PUPPY SITTING

Oh my God you guys, look at me!

My name is Tucker, and I am adooooooorable!

This is my lamby.
I love to bite him and rip at his ears.

I like Heather, but I like Mike more.
He is better at playing.
Also, he's better at getting up before dawn to take me outside.
Heather does not seem to enjoy the early morning time.

I pretty much go ballistic when I see someone.
It doesn't matter if they've been out of the room
for seven seconds or seven hours.
I just want to kiss them all over!

I looooooove Mike.

I got up on the couch all by myself!
Most of time, anyway.

OMG, though you guys. Heather takes a fuckton of pictures.

I really did not enjoy it when Mike would hide his face from me.
I made it my mission to help him find his face.

You know what I do enjoy? Sleeping.
I really love to sleep.

I like to sleep wherever and however I decide.

I really liked sleeping at Mike's feet.

This, well... I was drunk.
It happens.

I slept in Heather's lap, too.
SERIOUSLY, HOW CUTE AM I?

I had a wonderful time with Mike and Heather. I hope they had fun, too!

Surprised Kitty!

OMG, and then there's this:

Cougar What Now?

Something strange happened the other evening. I finished watching Modern Family, laughed my ass off, and then Courteney Cox's new show came on.

And it was actually funny.

Cougar Town. Who knew? Courteney plays Jules, a recently divorced woman who decides to have fun with her life. And that's all you really need to know. Her two best friends love her, but hate each other, which is entertaining. Ellie is played by Christa Miller (the fantastically bitchy Jordan on Scrubs) while Laurie is played by Busy Philipps (I think that she was in Dawson's Creek? I know that she was in White Chicks. And I am not ashamed to admit that the first time I saw it, that movie had me laughing like an idiot).

She has a son - a total Casanova, an ex-husband she tolerates, a fun set of neighbors, and the one single guy across the street who she will either end up with, or have annoying sexual tension with. Only time will tell.

To be honest, this isn't a show that I would make sure to catch every week. It's not even a show that I would DVR for later. It's more like a show to watch when it's on. See what you think. You know, if you feel like it.

I'm An Idiot

Sometimes I wonder if that should just be one of my labels. You know, like "movie reviews" or "recipes?" Because I do some pretty retarded things sometimes.

Em came to visit last weekend, and all was awesome. Mike took us to dinner, we went to the Irish pub and then passed out watching Clue. We had an awesome breakfast on Saturday morning before heading out to tailgate for the Michigan game (even though it was a lost cause). But when you know someone who knows someone who is a Sam Adams representative, it turns into a fantastic orgy of pony kegs and free food, and no one really cares who wins the game because the team just blows and is showing no sign of improvement.

Em and H enjoy free beers

Kels, Em, and H
I was in both of their weddings!
(A little useless fact for y'all)

But that was last weekend! Today now... today was a day full of Heather and her idiotic moments. Emily left her cell phone charger at my house, and I was supposed to drop it off at her mom's on Thanksgiving. I forgot. I mean, of fucking course I forgot. It doesn't matter that I used pretty purple pen to draw a star on my hand to help remind me. It doesn't matter that I placed the charger by my purse. Hell, it wouldn't have mattered if I had put it in my purse, because I most likely would have forgotten to go to her mom's house anyway.

Also? I really don't know when I turned into this forgetful, insane person.

Anyway, we planned on meeting today, BLACK FRIDAY (dun dun duuuunnn), at some point in the morning, before she headed back to Holland. My cell rang at nine, and I did that thing where I pretended that I was wide awake, "No, I've been up for a while! I'm still in bed, but I'm super wide awake, I swear!" (It certainly didn't help that I stayed up until one a.m. the night before so that I could be one of the first to order from Threadless when their $9 sale went into effect.) So I crawled out of bed, threw on jeans, and got in the car.

It's only about twenty minutes from Mike's house to my hometown, and I delivered the charger without a hitch. (On the way out of town, I passed the Target near his place and couldn't believe how crowded it was. People actually ENJOY barreling headfirst into that mess? No, thank you.)

You might be thinking, "Well, this isn't such a good story now, is it? I'm kind of bored. I wonder if it's going to get better." Oh, it is.

I stopped at my parents' to pick up the Thanksgiving leftovers that I forgot last night (see? I'm a menace), and ended up playing a few rounds of the Scene It! movie edition. I won both times because I am a double threat - I have brilliant knowledge of both old and new movies. Hence, double threat! Bwuh huh huh! I really don't know why they want to play the damn game with me - I always win, I'm extremely loud and shrill when I scream out the answers, and I am annoyingly competitive.

Really annoying.

I got ready to leave, and realized that my wallet was not so much in my purse as nowhere to be found. Doh, it was on Mike's couch - right where I left it at one a.m. when ordering some supercool t-shirts.

Long story short (too late), my dad drove me twenty minutes to Mike's to get my wallet and then drove me back to their house. A ridiculous waste of time, for sure, but at least I annihilated my parents in that DVD game, right? Right?

God, I'm an idiot.

Another Lovely Morning Mix

My commute takes a little longer these days, with two different jobs on two different campuses of the University. I have to catch my morning bus at 7:06, which honestly isn't all that bad. It gives me time to get coffee, if I'd like, and grab the paper for a little crossword action. Getting my brain to twist the right ways to finish a crossword is certainly interesting at that time of the day, that's for sure.

But my new schedule also means that I am getting even more use out of my iPod. This morning was no different, especially since it was raining and everyone drives like complete morons when it's raining, therefore making the buses run late.

Results of shuffle:

If You Don't, Don't by Jimmy Eat World
Falling for You by Weezer
Song for the Dumped by Ben Folds Five
I'm Yours by Jason Mraz
Daylight Fading by Counting Crows
Gamble Everything for Love by Ben Lee
Don't Stop Believin' by Journey (JOURNEY!)
Comedown by Bush
Can't Stop Now by Keane
Viva la Vida by Coldplay
High of 75 by Relient K
Save Tonight (acoustic) by Eagle Eye Cherry
Karma Police by Radiohead

And then I walked up two flights of stairs. The end.

Piles of Leaves. Everywhere.

I don't understand. Does this sort of thing go on in other places? Leaf pick-up was scheduled for November 18th, so naturally, people raked and deposited their leaves in the street around November 8th.

All over town, streets looked like this. What was super awesome, however, was when it rained. The leaves were soaked down, and at the points where the piles extended too far into the street, they had been driven over countless times, producing a leafy goo that caused each and every car to hydroplane.

So that was fun.

The Focus was stuck parking in front of the neighbor's house because some jerkass had been parked in front of my house for a week straight with no sign of relief. So my landlord? Had it ticketed. Not a day too soon, though, as the magic happened the very next day.

Nice green lawns and leaf-littered streets.
Welcome to Ann Arbor.

But seriously now. Growing up, we raked our leaves ourselves. We bagged them ourselves. And we put them in special canisters marked "YARD WASTE." And someone picked them up and we worried no more. In Ann Arbor, we have a truck that sucks them up off of the street into a tank that is apparently much like Mary Poppins's carpetbag.

I don't know what happens from here. Are the leaves burned? Are they dumped in a ravine? Are they reintroduced to the wild?

They're gone now, which is nice. Except of course, for the places where the sucky truck couldn't get to: i.e., where moron cars were parked. Most streets still have errant piles of rain-soaked leaves and wide-open expanses of, well, pavement.

The Human Furnace

Mike makes fun of me for taking "forever" to get ready for bed. But I have a lot to do! As my mother always said (and as her mother always said), "You have to suffer to be beautiful." Now I don't know about 'beautiful,' and that phrase was mostly reserved for when I was screaming bloody murder as she was roughly combing out my hair after a bath, but I believe that we should take a little time each day to take care of ourselves.

I have to: floss, brush my teeth, remove my eye makeup, wash my face, apply anti-adult pimple cream (seriously, what the hell? I'm almost thirty!), apply eye cream, night cream, and the motherfucking seemingly never-ending ringworm cream.

So when I finally crawl into bed, he's long been asleep.

(Note: It really only takes me about ten minutes to complete my nighttime routine. It's not my fault that the man can fall asleep before his head hits the pillow. I should be happy that he brushes his teeth, but there's no way he's going to wash his face at night, no matter how many different cleansers his mom buys him. Sorry, Mary!)

The other night, I was absolutely freezing. Mike was asleep, snoring softly, with a mountain of blankets pulled up to his eyes. I have no idea how he doesn't simultaneously suffocate and overheat, but he seems to be fine, so I let him be.

Unless... Well, unless my feet are freezing.

See, I think that I have poor circulation in my feet. They're quite small, I have low blood pressure, and they're far away from my heart. It takes a while to get warmth down in my toes, and sometimes it seems like my body doesn't want to exert the effort.

It doesn't help that the air vent in the bathroom blows directly on my feet as I'm washing my face and brushing my teeth and whatnot.

So when I carefully and quietly creep into bed, I know that I have a human furnace laying next to me. I ever so slowly place an ice-cold foot against his leg, holding my breath as I anticipate movement. When nothing happens, and he continues on in dreamland, the other foot finds a spot. I usually keep my feet pressed against his calves for a good five minutes until I can feel the warmth returning.

But that's when something strange happens.

Remember playing in the snow for what seemed like hours, and even though you were wearing mittens or gloves, your hands still managed to get damp and cold? My mom would have us run cool water over our fingers - and it felt so warm! Our hands would be tingly and almost numb, but that cool water would make everything okay.

Well, that's the same sensation that I would feel when I would reluctantly remove my feet from my oblivious boyfriend's legs - but in reverse. Maybe my feet were overheated, and they were just trying to return to normal temperatures.

Maybe I just need to wear socks more often.

Psst... Do You Like Awesomely Fun T-shirts?

Threadless is having a 24-hour sale this Friday (the 27th), and all shirts will be half off! That's only NINE DOLLARS PER SHIRT.

This one is for my mom, the science teacher:

These next two for me:

And this one for my niece:

That one is probably my favorite, but there are no more in my size. Ah well...

Oh. My. God.

I don't know why I had never thought to go to this website before, as it's the one listed on the bumper sticker of Mike's horrid neighbors. But I did. And now I am appalled.

Just... look.

Sure! When I imagine the person I want performing my wedding ceremony, I think of the neighborhood bastard asshole. The one who swears at his wife and children like his life DEPENDS ON IT.

Apparently, We're Turning Into RUSSIA

What the hell? First, we find out that recommendations are in place to severely limit access to mammograms to women under fifty, and now they want us to agree to a pelvic exam every two to three years instead of every twelve months?

(Nice picture on that article, by the way. THANKS, CNN.)

I don't know much about the health care industry (as evidenced here), but I cannot see how this is a good idea. Early detection has been drilled into our heads as being the best way to beat so many types of cancers. I don't like that these "recommendations" could lead to non-coverage of procedures by insurance companies.

This just seems really dangerous for women, doesn't it? It seems ominous. Dark clouds in the sky, and whatnot. Electrical storms! Cattle mutilations! No, wait... I think I've been watching too much Supernatural with Mike...

Anyway, I do know that when I was one of the many women paying out of pocket for my personal health insurance plan, I was frustrated and super annoyed to discover that very few plans offered coverage for women's health. I paid more in monthly fees and premiums just so that I could be slightly protected. And I still got charged lab fees, just for following a procedure that I knew was important to my overall health.

I was angry when I heard about the mammogram bullshit, but now I am really pissed off. Maybe early detection isn't the most effective anymore. I don't believe that, but if that's what the doctors think, then they are going to have to do a hell of a lot better to convince us that it's the best course of action.

It's Almost the Weekend, Bitches!

OMG, you guys, I've been busy. Busy with two jobs - one that is my dream job, and one that pays the rent. And for sweaters, from time to time.

I love sweaters.

But there is great importance! EMFACE is coming to visit this weekend! All the way from HOLLAND.

(Holland, Michigan. But still.)

I have not seen this hot bitch since her wedding back in August, which now, in my mind, makes her an old married woman.

Anyway, there is going to be good food, good beers, and good movies. And possibly a Farmer's Market.

Countdown - seventeen hours to go!

A Little Fun Fact for The Day

I've been completely annoyed with popular radio lately, and even the alternative rock station in the Detroit/Windsor area, 89X, has become rather boring and repetitive. So I've found myself turning into my father, and return to the classical station over and over again.

I like classical music for many reasons, but mostly because I grew up listening to it, so I identify the entire experience with my dad's interest in and love for classical. I'd arrive home from school and he would be blasting Bach, Mozart, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, or a number of other knowns or unknowns from the classical world, and once you hear a tune more than a few times, it becomes memorable.

ANYWAY.

I was listening to the classical station the other day, and before the DJ played a version of Beethoven's Fifth, he explained that during World War II, the BBC and many American news bulletins played the first four notes of the symphony at the start of each broadcast. Why? The four notes, played as they are composed, dot-dot-dot-dash, are Morse Code for "V." As in "Victory."

Isn't that cool?

(I thought that it was kind of fitting on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.)

The Proposal

I had heard good things about The Proposal, and I generally like Sandra Bullock (I admittedly love Miss Congeniality, and she's awesome as law student Ellen in A Time to Kill). And since I adore Ryan "The Abs" Reynolds, I suppose that it was just a matter of time before I saw the flick.

I had no idea what I had gotten myself into.

Friday night, Mike and I settled in with his parents for movie night. We expected light-hearted comedy. We got a pile of steaming poo.

Andrew Paxton (Reynolds) is an executive assistant to Editor-in-Chief Margaret Tate (Bullock) - a bit of a massive bitch. Andrew has been toiling away as her slave for the past three years holding on to hope that he'll eventually be promoted to editor.

The plot is established early: Margaret is a Canadian citizen about to be deported, and she blackmails Andrew into marriage. In a whirlwind of events, they are on a plane bound for Alaska that weekend to meet his family. It's ridiculous. There's a red herring in the form of Drew's ex-girlfriend, and that's about the only plot point that results in something other than a cliche.

I do NOT understand the reviews I've read here. This site usually spots the bullshit of Hollywood from miles away, and they liked this film. Does. Not. Compute. But who knows - I hated The Hangover, putting me at odds with most of America, so do what you will with this review.

Of course, there are some good things about The Proposal. The first would be excellent casting. Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, and Betty White are excellent as Drew's parents and grandmother, respectively.

Okay, wait. I take it back. The casting is the only good thing about this film next to the abs of Reynolds. I'm glad that I didn't waste money to see this in the theater. Gah.

One of the two good things about The Proposal: