First off - remember months ago when I posted about being found by my old high school friend? For a while there I was actually dressing nicer in case he showed up. Kind of like when you are going to your high school reunion, you want people to think you improved or haven't aged or at least not embarrass yourself. But months went by w/o emails or anything on either of our parts, and honestly I got so busy in my own life that I kind of forgot about the whole thing.

Secondly - it's been a really stressful two weeks. Between the road trip return (which was awesome but tiring), the bathroom renovation (that is a giant story in itself), company visiting from NY for two weeks, some bizarre stressful work stuff that somehow just disappeared thank God, preparing for a Halloween party, sudden day trip visits from friends in Tallahassee, Virginia, and Mississippi, and other stuff. It's almost all good things, but I'm tired and sick and overwhelmed, and it's showing in my face - partly cuz I'm scowling and partly cuz I have a HUGE HUGE HUGE MASSIVE GIANT POSSIBLY GLOWING bump right in the middle of my forehead. It's like a third eye. It's hideous. Today it yelled at one of my coworkers.

I am guessing you can see how these two items relate. Yep. He showed up yesterday. At least I had a nice outfit on to counterbalance my toxic head. When I spotted him roaming around the lobby peeking at doors like a lost freshman looking for homeroom I told him he would have to pick today to show up and to go away and come back when my face was clear. Other than that, I had a nice visit! He's really funny, so we spent as much time actually catching each up on our lives as we did making up goofy stories about people passing by outside my windows. At one point he was telling me about how on his way in to C1 he passed some random guy flossing his teeth in the parking lot. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought it was the mint floss. He questioned the idea of a person walking around college grounds flossing, clearly something was wrong with this person – we went on the theorize what was behind the odd behavior. Perhaps the Flosser was just crazy or perhaps he was up to something nefarious and the flossing was some sort of decoy… And there were jokes about D making it safely to his car if the Flosser were still out there. So he promised to send me an email to let me know he made it safely to his office...

> From: D
> Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 3:29 PM
> To: MLR
> Subject: Made it
>
> I took a wandering path to my car, in part to throw off pursuit and to a
> lesser degree that I forgot where I parked. Suffice to say, I made it
> back with no floss marks.
>
> Beware Big Headed Babies,
>
> D

I wrote back, but he never answered - so I got a little nervous my response was more stupid than silly.

> From: MLR
> Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 4:14 PM
> To: D
> Subject: RE: Made it
>
> Well thank goodness! Most people don't realize how deadly floss can be.
> It's unexpected tensile strength and teflon composition
> (possibly not the mint kind) means it has all sorts of nontoothy
> applications. According to one website I read, just 18 strands braided
> together can support the weight of a small sea bass. I'm not entire
> sure, but I believe most Nisson vehicles are equivalent in mass to fish,
> hence their amazing gas economy, therefore it wasn't unreasonable of me
> to worry.
>
> Anyway, glad you are safe!

Maybe I can blame the crazy on my forehead.

I got to play with my godson today!! My friend came up for lunch on the perfect day. Weather was lovely, so we walked to the cafeteria. Best of all, my bosses were both out. While they probably wouldn’t have cared that I had someone in my office for an hour after lunch since I’m actually caught up and Fridays are very slow days – it was nice knowing they weren’t even here to notice and not care. On the down side, they both love babies, so they would have probably enjoyed getting to hold him for a little bit. Meanwhile three of my coworkers picked up the slack and cooed and cuddled him.

He is sooooooo cute! He’ll be six months old this month, and he’s already pretty much doubled in size in that time. He’s also one of the happiest babies I have ever seen. He smiled and giggled pretty much the entire time and even made a few happy squeals. He’s also really curious, so he was trying to pick up things and look at things. Shiny, smart, inquisitive blue eyes that just beamed!

Anyway - I'm tired. I ought to be cleaning or something as there's no shortage of things to do around here.

I can do the full Thriller dance now!!! The Vincent Price version, not the 3 minute radio version. Yay! I still need to play the video with the spoken dance steps; I can't do them completely on my own, but I'm getting close. I can do the radio version even without the spoken words, so now it's just a waiting game - some day I'll be in a Walmart or a McDonalds when the song comes on over the radio and SURPRISE!! Don't think I won't, either. I worked hard for this.

Work has been busy but not painful. So far people haven't been yelling that much, and I'm no longer adverse to pointing out that if they had put in their application, sent away for transcripts and filed for financial aide earlier (as opposed to the week before classes starting) they would have access to classes and free money by now, but there is nothing I can do to speed up your other college sending out a transcript or the federal government processing your pell application AND even if both did arrive tomorrow we can't guarantee they will be entered into our database before classes start on Monday considering how many other people are asking us the same questions about *their* late applications. I am friendly about it and phrase it in a way to point out this is a lesson for them to make life easier for them next semester. It's true. It's a lesson I had to learn myself back when I was a student. Meanwhile, I'm actually optimistic I may finish one major project tomorrow despite all the interruptions AND today was our employee appreciation luncheon (which most of our office didn't get to attend because we had to work) so I got a free meal. I brought it home for Monkeys and me tonight, and it was actually really, really good though crazy high in points. (Country fried steak, mashed potatoes, white gravy, green beans, red velvet cake.) We split it 75/25 in a vain effort to control points. Well, I lie. I ate all the cake. But I didn't get lunch today, so I'm hoping I stayed under points...

Tomorrow is lunch with parents. Friday is dinner and a movie with the old Reading Group. Saturday is Gathering. Sunday my parents are coming up to our house for lunch - we're going to watch the 2nd season of the IT Crowd (my parents love that show!) and I get to show them my Thriller dance and the headboard Monkeys built.

Now I ought to get of and work a bit on Dragoncon prep and at least one strand on my cross stitch project, darn it.

I have had an outstanding weekend so far!

First, I got to put my car in the shop to have the A/C finally fixed. Even though my warranty has finally expired, they still covered it since they ordered the part while it was under. (And probably because they were the ones who most likely broke it AND it took them two months to get back to me about the part. I think they forgot about me. I still adore them; they are lovely people.) While it was in, they also did an oil change and fixed my headlight. I dropped it off at 8 in the morning and got it back at 5 that evening. In the meantime, the plan was to hang out with my parents.

Plans change! Thursday night my cousin IM'd me saying she had to go to P'cola for work on Friday and could we meet for lunch. She lives in Tally, so I don't get to see her often. I was concerned about the timing, and I started babbling about cars and parents. She said "Well, my parents just got off the phone with your parents, and they are going to be visiting them tomorrow." I promptly called Mom to make sure they could still pick me up from the dealership, and we worked out modified plans for everyone (both sets of parents, me, Jay, Jay's kids) to meet up for lunch. It was a blast! I hung out all morning shopping with my moms, then we all met up in Destin for lunch followed by more window shopping. It was an awesome visit, loads of laughing and silliness. I was giving the kids horrible advice with a mostly straight face - after all, a godmother should look after their futures. We also had a bunch of crazy storms and awful traffic due to several (nonlethal) accidents, which caused additional hilarious conversations. I miss my family!

That evening we had dinner/movie plans with a friend. She brought along one of her friends who had driven up from South Florida and who turned out to be wicked funny. When I am more alert I should post more about her. Meanwhile I had sushi and got to watch Pass the Ammo & Saved.

Saturday I got to reunite with one of my best friends from high school. We reconnected thanks to Facebook, and I've been having a blast writing Shakespearean limericks and top ten lists with her. She carved out two hours of her time visiting relatives to have lunch with us at a local Greek restaurant. Again, there was tons of laughter and catching up and meeting the husbands and her adorable daughter.

After lunch, Monkeys and I went TV shopping. I think they guy we bought it from may actually outgeek Monkeys. Well, in some areas. We were there for maybe 2 hours, and only 30 minutes of it was spent buying the tv. The rest was a geekfest explosion. (In conversation we discovered he knew one of Monkey's fellow AF EOD guys.)

Tonight we have the Sat Night Gang over for Supernatural. We just finished watching four episodes. Now we are doing Garth M's Dark Place. So a perfect day!

Tomorrow my parents are coming up to watch that last Ms Marple again, because none of us had a clue about what was going on.

	The Man of the Hour Reddheaded brought over her graduation robes and Toaster brought her own, so we had a mini graduation ceremony. Everyone in the house hummed Pomp & Circumstance while poor Raven was forced to march through the living room. When we were helping him get ready he said something about not knowing what to do - I got to say "I do this for a living" in a serious voice before I started giggling. It was a lot of fun for me because I really do do this for a living. :)
	I didn't expect a ruddy Spanish Inquisition So I'm trying to get various angles of the cake in order for people to truly appreciate it's brilliance, but after a while It just seems like "And this is the cake coming around the side of the kitchen, hiding behind a tree..."
	Take it from the top! The lighting is funny on this one, but this is a top down view of the cake.
	Side view of the Cake Look what a great job he did shaping the leg muscles!! The fingers and toes impressed me, too. The body itself is made from marzipan with yellow sugar crystals for the hair. The towel is homemade whipped cream (not Cool Huip). Monkeys also made hte table top from melted and reshaped chocolate chip cookies. The cake itself is Black Forest - done as three layers with whipped cream between them It was fantastic.

We also made a coupon, which I may post. I have a few pictures of Toaster presenting Raven with a diploma WHICH HE LEFT AT MY HOUSE so no matter what he may tell you, he's not really graduated and legit until he picks it up...

We have friends over and are watching Supernatural episode by episode. For me, it's a safety in numbers thing. I'm spending a lot of time not looking at the television. I have an eye phobia, so Bloody Mary was particularly scary. Right now - bugs. Eeeps!

I am so full.

Mom and Dad and I went to Cinnabons for breakfast. We got three coffees and two cinnamon rolls and split them between us. Then we wandered around the mall for a wee bit to make our way to World Market where I spent waaaaaaaaay too much money. But tomorrow night we shall have a cookies and spread party! I'm so excited! Then we went to a place called Mediterranean Plus. Mom got a hummus/falafel platter (Raven's falafel is better) and chicken curry soup. I had an amazing chicken over hummus dish and red lentil soup - and I was nice and brought half of it home for Monkeys. Dad had a chicken kabab sandwich and actually liked it. He also tried some of Mom's and mine and liked ours, so maybe we can convert him after all. Then we walked across the shopping complex to an International Food Market where I managed to spend even more money on stuff I thought Monkeys would like. Also, the owner forced food on you. I felt like we sampled half the store. Next trip we're just going to eat there. If you go to Pensacola, than you should go to this store - Four Winds. But be prepared to buy a lot of stuff. Not only is it good stuff that sells itself anyway, the owner and his minions are pushy in a hysterical way. **begin crazy greek accent**You try this! Dates and walnuts healthy food. You can live forever on dates and walnuts. Imported. We ship thousands. You try! You try! **/end crazy greek accent**. Then he would just reach into a vat of dates with one hand and a vat of walnuts with the other, shove them together like a magician, then shove them at you all the while nonstop yelling about the benefits of dates. All of a sudden up pops a minion saying "WAIT, try it with this cheese on top!!" while smearing some amazing almond cheese on another date/walnut combo and pushing that at you. Mom bought dates. I bought almond cheese. I ALMOST BOUGHT A CASE OF WINE. I don't even drink wine. But after turning down two minions, a third minion hit me up after I'd just sampled some sort of chicken salad and a piece of smoked gouda (that he called greata) and being now thirsty I was weak. It was good. He asked, should I bring you a bottle? I said yes. Mom and Dad, who also don't drink wine, raised their eyebrows and tried to stop me. Then *they* tasted the wine, raised their eyebrows even higher, and admitted it was really good wine. That's when the minions started pushing the deal on the case.

We made it home just in time for them to get me to French Quarter Grill to meet Monkeys and Rosa for dinner. I was still really full, so thankfully we did dinner home style where everyone put their plates in the middle of the table, so I got to sample a few bites of our favorite dishes. Then we went back to her place to watch Forbidden Kingdom. Now I'm supposed to be cleaning, but so far I've just managed to put in a load of laundry, set of dishes, and put a tablecloth on the dining room table. Now I'm watching tv.

Seth Green was on Conan tonight. He is beyond adorable. Best smile ever and such a cute laugh. If I were at all clever I would have taped Conan for screen caps of his smile. He did some WWF wrestling thing - HA!! And if you buy the Robot Chicken DVD you get an advance ticket to attend the traveling Robot Chicken Tour Bus and roller skate with Seth Green and the Robot Chicken crew!!!!! Now it's Craig. I wish I didn't work and could watch him every night. :)

For anyone who actually uses this to keep track of me since I suck at writing real letters and only seem to manage a newsletter once a year now... Or possibly just for me as a kind of diary.

Work is alternating between crazy and there. Registration started today, so we're getting the busloads of people and enough paperwork to overrun a landfill. We are also shorthanded because there's been some real tragedy in our office. One person fell and broke some ribs (he's still been coming in half days), one person fell and broke an elbow (she's still coming in to work), one person is out having surgery this week, one is in and out because her daughter and her husband are going through medical issues, another lost her brother, and of course there's my coworker who's house burnt down the other week (she's back at work). Anyway, since we are at least one person and occasionally three people down, periodically I've been having to work the counter instead of my job. I am glad to help, but it does seriously impact my job and it's hard! OMG the phone never stops ringing and there *is* such a thing as a stupid question. :)

July 5th/Sunday was my godson's baptism! He did great. There was a reception after the mass, so I got to reunite with my friend's family - some of whom I hadn't seen since her wedding. I've known them since 9th grade, and I have lots of happy memories around their dining room table. :)

July 9th/Thursday was a coworker's 30th birthday. They "Over The Hilled" her office, several of us baked brownies (her favorite), and we all dressed in black. Other than the brownies, she was *not* happy.Then we had a power outage for 4 hours, so we got to just sit around in the darkness and chat. At one point I jumped in Karyn's office, yelled "I've had nothing to eat today but 3 brownies", did a Sugar Rush jig in the doorway, and ran away. Another time Carolina was singing a birthday song about Karyn and the moon with accompanying elaborate hand motions, but Karyn wouldn't come out of her office, so after every line Carolina would pause and yell at her "Hey, I'm singing to you here!" Finally, at the end of the song Karyn suddenly burst from her office in a single jump, landing like a gymnist, and yelled, "It's Karyn!" After work we went out for drinks, except I was driving so I had yellowfin tuna sushimi. Karyn is possibly my favoritest person on the planet because she makes the best faces and says outrageous and silly things. I want to be her when I grow up. Except she's younger than me.

July 10th/Friday was Dad's birthday. I've been spending Fridays with my parents anyway, but John took off work a little early so we could watch some British stuff together then have dinner at Logan's. (Dad's choice.) Then we walked around some stores for a while to burn calories. It was a lot more fun than this sounds. :)

July 11/Saturday. Despite the sad reasons, we got to spend Saturday with our beloved Soberchef. Continued prayers for her family and that's all I'm saying about that. We also met up with Joe and Zinger at Zaxby's and played some neat games. Despite the groans, I liked Martinis and Men. It was goofy, but I loved the artwork and the idea of matchmaking. I was impressed with R-Eco's competitive recycling. I didn't win the game, but I did better than I expected. My favorite was Tichu, but that may be because I had Joe for a partner and he rocks that game. I really want to play it again, so long as I'm not playing with (or against) anyone aggressively competitive and preferably with someone like Joe who makes outrageous bets and flamboyant moves. Zinger promised we could partner next time, so I'm looking forward to that. :)

Okay, end update.

Oh - and GI Joe actually looks *good*.

Today I didn't run as many errands as last Friday. I actually stunned myself with how much I got done last week. Today was a much lazier day - went over to my parents' house and hung out with them. Dad and I watched the View (Dad's an addict), and we actually got into a fairly deep political and religious discussion - which was cool. Then Mom and I wandered around the mall while I tried to talk her into buying stuff for herself for a change. Then we tried one of those Wendy's Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosties. Apparently I was the first customer to pronounce it correctly, because the cashier paused in her ringing up stuff to stare at me, which confused me until her coworker applauded and they both said "finally, someone got it right." I did a Rocky at the top of the stairs impression. The other funny thing about Wendy's today was the guy in front of me was Droid's brother. Mom and I were squawking away debating on whether to get one and split it or each get our own. For like ten minutes. Loudly. I was starting to feel bad for the people in line with us when I realized OMG I KNOW HIM. Then I wondered if that was worse or better... but he was very tired and didn't register we were even there until I hugged him, so it's all okay. Mom and I brought a frosty home for Dad, and we all watched some crazy "horror" movie on TNT.

Tonight Monkeys and I went out to Asian Garden and watched season one of Black Books. :)

I also tested out the new weights I'd gotten last Friday but wasn't feeling well enough to use until day. I had been trying to incorporate weights with the Wii Fit, but I couldn't hold weights and the Wiimote (sp?) and the wrist weights kept sliding down my arm if I didn't hold on to them. So we found wrist weights that have a thumb loop to keep them in place. I played Wii boxing and Wii step aerobics with the weights, and they worked great!

Also - thanks to So You Think You Can Dance, I bought the new Black Eyed Peas cd. It was on sale at Target. I said I wanted nearly every song from this week's episode. One down. Next I want the soundtrack to Slumdog Millionaire and whatever it was Evan danced to.

McAmason!! ditiswritten posted this over in the BBT community. Have you seen it yet!?!? IT'S SO CUTE!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I find this funny, so I'm posting it. When we got the Wii a lot of my friends created profiles on our system - so we have a deadon Monkeys and Raven and some rather good versions of Droidgirl, Libra, Toaster, my niece and nephew who visited last April, and my parents.

We had a blast one night when a group of us were over, partly because it was fun and partly so that *if* we played any games, we could play against each other. But we don't actually play that many games, despite my ability to TROUNCE Raven at foosball... So I never really saw the impact of having them in my Mii until I started doing the Wii Fit. Now they show up *all the time* to work out with me. I do step aerobics with all of them every time I step. They cheer me on for many of the balance exercises. When I jog, they randomly show up - usually to pass my in the dust, darn them. Occasionally one of them falls down, however, so I get to laugh at them. What's really funny is the balance exercise where you have to roll balls into holes (it's actually rather challenging). Their faces appear on the balls, and if I get them to fall through all the holes then at the end they all come to life and jump around. I don't always succeed, and when the balls defy my attempts to fall into the holes I have actually yelled at Toast or Droid before for being difficult!!

Despite my occasional yelling, it brings me loads of joy to see them when they pop up on the screen. On weeks when we don't have Gathering, I still feel like I got to visit with them! Crazy, huh?

I really need to get Redd to make her and hubby and to get McAmason and Magnet to make themselves... Gotta catch them all gotta catch them all...


OH and this has NOTHING to do with the above post. I was messing around on random and hit this, which amused me. Well, as our group does tend to play the "in bed" fortune cookie game, I guess I could force it to relate to a "friends" post.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fortune_cookies.png

Lately I feel like my life is revolving around Wii Fit and food. :( That's all I can think about at the moment. I'm vaguely depressed. Saturday I got yelled at by the Fit for gaining two pounds in one day. Sunday I got another lecture for gaining *another* two pounds. I also got a lecture on metabolism which I fast forwarded through angrily. Today I got told after losing 2 pounds in one day that I'm losing weight at a healthy pace. I think the Fit is on crack. (I really did gain four pounds in two days/lose two pounds. My WW weigh in confirmed it. Hormones/water weight/bloating/blahblahblah. I'm just not counting this week. This week did not happen.)

Other stuff is happening.

* We had people over for dinner on Sunday. Monkeys cooked an amazing dinner, and we played Tribond. I love Tribond. Normally I'm extremely competitive, and our last dinner with this couple I tried very very hard to kill him in a game of Frag. This time I was really good, and I passed up on a chance to go out AND was really happy when he won. So I was proud of me. We also got to see a video of their last sonogram 3D image. It's amazing what doctors can do with prenatal stuffs nowadays.

* Saturday we had Gathering and it was awesome. We watched BBT, Castle, and a Bill Bailey routine. Earlier that day I watched a Midsummer Murder with my parents. The day was made of win.

* Friday we saw STAR TREK with a billion of our friends AND IT WAS AWESOME. I love my friends, and I loved the movie. I had massive crushes on Spock, Scotty, *and* Chekov as a teen. Massive. If I ever could have beamed aboard the Enterprise ... well, to quote the Young Ones, I'd have totally been "ship's cook and porcupine." I was relieved after the movie to have a crush only on Scotty. :)

* Thursday I went to my Godparent's class at church, so I should be getting my certificate of completion soon. Charity's son's baptism is July 5th, so I've got time to get it to them. Woot! I want to get him a stuffed St. Timothy doll. :) *giggle*!! They have stuffed plush saint dolls, I've been told...

* Wednesday I have blocked out but

* Tuesday was our graduation ceremony!! It was so beautiful. I do intend to write something about it, but I'm too tired.

Hmmm. I'm going to bed.

I'm posting this w/o my friend's permission, so I'm allowing the pun abuser to be anon. What follows is a series of emails from today that amused me. The puns actually started the Saturday before, and this was just a straggler. It was busy at work today, so I didn't have much time to write back - but I still tried. :) I love my friends.

_{From: Evil Pun Composer
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 11:19 AM
To: Innocent MLR
Subject: Know what?}
If you went to mass next Sunday and it had to be relocated it would be the start of a mass movement!
Love, A.Non

_{From: Innocent MLR
Sent Monday, April 27, 2009 3:00 PMish
To: Evil Pun Composer
Subject: Know what?}
Your puns have mass but no matter. You clearly have amassed a mass of mass puns which are giving me a massive headache. These puns are painful! I may have to amass an armed mass to retaliate in headache-causing kind...

_{From: Evil Pun Composer
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2009 3:01 PMish
To: Innocent MLR
Subject: Know what?}
Perhaps your head is reaching critical mass.
Perhaps you would feel better if you had dinner at Bombay Mass-ala.
Love, A. Non

_{From: Innocent MLR
Sent Monday, April 27, 2009 3:02 PMish
To: Evil Pun Composer
Subject: Know what?}
I would *always* feel better if I had dinner at Bombay Massala. Hmmmm. Your puns are still awful, but I forgive you because now I’m thinking about Indian food… I suppose that was your masster plan all along…

The rest of the emails were more normal. I would say someone should bring him up on charges for abuse, except my husband, Droid's brother, Tickmosis, and others in our group love to make outrageous puns, too. It's possible I'm just jealous of their linguistic skills and am going all sour grapes... but their puns really are awful.

I'm a god mother!!!! Yay Charity!!
And I'm home!!! Yay Toaster's driving!!

LOL - I have had an amazing week and weekend, yet what am I'm posting? A quiz. When I have time and if I can remember anything I will write about it. Man oh man has it been busy. Love the lovely people in Georgia - it was so nice seeing everyone. Have an amazing couple of months!

I have a few more pictures that I wanted to wait and get permission to post before sticking them up on the interwebs, including a great one of a tower of wake glasses... I was vastly disappointed to discover I did not take as many pictures as I normally do, but I was a bit giggly and not aware of what I was doing. It was an awesome night, even though we were missing several of our normal crew.

Here's what I posted previously about the night:
Tuesday was St. Patrick’s day! Erin go Bragh! RCIA was cancelled due to Mission week at the church. Instead we were told to go to our first confession and to attend any day of the Mission services. So in a rare case of good timing, it meant Toaster and I were available for our traditional McGuires dinner with Redd!headed and friends! We bundled up in our green and met up around 6pm. McGuires has this down to a science at this point, so despite the HUGE crowds, we got in fairly rapidly and the food was downright quick to arrive. I have pictures! I will be posting them! I will take bribes to remove them! Waiting to get in is part of the fun because many people are in totally outrageous outfits (dying their beards green, leprechauns sitting on people’s shoulders, giant hats, glitter, etc.), and everyone is cheerful so there’s a feeling of happiness and excitement that you can actually breathe in. Wakes were consumed. Giggling was giggled. Usual stuff. Of course, some of us headed over to the Krispy Kreme afterwards for more giggling and photographs. Tradition is tradition, afterall! I think we still ended up home around 10:30, so we did pretty good timewise even if we totally blew it scalewise the next morning.

	Burry, but then again - so were we! I wish this picture weren't blurry because it's one of my favorites. I look like I'm about to bite Redd, Redd has a crazy smile on her face, and LLL dived in unexpectedly at the last minute which is probably why I'm laughing so much. Best of all, Raven is actually SMILING.
	Someone Forgot To Wear Green... Look how handsome my husband is in this picture! Woot!
	Would you like even more sugar with that, sir?? I love that my friends will cater to my crazy demands, like "put on this hat and offer Monkeys some coffee."
	No X 's On Us!! Someone forgot their license and not only did they not give her a little green band signifying they were over 21, they also drew giant X's on the backs of her hands. Not down with that fashion, she figured out a way to remove the X's saying permanent markers couldn't get the best of her. We celebrated with a photo op.
	Irish!! I *love* this picture because our hair actually looks the same color. Normally Redd's hair is a lot redder than mine! When I showed it to her she pointed out the wake glass in front of us, saying it was very appropriate.
	Who's that with Toast? Mystery man... we know his name is Jeff. Hmmmmmmmmmmm

	Monkeys Bites the Apple We watched a BBC show where some guy interviews people while they cook family recipes. The episode we watched was John Barrowman who explained that when he poses for pictures he pretends to bite an apple, which is why all his pictures turn out so great. Ever since then, we've been "biting apples" when posing!
	Monkeying Around Ummmm... I really don't know what to say. They hadn't been drinking. This is just what they do.

So much is happening I haven’t had time to write much about it! This is a loooooooooooong post going back over the last eleven days. I could go back more, but ran out of time...

Class – I had to switch to audit. I got sick one weekend and that combined with RCIA responsibilities put me behind in one of the assignments, so I opted out. Up to that week we had been doing one or two chapters every two weeks, but it just so happened we had three chapters (Decision Logic, Case Logic, and Loop Logic) all at once, which was enough on its own. This assignment period we just have one chapter (Arrays) and is going pretty well, so it sort of proves it is all in the timing.

Work – has been kind of fun lately. Wednesday I got to volunteer with check in at the Career Fair. I love that because you don’t actually talk to anyone for more than five minutes before you are done with that person and on to meeting the next person, so I get to say basically the same thing over and over again and my stupid jokes are new each time I tell them to a new person. I’m not sure why, but I get a real rush from this kind of task. I think it’s all the smiling. Every time a new face appears in front of you, it’s a new opportunity to smile really big and give directions. Plus, the people looking for jobs are usually excited and nervous, so when you say “that’s a lovely dress” or “you look very professional, today” and wish them good luck, you can actually see the sense of relief and hope in their eyes. Even better, they had companies of all ilk represented, including Krispee Kreme. Krispee Kreme brought donuts. OMG.

Thursday night we went to see Richard III (in 3D) at the campus. One of my former students was in it, so I wanted to go to support her. She did an outstanding job in her three roles. The set was pretty amazing, too. I’m hoping to do a short individual post about the play sometime soon. I also went to the Thursday night yoga class since I missed Tuesday’s class. Between yoga and the play, Monkeys, Raven, and I had a picnic on the campus for dinner. It made for a very long day – I was on campus from 7:30 am to about 10:30 pm – but it was a beautiful day full of friends and fun.

Wednesday night I went to the last of the Mission masses at church. Part of the mass was adoration and benediction, so the church was full of the lovely scent of incense. It was also my first confession. That was hard! I had spent the last two weeks or more praying and searching my memories to prepare my confession. I don’t know what was harder – pulling up memories, some long buried, of things for which I was ashamed or confessing them out loud. I am hoping to write a reflection on this. I wrote two very long emails about it to my friend Janey, so I’ve made a dent in doing a reflection at least. Wednesday was another late night, I got home around 8:30 and set to work making sandwiches for Thursday’s picnic lunch and getting stuff ready since I knew Thursday was going to be an even later night.

Tuesday was St. Patrick’s day! Erin go Bragh! RCIA was cancelled due to Mission week at the church. Instead we were told to go to our first confession and to attend any day of the Mission services. So in a rare case of good timing, it meant Toaster and I were available for our traditional McGuires dinner with Redd!headed and friends! We bundled up in our green and met up around 6pm. McGuires has this down to a science at this point, so despite the HUGE crowds, we got in fairly rapidly and the food was downright quick to arrive. I have pictures! I will be posting them! I will take bribes to remove them! Waiting to get in is part of the fun because many people are in totally outrageous outfits (dying their beards green, leprechauns sitting on people’s shoulders, giant hats, glitter, etc.), and everyone is cheerful so there’s a feeling of happiness and excitement that you can actually breathe in. Wakes were consumed. Giggling was giggled. Usual stuff. Of course, some of us headed over to the Krispee Kreme afterwards for more giggling and photographs. Tradition is tradition, afterall! I think we still ended up home around 10:30, so we did pretty good timewise even if we totally blew it scalewise the next morning.

Monday we were supposed to go see the play, but something happened. I think one of us got sick. I don’t actually remember much about Monday, except possibly trying to do some cleaning since we have company coming in on Friday.

Sunday was another Scrutinies mass for those of us in RCIA. Toaster came over afterwards to help me prepare for my confession. I did a kind of practice run where she looked over my notes and answered questions about what I should expect and when to cross myself, when to sit, etc. We had lunch and spent the rest of the day sitting around watching Big Bang Theory, Castle, and Dollhouse since she wasn’t able to come over on Saturday night and missed seeing them.

Saturday I ran errands during the daytime instead of my normal visiting the parents activities (since my mom was out of town). Then there was the frantic vacuuming and stashing of stuff in preparation for the Saturday Gathering. In addition to our normal activities, Raven brought over his massage table and Redd and I got massages! Yay! I want another!!

Friday Monkeys and I had dinner at Tammy and Shawn’s house. They were super nice and made a veggie burger for me. They also made sweet potato fries and I have been craving more for a week now. We played Frag and I may have won, I don’t remember. I’d forgotten that I actually like that game, which is rare for me as it is a shoot-em-up game instead of a word puzzle game (my preference).

Thursday was a panicked evening of taking a quiz and attempting to finish out my homework. Everything went wrong. For the first time ever we had short answer questions on a quiz and neither of us knew we had to use html in answers if we wanted formatting. The quiz wasn’t really on the new chapters; four of the questions were homework questions from last week’s assignment, which I had at work so I had to write the algorithms from scratch instead of it being a simple cut and paste. I never finished the homework assignment. Up to this week Monkeys and I had been doing a good job sharing the textbook, but that failed us this week. The days I had complete access to it I was sick and the rest of the week never seemed to work out. It’s more important he gets it, so I switched to audit and just submitted what I had managed to finish.

I don’t remember Wednesday!

Tuesday was yoga and RCIA. In RCIA we had a role playing class in preparation for our upcoming first confession. Our priest and one of our instructors acted out a good and a bad confession. The bad confession was hysterical and so over the top it was more comedic than helpful, but it lightened my mood. Father was twirling in his chair talking on his cell phone about surfing, saying “no, I’m not busy” while motioning Susan to sit in the chair as she came in. That alone made me giggle, but it’s unlikely the priest would behave that way, so really it was up to Susan to be the example of what we shouldn’t do. She was awesome. She pretty much said that she was great, didn’t have anything to confess really, she was only there because she had to be, and when he asked her about suggestions for penance she suggested he skip that part. Also, in the middle of it, one of the other instructors called her on her cell phone, so she stopped to answer it. So funny. We also discussed the concepts of confession and reconciliation in great detail, got some awesome handouts to help with reflection, and discussed why the Catholic church has it as a sacrament. I had been praying and reading about saints for a week before that class and didn’t have much on my list of things to confess, but after that class it was like everything came back to me – even back to elementary school days.

Monday I was sick. I even called in sick from work, which I almost never do. I spent the day on the couch being miserable.

Sunday was an amazing day. At mass that morning we had the Rite of Sending where Catechumens (unbaptized) and Candidates (baptized) were called to the front of the church with their sponsors and had a special blessing conferred upon us since we were heading over to the cathedral for the Rite of Election. Toaster and I went back to my house after mass for pancakes (yes, Monkeys made Nanerpus for each of us) then we had to rush back to the church to caravan to Pensacola. After the Rite of Election, where thankfully we only had to stand in place not go to the front of the church, they had a reception for us. I tried to thank everyone I saw working the tables, because it’s awfully nice of them to give up a Sunday afternoon to feed a hundred strangers. Oddly enough, it just so happens one of my best friends from high school came up twice in the form of her father and a family friend. When I was making my way to our section of the cathedral, I passed someone who called my name and gave me a hug – Lisa’s dad. When I introduced him to Toaster, it turned out he worked with her father many years ago! Small world. Later at the reception I was standing in line behind a women who looked really familiar to me, so I asked if she was a teacher (thinking I had had a practicum with her at some point). After many suggestions of places we could have met, it turned out she had thrown Lisa a Bridesmaid Brunch, so I had been to her house for that back in the 1990’s. It had been a lovely brunch and a beautiful house, so it should not surprise me too much that I remembered her face from just the one meeting. I flash back to that day frequently when I’m thinking of happy moments in my life. When I got home I emailed Lisa to let her know that she was there in spirit for my Rite of Election – I knew she would have been there in person had she been local, so I thought she’d like the message. She happened to be online, so we talked for probably an hour.

Sorry again for the length. Probably this post is more of a diary for me than interesting reading for others.

How funny is it that of the 70 certificate applications for graduation that I checked yesterday and today, the six people who had parking tickets that would prevent them from graduating were all Law Enforcement Academy students. I bet if the security guy knew the parking tickets he handed out were to future sheriffs he would have drawn smiley faces on them. I would have.

I found two blank parking tickets lying on the ground a few weeks ago. When I walk around campus, if I see trash I pick it up and throw it away. So that evening as I was leaving, out of habit I picked up some papers and was in the process of trashing them when I realized they were blank tickets. I thought it might not be a good idea to just toss them as someone could retrieve them and possibly seek revenge or play a prank. So I held on to them and continued to my car. They sat in my passenger seat for a few days when I suddenly realized “hey…*I* could play a prank with these” so my coworker who lives a few houses down from me woke up one Saturday to discover a parking citation on her new truck. I think I was claiming it was taking up someone else’s spot (it being new and replacing her old car). I may have said it was too cool for her. I don’t know; I wrote out a bunch of complaints then ended with “SEMPER FI” so that she would know it was me.

Raven returned home from Canada two days before his birthday, so we had a welcome home/birthday party for him this Saturday. He said he was overexposed to Bollywood after two weeks visiting home. (Apparently his sister is a big fan? She rocks, cuz she picked out a bunch of movies for me!!!) To welcome him back from the freezing cold and in defiance of his overexposure, we decided to throw a Bollywood can Kiss My A$$ party in his honor. Friday disbandedtoastr helped us hang loads of Hollywood decorations (movie cameras, lights, film reels). To give it the Bollywood feel, reddheaded found a websites with decoration suggestions. Then, as luck would have it, my mother and I happened upon an Indian themed party set up at Target the day of the party. The living room and dining room were swathed in reds, oranges, yellows, and deep purples and loaded up with candles. It looked really pretty. I knew I wouldn’t be able to cook Indian/Pakistani food as good as his mom, plus he was tired of it anyway, so we didn’t do any special food for the party. Monkeys did make two killer cakes, however. One was a white cake with a Nutella frosting. The other was the ladyfinger/coffee/whipped cream portion of a tiramisu, because we thought that was Raven’s favorite part of the desert. Oh, and he made maple leaf cookies for Canada. We had planned to do a piñata he could bash that was filled with Bollywood and Canadian things to signify his return and symbolize the asskissing nature of the party, but I couldn’t find an appropriate piñata, so in reality it was just a Bollywood party. Tickmosis, Toaster, and I wore our Salwar Kamishes that Raven’s parents brought us from their last trip to the subcontinent. Redd wore a homemade Sari that looked FANTASTIC. Pictures posted below. After the opening of presents, we watched three episodes of Big Bang Theory, then we watched THIS:



Also, Raven brought me back a BUNCH of other Bollywood films, including some horror movies. He’s even willing to watch a few of them with us. Woot! Although, there are a few I’m under orders to watch without him.

( a few pictures )

I wish I had more time because I haven't had a chance yet to post about the Act4Murder show we saw last Thursday. Tickmosis's birthday is tomorrow, so as part of her birthday a group of us went to a dinner murder show. magnet5 and my best friend from high school have been in these shows before, and I have always wanted to go see one. Unfortunately, Magnet wasn't in this particular show, but he did attend with us which was awesome because our table got flirted with an awful lot, and I'm sure their knowing him had an impact on that attention.

It was at the Bombay Masala, so we were treated to an Indian food buffet. (Which is heaven for me, Raven.) I'm not saying that was the best part of the night because it was Tick's birthday and there was a play going on, but OMG I LOVE INDIAN FOOD.

The show was hysterical. Don Kashane (pronounce it like you are saying "thank you" in German) was throwing a benefit and somehow three competing divas all showed up to perform, each thinking they were to be the only artist. There was also a grumpy piano player who may or may not play piano and someone who at first seemed like a stalker, but blossomed into something completely different and wonderful. I don't want to give any more plot details just in case someone else sees the show, but I will brag that our table solved the mystery and won a bunch of cool prizes (coffee cups, coffee, chocolates). The table that came up with the worst solution won a DVD set of mysteries to watch before coming to another show in the hopes they would pick up some skills for next time. My favorite scene from the play I cannot repeat, but my other favorite moments are 1) all the terrible terrible piano jokes that Don Kashane threw out (after every joke he's say "Don Kashane!") and 2) the rewritten "I am beautiful" song that the younger diva sang. The three divas were wonderful. "Royal Payne" looked a lot like Brittany Spears and had the squeaky spoiled voice down pat. "Marion Haste" sang country songs and had the best jeans I have ever seen. "Augusta Wind" reminded me a lot of Celine Dion but was very New Age in a hysterical over-the-top sort of way. Magnet said she performed with Dean Martin as a back up singer and dancer!! I can believe it; she was striking! (Beautiful, poised, etc.)

Turns out the piano player (Stan Back) was played by one of the reporters from the Beachcomber who knew Toaster's band Ave. He's interviewed them on several occasions.

Oh, and there was yummy Indian food. DId I mention that?

Tonight there will be yummy Black Forrest cake, since Tick didn't really get a cake at the show. They did sing a dirge of a birthday song to her, which was very funny. All and all, a wonderful night. Now, I have to run and finish getting things set up for tonight. CAKE!

Check it out! Behind the cut are Gingerbread Party pictures! Eve, Wall-E, apple computers, Joker & Batman, Big Bang Theory, Doctor Who, Living Dead Girl, Marie Antoinette, 3D Carousel, PacMan, Sesame Street, Tasha Yar, Towely, Watchmen, multiple cookies. Best of all, the cookies tasted fantastic!! There were lots more, but this is already a lot of pictures.

( Lots of amazing pictures. )

I also have a funny story about tormenting Raven with a Maple Leaf cookie. Giggle!