I'm an Ass

I just spoke with my dad. I forgot his birthday. I feel like such an idiot. Happy Birthday Dad.

Yummmy

This is what I ate today:

• Whole wheat toast with crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jam (ever notice how hard it is to find blackberry jam with seeds? H-man says it's because the seeds cause colon polyps, but hey, I would like the option)
• 2 hard boiled eggs, stuffed down my throat quickly. I need the iron and protein but I don't have to like eggs.
  
• Half a turkey sub with cream cheese, avocado and tomatoes. Nummy
• A Mandarin orange
• A Kit-Kat bar
• Whole wheat pita bread smeared with garlic-artichoke cheese spread.
  I thought it might be time to get past the garlic hummus considering how gassy I am the next day.
• a granny smith apple
• A southwestern type salad with corn and spicy dressing.
  
• a butt load (or 3 liters for you metric type people) of water
  
• Dried papaya spears
• frozen apple juice concentrate straight from the can.
  

I always hoped the best part of being pregnant would be the food. and the eating. and it is.

"Easy Day"

Tuesday is my "easy day". I only work half the day so it also my "business day" when I can take care of all the errands and phone calls I need to for the week. Also, since I don't have to worry about not catching the last bus home, it's also my "take my time to get to the bus day" which is very nice since I don't get totally wiped out power-walking the 2 1/2 miles to the bust stop.
Despite all this, I am totally wiped out today. Why? Did I have a lot of extra work today?--no. Unless you count sitting in the sunshine being nuzzled by a goat and talking to friendly people work. I didn't even walk to the bus stop. But, I'm exhausted.
More Pet Peeves:

• Illuminated "CLOSED" signs. You know, those LCD light displays that spend electricity to tell everyone that the darkened pet store at 2 a.m. is not in fact open? I hate those things. What a waste.
• When I'm walking down the sidewalk and a huge ass truck is parked in its driveway, but the butt of the truck is sticking out onto the sidewalk making me walk into the street to get around it.
• When I'm approaching a stop-sign intersection on foot and a car waits at the stop-sign for me to cross, even though I'm still a considerable distance from entering said intersection, but then starts to drive towards me when I'm actually in the intersection. Confused? Let me draw you a picture

Figure 1: in which I am approaching an intersection
Figure 2: In which I have entered the intersection and the car enters it as well. As a pedestrian, I would prefer it if drivers didn't steer their 1 ton death machines near me.

• When I'm approaching and intersection and someone wants to turn right in front of me, but they don't turn when they have the chance, holding up traffic behind them.
  

Oh, and please, use your blinker, and if your going to turn in left in front of me from behind me, just wait till I'm through the intersection. I can't see you coming from behind and it always startles me.

• Loogies and cigarette butts all over the ground in front of the bench at the bus stop, sheesh, other people sit there too.
• Cybill Shepherd. I don't know why, maybe it has something to do with Peter Bogdanovich

• People who never stop talking on their cell phones. This happens a lot on the bus. There's this one woman who H-Man and I both see all the time at the Humboldt State University bus stop. She's talking on her phone loudly when she gets on and is still talking loudly on her phone when she gets off the bus an hour later. We were driving down the highway a few weekends ago and saw her on the side of the highway, on her bike, on her phone.
  
• People who never stop talking period. Another bus phenomenon.
  

That's really enough negativity for now.

"I Didn't Have Polio, But I Did Need to Have an Enema"

Oh man. You know when you read a book years ago and you just can't stop thinking about that book? Well, I was at St. Vincent de Paul's in Eureka last week where they have books at 3 for $1. I bought Forrest Gump, The Witches and Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man.
Many years ago, when I was just a lass in the San Fran Bay Area, I found and read Daisy Fay and then gave it to my best friend Lisa with a "you NEED to read this, you will love it". Soon afterward I moved to the Mojave Desert and never saw Lisa again (well, there was this one time in Mexico, but it's a long story). I gave in to the fact that I would probably never see the book again. Yes, I'm being dramatic, but it really is a great book. I've looked. I've been to libraries and thrift stores but it wasn't until last week when I finally found it again.
A very brief summary:
Daisy Fay is precocious and lives in the South, her dad is a drunk, her mom is high strung. They move to the beach to open a malt stand, a lot of adventures and misadventures occur. She grows up she wants to be an actress, there is a happy ending.
Written by Fannie Flagg, Daisy Fay is allegedly autobiographical. Flagg also wrote Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, and you can see that a lot of the characters from Fried Green Tomatoes are influenced by characters in Daisy Fay's life.
I highly reccomend this book. I'm trying to get H-man to read it right now but I mistakenly convinced him it was a little girly in some parts (which is only mildly true).

Back in St. Olaf.....

I watch The Golden Girls. I watch it a lot. I watch it so much that H-man and I randomly burst into the theme song throughout the day. I watch it so much that our baby is going to be consoled only by the sound of Bea Arthur's voice saying "Shut up Rose".
I have some opinions on the show, particularly about the various guest characters. Man are some of them jerks, hypocrites and just plain mean. For example:

#1Chick Vennera as Pepe/ Enrique Mas-

This guy makes a couple of appearances, once in season 4, and twice in season 5. In season 4 he plays "Pepe" a prize fighter that Sophia invests in in order to raise a great amount of money for the household. Pepe is portrayed as a blood thirsty animal who only cares about killing his opponent in the ring. He's dumb as an ox, can barely speak English (or any language for that matter) and appears to be shoe-in for the prize. The night before the fight, Pepe goes missing, and the girls follow his trail to an abandoned warehouse where they expect to find some kind of distasteful happenings occurring. But, they were wrong. Pepe is practicing his violin in order to prepare for his audition for Julliard. He scolds the women for assuming he was just a mindless killing machine (although that's how he portrayed himself) and claims that Anglos see a Hispanic man and buy into the idea that they are dumb and useless, again, exactly as he was pretending to be. The next day Pepe gets punched in the head at the fight and can't remember the violin piece he was to preform for the Julliard people. Instead he delivers a soliloquy he had berated the ladies with about how he's Latino and Human at the same time. As you can imagine, he gets accepted to Julliard.
But here's the kicker: Mr. Vennera returns in season 5. Not as Pepe, no, as Enrique Mas. Rose's prejudice and overbearing boss at a consumer report television show. After all his diatribe about being interchangeable and not seen as an individual, Pepe returns as a completely different character! Deceit! Hypocrisy! Que Horrible!

#2 Ann Francis as Trudy-

Oh Trudy. You horrible woman! Dorothy's best friend from high school is in town for a high school reunion. The pair have been competitive since forever, playing pranks on each other and and the such. After they reunite and fling insults at each other, the pair decided to play a "friendly" match of tennis. During the match, Trudy drops dead, but the fun is only beginning. At the school reunion that evening Dorothy tearfully admits to her fellow alumnus that Trudy died that morning during an especially vigorous match of tennis. Dorothy feels that it is all her fault and decides to retire to her room inconsolable. While the other girls try to think of ways to make Dorothy feel better, someone makes a grand entrance that changes everything. Trudy had faked her own death to play a joke on Dorothy and is ready to enjoy the party. What a bitch! Rose, Blanch and Sophia make Trudy go to Dorothy and apologize but when they go back to her room, everyone is in for a big surprise. Dorothy is in bed with Trudy's husband, Jack. Ha! Of course this all ends up being a big joke on Trudy, because let's face it, who would sleep with Dorothy?

#3 Herb Edelman as Stan Zbornak I hate to admit it, but I have special place in my heart for Stan. Despite him being possible the biggest douche in Miami, down deep he is sweet, sympathetic and cares about Dorothy very much. That being said, this character is the most decietful, coniving, sex-driven (even more so than Blanch) character to appear on the Golden Girls. Dorothy and Stan were married for 38 years and as Dorothy says he was cheating on her for 39 of those years. He left Dorothy after all this time for a flight attendant, but like with all his relationships and business ventures he falls on his face.
Stan takes Sophia to a baseball game where she gets hit on the head with a ball, Stan tries to milk it for all it's worth and ends up losing money in the end. Stan informs Dorothy that he was lying about his taxes for the entire time they were married and now Dorothy is in trouble with the IRS. Stan tries to convince the girls to give him $1000 each at Christmas time to invest in a plastic vomit company, this of coure is a lie, he was jsut trying to get some cash to make it through the Holidays. He remarries succssfully to a very nice woman only to come on to Blanch and Dorothy continuously. Stan takes the cake, has sex with it then dumps it for a younger cake.

The Cat

Stella the Cat and I have done a lot of bonding over the past month and a half that H-man has been gone. Mostly this involves a lot of cuddling and purring and laying on my lap and sniffing my forehead ( I really don't know what that's about).
However, not everything is so sweet. She sleeps in the bedroom with me, either on my shoulder or on the bookcase between the silver candlesticks and shark jaw. Her food is in the room also. This is set up so I don't have to leave the bedroom door open at night because, quite honestly, I'm afraid of the dark and the dark living room is the darkest part of the house. Each night I make sure to fill her food and water ( I don't know why, she only drinks out of the fish tank anyway). She eats her food before she lays down with me, then we cuddle and fall asleep to the Golden Girls or Seinfeld or something. Then it happens.
Every Morning. 5 a.m. She starts The Meow.
"Meh. Meh. Mah. Mah. Mah. Mah. Mow. Mow. Mow. Mooooowwwww. MEooooooooowwww. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. Mahhhhhhhhhhhh. MOW, MOW, MOW, MOW, MOW." says Stella.
"Shush. Shush. Stella! Stella! Stella! NO, NO, NO, NO! SHUT UP! " Says me.
Until recent she did her routine from the bookcase, and would quit pretty quickly also. But not anymore. This week she has begun to climb onto the bed and stare at me. Then she climbs onto my side, and plants her face in my face, purring, then meowing. All this time I have been pretending to sleep, believing that if I give in and feed her right away she will begin to control my life. It's gone way past that now. Last night she climbed onto the windowsill above my head and jumped down onto my head for 15 minutes strait. I gave in. I had to. The cat has won.

cat wants food, cat gets baseball bat, - Watch more Funny Videos

A Funny Thing Happened at the Bus Stop

Seeing that I spend a great deal of time at bus stops, especially bus stops around Eureka, I really shouldn't be surprised/disgusted/bemused by all the weird things I see.
For example:

• A drunk, shirtless guy belting out country music in front of his house at 7:30 a.m on a Wednesday in February.
• A car that reeked of death pulling up and dropping off a woman and her son. "Are you sure I can't take you all the way home?" the driver asked the woman, then as he drove away the woman turned to me and asked if I smelt something funny. I said "yes, it was that guy's car, it smelled like death. " She stares at me and murmurs "oh, oh God"
• A man on the bus dropping his burrito and then yelling "FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!"
  
• A homeless man rummaging through the trash can next to me, pulling out a nearly empty vodka bottle, draining it into his gullet then storming off screaming " I'm NOT crazy! What do you think I am, STUPID?!?!"
• A man doing a series of stretches while wearing cowboy chaps and smoking a cigarette.
  
• People lighting joints at the back of the bus, then staring down everyone around them.
• The dirtiest woman I have ever seen. Cankles encrusted with grime, holey sweatpants, desperately attempting to glue a cigarette back together with her own saliva.
  
• A woman with her child. The child screaming, the mother screaming at the child, the child screaming back at her.
  
• A 15 year old boy hitting on a much older woman. "I'm experienced with ladies, I know how to treat a lady right"
• Two girls talking about narrative devices: "so when a movie shows something that symbolizes what is going to happen in the future that's like called forshowering right?" "yeah, forshowering."
• "people who go to the (local community college) are really dumb and ignorant, I know how to work the system" "So what school do you go to?" "(local community college)"
• A couple dressed up in mardi gras clothing pulled up and asking me where a certain hotel is.
  
• A homeless man coming up and asking for change. " Sorry, no change, all I have is my bus pass" says the man next to me. Next he asks me "Sorry, all I have is my bus pass too" He rolls his eyes and then starts to yell at me about how all he wants is a little change so he can buy a coffee. The bus then comes and the man in front of me pays in cash, I pay with my bus pass.

I really could go on forever. But I won't.