Aw, you miss me.

No, I have not abandoned my blog, fools. You can stop with the text messages and emails and cookie baskets begging me to return for to the benefit of all U.S. Americans. Perhaps I can offer you and the Iraq and the South Africa some maps to sate your incessant need for e-entertainment.

The reality is that I have been held captive. Captive by this:


"Once (that they know of), I tried to eat my own poop!"


"My name is Brodie. But usually they just call me the BrodieMonster. I have no idea why. Oooh, is that a pair of Mommy's panties I see?"

Oh, how cute, you think. Go ahead, fawn all over him. Those giant ears! That scruffy beard! He will suck you in with that questioning head cock, that wag that shakes his whole butt, those bounding hops he takes through tall grass. But you will get past all that when it slowly begins to dawn on you that in reality, you are living with equivalent of a senile, incontinent old man. E.g.s: Your heart will cease beating the first time you see him tottering perilously next to the garden wall (his hips!). You will want to bang your head against the breakfast bar when he starts whimpering (again) and looks up all wide-eyed and confused at you like you know what the hell is upsetting him and how to fix it. No, this is not 1964 and no, you don't work at the plant anymore. I don't know what happened to Elsie. PLEASE STOP CRYING. And then he will poop. And pee. All over your pretty hardwood floors. He will march off into another room and then you will walk in there later and upon seeing a giant, often slimy, turd, you will feel like he just crapped all over all the hard work you've put in to try to get him to be a functional member of society. And by then, you can't even scold him because he will be off in another room, hungrily chewing on your panties or perhaps the molding at the base of your wall because apparently, he is that gd insane.

Sometimes you think that if he doesn't shape up, you will have to send him to "the home." But then you pull up the driveway in the evening and he spots you as you enter the house -- those giant ears plastered down on his head, excitement making all 11 lbs of him shake like a polaroid picture.. even the submissive piddling across your pretty hardwood floors (again) seems forgiveable. And you realize that even though you are living with a debatably fuzzier version of Walter Mathau, you wouldn't have it any other way.

Except maybe less poop. Do you hear me, Walter? We poop OUTSIDE, not inside.

Ways in Which I Plan to Emasculate Our Dog

These ain't the cat's pajamas. They're better.



Care for a cocktail? Maybe some l'il smokies to get the night started?



Mommy thinks Daddy will turn this red when he sees me in this getup. Out of love and pride, of course.



First, I will make Ichabod Crane poop himself. Next, I will poop all over your house.



Buffy told me you girls were making hot cocoa and s'mores at the lodge! Sounds like an occasion for argyle!



Aren't I so EMO? I'm going to go listen to Evanescence and cut myself. Later, poseurs.

Welcome to Tackyville. Population: 2

There's nothing like coming home from a jog to your man blasting, "Queen of My Double-Wide Trailer," while attempting to put up the gazebo-tent-contraption he hustled from Home Depot.

We were there buying paint supplies a couple of weeks ago and we walk outside and see one of these shrines to the wife-beater (the shirt, not the person -- actually, who knows, now that I think about it) that R has been coveting since we bought the house. Seriously, every time I see one all I can think of is a sweaty guy with a belly and a farmer's tan slapping some poor girl on the ass and telling her to "go bring Daddy another High Life" and the whole time she's thinking how much better her life would've been if she'd just gone home with the manager of Krystal that time he brushed up against her by the shake machine. Tragic, right? But I see my boyfriend beaming at this thing, to the point where I can just about make out the visions swimming through his head of him kicking back beneath its cheaply-constructed metal frame and flesh-colored mesh panels with nothing but a cheap beer, his iPod, his lady friend, and his cairn terrier-german shepherd mutt (more on that later) at his feet. For him, this is heaven. I know... I know how to pick 'em.

Being the kind of girl who played "fort" in the backyard until I was like 10 (ok, like 15), I truly understand the desire to have a ridiculous pretend house out in the yard, even though you have a perfectly good real house for the doings of real life things. But I'm also not an idiot. And am well aware of the fact that a bedroom set, for instance, maybe could be slightly more useful than a glorified patio umbrella as our first real home purchase.

So I say, "Ok, you can have it if it's less than a hundred bucks."

He lights up like a gd sparkler.

So we go inside to ask and they say it's $149. I win! I look sympathetic, yet practical! The contraption does not have to come home with us and I still get props for being open-minded, rather than one of those bitches who throws out her dude's collection of ashtrays. (Oh, wait. Oops.) But apparently, I'm not so clever as I think because rather than walking out the door like a normal person would at hearing the price is too high, he asks if they will take $99. My boyfriend is trying to wheel and deal with the Home Depot. He thinks he can bargain with The Man. And apparently, he can. Some joker tells us we can have it for $99 if we take it down ourselves. R is elated. I put on a brave face and go gangk a screwdriver.

Fast forward to today. We decide to finally put it up in the yard. We notice we are missing:

- a least one screw and a nut
- one of the poles to clip the netting business to
- any indication we had previously given our neighbors of having "good taste"

And here it is in all its amazingly tacky glory:



My God, what have we done.

Hot Syrup

Sorry, kids, but I'm busier than the lady who refills the french toast sticks bin at Shoney's on a Sunday morning. Will return when I can sneak in a smoke break with the bus-boys.

Everybody's got a dream! What's your dream?

I would apologize for the lack of posts, but really, I don't owe you anything, internets.

So anyway, remember Philip Stuckey? Edward/Richard Gere's scheistery douchebag of a lawyer in Pretty Woman? We stayed in his apartment over the weekend:





It may be difficult to discern from these pictures, but if you were in the market for lucite furniture, lacquered cabinets, French bordello-esque bathroom lighting fixtures and velvet velvet everywhere, you would be IN LUCK! Sometimes a place just screams, "Who wants to be sexually assaulted by a balding egomaniac?"

I shouldn't complain because our little haven of ostentation was provided free of charge by a generous benefactor to whom we are very tenuously connected. It was in a fantastic midtown Manhattan location and there's no denying the hours of entertainment that mirror-on-mirror walls can provide you. But seriously, I spent the whole time wondering what color silk jumpsuit said benefactor's wife was wearing when she decided that metallic window panels were a good idea. I'm gonna guess gold. Just a hunch.

A brief respite

Tomorrow we head to Connecticut for a visit with my fam, where we'll end up having the inevitable "but you grew up in such a beautiful, serene slice of New England wilderness. How did you end up so crazy?" conversation. Well, chickadee, this is what happens when you spend your adolescence going "camping" with a sleeping bag from 1974 and a tupperware container full of gin. And maybe some Twizzlers. And maybe once you fell in the fire and forgot how to stop-drop-and-roll in your drunken terror, but luckily it was so gd cold out, they just pushed you into some partially frozen leaves and everything ended up ok except for having to hide a slightly singed London Fog coat. Sorry, Bob Biscuits.

Reno is going to pick us up in her Jeep Wrangler. I'm gonna see if I can get her to blast Metallica and do donuts in the airport parking lot. Doubtful, but one can dream.

But seriously, I know lots of people like to imagine that where they grew up is some sort of utopia because of their great memories with family and friends, blah blah, but hi, who are you kidding? You grew up in a split ranch in a subdivision, not here:



I can't wait to be there.

Milestone!

Just spreading the amazing news that someone found this blog by searching for the phrase "slutes in panty house." The only thing that could make this better is if the person were really searching for "sluts in pantyhose" and was just that bad at spelling. Come back, mentally challenged dude with the nylon fetish! We welcome everyone here.

Whimsy

As promised, here is the paint job. As you can see, the original color is a buttery (though more like margariney) yellow that we think is Restoration Hardware's umm, Butter Yellow. It actually wasn't completely unfortunate in that room, but I've had an aversion to yellow bedrooms ever since I found out that the color can cause exhaustion and depression if overused. Seriously. Studies show it agitates babies and I don't think it's coincidence that Van Gogh's paintings are rife with yellows, what with him being bat shit crazy and tortured and all. So the true yellow had to go and will be relegated to an accent color in the sleeping context..

Before painting/after spackle-priming:



Mid-paint job:



Feldspar (with flash)!



That table and frame won't actually be in there, but some black furniture will be, so I wanted to make sure the contrast was ok. I.e. I didn't want folks to feel like they were walking into a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Though that doesn't sound all that bad seeing it's 850 degrees outside.

Sans flash (the early morning lighting makes it look lighter than it actually is):



I'm also in love with this quilt from Anthropologie, so it will probably make an appearance in a later incantation of this room. We're getting a very old antique bed and armoire from my uncle for the other guest bedroom, so I have a feeling that will lean more toward elegance and refinement (what little we know of those, anyway). As such, I wanted to have a room people would feel comfortable putting their kids, dogs, adulterous flings, whatever, into. Stay tuned for the furniture and decor, my little homewreckers.

I'll be home.. I'll be home.... I'm comin hooooome..

I'm still recovering from Saturday night, wherein I think I impressed the varied patrons at the Flora-Bama bar mightily with my interpretive dance rendition of Melissa Ethridge's "Come To My Window." I'd like to think that not many possess the kind of skill it takes to prostrate oneself upon a dirty picnic table in front of 500 sweat-soaked rednecks, arms arched and extended, to symbolize "the light of the moon." Tell me that's not talent and I'll tell my new girlfriend, Suzette, to pin your scrawny neck to the wall with one of her huge biceps.

Pics of the painting will have to wait til tomorrow because I flew back at 5:30 this morning and haven't been home yet. R says the color looks great in the front bedroom that I would've finished completely on Friday if it hadn't been so ridiculously hot and I hadn't spent half the time sponging myself down and trying to decide which clothes I could strip off without being embarassed to answer the door if one of our neighbors stopped by to ask if we'd heard about that time Don and Meredith got stomachaches and ended up barfing up a rainbow of joy and love. "They were just so full of it that it was the only way out!"

Oh yeah, well did Don and Meredith ever give out Christmas baskets of homemade beef jerky? I didn't think so.

Anyway, if you ever end up painting your own place, whatever you do, wait at least a day and a half to judge the color. Seriously, get out of the room, close the door and come back tomorrow. Otherwise you'll end up walking back and forth, bringing different lights in and out, and working yourself up to hyperventilation mode because you can't believe you just wasted 8 GD hours to have a bedroom look like Slimer just made sweet sweet love to the walls. If you wait that little bit of extra time, then when you look again, it ends up resembling a little slice of chartreuse heaven more than a sticky ecto aftermath.

Just try to ignore all the places where you later notice that it dripped all over the molding. Because it did. And you will notice.

Beach, biatches

I got my hair cut today. I'm hoping it totally turns your man on when he comes home to you looking like Lucy from the Peanuts



I'm off to paint the front bedroom -- we went with Feldspar from Behr, which does not quite look like Chernobyl in real life:



I'll post pics of the 'fore and after when I return from hot as balls Pensacola. If you happen to be there this weekend, I'm the bossy one making eyes at Schroeder. Sorry, R.

Dog-To-Be

Many of you know of my short and sordid history with dogs over the past 10 or so years. We got Shelby right before my senior year of high school, after I begged my parents for a dog for approx. five years. Eleven months later, I went off to college, she remained with them. My mother tries to liken it to a teen mother leaving her baby to be raised by Grandma. I prefer to be likened to a crackhead, if we're going to be throwing stones here. At least in that scenario I'm too high to feel bad about abandoning my dog.

Next came Caddy. She was a birthday present from my college boyfriend when I moved off campus. He got her from some people who were divorcing, which clearly had scarred her. That dog would not crap outside. I could walk her for 3 hours and I swear to God she would hold it out of spite, then later I'd be welcomed into a room by some sort of turd extravaganza. She also ate the crotch out of everyone's underwear she could get her grubby little snout on. Lesbian. When I went to DC for a semester, she was sent to live with the boyfriend's mom, where I assume she still resides, blissfully sofa-pooping and tearing apart panties at her whim.

Finally, in law school there was Bacon. Another "We've been dating for 5 minutes and who cares that you live 5 miles away and I don't have a car! I'll walk! In January!" disaster. We brought her back a week later, after I cried hysterically for 2 days that we would be bad dog parents and she would end up like Corey Haim.

You would think that these experiences would have dissuaded me from wanting a dog in the past few years. And you would be so completely wrong, as evidenced by the fact that I've visited Petfinder more or less daily since 2002. And now that I have a house and a fenced in yard and a goofy, but cute live-in caretaker, it's like a free pass to go on a 3 week bender, but this time involving more dog research, less hookers and blow.

There is a catch, however.

R has allergies. Not like the he's going to end up dead like Macauley Culkin in My Girl if he touches a dog allergies, but the kind where you can only have a low to non-shedding dog. So that limits us mainly to dogs that are either completely dopey looking (e.g. poodles, doodles, schnauzers) or that really should only be owned by Ivana Trump/men who wear pinky rings (e.g. malteses, shih tzus, westies).

We've begun to narrow down the possibilities based on our lifestyle and various breeds' tolerance for humiliation, as I plan to buy a "dog stroller" for my runs, so I can keep going even when the dog gets tired. Quitter. So anyway, I present to you dog possibility numero uno: THE HAVANESE



Apparently, they were developed uniquely in Cuba. This one I would name Elian. Together, we would feast upon plantains and tasajo (cuban beef jerky). He would teach me to salsa and I would reward him with Dentabones and Beggin' Strips. Life could be muy bueno.

Thank You, Don and Meredith

We don't know much about the woman who owned the house before us. She worked for the EPA, got transferred to go work on September 11 stuff, and had a dog named Gracie. I bet she was probably nice, but maybe a little reserved and not really interested in being BFFs with the neighborhood.

You can tell they hated her for it.

But before her, there was "Don and Meredith." And oh man, do they still talk about Don and Meredith.

"Don and Meredith lived in that house for 20 years."
"I was great friends with Meredith."
"Don was quite a handyman."
"Don had that tree checked by an arborist too!"
"Don would weed the lawn inch by inch with his bare hands."
"Meredith was perfect."
"Once, a squirrel was choking on a nut and Don performed squirrel CPR with one nostril and two fingers."
"Meredith single-handedly delivered 2 of my children while baking a chocolate souffle, which we later enjoyed with my placenta."

Seriously, I have no idea what kind of spell these people cast over our neighbors, but regardless we're completely screwed. We were already at a marked disadvantage what with all the drunken yelling, lack of blinds/lack of modesty, the fact that R's Georgia flag currently hangs from the plantation shutters in the front room because I don't know what else to do with it, etc. But these people (who, by the way, I'm convinced are responsible for the heinous makeshift shelving everywhere. Guess you weren't that much of a handyman, DON) set the bar so astronomically high that we might as well stop cutting the front lawn, put the Tahoe up on bricks out there, and roast a pig inside of its bed because if you can't ever live up to Don and Meredith, you might as well terrify the neighbors.

So this is my personal salute to you, Don and Meredith. Thank you. Thank you for sucking.

An Email from Reno

from "reno@awesome.com"
to cannedgoods1@gmail.com
date Aug 6, 2007 4:33 PM
subject Good news....

Hi - We tried calling you yesterday as we drove home from RI but no answer. Give me a call tonight. I have great news about the cookward you like. MOM

GREAT NEWS ABOUT THE COOKWARD!

I am thinking cookward could mean any of the following:
- A new direction. E.g. Onward, upward, cookward!
- The place in the asylum where they keep the chefs. No knives, peelers, choppers, graters, etc. allowed.
- The enigmatic duo of Rachel Leigh Cook and Sela Ward, who decided to team up after they both realized neither have had much of a career since 1999. Plan: play mother/daughter team in slightly different but actually the same dramedies that involve generational conflict and finding the strength that only a female familial bond could create to overcome tragedy.

Or she meant cookware with a typo. Whatever. Though come to think of it, we could use some Calphalon seeing as how my Dad had to cook eggs and french toast in a wok when they were here to visit. Hey, my people MAKE DO.

Creepy Things Said By the Termite Guy

Him: So, do you talk to Old Grandfather out there?
Me: Um, our tree?
Him: Yes, he's the biggest oak I've seen in a long time.
Me: Uh, actually he's a yellow poplar. And mainly I just hope he doesn't fall on us. [nervous, awkward laughter]

Him: [kneeling on the floor, writing up our report] Uh, I'm gonna uh have to stand up.. this is a little uncomfortable on my knees.
Me: Oh! I'm sorry. Go ahead and sit on the couch.
Him: Oh, this might be too comfortable. I might have to take a nap right here.
Me: ...

Him: Insects are very matriarchal. It's amazing how a pregnant bee commands her hive! And female bees do all the work. Termites are one of the few insects where both the females and the males work.
Me: ...

I would have been less than surprised had he offered to show me his suit made of fat ladies' skin. He had to write down his name on the report, so being the asshole I am, I tried to Myspace him and then did some searches using his name plus "renaissance fair," "jedi convention," etc., but no dice. Though I guess if I worked in pest control and lived in my mother's basement, I would use some sort of alias (Genevieve Von Awesome) too. WTF.

Anyway, he kind of looked like this:



Imagine being alone in your house with that. Please Jesus, don't let us have termites so that guy never ever has to come back. Too bad he already knows where we live.

New Template. Check it.

I tried to find video of Beavis yelling, "FIRE! FIRE!" from back in the day but apparently there was some controversy where Beavis got blamed for some kid burning up his trailer or something, so MTV went so far as changing all the episodes and apparently there's no evidence of his pyromania. Except in my heart. And yours.

Also, way to blame Beavis for a trailer fire, America. How about you blame that kid's mom who, rather than raising her kid, probably spent her days watching Maury and amassing her beanie baby collection in the hopes that she could one day sell it to buy some new tits. I'd bet money that Peanut the Elephant didn't buy her much more than a pack of Marlboros and some Hostess Snowballs.

Anyway, "like a house on fire" is an idiom. Our house isn't really on fire, but come to think of it, maybe I'll put up a link to Paypal on here so idiots think it burned down and will donate to the "You'd Help Us Rebuild Our Life If You Loved Jesus" fund and then I can take the mad cash it pulls in and spend it on what else? Beef jerky. Also maybe like a couch or some furniture for the front room since we don't really have any besides R's couch from his apartment, on which I don't even want to know how many people have had sex. God, we are so classy. Get ready for the housewarming/STD party!

So anyway, I'm changing the title of the blog because we're gonna change the name of the house, plus it's all punny and entendre-y* because R and I met like 5 seconds ago and are all in L-0-V-E love and apparently the pheromones or whatever made us lose our minds and enter into like a gajillion dollars worth of debt together. Now us kooky kids are totally overwhelmed with the fact that hi, we have like a house and shit and have to put stuff in it and we have some slightly, uh, differing taste, so get ready for some awesome posts about him trying to put some ashtray from his grandmother's beauty shop in our home and me using it as firewood. See? FIRE!

* If you didn't know that getting on "like a house on fire" basically means that you like each other a whole bunch, really quickly, then please donate to our You'd Help Us Rebuild Our Life If You Loved Jesus fund through my Paypal account. Many thanks!

9021whoa

So apparently, they are filming a movie in our town.

Ha. Poor Dylan McKay. Brandon Walsh is on the cover of USWeekly with his smoking hot wife and new baby this week as like Celebrity Dad of the Year or something and you're in Decatur, GA filming an "off-beat caper comedy," that IMDB doesn't even list you as being in. This probably isn't as bad as that time your Dad blew up in his car when you were on the phone with Kelly, but likely worse than that time everyone had the intervention to get you to check into rehab. I hope this experience doesn't end up like that episode did, with you walking out, getting blitzed, contacting your dealer and doing heroin. I bet someone would at least put you on a reality TV show. I mean, look at where it's gotten Steve Sanders:

Bootless and Fancy Free

So, I didn't puke on Friday. Thanks to an afternoon laced with dramamine and cherry wine, not even a sixer of Oberon and about a pound of homemade beef jerky from the shady convenience store across the street from the docked schooner could send me into the spins aboard the Good Ship Smelly Crew.

Everyone who slept on the boat with us was AARP material and on a trip for their 20th-42nd anniversary. One couple asked us if we were newlyweds and I wanted to say, "Hi, if we were newlyweds, I hope we'd be in the tropics somewhere doing it for a week, not sitting on an old boat in northern Michigan, eating turkey sandwiches. Clearly, we just live in sin." Due to my good upbringing, I refrained from saying all that and just hit them with the living in sin part. Watching those people squirm was almost as fun as that time I went to the Scientology center in Philly under the guise of being interested in what they had to offer (when really I was just there to get literature for my Katie Holmes Halloween costume) and my tour guide got all defensive, probably because I started asking questions about Xenu and John Travolta. If screwing with people was an occupation, I'd be like CEO of Your Fly Is Open, Inc.

All in all though, the boat was cool. I got to help hoist the massive sails and then tried to instigate a mutiny amongst all the senior citizens, but I guess I'd already lost their support by being a heathen strumpet, so that part wasn't quite a success.

Also, the wedding rocked. I love weddings, always have. See, my everyday emotional spectrum generally already ranges from excited to crying to joyous to drunk. So a day with a wedding is fantastic because all of the events to trigger those feelings are tidily prepackaged into an 8 hour period, rather than me having to go out of my way to find and/or create excitement/drama/celebration/vodkasodas. This one was especially good times because it was one of my fave people getting married, I got to catch up with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in over a year, and there was late night pizza and beer for everyone in the bar below the reception. Note to everyone getting married: Providing snacks at 2am WILL get you a better present.

If you are seeking a pleasant peninsula, look around you.

We're headed here tomorrow for a my gorgeous friend's wedding:



And Friday night, we're sleeping on this sucker after an afternoon of vineyard hopping:



Can you say vomit? I can't wait to christen Lake Michigan.

Also, if you know me, then you probably know about my obsession with all things sailor/pirate-esque, so yes, I'm pretty much more excited than a fat kid at the Ponderosa salad bar about this.

Lady and the Tramp

See these shelves?



RIPPED OUT WITH OUR BARE FREAKING HANDS.

Or a power drill and a crowbar.

Whatever.

Pics of all these changes will probably follow if I ever get my shit together enough to get batteries in my camera and stop writing about beef jerky. So probably not, actually.

Anyway, today is the day R moves all his junk from his much beloved shithole to the new house. And he's seriously sad about it.* It's sorta like having a shelter dog. You just took him away from the stench of urine and matted fur to this nice big backyard and all the chew toys he can he can handle, but you can tell he is still pining away a little bit for his shelter dog friends and the bitchy rescue ladies (who, as an aside, constantly treat people like us like Michael Vick just because we are not stay-at-home moms and ok maybe we didn't know that heartworm comes from mosquitoes, but now we do, we promise. Stop looking at me like you're going to call PETA, lady. I can take you. And your little dog too.). In R's scenario, just substitute "beer and overflowing ashtrays" for "urine and matted fur", "bowchickabowbow" for "chew toys", and "the pubs by his house and being able to watch all sorts of skanks from his porch" for the dog friends and rescue bitches. Luckily, much like a shelter dog, I think all it will take to get him over his displacement is a big meaty meal and lots of ear scratching. I'm on it.


*Also, it's his birthday, which he is not sad about because it means presents! and attention! and free dinner!, so if you know him, you might want to give him a shout out for the big 31.

Time Capsule

The DJs on the radio were talking about some kind of time capsule and what they would put in it if they were going to open it up in 100 years or whatever. Most of them were trying to be all worldly and profound and suggested things like books emblematic of the times, a list of states that have legalized gay marriage, blah blah. You know what I would want in there? Beef jerky. There, I said it. First, it's pretty much the perfect food. Low calorie, low fat, high protein, and DELICIOUS. A true staple for the eating disordered. Second, the way I see it, the world is going to be so screwed in 100 years that if we even have cows, we'll probably have to handle their carcasses like toxic waste when they die because of all sorts of pollutants and disease in them (like it's already happening in the arctic: http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=10679). I'm betting a big ass stash of beef jerky would come in handy when I have to get all Mad Max on everyone's asses.

I am so off topic. The point of this post was supposed to be about how I told R we should make a time capsule for like 10 years (i.e. before the apocalypse) and bury it in the backyard under this weird stone birdbath we have back there:



It's hard to see in that picture, but it's there and it's weird and we'd probably unwittingly be digging up some ancient Decatur Indian burial ground or something, but let's be honest, when have I ever let evil spirits get in the way of my good times before? Exactly. So if you have any suggestions of what to put in there, let me know. And don't worry, I already put an USWeekly on the list as a premature memorial to Brit and LaLohan because.. well, you know.

Whirlwinded

So we went to the aquarium that Atlanta touts like the second coming of Yahweh on Thursday and it pretty much kicks ass (probably not like Jesus, but they're just fish after all) with its beluga whales and giant tank of sharks (like in Jaws II, but without the death) and otters that you know are constantly coming up with cockeyed escape schemes to somehow end up in a 4th grader's backpack, etc., EXCEPT for this horrific room of what I guess were children manhandling poor little baby rays and shrimps and horseshoe crabs in these torture tanks. They call them "touch pools," but really they were more like "assault by toddler" pools. I can't be sure, but I think I felt my ovaries make a break for it after about 10 minutes of screaming/splashing/screaming/high pitched screaming/splashing. I assume my fallopian tubes reeled them in, but nobody better get no ideas down there 'bout birthin no babies anytime soon.

Reno and Bob Biscuits had a pretty great time, I think. They slept late (9am, suckers), explored the ATL, had some seamless interactions with the Alabama parents and helped with manly and wifely type house things of which we know not. They even made it back from the North Georgia (think Deliverance) mountains in one piece, driving a Prius no less. Speaking of the Prius (i.e. the car I will be rocking once the "Champagne Dream" craps out in 8 years or so because Camrys are like Nick Nolte and pretty much never die no matter how ridiculously beat up and wretched they get), at one point my parents were trying to find the climate controls to put on the A/C in the back and my dad kept yelling, "Is it getting you in the rear?!?!!" Good times with the fam.

Now that they're gone, I totally need a nap and to catch up on about 960 minutes of work, but I'm really happy they came and hope they know I love them so much it makes my heart hurt even if they sometimes think I'm a total ingrate and that my BLOG IS SO NOT PROFESSIONAL. Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Reno. No need to be a hater. XOXOOXOXXO.

Bless Their Hearts

As he is in the process of moving out, my next post will be entitled, "A Brief History of Disgusting Shit in R's Apartment," but you will have to wait for that one with bated breath because my camera needs some new juice and I kind of refuse to go over there right now (except to humor myself and maybe you) for fear of disease, roaches attempting to nest on me, and his choices in body wash. No, I cannot use your Axe Recovery Shower Gel. Why? Because it smells like a dude. I wholly admit that I, like you, am a marketer's dream, but even I am not so delusional to believe that use of such body wash "cures hangovers." Try drinking less. I hear it's a proven hangover cure.

Anyway, my parents get here tonight for 5 days of SUPERFUNTIMES with their only daughter. For purposes of anonymity and because my brother really calls them these types of names, we will call my Mom "Reno" and my Dad "Bob Biscuits." Reno and Bob Biscuits get in tonight and thus will embark on their adventure of cheesy tourist activities, QT with us and Friday night with R's parents. Oh yes. The parents are meeting for the first time. It's going to be a famstravanganza of food and first impressions. Oh, and vodka. On "his" side anyway. You know, the alcoholic side.

Lord help us.

Since you all will be unable to witness what can only be described as an "experience" and I fear my after-the-fact description will fail to do it justice, I just want to give you a preview of what we're in for:

R's Mom

and

Reno

Note that I am implying Reno (my Mom) is Tom Hanks in this clip, NOT the blubbering lady baseball player. Let the good times roll!

Priceless

5 revisions to the HUD Settlement statement
12 calls to our lender
7 calls from our lender
85 emails from our moronic real estate agent
5 hours after we were actually supposed to close
~2000 contractually-binding signatures
------------------------------------
THE HOUSE IS FINALLY OURS!

I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of the past 24 hours, but I'd be lying if I acted like we rode our unicorns over a rainbow to the closing office and signed our promissory note in edible chocolate ink while being massaged by the Bank of America fairies. Not quite. But we're through the bureaucratic muck that a real estate closing makes and can now move onto to more exciting things -- like the fact that the parentals are coming tomorrow to visit the ATL for the first time ever. They will be staying here:



That's my apartment, which has been likened to:
a) a bank vault at Gringott's
b) a cave in the rainforest
c) Britney's future (i.e. dark, depressing, and full of snacks)

It might not look so bad, but trust me, it is. I only looked at their "model" apartment before I moved in, which is (of course) cheery! comfy! welcoming! etc! and somehow ended up in one that attempts to suck out your soul upon entry with its almost complete lack of natural light. Maybe they thought I was a Lady of the Night? I'm flattered, Slutty Apartment Rental Girls, but even a Lady of the Night could use a little sunshine now and then. Like at noon. On a completely clear day. With all the shades up. Anyway, I'm going to go home and try to fit my walls with some of those seasonal depression lights so my parents don't resort to the hari kari.

Zero Hour

Tomorrow is the big day. Wish us luck! Or at least that we will avert bankruptcy! Ok, at least that we will have some kickin patio parties.

A little something to take the edge off:

Queasy gets you nowhere but in line for a Jack and Ginger

So, I've pretty much wanted to throw up for the past few days. No, not because of bulimia. I've never been a puker and we all know starving is truly the only way to get skinny. Basically because actually buying a home is the scariest thing I've ever done (other than dating Crazy Von Youneedtogototherapywithme, but that was more scary in an I might end up in pieces in a freezer way than in an I might end up in bankruptcy way). It represents things I've never really had to come up against before.. responsibility to someone besides myself, money management, and living with R's dirty man panties, for examples. And in the past few days, the knowns and the unknowns have converged and transformed me from happy-go-lucky, let's get a house! and paint it! and a dog! and love it! and an outdoor screened-in-bed, like gypsies! and use it! to this sort of blubbering mess of fear and stress and apprehension. What if I lose my job? What if "normal settling" really means "quicksand"? What if the pearl-bedecked Sally Field lookalike next door burns down our house because we are the loudest people on earth, even sober, and I already know she is going to hate us as only a Catholic soccer mom could? What if what if what if...

The answer to all of these questions, as R so eloquently put it earlier today, is:

SACK UP.

Basically, I can sit here and worryworryworry myself to the point of grinding my teeth down to tiny Gollum-esque stubs or I can take this risk and live somewhere where we can make a life and a family and a future that will be what we want to make it: ours. So I am gonna sign those papers on Monday and I am going to stop worrying about the What Ifs and focus on the What Nexts.

And then we are gonna get shit-canned and celebrate being in more debt than a small African nation because THAT is the American way.

Private Quarters

The Atlanta newspaper puts out a feature called "Private Quarters" every week or so. The idea seems to be to pick the most boring couple / crazy eccentric divorcee / minimalist or flamboyant gay man/partnership possible and showcase their/her/his home in the suburbs /Buckhead / Inman Park or midtown through a series of pictures with obnoxious captions. E.g. the caption will say something like, "Didi Von Reinholdt bought this 7000 sq. ft Georgian mansion on a whim. She dove right into renovating the outdated living space, while retaining the avant-garde ceiling adornments to which she was first drawn. She often wonders how the keeping room off the kitchen was utilized in the 1930s." (I totally just made her up, so don't bother googling) Because I'm an asshole, I immediately make up what the caption should actually say: e.g. "Didi Von Reinholdt bought 6000 sq. ft more space than she needed out of spite, after her textile heir husband left her for a 25 yr old "fashion designer," named Kim. She tore down what she could reach with a sledgehammer until she received the proceeds of the divorce settlement and then began filling her "living space" with expensive crap in a futile attempt to fill the emotional void in her life. She still has no idea what the f' to do with that keeping room off the kitchen. She often wonders if things would have turned out differently if she hadn't been such a bitch during that trip to St. Bart's."

Mostly, these people set themselves up for it, so really, I don't feel that bad.

For your amusement, some of the more ridiculous recent examples (I tried to pull the pics, but the AJC is being a whore, but it's not like it really matters because all of these houses are about 87% the same no matter who owns them) --

http://lpe.ajc.com/gallery/view/business/private/0507/rose (Picture 13)
Actual caption: This cozy nook upstairs provides a comfortable play space for Chance and Macy.
Caption should be: This cozy nook upstairs provides a comfortable play space for a future Duke lacrosse player and Hayden Paniettiere's personal assistant circa 2028.

http://lpe.ajc.com/gallery/view/business/private/0607/dresher (Picture 2)
Actual caption: Beth and Don Dresher perch among the contemporary grace of their new living room, which combines traditional elements with more modern flourishes.
Caption should be: The Dresher's yellow lab, Lillie, gazes longingly out the couple's high rise windows, remembering the shaded green lawn she used to call home before Beth and Don embarked on a desperate search for their lost youth and "hipness."

http://lpe.ajc.com/gallery/view/business/private/0607/holzemers (All)
Actual caption: The developer of Centennial Park North built carefully around a number of stately live oaks like this one outside John and Lisa Holzemer's townhouse, giving the neighborhood its established feel.
Caption should be: The couple scoured high-end furniture stores around Atlanta to find the most characterless pieces ever manufactured for their home. During this interview, John admitted he was "3 whiskey sours and a bottle of Xanax" away from being free of this banal existence.

Link of the day: If you read the Babysitter's Club, you're pretty much going to shit yourself, as this site dissects Claudia's outfits in various books: http://www.whatclaudiawore.blogspot.com/

Free Blow for the Risk Averse

Some observations on shopping around for home insurance:

- These people clearly don't work on commission or else are the least ambitious salesmen/ladies ever. Though i guess if i had to question people time and again about the nearest fire station to them (1 mile!), I wouldn't call people back either. If I called people back.

- You cannot get extra insurance for the "Casablance Outdoor Daybed" some people are itching to put in the backyard (left). Or concubines (not pictured).

- We are a non-smoking household. ha. hahhaa. ha.

- We get covered for some obscene amount of personal property (i.e. the stuff inside the house) in the event of disaster and seeing that we own about $514.27 worth of valuables combined, I'm thinking that inviting primarily crackheads and arsonists to our housewarming may be the way to go. Hookers and blow for everyone!

Here she be.

Our home. Note the "Brady Carpet Green trim." We paid extra for that.

Just kidding. Here she is. There's a sort of peace of mind in knowing that if that tree falls, we'll ALL DIE TOGETHER.

7 minutes of fireworks. Seriously.

Seriously, Decatur? I mean, really? I will forgive this disappointment only because a) you will have to make up for this next year, otherwise some crazed stay at home mom who has been herding 4 kids around a tiny patch of green space in preparation for the oohing and ahhing is sure to go postal all over your ass and b) we're gonna have a bitchin party and I'll be proud of us for leaving the patio, let alone getting down the street to see the show by 9:30.

Anyway, I'm going to learn how to post pics now and put up Chatham South. Oh, and we don't close til July 16, so all this "ours" nonsense is pretty much just a fiction til we sign the freedom-to-move-to-SouthEast-Asia-on-a-whim away. I explained this to R and how I could have like 500 husbands there because of how they aren't allowed to have as many kids so people kill their girl babies because they're less valuable and now there is a crazy ratio imbalance of men to women and pretty much Asia is going to start WWIII because of all the pent up sexual tension. And that's just if the terrorists don't get us first. But at least I'll have 500 dudes fighting for my honor, right?

Then he mentioned how that's just China and I would more likely end up a Thai hooker. Point taken.

Also, link of the day: http://www.someecards.com/
"Our safe word scares me." I love these people.

If you're looking for Harwich, you're lost.

Chatham is indeed a town on Cape Cod. But our house isn't there. The point of the above titling is that it looks like it could be because it's a fairly adorable (though most have called it cute and really it thinks it deserves better than that, you visionless fools) cape cod, but it's in the South. Plus I have unmatched love for my nor'eastern roots and there's a room we already refer to as "The Captain's Quarters," so basically I'll call it whatever the hell I want until R and I come up with something on which we agree, which doesn't seem likely in the near future because the most apropos name for it would be something along the lines of "VodkaSoda Village" or "Escapefromamillionweddingsville." So whatever, for now.

Since the majority of you who will end up reading this either:
- are already slaves to every 12 minutes
- obsess about your baby 95% of the time
- are foolishly searching for legitimate home advice / cape code tourist information / porn

then :
- be a slave to my sick, sick sense of humor. And entitlement. And get me a beer while you're up. Now.
- join me in obsessing over the shades of brown in the Home Depot paint section rather than in your spawn's diaper!
- click back / click back / click forward, you saucy minx!

Haaaaaaaaaa. God. So anyway, in reality, I'm stuck in a creative rut of sorts, so I'm hoping blowing off steam on this whole we for serious own a home thing through the internets will bounce me back to the days of yore (i.e. 6th grade) when I could drop a simile like that new alli stuff makes you crap your pants. Don't act like you don't know. Oh, and it'll be cool to have the before and after pictures for the grandkids, or for the apocalypse. Either way.