Uh, uh, uh, uh, Aaaah!

Thank God for the fucking Kills!!! I would not be surviving this day without them! I awoke today at 3:33 am and it's my 33rd birthday. If that wasn't a poetic omen of how the day would go, then I don't know what would be.

So far I've gotten the crappiest email ever from my twin sister (it simply read happy birthday- I mean not even a capital in sight, let alone a damn exclamation mark) who also informed me the other day, "I'm not buying you a present for your birthday." Not our birthday - my birthday. Did I mention the stingy bitch is loaded and could certainly afford a little something. I'm not expecting a Prada bag and Tiffany earrings like her husband got her last year for her (not our) birthday, but ....something, anything (an ecard?) would be nice. Instead of CM, we call her DM for Douche Maloosh. It's not nearly as mean, but, she's family.

Also, things at my company are falling apart sooner than I expected. I was hoping it would last until I had my new life order planned out a little better. Guess I'm not that lucky. And my only subordinate quit today because we didn't pay her for the 3 hours she attended the Christmas party. Yeah, she works two days a week. Do part time employees anywhere get vacation pay??

Anyway, My Happy Birthday anthem is courtesy of The Kills. I have No Wow! and Midnight Boom on a loop on my iPod and I'm not turning it off until I'm getting down with the young drunk lovers.... or at least until I have a drink in my hand!

Also, a little shout out to my friend Niki who informed me I'm not in my mid thirties until I'm 34. Thanks - I really, really needed that. Now I can save the major freak out for next year - snark!

Cherry Christmas!!

I've been pretty bummed about the lack of snow in my neck of the woods this Christmas. I've also noticed there haven't been many good Christmas shows on TV either. I mean, it's pretty sad when a network's 25 Days of Christmas promotion features the movies Cars and The Incredible's.

One thing I haven't missed out on though is an amazing array of truly crappy displays of outdoor Christmas decorating. People are so un-inventive they just slap a giant blow-up Grinch, Santa, family of snowmen in their yard along with a few grids of net lighting and call it a day.

In my neighborhood there's one residence we all refer to as "the porch with a house on it" it's that disproportionate. They have one of those blow ups that's about as long as their house.... and it plays music. Loudly. They're a good 5 houses away from me, yet I can hear it from my front porch. Ahh, the joys of a white trash Christmas. Do I dare mention that some of CM's close relatives reside in that house? Yep, that's a fact! Would I shit you on Christmas?

As silly as that all is, I wanted highlight another house in my area. I have to drive by this house to get to mine and look forward to their holiday display every year. Each year it gets bigger and better. I can only describe it as an extravaganza, but in that so bad it's good kind of way. They work on it really hard, toiling for weeks before they ever hit the lights. I've often thought it looks as though a tornado dropped the entire Christmas isle of Big Lots on their yard and this is what they ended up with. This year I noticed several teddy bears made the cut. I don't know what that has to do with Christmas, but kudos to them for flexing their artistic muscles a little. I'll let you judge for yourself, just give your mind some time to really take it all in.


Here's a day shot, so you can see all the detail...

Here's one by night, so you can experience it in all it's glory.....

How great is that?!? In closing I urge you all to have a Cherry Christmas. All it takes are a few friends down at your local bar on Christmas Eve and enough cherry bombs to kill a horse. (TIP: If you offer to buy the whole jar, the bartender will usually cut you a deal.) I'm not saying I've ever had a Cherry Christmas, it might just be something of an urban legend/tradition amongst some of my friends

UPDATE: On Christmas night I totally got drunk with my brother and sister watching the aforementioned Cars and drinking Yuengling! It was the funnest Christmas I've had in a while.

Makes me hungry ...for the past.

Growing up I loved the show Land of the Lost. We used to watch re-runs on Saturdays while our Cookie Mom (that was my gram) made us fried bologna sandwiches.

I don't know that I hold out such high hopes with Will Ferrell playing the lead. I would say Dad, but from what I've read it looks like they've re-worked the relationships between the three main characters a bit.

I don't think I'll be rushing out to see this movie in the theaters or anything, but the Sleestacks look pretty accurate which is cool. Still, I can't help but belt out, "Laaand of the Looooost, La haaand of the Loooooossst!" all opera style anyway.

Hopefully they learned a lesson from the Jar-Jar debacle and that annoying little fuck Cha-Ka won't be showing up.

Riley Martin Loves Me!

While I don't consider myself religious - at all - I do worship at two altars. One is my favorite local bar where, yes everyone does know my name. The other is at the feet of Howard Stern. My day doesn't start off right without Howierd and the gang getting me going.

Today for example I didn't listen as to not wake Husband (he gets the day off - the nerve) and I totally forgot to put on mascara. Now I know that seems like a pretty inconsequential thing, but I l-o-v-e getting ready in the morning and take great pride in my look. Sephora is one of my favorite places on earth, and really for me that was a huge thing, like forgetting to put on socks.

Hey, some people drink coffee in the morning. Me, I listen to Howard Stern.

My buddy Steve is as obsessed as I am, as a matter of fact I wasn't always a fan of Steve and his rocking beard, but we bonded over The Stern Show. Steve's birthday is on January 6th (just 7 days after mine - wink) and I bought him the greatest birthday present ever. A Biaviian symbol hand crafted just for him by Mr. Riley Martin himself. For those of you who don't know, Riley was abducted by aliens in November of 1953 at the age of 7 and again when he was 18. During the second abduction he was given all the information of life and thousands of symbols were downloaded into his brain. These symbols would serve as a ticket of sorts for those who wished to go with the mothership when it returned. Total horse-shit I know, but that's the beauty of it.

It's not easy to order a symbol as a present. Because each one is unique to it's owner Riley requires a certain amount of information on each recipient. I needed to furnish Riley with Steve's full name, a picture, and a hand writing sample. I would need to place my order soon so I started collecting the tools required to proceed.

I was able to find out Steve's middle name through some subtle yet crafty bar conversation. Then he sent me a hilariously horrible picture of himself from bed one night after we had been out. Awesome, I had a recent picture and my plan was falling into place. The hand writing sample was going to be tricky though. I contemplated stealing a debit card receipt, I mean that was the only time I really ever saw him write anything, but then his finances would be off. Not a very friendly thing to do. I finally procured my sample by asking him to sign the CD leaflet from his old band's cd.

That was the hardest one of the three items to get. You see, Steve suffers from a misplaced sense of self confidence (his words) and he loves me so much mostly because he says I call him out on all his crap. It was very hard to act humble and ask him to sign that cd, really - it killed me. Although I do have to admit he's a very talented guitar player who also writes great songs. Still, I'm not really in the market for his autograph. But, I sucked it up because this was going to be the best birthday gift ever! .....and I'm really into birthdays.

I scanned the signature in and sent everything off to Riley. I also included my phone number per the sites request because sometimes Riley likes to contact people who are buying his symbols. Unfortunately, I was in a meeting with my boss when I got Riley's call. At first listen I though someone was screwing with me while doing a dead on Riley Martin impression. Then I remembered the symbol.

Riley's message was great, and I'm pretty sure he gave me his home phone number to call him back. (I could hear a tv in the background, and lets face it, he's not exactly a corporation) Yea, I totally stored his number in my communicators data base and I saved the message playing it for anyone who will listen. It was perfect, really drawn out and very wordy, in other words typical Riley.

I wish I could say that Riley and I had a great phone conversation, but it was spotty at best. When I called he answered almost immediately. I said hello and introduced myself. He called me 'my dear' a lot and said he was calling to ask if Steve's last name was English or Irish (it's neither).

I couldn't remember what nationality Steve is except that it's not Italian as I had originally thought. I think he's eastern European, his people are definitely from somewhere that produces unusually hairy men.

Shit. I panicked then lied and told Riley Steve was English. (I hope this little fib doesn't render Steve's passage to the mothership invalid.) Then Riley told me I was a thoughtful girl to give Steve a symbol before I even order one for myself.

This was a golden opportunity for a great Riley conversation. He is constantly complaining about his pitiful wage earned from Sirius for his weekly radio program. I was just discussing my salary with my boss, plus symbols are a bit pricey, even for original artwork.

This all would have segued nicely into how the man was keeping me down, how we were alike in that way. We could have chatted for hours. Instead I muttered, "well, I'll get there eventually" to which Riley chucked.

What's with the loss of words? Was I starstruck? Maybe I was shocked by the blatant sales pitch. Eventually, Riley ended the call. Not before he wished me and mine the happiest of holidays and told me he loved me. That's right he said, "I love you" and then paused. Again I was speechless, and I'm never speechless. Was I supposed to say it back? I suddenly felt like I was in was fifteen again. What do you do when a boy says he loves you? Apparently, I Panic. I got off the phone - quickly. And that was that. I always thought I was more a fight than flight kind of girl, but apparently when under pressure I'm a freeze.