the ref blows goats...we have proof

Jeff gave me tickets to the U of M hockey game on Saturday night. They played Ferris State University. I haven't been to a game at Yost since I was a student at the U of M and that was a looooong time ago. It was nice to see the banners from back in the day!


The team looked good but ended up losing in overtime, 4-3. That sucked.


It was a busy weekend. Let's see... what did we do... we went to a hockey game. We went to Lowe's. We went to breakfast and I ate yummy blueberry pancakes. We did some laundry. Oh, and we went and got all engaged. That's right my friends. Jesse and I are getting hitched. Maybe now I'll have fun wedding plans to blog about. Actually, I told Jesse I don't want to be one of those people that can only talk about their wedding plans. So I decided that I will be one of those people that only talk about wedding porn. Much better. Is it a good sign that when Jesse introduced me to one of his friends tonight as his fiancee I started laughing and the guy thought Jesse was kidding?

countdown to happiness

In 10 days Jesse and I board a plane that will hopefully fly us to Tampa, FL. When we arrive in Tampa we will hurry to the Hertz counter to pick up our rental car. We will make our way from Tampa to Lakeland to check into the Holiday Inn and hopefully run into Willie Horton. Or Barbaro Garbey. Or maybe Al Kaline. I hear that Lou Whitaker has been hanging around Joker Marchant this year. For 5 days we will enjoy some of the things that Florida has to offer. Things like Tigers baseball, at Joker Marchant and at Legends Field in Tampa. There will be The Holy Land to experience. And pirate dinners to eat. And of course you cannot go to Florida without going to visit the doggies. Only 10 days. Some of you will be lucky enough to receive a gift or two from a gift shop. That's right. Now you can't wait for me to go to Florida!

i am 87 years old.

My body is wrecked. I'm about to fall asleep. Last night was Jesse's comedy competition. He was awesome and should have won but something went awry and he didn't. He had a lot of people there to cheer him on and there was lots of beer drinking. After his show I went to the bar with Kristin and my brother-in-law's brother. We drank more beer. Ate pizza. And hey. Drank more beer. I was home by 1 a.m. I think. Woke up at some ungodly hour when someone in my house accidentally set off the burglar alarm and I had a slight heart attack. Then I couldn't go back to sleep because my head hurt. Beer and house alarms don't mix well. Luckily I could sleep in a little bit because I had a doctor's appointment instead of going to work. I'm still super tired and groggy and can't wait to go home and go to bed. Or just not be at work. Soon I will be able to go to the bar and drink lots of beer and have a bloody mary in the morning to kill the hangover. I didn't really have that option today. Quitting my job is looking better and better. When did I get so old? I remember when my cousin and I went to the bar during the week all the time and I was able to get up and go to work with no problems. I'm so old.

jealousy

Jesse is so smart.

what is that smell??

Oh my GOD it is me. I thought maybe the cats had peed in my closet. So I have been very careful to smell my clothes that I take out of the closet before putting them on my body. This morning I sniffed my sweater and it smelled clean. A couple years ago I couldn't smell anything thanks to Marlboro Lights. But now my sniffer works just fine. I put on my clean smelling sweater and came to work. When I took my coat off I smelled a faint cat pee odor. It's on my sweater. It must be my coat. Or my car. Or something. But now it's driving me coconuts and I might have to go home to change but I can't because I have a bunch of appointments today. Maybe I should go buy a pack of cigarettes so I can go back to not being able to smell anything. Life is so much more enjoyable that way.

another favorite thing.

I wish I could go on a log ride with these two.


Aren't they cute?


Alice is so excited.

Roller coasters with the Bradys

these are a few of my favorite things.

the ceiling in the dining room


archways in the living room


molding above the doors and windows upstairs


glass doorknobs!


willie horton and barbaro garbey


bloody marys and bug wands


dollywood and ipod and bose sounddock


one should never shred in the dark with black curtains nearby


game cube xbox karaoke revolution dirty stuffed animals


coffee and booze

happy presidents day!

I love this holiday. I am going to make a celebratory cake. And lots of booze. Perhaps noisemakers and hats are appropriate? And a day off of work. Lately not going to work means I wear the same clothes for days in a row. I love Presidents Day.

i hate blogging.

Lately it's been really hard for me to write for this stupid blog. Because I have nothing interesting to say, I don't feel like writing anything. Yesterday I wrote about my windshield wipers for chrissake!! Sometimes I look at my blog just to see how pathetic it is. And oh. It is. Where the hell did the stat counter go? It disappeared. Oh wait. Now I'm hallucinating. It's back.

Today I almost caused a terrible car accident. Well I almost caused half of a terrible car accident. I like to play a game where I try to get all the way down Vernor without stopping at a traffic light. Well, without stopping at a red traffic light anyway. It's not as easy as it sounds. There are 7 or 8 lights that are badly timed. The speed limit is 30 mph and it is impossible to win the game at that speed. I've found the best bet is to go between 45-50 mph, depending on where you are in the light cycle when first turning on to Vernor. Anyway, today I turned on Vernor and knew I was in trouble. I saw the crossing lights start to blink at the next light so I floored it and just barely made it through. The next lights started to blink so I was going about 55 mph because goddamn it I was going to make it. The light turned yellow and there was no way I was going to make it but because I'm in Detroit, there was no way in hell I was going to stop. So as I was flying through the very almost red traffic light, the car coming toward me decided to do a U-turn right in the middle of the intersection. I'm all about the U-turn. I enjoy a good U-turn. I encourage the U-turn (right Seth?). But not when there is a car heading at you waaaaaay faster than it should have been going! So I slammed on the brakes and didn't hit them and lucky for them, I still went through the light. And even luckier for me, I did really well on the game. I didn't have to stop until I turned onto Van Dyke. I rock!!

This is what happens when there is nothing to blog about.

rainy day.

I can't believe how warm it is today. Usually I hate the rain but last weekend I got some kick ass new windshield wipers and RainX wiper fluid so today I'm digging the rain. It's so nice to be able to see while driving in the shitty weather! Maybe I'll go for a drive right now. Yeah. That's it.

family.

I love my family. Last weekend I got to babysit my 10 year old niece and 8 year old nephew. They are so much fun! Then on Sunday I went to my niece's gymnastics meet. I wasn't sure what to expect and was actually planning on being a little bored. It wasn't boring and it was actually mostly pain-free. My brother-in-law planned a tailgate party for before the meet which meant lots of booze. That's always good on a Sunday morning! At one point I got stuck standing around a bunch of moms talking about sick kids. They were actually sharing puke stories and cracking up. One mom shared that she was able to find the perfect trash can because it is exactly couch level and her kid can just lean over and puke in it. It was the first time I could participate in the conversation but I decided not to share that we had one of those in college and it was great for all of the binge drinking and puking we did. But I laughed about it on the inside. Then I escaped and went and drank with the men.

Last night my cousin called to tell me that his friend's dad gave her tickets to see the Detroit Tigers play the White Sox in Chicago. They had two extra tickets so invited Jesse and I to go with them. I can't wait! It's not until August but that's okay. OOOO! Pitchers and catchers report today!! Anyway, I love my family!!

dream.

I don't generally think that dreams mean anything, mostly because I tend to have really weird dreams. But last night I had a dream about someone I don't know personally, yet they have caused a lot of pain and drama in my life. In my dream we met at her job and talked about all the stuff that happened and I was okay with her. I didn't want to hurt her in any way. I woke up feeling very strange about the dream, maybe because it felt real. Anyway, I can't help feeling like there was closure to the situation, even though it was all just a dream. Just weird.

now it's really official.

This morning at team meeting I announced that I am leaving at the end of March. People actually acted like they were bummed that I'll be leaving. I hadn't prepared myself for that. I just assumed there would be celebrations because they all hate me. Everyone asks what I'll be doing when I leave. I feel kind of stupid saying, "Nothing." So I decided I need to come up with some good stories to tell. And it can't be the same story for everyone. I've started a list.

• traveling the world.
• horticulture school.
• farmer Jen.
• cake.
• learn to luge.
• knocked up.
• Jesse decided to move to a new career as a pimp and he needed a ho.
• truck driving academy.
• assistant manager of Detroit Tigers.

If you think of anything else, please let me know as soon as possible. I'd like to start spreading rumors tomorrow.

clarification.

In an earlier post I might not have been clear when I said I turned in my letter of resignation. I did turn in my resignation but will continue to work here until March 31. Unless, of course, they kick my ass out of here sooner. Which is possible. Especially if anyone from work reads this. Wouldn't that be a hoot?

reason 99,803,421,353,343 to leave my job.

I was talking with a coworker this morning about possibly taking a new family into the shelter. A woman called looking for shelter for she and her husband and their 2 kids. The woman said they signed guardianship of the kids over to her mom until they can find shelter where they can all stay together. Right now the man and woman are staying at the adult homeless shelter where no children are allowed. The woman disclosed that she has been clean for 3 months and her husband has been clean for 4 months. She was talking about drugs, not showers.

This is what my coworker said to me... "I told her we don't have any space available. And this is terrible to say but what would we do with a couple of crack heads?"

Um. Our jobs? She was right though. We don't have any space available.

lessons learned.

A couple years ago my office building was broken into. A few computers were stolen and it was a pain in the ass. The agency had an alarm system installed shortly after the break in. The agency has 3 other sites and only 2 of them had alarm systems. In December the one building without the alarm system was broken into and a bunch of stuff was stolen. I just got an email that an alarm system was installed. It just cracks me up because it seems like they would have installed an alarm in the other building when my building was broken into. But noooooo, they had to wait until more shit was stolen. It's a good thing I'm leaving soon.

and the first person voted off of survivor is....me!

I cannot believe how much it sucked to go without hot water for one day. I almost hugged the repair man when he fixed the hot water heater in less than 2 minutes.

I cooked dinner and now I am waiting for Jesse to get home. How domestic am I??

staying home is hard work.

Tomorrow I have to return to work. I'm kind of looking forward to it. A little bit. Maybe. No. Not really. But today is not much fun. Jesse went back to work today so I don't have anyone to talk to. It's freezing in here because it is way too expensive to turn the heat on. It's not freezing. It's 62 degrees. We have no hot water because the DTE guy didn't relight the pilot light on the hot water heater when he came to fix the gas leak the other DTE guy caused on Tuesday when he replaced our meter. And we tried to light the pilot light ourselves but it didn't work. So last night another DTE guy came over to light it and he couldn't do it so someone is supposed to come back today. A hot shower would warm me up. And I really need to do the dishes. Maybe I should just take a nap.

practice makes perfect.

I've been home from work for the past couple days. I decided to practice being a stay-at-home person. I'm not very good at it. Part of the problem is Jesse is here today. He messed up my entire stay at home plan. Kind of. I cooked today and it went okay. Nobody died.

Last night we went to the Motown Winter Blast to see The Hard Lessons play. It was really cool to be in downtown Detroit and see tons of people out doing fun things that were completely legal!
There was dog sledding. But no snow so it was kind of boring.


There were statues of gay soldiers


There were marshmallow roasting stations! Pretty gutsy considering this city still hasn't recovered from the fires from the 1967 riot!


And of course the rock and roll. Apparently I can't hold the camera over my head and hold still.


But look at all the people having fun!


I'm glad we went but Jesse and I decided that we really miss Julie. We know she just left but she needs to come back soon!!

genius.

Last night I came up with a couple really deep thoughts. No really. While watching American Idol I realized that the judges are always shocked when an attractive person sucks. And they are shocked when an ugly person is really good.

I also decided that Project Runway would be much better if they let the voted out contestants form a jury just like on Survivor. But even if they don't, it's okay because I just love the show!

are you sitting down?

Because you might want to sit down for this one.

I am having a good day.

Wha? Huh? Wha' happened??

I'll tell you what happened. I turned in my letter of resignation today. And then I got an email from the program director with a job posting for a job in Brighton. She said she thought of me when she saw it and knows that I am tired of driving. Yeah right! The bitch is trying to get rid of me. She won! I'm outta here!!

The sun is shining and it's been a long time since I've felt like all is right with the world. Except for the president of the U.S. but I guess that goes without saying. But let's not think about that. Let's think about Super Bowl XL and all the wonderful things that are going on in Detroit. Let's think about staying home and sleeping in for the next few days. Let's think about me being a stay at home person and learning how to cook and sew and make sauerkraut. Oh wait...