Well Look at That, BTP on Thursday This Week

It just occurred to me this morning that we will be in Pennsylvania seeing Dave Matthews Band in fifteen days. Can not wait! It has been a couple years since seeing them on Randall’s island and admittedly it will be odd without LeRoi but I have a feeling this is going to be one of the best tours they have ever done because a big component of it is about honoring the man himself. So excited to be able to be a part of it.

Twitter is still holding my interest somewhat but I fear this might be one of those things I drop eventually just because of the strange time commitment involved. Time will tell on that one though I guess. For now I’m still there but posting / reading only about twice a day.

Hello sunshine, thanks for joining us again. We have certainly missed you’re cheerful disposition these past five days.

I’m not sure just how it happened but sometime in the last year I have become a stay at home mom without any kids. Suddenly I’m like a little chef and I even sometimes do Matt’s laundry. WTF? It isn’t entirely a bad thing (especially on nights like last night where I conceptualize the most amazing garlic butter and white wine breaded scallops, coconut rice and maple glazed carrots) but it is just such a far departure from the person I have always thought of myself as being it will take some getting used to that’s all. Understand, he doesn’t force me to do any of this stuff, I take it on myself, and cheerfully at that, so I think that is why I am mystified.

In Arlington we had attempted to grow herbs and flowers on our balcony but it only got a little bit of sun everyday. Here we have this awesome shelf built right onto the railing just outside our back door so a couple days after we moved in we planted basil and repotted a flower that was still living (despite being in the house with me) since my mom’s party back in April. I am happy to report the flower is doing well and the basil is beginning to sprout already. I am totally looking forward to using it in homemade sauce later this summer and into the fall.

When we went to the liquor store down the street on July 3rd to pick up beer for the cookout on the 4th, I laughed hysterically when I read the sign over the building.

OK Cable Guy…you can show up any old time now. Matter of fact you only have an hour and a half to do so and I would love if you actually made it on time. (Edit since first writing this -- dudes have come and gone, network is set up and cable too woo hoo! I like being legal but Matt is going to have to reprogram the clicker I think, nothing is turning on & off like it used to. We have so many components it is not a shock, but that is just not my area).

In order to work off some of this spread which magically showed up after eating, well, too much spread, Matt and I started an early morning workout routine. Early as in 6:00 AM. Yeah, that lasted exactly one day. I am just not a morning person. So now we are walking in the evenings instead. He gets home a little before 7:00, we eat and digest then about 8:00 we head out to pound the pavement. We have gone every day this week so far and I really have been enjoying it so much more than trying to drag my tired, albeit jiggly, ass out of bed at that ungodly hour. I never understood why gyms aren’t open at 1:00AM.

Do you ever get the sense like you were born to do something; that your whole life is an effort to work up to fulfilling one specific goal or purpose? I wonder this kind of stuff all the time but in turn it scares the hell out of me to consider that once that life purpose is achieved, what is left to live for? Does a new goal or purpose just magically appear to pursue or are we just supposed to ride the wave of the one true thing as long as possible and then live happily ever (though possibly bored) knowing we achieved our allotted success in life?

I have a couple paint jobs coming up this summer, in fact one starts tomorrow, and I am really excited to be doing this again. Not only is it going to be another great way to stay in shape both physically and financially but it will be nice to get back out in the world of contractors again. Sometimes it gets awful lonely working as a writer, enjoying nothing but my creativity for conceptualizing adjectives. So it will be nice to be able to do something less brain and more brawn for a couple weeks, where I can also have an actual conversation with another person every once in a while too.

Can someone please explain to me why banks charge money for dipping below a minimum daily balance? Um, hello, if you charge a fee isn’t the account going to continue to remain below that minimum? Perhaps that is the point, bleed the customer dry so you can pay your enormous debt back to the government right? I guess it is really us paying back the debts then huh? Not to mention how can you do this to a person who not only holds five separate accounts with your institution but someone who is a small business owner and has had an account with your establishment since 2000? Not like they charged my personal account of course, they hit me in the business account. So I called to inquire why I was charged the fee in the first place, due to the fact that I had received a letter indicating fees were waved for June and I was charged the fee on June 3. Apparently from what the Customer Hindrance Representative told me, the billing cycle for June ends on June 3. Say what? Oh and gee isn’t it a bummer that now you have been charged the “maintenance” fee for July as well since today is the 9th; looks like you never put any more money in there. Well thanks for letting me know that my business sucks this year. Apparently yours is thriving now on my loss right? I can only imagine how many other people are going through this exact same thing with TD Banknorth. Sucks for them, my money will be coming right the hell out of their institution by tomorrow morning and going into a local bank instead. All over $30. You know that is a gallon of paint I just lost. Totally not cool.

OK and shake it off…

I posted a vid over at GLR today showcasing Kermit the Frog singing Its Not Easy Bein’ Green and in my travels to locate it, this one popped up too. Freaking hilarious.



Visit all of the BTP Crew:
Ginger
Bridgete
Bree
Kate
KC

You? If you’re doing BTP Thursday (or any day) link back to here and let me know so I can give you the appropriate holla!

More Google Hits With Dane Cook’s Name in the Title

It hit me this morning that I have been so intent on posting something everyday this month that I have not yet wussed out with a straight up video post (like I sometimes do over at GLR) with the exception of Mother’s Day (but that was funny).

Since I have been so good and everyone has put up with my ADD style writing for this entire month I figure its time to give all of you a break. So here is a super short, funny video from one of my favorite comedians, Dane Cook. I had a quote from this here on my blog comment box for a long time.

Yes it is a true fact that His Comedic Majesty and I went to high school together so I have been following his career since he played Danny Zuko as a senior, long before the advent of Myspace or blogging. It wasn’t like we hung out on Friday nights or anything but we had a few in common friends in drama or sports and some of us used to go watch him and Al Del Bene tear it up at local Comedy Clubs before they were even old enough to vote. There were about as many people in the clubs back then as in these ISolated INcident clips. The difference now is that he set it up this way on purpose. Keep killing; you put Arlington on the map brother.

SU-FI

Jokes.com
Dane Cook - Suicide Note
dians.comedycentral.com
Dane Cook Kool Aid Video More Dane Cook Videos Joke of the Day

Move the Car

Yesterday I watched as the rain poured down off and on all day, lightening was striking all over and I got zippo work done because I booted and shut down the computer so many times I finally just decided to forget it and chalked it up to an extra vacation day. When Matt got home from work we were supposed to go pick up my Mom so she could take us out to dinner for my upcoming birthday. There was another pouring soaker that started a few minutes after he got here so we decided to wait for the rain to subside before venturing out. Since we are weather freaks we went to the balcony door to watch the lightning cross the sky and check out the “river” flowing down the side of the curb.

A car drove up the street and we watched in disbelief as a wake of white caps followed it. The majority of our street view is blocked by trees and the building next door but seeing the swishing water this far up we knew the street must be flooded. The journalist in me grabbed a camera and flip-flops and ran outside to see the action.


Our street runs perpendicular to a creek known as Mill Brook. The town was incorporated back in the 1600’s and a mill known as the Old Schwamb Mill was built on the Brook in 1650. That mill is still working today and I have no doubt it was double time yesterday.

In the photo above the orange barriers were blocking off a part of the street under construction for the past couple months. The ironic part is that two of them floated all the way down to the bridge and became stranded right in the middle of the road; a perfect location to block traffic from driving through the flood. The little red house and the white house next door had residents home at the time and they all came to their doors laughing because, what else could they do.


I have no patience for idiots as most of you know. I wish no harm to come to anyone but when there is actual moving water flowing across the road at a fairly rapid pace, and a left turn that could have been taken in lieu of driving through that water, my only wish is that your car stalls out and the fire department charges you to come and rescue you from your own stupidity.

In order to get away from the morons who thought they were invincible enough to drive through this raging rapid I decided to walk down through the parking lot of the building next door which borders along side the brook. This little guy came and stood not 2 feet from me. I think he was a bit shaken by the incident too because he kept looking up at me with eyes that said ‘I was not even born when this happened the last time ten years ago so this is kind of freaking me out’. I decided to call him Quack.


Finally I will leave you all with some video I took while down in the parking lot with my buddy Quack. He enters the frame right at the end of the video, our first encounter with each other. We both watched for a while but then my grumbling tummy and full camera card got the best of me so we took off for dinner hoping the fat rain drops beginning to fall again let up before we got back home.

Fun and Frolic All Over Our Great Land

Before I even get into talking about all the groovy things that have happened this week I want to say thanks to the double N friends out there in bloglandia. You know who you are and you made me smile from ear to ear.

~*~♫~*~♫~*~♫~*~♫~*~♫~*~♫~*~♫~*~♫~*~

With that out of the way let us first discuss the awesome campaign that is spreading: We. We is an organization involved in the protection of our fine planet and advocates for change. I received an email from them a couple days ago but had never heard of the group before so, typical for me, started to do a little research on their website as well as Googling them to see what gives. Turns out, this is the campaign people! I am not always one for trends but this is not a passing fad, it is one We seriously need to address now so please check out their website, watch the video posted below, sign the petition today and then take action in your own home. Spread the word.

This past weekend Matt and I decided to take a nice walk around town to catch sight of the blooming flowers and trees as well as go and speak with the people who know things about fixing guitars. I bought an acoustic bass for him a few years ago after he spent an entire eighteen hour car ride telling me all about how he and his friend (who’s wedding we had just attended) used to play in his basement, how much fun they had and that he really missed doing it. Score for a Christmas present that year! That guitar sat dormant, longing to be played, ever since -- until about a month ago. When he took it out of the original shipping box he discovered the bridge & saddle had swelled away from the soundboard (probably due to shifting humidity levels in our random apartments) and a nice crack ran horizontal across it. Ouch. My advice? Buy a new guitar. He did not want to concede to the fact that it was toast so the second opinion was called in, thus our walk. Their advice? Buy a new guitar. The flowers on the way back did little to cheer him at first but by the time we got home he was talking about attaching a metal plate under the saddle and using this as a practice guitar. I say go for it; learn technique only on this one and buy a new guitar later to discover the fine art of tuning.



After writing about Bianchi’s on my last blog I was definitely inspired to tell the world about how awesome Revere Beach is so I put together a travel and leisure write up and submitted it to a website. Lo and behold I was informed yesterday that it was approved for publication and is now available to read online. A most exciting day indeed! The walk actually inspired me so much I think that will be the next T&L article submission to Ezine Articles.



Today I will end with a quote. This person is not a favorite of mine, in fact I never even heard of them until I searched for inspirational quotes. Regardless, take this and leave a positive mark on your world today.

“The power of imagination makes us infinite.”

~ John Muir