Amusment Park Emotions Part 1: Fear (coupled with some amusement)

We are sitting in the parking lot. Stuck in the gridlock exodus of Six Flags New England. No one is moving. Not. An. Inch. Two vehicles in front of me there are cars merging, but there is no movement so they are all just coming from all directions, headlight to fender, ready for action once we get crawling again. Some lady wants to smoke a cigarette, but, as I find out later, her kids are in the car, and she has a rule of not smoking in the car with her kids. A noble gesture for sure. However, her subsequent behavior does not raise such admiration.

She gets out of her car, leans against her hood and lights up. Though cars are at a standstill, and have been for 10 minutes, this annoys the crap out of the people around her. They want her in the car with her foot on the pedal in case there is the tiniest millimeter of progress. Blondie in front of me (who, by the way, went to extremes to not let me cut in front of her) with her too-short sweater and cute 19 year old butt starts yelling out of her window, "Move your fucking ass, bitch!"

People still walking to their cars start craning their necks to see what’s going on. Another car full of girls chimes in. One particularly large black girl gets out of her car and starts waving her arms screaming "Get your ass out of the road!" Well, any inclination this woman had to put out her cigarette and get back in her car went completely out the window. She starts screaming back, telling people to fuck off…yes, the debate and argument skills on both sides are commendable. Then Blondie gets out of her car and threatens to "beat her ass." The people strolling through the lot start to stop...a crowd is forming. "Chick Fight!" is hollered by some dude and I become a little concerned.

The encouragement from the passers-by seems to spur on the ladies. There are many wild rapper-like gestures accompanied by head rolling (mostly by Blondie) and yelling. I worry that I am about to witness something that I may have to go to court for. I must admit I had a forboding sense that fire arms may appear. Then the smoking lady yells something and suddenly eveyone checks themselves.

Blondie turns and heads back to her car muttering "stupid ass bitch."

A guy in a car to left asks "What’s going on?"

"I want to fucking kick her ass, that’s what going on. But her kids are in the car." Ass beating averted.

Everyone calms down and the crowd once again heads to their cars, dissappointed. As we inch out of the parking lot and onto the highway I think to myself there’s another good reason to have kids. So surly mobs of crazy bitches won’t beat my ass.

Pay No Attention To The Girl Behind the Nacho

I am no longer anonymous in the blogosphere. I asked my super-cool sister-in-law if I could put her blog on my links list, and because I am vain and full of self promotion, I divulged this little slice of internet to her. Hi Knit Geek! Check out her blog. Its over there -------------->

I quickly went back through my archives to be sure I didn't write anything not fit for consumption by people who actually KNOW me. I think it's ok...there's a little I wince at, mostly because I'm a dork, not a total evil bitch. Which is good. I find that when I'm in evil bitch mode, I don't feel much like blogging.

It makes noise when I blink

ugh, hangover. Not a horrible one, but enough to make me wish I could have stayed in bed another couple hours.

Last night I went to my knitting group, which unfortunately just consisted of me. I proceeded to drink 4 glasses of wine (perhaps 5) and talk the poor bartenders ear off. Though I’m sure my astute observations of New England culture and explanations of ovulation fascinated him, I have a feeling he was just humoring me in order to get a big tip. Which he did, because I’m so nice. Especially when I’m drunk!

Oh, and Oprah had the guy that wrote A Million Little Pieces on, not some crazy dude. The show previews where slightly misleading. It was pretty interesting. Made me want to read the book. Part of me wants to resist though. I don't like to feed the Oprah ego too much. She just whispers the name of a book and it becomes a best seller. Should she have that much power? Hmmm. Maybe I can find it at a used book store.

A new Nacho!

I changed my template. I was getting frustrated trying to customize this blog and having it look so half-ass and ghetto. This is better...simple is better.

So just a quickie in order to get the new look a bloggin'! Can't really think of much to say, so I'll talk about Oprah. When all is lost, there is always Oprah.

Oprah has reverted to her parade - o - celebrities. Yesterday was Michael Jordan..not horrible, but kinda lame. Until Charles Barkley showed up which was somewhat amusing. Today's looks better...very ambiguous previews..some crazy guy? We'll just have to wait and see.

I'm learning to talk Yankish

3 o’clock. Strangely seems to be my blog posting hour. It is very dreary here. Wilma is whizzing by and bringing all sorts of gray and rain. Also wind, which is blowing the purty leaves off the trees before they get to be peeped by the leaf-peepers.

Leaf-peepers…that’s what people around here call the tourists that drive around to see “Autumn in New England.” They also call yard sales “tag sales.” It was very confusing at first, but I caught on eventually. Oh, and a traffic circle is a “rotary”…which I always thought was a charitable organization that liked to serve pancakes and host auctions.

Hokie-O-Lantern

As many of you have seen I'm sure, it's a little rainy around here. More accurately, the river is full of pumpkins. Yep, pumpkins. Apparently the flood waters have ravaged the pumpkin patches upstream and you can sit and watch them float by. I feel kinda like an idiot, having bought one for $12, when I could just go scoop one up. But part of me thinks of it kinda like stealing, or at least benefiting from someone eles's misfortune. Those pumpkin patch people must be pissed!

All moral dillemma's aside, I just carved my $12 pumpkin for Thursdays football game. Guess who I'm rooting for?!

Another side street on the inevitable road to TiVo

Apple's announcement that they would be making and announcement came out about a month ago, and we were expected to wait, with baited breath, to see what magnificent wonder Steve Jobs has been dreaming up. There were rumors and conjecture, mostly believing it to be a Video iPod. Well, as they announced on Wednesday, the rumors were true...the Video iPod has arrived.

J and I had some discussion earlier in the week on whether a video iPod would, in fact, be useful. Being that iPods are the sort of things you use when you're driving, or jogging, a video feature didn't seem practical. These are not exactly instances where you would find yourself wanting to watch the newest Black Eyed Peas video (by the way, have you seen this video? It is ridiculous, stupid, I can't even tell you! Humps? what?!) To J there was no question. The far away look gave into giddiness, and he has now brokered a deal that will have the thingamabob in his hands by Halloween...or sooner.

Though I had initial doubt regarding the necessity of this doohickey, I have been persuaded by some recent events:

Lost was on Wednesday night. J and I both enjoy us some Lost. We both, however, fell asleep. Normally, this would mean I would have to surf the Internet at work to get the synopsis. So I could see if Charlie - uh, I mean Jack - decides to let everyone else in on the secret spoils of the bunker, or what's up with that JLo chick that got dumped in the pit with Sawyer and the others, and what ever happened to the huge mutant polar bears. Anyway, Thursday J pulls up iTunes and there it is: Lost, 10/12/05 Episode. You can download it on to...you guessed it, your Video iPod! Then you just plug it into your TV and voila! Lost!

So there you have it. It will be useful after all. And I want to say, even though I poke fun at J's excitement for all that is technologically new and shiny I must admit, I am glad he keeps up with the stuff, so I don't have to.

And I'm not as witty here either

Maybe because there is no one to try and impress? I have another blog with a group of friends and have been participating on it like crazy. And it would seem that I would prefer to post here, as here I am completely anonymous and can say whatever I want. Not that I censor myself or anything on the other one, its just that my husband can read it….so , well, you know.

For instance, here I can talk about the baby making. So far, no baby. There is an outside chance that I could be pregnant right now, but somehow I doubt it. I won’t know until Sunday, which is officially 5 days before my “cycle” …though I must admit I took a test this morning. They are so expensive, I don’t know why I do that!

J is getting a little anxious about it. We have friends who just got pregnant, and though we are happy for them, I think J is a little jealous. Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, and at dinner he said “boy, I hope this doesn’t take a long time…that would suck.” I then had to remind him that some crazy percentage of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and even if I turn out to be pregnant this month, I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling anyone until at least 8 weeks….as I polish off my glass of wine.

Yes, I am drinking. Not a lot, mind you, but I just can’t go to a nice restaurant and not order a glass of wine. I know this will have to change once I am pregnant, but the fact that I may be (though I don’t think so) makes me feel guilty. Oh, and I’m still smoking…I KNOW! I have begun the weaning process. What used to be 8 cigarettes a day is now 3. I am hoping to get to zero by next weekend, when my parents visit.

I need to just buckle down and get healthy. No drink, no smoke, vitamins…the whole shabang. It’s just so not me. But I think once I get that positive test result, something will click. At least I hope so. There is part of me that is trying to get all the bad stuff in before I know it has to stop. Strange but true.

Keep your fingers crossed for us.

And I have guests from out of town coming.

My town literally smells like shit. Apparently, every fall they spread manure on the fields to fertilize…at least that’s what I have been told. Well, lately it has been foggy and the fumes have not been able to escape. Yuck! And it doesn’t smell like normal cow/farm smell…I don’t know what those cows have been eating, but Oh My Lord! I have been checking the paper to see if there is any reporting on this smell, but there is not. Just want to confirm it is as benign as a once-a-year fertilizing. I’ve been having scary images of some crazy chemical plant to the west and the jet stream is bringing its noxious fumes to gives us all cancer. Surely, no…no? I had to chuckle when I realized I was thinking “God, I hope it’s cow shit.”

Piece of PAX

So much for my resolution to post every few days. I really should learn not to declare intentions as I have a horrible record with the follow through (e.g. I will quit smoking).

The house renovations are complete!…for the most part. There is still some painting to do. There is ALWAYS painting to do. We still have touch ups left from the downstairs revamp we did 3 years ago! I hate painting. It’s right up there with doing dishes. However, I do have a dishwasher…his name is J.

J is planning to go to Ikea tomorrow to return the broken bits of closet we purchased last week. Unfortunately Ikea is and hour and a half away…so not so convenient. I tried to call them first to let them know their PAX wardrobe is a piece of crap, and send me another right now, thank you…but they don’t answer the phone. Not sure if their all eating Swedish chocolate…um wait, that’s Switzerland….I think I’m confusing my blonde people. Perhaps they are all taking a class on how to use an Alan wrench and put little pieces of wood in holes and the proper way to curse when there is no hole, even though their wordless instruction picture plan clearly shows there is a hole.…anyway, no one ever answers the phone. So, in order to have a closet, and get all my crap off the floor, J is biting the bullet and driving back there to exchange it. Nice guy.