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This past weekend I had my first experience with a fantasy football league draft. It was …interesting. It amazes me the amount of research, energy and concentration that goes into an event that starts with "Fantasy." Like my Twitter said the other day, if that amount of research and energy was applied elsewhere, we'd have world peace and the cure to all cancers. It was funny to watch. Everyone had out magazines, and draft sheets, and schedules, and rosters, and various other odds and ends that they studied intently. If not for the huge draft sheet hung up on the wall (adorned with idiot-proof brightly colored player stickers) you'd think it was a group of older college kids studying for their final exams. There was the paper work, the heads bent in concentration, the occasional exclaim of frustration, and the not so occasional wisecracks being tossed back and forth.
I like football. It's fun to watch, and gives me something to cheer for when baseball is over. But I don't understand the attraction to the fantasy leagues. The girls from the Playboy calendar could have paraded through there in all their naked glory, and no one would have noticed. (To be fair, the men from the Chippendale's calendar could have paraded through as well, but I sure would have noticed and alerted every female within a 5 mile radius.) I'm not knocking the activity, I just don't get it. But I promised to pay attention to Donald's team this season (even if he did let my boy Peyton get picked up by another guy's team) and see if I can finally understand what all the fuss is about.
I won't be holding my breath. 
Last night I was in my room getting ready to leave, when I heard my front door open. I was expecting Donald, and so when I heard him start talking to Mia, I just kept doing what I was doing. I was in a little bit of a grumpy mood, so I was completely flabbergasted when I walked into my dining room and these flowers were on my table. The picture doesn’t even do them justice. They’re just plain gorgeous and they smell great too! I spent the rest of the night either staring at them and grinning like an idiot, or just randomly exclaiming “Holy cow, I got flowers!”
You’re awesome, babe. Thank you!
You know how some kids at Christmas are more excited and interested in the box instead of the $300 toy that was actually IN the box? Dogs can be that way too. It doesn’t matter how many stuffed animals, or bones, or toys Mia has, her favorite thing in the world is an empty water bottle. Or any plastic bottle, actually. When I get one out to drink, she immediately perks up. She knows she can’t have it until the label is pulled off, and the plastic around the top is removed, so she’ll watch me drink it until the second the last drop is gone. Then she’ll jump up on my lap and oh-so-politely wait her turn. I try not to give them to her too often, as the sound drives me completely bonkers. But she loves them and will be entertained by them for hours, so I shall suffer in semi-silence.
One week from today I will be leaving the smoggy skies of Southern Callifornia and heading off to the glorious state of Hawaii for an entire stress-free week! Can I tell you how freaking excited I am? I've been there twice already, and I can't wait to go back.
Kelly (my Kidney Mama, or my Kidney Storage Facility, as I lovingly call her) and our friend LeRoy were planning on a week's vacation in Hawaii before I even donated my kidney. As a "hey, thanks for the organ" gesture, Kelly offered to bring me along with them. At first I declined, as I didn't want her to think I was giving up my kidney in exchange for a free trip to Hawaii. However, after much threatening convincing, I decided to join them. LeRoy backed out a couple months ago, so now Kelly and I are flying man-free! It should be a fantabulous week of reading, relaxing, tanning, and snorkling. My camera is already charged, the memory card empty and ready to be filled with tons of gorgeous pictures! I didn't lose the amount of weight I'd wanted to, but I'm ok with that. I still look cute in the bikini top and board shorts I picked up, and I still have another week to drop a couple more pounds. Even if I don't, I'll be lying on a beautiful beach in Hawaii with one of my closest friends, a stack of books to read, and some fruity beverage requiring a cute little umbrella in my hand. Who needs to be skinny?
I loathe and despise my upstairs neighbours. (Do not ask me why I use the UK spelling for neighbours. I have no idea, but it’s something I’ve always done without thinking. It’s probably the same part of my brain that says “Bahhston” instead of “Boston”, and ”jahb” instead of “job,” despite being born and raised in Southern California. I’m a mess.) It’s not just because they’re loud, or because I’m certain they stole my phone last year. It’s that they’re just plain disrespectful of other people. They thunder up and down the stairs at all hours of the day and night. We’re not talking just 8am or 10pm, we’re talking 3 or 4 or even 5 in the morning. They vacuum the house at around 4am. They routinely have loud parties until the middle of the night, paying no attention to the warnings from apartment security or even the city police asking them to keep the noise level down. They NEVER say excuse me when they smash into you going up or down the stairs in front of the building. Either you get out of their way, or you get pushed. That’s just how it is. They’re rude and inconsiderate, and they make me not want to be home.
When Jason and I decided to get divorced, I toyed with the idea of moving into a slightly smaller apartment and saving some money. But the pros of staying where I am vastly outweighed the cons. Yeah, my neighbours suck, and I pay a lot more in rent than I could if I moved. But, I live 9 miles from work, right in the center of all my friends and family, and the hundred or two I’d save in rent would be quickly used up in the extra gas I’d use to get to work if I moved farther. So I decided to sign my lease for another year. And now, before my original lease has even expired, I’m regretting it.
I want a house. I’ve wanted one for a very long time. I want a yard for Mia to run in. I want the ability to have walls of color, rather than the plain white of apartment living. I want the silence that comes with no one living above me. I even want the stress of doing my own repairs and not having a maintenance staff to do them for me. I want to have kids, sooner rather than later, and I want a comfortable home for them to grow up in. If I bought a house right now, I’d pay about the same (or even less) as I pay for my rent. It seems like a no brainer, right? Why pay the same for rent as I could for a house? Well, for one, I have zero down payment. The savings I had went to legal fees and reducing the debt I got saddled with in the divorce. I know there are financing programs available for people with no down payment, but it would be SO much easier if I had one. Sadly, I don’t see that happening any time soon. However, with the way the housing market is right now, I don’t want to wait a year for my lease to be up before I buy a house. Heck, if I’m being honest, I don’t want to wait a month before buying a house. It’s something I was quietly researching before Jason and I officially decided we were through (since I knew it was just a matter of time), and now I have (virtually) nothing stopping me from doing it.
Sunday night on the way home from the river, Donald and I stopped by his sister’s house, and it was all I could do to keep my jaw from shattering on the newly poured concrete. It’s massive. Intimidatingly so. And the view is incredible. My apartment would fit in their pool. I’m not even kidding. I spent most of the rest of the way home trying not to cry (or at least trying not to let him see me crying) because I know I’ll never be able to afford that kind of house. I was so overcome with irrational jealousy, it was unbelievable. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that I don’t want a house that big. Yes, it’s gorgeous and the view is phenomenal, and if someone handed it to me mortgage free, I’d snatch it up in a heartbeat. But no house that I’ve ever dreamed of, sketched out, or even drawn in CAD has ever been that big. I want a house that feels cozy, but has enough room for all the people and furniture in it. I want a house that looks lived in, not one out of Architectural Digest. I don’t need 4000 square feet of space, and would be perfectly comfortable with 1500.
I know they always say the grass is always greener on the other side, and maybe that’s true. Maybe I’ll hate owning a home and having to do my own repairs. Maybe I’ll have crappy next door neighbours who throw loud parties until the wee hours of the morning. But I’m really ready to risk it.
I'm a die hard Angels fan. I went to my first game when I was 4 weeks old and vow that I'll take my kids when they're just as young (provided they're born at the right time of the year). Outside of baseball, I have no real team loyalties. I love watching hockey, but usually root for the team that my friends root for, or barring that, the team with the nicest uniforms. I couldn't care less about basketball really. I root for the Lakers sometimes, and other times root against them.
Football is a little different. I have no team loyalty over a long period of time, but I do pick one team each year that I'll root for, and I stick with them the entire season. I've been a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan (coincidentally, they won the Super Bowl that year), a New England Patriots fan (they won that year too), an Indianapolis Colts fan (they didn't win the year I officially picked them, but they won when I was just in love with Peyton Manning) and a Green Bay Packers fan (no wins in any year I was a fan, dangit). This year I'm picking the Pittsburgh Steelers as my team.
Now, I know squat about the Steelers, except that their QB is Roethlisberger, and their kicker is number 3. I am under no delusions that I am a real Steeler fan. In fact, I've declared that I'm only a fan-by-association, and cannot be held responsible for knowing things a real fan should know (Like the name of the aforementioned kicker, which I think is Jeff Reed, but I'm not entirely sure). I only chose the Steelers because I've started dating a Steeler fan, and have become friends with his crazy Steeler fan friends. Plus, I value my life. (I kid!) (mostly…)
I don't remember who's in their division, I don't remember if they're AFC or NFC, but if you're a fan of whoever they play, consider this the requisite smack-talking that a real fan might throw down. Because us fan-by-association types are just too classy for that. Or so we like to pretend…
The past few weekends, I’ve had plans to be out of town. If Mia were a cat, I’d have no problem leaving her home alone Friday until Sunday. However, she’s not a cat, so I need to find Mia-sitters. Most of the time she stays with my parents, but occasionally friends from my office have offered to watch her. Since my office is completely animal friendly (one of my coworkers used to bring her dog in every day for 5 years, until the poor dog passed away), I bring Mia in to work with me, and she hangs out, and then goes home with whoever is taking her. When the office is full, she runs from cube to cube visiting people and hanging out. She’s pretty quiet and only barks at the UPS truck (something about the sound of the engine bothers her ears) and one of our furniture dollies. At the end of the day, when few of her playmates are left, she crashes under my desk and snores.
I have a new mattress. It's fantastic and phenomenal and cozy and wonderful and soft yet supportive, and a thousand other adjectives. I've hated the mattress that Jason and I shared since, oh, the day we started sharing it. I've bitched and moaned repeatedly, but since he loved it, it stayed. When we decided to divorce and split up our stuff, the mattress set was the first thing I mentioned because I didn't want to get stuck with it. Last week, I hijacked my plans with Donald to see a movie, and instead dragged him with me to help me pick out a mattress. Do you have any idea how hard it is to pick out a mattress? We went to four places. One was closed, one had no mattresses (but had them on their website. Um ok?) and one was seriously overpriced. We ended up at JC Penney during the last half hour of some great sale. After trying, literally, every mattress they offered, I settled on a Sealy something-or-other that had a pillow top and made me feel like I was melting into bed. They had a great financing deal, and I got an additional 10% off just because it was the last day. It worked out quite well!
They delivered and set it up for me Wednesday, and I was overjoyed at it's arrival! However, the sheets for the old crappy mattress don't fit the new super foobah mattress, so I had to shop. Again. And so I hijacked my movie plans with Donald. Again. (This time it was his idea, though, so I don't feel AS bad.) I found a comforter/bed skirt/pillow sham set at Mervyn's that I adore, as well as a matching decorative pillow. Donald picked out a couple coordinating pillows as well, but we couldn't find any sheet sets that matched and were also affordable. (Sidenote: Why are sheets so bloody expensive? They're just sheets! Even the 200 thread count stuff was expensive!) So my old sheets are currently stretched out like crazy over the new mattress. It's truly a temporary fix, and I'm hoping to find a solution this weekend.
The mattress, even with it's misfitted sheets, is glorious. I love it. I was 30 minutes late to work on Thursday, simply because I didn't want to get out of bed. I realize that's not a good thing, but it was only one day. And they never expect me to be on time anyhow. The only negative thing about the mattress is its height. It's perfectly fine for me, but poor little Mia can't get on to it. The old mattress was lower, and she still needed the aid of stairs to get on it. The new one is MUCH higher, and even with her stairs, she has a hard time doing it. It's possible, but more often than not, she falls off on her first attempt. I don't want her to get hurt, so I need to find an alternative solution. She jumps off with no problem, but I worry about the height she's jumping from. One wrong landing, and she could break her leg! The complicated part is that I have a Cal King sized bed in a very small apartment bedroom. There isn't a ton of room to put a ramp or more stairs in for her. So if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!
5 years ago this little cutie pug was born. After 8 weeks in the world with her brothers and sisters, she became mine. She’s bigger, fatter, and more cuddly now than she was then. I love this little dog with every ounce of my being. Happy Belated Birthday Mia!
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