Isn't this the most adorable picture ever?

It's my gramma at age 4, a cat lady from the very beginning.

So the freakish Chicago weather continues, after yesterday's 119-year record breaking HIGH temp of 65 degrees. I hate this town more and more every day.

I got my wedding dress and am glad to be done with one more damn thing. I seriously am SO SICK of wedding shit I could vomit. I've taken to not deciding anything anymore - I just say yeah ok whatever because I don't even care. As long as the thing's legal and we're married by the end of that day, I'm fine.

My skin looks like absolute hell because (I guess) I'm stressed out. Though I don't feel overwhelmingly stressed. Anyway I look like I'm 16 and should be using proactive. People have suggested I get a massage - I may do that very thing on Saturday while Dave has his bachelor party. I hope it doesn't rain for him - it's supposed to be on a rooftop for the Cubs game. His party sounds like fun and I wish I was going! But of course that would be dumb. But still. I'm jealousing. (royalties paid to aeamek for use of that word)

Some cemetery in my fair state is digging up graves to resell them. Genius! Why didn't I think of that? Oh wait, it's illegal - darn.

A man died in the most delicious way possible by falling into a vat of hot chocolate. I say if you have to die, this is a pretty good way to go. He probably should have tried to eat his way out. (Yeah that's right I'm making jokes about a dead guy)

Also, it appears Michael Jackson is dead.

My gimp arm is feeling a bit better. It's still gimp like, however.

I go get my wedding dress for KEEPS tomorrow. MINE. Plus, I ate 30 cent wings tonight for dinner. Take THAT, hip measurements!

My yellow converse all stars came in the mail today. And they are yellow. Not black like the last pair they sent. Go geniuses at the shoe company. You learned colors.

I miss my bike. In happier news, my soon-to-be father in law took picture of the extra bike they have in their barn that will soon be mine! It was Dave's sister's but she doesn't want it. What's that saying - someone else's trash is a bird in the hand or something?

you all know what I mean.

And now...

Friday I rode my bike to the lake to lay in the sun for a while. That was the last date me and my bike had together. I came home and parked it under the back steps, which is inside our gated courtyard. I forgot to go down and put it in the bike room so it sat out that night and all of July 4th. On the 5th, I suddenly remembered I'd left it out and ran down to go check on it - GONE. I was sad but more pissed because it was my own fault and it was DUMB of me to leave it out. But also, how shitty is it that anyone would take it from that spot? It had to be someone inside our complex. I have this feeling someone is going to slip up and walk through the courtyard with it and on that day I will pound them into the ground. Realistically, I'll probably just pay stupidity tax in the form of the cost of a new bike.

We took the dog to the dog beach Friday and THAT was an adventure. Some people are bad dog owners, this is what I learned at the dog beach. Stupid bitch with a mean dog stood there while her demon of a dog barked in Bailey's face and pinned her into the fence. I removed her from the beach and waited outside the gate for this dumb bitch to leave with her devil spawn of a dog. After that, it was fun and games for Bailey. She ran around and wore herself out but always seemed to retreat to the entrance gate when she got a little spooked or overwhelmed by the other dogs. So whenever a new person would come in the gate or leave with their dog, I worried she'd just happen to run over to the gate and escape. One of these times, someone was leaving and had the gate wide open. I just happened to be next to the dog and grabbed her collar mid-lunge. Something in my left arm snapped and it went numb. I knew it didn't feel right but just ignored it. The next day my armpit was sore - like the soreness you feel after a workout. By Saturday night, I had a weird dime sized lump in my armpit and it hurt like hell. I had forgotten all about the dog incident and was worried about this odd lump under my arm that suddenly appeared. Dave told me he'd still marry me if it was cancer. So I got that goin' for me. I eventually put 2 and 2 together and realized it was probably the snap I felt at the beach. I seems to be a bit better today after I walked around with an icepack under my arm yesterday. But my hand/arm keeps going numb. Hopefully this goes away, not a pleasant feeling.

We spent the 4th driving from Chicago to Michigan to Chicago. Michigan lake house with lots of dogs and mojitos. The fireworks in Chicago are nuts - and I'm not talking about the City of Chicago sponsored fireworks. Drive to the west side for the REAL fireworks. We stood int he jewel parking lot after buying beer, just staring all around at the multitude of fireworks. The alleys of Chicago have more pyrotechnics than the official show downtown, I swear. I liked the Fireworks stores in Indiana advertising "Buy 1, get 6 free!!" They're just GIVING them away.

Yesterday, we cleaned for another showing but the potential buyer wanted a bigger second bedroom. Oh well. We're living in the most immaculate state lately, constantly ready for a showing. It's way too tidy. I wanted to go lay out int he sun on the lakefront again while Dave showed the place but without my bike, I would have had to walk or ride the 152 bus which would be crawling with Cubs fans at that hour. So I white trashed it up and sat in a camping chair in front of the house in the sun. I finally met Dave's close friend that is going to marry us - he flew in this weekend.

God dammit my arm hurts.

I want to thank aeamek  for breaking this news to me via twitter by saying: "Celebrities die in threes. Michael Jackson you poor bastard." Which is pretty much the best way to find out.


Before I say this, yeah he sold a lot of records and was amazing muscially - I had the thriller album. Tragedy. I get it.

But the coverage of this "young man" *cough cough - 50?* is making me wanna barf. I'm not surprised the image of a person starts to glow and gets a heaping dollop of vaseline for the camera as soon as they die, but come on. It's like Geraldo has amneisa!

Dude, he slept with kids. I'm not making allegations - I mean the man said "Yes, I like when little boys sleep in my bed." His best friends for a very long time was a MONKEY and Webster. He named his kid BLANKET and then dangled it off a balcony. His hero was Peter Pan.

The same media that coined the term "Wacko Jacko" is now stroking his cold dick. 


In closing, baby tigers.

The grocery store by our house is closing down on Friday so they can knock it down and build a new, 2-story one by next year. So we stopped in last night because they've been advertising 50-75% off on the stuff that's left. We figure, shit, maybe we can find a couple of things for cheap.

I have never laughed so much while grocery shopping. The shelves were half to one-third filled and only certain items were actually on sale. Everything else was regular price. They didn't bother to condense everything that was left into one area, they just have groups of random items on shelves throughout the store. They had these hot pink signs up, noting what was 50% off in that section. Whoever was in charge of writing these signs used the thickest black marker they could find and clearly had a few beers while they wrote them out.


It became apparent that two kinds of things on sale :

A) the oddball things that no one ever bought in the first place

Like "Bubble Up" or "Dr. Soda" or mint jelly.


or B) random items to make it seem totally arbitrary
For example, on a shelf full of baking items and canned goods, the sign indicated only the "yams and gravy" were half off. Why just yams and gravy?

The place looked like a bomb hit it. There were garbage cans under open drop ceieling, filling with air conditioning run off and can I blame them? no. Why bother fixing it? They're just going to tear the building down.


Dave said "This is what I imagine grocery shopping in Russia might be like."

At one point, he picked up a Hungry Man frozen meal that expired in 2008.


We did find a few things to buy that weren't scary or expired. While checking out, the security guy was muttering something about someone going to jail but we never did figure out that that meant.

Funny story with our african friend Omar tonight. He was telling us how he came home to a flood in his apartment the other night. His english is *pretty good* but for story telling it often fails. Which usually makes the story really funny.

Omar: I open the door and WHOOSH the water, it is everywhere.

Us: In your apartment?

Omar: yeah - everywhere! It is coming from the roof (he means the ceiling - someone lives above him)

Us: How?

Omar: the lady upstairs, she turns the sink on and falls asleep! She goes to bed!

Us: wait - what? She went to sleep?

Omar: yeah she's asleep. Upstairs, she's asleep. and the water is running.

Us: like, her sink? She turned her sink on and walked away? and went to bed? really?

Omar: yeah, like a sink. You know...a long sink.

Us: a long sink? what is a long sink?

Omar: you know - it's long - you lay in it.

Us: you lay in it?!!? A sink? you lay in?

PAUSE

Us: a BATHTUB?

Omar: YEAH! she's in the tub! She's asleep in the tub and the water is everywhere!

(at this point we're all laughing over the "long sink you lay in" - but he continues)

Omar: yeah and she's crazy. She sleep in the tub, and she's got condoms everywhere. They smell all different. Why someone have condoms that all smell different? All over their house? Why!?!

Now we've all stopped laughing and stare at him. We KNOW there is no way he just said condoms. He cant' possibly mean condoms.

Us: CONDOMS??!

Omar: yeah conr-doms

BLANK STARE

One of us gets it: "Candles?"

Omar: YEAH candles! (As if this is the same word he's been saying the whole time)

From there we break into hysterics, dying over his "long sink you lay in" and "different scented condoms"

So is it safe to assume there are hairdressers who are regularly forced to work on clients with bad comb overs? As in - there are people out there with hair cutting skills that have to commit the worst possible hair crime known to man every few weeks if one of their clients can't let go of the comb over? What are the conversations with these clients? At what point does the hair stylist feel compelled to say something - or do they ever - for fear of losing the client? Do yo think there are some that flat out refuse to do the comb overs?

It feels so great to be DONE with that semester. That was pretty much the worst semester of my life. Too much shit all at once.

I woke up at 3:30 this morning to hail and thunder and lightning. It's fun to sleep to the music of thunderstorms but the hail is a little too loud. It kept me up. I couldn't find Dave either, he sleeps at odd hours and I shut some windows and fuond him in his office, with head phones in, watching stuff on the intarwebs. I didn't know he was wearing headphones. I walked up behind him and said hey and scared the shit out of him. He jumped a mile.

PETA asked Obama not to kill flies, following his TV interview in which he swatted and killed a fly. They suggested he use this product instead. Do these people ever listen to themselves? I mean, everyone else knows they're nuts, yet they seem to be blissfully unaware that they're all ripe for a straight jacket and padded room. That goes for anyone worrying about the pain and suffering of a malaria spreading, maggot laying insects. Seriously, how do they expect to have any credibility for real animal issues when they spout off crap like this. Much like many pro-lifers, they do a lot of this shit for shock value so they get publicity. aaaaand I just gave it to them.

Damn it's like night time outside. It's hard to tell from this picture, because the iphone compensates for the darkness but it looks like it's 10pm, not 10am.

So - they play "To every thing, turn turn turn, there is a season turn turn turn" over the PA every once in a while because it's a reminder for the nurses to turn the patients to prevent bed sores.

Somehow I doubt this works. Like anything you hear too often - wouldn't you just ignore it?

ANYWAY my gma is great. She came through the surgery GREAT and just seeing the doctor coming down the hall smiling made me feel like someone removed a HUGE boulder off my back. "weight" is a lame metaphor but it really fits this time. I think I was headed for a breakdown last week, I'd just had enough.

Only 3 more finals left to go. wooooooo

Gramma should be recovering for several weeks, hopefully they'll keep her well drugged so it's not too painful. She asked her son to throw her spine "out the window" after she woke up. He pointed out many people have invested hours into that spine so we decided to make her hang onto it.

An example of my gramma's cuteness:
I asked if the whole thing was like when you close your eyes to go to sleep at night and you sleep so soundly that when you wake up in the morning, you feel like you only had your eyes closed for a second. She said "yes, I don't remember any of it except the nurses saying "Mary! Mary!" to wake me up. and I wanted to say 'Be quiet so I can go back to sleep.'"

I'm waiting. I got to see my gramma before she went in. She looked good. I felt a little better when the nurse started talking about "recovery room" and how she'll feel after she gets out of surgery. I feel all gloom and doom for some reason.

Every time I have to wait, I get this song in my head. Though not necessarily Gary Shandling, this was just the only one I could find with embed code.


Why do they play "To every thing, turn turn turn, there is a season turn turn turn" over the PA every once in a while here at the hospital? They don't have a birthing center here so it can't be because of a birth. I don't get it!

OK so back to waiting. Good thoughts for Mary Jane today everyone. She needs it.

While looking through the bed bath and beyond "bath ensembles" section, I've stumbled upon some seriously funny shit that I thought you all might want to see. Ya know, in case you want to turn your bathroom into an expression of your weirdest decorating tastes and inform your guests of your love for something while they poop:


Nothing like reminding everyone of the good ol' days of pooping outside in a shack:



I guess this would be ok in a beach house bathroom - but then again, probably not. You're just a weirdo who owns a beach house with a boat shaped soap dish.



Why make your wastebasket out of twings when Bed Bath and Beyond has done it for you in such a whimsical way?



This one just baffles me. So - I assume this is marketed at someone who like shopping SO MUCH they decorate with a "shopping" theme? I am sad to know these people exist.


The largest section of this wacky shit is centered around animals and this one is my favorite. Because while I love to kill animals from my woodsy cabin retreat, I also love how cute they are and want to lean my toothbrushes against them and have soap dispense form thier spine.



I know this is aimed at kids, but tell me someone goofball doesn't have this in her non-kid bathroom. You tell me that and you're lying.





Nothing like flattening out a bear in a roadkill style so the soap has a place to lay. 

This set reminds you to wipe, pull up your pants, pack your bags and get out of this person's house because they are weird. Seriously, a travel theme in the bathroom? For the record, it's made my Tommy Bahama. Glad to see he's still crankin out quality items.

( Oh wait - I found more - are you ready for these? )

It's weird enough that the ads on facebook changed to weight loss and teeth whitening ads once I changed my status to "engaged". And I understand yahoo reads my emails and therefore I have wedding related ads on my sidebar.

But let's take a look at the latest piece of spam email I've received:




I like that the caption under the picture says "Not all patients can expect these results." So today I learned Botox will not necessarily made me a smiling bride on my wedding day. I guess I gotta keep searching for that wedding day wonder drug.