ammogirl

Right. So, I thought I had the page break problem solved but alas, I have not. Just imagine the page breaks are there, until I figure it out. Actually, you know what, I’ll put in lines, that will work even better! I have to do something, because when I read my posts, without the space in between paragraphs, it reads like one incredibly long run-on sentence, and that would be terribly misrepresentative of me because we all know I NEVER use run-on sentences. Ever.
—-pause for breath, or, paragraph—-

Okay, for the last week or so, Taylor has been walking around the house going, “oh my GOD, it smells like WET DOG in here, it’s so gross, I might die, bla bla bla bla” and I was humoring her because *I* did not smell any wet dog, which meant there was no smell. Because I am the boss. But she kept insisting, and it was like, “Taylor, there is no wet dog smell in this house! It’s…old stuff in your nose or something.” What? THAT COULD HAPPEN. Hey, who else around here stuck something up their nose when they were younger? Besides me? I did the deed with a lentil. Or, several, I think…mom? Anyway, so the whole wet dog thing was like, getting annoying, right? Because nothing smelled like wet dog, period. And then one day, last Thursday, to be exact, I walked by Taylor after getting back from a run and she was like, “Mom! YOU smell like wet dog! It’s YOU!” and what do you know, I bent down and smelled my leg and she was right! It was totally me, the WHOLE TIME.

—pause, and all that—

See, what happened was that I had been using this self-tanner from Bath & Body Works. It was Ginger and Verbana, and it smelled fabulous in the tube, and even more fabulous on - it sort of turned brown sugary-smelling - but apparently, working out sort of cancelled out all the tantalizing good smells and turned them into wet dog smells. And I swear to god it’s not just me that smells like wet dog. It’s the lotion. For real, I did a test. Work out with lotion on, wet dog. Work out with NO lotion, no wet dog. Stupid lotion. The thing is, I wonder how many other people thought I smelled, and then I think about the time I went to the post office after a run, and while I was standing in line, the guy in front of me kept moving up, away from me. I just thought he was feeling crowded but oh my god, you guys! I was smelly!
—pausity pause—

I got attacked by another cockroach today. Okay, so I smell, and the cockroaches won’t leave me alone. Do you think this should tell me something? I swear that I shower daily! Should I…change my clothes or something? KIDDING.

—pausing for effect—

Tschuss!!

I learned two lessons in regards to sleepovers last night. One, don’t try out a fancy new recipe when there is a girl over that you know doesn’t even like pizza; and two, singing a rousing version of 4 Non Blondes “What’s Up” during karaoke induces very dramatic (and unnecessary, really, I’m not THAT bad) eye-rolling and face-covering in my daughter. Have I really entered the stage of embarrassing parent? Really? How thrilling! I never thought I’d get to this point, you know? I mean, I can remember like it was yesterday being in the 7th grade and fighting on the phone with Kari from the writing life about who David Broderick liked more. Now, I HAVE a 7th grader. God.
So the fancy new recipe I made last night was probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, ever. I stole it from my mom, who just recently got an entire new kitchen installed in her house and subsequently decided super fancy meals were most definitely in order. Anyway, I’m definitely not a cook. I’d LIKE to be a cook, and at one point of my life, even considered going to a Culinary Institute to be a pastry chef, but after researching, I realized you need this pesky thing called “creativity” to be any sort of chef, so I went to travel agent school instead. Do you want to take a guess at how that turned out?
Actually, the school itself went swimmingly, and I loved it, and holy crap could I ever fill out those airline tickets by hand. I interned with a local agency for awhile (read: did their filing) and then: the interviews. Or, “interview”. I went on one, and didn’t get hired, and got all pissy and childish and decided I never wanted to be a travel agent anyway, and went back to work at the tree nursery in Boring, Oregon. My job was color coding trees with paint, which entailed walking through hundreds upon thousands of saplings and determining what genus/variety they were, and then marking them with various different colors (two pink marks for Acer Silver, one red for Acer Red Sunset) so they could be inventoried at a later date. You guys. Saplings? All look the same. Whenever I went out to mark, my crew had to have one more color than every other crew: black. This was to cover up my erroneous markings, and you could always tell where I had been, because you would find row after row of black-marked trees. I, um, didn’t last long at that particular task. Instead, I went on to delivering saplings to the other farms the nursery owned throughout Oregon. THIS particular endeavor lasted until I totaled the company truck in an episode of mistaken right-of-ways. At this point, one would think I would’ve been fired, don’t you think? But no! Instead, I was put in charge of the potted tree divisions office and inventory operations. Well, I wasn’t officially in charge, but the girl I worked for did nothing but take credit for the stuff I did. You can ask my sister. She worked there too.
It was while working there that I experienced the most surreal moments of my life. I have sat here for the past ten minutes trying to think of just one that I could tell you, but I can’t think of one that wouldn’t require 87 pages of back story - there’s the biting dog, the catholic lesbian friend, the three Cherrys, the stalking, the awkward date moments, the Elusive Trout. Blues festivals in Portland. Sitting in the car for hours outside the Brightwood tavern while my two sisters sat inside and had beer after beer, because I wasn’t yet 21 and they were both really, really mean. I could go on…but I won’t. I’m not even sure why I started, actually, but we all know I’m quite fond of the ol’ tangent.
Anyway, so…the recipe. Penne pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, artichoke hearts, feta cheese, and pine nuts. Glorious. Seriously.

Tschuss!!

Okay, I’m dumb. The reason why my linklove list is not alphabetical is because it’s not supposed to be. I knew this! I was just…seeing if you guys knew. Today, however, I really want to know why I can’t insert line breaks. Anyone?
The housekeeper came on Thursday, and she did SUCH a fantastic job, but you guys! Do you know how much she decided to charge? Wait - you don’t know this part. See, she wanted to actually clean the house first, before deciding what to charge. I was fine with this, because I really hate cleaning, and was figuring it wouldn’t be much more than, say…$250 dollars a month. That’s a good price, right? I mean, we are not a dirty family! And she’s not doing our laundry or anything horrible like that, or cleaning the cat litter, or…taking out the trash. Well, the plan was for her and her mother-in-law to clean the house, figure out how much time it would take, work out the price, and then call me Thursday evening. You guys…nearly $500 dollars. Hi, that’s too much for even ME to justify. Can’t somebody just clean it for free? I mean, besides me?
So, we locked ourselves out of the house today. That was great. We had been running errands, and the whole time I had to pee really, really bad, but I just kept telling myself to wait until we got home, right? Oh god, I was so not happy when we got here. I seriously considered copying the construction guy from the other day, and peeing on the side of the house. I lack the necessary parts for that, however, and instead just sat in the car, glaring at anything that moved. Or, John. Because, you know, it’s was his fault that I didn’t bring a key. Hey, I never said I was rational. Plus, full bladder! Who knows what might have happened! We could’ve gotten in an accident, and my bladder might have exploded, drenching my innards with urine, and killed me! And then what?!
Fortunately, none of that happened. We managed to track down Lindsey at her friend’s house, got HER key, and made it home just in time. Thank god for spare bathrooms right by the front door.
And now I see it’s way past my bedtime. Have a great weekend, you guys.
Tschuss!!