(love this. the author AND the sentiment.)

"it certainly is my opinion that a book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then."
~ C.S. Lewis

they threw away my lunch today.

yesterday, i brought a DELICIOUS tuna salad, fresh lettuce and tomato, and two pitas. i saved half of everything for today's lunch. only i forgot this morning was "throw everything in the refrigerator away that doesn't have a name on it" day, and i didn't have my name on it. i NEVER put my name on stuff. yes, yes, i know i should. but i DON'T.

i also usually bring in frozie meals one at a time as opposed to leaving anything in the fridge overnight so this usually isn't an issue. see what happens when i try to eat fresh!? BAD THINGS.

so anyway, i'm looking forward to that pita all morning. i go in? NO PITA. (and that was a PITA.) i ask the office lady if she saw a bag with tuna salad and a pita. she did. she asked if my name was on it. it wasn't. so it was thrown away.

"FUCK," says i. and i did. (out loud even.)

i fished my bowls out of the trash but i obviously dumped the food because it had been tossed at 7 a.m. the last thing i want is food poisoning AND a trashy pita. :P

at least i had a can of soup in my desk for backup. (Progresso's garden vegetable if you were curious.) it was good, but it wasn't my tuna pita. what a PITA.

i went back later and apologized to the three ladies standing at the front desk for my "expletive." they all just laughed and said it was fine. *sigh* no one was even offended. i wish our holy-than-thou saintly roller had been standing there at the time. now THAT would have been awesome. i could have offended someone!!

howcome when i swear, everyone laughs? i mean, i know sometimes i do it for effect when i'm not REALLY that mad. but howcome i can't just BE MAD so that when people face my wrath, they at least think, "wow, she's pretty mad. maybe we should steer clear awhile or something." but no. they go "tee hee. aww, she's so mad!" or worse, they think i'm joking and not mad at all. that just makes me more mad.

i swear if a burglar came to my house, i could face him down, smash up a table with a baseball bat, shoot actual fireballs from my very eyes, and scream in my wrathiest voice, "GET OUT MAH HOUSE YOU MOTHER FUCKER," he'd get the giggles so bad the cops would have time to AMBLE to my house before he got up and ran out the door.

i'm just not wrathy enough.

NOW MY TOE HURTS.

it's making me crabby.

that's all! i just wanted to whine about it.

i have THE MOTHER of all mosquito bites. it's on the outside of my left knee in the crook so it rubs on everything. it's fricken HYOOOGE. i didn't get it at faire rehearsals the other night either; my spritz-on OFF kept me safe.

no. it was the monster sized mosquito that was in our house last night (or maybe two?) that got me.

in any case, Azrael got it. she actually chased it, hunted it, chomped it, chewed it, and licked her chops after. then she hunted around for some more. (we say "she's got her 'bug face' on" because there's a distinct look she has when she's tracking a bug.)

so i guess ants aren't the only delicacy she likes. i just hope she doesn't get malaria! (do cats get malaria? well, either way. i hope she doesn't get it.)

1. PRIUS OWNERS... and "if you didn't blog it, i didn't happen."

there is a sooper seekrit compartment in the car. it's at the bottom center console. did you know this? i did not know this! i found it (okay TWD found it) after i accidentally dumped the last of the dregs of a water bottle into the center cupholder and while trying to clean it up, TWD was fiddling around with the center console. he was feeling around at the bottom front of the console and felt a "handle" type thingy and voila (with little accenty thingy i'm not bothering to look up)! out pops a hidden drawer in the center console.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO PUT IN IT. i have stuff in my center console, in the drop-down compartment in the top-center, in both glove boxes, in the cd holder thingummy, stuff gets stashed in my side-door compartments from time to time and in the seat-back pockets... what else can i stash away!? i'm at a loss. srsly. MOAR COMPARTMENTS!?

anyway, TWD asked me this morning if i had figured out what to do with it and i said, "no! i forgot all about it! ... i also forgot to post about it which means it didn't actually happen." ;)

2. um... i guess i forgot the second thing i was going to post about. crap. i'll come back to it.

OH! you know times have changed when "oh boy edamame!" is a big big treat. :D i was planning to have fish and a salad for dinner last night. i also ate my last two homemade oatmeal raisin cookies as my pre-dinner snack when i got home (i made my mom's favourite cookies last week to send to her for her birthday and i gave almost all the rest to TWD's nephew.) but what i was most excited about? the steamed edamame.

i actually debated cooking any because i thought, "i'm already having a salad; i don't need TWO vegetables." then i thought, "oh what the hell! LIVE A LITTLE!" because i really wanted edamame... AND a salad. i just couldn't choose one. i also saved the edamame for last to savour it. (it's crack, i tell you!)

but what does that say about me that i'm "meh" about cookies* and "yay they are gone," but "OMG YES" about fricken edamame. *lol* times have certainly been a-changin'.

* i was very pleased with the cookies i made, mind you. they are still my favourite cookie, too! i ate a couple when they were first baked and when i was eating the dough as um... "samples." *g* but it just got old very quickly. i got my little fix, rationed about a dozen for myself at 2 cookies per day, and was happy to give the rest away. i'm not anti-cookie. just not ALL cookie. edamame on the other hand? hm... ;)

THERE'S A GODDAMNED TELEPORTING GNAT IN MY CUBE THAT WON'T GO AWAY. IT KEEPS FLYING AT MY EYES AND UP MY NOSE AND EVERY TIME I TRY TO SMACK THIS GNAT TO KILL IT, IT DISAPPEARS. NO RLY.

where the FUCK does it go? how the FUCK does it reappear the instant i let my guard down? #&*(Q$^O UILAS IOU& WT&#^&LISGH DFLICT& Q#PLSDKfO*&t

I FUCKING HATE THIS GODDAMNED GNAT!!!!11111111 DIE DIE DIE YOU FRACKY ANNOYING BEASTIE!!!!!! P9823 749P8 YWEPYPA97RP97ATEP9)(&@#^) (&#$*&t^#p*r&tp(&

or at the very least, stay the EFF away from my EFFING NOSE HOLES YOU ANNOYING RAT BASTARD AND LEAVE ME THE EFF ALONE!!!

LJ braintrust...

in lieu of using a box recipe, i would like to attempt macaroni and cheese (and tuna and peas) from scratch. i know nothing about accomplishing such a task except 1. boil noodles. 2. add some cheese. probably butter? 3. stir. 4 add tuna and peas (optional).

i think it is probably not this easy.

i'm thinking perhaps morigian or kaliopi might have some ideas for making not-boxed macaroni. (yours would clearly be sans tuna, though.)

anyone? Bueller? Bueller? thanks in advance!

i ate 1/4 cantaloupe yesterday and today for my breakfast. it's about 70 calories. it's 11 a.m. and i'm not even hungry yet. the same thing happened yesterday. i didn't need lunch until about 12:45 and could have probably gone a little longer, but we were going out and i didn't want to risk it. usually i eat a bowl of cereal coming in at 200-300 calories, but i'm still hungry by 10:30 or 11 so i drink tea with honey to tide me over until lunch.

i wonder what that means? did i not eat enough that my metabolism was not started? were the "sugars" the same but the calories different? or was it such a wildy different food item that my body has no idea what to do about it?

either that or i ate a metric butt-ton of food this weekend (i REALLY overdid it Saturday! -- DARN YOU NOODLES AND COMPANY AND DARN YOU PAPA JOHN'S! lol) and my body knows i've got a lot of calories to burn off!

either way, that's just plain weird.

from the eye of the kitty...

last night there i was scratching on my scratchy box *scratch*scratch* *dig*dig* (like i do) when all of sudden OH MY GOD! MY TOE MY TOE MY TOE! MY POOR WIDDLE TOE! like a sharp pain, the scratchy box bit me! i jumped off it and i could barely walk! i limped around the living room flipping my front paw, but whatever it was, was still biting at me!!! and OMG! IT HURT IT HURT IT HURT! THE AGONY!! THE PAIN!!! woe!

i limped and hopped my way in front of Boy who pointed it out to Blondie. BAST. BIG mistake. i tried running as soon as she cooed, "awww, what's the matter with your foot? can i see it?" and she reached down for me. NO you may not SEE IT. sadly, she caught me anyway.

i wiggled in her arms, but it was no good. i meowed pitifully as if to say, "GET YOUR GRUBBY HOOMIN MITTS OFFA ME, LADY," but it was no good either. she didn't listen. then she pinched my foot!! WTF?! she actually pinched my CLAW! the one that HURT!! is she crazy!? and omg it hurt. :(

she told Boy it was cracked! OMG! CRACKED! MEOW!!! I BROKE A NAIL!!111!! Boy looked at it too and said, "what is that? is there shmutz in it?" OH GOD!! NOT THE SHMUTZ!!!11!! (what is shmutz, i wondered? i didn't know. but it sounded bad!!!)

i whined and meowed and struggled some more as Blondie pinched the pads of my foot and pulled at my broken toe. (what kind of punishment IS this? what'd i do to deserve such treatment?) Blondie said to Boy there was hair and cardboard bits wedged in the crack in the nail and then she said there was BLOOD!!! i wiggled around to see it and almost fainted. a DROP! gah! worst. day. ever.

it was then she asked Boy for the clippers. OH BAST HELP ME! not the CLIPPERS!!! she's going to cut my foot off!! i really started wiggling then, but she held firm. he brought them over and i wanted to bite him. (big jerk.) she came at my foot with the things. i couldn't move. she really had me pinned in her lap good. she told me it would be okay and cooed a little. i went limp in her arms. oh foot. it was nice knowing you. :( as i closed my eyes and braced i heard it ... *snip* *snip*

"there you go..." ::ruffle:: "you're such a brave kitty." Blondie's arms suddently let go of me.

*blink*blink* that's it? that's... IT? i checked my paw and it was still there! she didn't take the whole foot! i stepped down off her lap and my paw did feel a little better. i sat down and even licked it.

Blondie told Boy she "trimmed" my claw and pulled the "shmutz" out of it. it still hurt, but not nearly so bad. it is still "cracked" though and it did bleed a little. I SAW BLOOD I SWEARS. (i did!) but i got two treats for the catastrophe. one for being so brave and one for having a hurty foot in the first place.

i lay around all evening just hanging around Boy and Blondie. i licked at my foot a little and purred. i felt much better by midnight and even played some golf in the dining room. this morning i seem to be walking all better! but i still lick at it just in case.

so i guess the hoomins aren't soooo bad. (just don't tell them i said so.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDA9NbPAK8o&feature=player_embedded

found on Cake Wrecks, but this has nothing to do with cakes. it was just shared and distributed there.

so watch this! everyone! plz!!! laugh laugh laugh. and LOL. ROFL even.

omg. i love the Muppets. World Wide Web indeed. Happy Fourth of July everyone! *snicker*

(even you across the ponders and other-country folk can laugh at the muppets!)

there's also Beaker and the Ode to Joy, too. *snicker*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A&NR=1

okay. back to work with me!

... :)

if you've seen FB, NO, i'm not waiting to see if i'm pregnant for cryin' out loud, we're waiting to hear back on some news. i don't want to jinx anything by saying more. i'm just being "oh hey i'm so very zen" about it. i don't want to be Anne of Green Gables by flying high on the wings of anticipation and then "THUD" into the depths of despair if i don't get my way.

because there is no "way". there just Is the way it is supposed to Be. whatever that is. que sera sera and all that; whatever will be will be. (ear worm. you're welcome!)

i just can't help wondering though which way chips will land, though! but i resolve to be content and at peace whichever way they go. zen and ohm and all that jazz. (moar earworm plz!)

a previous entry. HIIIIGH-larious. these are pictures from real Real Estate Listings as though the pictures should actually help to sell the place being listed.

from NY, NY.

i wonder if that's trick photography, or if the bathroom is really *that* skinny. i bet it's really that narrow. *snicker*

t'was full of fireworks, fun, and friends.

and a near heart attack when i thought i took a wrong turn and was headed BACK into NYC via George Washington Bridge instead of the New Jersey Turnpike, but that turned out to be a false alarm. thank god the Turnpike starts before the bridge. *lol*

i'm so not cut out to be from New York City. at least not from New York City behind the wheel of my own car. ;)

but we enjoyed our time spent there, that's for sure, though it was all too short. saw the beautiful, now-warmed house of some wonderful friends, had a GREAT party with fabulous food (some new, some familiar), played Taboo, took a walk in the park, ate New York Bagels and i even tried a little bit of whitefish on a bagel. it still doesn't seem like a breakfasty food item, but it wasn't bad at all! (again, i'm just not cut out to be from New York City. "who wants fish on a bagel!?" *chirp chirp chirp*)

next time though, and there will be a next time if i can figure out a way to muster up courage to drive, i want to spend more than a short-ish weekend. maybe a couple extra days so we can go DO stuff! you know, outside the Fairway Grocery store (but at least i saw the Statue of Liberty at sunset and got a great photo of it. -- appropos for the holiday i feel.) and NOT the liquor store with massively expensive cider. *lol* but the park in Brooklyn was nice! i'd like to have time to go running inside of it.

Oh!! and we saw the official Ecto 1 parked on the streets. yup yup. the Ghostbusters are alive and well. :D the things you see in NY. gotta love it!!

we actually did manage to see some of the Hudson River fireworks, too, but just barely. we went to the streets and could see them above some of the buildings between some trees if we stood out on the sidewalk in front of the house. awesome! i suggested running down to the river, but no one wanted to do that. didn't look like it was THAT far. ;)

QUOTES:
new smoke detector coming soon!! "oh shit. your house is on fire! oh shit. your house is on fire!"
clue: "so i'm really pissed off, but i don't say i'm pissed off. you ask me how i am and i say i'm ... " all the girls: "FINE!!!" (easiest Taboo clue ever.)
clue: "wrapped up like a human eggroll..." answer: "sleeping bag!"
"i've never Wii'd before."
"you make grocery shopping fun like a scavenger hunt."
"WHERE IS THE NORMAL FOOD SECTION?!?!" (v. complicated grocery store.)

i might see some of you this weekend i imagine.

but i wish everyone a great, safe, and happy weekend. :D

celebrate your independence with gusto.

i'd only ever been to one Indian restaurant before and even the Indian guy in our office said, "it wasn't good." i wasn't impressed either. i expected it would be flavourful and it just ... wasn't. it was very bland and tasteless. it smelled good, but was so bland.

since then, i've been reluctant to try it again. i know "one bad apple" theory shouldn't spoil the bunch, but why throw good money toward a food where you just didn't have a good experience? plus, our town didn't have an Indian restaurant anyway, so that was convenient not to go.

i've had Moroccan food twice since, and THAT was good (the first time better than the second, again, restaurant and chef probably had a lot to do with it) but obviously, Moroccan is not Indian.

about a year ago, Sizzling Bombay opened up. we saw it; we talked about it. we never went. then TWD got into this fencing gig, we drove by the restaurant a couple of times in that part of town, AND his coach has listed it as a "fan" page on his FB page. so that's at least one recommendation, right? lol

so for our anniversary dinner last night i said, "how about we try that Indian place?" okay!

WOW! it was amazingly good! so UNbland. not like that other restaurant at ALL. TWD had Seafood Mazedar which is some lightly spicy, zesty, flavourful cream-based browny-looking sauce (and seafood!), and i had Chicken Vindaloo. was mine ever spicy!?! holy mackerel. but it was so tasty!

plus, i thought at first the bowls looked "small" in comparison to what you expect when you go to restaurants in America and get honking big serving platters full of food. but i wasn't upset because i knew i wouldn't eat it all anyway. we had appetizers (i had Aloo Chat salad which was basically cucumbers and bunch of other stuff with a dressing and TWD had fried prawns) and we also had Roti/pita breads to dip. AND some kind of sesame crackery thingy with sauces to dip, too. so i knew we wouldn't go hungry. (besides, my complaint these days about restaurants is they give you TOO much food. like, three times what a person actually needs.)

as expected, i only ate half my vindaloo last night and brought the other half for lunch today. i got two full meals off it. i think the trick is make it SO DAMNED SPICY you have to drink so much DAMNED WATER and eat so much DAMNED BREAD that you fill up before you eat half your DAMNED DINNER. ;) so i'm going to invent the Indian Diet. i can see it now! "my name is Dawny and i lost 32 pounds on the Vindaloo diet! you can too! click here to find out how!" i can't wait to go back and try more stuff. i want to get an Aloo Samosa which sounded delicious! peas and potatoes in a pastry? i'm all over that.

so we had a nice time, a VERY nice waiter, great drinks, lovely atmosphere, and the most wonderful company. at one point we toasted to hot stuff and the food was spicy too. ;)

then we went home and watched Some Kind of Wonderful because we liked it. it was a great way to celebrate a 14th anniversary. i hope for many more. ♥

♥

happy "puttin' up with me" day. :D

do you like Agile Programming? QA testing? Hitler?

none of the above??

then watch this!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1wKO3rID9g

the sound is perfectly safe for work; not so much the subtitles. LOL!!!

this is dedicated to all my agile-hatin', QA testin', software programmin', (Hitler pokin' fun at) buddies out there. you know who you are. ::squishies::

the bad part of being away for a week is that the work back home doesn't stop to wait for your return. i'm freakin' out here!!! ::hairs pulled::

in addition to having two simultaneous projects, add in some "additional work" thrown in just for the fun of it due for the bigwigs' perusal and enjoyment. not that they'll look at it anytime soon, but it's supposed to be done today. it's being released tomorrow. i love that word "released." like "into the wild never to be seen or heard from again" whih pretty much sums it up. lol.

so all that means there isn't time to "test out" what i learned for FrameMaker last week which i really want to do at some point before i completely forget everything it was that i learned.

frack! frack again!

actually got home laaaate Friday (or technically early Saturday.) but was so busy yesterday with a picnic and then a party, i haven't had a chance to post.

Dallas was great!! well, the TRAINING was great. i learned a lot even though i feel like i barely scratched the surface of the software application i was learning. FrameMaker is a HYOOOOGE writing tool and we only learned the unstructured half. (translation: blah blah blah to people who haven't ever heard of Framemaker. lol)

but i got to see my best friend from high school and his wife. we had visited with them a month ago when they were in DC and went to their wedding in Pittsburgh last November. three times in a year after NOT seeing him for the last five... i could get used to being in better contact. ha ha. it's always such a wonderful feeling to get together with such old and dear friends and feel immediately at ease like no time has gone by whatsoever. like it was just last week that you were together. you know? something reassuring about that.

anyway, Dallas was Hot Hot Hot. over 100 every day i was there and Monday and Tuesday wasn't even "a dry heat." it was humid even by my standards. the rest of the time was "a dry heat" which helped, but made it feel like a hot oven instead of a sauna. it's strange to me to jump into a pool, swim around, jump back out, and evaporate almost immediately. well, not ME, but the water. here in Maryland, you stay soaked for at least half an hour after before your skin thinks about drying off. and your swimsuit stays perpetually damp for days and days until you wash and dry it in the dryer. in Maryland, there is no "dry".

but i'm home, and happily so. kitty and TWD were both glad to see me and i, them. i'm sooo not looking forward to this week at work though. it's going to be crazy-busy catching up with everything that rolled along with me. :/

ah well. i'm home!!!

happy belated father's day to all the dads and those who were hatched of dads. hehe.

what was pathetic though was sitting at dinner last night after our movie (TWD and i went to see UP in 3D... *sniffle* it was sooo good) we saw a dad and 7yo son having some "quality" bonding time.

by "quality" i mean the dad was texting; the son was playing Nintendo DS. it was truly special. they stopped long enough to order, go back to their technical business, and then stopped again to eat. i don't think they said two words to each other the entire time. ahh yes. technology's grand. what special memories they'll have years from now. "hey dad. remember that father's day when we sat at PF Chang's and you texted and i played my Nintendo? oh, man. those were some great times." hm. somehow i doubt they'll even remember being there. i mean, what's the point? why didn't they just sit home and bond for free on their couch? whatever. i felt like walking by after we were done and saying, "happy father's day." just so they'd have a memory of the wacky kook who walked by their table.

afterwards, i called my dads (yes two *g*) after we got home. you know, to thank them for actually being there then and now, and, you know, talking to me occasionally and NOT texting while at the table. (or letting me get away with crap like that.) it's nice to have memories of conversations with one's parents years later.

there will be a time when i won't have that luxury and i imagine i'd trade all the texting in the world for one more conversation with someone i loved. but maybe that's just me.

so happy father's day. or maybe just happy loved ones day. and in the eternally poignant words of a great poet, be excellent to one another. (and party on, dude.) wise words... wise words...