Monthly Archives: April 2007

Unknown's avatar

Joseph Smith, teetotalers, and sacred underwear, oh my!

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The husband and I have been living in the Texas heat for a combined total of 41 years. Rather than becoming acclimated to living in the moist oven that is Austin, Texas from April through October, our bodies have reached a point of critical thermal mass. We can take it no longer! And so, this July, we will be making the most of a 26-foot Penske truck and moving to the land of Big Love… Utah. That’s right you dirty polygamists, we’re headed your way!

When we tell people about our plans, to a soul they respond with some variation of the question: “But, you’re not Mormon, are you?” The answer is no, we are Catholic– and although we may not attend mass weekly, I was raised in Catholic schools and have attended so many masses, vigils, rosaries and reenactments of Christ’s crucifixion that I could probably remain a shut-in for the next ten years and still come out ahead of most “good” Catholics. Yes, we know that Utah is infested with proselytizing Mormons. So why move there? It’s simple. SNOW.

Yet, I must admit, the inevitable materialization of pair after pair of young aryan men knocking on our door to inquire upon the state of our relationship with “Father” is somewhat disconcerting. How do we go about telling them, politely, that they can take the tainted Kool-Aid elsewhere? “Take us off your list?” “No thanks, you can give our seats on the Mother-ship to some other deserving couple.” “Nice suit. My cell-mate used to dress up for me sorta like that…. Wanna come in?”

*LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this excellently written post are not the views of Somegosoftly and Somegosoftly takes no responsibility for anything offensive or immoral that may be contained herein. Any similarity to actual Mormons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Comments or complaints regarding this post may be directed to: 123 Crybaby Lane, Sissyville 98765.*

Unknown's avatar

She’ll be watching Law & Order two hours earlier…

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Somegosoftly has reached Seattle! I know you are all atwitter, anxious to hear about the journey and first impressions of the new habitat, but CK needs her rest. The best part of this post, I’m sure, is the resulting fact that you will no longer be subjected to my amateur attempts at blogging…. Except maybe one more…..

Unknown's avatar

Thou shalt not neglect thy friend’s blog.

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Okay, so maybe I wasn’t the best choice to act as steward of somegosoftly during CK’s road-trip. I failed to post yesterday, leaving somegosoftly’s dedicated readers to fend for themselves in cyberspace on the one day of the week when employers actually expect you to spend more time surfing the internet than working: Friday.

Instead of crafting something interesting, amusing or thought-provoking to publish on my good friend’s blog, I spent Friday cleaning my house from top to bottom in anticipation of the arrival of Very Special Friends from Dallas whom we haven’t seen in over a year. So much has changed in the year since we’ve seen the VSFfDs… the most notable is that we have created a new little person who lives with us and fills our days with sunshine and laughter. The VSFfDs have no children, and I feared the sight of my house — strewn with noisy, colorful toys, piles of laundry and dirty dishes, and elsewhere blanketed with a thick layer of dust — might forever postpone any plans they had of procreating. Hence Friday’s marathon house-cleaning project.

Toilets scrubbed to sparkling perfection, floors swiffered and mopped, all laundry folded and hidden away, I finally put my feet up and opened a beer. Too tired, I mumbled, too tired to blog tonight. Three beers later, I crawled into bed and fell fast asleep, confident that the VSFfDs would arrive tomorrow and think I was the perfect wife and mother– Just look at these toilets! they would exclaim, I think we could eat off of them!

Alas, no happy dreams awaited me. Instead, I woke with a start in the middle of the night, heart pounding and overwhelmed by guilt. You see, I dreamt that a lonely somegosoftly reader, distraught by the absence of a Friday post, had decided to shrug off this mortal coil… her suicide note: an eloquent goodbye posted as a comment on this blog. To that poor soul I can only say I’m sorry you had to die… but God are my toilets clean!

Unknown's avatar

Bon Voyage

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If I was a color, today I would be blue. The day has finally come when our dear friends pack their car and begin their cross-country trek to the Evergreen State. We joined CK and MK for one last lunch Wednesday at Ski Shores, where we reveled in the sunshine and the sight of little kids (okay, us too) throwing bread and french fries to the fish and turtles just off the dock. I was able to fight off tears only by imagining the screaming fits CK and MK will likely have whilst trapped in the front of their over-stuffed SUV for the next five days. If only they had a video in the dashboard a la Oprah and Gayle. I’m not saying it would be a chronicle of the demise of their marriage, but if MK shows up in Seattle with only nine fingers, for instance, will we ever know the truth?

Here are a few of the things that I will miss the most:

1. Sitting in the meat-locker that is Rudy’s on 620, scarfing down brisket and sausage, while MK and BB talk shop, CK picks at chicken and we complain about the latest dumb things our husband/neighbor/Rosie O’Donnell did/said.

2. Sitting at Freebird’s, doing much the same as in No. 1.

3. Making plans to meet up with the K’s, which always involved a minimum of nineteen phone calls, of which MK only answered two. I still don’t understand this ritual, since we only ever met at Rudy’s or Freebird’s, but I’ll miss it nonetheless.

4. Having my eardrums assaulted alternately by a) the screaming toddler who, when not released for a beating, apparently lives in a cage upstairs of the K’s apartment, and b) the Rave music CK played to drown out Satan’s spawn.

5. Knowing someone who can fix my camera and teach me all sorts of nifty tricks, without whom I would not be able to share pics like this:

tbpic.jpg

These things may sound lame and not worth shedding a tear over, but what it all amounts to is that our best friends are gone, and we already miss them. If all goes well, they’ll be in Denver by tomorrow morning. Wish them luck!

Unknown's avatar

Bee Crisis

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When I originally posted this, the information seemed good, but now, here’s the latest:

Stress Disorder -08May07

When MK told me about this a week ago, I thought that he was making it up. And I laughed. A lot. Apparently it’s not funny, and apparently we are in the midst of a BEE CRISIS. It’s so important it made the front page of Yahoo!, and so I’m posting it for you even though I’m on blog vacation.

I guess they, um cross pollinate everything that we eat. Everything. And we’re killing them. And that is bad. For us. So, um…read this.

Honeybees Dying and Cell Phones to Blame


www.voanews.com

Unknown's avatar

This Is It

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Well, we’re all ready to go. Everything is packed. All that’s left tomorrow is a little laundry and cleaning, and we’re out of here.

It’s a strange feeling…I never planned to stay in Austin, it was always just temporary, for college. Little did I know I’d make such amazing friends, meet the love of my life, become so close to his friends, and my family that is here. Now we’re leaving. I’m excited and sad at the same time.

We had the greatest dinner last night at the County Line, laughing and chowing, drinking and chowing. I’ll miss the bbq! I’ll miss the great company of TB and BB. Tonight we’re heading over to Hula Hut, despite the nasty weather, to say our goodbyes to everyone else. You’ll be at the mercy of the phenomenal guest blogger, thestandin. I promise to carefully chronicle our road trip and the great stories I’m sure we’ll have from our weekend in Denver, our night in Boise, and our first impressions of Seattle. When I wake up, after a long nap. Thank you all for your well wishes, your continued support of my little blog here, and everything else. I’ll talk to you in a week!

waving goodbye
www.ocg.at

Unknown's avatar

Cowabunga, Dude

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80sparty1.jpg

That should say it all. That is none other than Teen Wolf, flanked by snippy and yours truly, somegosoftly.

You may recall that for her birthday, we did the 80s power ballad sing alongs. I talked about it here and again here. Well, I wasn’t that good then, but last night, I shined. Like a giant shiny day glo disco ball. Last night we attended Rock the Casbah with DJ Mel at the Parish. Now we’re talking 80s pop and dance music. all. night. long. Madonna, Prince, Wham, Duran Duran, Yes. I knew almost all of it. It was clear to any bystander that I did, as well as my crew, as we shouted and sang and danced.

80sparty.jpg

These are some 5 star costumes. Teen Wolf was only one of the entourage of 20+ the best friend brought out last night. It was a trip, there was so much to see and point at and danced to. From “Our House” to “Our Lips Are Sealed”, I’ve never crooned and swayed and jived more passionately. The only thing(s) that could have made this night a better way to spend our last Saturday night in Austin are if JC my super rockin’ dance partner had been there and I was able to give out awards, including but not limited to the following categories:

  • Best Use of a Scrunchie
  • Best Sunglasses Worn at Night
  • Most Unique Interpretation of an 80s Dance Move
  • Cutest Boy in a Members Only Jacket
  • Best Stonewash of Jean
  • Highest Side Ponytail

MK pulled out a little dance move for Depeche Mode that completed my night and vaulted it in my memory as the greatest dance party of all time.

Party all the time, party all the time…

Tell me, what is your most hoppin’-ist 80s dance song?

Unknown's avatar

So Sleepy

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What? Where’s my bed??? That’s right folks, thanks to some best friends help and some elbow grease, and a little magic, every last giant piece of furniture is in storage. Yippee! What a day. For those guys, I guess.

We had Maudie’s for probably the last time, fought with the neighbors for hopefully the last time, and took a nice little nap on our nice little air mattress. This is the high life, let me tell you. I don’t even have a television any more *gasp*!

As a matter of fact, you might like to know that I’m blogging on the floor with the laptop propped up on the sub for my speakers. Too cool. We’re on our way out to see a few more friends, say a few more goodbyes, and attend a very special event that I will wait until tomorrow to elaborate on.

After that, it will be a whirlwind week and a road trip I know I won’t be able to wait to tell you about. I’m not too good in the car that long, I hope I can take it! I hear it’s a pretty monotonous drive.


www.canyonchasers.net

Unknown's avatar

Cry Babies

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Don Imus is an old guy. With a radio show. Well, he used to be.

Who hasn’t called someone a ‘nappy headed ho’? I can get a little nappy when I go running. It’s normal. White or black, you can be nappy, and ho-y. Sheesh, men can be hos. I’d like to list the crybabies for you:

  • MSNBC
  • Steve Capus, NBC News division President
  • Bruce Gordon, former NAACP President
  • The Rev. Al Sharpton
  • The Rev. Jesse Jackson
  • Oprah Winfrey
  • American Express Co.,
  • Sprint Nextel Corp.,
  • Staples Inc.,
  • Procter & Gamble Co.,
  • General Motors Corp. — all pulling ads from Imus’ show indefinitely.
  • Edited-to-add Head On, per comments.
  • reporter Ron Allen
  • “Today” show’s Al Roker
  • Barack Obama
  • Hillary Clinton (right after Obama)

Obama? Seriously? Everyone gets all up in arms about something that wasn’t even meant to be heard. Does it particularly suit their cause to take a stance? Mistakes happen. The less we pay attention, the less they will happen and become offensive. I’m a severe proponent of ignoring things and letting them go away since the first airing of the episode of South Park that made me see that overusing a swear word takes away it’s sting. Feeding into anything makes it worse. The more sensitive we become to stupid remarks, the more they sting. It’s a bandwagon, and people crying are telling us they are on the side of ‘moral fiber’. I’m not racist. I have more moral fiber if I ignore it and move on, maybe donate to charity.

Imus does some good, too: As of 9 a.m., $450,000 had been pledged. Last year’s Radiothon raised a total of $2.9 million for the three charities — Tomorrows Children’s Fund, CJ Foundation for SIDS and the Imus Ranch.

If we all had to think before we did things, I might never have gotten married, bought those super cool sunglasses, or published this ‘insensitive’ post.

This is not the first time he’s made off color remarks. Here’s a couple interesting articles:

Newsday

NYTimes

Pass the Word

Click the picture thumbnail to see Hillary’s website:

rutgers.jpg

Should he have been fired? I don’t think so.

Rutgers girls are even over it now. So why all the fuss?

Unknown's avatar

Harsh Reality

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Two suitcases: Full. Closet: Still not empty. I wouldn’t call myself spoiled, more like, never throws anything away. But I have a temporary closet and three big bags in storage, and still can’t manage to pack small enough for this trip. I know I am headed to a place with an exceptionally small closet and chest of drawers. That I have to share. I can’t decide what to take and what not to. The big issues are the cooler weather, meaning more heavy clothes, and the working out and hiking plans, which make all that kind of stuff necessary. I keep thinking about all these events that are going to come up and I’ll be forced to remember an outfit that I don’t have with me that would have been perfect. In reality, there will probably be no events.

I did however, make a cunning and stunning purchase a while back that I kept meaning to tell you about. Snippy had a good time hearing this one: I bought rubber shoes. They are for gardening? Rain? Nothing? I can’t determine if they will work at all, but it rains in Seattle, so surely I need rain shoes. Here’s the idea:

c8_1.jpg

Although mine are not yellow, they are already packed so you’ll have to imagine these with leopard and black bows. I know what you’re thinking: “But, somegosoftly, you hate leopard.” To which I reply, “I also hate rain but enjoy cheap shoes on sale.” Or maybe you are thinking, “Those don’t look like they will keep your feet dry, as you wear them to look fashionable, but they are not galoshes you can stick your pants in to and they make no sense.” I have to go with “You are probably right but I will be sure and let you know.”