The Weasel Awards

Don't forget to participate in the Weasel Poll at Dilbert.com. You have a responsibility to vote for the weaseliest in each category, otherwise nobody wants to hear you complain afterwards. :)

A pain in the lumbar

Itching for another Allison-Is-a-Dork story? I know I am.

Lately I've been feeling a little off. It started when I was up in Philadelphia a few weekends ago so it's either my sister Stephanie's cooking or the air up there. This morning I started having soreness in my lower back so I called my doctor's office to see if they could squeeze me in today. Lower back pain is never good. The first thought that came to mind was KIDNEY INFECTION. As the day progressed, the pain increased, so of course I was starting to worry.

I finally saw the doctor around 1:30. He asked me to describe my symptoms so I told him about the internal pain I've been having plus the back pain. He seemed stumped and he left the room to write me a perscription for some pain killer. (What a great idea. Let's just cover the problem with a nice pain killer and call it a day. That's why doctors get paid the big bucks.)

When he was out of the room, I started thinking about why my back should hurt. I hadn't strained it yesterday. I didn't pull a muscle or anything. And then it hit me... I bought a new lumbar back support at Staples a few day ago and had been using it since yesterday afternoon! Duh. Usually my back starts hurting without lumbar support, but I didn't even think twice that was the problem. Sometimes my idiocy scares me.

Did I tell the doctor? Nooooo. Instead, I let him poke me with needles and test my pee. Oh, and I got a flu shot. I still think there is something wrong with me but at least now I know it has nothing to do with the good ol' kidneys. And the idiocy doesn't stop there, folks. I went back out to my van and realized I hadn't closed my door all the way. I drove with my windows open to encourage the insect life to find another place to call home.

And then I went to Starbucks and called Steph to tell her how stupid I am. Such deprecation must be shared.

TV tonight

I just finished watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. This episode was of special interest to me because Capitol Heights, where it was filmed, is maybe 20 minutes away from me. The house ABC built this family of 8 was nice...certainly better than any house in the neighborhood and probably the city itself. The house that was torn down had bars on the door and windows and the inside was all torn up, so hopefully some sort of security features will be installed in the new house with all the nice stuff inside.

According the this information (which is a few years old), Capitol Heights is low-income, high-crime area. High crime, as in having a crime index of 517.2 where the national average is 329.7. Races in Capitol Heights:

* Black (92.8%)
* White Non-Hispanic (4.7%)
* Two or more races (1.4%)
* Hispanic (0.9%)
* American Indian (0.7%)

That being said, I've never seen more white people in a one-block radius of Capitol Heights as I saw tonight on TV. It kinda made me chuckle.

By the way, I cannot believe the crap on TV. Vampire Bats on CBS? Anyone catch that? Please don't admit it. I wouldn't want to think any less of you.

PS - Happy birthday, Dave!

-------------

Track of the Day: "What Did I Get Myself Into" by Kyle Riabko
"If I was the man that I make myself to be
I would understand what understanding really means..."

The new hood

Have I mentioned how much I love my new neighborhood? Everyone who lives here is really friendly. Unnaturally friendly. Everyone not only waves a friendly greeting when you walk or drive by, but they actually approach you and engage in something called conversation. This is so different for me coming from a neighborhood where kids steal your car radio (multiple times) and people cross the street when they see you coming.

One day I was pulling out of my driveway and almost ran over some lady who was walking. She just smiled at me and waved as if to say "Ahaha! Good morning, dear. Almost got me... Thanks for keeping me on my toes!"

I particularly love the family up the street whose kids occasionally sell lemonade and fresh corn on hot summer days. For Halloween this year, they're going all out. I've never seen such a fantastic display of creativity in one's front yard as I've seen here over the past week. Corpses everywhere! It seems like every day, something new is added.

Ghosts in a ring around a tree

Graves. I'm particularly font of the creature rising out of the first one.

A body impaled by a tree.

I bet the mailman likes this one.

And this is my favorite. A classic! Who can resist a chainsaw through the heart? Or a rollerblading corpse with his head in the ground? Irresistable. Click on it to enlarge it.

These people take their holidays seriously.

------------

Track of the Day: "Time" by Sarah McLachlan
"Leave me be, I don't want to argue
I'd just get confused and I'd come all undone..."

Re:Pumpkin Spice Coffee

So after I complained that I couldn't find any of Borders Pumpkin Spice Coffee (because my local store doesn't sell it and my retard sister who works in the Philly store didn't buy any for me), I got a few emails from thoughtful people who agreed to check out their local stores. If that right there doesn't prove I have the best readers on the planet, I don't know what would. Well, with the exception of one of you donating me a kidney or maybe a heart. That would come first.

Lurker Chelsea was one of those thoughtful people and now she has made it on my list of Favorite Identified Lurkers ranking right between NACLS Jen and the Uxbridge MA Lurker and Omaha NE Lurker who both signed my Frappr Map with "Yo." Yes, Chelsea is on that special list because she took control of the situation and called her local Borders to inquire about the coffee. Upon learning that only one bag remained, she MADE THEM HOLD IT FOR HER until she was able to pick it up. And earlier today, I received this little email from her:

They took about five minutes to figure out where they "held" the bag...but it was found! And mailed via the United States Postal Service earlier today...unless it's stolen and drunk by rabid postal workers, you should be receiving it soon!

I swear to you now... If I find out rabid postal worker have pilfered my Pumpkin Spice, there will be hell to pay. So Chelsea, thank you for your thoughtfulness and know that you've made me extremely happy. My autumn is not ruined. Not that my world revolves around coffee or anything. Puh. What gave you that idea?

(BTW, if anyone can get their hands on any more of that stuff, send it my way.)

------------

Track of the Day: "Falling" by Glen Phillips
"With enemies like you who needs friends
They all just seem boring..."

Book Review: The Shadow of the Wind

"…this is a story about books."
"About books?"
"About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It’s a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind."

Anyone who understands the value of books and how they possess you will absolutely adore The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I loved it so much I could hardly put it down.

It begins in Barcelona in 1945. The narrator, 10-year old Daniel, is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Forgotton Books, a place where books lost in time live forever. "When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here." Daniel chooses a book to keep -- The Shadow of the Wind by an author named Julian Carax. Daniel is completely enthralled by the book and sets off to find more about the author. Over time, his research reveals someone is seeking out Carax's books and burning them.

The book takes the reader through Daniel's adolescense and into the life of Carax through a myriad of characters. It's a mystery and a love-story that unfolds nicely, but also contains all the other good stuff: politics, humor, hate, torture, and murder. Some of the plot twists are shocking. (One in particular.)

Originally a best-seller in Spain and the surrounding countries, it was translated into English and published in the U.S. to much less fanfare and success. I think the thriller market here has been ruined.

I love how the author captures what books are... That they can have souls. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a creative, fast-paced mystery. Just make sure you have a chunk of time available because you won't want to put this one down for long.

-------------

Track of the Day: "Cherry Red Wine" by Jonny Lang
"I'm taking you to the doctor, woman
Maybe the doctor knows what's going wrong in your head
If you keep drinking that wine, woman
Even the grass on your grave will be cherry red..."

Movie Review: Elizabethtown

Hard to know what to say about a movie this boring. It's not that it was terrible, just not as good as I'd hoped. But I think it was doomed for me from the beginning. I'm not a big Kirsten Dunst fan. I think it stems back to her whiney characters she played in Interview With a Vampire and Little Women. And now she just plays the cute, quirky, cock-your-head-to-the-side characters that get on my nerves. And while I'm complaining about superficial things, I hate her hair. It's almost as bad as Drew Barrymore's. I should be loving Drew for looking like she just rolled out of bed in half the photos I've seen of her. My hair pretty much looks like that 90% of the time even though I try really hard to tame it. Anyway, I've gotten off-track...

She wasn't all bad. Every once in awhile, I forgot about how her teeth remind me of fangs and really liked her character. Orlando Bloom was okay, but I prefer him all elfed out with the blond hair and blue eyes. The directing was good, but the story itself was bad. Not a bad idea, just not what it could've been. Entertaining, but it didn't move me. The best thing about this movie was the soundtrack. Lots of Tom Petty. I gotta hand it to Cameron Crowe...he knows good music.

This probably won't be one I'll see again.

----------------

Track of the Day: "Unlove Me" by Julie Roberts
"Unmake all the memories I can't forget
Unlove me
Let me go back to the way I was before we met..."

On coffee

I love Starbucks and am excited about their Pumpkin Spice Lattes, but a lot of their drinks are just too sweet for my taste. So yesterday, I became what I hate: a picky coffee drinker. I ordered my standard cool-weather coffee drink, a tall vanilla latte, but asked for two pumps of vanilla syrup instead of the normal three. Two-pump Vanilla Latte. Ooooooh. Perfection. I will never go back to three.

Speaking of coffee, I tried to pick up my most favorite coffee ever, Borders Pumpkin Spice coffee beans, from my local Borders AND THEY DIDN'T HAVE IT. Frankly, their Pumpkin Spice coffee is one of the best things about October (ranking in among sweater weather, massive amounts of Halloween candy, and fall colors). They sell it every October without fail and have been doing so for as long as I can remember. So I am personally insulted that my Borders does not carry it this year.

So what I want to know is whether this is just a local problem or a nation-wide crisis. Usually the coffee is on display in the cafe section of the store. My younger sister Rebecca says they sell it at her store in Philly. Do they sell it where you live? Who can send me a few pounds of it?! I'm serious. Let's forget about my wishlist... I need the good coffee! (I'd ask Rebecca to send me a few bags but I can't even get her to return a phone call, let alone box up some coffee and actually go to the post office. Bah.)

--------------

Track of the Day: "Digest" by Ben Taylor (You can so tell he's James Taylor's son)
"I know life goes on regardless,
But nothing's been the same since you've been gone..."

Weekend Review

I left for Philadelphia on Friday at 3 p.m. hoping to avoid most of the Bay Bridge traffic. That backfired miserably and I sat in front of the toll booth just long enough to hit Wilmington/Philadelphia rush-hour traffic in the rain. Good times. Zeke came with me but, because he truly is a weenie dog, he was terrified of every little bump we drove over and was a nervous wreck by the time we reached Vince and Steph's. I was a nervous wreck by the time I reached Vince and Steph's. That's what traffic and rain does to me.

I arrived right in time for grilled cheese and tomato soup, the perfect comfort food. That, folks, is what you're supposed to have on a cool rainy night. After dinner, we left the dog with Vince and headed to Delaware to go to Total Wine, a huge wine warehouse where they sell more wine than I've ever seen in one place. Unfortunately, it took us forever to get there because we had to sit in more traffic...at 8:30 in the evening! Thankfully, there's nothing that puts me in a better mood than the sight of thousands of bottles of wine.

$75 dollars and over an hour later, I exited the store with seven bottles of wine and a 4-pack of pumpkin ale. And that was just me. Steph bought way more.

I slept horribly Friday night and even had a fitful dream a woman slashed me to death with a shank in a bathroom stall. I attribute it to Zeke's restlessness. I usually sleep with a fan running. White noise is under-rated. While Steph is not much of a morning person, she is a great host and made us a pot of coffee and french toast when we woke up Saturday morning. Neither of us are really nice until the coffee kicks in.

Steph was hosting a Pumpkin Carving Party that night so when we got around, we went grocery shopping and hit Starbucks. Can't ever have too much coffee. And then Stephanie forced me to sort through two bowls of tomatoes and pick out the rotting ones. So disgusting.

Megan came by and helped me slice up apples. One by one Steph's friends and coworkers came by. It was nice to meet the people I've heard Steph bad-mouth. (Just kidding!) Can you guess which pumpkin is mine? Hint: My pumpkin looks like a happy drunk.

Pictured above: Alicia, Karen, Kathy, Janet, Megan, Steph

On Sunday, Becky and Megan came over and while Megan mowed the lawn, we decided to go to IKEA to hunt for closet solutions. I bought curtains, Becky ate food, and Steph obsessed over closet measurements. It was fun.

Thanks to Steph for letting me hang out this weekend.

I have no idea why this ship is parked in front of IKEA but I thought it was a good picture.

Frozen food

People don't understand why, even in mid-summer, I bring a sweater to work with me. It's always cold. In fact, in a Q & A section of our staff meeting, the following was asked:

Q: Are we planning on hanging meat in the rear of the building by Marv’s conference room? I’m thinking that maybe that’s why we’re keeping the building so cold back there.

A: No. We are not planning on hanging meat.

------------

Track of the Day: "Life in Rain" by Remy Zero
"When it's cold outside
Well, then so am I
So when it comes down
You'll know I'm with you..."

TGIF

I'm heading up to Philadelphia for the weekend and I'm taking the trusty ol' camera with me. So if you're lucky, I'll post some pictures early next week.

By the way, thank you to everyone who has mapped themselves on my Frapper map. It's fascinating to know where you all are from and nice to see the lurkers too.

Have a great weekend.

------------

Track of the Day: "Forget Her" by Jeff Buckley
"Well, my tears falling down as I try to forget,
Her love was a joke from the day that we met..."

Smooth move, ex-lax

How can I get a job naming herbal laxative tea? Whoever came up with 'Smooth Move' is hilarious.

You don't know the greatness you are

Today, my youngest sister Megan turns 22 years old. So I called her at 10 this morning, thinking she'd still be in bed. She's lazy like that. Instead, she was in the process of walking to our older sister Stephanie's house in the rain. "Happy birthday," I said.

"Oh, is it?" she replied. "I just rode my bike through the ghetto to get to public transportation and now I'm walking through the rain to go clean Steph's house."

I laughed at her like a good older sister is supposed to do and we talked about our other sister Becky's cat and its incontinence problem and the hazzards of mowing the lawn in the rain. After I hung up, I realized how much I enjoy my sisters, especially now that we're all older. Megan has grown into someone I truly love spending time with. She's not nearly as annoying as she used to be. Or maybe she is but I'm just mellowing with age.

Happy birthday, Meg.

--------------

Track of the Day: "Blue Eyes" by Cary Brothers
"You're the sweet to my mean..."

Identify yourself!

Who are you people? I've always wondered. Go to my Frapper Map and leave your mark...please. LURKERS TOO, DARN IT! And say something marvelous about your state while you're at it. And leave a small picture.

I stole this map idea from Russ. I'd steal his U2 iPod from him too if he lived close enough.

Falling for you

Ouch. This is the most painful thing for me to watch although, I admit, -- it's very cool. Don't miss out on a dead woman (she must be dead after falling in every awkward position) in a bikini plummeting from a bubble. And you can even move her corpse around! Fascinating stuff. (Link via RAD)

Hate

It's pretty near impossible to hold onto any shred of dignity when you're at the dentist's office. Lying on your back, mouth open, drool and tooth polish flying... I had my bi-annual check-up and cleaning yesterday afternoon. I haven't complained about how awful visits to the dentist are since...oh, six months ago, so I figure it was high time to whine about it some more.

I'm obsessed with dental hygiene and haven't had a cavity in years, yet for some reason, my gums gush blood every time that nazi of a hygienist starts to work on them. I don't think I've ever tasted THAT much blood in my mouth. She had to stick the suction thing in my mouth just to clean up the massive amounts of blood.

After she was finished and my dentist gave my teeth his stamp of approval, I got ready to head back out to the waiting area. The hygienist stopped me before I got too far and dabbed around my mouth and face with a wet cotton ball. "Whoops! We don't want you going back out there with blood smeared across your face!" she said.

Yeah. We wouldn't want the people waiting to know the truth about what really happens in the back room.

--------------

Track of the Day: "Best Of What's Around" by Dave Matthews Band
"So we can pull on through
Whatever tears at us
Whatever holds us down
And if nothing can be done
We'll make the best of what's around"

After 'while, crocodile

This morning, I finally had to break down and tell my friend Beverly's three-year-old that it wasn't socially acceptable to yell "Bye, Alligator!" to me when I leave. She's been saying that for weeks now.

"It's 'See you later, Alligator,'" I tried to explain. "Don't you get it?! It rhymes! You can't just say 'Bye.'"

What kind of mother allows her child to yell out a farewell that doesn't even rhyme? The poor child is going to grow up sounding ignorant. If you say something like that to your second grade friends, you're the one who'll end up playing by yourself in the sandbox. ...Not that I know that from personal experience or anything.

----------------

Track of the Day: "When It's Good" by Ben Harper
"Some drink to remember
Some to forget
Some for satisfaction
Some to regret..."

Bad habits

My dog Zeke is a creature of habit. He thrives on consistency. He has a schedule, even if it does consist of sleeping, eating, sleeping, begging, sleeping, and bouncing off the walls. He spends the majority of the morning and afternoon doing dogly activities in the bowels of the backyard. Who knows what those activities are... I don't ask and he certainly doesn't tell. But at a certain point in the afternoon, he lies in the grass by the gate and waits for me to pull in the drive. Every afternoon, he's there waiting. And every night, he hears me brushing my teeth and knows it's time to go outside for the last time before bed. I don't even have to tell him.

Zeke hates mornings almost as much as I do and he can't wait for me to get out of bed so he can curl up where I've been. Apparently, my main purpose in life is to warm up the bed for his pleasure. There's nothing quite like coming out of the shower all clean to see mangy dog-butt on the place where you lay your head every night. (No wonder my eyeball is all funked up.)

But lately Zeke has been following me into the bathroom in the mornings. I'll get in the shower and he'll poke his nose around the shower curtain to make sure I'm really in there and not doing something fun without him like, oh...say, eating. I better not be eating without him because who would stare at each morsel of food going from my fork to my mouth and who would be there in case I dropped something? Not everyone can provide the service he can.

When I get out of the shower, he trails along the bathroom floor licking up the drips of water as if he hasn't had anything to drink in a week. As if he didn't have a full bowl of clean water in three different locations around the house. As if shower water was nectar from the doggie gods. I really wish he wouldn't do this because the constant sound of licking drives me mad. As I was blow drying my hair this morning, he was underneath me, ramming his body into my feet to get to that small puddle of shower-flavored water.

Crazy dog.

----------------

Track of the Day: "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by Jet
"Oh, 4,5,6 c'mon and get your kicks
Now you dont need money when you look like that, do ya honey?"

Red eye

I'm not sure if it's infection or a foreign object, but for the past two days, my left eye has been acting weird. It doesn't hurt too badly, but it's red in the inner corner and it waters now and then. First it was that crazy ear infection a month ago and now it's my eye. I'm obviously diseased.

I get all freaked out when I have problems like these because, when you're in a wheelchair, you can't really afford to lose many more senses. I would be a total hazzard as a blind person, running into walls and people. (That'd almost be funny if I couldn't really picture it happening to me.) I guess I'd rather be deaf although, with my weakened hands, I'd have a difficult time communicating. I really appreciate my vision and hearing.

Yesterday, I made plans to meet Kim and John for dinner at 5:15 and I was running late. I glanced in the mirror before I left and was appalled to see my left eye was firey red. I looked like a demon. So I grabbed some eye wash, opened it, and proceeded to sprinkle the solution all over my face. Everywhere except for my eye. I am probably the most talentless eye-drop inserter ever to roam the earth. I can't manage to successfully use eye drops even when the bottle is less than an inch from my eye. I'm not sure if I just have bad aim or what. It takes me about 5 minutes to hit my target. Just picture me all leaned back, looking up with my mouth hanging wide open, shaking eye drops all over my face and head. Finally, one landed close enough to my eye where it rolled over my skin and into the corner. Success! But before I could leave, I had to dry my hair and clean up all the smeared mascara.

So today I'm not wearing any eye makeup and I'm keeping a close watch on it. I'm hoping to wash away any sign of redness before my coworkers get a good look at my Eye of Death and run in fear.

Sorry for writing about gross things again. At least I didn't post a photo of it.

UPDATE - Demon eyes! Augh!

West Side Story of Evil and Death (and Laser Beam Eyes)

Eeeek! Everyone's remixing trailers! This is one West Side Story I don't think I could handle!

Gossip Monday!

It's Entertainment News Monday! (Sounds better than gossip.) When it all boils down, we're all people. Who cares if someone has millions of dollars they spend mostly on clothes for their dog. We all have feeling, right? Tara Reid is reportedly close to having a nervous breakdown of sorts because of her tawdry reputation as a "party girl." She even fired her publicist for cultivating that image. "How many more years are the media going to pick on me?" said Tara. "There's other new young bad girls. Move on to someone else! I'm just fed up. I just want a chance again. I want to show that I am an actress." Poor slandered Tara might have wanted to think about her rep before she signed on to do that stupid E! show Taradise where she acts like a total airhead and wears hardly anything while drinking in a Mediterranean club. When is the media going to start taking her seriously?! She's such a victim.

In other ground-breaking and earth-shattering news, George Clooney can't bring himself to sleep in the master bedroom of his Italian villa because it's just too big. Instead, he has to sleep in one of the other 14 bedrooms. If that's his biggest problem, he must be doing okay. I've got a really simple solution for him. Sell it and do something worth-while with the money...like feed a small third-world country. Pull an Angelina Jolie and adopt twenty orphan babies. Better yet, rebuild New Orleans. Please. Stop complaining about your big house.

James Bond, that dirty dog, is a womanizer! I've known it since my first James Bond movie Moonraker where he has sex with a woman in space. The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine condemns Hollywood for producing movies like the Bond series where contraceptives are apparently ignored altogether. And it blames Hollywood for the rise in STDs. In fact, Basic Instinct was also listed as having several scenes of "unsafe lovemaking." (I'm pretty sure the unsafe part is the lack of contraceptives used, although no mention of irresponsible use of an ice pick was found. I'm more concerned about unsafe ice-picking.) "The motion picture industry should be encouraged to depict safer sex practices and to depict the real consequences of unprotected sex," the research paper states. Watch. The next Bond movie will be 007: Dying of Disease. (Okay. That was stupid. I'm bad with titles.) Maybe they could get some emaciated actor to play the next Bond.

------------------

Track of the Day: "Burn" by Ray LaMontagne
"Yes, I try to ignore all this blood on the floor
It's just this heart on my sleeve that's bleeding..."

ZEKE!

FYI

Nutter Butters are one of the best kinds of store-bought cookies you can buy. Hands down.