Nuthin’ but an H thang, Baybay…

1. Is it me, or did TV wrestling REALLY take a header over the last several years? I loved the WWF when I was a kid – it was as awesomely bad as a Poison video. My parents even ponied up the cash for us kids to watch the “Royal Rumble” on PayPerView and made a party of it with several neighbors back in 1987. We had Hulk Hogan in his pre-pimping-his-daughter’s-career phase, Randy “The Macho Man” Savage steppin’ into his SlimJim, Andre the Giant towering over all of them, etc. Well, I happened to catch a snippet of the RAW show tonight: ICK. It’s far worse than the WWF ever was back in the late 80’s. Or maybe I’m just too old to get it.
2. I paid a ridiculous amount of money to the IRS this year again, enough to make me feel physically ill. Plus, I need more deductions; maybe it’s time to have a kid…but then I’d still feel physically ill. Dangit!
3. When Adam’s not home, I eat like a starving college student: tonight, I dined on Mac ‘n Cheese and day-old popcorn. And a Corona.
4. Hard as I try, I cannot find a reason to like the cold weather. I’m so hard up to get out of Minnesota that I’m planning a business trip to Indiana! It’s at least, like, 30 degrees there.
5. My birthday was killer this year. Adam sent me a huge bouquet of flowers at work, I ate way too much Shrimp Sauce with my friends, I was presented with the coolest gifts (including a sweet new photo printer from Adam), I watched old home movies with my family (and with cake!), I received very nice cards and emails and answering machine messages (with singing!).

Yes, I said “killer.” I’m bringing it back. What?

You don’t normally find me drinking hard liquor. I prefer a good beer or red wine, or even champagne over the hard stuff. Once in a great while, I’ll partake in a Tom Collins, Colorado Bulldog, White Russian, Margarita, Dirty Martini or a Gin & Tonic…but these are rare instances.

Last night, we dined at Pablo’s in Shakopee, quite possibly the best Mexican food south of the river. My grand plan was to meet up with Kurt, a friend on Mister Absurd, to deliver my old printer to him. Kurt lives in Shakopee, so we took full advantage of having a reason to be near Pablo’s and offered to bring the printer down to him. Kurt was nice enough to meet us at the restaurant to have a quick beer with us. Earlier in the day, Didrik and Elizabeth had asked if we’d like to have dinner, so of course I asked them to come to Pablo’s as well. The four of us ended up closing the place down after devouring our delicious plates of piping hot food and obscenely large margaritas. Chrissy will be upset that I didn’t invite her, but I had an excuse! Didrik and Elizabeth are planning a trip to Europe this fall and we’re seriously thinking about tagging along, so we had much to discuss!

Back to the margaritas I drank…I fell into a nice slumber with Garet sleeping half on top of my ribcage like he usually does. I began to dream several dreams. In the dream I remember the best, I brought Garet to Target with me. He somehow managed to get away from me – twice – and slip under some displays. I had to pull him out each time and hoist him over my shoulder. Finally, he ended up getting down again and finding a plastic toy elephant left carelessly on the floor. I looked down and realized he was gone again, so I started searching for him frantically under the displays. I heard a “mew” from the elephant and grabbed it up from the floor. As I peered into the elephant’s plastic pink mouth, I saw the glowing eyes of my kitty. I unscrewed the elephant’s head and discovered that there was no way Garet could’ve gotten in – the entry to the body was way too small for my 18lb cat to fit through. Well, since this is a dream, I guess the preposterous is possible. I carried the plastic headless elephant to the Office Supplies aisle and found a large scissors. I cut into the rigid plastic carefully until Garet was free. Once again hoisted over my shoulder, he hung onto me for dear life as we left Target. The end.

No more tequila for me for awhile.

One of my current favorite commercials is the following: “Journey Diamond” commercial featuring two cotton seeds dancing together through the air past horses galloping through a field. Playing in the background is a woman’s voice singing a lilting tune while the cotton seeds end up floating past the hair of a brunette on a beach staring into the eyes of her lover. It gets my Romantic Shlep AKA “Eeeew” award.

Spent the weekend cleaning my office – home office, that is. Since I no longer office out of my house, I found plenty of things I don’t need anymore. Adam rewired my various appliances to get them under control. After clearing out and organizing my things, I took the opportunity to rearrange my furniture. The room has a whole new life! Next I’m going to paint it, probably some tranquil sagey color.

Closed a nice little deal last week – the significance of it was that it was about the oldest thing on my pipeline. It’s a tremendous feeling to achieve the successful resolution to a loooong sales cycle.

I found Carribean Cardio on FitTV. Three days a week from 5:30 to 6am, I’ve been working out with three very toned ladies on a Barbados beach. I’ve been following that up with as many crunches as possible. Go me. PS, working out sucks=D

Think I’m feeling the onset of a cold. I ran a fever at the office and left a little early to get some rest today. Adam made me some nummy chicken wild rice soup and the Pookie snuggled me in bed. My mom and a friend recommended Zicam, so I’m giving it a go. Basically, it’s Zinc. The downside to this product is that I had to squeeze a gel up my nose…that was pleasant. Anyway, stay away from me – I’m probably contagious.

My birthday’s coming up. Thirty-one years. Oof, where does the time go?

And for now, that’s all I’ve got. *sneeze*

A couple of weeks ago, yours truly signed up to get some neeeeewwww teef!

Here’s the backstory:

When I was a tiny tot, I lost my baby teeth like any other kid. However, one of my adult incisors never grew in (probably, like everything else, due to Global Warming), leaving a gap between my right front tooth and canine. The “brilliant” orthodontist my parents chose gave us two options. One: have a tooth implant put in where a natural tooth should have been, which would have required a little surgery. The new tooth could’ve been shaped to match its sister on the opposing side. Two: move all of my upper teeth on missing-tooth-side forward with braces to close the gap. Once closed, do some shaping to match the teeth up symmetrically. The ortho pushed my parents to go with Option Two. The gap closed, of course, except my smile still had terrible symmetry. I had a canine where an incisor should be, a molar where the canine should be (you get the idea). The ortho gave the shaping a try but she simply couldn’t make my teeth match. She concluded that veneers would need to happen – oh, and did I mention that she didn’t do veneers?

My mom later found a cosmetic dentist who could apply veneers to my funk-ay teeth. He used a composite resin material overlay (to keep it on the cheap) and shaped my teeth to make them appear like the teeth they were supposed to be. To his credit, this dentist actually did a great job. Here’s the catch: composite resin stains easier, chips easier and wears away faster than porcelain (believe me, I know). Back in 1995 when this procedure was done, I was a college kid holding down 3 jobs. I couldn’t afford porcelain…heck, I couldn’t even afford composite resin. Thank god Visa could. (more…)

Adam and I both had a case of stomach flu last week, so we stayed close to home over the weekend. We watched the rain suddenly turn to flakes on Sunday. It piled up quickly as we ventured out to Psycho Suzi’s in da Nordeast. We met up with the Dena/AdamV combo, the Amy/Andy combo and the Gwen/Tom combo for some cheeesy pizza and essspensive drinks. About an hour and a foot of snow later, we retired to the Verniers’ pad…slowly. They made wonderful hosts, serving fancy drinks and delicious cake depicting an accidental Farewell To 2006 theme. The group engaged in Wii games, darts and ’80’s Trivial Pursuit. It was a low-key celebration that we appreciated greatly!

And thennnnnnn, we’re back to work. I didn’t get a moment to blink…well, I did get to have lunch with my buddy Arthur, so I suppose that was a break. It was funny though – with the new year afoot, I revamped all of my files, made new lists, printed off updated reports, planned my calendar out, etc. Good therapy in all of that.

My New Year holiday was quiet, snowy, fun, sober, sweet and relaxed…just what I needed, except for the danged snow! ERGH.