anything besides soup for the last 4 days. *sigh* All I really want is a cheeseburger...

So, I'm sorry about the delay in getting this out. And I wish I had more time to really go into the entire weekend (I'm sure I've missed some funny bits) but that stupid Work Crap That You Wouldn't Care About is once again calling me back. Until I write you next, remember that not all Blackjack dealers will find you funny if you try to double down on 13.

(2009 Editor's side note: I actually had tried to do that. Double down on 13. )

I'm wondering who will rape who next.

It's all about the cuddles in the kitchen.

So tonight Andy, Dave, and I are going up to see the Arctic Monkeys play at the Hollywood Palladium.   I'm pretty stoked for this show even though physically speaking, I'm feeling less than up for it (as a self diagnosed hypochondriac, I'm convinced I have the swine flu)(not really).  The Arctic Monkeys swung through the LA area about two years ago.  Two years ago I didn't really know who the Arctic Monkeys were so I missed my chance by a country mile ever to see them in a small venue again. 

I'm not a big fan of big stadium concerts.   I used to be, when I was younger, and couldn't give a toss about really hearing the music, or seeing the performers.  Back then it was all about being there, being with your friends, getting injured in mosh pits, finding some older guy to buy you beer, getting the t-shirt that you'd wear every other day faithfully under it deteriorated into threads.   Nowadays, it is about seeing the performers, hearing the music live, and bitching about the high cost of beers at the venue.   I'm a cheap bastard, so if I go to shows now, I'm going to buy the cheapest tickets available, which basically means the bigger the venue, the less likelihood I'm going to see what I paid to see.  For most bands, I would just skip it if they were playing at a bigger venue.  For the Arctic Monkeys, I'd go no matter what.

Here is the song that made me fall in love with the Arctic Monkeys:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x201rz_arctic-monkeys-mardy-bum-live-mtvu_music

Swine flu can wait until tomorrow.

Cat party wore me out

Shit!  I forgot to post today!   Seeing as for the first few hours this morning I was holding my eyes open with toothpicks, it makes sense.   After that, I got caught up with work and reading Neatorama posts. 

Fortuitously, I really don't have much for you anyhow besides letting you know that Chloe's first cat party was a success (see didn't hiss or bite anyone...which is shocking) and I won the office football pool (seeing as I've got $3 in my bank account until tomorrow, this was quite the blessing).

Here's a joke to make up for it:

One neighbor says to the other, "Hey Joe, you have to stop leaving the 
 blinds on your bedroom open, I saw you screwing your wife." Joe responds 
"The jokes on you, Stan, I was away on a business trip yesterday."
 

Happy Birthday Chloe

Chloe Cat turned 7 years old on 09/09/09.  I'm ashamed to admit that we are holding her a very small party in which she will not appreciate until we open the can of tuna.  Any excuse to drink beer on a Sunday really.

I'm my own pet peeve

So lately I've been reading various blogs that have a centralized theme of the writers being American women who married Australian men and have thus gone to Australia to live. Obviously I don't have to tell you why blogs like these have sparked my interest of late. Most of these blogs that I've been reading have really irritated me in some way or another though. I understand that the most useful purpose of a blog (on a personal level) is to get rants off your chest so you don't have to bore a live person with the rant. I understand that, hell, I'm doing it right now. My problem with most of these blogs is the rant subject. Maybe not the subject, par se, but just the writers decided angle to get to the subject. Oh hell, let me see if I can find you an example.

"...if you are ever in Sydney and in need of cheapish, fast Mexican food, this is the place I'd recommend! The place had real Mexican people working (I've never seen a Mexican in Australia before!) and it tasted like legit Mexican food, and although they didn't have authentic Mexican style red rice, it was still good."

Irritation #1: Did she ask if they were real Mexicans?
Irritation #2: What exactly is legit Mexican food? Is it the tacos and burritos covered in cheese served up for Americans or is it the Mexican food that Mexicans actually eat, like chilaquiles?
Irritation #3: Authentic Mexican Style red rice.

Another irritation I have with one of the blogs is actually something I do myself, but hate that I do it. Can you have a pet peeve if you're guilty of doing it? Sometimes it happens that when you're around people who talk differently then you and use different phrases then you, you might have a tendency to pick up some of the verbiage and inflections into your own way of speaking, without even realizing you're doing it.

Andy is British. We are dating and we are living together. This does not give me the right to use "gobsmacked" in a sentence nor does it give me the right to say "lee-ver" instead of "leh-ver". I'm ashamed to say that I've used both in recent memory. I try really hard to keep such infractions out of my blog though I will admit that some have sneaked in on occasion (typically when I'm in a frame of thought and just write whatever is in my head without proof reading the result). But some of these blogs I'm reading do it purposefully. It's as if to say, "Look, I know an Aussie slang word. Do you know it? I bet you don't. You'll have to ask me what that means and then I can tell you with a bit of a superior voice when I do."

Tossers. (Heh.)

Though the irritations (and there are others that I'm not going to get into), I still enjoy the blogs to some extent, and I've actually learned quite a bit in the process. Truthfully, to enjoy a blog, you have to be able to relate to the writer on some level like you would any friend. And if you wouldn't want to hang out with that person in real life, you sure as hell won't enjoy reading a blog all about their intimate thoughts. Just saying.

Have a great Friday and enjoy this if you feel a bit bored: http://www.translatebritish.com/reverse.php

--
Casey a.k.a. Moe
http://badgerswithknives.blogspot.com

I'm not the only one.

As the smell of someone's reheated fish lunch wanders its way into my nostrils and therefore started my gagging reflex, I delight in the fact that there are others like myself, who cannot bear to eat anything that has come from the sea.

http://hubpages.com/hub/I-Dont-Like-Seafood-Please-Let-Me-Be

I haven't been this happy since I found the I Hate Cilantro site.  (Note: I'd link it but it looks like a Pro Cilantro eater has put a malware virus on it - sorry!)

--
Casey a.k.a. Moe
http://badgerswithknives.blogspot.com

My sister needs to warn me.

My younger sister, Maggie, has been staying with us for the last few weeks.  She was only planning on staying until the end of the month but has recently decided to stick around as California is awesome.  Maggie is awesome in herself, so I think it's a good fit. 

Last night while Andy was working, I decided to put on "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" which I've been wanting to see for awhile but Andy hadn't as he doesn't seem to be too keen on serious dramas.  Maggie came down just as the movie was starting and when she found out what I was watching she said, "Oooh, I read the book, it was really good.  A bit deep though."

Have you seen (or read) "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" people?  I can't give away the end, I can't, but JAYSUS MOTHER OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, seriously?  Way to get me all, "la dee da, that's pretty funny, la dee da, oh dear, la dee da, WHAT THE MOTHER OF PANDA BASKETS?"

A bit deep.  This is what my sister tells me.  Like Mt. Everest is a bit tall. 

--
Casey a.k.a. Moe
http://badgerswithknives.blogspot.com

The evidence!

"Hello? Mr. Lach? Yes, I would like to report that your daughter is a big mean bitch. You wouldn't believe what she's done to me..."

"OK, fine. I'm sorry. Yes, it was me who ran face first into a retaining wall."

"Buy beautiful a beer, why don't you?"

The one where Andy runs into a wall...

To recap, I appear to be very poor at this whole updating every day in September thing.  I blame the weekends.  Many times over the weekend I'm out or if I am home and have my computer on, it's to play on Facebook briefly before settling in to watch a movie.  This weekend was especially bad as we had my friend, Philly Beefsteak, in from Wisconsin.   Philly Beefsteak is better known as Pork Chop in most circles but I never liked that so I have been calling him Beefsteak for the better part of 13 years.  Sorry Phil.

Philly B.S. is part of the Milwaukee Hurling Club that I used to be a member of (albeit briefly) back in the late 90's.  He and I were on the same (losing) team one year.  He's a great guy and it was nice having him in town.  One thing about Philly though is that he has a tendency to bring chaos where ever he goes.  He doesn't do this purposefully, it just appears to follow him around.   There are a lot of stories I could tell but for discretion purposes, it is best that I just tell the story at hand.

On Saturday, I had decided that the three of us (Andy, Phil, and myself) would take the bikes down to the peninsula to enjoy the sun and perhaps a few cocktails.  We started off at Mutt Lynch's and since Andy and I know one of the waitresses there we may, perhaps, stayed a bit longer then we had first planned.  No worries.  We then biked down to the Balboa Saloon to play pool and finally to Cabo Catina for a blue drink (it's tradition).  Realizing that we should best head back after the blue drink, we started off.  I was in the lead on the boardwalk but as Andy knows, I tend to forget that people who might be behind me might not be keeping up to my speed and I sometimes forget to look back (because I'm concentrating so hard on pedaling) that I tend to lose those people.  Which is what happened.  Figuring there wasn't really anywhere to get lost (it was a boardwalk after all), I waited at the Blue Beat for Andy and Phil to show up.  After waiting for a good half an hour, I finally get a call from Phil.  Andy has been an accident.   He hands the phone to Andy who said, "it's just a scratch" but when I finally see Andy, my first reaction was to throw my sunglasses off my face, rip off my shirt, and use it to start wiping off the blood from Andy's face.  Just a scratch my eye.

The story, as much as Andy can remember it, is that as he was biking along, a lady on another bicycle ran into him.  Andy fell into to the left and used his face to break the fall into one of those shorter walls that lines everyone's houses on the boardwalk.  He got up and said he was fine (adrenaline anyone?) and started walking the bike with Phil, who had finally caught up with him again.  The beach ambulance followed him down the boardwalk and insisted that they clean him up.  They got the bleeding to stop for the moment, but by the time I saw him, Andy had two huge streaks of blood running down his cheek again - hence my reaction - caused from a centimeter long (and wide) gash on his cheek.  His right eye was already purple and closing up.  I very smartly suggested that we head to the hospital.

I say "smartly", which I think it was, that is, if HOAG HOSPITAL WASN'T A BUNCH OF LAZY UNHELPFUL INGRATES.   Basically we waited at Hoag for 3 hours and all that happened was Andy got a bag of ice.   3 hours was all Andy would wait so I've played Nurse Moe (with the help of Rite-Aid and First Aid kit provided by my sister) for the last few days.  He's looking better.  And if he'll send me the photos, I'll give you all a peek at what he looked like at the hospital (sans ice).

To recap this post: Sorry I didn't update.  Be careful if you ever hang around a guy going by Pork Chop.

Cheers.

--
Casey a.k.a. Moe
http://badgerswithknives.blogspot.com

Wow, I'm really bad at this!

I didn't write yesterday and today this is all you get.   Philly Beefsteak is in town so we're showing him around.  It's already been chaos.  More later!

--
Casey a.k.a. Moe
http://badgerswithknives.blogspot.com

Dear Stuart Little

Andy and I never IM each other. The reasoning goes well back and involves his unwillingness to install Yahoo! and my unwillingness to install MSN. Now that I'm on Gmail, we could use that, but we don't, as emailing has become the main source of communication whilst we are slaving away at our workplaces.

Because it's Friday before the holiday weekend, work is pretty dead so I've been passing my time looking through all my old emails. I found the following that I thought was pretty funny and I think demonstrates the sameness in humor that Andy and I share, which is to say absurdness.

This string started as me faux writing letters to Stuart Little as he appeared to be having a bad day. Enjoy.

******************

Dear Mr. Little,

Please, sit down and relax. Would you like a piece of cheese? I have sharp Wisconsin cheddar and a bit of Gouda. Care for crackers or would you prefer just to nibble on the corner of the package? Just the corner then? Well done. Yes please, just put your paws up. I do have a match box if you care for a nap later. Never mind that trap in the corner...that's for the hedgehogs. Nasty buggers those hedgehogs are.

Sincerely,

Me

******************

Hi Me!

I am lactose intolerant, which is pretty fucked up for a mouse. Some crackers would be lovely though. Although I do feel you are patronizing/patronising (delete as appropriate) me. That is bloody mousist!

Steady on, some of my best friends are hedgehogs!

Mr S. Little, mouse first class

******************

Mr. Little,

I would never patronize\patronise a mouse. Not with the knowledge that they could gnaw off my hair when I sleep at night.

I only dislike hedgehogs because they are so damn cute I turn into a big ball of stupid girl who suddenly wants to pet kittens and skip in a large field of sunflowers every time I see one. Dead hedgehogs don't give me that same affliction.

Sincerely,

Me

******************

Me,

I accept your apology. And your hedgehog manifesto.

Stuey Little, friend to hedgehogs everywhere, also preferably alive.

P.S. How are the ants? I asked them to look after the place while you were away.

******************

SL,

Thank you very much for sending the ants. They were very organized while they were still alive. Next time, if you could, please inform them that the bowl on the kitchen floor is cat food not ant food. I realize I normally inform them of this by putting down a liberal layer of cinnamon (surprisingly effective for getting the message across) but in my absence, the cat (not the tidiest of eaters), may have implied that what drops out her mouth is fair game. It's not.

Thanks.

Me

******************

Me,

You killed the ants? They were building the ant Eiffel Tower as a tribute to you, their god. And you frickin' smote them?

Well, they were French.

Stuart Little, mouse of many jackets


******************

Dear Stuart,

I didn't kill the ants. The Lysol "Garden Scent" Can killed them. I made sure they all went to little ant heaven (it's covered in sugar) as a merciful ant god is wont to do.

With much respect,

Me

******************

Dear Sir or Madam,

I regret to inform you that Stuart Little passed away this afternoon. According to the responding medics, he had launched a ground assault on the Lysol factory but was drowned when a container load of NEW! LYSOL® Healthy Touch™ Hand Sanitizer Foam exploded during the resulting firefight causing Mr Little to asphyxiate instantly.

Our condolences go out to Stuart's family and friends. May he finally find the peace cruelly denied him in life.
--
Casey a.k.a. Moe
http://badgerswithknives.blogspot.com

Chili Cook Off Photos

Lately I've been uploading all my photos to Facebook to share but I thought for once I'd be selfish and only post the following here. These are from the Hi-Times Chili Cook Off last weekend where I may or may not have had too many tequila related drinks.

Kristie, John Joe and myself ham it up. I did not, I repeat, did not have too many tequila related drinks at this time as much as it might appear that I had.

Andy hangs with the Harp crew, including Vicki and Joe (back right). Andy may or may not have had too many tequila related drinks at this point in time. He certainly didn't have much chili as he's a vegetarian and all.

I could comment on the tequila related drinks in this but I don't think I have to.

See you folks tomorrow.

And they all cheered.

Most of the time I have a pretty thankless job.  I do actually mean that in the literal sense as when you work in support, very rarely do you hear "thank you" uttered from one of your customers that you have spent the last 4 days and 6 hours working on and finally fixed.  Mostly you get, "It's about time" and "Your products sucks".  By that token, when I have a rare moment like today, I feel the need to blog about it.

Not to get into to much specifics, I just got off the phone with a customer who was trying to get his old little Latino women up and running again.  His current setup was atrocious so I spent a good 2 hours tweaking their system.  At one point I added a feature that instead of making his old little Latino women manually type in information, the system did it for them automatically.  During the first run through showing them this new feature, I heard silence on the other end and I got a bit concerned that they didn't like what I had done.  Then I heard a rush of Spanish and my customer explaining to them that the system was entering the numbers for them and all they had to do was verify that the information was correct.   More rush of Spanish - then cheering.  Actual cheering and clapping and more rush of Spanish.   My customer then said, "I think you just made them very very happy."

It's a bit silly but I can't tell you how warm and fuzzy that made me.   I'm buzzing right now actually.  Of course this will most likely be short lived as when they start using the system they will surely find other things that they don't like or isn't working properly, but for now, I'm going to enjoy it.

--
Casey a.k.a. Moe
http://badgerswithknives.blogspot.com

So I made a quiche...

As you might remember, I was a bit tired yesterday. Like, very very tired. Regardless of my state, we didn't have much in the house for dinner, so I knew I had to cook. I had picked out a recipe earlier that day and stopped at the grocery store on the way home. I was quite a state at the store. I had to get broccoli, for example, so I shuffled my way over to the produce department, stared at the broccoli for a minute, yawned, stared at it some more, then finally decided I probably needed one of those plastic baggie things to put it in. Thankfully I only needed a few items or I might have been at Ralph's until midnight, wandering around, mumbling, yawning, and asking various customers where I could find angel hair pasta and my slippers.

But I did make it back - eventually - and began to cook a quiche.

This is the point that I remind people who may not know me all that well that I am not, even on the best of days, that great of a cook. I can get by, I have a few things I pull off exceptionally well, but new recipes I tend to botch up pretty badly. To make matters worse, the few things I can do exceptionally well usually involve meat - chicken, steak, etc. - but Andy is a vegetarian. To make matters worse upon worse, my back up exceptionally well cooking talent is pasta. There isn't an Italian dish that I can't make with finesse. But Andy doesn't like pasta (at this point I would call anyone who doesn't like pasta a non-American but my point would be moot). Needless to say, we eat out a lot and when we do cook at home it's usually baked potatoes or bean tacos.

So yes! I made the quiche. The first mistake I made was not reading the recipe amounts. I was to only add 1/2 of a cup of all the veggies, which I have come to find out, is not a lot. After chopping up a full onion, heating up a full package of spinach, dicing a whole broccoli head, and opening two packages of feta, I finally realized, "oh." Basically I had enough to make 18 quiches. Then I forgot to add the salt and pepper. (Which I didn't realize until it was half way through cooking, "that's odd, I don't remember having to add salt and pepper...oh.")

When everything was done and sorted and the quiche was in the oven, I said to Andy, "In 52 minutes time either you will have the best quiche you've ever had in your life, or you will be poisoned."

I like to take a gamble when I cook.

I'm happy to report that I did not manage to poison us. I'm also happy to report that the quiche turned out exceptionally well (I've added it to my list!) and that if you need a dummy proof recipe, that's the one to do.

Day One of Project "bore you to death every day for a month"

So I'm tired.  Like extremely tired, as a result for tossing and turning all night long having quick 20 minute dreams that I was alternating between plowing fields in Facebook Farmtown and getting in a fight with football hooligans.  This actually marks day three of no sleep which means that if I don't fall asleep properly tonight, there may be blood.  I cannot promise you it will be my own.

From time to time this happens to me.  I'll get in some sort of sleeping rut and for days on end, no matter how physically and mentally depleted I am, I won't be able to sleep.  Typically this is just a basic "can't fall to sleep" over a "wake up all night long", but when it gets bad, it's both.  And it's been bad.  Last time this happened this badly I went 5 days.  At 2 in the morning on the 5th night, I'm on the couch sobbing my eyes out, pleading with my body to shut down.  It wasn't pretty, nor was the nonsensical call I made to my boss letting her know that no, I wasn't actually sick but if I didn't sleep soon, I would be.  She never liked me anyhow.  The two good things that came out of the 5th night was that I finally got to see "Easy Rider" and after my phone call to my bitchy (now) ex boss, I did manage to fall asleep and didn't wake up for 15 hours (and woke up for a measly 2 hours and went back to bed for another 10).

I actually feel a bit bad for complaining about this as I know Beth is out there right now reading this, holding a newborn in her arms, thinking I don't know the half of it.  And it's true, I don't.  I'm not newborn baby tired.  I'm simply "been rock star living for too damn long without break and could just use some peace and quiet" tired.  But at the end of the day (pun!), tired is tired and it makes me long for a preschool moment where I could lay down for a nap on a stinky blue mat with a ratty blanket and with graham cracker crumbs stuck to my cheek.

--
Casey a.k.a. Moe
http://badgerswithknives.blogspot.com