Things I Love, Vol. Five. Annie Lennox.

Ever since I was much younger, I've had an undying love for Ms. Annie Lennox.  Besides the fact that she is HUGE into charitable giving and extremely socially and politically aware, I admire the way she keeps to herself and is as private as a celebrity can be.  Her humility is inspiring, and I think most people should strive to be like her.  She is an amazing individual, and I haven't even said anything about how talented she is! I actually wrote several papers on her during my college career - my obsession with her might have bordered unhealthy for a while...

She went to school at the Royal Academy of Music and is a classically trained pianist and flautist.  Probably another reason I love her so is that she is a flute player - for some reason, even though I haven't played my flute in years, I always seem to be drawn toward people who play or played flute, even if I don't know they do/did!  Anyway, she joined band after band, most notably the Stocking Tops and The Tourists (first band with Dave Stewart) before she and Dave started Eurythmics and exploded into popularity.  She picked up a number of bizarre instruments, and constantly pushed the envelope with her androgynous haircut and clothing.

Something I find strange is that my favorite of her albums is probably Medusa, an album consisting solely of cover songs.  As someone who is typically morally opposed to covers, it's odd that when I discovered that album I completely fell in love, and it was what led me to really pursue all of her music.  I believe I have nearly everything she's ever recorded - one of my most prized possessions is a copy of The Tourists' Luminous Basement on vinyl.  Anyway if you aren't familiar with her work, you should definitely check out Medusa - covers of some really great and underappreciated songs.

I simply can't say enough wonderful things about Annie.  :)

Anyway...She's a Christmas baby, and so it seems appropriate that this year (~2 weeks ago) she has released a Christmas album, called A Christmas Cornucopia.  I want it.

Here is a video teaser:

Stitchin’ Bitch

Progress!

I have been taking my cross stitching with me just about everywhere I go. Sitting on Dave's smoking patio while eating 75-cent tacos and drinking beer...I didn't think it could get any better until I started cross-stitching too!

I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy picking this back up or lose interest right away, but I've been doing well and I really am enjoying myself. Maybe I'll cross stitch song lyrics and frame them and sell them on etsy for outrageous amounts of money!

O Christmas Tree

No matter how hard I try I can't get a good picture of the tree really....maybe it's because I'm using a cell phone, maybe it's because my tree is actually a ghost...who knows!

In any case, I tried to get this daylight shot of it. Now I just need a tree skirt! And some gifts to put underneath 'er!

Don We Now Our Gay Apparel

Christmas vomited on the cubicles

I guess I can't complain, at least they waited until the day after Thanksgiving.

Stoned Recipe #1

Stoned Soul Picnic

I made some chip dip out of ranch dressing and salsa and watched Family Guy all night. It was fucking sweet.

Pampered Chef, and a Bitchin’ Chair.

Yesterday was the Pampered Chef party, and Sherrissa showed up with this chair that her daughter didn't like/want. It just so happens Andy & I had been using a dining room chair at the computer desk, so hooray! Now we've moved up in the world! Plus I love it! Although I may have to reupholster it one of these days...but I totally dig the form of the chair itself.

Now here's hoping that the party makes lots of money, and therefore I get lots of free/discounted shit!

Getting Couple-y...

After spending much of my day yesterday looking for some sort of inspiration (I was feeling under-the-weather and particularly dumpy), I decided to write this blog about couples that either remind me of Andy & I in a way that makes me ultra-happy, or ones that I think we should aspire to be more like.  I'd like to tell you that they are in order, but my inability to make concrete decisions only gets me as far as the list - ordering it is just too much!

1.  Alex Ebert & Jade Castrinos



They are just too damn wonderful for me to even put into words.  Long long ago, I saw Imarobot in concert.  I thought Alex Ebert, the frontman, was incredibly sexy in this rebel-punk sort of way.  That's never been my type but there was just something about him!  How odd that 8 years later I would fall in love with Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros before ever realizing that Alex is the frontman!  Talk about a 180 - now he's this hippie 'peace and love' type and I love him even more!  BUT, being the creep I am, I probably love his girlfriend/muse Jade even more!  She is basically everything I wish I could be, and the 2 of them combined is sickeningly cute.

Andy's also fallen in like with Edward Sharpe & TMZ, and I know he also has a crush on Jade...perhaps even a man-crush on Alex, but that's only speculation.  :)

They write and sing about how simple love really is, and their mutual adoration is apparent at all times.

Anyway, some sources insist they're still together, but it seems they split up.  Even the ones that say they're no longer together, though, talk about the close relationship they've maintained and how much they mean to each other.  I read somewhere they "started off as best friends, it got romantic for a while, and then went back to being best friends".  While I'd definitely prefer to be the together version of the 2, I do hope that if something ever happens to mine & Andy's relationship that we would stay a large part of each others' lives.  The amount of respect I have toward him is tremendous and I'd hate for that to ever change, regardless of our romantic situation.

2.  Una LaMarche & Jeff Zorabedian

Una, aka The Sassy Curmudgeon, is my blog idol.  She shares my odd sense of humor, general distaste toward a large portion of society, and love of sweatpants and wine.  The idol portion comes along in that she's much better at expressing these things than I am.  I like to think it's because she's a few years older than me, or has taken classes in these sorts of things, but it's likely just that she's more clever than I (sigh.).  In any case, while I admire her writing skills and quirky points of view, one of my favorite things about her & her blog is the way she portrays the relationship between her & her husband.

She makes me realize that perhaps it's Andy & I that have a "normal" relationship, and not the characters in romantic comedies.  Either that, or I'm consoled by the fact that a couple whose dysfunction closely mirrors ours seems to be working out so well, even on the long term.  Either way...

I've also popped over to her husband Jeff's photography blog on several occasions (I think we all have), and was delighted at the way he spoke of his "Liz Lemon" ( :D ).  He also referred to her as his muse...funny....maybe I just want Andy to put me on a pedestal?  Meh, that's neither here nor there...

Because Una is a nutjob like me, and her husband seems to be the 'quiet at first, then ridiculous' type (as is Andy).... her blog gives me faith in the fact that 1) not all people are irritating, and b) ridiculousness can be attractive, and even a key component of a relationship.  I take solace in that.

3.  Carl & Ellie Fredricksen

If you've seen Up, you know that Carl & Ellie are basically the cutest cartoon couple EVAR.  As you watch them grow old together, over a span of 10 minutes, you can't help but fall in love with them.  When Andy & I watched the movie, I kept saying how I wanted to be like them.  THEN (SPOILER ALERT), Ellie dies!  I don't know if it was just the movie or the fact that I'd kept saying they were us, but Andy cried.  That was one of those moments that I knew how madly in love I am with him.  While I generally find men crying to be quite off-putting, I thought it was incredibly sweet.

Anyway, in spite of their sad ending, they start off as 2 hyperactive nerdy "explorer" kids, and they grow into adults who spend their time just enjoying each others' company.  Even now I'll occasionally say to Andy, "You're my Carl."  He is.  (He also didn't get the reference the last time I said it.  It definitely loses the effect if you have to explain it.  I guess I'll have to say it often enough that he remembers...old man!  :-p)

Saturdays!

I came from that. Probably unsurprising.

...'Tis my ma.

On Saturdays, we have a loose tradition of going to Dave's Stagecoach Inn for 75-cent tacos. It's my favorite bar in Kansas City. It's cheap, the bartenders are awesome, they have a great little smoking patio, and the jukebox kicks total ass. Also, it's nearly impossible to go there without befriending at least a couple of the other patrons. It's like a Cheers, only with less of an Applebee's vibe, and more of a Grotto vibe (for you Rolla folk....for all other people, read: dive bar vibe).

My love for dive bars is limitless. If you know of any around KC I should check out, do share. I believe it's about time to start planning the 2011 Dive Bar Crawl.

(Oh...to relate the post to the picture, that's my Mom on the aforementioned smoking patio! We like to sit out there and play spades...I've also done some cross-stitch there...I've turned the smoking patio into an old folks' home...with booooooze!)

Gift Giving for Po' Folk

This year I am more broke than I have ever been before. I fully intend to obsess over online sales, as well as scour eBay & craigslist for bargain gifts. I have ideas for everyone on my list and all of my ideas are out of my price range, so I'm just waiting patiently for good sales to come.

I have bought 2 gifts so far, both for Andy. In case he reads this (which he won't), I will not tell you about one of them. The other was inspired by this. I believe I was looking online for a good photo of Alex & Jade when I was pondering my couples-I-want-to-be entry when I stumbled across it. When I was MUCH younger I really enjoyed counted cross-stitch, and since Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros have become a "thing" for Andy & I, I decided I'd try my hand at it.

I printed off some 14 graph paper, and several hours later I had a pattern:

We popped in to the Hobby Lobby after my massage (fuuuuuck yes.) last night, and here's what I got:

$10: 50% reclaimed wood picture frame (8" x 10")

$2.76: 4 skeins of variant color embroidery floss (yellow-brown)

$2.99: navy blue aida, 14 ct, 12" x 16"

$1.49: #22 needles

Andy's delight upon opening the gift -- Priceless???

... Perhaps not, but I think for $15 it will be a pretty cool gift! I hope he likes it. My mom said it was lame, my sister says adorable. We'll see what Andy thinks! I'll keep you guys posted on my progress :)

WWJD?

...Graffiti a bathroom stall?

Who's down with JHC?!

Things I Love, Vol. 4: Band of Horses

I know that I'm long overdue for a post, and I have good intentions of catching up, but maybe not today...

I wrote a bit about Band of Horses after I saw them in concert about a month ago, but I chose to revisit them today because it is the release date for the video for "Dilly".  "Dilly" is my favorite song off of their latest album, Infinite Arms.  It's upbeat and it makes me in a good mood.  It's my "The General Specific" of this latest album.

The video, however, confuses me.  For the most part I think I like the video itself, but I am not understanding at all if/how it ties into the song.  It's an odd video... Watch it here.  Tell me your thoughts!

Don't Go Breakin' My Heart

Daddy's Got a Gun

Sunday was spent shootin'. A group went bird hunting and didn't get anything, so we shot some targets and some clay rock. That is my dad, sighting in his rifle. If my parents had a front porch to speak of, he probably would have been cleaning it out there the first time Andy came over. That never happened, though, and now they shoot each others' guns (giggle) so I guess he's beyond playing the threatening role.

I shot a lot of guns, and Dad says almost for sure he'll give me a .22 rifle - hells yeah! I'm glad we brought him along to Deer Camp this year! Next year I'll make clay rock my bitch!

Porno for Pyros

Okay, this post has nothing to do with porno, just pyro. What DOES that mean, anyway? Porno for Pyros - I'm imagining naked chicks with their hair on fire or something...maybe it's that just a picture of fire gets their motors revved up? I always take pictures of Andy (clothed) doing housework and call it Lady Porn...It doesn't have to be nude to be sexy...although nudity would definitely not hurt the level of sexy.

Huh.

Ya know, come to think of it, their one radio hit, "Pets", is pretty weird too. Although the older and more jaded I become, the more I completely agree with it. If you didn't know, the song is about how humanity is going to destroy itself, and then we'll make great pets for aliens or whatever race takes us over. Very Fantastic Planet.

(Apparently, he named the band after he saw a fireworks ad in a porno mag. Thanks, Wikipedia. Sometimes I wonder what I'd do without you. Another interesting tidbit - the directors of Little Miss Sunshine directed the "Pets" video.)

Okay, I got a bit sidetracked there. The whole time I watched that video I thought to myself, "Damn, I miss the 90's." Most specifically 90's alternative music - it will always hold a very special place in my heart.

After all that linky goodness, I'll get back to the original post I intended...Okay actually one more related sidenote - they are in the process of creating a Fantastic Planet remake, and I can't decide at all how I feel about it - do any of you have feelings either way??

Anyway...

the Saturday of Deer Camp was much like the Friday, and so I present another fire picture:

Deer Camp

Fire Monster

So after Thursday's debacle, I got to leave even earlier for my vacation! Well, we left town at the same time, I just worked even less than I planned. Debbie talked me out of Thursday Zumba which made me sad, but we went and had dinner and visited, which was nice. Friday morning we left around 9 and headed down to "The Farm" (Andy's family's property in Central Missouri). We had a nice relaxing weekend.

The point of going down there that weekend was for Deer Camp, opening weekend of deer season. His family goes down there and some folks hunt, and the rest of us hang out around the barrel fire and play around outside and drink beer. It's a good ol' redneck time; I love it.

Dad came with us, and he went hunting. Unfortunately the only deer he saw was before he had sighted his rifle in. Nobody got anything, which sucked because a lot of neighboring properties did...we think it's because Andy's uncle decided to mow for 2 hours on Friday afternoon...

Anyway, Sunday we shot some targets and the boys shot some clay but I don't think I'm ready for clay rock yet... I am getting pretty kickass at ground targets, though! Whoop whoop!

(Oh, and Dad says he's got a .22 rifle he might give me - double hooray! I loves me a .22!)

All Hell Breaks Loose!

The picture doesn't capture the way the day went. You can see the white umbrella in the far room if you look really closely....

Some contractors are working upstairs in our building to knock a wall down and double the size of our upstairs server room. In the process, a sprinkler line got broken...and chaos ensued.

Water started pouring through the ceiling downstairs. The IT manager ran upstairs in a frenzy when he'd heard the upstairs server room (mainly phone servers) sprinkler was broken. In the meantime, one of his employees heard water and opened the door to the downstairs server room, only to see water pouring down on top of all of the equipment that keeps our building functional. Plastic, umbrellas, and shop vacs came from all directions.

About that time, we hear that there are several inches of standing water in the locker room and it's still leaking into there as well. They emptied the sprinkler lines out at that time, but because of the pressure there was still a LOT that leaked. I walk through the ladies' room with a wet-dry vac to try to help with the locker room once the server room is under control, and there's water coming out of the light fixtures...not so good!

I then spent the afternoon in my socks squeegee-ing water toward the floor scrubber that someone else was running. The servers were basically all ruined. Our operations were down for the better part of 3 days.

What. a. disaster.

The Magic is Still Very Much Alive.

Last night, Andy played & sang "Norwegian Wood" in the doorway as I scrubbed the toilet.

Aren't we so romantic?

Ain’t She Sweet

Sunday I got to hang out with Audrey, which never happens, so that was nice. We went to Jack in the Box and got an obscene amount of food, and then played Carnival Games all day. Not much really exciting to share, so here is a picture of Yoshimi being cute.

What a wimp!

Oh, how I wish I'd have taken pictures of the desk move.  On Saturday I got myself into a predicament not all that different from the lawn mower incident (Oh nostalgia - my very first blog entry!).  I'd inherited a refrigerator from my aunt earlier in the week, and went downstairs to spray it out & clean it.  I sprayed some spray in it, and decided to let it 'soak'.

In the meantime, I thought I'd move a desk upstairs.  It was given to me as a birthday gift in August, and I'd yet to move it upstairs to the spare room.  I ran up and moved the wing chair that lived in the hole I intended to move the desk into.  Back downstairs to move it.  I tried to lift and realized it was much heaver than I'd anticipated, but this would not deter me.

I pushed it over to the staircase.  Now I am not talking about a nice carpeted regular staircase - this is a cliche basement staircase: narrow, and STEEP (This would have been another useful thing to photograph).  I tried lifting the desk up and walking it up the stairs but that wasn't working.  The staircase was too steep to do it that way.

I decided that if I flipped it over it would be easier to slide the surface up the stairs.  I didn't want to mess the surface up, though, so I found some flannel shirts and buttoned them around it.  I started to slide it up and that wouldn't work.  I found my way around it and had a little bit more luck pulling it up.  The grade of the stairs was still an issue - it was making it HEAVY, not the easy task I'd envisioned.

After realizing that if I pulled the desk up high enough to go up another stair my legs were stuck, I had to do it sitting down.  Stair by painful stair I got it going up.  I had to lift my ass up each stair with my elbows and the wall, as it was the only way I could go anywhere without dropping the desk.  I got pretty near the top and my hands were all sweaty and I was about to lose the desk.  One more step.

Got it!  Now just one last burst of energy to pull the desk up to the landing!  ...except a drawer fell open and now I can't pull it past the bathroom floor/garage ceiling.  FFFFUUUU---

At this point, I don't have enough fight left in me to do anything but drop it.  I start to guide it down the stairs as slowly as possible when I realize it is going to take me with it.  Palms sweaty, I am frantically searching for an option other than watching the desk crash to the basement floor.  Finally I got it wedged in the staircase by shaking it until a drawer falls all the way open and catches on the railing.

I'm gasping for air, and when I stand up my legs and arms are weak.  I can't help but wonder how I've gotten myself into yet another one of these situations.  I go find some work gloves and some water and take a 20-minute breather.

Work gloves in hand, I take some painters' tape and tape the 2 drawers I can reach.  I'm still not sure how I'll get the third drawer closed (the one I opened to hold it up), but a restored sense of confidence has me tugging again...

I got it all figured out, and even finagled the last drawer shut.  I jerk with all my might and the desk pretty much doesn't want to fit through the oddly-narrow doorway of the stairs.  I forced it.  There was no other option.

So finally, I got the desk upstairs.  I got it where it needed to be and then proceeded to scrape all of the visible paint off of it (paint from the doorway).  Anyway, it looks great now - wish I had a picture of that to put here too!

Long story short, I didn't take a picture on Saturday.  Daaaammit.

The Window of My Soul

...As it would turn out, looks much like a Powerbook screen.

[
Purr.

I don't remember if I told you or not, but a couple weeks ago I broke my Powerbook's LCD screen in a drunken rage...or something like that. It was a rough night: too much wine + too much estrogen = Sloppy drunk. That's Angie math right there, folks. Realistically, that's Woman Math, but I'm not sure if they'd all admit it.

Anyhow, after much searching on eBay, I found an entire lid assembly for $55 OBO. I offered $35, they countered $40, and the rest is history. Since I had the whole assembly I was very tempted to try to fix it myself, but I would be crushed if anything went wrong (I learned this after sinking into a deep depression upon the cracking of screen). I enlisted the help of one of our friendly IT guys, who will fix it on Monday. He doesn't know that yet, because he doesn't know the screen came today....but he will.

And then I'll be happy again.

Thursdays Are My Least Favorite

I think they are the crappiest day of the week. I mean Monday & Tuesday are early enough that you aren't bothered by them, Wednesday you're fueled by the fact that it's the middle of the week, and Friday is Friday! So Thursday is the SUCK.

I had the serious 2:30 feeling, and so I kept asking random passersby if they had chocolate, which ended in this:

JACKPOT!

One of my coworkers had brought in her daughters' leftover Halloween candy, and apparently they don't much care for chocolate.

...Crazies.

I never used to be a choco-holic. As a matter of fact, I didn't used to like sweets at all. I can't decide if the 'What's wrong with me?' should be for Now Me or Me Who Didn't Like Sweets...

Jack in the Box, WUT!

My momma got surgery today on her bladder. Apparently the women in my family have saggy bladders or something, which leads to the very real 'sneeze and pee' situation. So basically they put your bladder on a hammock & it chills.

I want a hammock. Not a bladder one, an actual hammock so I can lay outside in it ALL the time.

...Anyway, we stopped and visited her after work and hung out for a few hours.

Surprisingly I haven't mentioned this already, but on Monday the first Kansas City Jack in the Box opened. For those of you who don't know, I fuggin' LOVE me some J in the B tacos. With ranch. Ooooooo yeah!

When we left the hospital, we were starving and had $7 between us (By between us I mean Andy had $7 and I had none)...Andy started driving toward the Kansas side.

Me: "Are we going to Jack in the Box?"

Andy: "Mayyybe."

Me: "I'm crying."

My eyes seriously got watery. Not because of that but it was an awesome coincidence...or was it?

We got there quickly, and the drive-thru line was wrapped around the building, through an adjoining parking lot and almost out to the road. The inside line also went outside. It was absolutely nuts. I was hoping since it had been open for a couple days by then it wouldn't be quite so crazy. Cars couldn't park in the lot because on the off-chance they got into the parking lot they wouldn't have been able to get out due to the drive-thru cars.

We were in line for 1 hour & 20 minutes before we got our food. By then we were both ravenous...I'm not sure if it was SO good because of that, or because it was Jack in the Box from KANSAS CITY! I'd never had a Jumbo Jack before (I always get tacos & bacon cheddar wedges - picture of health), but I was coerced and it was a damn good $2 cheeseburger. We each had a Jumbo Jack & 2 tacos...it was heaven.

Dreams really DO come true!

America: Home of the Impatient and Ignorant

Collective America seems to think it has accomplished something by completely halting progress in the legislative branch. I, as per usual it seems, disagree completely. I am not even radically liberal, but still too liberal for my own good it seems.

I wasn't able to vote, as I didn't realize until about a week before the election that I was still registered at my parents' address. The whole thing was quite distressing, but would clearly not have made a bit of difference anyway. With the exception of Jackson County & St. Louis County, Missourians painted the state red.

Andy was able to go & cancel out his father's votes, though:

Civic responsibility turned on its head

Me: "You put your sticker on upside down?"

Andy: "I did?"

He really didn't know. Sigh.

Moving along, here are the Missouri initiatives.

Missouri Earnings Tax Initiative

Prop A, popularly known as the 'Let Voters Decide' initiative. I wouldn't have a problem letting voters decide, but voters don't seem to understand anything beyond not wanting to pay taxes. This bill will put the earnings taxes currently in place in St. Louis & Kansas City on the ballot next year. Voters can repeal the levy, which would then phase out the taxes slowly, a tenth of a percent per year, over 10 years. It also prohibits the creation of an e-tax in other cities.

For 60 years, there have only been 2 cities in Missouri collecting this 1% tax. If you do not live or work in Kansas City or Saint Louis, it basically has not and almost certainly would not ever have an effect on you. It does however, potentially eliminate 40% of the cities' annual budgets. In a city that just was forced to close 30 schools due to budget cuts, that frightens me. I work AND live in Kansas City, and I would have voted NO. Not because I don't think we have the right to vote on it, because I have little faith that people will vote to keep it in place - and then what? Sales tax rates go up, property tax rates go up - it starts to affect everyone, and in larger ways. They'll get the money somehow; they have no choice, they need it.

Passed - 68.4%-31.6%

Missouri Dog Breeding Regulation Initiative

Prop B is an attempt to lessen 'puppy mills', which Missouri has more of than any other state. It's pretty straightforward and the guidelines set forth for the treatment of breeding dogs are not outrageous by any means. The one thing that I could even sort of see upsetting people is the 50 dogs breeding limit, but that's a huge number! Anyway, how this even became political is beyond my grasp - since when did the Bible thumpers not want to turn morals into laws?! When early polls were showing it losing 55-45, I was appalled.

Passed - 51.6%-48.4%

This means 934,000 Missourians just don't have hearts.

As for the candidates voted to office, I will have to save that for another day. I will close with this - If you think John Boehner has the average American in mind, or that he will be a better Speaker than Nancy Pelosi...you are a silly silly idiot.

Boot-Wearin’ Weather

Since Halloween night was kind of a bust we decided to drink & be merry on Monday. It was too cold to do anything outside so we hid inside and drank vodka tonics. Audrey came over, and Andy was finally able to introduce her to the Cheez-It sandwich, which she of course loved.

This is a double, and it was quite delicious. Andy came up with this snack, I'm not sure when...it was before he & I ever met. Anyway you buy the hormel pepperoni log-looking things. You find them with the sliced pepperoni usually. Slice them up and put them between two Cheez-Its and voila!

They are DElicious. And addictive. Like white cheddar popcorn addictive.