Silly silly...
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Holy SHIT I haven't gotten that WASTED in a long time. Especially on a Tuesday night! Seriously, dude...WAY-YAY-STEEEDDD! I was slurring and falling all over myself by the end of the night. I RARELY do that, I don't like to be so...so wishy-washy outta control. It was fun though! I remember at one point we had turned on the broiler to make barbequed chicken... Well I'd forgotten about a piece of garlic bread that I'd put back in the oven the other night, to keep it warm so I could eat it later...you know...yea. I have not one, not two but THREE fucking loud ass smoke alarms, only one of which I've disabled. So those two muthers started going off like crazy. I smelled the smoke and figured (in my slurrybrainblurred state) that it was just some crumbs left over from something in the oven. Yea, they'll burn off. This is how stupid drunks start fires, I know. It's a new low for me! We managed to get the alarm in the kitchen to stop, but the one in the bedroom would not give up! Ron got up on the cat stool and held a blanket over the screaming thing to dull some of the piercingness (yes, that's a word!) and by this time I couldn't stop laughing. He's like, "Go get rid of it, whatever it is, PLEASE!" Then I fall down on the bed laughing and he's all, "NOOOoooo!!! Go get it!!! Gooooooo!!!!" So I flail into the kitchen to see smoke POURING out of the oven. What the hELL??? I open the oven and there's the garlic bread in the oven bag ON FIRE! AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! I pat it out with my oven mitten and take the black mass to the front door, open it and toss the fucker out! Then I open all the windows, most of which remained open all night because we just passed out in bed after having mad monkey sex...hehehehehehe!!!!! Um, yea...so I guess you hadda be there...we were retards last night. High class, man. Crazy drunken idiots, who throught the Grace of God, did not burn the house down. We even lived to play dominos later on, too. There's nothing like throwing dominos at a sleeping cat and watching him jump ten feet! Whoooheee!!! Party!
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Okay, I'd better watch it with the yager. After reading that again I'm almost embarrassed to post it! Almost...
We didn't get the tree up until last night because Ron didn't get a stand on Monday night. He got home and was like, "I can't believe how much they want for a two foot tree!!! And THEN they wanted $7.99 for a stand!!! I can build one for less!!!" Ah, yes...those ever-efficient men with building skills. "Eye kin build ya one outta an ol' plastic bowl an' some wood planks!" Of course you can!!! And that will last us forever, right? I told him I'd go out and get a stand, no problem.
OH BOY was I wrong to think I could go out twelve days before Christmas (the infamous 12 days) and get a tree stand on my first try. There must have been record sales in tree stands this year because EVERYONE was OUT OF THEM. I tried two Save-Ons, a Wallgreens, a Longs Drugs, OSH and Home Depot. I finally got smart and tried calling the places before I wasted my time going there to look only to be told mockingly that, "We're ALL sold out!" When I called Home Depot on Tuesday night, I was told that they had a shipment come in earlier in the evening and that it just had to be received, they'd have them out on Wednesday. This was after I'd visted three other stores so I went home defeated. Last night I thought I'd try the Longs and the other Save-On that's near my work. NOPE, NUTHIN'. So on my way to the car from store number FIVE I called Ron and said, "Honey, next time just SPEND THE FUCKING $7.99!" How mean-spirited of me to do that to him after he's done so much for me. "Hi, you've reached 1-800-BITCH. For a list of little insignificant things to bitch about, press one..." I happened to pick a terrible day to slather the shit on Ron, as he'd had an awful day at work. His drill broke, then his wrench broke, then his truck started making noises and THEN his LOVELY and thoughtful fiancee calls him to yell in his ear about a stupid tree stand! He's all, "Just come home, I'll take care of it!" And I'm like, "NNOooooo, I don't want you to have to do it, I'LL DO IT! WAHH WAHHH!!!" and so on and so forth. So I head over to Home Depot with it in my head that they have done all their receiving and that I can get the fucking stand and go home. But I have to call first JUST TO MAKE SURE. The first dildo to answer the phone says that they're out. I tell him about they little receiving thing and he says he'll transfer me over to gardening, where they should know. After two minutes of annoying holiday music, I get transferred to electrical, where dildo number two says, and I quote, because these are the WORST words to say to a CUSTOMER, "I have NO idea", to which I promptly answer, "Well could you transfer me to someone WHO DOES??!" in my most irritated voice. Three more minutes of holly jolly finally gets me to gardening where I am told that yes, they do in fact have stands. SCORE!!!!! So I go and get the sonovvabitch and go home to an upset Ron...
We were supposed to go to Sears so that he could get a new drill, we had talked about it earlier in the day and I completely forgot with all of my grumpiness over the assholes who bought MY TREE STAND!!! DAMMIT!! I felt so guilty. Ron was tired and sullen all night, but he set up the tree on the stand and even vacuumed up the needles on the carpet when he was done. OH YEA, and he'd even done the dishes 'cause he got home before me! Ughghghg... He pepped up a bit when he saw the pretty tree though. I also put out some other cute little decorations. In between my decorating, I gave him many a guilt-ridden-I'm-SO-SORRY-stare. BAH! Oh well, I just know that I have to try to control these moody outbursts because Ron is right, life is too short for them. I don't need the stress. Now it's time to convince myself. Working on it.
That's it for now. I think I'm going to post the email I sent to a friend about Tuesday night...once I got home the party started. That's later...gotta do some work. Bye bye!
Here are Punkin' and Pickles. Pickles is the one taking a bath in the glass of water. They look EXACTLY alike! HOWFUCKINGEVERRRRR Pickles is going through yet another "mood" and is starting to pluck a bit...AFUCKINGGAIN. HOWFUCKINGEVERRRRR I've completely given up on trying to doctor Pickles. I'm NOT going to worry about his obnoxious nuerotic behavior anymore (for the next few weeks at least until this phase is over) because I've officially done ALL that I can. Really though, I think I've done all I can I now I must accept that I made a HUGE mistake getting him so attached to me. I can only hope that he'll possibly tire of it and stop as he gets older. I'm happy to have two lovebirds! They're beautiful birds with tons of personality. And Punkin' has turned out to be such a sweetie. I'm not too sure about the sex, "she" could still be a "he" because behavior hasn't told me anything yet and it's hard to tell from appearance alone. Punkin' is afraid of me, but that's just fine because I expect it from a new bird. She's not too much of a biter, she hasn't even bitten me as much as Toby has. She's doing very well. I've learned to be very patient with birds in general. If I'm lucky, she'll come around.
And now some pictures of cuteness...
The lil' 'ol LOVERRRrrrssss!!!
And the very image of relaxation. This should be in the dictionary.
*MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM* *smack* *smack* *AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh*
Cats are so good at this, aren't they? I should look at this picture whenever I'm feeling anxious.
I've been writing in this diary for almost a year. My anniversary is in February. That's pretty cool. I really enjoy writing in this thing. Now it's time to look at this entry.
We woke up Wednesday morning and got everything together in our backpacks including warm clothing, tent, sleeping bags, snack foods, water, BEER...you know, all the essentials. We headed out around 11:30 a.m.
Yes, behold the streets of China!
We had a very important errand to run before we could actually start our trip, however. Taking little miss horny dawg Soooobway to the vet for bording and a possible (hopeful) spaying. So we walked...
What an amazing city!
Then we arrived at NPH animal hospital and Devin and Harry brought Subway in.
The NPH stands for "Naughty Pets Hospital". I should have gotten a picture of the other side of the sign, which had these very words in English. I don't know WHY I didn't. Instead, I took a picture of the victims sitting outside in the sun.
Devin and Harry took a while inside the vet, trying to find out if they would be able to spay Subway during her stay or not. One thing I noticed during our trip, the Chinese were easily confused by the White Boy and the Chinese Boy. Yea. It took them forever in there. And after forever and some maybes we found for absolute SURE that NO, THEY COULD NOT spay the doggie while she was in HEAT.
From the vet we walked to the bus stop, which took only about ten minutes.
After a two and a half hour bus ride we arrived at the bottom of the mountain where there were a whole lotta little dudes (one of which GRABBED MELANIE'S ASS) waiting at the bus stop to wheel n' deal witcha for a van ride up to the bottom of the Wall.
After another 45 minutes in a tiny van we arrived at Jinshan.
Ooooh, the sign at that starts our journey up to the first tower...
We finally got UP and UP and UP to the actual Wall around dusk. And then it was GROUP SHOT!!
After that we climbed and climbed and climbed... UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN these GIANT sets of STEEP stairs that extended over the mountain for THREE HOURS. As we got further away from the entry tower in Jinshan, the terrian got tough...and crumbly. OH SHIT! The stairs are now a crumbled lump, lets hope it doesn't break away under my foot! We'd stop every few towers to rest. It's a very good thing that we hiked at night. We would have sweat to death during the day. We had plenty of illumination from our headlamps and the beautiful full moon that rose as we trekked away. I didn't get a damn picture of THAT either! I was too exhausted from the climbing to think about being a photographer. After about 15 towers or so, we decided to stop and camp. That's when the fun began! Woo WOOOooooo!!! Party on The Great Wall!!!
Harry was kinda in a bad mood by the time we got up there, so he wasn't too willing to be in any of our silly shots. But he did volunteer some useful information once we got ALL THE WAY to that spot... He said that sometimes there are beggars who hassel tourists for cash. Great timing Harry! Needless to say, we didn't sleep very well that night. But we all piled into the tent when it got unbearably cold outside...
We were awake when dawn started crackin', so we got to the snappin'... O' pics, that is...
YES...
We climbed ALL THAT MOE-FUKKIN' WAY! Now it's time to start back...
Oh dear...
It was when we started on our trip back that we realized that there was NO WAY in HELL we could have stayed more than one night on the wall given the fact that we had packed more BEER than WATER. We had to conserve water on our hike back and we felt like IDIOTS. Oh well, ya live (yes, we were a bit dehydrated but lived) and learn.
And here we are, at the end of our morning hike down the Wall, proud of our accomplishment...
*Whew* I climbed the Great Wall of China. And I have a sweatshirt that says so. Good for me!
In the meantime, the week is going okay. Although, I'm upset about something right now and I don't feel like writing about it. I'm doing this entry to take my mind off of it. It's given me an anxiety attack and I have to chill. Yes, I'm chillin'...everything is FINE. JUST FINE. CHILL, JULIE, CHILL FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.
Let's see, what else to take my mind off things... My car was broken and is now fixed, thanks to the lovely Ron. He found me a great Honda mechanic that's very close to home. Yay. Uhhh...I've decided that I'm not going to jog anymore, but power walk instead. I just had the 87th person tell me that jogging is horrible for my knees. Okay fine. There are plenty of other exercises I can do. I'm going to do the stair-climb at work today before I go home. I've also asked for another pair of rollerblades for Christmas. I miss my rollerblades, they got stolen out of an ex-boyfriend's van a few years ago. That was just the beginning of the many bad little things that happened over the five months I was with him. That's a whole 'nuther entry, as we say...
Okay, I'm off to calm down some more. Yessireee...I'm a well adjusted, emotionally sound person, I am. YUP!
Saturday morning I had to get up at 8:00 a.m. to go to a funeral for my friend Lisa's grandma. Since our families have been so close for such a long time (about 35 years) it was a little like losing my own grandma. But it was one of those, "She lived a good, long life" funerals so it wasn't so bad. The ceremony was held at my elementary school church. I hated going there again. It's one of those places that digs up shitty memories. Eight years at that Catholic elementary school. Terrible teachers and terrible classmates that I was stuck with the entire time and me being an emotional/anxious little kid made for a fucked up time in my life. I STILL have dreams about that place. It definately made a huge contribution to my current emotional status. I was itching for the ceremony to end so I could get the fuck outta there.
I enjoyed the rest of the day. The wake was held at at little Italian deli. Lisa and Paulette were cool to hang out with, they didn't irritate me at all. Lisa was very glad that I'd shown up. I almost thought I wouldn't make it since I'd been so sick, but all that sleep finally paid off and I felt fine.
Saturday evening Ron and I met up with my two friends Cathy for dinner and drinks to celebrate our engagement. I had a very good time with them as well. After dinner we played pool for a few hours, which was tons of fun. I hadn't played pool in years. I had some I-don't-really-know-what-I'm-doing-so-I'll-just-do-the-best-or-whatever-I-can luck and played pretty well. I actually impressed Ron, who is a damn good pool player. And once again, Ron impressed me with his fabulous social skills. It felt like we'd all hung out a thousand times before.
Yesterday I got a little stressed over housework again, as I hadn't really done anything all week. I had been trying not to worry about it so much, but I just couldn't help it. It started with the bird cages...Pickles and Punkin's cage was full of Pickles' birdy barf. He had been going at it again on one of his favorite toys all week, and it was spread all over the place. From there everything spiralled...one thing led to another. Crusty birdy barf, I gotta bring the cage outside and spray it down. OH, since I'm doing their cage, I may as well do Toby's cage. Then there were feathers and food all over the floor and carpet so I started sweeping that, OH the couch is dirty I should spray the apholstry cleaner on it, OH the floor needs to be wiped up, OH I need to vacuum but Ron is taking a nap, OH I gotta dust too, the bathroom is gross, OH I gotta sweep up the kitty litter in the back room OH I GOTTA VACUUM!!!!!!!!!! Why is RON STILL SLEEPING?????? OH I GOTTA DO LAUNDRY!!!!!
I tried not to wake Ron as I was sorting laundry, but I can't do anything quietly when I'm stressing out. He woke up all pissy because I was cleaning like a maniac again and why can't I just RELAX because it's SUNDAY... Then he gets up to find that I've started a billion things so now he's feeling bad because he's not helping... Finally I start crying while I'm standing in the middle of my piles of clothes. I start blubbering again about how I don't want to make him mad but this is how I AM, I've been this way my whole life...and in the middle of my blubbering he says what my elementary school principal said many times, "You put SO much undue pressure on yourelf..." That just makes me cry harder. So he gives me a hug and I stand there crying and slobbering all over his shoulder. Then he says, once again, that he is there for me and that I should bring these things up and not let them grow so out of proportion. "We can work through this together, we are a team." Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh... I LOVE HIM SO MUCH.
OH YEA, and my car broke down this morning. I didn't panic this time. I hadn't gone far from home so I called Ron and he rescued me again. He gave me a ride to work and got the car towed to a Honda specialist. He knows all about Hondas since he worked for them for 10 years, so he was able to pre-diagnose the problem before he got it to the shop. And now I KNOW I'm not gonna get screwed by the mechanic, either! I feel so taken care of. Now I have to take care of work.
Bye bye...
All we really need to do is sort through things one day at a time. He's trying to do that, I guess, as all men have their own "system". Most of the time women just don't get that "system". He says that I have to respect his stuff and I say that he has to respect the way I like my living space...which is neat and orderly. I have to realize that it can't always be that way. I really have to work on letting things go because I'm going to drive him (and myself) crazy if I don't. It's all about compromise. Not flying off the handle and having an anxiety attack (he calls it "theatrics"...cute) over the state of my house. I'm making it much bigger than it really is. A very common reaction among those plagued by anxiety. I have to try harder to understand that he is at a crossroads in life, that he is not where he wants to be and that he has been essentially living out of a bag for six months. He's stressed to the max, but doesn't show it. Just the same, he has to try harder to understand my anxiety.
A lot of it has to do with the fact that he has never just lived alone. He's always had to put up with other people's standards, whether it be his asshole dad or his stupid roommates. I, on the other hand, have had the wonderful freedom of living alone and having my own rules. Compro-fucking-mise. Being an adult sucks. Yes, there is more to life. Enjoy it. Don't be afraid!
Fuck this.
