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I am so hurting this morning.  I woke up wanting yogurt and Excedrin.  Of course we were out so I was stuck with chocolate pudding.  Ohhhh, the agony.

If you live under a rock and didn’t know, yesterday was my birthday.

My mother lives under a rock because I called her last night, and she didn’t remember.  The crummy thing is I decided to be a jerk and not remind her.  Seriously.  Like I have never forgotten her birthday.  She will call in a day or so, and I will have to apologize along with her for not saying anything.

Other than that I had a great day.  We started with breakfast and then Curtis took me shopping.  He had no idea what to get me this year, and I didn’t either so we just went to Freddies and I picked out a new exercise outfit.  You would think that buying me workout clothing would be on par with getting me a vacuum, but I really wanted it and I feel so cute in my new pink and black outfit that I want to go running every day.  I really do believe it makes me run faster too.  Because I’m five.

Later after we had lain around the house for the rest of the afternoon after post gym run, we finally drug our smelly selves to the shower to get ready for the concert.  Curtis has bought tickets for the Emilee, him and I to go see Bob Dylan.  I’m not a huge Dylan fan, but its just one of those people I feel that I need to see because he’s a legend.

A couple years ago we went to see Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young for the same reason.  It took me weeks to get the smell of hippies and patchouli out of my nose.

The lines to get in were so long, and I had decided to smuggle a flask of vanilla vodka in but they were checking bags.  So guess where I had to stash it?  That’s right.  In my pants.  Do you know how cold a pewter flask is on your bum?  After a while it warms up.

Whats in the glass Emi?  RC hu?

I was actually a little more excited to see the opening show.  It was John Mellencamp.  Curtis even tried to get close to take a couple pictures of him.

He only played for about a hour, but I knew all his songs.  Sadly I think I even made Emi dance with me a couple times.  Then it was Bob’s turn.

By the time Bob was on the stage, I was unfortunately fairly drunk and exhausted.   He played a really good set, but I spent half of it trying to snuggle on Curtis’s lap, and trying to not fall asleep.  As soon as he had tucked me into the car, and seat belted me in, I was out.  It was a rough, but fun night for the little 33 year old.

Last Sunday marked exactly one week until my birthday. It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened that day. I just love to remind people that my birthday is coming up because I’m SHALLOW!

Of course I have already received one gift from Emilee. She knows how excited I get, and so she gave me my gift as soon as she purchased it. I also squealed like teen girl seeing twilight for the first time when she gave it to me.

Yes those are also freckles. It’s what happens when I go into the sun. I turn into a giant spot.

Sunday my friend Dylan did a show at his store.

Well technically it isn’t his store, but it was his show and we felt the need to show up and show our support. Also, Curtis loves any chance to throw his bra up on stage.

After wards we took Dylan, and our other friends Amanda and Steve out to the Delta. The Delta is a cajun restaurant in SE Portland. It was also Amanda and Steve’s fourth wedding anniversary. They watched the show but didn’t feel the need to throw anything at Dylan or flash their boobs.

We typically call the food at the Delta cajun redneck. Chicken fried steak, red beans and rice. Collard greens with bacon. I can feel my behind grow larger with every bite, but its so delicious.  Unfortunately I can never finish all my food and I spend 10 minutes trying to get anyone else to help.  Steve was the least polite with telling me to bugger off, he was full.  I thought english people were suppose to be nice.  Thankfully Dylan stepped in and stuffed himself so full he asked us to roll him out to the car.

You would think that because I’m part of the emergency response team at work, I would be a little bit better with blood and people in pain, but I’m really terrible.  Once, when Emilee was little, I was driving when in a tiny quavery voice she said my name.  I took my eyes off the road to look at her when I realized she had a tooth in her hand, and blood running down her face.  We both almost died that day when my car lurched across the road with me screaming behind the wheel.

Slight exaggeration.  Only slight.

This morning she comes stumbling down the stairs, once again calls my name.  I jumped up to find her hand cupping her mouth and blood dribbling down her chin.  She had caught her lip ring in her teeth while eating and pulled the stud back through the piercing.  

I will let you think about that for a second and cringe.

The stud was stuck inside her lip.  Any time she tried to pull it out or push it through, a burst of pain would hit her and she would have to stop.  Neither of us were dressed for public but we jumped into the car to head for the nearest urgent care.  Thankfully it was only five minutes away.  The bad part was that it was closed.  We pressed on to Beaverton.  They had a clinic 45 mins away.  Yes.  I live out in the sticks.  This is the price we pay.  

After a hour wait we got in to see someone.  The doc said he actually saw this happen about every couple months.  After a little numbing shot he pulled out the pliers and gave the stud a tug.

Thankfully it popped right out.

We celebrated with cinnamon and sugar bagels.

She has also decided not to get it redone or try to get the piercing put back in.  

I’m still cringing.

I didn’t want to post this story until some of the dust had settled, and a bit less feelings were hurt.

 I am a Internet stalker.  Seriously.  I totally know how to work the Internet.   It’s great fun to search around and see what I can find.  A couple of you probably just cringed wondering what I got on them now, but in reality it’s not like that, and don’t generally pick on my friends to find dirt on them.  I use these mad stalking skills sporadically to find family and see my husbands secret myspace profile.  I like to find missing bloggers and stalk old friends.  In fact I found a couple of them this morning, and you would not believe how smug I feel about locating one of my sisters best friends when we were kids.

It’s pretty crazy about how much info there is too.  If you are wondering try going to spokeo.com or pipl.com and type in your name and state.  Voilà.  

Emilee had been dating a guy for about a month when he started acting funny.  In a funk she decided to go to house to talk to him, wondered if they were going to break up.  So I told her to keep me informed on what was going on because I may not be her mother, but I helped raise her and I will be 90 billion years old before I stop worrying about her.

Unfortunately I heard nothing.  I started to get nervous and started texting her, and the guy.  Nothing.

I started getting worried AND angry.

So I did what any self respecting Internet stalker would do and looked up his name on the Internet.  That lead me to his parents name, and their phone number.

I sent one last text.  ”you have five minutes to respond, before I call your parents”.

Of course I heard nothing, so I placed a call.  A very confused father answered.  I told him who I was and asked if I could please talk to Emilee.  She said the father brought her the phone a moment later.  With a sigh and shake of her head, she told him “My aunt is a Internet stalker. This is what she has been training for”.

Damn right.

Everything was fine.  Well not the relationship.  That was over, but the fears floating through my head of her being stuffed into the trunk of a car were totally unfounded.  It just goes to show my mad skills come in handy.

I know I’m really going to disappoint some of you, and I’m really sorry, but I stayed fairly sober at Saturdays wedding.  I’m sure you just about choked on whatever you were drinking, but it’s true.  Lizzie went to a wedding and did not make a ass off herself.

Also, my iPad just tried changing ass to SSS.  My iPad doesn’t want me to swear.  Get over it iPad.

There is a reason i stayed soberish.  I cannot say sober because I did suck down two strawberry margaritas, but had to quit.  The ceremony went off without a hitch.  My sister Shalene, cousin Anna and I managed to plant ourselves in some nice shade for the outdoor wedding because Utah manages to be hotter than hell in august, and had front row seats to watch our respective husbands escort some women we didn’t know through the ceremony.  Good thing I’m not jealous.  I may be crazy, just not jealous.

Afterwards everyone wandered inside to start partaking of the liquor I so love when the reason I stopped drinking happened.  My sister who has less than four weeks left until her due date started having contractions.

I stopped drinking just incase I needed to go to the hospital.

The rest of the wedding went off like a normal wedding that I’m sober at.  We had a nice conga line,

The removal of the garter belt,

Traditional dances,

and Curtis gave the best mans speech,

By nine I was totally done.  I can only do the chicken dance, and the twist so many times sober.  I had forgotten to take my anxiety meds for a couple days because I’m crummy about remembering when I’m not in a routine.   I had to hide for a little bit upstairs when the DJ started playing Sir Mix-a-lot.  I found a nice quiet booth and tried to block ‘baby got back’ out of my head before I started having a anxiety attack.

Alas, my sobriety was in vain.  Shalene was sent home later once her contractions started to slow down.  Maybe the next wedding I will go out of control.  Anyone wanna get married?

Here we are waiting in breathless anticipation for the wedding to start, and by breathless anticipation I mean I’m in my underwear and a tshirt watching curtis wrap a oversized gift for the bride and groom in our hotel room. I love how saying ‘oversized gift’ makes us sound so spendy, but in reality we just got them a plastic spoon in a large box. That’s what you get for putting my husband in hot pink. Excuse me. Watermelon, but I will talk more about that tomorrow or whenever I get around to it.

You might be asking were in the world are we, and I will joyously tell you. We are in Utah. Jealous? No? Me either. If there is one place I despise more than Idaho it’s Utah. This place has a lovely pattern. Strip mall, residential track, and then field. Continue for miles.

I have actually felt pretty unprepared for his trip. When we got here Curtis realized he forgot to pack tshirts. I laughed pretty hard at him until i realized I only packed a couple pairs of undies. Creepy hu? It gets worse. So I had two options. Commando (told you it was gonna get creepier) or go buy some. Don’t worry my sensitive darlings. We went shopping today.

While this week has been all fun hangovers, puking and forgetting important clothing, but I have to say the highlight was going to lagoon. Of course now your thinking of me whaling around in a beach somewhere but in reality to those of you that don’t live in this area lagoon is actually a fairly large amusement park. I love rides. I love flippy, turny, spew inducing rides, and lagoon fulfills this need.

Rides like this normally don’t scare me. The one that scares me is the sky ride. You know, the ride that looks like a ski lift. For some reason that one freaks me out. So I ride it a couple times to shake me up.

You can’t tell but this is a pic of Jacob and Jen (the groom and bride) on the rocket. Oh, i also won’t go on this ride. I don’t like that falling sensation. It makes me wanna wet myself.

Here is me and curtis on the ferris wheel, and this is how high we were.

Too bad you couldn’t see much of my hat. Curtis made me buy one there to protect my little noggin from the sun. It’s actually pretty hard to find me hats because my head is so tiny. You know tiny brain, tiny head. We ended up buying me a little girls hat. I’m so styling.

Today I’m going to extol the virtues of getting up at 345 in the morning. Is that really even morning? Because to my aging ass it still felt like the middle of the night.  So what you may ask am I doing up that early? Right now I’m in Idaho. Home of those lumpy tubers most people call idahoans…er…..potatoes. 

Don’t ever think I don’t love my family because I do.  Very, very much.  I just hate Idaho.  I pretty much hate everything about it, and i hate being here.  Its hot and dry in the summer and cold and snowy in the winter, but here we are ready to drink our way across the state all because of a wedding.  

So who’s getting married?  Curtis’s youngest brother.  Remember when his brother got married in June?  Different brother.  This is Jacobs turn.  

Of course now it should be making sense why I was up at 345.  Some idiot decided it would be best to take the early flight to Boise. By some idiot we all know I’m talking about myself.  We should of actually been up a little earlier because our flight left at 635 and we didn’t get to the airport until almost 6.  It turned out ok though, we got to our gate just as they started boarding.  I’m very thankful for web check in, and traveling with carry-ons.  

So here we are in Boise, and where is our rental car?  You would think the point of reserving a car would be that they would actually have one for you.  Nope.  They were out of cars.  How does a car rental place run out of cars?  They did have a truck.  I hate trucks.  Give me a teeny car any day.  If I was any fatter I wouldn’t be able to climb in this behemoth.  My height may have something to do with it, but I know my rollipolly status is more to blame.

Curtis did point out one upside to this thing.  It has seven cup holders in the front.  That’s right.  We could stash a six pack plus one if we were so inclined.  Or half a liquor store.  

Is it time to go home yet?
            
 

Last night we got dressed up, and celebrated our anniversary by stuffing ourselves silly in downtown Portland.  I mean how else are we suppose to do it?  Hookers and blackjack?  Hmm….sounds good for next year though.

We went to a restaurant called “Ringside”.  Its suppose to be one of the best steak houses around, and while it was good I didn’t think it was anything spectacular.  We both ordered steak (I know, in a steakhouse!) and we both felt like the presentation was lacking.  They were served on sizzling hot platters like something I would expect from Outback.  Curtis’s steak was about the size of his head, and I’m pleased to note he ate it all.  The steak.  Not his head.

After dinner we staggered down the block to watch the movie “The kids are alright”.  It was a decent movie, but a little on the long side.  It might have been because it was way passed my 9pm bedtime, or it might have been due to the three drinks I had just had, but to me the pacing of the movie seemed off.

Afterwards we got our last surprise of the night.  A 40 dollar parking ticket.  For the ten years we have lived here, parking on the streets of Portland has been free on Sundays.  Ooops.  Guess not anymore.  In fact once I looked it up I found that free Sundays stopped last year.  I guess we have just been getting lucky until now.

I cannot believe its been seven years since I did the smartest thing of my life and married Curtis.  I guess time flies when your drunk.  Seven years ago my brother escorted me down the aisle while I had the worst hangover of my life.  Seven years ago my father told me “You may kiss the groom”, and seven years ago we spent the first day as husband and wife.

Man this guy is a sucker.

Everyone told me before the ceremony that everything changes when you get married.  They lied.  Nothing changed.  I’m still a annoyingly cheerful morning person, and he’s still as grumpy as he can be before his first cup of coffee.

I know I get the better end of the deal with this relationship too.  He cooks and cleans, he puts up with my niece (I know he adores her too), and loves our kitties.  He kills my spiders, and mows the lawn because I refuse to.  I know he loves me, and is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Every day I wonder what I did to get so lucky.  I must of  been a nun in a previous life.

Against my better judgment (in reality I was just being lazy) we took Emilee shopping last week.  We have been talking about doing this forever since she started working at our company, and started making enough moola to afford a car and insurance.  Sadly we have just been way to lazy about it and since she has had access to our convertible, she hasn’t been in too much of a hurry either.

Then I got a text at work from her on the other side of the building talking about a Volkswagen beetle for sale on our companies homepage.  I never realized she had any interest in bugs, but I remembered her mother owned one when she was little, and we all had great memories of driving with the top down on that beast.  The car, not her mother.  I’m from Idaho, but that’s just wrong.

So the next day Curtis got on the internet to do some research.  What he found was a Beetle was totally in Emi’s price range.  So we set out to find a couple dealerships with some used cars.

The first step was to get her financed.  If your buying a car you have a little bit more leverage if you already had a loan lined up.  Thankfully I have fantastic credit, and the bank decided I was awesome enough to co-sign for her first car loan.  That really made me feel grown up.  I am responsible for her a little bit more.

We headed to the first dealer…they were a little hard to find.  We drove around the block a couple times before Curtis called to figure out why they were not where they were suppose to be.  That’s when we were told that the dealership was in a warehouse, and we had to set up a appointment to test drive anything.

Next.  We are too impatient to wait.

Unfortunately that pretty much left us to go check out the car that we were really trying to buy.  It was the second closest dealer, and it had the best deal.  We were going to go to this first lot to find out if A: she liked the car, and B: we would have a bargaining chip for when we decided to purchase.  ‘Well you say its this much, but this place is offering it at this much type of crap‘.  We sucked it up anyway to go look at the target car, and it was just as amazing as we thought it would be.

So we sat down for the fight.  Damn I hate car shopping.  This was probably the easiest car I have ever had to buy though.  They were offering a great deal, and thanks to the internet and being pre approved we were ready.

Someone got to leave that lot with her new car.  I think she was excited.