Those pics of the topless men too much for ya?

Randoms:

1. Everyone and their mother - and most recently, my sister - all rave about how awesome Mad Men is. So I looked on the interwebz and it's totally possible to view all the past seasons online for free. Chances are I'm going to start watching every episode from the very beginning...starting right after I finish this post. I wonder if I'll still be up when the sun rises watching that show. 

2. So this small little Chinese food restaurant that's been thriving in my hometown since before I can remember has an awesome Chinese (duh) Chicken Salad. It's ridiculously simple - just lettuce, chicken, fried wontons and dressing - but it's so goddamn delicious. I usually buy some whenever I come home to visit. The thing that makes it so good is the dressing. It's so light, but loaded - and I mean LOADED - with chopped pieces of sushi ginger (or "gari" as it is properly known thankyouWikipedia). I am going to attempt to recreate this dressing - well, the whole salad really - I've decided. I wonder what a dressing of rice wine vinegar, sugar and gari would taste like? 

3. My siblings, my sister's family and my mother are going to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. It will be good times all around. The only SAAAD part is that the house we're renting doesn't allow pets and so I had to leave my dear sweet puppy at my parents' house while I came back to Sacramento to finish teaching lessons, so that my dad could watch her over the weekend. OH MY GOD I MISS BB AAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGH. Apparently she kept going into my room at my parents' house yesterday looking for me. And when I heard that story my heart imploded with almost enough force to tele-transport me back to my parents' house. Ugh, I wish! Then I could pick her up and snorgle her warm belly and buy her an inordinate amount of treats at Target then swallow her whole she is SO EFFING CUTE. 

4. Wait, did I mention how much I miss my puppy??? Look at her. So sweet...even when she is ruthlessly taking over all of my pillows.

5. Ok last one, I promise.  *deep breath* AAAAH! I MISS BB!!!!!

Come on. Seriously.

Yes, folks. It's that time again!

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you pumped delightfully quirky and talented singer Jason Mraz full of steroids and then forced him to stop writing music and, instead, spend all of his days at the gym drinking Weight Gainer 2000 and performing pull ups and stomach crunches? I know, we all have. 

Well, now you know.

He will turn into Jessie Godderz from CBS' Big Brother 11 (not that any of you watch Big Brother or care in any way, but OMG I love that show so much - it is the highlight of my guilty pleasure of summer reality television):

ps. Don't ask me how I procured these topless photos. They came about frighteningly easily. Go interwebs.

Ugh, I had to post something else to counteract the terrible-ness of Sandra Lee's cooking in my previous post.

BB PICTURES!!!

I took some glamour shots of BB as she sat by the windowsill watching my dad do some gardening in the front yard.

If I collected Bela's vomit for a month, fashioned it into a log-shaped mold, glazed it with ketchup and baked it at 450 degrees for 30 minutes...

...I think it would still look more appetizing than this.

Well, it's Saturday night and I ain't got nobody...

...or something like that. Isn't that from a song? 

There is no long glorious update yet, but I did want to say this: WHAT PART OF "I HATE HAVING PRODUCT IN MY HAIR" IS SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND IF YOU ARE A HAIR DRESSER WHO I PUT IN CHARGE OF CUTTING MY HAIRS?!?! Ugh. Pet peeve to the maximus. I guess my two planned showers of the day will now have to be amped to three so I can wash this disgusting unwanted (albeit good-smelling, but still) crap off of my head.

Also: I am going to be thirty (ptoo ptoo ptoo) in less than a year and, Lord help me, I still love instant Ramen noodles so much. Especially when I mix in some frozen corn and peas. Is that ghetto? Or has enough time passed since my college years that it can now be charmingly nostalgic?

Not yet...

...but in the meantime, please enjoy this (slightly extremely overexposed - Hey, it was sunny outside, ok?!) video of BB freaking the eff out over my parents' adopted kitty, Junior, who looks just like a younger and fatter version of Bela:

Oh herrrro.

I'm going to update (a for realz one) soon. I promise. Probably with lots of pictures. I played my recital yesterday. It was tons o' fun (not so much the part where I played Cahuzac's Arlequin like complete sh*t, but the part where I played most of everything else passably well, and especially the part where we all went out for Chinese food and beers afterward and my gloriously wonderific former clarinet teacher from undergrad treated us all OMGWHATATREATFORPOORDECREPITSTRUGGLINGMUSICIANS). In the meantime, I have too much Facebooking and blog-reading to distract me. Oh, and BB is having her Woman Time again. Ack. Sunrise, Sunset... Sunrise, Sunset... Swiftly through the yeeeeaaars....

Why didn't I know this ahead of time?!?!

Hurley was in Santa Rosa the same time I was!! Click here for my missed stalking opportunity. Poo.

OMG, how awesome would it have been to stalk him and make him take a picture of me and BB with this t-shirt?:

Summer Randomz.

Ugh, can my Monthly Confirmation That I Am Indeed Without Child hurry up and get here already? I'd really like for my enraged hormones to vacate the premises please thankyouverymuch. 

In other news: Turkish coffee is the shiz. 

Also: BB and her Lolo are reunited once again. They are both currently out in the garden chilling. Well, my dad is probably doing actual gardening while BB is traipsing around finding new and exciting places to tinkle. 

Happy 5th of July!

Last night's party at my sister's family's house: FUN TIMES. But really, with an obscene amount of food - not least of which, my dear mother's glorious lumpia yummm - and cold beer (and maybe a bit of much-needed buzzed mutual griping about 'goddamned Texas conservatives' with my brother in law's parents) and a large arsenal of slightly less than legal fireworks, what could possibly go wrong?

Nothing, right? Oh, except for a rogue firework that decided to topple over and hit my poor younger brother in the stomach AND HEAD, my mother on her thigh, AND ME ON MY ASS. My effing ass was hit by a firework last night. The end.

Not really the end. Because I have to add this completely unrelated note: So, one of the schools that I taught clarimanet lessons for last year (but not this next year since I am actually in demand now - hooray - and can afford to shoo away school districts who take an average of TWO MONTHS to pay me my moneys *harumph*) was at the end of a long road that was under construction for what seemed to be forever and ever. Because of the construction, some of the business along the road had temporary road signs put up to direct the public to the fact that they were still open for business. One of these business was a store next to a gas station, and I would laugh everytime I drove by it because the sign said "Convenient Store." And I would be all, "Ha! Dummies. It's 'Convenience Store.' Doy." And then the school ran out of private lessons money around May and I stopped thinking about that sign completely.

And then, I was just reading a blog a few minutes ago, and the blogger - who seems to be, for all intents and purposes, a very witty and competent writer - totally wrote "convenient store" in one of her posts. 

What is this? Is this some form of zany English that I am not aware of? Is my saying of "convenience store" lo these twenty-odd years actually totally and completely incorrect? Is the fact that the blogger is Canadian an indication of anything? Is it in actuality a convenient store - as in "Oh, how convenient! A store!" Or is it more like, "Oh how grand! A store for my convenience!" A convenience store.

Blergh. I got hit on the ass by fireworks. 

ps. So Chestnut wins again. Seeing as how he is the (sort of) hometown hero, I guess I have to be happy (grumblegrumble). But in my heart of hearts it will always and forever be...

KOBAYASHI 4EVAH!

Hello? Anyone still out there?

I'm in California now. Teachin' me some clarimahnets. Eatin' my sister and her family out of house and home. Visitin' my beautiful Alma Mater in 109-degree heat to watch my Schmooblebottoms' drum corps perform one day and then picnickin' and dim summin' in the City by the Bay in arctic 60-degree chill the next. 

Anyway. Aside from missing The President of the Finer Things Club and Schmooblebottoms, life is good. BB is sitting next to me as I update this blog at 2 in the morning, which is nice considering during normal waking hours, BB spends her time evading the vicious (not really) whackings from my sister's dog Xander who, I am not entirely convinced is not part wolf:

Don't worry. No BBs were harmed in the making of this photo.

In other news: Obviously I survived the three-week intensive Dorm Mom assignment. Also known as Operation: Remind Me Never To Have Children Ever Ever Ever. Hahaha. Oh hey, here's something cool: We were abruptly moved to a different housing site for the third week with no warning. You know why (I found out after the fact)? Because they found out the first building - you know, the magical place where we had 3 fire alarms go off IN ONE NIGHT? - had a f*ing nest of snakes in one of the vents. 

So, in hindsight, the occasional cockroach in the second building didn't seem so bad. Although that didn't stop me from having a PTS nightmare the night after camps were over that I was back in the dorms and  giant cockroach was sitting in front of me doing sit-ups and taunting me.