Can't wait to get home so I can relish these. (And no, no submissions from me - I had the good sense to trash any journals I kept, although my close friend D probably still has some pretty cringe-worthy notes from 15-year-old-Gin. *wince*)

I was going to write a post about how Hamburger Helper (aw, tastes like College!) is never as good the second day, and then I thought, “I am eating leftover Hamburger Helper, WTF should I expect?”

The cold I’ve been fighting for a couple of weeks finally got me this weekend, although it did not so much mow me down as it did knock me to the couch for hour-at-a-time stretches. At one point, I found myself flipping back and forth between My Girl and The Notebook, and I think I grew a second uterus, what with all the estrogen surging, etc. (Sidenote: I forgot how attractive Jamie Lee Curtis was in the early nineties [NEARLY TWENTY EFFING YEARS AGO OMG I’M OLD]. I’ve gotten so accustomed to her shilling Poop Yogurt that I forget she used to be young and foxy. Not that she doesn’t still look great for her age, but seriously: Poop. Yogurt.)

Let me distract you from the poop talk with something shiny!
Today is J’s birthday – thirty-four! Which is mid-thirties!


I don't know what any of this really means. Power in the toes? But "A big wagon helps"? Totally J.

Happy Birthday, sugarbritches!

LOL

Do you have a headache? SHUT UP. HOW DARE YOU. Some kid in war-torn Iraq DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A HEAD.

Best. Sentence. Ever.

So do you ever fixate on a song – listen to it 3 or 4 (or more) times on a row, and just rock out and sing/hum/dance along?

Today, for me, it is Cake’s "Love You Madly". It has just such a nice, groovy beat – observe:



So yeah, the audio of the song isn’t great, but I am totally digging this chick. YOU GET DOWN WITH YOUR BADASS HULA-HOOPING SELF, GIRL! (Sidenote: I need a hula hoop.)

What are songs that you listen to obsessively multiple times in a row?
Whatever they are, I hope your weekend is filled with them. And some hula-hooping.

HULA.

HOOPING.

It is 9:45 p.m., and we are getting in bed. Because we are old.



Good night, my chickens!

Thought it would be funny to not plug into my mp3 so I could listen to my coworker hit the roof.

But now the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments is just annoying – drama queen.

Happy Birthday, E-Div!

I miss our nights of long drunken talks and Wisely shenanigoats.
If you were here, I would totally bake you a homemade chocolate rum cake.



Except, you know, the kind with rum in it...not one that...looks like...rum.

Launch tonight!

So I guess I should have mentioned that there are, um, other crews of astronauts that launch into space besides the ones I worked with. Who knew!

From NASA's Twitter: "Shuttle crew is eating its last meal before launch. Among the astronauts' choices: PB&J, bacon, eggs, hamburger, fries, oatmeal."

Dude, oatmeal? Seriously?
Although, chances are fair it's going to urp up again, so I can understand wanting to stick to something perhaps a little bland, but on the other hand: you are strapping your ass to a rocket and bound for the stratosphere. Make this meal count, baby!

If I were about to depart for the great black heavens, I think my meal would consist of steak (medium rare), a fully loaded baked potato, and a Shiner.

Or maybe pancakes. Or Captain Crunch Chicken.

I haven't eaten dinner yet.

What would you eat?

P.S. If you happen to be up, catch the launch of STS-128 on space shuttle Discovery at 1:36 a.m. EDT/12:36 a.m. Central.

At 2:43 this morning, a loud hollow clatter woke me up from a delicious, deep sleep. My husband grunted in his sleep and rolled over. I got up and wandered all around the house to investigated, only to end up back in the master bathroom, where a hook in the shower lost its adhesive and sent the hard-plastic back scrubber banging to the bottom of the tub. Damn.

I got back in bed at 2:47, trying to go back to sleep, but my mind abuzz with dazzling thoughts. The Most Complete Grocery List Ever! And How To Spend The Upcoming Labor Day Weekend! And oh, the posts I would write! About last night’s episode of Mad Men, the nice little discussion I had with J about mid-twenties identity crises, and the changing familial dynamic as the adult child becomes the parent to their parent. I’m telling you, I had paragraphs and paragraphs – it was brilliant!

But alas – after giving up on sleep, showering, succumbing to the siren call of a cozy bed and a snuggly husband, and reawakening at 6 this morning, I have very little recollection of said fantastic writing. Maybe something about…pancakes? Windshield wiper fluid? I wish my brain had a draft autosave.

So instead of a Post Full Of Awesome, I will direct you to the excellent discussion of last night’s episode on Jezebel. Maybe next time, my chickens.

Weird dreams, continued

Last night's episode of Back-To-School-At-27 - this time, High School!

• One of my classes was taught by a perky, blonde teacher - among her classroom decorations was a large pink heart, which read "COMMUNISM".
• As I was waking up this morning, I was trying desperately to remember my class schedule (which was featured prominently). The only one I can recall now is my first period of the day: "Dream Wedding", an elective sponsored by Pampered Chef. Julie G. was in my class.

WHAT THE EFF HAVE I BEEN SMOKING.

Have been SO EXHAUSTED all week - it's been all I can do to drag my ass out of bed each morning. All week I have been looking forward to the opportunity to sleep in, that now I fear I am too excited to fall asleep. Bah.

Related: I have been having some WEIRD dreams, too. Among them:

1. Creepy horror-movie sex between humans and undead creatures. I know, it's totally gross - trust me, the indelible image of this in my head is wishing-for-brain-bleach terrifying. And I have no idea where it came from, as I am a huge chicken and can't even watch The Sixth Sense without freaking myself out.
2. I had driven up to Austin to visit my friend Alyx. She had a house right on the beach - like, so close that high tide reached her front steps. In Austin. The beach. I don't know.
3. Random flashes of being back in primary and elementary school, but at the age of 27. I guess the barrage of Back! To! School! stuff is getting to me.

And Now For Something Completely Different

J and I are going out for the third weekend in a row - it's like the Us from 7 years ago!
August has truly been a banner month.

Two weeks ago we saw Kim Lenz - it was a good show, though I remembered that I am much more accustomed to dancing on a beer-slicked dance floor in Chucks and not my cute little vintage-inspired dancing shoes. I kept feeling like I was going to fall and eat it, so that dampered my fun just a little bit. But my sister-in-law and a friend came too, and what my evening lacked in dancing was made up for in Cute Outfit dissection.

Last weekend we made the drive to Schulenberg to see Wayne Hancock play at Sengelmann Hall. DUDE, what a neat venue - a restored dance hall and saloon, with a restuarant downstairs and a most excellent bar and dance floor upstairs. We saw some dudes that looked familiar - turns out, they were also from Houston, and one guy remembered being at the Cave Catt Sammy show the night we got engaged (small world!). Bonus for the fact that we have family that we can crash with less than 20 minutes away - we will totally be going again. (J's 2 cents: "I want to go for Polka Sunday." Gin's 2 cents to J's 2 cents: "Dude, who was it that taught your ass how to polka?" In other news: I am a geek for knowing how to polka.)

Tomorrow night is the much-anticipated Hot Club Of Cowtown show - WOOT! These guys are so awesome - I can't wait to boogie down.

If you are in Houston and need some funsies for your Saturday night, you should come to the show - I will totally polka, hustle, or any other dance with you.

1. I bought us a new wireless mouse and I am so in love with it - I want to make it a mix tape.
2. I am spreading the love, and pointing you over to Katie's cousin's etsy store and her giveaway. I am totally digging on this and this and these and these.
3. An unexpected day at home in the middle of a busy, stressful work week can do untold wonders for one's sanity.
4. Preserved sanity means homemade lasagna, garlic bread, and ricotta cookies for dinner, instead of Hamburger Helper.

Hard day.

Someone was in the hallway, warming up chicken nuggets for lunch.
And it smelled like 7th grade.

The other day at the grocery store, my total purchase amounted to $80.08.
Instead of the usual, GOD, groceries are expensive, my immediate thoughts were,

1. Cool, palindrome - that is very pleasing to me.
2. Heh, "boob".
   

Hooray!

I stopped at the store on the way home last night, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but Watermelon Jello!!!! (related: Wal-Mart, you suck Ass.) I actually did a little dance in the aisle, and bought 3 boxes.

If it doesn't taste the same as it did when I was 9, I will be sorely disappointed.

I read a Tweet about Jon Secada, and I was inspired to create a Pandora station around him.
On the playlist so far:

1. Just Another Day by our dear Mr. Secada
   
2. Bailamos by Enrique Iglesias
3. Can't Stay Away From You by Gloria Estefan
4. Careless Whisper by George Michael

It's kind of sick how much I am jamming to this.
It's undoubtedly sad, though.

I love my mother dearly, but (there's always a But!), she frustrates the CRAP out of me.
She and I had an extremely rough patch in our relationship - there were about 6 months my junior year in college when, after a nasty blowout, we didn't really communicate (though we did, icily, speak to each other), and it took us well over a year after that period to get back to friendly terms again. Things got much better, eventually, but I can't say that I will ever forget how painful and difficult that time was.

Things have been coming up again - not anything towards me, but her and my dad's handling of situations - that have really got me bang my head against the wall. Poor J, he gets such an earful after I get off the phone with her. His response is, "Yeah, you talk tough after hanging up with her - why don't you tell her what you're telling me? She needs to hear some tough love." And yes, maybe I should say these things. But I'm scared of the repercussions. I already had to have a Come-To-Jesus (so to speak) intervention-type conversation with my parents, and even though I knew it was for their own good, and even though they reacted positively, I was so terrified of things going awry, and it fracturing the relationship again. My dad would be much less defensive, and much more forgiving, than my mom would be. But it's something that they would both need to hear, and neither would be happy about.

I'm just not sure how to structure my current opinions into an, "I love you and I'm concerned" framework like I did before. My gut response is, "You're being idiots and you need to stop - you are more and more becoming a pain in my ass, with no end in sight." Does Word have some kind of Difficult Conversations template that I can follow?

Sigh.

One of the funnest (yes, FUNNEST) things about being married is the inside jokes.
And the sexy times are good, too.

Current Obsession

Vanilla sugar wafers.
Preferably the store brand. And don't give me any of that fake pink "strawberry" shit, either - I just want The Real (off-brand) Deal.

There was an entire summer where I had to have a Butterfinger every day, or I would die.

When I was in college, I came across the recipe for Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuits. They were SO AWESOME. There were a few months where I made them about once a week, and my roommate and I used it as currency to get our friend Aaron to do the things we didn't want to deal with, like kill the roach we'd had trapped under a coffee cup for three days.

Last year it was open-faced yummy organic peanut butter sandwiches with just a teeny tiny drizzle of honey, and a small cup of chocolate milk.

Do you ever go through food phases, where there is something you MUST EAT ALL THE TIME or you will melt into a puddle?

My kingdom for watermelon Jell-O!!!!!!

Dammit Jo, why must you make me want to spend money on silly things I don't need???

Last night, got home from work after 7 - laid down on the guest bed to snuggle with a kitty, and crashed. Woke up at 5 this morning wondering WHERE THE HELL AM I, found my real bed and slept for 5 more hours.

It has been a really, really, really long week at work. Next week will prove to hold a resolution, but with it, another set of challenges and probably another working weekend.

The STS-127 crew landed safely yesterday, and will have a Welcome Home ceremony at Ellington Field this afternoon. Hard to believe that their mission is complete - it was a long, hard road to get there.

I was looking at mission pictures and thinking back on the ~18 months I had with the crew, and thinking about what lies ahead with my next crew, and it struck me, as it has been a lot lately, that we really are coming to the end of an era. I am working incredibly hard, pushing myself and proving myself capable of things I never thought possible...but a year from now, I may still be laid off.

Eight months ago, I could have walked away. I didn't think I would make it to a summer launch - I certainly didn't think I had the wherewithal to start the whole damn process over again. I was beaten down in so many ways; tired, defeated. But my heart is in it now - I can't leave. I'll do this again - tear my hair out and bitch and worry and cry and lose sleep. I'll invest more of my heart in my work than maybe I should. I'll stay until they forcibly make me leave - but I'll walk away knowing that I share in the success of a mission, that I did everything I could, that I helped them make history.