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Just spent a half hour there, drinking that (amazing) beer.

I just have the best life.  That is all.

Censored Facebook User

I have a mean Aunt.  Maybe everybody does, but mine, well...  She is something.

She came over to my house on Sunday, and it would have been wise to enjoy an Ativan, but I didn't, and instead I listened to her tell me things like, oh, I shouldn't paint the floor of my patio red, I should paint it blue.  And that she doesn't like my Our Ladies of Guadalupe (which she calls The Blessed Mother.)

This entire time, I'm trying to explain to my mother how I will not be putting corn out to feed squirrels (I mean, seriously!), and then my dear old auntie starts to fuss at me about something I put on Facebook.

Namely, that I look like Eleanor Roosevelt.

Which is true, both that I said that once, forever ago, and, that I do.  She agreed that I look like Eleanor, she just thought it was wrong of me to say so on Facebook.

Now come on.  

There are lots of things I don't put on Facebook.  My drinks of choice, how my ex-husband doesn't pay child support, when I would rather be home than at work*.

Eleanor?  THAT is what she is going to bitch about??  

Imagine what she would say if I put anything down about my Aunt.

*pretty much always.

Post Party Depression

First off, the party was awesome.  I had 40 people in my home, and I'm pretty sure that everybody had fun, and oh, glory, there was food (SO MUCH FOOD) and drinkies (SO MANY DRINKIES) and there is a lot left over.

I get it, why people throw parties.

I will never* have to buy alcohol again.

My friends all rock and brought me presents and they all seemed to have fun.  It was nice to have them all there, to look around and think, "these people?  They like me.  That's a good time."  But then, later on, I was glad when they all left and my mom helped me to load the dishwasher and put things into tupperwares and stuff.

It was a good party, and I'm pretty sure that I haven't thrown a party (other than a birthday party for the baby) in my own home, since New Year's Eve 1998.  I thought it was 99, but then I remembered that we played "1999" on repeat and that I had to work Y2K in 1999, so it was definitely 1998.  Oh, good times.

Anyway, I'm also glad it is over.  I haven't fully recovered yet, and I also haven't vacuumed the floors, so it's time, now, to get back to normal.

In other news, I had a dream where the artist formerly known as my husband had told his sisters and mom that he was paying child support (he's not) and they found out he wasn't and got all sorts of mad at him, and in the meantime, I took my kids and two of his cousins for a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving, at the Holiday Inn, using the $57 I found in a pocket while doing laundry.

So that was weird.

In other, other news, I think the floor of La Hacienda is getting painted today, and I'm excited to see what it looks like.  I also hope my kid hauled my lawn mower to the lawn mower fix it shop today.  Good, exciting times, here.

And we sang a gig on Saturday and it went okay.  So there's that.

Lord, I'm boring.  Here's something fun.

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/cgi-bin/seigmiaow.pl



Because cats that look like Hitler are funny, indeed.

*by "never," I mean, "until the summertime, or three months.  Whichever comes first.

Party Host

I'm throwing a party.

I don't do this, the throwing of parties.  If I DO decide to get my friends together in one place, I usually choose a place that is away from where I live.  Caretta's.  Or Copelands.  Someplace with alcohol and somebody else who can clean up afterwards.

This is a "There Goes the Neighborhood" party.  Aka, a Sarah-Moved-In-And-Really-She's-Quiet-And-Well-Behaved-But-We-Like-To-Pretend-We-Are-Rowdy party.

I've invited everybody that I know that lives within 100 miles of my home.

I keep squashing the little voice inside my head that says, "hey, your house?  not that awesome."

It is too.  It's fucking great.  It might be little and old and goofy looking (especially on the outside).  It might be not new and fancy and have hardwood floors.  But it IS clean, sweet, and very, very Sarah.  It has fresh paint and touches of red and granite countertops and a goddamn HACIENDA, so beat that.

BEAT THAT.

And if you don't like it, well that's all right.  Nobody else HAS to like my home, just so long as I do, and so long as the baby does.  And we do.  We like it fine.

So there's that.  A party.

It starts at 7:00 (tomorrow), and so I hope that it's clear that I'm not providing actual supper-type food.  I'm going to have munchies, and I'm going to have drinkies.  And music.  That's pretty much all I am doing.  Munchies and drinkies and musicies.  Anything else will have to spontaneously happen, or somebody else will have to plan it.  No pin-the-mustache-on-the-bandito.  No dancing.  Maybe dancing.  We'll see.

I'm nervous, but I'm excited, too, if that makes any sense.  Why is it so intimidating to invite people into your home?  Nobody judges homes, right?  I mean, maybe if it isn't clean or if it smells like cat pee, but otherwise?  Shit, now I'm feeling insecure.  I have a cat.  I know the house is clean but what if it smells like cat pee...

Anyway, the good side of it is this. I'm taking tomorrow off, so I get to have a special extry long weekend, like extra-crispy, and the baby just happened to be off school tomorrow (not part of the original (recipe) plan), so that's good.  Good for my mom, who doesn't have to keep him.  Good for him, who gets to wear pajamas most of the day.  Good for me, in theory, who gets extra time with the baby, although I have lots and lots of things I want to do tomorrow, some of which involves coffee and alone time with Dexter*, but it's all good.

I'm having a party.  People are coming.  It's going to be fun.  Or not.  But who cares.

There will be drinkies.

And possibly dancing.

You should come.

Lurch

Oh, my God.  I nailed it.  I FINALLY figured out why the new sales manager is driving me so batshit crazy.

He just called his wife back, ostensibly having missed a call from her.

"you RANNNNNG," he said, a la Lurch from the Addams Family.

MOTHER FUCKER MY EX HUSBAND USED TO SAY THAT EVERY FUCKING TIME HE WOULD CALL ME BACK.

And we all know how that worked out.

Mystery, solved.  Now I'm off to find a missing airplane.  Obvs, I am on a roll.

Jeopardy Watcher

Tonight, I watched three dvr'ed episodes of Jeopardy.  One of the categories was announced for Double Jeopardy, by Alex, just as I switched to "play," from "fast forward" (having skipped the commercials.)

A-freaking rivers.

Or, African.

God, I love Jeopardy.  That's all.  

Grown-ass Man

Goddamn Lent is killing me, smalls.  I gave up negativity, and you know, I might as well have given up, I don't know, smoking, or drinking wine, for all the ability I have to stick to it.  Week one went well until a blow-up at work, more of which I will feed you in a minute, but this week is balls.  I don't know what my problem is.  But balls, I tell you.

The thing at work was as follows, and it doesn't translate to paper well, because it sounds so fucking STUPID, but we'll give it a whirl, anyway.  I may or may not need to preface this with the following fact:

I'm not a hugger.  I have strong need for people to respect my personal space.  I have three (yes, three) bottles of hand sanitizer on my desk.  I don't hug.  I barely high-five.

Okay.  So let's give you a little back story.  We hired a new sales person about six months ago, and I am having a tough time being friends with him, some of which stems from the fact that his predecessor is a freaking amazing person, and he is... not.

But really, he's fucking irritating.  He doesn't do a great job at his job, and he doesn't take accountability, which is REALLY the thing that makes me nutso.  He gets his panties all up in a wad and says things like, "I'm a grown-ass man."  That's a quote, folks.  You know what makes you sound NOT like a grown man?  Calling yourself a "grown-ass man."

Anyway, one of his favorite things to do is to pester people.  Like most grown-ass men, he doesn't know what he can get away with it, and when he needs to not, like, say, when a client is here.  Or ever, when it comes to pestering me, if said pestering involves touching me or otherwise invading my personal space.

Weeks ago, he started doing some magic evil thing where he buzzes his fingers really close to my ear, and it sounds like a mosquito in my ear.  He's done this several times, once leading me to losing my absolute total shit and beating my fists on his arm, saying DON'T DO THAT over and over again.  Good times.

On Friday, we were in a casual meeting, with four or five of us sitting at the table, discussing shit.  And he did that buzz thing to me.  I said (and I swear to God, I used my polite voice):  "Would you please not do that.  Seriously?  I need you to respect my space."

He lost his mind, blew up at me - and everybody, really - right there in the meeting, fussing at all of us.

My boss went and had a Big Talk with him, telling him that I will never, ever respond in the positive when someone invades my personal space, and blah blah blah.  After I cooled off, I went into his office.  "Can we talk?" I said.  "I'm sorry for fussing at you in front of everyone.  That was unprofessional of me.  That being siad, I have asked you to not do that before..." and on and on.

He apologized, and said (yes, I quote), "Look, I don't care if anybody here is my friend or whatever.  I'm a grown ass man and I can handle it."  I made nicey noises like, "well I do care, I want to be friends, but I need you to respect my boundaries" and what-all.

And that was that, and we are ok, but then...

I spent the whole weekend thinking about all the things he SHOULD HAVE said.  Things like this:

1) "It's never okay for me to invade someone else's personal space at work.  I should have know that, being that I am a grown-ass man."
2) "I'm sorry I created a hostile work environment for you.  It's wrong of me and I won't do it again.  I am a grown-ass man and I should have known better."
3) "You are the greatest person I have ever known, and I could not respect you more.  Being a grown-ass man, I still aim to strive to be more like you in every aspect of my life."

Fucker.

Let's find the positive.  I think I can safely say that, if that tool gets in my personal space again, I can both beat the shit out of him and threaten lawsuit.  Because, I, too?

Am a grown-ass (wo)man.

Lessons from Rocky - III & IV

The other night, I was clean worn out, due to having been to Bacchus the night before (because, fuck it, I live in Louisiana, my kids weren't in town, and it was time to party), and then having to work that day.  It was the night before a holiday, though, so I allowed myself to wander around in the twilight land of sooooo-sleepy-but-not-asleep, flipping through channels on the tv.

ROCKY II was on.  And it was just starting.

So I watched it, loving it so much, half rooting for Apollo, but just in general, being all enchanted.

And then they started with Rocky III.  I knew I wouldn't make it through that one, so I ran out to the living room and tuned up the DVR to record it, as well as Rocky IV.  I did NOT record Rocky V.  It sucked.

So the next day was Mardi Gras, and it is a holiday for us, and it was raining, cold and disgusting, so I didn't go down to any parades.  I cleaned my house, scrubbed the bathrooms and the floors, did all my laundry (which is to say, both loads).  And then I sat down on my couch to spend some time with the Itallian Stallion from Philadelphia.

Things I learned from Rocky III:
1.  Clubber Lang, aka Mr. T, really DID say "I pity the fool."  He was talking about Rocky.  Who's pitying whom, now, Clubber?  HUNH?

2.  Clubber Lang wore clip on feather hair extensions a long time before the hipster kids got ahold of them.
3.  I still want a feather hair extension but my hair is short so it would look weird.
4.  No way, in real life, would any Rocky fight not be called on a TKO.
5.  For that matter, why the fuck doesn't Rocky guard his face?  WHY?  That's Boxing 101, folks.

Things I learned from Rocky IV:
1.  Russians are all crazy blonde and icy-blue-eyed, and they want to kill us.  Because Americans are assholes.
2.  Rocky looks better with a beard, but I'm still not sure why anybody found this man attractive.

3.  Talia Shire is fine, but it's hard for me to understand why a mob boss family girl would hook up with a loser from Philly.
4.  "I Must Bldreak You" is my favorite line in the movie.

5.  ALL RUSSIANS ARE LYING CHEATING STEROID-SHOOTING BAD PEOPLE who KILL LANDO CALORISIAN.

Note:  I recognize that I'm mixing media, here, but that's the way my brain works.  Also, I'm not at all sure how ol' Lando's name is supposed to be spelled, and I sure as shit am not looking it up.

Note:  All generalizations are, of course, ridiculous, and I happen to be madly in love with two small russians, one of whom is a blonde but who, I think, does not want to kill me.  Usually.

Seriously, what I want to note is how freaking Amer'ca Rocky movies are.  Oh, we are going to insinuate that Russians are evil, because it is 1987 and we have been thinking they are going to hit the red button any ol' day for 30 years?  That's cool, because we have a pet robot who can talk.  And who might or might not jerk off the loser Uncle Paulie.

(nice product placement, Baskin.)

WHAT.  THE.  FUCK, Amer'ca?  I hate how freaking sanctimonious we come across in that movie.  It's embarrassing.  I kinda wanna be like, hey guys?  This?  This is why they hate us.

Well, this and Rambo.

Sylvester Stallone single handedly cost America its reputation.

I jest.  But it sure didn't help.

HOWEVER...


And not just because of the amazi-crazy good Survivor Song Burning Heart, Rocky IV remains my favorite Rocky Movie.  I love the little guy beating out the giant.  I love Amer'ca beating the commies, I admit it.  I think maybe this movie helped spur on the fall of the iron curtain.  I love the lesbian-swimming-champion-wife-who-is-a-prized-athlete-herself-but-who-smokes (ALL EVIL PEOPLE SMOKE).


 I love Beard Rocky Running Up a Mountain.
I love Rocky.  And I learn stuff from it.