Our California Adventure, Part 1

So, last October Ben and I took a trip to California.  It was a 31 hour drive. We drove to California to attend Phish Fest 8, in a town called Indio, about 80 miles South of Mexico. 

We left at about 7 pm, Wednesday night October 28th to start our adventure.  That night we drove until about 1:30 in the morning, about 2 hours past St. Louis. We passed the arch for the second time, and it's so much prettier at night then it is during the day.  The town looks a lot scummier in the dark though.  I'm convinced that aside from the arch, St. Louis is not as beautiful as people say it is. It's very industrial looking with a lot of old rickety roads and such.  It doesn't have a welcoming feeling to me.  It kind of reminds me of the strips of houses and stuff along the sides of the roads, right before you get into Chicago. Just run down and uninviting.

We finally stopped at a little hotel, that was being ran by an Indian family.  It was raining, and we had to talk to the woman through a peice of bullet proof glass (since it was after hours).  She spoke perfect English, but was pretending she didn't understand Ben as he was trying to bargain with her. We would only be staying roughly 5-6 hours, so she hesitantly knocked off 10 bucks, which was still a rip off. 

The next day it was still raining, and we continued our trip in Oklahoma.  Oklahoma is crap. 'Nuff said about Oklahoma.

We ventured onward into the panhandle of Texas where we came to a strip of restaurants designed specifically for travelers.  It was about 5 pm and about 18 degrees that day in the panhandle, and both of us were sporting hoodies and sandles. Ben had on shorts, I was wearing yoga pants. We must've looked like morons stumbling into that Cracker Barrel.  We passed a restaurant called The Big Texan, which we laughed at and drove by...the placed looked like a Vegas whore house...Our waitress came to our table and squalked, "Hey ya'll! My name is (Debbie?) what can I get ya'll to drink!?'  We told her. She came back with them, and then Ben asked her how long of a drive it was to New Mexico? She dumbly replied, "About 5 hours", and she left.  I suddenly had the strong urge of crapping myself, and Ben looked very upset.  We were at midpoint, and quickly regretting our decision to drive to California.  We started going over our options of finding the nearest airport and flying the rest of the way, but then what would we do with the car? So that was quickly forgotten.  We reluctantly choked down the rest of our food, since both of us felt pretty dissapointed and sick, and got back into the Jetta.  45 minutes later we were passing over the border of New Mexico.  We both immediately said to each other, "New Mexico!? What was that girl talking about?! IDIOT!" But we were so happy, we stopped at rest stop and nearly kissed the ground with elation.  There was just something about Texas that really depressed us. Plus, we passed our midway point. 

We were bashing on Texans for awhile, since that girl had obviously never been out side of the state, then it started to snow.  Not enough to cause any driving problems, but just enough to add something more the beautiful scenery. We were winding through mountains, and the snow was glittering like crystals on the walls of the mountains before they would melt away. We were mesmerized I think, because we didn't talk until we got to the hotel.

We slept great that night, and got up early Friday morning and had some hotel bagels and OJ in the morning. I got to take a quick shower, and we got back into the car.  It was just peaking about 6:30 a.m., and the sun was just coming up over the mountains...once again, something indescribable.

This was probably the best time of the whole trip, mostly because we knew that afternoon we'd be to our destination and be drinking beers and lounging under palms. New Mexico went fairly quickly, and we then crossed the border into Arizona at about 9 am.  It had been snowing in Arizona obviously, because Ben was making snow balls, once again, in our shorts and sandals.

For those of you who have ever been to this welcome center...are these not the weirdest stalls ever?  The doors are only about 4 feet long, if you stand up, you can easily see into the stall next to you. It's quite strange.  I managed to get in there and get my business done before a slap happy group of doily-lovin' old geriatrics came walkering in there with their fanny packs and neon visors.  They were whoopin and laughing like it was Bingo night at the Atrium. As I was walking out, a tour bus full of kids went tearing off into the direction of the bathrooms as well, so I dodged a bullet.  I just imagined all those little girls playing peek-a-boo under the stall doors with those poor old women. Probably gave them heart attacks, or at most, bowel movements.

And that is where I leave you today, tune in tomorrow where I will be posting the rest of our trip, and of course, more pictures.

PS: About 3 months later, we were watching the Travel Channel, and not only was the Big Texan voted number 16 out of 101 best restaurants in America, but Adam Richman from Man vs. Food was there doing the 72 oz steak challenge.  Yeah--we were kicking ourselves in the ass...

So Friday...

...I easily pulled on a pair of jeans that were too tight on me 2 months ago.

Couldn't be happier.

Poster the Cat

Most of you have already met Poster Nutbag.  He is Ben and mine's fury feline friend whom we named after the Phish song 'Harpua'.  Harpua is actually a dog who gets into a fight with Poster. I think that's pretty much what the wholes story/song is about, I've never really understood it to be honest. Ben can tell the whole story backwards and frontwards and in different languages I think.  Poster is a long haired Maine Coon mix.  For awhile, we were definate that he was a Norwegian Forest Cat, but since they are so similar in so many ways, we are having a really hard time figuring it out, so now we are leaning more towards a Maine Coon.


In the morning, Poster likes to promptly wake us up at 4 am by clawing the corners of our box spring.  When he does this, he shakes the whole bed, and the sound is definately in my top 10 most irritating sounds.

Ben leaves for work shortly after, and I get up sometime around 7:40 depending on whether or not I am going to the gym. First I take a shower, and Poster sits outside and waits. I get out of the shower, Poster sits on my feet.  Poster continues to sit on my feet, even while I am using the toilet. I try to scoot him away with my foot, but this usually causes a reaction in which he provides what I call 'a death grip' onto my foot, and nibbles it gleefully as if he's triumphed over a small animal.  After several attempts to shake him off, he gives up and then turns towards the shower and watches the water bead down the shower curtain for a little while. Eventually, he gets into the bathtub, and attack the water too.  Watching is not enough, he must interact with it. Once he is finished with that, he will climb up onto the toilet, and try to get out the closed window, only the blinds are closed too, and he must first get those out of the way to get to the window, which is also closed mind you. So it ends up just being a lot of pointless noise.

He spends most of the day very effortlessly pulling open our magnetized cabinets and exploring the wonders of the pots and pans universe. The other night, he was hiding in there and I didn't know. So I bent down to peek in the dark cave-like cabinet, and make sure I didn't close him in there, and sure as hell, he sprang out at me a serial killer, landed about 3 feet away from the cabinet, couldn't get traction on the wood floor, ran in place for a few seconds, then very dramatically bounded up the stairs.  Pans and baking sheets came pouring out like the cabinet was throwing up, and I almost fell on my ass.  I haven't gasped that loud since I was 12 and thought there was someone hiding in my room next to my dresser, but it turned out to be a George Harrison poster--seriously, it was that scary.  When an unsuspecting furry werewolf jumps out at you in the darkness, spilling pots and pans all over the floor, you tell me that wouldn't scare the bejesus outta you?

Poster always enjoys making an extravagant toilet paper trail from the upstairs bathroom down to the first floor (as seen in an earlier post).

He also likes to chirp at birds out the window, eat bugs, poop, eat and pooping some more. When he's not eating or pooping, he's sleeping.

He's taken a new interest to his 'room' as we call it, which is actually just a broom closet where his litter box, food and water have been homed. He spends a lot time in there, catching lady bugs, eating more than he should, pushing his water bowl all over. He prefers it to be right next to the litter box, I'm guessing so he can wash his feet when he gets out, kind of like we used to do before we got into a pool when we were kids.  Realistically though, this creates problems, because the dumb ass puts it right in front of his box, so when he scurries out of the litter box to avoid smelling his own poop, he showers the bowl with litter on his way out. Returns later, sniffs and says, "Nope, not drinking that" which results in more pushing, more puddles, and a retarded wet and thirsty cat. We clean the bowl all the time. Usually I just wipe it out because supposedly if you wash the bowl with detergent, they can smell it and have a hard time drinking it. But we've given up trying to figure out the 'bowl pushing' ritual, because he won't stop, and seems to find pleasure in doing it, so oh well.

Speaking of litter box...Poster left such a bad poop the other day, I could smell it two rooms away...and the smell wasn't just passing through, it was getting worse and worse and seemed to be following me.  Ben was sleeping on the couch near me and I wondered whether or not he could smell it in his sleep.  I'm surprised it didn't wake him up.  So I was forced to clean the box earlier then normal to rid of this feces catastrophe.
 
At night, he usually has a small burst of energy where he will run around the house 35-40 times, do the 'lizard crawl' on the couch, then finally collapse in front of the TV where he then licks his his crotch for an hour.  He will follow us to bed, and sleep in various positions, usually on our chests or in between our legs. It's not very comfortable to have a large furry thing louging all over you through out the night.  It was ok when he was kitten, but now he's a big furry werewolf, and it's not ok anymore.  I usually wake up and have to physically remove him from the bed because simple shooing doesn't work.
 
I've come to the conclusion that Poster is a very needy cat. He follows both of us wherever we go, and hates to see us leave in the morning. He will try his very hardest to follow us outside, and even tries to trick us by sticking his paw in the door as we close it.  He loves us.

Well it's only 1:30 and I feel this is going to be a very long afternoon.
 
I'm going to the gym after work too, if I have any energy left when I leave here.

63 degrees

Good afternoon again,

It would be an even better afternoon if this 'chill' would kindly remove itself from the forecast.  It's dissapointing when you walk outside thinking it's going to be 75 and breezy, and it's 63 and breezy. Jeans and hoodie weather.  On Saturday, Ben and I were preparing for a birthday party we decided to have for him.  It was about 62-64ish that day, and it just wasn't quite warm enough to even have the windows open.  I was so dissapointed. I kept glancing at our thermometor outside in hopes that it would warm up later in the afternoon, but I had no such luck, it stayed a steady and chilly 63.

The party was fun, just a group of our friends, a few we don't even really talk too, we had lots of beer and I ate way too much cheese. I got rid of 4 blocks of cheese that night though between myself and the party attendees. Enough said about that.

So the weightloss thing you ask? Oh, it's going the same.  Just me fighting with the scale and me losing. I thought about this morning and decided that my metabolism has flatlined.  It's non-exsistant.  My army has retreated and I'm battling that peice of crap all by myself with a nerf gun.

The only thing that I can think of that is slowing this process down for me so badly is me working in an office. Sitting on my butt 8 hours a day with no movement. 

I feel like the more I try and the more I think about it, the less that happens. I've been listening to everyone but myself for the past 4 months, and from now on, I'm listening to myself.  I'm going to keep working out, and keep eating good, stop worrying about it, stop listening to everyone's advice on what to eat, what not to eat, what to drink and what not to drink, what to do at the gym...I just don't care anymore. I'm just going to carry on with what I'm doing and live my life and I'm confident the weight will start peeling off eventually.

Well my 'friend' is here for her monthly visit, and I'm fighting a migraine right now, so I'm gonna go.

Sorry for the short post, I will post more later, scouts honor.

Sue Finley and Toilet Paper Trails

Good afternoon!

So, funny story...I got a friend request on Facebook from a person named Sue Finley this morning. I have been promptly denying any unusual requests for the obvious fact of what happen previously with Psycho. There were no pictures, no posts, and no information on 'Sue Finley' what so ever, other than that they graduated in 2005 from Manteno.  That wasn't a huge school, and I was friends with a lot of '05 kids, and I think I would have remembered a Sue Finley. So a fairly popular kid who graduated in '05 happen to be my friend and online, so I asked him about Sue.  He said that there is no such person, and the name didn't even sound familiar. So I came to the quick conclusion that 'Sue Finley' is really just a cover for Connie Rosenbrock...aka 'Sue Finley, the concerned employee' aka, our psycho co-worker!  So instead of adding her, I wrote her a private message on FB for her to see when she checks back later to see if I've added her:

Nice try Connie...it's getting pathetic now, really pathetic...By the way, there is no Sue Finley in the graduating class of '05 in Manteno, psycho. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, but all I can tell you is that all you've accomplished is making yourself out to be a psychopath. Now please quit stalking my page, and please stay out of my life unless it's WORK related.

I mean, come on. She just wants me to add her so that she can snoop through my page and use it against me again. I'm seriously at a loss for words anymore...if anyone was in my situation, what would you do? We can't say anything to her, because we don't neccesarily know that it is her, we are just assuming. But who else would it be? I'm just done with her, period. So she can sit there and write anonymous e-mails all day, and find ways to get us fired until she's blue in the face, but I am certain that eventually, she will slip up a little peice of her plan and the truth will come out.

My other co-worker, Lynnette, who was Sue Finley's original target, came to my desk today and said loudly, 'You know what? My great-grandma used to think my name was Sue! She would call me Sue all day...You should just start calling me, Sue Finley Owens!' I laughed until my stomach hurt. At least now when Pyscho decides to try and ruin my life, I have people to talk too about it. They are all experiencing her behavior for themselves, and we can all just laugh about it. Before Lynnette and Rochelle worked here, I had nobody. Just me and Psycho.

Anyway, Poster has discovered a new fascination with toilet paper. I was getting ready for work and as I'm going up the stairs I see a trail of TP starting at the landing (see pic) and ending on the roll. How he managed to get it that far without ripping it is beyond me. I yelled at him, and he hid under the bed for awhile. I did laugh though, but secretly so that he couldn't see. I was afraid if he saw me laughing, he'd think it was ok to make toilet paper trails and forts and whatever other magical toilet paper oddeties can be discovered. The toilet paper was salvaged.

He also has a bad habit of sleeping on my chest. Which is very uncomfortable. I wake up in the middle of the night feeling claustrophic from a giant, fat, furry body lounging on my chest plate.

Well it's time to go.  Everyone message Sue Finley on Facebook and tell her what a freak she is.

Byebye!

Dr. Oz and Yoga

Hola,

So I've been checking out the Dr. Oz website lately, because his show come on at 4, and I can't watch it.  The few times that I've watched it, are the times I've stayed home sick or something, which is rarely.  Seems the only times I take off work, I'm doing more work on my day off then I actually do at work.  Anyway, on his website he has a test you can take to tell you what your true age is. Mine was 26. Not too bad. And the only reason it was 26 for some really stupid reasons that I can't even remember.  I think one was driving 5-10 miles over the speed limit? Come on, if you really think about it, driving over the speed limit shouldn't have anything to do with age because if you get into an accident due to speeding, does your age really matter? I just didn't get that, but ok.

Then I also found a link on there entitled, '100 people with 100 weight loss success stories!', but there were only 4 stories. I was a little annoyed. I enjoy reading other people's success stories, but I don't like being lied too about it. Fix your site Dr. Oz.

I think it's funny too that his crowd is all women. I was watching one day not too long ago and they panned across the crowd, and I think there were 2 guys total. The rest of them were middle aged, pudgy, women with 80's hair and bright orange lip stick just swooning over this guy. Then he calls a random woman up from the crowd and suddenly the show turns into the 'Price is Right'. A lady comes sailing from her seat like usually a black woman or a very fat woman, so blind with excitement they practically soar over the crowd like Spiderman.  It's hilarious. I wouldn't be excited. He probably has bad doctor breath like most doctors do. You're doctors, for every patient's sake, chew some gum.

So other than that, everything is going good, aside from this migraine I have, but I believe this is due to boredom.

I thought about something today...This blog was originally intended to be keeping track of my weightloss, and it's turned into free based novel about everything but that. 

So a few little updates on that: I have been going to the gym still, but in the morning, which I find to be fantastic. I absolutely love, it, and I don't even care if my hair is curly with sweat when I leave. It's all in the name of wearing a size 7 once again. Oh, and I don't have to fight lesbians off everything, the gym is virtually empty in the morning.

Dr. Oz also told me that I need to start doing more flexibility and strength excersizing, and less cardio and weightlifting (this was another part of my true age test I forgot about). For my body type, I am supposed to be doing a whole lot of yogo and pilates and less of the other stuff. So I've been trying it. I've been alternating between going to the gym in the morning and doing yoga and pilates. Those exercises are A LOT harder then they look.  Sure, when you watch, you're like 'pffftt, simple'...you are sadly mistaken, my friend. Pilates and yoga are focused on 'core strength' so everything from your chest to your pelvic bone is consistantly being worked throughout the whole exercise routine. I did 45 minutes of both the other day (I use Comcast Fitness channels on Demand) and I am extremely sore about 2 hours later. It also improves posture, which makes you taller. So I've just been switching it up...a little cardio there, weightlifting there, and flexibility and strengthening everywhere else. I did some Jillian Michaels routines this morning, and she kicked my ass. Seriously, if the weight doesn't start falling off soon, I'm gonna start scissor kicking people's groins. I eat awesome, I drink lots of water, I work out, I can't figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong. I seriously cannot. I have to actually try to FIND reasons now.

Poster does not like when I exercise on the front room floor. Yesterday I was doing yoga and at some point I laid my head down and he thought I was laying it down close to him to play I guess, so he provided a death grip on my skull with his werewolf talons and attacked my head.  I slapped him, and he took off at the couch, and did his weird lizard crawl thing across it...I coulda killed him.

Well it's 5. See ya later.

Manbugs and Blue 70's toilets.

Hello, I'm back.

Well we are all moved into our new house.  That was the most exhausting 5 days I've had since Phish Fest 8 in California, and that includes the 62 hours we drove in 4 days, and the 10 or so miles we walked in the scorching hot sun in sandals in 2 days. By the way, we are flying everywhere from now on.

Wednesday, Ben closed at 3 pm, and we were out of there by 4 and started getting our stuff out. We thought it would be a decently easy move since "we don't have that much stuff"...wrong! We have a lot of stuff! Everytime we thought we were done, we'd open a cabinet or turn a corner and there'd be a pile of stuff somewhere. What ticked me off, is I went back to get the cat Wednesday night and my landlord was there hangin' around. I was sweaty, smelly, and running up and down the stairs like a crazy person trying to load one last load (and a furry, retarded cat) into my car, and she came up and pretty much let herself in, and was poking around, asking me if I left the keys for her and what not. I'm trying my best not to be rude, but seriously, was she blind? There was stuff still sitting all over the counters, the fridge had not been emptied, obviously nothing had been cleaned yet...I mean really? Plus, I'd talked to her the day before and she said, "We're going on vacation anyway, so take until Monday and just get everything taken care of, no big rush!' But here she was, 3 hours after we closed, badgering me about where the keys were? So finally, I think she got the hint and left. So I rounded up the little werewolf and went home for the night.

Thursday we went back over and cleaned the place, not very well, but enough. We just wanted to start organizing our new place, and get the hell out of that apartment, so we did a half assed job. We didn't break or ruin anything while we were there, so all the dirtiness was just natural, over time, build up.  Just little things, that I'm sure our landlord will deduct out of Ben's security deposit somehow. We mopped, vaccumed, wiped down all the cabinets and scrubbed the fridge out, and that's about it. The landlord decided to come back with her husband and bother us some more, and he even had the nerve to tell us not to throw our garbage in the dumpster. Uh, ok, so are we supposed to throw it? Load it in our cars and take it to our new place? I don't think so...So they left and we threw all of our garbage in the dumpster.

 We finished that up at about 12, then went to Menards to get garbage cans, and other odds and ends, then to Lonestar, then back home to clean some more.  We got all the kitchen stuff put away, and I worked my ass off, scrubbing and mopping and organizing, did 4 loads of laundry, vaccumed, dishes...ugh. I finished at about 8 pm, and practically collapsed onto the couch. Friday we had a party, of course, we had to break in the new place, but 3 hours after guests arrived, our old, pastel blue 70's toilet stopped flushing. So we were forced to go up and down the stairs for the past 2 days to use the upstairs bathroom. Ben replaced the toilet, so now we have a pretty white porcelain one, that certainly makes the bathroom look better. Except, now we have a blue toilet sitting on our back porch, because garbage pick up isn't until Wednesday. What our neighbors must think...

By the way, my landlord texted me at 7:45 Friday morning and asked us if were done yet. I wanted to write back, "LAY OFF LADY!" But I didn't. Why do you tell us you'll give us until Monday, when it actuality you are only giving us a day. Did I mention they were going on vacation? Oh, and Ben won't get his security deposit back until they get back, which is April 12th. But she's giving us a hard time and hurrying us. Rediculous.

Saturday we had our internet and cable hooked up, and the first thing I did was recover my gamertag for Xbox Live and play Halo 3 for 2 hours. That was pretty much all we did Saturday. It's rather sad how dependant the human race is on TV and video games nowadays for entertainment, but I don't care, I have Halo now, and that's all I care about.

Sunday we ate a lot of food for Easter, and I whined about a giant misquito bite that I'd scratched to the point of bleeding, all day. I feared I was getting gangrene, and my foot would soon need amputation. It's better today though...infact, I scratched another one on the back of my leg, and caused that to bleed as well. I'm just a misquito bitten mess...come to think of it, they could be manbug (ladybugs) bites too because we have been overridden with them invading our home. What is with those things? They swarm in corners and windows, die for 3 weeks, and then suddenly come back to life.  I was sitting in our upstairs bathroom, and I noticed 3 on the floor. I thought to myself, "I bet you that at least 1 or 2 of those are still alive, and will soon be migrating to another part of the house soon..." A few days later, I was up there again, and 2 of them were gone, one had been smashed. I was sitting at work one day too (ironically, in the bathroom again), and there was one on the window sill.  It was there for a solid 3 weeks at least...I am not exaggerating. And I know I'm not exaggerating because for those 3 weeks, I go in there and laugh to myself because nobody had bothered to get a tissue and throw it away, including me. One day, I was sitting there, and saw something moving out of the corner of my eye, I turned, and low and behold, the 3 week, supposedly dead manbug started moving and trying to get up.  I couldn't believe my eyes. I just sat there and stared at it for what seemed like hours. Finally I picked it up and flushed it down the toilet. I was convinced there is only two ways to kill a manbug. You have to drown or burn them, otherwise, they just keep coming back. You squish one in a tissue, throw in the garbage, and a few days later it'll be crawling outta there, broken and battered, but determined to crawl on one more surface. Preferably your clean dishes drying in the sink, or something of that nature. I did a little research on them, as I was curious to know why they come back to life after 2 or 3 weeks, and I couldn't find anything on it. The information I found said that they hibernate in the winter, but not for 3 weeks on a window sill. Oh well. That's what vaccum's are for.

Today I am puffy and bloated, and ashamed in myself because I was too lazy to go to a different gas station to get my Select 55 on Friday, so I ended up getting 95 calorie Michelob Ultra, and drinking almost the whole 12 pack by the end of the night. Granite, we were partying for almost 9 hours, but nonetheless, that's gross. At least when I drink Select 55, I don't feel as bad if I drink a lot of them.  I'd have to drink a 24 pack of those, to equal the amount of calories I drank, drinking 11 Ultra's. Makes me feel fatter just thinking it. Not to mention that we'd eaten take out for almost 4 days straight for every meal because I didn't have a chance to grocery shop and we threw away most of our food (most of it was old or not worth salvaging). I try to convince myself that I worked out a lot while moving, but I can't convince myself hard enough that it was effective. I haven't been sleeping good either, all the moving and cleaning has really been taking an effect on my arms, so I've been tossing around at night, unable to get comfortable because my shoulders are hurting. Oh well, that'll pass.

Well the day is almost over, and I'm not looking forward to my Aldi's trip...I wish Berkots and Aldi's would switch places, or prices, or something.

Good day.