Injuries I Don't Want to Have to Explain to a Doctor

I dropped a jar of banana peppers on my toes. After recovering from the wooziness I experienced from the pain, I iced my toes with some frozen corn and I think all is well. Though my middle toe is multi-color and unusually lumpy.

My First Sonic Experience

Our area has recently been bombarded with commercials for Sonic, but their aren't really any Sonic's in the area (at least not yet). So being the sheep of commercialism that we are, when Amanda and I had to go when we were at the outlets Saturday in Lancaster and saw one just across the street. (on a side note, I then went to King of Prussia with my cousin Molly the following day...too...much...shopping...must...stop...now) I was a little nervous because of the whole drive in format. How do I order? How do I pay? But everything turned out fine. There was a little awkwardness when the condiment boy and I both went for a mint at the same time (what a degrading job that is! you can't even deliver burgers, you're reduced to ketchup, salt, napkins and honey mustard.) The Caramel Java Chiller was yummy and the tots were tot-a-licious (I just made that word up). So if you have a chance to try Sonic, have no fear and go for it!

Help Sponsor My Walk

Ok, so I've already posted about how I'm doing a 60 mile walk for breast cancer. I'm still not sure how I'm going to do this because after my 12 mile training walk, I thought my feet were going to fall off. Well, now is the time for me to start begging for sponsors. For your sponsorship you will receive months of posts regarding the ridiculousness of my training regime not to mention the detail of the three day walk you can look forward to in October. To help me reach my $2200 goal, you can either click on the ugly box ad that I've added to my sidebar or go to this link. Thanks in advance.

Easter With a Twist

Tonight I went to Easter Dinner at my cousin Heidi's house. Dinner was supposed to eat at 6 but really we didn't eat until 7. Then after dinner was the egg hunt...in the dark...with flashlights. I have to admit when I first heard this idea I was a little jealous that I was no longer in the egg hunting age bracket. I was in charge of hiding eggs for two of the older kids, so I did my best to make them a little difficult. There were six kids total and each had 15 eggs in their color to find (plus one "money egg" that was rainbow colored and had $5 in it). The egg hunt was fine and dandy for the first half hour or so and then it gets a little tougher and then it really sucks when you're down to three kids who each need one egg. You're trying to retrace all your steps. "did you find the one by the pool?" "yep" "Did you find the one in the bush?" "yep" "Did you find some over by the rocks?" "Yep" "How many?" "A couple. How many did you hide there?" "Two or three." And its even tougher when you were hiding for two kids and randomly just sticking eggs places because then you can't remembers which kids you put where. I put like four in the area with the rocks, but were they all for the same kid or 3 and 1 or 2 and 2. I had no idea. It was dark and I was cold and wasn't paying any attention to what color I was putting under rocks. So there are still 4 plastic eggs out in her yard somewhere that they are hoping to find in the daylight.

How I Pretend to Save the World

Back in January, I started getting Body and Soul Magazine, one of Martha Stewart's cogs in her plan to control the universe. Anyway, I really like it and every month after I read it I resolve to take my own bag to the grocery store, eat more leafy greens and practice some deep breathing (or various other ways to improve myself and my world). This usually last for about a week until I forget, go back to my old way of living and then when I get next month's mag it starts all over again. This month there was actually something really good and really easy to do. It's a way to opt out of catalogs that you don't want to receive. Now I love catalog browsing as much as the next person (bring on the billion Victoria's secrets and Pottery Barns), but I get catalogs full of men's clothing that don't apply to me at all. So go to this link and put an end to all the wasted catalogs you are receiving. Now the bad part about this is that you have to actually know the names of those catalogs. That was hard for me because I usually just pitch the ones that I don't want. I'll have to start paying attention to them though.

Ingredients for the Perfect St. Patrick's Day Party

My uncle held a St. Patrick's Day Party, which turned out to be pretty good.

1) Irish Food: The menu for the evening included Irish Soda Bread, Corned Beef, Cabbage and Mashed Potatoes. (There was also rye bread, swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island Dressing for anyone that wanted to make a Reuben)

2) Irish Drink: Bailey's, Harp, and Guinness were all readily available. As well as limeade for the kids (hey, its green). I, however, chose to drink a Blue Hawaiian wine cooler. I was told that if I mixed it with orange juice it would make a "Green Leprechaun" but I didn't.

3) Ridiculous Irish Themed Desserts

I think a giant cake decorated like the Irish flag counts. (Side note: my cousin's birthday is on St. Patrick's Day). Each section of the flag was a different flavor. The flavors were lemon, mint chocolate chip, and butter pecan. I'm not sure that was a good idea. Other Irish themed desserts were green mint fudge (with '69 food coloring in it), and two different types of shamrock shaped cookies. Actually the cookies my grandma made were clubs (as in hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs), but she thought they were shamrocks.

4) Festive Irish Decorations. I didn't take a picture, so you'll just have to take my word on it.

5) Odd green Irish apparel.

I rest my case.

6) Traditional Irish names. My cousin's name is Patrick McMinn.

7) Bloodshed. Ok, so we didn't get this but we were darn close when my ex-con cousin and my aunt began to state their case on why OJ Simpson is completely innocent (apparently their belief is that his son did it) and my other cousin and his wife told them that they were morons. But my grandmother broke it up because it could actually escalate to physical violence.

8) Irish music. There wasn't this either. At least, I don't think there was. Not that we could've heard it above the screaming kids (and adults). We did have on some special Foods of Ireland program on the Food Network (at least until the Big East Championship game came on).

All in all it was a pretty good party. My mom even brought crafts for the kids to do, so that each kid could make their own shamrock pin. (Is that what I have to look forward to in 25 years?)

The Green Fudge

For the second consecutive year, I've made green mint fudge for St. Patrick's day. I'm taking it to my uncle's St. Patrick's day party tonight. I took all the ingredients (sans butter and sugar because I knew there was already some there) over to my grandmother's house yesterday, so that I could spend more quality bonding time with my mom. My mom suggested to use my grandmother's green food coloring rather than waste my own because "she's had it a long time." She proceeds to pull out a glass McCormick bottle of green food coloring. I make some smart ass remark like "wow, it looks like its from the 70's." Upon further inspection, we discover that the bottle is dated 12/69. Guess she did have it for a long time.

Back Away From the Dishes!

My mom is in town. Yesterday, she came to pick me up to go to lunch, but we couldn't leave my apartment yet because the cable guy was here and while there isn't really much to steal in my apartment I didn't feel like "just lock up when you're done" was an option. So we waited and watched some TV. At which point, my mom turned to me at says "Can I put away your laundry for you?" To which I answer (as any self respecting adult would) "No, you are absolutely not allowed to clean anything while you are here." Cable guy gets done, we go to lunch and then come back and watch a movie on HBO. She leaves and only then do I discover that somehow covertly she cleaned my bathroom sink. I don't know how. I don't know when. But she did.

Are Babies Ever Born on Their Due Date?

Seriously. My coworker, Charlene, went into labor yesterday. She's due on March 21st. Just a little early. So I am a little STRESSED because my work basically doubled overnight. I think that since a baby has yet to be actually born my supervisor is in complete denial and still thinks there's a chance Charlene will be able to work this event on Saturday. Hello? Can we get a clue?

Thanks, That's Really Helpful

Today at the Princess for a Day event that I was working, a girl's crown fell off her tooth during snack time. Of course, there was a load of tears because she was only 6 and in all honesty, there would be a load of tears if a crown fell off my tooth and I'm 27. So we called her mom to come pick her up because girl crying for longer than 1 minute = parents turn to deal with it. The girl was sitting on my lap and I was trying to comfort her while also explaining to the other kids what a crown is and why this was different than losing a tooth. It was taking her mom a really long time to come. The girl turned to me and between sobs said "are you sure my mom is coming?" and I did my best to assure her that her mom would be there any moment. The girl beside her turns to us and says "maybe your mom lied to you to make you spend the night here." Of course that led to another onslaught of crying. Thanks little girl. We could've done without that little commentary. Though it does make me wonder if she was speaking from experience.

Ok, So Sometimes I Tend To Eavesdrop

I forgot to blog about the conversation I heard last weekend at the outlets until now. I was walking in between stores and there were two guys (late twenties, early thirties) walking behind me. The one guy says to the other guy "Dude, just pray you have a boy. Because if you think shopping sucks now, shopping for little girls clothes is even worse. It makes me want to scratch my eyes out." Classic.

Let the Training Begin

I have told some of you, but for those of you that don't know I signed up to do the 3 Day, 60 mile walk for Breast Cancer in Philadelphia in October....because I was temporarily insane. Anyway, I decided that I should probably start getting ready for it now. I'd done 6 miles on the treadmill at the gym without any drama. So yesterday morning, in temperatures just slightly above freezing, I laced up my walking shoes, filled up my water bottle, charged up my ipod and set off to a local walking trail to do 10 miles (5 miles out and 5 miles back). Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. The first two miles were the hardest because after about a half hour of walking I hit the two mile mark and was think "I walked all that way and its only 2 miles. That's crap!" But I kept going and because its an out and back type trail, when I hit 5 miles I had no choice but to walk the 5 miles back. I was also praying that my ipod wouldn't die because the worst thing was that I got bored, but it didn't die and so I was ok. Plus I don't know which way the wind was blowing whether it was from Hershey or the M&M Mars factory in Elizabethtown, but the last mile smelled like chocolate the entire time, so that was nice. Then I got home and realized I had only walked 1/6 of what I'd be doing in October and wanted to cry.

Shopping Ridiculousness

Saturday I went to the Outlets at Hershey because as every well seasoned shopper knows President's Day Weekend = Sales. I bought a lot of stuff, but I think perhaps the best thing I bought was this.

Yes, that's a purple Coach Ipod carrier. Isn't it awesome! Did I need this at all? No. Is it utter frivolity? Yes. Did I have any choice in buying it? Definitely not. I HAD to have it!

The Stupid Thing I Did Today

Let me preface this by saying that I've been sick and this cold has completely kicked my ass. I'm pretty much over it except for being extremely tired ALL the TIME. Even though I sleep a shit load, I'll get up and be like I want to take a nap.

So this morning, I got up for work, and walked out of my apartment. I turned back to face my front door and hit the lock button on my car key as if that would somehow work on my apartment door. Then to make matters worse when I didn't hear a clicking door locking sound, I did it again. Only then did I realize what a tired idiot I was.

In semi-related news, Danielle's new job at the casino has kicked into full gear. She hasn't really totally adjusted to the 3am - noon shift yet and I've discovered that extremely tired Danielle is almost as amusing on the phone as extremely drunk Danielle (though there's less profanity involved). It's especially funny when you get her confused about what day it is.

A Gift From Downstairs

I opened my front door this morning to get my paper and found this on my doorknob.

The label on the front says H.N.Y. (Sis A). Only after after opening the gift did I realize that it meant Happy New Year and Sis A is the old lady whose apartment is directly below mine. After opening the bag I found this.

It has a picture of two rolly polly happy Chinese people on it and has some Chinese characters on the top. The bag of the envelope says Hallmark. Who knew! I opened that envelope and found

Isn't Sis so cute! My fortune was "If you continually give, you will continually have."

Yesterday my Office Closed Because of Rain?

I'm still not completely sure what happened. Yesterday morning we were getting a "wintry mix" of freezing rain, sleet and regular rain, but alas no one called and said don't come in, so I had to go. I did ponder that my boss was just dicking with my department and would proudly announce when we all showed up "look how dedicated my workers are. They all showed up even though the office was closed!" which is totally something she would do. Anyway, I went out and my car was completely incased in ice. Like if a caveman had a Honda Accord that was suddenly discovered floating in a glacier that's what my car looked like yesterday. So I go and other people are there as well so apparently the office is open. The whole day then it rains and all the ice that was on cars and trees melts and everything is fine. Then around 2:00, we get an e-mail from the COO saying "the offices will be closed in the afternoon due to bad weather. Drive safely." WOOHOO. My manager was really bitter about the whole thing and came over and mumbled "didya see the e-mail?" I wasn't really sure what to do. It didn't look bad out, but maybe it was worse out than I could see from my foot wide window. We do have offices all over the state, so maybe there was bad weather near one of them, but the COO was in Harrisburg. I know because she was in the office across from me when the e-mail went out and I looked over and gave her an endearing smile. So who am I to argue? Especially since we really don't have a snow policy in effect and I'm not sure whether we get paid for it or not, there was no way I was staying. I went home. Put on my pajamas and then in about two hours went to the gym. One of the roads was closed because of flooding, but other than that everything was fine. I'm still kinda clueless as to what exactly happened.

Psychotic Thought of the Day

Did you ever think to yourself "my God, I hope no one has a hidden camera in my apartment and is secretly videotaping me"? Not because of the whole invasion of privacy issue but because of the weird things you do when you are home along. Last Thursday at yoga class we had a head stand workshop and were told to go home and practice. So if someone is videtaping me they would see me about twice a day on my head with my feet up on the wall and even worse I really haven't discovered an elegant way to get down (since I'm facing the wall and can't just step down like you would in a normal headstand and there also isn't room to just roll out of it) so I normally just fall sideways and hope to miss my washer/dryer.

Does This Make Any Sense to You?

Today at the gym I was driving around along with several other cars driving around searching for the closest space to the door. Doesn't that seem like a paradox? We're trying to find the a place so that we don't have to walk very far to go in and work out. That seems a little weird.

Opinions Wanted

Has anyone else seen Sweeney Todd? I just saw the movie and am slightly traumatized by the whole experience. Thanks for picking that one, Danielle!

Just to give you a little insight here is the "plot keywords" that imdb uses for the movie: Judge, Baker, Infatuation, Guardian, Cannibalism, Underage Drinking, Trapdoor, Tragedy, Wig, Widow, Unrequited Love, Burned Alive, Restaurant, Trial, Widower, Beggar, Child In Peril, Jealousy, Cellar, Madhouse, Shaving, Name Change, Escaped Convict, Murder, Secret Door, Sewer, Bakery, Remake, Black Comedy, Seaman, Corpse, Wedding, Rescue, Based On Musical, Picnic, Young Love, Assault, Confession, Barbershop, London England, Corset, Psychopath, Throat Slitting, Lust, Razor, Oven, Presumed Dead, Love At First Sight, Fantasy Sequence, Wager, Key, Fake Accent, Deception, Gothic, Uxoricide, Death Threat, Blackmail, Serial Killer, 1850s, Flashback Sequence, Title Spoken By Character, Character Name In Title, Twist In The End

I think they missed musical or singing or something like that.

How I Single Handedly Went from One of the Coolest People In So Cal to One of the Dorkiest People in So Cal in Less than 5 hours

So yesterday, I went by my dad's booth at the convention center. Life was great! I'm hanging out with all the drummers that are there to sign autographs (hey, Jason Bonham, how are you doing? I'm good. Thanks for asking), I'm daughter of the company's president (why yes, I would like another water thank you), I'm being invited to after parties the next time the band is in PA (sure, go ahead, write your e-mail address on this piece of paper and I'll e-mail you), and I'm wearing my fab Vera Wang Purple Jeweled Ballet Flats (yes, they are fab, aren't they.) I was pretty much living the high life to the full extent.

Flash forward 4 1/2 hours. I'm at the Medieval Times restaurant. I have a paper crown on my head, am eating chicken with my fingers and am cheering my heart out for the green knight (who also happens to be the evil knight...which somehow makes the cheering more fun). I had an absolute blast, but all my coolness from earlier that day was gone.

The True LA Experience

Last night I was on my way back from a fancy dinner at Orange Hill Restaurant (I had the filet
oscar...yummy) with my parents, some of my dad's VP's, and some of his biggest clients. We were in a limo. (By the way the limo driver got lost on the way there and on the way back and my mom was yelling at him through the little window because she knew where we were supposed to be going). Anyway, we were mooned by a girl in and SUV. They were making a lot of noise, so I looked out...Big Butt. I then looked around to the other people in the limo who were engrossed in some musical babble about flutes in Japan or something. No one else saw. Can you believe that?

Letterboxing

I'm on vacation, but nothing really exciting/funny has happened so I've decided to tell you about one of my newest hobbies. Its called letterboxing. For those of you who have never heard of such a thing, I'll tell you about it, but also check out this link. It's kind of like a scavenger/treasure hunt. (Yes, I'm a dork). No there are no prizes...I realize for some of you this makes it lame. So here's my brief explanation of what basic letterboxing is. Someone hides a letterbox and puts the clue online. (There's a couple of different sites where you can find them). Some clues are hard and involve puzzles: others are really straight forward. In each letterbox is a stamp (sometimes handmade sometimes store bought) and a log book. Each person hunting for letterboxes also has a stamp and a log book. When you find a hidden box, you stamp into their log book and stamp their stamp in yours. That's basically it. It's just a hobby and it gets you out doors and take you all different places.

I first learned about letterboxing at a conference thing for work. Since then I've told my mom about it and she's gone totally letterboxing nuts. I have 45 finds. Now everywhere we go my mom brings letterboxing stuff with her. Back at Thanksgiving, she sprained both her ankles and has a hard time getting around...my dad calls her Shuffles, which if you knew my dad really wouldn't be as mean as it sounds. This didn't stop my mom from letterboxing with me like crazy women yesterday. She was under bushes and all over the place and was telling me to "climb that tree" or "go over that fence".

Anyway, that's my brief post on letterboxing. I thought some of you might be interested. It's funny to see where the boxes are. They're anywhere from in retail stores and amusement parks to at the end of a 5 mile hike. If you want anymore info, let me know.

No, Not The Shoes!

So yesterday was a traveling day to Anaheim, CA. I think you all know how exciting my traveling experiences are. I had to take a little detour. Instead of flying from Chicago to Orange County, I had to fly Chicago to Dallas to Orange County. Unfortunately, my luggage did not take the same detour. As the baggage carousel emptied and my baggage was nowhere in sight, I was only a little annoyed. It was also a little worrying that when I left Harrisburg, the baggage stickering machines were broken so that tag that they had to put on my luggage was hand written. It was only when I realized that my new, never-worn, purple, awesome Vera Wang shoes were in my luggage that I really got pissed. NOOOOO!!! Not the shoes. Luckily sometime last night, the luggage miraculously appeared at my hotel (with the shoes in them).

The Worst Laffy Taffy EVER

Today at the pointless trianing I had to take, they had candy on the table and I took a Laffy Taffy. Here were the jokes:

What happened to the wind? It blew away.

When was meat so high? When the cow jumped over the moon.

I'm sorry Katie A from Manhatten, KS and Scott P. from Angola, IN, but your jokes suck and make no sense and are the worst jokes in Laffy Taffy history!

I'm Not Sure If This Is a Good Idea or Not

Today at the Dollar Tree store, I saw that they have pregnancy tests on sale. Please keep in mind that everything in that store is $1.

My Mom is a Crazy Lady

Yesterday, the Notre Dame women's basketball team's game against the Evil Empire Tennessee was on CBS. Here is an excerpt from my phone conversation with my mom following the game.

Me: Hey, I think I saw you guys on TV in the background. Did you have something on your head?
Mom: uh....yeah
Me: What did you have on your head?
Mom: A green balloon that we were supposed to use to distract the people at the foul line, but your dad made it into a hat for me.

Yes, my mom was on national TV with a green balloon hat on. Now you see where I get it from because all of you know that if I had been there my mom and I would've been side by side with balloon hats.

Disney World, the Final Chapter

Ok, My New Year's Resolution is to finish this series because its taken WAY too long to finish it.

Where were we? Oh yeah, Paradise Island. So the show at the Comedy Club was ok, but because we were already tipsy, it was HYSTERICAL. From there we went to the BET club (because we had agreed we were checking out all the clubs) and to our surprise, it was full of old white people. Go figure! We then went to the Adventurer's Club which is modeled after an English Gentleman's club except with a bit of a Disney twist. Picture talking masks on the wall. Danielle had another Long Island (3) and I had a Amaretto Sour (3). We were ushered into the "library" for a little Christmas show which again was funnier than it should have been due to the "merriment" that we had been having. Danielle kept interrupting the show by continuously whispering "I gotta pee." So after the show our first course of action was finding a bathroom, but the first bathroom was not adequate because it was too crowded and according to Danielle there was "too much pressure." We found a less pressure packed bathroom.

We continued our trek across Pleasure Island at 8Trax, the disco club. We managed to stay just long enough to see the ridiculous light up dance floor and be hit on by some creepy, questionably straight guy. We went next door to Mannequins the "techno club" which apparently doubles as a gay club (at least while we were there). We actually stayed there longer. Tried out the revolving dance floor where there was according to Danielle lots of "penis on penis gay action." We also realized we needed another drink, so we went to the bar. Two gay guys recommended the bartender Robbie because he is awesome and decorates your glass. The guy showed us his cup which said "I'm hot" in pink sharpie. Robbie asked us if we wanted doubles and of course we said sure. Actually I think Danielle's exact words were "Hell Yeah!" I had a double tequila sunrise (5) and Danielle had a double Mambo Punch (5) which came in a really cool glass because it was a signature drink.

We left Robbie and moved onto Motion (the Top 40 club). It was pretty lame. No one was dancing except for one techno guy who seemed to belong back at Mannequins. We left there pretty quickly and went to our last club of the evening the Beach Club. Hip Kitty was playing and sounded pretty good so we found a pair of benches on the second floor and I went and got this:

Filled with liquor! Actually it was filled with a Funmeister, which the bartender recommended. I'm not sure what's in a Funmeister. Some melon stuff, maybe some sour mix...I don't know. It was kinda sour and yummy. Just as I begin enjoying my bucket, a creepy guy with no teeth who smells like tobacco pounces on us. He had a non creepy kinda cute friend but he didn't really do anything but stick back. The best part was that Danielle was drunk and so was perfectly content speaking her mind. At one point, the creepy guy said "Come on, I want to show you a good time." To which Danielle responds sarcastically "I'm sure you do." Another time the creepy guy was in between us, and has his arms (ICK!) around both of us and while talking was not exactly looking at our eyes to which Danielle yelled "Are you looking at boobies?" Creepy guy then at one point asked where we were staying. Danielle blatantly paused and then pulled "The Swan Club" out of her ass. To her credit The Swan is a Disney hotel. Creepy guy eventually gives up, kisses each of us on the cheek (any disinfectant around?) and leaves. We hang out a little more. Danielle makes some drunk phone calls and drunk text messages before we also decide to call it a night. On the way out our gay friends from Mannequins, tell us to go get my bucket filled by Robbie.

Thank God for WDW transportation. We try not to be too loud or act like too big of fools as we ride the bus back to the hotel with people much younger than us. I think we did ok except that I kept turning to Danielle, pointing to my bucket and saying "I drank that." We get back to our room and Danielle passes out on top of the bed spread, in her clothes, next to her pajamas that she had laid out before we left, with her feet on her pillow and her head at the bottom of the bed. I change, brush my teeth and say "are you just going to stay like that?" "uh-huh." Then I took a picture.

The next day was the day we left. We went to check into our flight at our hotel but they only had my reservation on the flight and not Danielle's. After calling US Air three times, we confirmed that she did have a reservation. We were switched to a flight through Philly, instead of Charlotte, but other than that got home safe and sound.

The End

The Rest of the Trip

I'm just going to lump the rest of the trip together in one massive post and get it over with. If I run out of time writing, I'll post what I have and finish the rest later.

So this was the last full day of our trip, we went to Animal Kingdom. There really wasn't anything exciting that happened. Danielle called her mom and heard that there was terrible weather back in PA and that it was supposed to continue for the next couple days. We freaked out a little bit because we were supposed to be flying back late the next night. Danielle called the airlines to see if we could get an earlier flight. Here is the part of the conversation that I heard.

"Hi, we're trying to see if there is an earlier flight because of bad weather tomorrow....Orlando to Charlotte and then Harrisburg...one through Philly, gets us in at 2pm....$100 per person? um...just put us back on the other one...no, not Hartford, Harrisburg...Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, just put us back on that...we're not going to Hartford. We're going to Harrisburg."

That evening we decided to go bar/club hopping at Pleasure Island. Danielle has a three drink maximum. Please keep this in mind. We get to Pleasure Island a little early. Nothing is open yet, but there are people working outside of the Comedy Club, so I go to talk to one of them about when it opens, when show times are, etc. I walk up to a person. He/She/It has long blond hair, beautiful acrylic nails, a baritone voice and a name tag that says Bridgette. He/She/It was fabulous and very nice. Bridgette helps us get bracelets so that we don't have to pull out our ID at every bar. The show at the comedy club starts in about an hour, so we decide to go there first since it seems to be the first thing opening.

Luckily there are bars open on the sidewalks outside of the club. We both get Long Island Iced Teas (1,1) because the bar tender said it was "the most bang for your buck." And it was. Even though I'm counting both of these as 1, it was a lot more than one. We find a nice bench to sit on and sip our Long Islands. There are some people standing nearby from Scranton, PA that are on the phone hearing about all the icky weather, so we start talking to them. Their little daughter sits down on the bench beside me, and she has a plastic fish which she starts making talk to me, so now I'm sipping a Long Island iced tea and talking to a fish. They leave and we decide to move closer to the Comedy Club because it looks like people are starting to gather. Before we get there, a guy dressed as a reindeer on bouncey stilts, bounces up to us and starts talking to us. So now I've talked to a transgendered person, a fish and a reindeer all within about a half hour of arriving. It has to be the start of a good night. We get in line, but before we do decide to get more drinks at the stand outside. We choose drinks off of their signature drinks list. Danielle gets a Mambo Punch (2) and I get a Rage in a Cage (2). We get seated at a table down front at the comedy club which is a little frightening, but nothing bad happens. We don't order more drinks, but we do get a box of popcorn which I would swear is the best popcorn that I've ever had.

Well, I have to go to lunch with Carmen and Amanda, so I'll finish this post some time later.

Day 4: Epcot Center

First of all, Merry Christmas everyone! Now, onto the post.

I first have to tell you about a dream I had about Epcot a couple of weeks before we had left. I dreamed that I was at Epcot Center and met Matthew McConaughey there. So that everyone would believe me that I had met him, he recorded my voicemail message on my cell phone. I'm not sure what this has to do with anything, but I felt like I needed to tell you.

We were a little late getting on our way that morning because we were so engrossed in an episode of Judge Alex that we couldn't leave before there was a ruling. Here's a line from the episode "So, I called him up and said 'hey, baby's daddy.'" Classic. We went to Epcot and our bus driver needed to pull up directions on her little GPS unit to get there, so that's always interesting. One of the first rides we went on was Mission Space. We were a little nervous. Mission Space, for anyone that hasn't heard, is a ride that is supposed to give you the G forces and actual feelings of taking off in a space ship. There were two paths you could pick: the green side (the less intense) and the orange side (the more intense). When you first enter, they hand you a card for your side which has all the warnings about the bad things that might happen if you ride and all the restrictions of why you shouldn't ride (if you're pregnant, if you are claustrophobic, if you get motion sickness, whatever). Danielle and I chose the orange side because we are experienced ride riders, so how bad could it be? I get a little nervous because during the whole wait there are announcements and videos and placards about how if you are unsure, you should go on the green side. We stay with orange anyway and get a little more nervous when we are loaded on the ride and there are barf bags on the console in front of us. We still went on and didn't really find anything bad about it.

Another ride we went on was Test Track, and we are about 95% sure that we were in line with a guy we went to high school with. We kept looking at him and he kept looking at us. The reason that there is still 5% of doubt is because we didn't actually ask him. We didn't really know how to start that conversation which was further complicated by the fact that two brothers went to our high school and we weren't exactly sure which one it was.

Then we headed to the International area. We ate in the Mexico pavilion which was yummy. I thought about buying my boss TT something from the Germany pavilion and really confuse her since she was already having enough problems remembering that I was on vacation. Outside of the Japan area was a woman forming what looked like colored taffy into little figures. I could only understand about every third word she was saying, and it went something like this "Candy...yum yum...Froggie...Froggie shoe...Nother Froggie shoe...yum yum...candy" Then we went to the boulangerie/patisserie in France because Danielle was on a search for chocolate cake. I thought about breaking out some of my mad French skillz, but all the workers looked too bitchy, so I didn't.

Then I took Danielle to Soarin'. I had first been on Soarin in Disney's California Adventure and loved it. Soarin is in like an IMAX theater type place, but you sit on a bench that looks like a hang glider, and it is actually lifted up so that you are in the middle of the screen, so not only do you feel like you are high and flying over California, but you are actually pretty high. Now, i briefly forgot that Danielle was scared of heights, and when I was telling her about the ride in line, she broke out in a cold sweat, but decided to go anyway. There was a guy in front of us that was throwing out more curse words and inappropriate language than I had heard on the entire trip to Disney. At one point, the woman of indeterminate relation in front of him was trying to put her book bag into the pouch underneath the seat for the ride and said "I don't think its going to fit." I'm going to let you imagine his response. Please be as dirty as you want, because he went on for about 5 minutes on it not really concerned that there was a 6 year old child beside him.

We went to see a show (ok, actually it was 'The Circle of Life: An Environmental Fable') and before the show they go into the "please no flash photography. If you need to exit prior to the end of the show, yada yada yada." We hear a guy go over to the Disney cast member and say "what do you mean, no flash? Am I not allowed in?" I turn around to see a guy wearing this.

Loser. I turn to Danielle and say "how many times do you think he's done that today? Because I doubt its the first."

We decide to fore go fireworks because they are 2 hours away and we have pretty much done every single thing at Epcot (shopping, shows, everything). On our way out we see that Spaceship Earth (aka the thing in the big ball) has the gate open. In the morning we were told that Spaceship Earth was closed for refurbishing, and there was a big construction barrier around it. The cast member at the gate said this time that they "weren't supposed to be open, but they were testing it for anyone that wanted to ride." Sure, we're game. Though it does make you a little nervous when there is an engineer standing right beside the control panel as you get on the ride. Parts of the ride had to be brand spanking new because they still smelled like construction and paint and wood. Well, guess what, we get stuck. Luckily we're not in an as annoying place as at the Pirates of the Caribbean. The sound for that area just plays once and is done. We finally get restarted and leave Epcot for the day. No, Matthew McConaughey.

Day 5: A bucket of Funmeister

Evening 3: Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

Ever since we first booked our trip, Danielle's mom had been bugging us about if we were going to Mickey's Christmas Party. The answer was no because it was kinda expensive, and I had read that it was crowded and lame. But when my dad scored us free tickets, we could hardly pass them up, and we figured since they were free that we wouldn't feel like we had to stay if it was crowded/lame.

We were pretty exhausted from a funfilled day at MGM, but Danielle had promised someone a T-shirt that you can ONLY get at the Christmas party and since we did have free tickets we thought that we'd go, grab the T-shirt and maybe a cup of free hot cocoa and then bolt. We took a bus to the closest hotel to the Magic Kingdom and then got on the monorail. While we were on the monorail, a woman was talking as loud as possible on her cell phone in the car. Seriously heard every word she said and knew when and where she was planning on meeting her friend. At one of the stops, she starts frantically looking around and screaming "where am I? Where am I?" Pure comedy.

We arrive at the Magic Kingdom and all the "cast members" are dressed in their holly jolly best uniforms. I would seriously kill myself if I had to where something like that. I can't really describe it except that it was a dress that a five year old might wear for Christmas with holly all over it and a bow in their hair. Our plan was immediately derailed because a parade was supposed to start any minute and there was pretty much no where to move to. We figured we'd watch the parade (plus we had no idea where to find the special T-shirt). Unfortunately we were in the parade Nazi's section. Each section of the street has a staff member assigned to it to try to keep people off the parade route and keep some semblance of order. At one point a woman stepped back into the "walkway" area to take a picture. The parade Nazi marched up and with two wands that looked like the kind people use to direct airplanes (except blue) began waving in front of the woman's camera. The woman was obviously pissed, but went away as she was told.

The parade was the longest and slowest moving parade I have ever seen which was bad because Danielle had to pee and the bathroom was across the street. After the parade, and Danielle peeing, we went to look for the special shirt. Came across one problem. We were looking for a red T-shirt and green sweatshirt, but they only had green T-shirts and red sweatshirts (or vice versa, I don't really remember.) After sending Danielle to two other stores, while I reserve the coveted clothing in the first store, Danielle makes an executive decision and buys the green T-shirt and red sweatshirt. Also while waiting I pondered buying the "scratch and sniff" night shirt that smells like chocolate, because that's sexy, right?

After buying the shirt, I go and get my free scalding hot chocolate and sugar cookies (YEAH!!) and Danielle gets apple juice (boo!). We decide to pick 1 show to go to (Mickey's Twas the Night Before Christmas). As we're waiting for it to start, a woman plops down her five year old in our row (it's pretty crowded), and orders her to "stay here" while she goes and sits in the back. Danielle thinks that's a great move because "we all know that all shows at Disney World leave out in an orderly fashion and she'll have no problem finding that kid later." Luckily the kid was smart enough to realize that this was not a good decision and went back to sit with mom.

We went home exhausted.

Stay tuned: Day 4 -- Epcot Center and That's What She Said.

Day 3: MGM

Ok, Day 3 is MGM studios. Just so I don't get any concerned comments. That's just a stunt man falling off a building during a show at MGM. I just cropped out the big blow up air mattress thing underneath him because it looks cooler this way.

The day started out with a bang of stupidity as we waited for a woman on a motorized scooter (think hover round) to be loaded onto the bus. See if you can spot the stupidity as I describe the situation. Scooter lady drives her scooter to the back door of the bus where the wheelchair lift thing is. Scooter lady gets off of scooter (with much difficulty, I might add) as bus driver lowers the lift. Scooter lady's seemingly ambulatory and otherwise mobile husband wheels the scooter onto the lift and rides the lift up into the bus. Bus driver lowers the lift again. Scooter woman hobbles over to the lift and rides the lift up. Did you catch it? Did you catch the stupidity? Um...why couldn't scooter lady just ride up on the scooter/beside the scooter the first time around and save us the time of lowering and lifting a second time?

We get to MGM and manage to have perfect timing in order to see the High School Musical 2 show (much to Danielle's excitement). I'm then forced to listen to her sing portions of both High School Musicals throughout the rest of the day and pretty much the entire rest of the week.

We go to go on the Great Movie Ride. The Great Movie Ride is a tram that goes through scenes of all sorts of famous MGM movies like Singing In the Rain and Alien and stuff like that. An about 5'8" guy working the door tells me I'm too short to get in. haha very funny little man. Move aside Munchkin. Danielle doesn't really remember the Great Movie Ride from our previous trip to Disney and that makes me secretly smile (I'll explain later). While we are waiting for the ride, they are showing clips of old movies. A cowboy comes on the screen and Danielle just to be stupid says "who's that like John Wayne or something?" Actually, it was John Wayne and I hang my head in disgust. We get in the giant tram thing and the guy beside Danielle is reading the warning on the seat in front of us aloud. The "please keep all arms and legs inside the car and remain seated while the ride is in motion" spiel only he sounds exactly like a movie preview voice over guy, and I find this extremely hysterical. Ok, now flash back to nine years ago on the Great Movie Ride. Danielle HATES the Wizard of Oz and I had been taunting her that Munchkins would make an appearance during our trip. She didn't know when though until while in line for the Great Movie Ride she sees a pair of ruby slippers in a glass case turns to me and says "I hate you." Then she was in pure agony the whole time the ride was in Munchkinland and I of course loved it. Flash forward to present day. Danielle has forgotten all of this, and the ruby slippers are no longer in the waiting area. We roll into Munchkinland. Danielle hates it again, and I enjoy myself thoroughly for a second time. (Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me). PS did you note the foreshadowing when I referred to the short guy at the front of the line as Munchkin? Mrs. Christ, you can give me extra credit later.

We decide to go on Aerosmith's Rock N Roller Coaster for a second time. It's loads of fun. Danielle describes it as "space mountain for adults." One part of the waiting line has these doors that have marbles all over it. The marbles can be rolled around and make a really annoying noise, so of course no kid can resist and I'd like to track down and brutally kill whoever designed the doors like that. I also have yet to mention that there were all sorts of people with British accents throughout Disney the entire trip, and a cute family of them were behind us in line. The kids weren't sure they wanted to go on because one kid had heard the ride was upside down the entire time. The girl turns to her dad and says in a cute little British accent "Daddy, wouldn't that make blood stream out of your ears?" Anyway, we convinced them that the ride was fun and they went on and enjoyed it. We also ran into some people we had run into at the Magic Kingdom. A whole slew of annoying teenage girls from Argentina. At the Magic Kingdom, they were in line with us for Thunder Mountain. They all had gi-normous book bags on (yes, spellcheck, I said gi-normous. do you have a problem with that? Apparently you do.) They would sit on the rails between the lines and their book bags would hang over into the line behind them. It was so annoying that we were trying to purposely walk into them and hope they got the hint. They didn't. So now on the Rock N Roller Coaster, one of them was way up in front and of course they all butted in line with her. Someone told one of the ride's operators about the butting but "she couldn't do anything about it unless she saw it." Apparently she didn't notice the 10 girls standing beside the line because there wasn't room for them in it.

We then go to Fantasmic which is a combination of a live action/water parade/light/water/fireworks show. Our friends from Argentina were there too and were seated in the middle of the crowd and started the wave (which annoyed me more than anything.) We're not really sure how the scene being portrayed from Pocahontas of the British battling the indians is going over with all of the British accented people around, but no one seems to care. After Fantasmic, we went to the Osborne Family lights show which I didn't think was that great, but then pondered who exactly the Osborne Family was.

Ok, there's more to Day 3, but I'm going to cut it off there and will pick it back up as Danielle and I head off to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party for what we have planned to be as just picking up a T-shirt requested by someone back in PA. You will have to wait and see if that turns out as planned.

Day 2: The Magic Kingdom

I should've known we had an interesting day ahead when on my way to get coffee that morning I heard a dad yell at his kids "Tick tock goes the clock!" as meaning "get your ass in gear". I'm really glad my parents never said stupid crap like that.

We went on a bunch of rides and nothing really exciting happened. Danielle made me climb up steps to the Swiss Family Treehouse, but other than that it was fun. We had some weird people in front of us in line at the Pirate's of the Carribbean and they kept trying to talk to me (Danielle was doing her best to look around so as not to be pulled into the conversation), but other than that it was pretty low key.

Then we went to the Tikki Room. I love the Tikki Room, but had heard they had changed it so wasn't sure what to expect (it was ok). We were waiting for the show to start and Danielle said "There's a woman behind you breastfeeding and no bra in sight. Wait a little before you look because I just looked." So I waited about half a minute and then very nonchalantly looked back. However, she had just taken the baby away so I got a full boob view. A very large boob view. I'm cringing just thinking about it. That's one thing I didn't expect to see at Disney... naked boobies.

We then made our way to Splash Mountain. The wait was a little long, but still less than a half hour, so we decided to wait. In front of us was a guy with a messenger bag and he was writing on a tablet in line. He also didn't seem to be with the people in front of us or anything so it was a little bizarre. At one point, I had a view of what he was writing. I'm not sure exactly what it was but there were two or three lists on it and under each list was names like George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Mario Lopez, Mark Wahlberg (Johnny Depp was on at least two lists), so Danielle and I spent the rest of our wait trying to peak over his shoulder and figure out what the hell he was doing, but we got caught and the guy started being more secretive.

We got on the ride and before we even went up the hill to come down this geyser shot off and all the water landed right on Danielle. She was completely drenched. It looked like she had gotten in the shower with her clothes on and I of course thought that was hysterical.

Has anyone had the Dole Pineapple floats at Disney? Are they the best thing ever?!? I stood in line in the brief rain that we had for mine. For those of you that don't know, its pineapple soft serve ice cream in pineapple juice. Yumalicious!

We waited for the electrical parade that evening and during the parade played "girl or guy" for some of the characters. Last year my dad had a chance to see the staging area for the parades and he said one of the creepiest things was that some of the villains like Cruella De ville were actually men. So that's where the game came from. Then we went to see fireworks (I'm not big on fireworks, but Danielle is). They had this wire strung from the top of the castle to one of the nearby restaurants and so at the beginning of the show Tinkerbell flew from the top of the castle out over the park. That was pretty cool.

Since we were staying at a Disney resort we had the benefit of Extra Magic hours which meant the park closed at midnight instead of 9pm. We decided to go on a couple of extra rides even though we had rode everything already. Space Mountain was broken when we went to go ride it a second time, but was open when we went back during Magic Hours. Before we left we decided to go on Pirates one more time. It was more that we were walking by it on our way out and there was no line. This turned out to be mistake. We got stuck on the ride and while it was probably only for about 10 minutes, it had to be the longest 10 minutes of my life. You put on "yo ho yo ho a pirate's life for me" for 10 minutes and see if you're not about to lose your mind.

Stay tuned for Day 3: A bevy of stupid people

DAY 1: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Ok, so its more like planes, buses and roller coasters, but that wasn't as catchy. These posts are going to be a little long (but trust me there's really good stuff in them.) I was really excited because we were going to Disney world. Who wouldn't be excited! Our flight from Harrisburg was at like 6 am or some ridiculous time like that. I wasn't sure it was possible to get up early enough to catch that flight, but I managed it. We were a little late taking off but no worries because the pilot assured us that we would "make it up in the air." How does that work anyway? Yeah, almost to Charlotte for our connection...wait, why are we circling and circling and circling.

"Uh, this is your captain speaking. Seems to be some pretty thick fog over Charlotte and they're not giving anyone clearance to land. We're going to be landing in Greensboro to fuel up and then will get on our way to Charlotte as soon as we can." Great! I've never been to Greensboro. We get to Greensboro and sit on the plane.

"This is your captain again. Charlotte is still fogged in. They're going to check back with us in a half hour. We're getting clearance for you to deplane." We deplane. After an hour, we're ready to replane and be on our way. (Let's hope that nothing is leaving Charlotte and our connecting flight that should've left 15 minutes ago is fogged in). While waiting to replane we hear a guy from another flight complaining to his pilot about our flight replaning first. The pilot actually said to him "Do you want to sit here longer? Because I can arrange that!" Classic.

We get to Charlotte. Ooops, our flight already left. We go to the gate for the next flight. There are already at least 15 people with standby tickets sitting at the gate. We line up to speak with an airline rep...we're second in line (and if Danielle had walked faster, we would've been first). Unfortunately there is no one from the airlines at the gate. We wait and wait and finally someone shows up. We've been booked on the flight that is 4 hours away and are standby for the next two flights. Luckily they let about 32 standby people onto the first flight (was there anyone on the flight that we had missed?)

We take the shuttle to our hotel. Go to our room. Have enough confidence in Disney that they will get our luggage to the hotel later. We take the Disney transportation system to Disney Quest. (I'll explain what Disney Quest is later). This bus ride gave us good insight into what our week was going to be like. The entire 20 minute ride a two year old girl screamed her brains out, while her mom tried to hold her on her lap and her dad gave her mom dirty looks as if to say "Would you please control your daughter" and the mom would give the dad a dirty look back as if to say "she's your daughter too, I don't see you helping out here".

Also on this bus ride I came to my first conclusion and that was that Disney sucks your brain out. Case in point. For about half of the trip the bus driver was talking over the loudspeaker about what bus stop we should get off at and what bus stop we should stand at to get back to the hotel and he must have said 50 times "if you are going to the Magic Kingdom, there is no direct route, you will need to take a bus to another location and connect from there. Once again there is no bus stop for the Magic Kingdom." Over and over and over. And guess what a guy asks the bus driver as he gets off the bus...any guesses?..."Which bus stop goes to the Magic Kingdom?' DUH!! There was also a couple that didn't understand why they didn't see the monorail track at our hotel (the monorail only goes to three hotels and ours wasn't one of them).

So now onto Disney Quest. Disney Quest is a trip that has been about 9 years in the making. Danielle had seen something about it on TV once (that's as much detail as I'll go into so as not to embarrass her and be able to blackmail her later with it.) On our trip to Disney during high school, we didn't go. Then I went to the one in Chicago (which has closed since then) and loved it and Danielle was pissed, so this time we HAD to go. Disney Quest is basically a high tech arcade full of virtual reality games and also some old school games as well. Some of them were fun and some of them made you nauseated or tired. The best was creating and riding our own roller coaster. It was named the Jolly Trolley (catchy, isn't it?) You went upside down nine times in it. It was great! Though it was so great that I broke out into a cold sweat on it and my head wasn't right the rest of the day.

Then we decided to do a little shopping at the Disney Marketplace. Here I came to my second conclusion for the day: Tinkerbell is a ho! You should see some of the poses they have her in.

Enough said. They also have decided to make a round form of most of the classic Disney characters. Who thought this was a good idea? Just look at poor Eeyore.

Anyway, we shopped, went back to the hotel around midnight and luckily our luggage was there YEAH!!

Stay tuned for Day 2: Peep Show in the Tikki Room

I'm BACK!!!

I'm home and have lots to share (Danielle and I took notes on all the interesting things we saw). Hopefully I'll be able to start posting my day to day recap later today after I get through my 588 e-mails, laundry and doing some grocery shopping!! I will get the whole way through the trip without becoming too bored because one of the most interesting evenings came towards the end of the trip, so you'll have to stay tuned for that!

Jen/Amanda

It all started because our boss, TT, can't ever remember anyone's names. (Well, she was my old boss because I'm not in that office anymore.)

So she started calling me (Amanda) 'Jen,' and the real Jen 'Amanda.' Because we look the same (Jen has dirty blond hair, I have auburn hair). So since TT kept confusing us, everyone else did as well.

TT's response was "you two are the same age." Ok, so we're inseparable and I'm always picking on her and we're always behaving badly.

So when people started to find out I was moving to another office, they kept asking Jen when she was leaving. Her response was always, you mean Amanda? I'm Jen.

Well Jen, now that I'm not in your office anymore - I am getting confused with Megan in State College. I guess I'm a shape shifter.

Woot Woot!

Merriam-Webster's Word of 2007 has been announced - woot.

"W00t," a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph.

Finally, now I can start to say woot woot and know that it is an official word...even though I've been saying it forever.

Hello there Jen's blog readers. I'm Amanda, the guest blogger, while Jen is on vacation. I'm her co-worker (although we no longer work in the same office)...yes, the potato salad one.

Well I will be posting more later - possibly later today, but I was just checking this out to make sure Jen didn't give me some "bad" site link and just say I'd be her guest blogger. Because that would give her one more thing she could hold above my head and laugh at me.

Vacation, YEAH!!

For those of you that don't know, tomorrow I leave for Disney World. Yes, I'm still a kid at heart. Don't worry though. I've invited Amanda from my work to guest blog while I'm away. I get back on Friday evening and am sure I will have loads of fun stories since Danielle is going with me. Someone please inform my boss that I'm out of town because even though there was a long conversation regarding my vacation request, and numerous mentions about my vacation, she still seemed surprised when I reminded her that I would not be attending the staff meeting next week because I'm out of town. DUH!!

It's Official: Gardenia is Closed

It all started before Thanksgiving when it was Amanda's last week in the Harrisburg Office. We asked her where she wanted to go for her special goodbye lunch and she picked Gardenia...of course. We drove over to Gardenia and found that it was closed. Hmmm...strange. Oh well, maybe the owner's are on vacation for Thanksgiving and had to close it. The next day there was a locksmith van and a piece of poster board with "CLOSED" written in sharpie in the window. That's not a good sign. Today when I drove to work there was a big dumpster outside and the chairs from the restaurant sticking out. ::sob sob::

Sure Gardenia was kinda a dive. Sure your waitress always looked like a crack whore (or is that un-pc should it be narcotics prostitute). Sure sometimes they forgot to bring your coleslaw. Sure the list of specials was sometimes misspelled (I love stir fry on a bed of white race). Sure it was the type of place that may show up on the news for having been the scene of a horrific shooting or stabbing. But we loved it!! It had good cheap food, rice pudding that was the bomb, and was close enough that we could fool ourselves into thinking we might be able to fit in lunch there during our half hour lunch break. I'll miss it. I'm just sorry I didn't get to say goodbye and have to explain why I didn't want apple butter on my cottage cheese one last time. Man, I'll miss the rice pudding.

Some People Shouldn't Be Made Into Stamps

At work the other day, I received a letter with a stamp on it that kinda disturbed me. The name at the top of the picture had been sliced off by whoever preopened the mail in our mailroom that day and it took me a second to realize who the man pictured even was.

uh...Gerald Ford. Who picks out Gerald Ford stamps at the post office? I understand that he was our president, but there have been a lot of unattractive US presidents that should not be on stamps....like William Henry Harrison, just to pick one. Sorry President Harrison, the comb front just isn't working. It's not like we didn't have attractive presidents. Just look at Franklin Pierce. Gerald Ford stamps...just not working for me.

Pennies From Heaven

On Black Friday, my dad and I went to King of Prussia, PA as is tradition. We didn't really buy much. We usually just buy stuff for ourselves, but we didn't even do that this year. We did experience one of the weirdest things that I've ever seen in a mall (which is saying a lot because I once saw a fight break out and the guy that was trying to break it up started punching people). We were on the bottom floor of the two story mall and all of the sudden about 20 $1 bills started raining down on us. No normally you would think in a mall outside of Philly with money raining from the sky you would have to worry about gunfire, but no one wanted anything to do with the money. Everyone was just letting it fall to the floor. We look up but couldn't see anyone leaning over the balcony with a "oh, shit I just dropped 20 bucks" look on their face. In fact, no one on the second floor seemed to care that money just came from that area. Eventually people started picking the money up, but even then they were trying to give it to other people. The girl at the kiosk nearby didn't want anything to do with it. After about 5 clueless minutes, people started pocketing the dollars and going on their merry way. Isn't that bizarre though?

I'm Not Normally a Skull Person

I don't usually like skulls, but Amanda does. So since this was her last day in the Harrisburg office, I thought it was only fitting that I should put a skull on my blog. Bye Amanda. Chauncey will miss you. Good luck in Scranton....errr....I mean Montoursville (its like Scranton, right?)

Today, a woman I was talking with on the phone couldn't think of what Alcoholics Anonymous was called, and she called it the "Drunk Society." I think that's really funny.

Things That Annoy Me

1) Having to have the same tooth filled three times within a 7 month period. In related news, I've switched dentists. My new dentist (Dr. Lee) doesn't speak very good English and I think I kinda like it that way.

2) Having a coworker throw you under the bus and think its funny. While I was on vacation (a whole other long post I haven't had the energy to type), my coworker Charlene was forced to endure going to a disability training with my boss, whom we shall refer to as TT (because that's how she refers to herself). Ensuing conversation.

Charlene: What are you doing for Christmas?
TT: Oh, going back to Indiana to visit my inlaws. I hate driving there alone though.
Charlene: Maybe next time JSto goes back to Indiana, you can go with her.
TT: That's a great idea.

Luckily I think TT's in laws are from Southern Indiana which is hella far away from the Bend. Charlene followed up telling this story to me with a fit of hysterical laughter. If she wasn't seriously pregnant, there would be some major kicking ass going on!

What Kind of Town did I Grow Up In?

Even though my mom lives 600 miles away she still gets the Middletown Press and Journal (catchy name, huh) because its always full of delightful news. This one time there was someone breaking into people's houses and stealing just ice cream out of their freezers. The October 31 edition was especially enjoyable. I will include three of my favorites with the actual headlines as they appear in the paper, a summary of the article and some of my fave direct quotes.

1) "Scarecrow on Fire" -- The article starts out "an apparent school project ended with a scarecrow being set on fire last week." People came home to find that a scarecrow that was in their backyard was "engulfed in flames. " They suspected a kid that lived next door, but the mom of the kid said he couldn't have possibly have set it as he was out riding bike at the time. Police found a box of matches and a footprint at the scene. The footprint matched the kid and when questioned, he confessed. "According to police, the boy said he was working on a school project to determine how long fire would last and that is why he set the scarecrow on fire."

2) "Disorderly Conduct with Sardines" -- There was a fight between a father and son and the police sited both for disorderly conduct. The son went to go pick up his car that had been impounded and while the son was gone the father became agitated about being arrest. The father then flattened the front tire of a police cruiser, scratched "NARC" on the front fender the bent the rear windshield wiper. "Edward thought it belongedto the arresting officer." It didn't. He then took an open can of sardines (I'm not sure if he had these in his pocket all day or what) and smeared the juice on the glass doors of the borough building. He emptied the sardines into the borough drop box and placed the empty can on top. Police reviewed a security tape and saw who had done it. "Edward was then charged with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, adn littering, police said. Police described his actions as having endangered the general public by putting a police vehicle out of service."

3) "Balloon Vendor Tasered" -- A balloon and toy vendor was partially blocking an intersetion at the borough's Halloween parade. Police asked the man to move, but he refused. "Police said the man was yelling and creating a scene at the intersection..'as if to get the crowd into the incident'" Police had notice a car trying to turn had to stop and wait for the balloon guy to move his cart. The balloon vendor said he didn't have to move because he had a permit. Police attempted to arrest him, but once again resisted. "More officers arrived on the scene to help wrestle him to the ground." After several verbal warnings he was tasered. HA This story reminds me of that Orville Redenbacher commercial where the policeman is trying to get Orville to move his popcorn cart. Imagine if they had tasered Orville.

Three...Three...Three Posts in One

1) The Spy I think that Barbara, the lady my office hired two weeks ago, is a spy. I don't know who she is spying on or who she is spying for, but we had a meeting today and she wrote down everything anybody said. (She needs one of those little typewriters like a court stenographer.) She also prints off every e-mail that anyone sends her. Really, is there any need for that...unless you're a spy?

2) Isn't it Ironic, part 2 Isn't it ironic when your maintenance needed light comes on the evening before you're supposed to drive 600 miles to Indiana? I think Alanis should've included that in her song. Maybe taken out the black fly in your chardonnay part because I don't really find that ironic more just gross. Luckily the light only meant that I need my 40,000 mile check in like another 2000 miles....thanks for the heads up.

3) My Loser Cousin The younger loser cousin who is still in prison punched a prison guard, got maced and was put in "the hole" though according to my aunt none of this was really her fault. If you think that's funny, imagine your grandma using the phrase "put her in the hole." Hilarity.

A Normal Relationship?

Just wondering if this is how normal friends interact with each other on phone calls.

Danielle: I'm going to have oatmeal. Should I have peach or strawberry?
Me: Peach
Danielle: Ok, I'll have strawberry.
Me: Good, I actually wanted you to have strawberry, but knew you would have the opposite of whatever I said.
Danielle: Well, actually I'm having peach, but I didn't want to tell you that I was having what you told me to.

After much discussion about whether it was normal for us to both try to manipulate the other into having the type of oatmeal we wanted:

Danielle: Does this mean I won? Because I like never win.
Me: I guess.

Isn't It Ironic? Don't You Think

In a side note, it was like two years after that Alanis Morrissette song came out that I got it. One day I was listening to it and all of the sudden had a light bulb on moment where I was like "oh, my God, ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife! That is ironic!" I know I was dumb. Anyway, that wasn't what this post was originally going to be about.

This post comes to you thanks to my good friend Danielle. She was driving the other day and was forced to take a different road than she normally takes due to construction. She passed a Jehovah's Witness place (sorry don't know the name of a Jehovah's Witness place...though maybe I should since my loser cousin was briefly one--that's a whole other post) and found it interesting that the entire complex was gated. Not just a little white picket fence. We're talking heavy duty fencing with a little speaker box.

Isn't it ironic that they can go around and knock on any door they want to but you can't go knock on theirs? What if I really did want to become a Jehovah's Witness? You're telling me I'd have to buzz in and be like "uh, I was thinking about what you said the other day at my door, and I think you're right. I do want to become a Jehovah's Witness."

Psychotic Thought of the Day

A couple days ago I was at Latin Cardio class. (yes, that is an actual class and it kicks ass). Anyway, I had a bottle of water and couldn't open it. I thought it might just be because I was sweaty, so I asked someone else to try. Nope, nothing. I dried my hands with my towel and tugged and tugged, but the lid wouldn't budge. I suffered through the class (extremely parched) and when I got home tried to use my gripper hand to open it. Again, nothing. I finally ended up stabbing it in the side with a pair of nail scissors and draining the water into a glass. This leads me to my psychotic thought of the day.

If I was in a desert and that was my last bottle of water, what would I do? My decision was that I'd probably die of dehydration and confuse the heck out of the CSI's when they found my rotting corpse with a full bottle of water in hand.

Traffic Pattern Problems (with Accompanying Stick Figure Diagrams)

Today I went to use the rest of my gift card up at the Hershey Spa. ::sniff sniff:: For those of you that don't know, I milk my visit to the Hershey Spa for everything its worth and take advantage of all the free amenities. I get in the hot tub, sweat in the sauna, use the free mouthwash, eat muffins in the quiet room and munch on Hershey Kisses in the Aromatherapy room. Today, I decided that I would also go for a swim in the indoor pool.

I go down to the pool and was happily surprised to find that I was the only person there. So I begin to swim laps down the pool long ways like any normal non-psychotic person would. About 15 minutes into my swim an older woman comes in. Fine. Pool is big enough for the both of us. Except she starts to swim short ways across the pool. (See Figure A)

The worst part was that when our paths crossed she would not slow down or in any way change her swimming pattern so as to avoid the impending mid-water crash. At this moment three things that I could do crossed my mind. 1) Kick her in the gut "accidentally" at the intersection of our lanes. 2) Scream "what the hell do you think you are doing, ass clown?" at her and hope she would be scared enough to get out. 3) Do nothing and roll my eyes at the lifeguard every time we made eye contact. I'm a wuss and chose three.

Fifteen more minutes went by and another lady walked into the pool and was visibly confused as to which way she should swim. I was sending her psychic messages trying to tell her that I was here first, and she needed to swim like a normal swimmer. She apparently got the message because she started swimming long ways as well. (See Figure B).

I convinced myself that short ways lady would become frustrated with two swimmers interference and get out or switch directions. She didn't and non-psycho swimmer got frustrated and left after 10 minutes.

Another 15 minutes goes by, and two old ladies walk in. They begin swimming short ways too. Do they think they are going to be doing sprints or what? So now I am the one trying to dodge three other swimmers. I decide my plight is futile (and since I only was planning on swimming about another 5 more minutes) got out and went to the hot tub nearby. By this time, there are now four people swimming short ways across the pool. I watch another person enter the pool and (I am not kidding) begins swimming long ways across the middle of the pool. (See Figure C)

Also notice that there is a mom and two kids splashing away in the corner. (This will become important very shortly). At this point, the pool manager enters and helps the lifeguard put up a lap lane line (long ways obviously). I of course make some smart ass remark to the lifeguard like "oh, now you decide to put up a lap line." All swimming stops for about 5 minutes while everyone decides exactly what pattern to swim. After another five minutes, one of the young kids in the corner pukes in the pool and everyone evacuates. I secretly smile to myself.