House Arrest - Day Three: The Extreme Ultimate Cabin Fevering.

Ohmygoodlord, we are still trapped in our tiny abode by the snowlocaust (too soon?  yes).  My car is in the shop (dropped it off on Monday, haven't been able to retrieve it yet, but when I do, new brakes!  Yay.  Not.  Less money is more like it.) and K's car is all the way up our gravel driveway with a foot of snow 20 feet long blocking our way to our unplowed street that we couldn't get down even if we wanted to.  So, laying low again.  It's all I can do not to buy the whole internet.  Online shopping is the devil when you're bored to death, so to combat my compulsions, I forced myself to sleep in until 9am!  Gasp!  Actually, it wasn't forced as much as my body is totally feeling all eight months of baby these last few days.  Sciatica?  Check.  Weird lower pelvic pain because my bones are literally splitting apart? Check.  Stuffy nose due to recent sickness and hormones?  Yuppers.  So, TylenolPM was my best friend last night and I slept it off this morning.

On today's agenda: watching all 10 episodes of Carrier on Netflix, via PBS.  It's actually really interesting.  There was a This American Life about the inner workings of an aircraft carrier and this series shows life aboard the Nimitz as it navigates its way from the west coast of the US to the Persian Gulf.  Yes, K and I are super nerds.  Duh.  Also, on the agenda, Zeb unearthing every single toy he's ever had and leaving them as little landmines for us to step on when he's not snuggled up with me inevitably causing one of my limbs to go numb but I won't move because he's so sweet when he's asleep!  The only time!  I have a bad feeling that there might be an online purchase made later this afternoon (I think we need this) and perhaps a batch of blondies thrown into the oven for good measure.  But in the meantime, I'm reading a new blog: Young House Love.  It's rad!  These peeps are so inspiring!  Get on it!

I'm so ready to get out of here!  Yeah, no work is nice (but I can't help but think of the crap piling up second by second back at the office), and spending time with K and Z-dog is awesome, but I think I do better when busier.  I will declare the exact opposite when busy of course.

Seriously?

Are you seeing this?  62 on Christmas Eve?  Let me remind you of last Christmas.  It was a snowy shitshow, but kind of cozy and exciting.  This year, it's practically going to be tropical out.  Weird.  I'm having a hard enough time getting into the spirit of things, but dang!  This really makes it hard.  But also, I think the less layers I can wear the better.  The bump is on the move and I'm starting to look a lot like Mimoo.

I can call her that because we've been friends since hers was the first CD I ever got.  Yup, I'm old.

holy flooded downtown metro!

This morning, when I got in my car at 6.45am (yes, 6.45am) to travel to work, I had no idea that three hours later, I would still not be at work and could've been to Dallas. Sure, the commute's a bitch, but not like this! It was smooth sailing for most of the trip north until torrential rain came down making every slow down to about four mph. Then the shit really hit the fan. Every exit I could take to get to work was closed by the highway patrol due to high water. So, I headed downtown to take an alternate route and shit just got worse. Hours later, after driving through many of ill-advised puddles, taking a break in a parking lot, turning around on closed roads, scooting around abandoned, submerged cars, I finally thought I'd schemed a way out of of the mess by heading west then north. But, turns out I headed west then south, because I am awesome at directions. South means home, so home I am. I only have one car. If it gets effed , I'm effed. Now I'm at home, safe and sound, catching up on work, Glee and Jezebel.com. Ah, Oklahoma weather.

This is from msnbc.com, but it's pretty much what it looked like this morning. For realz.

In a related story, doesn't Helen Mirren look stunning (as seen by my fortuitous perusal of Jezebel). On that note, I would like to marry both Ryan Reynolds and ScarJo.
Holy crap are they hot.

It's starting to storm again. What the face, OK?

Dear Gary England,

You owe me $140.

Yesterday, you got on the tube and starting creaming your pleated front Dockers about "weather events" running amock around the state. And I listened. Like a 'tard. Your incessant screeching about baseball sized hail ripping through Noble heading toward Norman compelled me to seek shelter for my new (to me) car.

Now, I don't have a garage, per se, but a detachable old-timey garage-shed-type-thing at the end of the long gravel driveway. Classy, yes? So, the BF and I make a run for it into blinding rain to open the doors to this thing and jockey the cars around so I can pull in. Which I do. It's when I get out that I hear a hissing sound. The sound of a punctured tire. AWESOME! Soaking wet, the BF and I head back inside to wait out the impending weather armageddon before surveying the damage. We wait. And wait. And wait. Guess what? No hail. No straight line winds. No tornado (in spite of the screaming sirens all night). NO FUCKING ANYTHING! After the rain ended, skies cleared and the sun shined. And my heart closed forever to the Oklahoman in me that reveres all things Gary England. He is dead to me.

Much like my tire. The BF put on his man pants and put on the spare. I got the new tire put on this morning. Yes, $140 is cheaper than hail damage, surely. But still, Gary, you can make the check out to I am an idiot.

RIP (in my heart) Lord Gary

p.s. This is why I was motivated to move my car and attempted to believe these weather jokers.

So... there's a motherfucking blizzard, y'all.

Dude. For once, the high lords of plains weather got it totally fucking wrong. Three to five inches? I don't think so. Let's try 12 to 14. And wind! Blowing snow everywhere! The state has gone apeshit. The governor closed all the roads. Every.Single.Road.In.The.State. They're setting up shelters along the major highways for stranded travelers. Boo. If I lived close enough to the highway, I'd go invite people to stay the night in my cozy wozy house in exchange for beer. That's right. While my genius mother stocked up on TP, water and pasta, I forgot the golden rule of potential natural disasters. GET BOOZE! The BF and I are draining a bottle of some sort of German fortified wine that you heat (delicious!!!), but soon it will be gone and we will be left with our personalities or four bottles of apple flavored Smirnoff Ice. I want to walk to the gas station about a mile away for a rack of 'stones, but K says no. It's Christmas Eve, so maybe there will be a Christmas beericle, but I doubt it.

In the meantime, we bundled up like retarded yetis (no we didn't, I left my snow boots, real winter coat and gloves at my folks house, so I'm wearing pajama pants and old gym shoes with some awesome knee high wool socks and a hat some cousin left one time) and bounded about our pristine street. We walked up and down the street, unable to retrace our own footprints because of the blowing snow. Yay! Is it weird that this makes me totally happy? I don't like the part about being away from family this eve, or all of the car carnage out there, but I love snow and cold and white and sparkling and condensation on the windows and rocking legwarmers and drinking mulled wine and snuggling in my new Snuggie and wearing out my Netflix subscription. K is frying corn tortillas he found in the fridge (we literally have nothing else - we had planned to be house sitting and cleaned out our food) and has declared them the Christmas chips. I don't know what that means, but the smell of corn and salt is beckoning. Merry Christmas.

P.S. Gary England has been suspiciously absent today. Hmm.

summer summer summertime (except it's still spring)

Duuuuude! It's hot out there. Hot on my arms. Hot on the part in my hair. Hot on my nose. Hot on my bare feet. Bring it, vitamin D. 91 degrees! On April 22!


Irises* are blooming. Grass is greening. Who needs post work happy hour when you can find some books, some Boylan, and some serious sun?

*I'm not actually sure what kind of blooms those are, they just appeared in my yard.

Hold onto your M-Fing hats, y'all.

There's gonna be a blizznado. Lord Gary must be creaming his wrinkle-resistant JC Penny pleat front slacks like nobody's business. I predict that all the hype of this freak storm will amount to about -.347 inches of snow in the metro.



I secretly hope I'm wrong and will have ample excuse to watch the Battlestar Galactica finale again tonight. Yeah, I said it.

I'm back.

But there's a tornado in my office. More later.



I'll regale you all with tales of Awesomefest09 tomorrow.

Blythe's Recession Tip #46: Have an ice storm!

When unable to scrape and snap the layers of ice from your car, you can't go anywhere to spend dollar dollar bills y'all, and voila, you save money! I'm already up like $400 from not buying stamps to mail my bills. Best. Ice. Storm. Ever. I suggest you put on some old school winter brooding music, and stare out your window. 100% free!

I highly recommend Van Morrison - Astral Weeks (because, this can lead to, you know... also, usually, free).

and/or Janis Ian - Between the Lines (this won't lead anywhere but self loathing).

This might also be a good time to get some pre-spring cleaning done. I'd suggest starting with your liquor cabinet.

Happy Ice Day!

Last thing, if you have half an hour on hand and want a lifetime of jokes, just watch THESE.

BREAKING NEWS: Mr. Shain may not be so bad.

Today, or yesterday, I don't really know, longtime bee-spot reader and friend/hater, Mr. Shain, formerly of *The Life & Times, sent me an email. Within this email was a link to the website Stuff White People Like. Maybe you've heard of it already, chances are, I don't care. In the meantime, the site provides a bit of hilarity during a long day at the office blogs. To tell the truth, and listen carefully, because I am rarely honest (also, you guys are the most awesome readership ever!), it's more a site about what yuppies like. I can get behind that as some day I aspire to be a yuppie, but until then I will drive a Camry instead of a Prius. Anyway, my point is, this list makes sense if you live in Connecticut or Vermont or maybe Edmond. For the rest of us (especially here in Oklahoma), I think there's a different list to be had.

George Bush
Matchbox 20
Cracker Barrel
Jack and Ron on 98.9
Buying American
Lake Hefner
Sam's Wholesale Club
The Blazers
local banks
Diet Coke/Pepsi
The Lake (where ever that might be)
Gary England/weather preparedness
Bricktown
Edmond Public Schools

48 hours of pure hell and an ice storm.

Hey there. Perhaps you have read of my plight. I think it's been a leading story on cnn.com, so that means it's a big deal. Yesterday, I awoke to the strange combination of snapping trees, thunder and sizzling power lines. A veritable winter symphony that Dickens himself couldn't have better written. Or something. A few hours later, the power finally went out. You were right Mike Mitchell England (only funny to native Oklahomans, apologies, also, it might not be funny to them either). Shain (for his version, click HERE) forged a path across town amidst tree debris and stoplightless traffic (what's so tough to understand about a four-way stop people?) to pick me up so we could do important things like seek out coffee, pastry and toilet paper. Shain chose to dress for the occasion by wearing a freshly pressed white button down oxford, pin-striped mid-weight pants and shined dress shoes. With no real coat - some puffy thing he claims he got in Prague or some bullshit. Business homeless chic, I say. (I had on fleece upon fleece, mittens, scarf, heavy coat, etc - like a normal person.) Anyway, we make our way to SuperTarget where in addition to toilet paper, I remember my mom has requested hot dogs in the event she was able to start a fire in our fireplace. I left her as she was frantically tearing pages out of our second copy of The Riverside Shakespeare to use as kindling, so I was skeptical. Turns out it didn't matter as all that was left on the shelves turned out to be pepperoni. Mmm. After my superhappyfuntime with Shain, I spent some superhappyfuntime with my fam in the dark. We only had scented candles. Our living room rivaled my brief stint trapped in a ventless office at Yankee Candle Co. headquarters. Ugh. However, power was returned and I finally succumbed to the migraine graciously supplied by my mother and went to bed retardedly early beneath a pile of quilts and a dog. I awoke this morning to a bevy of texts from my workstudies happily alerting me that XXX had no power. No school! Yay! I went back to sleep and continued to drool while dreaming about appearing on The Barefoot Contessa. I wish I were kidding. Work's back on for tomorrow, but after almost 48 solid hours of family time, I couldn't be happier.

That's the sadness that is my backyard and a tree that used to be more complete. It continued cracking and breaking all day till there's not a lot left.

Close up of crunchy, frozen grass. But I finally got to break out my Montrails and clomp around just like the old days of New England!

More tree sadness. And my neighborhood was pretty fortunate in that it's a cheap, newish subdivision with no real trees, just crap Bradford pears that snap like my mom when she misses her 4pm snack.

Hey, yeah, I'll just run out and grab something from the store. NOT! That's probably 1.5 inches of ice encasing my car, folks.

Hmm. Pepperoni or pepperoni? I just don't know!

Ice encapsulated holly. Pretty. Sort of.

Music for winter misery:
All That I Want - The Weepies
Cold December - Matt Costa
Sister Winter - Sufjan Stevens

Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease

no work tomorrow. Please? I only have one car. And I'd like to not end up some mangled piece of frozen roadside debris on 35 tomorrow. Also, I will have to start de-icing my car now in order to make it to work on time. So far, my university is the only one that is remaining open in the entire state of Oklahoma. Sweet.

Gary England, if you are reading this, and I suspect that you are, please send Val Castor out to XXXXXXXX XXXX University and film someone getting in a wreck or breaking their leg on the sidewalk. Then email it to President XXX XXXXXXXX and then give me a call so I can know whether or not to finish this bottle of wine.

kthxbai,
bee.

So, uh, about that...

As you might or might not know, yesterday was the day I turned the big 2-6. I spent the day doing boring shit (e.g. making fried tofu, reading my Mao biography, staring at the Sunday Times thinking about how I should read it but then getting bored with myself for thinking about that) then napped like I've never napped before. Epic drool. It was lovely. Then, I put on a dress (I know, big time for the Bee-Spot!) and used my new crease brush to make myself look like I got punched in the eyes in an effort to look "sexy." I think I ended up looking methy - which is close. Finally, Lacey and I were ready to head out for a lavish dinner. And boy, was it lavish. Our darling waiter hooked us up with some lovely blueish martinis that Lacey drank two of - big deal time! We feasted on lobster, crab cakes, spinach and wedge salads, then I got the salmon and L got the filet. Our sides were sauteed corn and creamed spinach. And creamed pants. So effing good I wanted to kill myself! But I didn't. Next I was off to The Deli where I was serenaded by my favorite song, "My Ho Drives A Big Red Car," which was thoughtfully requested especially for me. Thanks. I then proceeded to drink my weight in Pacifico. I hippie danced like a tard. I got hippie hugged by a sweaty (but hot) dreadlocked chick with a fake British acccent. I peed 800 million times and made best friends in the bathroom. L and I took shitty pictures. I ran into an old high school friendish whom I hadn't seen in forever. I screamed along to "Level" (Raconteurs) all the way home. Speaking of home, I made it back with my earrings, underwear and whatever modicum of dignity I have left in general. And that's when it happened. C-tina promised me a slide show of a gift (yes, we are weird like that and more than likely, you'll see it on Wednesday) so I hopped online. Let me just say, milk was a bad choice. Old high school friendish had aready Facebooked me, so natch I replied to his message. I'm afraid to even look. I emailed C-tina in response to the HI-LARIOUS and touching slide show she made me with completely nonsensical ramblings. I commented on some blogs... so, uh Dan, the wedding's probably off now, huh. Do we have to return the gifts? I responded to some blogger emails - I have no idea what I said and am afraid to find out. Also, I sent some spectacular text messages to people I barely know (I am praying to the God I don't believe in that I didn't respond unkindly to the ex's text). Love me! My head is a cement mixer, but other than that, not too bad. The best gift of all was the gift of lateness this morning. I got to come in at nine! In closing, thanks for all of the b-day wishes, gifts, texts, calls, etc. Y'all are the best. Except you, Shain since you just called me an old lush. 26 is the new awesome.

Is this a Cringesday picture? No. This is why I hate having my picture taken. Ugh city. However, it was at least 12am and I was full of beer and stupid by then.

Coming up: pictures and Zack Harrison Memorial Music Monday. I'm going to feel really bad if I find out that Zack's really dead.

Whoa is me.

*SPOILER ALERT - WHINING*

Do you ever feel like a poo sandwich? I feel like a poo sandwich on rye with extra Limburger cheese.


1. I am really hoping the mirror in the bathroom at work is broken, or something. Humidity is 2000% here these days and my hair goes from super soft (not my words) to something not unlike the Friends episode where Monica plays ping pong in Hawaii. Normally, I wouldn't care since I'm not one to fuss with such things, but I'm at least trying to make a good impression at work for the first few days anyway. Shit pisses me off. Also, someone could tell me my mascara has melted down my face after I return from scurrying about campus. Jeez.

2. I just want to sit outside and drink beers on a patio. I just want to drive around in my car with the windows down. I just want to watch a movie in my bed. I want to go on a real date with dinner and everything. But, I don't really know anyone who's into that (maybe including myself). Whine, whine whine.

3. Tonight (or last night, whatever, I don't know what time it is), I was walking my dog - wait, let me back up, today marked day 20 out of 20 consecutive days of rain (or something like that - ask Gary England), so every surface is water logged. The area where my driveway meets the street is covered in a mossy, wattery goo that I promptly slid in and landed on my ass much to the dismay of Claire. Being the strong breed that she is, she dragged me about two feet before I figured out how to get up (lightning fast reflexes!!). My whole right side was covered in this kind of stinky slime. I scraped my elbow. Ow.

4. Until right now, I had forgotten that Oklahoma declared the watermelon to be the state vegetable.

5. My Monday night consisted of a trip to heaven (Super Target), a failed dog walk, reading New York Magazine, the warm glow of my computer screen and a slush from Classic 50s.

6. The 4th is as bad as New Years. I always feel pressured to be at some fantastic party/barbecue having the best time of the summer knowing that it's halfway over. Half the time I end up spending a paycheck on fireworks, then almost blowing myself up or at least starting a small grass fire. The other half of the time I bitch about the parking at the fireworks venue and wish I was there with anyone but who I'm there with.

7. Mr. Shain will undoubtedly hail this post the worst yet of my dismal, but thankfully brief (much like my love life) blogging career. I might agree, but first I will listen to enough M. Ward to tranquilize a hippo.

Live Blogging The Daily Show

Please, please, please tell me you were watching tonight. Please.

10.11 - eh.

10.13 - Holy shit! Gary England is on The Daily Show! Jesus H. Christ this commercial is fucking scary. Scarier than all of the tornadoes I've actually been in combined. Crap! Was that thunder? Gary? Gary!