Thurs, May 1. Avenue Q was amazing, though the tallest man in the world sat directly in front of me for the first half of the show. As much as I have heard the music on the cd, it was amazing to see how much I thought I knew about it was wrong. So hilarious! and the set was amazing!

Fri, May 2. After approximately 3 hours of nap time, we lept from bed and began the mad struggle to get ready and leave the house for several days. We arrive at the airport at 4 am, as we are told that if I come any later than 2 hours before my flight that I am absolutely screwed.

Thus we sat for an hour and a half in an empty terminal waiting, because everyone else knew better. My first plane experience was interesting. Excitement with a tinge of 'please don't let me vomit right now'. The excitement wore off and I fell asleep later on my JFK to Tampa leg of the excursion.

oh, and as for the layover? HA! We booked ass off the plane from buffalo and finally showed up panting at the gate for tampa and they weren't even boarding yet. Bitches! And several people on the buffalo plane managed to saunter over lazily as well to make it on time.

We arrived in tampa EARLY. By the time mel and her current plaything came to pick us up, I had already managed to rip the duffel bag that I purchased for air travel along the seams. Bitches!

The greatest omelettes ever at a small diner were followed by checkin to our awesome hotel.

"the most awesome in tampa!" We quickly made our way down to the pool and started ordering up the margaritas.





Dinner that night was in Ybor - a cute little village full of tattoo parlors, cigar shops and bars. I loved it. After walking around a bit we had dinner (and more margaritas) at this awesome restaurant. They had a little old black lady in a wheelchair in the restroom who liked to chat as well. I gave her a quarter.



Back to the hotel for a nap before going out (hellooo 3 hours of sleep?) and then out to an interesting lesbian bar back in Ybor. Lauren refused to wake up so she didn't go. We watched the "mel show" wherein all of Mel's people just kept floating by and talking.

Hotel. SLEEP! yes!



The next day begins the pain. I say that because we took Jess's rented convertible out to Clearwater beach wherein we learned that the spreading of sunblock needs to be a very thorough thing indeed.


Patches of red allover the body, like a camoflauge sunburn, followed. The back of my knees were apparently missed and lauren somehow got sunpoisoning (rash all over her legs).


Back at the Hotel, Jess and I go Jetskiing for an hour. THe guy who ran the place was a total burnout and sorta explained 'don't go over there, make sure you follow the no wake rules, if you run it aground, just get out and push.' What? what are the no wake zones? what do you mean don't go 'over there?' i think he went and took a nap when we left.




Jess left at 3 am the next mornin and we spent the day with mel, drivin around to her friends house. we saw an air show, and then went to chilis for the greatest margaritas that we had the whole weekend. I even stole a margarita shaker. SHHHH

All in all i believe we spent over $200 on the margaritas alone. Sweet ass trip people!

And now we are home. Woot!

Yes (e:Chico), please wait till tomorrow to post about bedbugs! Though we were pretty damn thorough in our cleanings. Thanks to (e:lauren) who picked up the slack and did all the laundry while i was work.

last night i was in bed by 10:15. know when that happened last? i don't. How exahusting this whole thing has been.

anyway - today i finally get to check into my gate numbers for everything and I am extremely nervouse. You see i have a 35 minute layover in JFK. And from what everyone is telling me, i am going to miss the connecting flight. Why? because 35 minutes isn't enough time! I have to book ass and run like hell if i have a shot. Well now i have my gate numbers.




My flight from buffalo comes into gate 17 and then i get to run like hell down that narrow walkway between ternimals 2 and 3 to get to gate number 20. oh my god am i going to make it? i am sweating right now. I can't believe this crap. this is why i shouldn't be in charge of selecting the flights.

so YESTERDAY we get a notice that they have to do some preventative spraying for bed bugs. Reason? last saturday or so the neighbors downstairs found a rash and suspected bedbugs. Orkin came and found one discarded casing of a bug that COULD be bedbugs.

So what does this mean? (e:lauren) and I both get home at 10 last night to find ourselves in a shit load of work.

Bag all clothes/linens/bedclothes and wash everything.

All furnature away from walls.

remove all wall hangings, and wall socket coverings.

flip up corners of carpet.

unfold sofa bed and dismantle practically completely.

vaccum carpet, all corners of carpet, wall crevaces, mattresses, cushions, etc.

basically MOVE OUT OF THE DAMN HOUSE BY NOON TODAY!

It is now 5:45 am and I have to work an 11 hour shift in Springville. Which means after all we did last night (including breaking my f#^*!^& bookshelf) Lauren still has to bust ass all morning to vaccum and whatever. all of this while she is supposed to be working on her final paper.

AND she has to somehow round up the pissed off kitties and stick them in the car and sit there for an hour and a half while the guy sprays.

then afterwards we have to somehow put our house back together and actually do our packing, which is what we were SUPPOSED to be doing in small amount of time we have in between my work schedule and us leaving at the ass crack of dawn friday.

In three days I will be in the air on my first plane trip ever. I know I keep blatherin on about it, but the excitement is unbeleiveable.

what IS unfortunate, however, is the lack of free time i am about to have between now and then. Today I am working till 830 in lockport. and I have agreed to be in springville at 730 to do the monthly inventory. Why? because I feel as though if I agree to tackle the unpleasant administrative tasks I will be looked upon as a leader in the company and thus aquire a)better job security and b) OVERTIME!

Tomorrow night is all about packing. Laundry. Packing. preparation. Because i work all day on thurs and as SOON as we get home we have to hit Sheas. Which I have never been to. Where do I park? how early before a show should I be there?

Come home and try to sleep? because we have to be at the airport at 430 am. Where do i park? ahhh its all new to me. Trepidation! trepidation! And how much is airport parking? booooooo expensivo!

Yesterday was shopping for Florida day. Let me inform you that shopping for a swimsuit is probably the most horrifying adventure that a chick with an extra pound (or two) could experience. First of all, everywhere I went the bathing suits were either:

A) 2 piece
B) Adorned with rhinestones
C) adorned with gaudy flowers
D) Ludicrously expensive
E) GOLD. Yes GOLD.

It was not the most pleasant experience. I haven't been in a bathing suit in over ten years. I feel quite exposed. I felt on several occasions that a wetsuit covered with a mumu would probably be the sexier option.

More importantly... yet another battle at buffalo tonight, if anyone here is interested! BUFFALO BREAKDANCING! WOOOO!

I've been listening to a book on tape - a really random gross one that I didn't realize was more of a romantical book than a historical fiction - which is more my interest. So of course today on my way home from work I was subjected to about 15 to 20 minutes of a sex scene that uses delightful words such as "member" and "maidenhood".

Oh and incidentally, part of the reason the sex scene was so long was because they had to keep pausing to wonder aloud if the ghost of his grandfather was watching. Or to describe, in detail, the number of petticoats the young gent had to fight his way through to do his husbandly duty and officially make her his wife. BLAH!

Point of the story? I was pulling into the city when I realized my face hurt from the awful jaw dropping expression that was apparently plastered all over my face during the entire drive.

Apparently listening to heterosexual romance sex scenes set in medieval england during my long drive just doesn't do it for me.

but on a brighter note - three years ago today lauren and i made out for like 3 hours at the bar. happy anniversary love!

Every time I go to the zoo i get faced with animal bums. so here is a fun new game for all of us to enjoy... NAME THAT ANIMAL BUM!!!








..
..

and we have to check out (e:lauren)'s bum while she checks out animal bum.


and, oh my goodness look how (e:lauren) has shrunk!

I'm at work.... and its slow. Watching a kid across the street trying to bust his face open by riding his bike up a makeshift ramp. I'm afraid to look away in case he succeeds.

otherwise, the day is slow. dull. boring.

yesterday I enjoyed the 420 holiday by taking care of (e:lauren)'s hungover butt. We watched movies (i am normally too antsy for movies) which included Liar Liar and Pirates of the Caribbean. It was kinda as if the cable company knew that everybody would be stoned and ready to zone out to stupid movies all night.

today was my day to go back on my diet. i cheated soooo much in the past few days. so far so good.

i need to make up a list of all the things that I need to do before the trip, so i don't have to think about it.

Spent last night at my grams. Good times, good times. Of course i didn't bring my phone charger so my battery was dead.

(e:lauren) took the opportunity to go out without me. Which is why she is sitting on the couch in pain today. Poor little hungover lady. apparently if she is not concentrating her efforts on keeping me from drinking too much and being ridiculous, she is, herself, getting ridiculous... poor drunk lady...

and of course she got to admit how it was better the other way around because when i was the one with the hangover she got to make me wrong for it. Thats my girl.

back to laundry

We spent yesterday at the Toronto Zoo. Here is a recap of a couple important things.

1. Canadian drivers can be scary at times.

2. FOcusing on the inner set of numbers on the spedometer instead of the outer set of numbers can be distracting. It doesn't matter though because apparently 100kh speed limit does not actuallymean 60mph, it means 85 mph.

3. Except when you are trying to leave around 5 pm on a friday night. then 100kph means 3 mph then 0mph then 4 mph for 2 hours.

4. The toronto zoo needs to stop expanding their exhibits. Why? because I thought my feet were going to fall off during the 4 hour walk we took around the zoo, and several exhibits weren't even open.

5. Why is it that every time I go to visit a damn zoo the polar exibits are closed? The tundra was being built, along with the australian and canadian exhibits. I know I know, if I want to see some damn penguins i should just go to the aquarium. But dammit!

6. The rumors of Toronto being a very clean city apparently do not apply to the smog that looms everywhere. But being a city of such ridiculous size, I bet its hard to not have smog.

7. Does anybody know the real reason that when your car goes through the border patrol, and you stop at the gate to talk to the nice man who has a lovely border patrol script that he is reading to you... why is the pavement angled so your car is tilted like 40 degrees and there is a grate udnerneath the middle of the car? are there people under there?

8. My collection of photos of animal asses is increasing nicely.

9. Happy Birthday Grandpap.