Hi. You probably know me as hellohahanarf from my years of commenting around the world wide internetz, yet never having a blog. Well my friends, that has changed. Welcome to MY site.
I’m officially on my much anticipated and needed vacation. (Yay!)
Thursday morning I head to Lexington to stay with Turnbaby and Fabby until Sunday. Friday I am scheduled to head to the Maker’s Mark distillery in order to FINALLY buy bourbon from my barrel. (Squeee!) Saturday Turn scored fantastic tickets to the big football game (UK takes on Florida and we’ll be a few rows back in the end zone).
It will be a whirlwind, but worth it all. Hope I get some time to play catch up on my blog reading…my feed reader is outta hand these days!
A few moments ago I sent the following email to several people:
“i just read pittgirl’s post about the point park university kids and when i watched the video tears poured. i’m exhausted and in desperate need of tomorrow’s vacation, so maybe that is part of it. and i am sure part of it is pure joy at how awesome this city and its college kids are. there is probably a little part of guilt about me running away from this g-20 monster while folks like the point park kids organized the best four minutes i have seen in a long time. of course there is the huge suck of mom not being here to have been a part of showcasing our city to the world. roll all that up and i have tears streaming down my face, but i don’t mind.
ANYhow, please watch the video after you read the post. oh how the video makes me want to dance with pure happiness. maybe i’ll go watch it again and do just that…”
You are encouraged to read what Ginny (formerly known as PittGirl) wrote about this incredible video. I wholeheartedly agree with everything she had to say. To go to her post, click HERE. If ya don’t wanna, you are missing out, but I’ll still post the video for your lazy ass (and yes, the good stuff starts about 45 seconds in).
While searching for the above video I found a second one of the exact routine being performed down at PPG Plaza. Fucking fantastic way to protest and get your peace message out there! Although I might sorta wanna slap the person who did the video work that made me wanna hurl in this one:
The morning after the Penguins won the Stanley Cup I woke up, looked across the hotel room and told Britt that my Steelers were in possession of the Lombardy Trophy, my Penguins were now the Stanley Cup Champions and I was so happy, if she wanted I could fly.
When I finally had the opportunity to fucking HUG Lord Stanley’s Cup it was a miracle that my feet stayed on the ground.
Although my knees did go kinda weak when my favorite former Penguin agreed to pose for a photo with me!
I might have squeeed. A few times.
The moment I saw Phil Bourque enter the room I did the happy girl wiggle. Of course I approached him and asked if he would pose for a photo with me and The Cup. The man is incredible and quickly obliged. Later when we were talking I mentioned that he was always one of my favorite Penguins (well, him and Trots…Brian Trottier). The Ol Two Niner didn’t believe me. He actually said that I probably tell all the Pens that. I only got mostly pissed, telling him I hate liars so I don’t run around telling all the Penguins that they are my favorite. Then I sort of smiled and said that back in the day, while the entire city had a crush on Lemieux, I had a HUGE crush on him. I might have went on about how attractive he was and still is, might have rambled a bit about the way he skated…blah, blah, blah.
All I know is that the Ol Two Niner is ADORABLE when he blushes. And he doesn’t mind the happy girl wiggle he witnessed several times. Squeeeeeeeee!
(I don’t think many people saw me totally making out with The Cup, though. Whew!)
I am a computer moron. Seriously challenged when it comes to doing much more than powering the fucker on. This lovely little site that I adore so much is maintained by my Bloggy Godfather, Jester. Sometimes it is serviced by the wonderful Hilly (that sounded a little naughty, but I don’t think Hilly would mind). Recently the kind and patient LeSombre has even stepped in to lend a hand when hackers attacked.
So when my blog stopped sending its feed out naturally I freaked. Sure, it took me a damn week to notice the issue, but still, I was all about upset that September 3rd was the last time http://feeds.feedburner.com/MidnightCliff seemed to work. Seems it is now http://www.midnightcliff.com/?feed=rss2 (I think!).
ANYhow, this post is a test to see if the fucking thing works again. Jester did some magic juju and thinks it might have worked. If this showed up in your reader, would you please leave me a quick comment that says so? Thanks!
The blaring alarm clock barely shook me from my deep slumber. Instantly I was happy at the memory of last night’s Steelers victory, even if the late game robbed me of precious sleep. Instinctively I reached for my phone to send a message to Twitter about putting one in the WIN column.
While reaching I realized that today is Friday. Score another rush of happiness.
The phone wasn’t even in my hand when today’s date hit me like a ton of bricks. To say September 11th doesn’t make me happy is one hell of an understatement. It floods me with so many strong emotions that I struggle to breathe, drowning in memories both big and small.
My outstretched arm returns without the phone, instead wrapping the sheet tight around me. If only a few more moments of sleep could erase these emotions…
Anyone who knows me for more than five minutes knows I have dogs. Dogs that are not small. A hunting dog, Reilly, and a guard dog, Ludo. No surprise that I love dogs. While I am an animal lover who appreciates reptiles and fish (I have two dwarf frogs, both named Bob, and a Beta, Herc), I am first and foremost a dog person. Plus, living with my Monster and Beast means this house is not cat friendly.
So why do you think Petsmart sent me a sample of the new cat appetizer that Fancy Feast is shilling these days? I have that dumb fucking card that tracks every damn purchase I make at Petsmart so they should know I only buy two bags of Blue Buffalo (30 pounds each) and two Bil-Jac liver treats plus various chew toys EVERY FUCKING TIME I GO THERE. Yes, every time. Never once have I bought anything cat related.
I’m a marketing girl and it just pisses me off that they wasted precious marketing dollars on this crap when they have access to data on every purchase I make. And I mean, who the fuck buys appetizers for cats anyhow? Cat food appetizers should be a little cat food given earlier in the day or a piece of cheese from your plate or something. Sheesh.
Wonder if my dogs would eat the silly cat food appetizer. It seems such a waste to pitch it. And someone sure is sitting pretty in anticipation.
I got suckered into joining a fantasy football league. When I say suckered it is because I know nothing of fantasy sports. If the team isn’t wearing Black and Gold, I really don’t care about the players, which makes fantasy play kinda difficult. More like completely difficult.
But I enjoy the smack talk going on in our league. And I refuse to trade any of the players that the computer picked for me. Basically I just talk shit all the while knowing that my guys are gonna suck it up. Did I mention that I named the team Visions of Victory? Yep. Totally did. Coz I am stoopid.
One of the guys that I adore was enjoying the email smack talk and stirred up a little more on the league homepage by posting this:
“AP is reporting that Rebecca “Sugar Plumb” Z was out on the town Saturday night, incognito, scouting for Tight Ends. Surveillance cameras caught team owner Z leaving a Pittsburgh Piggly Wiggly in with several unidentified hopefuls, and a case of Old Milwaukee.”
My reply was simple:
“First, Pittsburgh does not have “Piggly Wigglies” ya nutbag.
Second, I haven’t consumed Milwaukee’s Best since my junior year of high school.
Third, call me Sugar Plumb one more time and I am seriously going to break your arm.
Fourth, I scout Tight Ends every day of the week.
Fifth, you know I do nothing incognito, baby.
Also? I hate you all.”
Hey, I said simple, not classy.
Today I realized that the “logo” I uploaded as a placeholder really sucked. I mean, a giant letter V is not a logo. I have seen my share of sugar plum images these past few days from those in my league so after work I went searching via the Google Gods, trying to find some free V with Viper teeth or V with a snake wrapped around it. The greatest V logo ever was easy to find, but not something I was allowed to steal since it already belongs to an arena football team.
So I cried to my coworker. He is the one that tolerated Britt and I crashing at his home in South Carolina back in January, which means he is an all around great guy who doesn’t mind me boohooing on his shoulder that I can’t find a decent fucking logo. Next thing I know, there is an email in my inbox. I have my new logo.
Yeah, bay-bee!
Also, first fucker to say something about “Visions of Sugar Plums” in the comments gets tackled.
Quarantining myself for days had me a little stir crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I love my little house, but day after day after day of being cooped up was starting to get to me. All of my dishes are done, my feed reader is empty, laundry monster has been continually cranking and yet I am stir crazy. Not bored enough to really clean this joint, but when I opened the fridge and saw the science experiments gone wrong, I figured I should perhaps get to tossing some stuff out.
Normally my frigid air only contains cheese, salsa, condiments (butter, jelly, mustard, soy sauce) and liquids (water, beer, hard alcohol and mixers). Somehow it had accrued a variety of unidentifiable items. I found stuff from Thanksgiving. I threw entire containers out because they were growing fuzzy green and black life forms. Normally I am all about recycling, but there was no way I was trying to clean some of those things. Glass, plastic…whatever, I didn’t care. Blech. You may thank me now for not posting photos.
Fortunately all the freezer has is glass mugs, ice cubes and vodka. No need to clean that fucker. Yay!
P.S. Does anyone else store stuff in the fridge or oven? Or both? I have my Pampered Chef stone stuff in the over (two and a pizza stone). In the fridge I have two pitchers and several beer glasses. Is this a single girl thing or are there others out there who do this?
I don’t cook. At all. Since I haven’t been feeling well I figured I would make some chicken noodle soup. In the microwave. Sounds easy enough, right?
I used a large glass bowl, added three cups of water, put a glass plate on top of it and shoved it in the microwave for six plus minutes in an effort to get the water to boil. When the timer went off I grabbed a potholder and pulled the glass plate from the bowl so that I could add the noodles to the water.
I REMEMBERED THE POTHOLDER.
But I forgot about the fucking steam. Ouch.
That was Sunday. My pointer finger is still red and tender. Totally burnt. Still ouch.
I should know better than to try to cook. Or, ya know, boil water.
Monday night I went out to dinner with Aunt Tinkle. We had a great time. I only had two beers (Kasteel Red) and I drank them incredibly slow while eating my overly dry chicken lettuce wraps. Although I only drank one glass of water there, I had another at home.
Around 2 AM intense stomach pain woke me up. My fever was well above what it was when I finally took it a day later (100.7 on Wednesday). Headache was in full force, trying to make me believe that it was possible for my skull to actually explode of its own accord. Not good.
I stayed home from work Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Didn’t eat anything, just lived on water and ginger ale. Aunt Tinkle showed up with two bags of love Wednesday night (bananas, take out rice from the local Chinese joint, apples, applesauce, apple juice, Wonder bread for toast, butter, ginger ale, mint ginger ale, decaffeinated green tea, and San Pelligrino sparkling water) that helped more by showing her love (the fact that she went so grocery crazy trying to help me) than by the actual products doing any good.
Since my fever broke I went into work on Friday, but I was so damn weak all day. That night I put myself back into my self imposed quarantine. Early Saturday AM the damn strong stomach pains again had me awake. So let us just say that I am not in the happiest of moods when LeSombre sends out a desperate Twitter plea for me to check this site for some Wordpress hacker bullshit.
You all know I can barely turn a computer on, right? Yeah. Considering that I just started attracting sharks again and I am still struggling to keep in anything I eat, the last thing I needed was stress over my beloved little baby blog.
Thankfully LeSombre and Jester jumped in to save the day. Seems all I needed was an upgrade to the latest Wordpress and some fancy debugging. My heart felt happy again. I am grateful for how generous with time and knowledge so many of my bloggy friends are. Truly fantastic.
ANYhow, the point of this long ass rambling post was to say that I was exhausted from being sick, being female and being stressed so I thought perhaps a nap on the couch would help. I flipped through the television channels and found Wrongfully Accused. I had never seen it, but figured Leslie Nielson’s brand of humor was right along the correct mentality level for me.
When the scene below came on, I about bust a gut laughing. They say laughter is the best medicine, eh?
Ok, actually it was those first 40 seconds that made me laugh like a loon. The cop doing the hand motions was perfect! I can’t wait to get on a plane and recite this out loud while they do the safety spiel.
“Seats in the upright position. Handcuffs and ankle chains must be securely fastened or you will be shot. Exits are clearly marked, but you will not be using them. Should you use them, you will be shot. On behalf of the State of Minnesota, thank you for being arrested and convicted. Sit back and enjoy your bus ride.”
“AP is reporting that Rebecca “Sugar Plumb” Z was out on the town Saturday night, incognito, scouting for Tight Ends. Surveillance cameras caught team owner Z leaving a Pittsburgh Piggly Wiggly in with several unidentified hopefuls, and a case of Old Milwaukee.”
