Why you should trust your instincts

Especially if you carry a big purse and it will cost you NOTHING to do so.

*sigh*

So, last Friday my sister and L invited Mike and me out to dinner by the bay.  I remembered to grab my blazer, as it tends to get cool pretty quickly when the sun goes down.  I gave my makeup a last check and left the bathroom, pausing to glance down at the Crocs bag I carried to the bloggershoot.

Nah, don’t be silly, I told myself.  You don’t need the Off.  It really isn’t buggy around here, you’ll be in the middle of lots of people, and you have the Skin-So-Soft lotion in your purse if you really need bug repellent.

STUPID. Stupid stupid stupid.

The first inkling of trouble came when I was trying to identify flavors in my flight of mini-martinis.  As I tilted my head to read the drink descriptions, my sister abruptly head-smacked me.  Hard.

“Ow!” I complained, utterly confused.

“Omigod, there was a mosquito landing on your head, sorry!” she clarified, looking horrified.  Girl’s got good reflexes . . . . too good.  She saw the big fat bug about to suck my blood and smacked it instinctively, as quickly as she could.  Far too quickly to, you know, be gentle about it.

After we managed to stop laughing — which took a while! — I excused myself and ran to the Ladies’ room for anointing.   I briskly rubbed S-S-S lotion into my arms, my legs, my face, and combed it through my hair.  I even remembered to wash my hands afterward so my lobster wouldn’t taste of scented lotion.

Thirty minutes later I was spasmodically twitching in my seat like I was getting electric shocks.  I had a bite on my forearm (through my jacket), a bite on the underside of my thigh (through my skirt), and a bite on the sole of my foot.  Naturally, no  one else at my table — hell, in the entire restaurant — had any bloodsucker trouble whatsoever.

Why, o why, didn’t I throw the Off in my bag?  You’ve seen my purse, it’s large enough to smuggle puppies and small children.  It would have cost me nothing to bring it with me.  So why didn’t I?

Simple.  I’m an idiot.

On the upside, Mike looks awfully cute in a lobster bib:

P.S.  Before Jenny called to invite us, we stopped at a trendy little restaurant in Boston to have an after-work drink and some hors d’oeuvres.  (There are advantages to being DINK!)  I couldn’t get over the silverware — it was über-trendy, long, and slender.  It was also inefficient for spreading pesto.  And the knife completely looked like a murder weapon in the making.

(My hand is pictured for scale)

What a strange thing to find in Boston, the land of the safety laws!

Kitten-drunk

Meet Buster:

 

At least, we think his name is Buster.  He seems like a Buster.

No, he’s not ours; Rajah is an only cat and likes it that way. It was a friend of ours, L, who picked up a cute fuzzy darling little kitten-companion.

I helped L pick him up from the shelter this past weekend.  Please note that I helped him pick UP the kitten but did not help him pick OUT the kitten – that was all L and I made sure to keep any preferences to myself!

Anyway, we hadn’t thought we could pick out a kitten and take him home in the same day, so we weren’t prepared.  We had to leave the adorable bundle of fur at the shelter and run to the pet store to pick up food and a cat carrier. 

So we’re bombing up and down the aisles picking out two different kinds of wet food and two different kinds of dry food (one type being what he was fed at the shelter, and the other being the kitten chow Jenny and I have always used to raise our furballs) and I’m bouncing up and down at the register impatient to pay and get to L’s house to kitten-proof it and back to the shelter to gobble down – er, adopt – Buster and Mike realizes we forgot to buy a nail clipper.  So I go dashing up the aisle to snag two nail clippers (ours are pretty rusty and need to go play in the garbage chute) and run back to the front of the store and the menfolk point out that I forgot to get a carrier.  Dammit!  So I go flying back up a different aisle, stub the bottom of my Croc Malindis and do a full-on layout in the aisle.

I’m talking serious spillage here, folks.  I bruised my hand and my hip and my sunglasses went flying off my head and landed about six feet away; I basically pretended I was on a slip-and-slide, without the slipping part; I sort of skidded.  Ouch. 

And the worst part?  Mike had his back turned so he didn’t see it!

Oh well, nothing broken, no harm done; I popped up like the Energizer bunny and kept running – more carefully, mind you.  We set up food and water and litter and brought the kitten home and taunted him with mice and laser pointers and sneaker shoelaces and cuddled him and generally went Awwww!  But after an hour it became obvious that Mike and I had a lot to do and needed to go home and do it.  Also, I hadn’t yet eaten that day and my stomach was threatening to chew a hole through my abdomen and go secure comestibles by itself.

Of course, by the time we got home I was so starving that I nuked a hot dog and bit into it and burnt the CRAP out of my mouth.  That’ll teach me to eat junk food!

Happy kitten-ing, L!

Wedding bonus pic: Obligatory humble pie

You were all so sweet and flattering and complimentary — Jay, Tam (who did NOT make girlish squeals, of COURSE ) Shoothouse Barbie, Borepatch and TOTWTYTR – that I’m due for another dose of humble pie.  You wouldn’t want me to walk around with a swollen head, would you?

And so, I present to you — BOUQUET TOSS FAIL!

Yep, that is me slinging the bouquet directly into the ceiling above my head.  I’m damn lucky it landed behind me instead of bouncing off my carefully-curled hair.  I ended up turning around, closing my eyes and hurling it like a Frisbee into the waiting crowd . . . where it was treated like a swine-flu-laden-soggy-tissue.  Seriously, it lay on the floor for at least ten seconds before someone finally scooped it up.  Her marriage is already set for this fall, mind you.

Now aren’t you glad I shared??

P.S.  Here’s a handy symptom-checker for the swine flu, courtesy of Better and Better.  Tell your friends!