Emergency Vets

Grizzy (my Black Lab) had to go to the emergency room yesterday. I won't get into the gory details, but he was a hurtin puppy. He was so good with the vet though, I was impressed. The vet poked and prodded him all over the place (now I know why I didn't want to become a vet) and Grizzy didn't snap, snarl or whimper even once. The vet said that he probably got stressed at the kennel. Now I wonder if we will have to give him Valium each time he goes to the kennel. Then I'll have a drug addicted dog like Brian on The Family Guy. He'll be saying, "hey, you two look like you need a vacation. Just give me my Valium, drop me off at the kennel, and everything will be aaaaaaallll right."

Back on the Wagon

Well, I didn't throw the golf tournament. As a matter of fact, I sunk a 5-foot putt for an eagle. For those of you who have no clue about golf, just know that it was a very good thing!

Other than golf, the weekend was mostly spent eating, which is a damn shame because I was good all last week and had even dropped a couple pounds. First, after golf there was a buffet dinner (buffet = eat until you want to die). I didn't pig out though, but I did have one piece of very greasy fried chicken, mmmm. Sunday was another story. The inlaws took us to Brunch - the most dangerous meal to a food-addicted dieter (me). I did pig out, eating more in one sitting than I had been eating in a whole day - and washed it all down with a french vanilla capuccino (aka, a cup of crack). I feared that it would spark my addictive behaviour and I'd be stopping night and day for a cup of crack, but I've been good. Yesterday and today I've been back on the wagon - but leary… I hear the little miniature candy bars calling to me - teeeeeeeeeena, teeeeeeeeena, we know you want us. They are to me what 'Nsync is to millions of teenage girls - craved but forbidden.

OW!

On the drive up to the 1000 Islands (where I am now), Chuck rolled the window up on my finger. I really wasn't hurt that bad, but the shock of having the window move suddenly and seeing it smoosh my finger, combined with the sharp stinging pain, caused an instant sobbing reaction. I felt like a five year old. The weird part is even though I immediately started crying, I was also cracking up because it was pretty funny. Chuck almost crashed from laughing, then, after a brief insincere apology, began to insist it was my fault... getting mad at ME for sticking my fingers out the window (I was throwing crumbs out). He says he looked over, I was not near the window, then turned back and hit the button, then heard "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" (my scream).

I will seek revenge. We are in a golf tournament tomorrow and I think my injured finger will have a negative impact on my performance and cause our team to come in last. I am also going to submit him for the Heinous Husband Award that they do in Redbook or Family Circle or one of those silly magazines. He doesn't do wrong or bad things too often, but this ones a doozy.

Nobody crushes my finger with a power window and blames me... NOBODY...

Tina Fact #2

I have a apiphobia - fear of bees.

The Buzz on Bees

I inherited my apiphobia from my Grandmother who didn't even go to the family reuinion because it was outdoors. Her life revolves around avoiding bees. I'm not that bad (yet?).

At lunch outside last week, I fled from the table a few times as we had the unwelcomed "visitors". Everyone tried to talk me out of being afraid, including Joel... I had to remind them that a key ingredient in a phobia is IRRATIONALITY. Sad to say, it will take more than the advice of my good friends "not to be afraid" to cure me, it will take heavy duty psychotherapy that I am not willing to commit to. I'm not afraid of the pain of a sting (though I've never been stung), I'm not afraid of stuffed bees, cartoon bees or even dead bees. Just ones that are within a 20 foot radius of me and airborne. Little bees, those gigantic bees (the kind that supposedly don't sting), large flies that can be mistaken for bees, wasps, and let's not even discuss the killer bees, ugh!

Ironically, Joel got stung this weekend. He is allergic. He doesn't have apiphobia because his fear is real, not irrational... but he will be running away from the table with me nonetheless.

Got to see Natalie yesterday, a good friend and former coworker who moved down to DC. Why do all my friends move away? Never mind, I know the answer to that. Rochester pretty much sucks - especially in winter!! The real question is, why don't I move away? Natalie looked great! She is a skinny-minny now - said it's from the medication she's taking, she couldn't eat dairy (and she's an even bigger cheese fanatic than me!!). I say, pass me some of that medication please!

Hung with Mom and sis (Sherri) last night too. Mom is on medication and seemed drunk... slow, slurred speech. Sad and funny at the same time. We took her to get her hair cut and she asked the girl to cut it like "Tina Turner but not as floppy". I think the girl thought she was insane until I mentioned the medication.

I also had to buy my dress for Sherri's wedding. While I was at the bridal store, they were playing the song Butterfly Kisses - a Dad singing about his little girl and how she's all grown up and getting married. I started bawling in the dressing room. The memories of losing my Dad just before my wedding combined with knowing he also wouldn't be there for Sher's wedding, not to mention how proud (and shocked ;-) he would have been to see Eddie get married... it was too much to take. I think Sher thought I was crying because I thought I looked fat in the dress. Actually, the dress looked pretty nice - but I'm definitely going to need some of those super-spandex-suck-everything-in-and-smooth-it-out type pantyhose.

On that note, I'll add my new feature:

Tina Fast Fact #1

My Dad owned a motorcycle shop in 1973 where he sold Harley's to the local Hells Angels. They became fast friends and from the age of 4 to 10, I was surrounded by big burly tatooed bikers, loud Harley's, drinking, gambling, and drugs. It's a miracle I'm normal.

Cravings

My food addiction is getting the best of me. After eating Kettle Korn for dinner AND dessert on Monday, I had a good day on Tuesday and thought I was back on track (I'm trying to drop a few pounds before going to LA). But then, on Wednesday, Jenny and I ate at a local diner (Jine's) and I (against my better judgment but weak and hungry) ordered a hamburger... which came with chips. Normally one might be disappointed with chips instead of fries, but not me. See, I LOVE to put potato chips on grilled burgers. It was DEEELICIOUSO, well worth the 3000 calories it contained... delicious enough to spur my need for more, more, more. So last night at our group picnic, I had ANOTHER burger with chips on it. It wasn't as good as the one from Jine's and left me wanting. So today at lunch, guess what I HAD TO HAVE. Yep, a burger with chips on it. That's three days in a row!! And the one today wasn't so great so here I am.... debating whether to ask Abby if she wants to eat at Jine's tonight before East End Fest. I need an intervention. I'm also flooded with thoughts of fried eggs and toast. Must have fried eggs and toast. Must have fried eg... DAMMIT! Damn food addiction! DAMMIT! DAMMIT! DAMMIT!

I think the only thing that will break my current downward spiral is a trip to the gym. Which I HAD been planning for tomorrow, but I have to wait for the cable guy in the morning and just got in under the wire with my hairdresser for tomorrow afternoon. He's only in town one week a month, the rest of the time he's in NYC - and tomorrow is his last day here until August. My friend Donna called him a "little bitch" - he is rather snotty at times, but I like what he does with my hair. I usually leave there feeling like a supermodel. A supermodel with a double chin and a fat ass, but GREAT hair!

Palm Animals

Jenny just commented that all of her animals are smaller than her hand. I find that funny.

Flickersuck

Well, hubby and I went to see Flickerstick, the winners of VH1 Bands on the Run... and they should keep running... away. They weren't horrible, but they sounded pretty bad - which I think was mostly due to the sound system configuration, not their musical talent. The guitars were too twangy and all the music kind of just blended into this painful lump. The opening band, Greenwheel, was actually very good, I enjoyed catching their show. Overall, glad it was only six bucks.

No Liquid Love

Oh, and just to clarify, though Liquid Boy links to me, I am NOT "The Rochester girl" that he is corresponding with! And if anyone wants me to prove it, just listen to me sing.

Fry Fry Away

For those who do not partake in festival food (you know who you are), let me explain Butterfly Fries. They are curly potato chips, apparently made with some type of rotato machine that peels the potato into a long, interconnected flat corkscrew type deal (envision someone peeling an apple all in one piece). Quite delicious. Then again, you could probably deep fry peas and they'd taste good. I HATE PEAS!

Liquid Love

I'm so excited, Liquid Boy links to me on his blog. I think it may be my first link from someone who doesn't actually know me. And he writes beautiful poetry. I am inspired to write some of my own poetry:

this wall of envy
crashes over my soul
I bleed
I heal
I am whole

I don't know what he sees in my blog, but I'm flattered. I can't help but wonder if he IS someone we know, but who is blogging secretly... hmmmm...

Running to Rochester

Tonight Chuck and I are going to see Flickerstick, the band that won VH1 Bands on the Run. A reality show that pitted four bands against each other and filmed the whole way. So though they were drunk and beligerent most of the time, they seem like a pretty good band - so for $6 bucks I'll check them out.

Scary

This was an action-packed weekend... Friday night went & saw a few local bands... Saturday hit the gym for the first time in eons and in a little bit of life-imitating-art (with art being cheesy romance novels), my personal trainer was a major hunk... blue eyes, bulging muscles, NICE. Luckily, hubby is fine with "look but don't touch", so he didn't mind that I ogled. So after doing cybex exercises, I did the elliptical running thingy for 3 hours. Oh, did I say 3 hours... I meant 20 minutes, it only FELT like 3 hours. After all that I managed to muster up enough strength to get my ass kicked by Abby in a game of tennis. It was fun though. Later that night we went to see Scary Movie 2. It was quite disgusting and therefore, IMHO, quite hilarious. Sunday, while quite enjoyable with a visit to the Corn Hill Festival, was a dark day for my healthy eating habits. It started with an innocent bite of a funnel cake and ended with a kettle korn feeding frenzy - with me damning myself for not buying two large bags. In between, I had chicken-on-a-stick, liquid sugar mixed with strawberries (a smoothie), some butterfly fries, and pepperoni pizza. That might have been ok if I'd stopped there, but the next day I had kettle korn for dinner, then some fried eggs, and kettle korn for dessert. I am doing better today, but the night is young. Yes, I've had a relapse with my kettle korn addiction, but I'll try to get back off the stuff somehow.

Mystery Solved

In an update to yesterday's blog, Jenny explained to me that the coffee stand that has the "pay it forward" tradition happening only serves one kind of coffee... (though it was fun coming up with wacky theories.

Growing Pains

Jenny beamed an app to my Handspring last week that calculates your ideal weight. Immediately it told me I should weight 10 pounds less. "Thank you oh omnipotent Handspring... oops, didn't mean to drop you on your head and remove your batteries. Oh, and tell me something I don't know." Seriously though, I have been "expanding" for some time now and the number of pants that I can no longer wear is growing. I have some that I won't even attempt to try on, some that I can't button and some that I can get on but I look like a hoochie. On top of that, I'm going to LA in a month where everyone is a size 0 and even if I lose 10 pounds I will still be the chubbiest girl there... plus my Sister is getting married in 14 weeks and picked out an oh-so-slinky-and-clingy dress for me to wear as the Matron of Honor. UGH, that sounds so horrible, I feel so old... but that's another story.

So anyway, I really need to get back to my smaller self... so I've been eating healthier and laying off the junk. It's a drastic change, but that's taking in to account the fact that, up until a few days ago, I was eating Kettle Korn on a daily basis, chowing on hot dogs and s'mores and eating at Bahama Breeze once a week. So I've been doing good and not even having cravings... shocking. When Jenny brought in caramel and nut covered marshmallows today, I was pleased to find that I did not have the urge to shove them all in my mouth before anyone else could have any (as was my normal modus operandi). Jenny, however, was not nearly as pleased considering she had anticipated that I might resist based on the caloric intake involved and had calculated that there was but a mere 87 calories each. I still resisted, moreso because I wasn't sure I'd like the given combo... so though I felt bad disappointing Jenny, I am proud of my will power. I don't think I could have been so strong in the face of a bowl of JFKK (Jenny's Faux Kettle Korn).

On a related note, I've been drinking LOTS and LOTS of Pineapple Orange Crystal Light.... which is this nuclear glowing orange color... and now I feel yucky. If I start radiating orange light, I'm going to get really scared.

Pay it Forward

I just paid to have Daniela's blog ad free. Jenny told me that this trend was going around where people were paying to have other blogs made ad free, so I thought I'd do my part and do it for Yelli. I wonder how long before she notices =)

In the same vein, Jenny also told me about a coffee place in Somewhere USA where, one day, someone was feeling extra generous and decided to pay for the coffee of the person behind them in the drive thru and then THAT person paid for the one behind them and so on and so on... and this tradition has been carried on for over 100 years (ok, I don't remember the details... but a LONG time).

This makes me wonder... what if a very generous person in front of me forks over $3.50 to pay for my Grande Cafe Mocha but I can only scrounge up $1.50 in crusty quarters from the floor of my '87 Buick and besides, the person behind me looks like a $1.25-small-regular-coffee kind of person, so I cheap out and give $1.50? Does this throw the whole process off? Do the clerks keep the extra if generous-guy-in-front-of-me pays $3.50 but I only get a Jones Soda for $2.00? Did the clerks start this whole thing in an effort to skim cashola to pay for the ever increasing cost of their Ecstasy habit? I need more details.

Insane Heidi

Well, I definitely have to disagree with Angry Heidi about Family Guy. Any show that includes a game called "catch the naked greased up deaf guy" and a dog that's hooked on smack gets my vote as Must See TV. It's no Real World, but it's quality humor.

Almost Famous

I went to Guster's home page (my favorite band) today and they've done a slight redesign. The BIG news is that the three pictures on their home page of each guy (Ryan, Adam and Brian) are the pictures I took when I met them at the WBER studio. Yes, that's right, I'm almost famous as a photographer of almost famous rock stars. WOO HOO!!

Last week was a very good week.

It started out Monday with the Travis concert. Abby won tickets and invited me along. Emiliana Turrini opened up, she danced like a freak (though probably considered normal in Iceland). Imagine someone raising their arms as if to pull of a t-shirt... elbows high in the air, then imagine their head bobbing to the side as if they were rubbing their cheek against a baby they were holding very high... now picture them doing this without the baby... that was Emiliana. Now I need to find out if this is all the rage at the clubs in Iceland.

Travis came on next and put on a great show. Renewed my interest in them since I'd bought their CD over 6 months ago but hadn't listened to it much. Then Dido played, but by then, Ab and I were freezing since the temp had dropped about 20 degrees. So we bailed shortly after Dido started. I have to admit though, the most fun was watching the people. There are some doozies out there.

Tuesday was the season premier of The Real World. Yes, sadly enough, I have watched every season and plan to continue. Already I don't care for Coral, she's too harsh and unforgiving.

Wednesday (Happy 4th of July) we had a great picnic with "the clan" from work. Jenny got to go into full Martha mode and use all her acoutraments. She was very happy about this. As soon as we put out the food, she grabbed one of her little mesh food tents and said, voice trembling with excitement, "what can I use this on?" Later we went to the fireworks downtown, it was fun until we got stuck in traffic for an hour. Luckily I was all hyped up on a little slice of French Vanilla Capuccino heaven.

Thursday we (me, Abby, Jenny and Aaron) headed downtown again to catch a free concert of The Tripping Billies (v.g.) and the Samples (v.v.g.). It was a great concert but even better people watching. I hate to admit it, but I love to talk about people. Luckily, everyone else was also up for this and we had some nice chuckles. I really miss having Daniela around because she is the absolute best at noticing and pointing out people who needed commenting on.

Friday Chuck and I headed up to the 1000 Islands... uneventful.

Saturday Chuck and I went and got facials. Oh joyous God in Heaven... facials are wonderful. The pampering, the relaxation, and, let's be honest - letting someone else squeeze your pimples... it's all good. While the aestetician was doing "extraction" on my face, she said, "you have geooorgeeouuss skin". I'm not sure how, in the midst of squeezing god-knows-what disgusting crud out of my pores, she got the impression that I had nice skin... but ok... thanks. Their advice? Use sunscreen every day (as I've been practicing and preaching for years) but also, new to me, exfoliate every day. Great, more to add to my regimen.

On Top of the World

I had been bugging Jenny for some time now to move me up in her flog list (friends who blog). With more and more friends starting blogs and her list in alphabetical order, I was moving lower and lower... apparently Jenny doesn't have any friends named Vivian or even Zack. Then when Sarah started a blog, I really turned up the heat (via whining alot). I threatened to change my name to Aaa, which would be the only way I would EVER get to the top of the list ahead of Aaron. I couldn't even change it to Aass, he'd still have me beat. So Jenny caved and moved me to the top, throwing her alphabetical scheme out the window. I was EXTREMELY pleased for about 5 minutes, then the reality hit me and I started to feel the pressure... what did I get myself into?