Why Oreos do not a breakfast make

(I’ve got a story queued up about the snake that wandered into our screened porch.  However, since the last post went ridiculously crazy — 47 comments!!! I love you all!!!! — I have to tell a humiliating story about myself, to keep me humble.  It’s a LookingForLissa rule.)

A long, long time ago — otherwise known as the spring of 2004 — Mike and I were but humble workers and flirtatious friends at Ye Olde Financial Company.  These were the relaxed, golden days of my youth . . . wait, what the hell am I talking about?   These were the days when I used to work 3 PM to 11 PM at the Financial Company, and at least twice a week I was also working 6 AM to 12 PM at the coffee shop.  Halcyon my ASS!

Anyway, on this particular day we were both signed up to donate blood at the Ye Olde Financial Company-sponsored Red Cross Event.  If I remember correctly, Mike had never given blood before.  I, on the other hand — insert preening and suave nonchalance here — had given blood SEVERAL times back at college.

I held on to the record of accomplishment.  Somehow I neglected to hold on to the results, mental and physical, that always followed said blood donation.  More on that later.

So on this particular sunny spring day, I didn’t have to hit the coffee shop before work.  As such, I lingered in the sunshine, drinking an extra mug of coffee and helping myself to three or four Double-Stuf Oreos for breakfast.  Yeah, yeah, they were no breakfast chili, but I’m often not very hungry in the morning.  Calorie-wise, I figured they must equal an egg and a banana, no sweat.  I shower, groom myself, slip into a business-casual outfit and hie myself off to work.

The blood donation itself wasn’t bad; they actually found a vein without TOO much trouble (I have little-bitty roll-y veins) and it didn’t stop halfway (which is always particularly infuriating).  Like the others, I sat munching vanilla wafers and sipping juice to restore my blood sugar, and then went off to start my work day.

Because I’ve always felt a bit faint after donating blood, I made sure to come prepared: I brought a huge jug of Juicy-Juice (100% juice, y’all!) with me and sipped it as I sat at my desk.

*cue the ominous music*

Problem the First: I didn’t eat nearly enough food to squirt out a pint of blood.  I was pretty light-headed.

Problem the Second, which was rather more troublesome:  I never drink juice. Or regular soda.  Or other sugary beverages (unless you count wine).  So my blood sugar went from kinda low to ohmyfreakingGODWHATTHEBLOODYHELLISGOINGONYEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I felt worse.  I drank more juice.

I felt worse.  I drank more juice.

(No, that’s not a double type.  I kept feeling worse, so I repeated the action that was undoubtedly making me feel worse.  What can I say, I’m a bloody idiot.)

My skin gradually turned the color of a cave-dwelling albino.  My hands grew clammy and damp.  I gave up and went to visit my supervisor.

“Boss,” I whispered, swaying slightly back and forth.  “I think I need to go home.”

He took one look at me and gasped.  “Are you gonna MAKE it home?  You’re like the color of paper!”

“I’ll be fine,” I said bravely.  “Heather will cover my work for the day and I’ll go home and everything will be fine.”

I weaved back to my desk and put a note into the work Chatroom that I was leaving for the day.  And then . . . as I stared at my computer screen . . . it suddenly did this:

(That’s the push-pull dolly shot made famous here.  It’s scary when it happens in real life!)

I held onto my desk with both hands as my monitor stayed still and the world around it suddenly zoomed away at 100 mph.

Oh crap I’m never gonna make it home.

I called my sister for help.

“Sister,” I whispered.  “Help me.”

“Lissa, what’s wrong?” she barked.  “What’s happening? What’s wrong?”

“Help me,” I pleaded.  “I’m . . . sick.  I . . . I can’t get . . . I have to go home.  Come get me.”

“WHAT IS GOING ON??  ARE YOU OKAY?!?!?”

“I just . . . help me . . . ”

And with that, I hung up the phone.

Not on purpose!  I just kind of . . . blacked out.  I fainted.  For the first and only time in my life.  Apparently my poor sister was left screaming into an open line and imagining that I’d passed out under a bush somewhere.

Oh, and it gets MORE humiliating.  Yes, yes, it does.

Because I awoke from my passed-out state and promptly vomited three cups worth of Juicy Juice onto my desk.

Yeah.

***************************************************************************************

Miraculously, no one witnessed me blacking out and then spewing.  I frantically cleaned up my desk with paper towels and 409, then called my sister back.

“Hi Big Sis.”

“WHAT HAPPENED?!?!?  You sound a lot better.”

“Oh, I feel a lot better.  I threw up on my desk.”

I made it home and administered chicken broth and saltines for the remainder of the day.

And the moral of the story is:

If you’re donating blood in the afternoon, eat steak and eggs for breakfast.

The End.

WERE-SHELOB LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!!!!!!!

Well, okay, that title is a bit misleading, since we killed the f***er.  How about

“Things I’ve Learned as a Home Owner #6: Sometimes horrible creatures will invade your house and you will have to do battle.”

It’s eleven o’clock at night.  I’m making the nightly round, checking the locks and doors, and I reach for the sawed-off broomstick that wedges the sliding patio door.  As I sweep back the curtain and reach down, I notice A SPIDER THE SIZE OF A F***ING CADILLAC SITTING ON THE INSIDE OF OUR GLASS DOOR.

My gasp leads Mike to call out worriedly, “What’s wrong?”

“MIKE OMIGOD THERE’S A HUGE HUGE F***ING SPIDER ON THE DOOR OMIGOD IT’S HUGE!!!!”

(Seriously.  I cannot emphasize enough the SIZE of this monster.  To a girl raised in the Northeast, it looked big enough to swallow Rajah whole and then chase small children.  It was horrifying.)

Question: What caliber for gigantic terrifying spider?

Answer: STING.  But Bilbo hadn’t given me one.

Here is the chain of events, as I can most properly recall it:

ITEM: Lissa and Mike go running for rubber gloves, shoes, 409, RAID, and magazines.  Lissa curses herself for not having a stainless steel flyswatter. Considers sacrificing her favorite kitchen spatula, which would of course have to be bleached, doused with flammable liquid, and burnt.

ITEM: MIKE: “Um, I have bad news.  The spider’s gone.”

LISSA:  “AUUUGGGHHHH!!  FIND IT FIND IT FIND IT KIIIIILLLLLL IIIIIIITTTT!!!”

ITEM: We discover that the spider has retreated to higher ground.  It is now lurking in the corner of our box-like curtain header, perhaps ten feet off the ground.

ITEM: In the process of re-locating the beast and in the interest of preventing future hiding places, we rip down the curtains themselves. They were getting in our way, they were ugly and I never liked them anyway.  I immediately fling them onto the back porch, lest they be hiding a million renegade spiders between their layers.

ITEM: Using an light bulb changer extension pole, we attempt to squash the spider.  It thumbs its nose at us and climbs higher still.

ITEM: Mike fiercely wields the sawed-off broomstick.  The monster judges discretion to be the better part of valor and makes a run across the wall.

ITEM: Mike SLAMS the scurrying bastard with a back-handed broomstick.  Two legs fly off and the fiend drops to the floor.

ITEM: Lissa flies across the field of battle and douses the fallen corpse with copious amounts of 409.  Just in case.

ITEM: Lissa photographs the vanquished enemy.  Pix will appear below the fold for the benefit of the arachnophobic.

ITEM: Mike notices that he has dented the wall/dinked the paint where he slammed the broomstick.  Then realizes that it’s just a big blog of spider guts.

ITEM: Lissa gingerly uses a pair of disposable chopsticks to pick up the corpse and place it in a plastic container with a tight lid.  She also picks up the two legs that flew some three feet from the body.  She douses the entire battlefield with 409 and scrubs compulsively.

ITEM: Lissa and Mike pour drinks for themselves.  Lissa drinks her Glenlivet with shaking hands.

And now: The Vanquished Foe!

Five Things I’ve Learned by Being a Home Owner

Good morning everyone!!  I’m alive, I’m well, Rajah has settled in nicely, and the weather is beautiful in sunshiney Florida 🙂  I’m surrounded by full boxes and packing debris.  I’m wearing the same pair of shorts over and over again (I *have* unpacked the laundry detergent). I spent a half hour searching for a metal pan so I could bring brownies to the party next door (it was in a box labeled GLASS; thanks, packers, that was helpful). Unpacking our lives in a one-level house is quite different than our settled Kitty Den on the second floor!

Top five things I’ve discovered so far:

5. There ARE such things as Stepford Wives! Holy Cow!! The nice woman next door had a purse party and a whole handful of women there fit the profile.  You know what I mean?  Very skinny, bleached blond, perfectly made up, perfectly groomed women talking of how much they spoil their children and how their husbands constantly irritate them by playing X-Box, not putting away their dishes or being generally untidy.  Is this what I’m supposed to be in five years???  The hair’s gonna look awfully weird on me, if so.

4. Neighbors are MUCH different in an actual neighborhood than an apartment building.  We lived in the Kitty Den for two years; at no point did we know any of our neighbors by name or take a step through their doorways.  We’ve been here exactly a week and I’ve already met the neighbors on both sides (both of whom offered to answer questions or loan cups of sugar, etc.) as well as the next two houses to the right and one more house to the left.  I already attended a party thrown by one neighbor and Mike met the baby and puppy of another neighbor down the street.  It’s very friendly, but it’s also strange and kind of intimidating.  Perhaps I’ll manage to keep the Raj Mahal tidier than we kept the Kitty Den, if I think that folks might wander through on a random basis.

3. It’s mind-blowing (to this newbie) how much work it takes to set up a house.  I mean, unpacking and stuff, that’s expected.  And turning on electricity and water.  But you add on the home owner’s association, the person connecting the phone line and internet, the person installing Direct TV, the handyman examining the attic access and roof shingles, the Direct TV guy coming BACK to install something else he should have done the first trip, calling the security company to have them reset the system to your new phone line, being home when the new grill is delivered (YAY!!!), the pest company coming to transfer the termite bond, learning how to work the irrigation system . . . yeah.  I hadn’t used my iPhone calendar one TENTH as much as I did this month.

2. Tiles are a big change from carpet.  (Especially carpet in an apartment that was down the entire hallway from the elevator; all rain and mud was generally tracked off by the point of entry.)  We scrubbed the whole place before the furniture arrived from MA, but with all the comings and goings (and construction projects and unpacking) it’s getting a little gritty underfoot.  I have both a broom and a mop, but I’m having to negotiate around boxes and barricades of junk and it’s difficult.  ENTIRELY worth it, however, from watching Rajah skid out; he tried to turn a corner too quickly and slammed DIRECTLY into a cardbox box at full speed.  We laughed so hard I nearly peed myself.

And the number one thing I’ve discovered since becoming a home owner:

1. Crab grass is the Devil’s pubic hair.

Happy Monday, guys!!

Happy Caturday – Pushback Edition

Rajah sez: Mommy, stop pushing my feet and write a real post!!

Moving Day, Part 3

They brought me a sofa!! And chairs!! And spices and pans and tables and books!!!!

Happy Caturday – Teeth Edition

Rajah says he likes the Sunshine State just fine 🙂

What I did yesterday

• Drank coffee and ate a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich
• Cancelled some insurance policies for the MA apartment
• Did a walk-through of the Raj Mahal
• Fought with a bank
• Closed on the Raj Mahal
• Exchanged high-fives with Mike
• Ate a trio of side salads – Pea salad (with onions and bacon), chicken salad (meh; didn’t do more than pick at it) and tuna salad (with lots of capers and tomato relish – it was excellent!)
• Indulged in an hour of recoil therapy — ahhhhhhhh . . . . Siguette says she has missed me; I told her I missed her too!

Siguette at 7 yards

• We played with our new Evil-Looking Black Rifle (an M&P 15-22) and killed a zombie:

(Full disclosure — it took me a while to get used to the sights. Therefore most of the holes in the upper-black circle are mine, but ALL the eye-holes are Mikes.  You go, sweetie!)

• Ate some leftover Italian with delicious Gascon Reserve and equally delicious pan-roasted brussels sprouts
• Watched some TV
• Went to bed
• Listened to the cat MEOW, MEOW, MEOW at my husband’s ears for a good portion of the night

We’re perpetually short on sleep, over-busy, stressed and a bit frantic, but it’s also relaxing and warm and sunny.  Very odd.

Thank you everyone for your good wishes; I’ll keep you posted as we set up life in the Sunshine State!

Moving Day, Part 2

Good morning all! Well, it turns out I lied during my last post; there WAS some blood, but only a little. A few claw-punctures on my shoulder and one gash down my forearm; hardly worth mentioning 😉

Rajah was SILENT the whole flight, which was a relief. I spent about half the flight bent double in my seat so I could thrust a hand into the carrier to pet him. His breathing was fast and shallow the whole time but he showed no other signs of distress.

He was reluctant to get out of the carrier once we got to Mike’s corporate apartment, but I pried him out and plopped him into the litter box. I was pleasantly surprised when he crawled under the bed instead. The little brat actually managed to find a rip in the lining and therefore spent the afternoon INSIDE the box spring.

A few hours after that, he was skulking around the apartment. A few more hours and he was moving normally. Hooray!

Too bad the poor kitty gets traumatized again today when we move. Not to the Raj Mahal, no; we have to move to a SECOND corporate apartment.

In other words — I’m fine, rajah’s fine, mike’s fine, thank you, and the hiatus continues!

P. S. I took a three-hour-long scorching bath to get the crick out of my neck. It was my first experience with a garden tub. Holy cow I am NEVER leaving Florida 🙂 🙂 🙂

Snickers and Diet Coke equals …

… the breakfast of champions! At least, it does when Au Bon Pain is too crowded to negotiate with the cat.

Rajah was doing fine until I had to pull him out of the carrier for x-ray/metal detector. He took ONE LOOK at the chaos and FLUNG himself onto me with all four paws (and claws!). Poor terrified kitty! But no harm, no foul and no blood, so whatever.

Hope the flight goes SMOOTHLY!!

Our garbage disposer is having an interesting lunch

So far it’s had:
A half jug of balsamic vinegar
Sparkling lemonade
Pickle juice
A little rum
A bit more tequila
A whole jug of strawberry daiquiri mix
Some spaghetti sauce
Cherry Coke Zero

I will not be surprised if it has acid reflux …

UPDATE: Marsala cooking wine and white cider vinegar goes down the hatch!