Prayers.

My aunt is in the hospital. And no one bothered to tell me or my mom. I think it's a heart attack; I had to email my grandma to find out and I haven't heard back yet. Grandma said in her follow up email (no prior email to start with) that they took 5 veins from her leg to patch up her heart and it's beating on its own now.

Please, if you believe or don't. Please keep her in your thoughts or prayers. She's such a wonderful woman.

Holy Weekender, Batman!

So this weekend was a total blast, as weekends tend to be in my family (evidently, since I just noticed that last weekend's post started the same way... hehe). Here's the gist in bullets:

--bought a darling pair of Mia wooden heels with Stacy at DSW (shoe mecca)
--went to dinner on St. Patty's day with Stacy's family for her dad's birthday. Wow, to be in close proximity with that many Atlanta transplants ... hehe. We went to Timpano's Italian Chophouse in Hyde Park and it was marvelous. I had mussels for the first time (I've had oysters and clams, but never mussels) and we stood near the band and talked at great length with the pianist. They had a guitarist, sax and pianist and they were lovely. All old and lovely. Stacy's uncle made me, Stacy and her aunt pose with the sax player sans sax ... if I see the picture I'll post it here :)
--left there to meet with Christen and his friend Jesse at Hooters for more late night drinks while the boys smoked their cigars. The waitress liked to "perch" on the edge of the table like she was an owl too. I was told to hook she and Jesse up, but I'm no good at that so I just drank.
--Saturday, went to Ellenton Outlets with Christen as we hadn't been there in a really long time and just hung out and shopped all day. I bought a cute pink shirt at Gap (I know, I know, but it's a cute pink shirt) and a book about books (you know how I love those) and was talked out of another Coach purse (I was told I have enough purses, like that's possible). We also got a baby ice cream scoop for my new obsession with Rice Dream non-dairy ice cream, and onion cutter to make onion blooms (although I'm going to try to bake it).
--drove down to Anna Maria island and ate at the Waterfront Restaurant - he had the seafood platter and I had the snow crab (I cut my thumb on the sucker). Washed it down with a delightful piece of key lime pie and a cup of tea. It was a beautiful night and we ate on the porch.
--Sunday ventured to Orlando to mill about town; I was talked out of another Coach purse (this one was way cuter) and bought another book.
--dinner at Jungle Jim's for a Peanutbutter Bet (you don't know what you're missing).
--a late-night drive home playing the Penis and Vagina game (substitute one word in a tv show title with penis; substitute one word in a movie title with vagina). It was great fun.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend. Christen is now snoring on the couch next to me and it's distracting. I keep trying to hold his nose -- any suggestions on how to stop it? Well, taking him to bed will cure it and I think that's my next stop. Toodles!

Wild and Craziness

So this weekend has been a blast! Friday was Stacy's last day with the company, which is a sad sad thing, but we had a hell of a party at Bar Louie to mark the occasion. Ridiculous amounts of liquor were imbibed by everyone -- I think the bar could have catered to our group exclusively and had a great night. I was trashed on a lovely wine, and the pictures were exceptional.



This is me, Stacy, and Other April at the bar.

A wonderful time was had by all, and I found out that I know the bar manager! He's a friend of mine from high school, and I dated his best friend in high school. We caught up; it was fantastic to see him. You know how sometimes you run into people from school and you don't really know what to say to them? This didn't really turn out that way, and we weren't really that close in high school. You know, I did date his best friend in high school ... But it was really pretty neat.

The next morning Other April came to pick me up and take me back to my car (Christen drove me home; I was too intoxicated to do so) and it was a unanimous decision that we skip yoga this week. So the Brother and I went to the Antiquarian Book Fair in St. Pete. So Fun! So many books! The only problem with it was that, as they were all antique book dealers (115 venders) everything was highly overpriced. There were a few books I wanted but I didn't get, and Ian drooled over the copy of Fahrenheit 451 illustrated by Ralph Steadman. Alas, I did not have a grand to part with to get it for him, and if I couldn't pay the $800 for the Tender is the Night first edition, well then. He's just going to have to deal. The most expensive book we saw was $6500 for a first edition of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury.

There were purchases made, though. I came away with a autographed copy of Pat Conroy's Beach Music, and a copy of Drink: A Social History of America, which, in light of Friday night's bash I thought was appropriate. I also appropriated a well-spent $3 on Letters from a Nut by Ted Nancy for a bit of fun. The Brother picked up a copy of an autographed Orsen Scott Card novel.

Saturday night we went to the State Theatre to see The Spill Canvas, The Plain White T's, OkGo, and Motion City Soundtrack. I do have to say that I think I'm getting too old for such crowds. The average age was around 16. The show was pretty good; I went for OkGo and the Brother for they and MCS. I liked Spill Canvas best when it was just the lead singer; the drummer was out for a wedding and he sang a few songs acoustically by himself and I thought it was great; then he was joined by his band and it drowned him out.

Today has been a lazy day. I brushed the dog and watched Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I have the book, and I thought they did well with the interpretation. It was pretty good. One of these days I'm going to have to get up and get dressed, but I may laze for a little longer. This weekend has gone by so quickly! Toodles!

RIP Jacob the Snacob

The snake formerly known as "The Cliff Burton Experience" has left the building. Please erect a monument in his name. Thank you.

ADCTD 2U

It's been a strange day. For starters, I went to yoga this morning with Other April, realized I am decidedly NOT bendy and signed up for another 9 courses ("I'm sticking with it until I don't start to black out in the middle"). While we were at yoga Christen plugged April's flat (don't think it that way ... she was with me, I tell you) and we came home and decided ... to go to the beach! The people beach, no less! We had planned on meeting Stacy there because she marathon beaches, but she had decided not to go so we laid out for an hour before making up our minds to go to the Ruby Tuesday salad bar. It's a beautiful day -- absolutely gorgeous :) So we go to RT and our waiter is this really young kid -- maybe 20? And that's a maybe. And he's decided we're his bestest friends, so he keeps telling us about his new "Mr. Roboto" ringtone (It's that old song, you know? Yeah, sure kid ...) and about his house parties where the cokeheads cleaned up his house while he was passed out, and coming back to sit next to either of us at our 2-seater booth -- or on the carpet next to us when he asked if minded if he took a 5-minute smoke break ... it was crazy. I didn't understand any of it, but it did make for a good laugh!
Then we went over for a smoothie at Jamba Juice (mmm ... Orange Dream Machine with a Femme Boost) and to stop at Borders so that I could buy The Town That Forgot to Breathe. Now, about this book. I bought it because Autumn told me to read it. But really I bought it because the other day I got an email from the author thanking me for mentioning it on my blog! And although I hadn't mentioned it, Autumn did, I felt obliged to read it. I thought that was really neat. However, Now that I've bought it and read the inside cover, it doesn't seem really like the type of book I'm too into reading. It does seem like the type of book Autumn would like. But I'll give it a shot, and I'm also perfectly content to say that I can recognize that it's good writing without actually caring for the content. We'll see; I'll keep you all and Kenneth Harvey posted.

So I think I might go for a bike ride, because that sounds like me, right? :) I don't want to sit home because I'm afraid I'll start eating, but usually I just go shopping and I can't afford to do that. So I'll ride my bike to my mom's house, and if she's not home I'll just ride around back home. It's uphill all the way home from her house, so that'll be interesting.

I'm listening to Amber's radio show. I've listened before, and I'm actually really impressed for reasons twofold. Eins, she doesn't sound anything like what she seems like she seems on her blog, and Zwei, it's such an eclectic show and I hear a lot of things I don't hear that often. It's her last show, but maybe she'll get back into it when she moves to the Twin Cities? That's a hope and a prayer.

So adios; I'm off to sweat some more. Catch you later, aligator!

I swear I'm alive -- the elliptical says so!

Well, it’s been a busy week (or two) so I guess I haven’t been around as much as I’d like to have been. I didn’t actually remember that it had been a full two weeks since I updated until I started to write this post. I guess I’ll bullet what’s been going on to save your eyes from my rambling:



* 2.20.2006: The brother and I spent all of President’s Day book shopping – it was marvelous! I got an Umberto Eco book (because L loves him so much), a Capote novel, A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot, A Clockwork Orange for Christen, The Pearl by Steinbeck and a Fitzgerald novel. At this point I don’t remember what the brother got, but they were good books. He’s such a brain.
* 2.21.2006: Mom’s birthday, I got her dark chocolates and a rubber ducky with tattoos and piercings all over it – just her taste! :)
* This weekend: My friend Bill called to tell me that he and my friend Alicia got engaged after dating for a little less than 4 months. I’m thrilled to death for them – they’re both fabulous people – but a little mopey for me. It was way sweet the way he popped the question. I told him to write the story for the magazine, so if he does and it gets published on the online issue I’ll set a link to it here. That makes … 5 marriages now? Then comes the babies, I’m sure. First were Shea/Kyle, then Londa/Jim, then Shelley/Richard, Theresa/Andrew, and now Bill/Alicia. Who else is getting married? Is it in the water? I swear I drink 96 oz of water a day!
* Sunday: Christen and I went to the exotic car show at Vinoy Park – so many pretty cars. I don’t like traditional exotics, like Porsche and Lamborghini, but I love old cars and they had tons of old Bentleys and Rolls Royces and such. No Cruel Intentions jaguars, but you can’t win them all :)



Monday started my new workout – I decided to start working out at work (there’s a small gym there) 4 days a week after work. Saturdays are yoga. I’ve stuck to it all week, so here’s to making a turn around! I’m really excited about yoga. We (Other April and I) were going to do pilates and yoga, but the lady at the fitness center said that it would be better if we worked up to both. So I’ll let you know how it goes.



I’ve also gotten addicted to fitday.com. It’s so great! You put your foods in and it tallies your calories and protein and carbs etc and gives you a little pie chart to see how balanced your diet is and stuff. You can pick things off the list of what they have or make custom foods if they don’t have it. I went to Boston Market last night and had 1/4 white meal and today I went on their Web site and got the nutritional info and put it into fitday. I don’t really count calories per se because that just doesn’t work for me, but this kind of makes me make better choices for my diet. I have a target calorie count, but mostly I just try to balance my pie chart and that keeps me where I want to be. I’m very serious in wanting to lose 45 pounds. I don’t think that’s unreasonable – I’m not trying to get to a size 2, I just know that I felt my healthiest when I weighed 45 lbs less, so I’m going to try to get there.


So homebound schooling is not working for The Brother. He can't stay in a fetal position for long, Alex. (Sorry, I'm watching Jeopardy.) I think he just needs to get his GED. Any thoughts on that?

Beaching is hard work

The beach was so fun ... which is amazing for reasons threefold. Eins, I hate the beach. Zwei, my brother hates the beach. Drei, we were all there. But it was really fun, and as long as the weather holds I think I'll be going back. Wow, huh? So I took my camera but only took one picture and now I can't find the plug to upload that one picture so you are instead getting this picture of crazy boys at the beach. Great, eh? I did get mildly burned, but it didn't show up until later. I wore a hat and sunglasses so my face didn't get it, but my upper back and shoulders are a pretty crimson color. Ian is a beautiful shade of scarlet, as he is never ever in the sun -- but only the bridge of his nose and his forearms, since he refuses to take off his shirt and reveal the translucence that is his chest. The dogs had a marvelous time, but I didn't realize how much of a workout I was getting toting around a 45lb and 60lb dog for 2 1/2 hours while they tried to meet every other dog on the beach and fight to get in the water and then fight to get back out of the water .... Late last night my muscles all started to tighten up and now my back and shoulders and arms are in so much pain!

I made spinach chicken manicotti last night for dinner, and for once I followed the recipe -- no good. I know better than to follow recipes exept in baking, but I figured the picture looked so good that it should be, right? The problem with recipes is that they don't allow for specific tastes. Usually I look at a recipe to get an idea of what types of things go in, but then I change it to fit our tastes -- it ends up completely different from the recipe, but by reading it first I know what kind of base to work with. This one had cayenne pepper (and I am completely anti-spicy) and a lot of lemon juice in the sauce. So we ended up with lemony spicy manicotti ... I didn't eat it, but Christen thought it was okay; he ate his and mine. He agreed that, while he thought it was good, it was not something that we would care to make again.

The reading is not going well this month. I finished From Our House, but I haven't been able to get into anything else. Any suggestions?