Please?

I would like to make a public plea to people describing the hurricane.

Please stop referring to it as "our tsunami." It most certainly is not. Not even close. It is extremely tragic, and I am very sad for everyone that lost homes and loved ones. However, every time some public figure refers to the hurricane in this manner, it not only reaffirms that Americans are perhaps the most egocentric people on the planet, but it also makes you look like a moron. I'm not going to go into the details here, but seriously, run a Google search on the two events, and just compare the statistics, and you will in fact see that this is nothing like the tsunami in Asia.

For everyone on the Gulf Coast, my prayers are with you, and with the Red Cross and FEMA and other workers.

Frustration

Who was supposed to be going on a fun, work-is-paying-for-it trip to New Orleans on Labor Day? Um yeah, that would be me. So now I have a plane ticket that Continental may or may not refund. To a city that is primarily under water at the moment. Even if the airport is open, what am I supposed to do when I get there? It's highly possible that hotel in which I have reservations no longer even exists.

No worries, I am not actually going to go. That would be ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as the Continental representatives that are stalling on me. They win in the contest of the ridiculousness.

Chicks were born to give you fever, be it fahrenheit or centigrade...

Someone just told me that wearing my hair straight "brings out [my] beauty."

I love compliments, truly I do. Maybe even more so than the average person...I'd like to believe that I take them well, too. None of this "oh, this old thing?" or "I can't believe you said that, I hate my hair" crap. I generally just say "thank you" (and grin enormously) because I choose to believe that if someone is going to take the time to say something nice to me, they probably mean it.

That being said, I would like to offer some commentary to Fate. If someone is going to like how I look or say nice things to me, could we mix it up a bit and throw some new people in? Perhaps people (ahem, men) who like women? And by like, I do not mean appreciate them for esoteric and aesthetic reasons, I mean like.



On a whole other subject, I have "Fever" by Peggy Lee stuck in my head, hence the title. I'll give you some more lyrics, because they are just that good:

Romeo loved Juliet, Juliet she felt the same
When he put his arms around her, he said "Julie, baby, you're my flame...
Thou givest fever...
When we kisseth, fever with thy flaming youth
FEVER! I'm a fire, fever yea I burn forsooth..."

Is that awesome or what? It's better if you can hear that fab 60's beat in the background. I highly recommend checking it out.

Today when I was driving home from work, the newscasters were chatting about the stupid Pat Robertson assasination comment. And, apparently for my entertainment, they chose to read other excellent quotes. This one made me swerve my car I was laughing so hard:

"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

Wow. It boggles the mind. And it's still funny.

Hmmm

It seems when I'm watching mindless TV, like "While You Were Out" on TLC or similar, there are an inordinate number of commercials for things for cats. I hope this isn't indicative of anything. Thank goodness I at least have plans to be social, otherwise I might worry a little :).

When weddings are cool

This last weekend, T got hitched to her main man, and a few of us from work went down to watch adoringly. The two of them are so completely adorable we can hardly stand it, or as I think E put it, "I'm totally in love with them being in love." At least it has set the bar - if the person in question doesn't make me as adorable as T and her man, it's clearly not worth it. But back to the wedding:

I loved that their wedding was so completely about them and the things they like, as opposed to just doing the things they think are supposed to happen at weddings. T walked down the aisle to a bagpiper, the solo was a beautiful acoustic rendition of "Be Thou My Vision" (which totally made me tear up), there was no clear color scheme (T had earlier remarked "My mom keeps asking me about my colors...and I'm pretty sure I don't have colors. This is stressin' me out!"), and the whole ceremony was great. We unfortunately arrived a wee bit on the late side due to a lack of communication about the location of the directions to the church, coupled with an unwise decision to follow people that were obviously going to the same wedding (but had even less of an idea how to get there). The topper of the ceremony was the truly over-the-top, open mouth, not-even-close-to-church-tongue first kiss. My friends are so cool.

And their friends were cool too. The theme of the groom's men was abundant facial hair...full beards to be exact. One guest was sporting a real-live mohawk, and not a little one, but one that stood a good foot off of his head. It was impressive to say the least. And he was break-dancing at the reception. The wedding party entered in to a Pixies song and the first dance was I think by Wilco, but frankly I'm not hip enough to actually know it (but I intend to ask her, because it was a good song!). We danced the night away to such classics as "Hot Steppa," "Gettin' Jiggy With It," and "The Twist." The night finished off with a closing dance to Prince's "Purple Rain." Well, the reception closed, and then we headed back to the hotel to work on our party favors. Which were, in fact, bottles of cheap Trader Joe's wine. Best. Wedding. Ever.

My head hurts just thinking about it

In a story related to me by a coworker, I discover that Kazakhstani men could outdrink even the most seasoned of American drinkers.

As a gift, the visitor presented a bottle of eighty proof herbal liquor. When asked what it was used for, he said it should be mixed with vodka. You know, to take the edge off the vodka.

!

Another good thing about having a car is that I can't forget my keys on my desk at work. Well, I can actually, but I can't get very far.

Starting the morning with a little Dave Barry

Two of my favorites quotes (one that borders on profound, and one that is just so very funny):

"A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person." (Ain't it true?)

"It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity." (Amen!)

On driving on the east coast

E, while driving around Saturday, quips:

"Before, I used to use my blinker as a question. Now it's more of an announcement. 'Yes. I will be getting over now. Thank you.'"

Reaching middle-age at 25

I am such an old woman.

I have had a rather long and somewhat difficult week, add to that I haven't been sleeping all that well. So what am I doing on a Friday night? Having a darn good time if I do say so myself.

I am all alone in my house, which is pretty unusual. I had a mad craving for pasta in some sort of creamy sauce, so I ordered a Penne a la Vodka to pick up at a new Italian place. Then, right before the feeding frenzy began, I realized I had a bottle of wine that I bought at least a month ago at the Italian Store - Pinot Grigio, the perfect complement to my meal. Then I decided to make a theme night of it, and put in the DVD of "Under the Tuscan Sun", which is not my favorite movie, but it's pretty.

And it just made me almost snort wine through my nose, because the cute Italian real estate agent just said my favorite line from the movie: "Signora, please don't be so sad. If you continue like this I will be forced to make love to you, and I’ve never been unfaithful to my wife." How adorable is he? And how can Italian men be so simultaneously lecherous and adorable at the same time? Mind you, this is based on real-life as well as movies, so I'm not just blindly following stereotypes...only partially.

And now I just got drunk dialed from my friends in New Orleans.

This has already been a damn good night, and it's not even 9:00.

The email is up!

Again, thanks to Ebony.

I seriously doubt that anyone I don't already know reads this website, but hey, I've been surprised at things before.

So like I said earlier, if you have some sort of comment that you would like to share with me but not with the five other people that frequent this site, knock yourself out. Also, I would appreciate people emailing me links to other sites that I have more than likely forgotten in the little list off to the side. Muchas gracias in advance!

Some of the reasons I had to leave

Dear Rachel,

Someone from Waxahachie High School chose these Q&A answers to reveal details about life, love, family, or career.

Q: What kind of car do you drive? (Check all that apply)
A: Compact; Minivan

Q: What is your main source of current events?
A: Television

Q: How do you meet most of your friends? (Check all that apply)
A: Associations/volunteering; Church; Dog park; Through my children

Talk about different worlds.

I'm not a bad friend, I'm just technically inept

So I have FINALLY posted links to the sites that I read. I think they are pretty cool, and I highly recommend checking them out.

Having them all there in a little list, it makes me see how much time I really do spend reading stuff on the internet. Kind of pathetic in a way, but anyone who has my job will understand that it can be accomplished on most days with about 3 hours of actual work. So as I said before, please knock yourself in visiting my friends, both real and imagined, and I'm working on getting an email address so that you can send me other links or comments that you don't want to post for all to see.

**A BIG thank you should be given to Eb for copying and sending me all of the technical html stuff to do these links, otherwise it never would have happened!

When squirrels attack

Yesterday a co-worker came rushing out of the copy room and despite being out of breath, whispered a message to me. The message prompted me to send the following floor wide email:

____ FOUND A SQUIRREL IN THE COPY ROOM! DON’T OPEN THE DOOR!!

And of course, slight hysteria ensued. Turns out a squirrel had gotten in while we were having our airconditioner repaired, and had made a little nest with her squirrel baby in the copy room. Mama Squirrel was running around like crazy, and none of us were very excited at the prospect of going back in there to open the window (which was, of course, locked and couldn't be opened from the outside). So we did what all good company workers do: we called Maintenance. Poor guys, they were such good sports and let Mama out and caught Baby Squirrel in a net and set him out for her to take.

So then in the afternoon, the mama was back and was running around the outside, all around our windows and trying to get in and such. And it was making all of us feel really bad, because we thought maybe she didn't find the baby we left outside and something bad had happened to it or similar. But then this morning, the real problem was revealed:

Squirrels always have babies in pairs. Baby Squirrel #2 was still in our copy room.

And Mama Squirrel had somehow managed to get back in, and man was she pissed. Again the squirrel was running around like crazy, and again we called Maintenance. And Baby #2 was put outside. Unfortunately, as it happened, Mama Squirrel decided to give our poor worker a little punishment and bit him right on the hand.

Beware, beware. The squirrels, they are coming.