Princess Ernie

Ernie totally beat my niece Ari in a pretty brutal game of Pretty Pretty Princess. He looks pretty embarassed regal to me.

For Daniellie

Sorry it's taken me so long to post some new pictures of Dexter, but I just got my camera cord back from my mom this weekend. Here's Dexter after I read your letter to him; he's pretty excited about his care package.

Officer Sarah, reporting for duty

North Carolina has a program, "Swat a Litterbug," that lets meddlesome concerned citizens report acts of vehicular littering. This is the perfect program for me--I get to ride around town, pen and paper handy, and jot down the license plate number of any douche bag I see throwing their cigarette butts out of the window. I then go to the website and report the license plate, along with the date, time, and location of the littering incident. It gives me a small sense of satisfaction to imagine the look on strangers' faces when they get an (unfortunately non-threatening) letter from the NC Highway Patrol, encouraging them to be more responsible about their waste disposal.

My ultimate fantasy would be to retrieve the jettisoned cigarette butt, catch the litter bug at a stoplight, and toss it back into their car yelling, "You dropped this!" But then I would have to run back to my car and try to lose the irate litter bug in Wilmington traffic, which would be difficult with all the stop lights, stop signs, and the occasional stray dog crossing the road. This scenario requires more gumption than I possess, so I usually settle for pressing very hard with my pen as I write the license plate number down and hissing to myself, "I've got you now, sucka."

Sunscreen is cool

Fridays during the summer the city of Wilmington hosts a "Downtown Sundown" concert series, with live bands and expensive domestic beers. A lot of the bands are cover bands, which is awesome for me because I have unsophisticated tastes in music. A couple of Fridays ago "The Frontier," a Journey cover band, played. Like most drunken 20-somethings, I was way into it. Unlike most drunken 20-somethings, I found myself dancing with a creepy old lady. Melanoma Face is a walking skin cancer PSA if ever I've seen one.

All I wanted to do was enjoy Kenny's delicious guitar riffs.

Run, run as fast as you can

Since it's been in the 90's all week, I haven't been taking the boys on very long walks. Ernie, however, has been leading Dexter around the track in the backyard. I'm so glad it's Dexter and not me. "Chase me" gets really old, really fast.

I kill plants

I like plants. Unfortunately for them, they don't cry when they are hungry, or wake me up when they need to go outside, or do anything really attention-grabbing, so they go unnoticed by me. My very few attempts at plant husbandry have gone, well, not so good.

Me: Check out my new bedspread!
Roommate: Cool, it goes really well with the dried grasses you have artfully arranged on your windowsill.
Me: Dried grasses? Hmm, I guess I have been less than diligent in my watering duties.

Which brings me to my point. I don't do office plants. I don't need a dead plant screaming to my co-workers about my lack of attention to detail. It just doesn't look good. The Boss' wife works in the department next to mine, and one day she came out of The Boss' office and asked me if I had watered his plants recently. I thought I had misheard her. Watered his plants? Is that code for something? Then my supervisor told me that the lady who worked in my position before me always watered The Boss' plants. Wow. Did she also pre-chew his food for him?

I have enough email to answer blogs to read things to do at work without babysitting someone elses' plants. I mean, come on. I don't expect The Boss to let my dogs out on his lunch break.

Co-workers will make the plant-watering rounds, asking me if I have any plants that need watering. Nope. Do I think The Boss' plants need watering? Maybe; I know I haven't watered them. I fantasize daily about peeing on them or spraying them with Round Up (the plants, not my co-workers). Let me reiterate: I like plants. I just don't like the way they silently judge me as they slowly wilt and turn brown.

I heart American Gladiators

Mondays Night = American Gladiators Night. I'm not sure what it is about American Gladiators; I'm hooked. Maybe it's Hulk Hogan--I had a serious case of Hulkamania back in elementary school. Last night I was hanging out on the couch, drinking a Big Miller Lite because I am a Big Girl, eating pizza and enjoying American Gladiator's tribute to the new "Incredible Hulk" movie (which I probably won't see until I get drunk and add it to my Netflix queue sometime next year). I mean, for crying out loud, Titan painted himself green and spoke only in grunts this week. Someone else is watching this, right?!?

Am I the only one who drunkenly adds bizarre movies to my Netflix queue? God help me if I happen to be watching "I love the 80's" part VIII with a beer in my hand and catch a reference to some bizarre science fiction movie. Three days later it's in my mailbox, and I have to watch it because I am Not a Waster. Except of time, because "Westworld" was not a good movie, even if Michael Crichton did write it.

Frontline-Shmontline

This is Dexter just after I gave him his monthly flea medicine. At least that spot of the yard will be flea-free.

Dreams are boring

I know, I know. Nobody likes hearing other people's dreams, unless it's a sex dream, and then you only want to hear about it if you were involved. But anyway, I had a dream last night that I was a contestant on "American Gladiators." I love that show, and even though I know I would eventually be defeated by the hand-bike and the Travelator (the uphill treadmill), I would have a moment of kick ass glory on the cargo-rope climb and the teeter-totter walk. I digress.

In my dream, I beat the Eliminator and was way excited. I even had to wrestle the male Gladiators (thank goodness, not Wolf) and I still won. I woke up pretty pumped. But then I was disappointed, because I had also dreamed I went grocery shopping and got bananas for my cereal, which did not happen in real life.

Also, yesterday was Ernie's birthday. He is now 3. He used to look like this:


Now he looks like this:

The Lizard Queen rules with an Iron Fist

Overheard at the pool: "Oh no, now 'Mama' is the only one left with a tail."


I'm in a stick-figure mood.

It was not a good day for lizards. A little girl sociopath was finding lizards left and right at the pool. After she had collected about 5, she accidentally systematically separated each from their tails, and flung them, frisbee-style, into the pool. The poor guys would almost make it to the edge before the cold, pruney hands of the Lizard Queen scooped them up, only to throw them in again. Julie and I could only look on in horror. I was two beers away from jumping in after the captives and holding their little lizard heads underwater until they stopped thrashing. Assisted Suicide--I'm down with it.

Thanks to my kick-ass new cooler from Target and a 6-pack of cold Miller Lites, I was able to drink away my humanitarian urges and watch the massacre. It was almost as good as "American Gladiators." I didn't witness any of the lizards die, but I'm pretty sure they are not long for this world.

Indiana Jones and the Tribe of the Face Suckers

Man. I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Friday night. Excellent. If you liked the previous three movies, you'll totally be into the latest installation. But you knew that. Dr. Jones rocks. And *SPOILER ALERT* Henry Jones, Jr., Jr., is pretty awesome as well, horrible bouffant aside. It was a good thing the movie was so kick-ass, because there were several factors working against me enjoying my Movie-Going Experience. Let me give you a run down:

9:00 am - Bought my tickets at movietickets.com, mainly because I am insanely paranoid that the movie will be sold out, but also because I am too cool to stand in line for tickets on a Friday Night; my time is better spent sitting at the bar enjoying a delicious beer.

5:15 pm - Learned from Julie that Sex and the City is premiering tonight, and that the bar adjacent to the theater is having some big stupid Martinis and Sluts party. We quickly decided to enjoy our pre-game beers at another establishment.

7:45 pm - Arrived at the ABC store to stock up on mini bottles of Jack Daniels.

7:47 pm - Impulse bought three mini bottles of Jagermeister.

8:01 pm - Arrived at the Main Street Brewery, where we agreed we never wanted to go to that other bar anyway.

8:24 pm - Decided to substitute a pint Smoked Porter for actual dinner.

8:30 pm - More friends arrived; a round of Smoked Porter for everyone!

9:00 pm - Paid my tab and led the advance party to the theater.

9:03 pm - Three impulsively-purchased mini bottles of Jager were consumed.

9:10 pm - Arrived at the theater; fought through the SATC crowd to the concession stand to purchase a Cherry Coke.


9:12 pm - Discreetly poured out 1/4 of said Cherry Coke, to be replaced by Jack Daniels.

9:15 pm - Settled into my seat; lights dim.

9:16 pm - Added 5 mini bottles of Jack to my Cherry Coke.

9:18 pm - Noticed Ashley and Steve making fun of some poor socially-challenged kid who was rubbing his face into the back of his chair. Told them to stop.

9:19 pm - Realized the socially-awkward teenager was actually two emo kids making out hard core. Laughed. Passed Julie my camera to take a picture.



9:27-11:27 pm - Enjoyed the movie.